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satanic-fruitcake · 10 months ago

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hello hello GUESS who just got to the ugly truth in his farscape rewatch again!! (me fave episode yippeee) i notice something new every time i watch it, so i thought i’d finally compile all my observations!

Aeryn’s Version Of Events

She views Zhaan as indecisive and a total pushover. “i’ll need to meditate on this”, “well i don’t know who to believe!”

Aside from Zhaan she has the most merciful view of Crais. it’s fairly obvious, and just as obvious why, we all know. but it felt like a disservice not to at least mention it. The whole thing is a real testament to how far she’s come.

Zhaan’s Version of Events

She’s the only one besides Stark who explicitly lies to their faces, and i find it so so compelling. you go girl. she’s such a shitty priest <3

Zhaan portrays John as an indecisive pushover, almost childlike in his inability to form his own opinion.

She characterises everyone as so ridiculously passive and it’s hilarious. even Crais, which is interesting. “the Plokavians are going to have great difficulty believing that was an accident!” LMAOO

She’s also SUCH an ass-kisser. “the Plokavians are strong believers in truth and justice 😇” okay girl.

Related to this she also has herself, instead of Stark, be the one who explains the Plokavians to the others, demonstrating her tendency to paint herself as smarter and wiser than she really is, and to not really listen to those around her.

She goes to the very unnecessary effort to describe the made up scene where she and Stark admire the Plokavian ship and hold hands. it’s really cute. and a really funny attempt at painting Stark as peaceful and non-threatening.

Stark’s Version of Events

Noticeably shorter than the others but i’m obsessed with him so of course i’ve noticed the tiny subtle little details. for example. he characterises not just Crais, but everyone as slightly colder than they really are, demonstrating how little he really knows the Moya crew in comparison to how well they know each other. He doesn’t even have a cute little moment of remembering Zhaan fondly.

He’s the only one who doesn’t paint himself as the leader. (yes, they all do it, or at least paint themself as the most rational, most just aren’t as obnoxious about it as D’argo.) he has a very black and white view of the situation. John is the hero whose opinions everyone has time for, and Crais is the villain. Stark paints himself as a mere observer on the sidelines. i think it’s a mix of the following: 1) a result of a lifetime of slavery, being unimportant and ignored, and 2) a manipulation tactic, a defence mechanism, much like his strategic mad outbursts.

His admiration of John is very obvious.

Even the camera work is telling. his memory includes a lot of close ups to character’s faces, and when it cuts to him, his eyes are darting around between them all. he’s studying their micro-expressions.

D’argo’s Version of Events

It’s hard to say anything about this beyond it’s just really really funny. his version of John is such a yes-man. he has the most explicit I Am The Leader vibe because of course he does.

Zhaan’s “violence would not solve the problem” is such a simplified portrayal of her character, her worldview, the advise she often gives. 3 possible reasons for this off the top of my head: 1) he doesn’t really listen when she talks. 2) he listens, but he doesn’t understand. 3) he just wants this to be simple. he wants this to be over so he can get out of here and find his son, so he’s glossing over things.

His characterisation of Stark is very funny. totally unhinged and pathetic. more on this at the end.

and finally:

Crichton’s Version of Events

The closest to the unbiased truth. maybe. who knows. you decide.

Right from the start, he places himself behind Crais. no one else puts him there.

Now that i’m rewatching it as i’m writing this, he doesn’t paint himself as much of a leader either. he paints the Moya crew as a united front, up until Stark approaches the console.

No one else but John remembers Zhaan being the one to say “you mean your control.” in response to Crais claiming Talyn would be even more aggressive without his guidance. she’s a bit passive aggressive about it as well. regardless of wether she really says it, it’s such an interesting little moment to me, how John sees this cold version of her, likely because he was only one who saw firsthand how she killed her lover in Rhapsody in Blue. he understands her capacity for pragmatism, even cruelty, better than anyone i think.

Whether his story contains bias and inconsistencies, his characterisation of Crais as surprisingly reasonable proves he’s making a clear effort to be as objective as he can.

“PLOKAVOIDS”

This really is my favourite farscape episode, i love it so much. and i think it’s because, although not obvious at first glance, it’s clearly the first Stark Episode, (like I,ET is the first John Episode and Rhapsody In Blue is the first Zhaan Episode) A defining trait of Stark’s is that he’s a character who is very at the mercy (scrutiny) of other’s (mis)conceptions of him. his line about outsiders thinking his people don’t feel, but it’s only that they don’t always show. his defence mechanism being acting crazy or more incompetent than he is. (his prey animal swag has enchanted me body and soul) everyone’s lack of trust in him. this episode lays the groundwork for all of that. i once saw a review shitting on this episode for bringing back a guy no one cares about and then sacrificing him expecting the audience to care about him despite not having given him time to become likeable. it’s a valid point, but i think this is the episode that makes you care about him, or at least form your opinion.

thanks for reading!!

#farscape #stark #sorry he’s . my special boy #your daily dose of idiocy #wow this got long sowweee (i’m not)

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empressmcblondie · 10 months ago

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The S4 finale of "The Umbrella Academy" made me feel as if I had just done a month long hike up a really big mountain, and as I reached the peak, waiting to see the world spread before me in a glorious panoramic view, yet I was met with nothing but fog. The disappointment was, as you imagine, visceral. I think my biggest issue is that they did what a lot of shows do when they're lazy... Invent time-skips that "resolve" a lot of previous issues that they do not have the time or the writing capacity to deal with. Humans are dynamic. They do not just resolve things and move on. They will come back to traumatic events from the past, and they will have lingering thoughts about them even decades into the future. This idea that a time skip can change these people (I know that they are characters, but is that not why we consume media? To "know" character but "see" and "feel" person on the screen?) so inherently that all of a sudden certain things are magically resolved, is idiotic. Personally, I find that "Yellowjackets" and "House of the Dragon" are a masterclass in time skips done right when it comes to the complexity of character psyche.

I clearly have a plethora of other issues to go along with it like weird and clanky temporal and spatial allocation (did someone say "Shadow and Bone" S2, what is going on Netflix?) where you cannot discern how much time has passed or how long does it take the characters to travel from point A to point B. The million and one questions that needed actual answers and the decision to introduce MORE elements (i.e., Jennifer and the Squid) that would just remain unanswered. Like, it's one thing not to answer the questions viewers have had from S1, it's another to add more bullshit into that mix. Lastly, the characterization and the utterly unhappy ending of it all... The they-were-meant-to-die-all-along schtick is so outdated. Is it fitting? Maybe, sure... If the narrative was constructed to guide us in this direction, but it never was! Not even in S4 itself! If you want to pin the "blame" on someone for the Marigold and Durango mess, it should have been Abigail, and with a few tweaks to her inconsistent characterization, it could make sense. She should have been the one to absorb the children's Marigold out of her own repentant volition (if she really wanted to fix Reginald's transgressions INCLUDING traumatizing a bunch of children for his own selfish agenda), with Viktor's help (because why have him be able to give and take away Marigold FOR IT TO NOT HAVE USE WHEN IT MATTERS MOST???) and then she should have sacrificed herself to the cleanse, killing Ben with her and reclaiming the original timeline. Yes, yes, Ben dying is very unfortunate, but I think it is thematically beautiful to see how his initial death broke the family, and how this one unites and potentially heals them. It would also mean that the guilt does not remain at the hands of the abused children, but instead, a parent figure rises up to the task and assumes the role of responsible parent, something that Reginald was incapable of doing. I also think Reginald should have succumbed to the cleanse after Abigail's sacrifice (suicide, yet again), which would mean that this is the closest they get to the OG 2019 timeline: Reginald, Abigail, and Ben are dead.

IT WAS THAT SIMPLE. They literally had all of the elements set in place already, and to think that there was a room full of seasoned writers that didn't see any of this is just surprising to me.

#The Umbrella Academy #TUA #Netflix you make me tired #Why do you always fumble the bag so bad???

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soragawanaeru · 1 year ago

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Hello, this is my first time giving a question on this app but I do have one in mind regarding the Nexo Knights x PJSK AU.

https://www.tumblr.com/soragawanaeru/742849113928974336/so-asuki-sokai-asuki-did-something-suprising?source=share , in here you did say about fanmade event for this au. I was curious about it, does the fanmade event focus on the knights? If so, does the respective of each units gets involved? Does it include with the 20 characters in Project Sekai to go to Knighton?

It just a quick question of mine when I reread this post.

Oop, thanks for questioning. So, lemme answer a bit.

For fanmade events for the AU, this one quite tricky. In PRSK, there's things called Events, part of the gameplay in PRSK. Events are a period of time in which new cards, gacha, story, title and after live is released. Players can also earn event points to advance further on the leaderboard, and earn event badges to buy items in the event shop.

Events can either be a Marathon, Cheerful Carnival, or World Link event (World Link currently only on JP Servers). In short, Marathon Event is a Focus Event for each character in each unit, the key story for character developememt. Cheerful Carnival is a Mixed Event, event where people from different unit were put in a story. Then World Link is a special event in JP Server for each unit for 3RD Anniv that was divided in 4 chapters. I'm not talking about gameplay, this is about stories.

So let's talk about events in NK X PRSK AU. I did say in thread about fanmade events. So, I made some planning and things here, and I conclude things.

Marathon Event here will be separated into two types. One is focused on NEXO KNIGHTS members with respective units, for example if I make an event for Aaron, then the character involved of course is VBS along with the rest of NK members. Same for the rest of NK Members. The other was SEKAI Member events, like usual but NK Member for respective unit was involved.

For Cheerful Event, it just a mixed events that, yeah, everyone either SEKAI members and NK members interact. Also universe crossing can be done here, like 20 SEKAI members goes to Knighton or NEXO KNIGHTS can go to Shibuya. But... There is a but here. Both SEKAI members and NK members can transport into each others' realms, yes, I stated that, but it's not that easy. They need connection and resolving about complexity for feelings, goals, etc. So, like something resolvement, and become one like that, than BOOM! You can cross universe!

For World Link Event, it just focus on NK Members and unlike other Word Link that have Intro, 4 Chapters for each members that consist of two sections, and Ending, for this NEXO KNIGHTS World Link Event, the difference only instead of 4 Chapters, this consists 5 Chapters--each for NK Members.

(DAAANG, IGNORE MY SHIT HANDWRITING FOR THIS CHART)

Please be proceed that this is for Event Story, not including gameplay, cards, or gacha. That's the other business but I'll make some info (MAYBE LATER IF I HAVE WILL OR REMEMBER SOMEDAY)

#nexo knights x project sekai au #lego nexo knights #project sekai #lego nexo knights x hatsune miku colorful stage

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kartikcofynd · 6 months ago

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Coworking Space in Bangalore Enchantment | Discover Your Ideal Workspace

Bangalore, the center of India's startup environment and home to a thriving IT sector, is a city that never sleeps. A coworking space in Bangalore can be your key to success, whether you're searching for your next big idea or a business looking to make an impression. These shared workplaces are the perfect answer for today's dynamic workforce since they mix flexibility, functionality, and a sense of community. But why are they so unique? Let's examine it more closely.

Why Bangalore's Coworking Spaces Are Revolutionary?

1. A great deal of networking

Coworking spaces in Bangalore are talent hotspots. Imagine being surrounded by brilliant coders, marketing experts, and creative business owners in one location! These areas are:

Meet experts who share your interests and are ready to collaborate.

Event-Driven: Coworking spaces hold gatherings that unite community, such as hacking challenges and pitch nights.

Diverse: You'll find a little bit of everything here, including corporates, SMEs, and freelancers.

2. Work at Your Own Pace

The flexibility offered by a coworking space in Bangalore is among its best features. No strict 9–5 schedules or long term agreements. You receive:

Hot Desks: Ideal for workers who are constantly on the go.

Private Cabins: Do you need a peaceful area? Completed.

3. Celestial Facilities

When you can have it all, why limit yourself to a coffee shop?

Coworking spaces provide:

Fast Wi-Fi

Pantries that are well stocked

Seating that is ecological

Conference and meeting spaces

Recreational spaces such as game rooms and lounges

The Best Qualities to Consider in a Coworking Space in Bangalore

1. Strategic Position

Traffic in Bangalore, huh? You can save hours by strategically placing your coworking space. Seek out areas:

Close to major bus stops or metro stations

In important commercial districts like Whitefield, Koramangala, or Indiranagar

Near convenience stores and cafes

2. A thriving neighborhood

Joining a movement is more than merely renting a desk. Choose areas that:

Plan seminars and workshops.

Encourage a spirit of solidarity

Maintain vibrant communities both online and off.

3. Deliverable Technology

Coworking spaces in a city known for its technological expertise are furnished with:

Fast internet

Technology-enabled conference spaces

Services for printing and scanning

Power backup for continuous operation

How Your Work Can Be Transformed by a Coworking Space in Bangalore

Increased Productivity: Maintaining focus is much easier in a professional setting.

Savings: By sharing resources, you can avoid paying for a whole office.

Work Life Balance: You can refuel without leaving thanks to lounge spaces, gyms, and nap pods.

Coincidences: Some of the most successful partnerships are the result of pure luck.

FAQs Regarding Bangalore Coworking Spaces

1. How much does a coworking space in Bangalore typically cost?

The location and amenities will determine the cost, however here is a general idea:

Hot desks: between 4,000 and 25,000 a month

Monthly rates for private cabins: 10,000–25,000

Meeting spaces: from 1,000 and 2,000 per hour

2. Can big teams function effectively in coworking spaces?

Of course! Teams of ten to one hundred people or more might choose from a variety of customizable choices offered by coworking facilities.

3. Are Bangalore coworking spaces open around clock?

Yes, the majority of high-end coworking facilities give their members access 24/7.

4. Which industries make use of Bangalore's coworking spaces?

These lively locations are shared by distant business teams, IT specialists, content producers, consultants, and startups.

conclusion

Bangalore coworking space is more than simply a desk; it's a doorway to creativity, expansion, and limitless opportunities. Professionals seeking the ideal balance of community and flexibility are catered to by these venues, which offer first-rate amenities and unique networking opportunities. There is room for you whether you are managing a team or working as a freelancer alone. Why wait, then? Investigate Bangalore's top coworking spaces to improve your productivity right now!

#coworking space in banglore #coworking space #coworking office space

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weasleyandweasley · 2 years ago

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Gred and Forge / The Sorcerer's Stone

So the point of this post is to discuss the two dorks known as Fred and George Weasley. I like to think about their similarities, their differences, their mind sets, among various other things. They're two characters that are important to me and helped me through a tough time, and Fred became a comfort character. So, I've taken the time to really analyze them and see how I perceive them. It's very important to remember that this is my interpretation of them. Canon events will be discussed and how either I agree with them, disagree with them, and even how I personally think my own portrayal of these two would react and handle situations. I'll most likely even include my own headcanons into the mix as I see fit. So again, do not read this expecting flawless canon. Feel free to like the post, but I would prefer it not to be reblogged.

The very first time we meet the twins literally is the moment we learn one of their shared qualities: they're pranksters. In the book, Molly tells Fred it's his turn to run through the barrier to the train. To this he says, "I'm not Fred, I'm George" (Pg. 92), followed by a line that just makes me laugh cause it sounds like me, "honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?" (Pg. 92). Not only do we see we got these little pranksters on our hands, but I also feel this is a good start of showing their differences. And to add real quick, Ron does say on the train to Harry, "are you really Harry Potter? I thought it might be one of Fred and George's jokes" (Pg. 98), which just gives us more evidence that these two are dorky pranksters. They live for the laughs. Fred officially started this. He is the oldest twin and technically the more dominant of the two. From what I've gathered, solely for this book/movie, is that he is the instigator. Not that George can't instigate, too, but he usually seems to follow suit. Looking into the dominant and submissive of the twins, Fred fits the dominants twin role in regards to being outgoing, more of the leader whereas George seems to fit the more submissive of the twins were he seems to be more shy and more of a follower. Note: these traits, apparently, can change as the twins age, but for these two we're currently only in book/movie one, and later (around the fourth book, most likely) I'll discuss a different type of dominance and submissive I've gathered from learning the differences in their personalities.

To derail a little into my own thoughts that have become head canon, I wanna say that I can't speak for actual twins, but looking into a little they don't always like being confused for one another. Applying this, a bit, to Fred and George I honestly believe it's dependent on the people and the situations. Newer people and friends in their lives don't really bother them much because they understand they're just learning about them, so they don't expect them to be able to magically tell. However, with close friends, family and significant others it's different. They understand once in a while there could still be some confusion, but with these special people in their lives they do want to be seen as individuals. Yes, they love being a unit (cause we do see they seem to be on the same wavelength - share one brain cell sometimes - since they do occasionally speak in unison) but don't want to constantly be thought of as one person or lumped together. They have similarities but they also have their own interests, dislikes, personality traits, styles to list a few examples. And to add, it does really hurt to be romantically confessed to just to be called the other twin's name. And lastly, yes, sometimes they do like to joke about who is who (and sometimes when they're hurt they may do the same).

Going back, notice how Fred's first lines display the leader, the instigator, well, George's is a bit different. Now, George's actual first line is unwritten dialogue which is "hurry up" (Pg. 92), his first piece of official spoken dialogue is "want a hand" (Pg. 94). So, the hurry up I just take as George literally wanting Fred to move his butt, but the first piece of official spoken dialogue says a lot. Look, as nice as the movie is to switch to George saying the whole "He's not Fred, I am" (not perfectly quoted), I do prefer the book's introduction to them because even though Fred does care about people, we learn that George is the one that has more empathy. George is the one to offer Harry a hand with his bags when they first board the train. He actually has to tell Fred to come and help. I do believe Fred has empathy, but I do feel that George has more (plus, I do believe situations and people can affect where empathy plays a part but do not quote me, I'm no expert on this and have thought a bit about my own in regards to understanding Fred since he is the twin I relate to the most). When I get to OOTP I will give examples about how Fred and George handle dealing with helping people that aren't feeling ok, because they do it different ways. I'm not sure if this should go here, but heck with it.

Something I've noticed about Fred is that he's the more impulsive of the twins. When they first meet Harry, Fred does ask "what's that" (Pg. 95) and I'm sure it's in regards to his scar. He even mentions to Molly that he wonders if Harry remembers you-know-who (a.k.a Voldemort - also can't remember if it indicates it's Fred, but trust me, it's Fred-). There is a chance Fred may have asked Harry about it if not for Molly (or unless George thought to stop him). I do believe Fred doesn't entirely think things through and usually allows the impulse to direct him. However, this is not always the case whether the books and movies prove this or it's my own portrayal because there are times when he does sit there and think about his actions, but I believe it can depend on the situation, the person, his mood even. Just because he reacts one way doesn't mean it'll happen all of the time. And the same can be said for George. George, I believe, is the more calculating of the two. He thinks things through more often, however, it doesn't mean he'll always do so. Again, I do think it can depend on the situation, the person and his mood, as well. And to add to this, Fred may seem scary but he is more the "in the moment scary", whereas George is the "scary overtime". George calculates his attack and prefers it to be something that will affect the person over time (although sometimes he just wants to throw hands). I also think these seem to be trait from their parents cause Molly seems in the moment scary whereas I think Arthur would be over time. So, Fred, to me, takes after Molly in this regard, but George takes after Arthur.

