#other people wanted him included which was like. kind of the main driving force. glad they wanted one of him tho.

[304wv66]

10.20.2023 // gonna get bit by that thing

also bonus crop from the desktop wallpaper because i liked it, it made me happy 🥺

[kaizokuou-ni-naru]

The Voyage So Far: Dressrosa (Part Two)

east blue (1 | 2) || alabasta (1 | 2) || skypiea || water 7 || enies lobby || thriller bark || paramount war (1 | 2) || fishman island || punk hazard || dressrosa (1 | 2) || || whole cake island || wano (1 | 2)

wild how this is upwards of 750 chapters in and yet i still get a big dumb smile whenever luffy declares he’s going to be king of the pirates. one piece is a series very much driven by its main characters and their goals and dreams- i don’t think it would be nearly as good if the main character was anyone but monkey d. luffy. 

personally, i always just feel kind of proud whenever he says this, because- yeah!! he is!! that’s luffy, he’s going to be king of the pirates, and we’ve known that since day fucking one. 

i really think there’s something to be said about usopp never taking credit for saving luffy and law from sugar. it’s arguably his greatest feat in the entire series thus far- an impossible, perfect shot across an entire country, with an angry mob inches from his back- and he never even tells anybody he did it. he’s come a long way from someone who tells tall tales about heroic acts he never did to someone who doesn’t even feel the need to take credit for ones he really did, so long as his friends are safe.

i really like how corazon’s introduction and characterization throughout the flashback is handled. at the start of law’s flashback, we know a few things about him already: that he’s someone law loved very much, and that he was killed by doflamingo. we know how this ends. 

but then cora is introduced as a clumsy mute weirdo who nearly kills law as one of the very first things he does, and we as the audience aren’t really sure how to reconcile that- and then the rest of the flashback is us, along with law, slowly discovering what a complicated and contradictory but ultimately good person he is. something very similar happens with the asl flashback- we know the endpoint of luffy and ace’s relationship, but the flashback is all about how they got there, from attempted murder to willing self-sacrifice. 

i think it’s really cool the way law and doflamingo’s backstories are layered together. they’re characters who exist with a lot of parallels and similarities between them already, which is something they’re both clearly aware of- i’ve mentioned before i think the only real difference between them is that law got corazon where doflamingo got the executives- and presenting their backstories simultaneously only makes that more obvious. 

i’ve always found it so interesting that we get what’s pretty much our only substantial exposition about the will of d direct from a former celestial dragon. it makes sense- cora’s basically the only character we’ve met who both has this information and is willing to share it-  but i don’t know, there’s something that feels very poetic to me about him having this information that’s clearly been suppressed and hidden by the dragons and willingly choosing to share it in order to help protect law, a D, who should technically be the very enemy he was once taught to hate and fear. 

i really like corazon. 

it fucks me up that we can tell the exact moment cora dies from the moment law starts making noise again. 

this might be a controversial take? i’m not sure. but i like baby five. i think her and sai’s relationship is really sweet, and people might complain about her getting off easy or whatever but i’m honestly glad she gets a happy ending after being thoroughly emotionally abused and broken her entire life. and on a lighter note, she’s also just a fun character to watch through the whole arc- the running gag with her crying whenever law glares at her is still one of my favorites in the whole series. 

the shot of robin’s bloody back is a favorite of mine, because it’s a reveal that doesn’t get lingered on at all, and yet at once it gives the entire proceeding scene a lot more weight when we understand just how much pain she must’ve been in the entire time. and yet she never even flinched or faltered while protecting rebecca. nico robin is very, very strong. 

there’s something so deliciously fitting about diamante’s final fall ending with him cracking his head on scarlett’s grave, and something so lovely about kyros and rebecca finally getting their proper reunion there, when neither of them ever really got a chance to mourn.

law’s line about the strawhats trailing nothing but miracles in their wake is one of the first ones i always think of when i think about the strawhats in general and luffy in particular, mostly because it’s so true. from the very beginning, the strawhats have been doing the impossible, from sailing to the sky to breaking in and out of the world’s greatest prison, and law saw that and staked all his hopes on it and they did not let him down. 

also i think it’s very cool of law to, when held at gunpoint and down an arm, grin, flip doflamingo off, and tell him to eat shit and that luffy is going to kick his ass. love that for him.

i think dressrosa does a very good job of making the victory against doflamingo equally law’s and luffy’s. they cooperate and trade off fighting him throughout the arc to great effect, and i think it’s pretty clear that neither of them could have tackled the massive challenge of dressrosa alone. 

while the final fight is luffy’s, it’s made clear that that’s only after law’s done absolutely everything he could and spent the majority of the arc distracting doflamingo, keeping him occupied, and even fucking shredding his insides with pure radiation before finally needing to tap out. i think it’s a good balance, given that luffy is the protagonist but law’s grudge against doflamingo is the driving force behind the entire arc. 

conqueror’s haki clashes are always very cool, pretty much regardless of who or where or why, but the one between luffy and doflamingo is a favorite. 

one of the things that’s always impressed me about one piece in comparison to other shounen series is how it handles its powerscaling- in that it does it well with a gradual increase and villains who vary widely in strength instead of every arc necessarily needing to be bigger and better than the last- and i think the way it handles powering up the main characters is a big part of that. 

through the entirety of one piece thus far, i’d say luffy has had three major power-ups- second and third gear in enies lobby, haki at the timeskip, and gear four here in dressrosa (an argument could also be made for ryuuou in wano, but i think that’s less major than these others). this helps prevent runaway powerscaling and also makes new power-ups feel like a genuine event, which i really like. 

i once referred to luffy as ‘hopebringer’ in a conversation with friends, and it’s a descriptor for him i think sums up really well how he manages to save so many people while insistently not being a hero. luffy inspires people, inspires whole countries, starting all the way back with coby in romance dawn. it’s one of the reasons i think it’s fitting how thoroughly he’s associated with the dawn. 

doflamingo is very, very scary. which is interesting, because he’s indisputably less powerful someone like kaidou, but at the same time i find him a much scarier villain, and i think it comes down to doflamingo’s gleeful, wanton cruelty. not that kaidou is in any way shape or form a nice person, but our first introduction to doflamingo is him forcing marines to attack each other just because he’s a little bored. he hurts people just because he can, and finds it funny. 

relating to my earlier comment about hope, i really like how the whole country comes together at the end to cheer luffy on and count down to his return. it makes it feel all the more triumphant when it does, especially for the citizens of dressrosa who’ve been suffocating under doflamingo’s rule for years and can finally, finally see freedom.

other people have put a lot more thought of the symbolism of doflamingo’s eyes and glasses than i intend to, but i’ll settle for saying that it’s the breaking of the glasses, before anything else, before the birdcage even vanishes from the sky and everyone is safe, that shows us that, at long last, doflamingo is well and truly defeated. his glasses break, and so does his power. 

i’ve written a longer post about it before (here) but it’s a recurring motif that one piece’s worst villains are those that steal people’s freedom, including, in the cruelest cases, the freedom to express their emotions openly. we see it with koala and the celestial dragons, with the failed smile fruits in wano, and here, too, with kyros. and, much like koala, triumph for him means finally being able to cry. 

i mentioned it back in the first post, but i’m so, so happy rebecca and kyros get the happy ending they deserve. they’ve both been fighting a war that they never should have had to for years and years, and they both deserve to get to just live, now, peaceful and quiet and together and surrounded by flowers. 

i really dig the note dressrosa ends on. it’s happy, of course, obviously, with the liberation of the country, kyros and rebecca’s happy ending, the creation of the grand fleet, even law getting some degree of closure through his talk with sengoku, but it also leaves this massive, gaping question- what now? 

in a way, doflamingo’s speech here follows up on law’s new era speech from punk hazard. luffy and law have just thrown a major wrench into the delicate power equilibrium of the entire new world, and we have all these characters out there who might be affected, who might want to take advantage, who might try to seize the throne. 

[thegeminisage]

Here's something I'd love your take on: I read a meta recently (would link it but I can't remember where, ack) that suggested that Sam is able to forgive John in later seasons because a) he's had the whole "family making unilateral decisions for your own good" thing repeatedly shoved down his throat, and b) whatever John did under this umbrella in their childhoods, Dean has done far worse by that point, and Sam HAS to forgive him so by extension he can't really be mad at John anymore (1/2)

(2/2) As someone who has admittedly only seen bits and pieces of the later seasons, this seems to jive with Sam losing a lot of his characteristic early-seasons anger, letting Dean call the shots almost all the time even when he thinks it's the wrong move, and moments of sympathy for John (contrasted w/Dean's growing resentment, which is so interesting!). But! I got some big ol' gaps in my spn comprehension, so was curious if you had any thoughts on this dynamic

wow okay long answer warning! i got carried away and forgot how to use punctuation. nobody is obligated to read all of this lol and the biggest part of the answer is behind a cut. anyway!!

first things first: i think a big thing to remember with sam’s characterization in later seasons is that it’s like...not there, and when it is there, it’s sometimes flat and inconsistent. because dean became sole the main protagonist after the first 8 (arguably the first 5 or even first 2) seasons, sam sort of got demoted to “side character we don’t know what to do with” along with cas and crowley. they all had good arcs pop up now and then (sam had some fun stuff going on with lucifer in s11 and s13) but most of the time the writers either don’t know how to give him a meaningful characterization or don’t care (or both). so we have to do a lot of that work ourselves. 

so, for example, when we talk about sam losing his anger, i like to read it as him OVERCOMING that anger to avoid becoming his father (which may even be where some of the seemingly sympathetic comments come from, because he’s trying to be forgiving instead of angry), but really...it’s that the writers forgot he had anger issues. in-universe explanation vs irl explanation, yk? and i think pretty much all meta about sam in late seasons is written through that lens, whether the writer of that meta knows it or not. including this one! i can’t prove any of this shit, it’s my personal reading, i’m making it up. like there were just SO many different people involved in the production of supernatural that there was a lot of conflict and contradictions in things like continuity and characterization. (most of the writers room hadn’t even seen every episode!) so there’s not one definitive way to go about it. in many ways it makes the characters more nuanced and in many other ways it makes me fucking insane.

as for sam and john and whether or not sam forgives him, i’m actually glad you asked because this has been driving me nuts for a long time and it took me SO LONG to pin it down - sam’s relationship with john is very different to dean’s, and i couldn’t figure out WHY. it’s not that he was “abused less,” it’s not that he loved john less or was less hurt by his actions, so why doesn’t he seem as INVESTED in everything that happened to them as kids? like he says in season 14 he had to learn to let it go and that it was all a lifetime ago for him. meanwhile i think dean still deals with it every day. he’s still stewing in it to some degree 24/7. so like what’s the difference??

i think it comes down to two things. firstly, that while dean didn’t have anybody parenting him except john (and mary, but only for a very short time that he could actually remember), SAM’S parents were john AND DEAN. most of the time dean was the one raising sam, and in fact he arguably did way more parenting of sam than john did. so the person that made dean feel safe and like he could fight back against monsters, the person he was grateful to, was john. but the person who made SAM feel safest was dean. he doesn’t have that same gratitude towards john that dean does and he never will, because of how john made him feel alienated and excluded from their family growing up. dean’s resentment of john is so tangled up in this very deep and unconditional love and gratitude for him that sam just doesn’t have. 

secondly, i think dean has a serious case of “i can fix him” re: john that sam doesn’t have and possibly never had. john just never showed sam the same kind of inclusion and warmth and trust that he showed dean (however rarely he showed it, and however fucked up it was). i think sam figured out very very early on that their quest for yellow eyes was either a long shot or straight up impossible, and that they couldn’t waste their entire lives doing it, and that even if the demon died, john was never going to change. dean 100% drank the koolaid - he really truly believed in a world where someday they’d kill the demon and all retire from the life and be normal and be a family again, because that’s what john said and dean took his father’s word as gospel. sam knew better.

so i think what sam did was just disengage. partially because he felt he couldn’t afford to nurse that kind of anger and not become either his father or lucifer, and partially because even though sam loved john, still loves john, he never needed him the way dean did, because sam had dean. so it doesn’t hurt him as much to just “gray rock” it. i think if sam stopped and really dug into it he’d find that he’s still quite angry (probably more angry on dean’s behalf than his own, at least at first, because in his mind he was able to move past it and dean was not, dean had it worse, HIS OWN trauma isn’t real etc etc), but he doesn’t do that because he doesn’t want to be that angry, and possibly even thinks that if he brought it up dean would jump to john’s defense and it would cause a fight, which the opposite of what a gray rock does.

as for being forced to forgive john because if he didn’t he would also have to condemn dean...i don’t think i buy that at all. sam is fine making dean his exception and he allows dean to get away with a lot of deeply horrible shit he would condemn other people for. partially because he’s dean and sam loves him, but in my ~personal reading~ of sam, this is also because once sam became an adult the weight of everything dean did and had to give up to raise him really sank in, and part of him felt guilty (even though sam arguably didn’t have a childhood either). you know how kids take care of their parents in old age to repay them for raising them? that’s sort of how sam is with dean in later seasons - he implies multiple times that he would leave the hunting life forever and not look back if it weren’t for dean.

and as a side note - sorry, this is only tangentially related - dean implies several times in later seasons that the job is where he finds his sense of accomplishment and self-esteem and meaning - he believes the world is a better place because of what he and sam do, and even though he doesn’t always like DOING the job, he likes the outcome. it’s weird because this is as close as we see dean get to even HAVING self esteem. sam, emotionally intelligent, would have picked up on that - and since he and dean have both tried to leave the life multiple times and have always come to regret it, i also think part of sam believes you CAN’T escape - certainly SAM could never escape so long as dean was still in it, because whether he meant to or not dean would always pull him back in. and part of dean doesn’t really want to escape because he’s made his peace with it. so sam stays, and i think even if he can’t find the same meaning in the job that dean does, he finds a lot of meaning in being there for dean. (this, like gray rocking, is also consistent with the seasons where sam’s sole character trait is caring about dean lol. but i’m happy enough to read it in a kinder and less bitter/resentful way.)

it IS worth noting i think that the most forgiving sam ever was about john was in the adam episode, where he said he understood why he was the way he was and why he did what he did, and when dean said they were alike sam decided to take it as a compliment. sam in season 4 is arguably at one of his lowest points - struggling with addiction, consumed by anger and hatred and the need for revenge. he WAS like john in many ways, and i think he justified what john was doing because it also justified what HE was doing. but what he was doing led to breaking lucifer out of hell and the apocalypse that followed, which is why i like to think sam worked so hard to reign in his anger afterward - both to avoid his fate and avoid becoming his father.

in short: i don’t think sam has actually forgiven john so much as disengaged from him and moved past it. because if he DID engage with it, it’d bring up a whole lot of stuff he didn’t feel prepared to deal with. one of the risks of gray rocking things is doing it to the point that you lose touch with your own wants and needs and personality, so i think by late seasons sam’s repression, which is much more sneaky and quiet than dean’s, has settled in to the point where he’s like “yeah whatever” about dad out of sheer self preservation - because otherwise, he’d end up going crazy about it like dean does. i think it’d do him a hell of a lot of good to be able to get to shout at john and finally say his piece/ he’s really afraid of his own anger, but i think it’d be healthy for him to get back in touch with some of it.

[spn masterpost]

[juiceastronaut]

Okay so. I watched Q-force. And I have no idea what I think about it.

Imma just be rambling so I'll break down the characters and my likes/dislikes about them before giving my plot breakdown at the end. Only the main/prominent ones because I don't have time.

Steve Maryweather-Easily the best character out of them, with Deb being a close second. He could've very easily fallen into the trope of being someone who was incompetent but expected the world anyway, but he doesn't. He graduated top of his class, and despite his quirks is a genuinely competent team leader, and wants the best for his team. He wants to prove that he and his team are competent enough to get recognition, and has a genuine faith in the people around him. It was refreshing to see him hold his team in a genuine high regard, where a lot of times it's like "We're shit but lets do this thing now" He's a genuinely well-rounded character, and (and forgive me if this isn't the best way to frame this) it feels like being gay is an important part of his character, without encompassing the whole thing. I thought Benji and his relationship was super cute and I was sad when they broke up. I was afraid he was going to be, like a second but worse Twink with the stereotyping but gladly fell away from that.

Deb-I thought her and her wife were super cute (though I hate how the wife is designed ngl adjafkldajfd). I liked Debs character, but I feel like she had a lot of racial stereotyping that wouldn't be inherently obvious unless you were looking for them, her being the strong one, and also the "mama" type at the same time. No one treated her with disrespect, and her lesbianism seemed to be more authentic but I feel like there wasn't a lot of thought put into what these tropes were and why they were bad. Her being black and making her the mama type, as well as the big strong type could be read as tasteless. Again, I really liked her character but these were some things I noticed while watching.

Twink- You know, I didn't really like him at first, I thought he was the epitome of all the bad stereotyping (though I'm just glad him and Mary didn't get put into the same category). His humor isn't my taste, and it just kinda seemed like someone for half of his lines went "what twitter stan language can we put in here?" And sometimes it was a bit too random for my tastes. However! I do like that his drag was considered important and was an integral part to a lot of missions they went on, and not just "Ah look at that dumb gay trying to find reasons to dress in drag." His talents and expertise were both respected and, save for Buck (which his whole point was supposed to be offensive anyway) no one undermined Twink for his femininity. His back story is also kinda random but did play a role in the missions as well. Still, personally think he's the worst character. Plus, he's French so minus four-twenties amount of points.

Stat-You know, in a show where everyone was stating what letter they were every few seconds I was surprised that I had to look up that Stat was trans. I...liked her character for the most part, except the part where she was fucking a robot. Kinda weird ngl, outta left field, and with her being trans I wonder if her having that sort of relationship is problematic for her. Love her design tho, love me a hacker girl. She's also listed as "ambiguously gay" tho showed to have mostly girl love interests but, okay.

Buck-He's the straight guy, emotionally repressed haha and he's bigoted. Did think it was funny later on when he was more "accepting" but managed to be even more infuriating about it. Tied with Twink as worse character but you know they tried to do stuff with him.

Vee-Really liked me a boss lady, but kinda weird how they bait-and-switched us with her actually being a lesbian, then go "no she's straight tho" in regards to Karen. I thought her and Mary's relationship was cute, wish I saw more of it. But she did feel like a random plot device in later seasons, what with her disappearing and reappearing when it was plot relevant. (Tho she HOTOHOTHOTHOT bikini episode WOOOWEEEE)

....

Okay, so now the plot....which. it had one?

It felt like it was flip flopping back n forth about whether it wanted to take itself seriously or not, and it seemed to decide on serious more towards the end, but then it would have this random plot element that would be so out of left field it would pull me out of my suspension of disbelief. See the whole "Back cracking to unlock memories" plot point. This back and forth on whether it would be a comedy or not I think weakened both categories it tried to play into.

If I had to compare the show to anything it would probably be Futurama, but the thing with Futurma is, its set in the future, so you're suspension of disbelief is allowed to stretch a bit more because all the wacky quirky stuff can be attributed to future shenanigans. Q-force, to my knowledge, is set in the modern day, which makes the wacky stuff that much wacker, because it's set in our modern times, which you apply the rules of everyday life to.

A lot of the problems that I had with Q-Force is, in the attempt to write specifically about the "gay experience" revealed that the writers have really only had a very specific experience of interacting with gay ppl, what I call the "Urban Gay" experience.

The fact they're in West Hollywood, and all the things that were listed as "universal gay experiences" but were only things that you'd be exposed to if you were in the city. I think a flavor of "white gay" can be implemented here too, which Q force has exactly one black woman, who manages to be the only lesbian.

That coupled with the fact that, there's a difference between having Twink naturally being a drag queen, the whole team being gay to some degree, and the fact they interact with the gay community often without Drawing Attention to all of those things and self-congratulating itself on concluding it. Funnily enough, Q-Force had examples of doing this right and doing this right. Right way: In the second or third episode where Mary found that guy with the flash drive to the uranium in it and seduced him in the gay bar. Relevant that it was gay without overtly drawing attention to it. Wrong-Way: Having Pride go on while Girl Boss was trying to take over the world.

And, for the show that promoted itself as representing the gay experience, there were...two gay men, one lesbian, one trans person, one straight guy and...no bisexual people. Also no nonbinary people. Like of course it's unrealistic to include every single identity but you're one bisexual person who appeared for one episode and was promptly blown up. And also showed to be...more off than the other characters, what with the stealing of silverware and all. Just, bisexual people are already forgotten enough as it is and not including them in the show, but you include two gay men just kinda reads as tasteless to me (as a bisexual person, obviously).

Which makes it so weird that Stat was left "ambiguously gay" when she could've easily been bisexual (which still would be problematic because of the robot-fucking but at least you got the B in there somewhere in the main group)

Overall, it tried to market itself as the "be all end all" of what it was like to be gay, but ended up excluding the exact people that get excluded in real-life lgbt spaces. This combined with the indecision with what kind of show it wanted to be managed to make it fall short. If you arent the very specific type of gay person who lives in a city environment and doesn't fit the stereotypes showed you're not going to feel "seen" by the show.

Weirdly though, I didn't hate watching it, and I would probably watch another season if they managed to make one. The parts that did work, I think worked really well, and even the bad parts just read as tasteless, and not actively terrible. If they focused less on making "hey I'm gay" jokes every three seconds and just let each character be what they are I think the show would be stronger for it. And I think they'd find less problems overall if they did that too. In the mean time I'll just be here side-eyeing the whole thing.

