#when i get past the in-game chapters i think it will be substantially easier | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

alyblacklist · 3 years ago

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Hey!!

I am new to your tumblr but I read your fics all the time (and reread them more often than I should admit lol)

I think you’re really amazing!

I’m so relieved that you answer asks and discuss speculation because I really need someone to talk this through.

So, I have watched a couple of other thriller series along the same lines where the makers don’t have any issues killing off major characters off the show.

There are a couple of things that are happening in this show which I think (and I honest to god hope I’m wrong) are building up to them killing off Ressler.

They get together, they partially admit their feelings (which we’ve been waiting for too Damn long) - so they get closure. Ressler is in the hospital, they show him deteriorating, he goes into v-fib.

And all of this is not that much of a game changer but hear me out. The task force is being dismantled and they need to give the viewers sth that they won’t expect. And bring some new spice in s9. With Liz going full time into crime, it seems a lot easier for them to kill off Ressler.

My only counter debate to my point is that they would have killed him off the moment he got shot (like they did with Meera) rather than show him being treated.

I really need to know what you think. Please tell me he’s not gonna die cause honestly who on earth will watch the show then?

Hi there! I have to say a special thank you to you, @alrightygirl, and to my anon (above) who I have lumped in, for the shoutouts on my stories. I came to Tumblr in the first place during the hiatus between S2/S3 in part because I realized some of my fav fanfic authors (@aussieokie !) were here so I am especially happy to read this.

I'm not sure people realize how much we fanfic writers thrive on feedback, and especially on the multi chapter works we invested so much time into. So thank you, and I have to say I really am looking forward to the end of the season so I can step away from the BTS hunt and my inbox and get back to just creating. Hopefully the writers will leave things in a good place in 8.22 so there's plenty to work with. Ok, on to the substance of your ask and I'll put in a jump because I can already tell this is getting long.

I really do NOT think Ressler will die. I didn't think so before 8x19 and I still don't think so after the "medical drama" of 8x20. Because that's what I think they're doing - they're creating drama because it's the end of the season and they want people freaking out and guessing over who will survive. Call it the curse of cable, or thrillers or whatever, but we as audiences have been conditioned to believe that major characters have to die every year, even if it's pointless.

The thing is, The Blacklist has never been that show. They have killed three "main characters" in the life of the show. Meera in S1 (and I later read Parminder only had a one-year deal), Tom in S5 (with huge fanfare and foreshadowing and an entire "hero" arc following a failed spinoff with a new series eagerly awaiting him at NBC), and Samar in S6 after the actress specifically requested to be released from her contract after S5 and gave them time to write her character an appropriate conclusion arc which also had huge foreshadowing.

Could they go a different route this year? Sure. We're late in the life of the show and twists and cliffhangers and budgets all come into play but the thing is - I just still really don't see it when it comes to Ressler.

For me, the characters' perspective is always paramount. What purpose would Ressler's death serve? It would make Liz more upset (because, you know, Sam, Tom, Katarina, her sister, her whole team weren't enough?). And other than that......?

The audience already knows the gravity of the stakes. So does Liz. So does every other character. The only purpose Ressler's death would serve that I see (and to be clear, I am focusing only on the characters in the show not the irrational fandom hate for his character) is to "punish" Liz more, to make her feel worse about what she's done, to deal another body blow on top of all that she's suffered already.

I don't think Liz needs that. (I'm positive nearly all of Reddit disagrees).

She turned herself in to Cooper because she recognized the bloodshed needed to end after she FEARED losing him. She stayed by Ressler's side and spoke her entire speech in the hearse and by his unconscious side because she can't handle losing him too. This is exactly the scenario the writers teased when Eisendrath teased all those months ago that maybe he would use her feelings for him to get her to come back.

Source (X)

He didn't overtly "use" her feelings in the end because that is not Ressler. He is not that guy. But in the end, her feelings for him were EXACTLY why she turned herself in.

I don't think Liz doesn't need to be punished further or suffer more in anyone's eyes except those who still can't come to terms with her war against Red. I don't think the writers feel that way about her character. To the contrary, they introduced a hallucinated Kaplan to try to give her a pass and also had her give lengthy explanations to both Ressler and Aram defending her behavior. I think from all I have read and seen that the writers view Liz as a victim of circumstances caused by Red - something Cooper has also articulated to Panabaker along the way in defending why Liz has done what she's done under extraordinary circumstances. We can all agree or disagree on the why and the method and the extremes but the bottom line is that I think the writers still view Liz as more "victim" or "forced criminal" than diabolical villain so killing Ressler, on top of everyone else Liz has lost, is just another deep blow on top of all the blows that have turned her into who she is. I think we're past the point that that is necessary and we'll be even further past that point after 8.21/8.22 when Liz learns some truths.

This has gotten crazy long so I'll just add these final thoughts which I have also articulated in prior posts:

- I think if the writers were going to write out Ressler - an original character from the Pilot - they would do so with more hype and fanfare and story than what he's gotten this season. Sure he was present in 8x19 a lot but it was really Liz's story. She was the heroine saving him and moving them from place to place while he suffered. I think the writers have enough respect for Diego to give him at least as much substantial story as Tom and Samar got in their sendoffs if this was really the end. He's a good guy and a good character and he deserves more than for his final moments to be a quiet fade to black in Vfib in a hospital with only Park present (or even Liz present for a final, vague, goodbye). A show that can't do that isn't a show I'm interested in watching, you know?

- his agents congratulated him on the S9 renewal back when it was announced. Hardly an indicator that a major character is getting jettisoned.

-You'd also think, if he was leaving this season, that he'd be doing more to elevate his profile on social media like he did at the end of Homeland to gear up for a new gig. He's done NOTHING.

-Finally, there has been literally nothing in JB's recent interview with The Blacklist Exposed, any of the BTS, the press, the episode descriptions, the crew photos, or anything else to date to indicate that a major actor/character is leaving. I know people can hide the ball but usually in this show, something slips through. So far - nothing. (No, I don't take Megan's thank you's or wrap party photos that way).

Anyway, hopefully we'll all be here at this time next year (or a few weeks earlier if things are back to normal), analyzing S9 and all that has happened. Thanks for the ask!

#alrightygirl #ask #anon #Donald ressler #spoilers and speculation #8.21 #8.22

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invisibleinorange · 4 years ago

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Bridgerton’s Adrift | 18/?

Chapters: 18/? Fandom: Bridgerton Rating: T Warnings: Presumed Character Death Relationships: Colin Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington(besties), Bridgerton Family Dynamics, Simon Hastings/Daphne Bridgerton Characters: Colin Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Featherington, Benedict Bridgerton, Portia Featherington, Violet Bridgerton, Pretty Much Everyone (at points) Additional Tags: Bridgerton, Polin Summary: Unexpected bad news arrives for the Bridgerton Family (and friends) regarding Colin's travels. This will be a series that is set after "The Duke and I" or season one of the show. It is a companion piece to "Goodbyes".

There was an art to speaking without speaking, making little non-verbal cues that could just telepathically be read and it was actually terrifying how good they’d gotten at transmitting them to each other without suspicion. It made it easier that the house was less crowded. The children didn’t think anything of it and Anthony tended to mind their own business. Without Francesca, Benedict and Eloise it was almost too easy to get away with things.

“I’m going to go join Anthony for a match,” Colin announced from where he’d been sitting. He gave an intentionally long stretch, eyes finding Penelope’s for only a fleeting moment.

“Don’t stay out too late,” Penelope told him, keeping her face impassable just in case his mother was watching. It felt a bit deceitful at times, especially after how kind Violet had been to her but there were some moments that required discretion.

Colin moved over, grabbed her hand and bowed to press a kiss to it. There was something almost maniacal about how good he was at these deceptions. Penelope, however, always felt a bit of anxiety like she was pulling off some sort of great feat, especially when she was the one who had to linger.

“I’ll be bothering you before you have a chance to miss me,” he told her before exiting the room.

She watched him depart before forcing her attention back to reading “Coelebs in Search of a Wife”. She could hardly focus on the pages though having the book to hold on did help keep her hands steady. She couldn’t go giving away the ruse.

She focused instead on counting the minutes, waiting until it would be safe to excuse herself from the room and slip away.

Only when an adequate amount of time had passed did she rise to her feet. She bit her bottom lip for a fraction of a second before she decided articulate her excuse for departure.

“It’s still early,” she said quietly. “I believe that I might take a bit of a stroll. Perhaps visit my mother.”

“That would be lovely,” Violet told her, looking up from her sewing. “Do give my regards.”

“Of course,” Penelope said with a smile, feeling the rush of getting away with it as she made her way out of the room.

This new game of sneaking away was a bit of a rush but it was a nice way to get private time away from his family and the rules that they had to follow while under his mother’s roof before marriage.

The trick was honestly private places to be when they snuck off. Most of the time, they took over Anthony’s vacant bachelor residence for a few hours. Other times they found unoccupied places in nature if the weather cooperated.

This particular time, he’d commandeered a carriage and bribed the footman’s silence as they drove and waited just behind the line of vision for the family home.

He then waited impatiently for his Lady to join him.

When he finally saw the red curls moving toward him, her face flush from a short walk his smile widened.

“She’s going to kill us if she finds out we’ve deceived her,” Penelope told him. “She thinks I’m visiting Mama.”

He moved toward her, taking her arm and guiding her up and into the carriage. He definitely wasn’t about to tell her his plans before he got her in it, in case she changed her mind. He couldn’t have her getting cold feet on him.

“She won’t kill us,” he said simply, trying to look the picture of innocence but the smile on his face said otherwise. “She’s been threatening for years. I dare say you should decide to spend the night in your old room.”

Penelope was half way back from her new found sitting position in the carriage at those words but its movement set her back down again.

“And what if she compares notes with Mama?” she asked.

Colin smiled, hand brushing a loose curl from where he had found a seat next to her. He leaned in to press a teasing kiss against the exposed flesh neck.

“Then we’ll just have to ensure that the punishment is less than the reward,” he told her.

“You’re not playing fair,” she murmured, eyes closing. “How can I say no to you when you’re doing that?”

“That’s the point,” he told her. “Besides, it would be a shame if all my mischief was for not. I think you’ll appreciate my effort in this even if it’s… not mother approved.”

Penelope hadn’t known what to expect and Colin hadn’t been liberal with details. He’d simply encouraged her to be patient because the ride wasn’t going to be that lengthy. He hadn’t lied about that part.

Whatever uncertainty she had about extending their excursion past when they’d be missed grew when she realized that it was an inn. It was one thing to deceive his mother, slip away for a few hours but another all together to do this. They were unwed and it wasn’t far enough away to properly deceive the Ton.

“There is no way people don’t start talking in earnest if we’re doing what I think we’re doing,” Penelope said expressing her worries. “We’d be better off facing the wrath of your mother.”

“Trust me,” Colin insisted, climbing out and helping her come down as well.

Penelope did trust him even if she did worry that sneaking around to just get a few minutes alone with each other or a few stolen kisses would catch up to them eventually. Someone was bound to catch them at it. If they tried to steal a night that only confounded the risk.

Her nature was to worry but his hand in hers did help provide some level of comfort as they moved toward the building and inside. Whatever confidence she lacked in this, Colin had in abundance and she was beyond grateful for it.

She expected him to find the inn-keeper and to make small talk, make arrangements of some sort. Instead he led her through the halls and up the stairs to a closed door. He reached inside his trousers and pulled out a key, unlocking it before gesturing for her to go inside.

It wasn’t a massive room but it was considerably nice. There was a small table in the corner, already set for two and there were candles everywhere casting light against the shadows.

Penelope was utterly speechless at the sight of what clearly had taken substantial scheming to arrange.

“You did this for me?” she couldn’t help but say.

“I’m going to be doing this for you until you let me marry you and then I’m going to keep doing it,” he told her simply.

The fear of impropriety went through the window and she turned to throw her arms around him in a hug.

“I love you,” she told confessed.

They’d certainly expressed the fact they cared for each other and they had certainly expressed to others that they loved each other but the three words themselves hadn’t been said until that moment.

Colin’s smile softened at the words and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“I love you too,” he told her honestly. He only wished that he’d realized it sooner so that he could saved everyone the headache they’d gone through. “I’m sorry that it took me so long to figure it out.”

“You figured it out just in time,” Penelope told him, lifting her head slightly and reaching a hand to tug his face to hers and pressing her lips to his.

Their meal could wait a little longer.

#bridgerton #⚜ writings — polin #polin #colin bridgerton #penelope featherington

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syms-things-5 · 4 years ago

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Clear The Area - Chapter Sixteen

Previous Chapter Here

Warnings: Language, scenes that are NSFW, angst, slightly annoying people

Tags: @kelbabyblue @jennmurawski13

Notes: I am so sorry for being rubbish in posting this. I started writing it weeks ago and then work took over my life. Thanks for sticking with me and I hope this was worth the wait (somewhat).

Chapter Sixteen

“So, what do you want to do now?” Audrey asked, hands firmly planted on the Diner table in front of her. She had the same careful posture and look on her face as when she had to relay bad news to a family. It certainly wasn’t providing much comfort now.

She tilted her head to one side and offered a soft smile to try and assuage Sarah’s anxiety but it was no use. This kind of information wasn’t deserving of a casual reaction. She’d pretty much dropped a bomb on her friend and she was expected to deal with the fall out. To Audrey’s credit, though, she appeared to be taking it in her stride which was a bit surprising to say the least.

“Honestly? I have no idea.” Sarah shook her head despondently before her forehead connected with the table.

Three Days Earlier…

The convenient thing about being a nurse and working long and tiring hours, Sarah found, was that you almost always had the perfect excuse for getting out of plans. Or not replying to messages you were deliberately avoiding. “Sorry I didn’t reply earlier, I lost track of time” quickly becomes an acceptable code for “Sorry I didn’t reply earlier, I didn’t have a clue what to say.”

No one would ever dare call you out on it.

It had been almost a week since Sarah had arrived home and the questions from her family had yet to subside. For someone quiet and relatively lacking in a desire for attention, people sure did have a vested interest in her whereabouts. They wanted to know about the exam and when she was likely to hear the outcome. They wanted to know what would happen next and whether she could appeal it if she didn’t like the results. They wanted to know whether she would try again or if she was just happy doing what she was doing now, and please can you call your grandmother because she wants to hear about it, too.

She was exhausted.

But dealing with those messages was an absolute dream compared to messages Chris was sending her. She could copy and paste generic responses to all of the above but with Chris? That was going to take some more thought.

Chris: You’re so pretty. I miss your face so much x

Chris: …..And so many other things x

Chris: It’s not the same waking up without you x Chris: Do you remember me waking you up last week………?

Chris: Did you pick up my sunglasses?? I cant find them anywhere……..

Chris: Just found them! Duh!

Chris: Have you seen the Last Week Tonight? I think you’d love this one……. X

Chris: I’m thinking of getting a dog x

Chris: Can you just tell me ur OK so I can stop worrying?

After coming home late one evening following a long shift, she found herself face-to-face with the most beautiful array of flowers she had ever seen. Sunflowers, glorious white roses, gerberas, tulips, peonies… Truly, indescribably beautiful.

“Someone sure is popular.” Shanna called from where she was sat at the dining table. “They got delivered earlier today. I don’t mean to be a bad feminist but you should probably think about putting out for Greg ‘cos if you don’t, you can let him know that I am definitely up for it.”

Sarah side-eyed her friend and tried to locate the card in amongst the substantial spray. “I can’t remember the last time someone bought me flowers that wasn’t my Dad.” Shanna barked out a laugh as Sarah pulled the card out, recognising the handwriting instantly.

I really miss you x

Now she felt bad for her lazy response to him earlier that afternoon. The second-hand embarrassment was creeping up on her after she tried to casually allay his concerns with an “All good!! x” and regretted the double exclamation marks. That was bound to give the game away.

She regarded the flowers standing proudly on ceremony and waiting for her to smile at them in utter joy so they knew they had done their job. They deserved that at least, but all she could manage was a sigh and a somewhat reluctant smile at their glowing beauty.

“I mean there’s certainly no denying he likes you a lot.” Shanna crept up behind her and narrowly missed Sarah scrunching up the card in her hands. “You don’t buy flowers like this without making your intentions clear.”

“Who says he has intentions?” Sarah playfully jostled with Shanna. “This isn’t Downton Abbey.”

“Oh, come on!” Shanna regaled in disbelief, running her fingers over the large, open sunflowers. “You can’t fool me, Bernette. These are statement flowers if ever I saw them. He wants you baaaad.”

She walked back into the kitchen and Sarah could hear her locate and clang the only two vases they owned in the apartment. Neither of them had much need for vases and even if they did, one thing that made them good flatmates was their mutual distaste for needless crockery lying around the place. Neither appreciated dusting as a chore; it was much easier this way.

“Fuck. I’ll have to ask Mom to bring one over.” Shanna said. “We’re gonna need more to cope with that.”

As expected, Chris was pretty proud of himself. She couldn’t deny him that as he saw the flowers blossom in and around her apartment. He had popped by under the premise of annoying his sister for the evening but flirtatious glances across the lounge gave away his true intentions.

“You should be flattered, I don’t normally do flowers.” He joked when he sidled up next to her in the kitchen, tossing an apple back and forth between his hands.

“You don’t “normally” do anything.”

“Not true. I once sent a girl a peace lily that came in that nice, tall glass vase. That big blue thing.”

“Wasn’t that just to replace the one you smashed at her mom’s place when you were trying to sneak out?”

Chris froze on the spot, staring at her. “I actually can’t remember now, was it? Scott ordered it for me.”

Sarah rolled her eyes before continuing to tidy around him, Chris evidently deciding not to make her job any easier by moving out of her way. It was the equivalent of him lazily lifting his feet off the floor while she tried to vacuum underneath.

“Seriously, though, did you like them?”

“They’re lovely, thank you." Sarah moved to the other side of the kitchen as she continued to dry and place back some wine glasses in the cupboard. “You really didn’t need to do that. It was kinda hard to explain them away.”

“What did you say?” He rubbed at the back of his neck, turning serious for a second.

“I didn’t really say anything. She just assumed they were from Greg.” She leaned against the counter across the room from him. He could make out the worry in her eyes. “Which makes me feel like I’ve lied to her twice.”

It was hard to sleep that night. Chris had somehow got her to agree to meeting him the next day so they could talk some more but she refrained from agreeing to meet him at his place after work. She knew how that was likely to end and she couldn’t face being with him in that way right now so he had finally relented and agreed to a simple coffee at lunch instead. He was less than pleased when he left and Shanna spent half an hour complaining through the bathroom door about his “issues” as Sarah was trying to clean up before heading to bed.

