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#but its a problem that ive been ruminating on for like a year now
pasta5284 · 6 months
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whenever i see posts talking abt like. fandom. like "whats ur unpopular opinion that will make the rest of the fandom mad" or "whats ur fav thing abt ur fandom" or "sitting in bed rotating my blorbo in my mind" or whatever im like. lol. i have not felt passion in so many years. ihave not had the brainspace to get deeply involved in any sort of media/fandom/content in so many years. i have spent the last few years especially an empty shell for anxieties. a body that walks arnd and does stuff and talks to ppl and technicalyl engages in interests but there is no real engagement anymore. its all going thru the motions. and this is not an entirrly unfamiliar feeling 2 me ive been depressed+ since like middleschool. but at least when i was younger i had shows and games and hobbies and i coulr lose myself in them. i haad anxious thoughts impulsive thoughts intrusive thoughts etc but my head was also filled w fun or interesting thoughts abt my ocs, the media i was into, my hobbies etc. but now there is nothing. i barely even listen to music unless im driving. when i am laying in bed all i think abt are the problems im facing or my own insecurities or whatever. anxious andd depressing and paranoid and. yeah. even when i consciously try 2 think abt things i like there is nothing. i feel nothing its hard to think of things to think abt. headcanons silly jokes analysis none of it comes to me even when i try. i would say this is just a part of growing up but most ppl i follow and are friends w r all within my age range. and plenty of them r mentally ill or traumatized or being actively abused/hurt but they still find escape. they can still watch a movie and then think about nothing but that for the next week. they can see a thing they like ans get excited abt it. tbey can get high and play video games and actually just think abojt the game and how much they like their fav character. instead of. physically doing the action but constantly arguing w someone in their head or debating if theyre a good person or not. or whatever. ad nauseam . every day. now that ive moved out and am working on myself the rumination is a bit better but now when im not constantly worrying abt interpersonal issues or whatever theres just a blank. the now freed up space hasnt gone back to thinking silly fun things its just blank or boring. my brain used to be a place i could escape but now i cant escape anywhere ever at all. even smoking weed or drinking or whatever doesnt help in any capacity. i am both trapped in my head and unable to be there anymore
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petscrub · 1 year
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idk a personal rant about my stupid brain
the issue with my own art, and my experience with making art, is that it doesnt feel like its coming from a very authentic place. and i honestly dont know how to change that, as someone with identity issues, comparison problems, low sense of self/esteem, lack of willpower/consistency... i go in circles trying to figure my “style” my “passion” etc... i think growing up on the internet, specifically things like instagram being the worst, my motivation for art started stemming from the idea of posting and sharing it somewhere, from seeing others and thinking, i have to make my own and catch up, from receiving validation, etc. there are definitely times where i make art for myself and anyone who would happen to enjoy it, and i do enjoy the process, but i think most of the time the intention gets so clouded by outside ideas and factors like “appearing” a certain way, gaining a following or audience... im really tired of it. i think its a toxic cycle and motivator and it has stopped me from being consistent and determined in areas that mean the most to me, i go back and forth on things because i see others doing something and i lack the ability to simply appreciate instead of having to pick it up and do it myself. it can be a wonderful thing to experiment in a bunch of different things/mediums, and it does feel nice that i have some talent in a variety of things, but im so exhausted of feeling mediocre and amateur in areas that i wish i could excel at because im truly passionate about them. and ive been doing art for most of my life, and still, the disconnect from myself and my own work is so heavy. i keep narrowing down things that i like, not to necessarily limit myself, but rather to improve in other areas that are more meaningful to me. its also incredibly hard, at this point, to figure out what things i am truly passionate about vs things that ive developed a false passion for based on others/appeal/comparison/wrong intentions. i used to make posts like this all the time but got tired of saying the same thing over and over again, and now i am still in this spot, even when i figure that ive discovered something, that ive decided to really follow through, it still eludes me eventually. lately ive been easier on myself especially the past year, it didnt get bad again until like.. 2 weeks ago. i have been trying to set weekly/daily goals because yes i am passionate in a lot of things but i try to tell myself that its fine, and things can still be accomplished even if it feels entirely overwhelming. so yeah... idk just needed to get this out. i will stick to the goal thing and hope it helps. i just need to quit overthinking/ruminating on all this and actually DO things because thats the only way forward and i forget that a lot.
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temporalhemorrhage · 5 years
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im so frustrated with social media nowadays... i dont know if its just because i dont know how to use it properly or because of genuine algorithm issues on the platform but like.... HOW does ANYONE find ANYONE on there???
like okay yes, there’s tags on instagram- i GET that- and it does seem that people use those tags to find new art because thats how im pretty sure ive gained the followers i do have (since its not like there’s a reblog function on there or anything where someone can expose an artist to their followers and thus increase their visibility)... but they also just instituted a new algorithm that basically mutes anyone who doesnt post/respond regularly (which can apparently be as little time as a week/few days without posting), so that’s a no go for anyone who doesn’t already have a large following
then twitter?? is just???? a void????? like i literally have NO idea how anyone finds anyone on there or how you’re supposed to grow your audience or even find people that you know from other social media??  i recently started using hashtags on there for my art (something that im still very wary of because NOT A SINGLE ARTIST I FOLLOW uses them so idk what the commonly used or appropriate ones are??? or if its even considered appropriate to put them on your art post?? like i said- not a single of the nearly 100 artists i follow uses them so im just like lol guess ill die) and yet i still feel like im just yelling into a void (with about the same reaction as you would expect from that action)
meanwhile, tumblr is the only place ive ever been able to build any sort of following and find friends/people i like and content i want, yet aside from its slow decline over the past couple years, im now hearing from artists that they’re barely getting any notes or interactions, even when they have 67k followers or some shit, so they’re all leaving for other social medias
which again returns me to my previous point of HOW are the other ones any better??? how did you amass 112k followers on twitter or w/e and 98k on instagram (if not just migration from an already established platform? which is literally my only working theory)? at least on here i can throw shit in a tag and i know ppl will see it- or i have ppl who consistently reblog my shit so i know that will introduce it to a new audience- how does that work on twitter/instagram???
ive yet to be introduced to A SINGLE NEW ARTIST on those platforms, which tells me that its not just my work that isn’t being spread, but that it’s just how the platform functions (e.g. you can show things to your followers, but their followers will rarely if ever see it, and there’s very few options for otherwise increasing your visibility), which im sure is fine and all if you already have a couple hundred or thousand followers under your belt, but for people starting absolutely fresh? what chance do they have? how do they reach the people they want to reach?
forget art- how do you find FRIENDS on there? how does ANYONE connect with other like-minded people or with those who share their interests? i just dont understand how anyone feels like these sites are anything other than just shouting into the void and ~hoping~ that the void is already occupied and listening...
