#yes yes I know this is a story of resilience friendship love and survival that speaks to everybody
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apologies to my fandom mutuals for being so insufferable about La Sociedad de La Nieve / Society of the snow, but I tend to hyperfixate on content featuring Latin American talent, especially when telling Latin American stories.
#yes yes I know this is a story of resilience friendship love and survival that speaks to everybody#BUT those are AMAZING Latin American actors...Uruguayan and Argentinean actors being SUPERB at what they do#so yeah going to hype them up
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Ghost of Tsushima and the Hands of Fate
I see we're still trying to prove that games are an art form by making everyone feel bad.
For the record, Ghost of Tsushima is one of my favourite games in a very long time. It is extremely pretty, the aesthetic and general ⊠polish is *cheff's kiss*. You can pet foxes and backstab people. The fighting mechanic is decent and there are just So Many Hats.
But also, it has the kind of story that pulls you in to the point where you have to drop the controller to hide behind your fingers going 'ohgodno'.
It is an absolute bastard of a game, is what i'm saying.
So let's talk about that, and specifically about Straw Hat Ryuzo and how I feel bad for him.
I am, by the way, going to be talking about the narrative structure of a video game about medieval samurai, so expect like, a bunch of spoilers.
The narrative is one of the big draws in Ghost of Tsushima. Like yes, it's an open world rpg with fighting and flower picking and all the important stuff, and also yes, some of the bits are sloppily written (looking at you, specifically, 'Ending to Norio's Arc'), but the game definitely sets out to Tell a Story.
And because this is a Serious Game that openly bases itself on samurai movies like Kurosawa's, it is a Drama.
In many ways it is an utterly brutal Bildungsroman, a narrative in which a young man finds his identity.
I have joked with friends about the clear intent for this game to make Important Stories, in that it actually tries to tick all the boxes of hotbutton subjects: childhood trauma? Obviously. Gay relationships? Yup. Survivor's guilt and PTSD? Oh yes. Domestic abuse? Several. Suggested pedophilia? Damn, even that.
The foxes are there to soothe the soul
It's interesting to note that from a writing point of view, this bildungsroman is even Very Classically Structured. It goes so far as to be a three acter, with a pretty standard build-up.
 Jin Sakai, traumatized man that he is, spends the first act slowly getting to grips with the bit where you don't fight an army by yourself by just walking up to them and challenging them With Honour, like he has been taught his entire life. Instead of getting stabbed repeatedly in the chest and set on fire, he discovers guerilla warfare and creates this persona of the Ghost, a literal vengeful spirit seeking justice for the island of Tsushima.
It gets him some big wins and in the second act he slowly embraces this identity until things get to a head where he clashes with his entire old life. The third act starts at the hero's lowest point and is utterly gut wrenching (i am Still Not Over the horse, game), forcing him to pull himself together for an ending that is, wellâŠfitting for the narrative. It's an ending that is needed, but perhaps not what Jin deserves.
 But anyway, this is about Ryuzo, and how until that ending, I was very upset about his role.
You see, this story is told in part through the lives of Important Npc's, who contribute to Jin's journey of self-discovery. This is pretty obvious with someone like Yuna, who is the one to introduce him to the Stealth Life and who is a driving force behind the marketing of the Ghost.
Someone like Masako, meanwhile, portrays vengeance and self discipline, but Jin also kinda tries to make her fill the mother-shaped hole in his heart.
Lord Shimura, meanwhile, is an Obvious Father figure but also stands for Jin's past. He's rigid and ineffective, which pushes Jin to further look for alternatives.
Ishikawa, that other mentor figure, is more moderate and flexible, but he also represents a possible unwanted future. He literally warns Jin at one point not to become like him.
Norio, then, is as mentioned not the best written, but he too is a person that searches for his destiny and tries to become like his hero, while only barely holding on to his sanity.Â
Kenji, I'm sorry, I love you but you're just comic relief, that's all you do. It's an imporant job in the story, because god does it need it, but you're not teaching Jin anything other than how to make different 'resigned sigh' noises.
So what about Ryuzo? From the very beginning, Ryuzo's story didn't really sit right with me. There's the obvious class issue: he's one of the few important npc's that are poor, and he's an Antagonist.
It has always rubbed me the wrong way that his original intentions were good, depending on how you read it. He's trying to feed his men. He essentially made the decision that this one man's life (even if it is an old friend) is worth the price for the lives of his band of ronin.
It's a lot more complex than that, of course. Ryuzo partly blames Jin for his predicament in life, and he also knows that samurai treat their soldiers as chattel, which the game goes out of its way to show you they DO.
 Essentially, he's a complicated character who makes bad decisions for arguably good reasons.
Ryuzo did everything he could to save the lives of the people he cared about. He went so far as to abandon his honor and his childhood friends, to try to make this happen.
Does that ring any bells?
It kinda clicked for me at the very end of the game.
Jin, being the protag in an assassin game, does a lot of killing. But some of these deaths are given more meaning than others. Some of them are there to make you feel like shit (the Horse Again, but you lose several friends along the way), others serve a more defining purpose.
You see, there's a fair amount of what i'd like to call 'intimate violence' in Ghost of Tsushima. It's an old trope. The 'if someone was gonna kill me, it had to be you' kinda scene that hails from a worldview in which some deaths are better than others, sure, but some deaths are better even than living. It's a worldview in which life itself is less valuable than your legacy. You die for your place in history. For your clan, for your family, for your honor.
Bushido is full of that sort of thing, so it makes sense that a game building on that worldview, would use the heck out of that trope.
 The first is Ryuzo's death. You fight him in a duel, in which he tries to plead for some resolution. You could let him go, come up with some story. But Ryuzo is a traitor, so Jin ultimately defeats him and sends him off in what would be a touching moment of bro friendship if it wasn't for the blood and my 21st century sensibilities.
You grant him a warrior's death, is what I'm saying.
 It happens again with Shimura. The game actually gives you a choice here, but if you go through with it, the scene almost perfectly mirrors Ryuzo's.
You fight in a duel, and Jin tries to get his uncle to just let him go, come to some kind of resolution. But Jin has been branded a traitor, and the only way for Shimura to restore his honour and clan, is to take his life;
This being a game in which you have the power of bamboo strikes and also save games behind you, Jin ultimately wins the duel, and has the option of granting Shimura a warrior's death.
It is utterly heart wrenching and that whole scene has no business being as pretty as it is. The swelling music? The fucking strings? The anguished yell?
Fuck.
 But anyway.
That's about where it clicked with me, that Jin never had a choice.
Ryuzo's whole role wasn't fair, but this is one of those stories where life itself is just not fair at all.
Both him and Shimura are there to show us Jin's path.
 What if, the game says, Jin had listened? What if he'd taken one of several offers the Khan made and surrendered?
What if he'd cooperated?
Well, we see in Graphic Detail what would happen. He would get pushed into doing horrific things. He gets manipulated, again and again, until there is no way out anymore. At some point it becomes clear to him that he's on the wrong side but whenever he tries to devise some plan to turn things around, things go Badly. He's firmly stuck in Khotun's web and the only way out is death.
But what if, the game says, Jin had stayed true to his honour? What if he had listened to his uncle, not defied him, if he had dropped the Ghost before it was too late? If he'd gone full bushido and repented for the shogun and done all the groveling and the proper stuff.
Samuraihood is just another straightjacket, says Shimura's fate. The tenets are so rigorous you would take your loved ones life, while fucking bawling your eyes out. Shimura knows damn well it's unfair but he also has no way to leave this path. It's a ride he cannot, and will not, get off alive.
 Jin never had a choice.
There was only ever one way for him to go.
Like let's be real: pretty much everyone in this story was dealt a bad hand. It's a narrative about resilience in the face of utter horror, of reinventing yourself and giving up entire structures of faith. People like Masako, Yuna, Norio are finding peace in dealing with huge levels of trauma and regret.
The goal isn't to start a family and live happily ever after, it's to Survive.
Submitting to the mongols would have killed Jin's spirit. Standing tall and rigid as he was taught to do would have, ultimately, killed him as well.
 "I've given up everything to save these people", he says near the end. "And I would do it again."
That's someone who has no regrets.
Jin never could have taken another path and he knows it.
And this is why Ryuzo needed a fate as shitty as his. He fell, so Jin could walk.
I'm sorry, it's still not fair.
This game needs some comfort fic.
#ghost of tsushima#jin sakai#ryuzo#narrative analysis#story analysis#i have Many Feeling ok#and this is how i deal with them#ghost of tsushima spoilers#gots spoilers
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( rules: you can usually tell a lot about a person by the kind of music they listen to! put your music on shuffle and list the first 10 songs, then tag 10 people! no skipping! ) / tagged by @yellowcrumpetâ â( ă
)٠)))
Thanks for the tag! I LOVE these things-- I donât rlly have a playlist either though, just a mess of music files on a device I havenât updated so Iâll be checking my YouTube history too lol. Thereâs a uhhh.... pattern to be found, mainly relating to Code Vein or other OCs.... which isnât surprising ._. ;; I made it a separate post bc I knew this was going to get long and rambly with lyric snippets and crying about fictional characters, sorry :D
1. Repeat Until Death - Novo Amor donât go / youâre half of me now / but iâm hardly stood proud / i said it, almost oh iâve been low / but damn it i bet it donât show / it was heaven a moment ago oh i canât seem to let myself leave you / but i canât breathe anymore This one gives me Loubeth vibes ok, partially bad end route ;-; While Elizabeth is a very strong person, her friends are the most prominent reason she tries to do anything at all & isnât living day-to-day in a monotonous grind to survive without a solid purpose other than âhelp random ppl bc itâs the right thing to doâ. If she loses them, itâd ruin her & hammers into her head how everything sheâs ever done has been a failure. She suffered a major betrayal by her boss before the Collapse, she was unable to fully participate in proj. queen despite her incredible test results, she failed to defeat Cruz and take her blood during Operation Queenslayer, and if she fails to protect the people sheâs finally found meaning with? Sheâd break down completely & destroy herself to save them. Sheâs always had some level of abandonment issues, and without her family around itâs so much worse, even if it isnât the most obvious because sheâs generally seen as very well put together-- I really canât express how much it would hurt her to lose Louis, Yakumo, and the others. Sheâs just not one to show just how bad it can truly get for her mentally and emotionally-- sheâs resilient as hell, sheâs been through hell repeatedly and survived it all, so itâs easy for others to assume sheâs fine all things considered. It makes her feel weak and ashamed of herself if she shows any level of vulnerability, so she doesnât; she swallows it down and is afraid of disappointing those who look up to her as a fighter and friend-- of course, no one at Home Base would blame her for being vulnerable, they all have their moments, Bethy just sets herself to such a high standard itâs difficult for her to talk about her own suffering in spite of how well-versed she is in getting her thoughts and feelings across otherwise. Louis is the one most keen to how deeply sheâs hurting, but he doesnât understand just how deeply until she finally does fall apart. The final swell of the song and its desperate lyrics really relays the pain they both feel-- Louis too would not fare well if something happened to Elizabeth, because he blames himself she was even involved in Operation Queenslayer for a long time, I honestly did so bad in explaining coherently, this song just has so much emotion and hurt behind it adklfjdfdff </3
2. Looking Out For You - Joy Again this is a love song for a girl who will never know itâs about her she's beaming that smile / all the while iâm all tripped up on my own throat i guess there is no hope This song reminds me of Elizabeth & my friendâs character Takashi Fujioka, who gets-- vERY...FRIENDZONED, for lack of a better word, by Elizabeth in his story, itâs really summed up best as tragic (;ïč;) Before the Collapse they were hitting it off, then the Collapse happened, they were separated, he lost his sisters, Mido happened, he was experimented on + became a revenant, etc, etc; years have passed since then & sheâs gotten her life together as much as one can in a world like Vein, but for Takashi itâs like no time has passed at all. Elizabeth is subtly older in appearance, sheâs been working w Lou & Co. for a long time; Loubeth blatantly have a connection, & rather than bringing up his feelings + making it awkward bc he values their friendships, he just kinda. chokes on them & does his best to help out the team. It doesnât help he canât even be jealous bc Louis is a really solid friend to him too, ITâS JUST A MESS OF A SITUATION & the death of what could have been if things were different.
3. Closer - Teagan And Sara ( no lengthy explanation for this one thank goodness, Iâve just been watching BoJack Horseman again and I really like some of the songs they add in, I like listening to this one on loop when mindlessly coloring something )
4. Brutal - Olivia Rodrigo all I did was try my best / this the kind of thanks I get? they say these are the golden years / but I wish I could disappear ego crush is so severe / god, it's brutal out here I have it on a playlist for Elizabeth somewhere, not all of it applies to her but it reflects some of her struggles she has both before & after the collapse. Sheâs-- always kind of been a mess while under immense pressure + has serious self image issues, this song hits that side of her well. Sheâs been held to humanly impossible standards by both herself and her family bc frankly? She can reach them, sheâs NOT exactly human. She was born into her position as a hunter & intends to keep it for as long as she lives (like revenants, her kind is very much âeither gets killed or lives 5ever), even if some days she really feels how heavy the burden can be. She didnât have a normal childhood and sheâs fine with it for the most part, but it alienates her from most of her peers-- she never got to date anyone, never had a close group of friends, never went to parties that werenât formals, etc., while she feels a little childish about it, she does envy ânormalâ and understands the pressure sheâs lived under her entire life has caused damage-- she has been exploited for her abilities, thereâs just not much she can do about it but to keep going, rlly.
5. Freaks - Surf Curse don't kill me / just help me run away from everyone i need a place to stay / where i can cover up my face don't cry / i am just a freak / i am just a freak UhhhHHH this song really makes me think of Oliver Collins :D;; thank TikTok for showing it to me. It makes me think of how scared he was, of both the world and the revenants who captured him. The songâs use of the word âparasitesâ really makes me think of Revenants and the BOR parasites XD Iâm hoping when I poke my video editor again, I can record some Oliver footage to make a short video to this song. Oliver deserves so much better, I wish you could save him, but thatâs what AUs are for, hahah.... The second half of the lyrics make me think of the AU I have where he lives and has to grapple with the guilt of surviving and the things he did to other revenants to get by too.
6. All Eyes On Me - Bo Burnham you say the oceanâs rising / like i give a shit you say the whole worldâs ending / honey it already did youâre not gonna slow it / heaven knows you tried got it? good / now get inside I havenât seen the Netflix special yet but Iâve had this song on repeat since my move started. The lyrics hit too hard & resonate with my existential dread, covid exhaustion, and extreme burnout in my 20s, but bc I have Damage I can also relate it to CV ._. âyouâre not gonna slow it, heaven knows you tried. got it? good now get insideâ makes me think of--;; the bad end route again, and Elizabethâs desperation to keep her found family together. Itâs not like her to completely stop caring about an issue, but in the moment she realizes whatâs being taken from her? She doesnât want to save all of revenant-kind if it means sheâs going to wind up alone all over again, her world is effectively over if sheâs forced to be alone again. The MC frenzying means the only immediately identifiable hope she had of saving everyone else is gone, so why not just go home? If theyâre all doomed, she wants to at least be together for a little while longer, itâs fine if they use her blood to survive & everyone else in the mist is out of luck, itâs soul-crushing bc Iâve never had her in a situation where sheâs been this reckless, despondent/hopeless, and thinking irrationally where itâd impact more than herself-- especially when sheâs normally goal-oriented, organized, meticulous, so on so forth: sheâs not one to act without thinking something through first, but that last breath of light just got sucker-punched out of her. All she wants is home, comfort, and family, and ultimately in the bad end route she does manage to preserve their lives, maintain the mist, and supply blood beads, but her own condition leaves her on the throne-- itâs a mix of the bad, neutral, and true ending rlly ldkfjdf BUT YEAH enough rambling on that :D;; This songâs really good and touches a lot of different thoughts and ideas both in real life and my ocs, kind of embarrassing--;; thank u bo burnham for ruining me with this beautiful song
7. Yellow - Coldplay look at the stars / look how they shine for you / and everything you do your skin / oh yeah, your skin and bones / turn in to something beautiful do you know / for you I'd bleed myself dry Does this song make me think about JackEva? Yes. Yes it does. Star / night sky symbolism? Bam. Sappy lyrics about love and finding the person youâre with absolutely mesmerizing and worth dying for? BAM. If JackEva were capable of using their own blood to save each other, I can see it-- hJNGn they just care about each other so much, Jack cries for her even though they both knew that eventually one of them would succumb to their duty, and if the roles were reversed I can see Eva doing the same, I adore them beyond human language. On my CV RP blog, my Jackâs not shippable bc-- Eva, my friend even have them looking after his nephew (an oc--) at one point. I should seriously drop some headcanons down eventually....
8. Louder Than Thunder - The Devil Wears Prada are we meant to be empty-handed? / i know i could, i could be better i don't think i deserve it / selflessness, find your way into my heart all stars could be brighter / all hearts could be warmerÂ
LMFAO throwback to my middle school playlist, Iâm old-- Iâve applied this song to a lot of things back in the day, but I really connect it to Loubeth now, especially Louis. Lou & Bethy are both functional idiots who are too hard on themselves & have trouble recognizing their worth beyond what they can do for others. Theyâre trying to be better-- to make up for what they perceived wrongs theyâve done, but itâs hard, they donât believe theyâre worthy of the love and support the other gives, but they still yearn for that sense of security. After Louisâ memories are returned, he finally understands the guilt heâs felt since he became a revenant and it really skews his self-perception; he blames himself for so many things & Elizabeth, who has always been able to kill when necessary, sets it straight-- âItâs not your faultâ, and it takes Louis some time to properly absorb that message. He thinks sheâs just trying to comfort him, which she is tbh, but sheâs not wrong: âItâs not your fault you couldnât kill someone. It was never your job to kill anyone.â Itâs up to people like her to do those sort of things-- Elizabeth may not have been present when Cruz frenzied, but if she had been? It would have been over before it started, thatâs something she has regrets over, even if nothing could have been done since she was already on the field. Actually, sheâs actually really quite angry that security failed to monitor Cruz properly and has a few select words for the ones there who could have actually done something before it got out of hand-- civilians and doctors are exempt from her shtlist bc theyâre not meant to be killers (so donât worry Artorias, sheâs not ready to bite your head off!), but they had to have some kinda security detail rite o-q??? Theyâre probably hiding from her wrath-- BUT ANYWAY, she insists sheâll never blame Louis for not being able to do something as serious as killing another person. He was a normal human being who cared about his friend, not a failure, and he couldnât have been expected to do something that shouldnât have fallen on his shoulders in the first place. As many times as it takes, sheâll reaffirm that it wasnât his fault, sheâs not angry, heâs always done his best and her opinion of him hasnât changed. Heâs a good person and she loves him through all the hurt, though she doesnât drop the word âloveâ for a long time. It just-- takes Louis a while to accept she views him as someone worthy of the love and respect she has for him. Itâs kind of ironic sheâs so adamant on Louis not blaming himself considering sheâs the one privately blaming herself for-- wow thereâs too much to unpack, she feels guilty she was even born?? im so broken over these two. I love them and yet they SUFFER...Â
9. What Iâve Done - Linkin Park i'll face myself / to cross out what iâve become erase myself / and let go of what iâve done today this ends / i'm forgiving what iâve done
I have Louis Amamiya brainrot and Iâm so glad Iâm not the only one who thinks that this song fits him super well & it needs to become an AMV dsjfkldsfd. Iâm a near life-long Linkin Park fan and this fits with Lou so well thematically. As much as Iâve gone on about Louisâ guilt, he does steel himself to keep going forward in spite of it and make things right, for everyone. Maybe it wasnât really his fault, but at the end of the day his inability to kill Cruz in that moment left a disaster in its wake that got a countless number of people killed-- the MC included with Karen and Aurora. He doesnât want to run away from the truth, doesnât want to make excuses, he wants to take responsibility for it and heâll work himself to death if it means things will be better-- itâs both admirable heâs got a strong resolve and VERY concerning with how willing he is to die for the cause, please donât overdo it, Lou, youâll break mine and Bethyâs hearts ._.;; It wonât always be easy, there are moments the grief gnaws at him, but in the end he does overcome it (and uh. as in the bad ending, we know he can actually do it this time). I know we canât see everything, but I would have loved deeper character interactions, especially with Louis with an emphasis on grieving + forgiving himself properly-- but this song really is nice with the whole âIâm going to face my mistakes head on, forgive myself, and keep moving forwardâ. Itâs what Louis deserves: self forgiveness and a damn break â§Âș·(Ë ËÌŁÌŁÌ„âËÌŁÌŁÌ„ )â§Âș·Ë
10. Call of Silence - Hiroyuki Sawano you will know you're reborn tonight / must be rough but iâll stay by your side even if my body's bleached to the bones / i don't want go through that ever again so cry no more / oh my beloved ngl idk if those are the correct lyrics, buuuuuuut....... im a weenie and am internally weeping abt loubeth after midnight, what else is new lmfao- iâll at least try to be brief :D I also used to really like Attack on Titan when I was in high school, I dropped the anime years ago because I was waiting for s2 and never got back to it once it started airing again, I thought Iâd finish it once the anime was complete since I eventually caught up with the manga, such a good series BUT ANYWAY-- I think itâs a really pretty song and Loubeth fit with the tender lyrics. ITâS LATE, idk what to say about them other than what Iâve said already dsklfjdslf im sorry I really ramble a LOT and Iâve been so busy lately I havenât had the chance to >w>;;
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Jet Away
17 left school booked a 1-way flight to Gold Coast, Australia.
