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kathleenkatmary · 4 days ago

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My Top 30 Movies of 2024 (as of 12/31/24)

Disclaimer: This is by no means my 'completed' list. There are still a lot of movie I want to see that I won't have access to for awhile yet. I don't usually 'close out' - though I never really 'close out' my yearly lists - until around Oscar time. But I always like to take stock of what my list looks like at the actual end of the year. So here that is. I'll have more complete version around the end of February/beginning of March. Also, I tend to do go by non-festival domestic (US) release dates to determine the year of a movie's release, roughly going by Academy Awards eligibility. But I am kind of loose with that if a movie becomes widely available, even if only on the high seas, before it gets a non-festival US release.

30. A Different Man

A Different Man is the year's most effective exploration of identity and loneliness. It's hardly the first story or movie to look at the idea that changing the physical things that you don't like about yourself won't necessarily make you feel less lonely or more equipped to connect with other people, but it does it in such an interesting way. It's equal parts sad and anxiety inducing.

29. Blood for Dust

This is definitely one of the most underrated movies of the year. It seems that the perception of this is that it's just another low-grade suspense/thriller, but it's actually a really dark look at what modern poverty looks like for so many people, the desperate state the broken system we live in leaves people in, and the lengths people are willing to go to in an attempt to escape it. Every moment is infused with a feeling of dread, but even then it's so easy to relate to Scoot McNairy's character and his choices because of the situation he's in.

28. Civil War

I wouldn't say that Civil War is an apolitical movie, but it's completely uninterested in the one side versus the other side politics that led to the titular war. Instead, it explores the politics of journalism during such a time, the role journalism plays in such a world, and what existing in that line of work does to a person. Through a character like Kirsten Dunst's Lee it shows war as a fact of every day life, and it looks at the United States would look like in that kind of situation.

27. Caddo Lake

Caddo Lake is probably the biggest surprise of the year for me. I went into it knowing pretty much nothing, and what I got was a deeply melancholy time travel tale that used it's sci-fi storyline to dig into ideas of how we're tied to the generations of our family that came before us and how those connections and the things that happened to the people who came before us echo through the generations and continue to impact us. It's such an incredibly effective use of time travel to tell a very human story.

26. The Substance

I doubt I have much to say about The Substance that others haven't already said. Is it subtle? Of course not, but I don't think it needs to be. The over the top atmosphere and slightly bizarro world it sets up feels like the perfect fit for the story it's telling. It's not saying anything that plenty of other pieces of media haven't said, but I do think it captures that feeling of living in a femme body in this culture better than most other movies of this type.

25. Alien: Romulus

I've been a fan of the Alien franchise since I was a kid in the 90s, but it's been in a weird place for a long time. Alien: Romulus feels like a return to form, prioritizing the horror over the sci-fi much of the time and not getting to bogged down with lore and backstory. Most of the characters do feel kind of like stock characters, but the movie does a good job of giving them all solid motivation for their actions and behaviors. And Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson give such great performances, providing the movie with its emotional core.

24. Wicked Little Letters

Wicked Little Letters is a fun movie that unapologetically places women of all kinds at its center. Yes, it's a movie about a feud between two women, but at its core its a movie about the way society pits women against each other, and how we'll always be stronger together. It's also got one of the best ensemble casts of the year, lots of women with amazing chemistry and perfect comic timing.

23. Between the Temples

Definitely the most anxiety inducing moviegoing experience of the year. But it's also one of the sweetest. It's another exploration of loneliness - a theme that's been popular and will probably continue to be - but this one is quite hopeful about finding connection in unexpected places. At its heart it's a love story, but not in the traditional way.

22. Nosferatu

The 1922 original is one of my all time favorite movies, so I was both excited for and a bit skeptical about Robert Eggers's remake. While I don't think it ever reaches the heights of FW Murnau's original or Werner Herzog's version from the 1970s, and while some of the performances could be better in spots, Eggers has such a feel for the dark atmosphere of the story and such an interesting take on the titular vampire. And I think he went in a really interesting route by putting the ideas of grooming and sexual assault that are just sort of naturally an aspect of this story at the forefront.

21. Witches

Looking at the witch hunts and trials of the 1500s and 1600s in Europe and North America through the lens of mental illness isn't really anything new, but the documentary Witches looks at it through a very specific lens: that of post partum depression and psychosis, the continued lack of systemic and cultural support for people suffering from such things, and the way cultural expectations of gender norms surrounding motherhood put people in a position of feeling isolated and even unsafe in seeking help. It's a fascinating way to look at witch hunts, but more than anything it's a deeply personal and cathartic look at experiencing post natal mental health crises in our current world.

20. La Chimera

La Chimera is the most magical feeling movie of 2024, while still feeling very firmly set in the real world. I love that, because it allows for that feeling of magic in our ordinary world. The Italian setting now doubt contributes to that feeling, and the way it's filmed is full of so much whimsy and freedom of spirit that it only enhances the mystical, magical tone that encompasses the story.

19. His Three Daughters

One of 2024's great films about grief. But it's not just about grief. It's about that uniquely agonizing experience of waiting for someone to die, of grieving before the death has actually happened, of being unable to escape that feeling of just wanting it to happen already so that you can get back to your life and all of the guilt that comes with that. Take all that an mix in the complex relationships and rifts between the three sisters at the film's center, and His Three Daughters is one of the best explorations of family dynamics and the impact that a major death can have on them in years.

18. Things Will Be Different

I knew almost nothing about Things Will Be Different going into it, and was very pleasantly surprised to find a quiet little sci-fi story that inserts its genre elements in really clever ways that allow for the low budget. It uses time travel to explore that feeling of the way we can sometimes commit the same mistakes with the people we love over and over and over even when we try to do thing differently, and it ends up packing in incredible emotional punch as a result.

17. I Used to Be Funny

From what I've seen, most of the very few movies out there that focus on the aftermath of sexual assault are very revenge-based. So it's nice to see something like I Used to Be Funny, which has no interest in ideas of revenge and is far more interested in really exploring the long term impacts such a thing can have on a person, on their ability to live life day to day, their relationships, the things they can't get back and the things they can. It's refreshing to see a movie like this that, for the most part, is pretty uninterested in the perpetrator himself, focusing more on the trauma they caused to the people around them, and the way those people find their way to healing.

16. The Last Stop in Yuma County

This is probably the most tense I was watching a 2024 movie (so far, anyway). From pretty much the very start, the tension just keeps building and building and building, at such a steady and methodical pace as more information is revealed, more characters are introduced, and things become more chaotic. The tension then breaks in one of the best end-of-second-act turns I thing I've ever seen. It then goes on to build a completely different kind of tension through its final act. The Last Stop in Yuma County really is a masterclass in tension building. I'm not kidding, this should be studied in schools.

15. The Dead Don't Hurt

The Western has, historically, been a pretty male-centric genre. And while we have seen more westerns focused, at least in part, on women in recent years, The Dead Don't Hurt is the first one I've seen that's really focused on what the experience of a woman really would have been like when the man in her life went off to have the kind of western adventure they usually make movies about. This is very, very much a love story, but what it's about above all is about what a woman alone in that kind of world would go through. It's rough and horrific at times, but in a way that never feels fetishistic or voyeuristic.

14. Dune: Part 2

Villaneuve's Dune movies are stunning achievements not just because they're adaptation of a difficult-to-adapt work that feels complete and true to the source, but also because of how effectively they explore the novel's themes, themes that are still startlingly relevant today, and because of how fantastically it sets up the universe the story takes place in, laying the groundwork for future entries into the franchise.

13. Small Things Like These

I feel like a lot of people might not like Small Things Like These because "nothing really happens", but I feel like it's all right there in the title. This isn't a movie about some grand heroic act where some everyman hero saves a huge amount of people or exposes some major organization. It's about the small things we can do, that a completely ordinary person like Cillian Murphy's character can do to help. It's about the value of every person, every life, and the tremendous, life saving impact even one normal person choosing to do the right thing can have. It's a small, quiet movie. But it's a tremendously powerful one.

12. Late Night with the Devil

I'm not sure I can explain exactly what it is about Late Night with the Devil that captivated me so much. I'm not generally a horror fan. Not because I think the genre is somehow 'lesser', I just don't enjoy being scared. If I love a horror movie, that means there was something in it that I loved so much it overrode how much I don't enjoy being scared. I think this movie really excelled with its main character, exploring him from a really interesting angle and creating a lot of depth with a pretty simple central conceit.

11. Lies We Tell

I'm not 100% sure if this is actually a 2024 film or a 2023 film, but it looks like it was released in he US in 2024, and I didn't have any way to view it until 2024, so I'm counting it as 2024. Lies We Tell is an adaptation of the gothic novel Uncle Silas, and it manages to be even darker than its source material. I think above all this is, obviously, a very woman-centric story, exploring they ways society, especially at the time the story takes place, can leave a woman completely powerless even in her own home. But it's also a very interesting look at family secrets, at the horror of learning that what we thought about the people we loved isn't true, and the ways that those truths being kept from us can put us in danger.

10. I Saw the TV Glow

Again, I doubt I can say anything about I Saw the TV Glow that anyone else hasn't already said. It works most obviously and clearly as a story about the trans experience, but I think it's something that anyone who struggles with their identity, who feels like society or the world they live in keeps them held back from being who they really are, can connect with. And it does that in an incredibly powerful way by focusing really hard on the nostalgia we feel for our youth and the way that, as we grow up, we're constantly looking back to what we remember as 'simpler times' for comfort, even if those times weren't all that simple.

09. Late Bloomers

I'd probably say that Late Bloomers is the most underrated movie of 2024, as I don't think I've seen anyone else talking about it. It's a simple, quiet movie that I found so easy to relate on such a deep level. While, obviously, people in situations more similar to what the characters are going through will find it easy to relate, I do feel like a lot of the ideas being explored here - difficulty connecting to other people, feeling like you're failing or that you haven't done enough or the right things with your life, being selfish at times that you shouldn't be, and at times that you should be, etc. - are probably relatable to most people.

08. Love Lies Bleeding

What a weird little movie Love Lies Bleeding. Most of it has the tone and feeling of a gritty crime movie, but there are strong elements of magic and spirituality. Honestly, in that way it kind of reminds me of a Frank Borzage movie. Borzage never really veered into actual fantasy, but his films were very much about the healing, purifying, spiritual power of love and all of the unlikely and seemingly impossible things it can cause to happen, especially within harsh and unforgiving environments. That's Love Lies Bleeding all over, it just leans a little bit further into the fantastical at points.

07. Woman of the Hour

The true crime genre has been experiencing something of a reckoning lately (and rightly so) for multiple reasons, not least of which is the way victims - especially women victims - are so often loss in the stories of their own deaths, with most of the focus being places on the men who killed them, and with so much attention paid to the gruesome violence of their murders. Woman of the Hour comes out of that reckoning, seeking to tell a story that's usually told because of the murderous man at its center, particularly because he appeared on The Dating Game while he was actively murdering women, in a way that centers his victims, and that doesn't linger on the violence committed against them. It's an incredibly effective film that manages to be quite scary at times and capture the genuine menace of its murderer while still feeling like it's actually honoring the stories of the women he killed.

06. Mother, Couch!

Mother, Couch! did not do well with critics. Most labeled it incomprehensible. Clearly, I disagree. Yes, it's surreal as hell, but I think it all makes sense as a deeply felt exploration of the grief you experience when your relationship with the person you've lost or are losing is messy and complicated and there are more negative feelings than positive ones. It's a look at the very sad reality some people live in where sometimes when someone close to you dies, your life is better for it. Those are some complex and deeply unpretty things to explore, and Mother, Couch! does an incredible job of it, unfolding the relationships between Ewan McGregor's character and his family through a series of confrontations set in a surrealist furniture shop. And it has what I think is the best performance McGregor has ever given.

05. Saturday Night

This felt like the quickest moviegoing experience of the year. It's not the shortest movie from 2024 that I saw, but it was so perfectly paces that it felt like the shortest. The movie is just near-constant action, breaking only occasional to give is a more slowed-down moment between characters. And in that it really captures the frantic feeling Lorne Michaels, played fantastically by Gabrielle LaBelle, is experiencing in trying to get the first episode of Saturday Night Live on the air. It's also got an incredible ensemble cast who do a great job of embodying the real people they're playing.

04. Anora

I think Sean Baker deserves a lot of respect for the work he's done to destigmatize sex work in his films, but what I really want to focus on with Anora is how much it feels like a screwball comedy from the 1940s. Sure, on the surface you wouldn't think it, considering it's about a sex worker and there's a lot of nudity and sex. But when you zoom out and really look at it, from the setup of a quickie green card marriage, to the heroine struggling to survive and hopefully finding a way to do that through marriage, to the fast paced dialogue and physical comedy, this thing is a classic screwball comedy from top to bottom, and I love it.

03. Challengers

Challengers just crackles with energy from beginning to end. Writer Justin Kuritzkes and director Luca Guadignino take tennis being a metaphor for the relationships between the characters and makes almost every scene about that thing, with almost every conversation and argument that happens feeling like a tennis match where everyone is trying to win, trying to exploit each other's weaknesses, seeking that win without thinking much about what happens after they get it. I also think it's a really interesting looks at relationships and how they operate - or don't operate - when one or both parties in a relationship love something - in this case tennis - more than they love the other person.

02. The Beast

The Beast is a twisty, Lynchian adaptation of Henry James's The Beast in the Jungle, taking the general idea and themes of the story and adapting it in three different time periods - the past, the present - and the future - all of which are connected as a presentation of the characters' past lives. It explores feelings of isolation and loneliness, and the way the society and culture we live in specifically puts is in a position to feel those things, in the way the stories connect to each other. With the way this story is told, it's able to be so many different things: tense and scary, achingly romantic, strange and alienating, and always heartbreaking.

01. Conclave

Conclave really was a big surprise for me. I knew almost nothing about it, but my mom wanted to see it so I went with her for her birthday, and I'm so glad I did. I love watching political process in media. Lincoln is my favorite Spielberg movie, The West Wing is one of my all time favorite shows. So Conclave, a movie about the college of Cardinals trying to elect the new Pope and all the political jockeying and intrigue that goes on while that's happening, is so up my aisle. And as someone who was raised Catholic but always struggled with doubts (and who is now no longer religious), the fact that one of the major themes of this movie is doubt, and how doubt is a necessary part of faith, really spoke to me. It's also just amazing looking. Really, a movie about priests should not be this exciting and fun.

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katnissandpeetamellark · 1 year ago

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Lucy Gray Baird - an innocent victim or a manipulator?

What's your first impression of Lucy Gray?

Do you think she loved Coriolanus in tbosas?

What do you think might have happened to Lucy Gray in the end?

What's your opinion about theories :

1. Greasy Sae as Lucy Gray.

2. Coin as a daughter or relative of Lucy Gray.

Thank you :)

@curiousnonny

OKAy, I saw people respond to this a few days ago so I wanted to wait because I didn't want the tag to be TOO filled with the same thing all at once lol

But... in my opinion (as a book reader - multiple times - before the movie came out)..

(LONG TEXT POST ANSWER BELOW!)

1.Lucy Gray is BOTH a victim of manipulation and a manipulator (in a "Survival" way). I mean to an extent she's a performer. And that makes her good at manipulating people to "feel a certain way".