(and please know this has nothing to do with my content- i understand that i dont put out anything worth paying attention to, so its not like im bitter i dont have followers or anything. it just feels like im missing out on some core knowledge that everyone else knows (which coincidentally is the story of my life) and that it’s going to fuck me over big time when i actually do try to gain an audience)
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veryvincible · 3 years
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Ive seen a few blogs talking about Tony Stark with OCD and I was wondering what your thoughts on it were? I know it's not canon but would it be an okay headcanon?
Oh, goodness. This is a doozy.
First of all, I do want to give the obligatory "any headcanon is okay" when it comes to stuff like this, because some people do pick up comfort characters that aren't exactly like them and then use headcanons to push their characterization around until they become a more efficient catharsis vessel, and there's really nothing wrong with that in a space where characters are pushed around all the time anyway. Your headcanons are yours, and you interact with media how it best suits you. Just don't go talking like this is The Way The Character Absolutely Definitely Is, because not only is that misleading, but also it's kind of stepping on other people who need different headcanons for other reasons.
Now that that's out of the way.
You've come to the right place! I have actually been diagnosed with OCD and have been dealing with it now for a long, long while; funnily enough, the OCD is what led me to worry about the OCD, which is what led me to research the OCD in-depth for many, many years. Not to brag or anything. B) Like, literally not to brag, because it's a mental illness. Anyway, jokes aside.
I'm going to go by the DSM-5 and personal experience with the diagnostic process for now. I know some people have their gripes with the DSM, but it's what we're going with.
Before that, though, I do want to lay some things down here. Though it's not outlined by the DSM exactly, it's common among mental health professionals and people with OCD to categorize different symptoms based on causes of OCD. Because OCD is inherently ego-dystonic, your intrusive thoughts are going to attack whatever it is you care about most-- people with primarily contaminant symptoms might fear illness, people with primarily aggressive symptoms might fear hurting others, etc. There's no standard for what these categories are, really. Different places teach different things, and some people disregard them entirely. But it's good to know they're out there, some examples being contaminant and aggressive OCD as mentioned before, as well as pathologic doubt/completeness, religion, self-control, and superstition. There are more, less, or different categories depending on where you look, so we can just leave that there.
Now, onto the actual diagnostic criteria.
In order to be diagnosed with OCD, you need the presence of obsessions OR compulsions, OR both. So, you kind of don't need the whole set to have OCD, though it's argued that some people view "primarily obsessive" and "primarily compulsive" types of OCD as... plain old OCD. "Pure O OCD" especially has been criticized, as its based entirely on the concept of compulsions being in one's head as opposed to external, which then raises the question of whether or not we're defining mental illness by the sufferers or the observers. Regardless, this is what the current DSM says: obsessions, compulsions, or both.
They must be time-consuming (>1hr/day), cause clinically significant distress, or cause impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning. So, could you be considered OCD if you're perfectly functional to the outside world but dysfunctional psychologically? Yes! Could you be considered OCD if you're mostly okay with the compulsions (often seen in people who believe their compulsions are rational responses to rational fears), but you can't function in day-to-day life? Yes! OCD is defined by how it affects you, and there are so, so many ways that it can do that.
The symptoms of OCD can't be caused by physiological effects of substance abuse or other medical conditions.
The disturbance cannot be better explained by the symptoms of another disorder (i.e. if excessive worries are better explained by an anxiety disorder, you're more likely to be diagnosed with something along the lines of GAD; if your difficulty discarding possessions is more in line with a hoarding disorders, you're more likely to be diagnosed with a hoarding disorder). One thing I would like to mention here is that this is often where the DSM breaks down when it comes to practice rather than theory. I'd like to specifically outline the example under this segment of the DSM that refers to "guilty ruminations, as in major depressive disorder". By these guidelines, would you be able to have both MDD and OCD if your OCD has mostly intrusive symptoms?
Well, yes, actually. There's a lot of discourse surrounding it, but here's the thing. Diagnosis is something meant to put you into a category so you can either seek treatment or get accommodations. For mental illnesses, physical illnesses... anything. This is it. I myself have both MDD and OCD, and part of why this is, is because there's an overlap between symptoms... but that's all it is. An overlap, borderlining comorbidity. And there are plenty of people who have similar diagnoses.
You'll see why I'm bringing this up in a second.
Let's go back to the diagnostic criteria and take it one-by-one.
Obsessions are defined by (1) and (2):
Recurrent and persistent thoughts, urges, or images that are experienced, at some time during the disturbance, as intrusive and unwanted, and that in most individuals cause marked anxiety or distress. The individual attempts to ignore or suppress such thoughts, urges, or images, or to neutralize hem with some other thought or action (i.e., by performing a compulsion).
Does Tony experience obsessions? Well, he very well could.
There used to be a criterion in the now-outdated DSM-IV that outlined obsessions could NOT be "simply excessive worries about real-life problems." But in the DSM-5, this was dropped. So, an obsession, by current standards, most certainly can be defined as an excessive worry about real-life problems.
Whether or not Tony's worry is excessive is debatable. We're all aware of Clint's sentiment in New Avengers that basically boils the team's state of being down to "we're extraordinary people, so we have extraordinary problems." Tony's worries are extraordinary, but... are they excessive?
I could go either way on this argument. Due to Tony's massive influence and his feelings of responsibility, we can all see why these worries might be considered realistic and average. But it's those feelings of responsibility that would make a better argument for "excessiveness"; he has taken the stance quite a few times that he's been "the only one who could see what needed to be done", or something akin to that, at least. It's not just that he has serious problems and he's concerned about serious solutions. It's that he feels such a sense of responsibility and guilt that every single problem on the planet happens to be a problem he's obligated to consider by his own standards, and if he doesn't consider those problems, he's an awful garbage man. Again, by his own standards.
One could also easily argue that he could fall prey to both aggressive-type obsessions and pathologic doubt-type obsessions, given that he's terrified of hurting people or causing harm unknowingly and that he's never 100% sure of himself, always "almost certain", and often looking to others (like Happy in Civil War, for example) to vent and try to half-validate himself as someone who really is doing the right thing.
These very obviously cause him distress, and one could argue that his Atlas-like anxiety with regards to keeping the world afloat is a huge factor in his mental cycle of thinking he's not doing enough, which means he's not enough, which means he deserves to die, which means he actually should die if he's not doing anything right, which means he has to try really, really hard to do things right, but he'll never do everything he needs to do, so he's not doing enough, so he's not enough, so he deserves to die.
And the alcoholism could easily come into play here, being a default coping mechanism for almost anything he'd encountered, obsessive or otherwise.
Now for compulsions.
Compulsions are defined by (1) and (2):
Repetitive behaviors (e.g., hand washing, ordering, checking) or mental acts (e.g., praying, counting, repeating words silently) that the individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession or according to rules that must be applied rigidly. The behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing anxiety or distress, or preventing some dreaded event or situation; however, these behaviors or mental acts are not connected in a realistic way with what they are designed to neutralize or prevent, or are clearly excessive.
