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galadhremmin · 3 years

Note

We have derived Caranthir liking the Dwarves (and vice versa) because apparently, Finrod succeeds in every field Caranthir fails, and at this point it's clear this derives from the in-universe writer of the Silm and his own biases. Think about it: "Dark Finwë" , a grumpy, prejudiced lordling, and "Hair Champion", most handsome, noble king, have met with the same people!! Yet the king of the first secret kingdom is everyone's friend, but the prince that trades with them regularly is not... seems sus.

Hence, Caranthir is friends with the Dwarves. (But that is just an interpretation, so you're free to think what you wish, I just have several opinions on in-universe prejudice and the almighty narrative.)

I think that 'we' might actually have been Dawn Felagund years ago. Maybe this reading existed even before that, but I doubt that-- she's been very influential in silm fandom and was long before tumblr was much of a thing. https://dawnfelagund.com/caranthir-the-slandered

I wouldn't say it's 'clear' that what amounts to Caranthir's entire documented personality derives from the bias of the in-universe narrator, though as you can see from Dawn's writing it's a reading you can argue for. There are a number of different approaches you can take to the Silm and its biases anyway. One of the few times when it's absolutely clear the text isn't telling the entire story is when it talks about the Easterlings. I've posted about this before but the recorded names are, uhh.... the ones to betray the elves are unlikely to actually have been named things like 'ugly lord' and 'ugly beard.' 'Dark Finwe' on the other hand is a documented reference to his haircolour being dark like Finwe's own; hardly a negative judgement!

I personally think Caranthir can be exactly as ill-tempered and prejudiced as the Silm paints him without becoming an unsympathetic character. If a writer cannot make a moody, deeply prejudiced man an interesting character that is a failure as a writer; there are after all enough books who manage exactly that. That is not to say choosing not to write him that way is a failure (obviously not), but it's not necessary in order to make a reader feel for him at all.

Just going by the text, I think it actually might make for a more interesting narrative to explore in fic to me. Because he does change his mind about something, and at a very specific moment; when he meets the Haladin. That is much less dramatic if he secretly been as nice and popular as Finrod, and got along with everyone all the time already. He's been raised by Fëanor, who said things like 'No other race shall oust us!' and rallied the Noldor not motivated enough by vengeance for Finwë alone by playing on their deep-seated fear of being replaced by the Secondborn. Very unlikely that had no impact. At best it has made him uninterested in humans in his area (while they're not much of a threat to ruling instead of the elves anyway). The text says they paid them no heed.

And yet! Caranthir sees how brave Haleth and her people are. He 'does her great honour.' He changes his mind and offers them lands. His tragedy to me is not that of a slandered figure, but of this deeply, deeply prejudiced person raised to distrust the motivations of human beings -- who overcomes those beliefs, offers friendship, is rejected! then extends that same trust to the Easterlings anyway... and it's those specific Easterlings, not the ones who ally with his brothers-- who betray them all. And cause the disastrous ending of the Nirnaeth. It's the 'to evil end shall all things turn that they begin well' part of the curse hitting him in the least fair way possible. Someone finally changes for the better, and the outcome is treason and destruction.

That is a very good character arc to me, actually. His aesthetics-based scorn for the Dwarves is reprehensible but strikes me as deeply Elvish, and part of his prejudices. Naugrim is too unflattering a name for them for it not to be common. His temper-- well why can't he have one? Sure there's only one recorded instance -- but that's imo because there are hardly any conversations in the Silm! Anyway I like some people with tempers well enough. Personally I think people are missing out on opiniated grouches.

Obviously the biased anti-Feanorian Pengolodh reading is a nice one, and I have enjoyed a lot of stories written based it. But it's not at all a reading that is necessary for me to read Caranthir as a flawed but sympathetic character. He can have serious faults and still, ultimately, be someone I feel for.

What I was asking though was if I overlooked any canon evidence of Caranthir being particularly, personally fond of the Dwarves; and it seems I did not. Also; there is room for Caranthir growing to like the Dwarves over centuries without an anti-Feanorian bias reading this strong, there is simply no evidence for friendship in the rather barebones narrative (I'm not interested atm because it's wildly overdone to me & I like variety).

That said, in my opinion making Caranthir the hidden, slandered Feanorian Finrod equivalent with a dash of Curufin's Dwarf affection is not as enjoyable as simply working with what little canon character is actually there. Because there is one (and it's not the greedy tax collector of some fanon depictions either imo)

1. To start with, wrt Caranthir as the anti-Finrod, I don't think it works that well. Sure sure dark/light, open/prejudiced, repressed/shouty, but different motivations, different locations, plus they meet very different peoples even if both are Edain-- besides, Caranthir's own older brothers do successfully ally with the Easterlings without betrayal, while Curufin (much more so than Finrod! no Khuzdul for Finrod!) is the Dwarves' Friend(tm). Also, a flawed Finrod already exists. That's just the regular edition. He has his own faults and (very different) tragic arc.

If Finrod never seems to have strong prejudices to overcome, and if he's not confrontational (which... look he's a diplomat. Make of that what you will. Pretty awkward there in Doriath, buddy!) he does have trouble facing his own complicity (he wanted to sail those ships despite the murders) until Sauron beats him to death with it. He leaves Valinor with the idea of ruling but he has to give up the crown. He's ambitious, he seems emotionally repressed, he's.. possibly paying the greater Dwarves to drive the Petty Dwarves out of their ancestral home to build a city? Oops. Depending on the version you go with in that case, of course; there's also ones where he's free of the blame of that one. Not of wanting to sail those ships and being uneasy with the guilt wrt wanting to do so despite their being stolen and murdered for though. No he doesn't kill; but he wants to use the result of it anyway, and to make it worse he is actually half Telerin.

There's also (to be fair, only for sure after the disaster of the Sudden Flame because that's the recorded instance) his guards killing random innocent trespassers to keep his kingdom hidden -- yes, that's right there in Silm, yes he's still King at the time. Beren has to wave that ring. People just seem to miss that he'd be killed without it somehow.

I think it's just too easy to reduce him to the golden perfect opposite of Caranthir. Yes he's described more positively; he's also just mentioned more because unlike Caranthir he rules an actual kingdom, the greatest and richest in Beleriand in fact; and does things that have a lot of very longterm effects, like helping B&L steal a Silmaril. They don't 'meet the same people' anyway -- the Haladin have a different culture from the Beorians which contributes to their reaction to Caranthir (and iirc their later fate).

Sidenote: Dawn's essay attributes the Green Elves helping the Feanorians at Amon Ereb to Caranthir's diplomatic skills; but why not to those of Amras or Amrod? This is the quote; 'Caranthir fled and joined the remnant of his people to the scattered folk of the hunters, Amrod and Amras, and they retreated and passed Ramdal in the south. Upon Amon Ereb they maintained a watch and some strength of war, and they had aid of the Green-elves' -- nothing here indicates it was Caranthir who got them that aid. In fact A&A are the hunters, i.e. more likely to have roamed in various forests where they would have encountered Green Elves, imo.

There's also the very desperate times to consider in which this aid takes place. This is just post Sudden Flame, and even if the Green Elves didn't like Caranthir they probably liked him better than Morgoth. Also, speaking of cosmopolitans, Maedhros allies with, yes, Dwarves (Azaghal), Grey elves, Easterlings (and you might say: Fingolfinians); even part of the remaining people of Dorthonion rally to Himring post sudden flame (that means Edain and Arafinwean followers in Himring, at least for a time), and he manages to be friendly with Felagund despite calling him a badger. ;)

Finrod is not the only other leader to forge diverse alliances, and though B&L ends happily his people mostly do not. Caranthir's not much like Finrod in any way. Not in motivations, temperament, tragic arc. That's fine. No hidden kingdom for a dragon to eat either. Finrod could probably do with being a little less like Finrod sometimes, though he's well-intentioned and likable. Caranthir loves to shout and isn't sneaky. Good for him.

2. Curufin also already exists. His love for Dwarves is one of his defining and redeeming characteristics and boy does he need them. He's daddy's favourite, a sneaky overambitious bitchy bastard who is also a talented smith and linguist, and truly considered a Dwarf friend, which is apparently exceptional. He's quite flawed; tries to help Celegorm force a political marriage, laughs with a bruised mouth, seeming to lose his mind while attempting and failing murder after first losing his own stronghold and then the city he tried to take from his cousin. He's just... a personality. Mostly a bad one! You can feel for him though, because he seems like an utter mess. Many 'i would love to study you' feelings on my part. Would hate for him to be real but also I'd pay to be his therapist.

3. And then finally there's Canon Caranthir. A difficult, prejudiced person who despite that (which doesn't at all have to mean there is no despite, the despite is what makes it juicy)

- seems to be responsible for re-establishing (large scale?) trade with the Dwarves, whatever he might think of them (and they of him) to their mutual benefit. I don't think he's greedy either. It seems like a mutually profitable situation. Access to Dwarvish goods seems pretty vital to Beleriand, and facilitating trade is a real service.

As someone pointed out in the replies, the Silm does mention Dwarvish companies travelling east to Nan Elmoth and menegroth various times, but quote wrt Caranthir says 'Caranthir’s people came upon the Dwarves, who after the onslaught of Morgoth and the coming of the Noldor had ceased their traffic into Beleriand' and 'when the Dwarves began again to journey into Beleriand.'

They stopped at some point and Caranthir's people made it happen again.

- which means he's practical. He seems like he's good at organising, and setting his own feelings aside if necessary despite his prejudice and temper (which is an achievement it wouldn't be without his, hm, everything). Also he and his people as well as the Dwarves work together well because ''either people loved skill and were eager to learn,' despite their (initial?) mutual dislike. Those aren't bad characteristics; seems like it was an exchange of skill as well as goods and possibly providing safe travel opportunities.

I don't like the 'greedy Caranthir' fanon and don't think it is even that easy support entirely with canon. 'They had of it great profit,' the text says-- both Caranthir and the Dwarves. They exchanged skills and knowledge and Caranthir seems to have helped them start trading in Beleriand again. That's hardly Scrooge Mcduck.

- Another thing we can say about canonthir (lol) is that he apparently attaches a lot of value to aesthetics (was he a visual artist? is a he a sculptor like Nerdanel? WORSE: AN ART CRITIC?! Feanorian art critic is truly nightmare fuel) and that's why he dislikes Dwarves (of all things...). Either way points to 'aesthetics' as something apparently important to Caranthir. Which makes sense given who his parents are. What is interesting to me is that this apparently DOESN'T matter to Curufin, who is a lot like Feanor in most things. That's interesting!

I've never, never seen this but I think it would be very funny to attribute his aesthetic prejudices to Nerdanel. I love her; but why should her opinions be perfect? I know she wasn't considered beautiful herself, but she's an artist. She's got to have had some strong opinions on aesthetics anyway. I doubt it's the beards; Mahtan had one as well. And 'stunted'...at least some of this comes down to the Elvish obsession with height yet again. Hm.

- eventually Caranthir overcomes what have to be some very deeply held beliefs about human beings and their place in the world, and offers what for all intents and purposes looks like real friendship, not the ruling over Men Feanor seems to have had in mind at best. He's capable of real change!

Anyway his character works just fine to me from canon, and what he achieves and the ways in which he fails are more interesting that way rather-- neither slandered Feanorian Finrod 2.0 nor Curufin 'Dwarf Fan' Feanorion without the sneakiness and murder attempts pack the same punch as a stupidly prejudiced grouchy man doing his best anyway for centuries in this stupid ugly cursed land, eventually changing for the better, opening up-- and being brutally punished for it by the Doom.

Dammit. I hope there's therapy in the Everlasting Darkness.

hm a bit long but that's what I get for trying to gather my thoughts wrt why after considering it a bit transferring Curufin's love for Dwarves to Caranthir is a bit boring to me personally. Though there are still stories that still do it very well.

#no one asked including me but there you go anyway #that's what you get when i wake up at nearly 3 in the morning and thnk. FUCK i can't sleep #caranthir

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fandom-imagines · 4 years

Text

Thank you

Fandom: Death Note

Pairing: L X Reader

Warnings: Emotional and physical abuse.

Words: 3k

A/N: I’m in a death note phase again. I wrote this instead of doing my essay oops.

Being the girlfriend of a worldwide, secret detective was hard.

Relationships were hard enough as it is but having to make sure both the partners names were kept hidden made it even harder. Then there’s the constant travelling that takes place along with many other things.

Basically, the relationship between L Lawliet and Y/N Y/S/N was a complicated one. Don’t get me wrong, they were both madly in love with the other, but that didn’t make it any less hard.

“Y/N!” A high-pitched voice sounded from behind the aforementioned couple.

That’s Misa, Y/N’s best friend and often co-worker. The two met at a photoshoot where they became fast friends, the pair being able to work together due to their celebrity status.

“Hi, Misa.” A soft smile crawled onto the Y/H/C-haired girls’ lips.

She usually loved seeing Misa, but today all she wanted was to go back to her house and chill, maybe with Lawliet, maybe not. Who knows? Not her.

“Hi, Ryuzaki.” Misa greeted her best friends’ boyfriend, albeit unknowingly, before grasping her small hand around Y/N’s arm. “Bye, Ryuzaki!” Were her final words as she dragged Y/N away, unaware that she was desperately mouthing “sorry” towards her boyfriend.

“Light won’t even take me on a date, Y/N/N!” Misa whined, still talking about her ‘boyfriend’, “Isn’t that so unfair?”

“Very.” Y/N mumbled, turning the page on her magazine which lay in front of her.

She was currently lying across Misa’s bed, the pink sheets creasing beneath her. The girl’s legs were crossed in the air, the entire weight of her body being placed solely on her stomach. The magazine she was reading was something she had bought on the way back to Misa’s, hoping to share opinions on outfits or gossip about latest celebrities, something that the pair had done since they met.

“Are you even listening, Y/N/N?” The blonde continued to whine upon realizing that her friend was no longer listening to her boy drama.

“Sorry, just deep in thought.” Y/N’s words weren’t necessarily a lie, she was deep in thought just not about something she wished to share.

Misa didn’t know about Lawliet and Y/N’s relationship, nobody did. That was how they liked it. No one could intervene, no drama or anything of the sort. Just the two of them, happy, together.

Oh how she longed to be with him right now. The two of them together, even if they were just sitting in HQ together whilst working on the Kira case that they had been working on for months now. That was how they had met: the Kira case.

Y/N knew of his involvement, her father worked as a detective, similar to Lights. That was how she joined the investigation despite being a student. Both her father and close friend, Light, recommended her.

However, that friendship was slowly fading as she found out more and more evidence that made her suspect Light of being Kira. She’s smart, very smart, that’s why she got along with both geniuses. She fit in well with the two. But the more she investigated the case, the more she realized that Light could possibly be behind the mass murders that were causing terror across the world, especially Japan.

“Ooh! What about? Is it a boy?” Misa was now sat up on the ground, arms wrapped tightly around the yellow pillow that she was previously sitting on. Her loose blonde locks fell down her back as well as over the pillow. She looked absolutely beautiful.

How did Light not love her back?

“Shut up.” The other girl huffed, tossing a pillow from Misa’s bed into the face of the owner, giggling as Misa fell backwards onto the soft carpet before bursting into a fit of giggles herself.

“You have to tell me!” The words left Misa’s lips between giggles as she recomposed herself.

“No!”

“Yes~”

The two argued back and forth for around five minutes before giving up, and bursting into a giggle fit once again, something that was common between the pair.

“So, you like someone?” Misa wiggled her eyebrows in amusement at the fact that her best friend was finally interested in someone other than fictional characters. “Tell me everything.”

Without revealing who it was, Y/N began to tell her about her ‘crush’, despite said crush actually being her boyfriend of a few months now. Ensuring that no significant details were released which could identify the man, she told her everything. Blushing was something new to her, but neither Misa nor Y/N complained. It was a refreshing change for them both.

“Wow,” The model let out a breath she wasn’t aware that she was holding once Y/N had poured her heart out, slightly at least. “I never knew you were capable of such feelings, Y/N/N!”

“Stop teasing me~” Y/N’s hands covered her blushing face, words becoming muffled behind the skin. “This is embarrassing enough as it is,” a groan left her lips as she continued her sentence. “Besides, I doubt he even likes me back.” The final words were mumbled, self-doubt settling in as she realized that her boyfriend might not actually love her.

Logically, Y/N knew that L wouldn’t use her, or at least she hopes, and that he genuinely did value her and her opinion. He enjoyed her company and didn’t find her annoying. He really did love her, despite not having admitted it.

“Sure he does! You’re great, Y/N/N.” Misa grinned at her best friend, unknowingly providing her with a source of comfort.

“Thanks, Misa.” A sigh left the other girls lips, a sinking feeling of doubt looming over her. “I should probably get home, it’s getting late. Goodnight, Misa.”

“Goodnight, Y/N!”

Instead of heading home Y/N decided to take a late-night stroll.

The dark sky was littered with bright stars, a nice change from the usual plain nights sky in Japan. It gave an almost comforting feel to the stroller, reminding her of her childhood when she would stay up late to stare up at the midnight sky with a genuine belief that it was the world watching over her, much like the moon which was ‘following’ her everywhere she went to make sure she was safe.

It was childish, yes, but she was a child so what do you expect?

The Y/H/C-haired girl observed her breath as she exhaled. It was cold which wasn’t a huge surprise considering that it was nearing December now; winter time. Despite being extremely cold, she decided that it wasn’t time to head home just yet. Her mind wasn’t entirely clear and it wasn’t exactly in her best interest to go home with an overthinking mind, so he continued her walk.

The sound of her shoes hitting the ground was one of the only things she could hear other than the occasional passing car or truck. The streetlights lit up her view, being the only thing that did so and Y/N internally thanked whoever put them up considering she wouldn’t be able to use the torch on her phone as it had died long ago. The odd passing-by car provided her with some light also, although it wasn’t much.

It wasn’t until around 1am when she finally decided she should head home.

The house was deadly silent as she entered, but the lights were still alight, leaving the daughter of the local baker and detective confused.

“Mum?” The girls voice was slightly quiet in case she was asleep whilst still being loud enough for anyone seated downstairs to hear.

“Where have you been?!” Her mothers voice was incredibly loud, making Y/N cringe and wince. “I’ve been worried sick! How could you make your mom worry like this?”

Ah, there comes the guilt tripping. Y/N’s thoughts were awfully loud, and she cursed herself internally.

“Sorry, mom.” A frown had made its way onto her lips as she apologized.

Sure, she probably should have warned her that she was going for a walk, but there was no need to guilt trip her.