To survive the games, she puts on her charm HARD (But I also think she's just a good person too. IMO there's a level of realness to her charm. She really does care about people and enjoys being around others.) I think she uses people to an extent to survive (and I DO NOT BLAME HER FOR THIS. Put yourself in her shoes in those situations and you can see how manipulating people would benefit you)

BUT she is ALSO a victim. To the "system" aka the Hunger Games/The Capitol's cruelty, and a victim of Snow. Her manipulation all stems from her being a victim in their world (Being an orphan, living in poverty, not being allowed to roam free in the world, Billy Taupe, the games, etc.). So yes, Lucy Gray is both a manipulator AND a victim (I don't like the word innocent though, it's a bit too black and white for me)

2.I think I immediately felt pity but you also see her "rebel" from the situation by signing and the way she's dressed for this moment. So you see her strength in a terrible situation. You have to admire someone who just says "fuck it" and rolls with the punches.

3.I don't know exactly. I think she could've let go of him if he hadn't "followed her" back to 12. I think again, to an extent she "uses" him to survive. And then when he's just there in 12 with her, she's like "well okay, I can make this work". I think she finds comfort in others (girl just went through hell) and there's definitely some sort of trauma bond there after the games. I don't wanna say yes or no, because again I have lots of thoughts and there all in grey areas lol.

So... maybe. But maybe not. Or maybe partially.

3.Again, I don't know. I don't mind it being a mystery because then it relates directly to the ballad. If she died or escaped to live in the wilderness... either would be better than being trapped (in 12, in Panem etc.). I'd obviously rather her be free, but I guess we'll probably never know and I've just become "at peace" with that.

I definitely DO NOT think she would go back to 12. Her life was in danger and 12 was never her home really. Let her be free<3

4.Hate both of those theories. They cheapen the story imo. Making Katniss "the chosen one" ruins the message.

Lucy Gray would not have gone back to 12 imo and she would have NEVER raised someone to be just like Coriolanus. She wasn't like him, she didn't shut out love and family and people. If Lucy Gray survived (which is totally possible) she wouldn't have raised someone to be like Coriolanus. It just doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks for the ask<3

#asks #anon #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #lucy gray baird #the hunger games #my opinion

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xxknockoutxx · 6 months ago

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𝕼𝖚𝖊𝖊𝖓 𝖔𝖋 𝖈𝖑𝖆𝖓𝖘

𝖂𝖆𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘: mentions of murder and hostility, toxic families, smut, poor/poverty terms, cursing, and other stuff. No proofread! There might be some mistakes sorry!

𝑺𝒚𝒏𝒐𝒑𝒔𝒊𝒔: From a poor and brave curse user, to the wife of the strongest man in Jujutsu Sorcery.

𝕻𝖆𝖎𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘: Satoru gojo x fem!Y/N

𝕿𝖆𝖌𝖘: @theobsidianempress

𝕬/𝕹: I'm sorry about how long this took me. Tumblr deleted my paragraphs multiple times. And I had to rewrite everything multiple times. New Note: I made this a looong time ago and nobody saw it and it was the only post that this happened with so I'm just reposting

"WAKE UP"

The feeling of a hand rapidly smacks your face awake. As you take in your surroundings realizing where you are and what you're doing just to realize it's just your same old mother yelling at you for absolutely nothing at all. because you just decided to sleep instead of what she thinks you should be doing... Working.

Little do they know, you were up all night saving them from the non-stop curses that were trying to get you and your family. Because you are the only person who can see them and the only person who possesses cursed energy you are the only person that was in the house that can protect your family.

Knowing that you'll never be able to escape all of her yelling, you just got up and walked away so you can get ready for the day of work that you're doomed to do every single day.

"Hurry up and go to the village and see if there is any use of you there! At least try to be a role model for siblings!" And with that you were locked out and not gonna be let back in until sundown. Tired, and not wanting to make her physically aggressive, you just left for the village and hoped that someone needed to get their cat out of a tree or they needed someone to kill bugs.

As you walked through the village, you heard screaming. Concerned, you ran over to help and you found out that there was a lady screaming about a monster and her daughter also screaming because of a curse. Being a curse user, you could see that there is a giant grade Four curse destroying their house right before the curse gets the chance to kill the two girls you rush in and kill the curse.

The mother and a daughter stand there obviously shook by the entire experience, but thank you profusely for saving them. As you give them your thanks as well, you walk away back into the village to help more people. Eventually you stumble through the village one last time before going home to see if it's "late enough to go home" When you arrive back the door is noticeably unlocked so you go inside.

While the rest of your family sleeps comfortably after finishing dinner (Which they didn't wait for you to come home) you just decided to go to sleep without eating. (Not like you had a choice.) The next morning you wake up to a knock on your door and a letter.

I've noticed your strength and your knowledge of curses over the past few days. Your strength is honorable and I sent this letter to inform you that over taken an interest in you and can get you out of your situation. All I request is that you become my wife. Take your time to think over this offer.

To Y/N L/N.

S. G.

You threw the note to the side and hid it in your room. "Like I would let some rich ass prick buy me into marriage" You thought half way before speaking, thinking that you were too strong and independent to be swooned by some rich and worthless man. Your stomach quickly humbled you and started growling louder than Nanami fans during that beach scene (yes, we breaking the fourth wall) due to last nights neglect.

As you left out for good you noticed the sounds of screaming from more innocent people in the village. As you run towards the noise, you see a giant curse but this one is a special grade curse that you weren't strong enough to kill. The curse charges towards you and grabs a hold of you slowly taking all of the air out of your lungs. Your breathing slows, your sight darkness, and you pass out.

You wake up a couple of hours later in a nice room. With blue and gold accents all around it. While you looked around, you noticed a door that was slightly cracked open. Right as you got up a few people entered the room and grabbed you. They whispered about someone, almost like if they were afraid?

Why would Satoru want this peasant? Would Satoru approve? It's best that we dispose of her now that she's awak-...

"Put her down"

Your eyes widen as you see the 6'3, white haired, blue eyed and intimidating man in front of you with a heart stopping frown on his face. Before you could process what happened you were roughly dropped on your face. You get up and stare blankly in disbelief that these bitches dropped you like a fucking trash bag. Before standing up and looking like you were about to gut them. However they weren't focused on you. They were focused on the pearly hair man that looked like he was two seconds away from painting these Royal walls red.

"Get out of my sight."

The two hooded figures run away faster than light. And before you could turn back to the tall man before you. You felt his presence so close that it made your blood turn cold.

"I'm sorry about those disgusting rats..."

"It's fine, but where am I? Who are you?"

"Well to start you off, you're in my house. And the room that you were in before you came here was my room. And my name is Satoru Gojo, the head of the Gojo clan."

"Gojo clan? Where have I heard that before?" You take a look around the giant hallway before looking back at him. "Wait... By any chance did you send me a letter?"

He nodded happily and at that moment all you could do was cringe and mentally slap yourself in the face. The "rich guy" turned out to be a pretty young and handsome man, who's at the head of the most powerful clan in the world. And he liked you. As this all registered in your head you feel a hand on your cheek.

"If I remember correctly, that letter was a request to take your hand in marriage" he made a dumb little smirk that made you want to punch him but also laugh with him while skipping down the aisle and throwing flowers everywhere.

"Yeah what was that about?"

"Well you are really cool Y/N and I get recommended new candidates to take up the name Mrs. Gojo but the thing is, They all suck. None of them are my type, too lovey dovey, too distant, too pretty,-"

"That's a problem?" You looked confused. But Satoru just laughed before giving you a serious look.

"Oh yeah it is..."

"Yeah it must be tough having everything you want, being able to sleep at appropriate times in a nice warm house full of food, with people who respect you and do stuff for you..." You didn't even notice that you were rambling until Satoru stopped you.

He looks away before looking back at you with a smile.

"How about we discuss this over a nice meal?"

You swear you almost fell over at that point. Before you can even properly get on your knees and start thanking him (not like that you freaks) he grabs your hands and walks you through the huge mansion, into ONE of the kitchens and he brings you over to pick what you want.

"What would you suggest"

"Honestly none of this bullshit. But I'll make you a little bit of everything"

He was so welcoming but you couldn't help but feel uneasy and intruding after being in a place you definitely don't belong in. As you awkwardly sat at the table that didn't fit you, you watched Gojo in the distance. Making food and trying not to get it all over his pearly white haori.

"Here you go, one plate of dog shit"

You couldn't tell if he was making fun of you or not, because this "dog shit" was the best looking food you've seen in years. After thanking him, you dived into your food and ate like a starved animal. Which isn't far off from what you are anyway. Gojo watched you with gentle eyes. Taking time to absorb everything about you even just from eating.

His cerulean eyes stared at you without breaking contact even through his white locks. They glower gently under the shadow his hair cascaded over his face. When you finished you looked at him with a thankful and flustered face.

"Sorry about the way I ate, not very lady-like, huh?" You hate that term... "Lady like"

"Ugh, don't even start... We can eat like pigs together. Plus when you eat shit like that you can only eat like that with gagging."

You smile and laugh at him. When he made you laugh a smirk pulled its way across his face. He was clearly proud of himself.

"Let's get you out of these rags and into something more comfortable... Mrs. Gojo"

You barely heard him but kept walking behind him to another huge part of the house, a luxury king bathroom. You looked around amazed, taking in everything with care. Gojo snorts and grabs some old shirts that'll hopefully fit you.

"You're cute y'know that?"

"Well excuse me Mr. Millionaire-

"Billionaire, Babes."

You just frown and take the clothes and get in the shower. Or try to...

"Uh... Gojo? How do I turn this on?"

He has to hold back his laugh at your innocent frame while he walks into the bathroom and turns the handle twice to the warm side.

"How the fuck was I supposed to know that?"

He walks out the room laughing but before he leaves he corrects you.

"It's Satoru, to you, Sweets."

When you get out of the shower Satoru is gone but not only that, the bed is made. You wanted to lay down but you didn't want to exert yourself. Right as you were deciding, Satoru comes in wearing nothing but a robe and a towel around his neck.

"Hey, Tiny"

"Don't use your freakish height to justify calling me tiny."

He smirks and lays down on the bed and pats the spot next to him. You were conflicted because what the hell is this rich ass prince charming doing, trying to get you into his bed. Even if there aren't any ulterior motives, which you know there are. You would look like a doll in a custom king sized mattress.

But if there was something Satoru Gojo wasn't good at. It was being told no. Of course you end up in his bed and even more so IN HIS ARMS. The only thing you could do was sit with yourself, disappointed in your decisions and inability to control the situation.

"How does an endless and abundant source of happiness sound?"

"Nice, until you consider the price"

"What if I told you there was no price or catch, or but"

"There always is, now tell me what you want from me"

He smirks and tightens his grip around you while trying to hold back a chuckle.

"I want you to be my wife"

You wanted to be stunned but the overwhelming feeling of confusion and curiosity took over. You didn't believe him. Thought that this was just a cruel joke but on the off chance that he was being serious, it only raised more questions than satisfying answers.

"Bullshit."

"No, seriously. I want you to be my wife"

"Why?" You say while tugging on the soft comforter under you.

"Because you interest me, and I actually like you. I'm tired of being shown women like they are objects of affection that can buy me or make me love them. But you, I actually feel something for you that isn't spiteful."

You thought about it for a moment. The possibility of you, a random poor girl, appears interesting to the head of the Gojo Clan it was too real for you.

"If you still don't believe me then let me prove it to you"

Suddenly, huge warm hands grip your waist and pull you onto Satoru's lap. They snake up your shirt and push you into his chest.

"S-Satoru?"

"Shh... Just lay back, baby..."

All your senses were overwhelmed, so overwhelmed that every touch felt like hundreds. The way he gently sprinkles kisses and bites around your face and neck. The way he clothes fly through the air at light speeds and most importantly. The way that he lifts you up so easily and slams you back down on his cock so good.

All that money may have given him the tangible appeal, but this monster of a man before you was created by pure godly genetics. (Which was surprising because his family, if you can even call it that. Are far from flattering)

"Staring pretty hard. I don't usually let people who aren't my wife see me like this.."

"Ughh.. Shut up about this.. Mhph- wife stuff..."

He grabs you by your waist and brings you back on his lap. Before you could even struggle you dropped onto his cock. All 6 or more inches just drop into you, all at once. Pain and pleasure battle your senses as Satoru continues to thrust up so fast into you.

"F-fuck, you make me feel so good baby. Just like that..."

The last little restraint you had was broken at the feeling of Satoru's cock piercing your G-spot over and over again. You were basically turning into jelly while in his hands. The only thing coming out of you was strangled moans and babbles.

It all felt too good having him rut inside you but it felt even better when. He teased you relentlessly. Rubbing your clit and pinching your nipples, whispering how good of a girl you were. It didn't make sense but you didn't care.

You started to spasm obviously coming close to the peak of your high. Soaked sheets squish and cling onto your sweaty bodies. The sensation made Satoru groan and whine at the pressure. Satoru didn't care how loud he was being in fact he wanted those around to hear. He wanted them to know that he had someone in his room. A poor girl. That he was gonna wife up.

"F-Fuck... Mmm... Baby! That's so good~..."

His thrusts became untamed and erratic as he grabbed on any surface around him. Moaning and grunting at the feeling of your sweet cunt wrapping around him so tightly. The wet warmth of your cunt sends him straight to heaven as he begins to lose himself in your crimson walls.

"Nghh~... Fuck..."

Pearly ropes cover your insides and practically have your stomach doing backflips. It's not like it was a one way thing either, Satoru was just as stunned by the thick coating of slick around his base. Soon after your high wore out you fell asleep.

When you wake up, you're fully cleaned and beyond confused. As you sit up and look around taking in your surroundings you nearly have a goddamn heart attack at the sight of Gojo watching you look around the room. Instead of a serial killer or a guard in the corner, it's just his lanky, privileged, rich ass in the corner or the room. Prolly getting a kick out of watching you in this giant, Goliath ass bed.

When you get up you grab a robe that was on the side of the bed.

"Woah, where are you off in such a rush, princess?"

"Home?"

He smirks at you and walks towards you with a chuckle. He stops right before you and gently lifts your chin up.

"This is your home, Ms. Gojo..."

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #black reader #jjk satoru #gojou satoru x reader #satoru gojo #gojo satoru #x reader #female reader #jujutsu gojo #jujustsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu satoru #jujutsu kaisen satoru

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cin-cant-donate-blood · 8 months ago

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I don't think it's "bourgeoisie ideology" (sic) per se (you can just say capitalist, btw, it's easier to spell, too). Obviously it's interesting that the game mechanics often run specifically around managing a small business, but farms are small businesses in the modern era, and nobody romanticizes being a medieval peasant so if you want to romanticize the rural life you have to make it modern rural life, to contrast it with modern urban life.

So what are some interesting things we can learn from this?

Firstly, these escapist games tend to identify a duality: on one hand, we have urban life, modern misery, and wage slavery (e.g. the Stardew Valley intro cutscene). On the other hand, we have... what exactly? A petty bourgeois fantasy? I'd argue that it's mainly a dream of autonomy and simplicity. While you do play as a small business owner in most farming games, the main attraction is obviously not property ownership per se, but on one hand autonomy and on the other simplicity. You want to escape the complicated, roundabout way your real job works. Perhaps your urban wage slave job is, and I hate to use this term, a bit alienating and you don't fully understand who benefits from it even existing. Farming is not simple, but the tasks in farming games are, and more importantly what you're doing is simple: you're growing food – the thing everybody needs to survive. The task is clear, its context and purpose is clear, and nobody is telling you how to do it.

