#i know what shifted in the singular character i intentionally changed

[bakujho]

Strap in folks, it’s rant time.

So, let's talk a bit about manipulation and abuse present in fandom. It’s uncomfortable, but fuck it lets go, I’m tired of the “good vibes only” push that sweeps all this shit under the rug. I’m not pretending to be an expert by a longshot here and I’m happy to discuss, but I have dealt with enough abusive and manipulative people personally and professionally to spot em a fucking mile away and generally keep my distance. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a gross trend where there are people being attacked, then are guilted into keeping quiet because the Abusers make it seem like it’s not worth mentioning or that it doesn’t really matter... Unfortunately, the Abusers know exactly what they’re doing, they’re really fucking good at it, and they know exactly the kind of response they’re going to receive (because in some cases, this isn’t the first fandom they’ve pulled this same shit in). 

Right off the bat though, lets get some basic facts about fandom out of the way. No one in fandom owns any character: be it interactions, personality or anything else about said character. No fandom creator owns an idea, or has any right to tell people off for having similar ideas/techniques/styles etc. There’s no such thing as a completely original singular thought, and pretty sure if you think of something ‘original’, there’s inspiration from another source. No one owns a hairstyle, a costume, a backstory, a colour scheme, an item, a scar etc etc. If someone has a similar thing, neat, clearly you’ve got similar tastes. If someone has a carbon copy of your creation on multiple points, ABSOLUTELY question it, but having the same hairstyle isn’t copyright infringement, and having a similar history isn’t ripping someone off, it’s coincidence. 

Going to put the rest under the cut, CW for manipulation tactics, abuse, and all those sorts of goodies.

So, I’ll start with the Abusers here. Everyone knows who they are, they know who they are, unfortunately the victims of them are worried about speaking out because, for the most part, the ones abusing people are in a position of perceived power and speaking out against them can put the victim in a tricky position. No one wants to be ousted from a fandom they enjoy for speaking out against someone that’s been around fandom since its inception. Which brings me to my first point.

Power: Abusers LOVE the feeling of having power (be it follower count, general clout, perceived hierarchy etc) and get really uncomfortable when they feel someone new comes to threaten their position. So, what do these people do in that situation? Option A is to completely ignore and hope they’re not dethroned, Option B is befriend immediately and subtly manipulate the person to keep a close eye on their actions. Keep your friends close, but enemies closer amirite? 

So how the fuck does a person subtly manipulate another person, shouldn’t it be obvious? Fuck man, I wish. But there’s a lot of different techniques used to keep people reigned in and submissive: guilt tripping, evasion/diversion, attention seeking, lying, intimidation, playing the victim etc etc. So obviously these will all present differently based on the abuser, but the goal of all of them is the same. To stay in power, and keep control over everything they can. 

So how would all of these present online? (of course these examples leave some wiggle room for context lost in text/translation/cultural differences etc, but for the most part it all fits the same pattern that the abuser would use in a face to face situation). 

Guilt- tripping: “Well you wouldn’t be here if not for me” “You owe me for your place in the fandom” “well if we really were friends you’d do this for me…” etc etc. Things that pit your emotional attachment to the Abuser against you, the closer you are, the easier it is. Suddenly the Victim finds themselves indebted to the Abuser for their ‘friendship’ that the Victim didn’t realize was conditional. 

Shaming: Invalidating the victims feelings by saying things like “even a child knows better than this”, “it’s okay you don’t understand, you’re probably young”, “I’ve been around fandom longer so I know how things go” etc etc. It makes the Victim feel like they’ve done something wrong by drawing boundaries for themselves, or sticking up for themselves. Remember, the Abuser doesn’t want to lose their crown so they will talk down to their Victims to make them more unsure of their stance, second guess themselves, and feel bad that they spoke up in the first place. 

Projection: “Others have done X to me, I would NEVER do the same” It’s a simple yet effective tactic. The Abuser takes the things they’ve done to people, say it happened to them, and shift the blame to the now faceless enemy so the Victim feels obligated to side with the abuser because, yea, those things mentioned fucking SUCK and no one wants to experience it. No one wants to be that asshole saying “no you deserved it” (because no one fucking deserves to be doxxed, swatted, hacked, etc etc)

Playing-the-victim: Abusers LOVE playing this game. It’s their bread and butter to set the stage for manipulation. “Having a really hard time rn, sorry im such a fuckup”, “struggling with mental health”, “this is all so hard for me” (legit though, if you are struggling please seek help where/when you can, mental health is important). So any of these statements alone can be harmless, and overlooking someone's mental health can have dangerous outcomes, HOWEVER, when these sort of statements are paired with the other things mentioned, it’s no longer simply a vent or a way to work past personal demons, it’s a way to gain sympathy and support, and it is very intentionally done to garner that emotional response from those that will listen to them. 

Attention-Seeking: can be as simple as “no one interacts with me anymore”, making a dramatic vague post, deleting that same post and making a newer, more dramatic post but this time seeking affirmation from the good responses of the last post, posting cryptic messages that ooze “ask me what happened” (vaguebooking is a plague), basically anything that is asking for a response without asking. How is it manipulative though? Guilt. If you’re aware of the Abuser, these types of posts are meant to abuse the Victim's sense of empathy, the natural response to these sorts of posts is “what happened, I’m sorry that happened to you”. 

Diversion/Evasion: straight up changing the subject or switching the blame to anywhere BUT the Abuser. The Abuser says “change X you’re copying me”, the Victim responds “I feel I didn’t copy you”, and the Abuser presses “well the fandom might not think so” and changes it from a personal issue to a larger, more aggressive problem. In this case, the Abuser is the ONLY one with a problem, but are purposely misleading the victim to take the blame off themselves. It’s not THEIR problem, it’s the FANDOMS problem...now making it the Victims problem. 

Blame: Abusers love to blame everyone BUT themselves for their perceived problems. Fandom isn’t interacting with them as much? It’s the fandom that’s dying. More drama in the fandom? Well there’s too many people here now. Getting called out for bad behavior? That’s the problem of the person who CLEARLY doesn’t understand how fandom must work. It’s the age old tale of “I’m perfect, it’s obviously everyone else who is wrong”. At what point does the Abuser realize that they may be the cause for their own misery? They don’t. 

Intimidation: This is a fun one that’s usually a last resort because if the Abuser is pretending to be a sheep caught in a snowstorm, it doesn’t look good for them to publicly announce they’ve been the wolf the whole time. It looks like “well I have X on you”, “if you only knew what I could say about you”, and “I could ruin you” type shit. Of course, in most cases, the Victim hasn’t done anything to warrant this sort of aggression, but the queen is losing her pawns and is now grasping for anything to fight back with. And who knows what sort of lengths the Abuser has gone to to gain information on the victim. It’s pretty easy to find out a lot about a person online, so the Victims back down due to the threat of the unknown.

Avoidance: refusing to talk about the problem, which is an issue I have with fandom itself, in this case. The “no drama good vibes only” is so fucking detrimental when there are problems that need to be addressed. An Abuser will push the narrative that they’re only here for a good time and don’t want drama, while actively creating drama in the shadows. Its not a problem if we don’t talk about it, right? If no one knows, it’s fine. It’s fine. No, it’s manipulative, and if there are problems they NEED to be talked about, because that’s how you find resolutions. 

Denial: This one ties in with avoidance and blame, in that the Abuser will straight up deny that they’ve ever been, or have ever created a problem. The Victim is making a big deal from nothing, they can’t control how others feel about them, so they’ve done nothing wrong. The Abuser will claim they had the best intentions when approaching someone, so clearly they have done nothing wrong. 

Lying: Including omitting any information from arguments that may paint the Abuser in a bad light. The Abuser absolutely doesn’t want anyone to find out what they’re up to, so they’ll say exactly what they need to to change the narrative surrounding them. It could be minor changes to conversations to complete fabrications. Ex “I only approached X to make sure they were okay after X happened”, but X screenshots tell a completely different story. It’s not always easy to catch an Abuser in a lie, especially when there’s the push for “no drama” so no one talks about their personal experiences and can confirm/deny what was/reported to be said. 

So bringing all of those points together and bringing it back to the Abuser wanting to have the power to control what they like/don’t like in fandom. Once they have that feeling of invincibility, they may coyly ask people to delete posts that could lead back to them looking bad, politely ask another creator to change their creation because the Abuser doesn’t like it, or them asking nicely to stop interacting with another member of fandom the Abuser doesn’t like. It may not seem like much at a first glance...after all they asked nicely. However, once you look a little harder and a little longer, it becomes very clear that the intention is to stay in control. The Abuser will do ANYTHING to stay on top, and will employ every trick they have in their arsenal to sew discord and mistrust amongst other members of the fandom to keep the fingers pointed anywhere but at themselves.

