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mastomysowner · 1 year

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Man in wolf’s skin

Everyone's favorite medieval Gestapo metrosexual, after whom the story is named. What do we know about Wolfram except that he enjoys sitting by the fireplace and likes his bed clean?

顔色 is made up of the kanji for “face” and “color”, but it also means facial expression. So he’s like Nagisa Shiota from AssClass, but evil?

Quite possible that the phrase about the hardships of his youth has to do with a Japanese saying 若い頃の苦労は買ってでもしろ, literally meaning you should take the hardships of youth even if you have to buy them (it’s not the only time Japanese proverbs are used in the manga). Japanese websites have translations such as “adversity makes a man wise“ or “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger“. Well, as Joker said, what doesn’t kill you makes you stranger.

Funny thing is, there is a thread on Yahoo where the Japanese are discussing whether this saying is true or false. Of course, this isn't the only such thread, and from what I've seen, more people think it's a lie, heh. The most liked comment (2020/5/2) is:

That's a lie. Unless they're great saints, most people become distorted when they go through hardships. People who have suffered a lot have bad personalities. By the way, there is a distinction between hardships* (苦労) and efforts (努力). They’re different.

*苦労 consists of kanji for “suffering” and “labor”.

There's also a reply to this comment:

Here is an example for your reference. The restaurant where I worked part-time during my student days was a gathering of women who divorced their husbands because of domestic violence, gambling and cheating, all of them were tough. They were insidious, two-faced, dragging each other down people who couldn't maintain self-esteem, unless they constantly abused someone, and when ordinary housewives came in as part-timers, they were persistently bullied by everyone. In the locker room, they said things like, "Housewives don't go through hardships, so they're spoiled", "People who don't struggle have no guts.'' I thought deeply that if I struggled, my personality would get bad.

Wolfram may have played the pity card, but there was no reason for that in that scene - he saw through Grete, he was in the position of power and showed off before her. This ability is obviously a source of his great pride. Not to mention that in chapter 18 it was suddenly revealed that he fights like hell.

Also, the constant comparison of Wolfram with a wolf brings to mind a certain Latin proverb (poster by Ana Pesic).

His work as a magistrate allows him to simultaneously reinforce his self-righteousness, satisfy the feeling that no one and nothing can stand before the power of his intellect, and vindictively triumph over others.

I want to quote one of my favorite books, Our inner conflicts: a constructive theory of neurosis by Karen Horney, specifically the chapter 12, Sadistic Trends.

“An understanding of this inner struggle provides us also with a better insight into another more general factor inherent in sadistic symptoms: the vindictiveness that often seeps through every cell of the sadist's personality like a poison. He is and must be vindictive because he turns his violent contempt for himself outward. Since his righteousness prevents him from seeing his share in any difficulty that arises he must feel that he is the one who is abused and victimized; since he cannot see that the source of all his despair lies within himself he must hold others responsible for it. They have ruined his life, they have to make up for it — they have to take what's coming to them. It is this vindictiveness, more than any other factor, that kills within him all feelings of sympathy and mercy. Why should he have sympathy for those who have spoiled his life — and in addition are better off than he? In individual instances the desire for revenge may be conscious; he may be aware of it, for example, in reference to his parents. He is not aware, however, that it is a pervasive character trend.”

One of Wolfram's most notable traits is that he only opens his eyes on special occasions, such as before or after exposing the rebels. When they are visible, they look like this.

Otherwise, they are almost always closed, as in this frame from chapter 10. But it was this chapter that gave unexpected insight into his character, including through his, uhm, mirror of the soul.

The ability to see through people and manipulate them is one of the main, if not the main, foundations on which his pride rests. Hedwig, without even knowing it, landed a precise blow where it hurt...

...so he immediately set about getting revenge on her, forcing her to fall for a transparent ploy.

And during this, his eyes are like (though why like?) those of a madman.

He is feeding on their reactions like an emotional vampire. The panels above are basically a visualization of the two paragraphs below:

“The sadistic person, as we have seen him thus far, is one who because he feels excluded and doomed runs amok, venting his rage at others in blind vindictiveness. And we understand, now, that by making others miserable he seeks to alleviate his own misery. But this can hardly be the whole explanation. The destructive aspects alone do not explain the absorbing passion characteristic of so many sadistic pursuits. There must be some more positive gains, gains that for the sadistic person are of vital importance. This statement might seem to contradict the assumption that sadism is an outgrowth of hopelessness. How can a hopeless person hope for something and go after it, what is more, with such consuming energy? The fact is, however, that from a subjective standpoint there is considerable to be gained. In degrading others he not only allays his intolerable self-contempt but at the same time gives himself a feeling of superiority. When he molds the lives of others he not only gains a stimulating feeling of power over them but also finds a substitute meaning for his life. When he exploits others emotionally he provides a vicarious emotional life for himself that lessens his own sense of barrenness. When he defeats others he wins a triumphant elation which obscures his own hopeless defeat. This craving for vindictive triumph is probably his most intense motivating force.

All his pursuits serve as well to gratify his hunger for thrills and excitement. A healthy, well-balanced person does not need such thrills. The more mature he is the less does he care for them. But the emotional life of the sadistic person is empty. Almost all feelings except those of anger and triumph have been choked off. He is so dead that he needs these sharp stimuli to feel alive.”

His behavior after the defeat was a little bit strange.

What should you do when your enemies put the body of their comrade (that you have killed) in your bed? That's right, loudly complain about this and immediately take a beating.

Annnnnnd they gave him a slow, painful and degrading death. Maybe they would have dispatched him quickly if he behaved differently (though I'm not so sure about them)... But why did a man who read people like open books lose even the basic ability to read a room (it’s even emphasized in the last two frames)?

Suddenly, this is elaborated upon in the next, most famous work of Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth: The Struggle Toward Self-Realization.

“Closely akin to his belief and pride in inviolability or invulnerability, and indeed complementing it, is that in immunity and impunity. This belief, entirely unconscious, results from a claim which entitles him to the freedom to do to others whatever he pleases, and to having nobody mind it or try to get back at him. In other words, nobody can hurt me with impunity but I can hurt everybody with impunity. [...]

Though he is much too arrogant to admit to himself that anybody could intimidate him or even affect him in any way, he is in actual fact afraid of people. Many reasons combine to engender this fear. He is afraid that others may retaliate for the offenses he perpetrates on them. He is afraid that they may interfere with whatever plans he has with regard to them, if he "goes too far." He is afraid of them because they do have the power to hurt his pride. And he is afraid of them because in order to justify his own hostility he must in his mind exaggerate that of others. To deny these fears to himself, however, is not sufficient to eliminate them; he needs some more powerful assurance. He cannot cope with this fear by not expressing his vindictive hostility - and he must express it without awareness of fear. The claim for immunity, turning into an illusory conviction of immunity, seems to solve this dilemma.”

And finally, he doesn’t just run around and bite people, he’s appointed to act as a judge.

“A last kind of pride to be mentioned is pride in his honesty, his fairness, and his justice. Needless to say, he is neither honest, fair, nor just and cannot possibly be so. On the contrary, if anybody is determined - unconsciously - to bluff his way through life with a disregard for truth, it is he. But we can understand his belief that he possesses these attributes to a high degree if we consider his premises. To hit back or - preferably - to hit first appears to him (logically!) as an indispensable weapon against the crooked and hostile world around him. It is nothing but intelligent, legitimate self-interest. Also, not questioning the validity of his claims, his anger, and the expression of it must appear to him as entirely warranted and "frank."

Ten days without eating or drinking? I smell bullshit. But it’s telling that wolves don't attack people just like that, they were starved and abused for a long time so that they become so vicious.

It’s such a pity that a talented man became a shell of a person and used his abilities to take revenge on the world (and that we won’t get a prequel).

Does this mean that we should forget about all his cruelty and see in him only a suffering person? Here is what the same two books say about it:

“When we recognize the role of pride and self-hate in this type, we not only have a more accurate understanding of the forces operating within him but may also change our outlook on him. As long as we primarily focus on how he operates in his human relations we can describe him as arrogant, callous, egocentric, sadistic - or by any other epithet indicating hostile aggression which may occur to us. And any of them would be accurate. But when we realize how deeply he is caught within the machinery of his pride system, when we realize the efforts he must take not to be crushed by his self-hate, we see him as a harrassed human being struggling for survival. And this picture is no less accurate than a first one.

Of these two aspects, seen from two different perspectives, is one more essential, more important than the other? It is a question difficult to answer, and perhaps unanswerable.“

and

“We have come a long way from the point of view that regards a sadistic person as a sexual pervert or that uses elaborate terminology to say he is mean and vicious. The sexual perversions are comparatively rare. When they are present they are merely one expression of a general attitude toward others. The destructive trends are undeniable; but when we understand them we see a suffering human being behind the apparently inhuman behavior. With this we open the possibility of reaching such a human being by therapy. We find him a desperate individual who seeks restitution for a life that has defeated him.“

After all, he is not a wolf, but just a man.

#character analysis #psychology #neurosis #wolfsmund #wolfram wolfsmund

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musings-on-aching-flowers · 2 years

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on the ubiquity of the word ‘bride’ in fanfiction, regardless of gender, and the role it has in reflecting the biases of wider society.

Alright. This is applicable to a lot of fandoms (and I mean a LOT, especially m/m), so I thought I’d address it. To be honest, I started attempting to say something about this back in January, but the extreme deconstruction of gender that I was initially going to discuss required a level of understanding and nuance that I really hadn’t achieved yet. I’m certainly not saying that I’ve achieved it now, but I think a more simplified version of what I wanted to say will get the point across a little better.

An innumerable amount of times in fandom content, whenever the more ‘feminine-coded’ character (for lack of any other better way to put it) is promised/engaged to the love interest, they’re generally referred to as their ‘bride’. Even, and sometimes especially, if the ‘bride’ in question is male. And this rubs me the wrong way for a number of reasons.

Firstly, and mainly, it really plays into gender roles and gender stereotypes. Casting a character in the moulds of ‘bride’ or ‘wife’ to connote them ‘more feminine’, ‘less dominant’, or especially as having a lack of agency in regards to their own marriage reinforces the beliefs that women, and by extension, those who are more feminine, have inherently less agency in a marriage than men or those who are more masculine do. It also forces non-heterosexual characters to be viewed through a lens of heteronormativity - like shoving your dolls in boxes they don’t fit into. This also has spillover effects into the way we view non-heterosexual relationships in our communities - we equally shove these people into neat labels and boxes and gender roles and stereotypes where they don’t necessarily belong, because we’re used to seeing, consuming and producing media which portrays them in this way.

It’s the same for sexual dynamics. The ‘top’ doesn’t always have to be the more masculine-coded character, and the ‘bottom’ doesn’t need to always be the more feminine-coded one - isn’t that unimaginative? Why continue to play into heteronormativity, when it really isn’t like that in real life? M/M fandom is especially guilty of that one, I find - why continue to put the same characters in the same roles where you could instead explore the interplay of gender and sexuality in a more nuanced way?

Writing and characterising your blorbos in fanfiction like this may seem harmless and self-indulgent, but it’s important to consider that the language that you use to elucidate connotations and characterisations can serve as a showcase of your biases, and should be examined once in a while.

I mean, just take a look at our lovely ‘feminist’ nutcase JK Rowling, for example. Even in Harry Potter her biases are revealed through the way she demonises hyper-femininity (unless the women in question are mothers)— she ridicules Petunia Dursley, the Veela, Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, Rita Skeeter, even the lovely Fleur Delacour (who Ginny constantly called Phlegm), and the main antagonist of Book 5 is a woman who adores pink and wears a bowtie in her hair. JK Rowling was one of the reasons I spent my tween years thinking it was cool to hate pink and demonise femininity and be ‘not like the other girls, rather quirky and intelligent’. I’ve gone on a tangent here, but this is why it’s so important to know how to consume ‘problematic media’ critically - deconstructing exactly why something is problematic can teach you so much about the use of language as a subtle weapon, and can help you look out for it later in the different ways news is reported and framed. (I was taught this in high school Social Studies, and it remains one of the most important things I’ve ever learnt.)

So back to what I was saying. To cast characters as more submissive/having less agency/weaker and to ascribe all these traits simultaneously to femininity - isn’t that too archaic?

Let’s move forward from the stereotype that women and traditional femininity are in any way lesser, one fanfic at a time.

#what's up losers its me back with another analysis #except this is applicable to just about every fandom I've ever participated in and then some #mdzs #tgcf #svsss #genshin impact #my meta #harry potter #haikyuu!!#bnha #yuri!!! on ice #yeah when I say every fandom ever I really mean it #if you put bride in the ao3 search bar the first result is m/m lmao #if you want words that have similar connotations of a lack of agency etc why not 'betrothed' or 'promised'?#tag more fandoms if you think of any that I've missed that this also applies to!#blorbos #fanfiction #archive of our own

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 3 years

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I know you’ve talked about how all the Cullen pairings are eventually going to implode - glad someone said it - but I was wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about what you think Meyer INTENDED with the pairings - tropes and whatnot? And what you think would have to change in her narrative to make what was intended what we actually saw on the page? Or — what do you think each cullens’ Perfect Spouse would actually look like?

Anon is referring to this post.

And well, you've certainly given me quite the challenge.

