#actually all the stranges are foils but these 2 specifically stand out to me

[lokigodofaces]

Sinister Strange and Strange Supreme are such perfect foils for each other and I love it.

[aspoonofsugar]

About You, About Me

Jaune: What about you?! It's all about you!

This line is what the episode is about in a nutshell. As a matter of fact it conveys 2 ideas central to the whole situation:

1 - The "you" Ruby is talking about is different than the "you" Jaune means.

Ruby is asking about herself as a person, while Jaune speaks about her as an ideal. This dychotomy is the crux of both their current situations. Ruby has been lving as the embodyment of an ideal, so now she struggles to express how she feels in a healthy way. Jaune is instead trying to hide who he is behind the ideal of a hero.

So, Ruby wants to be seen as a person, while Jaune as a hero. Interestingly, both fail, as WBY's reactions to them make clear:

WBY immediately understand Jaune's pain and can see through his very thin (paper-thin I would say) facade.

WBY fails to pick up on the many red flags Ruby has been showing throughout the whole volume. They try to address Penny's death and her frustration on a couple of occasions, but never really go deep.

2 - Jaune is lashing out at Ruby, but he is really projecting on her his own frustrations.

This is made clear by the rest of the conversation:

Jaune: On that bridge, I was the only one, who could do it... I was the only one! And I... And now I have to live with it forever, in here or back home.

It is all your fault! It is all my fault! Jaune just keeps swinging between these 2 extremes. It is exactly like when in Mistral he goes on a rampage against Cinder, but the one he really hates is himself. There he lashes out at the villain, here he lashes out at the hero. The villain is a monster, the hero just could not live up to her role.

Ruby on her part does exactly the same. To be specific, she lashes out on everybody, but I would say she does so in 2 distinctive ways.

BLAKE AND JAUNE - STOP BEING LIKE ME!

Ruby: Shut up... Don't do that... Just don't.

The fight ends with Ruby telling Blake to stop trying to be positive. This complements her previous outburst directed at her (and Yang):

Ruby: Gotta stay positive, right?! Smiles all around!

Ruby can't stand how Blake is behaving because it reminds her of how she is supposed to feel. And she doesn't feel it anymore.

Thematically, Blake has been stepping into Ruby's role since the beginning of the volume:

I would not say she has substituded Ruby as the leader. Still, she is being the optimistic one, the idealistic one, the hopeful one. She realizes they are in a fairy tale and is enthusiastic about it. She knows the right definition of what being a Huntress means. She is Ruby's past idealistic self and Ruby can't stand it. Ironically, our Black Beast is now more optimistic than our Little Red.

Which is why both moments Ruby shares with Blake and Yang past volume are now bittersweet:

Blake: I know you don’t always know what to do, but that’s never stopped you from doing something. I was like that as a girl, but time and… a lot of other things, took their toll on me. Then I wasn’t sure if that kind of girl could actually survive in the world… until I met you. It was a little strange at first because you were younger, but I’ve always looked up to you, Ruby. And I still do.

Yang: You were being optimistic. Look, blind optimism isn’t great, but no optimism means we already lost. We need hope. We need to take risks.

Sure, everybody loves Ruby because she is optimistic and pure and inspiring... but what when she can't be it anymore?

This episode addresses precisely this and takes Ruby and Blake's current foiling to its extreme conclusion:

Blake: Then we won't run this time.

Blake charges into battle to protect strangers, while Ruby runs away from her loved ones.

If Blake reminds Ruby of her past, Jaune is a spitting mirror image of Ruby's current self. This is why she doesn't even talk to him directly, but keeps mentioning him:

Ruby: What about me? No time, right? Gotta get home! Gotta help Jaune! Gotta find someone, who isn't just going to screw everything up!

Ruby: I'm sorry, is this a bad time? Are we supposed to be mourning Jaune's make believe friends?!

Notice the 2 references to time. Ruby, just like Jaune, feels she has no time. It is just, Jaune feels he has not enough time to save everyone, while Ruby feels she has not enough time for herself. No time for others to care and nurture her. This is what she is trying to convey.

Similarly, the remark about Jaune's make believe friends is cruel, but it has definately to do with Ruby's own very real lost friend:

The one she has yet to mourn. The one nobody is mentioning anymore because everybody is too focused on other things. So, yeah, why should they all be mourning a bunch of afterings they know nothing about? When Ruby herself did not even take the time to properly mourn Penny?

Throughout the whole episode,Jaune (unwillingly) steals Ruby's spotlight and caters everyone's attention on himself.

He's obviously been through a lot. We can be frustrated later. Right now, Jaune needs us. And we need him. We just can't count on him.

While Blake says so, the one in focus is Ruby because this phrase is actually about her. Except nobody realizes it. Nobody (or almost ;)) notices she is struggling.

This pattern keeps going throughout the whole episode:

Weiss and Jaune insist Ruby should just grab her weapon and fight like always

Weiss aka Ruby's partner chooses to assist Jaune instead of her. Symbolically, even the Walker that almost kills Ruby is the one Weiss and Jaune launch in the river while they are fighting

When Ruby lets Crescent Rose fall, Yang's question to her is cut off by the paper town being floaded, which leads to everybody comforting Jaune

Even Ruby's own outburst is overshadowed by Jaune's one, which leads to Ruby finally leaving

All Ruby wants is for someone to look at her properly and empathize with her. Still, everybody has been too focused on their own feelings and losses. At the same time, Ruby herself has been refusing to open up with her friends for several volumes now. Everybody believes she is alright because she has always repressed her negative feelings, so nobody really knows she has any.

Everybody thinks she is Blake, when she is actually Jaune.

WEISS AND YANG - LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME!

You don't need me anymore No, you don't see me anymore I'm alone in this war I am a trap door

Ruby lashes out at Blake and Jaune because they are like her. When it comes to Yang and especially Weiss, instead, she is angry because they don't realize her pain.

Yang is too caught up in her new love life to notice her little sister needs help. Or at least, this is what Ruby thinks tbh because there is not that much evidence of this in the story. It is just that when you feel very low, you can end up resenting others for their own happiness. And this is what happens with Ruby and Bumbleby:

Ruby: Good for you, by the way. We are all soooo happy for you.

Weiss is too caught up in her own pain and grief to realize how much her partner needs help. Even in this episode, when she sees Ruby has not Crescent Rose, Weiss bitterly reprimands her. Just like she did at the market. Not only that, but after Ruby has made clear she is absolutely not okay by letting Crescent Rose fall... all Weiss has to tell her is to help support Jaune.

Weiss: It's what they wanted. Right Ruby? Ruby: Why are you asking me? Because I am the leader? Because I am just supposed to have something to say? Cause I don't.

Nobody looks at Ruby or notices her low spirits... well, actually someone does... a small soul ; )

RED HOOD AND LITTLE

Ruby leaves and the only one she has left is Little. Her new friend. Her Ever After's guide. Little is the only one this episode who notices Ruby is off. And they are also a lot how Ruby used to be when the series starts. Little is someone who sees her and also someone like her.

It is going to be interesting how Little will impact Ruby going forward. Especially because we might get some new Little Red Riding Hood's references this volume.

Ruby leaves her family/loved ones/home and enters a wood alone. Where is she going? Maybe she just wants to go back home:

Yang: Return home, eh?

And yet, the woods are dangerous and full of wolves, who want to eat our Little Red Riding Hood:

And just like with the Hound aka another representation of the Big Bad Wolf... the monster hides a person:

In general, the situation is the reversed one of volume 6:

There Ruby enters the woods, discovers dangerous things, but also meets a mentor figure who teaches her something about her Silver Eyes. She is able to inspire everyone to move on and steps in the role of leader.

Here Ruby enters in this strange new world and can't find an ounce of optimism. They are in a literal fairy tale and she doesn't give a crap. The same girl, who started volume 7 eager to explore Atlas after having crossed a whole continent on foot.

In any case, I am curious to see where we are going with Ruby. Especially because she might very soon have a meeting with the true Neo, aka her Shadow. Little as the Little of her Red Hood and Neo as her shadow and the wolf. Probably both ingredients are needed to see where Ruby is going in the future.

Speaking of Neo, there is this:

Yang: But that's... those were more than her usual tricks. They eat and growl and... how has she gotten so powerful?

Yang openly questioning Neo's new powers make me thing there is more than just a semblance evolution. The power-up happening in the Land of Darkness makes me thing it might have something to do with it. Darkness in Jungian psychology is the Shadow and the Repressed. What if this land lets you tap into your buried potential? For better or worse?

Scratched through the surface And you found a key Unlocking what you thought was safe inside a box But it's somehow been set free (Finally)

THE FALL OF ATLAS- ONCE AGAIN

So far, the protagonists have experienced the fall of Atlas twice now. The first time at the market. The second time at the paper town.

In general, the 2 episodes clearly parallel each other. To better say, the paper town is an escalation of the market.

Both times WBY and Jaune fight Neo's Jabberwalkers, while Ruby freezes up. Both times Ruby is reprimanded for apparently spacing out when she is experiencing psychological distress. Both times the protagonists feel as if they are living Atlas fall once again. And yet:

Neo's presence is made clearer, as if we are building a climax toward a final meeting with her. The real her.

Ruby consoles Weiss at the market, but refuses to console Jaune at paper town.

Ruby buries her feelings at the market, but explodes here.

The Rusted Knight is introduced as a dependable hero and a saviour at the market, but Jaune is revealed as a broken and grieving person here.

The most interesting thing is that when it comes to the Fall of Atlas specifically the 2 characters in focus are Weiss and Jaune:

This fits the foiling set up in the Ponder Storm mirror gallery. There we see how they both are still struggling over what happened in Atlas.

Weiss thinks about her Kingdom, her people and how they risked their homes without gaining anything.

Jaune thinks about Penny and his role in her death.

Both can't forgive themselves for failing to stop Cinder and to save Penny. This makes sense considering how they are the last 2 to fall and the ones who hold on the longest. They were both blooming in Atlas and were in very positive moments of their life. And yet, last volume's climax changed things. They were brought down when they were at their strongest... so what can they really accomplish?

And yet, even if they clearly blame themselves, they end up lashing out on others, as a coping mechanism (even if in different degrees). This volume both are shown particularly rude, sassy and cynical, in ways they usually are not. Or at least not anymore and not as often. The result is that they both enter into a conflict with Ruby. Weiss's insensitivity and ignorance of Ruby's feelings coupled with Jaune's exploding at her are among the reasons why Ruby leaves.

It is clear the dynamic among Weiss, Jaune and Ruby is going to be important for the resolution of this volume and for all 3 their character arcs. Especially, there is still something that hasn't been addressed:

I thought this episode was perfect for the reveal Jaune killed Penny. And yet, it doesn't happen. Which makes me wonder when this truth is gonna come out and how it will impact Ruby, Jaune and Weiss's dynamic. What is sure is that Jaune and Weiss clearly have a role to play in this volume's climax and in Ruby's arc.

WEISS - SNOWHITE, SNOW QUEEN, SNOW ANGEL

Weiss: Then, who does that leave us with? It's obvious we need someone to guide us or we can end up throw back in time or killed by the tree or worse.

Weiss keeps looking for someone to look up to, to guide her, to console her and to support her. This is not wrong per se, but hilariously Weiss is the one who is probably the most put together compared to the characters she wants to depend on.

She opens up to Ruby about her loss. There is nothing wrong in this, but we as viewers can really see it should be the other way around. She should be the one Ruby can lean on. Even in this episode, when it comes to support Jaune, she asks for Ruby's help. Now, she doesn't really need to. She can say something kind to Jaune by herself and neither Blake nor Yang ask Ruby to butt in. Weiss does and, as little as it is, this is what sets Ruby off. Because once again Ruby is asked to ignore what she feels for someone else's sake. Even if Weiss and the others can really handle the situation on their own.

This is why Ruby calls out Weiss specifically this episode:

Ruby: Gotta find someone, who doesn't screw everything up!

Something similar happens with Jaune, as well:

Yang: And when did you get so... Weiss: Mature...

This is both ship-teasing and a joke, but it hides an important truth. Notice that Weiss doesn't say "handsome" or "hot", but mature. Jaune is an adult, he is Weiss's childhood hero, so he must be dependable. And yet, he is not because he is still RWBY's old awkward friend and he has spent years alone with his guilt. Weiss should understand better than anyone else why Jaune isn't well. I mean, she was there when Penny died. She outloud states Penny sacrificed herself, so I think she knows what Jaune had to do. And yet, her reaction this episode to Jaune's predicament is this:

Weiss: But how? He's clearly not... all there.

Just like with Ruby, she makes a snappy remark, which is heard by Jaune and this starts a discussion and escalates an already difficult situation.

I don't say this because I think Weiss is a monster or a bad person, obviously. She is clearly suffering as well and really means no harm. Still, it is important Weiss stops looking only at herself. She failed to save Atlas, but she can still save her friends. She has the inner strength and the wisdom to succeed:

CC: I am talking about you, Wise Huntress.

It is through helping others that she will move forward from her loss. Just like Jaune did it in volume 5 by saving her.

JAUNE - HERO, VILLAIN, MAIDEN

Jaune is instead the opposite of Weiss. He tries to overcome his grief over Penny's death by trying to help other people. I mean, it worked with Pyrrha in Mistral, right? So, why shouldn't it work here? Sorry Jaune, but that coping mechanism is not functional anymore because your past self has been shattered:

And yet, Jaune refuses to let go of the heroic self-image he has worked so hard to built. Basically, he has regressed, as well and is stuck here:

Jaune: I don't want help! I don't want to be the damsel in distress! I want to be the hero!

Jaune's arc has always been about integrating with the anima, aka his most feminine parts. He refuses them, but it is through them that he will eventually become the hero he wants to be. He needs to accept he is a damsell in distress to be the hero. Even more so, to truly complete his journey he needs to become a symbolic maiden. Only in this way, he will be complete. He will truly be himself. After all, he alludes to the very famous Maid of Orleans ;)

So, right now Jaune is once again refusing his anima and this is why the once promising hero has turned into a toxic version of himself. He thinks he is protecting the paper pleasers, but he has actually trapped them. He is not the one saving them, but they are the ones saving him by offering him a coping mechanism to keep himself together:

Weiss: Then why do you care so much about this village? Jaune: Because I can actually protect these people!

They are pleasing him in a relationship, which is honestly detrimental for both parties. Jaune protects them, yes. Still, he also stops them from evolving. The same is true the other way around. The paper pleasers are keeping Jaune functional, but they are also stopping him from making any real progress.

This is why after years Jaune is still a prisoner of the Ever After. It is because (obviously) the way out one way or the other has to do with the tree. And yet, Jaune keeps avoiding it. Just like he is avoiding any real change.

This is because "changing" is a risk and a risk means you can't be sure if things are going well or badly:

A new me, I am ready, but who will I find?

And you know what else is a risk?

Weiss: Trust is a risk

Interesting...

Jaune: Afterlings are all either too clever, too stupid or too crazy to trust!

And who is the last person Jaune trusted exactly?

Penny: Trust me...

Jaune is clearly trying to "fix" what happened to Penny through the Afterlings, but he is wrong. There is no fixing the past this way and what he obtains is just that he is making people suffer for no reason. Not only that, but his stubborness puts the paper pleasers in real danger:

If the Jabberwalkers get them, Jaune's friends would never ascend. There is no escaping death, one way or the other.

Jaune needs to accept this and he is actually starting to accept it. Symbolically, the day after he finally reunites with RWBY, the time starts moving once again. After years of delusions, Jaune starts facing what he has done. His delicate stability, which is symbolically represented by a paper world evaporates and dissolves into water (this episode starts with fire and ends with water > 2 elements linked to alchemy and transformation).

He starts the episode claiming he is fine:

Jaune: This isn't crazy. I'm not crazy.

He ends the episode admitting he isn't:

Jaune: I'm sorry. I know I am not okay. I know I am not right.

And even asking himself the key question:

Jaune: What am I supposed to be?

What are you? Only by facing this question head on Jaune can hope to finally evolve. Only by letting fo of his armor, which is rusted already, he can hope to find his new more refined self. A hero, who is also a maiden.

GRIEF

It seems that after the first 5 episodes exploring the 5 stages of grief, we are getting calls out to them in different ways:

Ruby bargains her emblem in order to help her friends. Another way to run away from Summer, but also to sacrifice her pain for others. She failed to get the ingredients in time, so obviously now she has to sacrifice something so personal, like her mother's memento, right?

Ruby, Weiss and Jaune walk in a mirror gallery, which reflects their grief and fail to discuss it. They didn't even properly discuss Penny's death and how it happened. They are negating it on some level.

Ruby and Jaune explodes into anger this episode and in this way they can finally both start their self-actualizing journeys.

We'll see where it goes...

ASCENSION VS DEATH

Personally, I think we need an exploration of this dychotomy on a thematic level.

On the one hand ascension is clearly a metaphor for death. However, the Jabberwalker, which is clearly a creature of Darkness seems to be offering a different idea of death. More similar to the one the characters have. What is the difference? What is ascension really? And why does the Jabberwalker embody something different?

This a very interesting mystery thematically speaking and I am curious to see how it is solved.

Is it about introducing 2 different flavors of Destruction?

Cancellation (death)> negative

Transformation > positive

We'll see...