So, sound familiar to anyone? My inbox is open for anyone who wants to chat about the topic. If I’ve now made you uncomfortable and you’re going to unfollow/block, cheers, wish you the best. And if you’re feeling called out and attacked by my post? GOOD, stop being a fucking shitty person. 

A few last reminders before adding some resources:

Setting and enforcing personal boundaries is not abuse.

Choosing not to interact with those who make you uncomfortable is not rude.

It is important to call out abuse when you encounter it, it could save someone from becoming a victim themselves.

Always stand up for yourself, you’re your own best advocate. 

Now for some resources: I used a few of these while researching along with my old textbooks from my psych, abnormal psych, and human relations classes I took back in university.

Manipulation tactics

How to recognize a guilt trip

How to spot an attention seeker

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

What is your opinion on writing a chapter/book in first person and then changing all of the first-person singular pronouns to third person pronouns? I hope this question makes sense, but I think it would be an interesting way to approach writing a third-person close narrative by simply writing the story in first person pov and then transferring it all to third person pov! (Asking this because you just uploaded a video on close third person narratives <3)

This is actually a piece of writing advice I vehemently disagree with! BUT if this works for you—absolutely go for it and ignore everything I’m about to say!

I’ve had to do this a few times for a few classes across high school and even university, and I have literally learned nothing about POV by doing it. In my experience, transferring one POV to the next will teach one thing: how to transfer one POV to the next. It will most likely NOT teach you how to actually write that POV (and that’s because POV is complex and can’t simply be boiled down to an equation of which pronouns are being used). POV is oftentimes critical in how you construct your character’s voice - so a third voice is going to differ from a first. If you switch them by changing the pronouns, this difference between POVs is not considered, and the POV may risk reading as flat.

The way I write a close third narrative and a first are not the same because there are different things to consider. This is SO hard to verbalize, but if you write across multiple POVs, you might understand this feeling - you just know the difference between writing first present VS first retrospective VS second present VS third limited, etc etc. If I’m writing a first, I’m much, much closer to the stream of conscious of a character. If I’m writing a third, I can get very close to that stream of conscious, but it’s always filtered through the narrator (like I said in the video, this narrator can be close to the point where they and the character are essentially the same, or they can be much more distant). You can’t consider these nuances when switching pronouns.

Here’s an excerpt of Rewired (bear with me - this is old lol but I haven’t written a novel in first person since!), which is a novel written in first person present tense:

Dad took me to Gianni’s on the drive back down. We’d visited it on our way up, and he knew I liked the pizzeria for its deep-dish. I can’t remember if my father was Italian. He might have been. My parents had gifted me a disposable camera for Christmas, and I took grainy flash photos of the drink machines and tiny paper lanterns. This isn’t Gianni’s, and it’s 2:00AM.

Harrison orders us a deep dish large enough to feed all six of us, minus Emily because she doesn’t do dairy. Darren pumps napkins and caplets of ketchup onto his tray, and Foster brings eight straws, like two of us will screw up opening them, for some reason. Ris brings his car keys and Emily over to us at the same time and drops each off at the table before b-lining for the ticket machine.

This is what happens when we transfer it to third person:

Max took Reeve to Gianni’s on the drive back down. They’d visited it on their way up, and he knew she liked the pizzeria for its deep-dish. Reeve can’t remember if her father was Italian. He might have been. Reeve’s parents had gifted her a disposable camera for Christmas, and she took grainy flash photos of the drink machines and tiny paper lanterns. This isn’t Gianni’s, and it’s 2:00AM.

Harrison orders the group a deep dish large enough to feed all six of them, minus Emily because she doesn’t do dairy. Darren pumps napkins and caplets of ketchup onto his tray, and Foster brings eight straws, like two of them will screw up opening them, for some reason. Ris brings his car keys and Emily over to the group at the same time and drops each off at the table before b-lining for the ticket machine.

IMO, this transferred version reads super clunkily/awkwardly! There’s a roboticness to the sentence structure and the third isn’t really contributing to much in the narrative. To me, this reads very much like I’ve transferred first person to third haha. Third might give more room in this narrative - it might even switch the way details are presented to increase flow rather than jumping between small slivers of memory to the fictive present.

Here’s an excerpt from Feeding Habits, which is written in third present:

Trust looks like a road trip to Buffalo. This is not Harrison’s idea, nor is it Lonan’s—it’s all Suz. When Harrison eventually comes inside, staticky from the car, awkward, ready to flee, and his mother cooks everyone dinner and they all eat it around the kitchen table like some makeshift family and she serves dessert—her first attempt at baklava—and she cries briefly in her bedroom and exits okay and gathers both her son and Lonan in front of the television, she informs them they must communicate, hands them both envelopes.

And this is that same excerpt transferred to first present:

Trust looks like a road trip to Buffalo. This is not my idea, nor is it Lonan’s—it’s all Suz. When I eventually come inside, staticky from the car, awkward, ready to flee, and my mother cooks us dinner and we all eat it around the kitchen table like some makeshift family and she serves dessert—her first attempt at baklava—and she cries briefly in her bedroom and exits okay and gathers both me and Lonan in front of the television, she informs us we must communicate, hands us both envelopes.

The amount of discomfort I feel reading this ^^ LOL. Similar thing happens here: disjointed flow, robotic sound. What I like about the third person version is that there isn’t particular emphasis on one character (which I needed for this particular scene). To me, that focus shifts to the “I” when we change it to first so we lose a lot of Suz, who is so important in the original.

Let’s think back to my lens metaphor from the video. When you choose a POV for a story, you also place the story’s “lens” at a particular angle/distance. If you “transfer” this, you’re disrupting that placement because while it’s technically in the “same” place, it now must focus through a new framework, which is not what it was intended to do (like a camera now having to focus through a thicket of trees when it’s supposed to only capture a picture of the sky). It’s like choosing acrylic paint as your portrait medium expecting it to do the job of graphite.

It’s absolutely possible to transfer a first narrative to a third, but you’ll likely have to do more than just change the pronouns since point of view is complex and not exactly a situation of copy and paste. That new third narrator will change the way that story is filtered (which will adjust the voice, possibly even structure, and even things as small as the line level of course).

Perhaps I’m being cynical though, so I’d be curious to hear from others who’ve been successful using this transferal technique--what did you learn by doing it? Every time I’ve done this I’ve struggled to understand how it helps, but that could 100% be me so please share your experiences!

TL;DR: if you don’t know how to write a particular POV, the most helpful thing to help you learn is to actually write the POV! Get to know what different POVs offer by intentionally choosing one for the next story (or even paragraph) you write!

Hope this answers your question!

[varsitycult]

Shapeshifting: Solaris and True Alienation

          In Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 novel of the same name, Solaris is an alien planet that “materializes physical simulacra”— any members aboard the space station slowly circling the planet will begin to have interactions with figures from their pasts, those figures that left the greatest impact on their psyches. The ocean itself manifests many forms that fall under different categorization, such as mimoids, symmetriads, etc., which arise mostly as singular architectural feats and ever-evolving foamy, stretchy-then-solid, growing-and-shrinking structures that can be many miles in dimension; those that study these phenomena are called solaricists.            The study of Solaris developed from a more esoteric theorization of what the ocean actually “is”:

“For some time one popular view, eagerly disseminated by the press, was that the thinking ocean covering the whole of Solaris was a gigantic brain more advanced by millions of years than our own civilization, that it was some kind of “cosmic yogi,” a sage, omniscience incarnate, which had long ago grasped the futility of all action and for this reason was simply maintaining a categorical silence towards us.” (Lem)

          This evolved into a decidedly scientific investigation of how Solaris ‘works,’but no matter how many studies were done and how much a desire for First Contact might’ve been present aboard, the ocean didn't attempt to reveal anything about itself — to the crew, it seemingly only sought to essentially conduct psychological experiments on them by creating “empty” doppelgängers of critical figures from their pasts who cannot die.

          The book centers around Kris Kelvin, an at times neurotic, at times deeply detached psychologist. In his youth, he knew and was in a relationship with a young woman named Harey, who ultimately ended up killing herself after Kris ended their relationship and implied she was weak. Once Kris begins seeing, speaking and interacting with the simulacra of Harey, he questions his own sanity, and conducts experiments to prove to himself that he is sane — and when in the lab, realizes the other crew members have done the same. We never learn the details of the other crews simulacras beyond an interaction in the beginning of Kris’ stay, and fleeting glimpses of identifiers — but it is implied that they’re haunting enough to drive the crew to madness and suicide, such as in the case of Gibarian, a former professor of Kris’ and fellow crew member who committed suicide right before Kris arrived on the station.

