#also they lose the ability to think for themselves apparently considering how often they scream for is the video cute blogs

[boy-above]

some people lose all critical thinking skills upon seeing an animal video

[robininthelabyrinth]

Three Gates - on ao3 (for content warnings check Ao3) - on tumblr: pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5, pt 6, pt 7, pt 8, pt 9, pt 10, pt 11

- Chapter 12 -

The Nightless City was grand and glorious, as luxurious as Koi Tower and as tasteful as the Cloud Recesses, and Meng Yao would burn it all down in a heartbeat for the chance to return to the familiar sparse stone and metal of the Unclean Realm.

Wen Ruohan had forgiven him for murdering Wu Bixian and blowing his cover once Meng Yao had explained the circumstances, although he’d been displeased; Meng Yao had had to work his way back into his inner circle the hard way, inventing monstrous machines for him to use in his Fire Palace, where he played at treating torture the way other people viewed sport.

Meng Yao had once dreamed of torturing his enemies – initially defined as anyone who insulted his mother, but later expanded to include anyone who made a serious effort to harm Nie Mingjue and recently he had been considering an additional expansion to loop in the same for Lan Xichen – but now he realized that torture was boring and burdensome and messy, and a quick execution was clearly much more effective.

There was a lot less upkeep, for one.

A lot fewer tormented doctors as well – that poor Wen Qing would probably have never picked up her needles if she’d known this was where she was going to end up using them, that was for sure – and anyway, neither of his lovers would have approved so it was all a moot point anyway.

Possibly former lovers.

Not that they’d ever actually made it to the stage of being lovers, what with Lan Xichen’s sect rules and parental trauma, Meng Yao’s nightmares of the brothel, and Nie Mingjue’s experiences with Wen Ruohan…

Probably for the best, actually, given what Meng Yao now knew about Nie Mingjue – something that he was almost certain that Nie Mingjue did not know about himself.

A few months at Wen Ruohan’s side had certainly been enlightening on that front. As Meng Yao might’ve suspected, he treated even the people in his clan about the same as wooden furniture, useful to varying degrees but all ultimately disposable, and someone like Meng Yao, a talented retainer he’d stolen from another sect and who had no way out, made for amusing company.

Wen Ruohan had in fact heard the rumor of someone in the Nie sect being born as a yang furnace, very likely from Wu Bixian himself in an attempt to get rid of what he perceived to be a stain on the sect’s reputation, and he’d investigated, ultimately figuring out that the person in question was Nie Mingjue. A yang furnace, Meng Yao learned, was considerably rarer than a yin furnace, requiring the right horoscope and lucky (or unlucky) parentage, and was considered far more precious – people with that constitution would have an incredible talent for cultivation themselves, but would also be able to magnify, many times over, the cultivation or even cultivation potential of those with whom they engaged in dual cultivation.

The furnace’s consent in the matter was not required.

After discovering the truth, Wen Ruohan had apparently gone back and forth for some time in deciding whether to snatch him up immediately, training him up as a concubine reserved for the use of the Wen clan, but one of his more esoteric specialists had told him that the sort of intense cultivation techniques he had in mind would likely kill a child and, more importantly, that the positive effect on his own cultivation would be magnified if Nie Mingjue’s cultivation were higher when he began.

“Sect Leader Wen’s patience is admirable,” Meng Yao said with the sort of smile he’d worn when talking to the brothel owner that used to beat his mother on a regular basis just so she’d ‘remember her place’. “If only I had known..! I am not so certain I could resist such a temptation for years on end.”

Wen Ruohan laughed. “Well, I must admit I gave it a half-hearted effort a few times. The doctors did say that a few times early on wouldn’t hurt.”

By hurt he meant damage to Nie Mingjue’s ability to cultivate, or to cultivate with others, not to the lifetime of nightmares and terror that Nie Mingjue suffered as a result of his unrelenting pursuit.

“Though on that subject,” Wen Ruohan continued, a faint smile on his face, “perhaps you’d like to take a look at the room I’ve prepared for him, and let me know if you have any suggestions – anything you think he’d enjoy for the times when he’s not – in service.”

“Of course, Sect Leader Wen.”

“Naturally, if you also have any proposals regarding any of your marvelous machines…”

“Naturally, Sect Leader Wen.”

“Good,” Wen Ruohan praised. “If you please me well enough, perhaps I’ll let you take a turn once I’m done with him.”

He had other requests, too, which were even less savory – mostly storytelling, Meng Yao casting his mind back to his days at the brothel and even in desperation some of the artwork Nie Huaisang insisted on collecting to describe all sorts of scenarios for Wen Ruohan’s evident enjoyment.

Meng Yao took a bath as often as he could plausibly manage it, and still felt unclean.

(Chiwen, hidden away as best as he could in the room he’d been assigned because a Nie saber did not voluntarily enter Wen hands, screamed in his head. He hated everything about what they were doing.)

It was amazing, Meng Yao thought, how far self-deception could go: he had thought, once, that he would be able to distract and dissuade Wen Ruohan without losing anything along the way, that he could sell himself without counting the cost, and at the last he realized that his mother had been right about warning him not to get used to making deals with bad men.

Wu Bixian, too. He had thought that Wen Ruohan’s goal was domination of the cultivation world, his pursuit of Nie Mingjue only a means to get there or at best a distraction, when in fact Wen Ruohan wanted to be a god, to break through the barrier of cultivation and rise up to the heavens, and he believed that Nie Mingjue could get him there.

And yet Wen Ruohan, too, was deceived – he thought that everything in the world was meaningless grist to that great ambition’s mill, thought that everything he did was for power and power only. And yet there was the great care and attention with which he had filled the prison room in the Nightless City with all the things Nie Mingjue liked, things that he’d figured out from casual mentions in discussion conferences, the fascination in his eyes when Meng Yao told him stories that were sometimes so very boring and mundane, the casual way he dismissed even his own heir’s death at Nie Mingjue’s hands…

Perhaps the interest had been merely practical once, but it certainly was no longer.

At least the war was going well.

Not much else was.

His letters with Wen Ruohan had been belatedly discovered and publicized, his betrayal becoming widely known – Wen Ruohan deliberately cutting off Meng Yao’s route of return, no doubt. The fact that it was a good move, and one Meng Yao would have done if he were in his place, did not make it any easier to swallow.

He had always assumed he would be there to explain the letters to Nie Mingjue.

He’d said so many cruel things in those letters over the years, hurtful things, things he didn’t believe but thought that Wen Ruohan would like to hear – things about Lao Nie, about Nie Mingjue, about Baxia, about Nie Huaisang…disdainful, wretched things, lies that had flowed so easily out of his brush when he’d thought it was all a game.

He didn’t want to think about Nie Mingjue hearing them – seeing them – reading them –

He didn’t want Nie Mingjue to think that was how he really felt.

Some days, in the middle of the night in the too-brightly-lit core of the Nightless City, Meng Yao put his head in his hands and felt the prickle of tears in his eyes. He should have known better, he thought. He shouldn’t have tried to take it all on his own shoulders; he shouldn’t have assumed he’d be able to explain, that he could swear on Chiwen that his motives were pure and that all would be easily forgiven; he should have told Nie Mingjue what he was doing early on so that it would not come to him as a surprise –

He should not have repeated his mother’s mistake from all those years ago.

(“They don’t trust us!” Lao Nie had shouted, his voice still audible behind those stone walls, and Nie Mingjue had gone silent, the words hitting their mark and leaving a wound, before he’d started arguing once again.)

Meng Yao had originally planned on having both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen act as his contacts during the war, but instead for his sins he got stone-faced Lan Wangji and, eventually, red-eyed Wei Wuxian, who was clearly still deeply shaken by the near-destruction of the Lotus Pier and how close he had come to losing everyone he loved.

(Meng Yao killed time in between boring torture, nauseating dinners with Wen Ruohan, and interacting with his two contacts in trying to figure out how to get said contacts to confess their obvious attraction to each other without ever actually telling them to their face that they were being idiots.

How anyone had ever compared him to Wei Wuxian – citing their status as fatherless children being raised by sect leaders alongside their heirs – he honestly did not know; the boy had a genius for cultivating and the arrogance to go with it, but simply no common sense whatsoever. Meng Yao was his exact opposite.)

They had both briefly been guests of the Wen sect, brought in by the same invitation that had been forcefully extended to Nie Huaisang; once they were there, they were given to Wen Chao to lead and reshape. Obviously that went about as badly as anyone could imagine, Wen Chao being what he was.

Nie Huaisang had been there too, of course, and Meng Yao hadn’t dared go anywhere near him. It wasn’t that he doubted his own acting abilities, or Nie Huaisang’s for that matter, but rather his own perception. Nie Huaisang was a very good liar, and if Meng Yao got it into his head that his own blood brother didn’t believe him, he might very well fall apart.

So he didn’t go.

That turned out to be a mistake.

Apparently, not showing up was seen as some sort – admission of guilt, perhaps, because the second Nie Huaisang returned to the Unclean Realm, things started going very badly indeed. Many of his old contacts stopped talking to him or even disappeared, even the ones he would have sworn Nie Huaisang had no knowledge of, and he didn’t even want to think about how many of his plans ran into obstacles that had nothing to do with luck and had everything to do with Nie Huaisang’s Nie temper.

Meng Yao only hoped that the cause of the temper tantrum was his failure to apologize for not letting Nie Huaisang properly into his schemes, and not that Nie Huaisang thought –

Surely Nie Huaisang would have said something to Wei Wuxian or Lan Wangji if he didn’t believe Meng Yao to be trustworthy? They were peers, had been schoolmates, and a few months together was more than enough time for Nie Huaisang to get the measure of them – he had to know what they were doing on his behalf, surely, and he hadn’t stopped them, so…

Sometimes Meng Yao thought that his circular rationalizations would drive him mad, long before anything else about this horrible life of his did.

(He also thought, sometimes, about how his mother would feel – how she did feel – about what he was doing, and whether she approved or not. He usually tried to stop thinking about it as soon as possible.)

At any rate, the sect heirs had all escaped after some unfortunate encounter with a corrupted Xuanwu that made Meng Yao twitch in fear when he belatedly learned about it, and soon after that the war began in earnest.

The Nie sect took Heijian, as had always been the plan; the Wen sect’s cultivators threw themselves against their iron wall without any success and even some heavy losses, especially whenever Nie Mingjue himself there to lead battles. The Lan sect was scattered after the burning of the Cloud Recesses, but Lan Wangji’s early warning had preserved more of their lives than might have otherwise been accounted for – the attack on the Lotus Pier had been similarly blunted through timely advice, although Jiang Fengmian’s stubborn refusal to take immediate action had resulted in injuries, some rather serious.

Two major attacks, in under a year – the rest of the cultivation world was alarmed. A sizeable number chosen to give in at once, while others opted to join the opposing forces, and war was everywhere.

Meng Yao had hoped that his information would be enough to tip the balance, that he could play the same role he’d played against Wen Ruohan in the past – acting as an interruption, but never quite tipping his hand. Never pushing for the real reward, taking the big risk…

The war dragged on.

There were some close calls – some difficult battles. People were dying on both sides. Several times there were reports of terrible injury to key people; the death of someone he loved was only a matter of time.

It seemed that he didn’t have a choice but to take more dramatic action.

Evil, Chiwen screamed in his mind, just as he had every day since Meng Yao had arrived at this horrible place. Kill it!

Meng Yao wished it was so easy.

“Do you mind if I borrow your brother?” he asked Wen Qing, who glared at him but accepted the jar of wine he offered her. “Just for a while.”

“None of your machines,” she said at once. He couldn’t blame her.

“No machines,” he agreed. “I need a courier.”

She paused, then put the wine down. “Out of the Nightless City? Safely?”

He smiled.

Wen Ning was delighted to see Wei Wuxian, and the feeling was decidedly mutual – Meng Yao had picked Wen Ning in part because of the extraordinary initiative he had taken at the Lotus Pier, initiative that made the entire Jiang clan quite fond of him – and Wei Wuxian happily agreed to smuggle Wen Ning out of Qishan to deliver a private message.

