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gerrydelano · 3 years

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to make a more lighter note: i know you (or was it ren?) had the list of avatar tim's and how likely theyd be. what are your opinions on au's where jon is an avatar of anything other than the beholding? personally ive found a sort of... fondness for vast!jon and im not entirely sure why, might just be my personal love for the vast -🐗

that was ren, yep! as for jon, hm... okay, yeah, this is a genuinely tough question! and through process of elimination, we discovered that the one that makes the most sense to us is actually the buried? which we were not expecting in the slightest!

like ren said while passing behind me as i typed: “warthog anon used surprise ronologue! it’s super effective!” shut up jhffkjnr it sure was!

SIKE! it’s also the end. it’s end/buried. let’s go.

overall, neither of us are super invested in any particular other entity alignment for him? it’s definitely not something we’d begrudge other people for exploring though because we’ll be the first to agree that the context of an AU changes Everything. i’m literally doing corruption!sasha in PBR, and other really startling choices are to come for other characters you wouldn’t guess that route for, either! making weird shit make sense is so much fun.

but there’s a reason i’m openly Not aligning jon with any singular entity in PBR! there’s a reason he’s going to be “studying under” adelard, and fall into a category of people who operate on the fringes like him, leitner, mary, even gerry before a wrench got thrown into his story for this AU.

BUT enough on that, i’ll go by canon jon and traits he has, and then the contradicting elements you’d have to justify to make something work!

vast!jon isn’t something we can really see happening based on what pulled him towards the eye and the things about him that made him suit it. if you’re looking for someone who could suit the vast through this angle, though, vast!basira would be REALLY cool. i considered it for PBR but i’m having trouble finding a way to make it work, so honestly i’d love to see it elsewhere!

but i think jon is too attached to the pursuit of One Real Answer (despite knowing that’s not even possible) to be all that Big Picture about anything. i do write a lot of vast into his backstory and i plan to play with it in the future in PBR, but i don’t think he’s necessarily inclined towards it in an avatar sense.

that’s another reason web!jon isn’t quite right, either, even without his personal trauma. the web relies too much on the big picture and also getting others to do things for you, and he’s way too intent on doing everything Himself.

and even with that in mind, it’s not a lonely thing, either? he’s still fairly forthcoming about things and does seek people out even if he doesn’t regard it later. he does crave connection, he does crave support, but his roadblocks lie in being able to play his role in keeping them.

and you can’t say corruption because of that, either, because it’s not quite enough! despite how heavily marked he was by it in canon. again, that’s one that would fuck him right up. a huge part of the reason i’m doing corruption!sasha is because so much in canon went tits up because they loved her and lost her. that combined with how little we actually know about her character allows me to reverse engineer and give her a similar impact if she lives. her threads come back to grief, family, guilt, expendability and value. those are all things that you could connect to her story in canon, too! jon has less of that kind of thing going on where he would turn to it, i think.

you could play on the way he keeps secrets and mess around with the dark? because he wants to know things but doesn’t particularly care if other people do, but i think there’s too much willful ignorance involved to really make it feel right for him.

same with spiral and stranger, he’s far too black and white for those, despite any issues he might have with psychosis or identity disturbance. having those things going on does not make a person suited for using the fear of it against people, it’d be. potentially kind of ableist to try justifying those choices with any of his implied mental health/any HCs you go with for him in that vein. those two in particular messed him up so badly in ways that i don’t see translating all that well even in AUs because those marks relied on fundamental pieces of who he is at his core, even if the environment and story might change. every avatar has to be at least a little afraid of their patron to make it work but they also have to be willing to weaponize it and i don’t think he would be, with these.

on a purely surface level, you could even say hunt for the same reasons adelard seems inclined towards it (based solely on how he dedicates himself to an intellectual pursuit for decades on end, doesn’t give up until he’s figured it out or put something Away, etc) but imo there’s way too much baggage with his canon experience with it to feel comfortable given that everyone portrays him as a brown guy on top of that. like, there’s definitely some merit in exploring the elements of the hunt that exist outside of police allegory but i don’t think jon is the character to use for it.

slaughter and desolation straight up make, like. no sense whatsoever. next.

flesh.... meh? jon has a lot of trauma surrounding his autonomy, being used to achieve an end, being physically hurt and torn up by the people around him, and i feel like that’s once again just. something he’s way more susceptible to as a victim than someone who would ever turn to it for solace, comfort, power. but consider flesh!martin, though. now THAT’S sexy.

this leaves the buried and the end! both of which are actually a little stronger, and my personal favorites. i think these are the ones you could best justify in an AU where he’s in a position to make these choices, and i might actually check it out instead of scrolling past like “nope.” i’d be interested in seeing if anyone could make them work.

the end is a pretty decent candidate because of his history. so much of jon’s life and his path are shaped by loss through death. his parents died in such quick succession before he was even 5, and that set the tone for how he was raised by his grandmother (who i personally portray as being marked by the vast! but there is a lot of end in there due to just how much she’s lost, especially growing up during wartime.) this, in turn, influences what he comes to expect from the world. how practical or acceptant he might be about the idea of death after such early exposure to it, constant exposure to it later on. he was willing to smite people in canon in this righteous sort of way, his usage of death specifically as a tool. it’s one he second guesses a shitload in canon, but in an AU, you never know! it might start out that way and as time goes on, it changes, too - which, it also kind of does in canon.

but i didn’t expect to consider the buried for him! this man can fit so much mental illness and guilt and shame in him. personally, jon reads as very OCD to me and that aligns way too well with the buried; usually i would say that it also means he’s more susceptible to being its victim like the rest of the ones up there, but there’s more to it than just the illness. it’s also about the responsibility he takes and doesn’t take, his willingness to (even inadvertently) burden other people with preventable weights; like georgie asking him and asking him what the hell is going on and how can i help you and him just brushing her off, over and over. he buried himself in his work, he dug himself a grave and just hopped right in; multiple times, both literally and figuratively tbh!

so much of tragedies are rooted in preventable things that could have been avoided but weren’t. it feels like a buried concept, and i’d love to see that explored with jon given the choices he does make in canon that throw dirt all over everyone.

g-d yeah wow it just hit me that you favor vast!jon and then subsequently awoke a liking for buried!jon in me. which is REALLY fun because as much as they oppose each other, they also overlap! so, a lot of the things i said about the buried could even apply to an attempt at vast!jon, if you played your cards right! i am INTO this. UP TOP!

to quote jacob geller: “have you ever thought about how agoraphobia and claustrophobia are the same thing? because Now i can’t think about ANYTHING ELSE. 🙃”

thank you for this question i had fun jhbkjn <3

EDIT 5/20/2021: I HAVE MORE END!JON! from sammy @treeroutes!

ron! i love your boar anon. i clicked on the read more on your answer to their jon ask like 'please say end!jon please say end!jon please say end!jon'. i think it could make sense, and also it could make his and georgie's relationship very different depending on who gets marked first (and potentially make their break up more painful).

and in the context of being the archivist/an archival assistant like. they're all basically surrounded by statements from dead people, he maybe wouldn't have this need to Know that comes from the eye (though he'd still have his own curiosity) so his approach to statements would be different. but i can see him still being drawn towards them in a way

also! you mentionned OCD for buried!jon (which is so smart acftually!) and i think i could fit with end!jon too. because (maybe that's stretching it but bear with me) the end is a 'clean' entity. not as in not dirty but as in, there are rules you cannot break because if you do something bad will happen (see that guy who cheated death) which is a big OCD mood for me.

link that to oliver being an accountant and jon being an archivist, those are two professions where your job is basically to sort and order stuff (be it statements or numbers). *and perhaps end!jon could give a hug to early rtd tim 🥺*

and i LOVE this. the end was honestly my thought when we first started writing this and at first i thought the buried overtook that a bit but HONESTLY. it’s literally neck and neck. end/buried dual wielding GO. like, being end with buried tones? sexy. that’s the answer for me.

#🐗#jon #anon #asks #buried/end gang rise #ronologues

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warrioreowynofrohan · 3 years

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The Leithian Reread - Canto XI (The Departure for Angband)

This chapter contains - at the reunion of Beren and Lúthien - my favourite passage in the Leithian, and one of my favourites that Tolkien has ever written, and I think part of my reason for delaying is that I wasn’t sure how to do it justice. But that’s a little farther on.

The chapter opens with a brief account of the Siege of Angband and the Dagor Bragollach. It’s a very strong section of the poem, to the point where it’s hard to know which specific portions to quote; the rhyme and cadence and imagery is all excellent, and is enhanced by a kind of triptych structure from beauty to fire to ruin:

Once wide and smooth a plain was spread,

where King Fingolfin proudly led

his silver armies on the green,

his horses white, his lances keen;

his helmets tall of steel were hewn,

his shields were shining as the moon.

...

Rivers of fire at dead of night

in winter lying cold and white

upon the plain burst forth, and high

the red was mirrored in the sky.

...

Dor-na-Fauglith, Land of Thirst,

they after named it, waste accurst,

the raven-haunted roofless grave

of many fair and many brave.

The description of the dark forest of Taur-nu-Fuin is also wonderfully evocative: sombre pines with pinions vast, / black-plumed and drear, as many a mast / of sable-shrouded shops of death / slow wafted on a ghostly breath.

One of the great recurring themes in Tolkien is the way that all evil, whatever its initial motive and impetus, falls in the end to ruin for ruin’s sake, to the destruction and defilement of all things as a end rather than a means. The image of the Anfauglith is repeated with the desolation before Mordor (gasping pools choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about...great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained) and the ruin that Saruman makes of Isengard (trees hewn down and replaced with pillars of metal and stone, joined by heavy chains; meadows paved over; underground furnaces with vents emitting steams, like a graveyard of the unquiet dead), and even Lotho and Saruman’s harm to the Shire (from knocking down Sandyman’s mill to make a bigger one that wasn’t needed, to the mill under Saruman not grinding grain at all but only making smoke and stench and fouling the water).

It’s not as if there is a fundamental benefit to Sauron in making the ruin in front of the Black Gate, or to Saruman in his attempts to destroy the Shire; both start out at one point with the aim of “fixing” the world and putting it in order, and this degenerates into control and rule for its own sake, and then into purposeless malice against not only people but the land itself, with misery and destruction as the only aim. We see small echoes of it elsewhere, as at Losgar.

This theme provides a strong contrast to Beren’s song before his departure across the Anfauglith, which is centred on celebration of nature and creation for its own sake, in and of itself, without any thought of control or ownership. The song fits with Beren’s demonstrated love of nature in earlier chapters, where during his lone guerilla war against Sauron he eats only plants, and is friend and allues with the animals of Dorthonion and with nature-spirits (minor Maiar?) as well: and many spirits, that in stone / in mountains old and wastes alone / do dwell and wander, were his friends. (It also has some echoes in Sam’s song in the Tower of Cirith Ungol.)

The song is given here in longer form than in The Silmarillion:

Farewell now here, ye leaves of trees,

your music in the morning-breeze!

Farewell now blade and bloom and grass

that see the changing seasons pass;

ye waters murmuring over stone,

and meres that silent stand alone!

The song also evokes a lot of the themes that came up in my discussion of CS Lewis’ The Four Loves, particularly the part on eros. Beren has virtually no expectation of coming back alive; he expect to die at best, or be captured and tortured at worst. But making the attempt is, to him, better than willfully choosing a life separated from Lúthien, and better than risking her coming to harm because of him. (The latter, as she will soon point out, is no longer something he has any choice about!) Both of them prefer the very high probability of torment or death over being parted from each other.

Additionally, Beten’s song is one of the purest expressions within Tolkien’s works of the element of admiration in love: delight in the beloved in their own right, above and beyond anything that has happened or will happen or any connection to you personally:

Though all to ruin fell the world / and were dissolved and backward hurled / unmade into the old abyss / yet were its making good, for this / the dawn, the dusk, the earth, the sea / that Lúthien for a time should be!

This feels, also, like it is getting at something deep within the mood of Tolkien’s works, where so much is destroyed or fades or is lost: the existence of beauty and goodness continues to be good, to be meaningful, even when the good and beautiful things have themselves passed away. They were, and that is better than if they had never been.

And here we come to my favourite part of the entire Leithian:

“Ah, Beren, Beren!” came a sound,

“almost too late have I thee found!

O proud and fearless hand and heart,

not yet farewell, not yet we part!

Not thus do those of elven race

forsake the love that they embrace.

A love is mine, as great a power

as thine to shake the gate and tower

of death with challenge weak and frail

that yet endures, and will not fail

nor yield, unvanquished were it hurled

beneath the foundations of the world.

Beloved fool! escape to seek

from such pursuit; in might so weak

to trust not, thinking it well to save

from love thy loved, who welcomes grave

and torment sooner than in guard

of kind intent to languish, barred,

wingless and helpless him to aid

for whose support her love was made!”

Thus back to him came Lúthien:

they met beyond the ways of Men;

upon the brink of terror stood

between the desert and the wood.

This returns to the previously-stated theme around eros: for Lúthien, being captured and tirmented in Angband is a better fate than willingly parting from him, or allowing him to leave her behind for her protection. And this, I think, is why Beren and Lúthien succeed in gaining the Silmaril: be ause their goal is not the Silmaril, their goal is each other.

But there’s more to it than that. I love the passage for Lúthien’s assertion that it is not Beren’s chouce whether she can risk danger and death for his sake. He does not have either the power or the right to protect her from her love of him. (I do think it’s something of a wonder that he still decides to go ahead with the Quest after this rather the the alternative of “let’s elope and be nature-hobos together”, but a lifetime of looking over your shoulders for the forces of Angband and the Fëanorians [yes, I think C&C would’ve gone after them out of spite even without the Quest, given their behaviour in the previous chapter] and Doriathrim sent to kidnap Lúthien back home is daunting in its own way; at least this way, if they succeed it will be over.)

This also goes for friendship (philia): in The Lord of the Rings hobbits express the same sentiment in more commonplace terms, in Merry’s, “You cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo,” and Sam’s “I’m coming too, or neither of us isn’t going. I’ll knock holes in all the boats first.” Or, even more so, in another line of Sam’s during the Breaking of the Fellowship:

“All alone and without me to help you? I couldn’t have a borne it, it’d have been the death of me.”

“It would be the death of you to come with me, Sam,” said Frodo, “and I could not have borne that.”

“Not as certain as being left behind,” said Sam.

Returning to the Leithian: Beren is still reluctant to have Lúthien accompany him into danger. And has a line here whose sentiment always seems to show up in my thoughts about Maedhros and Fingon (“Thrice now mine oath I curse,” he said, “that under shadow thee hath led!”)

Huan, returning with disguises for Beren and Lúthien, uses his second of three lifetime chances of speech to back up Lúthien’s point, and to advise them to disguise themselves as Draugluin and Thuringwethil. This includes one of the more amusing lines in the Leithian, with Huan’s Lo! good was Felagund’s device, but may be bettered. Hi, Finrod, you’re being patronized by a dog. :D He thinks you get, maybe, a B+ on the tactics planning. (Beren gets an F, quite bluntly: Hopeless the quest, but not yet mad, unless thou, Beren, run thus clad in mortal raiment, mortal hue, witless and redeless, death to woo.)

Lúthien uses magic to disguise them effectively, and to prevent the terrible disguises from affecting their minds; it’s difficult, skillful, and lengthy work: With elvish magic Lúthien wrought / lest raiment foul with evil fraught / to a dreadful madness drive their hearts / and there she wrought with elvish arts / a strong defence, a binding power / singing until the mdnight hour.

It is a few days’ journey across the Anfauglith to the gates of Angband and, again, reminiscent of Frodo and Sam’s journey through Mordor; briefer, but also worse in some respects, as they have neither food nor water.

#tolkien #the silmarillion #the lay of leithian #leithian reread #lúthien #beren #beren and luthien #huan #the lord of the rings #frodo baggins #sam gamgee

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dustedmagazine · 3 years

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Dusted Mid-Year Round-Up: Part 2, Dr. Pete Larson to Young Slo-Be

James Brandon Lewis

The mid-year exchange continues with the second half of the alphabet and another round of Dusted writers reviewing other people’s favorite records. Today’s selection runs the gamut from Afro-beat to hip hop to experimental music and includes some of this year’s best jazz records. Check out part one if you missed it yesterday.

Dr. Pete Larson and His Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band — Damballah (Dagoretti Records)

Damballah by Dr. Pete Larson and his Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band

Who Picked it? Mason Jones

Did we review it? No, but Jennifer Kelly said about his previous record, “It’s authentic not to some musicological conception of what nyatiti music should sound like, but to the instincts and proclivities of the musicians involved.”

Bryon Hayes’ take:

Judging from Jenny’s review, Dr. Pete Larson hasn’t really changed his modus operandi much since last year’s self-titled release. Well, he has appeared to have dropped vocalist Kat Steih and drummer Tom Hohman, who aren’t credited with an appearance on Damballah. Sonically, this album feels more polished than its predecessor. There’s a richness that was lacking before, a sense of clarity that Larson seems to have added here. He still hypnotizes with his nyatiti but doesn’t lose himself behind the other players. That sense of mesmerizing repetition of short passages on the resonant lute-like instrument is what sets the music of the Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band apart from other rock groups who play in the psychedelic vein. It’s easy to get lost in the intricate plucking patterns as the guitars and synths swirl about. The rhythms bounce cleverly against those created by the percussion, anchoring the songs to solid ground. Balancing the airy and the earthy, Dr. Peter Larson and His Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band create a cosmic commotion perfect for contemplation.