           Harey is Kris’ appointed simulacra, or shapeshifter, if you will. What is a shapeshifter? Basically an entity with the ability to change into a different shape or form; It can be the act of a human turning into an animal (commonly seen in creatures such as werewolves, vampires and the like); an animal shapeshifting into a person; a person into a plant or object; and on, including gods turning into clouds, gods turning other gods into any myriad of animals or objects, etc. Shapeshifting is key in shamanic practice and totemism, and entails transformation into a different  f o r m, precipitated by an altered state of consciousness within the shaman, aided by substances, rhythmic driving, and the like:

“[S]hamanism and hypnosis … use … the same dissociative state of consciousness, which in shamanism is referred to as the shamanic journey, or ecstatic flight, and in hypnosis is called the hypnotic trance, or simply trance. Neurophysiological and empirical evidence support the view that the shamanic journey achieved without the use of hallucinogenic substances, that is, with the aid of musical instrumentation, chanting, and similar phenomena, elicits the same EEG profile as the hypnotic trance state. In addition, experiential phenomena characteristic of the shaman’s ecstatic flight, such as shapeshifting, contact with imaginal agents, and the like, can likewise be achieved in hypnotic trance” (Walter).

         
 For this entry, shapeshifting is one conscious entity shifting into another entity who is, by necessity, conscious to some degree. We find shapeshifters from stories that span the world and millennia — such as the character of Merlin from Arthurian Legend:

“In the Arthurian cycle, the wizard Merlin enchanted Uther Pendragon, making him look like the husband of Igraine so that she would gladly sleep with him. Merlin knew through augury that this mating would conceive the child who would later become King Arthur. One tool for accomplishing such shapeshifting was the spell known as fith-fath, used to transform one object into another and also to confer invisibility.” (472, Walter)

(I just really enjoy the word fith-fath)

          In the Cherokee tradition, there’s the story of the “Stone Coat,” a monster covered with scaly armor from head to toe who could take human form; Stone Coat ate the livers of his victims while in the shape of an old woman, after puncturing their skulls with a crooked finger (136, Young). Stone Coat took the form of an orphan, who then ate other children’s livers, and was subsequently banned from town. Knowing Stone Coat is approaching, 7 menstruating women lay along the path in wait — he vomits blood crossing them, and, knowing he is dying, asks the people to build a fire and burn him. As he burned, he sang songs, songs that eventually became traditional Cherokee songs; “His death, he said, would unleash disease in the world, but the songs he taught them would cure it.”

          In the case of Old Norse, with regards to Berserkers, shapeshifting more closely approximates a shared state of consciousness generated among animal cultists, leading to murder and rape under the influence of rage:

“It is proposed by some authors that the berserkers drew their power from the bear and were devoted to the bear cult, which was once widespread across the northern hemisphere … To "go berserk" was to "hamask", which translates as "change form", in this case, as with the sense "enter a state of wild fury.”

          In Asia, the kitsune (🇯🇵), huli jing (🇨🇳), or kumiho (🇰🇷) are mythical foxes with 9 tails, that are at least 1,000-years old and have attained the boon of shapeshifting. These creatures are known for turning into young women who eat the hearts or livers of young men. In Korea, the kumiho is always malignant, while the Japanese and Chinese variants are morally ambiguous. Across cultures, if a kitsune can last 1,000 days without killing or eating a human, they can become fully human.

          There are myriad reasons why Solaris is a unique shapeshifter experience, considering shapeshifting so often relies on either mythical entities with mythical powers, or altered states. With Solaris, we have an “entity” who can never be perceived directly, and we never learn how Solaris does what it does — Lem intentionally chose an ocean as to avoid personification and thus satisfaction of “First Contact.” Solaris creates an experience of True Alienation — because Solaris can “[see] into the deepest recesses of human minds and then [bring] their dreams to life,” but the observer knows that wish-fulfillment is impossible, making the experience of Solaris a deeply disturbing one which highlights the limits of our physical systems and of our human comprehension.

          We never come to understand the intent of the manifestations that haunt the crew observing Solaris, though later in the book, Kris ventures out onto the planet itself for the first time ever, after Harey has finally died indefinitely of her own accord; This experience changes his perception of the planet itself, realizing it is actually slightly timid, if not a bit naive, observing and reacting to new information, interacting momentarily with Kris’ hand. In the absence of understanding, there was forgiveness of the planet itself, and the psychological torment endured by Kris and the simulacras.

          Often, whether in literature about shamanic rituals or on galaxy-🧠 backwater forums, you will find discussion of shapeshifting paired with possession. Shapeshifting and possession are parallel phenomena, though possession is internal. Harey is both real and not real simultaneously; Harey knows she is and knows she isn’t; and Harey can never be far away from Kris, at least in the beginning. If Kris is not visible to Harey, she will enter a fugue state until she is reunited with Kris again, at times causing herself fatal physical harm to remove obstacles to him — this possession “reveals” Harey to truly be Solaris itself, her body receiving a hard reset via near-death experiences.

          In the beginning of the novel, Harey has a truly amnesiac response to notions of “the past” — she quickly creates an excuse for her behavior or her origins whenever she materializes on the station. As time goes on, Harey noticeably becomes perturbed by her inability to know herself and comes to realize that she is not “Harey”at all. As opposed to following the natural progression of a developing consciousness, arguably going from tabula rasa “nothing” to “something,” Harey goes from believing she is “something” to knowing she is “nothing,” a figment created by the parsed memories of another living being, in a way mirroring terrestrial Harey’s timeline.

          Solaris functions as the embodiment of what Rudolf Otto called the Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinans; the numinous, the unknown. Under electron microscope examination, blood samples from simulacras are devoid of electrons, instead being composed of neutrinos, and a specialized machine is ultimately needed to kill Harey at the end of the book because of this. Nothing like Solaris has ever been seen before, let alone conceived of by human minds, and when 106 members of the space station die in one freak accident while exploring a spontaneous formation on Solaris long before Kris ever arrives, humans subject it to nukes in “retaliation”. Humans had a stronger desire to destroy the unknown than to allow the unknown to exist at all. But Solaris was seemingly unscathed, and afterwards, public interest in Solaris waned, and the simulacras began to appear onboard the station.

           What makes the unknown of Solaris more exaggerated is its observation, even experimentation, on the crew. It is always learning about You — You cannot learn about It. And we can never know if it is learning from its experimenting, if its experimenting is leading to something, some conclusion, at all. It becomes a true black mirror, reflecting back at the crew that which has psychically harmed or affected them the most to try to understand that hurt, because hurt sticks the most :’ ).

           Very often in shapeshifter stories, the concluding action is to kill the shapeshifter because it is deemed malevolent. Shapeshifting is obscure, it is dark, and it is unknowable except to those shapeshifters with access to it. Shapeshifting physicalizes the Shadow, and conceptualizes the existential chicken-and-egg of knowing decay, death and rebirth are inevitable, just maybe not in the ways we’d hoped — bask in the Shadow and temper the compulsion to kill the darkness.

Bibliography:

Lem, Stanisław. “Solaris,” Walker, 1964.

Walter, Mariko, and Eva Jane Neumann. “Shamanism: An Encyclopedia of World Beliefs, Practices, and Culture,” ABC-CLIO, 2004.

Young, William A. “Quest for Harmony: Native American Spiritual Traditions,” Hackett Pub. Co., 2006.

& Wikipedia lul

[mas-ai]

Not necessarily related to the ask meme but what do you like abt eiichi? I'm glad u do like him, he's a very special and good boy, but he's polarizing and I'm always curious as to why people like him

Okay, I just want to get one thing out of the way before we get into this because this is going to be a bit of a rollercoaster. (It's me, isn't it always? but i mean hey ho unfollow if u want because your dash is your own and i want you to be happy with who you're following. it's your account, you have the right to unfollow who you like. c:)

Disclaimer: (I know you won’t take this out of context, this is just in case someone comes across this post and only this post of mine and doesn’t read through my endless devotion to all charas and takes this all wrong ;;)  I haven't seen Legend Star in the mindset of being an Eiichi stan and I haven't listened to HEAVENS radio. I fully believe that Legend Star does not give us enough of an insight into HEAVENS nor does them justice as characters being introduced into the "main" Prince roster. Personally, I consider them as still flat characters despite their developments, that are still in the process of being fleshed out. That said, I haven't seen LS in some time and I don't remember every single detail. Anything I say here is based on my awful memory, headcanons and current mindset with the knowledge I have that will absolutely shift, change and grow in the future - just like Eiichi. I will also say, some mentions of character hate are below and some things are going to be worded a little harshly based on -past- opinions and first reactions (way back when Revolutions was released). I do not support character hate. All boys are best boys and all of the characters are fantastic, even if some of them are not among my personal favourites.