Edit: I forgot to mention, and this is a problem a lot of adult TV shows fall into, that because they got the clear to show nudity/sex they felt like they *had* to show nudity and to a lesser extent sex every episode. So just that whole "Haha adult=sex obviously."

Oh! And this generally goes for the whole "shove it in your face" part, but a lot of the characters who are bigoted were shown to be. Very blatantly so. And not to say there isn't blatantly bigoted ppl of course they are but I don't think that's where you see a lot of bigotry nowadays. This was sort of touched on during the show but more of a jokey manner, but I think it would've been more realistic if we had more "girl with a gay best friend" kinda bigotry as opposed to the "I'm literally hurling slurs at you" bigotry, especially since they're in Cali.

[carriagelamp]

April l was apparently the month for me to revisit some children’s authors who are steeped in controversy at the moment. So here’s my hot (well, lukewarm) takes on issues that absolutely do not need a single other person talking about them. Also some actual good books that I read this month!

Badger in the Basement

The Animal Ark books are a childhood classic — though I recently found out that apparently there’s a difference between American and British publications, and the American versions didn’t include a lot of actual COOL animals which is… bizarre. As a Canadian stuck in the middle of this, this nonsense drives me nuts. This one was about the main character, the daughter of pair of vets, trying to protect a local badger sett from men wanting to participate in badger digging and baiting. These books are always feel-good, and it was a nice single-day-read while I waited for a library book to come in.

Chi’s Sweet Home

The cutest manga series about the misadventures of a little kitten, Chi, who has been adopted by a loving family. I’ve never bothered to read them in order, but apparently this time I stumbled across the last in the series -- whoops! Still, stood on it’s own pretty easily, and it was a fun read! Things get tense when the family realize that they may have found Chi’s original home… and may have to give up Chi forever.

Earth Before Us: Dinosaur Empire!

This was an odd graphic novel, I feel like I’m not sure who the target audience was exactly. It was a nonfiction comic done in a Magic School Bus style, with the purpose of teaching current, up-to-date facts about the animals that lived in the Mesozoic Era. If you’re into dinosaurs, you’ll probably enjoy this! The art is absolutely adorable, I love the dinosaur illustrations, and I learnt some really neat facts. That being said, the pages are really dense, and there’s a lot of info crammed in… some of it will probably go way over a child’s head without specific additional teaching or a very strong personal interest. But that being said, a dinosaur obsessed kid is still probably going to really dig this… as would a dinosaur obsessed adult. It wasn’t my cup of tea exactly but I’m sure it is someone’s.

assorted Dr Seuss Books

I love these types of controversies because it means getting to listen to every moron who has never had an opinion on Dr Seuss ever start generating a mile of them out of the aether. So many people are so mad about the six books that are getting retired and I bet most of them haven’t even read them. These are not the friggin Cat In The Hat or The Lorax or even the likes of Yertle The Turtle. I was raised by a grade one teacher, was a voracious reader who loved Dr Seuss, and wrote my university thesis on children’s literature, and I still only knew two of the six books on that list. So by all means, if you want to write an essay explaining why those specific books are worth clinging to, feel free, but if you haven’t even heard of them maybe it’s not a big deal. *grumble*

Anyway, my grousing aside, it gave me the urge to reread a bunch of Seuss books, including the two retiring books I personally knew: McElligot’s Pool and To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. I do still enjoy both, especially McElligot’s Pool which always sparked my imagination, but it’s obvious why they’re being retired and I personally think it’s the right choice. There’s so much good kidlit out there, we can survive without these.

Goodbye, My Rose Garden

A f/f romance manga, fairly standard fair though cute if you’re looking for some historical angst, pretty dresses, and mutual pining. A young Japanese woman moves to England in the hopes of meeting a writer (Mr Frank) who she has long admired. Along the way she is employed by an enigmatic woman with plenty of money, rumours, and melancholy following her. I’ll be honest, uncut romance isn’t really my genre, but I’ll probably still try to the second book to see if the story picks up.

From The Holocaust to Hogan’s Heroes: The Autobiography of Robert Clary

It’s no secret that I’ve been on a Hogan’s Heroes kick. This is the autobiography of Roberty Clary, who plays my favourite character in the show, Louis Lebeau. And holy shit what a life this man has had. He was a Jew growing up in France before the start of the war, and who was one of many children taken away from his family and sent off to the concentration camps in Germany. This was an amazing, intense, inspiring, and heartbreaking read… it has Clary’s voice all over it, and it tells everything from the charming childhood he had, to the horrors of the concentration camps, the brutality of survival, and then about his exciting journey into the entertainment industry afterwards. It’s an experience, would recommend if you’re a fan of the show.

The Ickabog

The second controversial author I read this month. Originally I was going to give Rowling’s new book a miss, given everything that’s been going on over the past few years, but in the end my curiosity got the better of me. Politics aside, it was a fun read! Not groundbreaking, but enjoyable enough and written in an interesting style. It didn’t read the same as a lot of modern kidlit, it felt more like a cross between a classic fairytale and a Dahl book. Perhaps a bit like Despereaux. It tells the tale of how an idyllic country gradually falls into ruin through the ignorance, inaction, and greed, and how a supposedly fictional monster hides the very real, human monsters at the heart of the country. It was cute and pleasant and I’m glad I decided to get it from the library, though for anyone who is choosing not to engage for political reasons: you aren’t missing anything major.

Franklin In The Dark

A Canadian classic. I don’t think there’s a single person my age who hasn’t read or been read a pile of these books, and the nostalgia is so comforting. I found this on Youtube and listened to someone read it to me, and honestly 10/10 would recommend for a calm evening.

The big reason I decided to seek this one out though, was because I finally got to the M*A*S*H episode that inspired this entire series! In the episode C*A*V*E, in which Hawkeye is freaking out over his claustrophia while the camp is forced to take shelter in a nearby cave during some intense shelling, he mentions that if he had been born a turtle he would have been afraid of his own shell, and that the other turtles would make fun of him cause he’d be forced to walk around in his underwear. And so this first story about a young turtle who’s afraid to sleep in his own shell and drags it around behind him. So if you were ever curious, Franklin the Turtle is in fact named after Dr Benjamin Franklin Pierce. (this is also why the French version is named Benjamin!)

Wolves of the Beyond: Lone Wolf

I loved the Guardians of Ga’Hoole books as a kid but I never read the Wolves of the Beyond series. This first book was an interesting read, Lasky does a great job creating worlds and societies for the animals that inhabit them. Lone Wolf is about a deformed wolf cub who was abandoned in the wilderness to die. And he would have, if a desperate mother bear, who had recently had her only cub killed, hadn’t stumbled across him and saved him, vowing to raise him as her own...

Petals

A “silent” graphic novel. It has beautiful artwork and is told entirely through pictures, no text at all. It’s loves and heart-wrenching, though it left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied… I felt like there should have been more. Still, a neat story.

The Southern Book Club‘s Guide To Slaying Vampires

What a banger of a novel!! I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s about a group of suburban mothers in the ‘80s who form a book club out of a shared need for community and a love of grisly true crime novels. But when a strange drifter appears in town and starts setting down roots… and when children begin disappearing… these women need to band together to confront the horrors that have invaded their neighbourhood, and face down not only a terrifying monster among them but the patriarchal system that allows it to flourish. To quote the preface:

“Because vampires are the original serial killers, stripped of everything that makes us human — they have no friends, no family, no roots, no children. All they have is hunger. They eat and eat but they’re never full. With this book, I wanted to pit a man freed from all responsibilities but his appetites against women whose lives are shaped by their endless responsibilities. I wanted to pit Dracula against my mom.    As you’ll see, it’s not a fair fight.“

The Weirn Books: Be Wary of the Silent Woods

I love Chmakova’s graphic novels, though I’ve only ever read her slice-of-life middle grade series before. This one is pure fantasy and very fun. It’s about two cousin “weirns” — witches with demon familiars — who attend the local night school. Things get strange though when an ominous figure appears outside the old, abandoned school house deep in the Silent Woods, and begins tempting children down its path…

I’m very much looking forward to word of a second book and was honestly kind of surprised that I haven’t heard more about this book given how popular her other series is. This has all the same charm and quirks but for those of us who prefer stories based in fantasy rather than reality.

And A Bonus...

For some masochistic reason I got a Garfield book out of the library. Jeez, if I didn’t love these as a kid, I found them absolutely laugh out loud hilarious, and now I just don’t see it anymore. But here I will share the one strip in the book that actually made me laugh

[courtneystriker]

My Thoughts on the HG Prequel

I just finished reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and I got to say, my feelings are mixed. Below I have an entire review  for the story which included how I felt, the expectations, the biases I had going into the new book, and how I felt after reading. Please note there will be spoilers. Also this review isn’t meant to hurt anyone and if you absolutely love the book so far...good! Enjoy it fully! As an aspiring writer myself and someone who studied in college/loves creative writing I’m well aware that people just have different takes on writing. Glad you are enjoying it :)

Anyways, here it goes…

The Expectations

As the Hunger Games series is one of my favorites of all time, I had a strong bias to like this book. Since it was first announced, without knowing any details, I was extremely excited and optimistic. I re-read the entire Hunger Games series twice beforehand in preparation; once with my fiancé and once on my own. The only thing I really wanted, knowing that it took place during the tenth hunger games, was that the arena reflected how new the hunger games were. Then, when we learned what the series was about, people started voicing some concerns or were disappointed by the plot, instead wanting it to be something like Finnick’s arena, Haymitch’s, Mags’, etc. etc. I was not among this group. However, I understand where they were coming from, because I always thought the idea of the first Quarter Quell (the one where the districts voted for the tributes) was an extremely interesting concept. 

Yet I think these things are best left explored in fanfiction as they add nothing to the series and Suzanne Collins did an excellent job just giving us enough information to get the idea. At that point it’d just be a book on details, which could fall short or be a gimmicky, cheap way to keep people reading the series and keep her name relevant. And wasn’t that part of the message in her series, the thing Katniss so heavily criticized that gave a great irony to the books? Who would watch children killing each other for entertainment? Meanwhile, we as the reader are reading these books as a form of entertainment. Plus, Suzanne Collins so skillfully painted the illusion of knowing but not fully knowing their stories that it’s haunting, and I think that is one of the many reasons (along with the battle royale trope being naturally compelling, liking the characters, etc.) that a lot of us are more drawn towards these stories rather than (at least for me)  a book on Snow. 

That being said, I was not against the idea of a book on Snow because I find villain characters, especially grey ones, to be very interesting to read about, and I was pretty certain Suzanne was going to handle this beautifully, especially since you could already feel this atmosphere coming off of Snow in the Hunger Games series. I know some were really concerned about a Snow redemption arc, but to me it felt very obvious that it couldn’t be and it would be more of him sliding into evil.

I did have other concerns when I read the description for the first time. I could not believe they went with the whole tribute from District Twelve thing again. I loved Katniss and District Twelve, but I did not want Katniss 2.0. I said right from the beginning to my fiancé that she’d have to make the tribute from District Twelve extremely different for me to get on board (though I was holding on faith that Collins would). It just felt cheap and gimmicky to rehash the District Twelve thing, it sort of made me feel the same way I would have if she had written about one of the games I mentioned above. Sure, it’d sell, but it wouldn’t add anything to the series. I was thinking she better not hunt, sing, or have any qualities resembling Katniss really.  

Another thing I worried about was the love story they hinted at in the description. It just didn’t make sense to me. Because how was Snow going to ever support the games if from an earlier age he fell in love with a tribute and vowed to protect her? Then later he’s all like pro-hunger games? Just this itself could weaken the entire series if done poorly, because it would weaken the main antagonist’s motives for not only the prequel but also the Hunger Games series as well. I kept thinking either the girl has to die in the arena betraying Snow somehow (which is what I was hoping for), Snow will have to betray her, or perhaps he would have been faking love for her for some sort of personal gain I couldn’t imagine. Either way, I thought it weakened the story's appeal to me. Yet overall I was still excited, desperately waiting for the book’s release. 

And now that I have read it, I have to say it felt forced at a lot of parts and lackluster overall…

*Spoilers start here*

My Review:

Suszanne Collins’ writing style is one I’ve always loved and has consistently appealed to me. Even though this book is written in 3rd person (which some may like less if you don’t particularly like third person) it holds up well against the original series. So I really had no complaints in this regard besides the excessive use of songs (felt like fanfiction a bit). I think if you liked the original series and don’t mind third person you’ll feel right at home with her style.

The concerns others had about Snow’s redemption are completely dismissed in this book. Like I had predicted, she writes about his fall into evil, and although it’s not black and white evil (as I don’t like anyways) you can very much tell he’s a bad guy and that the hardships he faced in life only further pushed him towards obtaining status and power. Overall, he feels true to the character when we end up seeing him in the Hunger Games series, and his journey to power fits the images Finnick painted in Mockingjay. He is very well characterized in the book and perfectly unlikable while maintaining an intriguing internal dialogue (although it does occasionally feel tedious, but not enough to bother me; others may feel differently).

 The way he is written is very much in line with Collin’s great characterization, one of the reasons I always loved The Hunger Games. All the characters felt like real people. They all had an extreme depth to them and I felt they all resembled people I had actually met in real life. There were little to no characters that relied solely on gimmicky personalities to get by. Even very minor characters that seemed depthless and swallow at first--like Katniss’s prep team--had more to them. So I thought going into this book I had nothing to worry about in that regard. I didn’t even really spare it a thought, but boy was I wrong. 

I think Snow and Lucy Grey were the only characters that had (at least partly) the depth that the original Hunger Games cast had. I’ll discuss Lucy Grey later but first let me talk about some side characters. Where to even begin really? There’s a LOT of characters in this book. Frankly, way too many, which I think contributes heavily to the lack of depth in the characters. Honestly there’s so many that the names of characters were hard to keep track of while listening to the audiobook (my hard copy of the book was still in the mail and I didn’t want to wait). Things got a bit clustered in my mind quickly. There were twenty-four tributes, twenty-four mentors,  Snow’s family, The Dean and Drs at the university, Snow’s Peacekeeper crew, and the Covey, and those are just the groups that I can cluster together. At least, the ones I remember having names and getting introduced, but I think that’s everyone really important. There was no real time to develop or get to know them really, which made the tributes’ deaths more meaningless as I could barely recall their names. It caused impactful scenes to weaken significantly overall and it made characters serve only to characterize and amplify Snow’s fall into evil. 

Here’s what I mean by that. The head Gamemaker, Dr. Gaul, really was the character I hated the most while reading this. She was just evil without reason (one of the weakest villain types with little to no personality besides being evil). She even made creepy rhymes as if she was in some sort of horror movie, and the entire point of her character was to contribute a lot to some of the forced plot points driving Snow’s moral decline. For example, there were all her tests, which seemed contrived and all directly connected to getting Snow to think the Hunger Games was a good idea. She was seemingly supposed to be a Dr. Mengele type character, as this book has a lot of Holocaust-esqe imagery. I’m fine with irredeemably evil villains, but instead of getting the depth that a Dr. Mengele character could offer (as some may know, many children that were part of his experiments actually said he was kind and gave them candy, and I find that deeply haunting to this day.) She is a flat, one-dimensional character whose entire personality could be described with one word: sociopath. Evil people are master manipulators, which is how they get away with evil things. I think at one of the funerals she puts on a good public face, and she seems to have power, money and influence. Yet the book doesn’t show this seemingly present quality nearly enough to make her a haunting character. Instead we get nursery rhythms and clearly driven lessons towards evil at are contrived. Like “Write about what you most liked about the war” or the assignment to improve the hunger games? Like what class is this? Why are they taking it? And why are the young kids of the influential deciding this instead of the influential people themselves?

Another character I feel was just there for Snow’s development and to represent an opposite viewpoint but lacked Collin’s usual depth is Sejanus Plinth. As a District 2 citizen whose family got rich off the war and moved to the Capitol, he is the main opposing viewpoint of the book, presenting Snow with a chance to do the right thing. I’ve seen people say he’s a Peeta-like character, but I completely reject that idea. He lacks in the charm Peeta has, relishes in self-pity (although he’s completely justified in his sadness and has a right to be upset), and while he has a heart like Peeta, he ultimately doesn’t know how to use it. Instead of working within his position to get influence like Peeta so masterfully does, he’s hot-headed and continuously makes poor decisions that ultimately don’t help anyone. It’s like he wants to help but doesn’t know how as he’s driven completely by emotion without reason. He too contributes to some forced scenes, particularly my least favorite in the book; when they sneak into the arena. Overall, he just falls flat for me. Again, I feel I don’t know anything about him beyond what he contributes to Snow’s story line and he doesn’t come across as realistic. It’s like Collins just wrote how someone would normally react to the hunger games, slapped a district number on him and went on her merry way. 

I just wasn’t prepared for these sort of characters when the Hunger Games series made even the smallest of characters stand out dramatically. I feel neutral to annoyed by most characters in this novel. I could expand this portion, and maybe if people inquire I’ll elaborate on some of the other characters as I have strong opinions on them, but this post is already getting long, so I’ll move on to Lucy Grey.

Lucy Grey is by far my favorite character even though she is bordering towards being a character from a fanfiction. Not quite a Mary Sue in my opinion but there is a certain connection to fanfiction I made with her. You may have guessed some issues I had with her by reading my expectations earlier in the post, but that has not displaced my love for her. Her personality is very different from Katniss’s, or even Peeta’s or Haymitch’s. She had a different type of charm than all of them, is a natural performer, and seemed more extroverted. Also, the whole idea of the Covey and her “not really” being district was intriguing. It really highlighted the displacement that war can cause and how people can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Although I was confused on how much mobility between the districts there were….and did District Twelve have a fence or no?) It really emphasizes one of the main themes of the book, extreme prejudice against both Capitol and District. Her spot sort of in between really drives home the point that there's literally no difference except extreme poverty, and even then there was poverty in the Capitol, only better hidden. Her bright mood (and clothes), her poised attitude, and her optimism made her endearing. She was confident in her skin yet still held the fear of a sixteen year old going into the hunger games.

There were only two main things that bothered me about her, which was of course the direct connections made to Katniss (which I’ll elaborate on) and the forced “love” story between her and Snow. I suppose that has less to do with her and rather more to do with my dislike of that subplot. And I'm a sucker for some good romantic subplots, but yikes!

I think having one strong connection to Katniss was all that was really needed in this book. I really liked the idea of that connection being the Hanging Tree Song, as I can only imagine how it made Snow feel watching “The Mockingjay” sing it in the propo. Despite me not liking that fact that Lucy Grey is also an enchanting singer as that felt like directly stepping in Katniss’s territory, I did enjoy the little twist of Lucy Grey writing the song. Yet the connections between the two when the plot took us to District Twelve went too far. It felt like it took away all of Katniss’s special places and things. The lake, her katniss roots, her gift towards music, her fondness for the meadow, sneaking into the woods, etc. I think one solid connection would have solidified their bond beautifully. Having so many seemed like it was really trying to force the reader to make the connection when it was already painfully clear I guess? Plus, having Lucy stand out at her reaping ( the whole song part read like a bad, contrived fanfiction bit to me) and having people care about her in the Capitol while moral questions of the hunger games were still surfacing made me start to think...isn’t this how the rebellion for Katniss got started? At least partly. I get it’s a different time. Too close to the war. It just felt way too similar. I guess Collins was going for the idea of a lost rebellion that in a way Lucy Grey started that Katniss later revives. Yet it feels like that invalidates the specialness of what Katniss does in the original series as it’s already happened; it just got erased. I guess history repeats itself, but I really just didn’t like it. I could see the appeal to some extent, and it could be a beautiful connection, but it just wasn’t for me.

Now on to the plot, which is the last thing I’ll talk about as this post is getting ridiculously long. A lot of the plot felt very forced or contrived, which was another shocker coming from Collins because her pacing and plot was done really well in the original series. Of course, a lot of this was driven by Dr. Gaul and Sejanus Plinth as the entire plot hinged on the moral debate of the hunger games these two represent. Other plot points just hinged on what happened to establish the games. I mean the rebel bomb explosion seemingly only happened to change the terrain so Dr. Gaul can then bring up the idea of the different arena and how that made the tributes act differently, thus creating the crazy arenas we see later in the series. I do have some praise for how Collins established the disparities between the earlier hunger games and the ones we see in Katniss day. From the way they lock the tributes up, don’t feed them, the spotty coverage of the arena, etc. All of that was exceptionally well done. The only complaint I have was that so many tributes died before they even got to the arena (though not because I wanted to see them fight). I had been expecting one to escape or something to further establish that this was new territory and was waiting to see how they handled it in earlier times, but I wasn’t expecting that many to die before the arena got started. It just seemed like a huge Capitol failure that they advertised loudly. I really wasn’t expecting that level of incompetence, just an escaped tribute that threatened to embarrass or harm the fragile beginnings of post-war Panem. Instead, most of the pre-arena stuff felt disastrous. A lot of the mentors' deaths felt forced, and it was weird that the academy never really came under fire at all from all the rich and powerful parents whose children were getting killed because of the mentor experiment. Like it seemed there should have been some interaction there, but there wasn’t. Maybe some was passively mentioned but still, it could have been a whole subplot that further established the debate of the hunger games.

While the pre-arena up to the break-in to the arena felt like the most forced part of the book and certainly I felt it needed more workshopping plot wise, it also harbored some great and powerful scenes, like Arachne pulling the sandwich away from the tribute while she was starving and laughing about it. Basically, all those interactions of poverty and captivity meeting the citizens of the Capitol were done well, but nothing spectacular (unlike the scene of Katniss screaming at Buttercup at the end of Mockingjay which is heart wrenching.)

