#you see how she equates these women with a violent man who killed a man for no reason | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rpmemesbyarat · 3 years

Conversation

RP meme from Werewolf: The Apocalypse "Black Furies" Tribebook (Revised Version) Ch 2 "Pegasus’ Flight"

"But how can you be here?"

"I’m sorry. I’m easily sidetracked. Where was I?"

"Every day the possibility exists that you will find some great treasure — a companion, a fetish, riches, secrets or whatever is important to you."

"Divine justice is not something that can be safely left in the hands of mortal men and women — or even certain sky goddesses, as Athena’s blindness showed."

"While limits and strictures are frightening to many, I take peace knowing that purposes exist for all things."

"The problem comes when limits become absolute."

"It’s a human mind-twister — and I love mind-twisters — that the only rule to which there is no exception is that there’s an exception to every rule."

"I said before I love mind-twisters, but it’s good to know when to stop twisting your mind."

"Change hurts."

"The questions do not always need to be answered, often just asking them is enough."

"If they lead only to more questions or to simple answers (I remember well learning the answer to “What do bees smell like?”), then that also is learning and therefore good."

"Laughter doesn’t have to be mirthful; it can be bitter or rueful as well."

"How many of these stories actually happened?"

"Take from a story the wisdom that is in it; one of humanity’s biggest problems, I think, is that many of them take their legends too seriously."

"Contemplation is good, but too much of it causes the topic to become irrelevant."

"Beautiful, isn’t it?"

"The average first-time mother can expect an ordeal of fourteen hours."

"Everyone agrees that breast milk is best for babies; doctors, researchers, pharmaceutical companies, and parenting gurus."

"I am sorry for your discomfort, but you can just suffer through it a bit longer."

"A woman’s sexuality is hers, and can be a closely guarded secret or a gift to the world, as she chooses."

"Only the weak deserve pity."

"And yet we’re still spit on as often as not. Unfair, isn’t it?"

"Sex and childbearing is all about responsibility."

"There is no honor in blood for blood’s sake."

"These assaults take place far from the eyes of humanity, and the large-scale ones are most frequently mistaken for natural disasters."

"First, while faith might be eternal, religion must evolve."

"The world is often random, and believing it to be loving and fair is just as false as believing it to be cruel."

"They aren’t thieves, mind you; they just seem to know where to find things."

"I’m quite sure you’ve heard it all. Stay awake and listen again. This is important stuff, you know."

"That kind of cruelty doesn’t really help anyone, does it?"

"Note that there’s a big difference between “breeding” and “having sex.”

"My opinion has always been that announcing one’s presence and intentions when entering another’s territory is polite and proper behavior."

"A predator sees any encroachment on her territory as a threat. If the intruder nears her den, expect her to become very violent."

"If you enter another’s territory and announce yourself, that doesn’t mean you can stay. The one who lives there can still tell you to leave, and you should respect her wishes."

"Be careful when traveling."

"Look, we’ve all got anger control problems. It’s part of who we are."

"If you’re hurt, quit."

"Die to be a hero if you want, but don’t die to prove you were right."

"When the challenge is over, when the winner is declared, accept the ruling and live with it."

"Challenges are serious business — never initiate one without good cause."

"Do not look away. I hardly need to explain what that will lead to."

"We all know why it isn’t good to eat humans; for one thing, their flesh is fouled by the chemicals they eat, and for another, we’re meant to protect and avenge them, not prey upon them."

"If it becomes necessary to kill humans, do so, but remember that you are what you eat."

"From the face you’re making, I can assume you find the notion of cannibalism to be truly repulsive."

"Find other ways to hide your action."

"The problem is that humans are resilient and tenacious, especially in fear or hatred."

"Sometimes, however, we must let go."

"When the time comes for me to die, assuming, of course, that I do not die in battle, I shall walk into the sea and let the waves take me on my last journey."

"They can’t be challenged if no one can find them."

"I’m not saying that the system is corrupt, only that it could be."

"Such a small place, yet so many differing cultures!"

"Any biologist will tell you that you may measure how well an area thrives by the diversity of life it supports."

"Women are, on average, not as physically strong as men. This means that they sometimes need protection. I hardly need to tell you who should provide it."

"Unless I missed a major theological event, there haven’t been any immaculate conceptions recently."

"No matter your personal feelings on men, they are and always have been one half of the equation."

"A man is not evil simply by dint of his sex; to believe so is no better than calling women “the weaker sex.”

"Weak people produce more weak people, and since humans have virtually no method of natural selection, it is up to us to try to correct their weaknesses as best we can."

"Something is urging the citizens towards these evils, for I cannot believe that they did this themselves."

"The idiot humans continue to think that if they could just clear away the trees, they’d have wonderful land for agriculture, never once realizing that it’s the forest itself that preserves the land."

"Tell me why you think you could do better."

"So many believe the courts will do nothing — and if their attackers are rich and privileged enough, that is sadly true."

"Celebrities and advertisements show thin and unhealthy looking women being adored and generally enjoying life. So, young girls are made to feel abnormal and loathe their bodies."

"The Church decries sexuality for any reason but procreation — and women learn to fear their sexual power."

"Time may dull the memory, but we still have blood on our claws."

"It’s harsh, but good exercise."

"Don’t let their foul behavior and mannerisms fool you. These bumpkins and slum-dwellers have contacts all over the city. I avoid them when possible, but when I am left with no other choice and need information in the city, I go to them. Of course, that information does not come cheaply."

"Some of them can get a little corny at times, I admit, but I’d rather have them with us than against us."

"A more serious bunch of assholes was never born."

"They are reprehensible dogs."

"They have money, they have places to stay, they know good places to party, and they have access to guns, and explosives, and body armor, and — well, you get the idea."

"They have a lot of hate, and the near-extinction of their species isn’t something that one just gets over."

"No one ever identifies herself as “evil.”

"You will get far more than you bargained for."

"Most national leaders are ridiculed without mercy, because every mistake they’ve ever made is on display for the world to see."

"Too much time spent mucking with forces beyond their control taints these people, if you ask me."

"Bloody opportunists."

"I’m not going to say they planned it that way, but they sure didn’t stop it either."

"Sure, they got fucked, but they’re still assholes."

"A quaint story, I thought, no more than a sort of urban legend."

"However, they do learn many secrets that we miss. Getting them to give up these secrets, however, is usually more trouble than it’s worth."

"Maybe they aren’t all dead?"

"Greek myths are replete with dragons; Ladon, Typhon, Python, Hydra, and so forth. They are never cast in favorable roles; most of them only exist for a hero to kill."

"I’ve never liked practical jokes, and I don’t like the notion of pushing someone’s buttons just to teach them not to respond. You can lose your head doing that to the wrong person."

"Other creatures share the unseen world with us, and it would behoove you to know something about them."

"The spirits of the dead do not always rest easily."

"The dead aren’t staying in the ground."

"Some of them are complete pigs, so I’m told, but even so, they can be quite seductive."

#rp meme #rp memes #rp starters #roleplay starters #roleplay meme #roleplay memes #black furies #Werewolf the Apocalypse #wta #owod #World Of Darkness

17 notes · View notes

jeremystronggf · 4 years

Text

racism in stranger things-

because there is a lot! when you think about it...

lucas. in s3 he’s sidedelined, underutilized, not given an arc for the sake of white characters storylines. even in s1 they decided to play into the ‘angry black boy’ sterotype which is....bad. that has potential to be harmful to black audiences, people internalise the idea that ‘black boys are only violent and angry’. his abuser is given more screen time and character development in s3...what the fuck. the abuse he faced due to his skin colour in s2 is not mentioned at all almost as if to brush it under the rug. we as viewers aren’t expected to recall back to when b*lly pushed lucas against a wall with the intent to beat him up all because he was black. we aren’t meant to remember when b*lly said for max to “stay away...from certain types of people”. this all seems to cater to white viewers as conversations about racism and racially-motivated abuse are ‘uncomfortable’ to them, not what they want out of their ‘feel good tv show’. the abuse b*lly put lucas through is not once mentioned in s3 by him or by any of the other characters. the audience is made to remember b*lly as max’s ‘annoying older brother’ rather than a violent racist abuser who was perfectly happy to hurt lucas a child, due to the colour of his skin.

erica. from the get go she’s a stereotype. the sassy black girl/ woman...sound familiar? rather than giving erica some type of distinct personality the chickenshit brothers decided to enforce stereotypes and again completely ignore the issue of racism (in the 80’s especially) . made a ten year old black girl ‘sassy’ which obviously equates to ‘strong’. idk man most ten year olds would most likely be scared if they were trapped in a russian lab and could be killed in a instant they wouldn’t be making sarcastic comments for the sake of CoMedY duffer brothers. but yeah, reinforce stereotypes about black people and woc instead of letting erica act like a child which she IS.

kali...ok first of all it’s not the end of the world if you didn’t like kali, like hey, i get it the lost sister wasn’t for everyone. even i don’t really like the episode and kali’s gang much. but if you don’t like kali think about why. if you have a valid reason like characterisation, her relationship with el etc. then fine, i get you but all of you that called kali ‘evil’ and a ‘villain’ and then turn around and started stanning b*lly after s2. fuck right off. white people literally can not deal with a woc being a morally gray character. instead of playing into the harmful stereotypes that are forced upon women of colour. also the fact that they completely scrapped kali and her character in s3..like the only south asian woman in your show. sigh. but idk maybe she’ll come back and the angry white youtube comment section of the st trailer that reveals her will come back too :)

it took me five minutes to realize but there...isn’t...any more people of colour in st so like :/ ....if your main cast of characters are predominantly white maybe make sure to give your POC ones the same care and treatment you give to them at the very least. obviously white viewership means more to the duffers then giving proper POC representation to the non- white viewers watching. and i think it’s sad and unfair that lucas, erica and kali have/had to sacrifice their character arcs, characterisation, storylines etc for the sake of the white characters who make up most of the show anyway or they that the actors/actresses were made to play into stereotypes that could potentially harm non- white audiences.

and i’m not saying this is all intentional and that the duffer brothers and other writers are disgusting bigots but they are ignorant. and racism stems from ignorance. if they want to do better they should take the time to re-evaluate how they write their POC characters and assess whether a plot line/ characterisation is harmful. they should be mindful of their treatment of non-white characters. could a potential storyline or characterisation negatively affect or harm their non- white audience? if so change it, subvert expectations and stereotypes that are placed upon POC. do better.

anyways this is just my two cents...feel free to add more, correct me or ask about something that you don’t quite understand or you’d like for me to explain. if you’d like to read some articles critiquing stranger things’ treatment of POC and their storylines/arcs i’ll link one here and here (although they’re post-s2 articles so there isn’t any criticism of s3).

i’ll end this by saying this isn’t a issue with just stranger things, it’s something that’s a problem with all aspects of media whether it be books, movies, tv shows etc. when consuming media with POC characters be aware of how the author and narrative treats them. is there something harmful there that white people could internalize and may influence how they behave and act towards non- white people? is there something POC could internalize which could negatively influence how they see themselves? speak up about it, be critical- especially if you’re white.

(also thanks to @lesbianrobin ‘s brilliant and interesting post which is what inspired me to make this one!!)

#stranger things #lucas sinclair #erica sinclair #kali prasad #racism in media #we ranting!#my posts

239 notes · View notes

rrrick · 4 years

Link

1) “Rioting never solves anything!”

This country was founded on rioting (and looting). The colonists didn’t politely ask to be independent — they started a war. Gays threw a brick. Black people rioted all over this country. Please let go of that falsehood and pick up a history book.

2) “Rioting just gives people a reason not to support your cause.”

Only if you equate property damage to human lives, and in that case, were you really supporting our cause anyway? If all it takes is people stealing from Target for you to say “well…now I don’t care about dead Black people” then why are we even speaking?

3) “The rioters are criminals and they don’t even care about police brutality stuff.”

There are criminals among us in every group, whether peaceful or violent, but the reasons riots break out are varied and complicated. Look at the pictures of Minneapolis before anyone ever threw a rock or started a fire or stole anything — the police firing rubber bullets and cans of tear gas into crowds of people who WERE peacefully protesting. What do you do when you’re frustrated and upset and no one is listening to you? Better yet, what do you do when they’re not only refusing to listen but actively trying to cause you physical harm to shut you up? Do you go home, stand there peacefully, or get mad and try to hurt them back? Does it really matter who you hurt at that point? Would you try to hurt someone in full tactical gear holding a weapon or would you try to hurt something like a multi-billion dollar business with insurance that probably contributed to the decimation of Mom & Pops in your community? Do you want to actually DIE in that moment or are you just upset and frustrated and at your breaking point and you want to smash something?

4) “Being frustrated is no reason to be violent.”

Everybody reacts to stress differently. I have no desire to riot. That’s not how my frustration at the world takes root. It doesn’t manifest itself as a roiling mass of energy that needs to be released, but I can understand how it could in others. Look at the situation.

— We’re in the middle of a global pandemic and many of the people on the front lines (making sure YOU can be comfortable at home) are Black people risking their lives for minimum wage, dealing with entitled white folks every single day. — The virus itself is affecting Black people to a higher degree because we’re denied access to health services and we’re forced to WORK during it. — Even in the middle of a pandemic when most of the country sat at home for weeks, civilians being murdered by police did not see a downward turn AT ALL. We’re on track for the same number of deaths we saw last year. — All week, every day, a new video of Racism in America. From white women using the police as their personal security service to elderly women being tackled by cops with guns drawn to another Black man who can’t breathe, murdered by a cop who should’ve been fired a long time ago.

How do you feel about your country when people who look like you have to work through a pandemic, are dying in larger numbers from the disease, have the police called on them over a dog leash, are told they’re trespassing on property they pay rent for, are brutalized by armies of cops, and are killed in broad daylight for the crime of jogging?

How do you feel? How would you react? Regardless of how you would react, how can you tell someone else how they should? People are ANGRY. They have a right to be angry. And I can’t tell someone else how their anger should manifest. Because they are grown and TARGET HAS INSURANCE! I promise you Target will be just fine!

5) “Attacking an elderly disabled woman is a step too far!”

That woman is 30, she can walk just fine, and she went to Target armed with a knife to stab Black people. That’s why WHITE PEOPLE unloaded a fire extinguiser at her — because she was a violent maniac. On one side, people stole stuff from a big box retailer. On the other, someone STABBED PEOPLE UNPROVOKED, and yet your concern is whether anybody successfully stole a TV?

6) “There are better ways…”

Keep working on those better ways. Don’t let the riots stop you. Fight for criminal justice reform, fight for income inequality, fight for universal healthcare, fight for free education, fight for higher taxes on the 1% — fight for all those things that would make rioting less likely. And while you’re fighting the long, slow war toward Black people having a fair shot in this country, the same war we’ve been fighting for hundreds of years, there will be times when some people directly affected by the war see your actions as futile and they just wanna break some stuff. Clutch your pearls less and speed up the war if you’re so offended by property damage.

307 notes · View notes

soundsof71 · 4 years

Note

So, considering you are a passionate fan of music released in 1971, I feel justifiably obligated to ask you what you think of Buffy Sainte-Marie's 'She Used to Wanna Be a Ballerina' album. 😂 (Also, it would make me beyond happy if you could post more about Buffy, my friend! Thank you! ❣)

Buffy Sainte-Marie + Crazy Horse - what’s not to love? LOL I confess that it was the Crazy Horse connection that caught my attention first. I had a general idea who Buffy was, had seen her on TV a few times, but I was a big Crazy Horse fan. News that they were her backing band for this album was easily enough for me to scoop it up.

They weren’t doing anything much with Neil Young in 1971 (other than this album, on which Neil also appeared!), but they had released a tasty solo album in February 71, produced by Jack Nitzsche (who also produced this, and would later marry Buffy), and featuring Ry Cooder (also featured here, although did not marry Buffy).

(btw, the first place that Buffy, Ry, and Jack worked together was on the Nic Roeg film Performance, starring Mick Jagger. People obviously remember Mick in that, but musically, Buffy was the best part!)

She Used To Wanna... also features Jesse Ed Davis, a Native American guitarist and singer who was a frequent “usual suspect” at these sort of “sure, invite everyone!” jam albums of the era, and played a prominent role at 1971′s biggest concert (at least in the US), The Concert for Bangladesh on August 1.

(I know you know RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked The World, the documentary about indigenous music’s influence on rock and roll, which has chapters on both Buffy and Jesse Ed. I just watched it again recently, and love it! A reminder of Buffy’s pivotal role in classic rock history. Not mentioned in the film: she relentlessly championed the work of her fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen, helping them get their first record deals.)

youtube

I haven’t listened to She Used To Wanna Be A Ballerina for a while, so I definitely need to do that, along with posting more pictures of Buffy. (I can’t believe I’ve only posted two!)

But I’ll tell you what still stands out to me about that record years later. “Smack Water Jack” is an underrated track from Carole King’s Tapestry that got a ton of airplay at the time. Quincy Jones did an instrumental cover as the title track for his terrific 1971 album, too, but it has somehow faded to obscurity since then. Buffy takes a playful trifle, and turns it into a powerful fable of men of color who explode into violence in response to the violence visited upon them, and self-satisfaction of whites in authority who answer their demands for better living conditions by killing them on the spot.

No need for a trial when you can murder them in the streets, right? “You can't talk to a man when he don't wanna understand / And he don't wanna understand” hits different when Buffy sings it, and in 2020 for that matter.

It’s also just a terrific performance whose combination of soul and rock and roll and driving piano in a sort of Old West-sounding context would have made this sound right at home on a record like Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection or something by The Band. I’m limited to five video embeds per post so I can’t embed it here, so I'm linking instead: anyone who hasn’t heard this definitely needs to.

Her cover of Neil’s CSNY track “Helpless” has things I like even better than Neil’s original, including Merry Clayton standing in for CSN. Buffy’s version is more muscular (thanks again to Crazy Horse), and taps even more deeply into the isolation of the song that the star power of CSNY somewhat obscured.