Some Musing Ramblings Before We Begin

Sort of like asking me to make Dramione work, I'm not sure I'm the person to ask this. Anyone who reads my work knows that... well, that's a lie, every story I secretly write is a love story. But it's not Twilight in any way shape or form.

Twilight simply isn't a story I would set out to write. This isn't a good thing or a bad thing, it just is, which means that asking me to make Twilight work the way Meyer intended is probably not your best bet.

But I'll try regardless, it's what we're here for.

Bella/Edward

Meyer intended Bella Swan and Edward Cullen to be the best and brightest of all the pairings in Twilight. They have the love and devotion of Carlisle and Esme, the physicality and sexual attraction of Rosalie and Emmett, and are such a grand love that even depressed Marcus takes note. This is the love story that drives the entire series.

Edward is an improvement upon Carlisle, a Carlisle with even better control, and the most beautiful man you ever did see. He's also a gentleman, a man of his time and from an era where chivalry was alive and men courted women. Bella is one of those disturbingly altruistic people who makes you feel bad about yourself just by being in the same room. She's incredibly selfless, kind, and also quite brave.

Together, despite their ups and downs and the many obstacles in their way, they're disgustingly perfect.

However, that's not what we get. On Edward's end he's... Edward about loving Bella. On Bella's end, she has no idea who Edward even is but she does know he's beautiful and special.

And to get what Meyer actually wanted... Christ, Anon, I'll try.

So, the first problem, if Edward was truly a good person then Twilight would never happen.

Edward would have his first day of Biology, miraculously maintain control, and flee to Alaska as he does in canon. However, he would not return. Edward in canon returns due to his budding obsession as well as his wounded pride, in fleeing Forks he feels he has lost to Bella. When Carlisle later points out that a girl's life is on the line, that Edward is foolishly endangering this girl solely for his ego, Edward refuses to acknowledge this.

A good man would never have returned from Alaska, the Cullens would have moved in short order, and Bella may or may not have died in a parking lot or in Port Angeles.

That said, what if Bella is not, in fact, Edward's singer? Then there's not this constant debate of him eating her or his creepy, budding, obsession with his personal brand of heroin.

Well, the trouble with that is that Edward would then never notice her. Even were Edward not a colossal dismissive dick, required per this ask, Bella is one mortal out of many and someone he shouldn't grow close to. Associating with her just exposes her to unnecessary danger from him and his family. Edward is a guest in our world, nothing more, and a kind Edward might chit chat with her in Biology but even if he had a growing crush he'd keep his distance.

As he tried and failed to do in canon, actually.

Basically, change Edward alone, and it's not enough. The Edward Meyer wanted would never get together with Bella. At least, not without a lot of AU-sauce.

But let's look at Bella for a moment. Bella's character also has to be entirely stripped down. The Bella of the books is extremely depressed and her infatuation with Edward is fueled in part because of this. Edward's obsession with her gives her worth.

Obviously, in this new and improved edition of Twilight, Bella can't use either Edward or Jacob for validation. She has to be able to stand on her own two legs. If she does use either for validation, then the relationship must come to an end, as she and her significant other realize just what it is Bella's doing.

The trouble is, what does this not-depressed Bella have to fall in love with? Yes, Edward's beautiful, and that certainly goes a long way, but in canon he's a dick. Bella even thinks to herself that he's a complete dick (even when he's trying to be charming). Luckily for Edward she later decides that this is cryptic and therefore appealing.

Well, in AU land, Edward might be so damn charming that Bella likes him anyway but we come back to Edward keeping her at a polite distance.

So, what we need is a terrifying villain. Let's call him Angelus (though per Twilight this would probably be James). Angelus is a vampire that will force Edward's hand. For whatever reason, he decides to torment and ruin Bella's life, ending the hunt in either eating her or turning her into his bride. Angelus' existence forces Bella to be in the know and for Edward to have to take extreme action.

The pair become closer, grow through undoubtedly horrific trauma, and through said trauma Bella understands not only the pros of being a vampire but the terrifying cons.

Basically, it'd be this story. Just replace the name "Carlisle" with Edward and "Edward" with James.

Alice/Jasper

Alice and Jasper are supposed to have this ineffable, mystic, connection where they're together because... Alice saw them together. And in a way, that's true, but it's supposed to be a thing of beauty, soulmates if there ever were any, and instead it's this dumpster fire with nothing holding them together.

This one's easier in a way, well, sort of. Alice would have to be a completely different character and we'd have to see a lot more of Jasper.

Alice has a bad habit of treating those around her, even those she loves, as chess pieces. She'll put them in significant danger, court their misery, so long as it gets her the future she wants.

And she's extremely controlling.

Right away in the opening of Midnight Sun we see this and how it affects her and Jasper's relationship. The novel opens with Alice hovering, scanning the future for Japser fucking up, while Jasper just sits there in misery. Due to her obsession on making sure Jasper doesn't eat students, she actually misses Edward's plan to massacre Biology and his many plans to eat Bella Swan.

Even if she wasn't, this isn't good for anyone to live with. Jasper has very little concept of free will, whatever happens to him, whatever he'll do, Alice tells him and the worst possible option is always on the table.

For Jasper/Alice to work either Alice's gift needs to go (and that's... sort of all Alice is) or she has to tell no one any vision ever unless under extreme circumstances.

Which would be devastating for Alice. Rather than this mostly well-adjusted, perky, girl, Alice would be crippled by her gift. The weight of the world, everyone's free will, rests on her shoulders and she has to constantly avoid temptation to simply pick everyone's future for them.

Without the attitude Alice has in canon, I think she'd go mad with such a gift, or else be consumed by the responsibility of it.

Then we get to the mess that is Jasper. Jasper's complicated, and I don't want to get into it here, but his love story would have to be... too large to be put to the side like that. The redemption he'd need is not one that can be shoved into a few paragraphs told to Bella, it's frankly the kind of story that would drive an ordinary story.

So we'd have to see a lot of Jasper and Nouveau Alice. Which, of course, detracts from Bella/Edward which is the main point of the story.

Honestly, I take it back, there's no salvaging this relationship. They would have to be completely different people to the point where they're entirely different characters wearing nametags 'Alice' and 'Jasper'. Alice couldn't have her gift, which informs her entire character, and we'd have to see way too much of Jasper who is ultimately a tertiary character.

Carlisle/Esme

Thoughts on Carlisle/Esme.

Carlisle and Esme is a very 'spiritual' relationship per Meyer. They're... mom-bot and dad-bot. Alright, fine, they're the perfect parents with this deep love for each other and a very parental bond with Edward especially. It's the relationship Edward admires the most in his paired off family.

I don't even know how to fix this one.

Again, they'd have to be such different people. The trouble with Esme and Carlisle is that they share no values and are plagued by massive miscommunication. The Carlisle who is perfect for Esme... No, wait, this Carlisle is perfect for her, but that's because she's in Esme Land.

The Carlisle that would be perfect for a grounded Esme is not the one that exists. She'd want someone who would always put the family first, who would treasure her above all other things, that's not Carlisle.

Carlisle, similarly, would want someone that truly shares his ideals. That's not Esme.

So, we're back to nametag land, because one or both have to completely change for this to work. (Not to mention that Esme's probably not supposed to be Esme).

So, I've got nothing for this.

Rosalie/Emmett

I actually think these two are what Meyer intended. They love each other but are mostly held together by attraction. They're a very physical couple and good for the most part but inherently lesser than Bella/Edward.

Sure, I'd argue that they're the most put together couple in the house, but I think they're meant to have flaws. They work well together, but every other relationship in the Cullens has to be a step up or at least have something more to it.

Something Edward and Bella can be better than.

Conclusion

Dear god. Did I only manage to somewhat address Bella/Edward? Was that it? This was worse than I thought.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #twilight shipping #bella/edward #anti bella/edward #carlisle/esme #anti carlisle/esme #alice/jasper #anti alice/jasper #rosalie/emmett #anti rosalie/emmett #meta #headcanon #opinion #shipping

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impostoradult · 4 years

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Media Market Research (and why its undermining all the things you love)

Trying to understand what is dysfunctional about Hollywood is an epic task, and the answers are like the stars – arguably infinite. Hollywood is dysfunctional for literally more reasons than I could count.

But market research plays a fairly heavy role in its dysfunction (IMO) and the time has finally come for me to add my professional two cents about this issue. (This rant of mine has been building for a while, FYI. Hence why it is so...comprehensive. There is a tl;dr section towards the bottom, if you want the high level summary)

*** For the last 4+ years I’ve worked in the field of market research, almost exclusively with major media makers like Warner Bros., NBCU, AMC/BBCA, Viacom, FOX (before Disney acquired them), A+E, etc. (this past year I quit the job where I was doing this work for a variety of reasons, many of which will become clear as you keep reading, but I am still listed as a consultant on the company website): https://www.kresnickaresearch.com/who/ (Rachel)

And just for comparison, here is a Halloween selfie I took 4 years ago and posted on my blog, so you can see I am who I say I am.

I know a fair amount about how market research on major media franchises is conducted and how it influences production, and a lot of these choices can also be at least somewhat tied back to the massive flaws in the market research industry and its impact. *** First, at the highest level, you need to understand market research in general is not well-conducted much of the time. Even the people doing a reasonably good job at it are VERY limited in doing it well because of financial constraints (clients don’t want to spend more than they have to), time constraints (clients want everything done as fast as humanely possible) and just the inherent problems within the industry that are decades old and difficult to fix. For example, all market research ‘screens’ participants to make sure they qualify to participate (whether it is a mass survey, a focus group, a one-on-one interview, etc.). So, we screen people based on demographics like race, gender, age, household income, to get representative samples. But people are also screened based on their consumption habits. You don’t want to bring someone into a focus group about reality TV if they don’t watch reality TV. They aren’t going to have anything useful to say.

