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ornamental-coral · 4 years ago

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Do you have houses combos you love besides Snake Bird ?

Hi sorry it’s take me so long to get to you ‘nonnie human you. I promise if anyone sends me questions, I will get to them eventually! It just takes a while for me thinking about them, researching about them (doing Birdy Bird things with even a one-sentence question...), forgetting I have a sort-hat-chats centered tumblr account (which is... can sort of a Bird thing but also a me thing), and then coming back so we are here (there. somewhere)

I myself am a Snake-Bird. I think I’m pretty neat. Birds are usually very good at entertaining themselves. I think. And I’m lucky I like myself enough because I spend a lot of time with me haha.

I’m a little in love with a remarkable amount of Lion primaries, Snake secondaries and Bird primaries (especially with a Snake secondary to make them extra hard to hold onto *rolls eyes) and apparently I love writing Badger Primaries? I guess I find the challenge of building an “ideal” society that is willing to address the current failings of our timeline a worthwhile challenge and my ink-children rise from the ether to meet me.

I’ve expanded below bar because this is actually a really interesting concept to me - how does a particular house combination react to the others. Below is just my meandering through how specifically My Snake Primary Bird secondary might react on a surface level to the other house types. This doesn’t mean I’m right. There are as many ways of acting within the house system as there are human beings and keep in mind, this is all in good fun.

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Lions

The Idealism of the Lion Primary is something that I find admirable. I posted a more extended musing on the position of Snake Birds within media here. I think the Snake in me understands that when you pick up a person the way Snakes do, you pick up a lot of their wants and regrets too. Snakes pick up People, so that means the whole package. A Lion with a worthy cause can be a very attractive thing to a Snake, who will follow and support them in a very specific kind of way.

With Double Lions, and Lion Snakes there’s that urge to run after them with a fire-extinguisher in one hand and a big stick in the other - one to put out the fires a Double Lion inevitably lights and the Lion Snake may try purposefully to stoke, and the other to beat off anyone who dares to tell your Lion that they cannot Be A Lion. That’s something only the Snake can do, and that’s only because no matter what the Snake says, the Lion is still Their Person warts and all and the Snake Bird knows damn well what they were getting into, or at least thought they did.

Lion Birds house-match secondaries with Snake Birds but can have explosively different moral codes, largely because they method match. I personally find some Lion Bird characters a little grating because as the audience, I feel I’m getting the same information as the Lion, but as a Snake I have a little too much self-preservation to imagine myself doing anything much about it - at least not the way a majority of Lion Bird characters act - or I come to different conclusion. I also hate conspiracy theories because they require leaps of logic the my Bird model typically just can’t tolerate but the felt-house Lion will participate in. However, Lion Birds can also be the hard-boiled PIs, the Best-at-their-Job secret agents (hi Agent Coulson), the one who has Seen the World and Still Believes It Can Be Saved. So that’s admirable and fun.

Lion Badgers are sweet but my Snake Bird goes “fires, fires everywhere”. And like, not the kind your Lion Snake might think is funny when the Snake Bird tries to put them out. Think Steve Rodgers. MCU Steve has a really strong Snake Performance though when it comes to Bucky which MY Snake finds really confusing because it is So Strong I’d be willing to be money he would have at least tried to find a better way to get rid of the Tesseract if Bucky hadn’t fallen from that train and been declared KIA. I think that particular type of Snake performance also confuses Tony, which is part of why Civil War was the way it was.

But yeah, a fire that a Lion Badger wants to light? it’s not going to go out. For a Snake, having that as Your Person means you either really ride or die for them - and might actually literally have to die, or you are keeping them from burning themselves out before they accomplish whatever they’re doing. For a Snake Bird? this is alarming as hell and it’s a fight between the Secondaries to make sure the Lion takes care of themselves as part of the Lion’s “hard work” Badger, if they’re your person.

Birds

Bird primaries will “build” the people they love into the way they see the world. As a Snake, I think this is just really appealing to me? Snakes are loyal, and older Snakes have the life experience to realize that - painful as it is - this loyalty will not always be reciprocated in the way you hope for (this is the stereotypical bone of contention between Lions, Badgers and Snakes. Lions are focused on their cause and if the Snake’s protective instincts get in the way of that, that causes problems It also hurts when a Lion’s mission supersedes their affection for their Snake people. Badgers’ concerns are for their communities and the split of attention can drive the individually focused Snake crazy). If you get built into the Bird’s world, that always felt like something special and something that took hard work, which made it all the more valuable.

My Snake Birds also likes to imagine it’s equipped to learn to the things that a Bird variety believes in and address those things. It’s the kind of relationship that has the potential to go very wrong, and I do realize that. I think Snake Birds have the tendency to want to be everything for Their Person (or people) and our powers of observation mean that we take it a little personally when we’ve missed something. I’m tempted to call Kaz Brekker of Six of Crows a Snake Bird and it drives him to distraction that he can’t be everything, everywhere, all at once to the handful of a people he truly and deeply cares about.

The Bird Snake in particular house matches in a way that can be particularly challenging and attractive to a Snake Bird? A Snake Bird’s tool is, well, the Bird, and the whole persona can feel ridiculously pleased by being able to “pin down” the Bird Snake, which does not necessarily lend itself to being pinned. There’s also this strong urge to understand the Bird Snake.

So there’s the Snake secondary who delights in finding new ways to be, and a Bird Secondary delights in learning new things. The discovery element in that relationship can, as long as the Bird Secondary is not stifled by the Snake Primary’s concern, actually be really rewarding. Birds, and Bird Snakes in particular are also often really unique. They think differently, act differently, can be off putting to certain types of house combinations because their moral code can come off is so blue-orange, and is Built on top of that. Snakes take great pride in being very “this is my Person and their brand of weirdness is just another thing I love about them. And on top of that, I Know them.” with their people in any situation, and if a Snake can eventually prove to their Bird Primary that that feeling is unwavering, that’s a relationship that becomes central to both Snake and Bird.

That isn’t to say Birds can’t go dark, but usually they learn to be that way given Birds are evidence-gatherers. Unfortunately, this means I love them too because people of my generation and all generations before and hence have a thing for characters with trauma (see Loki, greasy prince extraordinaire). It’s -- it’s never not been a thing. Take a look at freaking Gilgamesh, which is the oldest things that we know of, look at Enkidu, and tell me he wasn’t your favorite. Gilgamesh is kind an arschloch of highest proportions. As a more palatable example of this Bird-villain thing, I sort of suspect Bucky Barnes is a Bird of some flavor. If he killed one person as the Winter Soldier, he’d feel bad but probably admit it was the brain washing - but he did it dozens of times. He wonders what does this say about him? He is possibly a Badger, but even pre-winter-soldier he doesn’t seem to care on as wide a scale as a Badger typically does. Steve is Built into the fabric of his world, and he doesn’t react to Steve’s death the way I expect a Snake to either. Maybe a really Old Seasoned Snake and I mean technically he’s old? but the cryogenics thing sort of means he’s not old enough to just let it go. He also doesn’t follow the boy from Brooklyn for reasons I would expect from a fellow Snake but I guess the new show might give more insight on that once I actually watch it.

Badgers

Okay, I like writing Badgers. [Leans back on chaise lounge] this probably has something to do with my mother.

Really though. I model Badger because my mother, although I love her and I’m really lucky to have her, is a teeny tiny bit horrified by Snake tendencies and drilled into me the morality that it is okay and it is above all Good to care about other people (for other Snakes, read Yes Even Strangers). To be fair, the prioritizing that Snakes do (which can get as focused as ”My people first, even if someone else far away is in trouble and I am acutely aware of it”) can seem pretty horrific to a Badger. They don’t necessarily get how you could believe everyone is a person and just... not care. And it’s hard to convince a Badger (for whom not acting can = they are not worth it) that you know exactly what you’re doing but are also aware that if you try to help everyone your head will explode because you can’t keep that many People up there. It’s why Snakes have their rings of caring.

But the result is that for me, Badgers are usually the ones left standing at the end of the story. If they’re done dirty, I like to try and fix it.

I don’t like how media treats Badger primaries generally though? There’s often something “goofy” or the Badger is treated as soft in a really unpalatable way. I mean, and to be fair this directly comes from the way a Snake can sort of be flummoxed with the way Badgers just do things for strangers, yes Badgers irl may be considered gentle. On an individual level, they are often the hearts and hearths of groups and homes. But there’s this weird place where The State is supposed to be a Badger-shaped institution, so that uneasy balance comes out in weird ways.

I don’t remember who said it, but the difference with Badgers and Snakes is that, with a Snake, you start out at Zero. You’re human, but you’re not the Snake’s human, so I will treat you like a human, but there are My People above you. And with a Badger, you sort of start out at like 85-100%? At least this is my perception. Badgers need-base and that off-balances Snakes.

A Snake with a Badger in my opinion needs to be “eyes open” in a different way than even a Snake with a Bird does, because the Snake needs to understand that the Badger is going to look and act similar - until they don’t, and then the Snake needs to be able to put aside the part of them that was attracted to the mirrored morality and actually work with the Badger to figure out what the Snake needs and how the Snake can in turn support the Badger.

Anyways though, I’m writing a thing where a Badger Bird-modeling-Badger is the last woman standing, committed to fixing a broken type of organization that her Snake, Bird, and Lion companions are Tired of. Lady Badger is nothing if not resilient. I’m writing another thing where a really really Burnt Badger man gets a safe place to learn to be part of a community that is meant to be mutually protective again (he dies because this is a fan work and that’s what happened in cannon, and this is arguably because he’s still unburning at that stage and doesn’t Have a proper community, but I hope to show him having at least Some happy times because in the sh**show show he didn’t have any at all). I’ve got a slightly less developed thing where a number of Badger performing princes learn to work together to fix their kingdom and unbury the history that created it.

Aaand It’s nearing midnight, I have clearly lost the thread of the thread or whatever

Goodniiight to all my houses. Love you all even if I didn’t write about you here.

-Ornamental

#ornamental answers #ask answered #snake primary #bird secondary #House interactions #lion primary #Bird Primary #badger primary #wip sorts #late night posts #sortinghatchats

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1985keery · 5 years ago

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broken - steve harrington.

steve harrington x female!reader

prompt: after 3 years of fighting for her life, steve finally sees how broken she truly is.

words: 2,091

warnings: angst, cussing, mentions of puke, mentions of suicide :(

The ceiling. It was so pretty, wasn’t it. Maybe it was her drugged mind, but she had never seen a better sight then the starcourt ceiling. The bright lights turned the beige top into a beautiful kaleidoscope. She was memorized. “Woah” she mumbles, her voice strained from the use. “Yeah” he agreed.

Him. How was it always him? How are they always risking their lives together? It seemed to be something out of a fairytale. Thinking of it made her head hurt. Couldn’t they catch a break? They deserved it. He deserved it.

She subconsciously began to back up into him. He was a comfort for her, always protecting her and things. His tall frame stood above her as she laid the back of her head on his blood stained chest. If she had turned her head slightly, she could’ve felt the way his heartbeat was out of control.

Whatever was in that drug, it was surely doing it’s worst.

“Steve” she whispered. Her stomach was starting to feel rotten. She felt dizzy and unsure if she was gonna make it. It felt as if there was a curse on her or something, like she was due to melt. Her stomach gurgled again, and she started running.

Working at the mall had it’s advantages, one being the two were able to locate the nearest bathrooms. Her blood stained white chucks squeaked as she turned every corner, She was sure the writing on them had been ruined. Shame, Robin drew such a pretty flower.

As she heard Steve’s blue sneakers behind her, she felt such a heavy pang of guilt. Why did these things always happen to them? Why did they always have to save the world?

As they finally reached the men’s bathroom, they immediately started puking their lunches into the white toilets. He gripped on to the side of the toilets as she held on to her hair. The small bathroom was filled with the sound of gags and cries.

After a minuet he had finally stopped, grabbing toilet paper and wiping his mouth off, blood and vomit leaving his plump lips. She had finished too, but she just wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. She was too weak to think logically.

She laid down on the black and yellow checkered floor and put her bruised legs on the red stall. The cold linoleum felt good against her damaged hands. “The ceiling stopped spinning for me” she said, finally catching her breath. “Is it still spinning for you?”

Even though he could barley see through his swollen eye, he looked up. “Holy shit. No. You think we puked it all up?” She closed her bruised eyes and smiled, relieved at the thought. “Maybe”

Her heart rate was going down to normal, and reality was finally coming down on her. Her brain was on autopilot, almost. Her motives were controlled by wherever her legs were running to.

But now here she was, laying in a bathroom with King Steve after fighting Russians. Shit.

“How do we always end up like this?” she asked, a sad expression on her face. “Puking in a bathroom?’

She laughed even though it burned her cut lip. He always had the ability to make her laugh even under the greyist skies. “No, I mean, running for our lives. Fighting evil. I feel like a comic book character.”

He gave a soft laugh at her comparison. “Nerd”. She smiled, hearing him tease her was a breath of fresh air. “Virgin” she teased.

“You must still be on the drugs” he laughed. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he had a smirk on his face, considering they had slept together. “Maybe. Ask me something. Interrogate me.” she said, mocking the Russian man. “I’ll interrogate you, sure.” he agreed, stopping to think of his question.

The air was light and it finally felt like they could let down their guard. They never did though, they knew better. “When was the last time you peed your pants?”

It was a stupid question, but she still laughed. “Today” she smiled, and she could hear his laugh “What?” The smile in his voice was evident. “When the Russian doctor took out the bone saw”

“Oh my god” he laughed. There was his silly girl, the one he thought would be gone an hour ago. The one who got her pretty face beaten in by evil Russians. He was so glad she was back to him. “It was just a little bit though” He heard her giggle, and he smiled.

“Okay, my turn” she said. She got up from the floor and laid her aching back on the stall. She was about to ask a silly question, like if he thought mermaids were real, but she started focusing on her hands.

There was an equal amount of blood and dirt under her fingernails, and her knuckles were red from trying to defend herself. They would be bruised by the morning. There was blood and vomit on her shirt, she had a black eye and a bleeding nose, a gash on her forehead and every muscle in her body was aching. She looked like a walking pity party.

However, she was nothing compared to Steve. The poor guy couldn’t even see out of his right eye and there were cuts on all his face. She felt her stomach drop and got a quarter sized lump in her throat.

“Do you think it’s even worth it?”

It was barley a whisper, but he heard it. “What?” He asked softly, noticing the mood change. She put her head in her lap, wanting to shrink as much as she can. She was tired of being seen, of being the one always saving the day. She wanted to curl up in a hole, where the villains could never hurt her again.

Every night there was a new nightmare.

She couldn’t escape, everywhere she turned there was a new battle waiting to be fought. She felt angry. It wasn’t fair, she was only 19. Hell, she was just 17 when she fought the demogorgan with Jonathan and Nancy.

Even the cool flooring felt like fire to her, As she dug her fingernails into her palms, she shrunk deeper. “Y/N” Steve called, knocking on the wall. His heart started to race at the silence. “Did you OD over there?”

She lifted her head from her lap and wiped her tears, though there were more forming. “Nope. Still alive, somehow”. Her voice sounded so broken, and so scared. She dropped her head back into her lap

Steve slid under the stall, now sitting opposite of her. “Y/N” he said softly, taking her small hands into his rough ones. “Come on baby, talk to me”

Raising her head, Steve frowned at the tears on her cheeks. “Do you think it’s worth it, Steve? Risking our lives, being heros?”

He had never really thought about it. I mean sure, he had nightmares too, but life went on. It never occurred to him that it didn’t for her, that she was struggling. I mean, she would flinch at a lot of things and refused to walk in the dark, but now he realizes it was deeper then that.

“Well, yeah. The world needs heros” he spoke carefully. There was a fire in her chest, and that was the gasoline. “It’s not fair, Steve!” she yelled. Her usually small voice boomed through the bathroom.

“Why is it always us? It’s not fair! I just wanted to be a normal teenager! But now I can’t sleep, can’t go to parties, and I can’t even put up Christmas lights!” her hands had began to shake from anger, but she was far from done,

“I’m fucked Steve! And I can’t even go to therapy, because they’d think I’m crazy! And Lord knows I can’t talk to my parents. Jesus, everyone gets to have this normal life, but we’re fighting demons once a year. They have no clue about demogorgans, or demo dogs, and- and- a-and they’re happy! I don’t even know what true happiness is anymore because I’m always fucking paranoid!

Angry tears had slipped down her cheeks. She was sobbing at this point. Quiet whines came out of her mouth. A shaky breathe, And her head was back in her lap.

Steve laid his bleeding head back. She was right. Absolutely right. The air was thick, and it felt like it could suffocate them. He felt so sorry for her. He grabbed her hand and put his chin on her knee. The yellow lights of the bathroom gleamed down on them. The hopelessly damaged kids.

“I had a plan, y’know” she said, as the silence broke. She licked her lips and sniffed. “At 17, I had a plan. I was gonna graduate, hopefully valedictorian. I was gonna go to Indiana State, get a job and an apartment, and I was gonna get the hell away from here, Have a family, a normal family, and a life for myself”

Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers came to her mind. It wasn’t fair to them either, how they ended stuck in Hawkins again. Nobody deserved to be stuck here.

He took a moment to process her words. He had a plan for himself at 17, too. One that involved Nancy Wheeler and a white picket fence. Now, thinking of it made him shiver. Looking at the girl who was in his plan now, he sighed.

“And at 18?” he asked. She clenched her first and rose up, unshed tears in her eyes. He watched her throat move as she swallowed. ‘I didn’t think I’d be here at 18″

He squinted, and it was clear to her that he didn’t understand. She squeezed her eyes shut, fearful of his reaction. Surely he would think less of her, he might even treat her with pity.