Backtracking a little, I mentioned they're pranksters and two lines that indicate this. But to further prove they're jokesters and like being dorks we have Ron saying, "Fred and George mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they're funny" (Pg. 99). So basically these dorks are the class clowns of their school and have gained some popularity because of it. But also take a moment to realize what else Ron says. He mentions they get good marks. Yes, the twins are bright young wizards. Despite their idiocy, they're actually quite the little geniuses. As you read on through the books, you'll learn they're inventors and have created their own prototypes of things (to be discussed more when it's mentioned in book, and I'll even talk about what I head canon as their first invention). The second line I want to add is when the students are singing the school song. Dumbledore allows them to sing in any key, any tune that they want. The twins, well, "sing the Hogwarts school song to a slow funeral march, which Dumbledore seems to allow" (Pg. 128). Not to mention they're the last ones to finish up singing. Just...do you need anymore to understand these two are dorks? They love comedy, probably even find comfort in it, and it's something that fuels their ambition.

Something else I want to talk about is something I disagree with and it's more so movie wise is how the troll scene plays out when it comes to the twins. Look, I could completely be wrong but this is my own interpretation. We learn that "Hagrid said he spent half his life chasing the twins away from the forest" (Pg. 140) because he know no students are allowed in the forbidden forest. The word forbidden clearly grabs their attention. They're like cats. My cat knows she can't go inside our utility room and it makes her even more determined to get in there. That's the twins. Here's the thing, the twins could always do this just to mess with Hagrid and get attention for doing something they know they shouldn't, but I think they actually do want to go inside. They're curious about what lurks out there. And at a younger age I do think once they got inside they may actually become a bit alarmed like, "Freddie, was this a good idea?" In the movie when Quirrell comes in and mentions the troll, all of the students get up to run, including the twins. Now, look, this is fair because they're allowed to be nervous, anxious, afraid of all of the above. But I just think that if they're trying to break into the forest then they're not just gonna fearfully run from the troll. I kind of think they'd be a stupid brave that wants to get a peak at the troll and then regret it once the troll caught wind of them. This is up for interpretation, but this is my own.

Something that the movie eliminates that really bothers me takes place during the quidditch match where Harry's broom is jinxed. In the movies you just see the players on their brooms flying into view here and there whilst Hermione uses her red (it's suppose to be blue) flames to stop the menace. Now, even though it might not be important to the story truly, and may have just taken more film time then desired (possibly budget), I'm still gonna be salty that the twin's heroics were erased. Fred and George literally try their damnedest to save Harry from falling off his broom and I believe it takes place on page 190. They literally fly towards his broom in order to get him on theirs, but Harry's just keeps raising and raising as they get close, that it isn't possible to save him with that method. So, they hover below him to catch him if he would actually fall off his broom. These two have their flaws but I won't be convinced that they don't care about people. Did they have to try and save Harry? No. Did they, though? Yes. And, no, it's not because they'd get to be in the spotlight and shine for a few minutes or be heroes. It is because Harry is their friend. An important part of their life now. Even if it wasn't Harry, they still would have tried to save the person.

In a deleted scene / possibly one in the extended version, George comes over to Ron and asks if he likes his (Pg. 202), which I believe he is referring to his sweater. Something I've noticed about George is that he gives me more "family guy" vibes. He even tells Percy (same page) that he isn't sitting with the prefects today because Christmas is a time for family. I imagine George really values family traditions, like spending holidays with family members, finding eggs for Easter, giving gifts for Christmas, taking the younger siblings Trick or Treating (I suppose, if Fred and him aren't up to any tricks, or even if they are maybe, lol) to name a few. Whereas, I don't get the same vibe from Fred. I think he does care, in his own way, but not to the extent of George. Fred doesn't seem to ask about the sweaters, or show much interest. For all we know, he put his sweater on because he knew George would make him. Plus, he probably knows how much it means to George. Fred's personality just gives me vibes that he's more relaxed about it and taking part for fun and because I imagine that holiday celebration is normalized in their family.

On a smaller subject, I was discussing this with a close friend and the consensus seems to be that George is the more athletic of the two. I'm pretty sure that it's stated in canon (though I could be wrong on this) that George is actually the better Quidditch player. And while we're on the subject of Quidditch:

A head canon for my twins is that, yes, the boys do just love the sport and have probably learned things from Charlie (not to mention were probably his biggest fans), were not only inspired by Charlie to want to join the team, but someone else as well. Fred's favorite beater is Connolly from the Irish Team we see in Goblet of Fire. Since this is a head canon I have gone with the twins actually getting to meet him before they tried out for their own team.

Something I don't agree with in book is "the rest of the quidditch team would not speak to Harry and would only refer to him as seeker (Pg. 245). In regards to Harry losing a ton of house points, I believe. Maybe I'm biased. Maybe I'm giving them a bit too much credit, but I don't think the twins would do this to Harry. Can't speak for the rest of the team. I don't believe they'd be thrilled, but it's not like they've never lost points for their house. I personally think Fred would be a bit bothered and may have tried to joke about it once or twice. And even if George is bothered I just don't think he'd take it out on Harry. In fact, I almost think he'd try to comfort him a little, especially if he understood why Harry had lost them in the first place.

So, this is just some of what I analyzed about the twins. It's not perfect and as I even reread and go over it in the future, it's bound to be edited a bit.

#twinnalysis #fred and george #my own interpretation #discussed with close friends #book/movie one #;;save #;;saved

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demonfox38 · 2 years ago

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Completed - Resident Evil 4

Take me away, magical jet ski.

So, remakes, right? I've rarely ever heard of people being gung-ho for them. I mean, let's face it—they're often times a cash grab based on a pre-existing product's reputation. Granted, some work out! I've heard good things about the "Resident Evil 2" remake, for one. With the "Resident Evil 4" remake coming up in a month, I wanted to give that game the time I gave "Resident Evil 2" prior to its remake. Ya know. Pay homage.

But, there's often a question that comes up with these. "Why are they remaking Product X? It's already perfect!" And "Resident Evil 4" is a golden child of gaming, right? So, would it be pointless or shameful to redo?

Honestly, I might be for giving this game a spit-shine.

"Resident Evil 4" is ostensibly a survival horror game originally released in 2005 for the Nintendo GameCube. (And yes, you absolutely heard something get loaded in that last sentence!) Originally developed as a member of the group of games collectively referred to as the Capcom Five, it went through several iterations before its final launch, one of which spawned the lead title for the "Devil May Cry" series. Since its initial release, it's become available on pretty much every major console and computer. Like, I saw somewhere between 12-14 versions of this game online. The damn thing is everywhere (much to the chagrin of its lead director.) Due to its intense, varied gameplay, breadth of access, and campy nature, the game is one of the best awarded titles out of the entire "Resident Evil" series, if not at large.

Leon Scott Kennedy returns as the lead, having managed to score a series of secretive government gigs since his one day on the job in the Raccoon City Police Department. In "Resident Evil 4", he has been promoted to the role of guardian for Ashley Graham, the daughter of the United States president. Unfortunately for him, that doesn't mean shuffling around the bushes on some Ivy League campus. Catapulted into rural Spain, Mr. Kennedy is charged with recovering Ashley from her captors, a mysterious cult calling itself Los Illuminados. Obviously, things get complicated. Then, gross. But, hell. He's learned a few things since his Raccoon City days. If anyone can handle an international incident resulting in the slaughter of 800+ people—

Man, this really should have been Chris Redfield's job, shouldn't it? Especially since he's been in every damn military division. Guess he had more questionable things to do elsewhere…

Mr. Kennedy scrapes his way upwards through the game through a combination of scrounging for items and bartering with a mysterious merchant. A variety of weapons is made available for his use, including automatic pistols, revolvers, shotguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenades. Accompanying his firepower is a series of melee attacks, including knifing, kicking, and coolest of all, suplexing. A healthy mixture of styles is best for proceeding through the game, but the player should be able to pick a couple of weapons to max out, then plow ahead. Ya know. Assuming good item rationing and a keen eye for antique pick-ups.

Does this make Mr. Kennedy too overpowered?

Ha! Ha ha ha ha ha!

For all of his newfound machismo, Leon feels frailer than his first days. Dude can get knocked off the mortal coil with as little as two swings in the beginning of the game. That's nothing to say about the assholes with chainsaws and the quick-time events. Proper use of herb mixing can help toughen him up, but even that has to be properly minded. Mix too many ingredients together at the beginning, and you can end up wasting precious Red Herbs in situations where a single Green would suffice.

Honestly, there's a lot about the early gameplay that can feel infuriating the first time you put hand to controller in this game. Like, we all know about shooting zombies in the head, right? Zombie Dispatching 101. Well, we're explicitly not dealing with zombies, here. If you're using a pistol, a Ganado's head is going to take a random number of shots to pop. After Chapter 1-3, head popping can be a problem, as it means an enemy might randomly spawn a Las Plagas for their head. And man, those bastards! They can do anything from cutting Leon into steaklets to instant decapitation.

If you hate Leon and want to see him die a lot, then man, this is the game for you.

One of the best tricks you can learn in this game is figuring out how to use firearms to trigger melee attacks. If you're up against a humanoid, you'll want to aim at their feet. Getting a combatant in a staggered position offers the ability to kick them for extra damage or potentially even instakill them with a suplex (in Chapter 3-1 and beyond.) Even knocking them on the ground opens them up to slash attacks with your knife. And hell, might as well! Gotta do whatever you can to save your ammo!

You know what mechanic I instantly and consistently enjoyed? Protecting Ashley. Like, oh my God. As far as unarmed civilians go? She's perfect. She'll listen to your commands (stop, follow, hop into a dumpster). Whenever possible, she's right behind you. If you open fire, she ducks. I never had an issue guarding her. (Okay, things got a little dicey in Chapter 5-2, but she was operating a bulldozer at the time. Nothing a Florentine omelet couldn't fix.)

Man, I've had bad escort missions. Go see "Nanobreaker" for details. Ashley was a goddamn delight. Like, honestly. Don't marry anyone that bitches about "Resident Evil 4"'s escort levels. They're just gonna be sloppy and inconsiderate.

Now, I'm not saying that Ashley is a perfect character. Girl clearly looks like what a Japanese guy thought an American high school student would look like (despite being a junior in college?). The game's audio mixer could have varied her cries, too. Still! Pro-Ashley here. Loving the new ascot.

Honestly, the leading cast is great, in a B-movie kind of way. Leon's an overcompensating putz, but he means well. Ada's back and still leading Leon around on a leash. Luis Cera continues to be great well past his contributions to the plot. The merchant is so fucking weird and cool that he goes on to be referenced by other merchants for being so fucking weird and cool. All good!

I'm a little on the fence about the villain side of the house. (Does including Ada in the first paragraph imply some kind of heroism that isn't really there? Eh, let's not think too much about it.) Saddler and Mendez aren't that much to write home about, although Saddler's constant mugging can be amusing. Krauser's got a very stabable persona. If anyone's getting talked about from this cast, it's probably Ramón Salazar. Kind of hard to ignore a Plagas-infected castellan with both a Napoleon complex and achondroplasia. Like, it's almost amazing he could get infected, if Las Plagas couldn't handle being in children.

Look, man. I think it'd be cool if Sr. Salazar had dwarfism for some artsy reason like production staff having knowledge of the Diego Velázquez painting "Las Meninas." I mean, that's one of the most notable Spanish paintings. It's not entirely impossible that someone saw that and went, "You know what our game needs?" Something a little more elevated than, "LOL, angry little person."

Then again, I'm talking about the series with one villain who dresses as his sister and…like…just everything about that swamp part from "Resident Evil 5." I mean, there could be a red circle around that whole damn game, but that part in particular…

Anyway.

Audio's good. Music is effective. I was particularly taken aback by the sequence with the Novistadors and how off-putting their music is. Regenerator breathing can also stand up the hairs on the back of your neck. Not that having a villager screaming at you as they come in swinging an axe is relaxing, by any means. I think I like the "Resident Evil 3" soundtrack more than this one, but for what it needs to do, the audio does well.

When the game frees itself from standard undead fair, the monster design is varied, but unified. Its all vaguely insect-like, but in gross, new ways! Like, centipedes and spiders coming out of people's heads. Or, parasites popping out of people's spines. Hell, some of the creepy little bastards even figured out how to puppet armor around. Even the final boss is like a giant- eyeball-riddled spider dragging its initial body around like so much vestigial nonsense. Good! Gross!

Exhausting.

My evaluation of this game would not be complete if I didn't talk about the weird physical reaction I had to it. Like, okay. Sometimes, playing video games hurts. Ya don't go over an hour with "Kid Icarus Uprising" without developing some mid-palm pain. Sometimes, my heart rate increases. That's okay, too! A good round of "Star Fox 64" always ends with my blood pumping. But, what I had with "Resident Evil 4"? That was new.

At first, I thought it was just an average winter chill. Like, I don't always dry my hair right away after a shower, so sometimes, I get a little cold. I got this weird shivering post the Del Lago fight, and I thought, "Okay. Better go dry my hair." But, the shivering kept happening night after night, no matter how warm or cold I was. My shoulder muscles would cramp up. My pulse was going as hard as if I had just spent 30 minutes on an elliptical. I was sweaty on my palms, my feet, my armpits. The thought of continuing to play wasn't so much out of fun as it was an obligation. Even beating the game didn't feel good. I just folded myself up until the credits were done, saved the game, and shut down.

I don't know what that reaction was about. All I know is that it didn't feel good. I hesitate to call it an anxiety attack or a panic attack, but something was definitely wrong.

Look. I've played other survival horror games. I've beaten "Silent Hill", "Silent Hill 2", and "Resident Evil 2." Like, the non DualShock version, even. I'm a veteran when it comes to "Castlevania" titles. Icky squicky monsters are fine by me! On the more aggressive side of things, I love rail shooters. Like, half of my Wii library contains games like "House of the Dead: Overkill", "Sin & Punishment: Star Successor", and "Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles." There have been times in my life where I ran "Left 4 Dead" and "Modern Warfare 2" maps on a weekly basis. I can do the shooty thing, too.

Where "Resident Evil 4" tripped me up is in its gameplay combination. It's framed as a survival horror game, but so many of its set pieces are about shooting the shit out of everything that moves. Unless you have a guide in your lap, you might not know where your next box of ammo will be. (Or, hell, if there even will be one. The game's an adaptive bitch like that.) Having to plan around lacking resources is exhausting. I could only hold it up an hour and a half at a time. And for a game that took me over 15 hours to beat, that meant a lot of downtime between sessions, being frustrated with my progress, and worrying about what I was doing wrong.

This game is what I'd like to call a "Type A Killer." If you're neurotic about doing things wrong—if you worry about missing something—if you think you can do something better if you try it one more time—these are all thought traps that will wear you down. Like, yeah, you've got to mind your hits and keep Leon from getting blasted seventeen ways to Sunday, but fretting too much about this will physically hurt you. God forbid you pay too much attention to your death counter! That's gonna be the final nail in your coffin!

Honestly, it seems like going full aggro and nose-pickingly stupid works more often than not. Which, hell. It's not like you have to put too many braincells into the puzzle solving for this game. (One of the solutions is literally 1-2-3-4. I swear to God!)

The biggest epiphany I had about "Resident Evil 4" came while I was playing "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge" with @jeannettegray. Like, this was the first video game break I had from "Resident Evil 4" in over three weeks. I found myself smiling and enjoying myself, and that caught me off guard. Here I was, with this teeny-tiny game, just screwing around and high-fiving people and whacking robots with a big stick. And those few little hours brought me more joy than this entire masterpiece of a game!

I did like a few parts of "Resident Evil 4." Anytime where the game would slow down and let you soak in the atmosphere was enjoyable, particularly with creepy, cool corridors like the first Novistador room and the Regenerator areas. Salvador's Castle is quite beautiful, too. And hell. There were even times where I felt like a fucking badass, particularly when it came to kicking three dudes down a hill or liquifying five brains with a shotgun blast. But, God. Did this game physically and emotionally wreck me.

Now, I should mention that I was playing a Player's Choice edition of "Resident Evil 4" for the GameCube. From what I've heard, the GameCube version of this game is the bitchiest. Common reported factors include lower-powered weapons, more aggressive enemies, and less money to spend. Given that this was Shinji Mikami's original vision for the game, it may be considered the closest to his wishes, if you wish to pay the game's director some respect. The NTSC GameCube version also has its deaths uncensored, so that may make it even more authentic. However, most of the people I've seen play this game online are using either the PC or some kind of PlayStation console variant. Hell, I even put in a couple of hours with the Wii version of this game, and I can confirm that that version is way fucking easier. Like, from 70% accuracy to 87% accuracy improvement.

If you're set on playing it, then do as you please. But, I just wanted to let you know what version I was on. Hopefully, that will explain some ouchiness I have towards it, too. Although, even speed runners of this game will reset it constantly. Even mid presentation! It's just that kind of a monster.

#post game evaluation #resident evil 4

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behindheremeraldeyes · 4 years ago

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DamiRae Week 2021 Monday, May 3rd - Pregnancy/ Parenthood & Family/ In-Laws

title: a cup of tea, please

summary: This is her first time being invited for dinner at the Wayne Mansion as his official girlfriend, and to say she’s nervous would be the understatement of the year. While she waits for them to arrive from an emergency call, perhaps, a nice cup of tea can calm her poor heart. Ao3 / ffnet

The path connecting the gates to the main entrance is probably the longest she ever remembers walking in a long time, and the clicking of her black heels against the concrete is starting to sound too loud in her ears. She’s miles away from Gotham, now, and the constant symphony of sirens that is always playing doesn’t reach her ears anymore. The garden is enveloped in peace and quietness, the moonshine bathing the statues and trees with its delicate light.

The Wayne Mansion is a spectacular construction, indeed. Her lavender eyes can’t stop looking around, carefully paying attention to all the details that make this place so impressive. The gothic style, the lit windows and the empowering towers make her feel incredibly small and she can’t help the shivers that run down her spine when she sees the massive water fountain in front of her.

Perhaps, she thinks, it’s a good thing that she came in alone. Raven doesn’t know what kind of face she is making right now, but she knows for sure that her boyfriend would make fun of her for reacting like that. Due to a sudden call from the GCPD requesting the dynamic duo, the empath ended up teleporting herself from Jump City on her own.Though she would always grow worried whenever they received those emergency calls, Damian did promise to meet her at the mansion in one piece so the three of them could have dinner.

Oh, right, the dinner. She feels her heart skipping a beat at the thought, and she has to suppress the urge to bite her lower lip in order not to ruin her lipstick. Of all the monsters and bad guys she has had to face in her life, Raven doesn’t recall ever being this nervous before. All of her primal emotions are screaming at her right now, and some of her inner demons— her father included— are telling her to run and hide in the depths of hell so she won’t have to face what’s to come.

She’s having dinner with the Waynes. However, it’s not just a simple dinner, no. It’s her first dinner as Damian’s official girlfriend— her first dinner meeting his father as his father. And even if she has already encountered Bruce Wayne many times before, she can’t help but think things would be much easier if she believed he was just a rich and eccentric man.

It would certainly be easier if she didn’t know he was, in fact, Batman.

Though she has never had any problems with Bruce since she’s joined the Titans, Raven must admit that she does feel intimidated by the fact that her father-in-law is the Gotham City’s very own Dark Knight. In all of their previous encounters, he has always been very cordial, never disrespecting her or any of her teammates. He is a good man, Damian says so himself. A good man with enough skills to go against every member of the Justice League without a single super-power.

He is a meticulous man, very precise and mysterious. He is her boss, and tonight, he is also her host.

