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mandoalorian · 4 years

Note

Din djarin is a insecure man so what do you think about din being insecure and following reader when she is in the streets and she already knows it and try to play with his jealous and Fluff at the end. I love you and thanks 🥰

Are You An Angel? [Din Djarin x F!Reader]

Rating: 13+

Word count: 1.7k

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Din Djarin taglist: @alecdamndario0

When Din was younger, he'd lay in the lap of his mother and at night, and she'd sing sweet songs to lull him to sleep. His father always made an effort to spend time with Din during the later hours of the evening, sitting on the edge of Din's small bed and holding his son's hand. He couldn't sing like his wife could, and Din didn't really have the privilege of owning any books— but there was one bedtime story that only Din's father could tell, and Din had in fact become particularly fond of it.

"When I met your mother, I believed she was an angel from the moon of Iego. The angels were reputed for their beauty, and she was certainly the most beautiful woman I had ever seen." Din's father would tell, smiling as he reminisced.

Din became enamoured with the story and the concept of angels. But after the death of his parents the idea of love and beauty and peace became so foreign. When he was sworn to the Creed, his priority became to fight and defend, but the story his father told all those years ago still lived deep within Din's heart. It was something he always held onto.

Finding a long term lover was just never in the cards for Din, no matter how much he dreamed of it. It just wasn't plausible, considering his creed and career, and that gave him some kind of insecurity. He'd never had a serious relationship. He understood and came to accept that no one would really want a man who was part of a culture that forbade the removal of his helmet, or even a bounty hunter who was always constantly travelling and couldn't settle down.

But things had been changing. Din had a child now, and he hadn't claimed a bounty from the Guild in months. Din had never stayed in one place for too long— he couldn't without running the risk of getting into trouble with thugs or crime syndicates. But when he returned to Nevarro one sunny afternoon, he walked through the market and saw you.

You were hidden by a cloak, intriguing the attention from Din almost immediately. You picked up an apple and handed it to one of the children with a generous smile. The child snatched it from you promptly and ran off. You were unlike anyone or anything Din had seen before… you beamed and glowed and your beauty was incomparable. When he first saw you, he was reminded of his father's story about the angels on Iego.

Once upon a time, Din would've said that 'love at first sight' was nonsense. Ridiculous. But he hadn't met you. He learned that you attended the farmers market on Nevarro everyday at approximately the same time— and every day, without fail, you'd purchase an item of fruit; be it sourberries or sweetplums, and you'd give it to a child in need. Din would watch you from the hull of the Razor Crest, staring intently, baffled by your continued selfless acts of kindness and generosity.

He wanted to approach you. He wanted to say hello, maybe ask you for a drink— although that would be absurd considering he couldn't remove the beskar that contained his face. He just wished he'd have enough confidence to say something; anything to you. But whenever he got close to saying something, his mouth would get dry and his throat would close up.

He couldn't believe it, he'd never experienced anything like this before. Din was always able to talk himself out of tricky situations but this… was something else. It was your aura that stunned him. It was everything his father had described to him when he was younger, but now Din could finally understand what exactly he meant.

He was going to say something. Just a simple 'hello'. He had to. He spent some time in the fresher before, he planned out how exactly he was going to approach you. He'd talk it through with Grogu. "Listen kid," he told the green bean. "She seems to like to give kids fruit from the market stall so… maybe ask for some sourberries or something, yeah? And then I'll come up to you and uh…" Din trailed off, trying to make his elaborate plan clear to his son who almost definitely had no idea what Din was talking about.

Din was sure you hadn't seen him, but he was wrong. Only once in a blue moon would the Nevarro locals see a Mandalorian dressed head to toe in silver Beskar. Din was pretty memorable. You noticed him the first day he saw you. You were aware you were being watched, and quite frankly, you didn't care.

If it was any other man… any other dirty scoundrel watching you from his ship quarters, you'd feel violated and disgusted. But Din Djarin wasn't just any man. Having a Mandalorian warrior watch over you, knowing that he had an armoury full of weapons and the impeccable skillset of a true fighter made you feel protected. You hadn't spoken a word to him— what were you to say to a Mandalorian? But you wanted to. His presence initiated a primal urge within you. You needed him.

When the time came, he couldn't do it. He froze up, seeing a man caress your arm and lean into you. The man was strange. Din had been watching you for weeks now and he had never seen this man at all. Could it be a friend from another planet? A boyfriend? No… not a boyfriend. The pit of Din's stomach filled with envy. Had he waited too long to make his move? He cursed himself under his breath for letting himself get so attached to a woman he had never even met before.

Din watched closer, his eyes narrowing when he saw the strange man press his chest into yours, pushing you into the fruit & veg stall you stood beside everyday. You looked uncomfortable but your good heart stopped you from pushing him away. Din's fingers graced the blaster in his holster as he watched the man press a finger into your chest, drunkenly slurring his speech. Your fingers curled around the market stall table, defensively creating fists that were so tight your knuckles turned white.

Noticing the man had a dagger in his pocket, Din decided he had to act fast. It wasn't the way he intended meeting you, but no one else was watching over you. He couldn't bear to see you get hurt.

Din whipped out his vibroblade and held it to the man's neck, your eyes widening in horror as he approached the stranger from behind. "Step away from the lady," Din hissed, his voice laced with venom and the knife only inches away from the man's throat. "Make one wrong move and you're dead, you understand?" Din asked.

The man removed his hands from you, placing them above his head and surrendering. He slowly took a few steps away before quickly running off without saying a word. With a flick of a switch, Din shut down his vibroblade and slid it back into his holster.

"Th-thank you," you bit your lip nervously, looking up at the Mandalorian. "You're my hero."

"It's uh, it's nothing," Din replied, feeling the awkwardness consume him. "Are you new around here?"

"Fairly," you answered quickly with a nod.

"Because there's a lot of men like him, here on Nevarro. Bad men. So uh, you should really be careful." Din explained and you didn't reply, instead shyly looking down at the ground. Din felt like he had royally messed up. Grogu padded over towards the both of you, blinking his big black eyes innocently. You couldn't help but grin when you saw him.

"Is this your child?" you quizzed, eventually breaking the silence.

"Something like that." Din muttered as his gaze flicked between you and Grogu.

"Oh, I've never seen a child like him before. He's wonderful." you beamed merrily, pulling out a bunch of sourberries and handing them to Grogu.

"He's certainly special," Din grumbled through a genuine smile. "So, what brings you to Nevarro?"

"It's… complicated," you huffed out a sigh. "Actually, I may not be able to stay here much longer."

"On the run?" Din asked with a chuckle, but it was only a half joke. His heart shattered when he saw you nod sadly.

"Yeah. Like I said, complicated." You shrugged, folding your arms over your chest.

"I know how it feels," Din revealed and you looked up at him with curiousity. "My uh… my ship. It has room for you, if you wanted to come with me." He suggested, pointing aimlessly to the Razor Crest which was stationed a few yards back. Grogu gargled quizzically.

"Where are you going?" you asked the Mandalorian.

"I- anywhere? Nowhere? Everywhere? There's really no place off limits." Din responded.

"You'd really let me accompany you?" you asked again. For some reason, you weren't completely opposed to the idea. In fact, you trusted this man who you didn't even know the name of.

"Yeah," Din shrugged casually. "But I do have one question," you nodded, urging him to continue. "Are you an angel?" he asked, immediately hating the way the words left his lips.

"A what?" you scrunched up your nose in bewilderment, unsure if you had heard him right.

"An angel," he repeated. "From the moons of Iego."

You felt your cheeks heat up at his sentiment. "I could be asking you the same thing," you giggled, pursing your lips together into a thin line. "You've been watching me for weeks. Like my guardian angel." Din felt embarrassed that you had noticed him, but his feeling immediately softened when you placed a hand gently on his shoulder. "I would like to come with you." you said quietly, subconsciously fluttering your eyelashes.

"Where would you like to go?" Din questioned, his voice low through the modulator.

"Take me to the moons of Iego," you smiled, before interlocking your fingers with his and letting him direct you back to the ship. "I want to see these angels."

#pedro pascal #pedro pascal x reader #din djarin #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #the mandalorian x reader #the mandalorian season 2

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huntsman-ash · 4 years

Text

RWBY LiveThoughts: V8E7

Since I finally have time for it today, lets make sure Im all caught up for the hiatus.

Before we get fully started, an idea; Its not a war crime if they’re Grimm. Then its just self defense. So break out the napalm, the cluster bombs, the chemical weapons, the fun stuff. Make em regret it, yeah?

And we start off...on a farm. Looks like my moms old farm in South Dakota. Even on Remnant, hay is best used in bales.

Waiiiit. Thats the place the Whale set down isnt it. I see a Sayber running. Ah, and the Atlas military! Surely, the vanguard of a massive force to hold the line! Also Im glad to see a close up of the helmet for once, I want to make my own. Also, the gloves, and the rifle itself. Not sure why it doesnt have a stock, seems kind of silly...

And airships too, so they got some fire support...whats that wall behind them though?

Also it TOOK US 8 FUCKING SEASONS to get a close up of these FUCKING Weapons. 8. FUCKING. SEASONS. Okay maybe more like 5 cause they didnt first appear till 3 or so but come on. Im so picking this shit apart later.

Pfft, bros got some nerves going on. Come on man, its just some Grimm, you’ll be FINE.

Atlas field harvesters resemble Halo’s JOTUN Farming equipment. As wel as our own. No surprise there.

Alright, bunch of Saybers, not seeing much of a threat here.

Hey, Paladins! Damn, they...look way different than I remember them to be.

I wont lie, I dont like the Paladin design. Way to much visual noise, I cant tell where anything IS.

Also that is the most 2D grass I have sever seen in my fucking life. What the hell are they growing here...

Huh, the whale has two sets of teeth. Wait, its just there? And its wpewing out Grimm. So...why isnt the air force firing on it?

Yeah its not moving, its just raising its head and slamming down and vomiting out more Grimm. Im not sure what the issue is here, just...seal the mouth.

Oh, huh. Apathys. Let me guess, RTs gonna try and tell us depression is going to kill most of Atlas. Oh for fuck sake. IM NOT IMPRESSED RT. IM REALLY NOT. IM MORE FUCKING ANNOYED THAN ANYTHING

Okay so...I see what this is. Its farm land outside of atlas proper and there’s an additional wall behind them, plus the power lines I guess? Seems like a viable place to make a stand.

...thats it. Please tell me this is just a single detachment of the Atlas military because there is less firepower here than a NATIONAL GUARD UNIT ASSIGNED TO ONE CITY

Im fairly certain there are more people assigned to ONE UNIT attached to JBLM then I amm seeing here.

Not to mention this is an OPEN FIELD the Grimm have to run through. This is a literall fucking TURKEY SHOOT. Running across an open field anywhere is a ticket to DYING.

Just ask the poor fucks on D-day.

Also uh...why is everyone in line formation? What is this, fuckin’ 18009s combat Napoleon style?

And did the distance suddenly change, I feel like the whale suddenly got a hell of a lot closer.

Just...I dont get this. This makes no sense. Did Ironwood learn how to deploy forces from a fairy tale book? This is legitimately some fuckin Lord of the Rings shit here.

RIP that one specific trooper hit by that Behemoth though. Dont worry friend, the thing walked next to a Paladin. Its getting its eye blasted out

And cut back to Ironwood. Doing...fuck if I know what.

Staring angrily it seems.

“Dammit, my tactical deployment by line formation and parade ground tactics isnt holding back the Grimm, curses!”

Well MAYBE IF YOUD THOUGHT TO INVEST IN SOME FUCKING AIR SUPPORT...Seriously.

I know people have told me why this is. I understand myself why this is. But it really just...does...not...jibe with me. At all.

Okay so more details; first, apparently Atlas has a subway. Makes sense, its a big island. Inter-system transits probably a given. Second; Was that Mantis Squad Omega? Some kind of unit maybe...interesting.

Also I love how this guy just questions Ironwood. Like, bro, if the General says do it, do it.

Hold the fuck up, why is everyone outside? It looks like fuckin’ Cali during our lockdowns...what ever happened to martial law huh?

Also “underground subway stations”. Yes, thats...kind of what a subway IS. I guess maybe they have overhead ones like New York does. Mass transit be weird like that.

I mean HELL the signs on it are almost identical to the ones in NYC too! Even with the colored circles and train cnumbers.

According to the sign here they’re at Pickens Square Station.

Oh boy. Ironwood just fed these poor bastards into a meat grinder. Anyone here ever played the Metro game series, or read the books?

Remember the Dark Ones? The Nosallias? Yeah. Tight corridors and monsters only work out well for angry vodka fueled Russians.

Didnt see it very well but I THINK those Mantas had some kind of wing gun. Either thats new, a separate armament setting, or RT forgot what ind of weapons they gave their ships AGAIN.

Cant get the shields back up, yeah, no shit, they DETACHED ONE OF THE FUCKING PILOTS YOU IDIOTS.

Also hah, they arrested Yang, Ren and Jaune. Not surprised.

Beta squads apperently been hitting the whale. ‘Bombs, missiles, we cant make a dent, sir.” ...while Im not surprised by this, I also hear shades of the opening of Halo 2s level Metropolis. “Where’s the rest of your platoon?” “Wasted, sarge. Blew right through us. Rockets, fifty cals, didnt do nothing.”