OKAY! LET'S GO, FRIEND.

 ...... I know you asked something extremely simple but I'm not a simple person and I kind of just want to vent write this in hopes a lot of good hcs and stuff come out of it. My short answer to you is:The thing I like the most about Eiichi is how he is written to be a negative foil to STARISH as a whole in the manner that Quartet Night attempted to be. QN did not succeed in this role, but Eiichi remains the powerhouse that introduces new problems into the narrative without being a complete asshole. He retains a personality that is complex, narrow-minded and realistic; he's that piece of the puzzle that brings this fantastic fantasy life into real life because we all know 'that guy'. But sometimes we fail to see two things: 'that guy' has a life and reasons for why the way he is -- and more often than not, sometimes, we ourselves our 'that guy' in some situations. His flaws.

When Eiichi, Nagi and Kira were introduced it seemed at first to me like they were nothing more than a complete money-grab an attempt to re-invest in an anime that perhaps was beginning to meet its end in terms of where it could go with a plotline. It was obvious that Nanami was going to remain impartial and oblivious to the advances of those around her and while we were going to continue to get singular episodes as "routes" no real romance was going to occur. Moving STARISH forward as a whole, something heavily built upon in the first season, was entirely dropped. There was starting to be a major lack of overarching plot for the series. Yes, every specific episode had a main plotpoint - but the anime was starting to lack an overall goal. Nanami herself seemed to slowly start to disappear from the series and ghost into the background and the characters already know each other for the most part; they weren't tossed into too many new situations to continue developing. 

We see so many "bits" of things just sort of.. very lightly ghosted over in the anime and then left to be forgotten. Examples through the seasons include Natsuki's backstory, Ai's story, Reiji/Aine, Ranmaru's history (is it even canon to the anime he was friends with Masato and Ren when they were younger?) - and of course, Camus, who hasn't had a lick of development. (I love you Camus. Anime does not do you justice.)  

Before this too is taken out of context, I want to state the anime is my favourite media of the series and I'm not hating on it at ALL. It's what got me into UtaPri and kept me in UtaPri for as many years as I've loved it and is very near and dear to my heart - I'm just saying, it's not delving into plotlines that it could. It's remained the light-hearted, airy, soft anime where all problems tied off at the end of each episode and that was that. Short and sweet. Yes, the story does move toward Triple S: but let's be real, we all know the outcome from the second the concept is introduced. STARISH will win. Of course they will. It's about STARISH. 

Heck, Revolutions' plotline is about their change and becoming on par with Quartet Night. Quartet Night wasn't done justice in the anime at all. I'm so thankful we got more of them in Revolutions,  but they seemed to have this strange "friendly but rival but friends but also lol maybe we'll take Nanami from you but none of us are actually going to propose that to Shining ever". It was just this weird loop. Again, all good boys, love the anime, great dynamics between them - but the plot as a whole was just... it was starting to get stale and repetitive with the sole focus on being this one tiny part of the world.

Enter HE☆VENS. Or, more specifically -- enter Eiichi.

☆ They expand upon the world of UtaPri quite significantly and open so many doors. (Gates? lolol.) Not only is another group brought into the mix without an established relationship that will dominate dynamics (senpai/kouhai, where STARISH must lean on Quartet Night and QN must mentor which kind of takes away from the "rivalry" potential.) They're starting from absolute scratch and bringing in an entirely new agency. From the way it's translated, it also sounds like HE☆VENS may have been around before STARISH but been established after Quartet Night. We're also introduced to Raging, who provides a lot more backstory for Shining.

☆ HE☆VENS poses a legitimate threat to taking away Nanami AND have made attempts to do so. They tried to force her to join them in 2000%, then tried to steal her in Revolutions and eventually asked her to join them in Legend Star. Eiichi made most of these attempts himself.

☆ Eiichi is extremely sly and smart. When his group was not disbanded, he instigated efforts to better everyone and they spent a year filling the group and practicing to storm in at the end of Revolutions. He knows full well that the winner wouldn't take their victory against HE☆VENS and would want a decisive concert. Which, potentially could have meant Quartet Night or STARISH being disbanded should HE☆VENS win. 

☆ While the rest of the group does soften considerably through Legend Star, EIICHI DOES NOT. He retains every fiber of the personality we first meet him with, at all times. To better explain the point here, I'll make an example of Nagi who originally came off as extremely bratty and high-handed who didn't really treat his bandmates that well. Later on, he's softened and instead of being high-handed, he adopts an annoyance similar to Syo's in most situation and loses that more brash side of him that we see when he slaps Natsuki's hand away - like with Shion. He has a clear affection for them and becomes a little more kind around them and not just in private with them. Eiichi, on the other hand, is developed in a different way, where he continues to be that strong-minded individual who acts out of lack of self-confidence. Fake it until you make it. Even when in private with his bandmates, he continues to keep up all the attitude we first meet him with. He continues to try to keep control of every situation and be a reliable leader, even to the point of emotionally manipulating even his bandmates (we see this even more with Otoya, too.) He grows, yes. Does he /change/? .. I don't really think so. Do we still get to see more sides of him? Yes. Do we see how he displays his love for others? Yes. But this is all done without 'losing' that edge he was first introduced to have. He is extremely, extremely responsible - but even when the time comes for consequences, he remains true to himself by manipulating the situation. He takes the fall for others, he uses his words to change perspectives, he takes control, he remains a leader.

☆ He doesn't change his views. When he's trying to bring out what he sees as the best in Otoya, he does it in a manipulative way that is in line with his personality and is an echo of how he was treated as he was growing up. He doesn't try to "inspire and move Otoya's heart through the power of music" like he might've if he fell head over heels in love with Nanami and had those feelings change who he was as a character. (Some just seem to swap personalities completely after falling for her, to me?) We see the flaws in him as this happens and how some people's minds are sometimes slightly skewed by their perspectives as Otoya goes 'darker' and Eiichi is pleased with how things are progressing. It's not being done to intentionally destroy him, but rather bring out another side of Otoya - and honestly, it looked to me like he was ready to offer a position in HE☆VENS to him. Which, again, is an active act against STARISH.

☆ this boy puts up with legitimately zero shit and if someone is not treating one of his boys right, he doesn't stand for it. i'm a bit concerned about potential discourse so i'm not going to name characters or exact situations out of respect for the characters & their fans, but there are some points in the series where certain characters treat others like. absolute. garbage. nothing is done about it. nobody has enough of a backbone to stand up and call the behaviour out, save maybe one. it's written off and dismissed. eiichi doesn't put up with it for a second. if you fuck him over, or upset someone in his group, or make a mistake -- just like how he has known ALL HIS LIFE -- there is a consequence. if he has to be the one to give it to you, he damn well will.

☆ eiichi has a backbone and is probably one of the most incredibly written characters in the anime yet despite being a flat character.

☆  ALSO HE IS INCREDIBLY PASSIONATE. LIKE SO, SO INCREDIBLY PASSIONATE IN A WAY THAT PUTS EVEN MASATO TO SHAME. Or rather, not to shame, but he has this... aggressive, confrontational, go-getter passion. An ambitious passion. For everything he does, for everyone who takes more than twelve seconds to give him the time of day and get to know him for who he is. He’s where he is because of those people and he just... he shows it by trying to be this rock that everyone around him can rely on all the time but really he is suffering so much on the inside. But he’s so selfless and not in a “look at how selfless i am!! pity me!!” way. He just genuinely wants to support those who stand by him. this is one loyal baby boy.

I have five thousand more points I could drive on and on about, but I'm going to cut this here because I'm starting to get a little bit upset about how he (and his beloved HE☆VENS are treated.) Anyway, I have to admit that what started my love for Eiichi was extremely small. It was nothing more than an answer to an ask that I wasn't even the one to send in. If it wasn't for someone with one of the most beautiful shows of love for this series that I have ever seen and their simple but beautiful art, some of the cutest I've ever seen - if it wasn't for how deeply they care about their blog and followers and the detail and care put into their work... I probably wouldn't have even given Eiichi the time of day. This blog was one of the first I ever followed and absolutely one that makes my day with their content. So thank you, @uta-no-fakku-sama for being such a massive part of this fandom in my eyes. Thank you for all you do and thank you for introducing me to a new favourite boy and putting up with the ridiculous amount of asks I send in, especially for him - I think I'm literally every anon... most of them, for sure.

So there we go! Those are just some of the reasons why I like him so much, or maybe even just a massive and overblown explanation about one main reason I like him? I don’t know. I hope this was satisfactory!

