#Because I would die if it was legitimately David | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rui-nova · 3 months

Text

Tragedy at an Impasse: The Terror, Hope, and Loss

Or a series of digressions about the story's themes of hope and some of its manifestations.

Once upon a time, a Greek chorus would sing upon a spectacle, and before then, and ever after, tragedy would fascinate us, because it would call to our familiars, because we, too, live with regrets, on a stage with little control over our fate, where we are nonetheless festering hope, a speck of something unattainable, a longing for what we may have once dreamt as familiar, as safe, as right.

There is no chorus in The Terror, its music is haunting, quiet, and acute. Like a good tragedy, its beginning already spells its doomed end, but its theme is silence. How then, should one replace the chorus, how can one call for fear and mercy, which muse should sing for them, rotten as they are, lonesome as some vowed to be? Its characters are left bare, but few of the self can be recognised through their exposed thinning flesh and frail whimpering. They are no geodes, expecting to be broken, to reveal a truth only their God would lay claim upon 一they’re Heraclitus’ paradigm of the shifting river, Theseus’ ship, and they are gone. Dead, and gone.

They are a graveyard of hope, with no bones to be buried. It begets grief and resistance, in their path laden with loss and futileness. The Terror is a tale of hubris and loss, of unfairness upon silence, of humanity bereft of it. Hope, too, is bereft of itself —but it does not die until they all do.

I. Devotion

On occasion, the characters pour hope into their devotion. After all, the men of Erebus and Terror cling mostly to the way of the lands they leave behind.

Far from the waylay ships and their forsaken fates, they hang on to the faith of their merciful God, whose scripture should stand above all laws of men. Here? There is no place for the divine. Not for them. The land, they soon see as godless, as it is put under prejudice, as they try to conquer that which is not theirs; soon it is godless, as human law and debauchery attack it, and thus God cannot love them. Their faith, and thus their hope, cannot reach him, if he is there.

Forsaken, what is God to them? He who loves them not, and in whose stead Fitzjames raises Sir John first, then Crozier?

Like Irving, the men who know the gospel in their hearts doubt and suffer, but they find contentment in that divine law, in its order. That God would not grant them ghosts. There is no more content soul than that of the most pious devout, and that of those who deny religion and gladly accept it in their heart. To Irving, faith was enough, as he upheld 'propriety' at the ships. It was enough, as he trudged atop the ice and the steppes. It bloomed, when hope was granted by chance, as a meeting with the Netsilik, as the goodwill of humanity was rekindled before his eyes. Freezing, devoted, doggish Saint Bernard that he was, it is still known: tragedy fancies not a mercy to devotion, to faith.

God-fearing Franklin and David Young cling to faith, when they feel their passing near. Perhaps, convinced by Goodsir, Young would fashion himself a more fortunate Icarus, even when his wings he did not will himself; why would he not wish to be anything other than a canary in a coal mine, after all? Perhaps, Sir John fashioned himself a Robinson Crusoe, that God would say to them that “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Joshua 1:5). Perhaps, but God is not there for them.

Even then, when Goodsir claims it does not matter if God is with them, it matters to some, it matters to Hodgson, and Fitzjames, who gnaw onto its hope and meaning for salvation, for legitimation. Hodgson equates the Holy Communion to human consumption, he incarnates the horror that Dante appealed to with Count Ugolino and his purposely ambiguous verses, and he hopes, or rather wishes he hoped, that this faith will preserve his humanity, as the body of Christ preserves life, because he is hungry, and he wants to live. Fitzjames, in its stead, plays his subtle counterpart, he plays Ugolino’s sons, he pleads to give back to those who believed his performance more than he did, and he cries, to Crozier, who ‘loves the men more than God does’, “Father, much less pain ’twill give us / If thou do eat of us; thyself didst clothe us / With this poor flesh, and do thou strip it off. / Then hunger did what sorrow could not do” (Canto XXXIII, Inferno). Indeed, he is not Christ, but his body he will offer.

Hope, thus, is named faith, in the name of Christ, the son of the absent God, ripped apart like a Dionysos by men hungry for his love, when hunger did what sorrow could not.

II. Consumption

Could we say, then, that hope is consumption, in the human need of possession, the desire of life?

The crews find little wonder in this place. They wonder only of below, of forward, by Franklin's ghost. Life can bloom, one can find beauty in Nunavut, Goodsir learns, and Silna mourns, but the other sentenced men see only a barren land. The hollow land, for hollow men.

Hope turns some to forbidden consumption, to harvest corpses for the life that does not bloom in them, and it is both the epitome of Arendt’s banality of evil, that “wholly unexceptional complacency” (Eichmann in Jerusalem) that waltzes into horror, and an act of fear and unrequited understanding, unrequited love.

It is said that “incorporating what you love is a sure way of seeing that it never escapes from you” (Crain, 1994). It is no wonder that he who has nothing would want to consume everything.

Rat, vulture, prophet, devil, monster, chosen, no one, ‘Hickey’ 一neither of which he is. Few understand hope as Hickey does. Hope is whatever one makes of a bad situation. Hope is survival, and “survival is a nasty piece of business. But we do what we have to do.” There is no troubled complaisance, because this force of life, this meaning, is owed to the possession of something, anything; it is feeding from the possibility of having a place and a meaning in the great scheme of it all.

This curse may leave them loveless, may leave them unconsumed by the recognition of the other through their ever-decaying humanity, but Hickey opens the door to hope through consumption. No more would they be shown “fear in a handful of dust” (The Wasteland: The Burial of the Dead, TS Eliot), but rather, a new life from it: a utilitarian Noah's ark of mutineers. Or the attempt of it.

Because Hickey scraps from meat and its ornaments, he dresses in that which the world knows he is not, in the boots of a man who must stand to the view of all or believe himself no one at all, in the coat of a subservient man who forced him to expose himself for the 'godly' concern of ‘dirtiness’ —but Hickey is no Dr. Jekyll. He is both sinner and sufferer, but cannot conjure a Mr. Hyde. He cannot become someone else, someone born with different circumstances, someone beyond tragedy.

But hopeful, of his powerful change of fortune, he must have felt. Hopeful that the intimacy of anthropophagy and lust —and perhaps even love— would fill him as they should, that he would be seen and loved by a place through which he only works if it is to mingle with the dead… but this place, this barren, hollow, wasted land that they have made, cannot love them back. It cannot love Hickey back, no matter how much he hopes so.

III. Legitimacy

Hope is born out of recognition, a yearning that could not be wholly unreal, that there may be no certainty, but still a possibility of that desire, and a strength to see it through. As such, hope calls for an act of mercy, in repentance and debt, a hope for meaning and order; hope longs for foresight, as it guides the defeatist soothsayers to silent survival.

Mercy demands a hierarchy, a higher power and a higher moral, and what claim do these downtrodden souls have on such exercise? What right have they, to instil upon their lot the pretence of order they left back on their homes? What legitimacy have they to cry for Lazarus, his grave either sealed or in the making?

If hope is survival, if hope is in the rightness of humanity, and the purity of the flesh, it gives, that the physicians would dare all they did, a vow to knowledge, a vow to wellness ーthe burden of mercy. It is telling, then, that Stanley and Goodsir’s sentence is set from their very own sickened flesh, when their soul can no longer be contained, when it cannot bear to heal what is thought lost. Song is lost, through Morfin, and so is fellowship, through Collins, and truly, what remains of man by then?

Soon, they will be husks, there is no other end to life and their sentences. Three roads stand before them: they may seize all banal struggle, end it here before hope eats itself; they may push forward, wait for someone to take up the torch while they impossibly keep its fire alive; they may also cut expenses, maximise the chances of the fortunate few. Le Vesconte chooses the latter, to Little's dismay, but truly, nothing is fair where they are. The ill shall die alone, but they, too, already are "dead and gone", and damn it all ーthey still hope to live.

Theirs is an act of love, a hope that their mercy might make it right, but, ultimately, they are no God, and they cannot command the choice of their men. They cannot play Abraham nor the shepherds, because they are Cain, indeed, their brethren’s keepers, and the death they plan is also the death they hope to inflict upon the lead and the fear that is slowly sentencing them.

This is a truth that they know all too well, but few more than Silna and Crozier do, soothsayers, voice in the wilderness, shamans that they are. They have the certainty, and they suffer the curse of Tiresias and Cassandra, of an Orpheus who shall see his darlings leave when he remains, and whose cries shall be for naught but a sad song with no words.

And Crozier shall drown in the alcohol and the visions of a David who will be thrown to the lion's den and survive it, yet he will long for that spiteful hierarchy of patronising mercy, in the mistrust born from others’ devaluation of him —but Silna shall be a symbol of the suffering that colonial enterprises inflict upon the innocent. She shall bite that “We were never meant to survive” (A Litany for Survival, Audre Lorde), but why would they not leave, why would they not let her bury her father, force her to play Antigone? Why are they tying her down with them, making her Lady Silence? And, to Crozier, “Why do you want to die?” Why— why would he kill hope, why would they make her home a boneyard?

And, far removed from who they were, exiled from their homes, both shall inflict a silence upon their legacy, and enact the aftermath of that hope.

IV. Hope

What value does hope have, if this is an inked and parched tragedy? What goodness is it, when loss is assured, faith is unheard, consumption fills no well, and mercy is not merciful at all?

Most died, and there were innocents back in the graveyards they left behind, as there were innocents in Sodom and Gomorra. Faith and trust are gone, and so is warmth, while love is frail. Hope is at odds with itself, it is both a noble promise and a delusion, and it is the trembling gun that points not to the narrative’s back, but to its chest, cold, heavy, knowing, undoing. That particular gun should fire, it would be right, but a certain lieutenant wavers, does not pull the trigger, because he hoped— He hoped it did not have to be like this.

A question is thrown to the skies, from sore, tender hearts: “Why?”

The veterans remember well, ‘why’. Before their minds were touched by darkness, “it wasn't sickness or hunger that mattered most to our chances.” Instead, as Mr. Blanky relates, “what little love we had amongst us was the only thing keeping us civil”, and Blanky speaks not only of the story of Fury Beach, but also of their very fates.

If hope is to be the compulsion to bite the hand that feeds, to split its head open with a boat axe —if hope is to be a stronger faith in the others, or the self, than on living on, then so be it.

To hope against hope, in the face of silence, of loss, is worthwhile, and it is allowed, Blanky proves, as he discovers both the Passage and Tuunbaq by his own, lonely path. Then, hope needn’t be of survival, it needn’t be of a cleansed state of naïve, optimistic utopia. Ephemeral as life is granted to humanity, I’d dare say we are allowed this, to hope not only in spite —but because of death.

Because of death, the Netsilik family that feeds Irving matters —because of it, the efforts Lady Jane pursues back in England matter —because of it, Collins, Hartnell, and Tozer’s care for their fellows matters so, even as it leads them straight to their death.

Because hope is restless, and it cares little for tragedy when tragedy cares so much for it, it lives on, and it instils upon the bystander the chance of that bittersweet, wonderful catharsis.

Hope punishes Jopson, due to a frenzied servitude and loyalty that is paid in the botulism-induced disbelief of abandonment, but it pushes him forward, too, closer to the open than to the living dead the tents guard; hope chokes Little through angry chains and a last command, it reduces him to puppetry, but it pushes him to a subtle integrity few are allowed, and something must remain at the very end, to ask ‘Close?’, and thus hope for an answer, if it mattered, in the end; hope tells Bridgens love is what life is worth being alive for, and he’ll want for nothing else when Peglar’s gone, but he guards the pocket-book to his waist, he keeps his lover's words close, closer than his own, and he hopes not to die an empty book.

Crozier speaks without a waver, through words that haunt The Terror till its very end. That “‘close’ is nothing. It’s worse than nothing. It’s worse than anything in the world.” This is a tragedy, there is no happy ending. But ‘close’ does have a meaning. ‘Close’ means ‘hope’, and hope is the remnant in Pandora's jar, to which they were so close. Hope is what made them, once upon a time, alive, and hope is why it hurts.

If you reached the end, this is an invitation to talk about the hyperfixation together 🤝

#the terror #meta #long post #i really needed to write about hope and end it on a positive note. it mattered to me -perhaps it might matter to other terror fans (?)#inspired by conversation with @even-in-arcadia!

22 notes · View notes

burins · 5 months

Text

as promised the separate comics/graphic novels roundup for 2023! this is a normal post until May when I realized I could (as a graphic novel librarian) become an Eisner voter and read 54 comics in a month (and then slightly less so in August when the Harveys came up.) below a cut because it's heinously long. I'll include my little write-ups and some panels right after my faves

JANUARY

Under the Red Hood by Judd Winick and Doug Mahnke I read this January second. Begin as you mean to go on! For all its flaws (Dick's Squidward face) the emotional arc of this story puts me right into the pit about Jason Todd.

Superman: Reign of the Supermen by Dan Jurgens and others

Batman/Superman: World’s Finest (ongoing) by Mark Waid, Dan Mora, and Travis Moore First off Dan Mora draws everyone like the most beautiful people in the world, which never hurts to look at. But also this is just a really fun comic! The action is fun the characters are very sweet and we get an honest to god Superbat gem fusion

Young Justice (1998) by Peter David and Todd Nauck MY CHILDREN! I was finishing up my Tim readthrough and was so delighted to meet Kon and Cassie and Bart and Cissie and Anita (I still don't care for Lobo.) Nauck's art is cartoony in a way that fits the comic really well.

Red Robin by Christopher Yost, Fabian Nicieza, Ramón Bachs, and Marcus To THEEEEE ARC for Tim. Everyone says read Red Robin. Yes read Red Robin but also understand this is him at his worst and most scrungly. This is not normal Tim. This is Tim's failgirl era.

Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day by Judd Winick and Ale Garza

MARCH

You and a Bike and a Road by Eleanor Davis Beautiful little memoir comic about biking across the US, and also about borders and travel and isolation/togetherness.

Superman for All Seasons by Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale, and Bjarne Hansen I love this comic. Tim Sale draws Clark like the biggest, softest person you've ever seen, and Bjarne Hansen's colors are so gentle. (if you remember the rock metaphor from mission parameters, it's inspired by this scene from Book 1: Spring)

APRIL

Superman: Lost by Christopher Priest and Carlos Parlaguyan (ongoing) This series cuts right to the horror of being Superman and also the horror of being Lois Lane SO deftly. a few plot points I don't love but overall God it makes me miserable

Birds of Maine by Michael Deforge A delightful, dreamy collection of comics about birds living in a utopian society on the moon. The art is weird, the story is weird, everything about it is lovely.

MAY

Divinity v1-2 by Matt Kindt and Trevor Hairsine

The City of Belgium by Brecht Evans This is not a perfect graphic novel but the stuff it does with art and page and rhythm is so so phenomenal.

Lights, Planets, People! by Lizzy Stewart and Molly Naylor

Killadelphia v1-3 by Rodney Barnes, Jason Shawn Alexander, and Christopher Mitten

The Department of Truth v1-4 by James Tynion IV and Martin Simmonds This is a book about conspiracy theories and it is DEEPLY unsettling. Martin Simmonds' art makes me legitimately queasy to look at. Really really good but also it did send me into a little spiral for a bit.

Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely (Mat Lopes' colors also deserve a shoutout) This book made me cry! Also I have yet to read another Kara comic because this one was so good and I'm afraid the others won't be. She's sharp and angry in all the best ways and also deeply deeply caring and good. Capes meets space fantasy at its best. I would die for Ruthye

Nightwing (2016) v1-2 by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo

Batman: One Bad Day: The Riddler by Tom King and Mitch Gerads

She-Hulk (2022) v1-2 by Rainbow Rowell, Luca Maresca, Rogê Antônio, and Takeshi Miyazawa

Superman: Space Age by Mike Russell and Michael Allred

Revenge of the Librarians by Tom Gauld

Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball by Jon Chad

Down to the Bone: A Leukemia Story by Catherine Pioli

So Much for Love: How I Survived a Toxic Relationship by Sophie Lambda

Welcome to St. Hell: My Trans Teen Misadventure by Lewis Hancox

Chef’s Kiss by Jarrett Melendez and Danica Brine

Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith

Animal Castle v1 by Xavier Dorison and Felix Delep

Bungleton Green and the Mystic Commandos by Jay Jackson

Flung Out of Space: Inspired by the Indecent Adventures of Patricia Highsmith by Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer Masterclass in writing a biopic that doesn't shy away from its subject's being kind of a wretched person while also producing art that is deeply meaningful to many, many people.

Rain by Joe Hill and Zoe Thorogood

Tiki: A Very Ruff Year by David Azencot and Fred Leclerc

Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly, adapted by Brad Ricca and Courtney Sieh

Ultrasound by Conor Stechschulte

Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes, The Graphic Album (various)

A Visit to Moscow by Rabbi Rafael Grossman, adapted by Anna Olswanger and Yevgenia Nayberg

Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto

Shuna’s Journey by Hayao Miyazaki

Come Over Come Over by Lynda Barry

It’s So Magic by Lynda Barry

My Perfect Life by Lynda Barry What a lovely collection of comics. Barry captures being a teen in all its mess and glory.

Macanudo: Welcome to Elsewhere by Liniers

Always Never by Jordi Lafebre

The Pass by Espé

Mary Jane and Black Cat Beyond

Moon Knight: Black, White and Blood by Jed Mackay and Carlos Villa

The Nice House on the Lake v1-2 by James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martínez Bueno (Jordie Bellaire colors) I know Tynion can do horror, but he really really can do horror. This is like Glass Onion meets the worst nightmare you've ever had, and the way it unfolds is masterful. Martínez Bueno's art is dreamy and unsettling, especially combined with Bellaire who colors like she's painting oil slicks.

A Vicious Circle by Mattson Tomlin and Lee Bermejo

Booster Gold (1986) by Dan Jurgens Booster my friend Booster. I really didn't expect this to be as FUN as it is! There are occasional storylines that drag but overall a delight.

The Human Target v1-2 by Tom King and Greg Smallwood

Heartstopper v2-4 by Alice Oseman

Killer Queens by David Booher and Claudia Balboni

I Hate This Place v1 by Kyle Starks and Artyom Topilin I really need to read v2 because this was so fun. Queer backwoods horror, sarcastic, delightful, and never heavy-handed. I read this right after Killer Queens, which read like someone fed a bunch of Drag Race episodes and 2012 tumblr posts into a comics generator, and Heartstopper, which was so blandly unobjectionable I actually forgot I'd read it, so I Hate This Place felt refreshing as hell. (actually while looking up screencaps I remember why I didn't read v2 which is that v1 has a LOT of gore and body horror and I gotta be careful with that stuff. however if you like a slasher go forth)

It’s Lonely at the Center of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood Gut punch on every page. Thorogood's art is weird and wild. It does feel a bit as though she's opened up her ribs for us to peruse.

Chivalry by Neil Gaiman and Colleen Doran

Sensory: Life on the Spectrum (various)

Cryptid Club by Sarah Andersen

Public Domain v1 by Chip Zdarsky

Love Everlasting v1 by Tom King and Elsa Charretier

Mazebook by Jeff Lemire A twisting fable about grief and the paths it takes you down. A lot of the Eisner noms had dead wives or daughters which I began to resent, but I gave this a pass because it was really, really beautiful.

Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton Everyone has told you it's good! oh it's good. Beaton's style, which I associate more with her humor work, at first feels somewhat at war with the subject matter, but it ended up really working for me.

Days of Sand by Aimee DeJongh

Talk to My Back by Yamada Murasaki This was one of my favorite books of the whole year. Beautiful meditation on the compromises of marriage and motherhood in beautiful, sparse drawings that lingered with me long after I'd finished reading.

Crushing by Sophie Burrows

JUNE

Do a Powerbomb by Daniel Warren Johnson Do you like wrestling? I don't really care about it, but I do love weird wacky stories about grief and trying to fight your way through the afterlife to get your mom back. Both hilarious and poignant. The art is as bombastic as it needs to be.

The Night Eaters v1 by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda Liu and Takeda are back! This time with some horror about a pair of siblings and their fucked up parents. Great stuff.

Ripple Effects by Jordan Hart and Bruno Chiroleu

Superman: Up in the Sky by Tom King and Andy Kubert Oh the Clark Kent of it all. the panel where Clark is calling home from alien customs because he has flown to the ends of the universe for one little girl is really what got me in this one

Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross

Superman: American Alien by Max Landis and various artists

Superman Red and Blue (anthology) This is a whole lot of writers and a whole lot of artists and all of them are excellent. Once again the Clark Kent emotion is happening to me.

JULY

Superman: Birthright by Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu

Superman (2011) v5-6 by Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder

Superman: Warworld by Philip Kennedy Johnson and various artists

Justice League International by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire Booster my friend Booster is here and also so are all of my other new friends. I loved the initial run (though it has its weak spots) but then I had to slog through a lot of very bad later stuff.

AUGUST

Blue and Gold by Dan Jurgens and Ryan Sook

New Teen Titans (various Brother Blood issues) by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez

Acting Class by Nick Drnaso

Follow Me Down: A Reckless Book by Ed Brubaker

Girl Juice by Benji Nate

Little Monsters v1 by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen

Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni

Who Will Make the Pancakes by Megan Kelso

Cat + Gamer by Wataru Nadatani

Goodbye, Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto

Spy x Family v1-2 by Tatsuya Endo

Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War by Gaspard Talmasse

Ashes by Álvaro Ortiz

The Extraordinary Part: Book One: Orsay’s Hands by Florent Ruppert and Jérôme Mulot The art and story here are simply so fabulous. A better world is possible and sometimes you have to take direct action to make it!

SEPTEMBER

Batman RIP by Grant Morrison and Tony S. Daniel

Batman Incorporated by Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham

Batman and Robin (2011) by Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason I've talked about this one before but I think it is truly one of my favorite depictions of Bruce as father in all the ways he succeeds and all the ways he fails. John Kalisz's luminous colors also deserve a shoutout.

OCTOBER

Batman: Failsafe and Gotham War by literally everyone currently working in DC but especially Zdarsky

Birds of Prey (1999) by Chuck Dixon and then Gail Simone and a number of other people (this continued into November and December) This made the worms in my brain wriggle so bad that I wrote a whole yuri zine piece about Dinah and Babs, coming to a PDF (or physical copy!) near you soon!

DECEMBER

Dungeon Meshi v1-11 by Ryoko Kui Is it romantic to devour and be devoured in turn? Ryoko Kui sure thinks so. I was hungry the whole time I was making these my bedtime reading.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll Emily Carroll is among the best to ever do it. This collection of stories is her at her unsettling best.

When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll

Batgirl (2000) v1-3 by Kelley Puckett and Damion Scott thanks to Mssrs Puckett and Scott I am now fully unhinged about Cass Cain and her quest for immolation. the art in this is so stylized but so well-done, especially given how little text is in much of the series. when the paneling hits it HITS.

Bruce Wayne Murderer/Fugitive by everyone working at DC in 2002 When a good crossover storyline works, it really really works. I love to see Bruce completely blow up his life because he doesn't see any point in existing outside the cowl anymore. Even more do I love to see the fallout from this on everyone who loves him! delight delight delight.

and that's everything I read this year!! god there was a lot of it. I liked a lot of the stuff I didn't bold, but also I hated some of it. please feel free to talk to me about any of it!!!

#comics not even once #book roundups

18 notes · View notes

1moreff-creator · 11 months

Note

by the way, the comments in one part seems to be at around 10 years ago, for some reason? i think its related to the broken clock, but i dont know lol

Many people have pointed out how it may tie into the “time loop” theory based on the book Veronika talks about in her introduction, but I actually think it’s something else entirely. You see how the phrase in the background is “the world won’t change”?

I believe the different years are meant to emphasize David’s philosophy that people can’t change.

If you don’t mind, I’ll use this as an opportunity to register a timeline and the like count just in case it’s somehow important (I don’t think it is, but with this MV, I’m not assuming anything):

“I like that •••••• is a protagonist who also plays the antag-“ ~ 14 years ago, 302 likes

“• and •••• totally swapped places” ~ 13 years ago, 1453 likes

“let’s play spot the komaeda” ~ 10 years ago, 2419 likes

“mm •••• anyone?” ~ 8 years ago, 55 likes

“••••• is like the byakuya/nagito/kokichi of the cast” ~ 4 years ago, 3 likes

“I just hope •••••• doesn’t go crazy and kill in chapter 3. That would be way [too] predictable” ??? (I can’t tell what the number is, honestly) years ago, 103 likes

“••••• will obviously die in ch5” ~ ??? (time is covered by the screen), 24 likes

“Everyone in the comment section is a fucking idiot” ~ 0 seconds ago, 0 likes

I don’t see any relation between the exact numbers and any of the ARGs, or the broken clock for that matter.

However, when paired with the aforementioned “the world won’t change” line, the fact that such similar comments are made years apart seems to support David’s idea that people never change. In particular, the “byakuya/nagito/kokichi” and “spot the komaeda” comments are practically identical; while “hope Arturo isn’t the ch 3 killer”, “David will die in ch5”, and “mm ••••” [mm = mastermind, probably] all fit the archetype of ‘possibly premature theory based on what happened in other killing games’ (didn’t include “J and Arei swapped” because that one’s a bit more of a legitimate theory). The other comment about “Teruko is a protag and antag” shares a sentiment you can find in practically any DRDT comment section of any relatively large Youtuber who reacts to it.

In a way, it’s a lighthearted way to poke fun at the community for always commenting the same things and thinking we’ve got everything figured out just because we know fangan tropes, while also calling out how silly that is in the 0 seconds ago comment. But because the comments in the MV are made in the span of years, they also illustrate the point: “the world won’t change”. The in-universe killing game fans, presumably similar to the actual DRDT community, always comment the same stuff and reach the same conclusions, because they’re all the same and never change.

(Do keep in mind, the story actually disagrees with David’s philosophy, so we’re not actually getting insulted here, just teased)

Hope this helped!

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #drdt theory #fanganronpa #god i hope this makes sense #im sorta eepy atm #i still love this scene tbh #david chiem #drdt mv

43 notes · View notes

hausofmamadas · 8 months

Text

| Chasing ghosts and choices |

⁂

Pairing: David Barrón x Enedina Arellano Félix x Claudio Vásquez

For @narcosfandomdiscord NarcOctober Fanworks collection - Day 13

Prompt: Day of Life - create a fanwork in which a character avoids their canonical death.

Word count: �� 1.7K

TWs: Canon-consistent violence, angst in only the way my boi does I mean just look at that face in the first gif, he’s so not a happy camperksjeb

They’d known each other too long, loved each other too much, and hurt each other too intimately and too many times to pretend they were better than exactly who they were. Okay on my life, I did not mean to do the same exact setup as @drabbles-mc fic for today. I just like am super back in my Barrón feels in a BIG fuckin way rn thanks to Bobby Soto ruining my life in A Million Miles Away skdjflsk but like weirdly and accidentally, this could be kind of a sequel to Adamant skjsldkj imsorryforeverything anyway enjoy Barrón lowkey kicking himself for saving Claudio and also being like, "aight, fine. It was the right call" bc he would never do his lady love so dirty as to purposely let her new husband die SKSKS

⁂

At the sliding glass doors of the Arellanos’ place, Barrón stood, watching the predawn fog diffuse over houses on the streets below, making itself at home in the cracks of alleyways, like the city of Tijuana was an abandoned crypt, the casitas, its tombstones, and struggled to remember the last time he’d saved someone.

Being a sicario, he didn’t have much occasion to save people. Or at least, not without tipping the scales in death’s favor in the process. And yet, reminded in a flash of memory—some fake cop’s hat flying in the air when one of his bullets sinks in the guy’s forehead and drops him almost comically like his body’d turned to lead—in this case, he’d delivered plenty to death’s door. He was nothing if not a professional, right.

Maybe it was who he’d saved that made this feel more significant than past jobs. Less delivering to death’s door, more delivering life, delivering a future with one she loved, back to her. That felt as big. Bigger even. Particularly when it ensured his own future would be the same as it ever was. Chasing ghosts and loving in silence. Playing not the fool, but a tool. A weapon. Incredibly useful if only for a precious few tasks. And in the end, who could really blame them when he was so good at it? That’s right. Nothing if not a professional.

With any luck that’d be his ticket out though, what with Mín going off the grid until things cooled down and the family figured out the next moves to make. Hopefully, he’d have a new post to look forward to, a change of scenery. If not the places then the people. Or some of them.

Because no doubt there’d be some kind of political fallout, Claudio being a district attorney and all. He was affable enough to massage it over with the public but his own family was another matter. They were probably furious, already skeptical about the match from the get. So, the Arellanos would have to measure their response carefully. And that’s just what it would have to be: a response, not a retaliation. The inconvenience of legitimacy now rearing its ugly head with such urgency, Barrón didn’t even have the fight left in him to manage a glib, ya te lo dije.

He wondered idly if maybe that was part of Chapo’s plan or just an unhappy accident, forcing the Arellanos in the public eye at such a precarious time. Not yet legitimate enough to be installed in the untouchable chilango upper class where they could retaliate with impunity, but still beholden to the higher standards of a “real” business in the eyes of the people.

As of now, it all seemed like just the most fucked game of Cat’s Cradle. Too much for a pocho from Logan Heights to untangle. It wasn’t even that strategy wasn’t his strong suit, it was more political machinations like these never much held his interest. Maybe the attempt on Claudio’s life would be enough to draw Dina back in. Give her back what she gave up. That was how Barrón had known it was real with them to begin with. She stepped back. No longer lived and breathed for the thrill of realizing the potential of the family business like she’d envisioned. Envisioned since she was a kid, a fact she’d revealed in one of their little warehouse chats when he first got there. Years ago. Back when they were– ah, fuck it. He’d chase that ghost later.

The funny thing was she did that all giving up and stepping back in a bid to keep things separate, shield Claudio from the less savory aspects of things. A bullet to the shoulder is about as good as that plan went.

Maybe this would be Dina’s time. The prospect filled him with pride. Hope. It’d be a thrill to see if it didn’t hurt so bad. And truthfully, given the choice, Barrón would rather fight back boredom-induced sleep, watching little Ruthie play with Lincoln logs in a safe house somewhere, than sit around here watching the future that he’d sacrificed his own for blossom before his very eyes. He did what he did but he didn’t have to like it.

He fished for a porro he’d rolled earlier from his pocket and removed the few stray, leafy bits of weed that had escaped out one end, before popping it between his lips and lighting up. He usually didn’t smoke in the house but considering he still hadn’t changed his shirt stained with Claudio’s blood, setting into the fibers more and more with each passing second, courtesy of a bullet that sailed clean through the guy’s shoulder, he figured he’d earned a pass from his employers. That wasn’t even the best excuse he had. Just the simplest one. What a weird fucking night.

And fuck, he was tired. The noise of the drawers of the credenza opening and closing behind him wasn’t enough to make him turn around. Shit, he might stand here forever. Five hundred years from now, they’d find him, all petrified wood, in this exact spot still staring out the window. Exhausted. Since before he could remember, exhausted.

Her voice broke the reverie and he tried not to resent it too much. He failed.

“David.”

Ugh, they’d talked about this. No first name. He hated it when she called him by his first name. Too close. A flash of red out of the corner of his eye took full shape as Dina joined him at the window, in her red silk robe, arms crossed, hair wild and free like she was the first woman.

A few tendrils of smoke curled out of Barrón’s nostrils and glided down his chin, moving lazy and listless as he felt. The question hung in his throat, thick with smoke, “How is he.”

Dina dropped her shoulders like she’d been holding her breath. “The doctor says he might lose function in his thumb and forefinger on that side, but otherwise,” she exhaled deeply, clenching her jaw to fight back tears of relief, “it looks like Claudio is going to be fine.”

“Heh,” Barrón nodded, half coughing, half chuckling, “I meant Pancho. But uh, no that’s good.” It was sincere and the most he could manage. Frankly, he was impressed he managed that much.

Head dipping forward, her shoulders shaking gently, she laughed self-consciously down at the floor. “Mi brujo, tu compa, sí se pondrá bien. Ese gatito tiene un chinga más de nueve vidas. No te preocupes.”

At that, he smirked and nodded with more heart this time.

They didn’t say anything else to each other for a while. Just stood there watching the purples of the sky brighten, the marine layer fog cooked orange by the rising sun. Down to a sliver of his joint, Barrón sighed, wishing he’d rolled another one, and cracked the sliding door to flick the butt outside. He closed it and stepped back inside to reassume his place as petrified wood but before he got both his hands in his pockets, Dina caught his wrist and slid her hand down into his. It was so stealthy and quick, Houdini’d be proud. He couldn’t place his finger on why, but it filled him with relief that she hadn’t looked at him. Merely held his hand firmly and continued staring out the window, one arm still held tightly across her chest. Yeah, that was easier.

“David. No sé como agradecerte, pero lo que has hecho por Claudio, la familia,” her voice dropped low as if she knew it should be left unsaid, “por mi,” all the while squeezing his hand. “Nunca lo olvidaré.”

He ran his thumb along her palm to let her know he was there, then hummed softly, “Pues, qué otra opción tenía?”

Echoes of the panic he’d felt when he rounded the corner, seeing Claudio crouched in a shower of broken glass, bullet exploding through his shoulder, blood dark red on his crisp blue shirt, hit Barrón like a grenade. What could’ve happened. What almost happened. If he’d gotten there just a second or two later … they both knew.

A dark and inconvenient truth of operating in a world as wild, wild west as theirs made it impossible not to consider. His job, his very nature, made it impossible to ignore: just exactly how easy it would’ve been for him to drag his feet a bit, move just a little slower, lag behind ever so slightly. That one bullet to the shoulder, turns into two in the chest, then three, then four– until. And how easy it would’ve been to play it off like a whoops, unfortunate happenstance, he’d done his best, just couldn’t make it in time, a tragedy.

The fucked thing too was ... for a fraction of a second?

He had thought about it.

He was pretty sure she knew that too or at least considered the possibility. They’d known each other too long, loved each other too much, and hurt each other too intimately and too many times to pretend they were better than exactly who they were. But that’s not how things went. Not the choice he made.

Instead, Barrón whipped around that corner, hammering Chapo and Arturo’s position so relentlessly, the gun felt almost an extension of his own arm – bullet hoses, right – while Claudio was slumped under the bar, clutching his shoulder. Instead, when their path was clear, Barrón yanked Claudio up to his feet by his good arm and offered a shoulder for him to clumsily toss the bad one over. Instead, Claudio bled all over his shirt, as he dragged them both up the steps, down the hallway, into the back kitchen where the Arellanos were waiting, and shot out the windows so they could all make their escape. Instead, he dragged Claudio, once again, to the getaway car and sat him next to his poor Panchito. Best to keep the mess in one place. No use getting blood all over the seats of two different cars.

Some would call it a choice. Then again, with her the foremost thought on his mind, the instant that first bullet ejected from the barrel of his gun into the face of a phony cop, did he really have one to begin with?

═

taglist: @narcosfandomdiscord @narcolini @ashlingnarcos @drabbles-mc

#david barron x enedina arellano felix x claudio vasquez #dinarron #narcoctober #day of life #day 13 #95 percent of the time it took to put this together was the gifs ksksks #bc I thought I had made them already #and I had but with my old tumblr handle #also the quality was like .... like it looked like it had been filmed with a potato #bc I had not perfected the process yet sksks so I had to make new ones #but didn't realize that until I finished writing at like 1:00 am #i'm just really bad at this #and i'm sorry for everything #i should really be banned from participating in monthlong challenges tbh

10 notes · View notes

esther-dot · 1 year

Note

The biblical text makes it clear David’s first mistake was desiring another man’s wife, and a “common folk” man, a faithful soldier too when he literally had several wives and concubines at his disposal.

“There were two men in a certain city. One was rich, and the other was poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cows, but the poor man had only one little female lamb that he had bought. She rested in his arms and was like a daughter. Now, a visitor came to the rich man. The rich man thought it would be a pity to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler. So he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared her for the traveler.”

“the man who did this certainly deserves to die! And he must pay back four times the price of the lamb because he did this and had no pity.”

“You are the man!”

“this is what the Lord God of Israel says: I anointed you king over Israel and rescued you from Saul. I gave you your master Saul’s house and his wives. I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if this weren’t enough, I would have given you even more. Why did you despise my word by doing what I considered evil? You had Uriah the Hittite killed in battle. You took his wife as your wife. You used the Ammonites to kill him. So warfare will never leave your house because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife”

So, Rhaegar (and Aerys by supporting him) broke the medieval contract of not taking their people’s property, or their children. Lyanna was the “only female lamb” the beloved of her father, and Brandon and Rickard were killed by demanding restitution. A betrothal in nobility was binding like a marriage, so technically Lyanna was another man’s wife. If Rhaegar had simply taken any other girl as a concubine no one would have cared, even Elia would have looked the other way. It was Rhaegar’s entitlement that killed him and his entire house.

Unlike Lyanna, Bathsheba survives giving birth, but her bastard son by David dies. The second son is Solomon, who was legitimate and inherited the throne. It is probably a hint at Jon’s legitimacy. Food for thought.

(Continuation of this convo)

I hadn’t even thought about it in connection to Jon’s legitimacy 👀 Thank you so much for explaining the story further, @minitafan ! Loved reading this!

#anti rhaegar #dot chat

11 notes · View notes

jmalegni · 1 year

Text

Cyberpunk Edgerunners

Never thought that we would be watching something that I have actually seen before, pretty awesome.

Edgerunners is quite the heavy show, themes of addiction, class divide, crime, dystopian levels of capitalism, and family. I will begin with the addiction that is rampant in Night City. Whether it's drugs, sex, or cybernetic implants, it seems everybody in the city has some kind of horrible vice. They know it is not good for them but they continue doing it because they either need them to survive or they are the only source of "happiness" in this world. David's death is the best example of this, he adopts more and more cybernetics to keep up with the crew and to survive, but no matter how many he gets it ends up killing him in the end, just like addiction in the real world it starts with one but you need more and more until it eats up your entire life.

The reason David felt like he needed to start getting cybernetics is because of a brutal level of capitalism that Night City is built on. Every single thing is commodified to the point that first responders will leave you to die if you haven't purchased the right package from them. And that is exactly what happens, David's mother dies and he is left with all the burden of catching up on all kinds of expenses while his only family just died. For Christ's sake she was cremated in a vending machine and spit out like a can of soda. The point here is that David felt like he had nowhere to go in his current life and when an opportunity to improve his life through crime, he took it. If he never would have lost his mother and they weren't behind on their payments, I would like to think it is unlikely he would have accepted Lucy's offer.