So, we're going back to the obsessions outlined earlier. One thing I neglected to mention there was what he's referred to as one of his biggest fears, and I neglected to mention it because of how it ties into potential compulsions.
He's mentioned that someone "taking over his brain" is possibly the worst thing that could happen to him, given that he is a man with incredible influence and incredible intelligence and if his mind falls into the wrong hands, it could have (and has had) disastrous consequences. We see a lot of Tony trying to protect his mind as a result, always having backups, always having alternatives, always having contingency plans. This could also be considered a response to an obsession with regards to “mental contamination”, which makes sense.
It's similar with the responsibility-induced anxiety; he made how many AIs, now? He quite literally can't let himself die. He needs to be up, awake, present, alive. He needs to continue doing The Right Thing. We see the same sorts of behaviors even when he's alive and kicking-- he's often in his lab into the late hours of the night. He canonically works multiple jobs at his company. He runs around holding babies around the world, for God's sake. He believes everything deserves to be cared for, loved, and he believes he has to be the one to love it, and so he does, taking up so much of his time and so much of his energy every single day in a desperate attempt to make sure he's done all he can.
This is a man whose every day life could be considered scheduled compulsions if you really wanted it to be, one after the other, in a never-ending cycle of behaviors that he canonically won't ever be satisfied with.
Tony certainly could have obsessions. He certainly could have compulsions. He certainly could have OCD.
It's worth it to mention that self-blame, even for the smallest little details, is extremely common in people with OCD, and... That's also a very Tony thing, isn't it?
All that to say...
Do I think he does?
Well, not... really. I mean, I don't very, very strongly believe that he doesn't. And a lot of neurodivergent people have created incredibly thorough explanations as to why a character not intended to be one way might still be that way-- not even as a headcanon, but quite literally, they just are that way. This is especially common among characters coded (intentionally or otherwise) to have things like autism and ADHD. Whether or not a character "has" something is difficult to decipher, but if you can outline all the symptoms and you can't come up with any other explanation for them, then, well... You've got a neurodivergent character on your hands.
But that's the thing. You certainly can explain Tony's feelings and decisions with a diagnosis of MDD and alcohol abuse. You can. Plenty of people don't really want to, especially with some more toxic beliefs in the mental health community that regard less stigmatized illnesses as somehow also less severe or less validating, and regards MDD as "just depression" in a way that more stigmatized illnesses aren't. 
I don't feel terribly represented in Tony as someone with OCD-- I feel represented with almost every aspect of his struggles with mental health, but I rarely ever read through comics going, "there! There's my OCD thing!" Which isn't to say that it's never happened on a subconscious level, because... I mean, illness bleeds into every aspect of you. It's terribly difficult to find where one part of you ends and the other begins when there's so much overlap. But personally, Tony having OCD isn’t something that I really consider when I read or write (which is part of why I like having Ty Stone around so much-- I can pin a bunch of shit on him that I think Tony doesn’t have, and then I get to write everything I want while still keeping things true to the way I see them).
There are other sufferers of OCD who must certainly relate to Tony, and probably exclusively go "There's my OCD thing!" while reading his comics. I can see why.
So, again.
Do I think he has OCD? Eh. Not really my thing. But I think canon does what canon does, mental illnesses have plenty of overlap, and he meets the criteria enough that if you were to say he had both MDD and OCD, I wouldn't feel any reason to argue, especially if you’re saying it to better relate to him.
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zenosanalytic · 4 years
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People What Aint From Round Here Is The Problem...
So I just watched Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood and I have THOUGHTS:
Ive read a few reviews&ruminations on this film at this point and I can’t believe that none of them got(or at least, mentioned explicitly) the primary thesis of this movie, spcl given that Tarentino flatly states it out the mouth of his primary protagonist within, like, the first 15-20mins of the film: “...most important thing in this town is when you’re making money you buy a house in town. You don’t rent... Hollywood real estate means you live here. You’re not just visiting, not just passing through. You fuckin live here.” i.e., the most important thing in Hollywood, to Hollywood, is the people FROM Hollywood; Everyone else is just a filthy, trouble-making tourist or profiteer who is “Passing Through” and “Doesnt Get It” and  “Is Fucking It Up”(It being the film industry), and probably “Secretly Hates Movies”. There are places and aspects of this movie that are basically a Nativist Angeleno rant, written by a life-long Angeleno film-nerd-turned-film-maker, against Hollywood’s critics(and his critics which he just totally conflates with the former), and probably non-Angelenos(and non-Californians?) in general.
There are two ways to read this thesis: Straight and Subverted/Satirized.
The evidence for reading it straight is pretty plentiful. Lots of reviews have puzzled at where the line connecting the constant hippie-bashing, the weird focus on knocking Polanski’s Polishness & preference for shooting in London, and the inexplicable pot-shot at Bruce Lee is, and I think this is it. “The Hippies” are repeatedly presented as a corrupting force: digging through trash, living in squalourous filth at the Spahn Ranch dragging members of “Old Hollywood” like its owner into it with them, selling drugs, and using sex to “control” men. And attached to this is presenting “The Hippies” as foreign; not only from another place, but refusing to assimilate with the LA way of life and hostile to it. The Manson family are the only explicitly identified “Hippies” in the film(other than, possibly, the one who sells Cliff an acid cig). The only “positive” portrayals of Bruce Lee in the film are silent ones of him teaching anglos kung fu, which has some fairly obvs and well-understood Implications.
But there’s also good evidence for reading it as subverted and satirized. Both Tate and Dalton are NOT from California, let alone LA, and Booth’s origins are left unclear. Dalton’s the only one of them explicitly id’d as being from elsewhere(Missouri), but Tate’s easy to google and she was a military kid who grew up all over the place. When Dalton returns from Italy, that sequence and his look in it are VERY reminiscent of the scenes introducing Polanski at the beginning of the film. The side-characters around Tate, perennially shown in a positive light, are also non-Angelenos. Doing Spaghetti Westerns revitalizes Dalton’s career, despite his disdain for Italian cinema. Tate and her crew, while not explicitly ID’d as “Hippies” and often shown in Mod and other fashion styles, are also presented in “Hippie” fashion, shown listening to “Hippie” music, smoking the “Hippie” Reefer(Im sorry, but Comedy Demanded this phrasing and I am Devout u_u), and implied to be living a polyamorous “Hippie” life.