[elfnerdherder]

The Unquiet Grave: Chapter 8

You can read Chapter 8 on Ao3 Here

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Chapter 8: Words That Smart and Pop

           In the rush of packing, debriefing, and organizing, Hannibal Lecter shows up with Will’s glasses.

           “Is it bad?” he asks lightly as Will throws a few things together. He always has a duffel bag in his car that gets refreshed every so often for unplanned trips.

           “A young married couple,” he says. At the presentation of his glasses, he gratefully slides them on so that he can focus on the rim of them rather than sneak glances to Lecter out of the corner of his eye. Despite the energy in the air of the EBAU, the doctor is utterly calm, placid in the wake of emotion that runs high and makes Will’s skin tingle. He was careful to ensure no ounce of his skin from the neck down is visible. He doesn’t want to accidentally touch.

           “No children?”

           “Not this time,” Will says, and he pauses thoughtfully. “He’s changed his MO.”

           “Have you been to Louisiana before?”

           He has, but the memories are hazy. A father whose shoulders were tan under the sun, muscles bulging as he fought with the motor of a boat engine in the swamplands. The water was green under the sunlight, and the air smelled like bugs and algae. “A long time ago,” he says, far long after it’s entirely appropriate to reply. He tosses his toothbrush on top and zips the duffel bag shut, turning towards Dr. Lecter with an awkward shift in his step.

           “Most of your memories outside of the FBI must circulate entirely around the Empath Academy,” Hannibal realizes.

           “They do.”

           “Do you have someone to feed your dogs?” he asks, and Will’s taken aback by the question. It’s no secret he has dogs –the dog hair along the bottom of his slacks alone would be enough to point that fact out to someone looking for it –but the question is sudden, abrupt in the buzzing air that says he has to go, he has to go because Dolarhyde struck again and Will Graham needs to see the crime scene fresh.

           “Dr. Bloom normally feeds them,” he says slowly.

           “Dr. Bloom is in Chicago co-lecturing at a university,” Hannibal replies. He doesn’t point out the odd relationship that Will has with the EBAU’s psychiatrist, that she’d feed his dogs for him. “I can do it, if you’d like.”

           Dr. Lecter would feed his dogs, if he liked. Will wants to say yes, yes please, that’d be such a relief because he doesn’t have many people that he can ask to feed his dogs, but he’s not so sure if that’s a good idea, letting him into his house so that he can see just how Will Graham lives away from society.

           Then again, if Will is back in time, he can maybe graze his hands over whatever Lecter touched so that he can learn more –understand more. Without his gloves, maybe he’d gain an impression of the mind behind the impenetrable façade?

           “…I don’t know if that’d be professional,” he says, and he forces himself sound regretful saying it. “If you’re my psychiatrist, and I’m working…” He busies himself with zipping up the duffle bag rather than look to Lecter.

           “Far be it from me to cross a professional barrier, but I am offering. You’re not asking.”

           “It’d be a personal favor, though.”

           “God forbid we become too friendly because I fed your dogs,” Hannibal says with a smile.

           Despite the stress of all that’s happened, Will stops long enough to smile back.

           “I don’t have many people to feed my dogs,” he admits. It’s probably obvious, since he uses an FBI psychiatrist to feed his dogs, but he says it anyway. An admission without feeling entirely too vulnerable.

           Better that than admit to the good doctor that he’s intentionally harboring a Seer right beneath their noses.

           “I would encourage you to take the steps that would make lasting friendships outside of work, but we can discuss that another time, when you’re not busy.” Lecter passes by Will’s desk, pauses at Beverly’s tablet that sets open.

           Right on Lecter’s articles. Every damn tab of them. Twenty-fucking-tabs of them.

           And because, as Will has come to learn in his lifetime, the world is hell-bent on giving him a genuine ‘fuck you’ with a middle finger, Lecter naturally glances down and sees.

           Will tenses, tastes his own embarrassment in the air at the evidence that shows that he may have more interest in Lecter than he’s willing to show. Without the ability to see, he’s left with Lecter’s body language to tell him what he’s thinking, and that in of itself is a terrifying thing at a time like this. He notes his stance, the curious turn of his shoulders, and the purse of lips as he reads one of the lines –Will wonders if he looks long enough to see just how many tabs are open.

           When he finally looks up, he spares Will a kind smile.

           “I confess that I often feel self-conscious, reading my own work,” he says, and there is no amusement or judgement in his tone.

           “That’s…” Will has no words. His gifts extend to the mental, not the social. A thousand excuses crowd his mind, each one more ridiculous than the last, and he fumbles with his duffle bag before he ultimately drops it on the chair beside him, hands useless at his sides.

           “It’s humbling and relieving to see you have an interest in it. I don’t suppose you are the sort to waste your time with inane writings about ‘overcoming’ and ‘thinking positively’.”

           “You said, ‘mind over matter is only as powerful as the singular mind,’” he says hollowly. “’When a mind, however, is plagued by the many entities surrounding it due to its nature of connection, it is not so much a mind overcoming matter as it is a mind attempting to stop becoming the matter.’”

           “I did.”

           “So,” he continues, uncomfortable, “I agreed with that.”

           “Thank you,” Hannibal says pleasantly. “Truly, I respect your opinion on such matters, since they’re experiences you’ve endured. If I’m ever off base on any future writings, please tell me.”

           He sounds like he means it. The sort of feelings that stem from the realization that Lecter doesn’t find his interest anything to laugh at stay with him, long after he sees Lecter out of HQ and long after he is on a plane to Louisiana, crammed between a Zeller that snores and a Beverly that was smart enough to use the window as the prop for her pillow rather than use Will’s shoulder.

           He thumbs through the many tabs on Beverly’s tablet –he wonders when she’ll finally tire of loaning it out to him –and he wonders at Lecter’s understanding, the sort of person that is perfectly able of seeing without the world-wearying pressure of having to be seen.

-

           Dolarhyde is no such person. In seeing, he is most certainly seen.

           Can you see me?

           As I hunt, lurk, dip through the azaleas and rest among the lavender, do you sense that I am near? You who water your garden and tend to it as a master of your world, do you not sense when the hunter draws near to you, when the hunter can smell you?

           Will hunches down among the azaleas and inhales the heavy, drooping scent of them. Fall in Louisiana means that it is cold in the morning and unbearably hot by the afternoon, and sweat drips down the back of his neck to cling to his shirt. He passes ungloved hands along the dirt and inhales Dolarhyde’s calculated steps. It tastes like betrayal and fury. It feels like heavy secrets and fear.

           When I strike, it is not to kill. To kill is to end, quick sounds that stop because something made them stop; I do not stop, but I Change, I Become. Hands that grasp around your neck, and you beg that I spare our wife? That I would hurt our wife, the love of my life whose flowers adorn our dinner table, whose hands pass along my heartbeat to feel the fear beneath?

           Just what have We Become? Just what have you done?

           Will stops at the edge of the garden and stares down at the body of a Mr. Hawthorne, the strangulations marks on his neck purpled and hideous. His eyes are bloodshot, his mouth is slack, and Will has the rippling sensation of what it’s like to strangle someone, hands taut and unforgiving against the neck of someone that has betrayed him, someone that has turned on him when it was his job to help him.

           “Will?” Jack prompts lightly.

           Will jerks from his reverie and looks about, hands flexing at his sides. They’re sore, and he wonders just when he’ll have the time to work on his forearm muscle exercises. A quick trip to Wal-Mart should get him the equipment, a simple enough contraption, and –

           -No, no. He’s not going to purchase anything. He’s not trying to strangle anyone.

           “…This man has betrayed him,” he says slowly. He says ‘him’, to better avoid saying ‘me’. He tastes it, though, the honest and stark betrayal of the man with whom he placed his trust. “He trusted him to do something, and it wasn’t done.”

           “What did he trust him with?”

           “Not clear,” Will murmurs, and he folds his arms tightly across his chest. His palm presses to the material, and he feels Beverly’s fatigue as she brushed past him at the airport to grab her bag. She hated flying. “Whatever it was, he’s also saddened by this. Angry, but…also saddened.”

           “Has he already moved on from the area?”

           “No. He’s not here, but he’s on the hunt. He’s not…finished.”

           No, no, there was still so much to do, so much to Become.

           “Dr. Hawthorne is a psychiatric consultant for the FBI,” Beverly says, off to the side. She holds a file and jots a few notes down, hair teasing the sides of her face and leaping about in the muggy, humid wind. “He was in DC a few months ago working on a couple of projects before returning here.”

           Jack twitches at that, as though he’s been jolted by a quick and sudden shock of electricity. “Maybe he consulted about the RA?”