Do you get it now? It's not a "bourgeoisie fantasy" (sic; yes I'm gonna keep clowning on you for using the noun instead of the adjective because you chose the more complicated word to sound smart despite not knowing the difference), it's a number of fundamental human needs, filtered through a romantic fallacy.

I'm using romantic in the 19th century sense of the word by the way: wretched urbanites dreaming about a basically imaginary countryside idyll, a la Young Werther, or anything by Emily Dickinson.

So, should we take the romanticist binary of wretched city life and idyllic country life as basucally true? No. There are many advantages to living in a city, of course: it is far easier to meet new people and to have an active social life, the impact on the environment per capita is less than that of rural life and especially suburban life and it is easier to push yourself out of oppressive social situations like a toxic family life or an insular religious community.

The reason city life tends to be so wretched in pop culture (dating back all the way to the romantic movement and all the way forward to today) can almost entirely be blamed on the wage-cage: ironically a hell most rural people must suffer as well. Perhaps to an extent it can also be blamed on perceptions of crime and poverty; as cities are more interconnected types of community, failing social systems become more readily apparent. In the country, the poor suffer silently and out of sight; in the city, they sleep on your sidewalk – or straight-up steal your wallet.

Cities are a symbol of capitalism. Many clumsy critiques of capitalism made by people not willing or able to strike at the very heart of the peoblem thus find it easy to fantasize about countryside idyll. The same type of person is also likely to fantasize about gaining autonomy through property ownership rather than any other means, since this may be the only path to self-actualization they can actually imagine.

So what should you want? Would it really be so bad to work at a burger joint and rent an apartment if you were paid enough to live a fulfilling life? If your manager was elected by you and you coworkers and there was no franchise to answer to? If you knew that the food your were serving was good for the customers? If your apartment had more than one room in it? If your rent was at most ten percent of your income and you knew it went to maintaining the building and not to enriching your landlord? If forty hours per week was the most you ever worked, if even that? If you didn't have to worry about insurance and healthcare? If you could afford to go to the bar with your friends? If you had the time, money and energy to have a social life? If you knew that even if your job shut down and you were out of work, everything would still be fine?

*whispers* it's the bourgeoisie ideology

#takes #mini essay #politics #history

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loveandmurders · 2 years ago

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hi hope you are having a nice day , i have a tiny request michael myers from rob zombie film x female s/o that used date Michael before he kill his family and when he escape from smith groove he found that the reader was a single mother ?:0

Hello darling! It's been a while you requested this and I'm sorry about that! I really hope you'll enjoy <3

I slightly changed the request as baby Michael and reader weren't dating yet.

I kept the gender of reader's child neutral and they are unnamed.

Female reader with no physical description.

Warnings: mentions of murders, mentions of a bad relationship witht the father of your child, a few strong words, mentions of poverty and unhappy life, mentions of Michael's anger and lack of empathy/feelings, mention of Michael as an abused child, stalking, breaking in

Michael perfectly remembered you, despite all those years apart from one another. With his baby sister and his mother, you were the person he loved the most. You were his best friend, and he knew that deep down, one day his affection would turn into more than friendship. But he snapped and killed his family and was sent away from you before you two, kids, could become teenagers and fall in love with each other.

Despite your strong bond, you never thought he would kill his family, even if you knew what he did to his bully. But you were an innocent kid who just loved him and enjoyed creating universes together, so you could both pretend that everything was perfect.

Despite how much you loved him and how many times you asked his mother to take you with her for one of her visits to the asylum, Dr Loomis never allowed you inside the place. He was worried for you and he told your parents it was better if you stayed away from such a dangerous child. He wasn’t certain what kind of influence Michael had on you, but the truth was you were both bringing the best in each other. He was calmer and happier with you around, and you felt braver and more creative with him. You were certain that if his sister and father had let Michael celebrate Halloween with you, none of this would have happened. At least, it was what you were telling yourself. And once he was locked away, you couldn’t stop yourself from thinking how wrong it was to keep a child away from the people he loved; you knew Michaell truly needed your presence, even more once he lost his mother and found himself all alone.

Several times, you tried to come and see him as you grew up, because you weren’t the kind of person to let go so easily. And no matter what your parents could tell you about this “monster”, Michael was still someone you loved, and you were loyal to. All the guards at the asylum knew you but Dr. Loomis always found good excuses to keep you away.

A part of yourself knew your life would have been different if Michael had been by your side. For instance, you would have known better than hooking up with some shitty guy and then staying with him because you got pregnant. And abortion wasn’t an option back then.

You really loved your child though, you did, but you hated the life you had. It got even worse when your partner left you. You needed to work a lot because you didn’t have enough money for both your child and yourself, and your ex refused to give you anything. He just disappeared, probably having sex with other girls and not caring about anything. You liked to imagine how Michael would have killed him if he had been around. You were a little bit ashamed of those fantasies so you always tried to push them away. And you were trying your best, no matter the situation, because you wanted your baby to have a good childhood, not like the one Michael had.

And no matter what, Michael was still in your mind, and you hated when people were using his story to get some cash. You thought he deserved respect and understanding. Everyone thought he was a murderer; and yes he was. But he also was a victim. He was abused as a child, he was bullied too, and then you couldn’t imagine what happened to him in the asylum. You were certain that the isolation didn’t help his sanity, and all the awful things they must have said to him when he needed care and affection… You hoped he was doing okay, and you hoped one day you would be able to see him again.

You didn’t know Michael was out of the asylum the day you pushed two shitty journalists from his house. You yelled at them that it wasn’t their home, that they should be better than using such an awful story to make money. You were so angry, so ready to fight that the two people left, crumbling to each other that everyone was clearly insane in this town. You promised yourself to come by the house often during Halloween so you could keep the children away from here too. Michael was a really sensitive subject to you.

You didn’t know that you actually saved the journalists because Michael listened to you from the basement. Something inside of him sparkled with life. He knew he hadn’t been forgotten or hated by you, and it was a nice warm feeling spreading across his chest. He was barely feeling anything anymore, just pure rage and bloodlust. But for the first time in a long time, he felt something positive.

He knew it was you, because he recognised the way your voice was raising up when you were calling out someone for an injustice they were causing. You were the same, back then, when kids were throwing rocks at a cat. He barely smiled behind his mask, half wondering why you never came by at the asylum during all those years, even if he could imagine it was because of Loomis.

He waited for you to leave the property too, and then he started to follow you. He saw you at your work, not really understanding what you were doing, but he could tell you weren’t particularly enjoying yourself. A part of himself wondered where all your dreams went in the years. But just like his, they disappeared as you grew up. Life wasn’t as happy as you thought when you were children. He still recognised the same strength inside of you, the same glistening goodness, the same kind intelligence. It brought back some happy memories to his mind, as he continued to stalk you. He tilted his head to the side when he saw you picking up a young kid from a house. He heard you gently talking to the child as you were hugging them and cuddling them against your chest. The kid was giggling and kissing your cheek, happily snuggling against you as their little arms were wrapped around your neck. You softly put them in your car, safely settled them, before driving home.

Michael found his way there as well.

As you arrived at home, the news that Michael had escaped was on all the channels of your television. You didn’t know he was observing you from the living room window, and he noticed you didn’t seem afraid. He swore he even read on your lips saying something like “Good for you, Micky”. You kept watching the TV a little longer before you got up and put your child to bed. You went out of Michael’s line of vision as you grabbed your kid and climbed upstairs with them in your arms. You tucked them into their bed and opened a book to read them their bedtime story. No matter how exhausted you were, you needed to take care of them the best you could. Even if their father was gone and was refusing to pay for his child, it was going to be alright, you promised it to yourself and your baby.

You fell asleep with your child but when you woke up, you saw a man standing in front of you. You jumped and instinctively moved in front of your baby to protect them. You tried to find a weapon, but there was nothing in your child’s room. And the masked man was so tall and carrying a kitchen knife. You didn’t think it was Michael.

“Please, leave my baby out of this. If you want to hurt me, do it somewhere else” you begged. Michael tilted his head to the side as he tried to watch past you the sleeping form of the child.

He slowly reached for his mask and lifted it long enough for you to see his face. His expression was blank but you recognised his eyes and his features. Your eyes widened.

“Micky?” you whispered and he put the mask back on as a way to positively answer your question.

You slowly moved closer to him, so surprised he was there after all those years, but also so happy he was finally back to you.

“You won’t hurt me, right?” you asked, even though you couldn’t imagine how your childhood best friend could do you any kind of harm. He slightly shook his head, and you fully relaxed.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t been able to come see you, you know. Loomis never let me. But I never forgot about you.” you whispered to him as you reached for the hand that wasn’t holding the knife, so he wouldn’t believe you were trying to sweet talk to him to disarm him.

He let you touch him before putting the knife away and his now free hand reached for your face and hair. You smiled up at him.

“I’m glad you came by, that you didn’t forget about me either. Hope you didn’t break down my door completely though” you half joked “You know you could have rung and I would have opened the door to you” you teased as you were feeling quite at ease with him. He simply shrugged but you could tell he was listening and enjoying the sound of your voice and your cheekiness. No one had talked to him that way in years, like a human being, like someone you can be relaxed with, like someone you enjoy.

"You’re tall now" you giggled, and his silence was disturbing you but you knew he must have gone through a lot of stuff during all those years. And it was going to be alright because you were going to take care of him, like he was going to be there for you and your baby, you knew it.

“This is my baby” you whispered as you let Michael see your child “The father is an asshole who left us but it’s life I guess” you added as Michael’s attention went back on you. He came a little bit closer to your kid, to have a better look at them before reaching to very softly pet their head. You smiled as you watched this sweet interaction. You carefully grabbed his hand again and you gently tugged him away from your child’s room so you both settled in your living room.

“You hungry or anything?” you asked Michael as he was sitting down on the couch but he shook his head and simply brought you closer to him. He awkwardly hugged you and you hugged him back, your head on his shoulder.

“You can stay here as long as you want and you can come back whenever you want too. I won’t call the cops on you and I hope you’ll be able to get revenge on Loomis.” You whispered and his hold tightened on you. He felt like he was finally home, especially with you in his arms. You had so many questions you wanted to ask, but for now, silence was alright and you were feeling safe enough to close your eyes and snuggled in his embrace.

“Promise me you’ll be careful and you won’t let them take you back” you whispered as you were about to fall asleep. Michael simply removed his mask and pressed his lips against the top of your head, as a silent promise that, yes, he would never leave you again.

Taglist:

@feathery-ass

@g0thl3zz

@erasable-mustache

#hallloween #halloween rob zombie #halloween x you #halloween x reader #halloween imagine #michael myers x y/n #michael myers x you #michael myers x reader #michael myers imagine #slasher x reader #slasher x you #slasher #slasher x s/o #slasher x y/n #michael myers x s/o #michael myers rz

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verdantmoontruther · 3 years ago

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d’you know the more i think about it, the less i think you can compare draco calling hermione a mudblood to snape calling lily a mudblood. the situations are completely different and no, i don’t actually think snape’s came from a place of blood supremacist hatred.

a friend of mine told me a story of when she was maybe 13, a kid she knew started hanging with the wrong crowd. he was 50% jewish, 50% something or other, and 100% lonely, and he started hanging with the something or others.

and you know how it goes - kid feels like he doesn’t belong here nor there, grew up in a predominantly jewish community but gets poisoned or manipulated into thinking those people - you know, the ones he grew up with, his neighbours, his teachers, his mother - they’re worse, they’re below them (and he’s now a part of the them, he has a definitive identity, and isn’t that alluring to a lonely kid like that). and the kid desperately wants the approval of these something or others, wants it like he’s never wanted anything before.

i don’t really remember the details because they was recounted to me later piece by piece, but long story short - he calls this other guy a yid. a sheeny. a kike.

that’s what i’m getting from snape - this is a poor, lonely, scared kid that was just humiliated (and essentially sexually assaulted) in front of half his school. he retreats to doing what he thinks will bring him the most comfort, get the most people to fight FOR him in HIS corner.

he weaponises his own self-hatred by projecting it onto someone else in order to win the approval of the few people that he truly believes may stick by him.

see, it’s really important that we remember that snape was half muggle himself, and loathed it. when he self-identified as the ‘half-blood prince’, the ‘half-blood’ was a reminder of his belonging to wizarding society. that’s why he took his mother’s name, too. when he expresses his hatred towards muggles by calling lily a mudblood, i think it’s moreso a reaction towards how unsafe and alone he felt in that situation, and it’s a callback to his father (a muggle), who was canonically abusive and neglectful. it’s a callback to muggle society, where he lived in abject urban poverty in the industrialised midlands in the 60s and 70s during increasing inflation and taxation, unemployment at the same height it was at during the fucking great depression, the ira bombings in birmingham, and miners’ (and other blue collar workers’) strikes, of which his father would have been a part, and which would all have become part of a cycle he couldn’t escape from had he not been a wizard. it’s a callback to, ironically, his own future, and how he would have probably continued his father’s line of work, however loathsome it was, because poverty is often cyclical, but the wizarding world gave him something to excel at (potions) and put his brilliant mind to work (he was 15 inventing his own spells).

there was a whole blow up over my friend’s situation, because it was a major dick move, but it also came from isaac who lives with his mama and bubbe across the street from the beit tfila, and you see every so often at the deli, and whose bar mitzvah you ate cake at. and it hurt because it came from isaac down the block, but it also hurt less coming from isaac down the block than if it had been tanner and makeighleigh and their billion dollar mansion.

this shit is so fucking common in minority communities, not just with mixed kids but with self-loathing full kids, as well. the amount of times i’ve had to check my own self-directed antisemitism, growing up in a predominantly non-jewish area (coincidentally, the same industrial midlands that snape and lily grew up in), is unreal.

draco calling hermione a mudblood, though? doesn’t compare. he’s a snooty pureblooded rich kid talking down to a 100% muggleborn girl for no reason but his own (or, at least, his parents’) convictions. vile loathesome evil little cockroach

so, tl;dr - was snape calling lily a mudblood a dick move? yeah, nothing can cover for that. but do we have to consider context, including the fact that that slur applies to him himself, too? yes. don’t be silly. furthermore, do i even think that snape ever held to any blood purist ideology? ... no. i don’t.

#severus snape #snape #pro severus snape #pro snape #lily evans #lily potter #harry potter #harry potter meta #harry potter analysis #i can't believe i'm writing harry potter meta in 2021 #i am a grown woman #whatever i'm just tired of the snape hate train #also i'm jewish don't get on my ass about saying slurs that apply to me #this isn't anti marauders #i just beg you guys to give an abused brainwashed 17 year old some leniency

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bitchesgetriches · 4 years ago

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Hi bitches, I'm a bit nervous to ask this but I'm being genuine I promise. I don't want you to think I'm some biggoted old fool.

Could you please help me understand how sex work isn't exploitative? I hear a lot of people saying "it's just the same as normal work, it's better than my job at Amazon/target/wherever and no one is calling that work exploitative" or "well you wouldn't do YOUR job if you didn't have to either" but like, checkout work IS hella exploitative??? Most work IS hella bullshit that only exists to feed the capitalist machine. I DO fight for a world where work is a choice. I understand why The Right would love onlyfans, but why is The Left lining up to defend it?