On another note, the reveal of Jaune's role in the paper pleasers' town gives more context to the Cat's dislike for our Knight. The CC's role is to lead the Afterlings to the Tree, but Jaune goes in the way of this. Symbolically, this makes them antagonists.

MISCELLANIA

Here come some miscellania thoughts:

The time motif is interesting. This episode specifically times keeps being mentioned by Jaune and Ruby. Jaune keeps saying they don't have time and that he is late. He also keeps asking what time is it. Ruby is annoyed there is no time and sarcastically asks if that is a bad time. In general, Jaune and Ruby are also opposites when it comes to time. Jaune is currently a man who has spent too much time alone with his trauma. Ruby is a child who has had not enough time to properly process hers.

Jaune's allusions just keep multiplying. He is the White Knight in Alice (also that character sings a song whose alternate title is litterally The Aged Man :P). He also fits the Hatter to an extent in how he killed time (aka spent years alone making no progress and broke the time fruit). And now he is also the White Rabbit.

Speaking of Jaune... meta-narratively the Rusted Knight is very interesting. Judging by the girls' enthusiasm and by Jaune's own excitement when he mentions realizing he was that character, the Rusted Knight is surely portrayed very positively... And yet, Alyx poisons him. I think @harostar suggested what we saw in this episode might offer us a glimps of why. Jaune might have been controlling to Alyx and Lewis and Alyx may have felt trapped by him. And yet, the story still portrays Jaune as a hero. If Alice wrote the story or if Jaune was really that terrible to her and her brother, then why isn't he portrayed as a villain? This question is interesting and seems to confirm Alyx might not be the writer of the story... At the same time, Jaune might have failed to leave up to a fairy tale- standard. However, if the writer still felt to write him as a hero, maybe he did better than what he thinks.

This is the third time Ruby hallucinates three people. The first one when she falls (Oscar, Yang and Penny), the second one in the Blacksmith's place (Penny, Alyx and Summer), the third one while fighting the Jabberwalker (Cinder, Penny and Salem). Clearly they relfect Ruby's deteriorating mental state. The first time, she isn't hallucinating, but seeing Neo's illusions. The second time she is subjected to the Ever After's strange magic. This time, though, she is having a straight out panic attack. In all this, Penny is fittingly present all three times. Ruby needs to properly mourn her or she will never move on.

WBY's discussion about the Tree this episode is interesting because we have: Blake (destruction) believing the Tree is rebirth, Weiss (creation) being wary of the dangerous power of the Tree and Yang (knowledge) wanting to know more. Fittingly, Ruby (choice) is silent and so they fail to reach a resolution.

I think this volume might introduce a key theme, which will probably keep going in later volumes. The idea of need vs wants in a reverse sense. Jaune and Ruby both want to be needed to the point Ruby fears that now she isn't needed anymore, she is going to be left behind. It is the same as Yang's conditional love idea (see the Auction)...I think the resolution is going to be that you don't love people because you need them, but because you want them in your life. It is the same concept expressed by Blake last volume... Others are just a part of you... you don't stay with them out of codependency or need, but because you are happy and wish to be with them.

[alpinelogy]

helloo! i’d love to hear your commentary about any of the timeloop chapters so far! since you’re getting closer to finishing the fic, are any details from the previous chapters standing out to you? are there important moments we should pay attention to?? <33

(slams down the 80+ pages the timeloop doc has rn) well we have a lot to go through, sorry this took so long asfdfgh, thank you for asking I love talking about the fic <33

I ended up going through the entire fic but there are few bits that I may go back and break down separately :3c

First of all, the way out of the loop is there already, Alex just has yet to put two and two together. It is not very clear but in hindsight I think it will be

Specifically: why did the arguably two best loops were when Charles tried to help him and when Alex decided to fight Charles?

What is going on with Charles is I think at this point pretty obvious. I wont say it just cause its a spoiler for next chapter but the obvious answer is in fact the correct one

The George scenes are some of the most important ones. They tend to be the catalyst for Alex's actions even further down the line than just Melbourne, especially the Chapter 4 one. They are also the only scenes I have actively referenced while writing always, down to copying bits of dialogue

(One of these days I will go and specifically break down those scenes hopefully because they are some of my favorite bits in the entire fic)

Funny how most scenes have returned even if they are different except for the bathroom scene from Chapter 1. Strange huh?

As a general rule of thumb, I can get very melodramatic. The more a scene screams melodrama the more relevant it is to the fic

I like my parallels and foils, consider George, his behavior, how Alex bases this ideas about him based on their shared history. Now consider that he has a lot of shared history with Charles as well

Also the ghost of Max Verstappen that hangs over the entire fic. Alex thinks there is a difference between drivers like him and George and driver like Charles and Max. What is the arbitrary set of values that splits them apart? Obviously it isn't how a driver performs since Alex did very well in Ch4 yet he was trying to be like Max and Charles, was not like them. Generally Alex's inner monologue in the second half of Ch4 is very important to his outlook on racing in this fic I think

(Just like with the George scenes I could probably write an entire breakdown of just this. Actually I might do that at some point)

Under the cut paragraphs and bits that particularly stand out to me as important. Not all especially with Chapter 4 cause I ran out of image space:

Lets put a pin in how exactly Charles treats Ferrari vs how Alex sees it as (Chapter 1)

And how Charles treats Alex (Chapter 1 & 2 & 4)

Yeah... (Chapter 2)

Put a pin in this for chapter 5 (Chapter 2 & 3)

A series of ey Charles what the fuck moments. Not exhaustive (Chapter 2 & 3 & 4)

Hey Alex wanna revisit this train of thought? (Chapter 3)

The last time something was called a nightmare- (Chapter 3)

Parallels parallels (Chapter 1 & 3)

Consider in context of Chapter 4 (Chapter 3)

Interesting train of thought you've got going there (Chapter 4)

George isn't the only one capable of doing that, he isn't the only childhood friend Alex has in the paddock (Chapter 4)

Okay but why do you think Charles is like that. Why does George have to be the outlier. And why does he have to play it? Non exhaustive (Chapter 4)

Okay this was 50% very self indulgent but also, yeah... (Chapter 4)

[lunar-lair]

ok say hello to my insanely new oc who ive made entirely to be a villain who is still an excellent adult and a decent parent, probably. cares too much abt kids. think reigen mob psycho with a drop or two of milla. worked under Nick From The Mailroom and was actually in on his scheme.

has always been rather cold and brash towards adults, but is more caring towards kids. in my brain he has a brooklyn type accent? rough and tumble, walks around without a tie, yknow? they keep him cause he sorts mail real good, though.

(added a read more because this got INSANELY LONG AKSKSK i spent like an hr on this h)

he was a delugeionist, but only because he kinda just wanted to rip the world apart a little; lysandre vibes, thinks a lot of it is scum and needs to go. thinks the *psychonauts* are scum and need to go. hes psychic but suppressed it, think aquato parents but extra toxic about it, and straight up just saying being psychic is unnatural. wouldnt go to loboto parent lengths tho. so he adopted that thought of 'being psychic is unnatural and wrong', which contributed to a lot of self hate that was never learned out. likely, he realizes hes a shitty person and thinks he needs to go too. so like...yknow hank, dbh? kinda the vibe im gettin right now. way more formal, of course, and while usually gruff, is more polite when its needed; can and *will* beat the shit out of you verbally in a factual way, though, and can talk more street-lingo if hes talkin to real thugs. (probably winged it on his own after failing college or smth, hes got the vibes.)

anyways, its this plot where he slinks off and starts planting mistrust in the psychonauts or something. and inevitably he just...shows up and starts kidnapping people. dismantling things from the inside and all that. he left and formed a group who also hated psychics at some point, likely friends of his parents and friends of friends, all from his hometown. all of them fight *insanely* dirty, and a lot of them are insanely vulgar. the kids are supposed to be kept away.

but theres a line to follow here.

this man is a fold to raz. hates the psychonauts, hates being psychic, adopted his parent's hate of psychics, hates the *world.* raz is young and unburdened and unjaded...mostly. hes not the shock of water some young characters can be when it comes to being the foils of other characters; think steven with a villain or something, right? but raz is sassy and a little jaded, and not total sunshine positivity.

hes a child this man could look down on and not be immediately annoyed by, who is worried by yet respects raz's realization of the world as it is, however little that is.

and yet raz is still his foil. he still mostly loves the psychonauts, despite it all, he loves being psychic, for the most part, he dodged adopting his parents previous values, he still seems to have an even view of the world as a whole.

raz is jaded, if only a little, but he moved past it and accepted that things could still be bright. this man is jaded, but he stayed in his stormclouds, never looked for the sun.

ok where. was i. RIGHT ok so. at the beginning of this...story? the man finds raz being talked down to by one of the office workers; someone with weak psychic powers whos insanely jealous of his prowess. an adult who envies the young prodigy. and theyre giving him some insane task to do, like cleaning all of the closets within the hour, but hes saved the world twice, so he smiles and nods along, because he said he would help around the motherlobe, and this adult is asking him to do something that seems simple enough.

and this guy, internally, goes 'bitch.' for a good long second bc 1. dude even if you envy a kid, kinda fucked to show that?? not their fault 2. WHY are you asking a 10 year old to do that. why is there a 10 year old here. holy shit thats a 10 year old oh my god hes so tiny (no one told him there was a 10 year old because they knew hed stomp right up to management but. regardless. he is going to stomp up to management after this and no one can really stop him. except maybe raz well see)

so yknow. dude fixes his slight slouch and walks forward and politely tells this woman that 1. hes 10 why are you jealous of him and 2. hes 10????????? and shes like shit hes 10. and apologizes. and walks away

and raz is VERY ?? bc she was doing what? why is him being 10 important? and its that young part of you that gets pissed when people try to keep you from doing things because youre young and hes DEFINITELY yet to learn that piling responsibilites that should be handled by adults onto a child is fucked up in its own special way (looking at you ford, *nick*)

and the dude calmly explains because yea. he gets that. and he still sounds gruff and a little peeved but he squats down to razs height and he talks simply and factually, telling him straight on why it isnt right.

and. huh. people dont really do that for raz. except for sasha, sometimes, everyone likes to dodge the truth a lot with him, because hes 10, and sometimes, hes too nice to tug it out of them.

and this guy, this man that raz is already polishing a trophy for 'good adulting' in the back of his brain with his striking statements about how adults should handle things and kids should-kids should...get to have fun. not be traumatized.

for the shock on his face when raz said hed already saved the world a couple times, whats some closets. he reigned it in, said that its weird he saved the world, because thats usually their jobs.

and this guy offers his hand on instict before he stands up, even though he doesnt seem very sweet and kind like the adults that usually offer raz a hand. and he takes it, i think. he takes it.

warm. warm, a little nice.

reminds raz of his dad, maybe. he wonders if this man has any kids himself, but keeps his mouth shut, because he thinks he already has the answer, and its yes.

(he doesnt have any. he would wish he did, but he knows hed fail to raise them right.)

and when he stands, he asks raz what he was asking that woman for, and he says hes doing tasks around the motherlobe because his papers are still coming in. the man doesnt ask. (he knows what 'papers' means, realizes this is the tiny junior psychonaut every room in the damn place has been buzzing about, and he has fucking words for forsythe.) he just offers for the kid to sort mail under his supervision.

and that sounds boring. at least, it usually would.

this man is interesting, and a good...person? a good adult? hes...hes new. hes new, and calm, and a little like sasha but a lot not, and he thinks he trusts him.

so raz grins and says yea, mail sorting sounds nice.

(debatably, raz does not take his hand. hes too jaded when it comes to adults. debatably, he does not feel any warmth from this man who has taught him every adult has been telling him wrong. debatably, im projecting. but thats the whole point of ocs, hm?)

and then holes crop up in motherlobe systems. people are kidnapped.

raz keeps seeing the strange man, keeps telling him things, keeps hearing back, gruff and factual and a little annoyed, but raz can almost-just-barely tell its not at him, with the way he talks.

he can tell. he can tell.

he can never tell. this man is making sure he can tell.

raz trusts the man, is still polishing that trophy for 'best adulting' he has settling in the back of his mind.

and then the man comes with a militia.

he did not seem jaded. he did not seem hateful. he never showed any anger or hate towards raz.

but thats because he knows kids dont deserve it.

an excellent moral or two. a rotten, broken heart.

and at first, they keep the kids away, because these people fight dirty, because this isnt their battle, because the man has been sending emails about why 15 year olds are in a secret psychic agency.

(he does not mention raz. by razs second visit, he had just marked the boy down as another reason to hate the psychonauts as a whole, and especially its higher ups.

hes also regretting his alliance to nick by about the third. if he had known the man would puppet a child as if they were a toy, he would have organized his own rebellion ages ago.)

but eventually, the psychonauts need all hands on deck.

they send the children to find the missing agents.

the interns are fought on the way. some of them avoid the child, know the boss would pummel them.

they get to the base, and the strange man, the one with the broken trophy for 'best adult' (still barely-polished, because hes still so sure) still nestled in the back of razs brain, is still there.

the junior psychonauts are spotted. one of the guards throws a few rocks aimlessly.

they surprise them. one almost hits raz.

its intercepted instead.

and the other junior psychonauts watch as this man, their enemy, a villain, in their eyes, reprimands the other man for even accidentally daring, for even trying. for doing something they might have done just a month or so ago, if they had decided he was too much weirder than they already had.

and he yells something like, "Why the hell is he even here?! This is an enemy base, of whats a rebellion! This is a *10 year old*! What kind of adult sends a child *near* something like that?!" and he truly sounds angry this time, raz finds. hes too angry to keep it in. he still sounds gruff and oddly proper. raz is standing there, arms hanging. hes baffled in a specific way, the way he was every time the man's brow furrowed when he mentioned a harrowing story, the way he was the first day they met.

and he asks, a little quiet, a little small, a reminder of how young he really is, "Why are you still trying to keep me safe? We're supposed to be enemies now."

And his brow furrows further before flattening out, and he tilts onto one leg, and he swears he almost kneels to a knee.

He cant believe it. He really cant.

"You're 10." he says simply, softly, that factual way. "You shouldn't even be here."

and raz pauses. the interns freeze.

"...well, here I am."

and i think...it would be so intriguing if this was done halfway out of the mind, because this man is so against anything psychic. it would be so *compelling.*

so raz steps forward and asks again, asks why hes doing this.

and the mans eyes harden, he tries to turn off that soft heart, trying to remind himself of all that he hates. because he hates the psychonauts, because he sort of hates the world.

and raz asks why he could ever hate the psychonauts, head tilted, before listing off the few he knows to be true. but other than that, how? and ok, the world sucks a little, yea, hes seen that, gets that.

and he appreciates that this kid isnt totally gung ho about existence.

but he hates that he isnt, too.

and its this back and forth. everything the man hates, why he hates it. raz saying why its good but admitting why its bad.

and hes swayed, just a little.

but the man stands up from the kneel hed inevitably instinctively put himself into, and walks forward, hand held out yet again.

"You shouldn't be in the Psychonauts," he tells him, soft, factual, brow furrowed. "Come with me. I'll bring you back to your parents, or wherever it is you want to go."

raz contemplates. thinks, for a long moment.

he grabs the mans hand, warm and firm, yet again, for a terrifying moment.

before he reaches up to slap a mental door on his forehead, and astral projects into it.

he thinks this man is good. thinks hes just jaded.

thinks hes the best adult hes ever met, one who just happens to hate a lot of things.

hes only 10.

hes not letting someone who can tell him so clearly whats wrong and right for adults to tell him go that easily.

aaaand yknow. raz does his razzy thing. learns about why the guy hates the world and the psychonauts and himself. helps him learn that its not all bad, that he was excellent to raz, and still is, that things can be bad and good all at once.

the man concedes that raz is very capable, very smart, and can do a lot. but that doesnt mean he should have to.

raz tells him, though, that he likes working for the psychonauts. its his dream. and he realizes some things he was told to do were kinda screwed up, now. that maybe, in honesty, he was dealt a bad hand.

but hes done what he can with that hand, and he ended up with a royal flush.

and uh! yknow!! then raz leaves his mind and he calls off the rebellion! its like a rhombus of ruin type adventure, except without the villain being present beforehand. its just not clustered in insanely close with a ton of other wild shit.

anyways this got really long? sorry?? its an oc i just saw good adult and slight father vibe potential in the vibe i instantly got on him and then i went feral???? rip maybe someone will read this and if you did. congrats i honestly really liked how the whole foil and good-yet-bad and consideration of raz being 10 thing worked out. this oc is almost like our representative in the psychonauts world the way reigen is for the audience in mp100. yea :) i match them up a lot but thats just cause they vibe a lot. anyways its 1:40 am now and i spent abt an hour on this hope it vibed mildly byeeee

[seyaryminamoto]

I recently saw a video where GRRM talked about how he saw two different kinds of writers. He mentioned the gardener(planting the seed of an idea and letting it grow) and the architect(who plans out and organizes everything ahead of time). Obviously, every writer is a little bit of both but I was wondering which you relate to more and if you’d be willing to share some more about your own writing approaches and processes :)

I think I've answered similar questions in the past, but it'd be near impossible to dig it out in this ridiculously big, chaotic archive of my blog xD so I guess I'll answer it again, and if we come across the previous answers I've given, it'd even be fun to compare if there's anything different in the answer these days (?)