Honestly they could have SHOWED THAT too. Them just saying it feels like a cop out to me. Take that as you will. But if you want us to see the things hard to kill, show it.

Not that I figure Atlas’s rockets are much more than Dust in a propellent tank. Not exactly a Hellfire or TOW.

Nice to see proper military talk for...a moment anyway.

Or what I figure RT figures is proper.

Oh so now the whales moving. Okay...huh.

Jaunes commentary is the same as mine. Though I guess the size seems to shift depending.

Ohhh. Its MANTA. As in the gunships. Alright, sure that works. And this guys making a good call. If you cant hit the big one go after the smaller. Of which there seems to be a HELL of a lot. Actually holy fuck that Grimm spew is across like...ahlf the fucking island right now. Time to fuckin torch and burn people.

Ahhhhhh and they get to the proper idea. If you cant punch it from the outside, hit it from the inside.

I knew a crew...three madmen, names of Keegan, Lahni and Mac. The Hivebusters. Something tells me a Venom bomb would do the trick...if it can rip apart Swarm creatures as big as a Snatcher or a Swarmak and reduce them to green slime, I think it’ll work on Grimm.

Something tells me RT isnt gonna give em a bomb though. Too obvious.

NEVER MIND. “Science team is putting together a bomb.”

Also I LOVE how Winter’s pupils expand and retract in fear as she realizes what Ironwoods asking her to do.

Awww now shes getting the shakes too.

Salem directing this shit like shes some kind of orchestra leader. I mean it FITS but...I dunno.

Ah so the command deck is directly behind the whale’s glowing nose. Basically inside where the spermacetiy organ would be in a real sperm whale.

What the fuck is Emerald doing there?

Sneaking I guess. Huh. Why’s she sneaking around the whale. Also, huh. guess seeers can get fooled by Emeralds semblance. Is HE STILL BEATING UP ON OSCAR? Jeez dude. Take a breather.

Honestly if this was TRUE I would be okay with it. Replace the Huntsman with, I dont know, a massively overequipped military for each Kingdom, let them run rampant...stomp the Grimm out or push them back to nonexistence...everyone lives happily ever after

Lets be real here, the idea of the academies? Really really fucking dumb. Its cute. Fairy tale like.

But if theres one thing this show has taught me its that fairy tales SUCK. Reality...tends to be worse.

Ah theres one of those torture hooks they mentioned a few episodes back. Nice of the whale to have a specific interrigation room.

And at last we get some information on how Salem works. Alright so...what happens if you seperate the parts then? Sink one in the ocean, launch one into space.

Sounds like Oz/Oscars telling the fans what we’ve been saying forever, Companion Book be damned; Salem wants to die.

These mind games bore me. Its cute, but I dont like it cause I cant follow that shit. Give me a straight up fight any day, fuck this sublty backroom fuckery

No lies from them both here honestly.

Medical supplies in Atlas seem almost the same as here on earth interestngly. Also, soup. Or...coffee, tea?

Blake with the obvious here. But I mean thats not really saying much cause...well. Not hard to outfight the Atlas military it seems like. (Long suffering sigh)

Im gonna make a seperate post about my frustrations with that and leave it there. But dont expect me to stop fully complaining about it because everyones gotta have something to bitch about with this show, and I’ll be DAMNED if I start joining the BB whiners.

Good question, Ruby. Might be that YOUR NOT LIVING IN A FAIRY TALE

I’d like to see these people dying in Mantle. I refuse to believe that there isnt SOMEONE in the nation that once brought Remnant to its heel that wont stand and fight. Unless Im wrong about that too...

May backstory? May backstory. Yeah. Not amazingly complicated but it works. Cant tell if shes Henry though...or was.

Dramatic lightning flash

Cute you think that Ruby. Theres sides. Always are.

Further proof honestly.

Hazels look of though is amusing. Cant tell if he doesnt believe Oscar, or if his tiny peabrain is runing full bore to think this through.

Coordination between farm boy and professor.

Oh. OHHHH. Plants the seed of doubt in Hazels tiny mind, he uses the last question for himself, sees the truth... Clever, Oscar. Clever.

Hazel peabrain go THUNK

Ah so Mercs going off to Vacuo. Guess that means everyone else is going there next too. Eat that, random Discord person, I called it.

Course, CFVYs there so...maybe we get to see Yats beat up on him.

Oh hi Tyrian. Do you just...randomly roam the halls of the whale waiting to DRAMATICALLY REVEAL YOURSELF and give violent expositon? Im very much okay with that.

Also I love how he just...accepts this. Totally fucking bonkers, totally down with it.

Oh shit, Tyrian and Mercury going to Vacuo? Damn thats gonna be INTERESTING. I guess Tyrian’ll fit in well enough honestly.

Flying Beringal literally out of the roof.

I remember back when this season first started and I said those weird bone platforms looked like VTOL launch bays. Guess what? They are.

Merc and Em emotion blah blah DONT CAAARRREEE

Jaune thinking tactically for ONCE IN HIS FUCKING LIFE. An I mean military tactical of course.

Also I like how the Aces say they dont let emotions cloud their shit WHEN THEYVE BEEN DOING THAT THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME.

This ENTIRE PLANET is emotionally run. Thats why the Grimm are such an issue! Makes small note to make Remnant Adeptus Mechanicus cult

Seriously though...

I wont lie though, Hare isnt wrong. Wonder what happened to that Tortuga guy. Tyrian, is my guess. Love how Ren interrupts the moment they almost mention Clovers name.

Expendable, yes. Replacable, no. You should have a talk with squadron leader Grey from Star Wars Squadrons Ren

ANNNNDDD SEMBLANCE EVOLUTION. Or the edibles just kicked in.

This is cool and all but its really fucking dumb and hamfisted. Explain all you want. Mention emotions all you want.

The Aces are fucking huntsmen. HUNTSMEN. FUCKING. SUCK. They always have. Its a dumb idea. Yes, lets stop the hordes of monsters invading this world BY SENDING IN SINGLE OPERATIVES WITH FUCKING MELEE WEAPONS

I’ll make this clear to you, Ren, right here and now. If you faced a REAL elites, you wouldnt have stood a chance. Nor would RWBY. Their bodies would have been three-shot from 20 meters out with a breach and clear and stacked against the wall like cords of wood, one final shot to the dome to make dead sure they were down. None of this stupid flipping and acrobatic crap, none of this clashing weapons and Dust and semblances...no.

You’d be dead before you knew they were there and they would move on. You’d just be another body to the pile, one more faceless corpse to add to their kill count. A meatgrinder in human form.

Professionals. Dont. Lose. AND THE ACES ARE NOT PROFESSIONALS!

Because thats not what RWBYs about, never has been. And that is what annoys me slightly. That and the fact I cant distangle what I know of other universes and our own from RWBY’s. Its hard to hold a universe on its own when everything they make points towards it being like ours, but they change it when they see fit.

I feel like thats bad writing.

Hehehe. Winter touched Elms boob.

Glad to know that Winters got her priorities right. Course, that bomb probably aint gonna do shit cause its Dust based.

...again, hoping its a chemical weapon...

Wait, the Atlas forces from earlier are STILL FIGHTING? Damn, these Grimm must suck if they couldnt wipe them out in that little time...

Also I cant tell if its getting dark cause of the storm or if its the dawn of the next day. Or did...they shift time around? I lost track. I SWORE the sun was setting the last time we saw everything.

Also return of the shitty 3D grass...

Marrows gonna defect.

Awww poor Winters got emotions. HEY MAYBE DONT SEND A MENSTRATING WOMAN OUT ON A FIELD OP, ATLAS!

So according to May there’s still front lines. Cool.

AYYY ITS KLIEN! HES BACK

Oh, I guess hes a doctor too. Oh he MAD.

Ayyy Whitleys being USEFUL for fucking once in his shitty life.

Shes gonna hug him isnt she.

CALLED IT. For fuck sake...whatever. Cute. But whatever.

Oh annnnddd now Grimmquake?

No. It stopped...Bolide?

No. PENNY.

Annnnddd shes leaking coolant. And sparking. And dead.

RIP Penny.

The concept art of the beached whale looks so fucking silly. Seriously, just...detach the whole section there. Drop the fucking thing.

Oh well.

And thats it for almost two months! Be prepared for me to BULLSHIT MY WAY THROUGH ALL OF IT and continue on with my military fanwank because THATS HOW IM SURVIVING 2020!

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby v8 #spoilers

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johnnymundano · 5 years

Text

Sleepwalkers (1992)

Directed by Mick Garris

Screenplay by Stephen King

Music by Nicholas Pike

Country: United States

Running time: 91 minutes

CAST

Brian Krause as Charles Brady

Alice Krige as Mary Brady

Mädchen Amick as Tanya Robertson

Sparks the cat as Clovis

Lyman Ward as Donald Robertson

Cindy Pickett as Helen Robertson

Ron Perlman as Captain Soames

Jim Haynie as Sheriff Ira Stevens

Dan Martin as Deputy Andy Simpson

Lucy Boryer as Jeanette

Glenn Shadix as Mr. Fallows

Stephen King as Cemetery Caretaker

John Landis as Lab Technician

Joe Dante as Lab Assistant

Clive Barker as Forensic Tech

Tobe Hooper as Forensic Tech

Mark Hamill as Sheriff Jenkins

I have no beef with Stephen King, let’s get that out upfront. I’m not one of those “Yeah, but it’s not proper books is it?” chancers who churlishly resent his Medal for Distinguished Contribution (lifetime) to American Letters. Nope, not me. But Sleepwalkers is a real honker. It’s stoopid, hyuk-hyuk, pick your nose in church, comic book bullshit. And purposely so. Crap like this doesn’t happen by accident. And King is totally responsible for this. There’s no “Wah! Someone took my script and made a shitshow of it” excuse here. Sleepwalkers is often called (as it is onscreen) Stephen King’s Sleepwalkers; the guy’s all over this one. It’s even an original script (maybe, I hear, based on an unpublished story; I didn’t check but I’m pretty sure the only things remaining unpublished by Stephen King in 2019 are his notes to the milkman. And they are due out next year from Subterranean Press, in a limited edition that costs more than a week’s shopping for a small family.) The script is his and so is the director; King personally pushed for Mick Garris, and King got Mick Garris. Even the songs on the soundtrack are pure Stephen King too; old timey R’n’R like at the sock hop where Cindy Lou showed you her woo-woo, mixed with that special kind of shitty heavy rock liked by confused men who think having hair like a girl in a shampoo advert is a signifier of raw masculinity. Other than composing and playing the instrumental score on a home-made kazoo personally, could Sleepwalkers be any more Stephen King? No.

For some unhappy reason whenever he gets any substantial control over a movie King’s IQ plummets to room temperature and all his worst impulses leap to the fore like randy cats. (I submit to the jury Maximum Overdrive (Dir: Stephen King, 1986), m’lud; the prosecution rests.) I think (maybe) King, bless his cotton socks, is trying to recreate the cinema of his youth; stuff like The Blob (1958), Them! (1954), Invaders From Mars (1953) and I Married A Monster From Outer Space (1958). The pulp fun cinema of a dead age. Unfortunately for King, those people back then were trying to make the best movie they could; the pop culture magic which ensured their success and longevity was purely unintentional and completely impervious to intelligent creation. King’s forays into movies seem to be trying to reverse engineer serendipity; a fools’ errand that results in foolish movies. Movies like Sleepwalkers.

The impulse to gravitate to camp seems ingrained in Cinematic King. Even when he just does one of his almost ubiquitous cameos, he often fails to resist the temptation to goof about like some brain damaged hayseed on a 1960s sit-com. If someone, Criterion maybe, went back and dubbed a pant-ripping fart over all Alfred Hitchcock’s onscreen cameos we’d be approaching the same ballpark of screen disruption as a Stephen King cameo. Of course he has a cameo in Sleepwalkers. A talking cameo at that as a “cemetery caretaker”, and King confounds expectations by playing it like some brain damaged hayseed on a 1960s sit-com. Even better, his unnecessary cameo bounces off unnecessary cameos by Tobe Hooper and Clive Barker; it’s like the business of the movie pauses for a couple of minutes purely so King can piss about with his mates. This is swiftly followed by cameos from John Landis and Joe Dante who, er, say some “lab” stuff I missed because Joe Dante’s hair is so…fascinating. I don’t mind cameos as long as they are unobtrusive but these might as well be announced by dancing girls and a marching band. At least all the characters aren’t called stuff like “Officer Hooper” or “Mayor Corman”; that shit gets old real quick.

As anyone who has ever cleaned out a litter box can tell you, another kind of shit that gets old quick is cat shit. There are a lot of cats in Sleepwalkers, the hero even turns out to be a cat, Clovis by name. In fact Sparks the cat, as Clovis, gives the third best performance in the movie, behind Mädchen Amick and Alice Krige. Mädchen Amick is undeniably great here. She’s totally pleasant and nicer than nice without making you want to choke on your own fist. There’s an exuberant scene of her dancing to a song Stephen King obviously likes, in the lobby of a cinema, which is a very lovely scene and she continues to be a refreshing presence throughout the movie. Alice Krige is also good value, striking a nice balance between vile and vulnerable; she acts like her no doubt soon-to-be-fired agent told her she’s in a serious movie. Everyone else seems to have received a script with “Camp It The Fuck Up, Daddio! Love, Steve-o” scrawled across it, probably in crayon. Were that the case, then everyone performs superlatively. The usually fine actor and generally welcome screen presence Ron Perlman, particularly, thunders through every scene he’s in like subtlety is a crime.