Buffy’s version also made a brief but memorable appearance in the 2018 film Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster. A weird little movie that I loved maybe more than it deserved LOL but I recommend nonetheless:

youtube

I know that this album gets attention because of the unusual number of covers, including one by Leonard Cohen, and a cover of a cover that Leonard had made famous on top of that, called "Song of the French Partisan” (hers is the far superior version imo, a song of French resistance to Nazi occupation from the perspective of a woman hiding a resister), but there are a couple of standout originals too.

I love the title of this record, and the title track is a delightful little stomper that playfully cautions against equating the intentions of grown women with the childhood fantasies they’ve grown out of. More Merry Clayton goodness here on backing vocals too.

youtube

“Soldier Blue” is a powerful song first written for the 1970 film of the same name, billed at the time as “The most savage film in history” -- and maybe it was. It used the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre as a metaphor for Vietnam, and it's still shockingly brutal. It was the third-highest grossing movie in the UK in 1971, though, and the single became a top-10 hit for Buffy there.

It didn’t do as well here, either the song or the movie. Perhaps not shockingly in retrospect, Soldier Blue was pulled from American theaters after a few days, the Vietnam metaphor not at all lost on the Nixon administration.

As horrifying as it was, this is about when I was reading Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (first published in 1970), and Soldier Blue resonated with me in a whole lot of ways. Here’s the song in the opening credits of the movie.

youtube

I was also really struck by “Moratorium”, which is the story of “Universal Soldier” (from her 1963 debut, but a bigger hit for Donovan in 1965), coming from the opposite direction. In the earlier song, she blamed war on the soldiers who think that fighting is honorable, but here, she has empathizes with the young men, boys really in many cases, who’ve been lied to by their countries, their parents, and even their friends. They’re not vainglorious. They’ve been duped by people they trusted.

(I don't think she takes enough into account how many men sign up to fight because they want to embrace and celebrate their worst, most violent impulses, which was of course an undercurrent of “Universal Soldier”, but I appreciate her empathy here. More than one thing is true at a time.)

Buffy goes even farther, though, calling on soldiers to support and validate demands for peace as explicitly supporting them, summed up in the unforgettable cry, "Fuck the war and bring our brothers home!"

1971 was the peak of antiwar demonstrations in the US, with the biggest crowds ever seen in this country until the 2017 Women’s March. The May 1971 demonstrations pretty much shut down Washington, culminating with Vietnam Veterans Against The War throwing back their medals on the steps of the US Capitol, incredibly powerful stuff to see on TV in my formative years, and Buffy was right there in it. Anti-war songs were a cottage industry for sure, but nobody was writing with the nuance and empathy that Buffy was.

Here’s a 1972 performance of “Moratorium”, Buffy and a piano, and more emotionally bare than that:

youtube

There’s obviously lots more to say about Buffy, far outside the realm of protest music that was actually just a small part of her musical palette -- her pioneering experiments with electronic music, her educational philanthropy starting in her 20s, Sesame Street, you name it. Her commercial peak was still in front of her, and while I can’t say that this is my favorite of her records, it does have some of my favorite songs of hers, and 1971 and She Used to Wanna Be A Ballerina is definitely where I went from knowing who Buffy Sainte-Marie was to being a fan.

I'll also note as I do now and again that while this blog started as an offshoot of a book on 1971 that I’d started but abandoned, I mostly listen to music released now. That’s always been my policy, including in 1971. When 1972 rolled up, I was mostly listening to music from 1972, music from ‘80 in ‘80, ‘91 in ‘91, 2018 in 2018, etc., to name just a few other favorites. (Plus The Beatles, okay? LOL I still listen to The Beatles every day. No apologies.) Honestly? It took me until 2011, in my fifties, when a whole bunch of 40th anniversary editions of 1971 albums got released all at once that made me think, “Wait a minute, this was maybe THE pivotal year in classic rock history!”

So yeah, the historian in me dug into 1971, but even though I happened to be alive and enthralled by music in that year, what I’m doing here has nothing to do with nostalgia, or any idea that that was the *best* year in music, even if for the narrow slice of music that is classic rock, yeah, it absolutely is. For soul/R&B too, and for the explosion of women artists outside the even narrower confines of pop as well. This is not subject to debate. No year like it, before or since. It's just that classic rock is a such a narrow slice, and I like my slices wide. LOL Which is also why my blog has less and less 1971 content as I go along.

While my general policy is that my favorite year for music is THIS year, this particular year hasn’t left me as much energy as usual for listening to music. Some of it is These Trying Times™, some of it is my bipolarity and schizophrenia getting the better of me in waves, as is the way with these, uhm, things. (Keep taking those meds, kids!) I listen to music and post about the people making it as a creative act, not a passive or reflexive one, and I just haven’t felt as creative as usual.

(This is also has everything to do with why so many Asks have been piling up unanswered. I apologize if you’re one of the many kind and indulgent souls who’s gotten in touch, but I swear I’m gonna get to ‘em all!)

To get an idea of what I’m ACTUALLY passionate about right now, my “to be edited later” running list of 2020 favorites randomly added to a playlist as I encounter them, to be properly curated later, is at Spotify, cleverly entitled “2020″ -- 94% women, which is about right. LOL

But since I do in fact listen to old stuff (by which I mean 2019 LOL), I made a list of mostly 2020 bangers from women rockers with some tasty treats from 2019 that I haven’t been able to let go of just yet, inspired by a post I saw at tumblr saying that punk music by women is just plain better (also beyond debate), called “Women Bangers: A Tumblr New Classics Jam”. I’ll be posting an essay with a YouTube playlist soon, because god forbid that I only talk briefly about anything LOL and most of these women need to be heard AND seen.

Like Buffy Sainte-Marie, whom you'll both see and hear more often on my blog soon. Thanks for the reminder! Always a pleasure to hear from you and be challenged by you. :-)

Peace, Tim

#ask #musicrunsthroughmysoul #buffy saint marie #women in rock #1971 #she used to wanna be a ballerina #1971 album #youtube #1971 single #crazy horse #essay #me

63 notes · View notes

turtle-paced · 4 years

Text

GoT Re-Watch: Fine-Toothed Comb Edition

This post is also available on my wordpress.

All right. We know what this episode is. We know what we’re digging into here. Only one more recap to go after this one…

8.05 – The Bells

(1:59) We open the episode with a bit of mild treason. Someone (Varys) is spilling the beans about Jon’s parentage.

(2:35) This isn’t spelled out in so many words, but the strong implication here is that Varys sent this little kid to go poison Dany. This didn’t come out of nowhere, but boy did it ever escalate quickly. Make one decision Varys disagrees with, even when he’s got no good alternatives, and bam you’re up for assassination.

Note how Varys’ actions here aren’t given much scrutiny. This is because it would reveal the hypocrisy in a second flat. When Varys says the ends justify the means, the narrative is silent. When Dany says the ends justify the means, the narrative goes out of its way to demonise her. I don’t believe the ends justify the means, but there is a fundamental lack of consistency here.

(3:52) Not to mention the goddamned fucking nerve of portraying Dany’s refusal to accept food as evidence that her mental state is deteriorating, when the show not one minute ago established that her food was poisoned. It’s the famous question – is it paranoia when they really are out to get you?

This is not a case of Dany harbouring the irrational and unfounded belief that her breakfast will coagulate into the Dread Brunchmonster and devour her. Given that Dany’s soldiers are watching the poisoner, this appears to be a case of Dany forming the belief that someone is trying to poison her and being justified in her belief. I gotta say, looking at the evidence and coming up with an accurate conclusion based on that evidence does not support narrative contentions of irrationality.

Unfortunately for Dany, the narrative’s out to get her as well. She cannot win. Eat the poisoned food and die, refuse the poisoned food and have Varys imply damaging things about her mental state.

(4:37) Varys is committing all the treason in his last scenes. This is the worst of the lot, in the sense that he’s soliciting Dany’s #1 fan for a coup on an open beach in plain view of her Hand, who knows that Varys can now be counted a political enemy. Square character pegs, round plot holes. Was Varys ever established to be this incompetent? But we’re getting close to the end here and he needs to die, so bye!

Notice also the competence flip. Varys is trying to do “the right thing,” so he sucks at it. Much like Jon’s ineffectual when he tries to do the right thing. Hell, pick a Stark, any Stark, and they were probably ineffectual when they tried to do the right thing. Compare Euron, who’s only out to kick shit down, and succeeds when he’s got no right to because he’s doing a shitty, plot-convenient thing. Now Dany’s in that Euron zone. She’s effortlessly detecting Varys’ treason because the narrative has decided she’s a bad guy now. We’ll get back to this when the fighting starts.

(5:19) If I was tempted to count one thing this season, one thing, it would be how many times Jon says “she’s my queen” or variation.

(6:03) We track Tyrion into this scene. It becomes quite noticeable at this point that we aren’t seeing much from Dany’s PoV, but approach her actions from the viewpoint of the men around her. We don’t get insight into why Dany thinks someone’s betrayed her or her emotional reaction to coming to this conclusion, we only get the scenes of Varys (absolutely positively 100% justifiably, for certain) betraying her, and Tyrion approaching her with the news. Keep that in mind for later.

It’s also worth mentioning the weather flip. Last season Dragonstone was perpetually sunny. Now it’s gone back to Stannis-in-charge weather.

(6:11) Oh my god! She’s not perfectly groomed! Flee for your lives, people, if she can leave her hair unbrushed she’s capable of anything!

Now, not taking care of your appearance and hygiene can be an indicator that someone’s got some mental issues going on. Depression, pretty commonly. But to understate the issue just a bit, depression does not automatically translate into mass murder. Not all mental disorders are the same. And sure as shit not all people with mental disorders are violent. Most aren’t. Nor is this a careful depiction of a character struggling with mental illness that does result in violent tendencies. This is just flat out crazy = violent, “madness” striking out of a clear blue sky because the writers said so.

(6:57) So, basically, this game of telephone worked exactly like Dany thought it would, for the exactly reasons she thought it would. Dany’s relationship with reality is still going strong.

Dany’s “madness,” right now, is basically the fact that she’s upset over being betrayed, and grieving and angry after recently witnessing the violent deaths of two close friends. The emotional reaction to this doesn’t even look disproportionate. The narrative is Very Concerned that Dany is crazy…but all they’ve shown us is a woman going through a real rough time.

Equating a woman experiencing turbulent emotions with insanity is sexist as fuck and does no favours for people experiencing mental illness, either. Hysterical women! They cannot be trusted to lead.

Mind you, it’s not an improvement when the writers apparently drop the insanity angle just as abruptly as they introduced it. Problems for later!

(7:44) “She trusted you to spread secrets that could destroy your own queen.” Now this, this isn’t so well-supported. Sansa hasn’t spent much time with Tyrion in season eight, and as far as we can tell, never observed his relationship with Varys. She’s been in the same scenes with them, but I think she’s only heard them exchange one line of dialogue, in a group setting. Why would Sansa think that Tyrion would immediately tell Varys without clearing it with Dany? Why would Dany think that Sansa would do this? (Undermine her in a general sense, yes, Dany’s got good reasons for suspecting that. Undermining her in this specific way…not so much.)

This, I think, is a case of the writers not keeping track of which characters have seen which interactions. Resulting in all characters knowing all the same things about their relationships.

If you’re going to hinge plot developments on this sort of thing, you have to set it up. If Sansa’s machinations are the starting point of the rumours about Jon’s parentage, leading to actual betrayals of Dany, you have to show how that plan worked. (See also: Littlefinger’s downfall.)

(9:25) It may have come about for stupid reasons, but Varys’ arrest is, I think, nicely understated. No dialogue, just Gray Worm entering Varys’ room with shackles.

(10:31) Varys nods his acceptance that Tyrion told on him to Dany. Seriously, though, what even was Varys’ plotting this episode? Show!Ned could have given him a few pointers.

Then he gets a few lines about how he hopes that he’s wrong about Dany, because Varys enlisting a small child into his assassination plot was only for the best. His desire for a better world was right and noble, despite the fact he was willing to use violence and treachery to achieve his ends. (Don’t think about it too much, okay?) Jon and Tyrion are clearly in denial over Dany’s mental decline.

(12:12) And that’s the end of Varys. Didn’t take long. Varys had to lose a lot of competence very quickly to enable that loose end to be wrapped up so quickly.

(12:58) This is a scene from Dany’s PoV, inviting the viewer to share her grief over Missandei’s death. I think this might actually be the last scene we get from Dany’s PoV.

(14:24) “This was a victory for [Sansa].” What’s also apparent at the end of the series is that we’re now at a point where we’ve got reasonable men trying to work together, and women pit against each other at every side. The surviving male protagonists have cordial relationships with each other, by and large – and the surviving female progatonists hate each other, by and large. The surviving female protagonists identify the other female protagonists as threats. The exception here is Sansa and Arya, but remember season seven? Oh boy, I sure do.

Forget the question of who’s more at fault for the Dany-Sansa conflict, because the answer is “the writers.” They’re the ones who can’t imagine that Dany and Sansa might be able to talk out their problems honestly, even if they don’t like each other, distinguishing each from Cersei’s inability to collaborate.

Again, for clarity – the problem isn’t that female characters are in conflict, the problem is that the majority of the female characters are in conflict, almost exclusively with other female characters, where the men are talking about their problems reasonably.

(15:56) Doubling down on completely awful ideas (yes, the bad ideas are increasing exponentially), we’re back to the idea that Dany is sad/insane over the fact that nobody loves her, and Jon’s romantic rejection furthers her mental decline and determination to kill her way to the top.

This is just…completely awful.

First, there’s the fact that Dany’s inability to win love in Westeros is a massive plot contrivance. Why hasn’t this character been able to gain affection? Because the writers haven’t been allowing the consequences of Cersei’s actions to play out (you know, the ones from the time she blew up the Sept of Baelor and murdered a lot of very popular political figures), making Dany look worse in comparison. Also because xenophobia, which for some reason the narrative is now actively supporting.

Second, after all the traumatic bullshit this character’s been through, it’s romantic rejection that sends her over the edge? Seriously? Rejection sucks, but come the fuck on. Is Dany going literally insane over rejection remotely in character, from what we’ve seen of her over the course of the seven previous seasons?

Thus far the dragon queen has needed a man like a fish needs a bicycle. This is flippin’ insulting.

Oh and it’s bad writing for Jon because we still don’t have the info that he’s squicked out by Dany being his aunt. No insight into his identity crisis whatsoever.

(16:07) We’re having the same argument yet again. We’ve been having this argument off and on for two seasons. Yes, Dany assaulting the city will cause a lot of casualties. This is bad. In-universe, however, the people who’ve been advocating for not assaulting the city directly have had their chance, and they failed. Dany gave their ideas a shot and they didn’t work. So what’s the greater evil here? Assaulting the city directly, or leaving Cersei in charge?

Note that the showrunners have ceased to talk about or show what makes Cersei in charge such a colossally bad idea in general. We’ve seen her actions against Dany, and they were bad, but we haven’t seen her going out and oppressing the population for a few seasons now. We get a line about the consequences of resisting Cersei, but when we’re told and not shown, this doesn’t have the same impact. We cannot even establish that this happened. Could’ve used a scene of that, instead of that garbage with Euron. Plus, over the course of the series, Tyrion has been quite consistently wrong about how willing his sister is to use violence and when she’s willing to use it.

Furthermore, we’ve got some double standards here! I know, I’m as surprised as you are. Dany is proposing a plan that will cause a lot of casualties, and this is used as justification for the men around her thinking she’s unfit to rule. When the series’ male leaders proposed and enacted plans that would kill a lot of people – including Tyrion, defending King’s Landing against Stannis! – that was not used to determine their fitness. Fitness for leadership was judged on other qualities.

(16:17) “You can’t expect them to be heroes, they’re hostages,” says Tyrion, apparently forgetting that his earlier advice to Dany relied on the people of King’s Landing rising up against Cersei.

(16:47) Now we’re turning a long-term argument, i.e. leaving Cersei in charge will cause more deaths over the long run than assaulting King’s Landing will in the short term (keeping in mind just who blew up the Sept of Baelor), into further evidence of Dany’s insanity and/or evil. You can think what you like about this argument, but it’s not an unreasonable argument to explore.

The showrunners have posed us a nasty ethical and moral problem in this plot. As wars tend to throw up. The only thing they seem to have to say about solutions, though, is “not this way.” Worse, they’re not actually addressing the counter-arguments, and basically going for the ad hom “but Dany is crazy and/or evil” instead.

(16:58) “If the city surrenders, they will ring the bells and raise the gates.” Continuity alert: back in S2, it was said outright that bells =/= surrender.

(18:04) Just establishing Jaime’s offscreen teleportation.

(18:14) Another undeniably crazy and/or evil moment from Dany: she puts Tyrion on a performance improvement plan. The madwoman. It’s not like he’s failed her before!

Oh, wait. He’s barely done anything but fail her.

(18:31) Scenes of overwhelmingly white civilians (over the course of the episode, I did spot a few people of colour amongst the King’s Landing extras), complete with vulnerable young children, continue pouring through the gates of King’s Landing. And yes, I do have to mention that they’re overwhelmingly white, given the subsequent depiction of Dany’s loyalist armies, who are overwhelmingly people of colour. We’ll talk about that then, when we’re fully dealing with Dany as a villain.

(19:54) Exhibit…what are we up to? I lost count…in “the writers kinda forgot Tyrion’s orders directly led to the death of Davos’ son, and they both know this.” Davos is fucking committing treason for Tyrion now.

(20:11) Oh, god, it’s Arya and Sandor encountering a nameless guard. This is going to be “witty,” isn’t it? Much like the writers have no way for Tyrion to elicit character-sensitive information but drinking games, they’ve got no way for Arya and Sandor to prove their likeability except random encounters with guards.