However, a lot of the people who participate in market research have made a ‘side-gig’ out of it and they know how to finesse the process. Basically, they’ve learned how to lie to get into studies that they aren’t a good match for because most market research is paid, and they want the money. So, a lot of TV and film market research is being done on people who don’t actually (or at least don’t regularly) watch those shows or movies or whatever but have learned how to lie well enough in these screening processes to make it through. And because of the aforementioned time and money issue, clients don’t want to spend the time or money to actually find GOOD participants. They just accept that as an inevitable part of the market research process and decide not to let it bother them too much. So, a fair number of the people representing YOU as a media consumer are people who may not be watching Supernatural (for example) at all or who watch a rerun occasionally on TNT but haven’t been watching consistently or with ANY amount of investment whatsoever. You can see why that creates very skewed data. But that’s just the tip of the skewed iceberg. *** Second, media market research is conducted in line with the norms of market research more broadly, and this is a huge problem because media is a very atypical product. How people engage with media is far more complex and in depth than how they engage with a pair of jeans, a car, or a coffee maker. There are only so many things that matter to people when it comes to liking or not liking a coffee maker, for example. Is it easy/intuitive to use? How much space does it take it on my counter? How expensive is it? Does it brew the coffee well? Maybe does it match my décor/kitchen aesthetic? Can I make my preferred brand of coffee in it? The things you as a consumer are going to care about when it comes to a coffee maker are limited, fairly easy to anticipate in advance, and also easy to interpret (usually). How people mentally and emotionally approach MEDIA? Whole other universe of thing. Infinitely more complex. And yet it is studied (more or less) as if it is also a coffee maker. This is one of the many reasons I decided to leave the media market research field despite my desire to have some ability to positively influence the process. As so often seems to be the case, I fought the law and the law won. I could never make the other people I worked with in the industry understand that the questions they were asking were not all that useful a lot of the time and they weren’t getting to the heart of the matter. They were just following industry standards because they didn’t know any better and none of them want to admit they don’t REALLY know what they’re doing. Which leads me to point 3. *** Most of the people doing this research don’t have any expertise in media or storytelling specifically. They are typically trained as social scientists in the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, or math/statistics. And many of them do not have any kind of specialization or education in media/storytelling beyond the English classes they took in high school and the one Media Studies course they took as an elective in college. Most of them have a very unsophisticated understanding of narrative structure, thematics, tropes, subtext, etc. They mainly think in terms of genres at the VERY broadest level. Also, not infrequently, they don’t watch or have much knowledge of the shows they are supposed to be doing research on, beyond what they’ve read on IMDb or Wikipedia or what is generally common knowledge. Unless they by chance happen to watch the shows themselves (which often they don’t) they often know very little about the shows they are crafting these questions about. Again, partly because they think it is like the coffee maker, and you don’t need to understand it in any depth to research it. (I know this must sound insane to you as avid media consumers, but that is the general attitude among those who do market research) There is such a lack of sophistication in how people in the business side of the industry understand media and storytelling. Most of them are either MBAs or social scientists and their training has not prepared them to examine fictional works with the kind of depth that people in the Humanities (who are specifically trained to study texts) have. Somehow, despite the fact that the Humanities is all about understanding texts, that is the one discipline they make almost no use of in the business side of Hollywood. And boy howdy does it show. *** Point 4 – average consumers CANNOT ARTICULATE WHY THEY LIKE THINGS. Particularly media things. I know this sounds condescending, but it is my honest observation. It is unbelievably hard to get people to have enough self-awareness to explain why they actually like things, especially things as mentally and emotionally complex as media. What typically happens when you ask people why they like a TV show or movie, for example? They will tell you what they most NOTICE about the TV show or movie, or what is distinctive to them about it (which may or may not have anything to do with what they actually LIKE about it). They will say things like “I like the genre”, “I think it’s funny”, “The car chases are exciting”, “I want to see the detective solve the puzzle.” Sometimes you can get them to talk about what they find relatable about it, if you push them a little. But often they leave it at either the level of literal identity (young black woman), basic personality traits (she’s a social butterfly and so am I) or situations they’ve personally experienced (I relate to this story of a man losing his father to cancer because I lost a close family member to cancer). But the vast, vast, vast majority of them can’t go to the deeper level of: a) Why X representation of a young black woman feels accurate/authentic/relatable and Y representation doesn’t b) Why it matters to me that X,Y,Z aspects of my personality, identity, experience get reflected in media whereas I don’t really care about seeing A,B,C aspects of my personality, identity, or experience reflected in media c) How and why they are relating to characters when they can’t see the literal connection between their identity/experience and the character’s identity/experience. (For example, many people have argued that women often relate to Dean Winchester because a lot of his struggles and past negative experiences are more stereotypical of women – being forced to raise a younger sibling on behalf of an actual parent, being seen and treated as beautiful/sexually desirable but vacuous/unintelligent, his body being treated as an instrument for a more powerful group to quite literally possess, etc. Part of the reason Supernatural has always been such a mystery/problem for the CW and Warner Bros is they could never crack the code at this level. Never.) Part of the reason they can’t crack these codes is average people CANNOT give you that kind of feedback in a survey or a focus group, or even an in-depth interview (much of the time). They just don’t have the self-awareness or the vocabulary to get it at that level. Let alone asking them to articulate why Game of Thrones is compelling to them in an era where wealth disparity is creating a ruling class that is fundamentally incompetent at maintaining a just/functional society, which is especially concerning at this particular moment, given the existential threat we face due to climate change. And the truth is, that IS part of what people – even average people – are responding to in Game of Thrones. But what they’ll tell you when you do market research on it is: they like the dragons, they like the violence, they relate to Tyrion Lannister being a smart mouth, maybe they’ll say they like the moral ambiguity of many of the conflicts (if they are more sophisticated than average). But the ‘Dean Winchester is heavily female coded despite his veneer of ultra-masculinity’ or the ‘Game of Thrones is a prescient metaphor for the current political dynamics and fissures of modern western society’ is the level you ACTUALLY need to get to. And most market research can’t get you that because the people ASKING the questions don’t know what to ask to get to this level, and most of the respondents couldn’t give you the answers even IF you were asking them the right questions (which usually you are not) And I’m not saying average people are dumb because they can’t do this. But it requires practice, it requires giving the matter a great deal of in-depth thought, and most people just don’t care enough about it to do that while taking a market research survey. (I know this is going to feel counter-intuitive to people on Tumblr. But you have to remember, you are NOT average media consumers. You are highly atypical media consumers who have far more self-awareness and a much more sophisticated engagement with media than the average person watching TV. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be here talking about it in the first place) Point 4.1 – People also lie/misrepresent their own experiences to market researchers because they want to maintain certain self-narratives. You have no idea how many people would get disqualified from our surveys for saying they watched less than 5 hours of TV a week. And sure, that might actually be true for a few of them. But if you watch TV with any regularity at all (which most people in modern America do) you probably watch more than 5 hours a week. The problem is, people think it makes them sound lazy to say they watch 15-20 hours a week, even though that’s about 2-3 hours a day (which actually isn’t THAT high). People lie and misrepresent their behaviors, thoughts and feelings because it can be socially uncomfortable to admit you do what you actually do or feel how you actually feel, even in the context of an anonymous survey, let alone a focus group or a one-on-one interview. People want to make themselves look good to THEMSELVES and to the researchers asking them questions. But that makes the market research data on media (and lots of other things) very questionable. For example, one finding we saw more than once in the surveys I was involved in conducting was people would radically downplay how much the romance elements of a story mattered to them, even large portions of female respondents. When we would ask people in surveys what parts of the story they were most invested in, romances ALWAYS came out among the lowest ranked elements. And yet, any passing familiarity with fandom would tell you that finding is just WRONG. It’s wrong. People are just flat out lying about how much that matters to them because of the negative connotations we have around being invested in romance. And never mind the issue of erotic/sexual content. (I don’t mean sexual identity here, I mean sexy content). The only people who will occasionally cop to wanting the erotic fan service is young men (and even they are hesitant to do so in market research) and women frequently REFUSE to admit that stuff in market research, or they radically downplay how much it matters to them and in what ways. There is still so much stigma towards women expressing sexuality in that way. Not to mention, you have to fight tooth and nail to even include question about erotic/sexual content because oftentimes the clients don’t even want to go there at all, partly because it is awkward for everyone involved to sit around crafting market research questions to interrogate what makes people hot and bothered. That’s socially awkward for the researchers doing the research and the businesspeople who have to sit in rooms and listen to presentations about why more women find Spock sexier than Kirk. (Which was a real thing that happened with the original Star Trek, and the network couldn’t figure out why) Aside from people not have enough deeper level self-awareness to get at what they really like about media content, they also will lie or misrepresent certain things to you because they are trying to maintain certain self-narratives and are socially performing that version of themselves to researchers. *** Point 5 – Qualitative data is way more useful for understanding people’s relationships to media. However, quantitative data is way more valued and relied upon both due to larger market research industry standards and because quantitative data is just seen as harder/more factual than qualitative data. A lot of media market research involves gathering both qualitative and quantitative data and reporting jointly on both. (Sometimes you only do one or the other, depending on your objectives, but doing both is considered ‘standard’ and higher quality). However, quantitative data is heavily prioritized in reporting and when there is a conflict between what they see in qualitative versus quantitative data, the quant data is usually relied upon to be the more accurate of the two. This is understandable to an extent, because quantitative surveys usually involve responses from a couple thousand participants, whereas qualitative data involves typically a few dozen participants at most, depending on whether you did focus groups, individual interviews, or ‘diaries’/ethnography. The larger sample is considered more reliable and more reflective of ‘the audience’ as a whole. However, quantitative surveys usually have the flattest, least nuanced data, and they can only ever reflect what questions and choices people in the survey were given. In something like focus groups or individual interviews or ethnographies, you still structure what you ask people, but they can go “off script.” They can say things you never anticipated (as a researcher) and can explain themselves and their answers with more depth. In a survey, participants can only “say” what they survey lets them say based on the questions and question responses that are pre-baked for them. And as I’ve already explained, a lot of times these quantitative surveys are written by people with no expertise in media, fiction, or textual analysis, and so they often are asking very basic, not very useful questions. In sum, the data that is the most relied upon is the least informative, least nuanced data. It is also the MOST likely to reflect the responses of people who don’t actually qualify for the research but have become good at scamming the system to make extra money. With qualitative research, they are usually a little more careful screening people (poorly qualified participants still make it through, but not as often as with mass surveys, where I suspect a good 35% of participants, at least, probably do not actually qualify for the research and are just working the system).

Most commonly, when market research gets reported to business decision-makers, it highlights the quantitative data, and uses the qualitative data to simply ‘color in’ the quantitative data. Give it a face, so to speak. Qualitative data is usually supplemental to quant data and used more to make the reports ‘fun’ and ‘warm’ because graphs and charts and stats by themselves are boring to look at in a meeting. (I’m not making this up, I can’t tell you how many times I was told to make adjustments on how things were reported on because they didn’t want to bore people in the meeting). (Sub-point – it is also worth noting that you can’t report on anything that doesn’t fit easily on a power point slide and isn’t easily digestible to any random person who might pick it up and read it. The amount of times I was told to simplify points and dumb things down so it could be made ‘digestible’ for a business audience, I can’t even tell you. It was soul crushing and another reason I stopped doing this job full time. I had to make things VERY dumb for these business audiences, which often meant losing a lot of the point I was actually trying to make) Point 5.1 – Because of the way that representative sampling works, quantitative data can be very misleading, particularly in understanding audience/fandom sentiments about media. As I’m sure most of you know, sampling is typically designed to be representative of the population, broadly speaking. So, unless a media company is specifically out to understand LGBTQ consumers or Hispanic/Latinx consumers, it will typically sample using census data as a template and represent populations that way. Roughly 50/50 male/female. Roughly even numbers in different age brackets, roughly representative samplings of the racial make-up of the country, etc. (FYI, they do often include a non-binary option in the gender category these days, but it usually ends up being like 5 people out of 2000, which is not enough of a sample to get statistical significance for them as a distinct group) There is a good reason to do this, even when a show or movie has a disproportionately female audience, or young audience. Because they need enough sample in all of the “breaks” (gender, race, age, household income, etc.) to be able to make statistically sound statements about each subgroup. If you only have 35 African American people in your sample of 1000, you can’t make any statistically sound statements about that African American cohort. The sample is just too small. So, they force minimums/quotas in a lot of the samples, to ensure they can make statistically sound statements about all the subgroups they care about. They use ratings data to understand what their audience make up actually is. (Which also has major failings, but I’ll leave that alone for the minute) With market research, they are not usually looking to proportionately represent their audience, or their fandom; they are looking to have data they can break in the ways they want to break it and still have statistically significant subgroups represented. But that means that when you report on the data as a whole sample – which you often do – it can be very skewed towards groups who don’t make up as large a portion of the show’s actual audience, or even if they do, they don’t tend to be the most invested, loyal, active fans. Men get weighted equally to women, even when women make up 65% of the audience, and 80% of the active fandom. Granted, they DO break the data by gender, and race, and age, etc. and if there are major differences in how women versus men respond, or younger people versus older people, they want to know that...sometimes. But here’s where things get complex. So, if you are doing a sample of Supernatural viewers. And you do the standard (US census-based) sampling on a group of 2000 respondents (a pretty normal sample size in market research). ~1000 are going to be female. But with something they call “interlocking quotas” the female sample is going to be representative of the other groupings to a degree. So, the female sample will have roughly equal numbers of all the age brackets (13-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc.). And it will have roughly 10% non-heterosexual respondents, and so on. They do this to ensure that these breaks aren’t too conflated with each other. (For example, if your female sample is mostly younger and your male sample is mostly older, how do you know whether it is the gender or the age that is creating differences in their responses? You don’t. So, you have to make sure that all the individual breaks (gender, race, age) have a good mix of the other breaks within them, so groups aren’t getting conflated) But what that means is, Supernatural, whose core fandom is (at a conservative guess) 65% younger, queer, women, gets represented in a lot of statistical market research sampling as maybe 50-100 people, in a 2000-person survey. 50-100 people can barely move the needle on anything in a 2000-person survey. Furthermore, usually in the analysis of data like this, you don’t go beyond looking at 2 breaks simultaneously. So you may look at young female respondents as a group, or high income male respondents, or older white respondents, but you rarely do more than 2 breaks combined. And the reason for that is, by the time you get down to 3 breaks or more (young, Hispanic, women) you usually don’t have enough sample to make statistically significant claims. (It also just takes longer to do those analyses and as I explained in the beginning, they are always rushing this stuff). To do several breaks at a time you’d have to get MUCH larger samples, and that’s too expensive for them. And again, I want to stress, this type of sampling isn’t intended to sinisterly erase anyone. Kind of the opposite. It is intended to make sure most groups have enough representation in the data that you can make sound claims about them on the subgroup level. The problem is that it can create a very skewed sense of their overall audience sentiment when they take the data at ‘face value’ so to speak, and don’t weight segments based on viewership proportion, or fandom engagement, etc. Point 5.2 – Which leads me to my next point, which is that fandom activity that doesn’t have a dollar amount attached to it doesn’t make you a ‘valuable’ segment in their minds. One of the breaks they ALWAYS ask for in data like this is high income people, and people who spend a lot of MONEY on their media consumption. And they do prioritize those people’s responses and data quite a bit. And guess what – young women aren’t usually high-income earners, and although some of them are high spenders on media, high spending on media and media related merch skews toward higher income people just because they HAVE more disposable income. Older white men are usually the highest income earners (absolutely no surprise) and they are more likely in a lot of cases to report spending a lot on the media they care about. Having expendable income makes you more important in the eyes of people doing market research than if you’ve spent every day for the last 10 years blogging excessively about Supernatural. They don’t (really) care about how much you care. They care about how much money you can generate for them. And given that young audiences don’t watch TV live anymore, and they give all their (minimal) expendable income to Netflix and Hulu, you with your Supernatural blog and your 101 essays about Destiel is all but meaningless to many of them (from a business standpoint) Now, some of them kind of understand that online fandom matters to the degree that fandom spreads. Fandom creates fandom. But if the fandom you are helping to create is other young, queer women with minimal income who only watch Supernatural via Netflix, well, that’s of very limited value to them as well. I don’t want to suggest they don’t care about you at ALL. Nor do I want to suggest that the “they” we are talking about is even a cohesive “they.” Different people in the industry have different approaches to thinking about fandom, consumer engagement and strategy, market research and how it ought to be understood/used, and so on. They aren’t a monolith. BUT, they are, at the end of the day, a business trying to make money. And they are never going to place the value of your blogging ahead of the concrete income you can generate for them. (Also, highly related to my point about people lying, men are more likely to SAY they have higher incomes than they do, because it’s an ego thing for them. And women are more likely to downplay how much money they spend on ‘frivolous’ things like fandom because of the social judgement involved. Some of the money gender disparity you see in media market research is real, but some of it is being generated by the gender norms people are falsely enacting in market research– men being breadwinners, women wanting to avoid the stereotype of being frivolous with money) *** In sum/tl;dr: Point 1 – Market research in general is not well conducted because of a variety of constraints including time, money, and the historical norms of how the industry operates (e.g., there being a large subsection of almost professionalized respondents who know how to game the system for the financial incentives) Point 2 – Media is a highly atypical kind of product being studied more or less as if it were equivalent to a coffeemaker or a pair of jeans. Point 3 – Most of the people studying media consumption in the market research field have no expertise or background in media, film, narrative, storytelling, etc. They are primarily people who were trained as social scientists and statisticians, and they aren’t well equipped to research media properties and people’s deeper emotional attachment and meaning-making processes related to media properties. Point 4(etc.) – Average consumers typically don’t have enough self-awareness or the vocabulary to explain the deep, underlying reasons they like pieces of media. Furthermore, when participating in market research, people lie and misrepresent their thoughts, behaviors, and emotional responses for a variety of reasons including social awkwardness and preserving certain self-narratives like “I’m above caring about dumb, low-brow things like romance.” Point 5 (etc.) – Quantitative data is treated as way more meaningful, valuable, and ‘accurate’ than qualitative data, and this is a particular problem with media market research because of how varied and complex people’s reactions to media can be. Also, the nature of statistical sampling, and how it is done, can massively misrepresent audience sentiments toward media and fail to apprehend deeper fandom sentiments and dynamics. There is also a strong bias towards the responses of high income/high spending segments, which tend to be older and male and white. Side but important point – Research reports are written to be as entertaining and digestible as possible, which sounds nice in theory, but in practice it often means you lose much of the substance you are trying to communicate for the sake of not boring people or making them feel stupid/out of their depth. (Because god forbid you make some high-level corporate suit feel stupid) *** What can be done about this? Well, the most primary thing I would recommend is for you to participate in market research, particularly if you are American (there’s a lot of American bias in researching these properties, even when they have large international fanbases). However, some international market research is done and I recommend looking into local resources for participation, where ever you are. If you are American, there are now several market research apps you can download to your smart phone and participate in paid market research through (typically paid via PayPal). Things like dscout and Surveys On the Go. And I know there are more. You should also look into becoming panelists for focus groups, particularly if you live near a large metropolitan area (another bias in market research). Just Google it and you should be able to figure it out fairly easily. Again, it is PAID, and your perspective will carry a lot more weight when it is communicated via a focus group or a dscout project, versus when it is shouted on Twitter. However, that’s merely a Band-Aid on the bigger issue, which I consider to be the fact that businesspeople think the Humanities is garbage, even when they make their living off it. There is virtually no respect for the expertise of fictional textual analysis, or how it could help Hollywood make better content. And I don’t know what the fix is for that. I spent 4 years of my life trying to get these people to understand what the Humanities has to offer them, and I got shouted down and dismissed so many times I stopped banging my head against that wall. I gave up. They don’t listen, mostly because conceding to the value of deep-reading textual analysis as a way to make better content would threaten the whole system of how they do business. And I mean that literally. So many people’s jobs, from the market researchers to the corporate strategists to the marketing departments to the writers/creatives to the C-level executives, would have to radically shift both their thinking and their modes of business operation and the inertia of ‘that’s the way it’s always been done’ is JUST SO POWERFUL. I have no earthly idea how to stop that train, let alone shift it to an entirely different track. BTW, if you want the deeper level of analysis of why I can’t stop rewatching Moneyball now that it’s been added to Netflix, the above paragraph should give you a good hint

