#nasty brutish and short

[hallofhelios]

Things I wish I could say at work that would make this life perhaps a little more bearable

That was very bad customer service and I am now going to discipline you with this high-five

[argentumcor]

Shogun is very...modern.

John Blackthorne should be no stranger to a world where death lurks around every corner. The show is set in 1600. Famine and war are sweeping across Europe routinely in the last century, for starters. He's a sailor, too. When we met the man, he is dying of scurvy. You ever watch Master & Commander (you should, very good movie)? Death and the sea are perhaps more companions than freedom and the sea. The man must be well-traveled, too, to be so good at his job; he's been some wild places and seen some things, he had to.

The social strictures of Japan should be no shock to a sailor in their degree, because to this day, and definitely in 1600, a captain's word was law among the crew as intensely as a lord's word was law in feudal Japan. Violence at court? This is the later day of Queen Elizabeth I! It wasn't exactly all tea and crumpets and paeons of glory to the Enlightenment! Beheadings and kinslaying and intrigues all day! Don't tell me it wasn't the subject of speculation in London. Secret police! Bad harvests! Nothing resembling modern medicine existed, so people and especially children died all the time! Elisabeth I was only three years from her death in 1600, too, and the high court was a mess at the time. Let's not even get into what Elizabeth I the one was doing to the Irish. The cult of personality that had grown around her (and since been regrown) was waning for very good reason.

John Blackthorne being clumsy and rough at this high court intrigue in a foreign land makes sense, but his brand of shock at its violence and Mariko's lectures about death make no sense. It's just so modern, written from the perspective of people who are very unlikely to die from a random infected cut and who probably don't have any female relatives who died in childbirth for several generations, which has not been the case for most of human history until very very recently.

It's a brilliant show, don't get me wrong, entertaining and beautifully crafted and just magnificently acted, but whatever it's trying to say about Japan or the world at the time or humanity in general just falls flat because it misses that, in 1600, no one, great or small, east or west or north or south, did not know death as a too-casual companion in a way thankfully utterly foreign to most of us now. Especially not its POV character, a veteran British sailor with a letter of marque to harass and kill if possible the enemies of the Crown.

(What really bothers me about all this is that it feels like it means we forget how to be grateful and how to guard the safety our forebearers found against our own madness.)

[thesingingrevolution]

when considering the question posed this as an answer is so vile 😭😭😭

[cowboyhorsegirl]

i like when they start scientific articles with a quote to set the tone

[sevsdollette]

Not So Sweet [Sevika x fem reader]

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49324864/chapters/137713357

content warning: trigger warning for violence against the reader. if mean men in bars freak you out, read with caution. other than that, alcohol, gambling, smoking, and smut (obviously). reader eats sevika out. fingering. sorry if you just want it to be sevika doing shit to the reader, but yk the woman has needs as well.

summary: You go out with Sevika as her gambling date. It’s a calm night at the Last Drop where everything should be fun and easy. But your beauty doesn’t just attract Sevika.

chapters:

1. Relaxing Night

2. A Long Night at Work

3. A Gamble of A Night

note: tell me why every chapter title has the word night in it. i’m back @-@. so yeah it’s been a minute. hope no one is too mad at me. this one maybe a bit shorter than the others? not entirely sure. also i know this ends with like a cliff hanger, but i promise the next chapter will leave no holes in the time line. you gays will get what you want. sorry if there’s spelling mistakes i wrote most of this on my phone. it’s not like i’m an AP english student or anything (i am :/) also sorry for the format being a bit different. tumblr is pissing me the fuck off right now. i don’t care to fix the spacing between the paragraphs. i’m tired.

————————————18+————————————

The glow of the Last Drops neon sign felt a bit more familiar than before. This time, more than a drink was waiting for you inside.

It was a clear, hot night with busy streets and crowded alleys, and you were wearing a black catsuit with long sleeves and shorts that hardly covered your ass. The zipper down the front was pulled so low the clothes were practically falling off of you.

This time, when you walked up to the bouncer, past the long, impatient line, you hardly had to open your mouth before he was opening the door and letting you in. The groans and hateful stares of the people waiting felt like a crown on your head. You were still scum, sure, but for the night you were important.

On that evening, the bar wasn’t full of screaming patrons and blasting music, but slow, cool jazz. It was their calmest night where the low lamps gave off an orange-red glow on the deep wooden walls, and every shadow seemed comforting. People sat calmly at their tables, passing cards and taking shots. The ceiling hung low with the smoke of cigars and cigarettes. A sweet smell of booze wafted through the room, making any nasty smell of the people buying the drinks.

In her normal corner booth, Sevika was sitting with four men, cigarette pressed between her lips and cards in her hands. She was laughing lightly as she passed a card into the center of the table. The candle in the middle of the room illuminated her face and curved around her features. Beautiful, you thought, staring at her vibrant eyes.

As you waded through the tables of the room, she noticed you approaching, glancing over as the conversation at her table continued. Keeping an eye on you. You kept your cool, only giving a small smile back as you approached. Men of the bar kept looking up at your figure as you walked by their tables, admiring the way the leather suit curved over your hips and hugged your thighs.

The other men at the table were just as harsh and brutish as Sevika, all with scars over their faces or hands, rugged clothes, and a mean glare. They were younger than her but older than you, and they didn’t seem too friendly when you came up to the table.

One of them, with white blonde hair and a blind eye, wrinkled her nose as he looked you up and down. With a toothpick in his mouth, he questioned, “Who’s that?”

Sevika cleared her throat, looking down at her cards as she drew another from the deck. “I hired her.”

You froze, brow furrowing as your upper lip curled. Your services didn’t involve simple company at a bar. You surely didn’t want to be here if she was going to pay you for it.

She chuckled under her breath, looking up at you. “I’m kidding, doll. Sit down.” She tapped the spot on the cushion next to her.

Apprehensive, you sat beside her slowly. If this night was just going to be her being a bitch, you weren’t going to get involved. You could go back to Babettes and earn your dinner like always. You didn’t need her free food. And her expensive rum. And her perfectly rolled clove cigarettes…

The more you looked around the table, the longer you wanted to stay. You’d seen her and her men around the bar before but never noticed how nice of a night they always had. Each man was sitting comfortably around the booth with either a cigar, cigarette, or drink, lounging as they waited for the game to start. The loud music was slightly muffled, making the table almost cozy and closed off.

They were just finishing a game as you got there, a pile of coins in front of Sevika and dwindling collections by the other players. They were settling bets and getting more drinks, idle conversation as everyone got ready for another round. Sevika shuffled the deck and delt you your own hand.

You were sitting close to her, but just far enough away so you didn’t touch. A distance she would have to choose to close if she really wanted to. Yes, you liked her and wanted her attention, but you weren’t going to devote yourself to her to get it. If she really liked you, she’d take what she wanted.

And it didn’t take her long. As she was puting your cards down in front of her, she smiled and met your eyes. Her gaze drifted down your neck, chest, and down to your lap. She was close, her broad figure looming beside you enough to block your view of three of the men.

Her eyebrows raised. “You’ve got something on your neck.”

A heat hit your face as you rubbed the skin under your chin. God, you couldn’t look decent just once. “What is it?”

“Something I left for you.”

Your hands dropped and you rolled your eyes. “Oh, fuck off.”

She smiled wider, shaking her head and sitting back. The tables was coming back together and everyone was picking up their cards as a waitress came around with more drinks. She had a glass for you and Sevika poured you some rum. The waitress smiled a bit too sweetly at Sevika when she said thank you, and it made you inch a bit closer to her.

You picked up your cards and sipped your drink. Rum was never your favorite, but in this setting, it felt right. Your deal wasn’t the worst, but you;d defitnety have to sit out for the round. You were trying to play your best.

At the brothel, you and your tolerable coworkers would play and gamble during slow hours all the time. Your room was the hot spot where everyone would crown around the coffee table, taking a smoke break, and having good fun. It was never that serious, everyone putting their earrings or hair clips in as prizes only to hand them back at the end of the game. But, there was a skill level that all of you developed.

And you were the best.

You all got through two games that Sevika won. She truly enjoyed it. A sly smile spread across her face as she collected everyone’s coins, only handing you a coy apology and running her hand up your though to make up for it. It didn’t matter to you. Your cards weren’t that good anyway.

Though, you liked the way she got when she was that happy. She was touchy. She would “accidentally” brush her hand over your tit, and she really liked to fiddle with that zipper that rested between your ribs. You’d push her away, saying something about how stupid she was being and how the alcohol was getting to her, and she’d give a boozy smile and turn to shuffle the cards again.

On the third game, you got a good hand. A really good hand. You kept your cool as you saw the empress and her court smiling up at your on the painted card. Every mention of a tell that your friends had mentioned to you ran through your head and you hid every sign. No one would know. You would win.