“Make sure he gets to Lan Xichen,” Meng Yao instructed. “A message can be compromised or lost – a person, not so easily.”

“I’ll do my best,” Wei Wuxian said, and almost looked approving, like he thought that Meng Yao was doing this to save Wen Ning from the worst of the war.

He had no idea what Meng Yao was doing.

“Wei Wuxian,” Meng Yao said when they were about to leave. “What does Lan Xichen say about me?”

A blink, there and gone. “He fears for your safety, and hopes you are well.”

“And – Nie Mingjue?”

He didn’t bother asking about Nie Huaisang. If his brother didn’t want someone to know how he felt, no one would ever have the slightest clue.

Wei Wuxian hesitated, and Meng Yao waited, and in the end Wei Wuxian finally said, “I don’t think I’ve heard him say anything about you at all.”

Meng Yao nodded. It was no less than he’d expected, for all that it felt as if his heart were shattering. “Thank you. Please go.”

Wei Wuxian would take Wen Ning to Lan Xichen, and Lan Xichen would believe the words of a person more than he believed a letter – it was his nature to do so, especially when that person was as serious and earnest as Wen Ning, who seemed so trustworthy and who would never knowingly tell a lie.

But a person who would never knowingly tell a lie could still be made to carry one, and so Lan Xichen would listen to Wen Ning, and he would take what Wen Ning told him to Nie Mingjue, and Nie Mingjue – who might have questioned information brought by Wen Ning but who would never question Lan Xichen, the way he had previously never questioned Meng Yao – Nie Mingjue would listen, and believe, and act on that belief.

He would go to Yangquang –

And Wen Ruohan would be waiting for him.

Sometimes Meng Yao hated himself.

[carbrakes-and-stakes]

Reeducation & restraint

TIMING: A couple days ago LOCATION : White Crest General Hospital PARTIES : @notsoharsh​ & @carbrakes-and-stakes​ SUMMARY : Therapy, patience and suspicion.

Harsh cast another glance over the chart in his hands, frowning. He didn’t usually have much to do with physical therapy, but it was darker out earlier now and it never hurt to pick up a couple extra shifts where he could. It was just his job to get them in and out, no big deal. This one gave him pause though. Loss of limb wasn’t exactly anything new in White Crest, Harsh had seen his fair share of people in all parts of that process. What was weird were the doctor’s notes. Five weeks in, but healing like it had been months. That wasn’t totally out of the ordinary either. Well, in some terms. Plenty of things healed a lot quicker than run of the mill humans, enough that the staff at WC General had stopped worrying about it. Harsh couldn’t exactly fault them for that. With all the batshit things going on, complaining about people getting better too quickly would’ve been insane. Still, it made Harsh hesitate outside the room for a minute. There was no reason to be too concerned. He had helped plenty of patients who got better a little faster than they should have. This would be fine. Sticking his easy smile into place, he lightly knocked on the door before letting himself in. “Hey there, Mr. Babineaux. You ready to head home? Anything I can do for you before I get you out of here?”

A puzzled look on his face, Alain looked at the door. There was a vampire on the other side of that door, this much he knew. If he claimed that he was done hunting, his distaste for the species was not gone, and his resting frown intensified as the door opened. His eyes caught the name on the tag, and he replied with a stiff upper-lip : “I think I will be fine,” his hand reached for the back of his chair as he pulled himself up. Standing on his leg, the man gave the hospital worker a concerned look, wondering if he would just approach anyway. Reaching for his crutches, Alain noticed only then that his therapist had left them on the other side of the room. Of course. Biting on his cheek, he glanced from the crutches to the other man, then back at the crutches. “Would you mind?” If he was not thrilled about accepting his help, hopping around like a spring was out of the question too.

Apparently having just the one leg wasn’t going to keep this guy down. Harsh could respect that. He wasn’t sure if he should trust it though. If anyone was going to lose a limb and keep on swinging it would be some kind of hunter. Then again, there were plenty of corners of the supernatural world he had never even dipped a toe into. This could be nothing. “Huh?” He followed Alain’s glance and nodded. “Yeah, of course.” He crossed the room and grabbed the crutches. “Do you want me to wheel you out of here? I can grab a chair, it’s a lot faster,” he said, offering Alain the crutches. Those probably couldn’t be used as a stake… probably. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around much before. I’ll probably be helping you for the next couple weeks, we just switched shifts around. I’m Harsh, by the way. I like to try to get to know my patients.” Maybe if he could keep up the friendly smile, this would be fine. He was probably already overthinking things. This was fine.

The prospect of having to accept the vampire's help did not enchant Alain, but the man was so tired that he had decided, at least for this morning, to put aside his hatred for them and to let the vampire help him. He suspected, of course, that Harsh was only working here for the hospital's vital resource, weak people, and more conveniently, a pocket supply of blood. The hunter was pragmatic, and he actually saw little harm in vampires feeding like this. A person at the end of their life, or blood in their bags, would still do less harm, and would be a much less risky way of sustaining themselves. However, putting aside his hatred didn't mean all animosity was gone, and it was no wonder his shoulders seemed to tense as the vampire approached with crutches in hand. He could probably stab him with those, he told himself. The hunter found himself confused when he began to ask himself the following question: what had this vampire done to deserve such a brutal and arbitrary death. If Alain often asked himself this question when he was alone, this was the first time he had asked himself this in the presence of these individuals whom he had considered since his childhood as monsters, shadows in the night, and whose sole purpose (and these were again traces of the teachings received as a child) was to terrorize men, and destroy lives. “I lost my leg not long ago,” though his voice sounded harsh and dry, the expression on his face seemed a little more relaxed, as he watched the other man act in a respectable manner. “The next couple weeks,” he repeated, and you could read in his face that the revelation puzzled him, as if he doubted his ability to endure such promiscuity in the long run. Maybe this was an opportunity that life gave him, to learn to bear with these individuals? The hunter, confused, glanced away from the vampire for a few seconds. This was evidence that he didn’t feel in danger, although that didn’t last long. “Harsh, okay. You might as well call me Alain then. I don’t think I’ll stand being called Mr. Babineaux for too long,” being reminded that he was his father's son was not something he enjoyed, and although he could rarely avoid it, if he could, he made it known. The hunter wondered about confessing who he was, but since he also wanted to know if he could endure a vampire for the long haul, he kept that to himself, hoping it wouldn't come back to hit him in the face in the weeks to come. .

There wasn’t anyone around. This guy was down a leg. The doctor wasn’t supposed to come back to check in on him. How hard would it be to snap his neck and get him in a body bag? Harsh had done more with less. But no. There were still half a dozen happy little hearts beating away just down the hall. If Alain screamed, they would come running. And what if he wasn’t a hunter? What if he was just some poor asshole who lost his leg? The last thing Harsh needed was that kind of heat on him. No. No murdering. This would be fine. It was fine. Everything was fine. Not having to breathe came in handy when it came to hiding his rising nerves. “Ah, yeah, I sorta noticed that,” he said, with a light little laugh. “How are you adjusting? I know that kind of thing can’t be easy.” That at least was true. He had seen plenty of patients and plenty of others before White Crest who had lost bits of themselves. “Alain, got it. Nice to meet you. So do you want me to grab a chair? Or anything else to help get you out of here?”

“You asked why you never saw me before,” the hunter deadpanned, little amused by this little exercise in humor. The last thing he felt capable of doing, right now, was sharing jokes with this kind of people. The man hadn't done anything wrong except that he wasn't really a human being. Alain wondered how old the vampire was, or whether he had been living here for a long time. He always had a lot of questions when he met a vampire, but more often than not, he never really had the opportunity to ask them, and more often than not, it was the hunter’s fault that he couldn’t ask those. “Well, things are not easy, no,” he didn’t have to lie to this guy. Alain always tried to preserve people, and figured that they simply could not care for him, but he was not going to be so careful here. “I had to stop work ever since it happened, and that has not been fun. My house is in the middle of nowhere so I had to move out. The realtor was pretty nice though, I think I made a friend there. That’s about the only positive bit though,” he stopped in his tracks. He rarely was so talkative, but it did not really matter to him now. It just felt off. “I think the crutches will be enough,” glancing over at the door, he pursed his lips. “Though I could use help getting out of this maze,” he agreed.

Not the joking type, okay, good to know. But the guy wasn’t flipping out or trying to go for a pencil to stake him with. Maybe he was alright. Maybe he wasn’t. This shit was so hard to tell. At least when a slayer was coming at him, Harsh knew what he was dealing with and how to respond. This not knowing, playing nice, this was the stuff that got under his skin. He nodded sympathetically. “I’ll bet. That sucks, man. Is your new place more accessible? People really just don’t consider this kind of stuff when they’re building property. Where did you work? If you don’t mind me asking.” That was all pretty rough, slayer or otherwise. It was easy enough to pretend to care about. “Yeah, no problem. You wanna stop by the cafeteria on your way out? I think they’re making the good cake today,” he said as he moved to the door, holding it open for Alain before falling into step. He kept his pace even. As funny as it would be, making a guy on crutches rush to keep up with him would probably qualify as a dick move. “Is someone picking you up or are you driving yourself?”

“It is much better,” and yet, the hunter's eyes fell to the ground as he thought of his old home. Lost in thought, he stared in that direction for a few seconds. The vampire's question pulled him out of that state of inner contemplation, and if he normally would have avoided saying too much about his personal life, everything was already on his medical record. “I own the garage on the way out of town,” which reminded him that he would also have to sell his car for something he could drive : which meant switching to automatic. “I should be able to keep working. I’m doing the accounts these days. They’ve never been so tidy,” his eyebrows raised. If this was one thing he could have never imagined, it was his accounts ever being up to date. He had always hated paperwork and administrative work, and he still hated that, but this was a weight off his back. “The good cake ? I’m scared to ask,” he looked over at the other man and shook his head. “I’m not getting near any hospital food by choice, I had to eat only that for weeks,” Alain had a thing for exaggeration, but in this particular case, he was fair. “Well I was thinking of walking back home. I don’t live far from here now. About fifteen minutes away, I think,” walking with crutches might have not been fun, but he missed being outdoor, and he insisted on walking whenever he could.

That didn’t sound a whole lot better. Maybe Harsh was being too nosy, but he was supposed to be chatty and friendly with the patients. People never suspected the upbeat friendly guy was the one stealing blood. “Well that’s something. I know it can be hard to find brightsides with this kind of injury, but it’s good to keep looking anyway.” This guy didn’t seem like he wanted bullshit platitudes or assurances that everything was going to be perfectly fine. Good. Harsh was always garbage with those. Laughing, he shook his head a little. “The bad cake isn’t that bad, it’s just that the good stuff always goes so fast. The cooks here… I mean, they try their best, y’know? But it’s not exactly gourmet, which I’m sure you noticed. So when they make something good, I always try to grab extra.” The surprise on Harsh’s face wasn’t the least bit fake. Walking that long on crutches sounded like a massive pain. “Are you sure, man? I can see if someone can drive you or call you a ride or something, it’s no problem. Your charts are looking good, but you still shouldn’t strain yourself.” He frowned as they reached the doors, hesitating with one hand on the bar. “I don’t like letting you go on your own, man. It’s already dark out. I’ve seen way too many animal attacks in this place to feel good about sending you out there.”

“It’s something. I just want to keep moving now. I feel like shit happens to me whenever I stop, I gotta keep doing,” it was like that old Buster Keaton movie, where the hero ended up in trouble whenever he took some time to rest. Alain smiled at the memory of that film, his eyes dropped to the floor and he took a moment to look at his foot. He tried to avoid doing that, but having decided to keep going meant facing your problems. “You just cannot convince me of that. I … no,” he shook his head, determined to stay upright in his boots. “Yeah, I’m quite resilient,” he paused. “Quite stubborn too, although I’m working on it,” he added with a chuckle. As uncommon as his request was, the hunter missed walking for hours, and a few minutes wouldn’t hurt him, would they ? He couldn’t reveal that he could see in the dark, or that he didn’t fear many animals out there aside from bugbears. The thought of running across another one terrified him, but he doubted they were roaming freely around the streets of White Crest. “I’ll be fine, I was a zookeeper back in the days,” not a lie, although it was not usually something he shared. Still Alain doubted that the vampire would make the connection.