Fake ID, grow up, glow up, party, drugs, sex. 18 in love, the game, the game, play, have fun, be free, wild out, friendship, heartbreak, pain, inescapable hurt, get me out.
Shifting and shaping, exploring the surrounding, interacting, observing and indulging in new culture, people, drama, mind broadening and life altering substances, lifestyle.
The chaos drew me in and away I went, curious and hungry, I had a lust for life and all the drama it brought with it.
You
No good from the start but when a lesson is ignored it only becomes reoccurring and ongoing.
My flat, back yard, party.
Tattoos, all over, itâs you, eyes, eyes, smile, first moment, your laugh, just dropped, coming up, I feel you, steps closer, heart faster.
The introduction.
Quick hi, phone out ignore you.
The pull strong from the start. Lure, chase, dance floor, hello, next moment, you know, the bathroom we go.
It was thrill from the start, perhaps the perfect balance of excitement, growth and heartbreak in one. A love that held my hand through the reflection of damaged love from way back.
This relationship was the beginning of understanding the true impacts of my childhood trauma.
Trying to figure out the correlation between childhood and relationships in adulthood?
Third ingredient: BELIEF SYSTEMS
Your perception of the most impactful, reinforced and reoccurring events that have taken place throughout your childhood are the template you download for your future interactions.
The way you were treated and spoken to as a child are the creation, the moulding of your belief systems in how you are taught you deserve to be treated, spoken to and interacted with.
The way your whÄnau dealt with and handled conflict and confrontation The way your whÄnau celebrated their wins, their high moments
Once having these standards, morals and values modelled to you throughout childhood by your guardians, community, peers, toward one another and toward you, we then go out in to the big world and create interactions that affirm our belief systems we have downloaded through observation of interaction and surrounding.
I learned everyone you interact with, you do because you believe they are worthy of your time. Whether that is consciously or not, willingly or begrudgingly, you make the choice to interact with these people. Once your belief systems is upgraded through consciously redesigning and setting intention and laws of interaction to protect your energy and space, you will notice people shift in to and out of your life to appropriately reflect your belief system.
Your way of being starts to shift, you begin reinforcing laws of interaction and standard of yourself, toward yourself. You are moving from a space where you respect others and require others to respect you. Building the ability to trust yourself to reinforce your new belief systems of how you deserve to be treated and interacted with. Once you can trust yourself to reinforce your laws, you release the need to move from a space of survival, habit and fear - to trust, instinctual and knowledge of self - I am the creator of my reality knowledge.
In this sense, you attract those who reflect you. (Me:) Who naturally abide and carry themselves with pride through their flow of morals and value, the slick, intelligent, well gathered, leader type. Bumping paths, tangled in telepathy I hear you thinking of me, I feel your intentions, I see what I do to you.
Gaylord
The confusion caused by the friction of craving someone who is loud and clear no good for me, took over me, altered me, it overwhelmed me.
My first heartbreak, my first love
You stimulated growth, a shift in perception, deeper understanding of life, stronger sense of self, resilience and a big fuck off blue print to what I donât want my future relationships to look like
We grew, we crashed, we burned. You were the first man to have me close, and I was the first lady to get that close
Head on the highway, dropping molly swimming with dolphins, motorbikes, speed, adventure, drama, thrill, sex, love, lust, sex, sex, tears, laughs, drugs, party, growing, crash, fall, get up, understand me, help me, save me, love me.
We both entered the relationship unknowingly broken and bruised from life before the night you walked in and we changed everything â butterfly effect
The more I needed you by my side, the more my curiosity grew as to what it was you had, that I couldnât provide myself, why did I compromise my self- worth, break my own vows to keep you around?
My subconscious mind weighed up the impact of pain, having you near or far? The lesser pain was enduring your causal pain toward me, the after effects of that, whilst having you close â a love suicide if you will.
I shifted in to a new space of self-awareness shining focus on my self- sabotaging choices and how I was putting myself in harms way to keep you near. As I type this section, I hear my past disappointment and judgment echoing to the forefront of my mind over the desperation and weakness I held for you.. I felt weak and desperate for your love, forever in efforts to escape the emptiness that became apparent when your distraction separated from my space for the brief moments of time. We turned to the game of distraction, the game of promiscuity, and what a fun game that was â we played that quite well didnât we, together and solo.. very raunchy baby.
DISCLAIMER: I do not encourage, nor do I condone the following behaviour.
I was out for the evening with the ladies; Edward and I had recently separated. I was drunk and had been calling him; he wouldnât answer and kept hanging his line up. I decided to take off home, I was far too intoxicated and the alcohol enhanced my desire to be with Edward again (perhaps the following decision will indicate the level of intoxication or crazy, you decide), I get a taxi to Edwardâs apartment and pay the driver $20 to lift me up on to the apartments first story roof, telling him âIâve lost my keys and need help getting through the side sliding doorâ â Iâm convinced at this point Edward was with someone else, so Iâm mentally and drunkenly preparing myself to confront a lady to leave the house so I can get some sleep. I do remember saying aloud âyou know what, I wonât be a dick â she can get on the couch..â laughing out loud at my generosity and consideration.
I flip and fall over the rail, get to the side sliding door, fling that shit open â the rooms empty. I vomit in the toilet, have a shower, get in to bed and crash out.
Couple hours later..
I rise, itâs daylight, my eyes open, groggy as shit, head is pounding, I realize where the fuck I am, get out of bed, still drunk, in full fucking panic mode, calling a taxi, making the bed, cleaning his space before he rocks on home and asks wtf Iâm doing and how.. so I rax an outfit and his slippers and away I go.
An example of âwhere there is a will, there is a wayâ.
A few weeks later we were texting I told him the above, he didnât believe me â I asked, âwhere are your slippers?â
The pain, the emptiness you feel when someoneâs position within your life is no longer, is not the absence of themselves from your life, but the reflection of space within that is requiring your awareness, your time, your focus, attention, empathy, itâs a space that requires your nurturing care.
Can one really take away from you? Or is that an illusion? Maybe the idea that anything is missing from you at any point in time is an illusion.
I believed you were my one, my other half, always asking myself how much bullshit must a couple go through before they both submitted to the comfort and safety of together forever â an idea inconceivable to the broken and uncommitted â us.
Still 4 years in to our love tornado of bullshit, you asked and I screamed âyesâ
Both knowing deep within - itâs never going to work we packed our lives up in Gold Coast and flew to Melbourne.
Trapped in my mind were the events of you fucking around leaving me the unwanted gift of Chlamydia
Trapped in your mind was Anahera on her knees loving on batman in her workplace changerooms
Weâd damaged the sacred waters between you and I long before you asked âBaby will you marry meâ.
3 weeks in to Melbourne, life brought us to a crossroad and we decided lets escape this horror of confusion â you cheated.. again â I thought fuck this.. again. Packed my shit and embarked seriously (this time) on a journey of letting you go and finding myself entirely. Honestly, a path I had been preparing myself for since months in to us dating â never gathering the courage to leave on my own terms I awaited your last fuck up knowing that would excuse me from this relationshit
And that was that
I drove away from 4 years of bullshit and innocent love of two brokens trying to fix and distract the pain that became more apparent when we were separate â when we were alone. I had to figure this shit out â life without the love of my life.. so far
I start this book off with my first heartbreak because life up until that point was about not feeling the hurt I had endured prior to life with Edward
Never did I want to look at or think about the emotional and mental effects of the sexual abuse, physical violence, drug and alcohol abuse that unveiled itself throughout childhood
My heartbreak was the first force of feeling, an inescapable hurting I needed to cure in order to stop. Edward broke my heart at the start of our relationship â the following 4 years consisted of me running back and forth between myself and Edward. Could I do this? Could I not?
I did it, and in feeling this heartbreak was a gateway opened for me to feel the rest of mamae I had buried within, never having had the safe space within to unpack my hurt. I had a new found knowledge of self that allowed me the emotional intelligence to navigate myself through life and the shit it had put in my path to cultivate the strong, brave, courageous and intelligent lady I am today.
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which characters are trans this is a scientific inquiry
all of them except vilgefortz and leo bonhart
ok ok jokes, ill go more in depth... some of this is taken from things ive written before but not posted. also for anyone reading this im non bee nary so know that im not trying to describe the experiences of different identities in first-person, iâm basing this off of both my own and my friendsâ experiences... none of this is âOMG YES CHARACTER ANGST >:))â but rather depicting personal struggles in fictional characters, so just know that the more difficult subjects that may be covered are not there just to see the character in pain, but rather to think about their eventual resilience against it and development afterwards
for geralt and yennefer i have more specific reasons why i think being transgender actually fits with their canonical characters & related story arcs, and then for the rest i have headcanons and maybe some reasoning but not a lot.
geralt: geralt already represents how a struggle with toxic masculinity and expectations of masculinity can influence one who wants to be seen as masculine to deny and bury their emotions. him being trans develops upon the aspect of his struggle with emotions, ive seen my friends who are transmasculine / myself when i used to ID as transmasculine struggle with showing emotions bc of feeling like youâre going to be misgendered if you shed a single tear. in canon, we already learn that kaer morhen has a bit of a macho culture (just fyi eskel and lambert and coen are trans too now, donât go getting any idea that those guys are cis) and i believe that the âwitchers have no emotionsâ thing is like 5% actual biology and 95% being raised to fight and not to feel. vesemir is a good father but he just wasnât very emotionally nurturing, itâs the casteâs way of raising kids that geralt breaks out of.
i think geraltâs self-image also speaks a lot to the feelings of harsh internal transphobia. he constantly others himself from others and feels like people view him as different, which is metaphorical for any marginalized group under the sun, but also is very common for lgbt ppl. again this is smth ive really struggled with within the past few years so im just projecting/know what it feels like and feel that how geralt sees himself in canon is similar to a view suffering from internalized transphobia.
geralt's character already redefines manhood because he has to learn what it means to be a good father. and i think him being trans would be representative of his constant learning and growth as a person, yet also somewhat involved with his self loathing and feeling like just Him Existing is an affront ... but of course he unlearns this with time and love from others and all of his character development
yennefer: yenneferâs whole backstory revolves around defining who she is and defying the people who mistreated her and told her she was nothing. canonically yennefer of vengerberg is the story of the successful self-made woman... her life as janka she would rather forget, no one calls her by that name, and no one ever would because its not who she is nor who i think she ever was.Â
shes incredibly strong-willed and knows what she wanted from life but some things are terrifying to reach out for, like love and acceptance. yennefer has a conflict with love and being loved because that was never a safe topic for her ... (also sapkowski handled this specifically poorly imo, but:) yennefer canonically struggles with being loved for who she is. i think she deals so much with her previous abuse and again, expectations from parents, and coming to terms with the fact that she survived it all. also this isnt even touching upon her arc regarding motherhood. wanting to give a child your everything and everything that you never had... the love and kindness that no one gave you...
ciri: ciri hesitated to ever identify with âgirlâ or âboy,â sheâs also i think the representation of childhood in general, sheâs naturally curious about gender presentation as she ages and just never really cares to commit to gender. i think sheâd say she was a girl but only reluctantly bc she just doesnât care much.
dandelion: [from his TV Tropes page:]
heâs an artist and a musician, heâs not gonna be cishet...
ok in a more serious context i think heâs a nonbinary guy, i think him being trans might explain why he has way more friendships than relationships with family members. dandelion, like yennefer, is also someone that had to define who he was for himself, i mean for one his stage persona of dandelion is entirely an artistâs creation/hyperbole of himself, i think he also had to think abt his inner identity too
his gender is also just âyour friend that comes to your house and eats all ur chips and drinks all ur beer and passes out on top of you on the couchâ
milva: ok unfortunately i currently think milva is the token non-trans friend (sheâs nonbinary just doesnt think of herself as trans) but itâs only because her major arc in baptism of fire revolves around her pregnancy and miscarriage and just bc she is not trans doesnât mean she doesnât go through her own difficult struggling process surrounding her womanhood. she struggles enormously throughout the series and in her backstory with defining herself between two rigid identities: the feminine maria and the cutthroat milva. in her talk with geralt, she reveals how she feels trapped between these two identities and feels like they cannot coexist. i feel like sheâs a nonbinary/gender non-conforming butch* lesbian whose struggles with sexuality intersect her struggles with gender and what it means to her to be a gnc woman. also you have to consider that milva was raised in a small village in lower sodden so she understood gender in the very strict roles ascribed to men and women, so she felt like she couldnât be a woman unless she was this very traditional idea of what a woman is âsupposed to be like,â which sheâs both been trying to shape herself to be and also running away from simultaneously. she learns to accept herself within the hansa bc they love and support her for who she is, and she doesnât need to be strictly feminine or masculine to be understood by them
* i know the terms nonbinary and gnc and butch didnât exist in the 1260s tyvm, iâm just saying this as how i interpret her in a modern context
regis: gender is a human sociological construct so basically donât ask him unless youâre prepared to listen for 20 minutes. vampires can exist noncorporeally so they can exist without gender, also i hc the telepathic vampiric language is nongendered as itâs a transmission of pure thought, will, and force, so it doesnât even use any grammar. i also hc that vampires just appear the way they feel in terms of appearance and age (e.g., regis at around 300 when he died still looked 25 bc he was as stupid as a 25 year old, now heâs calmer and understands more, so he looks middle-aged). when chilling out with humans regis will be referred to as a man bc thatâs just how he appears but itâs an identity he had to learn about and adopt, not something he was assigned. most vampires look androgynous anyways bc they just feel androgynous, how are you gonna feel a gender when you donât know what a gender is... if you HAD to understand him with human labels / put it in a modern context (like if i was making an modern real life AU) iâd say heâs a nonbinary trans man.Â
cahir: much like geralt i think cahirâs story is one of living up to expectations, but cahirâs actually takes it a step further because his major motivation in his backstory is trying to prove to his mother that he can be a good son that will make her proud and gain honor for the family... he seeks validation from external sources but faces ruin when he learns that war is not the way to prove oneâs prowess and skill
angouleme: shes trans and i simply say so bc shes very cool and funny and i dont think a cis person could be this cool and funny. also i think the story of a runaway teen who was abandoned by her biological family and found solace in a new family is both very good and featured in a lot of trans pplâs narratives. she kind of exudes this âim finally at a point in my life where iâm safe and cared for, i can start HRT now, letâs gooOOoooOOoooâ energy.Â
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Devotion - Story of the Oracle and her Shield
Chapter 29 - Friendship
Why do we confide in others? I wonderâŠ
After braving the snow, they finally came to the haven by a thawed lake. The mountain arch with a deep opening created a nice shelter from the arctic wilderness. The depth of the arch prevented any wind or snow from entering the enclosed space.
âLooks very cozy,â Aranea stated, looking at the haven.
âAt this point, even a coffin would look cozy,â commented Squall callously.
âLetâs go get some dry branches before it gets any darker,â she suggested. Squall nodded, and they both got busy gathering wood to burn.
They collected branches and various pieces of wood and dumped them at the fireplace. They huddled around it and tried to start the fire by rubbing stones.
âOh fire, discovered by cavemen, useful even now,â she commented as a spark from her stone ignited the fire.
They sat as close to the fire as possible without getting burned. She warmed her hands and place it on her face to spread the warmth. Squall leaned in closer to the fire to bask in its warmth.
Once the sun set, the darkness took over. Without any city lights nearby, everything was covered in the thick blanket of darkness.
âI am glad we made it before the demons came out,â she said, rubbing her hands.
âYa,â he sounded uninterested.
She gazed out into the darkness and her eyes could barely identify any shapes.
âIs this how the world will be if darkness takes over?â She wondered.
âProbably.â
âIs everything okay? You seem distracted,â she noted.
âJust, lots of things going on, thatâs all.â
âWanna talk about it?â She offered.
âNo,â both of them said simultaneously. Aranea laughed his predictability.
âYou can tell me anything. I am your friend,â she said, leaning closer.
âI know. I donât want to burden you with my problems,â he replied, averting her gaze.
âSeeing a friend in trouble and not being able to help them is also a burden,â she stated calmly.
âYou remind me so much of her,â he commented.
âHer?â
âIn my world, I had a friend who stood by my side through thick and thin. She would go out of her way to help me at my slightest discomfort. Even though I never did anything for her, she never left my side.â
âShe sounds awesome.â
âYa, she was. Itâs a shame that I donât even remember her name or her face. But I think she was very intelligent, compassionate and very beautiful too. She even had her own fan club if I recall it correctly.â
âMakes me wonder why was she friends with someone like you?â she said, poking fun at Squall.
âI donât know. She had no reason to,â he replied, adjusting the wood to keep the fire burning. âOnce she wanted to talk about her problem and I told her to go talk to the wall.â
âWow, you are such an ass. Did you at least apologize to her?â
âI donât think so. Itâs one thing I regret the most. I never treated her right or ever told her how much she meant to me,â he revealed, staring into the darkness.
âSquall, we humans are very resilient when it comes to our survival. However, our hearts are very fragile, it needs to be constantly reassured of love and hope. That is why is so important to tell someone how much you appreciate them or how much they mean to you,â She advised.
âYou are right. I should do it more often,â he admitted.
âEveryone wants to be needed by someone. If you can make someone feel needed, you have done a good job,â she added.
âI know, but I have a hard time expressing myself. Iâd rather show that I care about them through my actions than say it.â
âEven if you show it by actions, it is still important to say it sometimes,â she countered.
âWhy?â
âBecause it feels good to hear it,â she replied.
âI guess.â
âAranea, thank you.â
âFor which one? There are too many things you owe me for,â she said jokingly.
âYou are one person who does not hesitate to tell me when I am wrong and I appreciate it. Sometimes you need an outside perspective to realize your mistake,â he confessed.
âI will always be at your service if you ever want to be insulted, scar-face,â she stated with a smile. âYou are welcome. Thatâs what friends are for, to cover each otherâs weaknesses and improve each other. If as a friend, I donât help you identify and correct your mistake, then whatâs the point of such friendship?â
âFriends like you are rare to find, so thank you for being my friend,â he said earnestly.
âSomeone is taking my advice to heart. I like it,â she smiled.
Silence took over again as neither of them said anything.
âSo, you gonna tell me whatâs going on between you and Luna?â Aranea initiated the conversation.
âNothing is going on,â he deflected her inquiry.
âThatâs not what Luna said,â she stated, shaking her head.
âWhat did she say?â Squall asked with a glint in his eyes.
âEverything. From the day you meet till now,â she recalled.
âIf she already told you everything, then there is nothing more I could add to it.â
âShe told me about your journey from her perspective. But I am more interested in hearing your side of the story,â she stated her curiosity.
âWhy?â
âBecause I am curious. Because we have a lot of time to kill. Because I want to know why you risked your life like that. Because I want to help Luna. Do you need more reasons?â she listed.
