#but I’m not intending any of this to be the central message of the story!

[dreamlandiasims]

hi, i'm not jewish and wouldn't want to speak over anyone, but from my perspective maybe removing plot points that could parallel blood libel and adding more that parallel the anti capitalist angle could be a good start.

removing the eternal youth angle and emphasizing how the power of the companies hinges on exploiting the working conditions of workers instead of experiments on them could be an option? also a character being a class traitor could potentially weaken parallels to power being "birth right" of the secret society imo. there's also always an option to demystify the conspiracy by showing that this current route sounds more interesting, but that the truth is just capitalism and even though it doesn't sounds as exciting it's still very scary.

Ok yeah this is pretty much what I’ve been thinking so far! Thank you for your input :)

As a start I’m planning to remake the Reddit pages and relevant dialogue from the last post to be more “agnos is a major corporation that’s trying to monopolize the market and they’re engaging in shady business practices to be at the forefront of tech and medicine development (at the expense of their workers/sub-companies).”

I think similarly, the focus on the alien tech could be more of a commentary on “how far are we willing to go in the name of science and advancement”, and I’ll definitely cut out the “eternal youth” aspect.

I’m hoping that this is enough to redirect the narrative that the story is establishing, but if anyone feels otherwise please let’s continue the conversation!

[hlficlibrary]

HL Fic Library 🤣 Fics With Humor

Remember to leave kudos and a comment on the fics you enjoyed to show your appreciation! You can find the library's other recs here.

🤣 Just Me, You, And This Box of Matches by tomlinsunshine @tornlinsunshine​ (M, 87k)

Louis is fairly sure that his new neighbour is going to destroy him. And also their apartment building, and the dumpsters outside, and all the forests within a thirty mile radius. But. Mostly him.

🤣 Harry Styles Cooks… by sunsetmog / @magicalrocketships​ (E, 61k+, wip)

In which Louis Tomlinson can’t cook, there’s a very special shower curtain, and Harry Styles used to be a baker.

Or: Louis owns all of Harry Styles’ cookbooks, and he never intends to cook a single thing out of any of them.

🤣 Frankincense-ational by LadyLondonderry / @londonfoginacup (T, 31k)

Harry Styles works at the Hillsyde Library with his friend Zayn and best mate Niall. It’s December, which means Christmas, which should be the happiest month of the year…

Except Niall just broke up with his boyfriend, Zayn needs to let up on the rules a little, and the library is getting their fire alarm system replaced, which means that for the next few weeks there are going to be firemen patrolling the library ‘looking for fires’ while the system is down.

Harry almost hits one of them with his car right off the bat - and of course he’s the hot one.

🤣 the butthole series by @kingsofeverything (E, 24k)

a series of standalone fics with a central theme

🤣 That's How I Know by @allwaswell16 (E, 19k)

Louis Tomlinson has just landed his dream job, coaching soccer at Augustus University. When he moves into a new house near campus, he meets his very fit new neighbor, English professor Harry Styles. Although their first meeting leads to an instant mutual dislike, the more Harry gets to know Louis, the more he likes what he sees.

Or the one where Harry’s African grey parrot spills his dirty secrets to his very hot neighbor.

🤣 Man, Deconstructed by jacaranda_bloom / @jacaranda-bloom (E, 13k)

Harry doesn’t need help getting laid and he certainly doesn’t need Niall to hire a professional to ‘sort him out’.

But when a gorgeous man turns up on his doorstep on his birthday to ‘lay some pipe’ in the back garden (who just happens to have the best arse Harry’s ever seen), his world is upended.

OR the one where a well-meaning best mate, a sculpture-worthy arse, and a heaping dose of misunderstanding combine to create sheer and utter chaos, and also, maybe, the best thing Harry’s ever found.

🤣 One Vote Can Rock the Boat by @2tiedships2 (M, 12k)

“Niall, I need you to come and vote with me tomorrow.”

“Lou, I know we’ve only been friends for about two years now, but I guess I’ve never explicitly told you I’m Irish?”

“You don’t have to vote, exactly,” Louis explained. “But I don’t want to go to a sex toy shop by myself.”

“Have I just entered an alternate universe? In what world does voting for the government correlate in any way to sex toys?”

Or the one where Omega Louis shows off his “I voted” sticker as one of the first 100 customers to get a free vibrator. The beautiful alpha behind the counter informs him that he’s customer 101.

🤣 autopilot by silkbombs (M, 11k)

Louis accidentally sends an unknown number a video of him giving a cockroach a funeral. The weirdest love story ensues.

🤣 Umbrielievable by nikogda / @cyphermedley (NR, 11k)

Three months ago they began to pick up a weak signal. They couldn’t decipher it and figured it was just a satellite they were picking up. Eventually, they were able to translate "Give us cheese" but the rest was still a mess. That message baffled them, and they immediately thought it may be a joke from another country.

Or, The one where Harry is an Alien from Uranus' moon, Umbriel whose inhabitants require cheese to survive.

🤣 Just Your Jinx by @larryatendoftheday (T, 10k)

Harry Styles may or may not have accidentally jinxed his extremely fit new neighbor, and it's not so easy to make things right.

🤣 For a day by bluegreenish / @greenblueish (T, 9k)

“While I appreciate that compliment - you’re right -, it’s not a prank. I swear. I tried calling Harry and Liam, but they aren’t picking up. And like, I don’t know what to do? I just woke up in Liam’s freaking body, and like, he’s a nice lad and everything, but I don’t want to be him?!”

Once again, tense silence fills the line for a second and Louis almost expects Zayn to hang up on him, but his friend speaks up again, voice urgent this time. 

“You’re serious?”

“One hundred percent. I swear.”

or, the one where Harry wakes up in Louis' body, Louis in Liam's, Liam in Niall's, Niall in Harry's and no one picked Zayn.

🤣 Only Been Here One Time by alienharry (NR, 9k)

“Good morning, Liam. Harry.” Louis nods at them both and then cocks his head. “Are you aware you have four nipples, Harry?”

Harry looks down at his chest, suddenly worried. He doesn’t know how many nipples humans have, but four must not be a usual amount. “Should I have six?”

“Not unless you’ve a litter of kittens to feed.”

The Alien!Harry fic I was destined to write 

🤣 Ain’t My Fault by @afirethatcannotdie (E, 7k)

“Liam, M4M is for sex! You posted in a sex forum about your missing jacket.”

“It is not for sex!”

“It is. Trust me.”

“Well, if it helps me find my jacket then I don’t really see why it matters. Besides, someone already texted me about it. This Styles guy’s coming over in a bit to get it.”

“You invited the avocado man to come get his jacket at our flat after posting on a sex forum. Do you see where this is going?”

“I really don’t.” 

“Someone is going to have to have sex with the avocado man!” Louis screeches, and Liam covers his ears.

AU. Liam posts an ad on the wrong section of Craigslist, Louis is pretty sure they’re gonna get murdered as a result, and Harry’s missing an avocado.

🤣 Porn To Be Wild by @fallinglikethis (E, 5k)

As Louis Tomlinson writes his One Direction fanfiction in a quiet, isolated corner of the local library, the last thing he expects is for the subject of his story to interrupt him in the middle of a sex scene. But that’s exactly what happens.

🤣 Absolute Beginners by @taggiecb (T, 5k)

Louis would like to think that Niall can't surprise him anymore. He never knows what his friend will come up with sometimes. But when he calls Louis in the middle of the night and asks him to come and hit on his friend, Louis can't help but let curiosity get the best of him.

🤣 Only Reason by @letsjustsee (NR, 5k)

“We are so lucky to have with us one of the leading experts on beekeeping in the modern age, Dr. Louis Draper.”No. No, no, no… “I know I speak for many of us when I say that this man’s books have guided our practice, or helped us get started,” Harry continued, and Louis watched as the crowd nodded their heads in agreement. Oh shit. No. What? No. But then Harry was gesturing towards him, saying “Dr. Draper?” into the microphone, the crowd was applauding, and Louis found himself walking up the stairs to the stage.

Or, Louis is most definitely smitten with Harry from the second he sees him, but he is also most definitely not the world's foremost expert on beekeeping. He decides to roll with it anyway.

🤣 Catastrophe (Or Not) by grapenight (G, 5k)

Based on the prompt: "Harry's a crazy cat person and Louis is the vet he keeps bringing his cats to with minor concerns like "she's been acting weird lately" and "he didn't poop today so I'm worried" but it's really just excuses to keep seeing Louis everyday"

���� Anywhere With You by sweetums / @darlou (T, 3k)

“Do you want some gum?” Louis’ lovely voice interrupts his train of thoughts.

“No, thank you.” Harry responds quickly.

What? ‘No, thank you’? What was he thinking? If Louis Tomlinson offers you gum, you take it. If Louis Tomlinson offers you a vial of vomit, you take it.

“On second thought, gum would be perfection.” Harry actually considers just dying right there as he reaches over to pry the piece of gum out of Louis’ perfect little hand, eyes flitting over to the other man’s amused face.

Why did he say that? He could’ve said, ‘I’ll have some gum’ or ‘gum would be great’ or even a simple ‘thanks’ but no, no, for Harry, ‘gum would be perfection’.

He loathes himself.

AU where Harry gets stuck in an ATM vestibule with Louis Tomlinson during a blackout. Inspired by Chandler and Jill Goodacre from Friends.

🤣 Oh Honey, Honey by @lululawrence (NR, 3k)

Louis hated honey. He didn’t like the flavour, he didn’t understand why some liked it in their tea, he hated when it was put on sandwiches or cake or anything really. But, standing stock still in front of a rather large display of honey in that 24-hour Tesco, Louis found himself grabbing the largest jar of “100% pure London-local honey” and adding it to his trolley, simply because he knew it would make Harry smile.

Louis always wanted to make Harry smile.

Or the one where Louis pines after Harry, Harry is passionate about helping save the bees, and a late night shopping trip gone wrong doesn't end quite as horribly as Louis imagines.

🤣 On the Go by @phdmama (T, 2k)

Prompt: ok so i saw a truck today and i thought it said MANSCAPE but it actually said MAINSCAPE and it was a landscaping company. but then i thought LARRY AU. where louis owns a landscaping company called MANSCAPE and harry thinks it’s some sort of in-home pubic hair grooming company, so he calls to make an appointment, there’s some discussion of whether he wants his bushes trimmed as well, and then when it’s time for the appointment, harry’s like half-naked waiting around in a robe or something and louis shows up with lawnmowers. 

🤣 Zoey by wabadabadaba / @bigxrig (G, 2k)

Harry knew his first name, but he liked the way Dr. Tomlinson sounded more. Harry watched as Louis unclasped her harness and set it aside and pet her back and under her chin. Louis kissed the top of her head and murmured sweet nothings to her- mostly about how pretty she is and how well behaved she is. Harry wished it was him.

or Harry has a huge crush on his cat's veterinarian and finally decides to do something about it.

🤣 Stole My Heart by @haztobegood (NR, 2k)

“Oh my god, Niall.” The door slams shut as Harry rushes into the flat. He’s still panting from his rush to get away from the scene of his crime. “You won’t believe what just happened!”

Niall is sitting on the couch in their tiny living room. He looks up from his laptop. “What happened?”

“The worst thing. I’ll never recover. I just reached into a box of free samples outside that new chicken restaurant. Only it wasn’t free samples. It was a man. Holding a box of chicken nuggets. His chicken nuggets. I stole this man’s food, Niall!”

[ogradyfilm]

Recently Viewed: Inside Out 2

[The following review contains MINOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Inside Out 2 is cute, charming, and—if the enthusiastic response of the crowd that I saw it with is any indication—a huge hit with its target demographic. I certainly left the theater a reasonably satisfied customer; theoretically, the film does everything that a proper sequel should, delivering a more expansive narrative that elaborates on the themes introduced in its predecessor.

I know that there was some controversy online regarding apparent “contradictions” of previously established “canon” and “continuity” (e.g., the abrupt addition of new Emotions that were conspicuously absent from the previous installment), but—at the risk of sounding like I’m rushing to the defense of a multibillion-dollar corporation—I think that such superficial complaints are misguided and irrelevant. This is an allegory intended for children; scrutinizing the consistency of the “lore” and “internal logic” to an excessive degree is… counterproductive, to phrase it as charitably as possible. Obsessing over the minutiae and superfluous details of the "world building" within the context of an obvious metaphor misses the forest for the trees; the story only really needs to be functional enough to support the central conflict, character development, and core message.

And Inside Out 2 accomplishes that much with aplomb, exploring the dangers of emotional repression and examining how having an overly rigid self-image can ultimately be detrimental to one’s self-worth. As somebody who suffers from rather severe anxiety, I found the (admittedly simple) moral to be quite relatable and resonant—particularly towards the movie’s climax, when our protagonist’s seemingly mutually exclusive ambitions and desires send her into a self-perpetuating downward spiral of frustration, self-doubt, and self-pity. The "accurate depiction of a panic attack in animation" trope has recently been reduced to a punchline on Twitter, but the example here actually comes close to capturing how the experience feels in the moment: a catastrophic loss of self-control that essentially causes the rational mind to shut down entirely while the body careens along on autopilot.

Although I’m not terribly pleased with Pixar’s current creative direction (prioritizing sequels and spin-offs, sacrificing personal expression in favor of “mass appeal”—whatever that means), Inside Out 2 clearly demonstrates that the studio can still achieve brilliance within those potentially suffocating artistic constraints. So at least the commercial slop will taste just a bit sweeter as we choke it down.

[onceandfutureoshainspector]

- SO IF I’M REMEMBERING ALL OF THIS CORRECTLY:

   - PICKMAN’S GALLERY: the nasty little freak painted a bunch of ominously portentious-looking paintings in blood and yellow pigment of questionable origin.

       - several of his works feature motifs of golden ribbons/spirals/halos/eyes which look eerily similar to the designs on the ZEALOTS’ armour, as well as subjects with circular facial tattoos/carvings much like the CHILDREN have.

       - by far the most striking painting is of a golden eye opening in a red sky, surrounded by ripples and unintelligible writing of the same colour, as blackened and burning hands reach upwards in fear or supplication - quite the portrayal of the apocalypse for a human, who couldn’t possibly be old enough to have seen it.

       - PICKMAN’s name is a reference to a racist/homophobic story by HOWARD PHILLIP LOVECRAFT, wherein the titular PICKMAN paints fucked up inhuman dog people in regular everyday settings, using photographs as references for his work, and the big twist is that these photographs aren’t of the cityscapes in the background of his work but of the monsters in the foreground - the monsters are real, not drawn from his imagination. if PICKMAN is intended as a reference in more than name, it’s possible that he’s seen some things that should not be.

   - DUNWICH BORERS: very shortly before the war, the mysterious and sinister “MANAGEMENT” were using the quarry as a site for mysterious and sinister rituals.

       - these rituals involved MINI NUKES in some capacity, putting them less than a month (i think) before the apocalypse - i remember when i visited FORT STRONG something that gave me a “huh!” moment was that MINI NUKES had only finished development a month or so before the world ended, so even with how far they spread within that month that’s a narrow window for MANAGEMENT to get their hands on some.

       - in their final message to TIM STOKES, MANAGEMENT stated that they were “very close to accomplishing [their] goal” - of course, it’s possible the ritual failed, but the presence of nuclear weapons and the fact that the world ended in fire within any time period from the same month to the same hour...

      - i had assumed that the ritual involved the use of KREMVH’S TOOTH, the fucked up knife left with two MINI NUKES on the altar, but while making the above gif i looked more closely at the person doing the ritual and noticed that their knife is way too straight to be it, so it’s possible that the TOOTH was a result of the ritual rather than an ingredient. don’t the CHILDREN worship ATOM for its ability to transform?

          - JACK CABOT’s comment about “disturbing geometries, tools not meant for human hands” also springs to mind when contemplating the TOOTH.

  - the CABOTS: LORENZO unearthed an ostentatious helmet from an ancient civilisation, heavily implied to be created by entities beyond the scope of our reality.

       - one of the effects of this object was to make him extremely resistant to radiation, as evidenced by the SERUM that his family bled from him to keep themselves eternally young - a serum so effective against the FOG that it was suggested by the game as a treatment for ANDRE. while i don’t yet know precisely how ATOM’S BLESSING works, this degree of radiation immunity/resistance without the drawbacks of physical mutation doesn’t show up many other places that i’ve seen.

      - it just so happens that HIGH CONFESSOR TEKTUS wears a vaguely similar headdress - far from identical, but close enough in general shape to notice, almost like a budget version constructed by a group without the resources of an apparently advanced civilisation and with slightly different symbology of the deity they worship.

           - another interesting detail: the central symbol of the CHILDREN OF ATOM’s crown (located at the third eye...) is, of course, an atom, with all the symbolism of life and death and power that holds. the centrepiece of LORENZO’s crown, on the other hand, is a scarab - often symbolic of the sun, which, in an equatorial region such as where it was found, often represent many of the same things as the atom in a world defined both by nuclear power and nuclear devastation.