Sex work - especially things like onlyfans - is overwhelmingly done by the poor or as a way to escape poverty ("I was being paid shit in my previous job, now I can afford an apartment" is something I hear a lot). But in doing so it transfers all the risks to them, it's essentially turning sex work into the gig/hustle economy, isn't it? You end up on a zero hour contract with no union, health, benefit, maternity protection, in a job that can be hella dangerous and have serious emotional repercussions and requires huge emotional labour and/or disconnect and I don't really understand why we're just cheering this along?

I don't object on moral grounds. Sex is sex. Consenting adults do what you want. People are well within their moral and legal rights to choose to sell sex, (or the emotional labour that comes with it), or photos, or whatever they want - just like they are free to go work for target. I absolutely understand the need to - and support - decriminalisation of sex work, the need to make it safe and secure for sex workers, but I just can't see why ~the world at large~ sees huge numbers of young 18 year old women being herded and encouraged into joining Onlyfans - in several cases with people saying "can't wait for you to turn 18 so you can have an OF" so the patriarchy can pay £3-4 a month to see their tits and people cheer this along? One or two get rich, I'm sure, but who is getting REALLY rich? It's the old white men that own onlyfans and take a 20% cut, as always. It's the patriarchy working as it always has. Allowing one or two women to succeed while holding the rest down for exploitation. Except now it's mixing with the worst bits of 21st C capitalism, too. Surely all OnlyFans is is Uber for Sex work, using the gig economy to de-unionise and isolate workers, strip them of benefits, make them into independent contractors and profit off them?

Sure, it's a step up from kidnapping girls from Romania to have them do porn, but is that really the bar? Can we maybe just stop for a second and imagine a world where rich white men don't get richer off the emotional and physical labour of women? Where the other available work options aren't so shit that a zero-hour career with no employment protections, a limited lifespan, in a dangerous industry doesnt look like heaven in comparison? Sure, you can work for three years, sell your emotional labour, and pay for college. But why are we cheering that instead of asking why this has to happen in the first place? We're fiddling around the edges of the system, giving it a makeover, and rebadging it "female empowerment" instead of actually changing anything fundamental. Poor women sell sex. A few are allowed to break out. Men get to leer at naked women for pennies a year. Rich men get richer. Plus ça change. Not even to mention that because of the ~emotional~ connection that onlyfans gives beyond porn, we're embedding the idea that women are "money in, girlfriend out" machines. I know several girls that won't even *talk* to men in any situation without a minimum $50 fee. And apparently the fact we also have a crisis of men so lonely they're willing to pay this isn't a problem either? Where's our luxury communism dreams bitches?

Bitches, I trust you. What am I missing?

I don’t think you’re a bigoted old fool. Nor a prude! I think you’re incredibly enlightened about the dangers of unfettered capitalism and labor exploitation.

Almost all of the issues you highlight about exploitative sex work can be said about exploitative labor in any industry. Poor people taking shitty jobs that don’t pay enough and enrich capitalist, patriarchal corporate overlords? That happens all over the world in industries from meat packing to clothing sweat shops to, yes, sex work. The exploitation of a person’s body for labor is an ethical stain on our culture at large. It’s why we’re so in favor of labor rights advances including a higher minimum wage, unions, and humane work environments.

Raising the Minimum Wage Would Make Our Lives Better

Are Unions Good or Bad?

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights

Sex work is not unique in that it opens desperate and poor people up to labor exploitation. It’s not even uniquely dangerous to the bodies of workers--John Oliver did a bit on the US meat packing industry recently that made me faint with body horror.

So we agree that labor exploitation is bad. And it’s something that we should work towards ending in every industry. But I can see why some people would view exploitative sex work to be a different kind of bad. Because sex is sensitive! It can be used to punish and hurt. See revenge porn and the way synonyms for “sex worker” are stigmatized and used as insults throughout society.

Now, a few clarifications. When I refer to sex work, I’m not just talking about cam work on OnlyFans. There are lots of other outlets for many different kinds of sex work. And I’m also not just talking about women sex workers. People of all gender identities and sexualities do sex work, and we should advocate for fair labor practices and safety for all of them. I am firmly pro- decriminalizing sex work so that the industry can be made safe, regulated, and destigmatized in an effort to reduce exploitation. I want sex workers to have the power of collective bargaining! I want them to be protected by law enforcement and our justice system, instead of targeted by it! I want them to pay taxes and have the privileges associated with all tax paying workers! I want them to have the power and protection of a regulatory industry that will purge abusive and violent clients from their field!

I also disagree with the characterization that choosing sex work freely, even out of desperation, is a “step up from kidnapping a girl from Romania to have them do porn.” Human trafficking is not sex work. It’s slavery and torture. Even when the choice is between making $7.25 an hour working at WalMart and making $7.25 as a cam girl, there’s still a choice involved, even if it’s a shitty one. There’s consent. Trafficking victims have no choice, no consent, only violence.

I honestly don’t want to start a debate here. We’re all on the same page that labor exploitation is bad. So I’ll just end with this: not all sex work is inherently exploitative. Which I guess is your real question!

I’ve mentioned before that I have friends who are former sex workers. Specifically strippers and a specialty dominatrix. As with any job, they had their ups and downs, their good nights and bad nights. But they all agree that they freely chose the work not out of desperation or a lack of other options. And they even enjoyed the work in some cases. If someone prefers sex work, thrives in giving that emotional labor to others, I’m not going to judge and I’m certainly not going to tell them they’re being exploited. It would frankly be insulting, condescending, to tell someone that their choice of work (when it truly is a choice) is bad for them.

It’s a fine line, but the line does exist. Sex work CAN BE exploitative. But it is not inherently exploitative, as far as I’m concerned.

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thatswhatsushesaid · 2 years ago

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via @cryiling

hi hello!! I literally jumped up out of my seat with excitement to see someone who 1) admits to currently disliking jgy and who also 2) is trying to engage with the fandom, the meta, and the source material to understand why so many of us do not hate him, so 🥹 thank you so much for reading my post, even tho I think it is demonstrably clear that I am not exactly da-ge's biggest fan lmfao. I'd like to respond to a couple of the points you raised in your tags here if that's okay!

1. there's a serious problem with medium bleed when discussing jgy's actions in this fandom! tl;dr, novel!jgy =/= donghua!jgy, cql!jgy, or manhua!jgy.

the first point I have to make is that I am speaking exclusively about jin guangyao's characterization in the novel, which is the original source material from which all other adaptations draw. so while jgy's actions are portrayed with less nuance in other adaptations (e.g., the live-action drama, the animation, and the comic), in the novel his acts of violence, either for revenge or out of necessity (from his perspective), are intentionally presented to the reader through the lens of multiple different unreliable narrators, such as mingjue's fierce corpse's recollection of the past (which we then witness through wei wuxian via empathy), sect leader yao (gag), and wei wuxian himself. some things to bear in mind re: the differences between the novel and other adaptations:

jgy's decision to kill the jin commander on the langye front is explicitly stated by him in the novel as a last desperate attempt to save his own life from death on the frontlines, and to salvage his only means of receiving recognition from his father. he makes it clear that this commander is physically beating him in addition to sending him out onto the front lines as a comparatively weak and self-taught cultivator, and though it is clear that the thing that finally pushes him over the edge is the commander taking credit for his strategic successes with his father, this is still a life or death situation for jgy. if he doesn't receive recognition from jin guangshan, his options for 1) avoiding poverty and 2) fulfilling his filial obligations to his mother, meng shi, are super limited.

jgy tricks nmj in this moment because even after explaining his situation to nmj, nmj will not let him go, even though jgy makes it clear to nmj that the scales of justice are already stacked against him. nmj's opinion that righteousness will prevail is routinely proven to be false throughout the novel; we only have to look at the fates of xiao xingchen and song lan to see that. before he tricks nmj, jgy says (and I'm paraphrasing) "you are sending me to my death," meaning that if jgy returns to jgs to try to justify his actions, he will absolutely be executed--a harsh and unjust punishment when this commander was violently abusing him and sending him out onto the battlefield daily. it's also important to note that when jgy seals nmj's meridians and escapes, he does not make any further attempt to hurt him, and in fact bows to him before running away. if he wanted to kill nmj in this moment, or to hurt him further, he absolutely could have. but he didn't!

2. jgy's capacity for cruelty is a mirror for wwx's: their darkest actions are either reactive to their immediate circumstances, or the result of tremendous emotional upheaval.

specific examples of what I'm talking about when I say "reactive to their immediate circumstances":

jgy's torture and killing of prisoners of war for wen ruohan during the sunshot campaign and transporting his father's political enemies to xy for demonic cultivation practice after receiving his courtesy name. if he hadn't done these things for wen ruohan or jin guangshan, at best he would have lost his position within their courts (resulting in poverty, again); at worst, he could have been executed--and yes, I stand by that being a conceivable outcome even in jinlintai considering jgy's proximity to and awareness of jgs's investment in demonic cultivation. in short, he had to play by the rules of the game, or die.

jgy's killing of the nie sect disciples in wen ruohan's court; see above! also bear in mind that jgy is objectively attempting to buy time for lan xichen's reinforcements to arrive without blowing his cover in the process. again, play by the rules of the game, or die.

jgy's taunting and retraumatizing nie mingjue wrt nmj's father's death <- I will again state that imo jgy has limited control over his options and his actions both in qishan and in jinlintai, but as I've said in previous posts, I do think that the specific confrontation between jgy and nmj in the scorching sun palace needs to be assessed separately from jgy's other actions. because it is a watershed moment in this relationship and in the trajectory of the plot. jgy and nmj both traumatize each other here and imo should never have been allowed within 6 li of each other again after the conclusion of the sunshot campaign. (I will throw together this write-up at some point. one day.)

the second siege of the burial mounds would not have happened if jgy had not received the letter from nie huaisang threatening to expose his incestuous marriage to qin su to the broader cultivation world if jgy did not kill himself within a week's time. this one gets to be both a reaction to his circumstances as well as a 'trigger,' but I'm listing it here because it isn't an action he chooses to take when acting exclusively under his own power and volition. (like this is entrapment 101.) I'm also going to push back against the common mischaracterization of this action as being an attempt at mass murder, because it was much more complex than that, but digging down into the details of the text for the citations is a job for future-me, and this post is already long enough.

wwx's industrial scale desecration of human remains for his demonic cultivation; without a golden core, how else is he supposed to survive being in the burial mounds? this begins as a survival mechanism, but the more he utilizes it initially to survive and then to protect others, the more impossible it becomes for him to stop using it even when under pressure from the rest of the cultivation world, including jiang cheng. he is using the skillset that he has at his disposal to survive, and it is one that involves violating the autonomy of the dead of his enemies to turn them against their own friends and loved ones, potentially denying them rest and the opportunity to re-enter the wheel of reincarnation until he is 'finished' with them. (there's a parallel here between wwx using socially unacceptable cultivation methods to ensure his own survival, and jgy using socially unacceptable means of fighting back against opponents who are substantially stronger than he is, both in terms of cultivation and martial arts, to ensure his own survival. they both face censure for their actions and they are both killed for it. it was just luck and nhs's vendetta that ensured wwx received a second chance at life.)

wwx's killing of the jin sect cultivators guarding the wen sect prisoners, and allowing the wen corpses to enact their revenge upon the guards. it was very much a them or him situation.

specific examples of what I mean when I say triggered by "tremendous emotional upheaval": CW for frank discussions of rape, assault, torture, cannibalism!!

jgy having xy burn down the brothel of his childhood with all the sex workers inside, as well as his decision to murder his father through having him raped to death by sex workers, who he then has murdered, after discovering that jgs not only would never love him, but could have saved his mother from a terrible death in poverty, but chose not to because literate women are "too much trouble."

wwx's particularly grotesque torture and murder of wang lingjiao (forcing her to choke down a literal table leg in what is a transparent allusion to oral sex, and her sexual relationship with wc) and wen chao (forcing him to autocannibalize himself before having wang lingjiao bite off his genitals), as well as all of the wen sect soldiers and cultivators he murders and tortures in the immediate aftermath of the sacking of lotus pier. following the trail of bodies he leaves behind is how jiang cheng and lan wangji find him before he kills wen chao.

wwx's impulse decision to snap the neck of the younger brother of the soldier who accidentally kills jiang yanli during the nightless city massacre. this is cold-blooded murder that is obviously triggered by his rage and grief over his sister's death.

other people (e.g., @fincalinde, @confusion-and-more, and @xiyao-feels specifically) have written about the relative nature of cruelty and violence in the novel in far more detail and with far greater eloquence than I can, but I will drop a link to this specific bit of meta I wrote regarding wwx's violence towards the wen sect soldiers and cultivators after the sacking of lotus pier, vs jgy's actions regarding jin guangshan. the tl;dr version is that we can never with any certainty know jgy's mindset regarding many of his actions, but we do know that 1) he does not regret murdering jin guangshan, and 2) wei wuxian did enjoy his torture of soldiers whose involvement in the sacking of lotus pier was spurious at best. we know this because they both tell us as much, with enough hints and context clues in the text to indicate that they are telling the truth.

3. once the dust settles, jin ling can't bring himself to hate either wei wuxian or jin guangyao. that he groups them together at the end of the novel is thematically significant!

wwx makes a point of emphasizing after the guanyin temple events have concluded that jgy has essentially replaced him as a scapegoat for the ills and woes of the cultivation world, and I think it is especially important to note that it is jin ling who gives sect leader yao a thorough dressing-down when sly has the gall to tell him that jgy isn't worth crying over.

rather than re-analyze this scene myself I'm just going to redirect you to @leatherbookmark 's A+ reading of the scene, which includes excerpts, pls go read it! and while I do think it is possible to make the argument that "oh, jin ling just bought into all of jgy's lies, he was deceived, jgy never cared about him," I think that is an unnecessarily reductive and shallow reading of the text, and jin ling's feelings about his relationship with his uncle matters, especially given their placement in the text. I'm bringing up these characters' perspectives specifically to show what a wide range of opinions about jgy the novel presents to the reader at the point he ends up trapped in the get-along crypt with nmj for the next hundred years because jgy's ability to speak for himself at this point is over. he can't. so what do we have left? I think it is important that jin ling is the one who defends his right to cry over the loss of a relative who, yes, was responsible for a great deal of loss and hardship, but who also was present for him throughout his life as a source of stability and comfort and support.

and I'm running out of steam at this point, whoo I wrote a lot of words, but I hope this at least provides some clarity around the issues you raised in your tags, and gives you more stuff to think about regarding jgy. 🙏

did nie mingjue give jin guangyao a 'new life' after his mother's death?

okay i'm not trying to call out one post specifically or anything but this is definitely not the first post on this site to call jin guangyao the cruelest character in MDZS, and that is such a reach, especially when both xue yang and jin guangshan are, you know, right there. but i also want to dig into one of the points raised about jin guangyao and nie mingjue's relationship, and what they owe to each other, because i could not disagree with the principle assertion more.

so, did jin guangyao "[kill] the man who gave him a new life after his mother died"?