“I get that. Although, I kind of feel like weird awful shit just happens in this town to everyone, whether you’re moving or not.” But Harsh could understand that. He had never taken well to being in any one place for too long. It all got stifling after a while. White Crest kept things interesting at least, but even it would grow stale eventually. “Hey, being stubborn isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes you need to keep going even if people tell you to stop.” That seemed decent enough advice for a patient. Though… if this guy was of the staking variety, that might not be the best thing to tell him. Harsh blinked, eyebrows rising. “A zookeeper? Where did you work? I didn’t think White Crest had a zoo.”

“That's not wrong,” the thought of leaving White Crest had crossed his mind often, but he had never been able to leave for very long. A few years ago, he left for Europe. He had been there for a little over a month. Alain told himself he would go there if he ever retired. And now that he had retired, at least from a very important part of his life, he wondered if it wasn't worth thinking about it again, a little more seriously. “I think everyone in this town has had, at least once, the urge to move out of here, including me,” the vampire's comment made him smile. He would once have had a carnivorous smile, but the one on his face was much friendlier, despite the negative assumptions he had. “I never said I worked in White Crest then,” he gave the guy a pat on the shoulder. This had to be the kindest gesture he’d ever given such a creature, and for a second, the hunter had the most puzzled look on his face, as if he expected his hand to catch fire, or the vampire to lash out. Nothing happened, however, so instead he smiled and shook his head. “I have quite a few stories to tell, although I’m not willing to share those yet.”

“You’re probably not wrong. I would be kind of concerned if there was anyone living here who hadn’t thought about leaving at least once.” The thought had crossed Harsh’s mind a number of times. It wasn’t the worst place to be a vampire, but with hunters… or maybe hunters all over, it wasn’t the best either. He blinked, the pat to his shoulder catching him by surprise. Maybe this guy was just normal after all. Or probably not a slayer at the very least. Harsh smiled easily in return. “Yeah? I’ll bet you do. Well, if you ever feel like sharing, I’m here a lot. I always like hearing a good story. If you’ve got any from that zoo, I’d love to hear them. Man, I can’t remember the last time I went to a real zoo.” He cast another glance outside, smile slipping a little. “Are you sure you don’t want help getting home? I could see if someone could cover for me for a bit and walk you there. I don’t like sending you out there alone.”

“Don’t trust anyone who claims that they don’t have a love-hate relationship with the town,” looking as a couple walked past them to go inside, Alain wondered just how many people came to the hospital everyday, and how many would have not ended up here had this town been normal. It still wasn’t natural for him to brush it away and tell himself that it no longer was his problem. How could it have been natural? Ever since he was little, he had been told that he had this debt : he had been given abilities, and in return for those, he had to protect others from this nocturnal threat that vampires posed. This had been the only thing that made him worthy to his family, and he now regretted not rejecting it sooner. Still, it only felt natural that it should happen now. Looking back at the things he had accomplished, at the rest of his life, now might have been the steadiest he had ever been. Life was not perfect, but he now had time to think about what he wanted, what HE wanted.

Approaching the doors, he wrinkled his nose as the cold wind hit his face. "You are very kind," this was more an observation than a compliment, although he'd let the vampire be the judge of that. "Quite stubborn are we?" Took one to know one. "Do as you wish, but I'm walking out. I'm sure you'll easily catch up with me if you find someone," an amused glint in his eyes, the slayer went out the door with his crutches, turning around to give the man one last look. Well, that had gone a lot better than he had expected. Speak about much ado about nothing, he told himself.

[portable-rock]

i watched Daisies again last night and this time i was so severely disappointed by the film. i understood why i liked it last time—it was fun, exhilarating, unlike any film i had never seen, visually inventive—but now i realised it was quite flat. i went through my notes and saw that i said it was 'the sort of film that a lot of liberal feminist artists aspired to create in their works with the ‘female gaze’ but failed to do so'. but now i think it actually takes the concept to its logical conclusion and inadvertently reveals the flaws of such an approach. the result of the chaos on display here is ultimately nothing, this is a film that exists purely out of spite, it feels empty and nihilistic, it is rebellion that fails to acknowledge the causes of the problems around them.

the scholars who have attempted to contextualise it within a modern feminist lens always point to how authority is masculine and thus being 'messy or chaotic' is feminine. but i think this isn't true. in fact being chaotic is not an inherent part of being a woman, it is the result of class oppression. the characters in the film are no more liberated by choosing to cause chaos, in fact (as the ending perhaps suggests and gets ignored) they suffer either way.

but there is a larger question also of why this film in particular was the one that made Věra Chytilová well-known or became a symbol of the Czechoslovak New Wave. almost every article i read dives into how people are shocked a film like this could come out of a Communist country when in fact Czechoslovakia at the time was undergoing a massive period of liberalisation, which is why the films of Czechoslovak New Wave were allowed to exist in the first place. (also the claims that she was not allowed to make a film after this are also wrong because she made Fruit of Paradise right after which came out a year after Prague Spring). actually, i think it's fine Věra Chytilová made such a film, she did so as a response to the society she lived in, but to take these films outside of this context, especially to lionise it as an act of punk cinema, is a mistake:

An interesting question arises as to what extent Chytilová’s anti-consumerist criticism also addressed Western societies. While Czechoslovak filmmakers of the second half of the twentieth century did have some idea about social and cultural developments in the West, they primarily reacted to the political and social reality of their own societies. In this day and age, in the era of the internet and global social networks, it is perhaps difficult to realize how isolated the Eastern European societies were from the outside world, and not just linguistically. In the first half of the 1960s, it was almost impossible for Czechoslovak citizens to travel even to East Germany, and in the 1970s and 1980s it was extremely difficult for Czechoslovaks to obtain permission to travel, even for short periods of time, to the West. Thus, it must be emphasized that Chytilová primarily reacted to the situation in her own country, acting as a responsible citizen, always trying to improve the status quo, or at least to start a debate.¹

in fact, after her eight-year ban which ended when she pleaded to the West to pressure the president into allowing her to make films again, Věra Chytilová had actually made several films. she made on average about one every two years until her death, they are all from my understanding satires about society. in one of her later films, she criticises Czechoslovak society again, this time she suggests people should be working together more rather than being focused on themselves:

In Emergency (Kalamita, 1981) Chytilová continues criticizing greed, selfishness and cynicism of Czechoslovak society of the 1970s and 1980s. The film is a story of a young man who leaves university without graduating because he feels he wants to achieve something meaningful in “real life”. He becomes a train engine driver on a branch line in the mountains, but he cannot really achieve anything due to the extreme levels of self-obsession and selfishness of all the people around him. His final train drive ends in a calamity when the train is buried in an avalanche. This is a metaphorical warning by Chytilová who argues that when people in a society are obsessed with their own individual needs, they lose their ability to act together to mitigate the impact of shared problems – the result is a catastrophe.¹

even more, to claim that she's some sort of hero against 'the suppression of free speech under communism' is wrong too, because after Czechoslovakia split (the ‘Velvet Divorce’) and Czechia became capitalist, she and other New Wave filmmakers vocally criticised the privitisation of the film industry:

State-owned Czechoslovak cinema was privatized after the fall of communism, despite protests by many famous Czech filmmakers of the 1960s, including Chytilová herself. Political oppression was gone, but commercial pressures immediately arose. What is more, Chytilová remained a highly critical commentator with regard to what was happening in the post-communist era and this did not go down particularly well, especially in the first years after the collapse of communism when everyone was expected to applaud the new “capitalist” regime.¹

her post-Czechoslovak films, which criticise the transition to capitalism, are largely ignored outside of Czechia. she even made a film called The Inheritance or Fuckoffguysgoodday (which i think is meant to be more like 'Fuckyoubye') about life after the transition and the objectification of women:

The film’s main character, Bohumil Stejskal, is a lazy country bumpkin who suddenly inherits several valuable properties thanks to the post-communist restitution laws. The film is a study of the childish, yet good-natured uncouthness of a loudmouth, an analysis of a human being who cannot come to terms with his sudden freedom and wealth, which has come upon him unexpectedly. Like several other post-communist films, this one is also a reminder that the fall of communism and the general spread of pornography and sex for money have made it possible for some men to realize their most chauvinistic ideas about using women. Chytilová’s Inheritance is dealing with the haphazard, unjust and chaotic nature of life after the fall of communism. It analyzes truly demotic processes and notes the sudden degradation in mores which was brought about by the unexpected arrival of freedom.¹

to be honest, i don't think she's a great figure to worship anyway. i think her views often contradict each other, they are cynical and misanthropic. to me, she is largely inconsistent and simply responds to and rebels against her surroundings without really digging deeper into why things are the case. despite the message of Emergency above, she is quite like every other self-professed provocateur who still calls herself an individualist and says her worldview just comes from disdain for other people:

Her steam rising, she explains that she does not believe in feminism per se, but in individualism. "If there's something you don't like, don't keep to the rules - break them. I'm an enemy of stupidity and simple-mindedness in both men and women and I have rid my living space of these traits."²

she considers other people weak and insufferable and enjoys being compared to figures like Margaret Thatcher—she makes it clear she doesn't share her politics, just her contempt for everyday people:

Her abrasive manner has earned her the moniker the Margaret Thatcher of Czech film, and she appears quite flattered by the comparison - though she swiftly adds that they have nothing in common politically. "People are generally weak, cautious and frightened of being embarrassed, whereas I'm merciless and impertinent."²

also she's proud of abusing her workers, apparently:

Film-making with Chytilova is by all accounts a harrowing experience. She shouts and screams, and gleefully admits to beating up her cameramen when they prove unwilling to try out new ideas.²

in fact, with all of this in mind, it becomes very clear why bourgeois/individualist feminists love a figure like her so much. by simply watching Daisies and ignoring the rest of her filmography and simply skimming some of her biography, and by buying into the anti-Communist mythology that comes with it, she is of course compatible with the sort of 'boss-bitch' ideology of bourgeois feminism, she appears to fully embody it.

¹ https://eefb.org/retrospectives/The-Films-of-Vera-Chytilova

² https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/aug/11/culture.features2

[thezolblade]

Jon: “I wish I could talk it through with Martin, or Tim, or Sasha…But we never really did that, did we?”

I’ve been meaning to pull together some meta ever since hearing that line. As understandable as it is that Jon would regret the times he failed to communicate, as true as it is that he’s often fallen down there (and it’s fun seeing the fandom screaming over that on an ongoing basis)... I’d say he was too hard on himself by saying ‘never’, since there were times when he tried to communicate to the best of his ability. More than that, there are lines that give me the impression he’s always highly valued shared knowledge - that as well as being driven by a deep desire to know, he also wants to help other people know more, and gets frustrated when they don’t want to share knowledge with him or others.

Some quotes here, and interpretation below, of times when he tried to go beyond the ‘archive the closed cases’ job description that was supposedly expected of him, pursuing his priorities in the expectation that people would help - when he still expected that other people would help as a common sense assumption - or discussed events with the assistants beyond the bounds of what he was officially asking them to do for the job, etc. (Mostly s1 bc this is taking more evenings than i expected just from looking through the transcripts and a lot of episodes don’t have them yet):

MAG 001 - Anglerfish

ARCHIVIST: When an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to the Archives. [...] it seems as though little of the actual investigations have been stored in the Archives, so the only thing in most of the files are the statements themselves. [...] I plan to digitise the files as much as possible and record audio versions, though some will have to be on tape recorder as my attempts to get them on my laptop have met with... significant audio distortions. Alongside this Tim, Sasha and, yes, I suppose, Martin will be doing some supplementary investigation to see what details may be missing from what we have.