It takes her a while to recompose herself from that wave of emotions, but eventually, Raven reaches the main entrance of the mansion. The mahogany doors are lustrous, and something tells her that the carved details were handmade decades ago. She takes one, last and deep breath, and finally, she reaches for the intercom with her index finger. A loud bell resonates inside the building, and before she has the time to rethink her choices, a muffled voice greets her.

“One moment, miss Roth.”

At those words, the empath is left slightly startled, as she starts playing with her fingers. Judging by the few things she was told her about the manor, Raven believes it’s safe to assume that voice on the speaker belongs to Alfred, the butler. According to her boyfriend’s stories, he has been in the family for at least three generations and he’s probably the one man who knows all of the secrets of the Waynes. Damian always speaks very fondly of him, saying he has always treated him like a boy instead of a potential assassin. Perhaps it wasn’t a very wise decision at the very beginning, but it says a lot about the man he is.

It doesn’t take long before the huge doors swing open in front of her, and as the lights start to creep out, it’s like a whole new world is revealed in front of her. She slowly walks in, her eyes marveled by all the elegance oozing from every corner of that entrance hall, which is probably larger than the house she grew up in.

There’s marble on the floor beneath her feet and a crystal chandelier hanging high above her head. Two spiral staircases unite the first and the second floors, and she notices as the walls are decorated with large, classical paintings of war and winter woods. There’s a brunet woman beautiful portrayed in one of those frames, and something tells her she must be Bruce’s mother. Though subtle, it’s undeniable that Damian shares a lot of his delicate features with her.

He has her cheeks, she thinks, a tender smile taking over her lips. It’s a pure emotion contrasting her current uneasiness, and right now, it’s enough to provide her some sort of comfort.

Even if Raven is completely absorbed by whole scenario around her, she’s quick to notice his presence in the room. Though her ears didn’t realize exactly when he arrived at the entrance hall, her senses are quick to detect the way his warm emotions mingle with hers. There’s a pinch of worry mixed with calmness, but mostly, she can feel a certain excitement building up inside him. It’s completely different from what she feels coming from the Wayne men she knows, for it’s lighter and consistent, and she can’t help but feel welcomed by that.

She still doesn’t even know his voice, but the empath is starting to understand why her boyfriend likes this man so much.

“Good evening, Miss Roth.” He starts, speaking politely and never taking his eyes away from hers. He’s dressed with a formal smoking, his black shoes perfectly shined and his gloves withe as the snow. “My name is Alfred, the butler. Welcome to the Wayne mansion. I apologize on behalf of Master Bruce and Master Damian, for they are still busy handling some matters in Gotham. They should be arriving shortly.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Alfred.” Her voice is steady and low, as she tries her best to cause a good first impression. “I'm sure they must be taking care of some important business. There’s no need for an apology. The city needs them, after all.”

“You’re a very kind, young lady. Please, allow me take your coat and walk you to the living room.”

She offers him a smile in response, carefully removing the black coat covering her petit body and revealing her outfit. She’s wearing a long, beige skirt that falls just above her calfs. Her onyx stilettos are giving her some extra inches, and a charcoal, sleeved shirt completes the set. For the material was a little transparent, it was possible to see her dark, lacy cropped beneath it, but according to Zatanna, it’s not indecent or anything. While preparing for tonight, Damian told her not to worry about futile details, but it only felt natural for her to want to look presentable for this evening’s event.

“Thank you, Alfred.” She handles him the coat, and she realizes how careful he is as he puts it inside a hidden closet.

“You're welcome. Now, if you could accompany me.”

"Of course.” She nods, following behind his footsteps. They walk down a large hallway with frames also decorating the walls, and even if she wanted to stay and look carefully at every single one of them, Raven knows better than to risk getting lost. Instead, she keeps paying attention to the composed man leading the way, observing in awe as the living room finally comes to view.

As expected, it’s another no by veryelegant room, filled with classical furniture and a gothic-themed fireplace that is responsible for keeping the area warm. Another large portrait hangs above it, and this time, that same woman is accompanied by a man very similar to Bruce himself. It’s a powerful painting for newcomers such as herself, but she knows it probably has a deeper meaning for those living inside those walls.

The carpets now are thick enough to muffle her heels, and while she’s distracted admiring the clocks spread around the living room, once more, his delicate voice bring her back to their reality. “Would you like a drink, Miss? Master Bruce has chosen a fine wine for the dinner, but feel free to ask me anything.”

“Uhmm.” She hums, pondering, her lips now pressed in a thin line. Though she doesn’t want to sound rude, Raven isn't really a fan of wine. She doesn’t hate it or anything like that, but it’s undeniable that she doesn’t have a high tolerance for alcohol. Once Bruce arrives, though, she will eventually have to share a glass with him, so, for now, she thinks it will be safer to avoid any liquor in order to prevent any embarrassing incident. “How about a cup of tea? I mean, only if it won’t cause you too much trouble, Alfred.”

“Non-sense. I will go boil the water immediately. Would you like any tea in particular?”

“Thank you very much, Alfred. And about the flavor… You can choose whatever you like, I guess. Damian once told me you know a lot about tea, so you probably know better than me when it comes to tea and the best choice for each occasion.”

His expression freezes for a fraction of second, a certain surprise now lacing his emotions. “Oh, did he?”

“Yes, he did.” She nods, offering him a soft smile. “He talks a lot about you, actually.”

“Good things, I hope.”

“The best, I assure you.”

“Who would have thought…” He nods, accepting her words and it’s as if she can sense a certain happiness in his voice. “Very well, I will go boil the water. If you need me, I will be in the kitchen. Please, make yourself at home.”

“I will, thank you.”

After nodding politely— because everythinghe does is polite— he turns around and walks away until he disappears in one of the many hallways she imagines this mansion to have. A soft smile takes over her lips as a warm sensation fills her chest. Alfred is really an amazing man. He’s thoughtful and his emotions are as transparent as Damian’s are filled with pride. Her first impressions on him are impeccable, and though he’s very different from the entire Wayne familiar circle, Raven is starting to understand why their dynamic works.

Maybe, with time, she will come to a full conclusion on that matter.

For now, though, she’s just happy to have finally met the man Damian always mentions whenever he’s talking about home. And now that she’s finally having the chance to add real images to his vague descriptions, well…

To say she’s just impressed would be the understatement of the year.

Though she has been in the mansion for a while now, Raven is still finding it hard to get used to her surroundings. Perhaps it’s the sepulchral silence or the fact that she’s all alone in Batman’s living room, but suddenly, she’s starting to feel a mild anxiety creeping around. She’s starting to feel self-conscious, as if she’s been watched— which is very likely to be happening, for sure— and even if Alfred has told her to make herself at home, the empath realizes it’s easier said than done.

She should’ve brought her book, damn it.

Her eyes are looking around in search of something to distract her from overreacting, but she soon realizes it’s useless. All of that subjective pressure is starting to get the best of her, and chances are that, if that continues like that, she will be teleporting back home before Damian even gets back.

Raven needs to calm down. She needs to stop overthinking and get herself together.

She needs Alfred, preferably with that tea. And even if she doesn't really know where the kitchen is, it’s not like she can’t use her powers to help her find the butler.

Without sparing a second thought, her eyes are already glowing and some loose locks of her purple hair are lifting up. With just a little concentration, she’s able to locate the only emotional human-being in the mansion and even if she doesn’t know which corridor will take her to him, Raven decides to improvise.

A dark energy envelops her body, and in a blink of an eye, the empath is teleported to a dim-lit room that is filled with a slightly bitter citric fragrance she’s very familiar with. It’s Earl Grey tea, she knows. The scent invades her nostrils and she can feel her body calmly responding to it. She takes a deep breath, then, and that’s when her eyes finally acknowledge the man responsible to that delicious aroma.

He’s standing in front of the stove, the boiling water working its magic on the leaves floating above it. As it appears, he’s following all the correct steps to brew the perfect Earl Grey and she doesn’t feel like she can thank him enough for that.

She stands a couple of feet away from him, near a wooden table that has a porcelain tea cup that certainly belongs to an english crockery set. There are four stools near her, and she also notices the many kitchen utensils displayed around the room. The newspaper is resting next to a pair of reading glasses, and she wonders if that’s what he was doing before she got here earlier this evening.

“Miss Roth, may I help you?” He speaks, not bothering to turn to face her, as he’s delicately blending the black tea with Bergamot oil. Though she has literally just appeared behind his back, she noticed how he remained calm and focused. Years of living with that family must do that to a person, she thinks.

“Oh, Uhm… It’s nothing, really.” She starts, stumbling upon her own words like a 5-year-old child who was caught stealing cookies from the jar. Apparently, Raven didn’t really think of a way to properly explain why she even bothered coming after him in the first place. “You see, Alfred, I was just… I was—“

“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” He speaks, and suddenly, it’s like her worries dissipate in thin air. It’s funny how she’s the empath between them, and yet, he seems to know exactly what she’s feeling right now. He’s a good man, for sure.

“Yeah.” She sighs, a smile on her face. “I guess I just didn’t want to be alone in Batman’s mansion. Do you mind if I stay here with you until they get back?”

“Of course not, Miss Roth. Please, sit and make yourself comfortable. The tea is almost ready.”

“Thank you.” She says, choosing one of the stools for her to sit. Even if it’s not one of Bruce’s expensive armchairs, Raven is feeling a lot more comfortable here, with him. “Also, I see that you’ve chosen Earl Grey… It’s my favorite.”

“I know it is, Miss Roth.”

Her eyes widen for a moment, and slowly, she lets his words sink in. Few people in this world know such simple details about her life, and though she wouldn’t take Damian for one to chit-chat about his girlfriend’s favorite kind of tea, she’s not oblivious to what that means.

They do get along, she can tell. And even if she can only make guesses on that matter, she definitely wants to know more about that relationship.

“So, Alfred…” She starts again, not really sure how to ask him those questions without sounding too nosy. “How was Damian before he joined the Titans? He talks a lot about you, his father and Dick; but never really about himself.”

“Uhm… Master Damian is different from all the others.” He states, finally turning off the flame of the stove. He lets it sit for a couple of seconds, only then opting to pour it in the cup he had separated for her. The scent is stronger now, and she can’t wait for the temperature to drop just enough so she can take a sip of it. “He's the only one who wantedMaster Bruce to be his paternal figure, even if he might not be aware of that himself.”

“And did he get what he wanted?”

“You perhaps need to spend more time with Master Bruce, my dear.” He says, his voice laced with a certain sarcasm as his mustache slightly turns upwards.

“Well… I don’t know how it was before, but I think they’re starting to understand each other a little better now, right? At least that’s the impression I get every time he goes back to the tower after a night patrol.”

“I believe you’re right, indeed. Both of them are too similar in many aspects, and I think it’s safe to say they’re making progress as father and son. An old man such as myself can only hope for them to find a balance."

“Damian Wayne finding balance in life… That's something I would love to see.” She giggles, earning a side smile from him.

“He's changed a lot since the first time we met him. Master Damian is certainly no longer that irreverent child who’s constantly angry and lost.”

“Maybe that monastery did good for him.”

“Well, not only the monastery, Miss Roth.”

A comforting warmth creeps under her skin and she can't help but feel a sense of wholesomeness taking over her emotions. Though she doubts she’s had all of that effect on him, it’s nice to know she was able to make a difference, no matter how small it might have been.

Her boyfriend is a very complex man, filled with doubts and conflicts that might never come to an end. He struggles to become a new man without abandoning his past, and perhaps, that’s the one thing she loves the most about him. He’s unique, original in his own shape and colors. He’s not trying to please anyone, and yet, even if he doesn’t believe her words whenever she points it out, he’s trying to be a hero.

He will be a fine leader someday, and she can’t wait to be there by his side when his day arrives.

“Thank you, Alfred… For taking care of him when he was a little boy.”

“It was only my job as the family’s butler. I should be the one thanking you, Miss Roth. For taking care of him now that he’s no longer one.”

His old, wrinkled eyes are now looking at her, and there’s an emotion there that Raven can’t really name. It’s pure and laced with honesty, and for a moment, she thinks this is how grandparents are supposed to look at their grandchildren.

It feels special to be looked at like that. It feels warm and safe in a whole different level, and she feels encouraged enough to talk to him about anything in the world. Her tastes, her doubts, fears, and mostly, the things she loves.

At last, she’s beginning to understand the man behind the dynamic duo. At last, she beginning to understand why Damian loves him so much.

There’s an inch of expectation in his face as she finally takes a sip of the tea, and she hopes he can see the satisfied look on her face after that. It’s perfect, for sure. Perhaps the best Earl Grey she’s ever had in her life. As expected from a man such as Alfred Pennyworth.

“It's delicious, Alfred.” She nods, closing her eyes to savor the moment. “Would you like to drink with me?”

“Don't mind me, Miss. It’s still too early for my tea.”

“Oh, I see… Maybe next time, then?”

“Of course. Next time will be perfect.”

Neither of them really knew for how long they’ve been talking, but eventually, their ears capture the sound of rushed footsteps coming from down the hallway. Unalarmed eyes turn their attention to the source of the new sound that has disturbed their chit-chat, and in a matter of seconds, a raven haired boy dressed in his black turtle-neck shirt appears.

“Alfred, we’re home! He starts, sounding slightly breathless. “Have you seen Rav—“ Though he did seem bit exasperated, at first, once his emerald eyes meet her amethyst one, it’s as if time stops and he allows himself to breath. “Oh, there you are.”

“Hi.” She greets him, a warm smile now forming on her lips. “Took you long enough, Boy Wonder.”

“You see, everything was going just fine until those lunatics decided it would be fun to rob the Gotham museum. Penguin was behind this one this time.”

“And did you get him?” She asks, taking another sip of her tea.

“Not really… He escaped through the sewers, that bastard. Next time he won’t stand a chance, though!”

“You’ll get him next time, I’m sure.”

“Yeah…” He nods, running his fingers through his dark locks. “Sorry to keep you waiting for so long."

“Oh, don’t worry about it. Alfred here has kept me company while you were busy.” She states, looking at the butler so they could exchange an honest glance. “Though I believe he’s too polite to tell me to leave so I can stop distracting him from the important things he has to do."

“Nonsense, Miss Roth.” Alfred states, no hesitation in his voice. “Our talk has proven itself quite amusing.”

“I'm glad to know that. I really enjoyed our talk, too.” She states, taking the last sip of her tea before finally standing up. She takes a few steps to get closer to Damian, who almost instinctively, places his hand right on her lower back. Their eyes meet once more, and there’s a small smile playing on his lips.

“Good to see you two getting along. What were you two talking about?”

“You, of course.”

“Me?” He lifts an eyebrow, and she watches amusedly as confusion takes over his face. “Can you be a little more specific?”

“Sure. We were talking about this silly game you play with all the girls you bring home for dinner.” She teases, a sparkle lit inside her amethyst eyes. "Honestly, keeping us waiting all alone so close to Batman’s secrets isn’t a really good idea.”

“TT.” He scoffs, a pout decorating his face. “You're not funny.”

“I would have to disagree, Master Damian. She’s quite the spirituous one.”

“Thank you, Alfred.”

“You're welcome, Miss Roth.”

“I'm clearly outnumbered here.”

A giggle escapes her lips as she smiles at her new partner in crime. Alfred nods back at her, and once her attention returns tenderly towards her boyfriend, the butler clears his throat in order to get their attention. “Master Damian, why don’t you take Miss Roth to the living room to meet your father? I’ll be finishing the preparations for the dinner.”

“Great idea, Alfred.” Damian agrees, offering her his arm to hold as a true gentlemen would. “Shall we?”

“Of course.” She nods, accepting his offer and bringing her body even closer to his. Her emotions feel lighter, and her chest is warmer now that she is getting to know more about him and his life away from the Titans. Her conversation with Alfred was very pleasant and she really hopes she can get another chance like this in a nearby future. “Thank you for keeping me company, Alfred. It was a real pleasure meeting you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Miss Roth.” He bows cordially, and she has no reason to doubt his words.

Both Alfred and Raven reach a mutual agreement, and carefully, she feels Damian carefully pulling her towards the corridor from where he came. The two lovers are about to walk away with their arms laced, but suddenly, the butler’s voice stops them in their tracks.

“Master Damian, if I may…”

“What is it, Alfred?” Damian asks, curiosity now taking over both of them.

“You've found yourself a very nice girl and my old heart can’t handle another emotionally inept Wayne. Don’t let her slip away.”

Her eyes widen at his statement and she can even feel a blush threatening to tinge her cheeks. A mix of feelings is running through her veins right now, and if anything, she feels her heart skipping a beat while waiting for Damian’s answer to this.

Is he going to laugh it off?

Is he going to opt for one of the rude answers he’s always giving Dick?

Is he going to—

Her train of thoughts is suddenly interrupted by the feeling of his other hand on top of her arm. His fingers caress her exposed skin, and for a moment, she hopes she doesn’t look half as dumbfounded as she is inside. His emerald eyes are now looking deep into hers and all of the words disappear from her mind.

“I won't, Alfred.” He answers, his voice an octave lower than before. “I certainly won’t.”

A soft smile slowly makes its way to her lips, and right now, she realizes how happy she is to be here. Not only she got to know the famous Alfred, but Raven also got the chance to know more about the man she holds so dear in her heart.

At last, they make their way to the dinning room where Bruce is probably waiting for them. They exchange smiles and a few words in order to catch up on the last couple of hours. There’s a chuckle, a sigh and even a muffled sound that shall be kept in secret by the walls of the mansion. Without a hurry in the world, their feet keep moving forward, their arms never once untangling.

fin.

------

a/n: Hapy Damirae week! This is my first time participating and I’m so excited!! Thanks to this ship, I’ve met so many wonderful people and all I want right now is for our beloved ship to be showered with all the love and affection it deserves! Thank you all who have made me feel so welcomed and let’s have a blast during this week! Hope you enjoy this one, and please, tell me what you think!

#damirae #damirae week 2021 #damirae week may 3 #damian x raven #demonbirds #mydamiraefics

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joezworld · 4 years ago

Note

📂

What in the HECK happened with Scotsman, Dominion, and Dwight during the Great Gathering?!

(Also, since Dutchess of Hamilton has also been to the US during the 1939 NY World’s Fair, did she get involved?)

Warning - extremely long post below

So, first of all, Duchess of Hamilton never went back to the UK.

Duchess of Hamilton (6229) and Coronation (6220) had their nameplates swapped by the LMS when an engine was sent over to the US. 6229, in the guise of 6220, went to the US.

Streamlined locomotives were all the rage at the time, and railroads practically fell over themselves to get Coronation (as she was now known) onto press trains. The B&O railroad in particular was so impressed with her capabilities that they extended a formal offer of employment to her for service on their streamlined Royal Blue service. The LMS were surprised to get an offer to "purchase" their locomotive, but accepted nonetheless, as it meant a welcome infusion of cash in the dark days during the beginning of WWII.

Coronation fit right in with the Americans, having only been about a year old when she was sent to New York. Following the end of steam traction on the Royal Blue in the late 40s, (the B&O were early adopters of diesels.) she and her B&O coworkers found good employment on the New York Central, where she still runs to this day.

Since then, she's fully "gone native", marrying a J3 Hudson, (yes one of the streamlined ones) adopting both an American accent and three children, and being fully repainted to NYC silver by 1956. Flying Scotsman met her in Albany in 1970, and neither one of them recognized the other.

