#I WHOLLY BELIEVE WE SHOULD MAKE IT HAPPEN | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

carpathxanridge · 4 months

Text

what this has taught me though is a lot of yall’s pro-choice arguments are not that ideologically sound, or at least don’t get to the heart of the argument. i know there are a lot of common abortion arguments that we like to default to, and none of these are wholly original arguments on either side, but i can’t emphasize enough the process of thinking deeply about these common arguments and understanding what the actual warrant for the claim is.

for example, if you say “a fetus is not a person.” and then the person you’re arguing with says, “it’s a literal human being,” and instead of refuting why the fetus does not have “personhood” in the legal sense and then making a broader philosophical claim that we shouldn’t view a fetus as a person, switching to the argument “okay even if it is a person it doesn’t matter because no person can be forced to be an organ donor even if the other person will die otherwise etc.”…. kind of makes you look like you don’t know what you’re talking about and are conceding that a fetus is a person.

similarly, if someone says “okay but there’s a difference between a nonaction (organ donation) and an action (abortion), there is no moral justification to abort because if the pregnancy progresses naturally the fetus will become a baby”… the crux of that argument isn’t answered by making a convoluted scenario (i haven’t seen it used in this particular argument but i’ve seen it in other context) where “ok someone connected all your vitals to a dude on life support against your will, do you have the moral justification to pull the plug?” no, the crux of that argument is that the pro life person is making an appeal to nature, usually paired with the argument that a pregnancy and its outcome is god’s will, and is suggesting that women’s role in the pregnancy is passive, just letting nature take its course. you might better be able to engage that particular argument by interrogating “why isn’t abortion natural when there are natural methods to abortion, when medical abortion has only made safer what women have done all throughout history? when miscarriage too is natural, happens in nature all the time, and isn’t always experienced as a loss by the mother—often it’s mundane, a woman’s body making the decision to terminate an unviable pregnancy, often before she’s even aware of it. so why is it natural for a woman’s body to terminate a pregnancy for her own survival and wellbeing, but as soon as she wills it and takes steps to do so it’s unnatural and immoral? yes, abortion is an action, but why do you see it as a perverse and immoral choice for a woman to make equivalent to murder, rather than her natural domain?”

and following these kinds of lines of questioning (rather than just switching to another stock pro-choice argument) will always get you closer to the heart of the disagreement, that which cannot be resolved over the course of a single conversation. which is that feminists simply believe that in a humane, moral society, women should get to choose whether or not to bring life into the world, whereas forced birthers believe a fetus is a life from conception, willed by god, and that women must surrender to god’s will.

480 notes · View notes

snorlaxlovesme · 4 months

Text

alright everybody, it's time we talked about Hostage. (buckle up because this is going to be long, but it'll be worth it)

season 2 episode 8 of Link Click was one of the most confounding episodes in the entire season while airing. starting with Lu Guang's insane boat crash/martial arts smackdown rescue of Cheng Xiaoshi and ending with Cheng Xiaoshi diving into a photo to possess Lu Guang to get answers for his actions, from start to finish it was a wild ass ride where we, the fandom, AND the characters spent the whole time questioning Lu Guang and his motives

and...puzzlingly... didn't really get an answers by the end of the season

Lu Guang wasn't granted any post-climax time to explain what happened that day from his perspective, and while Cheng Xiaoshi was possessing him he didn't get any answers because he literally WAS Lu Guang, just doing whatever the hell he thought he needed to do.

the thing about Hostage that has always felt extremely off to me, is that we DO get explanations for Lu Guang's actions during the episode, but they're from people wholly unqualified to be giving them.

Captain Xiao finds Lu Guang's phone, hidden in a folded towel, and concludes that Lu Guang had left them clues. Qiao Ling, after seeing that Lu Guang had taken a photo that night, came to the conclusion that Cheng Xiaoshi must have been the one possessing Lu Guang during his deranged rescue plan at the pier, seeing as Lu Guang wasn't an adept fighter at the dojo and he was acting extremely impulsive. She even goes so far to say, later in the episode, that Cheng Xiaoshi HAS to dive into the photo, because it's already happened, and needs to follow Lu Guang's words to not change the timeline.

all of these assumptions, to me, are horseshit

I refuse to listen to ANYTHING Captain Xiao says. one, because he simply does not know these kids and should not be making assumptions about them, and two he is in fact the worst cop in the world. and Qiao Ling, bless her heart, has only found out how their powers work mere DAYS ago and doesn't understand the nuances of them at all

so I'm gonna debunk all that nonsense and explain to you what Lu Guang's REAL actions were that night, and what was up with that cryptic photo he took

now you might be thinking, Kelly, you're not even starting in the right place, because those weren't Lu Guang's actions, they were always Cheng Xiaoshi's, just in Lu Guang's body!

FALSE. on two counts! we have evidence of Lu Guang and Cheng Xiaoshi performing the act of escaping the hospital differently. Lu Guang does not use the kettle to break the window to distract the cops. we're not sure what he uses, but that kettle is still there.

Lu Guang also places his phone face down in the towel

while Cheng Xiaoshi places it faceup

so by the end of the episode we have literal, physical evidence that these two performed this timeline differently, and therefore it was not "Cheng Xiaoshi the whole time" like Qiao Ling tried to misinform us to believe. i also have another Big Brain post [x] that explains why Lu Guang being an impulsive, supposedly "good" fighter during that pier rescue scene are both in-character for him.

(and if we wanna get really nitpicky about how an injured Lu Guang could have raced across town in his condition, i simply believe that Lu Guang was smarter about it that Cheng Xiaoshi, and probably took a bus or cab. Cheng Xiaoshi, pure of heart and dumb of ass, ran because HE physically could while inhabiting Lu Guang's body. our injured catboy did not sprint across town while holding his organs in place)

so if we already have all this cold, hard evidence stating that Lu Guang really is THAT bitch and did all that shit on his own, what the hell is my problem? why can I not let this episode go?

BECAUSE I WANNA KNOW WHY LU GUANG TOOK THAT PHOTO

Captain Useless seems to think that Lu Guang took that photo as some sort of helpful clue left behind for the gang

but what, pray tell, was this photo supposed to tell us without someone with Lu Guang's powers there to interpret it? without Lu Guang to tell him what to do, Cheng Xiaoshi left to his own devices knows just as much as himself as he does possessing Lu Guang

and, the bigger question, is if this was supposed to be some sort of almighty clue for the gang, why did he not text this photo to either Qiao Ling or Cheng Xiaoshi before escaping the hospital? he took the time to text Qiao Ling the location of the boat, did he not? why not the photo too? seems like a crappy way to clue someone in, to take a photo and save it on your password protected phone that you just went out of your way to hide from plain sight

because that's the thing! after the season finale we discover that Lu Guang's password is literally a reminder of his dive, or even more specifically, a reminder of his trauma. we KNOW that he didn't share his password with Cheng Xiaoshi, he just just happened to figure it out on his own

so tell me how Lu Guang expected this trauma-password protected phone, with it's one singular picture, to get in the hands of Cheng Xiaoshi, hmm? riddle me THAT

so we've established by now that 1. Lu Guang's actions in the beginning of episode 8 were indeed his own and 2. that photo was never meant to be seen by Cheng Xiaoshi, who shouldn't have known Lu Guang's passcode

given the trauma-passcode, we have to believe that the only person ever meant to see this photo was Lu Guang. i've made ANOTHER post previously [x] stating that Lu Guang might have used his powers in a way we haven't known possible, by taking a photo and using his Blue Eyes White Dragon powers to see 12 hours into the immediate future

plausible, but not what i'm about to propose now.

because I think Lu Guang took that photo as a contingency plan

listen, the only person who had ANY credentials to theorize what Lu Guang was up to that night was his trusted partner. while Qiao Ling and Captain Xiao spouted their nonsense theories, Cheng Xiaoshi said the only smart thing that entire brainstorming session

and I think Cheng Xiaoshi was right. he wasn't wrong in assuming this photo was a Save Point of sorts, the only thing he was wrong about was who would be using it

the only other person in this show capable of diving into a photo, we find out during the finale, is Lu Guang

we also find out in the finale that powers are transferrable, and it looks like they transfer when the owner of that power dies in someone else's arms

Lu Guang took that photo that night NOT for Cheng Xiaoshi to find and use, but for LU GUANG himself to use. i believe Lu Guang firmly believed that Cheng Xiaoshi was to die that night, and he would do everything in his power to make sure he had a chance to change it again if he needed to.

that meant:

1.taking a photo on his phone as a Save Point.

2. hiding his phone in the hospital bathroom so it could not be taken from him or busted later in the night. and

3. racing to where he knew Cheng Xiaoshi would be, so he could either

4. a.) rescue him, or b.) ensure that during CXS's death, the diving power was transferred back to him so he could do the night over again.

Lu Guang took that photo as contingency plan to save Cheng Xiaoshi's life should he get killed that night.

but that plan was botched when Cheng Xiaoshi used it instead to possess Lu Guang, because each photo can only be used once.

which might also explain why Lu Guang was SO DISTRAUGHT when Cheng Xiaoshi was shot

they had deleted all their photos earlier that week to prevent the twins from possessing them remotely

that was the last photo Lu Guang had taken. the ONLY photo on his phone. if Cheng Xiaoshi died that night, there would have been no Save Point to return to

#link click #cheng xiaoshi #lu guang #shi guang dai li ren #this is such a long post but i truly do believe i'm onto something here #no i do not know how Lu Guang OR Cheng Xiaoshi hotwired a boat tho #i'll have to believe that's somehow a sidehobby they both share

299 notes · View notes

caligvlasaqvarivm · 1 month

Note

how do you feel about march eridan?

