#(even though its been 8 years since fates released)
Text
*remembers the best gamefaqs forum question of all time*
#tw divorce#Bean Text#Fire Emblem#Fire Emblem Awakening#FEA#FE13#inigo fe#inigo fire emblem#this is personally so funny to me because i can safely say my relationship is divorced with this man#“who is inigo” my little meow meow in middle school before i was introduced to kaito vocaloid when i was 13. hes also a shameless flirt#but he has a good heart!! i swear !!!!#also to my followers who don't know anything about fire emblem; you (the avatar in-game) can not divorce inigo#but due to... circumstances he leaves almost anyone he marries anyway (but in most endings in another game he comes back)#its pretty much well known that inigo and laslow are the same person but just in case#(even though its been 8 years since fates released)#fire emblem fates spoilers#fe14 spoilers
716 notes
·
View notes
Text
Prelims, Vote 3 of 8
The top 4 finales will move on to be included in the main bracket
Propaganda is under the cut, may include spoilers
Blake's 7 - 4.13 Blake
Technically, the episode is a very, very good one. Hell, I wouldn't wish for a different finale, to be honest. It's perfect, in its own "What the actual hell!?" way, and it does wonders for the show's themes of doomed struggle. The problem with it is that it was intended to be just a *series* finale, not the *show's* finale, so it ends on an extremely high-stakes cliffhanger. It's fantastic, it's scary, it's heartbreaking, you want more, you want to see it resolved... and the show was cancelled after the fourth series. So all we have is an extremely bleak ending with all but one character presumed dead and that damned last smile in the face of overwhelming odds in a completely hopeless situation.
Castle Rock (2018) - 1.10 Romans
When this show was coming out I was still deep in my Stephen King hyperfixation so needless to say I was *stoked*. But man this was one of the most underwhelming things I've watched. With episodes released weekly we had two months of people going insane with theories, new revelations, Stephen King fans digging up their old books to pick for scraps of hints that could explain what's going on, every week there were new video essays and analyses of the new episode, subreddit buzzing with the wildest theories about who is this mysterious character of The Kid who's kicked the whole plot in motion and what the hell is going on with the seemingly cursed town.
And then the finale came and just. Nothing. Everything went back to square one. The Kid is locked back up in the same cage he was originally found in. Nothing was explained. Everyone moves on as if nothing happened. After two months of Castle Rock being the main focus of all of my free time this completely took the wind out of my sails and I completely lost interest in the show and honestly, soon almost forgot it even existed. When the second season came out I didn't watch even the first episode, even though the second season *might* have explained everything, I simply didn't care enough to find out anymore. And from what I've seen, others have felt the same way because since the first season ended I haven't really seen anyone talk about the show.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - 4.08 Chapter Thirty-Six: At The Mountains of Madness
Ok so in fairness this entire final season sucked but the real kicker is that in the final scene we learn that after the main character died, her love interest killed himself in order to be with her in the afterlife. Yeah, a teenager committed suicide and we were supposed to see that as a happy ending.
Choukou Senshi Changerion - 1.39 Over the Times...
It's the last episode, which means no new information or worlds should be introduced, right? WRONG. Inoue (the main writer) decided that, for this last episode, we should see into an alternate (maybe, perhaps) timeline alongside the regular content. The bad guys are coming, except our main guy is starting to go down and remembering all the things that have happened, as well. And then it just ends. On an explosion, of course. Roll Credits!
The Get Down - 5.11 Only from Exile Can We Come Home
rushed to complete the show and low on budget, the writers sent every character besides the protagonist (zeke) to their worst possible fate. shao, finally free and with the person he loved, was coerced to return to the sexually abusive woman who had been his boss since he was a child. dizzee is implied to have been struck by a train after breaking his boyfriend out of prison for graffiti. and boo-boo, the 14 year old, is arrested for selling drugs. in some ways its thematically appropriate, but the unrelenting viciousness of the end of each character's story is sudden, deeply tonally jarring, and leaves the audience feeling despondent and hopeless even with the main character surviving to sing it all as an adult and his love interest finding success as a singer, albeit far away in another city. tgd is an excellent show, but besides being cancelled, the big kicker for it was that the romantic lead mylene didn't hit for a lot of people, and watchers who preferred shao and zeke to get together due to having such strong chemistry and a well-developed bond probably had a very different experience than the writers had intended. mylene is a fine character and she's unfairly disliked by a lot of watchers, but her romance with zeke was simply not as well developed as shao's and zeke's relationship was
Grimm - 3.22 Blond Ambition
It forgoes the usual: 'there is a scary wesen that is causing problems and we can solve this' formula to pay off other plot points, but it kinda makes the episode feel less tethered.
The focus is a wedding between supporting characters, whilst a former finale villain is just stalking around town and also a (corrupt) FBI agent is preparing to make his move.
Both make their moves and the results are kinda lame. The agent is almost immediately beheaded rendering his active threat moot. And the other villain disguised herself as the MC's girlfriend and sleeps with him.
The only major points are the wedding, a police captain getting shot (glossed over here but become relevant next season), the FBI agent dying (it starts a dull investigation next season), and the MC losing his power right at the end (which led to one of the worst periods in the show until he regains his powers...)
Jane the Virgin - 5.19 Chapter One Hundred
No propaganda submitted
#prelim#wfprelim#wfpoll#poll#polls#blake's 7#castle rock#chilling adventures of sabrina#choukou senshi changerion#the get down#grimm#jane the virgin
18 notes
·
View notes
Note
so whats the deal with overkills the walking dead?
I'm glad you asked! (approx. 2,300 words)
So our story starts during Payday 2's first anniversary, the Fall of 2014. Players had to attain certain community goals to get new things to play with during their first annual Crimefest event, and the last two prizes were secret. They wound up being John Wick as a playable character, and the trailer for a new game Overkill was working on, based in the world of The Walking Dead comics. The premise was simple: it was set in the same part of the world as Payday 2, Washington DC, and would involve players trying to keep themselves and their camp alive during the zombie apocalypse made popular in Robert Kirkman's graphic novels and the AMC TV show. Given the fact that Payday 2 had proven to be a tremendous cultural hit around this time, getting the likes of Giancarlo Esposito and making cameos in the Wick movies at the height of their popularity, and given how at the moment it is very possible to argue that Payday 2 might have sold more copies than Super Mario Brothers 3, it would seem that OTWD was in good hands.
The problem, though, was their CEO. Bo Andersson used pressure he conjured up in Varvtre AB, a holdings company he was on the board of directors for, to become the CEO of Starbreeze when they acquired Overkill Software, the makers of Payday: The Heist and Payday 2. This also moved Bo from a role within the games industry alongside his brother to being his brother's superior and putting him in a firmly business role. This was good for Bo, because it would allow him to scrape capital from Overkill on their pursuit into superstardom to fund his own dream project: Storm.
Storm was a concept that Bo had been working on since 2008, the idea of bringing virtual reality back from being a curious novelty we played with in the 1990s into a mainstream competitive eSport. Players would wear tactical vests with computers built into them and a 5K resolution HMD that Acer would develop with the aid of Starbreeze in a massive bespoke arena, and using a combination of LIDAR scanning, realtime texture mapping, and the Valhalla game engine Starbreeze paid $8 million for, their physical arena would turn into a sci-fi deathmatch where players would cooperate to eliminate the enemy team and seek victory.
Bo Andersson was paying tens of millions of dollars to invent Laser Tag.
But how does this tie into The Walking Dead? Well, as a proof of concept, the work that Overkill had done in their in-house game engine, Diesel 2.0, would be ported into Valhalla to bring Overkill's The Walking Dead to life. Overkill's employees had long complained that Diesel could not compete visually, and even incorporating proper normal maps and bumping up the texture quality could not shake the appearance of a Source Engine or early Unreal 3 title. Despite releasing in 2013 and with the game now moving into 2016, onto the 8th generation of consoles, Payday 2 was not a looker and Overkill's The Walking Dead faced the same fate.
The problem, though, is that Bo Andersson bought the Valhalla Engine, which was being designed for VR first and foremost, much too early. The engine was literally incomplete, and the programmers had to write tools for the engine before they could write any code for the game itself. After nearly a year of work, they did bring Valhalla into a usable state, and used its VR prowess to power Payday 2's VR version. Bo also proposed a VR demo of Overkill's The Walking Dead to be hosted in Dubai, at VR Park (now titled PlayDXB), to demonstrate the game, the headset, and the VR technology to Middle Eastern investors who could free Bo from the shackles of Scandinavian game development and make him the worldwide name in VR. This delayed their actual non-VR Walking Dead game, which had serious funding from Skybound Entertainment and Robert Kirkman, past its intended 2016 street date. The game was nowhere near finished as Overkill staff were pulled back and forth to so many different projects within the studio. They received an extension to their deadline, Fall 2017, and work continued on the Valhalla Engine and the VR demo.
Fast forward another year. Starbreeze puts out Raid: World War II, a Diesel 2.0 title in which four players steal from the Nazis in almost exactly same manner as in Payday 2, starring John Cleese as the handler for the crew, and some trailers commissioned for their Walking Dead game using virtually zero actual in-game assets, and Skybound makes them an ultimatum: if the game is not out by November 2018, then they lose the rights to the license. They have wasted the rights holder's time and money for too long, and the project is dragging its heels with a CEO seeing it as a low priority to get their contractually-obligated co-op FPS for PCs and consoles out versus his ambitions of filling an entire space in Dubai with his name, his brand. Overkill developers, who had been clamoring for years to use an actual engine that makes sense for FPSes, finally get their wish, and Bo Andersson invests in commercial licenses for Unreal Engine 4. The problem now, though, is that the staff have a year to make the game in Unreal, with the caveat that they have zero experience in the engine. If they had made this move two years ago, they'd have the time to commit to learning the ins and outs, but they don't.
Overkill goes into crunch, with staff sleeping in the offices and working 100-hour weeks to learn Unreal and take what the documentation and tutorials offer them and implement it into their Walking Dead title, reverse-engineering the concepts they had implemented into the Diesel and Valhalla versions of the game and dropping them into Unreal. Bo Andersson, all the while, is going on vacations and not coming in on the regular, spending his time playing zombie games for inspiration and coming to the staff with his own ideas for the game based on them. Glory Kills, Special Infected, robust base maintenance mechanics and the ability to command teams of non-player survivors on missions all wound up in the game with little actual regard for how these pieces fit together. By the time that he realized he should be more actively hands-on, he only had a scant few months to spend with the staff at the final mad dash to make a playable product. The game was playable at E3, with two demo levels, and one of them playtested so poorly that the staff had to pull it from the rotation, but when Bo heard this feedback he would not tell his staff. He told them the game was testing great at E3, that people loved it.
Overkill's The Walking Dead released on the 7th of November, 2018, a week after Payday 2 ended support by letting players kill fallen angels and solve a giant puzzle wheel about the in-game lore in order to turn Bain, the player's main contact, into the US President via a body-swapping artifact used by the ancient kings of Kataru, who were gifted immortality at the same time common man was gifted the knowledge of good and evil at the Garden of Eden. While the clown-themed robbery game ended on a confusing note, Overkill's The Walking Dead was getting started to a whole heap of roughness. The game's combat was frustrating, with hordes of walkers that had to be put down one clumsy charged melee swing at a time and human enemies who fired off AKMs and MP5s with reckless abandon. Their noise would draw hordes, which would need to be contended with via your own noise, as dealing with a few dozen enemies with melee combat was awkward and difficult.
Being grappled by a zombie cost a health bar and a half in a game where your starting character had on average four healthbars to their name, and the underlying gameplay, despite being completely linear missions in level and objective design, were just Payday heists at the end of the day. Hell or High Water involved you raiding a camp owned by The Family, an antagonistic gang your camp is at war with, and stealing their supplies. In turn, they arrive at your camp and you kill five waves of them in Worse Than Walkers, in a move no different than Payday 2's Safe House Raid mission, with no zombies in sight. The camp-building mechanics, which were tied to player level and their ability to tend to the needs of their workers, were a confusing mess of UI elements that did not mesh together, and all weapons were earned in a gachapon-style case system and would degrade over time, requiring the player unjam them, fix them with the supplies they need to keep camp morale up, or watch them fall into disrepair. There was also no tutorial mission, with the game opening with The First Shot, the E3 demo mission that tested so poorly they stopped running it.
Overkill's The Walking Dead performed poorly, both critically and commercially, and Starbreeze went right into damage control. The game's high price tag to low gameplay ratio was combatted with a $30 version that required paying for the missions $60 players got for free. Season 2 went into production very quickly, with fixes to the base game, new weapons, and new survivors being promised within the coming months. Unfortunately, this was too little, too late, as Skybound issued a cease and desist to their business partner after just three months of sale, and by February 2019, Overkill's The Walking Dead was just as much a corpse as the undead shamblers present in the video games.
Perhaps what sealed the fate of the game wasn't its overall quality, as The Walking Dead is home to a large number of subpar games, but its tone and gameplay. Overkill's The Walking Dead is a very staunchly libertarian take on the franchise, pitting the player with the idea that they are to be a colonizing force, destroying an antagonistic camp and treating the other people just trying to survive as cannon fodder not unlike if they were just walkers with guns. This is no surprise given another face at Overkill, executive producer Almir Listo, having a robust fascination with libertarianism and the cult of personality that surrounded fringe Right-wing groups. Almir himself is not a conservative, but he has proven time and time again that he thinks the way Donald Trump talks is funny and has an interest in American conservative viewpoints and conspiracies as an outsider looking in, likely not helped by an unnamed comics writer taking over Payday 2 in its final year to turn the game about robbing banks into one with an ancient conspiracy and Nephilim to mow down with your MG42 or M16.
The Walking Dead is a story about its people and how they're shaped by the conflict, by the apocalypse that surrounds them, and while Kirkman expressed early interest in the sound-based horde gameplay encouraging quiet takedowns and swift, accurate gunplay, it is very possible that the idea of not just a bad Walking Dead game, but a bad Walking Dead game from a popular studio that fundamentally misunderstands the world of The Walking Dead and needs to fall back on generic bandits and raiders to fill its spaces a la Bethesda's open world titles was a bad look. We'll never know for certain, though, as the game has been pulled from sale for ages.
But this brings us to sometime last week. September 21st marked the launch of Starbreeze Studios' (formerly Overkill Software's) Payday 3. The game features a lot of the stuff they had worked on for The Walking Dead (weapon models, a rework to the Shield enemy, armor working exactly like health in OTWD) but also a ton of its own ideas, and in general the gameplay is very solid. The issue, though, is the progression and a number of bugs that hamper the experience, alongside requiring a Starbreeze Nebula account and online connection to play, with no offline mode to speak of, which caused problems when the servers for the game were down for its first three days after launch. Starbreeze promised a patch was coming shortly thereafter, but on October 21st, a month after the game released, someone with ties to Starbreeze, fed up with the Starbreeze Nebula account requirement and persistent Internet connection to play a game with obvious issues and no Patch 1 release date in sight, released the final build of Overkill's The Walking Dead. This featured a proper tutorial, made the original The First Shot into an optional random encounter a player could take on for additional resources, a slew of new weapons, a wandering trader who could sell you blueprints to the DLC's guns, and the rest of Season 2's missions. The leaked build is not playable online but is DRM-free, running just fine completely offline and preserving the game for future generations to point and laugh at, albeit without any help to ease the difficulty for a game that expected four human players at a time.
Perhaps the weirdest part of the leak is that it brought out a handful of fans from the woodwork who view Overkill's The Walking Dead as an underrated gem buried before it could truly shine, individuals who feel the game could be one of the studio's best with enough polish, and as a result Robert Kirkman has been once again inundated with people asking about the now five year-old game, hoping to give it another chance. I, personally, feel that the clumsy pacing, questionable storyline bearing little similarities to the graphic novels it's based on, and the over-reliance on generic bandits voiced by Payday regulars Josh Lenn and Joseph Balderrama prevent the game from being anything but a really weird footnote in a company's confusing, convoluted history.
9 notes
·
View notes
Note
(currently in the middle of reading ch.8) I've been meaning to ask this for awhile now, and this feels like the perfect chapter release to finally ask it-
What (if any) pieces of horror media would you say inspire you in your own work?
I love this question! Horror is my favorite genre, and there are a couple different things I pulled from specifically for this project.
The two biggest influences were probably the Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson and the movie Girl on the Third Floor.
I really love the way that Jackson writes about the relationship between the house and Nell. It's such a slow, maddening spiral, and the house is so malevolent and also strangely entangled with her. It's such a psychological book, and the fact that Nell is an unreliable narrator really makes it that much more compelling. I also loved the way the house exists as a character and its unique way of communicating (and the terrible consequence of what it wants.) I like that it's a tragedy that couldn't be avoided, and that what the house ultimately pushes her to do is probably the biggest mercy anyone ever allowed her. I really like horror when the monster is kind in a way that is only justified by the sickness of outside circumstances somehow being worse.
Girl on the Third Floor is probably my favorite haunted house movie, again, because of how personable the house is. It's a haunted whorehouse, and the house takes on such a personality and sensuality in a way that I've never really seen done before. The way it interacts with the protagonist is so erotic and cruel, and there are so many hauntings in that movie that live in my brain rent-free even though it's been years since I've seen it. (I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it, but there's a specific shower scene that - I just - )
I love the visuals of Crimson Peak and the way that the ghosts are never going to leave, and how that's a fate sealed for them long before they ever become ghosts. The scariest movie I ever saw as a kid was Monster House and I think that cemented a sentient, living house in a relationship with a human being as one of the most terrifying concepts in my mind forever.
I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones that come to mind. If anyone ever has good haunted house/ghost media to recommend to me, I'm always open to adding new things to my queue.
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
We Just Got a Letter(boxd)!: Star Wars Sundays
Back at the start of this year (as in the literal first thing I did on New Years Day) I decided to start up a weekly rewatch of all the live action Star Wars movies in release order.
Called it my “Star Wars Sundays”
It was intended to be something I did just for fun and just for myself. The further I went along into the series I found myself with more to say as my enthusiasm for this universe hit in a way it hasn’t in a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. That enthusiasm came through in what I was writing as I logged each movie into my Letterboxd profile, giving insight into whatever stood out to me (for better or worse) with each film. Mainly in the form of whatever about the movie was most immediately on my mind after watching.
Do I think anything I had to say is a particularly hot take on Star Wars?
Somehow bringing something new to the discussion of one of the most thoroughly discussed film series ever made?
Not really.
But even as what I was writing about this movies got more detailed as I went along, I never lost the sense of fun I was having.
So since it’s The Day the Internet Drives a Star Wars Pun Into the Ground, I figured I may as well compile everything I wrote about those movies over those eleven weeks in one place.
Let’s get this started
Star Wars (Watched: 1/1/2023)
Starting a weekly release order rewatch of these movies, my first full look back at them in a while.
There’s an argument to be made that this original is still the weirdest of all the movies in a wonderful way!
[Note from the present: If I’d known I’d be posting these all together here, probably would’ve had more to say about this one]
The Empire Strikes Back (Watched: 1/8/2023)
The willful denial of closure by making the followup to one of the greatest crowd-pleasers of all time a story where the bad guys win and the heroes are stuck with their backs to the wall set a precedent that all "darker sequels" since have been trying to emulate.
Though the imitators often miss how character focused everything leading up to the downer ending of this movie. All the big spectacle action here is front loaded into the battle on Hoth before the scope focuses down for the rest of the movie on Luke's training with Yoda and Leia/Han's romantic back and forth.
Return of the Jedi (Watched 1/15/2023)
As a kid this one was always my favorite and the parts that made it that still hold up; escaping Jabba's clutches, the speeder bike chase, Luke's final confrontation with Vader, and plenty others.
But you can feel this one stretching out at the seams in a way the previous two did not. The narrative momentum those movie's benefited from is conspicuously absent here until the story's final third. Plus the ways Lucas was exhausted from managing these massive productions at this point shows in certain story decisions, like the hasty retcon to turn Leia into Luke's sister as a way to pay off the "No, there is another" tease from Empire. Thus closing off the original outline for the sequel trilogy, which would've focused on Luke's non-Leia twin sister.
All that said, by the time this movie is over and everyone's celebrating their victory together I can't help but feel my spirits being lifted as a smile winds up on my face.
The Phantom Menace (Watched 1/22/2023)
To say a few nice things; when the storytelling in this movie is purely done through the visuals, it's actually pretty great. That's probably the reason the Duel of the Fates sequence is so fondly remembered, no bit of story telling is stronger in this movie than the body languages of Qui Gon, Obi Wan, and Maul while the three are trapped between force fields.
The thematic groundwork this lays out for the rest of the prequels is also fairly interesting. Presenting the pristine style of the systems under the Republic in contrast to an Outer Rim territory like Tatooine. Which also speak to the misplaced confidence the Republic has in its own operation with hints laid that this is more a Gilded Age than a golden one, with corruption and greed laying just below the surface.
The problem is that everything around those elements of the story and even some of those used to communicate it are so stiffly delivered. Either through the pacing or the delivery from the actors. Plus this movie sucks at communicating its stakes, we hear so much about how Naboo is suffering under the Trade Federation's occupation but are shown no evidence of it even once. We spend so much time among aristocrats, politicians, and Jedi that this movie forgets to consider portraying the common people in any form besides the occasional line here or there.
This was the Star Wars movie I always felt like revisiting the least when I was a kid. While there are ones I dislike more now (we'll get there in the coming weeks), this rewatch made me remember why that was.
Attack of the Clones (Watched: 1/29/2023)
There's definitely something to be said for how this movie chooses to be about the birth of the Galactic Empire. Obi-Wan's plot following the machinations and conspiracies that are literally manufacturing the armed forces for both sides of the upcoming Clone War drives our view into that aspect of the story. Genuinely love the way it culminates in Dooku flatout telling Kenobi what's happening with the Republic in the lead up to this war. Whether the Jedi believes him or not, it strikes a division between the Jedi Order and those they serve regardless.
Anakin's side of the story, on the other hand, has to rest a lot of its substance on George Lucas' (self-admitted) lackluster dialogue. Since the Prequels started with Anakin so young and innocent, this movie needs to sell us on Anakin both as a noble Jedi Apprentice in his own right and as someone on the edge of falling to the Dark Side. It winds up in a place where his journey to evil feel rushed and underdeveloped as it gets left off in this entry.
Revenge of the Sith (Watched: 2/5/2023)
The Prequel Trilogy's central trio of characters is clearly meant to be Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Padme. A big problem this movie has is that one member of that trio is given no agency or story to speak of for themselves. Padme's entire character gets reduced to "worried about Anakin" and her utility in the plot down to "gives birth to Luke and Leia." I can't argue with the fact that she gets the best line in the movie with "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause." But one good line does not make up for every other misstep this movie makes with her.
Those problems with the part Padme plays in this movie are in line with the problems Revenge of the Sith has in its overall plotting. It's in a rush to get everything to where the audience remembers it being at the beginning of the 1977 original film. Which gets in the way of the good things this movie does have going for it.
I enjoy the opening 20 minute long set piece's role in this narrative as a last "just for fun" adventure for Anakin and Obi-Wan. It create the necessary dramatic contrast to how they end the movie on opposite sides. This movie is also dramatically playing on what I said about Attack of the Clones, the Republic was already the Galactic Empire in all but name by the time that movie ended. What we see here are simply the last steps Palpatine has to take to make sure there are no more obstacles in his way.
Purely from a broad plotting standpoint this is a perfectly tragic finale to a trilogy that was always building to tragedy. But the rush it's in to make sure that tragedy can happen within its runtime ends up failing several key elements that could've made this a stronger movie.
The Force Awakens (Watched: 2/12/2023)
I love how effectively this movie sets up its two leads in Rey and Finn. The first chunk of this movie dedicated to setting up each of them as fundamentally lost people, but in inverse ways.
Through the village massacre by the First Order that opens the movie and helping Poe escape, we see Finn realize he wants no place in the fascist idea of "order" he's been raised/trained in. He decides to start running and that brings him right into the path of the people that are going to start changing his life for the better, Poe and Rey.
While Finn's defined by how he's running from danger, Rey's established as someone determined to stay put despite dreaming of adventures like those in the legends she's heard. A character trait acutely visualized when she takes time out from eating her dinner to put on an old Rebellion pilot helmet as she watches starships leave Jakku. Coming across BB-8 puts her on a path that winds up crossing with Finn's and winds up forcing her out of her desolate situation as a scavenger gathering scraps of tech in exchange for scraps of food. Waiting for people that are never going to come back for her.
The journey this movie takes them on together culminates when they reunite. Finn chooses to run towards the First Order for the sake of his friend after spending the whole movie determined to run away. In doing that, he winds up proving to Rey that she now has people in her life that care enough to come back for her.
Rogue One (Watched: 2/19/2023)
(Note: I haven't watched Andor yet and fully intend to at some point)
I deeply wish this entire movie was as well executed as its final act.
Up until the mission on Scarif, Rogue One is fairly scattershot in terms of how it executes on the ideas it presents. A nature reflected in the narrative structure provided by the films editing. A problem that starts early on as we quickly jump from Jyn as a child in the prologue to her as an imprisoned adult for all of thirty seconds before jumping directly into Cassian's introduction. We don't get to know how Jyn is living with her current situation and only get told about it later when she meets with Saw Gerrera.
The majority of the titular squadron don't really get much breathing room for us to get to know them. Their personalities mostly communicated through quick inferences. Ones that all make me want to know and see more of them, but still simply inferences.
One character who is incredibly well developed that I've loved since the first time I saw this movie is Ben Mendelsohn as Imperial Director Orson Krennic. A figure who wields what limited power he has in the Galactic Empire's structure with great pride and takes it incredibly personal when that power doesn't grant him more reward than his superiors are willing to deal out (or even actively deny.) A perfect balancing act between menacing and pathetic.
Which brings us back to this movie's final act on Scarif, because Krennic's position within the Empire plays in parallel to the position of the rebel soldiers that make up the unit of Rogue One. While Krennic longs for recognition at any cost short of himself, Rogue One fight to make the Galaxy a better place even if they're never recognized for it. The ideological division, mixed with some of the best on screen action in a Star Wars film makes this movie's bittersweet conclusion strong enough to make up for the messy way the movie gets there.
The Last Jedi (Watched: 2/26/2023)
Despite the hell of modern Star Wars discourse, despite what followed in this trilogy, despite everything...
This is still my absolute favorite Star Wars movie!
A movie that says hope isn't just something to believe in, but something you can create for yourself and others
A movie that says it's never too late to learn from your failures and that those failures don't define you
A movie that says our place in the world and among those we love are not preordained but the product of our choices
A movie that to this day reminds me of why I fell in love with Star Wars to begin with!
I wish I could be more elaborate and articulate about this, but in the immediate aftermath of this rewatch, the fact that it still has the effect it did on me when I first saw it in the theater is overwhelming.
All coming down to the great action, fun characters, spectacular visuals, and the perfect final shot!
Solo (Watched: 3/5/2023)
I'll take this over a hundred deep-faked Luke Skywalkers!
Alden Ehrenreich plays a character I can believe grows into the smug scoundrel we all remember from the original trilogy. Trying to act like he's not flying by the seat of his pants at any given moment, improvising his way around every new dangerous scenario.
The action set pieces here are a nice, varied series of heists across the various parts of the criminal underworld of A Galaxy Far Far Away. My absolute favorite being the chaos that gets unleashed on Kessel.
Feel like some people never gave this one a fair shot, but I still find it a pretty damn delightful space adventure.
The Rise of Skywalker (Watched: 3/12/2023)
A large part of why this movie still rubs me the wrong way is that I can tell it is trying so hard to be a satisfying, high-energy, action-adventure that also brings some form of thematic closure to the "Skywalker Saga." (A term for the nine "Episode" movies in the film series that was invented for the sake of marketing this movie.)
But I would've been fine with a movie that just brought a satisfying conclusion to this trilogy as its own thing. The only story line that does feel like it's prioritizing the weight of this trilogy's themes in this movie is Poe's character arc, picking up right from where we left him in The Last Jedi. An arc that asks whether the spark of rebellion will in fact come through to light the fire that will burn the First Order to the ground.
Culminating in a moment that I should, in theory, absolutely love, where those ordinary people gather up to join the final battle and turn the tide in The Resistance's favor. All the while the villains are baffled that the ones out maneuvering them are "just people" rather than an organized fleet.