Actually, most UK expats don't recognize her, to the point where a common interaction is for her to be held up as an example of "look at her, she's integrated well into the US", only for the British engines to say "that's preposterous, she isn't English".

When it's pointed out that she's still obviously an LMS Coronation, the next response is usually screaming.

All that being said, she has no interest to come back to the United Kingdom, and wasn’t asked by the NRM anyways.

---------------

Second of all, the Great Gathering was... an event.

So, there are (officially) 6 preserved Gresley A4s.

Mallard - static, National Railway Museum (UK). Also an asshole.

Bittern - running, private owner, UK based

Sir Nigel Gresley - running, owned by a trust, UK based

Union of South Africa - running, private owner, UK based

Dwight D. Eisenhower - static (officially), National Railway Museum (USA)

Dominion of Canada - static (officially), Exporail (Montréal)

This is the official list, and for the first 4 engines, it's the truth.

However, things are a bit hazier on the other side of the Atlantic...

-----

So the thing that needs to be made clear right up front that in a sentient vehicle world, museums aren't like the NRM, where locomotives sit static for years on end, although obviously the English have museums like that because of course they do.

Rail museums in the rest of the world are much more like Colonial Williamsburg - a living history center staffed by volunteers who act out a prototypical setting from [insert decade here].

British Rail, being British Rail, didn’t know that and didn’t care.

4496, Dwight D. Eisenhower, having been named after the General-turned-President, had been earmarked for preservation by BR, and was summarily shipped off to the US National Railway Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In an entirely unintentional move, this donation MONUMENTALLY snubbed the Smithsonian, who refused to have any dealings with BR for decades, even for archival purposes. This, combined with the fallout from Operation Smash Hit, and the fact that the Smithsonian is Petty AF, meant that there was virtually no official trans-Atlantic cooperation between British and US museums for decades.

Dwight hit the shores of the US in 1964 New York City and was greeted by a marching band, a ticker-tape parade, and Presidents Johnson and Eisenhower, who were on-hand to personally make the engine a US citizen.

Always keen to curry favor with the government, the Southern Pacific railroad had a job offer waiting for Dwight right alongside the Presidents and the parade, and when he accepted, he went off to Sunny Southern California - someplace so opposed to Britain the he fell in love with the place immediately and refused to leave!

The ladies may have also had something to do with it as well - while most engine classes fell into a typical 50-50 gender distribution, the SP GS-4 class was all female...

[Pictured above - one of 28 very good reasons to live in California if you're a single British steam engine.]

Dwight does not kiss and tell, but at his wedding in 1974, all 28 GS-4s showed up - and he was only marrying one of them!

Since the 70's, he's become a mainstay in California, having been repainted into Daylight Limited colors in 1969, and retiring from railroad duties in 1999. After that, he went into the movie business, and is currently the head of digital media development at Disney.

His wife Irene (SP 4437) is also an interesting figure as well - following in the wheelmarks of the great female locomotives before her, she had an eye for business and a Stanford education before she married her husband, and was an initial investor in multiple tech companies in Silicon Valley during the 70's and 80's, but stopped doing that after her investment in Apple proved very lucrative. In 1996, she was convinced by a few people in the Stanford Alumni association to invest in another tech startup, this one an "internet search engine" called Google.

So yeah, Dwight Eisenhower kept falling up and up and up all his life, and is now married to the richest woman in the world.

4489 Dominion of Canada was donated mostly by accident, having been forgotten in the back of Darlington sheds until 1966, when she was shipped off to the Canadian Railway Historical Society in Montreal.

As stated elsewhere, the Canadian Government considered any locomotive built in the UK to have UK citizenship, and therefore treated them as commonwealth citizens under existing Canadian law. (remember that Canada was still a colony at that time)

CN, the national rail carrier, was obligated to offer her a job under their charter, and she accepted, moving to Toronto to run intercity trains between Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa.

Within two years she was displaced from those duties by the introduction of a new, shiny, jet turbine powered train, and was summarily demoted to local commuter runs in the Toronto suburbs.

Moving to suburbia did one thing more than anything else - expose her to the people who live there. They all had complaints, they all had problems, and they all had no idea on how to fix them.

Being a helpful sort, Dominion decided that she could help, and promptly ran for Toronto city council in 1974. She won, and has been a fixture in local Toronto politics ever since - she even got to be Chairwoman of Metro Toronto (the closest thing to being mayor because Toronto's governmental structure is weird) until 1998, when Toronto was merged with the surrounding area to create a massive new region.

Having then done everything there is to do in municipal Toronto government, Dominion went on to become the Chief Executive Officer of Metrolinx, the agency that controls almost all of the transit agencies in Ontario, because, as she puts it, "I'm still a commuter engine at heart".

She's now painted in the current GO Transit paint scheme, and still does commuter runs- which is really weird looking now that there are double deck commuter coaches in a push-pull configuration, with a Gresley A4 doing the pushing.

------

Now, I mentioned that those 6 were the only ones officially preserved - there were two unofficial preservations as well...

4486 Merlin was properly Shanghied - he was yanked off the docks in Southhampton by a cargo ship in August of 1965, and was spirited away to parts unknown.

Those unknown parts turned out to be South Korea. There, he was given citizenship by the US-aligned military dictatorship (Korean history is wild) and was employed by the State-run rail operator.

As the military government began a hardcore plan to increase their country's wealth and industrial output, rail lines were being built across the country, and Merlin was soon awarded a position on the fastest train in the network, the Seoul-Busan Saemaeul-ho.

Because of his experience in running high-speed express trains, Merlin not only became the public face of Korean high-speed rail, but also became an "honored elder" amongst the other Korean engines, a position he still holds to this day - as despite being over 70 years old, he still runs daily trains on the fast services, easily keeping time with the Korean schedules as well as training the new high speed trains, including the KTX sets. He's on his 24th boiler by now, and has more parts from Hyundai than Doncaster.

An additional fact - Merlin actually has had a linguistic effect on Korean railroading, as his strange amalgamation of an accent - a strong Yorkshire accent that tried to be Received Pronunciation for 30 years, mixed with almost 50 years of middle-to-upper-class Korean - has filtered down through the ranks of KoRail, because all of his students want to sound like him out of respect. Human British expats in Korea will occasionally hear a locomotive speaking in English, and the engine will sound like a Yorkshireman every time and the Brits cannot handle it.

---------

4495 Golden Fleece is the only A4 to preserve himself - he saw the writing on the wall in the early 60s, and hopped a car ferry to France at the end of 1962. From there, he bounced around Europe for a bit before making it to the United States in the late 70's.

Of the 8 surviving A4s, he's probably led the quietest life of all - he moved to Miami before it got nice, and basically got in on the ground floor of CSX when that merger happened in 1980. He's now the head of terminal operations for the Port of Miami, but he's generally kept a low profile - not even having a chance to meet Scotsman due to his time in Europe.

He's still in contact with Dwight and Dominion, and has no real bitterness over not being "famous" like they are - he likes the quiet, and still lives in a modest house in Boynton Beach with his long-term girlfriend.

----------------------

Soooo... the Great Gathering.

It was supposed to be a meeting of the 6 surviving A4s - a two year event held at the NRM in honor of the 75th anniversary of Mallard's record-setting run.

"Record setting" is a past-tense term here. While there have been no official runs, every single one of the Pennsylvania Railroad's T1 and S1 locomotives claim to have gone faster than 126 without meaning to, and numerous other locomotives on unofficial attempts done late at night on flat stretches of land across the country have hit 130+.

British Expats have also done better than 126 - Coronation claims to have hit at least 140 on a midnight mail train in 1980, and in Korea, Merlin claims to have hit 128 on a test train, although that was judged by timing mile markers as his speedometer wasn't functioning properly.

Problems arose before any of the engines had even reached the NRM, as Mallard's already sizeable ego had swelled to massive proportions, and several engines in the great hall were planning a justifiable homicide.

Then came the time restraints - none of the foreign locomotives were willing to uproot their lives and jobs for two years just to sit motionless in a shed. A two year exhibition was eventually negotiated down to a 6 month gala, much to the irritation and confusion of the NRM, who could not understand that the engines were still in service.

Then came the extra engines - Dwight and Dominion thought that the NRM knew about Fleece, and were quite insulted on his behalf when he wasn't invited - they threatened to not attend unless arrangements were made for Fleece to attend as well.

An utterly baffled NRM agreed, but also tore their record archives apart, as they knew that Fleece had been scrapped. The fact that his picture was plastered all over CSX's Florida Division website was all the more confusing as a result.

Meanwhile in Busan, nobody knew that Merlin had escaped the scrappers' torch and therefore did not invite him. He was only informed after K-Pop star Psy texted him from London to ask if he knew about the event, which was being advertised on television.

Merlin, having missed his friends from the LNER, decided that he would just crash the party, used some of his many vacation days, and took off for England on a cargo ship.

By sheer coincidence, all four foreign A4s hit the dock in Southhampton on the same day, and were delighted to see each other - especially Merlin, considering that everyone else had thought he'd died.

Meanwhile at the NRM, delight was not the word one would use. Befuddled, confused, shocked even, but not delighted. Their plans had revolved around 6 A4s, most of which wouldn’t be running - only to now discover that there were 7, all but one of which were functioning! (Mallard, the star of the show, was the odd one out, and it drove him crazy)

Then they got a phone call from their man at the docks saying that another one had showed up, looking like he’d driven out of a K-pop album cover, and they just gave up and started screaming.

Screaming is also what happened when the cavalcade of foreigners showed up in York - first of all, the quartet of new engines sounded nothing like they had when they left England.

Dwight had willfully unlearned his Upper Crust British accent by 1971, and had fallen deep into a California accent (quite similar to what Scotsman sounds like - coincidence? No.)

Dominion and Fleece hadn’t tried to unlearn their accents, but 40+ years of living in North America can really dilute the Britishness. It doesn’t help that Dominion has developed most Canadian vocal tics eh?

As stated above, Merlin has a weird fuckin accent, and now he speaks English with a strong Yorkshire accent, but will occasionally and without warning drop into a Korean/Yorkshire hybrid accent.

The screaming also happened because the NRM had wanted to repaint the duo trio! quartet?! into LNER garter blue, and were promptly informed that “we’re painted like this for work! Don’t touch it!” (the sole exception was Dwight, who hadn’t pulled a real train in 14 years, but he liked his Daylight Limited paint), so instead of the new arrivals showing up in LNER colours, they showed up looking like THIS:

Having their long-lost siblings show up looking and sounding like THAT had quite an affect on the A4s and the other NRM engines:

Bittern could not believe her eyes - to the point where she actually began making noise about seeing an optometrist

Union of South Africa almost backed through a wall

Sir Nigel Gresley was speechless for two days

Mallard was so angry that he actually chipped a tooth during one of his rants about “the impropriety of it all!!”

Evening Star laughed so hard that he managed to derail himself without moving

City of Truro almost cracked a piston from shock

Alycidon spent the entire gala coming up with more and more laser focused jabs at Mallard - who was so easy to fluster that the Deltic needn’t have bothered

Oliver Cromwell and Green Arrow made fast friends with the new arrivals, and spent the entire time learning ‘Americanisms’ to annoy the other engines with.

But what about Flying Scotsman? Where was he in all of this? He was generally considered to be the “leader” of the NRM fleet (much to Mallard’s annoyance), and was usually who the other engines turned to when things started getting out of control.

Did Scotsman calm things down? Like hell he did. The inmates were running the asylum from the moment that Scotsman saw the other A4s - more importantly saw Dwight - and immediately greeted them in flawless Californian.

This actually set off the building’s security alarm, as Flying Scotsman saying “DUDES! Wassup?!” caused such an uproar that the noise broke several exterior windows.

----

And all of this was in the first few days - there were six months left to go.

There was one railtour attempt. It was supposed to feature Bittern and Sir Nigel running in tandem, but instead featured Dwight and Merlin, mainly because Bittern wanted to see what would happen.

They exceeded the max speed limit for steam traction within 15 minutes, sparked a thorough investigation by the RAIB, and got all future steam powered railtours for the Gathering cancelled immediately.

On the plus side, the two engines did prove that it was still possible for a steam train to hit 100 safely.

One thing that baffled the other engines was the inordinately large number of people who turned up just to see Dominion, and the one person who kept turning up to see Fleece - it took a lot of explaining for them to understand that Dominion had been married three times, and had children (adopted) and grandchildren from all three marriages coming to see her. A similar amount of explaining was required to explain that Fleece’s girlfriend/partner wanted to see him too.

The normally chatty Dwight and Scotsman would suddenly clam up whenever Dominion and Fleece teasingly tried to ask about their love lives, something which wasn’t unnoticed by the other engines, but got similarly nowhere.

The answer to why they both shut the hell up was explained when a lot of shouting broke out in the yard of the NRM one day about a month into the exhibition:

Irene Eisenhower, not content to sit in California and count her billions, quickly grew bored without her husband, and decided to go to England and be with him. The fact that she definitely did not fit the UK loading gauge was never even a consideration, and so she just showed up in York on the back of a lorry, having informed no-one of her arrival, and content to just pay off the requisite people if a fuss occurred.

A fuss did occur, and it was only ended when Scotsman managed to convince the museum’s curator (who at this point in his life was regretting ever thinking of this damned gathering) that Irene was a ‘temporary donation’ to the museum.

[Scotsman, who definitely hid his Cali accent from museum staff the entire time, has one of the best poker faces in the world]

Dwight was overjoyed, and so was Scotsman, for initially unclear reasons. Then Irene managed to grab both her husband and Scotsman, dragged them behind a shed, and [THIS IS A PG13 HEADCANON] the both of [PG13]. Turns out that while Scotsman may have slept his way across the US a few times, he was actually ready to settle down with Dwight and Irene - they were a throuple way back in the 70s, and those passions haven’t faded. When Scotsman reluctantly left the US in 74, a lot of the reluctance was because of those two.

This bombshell of a revelation went over interestingly at the NRM. Some engines (Green Arrow) were happy for them, some were incensed (Mallard - although it was for anti-American reasons, not homophobic ones), and some were intensely curious about what was going on in the outside world (Bittern).

The ‘foreigners’ (as Mallard had taken to calling them), were deeply displeased at how their fellow engines were being treated - while a lot of them were ‘in steam’, some were not and might never be again, something they found abhorrent. Unable to do anything at that time, as the NRM was not a for-profit entity and therefore did not have anyone to bribe, (Irene’s solution to things is to throw money at the situation) the engines started talking about how life was different in the outside world - namely that engines were still working hard, even when they were over a century old and running on steam power.

This was of great interest to engines like Evening Star and (6220) Duchess of Hamilton, neither of whom were likely to be steamed again, and Bittern, who was growing more and more curious with each passing day. Dissent began to slowly build against the NRM curators, and the culture of the United Kingdom in general.

One thing the foreigners did try do something about was Ellerman Lines. The poor bastard had been sectioned to show his inner workings, much to the jaw-dropped horror of the foreign A4s, who made such a stink about it that he was moved outside the museum by NRM staff, who must have thought that the engines lacked object permanence or something, because that didn’t make it better!

Irene Eisenhower, who was beginning to get really sick of the nonsense that the NRM called preservation, (Scotsman was not in running condition, and had been hastily reassembled mid-overhaul in order to be cosmetically ready for the event, and let’s not forget poor Ellerman Lines) elected to bring the event to a close on her own after only three months. She did this by eventually putting her immense wealth to good use, and called for a haulage service to rescue the engines from the NRM without the knowledge of the museum staff. Aside from the A4s, she also took Ellerman Lines, Scotsman, and Bittern (who had asked to go) with her, and only bothered to inform Ellerman and Bittern - she was not about risk Scotsman having another “think of England” moment and staying.

The haulage firm was efficient and the cargo ship was waiting, so the engines were in international waters before the NRM opened the next morning.

Much swearing occurred in England that day, and the NRM’s image has yet to fully recover from the PR story that they had sold Flying Scotsman (and Ellerman Lines) to a reclusive American billionaire.

Privately though, the NRM does not care, as that story is a lot better than “Someone stole our engines and we’re not allowed to get them back because as it turns out we’re slaveowners, so no international court will help us.”

Also, despite their multimillion dollar “donation" from the I. Eisenhower Opportunity Fund, they still haven’t been able to fully pacify their engines, all of whom have somehow gotten the idea that they should be running in main line service like they live on Sodor or something...

--------

Dwight, Scotsman, and Irene all live happily together in the sprawling Eisenhower estate in Malibu. Irene is currently lobbying the California state government to legalize polygamy, with moderate success.

Ellerman Lines, after a lot of therapy and a full rebuild, is now working on a short line in Wyoming. He likes the scenery.

Bittern followed Dwight, Irene, and Scotsman to Los Angeles, and used her ‘connections’ (Dwight) to get a supporting role in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Since then, she’s gotten several roles based on her own merits, including an Emmy nomination for Best Guest Appearance in a Comedy.

Merlin spent a few months in LA before he went back to Korea. He is very thankful that he was able to reconnect with his brothers and sisters, and that his homeland has good internet, as he video calls his family across the Pacific almost every day.

Golden Fleece still lives a quiet life in Florida, but finally decided to tie the knot, and married his girlfriend in 2017. The ceremony was supposed to be quiet, but Irene Eisenhower has no idea what that word means.

Dominion of Canada continues to baffle non-local trainspotters when she runs commuter trains into Toronto. She is now a great-grandmother.

7 years later, and the term “Great Gathering” is still a forbidden phrase in the back rooms of the NRM.

#ask response #long #really long #I wrote this for like me and two other people at most #national railway museum #flying scotsman #Headcanon #ttte #ttte adjacent #bittern #mallard #train headcanon #locomotive rights headcanon #extremely specific headcanon #headcanon

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honey-hippie-harper · 4 years ago

Text

through the burning shell

Hello it’s been 84 years.

This is fun :): I wrote this as a Christmas present for @obsidianfr3sk (YES DAWNIE KEEP POSTING YOU CHRISTMAS FICS DURING MARCH. YOU GO GIRL) and it’s a sequel to my other fic “through the bleeding shell” where I basically try to save Simon and Hugh from the queerbaiting MM turned them into by adding a certain degree of complexity to their relationship. This is a story about gays, grief and a dead friend + Simon defending Nova bc I don’t roll with Supernova. Hence, I am not morally obligated to obey canon <3

Anyway afgdhjafghsj i don’t think you need to read the first part to understand this, and I hope you like it <3. I don’t want to give much away, but this sort of turned into a collaboration that got out of control and @obsidianfr3sk might write a third part in the future ;)

through the burning shell

“There have been rumors that the public revealing of Agent N is to include a public execution as well.”

Being all together, right there, Simon saw Hugh narrowing his eyes, staring directly at Genissa Clark, formerly Frostbite, now neutralized, along with the rest of her team.

Well.

Almost all of them.

“That’s true.” Hugh started, and Simon couldn’t help but think he shouldn’t have answered. A part of him was getting a pretty bad feeling from this. “For his crimes against humanity, Ace Anarchy has been sentenced to death.”

“Why stop there?” Said Genissa. “I would argue that his accomplices deserve the same fate.”

The same fate.

His brain struggled to make a connection between that sentence and the one Hugh had uttered. At first, he didn’t understand. A couple of fast seconds later, Simon realized that, by saying “fate”, she was referencing something.

She was referencing, more specifically, Ace Anarchy’s sentence.

A death sentence.

Accomplices.