MAG 002 - Do Not Open

ARCHIVIST: When the Institute first investigated, it doesn’t look like they were able to find a single piece of evidence to support the existence of this scratched coffin, and to be honest I didn’t think it was worth wasting anyone’s time over now, nearly twenty years later. That said, I did mention it to Tim yesterday, and apparently he did some digging of his own.

MAG 004 - Pageturner

ARCHIVIST:  So it doesn’t appear that we have any concrete leads to go on. Still, I will be bringing this up with Elias and recommending that the search for any other missed books from the Leitner library be made this Institute’s highest priority. Jurgen Leitner has done the world enough harm and we must pursue all available avenues to ensure that he does no more.

MAG 006 - Squirm

ARCHIVIST: I can’t find any evidence that my predecessor took follow-up action on this statement, so I’ve taken the step of reporting Mr Hodge’s to the ECDC. We were unable to locate him to request a follow-up interview and if he has had intercourse with one of Prentiss’ victims, then they’ll need to deal with him sooner rather than later. I just hope it’s not too late already.

MAG 011 - Dreamer

ARCHIVIST: I’m not... entirely sure whether to bring this up with Elias or not. When he hired me, he was vague on the point of what happened to my predecessor, Gertrude Robinson. [...] I had Tim look into it, as I don’t entirely trust the others not to have written it as a practical joke and slipped it into the archives. [...] Still, I might have a word with Rosie, to make sure I get a copy of any new statements as soon as they’re made, not just once the researchers are done with them. She seemed very open to idea of recording them, so I’m hopeful she’ll be willing to do this too.

MAG 017- The Boneturner’s Tale

ARCHIVIST: I've barely scratched the surface of the archives and have already uncovered evidence of two separate surviving books from Jurgen Leitner's library. Until he mentioned that, I was tempted to dismiss much of it out of hand, but as it stands now I believe every word. I've seen what Leitner's work can do, and this news, even 17 years out of date, is still very concerning to me. I'm going to have a discussion with Elias as to what we can do to address the issue. I know he'll just give me the old “record and study, not interfere or contain” speech again, but I at least need to make him aware of it.

MAG 020 - Desecrated Host

ARCHIVIST: This all leads me to believe that there may have been a second person there that night, although from talking with the police, I get the impression that there is little appetite for re-opening the case, considering how successful the initial prosecution was.

MAG 022 - Colony

ARCHIVIST: In which case there's a room in the Archives I use to sleep when working late. I suggest you stay there for now. I'll talk to Elias about whether we can get extra security, but the Archives have enough locks for now. [...] Well, in that time I have received several text messages from your phone, saying you were ill with stomach problems. The last one said that you thought it “might be a parasite”, though my calls trying to follow up were never answered. [...] I just received another text message. From you. “Keep him. We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives.”

MARTIN: What does that mean?

ARCHIVIST: It means I ask Elias to hire some extra security. I should probably warn Sasha and Tim as well.

MAG 024 - Strange Music

When discussing this case, Tim said it reminded him of some articles he'd read on travelling circuses in Russia and Poland during the early 20th century. On a whim, I hunted down a few of the volumes he mentioned in the Institute's library, and sure enough on page 43 of Gregory Petry's Freaks and Followers: Circuses in the 1940s, I found a reproduction of an old black-and-white photograph.

MAG 026 - A Distortion

SASHA: Well, I’m sure you know I was sceptical about how dangerous this Jane Prentiss was when you first suggested Martin stay in the archive. [...] You were having some argument with Tim about... um, oh, who’s that architect he’s obsessed with?

ARCHIVIST: Robert Smirke. [...] ARCHIVIST: Sasha has taken a few days off to recuperate, and I’m having a word with Elias about getting some extra CO2 fire extinguishers for the Archive.

MAG 033 - Boatswain’s Call

TIM: Um, look I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure... it’s not a big deal, I just think it might be worth re-recording these statements.

ARCHIVIST: No. I don’t have time. I still have a mountain of haphazard statements to get through, not to mention that I need to keep this wretched tape recorder on hand just in case I encounter one of the files too stubborn to work on anything else. And when I do, I have to actually read the damn thing, which is...

TIM (BACKGROUND): Oh, woah, woah... woah!

ARCHIVIST: Fine. It’s fine. I just haven’t been sleeping much these last few months, what with all this... worm business. Which reminds me, if you do see Elias, tell him thanks for the extra extinguishers. [...] ARCHIVIST: In addition to such business ventures, the Lukas family also provides funding to several academic and research organisations, including the Magnus Institute. Much as I want to dig further into this, especially given certain parallels with case 0161301, Elias gets very twitchy when we look into anything that might conceivably have funding repercussions. [...] Maybe I’ll mention it to Elias. Just in case.

MAG 035 - Old Passages

ARCHIVIST: You should have seen Tim’s face when I told him. Architecture is one of his specialist areas, and he has always talked of Smirke as one that fascinates him. How did he phrase it? “A master of subtle stability.” From a professional standpoint, it also interests him that Smirke’s buildings have higher percentages of reported paranormal sightings than any other architect of similar profile.

MAG 036 - Taken Ill

TIM: Er, what is it?

ARCHIVIST: A lighter. An old Zippo.

TIM: You smoke?

ARCHIVIST: No. And I don’t allow ignition sources in my archive!

TIM: Okay. Is there anything unusual about it?

ARCHIVIST: Not really. Just a sort of spider web design on the front. Doesn’t mean anything to me. You?

TIM: Ah no. No.

ARCHIVIST: Well... show it to the others, see what they think.

MAG 039 - Infestation

ARCHIVIST: I got it!

[PULLS TAPE RECORDER FROM THE MORASS OF WORMS] [...]

SASHA: Why record it?

ARCHIVIST: What?

SASHA: Before, in the office. It, it was stupid going for the tape recorder like that, and then when you dropped it out there— [...]

ARCHIVIST: I just... I don’t want to become a mystery. I refuse to become another goddamn mystery. [...] Every real statement just leads... deeper into something I don’t even know the shape of yet. And to top it all, I still don’t know what happened to Gertrude. Officially she’s still missing, but Elias is no help and the police were pretty clear that the wait to call her dead is just a formality. If I die, wormfood or... something else, whatever, I’m going to make damn sure the same doesn’t happen to me. Whoever takes over from me is going to know exactly what happened. [...]

ARCHIVIST: Of course, I believe. Of course I do. Have you ever taken a look at the stuff we have in Artefact storage? That’s enough to convince anyone. But, but even before that... Why do you think I started working here? It’s not exactly glamorous. I have... I’ve always believed in the supernatural. Within reason. I mean. I still think most of the statements down here aren’t real. Of the hundreds I’ve recorded, we’ve had maybe... thirty, forty that are... that go on tape. Now those, I believe, at least for the most part.

MARTIN: Then why do you—

ARCHIVIST: Because I’m scared, Martin! Because when I record these statements it feels... it feels like I’m being watched. I... I lose myself a bit. And then when I come back, it’s like... like if I admit there may be any truth to it, whatever’s watching will... know somehow. The scepticism, feigning ignorance. It just felt safer.

MARTIN: Well... It wasn’t.

ARCHIVIST: No. No, it wasn’t.

[...]

ARCHIVIST: I mean at the Archive in general. Why haven’t you quit?

MARTIN: Are you giving me my review now?

ARCHIVIST: No... We’re clearly doing a whole heart-to-heart thing and, truth be told, the question’s been bothering me. You’ve been living in the Archives for four months, constant threat of... this. Sleeping with a fire extinguisher and a corkscrew. Even you must be aware that that’s not normal for an archiving job? Why are you still here?

MARTIN: [Considering] Don’t really know. I just am. It didn’t feel right to just leave. I’ve typed up a few resignation letters, but I just couldn’t bring myself to hand them in. I’m trapped here. It’s like I can’t... move on and the more I struggle, the more I’m stuck.

Martin...You’re not, uh... You didn’t die here, did you?

MARTIN: What? What? N-No... what?!

ARCHIVIST: No, I just... No, just the way you phrased that...

MARTIN: Made you think I was a ghost?

ARCHIVIST: No... it’s—

MARTIN: No, no... it’s just that whatever web these statements have caught you in, well, I’m there too. We all are, I think.

MAG041 - Too Deep

Why do I still feel like I’m being watched? I’d just about convinced myself it was Prentiss, watching me in secret while she filled the walls with her writhing hordes, but no. She is dead and gone, and still whenever I talk into this... damn thing, I feel this... I’m being watched. I know I am. [...] my primary focus must be on who killed Gertrude Robinson, and I do not believe for a moment that it was a wall-moving spectre from the depths of the earth. No, far more likely it’s one of my colleagues. Elias is a prime suspect, but it could have been any of them. [...] I can make two tapes from each recording. One containing the main statement and notes, which will be stored in the archive, and the other containing the statement, notes, and... this supplement, which will chronicle my own investigations. These tapes will be hidden. If you’re hearing this, I assume you’re my replacement, following my death or disappearance, and have received instructions on where to find them. [...] This level of paranoia is new to me, but I’m learning fast. Trust can get you killed.

...So, reading back over season 1 was interesting. Jon was asked to organise an archive of statements that were no longer under investigation by the institute. (Leading a team of four ex-researchers, himself included, who were used to working on open investigations. He was told that the institute’s mission statement was to study but not to ‘interfere or contain’, to the point where he got sick of Elias giving him that speech.)

He believed every statement that we heard him record, and he had all 3 assistants take part in re-opening an investigation into each of them through all available lines of enquiry (instead of devoting more resource to getting the existing material filed in a sensible system asap).

Wherever there was a chance it would do some good, he reported his findings to the authorities, and pushed to see if the Institute or the police would go further on the basis of his information.

He discussed the cases with his assistants thoroughly enough to know their areas of personal interest in the supernatural, and when they got into trouble, he immediately offered them as much protection as he could and went to Elias for help, prompting some of the others to express skepticism about the threats that he was clearly taking seriously, maybe excessively so...?

And yet because he felt watched by something supernatural, and convinced himself that it was Jane Prentiss somehow, he lied constantly by feigning skepticism even while following every lead and pushing everyone else to do the same. It’s a wonder anyone was fooled tbh, and it backfired by discouraging Martin and Sasha from confiding in him until they were in deep trouble. It also made his complaint about lack of sleep look relatively grumpy/petty to Tim, since he didn’t quite admit the full scale of the problem with nightmares and the exhaustion that the statements magically caused.

When Elias was feigning a normal level of ignorance in ep 39 he told Sasha: “You know how those two are... John puts on a good show, but sometimes I swear he’s worse than Martin.” And in ep 40 he told Jon: “I... know I have often seemed dismissive of your concerns before, and in fact I was getting ready to raise the issue of Martin’s continuing to live in the Institute’s basement”. If Elias was faking something like the rest of the Institute staff’s attitude (to things he wouldn’t admit to knowing all about)... then people really did doubt Jon’s skeptic act, feeling that he was always complaining about supernatural threats and going overboard in trying to protect people.

That changed in season 2, when he came to believe that one of his colleagues had murdered Gertrude, and stopped trusting all of them. When he was worried that his own death might be imminent, in the midst of Prentiss’ attack and in the paranoid aftermath, one of his main concerns was communicating with his successor through the tapes.

He doesn’t want his fate to be a mystery to those he leaves behind. Considering how much danger he puts himself in, diving into a pile of worms for the recorder, and later stating that he’d rather die exploring the tunnels than leave the Institute’s secrets buried, he’s more interested in getting information out to other people than in surviving.

Mid-season 2, when he gets scared, he talks about taking a break from his investigations until he can get more help from the police, especially as he thinks he’s trying to track down a human murderer. That remaining trust in authority doesn’t lead him to him collaborating with Basira to the extent he’d hoped, since she eventually makes it clear she wants nothing more to do with him, and he discovers that not!Sasha is a supernatural threat that the police couldn’t help with anyway.