James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet — Jesup Wagon (TAO Forms)

Jesup Wagon by James Brandon Lewis / Red Lily Quintet

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes, Derek said, “’Fallen Flowers’ and ‘Seer’ contain sections of almost telepathic convergence, the former and the closing ‘Chemurgy’ culminating in Lewis’ spoken words inculcating the import of his subject.”

Tim Clarke’s take:

Tenor saxophonist and composer James Brandon Lewis demonstrates his control of the instrument in the opening moments of Jesup Wagon’s title track. Before his Red Lily Quintet bandmates join the fray, he alternates between hushed ululations and full-blooded honks, inviting the listener to lean in conspiratorially. Once the rest of the band fire up, cornet player Kirk Knuffke, bassist William Parker, cellist Chris Hoffman and drummer Chad Taylor lock into a loose, muscular shuffle. Their collective chemistry is immediately evident, and each player has the opportunity to shine across this diverse set’s 50-minute runtime. I’m particularly drawn to the rapid-fire rhythmic runs on “Lowlands of Sorrow,” the gorgeous cello on “Arachis,” and the spacious, mbira-laced “Seer.” There’s something about the mournful horn melody of the final piece, “Chemurgy,” that sends me back to first hearing Ornette Coleman’s “Lonely Woman” — and, just like that, I’m excited about the prospect of exploring jazz again, for the first time in a long time. Great pick, Derek.

Roscoe Mitchell & Mike Reed — The Ritual And The Dance (Astral Spirits)

the Ritual and the Dance by Roscoe Mitchell & Mike Reed

Who recommended it? Derek Taylor

Did we review it? Yes, Derek wrote, “Roscoe Mitchell remains an improvisational force to be reckoned with.”

Andrew Forell’s take:

For 17-plus minutes, Roscoe Mitchell solos on his soprano with barely a pause, the rush of notes powered by circular breathing, as drummer Mike Reed’s controlled clatter counterpoints Mitchell’s exploration of his instrument’s range and tonal qualities in what sounds like a summation of his long career at the outer edge of jazz. It‘s an extraordinary beginning to this performance, recorded live in 2015. On first listen it sounds chaotic, but shapes emerge in Mitchell’s sound, and Reed’s combination of density and silence complements, punctuates and supports in equal measure. After an incisive solo workout from Reed combining clanging metal and rolling toms, Mitchell swaps to tenor and the pace changes. Longer, slower notes, a rougher, reed heavy tone and a lighter touch from Reed. Having not closely followed Mitchell’s work since his days in The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, this performance was a revelation and will have me searching back through his catalog.

The Notwist — Vertigo Days (Morr Music)

Vertigo Days by The Notwist

Who recommended it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it? Yes, Tim said, “The Notwist really know how to structure a front-to-back listening experience, and this is emphatically a work of art best appreciated as a whole.”

Arthur Krumins’ take:

In his review of Vertigo Days, Tim Clarke highlights the “multiple layers of drifting, shifting instrumentation.” It is an album that seems unbound by adherence to a set instrument lineup, and it moves quickly between moods both frenetic and contemplative. However, due to a careful mixing and an unforced approach to genre expectations, it is a surprising and varied listen that bears repeated scrutiny. The touchstones of the sound are at times the motorik beat of krautrock, at others the ethereal indie pop of their melodies and the quality of their singing. It feels like the perfect quirky coffee shop album, just out there enough to create a vibe, but tactful enough to take you along for the ride.

Dorothea Paas — Anything Can’t Happen (Telephone Explosion)

Anything Can't Happen by Dorothea Paas

Who picked it? Arthur Krumins.

Did we review it? No.

Eric McDowell’s take:

In one sense, it’s fair to say that Dorothea Paas’s debut album opens with a false start: A single note sounded and then retreated from, fingers sliding up and down the fretboard with the diffidence of a throat clearing. Yet what gesture could more perfectly introduce an album so marked by uncertainty, vulnerability, and naked self-assessment?

If Anything Can’t Happen is an open wound, it’s a wound Paas willingly opens: “I’m not lonely now / Doing all the things I want to and working on my mind / Sorting through old thoughts.” That doesn’t make the pain any less real — though it does make it more complex. “It’s so hard to trust again / When you can’t even trust yourself,” Paas sings on the utterly compelling title track, her gaze aiming both inward and outward. Elsewhere she admits: “I long for a body closer to mine / But I don’t want to seek, I just want to find.” Instrumentally, Paas and her bandmates manage to temper an inclination toward static brooding with propulsive forward motion, a balance that suits the difficult truth — or better yet, difficult truce — the album arrives at in the climactic “Frozen Window”: “How can I open to love again, like a plant searches for light through a frozen window? / Can I be loved, or is it all about control? / I will never know until I start again.” In the spirit of starting again, Anything Can’t Happen ends with a doubling down on the opening prelude, reprising and extending it — no false start to be found.

Dominic Pifarely Quartet — Nocturnes (Clean Feed)

Nocturnes by Dominique Pifarély Quartet

Who recommended it? Jason Bivins

Did we review it? No

Derek Taylor’s take:

Pifarely and I actually go way back in my listening life, specifically to Acoustic Quartet, an album the French violinist made for ECM as a co-leader with countryman clarinetist Louis Sclavis in 1994. Thirty-something at the time, his vehicle for that venture was an improvising chamber ensemble merging classical instrumentation and extended techniques with jazz and folk derived influences. The results, playful and often exhilaratingly acrobatic, benefited greatly from austere ECM house acoustics. Nearly three decades distant, Nocturnes is a different creature, delicate and darker hued in plumage and less enamored of melody, harmony and rhythm, at least along conventional measures. Drones and other textures are regular elements of the interplay between the leader’s strings, the piano of Antonin Rayon and the sparse braiding and shadings of bassist Bruno Chevillon and drummer Francois Merville. Duos also determine direction, particular on the series of titular miniatures that are as much about space as they are centered in sound. It’s delightful to get reacquainted after so much time apart.

The Reds Pinks & Purples — Uncommon Weather (Slumberland/Tough Love)

Uncommon Weather by The Reds, Pinks & Purples

Who picked it? Jennifer Kelly

Did we review it? Yes, Jennifer said, “Uncommon Weather is undoubtedly the best of the Reds, Pinks & Purples discs so far, an album that is damned near perfect without seeming to try very hard.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

Sometimes a record hits you where you live. Glenn Donaldson’s too polite to do you any harm, but he not only knows where you live, he knows your twin homes away from home, the record store and the club where you measure your night by how many bands’ sets separate you from last call. He knows the gushing merch-table mooches and the old crushes that casually bring the regulars down, and he also knows how to make records just like the ones that these folks have been listening to since they started making dubious choices. Uncommon Weather sounds like a deeply skilled recreation of early, less chops-heavy Bats, and if that description makes sense to you, so will this record.

claire rousay — A Softer Focus (American Dreams Records)

a softer focus by Claire Rousay

Who picked it? Bryon Hayes

Did we review it? Yes, Bryon Hayes wrote, “These field recordings of the mundane, when coupled with the radiance of the musical elements, are magical.”

Ian Mathers’ take:

In a weird way (because they are very different works from very different artists), A Softer Focus reminds me a bit of Robert Ashley’s Private Parts (The Album). Both feel like the products of deep focus and concentration but wear their rigor loosely, and both feel like beautifully futile attempts to capture or convey the rich messiness of human experience. But although there is a musicality to Private Parts, Ashley is almost obsessed by language and language acts, and even though the human voice is more present than ever in rousay’s work (not just sampled or field recorded, but outright albeit technologically smeared singing on a few tracks) it feels like it reaches to a place in that experience beyond words. The first few times I played it I had moments where I was no longer sure exactly what part of what I was hearing were coming from my speakers versus from outside my apartment, and as beautiful as the more conventional ambient/drone aspects of A Softer Focus are (including the cello and violin heard throughout), it’s that kind of intoxicating disorientation, of almost feeling like I’m experiencing someone else’s memory, that’s going to stay with me the longest.

M. Sage — The Wind Of Things (Geographic North)

The Wind of Things by M. Sage

Who recommended it? Bryon Hayes

Did we review it? No

Bill Meyer’s take:

Matthew Sage’s hybrid music gets labeled as ambient by default. Sure, it’s gentle enough to be ignorable, but Sage’s combination of ruminative acoustic playing (mostly piano and guitar, with occasional seasoning from reeds, violin, banjo, and percussion) and memory-laden field recordings feels so personal that it’s hard to believe he’d really be satisfied with anyone treating this stuff as background music. But that combination of the placid and the personal may also be The Wind of Things’ undoing since it’s a bit too airy and undemonstrative to make an impression.

Skee Mask — Pool (Ilian Tape)

ITLP09 Skee Mask - Pool by Skee Mask

Who picked it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No

Robert Ham’s take:

Pool is an appropriate title for the new album by Munich electronic artist Bryan Müller. The record is huge and deep, with its 18 tracks clocking in at around 103 minutes. And Müller has pointedly only released the digital version of Pool through Bandcamp, adding it a little hurdle to fans who just want to pick and choose from its wares for their playlists. Dipping one’s toes in is an option, but the only way to truly appreciate the full effect is to dive on in.

Though Müller filled Pool up with around five years’ worth of material, the album plays like the result of great deliberation. It flows with the thoughtfulness and intention of an adventurous DJ set, with furious breakbeat explosions like “Breathing Method” making way for the languorous ambient track “Ozone” and the unbound “Rio Dub.” Then, without warning, the drum ‘n’ bass breaks kick in for a while.

The full album delights in those quick shifts into new genres or wild seemingly disparate sonic connections happening within the span of a single song. But again, these decisions don’t sound like they were made carelessly. Müller took some time with this one to get the track list just right. But if there is one thread that runs along the entirety of Pool, it is the air of joy that cuts through even its downcast moments. The splashing playfulness is refreshing and inviting.

Speaker Music — Soul-Making Theodicy (Planet Mu)

Soul-Making Theodicy by Speaker Music

Who picked it? Mason Jones

Did we review it? No

Robert Ham’s take:

The process by which DeForrest Brown Jr., the artist known as Speaker Music, created his latest EP sounds almost as exciting as the finished music. If I understand it correctly — and I’m not entirely sure that I do — he created rhythm tracks using haptic synths, a Push sequencer, and a MIDI keyboard, that he sent through Ableton and performed essentially a live set of abstract beats informed by free jazz, trap and marching band. Or as Brown calls them “stereophonic paintings.”

Whatever term you care to apply to these tracks and however they were made, the experience of listening to them is a dizzying one. A cosmic high that takes over the synapses and vibrates them until your vision becomes blurry and your word starts to smear together like fog on a windshield. Listening to this EP on headphones makes the experience more vertiginous if, like I did, you try to unearth the details and sounds buried within the centerpiece track “Rhythmatic Music For Speakers,” a 33-minute symphony of footwork stuttering and polyrhythms. Is that the sound of an audience responding to this sensory overload that I hear underneath it all? Or is that wishful imaginings coming from a mind hungry for the live music experience?

The Telescopes — Songs of Love And Revolution (Tapete)

Songs Of Love And Revolution by the telescopes

Who recommended it? Robert Ham

Did we review it? No.

Andrew Forell’s take:

Songs Of Love And Revolution glides along on murky subterranean rhythms that evoke Mo Tucker’s heartbeat toms backed with thick bowel-shaking bass lines. Somewhere in the murk Stephen Lawrie’s murmured vocals barely surface as he wrings squalls of noise from his guitar to create a dissonant turmoil to contrast the familiarity of what lies beneath. The effect is at once hypnotic and joltingly thrilling, similar to hearing Jesus And Mary Chain for the first time but played a at pace closer to Bedhead. A kind of slowcore shoegaze, its mystery enhanced by what seems deliberately monochrome production that forces and rewards close attention. When they really let go on “We See Magic And We Are Neutral, Unnecessary” it hits like The Birthday Party wrestling The Stooges. So yeah, pretty damn good.

Leon Vynehall — Rare, Forever (Ninja Tune)

Rare, Forever by LEON VYNEHALL

Who recommended it? Patrick Masterson

Did we review it? No.

Jason Bivins’ take:

I was amused to see Leon Vynehall’s album tucked into the expansive “Unknown genre” non-category. This is, as is often the case with these mid-year exchanges, a bit far afield from the kind of music I usually spin. Much of it is, I suppose, rooted in house music. Throughout these tracks, there are indeed some slinky beats that’ll get you nodding your head while prepping the dinner or while studying in earnest. There’s plenty to appreciate on the level of grooves and patterns, but he closer you listen, the more subversive, sneaky details you notice. The opening “Ecce! Ego!” isn’t quite as brash as the title would suggest, featuring some playfully morphed voices, old school synth patches and snatches of instrumentalism. But after just a couple minutes, vast cosmic sounds start careening around your brainpan while a metal bar drops somewhere in the audial space. Did that just happen? you wonder as the groove continues. Moments of curiosity and even discomfort are plopped down, sometimes as transitions (like the closing vocal announcement on “In>Pin” — “like a moth” — that introduces the echo-canyon of “Mothra”) but usually as head-scrambling curveballs. Startled voices or flutes or subterranean sax bubble up from beneath deep house thrum, then are gone in ways that are arresting and deceptive. I still don’t know what to make of the lounge-y closing to “Snakeskin – Has-Been” or the unexpected drone monolith of “Farewell! Magnus Gabbro.” In its way, Vynehall’s music is almost like what you’d get if Graham Lambkin or Jason Lescalleet made a house record. Pretty rich stuff.

Michael Winter — single track (Another Timbre)

single track by Michael Winter

Who recommended it? Eric McDowell

Did we review it? Not yet!

Mason Jones’ take:

Over its 45 minutes, Michael Winter’s 2015 composition slowly accelerates and accumulates, starting from an isolated violin playing slightly arrhythmic, single fast strokes. The playing, centered around a single root note, seems almost random, but flashes of melodic clusters make it clear they're not. After nine minutes other players have joined in and there's a developing drone, as things sort of devolve, with atonal combinations building. By the one-third mark everything has slowed down significantly, and the players are blending together, with fewer melodies standing out. Instead, it's almost more drone than not; and at a half hour in, most of the strings have been reduced to slowly changing tones. As we near the end we’re hearing beautiful layers of string drones, descending into the final few minutes of nearly static notes. It's an intriguing and oddly listenable composition given its atonality. The early moments bring to mind Michael Nyman, and the later movements summon thoughts of Tony Conrad and La Monte Young, but it's clearly different from any of them, and more than the sum of those parts.

Young Slo-Be — Red Mamba (KoldGreedy Entertainment / Thizzler On The Roof)

youtube

Who picked it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? No.

Ian Mathers’ take:

The 12 tracks on Red Mamba fly by in a little over 27 minutes (not a one breaks the three-minute mark) but the result doesn’t feel slight so much as pared down to a sharpness you might cut yourself on. Stockon’s Young Slo-Be only seems to have one flow (or maybe it’d be more accurate to say he only seems interested in one) but he knows how to wield it with precision and force, and if the subject matter hews closely to the accepted canon of gangbanger concerns, Slo-Be delivers it all with vivid language and the studied, superior disdain of an older brother explaining the world to you and busting your chops at the same time. The tracks on Red Mamba all come from different producers, but Slo-Be consistently chooses spectral, eerie, foreboding backgrounds for these songs, even when adding piano and church bells (on “Asshole”), dog barks (“21 Thoughts”) or even Godfather-esque strings (the closing “Rico Swavo”). What’s the old line about the strength of street knowledge? These are different streets, and different knowledge.

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sunriseseance · 4 years

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i really liked your analysis on Fanon! Klaus and Fanon! Ben, i’d love to hear your thoughts on the fanon versions of the other tua characters if you have any

BOY DO I

Luther: in canon, a failure of a leader due to his loyalty and indecisiveness. His entire life has told him he has to be This Thing that he simply is not capable of, and moreover that's WHY Reg chose Luther for leadership. He is at his core a sweetheart, but makes some bad, violent choices because he was raised to be violent by a bad man. He's also stupid as hell and a COMPLETE dork. "I'm just gonna sit here, finish my beer, and get my... Buzz on." HELLO??? How can you not be charmed by that??? Also he is very autism coded AND he's disfigured and disabled.

In fanon he is not someone trying his best and failing, he's actively malicious and cruel. He's portrayed as stubborn, deliberately evil, and conniving. I've seen people portray him as homophobic, or racist, or both. I think this comes from am inherent desire for non-complexity. If Klaus and Vanya are pure good, then the people they clash with must be pure evil, right? I also think this is tied to his autism coding and his disfigurement and disability.

Diego: In canon, Diego is so fucking weird and dorky and ridiculous. He desperately portrays this badass Batman figure that is just rage and edge and coolness. But he… Isn't cool. He's also not that, like, smart? His plans consist of Jump Through Door and hope for the best. HOWEVER this act is to cover the beautiful, sweet, kind soul that lives underneath. He cares SO MUCH about EVERYTHING he is absolutely soaked in love. He cries all the time, she shares exactly how he's feeling whenever possible. He gets arrested to make sure Allison can go rescue Vanya.

In fanon, he's just… Sort of a nothing. He cares about Klaus in a pretty bot-like way, rescuing him and chastising him and letting him sleep on the bed while Diego takes the couch. He's exasperated and mature and cold. He's a good leader and a badass vigilante. I find this one annoying, because Diego shouldn't exist for a white character, but also sorta funny cause this is how Diego wants to be seen. He doesn't fool anyone else, but he's fooled fandom.