Crime is also just as frequent as addiction in this city. The police seem to be just exist for show or to serve the corpos. Like I said earlier, it is the nature of the city to push those at the bottom to living a life outside of the law, and with so many of these people, it has gotten to the point where it is pretty much accepted as a part of life for all. It's commentary on police corruption and societal systems that don't focus on providing avenues for stable lives for those who aren't as well of as others, i.e. education, rehabilitation, or general financial aid.

The divide between the corporations and everyone else is very stark in the world of Cyberpunk. It is what feeds this ever hungry capitalism that pushes so many people to addiction and crime. And no matter how hard you try, it is impossible to legitimately ascend to the status of corpo from where someone like David is. His mother pretty much devoted her entire life to work, to the system to try to generate enough money to get David through a nice school that would allow him to legitimately reach the top floor of Arasaka Tower. But it is impossible, those at the top have made it that way. That's why there isn't some grand plot to fight the system and bring Night City to it's full potential. Instead Lucy wants to escape. Escape as far as possible and that place is the Moon, not Antarctica, the Moon.

The last thing I will talk about is how important family is in Edgerunners. David starts by losing everything, but finds a new family in the crew. Maine adopts a father like figure, teaching David and supporting him until the end. Even though they commit all kinds of horrible violence an incredibly strong bond is formed with many of the members. David finds actual happiness when with the crew and appreciates the connections, willing to give his own life for them multiple times. I am sure he loved his mother, but it was different from what he gets from the connection with the crew.

Alright, that's it from me, awesome anime,. and I can't believe we only have one more left.

Also I am glad at least Falco survived

7 notes · View notes

dreaminginthedeepsouth · 10 months

Text

* * * * *

The climate crisis requires a wartime footing

Camilla Cavendish: “I wish,” a longstanding US Democrat and environmentalist said to me recently, “that we’d never politicised global warming.” Even as extreme heat is demonstrating that no country will be immune from climate change, the politics are becoming more treacherous. Parts of the right are mobilising to slow down the path to net zero, as inflation bites and the fossil fuel industry comes under pressure. In the US, Ron DeSantis has rejected “the politicisation of the weather” — despite having had to grapple with the effects of its extremes in Florida — and House Republicans are lobbying to overturn a tax on methane pollution within the Inflation Reduction Act. In Britain, Conservatives who fear annihilation at the next election have decided to use green policies as a wedge against Labour. Even Canada’s premier, Justin Trudeau, is struggling to deliver what was a radical plan on decarbonisation.

I have the eerie sense that some of the old tunes of the 1990s are being replayed. Although outright climate denial is now patently delusional, rightist politicians are quick to claim that the west has already done enough, or that new technology will save us. There have also been some bizarre attempts to distract from the main issue. When the skies in New York State turned orange in June, Rudy Giuliani tweeted “Is it due to wildfires, climate change or something more sinister?”. In Britain, the former Tory minister Lord David Frost recently declared that we shouldn’t worry because more people die of cold than heat. Meanwhile the hard end of the oil industry continues to lobby for projects that would be stranded assets under net zero.

The dilemma is how to balance climate action with the preservation of livelihoods. This can feel frustrating to those of us who fear we may soon reach planet tipping points which will wreak their own economic havoc. Extreme weather has already made some US homes uninsurable. Canada has lost more land to wildfires this year than any other on record, and its Climate Institute estimates that extreme heat will threaten half a million jobs by 2050. Meanwhile Greece, Italy and Spain, which are sweltering in 40C heat, must fear for the future of their tourist industries. Nevertheless, it is legitimate to ask which solutions will be most cost-effective, and where the costs should fall. The path to net zero demands that governments pull off the equivalent of a new Industrial Revolution in only three decades. Politicians are reluctant to move ahead of where they think public opinion is — and the public dislike blank cheques. The answer is surely to invoke a wartime spirit, and make the fight against climate change a joint endeavour against a common enemy. If the public and political will is there, human ingenuity can prevail, with remarkable speed. In the second world war, America transformed its manufacturing base to produce tanks and ammunition. The Covid pandemic resulted in the discovery and development of vaccines at scale, saving millions of lives. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has finally prompted Germany to free itself from its dependence on Russian gas.

What do all these cases have in common? A determined focus on a single objective, a sense of national unity and leadership by the private sector. For this to happen with climate, the political conversation has to mature. The left is correct in believing that getting to net zero will require a bigger state to mobilise resources and frame objectives. But the right is also correct that only markets are nimble and innovative enough to deliver. In Britain, some Tories are disingenuously trying to elide an unpopular tax on polluting vehicles in London with entirely separate climate policy. But many Green parties have committed similar sins, merging ‘green’ policies with ‘red’ ones — like wealth taxes, shrinking the military or, disastrously for Germany’s carbon footprint, opposing nuclear power. The story that voters need to hear from political leaders cannot be ideological. Long before Al Gore spoke so eloquently about the Inconvenient Truth, Margaret Thatcher warned of the growing peril of carbon emissions, and called for a framework convention on climate change in her speech to the 1989 UN General Assembly. Some modern Conservatives who consider themselves Thatcher’s disciples hate being reminded of her words that “we shall only succeed in dealing with the problems through a vast international, co-operative effort” — but she was right.

In two decades of writing about climate change I have learnt that it provokes deeply emotional reactions. People are quick to dispute any suggestion that they should change their lifestyle, or that the world they inhabit might change. They are understandably concerned about who is going to bear the costs of decarbonisation, and whether it is fair. Many would rather not think about it too much. Individual political leaders are navigating a very complex situation, a global tragedy of the commons in which no one population wants to lose out to any other. My American Democrat friend was right: the issue is too important to be held hostage by any one group. If we are to tackle the warming climate, we must take the heat out of the politics.

[thanks Robert Scott Horton]

#climate emergency #Robert Scott Horton #Financial Times #Camilla Cavandish #articles #history #climate change #global emergency #wartime footing

4 notes · View notes

sortasirius · 1 year

Text

Absolutely gutwrenching. Spoilers for TLOU Episode 8

Opening with the lodge was sick of them

Seeing the aftermath of Joel killing that guy is exactly what they should do but also brings me nothing but stomach pain

Feeling literally nothing but dread as Ellie walks around in the woods

I wish she had gotten the rabbit but at the same time it was very funny that she face planted instead, just another cool change from game Ellie to show Ellie

Her trying to change her voice to be more intimidating once again I would die for her

The second they started interacting I felt ill Scott Shepherd is an incredible actor and brought a new dimension to Nolan's already horrifically scary David

TROY I WISH IT DIDN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY

"Where the fuck do I put this" YES I LOVE THAT THEY ADDED THIS REALISTICALLY ELLIE WOULD HAVE NO IDEA!!

So glad they kept that shot of her lying down right next to him, it always makes me crying and Pedro and Bella made it worse somehow

So I think it's an interesting question...do a lot of these people know that they're often eating human meat? Because it seemed like a lie they're telling most of them.

Revenge quest mention again....PART II IS COMING!

David just slapping that girl in the face and then telling her he's her father?????? JAIL

This section has always been so fucking scary and this is no exception

RIP Callus my man

It's way scarier to have them walking around the house and have Joel just laying there

I was fully screaming "GET UP GET UP!!"

That dude's death was so fucking brutal oh my god

I think it's great that they made her more scared, it fits this Ellie a lot better

Yeah that was my BOY Joel right there, PERFECT adaptation of one of the most brutal (and best) scenes in the game

An even scarier way for her to find out what they are. Cool thanks.

THEY AREN'T TELLING THEM WHAT THEY'RE EATING WHICH IS SO SO SO FUCKED

"You have a violent heart, and I should know. I've always had a violent heart."

THIS IS WORSE. THIS IS WORSE THAN THE GAME.

THEY KEPT HER LINE THANK U CRAIG AND NEIL

Her backpack I can't take this

Bella is so fucking amazing. They're such a perfect Ellie.

David's more overt aggression and obvious desire for Ellie is...really sickening. Like it's obvious in the game. We know it. But to see it like this, to see it in his eyes, in the way he looks at her, the way he talks. It's beyond words.

The Scene made me feel legitimately ill. Like sick to my stomach.

"Fighting is the part I like most" if Ellie hadn't killed him, I sure as hell would have,

They added so much to that sequence, and it made it So Much Worse.

Bella...Bella. Bella. Bella. Bella.

Absolutely gutting. Thank you once again to every single person that has given me this adaptation.

I wish I could put into words, I wish I could put what this show is to me into words. But I can't. I can't even describe it.

Next week is the last. I have some hunches. We'll see if they're right:

I think we get a glimpse (not meet, but get a glimpse) of Abby. I think they've cast Owen and Mel and maybe even Manny. We'll obviously see Jerry. And I can't fucking wait.

#spoilers #tlou hbo #liveblog

3 notes · View notes

kevinkoosk · 3 months

Text

Avoid the Loan Sharks

Introduction

Someone I know tried to commit suicide recently. He slashed his arm violently, in a fit of depression and anger, and hoped to bleed out and die. He was found in a pool of blood, and rushed to the hospital. His life is in a precarious state; but the worst has passed.

I was informed that he had run up a huge debt with a loan shark; and his family has just found out about it, and they are trying their best to pull together the cash to pay it off. At the same time, they are trying to negotiate with the loan shark, and ask for a reduction of the interest.

I heard from his family member, the loan shark had played this person for a fool. This person had spoken greatly about his father's wealth; about how his father had made it with blood, sweat, and tears. And his boastful talking had irked some people, so much that they decided to set him up.

How it starts with these loan sharks

A small borrowing, started a small debt, which then snowballed into a huge debt. Once you borrow from a loan shark, they feel legitimized to come after you for everything that you've got. They are notorious for using violence and dabble in vice, and if you come to them, it means that you've accepted those conditions.

But the loan shark is often friendly, when they're trying to get a person to borrow from them. "Don't worry, we are people too," they say. It's like fishing: the ones doing the fishing wait patiently for the fish to bite on the hook. And when the fish gets hooked, they reel it in and never let it go.

A fisherman pulls a fish in from the river or the sea, and plops it on the grass, or a basin. They don't want the fish to flip and land back into the water. Some fishermen whack the fish on the head, to stun it and prevent the fish from moving further.

Loan sharks do that too. Once they have their debtor, they let the debt balloon, and wait for the time to come. At first they'll collect partially, so that the debt continues to increase. The interest rates are far higher than anything the bank offers. Even credit card interest rates cannot compare. I heard that it can start as low as 30% for 3 months, and go as high as 50% a month.

Why not borrow from a conventional bank? (And not a loan shark)

If you borrow money from a bank, at least you know your interest rates are more reasonable. A debt of RM100,000 will not turn into a debt of RM1,000,000. Despite whatever you may say about the traditional banking industry, it plays a much needed role of offering loans to those who need it.

But conventional banks assess risks as well. They see the profile of the borrower, and rate his ability to repay. They offer him a loan within the ambit of his ability to repay. And then they monitor the loan, and send notices whenever there is a default. Repayment is made in monthly instalments, so if there is a hiccup, they will know about it. Best of all, they ask for collateral, to fall back on if the borrower is unable to repay.

So it is ironic that a loan from an unlicensed moneylender, i.e. the loan sharks, is now being repaid with a loan from a conventional financial institution.

But if the loan from the loan shark had been reasonable and followed the operation of the financial institution, that person would not have come to his moment of desperation. He would not have run up his huge debt. And he might still be well.

No, it's unreasonable because it is unlicensed. The loan sharks know that if a borrower comes to them, it's because he does not qualify for a loan from a conventional financial institution. They are the lender of last resort, and they take their chunk of flesh, because they are predators. It's a business that they cannot scale legally; so they operate from the shadows, and claim their victims whenever they find one.

The lesson for you (about loan sharks, and kings)

What is the lesson here? I was blessed to hear my church pastor speak about Hezekaiah, a good king in Israel from the line of King David. His final days offer a lesson that is relevant to this topic.

Hezekaiah was approached by an emissary from the Babylonian king. This emissary was presumably visiting so that Babylon could form an alliance with Israel against the world's superpower at the time: The Assyrians.

To this emissary, Hezekaiah showed everything he had: his stores of gold, silver, and spices. He probably led him around the kingdom and showed his great treasures that his predecessors had accumulated. The Bible says that there was nothing that he did not show the Babylonian emissary. Maybe he was trying to show how secure and how rich he was, in a bid to impress the emissary.

A prophet then asked king Hezekaiah what he had shown the emissary. "Everything", he said. "I showed him all my treasures, all my gold, all my silver." (Something along those lines, which I paraphrase.)

"OK," said the prophet. (Again, I'm paraphrasing.) "Because you showed all your treasures, etc. your children will become slaves and eunuchs in the Babylonian empire, and your kingdom will fall."

King Hezekaiah did not think much of it, because he thought that it would happen after his lifetime. "At least," he thought, "I will escape this ugly fate, right?"

But that was foolish thinking for a king! As a king, the rest of the world would know his sovereignty. He did not need to show them his treasures; indeed, they were not visiting him to audit him.

The lesson is not to show off your wealth, even to friends; because if you do that, eventually, greed will come, and with it, comes your destruction.

People always think that it is OK to shortchange a rich man. I know first hand how many many imagine that a lawyer should be rich, and nonchalantly say, "But you're a lawyer, surely you're rich, and you can afford to _____, right?"

Once they have their justification, they come with their demands and requests. Even if some of them are undeniably rich, they will do so.

Don't be a victim

Coming back to the topic at hand, when that person boasted that his father was rich, he drew the envy and (perhaps) disgust of his friends. They set him up, and plotted how to bring about his financial ruin, with the knowledge that his father would come to his rescue.

In other words, they wanted to take away the wealth that his father had accumulated, just like the Babylonians would one day, take away the wealth that King Hezekaiah's predecessors had accumulated.

The Chinese have a saying, that wealth lasts for three generations: The first generation works hard for it; the second generation, knowing how hard it was, maintains it; and the third generation squanders it all away.

In this case, the person that I know was of the second generation. His father had worked hard to accumulate wealth; and should now be enjoying his retirement. But now, comes a huge debt, and his father's properties will be charged to the bank simply to unlock the liquidity therein. From here on out, the family will work hard to bear the monthly instalments.

Loan sharks are usurious; and so, it is always, always best to avoid them.

In your life, even if you're short on cash, and have nowhere to turn, never go to a loan shark.

If someone offers to help you refinance your debts, think carefully, and never deal with offers on the phone if you can.

After all, banks have branches, and branches have workers who earn a commission. If the deal you get over the telephone is genuine, you should be able to avail it over the counter at a nearby bank.

I don't know how some of these people get my number and call me up to offer a loan, but I always say no, I will see you at the bank if you're real. Not on the phone, please.

Conclusion

Avoid the loan sharks. Even if they're nicely dressed and speak nicely with you. You'll be happier.

Thanks for reading.

Disclaimer: This article is published for information sharing purposes; and should not be regarded as legal advice. Nor should it be considered financial advice, because I am not a financial planner or a financial professional.

This article was first published at Linkedin.

#finance #moneylending #loans #personal loans #money #debt

0 notes

rametarin · 5 months

Text

genuine question

I say genuine question because of the nature, it could easily be perceived as insulting or patronizing, but.

The subject of God of War and Hinduism; Clearly, we're never going to see Kratos swing out and quicktime event beat the shit out of Muhammed or Allah to cover Islam in that franchise. That's just not going to happen. We're not going to see Kratos piledrive King David through a table or break a shepherd's staff over the 3 wise men's heads. The uproar it would cause in the Muslim world and depending on the religious figures, across all Abrahamic faiths, would be disastrous- people could die over it. So, obviously, there are religious and cultural limits on exactly what famous pantheons are allowed to partake of the God of War franchise, and subsequent violent ends delivered by Kratos.

Yes I know how God of War was supposed to end the first time. I am aware of the original Judeo-Christian vision for the end of the franchise. Yes I know in that vision, Kratos beating up the 3 Wise Men or stabbing Christ to death compromises the original vision. Work with me, here..

But, supposing the depictions of the Hindu deities and relationships were true to character and the integrity of their mythology, how would the Hindu world react to a God of War game and story that featured Kratos running around killing and brutalizing the misc. gods of India?

Would it be understood to just be a legitimate form of storytelling featuring a tragic and farcical character that is Making Bad Decisions, and by the tone and story of God of War, was not at all a "My god(dick) is bigger than your gods(dicks)" story? Or, would it be seen more as a foreign religion or religious figure trying to 1-up native religious stories by, "mythologizing their inferiority?" And thus, being heretical or profane disrespect?

Is it generally understood that Kratos is not supposed to be a champion character, but a violent, brutal and depressed figure making horrible decisions out of desperation and damaging the cosmos in his rage?

Is such depiction of Hindu deities and cosmology appropriate and acceptable in India for action, humor and drama's sake, or is that an extreme taboo you do not cross?

You can do most anything with the Greek and Norse gods these days, because their original cultures have embraced Christianity and there's virtually no one around still venerating the classic deities, save for retro pagans who are just wholesale reinventing rituals and churches and using them as recognizable icons. But, using other religions is a touchy subject, because they're still living cultures.

Would the Hindu world jive with a God of War story set in that space and forgive it as a bit of secular storytelling despite inclusion of their figures and mythology? Or would it go over about as well as Kratos ripping the wings off of a Ziz-bird and flying it down a Seven Heaven High angel's throat?

I mean yes India probably does this sort of thing itself with its own historical religious figures, but there's generally understood to be a difference between people in their own religion and culture making literature like this, and people outside of a culture or faith doing it. A very religious section of a country may grouse and disapprove of the metropolitian side getting away with its secular heresies, but take a foreign non-believer and have him write a story, and they may feel understandably insulted.

I am a yankee and not from any sort of religious background outside of family's protestantism. So I genuinely do not know how a God of War meets Hinduism might go over with Hindus. Please let me know on a scale of 1 (they get it, nobody would care, might enjoy it actually) to 10 (ABSOLUTE HERESY!!!)

I'm not sure where Indiana Jones fits on that scale but, I remember India did not appreciate it much.

#god of war #speculation #hinduism #fiction #video games #cultural sensitivity

1 note · View note

britesparc · 1 year

Text

I posted 54 times in 2022

51 posts created (94%)

3 posts reblogged (6%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@wilwheaton

@1980sactionfigures

I tagged 51 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#top ten - 49 posts

#movies - 18 posts

#games - 13 posts

#tv - 9 posts

#gaming - 9 posts

#mcu - 8 posts

#films - 8 posts

#marvel - 7 posts

#star wars - 6 posts

#comics - 6 posts

Longest Tag: 109 characters

#look i could have gone with as in being born but i sort of did that in the intro so what else did you expect

My Top Posts in 2022:

Weekend Top Ten #534

Top Ten Tom Cruise Films

So we return once again to the well of Listing an Actor’s Fillums. I quite like doing this, although I do wonder if it’s just going to show up glaring gaps in my film knowledge because I haven’t seen, say, Born on the Fourth of July. But anyway! Let’s plough on!