But I can't feel what that moment's going for because it gets buried in The Palpatine of It All, which drags everything this movie could've had going for it down. The presence of the classic Star Wars' biggest Big Bad winds up being the main thing to override what the previous movies in this trilogy built up, especially with Rey. Her arc in this movie requires her to push away the very bonds she spent the previous two movies building after a life in isolation, but it feels so... forced (for lack of a better term.) To the very last minute this movie doesn't actually seem to care about those bonds, because where we could've ended on the shot of Rey, Finn, and Poe hugging in relief in celebration, we instead tack on a lazy callback to A New Hope where Rey is back where we first found her, alone on a desert planet.
Going through these movies on a weekly basis throughout the year so far, I've tried to find stuff to like in each of them no matter what my preexisting opinions of them were. Even in the ones I don't necessarily like, I managed that. But with The Rise of Skywalker, even finding those things (I genuinely think the fight between Rey and Kylo on the Death Star wreckage is the most interestingly choreographed fight in this trilogy) didn't make up for what it lacks.
If you like what you’ve read here, please like/reblog or share elsewhere online, follow me on Twitter (@WC_WIT), and consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”
#star wars#movie review#wit's writing#We Just Got a Letter(boxd)#a new hope#the empire strikes back#return of the jedi#the phantom menace#attack of the clones#revenge of the sith#the force awakens#rogue one#the last jedi#solo: a star wars story#the rise of skywalker
9 notes
·
View notes
Text
New Releases July 27, 2021
Boys Run the Riot vol. 2 By Keito Gaku
Ryo and Jin have started their own fashion brand, Boys Run the Riot. Now they just have to get the word out there! But the world of fashion is a cutthroat business of patronizing adults, and the boys will have to get creative—and save some cash—if they want to get their brand off the ground and be taken seriously. Working part-time is hard enough, but for Ryo, being transgender makes it even harder. In work, friendship, and romance, he struggles to decide whether to come out as his true self. However, when he befriends his cool coworker Mizuki, the closet door begins to open…
Captivated, by You by Yama Wayama
High school relations are moody, quirky, and full of surprises. But most of all, they’re downright captivating
Cocoon Entwined vol. 3 by Yuriko Hara
Hoshimiya Girls’ Academy-A legendary academy known for their exquisite uniforms made from a secret material: human hair. As the school year marches on, the sudden disappearance of the girl with the most beautiful hair throws the student body into chaos. Their fates intertwined like the thread of their uniforms, will the girls unravel without Youko…or will they be bound more tightly together?
The Demon Girl Next Door vol. 3 by Izumo Ito
WHOSE SIDE AM I ON, ANYWAY?!
Ever since awakening to her demon powers, Shadow Mistress Yuko (a.k.a. Shamiko) has been fighting to free her dark clan from the curses placed on them by magical girls. But somehow, she wound up becoming allies with the magical girl who is supposed to be her rival, and now they’re working together to track down a magical girl who disappeared from the town. A new demon invades the neighborhood in Volume 3!
The Executioner and Her Way of Life vol. 2 by Mato Sato, nilitsu (light novel)
Libelle, a city by the sea. All who venture into its fog are said to never make it back alive-a murderous phenomenon that’s another one of the four great calamities that completely ravaged the world. And it might be the solution to Menou’s problem. To fulfill her role as Executioner, she still needs to find a way to murder Akari, the girl who seems to spring back to life whenever she’s killed. Maybe this time, Menou will be successful in carrying out her duty…
Harem Marriage vol. 7 By NON (digital)
"Does it make you happy? To know you're woman number three?" In the one city in Japan where polygamous marriage (AKA: Harem Marriage) is legal, Koharu is not only getting into the swing of her four-way marriage to Ryunosuke Date—she's relishing it, too! Stormy clouds appear on the horizon, though, when Koharu's dad inexplicably appears to revoke his blessing and orders his daughter to divorce her husband and two wives. That's when the Date family springs into action to prove to Daddy Maezono and the rest of the world that they're happy as can be in this Harem Marriage!
I’m in Love with the Villainess vol. 1 (manga) by Inori, Aonoshimo, Hanagata
The new manga adaptation of the bestselling and critically acclaimed yuri isekai light novels: the story of a reincarnated gamer pursuing her villainous lady love at a fantasy girls’ academy!
When corporate worker Rei Ohashi finds herself reborn as the protagonist of her favorite dating sim, it’s the perfect opportunity to do what she’s always wanted—seduce the villainess! In her previous life, Rei had no interest in the princes the game had to offer. She only had eyes for Claire François, her nemesis. Now, armed with her extensive knowledge of the game, and her undying love for Claire, will Rei finally be able to win over the woman of her dreams?
The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window vol. 8 by Tomoko Yamashita (digital)
A cryptic message from fellow exorcist Erika Hiura arrives at Hiyakawa and Mikado’s office. The team works together to discover the true identity of the Professor, but Hiyakawa has other, less upstanding ideas. When Mikado points out the crudeness of it all, Hiyakawa pushes him away, right into a cursed pond!
Seaside Stranger vol. 1 by Kii Kanna
A love story between an openly gay novelist and a young man coping with grief that was recently turned into an anime film!
Ever since his parents disowned him for being gay, Shun has been living with his aunt on a small island near Okinawa. One day, he meets Mio, a high school student who recently lost his own parents and now spends his days sitting by the sea. The two young men begin to open up to each other…until Mio reveals that he’s leaving. Three years later, an adult Mio returns to the island to confess his true feelings, but is Shun ready for a relationship?
#new releases#lgbt manga#queer manga#manga#boys run the riot#gaku keito#keito gaku#captivated by you#muchuu sa kimi ni#yama wayama#wayama yama#cocoon entwined#mayu matou#hara yuriko#yuriko hara#demon girl next door#machikado mazoku#izumo ito#ito izumo#the executioner and her way of life#shokei shoujo no ikirumichi#mato sato#nilitsu#harem marriage#harekon#non#I'm in love with the villainess#watashi no oshi wa akuyaku reijou#inori#aonoshimo
112 notes
·
View notes
Text
Top 10 Anime (That I've Seen) in 2020
Well now, it has certainly been awhile. I'm currently sitting at eight months too late for posting this, but, y'know, something something life happens. More accurately, I already made this list, but wanted to try out what response I'd get from Reddit. Turns out, they're not as cool as you guys!
Anyways, as the title states, this is not a list of my favorite anime that came out during 2020, but instead my favorite anime that I just so happen to see during that year. While it's fun to have an end of the year retrospective, I find that having a list in this format not only adds variety, but also helps bring attention to anime that might have been lost in the shuffle in previous years (I also don't have enough time to stay caught up in seasonal releases).
Honorable mentions:
Aggretsuko S3, My Hero Academia S4, Today's Menu For the Emiya Family, Interspecies Reviewers (yes, really), and I Couldn't Become a Hero So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job
10. Maid-Sama (2010)
In hindsight, I find it a bit funny that I wanted to watch something wholesome to kick off 2020. Anyway, Maid-Sama is about a high school girl that is also a no nonsense Class President and she kind of has to be at a school where, until recently, was an all boys school. While she kills it in academics and is good at shutting down any shenanigans from the male student body, her financial situation isn't the greatest and has to balance a job at a maid cafe along with her school-related responsibilities. She does her best to hide her employment there to keep up appearances, but is one day found out by one of the boys who happens to be a big flirt and, yeah, hijinks ensue. While this anime doesn't have too many surprises, our main leads bounce off each other well enough to keep me entertained. Nothing I haven't seen already in other anime Rom-Coms, but I think it has more than earned its place at the start of this list.
9. Haganai NEXT (2013)
It's a personal rule of mine when making these lists that I don't include sequels of shows that were in previous lists. While I DID see the first season of Haganai a couple of years ago, it didn't quite make it into the top ten at that time. Because of that, it meets the criteria for this year's list. While I found the characters were just as charming here as I did during the first season, the development of their relationships really took off. It's a shame that it will most likely not get a third season, but I'm happy with what ride this show gave me. But hey! At least I can read the light novels/manga to continue the story! Wait, nevermind, the Haganai fans on Reddit are saying that's a bad idea.
8. Engaged to the Unidentified (2014)
Based off of a Four Panel joke manga, Engaged to the Unidentified tells the story of a girl in high school suddenly getting some life changing news. As it turns out, her grandfather made an arranged engagement with her and the son of a family he knew. Next thing she knows, the boy in question, as well as his little sister, moves into her family's house! While the boy is unassuming at first, there may be more to him and his family than he lets on. Plain and simple, this anime has charmed me. There's a decent amount of drama and mystery despite the source material and I applaud it! Even though this also doesn't have much new to offer, even to the point where I would compare this to Maid-Sama, what made me pick this at the 8th spot were the color choices and animation quality. Give this a shot if you can!
7. Grimoire of Zero (2017)
It's a fantasy/adventure story starring a loli sorcerer and a huge, anthropomorphic white tiger man. I honestly can't say anything else. I won't be able to do it justice. That first sentence should intrigue you a lease a little bit. Read it, again. Please check it out. It's an underrated gem that no one is talking about.
6. ID: Invaded (2020)
Hey, here's something recent! Unfortunately, this is also not something I can say much about. There may not be too many deep characters and the secret bad guy isn't hard to figure out, but BOY is this anime cool! The best way to describe this series is that it's like the movie Inception, but instead of brain heists, it's brain murder mysteries.
5. Carole and Tuesday (2019)
A runaway rich girl has a fated meeting with an orphan and they decide to make music together...oh, this also takes place Mars. Joking aside, this show was something special with its music (a new song almost every episode no less), interesting setting (freaking Mars, dude), and endearing main cast. Shoot, the music itself would be top 3, maybe number 1, but what bogs it down is the show's second half. I can easily see myself watching this again someday, and maybe my opinion will lighten up, but for now, 5 is a dang good spot.
4. Fate/Grand Order: Absolute Demonic Front - Babylonia (2019)
Part of me hesitates placing this high up on list due to this show being animated, fan service spectacle for Fate fans. However, that hesitation is overshadowed by the fact that I am a Fate fan myself and I can do whatever I want with this list. Even if you're not a Fate fan or play FGO, if you enjoy some solid fight animation, this is worth a look.
3. K-On S1 (2009)
I'll admit it, I might regret not watching the second season then putting the series on the list as a whole, but this how I've been doing these lists and I'm such a creature of habit. There's not much I can say about K-On that hasn't already been said. By itself it's an anime classic and one of Kyo-ani's biggest properties. It's a sweet and wholesome watch, but be sure to have some insulin within reach.
2. Princess Principal (2017)
Imagine you're working with a team of programmers trying to make a mobile game then all of a sudden someone asks to make a show out of it. You know, a show with different character motivations, plot, twist and turns and all that? Most might say that's just a shameless, shallow cash grab, but it turns out okay for Princess Principal. Sure, most might summarize this anime as, "cute girls doing espionage things," but with its cast, visuals, and interesting alternative timeline, it works! Apparently there's a new season or movie in the works and I am all for it!
1. Beastars (2019)
I was not expecting this to be number one, but with much deliberation (with myself obviously) this feels right. It tells a pretty unique story while showing itself to be the exception to the rule when it comes to 3D anime.....it being that it's actually good. While I acknowledge that shows like K-On are classics and deserves to be number one on many different lists, it didn't line up with my personal criteria like Beastars did. My biggest deciding factor is: Now that I've watched this, do I want more? It's true that while I'm excited to start K-On S2, Beastars intrigues me more and ever since season two was announced, I'm looking forward to that more.
Sorry again for this list being so late, but at least the silver lining is that the next end of the year list is about four months away (in theory)!
#anime#k-on#beastars#princess principal#fate grand order#carole and tuesday#id invaded#grimoire of zero#engaged to the unidentified#haganai#maid sama
62 notes
·
View notes
Text
Sindria's Prophet #17
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16]
[AO3]
*In this house we stan string theory and multiple dimension theory
*Also, this chapter gets a little preachy, and delves more into my interpretation of the series so to make up for it I made a lot of art.
~POV Sinbad~
"If you're willing to talk about the future, does that mean you are finally ready to explain about those calamities you mentioned in Balbadd?" When Ja'far cut in he was in a rush; he didn't want to miss this chance.
Sinbad had underestimated Ja'far's concerns; he had been too preoccupied with the Prophet. All the same, "I don't know if this is the time for that conversation. This is Mori's first meal with everyone after all."
Wait. He knew that look. Ja'far wasn't actually asking to have that conversation now. He was pressuring Mori so she would have to agree to tell them soon.
"I'm fine. I made a promise and I intend to keep it. As long as everyone else is willing to talk seriously for a few mins, I don't see the problem." Mori was wearing the same stern expression she had the morning of the coup in Balbadd.
When Ja'far had cut in with his request he could have tried to sound a little nicer but it didn't warrant the cold response Mori gave in return. There had been rising tensions between Ja'far and Mori since Balbadd, but both seemed to get along most of the time.
"Wait really? You're agreeing this easily?" Ja'far's shock also spoke for the King.
She obviously didn't want to talk about the Calamities even when she promised to tell them, so why now?
"A promise is a promise." Mori almost felt like a completely different person compared to the coy way she was teasing them all just moments ago. "Besides, this will just continue to be a point of contention until I explain."
---
King Sinbad was finally eating with his Generals and Prophet, but this was nothing like he had planned.
Mori sat straight with both hands on the table interlocked. "The 1st of the 2 calamities occurs in about 2 years. As you know, there's a few countries that currently have rising tensions."
Which countries? The Kou and Riem were prime contenders since they were already Empires causing trouble for other countries. There was also Magnostadt which has been becoming increasingly hostile to other nations, and seemed to be encroaching on the Kingdom of Actia.
"In 2 years, 3 of them are going to go to war. A massive amount of black Rukh will be released, and the same type of magic used to make the Dark Djinns will be used to make a humanoid monster the size of a mountain."
Of course, Al Thamen would be involved.
"The amount of black Rukh it will have will make it a Medium for opening a black spot and letting Ill Ilah connect to the world which is Al Thamen's ultimate goal. Once Ill Ilah connects it will destroy all of the white Rukh in the world -bringing death."
It sounded just like what Falon had described as her plan all those years ago. The same thing that happened in Parthevia a decade ago is going to happen again in only 2 years?
"The Medium is destroyed before that can happen thanks to all of the current Metal Vessel users and assimilated Household Members coming together to destroy it. The world is saved but in the process one of the Magi will have to commit one of the ultimate taboos of this world. That taboo is what will eventually lead to the 2nd Calamity. If King Sinbad and the Metal Vessel users of the Seven Seas Alliance, which were the last to arrive, can show up sooner then that taboo and the 2nd Calamity might be something that can be fully avoided especially since I already know the Medium's weakness."
It was clear that Mori knew more. Sinbad would have to talk to her about it later; he wasn't sure how much he wanted to talk about this tonight -they were supposed to be celebrating and getting to know each other light heartedly. However, there was one question he couldn't hold back from asking. "What is this taboo?”
Mori sighed like she had expected that question. She looked to the ceiling. "Honestly, I didn't want to think it was a taboo when I first learned it, but after seeing what happens I get it now." She looked back at them. "I hope you can accept me not telling what it is. I don't want to even try to explain the 2nd Calamity because I'm not sure how without explaining the taboo. You see, the taboo involves information, so if I explain it to you I will be committing the taboo myself. I can only hope that the world isn't endangered because I know it."
The air in the room felt thick. All of the Generals were waiting for his decision. Sinbad tried to read the Prophet's expression. It was serious, and determined; it seemed like fear and remorse were hiding right under the surface.
What information could be dangerous on its own?
"Alright," he agreed. "We don't want to take any unnecessary risks. However, if we are unable to prevent the taboo from being committed you will explain the 2nd Calamity."
Mori attempted a half-hearted smile. "I was already planning to do that." She glanced around at the Generals. "Are there any other questions?"
Sharrkan grumbled. "This is all really complicated stuff."
"Yeah. Pretty scary, huh?" Pisti agreed.
Drakon and Hinahoho were sharing a look while thinking.
"You still haven't told us where this is going to happen." Ja'far decided he would ask the next question. "Are you withholding that information on purpose?"
Mori's expression was blank. "I'll tell you the countries involved after King Sinbad returns from the Kou Empire. I don't want to influence how the negotiation goes by giving him too much information he wouldn't normally have. I'm doing this for Balbadd..."
Mori withholding vital information was the entire cause of Ja'far's distrust of her. "You took too long to tell us what was going to happen back in Balbadd, remember? If we know what their next target is then we can stop it before it ever happens."
"The 1st Calamity has nothing to do with Al Thamen."
"What?” that question was asked by all except the Prophet.
Mori explained, "That country has refused contact with them and been building towards this for the past 10 years all on its own. All of the Black Rukh that has been accumulated there is like a trap waiting to be set off. The people currently in charge are not people who would be willing to accept change, or to listen to the arguments of the people here."
That definitely narrowed it down. Riem was already having meetings with them, and it was only a matter of time before they formed an alliance. They already had the peace treaty with the Kou, and King Sinbad was about to go negotiate with them for Balbadd. That only left Magnostadt as the center of the conflict -the country they knew had increasing disparity between it's upper and lower classes.
Mori was staring at him. He wasn't the one she was actually hiding this from. Since it didn't seem to be an avoidable Fate, she was preventing Yam from learning the Fate of her home country for as long as possible. Mori was trying to be considerate.
"How is that possible?”
"If they aren't behind it then how could such a thing happen??”
Mori gave a sad smile. "It would be so much easier if all of the bad things in this world really were all caused by that organization. I had wrongly thought that was how this world works in the heat of the moment back in Balbadd, but I know better. I've read this world's Fate after all. Even in this world it is a mistake to hold onto the hope of total altruism too strongly."
It almost felt like she was calling them all naïve with that last statement.
She looked down at her hands. "Sentience, experience and free will make us all imperfect. All people are shaped by their past and everyone has a vice. There will always be people who think they are above everyone else, people who think they are right because of their feelings, people who think that they deserve something just because they want it or that they can do something because it is available to them," she looked back up and made direct eye contact with her King, "people that think that their luck or privilege is a sign that they were chosen by Fate, that they are the only one who can do something because they are special and that that means they are righteous and their failings mere stepping stones when in reality they are all normal people just like the rest of us."
///She knows nothing about being a Singularity. There's no greater proof of being chosen by Fate!///
Since the Fall of First Sindria, Sinbad had been hearing a voice periodically. It was like stray thoughts -many were opinions he didn't really have. The fact that the voice felt the same as him in this made a pit form in his stomach.
Mori gestured at him and continued. "Even his Majesty being a 'Singularity' is only something rare. You aren't the first, and you won't be the last. You know I can read the waves of Fate as well, so it's obviously not the type of thing that you or Al Thamen makes it out to be. There is no 'chosen one.' No one is immune to human fault or failing. 'Fate' is the history of how all of our decisions affect each other.”
It was like she was reading his thoughts. There were other Singularities? Mori could also read the waves but- The waves in the room were over flowing. This was greater than when Mori changed things in Balbadd. They were far off topic now, but this was more important.
///She doesn't understand anything. I've read Fate!///
Those stray thoughts hated Mori and how she was changing things since the beginning even though when Sinbad read the waves around her he liked the direction they were going. Her waves wouldn't stop him from reaching his dream. If that voice was this against what she was doing then he had to know more.
"Mori, please tell me, what makes you so sure? You say you've read Fate; how can you say there isn't a grand plan? Can you really deny that the Rukh guide us?" Would they have to agree to disagree? Was this something he could afford for the Prophet of his own country to not see his way?
She watched him and the Generals as she thought. "There is a 'plan,' but it isn't absolute. I read more than one 'Fate' for this reality. If Fate was already fully decided then in Balbadd Judar would have defeated all of you instead of being crushed by Ugo, and Cassim would have married Princess Kougyoku instead of dying, but that didn't happen, now did it? When I read Fate, I read how it was changed from it's original design by the people of this world. And as I've already said, I couldn't be here if everything was already decided.” ((these are things that are said to be in the og draft of Magi, but got changed when actually making the scenes))
They had been changing Fate's course before Mori arrived? Was that even possible? Mori wasn't the type to lie out right over something like this. Between her demeanor and the waves, he could tell she wasn't lying.
He had to know where this new path was leading and asked an obvious question. "Isn't it just as likely that those 'changes' were supposed to happen?"
Mori scowled at that. "Anything is true somewhere. There are infinite realities where any Fate is true. Every moment infinitely more form to account for every possibility -every decision, and unexpected change, even an asteroid coming and destroying the planet. If you can imagine it, it is reality somewhere."
Sinbad had read Fate in the waves, of course he knew about there being other possibilities. Were there really other realities where he had followed one of the other paths?
Mori didn't wait for him to comment. "There's no way to know which destiny or Fate we are following until it's already happened. Being able to read the waves has helped me narrow it down to 2 or so of the Fates that I read for this reality, but it can't account for everything. Since I can't read my own Fate I can't know how my presence will affect things."
Mori continued, "When I read this reality's Fate, I learned how it functions on a fundamental level. Everything is made up of Rukh and is dictated by the Rukh and magoi. The Great Flow of the Rukh 'guides' the living but it is also affected by the wants and desires of the living. It sees all those wishes and creates opportunities for people to realize those dreams based on how many want that dream to become real. But it's still up to the living how they react. The Great Flow creates opportunities and makes suggestions, but it can't make your decisions for you. And" Mori paused while looking for the right words, "and the more magoi directed at a certain wish the more likely the Great Flow will try to help."
Mori waited for them to absorb the meaning of her words. That meaning made Sinbad nervous. If she wasn't lying...
Drakon broke the silence. "That would mean that someone with
a lot of magoi would have a greater affect on the Great Flow."
"It does." Mori confirmed.
Was that really how the Great Flow of the Rukh worked? How Fate worked?
Mori stayed silent again, reading them as much as they were reading her. The waves were still high.
Yam was the next to comment. "I know the amount of magoi a person has defines how strong of a magician they can become, but it sounds like those born with a lot of magoi also have an amazing privilege when it comes to the Great Flow."
"Exactly." Mori agreed. "The people that Fate seems to favor aren't chosen by Fate or particularly special. They are born lucky just like those born rich." She paused. "All Dudgeon Capturers have an above average amount of magoi. A Djinn won't select a King that doesn't even have enough magoi to use their power. The more Djinns a person has, the more magoi they need to have. King Sinbad, you were born with a rare ability, and the equivalent magoi of a large city or small county -even before all that Rukh merged with you in Parthevia. If you didn't, there would be no reasons for the Djinns to cut you off from trying to capture more Dungeons."
"What?" Sinbad's question slipped out of him in an airy gasp. He knew he had more magoi than average, but this would make him no different from those that grew up as royalty thinking that they were inherently better than their poor subjects.
He wasn't sure if he could believe her, but the waves of Fate had never lied to him. The Prophet's waves were overwhelming the space, encouraging him to believe her. It was obvious how this information would change things.
King Sinbad had more than the waves, he also had a sharp intuition. There was something hidden in her words. Some truth about his future that she hadn't told them yet. Even if he had been intentionally given these privileges by Fate, Mori had already stated that his decisions were his own. When Mori had said there were people that conflated their privilege with a righteous roll given by Fate it definitely included him. But if he wasn't chosen by Fate, if they had been changing Fate all along, then what was what happened in Parthevia or Riem?
Mori's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. "Not being chosen by Fate and everyone having free will is a good thing if you ask me. It means when someone chooses to do right by others it is because they chose to, not because someone is forcing or directing them. I like to think that everyone thinks they are doing the right thing, and only act out against others because of strong emotions and ignorance. The cure for most negative emotions is a stable environment ((including medication for those who need it)) and the cure for ignorance is education. These are things that Sindria and the Seven Seas Alliance are able to provide.
"All of you are using your privileges and talents to help people, and to bring peace to the world. Regardless of whatever mistakes you made in the past, this country and the current state of the world are a direct result of your choices. These choices you've all made are even more admirable because you made them on your own. Isn't that why so many have sided with Sindria already? It's also one of the main reasons I chose to become Sindria's Prophet in the first place. With your help, we can greatly reduce the disparity of this world and raise the quality of life for everyone." Her smile was soft and confident.
Mori's waves overtook his own.
The King had a thought that shook him, but it was Hinahoho that asked it, "You didn't just tell us some of the taboo information, did you?"
"What? No." Mori was shocked by that question. "His Majesty and others would have figured this out all on their own in about 5 years -not to mention those that already know it."
He could try to deny it, return to the path he was on, but he would know deep down that she was right. And apparently, he would figure this out in the future anyway. There was no reason to hold himself back then. He could see that now -there was no going back. This was one of the changes he had felt in her waves from when he first met Mori.
///How can she say such foolishness?? This woman must die before she ruins everything!!///
A chuckle slipped out of Sinbad. That voice really did hate his Beautiful Prophet.
His waves were changing. He was changing. But he still had the same dream: to create a world without war or poverty. Mori's goal was to remove disparity. Even their goals worked well together.
Why had he been so sure that being a Singularity made him some special chosen one? When had that started? It was members of Al Thamen that had told him that. They were the enemy yet he still believed their manipulation so completely. Sinbad knew why deep down. If he was chosen by Fate then his actions would be righteous and the awful things he experienced were stepping stones.
Like a child learning to take responsibility and step out of the shadow of their parents, in this too he would have to take ownership for his place in the world. He would be thinking about this a lot in the coming days.
All of this information was invaluable.
Why did Mori choose to follow him if she knew all this? There was no way she didn't know how he viewed himself and the world before this conversation or the mistakes he had made. Was it thanks to opportunities that the Great Flow gave him that he was able to seduce her to his side?
No. Mori already knew what was going to happen. She knew the future more clearly than what the waves could show. She knew him and his methods as well. She knew that the Kou Fleet had been on it's way. That meant Mori would have been deciding where she wanted to go and weighing her options from the beginning.
Mori made her decision, gave him a slow drip feed of what she was capable of, and made sure each request he had of her was given a price. She wasn't just withholding her help due to a lack of trust; she was leading him to make the best possible offer. She knew that he would try to bring her to his side if he knew her value. He had played into her hands not the other way around.
Why didn't this realization upset him?
This new information wasn't going to stop him from achieving his dream. In fact, now that he had a better idea of how the Great Flow worked he could consciously use it to his advantage. He got what he wanted and it was mutual -not simply Fate. They both wanted this. This was making him excited.
The smile on her face was one he recognized. He had worn it when he was young whenever he had convinced others to his side. Mori was cut from the same cloth. She had agreed to have this conversation not just because of Ja'far's insistence; she was after the opportunity to clear up his misunderstanding about Fate.
((plz ignore that I forgot to draw my freckles in most of the shots and am too lazy to fix it.))
45 notes
·
View notes
Text
tiny love || vii
➵ as tooru’s younger sister, falling in love with iwaizumi hajime was easy. iwaizumi ultimately decided to rebuff you. through a few strange twists of fate, you’ve ended up living with the very boy who’d broken your heart. but, perhaps it’s not as bad as you thought it’d be. he is the perfect gentleman, after all.
warnings: f!reader, depictions of intoxication
wc: 5.2k
m.list | ch. 6 ↞ ch. 7 ↠ ch. 8
You peered at yourself in the mirror, doing your best to not crinkle your makeup.
It’d been a while since you’d bothered to dress up this nicely.
You were just wearing a simple yet flattering black dress, offset by your favourite shade of red lipstick. You weren’t sure if you actually looked good, or if it was just nicer than anything else you’d worn that week.
You’d sent a photo to Amaya, but upon receiving her affirmation you started to doubt the authenticity of it. Not that she’d given you reason to; no, you’d just decided that she was far too supportive to trust for an objective opinion.
You sighed, tilting your head to the side as you looked at the mirror.
Whatever, you thought. This’ll just have to do.
“I’m ready!” You called out, slipping into the front room after grabbing your handbag.
“Give me a moment,” Iwaizumi called out. The tinniness of his voice implied that he was still in the bathroom.
You sighed, taking a moment to check the contents of your bag. Phone, wallet, lipstick, mirror… That’s all you’d need, right?
“You got everything?” Iwaizumi asked, almost as if he’d appeared out of nowhere.
“Mhm!” You smiled, looking up at him.
You wondered, for a moment, if there was something on your face.
He was staring at you, his eyes a little wider and rounder than usual.
You tilted your head at him. “Everything okay?”