The last plot point I’ll talk about is the “love” story. I wasn’t a fan, but it was sort of what a lot of the plot hinged on and led to the great scene at the lake between Snow and Lucy Grey. How easy it was for him to betray his “love” for status. This led to some of the most interesting and evil internal monologue Snow had in the entire book. I honestly feel the ending scene, the interaction Snow had with the jabberjays and Mockingjays in District Twelve, and the lynching scenes were among the strongest and most memorable.

The love story again felt forced (sorry I’m using that word so much it’s just so accurate) into the story. This hindered the book from having a strong plot in the same way the weaker characters caused forced interactions and plot points to move things along. Yet at the same time the kind of abusive and lackluster nature of their relationship throughout the book fit perfectly with the ending. Unfortunately, it didn’t really make it very compelling for the reader. Luckily Lucy’s  personality kept my interested during these parts. I wouldn’t say their relationship was poorly written at all; in fact the way it was written makes perfect sense. I just think the plot relied too heavily on their “love”, which was gross because of the way Snow is, and the reader knew it had to inevitably end in some kind of betrayal or reveal that there was no love at all. This creates tension for the reader, but I kept wondering: if the love plot had been ditched could we have gotten a stronger plot altogether?

So overall, like I’ve said I’m really conflicted. I know I focused heavily on things I didn’t like, but honestly the book was well written in some regards, plot bouncing between really compelling and a little contrived, the two main characters being written well enough but other characters not so much. Some connections between Lucy Grey and Katniss made at the end were powerful, I loved the Covey, Collins still excelled at writing a lot of the social issues/scenes in the book, and honestly the idea of Lucy Grey being completely forgotten in the Districts that hurts my soul a little. Nothing compared to the feelings I got in any of the Hunger Games books but there’s still something there.

I really hope someone made it through this long ass post. The book was entertaining. I mean I listened to all 16 hours of the audiobook in like a day. I can’t wait until my hardcover comes so I can look through it. Maybe once I know what I’m getting into I can enjoy the book a little more than I did, because right now it’s sitting at very average for me. Maybe I went in with my expectations too high? I certainly like the Hunger Games a lot more and probably always will. Honestly, I love new content, but I’m also the type that likes firm, planned endings to stories (even though it hurts to let things end and the fandoms can suffer from lack of content). I think fans can oftentimes get caught up in what they want and pressure the writer into writing more, which ends up a disappointment since it wasn’t originally planned in the series from the beginning. While I don’t think this is by any means the case with Suzanna Collins or that Lionsgate even pressured her to write this book (I don’t like conspiracies of that sort of thing as a writer myself that plans to have a series in which a book comes out many years after the original part of the series is released), I do wonder if this is the end of the Hunger Games for good. I sure hope so, especially if she would be writing about the other victors. I love them too much and really don’t want to feel similarly about their books, and like I said at the beginning, it wouldn’t add to the series just to my guilty pleasure lol.

Hope you all have enjoyed your reading of the book more than I did :) Again sorry if I wrote anything to upset you! Please if you loved this book ENJOY IT! I’m actually kind of jealous if you did. Feels like missing out on something special.

[letteredlettered]

Hm, I think something went wrong with the message I sent you. So sorry! I'm trying again. It seems so frivolous to ask you a question but I'm in dire need of escapism after already one week of lockdown in Germany. I hope you are ok! I've only discovered your Drarry fics beginning of this month, love them! And "Another mask behind you is really lingering. I can't seem to get over it. Brilliant!

I’m sorry it took me so long to reply to you! I know lockdown is over in Germany, but I hope you made it through okay, and thank you so much for this ask.

Since the ask is very long and my answer even longer, I have placed the remaining portions of the ask and the response under this cut. The discussion is about Another Mask Behind You, which is a Harry/Draco I wrote that involves Draco being a sex worker. It also has elements of both non-con and dub-con. If any of these topics disturb you in fiction, please take heed if you check out the fic or read the reply. I do not think this ask or answer will make sense unless you have read the fic, which I can’t really say that I recommend, though there are parts of it I like.

The way you brilliantly use searing, toe-curling sex-scenes to draw me in, but because the drivers behind the intense need for both characters are not sexual, it’s never enough, NEVER ENOUGH, and I keep getting more and more frantic as the fic progresses, just like Draco. Well done :-)The way you disregard expected tropes and make the journey so much more complicated, so much more nuanced ….. well, so much more painful – it’s just incredibly rewarding. So painful, but so rewarding. (2/7)

The brilliant way you use the unreliable narrator, always delusionally speaking through his survival-shell of shame defense, his biased perception of reality in general and Potter specifically, but especially himself. And this confrontation-scene when he finally implodes into his shame – my god, do you really want to break my heart? Seriously? (3/7)

Then the way you capture the obviously intergenerationally transmitted Malfoy-steel-spine, the “holding on to the last thread of myself in impossible circumstances” - the emotions that invokes I can’t even put into words. There is so much more I want to say, but this format is too restricted. I postest a long comment on Archiveof OurOwns. I'm getting to my question :-) (4/7)

Another thing I adore about your writing is that you write powerful endings. This fic and “Away with childish things” are so, so psychologically satisfying but with quite a bit of narrative tension unresolved - so that I’m forced to spend joyful days with filling in the gaps.However, with one gap of this fic I’m really struggling and I would love to hear your take. (5/7)

I get the struggle with the betrayal and all, but as Draco so accurately puts it “So many unfamiliar expressions had he made in the last two times Draco had seen him, that Draco was no longer sure he’d ever really known him – as though in some sense, Potter had been playing a part as much as Draco had.”I don’t see any awareness develop in Harry regarding his obvious control-compulsion, the covert objectification hidden behind feelings of “love”, that made Tristan a “safe” partner. (6/7)

It will be so bitterly precarious for Harry (not so much Draco) to ever share this side of him within a power-balanced relationship, so risky and hazardous. Will he ever be able to work himself up there? It could be potentially so incredibly cathartic but I’m not so sure. Harry would need extensive aftercare, I guess. Would love to hear your head canon and thoughts? Do you have a story in your head how things would develop between these two? Thank you so much for your art! (7/7)

For those who are interested, I replied to the full comment on AO3. I’ve reproduced most of my answer below for those who are interested:

I'm glad you enjoy the unreliable narrator, and I’m very touched you like my stories.

Regarding my endings--thank you for your kind words, but I have to say most of my H/D fics do not end the way I plan. Most of them were written in a big rush to meet a fest deadline, including this one. I was not at all satisfied with the end of this fic, but I realized that to get satisfaction from it, I would either need to rewrite the fic or write a whole sequel, because the story of Harry and Draco working toward a healthy relationship is not this fic. This fic is about getting them to a point where they might even want to work on a healthy relationship, and so by the time I got finished there was just not room to write the other things I wanted and I didn’t have time to fix it because of the deadline.

I think Harry could get to the point where he would bottom for Draco. I also think he could get to the point where there is a balance of power in their relationship. I think it would take much longer for him to get to the point where he would say that the reason he was comfortable with Tristan was because he held all the power. I honestly believe that that understanding would not come intuitively for him, that he would either need therapy or many many years to get there, possibly both.

I'm guessing you saw this, as you quoted the part about his unfamiliar expressions, but part of the point is supposed to be that Harry is lying to himself just as much as Draco, just in different ways. The way Harry sees things is:  Tristan as an essentially good person with many great qualities. Tristan's snobbery and selfishness and arrogance and entitlement and pettiness seem to be his flaws, but because Harry sees Tristan as good, Harry can accept these flaws. This leads Harry to not take the flaws very seriously--he feels they are surface attributes of someone who is deep down good. He even finds these flaws charming. When Harry finds out Draco is Tristan, because Harry believes Draco is not a good person, he takes the flaws seriously. He no longer sees them as surface attributes and takes them as evidence of Draco's deep down horrible character.

I think that because Harry still wants Draco so viscerally even after everything, and because Harry can still see all the ways that Draco is Tristan despite Draco's betrayal, Harry begins to understand that this is a very simplistic view of people and the world. Just because we're on the side that is against the side of the genocidal bigots does not make us fundamentally good, and being fundamentally good does not make our flaws light and fluffy and charming. And just because we're on the side of the genocidal bigots does not mean that nothing can be good in us, that everything you found good and lovely in us was a complete lie. Eventually, Harry learns  that Draco is a whole person, neither good nor bad in essence, just really someone who has done lots of horrible things, but has the capacity to grow beyond that. And as Draco does grow beyond that, Harry begins to love him as a whole person, rather than a black and white one.

This is the story that Harry sees and thinks that he experiences as he learns to love Draco.

However, I do believe there's another story under that, and that story is possibly one that Harry never understands.This story is about power, as you mention, but it's also about the depth of Harry's delusion. The main premise that drives this under-story is why Harry was so willing to believe Tristan was, in essence, good. Why was he so willing to see Tristan's faults as charming, when some of Tristan's snootier comments actually suggest some underlying pure-blood bigotry?

The answer is that Harry wanted to believe that. He wanted a person who wasn't real, and Tristan having flaws just made Tristan feel more real, even though he wasn't. And why does Harry want a fake? Because Harry doesn't want to be real either. He doesn't want to really share himself, or give pieces of himself he doesn't want to; he doesn't want to stop being a hero or spend time that may make himself face himself and who he is. In this fic, Harry is someone who does not know how to love except to perform acts of service, which I find believable because so much of his friendships were built on saving each other and working together to save others. He does not know how to relax, which I also find believable given all the abuse and hardship. This leads to repression and difficulty seeing to his own needs, which in this fic leads to him becoming quite controlling. In this fic he wants to relax; he wants to stop and take time with himself and those he loves, but he has become so pent-up that he doesn't know how to relax without being forced to do it.

However, being forced to relax is a loss of control, and the Harry of this fic is too messed up to find a way to do it straightforwardly. Thus, for him, hiring a sex worker means he is in control of the situation on one level, but can let go of control on another level. The fact that he wants to bottom right away with Tristan but took a long time with Weatherby (his ex in this fic) is further evidence of the fact that Harry is really only okay with ceding this control because he has a different kind of control over what is happening. It's the same, actually, with Tristan demanding that Harry not work so much and spend time with him. Harry wouldn't like it if a non-sex-worker-boyfriend were asking the same thing, because he wouldn't feel that he ultimately had control of the situation.

So, again, no, I do not think Harry would admit any of this or understand it about himself without a lot of work and time.

However, I'm just not sure he has to for Draco and him to have a happy, healthy relationship.

I think the story Harry tells himself--that he saw Tristan as good, Draco as bad, and that this is ultimately too simplistic--is actually enough for Harry to begin to let go of some of this control. Harry would have to realize, with this understanding that people are not black and white, that he wanted to spoil Tristan not just because Tristan was morally good, but because he likes to spoil people. Harry would have to realize that he enjoyed Tristan being selfish and demanding not just because Tristan was morally pristine, but because Harry actually gets hot for that kind of behavior. Harry would have to realize he enjoyed Tristan topping the fuck out of him not just because Tristan was morally flawless, but because Harry just really likes to get fucked and fucked hard. With Draco, Harry wants the happiness he had with Tristan. To get it, Harry has to allow some of the behavior that happened with Tristan, without that extra veneer of control Harry once had because Tristan was a sexworker that Harry was paying.

Draco would learn from this too--that he can still be himself, that he can still be demanding, that he can still fuck Harry. And with that would come more self-acceptance for Draco and more confidence, which would actually help him grow to become more like Tristan was. And that would make Harry more accepting as well. I think eventually they could have something that approximates a lot of the love and comfort and domesticity they felt during the month Harry contracted Draco, but it would be without lies, and without control, and without attempts to manipulate each other.

I think for that, Harry would not need to know that the reason it worked for him was because he had all the power.

I do feel like Draco probably understands it very well. I could see a long time after they finally become quite comfortable with each other, them lying in bed after fucking, Draco finally saying, "You do know you were only okay with me doing that to you at first because you were paying me." And Harry would say, "No, it's because you lied to me and had a different face." And Draco would say, "Mm-hm," and trace the circle on Harry's chest, and then eventually say, "It's also because you were paying me. You wouldn't have let anyone else do those things I did." And Harry would say, "I don't think you understand how attracted I was to you." And Draco would say, "Mm-hm," and trace some more. "But it was also because you were paying me," Draco would say finally. "You knew you were in control." And then I think Harry would finally think about it, but it would be so long ago, that finally he could say something like, "Yeah. I don't know. I guess you're right." "I'm always right," Draco would say, and Harry would find this charming too.

I hope I answered this very interesting question to your satisfaction, and sorry again for the wait!

[icharchivist]

I have finished winter troupe debut episode! It was very dramatic lmao. Was enjoyable though. Winter troupe all had very interesting characters and It's nice to see a troupe that is all adults.

Since I complained about spring troupe issues being solved by not talking about it. I have to talk about how winter troupes issues were solved by literal outside forces trapping them or letting them read peoples minds.

I'm guessing they did this because unlike the teens who are more willing to be open about themselves and pester others,,,, adults are a lot less likely. (Before winter the adults were, sakyo, and itaru? cause the uni students aren't really adults yet. sakyo opens up to Izumi because he knows and trusts her. Itaru. Hasn't really opened up yet but he's getting there.) Whereas winter troupe is a group of strangers and the two who know each other literally are in the middle of massive misunderstanding/fight?/idk mutual disappointment.

(Also misumi just getting trapped in random time loops???? Holy shit is he ok???? Like he was able to figure it was tsumugi and tasuku this time but what if he doesn't know the people? I have so many questions)

Ok rant over. I have accepted that magic exists in a3 and all it wants is for people to get along and understand each other. But yeah once I crawl through the events and next act I have to rewatch spring hahaha. I definitely wasn't fair to them.

Homare oh my god. Just. Holds gently. I want to protect him. No one deserves to be called a broken cyborg :(

Gahhh all of winter troupe I just want to protect.

Also I saw fuyupoly is a thing? Because I'm excited to see the troupe develop more.

(you said you had a Google drive of the inbetween acts events :eyes: should I message you or something?)

tHEY’RE SO DRAMATIC I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.....

And yeah tbh when you talked about Spring having communication problems my first thought was “oh BOY you haven’t seen Winter yet” DLKFJDLFKJDFLKJDFLK

I. think about Winter much more than i should but yeah, pretty much it’s the fact they’re adults and strangers and just. are extremely conflict avoidant, all of them, for various reasons. Tsumugi because of his crushed confidence, Tasuku because he struggles to convey his feelings and he lost Tsumugi in the past, Hisoka because he litterally has no past and it freaks him out (Homare was spot on when he said Hisoka knew he couldn’t defend himself), Homare because he’s scared he’ll mess up again, and Azuma because he spent his life keeping people at armlength.  They’re all adult and agreeable people, and they are also all pretty understanding in some way, so they let some conflict pass by hoping it will be over soon. Some of them like Tsumugi, Azuma and Homare are also pretty analytic of people on a psychological way so they can try to navigate with what they know. 

But in the end without communication it’s not going very far, but they don’t really know how to do it when all of them are adults who have got used to it. 

so yeah, like you said it’s really that they’re adults and that unlike the youngest ones i think it’s just. they’re all used to compromise and compromise a part of themselves as well. 

but yeah the magic being the thing solving it cracks me up all the time i’m just. Like. okay. Okay cool okay. Normal. Like. Thematically wise i think it’s because Winter is a season that’s so cold and sad but there’s a bit of magic in it (like the magic of christmas) and i think that’s what it is meant to echo but that’s. so out of the blue DLKFJDKLFJDLKFJLDF that said once that just accepted i really love the way the three magical events reflects the characters (Tasuku and Tsumugi needed to reconnect and find back the comfort they had with one another and plushies are considered comfort items that helps transition into a safer place, it’s also linked to childhood and those two are childhood friends. Homare and the loupe are pretty straight forward, he needed to see closer, deeper. Azuma and Hisoka both were locked into a room, isolated, just like their past (or in Hisoka’s case what his flashbacks implies) make them feel isolated, having experienced loss).). I am FASCINATED with Winter. i just. akjhfkdhfkdjfmldjfmd?? sljhfjldk.

but aah i’m glad you enjoyed the ride so much i’m so happy!!

and god yeah please someone check on Misumi i worry for him wtf

and Homare’s arc yeah!! yeah!!! his arc is one of my fav arc i just. really love how it all plays out. It’s really rare to see a story goes “here’s a character with low empathy: and he’s the most loving and kind character you can imagine”. The way he struggles from it, how sad it makes him, this way to see himself, everything makes me want to cry for hours. I want to hold him so bad.

Fuyupoly is definitly a thing yeah. Fuyupoly my beloved. I adore Fuyupoly so much 😭 but Winter is honestly a slow burn, especially in comparaison to the rest of the teams. 

I actually didn’t think much of them at first read (Azuma and Hisoka were already my favs though, i’m so soft for them)(also i say that but i know i found back screenshot of me crying about fuyu on first read so i did feel a lot but it didn’t hit me until late, how much i actually cared), and now i legit can’t stop thinking about all of them. I don’t know how much it says about their slowburn or what it says about me but; Winter.

ANYWAY congratz on finishing the main story of act 1 :3c and yeah, i’d prefer if i could share it in private (bc it’s, a lot of content and if i provide it in public this is clearly piracy and DLKFJDF i know a3 tends to take down some of this content and i’m trying to be stealthy).

Though if you don’t want to come off anon, you can tell me in another anon’s ask, i’ll link you my drive, then you’ll need to send me an ask to tell me you got it so i can delete the post, if you prefer?

anyway the drive is up and ready anytime. i just didn’t update some of the latest act 2′s events but act 1 is filled and that’s the priority. so you know also this drive includes 1) Story events, 2) the songs linked to each plays (which tells the story of the plays, def recommand it), 3) All the backstages from limited time cards i could get. Backstages linked to specific events are inside their specific event files, else the cards which didn’t come in an event are in the “Scouting file”.  What’s important to read plotwise is the Event stories. The backstages are very good and i def recommand it but it may be overwhelming so you can skip them and come back later for them DLKJFLDKFJFD it’s really just the main plot of each event that you should watch.

(also i should mention only the first two events are fully voiced, the rest are just with some voicelines here and there, but i still recommand watching it bc of the mood with the music and the sprites and all)

so yeah ready to send it anytime you want  !! :3c

[panharmonium]

Hey, do you ship merthur? I have conflicted feelings about it because Merlin does love Arthur but also their relationship is kinda shitty.

short answer: i do not

longer answer: i might not be the right person to ask about this, because i don’t really “ship” anything?  it’s not how i engage with fandom.  (disclaimer: this is not a value judgment of folks who do engage with fandom that way.  just an explanation of how my own brain works.)

extra long answer: under the cut, because i suppose it was only a matter of time before someone asked me about merlin/arthur, and i might as well put my entire response in one place so that next time, i can just link to it.

questions like this are a little tough for me to answer, because i am completely uninterested in romance as a premise.  if it’s not there, i don’t care.  if it is there, i often wish it weren’t, because it’s almost never developed in a way that lives up to my standards.  i don’t always mind if something contains romantic relationships (provided they’re written well), but i don’t want them to be the point of a story.  i honestly cannot think of anything less interesting to me than a story that has as its main plotline “x character falls in love with y character.”  for me, in my brain, it’s like, “okay...that’s it?  do you have anything else to say?”  there is literally nothing about that that i care about.

this can be a little difficult to navigate in fandom, because one of the oft-heard commendations of “fandom” is ‘gosh, fandom is so wonderful, we can watch the same two characters fall in love again and again and again in a million different scenarios!’  which is true, for the people who care about that sort of thing, but that’s not actually ‘fandom.’  that’s shipping.  and there’s nothing wrong with shipping, but shipping and fandom are not the same thing, and they’ve become so conflated that it can be very difficult to engage in the latter without being absolutely swamped by the former.

many times, for me, fandom can feel synonymous with shipping.  there was a post i reblogged recently whose tags described shipping as often feeling like a prerequisite to engaging with fandom, and that is often what it feels like to me, particularly in fandoms where one ship is so ubiquitous that any and all other material is utterly dwarfed by it in scale.  (for me, my last two major fandoms have been merlin and teen wolf, so - i’m sure you see my dilemma, heh.)

all of that said, in terms of arthur and merlin specifically...

disclaimer: everything i say here is relevant to me only.  these are my own feelings.  i am making this post on my own blog, in my own space, in response to a question about my own thoughts.  i do not want, expect, or need anyone else to share these thoughts.  any commentary i make about fandom trends is not equivalent to condemnations of individual people’s opinions or shipping habits.  i do not mind or take issue with folks who ship these two characters.  i am glad you are having fun.  please do not @ me about something you disagree with.  i promise you it is not necessary.

okay.  with that out of the way.  

part of me is reluctant to expound further on this question, because my personal philosophy is that merlin and arthur as a ship have had more than enough time and space devoted to them in this fandom (way more than their share, frankly) and i generally prefer to focus on merlin and the other people in his life, as a deliberate counter to that.  but, since you asked, and because i have been experiencing the “i’m tired of romance” bug more strongly lately, here is the long-form version.

the number one reason why i don’t ship arthur and merlin is what i already outlined above: i don’t really “ship” anything.  i have never looked at two characters who were not already together/on an obvious potential path to being together and said “i want them to fall in love.”  that has just never happened to me.  (again - it’s not a BAD thing to have this happen, it’s just not something that’s ever happened to me.  i can’t relate to the experience.)

therefore, when i do appreciate a romantic relationship, it’s pretty much always because canon has shown me something romantic (or clearly pre-romantic) that i find to be well-written and compelling.  (it’s rare - as i outlined before, i would usually rather not deal with romance at all - but it happens.)  

arthur and merlin, then, never had that effect on me, because arthur and merlin, as depicted in the canon, are not in love.