Allison: in canon, Allison is tirelessly, graciously trying to be a better person while drowning in guilt. She is light whenever she can be, she checks in on people, she seeks unity and communication and sharing, she is always apologizing and learning and growing. She is sweet, and often silly (chocolate! Covered! Raisins!), and smart, and humble, and charismatic. She has a MASSIVE tendency to go way too far, to pursue things until she can't anymore and then pursue further. She is not good at giving space or time because she is focused on making things better, now. She is a hero, and a good person, and an excellent character.

In fanon, when she exists at all, she's literally unrecognizable. She's manipulative, and jealous, and catty, and cruel, and egotistical. She never apologizes, she hurts people on purpose. She refuses to take accountability. This is FUCKING BUCK WILD for a character DEFINED by her guilt. This is racism. It's making the Black woman evil so that it isn't bad when other people aren't good to her. It's making it so that Vanya slashing her throat and calling her names and digging into her guilt deliberately is a Fine Action, Actually. It's fucked up.

I've talked about Klaus, Five, and Ben elsewhere, so I'm gonna just move on to Vanya

Vanya: in canon, Vanya is caring, and smart, and outspoken but shy, and interesting. She is checking in on people, and defending her points, and living her life. She has chocolate colored raisins on her counter. She is also, though, flawed. She has a weird superiority-inferiority complex where she thinks she KNOWS she's as good as, if not better than, the others, but she knows nobody will believe her, and it drives her bananas. She often interprets situations in ways that make her the victim when she… Just isn't, like when Allison refuses to say that Vanya shouldn't have come down when she heard gunfire. This is due to a lifetime of being forgotten, and it feels natural and elegantly written. This also isn't to say she's NEVER a victim, because she often is! The sibs fuck up a lot w her and hurt her. Reginald stole YEARS of her life from her. Also Leonard.

In fanon, she just… Is that victim. She is perfect and being hurt by evil people for no reason. She is constantly suffering real blows, and then getting apologized to, and fawned over. Every narrative she believes about herself is true. The book was fine, and the siblings all apologize to her for how Mean they were. She really was being left out in s1e6/7. It's bizarre. Vanya is a much more interesting character, to me, if she is sometimes hurting for real, and some times wallowing in a learned hurt, and so lonely and unaccustomed to feeling that she can't really tell the difference. It's not just the others that push Vanya to breaking point, it's Vanya herself, too. It's a disservice not just to Vanya, but to EVERYONE, to ignore her flaws in my opinion (this is true of all of them).

#the umbrella academy #luther hargreeves #diego hargreeves #allison hargreeves #vanya hargreeves #I'm about to make some enemies with this Vanya part lmao #Answered

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soranihimawari · 4 years

Text

Constellations & Whistles

Just when you thought I was done, I am back at it again with another ficlet. This one features a Yamaguchi, Hitoka, and the rest of the Karasuno team. Heehee

Of all things in this world, nothing brought you more peace than staring up at the skies with all their history displayed for you to study. You were often seen at the apartment complex outside of your neighborhood with a telescope and star charts because you claim the stars never shine the way they want to because they were lonely. More often than not, you chose this particular hobby over the intent of making friends. Sometimes not everyone wanted to be enamored by the heavens, yet you were fearless in your pursuit of mapping the stars.

This course did not change the fact that you were a first year attending one of Miyagi’s powerhouse schools of old times. You were often seen in the last row of your class during your break periods reading about the stars and dreaming of the day a comet would dance across the atmosphere leaving behind an array of colours.

“And all I’m saying is that it takes literal lightyears to reach the next galaxy,” one of your classmates says one rainy afternoon.

“Shh,not so loud, she might hear you,” the other person who sat adjacent to him said pointing at you subtly.

“Light years, huh?” you hum quietly, scratching the surface of your journal with the shorthand calculations of theories on how to actually get to the neighboring star system. Although you were alienated by your love of what lies beyond, making friends with one person in your class wasn’t so bad. Hitoka and you were close enough in age, however when you both found out you were going to be classmates in your first year, you both let out a sigh of relief. Yet, ever since she had begun her duties with being the volleyball team’s co-manager, you saw her less, but it was understandable. You still talk every once in a while in person, until one day Hitoka asks you to stop by the gym later since you haven’t been formerly introduced to any of her new friends.

“Hitoka, you don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine,” you say when you gather your books into your bag.

“It’s no trouble,” Hitoka replies as she fidgets with her hair clip. “I already asked the other members of the team including Shizumi-senpai.”

“If you say so.”

“But...”

“It’s fine, Yacchan,honest. The stars will always be there to keep us company on the walk home I suppose.“

Hitoka squealed as she gave you a hug and mentioned that you wouldn’t regret it. She let you know to wait after classes had concluded later on until she arrived at your classroom wearing her team jacket. Due to an earlier accident at the expense of the art club’s terpentine mixup staining your uniform, you returned from the vice principal’s office wearing a boy’s uniform.

LATER THAT AFTERNOON:

“Unbelievable,” Hitoka says when she sees you in the boys’ uniform for their school. She handed you a hair tie and watched you tie your hair back in a ponytail.

“I knew you didn’t like the skirt option much, but isn’t this a bit extreme...?”

“I think I look just fine, Yacchan. Besides, don’t you think I look dashing in it?”

You shake your head exchanging a laugh with your friend as you sling your bag over your unbuttoned jacket. Your golden hued undershirt poked through with a cheeky grin.

“Sunflower day, huh?” Hitoka mused, poking fun at your choice of colours.

“I’ll have you know that I love sunflowers. Besides, it makes the inseam of the jacket a little more lively?”

“Yeah, it actually does. Let’s go, we’re running a little behind anyways.”

***___***___***

The noise was surely something ripped out of the chaotic birth of the big bang. Yelling and screaming by the team usually caused squabbles to break out between the boys. Shizum-san was already having a tough time trying to reel the boys into focus until Hitoka showed up with you in tow. Granted, you were a little taller than both of the managers by a few centimetres, but that wasn’t the only difference.

“What did I miss?” Hitoka asked once the noise seemed to reduce by a notch or two. You stood by idly observing the room around you. It felt weird being in someone else’s universe which is the closest thing you could relate to seeing the club practice.

From left to right you were able to match the descriptions Hitoka gave you of each members of the team: the third years along with the manager had a sense of controlling their chaotic juniors with certain manneurisms, the second years were the masters of shit-talking and proud members of the protect manager-sama at all costs, and the first years were just adding to the anarchy that made the team uniquely balanced to a degree.

“Quicks being practiced and,” Shizumi paused when she glanced over at you. “I’m sure they forgot about you bringing your friend, Yachi-san.”

“If you want, I could leave?” you offered. In your defense, you didn’t seek to intrude. That and you were dressed in the wrong uniform, but it worked in your favor because none of the guys seemed to notice.

“Wait, Yacchan brought a friend?” The silver haired senior was the first to acknowledge your presence. He waved before coming over to introduce himself to you. The rest of the team seemed to pause all further activity at the moment the vice captain name checked; suddenly you were eclipsed by the athletes.

“Suga-Senpai, this is Delta,” Hitoka says, pushing you forward a little. “Delta, Suga-San.”

“Hello,” you greeted with a small smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Were you the student the art club accident happened to?” Sugawara asked, his inquisitive stare gave you a once over. At the mention of what happened to you a few hours prior, you give a brief explanation earning you a few adoring sweet calls from the second year members. You bop your head along with the way of the flow of conversation.

“Woah, she’s really cute Hitoka,” a bold colored hair member said coming up next to his senior. “I’m Hinata, this blueberry grumpy guy is Kageyama.”

“Little giant, right?” you whispered to Hitoka who nodded. The rest of the team rambunctiously introduced themselves to you shortly thereafter (Tanaka, Noya, Enno, Narita, Sawamura, Azumane, Tsukkishima, and Yamaguchi [the last of which you found the most intriguing to you]).

“Now you know all of us,” Sugawara began. “All we know about you is from what Yacchan told us.”

“Ah, I see,” you said. Opening your school bag, you retrieve a small notebook with a navy color and lilac spine and a ballpoint gel pen. “Do you believe a man can change his stars?”

Shizumi and Hitoka exchanged a mutual glance with approving nods. The charming question you posed allowed a certain freckled member to speak up.

“Yes,” Yamaguchi’s shaky voice answered. His eyes darted away from you to focus elsewhere, although he did see you around campus with this calm focused look in your eyes. A few times though, he thought it was strange that you never really were spotted with any other classmates and one day he overheard a rumor about the singular first girl with an affinity to map the galaxies.

What Hitoka didn’t mention was the fact she was a bit concerned you had a difficult time making friends. You seemed so odd even the loners kept away from your genius. Hitoka made your acquaintance by sharing her sidewalk chalk with you during recess. You were a bit wild but through the years, Hitoka and you became close via summer break where you found out you were both heading to Karasuno. One person was all you needed, or so you thought. New experiences was where Hitoka took her cue to introduce you to the members of her club.

“Hey, are you guys busy?” Hitoka asked one morning right before their morning sessions were drawing to a close.

“What’s up Yacchan?” Tanaka asked his kouhai. Hitoka played with her hands for a little bit before taking a deep breath; she explained her concerns about an old friend of hers who didn’t really seem to fit in and was the occasional victim of rude conversations about her hobby.

“So, what you’re saying is that you want to bring Delta-chan to one of our afternoon practices?” Sawamura asked, his arms folded over his chest. He closed his eyes and Sugawara nodded along. Those two would love to help your friend with cause.

“I don’t see why not,” Shizumi spoke on their behalf. “I already spoke to Takeda-sensei so we can do it tomorrow. Ok?”

“Yamaguchi, right?” you continue with the mini-lesson. He nods as you walk up toward where he was standing (ever close to his best friend, Tsukkishima). “Then don’t be afraid to change your trajectory.” You pick up a spare ball and hand it to him. The subtlety in your manner of speaking caused your fellow first year to realize that perhaps, just this once, he might believe in love at first meeting.

Once practice began to wrap up, you seemed glad you accepted Hitoka’s invitation. The boys were respectful and loyal to a fault; it was like all the senpais suddenly took a silent vow to protect you as though you were the kid sister of their team. If Shizumi-san was a goddess, then you and Hitoka were her compatriots from that day on.

“Thank you,” the sing-song lilt in your voice was something only you let Hitoka see. Yamaguchi and Tsukkishima were the ones close enough to hear you talk to Hitoka. “I had fun.”

“Seems like you aren’t the only one,” Hitoka mentions off hand her eyes wandering around the gym where their senpais were having trouble separating Kageyama from Hinata. You, on the other hand, had a better idea inspired by the way Kageyama was calling Hinata out for being a dumbass.

“Mind holding this for me Yamaguchi-kun?” you asked, handing him your notebook from earlier.

“Sure,” he says (the pinch server would tell you later he loved the way your timid demeanor took a backseat when the squabbling reached its apex).

“Good luck trying to separate them,” Tsukkishima scoffs.

“Hitoka, cover your ears,” you instructed with an exasperated glance.

You make finger guns with both of your hands and licked your lips prior to placing them in your mouth. The high-pitched wolf whistle you made echoed throughout the gym dispelling all parties involved to separate from each other.

“I like this one,” their captain said, clasping his hands together. “Bring her here more often, ok Hitoka-chan?”

“Y-yes sir!” Hitoka answered with a smile. “C’mon Delta, Shizumi said we were good to go on ahead.”

“Mmkay,” you said. “Thanks for holding my materials Yamaguchi. See you guys later boys.”

You give a small salute to the crows & you take your leave with Hitoka chatting about stopping by to pick up some ice pops at the convenience store down the street.

“The Perseus constellation should be at it’s brightest tonight! I just have to get access to the rooftop again.”

“Delta, you used the fire escape last time, isn’t that a little dangerous?” Hitoka’s concern was made apparent as she walked behind you with her bag in tow.

“Not if it gets me to touch the sky,” you say with a dreamlike tone.

When you and Hitoka disappeared out of earshot, Yamaguchi’s smile didn’t go away as stealthily as he had hoped. Tsukkishima and Shizumi walked a little closer to the pinch server; of all times for his best friend to form a liking was right after she let him skim through her journal. Whatever Hitoka’s intentions were with bringing Delta with her to practice that day, albeit being the subject of many campus rumors (within your year), you proved your worth all on your own.

“You like her, Yamaguchi,” Shizumi mentioned quietly to him. Tsukkishima places his hand on Yamaguchi’s shoulder knowing he needed a little encouragement.

“She reminds me of you when we were younger; a bit more louder, that’s for sure,” Tsukkishima says.

His typical smug attitude softened a bit due to the fact Delta might have also made an impression on him as well (considering the wolf whistle can be used as a threat if his teammates were getting too noisy).

“Sorry Tsukki,” Yamaguchi said. He placed a hand behind his neck and bowed. “Is this what it feels like to like someone new?”

“Probably,” Shizumi says. “This might be a good thing for you too. Let's go help the others clean up.”

Tsukkishima nodded. He adjusted his glasses. “You could ask her out to study next time we have an exam coming up...”

Yamaguchi breathed a sigh of relief, deciding to ask you for your number tomorrow (or at the very least ask Hitoka for it on his behalf).

next >Confessions & Kiss>

#yamaguchi tadashi #short draft ideas #⌚ queued post #yamaguchi x reader #yams forms a crush #hq ficlets

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skamamoroma · 5 years

Text

Episode 5 (Part 1 of 2): Wtfock S3

So, the episode that changes everything! (Beware, this is LONG)

Robbe is so lost. He is actively making choices but is making the wrong ones for all of the worst reasons. He has fallen out with his friends, he’s shouted at Milan and distanced himself from Zoe, he has upset Noor and cheated on her and has hurt Sander purposefully in the worst way possible, in turn, breaking his own heart. The fact that he starts the episode off by saying that he can’t see his mamma is so telling. He can’t face her. He always makes time for her and being alone (even the music keeps saying he’s ALONE ALONE ALONE) it is always when he thinks of her and this is no exception… it’s just that he isn’t in the right headspace and I get this overwhelming feeling that he feels like he has tainted himself. He doesn’t like hurting Noor, he has done stuff with Sander that he is convinced is wrong (even if it felt the complete opposite) and his internal oppression is so overwhelming, it’s like he’s even denying himself his mamma who he loves and always WANTS to see.

I love the fact that he reaches out to Jens regardless of the advice he gets because… I mean, lets face it, it’s terrible. Jens can’t be blamed. He doesn’t have a clue what’s happening, he just tries to offer some well meant guidance and in many ways it’s very very sweet and gentle advice. He isn’t full of bravado and I kind of love him in this moment. He’s a young guy telling his mate that sex isn’t that big of a deal, he doesn’t need to worry or pressure himself… that’s SWEET and what everyone should hear. Sex doesnt have to happen at all if you don’t want it to. The fact that he’s so kind to Robbe is really lovely of him. He’s a GOOD friend in this moment. He just doesn’t know what Robbe needs or why he’s so upset so the advice is awful in the circumstances but regardless, he was so genuine to Robbe and I want to SQUISH him for being so decent and lovely….

But I can’t help but want to crawl under a blanket when that clip segues into Noor and Robbe. Now this scene was met with pure OUTRAGE when it aired and I can’t help but laugh. The fact that Life on Mars is playing is so TELLING in so many ways. I made a post about it at the time but the lyrics and metaphorical meaning to that song fit the moment brilliantly:

The girl in the song is lonely and uses cinema and the “silver screen” to escape. She seeks the escapism of the world of movies to avoid her real life which is unsatisfying to her.

“But the film is a saddening bore, for she’s lived it ten times or more” - it doesn’t live up. She’s left feeling underwhelmed and unsatisfied because the problem lies in the fact that her wish for escapism fails. It doesn’t do what she hoped it would.

Then the song asks “is there life on mars?” - aka, to me, is there possibility elsewhere? The song suggests that focus be placed on all of the wonder and fantastical stuff that the escape world provides…. But the fundamental is, you can’t escape your real life and your truth, no matter how hard you try.

AND DOESN’T THAT JUST PERFECTLY SUM UP THIS MOMENT.

Also, Sander has game. We know this. It may be weird and unconventional and he may seem, currently, like the world’s biggest Manic Pixie Dream Boy but his love of Bowie is cool and edgy to Robbe… so if he’s going to try to “woo” Noor and make it all romantic then he’s going to try to channel that but I think the overwhelming reason that song is playing is because Sander is STILL ON HIS MIND. He’s unable to remove Sander from his life. He chose that song and absolutely thought of Sander when he did it… which means he can’t stop thinking of him and also kind of includes Sander in this moment. His presence is felt, reminding us that Robbe felt so comfy and lovely and at ease with Sander and, well, here, it’s really very uncomfortable and upsetting.

It’s like Robbe is trying to mimic Sander’s ability to turn moments into something dream like.

The moment itself is so heartbreaking. Robbe is trying to hard. It’s all candles and low light and covering Noor’s eyes. It’s text book romantic. It’s staged and planned and the “i’m trying” is written all over it… which contrasts BEAUTIFULLY to when Sander and Robbe find themselves in the same room with the same low light and it’s all instinct and casual joy and intuition… nothing staged about it. I LOVE that they had made that contrast even if we don’t know it yet in episode 5! The contrasts and parallels are ALL OVER this season and I’m a total sucker for it.