The start of season 3 sees him reflecting that he didn’t turn to his assistants for help because he didn’t want to get them killed, and once he makes it back to the archives, he tries to overcome his recent trust issues and more long-standing hero complex by involving the others in his plans again - though they take care not to let those plans show up on tape, since they’re plotting against Elias by that point. When Jon asks everyone to record their thoughts before the unknowing in Testament, he’s trying to get them all communicating - with themselves, each other, and anyone who follows in their footsteps.

So far in season 4, he’s been more ready than ever to collaborate, but the others are mostly refusing to talk to him. His first instinct when he uncovers immediately relevant information is to go tell Basira, and he heeds her advice when he asks whether they can tell Melanie. (Which was unfair on Melanie, but at least you can see why he’d fear for his life after she threatened to attack him on sight if he ever tried to talk to her again.) He tried to tell Martin what had been going on instead of trying to compel information from him, and apparently hasn’t had much chance to speak to anyone else, or to leave the building.

He has the power to compel other people to see truths that they wouldn’t have recognised on their own; he only had to ask Tim what he was holding for Tim to see the detonator. And he may compare himself to Gertrude for losing assistants, but he talked to Sasha and Tim about the threats they were facing at the time, to the best of his knowledge. If Gertrude seems to have fought her battles by deliberately misleading people so that she could sacrifice them, and by taking out ‘loose ends’ to keep herself from being incriminated...

Well, I think Jon’s on his way to distinguishing himself from his predecessor through good communication, despite the massive stumbling blocks of his paranoid phase and isolation. (And through his extreme protectiveness towards individual people, compared to her way of prioritising the big picture.) He’s always wanted to get the truth out in the open, despite sometimes holding back out of fear that he won’t be believed, or he’ll get himself or others killed. Some of his most uncharismatic moments have been his attempts to tell people the truth when his knowledge was too patchy to convince them, and he wasn’t tactful enough to try to bring them on-side with diplomacy instead of facts and theories. As his powers grow, one of his most effective abilities might be to help his allies see the truth, so that they can join forces by choice.

E.g. maybe he’ll eventually find out what Peter’s up to from Martin - or maybe he’ll ask about something that he didn’t even realise was part of the plan, granting Martin an insight into something that neither of them knew beforehand.

[Edit: Wrote the above post in the mid-s4 hiatus and, uh. He sure did try to collaborate on a lot of stuff, but. Also fucked up pretty thoroughly, so. The s4 thoughts feel a bit over-optimistic in retrospect. Leaving it strikethrough rather than deleted though.]

[atopearth]

Hakuoki: Kyoto Winds Part 8 - Iba Hachiro Route

Ibaaaa! He seems like an upstanding and honourable guy so let’s see how this goes! I was pretty happy that Chizuru chose to apologise to him about Takeda’s actions at the inn. Regardless of the fact that it was Takeda who did it, he’s doing it under the pretence of the Shinsengumi, so it’s their responsibility, so apologising on this account and wanting to clarify that not all the Shinsengumi are like that is something important imo.

It’s too bad that Chizuru doesn’t remember him, but I like his positive attitude! He’ll just keep visiting her here and she’s bound to remember him this time around haha! Lmao at him seeing her trying to practise being more rough and masculine so that others like him won’t notice that she’s actually a girl😂 Very nice of Iba to check up on the Yukimura clinic to see if her father was there. He even found an excuse to get Chizuru to get out of the compounds and actually have some free time for herself, he’s so nice! Can’t blame her for being uncomfortable though, she barely knows him but he’s being so kind to her for some reason, but still, c'mon Chizuru, hot guy taking you out, accept it and go on a nice leisurely stroll! At least she’s aware he knows her from when they were children, so it’s not creepy but it is crappy to not know about him at all when he seems to be rather fond of her…

Ohh how cool! I guess that’s natural, this was the mission where they were protecting the shogunate (since he guards the shogun) when Kazama and the others appeared trying to grab Chizuru for the first time, so it’s expected that Iba would be here to protect her too! I’m actually pretty shocked that Iba has actually never killed anyone before… Hachiro’s voice is so soothing, I think anyone could fall asleep peacefully listening to it hahahaha. Never thought he was the one who told Chizuru as a kid to hide the fact that her injuries healed so quickly, he’s been protecting her for a long time with that promise huh? I guess Hijikata is right, they’re too far in with the experiments with the Furies that if they were to quit now, what would they do with the guys who are Furies right now? Stopping everything pretty much means leaving them to fend for themselves and essentially die with no hope for a cure… Although I understand, I’m still on Dr Matsumoto’s and Iba’s side though, these experiments should not continue, they’re just creating even more of them, causing more problems and bringing pain to all involved.

Pretty cute that when Takeda covered her mouth from screaming, the person she wanted to call for help from was Iba, guess she really is warming up to him already haha, it was so sweet when he heard her kinda call for him and he said he was really happy about that☺️☺️☺️ I think it would be hard to find anyone who can best Okita with the sword, but it still doesn’t change the fact that Iba is lacking the experience of fighting between life and death all the time. Takeda is really shameful btw, to use training as an excuse to try and hurt Iba, glad Kondou didn’t take his bs. It was so cute when Chizuru got left behind by the others and Iba found her and took her to eat Castella with him before taking her back to the headquarters lol! She really does need to learn to relax a bit more though, she can’t let that prisoner mindset take over her!! I appreciated Sen’s frankness with Iba that it’s going to be difficult to protect Chizuru considering her lineage, so he’ll have to be really prepared if he is serious about protecting her. Not sure what and why he’s insistent on this promise he made to protect her but you can see his resolve to do it and that’s enough. I wonder if they promised to be betrothed to each other as kids and that’s why he’s so adamant about risking his life to protect her no matter what🤔

I was really shocked when Iba actually lost his cool and sliced Takeda’s arm off when Takeda wanted to hurt Chizuru to demonstrate that she’s a monster. Gotta admit that I’m really disappointed in Takeda and his weak aspirations when he is/was a Shinsengumi captain, to think that he would fall to being such a human with so less pride and only care for money by wanting to sell the info on the Furies he had found. Not sure if Takeda will come back for revenge later on, but if he is, he’ll have to get an army of Furies or something lol. I’m still kinda shocked at seeing Iba so bloodthirsty, like it was really daunting but also cool I guess lol, to see that she is someone that can make him so seriously want to take another person’s life to protect her. Maybe it’s not exactly a good thing since he’s ready to kill others for her, but it also shows how important she really is I guess.

Considering how significant of a figure Sakamoto Ryouma was as the man who apparently kinda united the Satsuma and Choshu, it’s a bit weird for them to just mention/introduce his existence suddenly and then for him to be assassinated within the next minute by the Mimawarigumi (another pro-shogun group). The repercussions of his death will be terrible for the people of Kyoto though, since him being murdered gives the Satsuma-Choshu an excuse to go all out against the shogunate and their supporters. You can see why it’s so depressing and difficult for Iba to take in all of this… The whole fate of the shogunate and even Kyoto itself will be changing after this night with the death of one person, well two, since there was another person with Sakamoto that died.. Seeing Iba say that one of the reasons he so often visited the Shinsengumi (besides to see her) was because, compared to the other men he works with, the Shinsengumi have this unyielding determination to fight to the death for their cause that the others have not even an inkling of, probably. As usual, it’s always saddening to see how dedicated the Shinsengumi are for the shogunate and yet they themselves lack the fire for their own fight.

His desire to protect Chizuru, his persistence on treating her as a normal girl even if she doesn’t is just so admirable and touching… I have to agree with Iba that she should really leave Kyoto though lol. I’m not the biggest fan of Chizuru but I guess you can understand why she wants to stay in Kyoto with the rest of the Shinsengumi. Still though, she causes trouble lmao😂 But I really love how respectful Iba is of her wishes, he even asked her whether she really wanted to go to Osaka Castle with Kondou and Okita since he wanted her to make her own choice instead of just listening to Hijikata’s orders. She’d be much safer there but yeah, Chizuru always chooses to stay at the most dangerous places, so what can he do haha. Seeing Gen always sacrifice himself to buy time for Chizuru to escape is always saddening…

I knew Takeda would return, but I didn’t think he’d receive a Demon’s arm in place of his lost arm from Kodo, and I also didn’t expect him to slice off Iba’s left arm… It was so sudden, yet so devastating to see the agony and pain he went through in that CG and the screaming, it was terrible…. Thankfully, Sen finally appeared and saved them from a pinch. So it seems the Demon’s arm actually comes from a Demon Lord from long ago, he lost his arms in a fight with a clan of humans and so the Yase village has preserved these limbs all this time since it’s said to bring about catastrophe to any creature hmm… I’m actually surprised Sen offered the left Demon hand to Iba to use to defeat Takeda, didn’t think it was something she couldn’t handle by herself anymore, especially since like, is it stronger to turn a human into a Fury and give the hand to them, instead of giving it to another Demon?? Iba’s not wrong that the the shogunate army will lose, so him losing his humanity and thus his ability to interfere with human history shouldn’t matter but I’m surprised he doesn’t desire to fight with them until the end regardless. I guess Chizuru is just his highest priority? But I guess he doesn’t really have a choice since he’s lost the arm he uses to wield a sword anyway, so he might as well at least try and stop Takeda and Kodo.

It’s nice to know that Iba has always protected her since they were little and always thought of her as an ordinary girl. He even decided to pick up the sword because he wanted to protect her. She’s the reason he’s come this far, huh? Regardless, they’ll be heading to Edo whilst wishing for a better future… Other endings just revolved around them dying in the usual typical way, so, not interesting haha. Overall, I liked Iba’s route, it was refreshing and nice to see that instead of creating a bond together, Chizuru was rediscovering the bond she once had with him and building upon that. Undoubtedly, Iba would do anything for her, so seeing him work so hard to protect her, care for her and be considerate of her was very sweet. He’s a really nice guy and I’m interested in how this Demon’s arm story will go in Edo!😊

[crimethinc]

Fuck Abuse, Kill Power: Addressing the Root Causes of Sexual Harassment and Assault

The past year has seen a wave of revelations about powerful people—nearly all men—perpetrating sexual violence against those beneath them. The #MeToo moment has provided a platform for countless courageous survivors. Yet although some men have been made to face consequences for the harm they have done, we are far from being able to solve the problem of male sexual violence. Focusing on the wrongdoings of specific men tends to exceptionalize them, as if their actions took place in a vacuum. This is consistent with the mechanisms of a criminal justice system focused on individual guilt and a reformist politics premised on the idea that the existing government and market economy would serve us perfectly if only the right people were in power. But with the bad behavior of so many men coming to light, we have to consider the possibility that these are not exceptions at all—that these attacks are the inevitable, systemic result of this social order. Is there a way to treat the cause as well as the symptoms?

Trigger warning for descriptions of sexual violence.

Virtually all recent mainstream coverage has treated sexual harassment and assault as an issue distinct from capitalism and hierarchy. When writers admit that capitalism and hierarchy play some role, they imply that what is harmful about these systems can be fixed through reform. They exhort us to appeal to power to solve the problems power causes: we are to pressure corporations to fire their executives, to use the media to shame media moguls, to use democracy to punish politicians. In short, we are supposed to use the very structures through which our abusers hold power to take it away from them.

On the contrary, we can’t be effective against rampant sexual assault without confronting its root causes.

A tattoo by Charline Bataille inspired by Jenny Holzer.

A Very Brief History of Sexual Assault in the United States

Sexual assault and rape are woven into the very origins of the United States. The original colonists did not consider the indigenous inhabitants worthy of the same moral considerations as white Europeans. Sexual assault and rape were systematically employed as colonial tools. Michele de Cuneo, a nobleman and a shipmate of Columbus, described the following scene in a letter, apparently without shame or remorse:

While I was in the boat I captured a very beautiful Carib woman, whom the said Lord Admiral gave to me, and with whom, having taken her to my cabin, she being naked according to their custom, I conceived desire to take pleasure. I wanted to put my desire into execution but she did not want it and treated me with her finger nails in such a manner that I wished I had never begun. But seeing that (to tell you the end of it all), I took a rope and thrashed her well, for which she raised such unheard of screams that you would not have believed your ears. Finally we came to an agreement in such a manner that I can tell you that she seemed to have been brought up in a school of harlots.