âI guess not,â he shrugged.
âSo, spill it.â
Squall took a deep breath and began.
âI gotta admit, after hearing all that, I am #TeamLeon. I think you two make a cute couple,â she giggled.
âStop it,â he said, getting annoyed.
âOh, come on now, just admit it,â she urged.
âWhatever.â
âYou should tell her how you feel,â she suggested.
âNothing will ever happen between us. She loves Noctis and will marry him someday. I will go back to my world once I take her to Altissia. That is how our story ends,â he remarked in a grievous tone.
After some solemn silence Squall spoke again, âAranea, can you do me a favor?â
âAsk away.â
âPlease help Noctis the best you can,â he stated, humbly.
âWait! What?â she was taken aback. âYou want me to help Noctis? Why?â
âBecause Luna loves him. To see him fulfill his duty is her dream. Even though I might not be around to see it, I still want her dream fulfilled.â
âYou do know that I donât like Noctis, right?â She checked.
âYes, I do. But I also know that you wonât let me down,â he stated.
âUrgh. I have so much pent-up frustration with him. Can I fight with him once and let it all out? Obviously, I wonât break his bones or anything,â she complained.
âFine, but will you help him after that?â he asked.
âYes, I promise.â
âThanks.â
âYou are so weird,â she said, shaking her head.
âYou would have to be more specific than that,â he advised.
âItâs like you are going out of business because of a competitor, but you still want to make sure that they get all your customers once you are gone. Why?â she wondered.
âI am not doing it for him. I am doing it for Luna. I want her to be happy, even if it's not with me. Her happiness lies with Noctis.â
âWhat about your happiness?â she inquired.
âMy happiness is in seeing her happy,â he replied sincerely.
âWhy do you love her?â she asked.
âI donât know,â he replied honestly.
âFor someone so pragmatic, I thought you would know why.â
âLove is irrational by nature. You can have reasons to like someone, but you donât need a reason to love someone. You just do.â
âNever thought you to be a hopeless romantic,â she said with a chuckle.
âI would like to think that I am pragmatic romantic.â
âThere is no such thing as that. Now you are just making things up,â she said, rolling her eyes.
âIsnât that how the language was invented? Someone came up with some words and gave meaning to it,â he defended.
She just gave a facepalm in response.
âYour turn to speak.â
Aranea narrated her childhood, growing up in Niflheim, joining the military, and her rise to being a Commodore. One thing Squall could notice was that she was fiercely loyal to Niflheim.
After hearing her story, Squall asked, âWho was that little girl on the train? I saw you playing with her in Tenebrae as well.â
That question caught her off-guard.
âOh, she is, umâŠâ Aranea seemed to struggle to come up with a coherent sentence. âShe is a friendâs daughter.â
Squall scrutinized her. She knew he was on to her.
âI thought you are were not allowed to keep secrets from a friend,â he stated, calmly.
Aranea sighed before speaking. âAs a soldier, we sacrifice our body for our nation. Letâs just say that there is more than one way to sacrifice your body.â
âOhâŠâ it suddenly dawned on Squall on what she meant. âShe is yourââ
âYes, she is my monster,â she interjected before he could complete. âHer name is Solara Aldercapt Antiquum.â
âAldercapt?â his eyes widened.
âShe is the granddaughter of Emperor Aldercapt. After the princeâs untimely death, the Emperor was left without an heir. However, they had preserved the DNA of the prince. I volunteered for the sake of my country. Only Emperor Aldercapt and I know of this secret. Now you know it as well.â
âI promise to take this secret to my grave,â he responded earnestly.
Aranea nodded in appreciation.
âShe is my world. I want to keep fighting for a better future for her sake,â she said, as fire danced in her iris.
âYou are lucky, Aranea,â Squall spoke softly.
âWhy?â She asked, taken aback.
âMany people find a reason to die for, but only a few find a reason to live for. I am happy you found that reason to live for.â
âIt was unexpected at first, but I finally found my reason to live. Even if the world goes dark, Iâll keep fighting for a better future.â
They chatted at great length about Araneaâs past. Talking with each other kept their mind away from hunger and cold. They continued to chat till dawn.
They heard engine noise coming in their direction. âThey are here.â
A sense of relief washed over them when they heard that voice.
Within seconds Biggs and Wedge came into view, riding their snowmobile. Biggs waved at them and Aranea waved back.
They rode back to the ship on their snowmobiles. A medic on-board checked on them as soon as they entered the ship.
As the ship descended toward Tenebrae Aranea approached Squall. âHere, you should keep this,â she said, handing him something.
He looked at it and was shocked to see it, âFrozen tear! Why are you giving it to me?â
âThink of it as a token of our friendship. Keep it safe until I ask for it.â
âYes, Iâll keep it with me so I can return it to you someday.â
âGood.â
The airship lowered and the hangar door opened. They said their goodbyes and made their way to their respective home.
Next Day
Leon did not see Aranea the next day at all. He assumed that she must be busy with her duties and taking care of her monster. He went for a stroll with Gentiana as usual. The healing camp was over the number of pilgrims was significantly less now. They could finally walk without bumping into each other. He had hoped to see Luna, but she had requested her meals in her room.
Next Day
A loud banging on the door woke up Squall. He stumbled his way to the door, âBiggs?â
âSir Squall, Lady A has been captured by the Empire and she has been branded as a traitor," said frantic Biggs.
Hearing that, Squall was wide awake now. âWhat? How?â
âWe donât know much detail, but I got an SOS from her on our secure channel. We traced her signal, and her last location was in Zegnautus Keep, Gralea. The Empire will execute her if we donât rescue her soon,â he pleaded.
Author's notes:
So, what do you think about this chapter? Are you #TeamLeon or #TeamNoctis? Let me know in your comments below. If you don't have much to say then at least say 'Hi' so I know someone is reading this. It would really brighten my day. Thanks :)
#Squall#Luna#Lunafreya#Noctis#Prompto#Gladiolus#Ignis#Ardyn#Aranea#Gentiana#Bahamut#Rinoa#Zell#Irvine#Selphie#Quistis#Stella#FFXV#FFVIII#FanFiction#Crossover#Love#Tragedy#Leon#Final Fantasy#Final Fantasy Versus#Squall x Rinoa#Squall x Luna#Noctis x Luna#Squall x Lunafreya
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That Time I Had a One Hour Conversation About My Dating Life With God
Today I was thinking about a guy I met at a bar recently & was disappointed he hadnât been making an effort to communicate with me when God began speaking to me...
God: I have so much better for you. I have someone who will pursue.
Me: How do I even know youâre real?
God: You can feel me. I created this universe. You know me & my voice.
Me: But how do I know you even care about my love life?
God: I care.
Me: But when is he going to come? Iâm so tired of waiting and looking and nothing happening.
God: Trust me.
Me: But how do I even know this will happen in my life time? It looks like the world is ending.
God: Trust me. Come back to me. Listen to your Spirit. Stop resisting.
Me: Iâm so tired. You just havenât ever moved in this area so I donât know how I can trust You with it. All youâve done is blocked every guy whoâs entered my life. But when are You going to let someone in? Iâm so tired of waiting. I donât want to be alone anymore. Please send him quickly God. You say itâs not good for man to be alone, and that itâs also not good to burn with passion and that itâs better to marry. Please God, I canât handle the loneliness or the burning desire or the ache & pain of never having anyone call or text. I just want the romance and someone to do things with.
God: I am with you.
Me: Yes, I know you are God, but I need someone here on this earth too.
God: My peace is sufficient. Stop worrying.
Me: I know you provide peace Lord. But even with peace I am still so lonely and it hurts and Iâm tired. I have physical needs, not just emotional ones.
God: Just trust me.
Me: I am trying to trust, but this journey has been too long. Itâs been too many years of this aloneness. Year after year after year. What dId I do to deserve ending up here? Like where did I go wrong? And how many more years of this must I go through? Iâm so tired. I just want someone to comfort me & be there to listen to all my dumb jokes & stories without putting me down.
God: I am your comforter, I am your rock, I am your shelter, I am your provider. I love hearing your stories.
Me: Yes God, I know you are all those things, but I donât have anyone to hold me. I donât have anyone who will fight for me, whoâs glad I exist, whoâs happy to see me. No one even wants to text me. Iâm so alone.
God: I am glad you are sharing all of this with me. I have wanted to talk to you.
Me: I know you have, and Iâm sorry Iâve been so angry. But You have to move in this area. I canât take it anymore. Itâs too long. No one else on the entire planet has been alone this long.
God: Your brother has.
Me: Yes, but he is the only person I know.
God: Jennifer has too, Olivia even longer. You are not alone.
Me: Yes, but I am tired. Maybe they arenât because they have friends. But I donât have friends. Iâm so alone all the time. I can keep working on all these new friendships but itâs so much work. No one ever reaches out to me. No one actually cares. I have to do all the work to plan everything and Iâm tired.
God: Stop listening to the lies. People care about you. Maybe not in the way you want, but they care. Keep putting effort into the people around you. Maybe you will always have to be the organizer, but donât give up. Donât give up on life.
Me: I feel like a crazy person. How do I even know this is you.
God: You know. Because the answers come even faster than you can type. You have heard My voice before.
Me: Iâm glad I have your attention too God but you MUST do something about this love life situation. I can not survive even another year of this.
God: You are stronger than you think.
Me: I know, I am strong & I am resilient. But I am alone and it hurts too much. Itâs too many years & I canât take it anymore.
God: Youâre not alone. I am with you.
Me: I know youâre with me. But I want a HUMAN that is with me. I need my helpmate and I want to be his helpmate!!
God: Are you really ready for that?
Me: Yes. Iâm very close anyway! I could pay off my debt very soon.
God: Donât count your eggs before they hatch. Timing is everything.
Me: That seems a little harsh. This is where I think Iâm just talking to myself.
God: Sometimes you understand me best in your own voice. Just trust me, it will happen when the time is right.
Me: Iâve been hearing this wait on Godâs timing thing for years. Iâm tired. I want something to happen.
God: Arenât you tired of these guys who just want you for sex?
Me: Yes. But sometimes thatâs better than being alone.
God: Is it?
Me: Well no. But Iâm tired. You made me with physical touch as my love language and I feel so loved when I am held & I donât have any other way to have that need met. I just want love.
God: It will happen when the time is right. Until then, stop wasting time.
Me: But how do I know that? What if I end up being a 40 year old virgin? No one wants me as it is. Iâm so tired of waiting!
God: The man I have for you will want you as you are.
Me: But how do I even know that man exists.
God: Just trust me.
Me: Iâm tired of that answer. I want to see proof. I canât keep waiting on some blind faith. I could end up 50 and alone. Then 60. Then 70. Then dead never having experienced true love and I canât do that. I canât make it that long. Itâs been too long already. I canât live just to work.
God: Then find some purpose. It wonât be that long.
Me: I have purpose. I have this job. But I canât live just to help others feel beautiful. I want to feel beautiful. I want someone to choose ME out of all the other women in the world, to pursue me, to plan romantic dates, to make me feel like I am the only woman on the planet.
God: Let me be that person for you.
Me: God I canât marry YOU. I want a beautiful wedding, I want hugs, & I want earthly love. YOU created me this way.
God: Yes I did & there is a reason for it. Just wait on the time. Youâve tried to force it & it hasnât worked for you, has it.
Me: No, it hasnât. But I canât keep waiting years and years and years. Please just send him to me before 40 I already feel like itâs been too long. And I feel like Iâm hearing you say âI willâ but I donât want to believe that because I felt like You said that someone was coming this year years ago & it didnât happen.
God: Ok. I love you and I know whatâs best for you.
Me: Is it really whatâs best for me to keep waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting? The longer I wait, the crazier I become & the less anyone wants me. I can hardly hold the crazy in anymore. What if it just progresses until no one wants me.
God: The man I have for you will understand.
Me: Did You really say that or did I say that.
God: I said it.
Me: But how many more years? I canât do this.
God: Just wait.
Me: You keep saying the same thing over & over. These are not real answers.
God: They are real answers. They are just not the answers you want to hear.
Me: True. But Iâm tired!! And I canât keep being alone!
God: You will not be alone for forever. Just trust me.
Me: Rolling my eyes over here.
God: I know.
Me: Iâm just a crazy person. The earth is obviously created by someone but I donât know if youâre the Christian God because the Bible is confusing and somewhat misogynistic.
God: Search for answers. Seek and you will find. This is part of your journey to finding the One. The sooner you find the answers, the sooner you will find him.
Me: I could spend all my time reading my Bible and thereâs still no one. I mean I used to do the super Bible churchy thing when I was younger and there still was no one.
God: It wasnât time. You still had healing to do. You didnât even know about your mental health issues.
Me: True.
God: Work on you. Stop fretting.
Me: Can I share this?
God: Yes.
Me:Â With whom?
God: Close friends. Donât cast your pearls before swine.
Me: But Iâm still tired & very frustrated & I just want someone to be here in my home giving me hugs & watching shows & making travel plans with me. I want someone to go on romantic cruises & dates with. Iâm not asking too much!! I just want the simple pleasures of life before I die!
God: It will come.
Me: But why do I have to wait so much longer than everyone else?
God: There are people who have waited even longer - weâve talked about this.
Me: Yes. But Iâm tired!!
God: You are repeating yourself.
Me: I know, but I am tired!! I just want my person!!
God: He is not the cure to all that you need. There are things you need to work on yourself. Get your finances in order, figure out what you believe.
Me: Yes but I can do all those things simultaneously while dating.
God: The studying you need to do will take a considerable amount of time.
Me: I donât want to study, I just want to have fun, and I want someone to have fun with. Iâm too tired to study.
God: I will give you strength. I am all you need.
Me: If Youâre the Christian God, the Bible says itâs not good for man to be alone. That means Youâre not all I need.
God: I am.
Me: I feel like this is a contradiction.
God: It is not. You need comfort: I can provide that. I may not be there physically, but I can take away some of that pain, and over time, you will be happy.
Me: That sounds good, but it sounds like a lot of workâŠ
God: Has chasing men fulfilled you?
Me: No. :(
God: Well then?
Me: I get what Youâre saying. But I have this huge aching hole and Bible reading doesnât fill it.
God: Try it.
Me: I have.
God: Not consistently, not when youâre in pain.
Me: True.
God: Stop arguing & surrender.
Me: I just want to be loved. And I want it to be easy and I donât feel like doing all this work to find love, happiness, & truth.
God: Nothing worth having comes easy. Relationships take work. You must do the work.
Me: Ok. Thank you for talking to me.
God: Always.
Me: But I still really want a human. I donât know how that desire will ever go away.
God: It wonât. But it will become more manageable the more time you spend with me.
Me: Thank you.
God: I love you. And stop watching all those romantic movies, they just feed your desire.
Me: Ok.
God: Slowing down on the dating will help you stay safe too.
Me: True.
Me: Thank you for providing all that you have.
God: Youâre welcome.
Me: I will work on trusting You with my love life too. And Iâm going to search for answers. I still have those 2 movies I already rented to finish, I donât want to just throw the money away.
God: It is your choice, but you need to protect yourself from feeding things that up your level of discontent.
Me: Yes, true. Last thing: How could there be someone better for me out there? I have never see anything good thatâs still single.
God: You are good. You are still single.
Me: Yes, but thereâs way more women in the world than men so howâs it going to happen.
God: Just trust Me.
Me: You keep saying that, but I donât even know where I could possibly meet someone.
God: Just live your life. Donât be a hermit. It will happen.
Me: Ok. I do have more peace right now. I'm not going to worry about that guy anymore. Thank you.
God: Youâre welcome.
Me: I just deleted every guyâs number.
God: Smart choice.
Me: But if they reach out to me, I donât know how I will resist, because I really want love, even if itâs temporary. Please send somebody else?
God: Thatâs not how this works. And temporary causes more pain, remember?
Me: True. Should I delete all the dating apps to?
God: Yes.
Me: But without them I have no male interaction at all.
God: I am male.
Me: Well yes, but thatâs not the same thing. You know what I mean.
God: Stop looking for your worth in men. You will always only be disappointed when they use you and leave.
Me: I donât know how to find it elsewhere.
God: Give back. Volunteer with no expectation of receiving.
Me: Iâm too tired for all that.
God: I hear you saying youâre tired a lot. I will give you energy to do the things youâre meant to do. You also waste a lot of time on Facebook.
Me: Ok yes. True.
God: You might have more energy if you werenât sucked into that hole of comparison so often.
Me: Yes, true. But sometimes itâs the only way I have a conversation in a whole day.
God: You can talk with me.
Me: Yes, but usually I donât hear an answer.
God: Do you wait for an answer? Or move on to other things.
Me: Ok, good point.
Me: But I just spent all that money on eHarmony.
God: Lesson learned, right?
Me: Yes. Sigh.
God: You have spent tons of money on dating things. You canât control this. Let it go & surrender it to me.
Me: Ok. But I want to control it.
God: You canât. Donât you see that? Let it go.
Me:Â Yeah, true. I just wish I hadnât messed up with him.
God: Just let it go & learn from your mistakes. Just turn from them and donât go back. I forgive you.
Me: Ok. Is it really a mistake though? Iâm nearly 40.
God: Yes. It wasnât love. He used you. Thatâs a mistake.
Me: Yeah, true. :(
God: Just learn from it that you should always take it slow in the future & that a real man wonât push.
Me: Ok.
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Congratulations, JENN! Youâve been accepted for the role of CORIOLANUS. Admin Rosey: We read two beautiful, amazing applications for our beloved Princeling -- but ultimately, Jenn, your plots and your voice for Cyrus were so impactful and vivid. Heâs winsome, charming and built for tragedy. You were able to elaborate on the different machenisms that make him what he is wihile leaving room for him to grow into his own person, to carve out a place within Verona that is unique to him and him alone. Weâre ready for this particular strain of ruin! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.
WELCOME TO THE MOB.
Out of Character
Alias | Jenn
Age | 21+
Preferred Pronouns | She/her
Activity Level | After getting back into the groove of things, Iâd say that Iâm most active on weekdays! I try to get in a reply at least a few times a week if I have any and if Iâm not particularly busy. Â
Timezone | GMT+8
How did you find the rp? | Â Iâm already in it!
Current/Past RP Accounts | Everyoneâs favourite Uncle Cristian <3
In Character
Character | Cyrus Dante Sloane // Coriolanus
THE PRINCELING Â Â Â Â darling boy with the wind in your hair
A LIGHT SPILLING IN LIKE A FLOOD OF DIVINITY Â Â Â Â and the sun in your eyes, donât you know?
WHO GLADY WAGES WAR ON ALL THOSE WHO WILL DEFY HIM Â Â Â Â everything you want is just past your fingertips
What drew you to this character? | Weâd love to hear what about this characterâs bio caught your attention! Make this as long or as short as you desire!
Cyrus, oh my darling boy. I took one look at his newly posted bio and realised I had overlooked him, to my eternal error. What a champ!!
When it comes to Cyrus, my favorite part is dissecting his development from boy to man and as a result, itâs going to be a running theme all throughout my app. There is so much I want to pour into that space but I will try to be concise.
I canât tell you what I love most about him without first giving Vivianne some credit. His life is fraught with uncertainties but he thrives in spite of it and that, I think, speaks volumes about his character and how much heâs like his mother. Heâs resilient, resourceful and privileged but starved of the things he really needs like love and affection. I imagine that Vivianneâs nurturing in the first decade of his life was pivotal and that it carried on as phantom lessons that he would often replay in his mind when he was in Cape Town in lieu of actually having her there. But you see, the thing about the human mind is that memories get distorted each time itâs âreplayedâ and heâs done it so many times that I think heâs started to warp and mimic the worst and best parts of Vivianne. Sort of like how Volumnia manages to influence Coriolanus in the original, Vivianne does it too to Cyrus but from afar and unknowingly.