Personally, I think the best way to go about this is to have a mix of both things, but for me, it's in a very specific manner.

While I absolutely see the value in letting a story spiral and grow into whatever it wants to be, I have to say I don't think my best work comes from that. The lack of structure is similarly liberating and dangerous, because if your story's purpose isn't something you, as an author, have really made up your mind about, it's 100% possible that the story will end up going in very strange directions that MIGHT not make much sense, when you look at where you started out.

I've told this story a few times, but it bears repeating xD my first "serious" attempt at writing (by which I mean, I took it seriously, not that the content itself was super serious, since it was a trainwreck more often than not xD) started off as a perfectly happy romcom high school story! And tbh, to this day I love it as it is... but I know, I KNOW, that I totally warped the initial purpose and process of the story when, upon fulfilling the first bit of conflict in the story and leaving some massive loose ends I had to wrap up, I found myself at a loss because I had no idea how to continue. I was seriously, genuinely, at a loss for ideas and storylines to keep going. What, then, did I come up with?

... my happy romcom characters ended up embroiled in an organized crime catastrophe that has ZERO build-up in the first part of the story xD

(To the eagle-eyed who might have picked up something here... yes. That is 100% what I was poking fun at through Yang in Gladiator during the Fire Lord's Shadow arc. Yes. I mock myself. More accurately, I make Azula and Sokka mock my most questionable writing choices :'D)

Now, then, I had a very weird mess in my hands and I admit, it wasn't a great place to be at xD you see me now with my very, very small likelihood of falling into writer's block? Well, back then, I spent more time blocked than writing, for sure :'D and one of the reasons why that happened is because, while I had some ideas for what I wanted to write in the future? I didn't really have a set direction beyond "I want these and these characters as endgame relationships!", which is pretty much the most basic level of "plotting" you can pretend to do, as a writer xD And ironically, even then I was far more malleable and willing to experiment with whatever character combinations came up later, which even resulted in me discovering, well into writing a story, that some characters I absolutely did NOT conceive in a relationship were actually pretty good together! :'D

But that I had very little direction when I started writing that story was still a problem. I actually found more direction and built some more structure as I reached the last part of the story, and I will say, it's the strongest bit of it, by far xD (as evidence of what I'm saying, it was the first time I ever wrote an OUTLINE DOC! XD) but I have no doubts that, if I'd had the foresight to actually know where I was going, the story as a whole would be much much better, no matter how much I love it for what it is.

So! This particular writing experience of mine taught me countless things, among them, to actually ponder direction and purpose in stories instead of diving in blindlly. It's not really about having foreshadowing hints every ten minutes, which is what some people take as a sign of quality (I'll dare be quite controversial and say that not because you know what you'll write ten years down the line does it mean your story automatically makes sense... xD), it's about actually having a purpose in what you're building, a real direction, character arcs and plotlines that, to put it simply, work.

Therefore... I know for a fact that I can't be a full-blown plantser (or gardener) because I've tried it, and while I absolutely see the merits, the drawbacks are pretty sizable for me, and it just really doesn't work with my approach to storytelling.

Thus... If I MUST choose a category out of them both, I'd say I'm an architect, but the truth is I'm not an architect in the most strict sense of the word, either :'D

If you want a super strong building, you obviously need the best foundations for it. But you don't stop there, of course: erecting a building takes a lot of different efforts and processes if you really want your building to not only stand tall but to be a proper, decent place to live in. And while in real life, the reasonable thing would be to have a plan for each of those little details you have to build in, from filling the walls, to the type of flooring, down to even the decor... in writing, THIS is where I take the gardener approach! :'D

I don't know if I've said it in the past, but while sometimes I don't know how to start a story (which, despite my carelessness with the matter in the past, I've come to realize is a VERY delicate choice to make, one that can actually destroy my immersion in a story if it's a choice made carelessly), usually, I try to make myself think about where it's going, first of all. Currently, I have a few potential original projects rolling around in my head... and I don't know where they start :'D but I DO know where I'll take them, what the actual, ultimate climax of those stories would be. This, then, is the most basic foundation for a story, for me. I choose a destination, kinda, and then build the journey there :D

This is, loosely speaking, how I've built up Gladiator. And yet Gladiator, being the ridiculously big mess that it is, required a very unique plotting approach that I suppose might be at odds with a lot of what I've said so far xD yet it also remains true to a lot of what I've said here :'D

When I first started to ponder this story, the first plot point was obvious and instinctive: Sokka's capture. When Chaosconetic (the one who first gave me the idea for this story) suggested it, he didn't quite put forward the idea of having Azula being the one who captured Sokka personally. I thought of making Azula and Sokka first come face to face in this way because... honestly? Because I just wanted them to interact as soon as possible x'DDDD it complicated matters, of course, but that was absolutely something I could work with.

Yet... where was I going with this story? It was a rewrite of ATLA as a whole, so what exactly was the direction for the story? Clearly, Azula and Sokka would wind up falling in love, and how exactly would that come about? And beyond that, wouldn't it be a seeerious mess for this to happen in a setting where Ozai is STILL in power? Why, of course it would be! :'D It added a new layer of complications to the generally already complicated Sokkla relationship, and instead of it being kept secret or being a forbidden romance for the reasons canon-based stories typically make it so, it's BEYOND forbidden here because Ozai is still a very much active factor in this story, and he makes everything worse :D soooooo...

With these particular factors in mind, I had several things to think about. With Sokka fighting as a gladiator being the core of the story, I had to figure out who would be his rivals, and in doing so, figure out what his power curve as a warrior would look like :'D in doing so, I settled very quickly on Toph for his main serious rival, but Sokka wasn't the only one whose story I'd be telling: obviously, Azula's arc would be important too, as I'd have to work with developing her FAR MORE than I ever had before, and while Sokka's personal opponents would be important, Azula is the one who chooses Sokka as her personal warrior, therefore, she had to have a purpose in doing so. Said purpose then materialized when I decided to make use of Zhao's character for Azula's main goal and foil, and so, I needed Zhao to have THE best gladiator of all... and I didn't need to think about it too much before I settled on Combustion Man for the role :'D

Thus, those were small, isolated yet pivotal elements that I had to articulate into a structure that made sense :D they were small things I settled on pretty quickly, from the very first few days of plotting. I can say for certain that, by the third day, I already had settled on the climax (... can't decide whether that's a fortunate or unfortunate wording choice, tbh xD) scene of Part 1, when Azula and Sokka have their fateful fight in chapter 96, then finally succumb to their attraction and act on their feelings without holding back, in chapter 97 :'D I knew I wanted this to happen after Sokka hit a low point upon failing to defeat Toph, either for the second time or after losing against her far too many times that he just was too discouraged to keep going, hence, I knew what the lead-up to this would be from literally day THREE.

But beyond this? At like... day one or two of plotting, once I settled on Combustion Man as the ultimate man to defeat? I also settled on how Part 2 would end :> back then, I honestly had no idea how much time there would be between the events from chapter 97 and the upcoming culmination of Part 2, I wasn't anywhere near advanced enough with plotting to even KNOW I'd split the story into parts because it would get too big to handle xD But what I did know was that I needed these two situations to happen, situations deeply entwined with Sokka's role as a gladiator. Everything in between was variable, and it was stuff I could figure out slowly, along the way.

The ultimate direction of the story, though? That did take me a long time to settle on xD In fact, I think it took me well over a year after I got started to really figure out where I was going with all of this. A close friend helped me figure out things by offering many ideas for Zuko and Suki's storyline, basically tossing them at me in hopes that I'd make sense out of some of them... and I don't really know if she even knows how much that helped me xD I really spent a long time unsure of what I wanted to do, what I COULD do... until at long last, I settled on one slightly ambitious direction that eventually turned into what you'll all know as Part 3 :'DDDDD

So... yeah, that's why I say I'm being contradictory as heck xD Yes, I worked out some core details of the story since the very beginning, but it wasn't ALL the core details, let alone the ultimate direction of the story, BUT... in building up Azula's character arc, that direction slowly became clearer to the point where, when this particular possibility stared me in the face, I knew it was where we had to go, I realized that what I'd written over that year was leading up perfectly to that outcome.

Ergo, Gladiator is 100% a work of gardening and architecture, woven together to a point where I have a hard time remembering what, exactly, was the result of each thing. There's some things that I settled on early on, like I said, structure things... and then there are some parts where the characters just went wild and did things I did NOT expect them to do xD There's one scene coming up, right before the climax of Part 2, where Azula actually does something that I honestly WASN'T sure of doing... and yet I couldn't resist the urge to go forward with it, once the idea came to mind, and so I did it. And now I regret nothing xD was it necessary? Possibly not. Will some people find it weird and out of place? Maybe. But was it CATHARTIC AS HECK!? Aaaabsolutely friggin' yes XD pardon me for being so self-indulgent, but that's part of what being a gardener is about (?)

So, I really think the best stories benefit from a careful approach to mixing the principles of both ideas. I know that some gardeners think that a structure can stifle creativity (not necessarily true, if you sense a lack of creativity in anything you're doing, it IS up to you to turn it around, switch it up and make it interesting, right...?), I also suspect architects might think gardeners would be utterly unable to tell a good story altogether in virtue of letting the story run away with them (also not necessarily true, as the quality of a story isn't quantifiable as easily as that, gardeners might just make masterpieces without as much need of direction as I personally require: Philip Pullman apparently had no set direction in the His Dark Materials trilogy and I could swear that's some of the best storytelling I have EVER seen).

Ultimately, each person gets to choose their ideal approach and what exactly they're trying to do with their work, as well as how they want to do it... but if you ask me, if your characters never seem to pull you in unexpected directions, you might just need to rework them or approach them differently to give them more life. If they DO pull you in those unexpected directions, but you're not sure if you can follow them just because you need to follow structure, it's really up to you as the author to choose whether to sacrifice the life/creativity within your own work and stick to structure, or sacrifice structure and potentially cause your story's course to crumble :'D

It may sound like I'm advocating for gardening so much more, despite I've labeled myself an architect, buuuuut... ironically, a very complicated but VERY rewarding scene in Gladiator Part 3 damn near WRECKED my structure when I was writing it a few weeks ago :'D I literally had to take a day off from actually writing so I could make a list of ALL the elements that would be impacted by this change if I went forward with it. If I chose against it, I would have to rewrite the complicated scene in a different way, and it might have been waaay too weird to make it work. If I chose to keep it, I had to tread VERY carefully or end up potentially making a mess of the ultimate direction of Gladiator's story, even threatening the themes and nuance that I have been counting on since I settled on this direction. Thus, sometimes gardening can be dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

I THINK I found a fair enough compromise that allows me to keep the best of both worlds... but I hope I've made it clear that both ways of working have their pros and cons, and why even mixing both things can have pros and cons xD but this is also why I, personally, think that a writer benefits the most from figuring out at least a loose outline, the broad strokes of what they want to achieve in a story, and then figuring out the many ways in which they could fill in those foundations, in whatever way they're most comfortable.

And so, I have rambled plenty xD I hope that was thorough enough, my position in this particular subject is honestly to oscillate in the middle of both things, where part of your job as the writer is to determine which situation benefits more from either approach :D Like I said before, I've found structure isn't something I can sacrifice easily, but more often than not, letting the story flow, letting the characters make their own choices, can enrich your story rather than hinder it. So... I lay the foundations, the structure, so that seeds can grow inside it, if that makes sense xD

[georgefancys]

police violence and propaganda in ITV’s Endeavour

“That’s not what my dad says... he says you’re all bastards.” - Tommy Cork, Endeavour, ‘Neverland’.

- first of all, I’m white, so if any black people or other poc want to weigh in, please please do. this isn’t going to be a post about race specifically (mostly because there’s barely anything to talk about, Russell Lewis loves him some white characters) but obviously since a hugely disproportionate amount of police violence in real life is towards black people, that has to be a part of the conversation.

- second of all, all cops are bastards. yes, in the uk too.

- it’s not like i’ve seen anyone in the fandom defending fictional police officers or anything (unlike, say, some people in the brooklyn 99 fandom), so this isn’t a response to anything i’ve seen, but if we’re all going to be stanning a cop show i think this needs to be addressed.

- i’m not any kind of expert, i’m just taking information i’ve learnt elsewhere and applying it to Endeavour.

- i’m very willing to debate on stuff, but read the whole post before you do.

Police corruption

so, the overarching plot in Endeavour, from the pilot to the season 6 finale, is police corruption. However, the corrupting influence is not the police force itself. Instead, it’s the Freemasons, a “secret” society. All the corrupt police officers in Endeavour, from ACC Deare to DS Chard to DS Lott are either Masons themselves, have Masonic connections, or are being bribed/blackmailed by Masons. The point of the corruption plotline is that the police are not corrupt themselves, it’s an external influence that is causing the police force problems. Our main characters are the good police officers!! They hate corruption!!

Fred Thursday

Fred Thursday is a narrative foil for Morse. His family life is a reflection of what Morse doesn’t have. This is a large part of season 1, mostly in Fugue and Home. However, he also does morally ambiguous things that Morse doesn’t agree with. For example, in the season 1 episode Rocket, Thursday is xenophobic towards a German engineer, which Morse is vocal about disagreeing with. We the viewers aren’t supposed to agree with Thursday about this, but there’s never a point where Thursday goes ‘oh yeah I probably shouldn’t hate this German dude who obviously isn’t a nazi’. He keeps his views, and this is never addressed again.

In the season 5 episode Quartet, Thursday covers up for a woman who pushed her abusive husband down the stairs, saying that he must have tripped. Morse also vocally disagrees with this. However, I think the writer intended Thursday’s actions here to be more sympathetic. Which yeah, fair enough, right? The wife doesn’t deserve to go to jail for defending herself. But the problem here is Thursday’s interpretation of justice. At no point, even after seeing evidence of domestic abuse towards the wife twice (and it’s implied that there was more that occurred prior to the episode that he knew about) does he arrest or question the husband. He thinks that because the husband died, that’s justice done. He didn’t actually try to carry out justice using the legal system. And I know that legally domestic abuse can be a tricky thing, especially in the 60s, but Thursday essentially ignores his duty as a police officer to intervene in the obvious domestic abuse situation, and then covers up for the wife. And the line that genuinely bothers me so much, and is what makes me think we’re meant to interpret his actions as good:

Thursday: God was out, he left me in charge

Like, no, Thursday, you’re a police officer and it’s your job to carry out the law, not allow an abuse situation to escalate to the point where the wife is forced to kill her husband in self-defence and then lie about it. And i’m positive that this was a quote featured on the official Endeavour Twitter page when the episode aired, so I think we’re meant to be like ‘oh yeah, that’s reasonable’, not ‘uhhhhhh wtf’.

Another, more recent example: season 7. During episode 1, ‘Oracle’, Thursday believes that Carl Sturgis is guilty of the murder of Molly Andrews - his girlfriend - on the towpath. He is questioned. He says he is innocent, and also has an alibi for the murder. Morse believes that Sturgis is innocent; Thursday believes he is guilty.

[SEASON 7 SPOILERS]

Thursday then spends the rest of the season following Sturgis around, trying to find evidence that he’s the towpath killer. Morse finds out about this and tells him to stop. He doesn’t stop. A different man is caught in the act at the towpath, and after being chased by a group of young women, is hit by a car and dies. It’s decided that he was the towpath killer.

Then, Strange searches a house that turns out to be owned by Sturgis. During this search, Strange finds a kidnapped woman, Jenny Tate, in an upstairs room. It turns out that Sturgis did kill Molly Andrews, and all of the other young women at the towpath, and that the man who died at the towpath was a copycat killer. Thursday’s actions here - stalking Carl Sturgis - are justified by the narrative because Sturgis was guilty all along, despite there being evidence to the contrary, and lawfully Thursday should not have been pursuing Sturgis after he was released from police custody.

But the worst thing Thursday does is literal police violence - and on quite a few occasions.

The “Good” Police officers

Now, I’m going to talk about two instances within the show where Thursday uses unlawful violence, and people within the CID cover up for him.

1. Coda.

(disclaimer: i haven’t watched this episode in ages, so if i get a fact wrong i’m sorry but i know the general gist is right)

Thursday is interrogating Bernie Waters, a young man with connections to the Matthews gang. He wants information about... something, I think it might be regarding a possible power struggle within the gang, or a crime somewhere. Morse is waiting outside, unaware of what Thursday is doing. He goes into the warehouse where Thursday and Waters are, to find Thursday... it’s unclear what he’s doing, honestly, the scene is framed so we can’t see properly, but it’s enough to cause Waters pain, and when Thursday lets go, Waters is bending over and breathing heavily.

Now, Morse doesn’t agree with this, and tells Thursday so. Morse: ‘I don’t remember anything about that in the Sergeant’s training manual’. He knows that Thursday isn’t above iffy conduct (he punches Teddy Samuels in the face in the pilot, and pays a newspaper salesman for information in Home). But in the end, out of loyalty to Thursday, Morse doesn’t mention it to Bright. (Similarly, in the pilot, Morse is outright asked by the CS if Thursday punched Samuels, and Morse says no, he didn’t.) Thursday gets away with it.

So, Morse is the so called “good” police officer. Telling Thursday he doesn’t agree with his methods isn’t going to get him to stop. He’s the one who people say, oh, but he doesn’t commit acts of violence towards members of the public. He just turns a blind eye to the officers that do do that.