    - and that brings us to the CHILDREN OF ATOM.

        - the CHILDREN, who worship an infinitely powerful deity from between realities, believed to have entered this world by the door of nuclear devastation, and etch their god’s circles and eyes into their possessions and bodies.

        - the CHILDREN, many of whom display an extremely rare immunity to radiation that doesn’t come with a side order of disfigurement (so far all the people who are confirmed to have this ability are the ones not going bald in patches), which they claim is a blessing from their deity.

        - the CHILDREN, who, despite the laughable quality of the nonsense to which they subscribe, still somehow manage to deliver on a surprising amount of what they preach, from the BLESSINGS to the strange effects of the MUSHROOM WATER to somehow remaining an active threat to their enemies despite embracing suffering as a virtue and living in literal filth and poison by choice.

            - i mean, the objective of their religion is to die of radiation poisoning. in order to survive this long, throwing themselves directly at death and missing enough times to make it to the next generation,  they’d need to be insanely, impossibly lucky - or there’d have to be something to their bullshit. even if they don’t actually know what they’re looking at, even if there’s just a pinch, a grain, an atom of truth at the centre of it all.

- with all of this considered, there is one thing of which i am absolutely certain: somehow, this is going to bring me back to the CORVEGA ASSEMBLY PLANT.

[save-the-villainous-cat]

*deep breath, dee* I’m not here to fight…as an avid Tolkien reader, what are your reasons for hating the Hobbit movies? How, pray tell, are they so “terrible”? I’m just curious. That’s all.

Is it the cinematography? The actors? Missing scenes? Give me something here. So many people hate on the movies but never give reasons. It starts to feel like it’s because it’s simply not LOTR- and the fact that there’s an age gap. The Hobbit is baby. LOTR is everyone’s great grandmother who makes you warm cookies every time you visit.

Oh boy, here we go.

Lucky for you, I am an unhinged movie nerd and I have lots of food for you on here…

When we talk about the Hobbit, we also have to talk about Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit got published in 1937 and is a fantasy novel for children. Tolkien wrote this book for his kids, so it was a silly story with a simple moral. An episodic narrative with a message about greed and trust, adding lots of adventure and fun. It’s one of the best-selling books ever written. It’s a classic.

Fellowship of the Ring got published in 1954 and is not intended for children. Simply, Allen & Unwin (Tolkien’s publisher) wanted a sequel to the Hobbit and Tolkien provided with a story that is more mature. Because his kids grew up. And those kids who had read the Hobbit had also grown up. Which made Fellowship a perfect story for those grown-ups/teenagers.

And that’s the thing. Fellowship works as a sequel. The Hobbit does not work as a prequel.

We have two completely different stories here on our hands: a story about a ring a bunch of people would like to have and a story about dwarves fighting over their home and…a bunch of treasure. The central conflicts have nothing to do with each other. The Hobbit doesn’t set up the worldbuilding of middle earth, doesn’t tell the story about Sauron nor the rings. And that is because it is not a prequel. It is its own story with its own central conflict.

This made this book a bit difficult to adapt. We either have the chance to turn this childlike story into a movie or turn it into a trilogy that works as prequels to Lord of the Rings (which they desperately tried to do here). I’m not saying there wasn’t any other way — I think they should’ve let Guillermo del Toro do his two movies (as originally intended) that included the overall spirit of the books and could be their own movies without having to reference Lord of the Rings all of the time but we ended up with three movies that can’t be their own thing because trilogies and because money.

The Hobbit is a relatively short book. Roughly around 95,000 words. Fellowship, just Fellowship is around 187,000 words. And it makes sense to make a movie trilogy out of a book trilogy, especially because those books follow a much more Hollywood structure.

But get this. We take the Hobbit with roughly 95,000 words. And we turn this book into a trilogy which leaves us with nine acts in total. Nine acts which leads to adding a bunch of stuff to fill all the plot points. A bunch of mini climaxes that go nowhere, character movements that come too early or too late, adding characters and subplots that absolutely no one asked for (at least of all the story).

For example, the scene at the end of the first movie where Thorin respects Bilbo is way too early. Their relationship doesn’t evolve at all in the second movie. Sure, they fight or whatever in the third movie but wouldn’t it have made sense to show Thorin’s respect for Bilbo when Bilbo frees the dwarves in the barrel plot point? It was originally set to be there but now that it’s not, the barrel plot point is super weak and doesn’t work for character/relationship development at all. It is there because the plot needs it to be there. Bilbo doesn’t have to prove anything, he just does it because the plot needs him to.

And why is that? Because we needed this little climax at the end of movie one (because storytelling and story structure) where Bilbo, a character who is known for his intelligence, who is — unlike the dwarves — not a fighter, fucking knocks over an orc. Don’t tell me this was character development. If this was character development, then he would’ve started killing orcs in movie two and three. Bilbo is not a fighter. He is characterised by his wits. But because the plot needed him to, he had to do this. Weirdly, he doesn’t really do it again, does he?

Originally, the first movie was supposed to end with the dwarves arriving at Erebor/Laketown with movie two starting with getting into Erebor. Smaug’s death would’ve been the midpoint of movie two. Not the most anticlimactic thing to have ever happened in movie three.

Seriously? You kill the main antagonist before the opening title? What were these guys thinking? The death of the Cumberbatch lizard was supposed to be the thing and they just killed him off in the most anticlimactic way ever, thanks to the structure of turning a little book into three movies.

Which makes us watch a bunch of stupid shit: dwarves are — according to the Desolation of Smaug — fire-resistent, we get scary CGI, we get the White Council because, guys, have you heard of lotr, we get a horrible love triangle, a horrible Tauriel who has no character whatsoever, we get Legolas, because guys, remember this trilogy you liked when you were younger, do you remember lotr, we get a river fight scene that is unnecessary, we get Galadriel x Gandalf for whatever reason, a Beorn chase scene, a random trip to Angmar that leads nowhere, Elijah Wood because, hey guys, do you remember LOTR? We get Radagast with poop on his head because we need to tell the people the forest is dying and something bad is coming because lotr, remember? We need Sauron in here because…wait a minute these movies try to be prequels to Lord of the Rings??

It doesn’t work like this. The Hobbit is episodic and not related to Lord of the Rings plotwise. Yes, Bilbo finds the ring but that is that. Help, the ring is actually evil is the only thing that connects these two stories. Nothing more.

But now, we have these three movies full of stuff that doesn’t make any sense, full of characters that stand for nothing, full of contradictions, full of — sorry — bullshit because we needed three movies and as much lotr in it as possible.

Why is Tauriel there? Why is Legolas here? The Necromancer was a plot device to separate Gandalf from the dwarves (which was important for dwarf/Bilbo bonding time) but now the Necromancer is Sauron? Why? Why?

There is more wrong with this trilogy (and don’t get me started on all the stuff regarding the production/New Zealand) and if you’re interested in that, you should watch Lindsay Ellis’ videos on YouTube. She’s an amazing writer and movie critic — a great inspiration— and sums up my thoughts on it pretty well.

But I hope this is somewhat understandable? As someone who grew up with the Lord of the Rings, I am very passionate about these movies and the nostalgia they give me. It is very sad that we ended up with something like this and not Guillermo’s version. Like…c’mon if I recall correctly, these movies came out in December which makes them perfect Academy material and the Academy loves Guillermo…win win for everybody, but no…

[xenomorphee3]

Flashback to the day Spider was born from my story : )

Snippet from Chapter 10. Mission Issue. I really enjoyed writing this and the entire chapter. Easily one my favorite of my earlier chapters.

Miles continued down the village's central thoroughfare and saw the Tsahik, Ka’uwe, conversing with a woman. This woman had a sling in front of her, in it was a baby, no more than a few weeks old. Ka'uwe was looking at the baby with great joy as the mother was coddling it. Miles stopped to look at this interaction, another memory emerging from the deepest parts of his mind.

[Flashback to when Spider was born]

Colonel Miles Quaritch was a serious and busy man at Hell’s Gate. Overseeing all security operations was a stressful job that carried a lot of weight to it. There were rarely true, sustaining successes, and people died. Not all the time. But not rarely. Pandora was a hostile place. Worse than hell as far as he was concerned because it was real. He started his tour as an unrelenting professional, maintaining proper relationships with his SecOps subordinates, and rarely engaged with those across departments and divisions outside of work-related encounters.

But time wears on a man. Over his fifteen years on Pandora, he found himself seeking companionship. Stress relief. He was only human after all and by all accounts, he was a stud. He was no fool about his needs, and neither were the women of the base. Miles was always careful though and the RDA was certainly realistic and provided various means of birth control. A population of Pandoran-born babies is not something the RDA endorsed.

Paz Socorro was Miles’ most recent lover in a not large, but not small, close-to-the-vest list of women over the last fifteen years. These other women got the assignment. He was as much a fling to them as they were to him, often meeting him mutually drunk after a few rounds in the base bar and dancing around a bit. The other Hell's Gate personnel would pretend they didn’t know what was happening, but it was a small base and word got around. It didn’t matter though. Nothing came from these casual interactions. Until Paz Socorro.

Paz did not intend to get pregnant and was, unfortunately, the victim of that dreaded .1% birth control failure rate. She hid the pregnancy well, only making highly confidential trips to a base doctor who expressed a plethora of concerns about the pregnancy—Pandora's lower gravity, the base's unsuitability for raising children, the countless dangers, and... the potential wrath of the baby's father.

Still, Paz wanted to keep the child, but she waffled for about seven months on whether or not to tell Miles. One day, after realizing it was getting harder to hide, she finally felt compelled to share it. She sent him a message asking him to visit her quarters, that she had something important to tell him in person. Miles got her message and reluctantly obliged and was not stupid about the possibility of what she might disclose to him. He stealthily went to her small, dorm-like room in the officers' quarters late at night. Certain to not be seen.

When he arrived, she had no way to soften the blow of what to tell him. So she just let it out. “I’m pregnant. You’re the father.”

His reaction was not what any mother-to-be would prefer. He looked at her stomach, the pregnancy showing if you looked for it, and became enraged. He held in his anger's volume the best he could to not disturb her sleeping neighbors. But he was upset. He vocally blamed her for letting this happen, but he knew she was on birth control. Really he blamed himself. He knew that for all of his messing around, it was only a matter of time before such a thing happened.

And her waiting this long made it clear to him that she was planning on keeping it and so he did not press that question. He simply made it clear to Paz that he did not care. That if anyone asked who the father was, she would not implicate him. Her and Miles’ child would be the first human baby born on Pandora and despite this historical milestone, he wanted nothing to do with it. At the time.

On the day Spider was to be born, via an induced labor at the eight-month mark, Paz sent Miles a memo that she was going to go into labor. He ignored it. He already told her he didn’t care and he was busy preparing for the arrival of a Valkyrie full of new RDA employees. The ISV Venture Star was soon approaching Pandora's orbit and would be decelerating soon, and as such would be arriving in a few weeks.

He was organizing SecOps assignments for the new security personnel and preparing his safety briefing. It doesn’t change much each time he gives it, he likes putting fear into the new folks, but it’s been a while since the last new crew arrived. Miles also made a special note of the paralyzed Marine on the Venture Star's manifest that was to be working with the science pukes as an Avatar driver, re-remembering Parker having approved his appointment six years ago. This kid may present an opportunity for him.

Miles was organizing these assignments on his holo-screen monitor at his office desk when he saw the little blinking new message icon. Another message from Paz. He ignored it for a moment but suddenly felt compelled to open it, unable to suppress his curiosity. He tapped the icon.

“It’s a boy. 5 lbs 6 ounces. His name is Miles.”

Miles?? Really? She named this kid after me? Why would she fucking do that? He turned off his monitor in frustration, the screen now clear and transparent, and he just sat at his desk, perplexed and angry, sweating through his tank. Miles needed some air. He decided he was going to go take a walk around the base in his AMP suit to clear his head. As he was heading down to the mech hangar, he ran into Corporal Lyle Wainfleet and Private Sean Fike in the hallway. They were chatting about hazing the incoming new recruits.

Miles walked by and said, “Marines.”

The two of them went to attention. “Sir," responded both.

“I want you on your best behavior when the new folks arrive in a few weeks. This place is already hell. Try not to make it worse, would ya?” he remarked, a forced light tone about him.

“Yes, sir,” Wainfleet replied with a smirk.

Miles continued to the mech hangar and passed the entrance to the medical bay wing. But as he walked past it he staggered for a moment. The med-bay was where Paz... and her baby were. He turned around and looked at the clear, sliding doors for a moment and thought to himself, no, no. He continued walking… The Colonel then clenched his jaw, let out a frustrated sigh, and, against his wishes for himself, decided to head into the med-bay. Mad that he felt so compelled.

He was stealthy, looking around clearly trying not to be seen by too many doctors and the few injured Hell's Gate personnel. Out of nowhere, a female doctor saw him and said, “Room 217.”

“Excuse me?” Miles snapped.

“Room. Two-seventeen,” she spoke again, firm, unbothered by the aggressive and muscular Head of Security. Miles caught her drift, glared, and marched past her. She looked at him with disappointment as he walked by.

He approached room 217 and to his surprise, he noticed that it wasn’t where Paz was. Rather, it was a room with a big glass window that allowed one to look inside. In this room was a little glass tank on a metal stand—it was a makeshift incubator.

There he was. Miles Socorro. Miles wasn’t immediately moved by the sight, but after a moment of seeing this little, bundled-up, slightly premature baby move around in there, Miles softened. But he couldn’t get involved. Wouldn’t get involved. Not at this time. There were the arriving recruits he had to prepare for, and he had far too much to do. Not to mention the ever-growing hostility from the local Na'vi tribe, and pressure from the RDA on both him and Parker to do something about it so they could access other major unobtanium deposits in the region, the greatest of which was under the hostiles' home.

There was so much more to be concerned about than this needy little baby. The lives of good men and women were in his hands. The entire base’s well-being was his responsibility and soon there were going to be new RDA employees who would rely on him to orient them to the dangers of Pandora. After all, he knows what it’s like to get messed up on Day One.

This child was a distraction. One that he would not let into his life. He took a look at Miles, his son, tightened his lips together, frowned, and left. He ran into the same doctor who told him about the room. He locked eyes with her and said nothing as he brushed by. She looked at him walking away with a mild disgust, but also a sadness.

[Flashforward to Miles in the village of the Ash People]

This memory deeply hurt Miles. The father that he could have and should have been. Starting from that moment. But also many more moments after that including, most critically, not assigning every abled body pilot to the Tree of Souls bomb run mission. Here he felt true sorrow. Paz was barely six months postpartum. He asked for every pilot, and as far as he could recall, she never submitted an off request. And he would have allowed it if she asked. But she never did... and he doesn't know why.

He thought that the mission was going to be a surefire success of course, but that’s no excuse. It was still a dangerous mission. She would be in a Scorpion, not the Dragon Assault Ship that he was typically protected by. Miles had no idea how she truly died since he didn't have memories of that battle. However, she is dead because of him. And his son, Spider, exists and was orphaned on an alien moon because of him. He stood there, paralyzed by these memories, staring at this little gray-blue Ash Na’vi child in its mother's arms.

Read more : )

[postalvalhalla]

Movies

Watched Raya and the Last Dragon a few weeks ago.  It was... okay.  I like the world building, but they don’t have time to explore the world properly or to develop any of the characters.  The movie’s two biggest flaws are -- far too ambitious, doesn’t take time to develop anything, and the central message is really messed up, essentially “always place faith in others, even if they’ve betrayed you repeatedly and never apologized”.  I mean, I don’t THINK that was the lesson they intended but that’s it in a nutshell.

On Dec 30th I watched Lightyear.  This was a good movie, I think, but I kind of agree that it fails in its central premise -- it’s supposed to be a space adventure featuring Buzz Lightyear that would inspire the toys that appear in the Toy Story movies, but it’s a dark, brooding story with very little adventure (takes place entirely on one planet) and involves Buzz slowly losing his friends and everyone he knows.  Not exactly a light-hearted space romp.  But if you forget it’s supposed to have been a children’s movie, it’s a fine movie for what it is.

Tom came over on New Year’s Eve and we watched two films that he brought -- The Mitchells Vs. the Machines, and Bad Guys.  Both are pretty good films, i think.  I enjoyed them.  I’d heard that Bad Guys was a good film but I really hadn’t heard anything about the Mitchells movie and had no expectations -- but it was very entertaining, a good film.

I decided to watch Lilo & Stitch last night.  I kind of play a game in my head sometimes, where I imagine that I’m explaining the present or recent history to someone from the past.  Recently I’d watched a video ranking all of the Disney animated films -- every single one of them -- and I’d kind of imagined what it might be like to show that to Walt Disney.  What would he think of the Disney  renaissance?  Pixar?  Computer animation?  The whole Disney Princess promotional line?