It really is difficult for me to say which predominates. On the one entirely metaphorical hand, the ways in which Dalton’s Angeleno chauvinism are subverted and mocked are fairly obvs, but on the other emh, the film is FILLED with LITERALLY GLOWING nostalgia for this pre-Hippy, pre-Lefty, pre-70s, Conservative and Republican California&Los Angeles. Dalton’s focus on property-ownership&the film industry in the opening thesis could easily be seen as resolving these subversive contradictions to allow for a straight read(ie: Tate, Booth, and Dalton are “Hollywood People” who’ve both bought real-estate in LA, and who’ve grown up in film or film-adjacent fields and choose to center their adult lives in the film industry). So much, in fact, that I kinda started to wonder abt QT’s politics while watching it. And, if it WAS satirical, then what’s the point of the knock to Bruce Lee and focusing criticisms of Polanski on his Polishness and shooting in London? Is that just meant to characterize Dalton and Booth as nativists and racists?
It really cannot be said enough that there are REALLY MORE APPROPRIATE CRITICISMS to make of Polanski than 1)begin Polish, 2)possessing boyish effeminacy, and 3)preferring to shoot movies in London instead of LA. Which are this movie’s only problems with him(though it also takes the time to show him bitchily smoking a cigarette in an evening gown while being rude to a dog). Obvsl I dont object to villainizing an ACTUAL REAL LIFE VILLAIN like this shitstain, but I DO object to being asked(albeit gently) to participate in this film’s understated nationalist bigotry.
It’s possible that Cliff’s turning Pussycat down during the drive to the ranch was intended to be this but I highly doubt it. And if it was it’d be misrepresenting Polanski’s misdeeds enormously, considering that Pussycat, the too-young girl, is the sexual instigator in this film. Polanski liked to manipulate, drug, and rape underaged girls(he pulled the same shit with models in Europe before getting busted for it in LA, btw, then continued doing it after fleeing back to Europe); really not the same situation.
There’s another irony in that, while the film goes out of its way to call Polanski “boyish” and imply that makes him feminine and that this is Bad, there’s also a subtle under-current that... Tarentino sees himself in his youth the same way? He’s certainly never been short like Polanski and Jay Sebring are/were, QT’s 6 1, but the actors he cast to play them and the description made of the pair in-film are more than a bit reminiscent of how Tarentino looked&was discussed in the press back in the 90s when he was starting out. AAAaaand the film explicitly calls that Tate’s “Type”; leaving me with the question: would Tarentino be able to stop himself from implying a dead starlet would have been attracted to him? I leave the answer to your imaginations, Dear Readers u_u
Having said all that it IS a really good film, which I liked, I dont think it’d be very hard to set aside this political stuff while watching, the driving sequences are especially emotive&exhilarating, and there’s some seriously great acting in it. IDK if I’d say I liked it more than the recent Emma movie, tho.
I feel like each of the trio, Tate, Dalton, and Booth, were meant to symbolically Embody LA/Hollywood/California? Like Pitt especially seemed to be channeling movie characters and CJ from GTA: San Andreas throughout his performance, while I couldnt help but think of Ronald Reagan watching DiCaprio(spcl given the character’s likely politics). So there’s this sense in which the film is a fantasy of “Old Hollywood”, embodied by these three, Vanquishing its “Enemies”, represented by The Hippies(moralizing, pretentious, gross leftist) and potentially Polanski&Lee(foreign film ppl who refuse to integrate into the LA scene). Again, given the political history of Cali after this era, this embodiment raises some questions for me abt the film and QT’s politics(particularly in re: misogyny and feminism).
Also DiCaprio is totally going to get pitched a Reagan biopic off of this role and I sincerely hope he has the good sense to turn that shit the fuck down.
Circling back to the ranting at his critics, this movie was definitely and consciously a response to them. Like: up until the last 5-15 minutes of the film, and aside from a handful of too-lingering too fetishistic too on-the-nose creep shots of the female cast that Tarentino simply could not stop himself from making, OUATiH is precisely the sort of “Serious” film Tarentino’s critics have been saying he should make for decades now(of course he did Jackie Brown, which was that and which he blew Completely out of the park). And then there’s that bloody, gross-out, exploitation-movie ending. I dont actually think it was as bad as many critics were saying it was? For some reason I was thinking there was gonna be a massacre of the ENTIRE Manson family, which would have been totally out of left-field. But it WAS clearly a stinger of a major tone-shift thrown in as a Fuck You to the ppl who’ve called out his violent and exploitative preferences throughout the years. As for me I generally like his movies and think he’s a great filmmaker but he absolutely does go too far sometimes.
Rick Dalton, in an evening-gown, with a mixer full of iced-margarita in one hand, getting all up in the face of the driver of a loud exhaust-spewing jalope in his PRIVATE STREET was TOTALLY Tarentino himself :| By which I mean NOT ONLY that That’s ABSOLUTELY the sort of cameo he would have given himself 30 years ago and if it made any sort of sense at all in the film(which here it wouldnt have, obvsl), BUT ALSO that I feel 94% confident that Tarentino has actually done that at least once in his lifetime :| :|
I think the monologue&interactions T gives Bruce Lee leading up to the fight were probably more insulting to him than the fight itself. Contrary to popular discussion, it isn’t Pitt’s character totally trashing Lee, he gets in one good throw after Lee repeats a successful attack at his request(which I doubt Lee would have ever done from what little I know about him; not being predictable in a fight was his whole Deal), but rather an even duel between them(most of the fight is just the two blocking each others’ attacks). I dont think the film was trying to say “Lee was full of hot-air”, if it wanted to say that it’d have shown him getting trounced instead of showing him knock Booth down then trade him blow for blow, but more “Lee was pretty arrogant and a bit pretentious”.
OK, that’s abt all that I can think of right now: thanks for reading ^v^
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keeroo92 · 5 years
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Savior, Bloodstain, Hellfire, Shadow Ch1
Summary: You were an ordinary nurse, working your way towards balance when the Qlipoth appeared. That all changed when a dark-haired stranger intervened and saved your ass. He and his outlandish companions sparked your curiosity and as the days passed you formed an unbreakable bond with them all. But what happens when your newfound family faces their fate?
(My first fic, a shameless rewrite of the events of DMC5 featuring V x Reader. Angst, fluff, romance and a passable attempt at slow burn. Multiple endings and sequel in progress. I am currently rewriting it chapter by chapter, but the total word count should hover around 150k. Enjoy!)
Ch1: An Introduction to Demons
---Reader---
May 16th, 8:13 pm
Your gloved hands desperately pressed against your patient’s split flesh, his blood oozing between your fingers as your colleagues prepared the surgery room. The poor man was awake, terrified tears streaking his face as he stared into your eyes, praying you’d save him.
“It’s alright, you’re going to be okay, we’re going to take care of you,” you told him, forcing your agonized mind to project calmness and reassurance in your tone. It seemed to work; his eyes blinked and the fearful furrow of his brows eased slightly.
 Come on, is that room ready yet? He doesn’t have much time left after losing this much blood.
The linoleum floor beneath your feet, normally stark white and freshly bleached, was covered in blood. Your feet were only able to stay stable due to your mandatory anti-slip shoes. The red puddle had been growing for ten minutes as you urgently held this man’s life in your trembling hands. Most nights weren’t like this, most nights the worst you had to deal with was an idiot who hadn’t been paying attention and had touched a hot stove, or maybe if things got really crazy someone would come in with a broken bone.