Let me compare Cyrus to all thatâs precious in this world. Heâs all the golden hues of sunlight, ringing laughter in a home, a shining beacon wherever he goes. He was a boy whose skin was made of gold leaf, paper thin and easily bruised but now as a man itâs turned solid. Heâs impenetrable save for the small crack over his beating heart and therein lies the problem heâs never been able to solve ( and the part Iâm MOST eager to explore ). I love irony that as a boy who had relied on his mother for all that was good in his life, heâs cultivated such a burning resentment toward Vivianne. He wants to make her rue the day she abandoned him and that makes her his one undeniable weak spot. After so many years, she still has that effect on him and quite like his canon counterpart, it makes him sort of emotionally stunted to a degree.
So, I see him like a child daring enough to commit all sorts of sins against his mother in the name of retribution. I see him using her as a shield against Cosimo, against the mob, against himself. I see him pushing her as she will undoubtedly push back. It layers him with the kind of duality I never got to enact with Cristian and Howard that sort of evolved Cristianâs character into something he never thought heâd be. In my mind, that had been Cristianâs turning point and we all know how it ended.
Thereâs so many things that could keep Cyrus on the same trajectory what with his vendetta against Vivianne and all that she stands for. But thereâs also so many other things that could deviate him from it. I want to help pull back all the layers as his story unfolds and I think any player would love to be able to take him on that journey of self discovery.
What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | Where do you see this character developing, and what kind of actions would you have them take to get there? 3 future plot ideas would be preferable.
THE ULTIMATE GOAL
His ultimate goal is very clear to me. He always gets what he wants and Cyrus wants to upend all of Vivianneâs plans, whatever they may be and by extension, Cosimoâs. His motherâs kingdom must fall all around her knees. For this, I want to see Cyrus get closer to the Capuletâs enemies and possibly join them when heâs poised for success. Whether or not he believes in their cause, it would be a blow to his mother either way, especially a blow she might not expect or be ready for when they call for his head.
As he accomplishes his objectives, Iâd like him to also get a taste of how his mother has lived without him all these years. I believe heâll come to find that it bears some resemblance with his life in South Africa â successful but also disconnected from the people they want to be. So, why did she have to let him go? He could have made her proud if she had let him stay. Heâs vicious and cruel when it comes to her just as he thinks she is when it comes to him. And I believe heâs willing to pull out all the stops to achieve this ultimate goal. And to get there, heâll need some helpâŠ
THE COMPANY
Whatever his plans are, he wonât be able to do them alone. Iâd love for him to build a relationship with Juliana, it would be interesting if he does. And especially since sheâs more of his motherâs child than he is, I want to see how that plays out in terms of Cyrus dealing with meeting her again after all those years abroad. Whatâs he going to say to her? Whatâs he going to do to her? Eventually, I want him to find a way to ensure that he has some sort of influence over her and eventually some sway over the course of actions that the Capulets might or might not take. Though, of course things might not always be so simple.
Other than Juliana, I imagine a big key in making headway within the Capulet ranks is through Cassian. The man is astute and an expert strategist and thatâs the advantage Cyrus sees in keeping his company, in playing the teacherâs pet. I want to see Cyrus trick Cassian into facilitating his ambition but like all heroes in their tragedies, a foil makes things interesting. Cassian has been playing this game of cat and mouse longer than Cyrus has and is likely a better player in the long con. And while he might get the better of Cyrus in the long run, Cassian isnât the man who has the ear of a Cape Town kingpin.
THE KINGPIN
âThe dealings with the Capulets, with his mother, had grown sour with the war that waged in the place that he had been born and molded. Who else would they send to smooth such inconveniences over than the man who had the whole of South Africa beneath his feet?â Thereâs a reason why Cyrus is an emissary despite only just returning to Verona. Itâs unlikely that Cosimo would put his trust in Vivianneâs son, who is essentially a stranger to him, without seeing any advantage in the arrangement. So, I had this idea. Iâd like to position Cyrus as an emissary for the mob in Cape Town, as the go-between them and the Capulets. I imagine itâs likely that Cosimo wants something from them to aid his cause in the war of Verona and Cyrus, because of his convenient relationship to his Underboss, is the best candidate to get the job done. Iâm open to almost any sort of plot for this but my main concern for his development here is that he begins to parallel Vivianneâs journey in the underworld more apparently.
THE RIGHT-HAND WOMAN
Their weapon of choice is easy enough to acquire but what makes their smiles and laughter so razor is that when they smile and laugh, it isnât just a grin and a sound. Itâs in their expressions, the way their faces twitch, the way their eyes flood with joy so infectious others want to share in it, bathe in it. Revel in it. They make you gasp for air and before you know it, youâre suffocating and thanking them for it. Theirs is a friendship I have do doubt will wreak all sorts of havoc in Verona. They are the monsters your mother never warned you about because surely the heaven sent will do no harm. In time, I want the devastation that Cyrus and Brigette reign in Verona to generate an irreversible consequence. Thus, making sure they learn that even sunshine can turn into wildfires.
LA MAMMA
Things Cyrus will never tell his mother; things he maybe should have; maybe the time may never come when he does: âWhen you hung up the phone, the dial tone echoes the goodbye you never said. Instead, the last thing I hear is that âItâs all for your own good,â and âBecause I said so.â I missed you for a long time so what good did it do me when I had nothing but your ghost to tell me you never loved me. That you never wanted me. That I was a mistake. Whether you like it or not, you made me who I am. And I have become heartless. Where were you when I was still kind? Am I supposed to be grateful to have survived like this?â
Just. Kill me with Viv plots.
Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | At first I was gonna say yes but after completing my app I just canât bear to kill him off. He deserves so much more. He deserves the world. But still⊠Iâm gonna have to say come what may.
In Depth
Please choose between the interview or the para sample (or both, if you like!):
How many years did it take to build this place? Cyrus wonders as he walks past the tall, dark arches made of steely wood that seem to have witnessed all that has happened in Verona; seen all its tribulations and turmoil and subsumed its spilled ichor. Heâs almost sure that if he looks closely enough, heâd see the cityâs bloody history written in its grain. The furnishing of the library is immaculately chosen, fit precisely to house a most noble family and its liege. At first glance, he sees an enormous collection of books lining every wall and alcove. The shelves are full and the spines of the books vary in colours from light to dark. He touches them, fingering the well-used titles before picking out a select few on the different subjects heâs studying. At a second, more considering glance, he sees the culmination of an extraordinary legacy. A legacy built on the very bones of Verona.
And for him to stand within a place like this, being who he is and what he represents, will be the beginning of his legacy.
Cyrus is once again new to the city and while not many know his face, some do. So, he finds an alcove away from the busier side of the floor where he might be afforded a little more privacy as informed by his absent host. He knows little about his host but he does know that heâs a man who has had the misfortune to be plagued with a tragedy â a death of a loved one. The very same event thatâs brought Cyrus back home at the behest of Cosimo Capulet.
His wrist watch beeps and it has just struck twelve. Cyrus is early, he knows that. Much earlier than scheduled. So, he makes himself comfortable and opens the books heâs decided to borrow. Some time passes before a voice beckons him out of his reverie.
âCyrus Sloane⊠Are you ready to begin?â
What is your favorite place in Verona?
Having grown up traversing and discovering the avenues of Cape Town looking for something to help him make sense of his snowglobe-shaken world, the streets had become a sort of solace to Cyrus Sloane. Often, it served as a distraction from his loneliness but mostly because what he saw had been as foreign as he. Like calls to like, does it not? So, Cyrus is inclined to answer the man with his winning smile âThe streets,â knowing full well that it wouldnât be a typical answer. He spent his childhood running down Veronaâs cobblestone roads but now the lanes and alleys have become the foundation of a concrete wilderness to him, and he sees an opportunity to begin a new exploration.
But to say that anything was his favourite is to say that he has some attachment to it to an extent. There was nothing he wanted to like about the city, nowhere that called to him nor told him of any story he hasnât already heard before. It is like all the travel pamphlets say; Verona is a city of love but to him, love in this city has become synonymous with lies, with deceit and betrayal. The implication racks him with bile but he lifts his light eyes away from focusing too hard on a spot on the mahogany table and instead meets the even darker hues of his interviewer. The man looks mildly perplexed at him.
Cyrus is accustomed to elaborating everything at this point, what with the denizens of this idyllic townâs constant waiting for him to speak more, do more, inspire more. Thus, blithely he provides a supplement to his answer, âWhat? Havenât you been? Itâs your city too, is it not? Youâll get all you need from it if you know where to look, what to ask and, especially, who to listen to. Particularly for the best gossipââ He stopped there despite having more to say. He canât help thinking to himself if the man knew his mother. His mother and Everett Craven. The gossips say Everett is one of her finest works for the mob. Cyrus doesnât remember much of it, but he does remember what it had cost.
With a shrug, Cyrus cuts away the underlying acerbity and replaces it with cool composure, akin to the business-like exterior the other man has on. Itâs one of the few times where looking too naive, too untested might serve him ill. If Cyrus had a glass of alcohol right now, heâd surely decide itâs time to down it in one gulp. Fluidly, he wills himself to be an agreeable conversationalist. âBut really, youâll find that my favourite place in Verona is where I can get the best deals. And right now, itâs here with you.â
What does your typical day look like?
A half suppressed laugh almost makes its way past his slightly chapped lips. Itâs an odd thought that his days are anything typical. Cyrus pours his winsome nature into his casting glance directed at the books arranged on the table and into the way he lifts one corner of a hardcover as he turns the title to his new acquaintance. âYou have a good collection here.â He lets it drop back into its place with a soft thud atop the short pile of art, history and mathematics texts splayed in front of the sharp-suit interviewer.
âSignore, Iâm quite certain you already know this by now but Iâll say it for my full vindication if you like.â He sits back with relaxed shoulders and leans into the surprisingly comfortable wooden backrest. âIâm a student here. You can imagine what my typical day looks like.â A small jerk of his head sends the other manâs gaze to the books on the table to further drive his point home. âI wake up. I get to class. I go home. Maybe hit up a club or party at night. I hear The Lamberti Tower is fun when the sun goes down. Maybe Iâll see you there some time. You know, typical student lifeâwell, maybe not so typical consideringâŠâ
âReally? And what about Cosimo Capulet? I hear you report to him now. Iâm sure someone with your standing will have a direct line to the man. There might be something here for you if you can open that line to me.â There it is. Cyrusâ mouth quirks up in a half smile. And everything in him tells him to lie, lie, lie. Not because he is afraid of any repercussions, but because a good businessman knows when he has the upper hand. And his upper hand lies with not revealing everything he knows.
With an amused sigh Cyrus continues with a cant of his head. âI want to say Tuesdays and Thursdays but youâll understand when I say: how would I know?â There is little leniency in his voice when he says that. âHe calls me in at his whims and whenever he feels like having someone to order around. If you want to get to him⊠Iâll work something out for you if you really need it to be done.â
Cyrus has an idea of how much his new associate is relying on his accessibility to Cosimo. But he could reach Don Capulet as easily as it was for a child to cross the road aloneâif he isnât careful, heâd be run over. No, the real power lies with the company and heâs determined to keep them for his grand designs. Rosaline. Orsino. Juliet. Edgar. Volumnia. They are the keys to the kingdom. Lucky for him, mother dearest will be there to lend a hand every step of the way. Heâll make sure of it this time.
What has been your biggest mistake thus far?
The other manâs forwardness emboldens him to let his mask crack a sliver. âThis is beginning to feel like a confessional, Lawrence. Has the church gotten its claws in so deep?â The Sacrament of Penance performed for a sinner by an equally unworthy priest, so it seems. At twenty years old, itâs hard to fathom that heâd have a biggest mistake to talk about. The way his assessor asks this⊠It feels as if his whole life should pivot around the fact of this big mistake.
Then⊠Is it the fact that heâd been born? It isnât as if heâs had a choice in that. No, it was his motherâs mistake to fall pregnant. Itâs her sin to bear, not mine, he reminds himself.
Then⊠Is it his return to Verona? The land that bore him, made him and then cast him out as if heâd always been an unwanted stray. No, again it isnât his mistake to bear.
He knows his own wrongs.
He knows that at twenty years old his one grievance to confess is that he is just as much his motherâs son as heâd never admit. He could be as calculative and as clinical as she is ( and as equally and reluctantly vulnerable ). Right now, it is obvious heâd even inherited her wry wit. The man sitting across him had not the time to joke but smile he did nonetheless, saying to Cyrus âWeâve all got our crosses to shoulder, donât we? I just want to make sure Iâm not about to take on a liability. Besides, Iâm curious. Tell me⊠Whatâs the worst that Vivianne Sloaneâs son is capable of, hmm?â
Thatâs all he is isnât he? Reduced to being just Vivianne Sloaneâs son in this country. It makes him see red, taste the vitriol on his tongue, feel the raging sea beneath his skin trying to carve its way out. He doesnât let it. With all that heâs amounted to, heâll never escape her. Heâs learned to live with that. He doesnât let the anger seep into the blues of his eyes. Heâs seen it in the mirror and what had been reflected was the image of a boy, the scared child within, the boy who was taught to fight and forced to be starved of the love he had craved. If he lets the anger tint his features, he knows that the man before him will see the pain beneath, clear glimpses of his soul drowning in this persona heâd created to fit this world of indifference. No, heâs too proud to let that happen. Too proud to admit that he was the mistake Vivianne Sloane had tried sweeping under the fucking rug all the way to South Africa. No, he would make her fucking own it.
âIt would be highly arrogant of me to say that I donât make mistakes. So, I will say this: It is in my interests toâ lets say, tie my own success to yours. But I canât do it without knowing whatâs in it for me. Convince me that this isnât going to be my biggest mistake, why donât you?â Through sheer willpower, this man will do something of worth for him. âBecause if you fail to utilise my employment effectively, weâll both be sinking in the same boat. I wouldnât want either of us to waste such precious time.â And speaking of time, Cyrus had to go soon. He has an appointment that he doesnât want to miss.
What has been the most difficult task asked of you?
Between the time he was shipped off to South Africa and now? He couldnât even count, couldnât even remember.
Everything had been difficult at first but with each task he had found that he could accomplish it all on his own with little more than a smile and a few charming, reassuring words. He picked it up from a man he no longer thinks of kindly, who should have been there when his mother wasnât. But this thing that heâs doing now though, requires more than words. Itâs as much of an interview for his new friend as it is for himself. From all the questions heâs gotten, what he gleans is that the Montagues are desperate for a foothold in Capulet ranks. And Cyrus, the princeling of Verona, the prodigal son, the product of negligence, is their way in and heâs willing to consider playing the part. He wonders, at this juncture, if his mother could be proud of him, of how far heâs come and how far heâs willing to go to achieve something he desires and he desires nothing more than seeing her humbled the way she had humbled him. To bring low a formidable woman such as she, a woman so feared sheâs been dubbed a scourge of Verona, will be his most difficult task yet. But itâs not been asked of him by anyone. Except himself.
âDifficulty is subjective I believe.â Getting a plane ticket back to Italy months ago had been a feat. Meeting his mother after years and years of her elusion had been painful and exhausting. Agreeing to meet Lawrence Vernon and subsequently denounce all that the name Sloane stands for, his one link to his past, present and future, had to have been a difficult decision to make. But Cyrus surprised himself when he had found it easy to come here, to a known Montague property dressed in nothing but the slickest Italian fashion and Gucci loafers. And with the gun heâd been strapped with by Cosimo Capulet himself. âBut I suppose if you really want an answer⊠Iâm afraid I havenât been asked to do many of the difficult things youâre probably thinking about.â Kill, torture, maim. âThough I donât see why you might think I wonât rise up to the occasion. Iâm here now, arenât I?â
What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?
A grand finale, thatâs what he thinks of it. This so called war plunges Veronaâs economy into instability, itâs a wonder how the city hasnât yet sunk like Atlantis. Granted that the sunken city was probably ill-favoured by the gods but what difference does Verona have to boast? The Three Witches look down from their pedestals and act as judge, jury and executioner. One day, when they decide to leave the city, Verona will surely share the same fate as Atlantis. Sink the stones rather than let new gods take their place. Such is the will and the way. âItâs unfortunate is what it is. Gang violence, drive by shootings, kidnappings and torture. Itâs as if Verona has regressed fifty years.â
Sometimes, itâs difficult to believe that these are the times heâs living in. But just as in Cape Town, heâs used to the sight of people painting the streets red under the moonlight. âBut hey, you know⊠If itâs bound to happen, who says war canât be profitable, right? And thatâs what youâre cashing on isnât, Vernon? That our little arrangement will help make this war worthwhile for you.â For all that youâve lost. Approval is now apparent in the way the lines around his mouth curves slightly, the way his chin juts out in a righteous fashion. âYouâre a smart man, you know itâs all a marketing strategy. Provoke the other team and pretend youâre the heroes when you bring out your guns to protect the people from getting caught in the crossfire. Do you believe thereâs honour in that?â To an extent, yes, Cyrus thinks so. Respect only comes from the money or your blood.
He can clearly imagine it. He sees it in his mindâs eye. The chaos and bloodshed â itâs all just cards on the table and heâs willing to play. Even if he lacked the fortune of receiving those Aces, heâll find someone who has them and maneuver them into laying it out on the table. He wants this war to happen. He wants to be there for its unholy conclusion because when this war ends, and it will, he will be there on the victorâs side.
And just then, his watch begins to beep. Itâs 3PM and itâs time for him to go. His contact is already waiting.
So, he begins to respectfully excuse himself as he shoves a history textbook into his bag. With all that heâs seen and learned since coming home, itâs still difficult to reconcile his reality with the memories he has of Verona of when he was a young boy.
Back then, he only knew of gardens of white lilies and black dahlias but as he grew up, he began to understand that even beautiful flowers could grow in ruins. Perhaps that is this warâs saving grace. That the blood and bodies buried in the soil will only make the earth more fertile for new shoots to grow. To make way for a new generation of Veronans, of true kings. He thanks his host for his time as he stands, reaching out a hand.âOur conversation has beenâŠenlightening to say the least. Convince me and Iâm all in for this war. Iâll help you end it.â Just the way he wants â with their problems on a spike.
Extras:
These are just drabbles I wanted to write out to illustrate the disparities between young Cyrus and grown up Cyrus. Iâd like to make them canon if I can but as usual Iâm definitely open to making changes with the input of the other players whose characters are involved! <3
Head / Mind
Cosimo never quite knew the boy, a boy who had an aptitude for solving problems and crossword puzzles. All he had heard was that the boyâs mother was ambitious. He never knew that that same ambition flowed through the boyâs veins.
Cosimo met the man when he was quite grown up, when he had built a name of his own in a country they had sent him to be forgotten. But the man was persistent, heâd never be forgotten so comfortably.
Upon reconnecting, Cosimo now remembers a young boy who he had seen playing with his daughter once at kindergarten. And all too easily, he remembers the boy building castles with the girl, building what may have been the tallest tower in the land. They cried and laughed as the stones of that Lego castle came tumbling down.
Now, he meets the boy-king who understands that they were no more playing in classrooms, a man who had gone to a different land and learned to dispatch kings and gods with no more than a few well chosen words in a few well placed ears.
Heart / Personality
Vivianne loved a boy once, a boy who had a soft face, who had naught but sunshine poured from his lips like water into a bowl. And like water into a bowl, he poured his soul into the things he loved doing in the afternoon. Papier mùché animals and oil pastel drawings. The boy had been happy until he turned around one day and realised he had no one to share that happiness with.
She doesnât know what to tell him other than he is better off without her.
That boy had never believed her, not once. Not when she let him down by not bringing him home. Not when she never said anything about wishing things could be different. Not even when the day came he realised he loved her a little less.
Not once, until he starts to tell himself that he was indeed better off without her.
Vivianne knows a man now, at least she thinks she does. The man is an older, more cynical version of that boy she once knew. With his face still soft but his eyes now hard and cold as sapphires, he still pours out a part of his soul into his work. Though no more into things he loves doing but the things he must. The man has no more happiness to share for it has dried up when he left it under the blistering sun.
Spirit / Aspiration
More than ten years ago, Everett knew a boy who had enjoyed playing in the rain, running as far and as fast as his little feet could take him. He knew a boy who had enjoyed counting the stars and giggled when he lost count. The child who had said, âOne day, I want to become a star. That way, I can always find you no matter where you or mamma go.â
Now, Everett only knows a man who no longer has space for anything that doesnât move him forward. He knows a man who has no time for stargazing because all his nights have turned cloudy and heavy clouds take too long to dissipate.