So I watched Lilo & Stitch with that in mind -- what would an old Disney person or Walt Disney himself think about this movie?  It’s a very anti-Disney movie in a way -- broken family, girl who acts out and is kind of weird and is as far from a Disney princess as possible -- and an alien creature who is even more destructive.  I think these mind games of mine are just a way to try and appreciate something I like from a different point of view, or to see if it’s really as good as I think it is.

I still love Lilo & Stitch.  It’s a great film, and I appreciate how it was a Disney film showcasing real Hawaii before they made Moana.  And Stitch is pretty awesome.

So I thought, there were sequels, maybe I would like those?  I usually ignore Disney’s direct-to-video sequels, but I like these characters so maybe they’d be fun to check out?  It turns out there are technically three sequel movies plus a 65 episode television series, all of which came out just a few years after the movie.

Technically, Lilo & Stitch 2:  Stitch has a Glitch is the real sequel to the original movie, but it came out after a different sequel movie and it’s reportedly the least interesting of all the sequels.

Stitch!  The Movie came out a year after the original movie.  The third film is Leeroy & Stitch.  These two films bookend the television series -- the first serves as a prequel to the tv series, and the second is a finale, and the entire thing (two movies and tv series) is kind of an alternate universe to Lilo & Stitch 2.

Anyway, it turns out that the television series was on streaming platforms but has never been released to dvd/blue ray in the U.S.  So I’m undecided if i want to take a dip into the sequels at all, given that two of them bookend a tv series I can’t watch, and the other is considered the weakest of  them all.  You can get the tv series as a Japanese region 2 import, for which you need a special dvd player to watch, and it’s in Japanese with subtitles.  Also, confusingly, there was an anime series made for Lilo & Stitch, and a Chinese tv series.  I’d kind of like to see those as well, but if I can’t even watch the television series that was made for the U.S. market, there’s no chance of seeing the others.

Watching all of those review videos on Youtube (I also watched all Pixar movies ranked, and several other animation studios) makes me want to rewatch certain films again, especially the best of Pixar and Disney.  So maybe that’s what I’ll be doing the rest of January.  ^_^

[violettelueur]

— JUJUTSU KAISEN EPISODE FIVE || CURSE WOMB MUST DIE II 

↳ featuring : itadori yuji + fushiguro megumi + kugisaki nobara + gojo satoru + ryomen sukuna + zenin maki + inumaki toge + panda from jujutsu kaisen

↳ warnings : swearing + violence + mention of blood + mention of organ + mention of death + EXTREME grammar issues

↳ form : story

↳ published : 24 february

↳ pronouns : she/her

↳ word count : 4.8k

↳ synopsis : within the jujutsu world, there were three famous clans to be aware of, the Kamo clan, Zenin clan and the Gojo clan. However, unknown to many sorcerers there was one last family that was known to be apart of the three, only for them to disappear after the golden era leading some to speculate that they had died in battle after the sealing of ryomen sukuna, but....

↳ previous episode : curse womb must die I

↳ next episode : after rain

↳ barista’s notes : back again with another episode of jujutsu kaisen everyone ╲ʕ·ᴥ·　╲ʔ and we have ended the detention centre arc and now will be moving on to the training arc! isn’t that crazy, you have finished episode five ʕ ᵒ ᴥ ᵒʔ i’m not really good with fight scenes, so if you care confused, don’t hesitant to ask me anything to clarify! WE ALSO FINALLY MEET THE SECOND-YEARS!

BEFORE READING, I NEED YOU TO BE AWARE OF THIS:

1. the whole story belongs to Gege Akutami and the credits go to them and them only

2. the spell curses used belong to Tite Kubo due to them being the ‘Kidos’ being used on the manga and anime ‘Bleach’ - but none is mentioned in this chapter

2.5 for the ‘cursed spells’/kidos (bleach) i will link this video here and tell you the time stamp to check out what i am intending to show - remember i add a few twist here and there by adding the katana to link with Y/N’s cursed technique 

Destructive Curse Spell number four: Byakurai : 3:35-3:40

Sentan Hakuja : Wiki Page

‘Cursed Energy Web Technique’ : video (4:23-5:27)

3. if you are confused on anything, please don’t hesitate to message me since i know this whole thing is so confusing

“If you can, please send a grade one sorcerer or higher but that won’t be necessary if I don't die,” you sternly commented, leading both Fushiguro and Ijichi to shiver at the statement you just announced.

Still shaken at what you had just said, Ijichi sent himself off before closing the window to prevent any cold raindrops from coming at him as he drove away from the area you and Fushiguro were standing in right now.

“If you don’t want to listen to me, I ain’t going to listen to you at all then Fushiguro,” you stated with a frown painted on your face before looking back at the building behind his body.

Taking your katana, you looked at the bottom of the handle to find a metal loop at the bottom with a red charm tied before it was simply slowly unwinded by you as you prepared for the worst that was about to come.

“What are you doing L/N?” Fushiguro asked in a worried tone, causing you to turn to look at him with a deadpan expression.

“Just preparing for the worst Fushiguro”

                                               ꕥ

The rain was still unsettled as you stared at the building of the detention centre that was in front of you with a nonchalant look present on your face. Carefully, you hook your katana on the side of your left hip rather than the usual spot of your back since you knew you were going to need extremely quick access to your weapon if your prediction of what was going to happen was going to become a reality.

Suddenly, there was a swift but noticeable change in the air causing you to grab Fushiguro’s sleeve to pull him closer to you in case of any attacks that would happen since he was standing behind you, out of your central view.

“The Innate Domain’s closed off, the special-grade is dead!” Fushiguro stated to you in a shocked but quiet tone, causing the grip you had on his sleeve to tighten since the feeling in the pit of your stomach was becoming agonising to the point where you wanted to vomit it out.

Yet, you weren’t fearful for yourself but rather the wellbeing of the shikigami user behind you and the classmate, who was still inside the building at this current moment in time.

“We just need Itadori to return safely now,” Fushiguro hopefully whispered, yet you had given no response since you knew that the chance of the mentioned classmate coming back with himself out rather than Sukuna was extremely low.

“That’s almost impossible, from what I can recall, him and Sukuna haven’t even agreed to a bi-” you began to explain, only for a sudden aggressive presence to stop you in your tracks to which Fushiguro also felt as you both froze on the stop you both were standing in right now.

“Sorry, but he’s not coming back”

A familiar voice from behind you spoke leading to both of you and Fushiguro to freeze on the stop before you came to the sense that what you had predicted was proven right. However, you didn’t foresee that he was coming straight to the both of you, even when he had threatened it clearly before Fushiguro dragged you away to search for Kugisaki.

“Don’t be so frightened, I’m in a good mood right now, let’s chat for a bit,” Sukuna calmly mentioned as he processed to make his appearance in front of you both since you refused to look in the opposite direction.

“This is what he gets for trying to use me without any kind of pact, feels like he’s having some trouble switching back,” Sukuna pronounced as he turned to the side.

‘To be honest, it was surprising for him to switch back after eating the finger without the pact’ you thought before letting out of Fushiguro’s sleeve once you was comfortable that he was out of harm's way, ‘besides that should be enough cursed energy for now,’ you internally spoke before taking a quick glance on the same area where you hand was as you processed to place the same hand on the handle of your katana.

“Still, though it’s only a matter of time,” Sukuna stated, as he gripped onto Itadori’s school jacket before unexpectantly ripping into shreds to showcase his muscular upper body, revealing the strange back marking he adorned on his chest.

“So, I thought about what I can do right now,” the King of Curses uttered before raising his hand to suddenly puncture a hole within the middle of his check, shocking both you and Fushiguro from his gruesome action as hints of blood started to pour from the corner of his lips.

‘Shit! I haven’t finished preparing,’ you pondered in a panic manner, as your hand was still on your weapon’s handle, transferring some of your cursed energy to your katana, making sure it had reached to the tip of the blade within the wooden casing for what you were planning to execute.

“Wh-what are you..” Fushiguro stuttered as he looked at the scene in complete horror, only for a massive pool of blood to pour in the middle between Sukuna’s legs before forcibly ripping out the most vital organ needed for Itadori to come back alive.

“I’m taking this brat hostage,” Sukuna declared, as he proudly and sadistically presented the heart he had taken out to you and Fushiguro, causing you to internally become repulsed at the scene since you still needed to concentrate shifting a tiny amount of cursed energy needed to your katana.

“Hostage?!” Fushiguro snarled as he shifted back slightly.

“Yeah, I can live without this, but that ain’t true for the brat,” Sukuna informed you and Fushiguro, as he then tossed the heart to the side like it was a piece of trash he needed to get rid of quickly.

“Switching out with me means he dies. Also, for good measure,” Sukuna mentioned before revealing a finger in his hand causing you to look at the cursed object he had just now swallowed with widened eyes.

‘I thought it wasn’t his finger that the special-grade curse consumed! Fuck!’

“With that, I'm free as a bird, you can be frightened now, I’ll kill you both for no particular reason,” Sukuna declared as he flexed his hand leading you to rapidly unleash your blade from its black wooden casing for the first time since the unfortunate day as you were now prepared to fight against the King of Curses.

“Our positions are reversed now,” Fushiguro muttered under his breath (to which you heard) before he determinedly looked at the curse right in front of him as he positioned himself in a fighting stance causing a wave of anxiety to consume you.

‘One of his divine dogs are already down, if he risks another shikigami, that possibly will also get destroyed in the process’

“You just don’t get it, he’s..Itadori’s coming back even if that means he’ll die, that’s just who he is,” Fushiguro determinedly stated while staring down at Sukuna.

“You give him too much credit, this guy’s just a little tougher and denser than other humans” Sukuna countered back with a smirk on his face before processing to wipe off the blood staining his lip with the back of his hand. 

“Just a moment ago, he was scared out of his mind, on the verge of death and prattling on about his regrets and all that nonsense, I know for a fact he doesn’t have the guts to kill himself,” Sukuna taunted as he smiles smugly at both of you.

‘A special-grade has the ability to used Reserve Cursed Techniques, so it wouldn’t be hard for him to use it on his heart, I just need to slide down somewhere around his chest area to force him to do that’

Shifting your eyes to the side, you noticed Fushiguro’s hands were shaking leading you to internally sigh since you knew he was thinking the same idea as you, while probably debating the fact on how he could make Sukuna revive his heart before Itadori switches back as well as how he was going to battle against a special-grade.

“Should I make the first move then?” you rhetorically asked, before swiftly throwing your katana towards Sukuna like it was a spear, only for him to dough the weapon even at its immense speed.

“You think that was going to hit me?! Maybe you ain’t the fighting type as I suggested!” Sukuna roared in amusement, not noticing how you seemingly suddenly grabbed onto thin air (like you were holding onto a hanging support handle on a bus) before pulling your arm back in a fast motion, resulting in the attacking blade unexpectedly return back to you as quick as it was thrown, for it to then slash a massive slit on Sukuna’s cheek causing the curse to look at you in complete surprised before you swiftly moved forwards towards him, grabbing the handle of the travelling blade to attempt to slash down on your targeted area, only for Sukuna to dodge as quickly as he could.

‘Damn, but that should be fine for now’

However, before you could even attempt to get another chance of getting a slit around his check area, you heard incoming footsteps from your side leading you to deck down as you suddenly saw a leg swing above your head, indicating to you that Fushiguro had made a move to attack the cursed vessel, yet once again Sukuna managed to dodge against as well as the incoming punches that came along with Fushiguro’s attempts.

“Interesting, not only the girl managed to injure me but you use shikigami, but you’ll still come at me yourself?” Sukuna questioned, as he seemed amused at both of you and Fushiguro.

However, before he could mention another word there was a light pressure placed on his right shoulder causing him to turn back, only to find you in a lower stance with your index and middle finger to be pressed upon his shoulder blade.

“Destructive Curse Spell number four: Byakurai,” you chanted, before a high-density of cursed energy was discharged from the tip of your index finger to form a concentrated bolt of lighting leading it to pierce a noticeable hole on Sukuna’s shoulder surprising him as well as Fushiguro, since you angled it well away from him getting hit before you once again attempted to swing your katana down upon his back to execute your plan only for him to dodge it come again.

‘Fuck sake! You make it so easy to hit you the first time but when I want to slice you down, you suddenly dodge it!’

However, before you could use another cursed spell, a shikigami made its way to attack Sukuna leading you to discover it was Nue only for Sukuna to once again avoid the strike of its sharp talons before Fushiguro aims to get a hit at Sukuna, only for the King of Curses to block them with his arms. Yet you couldn’t help but internally smile the second you saw the wrist that you were holding onto earlier had made contact with Sukuan’s arms.

‘If plan A doesn’t work out, B will do just fine for now’

However, your hint of internal happiness quickly ended once you saw Fushiguro take a hit from Sukuna’s fist causing hints of blood to escape from his mouth leading you to quickly stand up straight as you rushed over to the scene. Yet, before you could even attempt to attack the curse again, you felt a presence underneath you causing your body to instinctively move again before a large snake appeared from the ground catching Sukuna within its mouth lifting him in the air as he was stunned with surprise at the fact of his sneak attack.

“Gang up on him!” Fushiguro yelled out to his shikigami, leading Nue’s wings to surround itself with purple lightning as it attempted to land a hit on Sukuna, only for him to duck at the right moment before it tried again, only for it to have the same result.

“Fushiguro, deactivate the snake now before it’s destroyed!” you screamed at your fighting partner. However, before he even got the message you suddenly saw fragments of what seemed to be the snake’s skin falling down in front of you before noticing Sukuna was already behind Fushiguro, tightly gripping onto the back of his dark blue sorcerer jacket.

“Hey, what did I just say? Let’s use the open space!” Sukuna shouted, before aggressively flinging Fushiguro up in the air before following the sorcerer himself, leaving you behind to witness his inhuman strength.

‘Shit, they’re going to get to the edge of the evacuation area!’

Reaching into the depths of your skirt pocket, you quickly pulled out a long, white cloth before letting it spin around you at a large radius as it slowly began to enclose the gaps that were making you visible to the world.

‘Sentan Hakuja,’ you internally chanted before the cloth coiled you complete before speedily teleporting you in front to what seemed to be like a construction site or an abandoning building, you weren’t quite sure. However, what you were sure of was that Fushiguro and Sukuna hadn’t noticed that you had arrived despite the vast entrance you had made from your cursed technique - but what you were most afraid of was the fact the Nue was gone, causing you to worry at the fact that now that shikigami was destroyed.

“What a waste of talent, but the girl back at that place, she knows how to use her technique extremely well,” Sukuna announced, causing Fushiguro to look at the King of Curses in both confusion as well as frustration at the fact he had mentioned you, worried if he was about to get killed, Sukuna would hunt you down next.

“Whatever, either way, that won’t be enough to fix this, you’re risking your life over stupid shit,” Sukuna stated as he pointed the hole on his chest. However, it seemed like you had enough of the conversation.

“Activate!” you yelled out before stabbing your katana to the ground, causing both males to turn around to finally notice you. However, it was too late for Sukuna to have the opportunity to counter what you were doing as he felt something restraining his arm’s movement before noticing what seemed to be a blue web-like strand attached to both his shoulders, yet when he turned to you, you seemed to be in the same situation but with one arm free.

“L/N!” Fushiguro yelled out in a panic before noticing that you were not at all afraid but rather calm despite the situation that you both were in now.

“What is this?” Sukuna questioned, as he observed the web-like structure you had created only for you to glance at him with a deadpan expression on your face.

“It’s just a simple web I created from pure cursed energy that is retaining the both of us right now,” you answered as you continued to peer at the confused King of Curses, who was trying to rip away from the strand-like he had with the shikigami snake, only to no avail as he struggled to move his whole upper body in general.

“How come? You didn’t touch me except for the cursed technique you used?!” Sukuna roared as he glared at you only for you to then let out a sigh of frustration.

‘It’s such a drag to explain…’

“I transferred some of my cursed energy to Fushiguro’s wrist as well as to my katana, so when they made contact with you, it allowed me to connect the strands of the web to those areas where you had been hit, also the protective spell I placed on the back of Itadori’s neck before we went in the detention centre was surprisingly still intact, allowing me to track you and the chain at the end of my katana to restain you further,” you thoroughly explained, before clicking your fingers causing the sudden but slow reveal of the long black chain (attached at the end of your handle - on the metal loop where the red charm was) that you had concealed with your cursed energy to appear surrounding you and Sukuna at a large radius while the extra length was tightly wrapped around his upper body.

“That was how I pulled my katana back at the beginning of the fight if that’s what you were also wondering,” you commented, leading Sukuna to look at you with a larger smirk than what you thought his reaction would have been.