Tom Cruise, what a guy, eh? One of these genuinely larger-than-life actors, not just a movie star but a force of nature – the living manifestation of destiny, if you will. He’s legitimately good – Oscar-worthy – but he also has with him an aura of other-worldliness. Frankly, what he does seems not just impossible, but, like, implausible. He could make movies without jumping off things. He really could! It’s true! Adam Sandler manages it. But Cruise still does all these crazy things; he can’t fight like Iko Uwais or Donnie Yen – or even Keanu Reeves – but he still manages to pull off scenes that are just insane to behold. His films are events, and even if he’s making sequels to a beloved franchise, really the franchise is Tom Cruise Films.

So he’s a cool, charismatic leading man, with genuine acting chops, who somehow manages to always one-up himself in terms of a unwavering commitment to physically and mentally taxing stunt work (including, let’s not forget, flying jets for real in Top Gun: Maverick). But at the same time he tends to operate at this level of remove. We can’t fault him for his desire for privacy, but even setting aside specifics, he approaches everything with an almost messianic zeal and rictus grin that is, for some, off-putting. Whatever attributes he has – and to be clear, I like him a lot as an actor – he’s not really in that warm and fuzzy Tom Hanks zone, or even the nice-guy action hero mode of, say, Christ Hemsworth (I’m leaving that typo in because I have decided now that Jesus looks like this). He’s like this Hollywood monolith, immense and fascinating but also, in a funny way, alien and unrelatable. He does impossible things for odd reasons but they also, for the most part, turn out to be really, really great.

And here are my ten favourite films of his.

A Few Good Men (1992): oooh, an Aaron Sorkin film tops the list, big surprise David. But this really is an all-timer. A superb – superb – script, fantastically orchestrated by Rob Reiner at the height of his powers, a cast to die for, and Cruise at his best, channelling his two great attributes – cocky wankerism and earnest, soulful humanism – to weapons-grade effect.

The Mission: Impossible Franchise (1996-2024): gah, already I cheat. Yes, I don’t really see the point in splitting the franchise; there would probably be two or three separate films here otherwise. But Cruise’s performance as Ethan Hunt is probably the most iconic of his career, as he acts suave and cool whilst running up things or diving off them or clinging onto them. The variety of tones and styles and the increasingly bonkers stuntwork helps define a franchise that is going to be nearly thirty years old when Cruise finally bows out of it, and arguably has produced better films than Bond or Bourne. Oh, and for the record – with a re-watch sorely needed – I’d rank them Fallout, 1, Rogue, Ghost, 2, 3.

Rain Man (1988): arguably the hardest and most successful performance of his career, opposite Dustin Hoffman’s attention-sucking turn. Hoffman got all the plaudits back in the day, but Cruise’s slow-burn shift from, basically, entitled shit to empathetic and melancholy carer is beautifully, organically, realistically played out – and, I’d argue, has aged better.

Collateral (2004): Cruise has rarely played proper baddies (I’d love to see him in a Tarantino film), but he’s cool as ice here, with his salt-and-pepper do, coercing Jamie Foxx into driving him round an ice-cold pitch-black LA as he goes from kill to kill. A tense, gorgeous film, but a great performance from Cruise as the slick assassin.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014): cruise has an ease with charm and/or smarm, and often subverts it in interesting ways; such as the opening of this film, when he’s the slippery coward getting by on his flash and pomp. This gives way to earnest, hard-won heroism as the film progresses, but it’s a bold move; as is the trippy time-loop plot. Thoroughly underrated, this is probably the closest a Cruise film comes to “cult classic”.

Minority Report (2002): there’s a cold, aloof slickness to Spielberg’s direction in this one – lots of glass and lens flare and a desaturated palette – as Cruise’s grieving cop goes on the run. Cruise is very good at running, one of cinema’s all-time great runners, and he deploys that skill to fantastic effect here, managing to feel like the endangered everyman resorting to all manner of freaky sci-fi trickery to clear his name. Feels a little undersung, this one, despite its pedigree; those funky stun-guns deserve a lot of praise.

Magnolia (1999): a dense and complex ensemble of mixed emotions and varying degrees of tragedy, Cruise is shocking as the utterly hateful self-help guru preaching misogynistic bollocks to his crowds of arsehole followers. Yes, yes, we all remember his dialogue and all the swears, but it’s how his layers are gradually unpeeled by the plot that really hits home.

Jerry Maguire (1996): another case of Cruise undermining his own cool image, here as an agent in the midst of an existential crisis. He owns this film, carries it entirely, with a performance that is almost all outward bluster and internal angst, frantically struggling to keep above water. He utterly sells it, makes Jerry a compelling and convincing character, and I don’t care how cheesy it is, “you had me at hello” always makes me cry.

Tropic Thunder (2008): another shocking and surprising supporting turn from Cruise, here displaying comic chops we rarely see. His performance as an utterly awful mogul might have dated a bit, post-Weinstein, but it’s so completely out-there it has to be seen to be believed. In a film full of out-there stuff, it fits right in, and serves as an indication that Cruise has more range than he’s often given credit for.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999): a very strange and divisive film, I really love how Cruise’s intense, internalised doctor carries the narrative just by wandering round strange places, meeting strange people, and seeing some very strange things. It’s an entirely reactive performance with no show or bluster, very languid, almost serene; the calm centre in a storm of batshit intensity and soft porn shenanigans.

4 notes - Posted May 28, 2022

Weekend Top Ten #529

Top Ten Channel 4 Programmes

I’ve said this many times, but because I often like to tie these lists to things that are happening in the real world, or at least specific dates, it sometimes means that I shunt things around, or have a good idea but it has to get pushed back a bit to make room. So it was a couple of weeks ago, when The Powers That Be decided that for entirely partisan reasons, Channel 4 would be privatised. Like many others, I don’t think this is a good idea; Channel 4 has been home to some remarkable telly for the last thirty-odd years, and the way its funded and the way it develops programmes is not only special and unique, but it’s also specifically designed to foster and promote home-grown content (from the private sector, no less!). Quite simply, I can’t think of an economic or creative reason to privatise Channel 4, unless you stood to gain personally from its sale, or if you felt its exemplary news coverage would become more cowed and fearful under a corporate hand.

Hmmm.

Anyway, all this news has kind of blown over for a bit, as we focus once again on horrors abroad and righteous fury here at home. But it stuck with me, because I wanted to do something to celebrate, to praise Channel 4. For most of my life – certainly the bits where I think of me as me, which is to say from about the age of ten onwards – Channel 4 has been my favourite channel. It showed edgier stuff, funnier stuff; great home-grown comedies and quiz shows, awesome imported stuff. There was a while there where 6pm on a weeknight was almost guaranteed to give you some good stuff, and the whole “comedy from 9pm” thing on a Friday night was a reason to stay in when I was still too young to go out. They showed great films (hell, they made great films), they had interesting and provocative dramas, and – this is genuinely important – sometimes they were a bit rude.

More than just the quality of their programming, though, they shaped me, helped me foster my own identity. I very quickly gravitated towards Channel 4 and BBC2 as I entered my teens, finding interest and solace in the quirkier and edgier stuff they offered, away from the mainstream. Below you’ll find ten series that I adored, and that were hugely influential, and I’ll try to explain why; but beyond that, Channel 4 was a window to a wider world. I graduated from Roald Dahl to stuff like Michael Crichton and Stephen King almost overnight, I started reading Empire magazine, and I’d watch weird films on Channel 4, strange documentaries, programmes fronted by Jonathan Ross, who’d interview scabrous comedians I’d never heard of. It’s all wrapped up, for me, with discovering Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith, with hearing Jarvis Cocker and Nick Cave for the first time. Channel 4 was the gateway drug to adolescence, and I don’t know what that would be for kids nowadays. TikTok, presumably.

So here we go. Ten programmes from a fantastic channel. Oh, and by the way, they’ve got so much good stuff to choose from, that I’ve specifically isolated home-grown hits. Stuff commissioned (as far as I understand it) by Channel 4 themselves. Perhaps later I’ll do one about acquisitions and foreign imports, because the importance of watching US comedies on a Friday night can not be overstated. But that’s why Friends isn’t on the list.

Spaced (1999-2001): I came to this a little late, after it had wrapped up, but it immediately became an all-timer. Not just the way it nailed both late-nineties life (all videogames and X-Files posters), not just its depiction of early adulthood, and not just its hilarious scripts, full of clever wordplay, pop culture references, and great gags. It was the style of it all. There was ambition here exploding every which way, with young creatives who wanted to seize it all. it was unlike anything I’d seen on British TV, and in a way it still is; it’s sort of unsurprising that so many of its architects have gone on to be legitimate Hollywood talents, although it’ll always be weird for me to see Tim From Spaced stood next to Tom Cruise.

Vic Reeves Big Night Out (1990-91): “What’s at the end of the stick, Vic?!” Talk about stuff you’ve never seen before, this was a revelation. The most surreal, hilarious, and just plain daft comedy show imaginable; strange games, odd masks, glorious Teesside accents. I was immediately hooked on this weirdo done up like a fifties lounge singer and his strange compatriots, and I followed Vic and Bob avidly from that moment on. they might have refined the act in The Smell of… but its glorious, ramshackle origins were something to behold.

Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace (2004): another one I didn’t see till later (quite a bit later, as it was introduced to me when I was at CITV) but blimey, what a good ‘un. Like Spaced, it’s astounding how well it was put together, the pitch-perfect spoof of cheesy eighties TV, of horror movies, of pulp horror; but also just the comedy, the silliness, the gags. In a way it was straighter than Spaced but also more arch, more surreal; moments like the bicycle chase are seared in my brain, lines like “I know writers who use subtext, and they’re all cowards” still generate a giggle. And what a cast!

Father Ted (1995-98): not a revolutionary new format like Spaced or Darkplace, but as a traditional old-school sitcom, Father Ted was nigh-on perfect. Four perfectly cast leads, and – in Ted and Dougal – one of the great self-important buffoon/absolute colossal idiot double-acts of all time. With an Irish background, and having spent a lot of time over there, the various gags about parochialism, Irish culture, and Catholicism really hit home. Above all, though, it’s funny; it’s a bit surreal, it’s got a slightly nasty streak, but basically it’s hilarious. And for that I do have to give credit to Graham Linehan; his script, with Arthur Matthews, is genius, and makes his subsequent descent into batshit bigotry all the more upsetting.

Brass Eye (1997-2001): I’ve always loved fake news; or, rather, programmes that purported to be real. Here we have it done expertly, in a way I’d never seen before. The cod-seriousness, the sensational headlines, the stories that were only just too silly… but mostly it was the pranks and the stunts, the roping in of hapless celebrities, the “made up drug” of it all. It was genius, true, and it was done so damn well; but as a teenager, I adored it because I got the joke. I understood what it was doing and why, and that made me feel smart at an age when you like to feel you’ve gotten there under your own steam.

Whose Line is it Anyway? (1988-99): nothing fancy here, just comedy. Out-and-out, laugh-out-loud comedy. Four comedians given a premise, and away they go, improvising outrageous and hilarious flights of fancy. I loved this so much; I immediately became a huge fan of the likes of Mike McShane, Josie Lawrence, and Tony Slattery. More than that, I wanted to be on the show. It’s probably too much to say watching it gave me the acting bug, but the thought of improvising like that, of being that spontaneously funny, stuck with me. They could really bring this one back. I wish they would.

Black Books (2000-04): another delightfully surreal, skewed view of reality, and another one that’s a joy to revisit as we see the burgeoning careers of film and TV superstars. Dylan Moran’s Bernard Black is a wonderfully wicked creation, a mix of apathy, misanthropy, and wine. The supporting cast of Tamsin Grieg and Bill Bailey offer suitably different shades of sunshine and shadow, and the whole thing just falls together wonderfully. It’s bloody funny is what I mean.

The Big Breakfast (1992-2002): yeah, it’s not all sitcoms round ‘ere. I wondered which I liked best: the breakfast show or the evening show? This or TFI Friday? In the end I plumped for this, a revolution in TV formatting, a handheld whirligig of a wakeup call. Very bright, very loud, very fast, this was the perfect antidote to the smartly-dressed-people-sitting-down format that dominated breakfast telly (and still does, really); a kind of half-grown-up version of Live and Kicking, and much closer in tone to radio breakfast shows. And it had Zig and Zag, for god’s sake. What more do you want in a morning?

Eurotrash (1993-2004): ahem. Yeah, it was a bundle of smut, but it was done so entertainingly: German nudists given thick, matter-of-fact Brummie accents; stories about poop and saunas and folklore, or all three at once; Antoine de Caunes and Jean-Paul Gaultier (Gaultier for goodness’ sake!) trading camp bon-mots. It was so good-natured in its celebration of weirdness and muckiness, an eye-opener in more ways than one. It’s a friendly, warm embrace of a show, deliriously camp and resoundingly sex-positive, but also charming and quaint.

The Last Resort with Jonathan Ross (1987-88): if I’m honest, the show I most associate with pre-mainstream Wossy is Mondo Rosso, the fabulous BBC2 late-night series that dug into the weird filmland esoterica that he so adores. But it was here, in Ross’ debut, that I first appreciated (at far too young an age! I watched this when it first went out!) his humour, smarts, and cheek. Honestly, thirty years ago, he really was something new, a British spin on an American-style late-night host. He interviewed interesting people, told great jokes, and really was a modernised and youth-centric old-school presenter; Wogan for the Young Ones generation. I followed his early Channel 4 career before he jumped ship for the Beeb, eventually becoming Mr. Light Entertainment. I still prefer him when he veers into the tall grass to talk about something odd and random that he really loves, rather than when he’s interviewing Adele or whatever.

There you go, Channel 4. You may notice the focus on comedy and light entertainment here; I think that’s because the dramas, whilst I enjoyed them, came and went for me, even the really, really good ones; whereas the comedy just got sort of wedged in my brain, often watched over and over. So sorry about that, especially when you think about the great Russel T. Davies dramas. But anyway: Channel 4 is just great as it is, so let’s not cock it up.

4 notes - Posted April 23, 2022

Weekend Top Ten #557

Top Ten Tarantino Movies

In 1993 I started reading Empire magazine. I’d probably read it a little bit before then; my mum would pick it up occasionally and I’d have flicked through it (sidebar: several years ago I bought issue 1 of Empire off eBay and thought it seemed familiar; I mentioned this to my mum, and she said yes, in all likelihood she’d bought it in 1989 but hadn’t held onto it. I dread to think how warped my psyche would be if I’d been regularly reading it since the age of seven…). Anyway, in 1993 they put out an issue with Jurassic Park on the cover, and that was it; I was hooked. I’ve had every issue since and have subscribed for nearly twenty years now.

One of the things that happened when I started reading a film magazine every month – one that was, at its core, aimed at adults – was that I was exposed to the wider world of the film industry. The magazine, naturally, took for granted that its audience was familiar with certain concepts and characters from the world of film. Given the relatively irreverent nature of Empire, there was always a sense of fun and playfulness as they threw in references to Burt Reynolds, Satyajit Ray, and Richard E. Grant. It made me want to seek out new films and new experiences, and of course this all took place in my early adolescence, when I was increasingly fascinated by all kinds of things out there in the wider world.

One of the very first things I remember was discussion about the banning of Reservoir Dogs, and how best to source a bootleg VHS of the film. This was, most likely, my introduction to the works of Quentin Tarantino, and let me tell you, nothing will make a young boy more interested in a film than telling him that he’s not just allowed to watch it, but that it would be illegal to do so.

The years went on and the story of this nerd who worked in a video store and wrote fascinating and hilarious and violent scripts full of movie references, and who was now a lauded and respected filmmaker, absolutely lit a fire in me. Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Danny Boyle, even Bryan Singer (cough); these were young guys, who looked like I wanted to look and made filthy, funny movies with a cocky swagger to them. I wanted to be them, especially the likes of Quentin and Kevin who wrote their own movies. I had to write about my hero for a school project and I picked Tarantino, despite only having seen – at most – one film at that point, and being far too young for it anyway. He was probably the only filmmaker who ever rivelled Spielberg as being my number-one favourite, my go-to influence.

The years went by and the gaps between his films became longer. A certain outlandish eccentricity drifted into his direction; the scripts became, arguably, a little less quotable, a bit flabbier. After the blistering intensity of the stylised but mostly-grounded opening trilogy, his films became, quite often, wacky exercises in referencing and imagery and flights of fancy. Sometimes this works better than others. Mostly, though, the violence and grit that I loved so much in the nineties seemed excessive, gratuitous, and juvenile by the 2010s. We – the audience – became more attuned to what it took to put that violence on screen, how the actors were treated scene to scene, and exactly what Tarantino’s relationship with Harvey Weinstein was. It soured the experience a little bit, which wouldn’t have been so bad, but there were a couple of films there that, frankly, disappointed. Far from the do-no-wrong wunderkind, he’s as fallible as the rest, and as prone to egotistical grandstanding as many a director before him.

I can’t talk about Tarantino too objectively because – like Spielberg, or like The Transformers, or really like Empire magazine in general – he’s far too tied into my own psyche and development. And he made three films there in a five-year period that are just outstanding achievements, absolute masterpieces, showing a growing maturity and sense of screenwriting craft that – I’d argue – has been scant in the two decades since. He’s still one of my favourite filmmakers, one I’ll always want to see, one who always excites me; but now his films, like, say, Wes Anderson’s – are their own indefatigable thing. I think you’re either into him or you’re not, and whilst I still think he lets his writing run on a bit, and whilst I think his statements about violence – and his use of violence, for that matter – are nowhere near as profound as he thinks they are, especially given his own complicated history of treating female cast members on set, I think it’s fair to say that Quentin Tarantino will be remembered very fondly.

And, look. His films may be goofier and weirder, but that style was always there really, we just fooled ourselves into thinking he’d expand his flavours instead of doubling down. And once you sign up to the fact that all of his films take place in a parallel universe – where Django freed the slaves and Jewish soldiers killed Hitler – it all makes a lot more sense, and we can enjoy them as what they always were: alt-universe sci-fi movies. Sort of a pity he never did make his version of Star Trek, really.

Pulp Fiction (1994): building on the promise of Dogs, this sophomore film is a multi-layered, non-linear affair, juggling multiple characters across disparate yet interconnected storylines over a number of days. The witty intricacies of Tarantino’s dialogue are best displayed, from French fast food to Vietnamese prisons; it’s his most-quotable film. There are tremendous performances, with regular contributor Sam Jackson making his first appearance. But it’s the strength of confidence, of filmmaking rigour, of a cinematic force coming to full fruition, that lingers long after the stunning soundtrack has faded from our ears.

Reservoir Dogs (1992): one hell of a debut. A blistering, bloody affair, with a great ensemble of mostly non-stars and a taught, tight screenplay based mostly around one location. Drew attention – outside of its violence, which to be fair isn’t as strong as was made out; it’s just got a generally nasty atmosphere – because of its great script, of course, but to marshal such a cast in such limited circumstances – to make five guys in one warehouse seem consistently cinematic – showcased his directorial prowess too.

Jackie Brown (1997): an incredibly rare adaptation from Sir Quent, he nevertheless takes Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch and makes it entirely his own, a Blacksploitation homage that’s neither gratuitous or foolish, centred on a quartet of aging characters despite Tarantino’s youth at the time. A mature, sensible film that’s also tremendous fun, despite an air of threat and melancholy, it promised a variety of tone from Tarantino that arguably never materialised. Was the first of his films to receive, I would say, genuine criticism despite it being absolutely bloody great.