It is shot beautifully. Each moment is chosen so specifically because this is kind of the height of Robbe’s pretending… he comes down the other side after this. This moment is HUGE and they really sell it as such. It’s also meaningful to me that they kept it in, not only as a parallel to how all of this stuff SHOULD be when Robbe experiences it with Sander but also to perhaps show someone who may feel like Robbe does that you truly don’t have to do this to yourself. If you WANT to try and experiment then, no problem, as long as you’re safe and kind about it… but this isn’t what Robbe is doing. He KNOWS. He’s felt nothing so far and they’ve done a LOT. He’s forcing himself. Which is why the way he holds Noor tightly at the start KILLS me because the camera focuses in on it and, to me, it feels like it’s purposeful to show how much Robbe is trying trying trying…. The EFFORT. It truly shouldn’t be that way.

The music going wonky and hazy as Robbe moves down her body makes me want to cry… it all does but THE PARALLELS. I know I’m jumping to future episodes but the fact that Robbe does the exact same thing with Sander but enjoys it and loses himself in a VERY different way is just hugely meaningful and YES Wtfock …. I LOVE this shit hahaha. Robbe looks like he’s going to pass out. It’s not meant to be sexy or comfortable viewing. The music makes it a little haunting. Noor is beautiful and fun and rebellious and is, in many ways, a lot of the things Sander is… but she isn’t Sander. She is wrong for Robbe and that idea of ‘if I can’t make it work with her then who can i make it work with’ comes to mind… and Robbe knows who.

And god if the next clip doesn’t shatter your heart...Willem H is incredible in it from start to finish. The way it’s shot is, again, BEAUTIFUL and makes it all the more gut wrenching and raw.

The dream is definitely over. The sounds of the outside world are loud now and it’s all back to reality with a pretty sharp smack in the face. Robbe looks like he’s going to cry and it’s clear that they stopped because something just didn’t work. I LOVE that there’s hardly any dialogue. There doesn’t need to be, it’s written all over Robbe’s face and it’s the biggest moment of realisation for him… the absolute confirmation he needed but you can’t feel happy, it just all makes you feel so so sad.

The fact that when Noor asks if it’s her, Robbe replies “no, you’re amazing” ---- and isn’t that just the crux of it. She is and he does mean it. She’s being so gentle and supportive and understanding and she is someone he really likes as a person. I think that’s the thing that makes him so sure after this moment because he genuinely likes her… just as nothing more than a friend. I want to wrap him up and tell him it’s all going to be ok in this moment. He looks so broken and defeated but AHHH the way these clips are constructed it so so so good and it’s because they’re so good that the meaning behind all of this, the changes they made from the originall just work so well!

AND WE GO STRAIGHT INTO HEALING.

I love that this night feels like the lowest low in terms of lying to himself and he’s off the back of some really awful behaviour so there’s no other way to go but up and ENTER MILAN. Oh this clip is so lovely, so healing and GOOD GOD was I pleased that this wasn’t the full Pride clip. This was EXACTLY what Robbe needed at this moment. The Pride clip has a very important place but not yet, not when Robbe is THIS broken. It wouldn’t have worked. Thank you wtfock!

Milan is there with the casual relationship chat...always there to remind Robbe that he, as a gay man, has an active and happy dating life. HE’s there, offering his time (ONLY FIFTEEN MINUTES hahaha) and being such a chill pillar of support. He’s also INSISTENT which is exactly what Robbe needs. He sometimes need stuff dragging out of him and he’s so deep in his hole… Milan gently, gradually helps him climb out.

The really cool way Milan asks if Robbe feels the same as this guy who likes him… it is so lacking in any drama or parade and is simply a question. Milan makes it SO EASY for Robbe in that moment and he’s a total star. I love him so much for the fifteen minutes he gives!!!!!! That little giddy smile he gives Robbe when he realises that Robbe might have feelings for a guy is just precious! He’s so FOND of Robbe. He’s thrilled that Robbe feels able to try to be open. I love that little moment he leans forward and encourages Robbe. He’s on his level, not pressurising but is solid in his offering of support and advice. You can SEE how Milan is a little emotional when he’s saying what he would have said to his younger self… and Robbe still has that look on his face that says he can’t be what Milan is saying he might be because, well, that stuff is WRONG or BAD, right? He’s not like Milan, he’s not like the guys on Grindr, he’s not like the guy at the dance show, he’s not those words his friends have used…. It’s SO IMPORTANT. I love that they included this because it shows the level of homophobia and the casual way it has been presented to him that he sees being anything other than straight as something WRONG for him to be but also something SPECIFIC. He doesn’t see the multitudes of humanity in it all, he just knows that words like ‘disorder’ have been used and that if you’re gay then people call you names or you have to be always wanting to hook up for sex at night… he can’t see a place for himself in all of this confusion. It’s painful but SO VERY spot on as an experience for many an LGBT+ person. Milan looks a little exhausted by Robbe’s refusal to allow himself to chill out with his feelings and seems a little sad that Robbe is still fighting it but the words he uses next change EVERYTHING. I don’t think he even knows how much they changed Robbe’s life.

They’re important words. Robbe IS normal and if he doesn’t start to be honest with himself then he will hurt everyone around him, he’ll lose himself and the people around him… and little does Milan know how deep Robbe is in that hole already… ONLY FOR THE GOD DAMN SONG TO SING “here stands a man at the bottom of a hole” at me and I’m all giddy with the wonder of the soundtrack’s ability to heighten a moment. It’s all haunting and brilliant!

We’re back with Jens and it’s like a little check in with him after his advice. For the first time Robbe is being HONEST. Not completely but he’s still being as honest as he can be in saying there’s someone else and that they won’t go away even if he’s tried… and then that word - HER. I love that moment. Willem H kills it. His face changes instantly. He’s reminded that this moment is bigger than he expected, that he’s not ready yet. I’m still proud of him though because we, as an audience, realise that Robbe has taken some of what Milan said to heart and he’s allowing himself to ACCEPT his feelings.

The fact that we go immediately into the break up scene is perfect… and look, I can’t help but find so much of this scene funny. It’s heartbreaking but it’s also a little like a parody. Regardless, Robbe is the only Isak to do this and I was so proud of him, so pleased he really took control of his life. As I mentioned back in episode 3 - he has stopped letting people boss him around and dictate to him. He’s trying hard to do the right thing and we KNOW he doesn’t like to hurt people. I have a TON of respect for my guy for doing this… and a whole load of love in my heart for his adorable nervous self tearing napkins apart as Noor arrives. ENDEARING AS HECK.

Let’s address the elephant in the room - OLD TOWN ROAD. Hahahaha. People found it so funny (me included) but it also kind of WORKS because isn’t the whole song about leaving stuff behind, leaving behind an old life. YES THE LYRICS ARE RIDICULOUS with all the boobies and sports bras of it all but it also kinda works!!!! Still makes me smile though. (also, I’d kill to know Wtfock’s music budget for this season because OH BOY)

Robbe, bless him, does the typical dick-ish thing and takes someone to a very public place to break up with them. DUDE. Hahahaha. I adore him but no, boy, no. Poor Noor, man. Honestly. Robbe is doing all of the right things, he’s trying to be honest, to stop anyone else getting hurt but it’s messy and imperfect. Regardless, that moment he lets Noor hold his hand to say goodbye is so beautifully kind. He has just broken her heart but he tries to be gentle.

BUT GUYS. The parody feeling comes from Robbe just saying to Noor he needs to be by himself and then we enter the next day and Robbe is stalking Sander at school. Hahahahahahahaha. Makes me laugh so much. Oh god, we know why he said what he did. He couldn’t say the real reason but it makes for hilarious viewing and makes me feel so endeared towards Robbe because he really IS taking Milan’s words seriously. He’s trying, in every part of his life, to be better and to stop causing pain and to be kinder and more authentic with himself. It’s a lovely process of change and growth!

BUT THESE NEXT TWO SCENES! I LOVE the first one. I love how Robbe is, once again, taking some control of his life. I can’t help but find the whole process of Robbe seeking Sander out so sweet, culminating in him seeing Sander in his ELEMENT. Robbe smiles INSTANTLY when he sees him. Actually no, he BEAMS. His whole face lights up! I love so much that he gets to see Sander like this, to appreciate Sander’s art and creativity and to see Sander’s passions in real life, to see him surrounded by something that makes him who he is. It’s a really beautiful moment and you definitely feel like Robbe really has allowed himself to realise he LIKES Sander - a whole lot. He practically swoons when he sees him. I love that we see that Robbe sees the heart of Sander and really truly likes what he sees. He’s not pretending anymore.

Then we get that ADORABLE little moment of Robbe in the toilets. I’m so happy they included it. It’s so full of nerves and sweetness - we’ve never seen him like that before. This MEANS something to him. Seeing Sander again makes him FEEL something and he wants it to go well so badly. He is so visibly excited! It makes me wonder if he’s ever felt this before or ALLOWED himself to. I don’t think he has. It feels like the first time.

Robbe is so swept up with trying and learning and reaching out that I think he truly didn’t think it could go wrong. Sander looks so hurt and his face is devastating to see but I’m also proud of Sander for at least that moment of self preservation. Robbe looks like he’s going to cry. That giddiness disappears instantly and he’s met with the crushing realisation that the warnings Milan gave may have become a reality and it’s his own fault.

Then we get one of my favourite clips of the whole season.The opening song - “take me back to my younger days, I was happy with the simple things” - with Robbe looking wistfully at the sweet kids and their mamma. Both a longing for simpler times and also for his own mamma who he loves and no doubt wishes was around more so he had someone to just give him a cuddle. He’s navigating all of this stuff himself and it’s all so MUCH to handle.

But Sander appears and oh man, he couldn’t stay mad for too long. He offers that 5 minutes and I feel so fond of him because of it. Like i said in episode 4, I genuinely feel like Sander understands Robbe’s heart. He knows he’s a sweet, lovely guy. Yes, he was hurt and yes, he deserves an apology but the idea of Chernobyl in his head and hurting people because of it is nothing new to Sander… I feel like that’s a part of the reason he accepts Robbe’s apology so quickly and also, well, he feels that he’s in love with him and that Robbe is the one. SO… that 5 minutes was inevitable!

The whole moment between them with Robbe trying to hard to verbalise his feelings and failing and opting for his VERY CUTE head explosion is so damn SWEET… no wonder Sander’s face changes a little, softens and you can see the edges of a smile. Robbe’s telling him that their kiss was monumental for him, he didn’t for one second think Sander was inappropriate… and Sander just sees the truth in him.

That moment that Sander walks towards Robbe is so filled with surety and confidence. He doesn’t falter for a second and that CHALLENGE he gives Robbe is perfection. It’s like he’s daring Robbe to back away but he doesn’t move a muscle. Sander denies him a kiss and asks the important question using their little metaphor - “what about now, how do you feel now?” and Robbe’s “fuck Chernobyl” is the biggest “FUCK EVERYTHING ELSE, I want you”. It’s huge and important for him to say that and to be willing to accept that he’s putting all of that confusion and panic and hatred for himself aside and trying to say FUCK IT because he wants Sander. It’s quite an admission and no wonder Sander kisses him!

That first little kiss is just so great. Robbe looks so comfortable and swoony that Sander has accepted his apology and that they’re doing what he really genuinely wants them to be doing. He has Sander back and close and Sander’s kissing him and he’s trying to say FUCK IT to all of the nonsense… it’s such a healing celebratory little moment and it is also the BIRTH OF THE BABY KOALA.

Talk about Robbe feeling at ease. I think in this moment he 100% embodies the FUCK IT principle! He allows himself to behave and react as he FEELS rather than forcing himself and it’s beautiful. He’s so affectionate and clingy and it’s the first time we realise how Robbe shows his love - through touch! We haven’t been able to witness it yet and the difference in the way Robbe behaves here compared to the way he has behaved for the past 4 episodes is SO OBVIOUS.

I love the fact that when Robbe kisses back properly and leans up to wrap his arms around Sander’s neck, he gets so close that there’s ZERO space between them at all, even their faces. You FEEL how Robbe adores Sander, how much he feels and he tries to show it. Their chemistry in this moment is off the charts. Robbe touches Sander with such tenderness, holds his face so gently, kisses so softly… it’s all just very LOVELY and we get a first introduction to the truth of who Robbe is! I feel like he’s so open and on show here and he’s LOVELY. I also feel like the kiss is 50% apology too. He kisses with purpose like he’s pouring meaning into it and the fact that Sander smiles into it and almost stumbles backwards just sums it up!!

Britt interrupting is standard, we expect it because she’s one of the final obstacles to deal with. It’s here that we are introduced to SANDER DRIESEN: KING OF ROMANTIC ONE-LINERS. He means it too. He wants that future. I believed him at the time and I’m so happy I did because if you believe these words then you believe that he means the rest...

I LOVE that little moment when Sander pretty much whines into the kiss that he has to leave and Robbe holds onto him, looks pained to let go and their kisses carry on but becaome gradually lighter and less desperate but still THERE. It’s adorable and CHEMISTRY IS INSANE.

I also love that Sander feels less dream-like now. We’re starting to see the cracks there, the real Sander. We’ve now seen him in his natural habitat, we’ve seen him hurt and angry and we’re now seeing him woozy after quite the kiss so he’s stumbling and smiling and swooning at the same time as he walks away. He’s so much more human and I like that Robbe’s realisation that he wants him and is rejecting all of the pretending has also come alongside seeing Sander as a little more than Mr Dreamworld, the kind of escapism. Robbe’s allowed something a little more real now and not only is he accepting he wants it but he’s also going after it and I was so happy for him and proud of the steps he took to make things better.

And I’m stopping here because this is HUGE and there’s still some really important clips in this huge ass episode so I’m splitting this up! For your sanity (you still with me?!) and also for the sake of it not turning out to be War and Peace because between the cuddle clip, Pride clip, date night and the end of this episode… I need more space to get into all that. CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS EPISODE. WHIPLASH. Anyway, give yourself a medal if you’re still awake and thank you again for all of the very very sweet messages I’ve received recently!

#wtfock #wtfock episode thoughts #thoughts etc #rosander #robbe ijzermans #sander driesen #THIS IS HUGE my god im sorry

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ivyveil · 5 years

Text

Mary Me

the one where he proposes

OR:

The 1940s installment of a Soul-Mates verse.

The room was swathed in a deep maroon. Curtains draped against the windows, curves forming around the sills and down the gold columns on either side.

It was a nice restaurant, with expensive-looking candles and fresh-cut flowers on each table. The bar wasn’t fully stocked enough for the crowds milling about, having yet to find its balance of supply since Prohibition ended a few months ago. It was a rough adjustment for everyone, with the prices taking a jolt and the people having to remember what a drink tasted like without poison.

While the idea of a fancy restaurant would allude towards privacy, this dinner was anything but. Granted, it was a personal room but the numerous crowds of friends and family around the table led the mood towards something more lively than dim lights and slow jazz. Tables were pushed against the walls, only a handful actually sitting down, and the band had taken its land near one of the corners, setting up an orchestra to dance for.

It was a gathering, a party.

Nerves were knotted against the floor of your stomach, and despite having a glass of champagne in one hand and hooch in the other, nothing was easing the clench. Perhaps it was residue from hardships that had only ended a few years ago, or it could be the more instinctive nerves - holding alcohol without needing to look over one’s shoulder was still new for everyone. Even now, you saw Nick stealing a glance at the waitstaff, as if sussing out which was the cop.

“‘lright, love?” Harry spoke low, his hand briefly resting against your back as he came around from behind. It wasn’t far into the party, enough time having passed for his entrance to be marked by everyone already feeling tipsy, but not raising an eyebrow at his late arrival.

His suit was understated, a black with minimal design. His mother would tailor all of his suits, resulting in most of them being the absolute extravagant pieces for all the parties he threw - the magnificent ones where the moon grew twice to try and be an inch closer, where the ocean glittered around his villa and you could strain to taste the rose-colored smoke in the air. They were alive with people and spirits and spirited people, and the types who would disappear in the morning and you’d question their existence, but never their stories.

His suit was fine, but his hair was a proper mess. Harry had insisted to you a few days ago, a dopey smile on his face as he leaned against your shoulder, that it was a rebel of the highest degree. You knew the words were bullshit, but the way he spoke sounded like a home you’d never known, so you listened.

“You need a haircut.” The words came out before you could properly hold them back, the liquor having moistened your throat and disconnected your mind from your choices.

Harry broke into a smile, this time shaking his head slightly so the curls danced, delighted, in the dim glow.

“You like it?” he asked, and you made a sour face in response. He took one of the drinks from your hands, making the low noise in the back of his throat to signal disapproval. Where Harry managed to gather his rebellious streak of societal indignity, but still manage to believe that women should be held up on pedestals and protected, eluded you.

But you were still dizzy with him. Drunk in the way he said your name, caught up in his eyelashes, a fatal swoop in your chest that felt like laying in bed after a long day’s work. You were simply infatuated, but insistent on the fact that the feelings drifted no farther. Infatuation could be controlled, but love.

Love would be an entire beast that you couldn’t battle. It would include leaving him, leaving him because Mary was cemented down in his roots. Not that you’d agree with it, but she was, and it was a reality you lived with.

They’d been sweet on each other for the first couple months. You hadn’t kept up on the details too much. But time had worn their feelings thin, wafering holes poking through in the way they loved. Which was a wrong, horrendous source of comfort to you - but it terrified you, as well. Harry was the embodiment of love, with how he danced and moved and swayed into the moonlight, and yet there was something off in the way he loved Mary. It felt like a commitment for the sake of, rather than motivated each day, and the failures of love haunted you.

“Where’s Mary?”

Harry shrugged, taking a swig of the drink and looking against the crowd. The two of you were propped against the wall, as if only existing in the plane of the party by the physical constraints. If you had your way, your souls would fall through the wallpaper and into something more exquisite.