“You possess such intellect, such skill, such power and such talent and yet you refuse to go against me with your full potential, are you mocking me?” Sukuna asked, before laughing causing you to look at him suspiciously, yet you couldn’t let that bother you at all, right now all you needed was for Itadori to switch back even if he was going to die.

“Even though I technically didn’t save you, Fushiguro did but I would like to give my answer I guess,” you commented before running your hands through your wet hair trying to push away the strands that were concealing your vision slightly. 

“I should have exorcised you back then, in fact it’s my duty as part of the L/N Clan to, but I know you’re a good person at heart Itadori, I knew that since the day I saw you back at school and probably Fushiguro saw that as well when he decided to save you,” you explained with a smile, as you began to notice the markings gradually disappear from his face and body causing you to slowly deactivate the cursed energy web that was immobilising you and Itadori while the chain that was coiled around him slowly began to loosen its grip on him.

“It was for selfish and emotional reasons but that’s fine though,” Fushiguro stated as his posture relaxed once he noticed that you were slowly lowering your guard, “I’m not a hero, I’m a jujutsu sorcerer, so I’ve never once regretted saving you,” he then announced with a smile on his face.

Suddenly, itadori looked at you with a smile on his face before turning to look at Fushiguro, who was behind him. “I see, you really are smart, Fushiguro, Gojo,  you’ve put more thought into this than I have,” Itadori mentioned with a smile, as he pushed his hair back, “I think your conviction’s a proper one, but I don’t think mine is wrong, either,”.

Suddenly, more blood started to drip down from his wound causing you to move forwards to make sure that Itadori didn’t fall down completely. “Oh, sorry, I’m almost done for, guess I won’t have to worry you guys, Kugisaki, or Gojo-sensei, live a long life,” Itadori faintly stated to you both before falling straight into your arms causing you to fall to your knees due to his heavyweight causing your skirt and high-knee socks to become soaked in the rain that already bathed your hair and face.

The rain only grew heavily as seconds went by, only reflecting on the disappointment and devastation that was coming from both you and Fushiguro, as you both stayed silent letting the rain consume you both for the time being.

Maybe after the rain, he might come back.

‘Please come back’

                                               ꕥ

“So you had your suspicions?” you questioned your adopted father, as you leaned against the railing of the balcony, while he stood next to you leaning against the same railing.

“There was a special grade there, sending the first-years to rescue five who may or may not be alive is out of order, even if you are capable of exorcising it Y/N,” Gojo explained causing you to realise where this was going.

“So what you are saying is, since you indefinitely suspended Itadori’s execution, that got some higher-ups upset, leading us to go do that mission, in order for Itadori to be killed?” you suggested, leading Gojo to turn silent at your comment, leading you to get the answer you were expecting even if no words were exchanged.

“You’re strong though Y/N, you effortlessly fought like Sukuna was just a normal curse,” Gojo complimented you, only for you to give him no response since it was not a good time for you to be praised.

You failed at saving Itadori.

“As a special grade like your father, I need you to look out for Megumi and Nobara for a while, train them to the best of your abilities since we got an event coming up!” Gojo cheered, leading you to present him with a glare.

‘What a drag...I really can’t be bothered to be in an event’

“I’m going to check on the others Gojo-sensei, I’ll see you later,” you stated before standing on the feet as you than processed to walk away with your hand up, as a way to wave him ‘goodbye’.

“Call me dad for once Y/N~” Gojo shouted, leading you to groan in annoyance before making your way to the entrance, where you knew Fushiguro and Kugisaki were since Gojo did take you away from them when he found you sitting with them on the stone steps near the entrance of the school.

After some time, you finally managed to reach your destination as you found yourself standing at the top of the extra steps above your classmates, before noticing a few new faces further below, leading you to become perplexed since you weren’t expecting any other sorcerers to come by today - well...that’s what Gojo said.

“Don’t tell me the other student died as well?” the female sorcerer question, leading you to look in her direction in confusion since she seemed a little familiar to you for some reason.

‘Ah, she was the person I saw when I moved into the dorm, but she didn’t really see me’

“I’m right here,” you commented, leading to everyone that was in your view to look up at your direction to find you standing with your arms crossed before you steadily made your way down the steps as you processed to stand a step above between Fushiguro and Kugisaki, who were still seated on the same spot they were in when you had left them for a few minutes.

“You don’t even have a scratch on you,” the female sorcerer commented, as she noticed you didn’t have any patches or bandages like the other two first-years had once you observed you.

“She’s a strong sorcerer,” Fushiguro commented, leading you to kick his back before commenting that he was a strong sorcerer as well.

“Ah! Are you the special grade, Gojo was mentioning about?” the large Panda asked, causing you to give him a glance before answering, “I don’t believe I’m a special-grade sorcerer but if that what my drag ass of an adoptive dad ranked me, then I guess I am,”.

“Who are you guys?” you then asked since it seemed like they had already done their introductions for Kugisaki. Although, it seemed like your female classmate was in the same sort of confusion as you since she noted to you that she had no idea who the fellow sorcerers were.

“Our second-year upperclassmen,” Fushiguro nonchalantly answered before he continued by introducing them to you and Kugisaki.

“Zenin-senpai is the best of all the students at wielding cursed tools, that’s the Cursed Speech user, Inumaki-senpai, he can only speak in ingredients of onigiri and that’s panda senpai,” Fushiguro introduced everyone causing some questions to manifest in your head.

‘Zenin ha?..she doesn’t seem like the one that my mum was talking about, so I don’t have to suspect her but is there anything else to add for Panda-senpai?’

“There’s one more, Okkotsu-senpai, who is the only one I can openly respect, but he’s overseas right now,” Fushiguro added, before slowly standing on his two feet.

“You’re not adding more about the panda named Panda?” Kugisaki asked as she looked up at the shikigami user to gain some information, only to be ignored.

“Man, sorry about this and when you’re in mourning...please forgive us for that,” Panda apologised before placing his hands together as a sign to be forgiven, even though that sign reminded you about something else.

‘Ah...that’s the same hand gesture for one of my cursed spells’

“The truth is, we’d like you to participate in the Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event,” Panda explained, causing you to recall about an ‘event’ Gojo had mentioned to you.

“Oh, that’s what he meant,” you whispered before Kugisaki interrupted you by repeating the event’s name in confusion.

“What’s that?” Kugisaki asked as she turned to Fushiguro looking for the answer.

“It’s a get-together with the other Tech school in Kyoto, though isn’t that event mainly second and third-years?” the erratic-haired sorcerer answered your classmate before questioning the invitation since all of you were first-years.

“And those stupid third-years are suspended right now, so you need to participate,” Zenin explained, causing you to look to the side with an annoyed expression on your face since you realised that this meant you had to cover up your tracks more than you were bothered to do.

“What do you do at this event? Smash Bros? I won’t lose if it’s the Wii version, I’ll Meteor Smash so you can’t come back” Kugisaki randomly mentioned with a determined look on her face as she formed a fist, causing you to look in her direction with a confused face since you didn’t know how she came to that conclusion in the first place.

“Then let’s make a 3-man team, the exchange event has the principals of the Tokyo and Kyoto schools each propose a form of competition to be held for an entire day over the course of two days, though that’s how it is on paper,” Panda informed you and Kugasaki, who were oblivious to what this event was in general.

“Every year, the first day is a team battle, and the second day is individual battles,” Panda explained, leading Inumaki to agree with him by saying ‘salmon’ as his confirmation to his classmates' explanation.

“Individual and team battles? We fight?! Against other jujutsu sorcerers?!” Kugisaki shouted after realising what the event really entailed, causing you to look at her before lightly smacking the back of her head.

“You just realised that?” you asked in a dumbfounded tone.

“Yeah, it’s a jujutsu battle where anything but killing goes,” Zenin confirmed with a huge grin causing you internal sigh at the fact that you had to hide the use of your cursed technique since that would blow your cover entirely.

“We’ll train you up well so you won’t get killed. Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Panda declared before he started to throw some air punched after every ‘yeah’ he said.

“Wait, do you have time for that? I thought we were short on jujutsu sorcerers,” Kugisaki asked since she concluded that there were only six of you right now.

“That’s a good question, For now, we are. The glim emotions people harbour from late winter through spring cause an outburst of curses in the early summer, so that’s our busy season,” Panda explained as Zenin then explained that some sorcerers are busy all year long, but since things are settling down soon, it should be fine.

“So, you’ll do it, right? You just had a partner die on you, after all,” Zenin asked, as she was waiting for all your responses.

“We’re in!” Fushiguro and Kugisaki simultaneously answered with determined looks on their faces before turning back to look at you, waiting for your answer.

Letting out a sigh of frustration, you knew that you had no way out of this since they looked so motivated for you to join, even if you disagreed with them.

“This is such a drag, but fine, I’ll join in too,” you replied with a small smile on your face leading them to nod at you before turning back to your seniors.

“But if I decided this training and exchange event is pointless, I’m quitting instantly,” Kugisaki mentioned.

“Same here,” Fushiguro commented, causing you to kick both of them on the back much to their surprise.

“So you drags make me do this event, only for you to dip when it’s pointless for you, besides I heard there are some interesting sorcerers in the Kyoto side, so prepare yourselves,” you stated before stepping down the few steps you were in front of before standing between them.

“Well, people this cocky are all more worthwhile to train,” Panda mentioned with his arms folded with a determined look on his face.

“Bonito flakes,” Inumaki said in a softer tone.

Looking up to the sky, you couldn’t help but brisk in the sunlight that was shining lightly down upon you, leading you to raise your hand over your face in order to not be blinded.

‘I wonder how I’m going to hide from this one now?’

© violettelueur 2021 : written and published by violettelueur - do not steal or repost

[bthump]

I wanted to touch on the whole gutsca thing with someone (I know zero people in this fandom so you're my lucky pick!). Am I alone in feeling like their first time together came out of no where? My meta with Guts is that he was not at all comfortable with sex at that time of his life (this instance being his first time [outside of the rape he experienced as a child]). His choice of words too, "here I go", translated to me like someone only doing what they felt was expected of them rather than something he was yearning for. He clearly wasn't even ready given how rough he was and how he regressed and attacked her. This moment seemed very forced and almost rang to me like Kentaro's declaration of "no homo though". I would be curious to know how Kentaro felt about homosexuality (bisexuality, etc) and if he ever addressed the ever blatant gay tension and romantic-non-platonic-love blossoming between Guts and Griffith pre-eclipse. I do get the sense that this may be a case of severe queer baiting or perhaps a PSA against gay love altogether ("falling for a man will literally destroy you and send you and everyone you love to hell" type of message); but I'm a very jaded person so I hope to be proven wrong. Sigh, my point being Gutsca seems pretty dang forced and empty of true development. I buy them more as besties than anything romantic. Especially since both he and Casca are actually in love with Griffith (what a fucking triangle!). Does anyone in fandom have any opinions on the sad possibility of this whole beautiful and ultimately tragic love between Griffith and Guts actually being a fucked up anti-gay PSA? Are there any interviews with Kentaro shooting this theory down so I can stop being sad and bitter about it? What are your thoughts?

Thanks for sending this, I'm definitely down to talk about it! I hope you connect with more people in the fandom but don’t worry about sending random asks even if you do lol.

Anyway you’re definitely not alone. I have a lot of thoughts on Guts and Casca's hook up, and they're all pretty much "it feels really forced and not particularly romantic but I think you can argue that that's deliberate" lol. For instance I discuss in a lot of detail here how various aspects of the scene indicate that Guts and Casca having sex is shown to be a case of both of them rebounding from Griffith and sort of giving to each other what they were unable or failed to give to him.

And I talk a lot about how Judeau essentially orchestrates it all and what that suggests about Guts and Casca's relationship here.

And lol sorry for all the links but also this post is about how their relationship feels one-sided to an extent and is used to illuminate a lot of Guts' flaws, using Judeau as a comparison point.

Oh shit and also one more lol, here's a comparison between the sex scene and Griffith's with Charlotte that suggests that both start as ways for the dudes to repress their feelings.

(Don't feel obligated to read all those posts if you don't want, you should get the gist of what I'm saying w/ those descriptions.)

But yeah basically I do think that Guts and Casca getting together felt forced and awkward. At best it might be intended to be seen that way, as two friends hooking up awkwardly in an emotionally intense moment but probably doomed to failure because neither of them are ready for a relationship with the other, or particularly interested in one deep down, once they finished "licking wounds." At worst it’s just bad writing lol. But again like I think there are good arguments for the former.

I also totally agree that their relationship has a strong vibe of doing what's expected. Like for real, at least to me both Guts and Casca read so easily as gay and repressed lol. Casca talks about her feelings for Griffith in terms of “he was a boy she was a girl can I make it any more obvious”

and I can’t help but see it as Casca like, wow I have strong feelings towards Griffith, he’s a man and I’m a woman, so clearly these feelings must be romantic, there’s no other option. Then when she has sex with Guts she keeps contextualizing it essentially as repayment for Guts saving her, like she owes him. “I too want a wound I can say you gave me.” “Not just being given to... maybe I can give something as well.” Which just doesn’t make her desire for him look all that genuine lol.

And then you have Guts. The way he tells Casca that from the start only her touch was okay with him after he has sex with her, referencing the scene when he wakes up with her on top of him and starts to panic before realizing she’s a woman, is soooo suggestive of repression to me. Like, first off because it’s incorrect, he was also okay with Griffith going in for a face-grab after winning a duel Guts had been projecting his rape trauma all over, which seems like a pretty conspicuous omission. And secondly because the reason he was okay with Casca’s touch specifically is solely because she’s a woman, not because she’s special or because they have a magic romantic connection - it’s because she’s not a man. To me that just screams that Guts was open to sex with Casca because she’s the only woman he knows, and he’s afraid of the idea of physical intimacy with men, regardless of what he might actually want deep down.

So yeah that’s basically how I feel about Guts and Casca’s relationship, strong agree with you.

When it comes to Miura’s intent, I can tell you that Miura was asked about the subtext in an interview once, back in 2000, and he responded with something along the lines of ‘two men can have passionate feelings for each other without it being romantic.’ The interview is here, but this is a paraphrase the translator mentioned in the comments.

Other than that I’ve never seen him address it directly, but on the flipside he has cited several textually gay stories as inspiration (off the top of my head: Kaze to Ki no Uta, Devilman, Guin Saga, mangaka Moto Hagio in general), and he has straightforwardly said that the (magical intersex) central character of his other work, Duranki, was intended to have romances with both male and female love interests. Also people tell me there are strong griffguts vibes with the main, presumably canon or intended-to-be-canon ship there. So there’s that lol.

As for the no homo aspect and the potential homophobia in the griffguts subtext... I can’t deny I’ve also considered the idea that it’s a deliberate anti-gay PSA (though I haven’t seen anyone else address the idea as far as I remember, and I’ve only briefly mentioned it offhandedly). Like, Guts and Griffith’s relationship turns bad because they’re both too invested in each other, maybe the barely-subtextual desire is meant to look like a sinister twisting of pure platonic feelings that ruins everything, if Griffith hadn’t loved him the Eclipse never would have happened, etc.

But honestly I don’t think that reading holds up compared to a much more positive reading of their feelings, in which it’s their failure to understand them and act on them, thanks largely to formative childhood trauma and self-hatred, that leads to tragedy.

I don’t know what Miura intended, and there certainly are aspects of the story that are homophobic regardless of his intent, even if my best-faith reading is entirely correct, like the only textual gay attraction being pedophiles and over the top heretic orgies lol, or yk, Guts and Griffith both assaulting the same woman while looking at/thinking about the other in a very sexually charged way.

But the reading of their relationship where it’s positive and good for both of them, even including sexual desire, and only gets fucked up because they both incorrectly think their feelings are unrequited is legitimately so weirdly strong, much stronger than a reading where the sexual nature of their feelings is what fucks everything up, so I’m pretty happy just rolling with that take.

And as much as Casca can be seen and may very well be intended as a no homo, it’s also very easy for me to read her relationships with both as less of a hopeful opportunity for positive heterosexual romance and more of a “here’s how repressing your feelings thru attempts at heterosexuality fucks you up” PSA lol. Griffith and Charlotte too, for that matter. It’s definitely a stretch to think that’s intended, but whether it’s intended or not it’s an easy sell for me and I’m fine with not really worrying too much about possible authorial intent there.

Finally, I also want to link this post that goes pretty thoroughly into why I interpret griffguts as very positive rather than as a cautionary tale or predatory gay lust etc

And also have this shorter post about Femto on the same subject too, why not

Oh and maybe this thing where I split hairs about Guts’ lust for Griffith and desire for revenge to make a point that the homoeroticism isn’t necessarily being equated with violence by the narrative lol

[littlehollyleaf]

I'm starting to really dislike the Sylvie/Loki romance. Its too fast. Why are they rushing their build up so much they knew they had s2? They are assigning a depth of love to them that isnt earned yet imo. Loki doesnt drive the plot the way Sylvie does; he's running around telling everyone how great Sylvie is. Slyvie doesnt share meaningful interaction with any other Loki, Mobius does. And that interaction is subtle yet powerful just like "thanks for the spark"

I agree re: feeling... uncomfortable with a/the Loki/Sylvie romance.