“He’s always been an entitled asshole.” She started before ending with a one-two punch of “He’s not happy unless he’s in control” and “I wish for once he would experience being told ‘no’” She wasn’t wrong but she also didn’t need to hear just how right she was in this moment either.

A couple of things happened in relatively quick succession.

The coffee was every bit as awkward as she knew it would be, only not exactly for the reasons she had anticipated. It was times like this she relished Chris’s ability to have it all figured out and to be able to express himself clearly and succinctly, but she should have known better. As a result, Sarah was left more anxious and unsure of what it was she was feeling. Guilt she figured, not just for the knowledge that she was lying to her best friend but also for leaving the man sat in front of her looking like he had not slept properly in days.

He cleared his throat and shifted to sit up straighter in his seat. They were sat in the corner of the diner, as always, and barring a couple of people having a relatively animated conversation a few booths away from them – relatives of patients, she figured – it was pretty quiet for this time of the day.

“So, time to be honest but there was a reason I sent those flowers.” He had the look of someone who had just been told off by a teacher. “I sort of thought you might have seen something but I guess it went away. I think Matt dealt with it OK.”

Sarah put her cup down and looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean?”

“OK, don’t get mad but there may have been a photograph.” He barely looked up as he spoke. “Of us at the hotel.”

Her eyes widened at him and she was about to panic out loud until she realised where she was. “A photograph?”

“Well, technically a photo of me and an ‘unidentified female companion’.” He deadpanned making air quotes like it was nothing before finally making eye contact with her. He frowned but she knew it wasn’t directed at her. He looked down at the table again and then back at her when he realised she hadn’t said anything. “Don’t worry. It’s sorted. I explained things. I just figured someone might have put it on social media or something but I guess I owe him one this time, which he’ll love no doubt.”

“Oh.” She knew it was a pathetic response. “What do you mean you explained things?”

“It looks like a fan spotted me and took a picture at the right time. For them, obviously, not for me. Or us. A magazine picked it up. You actually look a little blurry so technically it could be anyone.”

“Unless you know me. It’ll probably be really obvious then.”

“Well now you don’t need to worry because it’s gone away. We’ll call it one of our nine lives.” He sipped his coffee again, slowly regaining his confidence now that he knew she wasn’t mad with him. She began rubbing her temple, a predictable move for when she was feeling stressed out and he realised he’d crossed a line. “Sorry.”

“Maybe I should seek a career in espionage. Clearly I can hide in plain sight.” She finally spoke and he smiled softly at her in a way that would unnerve her under certain circumstances but for obvious reasons wasn’t having that same effect right in this moment.

“Trust me, OK? I know how these things play out and people forget quickly. I’ve done this hundreds of times.” He was about to sip his coffee again until he was met with a sterner look from across the table. “That was supposed to sound reassuring but I, er, misjudged it.”

“Does Matt know about me?”

A few seconds of silence passed between them, Chris looking slightly to his left before making eye contact with her and pursing his lips, giving her the answer.

He leaned in and spoke as quietly as he could manage. “But he won’t say anything. He’s a good guy and he looks out for me.” \

“Yeh, I know.” She nodded. “Just doesn’t feel great at the moment.”

“You know I would love it if you talked to me about this.” He lowered his head so much he was now practically touching the table with his chin. “I feel like ever since we got back from New York things have been really weird and normally I would think I was overthinking things but I don’t think I am, am I?”

She turned her cup a few times before she felt his hand connect with hers. She saw how small she looked in his and when she looked back up at him, she was met with his doe-eyed expression. The expression which all you could do was smile back, which she did, and she was glad she did because he seemed to lose some weight from his shoulders at that point. His fingers lightly rubbed across hers and she enjoyed the warmth spreading across her skin and up her forearms.

“I’m sorry,” She spoke after a minute. “I didn’t mean to cause you any stress.”

Surprised by her apology, he leaned back in his chair. “You don’t need to apologise to me, Bernette. I get it. It’s strange.”

“I guess I just didn’t know where things would go after, y’know, everything. I wasn’t sure what to say.”

“Well, I know where I want things to go but something tells me we’re not on the same page.”

More silence.

“Look, I get it, OK? Nothing about this is straight-forward.” He rubbed a hand over his beard and over the back of his hair. “But we’re doing OK, right? I mean, I don’t think this needs to end any time soon. We don’t need to make any rash decisions just yet.”

“But how do you see this ending?”

She missed his hands when he pulled them back and let them rest on the table in front of him. “Umm…”

“Because truthfully, I figured it would have ended as soon as it started. You might have got bored or maybe you got a job and you left for months and we’d just…forget about it.” She shrugged back at him.

“Forget?” He tried to mask the disbelief creeping into his tone. “I don’t think either of us could forget about this.”

“But you think about our lives and how different we are and even if we take the family out of the equation, like, it was always going to be tough, right? We would have to figure these things out eventually. It would be naïve to think we could carry on as we have done without feeling guilty and…”

“I don’t feel guilty. Do you feel guilty?”

“Well, yeh. From time to time. It’s not so bad when we’re at yours because it feels like it’s out of sight, out of mind, and-”

“-then we’ll just have to stay at mine more.” He raised his eyebrow at her in an attempt to bring some playfulness back to their conversation.

“That’s not what I’m getting at.” She shook her head at him. Now it was her time to pull back as her head connected with the headrest. “This isn’t gonna last forever, is it? We need to be more rational.”

“Well…”

“And it’s only going to get harder and feel more…stressful.”

Chris narrowed his eyes at her. “Why now?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, where is this coming from?” he asked. “We seemed to be OK and I thought we had a good time in New York. Then it’s days of near silence and now I think you’re trying to end this but you don’t have the guts to say it out loud.”

He had her there. She didn’t feel particularly offended or caught off guard by his assumption and he saw that because, truthfully, he’d finally put a name to her thoughts. He wasn’t giving her a way out as such but he was at least addressing the elephant she had planted between them.

He looked away from her and took in a sharp breath. “Look, I don’t want to have this conversation here, OK? I think we should have taken up my idea and spoken about this later at mine and in private. Will you please just come and see me later?”

He didn’t give her the softer, more pleading tone she was normally used to when he was trying to make an appeal to her. She wasn’t expecting it given the circumstances but…it would have been nice. How was she going to get through the next few hours of work if she had this struggle to look forward to?

“Because if you’re gonna dump me, I’d rather have a whiskey in me than whatever crap this is.” He flicked his cup away from him on the table and smoothed his hand over his beard again, still not making eye contact. “I’m gonna go. Just text me when you’re on the way, yeh?”

So that was that, then.

She could have cried, it felt so good.

She didn’t intend to let things get as far as they did. She was trying to figure out what to say to him. She spent a good portion of time standing outside his front door building up just enough nerve to knock. When she saw him, in a slightly-too-tight sweater, sweatpants hanging loose on his hips, eyes glossy from the alcohol she suspected he had started drinking as soon as he had arrived home, she couldn’t help herself.

He looked gorgeous. He looked warm and comforting and soft and hot and…all the things that had become so familiar to her now. And when he held his hand out to pull her in, she willingly went to him.

One thing that struck her as he was entering her over and over again was how tightly he held on to her. After she had finally managed to catch her breath from the onslaught of kisses and touches all over her body. His hands held hers firmly above her head as they fell onto his bed. God knows how they managed to make it that far.

He hadn’t let her up for air as soon as his lips connected with hers. He pulled her inside his apartment and pushed her towards his bedroom. She knew the layout of his home like the back of her hand, knowing exactly when they passed his kitchen as he dragged her jacket from her shoulders and left it by the table. She felt the curtains in his hallway brush passed her hair and the breeze from the skylight in his bathroom reach the base of her spine, his hands having pushed up her t-shirt and exposed her skin to the brief chill. His arms wrapped around her and held her like he was scared she was going to fall away from his grasp. She can’t remember connecting with anything else after that point; she was focussed solely on the way he was loving her. \

Clumsily, he used to his leg to kick the bedroom open so she wouldn’t bang into it and he got her flat on the bed with minimal effort. He carefully removed clothes until she felt his hot skin smother hers and she realised she made the right decision in just going with it. There was a sweet hint of whiskey to his breath but she didn’t much care. As he looked into her eyes, resting deep inside her, she didn’t much care for anything. This was the power he held over her.

She could tell he was thinking of something to say. Something he had probably practiced in the few hours since they last saw each other but now was coming up short. She instinctively placed her hand gently over his mouth, an acknowledgement of sorts, and asked him to move again, slower this time as he made sure she could feel all of him moving inside her.

She was on the edge of her orgasm for a long time. His breathing grew laboured, his hot breath fanning over her face and surrounding her before, without warning, he shifted them both in one fluid move so she was lying on top of him.

“Ride me,” he whispered, a softness belying his request, and she complied.

She gripped at his upper arms so they would hold her weight as she moved purposefully on top of him. It was bliss. She couldn’t look away from him as he struggled to keep his eyes open, taking in everything she was giving him. They had experienced a few moments like this, moments that felt so tender if it wasn’t for the way his hands were gripping her hips to keep her going.

After they had both come together, she collapsed down over him, her head resting over the top of his chest, him still inside her. She felt sure she had accidently bumped his chin but couldn’t quite manage the energy to vocalise an apology. He wrapped his arms securely around her to hold her in place when he thought she would try and move away from him. They’d slept like this in New York and he had decided he liked it more than the alternative.

“If that’s the last time we do this, at least we went out on a high.” he sighed.

“True.” She replied, equally as breathless.

He turned his head to look down at her, stroking a hand over her hair and the side of her face. “It doesn’t feel fair, though. Life’s gonna be a little bit shitter without you to look forward to.”

“We’ll still see each other. We’ll find a way to make it work.” She shifted her legs from off his before turning slightly to take the rest of her body away from his and he reluctantly let her go.

“Do you think we can?” He asked as he stared up at the ceiling. He already knew the answer in his mind but he wanted to hear her try and convince him.

“We have to.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

She sighed heavily and rubbed a hand across her forehead, letting it rest it in her hair. “She’s my best friend. You guys are my family. We have to at least try.”

Chris turned to look at her just in time to see a tear form in her eyes. She gently blinked and sniffed it away not realising he had already seen.

“You’re gonna be a hard act to follow, Bernette.”

“So you slept with him again?” Audrey worried.

Sarah nodded carefully, holding one hand in the other. “I know, I know…but when I saw him I just couldn’t help it. I couldn’t pull away from him, it’s like he-”

“Oh honey, listen, I get it. Completely.” Audrey’s eyes widened and she had to stop herself laughing. “I can imagine he’s been very supportive to you with everything that’s been going on but I think when all is said and done, maybe you both needed this?”

“I wish it was that simple, Audrey. It’s not just the two of us that needs to consider things. Y’know, Shan actually apologised to me, saying she’d been a bad friend and that she would try to be more supportive from now on and…it hit me. It just knocked me for six that I’ve betrayed her completely and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to go back.”

“It’s obvious this isn’t just sex. I mean, he drove to see you in New York and fucking…” She waved her hand around at nothing in particular. “…fucking tested you on fucking blood diseases and ECGs. Michael doesn’t even do that and I fucking married that guy! Come on, Sarah. If this was just sex, it wouldn’t be an issue, would it? You’d be able to close the book and move on. End of story. The only reason this is causing you strife is because you have feelings for each other. And very serious ones at that I might add.”

“Ah well, that’s easy. You don’t go back. You don’t just forget the last few months. What’s done is done now and maybe there’s a better way out of this.”

“How?”

“Oh Sarah, I love you but you really are friggin’ naïve sometimes.” Audrey pointedly rolled her eyes for the tenth time since they sat down. It wasn’t something Sarah was appreciating right now, this feeling that she was continuously missing the damn point.

If this was Oprah, the audience would be clapping and whooping loudly right now and Audrey would do her finger-snap that she reserved for drunken arguments in bars with ladies that pushed in line for the toilets. Instead, she took a sip from her sparkling water and raised an eyebrow at her, content in her response. Your move, she was saying.

Sarah rubbed her eyes and painfully pulled at the skin on her eyelids. “I should have told you about this sooner. I’m sorry, Audrey. I’m sorry I’m landing this on your now.”

“Well, while we’re being honest, I guess I should tell you that I kind of already knew.”

Sarah looked at her incredulously. Audrey didn’t bat an eye and just sat looking back at her.

“How long? When did you…?”

“It’s not every day a movie star wanders into the reception of a crumbling ER department.” She said, matter-of-factly. “Plus, I saw you both outside the diner. Aaand I’m guessing the accident you had recently was because of him as well?”

Sarah awkwardly bit at her bottom lip. She didn’t need to confirm anything; Audrey knew full well. She was astute as hell and while it didn’t feel like it right in this moment, Sarah was quietly relieved.

“What do I do, Audrey?”

She sipped her water again. “If you insist on being serious about this, you can’t let yourself be in a room with him alone. You know that much, hun. The rest is day by day. Maybe he’ll make it easy on you.”

She nodded in understanding. Audrey took that at face value, giving her a sympathetic smile in return while mentally making a bet with herself about how well things would turn out.

#chris evans #chris evans fic #fanfiction #evans fic #clear the area #sarah bernette #chris evans x original female character

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insomniacowl · 4 years ago

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Neon Genesis Evangelion analysis chapter 12: Eva Unit-03 Secret of Class 2-A

A piece of Shamshel core fragment

While Shinji and friends were fighting off the angels invading Japan, Evangelion Unit – 03 and Unit – 04 were under construction in Nerv’s American base. The two new units were different from Unit – 02 in two ways. First was the choice of the color, but more importantly, the equipment of the S2 engine. Unit – 03 was meant to be the first model to be built to use the S2 engine.

Just to refresh, the S2 engine is just a name that humans are using to call the fruit of life that the angels carry in their core. Then it raises the question, “How was it possible for Nerv to have built it in the first place?”

We are told that the S2 engine planted into unit – 04 was made by restoring the shard of Shamshel’s core we see in the early part of episode 5. Yet the implementation fails and Unit – 04, along with the whole of Nevada base disappears in what can be called the “Mini second impact”.

The moment of destruction

Due to this unforeseen (?) accident, America immediately transports Unit – 03 to Nerv headquarters in japan. The headquarters is then granted the authorization to conduct an activation test on the unit and they choose Suzuhara Touji as their candidate.

We shall not delve into the fate of Unit – 03 as I believe there is not much to be said of it as of yet (We will get to the dummy plug later chapters). But let’s talk about the core of unit – 03. As we have seen in the past few chapters, each soul contains the soul of the pilots’ mothers. Therefore, we can make an educated guess that Touji’s mother is inside Unit – 03’s core.

Then we come to the question of, why are all the pilots in class 2-A of the third Tokyo private academy? One thing that all of these students have in common is that they have been identified as potential Eva pilots by the Marduk institution. In other words, even if it wasn’t Touji, the pilot of Unit – 03 would have been chosen from Class 2-A, and it was Touji who met the required criteria for the selection.

Kaji the Great detective

Let us quickly cover what the Marduk institution is. On the surface, it is an association created to choose the appropriate candidates to pilot the Evas. But we learn in episode 15 through Kaji that it is made out of 108 non-existent paper companies, showing that such an institution does not exist. In other words, it is just a cover for Nerv to avoid potential problems that arise in their process of choosing the pilots.

It suggests that the process of choosing Eva pilots is highly inappropriate at the least and it will cause a social outcry if the method was to be made public knowledge.

Type that worries, and the type that demands

With this in mind, we can ask the question, why did Marduk institution brought all of these children together in this class? To understand this, we need to understand the criteria for becoming an Eva pilot. To move the Evas, the pilot needs to have ridden it on their own accord. But this is not enough to explain the special trait of the students of school 2-A.

For example, in episode 18, we see Kensuke pleading Misato that he wants to pilot the Eva. Yet even when he showed such desire to do so, he was not considered as a pilot. Rather, it was Touji that was chosen to be the Pilot of Unit – 03. Of course, there is a substantial difference between ‘want to pilot’, and a ‘have to pilot’ (remember that Touji was offered to have his sister in a better hospital if he were to become a pilot), there is definitely a more important reason to why Touji was chosen over anyone else.

Let us also consider that if they are in the same class at school, then they are all fourteen years old. We could try and the hypothesis that age might be a requirement in the criteria of piloting the Eva. While it may not be needed for them to be exactly fourteen years old, it is around this age that teenagers undergo puberty.

Perhaps it is the confusion regarding self-identity during this stage of development that makes it easier for them to share their emotions with the unknown entity that resides inside Eva’s cores.

Our problematic trio

To add to that point, teenagers are not too childish, but neither do they tend to have the necessary social skills like adults. Think about it for a moment. Neither Shinji, Rei, nor Asuka can be said to have been sociable. It is too apparent in Rei that we can gloss over, Shinji too showed much difficulty in forming close bonds with his peers, and Asuka had a bright and positive demeanor, yet she was plagued with a distorted sense of pride. This kind of mental state likely serves as a positive reinforcement in their desire to pilot the Evas. Returning to Kensuke that we touched on, he can be considered as one of the more social ones among the students of Class 2-A. So was Hikari.

To such children, they did not need to rely on Eva; rely on ‘a different self’ for a sense of identity

Kensuke is out of consideration due to his sociable nature

Hikari is also out due to her being too normal

Due to such difference in the key trait (required to pilot the Evas) among the children of class 2-A, we could say that this is also not the only criterion that Marduk institution used to choose these students. If so, my argument to what this criterion is can be answered by considering the Shinji and Asuka's common trait; having their mothers’ souls trapped inside of Eva’s core.

My argument is that the most important criteria to be selected as the pilot of Evas is not in any of their inherent abilities, but if there is a suitable soul that coincides with the potential pilot. In the settings document of Neon Genesis Evangelion’s story, it explicitly mentions that ‘Inside of Each Eva’s core, it carries the soul of the pilot’s mother.’ (except for Unit – 00 and the mass-produced units. I will talk about them in the following chapters). Therefore, it is likely to be a fact that the minimum required for the activation of Evas is the existence of a corresponding soul of the mother of the pilot in the core, and from here on out, I will talk with this being taken as common knowledge.

This is another point that supports this theory. It can be easy to overlook as just a coincidence, but all of the students we get to know in class 2-A do not have a mother. For Kensuke, we only hear of his father. Hikari lives without her parents, just her sisters. Even Touji only has his younger sister, Father, and his grandparents. All this points to the fact that All of the students in class 2-A do not have their mothers at this point, and we can make an educated guess that they have been sacrificed in creating the spare cores. And their children have been collected using the Marduk institution and are classified under the name of ‘reserve Eva pilot’.