Maybe in the world of Sleepwalkers subtlety is a crime. Because the world of Sleepwalkers is a funny world, one where werecat son and werecat mom Charles and Mary Brady (Brian Krause and Alice Krige) wander about feeding off the psychic energy of virgins, enthusiastically incesting and driving fast muscle cars. For some reason they also feel it necessary for Charles to attend school which, you might think, would create a lot of complications for a nomadic couple who need to keep off the authorities’ radar. If you did think that, you would have put more thought into this set up than Stephen King. These werecat people can make themselves invisible; okay. They can also make their car invisible; um. And they can make their car change into another car; er, no; sometimes it will turn back into the old car if they don’t concentrate; so, wait, the car is real but also an illusion? But how can they drive an illusion? So it must be a real car, but…oh God, make it stop. And mom werecat has to stay at home while son werecat goes out and gets the virgin energy to feed to her. If the mom werecat can only be fed by her offspring, how did she survive long enough to have offspring? Or is it just that mom werecats are all agoraphobic? Also, the werecat people look like humans unless they are reflected in a mirror (but only when the script remembers) and they, uh, still leave mirrors up in their house so visitors can narrowly miss seeing their true nature. Oh, yeah, obviously, normal cats are the werecats’ natural enemy and in the world of Sleepwalkers police officers can have their cat in the car with them, which is lucky because the proximity of a normal cat also causes the werecat to reveal its true nature. Unfortunately, once revealed, their true nature of a werecat is remarkably similar to someone with jaundice who has lost an enormous amount of weight very rapidly, all topped by a big bald cat head. In summary: ancient Egyptians liked cats, cats are magic but werecats are nasty and really bad and not very good at keeping their existence a secret, but they do their homework and drive cars Stephen King would doubtless describe as “bitchin’”.

I should probably say that Mick Garris’ direction is fine, and sometimes very good indeed and I did enjoy his use of ‘80s horror movie lighting techniques. But I really want to point out that Mick Garris has written some very good horror fiction himself; well worth seeking out. As is Sleepwalkers; but you need to know what you are getting: entertaining nonsense, a kind of retro-crap honestly proffered in the spirit of drive-in goofballery. Essentially though, you can never shake off the feeling that Sleepwalkers exists purely because Stephen King came up with the scene where someone is killed by a corn on the cob and then built a ramshackle movie around that. Unfortunately it’s not a very good movie. But it is entertaining. M-O-O-N, that spells entertaining. Laws, yes!

#Sleepwalkers #Stephen King #Mick Garris #Movies #Horror #Alice Krige #Ron Perlman #Sparks the cat #Mädchen Amick #United States #The 1990s #1992

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wardencommanderrodimiss · 5 years

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Witches, Chapter 11: I split another giant chapter in half. In this portion, I set up a filler case that exists purely to set the scene and allow me to make up two very bad AA-style pun names; shit hasn’t quite gotten real but it sure is about to; and Athena makes some new friends.

[Seelie of Kurain Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

[Witches Chapter Masterlist] [ao3]

----

The Wright Anything Agency isn’t lucky.

Apollo should just expect that from the start. He didn’t, this time, because he trusted Phoenix - that being a loaded statement - to know what he was talking about and assumed - bad idea - that if he bothered to say Tenma Taro would be weaker at midsummer, then there was some chance of waiting. That it would lay low to wait out the fervor of the trial and the attention turned toward the Vale. That it wouldn’t wreak havoc immediately.

But they’re just a few days into May when the office phone rings with a call from a young woman who lives in Tenma Town and has been charged with robbing her prior place of employment. “Jinxie Tenma gave me your number,” she says, in between sobs, “and said you would believe me th - that - that I think Tenma Taro did it.”

“Of course we believe you,” Apollo assures her. Athena stands on her chair, propping herself on her desk, leaning forward to listen. With her ears, she can probably hear the other end of the line just fine. She might also be able to hear Apollo’s - not doubt, exactly, or disbelief, but the uncertainty he keeps feeling over Tenma Taro. None of them have seen it. They have Filch’s word, and they all know he wasn’t lying, but could he have been mistaken? Could Phoenix’s fae ‘friends’ have been mistaken in what they thought Phoenix was asking them about?

(He doubts it, but he still doesn’t think he knows well enough what they’re getting into.)

Athena searched all of LA’s used car lots for one that was yellow - “I’m like the cab driver for all of you at the agency, and also I just love yellow” - and with a new-old car they take the well-worn path back up to Nine-Tails Vale. Tenma Town is perched a little higher up the valley but has a similar old-fashioned cobblestone vibe, though some more modern office buildings dot the streets here and there. The town square is centered on a large fountain and a statue that Apollo doesn’t think is Tenma Taro, but it’s birdlike enough that it evokes that image.

Their client, Isabella Pyrria - picked up overnight, released on bail in the morning, returned home, and called them as soon as she made it back - is still teary-eyed when they meet her at a bench by the fountain. She explains that she likes to go on walks in the evenings and her favorite route goes past the antiques store she was fired from at the beginning of April, and she hadn’t bothered to change her route because a lot of cool moths congregate under the awning at the cafe next door. She pulls out her phone to show them pictures. Athena nods at each photo, solemnly and knowingly. “I’m more of a marine mammals person myself,” she says, “but I like the fuzzy ones and their…” She holds her hands to her forehead, two fingers raised on each, and wiggles them. “Antenna. What’re your favorite animals, Apollo?”

“Can we get back to the case, please?” he asks.

Isabella swears to them that when she passed by the store sometime around 10 pm, there was nothing wrong. She didn’t stop long to investigate this spring’s batch of caterpillars, because she was trying to get to the corner store before it closed, because she hadn’t had anything for dinner. She made it there, stayed until closing chatting with the owner and petting the bodega cat, and when she came back out she heard the sirens and saw the police cruiser lights.

The antique store’s security camera, mounted outside above the door, broke two months ago and was never fixed, but only employees knew this. Security tapes from cameras outside other buildings further down the street in both directions showed she was the only person who had passed by either. Anyone walking to the antiques store would be spotted by either of those.

“But Tenma Taro doesn’t have to walk,” Isabella says. “It could just fly straight down and land in front and not be seen.”

“Why would a yokai rob an antiques store?” Athena asks. “Why would a yokai rob anywhere?”

“To cause chaos?” Apollo suggests. What do yokai even do - they’re all so very individual? He did some cursory internet research but couldn’t find anything on Tenma Taro; it might as well have just come out of nowhere here in California. The scroll Jinxie said was the only image of it really is only one of two, the Forbidden Chamber scroll showing the gold ore being the other.

“I don’t know why anyone would rob that antiques store,” Isabella says, toying with the hair tie around her wrist. “It’s got pretty stuff but it’s all cheap. There’s nothing worth taking there.”

Her fingers, plucking at the hair tie and smacking it against her wrist, are illuminated red. “Ms Pyrria,” Apollo says. “Are you being fully honest with us? There really isn’t anything that you or anyone would want to take?”

She lowers her eyes to her hands. “We did have, um, a coupon deal with a really good pizza place over in the Vale. Supposed to give one out with every purchase but I kinda just, um, took a whole bunch once I got fired. But that was it.”

That looks true. Apollo glances to Athena, who nods with a secondary confirmation. Okay. They’ve got this much figured out. Now to the scene of the crime.

The antique shop’s windows are shattered, everything that was displayed in them cracked and shattered across the floor inside and the sidewalk outside. Athena leans into the window to examine a typewriter. “You don’t think there could’ve been some kind of magic artifact in here that it wanted to get?” Apollo asks. “Something languishing as just a normal family heirloom that someone dumped off here?”

“Ooh, maybe,” Athena says. “I guess they’d probably have to take inventory to really find out if stuff’s missing, and this is uh - big mess.” She points with her thumb at the police tape across the doorway. “Can we just head in?”

“Er—” They should probably introduce themselves to a detective first, lower the chances of being yelled at once they’re inside. Apollo glances in through the doorway, hoping to catch sight of anyone in there investigating. Maybe most of the investigating already happened? “I guess…?”

Before he’s really finished saying it, Athena ducks under the tape and heads inside. Apollo lifts it up to follow her. If he’s honest with himself he’s not sure what he hopes they can find. Feathers again, maybe? The interior of the shop is densely packed with tables and shelving upturned and overturned, and what would have once been a clear path or two through are cluttered. Apollo steps over a tall wicker flower stand, lying on its side, and a pillow that was probably hand-embroidered. Athena has stopped with her neck craned to the side, reading the titles of the few books still left on a shelf.

Oh, this is going to be rough, to stay focused, when this isn’t a murder and there’s not a particular area, the place where a body was, the place where the killing happened, to hone in on. He’s defended a smattering of other cases between the large nightmarish ones that weren’t murders, but neither did they have very complicated scenes. And no co-counsel distracted by knick-knacks, either.

“Athena,” he says. She jumps, already having become engrossed. “We should probably give the whole place a once-over, see if anything jumps out, find a detective to talk to, and then we can try and look for anything else that—”

“Hey!” A woman’s voice cuts through the stillness, a loud, indignant squawk. “Who’s in here? This is a - oh! Yo! Apolly!”

Athena’s eyebrows rise and disappear beneath her bangs. “D-Detective Faraday?” Apollo asks, turning around and unable to look for her due to making sure he doesn’t place his feet on anything breakable.

“Long time no see!” Kay chirps, with an air of familiarity that far surpasses the scant two times they’ve actually met. From New Years he’s pretty sure that she gives Y-suffix nicknames to everyone she can, but that doesn’t make it any better when Athena is snickering at him. “I mean, I expected to see you soon, what with Tenma Taro, but not quite this soon. And who’s this?” She extends a hand to Athena. “Hi, I’m Detective Kay Faraday!”

“Defense attorney Athena Cykes!” The two seem to be competing to see who can more enthusiastically shake the other’s hand. “Nice to meet you! What can you tell us about the case so far?”

Laughing brightly, Kay shakes her head, her black hair flying everywhere. “I’m not Emmy,” she says. “I’m not just gonna purposely give up the prosecution’s whole case right here. Besides.” She props her hands on her hips. “Tonight we’re going hunting for Tenma Taro anyway, and I’m sure you’ll get enough accidental stuff from us on how we totally believe yeah, it’s that big ol’ turkey causing trouble.”

Athena asks who “Emmy” is, and as Kay explains Ema and her general lack of concern for prosecutorial secrecy, Apollo picks his way through the mess to a door left ajar in the back, into a smaller, even more cluttered room, where none of the objects still left on the shelving have price tags. Prosecutor Debeste stands wedged between a rocking chair and a dresser with a shattered mirror, his upper body twisted awkwardly to give him room to move his arms and jot something down in a little notebook. “Where’s the line between antiques and junk?” Apollo asks, deciding that there is no good way any further into this room, and since he can see most of it, he should probably just stay planted here in the doorway.

“How much it sells for, maybe?” Sebastian offers up weakly. “Is this a trick question?”

“I guess it is, since I don’t have an answer.” Apollo has difficulty trying to survey the room; there’s too much going on, too much clutter that keeps drawing his eye one way and then another, and it takes longer than he thinks it should for him to notice the deep scratches in the wall. Three rivets straight down, tearing apart the wallpaper and wood, about two inches in between them, spaced like claw marks. “Do you have an explanation for that?” he asks, pointing to it.

Sebastian shakes his head and his glasses slide down his nose. “Not really a plausible one besides ‘giant bird monster’. The defendant could persum - presumably have made them with something she found laying around here, there’s some old farm tools kinds of things, but then the question is—”

“Why bother?”

Sebastian nods sharply. “Exactly. It’s not a message or any code or something that the shop owner recognizes, and it would be a waste of time with more chance to be caught. And with—” He points down, in front of Apollo, and Apollo examines the floor to see more gashes in the wood, of the same spacing as those on the wall, like a giant bird-monster walking about on its talons. “That, too.”

And maybe someone’s trying to frame a yokai for the crime, again, play on those fears, but it seems like even more effort to go to. “Is there anything noticeably missing?” Apollo asks. Plenty could be not-so-noticeably missing, all kinds of little knick-knacks, but that can’t be the purpose - no one is going to rob a store for 25-cent porcelain cat figurines. “Cash register, or any large or valuable stuff?”

“The register hadn’t been touched,” Sebastian says. “No fingerprints, nothing missing. The only thing the owner noticed so far and told me is that back here she had - she said it was a weird-looking stone she’d never figured out a price for because she didn’t know what it was or was made of. She said it was roughly” - he holds up his hands, less then a foot apart, and cupped toward each other. “And shaped like a six.”

Apollo’s stomach sinks, which has become a very familiar sensation in this kind of context. “A magatama?” he asks, pressing a hand to his forehead. He knew this wouldn’t be a normal case. It’s still going terribly. “A large magatama? That would be reason enough for Tenma Taro to break into a random human establishment, more than just scaring the townspeople.”

“If I were trying to scare the town, I’d hit up more than one place,” Athena says. She leans against the doorframe and peers in, as Kay attempts to squeeze in around her and past Apollo. “Just make it a random selection, no pattern, and not attack everywhere. Leave some dread that I’ll come back and get some of the people I spared before.”