[to anybody reading this who just snatched up their keyboard and started furiously typing, i beg you - please go back and re-read my disclaimer.]

they’re not in love.  the truth about these two is that if i had watched this show without having grown up in fandom as a culture (and without knowing exactly what kind of ships fandom immediately sees EVERYWHERE) the idea of anybody shipping these two together would never have even entered my mind.

(and like.  because i DID grow up in fandom, and i DO know exactly what kind of ships fandom sees everywhere, i knew before i even started this show that arthur/merlin was going to be an inescapable thing.  but that would not have been the case, if i had watched the series in a world where i didn’t know what fandom was.)

arthur and merlin, in canon, are not in love.  the show never does anything to give me an inkling that either of them are harboring romantic feelings for each other.  that is never what is happening onscreen.  literally the last thing on merlin’s agenda is romantic attachment, ever, and arthur is never, ever shown to be in love with anyone who isn’t gwen.  the show, onscreen, never tricks me, teases me, or leads me on.  i was never under the impression that merlin and arthur were in love with each other, because they weren’t.

but that DOES NOT MEAN their relationship matters less.  just because they aren’t IN love with each other doesn’t mean they don’t love each other, and one of those things is not bigger or better or more powerful than the other.

i struggle a lot in fandom (all fandom, not just merlin) with the persistent idea that romantic attachment is the peak, the natural endpoint on a scale of “how deep is your love?”  i am constantly running up against posts where the commonly accepted structure is to cite a moment of devotion or caring or some instance of basic connection between two characters, and then add a caption or tag saying ‘because they are JUST FRIENDS, right?’ or ‘^^totally platonic interaction between characters who are not at all in love, sure jan.’  

and honestly?  i hate that.  that is one of my least favorite things about fandom.  it makes me so tired.  

i am completely disconnected from this idea that there are like...things you can do that are too caring to count as friendship.  like - that there is too much devotion you can show, and if you go over the limit, then it’s laughable that you would do those things for “just” a friend.  that’s so unpleasant to me.

(and i do think [when it comes to non-canon queer ships, anyway - straight ships unfortunately have no excuse, sorry y’all] that part of this probably has its roots in pushback at the tendency of people who try to “gal pal” actual queer ships (or literal real life relationships), so this, at least, is something i can understand.  i’m queer myself; i get that.  and that is why i will never like - attach myself to someone’s post and start complaining.  people can vent however they want.)

it doesn’t change my own feelings, though.  i hate seeing every meaningful friendship i’ve ever been invested in talked about like it’s just a romance in disguise.

other things: i am uninterested in romance as a motivator.  

truly, from the bottom of my heart, i don’t care.

we are, at least in my corner of the world, oversaturated with romance, to the point where any piece of media that doesn’t include it in some fashion is shockingly bizarre.  it is EVERYWHERE.  it is in EVERYTHING.  i cannot pick up a book without running into a romantic plotline.  i cannot watch a movie or a tv show without being forced into multiple romances that i don’t care about.  (rare exceptions apply, as always, but i’m speaking generally.)

this oversaturation, for me, means that romance as a storyline no longer holds any meaning for me.  i see it EVERYWHERE.  it is in literally EVERYTHING.  making merlin into a “love story,” for me, makes the show so much less interesting, because there are billions of love stories out there.  love stories are practically the only kind of story our media remembers how to tell!  why would i take a story that is so unique in its exploration of deep friendship (that isn’t even quite friendship, because it’s not real, but merlin wants it to be real, but making it real would also destroy it) and loyalty (that isn’t necessarily deserved, but is still offered, but is damaging to the person offering it) and love (that exists in spite of arthur’s position as the oppressor, but still cannot erase merlin’s oppression, and is patently not a magical fix for the very real problems merlin is facing), and then want to water it down to “and then they fell in love”???

merlin bbc has so much to say about the transformative, redemptive power of love (not just romance), and the bonds we form with each other despite the fact that we don’t always deserve each other, and what we can do to make ourselves better, and how do we make amends for the ways in which we hurt the people we care about, and it is so complicated and there is so much beauty there and i adore it specifically because it is one of the rare pieces of media out there that doesn’t prop up romantic love as the most important and powerful force in the universe.  romantic love is not what moves the story.  merlin’s love for the people around him is based on compassion.  it’s bigger than the familiar and overused ‘i am desperately in love with this one individual person and that’s what drives my actions,” which is a premise all of us know has been done to death.  merlin’s love is not about romantic attachment.  it’s a deep, abiding love for humanity.  it’s based on hope, and faith, and the inherent belief that everybody matters, even in their worst moments.

condensing that kind of story into “and then they fell in love” erases its meaning for me.  it makes it trite.  uninteresting.  i have seen “and then they fell in love” fully sixty thousand times.  “and then they fell in love” has been done so often that it is utterly devoid of power for me.  boring.   i literally do not care.

other people might feel differently, and find a romantic love story compelling.  i don’t.  

i’m guessing the message that prompted this essay is asking me to evaluate how i feel about the “goodness” of the merlin/arthur ship, aka whether it’s worthwhile to ship it or not based on how healthy/unhealthy it is, which i definitely can’t answer, because i don’t think whether it’s “good” or not really matters.  i am definitely too old to be riding the newer wave of, uh...idk, purity culture type stuff that is so oft-debated on here, lately.

but you’re absolutely right, anon - merlin and arthur’s relationship IS kinda shitty!  it 100% is.  it doesn’t mean you can’t ship them, though, if you want; otherwise i wouldn’t be invested in any aspect of their friendship, either.  

the fact that merlin and arthur’s relationship is kinda shitty is an essential element of the show; it’s the microcosmic representation of the macrocosmic problem merlin is trying to solve, and even with that being the case, we can see clearly that this also doesn’t preclude them from having real moments of connection and care and love.  this is the contradiction i have to keep in mind whenever i engage with them in the friendship sense - merlin has been wronged by arthur in so many ways, and yet he still loves him and believes arthur can do better, and yet his dedication to arthur really does destroy his life piece by piece, and you really have to walk a line between those extremes and be thinking: in what ways was this a noble, honorable path for merlin to take and in what ways was this damaging, and was it all worth it in the end?

we probably wouldn’t still be watching this show if we didn’t ultimately think the answer to that last question was yes.  but there are also equally valid ways in which the answer is, truthfully, no, and i think really the only important thing when dealing with merlin and arthur’s relationship (in whatever capacity you prefer) is to keep that dissonance in mind.

so, to more directly address your question, when it comes to my interaction with the source material, i don’t ship merlin and arthur romantically because i don’t see romance when they interact in canon, and i don’t think their relationship could be improved or made more interesting/more meaningful by adding extra-canonical romance into the mix.  that’s really it.

but the other side of things is this: even if i were granted someone else’s ship-goggles to somehow see romance between these two (eg, once, in the distant past i read a harry potter fic that was so well-constructed it sold me on a relationship i didn’t [and still don’t] actually see in canon), i still wouldn’t choose to ship merlin and arthur, and it’s not because they’re a “bad” ship (no such thing, folks - tag your stuff and let people live their lives, thank you), it’s because this fandom has already been swallowed by them and i cannot bring myself to make that imbalance worse.

trying to be in the merlin fandom without shipping merlin and arthur is just...a little bit difficult sometimes.  i think probably even people who do ship merlin/arthur are aware of that.  sometimes it can feel like merlin/arthur is a given in this fandom, not one of many options - as if you’re not in the merlin fandom, but rather the merthur fandom, and you know you really, really do not belong there.

and it’s not even a canonical ship!  it’s not even real.  and yet if you like this show, and you want to engage in the fandom, your experience is, without exception, going to be chock full of merlin/arthur content by default.

essentially, my struggle with the merlin/arthur dynamic in fandom is two-fold:

1) the strikingly imbalanced content distribution

the merlin fandom, in terms of content distribution, is a pretty accurate mirror of merlin’s own existence, to be honest, in that pretty much every aspect of it is eventually taken over by arthur pendragon, and in that there’s a reasonable debate to be had about whether or not that’s a good thing.

(spoiler alert: it’s not.)

even so, it is what it is, and as i said before, me commenting on fandom trends is not meant as a condemnation of individual preferences.  people like what they like!  that’s just how things are.  shipping arthur and merlin isn’t a Bad thing to do, by any means, and the fact that so many people do is just, you know, bad luck for me, lol.  but at the same time, the wildly unbalanced distribution of content does make it more difficult for folks who don’t ship merlin/arthur to engage in fandom with quite the same level of ease, and even though it’s nobody’s fault, it is still perfectly reasonable for people who don’t ship merlin/arthur to be frustrated about that.

fanfic is a pretty good case study for how this plays out.  i saw a post a while back that was titled something like ‘merlin bbc gothic,’ and the first bullet point was “canon ships are rarepairs,” and HOO BOY, that is true.  stats-wise, merlin/arthur makes up ⅔ of the merlin fic on AO3.  ~25,000 fics.  the next most popular tag after merlin/arthur is arthur/gwen, but arthur/gwen have ~2,900 fics in their tag.  and when you remember to exclude any instance of merlin/arthur from the arthur/gwen tag, that number drops by another thousand, to ~1,940.

that’s buckwild.  come on.  merlin/arthur has twenty-three THOUSAND more fics than the next most popular (and CANONICAL, i might add) ship?  and every other ship’s numbers are even lower than that?*

and if you don’t want to read shippy stuff in the first place, like me - the merlin “gen” tag has less than 8000 fics in it, by comparison, and then you STILL have to filter merlin/arthur out of the gen fics, leaving you with about 6300 - which number has to be filtered down further to remove OTHER ships that still make it past the gen filter.

in comparison to 25,000.

like.  i’ve been in fandom long enough that i’m not surprised - mean, i came into merlin directly off a teen wolf phase, and boy, that’s a whole other bowl of noodles right there, with added squick factors that are irrelevant here - but i’m still just...man. 

it still makes my head spin.  and it is still frustrating, every time.

*(there is a lot more to be said about how gwen fits into all of this, and i know it has been discussed more thoroughly in other places, but yes, another reason i am leery of arthur/merlin as a thing is that i’m just...not super comfortable with what that implies for gwen and her position in the story.  even if i personally am slightly more compelled by gwen/lancelot, technically - i still don’t quite feel comfortable taking gwen out of her canonical place.  she belongs at the top.  she deserves to be the love interest and she deserves to be the queen.  and like - people can say that her relationship with arthur isn’t “developed” or “convincing” enough to warrant retaining in fic, and i get it, the show really did fail gwen in S5 - but i still don’t buy that argument.  people literally INVENTED a romantic relationship for themselves and put 25,000 fics worth of effort into building it up; there is no reason why an “underdeveloped” canon romance couldn’t have gotten the same treatment.  except, of course, for the fact that one [Black, female] character was being shoved aside to make way for yet another two white dudes.)

(and i’m not saying that everyone is doing this deliberately or maliciously.  but we all know this is a cross-fandom trend.  there is literally no reason for the gap in content to be THAT wide.  a canon relationship with twenty-three thousand fewer fics than an invented ship?  just...that is a stat that bears thinking about.  it doesn’t mean that merlin/arthur is a “bad” ship, or that you can’t prefer lancelot/gwen, but it IS still important to recognize these patterns where they occur, across fandoms, and to really think about what they mean.)

2) the arthur-goggles

my second struggle with merlin/arthur in fandom is the ubiquitousness of the arthur-goggles, aka: the tendency in fandom, as in canon, to make everything in merlin’s life about arthur, and everything in the show about merthur.

this one specifically really gets to me.  i am very committed to the idea that merlin is a complete individual, whether arthur is there or not.  i write a LOT of meta about merlin being a whole person, specifically pushing back on the idea that merlin was “born” for arthur’s benefit - my motto is basically that “merlin’s life does not revolve around arthur pendragon,” and the way his life begins to revolve around arthur pendragon in later seasons is not in fact touching or romantic or beautiful; it’s a tragedy.  merlin does not exist only in the context of his relationship with arthur; he possesses worth outside of his mission to save the prince of camelot, and he was already a complete person before he ever met the prince of camelot, and one of the many issues we have to think about when dealing with arthur and merlin in any capacity is how merlin is told from the get-go that he is supposed to devote his whole life to arthur, but arthur is never given any such reciprocal responsibility.  

merlin and arthur’s relationship, just like the distribution of content in this fandom, is wildly imbalanced.  merlin spends all of his spare time thinking about arthur’s life; he ties himself in knots trying to help arthur develop as a person.  he is constantly working to keep arthur safe and happy.  but arthur, at the end of a long day, doesn’t spend his nights agonizing over how he can improve merlin’s life.  he just goes home and goes to bed.  he never once thinks, ‘my purpose on this earth is to serve and support my friend merlin.’  he is never told his life isn’t his own, that he is supposed to be one half of some two-sided coin.  only merlin is told that his entire existence is earmarked for someone else, that his life’s purpose is to be someone else’s better half.  only merlin is expected to devote his entire being to someone else’s betterment.  only merlin is expected to say demeaning, self-abnegating things like “i was born to serve you.”  

arthur, by contrast, is allowed to have a life of his own.  he is allowed to exist on his own terms.  he is never told that his worth is dependent on how well he can prop someone else up.  and while fic might like to imagine merlin being the most important thing in arthur’s life, in canon that is just not the case.  

merlin exists on his own merits, and the idea that he does everything he does just because “he’s in love with arthur” will never sit right with me, because it’s simply not true.  merlin and arthur’s relationship is important to both of them, yes, and of course it is undergirded by deep love and care, but it is also way more complicated than that.  merlin’s investment in arthur’s life - and his grief at arthur’s death - are NOT solely driven by his love for arthur as an individual; they are inextricably bound up with a sense of obligation and duty and self-worth and, eventually, failure, because he’s been told that protecting arthur is a) the only thing that matters about his own life and b) the only way to free his people and save an entire kingdom.  and i think ignoring this very real complexity in favor of “merlin does what he does and feels what he feels because he’s in love with arthur” cheapens the depth of the story and flattens merlin’s character.

arthur-goggles automatically make everything about merlin/arthur, though.  so the difficulty, for me, with merlin/arthur as a ship, is that it can be hard to make/find things about merlin that people don’t instantly, always try to link back to arthur in some way.  merlin is not allowed to have things that are just his, and he can’t exist in a state where arthur doesn’t somehow factor in - no matter how unrelated to arthur something is, or how non-shippy it’s meant to be - there’s someone out there who’s going to loop it back to merthur in some way.

just like - scattered examples of things I’ve encountered:

all of merlin’s non-arthur love interests on AO3 having massive chunks of their ship tags actually being merthur fics, with the non-arthur ship serving solely as a stepping stone on the way to getting merlin and arthur together

readers, on fics that are specifically designated as focusing on merlin+someone else and in which arthur does not appear, leaving comments asking “so how long until arthur shows up,” “can’t wait to see arthur,” etc

meta about how ‘merlin’s time in camelot was actually really bad for him as a person’ being reblogged and modified by someone else with an addition like “but merlin doesn’t regret a second of it because he wouldn’t have known arthur if he were anywhere else,” and the OP having to reblog their own post and explain that this is literally the exact problem they were trying to critique

in fic, merlin’s friends being utilized only as vessels with whom he can have discussions about his developing relationship with arthur

etc etc

it’s not always huge egregious things, but wearing arthur-goggles means EVERYTHING comes back to merthur in some way, which for me is just...really insulting to other characters, and really limiting in terms of story analysis.  

so, for example - this is a VERY specific example that few will relate to, because i am probably the only person on here who has ever tried to search the tag for merlin’s friend will from ealdor (a niche fave of mine) - but with him, especially, it is very hard to avoid bumping into a lot of people wearing arthur-goggles, because everybody seems to imagine him as merlin’s ex, who is only upset about what’s going on in 1.10 because he’s jealous about arthur appearing alongside merlin, never mind that will and merlin have known each other since birth and have a relationship that LITERALLY predates arthur by two decades.

so with him, as an example - the other day, i saw some post in the tag that was like “will gets teary when arthur makes his inspirational speech in ealdor because he finally understands what merlin sees in arthur and he can’t be mad anymore”

and that is just patently untrue.  it is not even remotely close to a legitimate interpretation of what is happening in that scene.  will hasn’t come around to arthur’s way of thinking yet; he literally still packs his things and leaves after this happens, and he is - i mean, first of all, he’s not crying, lol, and he stalks out of that scene weary, angry, and fed up, because he thinks the village is delusional and all of his neighbors are going to get killed in the morning.  his arc - his dissatisfaction with what is going on, his anger at the ignorance arthur wields as a nobleman with all of that wealth and privilege, his resistance to the big “let’s fight kanen’s men with sticks” plan - that is about him and his history and who he is.  it is not about an (imaginary) merlin/arthur love story.  

but when the arthur-goggles are on, all roads lead to merthur.  even when the other characters in question (*coughWILLIAMcough*) would be beyond mortified to have merthur, of all things, assigned as their motivation.

SO.  now that i’ve gone over both the canon and fandom aspects of my reasoning, the succinct summary in response to your question is just that no, i don’t personally ship merlin/arthur.  because:

a) i don’t see it b) the fandom is already trying to drown me with it and i choose to center other characters out of spite c) i just think merlin deserves better lol

however, as i said in my disclaimer - that doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t ship and enjoy it!   merlin/arthur is very much not my cup of tea, but that’s no reason why other folks can’t have fun with it.  i think the best portrayals of it, probably, will be those that keep in mind exactly what you said - that merlin and arthur’s relationship is “kinda shitty” - but this is fandom, so if what folks really want to write is just lots of happy AU’s with no issues, then they should go for it!  the point of fandom is to have fun connecting with people over a shared love of something, so i am happy to let others have fun doing their thing, and i will just be over here doing mine. 🙂

[ghostgirlvii]

Ok first time doing this, but I need to take all of this out my system. I never did such thing before, but I really want to make some sort of review.

So, I was excited to know that we would have more Pacific Rim content after Uprising and I was really looking forward to it. I did not do much research about anything because I love to keep everything a surprise and of course when Netflix dropped the trailer, I didn’t watch it. Today I binged watch the first season of Pacific Rim The Black with only 7 episodes. It was… interesting. I’m kind of glad I didn’t hype myself too much for it. Don’t get me wrong it was good, but not exactly the best. The only + points I would give now are the animation/design and story. Music vibe with the Pacific Rim universe but not that much. Uprising did a better job at catching the ‘main theme’ vibe. This series have good soundtrack but doesn’t have the catchy theme that make you feel like every thing you do is in a jaeger and you can fight anything. Also, the story take place in Australia. The first movie was a bit a let down with actor not having a real Australian accent, but hey the Hansen are still my favorite! The Black has only 2 (two) characters with Australian accent and it’s two bad guys. Not even the main characters. I’m very disappointed by it.

I guess that was the less spoilers-y part of all that’s coming, so heads up spoilers coming next. I don’t want to describe each episode fully, mostly just talking about general stuff and spoilers come from moment that made me went ‘WTF’, so I won’t spoil everything but probably some major moments.

First episode opens with a jaeger that looks very much like Striker Eureka, which turn out to be Striker Berserker (because we all know what happened to the beautiful piece of metal was Eureka!) Thing happened and the PPDC initiates something big (later reveal to be some sort of protocol that everyone call The Black) We also get introduced to our main character, Taylor and Hayley. Isn’t very clear at the beginning when this take place, however a few episodes later it said that it takes place years after the Uprising war. For now, it is safe to assume 5 years has the story is 5 years after the event of the blackout. Kaiju seems very easy to kill also, then again some are only Cat. 3 so maybe? Even then, I’m not super comfortable with this when we saw how all other pilots always struggled to kill their kaiju. Breaches also seems to appear on land now!

After some events, episode two force Taylor and Hayley to wander off the safe place their parents told them to stay 5 years ago while they went looking for help with their jaeger (Yup Mom and Dad are pilots!) Taylor and Hayley end up in a weird city with dog like kaiju after them and found out an old PPDC lab/place. They found a boy (named ‘Boy’ all season long) in an experiment lab. Oh no is the PPDC the bad guys now?! Well, answer later. We also see a kaiju/jaeger hybrid kind of fully transformed/evolve. That is just so weird at first.

Remark on episode three are small, mostly the usual people selling kaiju part or jaeger part and that feels very normal, honestly that just normal stuff. Also imply some worshippers which is then again nothing new. What’s knew is interrogating someone via drift and store everything on ‘mermory drive’ ? Cool, I guess? I don’t know, drifting always feels more ‘intimate’ it’s weird to force yourself in someone mind to find the intel you want...

Episode four is the moment where I had to check back on info about Uprising, I only saw the movie once, so I had a lot of piece and bit missing. But at this point it sort of made sense that the world would be infested of kaiju because at the end of movie Newt says the Precursors will keep attacking over and over again. So okay at this point I made peace with the idea of the world, no excuse me, Australia being invaded by so many kaiju and left in a post-apocalyse place. Also, I forgot to mention that there’s one kaiju named Cooperhead who sort of is the main kaiju who always find Taylor, Hayley and their jaeger. Which come to the point that is seems like kaiju can hear from VERY far away. Maybe this was always a thing, but it never felt like it would be like 100 kilometers like the series make it feels like.