“You should be. Now go to your room!”

She simply ran upstairs.

The bags under Y/Ns’ eyes almost matched Ryuzaki’s the following day.

She hadn’t gotten any sleep that night as she replayed every bad moment with her mother sine childhood and believe me, there was a lot of them.

Her mother hadn’t been the best parent to say the least. She was never physically abusive, but the mental scars from her words and actions had taken a toll on her daughter throughout the years.

“Are you okay?” Lights words were full of concern upon noticing the girls tired composure. The way she stood further proved that she was exhausted considering how she was slumped over. Hands shaking also, Light was genuinely concerned, despite his status as Kira, something he knew that she suspected. “You look terrible, no offence.”

“I’m fine.” Her words were quiet, almost silent, too wrapped up in her own thoughts to give a completely response but she figured those words would suffice and he would hopefully leave her alone.

Whilst concerned, Light knew not to push things when someone didn’t want to talk, so he didn’t push it further, favouring to ask if she was going to the HQ later which she was.

“Ryuzaki isn’t in today,” Lights words caught her attention, finally pulling her from her trance, “he’s working on the investigation.”

“Oh,” while her response was short, the criminal still cheered internally, glad that he had stopped her worrying, even if it was for a split second.

For the entire day she was completely ‘out of it’, unable to concentrate or even form a coherent sentence and she mentally kicked herself at her so-called failure. However she was slightly grateful that there was no exam today, knowing she would have most definitely failed. She probably wouldn’t have been able to write more than three words.

Y/N’s walk to HQ was lonely as she desperately craved some human contact.

She really needed a hug.

As though in a trance, the girl scanned herself into HQ and headed towards the main room where she knew everyone would be.

“Hi, Y/N,” Matsuda’s cheerful greeting caught Ryuzaki’s attention. Well, more like the name of the person he was greeting.

Nobody could have known however, unaware of the short-lived glance he had spared towards her. This short glance told him a lot: she hadn’t slept, she was deep in thought and she felt… crap.

This worried the detective immensely. He really did care for the girl; a lot more than he would admit. Not that he didn’t want to, he just didn’t know how she would react and didn’t want to risk facing rejection.

It would hurt.

“Hi.” The response she gave Matsuda was blunt, emotionless which L wasn’t happy to hear.

She never used that tone. She was usually cheerful. It must be bad.

“You guys can go for a break. You’ve been here most of today and it’s not nearing 5pm.” L’s words matched his girlfriends tone as usual, uncaring about the relief his words had just provided the others on the case. “Except you.” His gaze was now fixated on his love, making her internally curse at herself for being so obvious about her low mood.

The raven-haired detective waited for everyone to leave, stare unmoving as he observed Y/N’s every move and she walked towards the chair opposite him.

“What is it?” Y/N’s gaze was cast towards the ground, not wanting L to see her like this. “I’m sorry.” Her words were quick, worried that he was going to say something that would simply upset her more. “I-I didn’t mean too.”

L’s cold hand gently grasped her chin, lifting her face so that they could look at each other and he cringed slightly as he saw the tear threatening to fall from her eyes.

Okay, he is now really worried.

“What’s wrong?” His words were quiet but still laced with genuine concern, along with his eyes. “You can tell me.”

“It’s nothing, really.” The words stumbled from her lips, only worrying him more. “C-can I just go today? Please.”

L simply nodded, watching as she dashed from the HQ and out of his sight.

“Why do you keep disappearing?” Y/N’s mothers voice was the first thing she heard as she walked through the door.

“Please, leave me alone.” Y/N begged, simply wishing to be alone.

She made an attempt to dash upstairs, only to be stopped by her mothers tight grip around her wrist as she spun her around to face her. A hash slap hit the younger girls face with such a force that they both knew would leave a mark the following day.

“Y-Y/N…” Upon realisation of what she had just done, her tight grip around her daughters wrist loosened, hand dropping to her side.

“Never talk to me again.” YN’s words were quiet yet laced with venom before she finally dashed up to her room, one goal in mind:

Leave.

Her movements were quick as she packed her bag, tears leaking from her eyes in both pain and sadness,

Within minutes her bag was packed, tossed over her shoulder before she ran downstairs.

“Please don’t leave.” Her mother’s plead fell on deaf ears, the only response coming from the closing of the door as she watched her daughter leave, neither of them knowing if she would ever return.

It was cold. Very cold and Y/N cursed herself for not bringing a jacket, being in a skirt and t-shirt which was the same outfit she had worn to school today.

Shivering, she began her long walk towards HQ, something she knew would take a long time.

“What happened to you?” Detective Yagami’s voice was filled with panic upon seeing the tear stains on her cheeks as well as the bright red bruising hand-mark.

Lawliet payed no attention to his remark, simply assuming that Matsuda had had a clumsy accident yet again.

“Please, can I just sit down?” Was what captured his attention, the soft and exhausted voice being one he recognised immediately.

“O-of course.” Soichiro’s words were rushed as he signalled towards the seat he had previously occupied which Y/N gratefully took.

L spun on his chair to look at the girl, breath hitching as he took in her appearance.

He caught her gaze and she had looked up after hearing the spinning of the chair and she thanked whatever gods there were that it was simply the three of them.

“Detective Yagami would you mind if we have a moment?” L’s stare was unmoving as Yagami nodded, leaving the room.

“R-Ryu…” Her voice sounded broken, eyes filled with pain and he soon noticed the bag on the ground, quickly coming to the conclusion that something had happened at home, presumably with her mother, and she had ran away.

L quickly climbed onto his feet, opening his arms which Y/N gladly ran into, breaking down into sobs. His hand placed itself on her hair, burying itself into her hair as her face buried into his chest. L was uncaring as her tears soaked through his white tee; he only cared that she was okay. They stood like that for a long time, L providing comfort she didn’t know she needed.

“Come on,” L broke the silence as his girlfriend calmed down, her breath evening out, “lets get you to a room.” He offered her a hand as she pulled away, one she took with extreme gratitude, appreciating that it must have been hard for him to give her any affection.

Their hands never parted as they climbed the stairs of the HQ, heading towards Y/N’s new room. Ryuzaki had thrown her bag over his shoulder, the heavy weight of the bag not affecting him one bit.

The room was empty, and it was clear nobody was staying there.

The noise of the bag dropping to the ground was loud, startling Y/N whilst Lawliet remained unaffected, having been the one that had caused the noise; not that it would have scared him anyway.

Y/N was led towards the made bed by the detective, sitting herself down as he wordlessly instructed before taking a seat beside her.

“I’m sorry for being such a bother.” She apologised, making L shake his head in disagreement.

“You could never be a bother, Y/N. Not to me.” His words were less monotone than usual, less devoid of feeling. There was a genuine tone coming from him. “Matsuda’s a bother, not you.” He spoke which made the shorter girl chuckle, something she felt she hadn’t done in ages, despite it having only been a day, #

“Thanks, Ryu. For everything.”

“It’s my pleasure.” His arm wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her closely towards him until her warmth was felt by him. “I-“ He paused as he began to speak, extremely aware of what he was about to say.

“What’s wrong?” Y/N asked, confused at his sudden silence.

“I love you.” His words were quiet, almost unheard had it not been for the fact that the room was deadly silent.

The pair fell into an awkward silence for a moment before L got up to leave, apologising as he did so.

“Wait,” Y/N’s hand wrapped around his own, “I love you too.”

A small smile made its way onto both of their lips, L walking back over to the girl until he was stood directly in front of her. She watched closely as he bent down, unsure of what he was about to do. The second his lips touched her forehead a huge blush flowed across her cheeks.

“R-Ryu…?” Her embarrassed voice sounded, the only response she earned from him being a small smile before he gave her a pat on the head, turning to leave.

“Thank you.” She called, making him stop in the doorway.

“Anytime, Y/N/N.” The use of the nickname only made her blush harder.

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a-shakespearean-in-paris · 4 years

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Why Cullen?

Today I bring you a post I’ve been in the process of mentally drafting for a while, a post that essentially analyzes the age old question in the Dragon Age fandom: Why is there always something with Cullen?

To do this, I am going to go through different “phases” of Cullen discourse. My thesis and answering the titular question: It’s complicated, and I don’t think I can answer “Why Cullen,” but “there’s sometimes recycled discourses made about his character through the years, maybe there’s a pattern.” When it comes to Cullen’s detractors, I understand the fact that it might be frustrating to see much content for someone so “boring” when there’s more “interesting” and “well done” characters (though interest is of course relevant) so it leads to a lot of vitriol from both new and old fans who think the man had too much screen time already. Furthermore, he is highly complicated man dressed as a Disney prince, and the “Disney-esque” feel of his romance creates a dissonance between coming to terms with his problematic past and reveling in the romanticism. We can have a happy medium everyone, but because of what I can only describe as “tik tok thought” it’s become looked down upon to have problematic favorites, which leads to guilt in liking something problematic, or outright revisionism.

But liking things with problematic elements doesn’t make you a bad person.

Alright, let’s begin:

The first phase truly began of course with DAO with Cullen’s crush on the female Circle Mage Warden. Some were endeared, others not so much. I cannot speak to this phase too much as I was around 15-16 and pretty preoccupied with my high school drama instead of fandom, though I played both DAO and DA2 upon it’s release and followed updates for DA2 before it came out. Despite not being an active fandom member I was what they would call, a lurker. I knew some people liked Cullen and thought he was cute, wishing for more screen time after the game and hoping he’d be in DAI through IMDB message boards (remember those?) and YoutTube comments. When news broke he’d be an advisor in DAI and a romance option, I remember seeing a lot of people in those same spaces rejoice. I’m sure there were also people who weren’t so pleased, but from what I saw, people were happy. When Inquisition did release, I actually did quite a bit more lurking on tumblr despite the fact I didn’t have a blog, because I played the romance route, really gravitated toward it, and wanted to see fanart and such. People liked the romance, liked his arc and how Bioware handled his struggles with lyrium; and found it realistic. Even in my lurking days I did see some blowback on Cullen from detractors, those who didn’t think he should have been the military advisor (which canonically it makes total sense to me why he’s where he’s at, but I won’t get into it here however.) But likely because I wasn’t fully “in fandom,” my surface level understanding of how tumblr felt about Cullen was relatively positive and there was only standard fare discourse.

Phase 2: I can speak about this phase better because I established this blog in 2017. Two years after DAI was released, you still had a lot of fans who loved his romance and character, but you also saw a lot of those fans really dive into his flaws, insisting even that just focusing on the Disney Prince aspects of him reduced his character. There were also more internal debates. Would realistically Cullen be a good father was one. One thing however was for sure, there was a strange them and us line between detractors and fans, and to many fans, myself included, oftentimes the Cullen blowback would extend beyond the valid, “hey I don’t think his characterization was handled well” or “his redemption arc isn’t that great” to outright vitriolic hate that blatantly ignored his PTSD and lyrium addiction, and even sometimes “you just like Cullen because he’s white.” As a POC fan it was a fantastic thing to be accused of. I used to be more involved with discord during this period and I remember a few discussions about this as well. Even those indifferent to Cullen didn’t get it.

Overall, I have to say the air was one where people in Cullen fandom enjoyed all aspects of him, from delving into this troubled past to indulging in the Disney prince aspects of him. It was a happy medium I think, even if occasionally I would see a Cullen fan feel bad for liking him, and feel like they needed to justify it. Heck I even did and still do feel that way sometimes, like I need to justify what I like. But we all come into fandom for different reasons. I come into fandom some days for different things. Sometimes I want smut with my favorite character, other times I want more intense thought pieces and challenging fics. Great thing about fandom is that it’s a bakery that has cherry tarts, cinnamon rolls, or all kinds of pie depending on your mood. Craving a different sweet treat, you can make your own. Or you can commission an artist or writer for something you fancy.

*(sexual assault mentions here late in the paragraph****)And now I’ve been warped back into Cullen/DA fandom through what I am calling phase three, where the general air on Cullen reads as….very different. After having one foot outside DA fandom for a while coming back and reading the air has been different. There was the bizarre nuggetgate and other things with Cullen. Now, instead of accepting his flaws and exploring him there seems to be a lot of revisionism going on, as if his past never happened or we’re supposed to ignore he was a templar. A sexually active Cullen is looked down upon but in a different way from before. Instead of smut works with him “reducing his complicated character.” it’s distasteful to write smut with him where he’s sexually dominant or even just a lot of smut because he was sexually assaulted. (***Now, it is implied that he was, if you are a female Circle mage in DAO, with “sifting through my thoughts, tempting me with the one thing I always wanted but could never have” but this is an implication. I will be honest, it is what I have implied. However, it’s not there if you’re not a female Mage. He was however canonically sexually harassed in the Winter Palace, something I will always argue, even if canon treats it like a joke, even if Leliana tells him to “just look pretty.” Just because he is a man doesn’t make it funny that someone grabbed his bottom, and if you take Cole he flat out says “Cullen is afraid.”***)

So here I am, wondering what changed and what’s going on. Here’s what I believe: Cullen is a complicated character and his flaws and his past make him interesting to me, and they are interesting to explore. However there is nothing wrong with wanting to just explore a romantic, sexual Cullen. He’s a character with many facets. He’s romantic, determined, nostalgic, stubborn, unrelenting, loyal, driven, all things that made him seem so real. Here we get to my theory: in today’s media “criticisms” I see people—particularly younger people—beat themselves up for liking something problematic. It’s like every time you engage with media that’s potentially problematic you have to write essays to yourself why it is so and hold yourself accountable. I see this on tik-tok a lot and why I refer to it as “tik tok thought.” Look at the way some young Hamilton fans talk about the musical, or heck even here, and you may see what I mean. It’s like if you don’t acknowledge the problematic aspects of the historical figures behind their fictional portrayals in the show you’re a bad person. Same thing with nostalgic Disney fans my age in younger, if you don’t clown on Ariel for “choosing a man over anything” (SHE LIKED THE SURFACE WORLD BEFORE SHE MET ERIC) you don’t get your brownie points.

I want to make it clear: being critical of media is good. I am glad I see young people and people my age think about the messages we are given in media, but somehow this is turned into ANALYZE EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME. Ya’ll I’m a grad student. I’m critical most of the time, when I come to my tumblr blog’s lawn I’m here mostly to have some fun, and hey sometimes my fun is being critical. But sometimes it isn’t. You do not have to always be critical. You do not have to beat yourself up for liking something that’s problematic or write an essay about why it is as if that’s your due diligence in stanning a fictional character. I’m going to be honest I used to kind of think I had to justify my likes once, especially because of the Cullen vitriol on tumblr. I worked overtime in my early fanfic efforts to try to prove to the world I knew Cullen was problematic for fear I’d be perceived as just an idiot horny fangirl. Well, let me tell you: I largely don’t think that way anymore. If I want to just enjoy writing some smut or reading some smut with him, I am. But I think there is a second part of this in Cullen fandom currently, a revisionism of his problematic elements. Now, if you have to do mental gymnastics with a character in an effort to ignore problematic elements, perhaps you don’t like the character that much. That’s totally okay. DA has many awesome characters to write about and stan.

So, why Cullen? For so many reasons a bit of a shit show has always followed this character. There’s a divide between fans and his detractors and sometimes there’s a divide within the Cullen fandom. What I can extrapolate for now is the need to keep him squeaky clean and safe and away from anything “problematic” because his of past, his templar roots, or the fact that he’s white when there are POC characters with less content. It reads as a guilt associated with liking him. But please, do not be guilty. He’s not real. Templars aren’t real, mages aren’t real, Cullen isn’t real. Here’s my advice, something I learned while in my directing class in college. What my teacher always said was direct what turns you on, direct a story that gets you thinking, gets you excited. What gets you thinking and excited in a fictional world may be tons of conflict and dramatics, or it may be peace and love. Sometimes it can be both or more. Don’t shame others for coming to a bakery and wanting blueberry when you want cherry, and the baker has both, especially if the baker labels each pie, especially if the recipe for the pie has some salt in it and people like the salt. We can have it all and enjoy it all. What we want in our fiction doesn’t always align with something we may want real life. Lots of people write Modern girl in Thedas stories. Ya’ll if that actually happened to one of us it would probably suck. I’d probably get killed and not even get to meet Cullen and pose around the desk to get things going, so I’d rather it not happen. However, it is fun to read about.

Again, don’t be guilty for liking Cullen, please. But if you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to like Cullen, maybe you don’t like him at all. To that I say, there are many other amazing characters, or perhaps you could write your own.

#fandom critical #I spent too long on this #deleted a lot #but now it's written and I can move on #Cullen rutherford

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infinitelytheheartexpands · 3 years

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My Personal Opinions on Some French Grand Opéras

Here we go. I’ll be focusing solely on pieces in what’s widely considered the “Golden Age” of grand opéra (from 1828 to about 1870).

1828, Auber: La muette de Portici: never seen or heard so I cannot comment, but I do think it slaps that it helped start both the Belgian Revolution and the genre of grand opéra.

1829, Rossini: Guillaume Tell: I love this one. it’s one of the few grand opéras that has a happy ending and it’s fully deserved. it’s long but it all has a point-- the first act introduces us to the community spirit that drives the rest of the action; even though it’s called Guillaume Tell, it’s not just about Guillaume Tell. it’s about a whole movement coming together, with all these vividly-drawn people of different social statuses, ages, heritages, and livelihoods coming together to do good in the world in the face of oppression. also it’s Rossini so it bops start to finish. the finale is one of opera’s best. I could not have higher praise and admiration for this piece.

1831, Meyerbeer: Robert le diable: another rare case of a grand opéra with a happy ending, but it feels a bit more contrived, something I wrote about when I watched it about a year ago for the first time. it’s quite a clever ending, however, and I love that these lovely characters get a happy ending. Robert is the least interesting principal character both musically and dramatically; the musical highlights of the show are mostly Bertram and Isabelle’s big scenes. the former is also arguably grand opéra’s most exciting ballet sequence, the Act III ballet of the nuns (or as I like to call it, the Zombie Nun Ballet). it’s long but it is incredibly worth it. overall, I really do enjoy this opera although it is very much an uneven piece.

1833, Auber: Gustave III, ou le bal masqué: here’s a thing I wrote about it like 3 months ago and I stand by every word.