It is a frightening thought, but if we take a moment to think about it, it helps us answer other questions. Why would these children, whose families are not too well off living in the danger zone of Tokyo – 3? We can only make an educated guess as there are no clues to what has allowed this to happen. But I present to you a scenario of what could have happened. The mothers of the students of class 2-A signed up for the contact experiment in exchange for financial rewards during the period of war and famine. The contact experiment is the one that we know both Yui and Kyoko took part in and they have likely met a similar fate. The results of the experiment their families were told would have been ‘Death from unforeseen circumstances’ and the families would have been compensated financially and with the right to live in Tokyo – 03.

It is a terrible thing to imagine, but this is the best I could think of to answer the questions of, why are all the students of class 2-A selected by the Marduk institution, how can the ‘right soul’ be ready when the pilot has reached the age of 14, and have a specific one exist inside the core of Unit – 03. Such questions cannot be answered if the pilots were selected at random, and this scenario can answer many questions that we have asked in this chapter.

Ritsuko: Among the pilot candidate…

Gendou: You choose the fourth one?

Ritsuko: Yes, there is one that we can prepare the core for

Gendou: I will leave it to you

To add some final points, in episode 17, Ritsuko tells Gendou that “there is a child that the core can be prepared in a short notice”. This implied to us that the core and the children exist as a pair and the right combination is required for the piloting of the Eva. In other words, somewhere in Nerv headquarters, there exist as many spare cores (With a soul inside each of them) as there are students in class 2-A.

All that is needed is for Ritsuko to choose the appropriate one and plant it into Unit – 03.

Touji is handsome when seen up close

What puts the nail in our coffin is presented to us in the PSP version of the game ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion 2’ there during the fight with Leliel, if we were to select Touji, he meets his mother, just as Shinji did in the TVA.

The kind-hearted brother going to meet his sister (Sister complex)

Ending off, let me address the point that is bound to arise, the argument that the soul inside the Unit – 03’s core being that of his sister.

This claim, at least within my ability to search, first appeared in Kitamura Masahiro’s “Complete Evangelion explained”. He argues that Ritsuko’s line about being able to "prepare" a core immediately as referring to using Touji’s sister who is injured and in hospital. Indeed, we are not shown the state Touji’s sister during the series, therefore I can see why he makes an assumption that Touji’s sister is either in a vegetative state or has gone crazy as Kyoko did.

I argue that this is a gross misinterpretation made from ignoring the role Marduk institute plays in the pilot selection process, thus it is losing legitimacy as it does not take into consideration all of the relevant pieces of the puzzle.

Furthermore, he supports his argument by referring to the tone of Ritsuko’s voice as she says that line as being depressed. But I would like to point that even if it wasn’t Touji’s sister, Ritsuko who knew the truth of the cores would not have said that line in any other way.

Even without child abuse, Nerv is already a horrible place.

#Neon genesis evangelion #Evangelion #Eva #End of evangelion #Nge #Nagisa Kaworu #Lilith #Sci-fi #Ikari Shinji #Soryu Asuka Langley #asuka #Ayanami Rei #rei #Anno Hideaki #Katsuragi Misato #Anime #Analysis #Review

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wfdwqfw · 3 years ago

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On what evidence would a man rely to prove

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stressedspidergirlsfandomblog · 5 years ago

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Or read here:

Geralt chooses not to ride, Roach needs a rest after carrying something far too heavy for several miles. He didn’t see a place to get her any kind of treat, and if he’s being honest, he didn’t much feel like looking. He wanted to leave. Eskel walks Scorpion alongside him, not leaving much room for the bard. Dandelion tries to stuff down his annoyance, but he can’t quite hide it.

The two witchers talk quietly, catching up and their voices are so soft he can’t hear any of it. Determined not to cause a scene, he thinks of several unflattering verses to describe their new companion. At least the addition is temporary. Eskel frequently reaches out to touch Geralt as they talk, and at one point slings an arm over his shoulders and keeps it there for what feels like ages to the irate bard.

“I don’t understand the problem here, Geralt. You’re doing the same thing you used to do when we were boys.”

“No, I am looking at a hopeless situation and choosing not to make it worse. That is almost the opposite of what I did when we were boys.”

“You didn’t make it worse trying to save that rabbit.”

“I prolonged its pain.”

“Not for long, and you know it. Besides with Axii it’s not as if it felt much. It spent some of its last moments calm while you tried to see if there was anything you could do.”

“We hunt and eat rabbit.”

“True, Geralt, we do. But we don’t always frequent upon one that had clearly been hurt and was suffering. You’ve never liked to see anyone or anything in pain.”

Geralt looks away, unwilling to continue to debate the point.

“You’re pig-headed and stupid, do you know that?”

“This is clearly going to convince me to do what you want? Insulting me?” Not that he’s surprised. He lightly jabs Eskel in the ribs and debates getting up onto the horse where Eskel can’t keep touching him. He misses having this kind of easy camaraderie. Nothing to be lost and nothing to be gained. He has no romantic feelings towards his friend, and never had, in spite of all the things they’d done together. They can hug, touch, huddle together for warmth, share things, and it feels safe because there’s no expectation. It’s not like sharing the bed with Dandelion and desperately wanting to do more than sleep.

“He won’t live as long as we do, anyway. And if you’re right, and he leaves you after a few fucks at least the question was answered. Don’t think I can’t smell the lust on you both.”

“I would rather have him as a friend than not at all,” Geralt grits out.

“How long until that longing ruins the friendship for you both? How long until your resentment of all his paramours gets in the way and you turn on him?”

“It’s how he is. His cock leads him where it wills. He’s got to stick it in something or he’s a nuisance. It need not be me.”

“But you want it to be,” Eskel grins and Geralt curls his lip to show his teeth in annoyance. Determined to annoy his friend a bit more, he puts his arm around him again, pressing his palm to Geralt’s head to force him to lean over a bit before kissing his cheek. It will make the bard near apoplectic and will make Geralt far easier to rile up. He’d forgotten how much fun it was to drive his more stoic friend mad. “For luck,” he says to justify it. Geralt simply snarls.

“Will you harp on something else?” he asks.

“No, but I’ll be silent for a while, I think I’ve done enough to upset you.” His tone adds ‘for now’ which makes Geralt want to hit him.

They travel in relative silence until near dark. Eskel hangs back as Geralt and Dandelion automatically move together to look for a place to camp. It’s obvious they’re used to traveling together and working together. Their movements are well practiced and they fit together as a unit. When a place is chosen camp is made without any need to communicate. He adds his bedroll later and uses Igni to light the fire once wood is brought.

“I’ll hunt up some supper,” he offers. When no one disagrees he moves off to see if he can find a game trail.

“Are you alright?” Geralt asks Dandelion, fairly sure what he’s seeing is simmering anger.

“You won’t let me kiss you, you hardly let me touch you. But you’re so comfortable with him. We’ve been travelling together off and on most of my life now.”

“He doesn’t want anything from me that I can’t give,” Geralt says simply, staring at the fire.

“I am not trying to take anything from you,” the bard points out.

Geralt privately disagrees. Dandelion would like his heart, his affections, and then the minute someone else came along he would return them, ill used and unwanted. “We became friends my first day at the keep,” he says heavily. Perhaps sharing something of the situation will be enough to stop the anger and the acrid smell of it rising from his companion. “I did not understand my mother intentionally abandoned me near the walls. I thought we had become separated,” his jaw clenches and he has a hard time saying anything more for a while. For once, Dandelion is completely silent. “I also did not understand I could not go look for her. Or that having a tantrum, as children do, was ill becoming of a witcher. Even one in training. I was punished appropriately for the transgression and disobedience.

“He was the first boy there to show me any kindness. He hadn’t been there much longer than I, and while we would bond with the others, too…it wasn’t the same. I tried a few times to leave and find her, determined she wanted me back and was worried. She was not. I again suffered through quite the spanking and could not sleep. He stayed with me that night and kept me out of more trouble.” Geralt does not add Eskel crawling into his cot and keeping a hand over his mouth to muffle the sobs so he wouldn’t catch another round with the belt. Witchers do not show their emotions. Eventually, they will not have them, and it is better to give them up early. He does not add that he could not sleep for several days unless he was holding Eskel’s hand at night. How can he? “He showed me how to fit in better. When I was less of an annoyance the other boys warmed to me. Things improved.”

Dandelion still stinks of anger, but Geralt has the feeling the bard is no longer angry at him. He fidgets with his hands for a while, debating something with himself. “I am glad he was there,” he says simply. It will do Geralt no good to hear how unfair the whole situation sounds. He won’t care and as it is it won’t make any difference now. “I am glad you had someone to share that with who made it easier.” He leans over and gently kisses Geralt’s cheek and pulls away. He won’t push. “I would share whatever burden you asked, if it would help things improve,” he says quietly before standing. “I’ll gather some more firewood, and I’ll stay close to the camp. And don’t worry, I’m sure the town over will hear the screams if I stumble upon one of your friends in the dark.”

And so Geralt is left utterly alone by the fire.

Dandelion comes back with plenty of firewood to find Eskel and Geralt quietly skinning a few rabbits.

“Did you bring anything we could use as skewers?” Eskel asks hopefully. The bard shakes his head. Geralt hands him a rabbit and a knife.

“I’ll go,” needing to get up and move again for a few minutes.

Dandelion efficiently finishes skinning the rabbit and reaches for another. “You found quite a few.”

“Stupid things hopped out of their warren right in front of me. I don’t know how many still live there, but all I’ve done is thin the herd a bit. I just can’t believe they popped out a few at a time, it was almost too easy. I feel practically cheated,” Eskel says. “How long have you known Geralt, again?”

“Almost twenty years now, I think,” Dandelion says absently.

“You must know so much about him,” Eskel presses. For all he knows the bard had said Geralt tended to the taciturn.

“I know of his life from when we met forward. He won’t tell me much of the past. And most people know about Blaviken, whether they want to or not. But I know him, and I doubt it was his fault or anything he could prevent.”

“I haven’t heard of Blaviken,” Eskel says. That doesn’t sound good. At least, he hadn’t heard of Geralt and Blaviken together.

“The locals would tell you he just showed up and slaughtered a bunch of people at market for no reason. I’ve passed through and tried to get more truth, but it’s been so long I’m not sure anyone even really knows what it was. I feel like he wouldn’t kill anyone for no reason.”

“No, and if he had Vesemir would have put him in the ground,” Eskel says firmly. He knows he will ask Geralt about it, later. He will know the truth. And he will find out why the bard does not. “Have you never asked him?”

“I mentioned the moniker he was given after, and he sucker punched me in the gut.”

“Ah.”

“It sounds like you both had a bit of a rough upbringing,” Dandelion fishes. “I know that the witchers jealously guard the secrets of the Trials and everything else to do with being a witcher. Their code, their learning, how to train to fight with a sword like they do…It just be quite intensive.”

“We can’t guard secrets we no longer hold,” Eskel says heavily. “The keep was sacked. The secrets lost. We hold some of it still, but not like what people think. Of course, we’re not much like what people think. I have yet to steal the breath of babies or drink the blood of virgins.”

“Some people are bloody stupid,” the bard mutters, fidgeting with the knife a bit. He’s laid his rabbit on its skin while it waits for Geralt to return with some sticks. “I know I probably shouldn’t ask this, and I have a feeling I will regret it, but I’m going to. Geralt can tell you my curiosity is more curse than anything else. It leads me into more trouble than anything else in my life. So if you’re going to kill me for asking, you’d best do it quickly because I have substantial training as a bard and I can be very loud. I will scream quite a bit if you kill me slowly.”

Eskel snorts and raises an eyebrow. “Did they also train you as a Player? You’re quite theatrical. Just ask.”

“Were you his first?”

“I don’t take your meaning.”

“His first, his first kiss, his first… everything,” the bard bursts out, waving his hands to make up for the words unspoken.

Eskel looks at him and snorts. “No, not the way you would think. We shared things with each other, and we had a fair share of firsts, but no,” he laughs. “There are no women at the keep, and while we did some of our book learning at the Temple of Melitele, we were far too young to be chasing skirts.” He debates tormenting the bard with some of what he does know.

He remembers the horror they’d felt when they first experienced puberty changing their bodies. Terrified when they woke with an erection that it wouldn’t stop. It hit them all at different times, and none of them had been prepared. None of them knew what to do to make it stop, and thankfully for many, the terror and panic was usually enough to stop it. Most young boys can’t keep their hands away from their genitals even before there’s much reason to play with them, and eventually curiosity also broke into the fear and some of them began experimenting. The first boy to ‘figure out’ what to do had eagerly shared with them his experience.

Soon enough they were all trying it, not realizing it was by ‘normal’ standards something meant to be private and never spoken about. They had been trained collectively to watch each other’s performances in regards to sword fighting, hand to hand combat, and the various traps and training arenas in the keep, and to them this was no different. They had shared advice, and even shown each other things they liked. If they had known how the outside world would have seen that, they would have died of shame.

It had become a game once they realized it could be triggered on purpose. To play chicken, almost, and see how much you could arouse your fellow in a public place before he stopped you.

“What’s got you so amused?” Dandelion asks Eskel, looking up when Geralt comes back.

“Do you remember the games we used to play when we thought Vesemir wasn’t looking?”

“Which one?” Geralt asks as he sits down and starts preparing the rabbits for the fire.

“The one that made us all blush before the mutations changed us too much for that to be possible.”

Geralt looks away, deeply uncomfortable. He has learned shame in his lifetime. And embarrassment over what they’d done as boys. They hadn’t known better, it had been innocent. Harmless. But he knows the way it would be seen now and rather than an amusing memory it’s something he’s shoved away inside himself as something that shouldn’t have happened. Just more proof he isn’t the witcher he’s supposed to be.

“Oh come, surely you haven’t forgotten,” Eskel leans forward. He grips Geralt’s knee and looks at him. “I could show Dandelion, spare you the trouble of explaining it,” he offers.

Geralt glares and then looks at his friend. He knows that there’s no getting out of this now. “When we were old enough to change from boys to men, we learned we could torment each other under the table,” he says flatly. “The point was to see how far you could take it before you were stopped. If I recall Eskel won, completely. I rarely made it very far in.” Once a hand was on his thigh he could barely handle it. Not many of the boys made it up very far because he always caved, afraid of the consequences of angering Vesemir. It wasn’t that he didn’t mind when it was in private, but at the damn dinner table where the whole point was to not get caught had made him edgy.

“And how did you win?”

“You got stroked off without letting on and somehow not getting caught,” Geralt bites off, still glaring angrily at Eskel.

“Geralt was always worried Vesemir would catch on and so you could only get about halfway up his leg before he tapped out,” Eskel grins, demonstrating on Geralt’s leg and laughing when his friend pushed his hand away. “Just like that.”

Dandelion can see Geralt’s discomfort but when he sees the way the witcher won’t look at him he knows it’s more a fear of judgement. “We had something similar at Oxenfurt. Only there are women there and they were the ones tormenting us at the table. We also weren’t told about it until after. The girls had a hazing process, and it involved getting ahold of some poor lad’s cock and getting him to do something strange at an inappropriate time to get him into trouble and embarrass him. I quite ruined a singing lesson because of an especially brave young woman whose name currently escapes me. I have to give her credit for the spine it took to do what she did.”

“What did she do?” Geralt asks, grateful for a change of subject and the show of solidarity.

“Put her hand right down the front of my pants.”

Eskel snorts and then laughs. Geralt smiles faintly, he can well imagine how loudly his friend would have yelped. “How did no one see?” he asks.

“Oh, the desks we had. And we weren’t in the front row, either. She got me again once, standing because again we were near the back. The second time I was more ready for her and caught her arm so she couldn’t withdraw it right away. She was sweating like mad and she never did it again.”

“Did she make good on it later?” Eskel asks.

“Oh, in spades,” the bard grins brightly. “I enjoyed her company quite a bit, but never in public,” he chuckles. He watches with a bit of confusion as Eskel sets his hand on Geralt’s leg again, only for it to be pushed away. And then again. He expects to see Geralt looking furious, but there’s a sort of odd tolerance and almost amusement on his face that the bard has never seen before. At some point Geralt seems to get fed up with the game and elbows Eskel in the side. The attack was apparently out of bounds in some way, because it results in a full-on scuffle.

They’re quiet about it, but it seems like the game ends when one of them is on top, only neither one of them is willing to let the other win and be done with it. When Eskel gains the upper hand with a grin, Dandelion expects that to be the end of it. He does not expect Geralt to swing his legs up and flip them both over so that he’s on top. Something about the way Geralt works to pin Eskel under him makes the bard’s mouth go dry and he presses his thighs together.

“Alright, alright, enough,” Eskel says and Geralt releases his wrists to sit back on his haunches. He looks down in irritation at his friend, still straddling him. “I’ll leave you be,” he holds up his hands to show they’re empty and he has no intention of attacking again. Geralt takes them for a second and Eskel automatically pushes and Geralt uses the leverage to get up, and then pull Eskel to his feet after.

“The rabbits are cooked, I think,” Dandelion coughs awkwardly, trying to look anywhere but at Geralt. He rather thinks he wouldn’t mind being pinned under him, white hair falling around his face, fingers entwined, hips moving together, and he jerks himself out of the reverie. He can see Eskel watching him in the firelight and knows the witcher is aware of his desires. He swallows hard.

“They look done,” Geralt comments, pulling one skewer away from the flames to check if the meat is cooked through. No sense in spending days shitting yourself out in the woods because of undercooked coney. He pulls off a piece of the meat to check it first, and the texture seems fine. They move aside the extra so it won’t burn and start eating. Geralt, in spite of the earlier tussle, settles against Eskel’s chest as they eat.

It doesn’t seem to bother Eskel that Geralt’s mostly in his way as he tries to eat, and he just shifts to open his legs so Geralt fits between them. He leans his back against the broken bit of log they’d dragged to the camp so that he’s not supporting both himself and Geralt with just his torso. Dandelion watches as Geralt shifts to drape a leg over Eskel’s shifting slightly to make it easier for him to eat. They gnaw the rabbits to the bones before tossing them into the fire. While there’s extra, neither one of them moves to take more and Dandelion wonders if they’re making sure he has enough, first. Or if they’re simply not that hungry.

“Geralt, you usually eat more than that, we have plenty…” he offers in a strange voice he almost doesn’t recognize as his own. He doesn’t realize it’s because he would give anything to trade places with Eskel.