Slaves, too, were routinely sexually assaulted. This was an essential aspect of the system of slavery: in addition to domestic labor, enslaved women were forced to engage in sex and reproduction that served to add more slaves to their captor’s holdings.

Workers have also experienced egregious sexual harassment and assault for as long as there has been a workforce.

Throughout all this, women were never passive victims. Women have always fought against their abusers with ferocity, creativity, and diversity of tactics. For example, in the mid-1800s, a slave named Harriet Jacobs fought fiercely against her captor; after resisting his sexual advances, she hid in a crawlspace for seven years to avoid him. She eventually escaped to New York and obtained legal freedom. An early forerunner of the #MeToo movement, she wrote letters to the New York Tribune detailing her experiences and in 1860 published Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, one of the first books to detail enslaved women’s experiences of sexual assault.

Starting in the early 1900s, women formed labor unions that fought for the rights of female workers, including the right not to be sexually harassed and assaulted. Black women’s struggles against workplace harassment led to the creation of the first laws against sexual discrimination and harassment. In 1993, Lorena Bobbitt cut off her abusive husband’s penis and threw it in a field after he raped her. A jury acquitted her. These are all legitimate forms of resistance.

“They passed round the bleeding stump, as if they had finally exterminated a wild animal that had been preying on each and every one of them, and saw it there inert and in their power. They bared their teeth, and spat on it.”

-A passage from Emile Zola’s 1885 novel Germinal in which a mob of starving women workers castrate the corpse of a shopkeeper who has been extorting them for sex in exchange for food.

Corporations Won’t Solve This

It was no secret that many of these men were abusers. Nothing is different now except that corporations have taken a bit more notice. Corporate media outlets have published women’s accounts; some corporations have fired rapists if what they have done is deemed egregious enough. Should we be grateful to corporations for firing serial sexual predators once enough accusations pile up that it becomes a problem for their brand?

These corporations are just plugging the oil leak that finally made the news. But who creates and maintains this pipeline? They do. Let’s not pat them on the back for solving a problem that they caused.

Most of these companies have known about these accusations for years without doing anything. Worse, they’ve allowed these men to rise up the ranks of power to the point that their serial abuse warrants national news attention. In other words, these corporations have facilitated these men’s behavior by giving them additional opportunities with which to harass, assault, and rape women. For every Harvey Weinstein whose actions are finally brought to light, there is another Harvey Weinstein who gets away with serial assault thanks to the assistance of the institution that gives him power.

Why do corporations have a vested interest in helping rapists succeed in business? While misogyny is partly to blame, we have to look at the bigger picture. Corporate success is determined by how much profit a business produces, not by whether it protects women from sexual assault. In capitalism, whether to oust an assaulter becomes a simple economic equation: how is his presence affecting the bottom line?

Take the case of Bill O’Reilly. Since 2002, Fox News and O’Reilly have paid out many millions of dollars to settle sexual harassment claims. During this time, O’Reilly continued to be a rising star at Fox, negotiating a $25 million a year contract as recently as January 2017. While media coverage and exposés finally forced Fox to fire O’Reilly, Fox knew he was an abuser for more than a decade and shelled out millions to silence women he abused. Fox’s behavior is not so mysterious when one learns that in 2015, O’Reilly’s show earned Fox more than $180 million in advertising.

This is not an anomaly; this is a standard utilitarian calculation that businesses make all the time. Imagine you’re O’Reilly’s conscientious supervisor. Having just discovered O’Reilly’s long history of harassing women, you go to your bosses and demand that they fire O’Reilly. Even if your bosses agree with your demand from a moral standpoint, how could they explain the loss of O’Reilly, the golden goose, to their shareholders? Capitalism is designed to maximize profit over everything else, including ethics and safety.

This system also makes it difficult to fight back against abusers. In a hyper-competitive market, a single setback can mean the end of your career, your healthcare, your ability to pay rent. The stakes are higher for women and trans people, especially those of color, who are far more likely to experience poverty than men. Those who have gained a footing in the economy may be understandably hesitant to risk losing it, and it’s no secret that those who resist abuse or call out their abusers often face adverse consequences for doing so.

Targets of sexual harassment face impossible choices: do I allow this abuse to continue or risk losing income I desperately need? Do I report this abuse and risk deportation? Do I leave this job without reporting this abuse? If I do, does that mean that others will be preyed upon after me?

Capitalism, the state, and other forms of hierarchy offer sexual predators many ways of doing harm to those who resist them. O’Reilly, Weinstein, Ailes, Farenthold (the list goes on and on and on) all routinely harmed or ended the careers of those who opposed them.

Fears about job security also affect those who are asked to witness or even abet abusers. Weinstein used his employees to make his victims feel a false sense of security before he assaulted them, often asking staffers to come to the beginning of nighttime meetings and then dismissing them so he could be alone with his victims. One former employee described a scene in a nighttime meeting in which Weinstein demanded she tell a model that Weinstein was a good boyfriend, and became enraged when she said she no longer wished to attend these “meetings.” It is easy to feel self-righteous anger at staffers who abetted Weinstein, but it is undeniable that Weinstein’s position of power enabled him to ruin people’s lives. While we deserve for others to be brave in standing up for us even against the most powerful foes, it is unrealistic to think we could put an end to sexual harassment and assault in a system in which people have to martyr themselves in order to protect each other.

Abolishing capitalism and all other systems that concentrate wealth and power into the hands of a few would not put a stop to sexual assault, but it would greatly reduce the coercive economic power that the rich and powerful wield over the rest of us. Without those structural imbalances in power, assaulters would not have the means to manipulate anyone into complicity and silence. This may sound utopian, but it is the only realistic solution if we’re serious about combatting sexual assault. No system that centralizes wealth and power can prevent that power from being used to coerce or harm people.

No, we really don’t.

The Criminal Justice System Won’t Solve This

The law is no friend to victims of sexual harassment and assault. Police officers across the United States have brought charges of false reporting against sexual assault survivors who went to them for help, only to later see these victim’s stories confirmed when their assaulters were identified and convicted. Sexual assault survivors who manage to convince the police not to arrest them for false reporting can find themselves jailed in order to compel their testimony in court.

ICE uses courts as a trap for undocumented people. Undocumented people cannot even enter a courthouse without risking arrest and deportation. In this way, the state systematically facilitates the sexual assault of those whose papers are not in order.

Even if the police don’t throw you in jail, only three to six percent of workplace harassment claims ever make it to trial. Some of these cases are settled, but many are dismissed due to the law’s high bar for what constitutes harassment (the harassment must qualify as “severe” or “pervasive”). In one typical example, a construction worker brought a case against a supervisor who talked about raping him multiple times. The worker’s case was dropped because the supervisor’s actions occurred over a ten-day period and therefore did not meet the standard of being “pervasive.”

The court system not only punishes those who attempt to utilize it—it also targets those who try to defend themselves. In the New Jersey 4 case, a group of black women defended themselves against a catcaller who threatened and attacked them. They were prosecuted and four were sentenced to between 3.5 and 11 years in Rikers.

The criminal justice system exacerbates all the problems we have already seen in the corporate sector. While corporations implicitly hold people hostage in the context of the capitalist economy, the criminal justice system explicitly holds people hostage via the coercive apparatus of the law and the state. It is the epitome of power being distributed to the few and entirely denied to the many, and as such it is a site of terrifying abuses of power. People in prison are routinely sexually assaulted, often by their jailers. When we appeal to the violent authority of the state to punish our abusers, we are complicit in perpetuating the power dynamics that we claim to oppose.

We need to explore systems of justice that hold people accountable to each other, rather than to a higher power. Wherever we concentrate power, we will see abuse.

Viewing Sexual Harassment through an Intersectional Lens

Although we are framing this primarily in gendered terms, the identities “male” and “female” are just proxies with which to discuss different degrees of power and privilege. Whose voices we hear and how we respond to those voices is determined by a myriad of other factors including race, sexual orientation, economic status, ability status, and first language. In seeking to disentangle ourselves from patriarchy, we need to internalize the way our privileges protect us from harm that others face. We need to listen to the stories of those most likely to be harmed under patriarchy and capitalism: black women’s stories, trans people’s stories, undocumented workers’ stories, poor people’s stories.

We need to take note of whose voices those in power seek to discredit. For example, the only sexual assault charges Harvey Weinstein has specifically disputed came from the only black woman, Lupita Nyong’o, who has accused him of harassment or assault.

This Is about Power, not Sex

Although women also perpetrate sexual assault, we are statistically far less likely to do so than men. Is this because women are inherently better, more moral, or less violent than men? If we are, it is in part because we, as non-men, are not taught that we must embody the norms of toxic masculinity that are symptomatic of patriarchy, i.e., that women are objects, or that our self-worth is based on the number of women we fuck. Men’s internalized toxic masculinity accounts for many of the reasons they sexually assault women.

Some have suggested that the solution to rampant sexual harassment and assault is that women should replace men in all positions of power. But the problem is not the condition of maleness; the problem is patriarchy, an unequal distribution of power. As long as some hold power over others, the powerful will prey on the less powerful, regardless of who occupies these roles.

Patriarchy is not the bad behavior of a few specific men, but the framework of relations that fosters it.

So What Do We Do?

To call out sexual predators without seeking to dismantle the system of power that created them is like bailing water out of a sinking ship. The fundamental problem isn’t a shortfall of publicity, law, policy, or education; the fundamental problem is that the systems that purport to keep us safe make us vulnerable.

We have to weave together the ways that we respond to specific instances of sexual harassment and violence with a determination to confront and undermine the social order that gives rise to them. In every case of male violence, we should be clear that we are not dealing with an exception, but with a problem that is a structural feature of our society. At the same time, we need to create models of transformative justice that can replace the criminal justice system without replicating any feature of it, and to foster new ways of relating in which patriarchy, white supremacy, and other forms of authority do not determine the possibilities of our lives. Every person of every gender stands to gain from this.

Let us join hands, teeth bared.

“I’m not your prey, I still have teeth” by kAt Philbin.

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

SCUM will not picket, demonstrate, march or strike to attempt to achieve its ends. Such tactics are for nice, genteel ladies who scrupulously take only such action as is guaranteed to be ineffective… If SCUM ever marches, it will be over the President’s stupid, sickening face; if SCUM ever strikes, it will be in the dark with a six-inch blade.

–Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto

Further Reading

The history of sexual assault in the United States:

Slavery and the Roots of Sexual Harassment by Adrienne D. Davis

Feminism and the Labor Movement: A Century of Collaboration and Conflict by Eileen Boris and Annelise Orleck writing for CUNY’s New Labor Forum

Sexual Harassment Law Was Shaped by the Battles of Black Women by Raina Lipsitz writing for The Nation

Alternatives to criminal justice:

Sexual Assault Resources from North East Anarchist Network (particularly the Accountability Processes section)

Revolution and Restorative Justice: An Anarchist Perspective by Peter Kletsan writing for Abolition Journal

Accounting for Ourselves: Breaking the Impasse Around Assault and Abuse in Anarchist Scenes from CrimethInc.

Sexual assault and neoliberalism:

Profiting from Rape: Sexual Violence and the Capitalist State by Kelly Rose Pflug-Back writing for The Feminist Wire

The Consent of the Ungoverned by Laurie Penny writing for LongReads

Sexual assault on the margins:

Cultivating Fear: The Vulnerability of Immigrant Farmworkers in the US to Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment by Grace Meng published in Human Rights Watch

Sexual Assault When You’re on the Margins: Can We All Say #MeToo? by Collier Meyerson writing for The Nation

[yangingaround]

(Part 1) Not to shaft Yang, but I disagree with you that she’s had the least “rush in recklessly” moments. She basically initiated the fight in the Yellow Trailer by being overly-aggressive if all she wanted was information (and wasn’t there to basically start a fight). In 1x8 she jumped into the Nevermore’s mouth even though there was no one in immediate danger and simply dodging would probably have been the better tactical move.