And I don’t care that Waters is a criminal, or has connections to this gang. Police officers don’t beat up people so they give up information. That isn’t lawful.

2. Prey.

I had a conversation with another member of the fandom about this recently, and we both agreed that it really bothered us. For a large portion of the episode, the CID has in custody Mr Hodges, a park warden who offered a lift to Ingrid Hjort, a missing young woman. He’s also implicated in a similar case from around a year ago, in which a woman was sexually assaulted and left in a coma. He’s in custody for much of the episode, constantly changing his story about Hjort, but maintaining that they can’t prove his guilt. In a search of his property, Strange finds underwear belonging to the woman from a year ago, which would prove his guilt in that case. However, before Strange can return and present this evidence, Morse and Thursday are questioning Hodges again. Hodges says ‘I didn’t do it, and you can’t prove that I did’, while leering at Thursday. Thursday says ‘Can’t prove it, he says’, stands up and starts beating Hodges.

Again, this isn’t presented as a good thing. Morse attempts to pull Thursday off Hodges, and afterwards CS Bright yells at him, saying they’d just received evidence from Strange.

However, a plotline in this season is a bullet in Thursday’s lung, left from when he was shot at the end of the previous season’s finale, Neverland. This causes him pain and frequent coughing fits. And, you know, he’s dealing with a lot at home, like his son saying he wants to join the army. Bright understands this. Thursday is under a lot of pressure.

Then, Bright tells Thursday that he will write in his report that Hodges fell down the stairs on the way back to his cell.

So this time, instead of having a junior officer showing loyalty by not reporting an incident, we have a senior officer lying to protect his subordinate. And again, it’s framed like Bright is proving his loyalty to Thursday, but... police officers should not beat up people they’re questioning. Like Bright said, they had just gathered enough evidence to charge Hodges, so this was unnecessary.

Other incidents of note

There’s a lot to talk about in Inspector Morse and Lewis too, but I’m not going to elaborate on them in this post. If you want me to, drop me a reply or DM and I will. These include:

- Morse lying about his identity in order to gain entry to a suspect’s college rooms (Inspector Morse, ‘The Dead of Jericho’)

- Morse and Lewis entering a possible suspect’s flat without a warrant (Inspector Morse, ‘Last Seen Wearing’)

- Lewis entering a member of the public’s house and threatening her child by shouting in his face and grabbing his arms (Lewis, ‘Expiation’. This is called out in the episode by CS Innocent, however she doesn’t actually punish him in any way, and it’s framed as if Lewis’s actions were perfectly reasonable because the child was withholding information. It’s also worth noting that this child is black.)

- Hathaway threatening a teenager after he possibly is lying during a murder investigation (Lewis, ‘Intelligent Design’. The teenager commits suicide soon after, and it’s strongly implied that while the threats weren’t the sole cause of him killing himself, they were the breaking point for him.)

- Lewis and Hathaway hounding a suspect for the entirety of an episode despite him not being guilty of anything (Lewis, ‘The Mind Has Mountains’)

- Edit: Morse lying about a woman's involvement in several murders in order to get her a lesser sentence (Inspector Morse, 'Service of All the Dead')

General points

Often in police shows, the police officers commit actions which, while illegal, are framed within the show as being necessary evils. For example, two detectives have strong reason to believe a suspect is guilty. Instead of obtaining a search warrant, they enter the suspect’s house without one and search the place for evidence. They end up finding evidence that the suspect is guilty. Despite the fact that the detectives broke the law by illegally searching the house, they are justified by the fact that they found enough evidence to prosecute the guilty person. We, the viewers, are meant to find these illegal actions reasonable because they ultimately lead to justice being served; the ends justify the means. Well, no. In the case of police officers breaking the law, they don’t.

Conclusion

Endeavour is hardly the worst example of ‘copaganda’, i.e. propaganda specifically designed to paint the police force in a positive, rosy light. It’s set in the 1960s, it isn’t relevant in the 21st century. Nevertheless, I believe that any show where the main characters are police officers is a form of copaganda, even if unintentionally. We are meant to side with the protagonist in any media (unless they’re an antihero, which is not the case in Endeavour). In Endeavour, the protagonist is Morse, who is a police officer. The majority of the main characters are also police officers. No matter how morally grey Thursday is painted as, he is still a protagonist.

I’m not saying we should stop watching Endeavour. It’s one of my favourite shows. But, when a show incorporates police officer characters and police violence, we need to think critically about it. We need to challenge the ideas put forwards in the show instead of just accepting them. Yes, there are more important things to be worrying about right now, but I wanted to make this post because the murder of George Floyd and the ongoing riots in Minneapolis made me consider the implications of television shows which paint the police force as the good guys, because we live in a world where the police force are not the good guys. And when our media is telling us that they are, we need to stop, take a step back, and think about why that is.

Resources:

Official George Floyd memorial fund: https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

Minnesota Freedom Fund (raising money to pay bail for those arrested in the Minnesota riots): https://minnesotafreedomfund.org/donate

Change.org petitions to hold the police officer who murdered George Floyd accountable: https://www.change.org/p/mayor-jacob-frey-justice-for-george-floyd?utm_content=cl_sharecopy_22414602_en-US%3Av4&recruited_by_id=2b2e5010-a181-11ea-8693-a9223455fd7b&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf_combo_share_initial

 https://www.change.org/p/minneapolis-police-dept-hold-minneapolis-police-accountable-for-killing-george-floyd-as-he-begs-don-t-kill-me

Black Lives Matter website: https://blacklivesmatter.com/

A report of the independent review of deaths and serious incidents in police custody. This is very long, and even so only a general overview, but I would recommend Trends in deaths in police custody and suicides following police custody and section 13, Police Misconduct: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/655401/Report_of_Angiolini_Review_ISBN_Accessible.pdf

Some graphs showing deaths in police custody in England and Wales over the past decade: https://www.inquest.org.uk/deaths-in-police-custody

Article about increase in deaths in police custody in the UK: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/police-custody-deaths-uk-latest-increase-2017-a8462616.html

[bsd-bibliophile]

BSD-Bibliophile 2019 Top Ten

#10 Post:

I’m in no position to stand above humanity, acting as prosecutor, or judge. I have no right to condemn others. I am a child of evil. Beyond redemption. I suspect my past sins are fifty or a hundred times greater than yours.

- Dazai Osamu, “Thinking of Zenzo” from Self Portraits

#9 Post:

I hate the idea of getting old and ugly, you know. I’m not so afraid of dying, but the ravages of age just don’t match my aesthetic.

- Dazai Osamu, “Urashima-san” from Otogizoshi

#8 Post:

#7 Post:

Disappearing into the darkened sky,  The longing that consumed me in my youth-

Resembling the stars of a summer night as ever,  Obscured in the vast distances as ever.

Disappearing into the darkened sky,  The hope, the dream of my youth.

I just grovel on the ground here  Like some kind of beast, thoughts darken

There’s no way of knowing  When those darkened thoughts will break.

It’s as if I’m drowning in the ocean  And can see the moon glowing overhead.

Now that the wave is so swollen,  And the rising moon so crisp,

This longing that consumed me in my youth of quiet sadness  Is on its way to disappearing into the darkened night.

- Nakahara Chūya, “Lost Hope” from Poems of the Goat

#6 Post:

#5 Post:

Nakahara Chūya Trivia

His old surname was Kashiwamura. Later on, because the Nakahara family (his mother’s side) was a wealthy landowner, his surname was changed to Nakahara.

He was a prodigy in elementary school. However, when his brother died in 1915, he turned to composing poetry out of sorrow. He later failed middle school because he was too engrossed in literature.

He translated around 60 poems by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud into Japanese. Due to their similar lifestyles, he gained the nickname ‘The Japanese Rimbaud’. (Other Source)

He had a mistress, Hasegawa Yasuko, when he was 17; she was noted to be older and taller than him. However, the following year, she left Nakahara to live with his best friend Kobayashi Hideo, which frustrated him greatly. (Other Source)

After Kobayashi left Hasegawa, she married and had a child; she named Nakahara Chuuya the child’s godfather.

Chuuya was noted to adore children, and spoiled them rotten. When his eldest son, Fumiya, died at the age of two, Chuuya had a mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized for a month.

After his death, Hasegawa Yasuko established the Nakahara Chuuya Prize to honor him. The prize only lasted a few years, with Tachihara Michizou as one of its notable winners. Another award with the same name was established in 1996 by Yamaguchi City.

He greatly looked up to Miyazawa Kenji, and he had been noted to hum Miyazawa’s poems from time to time.

He once spent a month in jail for smashing street lamps while in a drunken rage.

He was 151.5 cm (about 4'11.5") in height. The Bungou Stray Dogs version of Chuuya is 160 cm, so they actually made him taller.

He remained close friends with Kobayashi Hideo all his life, and entrusted the manuscript for Songs of Bygone Days to him while on his deathbed.

He died at age 30 due to cerebral meningitis.

Because of their lyrical qualities, many of his poems were used as lyrics in songs.

It is possible to buy an exact replica of his hat from the Nakahara Chuuya Memorial Museum.

“Some of Nakahara’s images and metaphors may strike the Western reader as strange. Notes have been provided wherever helpful, but in general this strangeness is not a product of any culture gap, nor of the translation process. It is Nakahara’s own.” - from the Note on Translation from The Poems of Nakahara Chūya

Nakahara worked one the only issue of the Blue Flower Magazine with Dazai Osamu and the two hated each other immediately. Dazai Osamu invited Kazuo Dan and Chuya to a bar in Higashi Nakano and described Chuya as looking like “a blue mackerel floating in the sky.” (Source 1, Source 2)

His ideal woman, the inspiration for his poem Michiko, was Hayama Michiko (the screen name of Ishikawa Seiko). She was also Tanizaki Junichirou’s sister-in-law and the model for the character Naomi in his novel A Fool’s Love. (Source)

(Trivia Source: Bungo to Alchemist Wiki *italicized sections are added by me* - Image Source: tsukiko-ciah.tumblr.com)

#4 Post:

If you have only watched episode 31 of Bungou Stray Dogs and have not read chapter 39 of the manga, this is definitely worth reading. If you only watch the anime you are missing out.

If you’re not convinced check out my analysis under the cut.

Bungou Stray Dogs is more than just an anime series full of supernatural powers, action scenes, and tension between a detective agency and the mafia. The series is based on world famous literary figures, and by doing so invites its readers to compare BSD to the beloved authors and literary masterpieces it features. You are supposed to look closely at the characters, their backgrounds, development, and compare them to the authors and literary characters who inspired them. You are supposed to look closely at the plot, dissect it, notice foreshadowing, and analyze how events are sequenced and presented. Asagiri Kafka, the author of BSD, has obviously written the series in a way that gives bibliophiles a chance to compare, analyze, and dissect the series to their heart’s content.

The anime does a great job of making the characters Harukawa35 created move and interact in a beautifully animated world. The voice actors put everything they had into their performances and as a result the characters have very distinct voices that reflect the characters’ personalities and traits and draws audiences deeper into the world and story of BSD. The action scenes and moments of suspense are amazing to watch with a heart pounding soundtrack to match. Visually and audibly the series is superb.

However, if you only watch the anime then you are missing out on a lot of the details that make BSD so intricate and adds all the depth to the series. The anime has only so much time, and as a result various moments, scenes, and characters get cut. The anime also has a tendency to prioritize certain characters above others, so anime viewers see a lot of a handful of characters but don’t get to see the other characters’ scenes, backstories, and character development in their entirety. As scenes and characters are changed or left out in the anime the world of BSD gradually drifts away from the manga until ensuring the continuity of the anime means the series becomes more of its own entity and less connected to the manga. Of course the anime has not moved so far away from the manga that it has become its own entity, but there are distinct differences and unique atmospheres that are not shared between the anime and manga.

And that brings me to how the material in chapter 39 was presented in episode 31. There are three important facts in the chapter that makes it so powerful and memorable to readers:

Atsushi’s experiences at the orphanage: In season 1 on the anime there are various short flashbacks to when Atsushi was living at the orphanage. All are very brief, focus on Atsushi sitting helplessly as verbal abuse is heaped on him, and they are shown repeatedly to emphasize how deeply these experiences have affected Atsushi. Because of that when you see a new moment from Atsushi’s past you instinctively pay attention and notice how it is different from the flashbacks you had seen before. In chapter 39 the flashbacks are more than a mere few seconds where a few words are spoken and we see a helpless Atsushi; these flashbacks are complete stories about very specific instances where Atsushi was blamed, ridiculed, beaten, publicly humiliated, forced to have his foot nailed to the floor, had an unknown liquid injected into his system, was locked up, and taught some very important lessons that he didn’t understand at the time but would make him into the amazing protagonist he turned out to be. Episode 31 did not show any of these scenes in their entirety, condensing them into eight seconds of minute representations of the horrors Atsushi experienced, and only showed one part of an exchange between the young Atsushi and the Headmaster. Considering that Atsushi is the series protagonist it is strange that so much information that is vital to understanding Atsushi’s character was condensed into one third of an anime episode (while Kyouka’s backstory took up two thirds of the same episode).

The way Atsushi views his relationship to the Headmaster compared to how Akutagawa and Dazai view it: Chapter 39 shows Atsushi’s initial reaction the the Headmaster’s death as a kind of manic joy, which is also accurately portrayed in episode 31. Tanizaki, in both the manga and anime, is obviously concerned that Atsushi would be so overjoyed at someone’s death, even if it is the Headmaster who caused Atsushi to suffer so much. However, it is only in chapter 39 that Atsushi admits that he knew very little about the Headmaster and only knew “that he was the king of that small, small country,” the orphanage. That is the first hint that the way Atsushi remembers the Headmaster is skewed because he was so young and ignorant at the time. To Atsushi it is only natural to hate the man who he believed disliked him and tortured him because of it, but to outside parties like Akutagawa and Dazai the situation looks different. It is only in the manga that Dazai helps with the case by contacting an informant and sending Atsushi to meet them. The informant turns out to be Akutagawa. Atsushi and Akutagawa are foils, so while they are opposites they also complement each other which makes Akutagawa the perfect person to throw a wrench in Atsushi’s way of thinking. Akutagawa proves through the information he gathered that the Headmaster was not in Yokohama to do any harm to Atsushi, but to sell a gun in order to buy something and that there was no foul play that lead to his death. Akutagawa is also the only person to point out that while Dazai taught him, the Headmaster taught Atsushi and says he will let Atsushi off the hook today because it is “the anniversary of [his] mentor’s death.” Later when Atsushi doesn’t know how to feel after learning that the Headmaster had come to Yokohama to give him flowers and congratulate him on the person he had become, Dazai is the one to refer to the Headmaster as Atsushi’s father. It is only after this that Atsushi understands the role the Headmaster played in his life and he is finally able to cry and face his emotions and confusion surrounding the Headmaster’s death.

How the Headmaster’s past influenced the way he raised Atsushi: If you only watched the anime then you would have absolutely no idea how amazing and complex a character the Headmaster is! He didn’t just happen to become the Headmaster of an orphanage. When he was a child he grew up in an orphanage, “experienced a hellish life” that made the orphanage Atsushi grew up in “seem like heaven,” graduated from the orphanage only to join the criminal underworld, and he watched as all his friends from the orphanage died and he was the lone survivor. After becoming the Headmaster he, because of his past experience, recognized Atsushi had an ability and hid it from the rest of the orphanage until Atsushi was 18 in order to protect him. He knew how Atsushi would be hunted down and mistreated because of his ability and did the best he could, considering the horrible upbringing he had himself, to teach Atsushi to hate those who would hurt him and do everything he could to survive. The Headmaster taught Atsushi to be who he is and enabled him to have the will and determination to become the person who would save a drowning man while he himself is nearly dead from hunger, throw himself over a bomb to try and protect people in a detective agency he doesn’t know, risk his place in the Agency in order to save Kyouka and rescue her from a hopeless situation, and risk his own life to stop the Guild and become the hero who saved Yokohama. Can you imagine how proud and relieved the Headmaster must have been to learn that Atsushi was not only alive but had saved countless lives? How comforted he must have been knowing that his worst fears of Atsushi being killed, resorting to crime and living in a worse hell than the orphanage, or being tortured or used because of his ability had not become a reality! How could he be considered anything other than a proud father who wants to find and congratulate the son he raised? In my opinion, the absolute worst thing the anime has done is deprive its viewers the Headmaster’s complex and incredible character. Without knowing him there is no way of understanding what Atsushi truly felt and how much he grew to understand himself and his place in the world as a result of learning about the Headmaster’s past and what he had risked and sacrificed for him.

To me the anime’s biggest disappointment is how they treat the protagonist. The most important chapter for understanding Atsushi’s character and what makes him protagonist material has been squeezed into 7 minutes and 43 seconds of an anime episode (about 1/3 of an episode). As the protagonist he at least deserves his own episode explaining his backstory, or the two thirds of an episode that Kyouka got for her backstory. Asagiri Kafka and Harukawa35 took the time to create a vivid portrayal of Atsushi’s childhood and him learning what role the Headmaster really played in raising Atsushi. The writing in this chapter was superb. The characters were deep and fleshed out. The plot and the way evidence and memories were presented were so powerful people were dreading seeing it play out in the anime because it had that big of an effect on them. After getting ready for the most emotional chapter in the series to be animated, actually watching the episode was a major let down in so many ways.