Geralt grunts as he leans forward awkwardly, shifting his leg to make it easier as he takes up another skewer and looks over his shoulder before selecting another. He passes one back and keeps the other for himself before leaning back into Eskel’s chest. He takes his time to settle comfortably and Dandelion finds himself reminded of a dog turning ‘round in circles before settling into bed. Or a cat kneading the blanket before settling into it. Amused, he tries to fight away the jealousy. For all some part of him absolutely hates the idea Eskel had been able to touch Geralt in ways he cannot. Or that Geralt might have been willing to touch back.

Some part of him, under the jealousy, is pleased to see Geralt had someone through what had clearly been a difficult time. He’s gladdened, even, to know that there is someone with whom Geralt has very few barriers. It’s good that he can be himself with someone. He hasn’t seen Geralt and Yennefer while their relationship was going well, or he’d know that the witcher also found refuge in the witch at times. He sincerely did not understand their relationship but he’d only witnessed her temper and selfishness on the mountain. He hadn’t seen her pain, or her joy, had never seen the way she giggled like a girl when Geralt teased and flattered her.

He’d also never seen how she just accepted him. Refused to allow him to talk about himself as an aberration or a monster. He had no idea how much that cut the witcher to the quick when people did that. Or that when he did it himself, some part of him wished someone would disagree with him. She always did. Perhaps if Geralt had any way of explaining that to him, he could do some of the same. But to him when Geralt talks about being a mutant, well, he is. So what does it matter? He loves Geralt as he is, mutations and all. He doesn’t understand Geralt doesn’t want to feel like a mutant, he doesn’t want to feel other than human because that’s what causes most of the problems in his life.

When their stomachs are full, Dandelion carefully cleans his hands of any lingering grease and goes over to Roach to carefully get his lute from where he’d tied it to her saddle. He ignores how Eskel slips his hands around Geralt’s middle to hold him closer as they settle into each other. Eskel leans forward to rest his chin on Geralt’s shoulder so that their bodies balance each other. It’s so rare Geralt looks that comfortable and content that Dandelion’s heart aches.

He checks the strings to make sure they’re all in tune but realizes he’s at a loss of what to play. It’s a peaceful night, and something rousing or epic feels wrong. A lullaby also feels out of place, too. Perhaps a love song…Dandelion sings and Eskel shifts back and forth slightly to the music. The bard has a beautiful tenor voice that he could listen to for far longer than a few songs. Geralt initially tries to fight the gentle rocking, not sure what’s happening and then relaxes into it. They haven’t done this before, that he can recall. He’s always liked Dandelion’s voice, even if he hasn’t said it. The night he’d spent with Dandelion and Essi, the way their voices had blended had been wonderful.

He starts awake some time later, and Eskel snorts and pulls away. “I didn’t want to move you, I’ve never known you to sleep so much. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes,” Geralt tells him. Dandelion had put his lute away and climbed into his bedroll at some point and Geralt can’t believe he slept through it. “Is he angry with me?” he asks softly, ashamed.

“No, he seemed almost pleased you fell asleep. Did you notice he enjoyed watching us wrestle?”

“No,” Geralt pulls away, tugging off his boots and making sure his swords are easily accessible before settling into his own bedroll.

“How are you so oblivious to him?”

“If you want to bed him so much, you’re welcome to try. I’m sure he’d be willing,” Geralt turns his back to Eskel.

With a shake of his head, Eskel looks around the small clearing. The horses are calm, and he doesn’t hear or smell anything amiss. With his swords near to hand, and boots off, he slips into his bedroll and shifts it enough that he can press his back to Geralt’s. If there is any reason to wake suddenly, they’ll be able to watch each other’s backs and fight more efficiently. It would make no sense to face the same direction on purpose.

The sun rises to shine down on the trio. Geralt wakes first, feeling oddly well rested. He notices the arm around his middle first and feels a moment of deep confusion when he sees Dandelion a few feet away from him. As he wakes up more he remembers Eskel is with him again. Oddly comforted, he almost goes back to sleep. It’s been good to not have to be on guard so much, knowing that there’s someone else just as capable and deadly as he is, only they won’t try and hurt him. He stretches out and feels his spine pop a bit. Eskel shifts and pulls away, sitting up to rub at his face and look around. He’s glad to have Geralt acting more like the person he knew before they’d finished their training. It had hurt when he’d been pushed away.

Geralt watches as Eskel tugs on his boots and buckles on his swords before disappearing into the trees. Aware of his own full bladder, he is unwilling to leave the bard unguarded and waits for Eskel to return. When he does, Geralt gets up and finds a secluded spot.

Eskel watches as the bard wakes up slowly, looking around for Geralt. He stretches out uncomfortably and looks at Eskel. They are not enemies, the witcher knows, but he’s not sure they’re friends, either. Tempted to make the situation worse, or to try and make it better, he doesn’t. Simply stares until Dandelion looks away.

“Is there running water around?” he asks as he starts neatly rolling up the bedding.

“How should I know?”

“Witcher senses?” Dandelion asks irritably. “Can’t you hear or smell these things? I know Geralt can. Typically.”

“Our senses are enhanced, but his are… more.”

“What?” he freezes, tying off the last few knots to prepare the bedrolls to be secured to the saddle. “How do you mean, more?”

“He really doesn’t tell you much, does he? He travels with you, cares for you, and yet keeps everything to himself. I don’t doubt it’s a lack of trying on your part to pry at all, is it?”

“He tells me what he wants,” Dandelion says stiffly, not liking the implication Geralt doesn’t trust him. Even if maybe that’s true. Perhaps the witcher still worries about what might find its way into song. He’s been careful about that, only things it would hurt no one to know. “I know he can see in the dark, I know he can control his pupils, I know about how far he can hear, and smell, I know his palette, while not refined, is also quite sensitive…I know his preference for dark haired women,” he snorts in disgust.

“She gives him something no one else does.” Eskel wonders if part of Dandelion’s open hatred of Yennefer is another reason Geralt doesn’t confide in him much. “Have you ever asked him what he sees in her? Or why he goes back, if she’s as horrid as you’re acting.”

“No, I haven’t. I’ve met her, I was there when they first met. She almost got him killed,” and he idly wonders what is taking Geralt so long to get back, or if he’s listening and waiting.

“What do you know about Geralt, really?” Eskel asks stretching out and starting to pack up his own things.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dandelion asks snippily.

“It seems like you have plenty of judgements and very little information to base any of it on.”

“Fine. He likes history tomes, and philosophy -although I think that’s more because he thinks it’s ludicrous rather than something he believes in- he knows more about the monsters he faces than I could possibly imagine. He is reticent at all times about sharing anything with anyone, he flinches when strangers touch him, and he thinks the mutations make him truly hideous and abnormal. I know he’s twisted and torn about inside, but he won’t tell me why, I know Blaviken cuts him to the bone still, years later. I know every life lost he thinks he could have saved he carries in his heart. So I might not have the facts of all of it like you’d like me to, but I know him. I know he’s good, and kind, he cares for his horse even if he says he doesn’t. Cats hate witchers but I think if one was friendly he’d tolerate it. He’s good with children,” the bard adds defiantly. The few that aren’t told to be afraid of him by their parents, at least, he’s good with. They ask him all sorts of questions he answers somewhat carefully. Mindful of telling them things that would upset them.

“There was a little girl once, she’d gotten lost picking posies for her mum. She’d been crying a fight and we happened to be passing by her on the way to a contract. She’d fallen and scraped up her knees and crushed one of the flowers she’d found, and was having quite the fit. Geralt had her calm, cleaned and bandaged, and up on his shoulders in minutes. And rather than keep her posy for her mother as she’d planned, she braided bits of it into his hair and he let her. The second we were past the town and there was no way she’d know, he took them all out of course.” And had slipped one of the flowers into a pouch at his belt, the rest he’d left carefully scattered in the grasses where even if she came down the road she’d never see them.

“I know whatever was done to him, he struggles with himself, and pretends to be stupid and unfeeling when he doesn’t want to face a situation. He’ll do just about anything to wriggle out of an emotional confrontation, including claiming witchers don’t have feelings.”

“We do,” Eskel says softly. They are taught to manage them and keep control. They had hoped to burn feeling out of Geralt entirely. Clearly they had not.

“I know you do! I know he does! I might not have his story, but I know him!” the bard snaps, hating the idea Eskel thinks he doesn’t know his traveling companion at all just because he can’t understand what Geralt sees in some witch. Or doesn’t know all the details of his childhood. Suffice to say it must have been deeply unpleasant overall for him to be this incompetent with managing his own feelings. “I know the stories of the scars, I hear the names he says in his sleep. I’m the one at his side day in and day out.”

“But not night in and night out, I hear,” Eskel offers idly, as though commenting on the weather.

“He doesn’t welcome me in his bed, and so sometimes I go elsewhere.”

“You’d stay if he let you?” he asks shrewdly.

“He never would. What else am I to do but quench that pain somewhere else? I can’t stay night after night and wish for something I can’t have. Better to find a distraction.”

“Why stay at all if it pains you so much?”

“Because I love him,” Dandelion says simply. “Better to have him in any part than not at all.”

Eskel stands up and starts checking Scorpion’s tack and hooves. Everything looks to be fine. “Perhaps he thinks the same as you, but doesn’t understand you’re leaving because you can’t bear to stay for want of him. Perhaps he thinks it’s because that’s all it would be to you. Bedded to boredom and left behind.” He doesn’t especially want to involve himself in this. There’s other dynamics at play and he knows it’s not his place. “I wouldn’t want to bed someone I loved knowing they would up and leave the minute they’d worked it out of their system.” He looks around and doesn’t see anything amiss as he comes over to kick dirt over the logs of their fire. It had burned down, but better to be safe than sorry.

“Where is Geralt?” Dandelion frets.

“He’ll be back soon enough, I hear him now.”

#geraskier #gerlion #the witcher #jaskier #dandelion #geralt of rivia #eskel

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kylerenpenning · 4 years ago

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Audience Studies (3P18) Blog #1

Week 2

Our first-week material involved a lot of a general analysis of audiences for us to gain a better understanding of just how much control social media platforms and other online social networking sites have on the way our brains process different things. We developed a definition for what exactly an audience is which we described as a group of people who are hearing or are paying attention to someone proving verbal information. What I found interesting about this content was that it made me realize the large extent to which many people’s happiness, beliefs, morals, and friends are formed from a digital platform. We discussed how things were not always this way and that audiences before were commonly found at live events because social networking had yet to exist. As time has gone on people have developed ways to build an opportunity for an audience to participate in places that may have never seemed possible before until we were met with the introduction of social networking and media. When considering my own experiences as being part of an audience throughout my life, I agree that the number of opportunities to take part in an audience has increased over the years. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself using many new social networking platforms that were established before the pandemic but were not used nearly as much.

With the pandemic forcing everyone into their homes for almost a full two months the benefits of having digital audiences are obvious. Multiple times a week I use platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Lifesize to join lectures and seminars which is a prime example of a way that I take part in the audience every day now. Compared to life before the pandemic when most of my audience experiences happened in person such as going out to moose on Wednesday every week and having a couple of drinks with my peers and enjoy a night out. I notice switching to a digital technique to host lectures increases the sizes of the audiences substantially because when the lectures took place in person, people are much more likely to be lazy and not show up to class. With lectures now being online, it makes participating in the audience much easier because there is no need for travel. You can see the total number of viewers in each class and there are consistently over 100 people from all over the world joining the cyberspace environment which I would estimate to be a huge increase in participation levels.

To compare my personal experiences with digital audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic to the material we discussed in class, I think of how in chapter 1, Sullivan spoke about how audiences are for the most part working-class people who have no title or place in society yet and are working to do so. (Sullivan, P. 13) I interpret this as students attending digital lectures are working towards their degrees to get the job they have a passion for because they do not have a label yet in society and once we get a career we get a sense of purpose in life because we mean something to a greater society. The benefits I gained from having to get up out of bed to go to class was that I would gain a sense of routine in my life and I got to meet many new people who I now consider my friends. So, although audience sizes have increased in quantity because it is easier for people to attend lectures when they do not have to go anywhere, however, the quality of the audience experience deteriorates. There are certain components you need to achieve satisfaction with your experience as an audience member and doing strictly digital audiences like we have been doing this year has not provided the physical interaction needed to get the full experience.

One of the final main points from the first week is the power of media and ability it must oppose destructive information into people's minds and shape their views on the world in a particular way. The mass, agent, and outcome are key terms that are an extremely important part of the process that is essentially capable of inducing detrimental norms in society that place some to advantage and others at a disadvantage. Using the same example as before about online lectures taking place at Brock this year, I will indicate which parties would be considered the mass, agent, and outcome. The agent is the audience member who is considered free to choose whatever content they want to consume online which is the students at Brock who are selecting the courses they want to study because it suits their interests. The mass is where we see the content being provided by professors at lectures and seminars and since students have no pre-existing knowledge of most of the topics we discuss in school it is their first time consuming such information, students must trust in the information hoping that it will benefit them in their future life. I think about this all the time when I go to class and why I am happy to be considered as an audience member of the Media Communications program. The outcome is the overall effect that the mass provided on media platforms have on its audience members. When I reflect on my audience experience, I firmly believe the outcome of me being a member of the media communications audience has been beneficial for me and has given me the skills to navigate through social media platforms with an awareness to the issues it contains which I would have never gotten if I didn’t trust the process and the information they were providing me to be correct.

Having the skill to be aware of the power of social media and the conflicts that can arise if you participate in audiences on their platforms I think will be extremely beneficial in the future because it is inevitable that new technologies and ways to interact on digital platforms rather than in person will begin to accelerate rapidly.

Week 3

This week’s content focuses on stories, primarily we were concerned with who the storyteller is because it influences the audience who is listening. If the storyteller or leader is well respected by the audience it is more likely that the information he is providing will stick with the audience and it will be carried on throughout the audience as they spread the information to their peers. There is a danger behind this however because if there is falsified information being provided and the audience receiving has trust in the storyteller that they are being given valid information it may cause false information to be spread. An example from my life when I trusted the information I was being given from a speaker is when I participate in sports betting, on sports that I am unfamiliar with. As an audience member with little knowledge of the sport of football, I ask my friends who are big fans to give me some advice on who they think is the better team in hopes that I will obtain new knowledge that will give me an edge in my bets. However, sometimes I mistake the person I ask for information as someone who has good knowledge of the game of football and I take their advice without hesitation because I discredit my ability to make an intelligent decision on my own. This causes me to place money on a team that I may not have picked had I not been told information from a third party and I end up losing the bet and my money.

We can see this process happen on a much larger scale of audiences like in politics where people who are labeled “leaders” have a job to lead an entire country, one of the biggest and challenging audiences to handle. Governments have access to media platforms that hold substantial amounts of power because they can simply send out messages that will circulate through various media platforms. Government parties utilize this chain reaction to create social norms in society and try and push people to think a certain way because they know the information they put on social media spreads like wildfire! Week 3’s reading by William Brown supports the claim we examined in class as the study conducted concluded that “the rise of celebrity culture in the late 20th century has given media personae a privileged position of social influence that can shape, reinforce, and inculcate values and beliefs and promote specific social practices within diverse audiences across socioeconomic, geographic, and national boundaries” (J. B, Williams. P, 259).

Where do I even start?! The number of experiences I have had where the stars and celebrities I see on the digital networking sites I use like verified Instagram and Twitter accounts, popular Netflix actors. The most influential social media influencers in my life are on Twitch and YouTube because these two platforms allow me and the millions of others who watch to build a relationship with the star. This creates a feeling for the audience member that can seem like there is an actual relationship between the audience member and the celebrity. Twitch is a prime example of how a celebrity can have a direct influence on their audience because the influencer is live streaming and directly interacting with their fans. This creates a connection that a video was taken days/weeks in the past and edited cannot do for an audience like on YouTube which often the biggest stars are people who make ‘vlogs’ covering the activities they do in their daily lives but there is no live interaction with the individual the audience is viewing. This still has a large impact on the audience members because it gives them an idea of what the perfect life ‘should’ look like based on what they are watching a privileged celebrity vlog. The large influence that vloggers and streamers have validates Williams claims that the rise of celebrity culture in the late 20th century has given social media influencers a privileged position of social influence that can shape, reinforce, and skew values and beliefs on diverse audiences in any given society.

We also covered the Dependency Theory which explained some other factors which would affect peoples’ need for social media to hear about the stories they see every day, provide them with entertainment, and connecting them with their friends without location/distance being a factor. Dependency theory explains that all societies vary in structural stability so poor and underdeveloped countries will be less dependant on technology because there is less available to it and they have to learn to live and entertain themselves in other ways. Developed countries with plenty of wealth will have more ways to access technology that provides us with the entertainment and feeling of comfort that our phones give us every day of our lives. As a person who grew up extremely lucky growing up in Oakville, Ontario I always had the privilege to get my hands on the newest technology. When I graduated elementary school is when I got my first phone which looking back on it seems absurd but within the very first week of having the new phone I had signed up for Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat. The cognitive effects that the exposure to these apps at such a young age must have had on me is scary to think about. Dependency theory explains that there are several behavioral and cognitive effects social media has on a person including an increased likelihood of depression and anxiety. I can see in some people I have been around where they always seem worried about something that someone is saying or doing online. Eventually, it makes them get so anxious just not knowing certain things and a lot of the time can create the feeling that things are being said or done behind your back online where what’s being said can easily be deleted.

Week 3 also looked at Mass media and further breaks down how persuasion through the media occurs which creates subgroups of people in society who share common beliefs, lifestyles, humor, etc. In the lecture, we learned that there are two components to mass media which are the opinion leader who consumes large quantities of mass media, and then there are people who do not consume as much media. However, since they do not consume enough media in their own time, they come into contact with the opinion leaders they get persuaded by them.

Week 4

The evolution of public opinion was a major topic of discussion during this week as we learned that it was not always easy like it currently is to freely express yourself because there are so many platforms you can do so on. With the introduction, people are constantly allowed to express their opinion, verbally reject opposing opinions, and interact with one another to share opinions until we form what is known as social norms. Over time, audiences start to catch on to certain ideologies that are widely accepted by society, and people’s opinions can switch because of the pressure they face going against what society has deemed the dominant ideology. Multiple situations come to mind when I think about my audience's experiences and how the dominant ideology changed the way either myself or someone else was acting.