It took great thought to get through. Early on, Sevika noticed how much more focused you were, and it caused her to keep putting more money on the table. The men all had relatively bad hands except for one, but he backed out after a while, not trying to get in the middle of whatever mental battle you and Sevika were engaged in.

In the end, with the final turn of a card, you had won. With a huge pile of copper in teh middle fo the table, you whooped and bounced in your seat, grinning as you pulled all of the money towards yourself.

Sevika was angry. You could see it in the way she wouldn’t look at you adn how she stared into her empty glass. Her jaw was clamped tightly shut and she was thinking hard, still looking at the coins you’d taken from her. It wasn’t her fault. She hardly knew you, and she had expected you to be moer of an open book then your were. To be truthful, she dind’t know the half of who you were, and that was her fatal flaw.

Part of her still thougth of you as those prissy virgins she usually saw. It was hard for her to accept that she liked someone so similar to her own spiteful nature. She didn’t like it unless you two were naked, apparently.

She swallowed and shook her head. “I let you win.”

Your nose wrinkled. “Shut up.”

A fake laugh tossed itself from her lips and she held her hands in helplessness. “Just trying to be nice. If I beat you every time, you won’t enjoy it so much. There’s no way you can actually win.”

“Sevika—“ You scoffed, shaking your head at her as you wondered why she fucking bothered to say those things. “Whatever. I’m going to get a cocktail.”

She chuckled bitterly as you stood up. “Rum’s too strong?”

You held your middle finger up behind you as you stomped to the bar. Sevika muttered something else under her breath that you didn’t want to hear. The lively jazz that filled hte bar felt so suffocating now as you walked past a betting table thick with smoke. You didn’t need her pouting just because you won. It was supposed to be a fun night. Only a baby cried because they lost a stupid game.

You sat at the bar and ordered a drink. The bartender was a nice but nervous man who must’ve known who you were accompanying. He stuttered as he took your order and nearly dropped the vodka when he went to pour it. He was good at his job though adn your drinks as sweet with an after taste that stung your throat. You thanked him and made soem idle conversation, knowing that Sevika was watching you out of the corner of her eye.

You could feel the heat of her anger even from that far away. You planned on sitting at the bar for a little longer, let them play a game without you so she could get a win back under her belt. Maybe then she’d be nicer.

The bartender Thieram was a nice man who made you rlaugh once or twice as you sipped your drink. He was respectful. Most men either didn’t like you or liked you too much. It wasn’t often your found someone who treated you like a friend.

This fact was proven a few minutes later when a man steppe dup to the bar to order a beer. He was probably almost thirty with black hair graying on the sides and a long tattoo down her left forearm. He was ugly. But ugly in a way that some people found very attractive, though the second you stared at him for too long, he looked like an abstract painting.

You only glanced at him for a second before stirring your drink while waiting to talk to Thieram again. He had a deep, angry voice. After Thieram turned away, he stayed at the bar and leaned against it, turning to face you. “You alright, babe?”

You didn’t look up. “Who are you calling babe?”

“Just a pretty woman I see at the bar.” He chuckled. “I’m Leox.”

“And I’m not interested.”

None of your blatant signals got through to him. In fact, he stepped closer. Enough that you could smell the weed he’d been smoking. “Come on. You seemed kinda upset at your table. Why don’t you come and join mine? I’ll treat you real good.”

“Oh, will you?”

“Yes,” he sighed. He leaned in, brushing your hair off your forehead. “I will.”

“Hm,” you hummed, closing your eyes as you pretended to enjoy his flirting. “Well…”

You pushed him away. “I’m still not interested.”

You only did men if they paid you for it.

The firm hand you placed on his shoulder withdrew only slightly before he gripped your wrist in place. For a brief moment your breath caught as he tugged you off of your stool and you were stumbling into him.

He grabbed your jaw firmly and pulled your face up to look at him. “Why couldn’t you just be nice? I know you’re just some whore. I could’ve paid well too.”

You jerked from his grasp, trying to turn around to get free and run out of there. He smelt awful and his breath was hot in your face. His teeth were yellow.

You were able to jam your heel into his toes, making him flinch so you could wriggle free, but as you were getting away, his foot caught under you and you fell to the ground. Your palms took the blunt of the pain as you scrambled to get yourself up.

As you pulled yourself to your feet, a heavy set of footsteps was storming past you and towards the man. In your panic, and with the moment being so quick, you hardly heard what she was saying to him—yelling at him.

You spun around, uneasy on your feet, and only saw their final interaction: Her fist against his face.

Once such a strong, intimidating man crumbled into a heap on the floor. Sevika stood over him, shimmer coursing through her metal arm and heavy breaths moved her shoulders, flexing the muscle. She turned around and you only saw the faint glint of purple in her eyes before she passed you again and ordered her men to take the guy out back. Teach him a lesson, she said.

The bar was silent. The woman humming low jazz was standing shocked beside her accordion player, the other patrons were trying to keep their gazes down, and Thieram was standing helpless behind the bar, terrified. You felt your face get hot as you stepped back subconsciously, your arms crossing and hugging your ribs.

Sevika was done barking orders and came up to you, pulling you back into the private room of the bar. The familiar place almost brought back amusing memories if you weren’t so upset.

She pulled you into her arms, examining you and making sure you were alright. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No,” you shook your head. “No, I’m fine. Shit like that happens all the time to me.”

She exhaled heavily through her nose and looked at the door. She must’ve been pondering whether to go help her men or not, but your hand on hip kept her there.

You two ended up sitting on the couch together sharing a cigarette. You were beside her with your legs rested across her lap and your head on her shoulder. She had her hand gripping your thigh and her metal arm wrapped over your shoulders.

You looked up at her face after a long drag and saw how tense her face was, how she didn’t seem to be moving an inch. Staring off into space with a firm furrow in her brow.

“Sev?” You frowned, brushing her stray hairs off her forehead. “Don’t be so upset. Everything’s okay.”

Sure, you were a bit shaken, but men were always like that to you. It wasn’t right, but it was something you had to get used to. She’d have to understand that if she were to be around you.

She pursed her lips. “It’ll be okay as long as he gets what he deserves.”

You ran your thumb over the muscles of her collar. “Just try to calm down.”

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do.”

You sighed, understand the aggression wasn’t towards you. To be honest, you didn’t feel unsafe at all with her. Even though her eyes still sparkled violet when the lamplight caught it.

“Everything will be okay,” you assured. “I’m fine and he’s gonna get what’s coming to him. Relax, dear.”

Again you rubbed her collar and shoulder, your fingers trying to ease any tension she had. You leaned in to place a small kiss under her jaw, and as your lips brushed her skin, she held you tighter against her.

You kissed her neck again, lingering to drag your tongue over her in a way that made her sign and settle into the couch. The action spurred you on and you left another heavy kiss to her pulse point, making sure to leave proof that you did so.

You climbed into her lap and straddled on of her thighs, the right muscle fitting right against your clit. She let you tilt her head back so you could keep up your actions.

“What…”

A sly smile spread across your lips and you kissed below her ear. “Just trying to help you relax,” you cooed, a bit of mischief in your voice as one of your hands fiddled with the top button of her vest.

As you pulled the button free, her hand on your thigh got ever so slightly tighter and you remembered the shimmer in her system.

“Come on, Sev, don’t be so upset. Don’t let him ruin the night.”

You dragged your kisses down her chest, letting more of her buttons become undone until she was helping you pull her arms out of the sleeves and you tossed her shirt onto the other side of the couch.

She looked magnificent, curving muscle winding down her stomach, scars lacing her skin, and her breasts dark and nipples pebbled from the cold.

As you took the moment to admire her, she grabbed your ass and nudged you to keep going. You’d never expect her to be so lenient on letting you have control, but maybe she was trusting you more. Or maybe she just really needed to let some stress out.

Your tongue slid across her chest, lips finding one of her breasts for you to suck on. You twirled your tongue around her nipple, sucking it into your mouth and rolling it around your teeth. She moaned, gripping you hair and letting you grind on her thigh. It was a perfect mixture of giving and receiving, all of her grains sending shockwaves to your core and you reveled in the taste of her.

You wanted to taste more.

As you slid onto the floor on your knees, you dragged you hands down her thighs and then up to undo her belt. She was breathing heavily as you kissed down her stomach, enjoying the sensation of her muscle against your lips. You pulled her pants down with her underwear, wrestling them over her boots and letting them be lost somewhere in the room.

Adrenaline led you to avidly kiss down her thighs, licking over every inch on the insides as you got closer and closer to her core. You could tell her was ready for you, her hand gripped the back of your head, waiting to hold your mouth against her. You moaned as she tugged at your hair lightly, trying to get you to start.

You left a long kiss on her inner thigh, just an inch from her pussy befor turning to begin. Only, you stopped to look up at her flushed face as smile.

“You’re so gorgeous, Sev.”