(21:15) Show!Tyrion’s shithouse Valyrian is basically Bella Swan’s clumsiness. It’s an endearing flaw that’s meant to show they aren’t perfect – but in its shallowness only shows that as conceived, this character was not given enough real flaws.

(22:24) Just confirming that Jaime’s here for Cersei, even believing her cause to be utterly futile. I really hope nobody was invested in Jaime/Brienne, because that’s just fucking brutal.

(22:36) Convince Cersei to change her course of action? To recap, Cersei’s lied about sending people north to help fight the zombie army, hired someone to kill the pair of these dunces, and rejected Dany’s most recent offer of peaceful surrender by murdering her BFF in front of her. Given the slightest opportunity to screw Team Let’s Not Get Turned Into Zombies over, she has screwed them over. What grounds do any of these characters have to think they’ve got even half a chance to convince her that this time, this time, she should really not screw them over? Fourthtime lucky?

At least Jaime’s got the excuse of a self-destructive co-dependent relationship. Tyrion’s just throwing Jaime’s life away here.

(22:49) “To be honest, I never really cared much for [the civilians of King’s Landing].” If it weren’t for, you know, the other thing, this might have been the worst characterisation thing this season and this series. This blatantly does not accord with the Jaime we saw develop over the course of season three. The reveal that Jaime gave up whatever good name he had in order to protect five hundred thousand people from burning to death calls for a substantial reevaluation of his character. It puts a lot of his actions and reactions into a very different context.

And now, in his last episode, the penultimate episode of the series, we get “lol no never mattered to me! All incest, all the time, baby!”

Flippin’ insulting. To any viewer who was remotely invested in Jaime’s storyline or character.

(23:02) Continuing to use Cersei’s pregnancy to humanise her. This just – I’m not sure if I can fully articulate how much this bugs me, and on how many levels. I’ll come back to the issue as the episode progresses, especially in her death scene, but for now…

Cersei’s pregnancy is not going to automatically radically change who she is as a person. I mean, it hypothetically could, it’s not outside the realms of possibility, but it’s by no means a given. She’s a grown-ass woman who’s already given birth to three children (possibly four, depending on retcons). She’s got a bunch of other strong life experiences and strongly-held beliefs. This pregnancy does not define her life. If she’s been saying “no, fuck off, I think I can win this and that will be best for my unborn child,” perhaps that’s worth paying attention to? Perhaps it’s her argument that needs to be addressed, rather than simply saying “but the baby”?

Note to characters: the issue you’re having with Cersei is that she mistakenly believes she can win the war, not that she’s hanging on to her position out of self-destructive spite. She might be deluding herself, but if anyone’s trying to convince her, they have to deal with that delusion. Not rely on appeals to emotion alone.

(23:50) Now it’s Tyrion committing some mild treason. To save Cersei. Who hired someone to kill him and Jaime both, in the last couple of episodes. Remember when Tyrion had actually complicated feelings about Cersei, back in the day? When he hated her for the shit she pulled and the way she treated him, but couldn’t totally give up on caring about her because she was his sister?

Yeah, I can’t help but notice that the more the show wants to demonise Daenerys for her actions in removing Cersei’s regime, the less complex Tyrion’s feelings about Cersei become.

(24:12) “Sail right past the Iron Fleet and into a new life?” Jaime asks, and Tyrion responds, “There isn’t going to be an Iron Fleet much longer.” And, what, Tyrion thinks that Jaime can sail right past Dany’s own forces, dragon included? Like finding Cersei won’t be real high up on Dany’s to-do list following gaining control of King’s Landing? Granted, if last episode is anything to go by, Dany’s field of vision while riding on Drogon is severely limited, but even so.

(25:39) So the brothers Lannister share their final farewell. Speaking of relationships that became less complex. This hits basically the same notes as their parting at the end of season four did. How has this relationship changed? How have the people involved changed? Where’s the progress? Where’s the journey? What is the story?

(25:54) The omissions from Tyrion’s book arc are rubbed in as he thanks Jaime for not treating him like a monster.

(26:37) Now here we have a shot of a bell tower, and I think I might be done with most of my substantive commentary for this episode. I’ll do a bit of narration so people can keep track of who’s going where and the like. We’ll try to keep the teleportation to the show and not the recap. There’ll be a few things of substance, and we’ll get to them, but most of the rest of this 77-minute episode is noisy destruction.

At least it’ll be well-lit noisy destruction. Ugh, and to think I asked for a daytime fight scene in my pre-S8 wishlist.

(27:03) Establishing the Iron Fleet with their ballistae, and Euron’s presence aboard.

(27:15) Establishing more Lannister forces on the walls, also with ballistae. The amount of hustling and bustling and locking and loading going on, this is shaping up to be a real fair fight.

(28:16) Arya and Sandor have made it inside the city.

(28:44) Jaime is also trying to make it inside the city. He took his glove off especially for this purpose. Meanwhile, the Golden Company march out.

(29:15) Here’s a nice detail – the Golden Company’s shields all have golden skulls painted on them.

(30:31) Cersei heads out onto the balcony, because that’s what she does these days, watch things from her balcony. She’s wearing a nice shade of red today, and it couldn’t possibly be coincidental that Cersei swaps back to the red outfits as Dany moves into all black outfits, could it? Huh, so weird. And extraordinarily subtle.

(31:30) We’ve got a bit of a subplot with this mother and daughter trying to enter the city. I sense heartstring-tugging…

(33:03) And now, establishing Daenerys’ location. On a dragon. In the sky. The music kicks in with her arrival.

(33:31) Daenerys starts doing what she should have done well over a season ago, and starts torching the Iron Fleet. Note that all aimbot tendencies have been turned off, today. Diabolus ex machina is no longer affecting Dany because she is the diabolus ex machina now, and nobody will be able to stop her. The forces of evil (as defined by the show, not me) will now be delivering an almighty curbstomping to the forces of also evil, and the innocent bystanders. It’s gritty. It’s real.

(33:58) It’s not too late for Euron to make his final miraculous escape from a ship just torched by Drogon, though. See you in half an hour, Euron! I’m sure you’ll make things worse when you show up.

(34:07) So that’s the Iron Fleet dealt with! Man, why didn’t Dany just do this back in 7.02 or 7.03? This is super easy! Could have saved a lot of lives amongst Dany’s Ironborn allies, Dornish allies, and Reach allies, too. Were their lives not worth preserving? Shortened the war, saved a lot of lives there. Increased resources available to deal with the ice zombies, possibly spread out the impact of those losses…

(34:47) So that’s the Lannister forces on the walls dealt with! Man, why didn’t Dany just do this back in 7.03 or 7.04? This is super easy!

I note that Dany’s attack on the Red Keep, while causing a lot of fatalities amongst the men on the walls, hasn’t caused any destruction in the city as yet. You wouldn’t want to rely on a fire not spreading, and anyone worried about the risks would be fucking right to do so, but it would seem to indicate that a bit of targeting can go on here. It’s not a case of “use fire in city = fwoosh!” Almost like risks can be managed, chances taken…

(36:20) So that’s the Golden Company dealt with! I’m glad they were in the story! They sure had an impact!

You know I’m looking at all this fire and destruction and thinking, wow, a character sure was set up to fail in multiple ways these past two seasons…and not very well, either.

(38:22) Dialogue! What a novelty! Anyhow, Qyburn tells us that all Cersei’s anti-dragon weapons have been destroyed.

(41:15) The Lannister soldiers defending the streets start to throw down their swords. Here is where the episode gets…nasty. Also the situation with Daenerys and her cause becomes narratively irretrievable. The fight is over.

We’ve got a lot of close up shots of Dany, but she hasn’t had any dialogue since…lemme check…about the seventeen-minute mark of the episode. We have not been tracking what she thinks of the city’s fall. The story decided she was a bad guy now at the end of the last episode, and we’re just cementing it now.

(43:07) The bells start ringing here, officially signifying surrender.

(43:31) But wait! Dany is listening to the bells and breathing heavily! She sobs, takes off towards the Red Keep –

(44:33) And starts randomly spraying fire on civilians. That’s right! No dialogue! No nothing! Dany hears bells and fucking snaps. Goes from liberator to mass murderer in a second. Starts killing thousands of people without a word. Because after everything, it’s the surrender she can’t handle.

This just doesn’t track. I’m sorry. It doesn’t. We spent all that time debating how much force Dany should use against legitimate military targets, even when the possibility of severe collateral damage was involved, and in this moment Dany starts going after civilians directly. Clearly a different sort of thing. Where is the connection? The logic? “Dany is willing to accept the risks of high collateral damage, therefore she’s just a bell ring away from murdering civilians deliberately and personally.” “Dany is willing to use extreme force against active military targets, therefore she’s willing to use extreme force against surrendered enemies and civilians.” What?

There are ways you can bridge those gaps. There’s the way I think the books may well go down in TWoW – Dany misjudges the risks out of aggression (and ignorance of the magical explosives in town), and her actions end up causing far more destruction than she was okay with. There’s the way where Dany believes that the civilians are a threat to her, out of paranoia or delusion (note: this requires more set-up than Dany not enjoying herself at a party and failing to brush her hair after her spymaster tried to poison her). The show’s done neither, leaving us no explanation for why Dany has crossed what’s a pretty clear moral and ethical line, above and beyond any moral ambiguity in using her dragon against a military target.

If we’re going for “her logic is twisted because she’s ~crazy~”, the viewer still needs that explanation. Why did she think this made sense? This is a huge, radical action in the story, whether Dany’s insane or whether she drank evil juice with her non-poisoned breakfast, so where’s the scaffolding around this decision? She couldn’t even shout down to Jon that it wasn’t over until Cersei is dead?

Also note that the close-ups on Dany’s face and the heavy breathing would indicate that this is an emotional decision for Dany. These close-ups have been used thus far this season to indicate her growing insanity/“insanity”. Another issue to discuss next episode.

Mostly, I think the showrunners have subbed Dany in for JonCon – who, unlike Dany, does have bell-related surrender trauma. Here’s the thing though, and I know this is a minor point easily missed in these thousand-page apiece books: JonCon isn’t Dany. Find/replace is not a good way to adapt cool storylines from the books.

In addition to this, it’s real fucking irksome that after all the song and dance a few seasons back about the strong female characters taking charge, we get this. Female characters in charge, yes, but female characters who are both crazy and/or evil, which we can see because they keep blowing up the same damn city. I hate that this is the final conflict of the series. What’s more dangerous than the humanity-obliterating ice zombies? Women being in charge of Westeros, because they keep blowing up the same damn city. I hate that this is how they decided to treat arguably the series’ most prominent female character, let’s make her Cersei at her evilest, but even eviller and more fiery. Isn’t it cool that we went back on what was thus far a pretty straightforwardly heroic narrative, blowing all her moments of moral ambiguity and ruthlessness far out of proportion to her arc as a whole to that point? I bet this will subvert everyone’s expectations!

I just – I just want to know why. Really I do. Why was this decision made? What did the writers think the connotations of their decisions were? How did the writers think this would play? Honestly, now.

This also marks the point where the episode starts to just fucking suck to watch, because it’s another half hour of previously sympathetic characters mass murdering civilians. Half a fucking hour. Mass slaughter of extras. It’s destruction porn, nothing more. It’s not designed to make the audience think about the moral hazards of war and power, it’s meant to hurt the audience.

Asshole storytelling – the story gave the audience something to want, in Daenerys, won over several seasons of seeing her overcome internal and external obstacles. It gave the audience Daenerys’ success. And then the story abruptly yanked it away by having Dany mass murder thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians, and told the audience they were stupid for not seeing it coming earlier.

*sigh* Let’s get the rest of this over with.

(45:05) Jon is mildly bemused by Grey Worm murdering a Lannister soldier unprovoked. Can we buy a reaction? Nor does he do anything you might expect a leader to do, such as exert authority over the situation on the ground.

I mean, I know that they’re going for Jon being shocked into numbness, and as a member of the audience I can relate to the emotion. But when everyone’s reaction to things is Dull Surprise, nobody’s reaction stands out.

(45:23) Okay. Crucial seconds after the fact, Jon starts reacting. What this scene also does is establish that the Northern armies are getting well into the sacking and slaughtering (as does the extended sequence of wanton slaughter afterwards). That’s yet another thing I’m going to be keeping in mind for next episode.

(46:42) Speaking of Dull Surprise. The problem’s not Peter Dinklage (nor Kit Harrington, actually), the problem’s the lack of variety in response.

(47:03) Davos here starts ushering civilians out of the line of fire and proves himself far more effective a leader in the moment than…well. Just about anyone else present, actually.

(47:43) Oh no! The Dull Surprise has taken over the extras, too!

(48:10) Jon Snow, still wandering around scenes of carnage as they just sort of occur around him.

(49:03) Lena Headey’s doing her best with this “keep the emoting minimal” instruction, but yeah, nobody thus far has been allowed to have a reaction to Dany burning a city down for funsies beyond maybe a slightly dropped jaw.

(49:29) Meanwhile, Jaime has made it all the way around the Red Keep.

(49:35) …where, quite coincidentally, Euron is hanging out. So I was wrong, it was twenty minutes until he showed up for his last diabolus ex machina.

(50:17) So this isn’t so much a climactic duel against an epic backdrop as a misplaced ego fight. Euron’s revolting and basically a plot device for bad things to happen to other people, Jaime’s burned all sympathy anyone may have ever had for him, they’re fighting over Cersei of all people, Euron’s only doing this to be fucking obnoxious one last time…what’s the audience supposed to hope for here, beyond “I hope you both die”?

(50:33) While Jaime and Euron fight, the Red Keep’s getting absolutely torched.

(51:51) Two minutes of Jaime and Euron flailing at each other, concluding with Jaime getting stabbed, nobody cares…

(52:08) Qyburn continues to give Cersei notifications on how fucked her situation is, and he convinces her to leave. Strange, he never once mentioned the fact that she’s pregnant to do so.

(52:48) Green fire is visible in the city, another thing which makes me think that the showrunners were lifting from the books. Badly, with key things out of context (like the order of events), but grabbing from planned book events nevertheless.

(53:33) Back at the Euron-Jaime dick-fighting contest, Jaime stabs Euron. Still don’t care.

(54:09) Euron dies insisting how awesome he is for stabbing Jaime. How nice for him.

(54:35) Arya and Sandor make it into the map room. They’re not even dusty.

(54:43) We get a close-up of Sandor, Arya fuzzy in the background, as Sandor tells Arya to go home. This, much like the scene they shared last episode, puts Sandor in the protagonist role. Not Arya.

For a while now, Arya has felt like an afterthought. Her skills built up to killing the Night’s King through the magic of hasty retcons, but as far as an internal character journey goes, she’s been a side character in other people’s development. First Sansa, now Sandor. Again, this is something I anticipate talking about in a bit more detail in the next episode’s recap, but I think the showrunners lost sight of Arya Stark as a character in the last few season, and started bouncing her between plot points they wanted her involved in.

(55:04) Sandor stops here to tell Arya the point of their respective stories. Somewhat belatedly, I might add, given that she’s already slaughtered most of House Frey. Just in case it wasn’t coming across, or was somehow undermined by the events that are about to transpire.

(55:32) After being informed of the futility of her quest, Arya remembers, “Oh hey! I have a few things to live for! Thanks for pointing that out!” She doesn’t come to this on her own, she has to be told this.

(56:53) Sandor appears on the stairs, ready for Cleganebowl.

(57:36) Gregor rather abruptly kills Qyburn (bye!) and Cersei excuses herself from a scene she clearly has no business in. Seriously, it’s like she alked onto the wrong set.

(57:59) So here we are for a far more hyped up duel, another fight to the death against an epic backdrop. And again: why should I, the viewer, care? Sandor just said that this was absolutely pointless, that they’re both going to die anyway. The stakes of this fight…aren’t real high. The emotional torque relies on people wanting Sandor to get revenge at the direct expense of finding some way to move on with his life – the very path he just told Arya was a better one.

(59:20) Ah, the true love of the series: Cersei and Jaime. Reunited at last. What even are the choices here. Never mind, let’s just enjoy Lena Headey’s Cersei.

(1:00:46) More Cleganebowl. It’s a fight. With a zombie.

(1:02:00) Arya heads out into a rapidly crumbling and burning King’s Landing.

(1:03:31) Swapping between Cleganebowl (still a fight with a zombie) and Arya (still in a city in the process of being destroyed).

(1:04:12) The woman who was trying to get through the gates earlier with her daughter helps Arya to her feet. Oh yeah, there’s definitely going to be some heartstring-yanking here. Back to Cleganebowl.

(1:06:05) Which ends when Sandor tackles Gregor out the collapsing walkway into the flames below. Again, I got nothing. This fight meant nothing. It did nothing. Except help contribute to the undermining of Arya’s story, such as it became (do as I say, not as I do!) and kill off some useless characters, uh, provide fanservice, uh, wrap up loose ends.

(1:06:20) Back to Jon, still just kinda existing in the devastation, now with greener fire. Clearly he needs a dragon to scream at.

(1:06:44) Fucking finally! Jon does something useful and effective, in starting to arrange for his own forces to leave the burning city. About twenty minutes after he should have, but he got there in the end.

(1:07:10) Back to Arya, who’s most definitely dusty now. Writers seem to be trying to fake out her death an awful lot this episode. How many buildings can fall on the poor woman?

(1:10:17) Sure enough, the woman who tried to help Arya, and her daughter, are tragically incinerated in front of Arya’s very eyes. Didn’t see that coming, did you?

(1:10:25) Back to Jaime and Cersei in the collapsing tunnels of the Red Keep.

(1:10:49) Only their escape route is blocked.

(1:11:15) Ramin Djawadi doing his best as per usual brings in an echo from “Light of the Seven,” aka the music that played when Cersei blasted the Sept of Baelor. She did that! Just in case people and/or characters can’t recall as far back as season six.