Going out to the bars on the weekend last year at school is an audience experience where I have seen this process happen multiple times. The vast majority (over 90%) of people who are at the bars are from Brock University and I like to think of me as being a member of an audience because everyone there usually had the same goal in mind, to have a fun night out with friends and have a few drinks. Referring to the idea of public opinion, there was a public opinion in terms of how people should act and what ‘normal behavior’ looked like at the bar. Drinking, dancing, singing along to the songs being played were all things that the majority of people were doing as someone who doesn’t enjoy dancing too much I can say you feel like an outsider when your not performing the activities that you see in most of the people who go to your school are doing. This proves that a public opinion is formed when there is an ideology that is more preferred by the public. My small-scale example at the bar can be amplified to see the same pattern happening in any given society as when people see on social media platforms that certain opinions are respected in society while others are silenced. This creates a barrier and can make it very difficult for people who do not follow the norms to express their opinions and be active members of society. At the same time, it benefits the majority of people because they agree with what society has chosen to be the dominant ideologies.

Another topic of focus this week was how did we get to how things are the way they are in terms of creating a public opinion. The evolution of popular opinion is the key factor that formed ‘public opinion’ because logically the popular opinion is what is preferred by the majority of the public and is likely to have some sort of role in society. Plato the Athenian philosopher believed the power should be placed in the people to make their own decision, but he was skeptical that the ordinary person would not be able to make a rational decision. By mapping out the contrast between the two types of thinking, we were able to grasp the idea of why Plato believed that ordinary people’s opinions are sometimes disregarded by society. The contrast between Doxa and episteme helps us grasp the concept of how the public has the power to express their knowledge. Doxa is explained to be the popular belief in a society that does not have the warrants needed to validate their claims being made so that they could be mediated and turned into laws or social norms in society. Episteme is the knowledge that is validated by scientific principles and is cemented in society due to the unchanging nature of the world. In the real world, we see these two concepts surface all the time. For example, people who show up to protest in large groups would be considered Doxa knowledge because it is an opinion being expressed by the general public and for the most part comes from a suppressed group looking to create change that will benefit their lives. We often see protestors gathering outside government institutions because government officials are the ones with episteme knowledge who can take the ideologies they hear from the general public and create an official change in society.

Week 5

Week 5’s material analyzes audiences as active users of media and examines people’s use of media to give them the gratification they need to be satisfied with oneself, as well as what motivates the users to pay attention to live blogs/vlogs. It was addressed that people follow live blogs to fill their need for entertainment, to learn new information, hear other opinions, and express freely express their own opinion. The factors I just listed are considered the agents that motivate users to actively participate in these sorts of activities like streaming platforms that provide entertainment. With the restrictions in place currently to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic most people have been stuck in their homes and unable to do the things they would normally do to keep entertained like hanging out with friends, going out on weekends and socializing with new people, or attending concerts and other festivals that occur annually. The streaming industry has come out and said their platforms have benefitted greatly from this pandemic because the more people are stuck in their homes bored, the more people end up using streaming platforms to occupy their time. In my life, I have used streaming websites like Twitch and Mixer for years before the pandemic was happening and I have noticed a big difference in viewership numbers since the pandemic began. The games I watch mostly are Fortnite and Call of Duty and before the pandemic, there were roughly 50-70 thousand people watching streamers who are playing these games. Since quarantine started viewership numbers have increased to well over 100 thousand people concurrently watching Fortnite and Call of Duty streamers which validates the claim that the streaming industry has benefitted tremendously from the global pandemic.

Operationalizing audiences was also a major focus during the lecture which essentially explains why society has to invade people's privacy to figure out what their interests are so that they can keep producing commodities that they know will be successful in the market for the future. Quantifying an audience and analyzing the data is super necessary for theories to be created because there needs to be hard evidence to make a theory about people’s online interests and to find patterns about what people engage with. In the lecture we talked about how “quantitative data from the systems that track people’s online activities can help streamline audience diversity, can be exchanged for money, and have an air of objectivity.” (Good, Jennifer. 19 Oct 2020). Right now, there is an ongoing controversy in the United States involving the social media site TikTok because it is a Chinese owned website. America's government wants to ban TikTok in the United States, removing it from the millions of users in the country who use the app every day which would also mean the entire community that had been developed on a virtual platform would be removed in an instant. Why would they do this you may ask? Well, it is warranted in my opinion, the reason being that China has supposedly been able to freely access confidential information on all the American users who have an account on the app. This means financial information, personal information like date of birth, even access to a location in some cases are invaded by Chinese ownership of TikTok. America’s government is scared of what China is using the data for and so they want it banned completely in the States.

Quantitative data also allows producers to see data so that they can have more control over what is being produced as well as how much needs to be produced which helps prevent a case of overproduction. Small companies often fail because they overproduce and spend too much money on production to the point where they cannot end up making a profit. If producers can see how many people are engaging in a product or business, they will produce the correct product needed to support customers.

Have you ever walked into a fast-food place and seen the screens that prompt a survey on their service while you were ordering at the restaurant? Or seen a survey on Twitter from Wendy’s or McDonald’s about what people would like to see on their menu? This is the kind of data that digital technology has allowed companies to collect to change their style of business to attract the greatest number of customers. Thus, quantitative data is important for companies to be aware of because it allows them to be one step ahead of their audience members and provide them with the commodities that will make them the most profit. Sometimes problems can arise from this because they may start to lose sight of what is in the best interest of their loyal audience. I’ve seen many companies or brands that started beloved by their audiences change because of their obsession over making maximum profit and they start producing commodities that are cheaper in quality for the customers but benefits the company because their profits will increase.

Nike is a good example of this when the information came out that they use slave workers to mass-produce their products because it means saving a lot more money on good quality work that meets basic human rights and needs. Because of Nike’s incredible ability to brand itself, it had the whole world thinking that if you buy their products it makes you superior to someone without Nike. The reality is it is extremely disappointing what media platforms have been able to do for Nike by covering up the sickening backstory of their products with commercials of people’s favorite athletes and celebrities wearing their brand which makes ordinary people fall in love with the company.

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screensirenfic · 5 years ago

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Black Leather - Chapter 3

“Come and Get Sheetfaced.” Clever wordplay, if you were in fourth grade. The crude illustration of what was supposed to be a tipsy ghost did little more to advertise the marketing genius of head cheerleader and reigning bitch queen Tina.

She’d shoved the neon orange monstrosity into my hand with all the finesse of a football player, cornering both me and Steve on our way out of third period Chem.

“Hope you’ll both come.” She chirped, though I wondered how much of her enthusiasm had been aimed at me, and how much was for my much more agreeable compatriot.

I never liked Tina. Not since she stuck gum in my hair in sixth grade, forcing my dad to get the scissors to my hair when peanut butter failed. It was okay though; I rocked a Mohawk. She’d always been a bitch, but that was fine; she thought I was one too. At least we understood each other.

So; for the sake of appearances, and the almighty sacrifice of actually getting along with some of the populars, I took the damn flyer, determined to dispose of it at a more convenient time.

“So Tina’s throwing another Halloween bash. That should be cool.” Commented Steve, rushing up to walk beside me with his flyer in hand.

I just gave him a look, because Steve already knew what I thought about Tina and how little her boozefests appealed to me.

“Come on, Lo. It could be fun to let loose a little...” He continued to try and convince me with one of those easy smiles that worked so well on Nancy. On me; not so much.

“Drink a little, dance a little. Get crazy!” He grinned, wide eyed with his hands in the air, as if he could embarrass me into relenting.

“Speak for yourself. I’ve had enough crazy in this past year to last a lifetime.” I half joked, but it came off flat. We’d both seen what Hawkins was truly capable of. The kind of horror movie tropes that didn’t even belong on the midnight feature.

Steve’s smile had fallen a little; his happy-go-lucky attitude more forced as of late. It had me wondering how deep that night had really cut him; how many nightmares had him staying awake in the middle of the night.

I’d seen my fair share of shit; been pretty much born into the middle of it. It took a hell of a lot to faze me, and some weird Venus flytrap looking monster wasn’t going to be the thing to send me overboard.

Steve was different.

He was born into the life of perfect privilege; his dad a highflying lawyer in some fancy business firm, his mom a bonafide 50s catalogue housewife. He was a picket fence away from Nancy Wheeler level of holiday special suburban dream, but I suppose being filthy rich stretched some of the parameters substantially.

Sure; he had his problems. The fact that his dad was having an affair on his mom was Hawkins worst kept secret, but his mom was no idiot, and kept Mr Harrington on a tighter leash than a Rottweiler in heat. That meant Steve had his first taste of independent living, with a bachelors pad that could rival Hugh Hefner.

What Steve could see in a girl like me was a mystery. I guess I was pretty; in a drug addict kind of way, and my jokes weren’t too bad once you got past the fact that my humour was drier than the panties of an eighty year old virgin.

Still; Steve could do so much better. He had Nancy, and Tommy, and Carol and a whole list of populars who were just lining up for a minute of his time.

King Steve; they said, though I guess every court needed an outcast. A black sheep to do the dirty work and keep the king’s confidence when his crown got a little off kilter.

“Please don’t make me go to this alone.” He asked; and the honesty in his voice was almost enough to break me entirely. It was easy to forget that being royalty could be draining at times; even for someone as naturally charismatic as Steve.

“You won’t be alone. You’ve got Nancy.” I remarked, honing in on the one indisputable point in my argument for playing hooky just this once.

“Yeah, but it won’t be the same...” Steve argued, though his tone was still light; eyes trailing up to the ceiling as if he saw something interesting up there.

“She doesn’t scare people off half as well.” He joked and I couldn’t help but chuckle, because Steve had the vanity to glance at me to see if he’d won on such cheap shot.

“Steve Harrington; are you asking me to be your bodyguard?” I asked; a smile still stretched across my face because I could play his game too, and fuck; if I wasn’t gonna beat him at it.

“Bodyguard’s a strong word. More like assassin. You can stop me from saying something stupid before Nance kills me for it.” He retorted, and despite our conversation resting firmly in joking territory; I couldn’t help but hear some truth in there.

“Think the word you’re looking for is babysitter.” I corrected him, because I wasn’t quite ready for this conversation to turn serious again just yet.

“Well; you always did say I was immature for my age.” Steve concurred, because only he could make self deprecation seem like a winning strategy.

“So will you come?” He asked; all jokes aside, because I could only dance around the question for so long.

“Steve; I’m sure you’ll be fine without me.” I replied, my voice soft and sincere.

As much as I liked to joke otherwise; he really didn’t need me to hold his hand through everything. He was more capable than me; at least when it came to social settings. I just lurked in the background with a drink in my hand, looking every inch the outsider in my muted shades of black leather.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t want you there.” He countered, and it brought a smile to my face.

After all this time things hadn’t changed. He was still Happy-go-lucky Harrington; dumb perky rich boy with too much hair and not enough sense, and I was still Hellfire Hopper; bitter as a sour ball and twice as hard to stomach. Times changed but people didn’t; not when it came to the things that mattered.

“I’ll think about it.” I offered sincerely as I opened my locker, because that’s the best he was gonna get out of me without blackmail; and we both knew I had far more on him than he had on me.

Steve just nodded, accepting the compromise as a starting point before hurrying off to basketball practice.

He was sweet like that; quick to trust, and quicker to make a fool of. We’d really have to fix that some day, by for now I was thankful.

I screwed up Tina’s party invitation into a satisfying ball that rather festively resembled a pumpkin, before tossing it into the depths of my locker, soon to be forgotten in a mess of colourful cafeteria receipts.

Steve could grill me about it later, and as it was; his grilling was more like a light toasting; thank god for small mercies. His forgiveness was easier to get, and you know what they say; better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

—————————————————

I tried to stand my ground; I really did, but when Steve dug his heels in about something, it would take more than hell or high water to move him. For a teenage boy; he really did nag more than a neglected housewife, and I was finally understanding why my dad never remarried.

I’d almost made a clean getaway, right up until the last bell before final period when I’d opened my locker and that perfect shaped ball of orangeness decided to fall at the feet of one Steve Harrington. He’d unscrunched it, despite my insistence that it was a used cafeteria napkin and probably had something gross like chewed gum in it. Then his face fell, and it hit me like a punch in the gut.

Steve didn’t pick many hills to die upon; always was more of a lay down and roll over kind of guy, but when he picked them; he’d hold them valiantly. Honesty was one of those noble qualities that Steve valued so highly, and was one of the things I could definitely live without.

In the Hopper household; dishonesty was a proud trait held up with the likes of pettiness and just pure grit. If it didn’t kill anyone; it could go without saying, and if it did; well, we’d dealt with that before too.

With Steve, my dishonesty had always been a point of strain, testing our friendship in a way that was usually reserved for married couples.

I lied to him. He knew that. Whether it was to save his feelings, or just to save face; I’d lie more than a politician on Inauguration Day, and with far more credibility. Usually Steve never took it to heart; understood it came with being friends with a compulsive omitter who avoided social responsibility at all costs, but this time was different.

After having chewed my ear off for the better part of study period; he’d relented, but only after the promise that I’d go to Tina’s stupid party, if only to drink her parents booze and maybe tp that obnoxious rose bush in her front yard, but of course I never told Steve that.

So with a very crinkled flyer in tow, I offloaded my books into my locker, very much not looking forward to going to Melvald’s to pull together a costume that said “I’m here under duress.”

“Hey Lola...” Called the unnervingly upbeat voice of Nancy Wheeler, because only she could make Halloween a day of sunshine and rainbows.

I turned to her, noting Jonathan standing beside her with yet another one of Tina’s orange monstrosities in hand. Was everyone going to this party?

“See; even Lola’s going...” She said to Jonathan and I was suddenly aware I’d walked into a conversation I wasn’t sure I wanted to be part of.

“What?” I asked, thinking that if this conversation was about what I think it was, Nancy was being awfully presumptuous.

That, or Steve had a far bigger mouth than I gave him credit for. Scratch that; Steve did have a big mouth.

“I was just telling Jonathan that he should totally come with us to Tina’s party.” She informed with such conviction; I half believed that Steve had somehow managed to talk me into some pseudo double date neither parties had an interest in going on.

“Actually, I was thinking of skipping this year instead and staying in with my dad.” I peddled in with the lamest excuse in the book, which wasn’t entirely a lie.

I was planning on staying in; with Eleven, not my dad, but the night’s itinerary would be roughly the same; too much candy and bad horror movies.

“What?!” Nancy exclaimed, and for a minute she reminded me of Steve.

“What the hell is wrong with you people?” She lamented, as if the idea of anyone shunning the moral wasteland of a popularity contest that was Tina’s Halloween party was foreign to her.

Jonathan got it; his smile was testament to that.

Ever the social outcast; sometimes I felt like he was the only other person who had no desire to be involved with the social niceties that came with being part of the in crowd.

“Sorry Nance. Looks like some people aren’t interested in getting sheet faced” He joked; and I laughed because I was glad I wasn’t the only one who thought that pun was total trash.

Nancy soon realised her approach wasn’t working; the social outrage over the rejection of the party of the year hardly a relevant motivator to those who’d already accepted their place at the outskirts of society.

Instead she took a new angle; putting those optional classes on investigative journalism to good use.

“Okay. You’re gonna go trick or treating and you’re gonna be home by eight...” She began, realising Jonathan was the easier target and taking advantage of that as we strolled towards the school exit.

“Listening to... The Talking Heads... and reading Vonnegut, or something...” She plucked the words out of thin air, summarising Jonathan’s existence beautifully in a a harsh combination of vain existentialism and edgy romanticism, because maybe he was a cliche; but so was me, Steve and Nancy if we were being honest.

Jonathan just shrugged, unfazed at her attempt to highlight his predictability.

“Sounds like a nice night...” He commented, and I laughed, because I could see what he was doing there; and it had nothing to do with his love of American New Wave.

“Sure does; could you use a plus one?” I teased, aiding him in his attempt to drive Miss Nancy Wheeler wild with incredulousness.

“Come on guys! Don’t be a bore!” She griped, because she knew reasoning was getting nowhere, and immaturity may be more Steve’s thing; but my god; if it wasn’t effective!

“Okay, Okay!” I relented, only because I’d agreed this much with Steve, but Nancy didn’t need to know that.

However, she did need to know the very strict conditions of my attendance which I wouldn’t budge over.

“But if the new guy so much as looks at me; I swear to god I’ll...” I began, but couldn’t quite finish before I was swept up in someone’s arms.

Normally being hoisted two feet up in the air would be a cause for alarm, and the shriek I let out was far too feminine for me to pass it off as anything else.

Of course; when the raucous laughter of no other than Steve Harrington was muffled into the back of my jacket, the shock quickly wore off.

“Jesus Christ, Steve! Don’t do that!” I lectured as soon as my boots touched the floor; reaching out to slap him on the shoulder, just in case he got any other ideas for unwelcome surprises.

“Why? You loved it when we were kids...” He countered, releasing his grip around my waist so he could look at me with that dumb too-happy smile.

“Yeah; when I was twelve and you were at least a foot shorter...” I snapped back, because of course; Steve would still act like we were in middle school; immature little shit that he was!

Still; my chastisements always fell short when it came to Steve; his smile just a little too bright to be dimmed by something as dull as maturity and personal space.

Instead; he just beamed down at me, still resembling that lanky kid who’d give me piggybacks all those years ago. Same old Steve.

“And how is the most beautiful girl in the world?” He asked; his attention finally turning to his actual girlfriend, who was waiting far more politely for him than I’d have in her shoes.

“Who? Me?” She asked incredulously; a teasing lilt in her tone, only emphasised by the exaggerated hand on the chest routine. “I thought you were talking about Lola.”

Despite her slight dig, there was no love lost between the pair; teasing giving way to pure gooey eyes that would’ve made me barf from anyone else.

Steve And Nance were lucky I liked them enough for it to be endearing. Then they started kissing and all bets were off.

“And that’s our cue to leave...” I commented, grabbing Jonathan by the arm and towing him away before tongues came into play.

#stranger things #stranger things 2 #original character #stranger things oc #strangerthings oc #fanfiction #fanfic #stranger things fandom #strangerthingsfanfiction #strangerthingsfanfic #steve harrington #jim hopper daughter #hopper daughter #billy hargove x reader #billy hargrove fanfiction #Billy Hargrove #Nancy Wheeler #jonathan byers

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millieswickedbooks · 5 years ago

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chapter two: the reaping

Girl on Fire (Teen Wolf x Hunger Games) [Stilinski]

previous chapter || masterlist || next chapter >>

pairing: Stiles Stilinski Black!OC

word count: 5,622

WARNINGS: swearing, mention of pet death, mentions of death, brief mention of pregnancy and brief mention of war

➳

"Aurora?"

"Yes, Alise?"