Fifth episode is by far my favorite for one reason only…. Herc Hansen baby! Yup he made a cameo, voiceless, struggling to fight a kaiju and very old. We learn this because Taylor need to learn solo drifting via ghost drifting (using the memory drive we talked earlier, how did they get his last memory??). Turn out he is the one, under the order of I don’t remember who of the PPDC to initiate the blackout protocol and it has to be in a dramatic way. He fought solo a kaiju while making sure he could succeed his mission. Oh they also included Raleigh and Stacker when they were looking for candidate. The one who survived, although technically Herc died? If this is really canon, yup no original pilots are alive anymore. We learn that trying to drift too much with failure can cause lose of memory and ghost drifting side effect is you gain memory of the pilot you drifted with. Yay, joy! Or not. Because this mean they can, with the help the ‘memory drive’ , change the memories of someone to the point they don’t remember who they are (guess what it happen to one of the side character!)

Episode 6 gave me a headache! It is the episode with the most inconsistency. Uprising was better. I mean this episode had inconsistency coming from both movies, hard to beat. But first may I point a breach open in the middle of ground and no kaiju come up? Ok… At some point, Taylor and Hayley found a cave with jaeger and kaiju remains. Oh, that looks interesting. Wrong. The graveyard it somewhere in Australia, on land, right? Well, here’s the three kaiju found; Leatherback, Slattern and Mutavore.

Mutavore was indeed killed on Australian ground by Striker Eureka, but that was in Sydney and this cave seems very far from any city. Leatherback attacked Hong Kong! How did he ended up always the way there? Slattern was killed near/in the breach by Gipsy Danger. Once again, how it finds the way in the cave?!

Unless we are talking about the ‘cloning’ theory of Newt and there are kaiju with the same DNA has those three but then maybe precise it?

Then our jaegers; Titan Redeemer, November Ajax and Omega Valor.

Omega Valor was damaged during the attack of the Moyulan Shatterdome, then the remaining part used to fix Bracer Phoenix. All of this also took place near Japan, very close to inland Australia. I suppose we could assume Bracer Phoenix had a fight in Australia at some point and when the AI scanned the part, she tought it was Omega Valor.

But then come Titan Redeemer. Taylor has now Herc’s memory because of ghost drifting and he is sure that he knew the pilot of Titan Redeemer and helped/took down Yamarachi. Wrong. Yamarashi was taken town by Gispy Danger aka the Beckett brother with another unknown jaeger. Herc was no part of this fight.

Also remember Boy and the kaiju/Jaeger? Well Boy and him sort of drifted and we learned that the K-J is actually a surviving drone from the uprising war who fully merged to become a actual biomecha. He also eats kaiju. But at this point, Boy feels very not normal for the kind of universe Pacific Rim is. Too ‘magical’ and ‘OP’.

And the final episode, where everything resolves, in away. The kaiju who have been following Taylor and Hayley since the beginning is finally defeated, they found clues about their parents whereabout and Boy turns into a kaiju that looks like a gremlin. Yay everyone happy. Hmmm hold on. Human found in PPDC lab who turn into a kaiju? Could it be that the Precursors found a way to introduce kaiju that look human in our world? That’s what implied at the end. The worshipper called ‘The Sisters’ are revealed too and they seems to have plan… for season 2!

 That’s it! Overall, it left very unfazed. I did not hook me up as much as I hope. A lot of elements feel too magical/fantasy for the world of Pacific Rim (that’s my opinion) and errors in episode 6 really threw me off. I know that there was already some inconsistency between some infos in the first movie and the (not canon) novelization. But there were small. Also, that whole thing of be able to change people memory, I didn’t knew I was in Total Recall. The characters are nice, the story is okay, just some classic tropes, but some stuff just don’t seems to fit. And then again, would it have been hard to find actor with Australian accent? Not everyone but at least for Taylor and Hayley and not just the big bad guy and his assistant, sort of not sure who he was but definitely not the big boss’s right arm. In the end, I would give this series a 6/10. It wasn’t bad but wasn’t not as good as it could have been. I’ll watch season 2, because of the story, I’m curious of those worshippers and their business.

[hyena-frog]

Hey I’m sure you’ve been asked before but what’s your opinion on the audiobooks of Red Rising? Personally I think Tim Gerard Reynolds’ narration as Darrow is what elevated the series to being my absolute favorite. As for the other narrators in IG and DA, Ephrim’s narrator really grew on me and I’m so sad Ephrim is gone. I’m glad Lyria got recast in Dark Age. I skip her chapters when I re-listen to IG. I think Lysander’s first narrator was much better. His new voice sounds 40 but he’s only 20

Sorry it took me so long to answer this! Fun fact, but you actually sent this around the same time I decided to re-read Iron Gold (via the audiobook) to help flesh out a theory post I’m drafting. So I didn’t want to answer until I’d gotten a taste of each narrator. That’s some A+ psychic premonition on your part.

Unfortunately, I’ve yet to finish the IG audiobook because of Real Life but I’ve at least heard all of the narrators, so even if I’m still not very far in, I’ll give my opinions on them.

So, confession time, Dark Age is the first Red Rising audiobook I have ever listened to, even though I've heard good things about the RR audiobooks in general. Audiobooks aren’t really my thing. But I was taking too long to read that monster of a book, so I figured listening and reading at the same time would help me finish it faster. And boy, did it!

Now, Iron Gold is the second audiobook I’m listening to... I’m going about this all backwards, it seems. So, I’m going to give my opinions on the narrators in the order I experienced them.

Dark Age —

Tim Gerard Reynolds:

The GOAT. I’ve only heard good things about his narration, including from Pierce Brown himself at both signings I’ve been to. Now that I’ve experienced it for myself, I have to agree! I’m definitely going to need to listen to the original trilogy audiobooks at some point to get more of this guy.

He made you feel every ounce of exhaustion Dark Age Darrow felt, especially in Part I, and during the finale. His rare moments of levity (Sevro’s Palace) were delivered impeccably. His character voices were enjoyable; his Rhonna was great and his Atalantia gave me the creeps. Any moment Darrow thought of Virginia made me feel the full gamut of emotions. Anytime he summoned his righteous anger and went into Reaper mode, Reynolds sucked you in with the drama of it all.

Darrow’s always been my favorite but hearing Reynold’s interpretation of Darrow’s inner narrative really elevated why he’s a fantastic character. This guy is great.

John Curless:

Honestly? If Reynolds weren’t in the picture, he’d be my #1. Calling him my second favorite narrator doesn’t do him justice. His Ephraim injected much needed comedy into this narrative. Curless balanced Ephraim’s other nuances very well too. His deep psychological issues, his continued grief over Trigg, his budding love for the kids. It was beautifully executed.

One chapter that still haunts me is when Pax forces him off the Z cold turkey. Curless nailed Ephraim going into withdrawal. He was frightening and it was great. I also loved his reunion with Volga, even if his Volga voice was jarring to me after hearing Moira Quirk’s interpretation for most of the book. On that note, his generic Obsidian accent (Scandinavian-ish) never became too annoying and he differentiated the main players pretty well (namely Ozgard and Sefi). I really liked his Sefi voice. Quiet and whispery, very Sefi.

Don’t talk to me about Ephraim’s fate, I’m still in pain. 😭 I actually liked IG Ephraim a lot, not as a person but I thought his story was interesting. But his DA development was incredible. He really grew on me, and the fact he won’t be back, meaning Curless’ amazing narration won’t be back, is devastating.

James Langdon:

I didn’t mind his Lysander too much. I mean, I hate Lysander, but I thought he did a decent job portraying him. Maybe it’s just because he was my first Lysander voice. Although, I do agree he sounds too old for the role, but then again, Reynolds sounds too old for Red Rising Darrow (16) so? -shrug-

My main complaint with this guy is that sometimes, during the height of the action, he sounds as detached as a BBC newscaster. Which is fine, when Lysander uses the Mind’s Eye, but even when he’s full on panicking, this guy sounds so levelheaded.

His character voices are... ok. The growly voice he puts on for Ajax, and little bit for Cicero, is a bit weird. His Atalantia is sensual and creepy af and I loved his Atlas voice. One chapter that stands out to me is Kalindora’s confession toward the end. Langdon blew me out of the water with that one. Kalindora was never my favorite, but he made me really feel for her in that scene.

Moira Quirk:

I love her. I think she’s great. She has a very strong voice that pulls you along the story with ease. I think Lyria has the best DA story line and Quirk’s narration only made it better. She embodied Lyria’s temperament wonderfully; the anger, the kindness, and the stubborn resolve to keep living after initially giving up.

I keep harping on about character voices but they’re important, alright? Quirk’s character voices are some of the best. Her Victra is high and mighty and I felt Lyria’s annoyance along with her. But she also did Victra’s vulnerable moments wonderfully. I LOVE Quirk’s Volga. She’s so cute! Her accent reminds me of Sypha Belnades from the Netflix Castlevania series, which is not at all correct regionally, but it’s so adorable that it is officially The Volga Voice in my mind.

Not much else to say on this one, except, I hope the next book keeps this Lyria or I will be so sad.

Rendah Heywood:

Hail Sovereign! Another amazing narrator. At first I wasn’t sure what to think because I didn’t have any headcanon for what Virginia’s voice sounds like, but Heywood’s narration quickly convinced me this is The Virginia Voice. Very classy, very calm, could kill you but chooses not to, so don’t push her, understood?

She really gets across Virgnia’s main frustration of being smarter than everyone and being right like 99.9% of the time but rarely being listened to, VERY well, without making her seem unnecessarily whiny or something. It’s just a fact that she’s smarter than everyone else and the worlds would be better place if you took her advice.

Virgnia’s always been a bit of a mystery but Heywood really makes her into a Real Person, you know? Her fun interactions with Holiday and Theodora, her devastation after the Senate upheaval, her drive to escape from her captors... Expertly portrayed.

Her character voices are pretty good. I thought her Sevro was hilarious. I’m already missing her voice in IG (since I’m reading these backwards). I’m really looking forward to her return in the next book... Virginia will still be a POV character in the next one, right Pierce? Right??

Iron Gold —

Tim Gerard Reynolds:

I’m repeating this guy only to say: Reynolds is making sure I feel every molecule of exhaustion in Darrow’s body and I’m not very far in. I’ve already read IG, and I’m just coming off DA, so I know it won’t let up but still... have mercy on me.

John Curless:

Repeating again to say, goddamn, does this guy nail Ephraim’s development between books really well. IG Ephraim is no fun at all. Barely cracked a joke yet and is still very much wallowing in grief... Curless’ narration really makes IG Ephraim bearable, tbh.

Julian Elfer:

Hmmm. I don’t know if I’d agree he’s better than James Langdon. They’re both ok to me. Elfer is certainly more age appropriate. However, he’s a bit monotone and his reading cadence is a little annoying to me. He sounds like someone reading his own writing at a book club more than a professional narrator. I don’t mean that as an insult! He’s pleasant enough to listen to but he’s not on the same level as the others imo.

Idk. I’m still not very far into the IG audiobook, so it’s not fair to compare him to Langdon without the full picture. Maybe he gets better. However so far both Lysander narrators are. OK. That said, I don’t think Elfer is atrocious enough to warrant a re-cast? I heard people complained about him and Lyria’s IG narrator and that’s why they were changed... but Elfer isn’t terrible so I’m confused on that one.

Aedin Moloney:

Oh dear. I hate to be so blunt but... I hate her narration. A lot. Coming off of Quirk’s incredible Lyria, Moloney’s performance is... jarring, to say the least. She doesn’t give Lyria the same spunk that Quirk does. Moloney’s Lyria is too out of character for me. Lyria’s life is a shitshow and her weirdly whimsical voice is way too out of place. And during the more frenetic scenes, she’s way over the top.

I guess the problem with this narrator is she gives Lyria Too Much. Lyria is a very practical, very down-to-earth person, not prone to expressing a lot of deep emotion. Quirk balanced this very well, making her inner narrative just emotional enough without contradicting her outer expression. Meanwhile, I can barely follow along with what Moloney was saying when Tiran got shot because she was So Distressed and Hysterical. Good thing I had the book open.

Again, I’m not very far in, so maybe she gets better... idk. Take my opinions on Elfer and Moloney with a grain of salt because I haven’t finished IG yet.

Thank you for the ask! I’d love to hear opinions from anyone else on the second trilogy narrators (because I think we all agree Reynolds is great).

[eldritchsurveys]

1135.

by ausmuh

1. What's one TV episode that makes you laugh out loud every time you watch it? >> There’s an episode of Person of Interest -- “Number Crunch”, I want to say the episode’s name is? -- where an antagonist slips MDMA into Harold Finch’s drink and then pops something explosive in the microwave and leaves him to his fate. And here’s Finch, dopey and smiling, thinking it’s popcorn in the microwave and sway-dancing happily as he waits for it to be finished (meanwhile, one of his companions has broken into the place to rescue him and is just like “are you fkn kiddin me” lmao). He’s just so adorable in his impending doom, haha. Sigh... I love that show so much.

2. Who's one person you'd like to see a biopic made about? >> I don’t care.

3. Is plot an important aspect of books and movies to you, or do you care more about things like character development, themes, etc.? >> I really can’t imagine a plot that doesn’t include extensive and intricate character development. I guess I just don’t read plot-driven books, or something? I don’t know what a “plot-driven” book is. All the stories I enjoy are character-driven and the characters drive the story along... that’s just how it works for me. I guess I’d need an example of a different kind of story to understand.

4. What song hit you so hard that you remember where you were the first time you heard it? >> Awake O Sleeper by The Brothers Bright was like that. I was living with Hallie at the time. I wish I’d awakened to the bullshit I was dealing with, lmao. Regardless, that song hit me like a ton of bricks the first time I heard it sitting on the couch in the office in that house.

5. What's your "brand" of fictional character, the type you always get attached to (ex., "perky girls with deep-seated mental health issues," "guys who you would want as an older brother," etc.)? >> A few of my brands are “grumpy old magic man”, “probably a trickster god”, and “queer-coded villain”.

6. Are there any conspiracy theories that you kind of believe in? >> Nope.

7. What's the best "fake" song (one that exists only in the world of a TV show or movie)? >> I would name Dethklok songs but those songs are pretty real, lol. They used to have concerts and everything. I can’t think of any fake songs.

8. If you use Spotify, share your 2020 Wrapped! What are your overall feelings about it? Is it what you expected? >> Here’s the playlist link. And yeah, it’s what I expected -- the car playlist skewed a lot of the results, which is why there’s far more MCR and FOB and shit on there than seems logical. But You Ain’t Coming Back by Zeal & Ardor being the number one song is absolutely on point, lmao. I put that song on repeat on several occasions, which is novel for me because I don’t usually do that.

9. What's a film you watched recently that you can't stop thinking about? >> Possessor was wild. Fuckin Cronenbergs.

10. If you’ve been in lockdown/quarantine for most of the year, describe the different “phases” of quarantine you’ve gone through (whether defining them by an obsession you had, what you were doing most at the time, how you felt, etc.) >> I didn’t really have phases. Being forced to stay inside all the time was only different from my normal life in that I couldn’t choose to do anything different, which is the main frustration -- I didn’t exactly go out a lot before, but at least I knew I could if I wanted to (and sometimes I did). But in practice my life didn’t really change all that much, so I didn’t feel as disrupted as most people did. I kept doing the same shit I’d already been doing.

11. The last TV show you watched is now getting a crossover with the last video game you played: what is the unholy abomination that has just been created? >> It’d be fairly easy to recreate Bridgerton in The Sims 4, I’d think, particularly if you have some custom content installed.

12. What's an invention you’ve spent a lot of time wondering about the creation of (ex., "how did hourglass makers decide how much sand was needed and how thin the waist had to be???")? >> I think about that kind of thing randomly, but not extensively enough to warrant notice.

13. If you’re a ~gamer~, what are your top 3 all-time favorite games? >> FFXIV, Journey, and Hades are my current faves.

14. If the pandemic had happened just a year earlier, how different would your life be? >> Well, the wedding would have been cancelled. I might not have gotten to see Phantom of the Opera. 2019 was a good year and I’m really glad it wasn’t ruined by a pandemic.

15. Post a screenshot you particularly like from your favorite film without mentioning the film’s title. >> Nah.

16. Name the movie, book, TV show, etc. that you were most out of step with this year (meaning both the reviews and overall discourse was the opposite of how you felt about it). >> Hmm... I’m not sure.

17. What’s the biggest red flag you’ve ever ignored? >> Oof, just... Hallie’s whole fucking thing, lmao. But at that point I was so used to being treated any old way without care or consideration that I guess it must have seemed more normal than abnormal. Which really sucks. Because the stuff I went through with him is definitely abnormal and when I see other people going through similar things with their partners it’s really eye-opening.

18. What are some albums that “molded your brain” during middle and/or high school? >> My Own Prison by Creed, Something Like Human by Fuel, just... mainly those two. And my various mixed CDs recorded from the radio.

19. Without saying your age, post your favorite film that was released the year you turned 18. >> Hmm... The Jacket was good... Walk the Line too.... oh, Constantine! Fuck yeah! That’s the one.

20. What’s something extremely bizarre you believed as a very young child? >> I’m not sure, but I always think of this one story that this kid tried to convince me of when I was in second grade. He was light-skinned and he said that he used to be dark like me, but he started picking at his cuticles one day and peeled a piece of skin back and it kept going until he peeled all of his skin off and his current complexion was what was underneath. Kids, man... lol

[jstj]

who: rachel berry and jesse st. james ( @jstj ) what: st. berry’s first real date where: new york city when: thursday, august 27th triggers?: finn, probably

Rachel took a deep breath before pulling her favorite dress out of her closet. Tonight Jesse was taking her out— really taking her out— and Rachel was, embarrassingly, nervous. She’d been friends with Jesse for years, and had been sneaking around with him for the past month, but this was their first real date as a couple. The thought of even being a couple was crazy to Rachel- she knew Jesse wasn’t one to settle down. But even crazier was how natural it felt to be with him, to say he was hers, and she was his. It was perfect and easy and exactly right.

Slipping her dress on and zipping up the back, Rachel imagined what this date could possibly entail. Rachel had given him the assignment to plan a date that impressed her, and Jesse gave her no clues or hints about the night. It didn’t matter, though. Rachel was just excited to spend time with Jesse — her boyfriend. Putting the finishing touches on her makeup, Rachel waited with anticipation for Jesse to arrive.

It was a little embarrassing, but Jesse had spent the last 48 hours researching date ideas. Incognito, of course, in case Kurt or Sam saw his browser history... This was their first official date, the one they'd talk about for years -- if they lasted years. His singular goal was to make it as special as possible. After all, he was taking out the most special person he knew -- it was only fitting. From his research, Jesse had discovered that a good first impression was key -- and, the key to making a great first impression ? Dress well, and bring flowers.

Knocking on Rachel's door, dressed sharply in a suit with a (very expensive) bouquet of flowers, Jesse waited for her to answer, glancing around for fear of their roommates appearing. Now would be a very awkward time to be caught. He was relieved, then, when the door swung open, grinning at Rachel as he stepped into the safety of her apartment. "Hi... You look beautiful." He leant in to press a gentle kiss to her cheek, before holding the flowers out to her. "For my amazing girlfriend."

At the sound of his knock at the door, Rachel rushed to let Jesse in. Even though this was their first official date, they still wanted to be discreet. While most of their friend group already discovered their secret relationship, Finn still didn't know. And those who knew of their relationship only met it with hostility and judgement.  It wasn't until Rachel tugged Jesse into her apartment and closed the door that she was able to fully take a look at him.

A smile spread across Rachel's face at the sight of Jesse: dressed in his suit, holding a bouquet of flowers. She bit her lip as he leaned in to kiss her cheek, a flush spreading across her face. They'd kissed hundreds of times at this point, but Jesse always had the same breathtaking effect on her. "Thank you," Rachel said, accepting the bouquet from Jesse, "and hi." She placed her hand on his cheek and guided his lips to hers, meeting them with a quick, soft kiss. Pressing her palms against his chest as she pulled away, Rachel took a moment to really look Jesse over. "So far, you're doing very well at this whole boyfriend thing. And you look handsome as ever." She smoothed the front of his suit before pulling away and turning towards the kitchen. "Let me just put these flowers in water, and then we can go. Where are we going, anyways? You've been very mysterious about this entire night."

Jesse smiled against Rachel's lips as she leant up for a proper kiss, letting his hand rest on her waist. It was already so easy to be like this with her, craving and enjoying those small touches. So far, it seemed like dating was basically just friendship with benefits, and he could get behind that. Momentarily distracted by the warmth of her palms on his chest, he looked up to meet her eye, grinning. "The handsome part is obvious. But I'm glad my early work is hitting the mark already. I have a lot more to come." 

Watching her as she stepped away from him, Jesse raised an eyebrow, smirking. "Wouldn't you like to know?"  he replied teasingly. "All will be revealed. I just ask for a little more patience..." Jesse watched as she found a vase for the flowers, stretching his hand out to her when she was done. "I'm really aiming for that A+, though, so I hope your expectations are high. There's no point doing anything if you don't aim for the best."

"Who knew you were such a man of mystery?" Rachel said, taking Jesse's outstretched hand. "All these years of friendship and it's like I barely knew you," she teased. But honestly, it was sort of true. Rachel and Jesse became friends quickly and intensely, their chemistry was immediate and palpable. But being with him in this way felt like a reintroduction, like she was getting to know him all over again.