(1:11:28) Unfortunately, we get this bullshit for Cersei and Jaime’s respective deaths, which is all about how she wants to live because she’s got a wanted pregnancy. I’m not averse to showing that Cersei is human with human frailties, but the viewer is fundamentally being asked to feel bad for this woman because she is pregnant. Ignore the woman (and the entirety of her life), focus on the pregnancy. We also have some goddamned icky creator comments contextualising this scene as Cersei being just a girl seeking comfort from a man, or some such bullshit that infantilises Cersei and reduces Jaime’s range of appropriate emotions in this situation.

It also continues to be extremely gross that the writers are treating Cersei’s romantic relationship, and her motherhood and potential motherhood as her foremost humanising, sympathetic characteristic – while out there unloved, infertile, human-childless Dany has snapped and started murdering thousands of people because nobody loves her.

I’ll have more to say about gendered character death next episode. Yes, I’m keeping a list. It’s getting pretty long.

(1:12:42) The music switches back to “The Rains of Castamere” for the actual Lannister deaths. Rocks fall. Jaime and Cersei die in each other’s arms.

(1:13:15) Ash falls in King’s Landing, and Arya wakes up yet again. This is like the third time in the past twenty minutes. Would you believe she’s still in a burning city?

(1:14:59) A random blood-spattered white horse appears on the set for Arya to ride. The symbolism here would be anvilicious, if not for a) the next episode and b) the fact that this goes nowhere. In case you didn’t get the point, though, there’s been a lot of death this episode!

#anti got #fine toothed comb edition #cw: violence #season eight #now to crack open a bottle of red wine

207 notes · View notes

365days365movies · 3 years

Text

February 2, 2021: Pretty Woman (1990)

ALL RISE FOR THE KING AND QUEEN OF ROMANCIA!

First, we bow to the Actor King of Romancia, Richard Gere. Gere is a DYNAMO of romantic movies, having starred in The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, American Gigolo, An Officer and a Gentleman, Sommersby, Autumn in New York, Chicago, Shall We Dance?, Runaway Bride, and of course, Pretty Woman. He was crowned king of this fictionation both because of his film prowess, and because DUDE HAS DATED A LOT OF FAMOUS PEOPLE GODDAMN

Second, we bow to the Actress Queen of Romancia, Julia Roberts.

Roberts’ resume is equally romantic, including films such as Notting Hill, My Best Friend’s Wedding, Eat Pray Love, Steel Magnolias, Mystic Pizza, Runaway Bride, and of course, Pretty Woman. She was crowned queen of this fictionation because, I mean...it’s Julia Roberts, man. Who else was gonna be queen, Meg Ryan? She’s too busy ruling the Holy Romance Empire.

Yes. Yes, I will be visiting the Holy Romance Empire soon.

Anyway, one of the advisors to this great land was the now sadly passed Garry Marshall, a seasoned romantic movie director, responsible for The Princess Diaries (and its terrible sequel), Beaches, Runaway Bride (shit, should I watch this one?), and those bad holiday romance movies from the late 2000′s. You know, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Mother’s Day? Yeah, that’s the guy.

Marshall was appointed an advisor of Romancia because of his role as director of the film...you know.

Enough navel-gazing; let’s get into Pretty Woman, shall we? I, for one, am looking forward to venturing further into the land of Romancia! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

We start at a party where...George Costanza?

Huh! Phil Stuckey (Jason Alexander), a lawyer and kind of an asshole, is romancing women at a party, held on the behalf of Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), a businessman from New York. However, he’s currently in California away from his unhappy girlfriend back east, who’s feeling a tad neglected by the constantly busy Edward.

Meanwhile, on a less-than-great side of town lives Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts), a prostitute working the mean streets of Hollywood. Making her way to the red-light district, she enters the Blue Banana Club (which is...a name, that’s for sure), where she finds her roommate Kit De Luca (Laura San Giacomo). Laura’s unfortunately spent their rent on drugs, during the height of the cocaine epidemic in Hollywood.

The two meet each other on the street, where Edward’s lost, and struggling with Phil’s stick-shift Lotus Espirit. She offers to give him directions for money, and he reluctantly accepts. She gets in, and guides him back to his hotel. As he struggles to drive, she displays her knowledge of cars from back home. He then offers to drive the car for him, and also shows her prowess as a driver. Which...is pretty neat.

He asks how much she makes in her profession, as the two roll up to his hotel. As they begin to part ways, he asks her instead to accompany him into the hotel. She’s about as charmed and gawky as I would be going into a sick-ass hotel like that. The elevator in it has a FUCKING SOFA INSIDE, YES PLEASE

Edward’s a little embarrassed by her gawking, but they quickly get past it. Edward’s graveyard-still complacency is contrasted by her manic pixie energy. Not that she’s a manic pixie dream girl...I think. It’s more of a “rock-and-balloon” relationship deal. When Vivian busts out the condoms (she’s a “safety-girl”), Edward instead says he wants to “talk.”

During this talk, it’s revealed that his girlfriend has officially broken up with him, leaving him conspicuously single. He asks if she can stay the entire night, and she agrees for a price, to which he gladly agrees. They spend the night getting to know each other, although Edward is doing business during much of it. And she’s watching TV, and it gives off these kinda weird daddy-daughter vibes (not kink-shaming, mind you), and it’s...mildly uncomfortable.

This quickly progresses into her beginning to seduce him, and the two presumably have sex. We cut away just before anything happens, though. Afterwards, Edward takes a shower, as Vivian falls asleep, taking her wig off for the first time.

The next morning, Edward talks to Phil about an upcoming business purchase, when Vivian walks into the room. He’s ordered breakfast for them. ALL OF THE BREAKFAST. Seriously, everything on the menu. Motherfucker, do you KNOW HOW EXPENSIVE ROOM SERVICE IS? WE GET IT YOU’RE RICH

He reveals just how rich he is, noting that he buys companies on the brink of failure, and then sells pieces of the companies he buys. Vivian equates this to a chop-shop, which seems extremely accurate. On another call, Phil tells him that it would be better if he had a date. And it looks like...he already has one.

Yeah, Phil “hires” Vivian to be his girlfriend for a week. For $3000, she accepts, and I feel just a little icky. And yet...I dunno, we’ll see. He’s doing this purely to avoid romantic attachment, which is a little weird, but understandable? Maybe?

At this point, we get one of the most iconic scenes in the film, as the uptight women at a Rodeo Drive store tell her to leave, like assholes. They’ll get their comeuppance, though. OHHHHHH, THEY’LL get it. This compounds when the hotel manager, Barnard “Barney” Thompson (Héctor Elizondo), questions her presence there. And while it seems that he’s going to kick her out, he actually helps her out with an outfit.

Meanwhile, Edward’s business deal begins to go somewhat south, until Edward takes advantage of GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION. Anyway, Vivian goes to a local department store, where Barney’s friend Bridget (Elinor Donahue) helps her out with a cocktail dress. When she heads back, Barney acts like a bro once again and teaches her proper etiquette, Emily Post style.

Edward heads back to the hotel, where Vivian is waiting for him. And she looks cuuuuuuuuuuute. Edward thinks so, too, and they head to the corporate dinner. There waitselderly businessman James Morse (Ralph Bellamy), and his grandson David (Alex Hyde-White). We get a taste of just how vicious of a businessman Edward is, and Vivian makes a much better impression on the Morses than Edward does. Also, Eddie’s kind of a sociopath, huh? Or, at least, he has some sociopathic tendencies. I dunno his pure emotionlessness is rubbing me a weird way.

After the dinner goes VIOLENTLY south, the two begin to relate to each other a bit more. He notes that he prefers not to bring emotion into business, although he apparently does like Mr. Morse. He also notes that his father died a month ago, but it doesn’t appear to affect him much. Still he heads downstairs to get some air. Later, Vivian gets the bellhop, Dennis (Patrick Richwood) to help her find him, and she does. He’s playing piano like a GODDAMN MANIAC HOLY SHIT! Just like, “Don’t mind me, I’m just playing an operetta to PUT THE KNIFE FEELINGS TO SLEEP IAMTHEZODIACKILLER.” This manic performance is followed by the two just...fuckin’ on the piano. They just FUCK IN THE LOUNGE RIGHT ON THAT PIANO JESUS CHRIST GUYS

The next morning, post-musex, they go to get outfits together, in which Gere buys a massive set of outfits, and we get the first makeover montage this month! He also flashes even more sociopathic flair with a clothing store owner, goddamn. And that’s...when we get the song.

youtube

I mean, we had to get this song in here at some point, right? She also engages in the most iconically HUGE moment of the film. You know what I’m talking about, and it’s beautifully cathartic, my Lord.

Meanwhile, at work, Edward’s starting to...lose it, I guess? As Phil’s encouraging him to close in on Morse for the kill, Edward’s beginning to grow a heart. And may I note that he’s been in this relationship for TWO DAYS. Jesus, buddy, you’ve really never had a meaningful relationship, huh? They eventually go to a polo match for business reasons, here Phil finally meets Vivian. Vivian also notices that none of the high-society people here seem like, well...friends.

Turns out that David Morse is one of the polo players, and Vivian starts to speak with him. Phil, meanwhile, notices this, and suspects her of being a corporate spy. And Edward, like an ABSOLUTE ASSHOLE, tells her that Vivian’s a prostitute. Phil LITERALLY IMMEDIATELY GOES AFTER HER, and solicits her like a fucking CREEP.

This obviously very much upsets her, and she chews Edward out back at the hotel. And the argument that follows IMMEDIATELY puts me on Vivian’s side, because Edward’s being a sociopathic douchenozzle. Goddamn. She rightfully wants to leave, and he just lets her. And here’s the real kicker; she doesn’t take the money.

And that’s when Edward sincerely apologizes to her, as best as he can. And yeah, he’s a little sociopathic, but I can see that the dude is trying? The two make up, and once again open up to each other. Edward starts to realize, in turn, that he legitimately has feelings for her. And we head into the third act of the film.

The next day, Edward leaves work early to go on a date with Vivian, and Phil asks if the date is with “the hooker.” And Edwards flashes him a look that’s just...knifey. I’m still not convinced he isn’t the Zodiac Killer. He takes her to an opera in San Francisco, before which we get this scene.

Adorable. God, I love Vivian. Also Dennis and Barney are the best, and they’re super fucking invested, and I am HERE for it. Their date to the opera is...sublime. Understand, my girlfriend and I watched this entire film together, and we’re both in love with Vivian and the opera after it. Imma take her to the opera on a date one of these days, I swear it.

That night, they play chess together, and Edward actually takes the following day off. He also actually sleeps in a bed for once, instead of going to work. And this is when my girlfriend the following phrase:

Is he sculpting her, or is she sculpting him?

OK, that fantastic question is one of the reasons we’re together, but also a very interesting point. Lemme explain here. This is very much a Pygmalion story in a few ways. While not a straight adaptation by any means, this film is definitely taking a few ideas from the Pygmalion trope. See, if you don’t know, Pygmalion’s a Greek myth about a sculptor who falls in love with his statue. It’s been adapted multiple times throughout the history of the arts, but the most prominent version of this was the stage musical My Fair Lady, famously adapted into a film starring Audrey Hepburn in 1964.

And again, a lot of adaptations of that, too. While Pretty Woman isn’t explicitly an adaptation of either work, the themes are still present in the work. So, yeah, it’s a good point. In this version, she’s changing him as much as he’s changing her. The sculpture is sculpting the sculptor. Which is cool.

And then, as we had that cute little revelation, Vivian tells Edward that she loves him. And OH FUCK. It’s the last day. And when he says he doesn’t want this to be the last of them together, she takes it as romantic. But when he essentially proposes making her a beck-and-call girl, putting her up in an apartment and hooking her up with dresses...she’s understandably not interested. She says that, as a little girl, she dreamed of a white knight that would sweep her off her feet and take her away. But Edward isn’t that knight.

Have I mentioned how much I love Vivian? Because Vivian’s fuckin’ fantastic, Jesus Christ.

Edward decides to leave, and says that he’s done all he can at this point. He leaves, and she’s shattered. Kit, meanwhile, comes to visit her at the hotel, and she admits that she’s fallen in love with him. While Kit’s initially worried about it, she says that they could maybe settle down and buy some diamonds and a horse. I also love Kit.

Meanwhile, at the meeting with Mr. Morse, Edward turns the tables on Phil and his yes-men, and asks to speak with Mr. Morse alone. Phil’s gobsmacked by this, but agrees. Once they’re alone, Edward admits that he no longer wishes to buy his company and destroy it. Instead, he wants to help him rebuild his company. And Morse agrees, telling Edward that he’s proud of him.

Phil, EXTREMELY irritated by this, and decided to make his way to talk to Edward at the hotel. And that’s when he finds Vivian. FUUUUUUUUCK. As expected, Phil tries to r*pe her, and that’s when Edward shows up, and BEATS THE FUCK OUT OF HIM.

Edward tells Phil off, calling him an EVEN BIGGER sociopath than he is, and kicks him out. Friendship ended with Phil. Now Vivian is his best friend. But despite this, Vivian still realizes that their relationship, at least the one she wants, seems impossible. Conceding, and on his way back to New York now, Edward pays her, and tells her to call him if she ever needs anything.

But he asks her to stay one more night with him, not because of money...BUT BECAUSE OF LOVE. And she replies that she can’t...and they part ways. Vivian goes to say goodbye to Barney, who still rules. He calls a cab for her, and says that she can visit them anytime. My girlfriend says that she would leave me for Barney, and I agree. I agree so much, because she deserves the best, and the best is Barney, and I could never BE Barney.

I could never be Barney.

It’s over now, as the song in the background says, and Edward laments his lost relationship as the thunder rolls in. Vivian decides to finally go to San Francisco, and finish high school, inspired by Edward’s love and faith for her. She passes that faith onto Kit as she says goodbye. Fuuuuuuck, man, this goodbye hurts as well.

Edward goes to the lobby, and talks to Barney one last time. AND BARNEY TELLS EDWARD WHERE VIVIAN WENT, LIKE A GODDAMN CHAMPION. WHY CAN’T I BE AS PERFECT AS BARNEY????

He makes his way to her apartment, and buys flowers from a woman with a Cockney accent, WHICH IS A MY FAIR LADY REFERNCE! HOLY SHIT! He arrives in a white limo at her place, overcomes his fear of heights and climbs a fire escape in a metaphorical tower to rescue his princess.

THAT’S HOLLYWOOD, BABY! And it’s Pretty Woman as well. That was a very heartwarming film, and I’m very glad that I watched it! Is it perfect? Ehhhhhhhh, see you at the Review.

18 notes · View notes

elena-mayfair · 3 years

Note

You’re allowed to have your opinions about whatever you want, but at your big age, I know you’re smart enough to know that your opinion was an uneducated one filled with assumptions and grand generalizations about people you don’t know. Many dark fics writers and readers are victims of assault themselves who feel that engaging in these fics gives them back a sense of control unlike in that particular situation(s) where they had none. Women who enjoy being submissive or in situations where they are submissive doesn’t equate to low self esteem. There’s literally no correlation. These fandoms are huge. There’s no shortage of writers who don’t write dark fics. You’re simply not looking for them because the dark fic community or whatever is relatively small. 1 in 3 women actually have rape fantasies. They’re very common. You just happen to come across those who write about it. Your post wasn’t about curiosity or questions and you know it. It was holier than thou and filled with judgement and your giddiness to look down on something you don’t understand nor have any intentions of understanding. It was filled with stuff you literally just pulled out of your head. No research. No actually reading up on why women fantasize about these things. Nothing. Just pure ignorance and vibes and you have the audacity to be shocked when people took offense to it. As an SA victim myself, I would never tell another how they should cope with their trauma. I could never even fix my mouth to do such a thing bc my experience is not everyone’s and anyone with common sense can understand that

I was very hesitant about replying to you and I wanna start by saying that I really really really don’t want to start the fight again. It wasn’t my intention in a first place, believe me or not. But there are few things that need to be clarify and I wanna take this opportunity to do that since the dust seems to settle on my post. So I’m sorry but it’s going to be long reply, partially to you partially to the people who commented under my OP, if they decide to read it.

Starting from a thing that annoys me the most, I never said anything about how people should cope with their trauma. What I said is that if someone gets turned on by reading about this kind of things, they should work on their self esteem, that is what I said (hold your hate, hide the torches, I’ll elaborate). I never said something on the line “if you find this helpful or healing you should work on your self esteem”. So please don’t twist my words. I know how difficult is dealing with trauma, and I’m not talking about rape trauma per say but trauma in general, so it would never even cross my mind.

Before you get angry, I wasn’t referring to the people who are into kink as general group. I wrote specifically that I “I get that people have different fantasies I do get that (...) I enjoy a bit of kink” - so no, I wasn’t condemning all people who are into all kinds of kink. I never expressed any hate towards people who are into it. Hate, pitchforks and torches came from the other side. Anyway, in my eyes there is a difference between kinky and straight disturbing. There is a difference between being submissive and being raped. People chose to read that as an personal attack on them and it is kinda obvious that I wasn’t referring to them, people who are into kink. You, they (I don’t know how to phrase this) you know how it works, what is a part of fantasy etc. something I personally know very little about because I’m not into it. Buuuuut, there are people out there who, like me, come across this type of content and upon discovering it are being shocked and horrified. And I’m sorry, you are aware that it’s coming from someone “outside of circle”, but I read some things which were truly horrifying. And again, I’m not referring to all of the kinky stuff, in my OP I was specifically referring to rape, degradation, breeding kink, non-con, forced pregnancy, very extreme things. I read through some truly horrifying things, rapes so violent that it makes Irreversible a rom-com. And comments under this kind of fiction weren’t about healing and helping but were indications of getting turned on, rounds of applause and appreciation for the author. And I’m sorry but for a life of my I don’t see how this might be helpful for an author or a reader who is a rape victim especially since the outcome of the rape rarely tackled. There is no aftermath, no repercussions for the abuser, no consequences for the abuser, nothing, just a plain violent act of rape. And yes, for someone who is “outside of the circle” it can look like normalization and erotization of a rape. But you know, it is an opinion if an ignorant.