"Are you afraid?"

I sighed, Alise would ask something like this. I looked at her from the reflection in the mirror. She was standing in front of me, as I was finishing up doing her hair for the Reaping. She was wearing a light blue denim skirt overall and a beige colored short-sleeve shirt underneath. Her dark skin was complemented by the pastels of her outfit and her dark brown, basically, black hair was up in a neat, high bun—courtesy of yours truly.

I turned to the side and looked at Stiles and Scott, both of which were sitting at the dining table, across from each other. They looked at each other and turned, giving me helpless looks. I internally rolled my eyes at the idiots and turned to look at the girls; Lydia Martin, Allison Argent, Kira Yukimura, and Malia Tate. They were spread out in my kitchen, Lydia was leaning up against the counter, Allison was sitting in front of her on the kitchen table, Malia sitting on the counter and Kira was to her left, leaning on the counter too, petting Beau. They all gave me apologetic looks and I internally groaned, damning them all.

After we—Stiles, Scott and I—left the forest, we had met up with the girls, all of which were at the Argent household and we walked to my house, because I always get Alise ready for the Reaping. Erica, Boyd, and Isaac were most likely at the Hale Household. Sometime around the beginning of the year, Derek had taken those three under his wing. I literally had no idea why by they all just bonded, it was adorable if I'm being completely honest.

Danny and the Twins, Ethan and Aiden, were probably at Danny's, we'd meet up with them afterward.

From here we will go down to the Seam for the public not-execution-but-basically-an-execution.

I took a deep breath and after pondering what I should say to her, I respond with, "just a little bit, babe. But that's what everyone feels on this day so it's no big deal."

"Yeah, don't stress. We'll be fine," Lydia reassured, suddenly appearing beside us, "we always are."

Lydia had reminded of Scott in the forest because that's literally exactly what he had said to me, and she put a comforting hand on Alise's shoulder and Alise looked like she had more to say but I really wasn't in the mood for this conversation. I didn't know what to tell her, it was breaking my heart, she looked so scared and I was so helpless in this situation. I can't do anything to protect her from the truth that is our horrible reality.

"Okay, you're all set, Alise, let's go," I asserted, preventing this conversation from going on any longer by interrupting it. I looked at Lydia and smiled at her, silently thanking her for trying to help me out in this situation. Lydia winked at me and God, I love her so much, she's the freaking best.

"But-"

"Alise, we gotta go, or we're gonna be late. And I really don't wanna find out what happens if we are. I'm not trying to get arrested or something worse. Come on," I explained to Alise, looking at her expectantly. She huffed but nodded and I sighed, turning around, facing the group who was already up. We all gave each other knowing looks and we began to make our way out of the door, Alise and I were last. And as soon as Stiles stepped out of the house, me following, thinking that Alise was right behind me, I heard her call out.

"Aurora, I'm scared."

And that sentence alone brought down my walls entirely. I turned to her and saw her standing in the middle of the room, with Beau at her feet, her long, fluffy tail wrapping around Alise's ankle. Her big brown eyes were sad and her eyebrows were slightly scrunched up, a worried look adorning her face. She reminds me so much of Bubba.

"Oh, Alise," I cooed, running back towards her, crouching down and hugging her. For a fourteen-year-old girl, she really was tiny.

"What if I get picked, Aurora? What if you get picked? I don't want you to die!" Alise rambled, sounding exactly like me when I ramble.

"Dang, babe, have some more faith in me," I joked, hoping to help lighten the mood.

"Aurora, you know what I mean," she said seriously. I sighed and looked at her, remembering my terrible dream and how real it felt.

"Alise, listen to me, okay?" I started, looking her right in her big doe eyes and she stared right back, waiting for me to continue. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you, you hear me? Nothing."

"You promise?" Alise asked in a quiet voice.

"Cross my entire heart," I reassured her, smiling up at her. She quickly wrapped her arms around my neck, hugging me tightly. I was kind of taken back by the all-of-a-sudden hug and I nearly fell over on my ass but I quickly balanced myself out and hugged Alise back just as tight. I kissed her right temple and we pulled away.

"You ready?" I asked her and she nodded, grabbed my hand and we walked out of the house, seeing the group there, waiting.

I scanned the group and soon enough my eyes landed on Stiles and once again I was reminded why I had such a big crush on that boy. His beautiful amber eyes were looking right at me and he had this look, one I couldn't place. It made my heart swell though. He had this little smile on his face and I just wanted to kiss him right then and there. I, begrudgingly, looked away, I didn't want him or anyone else for that matter seeing me basically checking him out and my eyes landed on Malia and she was smirking at me. I cursed myself as I quickly remembered Malia is incredibly observant and nothing really gets past her. Malia knew I had on crush on Stiles and that was one of the main reasons why she didn't date him when he asked her out a while back. She has been wanted us to get together for the longest time and no matter how many times I told her and the other girls that it just wasn't going to happen, they refused to listen. I blushed as she winked at me and I looked back at Stiles and I saw him still staring at me. I blushed harder and proceeded to walk down my porch steps and towards the group, Alise in tow, and as I did that I saw Stiles wink at me. I nearly choked on my spit at the sight. Why the fuck does he have to be so fucking attractive, what the actual fuck?

'Lord, don't do this to me, you know just how hot he is,' I thought to myself. Once I reached the group Stiles draped his arm over my shoulder and pulled me close to him.

We then began to walk to the Square, not knowing that that day, in just a few moments, our lives would change for good.

➳

Once we got to the Square, we almost immediately got separated. Boys one side and girls the other. Alison, Malia, Lydia, Kira, Alise and I went to our rows; we were separated by age. Alise went with all the fourteen-year-old girls, Lydia, Kira, Malia, Erica and I went in the row with the sixteen-year-olds and Allison and Cora, Derek's little sister, went with the seventeen-year-olds. I stood next to Malia at the end of our lil' clique's row.

After every child was grouped together, we waited for the Mayor to do his usual speech. I look around and behind the boy's group, off to the left, I see Mr. Stilinski and Ms. McCall. The sight would've made me smile. If I wasn't in this place I definitely would've too. They were standing next to each other and—they were holding hands! Yes! Scott, Stiles, and I have made it one of our number one goals to get those two together. I kind of wanted Lydia's mom to get with my Bubba but I knew it was still just a little bit too soon for him, so I knew I had to be patient.

And that reminds me, where's Bubba? I turn and quickly spot Bubba. He kind of easy to find, he's six-foot-four-inches and his dark skin made it even easier to find him. He was wearing a gray shirt with a brown vest, standing off to the side, next to Amara and Derek. And I saw that Laura Hale, Talia Hale, and William Hale, Derek's older sister, mother, and father, were there, too—which was shocking. They usually don't come to these.

'It honestly breaks my heart to watch these,' I remember Talia told me. I can't blame her. If I could, I would run away and never come ever again.

I saw that Bubba was staring right at me, his sad eyes boring into mine. I looked at him and threw him a small smile. I could just barely make it out but I know he signed, 'to the moon?' to me. He does it every time. And just as I signed, 'and back' the Mayor began to speak.

"Welcome, citizens of Panem," he began, his voice nearly thunderous in the Square as the crowd and its unnecessarily substantial amount of Peacekeepers was silent, now more than before. He continued, "welcome to District Twelve's reaping of the seventy-third annual Hunger Games. As many of you know, disaster struck what used to be North America..." and it was around here when I would zoom out because I seriously don't give a fuck. A civil war from years ago resulted in us sending our children to die every year, still to this day? For control? I'm not paying attention to this, it's straight bullshit.

I tune back in when I can tell he's about to introduce the Capitol's representative.

"In the past seventy-three Hunger Games, we have had only a few victors representing District Twelve. A living victor representing District Twelve is here today. His name, as many as you know, is Haymitch Abernathy and the tributes will meet him shortly after being Reaped, as he will be their mentor. So let's get this started, shall we? I know you all are dying to know," he announced, chuckling as if this was a joke. "Please welcome Effie Trinket of the Capitol!"

And with that a lady, Effie Trinket I guess, strutted up to the front of the stage after her introduction. And she looked pretty ridiculous but that's the Capitol for you. She had a huge smile on her face and was tall, with perfect posture and very pale. Like 'this-is-my-first-time-stepping-outside-in-fifty-eight-thousand-years' type of pale. And she had some weird makeup on too but that's whatever. What she was wearing though, was another story. She has a full plum-colored suit on. A plum-colored skirt that went down, just barely reaching her knees. It was weird, it was ruffled but not at the same time. And she had a plum-colored, long-sleeve, peplum button-up blazer with exaggeratedly huge shoulder pads that oddly reminded me of a really big mushroom. And to top it off, she had a rather uncomfortably large flower choker and a fucking massive plum-colored flower on her big, white hair and some black heels.

"Happy Hunger Games, District Twelve, and may the odds be ever in your favor!" Ms. Trinket proclaimed with her typical Capitol accent. That line sent a shiver down my spine as it reminded of the demonic Peacekeeper from my dream. Effie continued, "As you all already know, the time has come. I have the absolute honor of choosing one courageous, young man and woman to participate in the seventy-fourth Hunger Games. As the Mayor mentioned before, you all must be waiting so let's get right to it, huh? Ladies first." She finished with the same large smile on her face. I rolled my eyes and felt my heart pounding in my chest, feeling on the brink of a panic attack. As she reached a manicured hand into the giant ballot that was filled halfway with slips of paper, closed with usual black tape, I looked down, not wanting to hear someone being sent to their death—and also hoping it would calm my heart down.

And then, I heard it. The reason why my heart was pounding, the reason why I freaked out earlier today, the reason why I woke up with the heavy feeling in my chest. The reason why I had a nightmare last night.

"Alise Galloway," Ms. Trinket calls out.

And at that moment I felt my heart stop. Like actually. I looked up, at the back of Alise's head and I couldn't see her face but I knew what look she had on her face. One of terror and shock. I look around and I saw my Bubba's face; he was still processing what was just said, just like me. Amara wasn't any better, already beginning to cry. Talia, Derek, Laura, and William looked surprised as well.

I turned and saw the boys staring at me; Stiles' eyes were wide open, Scott looked near to tears and Isaac Lahey, Vernon Boyd, Danny Mahealani, Ethan and Aiden were all standing in the same row as them and all had varying looks of shocked, upset and confused faces as they turned to look at me as well. I turned to my right and look at the girls and they are harboring the same looks like the rest of my family and friends are.

I hear Ms. Trinket begin to speak into the microphone again.

"Alise? Where are you? Oh! There you are. Come on, don't be shy. Come on stage," Ms. Trinket cooed at Alise and at that moment everything slowed down, even time.

I remembered playing with little five-year-old Alise out in the rain, us splashing through the mud as our dog, Spark, chased us. I remembered playing with little six-month-old Alise around the house. I remembered bathing little ten-year-old Alise, her splashing me with water, resulting in a water-fight that got us in trouble with Bubba and he gave us a stern talking. I remembered burying our dog, holding Alise as she sobbed, kissing her forehead. I remembered getting her ready for school every morning. I remembered Amara surprising eight-year-old Alise with a little kitten, a couple of months after Spark died, which she named Beau, despite everyone in town telling her it was a 'boy's name'. I remembered me being completely and utterly obsessed with one-year-old Alise, even at a young age. I remembered Bubba and Mama telling Amara and I that Mama was pregnant. I remembered Amara and I going trading at the Seam, me holding little three-year-old Alise. I remembered Bubba, Amara, Alise and I holding each other after Mama's funeral. I remembered Bubba wrapping my broken arm in a splint after Erica had broken it falling off a tree and I tried to catch her, Alise holding my hand the entire time. I remembered all the times I would put my tiny hand on Mama's tummy, feeling her kick at the spot where my hand would lay. I remembered all the nights I stayed up late with Alise, talking about school and boys and whatever our minds would think of. I remembered calming twelve-year-old Alise down for her first Reaping. I remembered her and Amara holding me after every single nightmare I had had about Nino or Mama. I remembered Bubba showing me little one-day-old Alise into my arms, I looked down at her tiny face, her eyes closed and I whispered a tiny 'hi', and a small smile appeared on her lil' baby face as she heard the words, as she heard my voice. I remembered that as I grew I silently swore to myself that I would protect her from all harm. And this was what all those years prepared me for. To face my biggest fear; having Alise be reaped.

'Why didn't you save me, Aurora? Why didn't you do something, Aurora?' Alise had said in my nightmare. I tried to do something but I failed. Now, I can't afford to fail. If I do, then I'm losing Alise and I'm going to be letting her down as a big sister. I'm going to be letting my whole family down as a big sister. And I'm not letting Alise down. Or Amara. Or Bubba.

Or Mama.

I made up my mind. I wasn't letting this happen. Absolutely not.

"No. No. NO!" I began chanting as I ran out of my row and ran towards Alise but four Peacekeepers stopped me, gathering around me, preventing me from getting to Alise. "No! NO! ALISE!" Alise had already moved from her spot in the crowd and was standing at the center, in the aisle between the boys and the girls. She was in the process of being led on stage by four other Peacekeepers when I called out to her. She turned around at the sound of my voice and at that moment I got a good look at her face. Her big doe eyes were scared and red due to the fact that she was crying, big, fat tears rolling down her dark brown cheeks.

"Aurora?" She asked, her voice so tiny I just barely heard it over my struggles against these damn Peacekeepers.

"Alise, no! Let me go, let me go! I-I," I screamed, not knowing what the next words I was going to say were going to be but at the same time knowing exactly what I was doing. I cried out as loud as I possibly could, "I volunteer!"

After hearing what I just said, the peacekeepers let go of me, instantly backing away from me, as if I had burned them.

"What?" Ms. Trinket's voice asked, her voice echoing through the silent town.

"I volunteer as tribute," I yelled, loud and clear, making sure everyone and their mother heard me.

"Oh? A volunteer? Well, it looks like we have a volunteer, everyone! That's just great!" Ms. Trinket announced, looking right at me. "Come on up!"

I pushed past the Peacekeepers and ran to Alise, instantly wrapping my arms around my little sister. I then bent down in front of her, keeping eye contact with her.

"Aurora, what are you doing?!" Alise screamed at me, not caring that every eye is currently on us.

"Keeping my promise, babe. Now go, Alise. Go to Bubba and Amara-" Alise cut me off.

"No!" She cried out, feeling her cries stab through my heart. I hated it when she cried.

"Alise, go find-" I tried again but she wasn't having it.

"No! No!" She screamed, grabbing onto my arms with the intent of never letting go.

"I'm so sorry-" I said but then the Peacekeepers decided that was enough, pulling us apart. Seconds later, I saw Stiles, appearing out of nowhere, grab Alise. She was refusing to move so he had to lift her up completely off the ground, putting her on his shoulder. While he did that, I saw he had tears in his eyes as he stared at me. Our eyes locked for a second and then suddenly he was off.

"No! NO! AURORA! NO!" Alise screamed as she was carried away, continuing to scream as Scott quickly followed them, not before casting me a look that broke my heart.

I was then led to the stairs of the stage by four Peacekeepers. I slowly made my way up as I digested what just happened in these last few minutes. I'm a tribute now. I'm going into the Hunger Games. I'm possibly going to die.

"District Twelve's very first volunteer, ever. Come on, dear, come on up," Ms. Trinket acknowledged me and as I reached the last step, she gently but firmly grasped my hand, pulling me fully on stage and guiding me towards the microphone at center stage.

"Hello, hello! And what is your name?" Ms. Trinket asked her colored lips in an even bigger smile than before.

"My... uh, my name is Aurora Galloway," I answered, still not knowing whether I should feel happy that I saved Alise or sad because I might definitely never see my family or friends ever again. No more Lydia, no more Allison, or Erica, or Amara, or Issac. No more Scott, or Malia, or Kira. No more Stiles. No more Bubba, or Alise. That's it, it's over for me.

"I suppose that that beautiful little girl I called was your sister, huh?" I numbly nodded, glancing at Ms. Trinket and then looking around. I saw Lydia, Allison, Kira, and Malia holding each other as Lydia sobbed loudly. I turned and saw Derek holding Amara and Bubba holding Alise, who was sobbing on his chest, I could tell by the fact that her shoulders were shaking up and down.

Bubba was also crying, which tore at my heartstrings even more. The sight of my Daddy crying will always hurt. He deserves more than what this life offered him. I'd bring him the moon if he asked me to.

"Yes, that was," I answered as I guess my nod wasn't enough of an answer for Ms. Trinket as she leaned the microphone towards my mouth.

"Well, let's give a hand to our volunteer, Ms. Aurora Galloway!" Ms. Trinket told the crowd, as she began to clap lightly herself.

Not a single person besides her clapped. All I could hear was sniffs and sobs coming from multiple people. My eyes scanned the crowd once again and, at first, I didn't know what I was searching for until I found it. I was subconsciously searching for Scott and Stiles. Scott was crying, his brown puppy-dog eyes red and he had tears running down his face. Stiles was crying too, but he looked different, he looked more in pain. He wouldn't take his whiskey-colored eyes off me and in any other circumstances, I would have been blushing like a little school girl like I was earlier. But right now, it felt like my heart couldn't take any more of this. More of looking at my friends crying for me. More of my family looking like... like they were already mourning me.

And suddenly something happened. As if it was planned I saw all the townspeople, instead of clapping as Ms. Trinket told them to, they all, one after the other, put up their three straight middle fingers, kissing the fingers and raising it up high above their heads. I was shocked at the use of this old gesture. I never knew this district knew me like that, knew me enough to say they love me. I was reminded of a conversation I had with Ms. McCall; she had told me that everyone knew about The Galloways.

'Everyone loved your mother,' she told me once. 'She was a great healer, a good conversationalist too. She was just a great... friend, not just to me and... Claudia, but to everyone. Everyone was dying to see her be with your father too. He is, was, and always will be a good man. When they got married, nearly everyone came down to the wedding. Everyone loved you, Amara, and Alise too, since you girls act so much like her. After her death, it was like a disconnect. Everyone mourns in a different way. Maybe that's why the townspeople don't really talk to you all as much as they did before. Must see too much of her in you.'

'Do you really think I act just like Mama did?' I asked her. My father told me that I reminded him so much of her but I honestly don't see it. Mama was such a kind person, I felt like I wasn't as good as her, or that I'll ever be.