Rarely did you hold someone’s life in your hands. It never got easier, or less stressful.
The man’s eyes fluttered closed; his head lolled back on the gurney and your heart jumped, knowing how important it was to stay conscious at that point.
“Sir, no, you have to stay awake! Come on, wake up!” your petrified voice uttered, the sound almost foreign to your ears. He didn’t stir, and your panicked thoughts dropped into cold realization as the steady drip of his blood on the floor slowed.
 He’s not going to make it. Goddamnit!
“Someone get me some O negative, now!” you screamed desperately. One of your fellow nurses dashed over with a bag, the fluid red and angry looking as she rushed to get an IV prepared. She checked the man’s pulse, searching for a vein to tap. Her eyes met yours in a shared moment of sadness as the look on her face told you everything you needed to know.
The man beneath your hands was dead.
You pulled your shaking hands away from the gash in his chest, caused by a car crash on the nearby interstate, a chunk of metal having sliced deep into his right pectoral. Your eyes filled with tears at your failure as you unsteadily walked to a nearby hazardous waste bin to strip your bloody gloves off.
There was no other urgent need for you so you stepped away to take a moment to breathe, coming to terms with your inability to save the man you had assured would be alright. You sat on the curb outside as your tears fell, chest heaving in a silent sob.
 It’s never enough, I’m never good enough… I need to get better, get faster, stronger… Have to save the next one like him.
After a long moment whose length you couldn’t tell, you heard a siren approaching. Another ambulance, racing in with another person who needed help. You stood, shoving your pain away to focus on the now, on the next patient whom you might actually have been able to help.
__________________________________
The rest of your shift passed with little incident; blessedly no other patients died that night. You stripped off your soiled scrubs in the locker room, ruminating once more on all your failures. The faces of every single patient you’d been unable to save passed through your mind and you gritted your teeth, forcing yourself to never forget a single one. Your heart clenched as the man from mere hours before passed in your mind’s eye, his face frozen in a look of strange peace. Reassured by your words that had turned out to be a lie.
“Y/N, you okay?” a voice beside you asked gently. You turned to face the speaker, another nurse coming off shift. You couldn’t recall her name, never having bothered to learn it. Her perky blond ponytail swung as she tilted her head to look at you, blue eyes showing her concern as you clenched your jaw angrily.
“I’m fine,” you ground out finally, and she frowned more deeply at your not fine tone.
“You did everything you could for him, you know. You can’t save everyone and you can’t blame yourself or it’ll destroy you,” she murmured quietly.
Her words triggered your mind to remind you painfully of the very first person you had failed, the image of her corpse still so clear in your memory. You gulped nervously, trying to subdue the dark thoughts as you responded to your colleague.
“I know… but I should’ve been able to save him,” you whispered brokenly. The young woman bit her lip as you struggled to hold back your tears, but as the first sniffles broke through she wrapped you in a hug.
 Caitlyn, that’s her name… Caitlyn.
You hesitantly returned her comforting hug, accepting it for the slim reassurance it could provide. Your breath came out in gasps as you withheld the worst of your pain, not knowing enough about Caitlyn to trust her with your past. Even as the thought formed in your mind, you caught a whiff of her shampoo as her ponytail swung past your dripping nose.
 Cinnamon. Just like Lara.
Suddenly you couldn’t breathe, frozen like a deer in the headlights as the painful memories rushed through you. Over the years, you’d gotten skilled at subduing them whenever something brought it back to the surface, and you used all your will power to shove it back down into the hole you kept it buried in. Even so, your heart ached at the reminder, making sure you never forgot that day. You pulled away from Caitlyn, arranging your features to show her a teary smile.
“You gonna get home okay?” she asked you kindly. “I can give you a ride if you need it.”
You nodded your head, a rueful glint entering your eyes as you looked at her.
“I live two blocks away. I’ll be all right. Thank you, Caitlyn,” you answered, wiping away the last remnants of your tears. You couldn’t help but hope she’d leave you alone now, and to your relief she turned away to leave with a final worried glance.
The walk home was usually a time of quiet reflection for you, a chance to review all you’d done in the hours at the ER and to tally the lives saved against the lives lost, the scales never tipping to the side of life enough for your satisfaction. That night, you couldn’t remember a single person you helped over the last few hours, the guilt over the single death too heavy to bear.
 If only I’d gotten him a transfusion from the start. If only the surgery room had been ready. If only, if only, if only…
You sighed to yourself as you looked forward to the bottle of whiskey waiting for you in your tiny apartment; knowing you had the next day off, you planned to drink until you couldn’t think anymore. A tradition whenever someone died in your arms, something to indulge in to avoid the solitude of your lonely apartment, where not even a goldfish waited for your return.
The familiar wooden sign greeted you from over the doorway as you reached home, its cheerful yellow paint welcoming friends inside. You liked to pretend you’d someday actually invite someone over, but in the five years you’d lived in Red Grave City, you hadn’t allowed a single person to enter your heart, let alone your home.
 Too easy to get hurt or to hurt someone. Better to be alone.
The cheap door creaked open and you quickly closed it behind you, alone at last. The keys went in the small bowl on the side table in the entrance, coat on the hook. Shoes kicked off to the corner. With a soft click, you turned on the lights of your small retreat.
You shuffled your way into the living room, the whiskey waiting for you on the coffee table as you plopped into the cushions of your hideous orange couch. You didn’t bother with a glass, taking a sip straight from the glass bottle as you flicked on the television. You took another long gulp as you looked for something to watch, eventually settling on an over the top romantic comedy.
You kept drinking and the terrible movie became funnier with each tingly swallow. By the time the film was over, you were buzzed enough to be satisfied. Another movie began and you pulled your throw blanket over you as you settled in to watch, letting the fantasy take you away from your own problems.
__________________________________
 “…live from downtown, still unclear what exactly I’m looking at but it appears to be some kind of structure, Lisa.”
 Deet deet deet deedle! Deet deet deet deedle!
The standard ringtone of your cell phone felt alarmingly loud as you slowly cleared the fog from your mind. You barely glanced at the TV screen as you groggily fumbled for the small device, hitting the green “accept” button and holding it up to your drool-covered cheek.
“Hello…?” you mumbled.
 “Oh, thank god! Honey, where are you? Are you okay? What’s going on?”
You sat up with a grimace at the panic in your mother’s voice, her shrill tone a far cry from her normally calm demeanor.
“Mom? What’re you talking about?” you replied quizzically.
 “The tower! It’s all over the news!!”
The confusion swirling in your mind shifted to fear as you saw the screen at last, the reporter standing before a massive grey structure in an area you easily recognized as only a few blocks away.