“Dread’s a key part,” Kay agrees. “Especially drop some warning in advance, not enough for anyone to be able to stop you, but just enough to make them all anxious and freaked out waiting for the worst.”

“Okay, so you’re both evil,” Apollo says. Athena chortles and Kay breaks into full cackling. “That’s probably a good thing for me to know ahead of time, before we get any further on this.”

“Before we venture into the woods in the dark with them, you mean,” Sebastian says.

“In the dark?” Apollo repeats. “In the—”

“We’ve got, uh, ‘sources’,” Kay says, making the quotation marks with one hand, while in the other she holds and examines a teacup that had managed to survive the initial catastrophe. “Informants who’ve been keeping an eye out to make sure things don’t go belly-up without us knowing.”

“Like other detectives or officers or something?” Athena asks, with a few wide-eyed blinks of confusion.

“Something,” Sebastian agrees. Apollo makes a note to himself to look out for crows. “But we know Tenma Taro doesn’t emerge during the day. You’ll have time to investigate in town; Ms Teak, the shop owner, went out for lunch but she told us she would be coming back, uh…” Sebastian checks his watch, pushing apart his sleeve and his glove to get to its face. “Soon? She lives above the shop, which is how she knew about the crime so quickly.”

“We should definitely talk to her, then,” Athena says. “And then at sunset we’ve got a whole new investigation to start!”

Ms Teak is a short, white-haired old lady who invites Apollo and Athena up to her living quarters above the shop, offers them tea, and insists that they call her “Auntie” even after they tell her they are Isabella’s lawyers. “That girl,” she says with a sad shake of her head, nearly spilling the tea that she pours for Athena, and Athena almost jostles the pot out of her hands eagerly trying to reach over and steady it. “She’s a sweet girl, but her head’s so far up in the clouds at the best of times. I just couldn’t keep rebalancing the register because she got her math all wrong. Or I’d tell her where to go clean and find an hour later she hadn’t done anything because she’d started with dusting the bookshelf and started thumbing through the first book to catch her eye. Cookies, dears?”

“Er, no thanks,” Apollo says at the same time Athena says, “Sure! Thank you very much!”

Depending on what sorts of witnesses she takes this offer from, she might end up in big trouble; but Apollo showed the blackmail letter to L’Belle and he stole it and destroyed it, so maybe he’s not that much better at proper witness protocol. Other subjects that should probably be taught in law school.

“I hate to think that such a sweet girl would be capable of this,” Ms Teak continues, returning to the small round table and setting down a little plate of tea biscuits. All of the decor of the house is mismatched, like it’s all come out of the antiques store at some point or another: a wicker chair next to a polished brown wood one next to a bar stool of almost equal height to the table, a white-and-gold teapot on a blue porcelain saucer, a cutting board shaped like a pig hanging on the kitchen wall visible from where they now sit in the tiny cramped dining area. “I had to let her go, you understand. It simply wasn’t working out. But I’ve got no ill-will toward the dear girl, and I’d hoped she had none toward me. Oh, dear, dear.” She pulls the wicker chair away from the table, that Apollo now can see the green flowered seat cushion and the pillow with an embroidered - opossum? Is that a possum? - resting against the back.

“How did she react when you told her that you were firing her?” Apollo asks. He watches Athena reach slowly for another cookie, like if she moves slow enough she won’t be noticed, and when she returns it to her mouth she nibbles at it like a squirrel, if a squirrel were nibbling because it realized it isn’t professional or polite to just scarf it down.

“Oh, the poor thing cried, of course. So embarrassed and ashamed of all the mistakes she’d made. Hated to think she’d failed at anything though I tried so hard to assure her that just because she wasn’t good at some things didn’t mean she wouldn’t find a passion that she could get her head locked into.”

“Yeah, I got a big sense of shame and sadness when she mentioned being fired, too,” Athena says quietly, tapping at the side of Widget. “Definitely not anything vindictive.”

“I do hope you’re right,” Ms Teak says. “I do hope you and that other nice young pair - how old are you? I swear all of you professional-types get younger and younger these days - can make sure she didn’t do it and find who did.” She sighs. “And I’ve got to clean up that mess they made, and I’d just gotten done all my spring reorganizing of the shop done, too.”

“The stone that was stolen from the back room,” Apollo says. “The prosecutor mentioned that. Do you remember where that came from originally?”

“Oh, I had that old thing for years,” Ms Teak replies. “Maybe a decade or more, now. I don’t quite remember when but my memory is sharp that it was Ms Tenma, rest her soul - the mayor’s wife, I mean, dear little Jinxie’s mother - who brought it in, asked me if I’d ever seen anything like it and told me she didn’t want it back, that I was free to sell it or get rid of it however I like. She said she didn’t know what it was either, but it made her so uneasy she wanted it out. Didn’t ask where she got it from, didn’t feel that was my business. Strange things happen in this town, you know.”

Apollo knows. Apollo knows well that this one of, but not the only, the towns where strange things happen. Ms Teak glares at them over her teacup. “Best not to ask, sometimes.” She says it like advice, a warning. “And I kept telling myself I should get rid of it, but I’ve been so darned curious that I could never make myself ask for a few dollars for it, or just throw it in a river, you understand?” She shakes her head, sending her white curls bouncing. “Maybe whatever it belongs to wanted it back now, and poor Isabella’s lucky she wasn’t walking past at the time it arrived. Though maybe sharp young lawyers like you two don’t believe in that sort of thing?” She raises an eyebrow as she takes another sip of her tea.

“We’re the lawyers who defended Mayor Tenma when he was charged with murder last month,” Apollo says, hoping that the mayor’s popularity has continued to climb, hoping that he was never so hated here in Tenma Town, and that his saying this won’t be a black mark. “We’re, um, familiar with the goings-on around here.”

“That was you?” she asks, surprised, setting down her teacup and saucer. “My goodness. All of those big cases you must get, if the mayor chose you as his lawyers, and here you are up this way for little Isabella.”

“We don’t really—” Apollo begins, because really, it was a lucky fluke that they got to represent the mayor, and luckier that they didn’t entirely blow it, but Athena kicks him in the shin before he can correct Ms Teak on their office’s humble and confusing existence.

“Thank you darlings oh so much for helping out our little town, once again.”

“It’s our pleasure!” Athena replies, taking another cookie.

“She’s the most pleasant witness we’ve ever had!” Athena says brightly, once they’ve left behind the shop to compile their information back in the sunlight of the street. “What a great chance of pace!”

“You’ve had exactly one case before this,” Apollo says. “You can’t say that like—”

“Like Filch and L’Belle weren’t both terrible?” Athena interrupts. She’s unequivocally correct, of course, even without her knowing that Apollo, after his first case, would have had the same reaction to a cooperative, forthcoming, honest, friendly client; after dealing with Olga Orly, Phoenix, and Kristoph. Apollo would have had this same response, but didn’t, because all of the witnesses in his second case were also terrible.

She grins at his silence, knowing what it means, and from her skirt pocket produces yet another cookie.

The alderman’s manor and garden are closed to the public of Nine-Tails Vale - and indeed, anywhere else - for the foreseeable future, but Jinxie still has possession of the master key and has been in to clean up and keep dust from gathering. “The alderman’s wife is still in the hospital,” she explains, “but Papa and I went to see her and she told us that she trusted the town was in good hands with us.” She squares her shoulders, a stack of charms still arrayed in her hand, ready to strike, but instead of slapping one onto Apollo’s head she just offers one to him and Athena. “So we can’t let her down!”

Kay sits on the carpet in the foyer with three boxes of pizza and one of breadsticks. “Ms Teak let me and Sebby take some coupons!” she chirps. “I thought it’s important that we all get some food in us before we head out! Sebby’s on his way over, but I flew out here ahead of time to get us food. You’re welcome!” She waves a breadstick at them and Athena enthusiastically flings herself to the floor, Jinxie sinking down with a bit more grace.

Out the window, the sun is no longer visible, its last vestiges of light barely illuminating the horizon, but the sky is still the light blue of early dusk, nothing that Apollo would yet be worried about roaming around in. Sebastian arrives, with Phoenix and Trucy trailing him, in the blue-black, when several stars are visible along with the moon. “Papa’s up in the Fox Chamber,” Jinxie tells Phoenix. “Trying to get the Forbidden Chamber back in order, make sure it’s all set up.” She offers all three of them warding charms, as she had before. “And he’s talking to the woman who showed up earlier.”

“What woman?” Phoenix asks through a mouthful of pizza.

Jinxie shrugs. “I slapped her with a warding charm when she came in - not one of the protective charms I’ve given you, but one to keep a demon in and stop it from using its powers. And she didn’t mind that so I guessed she can’t be that evil, and Papa has the Nine-Tails to protect him. She’s very pretty - um, she has black hair and was wearing a kimono.”

Oh. That is very unfortunately familiar, too. Phoenix presses a hand over his face and sighs. “Did I do something wrong?” Jinxie asks. “Do you know her?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Phoenix assures her, and after the initial moment has passed, he looks more concerned with whether he wants to finish his slice of pizza. “I know both of the likely options, and there are - there could be worse things. Or people.”

“Mr Wright, do you know how to say things that aren’t cryptic and ominous?” Kay asks. Apollo’s glad he’s not the only one left wondering that question, and that Kay is secure enough to say it out loud, too. Maybe sooner or later Phoenix will get the point, will get tired of hearing it and adapt. Or maybe sooner than that they’ll all be eaten by a yokai.

Jinxie springs to her feet and races up the stairs, calling for her father. She returns two minutes later with Mayor Tenma and a woman who Apollo recognizes, her straight black hair as glassy as ice and her dark, sad eyes. Jinxie was right to take a precaution against her - stuck right in the center of her forehead is a paper charm. “Well, this is a surprise,” Phoenix says lightly, but his posture shifts the moment he sees her, contracting, tightening up from the loose ease he held himself with. When he finishes speaking his mouth has a plastic quality to it, the corner frozen in a lopsided and failed smile. “What are you doing here, Iris?”

He looks so much less comfortable with her here than he did in the office last year, but there’s more people here, more than just Apollo and Trucy to wonder what it is about them, between them. Iris appears no more confident, bowing to Phoenix and never quite straightening up, her hands folded in front of herself, her shoulders turning slightly inward with them. “Since you consulted the Mystic on this matter of Tenma Taro, she was concerned about what may happen to you attempting to reimprison it yourself. Or even with assistance.”

“And I assured Miss… Iris,” Mayor Tenma says, his pronunciation of her name slow and doubtful, like he knows what she is, knows this name is not entirely true to her, “that with the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox, there is little to fear.”

“As I understand.” Iris inclines her head up and to the side, and when her hair swings down and catches the light, as Apollo remembers, it has an auburn sheen. “Understand me, Mayor, that I am not here to tread on your authority, nor to doubt the power of your village’s guardian. When I say that the Fox is weaker than it was when Tenma Taro was first imprisoned, I do not mean that it and you are weak - simply weaker. And there is a ritual to prepare in the Chamber to bind the demon again, and a vast swath of forest to search through. Are we to wait for you to be finished with the Chamber to begin? The Mystic requested of me to keep our friends safe, and that is what I intend to do.”

“I’m surprised Maya didn’t come down here herself,” Phoenix says. “I think I’m overdue for her yelling at me.” He says it tonelessly, with a roll of his eyes, though the implication is obvious, that Maya is one of the fae, and Apollo would never be so casual about having one of the fae angry with him.

“Oh, don’t worry.” Iris smiles with lips pressed tight together. “She will not forget that she has criticisms of your handling of the past eight years. But we all agreed for this situation that both she and my sweet little sister bear a worrying lack of subtlety that could have unfortunate repercussions.”

“Right,” Phoenix agrees. “Pearls would slap a yokai straight through a house. Take care of that situation but level half the town in the process.”

“Indeed. And I was already in the area, over at Hazakurain, and it was not too far to come over. Sister Bikini’s back has been bothering her more lately and I had thought to offer some assistance to the temple.” Iris’ smile gets a little wider, a little less forced. “She still asks after your well-being, and that of a certain handsome prosecutor as well.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Phoenix’s mouth quirks into an equally small smile, and then he claps his hands together and brings them up in front of his mouth. “All right,” he says. “What’s our plan? Iris? Mr Tenma?”

“I have spent these past two weeks, with the assistance of the Nine-Tails, seeking out Tenma Taro, but he has avoided me,” the mayor explains. “It is my hope that you would be able to assist in flushing him out and driving him to a place that I would be able to finish dragging him back into the Forbidden Chamber.”

“So we are gonna be bait!” Athena says.

“No,” Phoenix says. He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sort of. Tenma Taro’s weak after being locked up for so long - not weak enough to not be a threat, but enough that it’s going to stay the hell away from its old enemy.” A wave of his hand in the direction of Mayor Tenma. “It’s not going to be so cautious when you kids go tromping into the woods. You’d just smell and seem like - people. Traces of magic, yeah, sure, but none of you are foxes.”

“So it’ll just think we’re tasty snacks and not expect us to kick its butt?” Athena asks.

“Tasty,” Trucy repeats. “Magically delicious, you mean.”

Iris giggles. Phoenix sighs and says, “Sebastian, you’re in charge.”

Sebastian freezes, eyes wide and shoulders hunched, his hands twisting around each other. He wears different gloves now than he did earlier; these have the fingers missing, for whatever reason. “Mr Wright, are you sure?”