The compliment was not taken happily. “I swear to god—you and that fucking mouth of yours,” She breathed, her pupils blown as she rolled her eyes.

“Oh, you don’t like the teasing when it’s the other way around?”

“Just eat,” she huffed, pushing your face into her core.

It was hot and dripping, so ready for you. You lifted one thigh into your shoulder and spread her folds with your fingers. Her hairs were well kept and trimmed, brushing your nose as you dragged your tongue through her, tasting her.

She moaned, pushing your face further into her as you found her clit, flattening your tongue and coaxing over the bud. As you worked her up, you slid your fingers down and circled her entrance slowly, teasing it lightly.

Another heavy groan fell from her as she tightened her legs around your head. You could hardly hear her due to the clamp her thighs had over your ears.

Everything was so intense, the scent of her, the taste, the pressure of her legs, and the ughh grip she had on your hair. All you could do was kiss and lick her clit, enjoying the moment. It was so overwhelming you completely forgot any else that had happened that night.

You flicked her bud with the tip of your tongue, sucking on it as you slid two fingers into her.

It made her tense up and her head fell back over the back of the couch. She was desperate, holding your face so close and gently rocking her hips against your tongue as you fucked your fingers into her.

“Fuck, baby, don’t stop,” she demanded. You could sense her stress waning as she breathed deep and relaxed into you. You circled your fingers against her walls every time you pushed them in, sucking and licking her clit as you did so.

With your other hand, you pulled down the zipper of your suit and reached under the leather to find yourself. All of her heaving and moaning was too much for you to handle. The taste of her alone made you drip. You slid your fingers between your lips, finding your eager, swollen bud and stroking it.

You moaned against her, the vibrations making her gasp and you quickened your pace on both her and you. She was desperate, fucking heralded on your face bc had while you moaned against her clit and sucked. Rapid, intelligible words fell from her lips as she reached her high, curses and praised to you crescendoing into muttering whines as she came.

The pressure of her legs and your fingers rubbing over your clit was enough to get yourself there too. You cried out into her folds, the stimulation making her jerk as she came down from her high with you.

The both of you were breathing heavily as you crawled back up to her lap. She held you, sliding her hands past the unzipped front of your catsuit so she could feel your hot skin.

Your lips met in a messy clash or desperation. She dragged her teeth over your bottom lip as she made her grind your pussy against hers, the overstimulation making you both shudder.

Just as easily as you’d fallen into her kiss, she was pulling away and moving you off her lap. She set you down on the couch as she stood up, grabbing her clothes off the floor and couch to put them back on.

You sat up, anger and panick setting in. Did you do something wrong? “What—where are you going?”

She began to button her vest up, a grin sliding over her lips. “I’m taking you home.”

[grenade-maid]

Part of why I dragged my feet on ever checking out JJK was the reputation I heard was that it's a BRUTAL grimdark story where ANYONE can DIE in a snap and the author says FUCK you. And after finally catching up with the anime that just... Isn't the tone at all?? Like, Game of Thrones, Gantz, Attack on Titan, etc other cornerstone grimdark reference points, I think one of their defining hallmarks is not just that characters die suddenly and violently, but that human life is nasty, brutish, and meaningless, and it's your own fault for being stupid enough to get attached.

Jujutsu Kaisen on the other hand, I don't know how you can look at one of the most recent casualties circa S2Ep20 of the anime where that character gets a full entire episode reminiscing about their childhood, and the moments and people that meant most to them, and come away thinking the author's intent was to treat life as meaningless. The amount of screen time devoted to the following character who gets badly maimed, the audience gets enthusiastically shoved neck deep into their insane kaleidoscopic passion that is never once undercut or subverted. Both of these characters, far from being callously snuffed out and dumped in the trash, were shown immense love. What we got was not a statement of their life being disposable, but a celebration of life, a reminder of who they are, what they cared about, what made them special, who they loved and who loved them and will remember them in turn.

This is a story about curses born of misery, hatred, and malice. It is also a story deeply concerned with dualism, especially when it comes to attachment and desire. Misery stems from worldly attachments, but it is not weak or foolish to become attached to things in this world. To love something is to set yourself up for the pain or anger of losing it, or sadness of having it denied. But that love is what makes life worth living anyway, and what makes it worth it to keep fighting. We as the audience are sad because we are attached to these characters who have met terrible fates. We see enough of them to be able to clearly picture the whole rich life they could have lived surrounded by friends and feel the sting of that path cut short. It is a story about how it was worthwhile knowing them well enough to be attached anyway, even if it meant unavoidable heartbreak.

This is true of both the human protagonists as well as the curses! Volcano Man and Mahito are ruthless killers who cruelly take lives without a thought. They also have hopes and dreams that they earnestly try to protect and follow through on, and face heartbreaking despair upon defeat. They feel pain just like we do, but must nevertheless be killed. Humans face pain through the very act of living, but nevertheless must live.

In true grimdark fiction there is rarely anything good in life for characters to return to once the battle is over. In Jujutsu Kaisen, on the contrary, there is enough good in life that we see it even amidst the battle. I can see that no other way than an expression of genuine affection. Truly bleak fiction leaves me wondering why everyone involved doesn't just put a gun in their mouth and be done with it. JJK provides an answer--because you'll get to laugh about ruining an expensive shirt, because you'll meet an acquaintance's hot mom, because the next human earthworm movie is coming out, because your favorite idol is doing a meet and greet this weekend, because maybe someday you'll finally go to Malaysia. There are many answers, and none of them are stupid.

[probablyasocialecologist]

By examining skeletal remains, anthropologist Meggan Bullock and colleagues found that in the city of Cholula, Mexico, between 900 and 1531, most people who made it to adulthood lived past the age of 50.

And of course there are many examples from historical records of people who lived very long lives in the past. For example, the sixth-century Roman Emperor Justinian I reportedly died at the age of 83.

Analysis of the tooth development of an ancient anatomically modern Homo sapiens individual from Morocco suggests that our species has experienced long life spans for at least the past 160,000 years.

[...]

Knowing that people often did have long lives in the past might help you feel more connected with the past. For example, you can imagine multigenerational households and gatherings, with grandparents in Neolithic China or Medieval England bouncing their grandchildren on their knees and telling them stories about their own childhoods decades before. You might have more in common with people who lived long ago than you had realized.

[unadulteratedsoulsweets]

A DC X DP IDEA #15 Beauty and the Beast

Imagine dis…

 By definition when you search these two terms…

 beau·ty- noun- a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially sight. 

 beast- noun- Negatively calling a person a beast likens them to a monster and implies that they behave in a crude, brutish, or animalistic way. This use of beast can be especially offensive, especially due to likening a person to an animal. The adjective beastly means monstrous, nasty, vile, or cruel.

 A young man who was discarded by his father for being born as a failure in the sacred line of the Al Ghul empire met a young man whose eyes give you the illusion of clear blue skies while it sparkles like stars above. 

 Danny is the beast while Dusan al Ghul also known as Ra al Ghul is the beauty.

 …

 It was 1013 A.D. The young Dusan also known as Ra al Ghul in the future, was full of life and youth, and was just starting his journey to create a league of his own, when he noticed a young man on the horizon. A traveler, perhaps, but what strikes him his interest is that the man’s blue eyes shine as of all the sapphires in the world or maybe the man/ traveler is unbothered by the scorching sun of the desert sand.

 Ra didn’t know what made him dawned on him, but at a split decision, he asked the stranger what he was doing in the middle of the desert. The stunning stranger just looked at him head-on, with those lovely eyes those eyes, and told him he is just a mere traveler, wandering from one place to another. Intrigued by the stranger’s way of life he was prompted to follow as he too wanted to see the world more than these desert dunes.

 The stranger had introduced himself as Danny Nightgale, short for Daniel. He wore a cloak that has the embroidery of a combination of flowers, skulls, stars, a clock, and some Egyptian polygraph, as it covers his entire body aside from his face. He carries no weapons but a satchel full of things that surprises the young Al Ghul. The first time together they were at odds, seeing that Ra strives for perfection as well as order through meticulous planning while Danny thrives at the chaos around him.

Dusan loved nature while Danny loved the stars, it has been months since they both went on a journey. The number of things that Danny had done that almost caused a permanent heart attack in Dusan to the point he is the cause of his early gray hairs. Both began discovering hidden places as well-hidden cities from all around the world, from the ruins of Gobekli Tepe to the hidden and lost city of gold. They, Danny, befriended the locals and learned and understood with them. Took part in their rituals and cultures. Some may not be as friendly as the last one, He was sure that he and Danny would die from the endless brigade of poisoned arrows that they keep shooting at them, but they still learned from them. Their intelligence as well as languages were thought lost in time.