           It’s his tone, Will decides much later, that makes him do what he does next. His gloves still tucked into his back pocket, Will sidles around Jack and passes a hand along his suitcoat, somehow still on despite the humid southern air that makes patches of sweat collect just underneath Will’s shirt. As he does, he has to swallow back a muted noise at the impressions, the truths that ring through his mind with sharp, startling clarity.

           “It’s not cause for concern.”

           “Director Purnell, I’ve got Graham tracking this guy, and you don’t think we should maybe send a small detail to Hawthorne and Slowinski? He got Perkins over the issue of sugar pills; what makes you think he won’t go after the psychiatrist that told him that everything was going to be alright?”

           “You send out a detail, it draws attention. We’re not trying to draw attention, Jack.”

           It’s quick, like the fluttering of pages under an air vent that suddenly kicked on. He’s tucking his hands into his gloves before Jack can suspect, before anything can be said that would potentially imply that he was abusing his gifts. He can still feel Dr. Hawthorne’s skin particles under his nails; he’ll need to wash his hands.

           “Graham?”

           He looks back at Jack, poised in the doorway to the house –Dr. Hawthorne’s house. Dolarhyde’s house. Will’s house.

           “I…I should go and see m-the wife. Hawthorne’s wife.” He shifts from foot to foot and looks about the backyard, scanning the fence as well as the weeping willows just beyond it. “Dolarhyde is falling in on new identities; he thought of her as his wife as he killed Dr. Hawthorne.”

           “Complete dissociation?”

           “I’d say so.”

           Jack grunts and watches Beverly make a few notes, circling the corpse. “Take your time, Will.”

           “I will,” he promises, and he heads into the house to see what’s become of his wife.

-

           He isn’t part of the door-to-door questioning or security sweeps because it’s an exhausting affair for an empath and Jack doesn’t want to tire him so quickly. Instead, he waits by the FBI vehicles, loitering underneath the mildly cool embrace of a Weeping Willow whose branches dip down around him and cry sap to the grass below. He can feel it, though, as sure of this as he is about the beautiful light that often caught in Mrs. Hawthorne’s hair when the sun struck it, as sure as he is that the mirrors he placed over her eyes finally allowed him to see, and in seeing was seen:

           Dolarhyde is still in the area. Of that he is certain, and of that he is sure.

           He sits down at the base of the trunk and closes his eyes, rubbing his thumbs against the sides of his index fingers in an effort to ground himself. He’d washed his hands, but he still felt the skin of Dr. Hawthorne on his fingerprints. Dolarhyde was a lucky man to only be a Seer and Dreamer –if he’d been a Feeler, killing him like that would have likely killed Dolarhyde, too.

           You are one of many, many that I seek, many that I will Change because in Changing them, it furthers my own growth, my own Becoming.

           Will stares out between the spaces of the branches and thinks of his father, of trees that leaned with the heat and grew up only to grow out and down with heavy branches that brushed the ground. Black gum trees whose bark dug into his skin when he touched them, Red Maples that stood so proud. Even young, he’d known they were poor. Even young, he knew there was something wrong with him.

           How else could he explain to his father that he could feel the tree breathing?

           His wife once sat beneath this tree and read. He can Dream her steps picking their way around the already fallen leaves, same as he can see her tuck her legs beneath her as she settled on her jean jacket and engrossed herself within the pages of a fantasy.

           Will’s never read a fantasy story because there has always been that hesitation that he’ll be pulled so far into it that he wouldn’t be able to find his way out.

           Instead, as he waits for Jack to exhaust himself with a door-to-door that won’t yield him Dolarhyde’s whereabouts, Will amuses himself with reading Lecter’s articles again. He thinks of Lecter thanking him, his seemingly genuine embarrassment at seeing his own works, and despite having had to feel the grief of murdering his own wife, Will finds it in himself to smile.

-

           He watches the news at the hotel room to try and distract himself. He idly peruses Lecter’s articles, and he wonders how the dogs are –they’re the friendly sort that would happily welcome someone as gentle-spirited as Lecter is. He already misses Winston’s head on his lap, eyes closed in bliss as he rubs a particularly hard to reach spot on his ear.

           Maybe if he was with Winston, he wouldn’t instead still feel the grit of Dr. Hawthorne’s skin under his nails.

           Dolarhyde doesn’t see it as killing; he sees death as a means of change. He changes them, and in changing he too is changed, aided in Becoming something –Will senses the Becoming much like donning an old, familiar coat. It is not a new thing that Dolarhyde wishes to Be, but something that has always been, something that he merely wishes to grow. To develop.

           Betrayal is the taste of Jack on his tongue. Despite Beverly being two doors down, he doesn’t go to her room and ask her to drink with him.

            When the news grows to be too much, he turns it off and paces the hotel floor, unable to take his shoes off because hotels are a certain sort of death trap for an empath, the air itself cloaked in the sensations of the living to the point that it tastes like stale, dead skin cells. Body odor. Impatience and desperation. He pauses and stares down at the file he should be looking through, trying to compare and contrast evidence until he can find just what he’s looking for.

            In reality, he’d find the truth faster if he went and slapped his hands over Jack’s ears and really, truly dug deep.

           He can’t risk a situation like that, though; if he fell in too far, if Jack’s emotions pulled him past the point of his walls and his sense of self, Will can’t be too sure if he’d be able to find his way back. The truth, with all of its capabilities, would probably be just enough to undo him.

           He goes down the hall to get ice for the whiskey. His gloves are tugged taut against his skin, and he shovels ice into the bucket with quick, jerking motions. Skroosh. Jack lied to him again. Th-thump. Krshsh. Jack was lying to Beverly, too. Skroosh. Jack could confirm that Dr. Hawthorne had worked with Dolarhyde but refused to say it. Th-thump. Sugar pills, a doctor that wielded Dolarhyde’s –the RA, he tells himself –trust like a lumpy rock, and Jack working directly with Kade Purnell. Skroosh. Will isn’t so sure that this is a matter of an RA so much as it’s a matter of the FBI maybe making a sore mistake. Th-thump. Krshsh. The RA may have happened because Dolarhyde already had a tentative grasp on reality, but something about the FBI in particular spooked him. Betrayed him. Tried to Change him.

           He closes the lid to the ice machine and heads back to the room, walking in and closing the door behind himself.

           He’s then grabbed from behind, a rag pressed tight to his nose and mouth; in his shock, he sucks in a deep breath and tastes something sweet, an odd scent of gasoline in the air. He lungs scream, shout no, no, no, but it’s there, it’s in his breath and it’s wrong. Against his cheek, the rag feels like terror and purpose and Dolarhyde’s madness seeps in.

           He’s dragged under a river of bubbles into a dizzying, lurching rest.

-

           He comes to on his hotel bed, and he sits up with a dizzying lurch that makes the room sway and spin. His stomach threatens upheaval, but he holds it down and concentrates on his breathing; short, curt gasps as he tries to figure out just what happened.

           Across from him, Dolarhyde sits still as the grave.

           He is big; bigger than Will expected, bigger than he could certainly take down in a solid fight. Against a plain black t-shirt, his muscles are taut and capable, and he sits with the edge of someone prepared to strike at any moment. He stares at Will impassively, the faint scarring on his lip hitching it as he observes Will.

           “The rag may have overwhelmed you,” he says in the tense, taut silence. “I tried not to touch it too much.”

           “Chloroform only lasts a few minutes,” Will says. It’s slurred, and the words tumble about in his mouth before he can quite articulate them.

           “You were out for two,” Dolarhyde agrees.

           “…I’d better not have liver damage,” Will warns him. Despite the situation, he does care about his liver.

           “If you do, it’s from the drinking and not from me.”

           That’s a fair assessment, and Will nods along with it.

           “I knew you were around. I thought you were…looking for his family. Dr. Hawthorne’s.”

           Dolarhyde tilts his head, and it’s not entirely human. Will knows that if he could just look up to his eyes, pretty as Beverly had called them, he could see what his next step is, maybe be a bit preemptive about it –if he looks, though, Dolarhyde will look, too. He’s an E-2, and one just scared enough to weaponized it like Abigail did.

           God, he can’t have him do what Abigail did. He’ll be too many people, too many people with too many fears. One can only have so many fears before they eat them alive, completely destroy them.

           “…Do you remember me from the academy?” he asks quietly. He speaks with a slow, stilted gait, like he’s afraid of saying the wrong thing.

           “I don’t remember many people from the academy.”

           “I can see that. There was a barrier around you.” He shifts ever-so-slightly in the large, bulky chair and frowns. “Everyone could see the barrier you made. Thick walls and a s-scared boy within.”

           “You dreamed up my walls?”

           “It didn’t take much. You helped me see them, thick walls around a scared but purposeful boy.”