Continuing, I’m sure you are aware that content can be read by people from “outside of circle” (and yes I will keep using that phrase from lack of better one). And believe it or not I wasn’t searching for it. Searching tag Steve Rogers x reader gave my only this type of fics for pages upon pages. Like I said before, perhaps Tumblr should work on their search engine. Going back to people “outside of the circle”, some will shake it off and move on, some will stay and maybe get into it more, and some well might take it on face value, in a very wrong way. Because you won’t convince me that art does not have impact on a real life, it does, it always did. And yes you are right, this is coming from my head, those are feelings and thoughts of a common folk. I’m sure you must be aware of potential danger of this kind of, let’s say themes, for someone who is “outside of the circle”. Let’s stretch our imagination for a sec: young girl come across this. She’s innocent, just discovering her sexuality, curiosity is the thing. And let’s be honest, forbidden fruit always tastes the best so of course she will ignore warnings. Around the same time she starts dating a guy, he’s not a very nice guy. They’re getting together and she’s not ready but we’ll he’s more than needing. So she thinks about all the things she read and maybe starts thinking that guys are into this, she doesn’t have much experience. So instead of running she becomes another rape victim. Or let’s look at this from the other perspective, a guys come across this kind of fiction and starts thinking that, hmm, maybe girls are into it. And next time he won’t take no for an answer, he will take this as an encouragement. Yeah, that is a possibility. And I don’t know how can I stress this enough, but it is only one of possible scenarios. That truly doesn’t mean that I’m hating or, damn this is ridiculous, kink-shaming people who are into kink. I’m simply presenting a scenario. Scenario from the point of view of a common folk, someone “outside of the circle”. And yes, yes, I read in the comments counter argument about violent games etc but we are not talking about this, and in my opinion it is just invalid argument. No one in their right mind will start killing people after playing a violent game. However sexuality is much more delicate subject, especially since power dynamics between man and a woman were always a difficult subject.

You saying that my post was filled with generalization, and yes you are absolutely right. It wasn’t targeted specifically toward people who are into kink, who am I to judge, I really really don’t give a flying fuck about what people do behind closed doors. It was about the sheer ridiculousness of the world we’re living in. That’s why I brought up subject of equal rights etc. Because we, society, as people, we are jumping from one opposite side of the extreme to another. On one hand women are fighting for equal rights, on the other hand we are taking all the power from women in the fiction, on one hand we are talking about toxic masculinity on the other we write about rape, on one hand women in some countries are fight for right to their bodies, on the other we are writing about forced impregnation. And I know, I know, one is a fiction an the other is a real life, it’s not for everyone, and so on. I get that. I’m painting a picture here. Picture of society which is swapping one extreme to another. And like I said before, this kind of fiction is being read not only by people who are into kink, but by common people, who know very little about it. And I’m sure you are aware, that common people can see it that way, and for common people rape fantasy is not normal, as in commonly accepted by society.

Anyways, this is longer than I wanted it to be. Like i said at the beginning, I have no intention in starting another fight. I never had intention like that in a first place believe it or not. For years I was a quiet Tumblr user, enjoying content that enjoy in my little part of the internet. You can check out my blog if you don’t believe me. So I won’t shit into your nest anymore, I’m going to crawl back to my little hole from which I crawled out. Enjoying content as I was before. And yes, I discovered filtering ;)

6 notes · View notes

lo-55 · 3 years

Text

Shattered Chains of Fate Ch. 19

Do Dead People Have Therapists?

By the time Ichigo was standing over Hiyori, her throat caught between two blades, there’s a thin sheet of sweat across his brow and his sleeves are long ripped off by her weapon. It’s a serrated butcher's blade, which fits Hiyori perfectly.

She was stronger than Ichigo expected, and he can feel blood drying along his arms from where it's been stopped from flowing out of him, now white instead of black. He mentally thanks Tensa.

Ichigo’s knee is on her stomach, keeping her pinned in place as if his blades weren’t enough for it. Her sword sticks out of the ground a few yards away. The rest of the Visord are watching from the sidelines, tense and ready to intervene save Shinji. Ichigo’s servants are much the same on the other side. They’re too protective of him.

Not that they don’t have their reasons.

The first time they’d seen the mask that is slowly dissolving from his face he’d wrought destruction and nearly died right after. He knows they don’t like it, but it’s his power and he won’t give Nieve up for anything.

It’s still disconcerting when he pulls it on. The shift of the world snapping into intense focus and the feeling of perfect balance and power coursing through him. There’s a pressure in his head that’s not painful but present, when Nieve is at the forefront.

As the last flicker of bone falls from his face Ichigo falls against the ground away from Hiyori, his energy drained away. This was going to take some getting used to. But this time he’d lasted a full two minutes by his own estimate. It’s better than it was before.

Even if it was only by thirty seconds.

“Now can we be done with this bullshit?” Ichigo asks, casting an irritated scowl out at the other Visored.

None of them seem inclined to challenge him further. There’s a man he hadn’t seen before, with pale pink hair, who is staring at his entourage with a little too much attention.

A throat clears in front of him and Ichigo looks up to see Hirako standing over him. His smile is half quirked, not the strange, toothy grin he’d had before. He looks more genuine like this, and less like he’s trying to involve Ichigo in something seriously shady.

His hand is extended down towards him while the other girl, Lisa, helps up Hiyori.

Ichigo huffs and slides Tensa back into his sleeve before he takes Hirakos hand and uses him to pull himself up. His body protests and he’d like nothing more than a nap, but by the way everyone is starting to gather around him it’s looking like that’s going to be out of the question this time.

Great.

Ichigo doesn’t know when it happened but at some point he became the king of ‘making doctors sleep’.

It’s a crown he’d rath chuck in the ocean, but it’s one he wears all the same.

In Chaldeas he’s the one who always bullies Romani into sleeping even when it means dragging him into Ichigo’s own bedroom. He’s made other medical staff leave their stations, and forced Da Vinci to take breaks when they were together, heroic spirit or not. (nevermind that she’s not a doctor. Close enough)

Now, it seems, his luck runs true because he finds Jeckyll passed out over a stack of papers that look like chemistry formulas and equations.

Ichigo hadn’t gotten that far into school when he’d gone to Chaldeas, and he’s learning more mage craft than science now, so he couldn’t tell you what anything meant if you pointed a gun to his head.

Still, he knows a sleeping scientist when he sees one.

He shakes him gently by the shoulder. “Hey. C’mon, you can’t sleep here,” he chides.

There’s not response besides and grumble and Jeckyll reaching to turn his gas lamp down and almost knocking it off the desk entirely.

Ichigo manages to save them from a fiery death just barely, but it’s clean that Jeckyll doesn’t want to get up and move.

Damn it.

The things I do for my friends.

Ichigo pulled the chair out and picked Jekyll up easily. He barely weighed a thing already, compared to Ichigo who had been fighting for well over a year now on top of most of his life.

Ichigo takes him to his room, out of the study and up the hall before he deposits him in the sheets.

It’s when he’s pulling back to stand that he feels cool steel against his upper thigh, right over an artery.

He looks down to see bright red eyes. Hyde.

* *

Medusa and Achilles did not want to let Ichigo be alone with these people. Not even remotely. Ichigo insisted, after Hiyori finally calmed down and got something for the inevitable bruises that would form from Medusa’s attack.

Ichigo was, naturally, completely ignored.

Cu might have let him alone and trusted him enough to mind himself now that he could fight, but when the other two ganged up on Ichigo he threw his lot in with them.

The filthy traitor.

Ichigo sits on the couch in their living room area with Achilles to his left, medusa to his right, and Cu sits at his knee. It’s a wonderful show of force, except now no one is talking about anything, even though there’s clearly a lot to talk about.

“So,” Ichigo says at last, “Why did you want me here so badly again?”

It’s not the best ice breaker, but he can’t think of anything else. Shinji looks off put from where he’s sat beside Hiyori on the opposite couch from Ichigo. Two of the other Vizord took up residence in chair to left, a pretty boy with blond hair and the long fingers of a pianist and a gruff looking man with his hair shaped vaguely like a star.

The pair on the couch was joined by a serious woman reading porn. A love seat on the other side of it had been moved to hold a gruff man who reminded Ichigo far to much of EMIYA and a green haired girl who looked ready to bounce away into the sky.

“Your mask,” Hiyori snapped at him, “You told Shinji something stupid about your mask.”

“I told him the truth about my mask,” Ichigo corrected instantly. “What’s so weird about it? Didn’t you guys have to do the same thing?”

“No,” Kensei said bluntly. “We didn’t just ‘talk’. We fought.”

“...I mean, I did that too, but we were just playing.”

“Playing?!” Hiyori sputters at him. “Playing! A hollow inside your brain and you played with it!”

“Well shit, what did you do?” Ichigo finally demands, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at her. “He’s just me, right? A part of me. Like an arm or a leg or something more profound I don’t wanna think about right now.”

“They are a part of ya,” Hirako admits reluctantly. “But inner hollows chew away at yer sanity piece by piece, just waitin ta devour you. They want out, they wanna kill, they wanna fight they want to take possession of everything ya have. They’re the darkest parts of ourselves, and if ya don’t beat them down and lock them away-”

“Huh?!” Ichigo stares at him. Beat them down and lock them away?!

“-They’ll come back and keep tryin’ shred your psyche. Ya make one wrong more, one slip up, let that box open even a crack and it’s over.”

Ichigo and Hirako stared at each other for a long time. Ichigo leans forwards, steepling his fingers together.

“Okay,” he says slowly, picking apart what the fuck was just said to him. “You are telling me that you have taken the darkest parts of you, the parts that you don’t like -anger, pain, desperation, every vicious killer instinct inside your body- You’ve taken the personification of them, and you’ve stuffed them into a box where you don’t have to deal with them anymore.”

Ichigo looked straight at him.

“Do dead people have therapists? Because you should really see one.”

Hirako gaped at him. Ichigo had to duck one of Hiyori’s sandals.

“Would you stop that! Damn, violent women,” Ichigo grumbled. “That’s like the worst coping mechanism ever. You don’t take all you trash, shove it in a closet, and think it’s just magically gone. Eventually it’s all gonna come back out, and now it’s hella rotten. What the hell.”

‘Did you just call me trash?!’

‘I will say it again. Watch me.’

‘I’m still you, idiot!’

‘This is very strange,’ medusa cuts in.

“There’s not other way to do it,” Rose, the pretty boy, says mournfully.

Ichigo shoots him a look. “There clearly is. Since I didn’t lock Nieve anywhere and we’re just fine where we are… Ya ever read that book, Jekyll and Hyde?”

Rose, Hirako, Lisa, and Hachi nod at him.

“Yeah. Trying to rid yourself of parts you don’t like doesn’t usually end well.”

He had the scar on the leg to prove it.

“How did you do it then?” Kensei finally demands, looming over Ichigo. “You can’t really expect us to believe that you just talked.”

“It’s not my problem if you believe me or not,” Ichigo is seriously starting to lose his temper here. “I told you what happened. He’s me, he’s always been me. He’s my fear, he’s my desperation, he’s my deepest instincts.”

“I’ve always trusted my instincts, even if I don’t listen to them all the time. It’s the same concept.”

They’re staring at Ichigo like he’s just disproved gravity or something.

Ichigo sighs heavily.

“Can I leave now? I have other things to do, you know.”

Before he gets the chance though the world tilts with a brand new pressure. A void and a violent rage slam into Ichigo’s senses.

“...Are you fucking with me?” Ichigo demands, his temper coming closer and closer to snapping.

* * *

Ichigo can feel blood slowly leaking out of the shallow cut on his thigh. It’s barely an inch away from killing him and Hyde is staring up at him, his red eyes wild.

Ichigo slowly pulls his hands away from him.

“Sorry,” he says blandly, “Did I scare you?”

“No!” Hyde snaps, digging the knife a little further. For a berserker he is remarkably accurate. Is it Jekyll’s knowledge seeping in? Ichigo’s not sure how they work entirely. How much does Jekyll remember? How much down Hyde?

“Good,” Ichigo goes with it. He doesn’t show fear. Hyde might get off on that. Or be more temped to stab him. Ichigo’s not sure which one. “Wanna put the knife away?”

“Fuck you,” Hyde snaps. Ichigo throws him off balance. Others flinch in warranted fear. Ichigo treats him like he does Medusa.

Something else catches Ichigo’s attention.

He reaches out, and Hyde doesn’t stab him deeper when he runs his fingers through his wild hair.

“How does that work?” Ichigo asks abruptly. “I get that you change. You’re broader than Jekyll and stronger too. Your eyes are different. But how does your hair change that much without even touching it? What all changes?”

The knife slowly eases out of his leg and a new light enters Hyde’s bright red eyes.

He starts to grin, predatory. “Do you really want to find out? I love breaking in Jekyll’s things before he gets the chance to.” Ichigo can’t tell if he’s being flirted with or threatened. Maybe both. Probably both.

Ichigo’s fingers twist in Hydes hair and he yanks his head back until Hyde hisses. “Don’t call me a thing,” he chides.

Hyde grabs him by his shoulders and throws him sideways onto the bed.

Ichigo realizes he’s going to have to get a little rougher if he wants Hyde to behave himself.

Fine then. He can do rough.

* * * *

By the time Ichigo reaches the clearing in the park Chad is unconscious on the ground and Orihime is standing defensively in front of him, her fairies floating around her in four points. Chad is laid out, his arm slowly piecing itself together again under Orihime’s healing dome while her three pronged shield barely holds to another attack.

Ichigo doesn’t waste time. He’s come in from behind and he uses it to his advantage. The big one doesn’t notice him, but the smaller of the pair glances over his shoulder in time to watch Ichigo vault himself up and over the big ones head so he can use gravity when he swings down and drops with every intention of cleaving him in two.

Zangetsu sings in his hands, Neive shrieking his delight inside his soul. The blade cuts deep, but it’s like cutting through stone instead of flesh.

Ichigo bounced back, his eyes locked on the pair, and lands next to Orihime.

“Hey,” he nods to her, “Good job.”

Orihime flushes pink at the praise and looks away from him, but not away from their opponents. She’s too smart for that.

“Not really. I tried to attack before, but he’s really strong. Tsubaki got hurt…”

“Sometimes that’s how it goes,” Ichigo says solemnly. “Watch my back?”

She nods.

The giant is screaming at Ichigo, curses that spit with no harm. What does he care what these people think of him? Ichigo eyes him speculatively. He’s not that worried about this one though. The smaller one is stronger, power packed into his body. Ichigo eyes them. Broken hollow masks and a zanpakutou. They’re some kind of hollow. A hybrid, too. The opposite of a Visord? Drosiv?

“Ulquiorra,” the giant finally stops screaming to look at his companion. “Is this the one? The one with the orange hair and the sword as long as he is?”

The smaller one, Ulquiorra, eyes Ichigo with disinterest. “Yes. That’s the one.”

“Who sent you?” Ichigo asks, ignoring Neive snarling for release. He wants blood, and Ichigo is inclined to give it to him. Orihime is strong, she’s stood her ground but her hands are still shaking and Chad-

His arm is in bad shape. If it were anyone other than Orihime treating him Ichigo might think he’s going to lose it.

“I’ll kill you!” the giant snarled instead of answering.

Ichigo swings upwards. A sharply concentrated Getsuga Tenshou tears through his arm entirely, finishing what Orihime had started. Vengeance for his fallen friend. Barely a minute into the fight and his opponent is down an arm, cut nearly in two, and bleeding profusely.

“Damn you!” he snarled.

Ulquiorra eyed his companion coldly. “You’re struggling. Shall I step in, Yammy?”

“Shut up!” Yammy snapped at him. He grabbed his sword and clicked it out of its sheath.

‘Cu, is the Bounded Field in place?’

‘It’s all ready for you. No one outside the park will notice anything amiss, even if you blow something up. A couple of yer friends are comin, though.”

“That’s fine. Thanks.”

“I wish you’d let us fight with you,” Medusa grumbled.

“I know. But I want to do this on my own for now. If it looks like I’ll die,save me okay?”

She huffed, but he knew he’d already won that fight.

Ichigo tilted the point of Zangetsu up and shifted his footing.

“Now that I’ve taken your arm,” he said suddenly. “Let’s make a deal.” Before his friends showed up.

“Fuck you.” But Ichigo wasn’t talking to Yammy.

He was looking at Ulquiorra. While Yammy felt like fury, all rage stuffed into a body that was still somehow too small to hold it all in, Ulquiorra felt like a night itself. Cool and vast, he was several dozen times stronger than Yammy. Ichigo could stand toe to toe with him, but a victory would be hard fought if it came.

Ulquiorra met his gaze squarely. “And just what would that be?” he asked, his voice smooth and flat.

“You work for Aizen, right?” He didn’t wait for confirmation. It was obvious. Someone had sent them to find him, and Aizen had disappeared into a mob of hollows, the drama queen. “If I win I want you to take me to him.”

Ulquiorra looked briefly between the pair of them before he closed his eyes.

“So be it.”

Ichigo lunged.

* * * * *

Deep in a desert of snow white sand sat a legend amongst the hollow.

It was a myth that sunk into their bones, a knowledge that was granted to them when their hearts tore themselves asunder and they were consumed by their own loss.

The legend was powerful when it first began. The eldest hollow will tell it as fact while the youngest remember it as a bedtime story and little else.

Decades and centuries ate away and the truth sunk deep in the depths of darkness.

It was in that darkness that she waited. The immortal are patient creatures, and her wait was finally coming to an end.

* * * * * *

#Ichigo Kurosaki #bleach fanfiction #BAMF!Ichigo Kurosaki #Ichigo Kurosaki is Ritsuka Fujimaru #ulquiorra cifer #hirako shinji #bleach/fate grand order #jeckyll and hyde

12 notes · View notes

mhevarujta · 5 years

Text

Camilla Macaulay is such a fascinating female character

Some readers have claimed that she is a badly written female character; one-dimensional, weak, barely there and overshadowed by the male characters even though she could have been developed more as the only girl in the group.