I assume we are discussing nie mingjue here and not jin guangshan lmfao.

okay, let's for the sake of argument assume your assertion that jin guangyao owes nie mingjue a life debt is correct. to be clear: I don't think it is. i do not think that meng yao owes nie mingjue a life debt when he comes into his service, nor do I think that he accrues one after receiving his courtesy name and title of lianfang-zun. but let's just pretend anyway.

JGY LIFE DEBTS OWED TO NMJ (STARTING TALLY): 1 - because nie mingjue gave him a job NMJ LIFE DEBTS OWED TO JGY (STARTING TALLY): 0 - how nice for him

I also want to emphasize that nie mingjue's attempt to help creates additional hardship for meng yao that he likely wouldn't have experienced if nie mingjue had stopped to ask him what he wanted before deciding he knew best. recall that he did not offer meng yao a promotion after overhearing his cultivators mocking his low birth: he just gave it to him, without considering how this promotion might (and in fact did) cause the bullying and harassment meng yao received from the nie sect cultivators to escalate. please also remember that meng yao does not ask mingjue for a letter of recommendation to take to jin guangshan to seek his recognition--he does not even want to leave! in fact he is explicitly telling lan xichen in that moment before nie mingjue interrupts their conversation that he feels obligated to remain with nie mingjue! it is nie mingjue who decides to send him off to jin guangshan with a letter of recommendation, and while meng yao expresses his immense gratitude for this gesture in the moment, it is so important to emphasize that he not only did not ask for this, but he was not asked if he wanted it, either. even then, the letter of recommendation that nie mingjue sends along with meng yao when he opts to release him from his service does not open any doors for meng yao at all. in fact, jin guangshan seems to use this as the perfect opportunity to eliminate another inconvenient bastard son during war time, and assigns meng yao--a weak and self-taught cultivator--to the front lines under a captain who not only beats and abuses him, but also forces him to come up with military strategies for the jin sect's successes, which he then takes the credit for when reporting to jin guangshan. if meng yao had not killed this captain, it's likely he would have died on the langye front during the sunshot campaign. meng yao gives himself a new life as jin guangyao and lianfang-zun because he is the one who kills wen ruohan during the battle for nightless city, and he does this entirely on his own (making use of deceit and trickery that nie mingjue finds dishonourable, in fact).

but anyway. after presumably giving meng yao this 'new life' in the form of the impromptu field promotion that meng yao did not ask for, meng yao repays his, um, debt (is that what we owe our employers when we are already providing them our labour?) to nie mingjue in full (??? only in full? he isn't, you know, maybe owed some change?) when he saves nie mingjue's life from wen ruohan at the battle of nightless city. and to save myself a lot of stress and frustration, let's all just collectively agree that, while the life-debt ratio of "giving someone a job" vs "risking your life to save else's" is absolutely not 1:1 in the real world, we're just. assuming it is, for the sake of this argument. the salient point is jin guangyao's ledger is now clear. he's back in the black, as it were.

JGY LIFE DEBTS OWED TO NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - he saved the life of the guy who gave him a job NMJ LIFE DEBTS OWED TO JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - and the guy who gave jgy the job does not owe him anything in return for having his life saved, since jobs and lives are interchangeable and of equal value apparently

that's it, y'all, they're square.

except nie mingjue then explicitly attempts to murder meng yao/jin guangyao three times before jin guangyao even begins to play the song of spirit turmoil for him. which means we need a new scoreboard for keeping track of the mutual-murder attempts that define the rest of their relationship, beginning immediately post-sunshot campaign. here's where the mutual-murder attempt tally stands:

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (STARTING TALLY): 0 - he did literally the opposite of attempting to murder nie mingjue NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (STARTING TALLY): 1 - nie mingjue tries to kill meng yao (who is not fighting back!!) with baxia, prior to being stopped by lan xichen (chapter 49)

that's explicit attempt #1! but if we believe that part of lan xichen's intent with all three of them swearing brotherhood to each other was to, in essence, provide jin guangyao and nie mingjue a clean slate upon which to rebuild trust in their relationship, then let's go ahead and reset that scoreboard. even though that is not how reconciliation between human beings actually works, particularly not when mutually-inflicted trauma is at work, but. whatever.

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - by the power vested in zewu-jun as the first jade of lan, apparently NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - zewu-jun now pronounces u both even stevens, you may put baxia down. ..put it down, mingjue.

nie mingjue does not put baxia down, figuratively or literally. explicit attempt to murder jin guangyao #2 happens after they have sworn their binding oath of brotherhood to each other, and is the infamous "what else should I expect from the son of a prostitute" confrontation at the top of the jinlintai tower steps. nie mingjue literally kicks jin guangyao down 50 solid stone steps, which could easily have broken his neck or spine (or both). please note that this was an unprovoked act of violence against a much, much weaker cultivator whose only offence[1] against nie mingjue--arguably the strongest cultivator and martial artist of his generation--at this point was… saying words nie mingjue didn't like, and not killing xue yang when nie mingjue told him to. time to update the scoreboard again!

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - no, jin guangyao has not begun playing the song of spirit turmoil for nie mingjue yet! (chapter 104) [2] NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 1 - kicks nmj down the jinlintai steps, which, yes, is attempted murder (chapter 49)

which brings us to explicit murder attempt #3, which happens immediately after nie mingjue kicking him down the stairs. while jin guangyao is still recovering and picking himself up off the ground (in other words, not retaliating in any way or provoking further violence) nie mingjue unsheathes baxia to finish the job, and would absolutely have done so if lan xichen had not, yet again, intervened to protect jin guangyao. you know what time it is now.

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - nope, still has not begun playing the song of spirit turmoil between getting punted down the stairs and standing back up again NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 2 - yes, this is a second attempt at actual murder, I am not going to argue about this with anyone

all of this happens /gestures @ literally all of that, while jin guangyao is continuously traveling back and forth between jinlintai and qinghe to play the unaltered version of cleansing to help stabilize nie mingjue's qi. we know this because lan xichen explicitly tells us this in chapter 49, and nie mingjue agrees with him. we also know that this unaltered version of cleansing is having a positive impact on nie mingjue's spirit and his relationship with jin guangyao, because wei wuxian remarks on this while experiencing nie mingjue's memories in empathy. to be very clear: before jin guangyao has played the song of spirit turmoil for nie mingjue even one time, nie mingjue has already tried to kill jin guangyao three times. he is actively attempting to murder jin guangyao while jin guangyao is actively working together with lan xichen to repair their relationship and forestall nie mingjue's inevitable death by qi deviation. and we can go around in circles all day about whether jin guangyao ultimately kills nie mingjue solely because he is defending himself against a man who will not stop trying to kill him, or whether he's doing this because daddy said jump, or if it is a bit of both--I fall into the "it is always a bit of both" camp with jin guangyao--but that is actually beside the point.

the point: if we are keeping score about who has attempted to murder whom (and how frequently) by the time nmj ultimately kicks it, the final tally is nie mingjue 3 - jin guangyao 1. if we include his attempt to kill jin guangyao at the point of his qi deviation, the final tally becomes nie mingjue 4 - jin guangyao 1. so, even if i didn't disagree with the principle assertion made here, i would argue that jin guangyao not only squared that debt to nie mingjue years ago by saving him from wen ruohan, nie mingjue in fact now owes a life debt to jin guangyao for all the attempts to kill the guy who literally saved his life.

tl;dr these are the actions of a man who gave his subordinate a lot of trauma and anxiety, but not a new life.

[1] I am shelving any discussion of what meng yao does or doesn't owe nie mingjue within the context of his time spent undercover in wen ruohan's court because I feel there is nuance enough in that situation to justify its own post. meng yao and nie mingjue both deeply, irreparably traumatized each other in that situation and should never have been let within 6 li of each other ever again after the end of the war, much less pressured to swear brotherhood to each other. (grips lan xichen's shoulders, stares deeply into his beautiful eyes: wtf were you thinking, er-ge)

[2] even if I were to agree that he obtained the song of spirit turmoil in advance of the stairs incident and had already begun playing the song for nie mingjue (which I do not), it is clear that mingjue is improving, pre-stairs. this implies that jin guangyao, while he may have prepared a contingency plan, has not been putting any spiritual power into the portion of cleansing that contains the altered bars of the music. we know that he is capable of altering which parts of the song receive spiritual power because both wei wuxian and lan xichen confirm that this is possible in their (emotionally fraught, for poor xichen) conversation inside the cloud recesses library pavilion after the torn page is discovered. this, combined with the two to three month time frame that the altered song requires to trigger mingjue's qi deviation, plus the two month time frame that jin guangyao presents disingenuously to nie mingjue regarding xue yang, are clear textual evidence in support of my position. the music changes after the stairs.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #jin guangyao #he did crimes??? good for him 😌#thank you so very much for reading my post and engaging with it when you aren't a fan of the character #i genuinely enjoy any opportunity to talk about jgy and discuss why he's such a cool mirror for wwx #so many parallels!! I didn't even touched on half of them!

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aspoonofsugar · 4 years ago

Text

Emerald + Mercury = Cinder

BEGINNING OF THE END = MIDNIGHT

The episodes Beginning of the End and Midnight can be seen as complementary.

Both share a similar structure with the first part telling Cinder’s story and the second part showing how past events are influencing the present. At the same time, they show the links among Cinder, Emerald and Mercury and explore their changing dynamic.

In Beginning of the End it is shown how they came together and we reach the climax of their cooperation. The Fall of Beacon is when the trio is at its strongest. It is only because of their coordination and teamwork that the plan succeeds. In Midnight instead we are shown the beginning of their separation.

For different reasons (fears and wishes) both Mercury and Emerald are about to leave Cinder. Mercury already has and it is probable Emerald will soon.

The two episodes also give us two opposite and complementary visions of Cinder.

In Beginning of the End, we have the way Cinder wants to appear:

Cinder: (stepping forward slowly, glass anklet shifting with her footsteps) I've already told you. And I don't like repeating myself.

Salem: I would like to think I have shown a great deal of patience over my many years walking Remnant. But I do hate repeating myself.

Mercury: Is this how you treat a patient? (Emerald reaches over and twists the screwdriver in his leg, causing him to wince) Ah, too tight!

Cinder: Enough. Our Mercury put on a wonderful show. He was quite brave.

Salem: Do you find such malignance necessary?

Watts: I apologize, ma'am. I'm not particularly fond of failure.

Salem: Then I see no reason for your cruelty towards young Cinder. She's become our Fall Maiden, destroyed Beacon Tower, and most importantly, killed dear Ozpin. So I'm curious, to what failures are you referring?

In Midnight we see who she really is. Moreover, it becomes more and more clear that her imitation of Salem is different from the original:

Salem: I will tell you when and where you are needed.

Cinder: Both of you, get out. I’ll let you know when you’re needed next.

Mercury: Yeah about that, Salem’s got other plans for me. I’m not gonna be taking orders from you anymore.

Why is this being shown through her interactions with Emerald and Mercury? Why are they important for Cinder’s character?

First of all, Mercury and Emerald are Cinder’s kids, at least narratively speaking:

Roman: Oh, look! She sent the kids again! This is turning out just like the divorce!

Roman calls them so when they first appear and later on several characters refer to them as kids in relation to Cinder.

Raven (about Emerald and Mercury): Two children you've tricked into following you.

Tyrian: (chuckles as he slowly walks toward Emerald) Careful, little girl. Cinder isn't here to protect you anymore.

Tyrian (mocking Mercury): Oh yes, the world is mean, and I'm a big, bad man now just like the others.

Salem (to Emerald): Speak, child.

In short, they are meant to be the last link in a chain of abuse that starts with Salem, goes on with Cinder and finally arrives to them.

At the same time, as the title says Mercury + Emerald = Cinder because they are nothing more than parts of Cinder herself, both in their backgrounds and in their personalities.

CINDER + “HUNGER” = EMERALD

Cinder: Follow me, and you'll never be hungry again.

Cinder: It's... an emptiness. It burns. Like hunger. I like it.

In Beginning of the End Emerald and Cinder are shown to share a hunger motif.

Emerald is presented as a street rat who survives through stealing. She is poor and starved, so she accepts Cinder’s offer to be taken care of and to be given food. That said, it is clear that other than food what Emerald is truly starving for is love:

Emerald: I just... (sighs) Cinder was the only family I ever had. She cared about me, taught me things...

I'm the one Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one

Similarly, Cinder too is shown to be hungry. More specifically, she is hungry for power:

Cinder: I want to be powerful.

It is meaningful that in the episode where Cinder tells Emerald she won’t have to starve anymore, she herself is starving. This contradiction conveys the tragedy of Cinder’s character aka a traumatized girl taking in a kid similar to her and becoming like her past parental figures.

As a matter of fact Emerald and Cinder’s first meeting has parallels with Cinder meeting both Madame and Rhodes.

When Cinder meets Madame she asks for food, but is negated it:

And she is later shown to have survived through leftovers.

In contrast, food is the first thing Cinder offers Emerald, who she recognizes as a girl who has survived in poverty, like her.

In their first meeting, Cinder also treats Emerald pretty much like Rhodes treated her. Both discover a young girl, who has just committed a theft and confront her. However, instead of punishing the girl, they both offer to be the girl’s mentor and become her idol.

As a matter of fact both Cinder and Emerald are shown to idolize their saviors to the point that both girls try to look like them by changing their hair/clothes:

So, it would superficially seem that Cinder is acting like Rhodes and in the opposite way of Madame. However, the reality is far more complex. Deep down, Cinder is acting like her adoptive mother because she is targeting a girl and thinking about how she can weaponize her. At the same time, there is a key difference between her behaviour and Rhodes’s. Rhodes had Cinder give the sword back, while Cinder never stopped Emerald from stealing. If anything, she encouraged her criminal activities changing her from a thief to a terrorist. In other words, Cinder radicalized Emerald.

This is once again linked to the motif of hunger both girls share:

Cinder: You Atlas elites are all the same! You think hoarding power means you'll have it forever, but it just makes the rest of us hungrier.

Cinder’s trauma is rooted in the unfairness of the world. She was made to starve simply because she was born in the wrong situation and society completely failed her.

What is more, when Rhodes refuses Cinder as well, she too refuses his vision of the world. Rhodes, pretty much like the Prince of the original fairy-tale, offers Cinder a way to social-climb. In the fairy-tale, Cinderella marries the prince and so becomes a princess in the end. Here, Rhodes is telling Cinder she can reach her own castle. Cinder can escape her misery and reach Atlas. However, this is seen as a lie by Cinder the moment he attacks her.

So, Cinder giving food to an orphan like her and trying to destroy the current order are both coherent with the idea that the world is unjust and needs to be changed. However, Cinder is using the same problems she criticizes to her advantage. What is more, she is exasperating them in order to fulfill her personal agenda, which is only about herself and her self-image.

Let’s see now, what do our two young thieves steal? What are they “hungry” for?

a) Emerald steals a ring:

Salesman: A beautiful ring... for a beautiful woman.

Interestingly, the ring itself might be a reference to the original story of Aladdin, which is apparently Emerald’s allusion.

In the original story Aladdin meets two jinns. The first one is in a ring and Aladdin uses it to save himself and to escape with the magic lamp, where a stronger jinn is. So it makes sense for Emerald to steal a ring (something she wishes) just to meet a woman that promises her she can have more (her personal jinn aka someone that can realize Emerald’s dreams).

Why does Emerald steal the ring?