“But, we survived the demogorgan” the innocent man said.

“Steve”

It was so painful. Having to tell her lover her darkest secrets. She was afraid the bright shades of red and pink around their love would now be black and grey. Steve didn’t deserve her, she thought. He deserved a girl like Nancy Wheeler, or like Tammy Thompson. Someone who wasn’t completely and utterly broken.

“Yeah?” God, it still wasn’t clicking. She couldn’t say it, she had tried, but the worlds simply could not leave her mouth. So she said it with her eyes.

And then he understood.

Something in his eyes had changed, and he finally saw how broken she really was. He always thought she was beautiful, but now he saw every detail of her face. He saw the frown lines and the eyebags, and the hurt in her eyes. “Oh” he mumbled.

This was it, she thought. He was gonna call her a freak, or an idiot. The two never made them selves official, but they knew, Everyone knew. “Holy shit”

Her heart was beating again, for the millionth time that day. “Yeah. Holy shit”

She didn’t look at him, too afraid of seeing his expression, but he couldn’t look away from her. His sweet, sweet girl. How stupid he was, to not see how she was feeling. It was his job to make sure she was okay. He felt as if he had failed her. “You OD over there?” she asked, trying to break the tension.

“No” he answered. “Just thinking”. She nodded and felt another lump in her throat. Her fingernails had left inprints in her palms, and she was desperately trying to not cry again.

“I had a plan at 18 too” he said. She finally pulled her eyes to him, “I was gonna join the circus.”

She certainly was not expecting that. “What?”

“I was gonna join the circus” he said, smiling, “I’d be one of the clowns, or maybe even the ring leader” She finally laughed again. “Why.... why was that in your plan?”

“I thought it’d be cool, and I’d look hot in a rainbow wig.” He was rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand, and was relived to see the soothing action was working. She laughed as she said. “You wouldn’t dare mess up your precious hair, Harrington. I on the other hand would make a excellent acrobat”

“Please, you did gymnastics for what, 6 months? And then what happened” They were both smiling now. “My ankle healed!” she defended, as they both laughed.

The doors burst open and suddenly Robin, Dustin and Erica were in front of them. “Seriously, what the hell” Dustin yelled, clearly pissed. The two only looked at each other and laughed again. Steve stood and reached out his hand. “One more battle?”

Her smile dropped a little, but she took his hand anyway. “One more battle”

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #stranger things #robin buckley #dustin henderson #season 3 #st3 #st3 spoilers #reader insert #self insert

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grumpyhedgehogs · 5 years ago

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Dreaming Pt.4

Summary: Virgil hates his dreams for showing him what could be. He avoids sleeping at any cost- until it becomes inescapable.

AO3, Pt. 1, Pt. 2, Pt. 3

Virgil’s powers are stupid. He controls what makes Thomas anxious, and how anxious Thomas gets over any one thing, but he does it to himself too in the process. It’s dumb. If he were truly evil, shouldn’t he, oh he doesn't know, be laughing maniacally in the background instead of shivering on the floor of his room after a nightmare?

Virgil sobs again, convulsing so hard he almost dry heaves against his carpet. He doesn’t remember falling off the bed, but he’s pulled the blankets with him and is hopelessly entangled. His skin burns under too many layers of blankets and sheets and his hoodie and shirt. But he can’t get up, doesn’t have the strength to do anything more than keep the door to his corner of the mind shut tight. Shadows of his power lick at the edges of the doorframe; Virgil can feel them wanting to trickle out and control Thomas, dying to warp his thinking.

This is exactly what Virgil has worked so hard to avoid.

“Stop it!” He thunders, getting enough of his control back to sit up, even as his hood pushes sweaty hair into his eyes and his tears obstruct his vision. His face feels hot and feverish in the way only fear and crying can make it, and his breath hitches up under his ribcage uncomfortably when he yells. He yells anyway. “Stop it right now!”

The shadows flicker and flee, chastised.

“It was just a dream,” Virgil tells the darkness of his room. The words sound even hollower than they did that morning--afternoon? He’s not sure how much time has passed.

Are you sure? Whisper the shadows. Their words reverberate through his skull, making him wince and clutch at his ears. The tears flow again. His lungs won't expand properly. The only thing he can think to do is curl up tighter, but the blankets pull at his limbs and he thrashes, suddenly convinced he’ll never be free again. The darkness deepens around Virgil. How can you be so sure?

He looked so horrified, says a tiny, shining part of Virgil, the part that made all those nice dreams seem possible for so long. Roman would never hurt you if it made him look like that, would he?

Before, when Virgil was in his (somewhat) right mind, those words would have made sense. Now he just garbles out some inarticulate scream and tries not to pass out.

He doesn’t hear his door open, but he does feel it when his fears begin scrambling to get out again; Virgil stops breathing for a moment, concentrates hard, and pulls. They shrink back from the light of the rest of the mindscape, wrangled into dark corners and nooks and crannies, properly scared of his authority over them. He’s getting better at this.

The door closes with a light click and Virgil doesn’t even have time before an arm wraps around his shoulders, pulling him upright against the side of his bed. The blankets encase his arms, making it futile to struggle and he must look so pathetic right now, wriggling like a worm, it’s got to be Patton holding him because he’s the only one kind enough not to say anything, or Roman because he feels bad about making this happen even when it’s Virgil’s fault, all stupid Virgil’s fault for having a nightmare that felt real, he can still feel the burning in his gut, the need for more air, his hair is wet his face is wet his eyes are wet he can’t breathe and someone is holding him up--

It’s not Patton. It’s not Roman.

“You are experiencing a panic attack.” Logan enunciates clearly, face exactly three inches from Virgil’s. “I have not previously seen you experience one of this magnitude, nor has Thomas ever had one this bad, so I have come to offer my assistance. I must commend you beforehand, however, on your ability to keep this from Thomas. It was...sneaky. And unexpectedly thoughtful.”

“You--you--” He still can’t breathe, but the tears have stopped, more out of surprise than anything else.

“We must get your breathing under control before we have any more conversation,” Logan decides, and settles, stiff but comfortable, against Virgil’s side. “I have heard that physical contact can help during an attack, but feel free to push me away if you are so inclined. Now, shall we start with counting your breaths?”

The whole situation is bewildering, but it is easy to fall into the familiar experience of in-hold-release, five-seven-eight, so Virgil does. His tears stay away but the breathing is harder to control, after having indulged in the panic for so long. But Logan is patient, and his arm is a heavy, reassuring weight across Virgil’s shoulders. Their knees knock together where Virgil’s are still bent awkwardly inside the sheets and Logan has sat down cross-legged.

Remember what happened last time, say the shadows of his room. Remember. Don’t forget.

I’m not dreaming. I’m not even asleep.

Are you sure?

Virgil’s shivers redouble, his throat constricting, and Logan’s brow furrows. He places a hand on Virgil’s chest and Virgil balks, eyes rounding. Like this, he's almost encircling Virgil, the back of Virgil’s head brushing the other side’s shoulder. He was too warm before, but no it feels like he’s boiling alive but Virgil can’t find it in himself to ask Logan to stop it. What is he doing--

He’s checking my heartbeat, he realizes when Logan frowns again and glances at his watch. Keeping time. He knows my pulse is too fast.

What do you think this is doing to Thomas? That’s why Logic is here to help, right? Do you think maybe Princy will come back and finish the job if you don’t get your heart rate under control?

Stop it, Virgil thinks. It is much harder to stop his fears when he’s the one they’re attacking.

“Is there anything more that I should be doing for you, Anxiety?” Logan asks. His voice is quiet, softer than it has ever been when addressing Virgil--gentle, almost, if Virgil were the type to use that word--and his tone is even and controlled. Exactly the opposite, then, of Virgil.

“Water,” Virgil croaks, and winces when he hears his own voice. It is raspy and broken and terrible to hear. He has been crying for a long time. “Please.”

Logan’s lips twitch at the polite afterthought, but all he does is incline his head and conjure a glass. When Virgil manages to wrest one hand free of the linen prison he’s constructed for himself, it is cool against his fingertips. He almost expects his skin to sizzle upon contact. The air is so still in his room, but he can’t exactly open the door to get some circulation.

He tries to take the glass for himself, but his fingers are weak, and he still isn’t getting air to his brain properly and he almost drops the glass. His other arm is twisted awkwardly around his own back and he doesn’t have the strength to get up and put himself to rights, so Virgil has a split second to resign himself to the fate of being slightly damp for a few hours.

He doesn’t have to, though, because a sure, steady hand folds around his, catching the water before it can fall in his lap. “Careful,” Logan says, but with how gentle he’s being--like Virgil is a newborn colt, which would be aggravating in any other context but makes that small, bright part of Virgil curl up in his chest and shudder pleasantly now--it doesn’t sound like an admonishment.

“Sorry,” Virgil rasps anyway. Just to be safe.

Why is he doing this for you? It’s not like he likes you. Patton probably put him up to it. Or he wants to make sure you don’t hurt Thomas.

Logan shakes his head but keeps his silence and helps raise the glass to Virgil’s lips. His eyes are keen behind his glasses, watching for any sign that Virgil is uncomfortable. His face is tight, lines drawn from how hard Logan is concentrating and his cheeks are--

Virgil splutters, pulling back from the glass with a gasp; it had tasted strangely musty, but that’s not the issue. Virgil’s mouth is probably the origin of that strangeness. There are only a few sips left, thankfully, so he doesn’t make too much of a mess of himself. He feels the other’s bicep tense beneath his head but he’s too busy scrambling back to see Logan’s face more clearly to apologize.

“You don’t have any bags under your eyes,” Virgil says. It must seem like quite the non sequitur because Logan’s brows jump, and he disappears the glass with a wave of his hand. Virgil stammers under the scrutiny. “You--you should have--”

“Not all of us are able to due to the nature of our very beings,” Logan tilts his head in Virgil’s direction, “but I happen to get the optimal amount of sleep every night, hence why I do not have the same shadows under my eyes as you do. Although--and please don’t take this to mean I am prying--but you seem to not be getting enough sleep these days. More than usual, in fact.”

“I--how do you know about that?”

“Irritability, irrationality, sluggish movements, decreased appetite, and trouble concentrating are all signs of lack of sleep,” Logan lists off. He still hasn’t moved very far but Virgil’s body must be uncomfortable to hold like this, all bunched up fabric and jutting bones. “Although it is hard to differentiate these symptoms from those of the nature of who you are, Anxiety, yours have increased dramatically over the past few days to weeks.”

Virgil’s stomach drops even further but there’s something strange here, something his paranoia has latched on to and if he can just figure out why Logan’s face is bothering him so much he could figure it out.

It’s his eyes, whisper Virgil’s shadows. You know it’s his eyes. No one can stay here for so long without getting tired of you, Anxiety. What’s wrong with his eyes?

“You’re not feeling the effects of my room,” Virgil realizes. Every bone in his body is made of lead; he can’t seem to move. Even if he could, where is there to go? “You should be--you should be freaking out right now. Why aren’t you--what’s happening?”

Virgil’s body isn’t listening to him anymore, the panic from before and his new terror rising to wrench his control away. The tears are back, streaming from the corners of his eyes, unbidden, unheeded. Logan doesn’t even react to them beyond a head tilt, a quirk of the lips. Virgil sags against the other side's arm and shoulder, the bedframe digging into his upper back. What is wrong with him? He’s been having trouble moving all this time but not like this, not so much that he can’t even feel in control of his own limbs. His lungs still feel pressure, but it's foggy now, like they’re not a part of him anymore. His brain is cloudy. There’s foam in his mouth.

The water, Virgil realizes, a second before his brain catches up with him. He tries to thrash and twist away from the other’s grip, but Logan just smiles and reaches out to wipe at his chin where the foam is gathering. He tsks under his breath, still smiling but his face is too angular now, too sharp and frightening. Virgil cringes away from those sharp teeth.

“Oh Anxiety,” Logan says, voice too high and sweet as sugar, a tone too saccharine for even Patton. “Don’t you know not to go accepting help from strangers? And here I thought that’s the only thing you were ever good for. I’m sorely disappointed.”

It’s just another nightmare, says that hopeful piece of him, but that too is getting harder to focus on.

Did you even fall asleep this time?

Things are going fuzzy again, for the third time--the final time, some small, dark part of Virgil hopes desperately--but he still has the presence of mind to try to lift his one free, deadened hand and push at Logan’s chest. Anything to get away.

“The only stranger here,” says another voice, too familiar not to be instantly recognizable, “is you. Now if you would kindly unhand my friend here, that would be appreciated.”

It can’t be, Virgil thinks. Logan is sitting right here.

He’d never call you his friend, the shadows agree. They are growing now, filtering in at the edges of his vision, clawing their way across his ceiling and over the bedspread, reaching for his fingertips.

“And what if I don’t?” Asks the Logan holding him, smiling all the while. God, but Virgil sort of wants to punch his lights out.

“That wasn’t a suggestion,” says the new Logan, and the stern, dangerous tone of voice almost puts Virgil at ease.

Then the convulsions start and he loses track of things for a while. Stress and shock make waves of tingles flood his body, again and again and again and he doesn’t know what kind of poison he’s ingested but it’s making him weak and disconnected but it also makes his insides feel like they’re being set on fire and liquefied all at once. He can feel more foam coming to his lips and filling his throat and tears wash it away from his face. He thinks maybe his nose is bleeding.

There's a flurry of movement, and at the corners of his eyes, Virgil can see sharp jerks of color, flitting in and out of sight like birds. Someone’s fist, someone’s elbow. A pair of glasses, maybe, flying off into the darkness of his room. But then his vision starts going and Virgil can’t get up the strength to turn around and look at what’s going on.

There are hands on him again and Virgil isn’t sure when he’d been let go in the first place, but these new palms are warm and dry and they wipe away all of the gunk on his face. The weak light in Virgil’s room, dimming fast, glints off of Logan’s glasses. Worry etches plain across his face and there are deep shadows under his eyes.

“Anxiety, can you hear me?” Logan asks, voice urgent and careful. He’s cupping Virgil’s face and his skin is too hot, the waves coursing through him feel like needles now and it hurts so much that his vision greys out for a few seconds. Logan shakes him a little and the colors snap back into place, but his vision is still tunneling. “Anxiety, if you can hear me, I don’t know what's happening but I think you’re hallucinating, or bringing your dreaming into reality or--I’m not sure, I’m sorry, I know it’s my job but just--just wake up, alright? You have to wake up--”

Virgil gasps, reaches one hand up to clench his numb fingers desperately around one of Logan’s wrists, and feels his eyes roll back in his head.

Virgil knows no more.

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kurogabae · 5 years ago

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TSUBASA: TRAINWRECK CHRONICLES

And How Bee Train is Single-Handedly Propagating Cancel Culture in This the Year of Our Lord 2020

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3 – PART 4 -- PART 5

[[ join me on PillowFort. i have free invite codes if you need an account ]]

So last post was all filler episodes and we're well into season two of this, and I cannot stress this enough, two season anime. The only canon arc we've had was Piffle so far and it was poorly handled and out of order. Surely, absolutely surely, we are in for a canon arc. Shara perhaps? Skip right to Le Court? We all know they'd never dare touch Tokyo. How are they going to pad out the rest of the season?

Why another filler. A bad filler. The dreaded filler that goes against pretty much all of Fai's everything.

It's "A Date With a Wizard" and Kurogane isn't the one getting the date. If you haven't watched or heard of this episode before, buckle up kids. It's a doozy. And big spoiler warnings ahead.

Fort City Bit AKA Fai Dates His Own Fucking Mom (but like an AU version so it's okay I guess???):

You read that right. Fai goes on a date with this world's version of Chii, who was an artificial being he modeled after his dead mother. I could end the rant here but oh, there is so much to this. So much. It's only one episode long but it feels like an eternity.

The premise for magic use in this world is that:

Everyone has magic and that magic is specialized

Your career path is based on your magic's specialization. Like in MLP with cutie marks. And everyone is Fine with this.

Everyone recharges their magic via the sun, which is risen by their king

The king is chosen yearly after everyone in the country has the same fucking dream one night

The whole country runs on magic, to the point that if there is no magic there is no food, no power, no anything. But that's fine, because every day they get recharged by the sun. Right? WRONG! Because the current king is being a depressed little shit and refuses to raise the sun, effectively dooming the country to a slow death. Neat.

BUT BEFORE ALL OF THAT! The episode opens with Fai having a nightmare about Ashura looming like he's auditioning for a role in Attack on Titan. Vague and menacing, which is literally all we know about Ashura because we know nothing about Fai's past. And we never will. At least not in anime-land. No one knows anything. The manga isn't pulling this fakey flashback shit, so why is the anime? I don't know, but I hate it!

Anyway, the family gets the low down from Touya and Yukito - who still do not recognize Sakura and that upsets me because of the implications that there is no Sakura in this universe. (Sidenote: Kurogane recognizes them, even though he's never met them in the anime so far so honestly, just fuck everything.) While Touya is feeding them a frankly lavish meal that he's magiced up he explained their king problems. This leads to my next issue - if you're so worried about running out of magic why are you using it so flippantly and in such an extra ass way? Can you not make normal food? Does it only exist in magic form? Maybe just summon some soup? Does all food cost the same amount of mana? THIS MAGIC SYSTEM IS BAD!

So, back to the whole the king is too sad to raise the sun which powers everyone's magic which is now beginning to run low. Another problem I have. You get a recharge on your magic everyday. They have not gotten ANY recharges for, and I'm quoting here, months. They change kings every year. So even on the low end of things we're looking at 3-4 months before anyone got concerned about the king just. Not raising the sun. Personally, I would have gotten worried after a few days, a week at most. No one wanted to go and find out like "Hey your highness, why no sun? What's got you down?"