#market research #Hollywood #media studies

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i-did · 3 years

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Do you know when the racism and ableism accusations against Nora started? Because back when I was active in 2016/2017 and don't think they were a thing, or were very low-key. Was it something she said or are people just basing it off the things she wrote in the books?

From what I remember, the first time I heard the blanket statement of “Nora is racist/fetishizes gay men” blanket statement was early fall 2019 (which is so ironic for the fandom to say on so many levels lmao). There wasn’t a catalyst or anything, just she went offline 2016 and no new content was coming out and the aftg fandom is such an echo chamber that… an accidental smear campaign happened.

Before then, I would see occasional “Nora used ableist slur” which… is funny (not that ableism isn’t serious) to me people care more about that than Seth saying the f-slur. IMO this is because with Seth, it clearly shows the character thinking it and not the author who is writing about what will be an end game mlm relationship.

But anyways! Long story short, it's the fact that she’s an ace/aro woman who wrote a mlm book, and based off of the events in canon. There is no “Nora called me/someone else a slur” it’s “Nora wrote a book where slur(s) are used” and “the Moriyama’s are Japanese.”

Below I put my own opinion on these claims and go into more detail:

CW for discussions of: racism, ableism, mlm fetishization

Fetishization: (and mentions of sexism at the end)

To one question in the EC about her inspo for aftg she jokingly responded how she wanted to write about gay athletes. On other parts of your blog you could see she was a hockey fan and an overall sports fan (anime or otherwise) but I've seen this statement taken out of context and framed as “she's one of those BOYXBOY” shippers. Considering how… well-developed both Andrew and Neil’s relationship is, and it takes them until like the 3rd book and there is a whole complex ass plot going on around, you can see how that's just. Not really true. And considering the fandom is like… 85% women (queer women but still women) and I've gotten into a discussion with someone who is a woman and called Nora a fetishizer and was ignoring my opinions as a mlm, and I really just wanted to say “well what does that make you?” it's a very ironic high horse. She didn’t write 3 all 3 books to put Neil in lingerie pwp or crop-top fem-fatal fashion show, fandom did.

Also, I talked to an ace/aro friend about this, and she talked to me about how AFTG spoke to her very much so as an ace/aro story. Neil is demisexual, Nora didn’t know of the word at the time of reading it, but she did get an anon asking if Neil was demi after, and she said “had to look it up, and yep, but he doesn't really think about it” (paraphrased). Obviously it would have been cool if andreil were canonly written as wlw by Nora instead, (which would have increased the amount of wlw rep and demi rep) but tbh I don’t think tumblr would have cared about it nearly as much and everyone would just call Neil a cold bitch–like people do with Nora’s other published book with a main character who's a woman. Plus they're her OC’s, not mine.

The fact is that 50% of all LGBT+ rep in literature is mlm, mostly white mlm, and not written by mlm. I’m not going to hold her to a higher standard than everyone else, she already broke a shit ton of barriers in topics she discusses that otherwise get ignored. I’m grateful to these books for existing even if it's a mlm story written by a woman. I still will prioritize reading mlm written by mlm–and vice versa with wlw– in the way I prioritize reading stories about POC written by POC. But credit where credit is due, this is a very good story, and a very good demi story.

Ableism:

To me, AFTG is a story about ableism and how we perceive some trauma survivors more worthy than others. Neil and the foxes using ableist language shows how people actually talk. Neil thinks shitty things about Andrew, like the others do too, and thinks he's “psycho”. The story ultimately deconstructs this idea and these perceptions of people. Wymack, someone who says the r-slur (which is still not known by the general population as a slur even in 2021 much less the early 2000s when the book was beginning to be written and what the timeline is based off of) is a character who understands Andrew better than most of the others do, and gives him the most sympathy and understanding despite using words like the m-slur and r-slur. Using these words isn't good, but it is how people talk, and this character talks. Wymack is a playful “name caller” especially when he’s mad, the foxes think Andrew is “crazy” and incapable of humanity and love because of it. They call his meds “antipsychotics” as an assumption and insult in a derogatory way, when really antipsychotics are a very helpful drug for some people who need them. Even Neil thinks these things about Andrew until he learns to care about him. All the foxes are hypocritical to am extent, as people in real life tend to be. Nora herself doesn’t use these or tweet them or something, her characters do to show aspects of their personality and opinions and how they change over time.

Racism:

As for the racism, I've seen people talk about how racial minorities being antagonists is inherently bad, which I think lacks nuance but overall isn't a harmful statement or belief. However, Nora herself said she wrote in the yakuza instead of another gang or mob because she was inspired for AFTG by sports anime, (which often queer-bait for a variety of reasons). I haven’t seen a textual analysis acknowledging the racist undertones surrounding the Moriyama’s as the few characters of color who are also major antagonists, but instead just “Nora is racist”. Wymack having shitty flame tribal tattoo’s is just… a huge 90’s thing and a part of his character design. Her having a character with bad taste in tattoo trends doesn’t mean she's racist. There is the whole how Nicky is handled thing, but that's a whole thing on it’s own. The fandom… really will write Nicky being all “ai ai muy spicy, jaja imma hit on my white–not annoying like me–boyfriend in Spanish. With my booty hole out and open for him ofc.” and as a Mexican mlm I’m like … damn alright.

I think there is merit to the fact that she writes white as the default* and unless otherwise stated a POC a character was written with the intent to be white is another valid criticism, as well as the fact that the cast is largely white, but everything Nora is accused of I've seen the fandom do worse. That goes to the debate of, is actively writing stereotypes for POC more harmful than no representation at all? And personally I prefer the lack of established race line that lets me ignore Nora’s canon intent of characters to be white and come up with my own HC’s over the fandoms depictions of “zen monk Renee with dark past” “black best friend Matt who got over drugs but is a puppy dog” “ex stripper black Dan who dates Matt” vague tokenism. I HC many of the upperclassmen as POC and do my best to actively give thought behind it and have their own arcs that also avoids the fandom colorism spectrum of “darkest characters we HC go to the back and fandom favorites are in the front and are the lightest.”

*I however won't criticize her harsher or more than… everyone else who still largely does this in fanfiction regarding AFTG as well as literature in general. This isn't a Nora thing, it's a societal thing, and considering the books came out in like 2014 I'm not gonna hold her to a higher standard than the rest of the world. She's just someone who wrote her personal OC’s and self-published expecting no following. I don’t know her race and I’m not gonna hold her to a higher standard than everyone else just because.

The criticisms I've seen have always been… ironic IMO, and clearly I have a lot of thoughts on it. I think most people say those things about Nora because they heard them, and it's the woke thing to say and do and don’t critically analyze their actions or anything, but just accept them.

#ask #aftg discorse #fandom culture #fandom politics #fandom psychology #mailob #damn cant wait for my words to be twisted lmao #sorry the ableism one is the shortest I wrote that one first actually

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mgsapphire · 3 years

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Ethics and morality... and how they're not the same...

Weird title, and I don't even know if I'll properly approach this one with all the topics I wish to this discuss in today's The Devil Judge essay, because a lot of things peaked my interest, I was debating on doing a separate post for each subject, but I'll do them all in here:

Starting simple

I know we're only 4 episodes in, but I want to break down the things that I often look for in a new show:

Cinematography

Soundtrack

Character building

Plot devices

Social commentary (sometimes)

Of course, these are things most people would consider basics, but I find that a lot of TV shows don't have enough balance in them. Also, cinematography and soundtrack are pretty up there for me because when a plot gets slow, or something like that, I stay for those two (biggest example: King Eternal Monarch).

The soundtrack in The Devil Judge is amazing and the cinematography can be a character of its own. They really get me hooked and are used as tools to properly tell a story. And I'll get into that further down this post.

The onlooker will never understand the actor

Experience is your best friend not only applies to job hunting, but it's true in the real world too. You can't truly weigh in on something unless you've experienced it yourself, you can give it your judgment and everything, but when bad things happen to someone, you'll never truly understand their pain. Am I bringing up because of the difference of mind in Judge Kang and Judge Kim's opinions? On how the public treated the minister's son? No. I'm talking about a very specific scene, where the cinematography told me to think that way and not the dialogue (it's that easy for my mind to be swayed). In episode 3, when the rich are about to dine right after the foundation's commercial for a better future, we see this aerial shot:

What's interesting about this? The seclusion and the enclosed feeling it conveys as a counterpart to the poverty shots we were just shown. Yet, these are the people making ads for a better future, what do they know?

They live comfortably behind concrete walls with no windows to see what goes on apart from the bubble they live in. This idea is further enforced at the party in episode 4, where they're not even a part of the donations, and watch and mock from afar as spectators. Yet, these people call the shots. They even call it commenting, as if they were watching the pain of others on TV.

The intriguing personality and the duality it encites

Now, this was a costume and wardrobe decision, but it was also very well thought of:

Judge Kim wears white and Judge Kang wears black. One is morally perceived by viewers of the show as morally good and the other is perceived as morally dubious at best. However, besides the costume and wardrobe thought put into this, we also have to think about the delivery of this scene and how it may further affect my detailing of this section. Judge Kang brings down the coats, and hangs over the coat to Judge Kim, he's the one who is making that annotation: You're pure, I'm tainted. This can have one of two interpretations:

Either Judge Kang believes Judge Kim to be pure and innocent due to his status as a rookie in the field

Or he believes Judge Kim to be morally white and himself morally black as he's looking at his brother's face and not at Judge Kim's heart.

Because most of the back story we're unveiling is through Judge Kim's perception, there's also an inherit bias we're having as well, because in Judge Kim narrative, he believes he's doing what's right and believes Judge Kang to be evil. In being served information about Judge Kang through Judge Kim's eyes, our bias is inherently skewed.