It is possible she just wants to sell it in order to buy some food, but I like the idea that she steals it also because she wants some beauty (”a beautiful ring for a beautiful woman”) in the harsh and horrible world she lives in (“filth”).

b) Cinder steals a sword:

Like in Emerald’s case, the object of Cinder’s theft can be seen as part of her fairy-tale’s allusion.

As a matter of fact, in Cinder’s adaptation of Cinderella the swords are nothing, but her glass slippers.

This is made clear later on when Rhodes (both the Prince and the Fairy Godmother) gives Cinder the first sword. It is meant to be a prize on his part. He is showing Cinder she does not need to steal it anymore because she has gained it. Moreover, weapons are said to be extensions of a person by Ruby, so it makes sense that the slipper of the original Cinderella becomes a sword in this version. It fits the personality of our Cinder, a fiery young girl, who wants to become a huntress.

Finally, since Cinder’s story uses both inversion and deconstruction when adapting the fairy-tale, it is interesting that in the end the Prince refuses to give Cinder the other sword (slipper) and Cinder takes it by force:

In this way, Cinder goes back to stealing, which was what Rhodes had originally tried to avoid.

Why does Cinder steal the sword in the first place?

She steals something to defend herself with and to hurt her tormentors. Violence is rooted in Cinder’s first theft.

In short, Emerald wants something beautiful, while Cinder wants something powerful.

This difference is coherent with their respective semblances since Emerald creates illusions, while Cinder is able to overheat objects, so that she can create explosions and manipulate their shape. Both powers are representative of their user’s flaw and coping mechanism.

Emerald is a person who has reacted to her traumatic life by chasing illusory dreams of warmth and love. She tricks others and is tricked because she refuses to dispel her self-delusions.

Cinder is instead a person, who has been molded through violence just like the glass statues in the hotel. She is forced to endure until she can’t take it anymore and she explodes:

She herself is the Glass Unicorn, which shatters like Cinder’s innocence when too much pressure is added. Not only that, but Cinder too has started molding others to her will. She has been grooming both Emerald and Mercury for her own ego. This is why the name Scorching Caress fits her so well. It is because behind every act of care it is hidden an act of manipulation. And this happens because Cinder too has been treated utilitaristically and the only kind of love she experienced (Rhodes’s) was a “weak” love Cinder ended up perceiving as fake.

In short, Emerald and Cinder have different coping mechanisms and aim for different things. However, this does not mean that one is better or worse than the other. Their main difference is that right now Emerald is more in touch with her own needs and wishes. Ironically, the delusional girl has never lost sight of what she truly wants.

Emerald wants a family. She has been looking for it in the wrong places and she has been pursuing it in the wrong ways. However, Emerald has never forgotten what she is truly after and she is starting to realize she won’t have it, until she stays on Salem’s side:

Salem: It's important not to lose sight of what drives us: Love, justice, reverence... but the moment you put your desires before my own... they will be lost to you. This isn't a threat, this is simply the truth. The path to your desires is only found... through me.

Tyrian: Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. I want to tell you both a little secret. Your question is all wrong. (laughs)

Emerald: What?

Tyrian: "What do you want from this?" Children, please, if you're not loving what you're doing, then you're in the wrong field.

Salem promises to fulfill Emerald’s wishes, but Tyrian has already told her that pursuing a wish while working for Salem is useless. Emerald is starting to realize it and this is why she will probably leave.

Cinder has instead forgotten what she originally wanted:

Cinder: Like you? You can do whatever you want, go wherever you want.

Cinder’s original wish was to be free and also to be loved, like Emerald:

You're no good I hope you know That your life is of no use And the truth is that No one's ever loved you

However, her being failed by the adults has twisted her wish into a desire for power.

This difference is well conveyed by Cinder and Emerald’s respective line in Beginning of the End:

Cinder: Follow me, and you'll never be hungry again.

Emerald: Thank you...

Cinder: The Huntsman severed the connection before it was complete. (pause) Yes. It's... an emptiness. It burns. Like hunger. I like it. (pause) Yes. I will claim what is ours. (pause) Thank you.

Emerald thanks Cinder because she won’t have to be hungry anymore, while Cinder thanks Salem because she is able to feel a hunger she likes.

This fits well with Cinder’s last words to the Madame:

Cinder: You’re right. Without you I am nothing. But because of you, I am everything.

Emerald does not want to be hungry, while Cinder has been tricked into thinking that being hungry is the only way she can become not even “everything”, but just “something”.

CINDER + “EVERYTHING” = MERCURY

Cinder: Because of you, I am everything.

Mercury: So I got strong, but I never got it back! I've had to work harder than anyone to get where I am.

Cinder’s way of thinking is very similar to Mercury’s. Not only have they both endured their parents’ violence, but they have tried to give this violence meaning. It is because of Madame that Cinder has become “everything” and it is because of Marcus that Mercury has become “strong”. They must believe that it was not all for nothing and that the pain they felt made them stronger instead of weaker.

This is why Cinder thinks that deep down her “hunger” is good. It is because it drives her, but she ignores that it blinds her too.

This is why Mercury keeps going back to his father:

Mercury: Bad hair, used a scythe, and smelled like my dad after a long day. It was him.

Mercury: My dad always said... "if you need to know a city, ask the rats."

He mentions Marcus here and there and uses his teachings to solve problems. That is because those teachings must have some value, right? If they don’t, then Mercury’s life means nothing.

The nature of Cinder and Mercury’s foiling is clear in their first meeting:

Like in Emerald’s case, Cinder finding Mercury calls back a moment of her past.

In particular, it parallels the murder of her adoptive family and Rhodes discovering it. Mercury, just like young Cinder, has just killed an abusive parent and is confronted by a person after the fact.

Once again, Cinder seems to act differently from the adults that let her down. Rhodes was horrified and attacked her, while Cinder praises Mercury and has him join her group.

However, she is deep down acting as Rhodes did. As a matter of fact what truly hurt Cinder about Rhodes’s reaction is that he convinced her that she is irredeemable.

The whole scene plays with the Cinderella’s allusion and inverts it:

The clock strikes midnight and just like in the fairy-tale, the magic is over. In Cinderella, the protagonist goes back to her true self and runs away not to be seen. However, in the end, the prince recognizes her through her slipper (a symbol of her innate beauty and kindness) and marries her despite her humble condition.

In Cinder’s story, midnight is when she reveals a part of herself to Rhodes. She shows all the anger and violence she has been repressing. Cinder is not a “good victim” like the Cinderella of the fairy-tale and Rhodes can’t accept it. Not only that, but he negates Cinder’s dream to be free:

Rhodes: You can run, but you’re going to be running for the rest of your life.

Cinder: I won’t have to run now.

Rhodes: That’s all you’ll ever do.

This shatters Cinder’s hopes and self-perception. She internalizes that she will have to live in opposition to society because she is somehow “a bad person”. She is not a huntress (a princess), but a nobody who’ll have to use violence to survive. And she starts doing it immediately. As the song that starts playing implies, she has been awaken from the “fragile lies in bones”. However, this “truth has broken her soul in two”. This wound is still there and it has influenced, among other things, her reaction to Mercury.

When Cinder meets Mercury, she associates him to his father three times:

Cinder: And you're his son. We saw your fight from the treeline. He's taught you well.

Mercury: Guess so.

Cinder: What's your name?

Mercury: Mercury.

Cinder: Mercury... Tell me, are you anything like your father?

In this way, she strengthens the connection Mercury tried to cut by killing Marcus. She is indirectly convincing him that he can’t be different from his father:

Tyrian: All you ever learned was pain and violence, and now you're too afraid to leave it. Such a tragedy.

Tyrian spells it out clearly for both Mercury and the audience. The only reason Mercury joined Cinder and is now working for Salem is that he is scared. Not only is he scared for his own survival, but he is scared about failing to be anything else than what his father taught him.

Cinder is deep down scared too by Salem and her group:

However, she too, like Mercury, has given up on being anything different than a criminal. She puts up a strong demeanor, but is actually really frail. She is like glass that has been bended through heat (violence) and can easily shatter.

Both Mercury and Cinder are two violent victims. This duality is kind of conveyed also through their names and colors.

“Cinder” is something that has only partially burnt. They tried to reduce her to ashes, but failed and a part of Cinder is still burning. This is why her main colors are black and red. She is black because she was burnt. She is red because she can burn. She was both hurt and has hurted others.

Similarly, “mercury” is a silver/gray metal and this is Mercury’s main color. This choice gains a possible deeper meaning when one considers that his aura is white and that his surname is Black. His aura can be seen as Mercury’s nature, while the surname “Black” is a symbol of the “nurture” he received. Mixing these two factors made so that Mercury turned out like he is (a gray character).

So, Cinder and Mercury have been shaped by their abuse and this is clearly visible on their bodies as well:

Cinder keeps the scar on her neck hidden, while Mercury has chosen to weaponize his missing legs.

It is telling that Mercury made of his own mechanical legs his weapon and that he mostly uses kicks to fight. It is another detail that shows how he is reducing both himself and his trauma to weapons he can use.

Cinder too shows how frail her sense of self is through weapons. It is not by chance that her current weapons are made of glass. In her backstory her swords were a symbol of her true self and of who she could become. Right now, they are nothing, but glass imitations of that ideal.

In short, Cinder and Mercury are both victims and murderers and they needed to have both sides of themselves accepted by their mentors.

However, Rhodes and Cinder failed to do so. They both refused the victimhood of the child in front of them, but they did so in opposite ways.

On one hand Rhodes refused Cinder’s violence and its reasons. He ignored his feelings of affection for the girl and steeled himself, so that he could fight her.

On the other hand Cinder gladly accepted Mercury’s violence and groomed him (Scorching caress), so that he would completely embrace it too.

The difference between Rhodes and Cinder lies in them having different reactions to the violence perpetrated by a child. However, they both fail to address the child’s pain. Rhodes does so because his vision is too black and white. Cinder does so because she is not even able to address her own pain.

However, both Cinder and Mercury need to address their own victimhood. Still, they refuse to do so because it would mean to accept their vulnerability. It is easier to convince themselves that they are the strong and violent ones. They are the ones others are scared of:

Mercury: We're the guys you should be afraid of.

But it is precisely because of this refusal that they are currently caught in dynamics similar to the ones they escaped:

Salem and Tyrian are nothing, but more dangerous versions of Madame and Marcus.

Salem treats Cinder as a pawn, rather than a person. She strips her of her personhood and agency and punishes her violently.

Tyrian is a killer, who enjoys his job like Marcus. He keeps invading Mercury’s personal space and threathens him. Moreover, his own semblance is similar to Marcus’s. It might not steal people’s semblances, but it still messes with their auras (with their very souls).

Cinder and Mercury struggle to recognize their own situations because to do so they must accept they are still stuck in their horrible childhoods:

Mercury: You may not like it here without Cinder, but I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be!

Cinder: I don’t serve anyone. And you wouldn’t either, if you were built that way.

However, this refusal is confusing them about what their true needs and wishes are:

Cinder: I want to be strong. I want to be feared. I want to be powerful.

Mercury: So what's in it for me?

In Beginning of the End both characters receive a line where they express some kind of wish.

As stated above, Cinder’s wish is not her original one, but a twisted version because she thinks she can’t reach her true desire.

When it comes to Mercury, he is not even sure of what he really wants. This is made clear even later on:

Emerald: I mean, there has to be something you want from this, right?

Mercury: Salem's promised us everything. We win this thing for her, we'll be top dogs in her new world. What more do you want?

He says Salem will give him all he wants, but he still fails to answer Emerald’s question. What is it that he wants?

He wants “everything” Cinder can offer him and later on “everything” Salem offers him. However, this is just another way to say he’ll take anything he is given, be it even something as basic as survival:

Mercury: Look, even if what he said was true, we can’t stop Salem. You told me yourself, Hazel tried. He failed and he got in line. Big guy’s not going to pick fights he can’t win, and neither should we.

This is because Mercury is so scared and hurt he can’t even start to think about what he wants.

Similarly, he goes back to a fatalistic vision of the world:

Mercury: Just made sense.

Emerald: It made sense?

Mercury: All my life, my father trained me to be a killer, an assassin like him. And then moments after I killed him, you two showed up looking for someone with my exact skills. Just felt like it was meant to be.

Let’s highlight that Cinder does the same:

Pyrrha: Do you believe in destiny?

Cinder: Yes.

Cinder: You know, Neo, someone once asked me if I believed in destiny. And I'm happy to say I still do.

Both Mercury and Cinder have convinced themselves that there is a “destiny” written for them and that they must play that role (the role of an assassin, the role of the Maiden). However, in this way they are just chaining themselves and accepting to Do As They Are Told by adults and mentor figures, who do not really care about them.

EMERALD + MERCURY = SOUL + BODY

I'm the one That was born in a nightmare a murderer's son Got no gun But I gleam like a blade and I'm harder than iron I'm the one Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one Delusion I'll steal til your blind and defeat you from inside your mind

I'm the one That was ripped from the earth and exposed to the sun Overrun By the hate and the beatings defiled by a father I'm the one I'll race with your eyes and you'll never outrun Illusions Will conquer your mind and will make you fulfill my design

Mercury and Emerald’s song says several things about them.

First of all, it conveys the idea of two kids that feel let down by the world and have decided to retaliate. They mock their opponents and praise their respective abilities. However, it is clear from the verses above that it is just a mask to hide their pain.

This fits with them appearing for the first time in Best Day Ever where Ozpin says this:

Ozpin: And they will be, but right now they're still children. So why not let them play the part? After all, it isn't a role they'll have forever.

Differently from out protagonists (at the time), Emerald and Mercury are not playing the part of kids, but they are acting as big bad thugs to prove themselves to the people around them.

Secondly, the song is useful to explore Emerald and Mercury’s foiling.

I'm the one Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one Delusion I'll steal til your blind and defeat you from inside your mind

I'm the one That was ripped from the earth and exposed to the sun Overrun By the hate and the beatings defiled by a father

Emerald was never given love, while Mercury was given hate:

Mercury: I'm sorry you didn't have a mommy that loved you, but I had a father who hated me!

This difference is at the root of their different personalities.

On one hand Emerald attaches herself to the care Cinder gives her and takes it as the most love she’ll ever receive.

On the other hand Mercury is just content with not receiving hate and violence from the people around him.

Emerald is more open about her connections with others, while Mercury is more disillusioned. She is strongly driven by them, while Mercury is too scared to fully embrace them.

Emerald has clear wishes, but she is deluding herself about them. Mercury has fears that do not let him realize what he wants.

This difference stems from the different nature of their traumas. Who was never given anything accepts whatever they are offered, while who received pain thinks even nothing is better than more pain.

Still, we are currently seeing an inversion of this dynamic. Emerald’s wishes and their not overlapping with reality are making her doubtful. Mercury’s fear and survival instinct are making him refuse the truth:

Mercury: And all of this is pointless, anyway. Salem’s not ending the world.

In the end, facing one’s own feelings, being them wishes:

Or fears:

Is still better than repressing them, even if it might be painful.

I'm the one That was born in a nightmare a murderer's son Got no gun But I gleam like a blade and I'm harder than iron

I'm the one I'll race with your eyes and you'll never outrun Illusions Will conquer your mind and will make you fulfill my design

The song I’m the One has four key verses. In the first two ones both characters tell a little of their past and then discuss their abilities, while in the other two Mercury mostly talks about his past and emphasizes it, while Emerald highlights her semblance more.