"You know patience isn't my strong suit," Rachel pouted, lacing her fingers between his. "It's something I'm working on. But I do agree wholeheartedly. Why try something unless you intend to be better at it than everyone else?" She smiled, looking up at Jesse with adoring eyes. He understood her in a way no one else seemed to. "Well, should we go?" Rachel said, leading him to the door. "Or did you intend for our entire date to be spent in the living room of my apartment?"

"I have layers. Maybe I even have hidden depths," Jesse teased in return, grinning as she took his hand. Truthfully, he was discovering all new parts of him, depths that he'd never imagined he could have. This was the most vulnerable and earnest he'd ever been with a person, but Jesse felt safe knowing that it was with Rachel -- he knew he was safe with his heart in her hands. She was the most honest, most caring person he knew. "I do know that. Which makes it even more fun to make you wait." He leant down for a quick kiss, basking in the way she looked at him. He could do anything as long as she looked at him like that.

"Well... I expect a good portion of it to be spent in the apartment, but that's after the main event. Though you look so stunning in that dress, if we don't leave now, you might never convince me out." Though he squeezed her hand, Jesse was forced to drop it as they opened the door, stepping out and looking around before gesturing for her to follow. The secrecy was hard when they lived with all the people they were trying to avoid. "I have a cab waiting for us downstairs. They already know where we're going, so you won't get to find out until we're there..."

"I know you do," Rachel replied, teasingly holding onto Jesse's chin, "even if you are cruel." She leaned into his kiss, even if it was quick. Rachel savored each of their touches-- each one felt electric to her.

"Jesse," she said with an exasperated laugh, pulling away from him as he moved towards the door.  "You're really giving me no hints, are you?" Rachel followed Jesse down the hallway, locking the door behind her. Once in the staircase, she touched his side lightly, holding onto his hand as they made their way downstairs and to the street. "This one?" Rachel asked, gesturing to the taxi on the curb before sliding in. "I really hope that you aren't going to blindfold me like they do in some reality TV shows. Because, while I respect the drama and the element of surprise, I'd prefer not to ruin my eye makeup."

"I'm really giving you no hints," Jesse confirmed, a grin on his face. Rachel was so easy to tease, but he hoped the surprise was worth it. His plan for the evening was.... more romantic than he'd realised he could be. Almost embarrassingly so. But Jesse knew Rachel -- he knew that she'd appreciate it. She was the type of person to bask in that kind of affection, not shy away from it. And for the first time in his life, so was he.

Once they were in the cab, Jesse slid his arm around Rachel's waist, glad to be able to touch her again. Now they were an official couple, they knew they had to go public sometime. And while he'd enjoyed the sneaking around, he found he was actually looking forward to people knowing about them someday. Though he also expected a roasting from his friends. "I didn't plan to include a blindfold, but there's always scope to add it into our post-date plans... But you're right, I'm not sure you need to start the night that way. Pandas are cute, but not as cute as you."

Rachel settled into Jesse's touch, leaning against him slightly. She was coming to find that these little moments between them were what she was most fond of:  small, casual touches, teasing glances. They did not let themselves linger in this small displays of affection before, but now that they were official, it seemed like second nature to her. Rachel couldn't ask for anything more right now: she was driving through the city that she loved, with Jesse's arm around her waist. It didn't even matter where they were going-- though she would never tell him that.

 "It's not very romantic to talk about such...kinky topics on a first date, Jesse," Rachel teased, looking up at Jesse. "I do hope you remember that you're being graded." She spoke to him with a false sternness in her voice, but quickly gave into the smile spreading across her face. Reaching to grab Jesse's hand, Rachel interlaced their fingers, and she turned her head to look out the window. "I don't recognize where we're going. Are we close? Oh my god, are we going to meet Barbra?"

Jesse laughed at Rachel's response, shaking his head a little. They'd done things a little out of order, hooking up weeks before their first official date. They were advanced in some ways as a couple, and brand new in others -- but to Jesse, all of it was exciting, even the growing familiarity and comfort that came with her presence. He'd never experienced this before, and he couldn't have picked a better person to do it with.

"You don't think it's important to set up sexual expectations? Consent and clear communication are so important in a relationship," he replied. As she turned to look out of the window, Jesse kept his gaze on her, a soft smile on his face. They were really doing this. "You think I'd let Barbra upstage me on our first date? That's fourth date material, not first. Flying you to Paris is the fifth date."

"Of course they are," Rachel responded, brushing her thumb over his, "but it's only polite to bring up such topics after you take your girlfriend out to eat." Rachel smiled at Jesse, still so happy to call herself his girlfriend. It felt right, in her mouth. "You're lucky you have such a good teacher, St. James."

Turning her gaze away from the window and back to her boyfriend, Rachel moved in closer to Jesse,"No one could upstage you," she said, a smile on her face. "Not even Barbra, or Paris. Well, maybe Barbra. But not right now." Placing her hand on Jesse's cheek, she leaned in for a soft kiss, feeling the taxi slow to a stop as she pulled away. "We're here?" She asked, looking out the window before stepping out onto the curb outside of a small restaurant. "Oh, I recognize this place. I've been here before, when..." she paused, sifting through her memories, a smile slowly spreading wide across her face. "When we went here before opening night. My first show-- our first show."

"Don't worry, I plan on treating my girlfriend right." Girlfriend. It was still so strange to think that he, Jesse St. James, had a girlfriend. It just wasn't as scary when he was with her. "I do have an excellent teacher. And a very hot one. I think I might have a schoolboy crush."

Leaning into her touch, Jesse smiled, still not looking away from Rachel as they finally arrived at their first destination of the night. He'd puzzled long and hard over where to take her, but he wanted it to be somewhere special to them -- somewhere truly meaningful. Thumb brushing over her hand, Jesse waited for the penny to drop, and for Rachel to realise the significance of where they were. He matched her grin when she finally did. "Exactly. We came here with the cast and crew, and I sat under that giant lampshade talking to you for three hours, and I remember thinking: this show is going to be fun." He stepped forward to open the door to the restaurant, gesturing for Rachel to walk through first. "We don't have three hours though, this is just the first half of our evening..."

Walking through the doors of the restaurant, the night six years ago with Jesse came back to her all at once: the amorphous chatter of the cast around her as she focused on Jesse, their quick-blooming friendship that seemed to deepen that night. Looking back, walking in with Jesse now seemed almost inevitable. So much had changed between that night, before Rachel ever stepped foot on a Broadway stage, to now. But whatever chemistry she and Jesse had did not change-- and if it did, it only grew.

"I can't believe you took me back here," Rachel began, shaking her head. She nodded her head in thanks, blushing a little as Jesse held the door open for her, "what a gentleman." Waiting in the doorway for Jesse, Rachel wrapping her arm around his, before they entered the restaurant and were led to a table. "This is only the first part of the date?" Rachel said, looking at Jesse incredulously. "I know I asked you to impress me, but... this is already more than enough. This really is so incredibly sweet of you, Jesse. You're very good at this boyfriend thing, so far. I don't know what you were afraid of."

If he was good at this, it was only because Rachel made it easy. Everything he'd planned was about her, about making her smile and making her feel special. It was easy to know what to do, because he knew her. And nothing was too expensive or too difficult to pull off, not if he knew it was something Rachel would love. But they hadn't got to the real show stopping part of the date yet... "Oh, this is only the warm up," he confirmed with a grin. "There's more to come. But don't worry about that yet, I want us to enjoy dinner under these giant lampshades first."

There was something special about standing in that restaurant with Rachel on his arm. It had been six years, but that night had really cemented to him that she was someone special, someone he wanted in his life. Their connection had been instant, but there was more to explore, here in the same place he'd first really thought about her that way. Giving his name to the host, Jesse followed them to the table, reaching for Rachel's chair before she could sit down. He was determined to be the perfect gentleman. "The menu is a little different now but they still do that chocolate fudge cake for dessert. I thought about that cake for weeks after."

"I'm not worried," Rachel said, smiling back up at Jesse. And she meant it: Rachel had full confidence in their night, and even more so in them. This might have only been their first date, but Rachel knew Jesse, and had love for Jesse. She trusted him implicitly, and, realizing this, Rachel felt surprisingly settled. She sat down at the table and beamed, happier than she'd been for a long time.

"Sometimes it's good when things are a little different," Rachel responded, looking at Jesse from across the table. "Take us, for instance. Talking under the same giant lampshades. I think I find you just as charming and mildly irritating as ever, but in a...different way. A better way. Different is good." She reached across the table to touch Jesse's hand, before turning her gaze downwards and fiddling with the menu. "But I am glad that they kept the chocolate fudge cake. I remember that too. Not everything needs to change, I suppose."

Settling himself down opposite Rachel, Jesse took a moment to enjoy it. Their first real date. He had a feeling this would be something to remember, a night he'd think about for a long time. He already struggled getting her out of his head, after all. Chuckling at her comment about him being mildly irritating, Jesse felt the usual spark jump through him at her touch, picking up his own menu. He could barely believe the way he felt about her, and yet it was the simplest thing in the world.

"Different is definitely good," Jesse agreed, thinking briefly of the time where his interest in her had been unrequited. The first time they'd come here, she was already with Finn, though Jesse had always wondered what would have happened if she'd been single when they'd met. Now, he thought it was best that they'd never found out -- if something had happened, there was a risk they wouldn't have been in the right place and time for this. "You do love tradition. And I did love that cake. I did go through the reviews if you'd like to know which dishes the vegetarians of the Internet recommend..."

"I do love tradition. It's probably because I grew up watching Fiddler on the Roof." Rachel said with a shrug, glancing down. She took a minute to look over the menu, her brow furrowed slightly. She didn't mind the slight lapse in conversation. While this might have been their first official date, it was also one of the million times the two of them had spent time together. She liked the easy way they could slip in and out of conversation, and she liked the way she could tell Jesse was looking at her.

"Oh yeah?" Rachel asked, looking up at Jesse with a teasing glance. "You really have thought of everything. Although, really, you're lucky that I'm not still a vegan. I was much more high maintenance before you knew me. If you can imagine that. But please, tell me, what does the internet recommend? Besides the chocolate cake for dessert, of course."

Jesse had already perused the menu online, ensuring that there were enough options to satisfy any cravings. He knew Rachel, and he had a feeling he could guess what she'd go for -- leaning back in his chair to watch her for a moment. "I like to be thorough." At her comment about being high maintenance, he laughed loudly -- more high maintenance? "There's a level above this?" Jesse asked, still laughing, "I can't even imagine it." Truthfully, he didn't mind that Rachel was high maintenance -- he liked maintaining her.

"The vegetarian options are apparently all very good, although the salads didn't receive as rave reviews. The butternut squash gnocchi, mushroom macaroni, and the vegetable pizza were the clear stand-outs." Jesse had also researched the wines, ordering a bottle of rosé - Rachel's favourite - for the both of them when the waiter came over for their drinks.

“I blame my dads,” Rachel said with a shrug, a proud smile spreading across her face. She liked making Jesse laugh, even if it was at her own expense. It was very unlike her, but knowing she could make Jesse grin was more rewarding than her false pride. “They set very specific routines and standards for me. It was the only way they could ensure I would succeed.”

There was something very safe about sitting across the table from Jesse. He was so capable— he knew exactly what Rachel liked. He made her feel taken care of. Before Rachel knew it, a bottle of wine was on their table, and she was ordering herself the gnocchi, watching Jesse place his order. “Thank you,” she said, raising her wine glass, unable to control the fond expression on her face, “for being a very, very good boyfriend so far.”

Jesse grinned back, nodding as he took a sip of his wine. He was more of a gin and tonic man himself, but he didn't expect Rachel to drink a whole bottle herself. It was practically bigger than she was. "You have great parents," Jesse replied earnestly. Rachel's dads had been supportive and loving while also pushing her to succeed. He was mildly jealous, but he did have his uncle. "It must have been so much fun growing up with them." Jesse had already met Rachel's parents, and liked them a lot -- meeting the parents was one aspect of dating he wasn’t too nervous for.

Ordering himself a pasta dish and a side salad for them to share, Jesse watched Rachel, smiling at her little toast. "You're very welcome," he said, reaching out to squeeze Rachel's hand across the table. "You're right, though, I think I'm nailing this. I'll be surprised if I don't get an A at the end of the night. This is some of my finest work."

"It was fun," Rachel said with a nod. "Our nightly singalongs around the piano were the highlights of my days. They were also very good practice." She looked at Jesse thoughtfully for a moment. She knew of his family life and his absent parents. It wasn't something he talked about much, but Rachel was sensitive to it nonetheless. She knew there was depths to Jesse he had yet to reveal to her. "Luckily, my dads already love you. Last time they saw you they said that your lyric tenor really rounded out our ensemble."

Rachel intertwined her fingers with Jesse's, her smile widening. Here she was with her boyfriend, and just for this moment, it was easy. No one and nothing else was on her mind. Only Jesse. "I'll be the judge of that," she teased, pulling away as their food came. "But so far you are passing with flying colors."

Jesse could have been jealous, but he was truly happy to know that Rachel had had such a happy childhood with her dads. He knew that not everything had been easy for her growing up, but she had a solid base of love and support, and he couldn't think of anyone who deserved it more. Her dads were wonderful -- they'd produced the woman in front of him, after all. "They did? That's so sweet. I'll happily be your fourth any time," he replied, suppressing too wide a smile.  "When do you think they're next coming up to the city?"

"You're very welcome to judge. I'm an open book, and I think my work will speak for itself," he chuckled, enjoying her touch until the food arrived. Despite the other diners around them, Jesse felt like they were in a world of their own, and he couldn't control how happy he felt -- and probably looked. Ordering them some more drinks as they started their meal, he raised an eyebrow at Rachel, awaiting her review. "Did the internet make the right recommendation?"

"Good," Rachel grinned, "a quartet is much better than a trio." She was glad that Jesse liked her dads-- it made their inevitable reintroduction so much easier. "Although, duets are my favorite." She took a sip of her wine before starting again. "Actually, they were thinking about visiting next week, to see closing night. Plus, they want to spend the long Labor Day weekend in the city."

Rachel raised an eyebrow at Jesse. "An open book?" She asked, a teasing smile on her face. "Does that mean you'll tell me all your secrets?" She was joking, but not really. Rachel wanted to know everything about Jesse, all the things that he didn't tell the rest of their friends. She craved that special access into him. Pausing for a moment to taste her food, Rachel nodded. "So good," she determined. "The internet recommended correctly. And you did very thorough research."

Next week was soon to meet her dads and be introduced as her boyfriend, but Jesse wasn't too stressed. He knew that he was the perfect person for Rachel, and he was already on good terms with the Berrymen. It would be easy to take that leap -- he just had to think of the best brunch spots to take them to. "You know I'm always a willing duet partner," he told her, refilling their drinks, "I've been thinking about all the things we can sing at benefits, when we go public."

Returning Rachel's smile, Jesse shrugged, taking a sip of his wine. "You're my girlfriend. You get to know all my secrets now. Anything you want to know... I'll tell you," he chuckled. It was true, though -- that was what being together was about, right? Rachel would get to see the parts of him that he hid from everybody else. He already knew that there couldn't possibly be a part of Rachel he wouldn't like. "Excellent. All those teachers who told me not to believe everything I read online were clearly wrong."

"Oh yeah?" Rachel asked, suddenly very excited by the possibility of couples duets at benefits and award shows, of the prospect of being a theater power couple. "What are your thoughts, so far?" She nodded a thank you to Jesse as he refilled her glass, picking it up to take another sip. The drinks were making her feel like she was buzzing, though that could have just been her happiness, here on this perfect date with Jesse.

"Tell me a secret, then," Rachel said with a grin. She was glad Jesse trusted her, especially since she trusted him too. It was implicit: she had full faith in him, in them. "Clearly," she agreed, leaning back as the waiter cleared their plates. "What does the internet say about the chocolate cake? Still as good as before?"

"To stick in your wheelhouse, I think As Long As You're Mine is the obvious choice. I'll Cover You is sickly sweet but it's nice to have something more upbeat." Songs had taken on a new meaning now that he was falling for somebody, and Jesse was starting to appreciate the truth behind all the soppily romantic lyrics. "A secret?" he mused, mentally flicking through all the things he could tell her -- nothing too sad or too embarrassing for their first real date. Something sweet was probably best.

"Well... I'm actually very good at writing lullabies. A few years ago, my cousin had her first kid, and I composed a few songs for bedtime. They work like a charm, and now all of my cousin's friends also play them to get their kids to sleep. That's my secret talent." The waiter came by to take their order, and, in answer to Rachel's question, Jesse ordered them each a slice of the chocolate cake. "The internet still approves. They recommend getting pouring cream with it."

"Obviously," Rachel said with a grin. "Tonight and Suddenly Seymour should also be in contention." She'd spent her entire life stepping into other's love lives in order to play out their emotions-- channeling her own experiences into theirs. But she'd always had to use a bit of imagination before. But now, with Jesse, she understood it all. Never before had she felt so immediately connected and devoted to someone else.

"You are," Rachel said, smiling at Jesse with disbelief. Well... disbelief is the wrong word. She wasn't surprised at all. But this new talent was endearing to Rachel, even more so because it went against the sort of image he liked to cultivate. But here Jesse was, a boy who could write lullabies, and ever the more charming for it. "I'd like to hear one, sometime," she said with a smile. Their chocolate cakes arrived at the table, momentarily shifting Rachel's gaze away from Jesse. "God, I'm full," Rachel said after a few bites, leaning back slightly in her chair.

"Excellent choices. I also think Only Us is a very sweet duet, to nominate something more modern." Rachel really was his dream girl -- there was nobody else he connected with in this way. Jesse didn't have to imagine or think too hard about all the things he'd want in a girlfriend -- Rachel was all of them already. He smiled at her reaction to his secret, shrugging. "Babies do love me," he commented. "And of course, you can hear them any time."

Jesse made it 75% of the way through his own slice of cake before he was beaten. It was definitely as good as he remembered, though, so his research had been worth it. "We'll take them to go," he suggested, flagging down a waiter to settle their bill. "Not too full to make it to a cab, I hope." Pulling out his wallet while he waited, Jesse raised an eyebrow at Rachel. "Do I get to know a secret?"

“Good to know,” Rachel said with a small smile, nodding her head. “How about tonight? It would be very romantic.” She laughed when even Jesse couldn’t finish his cake, nodding as their places were cleared and the waiter handed them the check. “Not too full for a cab,” Rachel conformed. “I forgot this was only part one of the night.”

Rachel paused to think at the mention of her own secrets.  “Of course” she responded after a moment, “it’s only fair.” As she began to speak, a slight blush creeped up on her face. “Okay, you’re going to think I’m creepy, but.. I might have been a little obsessed with you in high school.” She looked down, biting back a smile. “You were a very cute, and very talented, Broadway star after all.”

"Tonight works for me. After all, I'm all yours tonight." As far as Jesse was concerned, there was nobody else in the world right now -- all he could think about Rachel. She was his entire focus, and he was determined to give her the most magical night possible. "I think you'll like part two," he teased as they started to pack up. Jesse was about to slide his jacket on when she revealed her secret, making him pause. "No," he laughed, grinning at her. "Oh my god. Am I on a date with a swim fan? Have you manufactured our entire friendship to get to this point?"

Thrilled with her secret, he held his hand out to her once they were ready to leave. This part of the date was the part Jesse was nervous for -- he really hoped she liked it. "So, Rachel Berry, teenage stalker, where do you think we're going now?" he asked as he hailed a cab, slipping the driver an address written on a piece of paper rather than speaking it out loud. "Any guesses before all is revealed?"

“Oh my god,” Rachel cringed, hiding her face in her hands, “I shouldn’t have told you! It’s so embarrassing.” She laughed, looking Jesse up and down. “Certainly not,” she said defensively. “But if I was, could you blame me?” For whatever crush she might have had on Jesse in theory, what she felt now, in reality, was much, much better than she could have ever imagined.

Standing up, Rachel took Jesse’s hand, following him out to the curb and sliding into a taxi with him. “I have absolutely no idea,” she said with a laugh. “Are you taking me to the top of the Empire State Building? Because that’d be very romantic— just like An Affair to Remember. Or the Brooklyn Bridge? I don’t think I’m wearing the right shoes to walk across...”

"I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have that information," Jesse laughed, very entertained by her secret. He definitely planned on bringing that up at every suitable moment. "You're right, I've always been hottest Broadway crush. I don't blame you at all."

At her suggestion that he might be taking her to the Empire State, Jesse gasped, dramatically clutching at his heart with his hand. "You think I'd be so simple as to take you to the Empire State?" he asked, in mock offence. "I'm a New Yorker, Rachel, not a tourist." He shook his head, leaning back in the seat and resting a hand comfortably on her knee. "It's much better than the Empire State." As if on cue, they pulled up at the dock, and Jesse made sure to get around the cab in time to open the door for her. "It's only a short walk from here."

“Okay,” Rachel said, rolling her eyes, “that’s enough.” But she couldn’t help but laugh, too. “If I’d known you’d be like... this maybe I wouldn’t have had a crush on you.” She smiled up at him, “I just hope I don’t break too many of your current fangirls’ hearts by taking you off the market.”

Resting her hand on top of Jesse’s, Rachel traced the contours of his fingers as she looked out the window. “You’re right,” she said, biting back a smile, “how could I be so remiss?” But before she knew it, the taxicab was slowing to a stop, and Jesse was getting out and opening the door for her. They were at some pier, but she wasn’t sure which, nor did she know why. “Where are you taking me, Jesse St. James?” She asked, taking his hands in hers.