The Anarchists.

“Nightmare deserves the same fate.” Nova deserves the same fate. “Nightmare must die… And I want to be the one to do it.”

Nova must die.

And I want to be the one to do it.

A child killing another child, publicly, with the Renegades’ permission.

A child they had taken under their wing, Genissa Clark that is, killing another child, who had been in Simon’s house, who had touched Adrian’s heart, and who had made bad choices but was still a person. The official version of the events said she had stabbed Max, and Danna claimed she was Nightmare, but they hadn’t taken any declarations or anything, so that story might as well just change.

Simon couldn’t help but feel she didn’t deserve to die.

Maybe because she actually didn’t. It didn’t feel fair.

One thing was sentencing Ace Anarchy, the man who had lifted an entire city, leaving a ridiculously huge number of deaths in the process, who had stolen, broken and burned, who had killed a man (the mayor) and his pregnant wife, who had killed his own brother, sister-in-law and possibly his two nieces...and another, pretty different thing was to allow this 19 year old girl kill a 16 year old one, who had some crimes that could put her into jail for like 3 or 5 years, but weren’t horrible enough to give her a death sentence. She was a minor. She wasn’t yet beyond repair…

And if she was to be executed, then she was still a minor. She didn’t deserve to be humiliated like that. She didn’t deserve her life to be taken away with so little dignity.

Not by Genissa Clark.

Not like that.

And, stars, please, not now.

Not right now.

It was unthinkable, it was barbaric, it was animal, it was almost as if…

A quiet chuckle.

A quiet chuckle that, suddenly, interrupted his train of thought and, with all the pain in his heart, he was able to recognize in a blink.

Evander was chuckling.

Genissa Clark, nonchalantly, was blackmailing them. She was trading her silence for the legal permission to kill someone, in front of a crowded arena. And Evander was chuckling.

Genissa Clark wanted to murder Nova, and Evander was chuckling.

“Is that all it will take to quit their complaining?”

What else did he want?

“Works for me.”

Simon almost flinched to the audacity. To the severity of the implication. To the way he was saying it. So smug. So relaxed, so….Evander it almost made Simon mad.

That was so Evander lately.

Because, lately, Evander didn’t understand anything. Not even because he had a pregnant wife waiting for him at home. There was life inside that woman. Life that had come from him.

How couldn’t he understand?

How could somebody be so cold?

“These are lives we’re discussing.” Simon reminded him, shooting a look in his direction.

“Villains’ lives.” Evander responded. “Nightmare doesn’t deserve mercy any more than Ace Anarchy does. She was the one who neutralized them, so it seems fair to me.”

Villains’ lives were still lives.

Nova was a person.

Nova was...Nightmare, but before Nightmare, she was Nova, and Hugh and him had met her personally. Adrian had met her personally.

And, besides, with this logic, then all the Renegades were to be executed.

After all, Agent N was meant to be used by Renegades. They were the ones who were planning to neutralize people when they felt threatened. But when Nightmare did it, then she immediately deserved the death penalty.

Hugh would understand that. Everyone would understand that, just like Simon did.

They had to understand it.

Hugh had to understand it.

-.-

Yet, he didn’t.

Some time ago, Hugh had pledged to understand. Not directly per se, but he had pledged it in the name of his cause.

He promised he would understand.

And then, when he needed to understand the most, he didn’t.

He said he would.

Then he fucking didn’t.

“How can we run a city, much less an entire world, if we’re busy dealing with every trivial bit of bureaucratic nonsense that comes up?” He said.

“This solves two problems at once.” He said.

And he said that to Adrian’s, their son, face. Their son, who was just trying to help, by questioning how morally correct was to do something like that, just like Tamaya, Kasumi and himself had done, being ignored in the process.

“We need that right now. And we need to be united in this decision.”

“And why’s that, exactly?” Adrian asked. “Do we not want the world to know this is actually a dictatorship?”

In that moment, Simon knew Adrian had never spoken to Hugh like that. He had always been a pretty calm kid, who liked to question their decisions sometimes because, as a Renegade himself, of course he would feel uncomfortable or have doubts sometimes. But never had he called Hugh out. Not in that tone. Not with that entire bottle of venom flowing out of his mouth, melting his teeth, and mixing with his boiling blood.

Simon felt unable to tell him to stop, after his own voice had been ignored, and Hugh pretended Evander was the only one who mattered in the team. And it wasn’t that Evander didn’t matter.

It was just that he was wrong.

Besides, harsh as that sounded, Simon still couldn’t believe that those stinky, rotting, putrid, nauseating words had come from Hugh’s mouth. His Hugh. The man he had decided to marry, because he loved him so, so much, for him had been able to see him even when he was invisible. Literally.

Right in front of his eyes, Hugh morphed into a caricaturesque villain. His hands, which Simon had held so many times, were suddenly covered in both dry and fresh blood, red as an apple, but smelling like death.

Death.

The same death that was living like a parasite inside of his eyes, the only place that other people could harm. And the parasite was traveling through his system, all the way to his brain, spinning it around like a mirrorball, and eating from it like he was nothing.

Hugh’s hands were tied, too, and the strings were made of rope, a material he could easily tear apart, but seemed to have forgotten about that.

He was like a puppet, as the press, as society, and as tons and tons of eyes pulled from the ropes.

And nobody knew how to free him, not even himself.

“Do we not want the world to know this is actually a dictatorship?”

Adrian’s voice haunted him for days. The way in which he said that haunted him for days, and after a while, Simon just accepted he wouldn’t be able to get rid of it. It had become another one of the wounds he carried, open and bleeding, through life. The worst part of it all, was that Simon knew Adrian was right. That, at this point, everyone but Hugh, Evander and Genissa Clark were right.

But if he knew where had they gone wrong, and if he knew he didn’t agree with this monstrosity...why did it hurt so much?

How did you speak to a person who didn’t want to listen?

And, most importantly: Where were you supposed to get the courage to do it from?

-.-

Nova had spent seventeen days in Cragmoor Penitentiary when Adrian said he wanted to see her. He had been so mad at her, that it caught Simon off guard.

Not that he wasn’t able to understand it.

Adrian had had a couple of girlfriends and boyfriends throughout his life but, from what Simon could see, Nova was by far the one he had been the most serious about, to the point it almost seemed she was the one who would stay. Simon would’ve wanted to see his partner too, no matter how mad he was at said partner, if he knew they had been sentenced to death.

As fast as they could, knowing they were facing an authority (Adrian had asked them to be with him in the room), the wardens brought her right away, in a matter of minutes.

Through the glass, Simon saw her, on the metal platform, with her arms and legs being held, tightly, by braces, which were equally made of metal. For the look in her eye, Simon could almost hear her desperate begs for her visitor not to be Adrian. Yet, he had been, and he wasn’t alone, which, if anything, only made it worse.

Simon, from his part, was staring at two different glasses at the time. The one that divided them from Nova, and Adrian’s glasses, which revealed the pain he was penetrating Nova’s soul with, and also the rage he was entitled to feel.

But Nova looked small.

She, in fact, looked as small as she actually was.

She was almost a kid. She hadn’t yet started living. Yet, she was locked up here, and would only be taken out to be killed.

Nova’s body was shaking, just like Adrian’s. Her chin was quivering so much it almost seemed like she was cold, and Simon felt a twinge in his stomach. He felt nauseous and dizzy. And so evil and so guilty.

For some reason, he pictured a child, because Nova had been a younger child once, full of joy and innocence.

He pictured a child. Just like that.

Maybe she was wearing pigtails, had a gap between two of her teeth, and bruised legs, because she liked to play outside with her friends. Maybe, before she became Nightmare, she had something else to hold on to. Maybe she, like many people out there, had hoped for the Renegades to come, and when they didn’t do it, something became numb, and cold, and she started freezing to death, just like she would remain freezing, suspended in History, as the interrupted life who was the proof the Renegades had become the one thing they promised they would never be.

And Simon didn’t want to be part of that, yet he was still here.

He was still here, thinking about how fortunate he was that Nova wasn’t staring back at him, but at Adrian instead, as selfish as that might’ve sounded.

Simon felt he had lost the right to look her in the eye, having been the one who promised her, on several occasions, that she could look into theirs.

With each one of his limbs becoming tense, Simon took a deep breath. His mouth tasted like bile, and his whole body was pounding along with this heart. It felt like one of those times when you were almost a hundred percent sure you were having a heart attack, despite knowing that, if that was the case, you would already be on the floor crying for help.

Next thing he felt was the sudden and strong urge to speak.

He would’ve liked to talk to Nova, but through this glass, she couldn’t hear anything.

Besides, Simon knew that this moment wasn’t about him, or Hugh. They were involved in it. They were carrying it in their backs like a cross, but it wasn’t about them. It was about Nova and Adrian. There was glass between the two. They could press their hands together through it, but they couldn’t touch the other’s skin. They couldn’t feel the air the other breathed in the short distance. They couldn’t kiss. It was scary. It was sad. And it wasn’t awfully familiar.

But it wasn’t about Simon or Hugh.

“Do you need some privacy?” Simon asked, perhaps to both of them, knowing one wouldn’t be able to hear him, even if she tried.

In response, Adrian turned his gaze away from Nova, staring at Simon instead, nodding.

“I think that would be nice.”

Before Simon could say anything else, Hugh reached for his son’s shoulder, and once he touched it, he caressed the fabric, and the skin beneath the fabric, briefly.

“We’ll be in the lobby.”

Adrian nodded again and then, after gulping, he said:

“I love you, okay?”

The weird thing was, he didn’t look them in the eye for much. He did, but he turned his gaze away pretty fast, barely leaving time to process his own words. For that reason, nor Hugh or him responded.

They left right after that, leaving Adrian alone inside the room.

With Nova, but alone.

-.-

They dropped Adrian at the hospital once they left Cragmoon. There was barely any sound throughout the whole ride, except when Hugh asked if they wanted something from the store, and when they said goodbye to Adrian.

Obviously, Adrian couldn’t get close to Max. Not if he wanted to avoid being neutralized by him, but sometimes, according to Adrian himself, he liked to stay in the waiting room, and help the staff with whatever they needed, for he liked Max to know he came to visit often, and that he wasn’t alone, even if he couldn’t touch, or be in the same room with him. So they just allowed him to stay in the hospital as much as he needed. After all, it’s not like he was hurting anybody.

After that, everything was silent, all the way home, because, instead of driving towards the Headquarters, Hugh drove towards the mansion, leaving Tamaya in charge, under the excuse they would take a two hour break to have lunch together at home. She wasn’t so happy about it, but agreed anyway, because it’s not like Hugh had given her an option in the first place. He had just notified her. At this point, Hugh’s volume was getting the tiniest bit loud. And Simon wasn’t talking about his voice.

Upon arriving into the house, Hugh threw the keys by the entrance’s table and proceeded to walk all the way towards the living room, to lay on the couch, one arm covering his eyes, without even taking his costume off. He didn’t have a reason to, because they were supposed to be back at the Headquarters in two hours and, besides, the elephant in the room was making it cold. Maybe he felt his armor would protect him from what they were doing, and from what they were still doing.

Sadly, the fabric of Simon’s costume wasn’t as warm. And as he took his mask off and placed it next to keys, he felt nothing but cold wind. He was back again at being Simon, and Simon only, without anything protecting him, in the same room as the husband who rarely ever kissed him anymore.

There was an elephant in the room, and it was killing both of them, though Hugh looked like he was already dead.

Simon tried not to pay attention to him, but when he was crossing to the kitchen, he couldn’t help but ask, in an unintentionally harsh tone:

“Are we going to have lunch or did you just want to make Tamaya more stressed?”

Hugh lowered his arm, staring at him with an arched eyebrow, lifting his neck just a little, to have a clearer view. Simon was starting to feel bad for having snapped at him, but not enough to take it back.

Sometimes you had to do the right thing, and sometimes the right thing was not taking it back.

His husband, from his part, looked rather confused, as if he couldn’t recognize the person in front of him.

“Are you feeling okay?” He asked.

The question caught him off guard.

Was he okay? Simon wasn’t sure, nor did he want to answer. In times like these, Hugh wanted people to answer him what he wanted to hear and, sadly, this time Simon didn’t have any answer he would like.

“Did you take your pills, Si?”

Something inside of his body turned into a tight knot, and Simon turned his gaze towards him, in a violent act. He frowned so deeply he felt his skin itching, and though he knew that, under normal circumstances, he would’ve just interpreted this as a routinary question, this time it wasn’t the case at all. This time it felt like an attack. Like something Hugh had to take back immediately because it was not his place to ask it, that is: a question he always asked anyway.

But not this time.

Because ,this time, he wasn’t okay.

“Don’t pull the anxiety card on me, Hugh.” Saying that left a bitter, disgusting firm on his mouth, right under his tongue, which was dry. He felt like he had just chewed on a pill.

“The anxie--” Hugh narrowed his eyes, shifting into a sitting position. “I’m not pulling that card on you. I’m just asking a question.”

“Then don’t ask that question.” Simon snapped again, heading towards the kitchen to get a class of water. His feet were making too much noise when in contact with the floor, and his mouth was too dry. It was making him crazy.

It was only then that he realized they still had something else pending, and for some reason that was enough to make him stay. Simon spun on his toes, facing him. Hugh was breathing heavily, and his brows were almost touching each other.

“You didn’t answer my question, though.” He told him, in a dry tone. “Did you want to have lunch with me or did you just think taking a break while Tamaya loses her mind would be fun?”

“If Tamaya didn’t want to be in charge, she would’ve told me, and you know that.”

“Tamaya talks back when she is given a chance to.”

An empty feeling of freedom filled Simon’s body, pushing his way into the hollow all his mixed feelings had been carving at the center of his stomach.

And it wasn’t just about Tamaya, really. It wasn’t just about how lately none of her ideas were taken into consideration. Rather, it was about how nor were Kasumi’s, or his own ideas, when they tried to speak up. It was about how things were getting weirder and weirder as time went by, to the point where Simon would see a very pregnant Tamaya in the hallway, apparently fine, but stating she didn’t know if her water was breaking or if she just really needed to use the restroom (the restroom where she didn’t fit in); it was about how everyone knew damn well that Kasumi wasn’t good at public speaking and that, if anything, it just worsened her selective mutism, and yet many important speeches were given to her; it was about how Simon felt like he was talking to a wall, and how that made him feel, suspect, even, that Hugh was back to being trapped in a closet he was already too big for.

It wasn’t just about that, in conclusion.

It was just the tip of a bigger and more messed up problem.

“Well, if you want Tamaya to go bathe in her Greek goddess shower-pool-whatever that thing is, then fine. I’ll call her, I’ll tell her to take the day off, and we go back to the Headquarters.”

“That would be great, actually!” Simon laughed sarcastically. “But you know what would be even better?”

“I don’t, Si. You tell me.”

It was a rhetorical question.

The nerve.

“That we would act like a team. That we would stop lollygagging around and take realistic turns to have our breaks, because each one of us have lives, and we’re not the only ones who have needs.” And that was about Kasumi feeling like she couldn’t do it today but having to anyway; it was about Tamaya crying in the BBQ Sunday, explaining to her husband how she wanted her baby to be with her, as a baby bawled into her arms, trying to reach for his father, because she spent so little time at home her youngest son wouldn’t recognize her sometimes; it was about Evander claiming Sandy didn’t feel like being alone with her baby bump today, but showing up at work anyway.

And yes, they had pledged to do this, but they were supposed to be in it together.

“But how should I know?” Simon hissed. “It’s not like we’re a Council or anything.”

The bile was all over his mouth now, and Simon felt possessed. He didn’t know how to stop it, and the words just kept coming, and coming and coming, as Hugh stared, half-startled, half mad.

Simon felt like he was a loaded gun that was ready to kill everything that moved, for a reason and a cause.

All those repressed feelings. All those things he desperately wanted to say but never could. The anxiety. The desperate, insatiable craving for a touch that never came. For a kiss. For anything. For a sign. A sign of whatever. One single sign, that would just let him know Hugh was still here.

“It’s not like you needed the majority of us to agree to sentence that minor to death.” He let it go, and all the air, along with his soul, left Simon’s body. “It’s not like Evander and you needed such thing, did you?”

Hugh’s confusion frown suddenly shifted.

Then, all Simon saw was the embodiment of anger, with his cheeks becoming flushed, and his knuckles becoming yellow.

“So that’s what this is all about.”

There was one word to describe that tone, and that word was condescension.

To Simon, the gut-wrenching feeling of frustration that caused him was indiscriptable, and he didn’t wish it to anybody. He would’ve preferred Hugh to scream at him, or just refuse to answer at all, because he couldn’t take it.

He had had people talking down to him his entire life. He wasn’t willing to keep tolerating that.

And in the moment he stared into Hugh’s blue eyes, Simon knew there was no turning back. Because sometimes the right thing to do was not taking it back.

Others, it was not holding it back.

“No. In fact, it’s not about that.”

“WHAT IS IT, THEN?!”

“YOU TELL ME!” Simon howled, getting one step closer to him, and all the memories started flowing...more likely, overflowing, including that time when he had talked to Kasumi and Tamaya in the living room, just like as if they were teenagers, instead of grown ass people, about how Hugh was leaving, even though he was still right there.

Right there, looking like a corpse.

A blue, stiff corpse.

“Why don’t you ever kiss me anymore?” Simon asked, and his voice sounded way less threatening than he had intended. “Why?”

“Are you really going to pull that card on me?”

“I am going to pull it because I want to know!” Simon barked, pointing at his own chest, which was getting tighter and tighter with every second. “Why don’t you ever touch me anymore? Why am I always invisible to you, even when I’m not? Why are you so fucking cold all the time? Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?!”

Hugh wheezed, maybe pretending it didn’t make sense, or maybe pretending he hadn’t understood at all. Still smirking, he ran his fingers through his hair, and stared at Simon, scratching his chin, and clicking his tongue.

“So...Sex.”

Simon’s heart was pounding.

“Yes, sex!” He yelled, shameless. “And kisses, and hugs and my husband! That is what am I asking for!”

“WHAT DO YOU EXPECT ME TO DO?! WE’RE BUSY!”

“WE’RE NOT BUSY NOW!”

“SO YOU WANT TO GET LAID NOW?!”

“I’M NOT GETTING LAID WHILE THINKING ABOUT HOW A CHILD WILL BE EXECUTED BY ANOTHER CHILD BECAUSE I WASN’T ALLOWED TO DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT FROM HAPPENING!”

“SHE TRIED TO KILL ME! SHE TRIED TO KILL MAX!”

“FIRST: AN ATTEMPTED ASSASINATION IS NOT ENOUGH TO GIVE SOMEBODY A DEATH PENALTY, AND, SECOND: THAT’S WHAT GENISSA SAID!”

“ISN’T THAT ENOUGH?!”

“THAT’S NOT ENOUGH!” Simon screamed, covering his ears with hands.

He didn’t know why, specifically, the ears, knowing that, in reality, his eyes were the problem, because every time he closed them, he saw Nova in that chair, like an animal. And he saw Genissa standing in the lobby, playing with them like puppets; he saw Evander’s despicable smirk when he told Genissa to go ahead; he saw Adrian’s furious eyes as he called his own dad a dictator; he saw Hugh.

Mostly, he saw Hugh, and the caricaturesque villain version of him, which Simon despised with every inch of his being.

Then he was back at the beginning. At Nova.