This ends up foreshadowing the importance of Emerald’s semblance and Mercury’s lack of one (”got no gun”).

Emerald’s semblance is important on different levels. As stated above, it perfectly embodies Emerald’s flaw:

Mercury: You're in denial.

And it is linked to unconscious aspects, like wishes and fears. Finally, it is a semblance linked to trickery and lies and these are among the causes of The Fall of Beacon:

Cinder: Our Kingdoms are on the brink of war, yet we, the citizens, are left in the dark.

It is not by chance that this semblance specifically has been so instrumental in Cinder’s plan, after all.

Similarly, Mercury’s lack of a semblance is one of his defining traits:

Mercury: He never went easy on me! Every day of training was a beating. And when I unlocked my Semblance, he stole it with his!

Ironically, this would make for an excellent narrative objective for Mercury’s character. However, he is so sure his semblance can’t be taken back that he has completely given up on it. This even if he is clearly bitter about having had a part of himself stolen.

The key aspect here may be that Mercury has failed to get his semblance back through his father’s teachings:

Mercury: He told me I could have it back when I was strong. So I got strong, but I never got it back!

And he is now considering it lost forever. It is possible that the path to find his ability again is instead another one altogether.

That said, while Cinder mostly used Emerald’s semblance in her plan, she also made great use of Mercury’s skill and of the peculiar nature of his body:

The first step in her plan, after all, uses both Emerald’s semblance and Mercury’s prostethic legs to spread negative emotions. This tendency continues in PvP where Emerald uses her semblance and Mercury, unhurt because of his legs, prevents Ruby from interrupting the fight.

In short, Emerald mostly relies on her semblance, while Mercury mostly relies on his legs and fighting prowess.

This detail adds to the idea that Emerald and Mercury have been acting as a unit and have been complementing each other. Emerald acts as the “soul” and Mercury as the “body”.

The soul is one’s personal essence (like the semblance). It is where (once again) wishes reside. The body is what protects the soul and is animated by instincts and self-survival.

They complement each other. This complementarity is shown in Emerald and Mercury’s fights.

In the Vytal festival, Mercury takes on both Coco and Yatsuhashi for a short while, so that Emerald can size her chance to fight Coco at her own terms (and she wins by using her semblance).

In the Battle of Heaven, Emerald uses her semblance to help Mercury fight and, in a sense, she compensates for his lack of one:

This perfect complementarity used to make them strong, but right now it is clear that it has become limitating:

Blake: When you’ve been at someone’s side for so long, after a while they become a part of you. But that’s just it, they’re only a part of you. Don’t forget about the rest.

This is why they are currently being separated by the narrative.

On one hand Emerald must learn not to be so emotionally dependant from others and must make her own choices. This is also why her using the lamp might be meaningful:

Qrow: This last great creation would be given the power to both create and destroy. It would be given the gift of knowledge, so that it could learn about itself and the world around it. And most importantly, it would be given the power to choose, to have free will to take everything it had learned and decide which path to follow - the path of light or the path of darkness.

The whole point of the relics (and of the journey we are going through) is to learn about the world, about creation and destruction, so that in the end a choice can be made.

This is why the first relic we saw is the relic of knowledge. Now, Emerald is a character that has been dependant on others, so that she could realize her wishes. Aladdin itself is a story about a character depending on a Jinn to make his dreams come true. However, it is possible Emerald’s arc will be different and it will be about gaining the knowledge to act and realize one’s wishes.

On the other hand Mercury must face himself and learn what he really wants. He must start living instead of simply surviving. In a sense, he must take the soul his father stole back.

Mercury quoting Marcus: "This is a crutch!" "This makes you weak!"

Marcus was wrong. One’s individuality (semblance) does not make them weak. If anything, Marcus’s abuse of Mercury made him need a literal crutch (since he lost his legs) and the boy is still hiding behind this violence to avoid any real choice about himself. This is what prevents him from becoming strong:

Yang: You might be powerful, but that doesn't make you strong.

Raven: Who do you think you are, lecturing me?! Standing there, shaking like a scared little girl?!

Yang: Yeah, I'm scared. But I'm still standing here!

His connection with Emerald might still play a role in this. After all, Mercury is, among other things, the god of thieves and this allusion has been played with by making him protective of Emerald (whose surname means “thief”). It might be used in a deeper and more meaningful way later on.

Emerald and Mercury must grow because if they don’t, they’ll end up as their dark foils:

Both Hazel and Emerald ended up joining Salem out of a feeling of love that was twisted. Emerald joined Salem because of her loyalty to Cinder, who is using her. Hazel joined Salem because of the death of his sister that he blames on Ozpin. Their semblances are even symbolic of their respective flaws since Emerald is caught up in her own delusions, while Hazel is unable to properly grieve, so he can’t “feel pain” on more than just the physical level.

Both Mercury and Tyrian are assassins and Tyrian is who Mercury might become if he truly chooses to live only to kill and does not find a different goal.

It is also telling that both Emerald and Mercury are currently put in similar circumstances as their two foils. As a matter of fact Mercury is leaving with Tytian, while Emerald and Hazel have been given the password to use the lamp and must choose what to make of this information.

At the same time, Emerald and Mercury have also some traits of respectively Tyrian and Hazel as well.

Emerald is fiercely loyal to Cinder like Tyrian is to Salem:

Tyrian: So devoted to someone so incompetent.

Hazel wanted to protect Gretchen (and is still acting on these unfulfilled feelings of protectiveness) like Mercury is trying to protect Emerald. Moreover, Gretchen and (probably) Emerald’s choice was/will be to fight an enemy that can’t be beaten, going against Hazel and Mercury’s wishes.

All in all, Emerald and Mercury have had interesting interactions with both Hazel and Tyrian that can be (ironically) seen as two incomplete and flawed mentor figures.

On one hand Hazel has been acting as a protector of sorts. He carried Emerald when she lost consciousness after the Battle of Heaven and he tried to protect both Emerald and Mercury from Salem’s rage after their failure.

On the other hand Tyrian is seen tormenting the two kids whenever he gets the chance. That said, he ironically ends up spelling out for them truths the two must face:

Tyrian: Do what makes you happy children... please? I'm begging you...

Tyrian: Of course she is! You’re surprised? Salem is destruction incarnate! Our mistress wishes to see the end of it all! There is no ideal more beautiful.

In short, some kind of interesting foiling seems to have been set-up for the four of them and it will be interesting to see if/how it develops.

MIDNIGHT = BEGINNING OF THE END

In a sense, when the clock stroke midnight it was the beginning of Cinder’s end because she entered a spiral she has not been able to stop since then. Not only that, but she has dragged other people in that same spirals and those people are now struggling against it, just like her.

At the same time, midnight signals the end of illusions and that may be a fitting description for where we are in the story so far.

Ruby has just announced the existence of Salem to the world, Emerald is uncovering several truths about Salem, Cinder and herself and the Ace Ops are being forced to face their emotions. Of course, when some illusions end, new ones appear. However, it is clear we are in a pivotal moment, which will hopefully lead to some changes.

Similarly, Cinder, Mercury and Emerald will probably go their own ways soon and it will be interesting to see how their paths will foil and where they will meet again.

As for now, it seems that because of Emerald’s allusion to Aladdin, she might use the last question to Jinn. If so, she will probably aquire knowledge and wisdom (emeralds are the stones of wisdom apparently).

Mercury will probably spiral a little bit as for now, but I wonder if he will receive some pivotal focus in the Vacuo’s volumes. Other than him going there with Tyrian, there is also the fact that it would make what is currently just a juxtaposition with Penny (thank you, @hamliet for noticing) a more interesting foiling.

Penny is an artificial human, a creation who was given life because her father loved her so much that he sacrificed a part of his aura for her... twice. She is at the centre of the theme of creation and it represents the good sides of it. She is a creation with a soul, a child, the fruit of parental love. It is because of the love she received that she is willing to protect creation:

Penny: That is not… I choose to fight for people who care about me.

Penny’s arc is about self-actualization. She struggles to be her own person outside her role, her purpose and even her parent. However, even if she has been objectified and keeps being objectified, she has also been given affection and this is why she fights.

Mercury is her opposite. He was the target of his father’s violence. Marcus not only stole his legs (while Pietro built Penny a body), but even a part of his soul (while Pietro gave Penny a part of his). He taught Mercury hate and violence and this is why he is currently helping a witch to destroy the world. Because of this, it would be interesting for such a character to receive focus on the volumes about destruction.

Finally, Cinder, as the Fall Maiden, is linked to the theme of choice. This has already been explored a little bit in her being obessed by destiny, as said above. However, the theme of choice is one which must still be fully explored.

In particular, there are several references to choice and destiny when it comes to Cinder’s foil aka Pyrrha:

Cinder (about Pyrrha): Hmm... People assume that she's fated for victory, when she's really taking fate into her own hands.

Cinder: It's unfortunate you were promised a power that was never truly yours.

Pyrrha: When I think of destiny, I don't think of a predetermined fate you can't escape. But rather... some sort of final goal, something you work towards your entire life.

Red-Haired Woman: She understood that she had a responsibility... to try. I don't think she would regret her choice, because a Huntress would understand that there really wasn't a choice to make. And a Huntress is what she always wanted to be.

Pyrrha’s arc is about making a choice. She must choose if she wants to become a Maiden. She struggles, but in the end she accepts this responsibilty. She embraces her idea of destiny and tries to be a Maiden even without powers.

Cinder’s idea of destiny is not fully explored. In a sense, just like Pyrrha, she has taken destiny in her own hands. However, she also seems to use the idea of destiny to nurture her self-image as the Chosen One and as the Worthy One.

At the same time, Pyrrha’s choice led to her tragic death. Not only that, but in the end her death accomplished little. Even Ruby activating her silver eyes has more to do with her wish to protect life, rather than with death. Why is that so? It is probably because Pyrrha’s choice was made without knowledge. She had been explained only a fragment of the truth, while the whole point is that one should learn, meet creation and destruction and then make a choice. This is why we have yet to meet the relic of choice.

My guess is that the theme of choice will mostly be explored through Cinder’s character, who will be asked to choose her destiny in the end.

#rwby #rwby meta #cinder fall #emerald sustrai #mercury black #my meta

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trulyhumblenarcissist · 4 years ago

Text

Abourt Rei Himura and BNHA Chapter 301

Now that I've read the official release of chapter 301 I can finally try to gather my thoughts. I think this time the particular rendition of dialogues and inflections provided by Caleb Cook is more crisp and clear than usual, especially in throwing "shade" upon Endeavor as a father figure. But let's do things in order...

Title: THE WRONG WAY TO PUT OUT A FIRE - a simple, but stark message that doesn't leave space for ambiguity. There was a fire, an imminent tragedy that could and should have been avoided, but whoever tried to fix it, did it all wrong and now we have to deal with a huge arson.

CARLESS HANDLING OF FIRE, on the other hand, doesn't quite cut it for me, because it seems like everything was caused by a foolish mistake. "I was carless and now I'm in a pinch"- type of situation, while it's perfectly clear that Endeavor and Rei decided purposefully which "strategy" to use with Touya. A BAD one to say it lightly. Rei's contribution and complicity is debatable, of course, and I'll touch on this later.

Let me get this clear though: I'm not trying in any way to critique the hard work of unofficial translators. I can't say anything relevant because I'm not a translator in the first place (I can barely understand English and my native language on a good day) and also because I am so grateful for everything they do in order to give us really good material FREE OF CHARGE basically a second after the release in Japan. I'm just interested about the different shades of subtext we can catch if we read the story through multiple filters. Every translation is unique because it carries the personal spin of the author even if the bias should be inexistent or ideally undetectable...

However, back to the chapter

REI'S CAGE

The first scene opens on a luxurious classic Japanese villa, with Enji, Rei and her parents discussing the motivation behind Enji's proposal. Or at least we initially think that's what's going on... Because in reality Rei's family couldn't care less about the motivation. Everything these people see is a wealthy, famous guy the next number one hero ready to take their daughter in marriage. I guess the Himuras are pretty broke, thight on cash, their old prestige is definitely gone and all they can do to save themselves from shame and poverty is "to sell" their only remaining asset.

During the whole ordeal, Rei is standing still, silent, cold as ice. She knows she doesn't really have a choice. How mortifying and sad is this? An adult, capable woman has no agency whatsoever, she is used again and again and she stoically accepts this treatment from every single dominant figure in her life until she can't be stoic anymore. I really hope Horikoshi's going to give her a much more proactive role in saving her family and it seems the narrative wants us to expect this type of character development.

I'd like to point out 2 panels in particular:

First one

In this scene the Todorokis are back from their trip to the doc, who clearly said they shouldn't try to conceive a child with a perfect quirk mix because it is dangerous (and morally questionable too). Rei understands this fact and tries to dissuade Enji, but he doesn't listen, because he's projecting all his pent-up resentment and frustration onto Touya. He knows how it feels to crush against an unbreakable wall, since he can't surpass All might and his son can't too. He had to learn this truth the hard way, so Touya needs to do the same. Enji is purposefully throwing upon his son years of failures, self consciousness and despair, just because the boy has to get it into his thick skull that he is a dud, just like his father. This is not a hopeless dad making a mistake bona fide, this is a broken man trying to destroy his self reflection by proxy, annihilating everything Touya is, swiping the kid's identity under the rug. He describes his son's dreams and sadness as something birthed from stubbornness. He is auto-convincing himself however (because Endeavor is not stupid). A little bit later he's basically saying: "Touya let's play make believe! We can go on like everything I had engulfed in your psyche never existed, you're a failed attempt so you don't exist. Your needs and wants are silly and useless, nothing worth dealing with now that I can't make you my prodigy. Why don't you go play with the other failures so that I don't have to look at myself while taking actually care of you. I don't want to see you, because it's too painful, because you're a remainder of my own inadequacy."

Note: If you want to read an incredibly well done analysis about Endeavor's motives and psyche, you can get it on @thyandrawrites , she's dwelt on everything extensively and way better than me.

I really want to talk about Rei though. In the panel I showed above, her expression is a bit tricky to analyse. At first she is very vocal about her position. She doesn't want to put Touya through useless suffering, especially since they have a scientific reason not to. They have no guarantee of success with other children, besides, they could possibly have to deal with other health related issues. However, all it takes to convince her in the end is Enji's half assed attempt at the "It's for Touya's sake" shtick. Is it really? Why doesn't she question her husband anymore?

Well... I think before Natsuo, she was probably hoping Touya would let go "naturally", with time and growth, maybe by taking interest in his other siblings. Rei said she wanted to have more children because in her mind they would have supported and loved each other. Maybe she was naive enough to think that a big family full of kids few years apart from each other was all Touya needed to distract himself from his purposes... BUT and here is the point I want to get across: She was deluding herself too, much like Enji. The ugly truth, in my opinion, is that Rei is a person prone to protect herself by going with everything other people want, especially if said people are capable of hurting her. Yes, she was hurt time and time again, but what would have happened if she really tried to stop Enji?

What I am trying to say is that Rei is the kind of person who endures to survive. She holds a "captive" mentality in which, by indulging her captor's desires, she can continue living with less possibile damage. If I stay still and silent, if I don't make a scene, I can go on, I can hold onto the few things I have that actually make me happy.