"You're right. For the first time, they're going to have to deal with the knowledge that Jesse St. James isn't single. I can hear hearts shattering all over the country." Jesse watched her fingers drawing gentle patterns on his, a soft expression on his face. Tonight was perfect -- being with her was perfect. "I think eventually they'll come around to the idea of us as a power couple. Double the talent."

Once they were out the cab, Jesse smirked, squeezing Rachel's hand. "We're going sailing," he told her, starting to walk her down the pier, passing all the little boats. A summer wind blew at them, and Jesse glanced over to Rachel. "Are you warm enough?" he asked, already shrugging his jacket off as they reached the boat they'd hire. It was small, but sleek -- with a neat deck, but a warm interior if they needed it.  Raising a hand to the captain, Jesse slipped his jacket over Rachel's shoulders, before gesturing towards the boat. "Ladies first."

“A power couple, huh?” Rachel said, a grin forming across her face. It was everything she wanted, but even more so, because she was with Jesse. Her Jesse, now. His hand was in hers, and she didn’t intend to let him go.

“Sailing?” Rachel exclaimed in disbelief, holding on to his arm as she followed along. The stretch of the pier seemed to distance them from the rest of Manhattan— from everyone they knew, from all the drama they faced. “I can’t believe you,” Rachel smiled, stepping into the boat. She pulled Jesse’s jacket tighter across her shoulders, enjoying its closeness. “Where are we sailing to?” Rachel asked, leaning over the edge of the boat to catch a glimpse down the Hudson River.

"Of course we're a power couple. We're a team. We're going to rule Broadway." It was everything Jesse didn't know he wanted -- endless affection and adoration in his personal life, and raw talent and creativity brought to the table at work. They were a perfect match, working together in every way. Jesse couldn't be happier.

Jesse watched Rachel for a moment, thrilled that she seemed to like his surprise. But that wasn't everything. "We're just heading downtown to get the best view of Manhattan," he explained, gesturing for Rachel to settle herself down while he headed inside. When he returned, he was carrying an easel and a canvas, leaning it against the boat as the engine started and they set sail. "I know how much you love your arts and crafts, so I came with painting supplies. I thought it would be fun for us to each paint the skyline. That way, we'll always have a snapshot of how New York looked to us on our first date."

Sitting down on the boat, Rachel took a moment to take the night in. Jesse had planned the perfect evening, and here she was, feeling just so lucky to have it. Suddenly nothing else mattered, just them. And that was enough.

A confused look spread across Rachel’s face as Jesse presented to her a canvas and some paints. “Oh my god,” Rachel managed, taking a paintbrush from Jesse’s hand. “You’ve thought of everything.” She reached up and cupped Jesse’s cheek, leaning in to kiss him deeply. “This is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” Rachel said, a fluttering happiness filling her up. Meanwhile, the boat pulled away from the pier, and the manhattan skyline revealed itself as a pattern of glowing squares and rectangles, framing the two of them as they began to paint.

With the easel and art supplies now set up on the deck, Jesse turned his attention back to Rachel, mouth tugging into a smile. He'd been nervous that this would be too much -- too intense and extravagant. But she was Rachel. She thrived off this kind of attention, the epic romance that she deserved. "I just want to make sure I'm top of the class," he joked, leaning in happily to meet her kiss. Jesse wasn't sure he'd ever felt this light and happy before -- the only thing that compared was the after-glow of an opening night performance.

The boat travelled smoothly across the river, eventually stopping at a vantage point, giving them an unbeatable view of New York. Jesse had never been much of an artist, but that was part of the fun -- Rachel's painting would undoubtedly be better than his. "I had a lot of different ideas for what we could do tonight," he told her as he began to paint, looking over with a smile. "A lot of the suggestions were fun first date ideas, but I didn't think we needed something to break the ice. I just wanted this to be memorable."

“You definitely are,” Rachel said with a laugh. “You’ll be valedictorian without a doubt.” It was true— this entire night was perfect. No one had ever planned a date quite so thoughtful and extravagant for Rachel. Jesse matched her romantic disposition, her love of theatrics and drama. He was perfect for her.

Rachel picked up her paintbrush but paused to look at Jesse. The lights of Manhattan in the distance created an outline around him, and Rachel could feel nothing but adoration for him in the moment. “Well I can’t think of any first date better than this.” Truthfully, this was hardly a first date at all. They knew each other better than most, they’d spent years trading stories and jokes. And they’d spent a month together intimately. This first date was a culmination of years and years, of a friendship that now seemed to inevitably lead right here.  “Let me see your painting,” Rachel said after a few moments, biting back any instinctive critiques as she leaned against Jesse to take a look at his work. “It’s pretty good, but I think I know what it needs.” She dipped her paintbrush in her pot of blue paint, reaching towards Jesse’s canvas before quickly turning towards him, painting a dot on his nose. “Perfect.”

"I'll start preparing my speech," Jesse joked, leaning over to mix some new colours as they continued to paint. It was quite a spectacular view of the city, but most of Jesse's focus was on Rachel, enjoying sharing this night with her. It was hard to believe he felt so much about someone after such a short amount of time, but he was already head over heels for her. It was dizzying how quickly things had changed between them.

"You can plan the next date," he suggested, leaning in to add some detail to his painting. "The bar's high -- I expect to be wooed." He wrapped an arm around her waist as she came over, watching her scrutinise his work. "Mm?" he asked, turning his head to see what her suggestion was -- and gasping as the paint brush hit him instead of his canvas. "You think you're so clever..." Jesse muttered, shaking his head as he tightened his grip on her, leaning in for a kiss. It would be irresponsible to start a paint fight in formal wear, but if he kissed her and it ended up on her cheek -- well, that was her own fault.

"I don't know if I can beat this," Rachel said, fiddling with the brush in her hand. "But of course I'm always up for the challenge." She paused for a moment, trying to picture a date nearly as perfect as this one, but everything fell short. Instead she returned to her canvas, painting a few more strokes and feeling fully contented. From the Hudson River, all of the drama the two of them had faced-- were still facing-- seemed so small. Rachel was happy, and so was Jesse, and that's all that mattered.

"No!" Rachel laughed, leaning backwards and dropping her paintbrush as Jesse pulled her closer. She pressed her hands against his chest, pushing away teasingly as he leaned in for a kiss, smudging the paint from his nose onto her cheek. "You're so mean," she said with a giggle, sinking into his touch. Rachel pressed her forehead against his and moved her arms around his neck. "That's a point deduction-- your down to an A- minus now, mister." She leaned in and kissed him softly, still laughing as she met his lips.

Jesse laughed as Rachel squirmed, almost smiling too widely to kiss her. He made sure to rub his nose on her cheek, smudging as much paint on as possible. They'd both look ridiculous, but Jesse didn't care, happiness bubbling out of him. He'd never felt like this before, so excited and yet so content, everything about their relationship exhilarating and soothing at the same time. Letting his eyes fall shut, Jesse enjoyed the peace of the moment. He was here, in the city he loved, with the girl he -- well. 

"An A minus is definitely not acceptable," Jesse murmured against Rachel's lips, forgetting to continue his response as he got lost in kissing her. There was nobody else in the world in that moment, just the two of them, there. Jesse wished those seconds could stretch on forever. "Y'know, I can think of some ways to bump that minus back up..." He let his hands drift up and down Rachel's back, fingertips tracing a teasing path along her spine. "When we get back home..."

“Jesse...” Rachel warned, but didn’t pull away. In fact, she leaned into his touch, arching her chest back as he drew lazy patterns up and down her back.  She grazed her thumb up and down the nape of Jesse’s neck, smiling at him. She could tell he was happy, even if all of this was so new to him. It made Rachel feel special, to be the girl that could make him smile like that. “I think some extra credit could be arranged...”

After a few moments, Rachel pulled away, taking a look at Jesse. She laughed, noticing the smudged paint still on his face. “Here, let me help,” she offered, licking her thumb and gently rubbing away the paint. “Now you’re perfect.” Smiling, she leaned back against him, turning towards her own painting to put on the finishing touches, as the boat lurched forward back towards the pier.

Jesse smirked a little, enjoying Rachel's response to his touch, and the sweet smile on her face. "You're turning me into a teacher's pet," he joked, letting her slide away and laughing at the paint on her face. He licked his own thumb to return the favour, clearing off what he'd smudged on her, and pressing a quick kiss to her nose. "Only now? I'm offended. I've always been perfect." As the boat began to head back to shore, Jesse slid his arms around Rachel's waist, pulling her back to his chest and watching as the lights of the city grew nearer.

"My painting is definitely better," he muttered in her ear, a clear lie. Hers outshone his, but his was... artistic in its own way. But for once, he was happy to lose a competition, as long as it made her smile. "Ready to go home?" Jesse asked as the boat bumped the pier, climbing out first so that he could offer a hand to Rachel. He'd already arranged with the captain to pick the paintings and the art supplies up the next day, saving trying to transport wet canvasses in a cab. "Home and straight to sleep?"

Rachel laughed as Jesse kissed her nose, feeling a blush creep across her cheeks. “You’re right, you’ve always been perfect,” she said after a moment, resting her head on Jesse’s shoulder as he pulled her near. “Except at painting. You could improve, though I appreciate your effort.” All of the work Jesse put into this night was endearing to Rachel; his thoughtfulness and attention to detail gave her butterflies.

“Ready,” Rachel agreed, feeling the empty space as Jesse got out of the boat before her. She took his hand and stepped onto the pier, pulling his jacket tighter around her shoulders— it suddenly felt colder to her, now that they weren’t intertwined. “I’m not tired just yet,” Rachel said with a smirk, wrapping her arms around Jesse’s waist as they began to walk towards the street, “but I can think of some other things we could do when we get home...”

Jesse scoffed at Rachel's comment about his painting, even though it was true. "You're jealous. Your work is too derivative, mine is original." He had a feeling they were going to be arguing about this for a long time, chuckling to himself. Once they were out of the boat, Jesse was glad to have Rachel close to him again, wrapping an arm around her as they walked. "You'll be tired when I'm finished with you," he replied, looking down to grin at her.

Once they reach the street, Jesse hailed a cab with ease, sliding in next to Rachel and giving the driver their address. "I'm definitely not accepting an A minus. A plus or nothing," he joked, leaning back against the seats with a pleased look. Tonight had been perfect -- the perfect date with the perfect girl. Jesse was proud of himself -- he was a romantic after all. "It's your turn to woo me next," he told Rachel, playing with her fingers, a lazy smile on his face. "Beat that for a date."

[ebaeschnbliah]

THE  KNIGHT  OF  BASKERVILLE

________________________________________________________________

ACDs novel The Hound of the Baskervilles tells the story of Sir Henry Baskerville who returns from Canada to take up the inheritance of his family, the Baskerville estate with the old manor house Baskerville Hall. 

The Sherlock BBC adaptation, The Hounds of Baskerville, transforms the centuries old manor house into the modern high-security military base BASKERVILLE, supervised by the britisch government. Because the character ‘Sir Henry Baskerville’ had to be included as well, it’s understandable that a renaming of this important character became necessary. 

But why Henry KNIGHT? Names are important in Sherlock BBC. Reason enough to take a closer look at the name and significance of ‘knight’. 

TBC below the cut ….

What’s a knight?

- Nowadays, a knight is a person who has been given a rank of honour by the Queen or King of GB because of special achievements

- In the past a knight was a man of high social position, trained to fight as soldier on a horse for his liege lord

- In myths, legends and fairytales knights are often depicted as brave and valiant men who fight against all kinds of evil forces. They defend not only their king or queen, they often become ‘a last refuge for the desperate, the unloved, the persecuted … a final court of appeal for everyone‘. They stand up for justice and fight for those who aren’t able to help themselves. 

Knights and pirates

Mycroft mentions in ASIB that his little brother Sherlock initially wanted to be a pirate. In TFP, right after Sherlock jumps through fire and flames onto a ship which will bring him to Sherrinford, he calls himself a pirate. Are there connections between pirates and knights? Of course there are:

One of the most famous pirates of the British Empire was Sir Francis Drake -Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received on his ship, the Golden Hind. 

William Knight  was a 17th-century English buccaneer (pirate). Reading the Wikipedia entry about him, it looks like ‘Captain Knight’ has indeed raided ‘the seven seas’. 

William Sherlock Scott Holmes, consulting private detective, the only one in the world and additionally dragon slayer, pirate and knight …. this man really loves to be dramatic.  

(For more delicious pirate treats look up this post about Sherlock and the Pirates of the Caribbean, black spots and Treasure Island)

Knights are guardians, defenders, soldiers ... pirates ... who slay the most dangerous dragons and save damsels in distress …  

(With every quiver of his beating heart   The Black Defender).

Two ‘damsels’ in Sherlock BBC

A damsel - is an old fashioned term, meaning a young woman, often unmarried and of noble birth. Synonyms are: demoiselle, girl, maid, maiden, miss. The word comes from the Middle English damesel, from Anglo-French dameisele, from Vulgar Latin domnicella (young noblewoman), diminutive of Latin ... domina lady   (x)

‘Damsel’ appears two times in Sherlock BBC in two different scenes from two different episodes. It is used by two different characters and aimed at two different persons.

Mycroft in ASIB talks about Sherlock and ‘dominatrix’ Irene Adler:

That’s all it takes: one lonely naïve man desperate to show off, and a woman clever enough to make him feel special. …. The damsel in distress. In the end, are you really so obvious? Because this was textbook: the promise of love, the pain of loss, the joy of redemption; then give him a puzzle … and watch him dance.

Magnussen in HLV talks about Sherlock and ‘eternal friend’ John Watson:

Very hard to find a pressure point on you, Mr. Holmes. The drugs thing I never believed for a moment. Anyway, you wouldn’t care if it was exposed, would you? But look how you care about John Watson. Your damsel in distress.

What an interesting combination of characters on both sides of Sherlock. And one more confrontation of the two (so often hinted at) opposites in this story - sex and friendship (Solutions or choices). Irene and Jim represent the female and male incarnation of sex, while John-I’m not gay-Watson represents the ‘eternal’ friend and fixed point in a changing age. Both aspects - sex and friendship - are called Sherlock’s ‘damsels’. And it’s even more interesting to see who makes those statements:  

MYCROFT - owner of a laptop on which depends the security of the free world (”with potatoes on it - shelves in exchange for chips - I am glad you liked my potatoe -  you’re suicidal, you’re allowed chips”)

MAGNUSSEN - who runs the western world from a library of secrets and scandals that isn’t stored on computers but on hard copy in vaults

A computer versus hard copies in vaults … Well, this reminds me of Sherlock’s explanation in The Great Game, regarding his brain. He compares it to a computer hard drive and adds that  ‘it only makes sense to put things in there that are useful ... really useful. Ordinary people fill their heads with all kinds of rubbish, and that makes it hard to get at the stuff that matters?‘   And what might be a ‘hard copy in vaults’? This seems to be a perfect metaphor for informations stored inside the brain. That organ occupies the space in the skull called ... cranial vault. 

(Mycroft & Magnussen   A shadow of massive proportions)

A computer versus hard copies in vaults … two paraphrases for one and the same thing … a brain. Janus-faced, one could call it. A mind in conflict with itself. Time to choose a side for Sherlock Holmes. Friendship or sex? John or James? Saint or sinner? 

What if Sherlock chooses neither? ‘I could just walk out of here’ (and carry on torturing myself in an isolated dungeon, locked up in solitary confinement with my worst enemy, that’s ME by the way,  for another couple of centuries … I can’t die anyway, I’m an immortal literal character ... an undead)

What if Sherlock chooses both?  A tempting idea …. :)))

A game for the brain

Chess is called the ‘game of kings’ (’Am I the current king of England?’) and chess plays a vital role in Sherlock BBC. Serial killer Jeff Hope compares the game he wants to play with Sherlock to chess … ‘it’s chess not chance’. There’s a chess board in 221b, the pieces are always standing on it, ready to play. It turns up in each episode, placed at different locations in the living room. The third episode of S1 is called The Great Game. A fake chess game in TEH. A game of chess in Tiblisi, Georgia between two massive lion statues. And let’s not forget the three mysterious promo pics for S4 … Sherlock and Mycroft playing chess and John sitting between them. There are no visual connections whatsoever in S4 to those pics. Anyway, chess is important … especially one certain piece type of the figurines, it seems. 

Chess is a very old two-player strategy board game, originating from India around the 6th century. The oldest archaeological chess artifacts were excavated in Uzbekistan, central Asia, and date to about 760. Chess is played on a checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an 8×8 grid, with16 pieces for each player: 

One king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each piece type moves differently and ... these are the moves:

The knight is a specialist ...

The chess piece called ‘knight’ is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. The area a knight is able to cover - to protect or threaten other pieces - forms a circle. 

The knight moves unconventionally compared to all the other chess pieces. Whereas other pieces move in straight lines, knights move in an “L-shape”—that is, they can move two squares in any direction vertically followed by one square horizontally, or two squares in any direction horizontally followed by one square vertically …. a bit similar to the strange sitting arrangement of Sherlock and John, chosen for the plane scene in TST. 

Presumed both men were knights on a chess board, each move of either man could bring him to the place of the other one. Mary isn’t in the way at all because knights are able to …. jump.

The ‘jumper’

Another characteristic feature of a knight is the fact that it is the only piece in the game of chess that can “jump over” other pieces, regardless of whether those pieces are black or white. Because of this, some languages refer to the knight as ‘the jumper’ (in german ‘der Springer’). 

Of jumping and jumpers

Jumping in front of trains, of ‘transport’ and leaving behind strawberry jam, connects the Andrew West case from TGG with the Strawb-Fizz-Explosive-Flavour-Bus from TST, in which John meets E (Eurus/Sherlock). A quite explosive meeting indeed, thinking of Eurus’ passions grenade a little later.  

(Bus spotted on and speculated about during setlock, in the night-shot with Faith 12.06.2016 x x)

Jumping from a rooftop, taking a leap of faith from the edge of a waterfall, throwing oneself through fire and flames out of windows onto an island ..... jumping, falling, flying and landing …. those are definitely main topics in Sherlock BBC.  (Developement of the fall)

Considering the fact that the creators of Sherlock BBC obviously enjoy playing with names, words, double meanings and innuendos really very much, I seriously wonder wether there is a reason behind the decision to dress John Watson in his, by now, famous oatmeal coloured jumper or let Sherlock tell a room full of wedding guests that he ‘could go on all night about the depth and complexity of (John’s) ... jumpers ...’

PS:  Taking the screen caps from the wedding, I noticed for the first time that a female voice says ‘jumpers’ simultaneously with Sherlock in this scene. It’s a bit like Mrs. Hudson suddenly chiming in with ‘softer, Sherlock’ during his conversation with Molly in TFP. 

The Christmas jumpers shouldn’t be forgotten either. There are two of them which play a role in Sherlock BBC: John wears one in ASIB, the other one turns up in the fisherman deduction scene in THOB. @sagestreet  wrote about the fisherman and his mother  here.  By the way … that’s most likely a reindeer on the fisherman’s jumper. Reindeer’s are a species of deer and deer, stags and harts are another heavy featured topic in this story. 

(Sherlock the stag and the skull   Stalking the deerstalker   The three Garridebs   Study in pink and green)

Change of colour

Also interesting … due to its L-shaped movement, a knight, beginning on a white square, will always end up on a black square, and vice versa. The colour of the square it stands on, changes with each movement. Changing is definitely another main theme - if not THE main theme - of this story.

Short version for the transformation from Rosie to rainbow:   Rosamund=rose of the world=rosa mundi=rosa versicolor=changing colours/many colours/iridescence=rainbow   

(longer version in these comments   The elephant in the room/womb   Prism)

Back to the game and the knights

Looking at the chess pieces on the board and the captured ones lying next to it, one can safely say that it had been Mycroft who started this game, because according to the rules of chess, white moves fist. 

If Sherlock BBC is meant to be a great, metaphorical game of chess, with the various characters serving as chess pieces, then Mycroft starting that game, would coincide with a PILOT starting point. Before John Watson walks into the lab at Bart’s Hospital and meets Sherlock Holmes for the first time, before DI Lestrade summons Sherlock to the crime scene of the Lady in Pink, it is Mycroft who sends Sherlock an E-Mail, asking for his help in an ‘impossible situation’. Sherlock answers his brother with the famous Holmes quote from canon: 

‘When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains must be the truth. ‘

This interpretation would also coincide with the idea that in this story Mycroft represents the brain, Sherlock’s brain. Logic, reason and intellect. After all, it is this organ which starts every movement and every thought in everyones life.  (The reptile in 221b)

It is Mycroft who first kidnaps and investigates the ‘eternal friend’ - Sherlock’s feelings for John. In the wake of the first explosion, it is him who brings the ‘West' case to Baker Street, who later downright forces Sherlock to take the ‘Woman-case’. It is him who releases the ‘Hound’ and also him who brings Sherlock back from the dungeon inside the forest. Jim becomes Eurus’ Chrismas present because ‘big brother’ allowed it. Mycroft is responsible that Sherlock gets involved in the Carmichael case and it is also him who tells Sherlock that ‘We don’t defeat them (emotions). We must certainly lose to them. Because they are right, and we are wrong.’ This case leads Sherlock to his very own Reichenbach Falls - ‘the greatest crisis of my career’ - the point where he throws himself into the waterfall, out of his own free will. No one forces him, there is not the slightest need to do this. Yet Sherlock jumps and flies.

Centre stage for the knights …. the jumpers ….

Henry Knight instead of Henry Baskerville …. it seems there could have been a lot of good reasons for the creators of Sherlock BBC to choose KNIGHT as the new surname for … THE Baskerville … the man haunted by demons.