 Dusan learned many things in the years he had traveled with his friend. Yet his feelings for him changed like the seasons that pass by them. With each passing day, Dusan noticed himself leaning towards Danny’s direction as if he was the sun and he was nothing but a mere moon or a planet rotating around him, how he would find comfort in his warmth and presence, how he could not take his eyes off Danny’s own eyes, how he would beg the stars to listen to Danny’s laugh and how he would indulge himself to listen to his endless rants about a particular constellation. He was not favored by his father for being an albino, but when Danny looked at him, it is as if he hung the moon and arranged the stars for him. He kept sending Danny hints like holding his hand for too long or wanting to be in his presence. He saw that Danny never once looked in the direction of every exotic beauty that they saw. Which made him hopeful but he remembered that he is a prince not favored but a prince none less. But he could not see himself without his life companion.

 It was a gamble per se, confessing his love and asking Danny to officially court him. Dusan planned everything to the very last speck. A dinner using the finest ingredients whilst they were on top of the highest peak of the mountain as the stars shine brightly above them. Moreover, that love between two men is frowned upon. In his family history there have been king, prince, and men falling in love with other men but was written as friends or even blood brothers, Dusan may have believed those scholars if he hadn’t found a hidden corner in the palace, while he was exploring, that contains a journal of his predecessor’s life as well letters he had exchanged with his lover.

It was said that at his marriage the King only slept with his wife until he bore him a son after that it was noticed that the King abandoned his wife, it was speculated that he has another woman or even that the queen cannot satisfy him making her a laughing stock as a woman who never pleased her husband enough.

 Confessing was harder than he thought he would be, Danny who was on the opposite side of the table was quiet. Feeling rejected Dusan dared to look at the disgusted look at Danny but the moment he opened his eyes his eyes widened in disbelief. Danny is looking at him with awe as his cheeks are slowly turning red like the desert mariposa lily flower. Both ended the night after a kiss that the two of them shared as the stars seem to congratulate them knowing found relationship bore more brightly at the endless night.

 Now you would see the two of them walking from one place to another holding each other’s hands. You would see the two of them rest under the endless stars as they both bask in each other’s presence. You would see the sweet smile that Dusan Al Ghul that he only shows to him and only him. How Dusan became so smitten at Danny's mere presence, how he would present Danny with not only the best but the most exotic flowers to present to him. How he would indulge Danny’s wishes, if Danny does wish for the world on a silver platter he would say wait to his lover and present the world on a golden platter.

 But life isn’t a fairytale.

 A king who has a son, his only son dying and at the mercy of death asked for the traveler’s help to cure his child. Dusan saw, dug, and discovered the restorative chemical pools to heal the prince, about to present it to the king to cure the dying prince. Danny who saw the consequence as well as the true nature of the pools tried to stop his lover, but his warnings fell on deaf ears as Dusan thought that this might be the key for his father to acknowledge him.

 It may have cured the dying prince but it drove him mad to kill Danny. As Dusan felt his lover’s warmth leaving his body with each passing minute, he curses the heaven as well himself for taking away his lover his love the only person whom he ever surrenders his heart to.

 Dusan who is the cause of his lover’s death said the lover used his remaining strength to whisper his last words. 

 To me, you are everything. The last several years have been fantastic, and if reincarnation exists, I would have chosen to be yours again and again until the end of time.

 …

 Damian Al Ghul- Wayne was only 6 years old when he stumbled upon his grandfather’s room. It is said that no monks, assassin, or even mother had stepped into grandfather’s chambers or even found the said chambers, and whoever was found it was said they met a painful death. 

 Damian told himself to forget and go back to the useless tutors that his mother had assigned to him, but a small part of him says that a quick peek wouldn’t hurt. 

 Curiosity won as Damian was still a 6-year-old, opening the double doors slowly he was greeted by the darkness of the room. Slowly he looked for any switch of light, as he flipped the switch on, he was astonished at what he saw. 

 The large fireplace above it contains a large portrait of what looks like a younger version of grandfather alongside someone whom he never recognizes. A lean frame that looks like a grandfather towers over him, a mop of midnight hair, ice-like eyes as well the having the aura of softness and warmness in his body language and smile as if the portrait is alive. 

 Looking around he was even more flabbergasted, shelves that contains countless miscellaneous things that the League considered worthless yet his grandfather seems like he has a large collection. Shells that have bits of sand in a large jar, a small floral terrarium, fabrics that contain embroidery of different constellations, a necklace made out of beads and small polished rocks, and many more. He was about to reach a wooden sculpture of what looked like a figurine between lovers when he felt a faint pain behind his neck and promptly lost consciousness.

 When he woke up he was back in the main base of the League his mother explained that he had been asleep for almost three days due to one of the tutors poisoning him slowly, and his mother exclaimed that they were upping his dosage of poison during his poison training as it was embarrassing for the heir to faint from a mere poison.

 Damian kept quiet as he was sure that the explanation of his mother didn’t happen, he may not have seen whomever attacked him from behind but he was sure that nobody had poisoned him. The moment he recovered he immediately went back to the room that he had found, but the moment he opened the door the room was completely deserted; all of the trinkets were gone including the large portrait. 

 He thought that he may have dreamed the said room and what he saw was a hallucination product of the poison in his system.

 But the moment he met Danny, a mid-20-year-old man who has black hair and blue eyes, an owner of a small book café that both Todd and Drake come frequently at the tender age of 11 he began having a strange sense of de ja vu, especially after he saw the man smile at him when he was petting the owner’s pet dog named Cujo.

 …

 Danny decided to have a vacation, after years of becoming the Ghost king and after years developing his eldritch appearance, he had felt bored as he had already fixed the Realms due to the neglect that Pariah Dark had caused, in just a few centuries. He may have his friends, sister, and daughter with him, but even then, his boredom continues to grow every decade. Clockwork had advised him to explore the endless dimension that was connected to the realms. 

 Seeing the appeal, he immediately went straight in, but at the last moment, Clockwork grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and told him that he cannot just go to the human world looking like a cryptid. The mortal plane as well as the locals may not handle his aura and appearance. He reminded the young king, even though Danny became one of them and immortal but compare to the rest of the ancients he is nothing more than a toddler or a child in the eyes of the ancients, that due to his ever-growing powers as well as his titles his mere presence would either kill or make a mortal faint. Pouting at the reason, he asked Clockwork how he would explore the mortal realms when Clockwork handed him a digital tablet, courtesy made by Pharaoh, and told him to create his avatar that can contain some of his powers that connects him to the realms and vanished.

 Danny stared blankly at his avatar, which looked no different from his previous human and fleshy self, and asked if someone introduced SIMS to the ancient of time.

 Carrying a satchel that has an endless space, a gift from one of his subjects that was a manifestation of fans in fandom, people, or topic. 

 He started his journey.

 He never planned to meet a mortal, to sweep him off his feet to the point his nonexistent heart seems to beat for only him. Danny’s north star made him love the green-eyed beauty, the tan skin that looked like the fresh sand of the dessert while his eyes reflect the polished emeralds that they have saw deep in the ocean during their stay in the middle of the Caribbean, as when they have gone for scuba diving. 

 Nor dying while his lover begs the gods or any higher power out there to bring me back, when his Astrophel had dug out corrupted ectoplasm he immediately warned his star but his warning fell on deaf ears as he saw what in his love’s mind, he wanted HIS acknowledgment more than anything. He knew that even though his bright light had told him countless times that he didn’t need his father’s approval his eyes and actions screamed at the mere fraction of attention that he could have if he had saved a prince. 

 Danny prepared himself for any side effects that may affect the prince but he was caught off guard at the immediate reaction of the prince to his presence. He knew that sometimes ectoplasm leaked to the mortal plane what he was surprised is that ectoplasm was affected by the former king, as the prince was straggling him he came to the conclusion that the ectoplasm was affected by the previous king making it corrupted as well it explains his immediate reaction to kill him as he is the one who stood up to the tyrant king.

 As he felt his avatar’s life force slipping away his final thoughts were about returning to this reality to be with his lover. 

 As he returned to the Infinite realms he was immediately whisked away by his knight for another scheduled meeting. 

 After what had felt like centuries, he immediately created another avatar to enter the dimension and be with his lover. When he returned, he immediately noticed that time flowed too fast for his liking. Feeling devastated he originally planned to return to the Infinite Realms to mourn for his lover when he met the scrawniest 6-year-old boy stealing old books from the trash. Even the thin boy on the roof holding a camera waiting for the vigilantes to come, made up his mind and stayed. 

 The scrawny boy he dubbed before, his name is Jason and he lived in Crime Alley with awful parents. Danny would give him real food, light yet filling, to Jason while he would teach the boy to read books. He fell in love with classical books, he was happy to learn that he got adopted by a nice family who can feed him three times a day and he could go to school as well having a warm place to sleep. When he noticed that Jason stopped going to his shop for his usual visit, he was worried. 