Ok disclaimer before I get into it, trolls wearing dresses = great and fantastic; in fact, given that the gender differences in troll culture are so much less significant, ALL the male trolls should own some femme-ass clothes, even if it's as simple as just having a skirt version of their pants, and it's a little lame that we didn't get that.

That said, March Eridan specifically kind of annoys me because it has 0 basis in canon (aside from some shoutouts in things like ministrife sprites) but has taken over Eridan discussions so wholly that it's become widely accepted as part of his character that he's really into femme stuff when the opposite is true, and he's got some pretty major characterization tied up in the fact that he does lean so masc, and what specific type of masc he tends to present as.

So first of all, Eridan dresses up to emulate Dualscar, and this is very obvious and straightforward; if you've read the big essay I have pinned to my blog, you know that this is all a part of his basic "I have to be a big bad sea dweller or Something Bad Will Happen" suite of issues.

Thus, we can ALSO assume that the choices he made that aren't made to emulate Dualscar are reflective of his ACTUAL taste in clothing. For example, blue pants instead of purple and black - I believe that this is because Eridan likes to dress up in the blood colors of his dates; he wears a lot of blue because he's hatedating Vriska (and never quite seems to get 100% over her), and we also see this in the rings on his fingers - half of which are fuchsia, for Feferi.

So that leaves us with the glasses, shoes, and scarf. And we know why he dresses like that! It's because he's a hipster. (The scarf has an added benefit of being associated with harry potter-style wizards).

CCG: PAST YOU, PRESENT YOU, FUTURE YOU CCG: AND ABOVE ALL, UGLY SCARFNECKED DOUCHEBAG HIPSTER YOU CCG: WAIT I FORGOT, ALL OF THE YOUS ARE THAT YOU

And very specifically, a masc hipster from the era - the glasses and the ugly-ass shoes are dead giveaways. The slicked-back hair is reminiscent of that fashion style, too. He is also a douchebag. This too is important. He draws from character archetypes of the time that were generally agreed upon to be the most punchable people in existence; his introduction calls him "KIND OF A TOOL" and he consistently acts according to that. Like, I mean, just LOOK at those shades. Those are not the shades of somebody you want to be trapped in a conversation with.

A fairly accurate Eridan fashion board would look something like this:

And, like, it kind of matters that he dresses like this specific breed of pretentious male douchebag; on a meta level, that's the impression he's supposed to give the audience, and on a diegetic level, he CHOOSES to look like this because he has these kinds of interests, but is relegating them to secondary accessories.

We never hear him talk about liking hipster shit; we have to hear it from Karkat and glean it from his design. This is because, as I've talked about before, he actively distances himself from things that make him happy, things that he'd enjoy. The constant push-pull between his ACTUAL interests, and the ones he thinks he has to have because he's supposed to be a big nasty sea dweller, is a huge part of his characterization - for example, the way he keeps claiming that magic and wizards are fake and shitty, but has no less than 6 wizard statues in his respiteblock alone, and cared about his crappy wands enough to bring them onto the meteor.

So that's one of my other issues with March Eridan and the general fanon that he'd be really into femme clothes (and, by extension, fashion) - he wouldn't be forthcoming about it, even if it was true. He has a deep sense of shame and insecurity surrounding what few interests he actually has, because they feel stupid, ridiculous, and frivolous, next to the intense anxiety he has about playing the role society gave him. He's got a very strong sense of duty that makes it very difficult for him to relax and actually enjoy something. Which, you know, probably feeds into his hipster-ness - a movement often defined more by what it doesn't approve of than what it does.

Canon Eridan, when he has a choice of what to wear, overwhelmingly chooses masculine clothing with hipster connotations. And this matters, it's part of his characterization, it says something about him, the same way that it's important that Karkat dresses very simply and baggily (we all know how many insecurities Karkat has about his body) or that Sollux's bifurcation is shown in his clothes. So please please please don't misunderstand my dislike of March Eridan as me saying I don't want him in dresses; I purely dislike it because it's usually SUCH a misread of his character.

And to prove it, here's my other gripe with March Eridan stuff: all the dresses shown in the not-canon "official" artworks don't even flatter his bodytype. Why do his custom mannequins in Pesterquest have CURVES when his Pesterquest sprite doesn't?????

Please, I'm begging you, there are guides for dressing this body type, and even historical fashions that deliberately try to emulate this body type, please if you're going to dress him femme and HC that he enjoys fashion, please put him in clothes that flatter him please

I think Eridan should own some femme clothes, because on Alternia, there are very few differences between the genders, he's rich enough to afford it, and he clearly has more of an interest in fashion in general - but I think the fact that he has a clear canon preference for masculine styles is significant, and I'm really annoying, so it kind of does bothers me that this is a controversial opinion. That being said, I don't want to tell people what they Should and Should Not do, because that's lame. Who cares. He's a fictional character, let people draw him in dresses. Would be very happy if this post causes people to draw him in different styles of dresses though :pray:

#I'm not going to tag this #because also people playing around with putting Eridan in dresses is 100% harmless #and i'm not going to ruin the fun by going But The Canon Says -#i'm just really really really annoying about canon and i kind of assume people follow me for that reason #but please dont let my annoyingness hamper your fun #if you enjoy putting eridan in dresses then by all means keep doing it #peace and love and rise above

153 notes · View notes

planetsstarsandmoons · 1 year

Text

Random synastry observations based personal experience, part 3:

Mercury conjunct mars: it’s so funny to be libra mars and see mercury panic and manically diplomat themselves out of any thought they finally had the courage to communicate as soon as you’re being somewhat martian to them. ‘Why were you kissing that guy?’ ‘Why? Do you like me?’ ‘Ehh… nevermind hey look, a bird.’ Mars provokes mercury and mercury gets rises out of mars. This aspect can sometimes play out like missiles firing at each other, even in martian fall like libra. ‘Okay?’ ‘Good!’ ‘Good!’ ‘Fine!’ ‘Fine!!’ You can see this aspect can be funny and exciting as well as… cumbersome.

North node conjunct vertex: oh wow. This one. So this is a person in your life that you’re supposed to run into in a meaningful way. Now I only interpret this ‘meaning’ whatever it may be, as strictly romantic when it’s placed in house placements like 5th, 7th or 8th house. You might have a relationship that completely changes you or there is a fat chance that you get married (because this one is called the marriage aspect!). I personally don’t believe of course that if you have this aspect, therefore you will get married, but the meaning of this aspect in frank language is that ‘where’ your souls are, are each other’s endgame. The person you’ll share this aspect with is either kind of supposed your ‘last love’, or you’ll finish the relationship from the beginning until the end. Think of a successful relationship and marriage of 14 years, because you’ve learned from each other, moved on and will never really let that soul-tie go. Whatever soulmates you think you are with your partner, this amplifies it because you were basically meant to encounter in this way. Someone’s soul-goal (nn) is to meet someone’s soul-ascendant (vx) in the house of home, romance, secc or marital partnership! How this works: fate wants you to work together. You’ll only be able to let each other go when the job is finished and have ended up at each other’s ‘station’ (can also be a station of life lessons!). And with ‘only able’ I mean literally being able. I had this with someone I could not escape. I had this with someone who I consider a soulmate and we’d keep running into each other in places where we should not have had any business with each other! And I don’t mean like the supermarket, I mean student clubs where we both ran into each other because we happened to choose the same one despite both of us not knowing, jobs, apartment buildings we moved into, house viewings/interviews. All places where we were supposed to live our lives. Fate wanted us to be either meaningful acquantainces or best friends or lovers. Either way we were supposed to change each others lives, which plays out well when your relationship is a romantic one !

Venus opposite mars: is easy to be in denial about for a little while, but as soon as you both start acknowledging, even if it’s just for a little bit, that, yes, there is ‘something there’, you will get together in some type of way faster than lightning can hit the ground. If the guy is mars then this will lead to immediate action and borders crossed, if the girl is mars then it will take getting used to their roles, which only makes the romantic tension build up more and more as you can imagine.

Mercury conjunct moon: such a green flag. Whatever the communication is, it’s great and tying you to each other. People forget that moon energy and mercury energy are very opposite in nature and so can create a lot of magnetism too ! Mercury understands the moon completely and feels like being able to look through a looking glass at the inner workings of the moon person’s vulnerability. Moon forces mercury to feel things, because they compliment emotion to mercury’s logic. Moon feels like they can express themselves safely and mercury loves listening to them. Mercury feels secure in moon’s fragile side because they understand and accept it wholly. A very underrated aspect. It’s easy to go deep here. I had this aspect with someone who I would consider a soulmate. When I met him, I was trying to make small talk with 40 different people and with only one stranger I felt like I could be myself and be completely accepted, and that was with him !

Moon conjunct moon: yes. You may be soo ‘typically’ different from each other but still feel like you’re the same person and understand each other the best. It’s an undeniable bond. I have this aspect with someone who is the most quirky, off beat guy I know, worlds away from almost everyone, but still we connect like we’re each other’s home base! It also helps since he’s my crush lol. Having this aspect with best friends is a gift. You can always reconnect and you’ll never really be strangers to each other, ever. It can get annoying, but for the most parts it’s the kind of bond with a person you should be grateful for. Imagine that 1 person from your friend group you really have no reason to be friends with at all. You don’t really have common interests or talk one on one that much, but still you guys consider e/o close! It’s mostly one of the moon people who feels as if you’re unconditional close friends, and the other who’s just happy to have such a nice connection with someone. Imagine being paired up as buddies in school with that friend you’re not really friends with. It’s ~impossible~ to feel out of place like that with someone you have moon conjunct moon with.