Nova, who had tan skin, pitch black hair and slanted blue eyes. And Nova, who looked familiar when she smiled, because she looked similar to that man who had come to the Headquarters asking for help, whose smile looked similar to the other person who carried their blood.

And Simon couldn’t help but consider it as a real possibility. And if he happened to be right, then they were failing her.

For the second time.

“It’ll never be enough, Hugh.” He declared. “Because she…”

Simon’s internal knots became tighter, to the point they were suffocating him.

“How do we know who this girl is?” he questioned. “How do we know it isn’t her?”

“Her, who? What are you talking about?”

“Her. The one we failed to protect.” Simon felt a tear slipping from his eye, as he became closer and Hugh walked backwards. “Uh? How do we know that? How do we…?”

But something stopped him.

And that something was Hugh’s eyes, turning grey as chromium.

He was breathing fast. Faster with every second, and where maybe he saw anger, Simon saw nothing but deep, stored pain, flowing out of him like sweat, or like the tears that weren’t there.

There was Hugh’s bleeding shell again, protecting him like he was a small child curled up on the floor, in a ball, through a polarized surface where Simon and him couldn’t touch, and where nothing could hurt him, while everything could at the same time.

There it was.

The despicable, horrid, bleeding shell.

Except this time it wasn’t bleeding. No. No.

This time, the dense, bubbling blood was falling off it, reaching Simon’s feet, and the shell was in flames. Tall, untamable flames, that were burning the roof and everything surrounding them.

The shell was burning, while Hugh was inside of it, and nobody could get him out before he was burned to death.

Why didn’t he let anyone help him?

Why did he insist the flames weren’t there?

Why couldn’t Simon hold his hand?

Why was he so far?

“We didn’t fail to protect her. She died.” Hugh declared, and when Simon saw his lips quivering, he realized they weren’t talking about Nova anymore.

“She didn’t fail. She died. “ Simon saw the silver painting Hugh’s fingertips, as tears started rolling down his face. “She died! SHE DIED, WHEN IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME, SIMON!”

The bleeding shell was burning, and Simon still couldn’t find his way in.

“IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME! AND SHE DIED! SHE DIDN’T FAIL TO PROTECT ANYONE! SHE DIED! IT SHOULD’VE BEEN ME! SHE DIED, SIMON! SHE DIED!”

Their eyes met for a couple of second, and the connection vanished after a blink.

“IT’S NOT HER FAULT SHE DIED, IT’S MINE!”

Hugh was sobbing, like a small child, and Simon was too.

“...It’s...it’s mine, Simon. Always has been.”

And they were so far, despite being so close, that they were left with holding themselves tight.

Because there was no way to get into the burning shell, for Hugh, strangely as it sounded, had never said those words out loud, because he thought the picture on the wall behind him, the one with the woman wearing a floral pink dress with their son -who was also hers- sitting on her lap, would hear him and that would make her sad.

Yet, Simon knew she wasn’t sad at the moment.

He knew her well enough to know she would’ve been disappointed, instead.

Anybody would be if they had to see their family kill the one thing they had died trying to protect.

“No.” Simon declared, calmly. “But I’m not going to go and try to convince you otherwise because I know it’s not the right time.”

Hugh started shaking.

“Si…”

“And I won’t be a part of this, either.” Simon declared, firm, still staring at the picture through the corner of his eye, yet still fully focused on Hugh. “From now on, all you’ll get from me is silence in regards to the issue. I’m not willing to be a part of it. I don’t agree with this. I will never agree.”

“You don’t understand.”

“And I’m glad I don’t. In fact, I hope I never do.” Simon wiped his tears with his palm, and before continuing, he tried to find his Hugh one more time.

He was still there.

Simon hadn’t yet given up on him, but he didn’t feel like telling him that at the moment.

For some reason.

“If Adrian wants to see me, tell him I’ll be at Kasumi’s.”

“Simon.” Hugh grabbed him by the wrist, and a simple wave from Simon’s hand was enough to get it off. Way too easy, for a person who happened to have super-strength. “Simon, please. Don’t do this again. Please. SIMON!”

But Simon did it again anyway.

Later, he wondered what Adrian had felt when he abducted Max from the hospital and left a note for them.

He also wondered what everyone else had felt when the real Nightmare showed up.

Not that he was mad at them.

He just wondered what they had felt.

#renegades trilogy #dawnie writes #renegays #humon #simon westwood #the dread warder #hugh everhart #captain chromium #nova artino #nightmare #adrian everhart-westwood #sketch

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solatude · 5 years ago

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Aang Being a Bad Father is Not Realistic

I don't care what ANYBODY says, Aang being a bad father is NOT realistic! You don't go through what he went through and end up showing favoritism to one of your kids! THIS is the same monk who was taught to treat all people equally? Why would that teaching NOT extend EVEN MORE to his and Katara's own children? He witnessed how Sokka and Katara felt whenever they talked about their mother and father. He witnessed how restricting Toph's parents were. He witnessed how The Mechanist helped his son thrive with his disability. He helped Katara reunite Haru with his father, guided the couple in the Serpent's Pass, and all of a sudden he just grows up to be detached from his two other kids? He even fought Ozai, arguably the worst father in the entire series; the same one who scarred his children physically, mentally, and emotionally. If your child has grown up to become an adult and is still resentful about how they were treated, you can't just brush that off and make it seem like everything was okay otherwise. Kya and Bumi are middle-aged and are still living with the reality of how neglectful their father was.

What makes ME angry is how people try to justify it because they claim it's "realistic". Realism isn't something that is always negative or something that always has to have a negative outcome. It's ALSO realistic to be a good parent, to become a better person, to continue to do good. Why does realism always have to be portrayed as something that taints a character rather than something that improves a character? I think it's poor writing to just throw that in when Aang isn't like that at all. Through his friends he was able to learn intimacy and attachment. Before meeting them he was constantly avoiding his responsibilities and still dealt with unhealthy detachment when confronted about fighting Ozai. It's something that Aang had to learn to overcome. It's not fair to leave out his other children from activities just because they're not airbenders. Are people forgetting that all of his kids are mixed race and have both air nomad and water tribe genes? If Kya and Bumi ever decided to have children, there COULD be a possibility that they could be airbenders, in addition to waterbenders and nonbenders. Is it not important for them to know BOTH of their cultures? Kya is characterized as a spiritual person, can she not learn techniques from airbending that can improve her own waterbending? Isn't she a healer? She would benefit GREATLY from airbending lessons considering they are so spiritually attached. Bumi was a commander in the United Armed Forces. Couldn't he also benefit from learning leadership skills from these missions? Couldn't he learn evasive techniques from the fighting methods of the air nomads? I feel like making Aang neglectful to Kya and Bumi made for an unnecessary conflict and I wish they found a different type of conflict to attach to these characters. When Bumi became an airbender and he was talking to Aang's statue, it made me sad that he felt he was worthless without his powers before. Aang would NEVER look down on someone for not being a bender, because he didn't prioritize his abilities over his relationships with others.

I would also like to point out that restoring the Air Nation was NOT Aang's biggest dream. I thought it was established in the show that he had to learn to not overcome, but come to terms with his feelings of the Air nomad genocide. When did he ever mention this was a goal at any point in the show? In the comics? It also kind of sounds gross based on the implications of Katara's role in their marriage, as if she's there JUST to produce airbenders. It's okay to introduce new motivations, but this one seemed unrealistic based on the events of the last series and how Aang learned to adapt to a new world.

So many other plotlines could have humanized Aang more without neglecting his major character traits and motives:

🌪 With the advancement of technology, he could have struggled to fight off new villains, and he would have to theorize new ways of fighting or strategizing in order to do so.

🌪 Bumi could have trouble paying attention and may have a weak spiritual connection. He realized that Bumi lacks direction and doesn't know what to make of his life. He notices that this is a trait he once shared and decides to take Bumi on a trip to various locations to meet nonbenders with different skill sets. Bumi gets to meet Uncle Sokka and Aunt Suki, The Mechanist, Mai, Ty Lee, the Freedom Fighters and others who are talented at different things to inspire him to carve out his own path. He learns to view his lack of bending as a gift, as he becomes in charge of his own destiny.

🌪 Kya could have trouble with her spiritual connection, and feels like she would never be able to waterbend or heal properly like Katara. Being the only girl in her sibling group, Aang encourages her by taking her to the Eastern and Western Air Temples, which only housed female air nomads. Kya is educated on airbender culture and the process of earning one's tattoos. Aang draws similarities between airbending and waterbending to help visualize the connections they share. Kya then realizes that healing isn't something to be rushed because every expert was once a beginner. I envision her and Aang riding back home on Appa, with Kya looking back at Avatar Yangchen's statue, feeling proud and inspired to be related to such a powerful bender while also gaining confidence in herself and abilities.

Those are just a few examples out of many that could work to make Aang bond with his kids. Was Aang a bad father? It's canon, so unfortunately yes, but is it realistic? Based on his character arc and his friend's character arcs? Based on the lessons he has been taught and how much he upheld air nomad teachings? Based on his playfulness and optimistic attitude? Based on his need to include everyone and make them feel happy? No, it is not "realistic" for him to be a bad father. At least not to me.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #aang #legend of korra #kya #bumi #katara #mai #ty lee atla #sokka #suki #avatar yangchen

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pathogenliliaceae · 4 years ago

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Thoughts on Jill Valentine

Hello, friends! My responsibilities for my trading company job have abated in the interim, so I thought perhaps I would come back around to Jill, as promised.

Thoughts on Jill Valentine:

I will begin this by saying that it is appropriate that she was asked alongside Mia because there is one outstanding issue that I have between the both of them: The need to be saved. Though I find Jill to be leagues more competent.

We’ll get to it in full a bit later.

I will make no secrets that Jill has never been my most favourite of protagonists. Most of those issues stem from “3: Nemesis” and Five, though I am not adverse to including bits from One and Revelations. In one word, Jill is tolerable. Though, if given a choice (depending upon who my choices are) I will usually pick someone else.

A bit of background on Miss Valentine: I am utterly convinced that Capcom has changed her birthdate. I remember quite vividly scoffing that they made her birthdate Valentine’s Day, but now that I look it up again it seems its in May. Well, that’s at least a half a point in her favour. It’s become less mind-numbingly stupid. She is French-Japanese-American, whose father was a professional thief. In addition, she received Delta Force training through the US Army. Unusually adept at lock-picking, she then (apparently) gains the moniker - the Master of Unlocking. She also, again apparently, is adept at bomb disposal, though I cannot remember an instance in which this is exhibited. Though I can remember many instances when this would have come in handy. Jill.

Post-Delta Force and US Army tenancy, Wesker recruited Jill for STARS - described as an elite special forces operation for the RPD comprised of military veterans and weapons specialists (put a leaf in this for when I eventually get to Rebecca Chambers). Joining her in STARS are Forest, who she already had a friendship with prior to working together, and Chris. She is the only female officer on STARS Alpha Team, and works as a Breaking and Entering specialist. Forward onto the Mansion Incident.

Again, I’ve mentioned that if given a choice, I will usually not pick Jill to play as. However, that is not to say that I have not played Jill’s scenario in One. My primary complaint about Jill’s Scenario is as follows: It is fundamentally easier than Chris’. She’s got the lockpick set, so she doesn’t need to find Old Keys. She has more inventory space. In the space where she finds the zombie in the bathtub, she stomps his head mid-cutscene and does not have to fight him. She starts with the handgun and receives higher powered weapons whilst Chris has a higher chance of critical headshots. She can mix chemicals to weaken Plant 42 and cut the boss fight in half. Jill can skip certain puzzles in Arklay with Barry’s help, one under the guise of “saving” her from the falling ceiling where you retrieve the shotgun. No need to find the broken shotgun, and you have access to the shotgun as soon as you unlock the area which makes accessing the Armour Key much easier. I used to believe that this was a reflection of the character, but now I believe it is a bit of thinly veiled misogyny on Capcom’s part. ):

About the opening to her scenario, after running amok in the forest and into the mansion - “There are only three STARS members left now. Captain Wesker, Barry, and myself. We don’t know where Chris is.” YOU’VE JUST HAD HIM AT THE DOOR! HOW HAVE YOU LOST HIM? Also, check your maths, Jill. That’s four STARS members. We have one negative point here in that she’s managed to lose her partner in the amount of time it takes to cross a threshold. Anyhow, like how it is when you play as Chris, the other is locked in the cell in the labs and must be released with the MO discs prior to the T-002 battle. Canonically, Jill escapes with Chris and Barry. Chris escapes with Jill and Rebecca. Rebecca does not make an appearance in Jill’s game, nor Barry in Chris’. Brad is there in the background, flying the helicopter he had damned them with at the beginning. It’s a bit of a flub.

Moving on to 3: Nemesis and the Remake and whatever happens in between the events of Arklay and the destruction of Raccoon City. Gathering from memos in Two and Three, shortly after the Arklay Incident, Chris and Jill take their concerns to Chief Irons, requesting the launch of an investigation into Umbrella and all the related shenanigans. Irons, being involved and heavily steeped in wrongdoing, denies this request. STARS all but disbands, as Chris leaves for Europe in August 1998, Barry moves his family to Canada and follows after Chris, Rebecca is doing fuck-all, and Irons has suspended Jill and ordered her confined to her flat. That leaves... Brad Vickers as STARS. The only member. In office. Everyone else is dead, suspended, or AWOL. I suppose one way to operate as a corrupt organisation is to keep the most inept person as your only functioning operative. I digress, this is about Jill and not the bucket of maladroitness that is Brian Irons.

Jill remains in Raccoon City under the pretense of attempting to locate NEST, with the intention of following behind Chris, Barry, and Rebecca(?) a bit later. I believe also she was intending to sort through the rumours of the development of Golgotha, but I cannot find accurate citation of that. Things that she manages to do whilst confined to her flat for a month behind the departure of the other STARS members: Not that at all. I have long wondered what it was that was actually keeping Jill in her flat, aside from orders from her no-longer boss, when she had intentions of leaving on 30 September. I don’t imagine that with what remains of STARS poking around, save for Brad, that Irons would put a definite date on the lifting of her suspension. “Yes, now you may leave to bring down the organisation that I am tangentially working for”. The Three Remake expands on this a bit, as it seems that perhaps Jill was not emotionally nor mentally suited for travel outside of the flat. In which case, I question whether steeping herself in all things Umbrella was perhaps exacerbating her condition. I do believe that there is a fundamentally large difference between Three: Remake Jill and 3: Nemesis Jill. First off, trousers. Enough said. I don’t do my personal investigations sitting in a pleather mini-skirt and a tube top with a rather practical jumper tied around my waist, and neither should you. I much rather imagine a suspension to be carried out in pyjamas, but again I am not the type of person to dress at home if I’m not needed to.

Secondly, Three: Remake Jill holds up much better against Nemesis without the help of Carlos (who is also rather incompetent and sexist), than her original counterpart. Her reactions to goings on are much more believable, and for much of the game she has absolutely no issue putting Carlos within appropriate boundaries. He tries to explain to her what a radio is, she snaps at him. He touches her, she tells him not to. You are a stranger, sir, please observe courtesy. Not to mention, a stranger who is working for the organisation we’ve just found out is responsible for the development of bioweapons and viral agents. At least bother to ask her name, first. A bit of a hint, Carlos: It isn’t “supercop”. If we are to continue on with this Jill further on in the series, I will support it. I would quite enjoy a long-standing female protagonist that has no issue scoffing at male protagonist foolishness and scolding their perspectives. Perhaps it is a good thing that she and Leon have never met in any official capacity.

Three: Remake Jill still falls prey to damsel-syndrome, as I’ll call it, upon being infected by Nemesis. Carlos comes in as the knight in shining armour, having become infatuated with her after knowing her for exactly four hours. I like to imagine that this New Jill could wake up from her comatose state, shout about her autonomy, and then go back to sleep. This is however, remedied by some sort of favour-trading as she does save Carlos in a quid-pro-quo a bit later. I do have concerns about how far Jill allowed Nikolai to get without shooting him down, but that’s unimportant in the long run. There is also a bit of inconsistency between games in how Jill and Carlos escape Raccoon City and what happened just prior, but those are unimportant to our examining of Jill.

All in all, New Jill is portrayed as a competent individual, which I think serves much better to support her character in instances such as the Fall of Umbrella chapter in The Umbrella Chronicles, which leads into the formation of the BSAA and her involvement with them.

Functionally, from 2003 until at least 2009, Chris and Jill mostly function as a singular unit. 2005- they work together to subdue T-ALOS. 2004- The Queen Zenobia, Queen Semiramis fiasco in which Jill carries Parker through a sinking ship as Chris slams doors in her face- as loving partners do. (I do want to mention in an aside that so many people find themselves in trouble whilst looking for Chris. It is the plot of NO FEWER than four games. One, Two, Code: Veronica, and Revelations. Maybe even a bit of Six. Call it four and a half). Revelations does delve into a bit of why I find Jill to be competent amongst the ranks of highly amateur BSAA agents. First off, she reads the manuals for things. She realises the importance of memos! Secondly, she is shown deducing and explaining quite a bit about the situation they find themselves in to Parker, who is often none-the-wiser. An argument could be made that Parker is a newly ported FBC emigre and therefore does not yet have the same expectation but I disagree having seen the... eptitude of other agents. She is rather instrumental in uncovering the whole FBC - Veltro - BSAA mess and quite honestly tends to hold her own in that installment. If only the dodge function worked better. Anyhow, back to her partnership with Chris- it canonically ends with the Lost in Nightmares campaign in Five. In which she quite literally bowls Wesker out of a window in defense of Chris and (sort of) the world. If there is any secret method of getting me to enjoy a character, it is self-sacrifice for the sake of another. There is something so beautiful about it. Except Ethan, nothing can redeem him. Jill functions best as a character when she is partnered with Chris. I cannot say that in any of these scenarios I have profound issues with her. Forward onto the events of Five and about where we will end this tangent.

Jill and Wesker, obviously, both survive the fall from the Spencer estate. Jill is kept for experimentation due to the existing muted strain of T in her body from the events of Three. The antibodies she possessed were used by Wesker in attempts to make Uroboros more accepting of human host bodies. During the time that she was “in his care” (poor choice of words, I know), he repeatedly injected her with Progenitor strains and took the resulting antibodies. As a result of the testing and antibody removal, Jill’s hair, skin, and eyes lightened in cryostasis (I am still trying to make sense of this bit). Once she had reached the extent of her usefulness, Wesker volunteered her for the P30 project, a Las Plagas extension that utilised chemical compounds for mind control. However, due to the high expulsion rate, the chemical had to be constantly injected, explaining the injector attached to her body.

This requires her, again, rescue at the hands of Chris and Sheva. Once the injector is removed, the other two move on after Wesker, and Jill promptly collapses into unconsciousness. She is found by BSAA Delta Team Captain Josh Stone, who escorts her to a helicopter and initiates a rendezvous with Chris and Sheva on the volcano. I will stand up for Jill on this one- I do not at all believe that if Jill was on the helicopter, that Sheva should have been the one to wield the rocket launcher. That honour should have belonged to the two original STARS Alpha Team members alone. It’s simply poetic, and I am sorry for Sheva, but it would have been much more perfect.