1835, Halévy: La juive: It’s damn near impossible to find an even remotely close to complete recording. However, what the recordings have is excellent. The score is marvelous all the way through, although for the most part I tend to prefer the ensembles to the arias (the exception, of course, being Éléazar’s 11 o’clock number). Speaking of Éléazar, he’s an extremely complicated and frankly uncomfortable character, toeing the line between being one of opera’s most complex characters, an even more complicated proto-gender-swapped-Azucena if you will, and being an unfortunate vessel of antisemitic stereotypes. This is made even more complicated because Halévy was an assimilated Jewish composer. On the whole, Rachel is the only wholly sympathetic character in the piece, although all five of the principals are lovingly scored.

1836, Meyerbeer: Les Huguenots: *holds things in because otherwise I would write an entire essay about this opera and you all know that because I have done that several times* Both a great strength and a great weakness of this piece is its sheer wide-ranging-ness, particularly in terms of mood. Unlike, say, La juive, this opera does not have one overall mood, instead steadily progressing from bright, brilliant comedy to one of the most horrifying endings in opera. Dramatically, this is great for the most part, although the sheer amount of exposition in the first two acts may take getting used to. Just as the drama gets more intense and concentrated as the opera goes on, the music gets more intense- and frankly, more often than not better- as the opera goes on. The window/misunderstood engagement business is something I still struggle to see the exact dramatic purpose of, because I think the question of religious difference would likely be enough to separate Raoul and Valentine at the beginning anyway; to me, it feels like Scribe and Deschamps were struggling to find a way to integrate Nevers into the story, as he is crucial to the opera’s lessons about love and tolerance, so they stuck in a quasi-love-triangle in order to justify his presence earlier on. (Also, for goodness sake, could you at least have given him an onstage death scene?) Anyway, in this way the story can be a bit unwieldy and uneven at first, but stay the course with this one...and even a lot of the first couple of acts are wonderful. The characters are all wonderfully written if rather episodic in many cases, but this opera is ambitious and by the end, it’ll tear your heart to shreds. It’s amazing. Uneven, yes, but amazing nonetheless, and I will defend it to the death.

1840, Donizetti: La favorite: I’m not as familiar with La favorite as with some of the others on this list (I’ve seen two different productions once each and I have a recording of it saved to my Spotify library that I listen to bits and pieces of very occasionally) but I do think it’s an excellent piece overall. LÉONOR DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER. The music is lovely all around; I know Donizetti wrote at least one other grand opéra in full and part of another, both of which I need to check out because in its own way, Donizetti’s style works wonderfully with grand opéra.

1841: Halévy, La reine de Chypre: here is a post I wrote about La reine de Chypre. basically all my thoughts remain the same except I have to add: Halévy as a whole just needs more love. there’s a few other of his operas I have waiting (a recording of Le dilettante d’Avignon that has been sitting in my Spotify for who knows how long and a film of Clari with Bartoli and Osborn I’m also sitting on) but there are so many pieces that sound fascinating but have basically ZILCH in terms of recordings.

1849, Meyerbeer: Le prophète: before I say anything else about this opera, I need to ask a burning question: WHY THE HELL IS THERE ONLY ONE GOOD VIDEO RECORDING OF THIS OPERA?!?! on the one hand, I adore the Osborn/Aldrich/Fomina production; on the other, I would also like other productions, please. anyway, I said one time in the opera Discord that while Les Huguenots will probably always be my favorite Meyerbeer opera for an array of reasons, this one is definitely Meyerbeer, Scribe, and Deschamps’ strongest work. it is both unusually dark and unusually believable for an opera of its time—and the fact that it still holds up so well is disturbing to say the least. this opera thrives on complexity in all forms and yet has probably (and paradoxically) the simplest plot to follow of the four Meyerbeer grand opéras. the score is brilliant start to finish, mixing the best of bel canto, Romanticism, and something altogether darker, stranger, and more original. definitely one of the most underrated operas ever. the aforementioned production is on YouTube with French subtitles; give it a watch here.

1855, Verdi: Les vêpres siciliennes: Vêpres is an opera I love dearly although I have yet to find a production that is completely satisfying. I think it’s because this opera is a lot deeper, a lot more complex, and a lot more troubling, frankly, than people are willing to go. also it should be performed bilingually and I am dead-set on this: the dissonance of an opera about French capture of Italian land being sung entirely in either French or Italian is always a little off at least (and also part of the reason why my brain probably adjusted to hearing this opera in either language better than, say, Don Carlos). but anyway, neither side comes off particularly well here, particularly due to the violence and sexual assault on both sides of the equation: both Montfort and Procida are heavily in the wrong, and while Verdi sympathizes with both for personal reasons (Verdian Dad in the former case, Italian Liberator in the latter), there is a lot of troubling stuff in here. nevertheless, the music bops, the story is intriguing, and I think we can all agree that Henri and Hélène both deserved better, especially considering how close they got to bliss (although I think we can also all agree that the end of Act IV twist to almost-rom-com is pretty abrupt).

1863 (full opera: 1890), Berlioz: Les Troyens: I wrote this review of Troyens after watching it in the Châtelet 2003 production in December 2019 (first time ever watching it) and I still stand by just about every word. Such a fascinating opera, great adaptation of the first few books of the Aeneid, marvelous score (of course, it’s Berlioz!)...but could there be a ballet or two fewer, Berlioz? Or at least shorten them up? And that’s coming from someone who likes ballet. But anyway, in every other respect it’s absolutely marvelous. Some people say it’s the greatest French opera ever, and while I hesitate to say that, it comes pretty damn near close.

1865, Meyerbeer: L’Africaine (Vasco de Gama): Vasco da Gama/L’Africaine is even more troubling—much more troubling—of an opera than Vêpres to me and I wrote a whole thing here as to why. I still stand by most of it, although upon reflection, I feel like the ending that drove me so crazy has virtually the exact same idea behind it as the end of Troyens/Book IV of the Aeneid: empire has consequences and those consequences hurt real people, who, though different and not among those perceived as “heroic”, are worthy of being treated as human, not being collateral damage. (I’ve written at least two essays about this for different classes, both specifically in regards to the Aeneid.) It may be time to revisit this one. The score is lovely, after all, although it didn’t stand out to me as much as others by Meyerbeer.

1867, Verdi: Don Carlos: *holds myself back from writing a 10-page essay* y’all, there is a reason that when someone asks me what my favorite opera is, I always choose this one even though I’m horrible at favorites questions. it’s Verdi, grand opéra, romantic drama (SO MUCH romantic drama and SO MUCH gay), political drama, religious/social struggle, personal struggle, social commentary, spectacle, intimacy, masterful characterization all in one. what more could you want? I first saw/heard this opera in Italian long before I did in French, so my brain is more hardwired to hearing the Italian but both are good. my motto is “Italian or French, I don’t care, but Fontainebleau has to be there.” fuck the four-act version. I mean, I will watch four-act versions but five-act versions are just superior. I’d prefer uncut performances (the first part of the garden, the Lacrimosa, the extended opening and ending), but these aren’t dealbreakers for me. it’s the perfect synthesis of Verdi and grand opéra, much less unwieldy than Vêpres (as much I love that one), both musically and dramatically.

1868, Thomas: Hamlet: Part of me wishes this was more faithful to the actual source play (why??? the??? fuck??? does??? Hamlet??? live??? although there are alternate endings), but part of me also realizes that the play is already four hours long as is and singing it plus ballet would make it WAY too fucking long. This does a pretty respectable job. The music is gorgeous, by turns almost sugary-sweet and thrillingly ominous. The Murder of Gonzago scene is an absolute masterpiece. The Mad Scene is justifiably one of opera’s best (although I’m not sure it was a good idea to have that and a frequently-cut 20-minute ballet with no relation whatsoever to the main plot to make up all of Act IV). There are a lot of bops in this one. The four principals are closely followed and still very well-drawn. Both of the stagings I have seen were excellent. An underrated opera.

1869 (grand opéra version), Gounod: Faust: Another of my absolute favorite operas. Since this existed for a decade before its transformation into the grand opéra we all know and love, I won’t comment much about its actual format and adherence to grand opéra tropes aside from saying the Walpurgisnacht ballet is one of grand opéra’s best and extremely good at giving off Vibes TM. I used to hate how the character of Faust was written and thought he was incredibly boring. Not anymore (although of course, I still hate him as a person. fuck him tbh). This opera has a reputation for being saccharine and old-fashioned and I think that’s a bunch of garbage right there. It’s about the search for eternal youth and the expectations of conforming to social values and people’s struggles with themselves when a) they “fall short” and b) when the world ostracizes them for being “different” and “out of line”. I am also firmly convinced that Marguerite is the real protagonist of Faust (like how I’m convinced that Valentine is the protagonist of Les Huguenots if there even is a singular protagonist in that opera but I digress). The music slaps. People need to stop cutting whole scenes out of this. I’m still undecided on the order of the church and square scenes of Act IV. Marguerite and Siébel just need everything good in this world.

Anyway, those are my two cents! I tried to keep these pretty short, so if y’all want any follow-ups, let me know!

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jasonsscar · 4 years

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The Ingenuine-ness of The Trials of Apollo - an Essay

As someone who has been following every Percy Jackson release since 2012 when Mark of Athena was released, I almost cannot believe it has come to an end. After fifteen books with five books across three series, it has come to an end with Rick Riordan closing the world as we know it (while leaving room for a possible stand alone novel or two in the future). Although I have had my qualms with the Heroes of Olympus story, I was willing to give the Trials of Apollo a chance to redeem itself and allow myself to continue this journey one last time. Upon reading the Tower of Nero, I felt as if the journey did not fully come to a close, due to many factors but the main factor being how Rick Riordan has chosen to not write a story he was passionate about but because he would have rather wrote a story he was hoping to make money off of.

Frankly putting it, Trials of Apollo felt like a rip-off of what Riordan wanted to be Percy Jackson and the Olympians 2.0, but reminding the audience that it was 2.0 constantly. The cameos just so happened to be the only thing that his audience seemed to ever be looking forward to every book and Riordan knew this. Plenty of interviews that he did as each book got released, Rick Riordan has always had a point of bringing up who was going to be making an appearance in each book. The Hidden Oracle was Percy Jackson and the rest of Camp Half-Blood. The Dark Prophecy had the appearance of Leo Valdez and Calypso. The Burning Maze had the addition of Grover Underwood (who the audience hasn’t seen since The Last Olympian), Jason Grace and Piper McLean. The Tyrant’s Tomb had Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arrelano, the Hunters of Artemis and the rest of Camp Jupiter. The Tower of Nero had the appearance of all of the characters in one way or another. Overall, there were very few characters who were new to the series. Even Apollo, who is considered a “fan-favorite” god among the fans is not an original character to this series, having been introduced in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Titan’s Curse. Nothing felt new and fresh and it is clear that Riordan is clinging onto these old faces that have enraptured his audience in the past to keep them holding onto this new series.

Although the characters were not the only problems that lead to the Trials of Apollo being as unpassionate as it feels. The plot overall was rather predictable from the beginning, hinting to the audience where it was going to lead to by the time the audience arrived at the Tower of Nero, the final book. Though, a fair argument could be set up that a larger scheme was at play within this series. The Hidden Oracle, the first book within the series, sets up that a company by the name of Triumvirate Holdings is trying to take control of all the oracles. Though, upon learning this information, the audience also learns about some information that is linked to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books from none other than Rachel Elizabeth Dare herself: “... during the Titan War, Luke Castellan mentioned he had backers in the mortal world? They had enough money to buy a cruise ship, helicopters, weapons. They even hired mortal mercenaries… That cruise ship, the Princess Andromeda, was property of Triumvirate Holdings” (The Hidden Oracle 197-198). Just reading this scene alone could get long time readers to believe that something more was coming. The ending to the series was really coming, this could almost be the ending to wars in general, no more battles or even the ideas of quests because they could no longer be funded by this company. Sadly, that was not what happened, rather the plot becomes dry. It follows a direct sequence of events not getting as complicated as it had been in the Heroes of Olympus series (although, Riordan has since learned the Heroes of Olympus was definitely out of his comfort level as an author).

This of course leads to how the Trials of Apollo as a whole ended. In the Tower of Nero the antagonists, Emperor Nero and Python, have been defeated. After conquering the many trials and the major quests he has been sent cross country to do, Apollo has finally returned to his rightful throne on Olympus, though, feeling out of place after what he had endured in the last six months. With the series having ended and Apollo having learned some valuable lessons during his time as a mortal, a lot feels unanswered. After the ending of the Last Olympian where Percy Jackson asked the gods to listen to their children and maybe take responsibility for some of their actions, they did not change. In the Heroes of Olympus, the gods were asked again to do this, take some responsibility, praise their children yet nothing happened. In the Trials of Apollo, Apollo himself comments on this when he says: “I suppose I could have raged at him and called him bad names… But it would not have changed him. It would not have made anything different between us. You cannot change a tyrant by trying to out-ugly him” (The Tower of Nero 377). This pegs the question, why only change one god’s perspective of mortal lives? The gods still have their issues, everything could have been resolved but was not. The book ends with the possibility of a stand-alone novel with Nico di Angelo and Will Solace after receiving news about a new prophecy for the two of them. Riordan will not close this series and the problems that could be fixed because he knows that it closes off all possibilities for him to continue and make more profit off of it.

Overall, while the Percy Jackson Chronicles as a whole is a rather fun read, I cannot help to be disappointed with the outcome of where the series stands as a whole. It has ended but it never really feels as if Riordan wants it to end. Some can argue that it is because some worlds never end. There is so much to discover but if that is the case, where is the close off then? Where is the satisfaction to the readers who have dedicated so much time and energy for this series? At some point, fans will grow tired and not be as passionate as they once were, because they will no longer feel that same passion in the words written. Instead they will begin to sense how the author is simply writing this all as a gamble for himself and to raise the already large sum amount of money he makes for the books he has written and sold.

Works Cited

Riordan, Rick. The Hidden Oracle. Disney-Hyperion, 2017.

Riordan, Rick. The Tower of Nero. Disney-Hyperion, 2020.

#this started as a joke #then four pages and 1k words later here i was #anyway idk have fun with this???#its not that fun of read sorry #also nooot my best work the longer i look at it #lmfao anyway #pjo #hoo #toa #ton #ton spoilers #tower of nero #tower of nero spoilers #percy jackson #rick riordan #kari writes #kinda #i know i didnt follow the complete mla format but i kinda needed it to be accessible for tumblr #sorry bout that rip

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yandere-wishes · 4 years

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Which Yandere Dorm Are You??

So a few days ago a friend of mine convinced me to watch the first two Harry Potter movies with her. Now I don't really like Harry Potter the story just isn't my type, but what I did like about the movie was the four dorms! This made me think of what it would be like if instead of "personality types" people got sorted into dorms or houses based on what they would be like as Yanderes. The end result was The six Yandere Dorms! Plus a quick look into my take of the yandere verse. Note that in no way, shape or form am I an artist so all the dorm Icons look very messy and horrible! In addition to that, the Yandere Verse section is still a draft I'll elaborate more on it later.

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At an unknown time in the future, a new ideology was beginning to bloom. It was an eerie, morbid sickening philosophy.... and yet it spread through society like wildfire. At first, people thought it was brought on by a sort of infection to a person's mind. Psychologists and doctors spent countless months trying to research it. They examined hundreds of people which they thought had gotten this new "disease", but there was nothing out of the ordinary for any of the patients. By the end of the study, countless researchers had stated that they too had begun to believe in this ominous phenomenon.

A year later the 75% of the population was starting to believe in and follow this new trend. What was this new trend you may ask? Well, it's rather complicated to explain...

The philosophy begins with the simple notion that a couple should have complete control over one another. That when two people consent to a relationship they have agreed to devote their entire lives to each other, thus they should know everything about each other, do nothing without the other person's knowledge and even be ready to kill for each other's love, respect, and protection. But it doesn't end there the philosophy continues to say that despite both partners needing to equally belong to one another, one is more entitled to pick and chose his lover. This statement was vague at first but soon started to make sense when it's devoted followers started to become obsessed with a person of their choosing. It was as if they could only function when they were in close proximity to their person of interest. Time spent apart from them caused to obsessor to act in a different manner than their initial personality. Most people where so desperate for the love of their obsession that they began to kill for it. First, as a means to gain attention, then as a means to protect them and finally as a means to own and control them.

A huge some of society started showing signs of playing into this "love disease" with roughly 55% playing the role of the obsessor and 45% playing the role of the victim. By the two year mark, many political figures had begun to rise in favor and support of this new romance perspective. The two most famous being Hera Saino and Delya Petra. The two where the firsts to come up with a name for this philosophy. Calling it the Lovesick Movement. It took after both the Romantic movement and the gothic movement. This abnormally long era was classified in its portrayal by gruesome arts with vivid colors, Writer who stopped writing about small-time crushes and instead took on stories about chaotic, devoted love being found amongst characters. Artists and poets stopped look for different sources of inspiration and instead only sought their one true obsession. It was especially popular amongst the younger generation, who spent a great deal of their time trying to the "best way" to show their crushes just how they felt.

Hera Saino and Dilya Petra were later dubbed the LoveSick Queens and also The Yandere Queens. They both played a role in naming the two groups. They took inspiration from old Japanese tails of lovesick driven murderers (which was also a style that was getting all the more popular). The obsessors were known as Yanderes while the victims were known as wither Beloveds or Darlings. After the naming prosses, the internet was flooded with online quizzes about a person's ideal darling or yandere. DIY's for "romantic weapons" and "passion restrains" were the most-watched videos globally.

In later years a new group of amorous visionaries arose, they were later called the Twisted Eight and they each played a role in classifying the various types of Yanderes in the world as well as exploring the traits and conditions of both Yanders and darlings/Beloveds. Amongst the group 240 book regarding the "lovesick movement" where published aswell as 59 legal books, documenting the new laws and rules the legal system should take up as a result of the lovesick movement. Each later became associated with the specific "yandere type" which they researched.

Erebus Zero- The founder of the "Sadistic" yanderes. Heavy believer that pain is closely associated with love and is the only means of displaying affection for certain people.

Shouta Caben- The founder of the "Obsessive" yanderes. Though to be the oldest classification of yandere as well as the primary source of anyone that is lovesick.

Elliot Belanger- The founder of the "Possessive" Yanderes. Founded on the belief that people should own their lovers and that they must do anything in their power to keep them as only there.

Renato Dean- The founder of the "Protective" yanderes. Lives off the faith that one must do anything and go to any extremes to protect the one they love, even if it means killing or dying for them.

Valentino Lazarus- Founder of the "manipulative" yandere types. Believes in using one's smarts and wits to "convince" a darling that they are meant to be.

Theodosia Slater- The founder of the "Delusional" yandere type. The ones that are stubborn and believe that their darlings love them already despite not even knowing their names.