Django Unchained (2012): ever since Tarantino cameoed in Pulp and unleashed a tirade of N-words, he’s had a complex relationship with race, heavily criticised by Spike Lee and defended by Jackson. After the affection shown in Jackie, he delivered this, his exploration of the slave trade and its place in the history of America. And it’s fantastic, very close to the master of his first three films; a dark, tense tour-de-force of brutality as Django goes on a quest for righteous vengeance. Utilising the tropes of classic B-Westerns – and, of course, the vast Django franchise – Tarantino threads the needle between exploitative cheese and intelligent discourse. Can’t believe Will Smith turned it down; biggest mistake he’s ever made.

Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood (2019): Tarantino’s most recent film feels like a love letter to cinema, and especially the era that seems to resonate throughout his work. Weaving in both real-life cinematic icons of the age – from Polanski to Bruce Lee – as well as one of its most notorious violent crimes feels entirely on-brand for Tarantino. What surprises is both the warmth and optimism of the story; whilst the central characters may be loveable idiots for the most part, they’re not the thieves and killers of prior films. Not since Jackie Brown have we celebrated niceness like this. And as a sprawling nostalgic epic, it’s sublime; it beautifully marries its own fictional story within the wider framework of cinematic history. In fact, I’d argue it would be right up there with the First Three if it weren’t for its misjudged, nasty, over-the-top edgelord finale, with some of the most brutal and gratuitous violence in Tarantino’s oeuvre. Tone it down, Quent; you’re not fifteen and we’re not impressed.

Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004): after the First Three, it felt like a long time before we got a new Tarantino, and he returned with the epic revenge saga of Kill Bill, something of a gearshift from what came before. And whilst most people prefer the first Volume (see below), it’s part 2 that I enjoy more. Less outrageously exuberant, it still boasts a couple of excellent – and grittier – fight scenes, but it’s got a bit more of the Tarantino wit and wordplay about it, especially in the final scenes with Thurman’s Bride and Carradine’s Bill.

Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003): so, yeah, Kill Bill is a much cartoonier affair than most Tarantinos; in fact, I think it’s canonically supposed to be an in-universe film. But with that comes some of the most outlandish action that ol’ QT has directed; most specifically a vivacious and violent assault as the Bride gets medieval on a roomful of sword-wielding assailants. It’s shallow and weird and maybe is the beginning of Tarantino running away with himself, but it’s damn good fun.

Inglourious Basterds (2009): this is a film of two halves. One half is an incredibly dark, tense affair, with Christoph Waltz’s eloquent but barbaric Nazi matching wits with vengeful cinema operator Mélanie Laurent. It’s serious, intense, full of Tarantinoid dialogue, and shot through with a love of cinema. The other half – about the titular Basterds and their quest – is looser, wackier, not quite as funny as it thinks it is. These two disparate entities collide at the end (and also, tonally at least, merge in the excellent bar scene featuring Michael Fassbender), a finale which is raucous and ridiculous and scary and, well, quite good fun really.

Death Proof (2007): weird and off-kilter, not necessarily in a good way, this feels like Tarantino in search of structure. The plot – serial killer Stuntman Mike offs people in his car – is fine; but we spend too long with not-altogether-interesting characters before they’re brutally murdered, and also too long, frankly, getting to know our trio of heroes. It has its highs – some insane car chases and stuntwork – and great performances, but frankly it’s a lot better when cut down as part of Grindhouse.

The Hateful Eight (2015): some people really go to bat for this, but I think it exemplifies the worst traits of Tarantino. It’s way too long, full of wordy but not very elegant monologues. None of the characters are likeable, but also they’re not really interesting or fun to be around. He fails to make the single location dynamic or tense in the way he did with Dogs. And it’s really nasty, mean-spiritedly so, with a rather unpleasant misogynistic streak. There are smatterings of fun to be had, and it’s got a stellar cast, but for me it’s long, excessive, and a bit boring.

You’ll note I didn’t really consider films he wrote but didn’t direct, like True Romance or Natural Born Killers. This is for three reasons: even excluding portmanteau Four Rooms, he’s made ten films as director, so I could do a full list regardless; it’s debatable how “Tarantino” his writing credits are, especially Killers, which I think was heavily reworked by Oliver Stone; and, well, it’s been ages since I saw them and didn’t feel it fair to judge (my memory of Romance is that it would sit just after Jackie Brown, if that helps). So there you go.

Now, Tarantino has said that he intends to make ten films and then retire, but he’s counting the two parts of Bill as one entity. So that means he’s got one film left in him. It doesn’t look like it’s Star Trek anymore, if that was ever genuinely on the cards; he’s spoken on and off in the past about doing a proper sequel to Kill Bill, but we’ll see where that goes (apparently he wants to get Maya Hawke to play the Bride’s daughter, who’d have seen that one?). Or maybe he’ll do something else entirely; a romcom or a musical or a Marvel movie. Hey, given how much he’s banging on about Peppa Pig recently, maybe he’ll make a kids’ film. That would be a hell of a way to end a career that began with ear-slicing and Madonna’s sex life.

6 notes - Posted November 5, 2022

Weekend Top Ten #520

Top Ten CBeebies Programmes

Ah, the wonders of timing. A couple of weeks ago, everyone was banging on about it being the twentieth anniversary of CBeebies, and I wanted to get in on that action. But, wouldn’t you know it, Valentine’s Day got in the way of relevance, and so we’re doing a birthday celebration a bit belatedly. Never mind. By the time you get to twenty, you should be able to wait a little bit.

I’ve thought about CBeebies a lot, and some version of this list – or one like it – has been percolating for quite a while. This is because I’ve worked in kids’ TV almost my entire adult life, and especially since my kids have been born, I’ve spent a lot of time working actually for the BBC, oftentimes making promos for CBeebies. So both personally – having small children who watch the channel – and professionally – making stuff for the channel – CBeebies has been a big part of my life in the past decade.

What’s given me pause, though, is the fact that I actually know some people who make programmes for CBeebies. I don’t wanna upset anybody! Especially, y’know, anybody who might want to give me a job. So what I’m going to say here is this is not a list of absolute quality; I’m not saying these are the best. But they’re the ones I’ve fallen in love with the most. That might be because I think the writing or production is genuinely sublime; it might be because we came across them at the right time in the right circumstances. Maybe my kids loved them! When your kids love stuff, really love it, you tend to soften on it, even if you weren’t very keen on it to begin with. This is brought to you by “I have totally come around on Minecraft YouTubers”.

Oh, and yes, there are omissions. That’s because, as my kids have gotten older, they’ve started watching, well, more Minecraft YouTubers than CBeebies shows. I’ve got friends with younger kids who go on about Bluey, which I’m sure – from the sounds of it – I would just flat-out love. But I’ve never seen it! My kids are too old, I guess. Or too into Avatar: The Last Airbender or whatever. Or – let’s be honest – they’re just playing Minecraft, or watching people play Minecraft.

So here we go: my Top Ten CBeebies shows; shows that mean a lot, one way or another.

Hey Duggee: is it the music, the artwork, the voiceover? The tone of wry whimsy combined with heartfelt preschool sentiment? Is it the genuine humour and excellent writing? Is it the raft of in-jokes and references, from The Life Aquatic to Apocalypse Now? Is it my minor role in making The Stick Songgo viral? All of this and more; the best children’s TV programme ever made.

In the Night Garden: simultaneously a very sweet and gentle imagery and music that lulls children into another world and, ultimately, to sleep, and also the most bonkers, batshit, balls-tripping stuff you’re likely to see. Nonsense songs! Size-changing vehicles! Dancing flowers! Symmetrical stone-stacking!

CBeebies Bedtime Stories: Jackanoryfor the 21st Century, the simple pleasure of somebody reading a story aloud will always work. The soft, relaxing presentation adds to the “bedtime” aspect, and a huge selection of impressive celebrity readers makes it an event programme for all ages. I mean, come on; everyone from Dolly Parton to Captain America is here.

Topsy and Tim: creating a kind of soap opera for nippers is a phenomenal idea, introducing them to ongoing narratives and stories about familial dynamics. There are all kinds of cool topics explored, from illness to bereavement, with a keen eye on its audience. The cute family and great performances help too. A common fixture round ours.

Show Me Show Me: I’m starting to think nobody is better at introducing the very young to the world of television that Chris Jarvis and Pui Fan Lee. Gentle, engaging, fun, and a perfect start to the day when your kids get you up too early.

Swashbuckle: the perfect kind of gameshow for young kids; really energetic silliness. But what lifts it up is the bevvy of terrific performances, from Gemma Hunt to the trio of pirates, telling incredibly silly and very funny stories amidst the slapstick, chaotic gameplay. Plus I got to go on set, so it gets extra points.

Our Family: there were a trio of programmes, all made – if I remember correctly – by the same North East production company, following the lives of the very young as they experience things anew. Our Family was one, but there was also a cooking programme and one dealing with “My First…” These were great windows into individual lives and shared experiences, and really sweet preschool documentaries.

Waffle the Wonder Dog: taking the Topsy and Tim preschool soap format but making it way sillier, we now have essentially a comedy-drama about a talking dog and his beleaguered family. Hijinks ensue, lessons are learned, and at the centre of it is a flat-out adorable dog.

My Petsaurus: here we have, perhaps, a lesser-known show, but one which was just huge in our house, albeit briefly. A short selection of shorts, it features a girl and her cute pet dinosaur. That’s it; a simple premise, really well executed. I’m a sucker for an interplay of animation and live-action, and this is a great example, with a really good young performance at its centre. Because my kids were into it a bit more, it’s just eased out the broadly similar Woolly and Tig, which is also brilliant.

Go Jetters: there’s a lot of chatter about Octonauts, which I’m not going to diss, but for my money you can’t beat Go Jetters. A preschool Thunderbirds with a globetrotting bent, where it succeeds for me is in the absolute disco swagger of all-knowing boss Ubercorn, and especially in the moustachioed grump Grandmaster Glitch. Two incredible performances from Tommie Earl Jenkins and Marc Silk.

See, I already feel really bad for having to miss out things like Balamory, Dinopaws, and the educational one-two punch of Alphablocks and Numberblocks. Basically, CBeebies is great.

I've made a very rare edit to this list (I hardly ever edit them after they're posted apart from to correct spelling and grammar mistakes!) because, like a massive idiot, I confused the titles Let's Play and Show Me Show Me - so in the very unlikely event that you were confused by me referring to Chris and Pui instead of Rebecca and Sid, that's why. Sorry to all involved! In fact, Let's Play itself was a very close-run thing, a fantastic show that my youngest especially loved.

13 notes - Posted February 19, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Weekend Top Ten #558

Top Ten “Weird Al” Yankovic Songs

In retrospect, I should have done this last week and the Tarantino list this week. But really, what is more Al than just randomly getting something very, very slightly off? Because there’s a fillum out and I want to celebrate. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story stars Harry Potter as “Weird Al” Yankovic in a hard-bitten biopic of drugs and excess that is only available on a streaming service you’ve never heard of that isn’t even accessible in the UK, and is both the true story of Yankovic’s rise to success and also completely made up. And as someone who’s been a huge Al fan for over twenty years, this is incredibly exciting, hilarious, and rather frustrating in equal measure. Anyway: to celebrate, here’s a list.

Yankovic is an incredibly gifted musician and performer, something that I think is often hidden by the fact that he’s most famous as a parodist. But it’s one thing to just change the words of a song to make a joke; it’s another to spend forty years adapting multiple genres and styles of music, as well as expertly recreating famous videos, as well as making parodic references to everything from Star Wars to Santa Claus. The breadth of his talent and musicality, to say nothing of how funny and effective he is as an overall writer and performer, is frankly astonishing; in his career he’s turned is hand to everything, from gangsta rap to piano ballads and all sorts in between, to say nothing of his legendary polka medleys of popular songs.

All this brings us to the list itself, which at the end of the day is just my favourite of his songs. And I tell ya, it was hard! This was one of the hardest ones I’ve done, I think! Like with all kinds of music, really, you veer towards different songs at different times, so how does one compare American Pie to Pretty Fly for a White Guy, the works of Billy Joel to the works of Coolio? So we just come to my basic criteria, which is: how much do I enjoy the song? How funny is it? And, if it is a parody, how well is it doing with the parodying? Because one of the things I love about Al is that, as well as homaging different styles of music or plots of films, he often peppers his songs with lyrics that reference so much stuff. It’s a delight unpacking them from a comedic standpoint. Sometimes it’s not even a reference, sometimes it’s just hilarious wordplay. So that’s all factored into my complex algorithm. And this is the result!

The Saga Begins (1999): whilst I was broadly familiar with his work, this is song that really made me a fan. I remember it being a news story on the Empire website, and trying to watch it on my flaky dial-up at the time – probably the first music video I ever watched online. And I still think it’s just hilarious. I think the funniest thing is that, unlike some other songs, it’s not really parodying Star Wars; it’s actually a fairly straight retelling of the events of The Phantom Menace, just sung to the tune of American Pie. But the lyrics are golden; “My, my, this here Anakin guy/Maybe Vader someday later now he’s just a small fry”. It’s so perfect that it’s not only damn funny, not only a beautiful love letter to Star Wars, but also it just works as a song. I’ve sung it so much I know all the words and it was actually a bedtime lullaby I sang to my kids. And however much I love some of his other songs, I can’t say that about The Night Santa Went Crazy.

Dare to Be Stupid (1985): is it possible that I love this one so much because it was the first Al song I heard? That it is, in fact, featured on the soundtrack to The Transformers: The Movie? Almost certainly yes, but I don’t care. I am not, in truth, very familiar with Devo, so the intricacies of its parody are mostly lost on me; I get that he’s doing a bit on their songs and the video is referencing them too, but for me it’s just a really catchy song full of terrific, hilarious lyrical gags and references. And it’s played when Hot Rod and Wreck-Gar are dancing on the planet of Junk.

Don’t Download This Song (2006): rather than lampooning a specific song, this is a satire on a genre, perfectly parodying the pretensions of those Band Aid-style charity singles by earnest celebrities. As well as skewering the style so succinctly, it also has a tremendous target for the early noughties – the downloading of “free” music from file-sharing sites. Whilst incredibly of its time, it’s full of on-point references, including Lars Ulrich’s famed disdain of downloaded music, as well as mocking celebrity excess. This is all incredibly hilarious for me as, after really getting into Al in 1999, it was finding more of his music via Napster when I was at university that really made me a huge fan of his back catalogue. And don’t worry – I’ve also bought it on CD, too.

Jurassic Park (1993): this song is probably unique in the annals of all parody songs by virtue of it being more sensible and making more sense than the song it’s a parody of. The genius realisation that “Jurassic Park” scans perfectly with “MacArthur Park” is just the start, as it runs through the events of the film in hilarious manner (“I admit it’s kinda eerie/But this proves my chaos theory”). Apparently the stop-motion video was approved by Spielberg himself! Nobody leaves a cake out in the rain, however.

White and Nerdy (2006): talk about your references, this is the motherlode; and, quite frankly, it speaks to me. A veritable spreadsheet full of nerdy ephemera, the hilarity obviously coming from the juxtaposition of edgy rap with, well, Al Yankovic, almost every geeky IP or pastime is namechecked: Star Trek, Wikipedia, D&D, bubble wrap… the exquisiteness of the lyrics and speed at which Al cycles through them means it requires multiple listens to catch all the gags. And it has perhaps my favourite of all his lyrics: “The only question I/Ever thought was hard/Was do I like Kirk/Or do I like Picard”.

Ode to a Superhero (2003): ah, now we’re back to the soft gentle ballads and another recounting of the events of a summer blockbuster. Somehow singing a song about Spider-Man to the tune of Piano Man is perfect; after all, both Peter Parker and Billy Joel are New York legends (one’s from Queens, the other’s from the Bronx). Like The Saga Begins, it’s funny not just because, well, singing about Spider-Man is funny, but also the specificity of the references; like Mary Jane preferring guys “who can kiss upside down in the rain” or Norman Osborn wearing a “dumb” mask but being “scarier without it on”.

It’s All About the Pentiums (1999): another fabulously fast-paced rap about something exquisitely geeky; except this time it’s honing in on millennium-era computing technology. It’s another example of playing spot-the-reference but one thing that I find increasingly delightful in this case is that it’s so fabulously outdated; references to Y2K, newsgroups, “a hundred gigabytes of RAM”, and even the very fact that it’s got “Pentium” in the name. I can’t help but feel that this one’s just gonna get funnier as it gets older.

Pretty Fly for a Rabbi (1999): again we see the comedy emerge from the collision between a fast-paced, hard-edged style of music (in this case, millennial American punk) and frankly ridiculous lyrics. It’s not just the silliness of something as benign as a rabbi being the focus of an edgy rock song; it’s also the incorporation of Yiddish and stereotypically Jewish turns of phrase into the lyrics. Partly responsible for my assumption that Yankovic himself was Jewish!

Amish Paradise (1996): an infamous Weird Al song in that, whereas usually the original songwriters are chuffed to have him parody them, this one actually pissed off Coolio (RIP). But it’s part of the genre of tough songs about silly shit, the gangsta rap ballad of inner-city life and crime transmogrified into the badassery of the Amish, raising barns and milking cows. Perhaps it’s a bit mean to the Amish, in retrospect; but “you know I’m a million times as humble as thou art” is still a cracking lyric.

Bedrock Anthem (1993): I don’t think I’ve really expressed enough just how on point his parodies are; how well he raps, how closely he mirrors the style of the homaged artists, even in videos. But this is exquisite; somehow Al even looks like a Red Hot Chilli Pepper. And it’s just bonkers; I mean, how on earth do you get The Flintstones from Under the Bridge? I’m guessing – and this is just a wild guess based on nowt – that it was doing the “Yabba-dabba-dabba-dabba-do now” to the chorus that spawned the rest of the song, but who really knows? And once again we have lyrics that give me such joy, especially the way he throws in – out of nowhere – references to Bedrock life, such as “got a baby elephant vacuum cleaner”. Joy!

Now whilst I am gutted I didn’t find room for Bob, Yoda, or Santa, I’m also a bit gutted that I never got round to one of his polkas. These are really impressive works, how he manages to translate such a wide variety of songs into a polka style, and then turn it into a big medley, bouncing from track to track and even from genre to genre within the same song. Seriously, the man’s a musical genius. Maybe that’s why only Daniel Radcliffe could play him; he’s used to playing wizards.

32 notes - Posted November 12, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

0 notes

starlitangels · 2 years

Text

Not Fighting Alone

Everyone’s kinda got a fic about how the Quinn situation will end. Here’s my final fight. I know I’ve written Vincent and Darlin’ meeting before but it doesn’t count 2.9k words CW: fantasy violence, blood

—

Quinn threw Sam to the ground with a laugh while Sam spat his own blood out on the dirt. “I recognize you. You’re the vamp who tried to scare me off after I played with those two humans,” Quinn crooned. “Do you know why I ran that night? It wasn’t because I was scared of you.”

Sam pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. “I imagine—” he coughed, “—it was because you were scared of William.”

Quinn scoffed. “Old Bloods don’t scare me. But I’m smart enough to know when I’m going to be on the losing end of a fight. Half of your clan wasn’t far behind. I couldn’t take on all of them alone and live. So I left.”