 He knew that the boy he grew to love as a brother became a vigilante alongside that Batman fellow, so when he failed to show up, he began to panic. Carrying a handful of posters in his hand, he began spreading missing posters despite that many children are missing in Gotham every day. A rich fruit loop, to which he was sure he is Batman as every rich people who he meets has a secret lair in their basement, approached him and asked for the posters to which he replied that the young boy in the pictures came to his café before he was adopted. He couldn’t do anything to help the boy aside from the warm meals and sometimes sleeping over at his place, He could feel Clockwork’s warning and his connection that this boy has a destiny to fulfill and it mustn’t be disturbed, as he was just starting his business, and other legal and identity stuff, to keep the boy.

 Bruce, the fruit loop introduced himself and said that Jason passed away a few weeks ago. Which Danny would have believed if he noticed Lady Gotham grieving for her knight or bird? He kept quiet as Bruce asked where he got the picture, gesturing at the poster, as he didn’t recall having a picture of Jason with this kind of outfit, Danny answered by saying that sometimes after the kid got adopted, he would still come at his place and just hang out with him. Both became quaint acquaintances as both settle down and drink warm cups of coffee as two people share and tell stories of Jason.

 The thin one came into his life when he noticed a small silhouette in a roof over in front of his shop. A child too thin for his liking was carrying a camera focusing on any rooftop to catch a glimpse of the vigilante. Tim, who introduced himself, loves the vigilantes in Gotham and often would sneak out of the home to catch a photo or two and even a glimpse of the iconic duo. Danny asked himself what good parents wouldn’t notice their child missing every night surely the small eye bags below his eyes is already an indicator. Danny was sure he didn’t add a meta gene in his avatar so why is he getting too close to the family of a vigilante as well as having children who are neglected by their parents come to him? Gave Tim actual food than letting the id starve in the empty house and he didn’t get even surprised when months later he was adopted by Bruce. 

 During Bruce and Danny’s rare get-together, Danny mentioned hardly that having empty nest syndrome does not excuse him to adopt every black hair and blue-eyed child who is potentially traumatized in Gotham. This caused an immediate choke from Bruce and assured Danny and tried to refute him but Danny continued as if he had gone deaf at Bruce’s denial, that it is natural for teenagers to leave the nest and he felt pity and understanding for the butler for his efforts to stop Bruce in adopting every child in Gotham. 

 When Jason appeared and opened the doors to his café with a white streak on his hair as well as getting noticeably larger than last time, he didn’t say anything but prepared his seat in his favorite spot with Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen at one side and a Neapolitan ice cream sandwich on one side. Weakly whispering, Welcome back, to the person he had missed and loved like a brother. Danny knew that Jason didn’t like real-life sappy moments but Danny was just about to open his arms when Jason suddenly rushed to hug the man. Danny began filtering the corrupted ectoplasm in Jason’s system each time he stayed at his café to have a quick snack or lunch away from his brothers.

 It was when he took notice of the youngest Wayne that he experienced de ja vu. He looked like a mini Bruce, he inherited everything from Bruce including the scowl aside from his coloring. His color reminds him of his deceased lover in the desert, he traveled in this dimension in the past and he knew a child assassin in the making when he saw one. He tried everything to give Damian a sense of innocence as he was sure that this one would turn into a Robin at any given moment, going as far as having a menu dedicated to vegetarians.

 That should have been the first warning sign that fate is up to something.

 …

 There has been a spike in occult activities in Gotham and the Bats decided to investigate as there has been evidence of live sacrifice. Their occult problem seemed that the followers of that particular occult are trying to revive the Pariah Dark who was known as the tyrant king as he ruled over under his rule. 

 As they were busting another botched attempt in summoning whatever was named king, they noticed Danny, a lovely café owner by the way, all tied and scratched up but no fatally noticeable injuries and seemed unconscious from the way he laid down. All birds wanted to rush in and free Danny from the tight binding that they were sure would leave a mark and a wound when the sound of shattering glass made all of them look up. A band of assassins accompanied by the one and only Ra Al Ghul the demon head. Now there is a heavy tension in the air as both sides are looking at each other with apprehensive, distrust, and blood lust. They didn’t know that Ra was following them nor his agenda for today but both sides know that no one is going to leave the dimly lit abandoned warehouse unharmed.

 But Danny chose to wake up that very moment to witness the two still not moving an inch from their spot and continuously staring down at each other. Danny would’ve slowly left the scene or even sunk into the shadows to watch both sides when he noticed the supposed leader. Danny felt his non-existent heart begin to beat again, something inside of him recognize the man. Looking closely Danny’s face slowly turns to one of awe and pure love as he stares at the Demon's head.

 In what would have been forever as the tension was broken by Danny who awoke and called out Astrophel while staring at Ra. 

 Batman and company are surprised to see Danny awake but also curse themselves for their luck for Danny to witness this. As Jason is about to pounce at any assassin that tries to harm Danny, they all have their respective jaws drop as Ra responded to Danny by having a whiplash too fast that they were sure they heard his neck crack at sheer speed.

 When they saw Ra and the League in tow, they were expecting a battle and bloodshed, not the fact that Ra looked like he is on the verge of tears nor the amount of emotions present in his eyes, aura, and body language.

 The joy, excitement, peacefulness, overwhelm, disbelief, hope, and nostalgia emitting from Ra made them double check their very eyes as well check their reality because never in their lives would they witness Ra such vulnerability and emotions to the café owner they both love and acquainted. 

 …

 Danny is overjoyed to learn his lover is still in the mortal plane, he is ready for another adventure and journey just the two of them and maybe they would get married this time. 

 If only the Bats both in and out of their costume and civvies would stop getting in their way.

 …

 PS: If someone out there wanted to continue or make a fic about this you are free to do so, don’t forget to tag me though.

[syrena-del-mar]

Selfish Desires and the Class War: Dead Friend Forever

Ever since @nyxelestia's great additions to my tags about how Phee has been able to process his grief in comparison to Tan, and succinctly stated how class theorists regard poverty as a type of violence, I can't help but take a bit of a socio-economic look at the DFF's group of friends. Particularly, episode 10 really served to solidify my theory on the underlying commentary DFF is making regarding selfishness and the different abilities to skirt punishment dependent on class.

For this one, I'm going to break this down in a couple of categories: first, I'm going to explain Hobbes' theory on human nature and Marx's theory on class wars. Then I will be listing out the 'class types' each one of the DFF boys are in (sans White). Finally I will be analyzing the THC gang with Non, then Phee and New.

Keep in mind that here I will be defining 'selfish desires' as to the innate human inclination to prioritize one's own needs, wants, and interests over that of others. Meanwhile class war/conflict will be in reference to the societal divide into different classes dependant on their relationship to their means of production and value.

Human Nature According to Hobbes

In Hobbes' 'Leviathan', he delves into understanding human nature. His conclusion is probably best summarized by his most known phrase, "'the state of nature." In this state of nature, where Hobbes hypothesized about a life where there is no government, no laws, or state of order, just simply individuals that are able to live without constraints. Hobbes found that life would be "solitary, poor, nasty, short, and brutish."

Hobbes' comes to the conclusion, that absence of societal constraints, humans are driven by desire to secure their own survival and fulfill their desires. Hobbes states that there is an universal, fundamental drive for self-preservation that leads to a state of equality among humans. Yey, instead of being able to live in harmony, the equality, particularly in vulnerability to harm and death, breeds competition since it is human nature to scrounge, secure, and vie for resources— even when it means taking advantage of one another.

Central to Hobbes' theory of human nature is fear—fear of others, fear of harm and fear of uncertainty. Without structure, humans are trapped in a perpetual state of insecurity, creating a 'war of all against all'. Hobbes acknowledges that individuals have natural rights, particularly the right to self-preservation but with a lack of governing authority, the enforcement to this right is essentially meaningless.

Tldr; there are four main components to human nature: self-preservation, fear and insecurity, equality and competition, and natural rights.

Theory of Class Wars

Now, enter Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and we have the theory that a society is divided into two classes: the bourgeoisie and the proletariats. The bourgeoisie, own the means of production and are able to explore the labor of the proletariat for profit, which ends up leading to human alienation and inequality.

When it comes to the relationship of selfish desires and class war, at its core, the idea instills that a capitalist system incentivizes and rewards the selfish pursuits among the bourgeoisie. The accumulation of wealth and exploitation of labor and the quest for profit are the driving forces between constructing and maintaining class inequalities.

Dead Friends Forever: The Intersection of Social Class Divide and Selfish Desires

The thing about Dead Friend Forever is that there is a visible class division between Por and Non, which drowns out the undercurrent class differences between the rest of the DFF gang.

Por: He is born into power and higher class. His mother ever states "Do you think I'll be in trouble for kind of thing?" He is born into awareness of his status and the privilege.

Jin: Just from the house that he lives, you can tell that he is relatively well off. The finishes in the house both interior and the exterior show that his family, while not as rich as Por, are likely more than financially stable.