Mars sextile venus: I hate when astrologers say ‘this aspect is better when ..planet is a man and ..planet is a woman’, but in this case it really is true (in general also i’ve found it to be true because environment and social upbringing, of course, too has influence on someone’s personality). But especially here it’s true because the positive side, ‘thing’ about this aspect is basically the understanding each other’s energy and the communication that flows easily and nicely. Mars sextile venus may not be the thing that ‘generates’ attraction like mars conjunct/opposite or sometimes trine venus does, but it works like a magical potion in helping it channel it. Especially the mars in question the main-aspector in the synastry chart, like if it’s also (harshly) aspecting the other’s moon or sun or uranus etc. ‘Socially’, planets are also aspected. Like men are for example taught to be more in tune with their mars, women are also taught to recognise and understand the mars-side to a man’s character. This will only amplify the benefits mars sextile venus aspect, as you can imagine. So this flow of in untraditional roles isn’t as easy to achieve as the other, as you can imagine. That one works better with a longer platonic stage, which is what I often find when a woman plays mars and the man plays venus. For lbtq+ relationships you can almost throw all of this uneasiness out of the window, depending on how little the parties identify with heteronormative roles in relationships. In my own experience, being the woman in mars sextile venus in a hetero relationship, this aspect feels like the way you got your two barbie dolls to get married to each other, only you’ll be kind of star-struck living the real-life-action version of this yourself. The parties won’t really be nervous around each other in the pre-relationship phase where this aspect is concerned! Because the chemistry that’s generated from this aspect isn’t really ‘much’, it’s taken and embraced wholly during all the interactions, because at its 100% top energy you’re not even being vulgar, you’re just being flirty and funny and easy with each other, and people will remark on your chemistry in their heads. It’s not this ‘out of control’ crazy thing to have, but it’s nice and romantic. This is the kind of relationship that everyone loves to see and can get two people who you’d never imagine crossing those boundaries, crossing that boundary. I’ve seen this aspect a lot between couples that got together after being in the same class for years, or friends that were simply introduced to each other at wholesome occasions like a wedding.

Pluto 12th house overlay: I’ve never felt as mentally ill as when I was with someone whose pluto was overlaying in my twelfth house. This doesn’t deserve laughing emojis! It was real. Pluto conjuncts my ascendant, so basically any guy who is older than me shares this overlay with me. This aspect would create the kind of connection where pluto, for some reason, would just magically have insight on what I was thinking and what my deepest unconscious thoughts were, all the time. This goes platonically as well. ‘Lol, that sounded faked’ ‘haha, why are you making things up all the time’ ‘but really, though, you are not okay, right?’ Maybe GO AWAY? I’m just kidding, here is your new role as my confessional even though you make me feel so uncomfortable for no reason for what is deep inside me. I’m doomed am I not ?

Moon opposite/square/inconjunct/semisquare mars: sigh… just watch Bridgeton season 2. Yes, it may be a slight charicature of what this is, but it is that. Believe me. There is natural strife between these two people but such comfort as well. The enemies-to-lovers trope based around the ‘giving up’ and swooning is based on a moon-person’s role in a harsh moon-mars synastry aspect. The trope of ‘giving in’ and protecting/pursuing/declaring feelings in a burst of passion is based on the mars-person’s role in this aspect. Moon square mars: In a non-romcom scenario, this relationship plays out as two people who aren’t supposed to even like each other, but it’s near unnoticeable due to the sheer attraction and crushes present. Moon opposite mars: these people weren’t supposed to give each other time of day, but that goes unnoticed too, because both recognise something in the other that misses in themselves and realise how this makes them fit together. Like venus opposite mars, it’s easy to be in denial about it for a while, but depending on how strongly these people are going to interact, they will want to get together as fast as they can. This is because the tension created by the opposites will moreso draw them together (dramatically, they’re still moon and mars) than create an energy field that electrocutes either one of them, depending on which day (like the square does).

813 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 10 months

Note

My third prompt, which I just think would be Neat: He Kexin didn't die when lxc and lwj were young, and instead it was their father who passed away on a night hunt

A Significant Difference - ao3

Lan Qiren wouldn’t have thought that there was much difference between being acting sect leader and raising one’s nephews because your brother was in permanent seclusion and being acting sect leader as regent for one’s underaged nephews because one’s brother was dead, but apparently there was.

A significant difference.

He meditated on this difference for a while, then went to He Kexin precisely on schedule. It was the start of the month, half a month of time from Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji’s monthly mid-month visits, and it was the first time he had visited since he had broken his scheduled visits with his sister-in-law to inform her of her husband’s death. When he had done so, she had stared at him blankly, dull as if with shock. She had asked, firstly, how it had happened – the official answer was a night-hunt, and the true answer not too far removed from that, only the object of the night-hunt had been festering internally rather than pursued externally – and then, blinking rapidly, what that meant for her.

At the time, Lan Qiren had told her that he did not know, but that she should assume that nothing would change for the immediate moment and that he would inform her promptly of any developments.

He was fairly sure she had listened to him, but he was still cognizant of the fact that there were some differences in her demeanor when he arrived this time. She had been increasingly ill the past few months, her vivaciousness fading like the bloom come off a rose towards the end of summer, and although they had never spoken on the subject, Lan Qiren knew that her illness was not wholly physical, having more to do with the doctor’s too-blunt revelation that she was unlikely to bear more children to accompany her in her seclusion for a few too-short years than it did with any real disease. Now, however, she seemed both better and more anxious, which he could understand.

“Are you really going to make me go through the small talk first?” she asked as he started preparing the tea, and he sighed quietly to himself – He Kexin had never had much appreciation for etiquette, something his brother had found charming and which Lan Qiren had found irritating, finding her manner suggestive of a fundamental selfish disinterest in anything that got in her way rather than merely a careless desire to not waste time with that which seemed to her to be unimportant, the way it was for Cangse Sanren. Though perhaps he was simply biased in favor of the woman who was his friend, and who hadn’t murdered a member of his family and ruined his life.

“I am not,” he said. “But I would prefer to have some tea prepared in advance of this discussion.”

“Why? What’s the reason? Is it bad news?”

“There is no news. Nothing has changed since the last time we spoke, other than that I have investigated the impact of recent events on your situation and have come to you to hear your views on the subject before any decision is ultimately made.”

“Slow and steady, always contemplating,” she said, tone biting and scathingly provocative as always, but her shoulders relaxed. “Why the tea, then, if no decisions have been made?”

“I am making tea,” Lan Qiren said, rigidly controlling himself as always, “because l have observed that you like to have something to sip whenever you don’t want to respond to something I’ve said. I thought it polite to provide the option.”

As always, He Kexin looked taken aback by the notion that someone might do something for someone else when there was no benefit in it for themselves – for the longest time she’d been convinced that Lan Qiren had some sort of infatuation with her, and it had taken considerable time and effort to dissuade her from both the belief and her occasional attempts to take advantage of what she believed he felt. By now he was fairly sure that she had accepted that Lan Qiren genuinely disliked her, lacked any sort of attraction to her whatsoever, and that he would nevertheless advocate for her interests just as stridently as if he loved her, and yet he was also aware that to this day she did not understand why he would do such a strange and pointless thing.

At least she waited with more or less grace until the tea was ready.

“Well?” she asked. “Have your elders decided that I’m officially useless to them now that there’s no hope of any more heirs? Are they going to make me drink poison or order me strangled or something?”

Lan Qiren’s eye twitched. “You read too many novels. And before you ask, no, that isn’t a prelude to me cutting off your access to them.”

“You say that as if you didn’t cut me off from that traveling opera troupe I liked that one time,” she sniffed.

“Firstly, I did not cut you off from opera troupes in general, merely that one in specific. Secondly, I did that because it turned out that they were thieves and the entire purpose of the troupe was a means of gaining access to the Cloud Recesses to scout out our defenses.”

“Thieves or no thieves, they put on a damn good opera.”

Lan Qiren suppressed another sigh.

“The elders are not advocating for your immediate execution,” he said instead. “On the contrary, the situation has shifted in a material manner, which is why I wished to get your thoughts on the subject. If you are amenable?”

He Kexin pointedly took a sip of her tea instead of answering.

Lan Qiren wished that he could be petty and respond in kind, making it clear that he was equally willing to sit in silence for as long as He Kexin’s limited patience could hold out, but he was viscerally aware – he was never not aware – of the power dynamics that underlaid all of their interactions. However unwilling he might be, he was He Kexin’s jailor, and the power was always on his side. It was therefore incumbent upon him to keep his temper on a short leash and to be as obliging as he could be, no matter how obnoxious or deliberately provocative her behavior might be.

“I will assume that you are,” he said neutrally. “Although, as always, if you wish for this conversation to end, you may say so at any time and I will depart at once.”

He paused, but she said nothing – more desperate for company and news than disdainful of it, no doubt. He had tried several times over the years to find a way to allow her some company that she might prefer, perhaps someone of her own gender and age, unburdened by the history between them – someone other than the servants she disdained – but he had never had any success convincing the elders of the necessity. Even his own visits had been hard-fought victories, premised entirely on his insistence that to properly raise his nephews he needed the input of their mother.

It had never sat well with him.

“Very well,” Lan Qiren said, moving on. “With my brother’s death, the role of sect leader has now devolved unto Xichen, although naturally he is too young to accept the role. As a result, I am now officially regent in his stead.”

“Does that change anything?” He Kexin asked, and she sounded genuinely curious.

“It does,” he confirmed. “Before, my role was that of a temporary caretaker –”

“Temporary? For ten years?”

“For as long as it would have taken, yes. As long as my brother lived, he was Sect Leader, regardless of where he was or whether he carried out the duties of the position –”

He ignored He Kexin’s mumble of “Well, that’s bullshit”, even though he privately agreed with the assessment.