A witch against a yokai. Apollo doesn’t really know what witches can do, in the abstract, and he certainly doesn’t know what powers Sebastian has - or the when, why, how, of him becoming a witch - but Phoenix must. Enough to have an expectation. “I’m not asking - or suggesting - that you try and fight it singlehandedly, but I think you’d be a big help in keeping it distracted.”

Neither Sebastian’s face nor his posture suggests that he agrees with this assessment. “And, Iris?” Phoenix asks. She doesn’t look surprised, turns her eyes on Phoenix slowly and blinks, waiting. “I’m sure whatever Maya told you was about me, but I’m pretty sure I’d be a liability if I was trying to keep up with everyone else through the woods, and—”

“Your back pain is and always has been because you sit like a gargoyle,” Iris says. “But you would like me to keep your children from being killed.”

“Well.” Phoenix runs his hand through his hair all the way down to rub the back of his neck. “I wasn’t going to phrase it exactly like that. Those two” - he gestures at Kay and Sebastian - “are Edgeworth’s, not mine.”

“What?” Kay asks. “Mr Edgeworth’s my other dad, but you’re my other other dad! Are you disowning me? Have I been disowned? Why can’t you both be my dads?” She grins. Apollo remembers the conversation he had with Klavier about a particular betting pool.

“I do believe it’s been decided on your behalf,” Iris says to Phoenix. “But, yes, I will make sure none of them come to harm. If—” She frowns, her eyes narrowing, and she rolls them up toward the center of her forehead, as though trying to see Jinxie’s charm still left there. She raises a hand to it and falters, her fingers an inch from the paper.

“Right,” Phoenix says, and he reaches over and peels the charm off of her head.

“You can’t take it off yourself?” Trucy asks.

“There would hardly be a point to such a charm if any monster can just remove the bindings from herself,” Iris says. “Perhaps we use that charm ourselves, slap it upon Tenma Taro when we find him.”

“Ooh! I volunteer for that!” Kay bounces up and down and snatches the charm from Phoenix’s hand when he holds it out to her. “I’ll sneak up on him and whack him with it! And then, Seb, you chase it out into the open where the Amazing Nine-Tails can wrestle it back to prison!”

“You should all take some more charms,” Jinxie says, grabbing Trucy’s hands and dealing the paper slips into her palm like a card dealer setting up a game. “Make sure as soon as you see something strange, hit it!”

“That’s sound advice,” Athena says, nodding sagely.

“That could get you arrested,” Sebastian says.

Athena raises her eyebrows and grins at Apollo. He has to suppress a groan. Somehow, in the madness of everything after, he’d almost forgotten about Athena flinging a police officer through the air. Between that, manipulating information from Fulbright, and Sebastian and Kay being plenty friendly (no matter how Kay tried to pretend she wasn’t giving out information), she’s going to get a very strange idea of what she can get away with.

Iris eyes the pizza crusts that someone left behind in the box, but seeing Apollo watching her, she quickly turns her head away, lifting her chin to feign regal posture.

Tenma Taro is going to kill them all, no question.

#if you want the key to the bad pun names it's in the end notes on ao3 #roddy fanfics #fic: the witches of los angeles

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darks-ink · 5 years

Text

Disinterred CH.15

Chapter 15: Clean It Up

And Amity Park… Amity Park was used to dealing with the unusual. The impossible. The non-existent. So, really. Having a ghost and a clone of said ghost testify for the crimes of another ghost… It wasn’t that far out of there.

(Tumblr hates links and I want this to appear in the tags so… for author notes/full fic summary/links to the other chapters/mirror links to AO3 and FFnet, click here)

“We need to talk to detective Payton.”

The woman behind the desk quirked an eyebrow at him, then glanced at the group behind him. “If you have a crime to report, you can speak to whichever officer is available.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Danny insisted. “It involves a case he was working on.”

She opened her mouth again, clearly intending to shoo him away. Jazz cut her off, however. “It’s really important, please. Can you just contact him and tell him that the Fentons want to talk with him.”

The lady glared at them shortly, but complied. The call involved a brief back-and-forth, but once Payton had heard the words “Fenton” and “case” he seemed to have made up his mind.

Sighing, the woman at the desk put the phone down again. “He’ll be here in a few moments.”

“Thank you.” Danny grinned, just a little too pleased with the small victory. Hey, he would take whatever he got right now. Any distraction from the upcoming conversation was more than welcome.

When Payton appeared he looked more than a little resigned at the sight of their group of teenagers. “I thought that the Fentons wanted to talk to me?”

“We’re temporary stand-ins for his parents,” Sam said with a shrug. “They’re… occupied.”

Payton sighed but, to his credit, didn’t otherwise react. He simply led the four of them to an empty room so they could talk.

“What is this about, then? Because I’m guessing that the ‘case’ you wanted to talk about is yours?”

“Yeah,” Danny confirmed with a nod. “We… We kind of left our some details.”

“You are aware that it’s illegal to lie to the police?” Payton crossed his arms, a mild glare send towards the teens.

“We didn’t lie!” Sam exclaimed, throwing out her hands. “We just didn’t tell the entire truth.”

“Is that so?” Payton didn’t look particularly convinced. Danny didn’t really blame him. In fact, he kind of felt bad for the officer. His involvement in the case certainly made it a lot harder than it had any right to be. Ghosts, in general, made work for the police difficult.

“When we talked about my… ghostly nature,” Danny started hesitantly, “we implied that my… more ghostly appearance was just a one time thing. It’s not.”

Payton nodded, now looking slightly more believing. “Is this related to your glowing green eyes during the confrontation with your parents?”

“Uh, yeah. I can trigger the whole transformation on command, but the glowing eyes happens for all sorts of reasons. Usually when I’m using my powers or when I’m experiencing really strong emotions.” Danny shrugged. “I kind of… use my more ‘ghostly’ form as a disguise of sorts, so people don’t recognize me.”

“But what would you need a disguise for?” Payton squinted at him, suspicion clear on his face. “Nothing illegal, I hope?”

Danny snorted in response, leaning back in his chair. “Hardly,” he said, before tapping into his powers to make his eyes glow on purpose. “Come on, it can’t be that hard to figure out.”

Payton scrutinized him for a few long moments, eyes gliding over him. Then the man sat forward, arms resting on the table. “You’re saying that you are Phantom? Well, that certainly explains why you laughed when I said that if Phantom thought you were okay, it was probably safe to trust that judgment.”

“What can I say, ghost hunting runs in the family.” Danny smirked, a rather Phantom-like expression, to drive the point home.

The detective continued to eye him, then sighed. “You do realize that this isn't going to change the decisions we made last meeting, right?”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed with a shrug. “I mean, I guess I’ll try for college but if I can’t get in I’ll just work for my parents. I’m already following their footsteps as Phantom anyway, might as well give inventing a shot too.”

Then his expression fell again. “But to get back to the original topic… I’m not just telling this for fun. It’s a secret for a reason.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Payton agreed, sitting back again. “What is it then?”

Danny frowning, running through his options. Apparently he took too long, because Jazz spoke up. “He’s not the only one. Not the only one with a human and ghost appearance, I mean.”

“And you’re telling me this because… you don’t think they deserve their secret if you didn’t get to keep yours?” Payton queried, cocking an eyebrow at him.

“No,” Danny bit out. “I’m telling you because he’s a jackass who uses his powers for bad purposes!” The vivid green light from his eyes flickered on the desk in front of him, but he ignored it. “He hurts people, he manipulates people! And he has gone too far!”

“And who is he, then?” Payton seemed genuinely intrigued. Apparently Danny’s rant had convinced him to at least play along.

“In human form or ghost form?” Tucker piped up. “Because he looks drastically different and he has no problem flaunting that fact.”

“In his ghost form he calls himself Plasmius.” Sam crossed her arms. “But the public usually calls him the Wisconsin Ghost, I believe.”

“The blue skinned vampire ghost?” Payton frowned. “I’ve heard of him, yes. Known to cause problems, picks fights with… Phantom.” The last word he said more quietly, realization of Phantom really being a 16 year old apparently striking him.

“That’s him,” Danny confirmed. “His human form is also well-known. Old family friend of my parents, current mayor of the town…”

Payton grunted. “You’re saying that the Vlad Masters is a ghost like you?”

“How do you think he won the election?” Jazz questioned with a scoff. “He didn’t stand a chance until he overshadowed most of the voters.”

“And that’s just one of many sketchy things he has done with his powers.” Tucker’s jaw visibly tightened at the thought of everything the man had done. Of what he had tried to do to him. Danny was glad for friends like these. “Stealing money, overshadowing business rivals to take over their companies, attempted murder of Jack Fenton…”

“Kidnapping Maddie Fenton, twice. Kidnapping Danny at least that often, including trapping him in ghost-proof bindings and electrocuting him,” Sam continued. “Sending potentially dangerous ghosts to Amity Park, in the hopes to either kill Jack or hurt Danny.”

“And that’s not even to mention that he tried to clone me,” Danny joined in. Then with a grimace, he added, “And emotionally abusing the one clone that survived. Well, as far as a ghost can survive, of course.”

Payton blinked, apparently stunned by the information overload. Then the last part processed, and he frowned. “He cloned you?”

“Not very successfully, but yes.” Danny shrugged, a faux casual air about him. “She didn’t quite come out right, and she wasn’t stable. But she’s with my parents now, and we managed to save her.”

“Which is also why they’re not here,” Tucker explained, leaning on Danny’s shoulder. “Hence Sam and I as the replacement parents.”

Payton remained quiet for a few moments. Then he sighed. “You are aware of how bat-shit insane this sounds?”

“Welcome to my life,” Danny said with a snort. “Or, well, you know what I mean.”

“We can’t just take your word for all of this,” Payton insisted. “It sounds… Well, it sounds too bizarre to come up with, but that doesn’t mean that it’s true.”

“And we can provide you with whatever proof you need.” Sam glowered at him. “We just need your assurance that you’re gonna look into it, and that you’ll do your best to arrest Vlad.”

Payton sighed, looking like he was very much regretting his involvement in this case. Again. “Of course. That’s literally my job, miss Manson. Although I do wonder how you expect us to arrest and contain a ghost.”

“Inventions to restrict his powers exist,” Tucker supplied. “You can probably move to arrest him the normal way, since he won’t be expecting you to know. Use some ghost-proof cuffs and you’ll have him before he realizes.”

“Fine. It’s a deal. I’ll need all evidence you have of his crimes, including witness reports,” Payton instructed, looking like he was trying to get back in control of the situation.

Danny nodded, then pulled out his phone. “I’ll call the Red Huntress. She was one of the people Vlad manipulated, and he straight-up tried to hire her to catch the clone when she escaped.”

Looking he was going to regret asking, Payton nonetheless asked. “I thought the Red Huntress didn’t like Phantom? Or ghosts in general?”

“Misunderstanding,” Danny explained, waving Payton’s concern off with his hand. “We got everything figured out, and she knows of both my identities.”

“Of course,” Payton groaned. “And I’m guessing you know who she is, then?”

“We all do.” Sam grinned at the clearly overworked detective.

The detective only groaned, but didn’t say anything. Danny figured he had a pretty good idea of what the agent was feeling like.

But it was for a good cause.

It took a few days to gather all the evidence the police required. The witness reports alone took a considerable chunk of time, considering the sheer amount of people in Amity Park alone that knew about Vlad’s shady business. Aside from the Fentons (all five of them) and Sam and Tucker, Valerie also had to be included.

And sadly, that was easier said than done, as she needed to reveal her identity for the report to count. After all, a judge wouldn’t just accept the statement of a masked vigilante that no one knew.

Thankfully she trusted Danny’s judgment (and, of course, the judgments of his friends and Jazz) and allowed Payton and his team to know. They were… less than pleased to discover that she, too, was a teenager.

Knowing that it had been Vlad who pushed her into ghost hunting in the first place… Well, that eased their moods a little. Besides, she and Phantom now worked together – and they trusted Danny to keep the people of Amity safe. From ghosts, at least. Human crime… Well, that was their job.

Additionally, there was some trouble with Dani’s witness reports. Law wasn’t exactly made with cloning in mind. Legally, Danielle Fenton didn’t exist.

But then, neither did ghosts.

And Amity Park… Amity Park was used to dealing with the unusual. The impossible. The non-existent.

So, really. Having a ghost and a clone of said ghost testify for the crimes of another ghost… It wasn’t that far out of there.

Most of the people involved who knew enough about the case to know that three of the people involved were ghosts… Well, they were just glad that the ghosts were solving their issues like normal people. Instead of, you know, blasting each other to bits on the streets.

When Danny first heard people mention it, it had been some of the other officers of Payton’s team. People who knew he was a ghost, but who hadn’t been told about his Phantom alter-ego. He immediately thought back of all the times he and Vlad had brawled and burst into laughter.

The officers looked at him like he had gone crazy, eyebrows raised. Between giggles, Danny managed to explain himself. “You- You really don’t know the half of it.”

That hadn’t really explained anything to the cops, but Payton coaxed them back to work before they could question Danny. The detective attempted to glare the boy into behaving himself, but failed once more. Now that he knew what the boy had faced off against, he wasn’t surprised.