 “…started only a few shorts hours ago. Officials are urging residents to stay indoors until they can assess the threat, but many locals have come to see the tower for themselves. Some religious groups are already flooding the area, claiming this to be a sign from God. All I can say for sure, Lisa, is that this thing is now the tallest point within three miles…”
The reporter continued talking, but you weren’t paying any attention anymore as you took in what he was talking about – the enormous grey tower that stood behind him in the shot, dominating the screen and dwarfing the mass of people crowded by its base.
 What… the… fuck…?
Chaos erupted on the screen a moment later as something punched a hole through the tower, what looked like a man and a huge beast jumping down from the new opening milliseconds later. They were too far from the camera for you to see them clearly, only dim outlines in the background of the crappy TV you’d had since college.
 “Did you see that?! What is going on? Honey, you need to leave before the roads get too crowded! It isn’t safe there!”
The reporter on the screen was clearly as baffled as you were, his mouth dropping open and eyes widening comically as he struggled to find words to describe the scenario. He kept glancing back to the structure as he tried to do his job, but before he had the chance to speak again, everything changed.
Something had clearly gone wrong with the camera person; the view shifted to one from the ground as if the camera had been dropped. You could hear screams and watched in bewilderment as a tendril burst from the ground, its tip a gleaming point of sharp thorns. The image of that cruel spike streaking forward to embed itself in the reporter’s stomach dissolved the last of your remaining buzz, sobriety hitting you like a brick wall as his wails of terror echoed from your TV.
 “Oh, god… Y/N, get out of there now! RUN!”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll call you when it’s safe. I love you mom!” you answered hurriedly, already rushing toward the door. You stuffed your feet back into your work shoes, slung your jacket over your shoulders and grabbed your keys. Out of habit, you took a moment to lock the door behind you before sprinting down the hallway.
Outside, you got your first look at the structure for yourself.
Its massive form rose from downtown, black and imposing. You followed its outline with your stunned eyes, looking for the top but unable to find it; it was far too tall. The structure wasn’t here when you had gotten home from work, and construction couldn’t possibly have erected such an imposing thing in the scant time since then. Its origin couldn’t possibly be natural.
 So… where did it come from then?
A low rumble broke your confused thoughts as you watched a tentacle burst through the asphalt ahead. Your baffled mind struggled to process the sight as the cruelly sharp tip darted down to embed itself in the stomach of another pedestrian, a scream of pain following its sickening squelch as it struck home.
Bile rose in your throat as you instinctively moved, rushing forward even as your mind screamed at you to run away. The hideous tentacle pulled back, the impaled woman falling to the ground bonelessly as it rose again to search for its next target. A surge of adrenaline gushed through you, and you somehow managed to dodge the spike as you reached forward to pull the woman out of its range. Her blood left a streak of crimson on the sidewalk behind as you dragged her to safety.
Only then did you look down, taking stock of the damage.
Her face was already frozen in death, a look of utter terror and bewilderment marring her plain features forever. You shuddered, adding her face to the ever-growing ledger of death in your mind. You stood slowly, wiping her blood on your jeans and turning away. The street was crowded by then, more and more people coming outside to see what all the noise was from.
 This is bad. They’re all going to die if they stay here.
“Hey! Everybody! You can’t stand around and watch, you’ll die! Come on, let’s go!” you shouted, a scant few heads turning to listen but far too many people ignoring your warning. You marched up to a young woman tugging a child along by the hand, their faces more curious than scared. You reached out to tap her shoulder and she glanced back at you as you spoke.
“Lady, you’re gonna get yourself and your kid killed! Look, see those tentacles? I just saw one stab someone to death with just one stroke. You have to leave, now!”
She paused, her eyes shifting to see the tentacle you indicated. Her curiosity turned to fear as she took in its sharp point, giving you a grateful nod as she turned away to drag her child somewhere safe.
You repeated your dire warning to over a dozen more bystanders, but only a third of them took you seriously and ran away. You shoved your tiredness down, your long workday making your steps drag slightly as you pressed on, determined to save as many people as you could.
You watched in horror as another few tentacles sprouted from the ground, impaling a few unlucky souls and raising their bodies like trophies to the sky. More bile rose in your throat as you heard their wails of pain and confusion. You kept moving forward, still shouting warnings to anyone who’d listen. Another tentacle rumbled out of the pavement a mere three feet from where you stood, its cruel tip gleaming in the streetlights. You stumbled slightly, leaning against the brickwork of an apartment building to keep yourself from falling to the ground.
Your exhaustion tugged at you fiercely and your eyes fluttered closed against your will as the tentacle took aim at you. All thought ceased in your mind as your death approached.
With your eyes closed, you didn't see the dark-haired man sprinting at you. You didn’t see him drop a hand-carved silver cane and slide on his hip towards you as if he was stealing third base for the Yankees. You didn’t hear his low grunt as he pushed his arm out, rising to his feet just in front of you. You didn’t see the intricate pattern on his arm lighten, or the panther explode into existence mere feet in front of you, killing the tentacle with a single swipe of its lethally sharp claws almost as quickly as it had appeared.
Instead, what you next perceived was a warm hand on your side, pushing you to the right. You opened your fear-dilated eyes, shocked that you’re still alive, and immediately caught your breath.
The man who stood before you wore a look of concern on his ridiculously, unfairly handsome features. His intense gaze caught your attention first, irises the shade of muted emeralds, glinting with every flash of light. Dark eyelashes framed his long stare, thick eyebrows only adding to the expressiveness of his piercing gaze. A prominent nose flowed from his brow line above his full, pink lips, parted as he breathed heavily before you. Beautifully intricate tattoos covered his body, partially concealed by his clothing but clearly visible on his long, toned arms. The black of the ink on his skin only served to contrast his alabaster skin tone. His hair was as dark and shiny as obsidian, barely brushing the collar of his black leather vest.
"You must move, you cannot stay here!" the beautiful stranger declared urgently with a voice like velvet.
Goddamnit, could he be any more attractive?
You tried to take a step but discovered you couldn’t find the strength, your exhaustion overwhelming you at last. He paused, seeming to study your expression and huffed in irritation.
"Fine, I'll help you then," he announced, and suddenly you were against him. You blushed scarlet as he picked you up, carrying you in his lean arms towards a nearby van. The motion shook you out of your worn-out stupor enough to be embarrassed by your helplessness.
"I - I'm sorry, I think I can walk now," you told him shakily.
He gently placed your legs on solid ground with a nod. He turned to survey the area, presumably to check for more tentacles. You took a moment to search for nearby people you could warn and found a pair, shouting the now familiar warning as you saw the panther fighting. Its form shape-shifted periodically into new shapes full of sharp edges and harsh points and your mind struggled to comprehend how this was possible, trying fruitlessly to make sense of all the outlandish sights you’d seen in the last ten minutes.
 What the fuck is going on?