Harry had a way of making the dullest parties exciting, and you wondered what he had up his sleeve. But his face showed no signs of telling, a crease along his forehead denting in his sudden gloom and moodiness.

“Dunno. Was gonna find her, thought she’d be with yeh.”

That was his mistake, his constant mistake, of seeking his love around you. It was there but not where he expected - it was manifestation he sought, the woman he called ‘darling’ on late nights out, not the friend he called ‘love’ because it meant nothing.

Words didn’t quite fit your mood, so you merely shrugged and shifted your weight between legs. The music had picked up but your feet had been worn to the bone by running all over town the previous night, so you prayed Harry’s stance next to you would dissuade any men from approaching.

“Think I’ve got to end things with Mary, yeah?”

It was a loaded question, especially with Harry’s eyes staring into yours. It was a rush, how the lights cascaded down the side of his face and his hair was a horrible mess, an unsightly vision for anyone in town, but he was utterly angelic nonetheless. It was a weird sensation against your throat, seeing him tragic and sad, and not knowing how to respond that wouldn’t be an attempt to benefit your own tragic and sad.

“Why’d you say that?” you asked.

“It was never right, was it?” He spoke thoughtfully, scanning your face for agreement, and apparently finding some, for he continued. “It’s reached an end.”

Silence befell the two of you, yet it was heavy with the implication of further words against his tongue. They weren’t spoken yet, but you felt with one more moment-

“I’ve got somethin’ I need to say to yeh. After it’s done.” His eyes had swept to his feet, the dirty tips of his shoes from the soil around the town.

You both were misplaced, you felt it in your soul and the way you two would wrap in each other’s auras, clasped at the hands and promising you’d escape this hellhole of a town one day. And it only was proven in how Harry’s eyebrows sloped together, a defiance in the order of things prominent in his pursed lips.

“Okay,” you drawled it out, but Harry didn’t seem to find anything humorous. With a tilted neck, his Adam’s apple bobbing and drawing your eyes in like flies to honey, he downed the rest of your champagne.

“See her over there,” he mumbled, slipping back into the throngs of the party. He was still incredibly visible, a mess of hair and clunky shoes passing through the sea towards his girl. She was sat, pretty and prim, but you could tell she felt only half. Mary had an odd sense about her, a jealousy towards you for sure, but a feeling around her sphere of influence that she wasn’t full unless Harry was there. Half-dazed without, only focused on him with, there was seemingly no win.

The pair of them slipped out into the night together, with your eyes trailing behind. Mary was oblivious as to how the conversation would go, and for that, you were conflicted.

It must have made you an awful person, how the nerves crashed against giddiness. The drinks may have kicked into effect, because before you knew it - you were swaying and dancing against the moonlight, around the tables with the rest of the folk, pained heels clipping against the floor as they did every night, dancing out the mundanity of a town life crippled with the distrust of life. It would be a conversation for the rest of the night, how Harry would retell the dramatic discussion with fire in his eyes and a sadness plunging into his heart, because he always felt guilty and you’d never understand why.

——–

You glided out of the mass, panting with how the dance took your breath away, feeling the redness built up in your cheeks and the sweat on your brow. You passed Nick with his wide eyes and bursts of laughter, and noticed how he winked at you when you left the room. The restroom was calling.

The main hall of the restaurant was bustling with normal activity, waiters dashing around with massively weighed trays balanced against their shoulders. There was a coat rack near the entrance, huddled with pounds of jackets, hats, and scarves, and a lone Harry Styles squatted next to it.

He looked up when you passed by, the hollows of his cheeks straining purple in the grotesque lights.

You paused next to him, almost dashing around to head and pee, but his expression caught you off guard.

He looked in another world. His eyes, blue with morose, opened to look at nothing. Eyelids heavy with almost boredom, but his posture offered enough to let you know his demons were free once more.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, and once he shifted to the side, you took the cue to sit beside him, crossing your legs and ignoring your body’s protests.

His mouth open and closed, his fingers spread wide in front of him to grasp onto his senses, but they were nowhere to be found. His lips were glistening, perhaps from him licking them continuously, but a small streak against his cheek made you think otherwise.

“Was she upset?” It was all you had to offer, but it seemed like you hadn’t struck gold. He continued to mime whatever words that were escaping him, but your attention had been caught elsewhere.

In one of his hands, you had thought he was holding onto his pack of cigarettes. At second glance, however, it wasn’t. It was terrible.

The fact it wasn’t, and the fact his mouth was gaping, and the fact his eyes were glassed and that his shoulders were quivering – it all accumulated into a story you never expected.

A blue velvet box, iconic in its time, holding only one thing inside.

“Harry, is that-”

“She’s pregnant,” he managed to choke out, not glancing at the box, his voice cracking in its sudden revival, “Mary’s pregnant.”

“She’s what.”

“Couldn’t break it off, would she gonna do? Can’t go back to live with her parents, the town’s too far off-” he continued to speak, words that made sense when combined but gibberish with how he stringed them. It was a rant that had been built into his lungs and found a small stream to blow off, with only your collection of stammers breaking through the dam.

“Did you–’re you–is that–”

“Proposed. Bit rushed, didn’t get on a knee, but it did its duty. I did mine, anyhow,” he said, a desperate gloominess clutched your dress as he presented the box. His fingers fumbled against the velvet, nubbed fingertips and signs of bitten skin surrounding the nails.

Opened, the box was empty. The contents were stuck on Mary’s finger, presumably back at the party showing off the latest development in her life.

“Congratulations.” It didn’t feel as if it were you who said anything, the voice too breathless and at ease to have come out of your body, with its thundering heartbeat and screaming mind.

“Gotta get a job, gotta call up Howard ‘n see what’s not ‘n the papers. There’s gotta be something, yeah? Need a crib, now, too.” It was clear his mind was far off, into what he needed to do, in the adult-life that neither of you had never quite fit into, but was now thrust upon him.

All your mind was on, was the trip you two had been planning for the past year. Harry had promised train tickets across the country, down towards where the sun always shone and the waters were constantly warm around your ankles, even in the dead of night. Maps and notebooks had cluttered your office for months, with strings attaching your future endeavors in a maze of findings. It had started out as an escape from the Depression, the one that had seemingly ended but never quite had, the one where your throats were aching for more than speakeasies could offer.

It wasn’t going to happen. It simply couldn’t. You’d never see how he would look, dozed off across from you on your hundredth train, his backpack used as a makeshift pillow. You’d never feel the brutal mountain winds with him. You’d never be able to wander around the greatest cities of America, you’d never explore all the lives you could’ve lived, in towns you never knew existed.

The realization brought you to another moment, another question, one out of place with Harry’s rant but in tune with how your blood ran cold.

“Where’d you get the ring?”

That snapped Harry’s attention, and his bloodshot eyes managed to find you in their blur. Perhaps it was an expectation, for you to ask, but the surprise against his lips, how they parted with a slacked jaw and a sharp inhale, said otherwise.

“Wha’?”

You repeated yourself, and he staggered into a motionless statue of himself, a final shake of his shoulders until he ceased to move. Just stared at you, haunted.

I’ve got somethin’ I need to say to yeh.

“Harry.” To your surprise, it almost sounded admonished.

His eyes were pleading for you not to speak. For speaking would bring it into existence, and he could never juggle it all. Neither of you could, it was a mortal flaw that ran deep into your flesh, and now against your heart, where it felt it would stay forever.

You felt compelled to speak anyway, motivated slightly by the intoxication and the exhaustion and the bitterness in which life was taking from you continuously, without ceasing, and this was the one chance to take something back for yourself. To give a bit of yourself back towards him, to offer a glimpse of the life that could’ve been.

“I would’ve said yes.”

It was quiet.

You thought Harry was being quiet, as well, but his hands reached up to wrack against his scalp, collecting at his hair and his head went between his knees.

He gave a nod, a gentle movement from your perspective, and a choked cry. It was stifled by the sudden uproar within the restaurant – perhaps another fight, perhaps another birthday, you didn’t care – and your arm went around his shoulder, bringing him into your chest.

You cried. Tucked away, hidden behind swaths of clothing that had belonged to the rich and now hung off the poor, surrounded by lights and glamour that suddenly became cheap and instrumental, compared to what you two had deserved. He felt warm against your skin, his forehead now pressed against your shoulder as his body pushed forward in distress. Time stretched to allow for you both to have one moment, a solace against the blazing sun of normalcy. It was one minute until Anne would burst through the party doors, searching for her son, perhaps having caught a glimpse of the truth and knowing where his heart truly was.

But for that minute, his heart was in your chest, the beats matching up, the pair united for a last breath.

The box slipped from his fingers and landed on the floor, half-open and completely empty.

It was a reality you’d have to live with.

#harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #archive of our own #mine #one direction fanfic #one direction fanfiction #one direction fic #harry styles fluff #harry styles drabble #harry styles blurb #harry styles fic

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loyalflutist · 5 years

Text

Fifth Time Around (Prequel) (f!Byleth x Edelgard)

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death Words: 3,568 Summary: The Divine Pulse is a powerful ability granted by Sothis to turn back the hands of time. However, with each cycle, Byleth is one step closer to being by Edelgard's side. Upon receiving her happy ending, what happens if Byleth decides to strive for the impossible with another Divine Pulse?

*This is a prequel to the upcoming Final Fantasy Type-0 x Fire Emblem: Three Houses crossover series. However, it can act as a standalone Edeleth OS.

A/N: This is more for my own guilty pleasure and making my own food since no one seems to be writing about this crossover. I decided that a prequel should be in place in order to set the mood and circumstances for the series. However, this OS can act as a standalone Edeleth fiction, so one can read it without any need to read the series. I had fun writing this! Kind of makes you wonder if there's ever going to be a revelation route for this... but at the same time, makes you not want it. Hope you enjoy it! I enjoyed writing it.

Next Chapter: [to be edited]

----

It has been exactly five months since she had been a professor at Garreg Mach Monastery. It has been exactly one day since her departure from Garreg Mach Monastery. It has been exactly five hours since her encounter with the Knights of Seiros and Adrestian Empire’s troops. It has been exactly three hours since she lost Jeralt in the clash. It has been exactly one hour since she last saw Edelgard von Hresvelg.

A shudder ran down Byleth’s spine, the seated professor pressing the Sword of Creator close to her chest. Byleth, Sothis, and a few surviving members of Jeralt’s battalions currently hid out under a stony shelter, the thunders roaring ferociously in conjunction with the pouring rain late into the night. They were fatigued and sustained numerous injuries. (Were it not for the lone healer in their group, they would have all succumbed to their wounds by now.) Byleth wearily stared at the man-made fire as her remaining comrades slept against the wall; the shadows continuously danced amongst the rocky terrains of the ground with each flickering of the flames. Byleth struggled to stifle her yawn.

“Aren’t you going to sleep?”

Byleth glanced at the nearby floating girl. Sothis, the all-powerful and all-knowing goddess, had features riddled with concern. When Byleth shook her head, Sothis loudly exhaled.

“It’s unfortunate that the war has begun much earlier than expected,” Sothis murmured with arms crossed, her gaze now elsewhere. “As expected of that child.”

“…Could I have been the cause of it all?”

“Perhaps.”

“…”

It crushed her. This fifth cycle amounted to nothing more than tremendous agony and unwarranted heartaches.

The first time, she sided with Dimitri because of his beliefs.

Byleth liked him. He was a young man for a brighter future. Dimitri was always so gentle with his comrades. He was always a people's person. The way he carried himself drew Byleth towards him. However, his true nature would leak out on occasion, his startling dark demeanors overwhelming the instructor. When Edelgard initiated the war, the Faerghus prince bellowed out as if he were a beast. His words coated with poison and burning lust to tear Edelgard’s head off her shoulders… Had it not been for Byleth’s presence, he would have spiraled into nothing more than a man seeking vengeance for everything that went wrong in his life.

“I grow weak when I face you…”

Edelgard’s final words struck something deep within her chest. It didn't help that Edelgard intentionally lowered her guard and held back on her strikes. That nearly caused Byleth to falter in her final attack as she, Dimitri, and the Blue Lions watched the vermillion lord fall. Surprising how a single sentence, a timid, almost quiet remark would be so powerful.

At that time, Byleth did not understand what Edelgard meant to say. Or rather, she chose not to understand what Edelgard meant to say.

The deadlocked war finally settled to a conclusion. Members from the Kingdom of Faerghus all cheered for their well-deserved victory. As for their professor, Byleth did not wish to continue her service under Dimitri’s ruling. It was time she earned her rest as well.

She proposed to Mercedes. It was her first love and the older female graciously accepted the proposal. They retired to the outskirts of the Kingdom of Faerghus. Mercedes would volunteer and run a charity organization for the orphanages throughout Fodlan. Byleth would tend to their farm and place food on the table. A simple life many yearned for. The two remained married until Mercedes died from old age.

As Byleth merged her soul with Sothis, her god-like longevity eventually outlasted all her comrades. The world moved forward and she is by herself. Seteth, Flayn, and Rhea would occasionally visit her, but not for long. They too would pass on from this world. And at that very moment, she found herself staring at the nameless, worn tombstone where Edelgard von Hresvelg laid to rest.

“…”

Byleth soon laid down next to the buried emperor. Could it be because she's lonely all these past decades that she decided to visit an old enemy? But why this enemy? Why this particular person and not someone like Claude? A melodic tune that's closely related to the little vermillion princess’s voice softly hummed in the air. It lulled the retired instructor into a deep slumber and encouraged her to be enveloped in the warmth of the song. If only Byleth could turn back time… If only she could ask Edelgard what she meant by those uttered last words…

Byleth closed her eyelids, sleeping by Mercedes and Edelgard, and never awakened.

Yet it appears the Divine Pulse worked in her favor. When she cracked opened her eyes, she found herself staring at Jeralt. Originally, Byleth expected to be finally sent up to the heavens. After prolonged periods of life on earth, the ex-mercenary yearned for nothing more than eternal slumber.

“Let’s go, kid.”

Turns out, Byleth’s physical appearance not only reverted back to its original state, but the female also stared in horror as the entire day began to slowly unfold itself in a predictable manner. Every interaction, every movement, every reaction… It was as if she turned back the hands of time!

“Did I surprise you?” Sothis later appeared. She bopped the mercenary on the forehead and smiled. “I’ve given you another chance to deal with those regrets.”

The Divine Pulse is a wonderful ability. Byleth was sure she would not waste this opportunity.

The second time, she sided with Claude because of his plans.

She respected him. Claude’s endeavors, track record, and perky attitude colored him in a brighter light compared to the Blue Lions’s House Leader. Yet his carefree personality hid a rather sly version of himself. The young man was not as foolish as he appears to be. Questions that were meant to be answered finally unveiled themselves that surrounds Those Who Slither in the Dark and the Church of Seiros. Byleth was also one step closer to figuring out Edelgard’s feelings and opinions towards the now-Golden Deer’s professor.

Unfortunately, Byleth found herself fighting not just against Edelgard again, but against Dimitri too. The three nations that once stood in the practice field for a friendly tournament five years ago now fight for survival and bloody victory. Weapons were tossed and exchanged. Blows landed and missed. The number of casualties steadily rising to unfathomable degrees. Byleth tearfully steeled herself when she faced members of the Blue Lions. Many of them mourned and expressed grief when she tore them apart, the tears running down her face as she impaled her Sword of Creator into Dimitri’s chest plate.

“Professor… why…?”

Those were the last words from the person that she ringed in her past life. Byleth wailed into the ironic sunny day with Mercedes in her arms. Endless tears spilled forth from the professor as the crimson gash that penetrated the holy maiden’s chest continued to flow with magma fluid. She had struck down students from the previous cycle with little hesitation due to a lack of familiarity. Yet when it came to the Blue Lions, she did so with a heavy heart. Byleth leaned forward and buried her face into the soiled woman’s shoulder, her weeping almost never-ending. It devastated her to murder the one that she once called her wife.

Claude had to pull her back to reality with a slap on the shoulder. The young man knew the heavy burden that rests on her shoulders as it did for everyone in the Leicester Alliance. However, it would be unfair if she were the only person left behind. Everyone had no choice but to recover. With that in mind, Byleth eventually recuperated and regained her strength to move onward.

“I wanted to walk by your side…”

Those words were different from when she was with Dimitri, but those words still haunted her. The two had finally faced one-on-one with each other and Byleth was the clear victor. But Edelgard had begged for her to be slain by Byleth. If anything, she wants Byleth to be the only person to kill her, and so she delivered.

Blood slowly trickled from the Sword of Creator’s tip as the professor stared at the fallen emperor. Then, Byleth grit her teeth.

Why did Edelgard have to say this? She still couldn’t understand what she had meant by those words. If Edelgard wanted to walk by her side, why can’t Edelgard just drop everything and join her and Claude’s vision for a better future? Or is Byleth simply deluding herself again and wished to look away from the damages she had done?

“…”

After the war had ended, Byleth found herself married to Claude, though this was more of a political move in order to maintain peace and balance between Fodlan and Almyra. They’ve never had any children and simply passed the royal title of Almyra to the next heir. For Byleth, she continued to act as an important figurehead for Fodlan well after the natural death of Claude and her comrades.

She eventually finds herself looking at the same nameless tombstone again. Here lies the young girl who wishes to be by her side and someone she had to kill once again. Byleth brushed her fingertips on the stony exterior as her eyelids closed once more. This lifetime came to a standstill with the passing of the Enlightened One from Fodlan, her funeral held for countless days.

Yet once more, Sothis turned back the hands of time. "You still have your regrets, don't you?"

The third time, she sided with Rhea because of circumstances.