Finally enough evidence had been gathered. The cops set out, armed with anti-ghost weaponry and ghost-proof cuffs. A cell had been prepared beforehand, covered by a ghost shield provided by FentonWorks. A special one, they assured, which would hold even the most powerful and skilled of ghosts.

Payton double-checked his gear. Then he gave the start signal, allowing his officers to pour into the mansion.

Within minutes the team returned, guiding Vlad Masters in their middle. The man was dressed, as always, in an impeccable suit. He frowned at Payton when his guides stopped him in front of the detective.

“Sir, with all due respect, but what on Earth is happening here?”

Payton offered the man a lopsided smile. Then in one swift movement he cuffed Vlad’s wrists together, preventing his escape.

“Vlad Masters, also known as Vlad Plasmius, you are under arrest for… Well, for a lot of crimes.” His smile grew a little wider, a little more genuine. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in court.”

Vlad’s eyes widened, his gaze shifting between his bound wrists and the police officers surrounding them. Payton ignored him, continuing with his whole rights speech.

“Wait, no,” Vlad pleaded. “You must be mistaken- I have never heard of a name like ‘Plasmius’ before.”

“Save it for court.” Payton shoved the man forward, towards the van that would transport him. Several officers, all armed with ectoplasmic weaponry, would ride with him. The cuffs should prevent him from using his powers to escape, but better safe than sorry.

Then he turned towards the rest of the officers still waiting. He inclined his head towards the mansion that stood before them, looming in the approaching dark.

“Well then, let’s see how many sketchy things we can find in here. Sources say that he has an underground lab hidden, like some kind of supervillain.” He grinned at the crowd of police. “First one to find and enter it without disturbing actual evidence gets a reward.”

He clapped his hands together. “Ready, set. Go!”

And then the officers were off, leaving Payton to observe. The boy had been right. Arresting Vlad had been easy, as the man hadn’t expected them in the slightest.

How clever he thought himself. What a sham.

The Summer vacation hadn’t done much to calm Casper High’s rumor mill. The turbulent arrest of ex-mayor Vlad Masters right after the start of said vacation had spurred on all rumors. Not much was known about it, but that didn’t stop the teenagers. They whittled away, discovered the smallest details. Any slip-ups were gladly accepted and brought into the rumors.

So it wasn’t much of a surprise that they discovered that Danny Fenton had been involved as well. Not as a perpetrator, oh no.

As a victim.

Which, of course, combined well with the previous rumors of him being a ghost. It didn’t take long for the first theories to emerge, suggesting that Vlad was his killer. That he had played a critical role in the death of Danny Fenton.

And so when the school year started, against all odds… The rumors hadn’t died off. Quite the opposite. Even more people than before believed that the boy, now in his final year of school, was a ghost.

So they kept their eyes open for his arrival.

Eventually, their wait was rewarded. The doors of the school opened, and in the opening he stood.

Lanky, with unbrushed but shiny black hair. Icy blue eyes that, ironically, sparkled with life. A surprisingly healthy gloss to his pale skin. A playful but kind smile on his face. For once, he looked well-rested. No bags under his eyes.

Perhaps… Perhaps Vlad Masters really had been responsible for his death. Perhaps Danny Fenton could finally rest easy, knowing that the man was finally arrested.

His outfit was much like the usual.

The girl he had his arm wrapped around… much less so.

She, unlike Danny, looked uncertain. Shaky. A red beanie sat perched on her head, but messy black hair still spilled out of it.

Her eyes, blue as the skies, glanced around the entrance hall with vigor. She looked guarded, like she was expecting someone to suddenly attack her.

She had her hands stuck in the pockets of her oversized blue hoodie. A crease in her brow suggested, however, that said hands were clenched into fists.

Standing right next to Danny Fenton, it was very very clear that she looked almost exactly like him. A little younger, perhaps, but undeniably identical.

The crowd parted the let the two through. But they remained nearby, hovering around the two. Waiting. Watching.

In the end, it was Dash Baxter who decided that he’d had enough. He stepped forward, breaking from the line and into the circle of personal space that had been granted to Danny and his… whoever she was.

“Hey Fenton,” he bit, stressing the last name of the ghostly teen. “Who’s this?”

“Oh hey Dash,” Danny greeted as he turned to face the other boy. He pulled the girl next to him a little closer to his side, drawing a displeased hiss from her. “This is Danielle, or Dani.”

“With an i,” the girl muttered under her breath, barely audible.

“Okaaay.” Dash frowned, looking between the two. “That still didn’t answer my question of who she is.”

“Oh, right.” Danny flapped his free hand. “She’s my dead sister.”

Dash froze up, and sharp intakes of breath could be heard from everywhere in the crowd. “She’s your what?”

“My dead sister,” Danny repeated, finally releasing the girl to reach towards his locker. Then he looked over his shoulder at the crowd and grinned.

And stuck his arm right through the still closed locker door.

“Funny how that works, huh?” he said, with his arm still waving through his locker. He looked like was searching for something without being able to see it.

Dani, meanwhile, seemed to have gotten over her nerves. She leaned back against the lockers, standing right next to Danny. She was still eyeing the crowd, however, a little warily.

Soft mutters could be heard from the crowd, but no one had a real response. Sure, everyone had been convinced that Danny was a ghost. Hell, Dash had even seen the boy go intangible before.

But this was undeniable proof. And it was a lot less feeble than a whiffed punch by a jock.

Finally Dash got his thoughts back in order, though. “So why’s she here now?”

“Well,” Danny hummed as he finally pulled his arm out of the locker again. Held in his hand were several books for school. “You guys all knew I was a ghost anyway, so she didn’t have to hide anymore.”

He turned back to face his once-bully with a lopsided grin on his face. Then he shrugged. “Besides, where else is a ghost going to get an education?”

#danny phantom #phanfic #dp fanfic #dp fanfiction #phanfiction #dark writes #disinterred #the last chapter! ooh #i'm drafting this on Tumblr AO3 and FFnet beforehand so i can post from mobile tomorrow #so if something screws up i blame it on that

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clodiuspulcher · 7 years

Note

Can I ask what draws you to Agamemnon? He's often kind of a difficult figure to grapple with. Sincere question btw, not meant to sound mean I swear :)

NO NO this isn’t mean at all it’s uh. yeah I know it’s an unpopular Take / Opinion and I really do … care deeply about Agamemnon as a character, so thanks for giving me a chance to explain! it’s complicated, he’s complicated… This is gonna get long

I: APPEARANCE Let’s first put the shallow aspects on the table: he’s big, he’s powerful, he’s My Type (physically), I’m gay. This never comes through in film adaptations (although you know what? 1962 Electra Agamemnon comes close, although he’s overshadowed by the hot Aegisthus) but look at how he’s described in the Iliad: He’s compared to 3 gods, canonically Agamemnon is the most handsome man Priam’s EVER seen in his like one million years of life (a list of men which includes Aeneas , Hector, etc). (this post). When Priam says he’s “Every inch a king”, baby, you know what that means-Anyway , @kashuan‘s art is VERY good for conveying how I imagine Agamemnon based on these descriptions. and he’s drawn like exactly my type there. It’s a lot to reckon with.He’s big. He has big arms and big thighs and could kill me if he wanted and he’s powerful and his aristeia is badass and i’m gay. thanks. II: PERSONALITY Now this part is. more about Agamemnon’s character. first, Agamemnon in the Iliad is in fact deeply flawed- he’s imperious and arrogant and shortsighted and short-tempered, he’s stubborn and selfish and ALL OF THE THINGS PEOPLE HAVE SAID HE IS but there’s also a complexity to his character that tends to get flattened - I think because Agamemnon’s at his worst in book 1, people adhere to this AWFUL first impression and don’t bother to look beneath the surface / take the rest of his behavior / his character into account / use this as the baseline of their understanding, but there IS MUCH MORE to him than that behavior even in the Iliad itself, as detailed in THIS POST. He’s a powerful warrior in his own right, and his failings reflect both the internal flaws of his character and the weight of his responsibilities; we see his concern for his men, for the army, the people, in books 4 and 10 (when he can’t sleep because of his anxiety about his men, about Hector). He DOES however, learn and become better, he grows, he’s dynamic: he and Achilles finally make up (book 19! book 23! They’re good now!) and the Odyssey also ends with their ghosts talking as friends.

(Side note I wonder how this works out when Agamemnon’s son kills Achilles’s son but… that’s for another day).

There’s complexity in Agamemnon’s characterization in the tragedies as well, each tragedian has a different portrait of Agamemnon but he’s never one-dimensional.Euripides’ Hecuba has Agamemnon as concerned about his image and his reputation, anxious (and almost insecure) about his authority, but also concerned with justice and the rule of law, even towards one’s enemies. Sophocles’ Ajax portrays an imperious, proud, stubborn Agamemnon who refuses to realize he’s in the wrong but is able to be convinced by the council of Odysseus and eventually, again, comes to an understanding. Seneca’s Trojan Women shows Agamemnon as a Stoic voice of Reason, urging Pyrrhus not to be too violent/hubristic in their victory, and I love both the presentation of Agamemnon as a tired old man wanting to go home and the sort of man who gets into arguments with teenagers about war crimes. As usual, Seneca excels at this subtlety of characterization, this is like the epitome of the Dichotomy of Agamemnon, sympathetic and infuriating, a good leader and a stubborn, proud man, stoic and short-tempered, as present in the Iliad, is here too, and I love it , and him. Seneca’s Agamemnon almost reverses this (HE REALLY SAYS “What can a victor fear”) but I still love that play, and there’s something to be said for the characterization of Agamemnon as someone who learned ABSOLUTELY nothing from victory.

Overall, it’s true that we get, mainly, a portrait of a hard, ruthless, powerful, embittered man- remember how he destroys that one guy Menelaus wanted to save in the Iliad - but he has a sort of “aggressive charisma” as Kashuan once put it and I REALLY see it, and honestly that in itself has some sort of an appeal to me. But with this portrait of his personality, his softer aspects, the moments of gentleness we see, are more striking, they really stand out and indicate the extent of his feelings. In the iliad, for example, we clearly see he loves Menelaus and while he’s almost laughably over-protective (MORE ON THIS LATER), his care for his brother is evident, touching, especially juxtaposed with his shortsighted selfishness. Just look at what happens in Book 4, when Menelaus is barely wounded and Agamemnon is practically writing his eulogy. Right afterwards, also, “Noble Agamemnon showed no reluctance, no cowardice or hesitation, only eagerness for the fight where men win glory”- he rushes in to fight (but not before first taking out his anxiety on his men by demanding more from them. Cannot do anything appealing / good without mitigating it with irritating behavior. love this fool). It takes him like 9 books to finally apologize to Achilles but he defends Menelaus from Nestor’s reproach in book 10, is anxious about Menelaus being in danger if he’s picked to go on a night raid with Diomedes (HERE) and is endearingly not-subtle about it, frets over him in book 4, when he’s wounded, etc.

The love for his family is something that continually stands out and is perhaps his main “redeeming” trait. In the Odyssey, as mentioned, he ask Odysseus desperately about Orestes with heart-rending choice of words especially when one considers Orestes’s Actual Fate: “Come tell me, in truth, have you heard if my son is still alive, maybe in Orchomenus or sandy Pylos, or in Menelaus’ broad Sparta: that my noble Orestes is not yet dead?”. Agamemnon’s no longer a king- he’s a worried father, he regrets the most not being able to see Orestes before he’s killed; it is this pain, of not being able to be a father to his children, which seems to cut the most deeply, which he speaks of multiple times to Odysseus. Then they just cry for a while, with each other. (I like these tender aspects hidden in a big mean man.. but I also like his big meanness).

the Tragedies take this to another level, of course, to drive home the PATHOS required for his death to have an impact but his love of his family is very much on display there. Iphigenia in Aulis in particular provides us with some agonizing demonstrations of this love: Iphigenia reminisces about an exceptionally tender moment in their relationship, when she was young (you used to ask me, “I wonder, my darling, will I get to see you married one day, married and settled happily in your husband’s home, your life ever blossoming, making me proud of you?” And I’d touch your chin, my father, hang from your beard, father, like I’m doing now and say, “and what about you, father, will I get to see you, father, an old man, visiting me at my house, ready for me to repay you for your hard work in raising me?”) an image hard to reconcile with the merciless violence and stubborn arrogance Agamemnon displays in the Iliad (BUT AGAIN, THAT’S THE APPEAL). Clytemnestra assumes he’s crying because he’s sad to see Iphigenia leave them, Agamemnon’s messenger tells him the arrival of his family will cheer him up: even his subordinates know how important they are to him.

I’d need a whole nother post to talk about his relationship with Clytemnestra but please peruse these crumbs I picked off the ground (HERE). they Had something, tbh the tragedy ONLY WORKS if they did and I will DIE on this hill. In Aeschylus, Clytemnestra calls Orestes the “mutual pledge of their love”, he calls her a “great-hearted woman”, she shirks in Aulis at his curt, demanding tone towards her, noting it as something out of character, she takes charge anyway, knows he can’t or won’t actually force her not to be involved in the Iphigenia marriage preparations-All of this creates an image of a man whose imperious, ruthless, stubborn character is balanced with a surprising capacity for tenderness, a genuine fondness and love for the members of his family, which makes the fact that his hand, albeit forced, aids in its destruction, that much more devastating.III: PSYCHOLOGY/HISTORY

Where things get especially interesting for me, character-wise, is when one thinks about his lineage, his past, and his childhood with respect to his current character. This section is about the House of Atreus in general.