Others see her as a wicked, deceptive woman who uses her sexuality to pull strings and to manipulate the male characters.

The unreliable manner in which the book is narrated and Richard’s obsessive and biased view of Camilla that is rooted in denial even when he glimpses the darkest parts of her does not allow the reader to have a full picture of the character.

This elusiveness makes this young woman a fictional character that cannot be ignored. Who is Camilla Macaulay? My answer always changed. I have theories that contradict each other and that constantly reshape. Each time I think I’ve settled a conclusive interpretation seems to slip away from me. So in this post I wanted to focus on how I think of Camilla today.

Camilla was raised by women with horsed and rivers; an image really reminiscent to the Amazons who were placed on the Thermodon river, riding horses and hunting. Hunting connects them to Artemis/Diana, the worship of whom the Amazons were connected. Apollo, Diana’s twin brother was named Amazonius and Charles, the only man around, is described in several occasions in a way that brings in mind the depictions of Apollo. Moreover, Bunny parallels Camilla to Diana. Artemis/Diana was the product of rape and as a newborn she helped her mother give birth to her brother. She is the goddess of hunting among other things and one of her requests from Zeus was her eternal innocence and the maintenance of her virginal status. And she is an unforgiving goddess. In fact, Tartt’s idea for Camilla’s name came from Virgil’s Aeneid. Camilla was the daughter of King Metabus who promised his daughter to Diana –to be a virgin warrior in service of the goddess- in order to save her.

Tartt’s Camilla lost her virginal status. She lost her innocence. In fact she was manipulated and abused by the only male she grew up with. What I find interesting is the way she is introduced in Julian’s lecture, by reciting a passage that is memorable to her (at which point Henry winks at her):

Thus he died, and all the life struggled out of him;

and as he died he spattered me with the dark red

and violent-driven rain of bitter-savored blood

to make me glad, as gardens stand among the showers

of God in glory at the birthtime of the buds.

Camilla is undeniably tied to the image of Klytemnestra murdering Agamemnon. Another thing I’ve noticed is her deepest desire:

“And if beauty is terror,” said Julian, “then what is desire? We think we have many desires, but in fact we have only one. What is it?”

“To live,” said Camilla.

Unlike Bunny ‘s ‘to live forever’ Camilla’s answer can be interpreted as living in the sense of experiencing life freely and it makes sense in a way. She is a female character who has been trapped between all these male characters. She is formidable as any of them but she is being suffocated by Charles who is free to do as he pleases but does not allow her to have the life she chooses without getting out of control; who is passive-aggressive when he feels their ‘arrangement’ is threatened in any way. It is interesting how Bunny compares potentially being with Camilla to marrying Charles/a female version of him. It is a testament to how much his presence is affecting the façade that Camilla wears for the rest of the world. It’s also interesting that despite both of them growing up with women SHE is the one who’s dressed in a way that men do not relate to women.

The first lesson is also the first time that Richard glimpses the mind behind the lovely face:

I looked at Camilla, her face bright in the sun, and thought of that line from the Iliad I love so much, about Pallas Athene and the terrible eyes shining.

And these glimpses of a sharp and darker mind allow us to make more sense of her more intimate connection to Henry. After the aforementioned wink, a really significant moment is when Henry helps her after she has cut her artery. Henry is the one who takes action to help and Camilla is concerned that she’ll bleed all over him and that she’s too heavy for him. He doesn’t mind. When Charles appears he is the one who’s asked to take the glass out, to release her from the pain, but he just can’t do it. It’s Henry who takes action yet again and he recognized her bravery. To me, the entire situation foreshadows Camilla moving on from Charles to Henry and it established the reason she got attached to him –his ability to accept her for who she is with no judgment, to carry her, to let her bleed on him and to remove what hurts her even if that hurts her in some ways- which is something that Tartt never shows us directly.

Do I believe that Camilla and Henry conspired to kill Charles? I think I do. I think Charles’ death might have even been planned for the Bacchanalia and gone wrong or that at the very least that that was when the idea of his murder really took root. Let’s see some facts: All the participants are high. Henry is the one who murdered the farmer in the frenzy of that night and yet Camilla had SO much blood on her:

“I suppose we’ll never know what really happened,” he said. “We didn’t find her until a good bit later. She was sitting quietly on the bank of a stream with her feet in the water, her robe perfectly white, and no blood anywhere except for her hair. It was dark and clotted, completely soaked. As if she’d tried to dye it red.”

This image gives me the impression of Camilla trying to reclaim her lost innocence by going back to the river, to the sight where she grew up as a child, but her head, her mind, is still tainted and cannot be cleansed.

The way Charles appears is as fascinating:

Charles had a bloody bite-mark on his arm that he had no idea how he’d got, but it wasn’t a human bite. Too big. And strange puncture marks instead of teeth. Camilla said that during part of it, she’d believed she was a deer; and that was odd, too, because the rest of us remember chasing a deer through the woods, for miles it seemed.

[…]

Really, I do not know how that happened. There was a dreadful mess. I was drenched in blood and there was even blood on my glasses. Charles tells a different story. He remembers seeing me by the body. But he says he also has a memory of struggling with something, pulling as hard as he could, and all of a sudden becoming aware that what he was pulling at was a man’s arm, with his foot braced in the armpit. Francis—well, I can’t say. Every time you talk to him, he remembers something different.”

[…]

“And that bite.”

“You’ve never seen anything like it,” said Francis. “Four inches around and the teeth marks just gouged in. Remember what Bunny said?”

Henry laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Tell him.”

“Well, there we all were, and Charles was turning to get the soap— I didn’t even know Bunny was there, I suppose he was looking in the door—when all of a sudden I heard him say, in this weird businesslike way, ‘Looks like that deer took a plug out of your arm, Charles.’ ”

It seems that Camilla tried to get her innocence back, what was stolen from her, by hurting Charles. This also throws us back to the passage of Clytemnestra killing Agamemnon to avenge what was manipulatively stolen from her (her daughter). I also love how the boys see themselves as wolves but Camilla, who was ahead of them, saw them as ‘a pack of dogs’. The way they are painted differently depending on the perspective is genius.

There is also a connection between the deer, the Meanads and the kind of living –the freedom- which Camilla seeks that has been textually established:

And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves?

Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown back, throat to the stars, ‘more like deer than human being.’ To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst.

This is even more essential if one considers that the Maenads are tied to mythological events in which they tend to kill or tear apart men and animals in a state of frenzy. Moreover, some of the epithets that were traditionally attributed to them are connected to wool-spinning; the kind of imagery that can easily be connected to the Fate Clotho who span the thread of life and who decided in some occasions when mortals or gods should be saved or should die. If this theory is correct this is quite fitting for Camilla.

Then there is Richard’s comparison of Henry and Camilla to Pluto and Persephone:

It was shocking to hear him speak of her with such intimacy. Pluto and Persephone. I looked at his back, prim as a parson’s, tried to imagine the two of them together.

This is a significant choice on Tartt’s part. In the different sources Pluto and Hades are both names used for the ruler of the underworld but Hades is portrayed as violent and his abduction of Persephone is usually equated to rape, while Pluto in the Eleusinian Mysteries is seen as a loving husband to her.

Here’s my interpretation of Henry and Camilla possibly going after Charles. I see them as two people who have accepted each other but who can’t accept their own situation. Henry feels too detached from people and from the world. Out of the characters he only loves Julian all-consumingly and Camilla in a tamer way. When it comes to Richard, I think that his interest primarily lies with the fact that he sees him as someone who could finally be experiencing the same detachment. Henry is brought into the situation because his lack of empathy would make killing Charles easier in case Camilla had cold feet. The death of the farmer is an accident during the confusion that the drugs were causing.

But that night changed a lot. I think that after that night Camilla started regretting her decision, which eventually led her to staying with Henry in her attempt to break out of her situation in a way that wouldn’t involve getting her brother out of the way.

On the other hand Henry does not see beauty in living; this is something that he only glimpses during that night of ecstasy and which he tried to find again ever since. Henry, pristine and controlled, saw in that moment of total freedom that came with killing as the consequence of being in a state that did not allow him to be burdened by consciousness and by thinking a possible meaning in life. And this fact along with his preexisting lack of empathy made murder all the more easy for him.

Camilla’s unwillingness to go through with killing Charles –like Persephone she’s not always tied to the darkness of the underworld and of death- certainly changed her and Henry’s relationship but they still danced around it. The point of not going back was when Camilla showed that she herself was afraid of Henry. Killing had become part of Henry’s definition of living and Camilla showed that despite herself she saw that as a threat; as something to be weary and fearful of.

Henry bit his lip. He went to the window and looked out the corner of the shade. Then he turned around. He still had the pistol.

“Come here,” he said to Camilla.

She looked at him in horror. So did Francis and I. He beckoned to her with his gun arm. “Come here,” he said. “Quick.”

[…]

Camilla took a step away from him. Her gaze was terrified. “No, Henry,” she said, “don’t …”

To my surprise, he smiled at her. “You think I’d hurt you?” he said. “Come here.”

She went to him. He kissed her between the eyes, then whispered something—what, I’ve always wondered—in her ear.

“I’ve got a key,” the innkeeper yelled, pounding away at the door. “I’ll use it.”

The room was swimming. Idiot, I thought wildly, just try the knob. Henry kissed Camilla again. “I love you,” he said. Then he said, out loud: “Come in.”

I think that Camilla’s reaction sealed Henry’s fate. He had lost Julian, whom he loved more than anyone else, Richard did not understand him as he had hoped and Camilla, the one person who had at least fully accepted him showed that there was a part of her that could not fully embrace who he was. Henry ‘s predicament here comes down to this: Aristotle wrote that an individual who is naturally unsocial is either a beast or a god. Henry is conflicted between wanting to be accepted by few other human beings while being in this unsocial situation that tiptoes between the beastly and divine, unchallenged, power. Camilla was the last person left who might have accepted him as such and when he realizes that these are unrecognizable he ends his life, which ends up being a catalyst for Camilla’s character who has shattered her bond with Charles, whom she cares for despite herself, by investing in the understanding they had.

At the end of the book Camilla is partly hanging on the kind of living she could have had with Henry and partly mourning everything she’s lost.

“You should see the way I live now, Richard,” she said. “My Nana’s in bad shape. It’s all I can do to take care of her, and that big house, too. I don’t have a single friend my own age. I can’t even remember the last time I read a book.”

Camilla is back at her grandmother’s, back at the service of Diana, at a place that will always keep reminding her her irrevocably lost innocence. It’s not the situation itself that is dreadful. What makes it so is that it is a distorted version of Camilla’s childhood; one that comes with responsibility, with loss and with sacrificing ‘living’ and by extent beauty in service of others.

Finally, the tell-tale hint that Camilla’s dismay with her life is genuine and not a lie she employs to keep Richard at bay is her confession about being unable to read anymore. Being unable to be free and to live even on a spiritual level is part of her punishment.

#camilla macaulay #the secret history #tsh #donna tartt #henry winter #charles macaulay #richard papen #meta #tsh meta #long post

228 notes · View notes

warstrike · 5 years

Text

after reading punisher: the tyger, i’ve decided to modernize it a bit and make it into netflix frank’s backstory as well. i don’t agree with the implication of frank being a troubled kid / showing signs of violent behavior previously. the tyger poem is also essential to this characterization of the punisher, which i feel can apply to mcu frank, as well. under the cut is the tweaked story and his life as a child, influences into adulthood. in another post, i’ll explain the importance of the poem the tyger by william blake. it’s VERY lengthy im so sorry and more or less a synopsis of the comic shit. fair warning this mentions heavy topics. ill tag it if you’d like, i don’t go into detail, but it is implied.

his grandfather was involved in world world ii in the marines and later his father ( in place of frank, since frank is placed in the marines within the series ) was a vietnam vet. he was with louisa before he was drafted, and later married her following the end of the vietnam war. frank was born november 15th, 1980 and raised by both mario and louisa castiglione in queens.

growing up, frank had always had military influences in his life from both his father and his grandfather. his father didn’t talk about the war as much as his grandfather while he was alive, but as frank grew up, he learned to listen and discover things himself without asking. he knew where his father kept his medals, his old journal, the key to the box he kept it all in: he stood aside and listened. young frank kept to himself and was lost in his thoughts or imagination, which later prompted his interest in the poetry his mom kept around. the pictures depicted by words and worlds painted by the moods made a mental playground for him, it was anESCAPE for young frank. it gave him insight into a world full of color and mirth, something he was starting to realize the world around him lacked.

yet, his quietness didn’t equate to him being a pushover. most kids knew not to pick on frank, because despite his size he wasn’t afraid to fight back to defend himself or anyone being bullied. there was a protective streak to him towards kids who couldn’t protect themselves and he wanted to help, even when he always couldn’t.

ONTO EVENTS IN HIS CHILDHOOD THAT INFLUENCE HIS ACTIONS LATER IN LIFE …

when he was 10, he witnessed a man on fire after lighting a cigarette around paint fumes and spilling paint thinner on himself. this was while he was bringing his father lunch to the construction yard. a young frank watched the man burn, face blank and conflicted with what he was watching. still, he never looked away. later he soon listened to his parents recall the event that happened. his mother sympathetic, his father colder towards the man’s death and in general considering it not to be as big of a tragedy.

frank takes a class during the summer centered around the review of poetry and constructive meanings of it, overseen by father david. he attends it with a friend a few years older than him named lauren buvoli. lauren is as entranced, if not more, than frank is as a kid. he takes interest in her brother sal, a marine, and sometimes talks with him and asks questions related to his service ( this further installs his interest in the military as a child ). lauren and frank were close, close enough to where the events that steamroll into her life rocks his, too.

after a class with father david, frank and lauren walk home, holding a loose conversation about the poem the tyger ( which i’ll later get into ). during this walk home, lauren sees her friend sue, but how she sees her is a tragedy in itself. sue is in the middle of the road and the two see her hit and killed by the driver. suicide was a scarce topic back then, so many would dub it as an ‘accident’.

as it turns out, sue had been ‘involved’ with vincent rosa, the youngest son in one of the well-beloved and feared families in that part of queens. nobody ever talked bad about the rosas, at least not where somebody connected could potentially HEAR. there were darker things to discover about vincent rosa, and discover frank did. after listening to his parents talk about vincent and another girl, kate donegan, he went to talk to her brother and found out that vincent had been forcing himself on the girls he was with. sue, kate, and lauren, as it was later implied.

frank hadn’t seen lauren for days, she was always gone from home when he would go over to see her. a week went by, and he saw her in father david’s class, but she bailed at a moment’s notice. ran to the bus, homeward bound and frank ran after her, but missed the bus. it didn’t stop him, however, frank made his way to lauren’s house, but it was too late. her mom screamed from the back for her father, lauren had taken her life. all because of the rosa kid, and frank couldn’t do a damn thing. what’s a ten year old suppose to do, anyway, besides sit by and watch? it created a deep seated sense ofhelplessness, something he hated.

frank listened to how his mother reacted to the news about lauren towards his father, how she described the fear of men taking advantage of women. in that same conversation, he heard his father say he went with friends and sue’s father to go after albert rosa, vincent’s father, to confront them about his son’s actions. they were scared off, however, due to albert having threatened and his followers around him physically harm sue’s father as a warning to them. this prompted frank to attempt to go after vincent himself. he took the knowledge of the lockbox key and took his father’s gun and went to find vincent. when he got to vincent’s usual hangout and followed him out, he was too late. sal, lauren’s brother, had already decided he was going to take him out.

sal beat vincent and dragged his body to the cemetery to a hole he’d dug, tossed him in and lit him on fire. all the while a young frank castle watched and wrapped his head around the idea of hate.

TO CONCLUDE … to me, this story compacts more motivation for frank as an adult to do what he does. seeing such trauma as a child, hearing fear and seeing hate as a child sticks with you as you’re growing up. frank couldn’t do anything then. he couldn’t help lauren buvoli. he couldn’t say anything to make her feel better, he couldn’t DO anything to help her and stop her from doing what she did, he couldn’t avenge her. even if he had gotten to vincent first, the idea of a ten year old holding his own against a boy in his late teens is unreasonable. sal was a motivation for him, he showed a young frank castle what it was like to hate someone that much and make them pay. he didn’t understand that until he was older, until he lost his family and felt the trauma of loss and helplessness seep in again when he survived. this is how he adopted a maladaptive manner of dealing with grief and trauma. frank castle now can DO SOMETHING, he can feel a pang of retribution with each of the lives he takes. frank castle is the punisher. the tyger that damns people for the crimes they commit and the innocent lives they’ve shattered. he’s seen the dark parts of the world since he was a kid and has come to terms that the only way to stop it is to be the monster to the monsters.

#HC — HAPPINESS IS A KICK TO THE BALLS WAITING TO HAPPEN .#v relevant to my portrayal. i'm going to reread the poem and FINALLY do a post as to why the tyger is heavily subjected into frank's mind #that and his personal aspect of religion.#icb i wrote this a whole year ago aklfnga #ANALYSIS — PB WONT SHUT UP ABOUT FRANK .

4 notes · View notes

rufousnmacska · 5 years

Note

Prompt idea but what if Dorian, because he loves to be self sacrificial, decides to forge the lock on his own so that Aelin has the power to beat Maeve with her fire.

Ok anon, here you go. I tried to keep it short and sweet, but I don’t know if that happened. Thanks for the prompt - hope you like it!

Following Erawan’s Ironteeth legion north in his wyvern form was risky, but it was the fastest way he could get to Terrasen. Even so, he’d fallen so far behind, he estimated them to be days ahead.

When they’d set out from Morath, the force of witches and wyverns spread out in front of him was never-ending. He couldn’t see past them to clear skies.

What awaited them in Orynth? Death and destruction? Or had Manon summoned the Crochans to help Aedion in his defense of the kingdom?