Phee: His dad is a police inspector, which likely provides decent money, as he is able to send his son to a private school on a single household income.

Fluke: We're given enough information that we know he wants to be a doctor and make his mom proud, he's attending tutoring classes and there's no mention of money issues.

Top: No mention of struggling for money, can safely assume that he lives comfortably.

Tee: Struggling, has a lot of debts to Uncle Joe in order to keep his dad alive.

New/Non: Their whole family is struggling even before Non went missing. What little money they had was sent over to New, even taking on debts to be able to provide for him abroad. They were one paycheck away from losing everything, which they eventually did.

Non and the THC Gang

Aside from Tee, the main group are all born into various levels of wealth and privilege, whether it be purely monetary or with the jobs of their parents, so they're able to navigate their life with an air of entitlement. Their desires are all shaped by the comforts and opportunities that their status affords them. Por's family alone was able to get their high school film reported on and with a viewing, merely with the mother's flippant mention of the project. Not to mention that Por's mother explicitly sets the tone of how she would be treated compared to Non's mom. It's a stark contrast, Non stands out as the outsider, not only due to his lack of friends in the school, but also marginalized by his lack of wealth and social standing in comparison to the rest of the gang. And in an odd way, it's likely why he felt a certain degree of kinship with Tee, who is the only other individual visibly struggling to survive, even if he mostly keeps his money troubles away from his group of friends.

The whole reason Non even gets involved with the group is because the group, particularly Por and Fluke, are driven by their hunger for success and recognition. Por likely wanted his parents to find some pride in him and Fluke needs it to round out his resume when applying to medical school. They desperately want to win the sponsorship, so they need and use Non— not as an equal but as a means to an end. They exploit his talent in scriptwriting and they use him as a pawn, not even inviting him to the presentation when its Non's script their using. Hell, they barely could stand being close enough to take a picture with Non. They quite literally use him as a pawn, an easy exploit, reminiscent of Hobbes' notion of self-interest as a driving force.

As the show continues on, the exploitation of Non takes on darker shades, echoing Hobbes bleak depiction of the state of nature. The initial bullying, that is rooted in class-based prejudices, transforms into a calculated campaign of cruelty. While Tee might be struggling financially, he's actually the true leader of the group. Sure, Por may have the money, but the guys only follow what Tee wants. Top and Tee use Non's marginalization against him, almost as if vultures feeding on the weaker. Top doesn't have to pay for the camera and Tee is able to find Uncle Joe's next victim for the horse accounts, a complete parallel of Hobbes' description of the strong dominating the weak in the absence of a social contract. In doing so Non, the 'marginalized' becomes fodder for the selfish desires of Tee and Top, initiating a chain-reaction event to Non's detriment.

While Por, Tee, and Top have the more obvious benefits with how Non is treated, so does Fluke. Fluke, in the hierarchy of status within the group, is at the bottom rung. With Non there he's able to be treated better and he no longer is the scapegoat. He admits it in this episode. He needed Non to be mistreated, because he feared being targeted by the rest of the THC gang, and having Non around kept everyone else's attention off of him. He was no longer the one being harrassed. He's able to sacrifice Non for his own benefit.

The thing about Fluke is that he doesn't overtly try to harm Non, not in the same way that the others do. No, his covert damage that he causes Non is in his silence. He sees Top destroy the camera, Tee come up with the idea to target Non, he sees Jin film Non and Kru Keng, he even questions Jin's intentions to film, but he's spineless. He cares more for himself, he prioritizes his self-preservation. He maintains the status quo and utilizes Non's weakness so that he isn't the next target.

Initially, Jin's treatment of Non seems to defy the expected narrative of class exploitation, since out of the group he's the one that is the most compassionate and understanding. From a Marxist perspective, this initial compassion could be understood as an acknowledgment of the inherent inequalities that exist between the affluent and the marginalized. Jin's actions might suggest a fleeting moment of solidarity, recognizing and acknowledging Non's humanity beyond his status. However, his demeanor shifts dramatically when he realizes that Non doesn't reciprocate his romantic feelings and worsens when he sees him with Kru Keng.

Hobbesian human nature, which is driven by the pursuit of power and self-interest, comes to the forefront as Jin's wounded pride and sense of rejection fuel his actions. In Hobbes' state of nature, individuals are driven by their desires and fears leading to betrayal and conflict. His change in behavior to Non reflects this as he seeks to assert dominance and control in the face of perceived rejection by punishing Non. Jin's betrayal of Non's trust and kindness underscores the harsh realities of class divides, where compassion can quickly give way to exploitation. Hobbes argued that individuals in the state of nature are in constant competition for power and self-preservation, here Jin's realization that Non does not reciprocate his feelings leaves him feeling vulnerable and exposed.

Non's role as a commodity within the framework becomes clear as filming continues. His talent is valued solely for its ability to bring profit and success to the friends. Yet, despite his contributions, Non remains alienated from the fruits of his labor, he's always the worker and never the leader. Continuing this trend of being a pawn in group's quest for recognition. Marx's concept of false consciousness is evident, since Non remains unaware of the true nature of his exploitation until its too late.

The group needs to get rid of Non, because he's become a lose cannon. Tee needs him delivered to his Uncle, so that he can survive and continue to receive the payments he needs to keep his dad alive. The depths of their depravity are laid bare and echoes both Hobbes' and Marx's grim assessments of human nature intertwined with class conflict. Non becomes a victim to their cruelty, to their selfish desires, and the stark reality of coming from a poor family. He disappears into the abyss of the mafia, while the rest of the group continue to live their lives unperturbed, shielded by their wealth and privilege.

Interestingly enough, every single one of the guys that come from a better socio-economic status have begged for Non's forgiveness while under the influence of New's hallucinogens. The only one who doesn't is Tee. Yes, he is under the distress of confessing his crimes since Fluke is holding White hostage, but he's the only one that is willing to admit fault and ask for forgiveness without having to hallucinate Non's face or his voice. All this leaves me asking, what depths of betrayal and exploitation were the THC gang willing to sink to in their quest for dominance? Did Tee's penance begin when attempted to help Non escape his Uncle Joe? Was Non actually able to escape or had they sent him to his death?

2. Phee and New/Tan

Even through Phee and New, we can see Hobbesian and Marxist themes in their different versions of grief they experience over Non's disappearance.

New embodies the the essence of Hobbesian human nature, bringing around the idea of 'war of all against all'. His relentless pursuit of revenge becomes a primal instinct for survival, since he has lost everything good in his life. His brother, his childhood home, his education, his mother, and finally his father, in that very order, over the span of three years. New's grief over the disappearance of Non becomes a consuming force that propels him into a world of darkness. In Hobbes' state of nature, individuals are typically driven by self-interest and the pursuit of power, which New's quest of revenge reflects this fundamental aspect. His quest against the friends responsible isn't solely about revenge, but it's a desperate attempt to assert agency and justice in a world that has denied his family both.

Marx argues that in a capitalist society, the bourgeoisie will exploit the proletariat for profit, perpetuating class struggles. Non was exploited for his script, but New represents the proletariat, the oppressed working class fighting back against the forces of oppression. His revenge is a revolt against the oppressive structures of class inequality that have marginalized his whole family. In Marxist terms, his journey is a symbol of the proletariat struggle against exploitation and injustice, which echos the revolutionist spirit of Marxism.

On the other hand, Phee, who is financially well-off and still has his father, represents the privilege and the detachment from the struggles of the proletariat. He never fully understood why Non wasn't receptive to his help, similarly he's not completely understanding New's own thirst for revenge. While Phee is initially driven by a desire to uncover the truth about Non's disappearance, and while he still loves Non, it's mostly driven by guilt and grief within the context of privilege. Phee has things, people, in his life that still matter outside of Non. Yes, he loved Non, but he's able to move on from his grief, reflecting the detachment and apathy that can settle in with privilege. Under Marx's critique of the bourgeoisie, who exploit the proletarian, it's because Phee still has his Dad and other things he loves in life that he is able to move on from the type of anger in grief that New finds himself overwhelmed in.

It's going to be interesting where Phee and New's friendships heads in the last two episodes. Will it New and Phee collide in a violent confrontation that mirrors the clash between the oppressed and the privileged? Is DFF trying to make a comment on the class war where New's relentless pursuit of revenge against the THC gang represents the proletariat's revolt against exploitation, while Phee's detachment echoes the bourgeoisie's indifference to the plight of the marginalized? Or it will show that Phee and New are able to put their social status aside in order to find revenge against the true bourgeoisies, in this case the THC gang, that exploited Non for all his worth until ultimately destroying him.

Final Thoughts

While this episode may feel significantly weaker in comparison to the last five, I think it's providing us with the necessary exposition as we head into our final two episodes. We're seeing the destruction of the 'bourgeoisie' by their own hands with just a little nudge from the sole proletariat. As Hobbes would likely agree, it's a dog eat dog world in that cabin. It always had been with Top, Por, Tee, Fluke and Jin. There was an equality between them, but now with an outside force, their bonds are breaking and they are willing to kill each other just to survive.