“Uh, yeah.” He blinked at you for a second, as if your words had shocked him back to the present moment. His eyes scanned your body slowly before lingering on your face again. “You look good.”
You hoped your foundation masked the heat rising in your cheeks.
It’s frustrating, how hot he looked without even trying. He was just in a black button up (the top few buttons undone, of course) and a pair of jeans, and yet he looked like that. He’d barely done anything to his hair, either; just a bit of gel, from the looks of things.
“Are you ready to go?” He asked, finally breaking the excruciating silence.
“Yeah,” you nodded. Stupid Iwaizumi Hajime with his stupid face and his stupid black button up and his stuck jeans and his stupid—
“I’ll drive,” he said, patting his jean pocket.
“Oh, are you sure?” You asked. “You don’t want to drink?”
“It’s fine. Someone’s got to keep an eye on you,” he grinned, throwing you a wink.
“Hey!” You whined. “You haven’t even seen me drunk!”
“Oh, so you do intend on getting drunk then?” He chuckled, heading for the apartment door.
You gaped for a moment, searching for a comeback. “Well, you’re the one who said that uni parties are for getting shit-faced.”
“That doesn’t mean you should get shit-faced, though.”
You rolled your eyes as you followed him. “Whatever you say, dad.”
✧ ✧ ✧
You hadn’t known what to expect from your first visit to a rooftop bar, but suffice to say you were impressed. When you’d asked Iwaizumi how the club had the budget to book somewhere this nice, he’d just shrugged.
“A lot of Japanese students, I guess,” was his only explanation.
Upon paying twenty-five dollars to officially ‘join’ at the door, you started to formulate a strong theory as to just where the club was getting its money.
There were far more people here than you’d anticipated. You knew it would be big, you hadn’t expected it to be this big. People were packed in like the clothes in your wardrobe, barely giving each other room to breathe. It was a sea of completely unrecognisable faces – and yet, seeing all these people who looked and sounded like you made you feel a little more at ease.
The music – which seems to be a mix of songs you don’t recognized – thumped loudly throughout the area. You wondered if there’d be any noise complaints.
Iwaizumi led you to the bar, managing to find two seats. You weren’t entirely sure how; you mostly chalked it up to the providence of God.
“I’m just going to go to the toilet, okay?” Iwaizumi said. “You’ll be alright on your own for a second, right?”
You nodded. “Don’t worry about me!”
Iwaizumi gave you a look as if to say ‘that’s impossible.’
You fought the urge to stick your tongue out at him. That would only elucidate his point.
After a few more moments of staring (under which you thought you were going to crumble to dust), Iwaizumi eventually disappeared into the crowd.
You sighed, placing your hands in your lap.
In all honesty, you didn’t know what to do. You felt it only right to stay where you were, mostly to avoid giving Iwaizumi a heart attack should he come back and see you weren’t there. But, you didn’t have the confidence to order a drink, either. Or get the bartender’s attention.
“Hey.”
A voice that somehow managed to make itself heard over the music startled you out of your thoughts.
You whipped your head round, only to see a guy you’d never met before sitting in Iwaizumi’s seat. He had soft features framed by a strong chin and wavy brown hair. If you had to guess, you’d say he was around your age.
“Hey,” you said automatically, relieved at the fact that he’d greeted you in Japanese.
“You speak Japanese?” He smiled.
“You’d assume so,” you smiled back. “Seeing as I’m here and all.” You gestured to the room around you. Underneath the music, you could make out a bubble of conversation – most of which was Japanese.
“Hey, a lot of second-gen immigrants don’t necessarily learn the language,” he shrugged. His entire demeanour was so… good-natured. So polite. Even if he had taken a seat without asking.
“Oh, really?” You hadn’t known that. Albeit, it wasn’t really something you’d thought about too much.
“Mhm,” he nodded. “I mean, that’s what my friend told me.”
“Ah,” you said.
“I’m Kohei, by the way,” he gave you a little nod.
You returned it as you introduced yourself.
“Nice to meet you,” he grinned. “What year are you in?”
“First,” you said. “I only got here a couple of weeks ago.”
“Oh!” His face lit up. “Me too!”
“Really?”
“Yeah! I’m from Tokyo!”
“Ah, so you’re a city boy,” you smiled.
He blushed a little. “Well, uh…”
“I’m from Miyagi,” you cut in. “Although, I did go to Sendai every now and then.”
“Oh, I never got the chance to visit,” he smiled. “What made you come to America?”
“I wanted to study psychology,” you answered. “I thought the options would be better here.”
“Ah,” he nodded. He had the sort of eyes that made him look like he was deeply engaged in whatever you were talking about.
“What about you?” You asked.
“Oh, I just wanted to come here for the adventure,” he said sheepishly.
“The ‘adventure’?” You smiled, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Yes,” he nodded. “I thought it would be cool. But… English is a bit tricky, isn’t it?”
You laughed. “Oh, yeah…”
A squeal of your name cut through the crowd.
You turned, bewildered and a little frightened.
“Hi!” Yuna beamed, throwing herself at you.
You instinctively wrapped your arms around her. From the flush in her cheeks, you could tell she’d already had a few.
“I’m so glad you came!” She whined. “And you look so pretty!”
You couldn’t help but laugh. “So do you!”
Yuna whined again, drawing back to pout at you. “Why didn’t you come and find me immediately?”
“I didn’t know you were here,” you laughed.
She narrowed her eyes at you. “Fair enough…” Her gaze snapped to Kohei, her glare getting more intense. “And who is this?”
“This is Kohei,” you said, leaving them to introduce themselves to each other.
You scanned the crowd, a frown forming. Where was Iwaizumi? He’d been gone a while… Or did it only feel like a while? If Yuna dragged you away, it may be hard to find him and assure him that you were okay, because you just knew he’d be developing an aneurism…
You caught sight of him. He gave you a tiny wave, an expression that looked something like relief on his face. That look alone was enough to soothe you.
Tonight was already shaping up to be a good time.
✧ ✧ ✧
“Can you stand?” Iwaizumi asked, watching you with an expression of disgruntled concern on his face.
“Yes,” you said with far too much emphasis. You pointed at him with one very obstinate finger.
Kohei had bought you a drink, and Yuna had challenged you to a line of shots. Mei had pointed out that perhaps you shouldn’t go overboard. You’d been adamant that you knew your limit. That’d been a big fat lie.
“Are you sure?” He asked again, taking a step towards you.
“Yes!”
As soon as you said it, you toppled left.
Iwaizumi grabbed you by your shoulders, stabilizing you.
“Whoops,” you pouted.
He sighed, releasing you. “You alright?”
You blinked at him for a second. “Iwa…”
“Mhm?”
“I don’t think I can stand.”
Iwaizumi bit the inside of his cheek. He was trapped somewhere between annoyance and burgeoning fondness.
“Alright,” he said, standing at your side. “Let me help.”
“Thank you,” you hummed, beaming at him as he leant down to drape one of your arms across his shoulders.
You leant your entire weight against him without warning.
He grunted, one arm grabbing your waist to keep you on your feet. “Careful now.”
“Sorry,” you whined. “I didn’t mean to…”
“I know,” Iwaizumi smiled, shaking his head. “Let’s get you back to the car, alright?”
“That is an excellent plan, Iwa. You should be proud.”
Oh, fuck, he thought. He just couldn’t keep that smile off his face.
✧ ✧ ✧
By some miracle, he managed to get you to the car in one piece.
Even better, the drive home had been relatively uneventful. You’d just babbled on about why Riza Hawkeye from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood was, in fact, the perfect woman. Iwaizumi had just smiled, nodding along whenever he was required to.
You still needed support getting up the stairs to your apartment; when you tried to take matters into your own hands, you always managed to trip.
But, finally, he’d gotten you both inside the house, your arm still draped over his shoulders and his arm still wrapped around your waist. It was, quite frankly, almost too much.
Iwaizumi sighed, opening your bedroom door with his free hand.
“But Iwa,” you whined, pouting up with him. “I need to have a shower.”
“You can’t stand up straight,” he chuckled. “You can have a shower in the morning.”
“But I’ve gotta wipe my makeup off,” you droned. “Or else I’ll get a breakout.”
“Hm…” He scanned your room, settling on the clutter of makeup on your desk. “Do you have anything you can wash your face with?”
The idea of you trying to stabilize yourself in the shower gave him more anxiety than he was comfortable with. You shouldn’t wake up with both a hangover and a concussion.
“Wipes?” You blinked, pointing at your desk.
Iwaizumi took a moment to find them. He assumed it was the little green packet that didn’t look familiar to him.
“Thanks,” you beamed up at him as he passed them to you.
He tried his best to ignore the squeezing in his heart as he noticed how your eyes sparkled as you looked at him.
You ignored him for a moment as you dealt with your makeup.
He looked away out of respect, eyes landing on the collage of photos stuck above your desk. He ambled towards them mindlessly, gazing at the myriad of images.
There were many faces he recognized. Tooru, Amaya, your mother, Kaori… He realised, not without a strange sharpness in his chest, that he only featured in a single photo. It was one from his graduation; one that you were both ‘obligated’ to be in.
But he knew his absence from these photos was his own doing. If he just hadn’t had been such an idiot, then…
“Is it gone?” You asked.
He turned back to you, biting back a laugh. “Uh… not quite.”
Your lipstick, which had already been in a poor state, was smeared all around your mouth, looking more like a rash. Your foundation was splotchy, some patches mostly removed and others untouched. And to top it all off, your mascara had been melted into a muddy puddle beneath your eyes.
Overall, you looked a bit like a raccoon he’d caught eating beetroots out of his garbage.
You whined, lying back on your bed.
“It’ll be fine,” he chuckled. “It’s just one night.”
“No, you don’t understand,” you emphasized, “makeup is bad for your skin.”
Iwaizumi grinned, grabbing what he assumed to be your pyjamas from the end of the bed and tossing them to you. “You’ll feel better if you change into something more comfortable.”
You glared at him from your horizontal position, the expression emphasised by a couple extra chins.
Iwaizumi left the room quickly and closed the door, making a beeline for the kitchen. He prepared you a glass of water, going through the checklist in his head of how to take care of someone well over their limit.
When he got back to your bedroom door, he was sure to knock.
He took the garbled ‘mhm!’ he got in response as affirmation.
He opened the door slowly, peeking round the door to see you sat cross-legged on the bed with a pout. From the looks of it, you’d put your top on backwards.
His heart thumped in that terrifyingly familiar way.
“Drink this,” he mumbled, handing you the glass.
You nodded, taking it with both hands and tipping it back with ferocity.
Iwaizumi gazed at his feet while he did so, trying to smother the burgeoning fondness in his chest.
He couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair.
“I’m done!” You called out in a sing-song voice, thrusting the empty cup towards him.
“Do you want some more?” He asked as he took the cup from you.
You beamed up at him. “Mhm!”
Iwaizumi sighed. He wasn’t going to say no to that face.
As he went to get you a second glass of water, he kept trying to push those sorts of thoughts out of his head.
He’d been doing so well. Of course, he’d wanted to be friends with you again. Being able to get along would be key to making this whole living situation work. But the closer he got, the more he was reminded of what had happened two years ago.
And like an idiot, he’d tried to position himself as someone you could rely on. He wanted to be someone you could rely on.
But was that because it was the right thing to do, or because of something else?
He shook his had and blinked rapidly. He’s just thinking these things because he’s had a bit to drink. That’s all. It’s nothing serious.
He kept repeating those thoughts as he dragged himself back to your room, determined not to succumb to them.
The last time he’d fallen into them, you’d completely excised each other from your lives. That wasn’t exactly an option here.
He took a deep breath as he stepped into your room, steeling himself for whatever was to come.
You were laid on your bed, limbs curled around one of your pillows. Were you asleep?
Well, he thought, that’s probably for the best.
Iwaizumi sighed, placing the water on your bedside table. Chances were, you were going to wake up with quite the headache. But, he supposed, it’s something of a learning experience. It’s good to know your limits.
He carefully picked up the corner of your blanket and tugged it over you. It was fall, after all. He didn’t want you catching a cold.
Once he was sure everything was in order, he flicked your light off and left, closing the door behind him.
A sudden wave of exhaustion hit him as he dragged himself back to his room. He didn’t dare check the time; he was sure it’d just upset him.
Better to just try and forget about this night and move on.
✧ ✧ ✧
After that party, you’d made a vow to never drink again.
The vow lasted for all about a week. Although, you were much more careful about just how much you were drinking at any given time.
You did, however, stick to your promise to never, ever sleep in your makeup ever again.
Though neither alcohol nor makeup had been an issue as of late.
You’d done your best to give yourself as much time as possible to work on your assignments, mainly so you could ensure that your language use was as proficient as possible. But, even that hadn’t been enough to stave off the beast that is procrastination.
The result, of course, was a flurry of three days wholly dedicated to one assignment about neurotransmitters. You were in total shutdown mode, nothing on your mind but getting this stupid thing done.
You’d even left your room and settled yourself at the dining table in an attempt to stop the ever-coaxing allure of your bed pulling you away from your work desk for yet another nap.
Oh, and texting Amaya at any given moment as a way of putting off your work.
Our time zones don’t line up that well, you kept telling yourself. It’s fine, I can justify this distraction.
“Hey.”
You looked up at Iwaizumi with a thoroughly worn-out expression on your face. “Hello.”
“You okay?” He chuckled.
“As much as I can be,” you whined, turning to glare your computer screen.
“Here,” he said, placing a glass of water and an apple on the desk next to you. You hadn’t even noticed that he had them.
Your heart thumped a funny little rhythm in your chest.
Sure, you were used to Iwazumi’s gentlemanly ways by now. But that didn’t mean your heart didn’t race a little faster at each little act of kindness.
“Keep your fluids up,” he said, nodding at the water. “If you get a headache, we have some Panadol in the cupboard.”
“Thank you,” you blushed.
“No problem,” he smiled, turning around to return to the kitchen.
A new chat lit up on the corner of your screen.
[Kohei] [7:03 PM] Hey! How’s your assignment going?
[You] [7:03 PM] It’s… going?
[Kohei] [7:04 PM] Ahaha oh dear… that doesn’t sound good
[You] [7:03 PM] I am, as the kids say, suffering
[Kohei] [7:03 PM] Oh, I’m so sorry :( is there anything I can do to help?
You sighed, rubbing your eyes. You just needed to get this stupid thing done. Then you’d finally be able to relax.
✧ ✧ ✧
You held your milk tea up to your face, peering at it closely.
“Something wrong?” Iwaizumi asked, raising an eyebrow at you. He was perfectly content with the grapefruit tea he’d ordered, as he usually was.
“I think they skimped on the pearls this time,” you mused.
Iwaizumi chuckled, shaking his head. “Need me to talk to them?”
“No!” You shook your head quickly, any sign of malice disappearing from your face. “No, please don’t!”
“I’m just teasing,” he grinned, flicking your forehead lightly.
“Ow!” You pouted, rubbing the besieged spot gingerly.
“No need to be dramatic.”
“Quite the contrary, actually,” you shook your head, “I’m in my youth. It’s the prime time to be dramatic.”
Iwaizumi gave you the kind of look that implied he had no idea what you were talking about. In truth, neither did you.
You were just in an uncommonly good mood.
The two of you were on your way to a club meeting, organised by the Japanese Students Association. In all honesty, you weren’t sure what the meeting was actually about. All you knew was that you’d been invited. Specifically. Even though you were still just a first year.
And apparently, your presence had been requested by Mei.
Meaning you were actually wanted there.
The thought made your chest bubble with joy. You were wanted somewhere. People wanted to see you. On your merits. Not because of the family you’d be born into.
Sure, knowing Iwaizumi had given you a leg up, but they weren’t obligated to spend time with you, right? Right?
“Hajime?”
You both stopped in your tracks, turning towards the source of this new voice.
It was a girl you didn’t recognise – although you had to admit that she was quite stunning. Her dark hair was tied up in an impressively neat high ponytail, and her red lipstick was impeccable. The look, if she was going for it, was definitely ‘I could kill a man with the mere snap of my fingers.’
“Oh,” Iwaizumi blinked.
Was he… caught of guard?
“Ah, it is you,” the girl smiled, tilting her head at him. “How are you?”
“Good,” he said quickly. You didn’t miss how his grip tightened around his cup.
The girl nodded, her eyes fixed intently on his face.
You felt a bit like you were intruding on something very personal.
“Who’s this?” The girl asked, her gaze shifting to you.
You froze, unsure of what to say.
“Uh, this is my friend,” Iwaizumi said, gesturing to you. “Who also happens to be my roommate.”
You nodded at this girl as Iwaizumi introduced you, trying to ignore the swell in your chest at the fact he’d introduced you as a ‘friend’ first and foremost.
“Ah,” the girl smiled, nodding. “I’m Misaki, by the way.”
The warmth that’d just been spreading through your chest turned cold.
“It’s nice to meet you,” you said automatically, trying to stave off whatever confusing mess of emotion was going on inside of you.
“You too,” Misaki smiled.
The three of you stood there for a moment, completely silent.
“We’re on our way to a meeting,” Iwaizumi said, clearing his throat.
“Oh, really?” Misaki blinked. “I’m sorry for taking up your time.”
“It’s no problem,” Iwaizumi shook his head, holding a hand up. “You didn’t know.”
“Right,” Misaki nodded slowly, looking between the both of you. “Well, see you around.”
“Yeah,” he murmured, turning to you. “We should get going,” He didn’t wait for your response, walking off at a slightly faster pace than usual.
“Right,” you nodded, falling into step alongside him.
His whole demeanour seemed… off. Like something had really bothered him. It didn’t take a genius to work out why. But, you thought it best to get the facts instead of relying on your own suspicions.
“So,” you began, once you were sure Misaki was safely out of earshot, “who is she?”
Iwaizumi cleared his throat, gaze stuck firmly to the ground. “Uh… she’s my ex.”
“Oh?” You replied. You didn’t want to seem too interested – even though, in fact, you were very interested.
“Yeah…” Iwaizumi nodded slowly. “We broke up a few months ago.”
“Oh…” You bit the inside of your cheek. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Iwaizumi shrugged. “We didn’t suit each other.”
“I see…” Break ups were entirely new territory for you. None of your friends had really dated in high school – and if they did, the breakup usually came as some sort of relief. Your friends had never asked for comfort even if you’d offered it.
But, seeing how the two of them had just interacted with each other…
“How long were you together?” You asked. Was that too invasive? You weren’t sure.
“About six months.”
You tried to ignore the stabbing in your gut. Six months? Six months? Sure, that might not be that long in the grand scheme of things, but it sure sounded like a long time to you. You hadn’t even been living with Iwaizumi for six months.
“Ah…” You pressed your lips together, brow furrowing as you searched for what to say. “If you need to talk to someone about it…”
“Don’t worry about it,” Iwaizumi smiled. “Really, I’m over it. I just didn’t expect to run into her today.”
You nodded. “That’s fair.”
“Usually I’d get a heads up before seeing her,” he shrugged.
“Huh?”
“Well, uh…” He cleared his throat. “We see each other at events, sometimes. For the Japanese Association.”
“Oh?” Now that piqued your interest.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “We actually met through it.”
Something twisted in your stomach. They’d met through the Student Association? It shouldn’t have made the thought of going to events weird, and yet it did.
“Oh really?” You asked, trying to seem unbothered.
“Mhm,” Iwaizumi nodded. “A lot of people end up finding a partner there.”
You frowned. Were you expected to find a partner there? Would you find a partner there?
Maybe you would. Maybe you’d finally find someone to date.
Although, you weren’t sure how anyone was supposed to measure up to Iwaizumi. Especially when he was standing right there.
“Anyway,” he sighed, picking up his pace. “We’ll be late.”
“Right,” you nodded, scurrying after him.
All you could hope for was to be able to push the thought of Misaki out of your head.
It felt petty, childish. You shouldn’t’ve been so concerned with Iwaizumi’s love life; his dating history shouldn’t matter to you.
But the questions swirled in your head as the two of you rushed across campus.
Had he dated anyone other than Misaki? Had he loved her? How far had they gone together? Did he miss her? Did he ever think about her?
Or, worse yet, was he on the look-out for someone else?
✧ ✧ ✧
“It’s not that hard once you understand the basics,” Iwaizumi said.
“Right,” you nodded, watching his hands intently as he sliced up an onion.
“If you place your hand like this,” he said, fist placed on the onion so that his knuckles ghosted the knife, “you’re less likely to cut yourself.”
“Ah,” you marvelled. “That’s actually a really helpful tip.”
“I know,” he grinned. “That’s why I’m sharing it with you.”
You rolled your eyes.
Iwaizumi moved onto the carrots, which you’d peeled yourself. Maybe you were a bit too proud, given the size of the task, but he let you get away with it.
He chopped the carrots with his typical proficiency.
You rested your elbows on the countertop, propping your chin up on the palms of your hands.
“We should have a dinner party,” you suggested, the image of all your shared friends gathered round your table, laughing and smiling, filling your heart with a precious warmth.
“That’s not what uni students usually do,” Iwaizumi smiled. “Not in America, anyway.”
“So?” You turned to him with a defiant expression. “We can all pretend to be upper-middle class for the evening,” you opined, tilting your chin at him. “It’ll be fun.”
“I’ll think about it,” Iwaziumi smiled.
“Pft,” you scoffed, shaking your head. “Like it’s up to you. I can just hold one without you.”
You wouldn’t really do that. You’d met them through him, after all.
“Yeah?” Iwaizumi grinned, a certain glint in his eyes. “What’re you going to serve everyone? Burnt rice?”
“Hey!” You whined. “It was one time!”
“How do you even burn rice?” Iwaizumi teased.
You pouted, lifting your fist and lightly punching him in the chest.
“You’re going to have to do better than that, sweetheart,” he laughed, puffing his chest out proudly. “I barely even felt that.”
“Fine.” You went for another swing.
Iwaizumi caught your wrist, holding it above your head in a gentle grip.
You swung with your other hand, only for him to catch that one, too.
You glared at him – but you know he’s aware that you’re just having a bit of fun.
“You’re the worst and I hate you,” you huffed.
“Keep telling yourself that,” he smirked.
You tried to think of some retort, some witticism that’d catch him off guard.
Nothing came to mind. Not when you were so close to him, his hands wrapped around your wrists as he looked at you with that expression. Stupid Iwaizumi Hajime and his stupid face and his stupid voice and his stupid—
You brought your knee up to his stomach, making him flinch.
His stumbled backwards and you tried to tug your wrists away. But his grip was too strong, even when he wasn’t trying all that hard.
“Stop,” you whined. “Let me go.”
“Say sorry.”
“For what?”
“Punching me.”
“Oh, come on,” you pouted at him. “It didn’t even hurt.”
“And?” He raised an eyebrow at you. “It’s about the principle of it.”
“Of punching you?”
“Mhm. It’s not very polite.”
You tried to tug away again. Your mind was wandering much too far. Farther than it should.
“Brattiness is an inherited trait,” you said, “it’s just part of being an Oikawa.”
Iwaizumi chuckled, finally letting you go.
Maybe the implication of your brother was enough to do it.
“You might be right about that,” he teased.
You stuck your tongue out at him petulantly.
Don’t make it hard for yourself, you thought. Not again.
✧ ✧ ✧
The sound of some generic eighties rock band bounced through your apartment as you and Iwaizumi tended to the DVD rack stood next to the TV.
“You have the taste of an old man,” you teased, glancing at Iwaizumi out the corner of your eye.
“These are classics,” Iwaizumi tsked.
“Kohei described them as ‘dad bands,’” you hummed.
“And why should this Kohei’s opinion matter more than mine, hm?”
“I never said it did,” you grinned, moving the DVD for Ferris Buller’s Day Off to its designated genre category. Why Iwaizumi had spent so much money on DVDs, you didn’t know. You would’ve thought that they’d just provide more clutter, especially if he planned on moving back to Japan.
You’d just surmised that it had something to do with his natural ineptitude with technology.
“What does this ‘Kohei’ even listen to?” Iwaizumi asked.
You shrugged. “I don’t know, actually.”
“You know, you’ll look back at the music of this decade and realise most of it’s garbage,” Iwaizumi grunted.
“Okay, grandpa.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know you are,” you grinned, “you’ve got that look on your face.”
Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow at you. “What look?”
“You know,” you giggled, turning to face him. “This look.”
You drew your eyebrows together a little, narrowing your eyes just enough to make them a bit more intense. To finish it off, you turned the corners of your mouth down, performing your best impression of a certified ‘Serious Iwaizumi.’
He flicked your forehead gently, a fond smile on his face. “I don’t look like that.”
“Oh, but you do,” you stressed. “You’re going to get premature wrinkles if you’re not careful.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he shrugged. “At least I’ll have my arms.”
You couldn’t argue with that. The only thing left to do was return to your task, hoping that the very invasive thought of Iwaizumi’s well-built arms would get out of your head.
There was a tap on your shoulder.
“Hm?” You turned to look at him.
He held up two DVD cases. “Blade Runner, or Back to the Future?”
You glanced between the two of them intently. “Huh?”
“We should take a break,” he suggested.
“Ah,” you nodded. “Which one’s less depressing?”
“Uh…” Iwaizumi looked between the two of them. “Back to the Future. Definitely.”
“I wanna watch that one, then.”
Iwaizumi nodded, turning around and turning the TV on.
You bit the inside of your cheek. Watching a movie with Iwaizumi, huh? Now that was dangerous territory. This time, at least, you knew to put a pillow between the two of you.
#iwaizumi x reader#iwaizumi hajime x reader#iwaizumi x you#iwaizumi hajime x you#iwaizumi hajime#haikyuu x reader#tiny love#an hour and 20 minutes late but it's up#sorry about that lads
432 notes
·
View notes
Text
Blood Bound: Red Strings of Fate (Ch 8)
Warnings: Action, Coarse Language, Fighting, Descriptions of Blood
Previous Chapter: Bird of Flame
Next Chapter: Wait For Me
Tags: Soulmates AU, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Fem!Reader
Taglist: @lessie-oxj @rizzo-nero @whoreuc @fkngkumiko @isl3t @gojoussunglasses @onepotatostand-blog @s-t-f-u-b-i-t-c-h @sunaswife
Notes: If you want to be tagged for every update, please mention it in the comments below ty <3
Ayiieee, this is a very big and significant chapter in the story. At 2.6k words it probably is the longest chapter in the book lol. Happy reading uwu. Feel free to yell in the comments^^
Chapter 8: Red Strings of Fate
You brought over the book you had on alternate worlds. It wasn't much help. Talking about how a mirror dimension existed.
Another you is possibly alive in the next universe, but with different circumstances due to a difference in choices made or the environment and all that.
You quickly made your way to the library. Once you arrived, you looked around for Noritoshi. You couldn't find him for the first 5 minutes and thought that he wasn't there yet.
But suddenly two hands placed themselves on either side of your shoulder. You could feel the heat emanating from the body behind you. This feeling… "Noritoshi senpai?"
"Mmmm." You turned around and looked up to see him with a small quirk in his lips. His eyes sparkled with excitement (which was a rare sight to see).
"Come." He led you by your elbow to the desk where books were all spread out. "I did some research and looked into the vision we had on the first day we met." He said as you both took your seats.
"It is possible we had visions of an alternate world. But it's now highly unlikely because of the marks that appeared on our wrists earlier. May I?" He gestured to your hand.
You nodded and handed it to him. He held it so gently, his touch making you shiver slightly. You tried to play it cool, but his eyes shot up to yours and you flushed.
He turned your wrist around to reveal the Phoenix branded on it. It glowed bright red as he stroked it with his thumb. You felt all tingly inside.
He brought out his wrist and put it beside yours. The Phoenix markings were identical in size and shape. But his wasn't glowing yet.
You reached out your hands this time to take his. "May I?" He nodded and you examined his wrist, then ran your thumb over his marking.
As you both expected, it glowed bright red. "So.. what does this mean? For the both of us?" You asked him meekly.
He sighed and took your hands in his. Both of your markings stayed bright red as you held hands. "I've been reading up on soulmates-"
"I know, you took all the books. I couldn't find any when I tried to look it up." You pouted. He chuckled at that. His fingers were now playing and slightly fiddling with yours.
"I think we might still be needing more proof, but this is pretty strong. I asked around the Kamo household as well, and they were able to find out that soulmate bonds are established when red strings actually literally come into existence and bind two people together." Noritoshi continued. He then proceeded to show you all his findings and the books he had so far.