(Shoes for the hound   Investigator of secrets and scandals)

Source of chess info/pics (x x x), source of Sherlock BBC chess promo pics (x)

I leave you to your own deductions. Thanks @callie-ariane for the scripts.

October, 2019

[silasmadams]

My Problem with a “Darker Shade of Magic” by V.E. Schwab

So I’ve been meaning to talk about V. E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic. I know it’s got plenty of love behind it and its got its fair share of fans but I can’t for the life of me love this book and yes I mean only the first book because that’s as far as I read in the series. I have a similar relationship to this as I do Children of Blood by Tomi Adeyemi in that I completely understand why people like it, I just don’t. 

I’m also going to give a trigger warning that I will be talking about sexual assault, violence, and general gore so if that makes you uncomfortable give this a skip. I’ll give a trigger warning again when I’m about to speak in-depth on the previously mentioned subjects. I will also warn you when I’m about to head into spoiler territory, though I won’t be going into particularly big spoilers.

Summary

For those of you that don’t know, A darker shade of Magic is the first book in the Darker Shade of Magic trilogy by V. E. Schwab. It’s about three separate Londons, Red, White, and Grey. Red is the London with lots of magic, it’s the pretty and bougie London. White is a cesspit of violence with very little magic forcing its inhabitants to cling onto any magic they can for dear life. Their leaders are cruel and it's not uncommon for them to be usurped. Generally to get ahead in White London you need to be vile. And Grey London is our world's London roughly around the 1800s, since King George III is alive but very old and dying. So the conflict is about Black London, the fourth London that was cut off from the others because their magic consumed the people and the land. Kell an antari, a super magical person, is able to travel through the three londons and he ends up getting caught up in some big conspiracies and power grabs. Interesting premise right? I agree but the execution ehhh. Ok, let’s start first with the pros of the book.

Style

Her style isn’t anything too extravagant. But that doesn’t mean that it’s bad. It’s nowhere near bad. She’s got quite a few descriptions that really draw you in. Her opening lines are damn near perfect. “Kell wore a very peculiar coat, It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible” [pg 11]. It doesn’t reveal much but it sort of tosses this thread out there for you to follow into the larger narrative. It’s got almost a rhyming quality to it, a rhythm that you can feel yourself saying as you recite the lines aloud. It gives you just enough to keep you invested but not enough to reveal anything of importance. All of the writing in this book has a similar draw to it, it’s simple and intricate all at once and it’s very precise in what it’s trying to say. When Schwab describes something in the narrative, you can imagine it very clearly. Just listen to how she describes the marketplace. "The subtle scent of flowers was lot beneath the aroma of cooking meat and freshly cut fruit, heavy spices and mulled wine. A man in dark robes offered candied plums beside a woman selling scrying stones. A vendor poured steaming tea into short glass goblets across from another vibrant stall displaying masks and a third offering tiny vials of water drawn from the Isle, the contents still glowing faintly with its light..." [pg 45 and 46]. Overall Schwab knows her craft and it’s clear that she’s confident in her writing because she should be, she’s got the technical and stylistic aspect down to a tee.

Setting

The setting is amazing, but and there is a big but which includes minor spoilers so run away now if you want to read this book. I will say that it’s a good book, it’s just not a good book to me. If you’re into other world fantasies and cross-dimensional travel you’ll probably like this. I’m into that too but the problem is that this book has a lot of missed potential for me. So if the previously mentioned description sounds interesting or if the summary I gave sounds interesting to you, leave, go read the book and come back. If it doesn’t sound interesting or you don’t care about spoilers then I guess stick around if you want.

So the premise is amazing. These three different Londons that all exist in different dimensions that only a select few, two people to be exact, can travel to are vastly different from one another. Their landscapes, their people, their overall geography, it’s all completely different, the only overlapping aspects that they all have are their names and the two travelers that can move about their kingdoms, those two being Kell, one of our main characters and Holland, one of our main antagonists.

I think Red London is overall well done, Schwab captures it perfectly. A land of flowers and joy with obvious problems and tensions but out of the three London’s is clearly portrayed as the best. So I’ve got no qualms with that.

What I found upsetting though was White London and Grey London. For White London, it was this hellscape of a city that had so much room to be this horrible torturous place and Schwab touches on it, she grazes the surface of it ever so slightly but she never manages to hit the mark completely. When you tell me White London is a grimy and gross place filled with power-hungry bastards and bitches what’s to stop me from going “well isn’t that just normal London aka Grey London but with magic?” I needed more of White London, I needed more of that seedy underbelly to better contrast with Grey London. With Grey London, we see the horrors of the land through the character of Lila Bard who has a difficult life, who needs to survive on her own in this terrible place, no offense London. I think the best way to have fixed this was to have more focus on Holland, the character that was from White London. If we were to have three POVs from Holland, Kell, and Lila, instead of just Lila and Kell, this problem could be solved. It would convolute the story because of the twist about Holland and his involvement in trying to help the twin rulers of White London take over Red London but I feel like that’s an ok thing to lose in order to gain a better understanding of White London and have a more fleshed out narrative of all three kingdoms.

Characters

I hate these characters. Ok, that’s kind of a strong word, I don’t hate them. I don’t hate all of them at least. And I know plenty of people love and adore these characters, I’ve seen the artwork and the time and effort people put into these characters and it’s all amazing but I just do not get the hype. I didn’t like them.

See, my thing is that I hate characters that don’t reach, what I see as their true potential. Which is just a roundabout way of saying that I hate characters that are boring. I mean I can enjoy a badly written character as much as the next person but the thing is that a boring character is not enjoyable for anyone, especially when you see threads of a character and know that they can be something more. Now I haven’t read either of the other two books so maybe the characters are different there, I don’t know. All I know is that I either found the characters to be boring, cliche, or just annoying.

The first character to make this most egregious mistake on the part of being boring, would be none other than Kell. So Kell is the adopted Prince, the older brother of Rhy. He was taken away from his family at a young age and brought up in the palace because he was an Antari, which again is a super magical person that can travel through the different Londons and is an expert in various other types of magic, natural or otherwise. So Kell loves his brother and he has issues with his adoptive parents because he feels that they see him only as a tool. Now, this is good, this has potential. The problem here is that we never see moments of the King and Queen treating Kell badly and they don’t even need to necessarily treat him badly they just need to drop hints of how they clearly favor Rhy. And I didn’t see those hints. As far as I could tell, both boys were treated relatively equal, Kell had a lot more work on his plate but that was because he’s an Antari, he’s the only Antari. To really drive home that feeling of isolation and of Rhy being his only real family among the royals there needs to be more memories of their childhood where the King and Queen picked Rhy over Kell and it was because of them seeing Rhy as their real son and Kell as more of a soldier. There is also the issue of Lila just dismissing these feelings that Kell has about his family not loving him but we’ll get to that in a bit. All that aside, Kell just isn’t interesting. You could replace him with a cardboard cutout and I wouldn’t know the difference. He’s just not an engaging character, he’s got the threads of an engaging character but he himself is not one. Whenever I was back to his POV I didn’t know whether to groan out of boredom or to just be glad we weren’t in Lila’s head. I decided to go with the former because Lila is fun to hate, Kell is bread, he’s not even toast, he’s bread, soggy bread. Ok, that’s enough.

Now Lila, Oh Lila. How I despise thee. I get what Schwab was going for with this character. She was the badass cross-dressing thief lady that could cut you down. Lila is an orphan that had to fend for herself after her father basically tried to sell her off. She’s got a good introduction and it bleeds into some good first few chapters. Now warning I’m about to talk about sexual assault and just general violence so skip to the next paragraph if you don't want to read that. In one of the earlier chapters, Lila comes home, her home being a docked ship that she stays at. The ship is owned by an older man who she basically pays rent to. When she gets back, the guy, Powell, asks for his cut. He’s drunk out of his mind which is also not unusual for this character. When she says she doesn’t have anything to give him today, he responds by saying he can take something else from her, clearly implying sexual favors. So she straight up fucking murders Powell "Dead. Dead... and making a mess... She crouched, wiped her blade on Powell's shirt, and recovered the silver from his pocket. And then she stepped over his body, retrieved the revolver from its drawer, and got dressed" [pg 69]. And then to cover her tracks, she sets his boat on fire and dips. "Lila stood on the dock and watched the Sea King burn. She stared up at it, face warmed by the fire that danced on her chin and cheeks the way the lamp light had before the constable.'It's a shame,’ she thought. She'd rather liked the rotting ship. But it wasn't hers. No, hers would be much better" [pg 70]. Come on, tell me that’s not a great anti-hero introduction? Because it is.

That being said, the more time I, as a reader spent with Lila, the more I realized I hate her. I mean at least I felt something towards her, unlike Kell. So the first problem with Lila is that she is the epitome of “I’m not like other girls” Every chance she gets to put down anything girly or to put down other women she takes. Or, she just jumps at the chance of being called not like other girls. Which Kell often obliges in. And, this would be ok if it was criticized within the story, if it was properly examined why she feels this way, because there could be a lot of reasons, one of which could be that she realized behaving in a more aggressive or traditionally masculine way allowed her to have autonomy and allowed people to not talk down to her but to be afraid of her. There are a lot of ways in which this could go but it didn’t. And there’s nothing wrong with liking more traditionally masculine things, the problem is the way in which Lila clearly needs to put other women down in order to feel special about herself. I also mentioned earlier about my issue with how Lila undermines Kell’s feelings of his adoptive parents never really loving him and seeing him only as a tool. Again, this could have been played up a little more and Kell could have properly called her out instead of just being the meek bread he is and letting her essentially tell him that his emotional struggle doesn’t matter cause he’s rich. I get where Lila is coming from in this scenario and I do like that she treats him like that in terms of his emotions because it’s very telling of her own upbringing. The problem is that she very clearly makes it about herself and her problems. This could have worked better if she simply dismissed his feelings, got angry at him for basically swimming in cash, and then stopped there. We should have gotten an insight into her thoughts of why she feels this way or have it implied why she feels this way, rather than have her outright say it, because in this case, when she voices that and shifts everything back to herself it feels very purposeful and mean on her end rather than it just being her natural reaction. Instead of going “oh my life was terrible and way worse than yours” it would work better if she just called him a brat, told him to shut up, and then moved about her own business. That could also add a more interesting dynamic to these characters by having Kell be the emotional one and Lila be the one who Kell has to urge out of her shell by being the emotional support. It would be a role reversal of the traditional way most romances go, and again, I think Schwab was trying to do that, but the execution of it fell flat. My final gripe with this character is that she isn’t feral enough, and if Schwab had just made her more feral, this character would fit in perfectly. What I mean by feral is, exactly that honestly. She was too put together, too suave and cool and always knew what to say. If you’re gonna tell me this street urchin type orphan in 1800s London is cool and suave I’m gonna call bullshit cause no way this girl isn’t straight up feral and ready to bite someone’s nose off at the drop of a hat because that’s what she’s gotta do to survive. I just wish Schwab had gone down this route instead of the Lila we got, but oh well. It is what it is.

I’m only briefly going to talk about Rhy, Kell’s younger brother, because there isn’t too much I have to say about him and I feel like this is already long enough as is. Rhy is basically a cut and dry trope of the rich prince boy with a heart of gold. I love that archetype so I like Rhy, but to an extent. He seems to be only that trope and that’s it. There isn’t much more to him. Though he’s not as boring as Kell or as annoying as Lila so that’s a plus. I haven’t even talked about the twins that rule White London or Holland but again this is already too long, don’t need to make it longer and they also involve a lot of major spoilers that I don't want to get into.

Pacing

I know earlier that I said Schwab’s style of writing was very well done, that she clearly had a kind of rhythm for the writing itself, and I stand by that statement but the pacing is not good. It’s all over the place, it’s either too slow or too fast or just nonexistent. I’m going to use romance as an example of how the pacing is bad and I think you can tell that with a lot of books. If they have romance in them, which if we’re being real, they probably do, then the way in which the romance plays out can often be a good indicator of pace. The relationship is wonky so the pacing is wonky. To be honest, the relationship was something I didn’t buy. It went by too fast and when Lila kissed him it felt very robotic like they were just getting together because they were the breeding pair. They had no chemistry whatsoever even as friends. As friends, they were at least somewhat more tolerable, but like romantic partners, I just didn’t see it. The stilted romance was awkward and dumb and again, there was no chemistry, they were just shoved together because they were the only guy and girl and both had a POV.  I don’t know the overall pacing was slow, and I don’t mind slow build-up books. One of my favorites, Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor is a very slow build-up book but it’s well done, it doesn’t drag. This book drags and the romance in it drags. When the pace picks up it’s like going a thousand miles an hour. When shit hit the fan in the book, I get that it was supposed to be fast-paced and tense but I was never tense while reading it I just kind of wanted the whole book to end so I didn’t have to keep slogging through it. I guess I just hoped that the ending would tie it all together and fix the pacing which is stupid on my part because that’s not at all what happened.

Conclusion

Well, that’s all I gotta say about it, I gave it three stars on GoodReads.

Buy the book here:

https://www.amazon.com/Darker-Shade-Magic-Novel-Shades-ebook/dp/B00ME0TBFE

Buy it Used here:

https://www.abebooks.com/Darker-Shade-Magic-Schwab-Victoria-Titan/30413099967/bd?cm_mmc=ggl-_-US_Shopp_Trade-_-used-_-naa&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4NTxBRDxARIsAHyp6gDRNRjl8x-ktniE3IUmecyE1lDYlPxglxoLpBAYEt7C3ivyt9PPabkaAmTGEALw_wcB

or here 

https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/a-darker-shade-of-magic_victoria-schwab/9043358/item/16041243/?mkwid=MUQmUYQc%7cdc&pcrid=70112856192&product=16041243&plc=&pgrid=18035380632&ptaid=aud-305373123344%3apla-459905910383&utm_source=google_shopping&utm_content=MUQmUYQc%7cdc%7cpcrid%7c70112856192%7cpkw%7c%7cpmt%7c%7cproduct%7c16041243%7cslid%7c%7cpgrid%7c18035380632%7cptaid%7caud-305373123344%3apla-459905910383%7c&gclid=Cj0KCQiA4NTxBRDxARIsAHyp6gDXbz2350Y8Tse02z5fKP_TgnPIH1DXhILOWkgk260VeZzQwUCgXbEaAsH5EALw_wcB#isbn=0765376466&idiq=16041243

Or just get it at your local library.

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Sammy!

You have been accepted for the role of PETER PETTIGREW, with your requested faceclaim change to Nico Mirallegro! We really enjoyed reading your application! We particularly like the way you showed the way Peter is still understanding his identity - not just with his sexuality, but also that lingering question of who he is. We are so excited to have you as part of this roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Sammy

AGE: 23

TIMEZONE: CST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I should be on about 3 days a week, give or take given I work almost every day

ANYTHING ELSE: I’m highly triggered by imagery of needles or descriptions of their use, also I’ve been roleplaying in some form or another for 12 years

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Peter Horatio Pettigrew

AGE: 22

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cismale, he/him, and homosexual. Peter doesn’t even fully realize that he’s never been interested in the women around him. At school he chalked it up to himself being the odd one in the group, the unpopular boy in the wake of Gryffindors everyone knew. His belief is that he simply hasn’t noticed his attraction to women yet while he sits and idolizes men he finds attractive such as James.

BLOOD STATUS: Half-Blood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Gryffindor

ANY CHANGES: Nico Mirallegro fc change please

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Overview:

Peter finds that he has very little confidence which is one of the main problems with him succeeding socially. He doesn’t trust his instincts and his self-preservative mindset has led to him following whoever he deems to be the biggest man at the table. James Potter and Sirius Black, as well as the very smart Remus Lupin, had been the big boys at Hogwarts and Peter had the uncanny ability to read that in them as early as the train ride their first year. He believes that by keeping his mouth shut he’ll be able to play both sides and survive when the biggest dog in the dogfight eventually succeeds.

__

Expanded:

Many who knew Peter Pettigrew would call him simple or naive. He wasn’t top of his class like Remus Lupin, instead his marks hovered on the middle to lower ends of the grade book. He had accepted that about himself, knew that he wasn’t meant for greatness like his friends. Peter was simply happy to be a member of the group. He didn’t need to be smart because Remus had that covered. He didn’t need to be charismatic, Sirius was practically dripping with it. He didn’t even necessarily need to be brave for James was the bravest man Peter knew. All Peter had to be in that context was helpful, which he supposed he could manage.

What most people didn’t expect Peter to be capable of was reading people. He might not have been good one on one with his peers but reading people and being able to tell what kind of person they were was Peter’s quiet talent. He could tell who could be useful and who to avoid. It was one of his biggest strengths in life. People were easier to read than his textbooks, their tells much more of a giveaway then people expected. Peter didn’t advertise this ability very often, actually content with his simple reputation.

The main trait Peter has relates to his ability to read people and it is his self-preservation. He values his life over all else. His safety, his stability, is the most important thing. He takes calculated risks, ones that he’s sure will result in him not coming out on the bottom. He’s not aiming for the top, he just doesn’t want to be on the bottom of the dog pile.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

Peter’s muggle father was never in the picture, he doesn’t even know the man’s name, but Ms. Hattie Pettigrew, the beautiful witch that she was, had a clear focus and keen mind that simply were not equipped to focus on her son. She was striving for the best in everything she reached for, a child not having fit into the plan she’d laid out for herself. She worked in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement doing paperwork all day to her heart’s content.

Peter didn’t have the same drive as her, though she was quick to tell him that only the brightest minds would get ahead. Peter wondered what constituted a great mind in his mother’s opinion, not considering himself particularly intelligent but, instead, rather clever. He often wondered how it was he’d managed to get into Gryffindor, not possessing many of the traits of his house, but he valued bravery despite not possessing it and he supposed that counted for their purposes, even if his mother found that foolish of him.

OCCUPATION:

Peter is currently unemployed. He has hopped from job to job (ex. Flourish & Blotts, The Three Broomsticks, Madame Malkin’s, various muggle shops) with nothing making him feel as though he were a good fit. He’s debated just picking some random Ministry job at this point, though that was never one of his plans.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

Peter doesn’t hate the Order, nor does he love it either. He joined to keep his friends close and, while he has seen a great deal of them since they’ve graduated, his involvement with the Death Eaters is eating away at him. He doesn’t believe they can possibly win this war, but he’s not confident enough to walk away, especially with his friends still inside.

He’s glad to be considered somewhat Mid-Level, though he knows that the Dark Lord would prefer him to worm his way higher up the ladder. He’s grateful to be James’ friend in that way, hoping that he can convince James to confide in him to get what he needs without raising suspicion over his sudden interest in rising among the ranks. Ambition wasn’t something Peter was known for.

SURVIVAL:

Peter has never been one of the top dogs in life due to much of his own doing. In primary school he was shy and got bullied for his inability to gain friends as smoothly as the other children. He hated that feeling, hated not being able to defend himself. When his magic would burst out toward his assailants he didn’t regret it, though he also didn’t tell his mother either. He just wanted to get those children off his back.

Heading to Hogwarts, Peter worried his new Wizarding school would be just the same as his muggle one. Finding comfort in the brilliant Remus Lupin opened up every door for Peter beyond his wildest dreams. Becoming a Marauder was one of the best things for his confidence. He fit in, he was safe from harm. No one but the Slytherins were going to mess with him and, even then, his friends were at his side. His abilities rose and he began to blossom into a competent wizard, even if he wasn’t as talented as his friends. He could sense their aura of power, could tell this is what safety felt like. He couldn’t risk losing it.

Now that they’re out of school and without the safety net of living in the same dorm, he feels his safety net start to bow and tear. He would do anything to keep his life intact, meaning he had to join the Order. At first the Order felt like a place he could be taken care of, especially with his friends by his side, but he quickly saw their numbers dwindling and the dangerous situations they were putting themselves in rise. It quickly became a situation he wanted out of without being able to do anything about it.

When the Death Eaters approached Peter about spying on the Order he hadn’t been entirely sure what would have possessed them to ask. He wasn’t smart or talented or even charismatic but he quickly realized that was exactly what made him a good spy. People expected little to nothing from simple Peter Pettigrew. He buys his continued existence with information, even at the expense of those he does care for. Survival is key to Peter, above all else.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Friendship comes second to survival in Peter’s eyes. He loves his friends dearly, or as dearly as he possibly could, but his own well-being would always have to come first.

Peter sympathizes with the idea of the Dissendium Task Force, though he chooses not to include himself in its inner-workings so he has less to report on the subject. He thinks that Remus, Lily, and Marlene are doing the right thing by protecting those who need safety. He’d take that exit if he could himself.

Peter can feel his friendships slipping through his fingers, like sand that he is trying so desperately to cling to. He used to feel included and an integral part of the group but now he finds that as James has risen and he’s started to betray those he cares for most he’s teetering closer and closer to losing everything that has ever mattered to him.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: Ships: Peter/Chemistry -- Anti-Ships: Peter/Women, Peter/Forced

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE? 

Peter is still afraid of the concept surrounding werewolves. He accepts Remus because Remus was brought up around witches and wizards but he has fear of other half-breeds with less of that magical experience than his friends. Being a half-blood, he feels he’s able to coast when it comes to society. No expectations from a pureblooded standpoint but he’s also not in danger like muggle-borns.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

The concept looks really unique and fun, plus seeing how many members were involved and how many characters were taken actually made it seem much more appealing because it sounds like things will be very active.

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

Peter getting caught spying Peter dying is even on the table if you guys need someone to take a fall Kidnapping of characters

ANYTHING ELSE? I hope this was better!