That, however, would be logical. This is a place of magic and whimsy! Not logic. Fai is asked to use his magic to figure out what is wrong with their king. Predictably, he tells them they have a better chance of meeting god, so everyone gets thrown in jail. Because refusing to solve a country's weird problems is illegal. Not that jail has ever stopped them before. Not with Kurogane and his muscles around. And while I am always up for watching Kurogane break things I do have to wonder - why are they not just warping free? Mokona said there was no feather. No one said anything about being magically held back. And yet, they are running through the castle, endangering themselves and the children!!!

Obviously this is For Plot Reasons, and I use the words "plot" and "reasons" loosely here.

Somehow the kitties and puppies get separated and Fai and Sakura end up surrounded by guards. Does Fai finally fight? Does he open that can of whoop ass we all know he's been saving? No. He leaps into the air and takes flight like some sort of stork. And while Fai's current cocky attitude is refreshing, he's working on some sort of idiot bimbo in a horror movie logic of "to escape the building I must do upstairs". This is not a man made to last on his own.

And, like Shrek to Fiona, the stairs lead him to the highest room in the tallest tower. Fai, then, promptly loses his shit as if he's not fully aware that doubles exist across the multiverse. Like, yeah, it would be a shock and anyone would be freaked out at the sudden surprise of it all, but Fai acts like he thinks he's stepped back into Celes. Like an idiot. He's better than this.

Now, we learn more things about this messed up king situation. Not only does everyone have a dream every year electing the new monarch, but the new king gets their memory erased for the whole year so that they can "rule with a pure heart" or some shit. Which seems like a baaaad fucking way to run.... anything. At all. Ever. Might as well pick up a fresh baby and put it in charge. It's bad. And it gets worse.

Chii is sad, but she wants to hang out with Fai and it's the first time she's shown any interest in doing anything but being Sad so her babysitter spirits are all like "Oh that's neat!" And Fai takes this is his chance to just... run off for a night on the town with her? They literally vanish and leave Sakura ALONE IN THE CASTLE WITH THE SAME SPIRITS WHO JAILED THEM. In what fucking universe????

Look, they are trying so so so so so so hard to sell this FaiChii shit. Fai leaves Sakura alone in a castle where they have just busted out of jail, he has no idea where or how Kurogane and Syaoran are, he's clearly uncomfortable around Chii as she reminds him of what he's running from, and, oh yeah, she's a copy of his dead mother he created in another world in order to comfort him and his dead brother as a child. Everything is Fine. Let's go get tea.

I'm gonna rapid fire some S tier bullshit:

no one knows where Chii has taken Fai - why is there no way to track your baby-brained king?

Fai leaves with Chii happily and cheerily, again, leaving Sakura behind and alone - who is this man because it isn't Fai

the only clue they have to Fai and Chii's location is that they are no longer on castle grounds, yet somehow Syaoran knows Exactly Where to Look - because sure why not?

Chii doesn't know how to drink???? - does this happen with every king? do they have to be potty trained too? omg they really are babies this is a terribly way to run a country!!!!!!

teaching someone basic life functions is not romantic but Bee Train sure wants us to think it is

"I want to stay with Fai forever and always." - at least he panics at commitment still... and probably incest

“I should be thanking you. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way.” - What? Uncomfortably reminded of your past and why your life is just shy of a living hell? Who are you? You are not Fai

Kurogane and Syaoran show up to save Fai and Chii, who have been surrounded by guards (I think, I can't remember exactly but I'm pretty sure they're there to take her back to the castle and her Sad Room). Fai apparently won't fight in front of Chii but whatever at this point.

It comes out that Chii is an artificial soul/being (like the Chii in Celes) and because of that she cannot leave the town or she DIES and that means the king dies and I guess they don't have a back up plan for that. Unsurprising but bad. Still, Chii begs Fai to take her away and show her the world and Fai like... hesitates? Thinks about it? Considers it?!?!? I dunno but he doesn't automatically say "Uh no, you'll die and also I have other shit to do, bye" and that's dumb for a lot of reasons.

Eventually he tells her no and convinces her to bring the sun back and be happy because she'll be able to remember him or some shit (you know, unless they take those memories too!) and they all say goodbye. And I couldn't be more thankful.

Honestly, the real MVP here is Kurogane for not just losing his shit at all of this like I have. He's a better man than I.

Tune in next time as I continue to scream, in vain, at god.

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3 – PART 4 -- PART 5

#tsubasa chronicle #TRC #my meta #tsubasa trainwreck chronicles #CLAMP #god will not answer for allowing these crimes to exist #and therefore will never be allowed peace by me

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ionlyeatcomfortfood · 6 years ago

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A Boy Worth Fighting For- Part 1

A/N: So, my brain came up with another idea so here we are. I need to work on impulse control. And it turned out to be a lot of angst. Oops.

Also it might seem like Logan’s experiences are extreme, which they are, but a lot of the stuff that happens to him in his exposition is what has happened to me and my friends. So.

And I know I keep having parts to the story then they never update I’m sorry I’m working on it.

Also funny thing, when I was using a last name generator to come with names, ‘Gay’ came up and I was like: yep. that’s them.

Word Count: 1156

Pairing: Romantic LAMP

Warnings: Negligence, bullying, verbal abuse, The Duke/Remus, Deceit, homophobic language, violence

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You’re only supposed to have one soulmate.

When you are born, there’s a tattoo that represents your soulmate somewhere on your body. When you meet them, the tattoo starts to tingle and it changes into a vivid masterpiece. Everyone has is in a different spot, and no two tattoos are the same.

When Logan Sanders was born, he had three soulmarks.

His family was not happy. They thought that having multiple soulmarks made him unclean, dirty. They thought he was wrong.

But, they couldn’t get rid of the boy, so they just acted as if they had gotten rid of him. To them, Logan did not exist. He was just a whisper, never truly there and gone within a moment.

Because of this, Logan had to grow up incredibly fast to be able to take care of himself. He taught himself how to cook. He entertained himself by reading, getting lost in worlds and realities so much better than his own. When Logan was hurt, he put on a bandage himself. He knew unlike other kids, Mommy wasn’t going to kiss it better.

School was difficult. Children have no filter, so when they saw Logan tattoos, they stared and stared, some saying things like “Wait, why do you have more than one?” and “Isn’t that weird?”

Then, as he got older, people started saying things. Awful things, like how Logan was a mistake, or that he should just go away, he was making them uncomfortable.

He didn’t have any friends. Even if they didn’t agree with all the hateful things, they didn’t want to get in the crossfire.

Middle school started, and words were thrown out carelessly and so were punches. Almost everyday he would walk home (yes, he had to walk) with a new injury.

He learned to take it. The scorn. The obvious hatred projected by his peers. The punches, the kicks, the words, he learned to take the hits and survive. He didn’t have friends to talk to, so he kept it all inside. Logan used to cry when he got home, not understanding why having more soulmarks made him a freak. Then the tears dried up and so did his compassion and empathy.

He became cold. Logical. Never portraying any emotion other than an emotional disconnection. No one wanted to have anything to do with him, which is what he wanted.

Right?

—————–

Logan was working on a worksheet in Calculus when he met his first soulmate.

He was almost done with worksheet, a breeze as always, when he heard a vivacious voice say “Hello Mrs. Davids! I’m just here to drop off my homework!”

Logan glanced up to see the most adorable boy ever in front of him.

Curly dirty blond lock rested on his forehead, his face filled with freckles. He had a soft, heart-shaped face with the most dazzling blue eyes. The boy wore a pale blue shirt that complemented his eyes and a pastel pink skirt. How had Logan never seen him before?

Then he felt a little tingle on his chest, where one of his soulmarks were, a simple heart.

Oh no. No, no, no, this is not happening. Logan thought to himself frantically. I am not meeting my first soulmate in the middle of math class.

The boy obviously was feeling it too. His eyes scanned the room, looking for his soulmate. His light blue eyes met Logan’s dark ones, and Logan knew he was screwed.

“Hey Mrs. Davids?” The boy just managed to pry his eyes away from Logan’s. That did not make him upset I have no idea what you’re insinuating.

“Yes, Patton?” Mrs. Davids asked. Ah. So that was his name.

“Can I borrow Logan for a minute? We have a group project to work on, and I need to talk to him really quick.”

“Can’t you do that on your own time?” Mrs. Davids raised an eyebrow.

“It’s important. And it’ll only take a couple minutes.”

“Besides, I only have one more problem left.” Logan said. Wait. Why was he going along with this? Rationality had been figuratively thrown out the window, so he just followed what Patton had been saying.

Mrs. Davids, not an oblivious teacher, had caught on to what was happening. But she wasn’t going to get in the way of their high school romance, so she said “Alright. Five minutes. Then come back in, Logan. You hear me?”

“Yes ma’am,” Logan said, following Patton out of the classroom. Nobody gave them a second glance. They were all too concerned with how badly they were going to flunk the next test.

-----------------

As soon as they got into the hallway, Patton literally started jumping for joy.

“Oh my gosh! I have a soulmate! And it’s you! This is all so exciting! We can go on dates and find our other soulmates, and-”

“Patton. Wait,” Logan didn’t believe what he had just heard. His next sentence came out in a murmur, almost too soft to be heard. “You have multiple soulmarks as well?”

“Yeah. We’re soulmates. It would make sense that we have the same amount of soulmarks- Logan? What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re crying.” Patton gestured Logan’s face. Logan put a hand up to feel tears running down his cheeks. “What?”

“It’s okay, Logan.” Patton placed a caring hand on Logan’s arm. “Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

“It’s just… I thought I was the only one. With multiple soulmarks. I thought I was alone,” Logan hadn’t meant to say that. But he did. Why had he said that?

“Oh Logan,” Patton said sweetly, coated with sympathy. He pulled Logan into a hug. “You’re not alone. Not anymore. I’m here for you.”

He felt himself leaning into Patton. What? Why was he doing this? This behavior was highly irregular. He would have to assess this situation later.

Patton finally let go of Logan, saying “You should get back to class.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Logan mumbled. Geez, what Patton doing to him? He didn’t mumble.

Logan turned to go back into the classroom when Patton caught his wrist. “Hey, um,” Patton was bashful, staring down at the floor. Why did that make Logan’s heart flutter? What was going on? “Can we, um, hang out later?”

“Of course,” Logan could have stopped there, but his big mouth just kept going. “Best to hang out after school, though. I don’t want kids to make fun of you too.”

“What? People make fun of you?” Patton’s face melted into one of concern.

“Look, we can discuss this later. Meet me at the lion statue out front and we can go to my house,” Logan had finally gotten a hold of himself, and was back to his usual cold and unfeeling persona.

“Okay,” Patton responded hesitantly. “See you later than?”

“Yes.” Logan very slowly took his wrist back from Patton and went back into the classroom, leaving the pastel clad boy alone in the hallway.

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For those people who for some reason want to be tagged in my writing.

@jellopuffs

@loginceismyjam

@steampunkicarus

@redistooviolent

@hekking-happy-nonsense

@bookwyrminspiration

Let me know if you want tagging.

Also, there will be more! Don’t worry!

#ts sanders sides #sanders sides #sanders side fic #lamp #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #dukedontlook #roman sanders #angst

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circlejourney · 5 years ago

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tfw

OK so, to those who have not had the pleasure of hearing me ramble about it for days, I have a wildly intense crush on the chairperson of the music society. I can’t even think about her without getting flustered right now and it’s embarrassing. Once she happened to come up in conversation between me and one of my mutual friends and I immediately froze and felt my whole head catch on fire.

So, 5 months ago, I said I'd confess to her, right? I actually did that. Her answer amounted to, "I'm not looking for a relationship right now because I'm dealing with things in my life", and then followed an extremely awkward period of about a month where I tried not to be too overbearing because she'd kind of implicitly told me to hold off, while I continued to helplessly hang onto her every word.

I mean, she was pretty chill about it, seemed to understand what crushes entail, and didn’t seem to mind. But I didn’t wanna be feeling things for someone who didn’t want a relationship! Classic story, I was scared to get my hopes up only to have them dashed yet again. So I did my usual thing and tried to suppress my feelings, or tell myself off every time I felt them. In hindsight, I wasn’t being fair to myself. And naturally, all that served to do was make me extremely anxious and overthinky. I went back to Singapore in November, and I was like, "this is too damn much. I can't deal with all this anxiety anymore" and I kinda lost all courage to talk to her. Oops.

Well, I come back to Griffith (my uni) in Feb and attend the first music society after a period of really really crappy mental health back at home, and I worry that I’ll never work up the courage to start a conversation with her again.

Guess what? She comes up to me in the middle of this first session (while others are playing Nine In The Afternoon, buncha emos lol) and asks if I want to take a walk. With her?? My brain short circuited and I had just enough presence of mind to say yes, let me grab my bag because I’ll need to leave after that.

So first thing I ask is where we’re going, and she says, for lunch. So there’s a long walk from the music society room to the eateries that passes through some bush, and while we’re walking it starts to drizzle in unpleasant, thin, misty droplets that blow in your face. OK I do the only logical thing, which is to take out my umbrella (which I have with me all the time), and then I realise that the polite thing would be to shelter us both. Even though at this point I’m obviously thinking about how unintentionally romantic this is gonna look.

Anyway I barely maintain my composure enough for us to talk about how I carry my umbrella everywhere even though it only rains like once a month in Brisbane.

We went and got food at the Indian restaurant, she got something that was supposed to be spicy, but it turned out to Not be spicy and we had a field day complaining about how Australians butcher food from other cultures. I then told her about how I made some failed curry last week, and she offered to send a recipe!! That’s nice of her

We sat down at the bus stop where my bus was coming, and talked about her recent vacation to Dublin, which, she says, has weather just like the weather we were experiencing at that point in time--thin, misty drizzles that get blown in your face. Anyway a thin, misty drizzle started blowing in our faces at that point so we moved farther under the shelter. It was her first time seeing her dad in months, he lives in Johannesburg (her hometown, she mentioned that they usually call it Joburg or Josies and she isn’t used to saying its full name). We talked about how when you see a cow on the roadside during a car trip, you cannot help but to say “cow” or “moo” at it. About how I started hanging out with the uni’s LGBTQ+ society where I get a free coffee at every session, and how all one needs in life is to have free coffee and be gay

Throughout this whole conversation I was kinda constantly aware that my heart was racing and I didn’t have a whole lot of an appetite from the excitement. I figured I wouldn’t be able to finish my lunch, so once I hit that point and the conversation I decided to hop on the next bus that came. Before I left, she gestured for me to hug her and I! Hugged Her!! Like I know she hugs people a lot, but I don’t, and this was the first time I’d hugged her. Aaaaand I was freaking the fuck out, in a good way, and I don’t know if she knew, but wow I have not stopped freaking out, hence this blog post.

I think that things really changed for me over the break. I was in a really, really bad place for a while, I couldn’t stop thinking of death for weeks. And now? I’m just so damn happy to be...happy. I don’t even care anymore if my feelings won’t be reciprocated, or if this won’t ever end in anything other than us saying goodbye. She knows I like her, I don’t have to hide it. I’ll just let myself feel it and act in accordance with it, as long as she doesn’t ask me to stop (she did promise she’ll say something if she’s uncomfortable). I’ll let it hurt for all I care. It can’t hurt as much as the past four/five months have hurt. Temporary or not, fated to end or not, this is a rare and precious feeling and I’m done casting joy out of my life. This feeling is so freeing and I’ve managed to tell my anxiety who’s boss for once. That’s wild. I’m excited.

#life and times

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3wisellamas · 6 years ago

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Hey, remember my pet cracktheory that Darrell is a clone of Laserblast, or is somehow connected to him in some way? I finally cleaned up and sorted out my full list of weird things I’ve noticed that they both have in common, or that otherwise support that, or are just weird about this stupid robot in general. Because I wasn’t fucking joking about there being a lot of it. Probably not gonna actually amount to anything, especially with not much series left, but meh. It’s fun. Enjoy.

---

Appearance/Body:

(Okay, I admit most of this section was pretty much killed by Darrell's canon human form in OK AU, which looked NOTHING like Laser at all. But just in case...)

-Identical body shape/proportions to LB/SF, with wider torso/hips and very thin waist -- maybe a little smaller because he's a teen (and a robot)

-Very close head shape to LB/SF/PV: square jaw (when it’s not exaggerated to make him cuter), similar rectangular shape and proportions if you include the braincase (since it would normally be inside his skull)

-LB's mask looks a LOT like Darrell's head, with the entire top half and most of the sides of his head covered and with circular ear...things

-That mask also tends to be quite expressive, almost functioning as a single eye sometimes

-Their big heavy boots are also kinda similar (Though honestly Darrell's boots look slightly more like Chip Damage's...)

-LB is based off of the superhero Cyclops, and Darrell is literally a cyclops

-Only robot that really seems to have an organic, human brain, and has human feet too along with Shannon -- even for just the feet, someone's DNA has to be cloned to make him, and not necessarily Boxman's.

-Darrell can grow stubble, according to that one tiny joke shot in Let's Watch the Boxmore Show; his face may be organic just like his brain and feet. Also worth noting, the specific spots on the side of the jaw where LB's/SF's stubble shows are covered by metal for Darrell -- when comparing Darrell and LB, each character's most distinctive visible features (one eye and brain, cheek stubble) are covered up on the other!

---

Costumes:

-Darrell seems to enjoy dressing up as a HERO -- when he's in cowboy mode he plays a sheriff, and when the bots play Golden Statues he always plays the museum guard, both specifically hero roles!

-In fact, the costumes in general -- he definitely likes pretending he's someone else, rather than just being fashionable like his siblings.