He remembers a boy who had been promised the world, who grew up into a man who collects broken promises instead. The man is now an emissary to a cause he never thought he would be a part of but he makes the most out of it. Everett knows this because he knows the look of a man who has had to learn lessons without prior warning.
Everett knows a man who has had the stars in his eyes plucked out, though not by his hand. Does he think it might as well have been?
The man certainly does.
Soul / Cyrus
A boy once knew himself. He knew the man he would become. Like an astronaut that man would sail among the stars even if the distance between them would be cold and unforgiving. He knew he had a fire inside him and he had a darkness inside him, too. So, there was nothing to be afraid of in outer space because he saw it inside himself first. Â
But the boy could tell something weighed him upon the earth so that he could not fly. Something that clipped his wings, rendering his unable to visit the place in the heavens that he had dreamt of, that he was made of. So, he sought ways to snip away the strings of hopelessness and the tethers of a self-induced guilt that told him he didnât try hard enough. The boy had found the best way to rid himself of that heaviness was to force it into someone else. Strike by strike.
And the boy flew away.
A man forgets parts of himself and he knows himself well enough to say that he has changed. He has learned that to exist without needing anyoneâs approval is a most powerful freedom and living this way will bring the stars to him instead of the other way round.
And the man knows he will exercise that power until the world runs out of light.
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Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple [My Thoughts]
I canât guarantee that there are no spoilers, so I will just put the âkeep readingâ line. With that being said, this is in no way a deep analysis of any kind. Do not take this seriously. Iâm just an idiot running my mouth. This is just a stupid thing that Iâm writing because I just finished the movie.
If youâre Canadian, just know that they did not prepare a special message for us. The voice actors who appeared in the message before the start of the movie (Uemura Yuuto, Ono Kensho, and Taniyama Kishou) and the Crunchyroll staff prepared the message for Americans. Iâm Canadian, but I guess thatâs close enough (still a little disappointing though).
Whether you ship Atsushi x Kyouka as a sibling relationship, a friendship, or anything else, it was quite nice. Personally, I do support this ship despite the age gap of four years, but I wouldnât be angry about any ships that arenât... illegal let's say. Their relationship was done in a way that it wasnât forced to make you think that they were in any specific kind of relationship which I liked because I had a feeling that audiences wouldâve criticized it if they hinted any tiny bit of a romantic relationship. I think that kind of thing should be saved for the future if they decide to act on it. Letâs just say... Iâll preorder that ship.
Chuuya x Dazai (or Soukoku) is a ship that I donât mind. Itâs okay, but I personally liked Oda x Dazai. Too bad... well that ainât gonna happen. Unless you believe in the afterlife... I guess. Was it forced? A little. Was I bothered? Not that much. I donât care what you ship. If this is your ship, embrace it. Iâll sit here with my popcorn routing for you.
Was the story predictable? Yes. I didnât feel that bothered by it though. I understand that they didnât want to surpass or reveal anything that the manga has or anything that hasnât been explored yet. This was made in a way that you wouldnât feel really lost if you didnât watch this and just continued with the manga. It was more of a side story. Plus, as a person who is constantly anxious, predictability is great. Donât judge me.
The pacing was a little bit fast, but as an anime movie, it would be a bit crazy to have any expectations. Just be glad it wasnât a complete recap. I think this movie wouldâve benefited from being an OVA instead of just a movie, but that wouldâve changed so many things in production. I will take what I can get.
I wonât get into the details of everything that was predictable. That would take too long, but the little things like the pill that Dazai took, why Ranpo put the snacks into a safe, the abilities attacking, how that would all work, everyone surviving (because as I said, this movie would not interfere with the major overarching story), etc. Also, I think we all know that Dazai and Ranpo know everything thatâs going to happen. Thereâs no way that they can lose, and not for a single second did they convince me that the agency or anyone was in a pinch. The entire time felt as if it was under their control. In that sense, it almost belittled the villains slightly. Fyodor probably knew that and backed off to make another more prominent appearance later. Shibusawa was disappointing. For a villain that is so hyped and with an ability so outstanding, he was one of the biggest letdowns about the movie. The dragon was also disappointing just because I feel like it was meant to represent the âTiger vs Dragonâ cliche, but I was not too hyped about that. Just everything about Shibusawa and his actions I felt were not as well thought out as I wanted them to be. I knew that the âgood sideâ was going to win, but his final form looked kind of like a joke (comparing to their usual high-quality character designs), and he didnât put up as much of a fight as I thought they would have. The other ADA members barely make any appearances until the end, and I feel like they missed an opportunity with that. I understand that they were pressed for time though so I will let that slide... (begrudgingly)
I was pleased with the music and animation. Studio Bones did a pretty good job. The music did a wonderful job complimenting the visuals, and my attention was captured by the changes of tone and texture (if I can use that word) of the music. I was really surprised by the sophistication. I mean, it wasnât the best anime music OST by any means, but it was good enough to suffice. Nothing extremely extraordinary. But GRANRODEO made a great inserted song that was placed in some reused visuals (too bad they didnât animate all the visuals new) and some new visuals (mostly just the characters with a caption to describe their abilities) was good for hyping the audience. It was well-written and perfectly set the mood up for epicness. The ending by Luck Life was to be expected, and I loved it. I all the BSD endings, so the fact that they got back into it with a nice song addition to this movie was amazing. They reused the second OP during the final fight. Iâll be honest, they didnât do as great of a job with this, but that was for one reason: the sound mixing made everything else drown out the song. I understand that everyone has probably heard the song beforehand, but I wish there was more balance.
Now onto voice acting... Bungou Stray Dogs has a great cast. None of the cast is really ânewcomersâ except for Atsushiâs seiyuu Uemura Yuuto whose role was one of his first major ones. I believe he was a student beforehand though. I think heâs getting a lot more roles now.Â
I think Iâve finally gotten used to Kensho Ono playing Akutagawa. At first, I didnât think he would fit the role too well. I thought they just did it to put in a big name, but I donât mind it now. He does bring a certain tone to the character that is unique to him.Â
Fyodor was a mixed choice for me in terms of how I liked it. I know that Akira Ishida is definitely not new. He has so many roles under his name that range in character type and personality, but I almost felt as if they couldâve done better. I wouldâve appreciated it if they opened the cast to more new voice actors. Maybe this role would be too big for someone who is new, but as much as Ishidaâs portrayal wasnât bad by any means, I wouldâve been open to other interpretations of the complex and witty character. The reason why I think Akira Ishida fit (despite him being Katsura in Gintama) is because he still brought the tone of the character to life. He still had the charisma of the character. He was good; he just wasnât great.
Now for the choice of Shibusawa... I wasnât really pleased. Kazuya Nakai is definitely talented as a voice actor, but his voice just didnât resonate with me well. Shibusawa was disappointing for me as a character. I expected him to be more sophisticated, but that voice just didnât do it. Itâs one thing for the writing, but I know Nakai for voicing quirkier thugs and goofy samurai (just look at him in Gintama. Youâll get what I mean). Alternatives for this role? I wouldnât know who would fit. Here are some alternatives off the top of my head: Satoshi Hino, Morikawa Toshiyuki, Hikaru Midorikawa, Tomokazu Seki, Nakata Jouji, Shinichiro Miki, etc. These are all veterans who I know have the range for this.Â
Character development in this movie wasnât bad, but be sure that you have the popular opinion because if you donât like Atsushi, Kyouka, Akutagawa, or Chuuya, sorry, but you can just sit your butthurt baggage over on the side. I know. It sucks, but they only had so much time. I already said that they wouldâve done better with an OVA for the proper development and pacing, but just be glad that we got this for now. BSD doesnât do the best job with their side characters, but thatâs a rant for another time.Â
Atsushi was a little bit annoying in this film. He was constantly having to get himself together, and I felt like Kyouka was carrying him along half the time. I didnât entirely mind this though because Kyouka is my favourite, and her strength and resilience was nice for me to watch. But Atsushi really came through (a little rushed) at the end. His backstory was a little shallow. I expected more out of it. I understand that they had limited time, but I felt as if they have a gold mine of development there. They had so much potential and the timing was perfect. They just decided not to really touch it.
Dazai got enough screen time. Was he the main character? Not really. But letâs be real, Dazai gets more than enough the rest of the time. You knew that he was pulling strings the entire time anyway. The Oda recap was really sweet though. That moment where they shared a flashback conversation was beautifully done and stood out to me. They didnât beat it to death either. Nicely done.
Chuuya. Not going to lie, heâs a little overrated by the fandom, but he adds a good amount of vulgarity to add to the comedic factor. Iâm not sure how I feel about him having such a big impact everywhere. I wanted to see some of the others. But I donât hate him. He relies on Dazai a bit much for my liking, and he did play a major role in the final fight which I still have a mixed opinion about. His voice acting at that point in the final fight was not living up to expectations, but Kishou Taniyama provided that amazing opening, so he gets a pass automatically.
Akutagawa got quite a bit of screen time, but I felt like they didnât develop him with any of it. We didnât get to see any more depth than we already had. We didnât learn anything about him. We were just shown same old Akutagawa. I didnât mind it. He was epic. He did provide enjoyment.
Kyouka. This made me so happy. I saw a newer side of her that I already knew existed. She was such a badass that I couldnât complain. I wouldâve loved to see more about her and her backstory. We saw a brief visual of her mother. That was about it. The manga explores her past a little more, but I thought the movie wouldâve touched on that a bit more from what I saw in the trailer. I am still extremely happy with her appearance in the movie. It was one of the most enjoyable things for me because she is my favourite character.
Fyodor got screen time. Not much. His presence was slightly brought to the side. You could tell that he was held off for later though. I think heâs going to be more involved in the manga, so letâs give this one a pass too.
Iâm not going to talk about anyone else because there isnât much to talk about when it comes to anyone else. They all stayed pretty much the same. I donât think we expected anything though. This is kind of just a side story after all.
Did I enjoy this movie? Absolutely. Of course. I enjoyed it. Thereâs no doubt about that. I would push aside problems with the movie in a heartbeat. Those cute Atsushi x Kyouka moments are enough to keep me going for weeks. Kyouka getting screen time made me so happy.
NOW TIME FOR THE LINKS!
Music:
Want to listen to the BSD Dead Apple OST? https://bsd-bibliophile.tumblr.com/search/music Youâll most likely be able to find it here! The OST is nice to listen to. I highly recommend listening to it and following this account (you probably do already though)
For additional music recommendations, I highly suggest you check out the artists connected to this movie including: - GRANRODEO - Luck Life - Taku Iwasaki (the score writer) Iwasaki is known for a lot of other anime as well. Heâs really talented!
Studio Bones (animation):
Want to know what other anime Studio Bones has done? Check out this video: https://youtu.be/Y1-i1sbDNLQ Noragami, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, My Hero Academia? These people are top-tier animators.
Seiyuu Recommendations for Shibusawa:
Curious about why I thought of these names? Here are some compilations of their other roles: - Satoshi Hino: https://youtu.be/B5gVmf0zwus - Morikawa Toshiyuki:Â https://youtu.be/INiLyrlRCmY - Hikaru Midorikawa:Â https://youtu.be/EAU4Fu49Yz0 - Tomokazu Seki:Â https://youtu.be/8iN0f7bHy0Y - Nakata Jouji:Â https://youtu.be/YAMJqU_3480 - Shinichiro Miki:Â https://youtu.be/yteyBKbVRIc These might not fit since this about personal preference, but it is food for thought!
Shibusawaâs seiyuu (Nakai Kazuya) other roles: https://youtu.be/7GV5vYhLMAw And if youâre curious, this is what I heard when I saw Shibusawa: https://youtu.be/7GV5vYhLMAw https://youtu.be/6x7_1GJ3F8w (Heâs the guy with the black hair) ^ His role in Gintama is iconic, and I find a lot of these scenes funny.
Miscellaneous Videos:
This is a hodgepodge playlist of BSD-related content. You have the crack videos and hand-animated content and parodies, the seiyuu songs, their other roles, and some anime snippets. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGH6abWmUXgPnoHTOHyeeXyG6s_WINyzB
Shameless Self-Promo!
Tumblr: https://nsisbest385.tumblr.com (main) https://natsspammityspamspamham.tumblr.com (...spam if you didnât sense that)
YouTube: BSD-Inspired music:Â https://youtu.be/sfnN6eqUfEs Reason Living (Cover):Â https://youtu.be/-rlSxB6CZrE Channel:Â https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRETNNIpCqiarbeuJoGrjBA
#bsd#bungou stray dogs#kyouka izumi#atsushi x kyouka#bsd dead apple#spoilers#bsd spoilers#atsushi nakajima#akutagawa#meh as if people read tags and whatnot haha
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REVIEW
Just Get Home by Bridget Foley
 Earthquakes in California are realâŠand there is always the underlying thought of, âWhat if this is the big one?â as the earth rumbles and shakes. Having been through a few and seen the damage they can wreak makes this story all the more real andâŠâearthshakingâ to think about the âwhat ifsâ should a HUGE trembler ever hit California. Two people form an unusual alliance as they make their way through devastated Los Angeles to reach safety and what they face is thought provoking, dark, and sometimes painful to read.
 What I liked:
* Beegie: fifteen, orphan, in the foster system, hard backstory, a survivor, strong, resilient, and deserving of a better future.
* Dessa: single mother, conflicted, in a dead-end relationship, treading water, difficult relationship with her deceased mother, both parents deceased, loves her daughter, grew on me over time.
* That I found the story believable and could imagine finding myself in such a situation.
* The way the difficult situations were written
* Knowing the location well so being able to visualize where the two women were
* That both women were stronger than they realized and grew stronger as the story propgressed
* The alliance/friendship that developed between the two women
* Thinking about what the future for the women might be â hope it is better than their past
* Seeing glimpses of both of their lives before the earthquake
* That they both survived the ordeal and found a way forwardâŠat least for awhile
 What I didnât like:
* Beegieâs rotten luck in life: mother, foster parents, social worker, what happened to her the night of the earthquake
* Dessaâs mother, the man who fathered her child, that she was a bit wishy-washy, and her reasoning was so much different than I wanted it to be
* Not knowing what happened later â an epilogue might have been nice
* That human beings in a chaotic situation can be so horrible to one another â opportunistic hedonistic and ruthless
 Did I enjoy this book? I did but found myself skimming at times
Would I read more by this author? I might
 Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin-Mira for the ARC â This is my honest review.
 4 Stars
  BOOK SUMMARY:
When the Big One earthquake hits LA, a single mother and a teen in the foster system are brought together by their circumstances and an act of violence in order to survive the wrecked streets of the city, working together to just get home.
 Dessa, a single mom, is enjoying a rare night out when a devastating earthquake strikes. Roads and overpasses crumble, cell towers are out everywhere, and now she must cross the ruined city to get back to her three-year-old daughter, not even knowing whether she's dead or alive. Danger in the streets escalates, as looting and lawlessness erupts. When she witnesses a moment of violence but isn't able to intervene, it nearly puts Dessa over the edge.
Fate throws Dessa a curveball when the victim of the crimeâa smart-talking 15-year-old foster kid named Beegieâshows up again in the role of savior, linking the pair together. Beegie is a troubled teen with a relentless sense of humor and resilient spirit that enables them both to survive. Both women learn to rely on each other in ways they never imagined possible, to permit vulnerability and embrace the truth of their own lives.
A propulsive page-turner grounded by unforgettable characters and a deep emotional core, JUST GET HOME will strike a chord with mainstream thriller readers for its legitimately heart-pounding action scenes, and with book club audiences looking for weighty, challenging content.
BUY LINKS:
Harlequin
Indiebound
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Books-A-Million
Target
Walmart
Google
iBooks
Kobo
EXTRACT
 Prologue
 Assist the client in gathering possessions.
Beegie saw it written on a sheet Karen had in her folder. An unticked box next to it.
She knew what it meant. Stuff.
But it was the other meaning that soothed her.
The darker meaning. Possessions.
That was the one she worked over and over in her head. Â
Beegie imagined her case worker holding up a grey little girl, face obscured by black hair and asking, âThis one yours?â Â Beegie would nod. Yes, thatâs my monster. Together they would shove one snarling, demon-filled person after another into the garbage bags they had been given to pack her things. Soon the bags would fill, growing translucent with strain. When they were done, she and Karen would have to push down on the snapping, bloody faces of Beegieâs possessions so they could close the back of the Prius. Â
      But Karenâs box remained unticked. She didnât get to help collect Beegieâs possessions, real or unreal, because Beegieâs stuff was already on the street when she got home.
Two garbarge bags filled with nothing special. Her advocate standing next to them with her folder and its helpful advice for what to do when a foster gets kicked out of her home.
Nothing special.
Just almost everything Beegie owned in the world.
Almost but not all.
      Whatever.
After Karen dropped her off and Barb had shown her âHer New Homeâ and given her the rundown on âThe Way It Works Here,â Beegie unpacked her possessions into a bureau that the girl whoâd lived there before her had made empty, but not clean.
The bottoms of the drawers were covered in spilled glitter. Pink and gold. Beegie had pressed the tips of her fingers into the wood to pull it up, making disco balls of her hands.
But she failed to get it all.
Months later, she would find stray squares of this other girlâs glitter on her clothes. They would catch the light, drawing her back to the moment when sheâd finally given up on getting the bureau any cleaner and started to unpack the garbage bags.
      There had been things missing.
That Beegie had expected.
But what she had not expected was to find two other neatly folded garbage bags. These were the ones she had used to move her stuff from Janelleâs to the Greelyâs. She had kept them, even though back then Mrs. Greely was all smiles and Eric seemed nice, and even Rooster would let her pet him.
Beegie had kept the bags because sheâd been around long enough to know that sometimes it doesnât work out.
In fact, most times it doesnât work out.
And you need a bag to put your stuff in and you donât want to have to ask the person who doesnât want you to live with them anymore to give you one.
But when Mrs. Greely had gathered Beegieâs possessions, she had seen those bags and thought that they were important to Beegie. It made sense to her former foster mother that a âgarbage girlâ would treasure a garbage bag.
This got Beegie thinking about stuff. The problem of it. The need for things to hold your other things. Things to fix your things. Things to make your things play. Â
And a place to keep it all.
In Beegieâs brain the problem of possessions multiplied, until she imagined it like a landfill. Things to hold things to hold things, all of it covered with flies, seagulls swooping.
Everything she ever owned was trash or one day would be.
Seeing things this way helped. It made her mind less about the things that hadnât been in the bag⊠and other things.
Beegie picked at ownership like a scab, working her way around the edges, flaking it off a bit at a time. Ridding herself of the brown crust of caring.
Because if you care about something it has power over you.
Caring can give someone else the ability to control you and the only real way to own yourself was let go.
So she did.
Or she tried. Â
Some things Beegie couldnât quite shed. The want of them stuck to her like the glitter. The pain of their loss catching the light on her sleeves, flashing from the hem of her jeans. The want would wait on her body until it attracted her attention and then eluded the grasping edges of her fingers.
Excerpted from Just Get Home by Bridget Foley, Copyright © 2021 by Bridget Foley. Published by MIRA Books.
 AUTHOR BIO
Originally from Colorado, Bridget Foley attended NYUâs Tisch School of the Arts and UCLA's School of Theater, Film & Television. She worked as an actor and screenwriter before becoming a novelist. She now lives a fiercely creative life with her family in Boise, Idaho.
SOCIAL:
Author Website: http://www.wonderfoley.com/
Instagram: @bridgetfoleywriter
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12378942.Bridget_Foley
Q&A with Bridget Foley
Q: How much research do you do before beginning to write a book? Do you go to locations, ride with police, go to see an autopsy, etc.
A:It depends on the story â research is one of my favorite parts of writing!  For JUST GET HOME, Iâd lived in Los Angeles for over a decade so I was pretty familiar with the locations⊠but I needed to do a lot of research into the foster care system as well as first hand accounts of earthquakes.
Q: What hobbies do you enjoy?
A: Weightlifting, Walking and Water coloring -- probably because theyâre all things I can do while listening to audio books!
Q: Do you write under one name for all books across genres or do you have other AKA's?