“– and as only a temporary caretaker, my ability to implement change was heavily prescribed by tradition, in order to forestall the risk that I seek to take advantage of my brother’s absence.”

He ignored this second “Bullshit!” as well, though he appreciated it.

“However,” he said, trying desperately to get to the point as quickly as his rigid manner could manage, “as regent, my status is different, and so is the scope of my jurisdiction. I have all the rights and powers of a true sect leader, able to implement my will on behalf of my nephews.”

“That distinction makes no sense at all.”

It did if one looked at the historical background behind each type of position, but Lan Qiren didn’t allow himself to be distracted by an academic debate He Kexin wouldn’t care about in the slightest.

“Regardless of how much or how little sense it may make, it means that I have more flexibility in arranging sect matters than I did before,” he said. “Including in regard to sect discipline and justice.”

He Kexin paused with her cup halfway up to her mouth.

“What does that mean?” she asked sharply. “Don’t talk around the subject. My fate was sealed long ago – if I leave this house or break my seclusion in any other way, I die. Is that not still the case?”

Lan Qiren looked at her steadily. “The sect leader has the ability to commute punishments for conduct that he was not involved in, as long as justice remains served.”

She exhaled. Hard.

“You have several options,” Lan Qiren said. “I could lighten the terms of your isolation, whether by allowing you more company here or by allowing you to live in the female quarters of the Cloud Recesses; as you know, men and women are separated here, with the exception of married couples. You would be permitted to see your sons more often – every afternoon, if you so wished.”

He Kexin pursed her lips. “What’s the catch?”

“That approach would only be a lightening of your original punishment. You would still be confined to the Cloud Recesses, and your sentence of execution would still be applicable should you ever depart from our home.”

“An expansion of walls,” she murmured, then frowned. “You said ‘that approach’. What’s the alternative?”

“I could change the nature of the punishment entirely,” he said. “I cannot simply lift it, you understand – you murdered an honored teacher, perverting the rules of both justice and hospitality, and no matter my sympathy to you in regard to the matter of not being permitted to see your sons, my nephews, that does not change what you did. You were wrong then and remain wrong now. To refuse to punish you would be for me to fail in my duty to my ancestors.”

“You’re stepping around the subject,” she observed. “That’s unlike you. What’s the second approach? What would the new punishment be?”

Lan Qiren took a breath, steadying his nerves. “Exile.”

He Kexin blinked, and then she started to smile. “Exile? You mean, leaving this place, never to return, that sort of exile?”

“That is correct,” he said, and before the joy had fully entered her face, he added: “Your sons would, however, remain here.”

Her smile faded.

“That seems unfair,” she said after a moment. “I’m their mother, after all.”

“They have already separated from you and entered the men’s quarters, and their surname is Lan,” Lan Qiren said, a touch censoriously. “They are the heirs of a Great Sect, with all that attends that. You cannot expect to simply take them with you as if you were the rogue cultivator you once were.”

Nor would he permit such a thing. Bad enough to have one Cangse Sanren out there, a rogue cultivator who took husband and child along with her to face whatever dangers there were out there by her side, but his nephews? He would rather die than risk them getting lost or hurt in a moment’s carelessness.

He Kexin tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “Would I still be able to see them at all if I took that option?”

“You would be able to see them outside the Cloud Recesses. Naturally we could arrange something in which I would escort them outside for the purpose of seeing you…assuming you were within reasonable distance.”

It wouldn’t be every afternoon, though. It might not even be every month, the way it was now – not unless He Kexin wished to live near the Cloud Recesses, which Lan Qiren assumed she did not.

He remained quiet after that, drinking his tea and waiting for her to think it over. He knew what type of choice he was presenting her with, and he disliked it, though he did not see any other path forward. For his nephews’ sake, he hoped that she chose the first option, or at minimum a delayed exile, choose to stay within the Cloud Recesses until her sons were of age, or at least a little older than they were now – that Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji might have the benefit of their mother for a little longer, and the way they should have had her all along, a constant presence rather than a rarely-seen figure hidden away. Even if it meant that he himself would have to suffer her presence more often, have to look upon the woman who had destroyed his dreams every day rather than merely twice a month, it would be worth it, for their sake.

Yet for her own sake, he felt he had to make her the offer of freedom now. For all that Lan Qiren saw himself firstly as his nephews’ guardian, then as a member of his sect, and only lastly as an individual, He Kexin was in a different situation. She had never wanted to marry his brother in the first place, and she’d borne two children as much for the company they’d given her as because she’d actually wanted them.

She was a person, not merely a mother. She was the one who had to make the decision. Lan Qiren could not decide for her, not even if he believed one choice to be better for his nephews than the other.

“If you would like to think about it for longer, you may,” he said. “Overnight, or even for a few days…”

He Kexin put down her cup with a definitive thunk.

“I’m not a slow plodder like you lot are,” she said, head held high and voice scathing as ever. “I know how to be decisive. I know what I want.”

Lan Qiren braced himself.

“Well?” he asked. “What have you decided?”

She told him.

#mdzs #lan qiren #madam lan #my fic #my fics

118 notes · View notes

nono-bunny · 6 months

Text

As I grow up and continue loving Avatar the Last Airbender, I also start to engage with it more and more critically... And honestly, I fully belive that the reason that it's not a perfect show, despite when I used to think and want to believe in when I was younger... Is solely because season 3 exists in the state that it does.

What this means is honestly up to personal interpretation, but! Personally I believe that Aang should've killed Ozai, or at least work for NOT doing that. Either erase the chakras subplot that goes nowhere to enhance and actually give importance and weight to the lionturtle... Or resolve it by following up and officially killing Kataang. I firmly believe that Zutara was the only correct resolution to the whole ordeal, but I also would've coped so much easier with a less disastrous and unhealthy Kataang, and with an Aang that actually gets his teased character development. I didn't always hate Aang, and I wish the third season never made me.

I just... Truly feel robbed on all fronts by the third season, and of the things it introduced in the first place! I don't agree that Aang should've spared Ozai, and I don't agree that he should've ended up with Katara, but... Both happened, but they were done so poorly that I feel like even those who do agree with them deserved better.

My first impression of the finale is just forever gonna be how when we were kids watching the show, both me and my little brother were not even close to being the minority in being wholly underwhelmed by Ozai and Aang's battle, and agreed that he should have just killed him, even though we may not have necessarily wanted to see death. Also my brother was and is a fellow Zutara shipper because he's cool like that and I love him, shoutout to my little brother who's not gonna read this! Also, to my dad's partner who is, hi! You're cool too even if you have no idea what I'm talking about! Like... When your core audience is unsatisfied with your story's resolution, that's!!! Not a good sign! We as kids got that they were going for kid friendly messaging, and we did not care for it because it didn't make sense and wasn't fun to watch, and that's!!! A huge failure!

#avatar the last airbender #atla #anti bryke #atla critical #zutara #anti aang #anti kataang

131 notes · View notes

atlabeth · 1 year

Text

another day - aleksander morozova

part 2

summary: general kirigan saves you. but nothing comes without a price.

a/n: yes this is me in my shadow and bone era. what do you have to say about it

wc: 2.2k

warning(s): canon levels of violence, drowning + murder, but mostly in mini flashbacks, typical darkling manipulation. probably ooc but this is my first fic for the grishaverse so give me some grace pls

drüskelle = witchhunter

drüsje = witch

strymakt fjerdan = fjerdan might

You were drowning.

You were drowning in a storm of your own creation, water filling up your lungs, salt stinging your eyes, screams echoing all around you, you were killing them—

A shuddering gasp tore out of you as you surged up, and haggard breaths ripped through you. You weren’t in water, you were alone, but you still couldn’t breathe, your chest rising and falling as quick as your heart beat.

Your hands found purchase in the sheets below you, clawing at the rough linen as you pulled your legs up to your chest, each breath quicker in succession. Your eyes darted around, taking in your surroundings—far too nice to be a prison cell, far too warm to still be in Fjerda—and slowly, you began to calm down.

Perhaps that wasn’t the correct phrase. You’d managed to control your breathing to a respectable level, but you certainly were not calm—last you remember, you were in a fight for your life against some lovely drüskelle, and now you were in…

Saints, you had no idea where you were.

But you were not dead, and that counted for something indeed.

Carefully, cautiously, you stood up from the bed. Your quarters could be considered a room in the barest sense of the word, consisting of a small bed shoved in the corner and little else. You shivered slightly, and you glanced down at your clothes. At least they hadn’t taken the tattered rags you’d been traveling in for ages, you thought wryly.

Nicer than a Fjerdan prison cell, true, though that didn’t mean you were not a prisoner. Wherever you’d ended up might treat their captives slightly better than your home.

You were dry, though. Both of water and blood, which you realized no longer stained your arms. Your injuries had healed as well, scabs and thin white lines in place of cuts and slashes.

You could certainly mark Fjerda off your list, then. There wasn’t a single soldier who would have treated you with such kindness.

That was the strangest thing. You were not dead.

You were just about to try the door when you heard the lock click, and you stumbled back as it opened. Your heart hammered in your chest at the sight of a man in the doorway, though he had the decency to pause when he saw you.

“Ah,” he said, his lip curling in the smallest of smiles, “you’re finally awake.”

“Where am I?” you asked, and your voice was raspy from disuse. How long had you been asleep?

“I believe introductions should be our first order,” he said, and he closed the door.

You took a step back, hands clenched at your side.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly. “It would be rather foolish of me after all the work I put in saving you.”

Screams. Your screams, faltering in beats as you fought with everything in you. Ragged, from your very core, because you were going to die.