Dead Friend Forever is going beyond the standard slasher genre, even beyond horror. I truly think it's making social commentary regarding the classes and human nature. It's going to be interesting to see who comes out the survivor of this party from hell, if there is anyone.

Tagging @slayerkitty for DFF's meta round up.

[mclennie]

A thing I really love about TBOSAS is its exploration of human nature through the characters, using the ideas of philosophers like Hobbes, Locke, and Rosseau. In fact, it's so important to Suzanne Collins that you make these connections that their most famous works are quoted in the novel's epigraph.

Gaul represents Hobbesian thought in the story, believing humans are hardwired to be cruel, selfish, and willing to kill each other to ensure survival. She tells Snow that the arena is "humanity undressed" and that even Snow, who had the right upbringing and education, quickly becomes a murderer inside the arena (tbosas 243).

It's always been interesting to me that she likens the arena, an environment controlled by the Capitol, to the State of Nature Hobbes writes about.

First of all, the State of Nature is supposed to be a place without any sort of interference, and in an arena, that's just not true; the Capitol controls weapons, food supply, and dangers like mutts. Secondly, the State of Nature was never a real place but more of a thought exercise, but Gaul seems to take this exercise at face value.

In Leviathan, Hobbes says that in the State of Nature, there exists a perpetual state of war, with no moral right or wrong, and to escape this "nasty, brutish, and short" life, humans must create a strong central state to impose order.

Snow's journey in the novel is to decide which worldview he ascribes to, which makes the arrival of Lucy Gray Baird into his life even more important.

Now, Lucy Gray is more in line with Rosseau's view that humans are naturally good, but society is the one that changes that. This is her line of thinking when she tells Snow: "People aren't so bad really[.] It's what the world does to them. Like us, in the arena. We did things in there we'd never have considered if they just left us alone," (tbosas 492).

What I like about TBOSAS is that unlike other prequels centered on the villain, it's not preordained by fate that Snow was meant to be an authoritarian dictator. He has a choice. He meets Lucy Gray when he's leaving childhood, stuck between two forks in the road, and he can choose whether to stay on the right side of the line, as Lucy Gray later mentions. But he decides not to.

He chooses wealth, fame, and power over love and goodness.

It's very telling to me that out in the woods with Lucy Gray, before their relationship quickly sours, he wonders what they should do after they meet their most basic needs. What would they do without books or music? What's the point of survival for its own sake? He even discounts having children with her because he says it would be "too bleak" to condemn a child to such an existence (tbosas 496).

Love is not enough. Not if you subscribe to a worldview where individuals are inherently cruel and if you think control is the only thing preventing chaos. When he turns his gun on Lucy Gray it's the ultimate rejection of her worldview, and his complete turn into Gaul's influence, one where it's every man for himself.

[comicaurora]

I mean, you've said before that the greek gods were more reflections of what was true then what was good. Life was cruel, unfair, and horrible, so the gods were too. People probably didn't like poseidon very much, but they probably didn't like floods or earthquakes or serial r*pists that much either. I kind of assumed it was very much a 'reverence via fear' thing.

It's a reasonable assumption, but it's important to recognize that it is an assumption.

Most of us do not live lives with many gods in them, and the cultural permeation of christianity has produced a sense of theological normalcy where gods are typically found in the Singular or in the One With A Lot Of Saintlike Sidekicks arrangement. This presumes a nature of divinity that is both benevolent and very divorced from the practicalities of day-to-day life and which typically only acts in the form of rare and irreproducible "miracles". The tropes of godhood we recognize are sunbeams in churches, eyes pointed heavenward, faith and belief over skepticism. Even in fictional stories that are totally separate from reality or are evoking elements from wildly different religions, these tropes still recur because they have been culturally normalized to the point of near-invisibility.

Like, for example, Young Hercules kneeling in a huge, empty, cavernous temple to pray to a Zeus he isn't sure is listening.

Like all forms of normalcy, we're very impressed the first time someone breaks it for us. "What if these gods DIDN'T work like that?" seems groundbreaking because we don't realize we've acclimated to an outlier. There are many, MANY other ways a culture can see its gods, and there are many reasons to be skeptical of any interpretation of that angle that highlights "their gods are cruel and mercurial because so were their lives." It flattens not only the religion but the lives of the people who practiced it into a Planet Of The Hats trope that just happens to be excitingly different from the one we think is normal. It also buys into the whole "historical life was all nasty, brutish and short" myth which is always something to watch out for in the subtext zone.

Even in the context of Ancient Greece, the gods are characterised wildly differently by different writers. Even just Artemis has been a helpless victim to be rescued by her brother, a cruel and unforgiving mistress to her followers, an arrogant young girl violently put in her place by her queen, the mistress of the muses and foremost of the goddesses, a protector of young women, a killer of young women, an untouchably expert hunter, and a hundred other things. To say "hunting is a risky business and that's why Artemis is Like That" is to diminish her and reduce what could be centuries of fascinating cultural and personal context down to the literary equivalent of "damn that shit's pretty wack, so anyway."

The fact is we will never know for sure why these gods were characterized and worshiped the way that they were, because these religions died out centuries ago. We can make educated guesses, but when we aren't certain, we shouldn't act like we're certain. This is an angle of context I like, but one of the most risky parts of tumblr-brand academia (and now its sequel, tiktok academia) is that confident, quick assertions lodge in the audience's head like facts, and this is not a space where facts live anymore.

[megala-theia-praxidike]

Dr. Volumnia Gaul's world view

(and her pushing that world view unto kids)

Pushing her disgusting beliefs unto children about humanity's "true colors"

The grooming 😖

"mankind's natural state" "what they are all along" "humanity's true colors is that they have no moral compass" "Evil all along" 😑

Imagine being told you are inherently bad. That's what you are deep down and nothing good you do is genuine.

Coryo living in propaganda-filled society and being young, impressionable and seeking some form of control in his life, he's easily malleable to Gaul.

Hobbes considers humans to be naturally vainglorious and so seek to dominate others and demand their respect. The natural condition of mankind, according to Hobbes, is a state of war in which life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” because individuals are in a “war of all against all”. Like Hobbes, Gaul believes that humans have no moral compass unless there are predetermined rules to say what actions are good or bad.

It's sad that he came to believe her towards the end.

Coryo parroting Gaul.

The lesson that stuck to Coriolanus throughout his life and the one that won in the end of tbosas. In my opinion, in the end he believes, he is in need of being controlled to be safe and to have order (paralleling his projection on the Jabberjays). He believes it fully in the end to escape the guilt of what he did. Because if Gaul is right then what he did was just his nature (that he had no choice), that's just what he naturally is all along and so not at fault, that it is simply human nature and he is in need of control. To control himself and to control others from their own nature.

[artbyblastweave]

I prompt you to elaborate on the idea of deliberately making something in a story boring, for I an always interested in your analysis.

In The Boys (Comic version, which I have complicated but more-positive-than-most feelings about) Garth Ennis very deliberately wrote most of the superhuman combat scenes as short, brutal affairs in which whoever was more powerful or better-equipped would just slaughter the other side in a matter of seconds; if the sides were more evenly matched it was then a matter of who swung first. To my memory, there were only a handful of fights blocked like fights instead of like curbstomps. This was in service to Ennis's artistic vision; violence as a swift, brutal thing, only glamourous in the sense of black-comedy dismemberments or the grim satisfaction of being alive when the other guy isn't, and with the majority of all conflicts playing out through via prep-work and intelligence-gathering done in advance of the first punch being thrown.

It was an aggressive refutation of how superhero fights go in more straightforward superhero fiction, with clever tricks, drawn-out dramatic brawls, violence as a palatable form of spectacle, something marketable after-the-fact. A lot of the fights the titular team got involved in consisted basically of jumping distracted supes; one of Homelander's jobs was to just unceremoniously decapitate any earnest upstart supervillain and then have the marketing team at Vought write a comic portraying the fight as something with genre-typical stakes. To this day, I feel like there was a level of honesty about violence in this portrayal. In real life, it's not fun!

But! It did introduce some problems. Namely, a series in which almost every single fight is something Nasty, Brutish and Short created, for me, a form of doublethink about how seriously we should even take the Vought capes as threats. A series in which every fight is deliberately uninteresting (if you aren't entertained by curbstomps) is a series in which every fight is deliberately uninteresting, and from there your enjoyment of the series rides or dies on how interesting you find the non-fight political intrigue, character dynamics, and so forth. The version of Garth Ennis who isn't writing capes is, in my opinion, pretty damn good at that other stuff, so I inched through.