"Hmmmm?? So we are or we aren't?" You pulled back from him, looking confused. "I think we are. My clan has confirmed for me that having past life visions, shared markings, and visible red strings tying two people together makes up a soulmate pair. It seems like we need a bit more time for the strings to manifest." He hummed, reaching over to take your hands into his again.
“Sorry I took time to confirm before I could talk to you about this. It’s been weeks since our first shared vision and I’ve been swamped with clan affairs.” Noritoshi admitted.
You shook your head, “No senpai, I was also doing my research on this. It seems unusual, even for jujutsu sorcerers to have such a shared experience so I could only talk to my family about it. We considered the possibility of seeing an alternate timeline as well, so I couldn’t make any immediate assumptions.”
“You were able to find more than I did though senpai. My parents said soulmates are able to share emotions and possibly thoughts. But that’s rare even for soulmates. I only heard about sharing past life visions, we couldn’t find anything on the marks and red strings. Real soulmates are so rare and interesting; they are said to give birth to children with powerful cursed techniques." You mused while linking and unlinking your fingers through his.
You both stared down at your hands, fingers entwined with each other, marks glowing a low red. It felt warm to hold his hand in yours. Noritoshi was so careful, cradling and caressing your fingers like they were made of glass. His hands were much bigger than yours.
"Thinking that far ahead already? I would like a baby boy." Noritoshi looked at you with a mischievous look in his eyes. You pushed at his chest. "Who said anything about wanting children?"
He looked at you with the most gentle eyes only reserved for you. "Only time will tell what happens, dear y/n."
◇◇◇
The next day, your fellow first years gathered around you (ambushed you??) before the start of class. “Y/n, is something going on between you and Noritoshi?” Mai asked.
“Ahhh uhmm no nothing really.” You were lying through the skin of your teeth here, with the secret of the century literally branded on your skin. “Awwwww, and I thought you looked cute together.” Miwa gushed with a smile.
Mechamaru felt oddly out of place with the girl’s gossip, but he still spoke up “Kamo san seems to favor you from what I see. But hey that’s just me.”
You blushed and sputtered out. Curse you and your honest demeanour. “No, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Hmmmmmmm” Mai stared at you from upclose, seemingly trying to psychoanalyse you. “We’ll see who’s right with time.”
You just laughed nervously, shaking her off. “Mai chan, you’ve been watching too many dramas. I’ll watch one with you later.” And with that you’ve successfully managed to distract your fellow first years into talking about having a movie night. Whew.
◇◇◇
Days passed and still no red strings appeared. You and Noritoshi agreed to take things slow as this is both incredibly new to you. But you had something else to look forward to.
You were finally assigned to your first mission. Luckily (or not? Thanks to Utahime’s suspicions over your relationship) Noritoshi was chosen to accompany you to exorcise a group of 2nd grade curses together.
The night was dark. Now that you’re both out in the forest, the distant lights from the city started to dim. “Watch your step.” Noritoshi warned you. You giggled at him and flew above the branches as he stared slightly affronted. “You should watch your step, Noritoshi senpaiii~,” you sing-songed.
‘How could she have such a cheerful disposition at a time like this?’ he wondered. “Stay close to me.” He ordered. Now knowing that you were a Special Class Jujutsu sorcerer definitely didn’t help his ego in wanting to show off a bit. But he can show it through years of experience.
You smiled at his protectiveness and hovered near him, holding onto his sleeve as usual. Suddenly a black mass came hurtling towards the two of you. Noritoshi prepped his bow and arrows, while you stopped its movement.
You brought it close to you and examined it. "Looks toxic." You said. A screech caught your attention and Noritoshi launched an arrow towards the source of the sound.
The Grade 2 curse jumped out of the shadows, shrieking out loudly causing both of your ears to hurt. It had fast movements, tossing out globs of toxic sludge while rapidly moving through the woods.
You placed one arm around Noritoshi's chest, while the other stretched out towards the grade 2 curse, blocking off all the attacks. “While I’m with you, the attacks won’t reach us senpai. I’ll cover the entirety of our defense.”
Noritoshi smiled and easily manipulated his arrows to hit the curse. It disappeared in a flash. You both turned and smiled at each other. “Well done my dear.” He said.
“You were amazing as well, senpai! But I sense more cursed spirits up ahead. We need to have a look.” You sighed, to which he agreed. You both moved forward until you came to a clearing, which led to a cliff with a sheer drop.
The stench of cursed spirits was almost unbearable, and two more came out rushing at the both of you. They seemingly appeared from the ground, but you noticed how they moved with the shadows.
You quickly pulled out your twin blades and cut one with ease. Noritoshi stayed right behind you, guarding your back as he forced back the other curse with his blood manipulation.
In all the confusion, a massive curse loomed over Noritoshi. It was definitely a grade 1 curse at least, which both of you were not expecting. It had the shape and body of a scorpion, but the face of a white tiger with long blood-red fangs.
It reared up, running towards Noritoshi. So your body acted on pure instinct. “Extension cursed technique: Niflheim”, you froze the curse then rushed towards it.
You tackled the cursed spirit without thinking and plunged your twin swords through its gut while slipping off the edge of the cliff. It faded out of existence as you plunged down.
All your life, you’ve been this carefully crafted, logical, and steady person that is built from hard work and experience.
And yet all of that just flew out of the window when you saw Noritoshi in possible danger. As you fell down, you could hear Noritoshi screaming for your name.
You tried to lift your body with your cursed technique. You slowly gained traction upwards, until red strands of blood wrapped around you.
"Blood Manipulation: Crimson Binding!" Noritoshi chanted and reached down to quickly pull you up. You landed on the hard ground and he released his technique as soon as you were in the clear.
"Are you insane?! Pushing it and jumping off the cliff to exorcise it?! There are so many other ways to take it down with your technique. And I could have dealt with binding it before exorcising it! Why on earth?" Noritoshi gasped out.
He was absolutely livid, red faced and eyes wide open. And that was a major understatement. You just sat on the ground, shell shocked at your own actions and at the way he was yelling your head off.
You messed up big time, and you know this because Noritoshi never raises his voice towards you.
"Why did you risk your life for me?! I could have handled that. And you don't even know me." Noritoshi’s voice was growing hoarse. You felt your throat close up and body tense. It felt like he punched you in the gut. He wasn't entirely wrong. You just met him, and you already put your life at risk to save the man.
But his words stung. They echoed in your mind and heightened your insecurities. It was like he was putting an invisible wall between the both of you. 'You don't know me.' 'I thought I did, or at least it felt like we did with each other'.
Realising that you stayed silent, you looked up at him to see his angry expression growing into something else, like worry.
You quickly smoothed yourself over. "No, apparently I don't. I’m sorry for not knowing you." But you didn't apologise for saving him. That's one thing you would never apologise for. Because that's one of your duties.
A flash of regret appeared across his face. Noritoshi came close to you and took your hands in his and looked into your eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the red strings that burst forth from your joined hands.
You stared in wonder as they wrapped around both your shoulders and bodies to bind you close to each other. You flushed as you stared up at him agape. His eyes were focused on the moving and glowing threads around the two of you before he turned to look at you.
Your eyes met once more and you were thrown into another vision.
"My love, how are you feeling?" A man was sitting beside your bed. You had bandages on your arms and everything felt so heavy. “I’m much better, as a matter of fact I think I could go out right now and get some sunshine.” You smiled.
The man gave the most exasperated sigh, "You're far too reckless. Testing your luck every time. Please, let me protect you and stay by your side."
“Yes yes. Of course, I will always stay by your side. And protect you."
"Protecting me shouldn't entail giving your life up for me. We stay alive together." He said angrily.
"Okay. It's okay." You soothed the man. "We will survive." You whispered as he leaned down to catch your lips tenderly in his.
For all his stoic behaviour, he kissed you so lovingly. Rubbing your back and patting your head softly. You turned to bury your face in the crook of his neck and pressed a deep kiss there.
"Read me a story." You asked him after a period of silence.
He brought out your favorite novel about a Princess who was sent down as a blessing from the Moon. Her father found her inside a bamboo shoot.
She was to live the life of a human, but eventually had to go back up to the heavens.
Unfortunately, she loved her human parents who spoiled her and raised her like a princess. And parting with them was terribly painful.
"I don't know why you enjoy such a depressing story." He sighed after he had finished. His lashes were so long that they were almost resting on his cheekbones.
"It's because their love is beautiful. The love that the daughter had for her parents. The love she had on earth, before she forgot everything and had to return to the moon." You dreamily explained.
He smiled. "Ever such a romantic, my love. I should do better in our relationship to please you."
You snorted, "No you've done well. It is fine as we are." You elbowed him jokingly.
But he turned to you so seriously, "I love you so much, my dear. You don't-"
The vision ends abruptly before the man could end his sentence. Your arms were now wrapped around Noritoshi's waist and his were around yours. You simply stared at each other for a while.
"Noritoshi senpai… so it's true, you're my other half." You murmured. Your pinkies were linked by the red flowing thread.
He hugged you tightly. "Yeah. And you're mine."
Everything was very quiet. You felt his nervousness, but it felt right. To hold him in your arms like this. It was like you found a piece to yourself that was missing all your life.
Noritoshi carefully brushed away the hair from your face, before leaning down to press his slightly shaky lips against your cheek. It was such a sweet gesture that you leaned to it.
You both were clearly out of your element. The idea of being in a relationship was very new to you. You've never dated before, but all the sudden the heavens dropped your soulmate right into your lap.
"Don't ever do that again." He said, lips brushing against your cheek.
You blinked. "What?"
"I won't blame you for trying to protect me. But think properly and don't be reckless when you act. I'm capable and strong as well. I don't want you to get hurt." He said.
His earlier words came rushing back to you. ‘You don’t know me.’ Your heart dropped. But you replied, "Okay Senpai."
He pulled you up as the red strings faded from view, "Let's patrol the area to make sure everything is clear then head back."
Blood Bound: Table of Contents
#kamo noritoshi x you#blood bound#red strings of fate#kamo noritoshi x y/n#noritoshi fluff#jjk fanfic#jjk x reader#jjk x you#jujutsu kaisen#jujutsu kaisen fluff#jjk imagines#noritoshi x you#noritoshi x y/n#noritoshi x reader#kamo noritoshi x reader#news#jujutsu kaisen fanfic
62 notes
·
View notes
Text
Signs of Jesus return
i felt lead recently to compile some of the signs and current events pointing to Jesus’ soon return. i don’t know who this is meant for, but i know it’s for someone. so i hope that whoever reads this finds it helpful and informative 💙 (this is not complete either, as there are too many to list)
The Fig Tree Generation:
Jesus often used a fig tree to describe the country of Israel in His prophecies. “Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things, you can know His return is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass from the scene until all these things take place.” (Matthew 24:32-34)
In Psalm 90, Moses describes a generation being “70-80 years,' and Isaiah 66:7-8 says, “Before the birth pains even begin, Jerusalem gives birth to a son. Who has ever seen anything as strange as this? Who ever heard of such a thing? Has a nation ever been born in a single day? Has a country ever come forth in a mere moment?” This did happen. In 1948, Israel became a nation in a day, after almost 2000 years. Israel needed to be a nation to fulfill its part in the Tribulation, so the countdown couldn't start without them. The imagery of birth pains is used in the Bible to describe the troubles that the world will go through before the Day of the Lord, meaning Israel must become a nation before the Lord's return.
1948+80 year generation= 2028. But since Jesus said “everything” (Rapture and Tribulation) would happen before the fig tree generation passed away (turns 81), we have to take away 7 years from the 2028 final count. That leads us to 2021-May 2022 approximately (right before they turn 74).
The Jewish Temple:
The book of Daniel speaks of the time during the 7 year Tribulation, when the Antichrist will come and take over Israel. “The ruler will make a treaty with the people for a period of one set of seven, but after half this time, he will put an end to the (daily) sacrifices and offerings. And as a climax to all his terrible deeds, he will set up a sacrilegious object that causes desecration, until the fate decreed for this defiler is finally poured out on him.” (Daniel 9:27) “The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about- the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place.” (Matthew 24:15)
The second Jewish Temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., and hasn't been rebuilt since. The Holy Place is a specific spot inside the Temple, and the daily sacrifices and offerings that go along with the Jewish Law are only performed with the Temple in use.
As of 2021, the preparations for the Third Temple are nearly complete. The plans are laid out, the priests have been trained in the rules and rituals, the materials are all gathered. One source even says that theoretically the Temple could be built in a matter of 3-6 months. All they are waiting for is the go ahead. Those of the Jewish faith don't believe that Jesus is their Messiah, and many expect that the building of Third Temple will coincide with their own messiah making his appearance.. It's noteworthy that they're so close to building it after all this time.
The Abraham Accords:
In September 2020 the Abraham Accords were officially signed, setting up a peace deal with multiple Middle Eastern countries, including the United States. Since then other countries have added themselves to the peace treaty. There hasn't been a deal like this in the Middle East in a long time, much less centered around Israel. When the Antichrist comes to power, he strengthens a treaty or proposal of peace that already exists, and so the Abraham Accords have come at a significant time.
“Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom (ethnicity) against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, and there will be famines and plagues in many lands, and there will be terrifying things and great miraculous signs from heaven.” (Luke 10-11)
Wars:
So many of the great wars in history have been within the last hundred years. War is not an uncommon thing for humanity, but the impact is much greater now, as is the frequency of wars on the horizon. Currently, many of the World Powers are already declaring war and/or making preparations. China threatening war against Taiwan and it's allies, Iran desiring to destroy the US and wipe Israel out as a nation, and many more threatened. It's not a question of if but of when.
Earthquakes:
The frequency of earthquakes has drastically gone up over the last couple years, not only in numbers but also in magnitude power. As I'm writing this (8/22/2021), we've had over twelve 7.0+ earthquakes in the last two weeks. That's not a normal level, not even taking into account all the earthquakes of lower magnitudes. Volcanic activity is rising as well. Many volcanoes that were previously thought to be dormant are awakening, some even erupting. Iceland's volcano Fagradalsfjall was thought to be dormant for 6000 years, until it erupted last March. (“Dutchsinse” on Youtube is a good source for seismic activity.)
Famines:
Because of the change in weather patterns, with flooding and wildfires and droughts, many of the worlds “bread baskets” (where a large portion of their food is grown) are not producing enough food. A shortage is already coming on America, not to mention all the other nations that are in the midst of one. Greece, Turkey, Australia, Italy, California and Oregon (US) are all burning at record rates. And mass flooding is impacting just as much area, like Indonesia, China, New York (US), Haiti, Germany, and more.
Plagues/ Diseases:
Everyone is aware of the effect of the C Virus on the world, and now a new variant is appearing. Diseases like Ebola and the Bubonic Plague are re-emerging. Animals are experiencing these effects as well. Massive animal die offs are happening all over the world, from mysterious diseases and unknown causes. Various plagues have swarmed countries, for instance the mass attacks of locusts that have eaten through parts of Africa, and the infestation of billions of mice in Australia.
Signs in the Heavens:
“And I will cause wonders in the heavens and on the earth- blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and terrible day of the Lord arrives.” (Joel 2:30-31)
As I mentioned earlier, volcanoes all over the world are waking up and erupting at an alarming rate. The super volcano centered in Yellowstone Wyoming (US) has been showing worrying signs of stirring as well.
In 2014, two Blood Moons landed on two of God's Feasts, which carry significance. Then in 2015 there was a Solar Eclipse, followed by another two Blood Moons that landed on the same Feasts as the previous year. In 2017, the Great American Solar Eclipse drew a line across the US. In 2020, the “Bethlehem Star” made an appearance as Jupiter and Saturn almost merged in the sky. Though it's not the same cosmic event as the true “Star” that heralded Christ's birth, its rarity and symbolism is important. This August 2021 we just had a rare Blue Moon.
The Revelation 12 Sign:
“Then I witnessed in heaven an event of great significance. I saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant, and she cried out because of her labor pains and the agony of giving birth.” (Revelation 12:1-2)
In September 2017, this sign appeared in the sky for the first time ever. The constellation Virgo represents the woman, and the nine stars of Leo plus 3 wandering stars lined up as her crown. The moon was near her feet in the constellation and the sun was at her shoulder shining on her “clothes.” Then Jupiter entered the middle of the constellation (her stomach) and stayed there for nine months and left. Jupiter is generally considered to represent a ruler, and the child in Revelation is believed to represent the Church (Jesus' Body). The rest of Revelation 12: 3-5 speaks of the child being snatched away from the Dragon (the devil), which represents the Rapture of the Church before the Tribulation. So it's incredibly significant that the first part of this prophecy was fulfilled in the stars.
(There's also a type of 4 year grace period before judgment in scripture (Luke 13:6-9), so 2017+ 4 years warning = 2021).
The Vaxx System:
“He required everyone- small and great, rich and poor, free and slave- to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing the name.” (Revelation 13:16-17)
This is not about whether or not to take the vaxx, it's about the mentality around it. The animosity in the world media keeps growing towards those who don't wish to take it. The results don't add up to how single minded they are becoming, and it's easily paving the way for regulations to be carried out by brute force. There are stricter and stricter limitations to those who don't feel safe taking it, like being unable to shop at a grocery story or go to work... In the future, the world won't blink twice about a universal Mark of much greater magnitude and greater consequences. The consequences of refusing won't just mean an inability to buy or sell, but death.
Alien Disclosure:
As of 2021, the US government has released the information they have on Unidentified Flying Objects, confirming the possibility of aliens. The first main stream event involving the alien conspiracy was the Roswell Incident of 1947, about a year before Israel became a nation. The reason why this is so significant is because 1) the Fig Tree prophecy was about to start when Israel revived, beginning the End Times countdown and 2) 2 Thessalonians 2:11 says the people left after the Rapture will believe a “Great Delusion.” Even a couple years ago, the thought of aliens coming down and taking people away would have been laughed at, but not now. Satan is the Prince of the Air; he uses his demons and spirits to appear as other things, so as to lead people away from the Truth of God. He knew when Israel became a nation the clock was ticking for the need of a believable lie. Now people could easily believe that all the Christians that disappeared were “beamed up” by aliens. (We don't know specifically what the Delusion will be yet, but this is certainly a possibility.)
Dreams and Visions:
“ 'In the Last Days,' God says, 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophecy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out My Spirit even on my servants- men and women alike- and they will prophecy.' “ (Acts 2:17-18)
Around the end of 2019 to the beginning of 2020, End Times dreams skyrocketed. The sheer amount that can be found on Youtube is astounding and it continues to grow. Dreams about the Rapture, dreams from Jesus, dreams about disasters that are coming; people from all over the world are sounding the alarm. And these aren't internet celebrities or self proclaimed prophets; these are every day normal people, some of which weren't even Christian to begin with. The amount of non-Believers that have had Jesus appear to them to save them continues to grow as well.
I personally felt an awakening through the Holy Spirit sometime around early 2020, that Jesus was returning soon. And the more I've studied Bible prophecies and current events I know that it's fast approaching. Although it's important to test the spirits of dreams to see if it's really from God or not, the message of the majority is clear. Time is short.
(This was just a small selection of the MANY signs that God continues to send as warnings. The frequency and intensity is rising like it never has before. A more in depth list can be found, along with Bible references and news sources, at https://www.ithasbeenwritten.com/ )
To You:
For those of you who are un-Believers, I am not writing this to be a fear monger. When evidence and reports come in that there's a bomb in a building, the people inside need to know about it. Even if it ends up being fake, the risk isn't worth it. This isn't just one fanatic Christian with a dream trying to convince everyone the end is near, this is the whole world. No matter what you believe about Bible prophecies, these current events are real things that are happening, and show no signs of slowing down. The good news is that Jesus died to save you from all this. He died to clear our sin debt and give us the hope of Heaven, a place we could never get to on our own. And His signs are saying He's coming soon to rescue everyone who accepted His sacrifice and entered His family.
“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)
For those Believers that don't think Jesus is returning soon, please pray about it and study His word. He was angry at the Pharisees of the generation of His first coming, because He said, “You know how to interpret the weather signs in the sky, but you don't know the how to interpret the signs of the times!” (Matthew 16:3).
Matthew 24's “no one knows the day/hour” is not saying that we won't know the season in which He will return. If it were, He wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of giving so many signs of the closeness of the event. “So you, too, must keep watch! For you don't know what day your Lord is coming.” (Matthew 24:42) “But you aren't in the dark about these things (signs), dear brothers and sisters, and you won't be surprised when the Day of the Lord comes like a thief.” (1 Thessalonians 5:4) Are you watching? Let's do our best to be a light as much as possible before it's too late.
“So when all these things begin to happen, stand and look up, for your salvation draws near!” (Luke 21:28)
#Christianity#Jesus Christ#faithstuff#bible verse#revelation#salvation#The Rapture#end times#the tribulation
37 notes
·
View notes
Text
TOP 10 TV SHOWS I WATCHED IN 2020
1. Dear White People
This show goes on the top tier of my favorite shows ever. It’s been around since 2017 (after the eponymous movie of 2014) but only this year I finally got the chance to watch it. Truly one of the best written shows I’ve ever seen, with such compelling characters and story. While I love to watch series with hard hitting social topics, it’s usually very emotionally exhausting for me. However, DWP manages to balance the gravity of its plot with a bright outlook. Besides, I always love to see different characters’ perspectives so the format of DWP is extremely engaging.
2. Grand Army
Grand Army is not your typical teen drama. It’s very raw and real. Five protagonists pull you into the story, and whether you hate them or love them, they don’t let you go. All characters feel like actual people you could know in real life. The show talks about racism, terrorism, sexual assault, white feminism, poverty, homophobia, bullying and more. I also love the way the show uses phones and social media, which you rarely get to see in teen shows. It doesn’t feel glossy or over dramatic. It does get graphic and dark, but it makes you care about the fate of its characters. Here, we also get to see five different perspectives. That and the rawness reminded me of SKAM, although GA is way less cheerful. It could also be compared to Euphoria with it’s portrayal of real issues, but I feel like GA hits the spot much better (and has more diversity).
Finding out that the creator is racist, upon finishing the binge, left me shocked and quite conflicted. I hope they will change the showrunner for season 2 (if it gets renewed).
3. The Great
I’m not much of a period drama fan but this one’s no typical historical shows. It plays around historical figures, but you shouldn’t take that too seriously, just like the show itself. It’s a great (haha get it) fun to watch. The combination of comedy with the actual life or death peril creates a unique experience. Each episode the tables turn, you feel both, betrayed and enticed. Not to mention, Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult’s chemistry and performances are phenomenal. Overall, it feels like a strawberry blew up in your mouth (take it however you want).
4. Dickinson
Dickinson is similar to The Great in a sense of historical accuracy. And I’m grateful for it, because seeing the 19th century nobility twerking at a party was something that brought me an immense amount of joy. Of course, you get to see Emily Dickinson’s poetic and original inner world, which is handled quite creatively.
5. The Queen’s Gambit
This is just a very well written, portrayed and produced story. Even if you feel like it wouldn’t be your cup of tea (I mean a period piece about chess? Come on), chances are once you put the show, you won’t be able to stop. It’s a limited series with a star struck cast which pretty much reads like a prolonged film. It’s also pretty suitable to watch with your family, if usually you struggle to find a common interest.
6. Julie and the Phantoms
This show certainly exceeded everyone’s expectations. It may seem like a typical kids show, but it’s smart, deep and entertaining. The music is incredible and it’s impossible not to fall in love with characters. Also, here’s the proof that your show doesn’t need to have graphic scenes and oversexualized underaged characters to be good.
7. Saved By the Bell: the reboot
So I didn’t watch the original show, but the reboot caught my attention mostly because of Josie Totah, and because the vibe of the show just felt like something I would like. And I was absolutely right. Perhaps it’s not everyone’s cup of tea (and what is?) but to me it’s hilarious. A sort of heart-warming witty little show with gen z humor and interesting diverse characters. Definitely my new comfort show. And Lexi’s my queen.
8. Outer Banks
Released during self-isolation it became a way for the viewers to live vicariously through the risky outdoor adventures. Perhaps, that’s why it’s such a hit and a bit overrated. Don’t get me wrong, I really liked (why do you think it’s on this list). It’s not an outstanding show, might be cheesy and raise some questions (like how can they all be teenagers looking like that?) but it’s entertaining and engaging, and sometimes that’s all you need.
9. I am not okay with this
Let’s take a moment of silence for this amazing show being cancelled. Do you like Teotfw or Stranger Things, or better yet both? This show’s for you! It’s unique, dynamic, feels like you’re reading a comic book. Has a certain mystery to it and its own distinct voice. It also feels retro and nostalgic, even though it’s set in modern day.
10. Love, Victor [SPOILERS]
There’s a lot of things I wish I could change about the show to make it better: For starters, more representation. I mean you’re making a show, not exclusively, but primarily for the lgbtq+ community and you only have two main gay characters? What’s that about? There are so many possibilities to make other characters not straight. E.g. Mia and Lake could be couple goals, Pilar being bi, Andrew – definite bi energy. Secondly, the cheating trope is so exhausting and overdone in gay storylines. It doesn’t add drama, it just makes the couple and the characters hard to root for. Also, making the love interest so obvious was so underwhelming after everything we went through in Love, Simon. I was kind of hoping for a surprise love interest until the end.
Regardless of all that, no matter how far from teenage reality this show is, it was cute. And even though I rooted for the secondary characters way more than the main one, I’m still excited to see what they come up with for S2.
#tv shows#tv shows 2020#2020 shows#Shows to watch#dear white people#grand army#the great#dickinson#the queens gambit#julie and the phantoms#saved by the bell reboot#I am not okay with this#love victor#outer banks#stranger things#TEOTFW#skam#euphoria#wlw#lgbtq show#female lead
174 notes
·
View notes
Text
Octavia as The 100′s Jesus Figure, Part 4: Bardo, The Crucifixion and Second Coming of Octavia Blake
So we’re back for a fourth part of this series, which I started after season 6, because wouldn’t you know it - there’s more to be said.
In Part 1, Origin Story and the Meeting of Two Saviours, I discussed Octavia’s origin story as the Dark Saviour and her relationship with the show’s other Saviour Lincoln, and how with his death he invested her with the mission to save all of their people.
In Part 2, Saving Humanity and the First Passion of Octavia Blake, I talked about Octavia finally accepting and understanding her mission as the Saviour, redeeming the sins of humanity, and her first Passion narrative, which was left incomplete, and thus she lived.
In Part 3, Planet Alpha and the Second Passion of Octavia Blake, I wrote about Octavia’s second Passion narrative on Planet Alpha, which led to her road to Golgotha at the Anomaly, from which she is resurrected (the Crucifixion narrative still remaining a mystery) and then meets those she knew once again, before her ascension as the Anomaly reclaimed her in the last seconds of the S6 finale.
So now, Part 4 - Here we will get into that missing Crucifixion narrative, as well as the events that come to pass with Octavia’s Second Coming, the Judgment of Humanity, and how things may have played out differently had it been Octavia who walked into the glowy ball of light instead of Cadogan, Clarke and Raven.
From Dark to Light
Before we return to that missing Crucifixion narrative, which takes place on Bardo, Octavia, along with Diyoza and Hope, land on a different planet for ten years. This planet also has its purpose in our Saviour narrative, because while the show starts on dark themes, and thus needed Octavia as a Dark Saviour, in season 7 it began to shift to a theme of light and transcendence.
Enter the appropriately named Penance.
Octavia spends ten years on Skyring/Penance/Planet Beta, healing from her pain and darkness, and thus is no longer the Dark Saviour the narrative needed her to be before to bring salvation to her people, now she can be the Light Saviour who will save all of humanity.
Her new demeanour - though I hesitate to say new because it was born of ten years of peace, plenty, family, and healing, it wasn’t new to her, merely to those who used to know her for whom time had been much shorter - is evidence of her new Light. It confuses many, because they hadn’t had the same time and healing as she had, but it is evident in every move she makes. Rather than the tornado of righteous fury that she used to be, now Octavia is the steady and calm voice of reason - to Echo, to Hope, and especially to Clarke.
But back to that crucifixion narrative.
Every Noble Crown will be a Crown of Thorns
Her peaceful world torn asunder, Octavia is taken to Bardo, and thrown into M-Cap at the first opportunity. Others have mentioned how the M-Cap headcap looks like a crown of thorns, and they’re quite right - this is where Octavia’s Crucifixion narrative comes to fruition. No one spends as much time in that crown of thorns as she does.