Ivy Phillips- Not a founder, but the main researcher in the fields of twisted love and mad love. Twisted love is the rare marvel of two yandere falling in love with each other. While Mad love is when a darling not only falls into Stockholm Syndrom but begins to show yandere trait for their capture.

Alexandrite Iaculat- Not a founder but the main writer of the "new era laws". These are modernized laws and regulations which uphold the society and avoid it falling into anarchy.

The Dorms

Each of the dorms is organized internationally, meaning that dorm names and symbols are the same worldwide. Children get sorted into their "houses" when they reach the eighth grade (as a form of respect to the Twisted Eight) these houses will remain with them long after they have graduated. While someone's future job isn't always tied to what houses they where placed in there are certain occupations made especially for a specific type of yandere.

How the organization process works is that in the child's seventh year, they will write a series of personal essays and tests. These tests judge the child's analytical thinking, personality, "intensity" amongst other things.

For the sake of this story, we will be discussing the houses in general but will only be focusing their effect on a private school called Mysteria Academy.

Cruistica

The first dorm and one of the golden star dorms (the most valued of the dorms). Despite what people traditionally think of the sadist yandere, the members of Cruistica are sorted into this house due to having above-average analytical thinking and an uncountable curiosity. They are the ones who love their darlings without having a way to show it, they are intense and brutal yet also very tactical. They believe in proving they love their darling in a more physical way.... this doesn't mean straight out hurting and punishing them, it could be as simple as making them watch as they commit a murder or simply locking them away for a few days without human connections. Overall if you are someone who has a dark, twisted way of thinking, a curious mind and the need to control and claim your darling in every manner ever known, then this is the dorm for you! Common subtypes (Strict, controlling, obsessive-possessive)

Current dorm leader and vice dorm leader ( Ahri Cronos: Age: 18 Grade: 12 | Zion Sguis age:16 Grade: 11 )

media examples (Tony Stark (Marvel), Judar (Magi), Dabi (My hero academia) Kanato (Diabolik lovers)

Think of a mix between (Ravenclaw and Savanaclaw, maybe a bit of Ignihyde)

Jaséder

This dorm is known for their possessive nature...for lack of a better word. When they own something they rather die (or kill) to keep it as their's and their's alone. They are one of the more emotional dorms, despite not always coming right out to their darlings and saying "I love you". The motto of this dorm is "What's mine is mine and I'm willing to kill for it". In this particular academy, this motto is plastered in the main hall of the Jaséder house. If you are slightly greedy, clingy and will do anything for your goals then this is the dorm for you!

Common subtypes (easily jealous, obsessive-possessive, clingy)

Current dorm leader and vice dorm leader ( Mithra Helios; Age: 17 Grade: 11 | Vera Bellum age; 17 Grade; 11)

media examples ( Mammon (obey me), Zexion (kingdom hearts), Inosuke Hashibira (Demon Slayer), Katsuki Bakugo (My hero Academia) )

Think of a mix between (Slytherin and Octovinella)

Chissi

The obsessed house, the members of this dorm take fangirling / fanboying to new extremes! When they "fall" for someone. Every room in this dorm has a specific space for shrines to be built and built-in shelves for "borrow" items from one's darling. These people also tend to find a sort of tranquility in collecting things, organizing things and making lists. Arguably the most emotional and oldest dorm out of the six. Also a golden star dorm. If you are a fanboy/fangirl then this is the dorm for you!

Common subtypes (soft, obsessive-possessive, overbearing, (certain) childish )

Current dorm leader and vice dorm leader( Mania Zac: Age: 18 Grade: 12 | Pluto Ray Age: 18 Grade: 12)

media examples (Bucky Barnes (Marvel), Toga Himiko (My hero academia), Osamu Dazai (Bungo Stray Dogs), Satan (obey me) )

Think of a mix between (Hufflepuff and Scarabia and maybe a bit of Pomefiore)

Lockheart

People in this dorm and somewhat paranoid believing that harm lies behind every corner. They are probably the mon friend of the group and will make sure everyone is safe and sound. They are somewhat on the more caring side of students in the school they hate seeing people hurt and have the lowest kill rate. They normally lock their darlings up somewhere so no harm comes to them, will make sure that anyone how posses a threat to their darling is either far away or too scared to come near said, darling. Killing might be used as a last resort. In conclusion, you a mom friend but somewhat chill but also gutsy? You go here.

Common subtypes (soft, obsessive-possessive, overbearing,)

Current dorm leader and vice dorm leader (Zur Akarana Age:19 Grade:12 | Ruth Caballero age:18 grade:12)

media examples (Natasha Romanoff (Marvel), Lucifer (obey me), Sebastian Michaelis (Black Butler), Ruki Mukami (Diabolik lover), )

Think of a mix between (Honestly the personification of the love child between Hufflepuff and Gryffindor)

Almoakiso

This dorm is the most cunning, tricky and deceitful out of all the other dorms. They will make you believe that every lie is a truth every truth a lie. They can convince you of anything, anything at all! They will mangle your emotions and twist then to better suit their own needs. When they want a darling they will get that darling. the poor darling will soon fall into a sticky web of lies and half-truths, poor thing has already been distanced from all their friends the only person they can turn to is their loving and "totally honest" yandere. By the way, they have a rivalry with Cruistica over everything from grades and academics/smarts to darlings and weapons. If you are manipulative, tricky and cunning then step right en up to this dorm! Common subtypes (stealthy and strict, apathetic at times)

Current dorm leader and vice dorm leader( Damien Edgar age: 18 Grade 12 | Willow Violetson Age:16 Grade:10)

media examples (Loki (Marvel), Light Yagami (death note), Marluxia (Kingdome hearts), Azul Ashengrotto (Twisted wonderland) )

Think of a mix between (Slytherin and Ravenclaw with octovinelle sprinkled in there)

Rêve-De-Dies

The "baby" of the six dorms, the members of this dorm are stubborn, clingy and have way more emotions then they know what to do with. They zone out quickly, have short attention spans and often need others to bring them back on track. However, they are the friendliest house with the LOWEST death rate and the HIGHEST rate of truly happy darlings. If you are the baby or childish friend, are nice and always caught in your own mind then this is the dorm for you.

Common subtypes (Childish, clingy, soft)

Current dorm leader and vice dorm leader (Haoma Lune age: 17 Grade:12 | Aiko Larimore age:15 grade:10 )

media examples (La brava (my hero academia), Honey (OHSHC), Aladdin (Magi), Aalim Al Asim (twisted wonderland)

Think of a mix between (Hufflepuff and slight Scarabia)

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So guys let me know in the comments what you thought of the fic and which yandere house you are!

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legless-fish-on-rollerskates · 4 years

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ok so i havent seen supernatural (maybe a few eps here and there) but like cas and dean???? what is UP between them

Oh man. Ok. This could take a minute.

So Cas and Dean are best friends. (This isn't exactly hard because neither of them really have any other close friends except for Sam). Canonically, that's all they are. But a huge chunk of the fandom ships them. And so does basically the entire cast. Misha Collins (who plays Cas) especially. And for good reason.

(Semi-spoilers ahead)

Cas sacrificed everything for Dean. He's an ancient and powerful being who gave up his home and family and betrayed his entire species for a human he'd known for just a few years. And then he does it again. And again. Each time he is asked to choose, he chooses Dean. He's tortured for it. He's brainwashed because of it. And he comes back every time. Because for eternity, Cas had followed orders and ignored emotions because that was what was expected of him and he never thought to question it. Dean was the first person ever to treat him like he had a choice.

Dean grew up in liminal spaces. He never had a home. He never had a childhood. He was Daddy's little soldier, Sammy's stand-in mother. And he made mistakes, because he was just a kid and mistakes are what it's all about at that age. But no one ever told him that. So he beat himself up over everything he did wrong, and he never learned how to forgive himself. It's been stated on the show that no one could ever hate Dean more than he hates himself. And Sam has tried to tell Dean that's he's worth it, but Sam's his brother so Dean can never trust that he's speaking without bias. And then Cas comes along. An angel, something Dean's never believed in, pulls him out of hell and tells him that he deserves to be saved. Stands by him. Chooses him. Comes back, when Dean's greatest fear is everyone leaving him. Dean doesn't have faith in God, has never had faith in God. But he has faith in Cas.

There's lots of evidence that they're in love with each other. Dean was scripted to say I love you to Cas and break the brainwashing, but they changed it because it felt out of character for him to directly say it (he says "I need you" instead. It still breaks the brainwashing). Cas actually does say I love you to Dean at one point when he thinks he's dying. It's canon that Cas doesn't give a fuck about gender (he's not technically a man, but a wavelength of celestial intent), and there's enough evidence to make a strong case that Dean's bisexual. They argue like a couple, they communicate silently like a couple, their grief is horrible when one of them dies. (they come back. Everyone on supernatural has died at least once.) Sam's exasperation every time they get stuck looking into each other's eyes. I could write an entire essay on examples of how they're in love, there's so many of them. As Cas says, they have a "profound bond."

Tl;dr Dean Winchester and Castiel have quite possibly the most complicated dynamic of anyone ever, and their intense longing for each other is physically painful to observe.

#destiel #castiel #dean winchester #dean x castiel #profound bond #sam winchester #misha collins #supernatural #spn #ask box #dean loves cas #cas loves dean #it's basically canon #idiots in love

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polandspringz · 3 years

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I read your essay, but I was more concerned by how Diavolo and Simeon acted in the event than whether the devs were wrong for making it. Simeon obviously for his sneaky behavior and Diavolo for basically saying he wishes his alleged best friend had fallen under the same non consensual mind control spell as his brothers because it would be fun to see a new side of him, even though Lucifer clearly hates to lose control of himself. I know he would not enjoy that as much as Diavolo would, and I can't help but wonder if he actually cares about Lucifer. In events Diavolo is often messing around with the brothers, kinda using them for his own amusement, but this event really brought that into focus. It might not be as big of a deal as it feels to me because I'm kinda sensitive about stuff like mind manipulation for some reason, I can't help but be mad at him for basically not caring at all, which is disappointing since they just released all that stuff for the side characters... What are your thoughts on this?

I want to preface this by saying technically I am have not started lessons 21-40. I am aware of the events that happened in them, but have not played through them for myself, so I can’t necessarily comment on a lot of Diavolo’s character development in the recent lessons.

I think it’s fine to be uncomfortable with how the characters acted. Writing should evoke emotion, both good and bad. My post ended up going more into people being mad at the creators because I’ve been seeing that build up for months now, and just thought that now was a particularly trivial reason (and I didn’t want people to start attacking the devs for something that I think was just being misunderstood). Like you though, I did not like Diavolo and Simeon’s actions in this event either.

When I first read what the bangles did, my thought was that the characters were actually going to the Celestial Realm for a party, and that the bangles would just keep them from acting out while there and corrupting other angels or causing a scene. Simeon’s characters I think has just been always a bit more complicated than the pure angel that much of the fandom reduces him too (when I saw a screenshot of him saying “Did he just discover a new kink?” from a previous event, I was shocked.) We know about the Celestial Realm from the brothers’ talking about Lilith that the angels were aware of the human realm and it’s culture (although some of it is anachronistic in terms of them knowing about manga back when the War happened thousands of years ago), and so it seems that the story’s version of angels are not the way we normally see angels portrayed in media (100% good, never faltering), but instead are just like humans that are usually very good and selfless but capable of doing bad things. I think this brings up a good point with Simeon’s character about how hypocritical he acted during this event, forcing the characters to act good when he himself has committed what in, at least Christian interpretations, could be viewed as wrong (not necessarily a sin) but more of a bystander issue. During the main story even, he often is just standing back while the rest of the characters are having trouble, he’ll often just find amusement in what’s going on rather than step in to help. I think this brings to mind that theme again of questioning what is good and evil in the lens of this type of story. Lastly, I forget where I read it, but in the past I did extensive research on angels for my own writing, and I remember a detail in one interpretation of them that “angels often got into disagreements with one another” and that God had to step in to help resolve them. I think this is an interesting thing to point out that angels themselves are not 100% pure or perfect, and are just of capable of committing sins like the demons, (as that is what leads to them becoming demons to begin with). In the frame of this story, I think the way Simeon acted in this event and how he normally takes amusement in seeing the brothers’ struggle may be indicative of future story lines that may highlight through our perspective with the demons, that the Celesital Realm is not good and that we may actually see a character fall. I know the popular fan interpretation is Simeon, but I actually see Luke as the one who could stay behind in Devildom.

Now, in terms of Diavolo- I think he has always been a manipulator too. Although he enjoys spending time with Lucifer, we know from the story in Lessons 1-20 that in exchange for Lilith being saved, Lucifer had to swear himself to him. Diavolo and Lucifer cannot ever have a true friendship because of this, and although we are viewing the story through a lens that makes us more partial and sympathetic towards the demons, that doesn’t meant that all the demons are in that view. Diavolo from the start seems/acts like a nicer ruler than the one the Celestial Realm has purely because he gave the brothers refuge when they fell. He lets them be their true selves rather than hold them to strict, righteous standards (standards that this event showed are not even what the angels themselves are held to, thus making Simeon’s actions hypocritical). However, as much as he may seem to be friends with Lucifer, we have to remember that Lucifer and his agreement was not one of friendship, and their perceived friendship is much more one that has just been forged by happenstance of them being around each other for so long. I’ve incorporated this discussion on Lucifer and Diavolo’s relationship into a few of my fanfictions for this series, and I truly think that Diavolo wanting to see Lucifer act under a mind controlled spell is completely within his character. After all, he already has control over Lucifer in some ways, he already has power over him. Why would forcing Lucifer to act a certain way be any different of him?

I can understand why this still makes people uncomfortable. I think at a certain point in stories and through fandom culture, when we consume stories in small pieces and then discuss them at large, it allows for many more views and interpretations. (Like a big book club!) However, I think a problem can occur if the largely vocal aspects of that discussion circle are overtly negative or angered about something within the media, as it normally does not fuel a positive discussion about the work (as in, constructive discussion, not positive as in considering the work perfect with no flaws) but instead can quickly spiral into a hate circle. Works can cause you to experience emotion and feel conflicted about things, which is a good thing. However, when you then discuss those things with others, I wish I saw more people not being so strong with their language in discussions of “I hate all these things” without talking about why or examining it. I probably sound very pretentious with all this, but like I said in my previous post, I think this is just one example of a greater problem in all fandom culture. I guess a more clearer example of this would be that the fact that the “book club” has people from so many different ages and backgrounds, but no one to moderate like in socratic seminar or no one who knows the ultimate, true answer (even though there never is one to writing, but with classics and established books we tend to all agree on main themes, symbols, and points that we find more valuable or more central to discuss) and what can often happen is members of the circle with less maturity or less experience in consuming media become the more vocal groups and refuse to hear other sides, thus spawning more negativity and preventing more discussion.

I promise that last bit wasn’t directed at you at all! I just thought of it was a good way to sum up my whole thoughts at the end. I’m glad you messaged me asking for my thoughts on Diavolo, and just to end off, I think we cannot mistake that there might be a culture difference in Japanese creators making a romance story. Like how Belphegor is categorized as the “yandere” character, some Japanese players may prefer Diavolo fitting some trope that has more negative, darker connotations. (Although it’s only hitting Japan now, the game itself is Japanese. I still don’t know why it was released to the western market first, but usually Japan is the predominant market). Anyway, that’s all the thoughts I have more now. If you have any more questions, I would be happy to follow up on anything I said here!

#obey me #obey me shall we date #poland's thoughts

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professionalfixator · 4 years

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The Complicated Relationship of Gilbert and Moody

An Analysis That No One Asked For But Got Anyway

By G.H. Tehrani, Psychology Student

The relationship of Gilbert Blythe and Moody Spurgeon is complicated to say the least. It is also complicated to analyze, given that the amount of screentime of them is extremely limited, ranging anywhere from a few seconds to a minute. But from this little screentime showrunner Moira Walley-Beckett gave us, there is a lot to break down. While you may think this is an unimportant relationship to break down (why not Moody and Charlie, or Gilbert and Billy?), Gilbert and Moody could actually have a large role in future seasons and can say something really interesting about the state of society - but more on those later. First, we have to take it back to the beginning.

Where It All Started: Season 1

As you all know, because we are watching from Anne’s perspective, we meet the schoolkids after they have all known each other for years. We don’t know exactly how long they have known each other, but since it’s a small town, I’m going to guess it’s been since they were little kids.

In episode 3, Gilbert walks into the schoolhouse and we instantly know his social role. He’s the tall, smart, popular guy with the dark eyes that all the girls love. Interestingly enough, the first person to call out Gilbert’s name when he returns to school is Moody, who immediately pulls him away to ask him all about his travelling adventures.

Moody is, simply put, the opposite of Gilbert in Season 1. He’s shorter than the other boys, chubby and jolly. It’s not a far cry to say that Moody admired Gilbert, and aspired to be like him, especially since Gilbert is a year older. Most of the boys did. Moody most likely always wished that he could have the same kind of attention that Gilbert gets from the girls, instead of just being called “ridiculous” (as Diana delightfully put it). No one would ever call Gilbert ridiculous...he’s Gilbert!

We can tell by their interactions that Gilbert is at least vaguely friends with Moody and the other boys. He jokes around with them, goofs off in class, and generally seems to be having a good time with them.

But when Gilbert’s father dies in Season 1 Episode 6, we see a drastic change in Gilbert’s personality, and this lends itself to changes within his relationships as well.

Gilbert’s Crisis: Season 1 to Season 2

After Mr. Blythe’s death at the end of Season 1, we see a much more emotionally disturbed version of Gilbert. He’s grieving, and not taking it well. He pushes everyone away, including Anne, and punches Billy in the face when he calls him his “bud”. Although we don’t see Moody in any of this, we do get a look inside Gilbert’s head. The insensitivity of his classmates puts him off and for the first time, he sees the gap between him and them. They’re still kids and don’t understand the weight of what he’s going through. This most likely factored into his decision to leave town and travel the world.

When he meets Bash, it seems like Bash gets through to him, helping him heal from his father’s death. He sings, writes letters to Anne, and seems like he’s having the time of his life (who wouldn’t be, travelling is awesome). He also discovers his passion for medicine when he gives birth to a baby in Trinidad.

Growing Up: Season 2

While Gilbert was travelling the world, Moody was having some firsts of his own. He has his - presumably - first kiss in Season 2 Episode 5, when he’s forced to kiss Diana during spin the bottle. But overall, it seems like he was still the same character he was in Season 1, just a little older, but that could be because we hardly get to see him this season, at least in the first 5 or so episodes.