I will always remember chapter 39 and what it taught me about humanity, perspective, and the influence one person can have on another. Reading it changed me as much as reading No Longer Human has, and I am just as fond of it as I am of Dazai Osamu’s works. What Atsushi and his battle to overcome his past represents has already helped me overcome some of my own demons. I hope more BSD fans will read the manga, and I mean really read it the way you would a work of literature, and allow the characters and writing to really sink in as they read. The manga is just that powerful and that relatable, because all of us have felt like the outcast, all of us have had our own demons from out past that haunt us even after they are dead, and all of us are looking for a place to belong and the power to conquer ourselves.

#3 Post:

No one realized that I had become insane; when I recovered nobody could tell the difference.

- Dazai Osamu, “Toys” from Dazai Osamu: Selected Stories and Sketches

#2 Post:

Nakahara Chuuya - “Poem of the Sheep”

II

Intention, thou art old dark vapour; begone from my heart! I now hope for nothing more than simplicity and peaceful murmurs and, at any rate, neatness.

Society, thou art indulgence of gloomy filth; do not wake me up again! I now will try to endure solitude, my arms already seem like useless things.

Thou, eyes opening wide in suspicion, eyes not moving for a while as they open. Ah, heart that believes too much in what is outside itself.

Intention, though art old dark vapour; begone from my heart! Begone! Apart from my poor dreams, nothing interests me.

Dazai Osamu - No Longer Human

“You might say that I still have no understanding of what makes human beings tick. My apprehension on discovering that my concept of happiness seemed to be completely at variance with that of everyone else was so great as to make me toss sleeplessly and groan night after night in my bed. It drove me indeed to the brink of lunacy. I wonder if I have actually been happy.”

“Whenever I was asked what I wanted my first impulse was to answer ‘Nothing.’ The thought went through my mind that it didn’t make any difference, that nothing was going to make me happy.”

Mori Ogai - Vita Sexualis

“There are things which everyone does but which one does not mention to others.”

(FIFTEEN spoilers below)

Arthur Rimbaud - “A Season in Hell”

A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing.

One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap.—And I found her galling.—And I roughed her up.

I armed myself against justice.

I ran away. O witches, O misery, O hatred, my treasure’s been turned over to you!

I managed to make every trace of human hope vanish from my mind. I pounced on every joy like a ferocious animal eager to strangle it.

I called for executioners so that, while dying, I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called for plagues to choke me with sand, with blood. Bad luck was my god. I stretched out in the muck. I dried myself in the air of crime. And I played tricks on insanity.

And Spring brought me the frightening laugh of the idiot.

So, just recently, when I found myself on the brink of the final squawk! it dawned on me to look again for the key to that ancient party where I might find my appetite once more.

Charity is that key.—This inspiration proves I was dreaming!

“You’ll always be a hyena etc… ,“ yells the devil, who’d crowned me with such pretty poppies. “Deserve death with all your appetites, your selfishness, and all the capital sins!”

Ah! I’ve been through too much:-But, sweet Satan, I beg of you, a less blazing eye! and while waiting for the new little cowardly gestures yet to come, since you like an absence of descriptive or didactic skills in a writer, let me rip out these few ghastly pages from my notebook of the damned.

Paul Verlaine - Oh, Heavy, Heavy My Despair

Oh, heavy, heavy my despair, Because, because of One so fair. My misery knows no allay, Although my heart has come away. Although my heart, although my soul, Have fled the fatal One’s control. My misery knows no allay, Although my heart has come away. My heart, the too, too feeling one, Says to my soul, 'Can it be done, 'Can it be done, too feeling heart, That we from her shall live apart?’ My soul says to my heart, 'Know I What this strange pitfall should imply, 'That we, though far from her, are near, Yea, present, though in exile here?’

Note: These poems were selected simply because they reminded me of the plot in FIFTEEN.

#1 Post:

Looking for something to read on Halloween?

“Hell Screen” by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

Kappa by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke

“The Human Chair” by Edogawa Ranpo

“Love After Death” by Yumeno Kyūsaku

“Hell in a Bottle” by Yumeno Kyūsaku

“The Holy Man of Mt. Koya” by Izumi Kyōka

“The Tattooer” by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō

“In the Forest, Under the Cherries in Full Bloom” by Sakaguchi Ango

“Fish Scales” by Shibusawa Tatsuhiko

The Decagon House Murders by Ayatsuji Yukito

In Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke:

Rashomon (pg. 48)

In a Bamboo Grove (pg. 54)

The Spider Thread (pg. 79)

Hell Screen (pg. 82)

In Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edogawa Ranpo:

The Human Chair (pg. 14)

The Caterpillar (pg. 76)

The Hell of Mirrors (pg. 117)

The Red Chamber (pg. 151)

These stories and books are included in my Online Library along with many others! The stories listed here are only a handful of the dark, terrifying tales written by the Japanese authors who inspired BSD, but they are all easily accessible and ones I would recommend.

Happy Halloween and happy reading!

[snaamagica]

15, 9, 3

@malignmuffin sent an ask from the pmmm / magireco part 2 ask meme

15:  how would you have reacted to finding out about the truth of soul gems and witches?

this question gets kind of a two-part answer, because i’m always of two minds about questions like this. do i answer from the perspective of the teenaged me, the one who would have been approached by kyuubey? or do i answer from the perspective of the current me?

... i don’t think the teenaged me would have handled it very well. specifically, in regards to witches — i don’t know if the soul gem thing would have rocked me as much, which is very interesting and probably says a lot about how connected i’ve always felt to my body. dissociation, babey!

but, witches: i was very idealistic then, and really wanted to define myself by certain things, such as how well i checked off all the boxes on the tropes i thought i should be the most like. if you’d say that doesn’t sound very healthy... well. you’d have a point! while i don’t think i was really a “for justice!” type like sayaka, her mindset there, about how there’s a right way to live and holding herself to those standards to the point of hurting herself, really resonates with who i was at that time. i was also a bit like mami, in that part of my self-definition was based on how useful i was to others and how much i could take care of them, but underneath it all, i was a hot mess. i don’t think i would have self-destruct the way mami did, though. it would probably be more like sayaka, sliding down, down, down into self-doubt and recrimination, until i finally became a witch

the current me, though...? the soul gem answer stays the same. i don’t know whether that’s healthy or not, ahaha, but i’ve struggled with dissociation for so long at this point that the idea of my soul not actually being “in” my body wouldn’t throw me too bad. witches...?

... honestly — i think i’d be able to process it. i have the life experience under my belt to look at things very differently. i think i’d be the most upset at the idea that if i hit a low point, and it’s too low, then i won’t come back from it. that’s one of the most unfair things about the magical girl system to me, and i’ll go into it more when i eventually write about the “growing up” theme in the series. but i think i’d end up even more paranoid about when my mental health starts to slide than i already am, ahahaha

9:  what do you think of the uwasa?

i think they are fascinating. i love that they managed to pull off introducing a new enemy, a whole new shtick, while keeping it feeling like it genuinely belongs in the setting. sakurako’s event really spoke to my interests specifically, because i’m a HUGE SUCKER for anything sentient with “programming.” robots, clones, AI, whatever — and the uwasa count. i feel like there’s a lot more there that’d be fun to explore! but there’s probably not much room for it in the main story, so it’d have to be in more “side story” style content... or fic

3:  who do you think deserved more screen time or better writing?

this question is hard, because there are just too many. (so i’ll probably answer this every time i get it, just with a different girl, lol)

for now, though... i’m gonna stand on my hill and scream CHITOSE YUMA! in magireco, specifically. the entire cast of oriko magica deserves more attention, but yuma, especially, got de-fanged, it feels like. which... is a very strange thing to say about an 11yo who looks like a 7yo

but in the manga, yuma is a legitimate foil for both oriko and kyoko. she wants to be a good girl, because being a good girl means she’ll be loved and taken care of, she has a protective instinct despite being so young and so small, but she’s also a precocious little shit who will throw down with anyone who looks down on her. or annoys her

and she already comes to grips with suicidal ideation vs fear of death. despite being behind in her physical development (and maybe her verbal, too, i don’t really know enough japanese to be able to say, but there’s a distinct difference between how yuma talks versus how riko talks), she’s ahead of her age in mental development. it’s probably the trauma! so it’s probably not a good thing! 

but yuma, like felicia, really hits me hard in the “young traumatized person” feels, and she’s written very realistically in the manga. but in magireco, she’s... very one-note. much like how kirika and oriko are written in the game, imo. they stripped out the best parts of this feisty little kid, and it KILLS me

[rittywritestdp]

Omg just found your blog ahhhh I love it !! Could I request the reader is an elf who Soren finds when on patrol in the woods or something! Could it be a cute and fluffy fic?? Sorry if this is too specific

Oh my gosh! Thank you, that’s so sweet of you Anon. Of COURSE you can! That’s so cute. It’s not too specific at all, it gives me something to run with when y’all tell me what you want! Elf in the Woods Part 1/Part 2Soren

  ♦ The trees of the forest protected decently from the downpour, had it not been raining all day, his patrols horses would’ve had dry ground to walk on. As it stood, the squelching of hooves in mud and pattering of the rain against leaves above them made it impossible to stay vigilant. They were practically sitting ducks, if anyone used the rain as cover for an attack. “Let’s turn back.” Marco called forward, his torso bobbing with the gentle pace of his horse. “There’s no point in patrolling when we can’t hear or see a thing.” He said, looking quite miserable with sopping wet matted black hair hanging over his forehead. Marco knew it was a lost cause, however. There was only one thing in the entire world that Soren took seriously, and that was his duties. He didn’t get to the rank he was at by the age of 18 by slacking.     “If we push you down that hill over there, we could go home to get your injuries taken care of.” Soren suggested, laughing. Marco, however didn’t have time to form a quip. A crack of lightning illuminated the darkening sky and all three of the horses spooked, darting this way and that. Soren’s mount sped straight, a secondary crack of lightning silhouetting the blond man as he was thrown from his saddle with the lurch of his horse skidding to a stop in the mud attop the embankment he’d joked about tossing Marco down. Mud gathered on every piece of plate he wore, his sword jabbing him in the side as he tumbled. Jagged rocks snapped against his skull and saplings caught on his legs, turning him mind tumble.     The moment a sullied knight in less than shining armor skidded into the path before you, you stopped. Your eyes widened with recognition as you saw blood matted with his hair and squinting, disoriented blue eyes squinting at the sky. “Augh.” you heard him give a pained groan and instinctively stepped back as he started to move. With your cloak up, he wasn’t likely to recognize what you were, but you still weren’t ready to take a chance with a Katolis guardman.     You didn’t tell your hand to offer itself to him, but there it was. Perhaps the pity of watching him struggle to right himself won over your better judgement, perhaps you had a death wish. You would know soon. He seemed surprised to see you, as if he hadn’t even seen you before. “Mom..?” He blinked rapidly, wiping equally dirty gloved hands over his grimy face.     “You…really hit your head good, huh?” You asked, knitting your brow at him in concern. Maybe you needed to take him to a doctor. ‘No, don’t be stupid y/n, you can’t do that.’ you mentally scolded yourself. “Let’s get out of this rain.” You said after a moments debate, grasping his wrist and hauling him to his feet before he could object. You were a bit shorter than him, but with your hood up and his dazed state, he was unlikely to see anything out of the ordinary. “You can lean on me if you need to.” You told him, watching the path ahead. He seemed reluctant to take that offer, despite his struggle keeping pace while he was busy favoring his right ankle. “Shameful to lean on someone, Mister Guardman?” You prodded, pursing your lips.     “I’d have to kneel to lean on you.” He snickered, causing you to shoot him a cross look. “Can I lean on your head?” He joked, raising his arm as if he was about to prop his forearm at-top your head. You deftly ducked out from under his reach, knowing full well there would be issues if he felt the horns that resided under your hood. He fell quiet after that, a bit uncertain.      “Where are we going, anyway?” He asked, a moment later.      “There’s an outcropping not far from here. I can look at your injuries there, if you want me to.” You replied easily. The rest of the walk was quiet, a thin tension slowly growing between you and the guardsman. Your brain told you to run, but you didn’t want to. You were interested, intrigued…compelled to see this through. Not to mention if you ran now, they’d be looking for a suspicious cloaked figure if you ran now.      The moment you made it to the outcropping, Soren slowed. “Have you been…living here?” He asked, looking around the camp and then finally letting his eyes land on you. “This place is a mess. Are you on the run?” He asked, all at once. At best, you would now be forced to move camp.      “Yes…and no.” You started. “Yes, I am living here, and no I’m not running from anything, Guardsman.” You replied, sitting down on an old stump and attempting to start the fire. Soren was quiet, and moved to sit across from you on the ground - there was no other chair or anything that could be used as a chair.      “You can’t light a fire in a thunderstorm.” He said, though you had a feeling he’d never lit a fire before. It certainly took more than a couple strikes from the flint stone, but you managed to get a small fire going. The wood you’d collected for the past few days would keep it going for the rest of the day, if you were lucky. He stared at the flame for a moment before opening his mouth to undoubtedly say some quip.      “I’m y/n.” You introduced yourself, despite your better judgement. “What were you doing out in this storm? You had to have known it was dangerous.” You asked, standing to rifle through your pack and find a cloth, some gauze, some bandages, and a bit of poultice to ward off infection. You came to sit beside him, wiping all the un-wounded places off his face clean first. He seemed a bit perturbed at some strange woman cleaning him, but he let you.       “I’m Soren, and I was patrolling. My job is dangerous all the time, too.” He said, almost in a bragging tone. You gave him a dry look. “And, just saying, wearing a cloak up all the time is totally not suspicious at all.” He let the corner of his lip curl up slightly as you searched around for a water basin to wring the cloth out in. You stood, fetching your canteen and a pot to empty it in. You wouldn’t have drinking water, but that didn’t bother you. At this point you just wanted him out of your camp. Or did you? The moment your eyes settled on his face though, you were a bit taken aback. You hadn’t gotten a good look at him before now, what with the mud and all. He was actually…quite nice on the eyes…and you weren’t sure how you felt about that. You certainly weren’t going to tell him that. “You’re staring. I didn’t chip a tooth did I?” He began to raise his hand to feel of his mouth but saw how dirty his gloves were and thought better of it.       “No..no it’s just you…have…pretty…eyes?” You said, feeling awkward every word of the way. It was the first thing that came to mind and you regretted it the second he looked surprised. A tinge of pink on his cheeks betrayed his stoicism and his hand raising to rub his neck sunk the ship. His sudden bashfulness was amusing to say the least.      “Thanks, I grew them myself.” He said after a moment, and you let a laugh escape your lips. He gave a toothy grin and leaned back on his palms. “Fix me up, doc.” He said, tilting his head to give you a better look at the bloodied mat of hair on his forehead. You leaned over him, pressing the damp cloth gently to his head and attempting to rinse the blood out of his hair enough to see what had happened. Just as you leaned back to rinse your rag out, Soren caught your hand. “You…know I know right?” He asked, looking at your fingers briefly before releasing your hand. You felt your blood run cold, swallowing heavily before mustering the bravery it took to look up at his face.      “…I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” You hushed, dropping the cloth and pulling your hood down. He just eyed you for almost a full moment, you think you even saw him swallow…as if he was nervous. “Nice eyes.” He said. “Grow them yourself?” He joked, yet you missed the joke completely. Instead you knitted your brows at the man.     “You..aren’t mad? Upset?” You were confused. Beyond confused. This man wore Katolis’ colors and yet he was willing to make nice with an elf? He opened his mouth a couple times to reply, but fell flat each.       Finally he looked to the fire instead, it seemed to make it easier for him to speak if he wasn’t looking at you. “I know they say you’re evil and monstrous.” he began. “You went out of your way to help me. You could’ve killed me plain and simple, right then and there…but you didn’t. I’ve just got this feeling.” He said, his voice like a wisp on the wind, growing quieter as he continued on. You wanted to reach out and touch him, to show him how much it meant that he was willing to say that, but you were still frozen. “And I mean, if that gets a bit of my blood sucked or my eyeballs roasted on a skewer, I think that’s a fair trade.” He laughed again, pausing a second later and shaking his head lightly as he realized his error. “I mean, I don’t actually. Please don’t take my eyes.” He said with enough sincerity to send you into a fit of laughter.       Once you recovered from your fit, you wiped a lonesome tear from your eye and just grinned at him. “Ah, my plan, foiled before it even began.” You mocked. “Do humans really fear think elves eat eyes?” You asked, beginning to clean his head once more.       “I mean, they say all kinds of stuff.” He said. “Believe it? Psh, not at all.” He said in a Totally Convincing Voice. You just grinned, leaning closer and pulling his head down under your chin so that you could see the wound.       “It looks like you just got a cut, and probably a concussion. When you get home, see a doctor.” You said, dabbing it onto his skull. The rain sounded like it was letting up, that meant his patrol would be looking for him soon. However, the thought of him returning to his people made you feel a bit lonely. He was the only company you’d had since you left Xadia. You let him sit back up and grinned as soon as you saw his flushed cheeks. “You okay, Guardsman?” You teased.        “Much better than I would’ve been laying in the ditch back there.” He said, giving you a lopsided grin.       “I…was going to put some bandages on…but if your men see you have a bandage they’ll have questions.” You said, nervously, looking to the fire once more. It was quiet between you for a minute, save for the crackling of the fire and the cascade of rain outside. Your fingers fumbled together nervously in your lap while you watched the flames devour the logs and sticks before you.        “I won’t tell them.” He said, voice low. “About you…or your camp.” He said, and you felt him bump into your shoulder as he scooted closer. “I owe you that much.” He added. You didn’t even know what to say. You didn’t know how to express your gratitude. You didn’t know if you could believe him. “Can I…come visit again? Will you be here?” He asked, and you wiped your head around quick enough to give yourself whiplash to look at him in bewilderment. His face was beat red, you placed a hand to his forehead. Was he running a fever? Or was he blushing more than humanly possible? He slowly turned his face to look at you, looking like a child who was trying to apologize for something tragic. He looked so vulnerable, sitting in the flickering firelight, hair still drooping with the weight of the rain, and his armor dented and sullied as if he’d left it on a road for a month. You almost wanted to pull him into a hug and tell him that it would be alright. “That’s weird. That’s weird to ask.” He hushed, seemingly to himself as he mentally scolded himself. You brought your hands to his cheeks and turned his head to force him to look you in the eyes, nearly nose to nose.      “I would love a visit.” You hushed, the look in his wide blue eyes amusing you enough to drown your own embarrassment out. He just stared. Even after you’d settled back down beside him. He just stared. Until he pulled his left glove off with a quick tug and slid his palm against yours.       “There for a moment I thought you were about to take my eyes.” He joked and you shoved him with your shoulder. The two of you sat in comfortable silence, watching the rain slowly let up outside and enjoying each others company while it lasted. I hope this is good! I’ve not written nearly as much fluff as I have angst and stuff but I like it! I wrote a bit more than I was planning but hey, I’m not complaining. -☼

[unfolded73]

We’ll Get Better (1/1) - starmora ff

Summary: Gamora struggles to start a physical relationship with Peter.