Quinn leaned down. “They can’t hear you this time,” he added in a purr.

Sam spat out more blood. “I don’t care. No one hurts someone close to me and gets away with it.”

“Ah. You did end up turning the human boy. I thought you might. Were you desperate to be a good maker, healer? Did you do your best to guide the boy? Help him work through the bloodlust, even after his friend bled out on the pavement?” Quinn’s mocking, songlike tone made Sam’s blood boil.

Sam cleared his throat. “You underestimated how determined he would be. Fred turned his friend. They’re both alive and well.”

Quinn laughed. “Well, then, that little bright-eyed child must be the weakest vampire on the face of the planet. Turned by a newborn. Adorable.” He planted a boot on Sam’s back and tried to force him down into the dirt, but Sam didn’t fall. “Did the boy almost die, turning his friend? Did you feel his pain from what I did? His life force leaking out of him in his desperation to save his friend?”

Sam stood abruptly, throwing Quinn off of him. “I did, in fact,” he retorted. “And, long as I might live, I will never forget how it felt.”

Quinn smirked. “Cute. Thinking you stand a chance.”

His hand collided with Sam’s sternum before Sam could react, sending him a dozen yards back, sliding over the dirt.

—

“Sam!” I shouted, vaulting the half-wall. I ran at a dead sprint to where he was sprawled out on the ground, Quinn stalking closer. I shucked off my jacket and let it fall to the ground as I ran. He was so dead set on Sam that he didn’t even notice me until I leapt over Sam to stand between the two of them, knees bent and teeth bared, magic thrumming to shift at a moment’s notice.

“Darlin’, get outta here,” Sam said weakly.

“Not a chance,” I replied.

Quinn’s menacing leer turned into a vicious, amused smile. “Well well. If it isn’t my favorite broken plaything from two years ago,” he purred. “It’s been a while, darlin’.”

“You don’t get to call me that,” I spat through clenched teeth. “And I’m not making the same mistake I made last time.”

“What, hobbling away, fur drenched in your own blood?” he mocked.

“Letting you live.” I twisted just enough to see Sam picking himself to his feet. “Get out of here, Sam,” I said.

“I ain’t leavin’ you,” he replied.

“You know why I’m telling you to go,” I said.

Before Sam could protest, I shifted.

And howled.

David would hear it—well, maybe feel it more than hear. So would the Solaires, probably.

Sam ran off in a blur. I didn’t care if he went to get David or William first. As long as he brought some backup.

I pounced on Quinn with a snarl. I wasn’t making the same mistake twice. Letting him live, and fighting him off alone. Sam and I probably could have taken him together, but we needed David or William—someone with the actual clout in the eyes of the Department—to legitimize me ripping out Quinn’s throat with my teeth.

His nails dug into the skin of my side as he grabbed at me. I gnashed my teeth, trying to bite into him. If I could break his spine with one snap of my jaws, our problem could be solved pretty quickly.

I sunk my teeth into his shoulder, deep and hard. There was that taste again. His blood. I’d tasted it before, the night he almost drained my friend before I fought him off. I’d never tasted another vampire’s blood besides his, but I knew his was gross. Bitter. I’d tasted wildlife blood as a wolf, out hunting, and it was usually salty. But Quinn’s was nothing like that. Disgusting. It made me want to gag.

But I held on, using my back legs to try and claw at his belly, sides, and legs.

Quinn gouged his nails into my sides, grabbing me with puncture wounds and throwing me off. Though I tore a decent chunk of his flesh as it came with me.

He laughed. “You need to change your tactics, pup,” he spat at me. “You’re predictable.”

I growled low in my chest and barked. I’ll show you predictable, I thought angrily.

He moved to try to dodge around me, no doubt to pursue Sam, but I knew he would and pounced. My foreclaws sunk into his back and I threw him in the other direction. He skidded over the dirt as I hit the ground and whirled with bared teeth and a snarl.

He snarled back at me, baring his own fangs. White and gleaming. My heart pounded in my ribcage faster. Those same fangs tore my skin when I tried to protect my friend from him. Those fangs punctured my skin two years ago. Quinn had tasted my blood that day. I’d tasted his. Once he left this place, he’d feel the blood I’d shed in this fight behind him, calling to him. He’d know we were bloodbound—if he didn’t already.

I shook my head slightly to shake the fear out of my mind before charging at him. He bolted at me, a blur of darkness, but I knew he wasn’t going to try and dodge. He was going to attack me. I’d goaded him, and he was going to tie up this loose end.

But not if I tied him off first.

We slammed into each other, claws, nails, and fangs flashing in the darkness.

His fangs pierced my neck. I hit him hard with my head, tearing him off.

I whined as he socked me in the gut, hitting me so hard that I flew back a dozen yards. I dug my claws into the dirt to slow my slide.

Quinn appeared beside me. He kicked me in the side, sending me slamming down into the dirt. He planted a boot on my ribs, pushing. I heard a few of them crack. I whined louder, yipping in pain.

“Look how pathetic you are. Did you think it was hard for me to lead you on? That I had to be careful so you didn’t figure out what I was up to? It wasn’t. You were so desperate for any form of companionship that you believed every. Single. Word. I said to you, no questions asked. That I liked you. That you were powerful. That you showed promise. A lonely wolf. So easy to manipulate. Look at you now. I win. Again.”

I tried to get up, but Quinn applied more pressure to my side. Another rib cracked. I whined.

Not caring that I’d phased through my clothes as I shifted—it was nothing he hadn’t seen before when I thought we were together—I phased back.

It was enough to throw him off balance. I rolled out from under his boot, crying out in pain as I rolled over my ribs. Tears welled up in my eyes. I pushed myself onto my hands and knees, one hand holding my side. “You won’t win, this time. I’m not making the same mistake twice.”

He was immediately right in my face, one hand around my throat. I gagged. “You already have made the same mistake,” he whispered. His breath smelled like blood. I was looking in his eyes, but he wouldn’t trance me. He liked the power trip of hurting people without needing to trance them.

Black spots swarmed my vision as his grip tightened. I coughed slightly.

“Should I drain you, little one? Or should I wait until your vampire cowboy gets back and make you watch as I kill him, and then drain you? This ends with you on the ground, dried out and limp either way.” I felt his nails digging into my throat. “The question is, do I send that vamp you’re so in love with right to Hell with you?

“Or,” he continued, “maybe I’ll make him watch as I drain you. He’s not old enough to stand a chance against me. Could be fun.” He smiled, fangs catching the low light, and leaned closer to me, using his grip on my neck to tilt my head. “So... many... options...” He opened his mouth, ready to bite into me.

I heard a bark—and Quinn was ripped off of me. His nails scraped through the skin of my neck. I gasped, fighting to get my breath back.

I looked up to see a massive pitch-black wolf tearing into Quinn. “D—David,” I breathed, astounded.

Another wolf smashed into Quinn’s other side—grey, like me, but flecked with black instead of tan.

“Ash,” I coughed.

Something soft was draped gently over me. “Darlin’,” Sam whispered, wrapping a blanket around me. “It’s alright. We’re here.”

As I watched, a humanoid figure blurred into the fight. Curly short black hair, pale skin, same silver eyes as Sam visible like stars in the darkness. Dressed in all black—jeans, T-shirt with the symbol of Electro Energetics on it, boots. I’d only seen him once—in a picture on Sam’s phone when Sam had been showing me his newborns.

Vincent Solaire. Second blood of William Solaire.

“You’re not fightin’ alone, anymore,” Sam said softly.

I watched Asher’s gleaming teeth sink into Quinn’s leg. Heard his whine as Quinn kicked him off. David slammed into Quinn, sheer brute force making the older vampire stagger.

“I can’t—can’t let them—take—my revenge,” I said through coughs.

Sam shook his head and sighed. “I thought you’d say that. Here.” He put his hand on my ribs, sliding his fingers under mine where I was holding it.

I felt a flare of magic and my ribs jerked themselves back into alignment. I grunted at the same time Sam did from the magic use. He set his other hand on my neck where I was bleeding, healing it.

With a sigh, he kissed my cheek. “Go get ‘im, darlin’,” he said softly. “We’re right behind you.”

I smiled. “Thanks, Sam,” I said quietly.

With that, I shifted back into my wolf form, let Sam take the blanket off of me, and bounded toward Quinn.

Sam blurred past me. A faster runner than I was.

“Now!” Sam shouted. He grabbed Quinn’s wrist. Vincent grabbed the opposite ankle. David and Asher bit down on the other two limbs, spread-eagling him suspended in the air.

As I approached, I leapt high, jaws wide. I was going to tear his throat out.

As my jaw closed around his neck, I felt the other four wrench and pull.

Quinn fell to the dirt in pieces.

I panted, spitting his blood out of my mouth.

Then Asher was right there, nuzzling his head against my shoulder. Apart from a smattering of blood and a few tufts of fur torn out, he wasn’t much worse for wear. David looked a little rougher, as he rubbed his side against mine. I wanted to collapse at the feeling of his and Asher’s fur mingling with mine against my skin. Pack. Family. Home. Things I’d struggled so hard with.

It felt right.

I let myself rub against both of them, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. I was tired and still aching despite the healing magic, but David and Asher were warm and strong enough to keep me upright when all I wanted to do was fall over. Brothers.

I looked around, swinging my head.

Sam was taking Vincent’s outstretched hand and hauling him into a hug. Vincent laughed.

I broke away from David and Asher, nudging their shoulders with my head, and ran back to where Sam had left the blanket. I burrowed under it and shifted back to human form, wrapping it around myself before running to Sam.

He caught me against his chest, burying his nose into my hair. “You did it, darlin’. He’s gone. He’ll never hurt anyone, ever again. You avenged your friend, my progenies, and you saved a lot of people from bein’ hurt by him in the future. You should be damn proud of yourself.”

“I am,” I said quietly. “But... I needed help. It was nice to have you all here.”

Vincent set his hand on my shoulder. “Nice to meet you, by the way,” he said. “I’m Vincent.”

“You too. Sam’s talked a lot about you.” I gave him my name in return, not moving from Sam’s embrace.

“Well, we’re in the same boat, then. He’s talked a lot about you too.”

I glanced at Sam. “All good things, darlin’. I promise.”

Vincent smirked mischievously. “Well, he does call you a troublemaker a lot,” he said. I laughed.

“I’d expect nothing else,” I said.

Vincent laughed and glanced over his shoulder. “I should head out. Tell William what happened. Then, y’know, head home, check on my partner, and come back when D.U.M.P. turns up.”

“Yeah. Thank you, Vincent.”

He shrugged. “I owe you.”

“Not anymore. This makes us even.”

Vincent shook his head. “No. You saved my partner’s life—and in doing so, saved mine. I’ll always owe you, Sam.”

Vincent took off before Sam could argue further. I chuckled to myself as Sam swore under his breath. “You two sound like brothers,” I said. “Just like me and David and Ash.” I looked over my shoulder at where Asher was still bounding around in wolf form in celebration while David had taken up a stationary position, sitting on his haunches, watching.

Sam chuckled. “They both shifted immediately when I went to find them, so I don’t imagine they’ll be human again until they get home.”

I snorted. “Probably not. Well. Maybe Ash. He has no shame. David, on the other hand, is too private. If it was just me and Ash here, he wouldn’t care as much. It’s nothing we’ve never seen before with all of us shifting back and forth as teenagers. But you’re here and he’s... we’ll go with polite.”

Sam smiled and rested his cheek against my hair. “You should send him home to get some clothes.”

“He can hear you, y’know,” I said.

David’s ear turned back toward us. He got up and plodded over to us. He glanced toward the direction he’d come from and back to me.

“Want me to run with you?” I asked.

He nodded.

I smiled and squeezed Sam’s hand before shifting back into a wolf. The head rush of endorphins that came with shifting flooded my body. I smiled as best I could as a wolf and circled around David and Asher. Ash finally cooled his celebrations enough to join the circling before we all turned toward home and ran off together. I paused at the edge of the field and looked back at Sam. I jerked with my head, inviting him to join us.

He shook his head and waved me to go.

I nodded and ran off.

—

“So... D.U.M.P. is on its way,” Sam said as I shifted back into a human within the blanket. Hiding in the blanket, I changed back into my clothes. Ash and David took turns under the blanket as well to pull on their clothing.

“I’d imagine it’s to clean up. Answer some Investigator questions. Judge intent. All that?” I said.

“Most likely.”

David folded his arms as Asher fell over putting on his jeans, swearing the whole way down and back up. Vincent was clearly trying not to laugh—and not necessarily succeeding. “With me and Vincent here, we have more proper authority in my pack and the Solaire clan. We’ll probably handle most of it. But we all need to stay, since we were all involved,” David said.

Asher let the blanket drop once his jeans were on and pulled on a Star Trek T-shirt against the nighttime chill. “No offense, Tank, but you look beaten to hell,” he remarked. “And Sam already healed you once.”

A growl rumbled deep in my chest. Asher took a step back.

“Okay, okay. Just thought you’d want to know. Yeesh.”

I turned toward Sam and held out my arms. “Hug?”

“‘Course, darlin’,” he said, wrapping me up. I smiled lightly into him.

Several dark sedans pulled up to the dirt road near the field next to Wonder World, and D.U.M.P. Investigators got out.

“David! What the hell happened?!” the vaguely familiar voice of Milo’s mate demanded as the group strode over to us.

David gestured to me, indicating I should take the lead on the story. “Alright,” I said. “So, two years ago, Quinn attacked my unempowered friend,” I said. Sam took my hand tightly. “I fought him off back then...”

#fic #Redacted ASMR #Redacted Sam #Redacted Quinn #Sam #Sam Collins #Quinn #Redacted David #Redacted Asher #Redacted Vincent #David #Asher #Vincent #David Shaw #Vincent Solaire #gender neutral reader #Starlit Fic

176 notes · View notes

blackwoolncrown · 4 years

Link

”This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.”

>>Copied here in case anyone gets paywalled when they click the above. The full article is...a lot.<<

WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a shit. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… shit like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “shitbags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops.

This is why “All cops are bastards.” Even your uncle, even your cousin, even your mom, even your brother, even your best friend, even your spouse, even me. Because even if they wouldn’t Do The Thing themselves, they will almost never rat out another officer who Does The Thing, much less stop it from happening.

BASTARD 101

I could write an entire book of the awful things I’ve done, seen done, and heard others bragging about doing. But, to me, the bigger question is “How did it get this way?”. While I was a police officer in a city 30 miles from where I lived, many of my fellow officers were from the community and treated their neighbors just as badly as I did. While every cop’s individual biases come into play, it’s the profession itself that is toxic, and it starts from day 1 of training.

Every police academy is different but all of them share certain features: taught by old cops, run like a paramilitary bootcamp, strong emphasis on protecting yourself more than anyone else. The majority of my time in the academy was spent doing aggressive physical training and watching video after video after video of police officers being murdered on duty.

I want to highlight this: nearly everyone coming into law enforcement is bombarded with dash cam footage of police officers being ambushed and killed. Over and over and over. Colorless VHS mortality plays, cops screaming for help over their radios, their bodies going limp as a pair of tail lights speed away into a grainy black horizon. In my case, with commentary from an old racist cop who used to brag about assaulting Black Panthers.

To understand why all cops are bastards, you need to understand one of the things almost every training officer told me when it came to using force:

“I’d rather be judged by 12 than carried by 6.”

Meaning, “I’ll take my chances in court rather than risk getting hurt”. We’re able to think that way because police unions are extremely overpowered and because of the generous concept of Qualified Immunity, a legal theory which says a cop generally can’t be held personally liable for mistakes they make doing their job in an official capacity.

When you look at the actions of the officers who killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, David McAtee, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Eric Garner, or Freddie Gray, remember that they, like me, were trained to recite “I’d rather be judged by 12” as a mantra. Even if Mistakes Were Made™, the city (meaning the taxpayers, meaning you) pays the settlement, not the officer.

Once police training has - through repetition, indoctrination, and violent spectacle - promised officers that everyone in the world is out to kill them, the next lesson is that your partners are the only people protecting you. Occasionally, this is even true: I’ve had encounters turn on me rapidly to the point I legitimately thought I was going to die, only to have other officers come and turn the tables.

One of the most important thought leaders in law enforcement is Col. Dave Grossman, a “killologist” who wrote an essay called “Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs”. Cops are the sheepdogs, bad guys are the wolves, and the citizens are the sheep (!). Col. Grossman makes sure to mention that to a stupid sheep, sheepdogs look more like wolves than sheep, and that’s why they dislike you.

This “they hate you for protecting them and only I love you, only I can protect you” tactic is familiar to students of abuse. It’s what abusers do to coerce their victims into isolation, pulling them away from friends and family and ensnaring them in the abuser’s toxic web. Law enforcement does this too, pitting the officer against civilians. “They don’t understand what you do, they don’t respect your sacrifice, they just want to get away with crimes. You’re only safe with us.”

I think the Wolves vs. Sheepdogs dynamic is one of the most important elements as to why officers behave the way they do. Every single second of my training, I was told that criminals were not a legitimate part of their community, that they were individual bad actors, and that their bad actions were solely the result of their inherent criminality. Any concept of systemic trauma, generational poverty, or white supremacist oppression was either never mentioned or simply dismissed. After all, most people don’t steal, so anyone who does isn’t “most people,” right? To us, anyone committing a crime deserved anything that happened to them because they broke the “social contract.” And yet, it was never even a question as to whether the power structure above them was honoring any sort of contract back.

Understand: Police officers are part of the state monopoly on violence and all police training reinforces this monopoly as a cornerstone of police work, a source of honor and pride. Many cops fantasize about getting to kill someone in the line of duty, egged on by others that have. One of my training officers told me about the time he shot and killed a mentally ill homeless man wielding a big stick. He bragged that he “slept like a baby” that night. Official training teaches you how to be violent effectively and when you’re legally allowed to deploy that violence, but “unofficial training” teaches you to desire violence, to expand the breadth of your violence without getting caught, and to erode your own compassion for desperate people so you can justify punitive violence against them.

HOW TO BE A BASTARD

I have participated in some of these activities personally, others are ones I either witnessed personally or heard officers brag about openly. Very, very occasionally, I knew an officer who was disciplined or fired for one of these things.

Police officers will lie about the law, about what’s illegal, or about what they can legally do to you in order to manipulate you into doing what they want.

Police officers will lie about feeling afraid for their life to justify a use of force after the fact.

Police officers will lie and tell you they’ll file a police report just to get you off their back.

Police officers will lie that your cooperation will “look good for you” in court, or that they will “put in a good word for you with the DA.” The police will never help you look good in court.

Police officers will lie about what they see and hear to access private property to conduct unlawful searches.

Police officers will lie and say your friend already ratted you out, so you might as well rat them back out. This is almost never true.

Police officers will lie and say you’re not in trouble in order to get you to exit a location or otherwise make an arrest more convenient for them.

Police officers will lie and say that they won’t arrest you if you’ll just “be honest with them” so they know what really happened.

Police officers will lie about their ability to seize the property of friends and family members to coerce a confession.

Police officers will write obviously bullshit tickets so that they get time-and-a-half overtime fighting them in court.

Police officers will search places and containers you didn’t consent to and later claim they were open or “smelled like marijuana”.

Police officers will threaten you with a more serious crime they can’t prove in order to convince you to confess to the lesser crime they really want you for.