She fights it, at first, but when acceptance is what will provide salvation to her people (or person, in this case, being Hope), she accepts her fate and faces her past - brutal days of reliving her history as the Dark Saviour, to firmly close that chapter of her life (a symbolic death rather than just her regular baptism-rebirth cycle).
She’s freed from her crown of thorns when Hope comes. Hope, the symbol of her new Light, and the Light that she will carry with her as she returns to Sanctum to be resurrected among those she once knew, those who had believed her to be lost, but who dearly needed the Light she was to bring them.
Revelation and The Second Coming
There are a lot of different moving pieces involved in the apocalyptic scenarios of Revelation, and how these come to play in season 7 of The 100 isn’t any different. So let’s take a look at some of the other key players and how they connect to Octavia’s story.
The False Prophet, The Dragon and The Beast
Now, in my Part 3 of this series (written after the S6 finale), I predicted that Bellamy would have a large part in the revelation of Octavia’s Saviour narrative. Obviously, that part didn’t come to pass, because of Bob’s absence from the show, but you can still see hints within the narrative that suggest he would have been a part of it before Bob pulled out (most notably, the Hesperides flashback in 7x04 - this flashback is pretty pointless in the context of Hope telling Echo and Gabriel that story, but if you imagine Bellamy being there to hear about how his sister raised Hope in much the same way he raised her - then it becomes way more meaningful).
But the narrative as it played out also presents interesting Biblical allusions, by casting Bellamy in the role of false prophet, fighting on the side of the Beast (Cadogan), instead of on the side of Christ (his sister).
The false prophet is said to be the second beast to rise in Revelation 13, who has “two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon” (Revelation 13:11) who is given the authority to speak on behalf of the first Beast (Cadogan), to deceive the people so that they will worship this Beast. The false prophet having the appearance of a lamb is relevant here, because Jesus is often referred to as the Lamb of God - thus, the false prophet (Bellamy) resembles the true Saviour (Octavia), not coincidental since they are in fact siblings and thus do bear some physical resemblances.
So who is The Dragon - that is, Satan? It is easy to say that the Dragon is Sheidheda, for it is the Dragon who is imprisoned, only to be released to deceive and wage war before being finally defeated. But it goes deeper than that - The Dragon is the dark side of the Flame itself, Sheidheda’s only the last prophet of that darkness. It is the Flame that gives Cadogan, the Beast, the power he needs to rule over his people - the glimpse of the idea of Judgment Day as something for the Disciples to work towards - “The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority” (Revelation 13:2) - even when the good side of the Flame, the Humanity that Becca believed so vital, wanted to keep it from him.
The Children of the Kingdom of Heaven
Jesus says “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). Octavia’s always been tied to different children throughout The 100 narrative, first as the child herself, and then others such as Gavriel, Ethan, Madi, Rose and Hope. But the important children for the purpose of this post are the three that are the “next generation” so to speak of the leading trio of the show, and their important roles in the final battle.
There’s Jordan, the Head-centered, who takes over Clarke’s role as John the Baptist, the prophet who bore witness to the Light (Jesus) so that others would believe. His testimony shows that the Final War is instead a Test, and he’s instrumental in making sure that Octavia can stop the war and pass the test to grant humanity eternal life instead.
There’s Hope, the Heart-centered, who takes over Bellamy’s role as Saint Peter, the disciple who becomes the leader of the church after Jesus’ ascension. Hope is Octavia’s grounding force, her new rock, and her love gives her strength to continue her journey.
And then there’s Madi, the Soul-centered, who is Octavia’s next generation counterpart. It’s made clear from the start of Madi’s introduction in season 5 that Octavia is her favourite, that Octavia is the one she looked up to, and even in season 7, these parallels are there, as Madi is ready to sacrifice herself to save the others, and in more peaceful ways too, like when she’s hiding in the reactor with her two new friends, reminiscent of season 1 Octavia and her friendship with Monty and Jasper. Madi, too, meets her Crucifixion in the M-Cap chair, in an even crueler and more vicious manner than Octavia did. But when Octavia saves humanity, this liberates Madi’s soul and grants her eternal life as well.
I am the Way, The Truth and the Life
Wonkru falls apart in Octavia’s absence. There’s no other way to say it. Wonkru crumbling in 7x03 is made even more conspicuous by the fact that they don’t even mention Octavia, because they’re still denying her, despite everything she brought them. They don’t realize that she’s the one to save them all, they don’t realize that, as Jesus says, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 4:16) - something that they will finally come to understand in the climax of the final episode.
But it isn’t time for that story yet. First we must turn to Revelation to see what happens to Wonkru and the others on Sanctum while they’ve chosen to deny her and follow the Dragon and the Beast instead.
Here we see the different plagues that strike the unbelievers - both in Revelation 8-9 and 16.
The first to come are “ugly, festering sores [that] broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast” (Revelation 16:2) - the radiation sickness that is a marker of the broken nuclear reactor in 7x03, which claims as James as one of its first victims. If you don’t remember who he was while watching that episode, look back to 6x02, where he’s one of the people attacking Octavia in the Eligius IV mess hall. He breaks faith with her, and here suffers the consequences of that.
The second and third plagues speak of both the seas and the rivers turning to blood - references to the rivers of blood created by Sheidheda’s massacres, first of the Faithful and then of the Children of Gabriel.
The fourth plague, the sun scorching people with fire, takes us to the eclipse in 7x13, where the sky is red with the eclipse. This leads to the fifth and sixth plagues - the kingdom being plunged into darkness as Emori kills power to the reactor to bring down the shield, which makes it possible for “locusts [to come] down on the earth” (Revelation 9:3) and devour those “who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads” (Revelation 9:5).
It is only the final plague - “rumblings… and a severe earthquake… [where] the great city split into three parts” (Revelation 16:18-19) - that strikes where Octavia is, with “a loud voice from the throne, saying ‘It is done!’” (Revelation 16:17). This line from Revelation calls back to what Octavia says to Hope in 6x13 before her Ascension - “Be brave, tell him it is done” - a sign that Octavia is needed elsewhere again. And soon enough she does depart to Bardo, alongside Clarke. Meanwhile, the survivors remaining on Earth have to reunite the three groups split in the bunker - those in the rotunda (Hope, Jordan, Gaia, Indra, Miller), those in the rec room (Raven, Murphy, Emori, Jackson) and those in the bunkrooms (Echo, Niylah) - to prepare for the final war and judgment.
The Fall of Babylon
Before Octavia can bring light to the world and grant humanity transcendence, there is still one more key part of Revelation that must come to pass, and that is the fall of Babylon: That is, in this ‘verse, Clarke.
Throughout Biblical narrative, Babylon stands in opposition to Jerusalem and its righteousness, just how in The 100 narrative Clarke and Octavia have always been set as foils to each other. Now, Clarke isn’t evil per se, but she’s always been set in her ways and doubles down when questioned about her past deeds - as we see both in how she faces the Primes in 6x03 and the Judge in 7x16. She doesn’t learn, and so she fails. Clarke, like Babylon, is locked out of heaven for not learning the patience and humility that Octavia did: “For her sins are piled up to Heaven, and God has remembered her sins. Give back to her as she has given, pay her back double for what she has done.” (Revelation 18:5-6).
With Clarke fallen, it is now time to begin the Final Judgment.
Final Test and Judgment
After Clarke’s fall, someone must step in to advocate for humanity, to guide the Judge’s gaze to the righteous, to the Saviour - Raven steps through the glowing orb to do so. So which figure in Revelation is most suited here? None other than the writer of Revelation themselves, historically considered to be John of Patmos, who is given these visions by the angels as a warning for humanity.
Raven bore witness to a number of the plagues, and while not always a believer in Octavia - in fact, out of all characters around for all seven seasons, they’ve shared the least screentime with each other - but they’ve still fought on the same side. Also of relevance here is that Raven’s been granted visions in the narrative of the show, like John of Patmos has in Revelation - though hers came as a result of ALIE.
While the Judge takes Raven to the battlefield in Bardo to prove humanity to be unworthy, this battlefield is instead where Octavia proves humanity to be worthy. Indra and Wonkru follow Octavia’s lead, finally recognizing that their only way to salvation was through her (see John 4:16 above), and after the Disciples too laid down their weapons, humanity is deemed worthy and the Judge grants them eternal life in the form of transcendence - rising to the heavens in the manner of the Rapture, “We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
Where is the Judgment of the Dead?
Now, one thing missing in season 7 compared to the Book of Revelation and Jesus’ Second Coming is the Judgment of the Dead and welcoming those worthy into the domain of Heaven.
A longstanding phrase in The 100 has been “May We Meet Again”. This is part of the Traveler’s Blessing of Skaikru, and one that they use frequently with one another even in non-death contexts. So with that phrase, a lot of people expected that the dead would also be able to be part of transcendence somehow, and that beloved characters would then also be present on the beach in the final scene as they rejected transcendence to live mortal lives.
I believe, given everything in the past posts about Octavia, that had she been the one to go into the ball of light to face the Judge personally, rather than saving humanity on the battlefield, that this would have happened.
While logically I believe the best form for the Judge to take for Octavia would have been Diyoza, since Diyoza was her greatest teacher, her mind would be more likely to choose her greatest love, Lincoln - who, if we go back to Part 1 of this series, we remember is the other Saviour of this show’s narrative.
That would have been a reunion even more epic than the Clarke and Lexa reunion that the show gave us, for Lincoln and Octavia were far closer and together for far longer. And if the Transcendents possessed the powers that they do - instant genocide by crystallization at the wave of an arm, transcendence through the blink of an eye, restoration of healthy and whole bodies if those souls reject transcendence - then surely raising the dead would’ve been a simple task.
The only reason that couldn’t happen was extratextual - there was no way Ricky would work with JRoth again, and so this extra dimension, this aspect of the narrative that could have made things so much sweeter and less bitter, had to be put aside.
Now, that doesn’t diminish Octavia’s Saviour narrative in the least - she did still save humanity. She did still bear the sins of the human race, she was still mocked, cast out and sent to her crucifixion by those who denied her. She did still return from that symbolic death, resurrected, then ascended. When she faced Wonkru again - remember, that battlefield in 7x16 is the first time the bulk of Wonkru has seen her since 5x13 - it was in her Second Coming to bring the Final Judgment to them. The trials they’d faced in Sanctum in her absence showed them the truth - that they had to believe in her again to achieve their salvation.
She was the Way, the Truth and the Life of The 100 universe, and no one would have reached transcendence except through her.
#the 100#the 100 meta#octavia blake#clarke griffin#bellamy blake#raven reyes#biblical parallels#saving humanity#saviour narrative#bill cadogan#sheidheda#jordan jasper green#hope diyoza#madi griffin
37 notes
·
View notes
Text
Title: Lovebug (12/14)
Summary:
“It might be a bug.”
“A bug?”
“Sometimes the developers of this application make mistakes. This is our first time meeting I’m sure so…Isn’t it a bit weird that we just met for the first time and it rings like this? And for two strangers to coincidentally ring each other’s alarms?“
Levi is the developer of the Love Alarm App and Hange is married to Zeke.
Link to cross-postings: AO3
Other Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Notes: Feedback is very much appreciated :D
It was one of those days where Levi could barely focus.
But it wasn’t anything new. A few days a year, his eyes would be heavy, his back would slump naturally and codes would blur together in some strange way even the most experienced engineers wouldn’t understand. Those days, he had attributed it to exhaustion, to sheer workload or the tension that accompanied impending releases.
It feels a little different. It was terribly unfamiliar and Levi could have almost sworn that it was worse than ever.
Still, he attempted to get back some inkling of control. He opened his workflow tracker, saw green then decided he could consider his priorities later. He opened his checklists and saw meaningless black ink on white spaces then he decided he could start elsewhere.
He opened up a few pull requests, only to end up approving a whole lot of them before even making sense of what fix the developers had been working on. Then, he then assured himself that maybe he could fix errors on the code once they were in production.
It isn’t good practice. A part of him warned. Really, how many times had he heard that from everyone else? How many times had he held those words like a badge and repeated them countless times to his fellow engineers?
But really, how did anyone particularly Erwin, the upper management, the executives, expect him to work after the meeting just that morning. They had dropped a bomb, a very painful truth that he had somehow managed to keep snug, almost invisible at the back of his mind for so many years.
The company ran on too much red tape and officialism. Hell, every fucking comapny ran on red tape, officialism and some tacky version of bureaucracy, all intricately engineered to please the richest stakeholders. Yet, Levi had been working corporate for decades, long enough to learn and just blindly accept them as inevitable parts of work.
Then and there, it was biting him in the ass. So painfully. Levi never expected something as grey and monotonous as office work and corporate politics to bite so painfully.
Ninety five percent chance. Erwin never told him the details of the contract termination but he had some consideration to at least inform Levi that Zeke was very much considering it. In that same meeting, he had casually mentioned the amount of time it would take to finalize it. If Erwin did tell him some specifics, Levi probably didn’t hear it, especially when he had been busy only barely keeping himself together.
Levi soon figured out, although he had been accepting them the whole time, a huge part of him would have gladly rebelled.
By god, he hated bureaucracy, he hated corporate synergy, he hated the concept of investor satisfaction. Most importantly, he hated the whole prospect of everything the past few months ending with some signed contract termination.
And the silent rage continued well inside him, as he mindlessly switched from one tab to the other, unable to make sense of much.
Maybe he had been too busy reflecting, entertaining those very unwelcome emotions.
Was he too soft hearted. Was he taking his job too personally demanding some personal closure? Was he too immature having been so emotionally affected by that memorandum? And maybe that inability to let out anything more than some professional query at his manager had him barely coping.
‘Coping’ came in many forms. It involved the slow realization he was merely an employee, albeit a head of an engineering team. Then another realization soon after that he was in no position to question the upper management’s decision.
It involved a very cruel realization that although he was the head of the emotions alarm project, the one who had developed it from the beginning and the only one who knew the application end to end, the emotions alarm was still corporate property.
By extension, by some fruit of corporate processes and the constant exchange of assets, it was Zeke’s property. All the assets, the codes Levi had created, the pull requests he had reviewed and merged, every long night he spent looking over bugs, had all been because he was paid to do it.
Zeke’s property. He acknowledged those two words and they echoed incessantly in his head as his eyes ran over the codes of the emotions alarm.
The emotions alarm wasn’t his. It was the companies. And when the contract is finalized, it would be all Zeke’s and Zeke would be the one to decide for himself how to work with that application.
Hire another head engineer to work with Hange… Hire other coders… That’s what business is.
He and Erwin had talked for a while after the meeting. Erwin had been careful with his words and maybe he had softened his tone just a bit, as if he had sensed Levi’s discomfort.
In his own state though, Levi could only stumble upon one conclusion. He was just as replaceable as every other employee. And the pain of having been too attached to a project, the impending loss of his own brain child had him catatonic.
Any comfort or attempt at alleviation seemed far off.
He wouldn’t be invited to the rest of the meetings. The fate of that project would be up in the air, mulled over by the top brass of the company, a few lawyers and accountants, then approved by Zeke. Levi on the other hand, would be ordered back to his office to focus on other tasks, expected to function like it hadn’t felt like some slow and painful end of the world, since the incident at the school a few weeks ago.
Any silver lining as he worked was shot down by his cynical side. The next few minutes, he continued to work, just for the bare minimum to get paid. He approved leaves here and there, He mindlessly looked through some code, ran a debugger he didn’t completely understand. He mindlessly scanned through the logs before he accepted, his brain was in no state to work.
Then he opted not to think beyond that. He closed all the windows on his desktop. He opened another folder towards the corner.
His own personal folder. Inside it were the same codes for the emotions alarm he had worked on for Hange’s birthday. But it felt like more of a personal project.
In its own little way, it pulled it out of that catatonic state. By some miracle, the gears of his head were turning again, slowly at first. Then they turned more quickly by the second, sending a rush of motivation through him. Maybe because the upper management still didn’t know about that side of the emotions alarm. Maybe it was because it still felt like a secret between him and Hange. And somehow, his mind was able to twist it. Levi had managed to convince himself, it was still his and Hange’s.
Hange is still here. She’ll come back.
"You know, I'm pretty sure conference rooms are for conferences.”
Levi bit back the surprise at Petra’s sudden visit. "Well we have five empty ones," he said. He had been working in empty conference rooms for weeks already and had silently rehearsed his own explanation already.
"You have your own office," Petra said.
"I know," Levi answered nonchalantly. Maybe most other days, he would have attempted something more engaging.
How engaging could he be though when his own brain child was close to being sold to an investor, its fate completely out of his control?
By some stupid corporate rule, he couldn't tell Petra that just yet. He looked up at her, willing himself to make some meager excuse of eye contact. "You need anything?"
Petra shook her head. "It’s not really work related… Or actually it kinda is... If that's okay… If you're busy I can bring this up another time." She was holding her work laptop closer to her, a subtle move that had been enough to catch Levi’s eye.
For just a second.
Levi looked back at the code. A wave of guilt washed through him when he remembered, it wasn’t necessarily productive work— a very temporary wave of guilt that he easily washed off just recalling the overly reverent attitude the executives had towards corporate processes.
He wasn't busy. The code he had been staring at the past few minutes wasn't company business anyway. "This can be finished later," Levi said as he lowered his laptop screen.
Petra cocked her head to the side. "Boss, are you okay? I noticed you haven’t been working in the office in a while and I know you---”
“The office is a mess,” Levi said. “And I just haven’t had time to clean up.”
“You need help?”
“No.”
“If you’re busy, I could--”
“Petra, it’s my mess to clean up.” He probably had said that last part too abrasively. After all, that mess referred to multiple messes at once and he was more than a little salty about that.
There was a flash of surprise, or maybe hurt in Petra’s face. Levi only had his peripherals to hint for himself how she might have felt. He sighed. “I don’t wanna clean it up but I don’t wanna stay there either. Besides, as long as no one is using the conference rooms, I think it’ll be fine.”
“Well, it is our right as employees…” Petra started.
“It is,” Levi said. He looked back up at Petra expectantly then lowered his laptop screen much lower, he could have easily just shut it down. “So what did you come here for?”
“I wanted to ask about Hange.” Surprisingly, Petra had brought out that conversation topic with a lot more certainty than every line before that.
Hange. And it had brought about an unwelcome twinge of pain inside him. He took a deep breath, letting it spread over his already enervated body. He noticed then, her name had started to seem strangely unfamiliar to his tongue. In truth, he hadn’t said her name in a while.
Levi took a deep breath and repeated her name, just a little experiment for himself. “What about Hange?”
“Your alarm and her alarm. They were ringing back in the gym.”
“That was weeks ago. Why bring it up now?” Levi asked.
Petra gave a slight shake of her head. “I was just wondering. Do you think it’s a bug?”
“It’s not,” Levi said, one eyebrow raised. He wondered if Erwin had ever discussed it with the others. Or wait, that might have been his job.
Petra grinned yet she seemed more hurt than actually happy. “I suspected it was a bug at first. But you know, when Hange stopped showing up in the office, you started acting different.”
“Have I?” Levi asked
“Yeah, you stopped working in your office. The few times I visited, it was a little cluttered but you never liked your office messy right? It only started getting messier when Hange started working closely with you…”
Levi was only becoming more self aware. Suddenly looking at how quickly, he had opened up his laptop, hunched over, just to hide his face behind the screen. He couldn’t even control his own reaction anymore. “And?”
“And when Hange was working… you seemed happier… You started going out for lunch more, talking to us more. You even invited me out…” Around that time, Petra started to stumble at her words, her ears turned a little pink. With time, she started to stumble with her words, to points beyond comprehension. “I know, I might look creepy pointing all this out but there were two points I wanted to make with this.”
“Two...points?” Then why didn’t you just start with it? Levi would have wanted to ask. But he was grateful that the speech was long enough for him to edit two lines of code, even in his own compromised state.
Petra took some time to compose herself. She put one finger up. “First, Hange changed you for the better, there were obvious signs that you were happier, so maybe those can be considered signs of love. Second, that means there might not be a bug and you’re just a really talented developer.”
“That’s reassuring,” Levi said. With his lack of energy, it could have come out toneless. “I mean it,” Levi added.
“If you wanna call it love or not, that will be up to you. But I think it aligns with our expectations for the application,” Petra straightened her back after that, adopting a more professional demeanor. “If possible, I’d love to have a chat with Hange about it. Maybe get her take on my theory…”
Petra wouldn’t have known. The talks had been between the upper management, it would only make its way to lower rung employees as a memo.
A fucking memo. Fuck red tape. Levi thought to himself. When it wasn’t official, could he even tell her?
Fuck that. “Hange might not come back,” Levi said.
Petra’s eyes widened almost immediately, her jaw dropped.
Before she could even speak, Levi continued. “They might terminate the contract. I know they’re discussing the legalities of it. Zeke is going to take the unfinished and have another team work on it. Or at least that’s what I’m understanding.”
“But there might---”
“There’s no chance,” Levi said firmly.
“Levi just---”
“None. There’s none.” Levi shook his head for emphasis. He allowed his voice to rise just a little bit louder than usual. He wanted to shoot down whatever glimmer of hope, before it got out of control.
Annoyingly, Petra had a way of just trying to find hope, the brighter side in most situations. But he didn’t need it. He didn’t want it. In his already vulnerable state, it seemed almost mocking.
And she was still trying. “But Hange----”
Levi banged one hand on the table in warning. “Petra,” he said. “Just stop.”
An abrupt slam on the table had always been enough to quiet people and Petra shouldn’t have been an exception.
In a surprising turn of events, she slammed harder on the table. “No, listen to me Levi.” Her voice was much firmer and at that moment, it didn’t seem like she had regard for differences in positions.
In shock, Levi fell silent and he was compelled to listen to that voice of authority.
“I came here for a reason.” She dropped her laptop on the table, almost louder than the slam she made just a second ago. “We got a support email which you might want to see. This is the reason I went here in the first place.” Petra quickly booted up her laptop. “It’s a support ticket, and the email...it looks like Hange’s.”
A quick look at the date only confirmed it, it had been there for a week. There was a flyer attached which only sealed its fate as spam mail. Of course, it would have taken weeks to identify it.
But why would Hange use that email? At first glance, Levi couldn’t help but be suspicious.
“It looks like it’s related to Mr. Jaeger’s convention. He’s having one and I thought, you might wanna check it out… If you have unfinished business with Hange, use that opportunity to talk to her.”
It could be spam mail. It wasn’t that hard to create a fake email using Hange Zoe’s name but it was still worth some looking into. A quick google search only confirmed it. Zeke was having an event in one of the most expensive cities in the world, a coastal city a twelve hour flight away.
Still, Levi couldn’t brush off the doubt. Would Hange have used an email with her name? After taking so much of her precious time creating fake emails?
“If this is really her, then that means she wanted to contact us right?” Petra continued. “I think it’s worth a look.”
Maybe all he needed was someone to tell him, a good push in the right direction. Before Levi even realized it, his mind was working harder than ever since the incident three weeks ago, working overtime to justify something as ridiculous as a last minute week-long vacation.
If Hange did send the email, it might be worth it. And if by some chance, it really was spam, then he will have just wasted a good week-long vacation in ‘one of the most dazzling cities in the world.’
Levi could count with the number of fingers in one hand, the amount of times he had been in a long haul flight. The prices for a hotel, a last minute flight and of course, the leaves needed to make the trip were all daunting issues to consider.
He had expected himself to be at least a little more hesitant. A part of him was moving almost automatically. He stood up and slammed his laptop shut. “I think I’m gonna take a week long leave.”
“Since I joined, you haven’t even taken a sick leave. I think you deserve this,” Petra responded. And that peaceful response from her of all people had been reassuring.
“Thanks for that.”
Petra shook her head. “It’s only natural to wish the best for someone right?” She paused, and a weak blush climbed up her cheeks as she bit her lip. “Well, I meant the best for you and Hange. Just see what you can do for her.”
Levi let out a sigh. “But it helps you know.”
And somehow, those kind words had only left Petra more flustered. In thanks, he offered to take her back to her work station, but not much farther than that. He made a quick stop to his still cluttered office, did some quick cleaning up, leaving the white board and Hange’s own work station still untouched, like it has been everyday since three weeks ago.
He went home early that day and as expected, his brain continued to nag.
Was it a useless move? A stupid move? A rash move? Maybe it was. But he wasn't going to tell anyone else, just in case someone managed to convince him out of it.
Levi had taken some precautions. He emailed back, only to get no response. He did some research on the flyer. The event came with different names, trade shows, networking events.
With the objective of bringing together the largest names in neighboring countries… We aim to optimize production, bring about the best quality… Seminars, business dinners, product demonstrations etc.
The words blurred together slowly and before Levi knew it, he couldn’t make sense of it at all. It wasn’t important anyway. What seemed more urgent was the schedule of events right under the spiel.
It was a five day conference and it had already started the night before. Levi opened up his leave credits, still completely full. Most years, it had remained untouched until the end of the year.
He opened up his own bank account. He didn’t have much but he still had more than enough to take that particular risk. And when he contacted Erwin about it, the latter seemed almost excited he was taking a leave.
By some sorcery, he got the one week leave, tagged as emergency leaves. The next afternoon, less than 24 hours after that meeting with Petra, Levi was already in the airport, overnight bag over one shoulder.
He was going on an adventure, some stupid, impulsive and potentially pointless adventure.
***
The guilt never abated. There was something almost surreal, yet seemingly audacious about taking a last minute long leave, after spending years working non stop.
Would anyone understand it? The more Levi thought about it, the more he realized, he didn’t understand it himself. So by some twists and turns of logic, Levi guessed nobody would understand.
He had books he could have read on the plane. There was an inflight entertainment system.
Still shaken by that one week long life, Levi ended up booting up his laptop and spending a huge chunk of the time reviewing pull requests on the flight. Time started to pass like how it used to in the office.
As expected, he got tired four hours in. Losing energy reserves midday in the office was a very unwelcome experience but something Levi never seemed to completely avoid. It was a very familiar experience that the next few steps had been much easier.
He pulled out the codes, his own personal project folder on his desktop, he stared at the files of codes yet to be merged to the original plan.
Then he started to organize his thoughts. Before he knew it, his fingers were flying over the keyboard.
It could have been some reminder, or just some attempt at shoehorning reason to his impulsive decision to cross the ocean on a last minute vacation. But the more Levi let his brain nag, the more he started to justify. The longer he justified, the sooner he just accepted.
Who cared if anyone else found it sappy. He needed closure.
Then and there, it seemed like closure meant articulating the plans of his own personal project, ideas that had been exchanged that fateful night in some empty playground, ideas that only built and built themselves until they were rows of codes yet to be tested or executed.
Maybe closure was getting the plans for the emotions alarm to Hange.
And as Levi continued to type, he realized, he had a clear idea on how he wanted it to work. Articulating it, planning it into something Hange would have understood was not too much of a tall order.
Connect the emotion alarm to a dashboard… plans on how to quantify emotions, moods… Colors, emotions, suggestions.
Newfound energy had Levi tirelessly working over that plan the whole long haul flight, creating diagrams, appending it with his own notes and suggestions. They were still empty spaces, questions and question marks, space which Hange would have been more qualified to fill herself.
After looking at it once then twice, reading out loud softly too himself the parts that hadn’t made too much sense, Levi scrolled back up and typed four words on the upper left.
Working Title: Mood Alarm.
Hange would probably argue semantics, how moods were a lot more temporary than emotions. And Levi was imagining some outrageous argument in his head and his own responses which would never see the light of day. He stayed staunch with his decision. Unless, Hange could come up with anything more catchy, it would stay.
And that fake argument, had been enough for him to relax. He lowered his laptop screen then reclined his seat and stared out the window. It was still a light blue but there were already hints of purple and pink just straight ahead.
The sun would set soon but only for a few hours. One quick calculation told him, it wouldn’t ever be late at night. Once he arrived at his destination, it would still be day and he would have to adjust quickly.
Tucking his laptop away, he allowed himself a few hours of sleep and he had been lucky to have slept long enough to wake up to a pilot’s message about flying over the city then a good view of unfamiliar landscapes just outside the window.
Levi spent those last few minutes before landing, tracing the skyline, counting the number of tiny boxes that dotted the greens, just inches away from clusters of green, white, silver, then flashes of other colors, too many colors to count.
It was an expensive city. He didn’t need Google to tell him that. Everyone knew it as a city only for the filthy rich. He could imagine Zeke having a house or an apartment there, maybe even two. And he made some guesses of which one Zeke could have owned among the larger ones by the beach. Then he made a much longer reflection of just one Yes or No question.