-LB and SF both hide their eyes, and may have something unusual/distinctive about them, especially with Laser because of his eye-based powers. LB!SF in particular would hide his if there was something that might immediately get him recognized as his former identity. Perhaps only having one eye (hence the visor acting as one on occasion like I pointed out)? (We got to see behind LB's mask once in Gar's fear sequence in Face Your Fears, with one red eye showing where the mask was broken, but there it did look like he had two. However, Gar would never have seen what was ACTUALLY under there...)

---

Habits/Personality:

-LB was an anti-hero, willing to do some fucked-up things in the name of good, while Darrell is an anti-villain, who focuses more on just doing his job, having fun, and trying to make his father happy than crushing the heroes out of malice

-Darrell's also just a terrible villain in general. Of course, he's directly killed another villain (or tried to anyway), and his idea of doing the most evilest thing was reporting Boxman's lies to the board and stopping him, AKA doing the RIGHT thing -- even with the betrayal, not very villainous of him, huh?

-Weird shared oral fixation? There's a very unusual emphasis on food/mouth things with Darrell (his lowkey obsession with eating, spitting Boxman into the spitoon in his office, brushing his teeth), and LB's trademark was always having that lollipop in his mouth.

-Hugging soft cute animals, like Rippy and Fink

-Darrell writes in concrete in You're Level 100, and LB does the same using his eye laser in Glory Days (in the POINT theme song)

-Neither one is a big fan of new members of their respective teams right away. LB refused to take junior members with him in both Glory Days and Let's Take a Moment, and doesn't seem to think much of them in either episode at all, aside from Silver Spark (and then, he still left her behind as one of his lookouts). Darrell...just freaking HATES new siblings at first, having a problem with every single one he gets, at least the ones we've seen (we didn't get to see his and Mikayla's introduction). He's also like this to siblings he considers inferior to him, to a point -- he and Shannon both got pretty jealous when Boxman started praising Jethro's "new moves."

---

Boxman stuff:

-Timing is correct, Darrell and the others were created right after LB disappeared according to Lad and Logic, since Boxman only drew the first three members in his original plans to attack POINT, and Gar was already building the plaza by the time Boxmore was opened. This means the Boxbot quadruplets and KO were actually born around the same time, making them all 6-11 years old, roughly the same amount of time that's passed since the Sandwich Incident.

-Boxy was obsessed with POINT at that time (and still is, since he's kept the coordinates for POINT HQ memorized), and possibly LB himself (given his later attraction to PV)

-Boxman may also have some POINT tech and connections of his own? First off, access to a huge supply of glorbs, the easiest and closest source of which Foxtail and Carol have been protecting and heavily monitoring, and are normally very hard for non-heroes to get their hands on. Second, those boxes he sends the robots to attack in might use the same wormhole tech as POINT Prep's bus, since it looks a little similar both in transit and emerging at its destination, plus its driver sounds exactly like Ernesto. And speaking of Ernesto, that one time he straight-up drew a POINT drone as part of a family portrait…

---

POINT stuff:

-There were six members of POINT before the Sandwich Incident, and LB was one of the original three, and seemed to function as co-leader alongside Foxtail. There are six Boxbots, and Darrell was one of the original four, and kinda leads them in battle alongside Shannon, especially once he becomes CEO.

-And coincidentally, the original six members of POINT also share colors and in some cases roles with the Boxbots -- Shannon and Foxtail are orange, Greyman and Ernesto are purple, El-Bow and Jethro are blue, Rippy and Raymond are green, Silver Spark is...difficult but her hair is pretty distinctive and works with Mikayla for yellow, and of course, Darrell and Laser are red. The robots' colors and relative ages even match POINT'S senior/junior members, with Greyman, Laser, and Foxtail representing three of the older Boxbots, and then Rippy, Silver Spark, and El-Bow representing the two newer ones and Jethro, who only recently was able to show his true personality/potential.

-"Junior Members" = "Junior Deputies"

-"Code Vermillion." I made an entire post on this a while back, but to summarize, Vermillion is a bright, slightly orange-y red, and in most episodes is Darrell's exact color. And Vermillion, as a red pigment, tends to darken over time into purple and black -- and SF and PV have connections to both glorbs (which Code Vermillion refers to), and to LB as well.

-Darrell has a bunch of weird similarities to Chip Damage as well, who is basically Laser's replacement at POINT, minus being the Charisma discipline rep: Robots made right after LB got iced, green powers, special limited-edition costumes/POW cards, similar dark gray boots, the remote controls (Wisdom class blackboard for Darrell, Final Exams for Chip), possibly both made with actual brain tissue (The flashback to Chip's creation had a brain on one of Greyman's screens), etc. Also, a dumb one, but...remember those Double-Dipped (KO and TKO?) Laser Chips (self-explanatory), that are "probably just a limited-edition" (Darrell).

---

Other assorted weird things:

-Darrell’s laser eye attachment shown in Stop Attacking the Plaza -- still being worked on in the episode (and it looks like it has been for a while, since it had been some time since Boxman was in that specific lab...), but used by a Big Darrell in the opening, where it produces a very similar (green) copy of LB's beam.

-Darrell is right-handed, in a left-handed family -- he's shown eating with his right hand in Stop Attacking the Plaza while everyone else is using their left, looks like he’s wielding a lightsaber right-handed in Plaza Film Festival, and draws with his right hand in Villains Night In. Left-handedness is often associated with villains in fiction, so he may not be a full one? (Definitely not as sinister as the rest of them, hehe.) Though, some instances of Darrell using his left hand too, and other bots using their right, so I dunno how strong this particular point is.

-Line to keep an eye on: "Just reboot yourself into a new body! I do it all the time for funsies!" from Rad Likes Robots. Related, Darrell reboots by exploding himself, which is how LB may have "died" and took on a new identity (if he's SF)

-Weird shit from Let's Not Be Skeletons: Potato demonstrates a skeleton remote wearing a cowboy hat, and in addition to turning people into skeletons they remove powers, just like that red orb, and they also left Rad's and Enid's boots intact for some reason. Darrell's also one of the biggest customers of the remotes, using his foes' weapons against them ("What do you say we snag more of them before they fall into the wrong hands? We could even use them against our foes!")

-When we first saw TKO's power manifest in You're Level 100, it was while KO was trying to defeat a giant superpowered Darrell. When we first saw TKO in physical form in Face Your Fears (as KO's "evil burp"), he was sent out to defeat a giant superpowered Laserblast head. When we next saw TKO in, well, TKO (as his true self for the first time), he defeated another giant superpowered Darrell!

-Really dumb one, the letter right before C and D is B, so the acronyms LB and LCD may be a thing?

---

Turbo/SF/TKO connections, just in case those turn out to be related to Laser as well:

(Under the cut, since this is long enough already!)

-SF hints that negative emotions, particularly anger, fuel Turbo powers. Darrell has quite a few jealousy and anger issues in general -- "Gets flustered by petty insults," HATES new younger siblings (or existing siblings showing him up and getting more of dad’s attention), etc -- and seems to be way more capable of mayhem than usual when running on these emotions. They even gave him the power to defy his programming and (attempt to) kill Boxman!

-He can also have his power boosted by a ton in a very short amount of time, from level -4 up (down?) to level -100 and able to destroy the plaza in one shot, and for as brief as that level -100 thing was he STILL has yet to be topped as the most powerful villain in the entire series! But, Boxman doesn't do it often -- even regular Big Darrells are implied to NOT be that powerful normally. Perhaps he's holding Darrell back for a reason?

-A lot of emphasis on his brain, similar to TKO: the visible brain is obvious, he has the most noticeable hivemind, and he pilots Big Darrells from inside their braincases similar to how KO and TKO controlled Big KO (even the name's similar!) in TKO's House

-Also, he doesn't have to glitch or change colors with his mood like Shannon does, he can make decisions and go against his programming all on his own -- perhaps he runs mostly on that meat brain? Or maybe his brain is actually a mass of pink glorbs like Jethro got in I Am Jethro that unlocked his intelligence and potential?

-SF's speech to KO in TKO: "Everyone holds you back because they're afraid of your raw, natural ability. They want you small and nice, blissfully unaware of your true potential." Darrell in Lord Cowboy Darrell: "Nobody's gonna hold me back." Shannon to Darrell in Plaza Film Festival: "Where do you think you got all that natural talent?"

-TKO ultimately came out of wanting recognition from his boss. LCD ultimately came out of wanting recognition from his boss.

-That VERY noticeable purple glow in the "I'm the Daddy now!" scene in Lord Cowboy Darrell. Like, to the point it seemed specially painted for emphasis, rather than the normal animation.

-Also, Junior is pretty heavy evidence that Turbo powers do not necessarily = purple, as Junior's powers were all green (and so were Chip's Turbo-ish powerups!) Darrell also has green powers (that even carried over to his human alternate in OK AU, despite Shannon and Raymond getting Enid’s and Rad’s exact same powers and colors), and is sometimes surrounded by Turbo-esque greenish lightning when he's angry, the best example being at the beginning of Legends of Mr Gar after being trash talked (remember that he can't take petty insults; he was PISSED there!)

-(If it looks like I’m insinuating Darrell’s secretly got more power under the hood than even he realizes, I absolutely am.)

-Darrell still has his dark hooded cloak from the pilot, which looks a little like SF's.

-Darrell's the only one who wasn't invited to Junior's funeral, and doesn't give half a shit, instead using it as an opportunity to betray people and take on a new identity. Possibly like LB faking his own death, therefore not attending his own funeral, and taking on a new identity as SF?

-Sneaking through the vents = sneaking through the pipes (SF, maybe how LB survived given that pipe in Let's Take a Moment)?

-Weird broken halo imagery shared between both Darrell and SF in TKO. (Not my observation actually, pointed out by @david-yells-about-cartoons ) Darrell's cloud halo thing in that episode also looks almost exactly like the clouds swirling above KO as he shoots a power fist for the first time at the end of Let's Be Friends…

#ok ko #ok ko let's be heroes #ok ko darrell #ok ko laserblast #ok ko shadowy figure #emtheories

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tea-and-toblerones · 7 years ago

Text

Unison Chapter 10- I'm Forced to Deal With What I Feel

This chapter was inspired heavily by the River music video. That tells you how long I’ve been working on it. After three complete rewrites this is what I got.

Car Radio- Twenty One Pilots

"So, tell me about your week. Did anything exciting happen?"

My fingers interlaced, my arms resting on my thighs as I stared down at the pale carpet. I could hear Linda shift in her chair, her pen jotting down a couple notes. It was insane all that you could hear when everything was completely silent. The soft rustle of her hand brushing against the page, the way the chair squeaked with the slightest movements. The normal sounds of the city bleeding into the room. The air whistling through my nose. Did anything exciting happen? Where should I begin?

"Uh, yeah, a lot actually. Er- let's see..." My head fell back as I thought, finally deciding to start at the beginning, "Adi showed up Thursday a bit off. I didn't realise just how bad off she was until She ended up having a full on breakdown in the middle of my suite. It broke my heart, seeing her that out of sorts. I put her in the bath since I remember her saying it could fix anything and I didn't know what else to really do."

I saw her scribble something on her pad, "Did it fix it?"

"I don't know if it fixed it but she kinda zoned out and shared a bit as I washed her back." I could see her sitting cross legged in the tub, cup of tea clutched between her hands that not ten minutes before were trembling. That far off distant look in her eyes as she cobbled together bits from her past. "The more she told me the easier it seemed to be for her."

She nodded as she wrote, finally looking up, "What did she tell you?"

"About her ex" I swallowed hard, realising I couldn't use his name, like if it was spoken aloud he'd suddenly appear. What a stupid thought, "How they met, became friends, became more, then left. How when I slipped back into bad habits, it reminded her of him."

I had replayed that moment over in my head quite a lot over the past couple of days. How I had somewhat regretted remaining silent about it but it was better than the truth. I felt let down, to be honest. She had built it up as this whole dramatic thing and it boiled down to he broke up with her. Either there's something I'm missing or I'm just being an insensitive prat because I just don't see how that warrants this reaction. It's no surprise that she picked up on that and she really hit the nail on the head when she called me out on it. Nothing really gets past her. What I hadn't realised was how transparent, no how callous I had been about it My gut was telling me that I was missing something. Something important, something big. Right now I was fumbling around in the dark, trying to pick objects out by light of a firefly and it was getting me nowhere.

Linda must have picked up on that note. "You don't seem satisfied with it."

"There has to be a piece I'm missing. Something she left out. I understand he was a big part of her life for years and all that but..." I let out a deep sigh, "Is it bad that I almost said is that all when she told me? Thank god my brain kicked in and stopped me but...I was waiting for more of the story, some big aha moment where everything suddenly made since but I didn't get it. I knew if I would have asked, is that all, she'd think I was belittling her when I was just waiting for more pieces of the puzzle."

"Did she tell you that's the reason she won't open up or are you assuming that's the reason?"

I stared blankly at her as she waited for my response. I wracked my brain, trying to remember if she had said he was the reason. I could faintly hear her voice say I'm worried I'm going to open up and you're going to leave. I assumed it was him, more so when she told me of his sudden departure but she never outright pinned the blame on him. The more I thought, the more I believed that it might not have been just him. She painted the picture of sweet, caring, almost naive person, yet I saw a fear in her eyes when my anger had gotten the best of me. There's no way the person she described could instile that into her.

"I assumed, but the more I think about it, I don't think it's just him. He didn't help things but I think it's something else. It's part of the piece I'm missing, I'm sure." My hand gripped my knee tightly in frustration. I felt pretty helpless at the moment.

"Don't take it personally, Ed. It's not a wall to keep you out, it's a wall to keep her safe. Just give her some time and she'll let you in. Pushing her is only going to re enforce it. Think of it this way, when she lets you in, it's not because she needs to, it'll be because she wants to."

"I know, it's just...it's hard..." Yet another one of my sigh filled the air, "I want her to know that I'm not just going to vanish or leave without warning. Which is why I thought showing her that I rented an apartment would be a good thing. I wasn't expecting it to lead to a fight. I thought she was going to put an end to everything."

"You fought? What about?" She hand moving back into writing position.

"A misunderstanding." I said with a shrug, not knowing what else to call it.

"Ah. You two seem to have quite a lot of those."

"I wasn't me this time." My finger coming up as I defended myself, " She was the one that jumped to conclusions this time." I clear my throat in preparation for the story, "Friday I signed the lease to a new apartment. Since I'm going to be here for a bit, that was the cheaper way to go."

She nodded, "I understand, continue."

"I brought Adi along so I could show her and tell her the news. I meant to Thursday but with what happened, focusing on her was more important. So, instead I thought I'd show her the place, then go, surprise, this is my new place. I thought she would be excited. Like I said, I thought this would show her that I was here to stay for a while. That this was real not just a fling. The suite had a temporary feel to it, y'know? I could up and leave in a moments notice without a trace, which I think was always in the back of her head. An apartment is much more permanent. I thought it would help put her abandonment fears to rest. Well, it didn't go exactly to plan, Janet, the realtor, made the comments about young couples getting their first apartment and handed her the other key. So she thought I was asking her to move in with me and it freaked her out a bit. She lead with ' we need to talk' then I assumed she was breaking up with me, got a little irritated about how she was doing it, the classic, 'it's not you it's me' line. Luckily she got head of it and clarified that she just wanted to slow things down not break up. "

"Were you?" She asked once her hand had stopped.

I lift my head up, "Was I what?"

"Were you planning on asking her to move in?" I feel my eyebrow raise, "Honestly?" I ask softly, my eyes dropping to my fingers that were pulling on my sleeves.

"That's preferable." A smile flicking across her face

"She did have a big part in my choosing that particular apartment. As soon as I walked in I could see us...there. I could see the two of us in the kitchen, laughing as we cooked together, guiding her through the steps. Her hips swaying to the music that was playing as she stirred. I could see us together on the couch watching tv together, wrapped in a blanket. I could see her sitting on the balcony, cup of coffee in hand as she watched the sunrise. I could see us, I could see our life in that apartment and I knew this was the one." I could feel the smile coming across my face as those images flashed in my minds eye again. Having a proper home with someone seemed like such a simple and almost innocent dream but it was one of my biggest ones. While, I had a home back in Suffolk, I hardly stayed there. I was never in one place long enough for it to really feel like home. Not to mention I built it with family in mind and without that, it felt empty, almost bittersweet. Now that I had the freedom to stay in one place, even if it was only for a couple months, I wanted to fully embrace it.

"You keep saying I see us and I see her. You never once said you saw yourself there and never answered my question. Does that mean you was planning on asking her but changed your mind due to her aversion?"

She brought up a good point. Could I see myself, just myself there? Or was I so wrapped up in what could be? Living in a fantasy land. Did I love that apartment because it reminded me of her or did I love the space itself? As for the moving in bit...I was known for jumping the gun a bit. I am, and probably will always be, A hopeless romantic. I hope life never hardens me to the point that I'm not. However, this was the first time I had the privilege of being able to ease into things. I had no where I had to be. No touring, no interviews, no promos. Free to do whatever I wanted. I had time to build up a relationship. This had been what I had been telling myself but since when does feelings follow logic?

"No, I wasn't. I'd love for her to live there with me someday but she's right, it's too soon. I did give her a key though, in hopes that she would feel more welcomed and stay more. " My eyes drop back to the floor, "She never just drops by, like maybe she's afraid of wearing out her welcome or spending too much time with me. It makes me wonder if she thinks we'll tire of each other if we're together all the time."