The stranger grabbed your hand, dragging you towards the van once more, and you tried to focus on the vehicle to avoid thinking about how many of your neighbors were now dead. It was an odd contraption, clearly customized with a neon sign on the side which read “Devil May Cry” and a laughably false phone number listed beneath it. Its grey and white paint was coated in dust and what looked like blood, not all of it dry. On his way to the van, the stranger only paused to lean over and pick up an ornate silver cane, flicking it to his side in a clearly practiced motion. You found yourself once again unable to comprehend what happened next as a cloud of black shards left his tattooed arm, drifting to the air nearby and forming a magnificent blue bird, the strangest you’d ever seen with a three-pronged beak and purple legs that seemed far too large for its body.
The bird laughed and dove at the nearest tentacle, slashing it with its talons. You heard the outlandish creature curse as the tentacle tried to stab it as it attacked.
The back door of the van suddenly crashed open, drawing your attention as a white-haired man leaned out. He was young, around your age if you had to guess. An absolutely huge sword was strapped to his back, and he waved you forward with an oversized pistol in hand.
"Hurry, we gotta go NOW, V!" he hollered. He hurriedly stowed the pistol and reached out to help you inside, the dark-haired man not far behind you. To your surprise, the panther also jumped into the van. The second you were all inside, the van took off at a speed that was nearly as terrifying as almost being impaled by mysterious tentacles, accelerating faster than you imagined a vehicle of its size could manage. Outside the van, you caught a glimpse of the strange bird you saw moments ago, flapping hard to keep up with the racing vehicle.
"Hold on, folks!" a feminine voice with a southern drawl yelled from the driver’s seat. You grabbed onto the nearest solid object, an odd countertop hidden in the corner and held on for dear life as the van dashed through the city, to somewhere (you hoped) very, VERY far away.
---V---
V looked over at the young woman he'd just rescued, wondering how long it would be before you were calm enough to think clearly. Your hands were shaking, eyes wide and dilated. As he watched, your jaw clenched and your hands steadied as you inhaled deeply. You closed your eyes, let out the breath in a reassuring sigh and turned to face him as the van sped past the crowds of terrified residents, various pieces of kitchen equipment and power tools clanging at every pothole Nico drove over.
"Thank you for saving me. I... I think I would be dead if not for you," you whispered softly. Your eyes were still fearful, but you seemed coherent enough. He took a moment to gaze at you, taking in your appearance. You had gentle features; a kind face. He felt an odd sensation in his stomach as he recalled your words.
"And the maiden soon forgot her fear. Are you alright? Perhaps you ought to sit down," he responded gently and gestured at the worn couch under the window.
You nodded and cautiously made your way to it, keeping your knees bent to compensate for Nico’s wild movements. As you moved, V studied you more closely. He was curious - most civilians didn’t exhibit this level of stoic acceptance after first encountering the demonic roots, not to mention the fact that you had been actively trying to warn others and urging them to run. Your quick calmness was... intriguing. He couldn't tell if you had any demonic blood, but you obviously weren't unfamiliar with fear. No one who could calm themselves that quickly was new to the feeling, he knew.
"My name is V, that's Nero, and Nico is driving. Griffon is outside and her name is Shadow. What shall we call you?" he asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the van wall casually. He gestured to each named being as he introduced them, Griffon and Shadow returning to him as the vehicle got farther away from danger. Your eyes widened as the black shards sank into his skin.
You glanced away, quick to look elsewhere as your cheeks flush slightly, he noticed. Perhaps she’s embarrassed about needing to be saved?
"My name is Y/N. Nice to meet you all,” you responded finally. “Um, do you know what those... tentacle things were? Where did they come from?"
V smirked. This might take a while to explain.
---Reader---
 Demons.
 Demons are real.
 Demons are real and attacking my home.
"Holy shit," you exclaimed, eyes wide, looking back and forth between the two men. "So, wait, how do you kill them? Why are they here? How can we stop them from killing people?"
Nero laughed, but not unkindly. He seemed genuinely amused as he sat down on your right, leaning back against the couch cushion nonchalantly.
"Slow down, Y/N! They aren't too hard to kill, at least the lower powered ones. Pretty much anything that would kill a human can kill a demon; guns, swords, punches, you get the idea. Don't really know why they're here, but V might."
V smirked, his full lips twisting in a way that made your eyes flick to them for a heartbeat too long. You scolded yourself; this isn't the time for that!
"They are here because of Urizen. The Demon King, as he calls himself. For now, we should find somewhere to rest, gather resources. As for you, Y/N, forgive me but you don't seem like you're quite up to fighting demons. We can take you to the edge of the city, but from there you must make your own way to safety."
You paused, considering his words. He wasn't wrong; you had no combat experience and didn’t know how to be helpful in a fight. Not to mention you were completely terrified, as well as you tried to conceal it.
 This is insanity. These people are mad, fighting those things. We should all just run, go somewhere else and leave this city as far behind as possible.
Yet even the thought of abandoning the people still in the city felt... wrong. You didn't want to run from this, especially not with this feeling, like you were magnetized to this group. You couldn’t just walk away when so many people were dying; you had to balance the scales!
 I’m going to get myself killed. What am I thinking, I can’t help people if I’m dead! But.. there are so many people here. They’re all going to die too.
You took a deep breath before speaking, brutally shoving your fear to the farthest corner of your mind and focusing on what little you could do to help the small group.
"It's true, I'm not really a fighter. I’m a nurse, and I've been studying surgical procedures to prepare for medical school. I can help you if anyone gets injured. As much as I'd like to not have to face those things ever again, it wouldn't be right if I left. I wouldn't feel right," you explained uneasily, hoping the group didn't judge you too harshly for your previous terror.
V raised an eyebrow at that, then glanced at Nero. “The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest,” he recited simply. Nero shrugged, and for the first time you got a good look at his right arm. You gasped as you saw the haphazard bandages covering a stump, blood stains showing in a deep rust shade, a recent amputation that clearly hadn’t been taken care of properly.
"At the very least let me dress that! You'll get an infection or sepsis; it could kill you!"
V snorted, to your surprise. "You mean he would be... dead weight?" he commented, obviously amused. His intense emerald eyes flicked to yours as if sharing an intimate joke, and you smiled at him hesitantly.
Nero turned red, muttering to himself for a moment about someone named Dante, then nodded at you sullenly. Clearly V’s words had hit a sore spot.
"Fine, when we stop you can take a look," he grumbled. He shot a glare at V, then shuffled off to sit in the front with Nico, leaving you alone with the obsidian haired man. You could hear them talking for a while but couldn't tell what they were saying. You turned back to V, mind still whirling with questions.
His long fingers pulled a thin book from within his leather vest, clearly preparing to read. You swallowed your questions for the time being, not wanting to interrupt the strange man’s reading.
 I need to rest; I can barely keep my eyes open. The adrenaline must be fading.