A: Just the one name.
Q: Do you have pets?
A: My dear sweet dog passed away at the age of 14 at the end of 2019. I was advised to wait a month for every year we had her before getting a new companion. Itâs odd, because while I missed her I didnât long for another pet at all for that time⊠and then suddenly after 14 months I went dog crazy. It got to the point where I was slowing the car down to tell people walking their dogs how cute and fluffy their pups were. My children were mortified. So, no, we donât have a new pup yet, but I feel sure it will happen soon.
Q: Whatâs your favorite part of writing suspense?
A: Iâm an outliner, which I prefer because it means I get to use an entirely different part of my brain once I get to the drafting process. Since by then the heavy lifting of plot is done, I can fully immerse myself in the experience of the characters - which means I spend a lot of time holding my breath and sweating in my writing chair.
Q: Do you prefer reading and/or writing suspense with elements of romance? Why or why not?
A: I adore a good love story⊠but I havenât cracked my version of one yet. My first novel HUGO & ROSE was a subversion of the âman of your dreamsâ trope, so I suppose there were elements of romance in the book but not in the expected ways. JUST GET HOME is filled with desperate, aching love, but none of it is the romantic kind.
Q: From the books youâve written or read, who has been your favorite villain and why?
A: Iâve found in life that most people are their own villains. There is usually no shadowy figure pulling the strings or arch enemy subverting plans - for many of us, when our lives go awry, we ourselves are personally responsible for whatever choices that led us there. Obviously thatâs not always the case in life or in fiction, but as a writer Iâm most creatively interested in characters who are grappling with their internal villains rather than an externalized source. So I suppose the answer is that my favorite villains are also my favorite heroes.
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okay. this ones about my ex. funny story: I tried to write this a couple of hours ago after literally sleeping for like 10 hours but as soon as I thought I was ready my spirit was like NURP andddd we went back to sleep.
we up now. might be a wild ride. letâs go đ€Ș
first off, can we talk about that text post I reblogged earlier? the one that mentioned how sometimes real love gets reduced to a soft fact or a body memory. because my god, I think thatâs where Iâm approaching. I do not want to get ahead of myself but Iâve worked for this!
Iâve had to really realize why it was so easy for me to hold on something that hurt me so much. itâs because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I didnât have our love to look forward to, and to bust my ass for, that I would have straight up died. what can you give the person who saved your life, except all parts of it?
but people in your life are seasons, and everything that happens is for a reason (thank you, father Kanye). so I needed him in a way then that I donât still need him now. because now I have a new apartment that is joyously home. I have a therapist. I have a new place of employment that doesnât rot my insides. I have so many of my friendships back. I have this warrior spirit who knows I have the strength to keep moving forward. and I have plants who teach me what it means to be resilient and to grow again.
and what I had with him, although it served to preserve me for the time that I could not preserve myself, it was dead end and misguided. it was assbackwards and bottomless. unfounded. haphazard. and somehow still so true.
so I understand what he means when he tells his wife that he loves her. Iâm starting to mean it that way toward him too. because sheâs seen him through so much. kept his bitchass outta jail. been that rock we all need to keep goin. given him too many beautiful children. she will never leave him. and he will always come home to her. this is the kind of love that is based on history and will persistently maintain.
and in that same breath, Iâm starting to understand exactly how he could have said he needed me too. because our hearts canât survive on history alone. I want a love that renews each day, and deepens just the same. a love that has so much to look forward to that it will never achieve it all. a love that is as much of the past as it is of the future. and I think he saw with me that a love like that is possible for him. Iâm still wholly convinced that I am the best candidate to live out that kind of love with and for him, but now thats none of my concern and not something I can still choose for him. I wish Iâd known sooner that it wasnât my choice to begin with.
when I reached out to him last week, because death is sort of intolerable and I was covered in grief, I saw that the love I have for him is indeed settling now, so that it too may maintain. thatâs good for me and my rehashed needs but heâs already got a love like that. and unrequited love isnât love at all. so I have to ponder the implications of how this love inside of me will finally settle, and what that will mean for him. he asked if I really thought we would ever have a function of ourselves that doesnât lean toward romance, and I didnât know the answer. I knew my preference was yesâ that I would much rather not continue to want something I canât truly have. and now Iâm starting to know that the most true answer is also yes.
and now Iâm wondering about those implications for myself too. because men donât like it when you have to dial down to match their energy. as someone whoâs damn near trademarked for giving everything, I know exactly how that goes. so I can very vividly imagine him slowly slipping away without the kind of grip and grasp heâs used to getting from me.
but I would really like it if he could just be my love that will maintain.
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The Wayward Life
Okay, so I just want to take a moment to voice some love over the setup for âthe way of lifeâ our Wayward Women are going to experince in Wayward Sisters.
Iâm excited for the spinoff for so many reasons, but one of the big ones is that weâre going to be seeing a balance in the lives of these women (or rather a struggle to find what âbalanceâ is for each of them, what ratio of hunting and domestic life each of them want/need).Â
These women are going to be living in âthe in-betweenâ: one foot in hunting, one foot in everyday life.Â
Theyâre not on an endless roadtrip zigzagging the country with no place house to call home and no means of making money besides hustling and fraud.Â
And while the boys have the impala/bunker to call home (though for how much longer because thereâs meta speculation about both being destroyed!! *heart burn*) their honest living is in hunting, not paycheck employment. They get their funds by dishonest measures because itâs quick, effective, and doesnât distract from their real work.
Jody and Donna are both Sheriffs, officers of the law who earn an honest wage. And while both are seemingly single, theyâve each had serious relationships and as weâve seen are open to more in the future, despite living the hunter-esque life.
Patience is still in high school and quite studious (a Sam mirror, and going against her fatherâs wishes toward hunting can also be seen as a Sam mirror, even though Sam himself never wanted the Hunterâs Life,) so whatever path she decides to try with her schooling/college/employment situation will be interesting to find out (she may even rent our her psychic services?). And if she stays with Jody for a while that will obviously affect her schooling as well as her relationship with her father (who reminds me of Mary in that she wanted her children to be safe and happy and not get caught up in the hunterâs life). I hope they also bring back Missourit - dreams, visions, flashbacks, whatever - so thereâs family discord potential a-plenty.
Kaia seems quite young, either high school or college age, but because of her abilities sheâs turned to drugs (in the past) so it will be interesting to see how that issue affects her personal search for balance, and what exactly she wants. Will she want to hunt? Or just end up staying with Jody while she figures out how to control her powers? She may be the character Iâm most looking forward to in regards to setting up a backstory (what happened to her family?) and venturing down the road of self-discovery (what are her interests/skills/dreams? Will she relapse into drug-use?). I think Claire will become her confidente, just because they have a lot in common, but it could also be Donna (that kind of positive, upbeat sunshine in her life could be an unexpcted comfort and motivate her towards finding her own happiness.
Alex is studying to be a nurse (or is a nurse already?) so yay! real job. But for her relationship with Jody and Claire (and by extension other hunters) It seems sheâll be the one to struggle the most with maintaining a more domestic-oriented life. Sheâs already lived and survived the waking nightmare of a supernaturally-tipped life, so she doesnât want to be a hunter, moreover she doesnât want to be too involved in the nightmares hunting invokes. But her nurse skills will obviously come in handy, and because of her personal relationships with hunters (Jody, Claire, the Winchesters) she wonât likely refuse to help (at first, but I can see it taking a strain on her want for a non-monstery life, despite how willing she is at first - which likely stems from a need to give back since she was instrumental in the suffering of her vamp familyâs victims - hello Dean mirror in Hell). And of course, she has intimate knowledge of vampires and whatnot so I hope that will come into it, perhaps more victims from her past, too. I think she may also suffer some PTSD (are we still calling it that?) with flashbacks and whatnot. The issue of her human family will also be interesting - was she stolen? was she abandoned? - and whether theyâre eventually written back into it: for confrontation, reconciliation, etc.
And then thereâs Claire. Our Grigori-sworded, one-time angel vessel, almost-werewolf, honerary Winchester, badass young hunter who is obviously the one most invested in the Hunterâs Life. Weâve seen this is what she wants - not to study, not to try for ânormalâ. Sheâs our main Dean mirror, and her journey towards balance I suspect will be a rollercoaster of intense emotional shifts, attitude problems, and being torn between wanting to be with her patchwork family and needing to go it alone on the road..Â
For all the Dean parallels (and her connection to Cas) I think Claire will be the main anchor to the world/vibe of the original Supernatural (Jody too, of course, since her storyline is woven through so many past seasons, but sheâs very much her own character). And while Claire is headstrong and becoming more and more resilient to the prospects of conforming to a âsettledâ life and how that would alter her personality/style/self, sheâs still so young. And we all remember how Dean was when he first met him compared to who we know him to be today. Claire has a long road ahead of her (okay, they all do) and itâs going to unearth a lotta Dean feels as she grows and as she experiences her own monster-laden life.Â
As for Claireâs work-situation, I doubt sheâll take up an honest-living, though I can see her snagging casual work here and there - waitressing for a couple weeks, bartending for a few - but for her problems with authority (which, hello double-sheriff-mother-figures is gonna be awesome) I think sheâll be the one to hustle and steal and whatnot when she needs the cash - not because sheâs desperate, but because itâs her work of choice (and she has become a decent theif/congirl; young Dean would be proud).Â
Kaia and Claire seem the two most likely to form a special bond (and have you SEEN the Klaia/Klaira(?) fanart going around?! Cos yes, I ship them already and nothing has even happend) which could be friendship/sisterhood/something more (because in an all-female-lead show we need some semblance of LGBT. Though Patience is also a possibility - not to be paired with one of our mains, persay, but to reveal that sheâs gay/bi, which may have already been eluded to in 13x03). Kaia and Claire seem about the same age and of all our girls seem the ones most likely to struggle with their darker issues (I know, Alex and the vamps, but the whole nursing thing makes me think sheâs just more naturally level-headed). Theyâll find common ground and bond over it.Â
Whereas (as weâve seen from the promos) there wil be animosity between Claire and Patience (dished out by Claire). I hope they stretch that out and donât make them besties after a couple eps, because thereâs slow-burn potential there. And Alex and Claire have that love-hate sisterhood thing already cemented, so thereâs much to look forward to from their emotional seesaw.Â
These were just a few thoughts and excited feels for what we know and what could happen with our wayward ladies going forward.Â
I just wanted to touch on one of the probable main themes for Wayward Sisters - balancing two lives - and how that may be the core difference between the spinoff and Supernatural, since our boys flirted with (and even attempted) to âsettle downâ and âearn an honest livingâ over the years, but always came back to an overwhelming focus on hunting/Hunter Life.Â
Whatever else happens in season 13, and whatever is planned for Sam and Dean (and Cas) in the endgame (joint or separate), their story has always been focused on family and hunting and defeating evil, and all the âdomestic stuffâ that edges into âeveryday normalityâ (for the majority of people) has either been private (in the bunker) or between seasons (Dean with Lisa and Ben; Sam with Amelia) or as a side-effect/obstacle (Cas being human). In general, the showâs ratio of monsters-&-hunting-to-non-supernatural-living has always been outweighed by hunter-stuff 10-1 - yet that was their balance. And though they tried, they never seemed to have enough footing to get a hold of a different rtio of living - it just never worked out.
Whereas our wayward ladies seem to have a far better chance of a more evenly balanced ratio of a hunting/non-hunting life, of monsters/dating, of evil/schoolwork, of other-worldly threats/falling in love, because their stories happened to evolve in a way that allowed for it. And coming together, each of them seeking their own personal balance with the supernatural, and how it will change them, how they will try and hurt and love and struggle and survive and grow - thatâs going to be one helluva ride.
#wayward sisters#spn spinoff#ladies of spn#spn women#upcoming#speculation#thoughts#I'm excited#balance#life#work#an honest living#hunting#employment#a normal life#spn#S13#want#need#supernatural#the winchesters#love#family#sacrifice#growth
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If the rumors are true that print is dying, then weâre in a zombie apocalypse. Booklr and the self-designated online community of book lovers, as well as publishing professionals and the more dismal-minded of authors, have been predicting the death of print culture for years. Yet it persists, with physical books still outselling e-books by a hugely significant margin. Zine fairs, DIY publishing, and small publishers creating beautiful physical copies are popping up everywhere in my feeds and in the culture, and Iâm excited about it. If anything, the intensification of the digital realm has increased the demand--and need--for print publications. They complement each other in ways that no one (or at least, of other non-tech-native generations....no shade dad) could have predicted.
Itâs appropriate that the first interview in the series is with the Road Virus, a horror-genre-and-queer-focused mobile bookstore currently traveling the United States. I came across the Road Virus in the digital realm, where we followed each othersâ writing. We hit it off right away, because we both have telephone anxiety and have a passion for the non-hierarchical, accessible future of literary culture. Sade and I had a conversation on G-Chat about what itâs like to run a mobile bookstore, Stephen King, accessibility in book culture, how libraries can save lives, and the future of lit. Check it out below:
So first off--thanks so much for your time/agreeing to this interview! I'm super stoked about the Road Virus and everything it's about. Absolutely, and againââthanks so much for doing this interview project in the first place. I definitely feel like now, more than ever, the world needs a good strong focus on things with a literary bent. The best part is that we're the ones writing, in realtime, the history of our own culture.Â
Give me your elevator pitch for the Road Virus--except the elevator is broken, so you have more time than you thought.
The Road Virus is a time-tested dream come true. Born out of displeasure with the stasis of ordinary living, my best friend Em and I decided that we wanted to open a bookstore. Books and literature have been in our bloodstreams since before anything else really mattered, so we decided to make that a tangible reality.
Unfortunately, since things in life are so uncertain, opening a brick-and-mortar store just didn't seem feasible. So, we decided on the next best thingââwe bought a bus and converted it into a half-RV home, half-mobile bookstore. Lucking out with an ex bookmobile, we decided to focus on fringe genres such as horror, sci-fi, subversive graphic novels and comics, erotica, fantasy, and so onââboth due to our limited space and our own inherent interests.
We plan to visit even the most remote parts of the USââand someday beyondââwith the concept in mind that a lot of places don't have access to the kind of wares we're totting.
Now, I imagine the elevator creaking, hitchingââgiving us a fleeting hopeââand then plummeting down the shaft. We're probably fine. ------------------------------  keep reading below  -------------------------------
How did you and Em meet to form this dynamic duo of traveling booksellers?
We met by the grace of a mutual friend. A night out drinking in one of the darkest and dingiest bars in the world led to a weirdly cohesive and whirlwind friendship. After discovering our shared love and obsession with books and bookstores, we came around to discussing the idea of opening and running our own. We ended up taking a pretty much spur-of-the-moment trip to Tokyo; something about that trip set reality in motion and things ended up happening so fast that I still look back on it and wonder if it wasn't all just a dream.
Is the name the Road Virus inspired by the Stephen King short story?
It certainly is. With our main focus being on horror and all things related, we felt like we needed a name which not only reflected the contents of our shelves, but also our goal.
In the story, the Road Virus is a car owned by an interdimensional killer; it travels across the US, leaving a swath of death and destruction in its wake. Less on the murder-y side for us, we see it as a way of spreading knowledgeââwhich, of course, can be one of the deadliest and most destructive tools of all. The story, which first appeared in the anthology 999ââedited by Al Sarrantonio, this book has been one of my most prized possessions since childhoodââhas always stood out to me; when we were kicking around ideas for names, The Road Virus was one of the first I jotted down. It came back, and it stuck.Â
Also, when I saw that your name was the Road Virus, I couldn't help but connect the resilience of the killer painting in the story with what you both are doing for print literature---in a positive, not at all murderous way--that bookstores are closing down, and people proclaim that print lit is dying, but the Road Virus is an active example of print literature's resilience against all odds. With that in mind---what would you say to people who claim that print lit is dying? and what pushed you to start the Road Virus at this moment in time?
I really enjoy the emphasis we're both putting on this totally not being a murder thing at all, whatsoever.
To those who say that print lit is dying, that books are obsolete, that the internet is the only way to acquire new information and fiction, I say: barring the physical process of a body shutting down and decomposing, something can only truly die if you allow it to. Â As long as there is at least one person publishing a book or zine and one person reading it, the concepts and idealism and spirit of print lit will survive and thrive.
Yes! It's so important to me that you connect physical, print lit with physical bodies. The power of print literature is that it creates physical community in a way that digital can't do alone. And physically showing up for something you care about can, and will, keep it alive.
Absolutely. Something that people need to remember now more than ever is that we have the ability to influence anything and everything. There is always a light in the dark, and we always have the choice to make something of ourselves and our surroundings. We are not powerless. For people like us, books have always been an escape, but they're also so much more: calling cards, symbols of power, beacons of hope tying groups together and ripping old systems apart.
Literacy is an extremely important thing to both of usââEm, as you said, is a former librarian, and I myself basically learned all I know from books. Libraries and bookstores were like second homes to us as kidsââand sometimes, more so a first home to me personally. I dropped out of school at a very early age and attribute the majority of my ability to comprehend the world around me to the free, open-access presence of libraries. I come from a non-academic background, and Em comes from one of thorough education-oriented leanings; this combination suits us to a t.
The idea that they're dying out and being defunded saddens us greatly, and we feel the need to bring back those concepts to the forefront.
Mutually, we wanted this to be a bookselling venture so that we can sustain ourselves through the trade itself; however, we definitely felt the need to interweave the free and open-source aspect of libraries. We're still working out the avenues of providing reading lessons, and have quite a few ideas in mind for things like free movie nights and author readings. Â What's being on the road like? Where have you been, and do you have any weird stories/interesting encounters?
Living in San Francisco, we've been very fortunate to have some amazing haunts. I think we owe a lot of our inspiration for The Road Virus to our favorite daily stop, Aardvark Books on the historic Church St.
Actually, we've been drydocked, so to speak. Our goodly vessel has been parked at a friend's about an hour northeast of SF for over a month now; we've been living on the bus full time while we've been renovating and preparing for permanent life on the road. We also unfortunately ran into some issues with the electrical system, which is being taken care of this week.
Regardless, we're both pretty nomadic people, and we can't wait to officially take off. I can say that driving the bus back to the buildsite was a hell of a trip.
Before we got her, Joleneââour name for the busââlived a quiet life in Kansas City, MO. We flew in and were planning on driving her back in 2-3 days. This, as it turned out, was absolutely impossible. It ended up taking a week, and was rife with complications; we broke down numerous times, ended up sleeping in the uninsulated bus in -20 degree weather, and had endless scares on the road. Driving through the midwest was like traveling through a different world. I don't think I've been stared at that much in my entire life, except maybe in Tokyo (I'm covered in tattoos, piercings, etc.). Â
The drive back over the CA state line was like something out of a dreamââmore a nightmare, maybe. We drove into one of the worst rainstorms I think I've ever seen, to the point where cars were sliding all over the road, trucks were going 20mph on the highway, and vehicles our size were actually barred from driving any farther at a certain point, so we were all lined up on the side of the highway for hours. This was on about 36 hours of no sleep. As far as fun stories on the road, in my experience they are many and not-so-far in between; we'll have plenty to share once we really get going, I'm sure. Driving through the snow-covered Rockies in a 32' bus when neither of us had driven anything larger than a UHAUL truck was certainly one for the books.Â
Lastly, in a quick semi-tweet-length: How do envision the future of literature?
Futurelit, the Tweetening: Though ink may run, pages may yellow, & screens may flickerâthe world of lit will forever reinvent itself, thriving in the face of adversity. xxxxxxxxx Follow the Road Virus everywhere:
(Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat) @roadvirusbus Communicables:Â http://theroadvirus.com/blogÂ
Reading Is Infectious (book subscription service) (http://shop.theroadvirus.com). A book in the genre of your choice delivered to your door every month.
#the road virus#road virus bus#booklust#futurelit#lit#interview#horror#queer#bookmobile#publishing#jolene#public libraries#zombies#booklr#spilled ink
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By Michael Lanza
So, youâve been an avid [circle all appropriate terms: hiker/backpacker/climber/trail runner/skier/kayaker] for years, and now youâre spending big chunks of your days changing diapers and your nights wondering when youâll sleep again. Youâve never gone this long without getting out into the mountains, and you see no remedy for that shortfall in the foreseeable future. Your new baby is more wonderful than youâd ever imaginedâand yet, youâre feeling a little despair over whatâs missing from your life lately.