Just another dark thought that had made itself a nice home in the back of my mind. She made it seem like her and Mike were always together. As much as I hate to admit it, I was slightly jealous. For me, being able to spend an extended amount of time with anyone outside my team is rare since I'm always on the road. I know just how lonely the road can get and I don't expect her to take off work and tour with me, so I want to get every little morsel of time with her I can get before I hit the road again. I want to make a strong foundation that can withstand the distance. I've got the rare opportunity to do so and I don't want to waste it.

"With everything you've told me, It sounds like you want her to depend on you, like you don't want her to have a life outside of you and I have to admit, that's raising some concerns." Her eyebrows pulled together, her fingers steepling, "You should want her to have her own life, to be independent. That's a healthy relationship. To rely solely on you isn't healthy, that's controlling."

I quickly wave my hands, my head shaking , "No, no, that's not what I meant at all. I'm all for her having her own life. That's one of the things I like about her. She doesn't ask me for anything. I bought her groceries once because I added loads of stuff to her cart and I felt like since there was a lot of additions she normally wouldn't get, it was only fair. She actually seemed pretty insulted but didn't want to cause a scene."

I thought back to all the times I had gotten on to her about her meal choices and her comment about not needing another dad. Had I came off as controlling, bossing her around? That wasn't my intention, I was just worried about her, not wanting to see her work herself into exhaustion. It came from a caring place, not a controlling place. My fingertips came up, kneading my forehead. I remember Levi saying the best intentions can cause the most harm, a phrase that had stuck with me ever since he said it. It had seemed like such an odd, out of place thing to say at the time but I'm beginning to see what he meant now. I may have meant well but I very well could be doing damage. "And for having her rely solely on you for emotional support? You strike me as the ride in on a white horse, let me fix the problem type guy, which again, isn't exactly what you'd call healthy."

As much as I'd like to argue with that statement, she had me there. I did like to take it upon myself to fix things. Like when we were in that diner and that guy was being a creep. I stepped in and took over. It didn't even cross my mind that she could have handled it until afterwards. I just wanted to put an end to it as quickly as possible. Even if it wasn't really my problem to fix. Good intentions can cause the most harm all over again. I wasn't the type to stand idly by and watch someone hurting without trying to fix it. That's just not me and I hope I'll never grow to be that heartless. I can, however see her point and I have the suspicion that Adi isn't the type that's going to be okay with me swooping in all the time making her problems disappear.

"I don't want her to rely on just me. If that's what you got out of this, there's been another miscommunication." I could hear how clipped my sentences were, so I took a deep breath in order to adjust my tone, "I just want to be let in is all. For her to feel safe enough to tell me things Would I like to be the first person she wants to tell things too? Yes. Do I want to be the only one she tells things to? Of course not. As for the whole white horse bit, Normally, I am. Not because I want to control but because I can't stand seeing people hurting when I can do something. That being said I know damn well the whole chivalrous act isn't exactly going to work with her. She seemed pretty used to handling everything on her own. I'm happy just being..." I pause, searching for the right word, "Support?" My eyes screwing shut as I thought, deciding it was as good of word as any, "As much as I'd love to jump in and make everything better, I'm content with standing behind her, only helping her when she asks for it."

"You say that, yet, you've expressed how," She flipped back a few pages, "I want to be able to fix any problems her ex caused."

I felt a little spark of anger, "Of course I want to fix it. She deserves the best. What's wrong with that? I care about her, so it's only natural I'd want to fix it." My voice slightly heated.

"You can't fix the problem Ed, that's what I'm trying to get in your head." She sounded slightly irritated now, "It's something she has to do. She's the one that has to work through it. You can't fight the battle for her, as much as you want to, you just can't. It's her battle."

"So, what, I'm supposed to just sit back and watch her struggle? Sorry, no, that's not going to happen."

Her calling out in her sleep, crying about standing there not helping was forefront in my mind. My vision blurred as my hands curled into fists again. No, I wasn't going to stand idly by and watch her hurt when I could do something about it. Even if was something as simple as keeping those dreams at bay. I'd gladly sacrifice a couple hours of sleep to make sure she never had to go through another one of those dreams again.

"No, Ed, that's not what I meant and you know it."

I took a deep breath, exhaling sharply through my nose. I honestly didn't know how to just be support. I've always felt the need to protect the ones close to me. Paired with some pretty strong feelings of jealousy and the need of establishing what was mine. What's mine...maybe Linda's right, maybe I am controlling but not in the conventional way. The fact that I was a jealous, no, insecure. That's the root of it. I was insecure. That's where the jealousy came from. The fear they'd find better. Either way, it was something that I didn't like about myself. I never thought of it as controlling, since I never went out of my way to stop any of my exes from doing whatever they'd felt like.

"Maybe you're right...as much as I don't want to admit it, I do tend to go out of my way to let the shifty looking guys know when a lady is with me. It's not something I'm proud of but it can sometimes get carried away.

"Well, that's something we can work on if you'd like."

"Yeah...yeah okay." I nod eagerly.

She just offered a smile as a response before continuing on. "Now, I'd like to revisit your fight. Specifically the part where you said you saw your life in that apartment."

"Oh...okay, sure." Slightly thrown by the focus on that particular piece of information

. "You sound like you have some pretty strong feelings. Do you love her?"

I scoff, "Love?" I shake my head, "No, it's too soon to be thinking that."

What a thought, love, this early. That is exactly what I'm known for though. The romantic guy. The guy who's quick to fall head over heels. So, really was it that crazy that she'd suggest it. More importantly, was she right? No, it's infatuation. That's all. The line between love and lust is a thin one. I'm feeling the lust hard. Just your good, ol fashioned lust. Nothing more.

"They say love follows no schedule."

"It's not love. I'm not sure what this is. I've never quite felt this way before. I've never dated someone like her before." I admitted sheepishly, " Someone who keeps me in check. Who doesn't treat me different cos of who I am. Who calls me out on my bullshit. Grounds me when my ego starts to get out of control and she has no clue she even does it. That's the best part. Y'know, in the heat of out fight she actually looked me in the eyes and straight up said I'm not famous to her. You're just Ed. Do you know how long it's been since i've been just Ed to anyone other than my mates back home? It's refreshing. It's the first time I felt like someone was dating me for me."

That's the feeling. Nostalgia. I hadn't had a girl like Adi since my very first girlfriend, way back before I was famous. She was there at the beginning, through my struggles and she was there for my success. That very success was the death sentence for our relationship. I was always gone, she was lonely and we just fell apart. We were young and dumb, thinking love would conquer all and keep us together. Long story short, it didn't. Adi didn't seem too concerned about it. Either she was really confident or really naive. I don't think she knows just how hard it's really going to be. Linda quickly pulled me from my thoughts.

"You've said dating a couple times. I know you said you weren't exactly sure what this was since you hadn't sat down and had the talk yet. Did you?"

"Yeah, that was the outcome of our fight. She blurted out 'my lego building boyfriend' and didn't realise it until I pointed it out." A smirk gracing my face, "That pretty much ended our fight and it shifted to the big talk. By the end of it we made it official. She kept my key and I'm meeting her friends this weekend. So she went from we need to slow things down to you're my boyfriend all because we finally talked and cleared the air."

"That's progress, yet you still look upset."

The smirk was quick to leave, replaced by a frown, "I'm nervous. She doesn't know the tabloid gossip. She doesn't know just how bad things really were with the drug use and partying but they do. Levi was on the fence about me for a while, hell he still could be for all I know." I shook my head, "I'm worried once she finds out, we'll be over. I'm still in shock that we're even together now after I fell off the wagon." I swallowed, "When she showed up that day...I was so fucked up I didn't see her standing there, I saw the woman who used and played me. I thought she was going to do the same thing Al did. Use me to further herself. Once I heard magazine all common sense went out the window, replaced with 'Oh god not again.' I was right back in that mess, being taken advantage of. She just seemed too good to be true. The last time I felt that, I was right. I just assumed the worst. I'm just stuck in the past and it almost costed me...but..." I hesitate, the words caught on the tip of my tongue, "no....nevermind." "Safe space Ed. It stays between us." She gently reminded me.

"I wonder just how desperate is she to stay with someone like me? To look past all that shit. Most would have walked then and there. Why would she put herself through this? Misery loves company and I'm afraid my bad habits are going to rub off onto her."

She was so upbeat and bright when I first met her. She was like a raging wildfire. One month with me and that wildfire is nothing but a small ember. Dim and flickering, just barely staying lit. It almost felt like leaving would do her a kindness. Saving her before that spark went out for good.

"Didn't she tell you she understood what you were feeling. Maybe she knows what she saw that day isn't the real you."

"I don't know what's the real me anymore...what if that is the real me?"

That thought had been resting in my head for a long time now. What if I was stuck in this cynical mindset from now on? Stuck holding everyone to mistakes of the past, never being able to move forward. You can only get burnt so many times. Eventually you're going to wonder if it's really worth it the chance. Was those dark thoughts going to be my permanent mindset from here on out or just the dark before the light breaks?

"That's what we're here trying to figure out. But I don't think that's you for one minute and I'm guessing neither does she."

"Well I wouldn't know...she won't tell me and it pisses me off. I don't know who did this to her but I wish I did." I mutter bitterly

"So you can fix it?" Her eyebrow rising?

Ah. She's got me there.

"Not just that. So I don't make the same mistakes. She's already said I reminded her of him when I scold her. And when I pointed out it sounded like he just cared, which I realise now probably wasn't the best thing to say, she got understandably upset. 'He did. Until he didn't.' I don't want to be like him. So i'd want to know what to avoid."

She nodded, scribbling something down."Does it piss you off because she won't let you in or because she was put in this position to begin with?"

"Both." I state without any hesitation, "In the back of my mind I'm just worried she's never going to be comfortable enough to tell me."

"It's like I said. It's a battle she has to fight herself but not by herself. She'll let you in when she's ready, not when you're ready."

I knew there was going to be no rushing her. No amount of coaxing, pushing or persuading was going to get her to do anything she didn't want to do. This would be no different. I just had to sit back and wait, as much as I didn't want to.

"I know I shouldn't be hung up on the past but...the way she avoids talking about anything even remotely related to her ex. And it's not just her, Levi was the same way. It's like some unspoken rule between them or something." My frustration evident in my tone, "I know there's the whole don't speak about your ex to your new partner thing but this is ridiculous. He's such a huge looming presence of her, over us, really and it worries me a lot. I know she didn't get closure, so I guess I'm just worried that...she'd run right back to him given the chance." I could feel the hot sting of tears, "The way she talked about him...it's like..." I couldn't finish the sentence, so I took a deep breath. "There's so much history there. I can't compete with that. I'm fucked if he ever comes to his senses and shows back up."

I didn't even try to stop the tears this time. They freely fell as I spilled my biggest worry. That I would do until something better came along. That I was just a distraction from him. That I'd be tossed aside if he came back. You wouldn't need to fill in a boy toy about your feelings or past. You'd just give them enough to keep them on the hook. That maybe she was just telling me things I wanted to hear to keep the charade going until he came back. The majority of my brain told me that wasn't the case, that everything she's said was true but that voice in the back of my head wasn't always a small one. Sometimes it screamed and pounded, drowning out everything else.

"If you're that worried about it, you need to address it. You're so caught up with her feelings you're neglecting your own. Your feelings are just as important as hers. I'm sure she wouldn't be too pleased if she knew you were holding back something like this."

"Well, fuck, why should I be the only one spilling my guts? She's obviously in no hurry." I spit, brushing away the remaining tears.

I wasn't sure where this sudden anger had came from. I felt so raw and vulnerable. Like I wasn't in control of my emotions. They were just pouring out of me now, swinging from one to the next. This was one ride I wanted to get off of as soon as possible. It was terrifying.

"Is that how you think a relationship works? That it's an even give and take?" There was a sharpness to her tone, "If that's the case, you're highly mistaken. When she can only give 10% you've got to provide the other 90. Withholding stuff out of spite is no way to have a relationship. The only thing you're doing is hurting yourself in the long run."

My anger died down a bit, "So, what I'm just supposed to go 'hey, I'm worried if Mike showed up on your doorstep you'd dump me like yesterday's rubbish?'"

"Not in those exact words, but if that's how you feel, then yes. You've transitioned from potential relationship to actual relationship, so you should feel a bit more safe expressing things now."

She's right. Of course she's right. I'm being a child. How is me holding all this in helping either one of us? How can I expect her to open up to me when I'm acting like a spoiled brat. I could feel my face growing warm.

"Could I get you to write a note telling her the same thing?" I cracked a smile, "I'm kidding. Besides she told me she was seeing someone anyway and they told her pretty much the same thing." I grin, "It's not you is it?"

"If I was, you know I couldn't tell you."

"Yeah, yeah, I know." I felt a sigh escape my lips, "So, you're saying I should lead by example? If I open up more, it could cause her to tell me more?"

"Ed, what are you afraid of?"

"Well, lots of things, heights, belly buttons, hairless cats in sweaters-"

"You know that's not what I meant." I fought the urge to glare at her but she was just doing her job after all. What was I afraid of really? What was I so worried about finding out. What was the one thing that always plagued me, not just with her, but in every relationship.

"The truth. That her feelings will never be the same as mine. I've always been the one that's felt things stronger and quicker. At first, I thought maybe she was the same. She showed up to a diner in pyjamas for fucksakes, not to mention stayed the entire weekend with me. She seemed quick to throw caution to the wind and I went, 'Yes, I found my match. Someone who's as much of a romantic as I am. This is gonna be easy.'"

"No relationship is easy all the time. The honeymoon phase is over. This is where the real work begins. The rose coloured glasses are off and her flaws are starting to show."

"So...it's never going to be like it was before?" I felt my heart sink.

"Is that a bad thing? You're down to the meat and bones now. The real part."

I thought back to all the nights spend on the floor building legos, the Friday nights at Uni, the lazy Sundays in bed. The silly arguments about nothing important. The way her eyes almost disappeared when she really got laughing, her hand waving me off. The way she played with her food, the way she'd overplay her reactions just to get a laugh. I couldn't remember the last time I had heard her laugh. Or even seen her smile for that matter. Not like she did when I first met her. The fact that all that could be gone was painful.

"No, I guess in theory it's not, but I liked the Adi I met. The Adi that danced like no one was watching, the one that took me on a guided tour of the city, with some very questionable and hilarious commentary. Is it wrong that I want her back to her cheerful happy self?"

"Ed, everyone, and I mean everyone, puts their best self out at the beginning. That doesn't mean it’s a lie, it just means there's more to them."

Her words stirred up a series of images, the distant, longing look in her eyes the night I met her and she thought she was alone on the roof. The look of sadness when she was at the diner talking about her parents, caught up in her memories. Anytime she thought she was alone that look was there, quickly evaporating when I made myself known. That's when it clicked.

"I wasn't wrong when I said I thought I met my match. I was just wrong about what part. I've spent this entire time thinking I caused all this. I never stopped to think it was there the entire time and she was hiding it. It's the exact same thing I do."

"What made you come to that conclusion?" "You did, when you said the honeymoon phase was over and that everyone puts their best self forward. It was all an act Lin! She has to believe in me enough to take off the mask!"

There was an odd sort of relief that accompanied that revelation. The fact the blame wasn't laid all on me felt like a giant dark cloud had lifted. I had perked up considerably since that revelation. Linda gently reminded that this was just another assumption and that this was a marathon, not a sprint. By the end of the session I felt considerably lighter, a plan forming in my mind as I headed back to my car. I knew exactly what I going to do next.

#Ed sheeran #Teddy sheeran #Code ginger #ed sheeran fanfic #ed sheeran fan fic #ed sheeran fan fiction #ed sheeran fanfiction #ed sheeran mature fanfic #original writing #unison #Fanfic #Fan fic #fanfiction #celeb fanfic #celebrity fanfiction #celebrity fanfic

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247krp · 7 years ago

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— Rejoice, little lambs! We have recovered our own Kim Namjoon, spotted prancing about in the Southwest Side. I don’t remember seeing him with any clique back in high school, but I’m not here to spill yesterday’s tea. So straight to the rundown: can you say modest and overachieving? Apparently now he spends time as the owner of Edge Art Gallery, and keeps skeletons buried at Geumsang Apartment Complex, A205. But those won’t stay hidden for long, if you and I have any say on it. Welcome back, The Tailor; we missed you so.

In case you don’t remember the devil’s name, here’s to refresh your memory:

Who? — it was the way most people would refer to Kim Namjoon. Kim Namjoon who?, oh that super tall Mathlete dude. Sure. Among the popular kids, jocks, and beauty queens Namjoon was invisible, but he was kind of a star in the science and man niche of High School. Every calculus geek and library rat knew about Namjoon’s highlights solving logic problems or super complex math problems without even having to touch the pencil.

Between the thick glasses and braces crowd, he reached God Tier, but outside that realm: Who?

Of course Gossip Girl would never give him the time of the day if it wasn’t for the rumor about Namjoon making custom assistance to those in need. He’d sell test answers so well crafted that the teachers would never be able to catch up. Okay, but only for those in need.

Nevermind the memory lane though, the present is always the ripest fruit:

Namjoon hit a jackpot in his life when he was seventeen years old.

Now, money isn’t a stranger to him, since he always lived comfortably, being provided with everything he deserved by his wealthy and lovable parents, but there’s a distinct difference between your parents being rich and you having a substantial amount of money yourself, isn’t there?

He’s always been curious about the world, inhaling knowledge, exploring every nook and cranny of everything. When people say what happened in his life he sweetly describes it as a “lucky strike”, investing money in stocks of a developing app that turned out to be Kakao Talk. Years later when the app’s popularity exploded, Namjoon had enough money to be set for life.

His inquisitive nature guided that lucky money everywhere, and with the advise of his father he started investing more, donating, funding cool projects, buying things. You got to make money spin, but do it right.