Currently, we’ve not seen anything from Jill since Five. The only mention to her current condition is that she is at the BSAA undergoing testing and rehabilitation for her time spent with Wesker. In her words: “...ever since getting back I've been locked up in this lab as they run tests on me day in and day out. It's every bit as boring as it sounds”. We leave Jill’s chronology with her being bored. Fitting. In short, I believe that Jill has quite a bit of potential in her competency, and I am actually quite interested to see what her reaction would be to the BSAA using bioweapons. We’ve not heard from her in twelve years, so one can only assume that she is still alive somewhere, being bored. If they are going to take her character in the same direction they appear to be going in the Three: Remake, I would not at all be adverse to seeing her again in a future standalone installment. That being said, I have quite the backlog of characters to talk about! Please give me the benefit of the doubt when waiting on these. I’ve got work to do, tea to drink, games to play, and characters to analyse.

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coreastories · 5 years ago

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Modern Royals: 10 Times the King and Queen of Corea made ahjummas ugly-cry over their romance

You know what this author loves about Corea? The delightful mix of tradition and modernity

I mean, in this country, you have visiting and dining etiquette, respectful address etiquette, and countless other delicious customs steeped in tradition. Catholicism with its millennia-old ceremonies is also a favored religion

On the flipside, this country has rock-solid laws on divorce, equal rights, and zero tolerance for rape and abuse or discrimination of ANY sort

I’m quite in love with this country. Its people are well taken care of

And of course, the biggest deliciousness for me are Their Majesties

Shrouded in privacy and that same tradition I just mentioned, the king married the queen in July

In the course of a few weeks since the wedding, the queen endeared herself to her people, and even made friends with the Prime Minister, a formidable woman who was herself previously linked to the King (entirely one-sided pursuit on her part)

It’s now October, and we’re happily expecting the first royal baby in May!

I’ve seen some colleagues in the media voice that thought we’ve all had: “They didn’t take long.”

I’ve also seen comparisons with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry and Baby Archie, who was born only a few days shy of his parents first anniversary. Corea’s royal baby will be born two whole months before his/her parents’ first anniversary.

So this little article seems absolutely timely!

It sounds trite, I know, but lists are all the rage these days. Add Corea’s royal romance and this article will pay for my office’s bills for two months.

This is with sanction from the Royal Public Affairs Office, who I’ll never cross, and who also gave me some background where they could or would.

1. Who can forget the breathless kisses in New Zealand?

Well, they made us breathless. Taken from Chateau Maryleone-- a security breach that apparently got people fired. If it was originally a video footage, we don’t know. Only the photos were spread online.

The world is in love with this smiling kiss.

The Royal Public Affairs Office’s only comment here is: “We’ve found the parties involved and they have been summarily dealt with.”

You can see why I would never dream of crossing them.

2. The snuggle at Pyeongyang Children’s Hospital

The new digital diagnostics wing was inaugurated in July. If this author remembers right, two of the queen’s photos made it to a list of 7 Times the Queen of Corea Stole Our Hearts with Her Smile.

Children, parents, media, and hospital staff loudly showed their approval of the queen then, and she had laughingly and shyly accepted it.

Reports have emerged that the queen was quite overwhelmed, and had actually retreated to a room with the king. It was one of the new consultation rooms of the new wing, with glass windows.

People saw the queen seek refuge in the king’s arms, hiding her face in his chest, and the king cradling her against him, arms around her, one hand stroking her hair.

We don’t have photos, because none of the witnesses dared. But they’ve all reported and demonstrated it. I’m sighing here.

3. The hand-in-pocket cuteness when we visited the palace before Queens Day

You’ve read about this in the Royal Twinkle, of course!

4. Turning up late and blushing during Queens Day

You also remember this from our recent report. Their Majesties turned up late for their scheduled appearance, and then the king was just a giggling mess in the dim part of the stage (stage right), and the queen just looked at him, blushing.

The Royal Public Affairs Office almost had no comment, but remarked that the king and queen are newlyweds. Well, that’s exactly and the ajhummas and I said, didn’t we.

5. Another hand-holding-and-tuck, also during Queens Day

Remember the king looking anxious whenever the queen was onstage, despite the queen being surrounded by the Royal Guard?

We have eyewitness reports from people closer to the stage, who have craned their necks or ducked between people’s onstage legs to get a glimpse of the king and queen whenever the guards surrounded them.

Apparently, the king invariably fetched the queen in the same way. He would go on stage, take her hand with his left and hold her hand against his chest while his right hand and arm tucked her securely against his side.

I love a man who’s so enamored of his wife he takes hold of her with both hands.

6. The distraction during the Opening of Parliament in Seoul

The Opening of Parliament is a series of ceremonies dating back to 1945, when the parliament was first established. We were hoping to see the queen accompany the king, but she had stayed in Busan-- and we now know the reason why, don’t we?

In one of these ceremonies, the king was supposed to signal the Usher to open the door to summon the Ministers into Parliament.

But the king had seemed transfixed by a bunch of forget-me-nots included in the predominantly blue flower arrangement in the Parliament’s subdued decorations for the occasion.

Sources say the king had a fond expression on his face, and his eyes were, according to the reports, shining, like he was near tears.

The Royal Public Affairs Office had no comment. It seems the significance of the forget-me-nots remains a secret between the King and Queen.

Since then, forget-me-nots in pots and seeds and cultivars have sold out across the kingdom.

7. Every time they step out of the car

This is an event people of Corea have come to watch, even more so than the actual events the king and queen attended.

Unlike other royals who get their doors opened for them, the queen gets her door opened by none other than the king.

It always happens this way. A member of the royal guard opens the king’s car door, the king steps out, and then he goes around the car to open the queen’s door.

And then we watch with bated breath as the queen swivels in her seat to bring both legs and feet outside the car. The king’s hand is already waiting, and she takes it with one of hers.

He helps her to her feet and then just smiles at her for long moments, head tilted to her, whether or not she’s also looking at him or is already distracted by the crowds.

And they hold each other’s hands until they absolutely have to let go. Duties be damned. They’re working royals, yes, but they’re married and in love!

It’s become a game among members of the media and event organizers to attempt to prolong that hand holding as long as possible.

Ministers of Parliament and their wives-- the more popular ones-- always seem to have planned on holding something in their hands so that they only bowed to the king and queen and Their Majesties didn’t have to offer to shake hands.

It’s ridiculous and yet delicious, the way this romance has united the country like this, both Parliament and public besotted with them.

Their Majesties hold hands so romantically too. Their grip is always so visible, like they’re constantly gently squeezing each other’s hands.

Corean celebrities and their own significant others imitate this on red carpets, calling it the royal handhold.

8. An actual kiss after the Bureau of Fire Protection Annual Gala

No wonder the gala raised nearly a billion won. The queen had turned up unexpectedly, remember?

And we’ve had matching stories from eyewitnesses who saw the queen’s car pull up to take her back to the palace. At the time, the Royal Guard had taken care of crowd control, to make sure only the queen was leaving at the time, with no other car waiting or leaving.

But the gala had been held in a converted warehouse in Clearwater Bay, and as such, a doorway was practically an entire absent wall, so plenty of people had a vantage point of seeing the king stepping out of the car.

The queen was visibly surprised to see him, and then she was gently greeted with a kiss before being just as gently ushered into the car.

9. Every time the king broke the order of precedence-- and he continues to do so

For state and diplomatic events, the order of precedence protocol dictates that the queen consort follows two steps behind the king. If they have a son, the crown prince will be next in line, literally, after the king, overtaking the queen consort unless His Majesty gives a king’s order about it.

That king’s order is only a matter of time. I very much doubt the king or his heir will let the queen trail after them.

Since their marriage, we’ve witnessed the king and queen attend two state events and one diplomatic event: the investiture of the re-elected Prime Minister in July, the 383rd anniversary of King Yeongjeong’s Defeat of the Qing Invasion in early August, and a return visit from Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden.

The PM’s investiture was held in the Royal Audience Hall, and the king and queen arrived when everyone was already seated.

The anniversary was commemorated in King Yeongjong’s Memorial in Yeongjong Park in Busan, where Their Majesties were driven right up to the blue carpet leading to the memorial statue.

For Crown Princess Victoria’s arrival, the king and queen publicly welcomed her at Busan Airport, with the heir of Sweden and Their Majesties of Corea walking toward each other to give and accept welcome.

In all three events, the king does walk ahead at first, but then he always stops and waits for the queen, turning back to her and putting an arm around her upper back. Then they walk side by side, or even with the queen slightly ahead of the king.

We’ve seen the queen give the king a look, but the king just smiles at her, a restrained close-mouthed smile, or an outright grin, which was what he wore when they met Crown Princess Victoria, who is a friend.

10. A hug after a long day in Busan. There’s so much love inside the palace.

This one is from the Royal Public Affairs Office, captioned, “The king meeting the queen in the grounds after a long day.”

If you’ve been to the palace grounds for Queens Day, you will recognize this clock. It’s in the part of the extensive gardens open to the public, and it has a little coffee shop where you can taste the palace’s appointed teas, coffees and cakes.

The print came to us exactly like that-- it’s not the fault of our scanners. Perhaps it’s a stolen shot and our dear Mr. Jang Mi-reuk hastily took it and then made the photo grainy and overexposed when he hid his phone again? Who knows.

And who cares?!

Look at how the king holds the queen as if they’d been apart for days or weeks rather than hours. The press of his head to hers, the curl of his body around hers, and that hand cradling the queen’s head-- these all speak of his love for her, and I’m melting.

That royal baby is going to be such a beloved baby. The royal parents certainly don’t shy away from displaying that love.

I don’t want to leave Corea. I want to follow this happily ever after today and forever.

More to come! Stay tuned.

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#CoreaNews #CoreaFiction #the king eternal monarch #the king: eternal monarch

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tiramisiyu · 4 years ago

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【未定事件簿】 Tears of Themis: “Romantic Rail Getaway” Zuo Ran Route, Day 3

Translation Masterlist | Themis Event Masterlist

Zuo Ran Route: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5

Videos, where applicable, are hyperlinked on the headings in the post.

See under cut!

Part 1 – Kelosi Plaza – “Ruminating Over Kelosi City”

Kelosi City

According to everyone, Kelosi City was Rumbaliya’s famous capital of cuisine.

Many local specialty restaurants were scattered here, with the scent of food filling every part of the city.

Zuo Ran considerately looked for a travel guide to introduce us to Kelosi City.

With the travel guide’s patient, enthusiastic explanations, this capital of cuisine developed a detailed form in my heart.

Travel Guide: Ah, esteemed guests, welcome to Kelosi City.

Travel Guide: This is the Cuisine Arc opened in the romantic and artistic Rumbaliya, the islands that control the tastebuds and spirit!

MC: (An introduction method that’s full of artisticness… this must be one of the special characteristics of Kelosi City.)

MC: Mister Guide, could you give us a more detailed introduction?

Travel Guide: Of course, my esteemed guests.

INTERROGATION START

Special Attractions

MC: Could you give us a detailed recommendation of some special attractions here?

Travel Guide: Yes, I sincerely recommend you two to go see the Cuisine Museum and the Green-Shaded Castle.

Travel Guide: Those are our landmark attractions in Kelosi City.

Cuisine Museum

MC: The Cuisine Museum?

Travel Guide: Oh, that’s a museum that displays all sorts of cuisine-themed information.

Travel Guide: In the museum, the two of you can get a more detailed understanding of the developmental history of the Capital of Cuisine, Kelosi City.

MC: Is that so… I bet that when checking out the museum, it’ll be easy to get hungry.

Green-Shaded Castle

MC: What kind of place is the Green-Shaded Castle?

Travel Guide: The Green-Shaded Castle is a castle that’s been surrounded by green radish and flowers. Visitors have said that that place is as beautiful as a fairytale paradise.

Travel Guide: Esteemed guests, I highly recommend the two of you go there to see.

Travel Guide: Not only can you taste fantastical foods in the castle, but you can also enjoy an aristocratic service.

MC: (An aristocratic service and fantastical foods?)

MC: (What would those feel like? I’m suddenly feeling curious!)

Popular Foods

MC: Could you recommend the most popular foods here for us?

Travel Guide: The three major delicacies of Kelosi City, cheese mushroom vol-au-vents, pigeon meat pie, and beet lobsters.

Travel Guide: If you haven’t tried these three dishes, then you haven’t truly come to Kelosi City.

Cheese Mushroom Vol-au-Vents

MC: I kind of want to try cheese mushroom vol-au-vents.

Travel Guide: Esteemed lady, you truly do have taste.

Travel Guide: Cheese mushroom vol-au-vents mixes cheese with fresh mushrooms to make a special sauce, which is then stuffed into puff pastry and baked into a delicacy.

Travel Guide: Anyone who has tasted it will indulge in the richness of the cheese and the deliciousness of the mushrooms, to the point of being unable to free themselves.

MC: (That intense? Then I have to try it later!)

Pigeon Meat Pie

Zuo Ran: I’ve heard of pigeon meat pie before. This is a famous traditional dish of Rumbaliya.

Travel Guide: Mister, you’re right. I personally believe that this dish is the best for representing Rumbaliya’s local flavor!

Travel Guide: From the outside, it doesn’t look that different from typical savoury pies, but the meat filling is made from fresh, tender minced pigeon meat.

Travel Guide: When the taste of pigeon and the crispy savoury pie blend together, it becomes an incomparably enjoyable dish.

MC: (Whoa… I feel like this will definitely be delicious!)

Beet Lobster

MC: Is the beet lobster dish made from cooking the beets and lobster together?

Travel Guide: Esteemed lady, you are underestimating this dish too much. Kelosi City’s beet lobster dish is not this simple.

Travel Guide: For this dish, you must select the most tender beets, mince them, then add them into different seafoods including oysters and clams to simmer them into a sauce.

Travel Guide: When the seafood beet sauce is paired with the butter-fried lobster and taken to the table…

Travel Guide: The umami tastes of the seafood sauce and lobster work together, blending beautifully. Now this is the best taste.

MC: (Wow, I want to taste the beet lobster right now!)

INTERROGATION END

Travel Guide: Esteemed guests, feel free to ask anything else you want to know about.

MC: There’s nothing else – we now basically know what we need to, thank you.

Travel Guide: No problem, it’s my pleasure to answer your questions.

After bidding farewell to the travel guide, I turned on my phone and opened the trip map, looking up the locations of the attractions that the travel guide had mentioned.

MC: Hm… the Cuisine Museum and the Green-Shaded Castle seem to be in the same block…

MC: Lawyer Zuo, we can check out both places together later!

Zuo Ran: Sure. After seeing the museum, we can look for a place to eat… after, we can go to the Green-Shaded Castle.

MC: Okay, that’s perfect timing for tasting the dishes that the trip guide recommended!

Part 2 – Cuisine Museum

[Gameplay]

Part 3 – Green-Shaded Castle

[Gameplay]

Part 4 – Kelosi Gourmet Area – “Restaurant Crisis”

MC: What exactly does the “fried air” mentioned in the info packet taste like…

After walking out of the Cuisine Museum, I was still discussing with Zuo Ran about the fun, creative cuisines that we had just seen in the museum.

MC: Fried moss, giant anglerfish braised noodles, lobster cuttlefish stew… I feel like they’re very particular dishes.

Zuo Ran: I found a local specialty restaurant…

Zuo Ran: The main hit at that restaurant is recreating the dishes at the museum while balancing the classic dishes of Rumbaliya.

MC: Lawyer Zuo, let’s go to that restaurant then?

My eager voice piqued a smile in Zuo Ran’s eyes.

Zuo Ran: Sure, I’ll call a cab.

Local Specialty Restaurant

Very soon, we arrived at the specialty restaurant Zuo Ran mentioned.

This restaurant was clean and organized, and the prices could be called fair.

Thus, we simply ordered some more local recommended dishes, experiencing the sumptuous happiness of cuisine.

However, this happiness ended right when we were paying the bill…

MC: No way, why are they making us pay this much money?! Boss, did you get it wrong?

Restaurant Boss: I’m willing to swear to God that the prices I’ve calculated are correct.

Zuo Ran: The unit prices on the receipt don’t match with the prices on the menu.

Restaurant Boss: What’s indicated on the menu is only the prices of the dishes themselves…

Restaurant Boss: But, please understand that there are also service fees, materials costs, processing costs, and so on that need to be added on in calculation.

MC: These additional costs were not explained in advance. We will not pay them!

Restaurant Boss: Oh! My God, I’m willing to guarantee that each cost charged by our restaurant is reasonable.

MC: Is the individual calculation of service fees, materials costs, and processing costs also reasonable?

Restaurant Boss: I really can’t believe that you’d actually bring up such a foolish question.

Restaurant Boss: If they are not calculated individually, how could we provide a more considerate service for guests?

MC: You’re obviously collecting fees at random and tricking customers!

[Gameplay]

Zuo Ran: We have already called the police. I recommend you keep your excuses just now for the police.

Restaurant Boss: Ugh, goddammit! Why can’t I get through with you?

The restaurant boss clearly couldn’t refute what I’d said, but he still remained stubbornly unreasonable.

Restaurant Boss: Hurry and pay up, then get out of my restaurant!

Restaurant Boss: If you stay in my restaurant for one more minute, I don’t know what I’ll end up doing.

Thusly, we were roughly chased outside by the boss.

Good thing the police came in time. Only then did the chaos stop.

After mediation, the restaurant boss was willing to collect payment based on the prices on the menu. Only with this did Zuo Ran and I manage to accept the results.

MC: … That restaurant boss went overboard!

MC: (If we were in Stellis City, I would definitely sue him into bankruptcy!)

Zuo Ran: I’m sorry, I didn’t think that restaurant would be like this…

He had just spoken, the sharp voice of a woman interjected from the roadside.

???: Look at these pitiful foreigners. Only you would go eat at those sorts of places.

The meaning behind these words was obvious. I couldn’t resist walking up to chat with her.

MC: May I ask, what were you… just talking about?

Local Resident: Ugh, a pitiful foreigner would actually ask this sort of question. I’m willing to bet that you haven’t come to Rumbaliya before.

MC: … It is indeed our first time here.

Local Resident: So what you’ve experienced is very typical – just as ordinary as the taste of the apple juice that Aunt Susanna makes next door to me.

MC: (This description…)

MC: My apologies, could you tell me about this in more detail?

Local Resident: Oh! I really can’t believe that you really don’t know nothing at all.

Local Resident: Alright then, I’ll tell you both out of the goodness of my heart.

INTERROGATION START

Problem with Local Specialty Restaurants

MC: Do… only foreign visitors patronize that restaurant?

Local Resident: That restaurant was a very popular major restaurant ten years ago.

Local Resident: Sadly… after foreign visitors like you started coming more and more, the restaurant prices became more and more expensive.

Local Resident: Heavens, God knows that I used to like their pigeon meat pie the best.

Past Prices

MC: Which also means… the prices at this restaurant used to be very normal?

Local Resident: Oh, of course. I really miss those old days.

Local Resident: In the past, the prices at this restaurant were cheap and the dishes delicious, and there weren’t any of these random service fees at all.

MC: (For real? This restaurant used to be so conscientious?)

Restaurant Boss

Zuo Ran: Has the boss of this restaurant changed before?

MC: (Makes sense… if the restaurant boss changed, it is indeed possible for prices to rise.)

Local Resident: I swear to God that the boss of this restaurant has never changed before.

Local Resident: Ugh, that fellow is pretty much like this because of greed, and only increased the prices because he wanted to make more money.

Local Resident: There are lots of visitors who don’t mind spending more, so these kinds of people end up succeeding.

Local Resident: What’s even more awful is how those bosses will directly raise the price, doubling the prices and selling them to foreign visitors.