Yeah, hi, I wrote in a new fandom. Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter Quill x Gamora, rated M, ~ 5300 words. This fic references Gamora’s past abuse, but not any specifics.

This fic as as slow burn as you can get in a one-shot, I guess. Set shortly after GotG Vol. 2. No mention of the events of Infinity War.

(AO3 Link)

___

She struggles with being touched. Gamora doesn’t want to admit her failings, but really, that’s what it comes down to. The touch of a person’s hand on her skin, no matter how funny and kind and (ugh) sweet that person might be, triggers a fight or flight response. After so many years of torture, so many years when even a supposedly fatherly touch could turn cruel at a moment’s notice, her body is hardwired to react badly when someone touches her.

Gamora is brooding on this fact when she feels a tug at the bottom of her pants and the slightly sharp prickle of Groot crawling up her leg. When he’s high enough, he points to her pocket.

“I am Groot?”

“I don’t have any more candy, Groot; I’m sorry.”

“I am Groot,” he mutters as he hops back to the floor, glaring at her.

“Well, you ate it all, so that’s your fault,” she says in response to his snark.

The problem she has with touching doesn’t apply to Groot. He’s a tree, and the sensation of his roots clambering up her clothes so that he can perch on her shoulder is familiar and if anything, soothing.

It’s not that she hasn’t allowed Peter to touch her; she has. She’s let him pull her into a dance, one of his warm hands in hers and the other chastely resting on her hip. She even went so far as to put her arm around him in comfort after Yondu died, the tense bunch of his muscles firm under her palm.

(She thinks about those moments more than she wants to admit.)

Now their “unspoken thing” is slightly less unspoken but still unacted upon, and she’s aware of Peter searching for openings — for chinks in her armor. Eating a meal together on the Milano is an excuse for him to let his fingers graze hers as he passes a dish. A brief goodnight, and he trails his hand along her waist as he squeezes past her in the corridor. They are welcome bits of contact, and yet they aren’t. She wants him to touch her, but every time he does, she feels it jangling along her nerves like an ear-piercing scrape of metal on metal.

Day after day passes, and it feels like electrical potential is building between them, like she’s one of those damned Anulax batteries Rocket felt compelled to steal, and maybe if the electricity is discharged there will be a spark, or maybe she’ll just fucking explode. Probably the latter.

When Peter suggests they spend a few days on a nearby leisure planet after they’ve foiled a plot by space pirates to hijack the transport vessel of an Elani princess, which was after they prevented a global pandemic by blowing up a haven of bioterrorists on Maarin III, which was after the incident with Peter’s father Ego, Gamora is just exhausted enough to say yes without putting up even a token argument. She doesn’t sleep as many hours a day as the others, but even Gamora is fantasizing about a soft bed and the oblivion of sleep by the time the Milano docks and they’ve found rooms at a hotel. Which is why when a hotel room key is pressed into her palm by the conciliatory front desk attendant, she pays no attention to where anyone else is going, she just drags herself to the room number appearing in little winking, electronic numbers on her key. It’s possible that she’s asleep before her head even hits the incredibly soft pillow.

It’s about three hours later when Gamora blinks her eyes open, struggling in the darkened room to remember where she is. The sound of snoring makes her sit up and look over toward the direction of the noise.

“Peter.”

The snoring continues unabated.

She reaches over and punches him in the arm. “Peter.”

He startles awake, blinking slowly. “Huh? Gamora, wha—?”

“What are you doing in my room?”

“It was either this or share with Drax and Mantis, and you know how Drax talks in his sleep.” He sits up and looks at the wide expanse of bed between them. “It’s a big bed, and you were so dead to the world, I had to check to see if you were still breathing. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

“Just because I don’t wheeze like a Vrelnexian boar doesn’t mean I’m dead.”

He frowns like he is struggling to follow her words. “I know, I was just… wait, are you saying I snore?”

“Is that what you were doing? Because it sounded like—”

“Okay, okay. Sorry if I woke you up.” He looks contrite, with a line from the pillowcase pressed into his cheek and his hair sticking up on one side. Gamora smiles in spite of herself.

“It’s okay; I think I’ve slept enough,” she says. “But you haven’t.” She starts to stand up. “Why don’t I—”

Peter grabs her hand, and Gamora flinches. “No, stay. Please? Keep me company.”

She extracts her hand from his. “And what am I supposed to do while you sleep?”

He flops back on his pillow with a grin, letting his eyes fall closed. “I happen to know I’m adorable while I sleep; you won’t be able to take your eyes off me.”

Gamora snorts a quick breath out through her nose. “Right.”

Peter’s eyes slowly open, and he’s watching her carefully like he’s trying to read her mood. He sighs. “If you wanna be alone—”

“No, it’s fine.” And it is fine, even though she’s feeling a little bit out of sorts, thrown by this strange intimacy of sharing a bed while not actually sharing a bed in the euphemistic sense. She rolls her eyes at her own hangups. After all, both of them are still completely clothed. Peter was likely as exhausted as she was, just looking for a quiet place to rest. “I’m glad you’re here,” she blurts.

His face goes on a journey, first blooming with a cocky smile and then shifting into something softer and sweeter. “I’m always glad to be with you, ‘Mora.”

The room is terribly quiet; even the hum of the air conditioner almost undetectable to her ears. Her hand rests between the two of them on the bed, and Peter reaches over and runs the pad of his index finger across the top of her hand, the pink of his skin against the green hue of hers. She focuses on breathing and on staring at the contrast of their skin tones and on not flinching.

Perhaps she isn’t so successful at the not-flinching, because he draws his hand back and frowns.

“Sorry” Peter says.

“It’s not you. I’m not…” Gamora reaches up and smooths her hair down, trying to cover a slight tremble in her hands. “I’m not good with physical interaction. With anyone.”

“Seemed pretty good at it the first time we met, when you kicked me in the face,” he says with a smile.

She laughs. “That kind of physical interaction, I’m good at. It’s what I was built for. The rest of it… it makes my skin crawl most of the time.”

“Jeez. Sorry.” She can immediately see the hurt in his eyes at the idea that he’s been causing her discomfort and she hasn’t said anything. “You should have told me before, I wouldn’t’ve—”

“I didn’t tell you because I… I want to get over it. I want to be able to…”

“To what?” he asks after a short pause, a little bit too eagerly.

Gamora smirks. “You know what.”

“I mean, I hope, but I don’t know.”

She meets his eyes. He has kind eyes. Even when she thought he was a complete ass, she’s always thought he has very kind eyes.

“You’d be better off with someone else. Someone less difficult.”

“I don’t want anyone else,” Peter says, and the sincerity in his voice flattens her.

Gamora leans over him, resting her hand gently on his cheek, the stubble of his beard prickling against her palm. They stare at each other.

“You’re touching me,” Peter finally says, his voice a little raspier. The sound of it makes her feel… it makes her feel something she’s afraid to name.

“Yes.”

“Is it bothering you?”

“Not just now.”

“Good.” She sees his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.

“You’re going to get frustrated with me. You’re going to want more than I can give,” she whispers.

He just shakes his head fondly, as if she’s ridiculous for even thinking such a thing.

“You’re so different from when we first met,” she says.

His eyebrows rise and fall quickly. “Kind of a lot has happened since then.”

Her hand is still resting on his cheek, and she wants to drop it away. She wants to pull him closer. She doesn’t know what to do, and it makes her feel like jumping up and punching the wall. It makes her want to run away as fast and as far as she can.

“Do you wanna sleep a little longer, maybe?” Peter asks.

It breaks the tension, and Gamora smiles, finally removing her hand from his face. “I know you do.”

“Will you lie here with me?” His voice is soft and vulnerable and makes it feel like her heart is swelling inside her ribcage.

“Yeah.” She lies back on her pillow, on her side so that she’s facing him. Peter mirrors her, and their knees bump together as they curl up. Gamora watches him carefully, uncertain what the rules are for whatever they’re becoming.

Peter seems to read her mind. “We can go at whatever pace you need to. And if I ever do anything or say anything that makes you feel uncomfortable, please tell me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And just so you know, anytime you wanna touch me, you should totally go for it.”

Gamora rolls her eyes. “No pressure then.”

He winces. “No, I don’t mean I’m, like, starving for it or anything.” She just raises a skeptical eyebrow at that. “Okay, maybe I’m a little starving for it, but it’s not like I can’t wait. I can wait, I promise.”

Blowing out a breath, Gamora closes her eyes. “Go to sleep, Peter.”

He stifles a groan. “Sorry I’m so bad at this.”

She opens her eyes again. “You don’t need to apologize. We’re both pretty bad at this, I suppose.”

“We’ll get better at it, though,” Peter mumbles, already starting to drift off.

Gamora tucks her hand underneath her face and watches as he falls asleep.

He is pretty adorable when he sleeps, she thinks to herself.

~*~

The drinks Drax keeps putting in front of her are strong, Gamora thinks as she squints her eyes and tries to make the two copies of Rocket she’s seeing coalesce into one. They aren’t paying for anything; a Xandarian duke recognized them, and announced loudly, “Your money’s no good here, Guardians of Xandar! Anything they want, it’s on me!”

She is sitting close to Peter in the booth, shoulders and hips pressed together. It’s nice, she thinks, the warmth of him all along her side. Why did she ever think touching him was bad? Touching him is fantastic.

He’s got his arm slung along the back of the booth behind her, and suddenly that’s all she can think about, his arm. His strong, well-muscled arm, and what it would feel like if he wrapped it around her.

Peter is laughing at something Mantis said, but between that conversation on one side of her and whatever Rocket and Drax are arguing about on the other side of her, Gamora can’t seem to make any of the words swirling around make sense. Groot runs around on top of the table, using his vine-like arms to vault from the table to Rocket’s shoulder to the top of Drax’s head, then back to the table. Gamora just manages to pick her drink up before Groot barrels into it. She takes another sip, the sweet and sour flavor filling her mouth, and shifts her hand under the table from resting on her own thigh to resting on Peter’s.

His attention shifts immediately, and he swings his head around toward her. His lips look soft, she thinks, and she wonders what they would feel like on her skin.

“Hey there,” he says with a lazy smile.

“Hey.” Her voice sounds weird to her ears. Low and raspy.

She wants him to kiss her.

It’s ridiculous that they haven’t kissed yet, she muses. They’ve both admitted they have feelings for each other. Well, sort of. Not in so many words, but still. The information is out there. It’s shared information. Everyone else just assumes they’re a couple. Rocket has taken to calling Peter her “boyfriend” in that sly, snarky way of his, and Gamora doesn’t bother to dignify those comments with a response. Or maybe she doesn’t deny it because it’s basically true.

Or it would be true if she let him kiss her.

“Let’s go back to the hotel room,” she says to him.

Peter arches an eyebrow. “Are you tired?”

She lets her eyes drift down to his lips. “No.”

His other eyebrow joins the first one, his eyes wide. “Oh.”

Gamora turns and shoves Drax’s shoulder, prodding him to let her out of the booth. As she stands (and attempts to keep from tipping over to one side; those drinks were strong), Drax seems to take notice of the fact that she and Peter are leaving together.

“Are you two going to have sexual intercourse?” Drax asks.

“No! What? No!” Peter says quickly, even as his eyes drift to Gamora with a questioning glance.

“We’re just tired,” Gamora says evenly. “Don’t get into too much trouble tonight.”

“I plan to drink more,” Drax says. “And then find someone to fight.”

“That’s exactly what you shouldn’t do,” Gamora says.

“Watch out for him, will ya?” Peter asks Rocket.

“Yeah, yeah,” Rocket responds in his perpetually annoyed tone of voice.

Gamora leads the way toward their hotel, and she can feel Peter on her heels like she’s developed a sixth sense for his precise presence in three-dimensional space. He catches up to her side after they go through the revolving doors, boots loud on the marble floor of the lobby. She can feel him eyeing her, and her cheeks heat up in reaction.

They don’t speak until they’re inside their hotel room, the bed they innocently slept in the night before looming.

“So,” Peter says slowly, drawing out the word. “What did you want to—”

“Kiss me.”

He gulps. Actually literally gulps. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“‘Mora. Are you—”

She pounces then, their mouths colliding a little bit painfully in a kiss that at first is as much teeth as lips. Then it settles into something softer, and she feels a tug on her bottom lip as Peter nips at her, his hands settling on her hips.

Her head is foggy with the alcohol, dulling her senses enough that she can relax and let this happen. Kissing him is nice. She likes the way his mouth tastes. She likes the warm, wet slipperiness of it, likes the sensation of his tongue in her mouth. Gamora grips his biceps and lets herself be carried along by the wave of feeling.

When they finally separate, Peter rests his forehead against hers, his breath panting out over her lips.

“Wow,” he whispers.

“Yeah.” She feels desire for him almost like a weight in her abdomen, and she reaches for his belt as she kisses him again.

“Woah, Gamora, hang on,” he says against her lips, taking a step back and making her stumble. “What exactly are we doing?”

She smirks. “I would think of all people, I wouldn’t need to explain it to you.”

“Yeah, but… I thought you needed to go slow.”

“Not right now, I don’t.” She takes a step toward him, resting her hands on his chest.

Peter’s eyes sharpen. “Because you’re drunk.”

“Which is why I can finally let go without being hung up on all my…” She steps back again and gestures helplessly, searching for the words.

“Your years and years of trauma and abuse?” he supplies.

“Yes.”

“Okay, but do you see how that puts me in an impossible position? How do I know that you really want to do this?” His voice is plaintive. “What if I do something that triggers you? I don’t want to hurt you, baby.”

She bristles at the rejection and at the infantilizing endearment. Underneath that, she just feels terror. Terror that this is never going to work, and that Peter is going to tire of her.  “I can take care of myself,” she spits. “I don’t need to you coddle me.”

“I know you don’t.” He reaches for her arm, and she shakes his hand off. “Gamora, I… I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. I just… I want us to be sober, for one thing.”

“And what if I can’t do that?” She feels like crying, which makes her even more furious — with herself, with him, with this whole stupid situation. They’re a man and a woman who want each other; there should be nothing simpler. Why does it have to be so complicated? “What if I can never do that?”

Tentatively, he moves to put his arms around her and she lets him hug her, her anger seeping away. “I don’t believe it’ll be never. I really don’t.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m sexually irresistible.”

She shoves him hard enough to make him stumble back, both of them laughing.

“I’m gonna get you some water and a headache tablet,” he says, turning toward the bathroom.

“I don’t have a headache,” she calls.

“You will tomorrow.”

She actually won’t; alcohol doesn’t affect her that way and never has. But it’s a sweet gesture, and so she dutifully swallows the pill and the glass of water when he brings them to her.

They get ready for bed silently, actually changing into pajamas this time. Or in Peter’s case, a t-shirt advertising a Xandarian brand of beer and underwear. She’s seen him wandering around the Milano like that often enough that she shouldn’t find it remarkable, but tension still hangs between them like a tangible thing, and she can’t help cutting her eyes over to his bare legs as she brushes out her hair.

When they climb into bed, bodies turned toward each other, the tension remains.

“I’d like to kiss you again,” Gamora admits. She’s also starting to sober up, the blanketing clouds thinning to expose her anxiety at being this close to another person, to being this vulnerable. She tries to mentally close a door on the anxiety. It mostly works.