Would Hange been there? He was still too high up to distinguish humans on the outdoor balconies from tricks of light. Still he pretended that she was on one of the balconies over looking the ocean.
The plane got lower and lower, the houses were starting to look more like houses than little tiny boxes. Close enough, Levi was starting to see the glamour of the city, he was starting to see the glowing characteristics which made it a first choice for the ultra rich.
Sparkling blue ocean, only peppered by speed boats and yachts moored at the docks. From inland, mountain ranges formed crescents and worked with the coast to outline the borders of the cities from miles around.
By some type of magic, the landscapes surrounding it had managed to make the dazzling city its own world. Levi begrudgingly gave some credit to the rich for seeing potential in such a breathtaking view.
Just before the coast were tall buildings among shorter buildings and they were lined up on the flat lands, touching one end of the mountain range then the other. Some were hotels, others were casinos, a few of them were malls. Parks were clustered among the buildings, yet they seemed out of place. They were like some shoddily formed assurance that the city wasn’t out to get any tourist’s money.
Levi was seeing differently. The struggle he went into booking a hotel was already a prelude to whatever he would be dealing with. He silently patted his wallet at his back pocket as the pilot’s final instructions sounded over the whole plane.
"Cabin crew prepare for landing."
And all the passengers had been excited to leave. The plane soon slowed to a stop. Even before the seatbelt sign went off, Levi was already hearing the click of seatbelts. Then everyone filed out of their seats, pulling out luggages from the overhead compartment.
Levi was one of the last few out of the plane. Yet with his lack of check-in luggage, he was still one of the first out of the airport.
Nothing could have completely prepared him for the abrupt shift from dry autumn to a wet perpetual summer. He was greeted by some faint smell of the ocean, almost stifling warmth in the middle of October, and very very humid air that stuck to his skin. Unfamiliar sensations on skin, unfamiliar scents and an unfamiliar language that only blurred into nonsense when they made their way into his ears.
It was a new world, a new adventure, Levi would have never taken under any other circumstances. And maybe that had been the reason why the rush of guilt came back when he allowed himself to marvel over the views, the first hand experience of standing close proximity, breathing the same air of that city he had only ever read about books, or seen in the news.
Levi took a deep breath, pulled off his autumn jacket almost violently.
Then he reminded himself again. If he didn’t find her, he’d still be okay. If he didn’t find her, then that trip will just have been a break.
A well-deserved break.
***
According to reception, his hotel was conveniently located just a five minute distance from the convention center. According to his maps application, it was ten minutes away. Levi though, had taken one hour to make his way there
There were hidden paths that weaved through allies and the occasional mall entrances and exits and maybe that had been what reception had been referring to when they mentioned shortcuts.
Levi walked quickly through them at first before he opened up to a larger road. When his surroundings were more open, when his vision stretched far beyond the narrow walls of the alleys, he thought one of the most beautiful cities in the world to be worth a few detours.
Anyway, he had found the signs were all pointing towards the hybrid building that doubled as a hotel and convention center. It might have been the grandest building all around.
He scanned his surroundings, trying to connect his own view from the plane to his own surroundings. Unable to conjure a very clear and accurate picture of what had come above, he couldn’t confirm whether it had been the grandest building around.
It wasn’t too important anyway.
It seemed like the city was on some journey to prove itself to him. Every path, road, alleyway, shopping street and even the interiors of the mall were all different levels of grand. And they all didn’t disappoint, especially to someone who barely even left his home city.
Clean finishings, newly paved roads, cobble stoned streets and red brick roads all seemed to come straight out of the sappiest rags to riches movies.
One cruel truth though Levi soon found out—and had been expecting anyway—was that everything came with a price.
Of course, it would. But Levi hadn’t embedded that truth deep enough inside him to be able to completely stifle his surprise at the price of bottled water, then the price of a late breakfast. They were all prices Levi would have never considered paying for one meal’s worth of food. So he settled for fast food. And he was sure, he would be eating fast food for every single meal until he flew back home.
Eating burger meals worth twice or thrice what he would have gotten at home was still a harrowing experience. He was on that constant in between state, naturally bitter at the ridiculous cost of living yet still forcing himself to savor those few bites of a sandwich.
And he found some inkling of a distraction just staring out the window, watching the crowds go by as he consumed his brunch slowly.
Then, he noticed, he never stopped thinking about her. She had always been somewhere in his mind, still close enough to the front that a flash of brown hair, a messy pony tail or even a pair of glasses among the crowds were enough to have him eyes wide, chewing slower than usual.
In one quick impulsive move, Levi dropped the burger, pulled out his phone and activated the love alarm.
Just in case.
He put on his earphones, then his baseball cap over it. He finished his food much faster then exited the store.
The love alarm didn't ring as he weaved through the crowds. He put his cap lower on over his face, keeping himself unrecognizable.
So, it shouldn't ring for anyone if anyone can't see me right.
That was expected behavior at least. And Levi was just laying trust on some belief that if Hange was nearby, two things might happen. If Hange hadn’t cleared her alarm history and her alarm would recognize his. Or, even if she used a new account, she would recognize him with a baseball cap covering half his face, and it would still ring.
That was assuming she still used her love alarm.
It was a very small chance and Levi was completely aware of it. So he made his way to the convention center, taking note of the signs with the names plastered on them, with arrows guiding him through shopping streets.
Levi didn't mind the detours, more crowds to attempt to look through. When he finally arrived at the hotel entrance though, he found he was tired and a little grumpy.
With the words at the front mentioning Zeke Jaegers name as a keynote speaker though, he had gained some newfound hope, Hange might just be nearby.
He had done the research at least. There was a visitor's price. There was a guest book.
There would be people selling him medical equipment, the latest medical technology and the drugs, supply chains, just the latest lingo, Levi never bothered to learn.
And he got those business vernacular in slow, stilted opportunities, so separated from one another that he never made sense of them.
He was there for one reason. Hange. So it wasn't too difficult to feign purpose, maybe even pretend that he had a few million dollars resting in his bank account for an investment.
There was a map, the names of some of the companies were in languages he was only familiar with by appearance. It was name recall that saved him then, he saw a few of Zeke's hospitals show up in the convention map. Forming a path in his head, he dove into his crowds, clutching his phone harder, readjusting his earphones.
No ringing. And he couldn’t help but feel a strange emotion, a mix between disappointment and relief. It was quiet and somehow he liked it that way. Yet, that only meant that Hange wasn’t nearby.
But leads to Hange were a good second best option. “Levi--- Mr. Ackerman?”
“Ms. Finger,” Levi greeted.
If Pieck knew anything about the incident at the school, she didn’t make it obvious. She was all business at that convention, decked up in business attire, fliers and a product handbook on the desk right in front of her,
She made her way closer to him, letting out a hand to raise and before Levi could even mirror that same movement, someone cut in between them.
“May I help you?”
Levi could have sworn he had never met that man in front of him. Yet the man was looking at him suspiciously, out of character for someone in a suit and flyers.
Pieck pushed past him."Porco, I'll handle this. So, what brings you here?"
Levi had to play his cards well. "I wanted to talk…" to Zeke? Or to Hange? Which was the better name to bring up?
Pieck nodded at him, an inquisitive look on her face. "To talk…"
"Business…"
"What kind of business? You could relay it through your manager right?"
"it's about the app we're developing." He had his laptop with him then, and only the motion of his laptop to his front albeit had Pieck lighting up.
Of course it would, Pieck had been one of his fans when he had first demo-ed the emotions alarm in the hospital just a few months back.
"You've been planning improvements."
Levi gave a light nod. "I've created plans to further improve the efficacy of the application. I was hoping to talk to Zeke about it, or if he's too busy, Hange." He hoped he had used the right jargon.
Pieck had seemed uncertain there. Yet her eyes had darted to his laptop enough times for Levi to see that she was interested, that somehow she had held a stake in those final products.
"If you want me to show it…" Levi was about to drop his bag and pull it out.
That is, if Peke hadn't stopped him then. "Don't trouble yourself," she said. "But, you wouldn't find Zeke here for most of the day. He only shows up for the business dinners but they're on an invitation basis. I can try asking around, we have a few employees who could ask Zeke."
"If you could tell me where Hange is…"
And that was where things got slightly complicated and somehow Levi suspected from the way Pieck had avoided his gaze yet at the same time, Porco had flashed him with a glare, there was something they knew that he didn't.
Pieck spoke up. "Hange huh? Haven't seen her since the convention started. Even during the days leading up to the convention, she was in and out, more than we could even remember."
"She's unpredictable. Don't think you're going to find her here," Porco added.
"But if you could contact her yourself?" Pieck looked at him pointedly.
"Unpredictable huh?" Levi wasn't all too surprised that they would call her unpredictable. And they had said it with a hint of animosity on both their voices, a tone which very much said 'dont bother', or maybe, ‘contacting Zeke might be the better option."
Levi, though, saw a challenge in that unpredictability. If he played his cards right, he might even find predictability in it.
At the least, he managed to let out a light greeting of thanks before he pulled out of the crowds then past the entrance of the stifling convention.
Levi still kept a copy of a program, taking note of keynote speakers among them. Hange wasn't in any of them so his thoughts flew quickly out of the convention, only rooted there somehow by that offer from Pieck to get him in touch with Zeke's executive team.
No help at all with finding Hange. But Levi couldn't help but just think that their actions may have been calculated. Once again, Levi was groveling about the stiffness of the world of politics and artificial corporate pleasantries.
When that became too stressful, his thoughts went back to Hange.
Hange was unpredictable, in a predictable way. And Levi was sure as long as he strode through the town with some purpose, he could make sense of that 'chaos' she always seemed to exude.
That night, he approached it with some careful premeditation, while considering as well that he was still suffering from jet lag.
He scanned through maps, aerial photos, then pictures from taken from high points in the city. He let his eyes trace over the coasts, then the beaches, the affluent areas close proximity to the beach that strategically overlooked the bluest parts of the ocean. Then he noted a less affluent area that brushed the other side of the mountain.
Focusing on the smaller houses, almost hidden by the iconic skyline, he asked himself, would Hange be there? He didn't have a straight answer but he wouldn't put it past her. Besides, any sense of adventure had started to become a little more welcome.
There was truth to it, Hange was unpredictable. But the predictability to it was, Hange was so unpredictable, she was memorable. He was sure if he would ask about the brunette, someone would know.
If Hange acted like the Hange, he knew, someone might recognize her. Someone in a simple community in a country thousands of miles away from his own, wouldn't know Hange Zoe as anything more than some eccentric brunette.
And maybe that was where he was supposed to start.
The next morning, he bought a bus ticket and he had been lucky enough to even get an opportunity to sit. After all, no one actually visited that city for the locals.
It was almost a half an hour bus away form the city center, and houses by the coastline were getting further apart until Levi reached a point where cabanas were made of simple wood, paths were etched lightly on the ground.
Levi disembarked at one of the more simpler bus stops for miles around, and it didn't look like the bus passed there often.
But maybe it was better that way.
Untouched Nature, free nature is a beautiful thing. Nature once again at its rawest form, at its most candid, not flaunting its best parts for the rich to admire.
And Levi was seeing beauty in the candid.
There were a few local kids, wading by, speaking a language Levi didn't understand and for a second, Levi just stood, breathing in the sour air of some untouched beach. It differed a lot from the beach thirty minutes away. There was no music playing in the background, no strobe lights and Levi concluded one thing.
Hange would have enjoyed this.
Levi would bet money that if Hange did have the freedom to run around, she might have been there. The houses around the area were of a simple kind, so far apart, that Levi had to walk thousands of steps just to get from one to the other. He traced the coastline as he walked, far enough from the shores to keep his feet dry but still close enough that he felt the moist sand squish from underneath him. He was following some path back the way he came, towards the skyline, he noted there were bars among them, seemingly affordable bars, maybe catering to locals.
Levi entered to find chaos. Men in a group playing some possible version of mahjong with rocks, others playing chess and others playing cards with rocks as currencies.
And he was more convinced Hange would have joined them if she had the freedom to move around.
So he took the risk. "Do you get foreigners here often?"
And maybe the word ‘foreigner’ or the word ‘often’ had been unfamiliar to the bartender.
He looked questioningly at Levi but it didn't look like he was completely lost. He turned the younger bartender who looked back at Levi. "May I help you sir?" he asked with a thick yet still very intelligible accent.. Levi suspected he had worked in the city center before.
"Foreigners...do you get a lot here?" Levi was slow at first.
"A few. May I ask why?" And he was starting to suspect the man worked in service.
It looked like the man didn't need the quick adjustments though, so Levi continued. "I'm looking for someone…"
The local gestured for him to go on.
And just like that, Levi found out Hange's predictability. All he needed was some subtle gesture, some consideration, that maybe it would have been best to approach the men hustling chess players by the side, or the other men playing some version of mahjong.
It was just a quick flick of his head towards the gamblers as he tried to find the right words to say.
And the man in front of him figured it out. "Glasses? Brown wavy hair?"
"She likes playing games. She plays here?" Levi asked, just for some confirmation, some proof that he wasn't socially engineering anyone.
The younger man looked at the bartender. The latter broke out into a smile. "Hange?" he said with a thick accent. He let out a laugh then turned to Levi almost suspiciously.
Levi nodded quickly. "Yes, Hange." Hänge Zoe. Should he say her last name?
The bartenders said something to the English speaking local. There was a brief exchange between them and the bartender pointed at Levi.
"Her hair is always messy," Levi said, he put his hands at the back of his head, mimicking the messy way she tied her hair up. "She always wins games. She's very smart. And sometimes, she'd just go out to the beach and she'd get lost in the view."
The two locals look towards each other, their faces suddenly unreadable.
They knew something Levi didn't and Levi knew he was punching blindly just making quick guesses of what Hange would have done. The specificities could also mean they escorted him out with new information.
Yet, somehow, it seemed those descriptions worked. They both smiled, exchange a few words.
"She plays. She wins---"
Levi smiled. "And let me guess, she doesn't keep the money?" And when he saw the grins of the two men widen, he made another guess. "And she gives the money away?"
The man dropped his shoulders and put one hand out in greeting. "What do you need?"
"I wanna see her--- No, I wanna talk to her. Do you know where I can find her?"
"She doesn't tell us where she's going too."
The bartender said something just behind the younger man and the latter's expression changed. They were both pointing at something, seemingly hypothetical, then drawing something with their fingers.
The younger man then continued in English. "I'll take you out."
"Wha--" Levi never had time to finish.
The man guided him out.
At first Levi wondered what he did wrong. The man didn't seem to carry any animosity. He seemed almost excited. "She likes going there," he said with some level of certainty.
There. Initially, it had been difficult to figure out where 'there' was. Following the direction of his finger with his gaze was almost a tall order. But there was only one place from that angle which boasted any level of significance.
He was pointing high up to mountain ranges and from his place by the coast, on the other side of the city, maybe he could make out a small tower that peeked out over the green.
"She likes high places," the man said.
"She told you that?" Levi shifted his grin to something certain then he nodded. "Thank you, I'll check it out."
And that tower peeking out of the mountains was identifiable with just an easy google search, expected from one of the most tourist friendly places in the world.
A tower observatory huh? Was it be open to the public? Sources said yes. What did Hange enjoy there? Levi had an inkling of an answer but he might have to see to it to be sure.
While waiting for the bus back to the city center, he consolidated his clues. Pieck had told him to wait for a message from someone named Yelena. If he couldn't talk to Hange, he could talk to Zeke.
Still, he was covering his bases with Hange but he was a little messy with it. It was all a matter of fate, some inkling of what kind of person Hange would be.
But what would he know about Hänge?
Even on the empty bus on the way back, he left his love alarm on, earphones propped comfortably in his ears.
In the bus it didn't ring but when Levi was weaving through the busiest streets, changing from the city bus to the bus leading up the mountain, it may have rung a few times. And Levi only started to become aware, a few incidents in, that every single time he had stopped, then he would scan the crowds.
One flash of brown hair, sometimes it would show up red under direct streams of light. A bird's nest tied up in a half pony tail or just a very messy one. Or maybe that low voice, which seemed to shift to something shrill almost immediately when excited.
There was only one person he would have wanted his Love Alarm to ring for. So Levi, lowered his cap over his face, boarded a bus and made the journey to the mountain.
***
He didn't go back to the convention center anymore. A long list of programs and keynote speakers only confirmed it, it was a roadshow on business ventures more than research.
But Hange likes business right? Hange likes medicine? Or she might even be wedges among the crowds of tourists among the snazzier casinos, just playing. He then considered playing just to check it out and maybe ask around.
And when Levi was weighing options, he realized Hange was somewhat unpredictable. He was at the mercy of fate, luck and a few well thought out guesses.
So he treated it like some challenge, a challenge he could very much fail. But he would get a better chance of running into her, if he kept to one place.
He picked the summit of the mountain and he parked there for the next few days, laptop bag in hand, sweatshirt over his boardshorts. There was a cafe only a few blocks from the tower with a good view of the main street leading up to the observatory.
And Levi only had to be there a few days to realize, it was off-season and it was off-season for a reason. It was the time of the year, when the weather by the road was a fickle bitch.
That day, the rain was on and off. The northern winds blew strong and Levi almost wished he had brought his autumn jacket. Yet it never was cold or windy enough to be certain it was worth lugging around.
The sweatshirt had been a golden alternative and he found the hood had a dual purpose. Enough, to hide his face so he could keep his love alarm on without receiving too many alarms. And enough to keep him safe from the blinding wind that came with climbing high elevations.
Levi abandoned the baseball cap, instead keeping the hood low over his face. He made himself at home in that cafe that overlooked the main road towards the visitor's center and a platform with a good view of the city. He picked a spot right next to the window. He only had to turn left, to get a peek, yet he was in a good enough position that if anyone looked back, he only had to lean back to be concealed by the opaque wall.
Levi was taking stupid risks. Did she clear her cache? Did she even still use the app? Any of those miniscule decisions would have been enough for Levi to come home empty ended. Yet, they were highly probable decisions. After all, why would Hange want to keep the application after the fiasco months ago. He started to even entertain the possibility that maybe Hange wasn’t even using her phone as often anymore. She hadn’t replied to texts, responded to calls and her number was also out of service.
Everything was against him, every single probability. Everything had been against him since the start anyway so it was much easier to stomach such circumstances.
Levi made for himself an ultimatum. He only had until his flight back, three days after, to talk to Hange.
If he is not able to find her, he goes home empty handed. He cooperates with the transferring of assets, the finalization of the contract. He scraps his own personal project, the colors, the attempt to quantify emotions and the dashboard.
At the least, he tried. He responded to that ticket. He tried to contact her, he tried to look for her. Hell, he was even contacting Zeke, personal pride and corporate processes be damned.
Surprisingly, instead of leaving him more desolate, the high stakes, all against him, had only sent a surge of motivation through him.
Maybe helplessness could do that to people. Or maybe he just couldn’t believe for himself that losing could be such a probable outcome.
Levi turned up the volume of his phone, scanned the crowds just outside the shop. It was off season, the weather was dark and gloomy so it wasn’t too difficult to even count the number of tall lanky brunettes who could have remotely been Hange. And he probably wasted more than enough time looking closely at each one, before accepting that twinge of disappointment every time they looked back revealing an unfamiliar face.
He never failed to remind himself how stupid of a plan it was. In the end, his best option really was to wait for a message from Yelena. Even if he would have preferred to discuss the plans with Hange himself, without that monkey as an intermediary.
When the disappointment accumulated, becoming too much to bear, Levi opened his laptop again, checked his work trackers, then his own project but he always made sure to look out, in between lines of code, or in between tickets or pull requests.
Just in case. Just in case, one of the brunettes was Hange.
When his love alarm finally rang, Levi had been reviewing a pull request. The surprise lasted for a second, the horror at realizing if that person hadn’t opened their love alarm, he wouldn’t have noticed her, lasted a little longer.
But he couldn’t be too sure it was her. She had on a cap, her hair tied up on a high ponytail. It was wavy and untamed, yet bunched up in such a way that maybe even her hair felt stifled. The ponytail swung wildly with even the slightest movement of her head.
And she was moving a lot, head bent down at first, looking at her phone, then at two kids next to her.
She was part of a tour group and those kids didn’t seem like hers. The alarm stopped for a while, and Levi used that short rest to check the schedule of the convention he had downloaded just yesterday. There was a tour that day. So it could be her.
Still, he couldn’t be too sure. His alarm rang again. Then when he was watching closely, he saw her jaw drop, he saw her explain something to the kids. Then she started to scan her surroundings and when Levi used that flash when their eyes met for just a second, he suspected.
But maybe their eyes haven’t met. She was wearing sunglasses.
And there was still a good chance it wasn’t Hange. But from her reaction, from the reaction of the kids, then the way she poked at her phone and the way the heart just suddenly disappeared then appeared then disappeared from his phone within few second lags, Levi decided it was a risk worth taking.
He continued to stare. And the brunette continued to scan her surroundings. She bent over, said something to both kids, then patted one on the head. And she turned around, looking through the cafe window.
And Levi turned off his own alarm, leaning back on the chair, just far back enough to hide.
What was he scared of? It looked like she could have been scared too. She didn’t bother to come nearer, or to even crane her neck to see just behind the wall right next to the window. She shook her head, a half smile played at her lips. And she walked away from the cafe, back to the tour group.
A disappointing turn of events. And Levi was scolding himself. It almost seemed surreal to even find Hange there, after losing contact with her for months. But he couldn’t be too sure that it was her. And how many times had he repeated it to himself.
Heart beating wildly, Levi let out a wretched sigh and slammed his laptop close, loud and hard enough to jarr him and even his closest neighbors. Who cared anyway? He continued to stare at Hange, and just for some level of security, just in case his emotions took more control than he allowed, he put the hood of his sweat shirt over his head, zipped it up a little higher over his neck and stared out.
She was talking to the tour guide. The tour guide shook his head, then pointed just above him.
Grey skies. Levi understood gesticulations enough to get that part.
The tour guide then pointed at the cafe then at the shopping streets but maybe she wasn’t listening anymore. She turned to the sky and Levi followed her gaze to see that she was probably looking at the tower, the base was visible from his view but even when he bent his head to the side, he couldn't make out the top. He made it a game for himself, he craned his neck, just to see how far up he could make out from his comfortable seat in the cafe.
Then eventually, he gave up, yet the brunette was still looking up, her head hung back, almost freely. Her mouth a thin line. And it was only when Levi heard the loud murmurs, took note of the sudden shift of the cafe atmosphere from peaceful to bustling, did he realize she had been left all alone.
The whole tour group was inside the shop.
Except her. She walked ahead. And if Levi were right, and that was her, he might as well follow. For the first time in a while, he wasn’t coiling the charger of his laptop before stuffing it into his bag. He wasn’t placing it hinge first into his bag. He stuffed everything, leaving chaos in his wake.
But he didn’t have much time anyway. Besides, cafe was starting to get too crowded for comfort. He exited the shop, and she was still in view, for just long enough for Levi to make out, that she had turned a corner.
If a part of him wanted to hesitate, if a part of him was holding him back, he didn’t let it take over. He didn’t have much time to consider the situation either. After all, she was moving fast and the winds were enough of an adversary already. So he ran, holding his laptop bag close to his side. He was grateful, he had at least tightened the hood of his sweatshirt.
The corner she turned on, opened up to a smaller cobblestone road, and at the end of it was the entrance of the tower. She opened the door with the sign ’authorized personnel only’, and she didn’t come back out.
Many feet behind her, but still unperturbed, Levi followed behind. The first floor was wide, and it acted as shelter, an ante room to a visitor’s center maybe, and there was a small open room to the side. A rope acted as some weak barricade to the entrance with a sign hanging in front.
Closed due to weather conditions
Uncertainty was another adversary. He turned to the glass door of the visitor’s center. He could look for her there. After a small peak through the glass, he realized if he went through there, he might just get a little self conscious, he might just hesitate to even climb over the rope.
In the slow few seconds that followed, Levi considered several things.
If she wanted to go to the visitor’s center, she would have gone through the main door. If she were Hange, it wouldn’t be too outrageous to imagine her climbing over a rope or even opening an ‘authorized personnel only’ door. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized, the bartender was right, his own instinct could be right.
Hange loved adventure. Hange loved freedom.
And as he stepped over the rope, then entered the hollow area where the spiral staircase climbed endlessly, he realized, his instincts, his decision might have just been right.
The footsteps echoed loudly, bouncing one end to the other over the hollow walls. Even when he couldn’t make out movements, just staring above him, towards the dizzying top, he made out the echoes.
And that could be Hange.
Or it could be an illusion. Levi added a second later, as he started the journey up the spiral staircases, the laptop bag dangling precariously on his side. He was dealing with too many sounds at once, and they all echoed in the narrow room, that Levi couldn’t be too sure if her footsteps had been his own imagination.
Still, he climbed.
Hundreds or maybe even thousands of steps in, it became an issue of sunk costs. The rubber soles of his shoes on the metal, the slap of his laptop bag on his side. And the few times he looked back, the few times he allowed himself to slow down, he heard an echo, unfamiliar footsteps, the shoes not his own.
A few times, he tried to go faster, just to beat the sound. When he sprinted up steps, losing count along the way, he remembered he had to conserve energy. The sounds were blurring against each other anyway.
So he settled for a quick jog. The monotony that came with jogging had him thinking, the spiral case really was endless. He wondered how many feet he had climbed.
A few times, it was tempting to run. A few other times, it was tempting to walk. A few times, he wondered how nice it would be to be able to fly, just float all the way down like a bird. Soon enough, he was high enough that just looking down made him dizzy, left his stomach turning.
He started to focus on what was ahead anyway, even when it was all just some predictable pattern of stairs and stone walls. Along the way, maybe he had started to lose feeling in his legs, just like he lost track of the echoes, or maybe she had just stopped climbing altogether.
Close to the top, there was a platform that led to a doorway. And Levi only had to push open, to be greeted again by winds. Suddenly they were coming in all directions at once, enough for Levi to put both his hands over his eyes. Enough to have him bending his knees, trudgling forward, one step at a time.
He was at the top of the tower, the highest point for miles around. When he got his bearings, started to accept the wind as an inevitable companion, he had managed to sprint forward, lean his elbows on the arm railings and look forward, at the magnificent view that stretched past the hotels, the shopping malls and the casinos.
The mountains beyond that and just next to them, the empty beaches, the local communities.
A few times, he closed his eyes, allowing them some reprieve from the harsh winds. And around the time, when he started to notice the grey sky, the streams of light that seemed to let bright colors glimmer, the few parts of the land they touched, he easily remembered why he had been there in the first place.
Of course, Hange enjoys this.
He looked around him once. Then twice, just in case the first time had been a trick from his tired eyes. She wasn’t around. Then he started to question himself.
Is she really here? Or were the echoes of footsteps just an illusion?
Was he going crazy?
It could have been from the strong winds, or the crushing disappointment, but around that time, he found it difficult to breathe. He felt tears prickle in his eyes. He swallowed once, and that had been enough to keep his face unmoving.
He looked back at the view, then at the grey sky above, the streams of light that were only getting smaller as dark clouds hovered over the city, then at the neon lights that only started to glow brighter with each stream of light that disappeared.
The wind started to blow harder, the trees down below rustled, creating their own glimmer of green, all dancing at once. Then he looked up at the ocean, the waves only getting larger, as the direction of the winds started to become unpredictable.
Sometimes, his hood was pressing harder towards the back of his head. Sometimes, it pushed from the front, blowing his bangs out of his face. It was chilling his cheeks, forcing the salty yet very sour scent of the ocean through his nose, then his half open mouth.
The wind brought with it many things at once, utter chaos, in separated parts. Most Levi couldn’t even understand.
I love you. At first, he thought it to be the whistle of the wind. Then a second later, he decided that he was just going crazy.
Then the wind stopped for just a second, the whistle, the blowing deadened into nothing for just a few seconds.
A few seconds enough.
“I love you!”
A few seconds long enough for Levi to trace the voice to a strange location, above him, yet behind him. He traced it to the brunette, cap still propped snugly on her head, her ponytail swinging from left to right.
Her sunglasses were off, she stood balanced on one of the lower rungs of the rail. There were still a few streams of sunlight left, yet they shone on Hange, bright enough for Levi to see red, in her ponytail, to see those roundish hazel eyes, those cheekbones and hint of pink in them.