But ya know, weirdly, I'm actually feeling BETTER about how their relationship is being portrayed after last ep.

Cos... idk... it's probably my ace tendencies skewing my reading, but I felt like they were... almost BACKTRACKING on the romantic angle?

Like, all the convo with the blanket sharing and stuff... ok ok, there's romantic subtext to be read there, but, also... they explicitly QUESTION 'Mobius' theory' about what caused the nexus - explicitly calling into question whether their 'moment' in the previous ep actually WAS romantic, or whether that was just an outsider's (ie. Mobius') mistaken understanding. And, oh, yeah, maybe it's meant to be a cutesy 'they're in love but won't admit it' type thing that's intended to actually EMPHASISE the fact they have romantic feelings for each other... but... MAYBE IT'S NOT?

I mean... a CENTRAL THEME OF THE SHOW has been how the inner truth of things/people is often NOT HOW THEY ARE OUTWARDLY PERCEIVED/PRESENTED AS BEING

...and Sylvie goes on to very specifically say how she's never had a FRIEND before... AND talks about how Mobius 'cares' for Loki...

...then likewise Loki calls Mobius his friend later...

...I just came away feeling like suddenly PLATONIC FRIENDSHIP between all three of them was a STRONGER reading?

...like Loki and Sylvie and Mobius are...something like Thor and the Warriors Three? Or even The Avengers? Like a TEAM. Or a (found) FAMILY? (albeit with romantic subtext between various members, sure - subtext that may or may not be explored/expanded on in the future as their relationships deepen/develop).

Sigh. It's wishful thinking, probably.

But I just... I think it would be NICE. If the ultimate message ended up being 'the power of friendship' - particularly via a SUBVERSION of the typical overly fast m/f romance plot found in so much fiction. Showing that, ACTUALLY, it's NOT always the romantic love of and for someone of the opposite sex that can save/heal/better you - sometimes a FRIEND of the opposite sex can be just as important.

Showing that you don't need a sudden, out of the blue ROMANCE to humanize you and tame any monstrous parts of you (*cough*Nat&Bruce*cough*) - you can tame/control your own dark/monstrous side, providing you have the love and support and aid of friends.

...it's not, TOO out there to think MAYBE the story might be headed that way...is it?

(and I'm saying all this AS a lokius shipper, and someone now flirting with the idea of all 3 of them in a romantic poly OT3 thing :p so, you know, I don't actually hate the IDEA of romance being involved between them in some fashion... it's just that, right now, when it comes to what is written explicitly into the text, it seems to me that leaving out romance altogether would/could actually be the MOST FITTING, and for me personally perhaps even also the most satisfying, option??)

.......also, HOLD UP

*rereads the ask*

THEY KNOW THERE'S S2?

THERE'S A SEASON 2??!

WE KNOW THERE'S A SEASON 2??!

When and where did THIS info drop???

[depressing-debbie]

A Latte For Erwin Pt. 2

Summary: So now Levi’s got Erwin’s number, and Hange’s involved... what could possibly go wrong? 1.7k

PART 1    PART 3

Guys I’m having so much fun with this story, I hope y’all enjoy it <3 This chapter is DIALOGUE CENTRAL so that’s something I guess

Did I leave this potentially open for a part three? Yes. Yes I did 👀 Did I also write this instead of stretching before rehearsal and end up getting hurt a teensy bit? Also yes. :)

“So are you going to call him?” 

A day had passed since a certain customer left Levi his number, and the paper was still sitting on the counter, untouched. 

“No.” Levi and Hange were sitting at one of the tables in the front, counting out whatever had been emptied from the cash register and scribbling onto a notepad. 

Hange eyed him suspiciously. “So, then you aren’t interested in him. You didn’t enjoy talking to him.”

“No, I didn’t say that...” Hange’s eyes lit up, nearly jumping out of their chair.

“SO THEN YOU’RE GOING TO CALL HIM!” Levi glared up at them.

“No.” Hange slumped into their chair and threw their hands up in exasperation.

“Why not?” Levi paused for a split second to consider his response.

“I’m just not going to. He’s just a customer, and I’m just a guy who makes coffee. I know nothing about him, he knows nothing about me.” He finished his task and began gathering everything up, and Hange followed him back towards the counter, frowning.

“Levi. That’s what a first date is for. Go get to know him! Give him a chance!”

He eyed the slip of paper, the ten little neatly written numbers and message, and grabbed it. Hange cheered silently, before realizing he was walking towards the trash. He opened the lid and tossed it into the garbage. 

“No.”

“Levi-”

“Hange! Leave it alone.” Levi ignored Hange’s eyes following him as he went to grab his coat and headed towards the front of the store. “I’m off tomorrow, don’t forget, so please don’t call me unless it’s important.” Hange nodded. “See you Monday.”

The next morning, Levi was awoken by none other than a call from Hange. 

“Hange I swear to god, this had better be an emergency.”

“I knowww, I’m sorry, some guy from the government left a message saying there was an issue with our permits, and you’ve got all the papers. Can you bring them over here?” Levi groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there.” 

“THANK YOU LEVI! Oh, and make sure you look presentable! Bye!”

“Make sure I... what-” Before he could question it, they hung up on him. Oh well. Wasn’t the first time they’d said something strange, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Half an hour later, Levi was trudging through the door with an enormous stack of files and paperwork. Before he even got halfway through the door, he realized something was off.

“Hello?” 

“Oh, Levi, hello!” Erwin was standing by the counter, fiddling with something in his pocket.

“Back again so soon? The coffee must have just been that good. What can I get you, another latte?” Levi set down the papers and ducked behind the counter.

“Well the coffee certainly was terrific, but that’s not why I’m here.” Erwin laughed slightly.

“So... tea? A muffin?” Levi stared at him, raising an eyebrow in confusion.

“No, no, that’s alright.” Now Levi was totally lost, and Erwin clearly picked up on it. “Well, I was planning on us getting something to eat later, but I suppose if you’d rather we eat now...” 

“Later?”

“Yes! I have reservations for our date-”

“DATE?” Levi nearly dropped the cup in his hands. Erwin looked at him with a confused smile.

“We planned it last night, Levi. Oh, I’m so sorry, did you not intend for it to be a date? I must have misread something, I apologize-”

“Erwin, what are you even talking about? We never... planned anything?” 

“I’m sure we did? You texted me last night, and-” It suddenly hit Levi exactly what was happening.

“HANGE. GET OUT HERE.” Levi spun around to face the back room and shouted. Slowly, Hange ducked around the corner and became visible, their expression both embarrassed and apologetic. “What the hell did you do, shitty glasses?”

“Okay, okay, calm down, Levi. All I did was grab Erwin’s number after you left and reach out to him for you. It’s not like I had a choice, you certainly weren’t going to!” Hange explained nervously. A bit of an awkward silence fell when they realized Erwin now knew Levi had no intention of calling, but it was quickly broken.

“So I take it the permit emergency was a lie as well.” Levi locked eyes with Hange and glared as they nodded, staring at their feet. “Great.” He turned to face Erwin, and the discomfort in the room was tangible. “Sorry, Erwin, but I’m just going home. It’s my day off, and now that I know our business isn’t in peril, I’d like to return home.” 

Erwin nodded understandingly. “Of course, Levi. I’m sorry you had to be dragged out here, have a nice day.” He smiled, and picked up the umbrella resting by the counter.

Levi eyed the umbrella before realizing it was absolutely pouring raining, he must have been too distracted to notice. He cursed himself for forgetting to check the weather when hastily getting ready that morning.

Erwin noticed his frustration. “You aren’t planning on walking back with all that paperwork without an umbrella, are you?”

Levi let out a sigh. “Yes, actually, I suppose I am. Not like I can leave it all here, Hange has a knack for losing any documents that I leave in their possession.” Hange nodded sheepishly in agreement. 

“That’s a terrible idea, it’ll all be soaked by the time you get home. Let me walk you back, I’ve got this giant umbrella here.” Erwin caught his eye, and Levi noticed his face burning.

“No, no, that’s not necessary-”

“Nonsense. Consider it an apology for making you walk all the way out here.” He smiled, and Levi thought about it for a moment. One awkward walk home would certainly be preferable to hours spent on the phone to replace all of the permit documents.

“Alright. I appreciate it.” Levi picked the stack of papers back up, and the two moved towards the door. As he glanced back, Levi caught Hange smirking at him and mouthed a silent “shut up”. Erwin opened the door for Levi, who mumbled a thank you, and they left. It’s probably a good thing he didn’t turn around and see Hange dancing around in victory.

Levi and Erwin walked the first two blocks in silence, huddled under the umbrella. Eventually, Erwin cleared his throat and broke the silence.

“So, I guess it wasn’t you I was speaking to yesterday. On the phone, I mean.”

“No, that would be Hange. That lunatic.” Levi rolled his eyes, still fuming.

“To be honest, I’m a bit glad it wasn’t you.” Levi looked up at him, intrigued. “I usually don’t make it a habit to leave my phone number for people who use that many emojis. And you certainly didn’t strike me as an emoji kind of guy, Levi.” He laughed, and Levi could picture exactly what Hange had sounded like, since he has plenty of experience with their chaotic messaging.

“Rest assured, you won’t be getting any emojis from me.” 

Erwin smiled. “I’m glad to hear it.” They fall back into an uncomfortable silence, and once again, it was Erwin who broke it. “So, how long have you had that shop?”

“A few years. Hange and I started it together.” Levi considered elaborating further, but decided against it. “What about you, what do you do?”

“I’m a professor. I teach anthropology at the university a little ways away. That’s where I heard about your shop, actually, from some colleagues!” Erwin grinned. “I almost didn’t take the suggestion, but I’m glad I did.” Once again, Levi caught his face burning slightly, and he turned to face away from him.

“So then you live in the area?” Levi cleared his throat a bit, still refusing to make eye contact.

“Well... not really. I’m on the other side of town, closer to the university.” Now Levi spun around the face him, stopping in his tracks.

“Erwin. My house is in the complete opposite direction of the university. You’re gonna have to walk for an hour to get back.” Erwin rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“That’s alright. I’m due for a good walk anyways. Too much desk work lately.” Even as Erwin reassured him, Levi shot him a doubtful look. 

“Alright... my house is just down here.” Levi pointed in front of them at the small, well kept home a block away. Erwin smiled to himself as he thought about how the house seemed to match him so well. Levi caught him, but decided not to say anything about it. 

He went to fish his keys from his coat pocket as they reached the gate, and nearly dropped his entire stack of papers. Erwin caught them, holding onto them while he opened the lock.

“Erwin. Thank you for walking me home, I appreciate it. Sorry about Hange.” Levi went to take the papers back when they reached the covered porch, safe from the rain.

“Not a problem, Levi. I’m glad I could help you stay dry. I better get going.” Erwin handed him the last document and turned to leave, quickly shaking out the umbrella. Just as he went to step off the porch, lightning struck eerily close, followed by a boom of thunder and an even heavier bout of rain. It was obvious that a messy storm was brewing.

Erwin didn’t even hesitate in continuing forward, but Levi held out a hand to stop him. The hand landed on Erwin’s shoulder, and they both froze for a moment before Levi pulled himself back together.

“You can’t walk an hour in this weather... here, just come inside until it’s cleared up a bit.” Erwin turned to face him, hesitant but grateful.

“Are you sure? I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “You getting struck by lightning would be an inconvenience.” Erwin laughed, and he opened the door. “Now, come on, before the wind picks up.”

Erwin nodded in appreciation, shaking out his umbrella and setting it down on the porch before following Levi inside.

[broadstbroskis]

ivy- morgan rielly

a/n: i wrote a thing, don’t hate me. very much inspired by ivy from the absolutely incredible new tswift evermore album (you should listen to the whole thing if you havent already and def this song)

warnings: infidelity (it’s a central theme), angst (lots)

-----

The arm draped over her waist tightens just as Ophelia begins to move away. She bites her lip and closes her eyes and she feels Morgan bury his face in her hair, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “Don’t go.” He whispers.

“I have to.” She wouldn’t. She’d stay here all night if she could. She’d stay until morning, she’d stay forever...but she can’t. “You know that.” It’s just as quiet, as if they’re both afraid of breaking the spell over them, but by now, they both know that prolonging the inevitable leads only to more pain, more difficulty leaving.

Morgan presses another kiss to the top of her head before rolling away; she feels the cold of his absence immediately, a loss that’s going to stay with her until she manages to find an escape to be with him again. 

Her clothes are scattered everywhere tonight, it seems, which merely means she feels Morgan’s eyes following her around his room as she gathers them. “Stop that.”

There’s the smallest of smiles of his face when she looks up at him, after pulling her sweater back on. “Stop looking at you? Never.” And she’s really supposed to be leaving, but how’s Ophelia not supposed to kiss him after that?

Morgan’s thumb strokes over her cheek after they break apart,  a gentle caress that expresses so much of all the things she knows he can’t-or won’t-say. “Text me when you get home, yeah?”

“I will.” Ophelia squeezes his hand gently, understanding the true message behind his words, the I love you, that’s just too much to say outright. And then, because it’s too much for her to actually say goodbye, she squeezes his hand once more, and then slips out of his room.

It’s dark still when she opens the door to her apartment a few floors down and the silence is deafening. By all accounts, it should be warmer and homier than the bachelor pad she just left. She’d put a lot of work and effort into making it a home, a place for a relationship to grow, to start a family. 

Right now, it just felt cold and unwelcoming, and Ophelia drops her keys on the table by the door in their usual spot, making a beeline for the master bathroom, not turning any lights on in the apartment until she makes it there. The sound of the shower finally drowns out the silence that’s ringing around her, stops her thoughts from running wild, and only when she steps inside does she let the tears fall.

-----

Ophelia blinks once, and then again, adjusting her eyes to the bright sun shining in through the windows. The other side of the bed is empty, but warm still, like it’s only been recently vacated, and she musters up the energy to climb out of bed and find her slippers before she wanders out into the kitchen.

“‘Morning.” Jon’s scrolling through his phone at the table, likely checking emails, or possibly moved onto his morning social media read thru, his coffee still steaming in front of him. “There’s more in the pot.”

“Thanks.” She returns the small smile he’d sent her and pours a mug for herself, settling in at the table next to him and taking a moment to get used to the usual silence. “When’d you get in last night?”

Jon hums for a second, like he’s thinking about it. “3, I think?”

“Jesus.” She shakes her head; she doesn’t need to look at the clock to know that it’s too early for him to be up and dressed to go back to the office already then. “You need to sleep more.”

Jon stands up with his mug and kisses the top of her head. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

The thing is, she’s not sure he’s kidding. It’s an attitude that he shares with the rest of his firm, a top financial group filled with people just like Jon, always pushing themselves to do the absolute most. It’s not-she’d never begrudge him his success, but really, how well can he be taking care of himself when all he does is go to work, go to the gym, and travel for days at a time?

“That’ll be sooner than you think if you keep going on four hours of sleep.” Ophelia chides gently, standing to send him off.

Jon laughs. “I’ll be home early tonight; how’s that? We’ll go out somewhere for dinner and then come back to bed,” He waggles his eyebrows. “And then go to bed.”

“Hmm, I’ll believe it when I see it.” Ophelia says, and accepts the kiss he presses to her cheek on his way out the door.

(He doesn’t make it to dinner, but Ophelia's not shocked; she hadn’t bothered to change out of her gym clothes and orders takeout for herself instead.)

-----

Probably a long shot, but are you free at 3 to go see a house? Ophelia sends Jon the second their realtor confirms the showing, unsurprised when he sends back a thumbs down emoji. She sighs, and confirms with the realtor that she’ll be attending alone-again-and then scrolls around the neighborhood, looking at other houses for sale. If she’s going all the way out to Etobicoke, she may as well check out a few others while she’s there.

Showings confirmed, she dresses for the spin class she’s hitting first and makes her way downstairs, catching Morgan in the parking garage. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He smiles. He’s got a couple teammates with him, the only thing stopping her from burying her face in his neck and slipping her hands into his hoodie pocket. “How’s it going?”

“Good.” She answers truthfully. It’s been a couple days since they’ve talked, longer since she’s seen him, even just in passing like this; he’s been out of town a lot this month for games. “You happy to be home for a bit?”

“Yeah,” Morgan nods, meeting her eyes, and she hadn’t intended the question to be anything more than what it is, but she catches the double meaning in his answer right away. “I am.”