Police officers will employ zero tolerance on races and ethnicities they dislike and show favor and lenience to members of their own group.

Police officers will use intentionally extra-painful maneuvers and holds during an arrest to provoke “resistance” so they can further assault the suspect.

Some police officers will plant drugs and weapons on you, sometimes to teach you a lesson, sometimes if they kill you somewhere away from public view.

Some police officers will assault you to intimidate you and threaten to arrest you if you tell anyone.

A non-trivial number of police officers will steal from your house or vehicle during a search.

A non-trivial number of police officers commit intimate partner violence and use their status to get away with it.

A non-trivial number of police officers use their position to entice, coerce, or force sexual favors from vulnerable people.

If you take nothing else away from this essay, I want you to tattoo this onto your brain forever: if a police officer is telling you something, it is probably a lie designed to gain your compliance.

Do not talk to cops and never, ever believe them. Do not “try to be helpful” with cops. Do not assume they are trying to catch someone else instead of you. Do not assume what they are doing is “important” or even legal. Under no circumstances assume any police officer is acting in good faith.

Also, and this is important, do not talk to cops.

I just remembered something, do not talk to cops.

Checking my notes real quick, something jumped out at me:

not

fucking

talk

cops.

Ever.

Say, “I don’t answer questions,” and ask if you’re free to leave; if so, leave. If not, tell them you want your lawyer and that, per the Supreme Court, they must terminate questioning. If they don’t, file a complaint and collect some badges for your mantle.

DO THE BASTARDS EVER HELP?

Reading the above, you may be tempted to ask whether cops ever do anything good. And the answer is, sure, sometimes. In fact, most officers I worked with thought they were usually helping the helpless and protecting the safety of innocent people.

During my tenure in law enforcement, I protected women from domestic abusers, arrested cold-blooded murderers and child molesters, and comforted families who lost children to car accidents and other tragedies. I helped connect struggling people in my community with local resources for food, shelter, and counseling. I deescalated situations that could have turned violent and talked a lot of people down from making the biggest mistake of their lives. I worked with plenty of officers who were individually kind, bought food for homeless residents, or otherwise showed care for their community.

The question is this: did I need a gun and sweeping police powers to help the average person on the average night? The answer is no. When I was doing my best work as a cop, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker. My good deeds were listening to people failed by the system and trying to unite them with any crumbs of resources the structure was currently denying them.

It’s also important to note that well over 90% of the calls for service I handled were reactive, showing up well after a crime had taken place. We would arrive, take a statement, collect evidence (if any), file the report, and onto the next caper. Most “active” crimes we stopped were someone harmless possessing or selling a small amount of drugs. Very, very rarely would we stop something dangerous in progress or stop something from happening entirely. The closest we could usually get was seeing someone running away from the scene of a crime, but the damage was still done.

And consider this: my job as a police officer required me to be a marriage counselor, a mental health crisis professional, a conflict negotiator, a social worker, a child advocate, a traffic safety expert, a sexual assault specialist, and, every once in awhile, a public safety officer authorized to use force, all after only a 1000 hours of training at a police academy. Does the person we send to catch a robber also need to be the person we send to interview a rape victim or document a fender bender? Should one profession be expected to do all that important community care (with very little training) all at the same time?

To put this another way: I made double the salary most social workers made to do a fraction of what they could do to mitigate the causes of crimes and desperation. I can count very few times my monopoly on state violence actually made our citizens safer, and even then, it’s hard to say better-funded social safety nets and dozens of other community care specialists wouldn’t have prevented a problem before it started.

Armed, indoctrinated (and dare I say, traumatized) cops do not make you safer; community mutual aid networks who can unite other people with the resources they need to stay fed, clothed, and housed make you safer. I really want to hammer this home: every cop in your neighborhood is damaged by their training, emboldened by their immunity, and they have a gun and the ability to take your life with near-impunity. This does not make you safer, even if you’re white.

HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE A BASTARD?

So what do we do about it? Even though I’m an expert on bastardism, I am not a public policy expert nor an expert in organizing a post-police society. So, before I give some suggestions, let me tell you what probably won’t solve the problem of bastard cops:

Increased “bias” training. A quarterly or even monthly training session is not capable of covering over years of trauma-based camaraderie in police forces. I can tell you from experience, we don’t take it seriously, the proctors let us cheat on whatever “tests” there are, and we all made fun of it later over coffee.

Tougher laws. I hope you understand by now, cops do not follow the law and will not hold each other accountable to the law. Tougher laws are all the more reason to circle the wagons and protect your brothers and sisters.

More community policing programs. Yes, there is a marginal effect when a few cops get to know members of the community, but look at the protests of 2020: many of the cops pepper-spraying journalists were probably the nice school cop a month ago.

Police officers do not protect and serve people, they protect and serve the status quo, “polite society”, and private property. Using the incremental mechanisms of the status quo will never reform the police because the status quo relies on police violence to exist. Capitalism requires a permanent underclass to exploit for cheap labor and it requires the cops to bring that underclass to heel.

Instead of wasting time with minor tweaks, I recommend exploring the following ideas:

No more qualified immunity. Police officers should be personally liable for all decisions they make in the line of duty.

No more civil asset forfeiture. Did you know that every year, citizens like you lose more cash and property to unaccountable civil asset forfeiture than to all burglaries combined? The police can steal your stuff without charging you with a crime and it makes some police departments very rich.

Break the power of police unions. Police unions make it nearly impossible to fire bad cops and incentivize protecting them to protect the power of the union. A police union is not a labor union; police officers are powerful state agents, not exploited workers.

Require malpractice insurance. Doctors must pay for insurance in case they botch a surgery, police officers should do the same for botching a police raid or other use of force. If human decency won’t motivate police to respect human life, perhaps hitting their wallet might.

Defund, demilitarize, and disarm cops. Thousands of police departments own assault rifles, armored personnel carriers, and stuff you’d see in a warzone. Police officers have grants and huge budgets to spend on guns, ammo, body armor, and combat training. 99% of calls for service require no armed response, yet when all you have is a gun, every problem feels like target practice. Cities are not safer when unaccountable bullies have a monopoly on state violence and the equipment to execute that monopoly.

One final idea: consider abolishing the police.

I know what you’re thinking, “What? We need the police! They protect us!” As someone who did it for nearly a decade, I need you to understand that by and large, police protection is marginal, incidental. It’s an illusion created by decades of copaganda designed to fool you into thinking these brave men and women are holding back the barbarians at the gates.

I alluded to this above: the vast majority of calls for service I handled were theft reports, burglary reports, domestic arguments that hadn’t escalated into violence, loud parties, (houseless) people loitering, traffic collisions, very minor drug possession, and arguments between neighbors. Mostly the mundane ups and downs of life in the community, with little inherent danger. And, like I mentioned, the vast majority of crimes I responded to (even violent ones) had already happened; my unaccountable license to kill was irrelevant.

What I mainly provided was an “objective” third party with the authority to document property damage, ask people to chill out or disperse, or counsel people not to beat each other up. A trained counselor or conflict resolution specialist would be ten times more effective than someone with a gun strapped to his hip wondering if anyone would try to kill him when he showed up. There are many models for community safety that can be explored if we get away from the idea that the only way to be safe is to have a man with a M4 rifle prowling your neighborhood ready at a moment’s notice to write down your name and birthday after you’ve been robbed and beaten.

You might be asking, “What about the armed robbers, the gangsters, the drug dealers, the serial killers?” And yes, in the city I worked, I regularly broke up gang parties, found gang members carrying guns, and handled homicides. I’ve seen some tragic things, from a reformed gangster shot in the head with his brains oozing out to a fifteen year old boy taking his last breath in his screaming mother’s arms thanks to a gang member’s bullet. I know the wages of violence.

This is where we have to have the courage to ask: why do people rob? Why do they join gangs? Why do they get addicted to drugs or sell them? It’s not because they are inherently evil. I submit to you that these are the results of living in a capitalist system that grinds people down and denies them housing, medical care, human dignity, and a say in their government. These are the results of white supremacy pushing people to the margins, excluding them, disrespecting them, and treating their bodies as disposable.

Equally important to remember: disabled and mentally ill people are frequently killed by police officers not trained to recognize and react to disabilities or mental health crises. Some of the people we picture as “violent offenders” are often people struggling with untreated mental illness, often due to economic hardships. Very frequently, the officers sent to “protect the community” escalate this crisis and ultimately wound or kill the person. Your community was not made safer by police violence; a sick member of your community was killed because it was cheaper than treating them. Are you extremely confident you’ll never get sick one day too?

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

Police abolition is closely related to the idea of prison abolition and the entire concept of banishing the carceral state, meaning, creating a society focused on reconciliation and restorative justice instead of punishment, pain, and suffering — a system that sees people in crisis as humans, not monsters. People who want to abolish the police typically also want to abolish prisons, and the same questions get asked: “What about the bad guys? Where do we put them?” I bring this up because abolitionists don’t want to simply replace cops with armed social workers or prisons with casual detention centers full of puffy leather couches and Playstations. We imagine a world not divided into good guys and bad guys, but rather a world where people’s needs are met and those in crisis receive care, not dehumanization.

Here’s legendary activist and thinker Angela Y. Davis putting it better than I ever could:

“An abolitionist approach that seeks to answer questions such as these would require us to imagine a constellation of alternative strategies and institutions, with the ultimate aim of removing the prison from the social and ideological landscapes of our society. In other words, we would not be looking for prisonlike substitutes for the prison, such as house arrest safeguarded by electronic surveillance bracelets. Rather, positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment-demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”

(Are Prisons Obsolete, pg. 107)

I’m not telling you I have the blueprint for a beautiful new world. What I’m telling you is that the system we have right now is broken beyond repair and that it’s time to consider new ways of doing community together. Those new ways need to be negotiated by members of those communities, particularly Black, indigenous, disabled, houseless, and citizens of color historically shoved into the margins of society. Instead of letting Fox News fill your head with nightmares about Hispanic gangs, ask the Hispanic community what they need to thrive. Instead of letting racist politicians scaremonger about pro-Black demonstrators, ask the Black community what they need to meet the needs of the most vulnerable. If you truly desire safety, ask not what your most vulnerable can do for the community, ask what the community can do for the most vulnerable.

A WORLD WITH FEWER BASTARDS IS POSSIBLE

If you take only one thing away from this essay, I hope it’s this: do not talk to cops. But if you only take two things away, I hope the second one is that it’s possible to imagine a different world where unarmed black people, indigenous people, poor people, disabled people, and people of color are not routinely gunned down by unaccountable police officers. It doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, this requires a leap of faith into community models that might feel unfamiliar, but I ask you:

When you see a man dying in the street begging for breath, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a mother or a daughter shot to death sleeping in their beds, don’t you want to leap away from that world?

When you see a twelve year old boy executed in a public park for the crime of playing with a toy, jesus fucking christ, can you really just stand there and think “This is normal”?

And to any cops who made it this far down, is this really the world you want to live in? Aren’t you tired of the trauma? Aren’t you tired of the soul sickness inherent to the badge? Aren’t you tired of looking the other way when your partners break the law? Are you really willing to kill the next George Floyd, the next Breonna Taylor, the next Tamir Rice? How confident are you that your next use of force will be something you’re proud of? I’m writing this for you too: it’s wrong what our training did to us, it’s wrong that they hardened our hearts to our communities, and it’s wrong to pretend this is normal.

Look, I wouldn’t have been able to hear any of this for much of my life. You reading this now may not be able to hear this yet either. But do me this one favor: just think about it. Just turn it over in your mind for a couple minutes. “Yes, And” me for a minute. Look around you and think about the kind of world you want to live in. Is it one where an all-powerful stranger with a gun keeps you and your neighbors in line with the fear of death, or can you picture a world where, as a community, we embrace our most vulnerable, meet their needs, heal their wounds, honor their dignity, and make them family instead of desperate outsiders?

If you take only three things away from this essay, I hope the third is this: you and your community don’t need bastards to thrive.

RESOURCES TO YES-AND WITH

Achele Mbembe — Necropolitics

Angela Y. Davis — Are Prisons Obsolete?

CriticalResistance.org — Abolition Toolkit

Joe Macaré, Maya Schenwar, and Alana Yu-lan Price — Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect?

Ruth Wilson Gilmore — COVID-19, Decarceration, Abolition [video]

#acab

5K notes · View notes

shreddedparchment · 3 years

Text

A Wife for Thor Pt.19

The True Heir

03/09/2021

Pairing: King!Thor x Reader Word Count: 5,781

Warnings: angst, depression, pregnancy, marital troubles, pining

A/N: There is very little editing. Forgive me. I’m sleepy. I’ve been up writing all night. I’ve also been hurting, but it’s all good! I’m so happy to get this chapter out. *insert evil laugh* If you happen to reblog, thank you so much for helping me spread my work! it truly means so much, more than you know. xoxo

Sunday

Today you do nothing.

You’d opened up your laptop last night and attempted to scribble a few lines for your next book, but all you could think about was Thor, Jane, the babies to come, and where exactly you fit amongst all of it.

After typing Thor’s name along with a few other random words for the tenth time, you gave up and shut the laptop. You’d crawled into bed, bundled up under your fluffy comforter, and bid goodbye to the world as you caved in to unconsciousness.

The fact that morning is here, you find that your hope for today to be better than yesterday was silly. How can anything ever be good again?

You place your hands on your lower tummy, caressing what feels like a very slight swell. It’s just barely harder than the rest of your stomach. Firm. Despite the happiness that your baby brings you, you stare across the room at your computer and can’t find it in you to get up and work.

Instead you roll over onto your other side and pull Thor’s--that is to say, the one he’d used while he was here--pillow over to cling to.

Thor’s texts are also still fresh in your mind.

Sleep didn’t dull their effect on you or the confusion they raised.

Did they mean that he wouldn’t get an annulment? That’s sorta what you were getting from them. His declarations that he couldn’t live without you and that he would die for you and that he missed you so much at his side sounded like he was also telling himself how he felt. As if he were, not so much convincing, but reaffirming what he already knew.

You reach over and switch your phone on, clicking through to your messages to find that Thor must have stolen his phone back from Loki at some point.

Thor: Good morning, my cherub. I hope you slept well.

Thor: I could hardly sleep with you absent beside me.

Thor: Our bed is too big without you in it.

Thor: Have you seen the doctor yet? You’ll text me as soon as you get a diagnosis, won’t you? I’ll be waiting.

Thor: Loki insists that I give you some distance to rest but being apart from you is torture.

Thor: Would you be very angry with me if I came to see you?

Thor: I have some things I must deal with here before I can go though. Loki is right. I should allow you rest and fix things here before I come to you.

Thor: Are you still sleeping, cherub? I’m sorry if my messages are disturbing you. I haven’t gone this long without talking to you since...I wish I’d met you years ago. When things weren’t so complicated.

Thor: Would you have let me court you even though I am the God of Thunder? Future King of Asgard? Would you have married me when I came back with my people to live here on Earth?

Thor: I think if I had to choose all over again, you’re still the only woman equal to the task of being my Queen.

Thor: And the love that has grown between us is...I will never take it for granted…

As you read that last message, you assume he wants to say he won’t take it for granted again. He’s already let it slip through his fingers, although he doesn’t know it yet.

Thor: Perhaps this can be that break you were talking of. For our baby? Maybe we do need a little bit of relaxation to let our bodies recover?

Thor: And yet, I can’t wait to start a family with you, cherub.

You’re bawling all over again, your eyes flooding with tears as you bury your face into his pillow and sob loudly.

He’d said that he missed your body next to his. You can relate. You want to feel the heavy fall of his chest, the deep breaths that fill his lungs and escape through his lips in a quiet little snore that always makes you cuddle into his side.

Normally, he’d respond by turning to face you and holding you right up against his chest.

The comfort that simple thing would give you right now when your heart is aching so painfully is what you so desperately need. But...you’re so angry too. You don’t want him near you.

The images that flood your mind are torture. Mixtures of pleasant, happy moments now marred by the betrayal and anger that has taken hold of your heart.

You bury your face into the pillow and scream until your throat really does go hoarse. Frustration at the force of change you’ve had to make in the past twenty-four hours.

You’re startled back to the present when your phone rings. You make a small attempt to clear your throat then answer and the absolute gravel voice you use settles any wondering as to whether your illness is real.

“Hello?” you whisper, clearing your throat to no avail.

“Oh, cherub, you sound terrible.”

Your heart panics. How are you supposed to talk to him?

You don’t want to talk to him.

“I can’t really talk,” you say weakly hoping he’ll take the hint.

“Did the doctor see you already?” Thor asks, his worry evident in the quiet tone of his voice.

“Yes, he gave me some medicine and told me to try not to talk,” you lie, surprisingly easy right now since you don’t want to talk.

For your emotional sanity, you need to hang up soon.

“I’m so sorry, love. I wish I could take this illness from you. Where’s David? I’d like to talk to him.”

You panic again, floundering as you cough and clear your throat to buy some time.

“He’s not here. He went to the store to get some groceries,” you hope he buys it.

“I’ll call him a little later then. If you need anything, let me know. I’ll get it for you.”

“Thanks, Thor,” you mumble, suddenly not wanting to hang up.

How can one person give you so much ease and worry all at once? How can he be your source of agony and comfort at the same time? It’s not fair.

“I have so much to tell you, but...now is not the right time. You need to get better first.”

Nevermind! Fuck this guy. Your heart sinks.

“I have to go,” you tell him, hoping he’ll just hang up and leave you be now.

“Very well. I love you, cherub.”

How do you answer him without giving anything away just yet?

“Me too,” you choose. And it’s true.

Even if he’s torn your heart into pieces, he’s still the father of your baby and you still love him.

Whatever madness overcame him when he’d suggested to Loki getting an annulment was the best course of action seems to have passed. Loki must be right about him.

“Bye, Thor,” you whimper.

“Bye, Y/N,” he says your name, making your heart quake a bit.

You hang up and quickly dial up David.

He answers after two rings.

“Hello? How is my favorite girl in the whole wide world?”

He sounds amused by something, or just happy. It’s such a difference to how you feel at the moment that it breaks you and you sob again, renewing your tears.

“Y/N? What’s the matter?” David demands, clearly now beginning to fret over the way you sound.

You tell him everything. Somehow you manage to get it all out minus one important detail and when you’re done recounting the most horrible night of your life, David sighs heavily and you can almost picture him settling into a deep armchair with massive worry weighing on his shoulders.

“Well, the good thing is, if he goes through with an annulment, you’re to be given a monthly allowance for the rest of your life. It was a condition in your contract, should Thor change his mind about marrying you. But he didn’t so it was moot, until now. You will be a very rich woman. More so than the small fortune you originally inherited.

“I know that money is hardly a consolation for the man that you love-” David sighs again. “Perhaps he said it in madness? He must have been very upset. Caught by surprise?” David offers.

“Even if he doesn’t mean it or doesn’t go through with it, I know that for you the point is the thought was there.

“However, I do think we must make allowances for Thor. I’m sorry to say. He is a king and he’s responsible for his entire people. A baby would give them security. Stability. A legitimate heir would tie them to Earth forever.

“We musn’t make light of his choices. This isn’t a common situation to find one’s self in. For either of you.”