Red. For a while it looked like a fire, the smell of the sea tickled his nose, then a wave of horror. Then loss?
See you later, Hange.
She stood there, meters above him, far enough for Levi to still doubt yet still close enough that with a longer look, Levi accepted, he was obliged to believe it.
It was Hange. The longer he looked at her, the more certain he became, the more money he would have put into such a wild conjecture.
But what the hell are you doing here?
Comprehension was a slow process, muddled by surprise, disbelief and confusion at his own reaction. Impatient, Levi had exited the spiral staircase to a platform a few meters below the top, while she had climbed all the way up. That left them in two completely different floors, two completely different platforms, a good distance away from each other.
And it didn’t look like she noticed him.
Then who are you talking to?
She continued to look straight ahead. She took a deep breath then screamed again.
I love you.
The wind caressed his face again and the words came again as a whisper.
The few times Levi opened his mouth, he noticed. When the wind was strong enough, the clearing of his throat, the grumbles didn’t come out as expected. As if the wind stole his words, and carried them away with it.
And the wind wouldn’t tell its secrets right?
Exhausted, terrified, confused then frustrated. Unwelcome tears threatening to force themselves out, Levi decided he was desperate for someone who’d listen but he he didn’t want anyone capable of judgement.
He took a deep breath. “I love you!” With the wind blowing in all the directions at once, his ears snug under his hood, it came out as a whisper. It was as if his body saw an opportunity for a cathartic release in the potential listener in the wind. Even as his throat burned, he screamed it again. “I love you!”
I love you. Hange’s voice seemed to ride with the wind, once again, he heard it as a whisper. Looking back up, Hange had dropped back on the platform, her two hands cupped her mouth. She dropped them and took a deep breath. She dropped her shoulders, then stared up at the sky, her head hung back. And she looked like she was about to collapse.
And maybe he looked the same way. He wanted to collapse too, with the weight over his shoulders, another, more deeply embedded exhaustion reared its ugly head.
But he wanted to hear the rest of it. He couldn’t be too sure who she had been talking too. Either way, he was sure it didn't change anything. Whether she felt the same way or not, love was love.
He took another deep breath. “I love you!” The wind was only getting stronger and once again, it snatched the words out of his mouth, his throat raw, almost burning. He didn't even know wind could burn until that moment, until he noticed the ache in his tongue.
Hange didn’t seem to notice. She still continued to stare straight ahead, then up at the sky. She put one hand over her eyes, wiping sweat. Or tears?
And maybe his mind suspected tears. And maybe tears were contagious. They came out unwillingly, as something that just welled at the rims.
And maybe if he just screamed again, they’ll force themselves back. “Hange Zoe.” He took a deep breath. “I love you!” He had been more strategic, letting it out a split second later, when the wind was whistling, almost screaming.
The wind might never take those words to her. But he didn’t seem to mind, the words had been for him more than anything.
Levi…. I love you...
The wind was strong enough, rain started to patter over the stone platform. And it became difficult to distinguish screams from the whistling of the wind. So Levi couldn’t be too sure. Still, he listened closely.
...In another life… Okay?
The rain was cold. The dampness pressed the hood closer to the back of his head, then the edge of his hood hung low over him, obscuring his view.
Yet the wind still found a way in, it first caressed his cheeks again, then tickled his lips as if forcing something out of him.
It goaded. It teased. And Levi had always been a sore loser, even if he never told anyone.
Alone, with no one there to hear him, but the wind, and Hange beyond ears reach, Hange who had barely noticed him, the words were forcing themselves out.
He looked back to see her standing, leaning closely over the railing. The strong rains, the ferocious winds had reduced her to a shadow.
And he was sure, she probably hadn't seen him.
Another surge of confidence. Then one deep breath. By some unexpected rush, Levi was starting to feel some strange anger. And Hange’s own staunch acceptance, the way she just gripped the railings and stared ahead, was only aggravating it.
“I don't wanna wait for any more next lives!” He let out a painful cough after that but even that didn’t penetrate the rumble, the pattern of the rain and the gusts of wind that surrounded him.
I want you. It was a weak whisper at first. Recovering from that last bout, Levi attempted once again. “I want you now.” Even when he couldn’t hear it himself, he felt it, the rawness in his throat, the anger that laced every single word. “Love is a choice right? Then I made my fucking choice! I want you! I want you now!” He wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, the figure hidden by a thin veil of rain.
The figure that eventually disappeared into the tower.
He eventually got tired of looking up. His neck ached, his vision started to blur and the hood hung damp over his face.
Levi only realized then, how much he had been holding in. In fact, it never felt all his to begin with. Cathartic releases weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Hell, Levi didn’t even notice how much had actually been released until he leaned back on the wall, until he realized, he didn’t mind at all being covered head to toe in water and dirt.
Humans were unpredictable. They were incomprehensible. And the moment that everything fell into place, Levi let it sink in.
He loved Hange. He wanted her. He wanted to be selfish about it.
“That’s what a choice is right? Doing what I want?” Levi whispered, making some sense of Hange’s own words, he mimicked her voice, her mannerisms as he said those first words. He then lowered his tone, into something more natural. “We’re not fucking robots Hange. We want things. We feel things.”
He didn’t need to tell her that. High up on the tower Hange had been screaming. He was certain of that. Hange had been leaning forward, she had been breathing hard.
She was feeling. She was human. She was free.
And Levi wondered why she had seemed so desperate, so eager to let something out, as if every other moment outside the tower had been stifling.
“That’s life married to a billionaire huh?”
He couldn’t blame her for screaming. HIs only little game of copycat had him exhausted too but somehow, by some sleight of hand, some magic, it had him calm, peaceful even under the strong patter of rain.
Articulating only made emotions all the more real. The signs that he hadn’t been the only one chasing blindly was reassuring.
And maybe that was all Levi wanted anyway, that was the final closure to that long game of cat and mouse. Levi turned to his soaked laptop bag, he maneuvered his way back inside the shelter. He zipped his bag open, let out a sigh of relief to see that the case had done its job to keep the laptop dry.
Then alone on the stairwell, he leaned on the wall, noted the sound of footsteps many feet below. He opened the laptop, then before even booting it, he closed it again and took a deep breath as one realization dawned on him in those slow steady movements.
In truth, he didn’t mind never showing the plans to Hange. Maybe he had just been looking for some excuse to see her, some attempt at closure.
“You got it,” he whispered to himself, hands cold and shaking even under the humid tropical air. “You can stop now…” But something inside him continued to lightly boil. “So what? Do we wait until the next life?”
Nobody answered.
He opened his phone, then his mood alarm. He already predicted the color on the screen.
Green. Happy sad? Or sad happy?
At that moment, Levi concluded, desire and acceptance could begrudgingly coexist.
***
Levi had no plans of going back to the convention. Yet, after that night, he had one more day left, one more day to check the city.
He did a quick google search, reading through long reviews on beaches, on the mountains, the hiking trails, the tower and the shopping street. None of them seemed interesting and Levi almost considered just curling up in bed on the last day and allowing himself to recover from the ordeal the night before.
And even if his mind had been willing him to find some other purpose. Levi found, as soon as the adrenaline rush ended, all he wanted to do was lie in bed. Only standing on two feet long enough to get him through a shower and curled into bed.
His mind was racing with other questions. Could Hange move? Was Hange moving? Was she walking? Was she talking? As if nothing happened? And the more he thought about it, the harder it became to move.
He slept through the night. By morning, he had enough strength, enough need for stimulation to pull his laptop closer. He ran his hand over the keyboard. It was fully dry. He realized he would rather wait a few more hours before opening it again.
He turned back to the ceiling. Rest. He whispered to himself. You don’t need to go out. You went on enough adventures to last a lifetime.
A fucking lifetime. It felt like sour graping. And Levi soon found himself admitting to sour graping. He would have wanted more adventures if it meant more time with Hange.
But real life didn’t work that way. Life expected people to decide on circumstances, never on emotions or actual thought.
So what’s the point of being fucking human then? Rejecting the world as a whole, made it easier to just roll over and nap again despite the light streaming through the window.
And Levi was in and out of sleep, the only view was the plain white walls of his hotel room, and whatever light reflected on it. Some natural need for stimulation had him jumping at the sound of the phone ringing.
Instinctively, he pulled his hand behind him, dragging the phone roughly from the side table.
An unknown number. Hange. The unwelcome part of him tried to rear its ugly head again. He put the phone to his ear. “Hello?” He kept his voice cold, just in case it was her, or wasn’t her.
“Mr. Ackerman?” An unfamiliar voice on the other end and Levi couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman speaking.
“Speaking.”
“Ms. Finger told me about your request, about your plans for the Mood Alarm. I ran through it with Mr. Jaeger and he would be happy to host you for dinner, then for a private meeting in his suite."
“No need,” Levi said.
“No, he insists.”
“It’s not worth your time.”
“Mr. Ackerman, listen.” And the voice on the other end was firm. “Mr. Jaeger has invited you to dine with him. He took the time out of his busy schedule to do this. This is a formal invitation, if he is interested in your plans he will tell you himself.”
Levi didn't respond immediately. He couldn't think of much else to say yet.
“Will you dine with him?”
Levi put the phone in front of him, put it on speaker and just stared at the unknown number. Could this be a scam?
As if to answer his question, the person on the other line only continued. “We have added you to the guest list for the dinner tonight, just give your name to the reception at the hotel. Mr. Jaeger will see you there.”
And the person on the other end, did not give him time to protest. Levi thought it almost rude to call back, to even bother anyone over a decision that was just his to make.
Hours of contemplation later, Levi decided to just show up and lay low. Besides, what was the worst that could happen? He had already reached the point of acceptance the day before.
39 notes
·
View notes
Text
2020 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 3)
10. WOLFWALKERS – eleven years ago, Irish director Tomm Moore exploded onto the animated cinema scene with The Secret of Kells, a spellbinding feature debut which captivated audiences the world over and even garnered an Oscar nomination. Admittedly I didn’t actually even know about it until I discovered his work through his astonishing follow-up, Song of the Sea (another Academy Award nominee), in 2015, so when I finally caught it I was already a fan of Moore’s work. It’s been a similarly long wait for his third feature, but he’s genuinely pulled off a hat-trick, delivering a third flawless film in a row which OF COURSE means that his latest feature is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, my top animated feature of 2020. I could even be tempted to say it’s his best work to date … this is an ASTONISHING film, a work of such breath-taking, spell-binding beauty that I spent its entire hour and three-quarters glued to the screen, simple mesmerised by the wonder and majesty of this latest iteration of the characteristically stylised “Cartoon Saloon” look. It’s also liberally steeped in Moore’s trademark Celtic vibe and atmosphere, once again delving deep into his homeland’s rich and evocative cultural history and mythology while also bringing us something far more original and personal – this time the titular supernatural beings are magical near-human beings whose own subconscious can assume the form of very real wolves. Set in a particularly dark time in Irish history – namely 1650, when Oliver Cromwell was Lord Protector – the story follows Robyn (Honor Kneafsey, probably best known for the Christmas Prince films), the impetuous and spirited young daughter of English hunter Bill Goodfellowe (Sean Bean), brought in by the Protectorate to rid the city of Kilkenny of the wolves plaguing the area. One day fate intervenes and Robyn meets Mebh Og MacTire (The Girl at the End of the Garden‘s Eve Whittaker), a wild girl living in the woods, whose accidental bite gives her strange dreams in which she becomes a wolf – turns out Mebh is a wolfwalker, and now so is Robyn … every aspect of this film is an utter triumph for Moore and co, who have crafted a work of living, breathing cinematic art that’s easily the equal to (if not even better than) the best that Disney, Dreamworks or any of the other animation studios could create. Then there’s the excellent voice cast – Bean brings fatherly warmth and compassion to the role that belies his character’s intimidating size, while Kneafsey and Whittaker make for a sweet and sassy pair as they bond in spite of powerful cultural differences, and the masterful Simon McBurney (Harry Potter, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) brings cool, understated menace to the role of Cromwell himself. This is a film with plenty of emotional heft to go with its marvels, and once again displays the welcome dark side which added particular spice to Moore’s previous films, but ultimately this is still a gentle and heartfelt work of wonder that makes for equally suitable viewing for children as for those who are still kids at heart – ultimately, then, this is another triumph for one of the most singularly original filmmakers working in animation today, and if Wolfwalkers doesn’t make it third time lucky come Oscars-time then there’s no justice in the world …
9. WONDER WOMAN 1984 – probably the biggest change for 2020 compared to pretty much all of the past decade is how different the fortunes of superhero cinema turned out to be. A year earlier the Marvel Cinematic Universe had dominated all, but the DC Extended Universe still got a good hit in with big surprise hit Shazam! Fast-forward to now and things are VERY different – DC suddenly came out in the lead, but only because Marvel’s intended heavy-hitters (two MCU movies, the first Venom sequel and potential hot-shit new franchise starter Morbius: the Living Vampire) found themselves continuously pushed back thanks to (back then) unforeseen circumstances which continue to shit all over our theatre-going slate for the immediate future. In the end DC’s only SERIOUS competition turned out to be NETFLIX … never mind, at least we got ONE big established superhero blockbuster into the cinemas before the end of the year that the whole family could enjoy, and who better to headline it than DC’s “newest” big screen megastar, Diana Prince? Back in 2017 Monster’s Ball director Patty Jenkins’ monumental DCEU standalone spectacularly realigned the trajectory of a cinematic franchise that was visibly flagging, redesigning the template for the series’ future which has since led to some (mostly) consistently impressive subsequent offerings. Needless to say it was a damn tough act to follow, but Jenkins and co-writers Geoff Johns (Arrow and The Flash) and David Callaham (The Expendables, Zombieland: Double Tap, future MCU entry Shang-Chi & the Legend of the Ten Rings) have risen to the challenge in fine style, delivering something which pretty much equals that spectacular franchise debut … as has Gal Gadot, who’s now OFFICIALLY made the role her own thanks to yet another showstopping and definitive performance as the unstoppable Amazonian goddess living amongst us. She’s older and wiser than in the first film, but still hasn’t lost that forthright honesty and wonderfully pure heart we’ve come to love ever since her introduction in Zack Snyder’s troublesome but ultimately underrated Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (yes, that’s right, I said it!), and Gadot’s clear, overwhelming commitment to the role continues to pay off magnificently as she once again proves that Diana is THE VERY BEST superhero in the DCEU cinematic pantheon. Although it takes place several decades after its predecessor, WW84 is, obviously, still very much a period piece, Jenkins and co this time perfectly capturing the sheer opulent and over-the-top tastelessness of the 1980s in all its big-haired, bad-suited, oversized shoulder-padded glory while telling a story that encapsulates the greedy excessiveness of the Reagan era, perfectly embodied in the film’s nominal villain, Max Lord (The Mandalorian himself, Pedro Pascal), a wishy-washy wannabe oil tycoon conman who chances upon a supercharged wish-rock and unleashes a devastating supernatural “monkey’s paw” upon the world. To say any more would give away a whole raft of spectacular twists and turns that deserve to be enjoyed good and cold, although they did spoil one major surprise in the trailer when they teased the return of Diana’s first love, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) … needless to say this is another big blockbuster bursting with big characters, big action and BIG IDEAS, just what we’ve come to expect after Wonder Woman’s first triumphant big screen adventure. Interestingly, the film starts out feeling like it’s going to be a bubbly, light, frothy affair – after a particularly stunning all-action opening flashback to Diana’s childhood on Themyscira, the film proper kicks off with a bright and breezy atmosphere that feels a bit like the kind of Saturday morning cartoon action the consistently impressive set-pieces take such unfettered joy in parodying, but as the stakes are raised the tone grows darker and more emotionally potent, the storm clouds gathering for a spectacularly epic climax that, for once, doesn’t feel too overblown or weighed down by its visual effects, while the intelligent script has unfathomable hidden depths to it, making us think far more than these kinds of blockbusters usually do. It’s really great to see Chris Pine return since he was one of the best things about the first movie, and his lovably childlike wide-eyed wonder at this brave new world perfectly echoes Diana’s own last time round; Kristen Wiig, meanwhile, is pretty phenomenal throughout as Dr Barbara Minerva, the initially geeky and timid nerd who discovers an impressive inner strength but ultimately turns into a superpowered apex predator as she becomes one of Wonder Woman’s most infamous foes, the Cheetah; Pascal, of course, is clearly having the time of his life hamming it up to the hilt as Lord, playing gloriously against his effortlessly cool, charismatic action hero image to deliver a compellingly troubling examination of the monstrous corrupting influence of absolute power. Once again, though, the film truly belongs to Gadot – she looks amazing, acts her socks off magnificently, and totally rules the movie. After this, a second sequel is a no-brainer, because Wonder Woman remains the one DC superhero who’s truly capable of bearing the weight of this particular cinematic franchise on her powerful shoulders – needless to say, it’s already been greenlit, and with both Jenkins and Gadot onboard, I’m happy to sign up for more too …
8. LOVE & MONSTERS – with the cinemas continuing their frustrating habit of opening for a little while and then closing while the pandemic ebbed and flowed in the months after the summer season, it was starting to look like there might not have been ANY big budget blockbusters to enjoy before year’s end as heavyweights like Black Widow, No Time To Die and Dune pulled back to potentially more certain release slots into 2021 (with only WW84 remaining stubbornly in place for Christmas). Then Paramount decided to throw us a bone, opting to release this post-apocalyptic horror comedy on-demand in October instead, thus giving me the perfect little present to tie me over during the darkening days of autumn. The end result was a stone-cold gem that came out of nowhere to completely blow critics away, a spectacular sleeper hit that ultimately proved one of the year’s biggest and most brilliant surprises. Director Michael Matthews may only have had South African indie thriller Five Fingers for Marseilles under his belt prior to this, but he proves he’s definitely a solid talent to watch in the future, crafting a fun and effective thrill-ride that, like all the best horror comedies, is consistently as funny as it is scary, sharing much of the same DNA as this particular mash-up genre’s classics like Tremors and Zombieland and standing up impressively well to such comparisons. The story, penned by rising star Brian Duffield (who has TWO other entries on this list, Underwater and Spontaneous) and Matthew Robinson (The Invention of Lying, Dora & the Lost City of Gold), is also pretty ingenious and surprisingly original – a meteorite strike has unleashed weird mutagenic pathogens that warp various creepy crawly critters into gigantic monstrosities that have slaughter most of the world’s human population, leaving only a beleaguered, dwindling few to eke out a precarious living in underground colonies. Living in one such makeshift community is Joel Dawson (The Maze Runner’s Dylan O’Brien), a smart and likeable geek who really isn’t very adventurous, is extremely awkward and uncoordinated, and has a problem with freezing if threatened … which makes it all the more inexplicable when he decides, entirely against the advice of everyone he knows, to venture onto the surface so he can make the incredibly dangerous week-long trek to the neighbouring colony where his girlfriend Aimee (Iron Fist’s Jessica Henwick) has ended up. Joel is, without a doubt, the best role that O’Brien has EVER had, a total dork who’s completely unsuited to this kind of adventure and, in the real world, sure to be eaten alive in the first five minutes, but he’s also such a fantastically believable, fallible everyman that every one of us desperate, pathetic omega-males and females can instantly put ourselves in his place, making it elementarily easy to root for him. He’s also hilariously funny, his winningly self-deprecating sass and pitch perfect talent for physical comedy making it all the more rewarding watching each gloriously anarchic life-and-death encounter mould him into the year’s most unlikely action hero. Henwick, meanwhile, once again impresses in a well-written role where she’s able to make a big impression despite her decidedly short screen time, as do the legendary Michael Rooker and brilliant newcomer Ariana Greenblatt as Clyde and Minnow, the adorably jaded, seen-it-all-before pair of “professional survivors” Joel meets en-route, who teach him to survive on the surface. The action is fast, frenetic and potently visceral, the impressively realistic digital creature effects bringing a motley crew of bloodthirsty beasties to suitably blood-curdling life for the film’s consistently terrifying set-pieces, while the world-building is intricately thought-out and skilfully executed. Altogether, this was an absolute joy from start to finish, and a film I enthusiastically endorsed to everyone I knew was looking for something fun to enjoy during the frustrating lockdown nights-in. One of the cinematic year’s best kept secrets then, and a compelling sign of things to come for its up-and-coming director.