Anonymous said:

(Part 2) She had (misplaced) overconfidence in trying to take Neo by herself in 2x11 and was nearly killed for it, and then in 2x12 she launched herself into the air (needlessly) without looking and immediately got knocked down by Nevermores from behind. In 3x6 the whole situation with Mercury could have been avoided if she’d simply side-stepped his attack (which RWB_ probably would have done) rather than attacking back.

Anonymous said:

(Part 3) And in 3x11, while I understand it was an emotional moment and she had to react quickly to make sure Blake didn’t get hurt further, she leaped into the air (again needlessly) making herself basically a sitting duck for Adam’s attack, whereas if she’d rushed him but kept her feet on the ground she would have had a much better chance of dodging his attack. Monday morning quarterbacking, I know, but still, Taiyang’s right in that she needs to learn to keep a more level head in combat.

Anonymous said:

(Part 4) By comparison, Blake, for example, has only really thrown herself into danger twice (3x11, and 4x3) and both times there were civilian lives under immediate threat, which was not the case in the Yang examples I noted. Again, Yang’s one of my favorite characters, so I’m not trying to shit on her. But I definitely think she’s had a problem with recklessness in v1-3.

Yellow trailer: Junior was already having his goons surround her - that fight was starting whether Yang wanted it to or not. Yang played up a distraction to catch Junior off guard and throw the first punch (which cleared out the night club of civilians) but that fight was starting anyway (Junior even admits that he and his goons started it in the manga adaptation of the trailer - which is supposed to be canon)

1x08: are we forgetting that how they were fighting the Nevermore was Ruby’s plan? by jumping into the Nevermore’s mouth, Yang not only had it’s attention but could make it go where she needed it to go for the plan to work - ‘dodging’ wouldn’t have made it plow into the cliff, especially not given that Yang is primarily a close quarters combatant

2x11: a)Yang didn’t have backup because near everyone else was having to fight another henchman (also “this one’s mine” doesn’t scream overconfidence, it’s “i’ll take this one, you go on ahead”. sticking together would’ve wasted time they didn’t have) and this whole situation was far beyond anyone’s skill level and no one had the time to team up and attack these minions when the priority was stopping the train (or was Weiss being reckless for fighting a big dude with a chainsword alone instead of making Blake stick around?)b) Yang was exhausted because she didn’t sleep as far as we saw, which affected her stamina and made it easier for Neo to knock her out (which she only did once Yang adapted to her fighting style - oh look at that, Yang was thinking, what a novelty apparently - and caught up with it enough to actually grab hold of her). all Neo had to do was stay out of her way and play for time, Yang needed to incapacitate her as quickly as possible and c) the car was an enclosed space, filled with Dust crates and she couldn’t rely on her typical combat style without setting them off, meaning Yang was severely limited in what she could do - and what else could she do? run away? Neo would either get in her way or attack one of her friends during their fights. recklessness implies she had a choice and she made the rash, thoughtless one - that’s not the case here

2x12: okay quick question, the Grimm were all coming through an underground tunnel so how in the hell was Yang supposed to know there would be Nevermores flying overhead? Yang taking to the air, considering she would most likely still be tapped out from exhaustion and the fight with Neo (and so direct combat would’ve put her at risk too, we later see her throwing cars at Grimm instead of engaging them directly), was her playing tactical and trying to stay away from direct attack, and getting sidelined by factors she had no reason to consider

3x06: so some dude just lost a fight and jumped to attack you, do you a) dodge out of the way, giving him opening to attack again when you are coming off an intense fight and are low enough on aura that another attack could do some damage? or b) stop him (as you are trained to fight monsters, so preventing further attacks is what you are literally trained for) so he doesn’t do it again? because defending herself makes sense, and most likely wouldn’t have even been penalised if it weren’t for the fact that it was a trick to make her look like a monstrous, thoughtless brute (because people only have a problem with Yang responding the way she did because we know she was set up - they think “Yang was stupid because she didn’t dodge and now she looks like a monster”, it’s like a lot of people forget that Yang doesn’t have the same information we do as an audience and it’s very often difficult to see the apparently ‘obvious’ solution when you’re in the middle of a situation)

3x11: this is just straight up victim blaming (which is also what Taiyang was doing), but alright. another question; ignoring that Yang isn’t an emotionless robot, it had been an extremely stressful 24 hours, someone she loved was in danger(there is no way anyone could keep a level head there) and that Yang values Blake’s life above her own; what other options did Yang exactly have? any of her usual tactics could be deflected, miss, take too much time, or could have hurt Blake themselves. bull rushing Adam with everything she had, as quickly as possible (and she had to get through a window frame so going for the direct ground attack would’ve taken longer than jumping, which leaves Blake in danger more - and close to the ground or not, Adam can still swing a sword so even if she would’ve dodged it wouldn’t have mattered, we saw in the Black trailer that thing’s got a very big radius, there’s literally no difference in those two methods except your suggestion is slower, Yang wasn’t even that high up and had her abilities powering the speed of the attack, on foot she would’ve still been slower), was the fastest way to get his focus off Blake and on her. and again, she had no idea that a) he had the kind of ability he does and b) that it was already charged up. those are things she didn’t know and in that moment, wasn’t what was important to her (i even stated that the two times Yang has actually thrown herself into danger, it’s been to try and save a loved one, where her own safety is not her primary concern - Yang’s even implied that she only takes care of herself because others might need her later, so in a moment where someone needs her, her own safety isn’t going to be on the priority list, and Yang doesn’t dodge in fights when her teammates are present, only when she’s alone. this still isn’t a case of Yang being reckless, this is Yang’s tendency to only place value in herself for how useful she can be to others, so she only takes care of herself for the possibility of someone needing her, reaching a terrible, logical conclusion)

that was just a bad situation with no good way out of it with everyone making it out okay - the point of that scenario wasn’t ‘Yang is a reckless idiot and lost her arm for it’, which is victim blamey, it’s a reality check, the villains are stronger, better fighters than the girls are currently - that they’ve still got a long way to go

(i’m surprised you didn‘t mention 2x04 and jumping on the mech and getting smashed through several reinforced pillars for it - you seem pretty intent on blaming her for losing her arm so why not that? you can’t blame someone for not knowing something - because you literally can’t plan for everything - or not having much choice in the matter)

but let’s examine Blake, shall we? she’s gotten less fight time than Yang has but she still manages a few more examples than the ones you cited (which i hadn’t even considered as examples; because Adam is an abuser deliberately playing on her trauma - daring her to run away again pretty much ensured she wouldn’t use her semblance to fight him and instead engage him directly - and there’s no way she could act rationally there, so claiming that is victim blamey as hell. and Blake was the only one present who could put an immediate attack in on the sea monster - literally doing her job before the Grimm turned out to be much worse than it looked)

1x16: threw herself into the fight at the docks, eventually solely going after Roman out of anger despite being outmatched

2x05/6: Blake’s obsession with tracking down Torchwick drives her to a point of exhaustion and she would’ve gotten herself killed if she’d continued on that because she wasn’t resting or eating. that is recklessness

4x09/10: chasing after a White Fang spy whilst completely unarmed and with no plan

do you know what the big difference i’m seeing here is? things more often than not work out for Blake when it comes to throwing herself into danger (the same is true of Ruby) - Ruby, then Penny showing up and Roman deciding to just leave, the spy turning out to be someone Blake knew that wouldn’t directly attack her - while with Yang sometimes they don’t, and the audience reads that as Yang being punished for recklessness because there’s this odd audience fixation that Yang is always in the wrong (do you really think a character that nearly got herself and her sister killed when they were kids - and actually believes they should have died - while stubbornly, recklessly chasing after something. is going to have a problem with those things in the present? it doesn’t make sense to have that in a backstory if it’s still a problem in the present, proving the character learned nothing, when that’s evidently not the case). Yang is shown to be the most levelheaded and thoughtful member of her team, and there’s no evidence she isn’t in fights she doesn’t have personal stake in (where it’s understandable that she responds more emotionally), except for people not paying enough attention to factors outside of Yang and deciding she must be at fault when things go wrong even when all she’s doing is responding to a threat and doesn’t have a whole lot of options. but she gets shat on because she’s the ‘angry’ one (even though her letting her anger out seems to help her focus more than hinder it - anger isn’t itself bad, people are allowed to be angry but Yang is always the only one criticised for it even though when examining it she’s evidently in control of herself), and dismissed as an reckless idiot that doesn’t look before she leaps because no one looks beyond the surface with her (as per usual) to consider any underlying factors

[silyabeeodess]

Kuroshitsuji Chapter 127: A Speculation on the Second Killer

For those of you who've been following me for some time, you might remember a post I made a long while back about how cool it would be in the story if Doll were to be brought back as a Bizarre Doll to confront O!Ciel.  At the time, I just thought it would be a neat development due to the emotional confrontation O!Ciel would be faced with by his sins coming back to haunt him. However, lately I'm beginning to see it as an actual possibility with some of the hints we've been given. 

Now, even though I do a ton of analyses on here, I tend to stay away with trying to come up with actual theories just because--at any minute--we can have a monkey wrench thrown into them by the creator of a story that can make anything we've ever thought of null and void.   This is why I'm saying "speculation" instead of "theory": It's not something I'd bet money on.  It's just an educated guess that I very much like.  So for this, I'm going to go part by part on why I think Doll is a plausible suspect for the knife-wielding killer and also include counter-arguments.

Motive/Choice of Victim:

Anyone who has seen or read Book of Circus understands why Doll would want to extract revenge from O!Ciel: He lied to her about his identity and slaughtered the other first tier circus members, her family.  At the end of Book of Circus, Doll attacks O!Ciel, sobbing and screaming that she'll never forgive him.  It can be assumed that, at the end of that scene, Doll was then killed by Sebastian on O!Ciel's orders.   

I'll talk a little bit more about the possibility of her resurrection toward the end, but, for now, let's go over what we know about the Bizarre Dolls.  We know that they retain their memories of their human selves as well as their desires for the future.  In Doll's final moment, her fiercest desire would've been to kill O!Ciel or to make him suffer--and she wouldn't have forgotten that he killed her loved ones.  Based on R!Ciel's reactions in the last few chapters, we may also speculate that the newest form of Bizarre Dolls are able to retain emotions as well, or are at least able to grasp an understanding of what they should feel about certain events based on past knowledge.  Considering this, Doll's hatred likely wouldn't have faded much at all.

So why would Agni be a possible target for Doll?  Because he's close to O!Ciel.  Even on someone else's orders, I don't think Doll would have any qualms against taking the life of someone that O!Ciel cares about--and in a extremely brutal fashion--because that's exactly what he did to her.  An eye for an eye.  Doll may have shown reluctance back when she was alive about taking the life of another person, such as the incident with the police, but that was also when she still maintained a trickle of innocence.  She watched her family kill because "they had no choice" in order to protect the children they believed were still at the workhouse.  She felt they were victims more than criminals and she didn't have a desire to kill before.  Losing Joker and the others is what pushed her to kill without hesitation or mercy.  Humans can often be ruled by hatred, and Bizarre Dolls hardly show an understanding in mortality, so how could a resurrected Doll decide against killing an innocent if her goal is solely revenge against O!Ciel?       

Mental Instability:

Going on the possibility that the knife-wielding killer represents Polaris, their favor of knives and the pattern of using them to rip things apart would make sense. Below are images of Polaris' room from chapter 117 and images of the attack at the townhouse in 127 and 128:

All three images show extreme destruction with the use of knives/daggers.  What this has to do with Doll ties in with what I said in that last part: She would be ruled by hatred and rage, therefore, as a result, she would be destructive.  The events prior to her death would not have kept her in any stable frame of mind: She was involved in kidnapping children, knowing what would happen to them; her brother-figure, Joker, killed a man right in front of her and told her she had to be killer as well; and then she watches Kelvin's manor burn down and gets told that everyone she loves is dead and her new friend was the one that killed them.  She was completely shattered.  As a Bizarre Doll, those feelings would be all that she's left with and she can't recover from them because she's soulless and therefore isn't the same Doll we knew--just a shell.  Since she could only react from her hatred and want for revenge, tearing apart her environment would be her sole outlet until given an actual target.           