This was more so out of anger and frustration from Byleth. The instructor, usually so composed and collected, flew into a fury when she realized the dangers Edelgard had posed against the Church of Seiros. Having to choose between the two women, Byleth bore the blunt end of the former Black Eagle’s House Leader attack, her arms shielding the holy maiden from further harm. Disappointment and sadness colored the white-haired’s features. She looked away, retracted her axe, and bit the bottom of her lip. Dorothea had come up to cast a healing spell on the professor as Byleth trucked through the pain.

Byleth taught the Black Eagles and she finally spent time with Edelgard. Why would Edelgard do this?! She stepped forward and sternly demanded answers from Edelgard. Couldn’t there have been another way to resolve the growing tension between the church and her?

The recently-ascended emperor chose to say nothing. Instead, Hubert and Edelgard forcefully retreated from the premise via teleportation, their silence the only answer provided at the time. That was the last she had seen the pair. After all, it wasn’t long until the neon-haired woman fell into another five-year coma once again.

Deep in her unconscious thoughts, Byleth frequently repeated the same question over and over: Why did she protect Rhea, but not Edelgard? Byleth would not be able to get an answer out of herself any time soon… and she would never as she found herself repeating the same course of action as the second time around.

“I wish we could be something more…”

They were out of breath, lacerations of varying depths scattered among their exposed skin, and their gaze ever so penetrating. Edelgard could barely raise her head, her hands using the Levin Sword as support for her weakened figure. Byleth’s relic trembled when she raised the weapon high above her head. Though she was grateful not to have met with Claude nor Mercedes in this route, the pent-up emotions that swirled and muddled together exploded in a single outcry, the blade flying down with startling power.

When the serrated edges came to contact with the emperor’s head, a sorrowful smile crawled on the lord’s lips. The instant Edelgard collapsed, so did Byleth, the tears dripping onto the dirtied pavement. That obliterated the dam that Byleth desperately tried patching up. She clawed at the ground and pounded the rough terrain until her fists were bruised and bloodied.

Why…?

Why?

Why?!

WHY?!

JUST WHY?!

WHY DID SHE HAVE TO DIE AGAIN?!

“EL!!!”

Had it not been for Dorothea, she would have committed suicide on the spot, the opera singer pulling her back to reality. If anything, Byleth finally realized why Edelgard had uttered those tragic last words, and she regrets learning about it. New regrets had bloomed in place of old ones.

Byleth’s internal struggle continued to grow and it became even worse for her psyche. The truth of Byleth’s birth and her origin nearly spiraled her sanity out of control. Once again, had it not been for Dorothea, Byleth would have offed herself. It was almost laughable that every single cycle she went through, she was subjecting herself to a new form of torture. New knowledge meant new forms of pain. Just how much more can she take?

After the war and slain of the Immaculate One, the professor desperately married Dorothea, their love burning for lust and relief from the war with their severe PTSD. Their relationship had become parasitic in hopes of tending to each other’s scars and unhealed wounds. It took another five years for them to stabilize their attitudes and, finally, fell in love beyond physical euphoria.

“…”

Unlike the previous times, to which she lived for hundreds to thousands of years, the neon-haired woman laid in her sickbed. Not even 20 years ticked by and Dorothea is forced to watch her passionate wife succumb to a mysterious illness. Delirious fevers plagued the few unlucky ones in the remote village from the Adrestian Empire and Byleth had caught it. No treatments were available to cure her of the disease. She was bound to die in a sickly manner. Dorothea stayed by her side up until the time of her passing, her songs lulling the weak warrior into another slumber.

“Fourth’s time the charm, Byleth. Don’t mess this up.”

Sothis was right. The fourth’s time the charm. Byleth’s fingertips dug into the palms of her hands as she greeted Jeralt once more upon reawakening.

The fourth time, she sided with Edelgard because of love.

Finally… finally! It was the cycle that Byleth had dreamed of achieving and ridding of the original regrets that gnawed at her when she was with Dimitri. She stuck by Edelgard’s side like glue from beginning to end since the first time they’ve met. When it came to choosing between the two women again, the professor did not hesitate to choose the young house leader. Edelgard was colored with shock, but Byleth wasn’t. Instead, she immediately greeted the student with plenty of support for her endeavors. Of course, this infuriated Rhea, driving her into the corner and lashing out at the two in future events.

The battles were harsh and Byleth struggled to kill those that had once been her students. Dimitri’s battle cries and lamentations drained her of energy alongside Mercedes inevitable death and Claude’s banishment replayed in her head over and over again. At least Edelgard had always remained by her side during those difficult moments. The young vermillion emperor would hug Byleth as the instructor crumpled into a messy heap. Soothing messages empowered the ex-mercenary for one more day. It was for their future and Byleth fought hard for their future. They were going to make it. This was especially prominent when they fought the Immaculate One and defeated her.

When Byleth died, Sothis departed from her body and provided enough life force to revive the originally-still born woman. Byleth was immediately greeted with a kiss from Edelgard once she had awakened from the temporary loss, the professor’s eyes glistened with a range of emotions. It turns out that she has finally found her happily ever after.

“I’ve originally thought that I would walk on this road on my own, but then you came into my life.” Edelgard extended her hand outward. She took her professor’s hand and brightened her features. “Now, we can walk together. I love you… Byleth.”

Their marriage came to fruition after they wiped off Those Who Slither in the Dark and war criminals with some help from their comrades. Progenitor God no more, both females had adopted a daughter child, and peacefully died in each other’s embrace from old age.

Warmth had embraced them into the heavens. Their hearts were always connected with one another and they would always be together.

Yet there was a tug. Byleth felt torn apart from the comfort of her third wife and spiraled into the darkness once again.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Byleth nodded, her navy hues weary from the anguish she bore through. No amount of weight in the world would be able to appropriately describe the impact the four previous cycles would have on Byleth. It was all to achieve the ending she desired with Edelgard von Hresvelg.

But what about those that she had loved previously?

What about Mercedes, her first wife? The one she first fell in love?

Or what about Claude, her first husband? The one she and he worked so hard to maintain peace and a steady relationship between Almyra and Fodlan?

How about Dorothea, her second wife? The Dorothea from the time she sided with Rhea was distraught from an early loss of her lover?

Then, there are her old comrades. The students that she had taught, the allies she had made, the friends she had met in all four factions… Isn’t it possible for everyone to achieve their happily ever after? Is it possible to save them all from their impending doom?

“I can’t promise you that it will end well. Are you willing to give up your current happiness and peace for a near-impossible fate?” Sothis grimaced when the young woman agreed to one last cycle. The female reached out to touch Byleth’s chest. She lowered her head and muttered, “This is going to be a cycle that will change everything.”

And so, it did change.

Thunder continued to boom in the background. Byleth was startled awake from her nap, her head raised. She rubbed one bagged eye and managed to hold back a profound yawn. Just as she had awakened, so did Sothis. The green-haired readjusted her posture mid-air and stared at her host.

“Is this all a mistake?” The hoarse voice that crackled out of Byleth was out of character. Tonality that would’ve brimmed with confidence and brevity was reduced to uncertainty and anxiety. When Sothis remained silent, she added, “I’ve thought removing myself from the monastery would’ve worked. I thought… I thought I could come back and encourage everyone to openly communicate their problems.”

The mercenary felt her foot twitch as she shifted the weight of her arm onto the relic. “I’m a fool. Even dad died.” Byleth unconsciously smirked. “What’s to say about my other students? They ended up fighting each other in the end, blind to the very end.”

Gruesome blood splattered the field, every flick of a weapon having produced the grimy substance onto the greeneries. Returning in hopes of achieving an almost impossible reality did become impossible. The dream of a happier and more gleeful ending is nothing more than a fleeting wish. Persistence may be the key to success as Sothis was more than available to use the Divine Pulse a number of times for her host. Byleth is free to abuse the power with the guidance of the goddess. Yet the previous four cycles had done a number on the woman.

Sothis recalled the worrisome nature of Byleth when they began the new academic term. She had naturally chosen the Black Eagles House in order to revitalize and restart her relationship with Edelgard. Unfortunately, past red strings of fate wind around her pinkie with three other students, causing the professor to relapse into a potential romantic relationship with Mercedes, Claude, and Dorothea. It was not surprising to see Edelgard, Mercedes, Claude, and Dorothea’s relationship with Byleth become estranged thanks to past commitments.

There were also the nightmares that had plagued the instructor. Post-traumatic stress disorder had gotten severe enough to strangle Byleth into submission almost every night. She would desperately cling to her pillow and violently shiver underneath her blanket. Incoherent mumbles blubber out of her mouth as if she were possessed by the ghost of her past. If it weren’t for Sothis soothing the ex-mercenary, the teal-haired would never be able to retain her sanity.

The goddess watched her host immediately jump to her feet. Sword of Creator readied, Byleth glanced out of the shelter and into the dark, wet field. Two of the five mercenaries stirred from their sleep. When they spotted their leader in an offensive posture, they scrambled and posed similarly to her. Byleth’s knuckles whitened as she dryly swallowed.

“I have no choice but to see this through.”

She raised the now-brightened ancient blade at the approaching enemies. When she took a step forward, an arrow suddenly slammed into her shoulder. The pain receptors delayed its delivery as the chilled rain numbed her body, Byleth reeling her unaffected dominant arm back. Those Who Slither in the Dark raised their weaponries and prepped their magical spells once Byleth and the two warriors ran in their direction.

Sothis face contorts to pure horror when their assaults were exchanged. “Child… You should’ve listened to me before we did this.” Then, she squeezed her eyes and glanced away.

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nevermorered · 5 years

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Requested by @hisyetisgirl

#5. “It’s always been you.”

Pairing: SanSan

Rating: G

Sandor watched in silent agony every day as more and more betrothals poured in from all reaches of Westeros. Sansa, ever dutiful, read each and every one before writing a missive to each man seeking her hand. Sandor never saw what it was she wrote, and he never asked. It wasn’t his business. As her sworn shield, all that should matter to him was her safety. Not her courtship. Still, it was somewhat comforting when nothing came of any of the correspondence. At least she remained alone, and not another mans.

It was thoughts like that which plagued him with guilt. Ever since his near death, of laying the Hound to rest and his time with the Elder Brother, Sandor had felt guilt keenly, but he’d managed to put most of his past demons to rest. Yet it was the secret hope that Sansa never found love that made him feel it tenfold. It wasn’t that he wanted her to be lonely forever, and he knew that she desired a true love like the songs still. He just wasn’t sure his newly cleansed heart could bare it.

Today was spent much like every day. Sansa attended court, listened to all her peoples problems or wants. They made rounds about the castle, checking in on the glass gardens, in the smithy, the kennels, the kitchens, the washing rooms, and the training yard. Then Sansa retired to her solar to tend to the latest ravens and other paper work. Sandor didn’t really need to be there for that, but he always stayed, taking his place in a cushioned chair near the door where he could rest his bad leg. Often times he would read some tome she had supplied him with from the library. Today it was a history of the building of the Wall. He was fairly engrossed in it when he felt like someone was watching him. Glancing up, he found Sansa staring at him. She smiled at being caught, a faint blush upon her cheeks, but she didn’t look away.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“No.” she shook her head, hands folded primly in front of her on the desk. “I was just curious. May I ask you a question?”

Sandor sat the tome to the side and straightened up in his chair. “Go on, then.”

“Why do you stay here?” she asked. “You could go anywhere in the world, known or not, and yet you stay here. Why?”

Sandor just barely managed not to flinch, his stomach curling with dread.

“I was under the impression I was want...” he paused, reconsidering his word choice. “That I was needed here. Am I no longer?”

Sansa suddenly looked stricken, her mouth falling open. “No, no of course that’s not it. You are very much wanted here. And needed. That’s not what I meant. I only thought you might wish to go elsewhere. I wouldn’t want to hold you here against your will.”

Sandor relaxed, the panic receding. “I am here of my own free will.”

“Good.” she sighed in relief. “Can I ask you why? What is it that holds you here? Surely it cannot be the weather.” she japed lightly.

Considering his options, Sandor studied her face. She was hopeful of something, wanting him to say what she wanted to hear. He didn’t know what that was, but he’d long ago promised himself he’d always give her the truth. Consequences be damned.

“You.” he sat back in the chair, arms crossing. “It’s always been you.”

A smile fluttered across her lips, eyes a little watery. She pressed the backs of her knuckles to her mouth for a moment and Sandor held his breath.

“Because you feel the need to protect me, to make up for your past failures, or because...?” she trailed off, waiting for him to fill in the blank. And he could see it, there in her eyes, in the way she herself was holding her breath. She wanted him. The same way he’d always wanted her.

“Because there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than by your side. However I can manage that.”

She laughed, light and watery and joy filled.

“How would you like to be by my side forever?” she asked softly. “We can save the Lords of Westeros a lot of parchment and give the North a new bit of gossip.”

Sandor chuckled himself, an unfamiliar blush of true happiness filling his chest.

“Sounds like a bloody good deal to me, Little Bird.”

#sansan #dialogue prompt

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codenamed-queenie · 6 years

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ohhhh i just blew my own mind. consider this: six of crows batfam au. not sure how it'd work but they're fully qualified and the banter would be insane.

You just blew my mind too, anon! 😲

This is a really great idea, and I think we need to get fic writers and artists on this ASAP! I swear not all my headcanons are gonna be this long, but here’s just my take on what this would look like:

Barbara Gordon: She and her father traveled to Gotham to make their fortune after Barbara’s mother passed away, and the family farm went under. A mob boss calling himself the Joker spotted a pair of easy marks and moved in. Barbara’s father was killed, and Barbara herself took a bullet to the leg. She walks with a permanent limp now, and relies on a weighted cane topped with a pair of bat wings.

Vowing revenge on the Joker, Barbara joined a Gotham City gang called the Signals (Bat signal? Eh? Eh? Yeah, I feel like I should come up with a better name…) and quickly rose through the ranks. She always keeps her face hidden behind a masquerade mask, just in case Joker or any of his people might recognize her (he’d know her face, but not her name), and the act itself becomes a local legend. People can’t decide why she hides her face, and it only adds to her mystique. Especially once she starts going by the moniker ‘Oracle’. As in, ‘All-seeing’. Once she was powerful enough amongst Gotham’s criminal community, she formed her own inner circle within the Signals starting with a sharpshooting street kid she recruited and a Suli acrobat she rescued from a brothel.

Jason Todd: A stray kid from the streets of Gotham. He knows his way around a gun, and has a mind almost as sharp as his wit. After falling into heavy debt with Joker’s gang, he resorted to thievery, and even tried to steal Barbara’s cane to earn the money he needed. He almost got away with it too, but Barbara caught him in the act, and offered him a job. Work for her, and the Signals would have his back. Turn down the generous offer, and she’d kill him. Jason, surprisingly, agreed.

Dick Grayson: Grew up in a family of Suli acrobats, performing all over the world. One day, he and his little sister Cassandra were kidnapped from their family’s tent, and sold into slavery in Gotham, far away from their home. Dick went to a brothel, and Cassandra was sold elsewhere. One day, he ran into Barbara on one of her trips to collect protection money from the brothel’s owner, Tony Zucco, and impressed her with his stealth and ability to read people. (Much like Inej’s backstory in SOC) Barbara bought Dick from Zucco, and recruited him into the Signals, giving him the choice to join or walk away freely (deciding that the man had suffered enough.) Dick decided to join up, on the condition that Barbara help him find his little sister. Barbara agreed, and took him on as her right hand man and personal spy. On the streets, he’s known as the Nightwing, a name that earns almost as much fear and respect as ‘Barbara Gordon–the All-seeing Oracle’. Dick has since fallen head-over-heels for her, but Barbara’s only loves are money and revenge. (Or, at least, that’s what she tells herself…)

The trio received a tip on a job from Councilman Dent. A dangerous endeavor involving a highly-addictive drug that can supposedly grant humans ‘meta powers’ like the Grisha, and rescuing the only man who knows how to make it from the clutches of the Al Ghul clan. The man’s name? Bruce Wayne. The score? Thirty Million Dollars. The stakes are high; no one has ever crossed the Al Ghuls and survived. But if they do nothing, the metagene drug will be released on the world–and worst of all, they won’t get paid.

But first, they need to put together a good crew. Barbara’s first choice is

Stephanie Brown: A bright and bubbly Grisha Heartrender (The SOC equivalent of a metahuman with the ability to manipulate the human body at a molecular level) with an enormous love for waffles. (I thought Steph and Nina were way to similar to overlook!) She works for the Signals as a healer and assassin, but relies on the gang for protection. Currently, she’s on the run from the Al Ghuls–vicious Grisha killers who believe that Grisha power needs to be controlled or else wiped off the face of the earth. She had a run-in with one of them, but managed to escape…landing squarely in the Signals’ cross-hairs. Barbara has been hiding her, and the two share a strained relationship. Stephanie only agrees to help on one condition: her friend/partner, Duke Thomas, gets safe passage away from Gotham.

Duke Thomas: Duke wasn’t sure how he ended up in this situation. One moment, he’s living a quiet, normal life, and the next thing he knows, the mob leader Joker is extorting his family for everything they own. After the mobster kills his parents, Duke is left adrift on the streets of Gotham, never a safe place to be when you’re a lone Grisha. He was found and picked up by Stephanie Brown, and together, they do odd jobs for the Signals in exchange for shelter from the other gangs. All he wants is to get out of Gotham, but he’s willing to see one more job through if it means finally escaping this cursed city.