Let's think about it... Enji was so obsessed with his psychotic, power-hungry quest that he would have probably disown Rei. She would have been thrown away for a more compliant woman with an ice quirk, or something similar, this resulting in her probably losing everything, the respect and love of her family (the Himuras) and also her own children. Because we know Endeavor can definitely hold a grudge and is vendicative.

So, clarifying, Rei doesn't put up a fight because she is scared for herself in a way... She is scared to be hurt in the worst possible way (by losing her little bit of serenity), so her strategy is to endure and to keep up a facade of control and purpose.

Rei, ironically just like Touya and other characters in mha, doesn't really get what unconditional love is. Her family loves her until she can be useful to the Himura name and status, her husband loves her for her quirk. Her children, however, love her for who she is and she wants to stay with them... Only to be forced to leave them later anyway.

The few times Rei actually smiles are when she is with her babies. She is a deeply loving mother in her core, but her declining mental health makes her a very lacking caregiver.

This panel, in my opinion, shows the point of no return for Rei. She can't keep the glacial facade forever...

After Natsuo's turn to be deemed a failure, Endeavor is crazier than ever, because All Might is as popular and loved as ever and he hasn't make any progress into his eugenetic games. The last two images of Rei are very telling. She is exhausted, but she knows what her husband wants from her this time too. She looks like a lifeless doll and honestly I can easily see Shouto's conception as... Non consensual and I will stop here.

Then Shouto is born, the last, perfect specimen... And Rei isn't doing much for Touya, we can see she's apparently blind towards her eldest son's distress already after Natsuo's birth... But why?

Because she is actively avoiding to face the Touya's problems too.

If Touya is still suffering, is still feeling stressed and worthless, then everything Rei has endured, everything she pretended not to feel for the sake of her family has been completely useless. What Rei cannot look at is her own parental failure, is the concrete proof that while protecting herself and her peace she did not protect her children too, because the two interests were never really aligned, even if she really believed so. She never had a functional family to preserve in the first place and everything she accepted to do was all for the sake of a false sense of belonging.

However is too easy to say she should've rebelled against Enji and dumped his sorry ass. Abuse traps you and your abuser too in a cage tricky to escape.

What I imagine will happen next chapter is one of two things:

Enji stops Touya by using brute force, probably also saying something really scarring to reinforce the notion that Shouto is the only child he cares about.

Rei stops Touya by using her quirk. This act could be considered by Touya another confirmation that even his mother actually does something by her own accord only when Shouto's safety is at risk

Necessary conclusions

I don't blame Rei for her actions too much. She is a victim turned abuser by circumstances, but more importantly she's actually taken mesures to prevent herself from hurting her children again. She's trying to heal for her family's sake, really this time. Ten years spent dealing with guilt and having actual therapy seem a good plan to me. And now she's the one ready to snap Enji back to reality.

Enji, on the other hand, is trying too. It's too little too late, but if he stops avoiding reality and hardly works on understanding his family's point of view I don't think he is completely unredeemable. I don't see him surviving his last confrontation with Touya, thought... But I could be totally wrong.

Obviously everything I've said it's my personal analysis on Rei's character, as I interpret her actions and words, so feel free to contradict me and/or to add anything you might see fit.

#bnha301 #bnha meta #mha #my hero academia #todoroki enji #endevor #todoroki rei #rei himura #todoroki family #tw abuse

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itsjustthechems · 4 years ago

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Musings on Danse's political/moral alignments

I saw a post mentioning how a lot of the Fo4 fandom associates Danse with current American conservatives. I disagree, and just want to ramble about my feelings on the subject.

Yes, he is a meathead asshole.

I totally understand taking Danse at face value and assigning him mentally to the "bigoted bootlicker" category. That's totally valid. Unless you travel with him extensively and pay close attention to his ambient dialogue, it's understandable to figure that's just how Bethesda wrote him.

Danse's backstory

To understand Danse's moral and political standings, we have to take a look at his origin story. As far as Danse is aware, he grew up alone in the Capital Wasteland. He was an orphan that scrounged for scrap metal and other junk, which he sold to get by. He had no known family, parental figures, or mentors of any sort. He had one friend, Cutler, who was around his age. The Brotherhood of Steel, much like the real U.S. military, preyed on people like this for recruitment missions. Teenagers of low socioeconomic status - hungry, lonely, desperate, unsure of their purpose. Of course Danse and Cutler would elect to join the Brotherhood, which promised them food, protection, somewhere to sleep at night, and above all else - camaraderie. During one of his affinity dialogues, Danse admits that joining the Brotherhood seemed like the only way to escape his situation.

The Brotherhood took advantage of Danse and other soldiers' naivety and lack of experience by instilling fear and hatred of the misunderstood (synths, ghouls, mutants) and using those negative feelings to shape their training. Dare to disagree with their belief system? At best, you would be disciplined. Verbally abused by the Elder and shunned by your friends and mentors. At worst, you'd be booted out - back to the Wasteland you had been taught to fear unconditionally. Back to starvation, radiation, poverty, and isolation.

After a year of service, Cutler disappeared on a mission. Danse searched for him for three weeks, finally tracing him to a super mutant hive. Cutler had been exposed to FEV and had become a super mutant. Danse killed him. He admits that he doesn't know if it was the right thing to do, but it was what he had been trained to do.

That was the first circumstance that really gave me a glimpse into the nuance of Danse's beliefs. Like...wait, he questions his oh-so-precious-and-infallible training?

Is he still a douche to almost all non-human NPCs? Yes. However, I don't think he knows how to be anything other than a condescending, militant, Brotherhood heavy. That kind of attitude is what got him promoted so quickly. It's what got him out of his bottom-of-the-pecking-order trainee position, where he had felt singled out by his superiors. He learned that bigotry and cold-heartedness were the only methods of survival and success in the Brotherhood.

His character arc

Danse is not meant to be a one-dimensional, blatantly bigoted character. If he was, I don't think Bethesda would have made him romance-able. In fact, that's why you can't romance him until after his character arc quest: Blind Betrayal.

Spoiler alert! On this quest, you find out that Danse is a synth. He had no idea, and has a subsequent identity crisis that leaves him suicidal. This is the breaking point in the struggle between his own innate morality and his Brotherhood training. His default stance is that he should be killed to uphold the Brotherhood's code — he even offers to do the deed himself to protect the Sole Survivor from disciplinary action (a true testament to the brutality of the Brotherhood — Danse would rather die than allow Sole, his best friend, to face Maxson's wrath). However, through charisma checks, you can remind him of his own humanity and convince him not to harm himself. This breakthrough leads him to recognize that synths are truly nothing to be afraid of.

After Blind Betrayal, he will agree with most dialogue options supporting synths. According to the wiki, any leftover dislikes regarding synth-related dialogue are glitches.

There are other moments in separate quests that reference his moral confusion — for example, he likes when you help Kent, who is a ghoul, but doesn't like if you flirt with Holly, also a ghoul (maybe that's just some jealousy, lmao).

He also dislikes when you give Virgil, a mutant scientist, the serum that will help him return to his human form. My personal headcanon is that seeing Virgil cure himself forces Danse to address the fact that he might have been able to save Cutler, but killed him instead, due to his Brotherhood brainwashing.

Evidence of Danse's fiscal/economic beliefs

Danse is a COMRADE. You heard me. This man's pussy pops for socialized medicine. When you walk through Milton General Hospital, he says: "Facilities like this were funded by privately owned corporations more interested in making a profit than helping mankind."

You heard me, this man hates capitalism. Behold:

"Vault-Tec built places like this to conduct unethical experiments on human beings. Just thinking about it makes me sick."

"It was corporations like this that put the last nail in the coffin for mankind. They exploited technology for their own gains, pocketing the cash and ignoring the damage they'd done."

"Private corporations like Vault-Tec ruined mankind. All that brainpower put to waste..."

"This is disgusting. I can't believe Mass Fusion dumped these barrels here. This is the perfect example of how environmentally irresponsible the ancient corporations behaved."

"This is exactly the reason that science never belonged in the private sector."

Ugh. Really gets me goin'.

Conclusion

He has several other comments that suggest he is generally anti-war, is very pro-education, shows appreciation for the arts, loves children and animals...several things that conservatives couldn't care less about. He reacts angrily to greed, assaulting or harassing any non-hostiles (including synths, ghouls, and mutants), turning your back on beggars, harming non-hostile animals, etc. In my opinion, he's a pretty stand-up guy once he completes his character arc.

Does he still love the taste of boots? Yeah, and he probably always will. :/

Bethesda did him so dirty by not finishing his character arc. The fact that he still gushes about the Brotherhood and acts as if he's still in their ranks after Blind Betrayal is pretty clear evidence that he's a generally unfinished character. I think he had the potential to become a more accepting, radicalized, philanthropic individual after recognizing the shortcomings of the Brotherhood's ideals.

But yeah. I love this handsome dumbass, and I personally consider him a comrade, not a conservative. Kudos if you read this far into my crazed ramblings!

#paladin danse #danse #fallout 4 #fallout #fo4 #blind betrayal #spoilers #tw suicide

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oddcryptidwrites · 1 year ago

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AHAHAHAHA FINALLY!

For this one in particular, I'm going to talk about the Athens Zone of Safety from Not Your Typical Fairytale, BECAUSE it's super interesting (to me at least) and has a CULT so!

Let's put ourselves in modern day Athens, Georgia to start off (a place I have a high familiarity with).

The biggest entity within Athens now is the University of Georgia. There is a high population of academics: college kids, professors, researchers, and the like. The school has impressive programs not only in STEM but also in agricultural research (especially poultry). UGA also has a STRONG university culture, surrounding football and *looks at notes* barking like a bulldog.

However, there is a SHARP divide between UGA-associated academics and the rest of the population of Athens. It has an incredibly high poverty rate and homeless population. There's an abundance of public housing, and it's not well taken care of. The university has not always done the best for the people of Athens, prioritizing itself and its own growth over the growth of the community.

Now cut to the time of the apocalypse, which started in a laboratory in Georgia, in mid-2035.

College students and professors were some of the first victims, having done research within the facility in which the fungus escaped from. It spread like wildfire at first, but realizing the severity of the situation, it was fortunately controlled within the student population by quick lockdown/quarantine actions taken by the university... other campuses statewide, nationwide, and worldwide were not as lucky.

By the time IR had spread nationwide, then worldwide, very few places were safe from the fungus, and the world had descended into chaos. Students couldn't return home, whether domestic or international. Professors didn't want to leave what safety the university offered. Average Athens citizens relied on the university for food, water, and medical care in a system that had otherwise collapsed. There were massive outbreaks outside the university, and the university failed the larger Athens community.

But they were safe.

Early in 2036, realizing there was no foreseeable end to the pandemic, and with a ton of students stuck on campus and unable to leave, the university realized they had to do SOMETHING to manage the population of the university and join the research towards a cure.

Enter Jason Sidney, who had been appointed Chancellor of the University System of Georgia just before the apocalypse. While he didn't necessarily oversee just the University of Georgia at the start of his position, he did after other universities in the state either collapsed, disbanded, or went independent in the wake of the zombie outbreak.

Chancellor Sidney, a career politician, created the Sidney Plan, which is singlehandedly one of, if not the, most successful post-apocalyptic recovery plan worldwide. Uniting what was left of the university and of Athens proper, he centralized everyone onto the main campus, and took residence in the central most location with his most trusted allies. From there, he manipulated encouraged the remaining population into finding the cure for IR. Scientists of all type were funneled into the chemistry and biology programs. The agricultural school focused primarily on food production. Arts students and professors were recruited to help forward the cause, with propaganda posters and just art to help boost general morale. Average Athenian citizens who were not formerly part of the university were recruited to help the wheels turn, whether that be defending the borders of the campus, constructing walls around the city (Athens was the first, not Atlanta), or food distribution. Yes, it was hard, but Sidney pooled together all of the resources he could get and protected the remnants of what he had.

His daughter, Pandora Sidney, would be the one who stepped up Athens from just a successful settlement to a cult. She utilized the pre-existing university culture to create the perfect environment for a cult to grow. It was just distanced enough from modern day for the 18-25 to not understand what life had been like prior to the apocalypse but the older crowd to latch onto that old university culture. The concept of the Chancellor was deified and raised to a position of a "higher being". Her eldest child became the first Blessed Heir, and her husband became the first Blessed Father. As the Sidney family has continued to rule Athens, they've tightened their control on the spread of worldly information into society and increased the cultish atmosphere and behavior. By the time we get to Chancellor Silas Sidney and Blessed Heir Marlowe, we have a full-blown, worshipping their leader like a god, human sacrifice-type cult.

SO NOW here's the answers to the ACTUAL questions you asked.

There are not really "newcomers" into Athens. Everyone outside of Athens thinks everyone in Athens is crazy. Everyone in Athens thinks everyone outside Athens is crazy. The ONLY reason that Athens is a Zone of Safety is because Queen Ciara (the second monarch) actively reached out to Athens and offered them safety and their relative independence if they helped food production issues in the other Zones. Essentially, Athens is it's own government, culture, and whatever, and only loosely aligns itself with the larger State of Georgia government. Their primary contribution is sending the Blessed Heir to participate in the State Council (for example, Marlowe) so the Blessed Heir can get a better understanding of the outside influences affecting Athens. By this point, Blessed Heirs are USUALLY 25-30 and have been fully indoctrinated into the society of Athens and don't feel much need to remain in the outside world. (Would you if everyone back home told you how special you are all the time?). The only reason Marlowe was so young when they became a Councilor was because Cosmo Sidney (their grandfather) stepped down relatively young due to "health issues".

If there ARE newcomers, usually scientists who want a home to do research, there is a relatively mixed reaction. Usually the older folk are suspicious and wary, while the younger folk tend to be more curious and want to know about the outside world (and how barbarous and horrible it is). It's a fine line. Most newcomers don't end up staying for long, but if they do and follow the customs, they are treated as equals as born-Athenians. Newcomers who disrupt the status quo (*ahem* ADRIAN) are shunned and "expelled" pretty quickly. This goes the same for born-Athenians, like Charoen Panya, as well, although it's much more rare and only really happens when there's an outsider involved. Life in Athens, although cult-y, is relatively nice and pushes forward with research and academia in a world where that search for knowledge has been set aside for so long.

Regarding cultural shifts: Athens was founded on the research for the cure. It's estimated that up to 30% of the population alone is part of this research (that's close to 400,000 people in one town). While their are cures out there, Athens is still searching for The One Cure. I haven't thought much about how finding this cure might cause cultural shifts, but it would be interesting!

Anyway I've talked WAY too long but feel free to ask questions if you have them :)

World building Wednesday!

Hey all! Arch here, back this week with another Prompt! Despite being really damn out of it right now, I hope it's useful!

I'd love to know more about some of the internal cultures surrounding various groups in your setting! How does the organisation handle newcomers into the fold, or changes in its goals or circumstances? What, or who, did most to shape this shared culture, and what do those within the organisation think of themselves and the group?

Tagging @athenswrites @caxycreations @dogmomwrites @hessdalen-globe @theprissythumbelina @writeblrsupport @lividdreamz @mysticstarlightduck @moonscribbler @thatndginger @username-cause-i-need-one and anyone else who'd like to take part!

#worldbuilding wednesday #rblg #athens zone of safety #nytf #marlowe sidney #chancellor silas sidney #worldbuilding

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