A selfish part of him hoped she hadn’t. If she was still trying to gather the witches to her, that meant she wasn’t yet in the thick of battle. And wouldn’t be facing this hellish force flying ahead of him.

Dorian’s plan was to go to Orynth, hoping to find his friends, hoping they’d found a way around this curse. After being in Maeve’s head and stealing some of her power, he sensed she was still alive. And when she set out for Terrasen, probably with Erawan and the remainder of his armies, he sensed that too.

He should have ended her. Should have tried to kill Erawan, Kaltain’s warnings be damned. Then none of this would be happening.

The wyrdkeys pulsed in his pocket, sending a sickly tempting call to him. And so, his plan changed.

He didn’t need to wait until he reached Terrasen to use them and close the gate. If he did it now, perhaps he could remove Erawan from the equation. That still left the valg king’s armies and Maeve… But he’d just have to have faith in his friends that they could stop her.

Dorian spotted a small opening in the dense forest and landed, switching back to his human form. The place was familiar but he didn’t think he’d ever been to this part of Oakwald before. Nothing looked familiar. He felt it. And when he tried to delve deeper into that feeling, it pulled away. Like trying to remember a dream after waking up.

He’d seen the ruins of a temple from overhead, looking as if it had been pushed into a deep ravine. Who it had belonged to, he didn’t know. It didn’t really matter, he mused. If the ritual worked, there would be no gods left in this world who needed temples.

The thought made him wonder about the witch’s chosen goddess. Would she disappear with the others? What would that do to the clans? To Manon? She’d never spoken in detail of their religion, but he’d heard her invoke the Three-Faced Goddess.

That feeling of recognition washed over him again, prickling his skin like a chilled breeze. Turning around in a circle, he examined every tree, every rise and outcropping. None of it sparked a memory.

Dorian realized he was stalling.

With a shaky breath, he cursed his cowardice and pulled the three keys from his pocket. Manon had never told him the specifics of the ritual that she’d learned from Elena in the witch mirror. But he’d gathered enough from what Kaltain had told him and what he’d seen in Morath.

The wielder became one with the keys, thus becoming the door. The wyrdmarks opened it. What was to come after was vague, and he hoped for some guidance once he went through, perhaps from Elena or the gods themselves.

He pulled his blade free. Sorrel’s gift to him for besting her in their training. Again, that ripple of recollection passed over him, tugging at his consciousness.

“Enough,” he chided himself. “It doesn’t matter.”

With a quick slash of the knife, he cut an opening in his forearm and put the wyrdkeys inside.

His magic pushed against it, wanting to expel the foul, evil presence from his body. Fighting it back, he willed the wound to heal shut.

Blood still dripped from his arm and he used it to trace the wyrdmarks for OPEN on the ground. The instant he completed the final mark, the keys burst to life and he was dragged into an abyss of searing pain.

It might have been seconds, or minutes, or days before he opened his eyes. Time was meaningless in such agony. And yet, he knew he didn’t have much of it.

There was a hard pull on his magic, so Dorian let it go. The burning subsided briefly and he watched a golden haze begin to take shape before him. As it used his magic, Dorian heard someone approach. Expecting Elena or maybe even Gavin, he was shocked when his father came forward out of the gray fog.

Feeling his sword hang heavily from his belt, Dorian assumed Damaris had summoned the man somehow. As if knowing he needed to see him one last time before he died.

“Did you recognize the place where you left your body?” his father asked.

“No,” Dorian said, gritting his teeth.

“Let me show you.”

Before he could do anything, his father stepped close and placed a hand on Dorian’s head.

In a flash, the pain, the fog, the lock… Everything was gone, replaced with the clearing he’d been in. But his solitary body was not there.

A group of witches and men filled the area, watching each other suspiciously. Dorian saw his father go into a small caravan with the Blackbeak matron. He was spun around to come face to face with himself. The collar around this person’s neck was glinting in the sunlight and Dorian thought he might be sick.

“Hello, princeling.”

Dorian spun again, this time of his own accord. Manon walked forward, a deathly wicked grin on her beautiful face. But she didn’t see him. She looked only at the collared man.

He watched as the scene unfolded, realizing this had been the first time they’d met. After he’d freed himself of the collar, he remembered her face, her name. They were the only things he could remember from that time with any clarity. And without hating himself.

But he could never remember the specifics of how her face and name had come to be embedded in his mind.

Somehow, his father was showing it to him, now, before he died.

The setting shifted. They were still in the forest, he still wore the collar. Manon approached, spoke angrily to his father, then turned to face him as he cringed meekly in his saddle.

She spoke his name, peering at him. Not the valg. It was truly him whom she addressed.

The Dorian watching all this for the first time felt a sharp warmth spread through his chest. The heat wasn’t like the pain of creating the lock. It came from being reminded of something he was giving up. Something that hadn’t even had much of a chance to live.

As quickly as it had appeared, the forest disappeared and Dorian was back in this place between places.

His father offered him a wordless apology. Words weren’t always necessary here it seemed. He understood every ounce of regret and sorrow in his father’s eyes. He didn’t know if he could forgive the man, but the sentiment filled a small hollow he’d been carrying in his chest all his life.

As the lock continued to suck his power from him, the mist surrounding them parted, and two figures appeared. He recognized them immediately.

Kaltain and Nehemia. Their forms were like his father’s, solid but they moved as if floating on air.

The pain was cresting again, but he managed to ask, “How? Why are you here?”

Nehemia smiled and pressed her thumb to his forehead. It was a gesture she’d made once before. At the time, he’d been ignorant of its meaning. Only after she was gone had he known she’d helped to awaken his magic with the touch. This time, it awakened nothing. Instead, it soothed the growing agony within him.

Both the women looked to his father. In reply to their unasked question, he said, “Not yet. We are waiting for more.”

Dorian looked around, hoping beyond hope to see one more person walk from the mist.

Kaltain’s dark eyes looked at him with pity. “She is not coming. No magic tethered her to this place, and she bore no favor from the gods to keep her here. She has moved on.”

“Moved on? Where? I thought there was only one afterworld for the dead.”

“There is,” Nehemia answered. “But as long as the doors are open, the dead can travel. If they so wish.”

Dorian looked towards the lock. It still lacked a concrete shape, but it held the faint outline of what he’d been imagining it should look like.

“Will I-” A spasm of pain tore through him as the lock became corporeal. It eased again, leaving him panting for breath. “Will I be able to move on then? Can I follow her?”

A voice from behind him said, “No.”

It sounded familiar in a way that made him sick. If she was here… He refused to turn around. But it didn’t matter.

Asterin glided around to face him. The rest of the Thirteen fell into formation behind her.

“No,” he croaked. “No. All of you? No!” Tears filled his eyes, blurring everyone around him.

Asterin gave him a sad but gracious smile, then took his hand. “You can’t go on. Manon needs you now. More than ever.” Her look turned knowing. “Even if she won’t admit it.”

A curt laugh escaped his lips and her grip on his hand tightened.

“We have enough now,” his father said to the others.

Dorian whirled towards him, understanding too late what his father meant.

Another smile crossed Asterin’s face. “Live, Dorian.”

Before he could move or speak any protest, Asterin flung him backwards. Blackness whooshed around him, as if he was falling through the night sky. With a violent jerk, he landed in his body, still upright, tears running down his face and his voice hoarse from screaming a single word. No.

It was all he could do to stay sane each night when they stopped to set up camp.

The Khagan’s armies were well-trained and fast. But no force this large could move through rough terrain quickly. Chaol and Yrene seemed to sense his impatience and left him alone in the evenings.

He needed to get to Orynth. Not just to relieve the forces besieged there.

They’d received word that the witches had arrived in time to meet an opposing legion. The news was old to him. Why else would the Thirteen have been in that in-between world.

Erawan’s armies were also on the move, though they hadn’t been able to find out if the valg king led them.

When Dorian happened upon the Khagan’s army and his friends, he’d told them everything. Rowan’s relief at hearing the keys were no longer an issue - meaning his mate didn’t have to finish the task herself - quickly morphed into confusion. As had Aelin’s and Chaol’s.

Having been thrown back into this world before the lock was completed, Dorian had no idea if the ghosts of his family and friends had been successful in banishing the gods. And Erawan with them.

Those bestowed favor by the gods - Elide, Lorcan, Yrene - none of them felt any sign that their guiding hands were gone. But that was not confirmation.

The uncertainty gnawed at them all, making Dorian’s desire to find Manon unbearable.

If it wasn’t for Chaol, he’d have transformed and flown to Orynth already. But he just reunited with his best friend. He couldn’t abandon him.

Instead, they moved slowly north, each night growing longer, leaving Dorian feeling more and more desperate.

Dorian was covered in blood. Red, black, even speckles of blue that had rained down from above. Looking between the black stain on the ground and its mirror on Damaris, he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened in that space between worlds.

Whatever his father had done to rid them of Erawan hadn’t worked. At least the keys themselves were no longer a threat. Traveling between worlds wasn’t possible. While there had been more signs that the gods were gone, he supposed only time would tell.

A boom of wings woke him from his thoughts and he turned in time to see Abraxos land behind him. The wyvern was himself covered in blood. And bandages. Dorian’s eyes widened in shock at the extent of the wounds he’d suffered.

As he moved quickly towards them, Manon slid down Abraxos’s side, too exhausted to leap.

By the time Dorian reached her, she was smiling faintly. He pulled her into a hug, releasing an anxious breath when her arms wrapped around him.

“Hello, princeling,” she rasped in his ear.

“Hello, witchling,” he replied, squeezing her a little tighter. “I’m so sorry.”

Her body tensed for just a moment before relaxing into him again.

“How did you know?”

“It’s a long story for later,” he said. “I’m just glad we’re both here. Alive.”

#dorian havilliard #manon blackbeak #manorian #kingdom of ash #anon ask #my writing #apologies if the formatting appears shitty on the app #it looks ok on a computer #thanks tumblr

26 notes · View notes

militant-holy-knight · 5 years

Text

The Secular Disdain for Persecution of Christians

If 2019 so far showed us anything is that regardless of you are a white or not, you are not welcome if you are a Christian.

To say that this year’s Holy Week has been deeply unpleasant is probably an understatement, but there are not enough words.necessary to illustrate how horrible everything was, beginning with the fire of Notre Dame’s Cathedral and ending with Easter bombings in Sri Lanka targeting several Catholic churches and killing over 200 people. The reactions to these events as well as some that preceded the Holy Week have become so predictable that I can conclude: if you are a white Christian and your opinion can be easily dismissed, then so will the millions of Christians all over the world facing persecution.

Monday opened with a fire taking place in Notre Dame which caused extensive damage to the cathedral. At the time of writing, the causes are said to be accidental but some suspect (and not without reason) that it could have been arson. I am sure you have seen the pictures of several Arab looking citizens taking pictures and smiling with the laugh reacts on Facebook vids, but I won’t bother with those. Instead I want to focus on the particular knee-jerked reactions that secular Westerners have made in regards to this fire:

It was an overreaction because “its just an building” and nobody died (never mind that priceless architecture that can’t be replicated today is now lost forever).

It was a retribution for French colonization (never mind that hundred of non-white Catholics - including myself - also venerate the Notre-Dame Cathedral and sought to visit it once in their lives).

Other tragedies happen around the world and nobody focus on them like the Brazilian Museum in 2018.

The last point particularly hits close to home. In case you don’t know, that was probably the most important scientific center in my country which was previously the Imperial home of the last Brazilian monarch, Pedro II. This might shock some regressives out there but the Emperor of Brazil was both a Christian and a man of science that befriended Darwin. That palace contained several precious mummies and artifacts that were dug from Egypt as well as countless fossils of pre-historical creatures as well as the skull of Luzia, the oldest human fossil found in South America from around 12,000 years ago. Unfortunately unlike Notre-Dame, the fire consumed it completely.

I personally was flattered that someone still remembered it, but that feeling dissipated when I realized that most of these individuals bringing up the Brazilian Museum didn’t even knew about it before hand and only discovered it at time Notre Dame’s fire took place, and we were only discussing that to distract it from the event that happened. It was truly a dishonest tactic if there ever was one.

The “retribution against wypippo” part is particularly ironic when during Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka, a series of coordinated bombings took place in three different churches - two Roman Catholic and one Evangelical - as well as several buildings. Now the secular Westerners are screwed - their victims are non-white and not guilty of colonization so how are they going to spin this one? Well the expected tactic is to blame things on religion as usual but few actually feel dumb enough to lay the blame on the victims. Such was the case of Andy West.

He went on a anti-clerical tirade saying it’s the Christians fault because supposedly some of them may have pressured Buddhist children to convert in exchange for food during the Asian tsunami from last year. Regardless if it was true or not, it was an highly inappropriate comment to be made at the time specially when there are actual fatalities and people needing help. Still not content, he seemed to have equated everyone who took a issue with his tactless comments as an “American right-winger” as if every Christian will share the same political position, origin and denomination.

Their tactic is easily understood - they use “Trump supporter” as an label to silence critics and put them under a generalization blanket. The fact there might be Christians that don’t necessarily like Trump don’t seem to occur to them. Such was the case of an Orthodox priest who was attacked by a man who seemed to be enraged by his cross and attire and punched him believing him to be a Trump supporter.

Despite starting out as a Judaic sect that split from Judaism and became it’s separate religion beginning on the Middle-East, the identity of Christianity is often seen as Western in nature because it was adopted by Europe and was spread all around the world with the advent of colonization. While the Western world appears to have shed Christianity all together, it’s perhaps ironic that the places its currently thriving the most are Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South East Asia. It speaks something that its actually Filipino immigrants that are keeping church services alive in the Netherlands.

The attitude that Europeans have towards this religiosity is one of patronizing because people of these lands had their ancestors forced to accept Christianity by force, yet they are the ones that most hold to it dearest in their heart. The problem is that are seeing a unprecendented persecution of Christians around the world in many places such as the Islamic world because of the rise of sectarianism and targeting Christians is a cowardly easy way to get back at the West or Communist regimes like China and North Korea that do not tolerate any sort of dissent to their rule. Yet most of this persecution went by unheard and it still does.

These Christians are often met with sanctimony such as those from Islamic countries escaping sectarianism - specially those of Muslim background who could very well be killed for apostasy. Such was the case of an Iranian refugee who converted to Christianity who was refused entrance because “their religion was a violent one”. Yet there are people advocating that ISIS housewife Shamima Begum be allowed to return never mind she was a member of one of al-Raqqa’s sharia patrols and was an outright accomplice in the abuse of Syrian women. I cannot keep track of the cases of Copts being abused for the last two decades even before the Arab Spring, they were a punching bag for Egypt’s population to take out their frustration in the West.

Such atitude towards an persecute minority is honestly unbecoming of people that seem to advocate human rights and freedom yet for partisan reasons, they cannot bring themselves to assist them because they associate them with the Christian conservative right in the West which are their political rivals and they fear that might be bringing a fifth column that votes against their interests because they can’t seen Christians as anything other than Christians. This is well-illustrated here.

I won’t even touch what other religions feel about this particular above because I’ll risk being distracted. But imagine for a second being a Christian minority emigrating to the West for a better life only to discover that Europeans don’t really care about your beliefs and show preferential status to other religious groups because it suits their partisan needs when all you want is to live your life with dignity and without having to worry about a maniac terrorist or the state police knocking at your door to arrest you. Or trivialize the trauma you and your people back home suffered by waging some “war on Christmas” pissing contest to provoke conservatives or nonsense like that?

It’s truly depressing when I know Easter and Christmas are times of the day which in my home country I was raised to celebrate for their spiritual meaning, and yet I know there are millions of my co-regionalists out there that know they are putting their lives on their hands where they live if they tried to celebrate it. I was even more shocked to hear that of all countries I expected this to happen would have been Sri Lanka of all things - a Buddhist majority country, albeit one with a very turbulent story since it endured years of sustained civil war that only ended a decade ago.

If European Christians are trivialized or held in contempt, I have absolutely no hope for the minorities that aren’t even white themselves seeking sanctuary. Even more sad is that in two days it shall be the anniversary of the genocide committed against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians by the Ottoman Empire which is poignant because it appears even more relevant now than ever.

#rants #terrorism #genocide #politics #persecution

2 notes · View notes

babaleshy · 5 years

Text

Time for me to rant. If anybody is morbidly curious about what it’s like to live with Trump supporter parents where one parent basically projects himself onto Trump, you can click the thingie. But the context of how this is different from other times I’ve bitched about my folks on my old account is we’re not starving for once. We actually have some money and are trying to get some shit together so we can take care of the urgent needs such as fucking house repairs and shit.

So... We live on a farm. I won’t say where, but right over the hill is a goddamn oil pad. My parents aren’t rich or anything from the oil rights, but I am reluctantly admitting that we are finally getting some money in to where we could repair our tub so we don’t have to risk blisters from pulling a DIY string to turn on the cold water through a ventilation duct because the faucet is fucked. We also got the train to our tub fixed so that way when we shower, we’re not standing in filthy-ass water that can’t drain properly no matter what we shove down the drain to fix it with. We had to replace the entire drainage system for both bathrooms. Yes. Both bathrooms. The second one is just a toilet and a sink but that sink had the same clog problem due to YEARS of rust build-up because there’s so much goddamn iron in our well water, which my dad states is “actually water coming in from a flooded mineshaft,” and at this point, it would not surprise me if he was right for once.

We also finally got new working vehicles we don’t have to keep taking in for repairs we can’t afford in hopes we can make it to the grocery store or in hopes my mom and my husband can make it to work. Still 2 vehicles, but they are much newer than what we had before (I’m not car-smart, so I couldn’t tell you what years they are or whatever).

My mom also finally paid off all of the credit card debt we were drowning in. This includes both of mine we were forced to use and max out and never make payments on because we couldn't afford to eat several times. That’s about $3k in the hole if you include late fees and interest on TWO credit cards under MY NAME. Because we didn’t have money on us so we could fucking eat.