“You saved me,” you repeated, little more than a whisper.

“Do you remember?” the man asked, gaze unmoving from your face. His irises were of pure darkness, black as the loneliest night, and you felt wholly and completely bare in front of him. Another shiver ran down your spine. “You were hardly alive when we found you.”

Wrenched out of the water, limbs leaden and heart thundering as you were forced to your knees. Exhaustion tore through you, black spots dotting your vision, and the dead men in the shallows gave you no satisfaction because soon you would join them.

You nodded shakily.

“Good. That will make this easier.”

“The drüskelle,” you managed. “What happened to them?”

“I killed the commander with the knife to your throat, but he was the only one left. The rest of the lot were drowned.” Again, the beginnings of a smile, morbid for the conversation. “By your hand.”

He knew. Saints, he knew, and you were locked in a room with him with no way out, and you’d gotten away from the drüskelle just to die here.

“I didn’t do anything,” you said. He could hear the beat of your heart, surely, how it wanted to pound out of your chest. “Fjerdan waters are dangerous on their own, nevermind in a storm—”

“There is no point in lying,” he interrupted pointedly. “You’re a Tidemaker, and a powerful one at that.”

Your heart sank. You couldn’t escape, not from here, not in your state, not in the driest Saintsforsaken room you’d ever been in—

“I already told you,” he said, “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe here. You’re in Ravka. Os Alta.”

You frowned. “Ravka— how?”

“You’re Grisha,” the man said. “You belong here.”

And like lightning, it hit you.

“The Darkling,” you whispered. The step you took back was one of instinct, but your legs hit the side of the bed and they nearly buckled.

You weren’t the most educated on Ravka and its government, but one learned some things about their homeland’s fiercest enemy. You knew of the Second Army and their Grisha, of General Kirigan— the man that now stood in front of you, the man that had brought you back from Death’s door.

Sënje Magda, save you now.

“You have no reason to fear me,” Kirigan said. “Truly, I do not want to hurt you. I’m only here to help you.”

You huffed a mirthless laugh. “What could you possibly want with me?”

“You’re Fjerdan,” he said, “correct?”

You nodded.

“You’ve survived there all your life as a Grisha without anyone realizing,” he said. “You made it across half the country on your own with drüskelle tracking you for a quarter of it. And when they finally caught up to you, you destroyed their camp and killed the lot of them with nothing but your power.”

You raised your arms and the sea erupted around you. A tense second of silence hung in the air before you threw your hands down and roared, guttural and primal and broken, and brought the world down upon them.

Blood pounded in your ears. “I did what I had to do to survive.”

“And I do not malign you for it,” the Darkling said. “What they do to our kind is barbaric. I took pleasure in ending their commander.”

“You call us the monsters and then murder all my men,” he spat, wrenching your head backwards by your hair to bare your neck. The blade rested threateningly against your skin, but you were numb to the cold. “I should have ended you long ago, drüsje.”

Your fingers ghosted up to your neck. You could feel the slightly raised scar. “I thank you for it.”

“Believe me,” he said with a slight chuckle—you were surprised a man such as himself was able to laugh— “it was the easiest part of my day.”

“How long was I out?” you asked, the question clawing at your mind.

“A week,” Kirigan said, and your eyes widened. “It took us time to get from the coast back to the Little Palace, and you hardly even stirred the entire carriage ride. You truly pushed your abilities to the limit against the drüskelle. You were like ice, freezing and unmoving—I believe my Heartrender was the only reason you made it back. You’ve been resting here since then. I’ve been waiting for you to awaken.”

Your throat bobbed. He truly was responsible for your life, for getting you out of your wretched homeland.

You shivered. You didn’t like the idea of being in debt to the Darkling.

Kirigan looked at you for a moment more then shed his coat, fabric as black as his eyes pooling around his hands as he offered it to you.

“Oh,” you began, “no—”

“Please,” he interrupted. “I want you to be comfortable. You deserve that much after what you’ve been through. I do not know if it’s from your being a Tidemaker, but you are always frozen.”

You hesitated, but you took it and slipped it on. Your skin was indeed cold to the touch—the rags you called your clothes weren’t much aid—and you had to admit that it helped.

“You will have clothes of your own soon,” Kirigan said. “And you will get a kefta as well, fit to your measurements.”

Your brows knit together. “What are you talking about?”

“You know of the Second Army,” he said, “how the Grisha serve Ravka.”

“I— but— I’m not—” you stammered, unable to form a full sentence, embarrassing as it was.

“Yes?” he said, almost patronizing. Your cheeks burned.

“I’m not Ravkan,” you managed. “I have no place in your army.”

“That is of no matter,” the Darkling said. “We take in Grisha from all over—Shu Han, Novyi Zem, Fjerda. Many willingly serve, especially from your homeland. I’ve worked with many Fjerdan Grisha and they all prefer honorable service to persecution.”

“So that’s why you rescued me,” you said stiffly. “So I could serve you.”

“Officially, you serve the King,” Kirigan said. “But in time, I would like you by my side.”

You shook your head, tightening your grip on his coat if only from instinct. “I don’t see how I can help you.”

“Then you clearly know nothing of yourself,” the Darkling said. “Surviving in Fjerda as a Grisha is no easy feat, nor is the journey you’ve made. Alone, at that.”

“Strymakt Fjerdan,” you said dryly. “That’s what my brother always told me.”

His lips quirked upwards. “Of course. But you know what you’ve done, the power you hold. You raised the sea and ended those men without any training. Imagine what you could do with Ravka’s resources at your hands.”

“I don’t want to fight,” you said weakly as you sat back on the bed. “I don’t want this power— I never wanted to be a Grisha. I just want to live a normal life without looking over my shoulder every second.”

“We do not get the chance to live normal lives,” the Darkling said softly. We, he kept saying, like he could understand what you were going through. As if he was like you, like you had any similarities beyond Grisha blood. “You are a Tidemaker—there is no running from it. Your only choice is what you make of it.”

The Darkling moved closer in your uncertain silence, taking a seat beside you. He carried an aura of power with him, not just in his abilities but in the way he moved. His assertions, his statements, it all seemed true just because of his demeanor. It was hard to think around a man like him, but you forced through it.

“You have the chance to be truly great,” Kirigan urged, and it bothered you how much it sounded like he believed it. “You were born Grisha for a reason, with your strength and resolve and bravery for a reason. A Tidemaker forged through the fire of Fjerda. You belong here, at the Little Palace, in Ravka—with me.”

He looked at you with such intensity that it took your breath away. You hardly knew him, he hardly knew you, and yet Kirigan spoke as if he would lay down his life for you, as if he expected you to do the same.

“Join me,” the Darkling murmured, “and you will never lay at the foot of another again.”

You stared into his eyes, a lingering abyss that called to you. Your skin itched just looking at him, discomfort and intrigue and a desperate need to know more boiling over inside of you.

You had no choice. Kirigan knew that as much as you did, no matter how much he presented it as one.

You didn’t want to fight Ravka’s wars. You didn’t want to serve a king who’d done nothing to help you, to be part of an army that waged terror against your homeland.

But what else was there for you? You had nothing, no one waiting for you back in your homeland. No family, no lover, not even a bed to your name. If you stepped foot in Fjerda again, you would be hunted to extinction.

The Darkling was offering you life itself, a chance for another day. Wasn’t that what you’d been fighting for all along? Clawing through Fjerdan winters, surviving at the barest margins every day, losing more of yourself with every body you left behind you—all so you could escape the brand of drüsje and live like any other woman.

The life of a Grisha was not the life you wanted, but it was life. Only a fool would pass it up, no matter what it entailed.

You were many things, but you were not a saintsdamned fool.

“Okay,” you rasped, and your throat bobbed. “Okay. I’ll join you.”

The Darkling smiled, dark eyes crinkling at the side, and you had the strangest thought of his beauty. “Excellent.”

He placed his hand on your forearm, his surprising warmth shocking against the cold of your skin as he pulled you towards him. Power swelled up inside you even at the slightest touch, and you gasped at the feeling of it, icy fire erupting inside of you. The temperature plummeted inside the room and the frozen chill creeped through your veins.

“My Tidemaker,” he whispered. "We are going to do marvelous things together.”

perm tags: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin @maruchan77 @simonsbluee @kwyloz @masteroperator @louderfortheback

#the darkling x reader #aleksander morozova x reader #general kirigan x reader #the darkling fic #aleksander morozova fic #the darkling #aleksander morozova #shadow and bone x reader #shadow and bone fic #x reader #sadie writes #yes he is manipulating her but he's so sweet about it<3

288 notes · View notes

raayllum · 6 months

Note

Do you truly believe that Callum is the only best thing that's happened to Rayla?

I don't think Callum is the only good thing in Rayla's life, but I do absolutely agree with her sentiment that he's the best thing she's ever had / that's ever happened to her. This is for a few reasons (mostly only talking about arc 1 as that's the time she's referring to, but I'm also gonna be touching on S4/S5):

In Bloodmoon Huntress, the long time headcanon of post-s1-s3 fans that Rayla was a relatively friendless / lonely child was confirmed. This makes Callum and Ezran her first real friends, and while she's more likely to lean on Ezran for support (in arc 1 at least) initially than Callum is, Callum is still more so her peer (due to being similar ages) and is her first and main Best Friend. For that alone, I'd buy her statement.