“Yeah.” She catches herself mindlessly agreeing with him, forgetting about the teammates standing with him watching their every move and smiling gently at Morgan, instead. “It’ll be nice.”

Someone coughs, lightly, but it’s enough to break the moment. She suspects, from the look on Morgan’s face, that whichever one of his friend’s had interrupted had done so on purpose, is putting some kind of story together, and she’s taking that as her cue to go. “I’ll talk to you soon, I’m sure. Catch you in the halls.” She tries to joke, but it falls flat, so she makes her goodbyes instead, and even though they’re not alone, it’s impossible not to reach out and brush her fingers against his arm for just the quickest of touches as she passes.

-----

“What do you think?” Ophelia can feel Pam studying her, but she bites her lip before she answers, knowing that she’s being an absolute pest.

“I just-I don’t really love it.” She says finally, and to her absolute credit, her realtor doesn’t even blink, even though this is the fifth house this afternoon she’s said that exact same thing about.

“What didn’t you love?”

What didn’t she love? Jesus, fucking everything. The bedrooms were too small, the kitchen was laid out terribly, the whole floor plan was a mess. Even petty little things, like the shape of the breakfast nook bothered her about this house. She explains her issues with the house, promising to make a list of what she’s absolutely looking for, and to send over any places she wants to take a look at, before slipping into her car and taking a deep breath.

There’s a text waiting for her from Jon. Going to be late at the office tonight, working on a pitch. Don’t wait up.

Another deep breath. She shoots off a response, a quick ok, and then swipes to another thread. Are you home?

Morgan’s response comes almost immediately. Yeah, just about to order dinner. You want in?

She does, absolutely. Be there in an hour.

Morgan has dinner waiting in takeout containers and plates ready, but Ophelia’s perfectly happy to ignore both of those in favor of pressing herself as close to him as she can and pushing up for a kiss. “Hi.” She says, a little breathlessly.

“I’m certainly not complaining, but what’d I do to deserve that?” He pulls her back in, entangling her fingers with his one hand and using the other to pull her closer. She loves when he holds her like this, keeps her so close that it feels like nothing can come between them, that nothing matters besides the two of them. 

She traces a pattern along his hand and feels him pull her in even more tightly. “Just for being you.” It’s a little sappy, too sappy maybe, but she cherishes every moment she’s gotten to spend knowing him and growing with him. 

The kiss Morgan pulls her in for at that is soft and promising, but he pulls back, looking as if it almost pains him. “Dinner first?” And because she can hear his stomach rumbling, she nods in agreement, with a smile and the smallest of laughs. 

“Dinner first.”

-----

It’s snowing.

It’s snowing and the pond is frozen, but it’s empty, surrounded by evergreens and mountains, already coated in white. The air is crisp, that winter crispness that can only truly be felt in the middle of nowhere, and Ophelia breathes deeply, taking in the distinct scent of winter that she never really gets in Toronto, before it’s overpowered by a familiar one.

When Morgan skates up behind her, he doesn’t stop; instead, he only slows down enough to catch her arm and pull her along with him. 

“Morgan!” Ophelia scolds, but she’s laughing when she does, so he can’t possibly take her seriously.

“Ophelia!” He mimics, picking up speed, ignoring her sudden shriek and skating around in front of her to take both of her hands.

“Showoff.” She nods at him, still leading the two of them around the pond, only moving backwards now, so as to still be looking at her.

“Nah, just want to look at that pretty face more.”

When she stops, it doesn’t even catch him off guard; Morgan just glides the half step closer to her, still grinning as she teases him. “You get to look at my face all the time now.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m ever tired of it.” She loves him so much. How open and honest he is, that he always says what he’s thinking, from the sweetest things like that to anything he’s unclear about. His gentle touches, the warm caresses. His stupid dad jokes. She’d spend forever laughing at them just to see the smile on his face when she does.

“Not yet, at least.” She teases. “‘Ever’ is a lot of time.”

“Still not enough.” Morgan says, and then slips one of his hands into his pocket, coming back out with a velvet jewelry box. “Maybe forever?”

“Hey.” It doesn’t sound right, too distant and too unenthusiastic; it doesn’t match the pure joy in Morgan’s eyes looking at her.

“Yes.” She says, smiling and nodding at him.

“Phel,” there’s a gentle nudge against her neck and she blinks awake. There’s Morgan...but…she blinks the fuzziness of the dream away. He looks unhappy, reluctant, and she gets it, suddenly, when he continues. “It’s late.”

“Oh.” She says quietly, swallowing the lump in her throat. He presses a kiss to the back of her neck, another one on the soft skin where it meets her shoulder. “Mo-“ Morgan lifts his head to look at her, but there’s nothing she could say right now that would bring happiness to his face, nothing that would come even close to the unbridled excitement in her dream, so she keeps the memory close to her heart and gives him a soft kiss instead, before she has to go.

-----

“Glass of red, as requested.” Ophelia smiles in thanks as Jon passes her a glass, but her attention is directed at the monstrosity of a tie that his coworker and best friend has shown up to a corporate event wearing.

“Kevin.” She says, and from the grin on his face, her disbelief is clear. “What is that?”

“It’s fashion, Ophelia.” Kevin says, putting an act of superiority on, but then going right back to his usual, kind of goofy, self. “Naw, I found it when we were in Dallas last week. It’s lit, isn’t it?”

“Lit.” She repeats dryly, taking a sip of her wine to hide a smile as he and Jon laugh. 

The laughs don’t last long, as the three of them are approached by Jon’s boss, and the small talk begins. There’s a client there they want to land tonight, or at least make dinner plans with for a later date, and that’s top priority, but don’t forget to make time for this person too because their contract is up in March, and of course, you can’t ignore the Leafs, especially not so-and-so from the such-and-such’s office because they’re looking to renew the sponsorship agreement after the season, and...

She blanks on all the names. All she needs to do is smile pretty anyway.

She excuses herself after Keith Williams (the client, who agrees to dinner later in the week, another night she’ll be alone) to refill her wine glass, and is waiting by the bar when she feels someone slide in next to her just a step too close. Instead of feeling tense though, it relaxes her immediately, and she leans against Morgan. “Hi.”

“Hi.” He smiles back at her. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Ophelia’d noticed him the minute he’d walked the door, noticed the way his suit was perfectly cut, that the navy brought out his eyes, had had a hard time looking away. “You look okay, I guess.”

Morgan laughs. “Okay, I guess?” He repeats, nudging her side.

“Very handsome.” She accepts her glass of wine from the bartender and smiles in thanks before he leaves them. “It’s a good suit on you.”

She’s sure he’s going to make a comment about how it’s an even better suit off him, but they’re interrupted. “Mo!” Someone says behind them, and Ophelia hadn’t even realized how close they were standing, that she’s curling into him and he’s leaning back, until they have to separate to turn around.

“Mitchy.” Morgan greets, sounding as calm as usual, while Ophelia feels like her heart’s going to beat out of her chest. “Finally made it, huh?”

“Matts couldn’t decide on what shoes he wanted to wear.” Mitch grumbles as the blonde next to him snickers into her palm.

“Worth the wait.” Ophelia looks over at the voice and realizes it’s one of the teammates Morgan had over the other week. She quickly realizes from the look on his face that he’s putting together the same pieces.

“Was it though?’ Mitch is asking him. “That’s the last time we agree to carpool.”

He’s ignored though. “We’ve met before, yeah?”

Ophelia nods. “Uh yeah, I live in the same building as Morgan.” She transfers her wine glass to her left hand to offer her right hand out to shake, catches the blonde’s eyes immediately go to her ring, and ignores the feeling in her stomach as she introduces herself to them.

They’re all friendly enough-Auston, Mitch, Mitch’s girlfriend-but she can’t help but feel like they’re just trying to feel her out for something; she makes polite chit-chat for a few minutes and then excuses herself away from them to go back to Jon.

“Hey.” She says quietly, slipping back into his side.

“All good?” He asks quietly. “You were gone for a while.”

She nods. “ Just ran into someone I know.” He hums noncommittally and she feels a moment of fear for Morgan, but then they’re moving toward that guy from the Leafs office he’s supposed to be talking with and he’s back to all business.

-----

“Can we talk about this later?” Jon zips his suitcase and then looks over at her. “I’ve got to go.”

“When do you want to talk about it?” Ophelia cries frustratedly. “You’re always fucking going.”

Jon glares at her.” Jesus Christ, Ophelia.” He starts rolling his suitcase down the hall and she follows, unable to resist.

“Should I even bother looking at houses still? Or should we just stay stagnant?”

“Do whatever the fuck you want, Ophelia. I don’t care right now.” The door slams behind him, but for once, she can’t bring herself to be mad about it, too furious about the fight they just had, shouting in circles about things they’ve already fought about. 

Stewing in her anger isn’t going to do her any good, so she changes and heads to the gym, each pounding step on the treadmill relieving the thrumming under her skin. She’s feeling better, by the time she slows it down to her cool down- not quite calm, by any means, but enough that she feels she can run the errands she needs to for the day without snapping at anyone who doesn’t deserve her ire.

She’s in the grocery store when her phone starts ringing. “Hey.” She smiles when she sees it’s Morgan.

“Hey.” She can practically hear him smiling, even through the phone, her airpods still in her ears. “I’m home.”

She’s in the snack aisle at the food store, absolutely beaming at the simplest words, just because he’s been gone for a week. “You are?”

“For a few days now.” He confirms.

“You want to come for dinner tonight?” She studies the cart in front of her. “I’ll cook.”

“You’re cooking? Tell me when to be there.” Morgan already sounds excited. It’s not often she gets a chance to cook for him, but every time she does, he raves about it. 

She laughs. “I’m at the store now; I’ll text you when I get home.”

He’s actually waiting for her in the parking garage when she pulls in and she laughs at him fondly as she parks her car. “Welcome back.”

“Hmm, good to be back.” The kiss he gives her in greeting is quick, too quick, but he makes up for it when he pushes her back against the counter as soon as they’re in her kitchen and the groceries are on the counter.

“Do you want risotto tonight or not?” Ophelia laughs against his lips, laughs again as she watches how torn Morgan looks. “We have time.”

He squeezes her hand. “Never enough.” And she kisses him again, because it’s true. These stolen moments, this borrowed time, none of it felt like enough. It wouldn’t ever be enough to show him all the love she has for him, to show him everything he does for her, all the pain he takes away and the joy he brings to her life. 

“Could you go pick out a bottle of wine?” She says quietly, nodding toward the wine fridge, instead of saying the things they both know are true, but will only lead to her saying something stupid, like asking him to run away with her.

-----

The house comes in Pam’s daily email and Ophelia loves it from the first picture. She requests a showing for as early as possible and goes through her morning routine, trying not to get overly excited each time her phone buzzes with a new notification, until finally, Pam responds that she’ll meet her there at noon.

It’s only two hours, but it’s two hours that she can’t seem to fill, no matter what she does. Time feels like it’s stopped, until finally she gets in her car and drives over.

The stone exterior is even more beautiful in person than in the pictures. The kitchen is straight out of her dreams. The bedrooms are spacious, the family room is open, the basement is huge. She walks the entire house once, goes through again and again, smile growing wider each time.

Ophelia can picture it perfectly. The laughter filling all these nooks and crannies. A small blue-eyed boy always bouncing around, begging for anyone to play hockey with him. A girl, the shine of her dark hair catching all the natural light, eagerly trying to keep up with him. Morgan throwing his bag down the second he walks in the door and scooping them both into his arms to say hello, before coming to her and a baby, greeting them both just as tenderly.

It’s abrupt, the crash back to reality. This house, this beautiful, gorgeous, house can’t be hers. That life isn’t hers. It can’t be hers. It won’t be theirs. 

Ophelia doesn’t feel her legs crumble out from under her, but she finds herself on the floor, hand brushing over the carpet. She doesn’t feel the tears start either, but it’s not long before the sobs are wracking her entire body and she’s unable to stop.

[abreathoffresheyre]

A Little Life: The Trauma Plot Done Right, and Wrong

It’s early afternoon on a rainy Thursday when a friend texts me, the screen of my phone shining bright light onto my face as I read her message, “have you finished it yet?” She’s referring to A Little Life: Hanya Yanagihara’s brutally intense novelization of friendship, abuse, sickness, and love. She recommended the novel to me on one of many after school trips to the bookstore, singing its praises and convincing me to pluck my own copy off the shelf. After having read it, though, I’m not so sure A Little Life is entirely deserving of her acclaim. 

The novel follows a group of friends who are navigating lives and careers in New York City after having graduated from a prestigious New England liberal arts college that seems like a dreamy mix of Williams and Brown. Its focus, though, is Jude: a tortured lawyer who is sexually abused and prostituted as a child, and in his adulthood struggles with self harm (among other issues). Jude, who is raised by a gaggle of pedophilic priests on a monastery in Montana, endures what feels like an endless crusade of glorious affliction over the course of the book, including countless rapes during his childhood, the amputation of both legs, and beatings at the hand of a parter which eventually land him in the hospital. It’s certainly intended to be an intense novel; Yanagihara’s descriptions of child abuse go to eleven, everything “turned up a little bit too high”. 

In terms of prose, A Little Life is wonderful. It rumbles along at a cracking pace, gripping and elegant. There are no cultural touchstones - no mention of a favorite band or trendy style - everything set in an “eternal present day” making the novel feel ever relevant and forever true. The thing that prevents A Little Life from going from “decent” to “great” lies mainly in the fact that Jude, the novels central focus, isn’t really a person, but a non-character; a tortured rag doll of a man at which Yanagihara endlessly pokes and prods, flattening him to a list of symptoms that spills off each page. Jude is spectacularly stale - a character who arrives at no resolution, no epiphany, no satisfying recovery. He is damaged, and remains damaged. Perhaps that’s the point, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that; the issue lies in Yanagihara’s execution. Unfortunately, trauma is not synonymous with backstory, and a good writer should be able to effectively characterize someone without going on and on and on about how damaged they are, and oh, isn’t it terribly sad how much they’ve had to endure? I don’t think Yanagihara lacks the literary abilities to do this - she’s clearly talented - but in A Little Life she doesn’t even try to move beyond using Jude’s childhood to make the reader feel bad for him. It feels like an easy way out for her - rather than actually individualizing Jude, she attempts to evoke sympathy on the part of the reader by subjecting him to endless pain. 

It’s hardly profound - the idea that someone who is so brutally tortured is bound to end up broken - but Yanagihara seems entirely too impressed with herself for arriving at this obvious conclusion, and so does the rest of the world. A Little Life, writes Independent, is “a novel of [grand sentiment]”. Observer nods along, calling the novel “devastating”. I don’t agree. Yanagihara’s strategy of using abuse as a means of eliciting sympathy for Jude is effective for about the first third of the novel, but at a certain point the extremity of her descriptions have the reverse effect. Rather than upsetting or depressing the reader, her prose turns sensationalist - so extreme that one feels blinded. By the time Dr. Traylor and Caleb - two of Jude’s tortureres - roll around, the reader is so desensitized to any descriptions of abuse that they are able to distance themselves from the novels content entirely. 

Here, Lawns by Mona Simpson comes to mind. It’s a short story about a girl - Jenny - who is struggling with sexual abuse at the hands of her father, and its genius lies in Simpsons gorgeously believable articulation of sexual abuse within the context of American idealism and suburban middle class life. Jenny’s voice is authentically teenage, her life familiar enough to be on some level relatable, and Simpsons honest, truthful portrayal of a young girl struggling to understand her traumatic experiences moves beyond the possibility of sensationalism - a term one might be tempted to ascribe to the story of someone who has lived through circumstances similar to Jenny’s. It’s one of my favorite pieces of all time; colloquial, true, and beautifully written. Unfortunately, A Little Life does not share many of its qualities. Unlike Lawns, the details included in A Little Life’s descriptions of child sexual abuse are exaggerated to the point where accuracy is expended.

It’s fairly obvious Yanagihara didn’t devote much time to actually researching PTSD or child sexual abuse, unlike Kate Elizabeth Russell, who spent years learning about trauma before publishing the genius My Dark Vanessa, about a girl who struggles to understand the “abusive” (Vanessa isn’t sure she’s comfortable calling it that) relationship she had with her English teacher at just 15 years old. I love My Dark Vanessa and think it’s about as close to perfect as a novel about trauma can get because it illustrates this truth: abuse is complicated. And while Russell creates a world where navigating said abuse involves sifting through a technicolor mirage of experiences, Yanagihara’s story is entirely black and white. 