The Candy:     

This, I feel, may be the weakest point I'm going to make, but I find it an interesting one.  When chapter 128 came out, a lot of us discussed the possibility of the phrase on the wall, "who stole the candy from my tummy," being carved there by R!Ciel as a symbolic, foreboding message regarding his being stabbed in the chest and O!Ciel having the Phantomhive ring. However, if we were to consider the message a bit more literally, it might have been Doll talking about the candy she had, which was used symbolically in BoC. If we recall, she had three candies: One she gave to Ciel, one she ate on the first night they shared a tent, and one she kept for another day. The first one was thrown in a fire by Sebastian at the end of BoC and the last one fell out of her satchel when she attacked O!Ciel. Not only that, but it's also the very last thing we see from that scene in place of watching Doll die. Those candies represented the beginning and the end of the friendship.

Now, I don't mean to take the whole message literal: Digestion would dictate that the candy she ate was well out of her tummy over the course of the days before she was killed. What was meant by that is probably this part's weakest point. However, it is also something of note that the person who killed Agni and wrote the message--if they are the same--shows signs of mental instability. Therefore, it wouldn't be off for a broken individual to write such a thing based on what the candies are all tied to. She could be talking about the candy she ate and might've been killed in a way that made her think someone ripped it out of her stomach. It might be that and a combination of that candy she lost when it fell out of her bag.  Maybe it's symbolic to the her feelings of betrayal against O!Ciel or maybe there's another explanation.

Weapon/Attack Pattern/ Physical Similarities:

As made clear by the multitude of knives/daggers in Agni's body, the killer favors them. We never saw how adept Doll was with them, however, it was the weapon she used when she tried to kill O!Ciel. Furthermore, the way in which both she and the killer hold the knife is the same overall: Rather than favor any one hand, they usually wield their blades using both hands.  We see Doll wield it once that way and the killer wield it in the same manner in several panels from the assassination.  The knives/daggers that Doll carries compared to the ones stuck in Agni's body and in Polaris' room from the previous images are also of a similar size, showing a favoritism to a specific size of blade. (The knives themselves aren't the same.)

The killer was also acrobatic, as was Doll. Because of this, they easily dodged Agni.   

As for similar physical aspects, of course I can't say much since the killer had themselves cloaked. However, they should have about the right height for Doll since Agni was lowered into a fighting stance when they attacked him. They also seem to have similar body types, nose types, and angles of their jawlines. Evidence that would work against these similarities, however, is that Doll's freckles and part of her scar should've gone below the shading that the killer's face was hidden by beneath their hood.

The biggest issue here would be that the Doll we knew shouldn't have been able to take down Agni.  However, if this new generation of Bizarre Dolls is stronger than the previous ones and have been gifted superhuman abilities, that would chance things.

Resurrection: 

Based on chapter 108, we can guess that Undertaker is involved with what's happened in some way. If he is, it would be possible that Doll's resurrection and appearance here could be explained by Undertaker's appearance at the end of BoC.  He watched Kelvin's manor burn down, and might've collected a few bodies from it. Since Doll was away from the fire at the time of her death, her body should've been in good condition by the time he would've collected it.  As for how it remained in its condition, it's been apparent from the Bizarre Dolls from Weston that Undertaker has mastered preserving them for well over a year without signs of decay or damage besides some scarring around the scalp. 

The issues with this is if the Undertaker is involved to this extent and how Doll would react to R!Ciel.  Many of us can imagine R!Ciel being the killer with the gun.  If this is the cases, it seems more likely that Doll would've attacked the twin--thinking it was O!Ciel--rather than have worked alongside him.  Undertaker, however, does how the ability to control his Bizarre Dolls to the point where he can summon/send them off at will as well as talk through them, as seen at Weston and particularly with Agares. 

In conclusion, I think Doll's Bizarre Doll would be a plausible suspect as well as an interesting thing to bring into the arc, but this speculation isn't without it's holes.      

[listoriented]

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel

bAUderlands: straya

Where/When/Why: Borderlands: the Pre-Sequel is the first of the series that I didn’t run through with friends at launch. Instead, I got it during a steam sale in July last year for US$16.50 as part of a finish-your-Borderlands-collection package/bundle, with an eye to playing it when I got to it. Apparently I bought Rocket League at the same time? Momentous.

What/Who: It’s in the title, hey - a Borderlands game set between Borderlands 1 and 2. I’m struggling to think of other game and movie franchises that have done this, which perhaps why there isn’t a better descriptive term for it. The newish Baldur’s Gate expansion maybe? Rogue One? Anyway, instead of being set on Pandora - the fictional frontier planet where the previous two games were set - Pre-Sequel is set on Pandora’s moon, Elpis.

Elpis is a noticeably Australian place; it’s inhabited by Australian NPCs and full of parodies of Australian animals and stories (the main characters are all still American though - don’t worry). This is probably because the game was made by the 2k Australia branch [official site], based in Canberra, and so apparently it just kind of happened that way. The Pre-Sequel came out in October 2014. Sadly, 2k Australia shut their doors in 2015, which means there’s no AAA games development happening here for the time being.

Time Spent: 23 hours.

Completed: Yep, finally - we managed one. 19 of 63 achievements ticked. Oh that’s not a lot, hey. Oh well.

Notes: We had a pretty good time. That should probably be the main takeaway. The day after we finished it, Lauren said that she missed playing it. The mindless shooting, looting and questing loop of Borderlands 2 is well repped again here. The flow of it is quietly addictive.

We found the going a bit tough for a while, though, there at the beginning. We spent a lot of time hunting for mission waypoints through the larger moonscape areas of the game, which are not intuitive to travel around in vehicles (lots of dead ends, crevices, mountains, barriers), and awful to travel around on foot (too many things that want to kill you and/or distract you). A few times we went to bed mad at each other after having our patience stretched thin (**n.b. it should be added that while we did often end up playing this in the last hour or two before bed over the past few weeks, this game, like the other Borderlands games, is not something that actually benefits from being played while tired, despite this seeming like the natural state to play it in). One particular semi-optional mission for urchin NPC Pickle nearly drove us to the brink with its arduous navigational requirements.

The quaint fugue that Borderlands draws you into can be a hindrance too: if you don’t pay attention you can be tricked into fighting scores of creeps that could easily be avoided, and which don’t offer much in the way of endorphin release or in-game reward. The next time you come past they’ll all have respawned anyway, making the intervening grind feel particularly pernicious. Things improved immensely once we had more fast travel unlocked, and as we got better at paying attention to who we were meant to be fighting. 

Pre-Sequel also has a couple of particular gameplay gimmicks. At first we were like “???”, but we came around to them. The game is set, as mentioned, on Pandora’s moon, Elpis, which being a moon has low gravity. As such, you can jump higher and further. Because the moon surface lacks breathable atmosphere, you carry oxygen tanks, referred to forever as “Oz kits” because Australia lololololol. These deplete when you’re out in the open (which you are for maybe half the game), causing you to lose health, but we found after the first half hour it’s something you only have to be slightly mindful of, so far as annoying gameplay factors go. More importantly, you can use these “Oz kits” to boost mid-air to reach far-off platforms. It’s pretty good! Any excuse to be able to jump a long way is an acceptable one: thanks, videogames.

The Australiana accents/jokes/parodies that pervade the game are, like, pretty cool...I think? I enjoyed the ironic Australia-for-market shtick tempered by its necessarily cringeworthy over-the-topness. Cliches and stereotypes can be funny too, sometimes. I’m also aware how rare representations of anything Australian are in games, good or bad, particularly home-grown ones; a feeling which is enhanced by knowing this was made by a studio arm that no longer exists. O’, state of thy industry. It’s not that I’m at all patriotic, and the construction of this nation and its cultural identity is as problematic as any other post-colonial state, and there are issues which this game, with its frontier-Western representations of “Australianness”, attempts to avoid altogether, leaving the giant wombat very much in the room. On the other hand is the essence of the game and its uncritical light entertainment sheen, a series of good-enough jokes that beg not to be looked at directly in the eye, the fact that this is what it is, the last of its kind, no more big-budget gaming in Australia or about Australia (no Forza Horizon 3 I’m not talking to you), no Australia at all; and that’s upsetting too. Lauren and I both particularly enjoyed the foul-mouthed shotgun, Boganella, who somehow never stopped making us laugh, and who I kept equipped all the way to the end. I certainly didn’t expect to get that much mileage out of it. 

Lauren played as Athena the gladiator, while I played as Nisha the lawbringer. Neither of us particularly liked the special abilities of our characters. I found the auto-aim of Nisha’s “Showdown” a bit glitchy, with it sometimes locking on outside the enemy’s hitbox. We made do anyway without relying on them too much. Neither of us had played the DLC the Athena appears in, and I hadn’t remembered Nisha from Borderlands 2, so while playing we were unaware of these character’s other roles in the series. 

One thing I did find surprising was how ‘epic’ the Pre-Sequel became in the final act. It almost seemed like it was speaking out of turn, I mean…it’s called “The Pre-Sequel”. That’s a title that screams incidental and unimportant if there ever was one. “This game is just setting the scene for the more important game that was worthy of a real number in its title”, is what it suggests. And for the most part as you play it, it feels that way too. You’re playing on the moon, for instance (and everyone knows moons rate lower than planets on the astronomical bodies ladder). And you’re helping the bad guy! Surely, none of what you do here should be as big, important or ‘epic’ as in the numbered Borderlands titles.

But then, as you approach the finish line, you find yourself fighting multiple boss battles (“surely this is it” I said, erroneously, each time), delving into a massive cavernous space with funky, brilliant colours, into a galaxy-esque background, fighting the forerunner guardians, while the stakes seem to go up and up. The ending is basically prophesy-esque, all bigger picture feels. It’s an odd match.

This is mirrored by the length of the game. We played for 23 hours, which was longer than my playthrough of Borderlands 2. Again, I find this surprising, not least because it also feels smaller at first, with the player limited to the same few compact (if difficult to navigate) areas for quite a while. I’d initially figured it for a 15 hour romp, maybe. This isn’t a complaint necessarily - the game was enjoyable enough for the most part to justify the time spent in it - it just seems structurally unsound to me that a “pre-sequel” should be as big or bigger than the game it’s foregrounding. 

As for the story itself and how it goes about setting up the Borderlands 2 plot, it seems... well I guess it seems cohesive enough, not having recalled many details about Borderlands 1 & 2. You’re basically helping Jack, arch-villain of Borderlands 2, but he’s not evil yet - maybe. He just wants to stop the moon being destroyed by a group called The Lost Legion, while perhaps finding a vault and turning a profit for Hyperion in the process. You watch him do his Anakin Skywalker -> Darth Vader transformation as the game progresses, but because the protagonist vault hunters themselves are morally suspect, they/you don’t seem to mind too much. It's an unusual situation, to be playing the bad-guy, and it’s handled pretty effectively by the writers, if you take this game in a vacuum. That being said, it's also kind of...contradictory, if we do consider background events of Borderlands 2, where Jack’s evilness is established as being a more endemic, long-term thing. Whether the whole coheres depends on what you think/who you listen to, but I've enjoyed reading some forum-posted opinions on the matter anyway. 

And so: This brings us to the end of our Borderlands sojourn. We finally finished one - hooray! Promises well kept. Paradoxically, finishing the Pre-Sequel took less time than it took to pass on Borderlands 2. All up, to sift, avoid and play through these three games has taken nearly the entire winter, which is...sub-optimal. My wish is to be done with the B’s by the end of the year. The letter grows stale; I yearn for a fresh beginning. As of now we've got fifteen games to go. Four months. Hmm.   Addendum: My multi-talented friend Caro started a Tinyletter. It doesn’t have much to do with games but I’ve been enjoying it very much. Consider signing up! It will cost you nothing except your time. 

up next is Botanicula