With the two Grisha on board, Barbara, Dick and Jason have one more potential recruit to pick up:

Timothy Drake: As the Signals’ best demolitions expert and chemist, Tim makes a valuable asset. But as the estranged ward of Councilman Dent, he makes even more valuable collateral. After running away from his legal guardian, Tim tried to make it on his own in the streets and alleyways of Gotham. He lasted about a day and a half, before he was cornered by a pack of thugs working for the Joker. Lucky for him, Jason and Dick were both in the neighborhood, and managed to fend off the attackers. They took the younger boy under their wings (after voting on whether or not to take him for everything he owned. Dick voted ‘no’. Jason voted ‘maybe’.) Barbara recognized him immediately, and decided to keep him around. Only so she’d have something on Dent. Not because she developed a soft spot for the wide-eyed little society brat. No. Not at all…

The last member of the crew arrives a bit later, but he proves to be every bit as valuable:

Damian Al Ghul: The heir to the Al Ghul clan, Damian was cast out of the family for showing mercy to a Grisha he’d been hunting in Gotham. Thanks to his quick thinking, Stephanie was able to get away. But when she turned him over to the police, he was unceremoniously thrown in prison. His family stripped him of his assassin rank, and essentially disowned him. But no walls could hold the pint-sized Al Ghul for long, and he escaped with a bitter mission to take revenge on the blonde Grisha. However, he seriously underestimated the people backing her up, and was beaten quickly. Barbara recognized a valuable asset when she saw one–an ‘in’ with the Al Ghuls, if you will–and offered him a deal. Run this one job against his family, and he’d have his pardon and safe passage to anywhere his heart desired.

But unbeknownst to the Signals, they aren’t the only gang after Mr. Wayne and the valuable information he holds. The Black Sirens, the Rogues and the Owl Court are all gunning for the same prize. Plus one more mysterious player…

Just kidding. It’s:

Cassandra Cain-Grayson: Raised in a Suli acrobat troupe, she and her brother Dick were kidnapped and separated. Cassandra was sold to the notorious Al Ghul family, and forced to begin training as one of their assassins. She has been tasked with protecting Bruce Wayne and his secrets with her life. If she can manage to destroy the thieves who are out to steal him, the head of the family, Ra’s Al Ghul, will grant her her freedom. And at last she will be able to seek out her brother and reunite them with their parents…

Aaaand, there you have it! I totally agree with you, anon, that the banter would be absolutely golden. You’d have gems straight out of the book, like:

Barbara: “Stephanie, love, always hit where the mark isn’t looking.”

Tim: “Who’s mark?”

Duke: “You have no finesse! No technique!”

Jason: “Sure I do. I practice the art of ‘pull his shirt over his head and punch till you see blood’.”

Steph [smirking]: “I can hear the change in Barbara’s breathing whenever she looks at you.”

Dick: “You…you can?”

Steph: “Mm-hmm. It catches every time, like she’s never seen you before.”

Jason: “ Usually people don’t start hating each other until a week into the job, but you two have a head start.”

[Steph and Damian glare at each other]

Duke: “She’s going to get us all killed!”

Dick: “Nah. Statistically, she’ll only get some of us killed.”

Barbara: “Who’d deny a poor cripple her cane?”

Damian: “If the cripple is you, then any man with sense.”

Steph: “ If any of you survive, make sure I have an open casket. The world deserves a few more moments with this face.”

Jason: “If the Joker kills us all, I’m going to get Tim’s ghost to teach my ghost how to play the flute just so that I can annoy the hell out of your ghost.”

Barbara: “ I’ll just hire Damian’s ghost to kick your ghost’s ass.”

Damian: “ My ghost won’t associate with your ghost.”

Honestly, this was too fun. Maybe I should write a fic on this??? 🤔

Btw, if any of you haven’t read the book yet, definitely give it a try! You won’t regret it!

#batfam #ask queenie #six of crows #leigh bardugo #batfamily #grishaverse #anon #this was way too fun #i could write this as a fic #if i had more time #to work on my current one #six of crows au

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Wynonna Earp Season 4 Episode 10 Review: Life Turned Upside Down

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This Wynonna Earp review contains spoilers.

Wynonna Earp Season 4, Episode 10

Like most good-but-not-great episodes of this beloved show, “Life Turned Upside Down” is an instance of Wynonna Earp biting off more narrative than it can effectively chew in one, hour-long installment. What starts as an episode that promises to delve further into Wynonna’s alcohol abuse and other mental health struggles and how they affect her loved ones quickly veers into a more action-forward story that sees Waverly kidnapped by her worst nightmare and BBD upper management initiating a plan that could end Purgatory (and some of our favorite recurring characters) forever. “Life Turned Upside Down” could have been three excellent episodes of television. Instead, by trying to shove all of this story into one installment, it ends up being one pretty great yet ultimately overambitious episode of TV.

“You know, I really thought we’d have a few years between your transition from fun drunk to mean alcoholic.” “Well, we don’t all have the option of happily ever after.” I’m sad we will never get to see the version of this episode that more fully dives into Wynonna’s current mental health struggles and alcohol dependence. Alcohol abuse is often glamorized and glorified on TV and film, especially when it comes to the lone, stoic warrior trope. It’s a depiction rooted in toxic masculinity, and especially in the western, a genre from which Wynonna Earp gets many of its narrative conventions. There’s a misunderstanding that toxic masculinity only impacts cis men, but that’s far from the case. In a patriarchal society that over-glorifies a constructed masculine ideal, toxic masculinity can affect anyone, and we see some of the worst of what that can look like in Wynonna’s Season 4B struggles. “You’re hunting all of the time. You’re not sleeping. You’re isolating yourself.” “No, I’m hunting alone, so until a new Chosen One rolls into town, whose old enough to drink…” Here, Wynonna equates being a “Chosen One” with alcohol dependence because, for her, they are inextricable from one another; she cannot comprehend a way to do this “job” without this particular coping mechanism.

What Wynonna Earp gets radically right in this episode opening is the focus on how this kind of “lone wolf” mindset affects other people. (“You seem so…” “Dedicated to keeping my friends and family safe?” “…Really sad. And lonely.”) One of the myths at the root of both toxic masculinity and toxic individualism is the idea that any one person can be an island. That it is possible to lock up your pain so tightly inside of yourself that it won’t touch anyone else. But to be human is to affect and be affected by the people around you. We touch one another, even when we try desperately not to, and this is something toxic masculinity and the glorified depiction of “the lone wolf” get so incredibly wrong. When you self-destruct, that self-destruction doesn’t happen to just you; it happens to everyone who loves you and, often, to people who don’t love you too. That knowledge can’t necessarily stop people from self-destructing, from feeling incredible pain and acting in harmful ways because of that pain, but hopefully it can get them one step closer to seeking help outside of themselves and realizing that, in doing so, they’re not just helping themself, but also helping everyone they touch.

This rich thematic exploration propels “Life Turned Upside Down” forward, but we never really get to see it come to any kind of fruition in this episode. Once Waverly, Wynonna, and Nicole leave the homestead after Wynonna and Waverly’s rough, raw, and probably helpful fight, the world butts in, as it so often does. Waverly is chased into the Ghost River’s mind-altering fog, and Wynonna and Nicole are desperate to save her. Initially unbeknownst to them, Waverly’s situation is even worse than they could have imagined: Waverly’s demonic “twin” Jolene is back, and she’s continuing her lifelong dedication to psychologically torturing (and then also physically torturing) Waverly.

Jolene is a manifestation of all of the negative thought patterns in Waverly’s head: Demons are just fallen angels [and] you’re one of them. / Does it ever get boring playing the role of damsel in distress? / Those are all of the lives that Wynonna has had to snuff out to save yours. Imagine the weight of all of that blood on her hands. / Stupid, selfish little angel. In Season 3, Jolene was ultimately unsuccessful in getting Waverly to die by suicide because Waverly was able to see the love and support her family and friends give her freely, and hear the untruth in Jolene’s lies. This time, Waverly isn’t able to do the same and it probably has at least something to do with how much Wynonna’s misery has been affecting her baby sister. There is more than one way to keep your loved ones safe and, while Waverly’s apparent turn to avenging angel is 100% not Wynonna’s fault; it also might not have happened if Wynonna’s definition of “keeping her loved ones safe” wasn’t so toxically narrow. Just because your pain belongs to you doesn’t mean it’s doesn’t sing to others, stirring up their own pain in return.

In accepting the dark narrative Jolene is whispering in her ear, Waverly makes a similar decision to the one Wynonna has been making since they got back from the Garden: To go it alone. To believe that there is something inherently and inescapably dark about her power. To tell herself hat she must get her hands bloody to keep her sister’s hands relatively clean. Something tells me that, in seeing Waverly make her own version of the choice Wynonna has been making these past few months, Wynonna might finally understand what Waverly was trying to tell her at the beginning of this episode: She wasn’t judging her; she was trying not to lose her.

Elsewhere in the episode, BBD’s much-discussed “upper-est management” have finally come calling, and it’s bad for pretty much everyone we know and love. Someone named General Graham is rounding up all of the “assets” left in the Ghost River Triangle and either killing them or loading them onto a metaphoric ark to get the heck out of dodge before the memory-altering fog swallows the entire region in just a few days. I was a little confused by the plot mechanics of all of this (maybe because I was so invested in what was going on elsewhere in the episode?), but it seems like there is a larger fight Graham is planning for. He spoke of a silo in Montana where he plans on bringing the supernatural people he’s rounded up in order to regroup and continue the fight. This all implies that the Big Bad, which is probably not the memory-altering fog but rather Eve or, and stay with me here, perhaps Waverly? Our favorite Sudoku-player ends the episode by ascending (or descending?) into some kind of dark angel, brought about by Jolene’s torture and the temporary belief that Wynonna is dead. “Your journey is over, Wynonna Earp,” Dark!Waverly tells her sister. “And mine has just begun.” Yikes.

Could Wynonna Earp Still Get a Season 5?

By Kayti Burt

How Wynonna Earp’s Wayhaught Has Changed The TV Landscape

By Lyra Hale

Ultimately, I’m not sure the beginning of this episode matches the end. At the beginning of the episode (and in previous episodes), the series seems to depict that Wynonna’s alcoholism is a problem, but then the episode promptly swerves into demonstrating how the story that Wynonna tells herself that fuels that alcohol abuse (that she needs to kill to keep her loved ones safe) is actually kind of true. Wynonna does do a pretty good job trying to save her sister, even if ultimately she is unsuccessful. (Because Waverly isn’t saved, is she? She may not die, but she is forced to transform into something she explicitly says she does not want to be: “I don’t want to be an angel. I don’t want to be a demon. I just want to go home.” Rather: “I can be a hero and a wife.” That is Waverly Earp’s dream and, over the course of this episode, she seemingly moves away from that path.) Over the course of this review, I’ve thematic tracked a path between Wynonna’s self-destructive behavior and the path Waverly takes at the end of this episode, but, if this was what Wynonna Earp was going for with “Life Turned Upside Down,” they needed to connect the dots a little better. If not, well, then the point still stands.

As with other episodes of Wynonna Earp that don’t quite nail it for me, “Life Turned Upside Down” was still a hell of an episode to watch for anyone who cares about these characters and this show. Even when Wynonna Earp isn’t at 100% in terms of plot or theme, you better believe that the characterization and the actors who bring that writing to life are top notch. From the intervention to “It’s my fucking turn, Wynonna” to Rachel picking flowers to lay next to Casey’s corpse, I was emotionally riveted. And, while it’s different for every story-consumer, that’s what I care about the most. The rest is icing on the doughnut.

Additional thoughts.

Wynonna calls herself a “chip off the abusive asshole block.” So much of the insecurities and issues that the Earp sisters deal with can be traced back to their abuse asshole father. It is, frankly, very impressive that Wynonna and Waverly were able to grow into such loving adults, given what they had to endure as kids.

Speaking of which: “Purgatory’s not a place where people get to be kids.”

“You’re my family.” “No, I’m not.” Poor Rachel. But also: she seems to be the most well-adjusted one here right now?

“Nobody wants to be an Earp. Earps always end up alone.” More story-lies that Wynonna tells herself that most likely started with her father.

R.I.P., Dallas.

Also: Mercedes!!! Are you OK?

“I’m kind of medium on the hair.”

“Clio’s the new Clanton heir and send the reapers to feed on a bus full of seniors.” Um, that is quite bad?

“I made you an apology castle roll.” I am so sad that Casey died.

“Those are humans… and Freddy.”

“I will come back to you; I just need her more.” While I did generally love the characterization in this episode, as previously mentioned, it didn’t work for me how vehemently Doc and Jeremy reacted when Wynonna chose to save Clio over them. I think they would have trusted that she had a plan? Then again, maybe they’re just terrified for their lives.

Rachel is so sweet.

I continue to feel bad for Billy.

“Get your hands off my sister, you unholy bitch.” Peak Molly Weasley vibes.

“If we cannot use our brawn, let us use our heads.” I love Doc so much.

“That is, as they say, my bad.” Again.

Did anyone else feel like the BBD subplot was just a carousel of people coming to break the BBD prisoners out and failing?

Obligatory Lauren shout out.

I love this show’s commitment to exposed midriff.

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Obligatory Dolly Parton shoutout.

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polyputthekettleon · 6 years

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More Rules for My Relationships

10 Realistic Rules for Good Non-Monogamous Relationships

by Andrea Zanin

(Please note I said good poly. Anyone can do poly badly, but I don’t advise it.)

1. Know yourself. For starters, be brutally honest with yourself and answer the following questions. I’m not kidding about the brutal part. Sugarcoating will not help you here. Also, remember that the answers to these are never final… you change every day and with every experience you have, so it’s worth revisiting these questions over and over throughout your lifetime.

What kind of person are you?

What are your core values?

What are your life priorities?

What are your needs within relationships?

What are your shortcomings within your relationships?

Why have your past relationships ended? Are you able to articulate what part you played in that?

How do you deal with conflict and anger?How are your communication skills?

What kind of people are you generally attracted to? Are there any predictable patterns in your attractions? Are they positive or problematic?

What do you have to offer a partner? What sort of partner, lover, friend are you?

What does your life look like? Your schedule, your energy levels, your health, your obligations, your stresses, your joys?

What would you like to change?

2. Love yourself. Okay, so this sounds like the greatest cliché known to man, but it’s actually the basic ingredient for good non-monogamy. It’s the macaroni in the mac & cheese. You gotta take care of yourself. If you don’t have this one down, you will simply never be able to fully enjoy healthy love relationships with others. Lots of people try to ignore the basic and all-pervasive importance of self-love, and that’s why many people have messy love relationships. You wanna try that with multiple love relationships? Believe me, you will sink fast.

If the answers from the questions you just asked yourself show some areas that may pose challenges, love yourself enough to take up those challenges before you start exploring elsewhere. Go get therapy, take up a meditation practice, start writing in a journal, get more exercise to boost your mood and self-confidence, or attend to your spiritual life. Not taking care of yourself is not an option.

3. Be happy ALONE. Yes, that’s right. Alone. All alone. No partner. Married or otherwise partnered already? That’s fine, but you still need to have this one down. If you approach your relationships with the idea that they’ll make you happy when you can’t make yourself happy, you will inevitably be disappointed.

Very few relationships actually last a whole lifetime; it’s wonderful if they do, but let’s be realistic. You can’t base your entire concept of love and relationship around an ideal that a small minority of people actually achieve. Not to mention that longevity is not an indicator of happiness – some relationships should last a few months, some a few years, some a few hours. This is not an indication of failure, it’s an indication of reality.

Be happy alone first. Then add one or more partners to enhance, deepen and enjoy that happiness with you. But do not make your happiness dependent on someone else’s presence in your life or your bedroom, let alone two or three people’s presence. That’s not relationship, that’s codependence. It also gets real complicated if your honey has three partners and you don’t – unless you are (ta-daa!) happy alone.

4. Communicate. Honestly. Now comes the time where you take all that brutal honesty with yourself, and translate it into brutal honesty with your partner(s). Good poly happens when things are put on the table. Are you jealous? Say so. Are you scared, worried, angry, upset? Use your words. Are you happy, in love, admiring? Spread the joy! Is there something on your mind that you don’t want to tell your partner? MAJOR warning bell… this is almost a guarantee that you should be telling them!

I absolutely promise that if you keep shit to yourself, you will run into problems. If you have the first three rules down and drop the ball on this one, your poly is still going down the tubes. Buy self-help books. Go to joint therapy. Take an active listening workshop. Read up on jealousy and other issues to see how best to deal with them. Whatever it takes, improve your communication skills. You’ll thank yourself for it!

5. Know what you want. Here’s another list of questions for ya. (Hint: Rules 1 to 4 come in real handy before you get to this one.)

What would your ideal polyamorous relationship look like?

What joys do you think polyamory will bring to your life?

What challenges do you think you will face? Do you think you’re equipped to handle those challenges?

Do the benefits you want match up with the kind of room do you have in your world for multiple partners?

Do the benefits you want match up with what you have to give in return in terms of time, energy, availability, etc.?

What do you think an incoming partner might want from you? How might she or he feel about your situation?

If you have an existing partner, do your values, desires and abilities match up well? Are you looking for the same or compatible sorts of polyamory?

Are you open to a range of options within the range of polyamorous arrangements, or is your interest very specific? If it’s specific, why? What do you hope to gain from that particular form?

6. Go for content, not form. Once you’ve answered the questions above, you might have a form of poly in mind that you feel would be perfect for you. If so, the next step is to ask yourself what that form means to you… and do a reality check. Two girlfriends = never lonely? Think again. Two couples in a quad = excellent balance? No guarantees. “Middle-aged married couple – he’s heterosexual, she’s bi-curious – seeks hot young bisexual woman with double-D boobs who likes giving head, available every second weekend and the occasional Wednesday night.” Does this sound familiar?