But it seems that travelling did Gilbert a world of good, because when he returns to Avonlea with Bash, we see him chatting with his schoolmates.

He seems perfectly fine here, almost like his old sociable self, but there’s a distance there. Things can’t quite be the same. He agrees to help with the pantomime, but stays off to the side, not interacting with any of his schoolmates. He actually never interacts with his schoolmates after that brief shot in Episode 6 of Season 2, except for going to help Cole when he breaks his wrist (thanks, Billy), but that doesn't entirely count, since he was in Doctor Blythe mode. In every schoolhouse scene, Gilbert is sitting by himself studying for his vocation. We really don't see any kind of Gilbert-schoolmate relationship, nevermind Gilbert and Moody. The only times we see them in the same scene or frame was:

1. When Moody is backstage during the pantomime and Gilbert is manning the rig, however we don't see them speak to each other,

And 2. When Moody is about to lick the lightbulb and Gilbert, Anne and literally everyone else in the room yell at him not to.

So, this leaves us with Season 3, where most of Gilbert and Moody's interactions occur, and where we can really closely study their relationship.

At Odds: Season 3

At the start of Season 3, we're put at a bit of disadvantage. We have no idea what happened in the last 2 years since Season 2, but we can assume that it followed the same pattern, the schoolkids growing up and having new experiences, while Gilbert drifted away into adulthood.

At the beginning of Season 3, we see him playing hockey with the boys, so he isn't completely detached (yet). Gilbert is still ignoring Ruby (more on that later) and Moody is flirting with Diana.

Again they don't interact. Now, just because we don't SEE them interact doesn't mean that they never do, but it's safe to say that outside of the canon scenes, they don't either. Case in point: the 3x01 classroom scene. Gilbert is sitting in a corner reading a book, and Moody is on the other end of the room talking with some other boys. No interaction.

Gilbert is playing with them, yes, but that doesn't mean he is ONE of them, not anymore anyway. (Note: It is mentioned that he leaves often to go to Charlottetown for his apprenticeship with Dr. Ward.) The boys probably view him as less of a peer and more of this distant figure who is sometimes there and sometimes isn't.

But! Remember what we mentioned early on in this essay: "It’s not a far cry to say that Moody admired Gilbert, and aspired to be like him, especially since Gilbert is a year older. [...] Moody most likely always wished that he could have the same kind of attention that Gilbert gets from the girls."

Things have changed now, Moody is older. Slimmer and taller, but that doesn't mean he's not still insecure. He still respects Gilbert and his opinion. The evidence for this?

1. In 3x05, when Moody is injured and the Indigenous healer offers him the leaf of a weeping tree, he initially refuses, only accepting because it was Gilbert who told him it was okay to eat it,

2. Also in 3x05, Moody asks Dr. Gilbert if it’s okay to dance, but Gilbert says no, so he doesn’t dance,

3. And in 3x07, when Moody rightfully criticizes Anne for her article, the moment Gilbert claps back at him in her defence, he immediately shuts up and looks almost sheepish - showing us that he really values Gilbert’s opinion, even though earlier on they are clearly seen arguing - only interrupted by Miss Stacy’s paper airplane.

These are all moments that show us that Moody respects Gilbert, because he’s older and is studying to be a doctor. However, he is the only one that thinks that way. By this point, most of the Avonlea boys don’t want to be friends with Gilbert anymore (this is made clear by the fact that none of the boys are seen talking to him ever). Gilbert has pushed them away enough times for them to stay away. But Moody is the only one who still wants to be friends with Gilbert. This is evidenced by:

1. In 3x08, Moody actively attempts to make conversation with Gilbert at Miss Stacy’s house. He asks him about Winifred and invites him to the ruins (possibly hopeful that he would actually show up),

2. Also in 3x08, Moody hyperventilates and yells, “Where is Gilbert!?” - either because of Gilbert’s doctor status or because he wanted him to be there for moral support,

3. In 3x09, when they’re rebuilding the school, Moody AGAIN tries to make conversation with Gilbert, asking him about Winnie and what he’s going to do after he’s married, but Gilbert blows him off and walks away in the middle of their conversation,

4. and finally, in 3x10, when they get their exam results, Moody congratulates Gilbert by calling him PEI’s finest.

More than once we see Moody try to be Gilbert’s friend, supportive of him, and time and time again Gilbert blows him off or treats him like he’s less than. Because in Gilbert’s mind, he is. Moody could never understand him. We can tell by his responses to Moody’s advances. Blank stare, eyebrows, “That’s not how it works”, “I know what you meant Moody” or just not showing up. He doesn’t show up to the ruins, the only reason he went there was to talk to Anne. He treats Moody like he’s below him or just one of his patients - like in 3x05.

Not to mention that he purposefully humiliated him in 3x07 in front of Ruby. Moody was right about Anne’s article, and he was in the right to voice his opinion, and Gilbert arguably crossed a line by putting him down, exposing Moody’s feelings for Ruby to the class (don’t think Gilbert chose a random person for his demonstration).

But, I’m not going to get too ahead of myself, because we haven’t even talked about Ruby yet.

Gilbert, Moody and Ruby: Season 1 to Season 3

Ruby genuinely loved Gilbert.

That’s a bold statement, but it is arguably true. She cared for him, about as much as a 10 to 16-year-old could given their less developed prefrontal cortex. Sure, it was a little obsessive, but you can’t tell me there wasn’t some actual feeling in there. In 1x03, Josie tells us Ruby has liked Gilbert for three years, and by the time we get to Season 3, six years.

S i x y e a r s. For Ruby to be able to like Gilbert for six years, she must have seen something in him other than looks (though she mentions it the most). In Season 1, Gilbert is handsome, kind, charismatic, and smart. I could see where she’s coming from. He was a good guy.

But here’s the thing, for all of Ruby’s love and adoration, Gilbert never gave her a single thing back. (Yes, he lifted her off the ground, but that was because Anne was there.)

Not once did Gilbert ever do anything nice for Ruby because he actually wanted to. No matter what Ruby would do, how obvious she made her feelings, Gilbert ignored her and liked Anne - her best friend(!) instead. The gentlemanly thing to do would have been to tell Ruby he wasn’t interested in her, but that never happened. I don’t know if that makes Gilbert an oblivious boy or a jerk. But he couldn’t have been that oblivious since he’s an observant guy.

The only explanation would be that he didn’t see Ruby an important person to clear things up with. Again, we see Gilbert deeming people less than because of his own cognitive bias toward thinking he is superior to everyone else in maturity because of his life experience. The only reason he paid any attention to Anne in the first place, was because he deemed her as an equal to his superior maturity, which she was.

Given all this, where does Moody fit in?

Moody was always a good friend to Ruby. We don’t see it very much, but they were in the same school together, and Moody helped her and Anne save Miss Stacy.

But that also means, being Ruby’s acquaintance/friend, he watched her cry over Gilbert for six years.

For six years, he has seen Ruby try and fail to get Gilbert’s attention and be disappointed when it doesn’t work out. A never-ending cycle of tears and hurt, that Moody could do nothing to help because he was just her guy friend. We know Moody wants to help people - that’s why he’s going to become a minister - so for him to be unable to help Ruby is just painful.

In Season 3, Moody has experienced a similar situation with Diana (Diana deems people less than because of her superior social status and wealth), so now he knows how Ruby feels and he’s even more empathetic toward her.

Does Moody harbor resentment toward Gilbert for his treatment of Ruby? Maybe.

In 3x03, when Ruby is crying over Gilbert’s absence (again) and accidentally wrote his name in the newspaper. Everyone laughs but Moody looks on sympathetically, showing this is upsetting him more than it is amusing him.

When Ruby says, “Gilbert was so heroic”, Moody gives her his handkerchief, which in that time period was a very heroic thing to do. It’s an act of romance and the first nice thing a boy has ever done for Ruby...which is kind of sad if you think about it. Moody is conveying in that moment that Gilbert isn’t the only heroic boy in Avonlea (he is too).

This means so much to her, that she ends up getting over Gilbert and falling for Moody instead, which is the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen on TV.

The Future of Gilbert and Moody: Season 4 and Beyond

Even though Anne with an E was sadly cancelled in November 2019, due to an ongoing dispute between Netflix and CBC, that doesn’t mean we can’t theorize about the content of a future Season 4 and 5.

We know Moody is going to be going to Queens withe rest of his classmates and Gilbert is going to University of Toronto. However, Moody’s time at Queens is probably temporary. In the books, he becomes a minister, so I searched up Bible Colleges in Canada to see where he would be able to train as one. I discovered that a new college had just opened in the late 1890s: Toronto Bible College, which trained common-folk as missionaries and ministers.

The cool part? Toronto Bible College was down the street from University of Toronto.

Moody and Gilbert would be going to school together, maybe even rooming together, for the next 3 years.

How would their relationship in Seasons 1 - 3 factor in to their experience as roommates? It would be interesting to see Moody confront Gilbert for what he did to Ruby. This would give Gilbert an opportunity to redeem himself and be likable again.

Some Controversial Conclusions on Gilbert Blythe

I started this essay in early January, but it is now late March and I have left the Anne with an E fandom. One of the reasons I left was the growing toxicity and idealization of Gilbert. All the time I would see tweets and posts claiming that, “Gilbert is my dream man”, “I wish I had a guy like Gilbert”, “The only good guys are fictional (Gilbert)”. It ticked me off because it’s just not true. Gilbert is not a good guy. He is a jerk with a superiority complex.

In every version of Anne, Gilbert completely worships Anne. He adores her, writes poems for her, almost dies without her. He is very needy and clingy, and we view that as romantic, because we want to be worshiped.

Dating Gilbert would include him being unable to survive without you, constantly fearing you’re going to fall out of love with him, needing constant reiteration of your feelings, showering you with affection and flowery words, and possibly not allowing you to have any male friends. That isn’t romantic.

Being true equals in a secure relationship would be understanding that you love each other - and being secure in that - and being able to let them be free to do the things they want to do without constantly needing validation. I’m not saying Gilbert in AWAE is toxic, but he has severe communication issues that no girl should have to put up with.

Note: I’m not saying that Gilbert is a bad person through and through. He is a gentle soul, we see it in his interactions with Bash, Mary and Delphine. A lot of his negative actions may have subconscious causes. But we’re not slaves to our subconscious. Even if we are implicitly being a jerk, there are still conscious ways to change our behavior and become better people.

#gilbert blythe #moody spurgeon #friendship analysis #psychology #tv analysis #analysis #anne with an e #awae analysis #relationship breakdown #long post

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Netflix’s Witcher: What Makes a Good Adaptation? – A companion piece

If you’ve somehow found this without seeing the video first, here’s a link:

In this video I analyze the screen adaptations of Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, and the Witcher series. I use the comparisons of the three to discuss what makes adaptations in general work and to explain why I feel the Witcher is heading down the road to mediocrity.

However, this is a hugely complicated subject, and the works themselves are also complex, especially Martin’s work. I make plenty of claims in the video that a reasonable person could disagree with without any explanation for why I think they are true. Unfortunately, if I were to go down every rabbit hole that I touch on the video would be hours long, so I have to gloss over some potentially confusing or controversial statements.

Enter this post. Here I will be attempting to pre-empt any questions that I think people may have, and go through my thought process on certain claims. I don’t recommend that you read the whole thing. Each explanation will be followed by a timestamp and relevant quote from the video that I am expanding upon so that you can quickly search the page and find what you are looking for.

I’m sure there will be things I don’t think to cover, or things that are poorly reasoned both here and in the video, so feel free to ask additional questions. Just please check to make sure you aren’t asking something that I already covered here.

I will also be attempting to give as much credit as possible to all the wonderful writers and creators who have influenced my thinking with regards to these works. I’ll be linking as much as possible to my sources, as well as to additional content that expands on ideas I mention. Also I’ve included some personal tidbits and commentary, just for fun.

Under a cut for length.

INTRODUCTION:

Huge props to the people who put together the behind-the-scenes footage of LOTR. I’ve watched all the bonus footage numerous times in my life. If you have any interest in the nitty-gritty of how movies get made, I can’t recommend it enough. It really shows all the work and complexity that goes into making movies. That they even get made at all is honestly incredible, especially massive undertakings like LOTR.

[3:30] And if you've ever wondered what the hell happened to The Hobbit, to me it seemed like they were indulging all of these worst impulses instead of catching themselves and editing them out like they did in LOTR.

As soon as I saw that they were making three Hobbit movies my hopes plummeted. It just reeked of executive meddling, and of trying to make the story into something it just isn’t. Lo and behold, that’s what we got: sticking in loads of unnecessary and thematically incoherent material to stretch out the runtime and make it more “epic.” I couldn’t bring myself to watch past the first one, but Lindsay Ellis has an excellent video series exploring in detail what went wrong with the trilogy.

PART ONE: LORD OF THE RINGS

[8:40] If you followed the events and the chronology of the book they would just hang out with Faramir for a little bit and then the movie would end

Technically it’s more complicated than this because that’s already following the revised movie timeline. In reality, Frodo would have just left the Black Gate. They *are* moving the events around to some extent, usually by a few of days here and there, but they can’t move stuff together that takes place weeks apart or the whole timeline would crumble.

[9:55] You can call it the theme, the soul, the spirit, the point, or whatever else you want, but the great works of fiction have something at their core that pulls everything together and elevates it into art. It’s a difficult thing to describe, but I think this scene perfectly tapped into the soul of Tolkien’s work.

Huge shout out to Bob Case and his video “Blame of Thrones” for first introducing me to this concept and the language of the “spirit” of a work to describe this phenomenon. In many ways the first two parts of this video are merely building on the LOTR-GOT comparison that he makes in that video, digging a little deeper and looking at more specific and concrete (and spoileriffic) examples of what he’s talking about so that we can apply these ideas to the Witcher…and beyond. Like all his work, it’s excellent. His YouTube is pretty much inactive these days, but he also occasionally writes content for Shamus Young’s blog if you want more of his work.

PART TWO: GAME OF THRONES

Alright, here it is: the section that really caused me to want to make this companion piece. Earlier I mentioned that I have sympathy for the GoT showrunners, and I really do. Martin’s work is incredibly complex, and so this section dominates the blogpost because there is so much to explain and no way that I could explain it all in the video without incredible bloat.

First I should mention that I, and all the writers I am going to credit here, share a very specific interpretation of Martin’s work. This isn’t the only interpretation. I doubt it’s the interpretation of the majority of readers. Obviously, I fully believe it is the correct interpretation, but the showrunners clearly had a wildly different one.

People who have this interpretation express it in different ways. Joannalannister collects hers in her tag #the-meaning-of-asoiaf. PoorQuentyn expresses it here, and in his analysis of Davos, Quentyn, and Tyrion. Other writers express it in their own ways.

With my lit degree hanging over my head, I can’t help but see it as a problem of competing artistic movements. To me, HBO’s Game of Thrones is part of the art movement of the past few decades, namely postmodernism. Art movements are complex, but basically postmodernism is the cynical reaction to the sincerity of modernism which came before it. Cynicism is, I think, the defining trait of Game of Thrones.

But it is NOT the defining trait of the books. In my view, Martin’s ASOIAF is part of the art movement that we are moving towards, which is starting to become known as metamodernism. Metamodernism is a reaction to the nihilistic pessimism and cynicism of postmodernism, and replaces it not with the unbridled sincerity of modernism, but rather oscillation between the two modes. It can be both ironic and sincere, deconstructionist and constructionist, apathetic and affectual. Once you have peeled back all the layers however, it is ultimately hopeful and optimistic. It embraces a sense of radical optimism. In metamodernist works optimism is often radical because the world the characters live in can be so dark. But that darkness serves only to highlight those characters that can hold fast to virtue amidst such darkness.

So, be warned. If you believe that Martin’s work is all about controlling the Iron Throne, and believe that cynicism is for the wise and honor is for fools, we just aren’t going to see eye to eye.

[12:45] Ned is a competent northern politician who has some trouble adapting to southern culture. Through a combination of bad luck, some understandable mistakes, and a misconception about his position, he fails in his goals.

The show didn’t invent the idea of Stupid Honorable Ned. Plenty of people believed this, even before the show. Obviously I believe they are wrong. If you would like to read more about it I would suggest Steven Attewell’s analysis of Ned’s chapters that he does on his blog, particularly Eddard XI and Eddard XIII. Steven does a much better job of analyzing Ned as a political actor than I ever could.

[13:00] Most of these changes are subtle…the best example is the council debate about whether or not to assassinate Daenerys.

Many of the ideas in this section are pulled from two essays by turtle-paced: Poor Doomed Ned and The Argument to Assassinate Daenerys. Turtle goes deep into the details of the differences between the Ned Stark of the books and the show, and I skimmed some of their comparisons for my argument. Steven Attewell’s analysis of this chapter is also worth reading.

[14:09] It’s a good argument, and I think in the books we are expected to mostly agree with Ned, both morally and politically.

When I say “expected” I mean from the authors point of view, which of course relies on me being correct about my interpretation of Martin’s work. Obviously I think I’m right, but if you don’t agree with my interpretation you may not agree with this statement.

[14:16] Notice also that the supporters of the assassination: Littlefinger, Varys, Renly, and Pycelle are all villains (all except Pycelle are trying to destabilize the kingdom), and the people who oppose it, Ned and Barristan, are heroes.

Each of them represents a different sort of evil. Littlefinger is a scheming sociopathic villain. Varys is a well-intentioned extremist whose willingness to commit utterly heinous acts in the pursuit of his goals makes him a villain. This is because, as Huxley puts it, “The end cannot justify the means, for the simple and obvious reason that the means employed determine the nature of the ends produced.” Renly is narcissistic ambitious evil, willing to throw a realm into war to satisfy his own ego, and is totally uncaring about the lives of other people. It isn’t precisely correct to say that Pycelle is a villain because he represents the banality of evil. He thinks he’s just doing his job, but he’s morally bankrupt and politically corrupt.

[16:40] It would take too long to list all the ways that Tywin is awful, and everyone knows it.

To clarify, I mean that everyone in-universe knows it. For some god-forsaken reason, some readers seem to think that Tywin was just being effective after he unleashed the Mountain on the Riverlands and violated every military and political norm in Westeros.

If you are going to say that he is “Machiavellian” I would encourage you to actually read The Prince, where Machiavelli says “Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred” and goes into the reasons why.