“Okay,” Peter says a little breathlessly, scooting closer to her, his face so close she can’t focus on it. His hand comes up to touch her face, his thumb tracing along one of the silver mods in her cheek. With a shudder, Gamora presses her lips to his.

He’s a good kisser, she has to admit as she lets herself relax into him, their mouths open and searching. His hand remains gentle on her head, guiding the angle and rhythm of it. Gamora shifts a leg against him and feels his erection brush against her through his underwear. She pulls away, overwhelmed and anxious and more than a little aroused.

“Sorry,” Peter gasps.

“Don’t be sorry,” she says. “I’m not… physically unaffected.” But she puts some distance between them.

“Yeah, but the way you get physically affected is way more subtle,” he says. “Unless there’s something about your species that I’m unaware of. Which I’m totally cool with, by the way.”

She smiles, looking down at her body. “No, I’m pretty similar to most female species in this quadrant. I don’t think you’d find anything… unexpected.”

He rolls onto his back, putting an arm behind his head. “Hey, what did you mean, of all people you wouldn’t have to explain it to me?”

Gamora squints, trying to remember what he’s talking about. “When did I say that?”

He huffs. “Never mind.”

Their earlier conversation comes back to her then. “I think I meant that it seems like before we knew each other, you fucked your way across the galaxy.”

He winces but doesn’t deny it. “A lot has happened since then.”

“Yeah.”

~*~

“This is nice,” Mantis says.

Gamora turns her head on her reclined deck chair to look at her companion. Both of them are stretched out next to a large swimming pool, eyes shaded with sunglasses and bodies clad in new swimming clothes they decided to splurge on. Gamora doesn’t think she’s ever been this close to naked in public before. It’s disconcerting, but also strangely freeing at the same time. It makes her very aware of her body. For that matter, she’s felt very aware of her body since they got to this leisure planet, and no more so than this morning, waking up in Peter’s arms.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Nice.”

“I’m glad you and Peter are together,” Mantis says. “I can tell you make each other happy.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds so simple,” Gamora says. “I wish it were that simple.”

“It’s not?”

Gamora sighs. She already feels flayed open, the way she’s been sharing her feelings with Peter recently. Now Mantis sits there looking at her, expecting Gamora to confide in her too. It’s exhausting.

“I grew up being tortured by Thanos, being turned into a weapon. Being touched meant being hurt. Sex, the few experiences of it that I’ve had, was just another weapon. A way to get information. A way to make someone vulnerable so that I could hurt them. I have no idea how to be… intimate with someone I care about. I’m not sure I can be.”

Mantis looks at her with sympathy. “I might be able to help you.”

Gamora’s eyes widen. “Yeah, thanks, but I’m not sure a threesome with you and Peter is what I’m interested in.”

“Oh!” Mantis giggles. “No, I wasn’t offering to be there in the room with you. I just mean I could…” She gestures vaguely at Gamora’s head. “You’re making an association between physical closeness and bad things that happened to you in your past. It’s a connection being made in your brain. I could suppress that.”

Sitting up, Gamora swings her legs over the deck chair and puts her bare feet on the ground. “Really? How long would that last?”

Mantis shrugs. “I don’t know. It depends on how strong the association is. But we could repeat the process as many times as you need, and eventually, your mind will make new connections. It will connect being close to Peter with good things. Safety. Comfort. Sexual pleasure—”

“Yeah, okay, I get it,” Gamora interrupts, uncomfortable. But, she has to admit, also excited.

Giving her a reassuring smile, Mantis pulls off her sunglasses and holds up her hands to either side of Gamora’s head. “So do you want to try it?”

~*~

“Gamora?” Peter calls as he unlocks the door to their hotel room. “What did you need?” She’d left Mantis at the pool and contacted him using their comms, telling him to meet her here.

She stops her pacing and turns, watching him walk in and seeing the minute he registers the bikini she’s wearing. “Whoa, ‘Mora, you look…” He blinks a few times, looking her up and down.

Gamora feels her cheeks heat up, and she decides to cut right to the chase.

“I told Mantis about my problem with physical intimacy, and she did something to the inside of my head,” she blurts out.

Peter looks concerned now. “What did she do, are you okay?”

Gamora barks out a nervous laugh. “I might be better than I’ve ever been. She did something so that I wouldn’t associate you touching me with… with my past. I don’t know how it works exactly. I don’t know how long it will last. I don’t know if it works at all, but there’s only one way to find out.”

One of his hands twitches. “You mean…”

She steps up close to him, her mouth an inch from his. “Yeah.”

Peter suppresses a groan as he kisses her, and she can feel his hands hesitate, hovering just above her lower back before he lets them settle carefully on her bare skin. Gamora gasps against his mouth.

“Okay?” he asks.

She kisses him again, letting her own hands wander over his shoulders. “Very okay.”

“God, you’re beautiful,” he mutters, his lips trailing down from her mouth to her jaw and then her neck.

Reaching down for the hem of his t-shirt, she rucks it up, pulling away long enough to get it over his head. Peter blinks at her, still looking shocked, as if he can’t quite believe this is happening.

“Gamora, are you sure about this?”

She nods, guiding him over and pushing him gently. He collapses into a sitting position on the bed, and she straddles his thighs, hovering over his lap. “I’m sure.” His hands return to her back, and the anxious buzz that usually comes along with his touch isn’t there. She just feels… good.

There’s more kissing (a lot more kissing), and both of them groan when she lowers her hips enough to grind against the hard length of him. She can feel the wetness gathering between her legs as she seeks more of that delicious friction.

“Do we need… um… I’ve had my shots, but if we need to use something, I could go get—”

Gamora shakes her head. Pregnancy won’t ever be in the cards for her, but she doesn’t want to tell that sad story now and derail their forward momentum. “I’m good.”

He kisses her again, his mouth hot and pliant against hers. “Okay.” Then he stops again. “You can say stop anytime, okay?”

“I’m not going to,” she says with a swivel of her hips.

“Yeah, but you can,” he groans, hands slipped down the back of her bikini onto her ass and pulling her more tightly against him.

“Thank you.” She puts her hands at either side of his face and pulls back to look at him. “You’re a good guy, Peter Quill.”

“Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to maintain.”

There is more writhing and deep, wet kisses, and eventually, he rolls her onto her back, her knees bracketing his hips as he settles on top of her.

“This would be better if we were naked,” Gamora says.

“Fuck yes it would.” Peter’s up in an instant, pulling off his boots and socks and fumbling with his belt while he tries not to miss a second of Gamora slowly taking off her bikini. When she leans back on the pillows, completely naked, Peter trips over his pants and barely saves himself from collapsing onto the floor. She can’t help but laugh.

She looks him up and down when he’s also naked. “Not bad.”

He pounces on her, her legs spreading readily to accommodate him. “Not bad? That’s all you have to say, not bad?” He shifts his hips and grinds against her accurately, and Gamora moans.

The sound of her pleasure shifts his mood, and his mirth dissolves into something slower and more tender as he moves over to her side on the bed. Gamora frowns at him, confused. She thought it was happening, that he was seconds away from being inside her, and she’s suddenly worried that she did something wrong.

Peter seems to read her confusion. “I want to make sure this is good for you. Learn what you like.” His hand drags down to her stomach, fingers trailing over her abdominal muscles. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

Her stomach swoops with excitement and nervousness. She nods.

His fingers are calloused but soft on her sensitive skin, and Gamora lets her eyes fall closed and sinks into the pleasure of what he’s doing to her. The slick strokes make her hips rise to meet his hand, and she hardly recognizes the breathy moans that come out of her mouth. His fingers slide into her, but it’s not enough — she needs him, all of him, buried deep and joined with her.

“Fuck, I want it too, baby,” Peter says, shifting back on top of her, and Gamora realizes that she must’ve spoken some of that out loud. She’d be embarrassed if she weren’t more aroused that she’s ever been in her life.

He lines himself up and thrusts into her slowly, sinking a little bit deeper each time he carefully pistons his hips. She feels a slight burn as he stretches her, but that’s quickly lost in how amazingly good it feels. He’s touching her everywhere, his hips against the insides of her thighs and his chest pressing against her breasts, his mouth on her shoulder and his cock inside her.

It’s wonderful.

They find a rhythm together, bodies sweating as they both reach toward what they need, what they’ve needed for ages from each other.

“You feel good,” Gamora whispers, inadequate words for the way he’s making her feel, his pelvis grinding against her at the apex of every thrust, nerves alight as he fills her over and over.

“God, you too, you’re—” He grunts, seeming to be hanging onto control by a thread. “You’re perfect.”

Her orgasm steals over her without warning, a fire that licks out from her center and consumes her, her throat dry as she cries out with it. Peter’s teeth graze her shoulder as his thrusts speed up and then he’s coming too. She’d laugh at the silly-sounding stifled groan that comes out of his mouth if she weren’t still half out of her mind, pleasurable aftershocks making her twitch.

Carefully, he pulls out and collapses on his stomach next to her, sort of gasp-giggling with relief (she assumes). He turns his head and grins widely at her. “Gamora, that was amazing.”

She doesn’t want to inflate his ego any more than it already is, but she’s not sure if she’s ever felt this good in her life. “Yeah, it was,” she says. She rolls onto her side and lifts her arm and lets it sort of flop over onto his back in an attempt to caress him. This kind of boneless, sated feeling is completely unfamiliar to her.

“We owe Mantis big time,” Peter says. Gamora chuckles. “I’ll be sure to tell her.”

He groans. “Then she’ll tell Drax, and he’ll want details…”

“True.” Not that it matters; she knows she’ll be talking to Mantis about this anyway, because it’s not as if she’s permanently cured. Strangely, though, the thought of her friends knowing these personal details about them doesn’t bother her that much. They know because they care about her. About both of them.

She’s feeling so good that for a moment she feels like she might blurt out something that she won’t be able to take back. That she might tell him that she loves him. Instead, she shoves him and says, “You’re not going to snore tonight, are you?”

He snorts. “Shut up.”

“Because I’m not going to share a bunk with you on the Milano if you snore.”

Peter’s eyes open at that. “You’d share a bunk with me?”

Gamora rolls onto her back. “Shut up.”

And he does, snuggling into her side, his hand trailing up and down her hip and thigh. She closes her eyes, relaxes, and enjoys his touch.

[popculturereport]

Let’s Rank the Samurai Rangers!

Power Rangers Samurai gets a bad rap among fans, probably deservedly so. I don’t watch Super Sentai, but people who do tell me that Samurai is basically a very lazy direct translation of Shinkenger. That may be true, but I actually kind of enjoyed it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s no RPM or Dino Thunder, but it’s also nowhere near as bad as Megaforce. Regardless of where you stand on the show, one of the most consistently-cited issues that people tend to have with the show is the characters (and, depending on who you talk to, maybe the cast too). Again, I tend to hedge on this, because I think most of the actors are fairly capable and do a fine job with what they’re given. That said, I will concede that some of the rangers just...suck. So let’s get to the rankings! From best to worst, here they are (oh, and I’m skipping Lauren):

1. Mike (the Green Ranger)

Mike (Hector David Jr.) is the best, and this is should be so self-evident that I shouldn’t even have to make a case for him. So I’ll limit my argument to this: in “Christmas Together, Friends Forever,” Mike, who loves Christmas more than anything else which automatically makes him the best, gives his only present--a brand new dirtbike--to Bulk and Spike on Christmas, because they have nothing.

2. Mia (the Pink Ranger)

I hesitated whether to place Mia in this spot or the next, but ultimately she gets the nod at second, because I am only a man.

Yes, I may be 31 years old, am happily married, will soon be a father, own my own business, and have a mortgage, but every time Mia (Erika Fong) steps onscreen, I swoon like a 13-year-old girl (I may or may not have even said, “You’re so pretty” out loud). 

Like everything else about this show, her gimmick of loving to cook despite being godawful at it is polarizing, but I think it’s kind of cute, and it also adds a nice touch of brevity in contrast with Jayden and Kevin’s seriousness. She does need further development, but that goes for every else in this series, and like I already said, she’s really pretty.

3. Emily (the Yellow Ranger)

I’m glad that when Saban bought back the rights to Power Rangers from Disney that they decided to carry on the Disney tradition of casting super-cute, perky blondes (Tori, Kira, Syd, Claire, Ronnie, Lily, Summer)...usually as the Yellow Ranger.*

Emily has the potential to be even better, but what we did get is pretty good. She’s fun, kind of clumsy, and occasionally she and Mike make eyes at each other. Yes, they should have done something more with her being chosen to be a Ranger instead of her sister, and her and Mike’s romance could have been developed more (basically they go from sort of flirting to being a couple in the final episode with no in between). That said, when Emily finally gets a chance to go nuts in “Strange Case of the Munchies,” actress Brittany Anne Pirtle grabs onto every scene and takes it for all its worth.

In my own head-canon, I also like to imagine that this episode partly inspired “Dark Betty” in Riverdale.

4. Jayden (the Red Ranger)

Placing Jayden in any place other than last might be controversial for many fans, since he often bears the brunt of their wraith, but I tend to disagree. 

Yes, his brooding lone wolf character probably worked better for his Super Sentai counterpart, given the abundance of these types of characters in Japanese culture (I get Squall from Final Fantasy VIII vibes from him). That said, he does get a lot of backstory that helps establish why he is the way he is, and when you consider that he’s been burdened with the task of destroying Master Xandred since he was a child, you can see why he see’s a bit messed up. It’s not perfect and the execution is sometimes lacking, but there are good ideas there.

Additionally, Alex Heartman actually does have charisma and, on the occasions when he’s given good material, he does a good job with it. Plus, even at his worst, there are two rangers that are much worse than him.

5. Antonio (the Gold Ranger)

There’s things about Antonio that work really well: the fact that he’s a self-trained Samurai Ranger who isn’t descended from a long line of Samurais’, which gives him both a different perspective and approach towards being a ranger, his relationship (bromance? romance? whatever floats your boat) and history with Jayden, and his general light-hearted attitude. The problem is that as good as all those things are, it’s hard to overlook just how grating his character can be.

I don’t mind goofy characters; Ivan and Koda are two of my favorite Power Rangers ever, and I’ve also loved Bridge, Gem and Gemma, Dustin, and Ziggy, among many others. I’ve never understood why some fans get up in arms about these types of characters. Like, you do realize that you’re watching a show made for 5-8 year olds? However, when we’re presented with characters like Antonio (and, even worse, Dax from Operation Overdrive), I can start to sympathize with this mentality.

The problem with Antonio is that actor Steven Skylar spends far too much time mugging to the camera. Everything about the performance is way too over-the-top, including the random Spanish interjections. I suspect that since Skylar is actually of Thai descent, the producers felt the need to have him beat the audience over the head with “Fantastico!” I generally try not to blame actors, especially because it’s entirely possible that they were directed to act in a specific way, but I also can’t help but wonder if I wouldn’t have liked Antonio more if he had been played by another actor.

Still, he’s not the worst. There is someone much more deserving of that:

6. Kevin (the Blue Ranger)

God, Kevin, you suck so much. No, seriously, Kevin, you’re the worst.

(This GIF is priceless, but I also kind of wish that Mike just wrapped his arm around Kevin and strangled him right then and there)

Okay, so if you’ve watched more than one season of Power Rangers, you’re probably seen similar characters. Given that the creators essentially have to come up with a brand-new cast every year for 25 years, it makes sense that they would rely on archetypes. Kevin follows of the mold of the stick-up-their-ass, by-the-books second-in-command much like Kai, Jen, and Sky before him. 

There are a few problems from the beginning; for one, those three were all partnered with more laid-back Red Rangers (Leo, Wes, and Jack), and so they served as nice foils, constantly second-guessing the leader. Over time, these characters would gradually see that, although the Red Rangers didn’t following standard operating procedure, they were effective leaders in their own way, and they would come to respect them. It’s a good dynamic, and you can understand why they’ve returned to that well multiple times.

(That “What the fuck”-look that Mia gives Kevin is exactly how we all feel)

With Kevin, they tried something different (which is good, I guess) and had a serious second-in-command who idolizes his equally intense leader. So instead of forcing them to see (and come to respect) a different point of view, this dynamic just reinforces their own stupid biases. Worse yet, unlike, say Erin Cahill (Jen) or Chris Violette (Sky) who were still likable characters even when their heads were up their asses, Najee De-Tiege has no charisma or charm, and it’s impossible to like Kevin.

If you want a quick introduction to why Kevin is the worst, look no further than “The Blue and the Gold.” So two episodes after joining the team, Kevin still hasn’t accepted that Antonio is part of the team. Antonio tells that he made a new Zord, and Kevin’s like, “You made it from Electronic Symbol Power? I don’t accept that!”

Hey, asshole, how many fucking Zords have you made?

“.....”

None? That’s what I thought. So shut the fuck up!

The other rangers tell Antonio that Kevin won’t accept him unless he can adapt to his training habits. So Antonio follows him around observing his daily routine (i.e. non-stop training) and tries to copy him the next day. Kevin catches him and says, “Despite the fact that you’re gone through all this effort to try to copy me, I don’t think you’re taking this seriously so fuck off!” Before Antonio can tell him to take his head out of his ass, they’re attacked and can’t communicate with the other rangers. It’s not a problem though, because they’ll know something is wrong when Kevin is late. This is when we find out that Kevin has a daily routine that goes down to the minute. As much as I despise Kevin, this is so hilariously awful that I can’t help but love it.