Then there's the other ways Callum has changed her life. He is:

The person who inspired her to actively work towards breaking the cycle past the point of 1) believing it was right for Zym to return home and 2) to make up for her parents' perceived/failures mistakes, as seen most prominently in 2x07. This is something she is willing to die for, and while Rayla is (unfortunately) willing to die for many things, this is the cause she believes in and feels centred in: "Every fibre in my body is telling me that [leaving her] is wrong [...] It doesn't just feel like the right thing to do, it feels like the right thing for me to do. It's where I'm meant to be." ("Look at yourself, Rayla. Who are you? What do you stand for? Once you know that, you'll end up where you were always meant to be.") Someone giving you a much more positive worldview that aligns with your values and sense of rightness is certainly a big deal (and a positive one, particularly for someone who's struggled with hesitating over what feels right for so much of her life.

Callum is the first person in Rayla's life to love her wholly unconditionally. While Rayla is deeply loved by all four of her parents, and I've gone on record saying that Tiadrin and Lain didn't do anything wrong, arc 1 sees Rayla brush up against the lingering cultural hangups and choices that make her family's love for her feel if not outright be somewhat conditional. She is shunned by her village (condition 1), while Ethari says goodbye to her and embraces her he still turned his back on her (condition 2), Runaan was heavily disappointed in her betrayal of him/the mission and left her (condition 3), and her parents put their duty over her / being her parents (condition 4). Callum says fuck all that shit. He refuses to leave even when she's pushing him away. He loves and admires her for the exact things she's been punished or shamed for ("You have true courage and a big heart" -> "Even when her own people might misunderstand and turn against her"). He says she doesn't deserve to be Ghosted, she doesn't deserve to be unjustly turned away for a mistake she didn't even make, he says and shows that it's okay for her to be scared and that she can (and should) rely on him.

This is even more intrinsically tethered given Chasing Shadows and the canon fact that Callum and his love for her 1) kept her from throwing what little remained of her life away entirely and 2) literally kept her from forsaking her name/identity/everything else that makes her Rayla and 3) gave her the courage to try and come home to somewhere she'd be safe and loved, even if she knew/felt she didn't deserve to. There's an underlying belief in Chasing Shadows we see carry through into S4 where Rayla truly believes Callum can do and overcome just about anything, and if he can do the impossible, then maybe so can she:

She backed away, close to the pit’s edge. The crowd shouted and screamed at her ears, their spittle landing on her neck. It rattled her. The human kicked dirt at her, and Rayla scraped at her eyes, angry—infuriated, even. Humans were frustrating. Humans were clever. Humans could do anything, they could be anything, they could take their own fates and change them—

It is for all these reasons that Rayla clearly considers him to be her family and the love of her life. She gives him the pendant (from Ethari to Runaan, then Ethari to her, and then her to Callum) as a symbol of both familial and romantic love. He seems to be the first person she's had serious feelings for and certainly the first person she's fallen in love with.

She was originally going to confess first (2x09) back when she clearly didn't have any thought or inclination he'd ever love her back, either. Then he did, and it elevated an already very steady and safe relationship to one that was good natured, even more incredibly supportive, and wholly unconditional.

And given how he supports and loves her in S4 and S5, I am even more inclined to think she's Right <3

#rayllum #tdp rayla #pining!rayla #arc 1 #arc 2 #multi

60 notes · View notes

jaggedteeth · 2 years

Text

as the u.s. tour comes to a close, i want to take a moment to talk about a phenomenon i’ve seen taking place within mcr internet fan spaces these last few months, my thoughts on it, and how i think it relates back to digital media literacy.

(before we start, i want to make it clear that i’m just some guy and i am definitely not the most qualified person to talk about this, but i think some of the things in this post really, really need to be said. my hope is not necessarily to change your mind or to “get you on my side,” but to encourage you to think critically and independently, even during your daily scroll on social media.)

————

so, what is this ominous phenomenon i’m talking about? i’m referring to some of the comments i’ve seen mcr fans make regarding gerard’s gender—specifically the public, speculative, and seemingly unironic ones that attempt to put a label or a semblance of a label on his gender nonconformity.

(i think now’s a good time to mention you should read this entire post before engaging with or commenting on it. stay with me. we’re in this together.)

here is a post that i think does a good job of explaining this a little more in-depth for anyone who’s out of the loop.

regardless of my personal opinions on all of this, i understand why it’s happening. much of mcr’s fanbase is trans and/or non-binary, and seeking out representation from familiar, comforting figures is not out of the ordinary. i don’t think anyone involved means harm, and this isn’t a callout post. i’m just adding to a discussion i think has been largely one-sided up until recently.

————

what is the point of me making this post? to put it bluntly, i disagree with how much of the discussion around gerard’s gender identity and expression is being conducted.

(again, please stay with me.)

what is it, specifically, that i disagree with? is it the celebration of gerard’s gender nonconformity? is it the possibility they might not identify, partially or wholly, with their gender assigned at birth? is it the joy their gender expression has inspired in many mcr fans?

no. it’s none of those things; not even close. i can’t even put into words how i, a gender nonconforming trans man, felt when gerard wore his cheerleader dress in nashville. it was a special moment and i was so happy to see him happy.

but something that bothers me about the “gender wars” narrative is the idea that anyone who’s not all-in is, if not an outright transphobe, someone with deep-rooted biases they need to work through. i haven’t seen this from everyone, but it’s floated around here and there.

nuance in conversations like this is incredibly important. the human experience is rarely black and white. and i believe the notion that it must be, especially when it comes to topics such as queer identity, largely stems from closed-mindedness and fear, conscious or unconscious.

i have certainly witnessed people online assert that gerard must be cis, and there’s no way he can’t be cis, implying if he ever identified as anything other than cis that would be bad and gross and weird. i strongly disagree with that viewpoint because it’s transphobic and gerard is a real person who none of us know personally who can do whatever the fuck he wants. in the same way, i disagree with the viewpoint that gerard must be trans, and there’s no way he can’t be trans, implying anyone who disagrees is a transphobe who refuses to pay attention. because gerard is a real person who none of us know personally who can do whatever the fuck he wants.

i’m aware gerard has also made comments in the past about his journey with gender identity, the connection he feels to women and femininity, and even his experimentation with drag while he was in college. he’s said he should be referred to with either he/him or they/them pronouns, he’s an earnest supporter of the trans community, and he’s historically rejected the sexist shithead rock-dude stereotype.

i’m not here to downplay any of those things, nor am i trying to invalidate anyone who has taken comfort in or identified with those things. just a couple of points i would like you to think about, though:

some cis people also question their gender identity and/or use multiple sets of pronouns for a multitude of reasons (i’m not saying gerard has to be cis, i’m just giving you an extra viewpoint to chew on);

i’ve personally met plenty of men or male-aligned people who strongly identify with women and femininity. i strongly identify with women and femininity and i’m still 100% a trans man and will throw anyone who tries to tell me otherwise directly into the sun (again, i’m not saying gerard must be a man or male-aligned);

gender nonconformity and transness are complex, nuanced topics. labels can be useful, but they are not a be-all-end-all;

and i’m going to be blunt here—assuming and/or declaring someone is transfem when they haven’t publicly referred to themselves as such, just because they are comfortable discussing their own femininity and sometimes have a feminine presentation and feminine mannerisms, is basically an upgraded form of gender essentialism and completely disregards the existence and experiences of amab cis-passing queer people and gender nonconforming people. i understand it’s a tough pill to swallow, but intent doesn’t always equal impact, and just because someone may not see it that way doesn’t mean that’s not what they’re doing.

even if gerard is transfem, he’s still a real person who has a right to privacy and autonomy, and he never has to publicly label himself if he doesn’t want to. no one is entitled to seek out the details of his identity, but least of all us, a bunch of strangers on the internet who will probably never have a full conversation with him.

not one of us is an “authority” or “expert” on gerard way or my chemical romance. we can learn about the band’s history and public personas or laugh at the funny, quirky parts of their lore or cry when we think about how far they’ve come in the public eye, but what gives us the right to dig into every tiny crevice of gerard’s work and interactions and public existence searching for “clues” as to whether or not he’s trans? what gives us the right to label his gender identity for him—a process that is incredibly personal? i know “parasocial” is basically just another hollow internet buzzword at this point, but let’s not forget the very real consequences that parasocial relationships can certainly have.

do i think it would be fucking awesome if gerard came out as trans tomorrow? absolutely. do i also think it’s fucking awesome that they’re an older gnc person? that so many queer people have discovered and accepted themselves in part because of them? that they now exude joy onstage and bravely dress and act the way they do? one million times yes. and we can celebrate those real, concrete, factual things without tinhatting, overstepping boundaries, or jumping to conclusions. if they were to come out as trans tomorrow, that wouldn’t invalidate any of my arguments or make the behavior i’m critiquing acceptable, because the point isn’t about whether or not gerard is trans, the point is about how some of mcr’s fanbase is treating them.

gerard has uplifted and respected us time and time again without even knowing us as individuals. so i want you to take a moment to sincerely reflect and ask yourself this question: where is our respect for him?

————

alright. i’m glad you’re still here. let’s talk about what can actually be done about this.

i think a lot of this problem boils down to a lack of critical thinking. yes, that’s thrown around a lot as a clapback on this website, but i don’t mean it as an insult. we’re all guilty of not thinking critically, myself included. especially in the age of the internet, it’s impossible to be perfect all the time, when we’re bombarded with information from every angle.

this is why learning about and consistently practicing media literacy is so important. it’s something i’m passionate about because i’ve seen firsthand, time and time again, how it can make or break a person and their worldview, to the point that i spent hours writing about it for my upper-level journalism courses (before i dropped out lol) and worked for two semesters as an editor for a college newspaper.

if these conversations about gerard were happening in private group chats between friends who already know one another, my opinions on the topic itself would still stand, but it wouldn’t be any of my business and i obviously wouldn’t think to write an entire post about it. but everything changes when these discussions are had on a public platform with little regard for nuance.