[17:17] Tywin on the other hand accomplished a lot of short-term gains by being as treacherous and dishonorable as possible. But this has a cost: by proving themselves fair-weather allies they surround themselves with the same. Nobody trusts them, and so their allies scheme and betray them.

Oberyn and Doran are both scheming in their own way to revenge themselves on the Lannisters for the deaths of Elia and her children. The Tyrells poison Joffrey and scheme to spirit Sansa away to Highgarden.

[17:36] Ned failed due to a couple of minor mistakes, some bad luck, and treachery.

I mention a few times that Ned, and more broadly the Starks, get “unlucky.” Again, Steven Attewell does an excellent job of documenting this with his keen eye for how GRRM cheats political realities, but I’ll note a few of the many ways George has to bend over backward to screw the Starks.

In AGoT Catelyn leaves King’s Landing roughly around the same time that Tyrion leaves the wall, and both are on horseback. In order for them to meet at the Inn at the Crossroads Tyrion has to travel roughly 2,000 miles in the same time that Catelyn travels 400 miles. This is basically impossible, but necessary for the plot so that Catelyn can lose Tyrion at the Eyrie. If she had caught him somewhere further north she could have simply chucked him into her own dungeons and managed his trial herself.

Cersei has been trying to kill Robert for goodness knows how long with just as unreliable methods as “get him drunk on a hunt.” In order for Ned to get screwed she has to succeed in killing Robert at precisely that moment. If it had failed like every one of her other attempts she is most likely dead, because Ned would tell Robert the truth about her children as soon as he got back.

In order for Theon to take Winterfell, veteran military man and castellan Ser Rodrik Cassell has to stupidly empty the Winterfell garrison while he knows that Ironborn raiders are running loose in the North, not even leaving behind a mere twenty-five to fifty men that would have completely thrashed Theon’s assault. If Theon can’t take Winterfell, the Red Wedding doesn’t happen (as Martin has told us that the real inciting incident of the Red Wedding was the fall of Winterfell).

[17:41] However, killing him was a terrible idea, and backfired on the Lannisters instantly.

Continuing this theme, the Lannisters were in an absolutely horrible position at the beginning of the War of the Five Kings. They pretty much just have their bannerman in the Westerlands. Stannis seems to have the support of most of the Crownlands, and he and Renly are splitting the lords of the Reach and the Stormlands (with Renly having the larger chunk). The Starks have all the support of the North and the Riverlands combined. The Lannisters are surrounded by enemies who outnumber them on all sides. Killing Ned immediately jumpstarts a war that will almost certainly crush the Lannisters. That it didn’t took some very thin plotting and improbable developments at times, but overall George made it work. For more analysis of this, again check out Steven Attewell Blog: Race for the Iron Throne.

[17:48] Tywin was killed by both a guest whom he considered his ally, and his son.

I firmly believe Oberyn poisoned Tywin. Here’s a good rundown of the evidence. Beyond simple means, motive, and opportunity it also provides neat answers to lingering odd questions like why Tywin rotted so oddly and aggressively, why Tyrion knew he would find him in the privy, why Oberyn was willing to chuck his life away for a confession before seeming to have secured revenge against Tywin.

It’s also thematically juicy. I love the idea that Tywin, who so egregiously violated Westerosi norms culminating in the total breach of the social contract at the Red Wedding, was a victim of contrapasso. He can’t be protected by social norms, so he gets poisoned by his guest and ally. Did Tyrion know he was dying? Had he put it all together? Was that bolt really an act of mercy? Perhaps it was one final service to the Lannisters, to keep the dream of their alliance with the Martells alive. Who knows, but boy is it interesting to consider.

[18:13] his alliances fall to pieces, and his children are abandoned by even their own family.

I’m referring here to the infighting between the Tyrells and Lannisters (and Martells, though they never had any intent of staying true to the alliance) after Tywin’s death (though there was some before as well, just intensified after Cersei takes over from Tywin). Kevan forces Cersei to take the walk of shame, and Jaime and the rest of the Lannisters abandon her to that fate.

[19:41] Just like Lord of the Rings, and the Witcher, ASOIAF is clearly dedicated to anti-violence. Not pacifism: all three works have heroes dealing out retributive violence in order to try and restore justice.

I understand it might be odd to suggest that three works which feature so much violence can be dedicated to anti-violence, but depicting something is not the same as endorsing it. I would argue in the case of Martin’s work in particular that his depiction of violence, so un-romantically brutal and direct, is intentionally revolting, and therefore is designed to be anti-violence. Martin purposefully makes you want revenge on certain characters, gives it to you, and then forces you to stare at the inhumanity of this thing you thought you wanted. Yeah I wanted Theon to pay, but not like that. Yeah, I wanted Cersei to pay, but not like that. Yeah, I want the Freys to pay, but I don’t think I’m going to like what Stoneheart is going to do to them.

There is a certain amount of this in the Witcher as well. I can specifically think of one scene in The Blood of Elves, but I promised no Witcher spoilers.

The violence in LOTR is much more romanticized, but as Faramir says: “I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” The hero is still Frodo, who doesn’t fight anyone or anything in the whole story. Frodo is a pacifist, but his pacifism is enabled by others who are willing to fight.

[20:07] In a Dance with Dragons Daenerys allows the old slave-holding class to maintain too much power and so they immediately attempt to continue the old violence of slavery. Daenerys did not commit enough violence against the slave-owners, so they were allowed to continue existing, and as long as they existed they were always going to abuse and oppress the ex-slaves.

A couple years after the release of ADWD, an obnoxiously wrong and poisonous idea began to creep into the ASOIAF fandom: Daenerys’ violence against the slaveowners in Slaver’s Bay is dangerous and immoral, and peace is the better option. This idea was most persuasively argued in the Meereenese Blot’s series of essays.

I’ll quote some of the conclusion here:

“They are supposed to feel this generic distrust for everyone, and to fail to grasp that their peaces were actually quite successful. Dany is supposed to conclude — wrongly — that her behavior through most of the book was silly and foolish. And if you came away with those impressions too, it’s perfectly understandable…The whole plotline is designed to maneuver Dany into a mental place where she’ll decide to sideline her concerns for innocent life, and take what she wants with fire and blood.”

This idea, much like the idea that Daenerys is some sort of unhinged fascist just waiting for the right trigger, makes me unbelievably angry. This idea that I am supposed to value the life of the slaveowner and the slave equally, and that maintaining a “peaceful” slave-owning society is an acceptable alternative to violent revolution is so fundamentally revolting to me, that it turns my stomach even to write that sentence.

Some fans went even as far as to suggest that Daenerys’ occupation of Meereen was a parallel to the US occupation of Iraq, and that she was engaged in erasing an authentic slave-owning culture that she despised. If you read the above series of essays, you can see that they are, at the least, enabling that kind of thinking.

To be clear, I do not consider any slave society to be worth a damn thing. Anything that continues it is evil and all that attempts to destroy it is good. That being said, once again Steven Attewell does a better job than I ever could of rebutting the ideas of the Meereneese Blot, and explaining how the correct parallel of Daenerys’ actions in Meereen is the American mistake of abandoning radical reconstruction. He describes her actions in Meereen as abandoning a revolution half complete. I highly recommend reading it, especially if you are American.

Martin is not a pacifist. He has said he would have fought in WWII. He demonstrated against Vietnam. As far as I know, the first time George ever used the words “Fire and Blood” was in a book released in 1982 called Fevre Dream:

“I never held much with slavery […]. You can’t just go… usin’ another kind of people, like they wasn’t people at all. Know what I mean? Got to end, sooner or later. Better if it ends peaceful, but it’s got to end even if it has to be with fire and blood, you see? Maybe that’s what them abolitionists been sayin’ all along. You try to be reasonable, that’s only right, but if it don’t work, you got to be ready. Some things is just wrong. They got to be ended.”

Daenerys is a slave-freeing, slave-owner-killing Hero with a capital H. She has made mistakes. I weep for the lives of the slaves that she has thrown away by abandoning her revolution, by failing to give the people of Astapor the strength to defend themselves, by maintaining a false peace that allows the Meereneese KKK to kill ex-slaves in the night. I shed no tears for the slaveowners that she has killed. When you treat other human beings as property you forfeit your right to Prosperity, Freedom, and Life. Preferably in that order—I would prefer that a slave society could peacefully transition, that those who attempted to continue it could be locked up, and that bloodshed could be avoided. But sometimes violence is necessary.

Daenerys will make more mistakes, I am sure. I believe that she will swing too far in the other direction, temporarily. But that’s a topic for another time.

[20:57] She comforts the hound even as he threatens her and helps him on his path from violence to peace.

Sandor did not die, despite what the Elder Brother told Brienne. He uses his words very carefully, to suggest that the Hound is dead, but that Sandor Clegane the man is simply “at rest.” He has become a brother of the isle.

“On the upper slopes they saw three boys driving sheep, and higher still they passed a lichyard where a brother bigger than Brienne was struggling to dig a grave. From the way he moved, it was plain to see that he was lame.” - Brienne VI, AFFC

[21:40] If they don’t understand why Tywin is a villain then of course they won’t understand why the Others are the main villains of the series, and will probably replace them with some blonde queen. And if you don’t understand that the cold of the human heart is the real enemy than of course you’ll think you can stop winter by just stabbing it. Like Tywin would.

In the books the Others are the villains. They are what the whole story is building towards, much like in LOTR the story builds towards Frodo casting the ring into the Fire. Martin has said that he thinks that the finishing chapters of LOTR, like the Scouring of the Shire, were important, so we may see something like that, but the clear emphasis will be on the existential evil, and cleaning up Cersei or Aegon “Targaryen’s” mess will be a clear step down in importance. It’s something that the heroes have grown beyond, but still need to handle, just like Saruman in the Shire.

[22:04] There’s nothing wrong with liking Game of Thrones, or disliking Lord of the Rings, or anything else.

I really do mean this. I am going to be critical of things you like, and am going to praise things you love. People are different, that’s to be expected. I am not here to pretend that people should only like the things I like. I’m interested in what makes these stories work. I said much the same thing in my last video about some of the new Star Wars properties. People tend to get really attached to the media they like (I’m no exception) and that can color our perception of criticism. Do try to keep in mind that if you like something I criticize it isn’t an attack on you. You have a sacred and personal relationship to the things you enjoy that no one can take from you. I like all kinds of stuff that other people might consider bad, and that’s okay. Actually it’s great, because it gives us something to talk about.

I may genuinely hate Game of Thrones because it butchers something I came to love, but that doesn’t mean I have anything against the people who do like it for their own reasons. We’re all just out here enjoying what we like.

PART THREE: THE WITCHER

There is less in this section for two reasons. First, I promised not to spoil anything past the material covered in the show and I’ll stick to that here. Second—full disclosure here—I haven’t read all of the books because after Blood of Elves I got pretty bored and from what I had heard they did not improve in quality, and if anything got worse. Having already felt that going from the anthologies to Blood I was happy to end my reading there.

If something I say is contradicted by a later book that I didn’t read feel free to let me know.

[23:31] First I should mention that Sapkowski’s works are not on the same level as Tolkien’s and Martin’s, who are the best and second-best fantasy authors of all time. I have enjoyed the Witcher books that I have read, but they are not anywhere near as complex or beautifully written.

This is just my opinion, see above paragraph. I really do think that it’s a pretty common opinion though. I’ve read it before, and you often see people recommend the first two Witcher anthologies in a “if you like it maybe see if you like the rest of them?” sort of way. Book sales numbers also support this, though by all accounts they are exploding in the wake of the show.

But, one potential issue is that I’m reading a translation so I have no idea how good Sapkowski’s prose actually is. You get a lot of sentences in the US edition like: “it must be both bothersome and irritating.” Translation is art, not science, and passages like these make me worry that the translator is just translating each phrase without worrying about all the subtlety that makes language beautiful. These are minor examples of course, but they worry me about what else might be changed. So take my criticism of his writing with a giant, translated, grain of salt, in that I don’t read Polish.

[23:58] Despite this, Geralt the Witcher has been worming his way into popular culture for years, interestingly on the back of a series of video games

Google trends clearly show that the video games are what primarily generated interest in the character before the show. There were no English editions until around the time the games started coming out, and the US editions all feature concept art from the games on the covers. The release of the subsequently translated books after the games received very little attention in comparison to the games.

[24:15] In my opinion, that decline of focus on Geralt was the greatest weakness in the books, and the focus on Geralt is the greatest strength of the games. Because Geralt is at the core of what made Sapkowski’s story and world engaging in the first place. He is a fascinating character in a way that Ciri, who is a fairly standard fantasy “chosen child,” could never be.

This is just my opinion, and I explain why I think Geralt is so great in the subsequent paragraphs. Reasonable people can disagree on this, but I’ve come across more than a couple fantasy characters who could be generically described as “royal orphans with special powers.” It’s not exactly novel. Geralt is pretty novel, at least in terms of what I have read.

[24:49] He suffers many of the same psychological problems that characters like Tyrion and Brienne suffer from in Martin’s work

The technical name for these kinds of issues is “internalized bigotry.” This happens when you get treated consistently horribly by the society you live in due to some fundamental fact about yourself that you didn’t choose, and eventually you begin to believe and “internalize” their opinion of you. For example, people expect Tyrion to be unlovable, conniving, lecherous, and debauched. Eventually he simply leans into these characteristics, because in a way it’s almost easier to be what people expect you to be.

[25:48] To top it off, he hides all this inside a cynical and nihilistic exterior, he pretends he doesn’t care when in fact, he cares more than anyone.

The shot that accompanies this, of Geralt looking intently at what’s happening in the room while others tend to be watching with a sort of mild curiosity like you might at an unexpected circus performance, did an awesome job of conveying this idea.

[26:36] This was kind of a cool idea, but predictably their scenes ended up being generally less interesting and engaging then Geralt’s. Yennefer’s were sometimes fantastic but Ciri’s rarely were.

This was the opinion of fans that I most commonly observed. I don’t have any empirical evidence of this. If you have any that either supports or contradicts this please let me know, I would be fascinated to see it. I could see someone really loving Yennefer’s scenes, and I personally enjoyed a lot of them, but I don’t understand how someone could walk away from the first season with Ciri as their favorite character of the three. I’ll come back to this in a later section.

[27:40] In many ways the first two books, and the games, have more in common with Sherlock Holmes than they do most other fantasy stories.

Really a more accurate comparison would be Philip Marlowe since Geralt is definitely more of an American Pulp detective than a British one. I do love the similarity between Geralt’s Witcher Senses in The Witcher 3 and Sherlock’s detective vision in Crimes and Punishment. I can’t make the same comparison to a Philip Marlowe game, because no one’s made one yet.

Actually that’s not strictly true. There was one game that came out in 1996.

[28:12] But Netflix’s Witcher has barely a whiff of detective fiction anywhere. I think this has caused a lot of fans to feel alienated by the show, even if they can’t explain exactly why.

It’s not reasonable to expect people to know why they like or don’t like something. It’s a feeling, and unless they have experience with writing, narratology, literature, film studies, or just read a lot of tvtropes.org, they are not likely to be able to put their finger on what it is. This causes people to disproportionally blame the things that are most obviously wrong. The premiere example of this is Jar Jar Binks in The Phantom Menace. Jar Jar was obviously bad, but he doesn’t even come close to the top ten biggest problems with the movie. It was much worse that there was no main character or understandable plot and drama. Check out Red Letter Media’s legendary review for more on that.

I think a similar thing happened with Ciri, in that her story was sort of obviously underwhelming and so received a lot of flak, but there are deeper problems with the show.

[32:04] The third change is more subtle, but I’m worried that this Geralt genuinely believes in neutrality.

Just like Ned, the showrunners would not be the first to espouse this view. This quote in particular about “evil is evil” is obnoxiously peddled about as a justification for fence-sitting despite the fact that Geralt’s actual behavior doesn’t support it at all.

I don’t know for sure if the showrunners genuinely think Geralt tries to be neutral. There’s some evidence for yes in the first episode, the Borch episode, the Striga episode, and a couple of others. There’s strong evidence for no in the Duny/Pavetta episode. We’ll just have to see.

To be clear, when I mean “neutral” I mean in the face of immediate violence or injustice. Geralt often doesn’t care who is king, as he explains to Ostrit. But he won’t let a Striga continue to kill people just for coin.

[37:20] When the writers took away Ned’s best arguments for his actions, when they took his story of existential triumph, of not compromising his morals, and turned it into a simple tragedy, they showed they clearly did not understand his heroism.

See PoorQuentyn’s explanation of existential heroism, and how it applies to ASOIAF.

[37:58] In the books, Ciri and Yennefer are included in the story through their connection to Geralt, because he is our hero and the foundation of our connection to the world. In the show they are included before ever having met Geralt, and they take up time that could have been spent focusing on those devilish detective details that make Geralt’s stories and character work.

Originally this video had a lot of discussion about how well these two other characters worked, but it ended up being kind of useless because it comes down to personal opinion, and the writers failure to properly use Geralt massively overshadows whether or not someone liked or didn’t like either of the other two leads. Again, I get why someone could like Yennefer’s scenes. I get why someone could maybe even like her scenes more than Geralt’s. Anya Chalotra did great. I thought the writing was a little weak at times, but on balance pretty decent. Geralt gets the benefit of all his stories being straight adaptations, and she didn’t, so it was a pretty decent job.

On the other hand, I thought Ciri’s storyline was a giant waste of space. When I think of all the best moments in the show, Ciri doesn’t show up in any of them. She spends the entire season running away from and interacting with fairly minor and forgettable characters that did not need to be introduced in this season. Calanthe, Eist, and Mousesack were great characters and the actors gave great performances, but that did not make up for the fact that her storyline went nowhere and did nothing to justify its inclusion. If someone loved Ciri’s storyline I would genuinely be interested to know why.

[39:10] I do have some sympathy for the writers of the Witcher.

Many times in this video I mention sympathy for various writers. Moviemaking is a massively complex undertaking. If you know anything about the difficulty of getting these things together you’ll know that it’s an absolute miracle any movie gets made and takes herculean effort from everyone involved. Television series are arguably even worse because they are longer, more complex, and often have a lower budget despite that. The people involved are honestly doing their best, and I recognize that, even if I criticize the product.

[39:47] They are in this unfortunate position where they can’t really pull the majority of their writing straight from the books because the material isn’t really strong enough by itself.

The books are very dialogue heavy. As I allude to, the one scene that was very close to the book is that scene with Filavandrel and it’s just obnoxious because the two characters just dialogue at each other. It goes on even longer in the book. How well that works in a book is up for debate but it wasn’t going to work on the screen, and it didn’t.