Russell also leaves room for Vanessa to become a little, well, difficult, following the abuse she endures. She yells at her mother, becomes distant and sometimes angry. Her potential is “wasted”; the once bright, ambitious teenager who “writes like a prodigy” and could “publish a novel at twenty” ends up working at a hotel and living in a dingy apartment. It’s a series of events that makes sense for someone who’s gone through a difficult, traumatizing experience. Certainly, some amount of “potential” is inevitably lost in the thick of abuse - nobody really emerges from that experience entirely whole and ready to pick up where they left off, but Yanagihara allows for no such slack: Jude is damaged, yes, but only when it’s convenient for her and the pity plot she’s built around him. Only at one point in the 700 and something page novel does adult Jude ever get angry, and despite his awful childhood he's incredibly successful in his career. It seems highly unlikely that someone who’s suffered so extensively as a young person would only retain the sort of damage that illicits sympathy, while the kind that turns a person irritable and burnt out is lost; another gap in Yanagihara’s logic. Equally implausible is the success Jude has both as a student - a prostituted orphan with a lack of formal education and no money gets a full ride scholarship to a highly prestigious college with barely any help? A girl can dream. The Guardian is right that A Little Life “demands great pity” for Jude, but at what cost? Anyone can write into existence a spectacularly damaged character, and of course it’s natural to be upset by descriptions of child abuse like the ones sprinkled throughout A Little Life. That response, though, isn’t an indication of Yanagihara’s literary talents, but rather of the existence of our own ability to be empathetic for others. Does that make Yanagihara the genius here? Certainly not. 

The fact that A Little Life is so consistent in its brutality might make it easy for a reader to swallow, in that, one doesn’t have to think much while reading it. What happens to Jude is bad. The people who hurt him are terrible - and that is all. That might make the novel sad, but it doesn’t make it great. I for one think readers deserve something real. Truthful, consistent, complicated, honest. 

[swaps55]

POV Case Study – Have Some Writing Meta

Point of View (POV) is an integral piece of the storytelling puzzle for Opus, my main body of fic, so I thought I’d do a meta post that walks through how I use it as a narrative tool. The intention is not to tell anyone how they should or shouldn’t use POV, but rather to demonstrate one way I used it very deliberately to create narrative tension, weave in characterization, and develop an overarching theme.    

Your POV character is an enormous tool in your writing toolbox, whether you are using a single POV or multiple. How you use it depends on a lot of things: what person you’re writing in (first, second, third), the type POV you’re going with (omniscient, meaning the POV narrator can see into everyone’s heads, or limited, meaning you only have access into the head of a specific POV character).

My preferred writing style is 3rd person “in-your-face” limited POV, that puts the reader so solidly in the POV character’s head it’s almost like 1st person in a 3rd person trench coat. That coupled with present tense gives me some extra intensity that I love taking advantage of in emotional or climactic scenes. Again, this isn’t to state a right or a wrong way to use tense or POV – there are lots of great ways to use these tools – but for the purpose of this exercise, this is my chosen loadout.

I made the conscious decision early in Sonata that I did not want to use Sam Shepard’s POV, ever. Every story in his series would be told through the eyes of the people around him. Why? Because one of the key character traits of Sam is that he makes himself whatever someone needs him to be. He sees himself as a tool, so to be a useful tool, he has to have the right shape for the job. This raises the question: who is Sam, when he is free to just be himself? I’m not sure even Sam knows the answer to that question, so to reinforce it through storytelling, I never wanted to reader to see what goes on in his head. Everything you learn about Sam comes through the perceptions of others, and to show the reader how differently he is perceived by others, I write with multiple POVs rather than just Kaidan’s.

Below the cut, I’m going to walk you through a specific example where POV was an essential part of crafting the story I wanted to tell. The chapter in question comes from Fugue, a story I’m writing that explores the aftermath of Alchera. You don’t need to have read Fugue to follow the logic, but if you care to read the chapter, it functions well on its own separate from the rest of the story.

Fugue – This Hole You Left.

This was a very complicated chapter that lived and died by POV choices, and it was extremely difficult to put together. The approach I took was a gamble that (thankfully) worked after much fretting, gnashing of teeth, and help from @pigeontheoneandonly.

This Hole You Left takes place after Sam dies over Alchera. I wanted to paint a ‘kaleidoscope’ of grief, and explore how Sam’s death impacted the people around him in very different ways. Therefore, I needed a plethora of POVs to work with, each one giving me something different. The goals were this:

Find differing POVs that would offer demonstrably different perceptions of Sam and/or illustrate different stages of grief and shock.        

Allow each of those POVs to mold to that character’s specific goals and motivations. i.e., I did not want the grief of other characters to be tied to the romantic relationship that had been lost – because that’s not the lens those characters would look through.

Each POV had to move the chronology along in a way that made sense and felt natural.

Kaidan’s POV was off limits. In the absence of Sam’s physical presence, I wanted to treat Kaidan like Sam – the character people could see, but not explore the headspace of. Everything the reader learns about Kaidan in the immediate aftermath of Alchera comes from other people.

That last piece was important. Arguably, Kaidan’s POV was the most valuable one of all, but I was going to have lots of time to explore it in meaningful ways elsewhere. I thought it might be more powerful to express his grief through the eyes of others, and use him as a central theme to weave in and out of the chapter. More about that later.

This constituted one hell of a puzzle to put together, especially when it came to the chronology. For instance, an early mistake I made was putting the most powerful POV (Anderson) too early in the sequence, which diminished what came after it. Moving that POV around meant re-framing other POVs to keep the chronology moving forward (for example, Garrus’ POV initially came after Anderson’s, by moving it before his, I had to change the context so that Anderson’s POV wasn’t a step backwards in time).

Each POV scene was also intended to essentially be its own self-contained short, creating a microcosm of grief, that when put together, would create a much larger and significant whole.

I could write forever about all the trial and error that went into finding the right formula, but it’s probably more valuable to look at where I wound up, and why:

1st POV: Lora Alenko (Kaidan’s mother)

Why: She gave me a window to set the clock in motion and make the loss of the Normandy feel real, because she had the advantage of having no idea anything was wrong. Plus, her perspective felt like a unique one I hadn’t seen in fic when it came to Alchera. I’d set her character up in Sonata, so readers of that fic would be familiar with her and understand what that phone call meant to her in a more meaningful way.

How I used it: I put her in the middle of a mundane, normal, event – lunch with a friend – and then shattered that normalcy with a phone call telling her the ship her son was on had been destroyed. That shift from normal to a state of dread gave me the tension I wanted to use for the rest of the chapter.

Excerpt:

But before she can answer, her omnitool flashes. She frowns and looks down at her arm. It’s a message from Marc. SOS. Call now.

A chill runs down her spine. SOS isn’t something Marc throws around lightly. She’d gotten an SOS from him when he’d found Apollo, the warmblood she’d ridden for years, with a leg stuck through the paddock fence, and the day they’d learned about Vyrnnus.

Kaidan.

“Melia,” she murmurs. “Excuse me, I have to take this.”

2nd POV: Admiral Hackett  

Why: Hackett gave me the chance to explore Shepard through the eyes of the Alliance. To them, and to Hackett, he’s a weapon rather than a person. He also gave me a chance to weave in a sense of anger, one of the stages of grief.

How I used it: This POV came about late in the revision process, but I’m thrilled it did, because I was missing that cold, calculated look at Shepard’s importance. Shepard dying fucks up Hackett’s plans and political machinations, and his immediate response is not to mourn someone who died, but to move on to plan B. This also gave me a shot to work in Shepard’s mother. By seeing her in Hackett’s POV, I could reinforce the ongoing theme that Captain Shepard sees her son as a legacy, rather than a person.

Excerpt:

There isn’t a list of people who can replace Shepard. Time to make one. Hackett exhales, gaze falling to the datapad on his desk, Shepard, Sam still displayed at the top of the casualty list.

He picks it up and hurls it at the wall. It cracks, screen flickering to black as it clatters to the floor.

What a goddamned waste.

3rd POV: Joker

Why: Joker was an easy one. I’d set up some rather terrible foreshadowing in Sonata with a scene in which he makes the comment “I’d go down with that ship,” and Sam replies, grinning, “Not while I’m around.” I wanted to spike the ball over the net in Fugue, so parking in Joker’s POV in the immediate aftermath was a no-brainer.

How I used it: Through Joker I could explore guilt and shock, so I went back to that memory from Sonata and used repetition to make Joker feel stuck in that moment. It was also my first chance to weave Kaidan in to reinforce the notion of guilt and lay some neat groundwork for narrative tension that would come to a head later.

Excerpt:

I’d go down with that ship.

Not while I’m around.

He should have abandoned ship. The escape pod was right there. He could have given up the Normandy at any time. All he had to do was step over the bodies of Pressly. Chase. All he had to do was leave them all behind.

Instead he’d stayed, and Shepard had made good on his word.

I’d go down with that ship.

Not while I’m around.

4th POV: Dr. Chakwas

Why: Through her, I could look at the adrenaline and denial that comes with managing trauma. To her, Shepard was a patient. Because she is overwhelmed with patients in the form of the Normandy’s wounded, she cannot stop to think about the one she cannot help: she has a job to do, and she has to do it. There will be time to grieve later.

How I used it: Again, I used Kaidan to emphasize her role as a caretaker. Kaidan, who is in command of the survivors, has a moment of weakness that she cannot afford to have, and he can only afford to have in front of her, because she overrides his authority in a medical emergency. Because we are in her POV, we see her outwardly refuse to crack, when internally she’s hanging by a thread. It made for a nice contrast.  

Excerpt:

“There was no transponder signal,” she tells him, saying out loud everything she’s been repeating to herself. “We were in hostile territory, with over twenty injured crew. He was gone, Kaidan.”

His fingers curl, eyes still trained on the window.

She puts a hand to her forehead. Between Virmire, triage on the Citadel and this it’s too much. Before today she’s never felt old. Tears sting the corner of her eyes and she swears under her breath. Not here. Not today. Tears are something for tomorrow. Right now, she has a job to do.

5th POV: Garrus

Why: Garrus was a member of the crew who wasn’t on the ship, which is a completely unique perspective. But the question that took me forever to answer, was, how does he react to Sam’s death? What was Shepard to Garrus? I hadn’t written about them during ME1 yet, he was not part of Sonata, and ME1 Garrus is always a little tricky for me. I knew there was something important to gain from his POV, but I couldn’t figure out what it was to the point of tearing my hair out. Eventually, I settled on Garrus seeing Shepard as a mentor he couldn’t live up to, and made his POV about failure and regret.  

How I used it: Shepard was everything Garrus aspired to be, but could never quite achieve. He left the Normandy because Shepard made him feel like he could make a difference, only he didn’t. And then, his friends needed him, and he wasn’t there, and now Shepard is dead. I wove a lot of doubt, regret and self-deprecation into his POV to drive that home.

Excerpt:

Dammit, why hadn’t he stayed on that ship?

He grabs another report from the top of the pile on his desk, which is getting tall enough to sway in the breeze.

This is why. Because Saren had obliterated the Citadel, and Shepard, damn him, had made him believe he could make a difference. He thought he could make it here. Crazy thing, having to fill out a form every time you find a corpse. He’s got three more to add to the list after today.

6th POV: Anderson

Why: Anderson was both a father figure and commanding officer to Sam. Because he’s known him for most of his life, he has a perspective no other POV character has. To him, Sam was more like a son he’d been tasked to protect, and in the end failed to protect him. He and Kaidan are the only people who know Shepard well enough to mourn Sam, and not just Commander Shepard. Anderson would really let me start to explore grief.

How I used it: This was my heavy hitter. Through Anderson’s POV, I could trace Sam the person as he grew into Commander Shepard, and explore the echoes of the kid that still lived in the adult. I was also able to use Kaidan in a really fascinating way. In Opus, Kaidan and Sam served together for four years before the Normandy. Therefore, Anderson is pretty familiar with him, but doesn’t know him the way he does Sam. He keeps looking at Kaidan expecting Sam. In a sense, trying to plug a puzzle piece into the wrong hole. It was a neat way to show Anderson’s grief.

Additionally, this was a great opportunity to demonstrate Kaidan’s sense of loss without being in his head. Anderson does not know there was a relationship between Sam and Kaidan, but the reader does. Thus, I could have my cake and eat it, too: The POV character wasn’t examining the relationship that had been lost between Sam and Kaidan because he didn’t know it existed, but the reader got to.  

Excerpt:

He exhales through his nostrils. “The Normandy was attacked by an unknown vessel. Whoever they were, Joker says they came out of nowhere. Shepard got him into the escape pod, but the ship lost gravity. He…well.”

Alenko stares straight ahead, silent. Anderson looks for a tell, but he only knows Shepard’s.

Alenko isn’t Shepard.

7th POV: Tali

Why: Tali presented a similar problem to me that Garrus did. What was Shepard specifically to her, and what did his loss mean to her? As my closing POV, not only did she need to hit a home run, but she also needed to close out the chapter in a way that tied all the other POVs together and examined Shepard’s death through a much wider lens, without feeling like I was pulling the camera back from her POV to get there. That’s a lot to ask. Lucky for me, Tali never lets me down.

The answer I came to also called back to Sonata, in which exploring what home meant to each of the characters was an important theme. So I went back to this idea for Tali, as she and Sam had a very important thing in common that set them apart from everyone else: they were both born in space, and did not have the traditional fixed point of home that everyone around them had. Home was different to them than it was to everyone else.

How I used it: Tali was the only one left who understood how truly unique and special the home she’d found on the Normandy was. Therefore, when the crew starts to fragment and fall apart around her, she is forced to mourn the loss not only of Shepard, who gave her that home, but the home itself. I was able to use that grief to circle back to how much Shepard changed the people around him, and how deeply his loss will be felt in ways people haven’t even realized yet.

That conclusion was the magic final puzzle piece that made the whole thing work, and it was literally the last idea to take shape.

Excerpt:

Aliens don’t carry their ship names with them the way quarians do. Perhaps when you’re born with dirt under your feet you don’t need to. For them, home isn’t a vessel among the stars – it’s a fixed place in the universe, a way back no matter how far from it you venture.

But Shepard had been different. Like the quarians, he had no fixed point. Home was what – or who – he carried with him. He’d understood the power of a ship name, even if he hadn’t used one out loud. People who served with Shepard felt like they belonged, in ways they couldn’t anywhere else, because he said to hell with that fixed point in the galaxy and brought home to anyone who needed it. For Shepard, there wasn’t a way back. Just a way forward.

Shepard changed people.

They’ve lost so much more than a ship.

The primary objective of Opus is to examine the relationship between Sam and Kaidan, but to really understand the magnitude of Sam’s death, it was critical to explore it outside the confines of that relationship. Part of the struggle Sam and Kaidan have is that Sam doesn’t truly belong to himself or to Kaidan – he belongs to everyone else. That means his death doesn’t belong to either him or Kaidan. It’s shared with all the people he touched and shaped.

That’s what made this carousel of POVs a challenge I really wanted to make work. It required an absurd amount of juggling, but the diversity and uniqueness of each made Shepard’s loss feel real and devastating. But not only did each of those POVs tell us something about Sam, they provided some meaningful character development for the POV character. How they react to Sam’s death and what it means to them tells us a lot about that character, which in turn lends the entire story more depth.  

If you read this far, I’m pretty sure you deserve a cookie. 

I don’t know if any of that is helpful or meaningful other than to show an example of how POVs can be a really awesome tool to tell a story. There can be a lot of depths and layers to why you use a particular character to tell a story through, and those choices can greatly impact the story you end up telling.

[scarlet--wiccan]

Hey, since the maximoffs are generally white-passing (though not always and “passing” is a complicated thing) in the comics, do you think it’s rude/unnecessary to confront someone for making very pale art of them? If I did it I’d try to be nicer about it than I would if they were just blatantly whitewashing a visibly brown or black character, but I see a lot of artist who I feel like might not know and I really wonder if it’s worth it. Do you have any thoughts?

That's complicated. It's not a misrepresentation of the characters in the way that, for instance, a blonde Wanda or a tall, muscular Billy would be.

I can't reasonably fault anybody, fanartist or canon illustrator, for drawing characters on-model.

That said, in the last few years there has been an ongoing conversation in this fandom, at least here on tumblr, about who the Maximoffs are, and the ways in which their general representation is lacking. It's become more common to draw the characters with darker skin or more apparently ethnic features. If you're a fan of Wanda, or Pietro, or any iteration of Young Avengers, it's pretty hard to avoid that conversation, so it's easy to point fingers at anybody who seems to be ignorant to, or is intentionally ignoring, that trend. If I'm reading your message correctly, you seem to be asking if that trend represents a truer, more valid version of the characters that we should all adhere to, and if it is necessarily problematic to do otherwise.

I'm of two minds. On the one hand, I believe that disrupting the representation of all Roma people as white-passing, or even interchangeable with white Europeans, is crucial. Setting aside the fact that the diaspora intersects with just about every racial group, not just white people, the broad whitewashing of Roma communities in media erases our origins and occludes the fact that the mistreatment of Roma people is a race issue. On a wider scale, I believe that this manufactured ignorance contributes to systemic antiromanyism, but within the sphere of pop culture, specifically, it allows people to get away with obviously racist art and writing, and it's why Romani history and identity are viewed as disposable whenever people adapt these comics for the screen.