'Yes. You all do.' Ms. McCall began, looking off into the distance as she spoke to me and at that moment, I felt my heart break for Ms. Melissa McCall. She had gone through so much I just wanted to give her a big hug. She lost both of her best friends and her husband. It made me hate Death for stalking her so much in her life. She deserves so much more. 'Amara took your mother's maturity and her sympathetic side and is understanding just like her. Alise is thoughtful and bold, always saying what she felt was needed, not caring who heard, just like Rose. And you, Aurora, you got a little bit of everything from your mother. You might not see it but you are selfless, charming, cunning, witty, and smart. You are a beautiful young girl, Aurora, and you'll grow up to be a wonderful woman. Just like Amara is becoming, and just like your mother.'

So that's why we always got good deals while trading. And that's why the townspeople are saluting me now. It makes sense now. The townspeople were thanking me. The townspeople admired me.

The townspeople were saying goodbye to someone they love.

"And now, for the boys," Ms. Trinket continued and just like that, I was brought back down to reality. Ms. Trinket walked over to the other massive ballot that was meant for the boys and she reached in, pulling out another slip of paper. As she did that I wondered, 'Who's the poor soul who I might kill or might kill me?' And then it really hit me. I'm going to have to kill people. Children. I'm going to have to kill children. I'm going to have to take the life of someone's child. I just turned sixteen and in just a couple weeks, I'm going to become a killer. I can't kill, how will live my life, if I even survive this shit, with blood on my hands? How will I be able to do this without killing someone?

Ms. Trinket tore open the slip and read the name, leaning towards the microphone.

"Liam Dunbar," Ms. Trinket called out and I couldn't help it but I look for the boy. I quickly spotted the poor boy as the boys surrounding him moved away from him, keeping their distance from the boy as if he had the plague or something. Probably hoping the Peacekeepers wouldn't make a mistake and grab the wrong kid. The kid, Liam, looked around, shocked at his name being called but he reluctantly went with the Peacekeepers. And Lord was it heartbreaking to see him come up. He looked so scared. And as I watched him come up the stairs I'd realized seen him before. His family owns a bakery in town and he is also in Alise's grade, I've seen him going into some of her classes. The boy must be fourteen too. And for some reason, I felt the need to hug and comfort him, tell him everything would be alright.

I shook the weird feeling off and realized he was staring right back at me. I looked down, not wanting to see him staring at me any longer. I felt Ms. Trinket walked away from me so I guess she was guiding him towards center stage, where I was like she did to me. I glanced up when I saw Mr. Trinket's bold colorful outfit in the corner of my eye and saw they were standing right next to me, her hand on Liam's shoulder.

"Here we are, our tributes from District Twelve," Ms. Trinket rehashed and looked at the crowd again. My eyes found my father once again and I saw that this time, Mr. Stilinski and Ms. McCall were at his side, Mr. Stilinski had his hand on Bubba's shoulder and Ms. McCall was holding his hand. They both looked like they were crying too. And chastised myself for looking at them again, I have to stop looking, I'm on the brink of having a breakdown right in front of the whole District and that'll make me seem weak. And I definitely can't go into these games looking weak.

Ms. Trinket continued, "Now, come on you two, shake hands."

I turned to Liam and really looked at him, like really looked at him. And I felt this feeling of familiarity, it was weird. I felt like... I knew him from somewhere else, not just from the bakery or from Alise's classes, it was on the tip of my tongue and nearly driving me nuts because why the hell can't I remember this boy? But I scrapped the thought for now and reached my hand out, at the same time he did. We shook hands awkwardly but at the same time firmly. Ms. Trinket practically beamed at the sight.

"Once again, happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor..." Ms. Trinket finished and turned around to us, gently grabbing both Liam and me by our shoulders and leading us towards the large dark door. I've seen this door so many times before, from past Reapings obviously, but I never really thought I'd ever see myself going through it. The door was guarded by two Peacekeepers and once we walked through the doors, the doors were promptly shut behind us.

"Come along now, quickly. You have a limited amount of time," Ms. Trinket rushed, her heels clicking on the empty hallway she led us down. I didn't even bother to ask what she meant by that and just quietly followed her. We were led into a room and the Peacekeeper opened the door.

"Aurora, this is your stop," Ms. Trinket informed me and I glanced at her and Liam and walked in the small room. I turned to look and they had already been closing the door behind me.

And like that, I was left to my own devices. There was a chair in this room and I knew better than to just sit in it but it's all kind of just hitting me and my legs felt like jelly and god ohmygod I'm going to die. I shook my head, chastising myself again for thinking like that.

'No, Aurora, stop thinking like that! Do you want to see your family again? You want to live! You must win!' I thought to myself as I took a seat.

'But I can't kill people, I can't have blood on my hands,' I pondered, wondering how in the fuck I would survive these games, how would I go about this all while avoiding murdering someone. I struggle enough just by hunting birds and squirrels, and I know that's for survival, but in the end, it's still a life and I still feel bad. Maybe it'll help if I view it as hunting? This is basically the same thing as hunting. I have to survive. It's necessary death. But... I can't; that's someone's child right there. But at the same time, I'm someone's child too.

'Ugh, this is so fucking terrible,' I thought to myself as I racked my brain for a way out and every solution I came up with just came with another flaw or a problem and I felt my blood boil with anger. I hate these fucking Games. But I have to survive, I have to come back, to Scott, Isaac and Ms. McCall, to Lydia and her mom and the Tates. I have to come back and see Kira. I have to come back to Allison and the Argents; I'll miss her like crazy. I have to come back to Boyd and Erica and the twins. And I have to come back to Danny. I have to come back to the Hales and I have to come back to Mr. Stilinski and... Stiles. Stiles. I have to come back for him, to him. I'll miss him and Scott so much. And when I do, hopefully, I will tell him how I feel. No more waiting around. No more secrets.

And most importantly, I have to come back for Bubba and Alise. And Amara. We are all we have. I can't leave them, I can't let myself get taken away as that Peacekeeper did to us with Mama. I have to come back to them.

And in that room, I promised myself that I would kill only if I absolutely had to. Because I might think about others and their well-being and why I shouldn't kill them but that doesn't mean they're doing that to me.

And as I stared off into space, looking at the wall in front of me in the small, quiet room, I realized something. I realized that I wasn't really freaking out as much as I felt like I should anymore. And I wondered why am I not shaking at the fact that I might die in a few weeks? And it hit me. I have a shot at this, it's slim but a shot's a shot. And I remembered why.

'Thank God Mama taught me archery and Bubba taught me knife-throwing. Without those, I would be a lost cause in these Games,' I thought, slightly chucking because I used to complain about why I should learn to them constantly when I was younger and when I was around thirteen I realized I could use my skills to hunt and now, look at how handy they'll come in for these stupid Games.

And in that very moment the door opened, the loud noise startles me and I looked up, seeing Alise, Amara, Bubba, and the Hales. And that was what officially caused me to break down.

➳

and there’s chapter two !!! as always, feedback is always appreciated !! ♡

#stiles stilinski #stiles stilinski fic #teen wolf crossover #teen wolf fic #teen wolf rewrite #stiles fic #hunger games #hunger games fic #teen wolf #black women #woc #stiles #girl on fire #black original character #stiles stilinski x black!oc #oc: aurora galloway

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crystalelemental · 5 years ago

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While I’m busy annoying fans of Genealogy with my general disinterest in its cast, here are some other characters I have strong opinions about:

Sigurd’s not nearly as interesting as people make him out to be. The main action leading to him being branded a traitor was super avoidable and his squire even points out that he’s making a mistake. His “romance” with Deirdre is one of the most shallow things the series has produced, and literally none of the awful events of Act 2 would’ve happened if he had just kept it in his pants. His actions during the war are made with good intentions that often lead to further conflict, but most of the critical actions that cause disaster were super avoidable and complete his fault. Good job, moron.

Arvis is also a putz. Look, I get it. His entire point is that he’s trying to build the world for the better, but is highly questionable in his means. Cool concept! Problem is we spend like no time with him, and the only indications of this are his discussions with Manfroy, where he talks about how he’s not going to persecute them like in ages past, but he’s also definitely not going to let them revive the baby eating god they worship. Okay, solid. The issue is, he knows full well he carries Loptyr blood, and that’s why Manfroy is sticking around. And suddenly, Manfroy appears with some lady with amnesia, and is oddly insistent on you fucking this woman and having kids. Did...did you never think about who this woman was, or why Manfroy’s so invested in her sex life? This is not a difficult conclusion to reach, buddy.

I mentioned Eldigan, but it bears repeating: I hate the Camus archetype, and he’s one of the most annoying. “I am honor-bound to follow my lord’s every command, I cannot join you and must instead try to get them to see reason.” Yeah, and you know who else had this exact dilemma like two chapters ago? Jamke. Guess who’s on our side now, after realizing how fucked up his king was? Jamke. There’s no reason you couldn’t do this too. Honestly, every time the Camus archetype shows up for a leader who is a complete buffoon, I always think of Wallace’s supports with Kent in FE7. How his king ordered him to capture his daughter and bring her back from the plains, no matter what. But when Wallace saw the love she shared with the man from the plains, he let her go, because he knew his king would never forgive himself if he tore Lyn’s parents apart. Wallace put what was best for his king ahead of the order, and the entire moral is that, even if you’re punished for it, your duty is not to the title, but to the person, and you must act in the best interests of the people you serve, not blindly follow a command that would cause everyone harm. So yeah, I don’t care to hear about the honor-bound idiots who are given plenty of chances to do the right thing but insist on staying with a sinking ship that’s also on fire.

Deirdre is a non-entity, so there’s really no point in talking about her. Seriously, she exists almost entirely to produce the children that will be plot-critical in Act 2, but otherwise has effectively zero agency. She shows up and immediately wants to fuck Sigurd, spends one chapter helping, and is immediately kidnapped afterward to be brainwashed and become Arvis’ wife. Then she dies off-screen before the events of Act 2. But she and Sigurd just loved each other so much! They just saw each other and had such an overwhelming desire to fuck, it must have been love! At least Deirdre’s excuse is being secluded away from men all her life and not knowing how to handle these feelings; what’s Sigurd’s excuse?

Quan and Ethlyn are actually wonderful. No complaints. But I do have another for Sigurd. Hey, remember when they died? Remember when Sigurd is told that people were ambushed in the desert and everyone’s dead, and he pieces together that it was his sister and his best friend? Remember how that comment is all we get for his reaction to their loss, how it’s never brought up a single time ever again, and how Sigurd shows absolutely nothing about the devastation of this loss? Yeah, but hey, it’s fine, you don’t need more dialogue to make a compelling story. It just would’ve been nice for Genealogy to be a compelling story by having characters actually matter more than they apparently do.

Ayra’s cool, but her brother’s an idiot. In her conversation with Quan, she mentioned that Quan’s suspicion is correct, and that the king was not responsible for the deaths of those from Grannvale. A random lord took action without consent, so the king had that lord executed, and went to make peace with Grannvale, only to be assassinated along the way. So what does her brother do? “We gotta go to war.” Uh...you know you’ll be slaughtered, right? “Yeah, but my honor, though.” Gen 1 was mostly a bunch of morons given political power and asked to play intelligently. They all fucked up.

Lewyn...okay, I don’t like Lewyn. I get his whole thing is running from responsibility, and being tired of the in-fighting over the crown, but his solution of just leaving is petty and childish. It’s not that there isn’t some level of understanding there. He’s just not doing it for me. I do, however, appreciate how self-loathing he is in Gen 2.

No one else in Gen 1 really matters at all to anything substantial, so boy, it’d have been nice to have support conversations to flesh out everyone else a bit more. But hey, maybe the sequel, right?

Seliph is pretty cool. I don’t have a ton to say, but his story kinda allows him to take an easier route to power, with a more clear antagonist and the world at large being more united in his cause of overthrowing the empire. Not particularly compelling, but not doing anything stupid or uninteresting.

Leif inherits being awesome from both of his parents, who were also awesome. His sister, Altena, is also really cool. Altena in particular actually gets a lot. Having been taken in by the man who killed her parents, she’s grown up thinking that he is her true father. Her character is in a position to act more as a bridge between two smaller nations that have constantly been at war, having the bloodline connection to Leif and to Leonster, while having her upbringing in Thracia and feeling a family connection to Arion, the true son of Travant. She’s one of the better characters in this game, I think.

Ares is actually one of my favorites in this entire game. He and Lene have great supports, but more importantly, you know what sets Ares apart? Having a brain cell. As soon as he realizes the corrupt lord he works for sent him out to the front lines and has likely taken Lene captive, he immediately turns coat, intent on killing everyone in his way to save her. Thank you, Ares. Thank you for being better than your father, who would’ve meekly decided he can’t disobey orders because he’s totally too honorable and not a fucking coward for letting his sister almost get killed.

Julia...oh my god, I have so much to say on Julia. Has anyone following me noticed I kinda like the Eirika archetypes? The female characters that are mostly really collected and quiet, occasionally have a showing of fire, and are ultimately either heavily under-utilized and ignored by the plot or given a story that’s really not very good despite how strong their character could’ve been if the story weren’t...the way that it is? That’s Julia. I adore Julia. She spends most of the game not doing much, mostly being silent and also an amnesiac. She gets like two conversations with Seliph, and they’re...they’re okay. Nothing exceptional, just...okay. But hysterically, once she’s kidnapped, she starts to show the makings of a really great character. She’s compassionate and understanding to her father, who’s realized what a dingus he was, but pushes back against Julius/Loptyr and is pretty up-front about how willing she is now to kill her brother if it means stopping evil from being unleashed in the world. She refuses to go quietly, and claims she’ll fight them to the end. And, you know...is promptly brainwashed and spends the entire chapter as an enemy until Seliph kills Manfroy and lets her snap out of it. Not even just talks to her, that won’t work unless Manfroy’s dead. She doesn’t even get enough agency to break free of control under her own will. This is the issue with Julia. She should be fantastic. She’s a character who carries the blood of both Naga and Loptyr, the greatest good and the greatest evil of this world. Within her is a very concrete expression of the good/evil dichotomy that all humans face, and through her actions she chooses to do good for the world, yet acknowledges the potential for evil within her and struggles against it. That’s super compelling! Hell, that’s the most compelling character narrative in this entire game! And what does it amount to? Jack fucking shit, because her declaration of intent is immediately sidelined for her to be controlled by another for the entire chapter and made to do evil, until the male hero breaks the spell for her. Only then is she allowed to confront her brother and actually show agency. Her character arc should’ve been the diamond in the rough, and all the agency and development she brings to the table is immediately undermined. Julia, sweetie, you deserved so much better than this.

Ugh, that one hurt to complain about. But since we’re on the topic, Julius. We’re supposed to be sad about how he’s completely taken over by Loptyr and needs to be stopped. But...we never really know anything about Julius. At all. Julia talks a bit about how he used to be kind, but that’s...that’s it. There’s no effort to have her and Arvis share stories about what the family used to be like, or give any indication of how close they were aside from saying it was the case once or twice. So the plight of Julius, the boy who’s possessed, is completely lost on us, and as a result, Julia’s decision to fight against and kill her brother if that’s what it takes, feels a little less impactful, because you just...don’t have any emotional attachment to what’s being lost.

Ishtar is another Camus archetype, but a rare one where I kinda like her? Kinda. She’s come far enough to recognize that Julius is killing people and it’s a problem, and does her utmost to circumvent his violent tendencies and save people. So why doesn’t she just leave? Well even that’s pretty taken care of. She was the betrothed of Julius. She loved him. Which means she’s another character who could’ve had meaningful dialogue about who he used to be to build up tension, but we’re not talking about that now. She stays in part because of that love, but also because he’s violent, and seems to have his eye on her at all times. She’s effectively stuck in an abusive relationship, unable to make a move for fear of what retaliation he might exact on her or the people she’s trying to keep safe. That’s a way more compelling reason for a character to stick with an awful ruler. It sucks, but at least it’s ultimately understandable, unlike Eldigan over here.

Oifey and Shanan I feel like should be more interesting characters, but they don’t really get enough time to be much else. And if those two, who are meant to be prominent, got very little, you can kinda guess that the rest of the cast has basically nothing going for them.

Honestly, a lot of the events of Genealogy at large feel super avoidable, and largely created by idiots being allowed to make decisions. But on the smaller level, and especially within Gen 2, I feel like all the game needs is support conversations and maybe more dialogue that didn’t focus so heavily on bloodlines. The history is interesting, but it comes at the expense of most character development, and that’s really not a good trade. I know people hate when I bring it up, but maybe if the maps were actually chunked and made into several smaller chapters, we could use wind-up and conclusion to castles being taken as a means to fill in more character moments, instead of just having quick exposition dumps and moving on.

#fire emblem genealogy

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artificialqueens · 6 years ago

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Everything I Know, Chapter One (Rajila, Hunger Games AU)

AN: English is not my first language so I’m sorry for any grammatical mistakes!

Blood coated Manila’s hand for the fifth time that day, seeping through the light fabric of her jumpsuit as a cannon fired a shot into the air. This year, the arena was a huge desert, and the scent of blood on the sand made her think of gladiators and what she had learnt in History class at school. That’s what the Hunger Games was, she decided, a chance for the Capitol to get off on the adrenaline of watching twenty-four teenagers kill each other. Well, there were only four of them left now.

A cannon went off in the distance.

Three.

She had always expected to get this far, she was a Career, after all. The others did not stand a chance. District One was by far the richest and strongest of all of the districts. Whilst many of the other competitors had died from hunger or thirst, Manila had been sent enough food and water to feed a small family. Pity she had made no alliances – she had no one to share it with. She and her mentor, twenty-one-year-old Raja Gemini, had decided that alliances were too risky. Don’t bare your back to someone who will eventually try to kill you.

It really was a pity, though. Manila had practised with the District Four girl, Latrice Royale, during training and had half-wanted to be friends. As far as she knew, they were now the only ones left. Well, them and the Vixen, the fifteen-year-old competitor from District Two, whose real name was unknown. An all-female finale. How fitting– the Capitol would love it. They always adored it when girls killed people.

A parachute descended from the sky and Manila looked up, alert to any danger. It wasn’t anything deadly, though, just something from her mentor. A water-bottle filled with some type of energy drink and a few handfuls of unsalted nuts. It seemed that Raja and her sponsors thought that everything would be over soon, or else Manila would have been given something more substantial. She ate the nuts quickly and downed the drink in a few swift gulps, knowing that her sponsors would send her more if she needed it. The note attached was short and simple, in Raja’s spiky handwriting.

You’ve got this - R

Did she? Manila wasn’t sure. She had dispatched eight competitors over the three days of the competition, far more than Latrice or the Vixen put together. She knew the numbers were in her favour but that about was it. Her weapon was a dagger, not suited to ranged combat. It all depended on what the finale was going to be, and whether she had the stomach to kill more people than she already had. Manila was tired of blood.