Today Namjoon owns buildings across Seoul, is the owner of an Art Gallery, has an online store for vintage toy lovers, finances University researches and projects, dabbles in open coding and the list goes on. He is still very discreet and private, and absolutely dreads that cursed gossip app.

People should spend their time and energy trying to make the world a better place, not the other way around.

But we are nothing if not open books – my job is to ensure you get to the best pages:

Namjoon’s father is an award winner cartographer and his mother is a renowned anthropologist, in other words: they traveled a lot. He had to learn how to deal with missing his omma and appa from a very young age, but when they were all together life was a party.

He never saw himself as a bad son or a bad student, always doing what he’s supposed to. Of course his parents knew their son was above-average book smart but could trip over air and set water on fire if he was left alone in the kitchen. Namjoon could possibly have a heart bigger than his brain, and that’s saying a lot.

Still, even the best student and the best son grow up into that abismal teenager phase. Namjoon’s wild, rebellious, out of control teenager revolution was to start using his gifts for sort evil? Yes he was cheating the school system by doing other student’s homework - but on the other hand, his prices were pretty fair. And having a successful student body high ranking would also increase Cheongnam’s prestige! So logically (and he was very logical when it came to manipulating the truth to suit his interests at that freaking age), it was a win-win situation, right? Right. In High School you have to be clever. Namjoon didn’t have the looks, the muscle, the charm, the swag - all he had was his way of hiding behind books when he got too shy and using his intelligence to survive that wicked place. He had friends all over the science and math clubs in high school, and received love letters in the form of binary codes or using references from the Sea Nautical Dictionary, but he ignored all of them. Today Namjoon has a better understanding of why love seemed like such a scary concept back in High School; he was so focused in using his head that the heart always took second place, but above it all, he was terrified of admiring certain things to himself.

The today Namjoon grew out of it, for the most part. Some of those things are still taboo inside him, but others he’ come to accept. He’s still very shy, still very - what some people would say - delicate, for a twenty five year old, 6’ tall, rich, art gallery-owner Korean man, but that’s just who he is. There’s no way around it. Namjoon’s sensitivity and empathy were always there, even when he was “misbehaving” in school.

#247: accepted

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violetandstarlightgirl · 8 years ago

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Sacrilege, Chapter One

aka the Thiefshipping fic I came up with because I just wanted to write something with the title “Sacrilege”.

Read on AO3!

Sacrilege (n.)- the misuse or desecration of anything regarded as sacred or as worthy of extreme respect

The terms of their partnership weren’t strict, per se, but it wasn’t bad to assume any ties the two made with each other would be cut-off as soon as the goals of one or both of them were met. Nevertheless, accidents were bound to happen; certainly both of them ought to have known after getting this far...

It was only supposed to be a brief affair. Was affair even the word you would use for this sort of thing? Marik didn’t know for sure. He was certain it had something to do with the minimal amount of people he spoke to throughout his life.

In any case, he knew at first he didn’t mind the briefness of his partnership with the Spirit of the Millennium Ring--no, he had a name...it was Yami Bakura--and he knew there was a chance they wouldn’t succeed at reaching either of their goals. That was a bit of a given considering how spontaneous his partner tended to be. He had to do most if not all of the planning, but he appreciated the other’s enthusiasm, even if it made a mess.

But within the next few days, and with each conversation they had with each other, an abrupt realization struck Marik in the face one day, and as small as it was it changed the entirety of the way he saw this mission. He didn’t want to part ways with Bakura when this was over.

The biggest problem was figuring out what to do with these new feelings. He had never felt this way about anyone before, and frankly it scared him a little.

“Just tell him how you feel, I’m certain he’ll understand,” Rishid had told him. He was the only one who knew about Marik’s situation.

“But what if he doesn’t understand?” Marik asked.

“If you can’t tell him, then show him.” Rishid stood up. “Master Marik, you mustn't let this overwhelm you. The sooner you can get your feelings out, regardless of the outcome, the better you’ll feel.”

Marik took those words to heart. As soon as he at least got those words out of his head he would feel better, the weight would be gone. He’d bring it up in his next meet-up with Bakura.

The day came. It was cloudy and dim for a summer morning, and Marik wasn’t used to the humidity. He snuck off to an alleyway, much like the one he drove through when he first came here about a week before. Bakura was already there; arms crossed over his chest and leaning back against the wall. With the way his eyes were closed and his head tilted slightly skyward, he seemed to be napping.

The illusion broke when his eyes flashed open and he turned his head slowly toward the other. “You’re late,” he growled. “When did you start keeping track of the time?” Marik asked, unable to stop himself from grinning.

“Usually you’re the one who has to wait for me to show up, not the other way around. I don’t like it this way.” Bakura eyed his companion as if looking for something out of the ordinary. Finally, he spoke up again, “You look different this morning.”

Marik flushed a little. “I do?”

“Yes. You look like you’re itching to tell me something.” He was...but now he didn’t know if this was the right time to tell him. His chest felt hot like a fire was kindling in there. “Actually...there is something I’d like to talk to you about before we get on with it.” Bakura raised an eyebrow, adjusting his posture a little but keeping his arms firmly crossed. “Go on.”

Panic rose in his throat in place of actual words. Time seemed to crawl in the few seconds before his response, and a small part of his brain was screaming at him to bail out before things got ugly. However, a larger part of his brain urged him onward.“I’ve been thinking about...our previous arrangements,” he began, “where you said we’d part ways as unlikely friends. I...don’t think that’ll be happening.”

There was a scoff. Bakura had unfolded his arms and had placed his hands on his hips. “What do you mean by that? I thought it was made quite clear you couldn’t help me find the remaining Items unless I helped you in turn, and so far that isn’t working for either of us.”

That’s right; things weren’t working out too well on their end.

Marik was running out of things to say, and he was certain that even the plainest way of saying how he felt would fall upon deaf ears.

“I don’t care,” he murmured, “I enjoy working with you even if everything’s been going south lately. And I’m sure you’ve been enjoying it, too.” He gave a forced laugh. “I mean, when was the last time you met somebody who didn’t actually freak out in your presence?”

Bakura said nothing, standing still as a statue with a blank expression on his face.

Marik decided to continue, feeling a little braver with every word he said. “It’s true this was only supposed to last until we achieved one or both of our goals, or by the looks of things when the Spirit of the Puzzle screws us both over. But as I’ve been spending more time talking to you, I’ve felt something I haven’t felt before. It’s something I want to be able to enjoy for a long time, and I’m scared it’s going to go away when we finish our affairs here. Don’t you know what it’s like to be that scared? So scared you can’t imagine your life going on beyond that moment where everything falls apart?!”

No response. Not even the bat of an eyelash. Even an argument against what he was saying would have been better than this!

Marik clenched his hands into fists, genuinely considering turning around and walking away, but he remembered Rishid’s advice.

If you can’t tell him, then show him.

He looked back up. Bakura was still standing close to the wall, and he still wasn’t saying anything. Here goes everything...

He moved so fast he could barely process what he was doing, but within the next moment he had firmly pinned Bakura against the wall and was kissing him hard. Marik hadn’t kissed anyone before, and the panic that had been building up inside of him up to this point was making him desperate. He just continued kissing, only parting briefly and a hair’s length away from Bakura’s mouth for one moment to catch his breath. Something still didn’t feel quite right, though.

Suddenly he was knocked away with a snap ringing in his ears and his right cheek stinging as though it were on fire. He stumbled to the side and fell onto his rear, glancing up to see Bakura taking a defensive posture with his left arm out.

“It’d do you a great deal of good to slow down when you talk,” he growled, wiping his mouth in a way that would suggest he had just ingested poison, “and you could at least give me a damn minute to process this gibberish you’re spewing rather than pin me to the wall. Need I remind you that this isn’t my corporeal body?”

Marik’s lip curled. “That didn’t stop you from nearly slicing off your whole arm. Why should that stop what I was doing? Compared to that this was completely harmless!”

Bakura stepped over Marik. Even the clouds seemed to get a bit darker and he could’ve sworn he felt a raindrop or two land on him. “You’re damn lucky I don’t have a weapon on me at the moment,” Bakura snarled, “because I wouldn’t have hesitated to slice open your throat instead of striking you across the face. If you would like our partnership to continue--and I’m quite certain you do, given your soliloquy from a moment ago--I would strongly advise against doing that again. Are we clear?”

Marik couldn’t say a word; his head was fogged and no logical sounds could form. He only nodded obediently.

Bakura smirked, and his teeth seemed to flash in the dim light. “Good. I was beginning to worry you had lost all of your common sense. Now, before we actually get to our original plans, I’d like a moment to recollect my dignity.”

And with that, he walked out of the alleyway, leaving Marik alone with the static in his brain just as the heavens opened and rain poured upon them both.

#yugioh #ygo #thiefshipping #marik ishtar #yami bakura #ygo fanfic #sacrilege fic #leopard does the author thing

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nirikeehan · 5 years ago

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Power, Politics and Star Wars: Armitage Hux Edition

I read this article that tried to explain what Hux did in TROS and justify it and I was just not feeling it so I wrote a whole thing about it. So I thought, why not post it.

https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2019/12/22/star-wars-tros-general-hux/

I just wanna start by saying yes, I understand the logic of what happened in the film as explained by this article. I'm just here to challenge exactly what happened, why, and the article writer's attempts to justify it, because I don't find them to be an accurate summation of Hux's character.

"It’s not hard to miss that the way The Last Jedi framed his character was very different from what we saw in The Force Awakens. At first, it almost felt as though he was a completely different character, having gone from Nazi-like general to an officer everyone refused to take seriously."

Right, and I think it's worth trying to examine why that shift in portrayal happened – behind the scenes. The writing changed hands from TFA with Lawrence Kasdan & JJ Abrams to Rian Johnson. So, clearly Johnson decided to go in a different direction with Hux. But why? Was it a continuing ploy to "subvert expectations" like he did so much in TLJ? Hence, if Hux was big and scary in the first film (obvious Nazi parallels in imagery and speech, commits literal genocide while hordes of stormtroopers look on), he had to be... silly, ineffectual and easily mocked in the second? Why?

Maybe it fits into a larger theme with Rian Johnson's writing, like... it seems like authority figures can (and should, maybe?) not be taken seriously? Think of all the authority figures in the Last Jedi. With the notable exception of Leia (who has such an iconic history) and Holdo I guess (random insert without much substance in my opinion), every single character who is, could be or once was in a position of power is cut down to size in some way.

Luke Skywalker - crotchety old man.

Poe - too hotheaded, needs to learn his place.

Kylo - emo boy in a mask.

Hux - butt of yo mama jokes.

Snoke - literally cut in half.

While I like this technique in some ways (I think I'm in the minority as someone who actually liked Luke being a disillusioned asshole lol, I thought it made him more interesting; and pointing out the obvious that Kylo is a conflicted try hard made him way more human and relatable to me), doing it to this extent was excessive. Especially in a film series that is supposed to have clearly defined villains. While I like the murder of Snoke because it was unexpected and it let Kylo actually have some agency to try to take over the galaxy on his own, you can't do it with every villain, or the audience isn't going to think anything is at stake anymore. So it always played really weird to me that Hux was taken from General Genocide to the target of slapstick humor. Which brings me to the next point...

"Looking back, it’s possible to interpret this as the result of how other characters viewed and treated him from that point forward, rather than an actual drastic change to the way he was portrayed. It’s possible that after Starkiller Base, the masses lost great respect for him — on both sides. He is no longer a man to fear. He’s General Hugs. He doesn’t scare anyone."

I just don't see how this is possible, to be honest. Like yeah, Starkiller base was lost, but surely not before it destroyed the entire Hosnian system, which, from what I understand, contained the entire seat of New Republic government. So I assume that means the president, vice president, whoever else was in the executive branch, all of the Senate, etc etc. Like imagine some terrorist leader called down a laser from space and obliterated all of Washington, D.C. while the President and all staff were in the White House, Congress was in session and the Supreme Court was hearing cases. We'd be like, oh my god, everyone's gone, we have no federal government, what the fuck. Even if the American army managed to destroy the weapon that did it, there'd still be basically irreparable damage to the very structure of the government and its ability to function. (Sounds like the plot of a future Michael Bay movie, but I digress.)

The point is, whoever was responsible for the attack would probably still be pretty fearsome to the masses. And in Hux's case, considering his goal in TFA seems to be to usurp the New Republic and replace it with the First Order, at the end of the first film, he seems to be in a perfect position to do exactly that... which is why I was super confused as to why he spent TLJ chasing down like 30 rebels, who were already basically defeated?? Like, now would have been the time to take over! Don't just leave that power vacuum sitting there, buddy! Someone else is gonna fill it if you don't! (More proof I don't think Rian Johnson has cracked many history books, but the lack of coherent political framework is a major failing of the sequels in general, so it's not all entirely on his shoulders. He did seem like he was trying to engage with some of these ideas i.e. Canto Bight illustrating the evils of the military industrial complex, but they fell so flat because he just wasn't that informed about the socio-political commentary he was trying to make.)

"This is further evidenced by the way Kylo Ren treats him the moment he becomes Supreme Leader of the First Order. Kylo quite literally begins pushing him around, constantly putting him in his place, belittling him, and making him look incompetent and expendable."

LOL this is such a fundamental misinterpretation of Kylo and Hux's relationship at the end of TLJ. Kylo didn't start pushing Hux around because everyone had lost respect for his authority. Kylo starts pushing Hux around because Kylo killed Snoke and took the Supreme Leader role himself, giving himself a BIG promotion over Hux. He went from like, army commander to freaking king. He's on a power trip, trying to assert his authority not just over Hux, but literally everyone in the First Order. The dialogue (handily linked by the article above) between them after Snoke's death very clearly states this:

Hux: Who do you think you're talking to? You presume to command my army? Our Supreme Leader is dead! We have no ruler!

Kylo: *starts choking him* The Supreme Leader is dead.

Hux: *choking* Long live the Supreme Leader.

Kylo is subduing Hux by violence and coercion and filling the power vacuum himself (see, that's what happens to power vacuums, usually the most brutal asshole around arrives to fill it!). That's not something Hux brought upon himself in any way; it's something Kylo took by force. Hux isn't the only one following Kylo's orders by the Battle of Crait, the rest of the First Order army is also because they're all too terrified of Kylo to question him. Somehow making this only about Hux and Kylo as individuals is a really narrow-minded, boring interpretation of pretty much my favorite part of TLJ.

"And here lies the deep change within Hux that leads us into The Rise of Skywalker. General Hux knew he would never regain anyone’s respect. He knew that Kylo Ren would continue to publicly humiliate him. He knew his chances of ever being able to regain power in the traditional sense were lost."

I still don't see how this is possible, especially since as far as I know there's no supplementary canon material to back this idea up. The article writer is grasping at straws trying to make sense of TROS's nonsensical character choices for Hux. There's all sorts of ways Hux could still regain power. I don't even know what "in the traditional sense" means? Hoping for a promotion, maybe? Sure, he could suck up to Kylo and make himself invaluable to Kylo's continued status as Supreme Leader (this is the route I took in my fanfic, since it seemed pretty plausible; Hux is set up to be the brain to Kylo's brawn). He could have Kylo assassinated and take over himself. He could recruit a whole faction of people to mutiny against Kylo. He could even sell out Kylo to the Resistance, sure, which I guess is what he was doing in TROS, but all of that is still in service of regaining power for himself.

"Hux is so angry with Kylo Ren, and filled with so much rage toward all he is and all he stands for, that he decides it does not matter which side of the war wins as long as the Supreme Leader isn’t on the winning team."

Again, I don't think this has shown to be true at all before TROS. By all appearances, Hux's goal has always been obtaining power, and the supplementary canon with his backstory seems to support this. There's so much with his father being an old Imperial and Hux growing up with the old imperial ideology and the belief that returning to some semblance of the Empire would be the most ideal outcome of the First Order's war on the New Republic. And by this logic, shouldn't Hux be thrilled by the (totally outlandish) possibility that Emperor Palpatine himself would come back to rule? Imagine all the Nazi holdovers after World War II finding out Hitler had RISEN FROM THE DEAD. They'd probably be pretty excited, no?

But this is why reducing Hux's character to some petty asshole who has no personal values or larger ideology and just "wants to see Kylo Ren lose" is so dumb and boring to me. It means he literally no longer cares about his own personal ambitions or that of his larger ideological ones. Everything he worked for his whole life, countless hours of blood, sweat and tears, deciding to commit genocide of billions of innocent people to get the galaxy to fall in line with his vision........ amounts to literally nothing. As long as Kylo loses their little schoolyard tiff.

Nah, I don't buy it.

But this just speaks to generally larger problems in the sequel trilogy with the writers not having a strong grasp on the mechanisms of political power in the universe they're working with. In the films, who's fighting who and why has always been painfully vague and often confusing (why wasn't the Resistance just the New Republic army in TFA? etc), but while at least Rian Johnson used TLJ to try to engage with some of these questions of politics and power – albeit at times with cringeworthy naïveté – TROS abandons it completely. It never once clarifies who's actually in charge here. Ostensibly it should be Kylo since he’s still got the title “Supreme Leader” in the opening scrawl, but he's running around chasing zombie Palpy! And the First Order is still very obviously still just a military operation focusing on the Resistance, so are all of the galaxy's sectors just... self-governing right now? If so, why?