On the other hand, I'm deeply frustrated by the tokenization and co-opting of Roma identity that this fandom performs. This may sound hypocritical, considering how much of my blog revolves around my edits, but I see a lot of folks on tumblr who draw brown Wandas, make fancasts with Romani actors, and, like me, photoshop comic book panels, but not a lot of people who demonstrate any understanding of antiromanyism, or better yet, material allyship. In everybody's haste to earn diversity points, they've produced a lot of unintentionally racist content. I've seen a lot of cultural tourism, inappropriately co-opted activist work, and even virtual brownfacing in the form of RP accounts. No one, myself included, should feel entitled to dictate what a true or valid image of Wanda looks like, but especially not a community of people who think that having a folder of Hiba Abouk gifs and a Wikipedia list of common chib phrases makes it okay to racefake for your MCU roleplay.

Anyways, when it comes to fanart, you're going to have to rely on your own subjective judgement, and try to think about more specific issues than "whitewashing" because these characters just don't fit into that idea. Content that's derived from the movies is complicit in erasure. Content that is derived from the comics, but which applies lighter and straighter hair to Billy or Wanda is complicit in eurocentric standards, and the trend of gradually lightwashing characters of color, and even white Jewish characters. Content which employs racist stereotypes is not better than canon "white-passing" depictions. Cultural appropriation is still cultural appropriation, even if the character you're drawing is a member of that culture. Many popular writers and artists have a history of ignoring or shutting down dialogues about representation, even harassing people like me.

Hopefully, thinking about that stuff gives you a more clear idea of what to look out for, what's worthy of confrontation, and how to articulate your problems with a specific person or their content.

I know this ran longer than was strictly necessary, but I wanted to roll your message together with a similar question about whitewashing:

The Maximoffs weren't conceived, written, or designed in such a way as to be intentionally whitewashed, at least not originally-- their background was established via a retcon, at least a decade after their first appearance. Up until that point, they were generic, apparently white, Central Europeans. The fact that they are treated as interchangeably white and Roma is both product and perpetuation of the broad whitewashing of European Romani that I described earlier. Nobody's going out of their way to make sure the twins always have at least one white ancestor in order to justify "whitewashing" them, rather, nobody has ever truly envisioned them as people of color in the first place.

People will perform all kinds of mental gymnastics in order to minimize the Maximoffs' ancestry, or come up with reasons why it makes the most sense for them to look white-- invoking Erik as the father; dredging up the short-lived Robert Frank retcon; or, for Billy and Tommy, claiming that their resurrection somehow erased their genetic and ancestral ties to Wanda, even though the text implies the very opposite. I'll let you in on a secret, though-- these characters aren't real people, and their stories aren't immutable truths. If anybody, fans, writers, or artists, is making leaps of logic to avoid making comics more inclusive, it's not because their hands are tied by the unbreakable chains of canon, it's because they don't want comics to be more inclusive.

Also, I could be off the mark here, but I don't think I am-- Sinti people are Roma. Different parts of the diaspora have different names for themselves, but are all part of the same larger population. It's mostly a regional thing, as I understand. If you want my opinion, it doesn't matter what version of the story you go with-- whether Magda, Marya or Natalya is their birthmother, Marya and Django raised them. They have direct Roma ancestry either way, and they were raised by a Roma family. It's hard to say exactly where in the world the Maximoffs lived, or what specific label they might have identified with, but the twins would likely identify with the community they were raised in, be that Sinti or Servitka or Kalerash or whatever else. If I'm being honest I don't think that distinction is relevant for non-Roma to make.

I've said this before, but I don't really care what the characters look like, and I'm not interested in playing identity politics with fictional stories that were created by and for American gadje. Obviously, I love these characters as a fan, and I do have my own vision, no pun intended, of who they are and how I'd like to see them represented, but I worry that these conversations are unproductive. I hope you guys understand that I'm not out here trying to canonize an arbitrary idea of what Jewish Romani people look like. American superhero media has a long history of exploiting, misrepresenting, and erasing Romani history. I want more people to understand that, and understand the material consequences it has, and think about how comics, American culture, and art in general can deconstruct this specific mechanism of racism. It's not about any one character's identity, and it's not about my creative vision.

[kitkatopinions]

The ethics in RWBY are really weird. I mean, I’m not a professor of ethics and I don’t know much past what I’ve seen on Wikipedia and the Good Place (such a great show,) but it’s so weird to see a show that seems to switch between virtue ethics and consequentialism at random.

(Virtue ethics) may be identified as the one that emphasizes the virtues, or moral character, in contrast to the approach that emphasizes duties or rules (deontology) or that emphasizes the consequences of actions (consequentialism). Suppose it is obvious that someone in need should be helped. A utilitarian will point to the fact that the consequences of doing so will maximize well-being, and a virtue ethicist to the fact that helping the person would be charitable or benevolent.

Of course, it’s a lot more complicated and in-depth than just that, but I’m not going to get into specifics (again, I’m not qualified to do that lol.) But let’s look at some examples of these two ethical beliefs in RWBY.

“Stealing is wrong no matter what,” sounds like virtue ethics at play, and that’s how Blake saw things. That was one of the reasons that she left the White Fang, that was always framed as one of the many things that made it so they were villains, that had to be taken out. Blake regretted her acts of theft in her early life no matter how justified they were. The message is that stealing is always wrong even when you’re stealing from oppressors.

“Stealing is justified in circumstances where you feel you have no other choice,” sounds like consequentialism, if your actions are justified and have good consequences, they’re good. This is put into practice when the group illegally stole the airplane in Argus (although this is actually badly portrayed consequentialism, considering that they didn’t need to do that, but I think we’re intended to perceive it as necessary, but I’ll keep talking about that later.)

“Violence is wrong, even when it’s precautionary or reactionary,” sounds like virtue ethics, and once again, that’s directed towards the White Fang. Despite being oppressed for centuries, even Sienna’s more minor violence is framed as completely wrong, and the Faunus are lectured about how they need to stop committing acts of violence if they want equality. The Ace Ops fighting Team RWBY is meant to be perceived as wrong, despite the fact that Team RWBY had broken the law, proven themselves untrustworthy, and were trying to stop them and Ironwood from doing something that would save people.

“Violence is justified in circumstances where it’s precautionary or reactionary,” sounds like consequentialism. Since the White Fang is hurting others, it doesn’t matter what their goal is (Faunus rights,) it’s totally fine to rip them to shreds, throw them off moving trains, even kill, etc. Since Team RWBY thought it was wrong to move Atlas, they were perfectly justified in beating up the Ace Ops for trying to arrest them. Qrow is perfectly justified in fighting Clover for the same reason.

“You always need to be honest, no matter if you don’t know if you can trust someone or not and no matter if you have good reasons to lie,” sounds like virtue ethics. This is applied to Ozpin in the show, his lying is deemed one hundred percent wrong, full stop, no excuses. He isn’t treated with any sympathy and has to apologize, which is seriously and begrudgingly accepted. Our main characters forcing his secrets out of him is framed as right, their angry responses are framed as totally justified. The message is clear. Lying and mistrusting is wrong. Honesty and trust is right.

“Lying is understandable and even right if you think you have good reason to lie and if you think you can’t trust someone, and Ruby was right about Ironwood, therefore her lying was fine,” sounds like consequentialism. Ruby’s lying is framed as reasonable and understandable. She didn’t have to be honest because she was reacting cautiously instead, putting a virtue on the back burner because she thought being honest might hurt people and wasn’t sure if James could be trusted - as in, she acted in mistrust. Although Yang suggests this was wrong, the show quickly hastens to tell us that Ruby was very right, having Yang walk back on her statements, and having Ironwood turn evil. The message is clear. Lying and mistrusting should be done if you think it will hurt less people. Honesty and trust aren’t always good.

“It’s never okay to willingly sacrifice a life, you must do whatever you can to save everyone no matter the cost,” sounds like virtue ethics. This is the central conflict between Team RWBY and Ironwood in volume 7. Ruby and co considered it wholly wrong to sacrifice the remaining people of Mantle in order to save Atlas and the Mantle citizens already evacuated, they considered the idea unacceptable and we (the audience) are meant to believe they’re entirely right and that Ironwood is - with this action - turning into a villain. The Ace Ops are also seen as wrong for wanting to destroy the whale even though they know that Team JORY is still inside it, because despite the fact that it would save thousands upon thousands, it would result in the deaths of four people.

“You have to do what is right, even if it requires sacrifice,” sounds like consequentialism. Pyrrha goes to fight Cinder despite knowing she can’t win, which is framed as heroic and good. Jaune, Nora, and Ren leave their mission defending the non-evacuated people of Mantle in order to try and rescue Oscar. Our group of protagonists trap a city full of civilians in Salem’s direct line of fire and cause many soldiers to die so that they can try and evacuate the citizens of Mantle. The show frames this as the right choice that the team made in the pursuit of saving everyone they could, and the dead soldiers are a sacrifice that the protagonists couldn’t avoid and therefore aren’t responsible for.

“Being a good person who tries is the most important thing,” This feels like virtue ethics. This is applied to Team RWBY and Ruby particularly all throughout season eight. What really matters is that is that they’ve been trying. What really matters is that they’ve had good intentions. What really matters is they’ve stuck to their guns, stuck to their moral code. The morality of their actions is judged by who they are, what virtues they embody, and what they intended. Ruby is constantly assured by the people around her that she hasn’t really done anything wrong because she’s a believer, she’s kind, she’s brave, she’s optimistic, she’s well-intentioned... She - and we as the audience - are assured that she was still good, even if nothing she did was effective, even if nothing she did even helped people This is also applied to Robyn. She might steal from the government, start fights, and not fix the wall with her stolen resources, but she has good intentions and wants to help, so she’s a good person.

“Your intentions and effort aren’t important, what matters is what you do and if it helps people.” This feels like consequentialism. It’s obviously applied to Ironwood - It doesn’t matter that he’s trying to save Atlas and the evacuated people of Mantle, it still doesn’t excuse what he did even pre-bomb threat. Hacking Penny, shooting the councilman, shooting Oscar, all of that is treated as horrible in the narrative whether or not he’s doing it to try to save thousands upon thousands of lives. Even the things he was doing in V7 were considered not good enough because they weren’t helping enough people. But it also applies to the White Fang yet again. Sienna Kahn might’ve had good intentions (ending Faunus oppression,) but her actions are judged by the harm they do to others. Ilia might’ve had good intentions (again, ending Faunus oppression,) but her actions were considered firmly bad and she had to decide to change her ways in order to be redeemed. On top of this, let’s add Whitley to the pile. Whitley is treated dismissively and coldly by Weiss, but then when he does something good that helps people, Weiss is affectionate with him and starts treating him well. 

This is all very contradictory and weird. It doesn’t matter if you lean more towards virtue ethics or consequentialism, the story keeps waffling between the two and expects its audience to do the same. When they want Team RWBY to do something that might be considered wrong in the terms of virtue ethics (stealing, lying, using violence, etc,) they use consequentialism to justify it, but whenever they want Team RWBY to be morally superior to the people around them even if those people aren’t evil (Ironwood, Oz, Ilia,) they use virtue ethics to do that. Stories that include both as points of contention between characters, but both are framed as justifiable can exist and can be really good, but that’s not what we’re given. Stories that make it clear that they prefer one over the other can exist, but that’s not what we’re given either. RWBY is full of whiplash moments, where you have to go “Wait, wasn’t this framed as wrong just an episode ago?” and “Wait, wasn’t this framed as right and justified just an episode ago?” Because RWBY as a show doesn’t bother to believe in either of them. RWBY as a show is only concerned with saying what they can to make the protagonists look good, which is hard.

When you look at it, they’re bad at being consequentialists.

Let’s look at the first relevant consequentialist action I noted, where I used the example of stealing the Atlas ship to establish that the protagonists considered stealing justified and necessary, therefore morally sound. This was not only avoidable (Cordovin had given them the option of sending Weiss through and she could’ve contacted Winter as soon as her scroll was able to reach her,) but it caused a dangerous Grimm attack. As far as I know, no civilians were hurt. However, this was still an avoidable act of theft that caused negative consequences. Looking at them trapping Atlas is even messier. They do it to save the remaining people of Mantle, putting the people of Atlas (and the evacuated Mantle citizens) at risk so they can save the most people despite the soldiers lining up to die facing Salem and the possibility of Grimm getting in the city of Atlas and killing civilians before they can finish the evacuation. But you quickly realize that they literally can’t evacuate the people still in Mantle because they have no resources to do so. Then they start moving the remaining people of Mantle to the Crater where they won’t freeze to death (logical,) and JORY and the HH start trying to defend them (logical,) but then they don’t send Penny to move Atlas. They know that they can’t evacuate the people in Mantle to Atlas, have a temporary solution to the cold, and know they aren’t going to get more help in defending the civilians in their care and must take care of it themselves. But they continue to keep Atlas trapped there despite knowing that the consequence might be thousands dying. Looking at launching Amity and sending out the broadcast is even messier than that. The broadcast is ill-planned, sloppy, confusing, and hits several of the beats of Cinder’s broadcast, which kick started the Fall of Beacon. This could have terrible consequences in a world where the Grimm are drawn to negativity. People could panic, it could launch Vacuo (the last remaining fully functioning kingdom) into a state of emergency, it could cause people to lose all hope in the establishments or the Hunters themselves, it could make people go out looking for ‘maidens’ to help them. And no one should be able to just travel to help Atlas within a couple of days anyway, which Ruby seems to fully understand at times in how she frames things, but she also asks for help that logic says can’t come. This was something that might endanger people and cause mass panic and Grimm attacks, that didn’t actually do much good. In terms of consequentialism, this was a failure, this wasn’t the Right thing to do.

But when you look at it, they’re bad at virtue ethics too.

Of course, there’s the obvious. They lie, they mistrust, they steal, they’re violent. They point their weapons at Qrow in V6, Weiss points her weapon at Whitley, an untrained teenage civilian, Weiss throws a man in a dumpster for being anti-Faunus to Blake, Qrow punches a teenage body for lying to him about something important. But there’s also the fact that in V8, Ruby and Weiss and Blake don’t do much to help anyone. Ruby sends out her hopeful sounding message that could do very little (if logic means anything in this world,) and then sits in a mansion drinking tea, waiting for Nora to recover. Of course this is wrong from a consequentialist mind frame, the consequence of sitting around doing nothing when you can help save people is that those people might die. But from a virtue ethics standpoint... This action is selfish, maybe even cowardly. Ruby is meant to be selfless and brave, and remember that she’s the one who made it so Atlas civilians and the evacuated people of Mantle couldn’t escape, and then despite the fact that she’s a powerful fighter with a rare super power that can take out tons of Grimm at once, Ruby sits in a mansion and despairs that no one is coming to save her. Look, I’ve heard every excuse. It doesn’t matter if she’s wanted by the Atlas police. It doesn’t matter if she’s trying to take care of her friend. It doesn’t matter if she has no plan. The virtues Ruby is supposed to embody like kindness, bravery, resolve and selflessness would dictate that all of that has to take a backseat when she can save human lives.

This is a big reason why I’m so frustrated with RWBY. They keep waffling between these two conflicting ideas of what’s right and what’s wrong, and they’re failing to make our heroes properly fit into either category. They just then tell us that they fit. They always do what’s right for the most people and don’t look behind the curtain to see them fail to do just that. They always follow their virtues and don’t look behind the curtain to see them make excuses over and over for themselves while they expect everyone else to adhere to the standards they won’t reach for.

And honestly, fans do the same thing the show does, which is one reason why it’s so frustrating to talk to mega-stans that won’t recognize the main casts flaws while they refuse to see that Oz deserved better or that Ironwood wasn’t evil pre-end of volume 7. “Of course Team RWBY lied to Ironwood, they didn’t know if they could trust him!” “Whether or not Oz knew if he could trust them, he never should’ve lied to them.” They’ll say these things even sometimes in the same posts or comments and not even realize the problem. The show and the fans will use anything and any justification to pretend that Team RWBY was right and inculpable, but they’ll use anything and any justification to make anyone who opposes them - friend or foe - seem entirely in the wrong and at fault. That’s why Oz apologized to them, but they didn’t apologize back even though they treated him horribly. The show runners don’t care what Team RWBY did wrong, they’ve already jumped through all the mental hoops to pretend they were right.

Looking at Team RWBY through the lens of virtue ethics, they fail to meet a good standard, and looking at Team RWBY through the lens of consequentialism, they still fall short. And the show needs to stop acting like they’re inherently better than the people around them when they’re not. The show writers are using the excuses of consequentialism and virtue ethics whenever they think it can distract us from the fact that behind their fancy feel good words, they don’t know how to write good protagonists.