These problems are not insurmountable though. You can put other footage over these monologues. You could have included some footage of Elves fighting in their war. You could have footage of the “cursed” daughters of Lilit being locked in towers or autopsied while Stregobor explains it. I get this is more budget, but that budget went other places.

On the other hand some great scenes that I think would have translated excellently shot-for-shot from the book with little additional budget, like Renfri and Geralt in the Alderman’s attic, are entirely cut. Ah well.

[40:25] Well, I have my theories, but it in the end it doesn’t really matter.

I have a sneaking suspicion that somebody thought it needed to be more “epic” than the first two books are, so we got all this princess and political stuff in early. If there’s any merit to the idea that this series “copied” GoT, it’s somewhere in here, just like how the Hobbit got poisoned with all of the “epicness” of LOTR.

[44:54] Lastly, I’m gonna do my best to put out more regular content going forward. I’m aiming for at least one video a month.

I place no limitation on topics. It’ll probably be mostly media analysis, but if I’m honest I’m just going to write about whatever interests me. That’s the best way to keep myself interested.

That being said, if you have something you think I should analyze let me know. If I’m interested, I might do it.

#witcher #netflix witcher #lotr #asoiaf #game of thrones #anti-got #lord of the rings #adaptation #video companions

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ninamontagutbordas · 3 years

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HOW CAN WE MAKE AMENDS WITH OUR EXPECTATIONS? THIS IS WHAT MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE HAS TAUGHT ME

I don’t remember the last time I woke up past nine A.M. Usually (and my friends will confirm this just because I know they make fun of me all the time), I’m in bed by 9 or 10 pm. But, like with everything in life, there’s a good side and a bad side to it. In my case, the perks of going to sleep before my friends are even home from work, is usually that, between 6 and 6:30 am, without the need of setting a terrible alarm, I’m awake. It doesn't matter if I go out until late, I always wake up early.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there are times where, going to bed early, is a terrible thing to do, because, if I have so many hours of sleep, it gets to the point where I’ll wake up at 4:45 or 5 am and never go back to sleep. (Bear in mind that, whenever I wake up in the middle of the night, almost every two days or so, I start writing for a bit because I have so many things running through my mind I feel the most creative). So, even if I fall back to sleep, I never sleep straight from 9 pm to 6 am.

A few weeks ago, I woke up at 5:57 and I thought to myself: “This is a great morning to go for a walk, nobody will be around, so I won’t be bothered by the terrible noises of a stressful Monday morning in the city”.

I go for walks by myself many mornings, usually, around 6:30 or 7 am. I’m generally wearing headphones but of course, this was the one morning my phone battery died halfway through for no other reason than my phone goes crazy from time to time, so, as you can imagine, the picture of the perfect walk was already being damage by my own expectations. At this point, I was a bit grumpy but decided to keep going a bit longer because it was still very early.

I like to have breakfast after my walks, it’s like a religious routine for me. I come home, I shower and I have breakfast. However, I never leave home without my daily dose of caffeine (I take my coffee black, no sugar, no milk), but, of course, this very morning, I was running off coffee at home so you can imagine how desperate I was to find somewhere to buy my first double espresso of the day.

I didn’t think this through, clearly, because ridiculously, I was “such in a rush” to leave my bed for NO REASON. There were no open bars at the time and the ones where you could stop by and grab some coffee “to-go” didn’t open until seven or eight.

So now the situation is like this: No battery, no coffee – just sleepy Nina wandering around doing exactly what she didn’t want to do, alone time with “me, my thoughts and I”. Sometimes when I listen to music I tend to analyze the writing of the songs and see if I can learn something from it and that gets me pretty distracted. No open bars to sit in either because if there were, I would have been smart enough to carry a book with me in case my battery died, as it did.

If you know me, you know I’m a pretty foresight person. I can’t control if my phone dies but I can control it if I bring a book with me “just in case”, because “just in case” is what I always do. It’s what I know to do.

I feel like I should explain myself just because you don’t understand how important my morning walks are for me. Also, I just explain this so that you understand how much I dislike when things take a south turn and I didn't see it coming.

I hate meditation (well, hate is a strong word and I promised myself long ago I wouldn’t use it, so, I will GLADLY correct myself). I don’t like meditation, I’ve tried it several times because I suffer from severe anxiety but it just never worked for me. If it works for you, great. I’m happy to hear.

My kind of therapy is usually writing or walking. Or writing while walking. Or walking while writing, if that makes sense. Or having coffee after a walk while writing. Or having coffee while walking thinking about my writing. Whatever. The point is, my morning walks are usually what gets me through my day. I am home before everyone else is awake, so I feel like I already accomplished something.

Plus, If I wake up at 5 am and I'm at home doing nothing, I get stressed. To be honest, I enjoy a lot being alone, but I’m not a calm person at all, so I try to always seek quiet places to surround myself with because it’s something I need.

THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A WANT AND A NEED (Quoting my friend Selena Gomez in her latest song “I Want a Boyfriend”).

So, at this point, I’m 40 minutes away from home, with no battery, no coffee, no book, no bars, no writing. Nobody around but myself, the picture of the perfect nostalgic character that feels like an idiot and blames everything on the external factors instead of blaming it on herself. I could write a script about that character.

I didn't want to be like “you should have stayed at home”. I hate the word “should”. My relationship with it is pretty complicated because I try not to do things that lead me up to “I should have bla bla bla”.

I don’t have many regrets. I make choices and live with the consequences and this is probably because I always try to express my feelings and be as vulnerable as possible. And, by doing that, I can be brutally hurt sometimes, but in the end, I always find internal peace in it.

Also, I don’t like to give advice, but, if I have to sometimes, the only two things I say are the following:

1. Would you rather: Be awake because of pain or because of restlessness? Because the pain eventually goes away, but the restlessness, unfortunately, sticks with you for a very long time.

2. Don’t ever judge how a person’s feeling. You can have different opinions but a feeling is something intuitive and you can't disagree with it. Feelings are facts.

But, contrary to what I’m writing, that morning I was like “Should I sit down and just wait?” But then I was like “Wait for what?”. Again, I felt like an idiot, and unfortunately, I didn’t understand why. Did I want to go home? Yes, of course, I wanted to go home but, to get there, I still had almost an hour without music, coffee, phone battery, or a pen and a notebook, and that made me angry.

For some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way I felt during and after my walk. During that time, I had stopped writing for a while (I usually write every day but there are times where I have to distance myself from my writing), but if I tried to write something down, this was the only thing I could write about.

Of course, none of it was good enough because I still didn’t understand what was I exactly feeling. To be very clear, I never consider my writings are good enough if I don’t understand where they come from. My therapist always makes fun of me because he’s like: “You really know yourself well so what are you exactly doing here?”.

What is the emotion that comes after anger? That's what I was feeling, and that's what I was asking myself repeatedly.

So I googled the question (yes, googled as in a verb, not a noun) to see if I found a comfortable answer. “Common emotions known to trigger anger are anxiety, shame, sadness, fear, frustration, guilt, disappointment, worry, embarrassment, jealousy and hurt. All of these emotions are experienced as negative and are perceived as threatening to our well-being”.

SO, WHY WAS I ANGRY?

Suddenly, it clicked for me. When do I usually feel like this? When have I felt like this before? I feel like this when I get things wrong, and by getting things wrong, I mean when my expectations about something or someone are far from the actual scenario. I’m a pretty good judge of character so, when I get it wrong, it makes me angry, and all the following emotions that come with anger.

But this wasn’t new. Many, many times before I had experienced this feeling, however, it had been a very long time since this has happened to me again in such an obvious way, so that’s why it took me a while to figure out where this was coming from.

The truth is that, whether it's hard to admit it or not, this is a problem I deal with constantly. I don't forgive myself when I get something wrong because of preconceived ideas that create an imaginary narrative in my head. Sometimes because I don't want to admit that some things will never be as I want them to be, and sometimes because it's hard for me to let go.

I felt something similar recently with a whole different experience than my morning walk, but, again, it felt pretty much the same. I got it wrong.

And, it got me thinking.

I always thought that, when it came to situations I didn't have full control of, I had to make a truce with people or moments I was involved with, but it wasn't until now where I realized the only one I have to be in a truce with, is myself.

And, by myself, I mean my expectations. I have to make amends with my expectations. Nobody but me is responsible for it. And that’s because I am the one who’s disappointed at the end. I have to accept the fact that sometimes I have lost (and will continue to lose) to my expectations. Expectations 1 - Nina 0.

Again, I don’t know regret so I’m glad I now can learn how to protect myself from this kind of feeling and take a bit of distance from situations that will tempt my imagination.

I now see very clearly what will make me feel good, and what will not. I went on a walk again this morning. This time, no phone, no book, no coffee, deliberately. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

Actually, It wasn’t bad at all, because when I came back home, I wrote this essay.

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deaky-disco-queen · 4 years

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Roll for Romance - Johnica Week Day 4

A/N: Written for @eileen-crys Johnica Week and the Prompt: Party (and Alternative Universe) Disclaimer: I usually don't Play DnD but Pathfinder and never in english so it might not be super accurate but I tried.

Can also be read on A03.

+++

Veronica opened the door to the common room, balancing her bottle and the extra books that hadn’t fit into her bag anymore in her arms. She was already late and felt awful about it but the lesson had dragged on for longer than she expected and until she had found her way to the common room where the meeting for the Book Club, she was way too late.

As she rushed into the room, she wasn’t faced with a group of people discussing books but instead five guys sitting around a table decked out with papers and pens, a screen of some kind of screen separating a part of the table from the rest. Veronica stopped dead in her tracks. Her bottle finally won the battle against her and dropped to the ground.

“Ah, sh- Um, sorry, I thought the book club was meeting today?”

She stopped the bottle from rolling away with her foot, clutching her books to her chest.

The guys couldn’t be any more mismatched. One of them was dressed more fitting for some nightclub or fashion show than a common room in an university. His dark hair was framing his face, the eyes standing out thanks to a generous amount of kohl accentuating them. Another one of them was dressed somewhat similar but yet not at all because he looked like the complete opposite of the first guy with his blond hair and bright blue eyes. The other three were all dressed more “normal”, even if the guy with the brown hair was wearing a knitted sweater vest which was not something she would have thought to see anyone wearing at this age and day. The last two guys had dark hair, one long and curly, the other short and straight, neatly combed.

Veronica couldn’t even guess what they were doing here.

“Yes, originally, but Mary Austin asked us if she could have Tuesdays instead of Fridays, so we swapped days. So it’s the same time, just a different day.”

She stopped for a moment, mentally going through her schedule and grimaced when she realized she wouldn’t be able to attend any meetings because she would be in class then. Veronica sighed and blew a strand of hair out her face.

“Alright, sorry, I’ll be off then. Thank you.”

The next bus that drove into the direction of her apartment was coming in an hour. She could find something to do in this hour, though. There was always something to do after all.

“Oh, don’t let us chase us away!” The guy with the long black hair said. “Sit down and get comfortable if you want to.”

The university had many common rooms all over campus so she could find another one to do whatever she was going to do to pass the hour but the room was big enough for them and her without getting in each other way, even if it wasn’t the biggest common room around. She nodded thankfully and finally got rid of the things in her hands by putting them down on one of the two other tables. The curly haired guy got up and picked up her water bottle, holding out for her.

“Thank you.”

She settled down at the table, rummaging through her stuff to find her notebook, searching for something to do to pass the time. The year had just started a week ago and there were no essays to write yet, no presentations to prepare just now and so she was stuck with flipping through her textbooks.

It wasn’t really interesting nor what she had hoped to do with her day. Still, it was way better than wandering around campus without having anything to do.

The guys were going back to whatever they were doing, papers rustling and pens scratching, pages being flipped. She wished she had brought her headphones but they were most likely still lying on her bedside table. They weren’t loud at all but she felt as if she was intruding something despite having every reason being here.

“So, I was thinking about a druid.”

“Again?”

Somebody laughed then and more joined in and Veronica looked up shortly. The guy with the short black hair was shaking his head but also smiling as he grabbed a book, opening it on a marked page.

“Okay, druid it is. Which race? And keep in mind, we’re doing a pretty combat heavy campaign. Just for your background and all.”

She still had no idea what they were talking about. The brown haired guy had noticed her staring. He was smiling, though, and Veronica blushed, quickly looking away.

Her mother had always told her staring was rude and she should never do it. Manners had always been the most important thing to her and Veronica had grown up with her breathing down her neck to make sure she was the proper and polite daughter she had always wanted. Even now, after moving out and starting her own life in London, her mother’s words rang after her and she found herself correcting her behaviour to please her mother despite her not being here.

“-because I’m always the one who has to do heavy hitting! The only one! Because you guys alway want to play rogues and mages and shit.” The blond one complained. “Maybe I want to play a mage for once!”

“Do you want to play a mage?” The guy with the long black hair asked, propping his elbows onto the table and resting his chin on his hands.

“Fuck no!”

“Why do you complain about it, then?” Curly haired guy asked.

Veronica had been re-reading the same page for a while now, too distracted by the guys and intrigued by what they were doing.

“Hey, do you want to play, too?”

It was the brown haired guy who called over to her. It had caught the other guys’ attention, too, and they looked back and forth between them.

“I have no idea what you are doing.” She admitted.

“Dungeons and Dragons.” All of them answered, the words quickly becoming a jumble of sounds but it was somehow still clear enough for her to understand what they were saying.

She had a vague idea what that was, only from some throw-away mentions from TV or some people she had been hanging out with but she had no real knowledge about it. She told them as much. What followed was an explanation- admittedly, a bad one because everyone starting talking all over each other and kept interrupting- but Veronica got a better idea of what it actually was. Not a good one but it was something.

“We could always need another player. If you want to, you can try it.”

Veronica looked back to her textbook. She hadn’t comprehended anything from the page- hadn’t even tried to if she was being honest- sighed, then closed it and got up. They made enough space for another chair and cleared off a little bit of the table.

“I’m Jim, by the way.” Short, straight black haired guy introduced himself. “And those are Freddie, Roger, Brian and John.”

“My name’s Veronica.”

As it turned out, Dungeons and Dragons- or DnD as they kept calling it- was way more complicated than she ever thought it would be. Her head was spinning with all these options for races and classes and many other things Jim was explaining to her now.

“It’s alright if you don’t understand everything just yet. You’ll get there with time.” Freddie assured her.

Veronica didn’t even know if she was going to take the time she might need to understand everything. She hadn’t anticipated this at all. Her day had started out with her firmly believing she was going to joining a book club, not doing this. She had planned on joining some kind of club at university because it would help her making friends with people with similar interests outside of her classes. But since she couldn’t join the book club now, she might as well find something new. If this new thing in question was this, she didn’t know yet. It might as well be.

“Okay, easy thing first: Which race do you want?”

“Uh, elf maybe?”

Jim flipped through a book- the rulebook, she was told- and when he found what he had been looking for, he pushed it towards her. She read over the part he pointed out to her which explained to her how elves worked in this.

“There are also half elves, just on the other page.”

She hummed absently, already busy reading. Jim seemed to be happy with that and went back to talk to Freddie about his character idea. It helped a little bit so Veronica understood somewhat more and afterwards she read the text about half elves, too and decided she liked them way more. Jim was still busy with Freddie and she waited awkwardly, holding the book open at the page.

“Did you pick something?”

John had noticed her looking like she didn’t have a clue what she was supposed to do now. It wasn’t far off from the truth, honestly. She felt kind of lost in the midsts of all this. There was just so many things and Veronica had no idea where to even begin.

“Yeah, half elf?”

It sounded more like a question, her voice trailing up at the end and she searched for any sign that she was doing something wrong.

“Alright, solid choice, do you need help with the classes?” He asked.

“Yes, please.”

John chuckled lowly and tugged on the book so she would let it go and turned a few pages.

“Do you want something that’s more combat, heavy-hitting, or more range or maybe magic?”

She looked at him helplessly, shrugging and John smiled and nodded. Veronica chuckled, feeling somewhat embarrassed. It was stupid because she knew nothing about DnD so of course she had no idea about anything, really. There was nothing to be embarrassed about because why should she know stuff about something she never dabbled in?

He didn’t seem to hold it against her- because there was nothing to hold against her, she told herself- and started explaining the classes to her. She tried following it all but it was a lot. Thankfully, he didn’t mind when she asked question after question, willing to explain things several times. He really went into the details, spelling out the pros and cons of all classes for her.

“I guess I’m playing a fighter. Someone has to be able to do some damage.” Roger said, shrugging. “Hey, Deaks, pass the rulebook real quick, I want to check something.”

John rolled his eyes but did as he was asked.

“I can play a damage class.” Veronica said.

She kind of sold herself to joining this group. This game sounded like fun and Fridays were the only days she really had time for any clubs activities. The university had many clubs and she had chosen the book club because the timing had just been too good to pass up. She adored reading and doing so with other people and exchanging thoughts sounded like fun to her. This wasn’t reading and she didn’t understand this at all yet but it had something that intrigued her.

Roger grinned at her.

“Oh, look, someone who wants the party to survive for once! I like her already, you all can suck it. Veronica is my best friend for this campaign now.”

Freddie and Brian rolled their eyes at the blond but in a fond way, giving themselves away with their smiles. Jim was looking like someone who was used to this whole spiel and happy yet looking already done. She had no idea what the correct reaction to this was so she just smiled at Roger and then turned back to John.

“I guess, I’m a damage class then?”

“Rog, give back the book, we have to talk damage classes!”

Roger laughed and winked at Veronica, making her laugh, and gave back the rulebook. John flicked at his nose, missing by a mile but the blond waggled his eyebrows and blew him a kiss which only made John chuckle lowly as he shook his head.

“But only because it’s for Veronica!”

In the end, she went with a cleric of the light domain. There had been so many things to choose from- domains, armor, weapons and all these little extras- it made her head spin. All of them helped her, giving her tips on what she should choose but leaving the ultimate decision up to her, even if it was something they wouldn’t suggest her to choose. Afterwards, she listened to the others creating their characters.

Brian was playing as an elf druid with a badger companion Nobody seemed surprised by that- in fact, Jim said it before Brian could and the curly haired man blushed before clearing his voice and agreeing, continuing on as if nobody had said anything.

They must be friends for a while already, Veronica assumed.

John made a human artificer and it was only thanks to Jim passing her the rulebook to read that she understood what John was saying. She understood what fighters, rogues and rangers and all these things were- she wasn’t stupid and read a lot of fantasy books- and it wasn’t too hard to get the gist of some more specific classes but she had never heard of an artificer before.