           “Where are your walls now, Agent Dolarhyde?” Will asks softly. “Do I need to help you Dream them?”

           His eyes flash with something, a dark and wicked sort of hunger, then it’s gone. “I think you would, if I asked you to. You’d sacrifice your own mind to touch your skin to mine and help me Dream walls between me and the world.”

           “That’s my job,” Will says. “I help empaths.”

           “You hunt empaths, Agent Graham,” Francis corrects. “I watched them, and you hunted them.”

           In truth, Francis Dolarhyde’s words make more sense than Will’s did. Every time he tried to help, he only made it worse. Every time he tried to find some semblance of goodness to come from his actions, that goodness took their skin and pressed it so tight to his that they became one. He hunts empaths, only Francis decided that he would hunt Will instead.

           “You didn’t come to kill me,” Will says slowly. “You…felt terrified.”

           “I don’t want to kill you, Agent Graham. You’re as much a victim as every other empath.”

           “I’m not a victim,” Will disagrees. Victim means that he doesn’t have a choice in the matter, and Will likes to believe that he’s chosen his path.

           “Who watches the watcher, Agent Graham? Who hunts the hunter?”

           Will thinks of the feeling he’d had when leaving HQ so angrily, that sensation that someone was watching him, eyes on the back of his neck.

           “…I met Reba,” he confesses. He notes Dolarhyde tensing, corded muscles bunching. “I told her that I want to help you, Agent Dolarhyde. She said that you were losing time.”

           “We’re all losing time,” he fires back. “The longer you are in the clutches of those people, you’ll lose time, too.”

           “Were you experiencing blackouts? Were you looking at the watch and realizing hours had passed without you?”

           Dolarhyde stands, and the gun is still trained on Will with calm assurance that he could pull the trigger at any moment.

           “Why did you kill our wife?” Will asks, agonized.

           “She was my wife, too,” Francis replies, aggrieved. “But I had to Change her.”

           “Francis-” Will presses, although he remains on the bed. He’s many things, but he’s not stupid.

           “Do you want to know who I was investigating before I decided that the FBI no longer had my best interests at heart, Agent Graham?” Francis Dolarhyde asks.

           That takes Will aback, and he can only nod helplessly. No one at the Bureau will tell him, and he finds a dark sort of humor in the fact that out of everyone in the world, the RA he’s hunting is the one that’s willing to tell him, to give him the answers that he so desperately needs.

           Francis is at the door, sliding on a black jacket so that he can pull the hood of it up over his face. The shadows of it create devilish hollows on his cheeks, makes his scar look more like a snarl.

           “You, Agent Graham. Kade Purnell had me investigating you.” He pauses, more than likely to savor the sucker-punch expression on Will’s face. “Good night, Agent Graham. Be careful with your walls. I see cracks in them.”

           He’s out of the door before Will can say another word.

           Although every aspect of his training demands that he go after him –at least call Katz or Jack down the hall –he doesn’t. He sits there on the bed, gloved hands pressed to the dirty comforter, and he takes deep, full inhales of the stale and putrid air.

-

           The next morning, after a night of sleeplessness and tossing and turning on a bed that held too many memories, he stands beside the other agents, part of their circle but not part of their circle, and he doesn’t say a single word about Dolarhyde.

           He’s not sure that he could, even if he wanted to.

           Was there someone like him watching someone like him?

           Yes. Yes there was.

A special thanks to my patrons, @hanfangrahamk @matildaparacosm @starlit-catastrophe, Duhaunt6 and Superlurk! You guys are the best!

[ebparentheses]

I’ve been thinking about the radically different kinds of stories that people believe Sherlock is telling, especially now, after series 4.

I mostly bowed out of the Sherlock fandom post-series 3, for a variety of reasons that had to do with the show itself and the fandom and my own evolving tastes and desires. TAB was barely a blip on my radar, but with the airing of series 4 I’ve found myself unable not to think about it constantly and read through post after post on Tumblr. And honestly I’ve been, if not totally blindsided, pretty startled by the intense divergence in the way different fans understand the story the show is telling. I once loved Sherlock passionately, and it was one of the first fandoms I experienced. I don’t think it or any fandom has ever been conflict-free, but right now It’s all sort of heartbreaking, honestly, to watch people tear themselves and others to bits--not that I think there’s nothing to be torn up about. While I don’t really get it, on one level, because I feel like I’m seeing a completely different show from other people, on another level, I do get it--that’s the point. We ARE seeing different shows. Or we might as well be, because we are interpreting them, reading into them, really differently. And sometimes those different ways rub up against each other.

More under the cut.

Some of us read Sherlock as if there’s a complex, incredibly elaborate, deliberate mystery hidden below the surface of the show. That’s not ridiculous: the methodology and philosophy of Sherlock Holmes (“You see, but you do not observe”) encourage this reading practice, which is presumably why fans of the character have been engaging in it for decades. BBC’s show didn’t invent “the Great Game,” after all. Some of us believe the answer to that under-the-surface mystery is sexuality and/or same-sex romance. That’s not ridiculous: sexuality is often presented as a secret to be revealed, whether in older narratives that couldn’t name it explicitly or in the notion of “coming out of the closet.”

Some of us read Sherlock as if it’s not just what’s on screen that counts, but also as part of a broader system of cultural beliefs, commercial interests, and lots and lots of individual contributors with many different priorities. Some of us think that means Sherlock won’t, even if its creators wanted it to, make their male main characters kiss, or make them explicitly LGBTQ+. That’s not ridiculous: cultural homophobia and its milder cousin cultural heteronormativity are pervasive roadblocks to that kind of storytelling, and a commercially successful show, even on a generally queer-friendly network, might not feel it can “go there” with its main characters. And many of the people involved in making it might not even consider that as a real possibility, for a plethora of reasons both cultural and personal, both heteronormative and not so much.

Some of us read Sherlock as if it’s light entertainment—fun, but not particularly meaningful and certainly not ethically responsible for flouting or shifting cultural attitudes. That’s not ridiculous: we are so often told that television shows, especially “genre” shows, are basically just fluff. And sometimes we want to watch television as a much-needed break from the pressures of daily life and, often, daily prejudices. 

Some of us read Sherlock as if what’s on the surface is all that’s there. That a “no homo” joke is just a “no homo” joke, and that maybe that’s bad or maybe it doesn’t matter, but either way it’s not a clue to something deeper. That’s not ridiculous: it’s what the creators keep telling us, and it takes into account the limited amount of time, money, and resources those behind Sherlock have to pull it off.

Some of us read Sherlock as if it’s a bit of a mess, for better and often for worse. As if perhaps the many different people working on it didn’t sit down and have a conversation about what they were trying to say about intimacy, love, desire, kinship and how those things interact with gender and sexuality. That’s not ridiculous: the very diversity of ways people read Sherlock suggests that there’s something profoundly unclear about it. Is it a gay romance? Is it queerbaiting—a gay romance that stops short of being explicitly gay? Is it a no-homo, heteronormative buddy cop show? Is it about nonsexual but non-heteronormative queer intimacy and kinship, about experiencing desires and practicing intimacies and forging families of choice that aren’t culturally legible? Some of us read Sherlock as if it’s all of those things or maybe none of them, that at any given moment a particular kind of potential might surface or that one viewer might understand something very differently from another. Some of us think this is at least partly down to a lack of intentionality on the show’s part. Some of us wish the Sherlock team had done a little more dramaturgical work.

Some of us are disappointed with Sherlock right now, for what it did or didn’t do, for the choices it made, some of them about Sherlock and John’s relationship, some of them not. Some of us blame the creators; some of us blame other fans and their theories and convictions; some of us blame the BBC, or homophobic viewers, or society at large; some of us, I think, feel inclined in this moment to blame ourselves. None of this, really, is ridiculous, and some of these feelings may even be helpful to those who are hurting, as long as they remember to be compassionate and not to aim their anger directly at specific people. People who, for better or worse, and not always without doing harm, read the show differently than they did.

I’m not saying that there’s nothing wrong with Sherlock. I’m not saying that fans’ anger and disappointment, for whatever reason, are invalid: quite the opposite. We have been hurt and we have hurt each other, and neither of these is okay. And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be critiquing and, above all, creating—making the stories, of all different kinds, that we need right now and always. But what seems a possible antidote to the bitterly polarizing atmosphere that these days tends to pervade the Sherlock fandom is to begin by acknowledging multiple reading practices, multiple contexts, multiple agendas. And that sometimes these reading practices, contexts, and agendas can be good and well-meaning and important on their own and still clash with other good and well-meaning and important reading practices, contexts, and agendas. Sometimes they are radically incompatible with each other. Or sometimes, on their own, they are necessarily incomplete. Sometimes they produce harm. Sometimes they are fun. Sometimes they are all of these things at once.