Lots of people have an idealized vision in their minds. We often get caught up in the packaging without remembering that relationship is about what’s inside. You and your honey might spend years seeking out the ideal couple to form the perfect quad, while your best friend and her boyfriend have been working up the nerve to ask you out for months. You might want your wife to have fun with a cute gal for your entertainment, when in fact that guy she met at the BBQ last week would make an amazing addition to your world for years to come, loving her deeply and being a wonderful friend to you… and maybe you should try dating that woman you met at the gym.

Think of polyamory as a state of openness to love in whatever form it comes to you, and then take responsibility for managing that abundance when it arrives… rather than sticking with a particular formula you believe will be ideal. See rule #10 for more.

7. Be nice. Polyamory is not about the technicalities. It’s the spirit, not the letter of the law that counts. Polyamory is not all about you getting laid. In fact it’s not really all about you at all. It’s a philosophy of moving through the world that’s about plurality, generosity and giving, and guess what – it goes way beyond your Friday-night date. Love is not tit for tat; it’s not a pie with only so many pieces to go around; and it’s not there just to beef up your ego. So…

Don’t date someone else’s partner behind that person’s back just because it’s not “technically” your problem.Keep an eye out for the people you get involved with to make sure they’re all right, and doing poly for the right reasons, even if that’s not “technically” your call to make.Know your boundaries and respect them; watch out for other people’s boundaries too, even if that’s not “technically” your job.

As a poly person, your responsibility toward right relationship doesn’t end when you have an orgasm or when you drop your date off at the door. So don’t be creepy and go out cruising for what you can get out of love, or to see how much you can get away with. You’re missing the whole bloody point if you go at it that way.

8. Have safer sex. This doesn’t just mean use a condom. It means figure out how to talk about sex with all your partners. It means figure out what acceptable risk looks like for you. HIV is not the only risk out there, and condoms don’t protect against everything. For example: if someone has oral herpes, will you kiss them? Will you let them go down on you? This answer might be different if, say, you see them only three times a year… if you have a compromised immune system… if you are healthy as a horse.

Here are a few questions worth thinking about. Remember, this isn’t just about you. Conceivably, your sexual choices could affect dozens of other people… people you care about. Sex is awesome. Keep it that way.

Are you informed about the relative risks of the various things you like to do in bed? If not, do you know where to find the information you need?

Are you aware of how and when to use safer sex products like condoms, gloves, finger cots, Saran Wrap, dental dams, silicone toys, etc.? If not, do you know where to find the information you need?

How much are you comfortable telling your doctor about your sex life? How will those limits affect his or her ability to provide you with appropriate care?

Do you have access to STI testing? If so, how often do you think it’s appropriate for you and your partners to get tested, and for what?

How might you deal with an unexpected pregnancy – yours or someone else’s

How do you feel about alternative sexual practices, like fisting or anal sex or BDSM? Do you have limits around blood play, bondage, penetration…?

Are your limits different with different people or in different situations?

How do you feel about your partner(s)’ limits? Are they compatible with yours?Where are you willing to compromise, and why?

What are your needs and limits around your emotional safety in sexual situations?

What happens if you find out you have contracted an STI – who do you have to tell and what will you do?

9. Be strong. Make no mistake about it: choosing a polyamorous relationship style is a radical thing. It upsets people – some of those people may include your parents, your friends, your work colleagues, members of your religious or spiritual groups, your kids, and more. Just because we have an alternative philosophy about what makes us feel happy in our relationships doesn’t mean the whole world will be on board with us. That creates pressures on everyone involved.

To handle this, it’s really helpful to have strong friendships, a strong philosophy, an independent streak, a lot of self-confidence, a good sense of boundaries (other people’s, not just your own), some well-articulated knowledge and words with which to defend or explain your choices (answering questions in this list can help with that, as can reading a few good poly books), and a community that includes other poly people.

Here are a few more questions to think about:

Can you deal with the social pressures you will face because you’ve made a different choice than the mainstream? How, exactly, will you deal with this? What would your approach be for each of these situations I listed above?

What do people need to know? How much are you comfortable telling them about your choices? Is it safe for you to come out to people about your multiple loves? Will this affect your child custody, your career, your community standing?

Is it actually unsafe for you to come out to people about your multiple loves? Or are you internalizing social pressures and censoring yourself before even giving your friends and loved ones a chance to show their support and open-mindedness?

How will you deal with it if you’re perceived as a cheater, a slut, a greedy person, an immoral person?

What will you do if people whom you didn’t want to tell end up finding out?

10. Go with the flow. In other words, don’t go out looking for anything. The best people show up when we’re just going about our business, doing good things in life, being happy, and being generous. It’s not that personals sites or matchmaking are a bad idea… it’s simply that the joy of non-monogamy is in being open to the many things that may come our way, rather than gunning for any one thing in particular. Life is generous if we’re open to receiving it, and it pulls away when we clutch at it…a lot like people.

- Andrea Zanin, pretty much fucking killing it on her blog "Sex Geek." And also.making me want to run and hide under my little mostly-monogamous bed and not mess around with anyone besides my husband ever again, because I 100% agree with her assertion that this is the work that we need to do, if we actually want to do a good job of being polyamorous, and because it sounds hard as fuck, and because I'm just not feeling very secure today. I should probably go to sleep.

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shmisolo · 7 years

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i’m kind of tired of seeing posts (on tumblr and elsewhere) about how rey didn’t have character development during tlj because i just don’t think that’s true. i don’t even think that it’s true that her arc was ~~all about kylo~~ which is the underlying (or explicit) accusation of most of those arguments. and i get very much the gendered nature of her arc with kylo this episode and am skeptical that it will be navigated well during ix, but there’s also a lot in there in rey’s arc that reflected fundamental character growth and strength of character in the face of all sorts of temptations one way or another.

the first is her parents. part of what i loved about the parent revelation is that it makes rey entirely her own. she is not her bloodline or defined by her heritage the way kylo is. she walks the lonely road of being the soul definer of her own path. it’s lonely and it’s hard and she has to do it and does do it in this film. far from being bestowed with the power that she holds through blood, she came by it through herself and herself alone. she has to acknowledge that what makes her special is herself--something that she has been grappling with since tfa. it is her temptation to the dark side, the thing that draws her to that dark part of the island that gets luke so freaked out during her first exploration of the force in his presence. she can’t let go of her own pain and her own loneliness and her own sense of abandonment and because of that she cannot let herself fully grow because there is a constant ache, a constant fear that she doesn’t and fundamentally should not matter. this is what leads her to tell luke “i need someone to show me my place in all this.” she longs for guidance, longs for validation. she longs for parents.

but even without the revelation that her parents weren’t anyone special in the star wars universe, rey’s arc this film put to bed some of the underlying desire for parental validation that has coursed through her since the first film. this validation is different from the validation she gets in her friendship with finn: that validation is a mutual one, a friendly one, one that stems from someone where there is no power dynamic beyond caring for one another. they recognize in one another the incredible talent and strength of the other. this desire for parental validation was at the core of her relationship with han, and her curiosity about luke that fueled her in both tfa and tlj. it was what made shared visions with kylo ren so tantalizing: he was validating the loneliness that she felt having been abandoned by her parents--even while challenging her to keep questioning narratives she wanted to believe because she wanted to see the good. and rey ultimately rejected both her need for luke’s validation (by going off to kylo ren after confronting luke about the perspective difference) and kylo’s validation when she realized that she could have compassion for him and still think that his desire to burn the world to rebuild was too dark for even the darker parts of her own heart. it was a fascinating juxtaposition: while you have her simultaneously showing kylo ren a sympathy that he clearly hasn’t received in years this film, she also stopped behaving in a way that seemed to care about what others thought about her by the end of it. she left kylo. she left luke. she saved her friends. she stuck to herself. and while i don’t necessarily think that--now that she’s back with finn, leia, poe, even rose whom she hasn’t officially met yet--she’ll reject the validation from her friends, she isn’t seeking it from those she wishes to grow from. she’s not looking for her parents anymore. she’s not even necessarily looking for perspective from kylo (though it really, really depends how you read driver’s and ridley’s delivery of that final gaze in the last scene because it could go so many ways). she’s looking to be seen as an equal on the stage, if not a leader, in a way that she did not in tfa.

the second is--and i touched on this above--very intensely related to how she engages with kylo ren in this film. it’s a tricky temptation to talk about because i don’t think that rey is tempted by the dark side so much as trying to ease the pain of her own loneliness; i similarly don’t think that kylo ren was tempted by the light so much as tempted by trying to ease his own loneliness. their dynamic in this film to me wasn’t about dark and light--it was about listening. and therein shows a growth on rey’s part that i don’t think was there on kylo’s, even if people are saying that the arc was all about him and not about her. rey listened to him and was compassionate to his pain. he offered to her, and she listened. it meant that, fundamentally, she was the one who had to challenge the narratives in her life that got her to where she was, the little girl who used to wear a former rebellion helmet in her lair on jakku, dreams of the legendary luke skywalker and the rebellion against the empire. she not only had to allow herself to shake her foundations but also had to stick to her guns in the end--something that when the temptation isn’t necessarily darkness but rather a balm to the thing that’s hurt you for literally years. she had to see the ramifications of luke’s failures, she had to try and use her heart to undo them, a front on which she seems to have failed thus far--but ix is still coming and i don’t think you make the hero of the star wars trilogy fail but i digress. she asked luke “i need someone to show me the place in all this” but “all this” as a narrative is confusing because everyone has a different perspective based on their own experiences--including rey. so when she ultimately makes choices based on all the information presented to her, it is one that is at the expense of the temptation presented. she withstood it. she persevered. she had to confront her own pain and come out swinging.

rey chose herself this film. she chose herself in terms of power, she chose herself in terms of psychological validation, she chose herself in terms of being the person she wanted to be when faced with temptation and failure.

she chose to save the world and in so doing chose herself. and honestly that’s incredible--especially when considering it was in opposition to a man who could not save himself no matter how hard he tried (and is still trying tbh), and certainly failed at saving others.

#rey #star wars #tlj spoilers #the last jedi #meta #ramblings #i just keep seeing posts and i'm like #it's subtle but it's there #and the kind of there that's there is real good stuff imo #and i wonder to what extent it would have been more evident to people if there weren't the gender bullshit that comes into play #by virtue of having a young man and a young woman at the heart of this story #honestly there's probably more but i'm tired #ok bedtime i gotta wake up mad early tomorrow

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sinceileftyoublog · 5 years

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Summerfest 2019: 6/30

Guided By Voices

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Of all of the straight, white, buttoned-up indie rock bands of the 2000′s, The National have endured because they’ve subverted those very expectations, at first with Matt Berninger co-writing with his wife Carin Besser and now with the band including women as not just prominent but lead parts in the performance. Their new album I Am Easy To Find and its partner short film (starring Alicia Vikander and directed by Mike Mills (Beginners, 20th Century Women)) was conceived of and partially recorded during the Sleep Well Beast sessions. While the aesthetic of the new record is certainly consistent with that album’s, its themes move on from Beast’s tension between inner and outer dark forces. I Am Easy To Find is instead a record about our devotion to one another, and the femininity of the presented voices is an effective aesthetic for The National’s most empathetic album to date.

Much of the album sees Berninger singing duets or flat out giving way to the likes of Gail Ann Dorsey, Lisa Hannigan, Kate Stables, and Mina Tindle. Opener “You Had Your Soul With You” starts out familiar enough--glitching electronics, nervous drums and guitar flourishes and flutters, weeping strings, Berninger’s baritone--but the introduction of Dorsey, the type of voice that was previously relegated to background harmonies on National albums, is one of those moments where you’re listening to a longtime band and realize they’re offering something truly different. On “Where Is Her Head”, Berninger shouts like he does on many National tracks on which he’s losing his mind, but his stream of consciousness is here dwarfed by Dorsey in harmony with Eve Owens, them providing the emotional and musical stability that’s usually the job of Bryan Devendorf’s snares. “Dust Swirls In Strange Light” features the Brooklyn Youth Choir and no Berninger. And there are a couple tracks without any words: choral instrumental “Her Father In The Pool” and “Underwater”.

Digging deeper, though, it’s the lyrical approach that’s an even more radical change. Berninger sings again with Dorsey on “Roman Holiday”; “I’ll take away your shame,” they promise to each other. “I’ll come to where you are alone in the quiet light,” he declares on “Quiet Light”. Elsewhere, with Tindle on “Oblivions”, they sing, “It’s almost like you’re not afraid of anything I do”--a far cry from “I was afraid I’d eat your brains.” “Not In Kansas” is a total tribute to women that have changed Berninger’s life. On the title track, Berninger and Stables sing to each other, “There’s a million little battles that I’m never gonna win anyway / I’m still waiting for you every night with ticker tape, ticker tape.” The line (a selfless contrast to “I’m a festival / I’m a parade”) is the ultimate tribute to true love: No matter how much people bicker and fight, unconditional support conquers all. It’s what makes closer “Light Years” so sad. “Oh, the glory of it all was lost on me / ‘Til I saw how hard it’d be to reach you,” Berninger sings. An album ago, he was death obsessed, and now, he can’t stop living, perhaps even afraid to die.

So how would The National adapt I Am Easy To Find to a live stage at a Summerfest closing slot? With backup singers on songs like “You Had Your Soul With You”, “Quiet Light”, “Hey Rosey”, “The Pull Of You”, “Oblivions”, “Where Is Her Head” and the swaying title track. As for old songs, Berninger provided his usual stage antics, air guitaring with the Dessner brothers on “Don’t Swallow the Cap”, trying to toss his drink to someone in the crowd, perhaps drunkenly remarking about the “flying benches” in the sky (the skyride), and, genuinely, telling the crowd how excited he was to see his wife and kid, the sentiment most consistent with the band’s great new record.

Album score: 8.2/10

The other two bands whose full sets I saw at Summerfest had connections to The National. Adia Victoria’s two albums have been recorded by Aaron Dessner. Silences, her 2019 release, like 2016′s Beyond the Bloodhounds, centers around the identity of black women like Victoria herself, but its ambitions delve into the Southern Gothic. From the very start, Victoria modernizes the aesthetic. “Clean”, like Odetta Hartman’s incredible “Misery”, is a gender-inverted murder ballad, the victim God himself. On the less-than-two-minute ditty, Victoria, over plucks of the cello and National-esque glitchy electronics, breathes life into and begins her religion-and-patriarchy-conquering persona continued throughout the album. “I’m gonna do everything in the world that my grandma ever wish she had,” she declares on “Pacolet Road”, the ultimate fuck you to those who use religion, race, sex, or gender to oppress. Furthermore, on “The City”, her sample of Billie Holiday singing “Lady Sings The Blues”, blending in with baroque swipes of strings, pays tribute to another strong black woman in a position of creative power but during a different time frame, one step closer to becoming eternal.

While Victoria totally nails the demonic aspect of Southern Gothic, she frames many of her demons as positive and uses them for leverage over those who disappoint and oppress. “Different Kind Of Love” is an absolute stomp of a breakup song. On “The Needle’s Eye”, over disorienting, swirling electronics, she sings, “The day is done / Let’s have some fun / Beat me like a drum,” her layered vocals repeatedly cooing the last words at the end of the song. Victoria mixes references to habits of self destruction and feelings of desire, both part of her and what makes her fierce. “I like the things that make me hurt,” she sings on the tiptoeing “Devil Is A Lie”. “I like to do things my way / Or I don’t do them at all,” she strongly declares on “Heathen”, continuing, “Cause first they ask you to compromise / And then the next breath demandin’ you crawl.” In other words, it’s not really self destruction; it’s the “same old nice folks bringing me down.”

Silences climaxes in “Dope Queen Blues”, what Victoria calls the “culmination of my ruination”. Flute and piano add weight to Victoria’s ultimate goal: Seek the divine within herself, replace who she did away with on the first song. “I wanna break free from my body / Shaken loose my skin / ‘Cause I had a thought I am a god / Of this I am convinced.” Alone at the top, staring at her reflection, she ends the album singing to her reflection, over an instrumental with wonderfully uneasy synths: “I wanna get lonely with you.”

When she performed live, Victoria was appropriately in control, dominating the stage during “Clean” and “The Needle’s Eye”, but cementing her story and songs in context with her peers and fellow citizens, dedicating them to black victims of police murders and women who are victims of the patriarchy. Interestingly enough, she lifted lines from Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box” during a song, and it was an oddly fitting choice. Despite what the celebrity back-and-forth will tell you, Kurt Cobain’s original was purportedly inspired by documentaries about children with cancer: “I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black,” he sang. Victoria, who strutted around on stage like an almighty being, could convince you she had such power.

Album score: 7.6/10

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Guided By Voices, meanwhile, occupied a strange slot, getting a mid-day 90 minute set as opposed to their usual headlining three-plus hours. Still, they offered 35 songs, a little over a third from albums from this year (Zeppelin Over China and Warp and Woof). “Every song could be first or last,” Robert Pollard observed about the band’s set. These days, the first song tends to be a newer one, the closer Isolation Drills banger “Glad Girls”. It was an abridged, arguably more concise GBV set because it had to be, but it was fun seeing the band essentially open for their Ohio brethren. The words “Towers to the skies / An academy of lies” were sung twice on that stage, because Berninger interpolates them on I Am Easy to Find’s title track, following them up with “You were never much of a New Yorker”. On a day seeing two Ohio bands and a Nashville queen in Wisconsin, New York was the farthest thing on any of our minds.

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