Freddie’s character was a tiefling bard which seemed fitting for what she had gotten from Freddie’s personality so far. He obviously had put a lot of thought into his character’s looks, too, going on for a while to describe the exact shape his horns had. It was somewhat adorable, seeing how excited he was as he gestured wildly.

Roger played as a dwarf fighter because- in his words- it was the best combination of all and he had expected to be the only heavy hitter on the group. He did shoot her a thankful look, though before going fully into the description of his character.

Jim, who was their DM as it looked like, then told them about the setting of their game and it was then that Veronica knew she wouldn’t miss the book club all that much. By the time Jim was giving out sheets so they could build their characters backgrounds, hours had passed and she hadn’t even really noticed.

After this, they rolled their stats which were explained to her in detail and Jim helped her where to put what stat where. She didn’t quite get what the numbers meant exactly just yet but she was assured she would with time. There was a lot of more maths and adding numbers to the character sheet they had gotten.

“We’ll meet again next week for the first actual game but please tell me about your backgrounds at least on the day before. Veronica, can I add you to the group chat?”

She gave him her number and was quickly added to a group chat with the other guys. She saved the numbers into her phone and so did they.

“I can send you some links that explain things, if you want me to.” Jim offered as they packed their things together.

“That would be useful, thank you.”

Jim smiled at her and Veronica smiled back. They said their goodbyes and she gathered her things again, carefully putting her papers between the pages of one of her textbooks so they didn’t get crumbled.

Freddie, Jim and John left in the same direction as her and they kept an easy stream of chatter between them. Veronica couldn’t help but smile as she listened to them, occasionally joining in with her own short remarks. Freddie hugged her when they had to part ways, Jim and John waved after her.

She didn’t even mind having to wait another twenty minutes for her bus.

+++

“Make a persuasion check.”

Roger groaned but grabbed his die, shaking them in his hands before letting it roll. Veronica watched with one hand clamped over her mouth, her face hurting from laughter. Freddie wasn’t fairing much better as it looked like, his shoulders shaking with mirth. They exchanged a look, both of them breaking into a new fit of laughter that infected Brian and John, too.

“Uh, 13?” Roger said. “Is that enough?”

He shot them a quick look, desperately trying to keep it stern but it only lasted about a second before he started laughing, too. Jim was the only one who was halfways composed but he was also giggling as he went through his notes.

“Alright, then.” He said, clearing his throat and slipping back into his DM voice. “The guard looks kind of weirded out by you, eyeing you up and down, but eventually nods and lets you all pass.”

Jim then launched into a description of the town and Veronica quickly composed herself and made some notes of things she thought might be important.

John, who was sitting next to her, opened a new bottle of water and when he noticed her looking, he offered it to her first.

“Thank you.” She murmured, not wanting to interrupt the DM and took the offered bottle.

“You’re welcome.”

+++

Roger, Brian and John were waiting in front of the lecture hall and Veronica smiled when she saw them, squeezing past other students.

“Hey, Veronica! How was class?” Roger greeted her, pulling her into a half hug.

She hugged Brian, too, having to go on her tiptoes to be able to wrap her arms around his neck and then she hugged John. It might just be her imagination but she thought maybe the hug lingered just a little bit longer than usual.

“It was nice. A bit boring.”

They had planned to take advantage of the good weather, holding this week’s session outside in a little secluded seating area. It was probably a stupid idea and they all knew it but the idea had come up and they kept joking about it and now they were doing it.

It proved to be an awful idea because it was windy and the table was way smaller than they thought it would be and they basically were sitting squished together. Nobody could sit next to Jim- for obvious reasons- so they only had one measly bench to sit on.

John’s thigh was pressed up against hers and she could feel the warmth of his skin seep through the fabric of her skirt. She couldn’t move without brushing up against him. It made her blush madly and she just hoped it could be played off as coming from all the laughing.

Veronica had no idea when this little crush had started but it was a thing now and she didn’t know what she was supposed to do with it now. Sure, John was nice to her but he seemed like the guy who was nice to everyone. She wasn’t special in this regard. She wasn’t special at all, in fact.

There was absolutely no reason for him to like her in any other way than a platonic one. Which was fine. She could live with that. Maybe. If John would just stop moving and knocking their arms together. It wasn’t his fault and Veronica felt bad about getting a little bit frustrated with him because he wasn’t even doing anything.

“I’ll cast fireball against the owlbear.” She said when it was her turn in combat.

John gave her a thankful smile as his character had been quite knocked around by the monster which was now distracted by Veronica’s character. She smiled back, ignoring the way her heart fluttered.

+++

Veronica had no idea what time it was, she only knew it was late and she was tired. They had assembled at Freddie’s and Jim’s apartment, sitting on the floor around the new battle map Jim had bought for a weekend full of dungeon crawling.

She couldn’t feel her left leg below the knee. It had fallen asleep about an hour ago and by now she really didn’t want to stand up, dreading the inevitable pins and needles that would bring.

Roger yawned loudly, almost knocking into Veronica as he did so. Jim followed, then Brian and John and then all of them were yawning.

Veronica slumped a little bit, closing her eyes for just a moment while Freddie charmed his way into the hearts of the noblemen. John’s shoulder proved to be a pretty comfortable pillow for her head.

“Ronnie, hey, we’re done for today.”

She flinched, sitting upright suddenly and groaned at the stiffness in her neck. Blinking blearily, she looked up at John.

“Did I fall asleep?”

“A little bit.”

A blush rose on her cheeks and she rubbed her neck, awkwardly clearing her throat. John smiled at her. He got up with a low groan and held out a hand to help her up. Her leg didn’t appreciate it and she winced, pinching her calf and immediately regretting it. She hissed and squeezed John’s hand.

“You okay?”

She nodded and let go of him with an apologetic smile, carefully stepping over the miniatures and the battle map. She stretched, frowning when her spine popped loudly.

“Oh, I heard that.” Freddie said, face contorted in empathy.

Veronica laughed quietly as she squatted down again to help cleaning up the room, grabbing the empty chip bags and used cups and brought them into the kitchen. John followed not long afterwards, carrying several plates.

“Where’s the dishwasher?” She asked him.

“They have none. Just put it in the sink for now. We’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

The idea didn’t really appear to her, she would rather take care of it now but she also didn’t want to do dishes now at all. So she only nodded and put the cups into the sink and threw the bags in the trash. Brushing off some crumbs from her shirt, she checked the clock. Just past three in the morning. She groaned.

“Ronnie, you get the sofa!” Jim yelled from the living room.

“Thanks! Appreciate it!”

She could faintly hear Roger mock-complaining about her being favoritized and she rolled her eyes, barely suppressing a grin.

“I’m glad you could make it.” John said.

He wasn’t directly looking at her, rummaging through the fridge instead but he glanced at her quickly.

“So am I!” She admitted.

There had been so many essay deadlines and presentations she had to deliver in the past week and Veronica hadn’t been sure if she could come. Honestly, there was still a lot of things to do but she decided she deserved a break.

“We probably would have died without you.”

She chuckled and knocked their shoulders together.

“You would have.”

“We are very cocky today, aren’t we?” John gasped, his wide grin betraying his hurt and betrayed voice.

Veronica bit her lip, unable to not smile back at him and then shook her head slightly. She also didn’t know where this suddenly came from. John was chuckling and pulled out two cups of yoghurt from wherever they had been hidden inside the fridge.

“Late night snack?” He asked.

“Yes, always. I get the spoons, you hide the food from Rog.”

+++

“I can’t buy them.”

She stared at the dice displayed in front of her. They were beautiful, yellow with white in a marble effect and Veronica really wanted them.

“Why not?” John asked, effortlessly looking over her shoulder.

“I didn’t came here to buy anything.”

That was true. John had asked her if she wanted to go to the comic book store. He said he needed a certain color for a new miniature he was painting and she hadn’t seen any reason to not come along.

“Just because you didn’t plan to buy anything doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to buy anything.”

Veronica turned her head to look back at him over her shoulder. He looked amused, a grin tugging on the corner of his mouth. She looked back to the dice and bit her lip.

“I already have a pair of dice.”

She did. Right after the first playing session, she had ordered the dice she needed. It was a simple pair, just simple black dice and they were nice but they weren’t pretty like those were.

“Yeah, and? Have you seen Freddie’s dice bag? He has so many dice! Probably more than any of us combined. Brian has quite the collection, too.”

He wasn’t wrong. Freddie had a huge bag that was filled with dice of all kinds of colors. He had borrowed her some until she had bought her own. She shrugged.

“I don’t need them, though.”

“But you want them.”

Veronica made a frustrated sound. She did want them. They were pretty. But she didn’t need them. John sighed, then chuckled and reached around her to grab the dice.

“If you won’t buy them, I’ll buy them for you.”

She grabbed his arm quickly and held it tightly, eyes wide as he shook her head.

“No! I can’t let you do that. I don’t need them, I’m fine.”

John leaned in a little bit, smiling at her before he let his head fall against her shoulder and sighed.

“Buy the dice, Ronnie. If they make you happy, buy them. Or let me buy them for you.”

He quickly straightened up again, easily pried her fingers from his wrist and pushed the dice into her hand. She contemplated it for a long moment, then sighed and nodded.

“Fine, I’ll buy them.” She grumbled.

His grin was wide and he squeezed her shoulder. Veronica blushed and clutched the bag of dice in her hand as she followed John to where the paints were displayed.

+++

Veronica straightened out her skirt and fussed over her hair for a moment before grabbing her purse and rushed downstairs.

John’s car was already parked in front of her apartment and he was standing next to it, dressed in a nice shirt and pair of pants. Veronica’s heart sped up a little bit. She smiled, blushing when he returned the smile.

“You look very pretty.”

Her cheeks felt hot already and she absently brushed over the fabric of her skirt. He had surprised her when he had asked her for a date after one of their play sessions. It had been embarrassing how long it had taken her to form an answer but John hadn’t seemed to mind much. His face had been bright red but the relieved smile when she had said yes had been adorable.

“You look good, too.” She said, gently fixing his collar.

John drove them to a small but nice restaurant, holding open doors for her and asked before he took her hand. The food was good and she had worried they wouldn’t have anything to talk about but that wasn’t the case. They were chatting the whole evening and Veronica didn’t want it to end. John seemed to feel the same, drawing it out and only asking for the bill only when he really couldn’t hold it off anymore.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” She asked.

“Yes, please!”

There was a park not far from the restaurant and John took her hand again- asking for permission again- and they walked along the pavel paveway. Veronica listened to him ramble about his latest engineering projects and it was fascinating even if she didn’t really know how most of it worked. John probably didn’t understand much about her curriculum classes but he listened anyway and asked questions nonetheless.

At some point, they could not make any pretenses anymore and had to go back to the car to drive home again.

“I’d really enjoyed this evening.” Veronica said.

“Me too. Can- May I take you out again?”

She nodded, bit her lip and tucked her hair behind her ear. Would John try and kiss her? She would like that, she thought.

He didn’t kiss her, instead he got out of the car to open her car door and help her getting out. He did press a chaste, almost fleeting kiss to her cheek after bringing her to the apartment door.

“Thank you for the nice evening.” He mumbled, a dark blush spreading over his cheekbones.

She chuckled, ducking her head slightly and squeezed his hand, their fingers still laced together.

“No, thank you. See you tomorrow for the game?”

“Wouldn’t dare to miss it.”

#johnica #johnicaweek2020 #My writing

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mtvswatches · 4 years

Text

Jane the Virgin 2x19 Chapter Forty-One

Click here for previous recaps!

Stray thoughts

1) Rose, Mutter and the crime ring were brought up in the “previously on” so this episode will bring them back, right?

2) And I guess Jane’s money-saving skills will be the focus of this episode, for some reason?

3) I thought he was being followed by criminals, not journalists…

4) “They mention the Marbella four times. I mean, you have a few murders in your hotel…” To be honest, they should just turn the Marbella into a murder hotel at this point and attract the true-crime aficionados.

5) “Is anybody shipping these two?” A WORLD OF NO.

6) So… Rafael claims he wants to be present in Mateo’s life and then when it’s his turn to take care of the kid, he leaves him with the babysitter because he has work to do. Rafael is an asshole.

7) Xiomara is going to audition for a role in Rogelio’s telenovela and I guess this is going to blow up in her face…

Of course, leave it to Rafael to have sex on top of a huge-ass picture of himself.

8) You know, Rafael, if you’re feeling guilted all the time maybe it’s because you are guilty. And now he wants to make a custody arrangement to make himself better. He will get his days with Mateo, but will he actually spend them with Mateo? I don’t think so…

9) Michael got fired. To help out, Jane asks for more shifts at work, and she now has to train Anezka. This will be fun.

10) Rogelio gives the role to Xiomara on the spot, and his generosity probably prevented him from foreshadowing the potential conflicts having Xiomara at his workplace when he’s having an affair with his producer could create.

11) Me when I learned that the lock-down in my country would be extended for two more weeks and that I would have to continue teaching all my classes remotely…

12) Now, this is exactly why I have issues with Jane’s characterization…

JANE: And then I pitched myself as a grad student and a T.A. and I said I’d do it for a thousand and she said yes. (…) Who knew there was this crazy business? Helping people with their college essays?

You’re either a good and decent person, or you’re morally corrupt and you own up to it. But Jane wants to have her cake and eat it, too. I feel this is the kind of thing she would probably frown upon if someone else was doing it. Yet, if she chooses to do it, it’s the best plan ever! Of course, you can be a good person and do the wrong thing, but you should have some qualms about it, which she doesn’t? And this is not the first time I’ve brought up this issue with Jane… Now, at this point, this is clearly one of her traits, but the show keeps painting her as the Good character, the Morally Correct character. And she isn’t?

13) Xiomara already knows Rogelio is sleeping with his writer because he did the “sex sniff.” To her credit, she’s trying to deal with it. She’s clearly upset, but she’s trying to “absorb” this new information. Hopefully, they will continue to be the poster children for mature relationships. Or it will turn into a horrible drama.

14) Btw, I’m really not into the “silent movie” style they’re using in this episode.

15) Jane and Rafael go to their mediation meeting with a conciliatory attitude, but that soon crumbles once they start discussing the specific details of a custody arrangement. They try to think of every point as “hypothetical”, but the reality is that all the hypotheticals will soon be a reality, and Jane and Rafael have very different opinions on how to raise Mateo and what their rights should be. I think this is going to end up badly.

16) Petra and Jane briefly discuss the issue of their children’s trusts, and while Rafael agreed for Jane to manage Mateo’s, when it came to Petra…

17) WHAT EVEN IS THIS SHOW! I NEED TO SEE IT!

18) Xiomara truly sucks at acting, and to Rogelio’s credit, he’s trying to be supportive and help her out. But he’s being too understanding, claiming they will fix all her mistakes in post-production, which will be impossible considering how terrible she was.

19) This will be a treat, I’m sure.

Jane is surprised to learn that she’s expected to write the essay for him, and how gullible and naïve should a person be to believe she was going to be paid a thousand dollars for coaching someone…?

20) Michael’s interview didn’t go well, and he decided to ask Rogelio for P.R. advice on how to handle the whole newspaper article thing, and Rogelio suggests the best approach is to wait till it blows over. I honestly thought he was going to ask Rogelio for a job?

21) OH MY GOD, THE CGI!

22) Petra confronts Rafael about the terms of the twins’ trust and he explains why her terms are different than Jane’s…

23) Jane gives the “coaching” job another chance, and I really hope she gets this douchey kid to write his own essay, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

24) Rogelio had to fire Xiomara, and she completely understands why. She even brings up the fact that it might be easier for her not to be around Rogelio and his writer, and she tells him that she thinks he really likes her. And yes, they haven’t disappointed me, they were absolutely grown-up about it. Xiomara even helped Rogelio realize his feelings for his writer (I keep calling her “writer” because I can’t remember her name, sorry…)

25) Anezka got a tip, for good service! She’s graduated! And now she’s marrying the salt shakers. Literally.

26) So… Jane didn’t get the white CIS douchebag to write his own essay, she wrote one for him about music – his passion – which I guess is supposed to make what she’s doing okay? Spoiler alert: it doesn’t. But I guess that after being confronted by the boy’s mother it will give her some perspective on how to make decisions for her own kid…

27) Yep.

JANE: I don’t want to be the kind of mom who gest in her kid’s way.

So, Rafael and Jane finally reach a compromise by trying to understand what’s important for each other and making concessions, so cool for them.

28) Rogelio tried to have the “where is this relationship going?” with his writer, and he got shut down quickly, she called the relationship casual, and I guess now we’ll get a lot of Rogelio pining over her, right?

29) Oh, Petra…

PETRA: We have a complicated history, which mostly involves me being horrible and Jane being a perfect human being and sometimes… sometimes, it gets to be too much.

Repeat after me: JANE 👏 IS 👏 NOT 👏 PERFECT 👏

Ugh, I hate that every character perceives her as such when she’s clearly far from it! In fact, sometimes she’s kind of the worst?

Petra at least owns up to her faults and is trying to redeem herself.

30) Anezka agrees with me, but I think she’s going to hatch up a plan to make Jane look imperfect…

31) What does this mean for Jane’s career?

32) Jane talked to Michael about not wanting to work her ass off during the time she is given to spend with Mateo, and yet again, Michael proved he’s a mature, level-headed partner. He told her she should’ve expressed these concerns to him, and that he doesn’t want her to have all the pressure on her shoulders. He got a job working for Rogelio as his chief of security.

33) Damn, Anezka is Petra’s sister, isn’t she?

I just hope Petra doesn’t get blamed for it…

34) YES, PETRA!!! YOU TELL HIM!!

RAFAEL: You have changed. I know that. It’s just a process. PETRA: Yeah, yeah, it is. And frankly, I think I’ve made more improvements than you. RAFAEL: Wait, what? PETRA: When you’re up against it, you still lie, instead of just coming clean, facing the consequences. I hope you change that soon.

35) No, Rafael, this is not what Petra meant, you stupid bimbo!

This is going to come back and bite him in the ass, I just know it.

36) Well…

This is either a misdirection, which is this show’s favorite plot device, or my prediction came true very quickly. Still, I’m zero invested in this storyline.

37) Hope you enjoyed my recap, and, as usual, if you’ve got this far, thank you for reading! If you enjoy my recaps and my blog, please consider supporting it on ko-fi.Thanks!

#Jane the Virgin #Jane Villanueva #Gina Rodriguez #Petra Solano #Rogelio De La Vega #JTV recap #recap #JTV 2x19 #mine

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