This is a limited relativism: it is valid to read something differently from someone else, but also critical to ask whether that reading practice is doing harm, and what we might change in order to prevent that harm. Sherlock might have done well to ask these questions; so might we. I am sure that even this practice of acknowledging multiplicity feels to some like it is doing harm—that it is invalidating their singular viewpoint. So we may not, in the end, avoid all harm. But we can try. Reading, watching, emotionally investing in stories—this is, as we all know, a risky business. We can sometimes choose what risks to take, and respect those that others have chosen as well.

[brasenosearts]

The alchemical power of college-sponsored wine: Arts Week 2017, half-remembered.

Arts Week came upon us in the third week of Trinity 2017, glittering and glistening through our college colours of black and gold to reveal itself through this year’s theme of Alchemy. 

Whilst maybe a little loosely connected in places (is pole dancing alchemical? It’s certainly a form of magic to watch students stiff from the library attempt to haul their limbs into something resembling elegance) the general theme of transformation and states of change was an apt one for a year that could be described as nothing short of tumultuous. 

It was also perhaps fitting seeing as Arts Week this year fell the day after the biennial Brasenose Ball, and thus required a great deal of shape shifting from sleepy attendees to muster the arm strength to put together a new stage in the remnants of the Ball’s ruins. 

Fittingly, Monday started with a very gentle bang as Tian, a third year artist, ran a workshop on the art of Qigong (literally: "Life Energy Cultivation") - a remarkably well attended workshop given that most attendees had had a grand total of 5 hours sleep all weekend in the aftermath of the Ball. Morning workshops continued all week - from life drawing to bark horn crash courses to gold leafing and even the appearance of a VIP guest. 

Life drawing took place on Tuesday morning, with a twist. The twist in this case came in the form of the long muscular bodies of the models - and their many thousand legs. The chance to draw millipedes and snakes (real snakes, not the kind that always steal your milk and never wait for you in the Hall queue) drew a crowd keen to get up close. Masterpieces were made, with biologists turning out in droves to correctly identify the muscular sections and also correct my erroneous assumption that millipedes have a thousand legs. 

I had tricked scientists into drawing, and thus alchemy was underway.

Wednesday morning heralded the arrival of the mysterious “Celtic Chris” as he descended upon us with multiple horns and flutes in tow, carved by his own hands and foraged from woodland. Nobody knew quite what to expect from the ‘bark horns’ he promised: horns that barked? Horns from sheep? Celtic Chris played some lovely melodies on a carved instrument that raised hopes for everyone’s own creative endeavours. 

Unfortunately it so happened that this instrument was not a bark horn, nor even close to it in output. 

As it turned out, the process involved a great deal of scraping and twisting of sticks, with the end result being strangely, if not intentionally, reminiscent of a dog barking. Or at least that’s how it sounded when played by me. These howls rang out across the quad for the afternoon, goading those who had sworn to be distracted by neither art nor sunshine out of their study lairs - then forcing them back in when it appeared that people would not cease in attempting to achieve the elusive singular note that the horn could allegedly produce. 

One such horn, rumoured to be Sam Quinn’s, was left overnight and discovered to much delight the next morning at the gold leafing workshop. It reemerged far shinier and possibly less usable, alongside a variety of glimmering items such as lighters, water bottles, glasses and even a laptop. The theme of “Alchemy” that the week loosely abided to was truly in action, as objects went from practical to gold but glued shut; a small price to pay for glamour.

Friday’s morning workshop brought with it more star power than those shiny leaves and the celebrity draw of Celtic Chris combined: the author of Maisy Mouse, Lucy Cousins. Everyone learnt how to recreate the iconic character and how you might draw subfusc on cartoon animals with no arms. The final product was a painting as wide as Lecture Room XI. Whilst it currently lies dormant in the JCR, there have been rumours of getting Joe Organ to incorporate it into Open Days to show just how talented Brasenose students can be when armed with only a kids paintbrush, a mild hangover and a determination to remember what colours go into a cartoon peacock’s tail.

In the afternoons, events ranged from a capella (so much a capella) to plays and pole dancing, with great excitement arriving midweek with the appearance of a BBC One camera crew in college. The news started to spread in both whispers and college-wide emails, prompting the appearance of the entire development office in Deer Quad to watch Brasenose’s own Daniele and Hiba do some beautifully spontaneous leaps from the chapel stairs for the sixth time that morning. 

After a tense start involving a well timed exchange of boxes containing furry spiders to those with film equipment occurring on Old Parlour staircase (see “Life” Drawing, above), the Alternotives took to the stage.

Whilst the eventual screen time of Old Library and Deer Quad was limited due to them only lasting one episode on Pitch Battle, the memory of John Bowers (QC) sat cross legged at the front of the marquee, entranced by a capella, will remain in our hearts forever. 

Not to be overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of a BBC camera, we also had noted Oxford groups the Gargoyles and The Oxford Belles - whilst it seems like every group seems to claim the role as Oxford’s original all-singing, some-dancing troupe, the Belles at least had star power in the way of internet reach, with noted fan Ashton Kutcher sadly declining to turn up on the day despite his Facebook post-based enthusiasm. We’ve all been there, Ashton.

We also had not one but two plays running this year: one imagining the late and great William Shakespeare in the context of fresher’s week as a mechanical engineering student disillusioned with both flirting and the sciences, and a dynamic rehearsed reading of Pygmalion. 

Dynamic in that it was meant to be a traditional reading that somehow wandered off the rails and all the way up the staircase 10 at one point. 

Both were enthusiastically received by large crowds composed of friends and family members and even some paying guests, and feedback on both was great, with one very anonymous audience member remarking that Cal Demby-Harris pulled off the red officer’s jacket better than anyone else in college. He is, thus far, the only person in college to have worn this garment.

On Friday afternoon, following the debut of Pygmalion on the quad, Medieval Kitchen was transformed with poles and hoops for what was technically our most popular event of the week - according to Facebook’s algorithms. “Pole Dancing Workshop” reached 45k people on Facebook, something Brasenose Arts would love to claim as representative of the average enthusiasm for the week but unfortunately should probably note down as due to an irresistibly amusing combination of Oxford’s hallowed halls and the Wikihow-esque illustration on the cover photo, amplified by the Facebook reach of our treasured Stanford exchange students and their friends in Palo Alto. 

As it happens, a solid 20 or so people attended each session, and it was a sight to behold to see students hanging from the beams of MK (or rather, suspended close to - I can confidently assure you that no actual climbing of the architecture occurred in case you are reading this, Matt Hill Domestic Bursar). 

Following the excitement of our viral success story on Friday afternoon was the Arts Week Formal, an event eerily free of senior staff, which meant that the gavel ended up in my not entirely capable hands. 

Whilst I can’t vouch for much of what I said, it has been reported that I gave a speech - all I can recall is that the food was wonderful and I was probably a rather soppy and exhausted shell of a human by this point. I can also recall that the Northern Soul night that followed the dinner was a roaring success. Playing off of Brasenose’s fondness for ceilidhs, and retaining the joy and mandated dancing of a ceilidh but with a name one can spell without googling, the night involved much moving of tables and some unexpected cameos from a porter or two. Again, Matt Hill, if you see any photos where we appear to be standing on tables, it is merely an illusion and we are in fact levitating from the sheer fun of it all. 

Saturday morning was naturally a quieter affair, with the final performance of ‘Willy Shakes’ taking centre stage both on the quad and in the timetable. In the afternoon came a panel on Inequality in Film, boasting speakers from the BFI, Girls in Film and Another Gaze Journal as well as Jendella, an independent filmmaker and photographer.

Following the panel, after deliberation between Brasenose’s thriving and warring FilmSocs, came an open air screening of Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet. The air was warm with the promise of the great summer heatwave yet to come, and the fairy lights we had swiped from the wreckage of the ball and haphazardly strung across the marquee’s frameworks glimmered in reflection with the candles of the film. 3DIMAX eat your heart out. 

The next morning the early summer sun rose on the same marquee, only slightly dampened by overnight showers that cleared to a blazing brightness by the time the annual celebration of Jazz on The Quad dawned. Our Music Rep and Organ Scholar, the multitalented Sarah Hughes, had managed to gather us together an impromptu band from her bursting contacts list. As they played, strawberries and (maybe a little too much) Pimms were handed round liberally, leaving everyone in a fruit flavoured midday daze to round off the week. 

The fact that we had well and truly trampled the quad to pieces and broken several pieces of expensive IT equipment is merely a blip among these heady memories, and one I feel no fear in admitting here, as I know a certain IT rep never reads my notices to the end, regardless of content. Sweet, guiltless bliss.