Another thing is that, when they put on the coat, they're standing in front of the other, as if the producers of this series are telling us they're two sides of the same coin.

The duality is made in more deceitful ways, which include:

A difference of classes that implies one has suffered while the other has not.

A difference of experience that implies one is more tainted while the other is pure.

A difference of age that implies one is a sly fox while the other one is is bunny about to be eaten.

A difference of temper that makes one erratic and the other logical.

Power dynamics

This one, in this one I could make a whole thesis based on just a couple of scenes in the drama. And you know I have to mention it: director Jung being the puppeteer.

It may not be as unexpected at first, nevertheless it brings forward a lot of things I've wished to touch upon for quite some time now. A woman being a puppeteer of an old man in the portrayed dystopia that The Devil Judge is painting makes much more sense than more common demonstrations of these dynamics where it's either a:

A man of power being controlled by a bigger man of power.

A man of power being controlled by a seemingly man of a lower status.

A woman being controlled by a man of power.

Although, there's nothing wrong with those power dynamics, and if they were to be used, a message could also be conveyed, this one in particular works as a megaphone.

A subversion of power in such a way can be interpreted as a true indication of the weak overcoming the powerful. Why? It is not that woman are naturally weaker than men, but that in society, patriarchy has been a big factor in taking voice away from women in order to give it to men.

In order for Director Jung to achieve her purposes, it's smarter for her to do it under the pretense that an old rich man in power is the one calling the shots.

This is better exemplified by her stance when the old man tries to excuse his behavior, and what her moral compass is. I'm not saying I agree with her unethical conduct, but that her morality is directly impacted by the perception of the public of her as a weak woman:

Just because a dog bites a human does the person get dirty?

This is telling on how she perceives the actions of the old man in gropping the waitress. She didn't do anything wrong, even if you touched her, you are the dirty one.

While she's evil, it's a refreshing and deep evil.

The public's opinion and how there's actually logic in the show's portrayal

The public opinion can make or break a person, even if it's not on a public trial like this. While "cancel culture" barely works in today's society, a person's reputation is forever tainted. The show does tell that, but it also exhibits the scary downside of it, by showing how easily it was to make people accept flaggelation as a fitting punishment.

There are many experiments that have tried to test the effect of societal pressure on an individual's decision and the effect of the authority's enforcement of power in the outcome of these decisions. Furthermore, theories based on analysis of human behavior not necessarily relying on experiments can also help break this down. What do I mean? Here's a small attempt at explaining:

Milgram Experiment on Authority: which measured the individual willingness to carry out actions that go against their conscience due to an authority's approval.

Argument from Authority; The idea that people are more likely to use an authority's opinion on something as an argument for their reason. This is often seen in science, where trusted authorities have done the research and offer it to the public. In here, authority bias also plays a role, as we often believe, at first, that an authority must be right.

Moral disengagement: basically speaking, because this is evil or bad, I'm not part of it and I most probably am not actively participating in it. One may disengage by moral justification, which means that before engaging in something that has been previously perceived as immoral, I'm changing my stance on it based on what I tell myself to be logical arguments. This particular form of moral disengagement is very effective in changing the public opinion. I'll be touching on another form further down this post.

Other factors played a part, but these ones in particular came to mind when public flagelation as a form of corporeal punishment was wildly accepted. First, an authority is the one telling them it's correct, to go ahead. Secondly, another authority (the minister) had previously shown approval to such unusual punishment. Thirdly, they are not the ones to be engaging directly in the act, and even if they were, it would be acceptable because an authority has told them so. They may even believe the punishment to be a necessary evil for the greater good.

In fact, the minister's son was actually correct when pleading his case, they were accepting it because it wouldn't affect them directly.

Regarding the cinematographic descent of the public opinion regarding the situation can better be exemplified by the old man we've seen through the episodes.

Does suffering justify misdeeds?

Today I came along the difference between excuse and reason. You may give a reason for your behavior, but it doesn't excuse it.

Not because I've suffered through shit, means I have to make you suffer too.

I may explain myself, but it's on the other side to excuse me.

Why I hate the unreliable narrator and why I love it so much

This story has been told mostly through the eyes of Judge Kim and what he hears and sees regarding Judge Kang, if anything, the narrative is very close to that of the narrative we've seen in The Great Gatsby. An enigmatic man is being narrated to us from the eye of a man who hasn't known him for a long time.

How is that an unreliable narrator? The narrator has their own set of bias and moral standards which function as lenses through which they see the world.

Another way of putting it would be the way teenage romances are often written in a first person narrative where either of the two teenagers is the narrator, so the author can sell to us something as simple as offering a pack of gum as the most romantic act on earth. We're perceiving interactions through rose tainted glasses.

In this case, we're seeing the interactions through Judge Kim's eyes who doesn't trust Judge Kang from the get go due to his own preset bias.

The narrative becomes even more unreliable as we're not exactly sure if what Judge Kang disclosed himself is a fact.

The reason why I love this narrative is because it leaves a lot of space to make simple plot twists to a narrative and make them seem grand, and can elongate a story without making it obvious.

The reason why I hate it is because sometimes, in tv shows mostly, we as viewers can see the other side of the story and grow increasingly frustrated with the main character's prejudice and misunderstandings (I'm looking at you my beloved Beyond Evil).

Also, because I have to wait for a long time before I actually have a clear picture of it.

#kdrama #kdramas #kdrama recommendations #analysis #rant #the devil judge #got7 #park jinyoung #ji sung #kdrama meta #kdrama quotes #kdrama analysis #meta #the great gatsby #kim min jung #please dont let this flop

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mostly-mundane-atla · 4 years

Note

I enjoy learning from your blog sm—ty for all you share. Especially since I’ve found there’s very few sources. Sry if you’ve talked about this before, but if you’re still open to answering questions I was wondering what the culture surrounding lgbt+ identities? You talked a bit about gender roles and co-husbands, but is homophobia still prevalent? (Would it be less so in-universe versus a modern au?) Also, if you’re willing to share any terminology (whether two-spirit is used?) used?

Alright, here's where things get a little tricky.

It's hard to really talk about queerness in other cultures because the idea that sexuality and attraction is an inherent part of your identity is not in any way universal. This is where you get a lot of people claiming certain historians and anthropologists are homophobic (and that's not to say some of them aren't but people tend to make really harsh assumptions without reading into what's actually being said) for saying that x or y doesn't mean this person was gay as we understand it. In a lot of cultures, the people you persue personal relationships with isn't a part of who you are, just something you do. So a man who prefered the companionship of other men, say in medieval England, would likely still marry a woman and have children to help him with work as he ages and take care of him when he's old. Does that mean he couldn't have a loving relationship with his wife, just because she wasn't a man and he wasn't attracted to her? No. Is it wrong if he wouldn't consider this not being himself, because he grew up in a world where attraction and sexuality is what you do rather than who you are? I can't really answer that.

And so you take this idea that romantic relationships are something you do rather than an ingrained part of your identity, and you add to that this concept practically unheard of nowadays that romance really isn't important. That doesn't mean that people never had romantic feelings or acted on them, just that this idea of courtly love, that being in love makes you a better person and thus is inherently righteous, was never a part of the culture. You got together with someone because you weren't related and they were someone you didn't mind surviving and having kids with, not strictly because you were in love with them. And then, unlike medieval England, sex was not something to be considered shameful or sinful, and definitely didn't have to be exclusive between spouses.

There was a bit off accidental accuracy in Kya saying that sort of thing isn't talked about in the comics. You wouldn't hear stories about a romantic love between two men or two women, but you also wouldn't really hear about romantic love between a woman and a man; not unless that was your parents' or grandparents' experience and they shared that with you. The important loves are considered to be between family members. You'll notice in Inuit stories a lot that if a girl is kidnapped and force into a marriage, it's her brother who rescues her, not her sweetheart.

I'm sure there would be some prejudiced people, because let's face it, you can't please them all. But I think the main reason you wouldn't see many gay couples as we understand them to be would have more to do with needing children without access to artificial insemination, as well as very different and comparatively irreverent attitudes toward sex and romance. (In fact, I'm reminded of a story this elder woman shared when my class went to learn a bit about Native cultures back in elementary school. She and her friend left their village and started living among white people. They were still learning English and these two white men, friends themselves, were friendly with them and helped them out, not just that first day, but over the course of, I wanna say some months? Anyway, one of them proposed to the lady telling us this story and the other to her friend. The men had fallen in love and already considered themselves in romantic relationships with these women. The women got a good laugh out of this because they hadn't realized that being so personal and familiar and generally happy to be around someone could be interpreted as romantic interest. Their response to these guys was basically "sure, why not" because romantic feelings or no, they genuinely enjoyed their company.)

If we wanna talk gender, the cultural understanding there is a little different there too. Sipiniq is Inuktittut for "baby that changed its sex at birth" which, as far as I understand, has been used for both intersex and trans people. I can't find anything on the way they specifically were seen by the community, let alone regional specifics but to speak on gender as a whole the cultures are interesting for a few reasons. Inupiat names and third person pronouns aren't gendered. You are named after a person to carry on their soul, and this person is not guaranteed to be your gender. So if you're afab, no one is calling you "she" as opposed to "he" because that's not how the language works and a few people might actually call you "grandpa" or "uncle" because that's who you were named after and that's whose soul is kept in your body. You might be seen as having the body of a man or woman, and the limitations that come with it, but that which makes you yourself is not a gendered thing. King Islanders even had a Messenger Feast tradition where women would dress as men and men would dress as women. They had masks for it and everything.

Queerness is such a nebulous thing and so often we approach it with such a limited understanding, insisting ours is the only right way to treat it. Sometimes the answer to "well were they gay/trans?" can only be "it's complicated" and we all have to be more okay with that. Not every culture has the same concept of or places the same importance on sexuality, romance, or gender.

#eskimo on main #response #that elder's story is legit in case anyone doubts it #it sounds like a 1950s musical movie but it actually happened

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barricadebops · 3 years

Text

And He Falls With a Smile

Summary: In 1823 Feuilly arrives in Paris. In 1824 a man in a daring red waistcoat invites him to a student organization where despite his orphan status, Feuilly gains a family in the throes of rebellion and revolution. Read on AO3 here.

1823

In many ways, Paris is quite unlike the south. The city bustles with more people than Feuilly had ever seen in Aigues-Mortes. He will likely have to take a while to become accustomed to the constant crowds in the streets, the way everyone seems a stranger to each other.

However, to his due consideration, Paris is also in many ways quite akin to the south.

The language of French rolls easy off his tongue like the rhythms of Provençal and Polish, and casts no doubt on his employability when it comes to dealing with coworkers at the fan-making atelier. The streets are still lined with the poor who cry out for help, for just one sou while the haughty bourgeois stroll past leisurely, and there are still women thrown on the ground—prostitutes from destitution, children begging for alms instead of attending school, and there is so much misery that surrounds him when he steps foot in the city, and the orphan boy thinks that there has not been much significant change here, that he will work here until he dies never having known a true family.

Feuilly’s only family has been the concepts of France, Poland, Greece, Hungary, Romania, Italy—simply put, the rest of the world, the people of the rest of the world.

So, Feuilly resolves that he shall adopt the people of Paris too.

________________________________________________________________

1824

He meets a man by the name of Bahorel, down by the schools of law.

Three francs does not buy a man much. It hardly puts bread on the table. It certainly does not provide for better clothes than what Feuilly dons everyday. And only in his scarcely selfish dreams, do three francs provide him with a place at the universities of Paris, where every bit of knowledge is put within his reach with thought only of reading and reading and reading until his brain tires and he nods off to sleep, blissful in the knowledge that he will not have to rush awake the next morning to catch work.

But three francs does not lend him that reality. Three francs only lets him gaze wistfully outside the buildings and think of a life where he could read better, where he could write better, where he wouldn’t have to waste away toiling at the fan-making atelier—where others would not have to toil away—others who are younger, who are needy, who should be going to school. People from France, from Poland, from Greece and Hungary and Romania and Italy. People from around the world who deserve better than to have their inherent right to an opportunity, an education, a leap at life—taken away from them.

L'École de droit de Paris is teeming with young men, all affluently dressed, all hailing from wealthy families—men who care not for why lawyers are so prudent, why law needs to be so heavily examined. It is filled with men who walk without casting a glance at Lady Themis, their patron, who stands disappointed—though she may be blindfolded—knowing that her supposed guardians do nothing to bring about justice, to bring about her divine right. It is filled with bourgeois young men with haughty airs, fake smiles, and cold graces.

L'École de droit de Paris teems with such young men when classes are let out. For now, Feuilly can enjoy its tranquility, its academic aura without the glances thrown his way. Peasant worker.

So no one can really seek to blame him for the irritation that rises within him when he feels a man crash into his side, throwing him off balance and sending him sprawling onto the hard cobblestones of the campus.

"Are you quite alright?"

Feuilly has the strong urge to snap at the hooligan present above him now that he was not alright at all, not since he disturbed some of the only moments he is allowed to breathe free with his rough tumbling.

But he stops short. Something about the man's smile—though he must admit, it seems rather rude to smile in a situation like this—halts the words on his tongue.