I know where your head is right now. And I have good news for you: Iâve seen the bright light at the end of the tunnel, and you can get there faster than you might think. Hereâs how.
My family on a hike in Idahoâs City of Rocks National Reserve.
First of all, I know itâs hard to take a long view when youâre so deeply buried in the day-to-day management of a hectic life. But as a father of two teenagers, I can tell you that growing children race through development stagesâeach one very differentâwith blinding speed. While in many respects the infant and toddler years are the most demanding (and cutest), and can seem eternal at times, they do pass. In my experience, parenting keeps getting better.
But for now, you need some strategies for surviving the early years of parenting, when you face the greatest demands on your personal timeâand your sanity. The following tips reflect what Iâve learned from more than 18 years as a parent who has always strived to get outside as much as possibleâdayhiking, backpacking, climbing, running, paddling, skiingâwith my family whenever I can, but also, at times without them.
My family at a hot springs while backpacking in Idahoâs Smoky Mountains.
1. Ignore the Naysayers
Youâll hear too many parents say things like, âOh, you wonât be out backpacking/climbing/skiing anymore!â Donât listen to them. These comments tend to come from people for whom getting outside isnât as important as it is to you. They donât understand your lifestyle or how much and how often you need to get out thereâor how hard youâll work at accomplishing that goal, no matter the obstacles.
When my kids were babies and toddlers Iâd put them in a front pack or a child-carrier backpack and go for a hike by myself. My wife and I took them camping, dayhiking, skiing, backpacking, paddling rivers, and climbing from the time they were very youngâeven though it was a lot of workâbecause it gave us time outdoors and helped turn our kids into young people who now love backpacking, climbing, skiing, and paddling with us. She and I also took turns solo parenting to let each other get outsideâfor an hour, a few hours, a few days.
If youâre that type of person, thatâs what youâll doâregardless of what other people think or say.
Find your next adventure in your Inbox. Sign up for my FREE email newsletter now.
My kids inside a favorite rock formation at Idahoâs City of Rocks.
2. Hike Your Own Hike
Thatâs a motto among thru-hikers of long-distance trails, but the message applies just as well to raising children. Just as there are many ways to tackle a months-long hike, there are probably almost as many styles of parenting as there are parents. Just like setting out on a long hike, those first steps on the path of parenting can get bumpy. Youâll fall down and end some days bruised, sore, and wondering what the hell youâre doing.
Just figure out your own comfortable pace and what you need and donât need; it doesnât matter whether it resembles someone elseâs approach. Youâll get there.
Hi, Iâm Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside, which has made several top outdoors blog lists. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blogâs stories. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip. Please follow my adventures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.
 The pack of kids on a five-day float trip down the Green River in Canyonlands National Park.
3. Embrace Good Advice
As much as you must hike your own hike as a parent, you will also meet other parentsâsome with kids older than yoursâwho, by all appearances, are doing it right. They get out as much as they like. Their kids actually like getting out with them, and seem like great kids.
Get to know those parents; they just might know some tricks you will find useful. At the least, theyâre probably fun to hang out with.
Donât miss my popular â10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids.â
My daughter, Alex, age six, on a family backpacking trip in Grand Teton National Park.
4. Take the Kids Outside Often
Both of my kids went on their first hikeâin a front pack on my chestâwithin a few days after they were born. That was merely symbolic, of course. But those short walks were emblematic of the philosophy my wife and I embraced from the beginning of parenthood: Our kids would learn that getting outdoors together as a family is normal.
We dragged the kids out camping, cross-country skiing, mountain biking, dayhiking and backpacking, paddling rivers and climbing (when they expressed an interest in the latter)âdoing everything we liked to do with our kids, even though it often meant going much slower when the kids were little, and involved much more work. Even at home, whenever we had to go somewhere in town within biking range, in reasonable weather, we biked there.
If you want your children to share your passions, start them young and do it with them.
I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life. Find out more here.
Alex, age nine, getting lowered off a cliff in Utahâs Capitol Reef National Park.
5. Stop Worrying So Much
Before they were out of grade school, our kids had backpacked in parks from Grand Canyon to Olympic and among grizzly bears in Glacier; sea kayaked through wet, raw weather and camped on remote wilderness beaches in Alaskaâs Glacier Bay; paddled among alligators in the Everglades; trekked through cold rain and wet snow in Norwayâs Jotunheimen National Park; rock climbed 150-foot cliffs and rappelled into and crawled through slot canyons; and cross-country skied through snowstorms to backcountry yurts miles from the nearest road multiple times. (My award-winning book Before Theyâre Gone chronicles the year my family spent backpacking, rock climbing, paddling, and cross-country skiing in 11 national parks facing major threats from climate change.)
Bad parents, right?
Yes, we worry like any parents. Weâre hyper-conscious about safety and ask a lot of questions. Weâve always tailored family activities to suit their ages and abilities. Weâve abandoned plans and turned back on trails when necessary.
But every time weâve worried that weâre pushing our kids beyond their abilities, they have risen to the challenge and loved it.
It doesnât matter whether your family tries to do what my family (or any other family) does; establish your own comfort zone. My point is this: Donât over-worry about the kids. Theyâre often more resilient and adaptable than adults give them credit for.
Plan your next great backpacking adventure in Yosemite and other flagship parks using my expert e-guides.
A family backpacking trip on Zionâs West Rim Trail.
6. Find Other Parents Who Are Like You
Before your kids reach school age and start choosing their own friends, their friends will consist primarily of the children they meet through youâthe children of your friends.
Seek out and cultivate friendships with people who share your interests and have kids the same age as yours.
Do things with families like that and your children will likely become good friends, which helps facilitate getting all of you outside moreâand which becomes more valuable as your kids get older and want to have peers joining your family on outdoor adventures.
 Let The Big Outside help your family get outdoors more. Join now for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-guide!
 7. Negotiate With Your Spouse
You and your spouse may not always land on the same page when it comes to decisions over how much time you each want to spend solo parenting while the other gets outside, or even the return on effort invested to spend a weekend outdoors with little kids. Discuss these issues together, respect one anotherâs needs, and figure out where you can meet in the middle to achieve results youâre both happy with.
Want this lifestyle for your family? Use my â7 Tips for Getting Your Family on Outdoor Adventure Trips.â
My kids on a backpacking trip in Wild Basin, Rocky Mountain National Park.
8. Sleep When You Need To, Play When You Must
Sure, over time Iâve come to the acceptance that I can pass on an outing when I really need some sleepâand itâs okay to do that. But on many occasions, Iâve squeezed in a fun climb, hike, trail run, or dawn patrol ski tour because I got up really early and knocked it off before my family had finished breakfast. Iâve always been an early riser and viewed the hours when my kids are sleeping as belonging to me, and I like to make good use of that time, whether at home or when weâre on a family trip somewhere.
âGet Up Earlyâ is one of my â10 Tips For Getting Outside More.â
My kids on a family backpacking trip in Oregonâs Eagle Cap Wilderness.
9. Accept the Occasional Disappointments
Kids get sick. Your spouse gets sick or has to work late. Kids have myriad special events you donât want to miss: games, performances, school meetings, unexpected stuff. It never ends, it merely occurs in unpredictable cycles. You will occasionally miss planned and impromptu opportunities to ride, hike, run, climb, ski, paddleâthe very moments you look forward to, that bring you deep and powerful feelings that your life is moving in the direction you prefer. Thatâs naturally disappointing.
Get over it and move on. Rather than dwelling negatively on what you missed, look ahead positively to the next opportunity to get outsideâit will come. The right attitude really does make a difference. And the happy times of parenting outweigh the disappointments.
Planning your next big adventure? See âAmericaâs Top 10 Best Backpacking Tripsâ and âThe 25 Best National Park Dayhikes.â
 My family on a multi-day hut trek through Norwayâs Jotunheimen National Park.
10. Most of All, Enjoy It
This time is fleeting and changes happen rapidly. While thatâs true of all childhoodâand becomes ever more apparent when they reach their teen yearsâchildren grow and develop with blinding speed in those early years. If you work or go away too much, youâll miss out on entire stages of physical and emotional growth in your kids. Neglect to give them your attention, especially when they need it, and you may end up like the father in that old Harry Chapin song, âCatâs in the Cradle,â with a son who grew up just like himâand now has no time for his dad.
I remember friendsâwho were expecting their first just months after our first was bornâasking me what I saw as the biggest change in my life when we became parents. My answer: âI suddenly have this brand-new, most-important person in my life.â It has really proven true over the years. Now my teenage kids are my skiing, backpacking, climbing, and paddling partnersâand getting better than me at the technical sports.
Lie down in the grass with your kid and watch the clouds pass by. You might be shocked at how much fun it is. As the late singer-songwriter Warren Zevon once said: âEnjoy every sandwich.â
 Tell me what you think.
I spent a lot of time writing this story, so if you enjoyed it, please consider giving it a share using one of the buttons at right, and leave a comment or question at the bottom of this story. Iâd really appreciate it.
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Hey, do you have any head canons about Lithien that readers might not know? Ones that aren't spoilers of course.;-)
What is this? A random question about my fic?! Thank you so much!! That would be a first and i am honestly beyond excited to get it ;)
Now, whenever I think about some facts pertaining to Lithien I always try to think how they would incorporate into the great river that her story is, but letâs face it - I would need a lifetime and then some to write it all down ^^â JoO is the last slice of it so to speak and we are starting the 6th year of working on it with book I not even done yet (but soon)⊠I think I can as well share some.
About my LotR AU in general: if only to show you what kind of nerd I really am - I planned (or at least thought about) not only Lithienâs story since she was born, but also about the stories of her family, which, except for Galaren, involves her other older brother Authion, and her parents Daugion and Belluthiel. And somehow I ended up with a plot dating back to the Years of Trees and filled with plenty of your favoritesâŠ
Lithienâs name. I think this is one of my favourites - so, I was 11 (or 12) when Lithien first came to be and her name first was simply because I took Luthien and swapped a letter. Luthien was cool. I wanted my character to be cool too. Fast forward to me being around 20 and stumbling a bit deeper into sindarin. Lo, and behold âlithâ now means dirt/ashes. Lithien is not a cool name anymore, but it is also an integral part of my girl (I donât change characters name once give, because to me itâs like creating a completely new person) and I canât just rip it off. So I now have âChild of the Ashesâ glaring at me in mild offence - her back story helped me. I just included a bit where Daugion named her while still filled with grief after the death of ger wife, which he subconsciously blamed his newborn daughter for. Grieving people sometimes donât think clearly. And I gifted her with a nice, fitting eppese later on.
Lithienâs occupation. Never once in any of his text Tolkien mentions that elven women were forbidden to take up arms. They just rarely did it. And when they did they could be just as badass as men. So I built on that and hile I think that female soldiers/wardens were not your everyday occurrence, they were not as much of a rarity as one would think (for one, one of Lithienâs fellow wardens Belfaer is also a woman). Lithien went into that with her eye wide open, knowing full well what that choice would entail. And she never regretted it. Later when she was out of commission due to injury and went to live in Rivendell, she picked up some knowledge about healing, but she was never a full-fledged healer. What I find the most interesting about it is that, personality wise, Lithien was the closest thing to what her father would deem to be a perfect heir - Resilient, courageous and living by the sword so to speak. Unfortunately, she was a girl. So the title fell on Galaren, who does his job well and is a formidable warrior, but he would be much more content with his life if he could have chosen a different path for it - whether it would be a healer or a hunter.
A few little facts from Lithienâs childhood: Galaren was the one who tried to be both a brother and a father where their could not be. He still wonderâs if Lithien would have come out to be a bit more lady-like if she had only spent more time in the company of women instead of his friends. Lithien on the other hand wouldnât change a thing. Speaking of friends - Maethion, Galarenâs best friends (his brother from another mother really :) ) was the one to steal Lithienâs first kiss. and she was barely considered an adult then. It almost came to knives then. Also, stay tuned for more Maethion in JoO - his role expanded for beyond what I initially had planned for him. When Lithien was still a wee tiny self and feeling lonely because Galaren wasnât home much, he gifted her with a dog - a great black hound that she could ride like a pony if she wished. Lithien was a dog person ever since.
Early on (for an elf) in her career as a warden, Lithien took part in a skirmish with orcs. When she jumped in to protect her fallen comrade she herself was wounded - the blade caught her in the side, tearing the skin and muscle from her hip almost to her spine on the other side. She barely survived that. Galaren, absolutely devastated forced her to swear off being a warden. Lithien relented and took up the position at the Royal Palace. There she met Celebrian, who took pity upon the girl and whisked her away to Rivendell as her personal maid.
Lithien never felt like a maid, more like another child. She got on well with all three of their children and found herself with the growing admiration for Elrond. He made a lot of strong friendships there and met a men she fell in love with. It was a great time. The best time. She would have probably remained there if it wasnât for what happened to Celebrian and Calanon. But she never forgot to come back for a visit, which sometimes taken years (what is a couple of years to an elf?)
Glorfindel was the one who encouraged her to pick up the sword again, clearly seeing that needle will never become her weapon of choice. Galaren is still jealous that she got to train with him though he will never admit it out loud.
During one of her visits to Rivendell, Lithien met Gilaren, Aragornâs mother. Her life was never the same since that point onward. I still plan on writing a story based on this premise, but letâs just say that I shifted years a wee bit and Gilraen came to Rivendell pregnant and not with 3yo Aragorn. The two bonded over time, despite Lithien being terrified at first and hovering over Gilraen at every step. She was also one of the first people to hold tiny Aragorn. It was a love at first sight.
Lithien did travel a fair bit over the years. Mostly to Rivendell true, but she was also in Isengards twice, saw a bit of Rohan, and trudged Northern lands with Dunedain for about 15 years. She also briefly visited Mirkwood, had a chance to meet the people of Beor, saw the Lonely Mountain, the Lake Town and the Ruins of Dale. She was in Moria twice, but thatâs not worth mentioning.
Dunedain are Lithienâs favourite and best known group of people. Not only because they are Aragornâs people, but also because she got to travel and live with them for about 15 years after the events of the Hobbit (just enough time to allow oneâs hair to grow back) It was a harsh lesson sometimes, but Lithien wouldnât change it for anything else.
Lithienâs favorite âlady-likeâ activity is dancing. Probably because it involves a lot of movement. She is no stranger to needle work or playing harp or singing, but dancing plays well with her dislike of sitting idly, doing nothing.
Despite the initial panic Lithien turned out to be rather great with kids of all races. This might have something to do with wanting to prove that she can do better than what she knows, but she will never admit it. Besides she does really like children.
I still have a burning desire to write a fill up story in this AU with includes the scenario in which Maglor did not die/drown. What Iâve written so far includes a hunt, a great deal of distrust, wounds and blows to the back of the head⊠But since I never know where to stop once Iâll start a writing projectâŠ
And finally, because Iâm going to run out of post space - Lithien nameâs all of her horses Pilin (arrow). Yes, I shamelessly stole the idea from Geralt, but really - Lithien is an elf. She goes through A LOT of horses, even if they donât expire before their time. And keeping your loyal companion nameless is not exactly her style.Â
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Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 8
Siuan reminisces, Egwene Amyrlins, and ACTUAL COMMUNICATION.
Chapter 8: Clean Shirts
Havenât seen that chapter icon in a while.
Siuan now â thereâs been a lot of quick POV shifting in this book so far. I suppose itâs been mostly centred on Rand and Egwene â and their various affiliates â these past several chapters, but it definitely lends a feeling of a quicker pace. Which works, given where we are in the series.
No sailor would miss [those clouds]. Not dark enough to promise a storm, not light enough to imply smooth waters either.
A sky like that was ambiguous.
The whole world balanced on the edge of a knife, with little to tell right now which way it will eventually fall. Rand himself barely balanced between Light and something very like Shadow. A world uncertain, moving towards the ending.
What, you thought I was going to ignore Portentious Atmospheric Details?
HA. IT GETS BETTER.
On a day like this, however, when there were gloomy clouds but no proof of storms, the dockmasters would charge a full dayâs rent. And so the fisher had to make a choice. Stay in the harbour and wait, or go fishing to recoup the dock fees.
A fisher. Or should I say a Fisher. This delights me.
She doubted many fishers had chosen to go out this day.
Well I can think of one probable capitalised exceptionâŠ
Lelaine has no time for symbolically important discussions of the sky.
Siuan could still sense shock in some of the Aes Sedai she passed. Egwene was to have been carefully controlled. What had gone wrong?
Egwene. Thatâs what went wrong. You Aes Sedai all thought you had a prayer of controlling Egwene in the first place, failing to realise that this is the girl who took one look at someone elseâs Call To Adventure and said âmine nowâ. And that was just her starting point.
Siuan would have taken more smug delight from those looks if she hadnât herself worried about Egweneâs continued captivity in the White Tower. That was a lionfishâs veil indeed. Potential for great success, but also great disaster.
Yes, well, that describes approximately every single situation in the plot as things stand, so. Iâm sure itâll all be fine. What could possibly go wrong? Aside from everything?
Lelaine and Romanda are still doing their thing, though things seem to be shifting slightly in favour of Lelaine at the moment. Okay.
Iâm a bit ambivalent about this particular conflict at this point. On the one hand, itâs probably more realistic for it to continue, especially given Egweneâs absence and the sense of uncertainty that brings. On the other hand, I find it hard to actually care about it, because Egweneâs arc has moved past this, and so this ends up feeling a bit stale. But then, just because her story is no longer just with the rebels, that doesnât mean the rebels should magically have all their problems solved; that would make it too easy. So it works, I just donât really care. Ah well.
When sheâd first been Healed, her reduced power had been a disappointment. But that was changing. Yes, it was infuriating to be beneath so many, to lack respect from those around her. However, because she was weaker in power, many seemed to assume she was weaker in political skill as well! Could people really forget so quickly? She was finding her new status among the Aes Sedai to be liberating.
Thatâs an incredibly mature and sanguine way of looking at it. And the fact that this doesnât even scan as self-deception is truly impressive. There are indeed advantages to her new situation, especially for one with her political acumen combined with a prominent past and a present need for discretion, but to truly understand and embrace that â especially without then giving up the advantage it conveys â takes a special kind of resilience.
So Siuanâs sent Lelaine off on some pointless political trail of distraction, mostly by mentioning Romanda. You would think that if your goal were to become the political leader of a group known for their politicking and manipulation, youâd at least try to hide what can be used to manipulate you. Romanda and Lelaine are so perfectly unsubtle and they fall for this shit every time. It would be fine as a front, maybe, but it isnât even a front. Theyâre really that easily led.
The Amyrlin needed to hurry up and finish with her plotting in the White Tower. What good would it do to undermine Elaida if the Aes Sedai outside crumbled while Egwene wasnât watching?
Itâs a fair question, and does highlight the complexity and delicate balance of Egweneâs entire situation. She won the rebels and brought them this far, and sheâs winning her strange not-quite-war in the Tower, but she canât forget one while she deals with the other. Thatâs rather the point, isnât it? The Aes Sedai need to be unified; the Tower needs to be whole. Otherwise something is always going to be falling apart.
Either Lelaine is teasing Siuan about having a crush on Gareth Bryne, or she is actually that oblivious.
And Siuan is definitely not going to let Lelaine pay off Siuanâs debt to Bryne. Because reasons.
That would just move her debt from Bryne to Lelaine. The Aes Sedai would collect it in far more subtle ways, but each coin would end up being paid one way or another, if only through demands of loyalty.
Okay that is definitely a valid reason.
Lelaine is indeed actually that oblivious. How has she risen this far?
Siuan gets a ride on the back of a turnip wagon, which makes this the second time in this series that Aes Sedai have ridden with vegetables. The cabbage merchant from Avatar is probably sweating nervously somewhere.
Secrets, those powerful, dominating secrets. They had become her life. No love save for youthful dalliances.
So Moiraine was just a âyouthful dallianceâ? I think not.
No time for entanglements, or much room for friendships.