TROS's complete abandonment of the notion that anyone in this universe could even want power was completely baffling to me. It's always about power. The original trilogy was about power. Even the prequels were about power (to a micromanage-y, super boring degree. Embargoes! Trade disputes! Senate meetings with votes of no confidence!) To bring Palpatine back from the dead to make him some weirdo with a death cult who just wants the whole galaxy to die (I guess?)... none of that's compelling to me. And it seems to completely misunderstand (or willingly sidestep) any kind of interesting real world parallels, of which the original trilogy had plenty (and the 90s era EU/Legends novels in particular were really good at engaging with, probably why they're my favorite entries in the whole franchise). Which does play into my cynical suspicion that TROS was deliberately sterilized of any potential political commentary by Disney to appease the increasingly authoritarian governments in their international market. Can't have those pesky human rights cutting into their profits. :/

#armitage hux #tros spoilers #star wars

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theroadfromustome · 6 years ago

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Mile 62

Well, this last mile has been a full one. Which is another way of saying that yet again, I’ve neglected posting for too long (a month maybe?). It feel like the weather has gotten warmer and everything has amped up. Buckle in, bc this is going to be a big spew, a catharsis of lots of things I don’t feel like I can say to anyone else; though of course I have been yakking to everyone about some of this.

First, the ugly: Going another round with H’s mother. I’ve realized how much of my years with H were spent managing her extremely fragile emotions. It’s exhausting. This time she outright told me that I didn’t respect her--of course if she respected me then she wouldn’t jump to the worst conclusion about my motives for my actions regarding MY child. It just infuriates me so much--and she totally defies all reason and logic and manages to make me feel like an inconsiderate, irresponsible jerk for not being omniscient or ordaining the universe. Another realization: she has always and will always treat me like an incompetent child and I am fucking DONE with it! I need her to move away. Not that it will end this shit, but it will hopefully make it less frequent and less potent. I now understand why my [current] sisters in law keep her at arm’s length.

Also, regarding H: he’s so guarded everytime he’s around me. He’s like a big black cloud of tension and I feel like he brings shadows whenever I have to see him even briefly. What a reversal. Can it only be three months since I moved out? Poor thing, I gather he’s going through a rough patch right now, and possibly at slight odds with his dear mama as well. I do wish he would answer my legitimate inquiries about schedule though. I wish we had a better flow of comm, but he acts like I have a disease that will be communicated through the keyboard. So far things are passing between me and my mom and him. Which I know is not the adult way but like...if you won’t talk to me like a calm adult? He and his mom seem to be casting me as the enemy--but even combatants have parleys under a flag of truce. We have to resolve this sometime, but I’m perfectly willing to avoid it until he heals a bit more and is less dangerous to my peace of mind.

Ugh, just writing that out made me tense. On to the good!

The good: I’ve lost 17 lbs since January when I started this diet with my mom. I feel great this week too, bc I’m able to be more active with this nice weather. I also feel more productive at work, so all things are good. This all may be due to the next big event in my life detailed below momentarily; but I will say this: as the earth comes out of ice and is reborn to spring, so I feel reborn. This past week I have danced, grinned, sung, reconnected with musical theatre, etc. (and before that wrote!) in a way I haven’t in months. Some of this is due to this event--but I realize that before I get there I need to fill in one other item...

I went to visit an old friend from college, whom we will call S. This friend has been crazy about me since probably our second week of freshman astronomy, and it’s one of those where I’ve tried to make it work before and it just...won’t. This friend has stuck by me through all of this shit, and knows all of my flaws more intimately than almost anyone. He’s a complete vessel--a listener who won’t judge and who cherishes me no matter what. Which I know I take advantage of. Other than my mother, he’s the most unconditional relationship I have. If only he had his shit together and wasn’t illogically conservative. (We do NOT talk politics.) Also a bit sexist and racist--not that he’d ever act on them. For the sake of this bond we have I choose to ignore/avoid all that, but this is one of the reasons we just can’t make a relationship. But that doesn’t mean my visit was strictly platonic. I flatter myself that I contributed to his well-being in significant ways, but I definitely selfishly reveled in the experience of being cherished, and of the fierce, wonderful trust we share. I could cry just thinking about it--I can be so honest with him, about my ups and downs. And best of all: we are equals. Peers, partners, equals!!! I have never had that with a man. No matter the relationship. I find it sublime and somewhat irresistible. Even though I know it’s so unfair to him; bc we both know it can’t last forever. Anyway, that whole things has been good for me. Probably also bad in other ways. But it has reawakened a part of myself I thought gone forever, and that part is stronger than I ever remember it being. Trust and complete comfort are heady heady things.

So from that we proceed to...drum roll...

I actually went on a date Saturday night. This is what I’ve been driving all my friends crazy about, and I hate myself for being such a spaz. They’re all darlings, but really, I need to get over myself. Which is why I’m going to try to exercise as much as possible here.

So yeah, one of my coworkers has a brother. A brother who it turns out--came to visit our workplace months ago and was checking me out. Who then asked *repeatedly* to be introduced to me. Who, after I met him last month friended me on fb and then messaged me out of the blue about 2 weeks ago. Now, this man is brilliant (he’s a scientist--sexy and ridiculously intimidating at the same time), sophisticated, independent adult with a well-paying full time job and actual talent; he’s so freaking charming and good-hearted, he’s witty and considerate and he swing dances (swoon--if I dance with him my ovaries may never recover); not to mention my coworker is thrilled at the prospect. He’s also 5 years older than I am--I wasn’t exactly looking for age gap, but... Anyway, I’m still getting my brain to process the fact that he actually wants to spend time with me. Because his whole family is immortal--brilliantly talented, beautiful etc. And then there's me mere mortal with my messy-ass family. And all my baggage. And the fact that I’m trying desperately to crawl out of diapers and grow into a legit adult. I’m gonna throw some thoughts out below in no order or reason:

So the age gap: I was hoping to avoid it. After the good experiences of equality with S, who is only months older than I, I am wary of falling into the naive child role again. I am determined to be am equal adult, and yet already I feel myself pulled to alter my behavior--I can be so silly with S, and I feel like Charming here would think me immature--when around this guy. Also, he’s into scifi and have only moderate xp there, also he hikes and camps--the idea of hiking with him actually sounds utterly lovely (talk about day-dreaming), camping... But I mean I’m willing to try--I’m just so wary of losing myself again. Of putting his needs above mine and doing whatever I can to keep him from rejecting/punishing me. It’s so frustrating yet again how easily my bad habits kick in like clockwork.

Speaking of my neurosis: I am WAY too invested in this. Super fixated. Some might say I’m obsessing. Which I suppose has always been my way with boys. But you’d hope I’d behave differently at 31 than I did when I was 12, 14, 15. So first I was mooning and daydreaming about him while grinning like a complete dope and humming songs (like, full out cliche) Sunday and Monday, and then I was stupid and was overtly flirty (like dude back off AB, you had *one* date) on Monday evening and he just--wham--dropped communications. I’ve heard nothing from him since, and I’m using all powers of mind control I possess and prayer (sorry God) to will him to just message me for like 5 minutes so I know he still likes me, that I didn’t freak him out by behaving like a silly girl. I so want to do this like an adult, but apparently I am incapable. If this doesn’t happen, like fi we don’t work out, then fine. But I’ll be crushed if it’s bc of my inherent flaw of childishness. And what if it is inherent? What if I cannot actually function in an adult relationship?

That’s another thing--I am so putting the cart before the horse. Like we met, we chatted twice, and then we spend 5 hours eating Thai food and walking all over his neighborhood. He should not be and *is* not the center of my universe. I’d like to think I wouldn’t be behaving this stupidly if he hadn’t kissed me. I’d like to think I could be cool and removed and totally ok with the fact that he seems to be compartmentalizing the amount of time he spends with me (his job is hell, apparently; another red flag, but he’s so charming....) if he hadn’t kissed me. So I wasn’t sure how to gauge it--were we just two adults enjoying each other’s company? I know he thinks I am cute--but physical attraction doesn’t mean he actually likes me. I mean, I think he was flirting with me--the body language was promising, I’m fairly certain he was nervous at the beginning (but it’s a date who wouldn’t be?), and he like, touched me arm and such you know the way you do when you’re just broaching physical contact. And then when I left I went to hug him and...it was not a platonic hug. It was brief but...there was...heat...a tiny little simmer. And then, there was a second hug, and he briefly, subtly, turned into my neck and placed a quick little kiss there. It was chaste as hell, a bit uncertain I think, but it changed everything. I mean I dunno maybe it was just quarter to midnight and goodwill talking. Maybe he’s just affectionate and that was his way of saying “Thanks for a good time.” Maybe it all goes back to the sex and it’s purely physical? I just--I have such a hard time thinking he actually sees anything in me bc I’m so--uninteresting--I’m not ambitious or successful, I’m insecure as fuck, I have plenty o’ baggage, I’m not cosmopolitan or well-read or witty. All I have is the loyalty and affection of a--child. I gather it’s been some time since he’s been taken care of, and of course that appeals to me, taking care of him, but maybe he likes being self-sufficient? He certainly is. And again!!!! It’s too soon for me to be thinking this way. But I just do this. What is my problem??? I keep thinking once he gets to know me he’s going to bail. And at this point that would hurt more bc it would mean my weaknesses had caused me to fail again than bc I’m madly in love with him, but still. The more I invest the worse it will be when this whole thing crashes. But I can’t not give it a try--even if I see eminent disaster on the other side. I keep hoping my instincts will be proven false.

On a lighter note: I am ridiculously physically attracted to him. Like--keep daydreaming about kissing him...and other things...

I just--why am I so fixated on this? Why is he the only thing I can think about? I have a life! I can’t just be marking time until I see him again. GET A GRIP, AB! I keep singing “He is not thinking of me” to myself. Bc I guarantee he is going about his business as usual--like a fucking adult--and taking Saturday night for what it was: a pleasant evening.

Nonsequitur: If he doesn’t message me in the next few days I may implode.

Also, I just wish for some clarity. It’s like dating Jane Bennett. No clue if he’s just being nice or....?

Why is my professional performance so tied to whether or no a man is interested in me? What the hell is that about?!!!

I will say this--it’s nice to feel romance again. I feel like me again. The bitter gone-by feeling I had at my cousin’s wedding is banished, replaced by all the hope and cheer of spring and things beginning. Also, showtunes again! Singing again! I could go into “Bewitched, bothered and bewildered” but that song is too cynical. Instead, I’ll end with the line that was running through my head all day Monday:

“I don’t know why I can’t think of anything I would rather do than be wasting my time on mountains with you.”

And now, off to church!

#more rmabling soon probably

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mrmichaelchadler · 6 years ago

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Nick Allen's Top Ten Films of 2018

Below is a small glimpse at my film year, a collection of the movies I was fixated on during and after festivals, recommended to you if you asked me what was good, or was simply blown away by. And in the case of my number one film, it was lodged so deep into my brain that its second-to-last shot made for a solid homemade Halloween costume. Of course, this list is subject to change at any minute, with special shout-outs to “Roma,” “Minding the Gap,” “Eighth Grade,” “Widows,” “Vice,” “Free Solo,” “If Beale Street Could Talk,” “Blaze,” and the laugh-out-loud quality of “Mile 22.”

10. “Bird Box”

In 2010, Susanne Bier made one of the most unforgettable stories about the immediacy of day-to-day violence with “A Better World,” its plot hinging on acts of humanism across continents. She brings that focus on how we treat each other to the ruthlessly thrilling “Bird Box,” which tops off a year of nervous cinema, but is approximately 300% more stressful than the silent but deadly “A Quiet Place” (nor can “Bird Box” have its logic poked through by the prospects of farts). The hook here is an apocalyptic disadvantage—one’s eyes must always be covered from an outside force that invades consciousness, making them want to hurt others or themselves.

Adapted by Eric Heisserer from the novel by Josh Malerman, “Bird Box” takes the set-up of a survival story to its most tense limits, where characters are walking, driving, or riding down a river through unknown environments, without being able to see where they are going. In a year in which watching white supremacy terrorize families in “The First Purge” seemed redundant, “Bird Box” is one of the most terrifying depictions of fanaticism; those who do decide to see sometimes have a frightening, monstrous power, and try to force others to look. It's a scary reflection of our modern cults built on hatred, anonymous conspiracy theories, or willful misinterpretations of the Bible.

The whole of "Bird Box" hinges on dumb luck, but each major set piece has an inescapable claustrophobia, in which the ability to see what the blindfolded characters can't, and imagining what could befall them, makes it that much more terrifying. At the center of it all is a top-level performance from Sandra Bullock, portraying a mother in the most desperate mode of survival. She makes a viewer even more wistful that somehow she and her two blindfolded kids can survive the film’s impossible world.

9. “Searching”

Aneesh Chaganty’s “Searching” is a thrilling correction to a few bugs in mainstream filmmaking: it’s an unabashed crowd-pleaser that doesn’t talk down to its audience, a tech-savvy movie that doesn’t lament the growing presence of smart phones and social media so much as whole-heartedly embrace them, and a screen-based thriller that isn’t just the cinematic equivalent of watching a desktop. That it’s also a thriller that gives John Cho the leading role he’s long deserved is just one of its many elements to adore.

Scripted by Chaganty and Sev Ohanian, this story about a father (John Cho) searching for his missing daughter Margot (Michelle La) is one of the year’s most exciting examples of creativity, with elements of filmmaking one can easily take for granted—it’s one of the year’s best edited films for how it creates an emotional roller coaster using only the content on its characters’ screens, orchestrating a narrative out of an insane amount of on-screen detail that fully immerses us in everyone's lives. "Searching" plays wonderfully on repeat viewings, and the opening scene has deservedly won comparisons to the first ten minutes of “Up”—“Searching” is the debut of major storytelling talent, with a thrilling new perspective on the technology we use every day.

8. “John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection”

“John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection” is a sports documentary that begins with a Jean-Luc Godard quote, and doesn’t show its title subject until five minutes in. Yes, this movie is a dream for anyone who has felt film semiotics and sports analysis aren’t too different of beasts, especially when one talks about the strengths and weaknesses of a performance. Needless to say, “John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection” transported me back to my brain-fueling Film Studies classes, all focused around a pivotal match for the hot-head tennis player in 1984. This doc does not just thrill with how it toys with form, but also in how it proclaims the expansive potential of critical thinking. I dare anyone who is interested in the very concept of criticism, whether for athletes or filmmakers, to try to turn it off after watching it for those five minutes.

7. “Makala”

“Makala” popped into my life as a review assignment back in August, and by the end of the year it’s still the most exemplary idea of the power in minimalist storytelling. One of the most tense scenes this year is of Makala trying to push a huge bundle of coal, strapped to his bike, up a small hill, as captured with simplicity by director and cinematographer Emmanuel Gras. As it documents one man’s process in creating coal, carting it many miles and then trying to sell it, “Makala” speaks to the eternal values of filmmaking, and recognizes that walking many miles in someone else’s shoes is an instrumental part of it.

6. “Cold War”

Anyone who was a bit miffed by the ending of Damien Chazelle’s musical “La La Land”—not that it ended on a surprising note, but that it felt like an incomplete thought—will find refreshing heart and soul in Pawel Pawlikowski’s musician story, “Cold War.” Told over various years and across countries, the story of two Polish musicians and their romance in spite of years and geographical distance beautifully condenses time but doesn’t cut short its emotion. “Cold War” precisely captures the different chapters of a relationship, while having a black-and-white beauty that makes the film like the year’s best love ballad.

5. “Mandy”

Like a holy mix of “You Were Never Really Here” and “If Beale Street Could Talk,” as blended with a chainsaw fight and served on an actual dish of revenge, “Mandy” is one of the year’s most visceral proclamations of love and loss. Be not fooled by the howls from its growing cult audience, the best aspects of “Mandy” (directed by Panos Cosmatos and co-written with Aaron Stewart-Ahn) are not its albeit glorious action scenes but its sensitivity: this is the story of a man (Nicolas Cage), a woman named Mandy (Andrea Riseborough, her close-up laughing at macho BS the true face of this film) and the depths of his battling the demons of grief after his loved one is taken away. The late Johann Johannsson’s heavenly score uses synthesizers and heavy metal guitars to grip you from its opening text, and the film’s heavy use of color filters creates a dreamy atmosphere, which only gets kookier as “Mandy” becomes a straight-up hero odyssey with Cage battling phantasmagorical Jesus freaks. But the true beauty of “Mandy” is its intimacy; it’s as beautiful as looking into the eyes of your loved one as you both lie in bed, no one else existing in the world.

“Mandy” also features an unforgettable Nicolas Cage scene, in which he downs a whole bottle of vodka in a bathroom while standing in his underpants. He’s crying, howling, screaming. It epitomizes the appeal of one our greatest screen artists—that Cage is unafraid to tap into the absurd emotions we sometimes wish we could—and it pushes the surrealism of the scene to sincere and complete heartbreak. I’m placing “Mandy” in my proverbial “In Case of Loss, Break Glass” collection, right next to a copy of Philip Roth’s Everyman.

4. “Leave No Trace”

I really love what my colleagues have written about Debra Granik’s story of a PTSD-afflicted father living off the grid with his young daughter, but one of my favorite qualities of this nearly pitch-perfect story is that it’s not what you think: it’s not about them living in the woods, but adapting to our society, a story that takes place after what only seems like the true narrative. The completely soulful performances from Ben Foster and Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie create a family dynamic you don’t want to see disturbed, and through small developments there’s a large unease that capitalism and technology could get in its way. Granik’s script, adapted with Anne Rossellini from Peter Rock’s book, has an incredible rhythm with its bare bones scenes, exploring the greatest of emotional stakes in the most deceptively simple way.

3. “Madeline’s Madeline”

In a sense, “Madeline’s Madeline” is a movie that was made for its debut lead, Helena Howard. You understand, about thirty seconds into the film, why Howard warrants her own project, and why a filmmaker like Josephine Decker would mix her own experimental and primal instincts with the talents of her future young star. “Madeline’s Madeline” is delightfully beyond words—describing it as a film about acting and actors is just scratching the surface—but it’s one of the most year’s most hypnotic movies, especially as Decker’s camera toys with point-of-view and takes an approach to editing that is unlike any other film from 2018.