At that moment, a voice came over the loudspeakers, filling the arena with its booming timbre.

“You have reached the final three, well done.” It was RuPaul, the head Gamemaker. Manila tightened her grip on her dagger. This was it. “For your last challenge, you will be asked to head to the Cornucopia. I’ll leave it to you to decide what to do once you are there.”

The Cornucopia, now that was an unwelcome surprise. Manila knew the Vixen had been hiding there, feeding on the supplies originally left there and hiding from the harsh rays of the sun. She bothered no one and no one wanted to go near her because of her weapon, a gleaming metal gun. Ranged combat with the Vixen would kill Manila, she knew this. She heaved a deep sigh and shrugged off her backpack. She wouldn’t need supplies now.

She walked barefoot on the sand, her shoes having been discarded on the first day. Manila couldn’t remember why. The last three days had been a heady blur of blood and death that she couldn’t wait to end. There were only two possible outcomes. Either she would die, or she would not. She wasn’t quite sure which she would prefer to occur. Her feet were scorched by the hot sand, her pale skin burnt by the punishing sun, and her heart was heavy in her chest. She was ready to give up, if truth be told. She was a Career, but she had not dreamt of it in the same way her friends had. When she was little, she had wanted to be an artist or a dressmaker, someone who could use the luxurious materials that District One produced for the Capitol. She could have made it big, she thought, had it not been for the Hunger Games.

Manila approached the Cornucopia cautiously. She could see the Vixen standing in the horn’s shadow, the outline of a gun in her hands. In her opinion, it was an unfair sponsorship present, even if the girl had not used it to kill a single person. It was easier to kill with a gun than with a knife. However, she doubted the Vixen had the nerve to kill. Even though she was a Career, she was young to have come so far in the competition. Someone should have volunteered to save her.

Bang!

Manila jumped as a bullet whistled past her ear. Fuck. The Vixen had evidently spotted her standing there and had fired out a shot. Luckily, she had missed. Manila looked around her, assessing the situation. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

“Eat it, bitch!” snapped a voice from behind her.

Fuck. Latrice was standing only six feet away from her, clutching a sharp trident. Manila eyed her nervously. Another ranged weapon. This fight did not seem like it would go her way. However, Latrice just gave a tight smile and jogged past her, sweat beading on her dark skin. Why had she saved her? They were taught in Career Training to never leave a competitor alive. Manila held back as Latrice made her way towards the Vixen, feet as light as a cat on the hunt. She was barefoot too but did not even limp as she stalked towards the younger girl.

“Go away!” screamed the Vixen. Manila had never heard her speak before, her voice was far higher and more delicate than she had imagined. “I’ll shoot you!”

“Do it,” said Latrice, calling her bluff. “Do you really think you will win this?”

Manila doubted that the Vixen would dare—

Bang!

Latrice stumbled, muttering something under her breath as she clutched her abdomen.

Bang!

Another bullet hit Latrice’s side, sending her lurching to the sand. Unconsciously, Manila started forward to help before her Career instincts told her to stay back. She had not trained for her entire life just to end up dying whilst helping someone. Anyway, Latrice had not lost the will to fight. She picked herself up one final time and threw her trident with all of her might, as if she was spearing a particularly difficult fish. There was a sound like a bunch of sticks being snapped as the trident ploughed into the Vixen’s chest. She was dead before she hit the hot sand of the arena.

Latrice’s large brown eyes were wet with tears as she removed her trident from the young girl’s body. The Vixen’s bullets had left a deep wound on her abdomen and Manila winced at the sight of crimson flesh giving away to reveal the sharp white of her hipbone. There was no fight left in her, not anymore. She let her trident hit the sand before her and fell to her knees. Manila was surprised she had managed to get this far; District Four warriors had no training in these conditions, since they lived and worked on water. That said, killing the girl in front of her was her ticket out of here. The girl who had volunteered as a Tribute, saving the life of a scrawny eleven-year-old she didn’t even know.The girl who was crying into her hands, blood pooling around her as she knelt at Manila’s feet. The girl whose sobs were punctuated with Manila’s name.

“Please, Manila, make it quick.”

She didn’t even beg for her life.

Manila had never hesitated to kill before. Girls in District One were put through the rigorous Career Training school, which ended each year with a one-on-one fight to the death in lieu of final exams. She had killed her first person at the age of ten and regretted none of the deaths she had caused. They were weaker, they deserved to die. She certainly had no patience for people who begged for their lives like pitiful animals. But Latrice had not begged to be spared. Her eyes were open, staring at Manila with an open level of trust and affection that Manila had never experienced before. Careers didn’t have friends or family, it made them weak.

“Latrice…” she said softly.

“Don’t fuck around with it,” said Latrice. “Just stick your dagger at the base of my throat, where my shoulders hit my neck, see? There’s an artery there. It shouldn’t take too long. Be merciful, please.”

It then came to Manila. “I don’t want to.”

“Does it matter?” Latrice’s tone was sharper now, desperate for some sort of closure.

“It should.” Manila swallowed, the dagger heavy in her hand. “It really should.”

“Well, it doesn’t.” Latrice closed her eyes and tilted her head to one side, revealing the soft skin of her neck. “One of us is going to die, anyway. Why shouldn’t it be me?”

That made sense. Manila knew she would have won a fight against the wounded girl anyway. At least this way she wouldn’t suffer needlessly. She aimed her dagger carefully but was caught by an errant thought before she could follow through with the movement.

“Latrice?”

Latrice opened her eyes warily. “Yeah?”

“Why did you go for the Vixen and not me?” Manila asked. “You could have easily killed us both.”

Latrice laughed weakly, her breaths rattling in her chest. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Manila softened her grip on the knife.

“No, I don’t.” Her dark eyes were sad. “I just thought… you know, during training… maybe, if we were in a different situation, we might have been friends.”

Manila wetted her lips with her tongue. “I’ve never had a friend before.”

“Neither have I.” Latrice shrugged, tears falling freely now. “Careers don’t have friends.”

On some strange impulse, Manila dropped to her knees alongside the girl and wrapped her arms around her. Maybe she wouldn’t need to kill Latrice. Maybe she would die without her intervention. But that wouldn’t be the merciful way to do this, and Manila knew it. It was just hard to hurt the other girl when she could feel every fast beat of Latrice’s heart against her chest. Latrice could have been a friend. For once in her life, Manila didn’t know what to do. She had never had a friend before. Not unless Raja counted—but she didn’t want to think about Raja.

“We could have been friends,” Manila said softly, hoping it would be some sort of comfort. “I would have liked to be.”

She could feel Latrice smile against her chest as she took her knife and plunged it into the top of her neck, where her spine met her skull. Manila thought it was a credit to her dagger skills that the girl didn’t even flinch as she died. Hot blood coated her hands for the sixth time that day, mixing with the blood, sweat, and sand that already covered them. She didn’t move away, though. Something was different about Latrice’s death. She didn’t feel satisfied with her kill, or even about winning the Hunger Games. When the final cannon went off, Manila was frozen in the same position she had been in when Latrice died, cradling the larger girl’s body against her own. She didn’t even blink as RuPaul’s voice broke the silence:

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victor of the ninetieth Hunger Games, Manila Luzon!”

Loud music and cheering suddenly rang out over the arena and Manila was broken out of her reverie. Why the fuck were they cheering? She leapt to her feet and looked around, breathing heavily. Was there something else she had missed? Was there going to be another challenge? A hovercraft materialised overhead, and a ladder dropped towards her. Manila stared at it for one long moment. There was no way she was getting on that thing. For all she knew, it could be a trap. She covered her ears against the noise and ran away from the hovercraft, feet slipping in the hot sand.

Manila had never liked running. In Career Training she had always been the slowest, the weakest, the least likely to get picked for races. That said, the feeling of her legs burning beneath her was the only thing keeping her present as she sprinted away from the hovercraft. She could feel Latrice’s blood on her like a macabre veil, a barrier between her and the world as she knew it. Manila knew that her only purpose was to kill, it had to be the right thing to do. Then why, she wondered, did it feel so wrong? Tears ran over her grimy face as she sprinted blindly through the desert, so confused and conflicted that she did not even feel the sting of the sedation dart as it hit the back of her neck.

* * *

When she woke, Manila wondered if she had died. The doorless, windowless room was filled with soft white light and smelled like artificial lemon. It was too clean and cool in comparison to the scorching heat of the desert. Manila didn’t trust it. She felt all too vulnerable in this white room, stripped naked and strapped to a bed. She felt some small relief when she realised that her arms were not, though the tubes fixed into her skin stopped her from moving too far. Manila didn’t like needles, especially not ones pumping her full of some mysterious liquid. She reached over to pull them out, but someone caught her hand before she could do more than brush her fingers over the plastic tubing.

“They’re to rehydrate you,” said a calm voice. “I wouldn’t remove them, if I were you.”

“Raja?” Manila’s voice was weak. She went to cover herself, embarrassed about being naked in front of her mentor, but Raja did not seem to be judging her.

“Manila, it’s okay.” Raja was standing by her bed, her free hand holding a tray full of something that Manila could not see. “It’s only me.”

“Why are you here?” Manila asked, dropping her hands to her lap.

“I came to bring you some food,” said Raja, placing a tray on her lap. “I didn’t think you would trust an Avox, well, I didn’t when first I came out of the Games. Didn’t eat for days.”

Well, thought Manila, that was different. Raja’s Games had lasted for three weeks compared to Manila’s three days. It wasn’t the same thing, and she wasn’t hungry, anyway. She’d rather go back to sleep than pick at whatever clear liquid was in that bowl.

“Not hungry,” she mumbled.

“Why don’t you try some?” asked her mentor. “You might surprise yourself.”

Manila nodded, too tired to argue. Her hands felt as if they were made from solid rubber as she tried to pick up the spoon, it was as difficult as grabbing a cube of ice. Once again, Raja stopped her, taking the spoon in her own slender hands and dipping it in the clear liquid.

“Open,” she said.

“I’m not a child,” Manila replied, pursing her lips.

“You’re not.” Raja’s hand still held the spoon. “Open. It’s just vegetable broth.”

It was easier to comply than to argue anymore, so Manila opened her mouth. The spoon clacked against her teeth as she swallowed one, then two, then three spoonfuls of the broth. It was not anything like the food she was used to eating in District One, but it was better than nothing. It lay easily in her stomach, at least. In what seemed to be no time at all, she had finished the bowl.

“Thank you,” she said, looking at the blanket. Her skin was sallow against the pristine white.

“It’s nothing,” said Raja.

“It is,” Manila protested. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” Raja said simply.

She picked up the bowl, put it on the tray, and made to leave the room. Manila’s heart dropped. Was Raja angry with her? Was she disgusted by what she had seen Manila do? When she had been training, morality had always been black and white but now it was all so complicated. Several shades of grey had appeared on the spectrum and Manila didn’t know where she stood.

“Raja,” she said, so quietly she doubted the older woman had heard her.

However, Raja paused as she reached the door. “Yeah?”

“It’s just that…” Manila looked at her hands, feeling the tears start again. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”

“Oh honey, no!” There was a soft clatter as Raja placed the tray on the floor and returned to Manila’s bedside, crouching down so she could look into her eyes. “No, of course I don’t think that.”

She wrapped her arms around Manila’s shoulders and Manila tried not to think of how good her mentor smelled, how soft her sweater was against her bare skin. Everyone knew that Raja Gemini was beautiful, the type of beautiful that went beyond gender or sexuality. Everyone loved Raja, and Manila most of all. Raja had saved her life four years ago, when she was only fourteen years old, though she tried not to think about her stupid childish infatuation when around her mentor. Anyway, even Raja couldn’t soothe the feeling of sad emptiness inside Manila’s chest.

“I think I did the wrong thing,” she said, hot tears dropping onto the bedcover.

#everything i know #rajila #hunger games au #death #violence #angst #raja gemini #manila luzon #rpdr fanfiction #submission #not a writer #lesbian au

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solisluccile · 4 years ago

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commaeleons · 7 years ago

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The ramble about bird!Dirk’s wings in The Price for Fire that literally no one asked for

but i'm up hours before my alarm and i’m having Feelings(TM), so here have some word vomit anyway sorry if i make you cry

So okay let’s talk about anatomy and motion and flight and how this all plays into Dirk’s narrative arc.

I mention in...chapter 4, I think? that despite having these massive wings strapped to his back, Dirk can’t fly. And okay the real reason behind that is that frankly I didn’t want to deal with the complications that allowing him to travel in three dimensions like that would involve, but as is so often the case, that gave me the opportunity to do some interesting things with him.

So, first of all: The in-universe reasons why Dirk can’t fly.

Reason number one: He doesn’t have a keel bone. Birds’ sternums are shaped very very differently from humans’ in order to support the flight muscles across their chests. Without that, Dirk’s muscular structure is literally incapable of flapping his wings strongly enough to carry his weight. Whenever Dirk does flap his wings, it’s as a slight boost to his jumps, usually to get him up to the lower branches of the trees.

(Note also that Dirk does not have hollow bones--except possibly in his wings; i haven’t decided--so he weighs substantially more than a bird of his size would. This is reason number two.)

Reason number three: Dirk’s skeletal structure severely limits his range of motion in his arms and wings. A bird’s wings emerge from the torso at the shoulder, and they have a fairly similar range of motion from that joint. Dirk’s, however, come out of his back. I have admittedly fudged this a few times already for dramatic effect (blah blah if he rolls his shoulders forwards in a certain way it opens up room on his back for the wing joints to move more freely but it’s not very comfortable so he doesn’t do it often i can make excuses all day), but at least in theory, he shouldn’t be able to bring his wings forward much past his ribs because the connection to his torso literally doesn’t work that way. When Dirk’s wings are relaxed, they don’t go sideways, they go backwards. (at an angle, but still.)

Then there’s the trouble with having too many limbs in a space that’s not really designed for it. I’m hand-waving the details here because tbh life’s too short to go on a dissertation about how the bones would articulate, but what I imagine is that Dirk has a second set of shoulder blades that support the wings, and his two sets of shoulder blades interfere with each other. So, in addition to not being able to stretch his wings forward, Dirk also can’t roll his arms back. Very much limited range of motion.

What this all means for Dirk

Basically, that his life sucks. He can’t use his wings to fly, they fuck with his ability to move his arms, they’re fucking heavy (there’s a reason Dirk usually keeps them folded up tight; the closer he keeps them to his center of gravity, the easier it is to support their weight), and oh yeah if he falls into a body of water they’ll get waterlogged and possibly drown him. (Most birds have oil glands, and they spread the oil over their wings while preening to waterproof them. The birds that don’t generally have specialized feathers that disintegrate into a powder that does the same job. Dirk has neither of these.)

On top of that, they’re really unwieldy and actually put him at a significant disadvantage if he needs to physically defend himself. Sure, he can try to use them to bat at whoever he’s fighting (like swans do), but again: He doesn’t have the muscular system that would give him real power behind those kinds of hits. Frankly, he’s much better off using his talons. But at that point, the wings are basically just huge weights that can easily be used against him because, like, if you’re trying to take Dirk down, all you have to do is grab hold of one of his wings and twist, and down he goes. Pin him on his front, and he can’t even use his talons. Game over.

And Dirk is very aware of this. It’s one of the many reasons he was so wary to interact with Jake when they first met. Like, Dirk was absolutely stalking Jake every day that he went out there, sizing him up and desperately hoping that Jake wouldn’t come back the next day. He only made his presence known when he determined that Jake was just not going to give this up and might, in fact, escalate if Dirk didn’t put an end to it. Coming down out of the tree at the end of that conversation was already a huge risk for Dirk, but he decided that if push came to shove, he could flare his wings, flash his talons, and startle Jake enough to get the space he would need to escape. (Dirk is very much flight over fight in this ‘verse. He’s not interested in taking down his opponent; he just needs to get away.)

How this plays into his narrative arc (aka that’s a hell of a symbolism no one thought was a symbolism but damn if it didn’t just get symbolized so nice job)

(okay so before i go into this section i need to admit that most of this was not stuff that i consciously planned for when i set out, but fuck it sure turned out this way and i love it)

So we’ve got Dirk with his big pretty wings and his tragic fucking past, and guys. Guys. It is the height of poetic irony.

Because wings are so often a symbol of freedom, but in Dirk’s case, they are very much the opposite. Even beyond the fact that he can’t fly, they literally limit his range of motion (anatomically) and his freedom to travel (because those wings are hella distinctive, and it would be all too easy for his past to catch up to him). They limit him immensely in so many ways.

Dirk sees his wings as ornamental, functionally worse-than-useless lies. And he’s not wrong.

One of the themes I play with in The Price for Fire (and for Dirk, especially), is that of deceptive appearances. We’ve got his “cozy cave” which turns out to be a sort of self-made prison; we’ve got this fantastical bird boy who turns out to be pretty much mundane, aside from his backstory and truly impressive anxiety; we’ve got those ember-bright eyes which turn out to be a subtle dig at humanity (“the price for fire,” indeed: you can have your fire, but it comes with the rest of this package); we’ve got his whole backstory where a blessing turned out to be a curse; we’ve got that beautifully decorated jar, which turns out to be...well, you get the point.

And we’ve got these gorgeous wings that make him feel ugly and trapped.

And Dirk doesn’t--can’t--take care of them like he should, because he was never meant to be able to. He was meant to be a disposable plot device; used and then tossed out. (How many other myths do you know of where the big P plays a role?) But his story doesn’t end there, and he has to struggle to find a reason to love himself now that the one that was given to him is gone--now that the one that was given to him turned out to be a venomous snake that poisoned everything about him that he thought could be good.

But he’s still carrying the weight of that disregard and that lack of care/love literally on his back, and it weighs him down. Disillusioned, he’s so cynical when this beacon of hope appears in his life and tries to convince him that there is something in him worth loving, that he can reclaim his beauty, his body, his life, his story and make it what he wants. And he wants to believe that’s true, but he’s spent so long knowing down to the core of him that he was made to be a trick, a trap, and it’s so hard to trust in anything when you can’t even trust yourself.

But he’ll get there.

And maybe he’ll even find a little bit of freedom.

i just fucking love this sad sad bird boy okay T_T

#disclaimer: i have spent literally years thinking about birdperson anatomy #but i am still not a bird expert so some of this may be inaccurate #and that is fine with me #also i absolutely made myself cry by the end of this #just jdklajdlfkajdl i have a lot of feelings about birdboy Dirk #the price for fire #meta #birdpeople #wings #homestuck #dirk strider

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