“misinformation,” or the unintentional spread of false information—not to be confused with disinformation, where the person spreading it knows what they’re saying isn’t true—might not be a totally accurate descriptor for some of what’s going on here, honestly. none of us can prove what gerard is thinking or feeling. but based on what we do know, what he’s publicly and concretely shared with us, i think it’s as close as we can get. a lot of the posts i’ve seen don’t read to me as “hehe funny celebrity headcanon that’s obviously just for fun.” or even “i relate to this person’s art and/or publicized experiences, but i understand i don’t know them and at least some of that is just projection.” rather, they seem to make invasive leaps and use inaccurate vocabulary while simultaneously taking themselves very, very seriously, and that concerns me more than if a random tumblr user was just trolling to start fandom drama or something.

to put things into perspective, this is why every single one of my journalism professors drilled it into my head that you have to get your news from multiple sources. those sources must have differing perspectives and you need to look at every single one with a critical eye, no matter how trustworthy they may seem (listen, i get it’s way more complicated than that and i could go off on a whole other tangent about the glaring problems with mainstream news media in the united states and not in a cringefail right-wing way, but this is an mcr blog, so let’s just focus on the basic principle here).

obviously, i don’t think anyone should engage with transphobes unless it’s for the sake of making stronger counter-arguments, because their beliefs are provably harmful and false. but someone making good-faith criticisms of speculating about a stranger who has not publicly come out as trans and/or non-binary is markedly different. i’m not the only person who’s written something like this, and i encourage everyone to seek out similar posts and think about the points they’re making, even if you don’t agree with every single one of them.

this speculative commentary on gerard’s identity has spread like wildfire and created a polarizing echo chamber, from what i’ve seen. i understand why. but it’s still deeply worrying to me. seeing as this is primarily happening on tumblr, i’m concerned less because i think gerard will ever see or care about these posts (that’s obviously still important, though), and more because of what this says about how people in mcr fanspaces view celebrities they feel strongly about and engage with information they see online at large.

please do research on digital media literacy, and please use reputable sources with authority on journalism and communications to do so. don’t take what you see on social media at face value. don’t trust any one social media user to feed you commentary or shape your viewpoints, and that includes me. read with a critical eye. think about the possible implications and intentions behind the words other people use, big or small, and why those might be there. be aware of your own biases and blindspots. remember that you’ll never be perfect, not even close. and while you’re at it, learn more about the experiences of gnc people, and the experiences of queer people of all different ages, backgrounds, cultures, races, identities, perspectives, lived experiences, etcetera. if you can, engage in diverse irl lgbtq+ spaces. they put things into perspective in a way the internet never will.

but i still use tumblr in 2022, so what do i know?

————

if there’s anything you think i overlooked or misconstrued in this post, tell me! i want this to be a living, breathing conversation, not a monologue. these are important issues and they deserve our time and attention. thank you so much for reading.

#terfs and truscum don't fucking touch this post btw you're not welcome in this conversation or anywhere near my blog #tumblr like fucked up the spacing between words for some reason but man idc anymore i've already been working on this for way too long #mcr #my chemical romance #gerard way

413 notes · View notes

dwtdog · 1 month

Note

sorry! lol i meant your mindset about dteam i guess you posted on twitter saying we could ask you here

OH that makes sense i'll do my best to explain :DD

my most basic summary: all of this should have been handled in private. george and caiti had a misunderstanding that was based on them having two very different perceptions of the situation:

george saw it as a party among friends, among equals. he didn't know caiti was only 18, he didn't know she thought of herself as a smaller creator, he didn't know she was too afraid to distance herself

caiti saw it as a chance to get close to bigger creators, to make friends, and she felt out of her element and scared. she never should have ended up there, and for that i mostly blame her friends.

but the situation happened, and george messed up. in my perception, his biggest mistake was not being aware of her fear- but i wholly believe that he genuinly was just unaware, not malicious. power dynamics exist in every relationship, and are not inherently bad- they become dangerous when they are being leveraged, and based on everything we know of the situation, george was not leveraging the power dynamic against her.

this doesn't mean it didn't exist, because in caiti's mind, it did. and this led to her being deeply affected by the situation, because she perceived it as george taking advantage of her, and she felt used because of that- an important note is the difference in experience that george mentioned, where they both perceive a touch under the shirt very, very differently.

so what would have been the ideal fix to this situation? literally pretty much anything but bringing it before the court of public opinion. because of the extreme reaction to caiti's statement, george felt the need to go on the defensive, when, had it been kept private, it could have been a conversation where he explained that he truly had no idea, and he could give her a personal apology. instead, we're in a situation where everything has been massively overblown, from a miscommunication to malicious intent.

so, in the end, i think two things are true:

caiti felt hurt by the situation, and she deserves to find closure

george made a mistake, and he should take measures to ensure it doesn't happen again

for caiti, she hasn't given her final statement yet, so i can't say if she feels that going public with everything has brought her closure, or if she accepts george's apology. no matter what, she is allowed to to feel hurt

for george, he acknowledged his lack of awareness of the power dynamic or of her discomfort, and said he would be extra cautious of situations like this in the future. for the short term, there's not much more we can ask of him to verify that he is taking something important away from the situation. and for me, that is enough to feel confident in staying in the fandom, and continuing to support him.

#cq.asks #there are a few things i didnt address here because it feels weird to bring them up in a general statement but-#i believe that her friends did influence her perception of that night.#and i think that the rampant lack of communication behind the scenes is only going to cause worse problems if it continues #and tbh i sincerely hope dteam just distance themselves from english speaking mcyt until it gets its shit together #george situation

38 notes · View notes

marzgurl · 10 months

Text

Hi there, @katkit-42 , just saw your tags and thought, actually, that's not a bad thing to elaborate upon.

This is another kinda long post, which I think most people should read, too, but I'll be kind and put the bulk of this behind a cut here. Please do take the time to open it up and read it, though.

The real answer is, this whole experience has been me balancing out being mortified by a lot of the things that have happened to me with the fact that everybody involved in the whole thing has also been a complete and utter moron. Any time I even slightly start to get scared, I have to remind myself (or even have my husband remind me) that these are the absolute stupidest people we're talking about, none of whom are wholly capable of completing something so horrific, no matter how serious about it they might be.

I hadn't said it in the previous longpost, but in 2019, it was very clear that Vic had intended to sue me along with Monica, Jamie, Ron, and Funimation (although that never happened). I had received an E-mail copy of a letter of preservation from Vic's very, very stupid lawyers. I'll go ahead and share that here.

It was moronic for a number of reasons. One, I was told it was sent to two different E-mail addresses I have, one of which never arrived. Two, it's written REALLY badly. Three, it supposedly was also delivered via certified mail. Here's the problem: they mailed it to an address in Inglewood, California.

I have never lived in Inglewood, California.

But I know why they THOUGHT I did. Because in 2018, while walking from where I was living to my car to go to work, I got mugged! I had just recently moved and had been filling out paperwork for new jobs and things, and the bag they took still had my social security card, ID, and even my passport in it, which somebody later used to steal my identity. I remember the cops calling me back in a week or two after my mugging asking me questions because they believed they'd found people associated with who mugged me, and they asked me if I'd ever lived at an Inglewood address, and I told them no, and they were like, "Okay, great, pretty sure we know exactly where they are, thanks." So, I hope the guys who mugged me enjoyed having my identity and receiving a letter in the mail saying they were possibly gonna get sued. Thanks for taking one for me, muggers.

I mention this to say Vic has had me in his sights for a LONG time. A good four and a half years now at this point. Although I'm not the one that had any stories of him assaulting me, I was the one who made sure that people could SEE the stories of other people telling THEIR stories, and he HATES that. Clearly, he hates that a LOT.

Vic has vaguely mentioned me NUMEROUS times on his livestreams, saying, "I'm not gonna name names," but clearly intending everybody to know it's me he's talking about. In 2022, he referenced how I have a donation button on my Twitch channel and in the past have occasionally had drives to help me make ends meet. This is despite the fact that my husband and I were both working full time, but life in Los Angeles is hard. Despite this, Vic has this to say:

"These are people who start crowdfunding campaigns to pay their bills. What does that tell you about them? These are losers, everybody. These are people that are for whatever reason so disgusted with their lives--so unhappy with their lives, and instead of, like, working or going out there and, you know--and building something or creating something, they want to sit at home on their computer and look for ways to trash me an other people they don't like. And then they ask you to give them money to pay their bills. Pathetic. Pathetic. *weird snarl* Anyway--"

I feel like a donation bar isn't a "crowdfunding campaign", but we don't have to nitpick here. Vic has also expressed though private E-mails with various individuals that he believes I used crowdfunding to pay for a "cat funeral", which he also found to be distasteful. So, this was clearly a jab at me, but he got the details of it wrong. In 2019, my 14-year-old cat Siren was very sick. I was trying to get her healthcare and wasn't sure how I was going to pay for it. My friend--NOT ME, SOMEONE ELSE ENTIRELY--asked me if it was okay if THEY set up a GoFundMe to help me find a way to save my cat. THEY created the GoFundMe, and some people donated, and we did all we could to save Siren before it was clear that she was too far gone, and we lost her. We did NOT raise funds to have a funeral for her. Not in the slightest. The fact that this is what Vic is telling people is disgusting, and cruel to the idea of somebody who has ever had to deal with the loss of a beloved family member. On top of this, if you have ever struggled to make ends meet, let's not mince words here--Vic thinks you are "pathetic". He thinks if you don't make money, you just aren't working hard enough (even if it turns out you and your family all work full-time and take side gigs just to cover everything). Of course, he also seemed to believe that I didn't have a job at all (a long-running conspiracy theory among his fans, just because they couldn't figure out who my employer was), when I was providing hard evidence of being actively credited for my work as a subtitle and closed caption editor in the anime industry (the very same anime industry Vic was kicked out of).