2. “Shirkers”

I spent much of my Sundance last January recommending to people a little documentary called “Shirkers,” and ramped up that practice when it came out on Netflix this past October. Believe the hype for this movie, which just took our #6 spot on the staff list, and is one of the few docs that has been making waves on #FilmTwitter. It’s both a celebration of and a mystery movie about the lost treasure of a film project that Tan directed as a teenager in 1990s Singapore with her friends, which then disappeared along with her pushy filmmaking mentor, an older white man named Georges, before the film was finished. “Shirkers” has Tan investigating what happened to the project and looking back at her life when she was a teenager making her cool-as-hell film that predates the style of "Ghost World" and Wes Anderson. Perhaps best of all, Tan shares with us the filmmaking daydreams, and the collaborating women, that fueled such an enigmatic passion project.

1. “Hereditary”

I believe “If Beale Street Could Talk” director Barry Jenkins put it best when he once tweeted to “Hereditary” writer/director Ari Aster, “GIVE ME BACK MY PEACEFUL SLEEP,” followed by six crying emojis. Speaking as someone who has now seen Aster’s masterful debut five times (including an experimental, not recommended double feature at the theater with Fred Rogers doc “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”) I can only affirm the lasting power of “Hereditary” and its perfection as a modern American family tragedy that uses horror language in order to devastate its viewers.

There are so many elements to cherish about the film, including its exact creepiness with slow-moving shots and deceptively long takes, a score by Colin Stetson that peacefully conjures the devil, and the way that while a first viewing may inspire one to watch it through their fingers, "Hereditary" only gets more disturbing with each viewing. And all of this for a horror film that’s about a household that doesn’t discuss trauma, or about a family plot that’s a highway to hell. Most importantly, however, is the emotional magnitude brought by the likes of Toni Collette, whose viciousness as the central mother can rival the terror of Joan Crawford proclaiming “No more wire hangers” in “Mommie Dearest,” and Alex Wolff, depicting the shattered, silenced nature of trauma.

"Hereditary" is in the tradition of disturbing films like Kubrick’s “The Shining” or Zulawski’s “Possession"—it's equal parts terrifying and exhilarating, scarring a viewer with the emotional turmoil that's in the foreground. Aster's film messed me up in more ways than one in 2018, and it hurts so damn good.

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adambstingus · 7 years ago

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A Feminist’s Guide to Critiquing Hillary Clinton

Fair warning: This blog is not going to be angry. It will not be written in all caps. There will be no vulgarity. And it probably wont go viral. I dont care.

What I do care about is the fact Ive read over 70+ articles in the past two weeks alone discussing the 2016 election and what I see is a total lack of nuance and a lot of critiques that overgeneralize or underplay the very real role gender plays when people talk about Clinton and/or any other women who dare to step into positions that for so long have only been held by men.

What I do care about is how on my Facebook feed and elsewhere, I see well meaning folks called out as sexist jerks for simply offering legitimate critiques of Clinton and what a Clinton presidency might look like.

I like nuance. I like messy. I dont like soundbites and simplicity. So, lets play the nuance game. For folks who love Clinton, realize that not every critique poised against her is based in sexism. For those who love Sanders, realize that sexism is very alive in 2016, and that you can love your candidate AND embrace the reality that politicking while female is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Imagine that. Both/and. For those who havent yet made up their minds, or dont fall into either of these categories, this is for you, too.

So, here is my attempt to create a list of productive ways to critique Hillary Clinton without being a sexist jerk.

1). Do not talk about her voice. Really. Just dont. Earlier this week (and pretty much throughout Clintons existence), weve seen pundits and others criticize her shrillness, her voice, and her masculine speaking style. Soraya Chemaly argues, Anger in a man doesnt make the world wonder out loud if his hormones have taken over his brain and rendered him an incoherent idiot who cant be trusted with Important Things. How many words for angry men are there? Ones that have the powerful and controlling cultural resonance of , and ,, ? Or, yep, . Karlyn Kohrs Campbell wrote an incredibly thoughtful piece discussing how our culture has negatively responded to Clintons inability to fit within the parameters set in terms of how one should act and speak as a woman in the political sphere. She says Clinton symbolizes the problems of public women writ large, the continuing demand that women who play public roles or function in the public sphere discursively enact their femininity, and that women who do not or who do so to only a limited degree, women whose training and personal history fit them for the roles of rhetor, lawyer, expert, and advocate, roles that are gender coded masculine, will arouse the intensely hostile responses that seem so baffling (15). Overall, what Campbell is arguing is that women in the political sphere, in order to be taken seriously, must enact just the right amount of femininity and masculinity, and that Clintons failure to be appropriately feminine has hindered her for decades.

She continues to thoughtfully lay out a masculine and feminine rhetorical style of speaking and discusses what that sounds like. In rhetorical terms, performing or enacting femininity has meant adopting a personal or self-disclosing tone (signifying nurturance, intimacy, and domesticity) and assuming a feminine persona, e.g., mother, or an ungendered persona, e.g., mediator or prophet, while speaking. It has meant preferring anecdotal evidence (reflecting womens experiential learning in contrast to mens expertise), developing ideas inductively (so the audience thinks that it, not this presumptuous woman, drew the conclusions), and appropriating strategies associated with womensuch as domestic metaphors, emotional appeals to motherhood, and the likeand avoiding such macho strategies as tough language, confrontation or direct refutation, and any appearance of debating ones opponents. Note, however, that feminine style does not preclude substantive depth and argumentative cogency (5).

Presidents Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton use/used a feminine rhetorical style of speakingsomething which men can do and not be criticized for. Reagan was the great communicator. Both Clinton and Obama have been called some of the greatest orators in American history.

Hillary Clinton cannot perform femininity and her inability to play into this script Campbell argues reveals *our deficiencies*not Clintons. Campbell states, Our failure to appreciate the highly developed argumentative skills of an expert advocate, when the advocate is female, reveals our deficiencies, not hers. Legislation attendant on the second wave of feminism opened doors for able women who seek to exercise their skills in all areas of life, including the formation of public policy. If we reject all of those who lack the feminizing skills of Elizabeth Dole, we shall deprive ourselves of a vast array of talent (15).

2). Please dont talk about her likeability. As with the sound of her voice and her rhetorical speaking style, her likeability should have nothing to do with whether or not she would make a qualified president. Yes, I realize all candidates have to somewhat pass the likeability test, but for Clinton, because of the years long Hillary hating stemming from her time as first lady, this issue is in fact gendered, and to criticize her for not being likeable reeks of sexism. Henry Louis Gates Jr. argues, Hillary hating has become one of those national past times that unite the elite and the lumpen. Gary Wills notes, Hillary Hate is a large-scale psychic phenomenon. At the Republican convention there was a dismemberment doll on sale. For twenty dollars you could buy a rag-doll Hillary with arms and legs made to tear off and throw on the floor. .. . Talk shows are full of speculation about Hillarys purported lesbianism and drug use. Fine conspiratorial reasoning sifts whether she was Vince Fosters mistress or murderer or both. The Don Imus show plays a version of the song The Lady is a Tramp with new lyrics about the way the lady fornicates and menstruates and urinates, concluding, Thats why the First Lady is a tramp.’

As Nico Lang points out, She was a working woman and full political partner with (gasp) feminist tendencies. Among would-be first ladies in the early 1990s, these were exotic qualities. Clinton has continued to occupy thatsame space for the better part of three decades now, a one-woman culture war whoplays the political game the same way the men around her do. But unlike those men, Clinton is chided for being disingenuous and a political insider. Everyone else just gets to do their job. There are real reasons to have reservations about a Clinton presidency including her oft-cited ties to Wall Street and her hawkish foreign policy but how often are they the central force of the criticism lodged against her campaign? In an August poll, Quinnipac found that while political respondents felt that Hillary Clinton was strong and a candidate with experience, the words they most associated with her are liar, dishonest, and untrustworthy. These designations appear to be motivated by her Emailgate scandal and the ongoing questions about Benghazi but none of the myriad investigations into eitherhave turned up anything close to a smoking gun.

Rebecca Traister also notes, Recall the days following the 2008 Iowa caucus, when the media took advantage of Clintons defeat to let loose with their resentment and animosity toward her. That was when conservative Marc Rudov told Fox News that Clinton lost because When Barack Obama speaks, men hear Take off for the future! When Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear Take out the garbage! It was in the days after Iowa that Clinton infamously got asked about how voters believed her to be the most experienced and the most electable candidate but are hesitating on the likability issue. In late January, columnist Mike Barnicle told a laughing all-male panel on Morning Joe that Clintons challenge was that she looks like everyones first wife standing outside of probate court.’ In Diana B. Carlin and Kelly L. Winfreys analysis of the various ways Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton were portrayed during the 2008 campaign, they note, Women who exhibited too many masculine traits are often ridiculed and lose trust because they are going against type or play into male political stereotypes that voters are rejecting (328).

More recently, Sady Doyle argues that, This plays out on the level of personal expression, too: Women are supposedly over-emotional, whereas men make stern, logical, intelligent judgments. So, if Hillary raises her voice, gets angry, cries, or (apparently) even makes a sarcastic joke at a mans expense, she will be seen as bitchy, crazy, cruel and dangerous. (Remember the NO WONDER BILLS AFRAID headlines after she raised her voice at a Benghazi hearing; remember the mass freak-out over her emotional meltdown when someone thought she might be crying during a concession speech.) She absolutely cannot express negative emotion in public. But people have emotions, and women are supposed to have more of them than men, so if Hillary avoids them if she speaks strictly in calm, logical, detached terms, to avoid being seen as crazy we find her cold, call her robotic and calculating, and wonder why she doesnt express her feminine side. Again, shes going to be faulted for feminine weakness or lack of femininity, and both are damaging. Okay, so she can never be sad, angry, or impatient. Thats not a ban on all emotion, right? Youd think the one clear path to avoiding the bitchy or cold descriptors would be to put on a happy face, and admit to emotions only when they are positive. Youd think that, and youd be wrong: It turns out, people hate it when Hillary Clinton smiles or laughs in public. Hillary Clintons laugh gets played in attack ads; it has routinely been called a cackle (like a witch, right? Because shes old, and female, like a witch); frozen stills of Hillary laughing are routinely used to make her look crazy in conservative media. She cant be sad or angry, but she also cant be happy or amused, and she also cant refrain from expressing any of those emotions. There is literally no way out of this one. Anything she does is wrong. Given these constraints, Doyle argues it is impossible for Clinton to be likeable.

Look at how shes tried to address this issue. Dancing like a fool, talking about fashion, laughing more. What has it gotten her? Nothing but backlash.

Dave Holmes writes in , Youre not fun. Stop trying to pretend youre fun. writes an entirefaux op-ed from Clinton entitled I am Fun painting her attempt at being fun as insincere and manufactured.

In the eyes of the American public, Hillary Clinton will be fun. Or likeable. Or someone youd want to have a beer with. And it shouldnt matter. Period. So quit it with the likeability stuff, already. Its stupid and petty. I dont care if my president knows how to dance or even knows how to dress well. And you shouldnt, either.

3). Do criticize her on substantive issues. As Kevin Young & Diana C. Sierra Becerra argue, Clinton is the embodiment of corporate feminism. In their piece, they cite many areas where Clinton could have been and could still be a better advocate for womens rights. Its a fair critique but one that falls under the radar when were so concerned with her voice, appearance, and dance skills.

4). Know your history, do some research, and when criticizing, be fair. One of the claims I often hear as to why some dont trust Clinton, or why some feel shes untrustworthy is because she sat on the board of Walmart. Ok. But lets dig a little deeper. Ann Klefstad notes, Not to take anything away from Bernie and Jane, but think what an advantage this is: to build a career in a location of your choosing, with the strong support of a highly qualified and intelligent person who is unconditionally loyal to you. This was also Bill Clintons situationafter Yale, finding Hillary, heading home to Arkansas, and building a brilliant career in politics. But heywhat about Hillary? After getting a law degree from Yale (an all-male institution a few years previously) she meets Bill. She dumps her career as a congressional aide to move to Arkansas with Bill. I can imagine her dilemma. This was the 1970s. If she wanted to be with Bill, she would be riding on the ship he was captain of. There were consequences to that. She would be a partner in creating a political career that would accomplish many of the goals she wanted to accomplish. Bill very much admired her superb intellect and political skills as well. So they embarked. Theyre in Arkansas. Vermont politics have a pretty clean record. Arkansas? Not so much. You do make your own choices, but the context youre in, well, it matters. The Arkansas economy was in the toilet. The only bright star was the Walton family and Walmart, which was on track to become the biggest retailer in the world. They provided (in Arkansas) an expanding number of well-paid jobs. Bill was governor. Should Hillary have dumped his political career for a chance to spit in Sam Waltons eye? Well, that wasnt going to happen. She sat on the Walmart board and did what she could to both ensure the prosperity of the state of which her husband was governor and to do the right thing. She has almost always chosen the path (sometimes not the one youd pick) that would enable her to accomplish some good actions, rather than the pure path that tends to lead to inaction, or to exile from the power than enables you to make change.

Still dont like the fact she sat on the board? Fine. Dont like her stances on foreign policy? Totally ok. But understand the choices Clinton made in the context in which she livednot in a vacuum. This goes for all of her political choices. Never assume anything about any candidate without doing a little research first. Its amazing how much you can find out on this magical thing called the interwebs.

5). Dont assume critiques against Clinton are automatically rooted in sexism, and when calling out someone for critiquing Clinton, dont assume they, are in fact, sexist either. Take the #BernieBro label, for example. According to Glenn Greenwald, Have pro-Clinton journalists and pundits been subjected to some vile, abusive, and misogynistic rhetoric from random, anonymous internetsupporters of Sanders who are angry over their Clinton support?. Does that reflect in any way on the Sanders campaign or which candidate should win the Democratic primary? . The reason pro-Clinton journalists are targeted with vile abuse online has nothing specifically to do with the Sanders campaign or its supporters. It has everything to do with the internet. There are literally no polarizing views one can advocateonline including criticizing Democratic Party leaders such as Clinton or Barack Obama that will not subject one to a torrent of intense anger and vile abuse. Its not remotely unique to supporting Hillary Clinton: Ask Megyn Kelly about that, or the Sanders-supporting Susan Sarandon and Cornel West, or anyone with a Twitter account or blog. Ive seen online TV and film critics get hauled before vicious internet mobs for expressing unpopular views about a TV program or a movie. Amanda Hess pushes further arguing as soon as the Bernie Bro materialized, the conversation around it deteriorated. As the meme gained momentum, some popularizers stopped bothering to marshal any kind of evidence that Sanders supporters were sexist … . This is a familiar online phenomenon. Just as mansplaining morphed from a useful descriptor of a real problem in contemporary gender dynamics to an increasingly vague catchall expression, ass Benjamin Hart put it in 2014,the Bernie Bro argument has been stretched beyond recognition by both its champions and its critics.What began as a necessary critique of leftist sexism has been replaced by a pair of straw men waving their arms in the wind.

If the label applies, absolutely use it. Call out sexism and misogyny-especially if its coming from someone who claims to be progressive. However, I worry the label is being thrown around loosely and being applied to many well meaning, non-sexist male critics of Clinton. And that only silences debate. I dont want anyone to feel as though they cannot legitimately critique Clinton for fear of being called sexist, a BernieBro, or other names.

Overall, as with most of my writing, this piece was for me. Every time I read an article about Clinton or Sanders or sexism or the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party I find myself wishing for more nuance, less click-bait, and sound and civil discourse. Im tired of seeing the same soundbites repeated on my Facebook wall, seeing good friends of mine unfriend each other or worse because theyre on Team Sanders or Team Clinton and cant find common ground to have a legitimate debate about what this election is really about. In the words of my good friend Greg Wright, If you can imagine a better opportunity to demand the world we want, Id like to hear when you think it will come. When will better circumstances reveal themselves again? What political climate are you relying on to thrust the most unlikely candidate into the realm of possible? You want to know what will make this all the more likely to happen again? Demanding that it happen now.

We are at a historic moment in American history, not unlike the 2nd wave feminist movement. Gloria Steinem once said of Betty Friedan I believe that she was looking to join society as it existed, and the slightly younger parts of the movement were trying to transform society. And those were kind of two different goals. Like Friedan, I would argue that Clinton wants to work within the structure we have, while Sanders wants to transform society. He wants a revolution. In the words of Robert Reich, Ive known Hillary Clinton since she was 19 years old, and have nothing but respect for her. In my view, shes the most qualified candidate for president of the political system we now have. ButBernie Sanders is the most qualified candidate to create the political system we should have, because hes leading a political movement for change.

Sexism is real, and I love the fact that we are even talking about the ugly face of sexism in politics. However, we must be able to criticize a female candidate without resorting to sexist tactics, or be called sexist for critiquing her in the first place.

Overall, as many have pointed out, both Sanders and Clinton would be undeniably better as our next commander in chief than anyone currently running in the Republican arena. So I would caution democrats to get too entrenched within their teams that they refuse to see the bigger picture of the need to elect a Democrat in this next election. There are ways to disagree with one another that dont need to devolve into name calling or soundbite repeating. On Facebook and elsewhere, engage with those on either side in mindful and productive ways. This is an incredibly important election for so many reasons, but that doesnt mean we cant have thoughtful debates. So keep reading. Keep posting. Keep fighting for your team. Just dont embrace the ugly. Theres enough of that out there already.

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/a-feminists-guide-to-critiquing-hillary-clinton/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/169872294377

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