The man, or well rather a boy since he looks like he cannot be much older than him—is smiling brashly, unabashed in his humour. Though he wears the red coat of a man bound to be wealthy, there is a certain quality in the way he holds out his hand to Feuilly, without disgust, without turning his nose up at him, without thinking that he is a great saint for doing so, that makes Feuilly think that he cannot possibly be of the bourgeois, and without thinking, Feuilly takes the proffered hand and rises his feet. As he regains his footing, the man nearly sends him back down by delivering a mighty clap on his back.

"My sincerest apologies, my good fellow. Here you were, wasting away your time like a respectable gentleman should be doing, when I so rudely crashed into you. But I do believe this is a fortunate coincidence! To meet another sensible individual—it is not everyday you have the great opportunity to meet another idler—they seem rather scarce in this dull profession. I do know of just one other, but unfortunately Bossuet is forced to remain in Blondeau's class—what amusement! Imagine Blondeau really considering that being kicked out of his class is a punishment! I fret for poor Bossuet who shall come out having truly come into possession of knowledge on property law. Just imagine!"

Much as Feuilly may have tried if he really did want to, he could not imagine, considering he was not actually a student of law, not to mention that he had absolutely no clue who this Bossuet was.

"But—" the man continues on, and Feuilly vaguely realizes that at this point he should make haste to mention that he is not actually a student of l' ècole and that he really should be heading back to the atelier, but the man barrels on, "say, I have not seen you in any class before. You certainly must be younger than I, for there can be no other way to explain it."

Feuilly flushes. How could this man seriously still go on believing that he was a student here when he saw the way he dressed and held himself?

Clearing his throat, he shook his head and clarified, "You're mistaken, Monsieur. I am not a student of the school."

The man's eyebrows furrow for a moment before his smile returns with massive force. "And I thought you could not possibly get better!" Feuilly's gaze darts up curiously. "How fortunate indeed!"

At this, Feuilly's mind staggers a little, and he bristles at the way the man's words rub on him. Did he think it was fortunate that a poor man like him could not afford an education, a right all deserve? Did he think it was fortunate that children lacked the opportunity to acquire knowledge because of the situations they were born into?

This man had to be of the haughty bourgeois, there was no doubt about it. His bold, rather daring waistcoat definitely spoke a testament to the statement.

There was work to be done at the atelier, there were fans to be made, money to be earned, another day to be lived. Feuilly needed to head back and throw this man out of the recesses of his mind, for he did not have any space freed up there either.

And yet—

And yet, Feuilly finds that this man is so incredibly wrong to have said what it is he said, and, well, someone must correct him one way or another—

"Forgive me, Monsieur," he says stiffly, "but I see absolutely no reason as to why this is a good thing. Do you really laugh at the thought of an orphan being unable to find the money to pursue an education?"

For the first time in their spontaneous conversation, the man's face is thrown off guard.

"Pardonnez-moi ?" His brows wrinkle before he bursts out with a hearty laugh. "Oh no! My dear fellow you have it all wrong!" The man grins and for a split moment Feuilly is sure he is the slightest bit mad. "I—of all people! I could never make fun of the peasants—my own parents are peasants, mon ami, it is why they have common sense."

There is something in this man's bold words that has even Feuilly amused enough to crack a smile. Perhaps he had simply misjudged him; though he would likely never understand Feuilly on the full on accounts of actually still having parents that evidently did love their son, the man hailed from a peasant background, so of all things, he was definitely not stuffy like the rest of his new-class, though the daring red coat did write him into Feuilly's books as just the slightest bit reckless—such was the effect of the colour red clothed on such a brash man.

He lets out a resigned sigh; at this point he absolutely has to get back to the factory if he wants to clock in on time. But the man is still grinning at him, and Feuilly cannot help but feel the urge to stay.

"Your words undoubtedly ring true, and it speaks a testament to the kind of life you have been made to lead." All at once, his face turned serious. "We need more men like you at our meetings—come join us, I beg of you."

Meetings? What sort of meetings could this man have been talking about?

Unless…

Feuilly was not illiterate. He had caught whisperings of secret Jacobin societies, groups that hid themselves away from the gaze of the King as they would secretly plot rebellion. A man of the people, the true common man, Feuilly too had been eager to join these groups—but where was the time? He hardly had any time to go back to the pathetic little apartment he had managed to scrounge up money for, how could he find himself time to attend Republican meetings?

At the atelier, the clock was surely ticking away, bringing Feuilly closer every minute to being late heading back to work. "I'm sorry," he turns away and makes to head off. "I find myself unable to join, unfortunately, at the moment."

There is an elbow at the crook of his arm easing him around. "I urge you to reconsider, Monsieur. There is always room for new recruits, and I assure you that your input will always be valued." He opened his mouth to argue when the man put up a hand to stop him. "Your time needn't be an issue—we are all but students, we will uphold your responsibilities if need be. But your word—your word will be no doubt incredibly valuable. Please think of it."

Feuilly hesitates; in the sky, the sun burned bright in indication of a rapidly approaching afternoon. "And what do you call yourselves?"

The man's eyes twinkled. "Les Amis de l 'ABC," he replies rather cheekily.

Les Amis de l'ABC? Somewhere, the name strikes at Feuilly's core. The Friends of the ABC. Surely an educational group—that was something he could support—and something he could personally understand, too.

"And what is it exactly that your group does, Monsieur?"

"Well, in name, we are dedicated to the education of children." (L'ABC). The man's smile turns a little sharp as he lowers his voice. "In reality, we… Well, I suppose you would have to come see yourself, would you not? Though I suppose if you ponder our name long enough, you should figure out anyways.”

ABC…

Abaisse.

Les Amis de l’ABC — Les Amis de l'abaisse.

The Friends of the ABC—the Friends of the abased.

A rather clever name, if he had to be quite honest. So it was as Feuilly suspected.

“And who exactly makes up your group?” he asks, attempting to keep up his inquisitive tone even as he moves to clasp the man’s hand.

The man laughs. “Well, if—when we succeed, I imagine we shall become a group that will belong to some measure of history, though that’s not why do what we do.”

“Succeed?”

“Yes! I have no doubts that we shall do exactly that. The question is, Monsieur, will you be there with us when we do so?”

There is no reason to say yes; in fact, there is every reason to say no. The minutes are still ticking by and the factory foreman is not a forgiving man, especially not towards orphans who need the job more than he needs the orphan, and there was never any time to join such organizations, and so many of them are run by bourgeois boys who did not know what they spoke of, never truly knew what it was their goals should be, why would they accept Feuilly among their ranks—

And yet, there is just something about this man, something about the aura he exudes, something brash and reckless but accepting, even if his words do not always come off that way, that makes him hesitate from immediately flatly refusing and turning to get on with his day, something about the unspoken promise held in his words, something about the name—the Friends of the Abased.

He heaves a breath and looks up at the sky; it’s approach towards afternoon and the way campus seems to hold its breath, ready to release when the professors adjourn their classes signals his inevitable tardiness at work.

He glances at the sparkle glinting in the man’s eyes—there is an entire future, a lifetime held within the promise of the society that the man informs him of that Feuilly is yet unaware of.

“Well where is it that you meet?”

With a mighty thump on his back, the man slings an arm around his shoulders, using his arm to point his finger towards the horizon in the direction of the north-east. “Follow the streets until they take you towards the Café Musain at Place Saint-Michel, near six tonight. Ask a patron to lead you towards the backroom—a male, however, for we do not allow women to enter—with the exception of dear Louison, that is—surely you can understand the delicate nature of women, my own mistress would tremble at the talk of rebellion and she is one to laugh at about anything I should think to say—and surely you shall see me there. And if I should be late—for it is not unheard of that I should be out late talking to others of the same cause—tell them you were asked to join by Bahorel.”

Feuilly swallows. Seemed rather a large commitment he was signing onto before even truly attending one of these meetings.

“I shall ensure my best efforts to attend one of your meetings then, Monsieur Bahorel,” he says at last.

“And we shall ensure our best efforts to work towards that future in which orphans are allowed to pursue the education they seek.” The man—Bahorel—tips his hat. “Now you must pardon me, Monsieur—”

“Feuilly,” he interrupts. Bahorel inclines his head in sign of having listened.

“—Feuilly,” he says, “but the afternoon approaches and classes will soon be adjourned for the rest of the day, and I must deploy myself to the mighty task of finding Bossuet and listening to his new complaint no doubt against Blondeau, and then head off with him to find young Enjolras and de Courfeyrac too, for though the former may be able to sway a crowd with his words, especially with his second-in-command by his side, those two cannot hope to find their way through the university streets and—”

“Thank you, Monsieur Bahorel, I shall hope to see you then, tonight," he interrupts, only the slightest bit ashamed for having done so; he really does need to be on his way.

If Bahorel takes offense to his interruption, he makes no sign of it; rather, he clasps his hand, and says, “Thank you, Monsieur Feuilly. Your presence will be greatly appreciated. No doubt everyone will be pleased. I look forward to seeing you sit amongst us.

Feuilly tips the ragged hat he has on his head in response.

This is how it begins.

________________________________________________________________

1825

It is ten at night, a most indecent time for respectable men to still be outside, and yet Feuilly can see no sign of Enjolras tiring while he listens with bright eyes to what Feuilly has to say on the subject of the partitioning of Poland.

It was indeed a topic of great rage and indignation for Feuilly, that date of 1772. How was it that a monarchy, a tyranny, had the right to strip a people of their identity? Of their nationality? He exclaimed as much to Enjolras, who watched on with awe.

"But how can they have the right? To tell a people that they no longer have the ability to climb atop their tables and exclaim 'I am Polish! Here I stand free in my country of Poland! ?" Running a hand through his fiery hair, he fumed just as he thought about it. "The audacity!"

At the table, Enjolras scoots closer, looks up at him with wide eyes. “Indeed. Tell me more of it.”

He glances at him, and, briefly, he allows himself to ponder the person sitting in front of him. Feuilly hesitates to call him a boy, though, at nineteen years, that is exactly what he is.

It is simply that, despite his excessively youthful face, there was something in Enjolras' eyes that gave him the feeling that the boy had already lived for hundreds of years, made him feel as if he were seated in front a man who had already, in some previous existence, traversed the many revolutions of the past.

And yet—

And yet, despite that, not having gone unnoticed by any of those few members who attended the meetings, it is Feuilly who Enjolras evidently idolizes—reveres, even.

And it is a fact that Feuilly cannot fully comprehend; of all the people Enjolras is surrounded by, all the people he has to idolize—Combeferre or Joly or even Bahorel—he sees first and foremost Feuilly, a poor orphan who struggles to read when Enjolras himself could make his way through the thickest of volumes with ease.

Feuilly does not think less of himself for his background, but how often can a man go on surrounded by people who excelled in a variety of skills than he could only ever hope to gain without feeling the occasional pang of self doubt?

He allows himself a smile. “But I thought you had already read about this, Enjolras? Combeferre tells me the matter is one that incenses you quite the bit—rightfully, might I add.”

He thinks of how strange it is—at the atelier, no one gave second thought to anything Feuilly had to say, so he never really thought to say anything anymore to his coworkers or his foreman who he knew would either ignore him or dismiss him straight away.

But Enjolras listens. He listens to the words of a poor orphan boy, and despite his upbringing by his parents that likely taught him not to pay heed to the words of a man like Feuilly, he instead leans forward, always leans forward at every meeting whenever Feuilly raises his voice to contribute, and he listens breathlessly and nods and says But of course, and Yes you’re right, and But if you could please tell us more, we need more of what you have to say.

Enjolras nods vigorously. “Yes, of course, the stripping of the autonomy of any nation is an injustice—it is simply that hearing you speak of it is all the more informing.”

Feuilly quirks an eyebrow at him. “And why would that be?”

“Because you are all the more knowledgeable of this, of course.”

He huffs a laugh. “It was not as if I was there when they put down the first partition. I am hardly an eye-witness, nor would I say more knowledgeable than you.”

In front of him, Enjolras reaches a hand to grasp at Feuilly’s. “But you are! For as well as I understand it, I could never truly know what kind of an effect such a monstrous event could have on the common man. But you, Feuilly, you know so well, for you have endured far worse than I have, you are a much better man than I am, surely you must know you have my eternal respect—”

As he blushes, Feuilly briefly thinks of scolding Enjolras for proclaiming Feuilly better than himself only on the grounds that he was born in a different circumstance.

He squeezes Enjolras’ hand back. “Do not declare yourself a lesser man than me, Enjolras. Over this past year you have demonstrated the fact that those of the upper class can still have compassion and the skill to identify injustice, and you have made me feel all the more welcome amongst your ranks.”

Enjolras smiles. “Les Amis de l’ABC would not be what we are without your inclusion, my friend. It is for people like you that we fight, it would hardly be a cause if we did not have your voice present with us. The gratitude should be coming from me to you for trusting us, for joining us. You make us who we are Feuilly.”

And Feuilly is just the slightest bit blown away by Enjolras’ words, for while he knew Enjolras held a special sort of respect for him, he had never imagined that his reverence shaped up like this.

“Will you tell me more about Poland?”

He glances down at Enjolras, who stares up with hopeful eyes, and he smiles.

“But of course.”

________________________________________________________________

1826

It is not unheard of that Jehan Prouvaire should be sitting quietly in his corner after meetings, staring dreamily at his paper as if he could see entire meadows and forests scrawled on it rather than the lushious words he pens to create his poetry.

“The stars are not out and yet you gaze at your paper as if you can already see the constellations they form,” he says as he lowers himself into the chair next to Prouvaire, having been beckoned over.