We are hoping that soon we can get all of our teeth fixed. My husband and I have wisdom teeth in dire need of removal. All of his are rotten, one of mine is rotten but all four are crowding my teeth, all four of us have cavities in our teeth we’re doing our best to keep from getting worse. So the next logical step is teeth. I’m trying to apply for Medicaid but now apparently you’re required to do that over the phone, now and I need a day during the week where my husband has off so I can get some help with this phone call (long story, I just have trouble with phone calls). We also really hope we can find a dentist and oral surgeon NOT IN THIS AREA. A BIG REASON WHY HALF MY TEETH ARE FUCKED IS BECAUSE OF PURPOSEFULLY BOTCHED JOBS BY AN ASSHOLE DENTIST SO YOU’D KEEP GOING IN AND HAVING YOUR FILLINGS RE-DONE.

But hey! We’re doing financially better, now. Especially since my mom plans to give me birthday money this year, and my parents don’t seem to have a problem with paying (if necessary) to help me get tested for dyslexia.

With all of this good news, you’d think my dad would be just tickled, right?

Nope.

He bitches about spending money. He has a mole hill of money he sees as a mountain and he wants to sit on it and never spend it. He bitches anytime spending has to take place. At all. He parrots any and all things Trump promotes and shit. My dad wants to be Trump. My dad is racist, thinks Mexicans are invading America to take our jobs and rape our women and murder Americans (same with any non-white refugee from anywhere), he thinks the military doesn’t get enough support of any sort, with his excuse being “we need to make sure we can show the world we can destroy it at any time we want to so the rest of the world respects us.” Btw, he equates fear with respect. There is no debating him. I’ve tried.

My dad says if he is somehow convinced his xtian god isn’t real, then what’s the point in being a good person? He’d start killing everybody just because there would be no god to judge him. THIS IS THE SIGN OF A MENTALLY UNHEALTHY, UNSTABLE, UNSAFE INDIVIDUAL. Luckily, my dad is actually all talk 99.9% of the time. My dad is lazy, and even states that his ideal life is to sit in an apartment without ever having to move, and he’d have servants at his beck and call. He actually tried several times to convince my mom to move into an impoverished part of the south intentionally because “we would live like kings with the money we’ve got coming in right now.” He’s full of shit because it actually isn’t that much money. It’s just that we can stop starving. (For context, my mom wants to move north ever since her mom/my grandma died because her sister is all she has left and she lives up north, and since Kent State is up there, I’m fine with that.)

My dad wants to sit around and be lazy and absorb any and all conspiracy theories on YouTube that appeals to his fucked up worldviews on a device he claims to hate and wishes never existed. He also bitches about having to drive my husband around, who “should have gotten his permit and license by now” despite the fact that he finally got new glasses after 10+ years of not being able to afford to upgrade his prescription and needs to get used to his new vision. My dad is convinced that because he willed himself through his own problems that literally everyone else can do the same. My dad is the most self-centered adult outside of celebrity-hood I’ve ever seen. My husband has anxiety because being behind the wheel of a machine that could easily kill people freaks him out, and he’s not sure if he can see a counselor for managing his anxiety on a regular basis is going to be possible right now.

My dad thinks my husband works at a retail video game store to support his hobby and nothing else “because of all the damn games and statues he keeps buying” when my dad likes to ignore the fact that employee discounts, clearance sales, trade-in credits, and special deals exist.

My dad is a miserable old bastard, and because we’re in the same situation as him, he cannot stand how we enjoy ourselves to make the most of it. Misery loves company, and he can’t get past the fact that his life changed forever when he got hurt and permanently disabled at the steel mill back in ‘95. He has since then refused to accept what has happened to him, and would rather be a miserable piece of shit and take down anyone else nearby with him. Which could be why he bitches about having money he can spend, now.

And he does all of his venting at my husband. I know my dad is trying to goad my husband into saying or doing something stupid so my dad has a reason to either kick us out or be physically violent. My dad doesn’t like the fact that my husband isn’t a fucking idiot. My husband grew up with a family full of anger-filled assholes. He knows the ropes as much as I do. And the fact that my husband sticks up for me while I’m not around shows to my dad that my husband truly does love me, and wouldn’t only stick up for me while I’m around. He has called my dad on his shit quite a bit when I’m not around. My dad HATES that he can’t dangle the indirect message of “you’re all by yourself, no one else thinks you’re right” above my head. And ever since my husband started routinely calling my dad out on his shit, or defending me when my dad bitches about me over stupid shit, my dad has backed off me for the most part.

My dad wasn’t counting on me getting married to a good man. My dad previously equated good men with financial wealth. Turns out my dad was proven wrong, and he can’t stand it. That fucker is the whole reason why I have had so many self-image insecurities (and still do) and my dad can’t stand it that my husband isn’t joining him on mocking me. My husband tells him to fucking stop. My dad dares not do it in front of my mom, because she tells him to stop.

My parents aren’t in a very health marriage. There’s more footage of convincing evidence of Bigfoot than there are times my parents did something together because they love each other, and I’m not talking about anything expensive, either.

Mom sleeps on the couch because she told me she can’t stand his snoring. However, I remember my mom once telling me that my dad “doesn’t have an ‘off’ switch with his libido” so I’m guessing that’s another reason why.

Both of them sit in the same room on opposite sides of the room (mom on the couch, dad in the busted-ass armchair) on their devices (mom on her tablet and/or phone and dad on the computer that’s by/in front of his chair), only talking to each other about certain articles they read, and not much else. They’ll occasionally watch something on the TV together on Netflix or Hulu but that’s about it.

Mom wanted to live on a farm and raise horses ever since she was a little girl, and through manipulation and the excuse of 4-H projects through me and my brother, she finally got her wish. And my dad is against having any animals of any sort. All he does is bitch about them. He also bitches about how much country my mom listens to (and I can’t blame him there; my mom is the whole reason why country music is the bane of my fucking existence).

Aside from boinking to have 2 kids and mourning over the loss of one of them, my parents have very little in common. I have no idea how or why they got together other than my dad made my mom laugh and didn’t break her jaw like her ex-husband did, my dad had 3 exes and wanted to make the 4th one count, and my mom found out she was pregnant with me before dad proposed (I’m GUESSING knocking my mom up is what made them decide to marry, I dunno).

My mom has (VERY FEW) redeeming qualities, so I take advantage of her mama bear nature to ensure I’m safe under the same roof as my dad. I’m unintentionally appealing to her desire for a farmer-daughter by wanting to garden, though I made it very clear I will never be responsible for farm animals again. She also doesn’t mind the fact that she’ll never be a grandmother to human babies. I’m willing to bet it’s because she never wanted me and doesn’t blame me for not wanting kids of my own. She gets points for not being exactly like her own mother, but I could’ve used some meaningful and caring mother-daughter bonding instead of the distant I-see-you-as-a-burden-now-that-we-are-living-in-poverty treatment I got growing up.

I could point all of this out to my parents, and they would rather spend more time coming up with excuses or redirecting the blame instead of, you know, APOLOGIZING FIRST. And I say this because I have brushed on the topic before and they got SUPER defensive about it.

I was an accident, they got married probably so I wouldn’t be born out of wedlock and so their respective families wouldn’t look down upon them, they thought they had this and had a second kid, a year to two years later dad gets hurt at the mill and we’ve been impoverished ever since but because boys bring more promise of success than girls---especially girls who are different like I was and still am---my brother was automatically the favorite. And I was always screamed at.

Boy would I love to see a therapist instead of a one-hour visit with a counselor trying to figure out as much of why my brain is the way it is once a friggin’ week. Not blaming the counselor, because he’s awesome. But my counselor did say that he’s actually a bit surprised but glad I’ve figured out some way to live with this. It’s because I know how they act, how their minds work, how they would react if I said or did this or that. Having all of this free time and being alone with my thoughts because my husband works his ass off for pennies only for my dad to try and make him spend money on necessities instead of spending his own goddamn money has allowed me to think about and even analyze my own parents; how they act, why they act this way, why they’ve acted that way, etc.

I do consider myself lucky that they aren’t worse than this. My mom is actually much more understanding with me, now, and that’s probably because I’m the last child she has left. So I guess after living in a shit or unhappy marriage and working her ass off to raise two kids and then losing one, she tries to be the good xtian mother and be thankful for what she has now. It’s a guess, though. The whole thing could be a facade for all I fucking know.

Dad’s all talk, but because his tone is the same whether or not he makes his shitty, stupid jokes, or can’t keep certain thoughts to himself and feels the need to say them aloud (SUCH AS POINTING OUT I HAVE CLEAVAGE LIKE IT’S SOME “OMG WOW YOU HAVE BOOBIES NOW AFTER HIGH SCHOOL” IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY COLLEGE IN MY EARLY TWENTIES THANKS DAD THAT WAS CREEPY WHAT THE FUCK), it’s hard to tell whether or not he’s serious about some of the shit he says.

He projects himself onto Trump because he wants to BE Trump. Trump says if Ivanka wasn’t his daughter, he’d date her. I wouldn’t be surprised (I’d still be creeped out) if my dad said something similar. And he has tried to talk about my appearance and how I could make money with it such as a pin-up cosplay calendar because apparently I “look so attractive” while at the same time he shames me for having “skin so pale my legs blind him from reflecting so much light while I wear shorts.” And when I call him out on it, he genuinely thinks he’s done no wrong. My dad is pretty much Trump Lite, and it’s creepy.

But I know the fucker. I can play at his fucked up game, too. All I gotta do is talk about periods or vaginas, because suddenly when his daughter talks about, you know, being a human, suddenly it’s just too much for him.

And he hates I can play this fuck-ass game with him.

And I’m glad he hates it.

Because it’s evident he will never see himself in the wrong. He never has, never does, never will. Because he’s got one excuse or answer after another, and when he runs out, it’s time to drop the conversation before he gets pissed and ruins the night for everybody.

So I’m glad I’m good at playing this game back at him and being damn good at it. That’s what he gets for being a piece of shit.

#personal #rant #yep it's long #created a new account and crawled back to this site just so I could do this

2 notes · View notes

mzyrimworld · 5 years

Text

Duster Part 9 - Quadrum 8

Last quadrum the colonists packed their things up and left their old colony behind and are now on the move! Will they make it to their new location and set up safely?

As a reminder, this is the journey they’re making, which should take about 5 days. It’s Winter now and a cold snap, so it may not be easy, but they’re getting closer to the equator so the temperatures shouldn’t be too bad.

A couple of days in and there’s an ambush on the caravan!

... It’s literally one person with a mace. I mean, she looks to be skilled, but the colonists have ten people and eleven animals, and some of the people have guns. I’m not sure what this woman thinks she’s doing on her own here.

Between the brawlers and the gunners, it really doesn’t take long. Not sure I’d want to live with shattered nose and jaw and one of my eyes cut out!

I thought it’d be interesting to keep an eye on the old base until they settle at their new location, and as you can see an electrical fault broke out on some of the wiring... It’d be interesting if other people came to settle here now that it’s empty, but they’ll have to fix some of the wiring now first. They’re just lucky it didn’t spread into any of the buildings, because a lot of the furniture is wood.

Nearly at their destination, and the colonists get a request for help. It wouldn’t sound too bad, except that these people clearly haven’t got the message about the colony moving yet, as this is days back the way they came. These people will just have to sort it themselves.

The same day and the colonists are ambushed by manhunting arctic foxes!

... Make that manhunting arctic fox, singular. Must be desperate for food or maddened by something, this fox is apparently on a suicide mission, and living a lot farther north than I would have expected.

Sometimes you wish these things could just have some common sense.

And that some people could be more precise with their shooting. But Henry will fix Jethro up again, I’m sure...

On the bright side, one of the muffalo calves has been born on the journey, and is already carrying some share of the weight. I think these colonists are lucky there aren’t any animal rights groups on Duster, or else I think they might be in trouble using animals so young.

And at 5pm on 5th of Jugust, the colonists make camp at their new location, which apparently means dumping everything on the ground immediately? They’re now north enough that it’s effectively permanent summer, which is a good thing for growing food, but is going to mean that it’s consistently pretty hot.

One of the first things that happens is that their prison decides that she may as well join them now! Just as well; they didn’t have anywhere to hold prisoners anyway.

Eri’s the eleventh colonist now, and may be one of the best at mining, which the colonists haven’t done a lot of so far. Regardless, a lot of hands are going to be needed to get this new site going, so I’m sure she can be helpful.

One priority task they set to is taking out the more dangerous animals in the area; it could be a while before everyone and all the animals are secure inside, and it wouldn’t take much for a warg or something to decide to eat the hen or one of the young alpacas or muffalo, if not one of the people! Fortunately it’s a much easier task with machine guns...

The next day work really begins, and apparently the toll of their journey and the poorer circumstances they’re all now in has really gotten to Lion! Honestly, if you had asked me to guess which colonist this would happen to, she would not have been the one by a long way. You’d think her previous life, the raiding, or being taken prisoner might have done it, but apparently this is. Maybe it’s a cumulative effect? Well, she can talk to Henry about it, she’s very experienced in anxiety...

Lion’s far from the only one struggling though, and I don’t think Dead will be the last...

This is not going to help people’s relationships. Or actually fix the problems they’re complaining about...

Now this one actually does help, but you know it’s bad because Priscilla would never normally clean, even if you paid her to.

Lucya’s also had a switch of personality, she who would never normally be violent. And don’t be fooled; they do still have plenty of food, but none of it’s cooked, and it’s spread between ruined buildings across the map, so she’s probably just grumpy she couldn’t get it in time.

This is a lot of the reason for the unhappiness, all eleven colonists crammed into a small room, but until they can get a good supply of stone to build a base of their own, at least they are sleeping indoors and in bedrolls, instead of outside on the ground.

This is really not what anybody needs right now; enough people are still on the brink of breakdown, the women don’t also need pain on top of it...

Well, it’s not the worst she could be doing, but eating raw meat might not be the best idea for her health...

This is more frustrating. We’ve also noticed that Henry does appear to have lost her mayor status since the move, probably because there wasn’t a colony location for a while. I wonder if she’ll stand again if it comes up?

There have been so many mental breaks, I’m not even sure who insulted Julio. Everyone’s in a bad mood, so it could have been anyone.

At this rate there’s going to be nobody who hasn’t had a mental break in this colony. They’re lucky nobody’s gotten into an actual fight and hurt anybody else so far.

The dangerous animal hunting continues whenever they show up. This lynx terrified Morales for a moment, before he remembered that he was the one with the automatic gun and mowed it down properly.

They hadn’t been hunting boomalope though; killing them tends to cause more problems than it solves. Unfortunately this one isn’t giving them much of a choice...

Yeah, that did not go to plan. The colonists don’t have enough stone to enclose this planned base yet, so the boomalope wandered right in and has caused a lot of issues right in the middle now. Lucya’s probably going to want to get off that one completed chair before they all go up.

And amongst the flames, barely visible, is the hen. We knew something was bound to happen to it sooner or later, but we mostly expected a wild animal to get it for lunch, not that it would be cooked alive by an exploding boomalope...

Vas was the only human hurt, and it’s just a few moderate burns, so it shouldn’t be any trouble.

Errr, we are being informed that apparently burns can get infected, which does make sense now that I think about it. Still, this colony even has some glitterworld medicine, so I wouldn’t get excited thinking we might lose another colonist.

Of course this is a lovely time to get raided, so a small group of raiders shows up. This looks suspiciously like the Leobrin of the Brook kind of people, who have traditionally not given the colonists much trouble, but we shouldn’t take that for granted...

Priscilla and Morales headed down quickly to ensure the safety of the closest storehouse, and none of these people have weapons to face down automatic guns.

Two of them died very quickly, and the large one could flee a lot faster than you might have expected. Normally the colony would take in this survivor, but they don’t have anywhere to keep him and not enough to build it and take him there before he bleeds out. He’ll be buried with his friends anyway.

Another muffalo calf has been born, this time female.

And you can see what we mean about there not being enough stone to finish the walls of this base. Still, it’s better than being completely out in the open.

A call for help from a relative who’s not an ex! And only running from LotB archers, those should be simple enough to handle. There’s no way the colony’s turning this down.

And now we have a 12th colonist! The colony probably didn’t particularly need any of his skills, but you don’t want to turn down family on a hellhole like this!

Though you do wonder how a vatgrown assassin wound up with a younger brother who’s a civil servant... They must have an interesting family history. And why this is the brother called ‘Steroid’.

And here we have the poor LotB archers on his tail, apparently oblivious to the fate that will await them...

It was over very quickly, but one of them has survived to be taken prisoner now that the colonists have a small cell to hold them! This guy really took a lot of bullets, you have to give him credit for still being alive and even slightly conscious right now.

Yet another muffalo calf has been born, this time male. And you can see that the walls and flooring of the base are really coming along.

Just when you think the animal pregnancies might be done, it turns out the first one is pregnant again. They’re really going to have to think about animal control at some stage.

We’ve now come to the end of Jugust, the second year since the start of the challenge, and a good few miles closer to the spaceship. Although the new main building is coming along, this is still the sleeping arrangement for now. Really going to have to work on that next quadrum, before the mental breaks start all over again.

Final stats:

Henry: No longer Mayor

Jethro: All-enduring

Zeiph: MVP

Dead: In the distance doing some farming

Lion: ANXIOUS

Lucya: If you forget about her, she’s pleased

Vas: Reunited with younger brother! And cured of burn infection.

Sky: So background you barely notice he’s there

Priscilla: Maybe if she can’t get back her man, get with his brother?

Morales: Surprisingly useful

Julio: Insulted :(

Eri: Recruited

Steroid: Rescued and recruited, the less impressive brother

Animals: -1 hen, + a bunch of muffalo, an alpaca is pregnant

Colony: +2 people, +1 new prisoner

#Rimworld #Rimworld: Duster #Rimworld gameplay

2 notes · View notes