I suppose she could be putting Moiraine in the âfrienshipsâ category here, whichâŠokay. In a general sense, I have no problems with that. Nor will I ever, under any circumstances, try to argue that friendship is in any way less meaningful or important than romantic love.
And very likely, Moiraine wasnât intended to be specifically implied by âyouthful dalliancesâ, or even by âfriendshipsâ; they were close friends and they loved each other, but they both chose the Blue Ajah and they both knew what dedicating themselves to this cause would mean: they would have to put it above everything, including their own personal wishes or relationships.
So, fine, itâs not a direct slight and Iâm not trying to go out of my way to find things to be indignant about. But my issue here is more thatâŠitâs as if the relationship Siuan and Moiraine shared in their younger years is forgotten by the narrative itself. Because either Moiraine was indeed a âyouthful dallianceâ â thus implying that âgirlhood things should be left behind with girlhoodâ as Tarna put it â or Siuanâs relationship with Moiraine is so insignificant that it doesnât warrant a mention at all. Thereâs a sense of oversight there, and it bothers me a bit.
On its own, it might not stand out as much of an issue. However, thereâs a pattern here of including but then almost simultaneously dismissing love between women. This isnât even a particularly egregious example, but it becomes frustrating when mixed in with the tendency to treat âpillow friendshipsâ as a kind of youthful phase that all but the evil ones grow out of.
No series is perfect, and you canât have everything, and Iâm sure Jordan and Sanderson had good intentions â or at least, did not have bad intentions â with regards to this sort of thing. But the execution falls short for me sometimes.
Sheâd focused only one one thing: finding the Dragon Reborn. Helping him, guiding him, hopefully controlling him.
Moiraine had died following that same quest, but at least she had been able to go out and see the world. Siuan had grown old â in spirit, if not in body â cooped up in the Tower, pulling her strings and nudging the world. Sheâd done some good. Time would tell if those efforts had been enough.
She didnât regret her life. Yet, at this moment, passing army tents [âŠ] she envied Moiraine. How often had Siuan bothered to look out of her window toward the beautiful green landscape, before it all had started going sickly? She and Moiraine had fought so hard to save this world, but they had left themselves without anything to enjoy in it.
Having said all of that, I absolutely love this bit here. I do really love the way the friendship aspect of Moiraine and Siuanâs relationship is presented. They are bound so closely by love and a shared goal, but one of those has had to take precedence. They loved each other before prophecy took over their lives, but their shared secret and their determination and devotion forced them down different paths.
And yet, from both their perspectives there has always been a strong, if understated and often bittersweet, sense of the friendship that underlies this shared quest. They never came to resent or hate one another, and they both kept firmly to their aim, and accepted the rest as it came. It didnât destroy their friendship because they both accepted that the quest would have to come first. And so when it did come first, and when it did separate them, and when it did â at least as far as each of them knows â kill the other one, they understood that, too. Itâs a strange kind of mutual trust and understanding upon which to build a somewhat strange relationship, but there is something rather beautiful about that.
And Siuanâs musings here are really lovely, in that same kind of bittersweet and nostalgic way. Take what you want, and pay for it. She and Moiraine have both lived by that. Siuan has no regrets, because this life is the consequence of the task she accepted. And she may envy Moiraine, but even now she does not resent her.
The last line especially is beautiful. I really, really hope Siuan and Moiraine both survive what is to come, and reunite at least once to share in the completion of their decades-long task. Even if they then go their separate ways â because that is how it has always been for them, and somehow it works.
Or they could just decide fuck it, letâs retire early and go on a roadtrip full of pranks and mischief to see the world weâve helped win for ourselves. That would also be acceptable.
Siuan the Amyrlin hadnât had any time for entanglements, but what of Siuan the attendant? [âŠ] Was there, perhaps, room in her life for a few more changes?Â
The wagon reached the far side of the army camp, and she shook her head at her own foolishness as she hopped down, then nodded her thanks to the wagon driver. Was she a girl, barely old enough for her first full-day blackfish trawl? There was no use in thinking of Bryne that way. At least not right now. There was too much to do.
So Iâm quoting this mainly for the last part, because my usual line when complaining about characters getting caught up in romantic subplots is âstop cheating on your plotline!â
Which is to say, I appreciate Siuanâs priorities here. Even though Iâm probably supposed to roll my eyes and tell her to just live a little, the world is ending after all.
Though I donât particularly mind the thing between Siuan and Bryne; itâs relatively unobtrusive and doesnât interfere too much with the plot or either characterâs competence.
And by âthingâ I meanâŠutter failure at flirting and an ongoing low-level prank war.
âI have to say, Siuan, that Iâm surprised. I had assumed that an Aes Sedai would know little of work such as this, but rarely have my uniforms known such a perfect combination of stiffness and comfort. You are to be commended.â
Siuan turned away from him, hiding her blush. Fool man! She had caused kings to kneel before her! She manipulated the Aes Sedai and planned for the deliverance of mankind itself! And he complimented her on her laundering skills?
The thing was, from Bryne, that was an honest and meaningful compliment. He didnât look down on washwomen, or runner boys. He treated all with equity. A person didnât gain stature in Gareth Bryneâs eyes by being a king or queen; one gained stature by keeping to oneâs oaths and doing oneâs duty. To him, a compliment on laundry well done was as meaningful as a medal awarded to a soldier who had stood his ground before the enemy.
It took rather a lot of explanation and narrative enforcement to make that work, but I think it does work in the end. It certainly fits with what has been established about Bryneâs character. He doesnât give a single shit about where someone is supposed to rank; he cares about character and competence. He gave the army to Egwene when most Aes Sedai still thought she would be little more than a puppet, because he could see in her something worth serving.
SoâŠyeah, itâs a bit of an insulting compliment, from a certain perspective. Siuanâs indignation is not entirely out of place, and I like that itâs acknowledged. But I also like that she understands Bryne enough to know that it is actually a meaningful compliment â and also that he clearly understands her well enough to know that she would be able to take it as such.
Ah, and now weâre back to the question of why Siuan broke â or truth-twisted her way out of â that oath in the first place.
âSo you claim Iâm a liar?â she demanded.
âNo,â he said. âJust an oathbreaker.â
Ouch. Point to Bryne.
âThat question drove me here, you know,â he said. âItâs why I hunted you all that way. Itâs why I finally swore to these rebel Aes Sedai, though I had little wish to be pulled into yet another war at Tar Valon. I did it all because I needed to understand. I had to know. Why? Why did the woman with those eyes â those passionate, haunting eyes â break her oath?â
ThatâsâŠa surprising amount of openness and honesty, and I rather like it. Especially because Siuan has been wondering for so long why he did follow her, and why he stayed. And she toyed with the idea that it might be because of her, but then discarded it as a silly fancy, but now thanks to the wonders of this new invention called communication, she knows that really is a large part of the reason. So credit to Bryne for deciding to justâŠtell her.
âAnother excuse,â he said softly. âAnother answer from an Aes Sedai. Will I ever have the truth from you, Siuan Sanche? Has anyone ever had it?â He signed, and she heard papers rustle, the candleâs light flickering in the faint stir of his movements as he turned back to his reports.
âWhen I was still an Accepted in the White Tower,â Siuan said softly, âI was one of four people present when a Foretelling announced the imminent birth of the Dragon Reborn on the slopes of Dragonmount.â
His rustling froze.
Yes. Honesty begets honesty; itâs not the first time that has proven true in this series. Bryne finally gives her an unguarded truthâŠand so she finally gives him this. And itâs no small truth. This is the foundation of most of her adult life, and itâs been a secret and a burden for so long, because she has so long had to work within a system of secrets and shades of truth, all the while carrying something of this gravity.
Very, very few have ever had the truth from her. Moiraine. Rand, arguably, in TGH, though even then it was given somewhat as manipulation. And Bryneâs reaction here shows that he knows just how closely-kept a secret this has been. That he knows just how much of the truth she is actually surrendering to him, here.
I always love moments like this, when a character finally faces another and tells them everything. When done well, it grants a particular and very satisfying sense of catharsis â especially when the reader knows the secret, but has watched the character carry it so long in silence, never able to truly explain themselves, and often suffering for it.
Itâs a great moment of honest, open communication, on both sides. Thatâs a rare thing in this series, but the payoff is almost always worth it; the moments where characters finally do communicate are often beautiful and fitting and genuinely effective.
I think this is a large part of what makes the whole Wheel Of Absolutely No Communication thing work, at least for me. Itâs frustrating as hell sometimes, sure, and there are definitely moments where I want to just bash charactersâ heads together and tell them to JUST FUCKING TALK TO EACH OTHER FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SACRED.
But, while characters frequently and spectacularly fail at doing exactly that, moments of genuine honesty donât tend to result in further misunderstanding. When characters do finally open up to each other, it is almost always rewarded.
Where some authors lose me is when they bend over backwards to prevent those moments from ever happening at all, or else let them happen and then force the miscommunication or misunderstanding to persist anyway. Instead of feeling realistic, it almost always ends up feeling contrived. WoT toes that line sometimes, but the payoffs make it work for me.
So we get a quick recap of New Spring, because Bryne clearly hasnât read it yet.
âThere was only one other person I knew I could trust, and she is now dead.â
And neither Siuan nor Moiraine could really afford to grieve, when they thought the other to be dead. They knew it could come to this, butâŠitâs such a loss, for both of them. Please let them at least find out that the other is alive.
âYou blame me for the loss of a barn and some cows. Well, then I suggest that you consider the cost to your people should the Dragon Reborn fail. Sometimes, prices must be paid so that a more important duty can be served. I would expect a soldier to understand that. [âŠ] Should I have spared even a moment when the entire world was wearing the hangmanâs noose?â
She held those eyes, demanding an answer.
âNo,â he finally admitted. âBurn me, Siuan, but no. You shouldnât have waited.â
And he offers to hold her oath fulfilled. She refuses, of course, but this is what I mean by payoff. They have each been entirely truthful with each other at last, and instead of answering in the negative here, or refusing to understand, he accepts her explanation. And she doesnât question his. There is a reward for honesty.
Now theyâre back to incompetent flirting, but progress has been made. They trust each other now, and thatâs no small thing. Oh, they trusted each other before, but more in the sense that they each believed the other to be a decent person. Now they both know something close to the full truth, and they each revealed it willingly, and the very act of doing so â each one knowing how much it means for the other to speak that openly â has forged a much stronger bond of genuine trust. Theyâre together in this, now. Even if they canât sort out other definitions of âtogetherâ.
When other oaths no longer have a hold on me, she thought. When Iâm certain the Dragon Reborn is doing what he is supposed to, perhaps there will be time. For once, Iâm actually starting to look forward to being done with this quest. How remarkable.
âŠOkay, and with that line, I am now far more worried about her survival than I was a few minutes ago. Iâve gone back and forth on whether or not I think Siuan will make it; I could see it working both ways.
Bryne has worked out her Telâaranârhiod schedule, and possibly the general notion of Telâaranârhiod itself. Of course he has.
Sheâd have to do something to get back at him. Mice in the bedsheets.
Ha. Oh, Siuan, you are incorrigible. Nice throwback there, to a prank she and Moiraine planned back in their Accepted days, given how that time has been on Siuanâs mind this chapter.
âA sword, Siuan?â Egweneâs voice suddenly asked. âThatâs novel.â Siuan looked down, shocked to find herself holding a bloody sword, likely intended for Elaidaâs heart.
Things I didnât know I needed: Siuan Sanche with a sword. Is there fanart? Please let there be fanart.
Egwene was getting very good at the calm serenity of an Aes Sedai. In fact, she seemed to have grown measurably better at that since her capture.
Well, sheâs had a lot of practice. And more than thatâŠitâs not a brittle mask of serenity on her. Itâs true serenity, an outward reflection of inward calm purpose and understanding. Sheâs not trying to make herself harder in order to face pain, or make herself seem stronger in order to appear commanding. Instead, she has come to understand, and with that has come a strength that is unforced.
She showed more of herself around Siuan than she did the others. They both knew how heavily Egwene had relied on Siuanâs teaching to get where she was.
Though sheâd probably have made it there anyway, Siuan admitted. Just not quite as quickly.
Siuan and Moiraine dedicated themselves to the task of finding and guiding the Dragon Reborn. But they â Siuan especially â have arguably been more successful at finding and guiding Egwene.
Thatâs not to say they failed in their task; Moiraine did find Rand and has been a lasting influence on him, especially once she realised that she needed to approach things differently. Meanwhile Siuan is no longer Amyrlin and has not seen the Dragon Reborn in over a year, but she has been instrumental in helping Egwene become a true Amyrlin. Which will, I have no doubt, end up being a critical step in ensuring the worldâs survival. Without Egwene as Amyrlin, I struggle to see how Rand and the White Tower would reconcile to the point where they could approach the Last Battle as allies. With Egwene, it will undoubtedly be difficult, but their once-friendship might just be enough.
So Moiraine and Siuan have both ended up following the task they swore themselves to, but â like so many other things in this series â not quite in the way they planned. And I like that they both played a role in guiding Egwene, as well as Rand, given all the other parallels and inversions between the two. Itâs nice symmetry, both of Moiraine and Siuan and of Egwene and Rand.
Egwene decides she doesnât want to spend a moment longer than necessary in the study of the Mistress of Novices. Shocking.
âOne of the Forsaken was in our camp,â Siuan said. She hadnât wanted to think about that too frequently. The knowledge made her skin crawl.
âIs anyone dead?â Egwene asked, voice calm though her eyes looked to be steel.
Itâs nice to get an outsider POV of Egwene during this part of her arc. So much of it has been told through her own eyes, and itâs all kinds of fantastic, and itâs definitely important to see it from her perspective because a lot of it is about her own understanding and growth. But I always love seeing what characters look like to others, and seeing Egwene through Siuanâs eyes here helps to emphasise what has changed outwardly, and how very like a true Amyrlin Egwene looks to those around her.
Even when Siuan says it was probably Halima, wielding saidin, Egwene barely reacts visibly. No doubt this is a shock to her, but she lets almost none of it show. Because what good would that do? She canât go back and suspect Halima, she canât save those who were killed, and letting herself be thrown by this wonât help anything. So she takes it calmly, and focuses on what she can do. And on what needs to be done.
âMother, it appears some of the men who follow alâThor have bonded Aes Sedai.â
Egwene blinked a single time. âYes. I had heard rumours of this. I had hoped that they were exaggerated. Did this Ashaâman say who gave Rand permission to commit such an atrocity?â
âHeâs the Dragon Reborn,â Siuan said, grimacing. âI donât think he feels he needs permission. But, in his defence, it appears he didnât know it was happening. The women his men bonded were sent by Elaida to destroy the Black Tower.â
âYes.â Egwene finally showed a sliver of emotion. âSo the rumours are accurate. All too accurate. [âŠ] âWe shall have to deal with the Dragonâs foolishness at a later date. Perhaps his men acted without his direct orders, but Rand must take responsibility. Men. Bonding women!â
I canât entirely agree with Egwene here. I can see where sheâs coming from, because she is Amyrlin and Aes Sedai, and while Siuan can give her some context for what has happened, neither of them knows all of it. ButâŠwhile the forced bonding of Aes Sedai is hard to call a good thing, it really was probably the best of several bad options. And the notion that women should be able to bond men but not the other way around is kind of absurd â at least, if it is accepted that saidin has been cleansed.
As for Rand taking responsibilityâŠthatâs a difficult one. On the one hand, he had no idea any of this was happening, and it wasnât on his orders, and he was far from happy about it when he found out. On the other hand, he himself thinks of the Ashaâman as his creation, his responsibility. Itâs a tricky one because he thinks of them that way when he needs or wants to, but he also has all but ignored the Black Tower since putting Taim in charge of it. He keeps trying to have it both ways, and it keeps coming back to bite him.
That said, the offer of recompense kind of is his way of taking responsibility. Or at least of trying to offer as close to a solution as possible. The whole situation is a mess, and there have been several points at which there really are no good options.
Itâs also interesting to see how Egwene thinks of Rand versus how she thinks of the Dragon Reborn. Here, he takes the latter role in her mind, because it does come down to issues of command and responsibility. Rand has had similar thoughts about Egwene when thinking of her as Amyrlin and Aes Sedai. Itâs not fair, perhaps, but their roles are larger than they are, and they have both had to accept and deal with that. Egwene is Amyrlin, thinking about the Dragon Reborn. As simply Egwene, she has been angry with Elaida for hurting Rand. It comes back to individuals versus roles, and how that can shape what they must do and think. How she can be angry with the Dragon Reborn but still care about the boy from Emondâs Field. It is, I think, similar for Rand. As Dragon Reborn he can be angry with or suspicious of the Amyrlin, but still care about Egwene. Though at the moment heâs not letting himself care about much of anything, so that complicates things a bit.
âThey claim saidin is cleansed,â Siuan said.
Egwene raised an eyebrow, but did not object. âYes,â she said, âI suppose that might be a reasonable possibility. We will need further confirmation, of course. But the taint arrived when all seemed won; why should it not leave when all seems to be approaching pure madness?â
That might be the best reaction Iâve seen to the cleansing yet, from anyone but a male channeller. She doesnât reject the idea outright, or go on about how itâs impossible. Sheâs rather willing to accept it, and just asks for further confirmation. Which is not an unreasonable request; she hasnât linked with an Ashaâman, or even been told that anyone else has. But I think she would accept some of that as confirmation, where others reject all proof that is offered in favour of saying itâs impossible. Egwene isnât doing that. And I rather love that last thought â itâs kind of a perfect way of looking at things, isnât it? Parallels and inversions. A victory for the Shadow at what should have been the Lightâs greatest triumph, and a true victory for the Light as all else darkens.
Siuan wants Egwene to come back and look after the Hall, Egwene says she has work to do here and Siuan can do fine on her own. Which, so far, has been the case. So credit where itâs due for delegating, but at some poing she is going to need to move to reunite them.
âDo your best,â Egwene said. âBut donât worry if Lelaine refuses to be diverted.â
Siuan frowned. âBut sheâs usurping your place!â
âBy building upon it,â Egwene said, smiling. [âŠ] âLelaineâs gambit will only succeed if I fail to return. She is using me as a source of authority. When I return, sheâll have no choice but to accept my leadership. Sheâll have spent all of her effort building me up.â
âAnd if you donât return, Mother?â Siuan asked softly.
âThen it will be better for the Aes Sedai to have a strong leader,â Egwene said. âIf Lelaine has been the one to secure that strength, then so be it.â
Clever. And I like how Egwene points out the win-win nature of this situation. Sheâs not in this for herself â being Amyrlin isnât some kind of power-trip. She doesnât lack ambition, and sheâs made use of it to get where she is, certainly. And she needed to. But her efforts now are wholly dedicated not to herself but to the White Tower. She is Amyrlin because Elaida is incompetent, and this is the best way Egwene sees to heal the Tower and see it to Tarmon Gaiâdon. But she will not put herself before the Tower; if she loses, or if for whatever reason she ends up unable to do what she needs to do, she can accept that another may need to take her place. She wonât destroy the Tower to keep her position. Which is a a large part of what sets her apart from Elaida.
âIâm actually learning to deal with myâŠnew situation. Itâs not so difficult to stomach, now that I see that it has some advantages.â
Egwene frowned, as if trying to figure out what advantages there could be in lessened power.
Thatâs very likely more than an abstract thought; Egwene is, after all, spending all her time dosed on forkroot and barely able to channel.
âElayne once mentioned a room to me in the Tower, filled with objects of power. I assume it really exists?â
âOf course,â Siuan said. âThe basement storeroom. Itâs in the second level of the basement, on the northeast side. Little room with a plain wooden door, but you canât miss it.â
OH HELL YES BRING OUT THE ANGREAL LETâS LEVEL THIS UP.
I mean. Um. Yes, good, thank you for that advice, Siuan, Iâm sure it will come in handy.
âIf there was a Forsaken in our camp, Iâd bet half my fatherâs inn that thereâs one spying on the White Tower too.â
Please let Egwene take out at least one of the Forsaken. She deserves it.
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#characters being honest with each other what do i do with this#Wheel of Time#neuxue liveblogs WoT#The Gathering Storm
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