Local Resident: The hearts of those detestable guys are as black as the soup in cuttlefish braised noodles!

MC: …

MC: (Though I don’t want to admit it, it looks like we really were tricked this time…)

INTERROGATION END

Local Resident: Oh God, I got held up for so long with you…

Local Resident: My beloved Randy is still waiting for me to taste his apple pie.

Though I didn’t know who Randy was, it was obvious that this lady didn’t want to chat anymore with us about this.

MC: My apologies, we won’t hold you up anymore.

After hastily ending the conversation, Zuo Ran and I strolled along the bustling Kelosi Local Customs Road.

Unintentionally matching each other, we sunk into silence, feeling like there was something stifled in our hearts…

Heavy and gloomy, making us lose our desire to sightsee.

Part 5 – Kelosi Local Customs Road

[Gameplay]

Part 6 – Scenic Location Complication

Kelosi City Block

MC: …

The sky was gradually darkening, and the bustling, lively city was also gradually being dyed in the colours of quietude.

Only my depressed mood kept turning over and over, unconnected to this peace.

That restaurant boss’s unreasonable attitude kept appearing before my eyes.

[Flashback]

MC: These extra costs you’re talking about are all unreasonable. We will not pay them!

Restaurant Boss: Oh! My God, I’m willing to guarantee that each cost charged by our restaurant is reasonable.

MC: Is the individual calculation of service fees, materials costs, and processing costs also reasonable?

Restaurant Boss: I really can’t believe that you’d actually bring up such a foolish question.

Restaurant Boss: If they are not calculated individually, how could we provide a more considerate service for guests?

MC: You’re obviously collecting fees at random and tricking customers!

Zuo Ran: We have already called the police. I recommend you keep your excuses just now for the police.

Restaurant Boss: Oh, goddammit! Why can’t I get through with you?

The restaurant boss clearly couldn’t refute what I’d said, but he still remained stubbornly unreasonable.

Restaurant Boss: Hurry and pay up, then get out of my restaurant!

Restaurant Boss: If you stay in my restaurant for one more minute, I don’t know what I’ll end up doing.

[Flashback end]

Thinking about the restaurant boss’s attitude, arrogant despite being in the wrong as he shooed Zuo Ran and I out of the restaurant, I felt a headache.

Even worse, what happened after we left the restaurant told us that reality was far crueler than we had imagined.

MC: I thought that tricking guests was an outlier case, rather than being common.

Zuo Ran: It takes more than one cold day for ice to freeze three inches thick.

Zuo Ran: For the restaurant boss to be able to say these things, it indicates that he has long been used to using these despicable methods to trick foreign visitors.

MC: Yeah, those locals who chatted with us also said…

MC: “Some bosses will directly raise the price, doubling the prices and selling them to foreign visitors, who don’t know better anyways.”

MC: “That boss is comparably alright. There are even worse ones” – things like that…

Zuo Ran: Rumbaliya is a popular tourist destination and there’s significant traveler movement. Those who have been taken advantage of, yet don’t want to trouble others, will often choose to bear it in silence.

Zuo Ran: Those crooked businesses focus on this, and thus can act unscrupulously…

Zuo Ran: In addition, there are places where regulatory authorities haven’t done enough. Over time, these cases intensify more and more.

MC: I can’t just leave it alone like this! I’ll definitely expose these unreasonable random fee collection cases and stop these vile actions.

MC: Otherwise, every tourist who comes to Rumbaliya will run into what we encountered today!

The more I spoke, the angrier I got, my tone inevitably taking on an impatient mood.

Zuo Ran reached over and held my hand. That moment, some sort of feeling was transferred to me, from the warmth of his palm and through the fingers.

I suddenly stopped speaking, feeling like my heart had been immersed in a clear spring.

Zuo Ran: I understand what you are feeling. Your anger is not only because of what happened today; it’s also because you’re even more worried that something like this will keep happening…

Zuo Ran: And more people will be like us and encounter unfair treatment like this.

Zuo Ran: Don’t worry, I’ll help you.

Each one of Zuo Ran’s words were thorns that stuck in my throat.

He was like a clear spring soaking me. There was nothing I could hold back before him, and he could see through each one of my thoughts.

MC: … Lawyer Zuo, let’s think up of a way to collect evidence and solve this issue together.

Zuo Ran: Mhmm, let’s do it together.

Zuo Ran: Although… no need to be rush too much. We should think of a method slowly.

Zuo Ran: I’ve already sealed up today’s restaurant receipt as evidence.

Zuo Ran: Tomorrow, the train will arrive at James River station. As we sightsee, we can keep our eyes open for similar cases.

MC: Mhmm, as soon as we run into similar situations, we’ll retain the evidence!

Zuo Ran: Excellent. Our evidence will become a stepping stone to knock down the random fee collection cases.

The warmth transferred by his palm became warmer, like it was giving me a source of encouraging and confident power.

It irrepressibly gave rise to a belief – as long as I was with Zuo Ran, then anything I did would be successful.

That’s right, it must be this way.

#Tears of Themis #tears of themis translations #mihoyo #zuo ran #artem wing #未定事件簿 #tot translation #weiding shijian bu

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dotthings · 5 years ago

Text

So let’s talk about Cas’s issues, and how they hit that nerve of Dean’s insecurities.

I feel like Dean’s personal issues get discussed a lot (by myself included), both from a Dean-positive take and from the pressure placed on this character in a more negative way. There’s a lot of expectation placed on Dean as a character and ironically enough, in that process I feel like even Cas fans don’t do enough digging into what makes Cas tick, what his weak points are, his fears, his cyclical dysfunctional hang-ups. Cas is a layered, complicated, well-developed character with a now 12 season history on the show, as a main character, even if he is less prominent than Sam and Dean, and as such this means there are flaws as well as goodness in him. It does Cas a disservice to paint him as never wrong, as never causing hurt to those he loves. I’m not speaking as a Dean fan here, but as a Cas fan, this just isn’t about fairness to Dean, I feel there is an actual imbalance in how these discussions tend to go and it’s kind of a habitual tendency in the fandom. In part fueled by the fact that Dean is so open with his feelings, shows that he feels things SO hard and so deeply, that’s the character, and that kind of makes Dean a lightning rod to talk about Dean feelings, good or bad.

Canonically, Cas tends to get less pov due to structure, when Cas isn’t in every ep of a season and where SPN structurally puts Sam and Dean as the center spokes of the wheel, no matter how near the center Cas is of that show wheel. Cas has become another core pillar--Dabb referred to Cas along with Dean as a “core character” in his pre 15.09 interview. But because logistically, Dean still carries more pov on the show, we get more looks into Dean’s mind than into Cas’s. Which isn’t as great for Dean fans as you might think because by SPN not giving more Cas pov, it’s putting more and more of the responsibility for making the profound bond work onto Dean and Dean’s pov. While Cas has contributed plenty to this rift that developed.

There’s also the thing about the fandom default perception is that Dean is repressed emotionally. Which, sure, in many respects, yeah. But not in the way it’s popularized in fandom. Dean is actually the more facile, open, raw, vulnerable in expression of his emotions, with big outbursts, of hurt/anger or softness. He goes big. He expresses. He cries easily. He doesn’t exactly hide. He wears his heart on his sleeve. But because Dean is also a character who constructed facades to survive, he puts on facades and one facade is "no chick flick moments.” A facade I’ve pointed out again and again he’s terrible at maintaining, nonetheless it is real and he can be gruff and he does at times try to hide from his own feelings, and avoid, and struggles not to say stuff and then it gets out anyway. But he’s also very openly emotional.

While Cas is actually far more locked up emotionally as a character. Far more repressed than Dean. Look at his background. Millennia as an angel. Shoved back through the angel reprogramming machine every time he displayed an independent thought. Angels have emotions. They are not unfeeling. But they are taught emotions are weaknesses. They are a taint. They are dangerous. A lot of Cas’s arcing over the past 11 years has been about learning what emotions are and how to manage them. Even if we remove that factor, Cas also has a personality of his own, as a character, and is a survivor of trauma and abuse, as Dean is. Cas, like Dean, carries a lot of anger.

Cas is impulsive. Sometimes heedless. Ironically, he often pulls Dean back from heedlessness. But he has that tendency and Cas’s heedlessness tends to result in cosmic level events (leviathans unleashed, angels falling). He has a temper. He will end you if you hurt those he loves. Cas in the past has shown a hubris about how he has to fix all the things because these frail humans he loves can’t, Dean’s “just a man,” and while Cas definitely outgrew that, there are remnants still there. Which isn’t JUST hubris. Cas, being an abuse and torture survivor, being a survivor of emotional neglect, similarly to Dean, also has, similarly to Dean, this thing about needing a mission, a purpose. He needs to be needed. And if he isn’t serving a purpose, if he feels he isn’t being useful, then he feels worthless. The Dean corollary to that is Dean’s lack of self worth in what his father instilled in him--that he has no purpose, no mission, outside of protect Sam, and the hunt.

This need for purpose and Cas’s insecurities powered a lot of his arc with Jack. Cas’s relationship with Dean evolved over time. They didn’t stay just the same. In some ways the bond equalized in good ways, but as part of that, Cas was no longer the “Winchesters’ guardian” of early Cas seasons. That role gave Cas purpose. As Cas drew deeper and deeper into the family, as his character developed and he increasingly got his own arcs, which are all good things, that also meant Cas wondered what his purpose is.

Protecting Jack gave him purpose. A mission. Someone to look after. His relationship with Dean isn’t that. That hit a height with “draped yourself in the flag of Heaven” at the end of S9. By S11 the focus shifted to Dean’s drive to save Cas. Dean and Cas’s relationship is that of peers, fellow soldiers, friends, and yes, on a coded level that’s been harder and harder to ignore in later seasons, lovers/husbands.

Cas devoting himself all to Dean wasn’t sustainable. Just as Dean couldn’t perpetually be all about Sam, but while Dean and Cas are more peers/husbands role, Dean is Sam’s stand-in parent. Dean was parentified at the age of four. Sam as recently in 15.09 says Dean raised him. Sam knows his actual father figure is Dean, not Bobby, not John. There’s a whole lot about Sam and Dean’s relationship that made a lot more sense to me once I kept that in mind, that symbolically they were parent/child not just siblings/hunting partners. (Their codependency added another complication into the mix) That is not the relationship Dean and Cas have ever had. They are protective of each other. But it’s not a pseudo parent-child relationship. Nor are they codependent. But Dean always had a Sam, while Cas...did not have a Sam. Dean wasn’t his Sam, once he found a Dean. Dean was something else entirely. Not less, but different.

Enter Jack and while I was resistant to that arc initially, in the long game I can see multiple overarching purposes for the story. One of them is Cas’s character development. While the Cas and Jack bond isn’t just like Sam and Dean’s, and I’m not suggesting it is, it has that similar pseudo parent-child aspect. Jack is all of Team Free Will’s kid, but I think the way Jack impacted Cas’s arc made the most seismic shifts.

The thing about this S15 rift with Dean and Cas is that it’s not really about Dean’s existential crisis about “realness.” It’s not actual about Mary or Jack or that freakin’ snake. Well, it is...I’m not suggesting Dean had no valid reason to be hurt and upset with Cas. That is real. But this was ramped up as a culmination of years of issues. It mashed Dean’s buttons so hard because these are reflective of cyclical behaviors that come from Cas and it hurts Dean every time. Underlying all that, maybe subtextually, Dean’s doubts about realness played into it here as well. But the doubts, fears, insecurities, and hurts Dean feels about Cas are there regardless. Chuck applied pressure points to hasten the rift. To rip them apart because that serves his purpose but all he did was play on their actual insecurities and feelings and then watch them dance to his tune.

One of Dean and Cas’s issues has been things that have been there a long time, in the relationship, where Dean’s chronic issues play on Cas’s insecurities and Cas’s chronic issues play on Dean’s insecurities. There’s a bunch I could reel off. Dean’s abandonment issues vs. Cas’s tendency to keep things from Dean, not turn to Dean, not trust Dean, for one. This is something Cas has done for years, long before Jack, and it hurt Dean then and it hurt Dean now. Just for example.

I feel like what happened late S14/early S15 is that all these long running issues they never addressed came crashing down on the bond at once.

The things that are Cas’s issues, Cas hasn’t talked much about. Cas doesn’t talk about his innermost emotional landscape the way Dean does. Sometimes he does speak his feelings, but I wish he’d do it more often.

The things Cas has done in the past that hit on Dean’s abandonment issues all got ramped up with Jack. And it happened more than once. Why is Dean so hurt. Look at how he responds to Cas keeping things from him, or to losing Cas, or to Cas not reaching out to Dean, trusting Dean enough to go to him in the past. How hard that has been on Dean. Take your pick of plots. Cas teaming up with Crowley. Cas and the monster souls. Cas running off with the angel tablet.

With Jack there was a string of events. It wasn’t just the one thing. This isn’t my condemnation of Cas or because I don’t get Cas’s motivations and good intentions. Or about Cas being right/wrong. Right or wrong, his actions still hurt Dean. Being a parent added such a completely new layer into Team Free Will bonds, the TFW familial unit shifted. Change can be hard on a relationship anyway.

Quick recap of the sequence of events with Cas and Jack: it was Cas slipping away from Dean as Cas devoted himself to a nephilim in embryo. When Cas bonded with Jack’s grace in the womb. When Dean said he didn’t recognize Cas. There was Cas’s belief in the vision Jack showed him. It was Kelly giving Cas a mission to protect her son. Cas, like Dean, feels a strong sense of duty. Remember Dean’s S2 speech when Sam died? How Dean expressed the depth of his sense of failure? “I had one job, to keep you safe.” And by the end of S14, Cas lost Jack. He had one job. To keep Jack safe.

Cas pretty much thinks he’s worthless without that, same as Dean.

So there’s Cas, taken by Kelly after Dean was begging him--begging him--to return to the bunker with them so they could talk. While Kelly effectively prevented Cas from taking the action he might have done of his own volition since she drove off in the Impala with Cas still inside it and he couldn’t stop the car without hurting her and her unborn child, the element of choice there is murky. But Cas did choose to protect Jack. He did choose to knock out Sam and Dean at the playground. There’s Dean, as he has in prior seasons, seeing Cas walking away again.

Then it happens again. Cas heedlessly goes after Lucifer, when he should have waited, Cas was so focused on his Jack mission, and as a result, Lucifer stabs Cas dead, right in front of Dean’s eyes. So Dean loses Cas again, and audience gets to see Dean is utterly devastated (but Cas doesn’t).

But then Dean gets Cas back! His big win...which Dean confesses to Sam but again, Cas doesn’t get to hear it. And then right after getting Cas back, Cas is running off again, due to Jack. Dean begs Cas--BEGS HIM--let me come along, you need backup and Cas says no. Because Cas has to fix all the things himself. So Cas gets kidnapped and locked in an angel proof cell. Dean doesn’t even know he’s lost Cas this time due to voice mimicky plot, but there it is again, Dean loses Cas, again for Jack. Then Cas keeps that detail about Felix the snake from Dean, which wasn’t right for Cas to do, to be so secretive. Whatever his intentions, no that wasn’t right, and it goes right back to Cas’s tendencies shown in earlier seasons. To fix the thing himself. Anael calls Cas on it, even. His fears. Which leads to Cas finally going to Sam and Dean with the information. Cas apologizes and confesses, explains in a rare moment of us actually getting to see inside Cas’s emotional landscape that he was scared what Jack losing his soul would do to tear this TFW family apart. What Cas would lose because of that. A hella lot of that is about Dean, not just TFW or Jack.

None of this has ever been Cas not caring about Dean. Cas was there for Dean in S14. He fought to save Dean, first from Michael, then the Ma’lek box. But Dean and Cas don’t exist in a profound bond bubble.

Dean doesn’t even know yet that Cas sold himself to The Empty to save Jack midway through S14. Should we start screaming now?

So after Cas’s confession and apology late in S14 about what Jack did to the snake that Cas didn’t clue in Sam and Dean about, Mary is dead, because of soulless Jack, and all hell breaks loose with Jack, and Dean believes the only way out of this with soulless Jack is to kill soulless Jack. Cas doesn’t agree. Dean delivers an ultimatum, my way or the highway and who cares what you think (bad move, Dean). So to save Jack and Dean, because if Dean shot Jack with Chuck’s gun, it would kill Dean too, Cas runs off to get to Jack first.

From Dean’s perspective he’s seing Cas’s back again, leaving him again. Losing Cas again.

Think about how this steps on the same nerves as Cas’s vanishing acts in earlier seasons, or Cas walking into the lake, or Cas staying behind in Purgatory when Dean did everything he could to save him. Think about Dean’s abandonment issues. Think about how Dean’s abandonment issues and this repeat cycle of Cas’s inherent tendency to not get that he should loop his family into things, that he can’t fix it all on his own, of leaving, even if he always comes back. And no we can’t blame Cas for the times he left when he didn’t want to, when something happened to Cas, but when he vanished into the lake in 7.01, when he insisted on staying behind in Purgatory in S8, when he heedlessly went pell mell after Lucifer--Dean losing Cas was a direct result of Cas’s choices. Where Cas put himself into a position where Dean lost him.

This has happened again...and again. Imagine the heart-crushing heartbreaking panic for Dean during their Purgatory revisit when Cas disappeared. It’s Dean having to relive his Cas trauma. Because guess what, Dean loves Cas a lot. I don’t know how this even became in question in fandom, it continues to utterly baffle me.

So it’s not really about Jack though. I’m not blaming the Jack storyline for this. What happened was the Jack storyline brought those issues to a boiling point. Cas’s insecurities and drive to have a mission. Dean’s abandonment issues clashing with Cas’s running off again. Repeatedly.

What’s going to happen when Dean finds out about The Empty deal, and not just the deal itself but the fact Cas kept that, too, from him. I don’t think it will be rage this time. Not after 15.09. It will however, I suspect, be utterly devastating for Dean...maybe this time he won’t snap at Cas, he’ll just say how devastating it is, before he and Sam get to work on a solution. And Cas will have to witness how devastating it is. Cas hearing Dean’s prayer in 15.09 is such a big deal and I really really hope this hit Cas hard and woke him up to some things. Because with all of Cas’s particular insecurities, despite the fact that Dean has repeatedly shown Cas directly how much he matters, there’s also been plenty audience gets to see (Cas is family/Dean’s grief arc/Cas is a big win) that Cas hasn’t. Cas hearing Dean’s prayer here I think will change things. Cas won’t be the same. Dean won’t be the same. The bond won’t be the same. In a good way.

15.09 didn’t feel like resolution to me, and I’m glad Dabb confirmed that in his pre ep interview. It felt like ice melting, barriers crumbling. That’s good. It’s a start. That will help them with what’s next. But they have so much to work through still. Because their problems aren’t just from recent plot events, or Chuck. These tap into some fundamental things about them each that affects their bond. I’ve been saying this since before the end of S14, this isn’t hear to destroy their bond, it’s to level it up. It’s to deepen it, to fix what’s been amiss at the root and realize it into something even more powerful.

I need Cas to speak, not just Dean. Not just for my ship but for the character, I need more looks into Cas’s inner emotional landscape and how he feels about his own insecurities and I’d love to see an equally big confession about his Dean feelings.

#Dean Winchester #Castiel #Destiel #Dean and Cas #Team Free Will #Jack Kline #Supernatural #spn #supernatural spoilers #meta

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