Agamemnon clearly bears the scars of his environment: he was born into the House of Atreus and IMO that informs everything he says and does, all his thoughts and feelings, the way he perceives both the world and his place in it. Seneca’s Thyestes is a horrific portrait of what Agamemnon (and Menelaus’s) childhoods must have been like, ATREUS is their father, they were old enough during this event to almost be accomplices which means they’re clearly old enough to remember it. Speaking of that, Atreus isn’t worried that participating in his god-crime schemes will turn his sons evil because, in his mind, they were born evil (Ne mali fiant times? nascuntur. God GOD). Agamemnon and Menelaus grow up in a nightmare house, adjacent to atrocity, under the almost comically cruel hand of Atreus who sincerely believed his sons inherited said cruelty as if its on the same chromosome as the “house-curse” gene. It’s genuinely a miracle Agamemnon and Menelaus grew up to be functional fucking human beings, in my opinion. It also gives a lot more weight to his relationship with Menelaus and the hard imperious cast of his character; their bond was forged in fire, Agamemnon likely protected Menelaus from the worst of Nightmare House being the older brother, and being as protective as he is. There’s this one Iliad adaptation, I can’t think of it off the top of my head though, where when Agamemnon’s freaking out about Menelaus being Barely Wounded he says “don’t die… for you are all I have” and that’s absolutely how I think about their relationship in this context- Menelaus WAS all he had for so long, they clung to each other, they preserved their humanity in the face of horror BECAUSE OF each other.

But functional like.. .for a given value of “function”. Agamemnon is clearly deeply affected by these events, the weight of the Curse of the House of Atreus clearly impacts him. Take Iphigenia in Aulis, where he says “each one is born with his bitterness waiting for him”, the fact that a Son of Atreus would say that, I think, speaks to the innate, unspeakable fear of the certain destruction of his world, of the tragedy that awaits him, at his own hands, of the House-Curse waiting perched on his shoulder to strike just when he thought he’d created something impenetrable. The tragedy of Iphigenia in Aulis is Agamemnon’s realization that he has locked himself into this, that he has no other choice (see: this post about the Odysseus impact, there is in fact a point when it’s inevitable, although he still made the first move which makes it even WORSE he created this, etc) and all he can do at this point is watch as the life he so carefully built for himself and his family collapses around him, just like he must have always dreaded it would. (Also in the Iliad It’s Agamemnon who says “We must toil, in accord with the weight of sorrow Zeus loaded us with at birth” and that reminds me of this aspect of him too: Good Things Never Last, Bad Things Never Die, etc.)

It’s made clear that the story of Atreus and Thyestes is widespread, familiar; Teucer in Sophocles’ Ajax and Neoptolemus in Seneca’s Trojan Women both call out Agamemnon for trying to reference his lineage as a source of authority because it is a HORRIFIC lineage. “I know about the famous family of Atreus and Thyestes”, Neoptolemus says. And THEREIN LIES A CONFLICT: Agamemnon’s sense of self comes from his authority, his kingship, his position of power and his social status as a member of the nobility, of the class of royalty BUT. It’s all undercut by the fact that this power, authority, indeed his very identity is based in cruelty, violence, and crime; Agamemnon is descended from the most ignoble nobility, which he knows all too well.

It’s Interesting that Agamemnon’s relationship with his identity, status, family, power is brought up in Ajax, of all plays, primarily concerned with the destruction of Ajax’s identity- reminding Agamemnon of the crimes of his house genuinely cuts him down. I see Agamemnon as a man who genuinely fears his past, who dreads the legacy of his father and in his desperation creates a crisis for himself (as happens in tragedy).

We (I) laugh at Agamemnon “forgetting” about the god-crime shit before he pulls rank by referencing his Authority and Status but there’s something in Agamemnon continually being owned by forgetting about the House…. Agamemnon wants to distance himself from the “legacy” he inherited from Atreus, but he can’t without disavowing his power, his authority, his identity. Whether he likes it or not (he does Not), this is fundamental to who he is. I feel like that knowledge too lurks in his mind, rises to the forefront occasionally at his lowest points-

Clytemnestra in Aeschylus’s Agamemnon pretty clearly sees him / his actions as the next link in the god-crime family chain, a continuation of the house -curse, heir to his father’s throne and his crimes, hence her belief that killing him is the only way to end it/ stop the cycle of violence (spoiler she is wrong but there’s another post coming eventually about how they are Very Similar Characters short version the Etruscans Understand).

IN short, I think there’s a lot of complexity in Agamemnon people overlook, or don’t get to see since they don’t read the peripheral plays. Agamemnon seems to me a man in conflict with himself, a Man of Contradictions, who defines himself by his authority and status while fearing the source of it, whose devotion to his family contrasts with the horror of his childhood, and with his own agonizing role in its destruction, a man who willfully ignores or cannot bring himself to fully interact with the legacy of Atreus, who tries to distance himself from the crimes of his house and the cruelty of his father while being reminded of both every time he’s called by the epithet Atreides.

#the iliad #the oresteia #tagamemnon #agamemnon #is complicated...#hes GENUINELY A BAD PERSON WITH MANY HORRIBLE QUALITIES DO NOT GET ME WRONG!!! BUT LIKE I SAID #I like the big meanness w/ the tenderness.... and please take into account also that im shallow and hes big and im gay #the house that dripped blood #important ... content

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reinbowcat96 · 7 years

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Fanfic Ask Game: D (Fly Away), F, I, L, M, N, Q, S, and T.

D: Fly Away actually does have quite a bit associated with it, but it’s been ongoing for so long I can only tell you the ones I remember, whoops. I know the Wind Waker end credits medley has always been a MAJOR source of inspiration for Fly Away. I can listen to it and envision perfectly the events of the story going along with it. The title itself actually comes from... was it an ending? Or an opening? Whatever the case, Eureka 7 has a song associated with it called Fly Away, and I had an association with the sound of it to this story. That’s all I can really remember now at the moment, unfortunately. ^^;

F: “We need to talk.” She said irritably.“So talk.” He replied just as irritably.“I can’t marry you.”“If you don’t you can be sure that Hyrule won’t be as prosperous as it is now.”“See? That’s why I can’t marry you – this is not how healthy relationships work!”He forked an eyebrow as he smirked. “It almost sounds like you want a relationship.”“And maybe I do!” She snapped, ignoring her reddening face. “Maybe I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re not as horrible as I initially thought and I might consider – might – that having some sort of relationship with you isn’t so hideous a prospect!”While Vaati’s expression seemed relatively unchanged, his thought process couldn’t be guessed by Zelda. He simply stayed in that unreadable state for a few moments before finally saying, “Won’t your beau in green have an issue with that?”“He’s not my beau!” The princess practically shouted. “Aside from being my best friend, he’s my cousin! That would be gross! Of course, that also means I really don’t want you killing him either!”I’m not formatting that properly, lol. Sorry. I have complicated feelings on Reversal as whole. On the one hand it was fun to write, on the other practically zero effort was put into it and it remains one of my most popular stories and that kinda pisses me off. But man oh man, did I love writing them backsass each other all the time. And that’s literally it, I just liked the backsass. XD

I: Blinda. BlindZelda. I love it. And it doesn’t exist. -sad trombone- ASIDE FROM THAT, I really actually enjoy twisted hatemances, like people who are obviously not good for each other at all and maybe some dubcon but uh... That’s just my guilty pleasure. I also really like fluff for certain pairings. Whoda thunk it? And something else I love that I never see anywhere: CLOSE PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS. sjkhvhsjbdshj love them

L: Ehehehehe... Hardly ever. If at all. I write it, and that’s it. Generally, nothing plotwise ever changes, so no heavy revisions. Things like corrections in grammar and whatnot also usually don’t get fixed until later, but Im trying to be better about it these days. All in all, nothing really ever gets revised, and I’ll go over a chapter about maybe once or twice before posting it.

M: Blinda fic taking place post Botw in which Zelda, moving on after realizing Link does not share her romantic feelings, now has to deal with more than just the remnants of monster tribes in Hyrule, due to human on human crime going on. She eventually meets the leader of the bandit group, one Blind, upon which the two decide some teamwork is in order - because Blind has what Zelda doesn’t: A functioning and united society. They butt heads a lot due to differing ideologies, and then something else pops up and they gotta teamowork more to take it down - stuff like that. A friendship that grows to mutual affection, type of thing. Another premise is some more botw shenanigans, this time featuring my version of Link, who is a robot that knows only how to murder, struggling how to tell Paya and/or Sidon he has feelings for them. the only way he knows how to show affection to them is by presenting them with the heads of their enemies.

N: I would never want anyone else to finish my stories. They’d get them wrong. :

Q: I don’t feel any which way about them? I’ve never really been in a true collaboration, but I get the feeling I’d be very hard to work with. I don’t really like compromise in how I characterize certain characters. >>;

S: Tsunderes, hate to love, slow burns... Im sure there are more but i can’t think of any off the top of my head.

T: Get high school AUs out of my fucking face. In fact, get all AUs out of my face unless they somehow actually do relate to the elements of the original source material, cause otherwise you have no excuse not to be writing an original story. :

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awed-frog · 8 years

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The Raid/One More Time, With Feeling

So, it’s official: Supernatural continues to be outstanding. I liked this episode a lot, and I like how they keep doing this - acknowledging there is a past in this show while developing new storylines and confirming stuff we’ve been saying for years. Because subtext - turns out it matters. Who knew.

Since I haven’t seen a lot of people talk about this, first things first: the BMoL’s (and Mary’s, and Sam’s) plan to eradicate and destroy all monsters - jolly good, but what does it mean for Cas? For Crowley? For Garth? Apparently they’re not working on a nuclear explosion spell or anything, and instead they’re going after specific groups of monsters one by one. And the thing is, they’ve got no reason to stop and ascertain who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, right? If they find Garth, Garth is dead.

(Is Sam okay with this? Mr Head Choice?)

And what about demons? I doubt you can kill every demon in existence, so the solution, surely, is shutting the Gates of Hell? And we know how Crowley feels about that, at least. As for the angels, again - seems unpractical and unfeasible to eliminate them, not to mention the cosmic consequences there would likely be if it could be done, so, again, is the idea to confine them all in Heaven? Mh.

As for the rest of it, here we go.

Family Matters

Jesus Christ, what a mess. I know we talk a lot about how these characters have evolved so much they are almost verbatim the opposite of who they were twelve years ago (and how this was done so skillfully we barely even noticed), but with Mary back in the equation, you really see it. The alliances have now shifted. Where once we had John (emotional and barely hanging on and yet terrifyingly in control) clashing with his younger son who wanted a way out and a better life, and Dean was in the middle, trying to keep both of them happy, now we’ve got Mary pursuing a colder, more rational obsession, Dean who’s so done with all of it, and Sam acting as a mediator. Uh.

Now, it’s true we don’t know exactly what happened when Sam and Dean were teens (#season12wishlist). It’s likely Dean took John’s side out of some demented desire to be recognized and loved, and also so that Sam wouldn’t get hurt, but he believed enough in hunting that his brother getting out - that was a major falling out between them.

But, well - the situation is hardly the same now. Sam isn't a brainwashed, terrified teenager. He's an adult, and, okay, there are rational reasons for the choices he's making. At the same time, though, what’s going on is too close to whatever madness went down in their childhood for me to look with any sympathy upon any of it. Because at this point, Mary honestly scares me, and so does Sam. Him huddling with Mick at the end, saying those things about Dean - that was legit creepy, and more on this later.

Dean 2.0

Just as an aside, I was very happy to see Mr Ketch doubling back to seduce Dean, because I’ve been saying this would happen for weeks and weeks. And if you write it down, just like that, what went down between them sounds very ambiguous: Ketch showed up with a bottle of scotch, they had a drink together, and then went to a hotel - a fancy place with a pool and a spa.

The whole thing was coded like a courtship, because that’s exactly what it was (to the point they had to establish Ketch’s sexuality as a preventive #no homo); what made it uncomfortable is the fact Ketch didn’t really want to be there, and Dean - again, the woman in this scenario, as he so often is - was not the right fit for him.

Because, well, the show’s been playing with this for a while now - the superficial similarities between Ketch and Dean, and how they sort of begrudgingly like each other; we’ve seen Dean drooling over Ketch’s motorbike, and I’m sure that’s not the only thing about Ketch he finds attractive - when he opens the door to find the man grinning at him, Dean does what he usually does when he’s flustered: he gets stupid (“How’d you find us?”). So this was incredibly well done: we got someone who, on paper, is the perfect match for Dean, just like that siren promised to be; but the problem is, of course, Dean’s heart - not only that it’s taken, but that Dean is not who everyone assumes he is. People have been telling him he’s a killer for years and years, and this season has brought that up in sharp relief, again -

- but for Dean himself, killing things, like drinking, is more of a coping mechanism than something he actively enjoys (and we know neither is good for him: look at how the bottles are framed, right underneath the blade of a huge-ass sword). He might have been more into it when he was a kid - before he went to Hell, before it all got complicated - but now? Now it’s just a job, and it certainly doesn’t give him any joy to torture young vampires. In fact, he finds it positively disturbing.

(I know we were all thinking of Benny at some point during this episode, by the way, and my guess is, so was Dean.)