“David, I’m pregnant.” You finally explain, knowing that it will maybe just show him a little bit more of what you’re facing. “I went to tell Thor and that’s when I overheard them.”

For a moment he’s speechless. When he speaks again, his voice is heightened.

“Congratulations! I-I knew it would happen eventually. The timing is a little-”

“I haven’t told him yet, clearly.”

Silence again. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I was so happy when I went to tell him and then I heard their conversation and I-I just can’t find the strength to do it right now. Not until I know whether he wants the annulment.”

David breathes in deeply and then exhales slowly into the phone. His breath is light and soft.

“You’re afraid that he will only stay with you because of the child,” a statement.

David knows you better than anyone else in your life. It’s not surprising that he’d make the leap so quickly.

“He’s willing to leave me and marry Jane because of her baby. It’s possible that he’ll stay by my side only because of our baby and I’d rather he do what’s best for our people than to stay with me because of a sense of obligation.”

“It could be that Jane will not want him. She might keep her child away from the Asgardian royal court. Didn’t she refuse to marry him because she didn’t want to be Queen?” David’s voice is pensive. “This might all feel much larger than it is. I suggest you take some time to really think through your actions before making any decisions.”

“I’m not going to never tell him, David. He’s the father of my child. He has to know that he has two and not just the one. I don’t think I could do that to him. I could never keep him from his children.

“Either of them.”

“You are magnanimous, Y/N. More than even I thought you were capable of.”

“Bullshit. I ran away and am refusing to see him until I get my week of space,” you nod firmly. “But David-?”

“Tell me,” he urges you, recognizing your tone of anguish.

“I-I know that I accepted this marriage hesitantly. It wasn’t like I asked for it and you know how I felt before Thor asked me to marry him. You know how s-scared I was about marrying someone who was in love with someone else, and now...now he’s-”

“He’s married to you, Y/N. Not Ms. Foster. And from what I have been able to see, he does love you. Not Jane. This is a temporary setback. If you’re angry at him, be angry at him. Don’t pretend you aren’t. If you’re hurt, show it. Wear your heart on your sleeve.

“Loving someone is one of life’s greatest blessings. Sometimes that love doesn’t last, sometimes it takes a beating. But you must choose whether your love is worth fighting for.

“You’ve also got obligations that you cannot escape from. Duties to your people as their Queen.”

“Assuming Thor doesn’t leave me and take my crown,” you scoff.

“I’m with your brother-in-law. I don’t think it will come to that. I think Thor was a little shocked and thrown by Ms. Foster’s news. Now that he has had some time to think, I believe he’ll do right by you and when you tell him, your child.”

“I won’t tell him until he makes up his mind,” you insist.

“That is your prerogative. Do what you need to. What can I do to help? What do you need from me?”

“Just be prepared for any eventuality. I’m not sure what’s going to happen at the end of this week. Oh, and if Thor calls you--just make something up and tell me what you say. He thinks you drove me from the airport and have been staying with me.”

“Using me as your alibi so that your husband won’t come looking for you,” David clicks his tongue. “How much detail shall I give him?”

“You’ve got a job too, just tell him you’re coming and going. Tony had his staff install some security on the house after the honeymoon. I’m safe here. He’ll believe that I’m safe if that’s all you say.

“Anyway, I need to go. I have two more calls to make before I can relax and enjoy my break from the throne.”

“If you need anything, you know how to reach me. Anything, Y/N. I mean it.��

“Thanks, David. I can always count on you,” you smile.

Just a tiny one. A very subtle curve at the corners of your lips.

“Well, you do pay me,” he jokes, which actually pulls a small laugh from you.

“Right. Bye, David.”

“Goodbye, Your Majesty.”

You take only a minute to think about your conversation with David before you make the most important calls of your week in solitude.

The first one is simple. Just a reminder of doctor-patient confidentiality. He understands what you’re saying even if he doesn’t practice by that mentality.

Dr. Wilson’s phone call is more difficult. She wants an explanation. She wants to know why she’s not allowed to tell your husband, the King of New Asgard, that he’s finally got what you and he have been wanting.

An heir!

It’s painful to talk about but you tell her what’s happened. You tell her that Thor doesn’t know that you know about Jane’s baby.

She’s very quiet as you talk. She assumes things and you can hear her anger when she starts to ask for what she can tell Thor.

“He didn’t cheat on me, Dr. Wilson,” you explain, hoping that this will ease her anger.

You’re angry at Thor because of the annulment, not because he and Jane have created a life from their love. You’re hurt because he’s willing or was willing--you’re not sure yet--to leave you to be with Jane, even if not for love but for the baby growing within her.

You’re hurt because the man you love was choosing his duty over his feelings for you.

Even though you know that he’s right to do it. Even though you know that you should understand because he’s King and you also took an oath to put the people of New Asgard first.

It’s your duty to put their well-being before your own. That doesn’t mean you have to like it.

In Thor’s mind, his only duty is to his child. Jane’s child. He doesn’t know you’re carrying one of your own yet. Even though that would probably make sure that he stays with you because of the baby, you don’t want that to be the reason he stays.

Proud fool.

“Thor slept with Jane the same night he proposed to me. This was before we loved each other, when leaving Jane was the hardest thing he’d had to do. I don’t hold that against him.”

You don’t tell her about the annulment. She doesn’t need to know how messy this all is.

“He’ll probably call for you and Dr. Alric soon. Loki suggested they get Jane checked so act surprised? But please don’t tell him I’m pregnant. Not yet. He’s coming to see me at the end of the week and I’ll tell him myself then. Please?” And it really is a genuine plea.

“I’ll do whatever you need, Your Majesty. I would like to come and check on you. You don’t sound well.”

She’s very sweet and her concern is touching.

“Thor will probably send you to me eventually. He’s worried but he’s clearly got other things on his mind.”

“I’ll make arrangements to head over there tomorrow. Oh, can you hold for one minute Your Majesty? I’m so sorry.”

“Of course.”

There’s silence on the phone for a few minutes before she comes back.

“It was His Majesty. He’s told me about Jane but she’s not available for an examination until later in the week. So, he’s asked me to come to you first. I’ll be there tonight.”

For some reason, the idea of having her with you eases some of the stress you’ve been carrying with you since yesterday.

“I’ll call and have a car sent for you.”

“Actually, His Majesty has promised to bring me straight to you via bifrost.”

“Wait, what?” You sit up in bed, clutching your blanket to your chest as your nerves suddenly fray and panic begins to build up within you.

“Should I come by plane?” She asks, worried by the sound of your voice.

You can’t see Thor. No. You can’t.

“No. I’ll just be going out later tonight to pick up a few things that I need here at the house. Toilet paper, napkins, laundry soap. I just didn’t want you to get here when I was out, but I’ll text you the passcode to get in.”

You’ll just have to make sure that you’re not at home when they come. That’s what you’ll do. This is a perfect excuse to be out since you need to get the stuff you listed anyway.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t just like me to come by plane?”

“No, really. The sooner you get here, the better. The car ride is so long from the airport. I’ll see you tonight, Dr. Wilson.”

“Bye, Your Majesty.”

Even though you know that you have hours upon hours until Thor brings Dr. Wilson here, you force yourself out of bed and abandon your plans to wallow in your feelings so that you can shower, get dressed, and leave the house.

If Thor’s coming, you’re going to be as far away from your house as you can be. You’re not ready to see him again just yet. You only have small errands to run but you’re gonna stay out all damn day if it’s the last thing you do.

~~~~~~~~~~

Tuesday

Thor is at a loss. Completely and utterly lost without you.

If he was ever in doubt as to how he really felt about you--which he never has been because he knows himself well enough to know better--he knows now that you are the light of his new life here on Earth.

His reign would mean significantly less without you at his side.

Even though the time you’ve spent together has been a short few months, they have been the best months of his life.

If he’d had one of those other women he’d interviewed become his Queen, this life he’s chosen to lead would have felt empty and tedious. Instead of watching his Queen spend her time with his people leading the way in progress.

You’re so eager to be part of the Asgardian populace. They’ve embraced you so fully.

With a sigh, Thor leans forward and buries his face into his hands as he mentally trashes himself for the absolute fool that he’s been about this entire situation.

The fact that he’d even entertained the thought of leaving you.

He wants to cry and tear his hair out in frustration.

Should he tell you that the thought was weighed along with many others at Jane’s news?

And Jane.

Thor groans.

She’s been avoiding him since she told him. He can’t exactly blame her for it. He hadn’t exactly taken the news well.

He had no reason to expect her to be receptive to him after he’d basically accused her of being confused about it. She knew her own body. If she said she was pregnant, what reason would he have to doubt her?

He’s messed everything up so much and he’s terrified to tell you about Jane.

What if you have the same idea he did? What if you decide to leave him in some foolish attempt to have him marry her and legitimize his future child?

It’s something you would do. Sacrifice yourself so that he could do the right thing.

The thought of living this life of rule without you at his side is unbearable.

With another frustrated groan, he gets up and moves to pace the length of the room, ignoring the large pile of paperwork on his desk as his mind moves in circles.

It always comes back to you.

And then you’d been out when he’d gone to drop off Dr. Wilson. He hadn’t expected you to be gone. He’d wanted to see you. To hold you. Touch you. Hear your voice after so much turmoil.

You are his only solace.

Going so close to you and not seeing you has left him with a terrible pain in his chest.

His phone rings.

Thor dives for his phone and fumbles with it as he grabs it off the bed. He almost loses it over the opposite edge.

He literally throws himself towards it and lands with a grunt onto the bed as he catches it.

He presses the button on the screen without looking to see who it is because he only wants it to be you.

“Cherub?” he gasps, his voice an octave higher than normal with the little bit of exertion he just underwent.

“Oh, no. Sorry, Your Majesty, it’s Dr. Wilson. I was just calling to give you your daily report on Her Majesty’s health.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry. I just haven’t heard from-” He clears his throat, sits up, and slides to the edge of the bed. “No matter. How is my Queen, doctor?”

“She was asleep. But just woke up. She’s very tired. Her throat is better, but she’s had a fever every morning since Sunday.”

Thor sits up straighter, hand clenched into a fist around the edge of the bed as his heart starts to thrum loudly.

“Is she seriously ill?”

“No, of course not, Your Majesty. But she really does need rest. She has been under severe stress and I’m sorry to say that your constant messages are not letting her rest.”

Thor’s heart drops and buries itself into a hole at the bottom of his stomach. He feels numb suddenly, fearful of what he might be doing to you. The guilt of what he knows he must tell you soon also weighs down on him.

“Are you saying that I should leave her be until she is recovered?” Thor checks, just in case he’s not understanding correctly.

“I’m saying that if you want her to get well quickly, you must give her what she asked you for. She needs rest.”

Thor hates that he can’t be there to check on you. He wants to feel you close. He wants to see you. What if you’re deathly ill and you’re telling Dr. Wilson to lie for you?

You abhor lies and cherish honesty , but he can see you lying in order to spare him pain. Just as he is lying to spare you the worry of all this uncertainty with Jane.

Although he knows that he can never lose you now and even with a child coming with Jane, you are his wife and he can’t leave you. He was stupid to think he could even try. The thought was a sin and he’ll never forgive himself for thinking it.

Loki was so angry with him.

Rightfully so.

The good thing is that you’ll never know how bleak things looked. At least he has found his sanity again.

“Will you keep me informed? I’ll stop contacting her if you will promise to tell me how she fares. If she gets worse, I want to know.” Thor insists, his voice passionate and begging.

“You have my word, Your Majesty. Have you heard anything from Ms. Foster? Do we know exactly when we’ll be running her tests?”

“She’s very busy. As of now, it’s looking more and more likely that we won’t be able to find the time until the week’s end. After we confirm her pregnancy, I’ll tell Y/N. I’m sorry that I’ve asked you to collude in this business.”

There’s a long pause and for a moment Thor thinks that maybe the phone has disconnected but then Dr. Wilson sighs, “I cannot wait for this week to be over. Will you come back for me then? When she’s ready?”

“Yes. I’ll pick you up in the same spot that I left you. My wife wasn’t too upset about her lawn, was she? Only, Stark seems to get irritated with me every time I land on his.”

“No,” Dr. Wilson chuckles once. “She was not upset. Again, there’s little more than her throat, head, and fever on her mind. I’ve gotta go. She’s gone out into the garden for some fresh air but I need to get her back into bed.”

“Please take good care of her, doctor. She’s...well, she’s my wife,” Thor finishes heavily.

The phone goes dead and Thor sits there staring at his phone until he can find the strength to get to his feet and go off in search of Jane. They really need to talk.

~~~~~~~~~~

Friday

Thor is upset.

He’s beyond frustrated by now.

He’s irritated.

It’s a week tomorrow since he’s seen you and he can’t stand the distance anymore.

Dr. Wilson snuck him a photo but you’d been sitting on your sofa, looking weak and withdrawn.

He’s not sure what exactly is making you sick, but he knows that he can’t go another day without seeing you.

He needs to get Dr. Wilson back here and he needs to get confirmation so that he can have something to tell you once he sees you.

He won’t lose you over this.

It was one last time. One final goodbye with Jane and he’d thought she was on her birth control but apparently she hadn’t been so he hadn’t bothered to protect himself from the possibility of getting her pregnant.

Why hadn’t she said anything?! Why hadn’t she told him that she wasn’t on her pill?

He knows it’s wrong to blame her. It took both of them to make this baby, but being away from you for so long is wearing thin and he’s losing all semblance of patience.

It takes some very careful maneuvering. Heimdall is sent first, then Hilde, then Loki.

None of them know why they’re going in to corner Jane in the tower except for Loki. Well, Heimdall knows, but there’s no hiding much from Heimdall. He pretends not to know and that’s good enough for Thor.

Loki is just stepping out of the tower when he turns to look at Thor with a grave almost exhausted expression.

“She’s up there,” he assures Thor, frowning as he shuts the heavy door. “When will this end, Thor? Are you going to keep the Queen away forever?”

Thor says nothing, he’s too upset to speak. He pulls the door open roughly and stomps his way up the steps taking them two at a time until he’s standing on the top floor landing.

He can see Jane biting her lip, pacing the length of the room until she turns and finally sees him.

“Thor…” she gasps, not expecting to see him.

“We have to talk, Jane.”

She looks away, turning her back on him then moves towards her laptop which she carefully closes. She puts her hand up to her throat and turns to face him.

“I will have Dr. Wilson brought in and Dr. Alric to give you the same tests they have been giving Y/N. They will be confirming your pregnancy and once we have that, then we can all sit down and figure out-”

“I’m not pregnant,” Jane gasps, her voice filling the room despite the quiet breath that escapes her pink lips.

Thor’s stomach twists. It’s agony.

On the one hand, the words she’s just spoken are...they’re a celebration. They’re simplicity. They’re peace and a return back to normal where in his life there is only you.

On the other hand, he’s just lost a baby he never had. An heir that he’d been expecting and now can never get back.

He’d made plans for this child. He’s pictured his life with them, the happiness and joy that their birth would bring to the people of New Asgard. The assurance that they would always belong to Earth.

He’d picked names for boys and girls. He’d begun to make a list of nursery items they would need even as he lamented that the baby was not yours but Jane’s.

This baby would have, and had already begun to change his life.

And now this?!

“What?” he very nearly spits.

Jane is so flustered she’s wringing her hands hard, welting them red.

“I’m...I didn’t expect to come here and see you with her and see how fast you just-” she waves her hand as if shooing away some animal. “-moved on. It’s like you were never with me.

“You were both so happy and talking about the future and I just lost it for a little bit,” she shrugs. “I have no excuses, Thor. I’m sorry if what I said hurt you. It was selfish of me and I just loved you for so long. You were mine, you know? And now you’re married, planning to have kids, and your wife is so nice and considerate and even though she has every reason to hate me, she was polite and so damn perfect…

“I’m not afraid to say that it made me hate her. I’m ashamed of it, but not enough to take it back.”

The silence is thick. The air suddenly grows charged and Thor’s eyes shine a bright sparkling blue.

His hands crackle and his eye spits as if full of blue fire.

The sky overhead thunders and the world shakes with the boom. The lightning strikes sharp and fast, shaking the tower so that for a moment, Thor can see how Jane thinks it might topple.

His anger gives way to betrayal and his lightning fizzles out as he takes a step towards her, his brow furrowed, eye full of pain as he stares at her, searching for the joke that this must be.

There is no way that this is really happening.

“You lied to me?” Thor accuses.

Jane blanches, her lips going pale as she takes a step towards him.

“I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie, I just-I didn’t want to see you with her anymore and I wasn’t thinking straight so I just said it before I could stop myself. I know that it was wrong and I didn’t think it would go on for so long. I wanted to tell you almost as soon as I said it that it wasn’t true, but then you just took off and then the Queen left and I wasn’t sure if you told her and maybe that’s why she wasn’t here.”

Thor shakes his head, turning away from her as he paces towards the stairs but then turns back, his anger returning but full of pain now.

“I defended you. When Loki insisted I have you tested I asked him if he doubted you and I assured him that you would not lie about something this important. What reason would you have to lie?” he demands, almost of himself instead of Jane.

“Thor,” Jane begins.

“How long were you going to let me think you were carrying my child? How long were you planning to con me?” he accuses and his words seem to hurt Jane.

Thor can’t find it in him to care too much.

“I wasn’t-that’s not what I meant to do, Thor. Please, you have to believe me. I just didn’t know how much seeing you with her would-”

“You have no right to be upset!” he booms, his voice loud and it startles Jane quiet.

She’s never heard him angry like this. She’s never heard his voice raised.

“I gave you every opportunity to be with me, to marry me, to build a life here with me and be my Queen. You didn’t want it! You flat-out refused to be tied down by me and this Kingdom but now that you see me and my wife happy, you change your mind?

“You have the audacity to raise obstacles between us because you have regrets?”

“Thor,” she tries again, but Thor won’t let her speak.

“Get out,” he says sternly, turning to move towards the stairs.

“What?!”

“I said, get out. You are no longer welcome in my home. Pray no one ever finds out of your treachery. And should you have the urge to return for any reason, don’t.”

Thor storms down the steps, so angry that each step shakes the tower.

He’s breathing heavily as he slams the door shut behind him.

The storm air helps to calm him a bit. It clears his mind at least and the past week zooms by him like an unpleasant movie.

All of that worry and the plotting and planning. The agony that he felt wondering if you’d leave him when you found out about his child with Jane was the most unbearable.

Your face flashes before his eyes and he knows that there’s only one place he can be right now.

He throws his hand out and a metallic whistling rushes closer before his fist closes around his hammer.

He swings it firmly and throws it up into the air as he makes for your home.

Now that he has nothing to keep him here, he’s eager to get back to you. He’ll tell you everything and hope that you can forgive him for lying to you about Jane.

Even though it was a lie by omission, it was still a lie.

“I’m coming, my cherub,” he whispers, so eager to have you in his arms again.

Nothing will ever tear him from you again. He is certain. Nothing. Not a false heir, or a former love, no doubts exist within him anymore. You are the one.

The only one.

#king!thor x reader #thor x reader #arranged marriage au #royal au #a wife for thor #king!thor x reader fanfiction #king!thor x reader fanfic #king!thor x reader fic #king!thor x you #thor x reader fanfiction #thor x reader fanfic #thor x reader fic #thor x you #marvel fanfiction #marvel au #a wife for thor pt19

510 notes · View notes