7. PARASITE – I’ve been a fan of master Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho ever since I stumbled across his deeply weird but also thoroughly brilliant breakthrough feature The Host, and it’s a love that’s deepened since thanks to truly magnificent sci-fi actioner Snowpiercer, so I was looking forward to his latest feature as much as any movie geek, but even I wasn’t prepared for just what a runaway juggernaut of a hit this one turned out to be, from the insane box office to all that award-season glory (especially that undeniable clean-sweep at the Oscars). I’ll just come out and say it, this film deserves it all. It’s EASILY Bong’s best film to date (which is really saying something), a masterful social satire and jet black comedy that raises some genuinely intriguing questions before delivering deeply troubling answers. Straddling the ever-widening gulf between a disaffected idle rich upper class and impoverished, struggling lower class in modern-day Seoul, it tells the story of the Kim family – father Ki-taek (Bong’s good luck charm, Song Kang-ho), mother Chung-sook (Jang Hye-jin), son Ki-woo (Train to Busan’s Choi Woo-shik) and daughter Ki-jung (The Silenced’s Park So-dam) – a poor family living in a run-down basement apartment who live hand-to-mouth in minimum wage jobs and can barely rub two pennies together, until they’re presented with an intriguing opportunity. Through happy chance, Ki-woon is hired as an English tutor for Park Da-hye (Jung Ji-so), the daughter of a wealthy family, which offers him the chance to recommend Ki-jung as an art tutor to the Parks’ troubled young son, Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun). Soon the rest of the Kims are getting in on the act, the kids contriving opportunities for their father to replace Mr Park’s chauffeur and their mother to oust the family’s long-serving housekeeper, Gook Moon-gwang (Lee Jung-eun), and before long their situation has improved dramatically. But as they two families become more deeply entwined, cracks begin to show in their supposed blissful harmony as the natural prejudices of their respective classes start to take hold, and as events spiral out of control a terrible confrontation looms on the horizon. This is social commentary at its most scathing, Bong drawing on personal experiences from his youth to inform the razor-sharp script (co-written by his production assistant Han Jin-won), while he weaves a palpable atmosphere of knife-edged tension throughout to add spice to the perfectly observed dark humour of the situation, all the while throwing intriguing twists and turns at us before suddenly dropping such a massive jaw-dropper of a gear-change that the film completely turns on its head to stunning effect. The cast are all thoroughly astounding, Song once again dominating the film with a turn at once sloppy and dishevelled but also poignant and heartfelt, while there are particularly noteworthy turns from Lee Sun-kyun as the Parks’ self-absorbed patriarch Dong-ik and Choi Yeo-jeong (The Concubine) as his flighty, easily-led wife Choi Yeon-gyo, as well as a fantastically weird appearance in the latter half from Park Myung-hoon. This is heady stuff, dangerously seductive even as it becomes increasingly uncomfortable viewing, so that even as the screws tighten and everything goes to hell it’s simply impossible to look away. Bong Joon-ho really has surpassed himself this time, delivering an existential mind-scrambler that lingers long after the credits have rolled and might even have you questioning your place in society once you’ve thought about it some. It deserves every single award and every ounce of praise it’s been lavished with, and looks set to go down as one of the true cinematic greats of this new decade. Trust me, if this was a purely critical best-of list it’d be RIGHT AT THE TOP …
6. THE OLD GUARD – Netflix’ undisputable TOP OFFERING of the summer came damn close to bagging the whole season, and I can’t help thinking that even if some of the stiffer competition had still been present it may well have still finished this high. Gina Prince-Blythewood (Love & Basketball, the Secret Life of Bees) directs comics legend Greg Rucka’s adaptation of his own popular series with uncanny skill and laser-focused visual flair considering there’s nothing on her previous CV to suggest she’d be THIS good at mounting a stomping great ultraviolent action thriller, ushering in a thoroughly engrossing tale of four ancient, invulnerable immortal warriors – Andy AKA Andromache of Scythia (Charlize Theron), Booker AKA Sebastian de Livre (Matthias Schoenaerts), Joe AKA Yusuf Al-Kaysani (Wolf’s Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky AKA Niccolo di Ginova (Trust’s Luca Marinelli) – who’ve been around forever, hiring out their services as mercenaries for righteous causes while jealously guarding their identities for fear of horrific experimentation and exploitation should their true natures ever be discovered. Their anonymity is threatened, however, when they’re uncovered by former CIA operative James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who’s working for the decidedly dodgy pharmaceutical conglomerate run by sociopathic billionaire Steven Merrick (Harry Melling, formerly Dudley in the Harry Potter movies), who want to capture these immortals so they can patent whatever it is that makes them keep on ticking … just as a fifth immortal, US Marine Nile Freeman (If Beale Street Could Talk’s KiKi Layne), awakens after being “killed” on deployment in Afghanistan. The supporting players are excellent, particularly Ejiofor, smart and driven but ultimately principled and deeply conflicted about what he’s doing, even if he does have the best of intentions, and Melling, the kind of loathsome, reptilian scumbag you just love to hate, but the film REALLY DOES belong to the Old Guard themselves – Schoenaerts is a master brooder, spot-on casting as the group’s relative newcomer, only immortal since the Napoleonic Wars but clearly one seriously old soul who’s already VERY tired of the lifestyle, while Joe and Nicky (who met on opposing sides of the Crusades) are simply ADORABLE, an unapologetically matter-of-fact gay couple who are sweet, sassy and incredibly kind, the absolute emotional heart of the film; it’s the ladies, however, that are most memorable here. Layne is exceptional, investing Nile with a steely intensity that puts her in good stead as her new existence threatens to overwhelm her and MORE THAN qualified to bust heads alongside her elders … but it’s ancient Greek warrior Andy who steals the film, Theron building on the astounding work she did in Atomic Blonde to prove, once and for all, that there’s no woman on Earth who looks better kicking arse than her (as Booker puts it, “that woman has forgotten more ways to kill than entire armies will ever learn”); in her hands, Andy truly is a goddess of death, tough as tungsten alloy and unflappable even in the face of hell itself, but underneath it all she hides a heart as big as any of her friends’. They’re an impossibly lovable bunch and you feel you could follow them on another TEN adventures like this one, which is just as well, because Prince-Blythewood and Rucka certainly put them through their paces here – the drama is high (but frequently laced with a gentle, knowing sense of humour, particularly whenever Joe and Nicky are onscreen), as are the stakes, and the frequent action sequences are top-notch, executed with rare skill and bone-crunching zest, but also ALWAYS in service to the story. Altogether this is an astounding film, a genuine victory for its makers and, it seems, for Netflix themselves – it’s become one of the platform’s biggest hits to date, earning well-deserved critical acclaim and great respect and genuine geek love from the fanbase at large. After this, a sequel is not only inevitable, it’s ESSENTIAL …
5. MANK – it’s always nice when David Fincher, one of my TOP FIVE ALL TIME FAVOURITE DIRECTORS, drops a new movie, because it can be GUARANTEED to place good and high in my rundown for that year. The man is a frickin’ GENIUS, a true master of the craft, genuinely one of the auteur’s auteurs. I’ve NEVER seen him deliver a bad film – even a misfiring Fincher (see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or Alien 3) is still capable of creating GREAT CINEMA. How? Why? It’s because he genuinely LOVES the art form, it’s been his obsession all his life, and he’s spent every day of it becoming the best possible filmmaker he can be. Who better to tell the story of the creation of one of the ULTIMATE cinematic masterpieces, then? Benjamin Ross’ acclaimed biopic RKO 281 covered similar ground, presenting a compelling look into the making Citizen Kane, the timeless masterpiece of Hollywood’s ULTIMATE auteur, Orson Welles, but Fincher’s film is more interested in the original inspiration for the story, how it was written and, most importantly, the man who wrote it – Herman J. Mankiewicz, known to his friends as Mank. One of my favourite actors of all time, Gary Oldman, delivers yet another of his career best performances in the lead role, once a man of vision and incredible storytelling skill whose talents have largely been squandered through professional difficulties and personal vices, a burned out one-time great fallen on hard times whom Welles picks up out of the trash, dusts off and offers a chance to create something truly great again. The only catch? The subject of their film (albeit dressed up in the guise of fictional newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane) is to be real-life publisher, politico and tycoon William Randolph Hurst (Charles Dance), once Mank’s friend and patron before they had a very public and messy falling out which partly led to his current circumstances. As he toils away in seclusion on what is destined to become his true masterwork, flashbacks reveal to us the fascinating, moving and ultimately tragic tale of his rise and fall from grace in the movie business, set against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in American history. Shooting a script that his own journalist and screenwriter father, Jack, crafted and then failed to bring to the screen himself before his death in 2003, Fincher has been working for almost a quarter century to make this film, and all that passion and drive is writ large on the screen – this is a glorious film ABOUT film, the art of it, the creation of it, and all the dirty little secrets of what the industry itself has always really been like, especially in that most glamorous and illusory of times. The fact that Fincher shot in black and white and intentionally made it look like it was made in the early 1940s (the “golden age of the Silver Screen”, if you will) may seem like a gimmick, but instead it’s a very shrewd choice that expertly captures the gloss and moodiness of the age, almost looking like a contemporary companion piece to Kane itself, and it’s the perfect way to frame all the sharp-witted observation, subtly subversive character development and murky behind-the-scenes machinations that tell the story. Oldman is in every way the star here, holding the screen with all the consummate skill and flair we’ve come to expect from him, but there’s no denying the uniformly excellent supporting cast are equal to the task here – Dance is at his regal, charismatic best as Hearst, while Amanda Seyfried is icily classy on the surface but mischievous and lovably grounded underneath as Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies, who formed the basis for Kane’s most controversial character, Arliss Howard (Full Metal Jacket, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Moneyball) brings nuance and complexity to the role of MGM founder Louis B. Mayer, Tom Pelphrey (Banshee, Ozark) is understated but compelling as Mank’s younger screenwriter brother Joseph, and Lily Collins and Tuppence Middleton exude class and long-suffering stubbornness as the two main women in Mank’s life (his secretary and platonic muse, Rita Alexander, and his wife, Sara), while The Musketeers’ Tom Burke’s periodic but potent appearances as Orson Welles help to drive the story in the “present”. Another Netflix release which I was (thankfully) able to catch on the big screen during one of the brief lulls between British lockdowns, this was a decidedly meta cinematic experience that perfectly encapsulated not only what is truly required for the creation of a screen epic, but also the latest pinnacle in the career of one of the greatest filmmakers working in the business today, powerful, stirring, intriguing and surprising in equal measure. Certainly it’s one of the most important films ABOUT so far film this century, but is it as good as Citizen Kane? Boy, that’s a tough one …
4. ENOLA HOLMES – ultimately, my top film for the autumn/winter movie season was also the film which finally topped my Netflix Original features list, as well as beating all other streaming offerings for the entire year (which is saying something, as you should know by now). Had things been different, this would have been one of Warner Bros’ BIGGEST releases for the year in the cinema, of that I have no doubt, a surprise sleeper hit which would have taken the world by storm – as it is it’s STILL become a sensation, albeit in a much more mid-pandemic, lockdown home-viewing kind of way. Before you start crying oh God no, not another Sherlock Holmes adaptation, this is a very different beast from either the Guy Ritchie take or the modernized BBC show, instead side-lining the great literary sleuth in favour of a delicious new AU version, based on The Case of the Missing Marquess, the first novel in the Enola Holmes Mysteries literary series from American YA author Nancy Springer. Positing that Sherlock Holmes (Henry Cavill) and his elder brother Mycroft (Sam Claflin) had an equally ingenious and precocious baby sister, the film introduces us to Enola (Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown), who’s been raised at home by their strong-willed mother Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter) to be just as intelligent, well-read and intellectually skilled as her far more advantageously masculine elder siblings. Then, on the morning of her sixteenth birthday, Enola awakens to find her mother has vanished, putting her in a pretty pickle since this leaves her a ward of Mycroft, a self-absorbed social peacock who finds her to be wilfully free-spirited and completely ill equipped to face the world, concluding that the only solution is sending her to boarding school where she’ll learn to become a proper lady. Needless to say she’s horrified by the prospect, deciding to run away and search for her mother instead … this is about as perfect a family adventure film as you could wish for, following a vital, capable and compelling teen detective-in-the-making as she embarks on her very first investigation, as well as winding up tangled in a second to boot involving a young runaway noble, Viscount Tewkesbury, the Marquess of Basilwether (Medici’s Louis Partridge), and the film is a breezy, swift-paced and rewardingly entertaining romp that feels like a welcome breath of fresh air for a literary property which, beloved as it may be, has been adapted to death over the years. Enola Holmes a brilliant young hero who’s perfectly crafted to carry the franchise forward in fresh new directions, and Brown brings her to life with effervescent charm, boisterous energy and mischievous irreverence that are entirely irresistible; Cavill and Claflin, meanwhile, are perfectly cast as the two very different brothers – this Sherlock is much less louche and world-weary than most previous versions, still razor sharp and intellectually restless but with a comfortable ease and a youthful spring in his step that perfectly suits the actor, while Mycroft is as superior and arrogant as ever, a preening arse we derive huge enjoyment watching Enola consistently get the best of; Bonham Carter doesn’t get a lot of screen-time but as we’d expect she does a lot with what she has to make the practical, eccentric and unapologetically modern Eudoria thoroughly memorable, while Partridge is carefree and likeable as the naïve but irresistible Tewkesbury, and there are strong supporting turns from Frances de la Tour as his stately grandmother, the Dowager, Susie Wokoma (Crazyhead, Truth Seekers) as Emily, a feisty suffragette who runs a jujitsu studio, Burn Gorman as dastardly thug-for-hire Linthorn, and Four Lions’ Adeel Akhtar as a particularly scuzzy Inspector Lestrade. Seasoned TV director Harry Bradbeer (Fleabag, Killing Eve) makes his feature debut with an impressive splash, unfolding the action at a brisk pace while keeping the narrative firmly focused on an intricate mystery plot that throws in plenty of ingenious twists and turns before a suitably atmospheric climax and pleasing denouement which nonetheless artfully sets up more to come in the future, while screenwriter Jack Thorne (His Dark Materials, The Scouting Book for Boys, Wonder) delivers strong character work and liberally peppers the dialogue with a veritable cavalcade of witty zingers. Boisterous, compelling, amusing, affecting and exciting in equal measure, this is a spirited and appealing slice of cinematic escapism that flatters its viewers and never talks down to them, a perfect little period adventure for a cosy Sunday afternoon. Obviously there’s plenty of potential for more, and with further books to adapt there’s more than enough material for a pile of sequels – Neflix would be barmy indeed to turn their nose up at this opportunity …
3. 1917 – it’s a rare thing for a film to leave me truly shell-shocked by its sheer awesomeness, for me to walk out of a cinema in a genuine daze, unable to talk or even really think about much of anything for a few hours because I’m simply marvelling at what I’ve just witnessed. Needless to say, when I do find a film like that (Fight Club, Inception, Mad Max: Fury Road) it usually earns a place very close to my heart indeed. The latest tour-de-force from Sam Mendes is one of those films – an epic World War I thriller that plays out ENTIRELY in one shot, which doesn’t simply feel like a glorified gimmick or stunt but instead is a genuine MASTERPIECE of film, a mesmerising journey of emotion and imagination in a shockingly real environment that’s impossible to tear your eyes away from. Sure, Mendes has impressed us before – his first film, American Beauty, is a GREAT movie, one of the most impressive feature debuts of the 2000s, while Skyfall is, in my opinion, quite simply THE BEST BOND FILM EVER MADE – but this is in a whole other league. It’s an astounding achievement, made all the more impressive when you realise that there’s very little trickery at play here, no clever digital magic (just some augmentation here and there), it’s all real locations and sets, filmed in long, elaborately choreographed takes blended together with clever edits to make it as seamless as possible – it’s not the first film to try to do this (remember Birdman? Bushwick?), but I’ve never seen it done better, or with greater skill. But it’s not just a clever cinematic exercise, there’s a genuine story here, told with guts and urgency, and populated by real flesh and blood characters – the heart of the film is True History of the Kelly Gang’s George MacKay and Dean Chapman (probably best known as Tommen Baratheon in Game of Thrones) as Lance Corporals Will Schofield and Tom Blake, the two young tommies sent out across enemy territory on a desperate mission to stop a British regiment from rushing headlong into a German trap (Tom himself has a personal stake in this because his brother is an officer in the attack). They’re a likeable pair, very human and relatable throughout, brave and true but never so overtly heroic that they stretch credibility, so when tragedy strikes along the way it’s particularly devastating; both deliver exceptional performances that effortlessly carry us through the film, and they’re given sterling support from a selection of top-drawer British talent, from Sherlock stars Andrew Scott and Benedict Cumberbatch to Mark Strong and Colin Firth, each delivering magnificently in small but potent cameos. That said, the cinematography and art department are the BIGGEST stars here, masterful veteran DOP Roger Deakins (The Shawshank Redemption, Blade Runner 2049 and pretty much the Coen Brothers’ entire back catalogue among MANY others) making every frame sing with beauty, horror, tension or tragedy as the need arises, and the environments are SO REAL it feels less like production design than that someone simply sent the cast and crew back in time to film in the real Northern France circa 1917 – from a nightmarish trek across No Man’s Land to a desperate chase through a ruined French village lit only by dancing flare-light in the darkness before dawn, every scene is utterly immersive and simply STUNNING. I don’t think it’s possible for Mendes to make a film better than this, but I sure hope he gives it a go all the same. Either way, this was the most incredible, exhausting, truly AWESOME experience I had at the cinema all year – it’s a film that DESERVES to be seen on the big screen, and I feel truly sorry for those who missed the chance …
2. BIRDS OF PREY & THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN – the only reason 1917 isn’t at number two is because Warner Bros.’ cinematic DC Extended Universe project FINALLY got round to bringing my favourite DC Comics title to the big screen. It was been the biggest pleasure of my cinematic year getting to see my top DC superheroines brought to life on the big screen, and it was done in high style, in my opinion THE BEST of the DCEU films to date (yup, I loved it EVEN MORE than the Wonder Woman movies). It was also great seeing Harley Quinn return after her show-stealing turn in David Ayer’s clunky but ultimately still hugely enjoyable Suicide Squad, better still that they got her SPOT ON this time – this is the Harley I’ve always loved in the comics, unpredictable, irreverent and entirely without regard for what anyone else thinks of her, as well as one talented psychiatrist. Margot Robbie once more excels in the role she was basically BORN to play, clearly relishing the chance to finally do Harley TRUE justice, and she’s a total riot from start to finish, infectiously lovable no matter what crazy, sometimes downright REPRIHENSIBLE antics she gets up to. Needless to say she’s the nominal star here, her latest ill-advised adventure driving the story – finally done with the Joker and itching to make her emancipation official, Harley publicly announces their breakup by blowing up Ace Chemicals (their love spot, basically), inadvertently painting a target on her back in the process since she’s no longer under the assumed protection of Gotham’s feared Clown Prince of Crime – but that doesn’t mean she eclipses the other main players the movie’s REALLY supposed to be about. Each member of the Birds of Prey is beautifully written and brought to vivid, arse-kicking life by what had to be 2020’s most exciting cast – Helena Bertinelli, the Huntress, is the perfect character for Mary Elizabeth Winstead to finally pay off on that action hero potential she showed in Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World, but this is a MUCH more enjoyable role outside of the fight choreography because while Helena may be a world-class dark avenger, socially she’s a total dork, which just makes her thoroughly adorable; Rosie Perez is similarly perfect casting as Renee Montoya, the uncompromising pint-sized Gotham PD detective who kicks against the corrupt system no matter what kind of trouble it gets her into, and just gets angrier all the time, paradoxically making us like her even more; and then there’s the film’s major controversy, at least as far as the fans are concerned, namely one Cassandra Cain. Sure, this take is VERY different from the comics’ version (a nearly mute master assassin who went on to become the second woman to wear the mask of Batgirl before assuming her own crime-fighting mantle as Black Bat and now Orphan), but personally I like to think this is simply Cass at THE VERY START of her origin story, leaving plenty of time for her to discover her warrior origins when the DCEU finally gets around to introducing her mum, Lady Shiva (personally I want Michelle Yeoh to play her, but that’s just me) – anyways, here she’s a skilled child pickpocket whose latest theft inadvertently sets off the larger central plot, and newcomer Ella Jay Basco brings a fantastic pre-teen irreverence and spiky charm to the role, beautifully playing against Robbie’s mercurial energy. My favourite here BY FAR, however, is Dinah Lance, aka the Black Canary (not only my favourite Bird of Prey but my very favourite DC superheroine PERIOD), the choice of up-and-comer Jurnee Smollet-Bell (Friday Night Lights, Underground) proving to be the film’s most inspired casting – a club singer with the metahuman ability to emit piercing supersonic screams, she’s also a ferocious martial artist (in the comics she’s one of the very best fighters IN THE WORLD), as well as a wonderfully pure soul you just can’t help loving, and it made me SO UNBELIEVABLY HAPPY that they got my Canary EXACTLY RIGHT. Altogether they’re a fantastic bunch of badass ladies, basically my perfect superhero team, and the way they’re all brought together (along with Harley, of course) is beautifully thought out and perfectly executed … they’ve also got one hell of a threat to overcome, namely Gotham crime boss Roman Sionis, the Black Mask, one of the Joker’s chief rivals – Ewan McGregor brings his A-game in a frustratingly rare villainous turn (my number one bad guy for the movie year), a monstrously narcissistic, woman-hating control freak with a penchant for peeling off the faces of those who displease him, sharing some exquisitely creepy chemistry with Chris Messina (The Mindy Project) as Sionis’ nihilistic lieutenant Victor Zsasz. This is about as good as superhero cinema gets, a perfect example of the sheer brilliance you get when you switch up the formula to create something new, an ultra-violent, unapologetically R-rated middle finger to the classic tropes, a fantastic black comedy thrill ride that’s got to be the most full-on feminist blockbuster ever made – it’s helmed by a woman (Dead Pigs director Cathy Yan), written by a woman (Bumblebee’s Christina Hodson), produced by more women and ABOUT a bunch of badass women magnificently triumphing over toxic masculinity in all its forms. It’s also simply BRILLIANT – the cast are all clearly having a blast, the action sequences are first rate (the spectacular GCPD evidence room fight in which Harley gets to REALLY cut loose is the undisputable highlight), it has a gleefully anarchic sense of humour and is simply BURSTING with phenomenal homages, references and in-jokes for the fans (Bruce the hyena! Stuffed beaver! Roller derby!). It’s also got a killer soundtrack, populated almost exclusively by numbers from female artists. Altogether, then, this is the VERY BEST the DCEU has to offer to date, and VERY NEARLY my absolute FAVOURITE film of 2020. Give it all the love you can, it sure as hell deserves it.
1. TENET – granted, the streaming platforms (particularly Netflix and Amazon) certainly saved our cinematic summer, but I’m still IMMEASURABLY glad that my ultimate top-spot winner FOR THE WHOLE YEAR was one I got to experience on THE BIG SCREEN. You gotta hand it to Christopher Nolan, he sure hung in there, stubbornly determined that his latest cinematic masterpiece WOULD be released in cinemas in the summer (albeit ultimately landing JUST inside the line in the final week of August and ultimately taking the bite at the box office because of the still shaky atmosphere), and it was worth all the fuss because, for me, this was THE PERFECT MOVIE for me to get return to cinemas with. I mean, okay, in the end it WASN’T the FIRST new movie I saw after the first reopening, that honour went to Unhinged, but THIS was my first real Saturday night-out big screen EXPERIENCE since March. Needless to say, Nolan didn’t disappoint this time any more than he has on any of his consistently spectacular previous releases, delivering another twisted, mind-boggling headfuck of a full-blooded experiential sensory overload that comes perilously close to toppling his long-standing auteur-peak, Inception (itself second only by fractions to The Dark Knight as far as I’m concerned). To say much at all about the plot would give away major spoilers – personally I’d recommend just going in as cold as possible, indeed you really should just stop reading this right now and just GO SEE IT. Still with us? Okay … the VERY abridged version is that it’s about a secret war being waged between the present and the future by people capable of “inverting” time in substances, objects, people, whatever, into which the Protagonist (BlacKkKlansman’s John David Washington), an unnamed CIA agent, has been dispatched in order to prevent a potential coming apocalypse. Washington is once again on top form, crafting a robust and compelling morally complex heroic lead who’s just as comfortable negotiating the minefields of black market intrigue as he is breaking into places or dispatching heavies, Kenneth Branagh delivers one of his most interesting and memorable performances in years as brutal Russian oligarch Andrei Sator, a genuinely nasty piece of work who was ALMOST the year’s very best screen villain, Elizabeth Debicki (The Night Manager, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, Widows) brings strength, poise and wounded integrity to the role of Sator’s estranged wife, Kat, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson gets to use his own accent for once as tough-as-nails British Intelligence officer Ives, while there are brief but consistently notable supporting turns and cameos from Martin Donovan, Yesterday’s Himesh Patel, Dirk Gently’s Fiona Dourif and, of course, Nolan’s good luck charm, Michael Caine. The cast’s biggest surprise, however, is Robert Pattinson, truly a revelation in what has to be, HANDS DOWN, his best role to date, Neil, the Protagonist’s mysterious handler – he’s by turns cheeky, slick, duplicitous and thoroughly badass, delivering an enjoyably multi-layered, chameleonic performance which proves what I’ve long maintained, that the former Twilight star is actually a fucking amazing actor, and on the basis of this, even if that amazing new teaser trailer wasn’t making the rounds, I think the debate about whether or not he’s the right choice for the new Batman is now academic. As we’ve come to expect from Nolan, this is a TRUE tour-de-force experience, a visual triumph and an endlessly engrossing head-scratcher, Nolan’s screenplay bringing in seriously big ideas and throwing us some major narrative knots and loopholes, constantly wrong-footing the viewer while also setting up truly revelatory payoffs from seemingly low-key, unimportant beginnings – this is a film you need to be awake and attentive for or you could miss something pretty vital. The action sequences are, as ever, second to none, some of the year’s very best set-pieces coming thick and fast and executed with some of the most accomplished skill in the business, while Nolan-regular cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar and Dunkirk, as well as the heady likes of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, SPECTRE and Ad Astra) once again shows he’s one of the best camera-wizards in the business today by delivering some absolutely mesmerising visuals. Notably, Nolan’s other regular collaborator, composer Hans Zimmer, is absent here (although he had good reason, since he was working on his dream project at the time, the fast-approaching screen adaptation of Dune), but Ludwig Göransson (best known for his collaborations with Ryan Coogler Fruitvale Station, Creed and Black Panther, as well as career-best work on The Mandalorian) is a fine replacement, crafting an intriguingly internalised, post-modern musical landscape that thrums and pulses in time with the story and emotions of the characters rather than the action itself. Interestingly it’s on the subject of sound that some of the film’s rare detractions have been levelled, and I can see some of the points – the soundtrack mix is an all-encompassing thing, and there are times when the dialogue can be overwhelmed, but in Nolan’s defence this film is a heady, immersive experience, something you really need to concentrate on, so these potential flaws are easily forgiven. As a work of filmmaking art, this is another flawless wonder from one of the true masters of the craft working in cinema today, but it’s art with palpable substance, a rewarding whole that proved truly unbeatable in 2020 …
#wolfwalkers#wonder woman 1984#ww84#love and monsters#parasite#parasite movie#the old guard#mank#enola holmes#1917#1917 movie#Birds of Prey#birds of prey the fantabulous emancipation of one harley quinn#tenet#tenet movie#2020 in movies
65 notes
·
View notes
Text
DAY 5 ⇨ HANUKKAH
GENRE: Hanukkah!au, Fluff, Reader (and author!!) learns about Hanukkah
SYNOPSIS: Alfie lives by himself in Margate, how he managed to meet you one day is beyond him but after that fateful day you visit him every weekend without fail. This weekend, he seems to have something to do, to which you end up learning more about him and Hanukkah. Who knew Alfie was hiding a good story?
PAIRING: Alfie x Reader
W/C: 1.6k
A/N: okay so this year, the last day of hanukkah falls the evening of dec 18th! (for the sake of this fic and the release date i thought it was appropriate). anyway, i’ve done some research, not extensive research, however, i’ve deemed it an appropriate amount for the length of the fic -- but(!) i’ve tried my best to keep it accurate. previously, my minimal knowledge stems from junior school (church of england school) where we lit the menorah on the appropriate days but it was never explained to me why! i’ve tried my best and learned a lot about the fesitval, however i am anxious that it still might not be correct so please don’t hesitate to correct me if any of this is incorrect or inaccurate and i will immediately address the issue. to the best of my knowledge this is an “accurate” representation. if this offends you in any way, tell me. i’m not here to offend you and nor do i have any intention to.
Standing in Alfie’s flat in Margate, you noticed that he was watching the window as the sun was setting. You had offered to clean up as he was completely blind in one eye -- a story you had heard and pretended you hadn’t as from time to time it upset you and had seen how often he was checking out there; you couldn’t figure out why.
Wiping your hands down the sides of your dress you had put on to see Alfie this evening, you walk over to him and sit next to him, leaning into his embrace. He had his arm resting on the back of the chair and the other was tapping against the arm. When you pressed your cheek into his chest you lifted an eyebrow, “What are you looking at out there? I can’t figure out what it is.”
He stills momentarily before letting his arm fall to wrap around you and pull you into him.
“It’s nothing. Well, it’s not nothing, just something small,” he brushes a strand of your hair behind your ear absentmindedly observing you as you look up at him through your thick lashes.
“What is it? I’ll look with you.”“Uh,” Alfie clears his throat, fiddling with his collar, “I’ve got to light some candles when it gets dark.”
You sit up, a confused look on your face, “Any… particular reason why?”
“It’s the last night of Hanukkah; the Jewish festival of lights,” he says, watching you to see your reaction.
You tilt your head and lean back onto your hands, “Hanukkah,” you test the word on your tongue, “you know, Alfie, love, you don’t talk much about being Jewish and what it entails.”
Alfie gives a half-hearted shrug, “It’s never come up.”
“I suppose it’s never mattered,” you begin, “it wasn’t something that was going to stop me from seeing you. Let’s talk about it now. It seems appropriate to start now rather than never.”
“Alright,” he looks over to you, one eye fogged over and the other staring right at you, “c’mere, though. It’s cold without you.”
Giggling, you lay down so your head is in his lap, and he reaches to run a hand through your hair. You slip your hand into his other hand and rest it on your stomach.
“I’d start from the beginning but everyone knows the beginning. You know The Old Testament?” You nod, being well acquainted with the Bible.
“That's the only story we know.”
You hum, “I remember you saying something like that before but I think we were walking along the beach and the waves muffled you a bit. It wasn’t a good day to listen and learn properly.”
Alfie smiles, “I know it in Hebrew. Some know it in Yiddish; I know it in Hebrew.”
He taps your arm and you look up to meet his eyes, he leans down and presses a kiss to your lips, “That’s the beginning part, very abbreviated for you. Tonight, I’m to light the Menorah when the sun sets.”
You sit up and your hair falls into your face, his hand lifting abruptly from where it had been running through your scalp, “That’s why you were looking out the window; you were watching for the sunset! Alfie,” you hit his arm lightly, “you should’ve said.”
“I did,” he moves arm so you can’t hit him anymore, “just now, infact,” he laughs at your frown.
“I don’t want to get in the way; it’s disrespectful to stop someone from practicing their religion and I was doing that without knowing.”
“Alright, woman,” he drawls, “let me explain then. I’m more than happy to tell you about where the tradition stems from.”
Alfie shakes his head and stands from his seated position, going about his business whilst still telling you the story.
You halt your attack on his arm, recoiling your arm and folding them across your chest, “The sun’s set, just about,” you sniff, “need a match?”
“For 8 days,” Alfie begins, rifling through some drawers in the sideboard, “we celebrate, lighting a candle a day, one more for how many days we’ve been celebrating.
“It’s not written in the Torah either as the event that this celebrates happened after it was written. It is, however, mentioned in the New Testament in the Bible -- or so I have been informed.”
You watch as digs around, still not having found what he was looking for, his broad shoulders moving under the guise of the waistcoat, compelling you to sit and observe for a moment longer before getting up to help him.
“You light them after sunset?” you question, coming up behind him and opening the other drawer and pulling out a box of matches first try, making Alfie sigh at how easy you made it look.
“Yeah,” he says, “it’s supposed to be a sort of ritual that commemorates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in the second century B.C.”
“The rededication?” you test the words in your mouth.
Nodding, Alfie continues, “The rededication. That’s what Hanukkah means in Hebrew -- dedication,” he walks towards the Menorah that sat prominent by the window. You notice some already burnt candles amongst them. He continues, “The Jewish people rose up against the Greek-Syrian oppressors in the revolt. The Maccabean revolt, if I remember the name correctly; I always used to get that bit confused when I was younger.”
Absorbing this new information you ask, “How do the lights work, does one person light them or can everyone light them over time, assuming there’s enough people?”
“Some people like to have a full set of lights for each male in the household and, depending where you are, every female too and they then can light their own candles everyday. Others have just one set of lights for the entire household. It’s mostly a preference but it’s only me here so I only have one set of lights.”
You hum along, watching as he strikes the match against the box and lights a stand-alone candle. Alfie waves the match until it’s no longer lit and carefully puts it down in a nearby ashtray. He picks up the single candle and uses that to begin lighting the candles that stood in the Menorah.
“Typically, exchanging gifts happens every night and the consumption of traditional foods too. Normally I’d make the effort to have something like latkes but it’s harder to make when you’re blind in one eye,” he takes a moment and curses under his breath at Tommy -- someone you had come to resent the more his name was mentioned in passing like this but you brushed it off and waiting for Alfie to continue, knowing that tonight was no the night to press on about this ‘Tommy’ character, “and I live alone,” he lifts an eyebrow, something you catch in the reflection of the window as he makes eye contact with you, “so I struggle it’s fair to say.”
Frowning, you unravel your arms and stand next to him, the Menorah now fully lit, every candle simmering with light and brightening the room that little bit more, “If you asked --”
“It’s nothing,” he brushes off, waving his hand to dismiss you but you stand your ground and to be in his line of sight. You rest your hands on either side of his face, “Alfie,” your eyes soften, “I will take any offer to spend more time with you. Don’t worry. And,” you emphasise, “you know I’d do anything for you. This is about faith, I can’t get in the way of that.”
He brings a hand to rest on yours, leaning into your touch a little more, “I don’t want to inconvenience you; you already spend so much of your income on train fares to see me.”
Smiling bright, “I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to, you know that, right?”
He nods his head and you bring your face closer to his before pressing a soft kiss against his lips, savouring the taste of his lips before wrapping your arms around his torso and swaying slightly, prompting him to move along with you.
You mean back with his fingers resting on the small of your back and meet his gaze, “We can make something tomorrow since it’s kind of late right now… unless you’re up for doing something now?”
“Let’s leave it for tonight,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your temple.
The two of you just bask in this moment for a while longer, enjoying the calming presence of the other and you were also enjoying breathing in his soothing scent. It had been something you quickly came to associate with being in a calm state of mind.
“Alfie,” you begin, a frown etching into your forehead.
“Mhm?”
“Jewish people don’t celebrate Christmas… do they?”
“Uh, no.”
“Alfie!” You whine, pulling away from his chest and slapping his chest, “You let me put up a tree when I said you needed some Christmas spirit.”
He recoils, a nervous smile making its way onto his face, “You were so excited and it meant you would hang around for longer… and it’s only a small one.”
You both gaze at the small table-top tree you had found and brought over one Friday after work.
“And you let me bring over some red Poinsettias,” you continue whining, stamping your feet like a child.
“Santa doesn’t have to know that he doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Alfie…”
“Let it be. You can take it down tomorrow if you want.”
You huff and rest your forehead on his chest, letting your arms dangle at your sides, “Tell me stuff in the future.”
He lifts your arms to wrap around his torso and wraps his arms around you and you stay like that until you retire to bed later on.
#alfie x reader#Alfie Solomons#peaky blinders#alfie solomons fluff#peaky#alfie#blinders#solomons#peaky blinders fluff#peaky blinders imagine#peaky blinders fanfic#peaky blinders season 5#alfie solomons fic#littlemissshelby#pbw#12daysofchristmas#1930's#margate
67 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
teeny-fluffy-little-cloud
Agere blog
venompeach
Venom peach
elixirnaturel-blog
Elixir Naturel
boxingfighters-blog
Fighters Australia
cal-u-stories-blog
Cal U Stories