The new thing about Dean, though, is that he uses his words and indoor voice even when he’s not dying on the floor of some dirty warehouse. In this episode alone, he made his feelings clear a record number of times, both with Mary and with other people. As he told his mother, he’s an adult now. The need to put on a performance for others is fading, and Dean is - finally - accepting that he’s allowed to have and express feelings about what happens around him. And that’s a momentous step forward for him. We’ve now seen him not only defend a monster in front of a hunter, but also talk about his childhood in a clean, unfiltered way, without the usual ‘it was the best of times’ bullshit he recites for other people, or the automatic ‘I walked it off’ reaction he displays at other times; and we’ve seen him acknowledge that he doesn’t have control over what his family members do or think - which is scary, especially for Dean, but also liberating: accepting this means understanding you don’t have to carry other people’s responsibilities either.

(Additionally, the fun thing about all this is that now we know Ketch used to date Toni, his mirror has shifted, and, to me, there’s now yet another element highlighting a kinship between Ketch and Sam, not Dean.)

The British Men of Letters

I had a feeling things would be framed this way, so I’m not disappointed, exactly, but it’s still annoying - this continual understanding of science and scientists as people who don’t know how the real world works, and are completely useless in real life situations.

The BMoL’s HQ was clearly meant to contrast with the Bunker - science vs magic, future vs past, an efficient, diverse team of coworkers vs two brothers who’d die for each other (and have) - and, look - it worked. It’s not that it didn’t work. It’s just - in real life, you need these things, and they’re generally the best option. Sure, mistakes can be made, and someone who’s good in a lab isn’t necessarily good at everything else in life as well, but this idea we’d be better off living miles from each other and providing for ourselves and dishing out our own justice is incredibly American, and, from my perspective, absolutely untenable.

(It’s also an illusion, both in real life and on Supernatural because, current events aside, governments, the rule of law and all those other things - they actually do work, even in the US.)

The main problem I see with the BMoL is that it seems to be made up of people who don’t like, understand, or respect each other. Mitch clearly disagrees both with his orders and with his subordinates, and there’s nothing he can do about it. Ketch was incredibly rude and dismissive with not only with the scientists (apparently his underlying misogyny gets deactivated only by women who can shoot and haven’t slept with him) but also with Mitch himself. The hired guns outside probably have no idea what even happens inside the compound. And so on, and so forth. No, if there’s one thing this organization is highlighting, is how stupid and dangerous it is to work together while not trusting each other, or while keeping secrets from each other, which makes the ending of this episode even more troubling.

That said, the way they approach things and the distinction they make between criminals and terrorists is downright scary, and the fact Sam ends up agreeing with them really shows volumes about his character development over the years. See, criminals are people. They chose to commit crimes, sure, but their reasons are rarely evil; also, they can be reformed. That’s what a good prison system is supposed to be about. But terrorists, in the current understanding of the word - that’s different. Terrorists are no longer humans beings - apparently, they lose their human rights, can be held without trial, executed with a jury order. Terrorists are out to destroy everything we care about, and as such, there is no grey line there: they must all be stomped out (hence the famous “We do not negotiate with terrorists” thing, and everything else). So that’s quite a definitive thing to say, and perhaps it should surprise us that Sam, the ‘our birth doesn’t determine our destiny’ kid, the one who had all those fights with Dean and John about the core nature of hunting, should support this world view.

Or perhaps not. Sam has changed, after all.

(Also, being called a ‘top shelf’ anything after all those years of penance and guilt and self-hatred - yeah. That’s bound to speed things along.)

So maybe when Dean told Sam to pick a side, he should have been a bit more specific.

Eeny, meeny, miny, moe

As a last point, speaking of sides I continue to be on Dean’s in all this. I know some people will roll their eyes at him saying How about for once, you just try to be a mom? but I don’t feel like rolling my eyes at all. Dean doesn’t want someone to pick him up for baseball practice and bake him pies; that’s not what he meant. What he does want is some kind of recognition that they are, in fact, family. That Mary gives a damn about either of them.

(This, after all, is what’s given Mary an in in the first place: as Sam says, “She’s Mom”. The fact she is their mother is why she got access to them and the BMoL, why she was brought back, why she’s wormed her way back in after almost killing Cas - and also Sam and Dean themselves. If that had been any other hunter, it’s likely Dean would have killed him just out of anger and spite, so it’s a bit convenient for her to pick and mix when she wants to be their mom and when she doesn’t.

Also, let’s stop and think for a moment - what is it that Ketch was saying again Who’s a good fit for the BMoL? People like him. Psychopaths who don’t see shades of grey and actively enjoy killing things. Ketch assumes Dean is like that, but we know, and Dean knows, that he’s not.

Guess who might very well be, though.

(Hint: not this guy. Or, well: not only this guy.)

I mean, have you noticed how Mary - and Sam - relished the prospect of Pierce getting tortured to death? And how uncomfortable Dean was with that idea?)

No, Mary’s been incredibly distant since she’s been back, and, as it now turns out, her only problem is with them. She’s okay working with other hunters, she’s a perfectly functioning member of the BMoL, she’s got no issue with mobile phones and HBO and whatever - the problem is them. And that hurts, and I understand that it does. A mother is someone who should love her kids no matter what, and I think this is what Dean is saying here: that Mary apparently never stopped for a second to think what they may need from her - she just decided what she needed and went with it. She doesn’t care whether her sons like hunting or not. She doesn’t care if Dean has a complicated relationship with monsters, if he’s in love with Cas, if he doesn’t particularly want Crowley hurt. She’s never stopped and asked what they think about things, what’s going on in their lives. She just - went ahead and did her own thing, and that’s it.

And don’t get me wrong - I like how they’re doing this, because it makes the character interesting and subverts traditional ideas of motherhood and whatever, but if we’re talking character POV, I’m still on Dean’s side. Considering how broken they both are, how unusual their upbringing was, how badly they manage to truly interact with people as a result of all that, Sam and Dean have really done their best here. And Mary - I think Mary hasn’t. It’s not even a question of being a mom - it’s about being a normal human being instead of a weirdly obsessed soldier type. So as I said, Dean forgiving her at the end - that was a huge step for him, and I’m glad he went there, but there’s still a difference between not knowing how to talk to your adult sons you’ve never seen before and deliberately lying to them and putting them and their friends in danger in name of some quest which may very well be a pipe dream, or even make things worse. And, Jesus - consciously or not, it’s a fact that Mary approaches this relationship with Sam and Dean as she would a hunt. Look at how she (correctly) identified Sam as ‘weakest’ link (the one more likely to talk to her, that is; to be willing to work it out), how she lured him to the BMoL’s HQ under false pretenses (there was nothing urgent about it - Sam only came there because he assumed she was in trouble).

In fact, the more we learn about Mary, the more it looks like she and John were a better match than anybody had imagined, which, considering all that happened while Sam and Dean were growing up, is truly heartbreaking.

And even more than that: in a way, this whole thing about Mary being unconditionally on the BMoL’s side and Sam being sucked in because of his good nature and his desire to do good is very reminiscent of that whole mess with Ruby. Dean, like the last time, is following his own heart on the matter. Now the question is, will Sam be right this time? Or will it all blow up in his face, again?

Well. It will blow up in someone’s face for sure. This is Supernatural, after all.

#spn 12x14 #the raid #spn meta #dean win #mary winchester #sam winchester #bmol #loved this episode #not a fan of what's going on #team dean

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mrandyzavala · 7 years

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Have A Good Time, All Of The Time

At the very end of the glorious movie This Is Spinal Tap, the keyboardist Viv Savaged says, "Have a good time, all of the time. That's my philosophy, Marty."

Your philosophy goes to eleven.

That quote pops into my head frequently, especially when working with animals. In fact, the other day at my forensics internship, some of the higher-ups stopped me to comment on my dolphin sleeve. They asked what my inspiration was for it, and I told them that my former career was in marine mammal training. Their response? “OH that must be such a fun job!”

I know that as zookeepers, we tend to be wary of how the general public sees us. We do a job that appears to basically amount to what most people do on their weekends: hang out with their dogs, snuggle with their cats, send their parrots to attack their enemies, etc. The point is, it looks like a lot of fun to do our job. So much so, that we are often met with offensive lines of questioning dealing with our academic background (e.g. “Your job is not a real career”). As a result, we have our own internal script regarding how professional our job is, the journey we took to get to where we are, AND the intense physical and emotional labor that frankly, not everyone can do.

Uh. Yeah I'm gonna need a lot more than 50k to do that.

But there is another aspect to the zookeeping field that people don't tend to see until they've actually done it. It can be boring. It can be frustrating. It is extremely repetitive in a lot of ways. And you don't have the option of cutting corners, unless you’re a butthead who forgot that you're 100% responsible for the well-being of the animals in your care. Zookeeping can, and does for many of us, become a “job”.

I wrote about this situation before, giving suggestions on how I have gotten through moments where I felt totally unmotivated (and here is an amazing guest writer who wrote about something similar!). But I want to focus on one aspect of it that I feel sometimes gets forgotten or (worse) frowned upon, depending on your training philosophy.

One of the aspects of a marine mammal training job is learning what motivates each individual animal, and using that to reinforce whatever you’re training or maintaining. Somewhere along the timeline of operant conditioning of marine mammals, we as a field became oddly fixated on “primary” reinforcement as food. An entire diet is used for the main reward for behavior. In and of itself, this is fine as long as we are careful to not use its absence to correct or “motivate” animals to do something.**

Listen to MJ!

Technically, primary reinforcement as defined by its original definer B.F. Skinner as something that directly rewards the behavior it follows. Secondary reinforcement is something that reinforces a behavior because it signals a primary reinforcer will be delivered. But as dolphin trainers, we saw that as primary = food. While that may be true for some animals (good LORD I have my fair share of stories of lunch box dolphins), that is not, in my opinion, an accurate interpretation of the definition.

Primary reinforcement can also be defined as “unconditioned” reinforcers. That….can seriously be anything. I worked with animals who were not food-motivated…including calves who were still nursing but would do anything for ice cubes and back rubs. Some animals learn on their own how much fun certain toys are, without pairing it with a primary reinforcer. Is a favorite toy of an animal a secondary reinforcer if it was never paired with primary? No. It’s a primary.

This young man has tons of primaries.

Dolphins ESPECIALLY are easily trained with non-food rewards. I’ve worked with sea lion pups who had a faster learning rate and longer retention rate when frisbees were used as rewards versus big ass herring (which they chewed on and sometimes refused). I know a lot of you reading this are nodding your heads in agreement.

So why, when we get to the point in our job where we hit our first wall, is the first thing to go the BEST part of our job? Why do we fall into the misled belief that our job is to chuck prescribed amounts of fish at gaping mouths in order to get through our show, interaction, or husbandry session? Why are we looking at the clock as it inches towards the end of our shift?

There are a lot of complicated reasons why we get disillusioned, bored, or frustrated with our jobs. But you know what? The animals in our care can’t know that. They can’t receive less attention because of it. And the easiest way to deal with this? PLAY. PLAY.

Have a good time, all of the time.

The fastest way I got out of a funk was to refocus my efforts on learning what the animals in my care actually dug. Not what I thought they did, not what I was taught previously. I used my background in behavioral analysis to understand that, if I am just limply flopping a basketball to a dolphin four inches from her face because I’m “using secondaries to be variable”, then I’m doing a major disservice to myself and (more importantly) the animal. What if I try new things? Does this dolphin get PSYCHED when I hurl a football as far as I can? Does this dolphin get extremely focused when I hide toys around the habitat? If the answer was yes, then I knew what my reinforcement was.

Plus, when I was playing with animals, I looked GREAT in photos

Most of the animals I’ve worked with (and with five facilities under my belt, I have had the honor of knowing many critters) LOVED. TO. PLAY. It wasn’t the same with each of them, but it was very challenging to find an animal who did not become more attentive and motivated when I just effing played with them. I kept my behavioral rules in place, I did not sacrifice my job as a trainer to be predictable and fair. But I tossed aside the bizarrely dry concepts of food motivation and allegedly “scientific” behavioral interpretation (hint: it was not scientific assessment, just more anthropomorphic assumptions) and found more motivated animals, more consistent behavior, AND a happier trainer.

Life's too short and training's not as effective to not REALLY play :)

PLAY with your animals, guys. You won’t regret it. What is SO amazing about all of you is that you guys are super smart, you know your animals and the goals you have to achieve, so you know how to interpret this advice (if you find it valuable, of course). Do your animals a favor and actually be variable. Do your animals a favor and listen (er…watch) to what they are saying when you use a reinforcer. Simply, have FUN. You don’t owe anyone else an explanation about why you’re having fun in your job. You earned your position, you work your balls off, you spend more time with your work family than your own, you are in school debt for a degree you needed for the “little summer job” you’ve made your career, and your main responsibility is to provide the highest quality of life to the animals you are lucky enough to care for. HAVE FUN AND PLAY. :)

_________

* As an aside, one of the many overlaps I've discovered about dolphin training and forensic science is that my higher ups at my internship totally understand how public perception differs from how the job actually is. Everyone thinks being a “CSI” is really just wearing sexy clothes and solving crimes in 45 minutes, so anyone involved with actual forensic science can probably relate to the plight of zookeepers in this way.

** If you are still doing this, STOP IT.

from The Middle Flipper http://ift.tt/2tfTbhv

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