Later they’re attacked again, and Antonio hurts his arm, but he sticks around and defeats the bad guys anyway, and Kevin goes, “Wow! You really are dedicated. I finally respect you,” despite the fact that Antonio has been doing this for the past two episodes. Kevin must be one of those people who says, “Yes, the Golden State Warriors have made three straight NBA Finals appearances, won the championship twice, have multiple All-Stars, and a two-time MVP, but I just don’t think they’re very good.” Then if Golden State wins this year, he’s finally like, “Oh, I get why people think they’re good.”

Welcome to the fucking party, dipshit!

*-After this, they’d do it again with Gia (Ciara Hanna) in Megaforce.

[spamzineglasgow]

(ESSAY) amber, by Rosie Roberts

In this essay, Rosie Roberts attunes to the vibrational synchronicities of everyday life: the interval moments that hold us thickly, the centrifugal tendencies of coming to reality. Speculation, matter and perception glitter in multifaceted form; a phenomenology of this flickering present, with all its distortions and possible clarities. Throughout ‘amber’, Roberts also parses the semiotics of Glasgow’s sigil and other vital objects of mythological anchoring, infinity, psychic preservation, sounding out.

> We step out.

> Glaswegian psychiatrist and scholar R.D. Laing opens the preface to The Divided Self by saying, one cannot say everything at once. I hold in my mind that each thought uttered takes a moment to say and a moment to witness. That these moments form conversation, argument, intimate whisper, lecture, reparation, awkward impasse, forgiveness, etc. They are interaction, which deserves care and time; and in a time where moments can seem both finite and unruly Laing’s statement rings in my ears – you cannot represent everything – a landscape of aural, visual, affective and contextual perception – at once.

> Even from within the site of one body, one moment or one’s reality can be experienced as a multi-faceted synchronisation of varying perceptions, augmenting the feeling of that moment. What follows then, perhaps, is the futility and dogmatism of an attempt at the realistic representation of a moment. Instead could there be an anti-real moment and its documentation, or disintegration into the flow of constant thought.

> Wait…what? Press the button to stop the traffic, pause on a surface specifically made to help you survive.

> Realism and idealism deal with the relationship between our minds and the world, but perhaps this is too much of what Laing would refer to as a centrifugal tendency, focusing on the reality of the seed instead of the potential of a tree. So, I begin to think from in between, creating a sapling space, supple and sweet.

> Look up to the Tron tower, pause the clock, or at least dial it down, right down. Wait for a clicking sound.

> As the pendulum swings there are seconds not seen where the chime is suspended in air, untouching and unsounding. It is this slow moment that is the preoccupation of the writing that follows, before the chime of thought to voice in air, before the branching out and rooting down. Spiral into this in between and there perhaps you can hold time with me.

> I’ll try to offer a frame, a beat, and a swoop into inertia. A beginning which starts from my own bell chamber and chiming voice which honestly/obviously is not my own, of course actually it sounds out through many others. Reading and writing at a one to one scale, those words are slanted into this text, as they lean into the thinking, the inner brain voice where parsing happens during moments of strike and struck.

> From this place what may be glimpsed is an imaginative or speculative way of achieving either documentation or activism through art and literature. These notions that have played a key role in leftist and emancipatory traditions are active within the speculative science fiction of say Octavia Butler or Ursula K. Le Guin, where a capacious foil to the close doldrum of capitalist realism is opened. Truth through fiction is perhaps more pertinent now than ever. It is likely not news that ‘true’ documentation can be an unconvincing record, that leaves some nuance or feeling lacking, an undoctored recording, like the you of Laing’s statement cannot ‘represent’ everything all at once. Documents are never a self-standing entity but are connected, haunted and contaminated by their readers and their histories.[1]

> I opened my mouth as the signal changed and I forgot what I was saying in order to do what I was doing.

                                                             ∞

> I find another bell (and it’s time stopping chime) to work with in Glasgow’s sigil, I have found it before in service and school and I came across it by chance on an archival tour. I heard it this morning, in my home. The bell chimes on a Sunday to gather a gospel community in a Pentecostal church. From my bed, through open windows I was party to it from outside its walls and inside my own. The plague of seagulls from Hamden Stadium responded in wracking craws, the sounding of my locality.

> Following Doreen Massey’s analysis of her locality, held within the essay A Global Sense of Place, of her position within it and its position within the world, and applying her method to my own; I would like to begin a forever process of sketching a geographically near moment, held both within and outwith the self.

> An act which draws in time, like the chord of the chime, in order to understand a place as undefinable, in relation to passing moments, themselves undefinable things that are slippery and constant. To find in Massey’s words, a sense of place which is adequate to this era of time-space-compression. To recognise space, and time as processes, like capitalism in the Marxist sense that we exist with and through. Like the journey to work.

> Glasgow’s sigil contains many objects, varied forms to represent a varied community, and they have been depicted in everything from tile mosaic, to bus stop, to tea towel. They are held within a shield that seeks to say something about people and what they make of where they are and what they do, but sometimes a shield is used to obscure rather than protect. People make Glasgow many things, including some nice stuff and some horror shows, people are at once the beady eyes, bystander behaviour and broken hearts.

> The story of the sigil is known and liked. A dispute, a lovers’ tryst, an overbearing father’s authority, a natural place, and a magical fish. The sigil and its storied ephemera could perhaps represent one of ways through which a trial to extract sustenance from the objects of a culture - a culture whose avowed desire has often been not to sustain[2] its inhabitants - could take place. Objects through which to think about what’s happening here and now in my locale.

                                                            ∞

> For Edinburgh-based experimental obituarist Melissa McCarthy, objects and processes that hold particular moments are often re-simulated in media to strange effect. In her book Sharks, Death and Surfers, McCarthy enacts an imaginative close reading[3] of the film Jaws as it unravels into a not so subtle metaphor of the killing of Mary Jo Kopechne, the young woman found dead in Ted Kennedy’s semi-submerged car in 1969.

> While he escaped from the vehicle, she did not. Like the political corruption that existed behind the fragile film of glamour that the Kennedy’s sustained, the reality and protagonists of the two tales – a car, a shark and a dead woman – lurk beneath a surface. This is what McCarthy describes as a moving image of motionlessness, a space-time-compression; an obscurus. And this in turn has a relationship with archives, books and the internet, if she had known what she was going to find, the findings would not exist now in the form of her book.[4]

> When we walk past and look at the surface of the Clyde’s water, seemingly stilled, we cannot see the infinity of happening underneath, time stops and continues. In an insidious inversion of this process the Kopechne incident becomes a happening under a stilled surface, paratextual, an ugly footnote, to the smash-hit-cult-classic, Jaws; demonstrating a slippage where moments repeated in media become paratextual to events themselves. But the paratextuality of metaphor in media, writing and film does not always have to act within a framework of paranoid hermeneutics, it can be reparative too.[5]

                                                            ∞

> Since the mid 1990s, the relationship between event, the self and fiction has undergone significant change. A space has opened up where the intersection of imaginative speculation, reality and theory can take place in texts as documents of autotheory, autofiction and speculative memoir. Synchronised happenings have come to be held in texts that perhaps don’t represent a moment of so called ‘truth’ but do truthfully document a certain moment in some of its labyrinthine ways.

> A noted local text in this genre could be 2014’s You Are Of Vital Importance where Sarah Tripp’s Is, yous and theys speak through, during and around group activity, gendered expectation and a global turn towards conservatism, happenings which become textually condensed into Book. A similar method is enacted in Kate Briggs’ 2017 This Little Art, where the process of translating How To Live Together by Roland Barthes and its effect on her life and thinking are held in the same moment, together, through a book shaped essay. This is then encircled once again as she reteaches the matter documented in ‘a bit, a piece, a thing, a twin’ written for The Yellow Paper in 2019.

> As examples of synchronised relational epistemologies – of one thing’s meaning and presence to another’s in a slowed-motion-moment – an intertextual interaction – the texts create a space in between, a decompression of time, for thinking’s sake. Perhaps of all the names for writing that we talked about with Briggs it is ‘the twin’ now that strikes me to be most apt, the text and the happening step out together, the seed and the tree as circuitous tandems.

> From within the site of the body I use, physically and textually, reality can be experienced as a multi-faceted synchronisation of varying perceptions, here documented by elongating a moment, demonstrating the feeling of that moment of thinking and being here walking around in Glasgow. A twinning of feeling and documentation, a united division.

> For hope and thinking’s sake We stopped and looked and listened, the lights changed red to blue to green and then cyan, magenta, yellow, then bells, voices, engines, static. And then home and back to suspended silence.

                                                            ∞

~

[1] Daniela Cascella

[2] Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

[3] Sedgwick

[4] paraphrased quote from an interview with Melissa McCarthy in Edinburgh in December 2019

[5] Sedgwick

~

Text and Image: Rosie Roberts

Published: 9/2/20

[badlydrawndrawnings]

Of Character Analysis and Comparison For the Detective

Because someone put Bad Ending 1 on Youtube, creating early discourse on the Youtube comments, so I’m like ‘screw it, i’m posting this right now and it still has some parts unpolished since I used (and lost) multiple translations’!

Major Ass Spoilers for Persona 5 (and Persona 1, Persona 2, Persona 3, Persona 4, and believe or not, Shin Megami Tensei If)

Recipe: Goro Akechi (Akechi Goro)

Ingredients: Reiji Kido from Persona 1, Jun Kurosu (Kashihara) from Persona 2 (Innocent Sin variation), expired sugar, expired maple syrup, whipped cream, cherries. Substitutes can be Ken Amada from Persona 3 and honey. *squints*  Oh, and Tohru Adachi from Persona 4 and Ideo Hazama from SMT ...if can be used as substitutes as well.

Steps:

1. Pre-heat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Turn it off soon afterwards.

2. Get about 2 cup of Reiji Kido, and put it in a large bowl. Specifically, 1 cup for containing Reiji’s backstory as a bastard child* to a rich man who ditched his lover because he can, and another cup for Reiji’s terrible lust for revenge via killing his father (or Takahisa Kandori in Reiji’s case, his half brother since their father is dead in P1 proper, so go after the next best thing). NOTE: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD THE LOVER (aka the mother) BE ALIVE FOR GORO. IN FACT, GORO’S MOTHER SHOULD RUINED HER HEALTH AND DIE DUE TO THE ABANDONMENT SHE GOT FROM HER LOVER (and general idea of being stuck with a child).

3. Get three tablespoons of being an orphan and pretty much suffering as a youngster because well, it’s not Little Orphan Annie.**

4. Stir the mixture together until it you can’t tell the two ingredients apart, and make sure he is alone for about 48 hours in the fridge so Goro can get a sense of resentment to others, desire to be love, and the will to do anything to get his ‘justice’ on his asshole father. You can leave it in the fridge a little longer than that (49 hours is best). He needs to be bitter and alone. Like, super bitter and alone. Like, so super bitter and alone he doesn’t think clearly and be like ‘hm, it seems I can’t find another way to deal with him because it’s not like I have friends or family to keep me on the straight path’.

5. Add one and half cup of sifted Jun Kurosu. It doesn’t have to be sifted, but Goro is supposed to look more fluffy due to his hairstyle. This cup should contain Jun’s status as a villain (or antagonist, whatever you think is the better term***), foil for the protagonist of the leading game (Joker/Akira in Goro’s case), terrible crimes they did (er, terrible actions for Jun as JOKER I guess since he didn’t kill anyone, only making them empty husks), and being helped (more like being unintentionally manipulated) by a god. NOTE: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD JUN KASHIHARA FROM ETERNAL PUNISHMENT SHOULD BE ADDED SINCE THAT’S THE RESULT OF A RESET CREATED BY THE INNOCENT SIN CAST AND FRANKLY, GORO ISN’T ALLOW A RESET (as far as we know).

6. Stir the mixture again until it looks like pancake batter. When that happens, adds half cup expired sugar and three tablespoons of expired maple syrup to make sure the sweetness is the right amount of awkward (Goro has a soft spot underneath his issues and flaws and will show it to one person, but will not admit it because when confronted with it, well, he’s super bitter and alone). Stir again until mixture looks like a sweet sweet mess. If you don’t have maple syrup, honey is acceptable.

7. Pour mixture into cake pan. No, the cake pan shouldn’t have parchment paper inside it. Bang the pan onto the table (or counter, or where you’re making this at) to make sure there are no air bubbles.

8. Turn back on the oven until it reaches 300 degrees Fahrenheit again. Place the cake pan into the oven. Let it bake until it looks like it’s a fluffy burnt pancake because someone was supposed to check on it, and instead, managed to make him their personal yet expandable supernatural hitman (dad little’s villain is more like it...but isn’t that more of a female villain trait?).

9. After letting it cool for an hour, decorated with whipped cream and cherries. Take one slice from it, and eat it while trying to figure out your feelings. Once that is done, try to take another slice. You see that the cake has vanish.

If you don’t have Reiji Kido, you can use one cup Ken Amada (containing terrible lust of revenge via killing), but you got to put six tablespoons of being an orphan and pretty much suffering as a youngster. Also, make sure the mixture is in place into the fridge again for 52 hours so the mixture has more time to think about everything it can do dealing with his asshole father.

If you don’t have Jun Kurosu, you can use one and half cup of sifted Ideo Hazama (status as villain, even more bitterness at others around him, the mother not being in life-granted, Hazama mother just ditched him and took his sister away-,and strange vagueness for their fate like did  you and your sister actually just vanish forever) and three TEASPOONS (not tablespoons, TEASPOONS) of Tohru Adachi (foil to protagonist/got powers by goddess, job occupation, and terrible actions). UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU ADD ANYMORE THAN THAT (they don’t really have the same motives, and well, Adachi isn’t MIA and has a solid conclusion).

If you don’t have Reiji Kido or Jun Kurosu... well, use the measurements for the substitutes, but put it in the microwave before baking.

So yeah, that’s Goro Akechi (Akechi Goro)! He has lots of issues (like jc you ought to have therapy and legit question, does Japan has good therapy because if they don’t is that why he fell through the crack?), and while a victim of unfortunate circumstances in society, you little shit you’re also a perpetrator as well by making things worse like were you thinking clearly (answer: no). If your dead body was shown on screen, then I say you earn your redemption equal death. Sadly, you’re MIA for potential spinoffs.

Man, maybe I should make a recipeh for something else, like prompto^.

  \(oWO)/

*People either forget or don’t realize that bastard children in Japan and other Asia countries are treated worse than the West since over there, family's image and prestige holds a lot of weight (hell, if you seen any J-Drama or K-Drama that has bastard kids or implied bastard kids, you know they get treated like dirt). Sure, bastard kids aren’t consider a good thing anywhere in the world, but in Japan and other countries, like it’s the end of the world cause it can metaphorically destroy lives, and in Goro case, made his own mother kill herself from the shame and abandonment (Goro’s ultimate plan was to help his father get to the top of his political career before spilling the beans to the world, forcing Shidou to kiss his career goodbye). Hell, Goro is like, the Anti-Reiji since Reiji got lucky his mother decided to bear the storm and raise him, because I swear, Reiji could have turn out like Goro (re: might have killed more than just Kandori) if she wasn’t alive (she does ask P1 Hero/Naoya to befriend Reiji, and frankly, if Goro had friends before/during his revenge plan, they could have been like ‘don’t do the thing’...then again Kandori does die due to the P1 cast so maybe they would have help him with the thing?).

**I had three other articles about this, but I didn’t bookmark them. I’m sorry. You can type ‘Japan foster system’, and you can see some of the problems it has. It’s somewhat of a ‘blink and miss’ conversation with Goro in the game as it’s brought up once in his Co-Op/Confidant, but knowing some context explain (not excuse) why Goro did his revenge plan and not do anything else

***Oh boy. Let’s admit it, Jun did wanted revenge at his friends due to ‘Maya’s death’ when they were kids, and pretty much was villain/antagonist for 2/3 of the game. Yes, he was manipulated and incorrectly remember, but he was still a villain/antagonist and didn’t realize the truth until they beat the crap out of him and became so horrified with what he done, becomes the atoner. Goro is like the anti-Jun in this regard since Goro was only close to Joker/Akira and at best ‘hello...you’ with the others, and well, not MIA/dead. If Cognitive!Goro didn’t interrupt, it was obvious Goro was going to take the PT offer of re-joining them to take Shidou along side them (before he goes to jail because there’s no way he going to get away scott free). Even before Goro’s death, they admit they know how he feels and tried to comforts (er, cheer up?) Goro after he admits his life is just a bunch of bad choices (re: being envious of them having friends and fame of being heroes while he was going to get the short end if his plan work) and pretty much craps on himself (re: couldn’t be special, tells the PT it’s better to kill him so he couldn’t get in their way and tells them they should had killed him when given the chance right before he dies on them anyway). Hell, even after Goro’s death, in a group chat, despite the mix feelings, mourn him and feel bad for him (Yusuke pointing out he could have been just like Goro if he didn’t have the others stands out the most imo as it drives home the point that despite everything, he was like them) and fully put Shidou as the culprit to everyone’s problems when they confronted him about everything, from his crimes to the treatment of his own kid (logic behind this: Goro was the killer, but Shidou was the murderer as he planned it all).

^release the forbidden robbie daymond interview atlus because i swear to f*cking god i’m going to make more shitty ffxv jokes, not just relating to goro