Prouvaire blushes and smiles softly. “Every constellation has a story tied to it, and poetry seeks to do much the same. Poetry is how our ancestors spoke of their tales around the fire.”

“Is that what you will be writing about today? The stars?”

Prouvaire hums and shakes his head. “No. I think I should like to write in Polish today.”

Jerking slightly, Feuilly looks at him, confused. “Write in Polish?”

He nods. “Yes. I think of it often, you know, and I feel it’s an injustice, the way the Polish identity has been stolen from the people, almost as if their right to thought has been taken. I figured, would it not be prudent, then, of me to write a poem in Polish, and reaffirm their status?”

Nodding vigorously, Feuilly agrees, “Yes, of course. Your words hold the utmost merit, and I’m glad to see you acknowledge this through your words. I can think of no better way for you to express your thoughts about this than through your sacred form of writing.”

He props his chin on his hand and leans forward. “Yes, but I seem to encounter a problem in that I do not know how to speak Polish. My friend, I only have one favour to ask of you: will you help me construct this poem?”

Feuilly blinks. Of all the honours he could have been bestowed with… For Prouvaire, reading and writing poetry was one of the very fundamental things that kept people humble. To connect to nature, to hear of stories past—it is what both allows humans to soar amongst the beauty present in the world, yet keep them humbled and grounded to work on what needed to be improved. For Prouvaire, poetry is his form of worship, his devotion to the miracles of the world before him, present in front of him, and the one yet to come.

“You would choose to ask… me, to help you?” he asks, bewildered at the thought of him sharing something so close to his heart, to his spirit.

There is a sort of sparkle in Prouvaire’s eyes, a look he reserves for when he gazes at wildflowers and oats growing in meadows, or for when he hears the nightingale sing—a look so impossibly soft that he can use it only when he finds himself looking upon a being he believes deserves to be showered upon with love and written about with the utmost tenderness—and it is present in his eyes when he gently places his hand atop Feuilly’s and says with the utmost solemnity, “My friend, I could think of no one else who I would trust more for such a matter.”

Feuilly is rendered speechless. Both with the love he feels for his friend, and by the astonishment at the trust his friend shows in him.

Feuilly hopes the world will see Prouvaire's soft verses and name him with the likes of Keats, whom he idolizes.

Jehan hopes that one day the world will read his poem—the one he writes now, that tells the story of a common fan-maker who spoke Polish and still strived to see the possibilities of the entire world despite the world never having strived to see the possibility in him—and understands the adoration that he and the rest of his friends had for a man who was made up of a thousand different nations and came from a thousand different stories and had with him a thousand different plans for the future.

________________________________________________________________

1827

The sky is dark and Feuilly’s perception of time has been skewed by the long, insufferable hours spent at the atelier crafting fans while harbouring a most dreadful headache.

He does not see that the clock has struck much past seven, much past eight, now half an hour after nine, and that his foreman kept him detained much longer than he realizes, taking advantage of the evident illness that has Feuilly dazed and unaware. With much effort, he pushes the door to the café open and stumbles towards the backroom where he expects his friends will be.

Upon reaching the backroom, he leans a hand against the frame and struggles to comprehend the image of an empty room, one where the meeting has clearly adjourned.

Well, mostly empty.

“Feuilly?” At his side, Combeferre reaches a hand to place on his shoulder, a steadying presence among the rushing winds that seem to have found their way into the café. “Are you quite alright?”

He coughs—once—twice—three times into his fist. “Well I do find myself in a bit of confusion,” he admits as Combeferre gently takes him by the crook of his elbow and seats him at a table. “Has the meeting for today been cancelled? I would not have imagined that everyone would be busy all at the same time.”

Combeferre tilts his head and looks at him peculiarly. “The meeting?” He frowns. “My friend, are you well? The meeting ended about an hour and a half ago.”

Furrowing his eyebrows, he coughs twice more as he shakes his head and says, “No, that cannot be. Surely it cannot be so late. I had only just seen the clock, look, there, it says…” he trails off as his eyes fall upon the small hand halfway towards its path to the painted ten, then glances back at Combeferre sheepishly. Clearing his throat, a rather painful task to do considering just how raw it feels, he manages to scrape out the words, “It appears I have missed the meeting. I apologize, I did not realize just how late it had become.”

Combeferre smiles sympathetically. “Evidently. Your presence was greatly missed at the meeting, Enjolras looked rather down about it, but nonetheless we understood, though we thought it was simply because you were working.

Burying his head in his hands, he croaks, “I was supposed to be working regular time. I don't know how I didn't realize the foreman had me working late without informing me of it.” At this, Combeferre’s eyes darken a shade.

“You cannot let this go unprotested, Feuilly,” he says, the slightest bit angry, though Feuilly knows it is not anger directed towards him. “Your foreman has no right to do so; we will go back tomorrow and demand he pay you what you deserve for working the extra hours you did.”

Raising his head, Feuilly looks up, a little surprised at Combeferre. “It will not work, Combeferre, for all that I would like it to. The foreman has plenty of people available to replace me should I start to fuss. Though it is wrong, you must know that he has the power to keep me longer without paying.”

Combeferre runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “However much power he holds, he cannot go against the principle of the matter and expect no retaliation. It is settled; we will go and speak to your foreman.” When Feuilly opens his mouth to speak, Combeferre holds his hand up and halts the words on his tongue. Silently, he reaches forward and gingerly places the back of his hand on Feuilly’s forehead, tutting at the heat that comes away. “Tell me how you feel,” he commands.

Feuilly frowns. “It is really not that much of a concern, my friend—”

“Feuilly,” Combeferre pinches the bridge of his nose before looking up at him again, “in about a years time I shall begin my internship at l’Hôpital Necker; as of right now, I have enough medical knowledge—well, really, anyone has enough medical knowledge—to diagnose you with the fact that you have caught a cold—no doubt from the rainy season we have all found ourselves trapped in—and while it is nothing serious, it can become something of a concern if you do not rest and allow me to take care of you.”

Feuilly looks away. “While I do not doubt your knowledge, Combeferre, you needn’t bother yourself with—”

“What is more so a bother, Feuilly,” Combeferre interrupts him once more, and does not even look the slightest bit embarrassed for doing so, “is when one of my friends fall ill, and instead of taking the time they need to get better, they only continue to work until it is worse and their recovery becomes all the more difficult.” He watches as Combeferre rises from his seat, holding out his hand when he says, “So, for my own convenience, if you believe—unjustly, may I add—that your own convenience is not worth it, please come back with me to my apartment so that we can have you back on your feet in mere matter of days rather than weeks.”

As Feuilly allows himself to be hauled up, his arm slung around Combeferre’s shoulders, for he does not believe he has the strength in him to stand a single second more on his own—he marvels at what it is he must have done that warrants fate to provide him with friends who care for him like a mother or father would their own child, though Feuilly is not well acquainted with the feeling.

________________________________________________________________

1828

Even before he feels Courfeyrac’s hand clap down on his shoulder, Feuilly can feel Courfeyrac approaching—because that is simply the kind of person he is; his aura is boisterous and bubbly, a loud that made you grin rather than cringe away.

“My friend!” Courfeyrac exclaims. “My friend, my friend, my very good friend!”

Feuilly smiles as he knows what is inevitably going to come up. “As much as you may ask, Courfeyrac, I simply do not have the time to stand out in the middle of the street only so you can ‘save’ me in front of that Genevieve girl you have recently taken a fancy to.”

Courfeyrac looks taken aback for a moment before he begins to laugh. “No, no, I was not speaking of that. Besides, I have most recently been made to come to sense that I do not need anyone to play the part of a man in distress who needs to be saved—as long as I somehow end her near Bossuet, I shall allow him to carry on with the way he already lives, and soon enough I shall have saved him from his own stupidity in front of her!”

At another table, Bossuet indignantly pipes up, “Hey!” In response, Joly waves his cane dismissively.

“Calm yourself, Aigle de Meaux, his facts are not incorrect.”

As Bossuet and Joly begin to bicker in that lighthearted way friends so often do, Courfeyrac turns his gaze towards him, and Feuilly finds himself blinking, trying to figure out what exactly it is Courfeyrac will be asking him as a favour, for he knows the beginning of their conversation is exactly what Courfeyrac will do every time he seeks to extract a favour from someone.

And whatever it is, Feuilly already knows he will be saying yes, for not only does he love his friend enough to do anything for him, he is sure that had it been Feuilly asking for the favour, Courfeyrac would have already been up from his seat heading off to help.

“Out with it, Courfeyrac,” he encourages with a smile. “What is it that you evidently need me to do?”

Courfeyrac grins. “You know me so well, my dear friend. Well, the matter is,” he lets out a long-suffering sigh, “my parents have been writing incessantly to me in hopes that I will, at their side, attend the ball of one of their long-time friends.” Courfeyrac grimaces. “I shall depart for Avignon in a week’s time.”

Feuilly blinks, confused. He could hardly grasp at what this entire affair had to do with him.

“But Courfeyrac, you have always struck me as a man who delighted in dressing in a nice coat and going dancing.”

Waving a dismissive hand, Courfeyrac huffs impatiently. “I like to go dancing with my friends. I would rather not have to suffer by my parents’ side at some ball surrounded by a crowd of people who cheer at the sight of the 1814 Charter.”

At his mention of the Charter, Feuilly allows himself a little laugh, his mind straying to a recent memory of Courfeyrac throwing a copy of the very same thing in the fire during a heated debate with Combeferre.

Calming himself, he manages enough breath to ask, “That is all good and fine, but what do I have to do with all this?”

With a beam, Courfeyrac shuffles closer to throw an arm around his shoulders. “So,” he begins, “all I ask from you is a small favour.” At Feuilly’s silence, he continues, “I want you to attend with me.”

At this, Feuilly nearly spits out the coffee he had taken in his mouth.

Once he finishes choking, he adopts a look of astonishment and asks, “Me?”

Courfeyrac’s grin is one of sincerity; try as he might, there is no sort of a joke written on his face. “Yes.”

Clearing his throat, he asks, “But… Why would you ask me of all people?”

At this, Courfeyrac frowns. “But why ever not you? I cannot think of a single reason why I would not ask you.”

He feels a humiliating blush stain his cheeks as the many, many reasons why he should be amongst the last people Courfeyrac should ask crosses his mind. For God’s sake, even Grantaire is a more preferable option—he, at least, hailed from a wealthy family, and so has the knowledge of the sort of behaviour and etiquette to be employed in such situations.

With a sad sort of smile, he places his hand on his friend’s shoulder and says, “Find someone else to go with you, Courfeyrac. I’m sorry, I truly am, but I must deny you this one thing.”

Courfeyrac’s frown deepens. “But why?”

Must he really push this issue?

Well, Feuilly is not ashamed of who he was, but it really is a little rude making him say the words.

“Courfeyrac,” he sputters, “I haven’t the faintest clue how to behave at such a social gathering. Neither do I… neither do I have the money for the sort of lavish clothing no doubt one is expected to wear there.”

Courfeyrac’s mouth flattens, and it is a rare moment that Feuilly sees him so frank. “Your background has not rendered you a scoundrel, Feuilly—I have only ever seen you act as a man should—honest and down-to-earth. You’re exactly the kind of person a man should be like, and frankly I do not care much for the opinions of my parents’ friends, and I believe you needn’t do so either. As for clothing, if you will not allow me to purchase you new clothing, I shall simply ask Combeferre to borrow his, on your behalf.”

His little speech shocks him. “But,” his voice is a little weak, “why would you ask me?”

At last, Courfeyrac’s face brightens once more into the sort of face he was famous for amongst his friends. “My friend! You are such interesting conversation! I cannot think of another person I would rather have by my side as I am forced to endure another gathering of insufferable royalists.”

Feuilly struggles with his words. Courfeyrac would have him attend the ball by his side? Once more he finds himself searching Courfeyrac’s face for any hint of a cruel joke, but finds none.

At his silence, Courfeyrac rises from his seat, grinning widely, for silence tends to give the impression that the opposing side has fallen into agreement. “Excellent! So, Tuesday next week we shall depart. And I shall begin my valiant search through Combeferre’s wardrobe!”

Feuilly remains astonished in his seat.

________________________________________________________________

1829

If he has to be completely honest, Feuilly does not talk very often with Grantaire, and so, Feuilly finds he cannot really come to a conclusion about him. He sees that the man is doubtful of their efforts, loud and rambunctious, and is drunk, always seems to be drunk.

But there is also a sort of melancholy present on his face when he thinks no one can see, when he does not constantly keep up that smirk as he goes on his next drunken ramble, a bitter and sardonic expression when he hears the rest speak of revolution and he finds himself too tired to even inject himself into the conversation. He sees a yearning, impossibly broken look grace Grantaire's face when their leader starts to speak or makes to smile or cries when upset or rages when he is furious—he seems to look as if he is reaching for something he can never quite have no matter how he stretches his fingers whenever Enjolras does anything, really.

Feuilly does not know much of Grantaire. So, he thinks to speak to him.

"Grantaire," he sits down next to him and inclines his head in greeting when Grantaire looks up from where he had been staring hard at his bottle of absinthe.

"Ah! The fan-maker makes time for me at last!" Grantaire cries as he spreads his arms wide. "Yes, young Feuilly, what is it that you find yourself in need of a drunk for?"