The show patched the majority of my difficulties. It retained the broad thesis that cape fights would largely be curbstomps, and the other broad thesis that capes would largely be useless or counterproductive at their supposed role, but combined this with a number of actual fight scenes. It made Butchers team significantly less powerful, with a significantly greater focus on the sneaky bastardry necessary to flip assets and find weaknesses. It made killing any given supe much, much more of an endeavor, something genuinely very difficult and impressive, and it made every given supe death much more of a plot point or a character beat than it would have been in the comic. The supes being less interesting than typical for their genre, that was preserved- but the situations involving supes that we, the audience, are privy to? All very interesting still!

Now on the other side of the spectrum, you've got Worm, and you've got Jack Slash-as-an-examination-of-Joker. "Your philosophy is ill-considered and fake deep, and you aren't funny" is actually a fairly common clapback against The Joker within officially published DC comics properties, but it butts up against the fact that he's taken pretty seriously as a threat regardless of that fact! Jack Slash is an attempt to reconcile that, to figure out how someone as LOlrandom as Joker could last longer than three minutes as a serious contender, and the answer is "subtle secondary powers that puff up his win rate, in a way that his self-absorption prevents him from recognizing as anything but his own innate talent." He's blatantly shallow. Everyone talking to him is palpably rolling their eyes within the text, but he's got the brute-force necessary to undercut anyone trying to one-up him (Theo's interlude, Tattletale in the parking garage.) It's called out multiple times that's it's mysterious that he's doing so well when he's so mediocre. The candidate he picks for the 9 is a dud. He can't come up with anything more interesting for Cherish than having her do all the other tests over a second time. His big comeback is just Slaughterhouse 9! But More of them! Fuck Yeah!

But! Despite the text being aware of how shallow he is and how thin his ideas are, all of his ideas keep working. It doesn't matter that it's edgelord bullshit- it's edgelord bullshit that everyone else is forced to take seriously and respond to, which is where the actually-great character work in the S9 arc happens. And at this point I think there are basically two camps within the audience. Camp one consists of people who, despite Jacks clear shallowness, nonetheless are entertained and engrossed by the batshit combat scenarios he masterminds, even if he shouldn't be able to mastermind them. I am a counselor at Camp One. Camp Two consists of people who call bullshit on the ability for such a shallow guy to mastermind all that crap and bend everyone to his will, who don't really find anything redemptive in the eventual reveal that it was powers-enabled because they still had to sit through the implausible bullshit. This is a position I have no choice but to respect because it's the position of my cousin, who I adore and want to remain on good terms with at family gatherings. The things we do in service of family, amiright

[hms-lurking-latinist]

After dinner – they had eaten alone – he said to Jack, ‘At breakfast yesterday, when you were telling me about your first days at sea, I quoted Hobbes.’ ‘The learned cove that spoke of midshipmen as being nasty, brutish and short?’ ‘Well, in fact he was speaking of man’s life, unimproved man’s life: it was I that borrowed his words and applied them to the young gentlemen.’ ‘Very well applied too.’ ‘Certainly. Yet later conscience told me that my words were not only improper but also inaccurate. I looked out the passage this morning, and of course my conscience was right – is it ever wrong? – and I had omitted the words solitary and poor. “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” was what he said. And though poor may have been appropriate…’ ‘Appropriatissimo,’ said Jack. ‘The solitude had nothing to do with the overcrowded berth of your childhood. The false quotation was therefore one of those flashy worthless attempts at wit that I so much reprehend in others.’

(Clarissa Oakes)

I love these goofballs

[ganymedesclock]

So that #Syrin the Dread Blade tag, thats a new one. Seems like a interesting character, a sentient sword, how did Tyler happen upon them? What does the sword look like, and does it have any special magical abilities? How do they like the other members of the party? Do they actually speak or do they have a telepathic voice?

Technically it's just a tagging misconception; I haven't tagged Syrin reliably before because his nature as a sword does mean he's kind of attached to Taylor. But he is his own dude!

A short primer: magic items in this setting tend towards a level of awareness. Magic is essentially what souls are made of, ergo, if you stuff enough magic in anything, it starts to have a soul, and behaves accordingly. Entities as fully developed and chatty as Syrin are rare; far more common is that magic items tend to feel just a little bit haunted, inclined towards some things and away from others. It's a bit creepy if you're not used to it; enchantments are commonplace and widely accessible, so that 'not being used to it' is more a statement on if the individual is used to handling a particular thing.

Syrin himself is the ostensible opus of the previous Lord of Darkness, a Dark Sword that was meant to contest and cancel out the legendary sword of light wielded by the hero. Ostensibly, because for unknown reasons Syrin was left in storage the eve of the fateful battle. Being groomed exclusively for this purpose by someone he regarded as a father and then abandoned for ten years definitely wasn't traumatic or terrifying for someone with the cognitive level of a child, we promise. Especially since Syrin needs to eat.

Syrin's construction, and what leads Taylor to point out he's a bit like a 'needle', is a crystal-bladed thrusting sword with a hollow core. Despite its delicate looks, the blade is actually both quite sharp and highly durable; the thin tube at the center being essentially his mouth, by which he is supposed to drink blood. His victims', if he can get it, or, failing that, magically drawn from his host. As a result his blade itself ranges from grayish translucence to dark red if he's gorged to fullness.

From there, he has the power to generate and shape a kind of magical flesh, allowing him to weave more elaborate forms around his core body, the sword.

As you can guess, this gives Syrin a somewhat unpleasant and brutish first impression on people, as he has no verbal filters, was raised by a would-be conqueror of the world, and is dependent on blood and thus interested in more fights than not. I've described him before as like a preteen on xbox live who talks up a nasty game mostly out of loneliness and a need to be liked, where you can tell the kid themselves is not as bad as the people who taught them all those words and that they were "funny".

Deep down (and not all that deep, like I said, no filters), Syrin is a vulnerable child who was groomed to do violence and got no experience with it until strangers came to loot the dangerous ruins he was held in, at which point he did what you'd expect a strong but sheltered child to do faced with a home intruder, and killed/devoured that individual in a panic. His first kill being no glorious conflict or victory approved by his father, but essentially a desperate scramble in the dark with himself on the edge of fatal starvation messed him up even more than ten years of silence.

Enter Taylor and party, who happen to pass through those same environments. Syrin makes an attempt to body-snatch Taylor that fails due to the latter's particular properties, and Taylor, being both a good-hearted person and a stubborn busybody, feels obligated to bring this chatterbox with them and attempt to bully him into developing some sense of tact while Syrin attempts to Corrupt His New Wielder To Violence.

This doesn't work because Syrin has no real ideas how to go about corrupting someone besides loudly telling them to stab things more, while Taylor is an apprentice surgeon and mortician who is a lot more desensitized to bodies and their workings such that if they have a weapon, they'll at least consider it as a solution to most problems. So the punchline is that Syrin is more often thrown/flabbergasted by Taylor than vice versa, while the latter just sees him as a sort of annoying kid who's easily talked into almost anything as long as you compliment him first.

[magistralucis]

Fucked up by how no life in The Twice-Dead King is insignificant. No one is only an obstacle, only useless, or evil for the pure sake of evil; it's a statistics gamble just to get the simplest soldier replaced, and defeating an antagonist doesn't necessarily improve the situation, since the void they leave continues to haunt the remainder of the text.

Neth isn't just broken and useless, Denet didn't forget the monoliths for nothing. Oltyx would never have returned to his authentic life without Hemiun, the duel with Duamehht was fated and deserved, in terms of Oltyx's pain as much as hers. Lysikor's probably the individual closest to a true villain, in that he's self-concerned, murderous, treacherous, and ultimately aims to harm Oltyx; yet it's all softened by the fact that he appears to have a metafictional awareness of his archetype, rendering his actions more of a stage role than an existential threat. The only true evil in TDK's narrative is ideology (fascism) - and the few times individuals break off from it to clash with the main characters, those encounters have serious consequences for Oltyx and his court. No life, acknowledged as a life, has no effect on the fabric of this duology.

And that's ironic as all hell, given that necrons willingly live in a Hobbesian nightmare of a world where life is nasty and brutish, if not particularly short. Even before biotransference, their militaristic ventures and a strict hierarchy ensured that lives were poor and expendable, and not much has changed on that front. Any level of compassion for a living being is unusual for a necron noble to have, let alone prove true - in fact, most of the tragedy in TDK occurs because the world around Oltyx did its best to beat his compassion out of him, when he was blessed enough to have it from the very beginning. Ever more the twist of the knife, then, that Oltyx and his court ultimately accept the celebration of life-as-they-are (the Flayers) and life-as-it-used-to-be (their lived experiences and desires as necrontyr) through partaking in the lives-that-they-took (flesh from various sources). It needs to be flesh, presumably, because flesh is material proof of something that was organic and living and deserving of that life. If they didn't care about the life part they would just be Destroyers. Sorry I'm just rambling now. This novel has taken over my brain