But it's weird that he thinks you're a loser if you crowdfund to pay your bills! Is that not precisely how you managed to sue the very women you assaulted, Vic? To this day, the "Vic Kicks Back" GoFundMe is still open, and has raised nearly $300,000 dollars--a significantly higher amount than anything I've ever earned via Twitch donations.

In May of this year (which is exactly when Farah was ramping up her online harassment campaign against me), Vic once again vaguely talked about me, but got all the details wrong yet again. Since I can only embed one video, I'll link to this second clip here, which someone else has uploaded to Twitter.

Everybody knows Vic means me when he says that prior to 2019 I only had about 800 followers and now have more like 18,000, all because I was talking about him. Which he's very much over-inflating. I'd already had several years of a career of being an online content creator. By 2019 I had 16,000 followers. I've had my account for something like 14 years. I'm now over 19,000, pushing 20,000. That growth from 2019 to 2023 seems relatively normal to me. It was a very gradual growth that honestly doesn't look all that much different from the growth I'd had since 2009. Even one glance at Social Blade will confirm this is true.

He also keeps saying we've never met (such as in the video clip linked above). But we have! We very much have! I have video of myself--video from EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO--walking up to Vic with a camcorder and him talking directly to me. Feel free to go and watch it for yourself. You can hear my voice and everything!

AND SO! I say all this to say that I have long been aware of how much Vic Mignogna hates me. Vic Mignogna HATES ME SO. SO. SO. FUCKING. MUCH. He has done everything in his power to belittle and discredit me as somebody so much smaller and weaker and completely different from who I actually am, deliberately lying about facts of my life that I can actively prove false at any given moment with a plethora of receipts.

But you wanna hear the real eye-opening thing? In April of this year, just before Farah started going on the attack, Vic was on his livestream yet again making a very ominous statement. Once again, I link directly to it here since I can't embed it for you.

"I'm already in the middle of looking into some very aggressive retaliation and resources to deal with that."

Now, at the time, we all just thought he meant he was FINALLY gonna pursue a lawsuit against me, which, let's go bro, I'm fuckin' ready to go any time, man. But as it turns out, this sure does line up a whole lot more with the timing of Vic's Red Lobster dinner conversation with Farah about starting a cyber warfare campaign against me, on top of maybe possibly probably murder!?!?!? We know that Farah started her cyber warfare just later that very same month, so that sure sounds like convenient timing to me!

My husband and I had joked for a long, long time, like, "You know, he hates me SO damn much. You think he wants me dead?" And it was always kind of a, "Haha, yeah, we're joking, but what if for real?" And then when Farah started E-mailing me and telling me it was probably very real, I mean... yeah, katkit, that did shake me for a bit. I got the E-mail from Farah while my husband was at work, and it stopped my productivity for the day dead in its tracks. Even though it was clear that they had seriously overlooked really obvious facts (like the fact that I was literally not even going to be in the same state as Anime Expo, the event where Vic wanted me hurt), the fact that he wanted me hurt at all was concerning. Also, it was concerning to me that, if Vic at all stopped being a complete and utter fucking moron and realized I'd VERY PUBLICLY already been announced as a guest at a convention in Texas that very same weekend, it might actually be EASIER for him to have someone come to that event and hurt me, because Vic also still lives in Texas. He himself used to live in Houston, where the event was taking place, and likely still had connections there. Delta H Con is really little, without a lot of security. There was only one possible hotel for me to stay in. I was scheduled for panels and to be at my table all day, every day. Where I was going to be at all times was easily tracked for the entire weekend. To that extent, yes, I was very scared.

In fact, over that first weekend of July, I was very prepared to die.

I started trying to spend more time with my husband, trying to be more conscious of how I spoke or reacted to little things, just in general trying to be nicer and more loving. I started spending more time loving on my two cats who I love very dearly, wondering if I only had a limited time left with them. I started preparing folders of information I wanted to make sure my husband had if for some reason I didn't come back from Houston alive.

In the end, obviously, none of that was necessary. Though I guess I can't say that it was in any way a bad thing to spend more time focusing on and loving my family.

Ultimately, I guess I was saved by the stranger who sent me all those screenshots from Farah's Discord server. Surely, they have no idea what they did. To that person, I thank them. I had no idea it was going to save me, either. Had I not had those screenshots to post online and knock Farah loose from her war path, she might have continued to pursue me until she had something she really could have done to harm me for real.

Now, that's just disrupted that specific plan. Whether Vic will continue to want to pursue my death in some other way, I have no idea. I guess I am a little bit more on guard now than I was before. But also, I know there's only so much I can do. All I can do is just keep going and pretending there isn't this weird dude with a life that he could totally control all on his own and live in peace but instead wants his ability to prey on young women so badly that he would literally kill a woman to be able to continue to get away with doing it.

For right now, though, I'm mostly okay. I'm continuing to do my work, I'm going to see a movie tonight that I had a hand in localizing, and I'm feeling grateful for that success. Thank you for checking in on me. It's very kind of you. I hope you're doing well out there for yourself, too.

#anime #vic mignogna #assault #cheating #cw #death threats #harassment #voice actor #youtube #murder plot #update #updates

127 notes · View notes

homoeroticbetrayal · 1 year

Text

Iconic Homoerotic Betrayal: Round 2

Round 2 Directory

Context:

Akechi/Joker

Summarized by Anonymous Contributor

Ok so Akira(you the player) are the leader of a group of thieves (who are doing good for society) but there are more sinister things happening that also get attributed to your group.

Enter Akechi the famous charismatic detective who’s declared that he will catch you(you can probably already guess where this is going) When you first meet him it is already clear that something is very wrong under that obviously fake smile. Under your civilian identity you befriend him and slowly(or rather fast) he opens up to you showing more of his true self and what pains his heart. Even disclosing sensitive information that could bring him down. Of course this is all just lies he made up to get close to you right? Nope.

You see the betrayal coming from miles ahead. Not only does he betray you, he’s been the real culprit all along.

Despite knowing this loooong ahead you still take him on little gay dates to the aquarium, public bathhouse, pretending to shoot eachother, a café or try to impress him with your amazing darts skills. You may even willingly make wrong choices just for his approval (I did gdi Akechi I trusted you.) And when you come home he's already waiting for you.

After you survive him gleefully shooting you through the head(it makes sense in context) you meet again he admits that he wishes you’d have met earlier, confirming that your bond was genuine, that you could’ve been friends/partners(? It’s complicated) and he really meant it when he said you’re the only one he feels at ease with. But not without having a truly unhinged meltdown about it first, vehemently rejecting your offer to still be friends and turn over a new leaf. (so after he's attempted to kill you at least 2 times and is gearing up for making it 3)

Akechi betraying you is as much a betrayal of himself as it is one of you.

Bonus points:

other characters comment on you being the only one close to him

during one rank he confesses to you…. His hate?

as previously mentioned, your relationship ranks up after he shoots you in the head(you survive, it make sense in context)

he himself compares his betrayal of you to romance(yes after shooting you through the head). On live tv. In the same moment he reminds himself how he’s felt unwanted his entire life, like a reminder he killed the only person who ever made him wanted.

At the end you have the choice to stay in a perfect world where he is alive and never underwent any of the pain in his life turning him into a wholly different person, or let him die(again) as his true self. If you pick the former you can return the betrayal.

*vague description it’s complicated.

Read other summary here.

John Silver/James Flint (Black Sails)

Summarized by Anonymous Contributor

what if we were pirates and I was grieving over my lost love and pulled you into the orbit of my narrative and turned you into the same kind of monster as I am but instead of dedicating all your energy to destruction you found people to love and you sacrificed our shared dream of revolution for a chance at a quiet life and you had to kill me to do it but instead you said I will wait here for a day a month a year until we can walk out of this together. and also we were both boys.

The moment that best exemplifies WHY I believe silverflint should win this tournament isn't the moment of the betrayal itself, but something that happens an entire season before. It's the season 3 finale, and Flint and Silver are preparing for a battle. Silver says to Flint, "Your demons are a part of our reality. Such is the nature of the influence you wield. Some of those demons I've come to know, but the one in whose name this war is to be fought is still a stranger to me." He asks Flint to share the deepest and most painful parts of his backstory - and Flint does. He opens up to Silver about his (queer) lover, who was killed because of their relationship. He's never told anyone about this before, and everyone who knew is is dead. But he tells Silver.

Silver takes this in and comes to a realization. He tells Flint that he sees himself as the latest in a line of people who have become very close to Flint and died because of it. He places himself in the same category as both of Flint's dead lovers. But he says that, when it comes down to it, he's afraid he's going to destroy Flint rather than let himself be destroyed. Flint tells Silver that if he does try to kill him, he'll have his work cut out for him. The whole conversation takes place in flashbacks, intercut with the battle that takes place the next day. The end of the conversation is played in voiceover over the final shots of the season: after winning the battle, Flint stands on the bank of a river, staring across at Silver and Silver's lover; the two of them stand on the opposite bank staring back.

It is POETIC CINEMA on a level I don't even have words for. It's the moment of their greatest triumph together, the moment Flint finally opens up to someone a decade after what happened to him, the moment their partnership goes from utilitarian to inseparable. But the seeds of their dissolution are already present. Silver says as much, in the same breath as he declares himself to be the latest in the lineage of Flint's lovers. It's a truly unbelievable sequence.

#shuake #silverflint #akechi goro #akira kurusu #john silver #captain flint #black sails #p5 #polls

177 notes · View notes