He ignores the young comment, only meditating briefly on the fact that he is the same age as Grantaire, and instead, hoping to forge a connection to the man, asks, "Did you really study under the guidance of Gros?"

Grantaire bellows out a loud peal of laughter. "My good fellow," he slurs, and Feuilly worries for how much he has had to drink tonight, "you must not believe everything that comes out of this drunkard's mouth."

He furrows his eyebrows. So he was lying?

"So you lied?" he asks in clarification. "You never did go to art school?"

A smile twists up Grantaire's face. "I only just told you not to trust everything I say. And yet! And yet, what is the first thing you do after I give you advice?"

He was beginning to get a little lost here. "I’m not quite sure I follow. Did you attend art school or not?"

Grantaire leans back in his chair. "Yes and no!"

"Yes and no?"

He grins at Feuilly. "A tale worthy of the likes of pleasant idlers, I am afraid, and while you are pleasant enough, you are anything but an idler—you cannot possibly hope to enjoy it."

He leans forward. "And yet, I find myself curious enough to hear of it nonetheless."

"Well," he starts, and for a moment, Feuilly fears that Grantaire will start on another one of his rather infamous rants, and while it is not that he is exactly opposed to them, but more so, he needs to get home so he can get however many hours of sleep Joly ordered him to get. "I certainly did attend classes at first. But the pretentiousness of it all! No man can tell you better that artists are amongst the most pretentious people to grace this hellish landscape we call earth. And the nude models were hardly anything to look at! I could get myself a better whore for less than a sou! Or better yet, not pay at all when it is me that such women always want!"

For a split second, Grantaire's gaze drifts, and when Feuilly tracks the movement of his eyes, he ends up looking over to where Enjolras stands at the table near the front, regarding Grantaire with a strong look of disappointment as he holds Grantaire's stare before returning to whatever it was he was discussing with Combeferre.

Grantaire tips his bottle towards the ceiling.

"No, I made the decision that no more would I waste away somewhere I knew I would rot. So instead I spent my time pilfering apples."

He huffs a laugh. “Pilfering apples? The ones used to model fruit?”

Within Grantaire’s eyes, Feuilly sees a mischievous sort of glint. “The very same.”

“And now? Do you still attend?”

He shrugs. “From time to time, though, I must ask why you think to ask me. My good fellow,” he reaches forward and lays a heavy hand on Feuilly’s shoulder. “I should think to ask you, rather, on your own painting.”

Feuilly flushes a little. “I haven’t the slightest of time for painting, Capital R.”

“And yet what little you have painted deserves to be hung up next to the works of Géricault!” Grantaire cries once more, and despite himself, Feuilly grins a little.

“It is hardly anything compared to Géricault.”

Grantaire waves a dismissive hand. “Bah! All these names—Géricault, Prud’hon, Delacroix—all of them are insufferable men who catch one whiff of fame and lose themselves to their pretentiousness. Your one work, young fan-maker, would be worth more than any of those scoundrels’ paintings put together.”

And Feuilly cannot help but gape, for this man in front of him, the very set definition of a skeptic, who once told their group, on his own whims, that believing was for the foolish and that he had no wish to believe in anything that would earn him an early death—he now sits here telling Feuilly that he finds meaning in his work, more meaning than in the works of the greatest painters to exist.

It leaves him shocked beyond compared.

Attempting to gather his thoughts once more into a state of decent coherency, he proceeds to ask, "Do you paint anymore?"

For a moment, just one quick moment that Feuilly admits he would not have caught had he not been looking closely, Grantaire's eyes flicker over to where Enjolras appears to be moderating some sort of a debate between Combeferre and Courfeyrac, laughing at something Courfeyrac must have said, and he notices the way Grantaire's face twists bitterly.

"Yes."

Feuilly does not ever ask what—or who—his subject is.

________________________________________________________________

1830

The weather of Paris in the spring signals the approach of a storm the Friends, unknown yet to their knowledge, will find themselves fighting in when the people decide in the season of July that tyranny must not be allowed to continue, and will resurrect barricades all throughout the city in the name of a free France achieved through a revolution that sees the overthrowing of King Charles X.

But for now, it is spring and the rain beats down upon the poor the hardest, upon those who have less shelter, fewer clothes, scarce food, and only in abundance do they have misery.

Feuilly counts himself lucky that he has a roof over his head, even if it is one that freezes in the night’s cold, and in the summer, swelters in the day’s heat.

Joly, however, does not seem to think so.

“I simply cannot allow you to go back to your flat when the rain beats down on our heads like this!” he cries, ignoring Feuilly’s several protests to the idea of spending the night at Joly’s residence, after Joly had taken one step into Feuilly’s own apartment and declared it uninhabitable in their current temperatures. “There is more than enough room at my residence, and I will not have one of my own falling ill when I had more than enough resources to prevent the ailment.”

“I wish not to intrude,” Feuilly repeats for what must surely be the hundredth time. “You already find yourself housing Bossuet, too, and—”

“Feuilly,” Joly scrubs a hand across his face, “helping a friend is hardly any bother to me. In the six years we have known each other is this how you expect me to behave?”

And Feuilly stops short, because Feuilly, who has never had a family—who has never had a mother or father or brother or sister—could hardly ever have imagined in his life that would have a friend—that he would have several friends—who would care for him—who would love him—like this, enough to offer up the chance at a residence that must look like a palace compared to his own shabby room, even if for one night.

“I simply… I simply would not want to cause any burden,” he mumbles.

Joly’s face splits into a bright grin, the one everyone who knows him is familiar with, the one that gives reason to why they all call him Jolllly. “But my friend!” he exclaims. “The more people to house, the more amusing the occasion, no?” Armed in one hand with his cane and the other holding Feuilly by the elbow, he begins to lead him towards his apartment. “Come! We shall make merry by the fire and drink to our heart’s content today—and we will not have to worry about rationing our drinking, for Grantaire is not here, either!”

“Make merry by the fire? But I regret to inform you that the Yuletide season is well past us,” an amused voice says by their side. As they both turn to the left, a familiar, laughing bald head makes itself apparent to their eyes.

Feuilly snorts. “I have not known you to be one to turn down an opportunity to nest by Joly’s fire, Bossuet. I find that I would rather while away the time in the false pretense that Christmas is still upon us rather than spend the hours shivering in the rain—would you not?”

“Bossuet can handle a little rain, what with the two sous in his pockets, he may even be able to manage a meager coffee,” Joly teases, carefully bringing the tip of his cane to rub at his nose.

“Really?” He raises an eyebrow. “Do tell, how does one manage a coffee at just two sous?”

“With enough grovelling at my door once he realizes that his endeavour is an impossible one and he owes me for the medical supplies I would inevitably have to purchase to bring him back to health after shivering so long in the cold.”

Bossuet bellows a laugh as he makes way for himself in between Feuilly and Joly, draping an arm around each's shoulders. “The grovelling will not be necessary, Jolllly, I shall tag along anyways. I would never decline, having found myself in the company of our dear friend Feuilly.”

Feuilly shoots him a confused look. “And why might my company be so desirable?”

Bossuet and Joly both laugh as if he had just told them the most amusing joke, but Feuilly cannot quite catch what it is that is so funny about what he said.

“Friends do not ask each other why their company is desirable, Feuilly,” Bossuet simply says.

And Feuilly feels something warm in his heart turn to a roaring fire, despite the chill of the rain.

Later, when he finds himself tucked into one of Joly’s armchairs, a blanket around him, he feels Joly lay a gentle hand upon his shoulder, looking at him most earnestly.

“I beg you think not of this as charity, my friend, but rather as something a friend would do for another. Nay a friend—more a brother.”

And with that, Joly leaves to prevent Bossuet from setting himself on fire in the kitchen while Feuilly struggles to blink back a wetness that threatens to slide down his cheeks, though his feelings are far from any sort of sorrow he has felt before.

________________________________________________________________

1832

He is hungry and he is thirsty and he is tired and he knows he is going to die.

He also knows that not only will he die in triumph, but he can imagine no other group of wonderful, extraordinary, familiar people he would rather die with.

Enjolras has already delivered news of their abandonment. Now, they sit and listen as he speaks of the principles of their fight, of the principles of their deaths, and Feuilly can think of no better speech he has ever heard in his short life.

He realizes, with a jolt, that Enjolras has turned to him. “Listen to me, Feuilly, valiant worker, man of the people, man of the peoples. I revere you. Yes, you see the future clearly, yes, you are right. You had neither father nor mother, Feuilly. You adopted humanity as your mother and right as your father. You’re going to die here—in other words, to triumph.” He holds his gaze for a second longer before he continues.

And Feuilly nods. Because he believes in Enjolras. He trusts in his words.

He knows he will die. But what better cause could there be?

He wishes they had succeeded, he had hoped, had so ardently believed that the people would rise with them.

But if the people do not wish to answer the call of revolution, he knows it will not succeed. He has accepted this.

And he realizes it is okay. He has come to terms with it.

He dwells on Enjolras’ words.

You had neither father nor mother, Feuilly. You adopted humanity as your mother and right as your father.

And, he quietly thinks to himself, I have adopted my friends as my brothers. And there is no one I would rather die beside. There are no other people who I would rather see smile one more time, or hold one more time, or laugh with and cry with and sit with one more time.

When he had first arrived in Paris, back eight years ago, Feuilly had resolved that he would adopt the people of Paris just as he had adopted those of the rest of the world.

He never imagined he himself would be adopted in turn.

________________________________________________________________

Rather than the bullet, Feuilly feels a sort of warmth spread through him instead. He lifts a hand to place at his side, where his blood begins to seep through his shirt and waistcoat.

He thinks of Bossuet’s laugh when he comes up with only two sous in his pocket and still offers Feuilly a drink.

He remembers why Joly was named the way he was, remembers his jollity in just about every situation Feuilly had found himself and Joly trapped in.

He nearly laughs at the thought of Grantaire’s rambles, and he sympathizes with his pursuit to find a family after his own had thrown him out. He sincerely hopes he will find the family that Feuilly did, too.

He recalls the feeling of Courfeyrac’s warmth, recalls how he kept the group together, how he shared that warmth with everyone no matter who they were, even if they were orphans like Feuilly.

He remembers Combeferre’s care, the way he always seemed to keep one eye open to look after everyone in the group, the way he never stopped making sure Feuilly got enough sleep, or had enough food, or rested enough, and he thinks that the world has just lost one of its greatest doctors.

He smiles at the memory of Jehan’s empathy, how his eyes seemed to see right through anything, and the way he always knew when to sit with Feuilly and ask him if there was something he wanted to share, something weighing down on his chest that was suffocating him, something that seemed to be relieved only when Jehan would smile that soft smile of his and tell him that he always had him by his side.

He can still feel Enjolras’ passion light up the barricade, recalls how his passion showed when he preached of a free France, when he spoke of the plight of the poor, and remembers the way that passion would soften into reverence when he would sit with Feuilly and listen to what he had to say, despite the fact that all his life he was likely taught to disregard men like him.

He remembers Bahorel’s bravery, how could he ever forget? He remembers that reckless smile, the bold behaviour that led to him taking his hand after being toppled to the ground, remembers that single question Bahorel asked him that would change his life forever, and he wishes—he cries at the thought of never having had the chance to say thank you, to tell him he is the reason why Feuilly is content to die in the situation he has found himself in.

Feuilly thinks of being born into the world with no family, no one to call his own.

Then he thinks about leaving it having found the men he loves, he loves—oh Lord above he loves like he could never love a mother or a father, he loves these men so much that it tears his heart in two thinking of each and everyone dying—he catches a glimpse of Enjolras being backed up the stairs while the National Guardsmen continues to prowl their way towards him and he sees Combeferre glance towards the heavens as his chest is speared by three bayonets and he sees Courfeyrac fall to his side having been shot once, twice, three times, and he sees Joly and Bossuet look towards each other as they are both shot side by side and he remembers the strength in Jehan’s voice when he cried out one last time in the name of the world they had sought to build and he remembers Bahorel’s spirit being the first to leave and he remembers, remembers, remembers, and it hurts so much, it makes him ache with a pain that makes him want to scream and cry for he cannot imagine the thought of having finally found his family and then having them torn from him, one by one, he hurts so much and surely God cannot be so cruel that he snatches their dreams, snatches the only people he knows he will ever love away—

And then he finds peace. Because as he bleeds out, he hears a voice, clear as the dawn drawing above the new day, cry out Long live the republic! and it is Grantaire, and he can almost hear Enjolras smile when he hears what he knows is the final report resounding, and in Combeferre’s eyes there is a sort of divine trust as his eyes remain affixed to where he believes he will find salvation, and there is a sort of tranquility in Courfeyrac’s eyes, and he sees the way Joly and Bossuet are still looking to each other even in death, and he thinks of how Jehan went out exactly as he wished, with strong words on his tongue, and he thinks of Bahorel’s fighting spirit and how he died doing what he thought was right.

His hand grows damper and hotter as his blood seeps out quicker and quicker.

The world may not remember their names in history—but Feuilly knows they will have a permanent place in his.

Like Combeferre, he casts his eyes towards heaven, and he thinks he can see Bahorel hold out his hand like he did eight years ago.

He can’t wait to have his life change again.

And Feuilly falls with a smile.

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