You leaned back into the couch, reassured that with this group you could sleep in safety, closed your eyes and drifted off into oblivion.
__________________________________
You dreamt of the past. Your mind never blessed you with pleasant dreams anymore, always seeking to understand, to learn more from memories that your waking mind knew would bring only pain. Memory is the enemy of peace, after all.
The familiar sounds were there, as always. The crack of glass breaking and the high-pitched screams of your friend, the unmistakable sound of her gasping breaths.
Then the visuals. Shadows dancing like a sick ballet on the wall of the shed. Dead eyes staring up at you as a warning. The flash of light on gleaming steel as ---
__________________________________
You awakened with a jolt as Nico slammed the brakes, causing you to slide unceremoniously into V. He had sat down at some point next to you. With lightning reflexes, his arm shot out and held you close as the rattling van mercifully slid to a full stop, keeping you from falling to the floor. You could feel him breathing under you, smell his scent of leather and lavender. The combined sensory input was... intoxicating. You tried to pull away, but he held you for a split second before letting go. You blushed furiously, sure that he was teasing you. You couldn’t bear to look at him so you missed the look of regret he gave you and didn’t see him lick his lips before speaking.
"Are you alright, Y/N?" he inquired softly, his tone almost a growl.
You internally cursed his voice for having such a pleasant sound before responding.
"Yeah, thanks for the help... again."
V chuckled under his breath, then returned to his reading. Sitting so close to him, you caught a glimpse inside the pages to see a flowing script and beautifully colored illustrations. Forgetting your embarrassment and the lingering fear from the nightmare, you asked what he was reading.
"Poetry. Would you like to hear some?" he responded, his voice like warm honey.
The thought of his voice reciting poetry sent your mind spinning. Nope, no way, nuh uh, you’ve already made enough of an ass out of yourself, so you just hold your horses there, girl. There’re bigger things to be worried about anyway, like DEMONS!
"Sure,” your rebellious mouth stated.
 Goddamit. Stupid mouth.
He smiled, gaze returning to the pages as he chose a piece to read.
“I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem, In England’s green and pleasant land,” he recited, his voice melodious and perfectly timed.
“Beautiful,” you whispered, the words rolling in your mind as you digested them, finding meaning in the short excerpt as a low hum of recognition passed through you. “Is that… William Blake?”
V nodded, seemingly taken aback.
“You enjoy poetry?” he asked you.
You felt your cheeks tinting as he studied you intently as you replied, “I guess you could say I’m a bit of a bookworm. Literature is a gift.”
The outer corners of his lips twitched, smiling for a fraction of an instant. If you had blinked you would have missed it. He seemed pleased by your response and you smiled at him shyly, shifting your weight awkwardly.
“I couldn’t agree more, much to our companions dismay. They are of a different mindset,” he replied thoughtfully.
“What’s your favorite poem, V?” you probed him, enjoying the chance to talk with someone who shared your enjoyment of words.
“I’ve come to enjoy The Book of Thel a great deal, are you familiar?”
It rang a bell but you couldn’t remember any details of the work.
“I read it many years ago, though I can’t remember any of it now,” you responded.
“Allow me, then; Why thou complainest not when in one hour thou fade away: Then we shall seek thee but not find; ah Thel is like to thee. I pass away, yet I complain, and no one hears my voice.”
You sat in silence, letting the words sink in. V’s soothing voice added a layer of complexity to them, sounding quite sad and mournful as he recited.
Luckily for you, Nero chose that exact moment to trudge over to you with a small red box labeled "first aid". He sighed, seeming to have resigned himself to your treatment.
As if it isn't in his best interest anyway.
"Let's get this over with, Y/N," he grunted. V stood and gave you a nod as he walked away a few feet to continue his reading. You focused your mind on the task at hand, pushing the memory of his voice away.
---V---
V watched you gently remove the bandages from Nero's arm, trying to figure out his reaction to your words. None of the others he had become familiar with enjoyed poetry, several rolling their eyes the first few times he quoted a line in conversation until they became accustomed and ignored it entirely. He felt his heart warm slightly by the shared enjoyment, a distraction from his mission. A pleasant distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. He must remain focused - he didn't have time for any fellowships or pleasant conversations.
Yet still, he found himself watching you redress Nero's arm, wondering what your touch felt like. Perhaps that was it? Perhaps he simply wanted to be touched, to feel connected? That would explain most of his reactions to you so far.
 Enough of this. Focus. Too much is at stake.
He mentally shook himself and returned his gaze to the words on the painted pages before him, forcing himself to pay attention and read the now familiar text.
  I am in you, and you in me. Mutual in divine love.
V sighed and rolled his eyes.
 How unhelpful.
He glanced back at you and Nero, seeing you smile at something the white haired warrior had said. Laughing. He wondered what that felt like as well, to share mirth in such a way with another person.
A memory played in his mind, of many years ago. It was a simple one, a trifle really. He was playing with Dante in the backyard, not long before... before. The two of them were laughing together over a fort they had built out of sticks, the structure haphazard and childish. Their mother was nearby, keeping a careful eye on them as they played.
He smiled softly at the thought, wondering if Dante had any fond memories of them as children. Somehow, he doubted it.
Again with the distractions. Enough is enough.
V looked out the window, easily spotting the already massive tree in the center of town. The sight helped him focus, helped him remember his priorities.
---Reader---
After removing the old bandages, you took a moment to examine the wound. It was in bad shape, looking as if Nero had initially seen a doctor but later popped the stitches in at least three places, leaving open wounds to fester and bleed freely. There was already a slight infection, but nothing too serious if he let you take care of it and didn’t do anything stupid.
“How long ago did this happen, Nero?” you asked.
“It was April 30th, so sixteen days ago,” he informed you as he watched you examine him.
“Ah, alright then. It should heal fully in about two to six more weeks, until then you need to change the bandage at least once a day, if not more,” you explained to the willful young man.
You dug through the poorly organized first aid kit, finding an unopened bottle of antiseptic and several rolls of bandages. Some gauze patches lied on the bottom.
 Perfect, now all I need is a towel or a bowl.
You looked to your left and right, eventually finding a small cup that would work well enough. You carefully angled Nero’s arm over the cup and got the antiseptic ready.
“This will hurt a bit, Nero,” you warned him. He nodded, ready, and you slowly poured the fluid over his injury and let it drip into the waiting cup below. He grunted but didn’t pull away. Once the drips had slowed enough, you laid a gauze patch over his half-healed stitches, using one hand to hold it in place as your other reached to grasp the bandage roll. You used your teeth to get the first portion open, proceeding to gently but firmly wrap up Nero’s arm. You used the scissors from the kit to cut the end and secured it with a satisfied smile.
“All set,” you told him.
Nero carefully moved his arm, testing the bandage's flexibility. You knew he would, he seemed the type to never hold still if he could help it. You’d seen many people like him come through the emergency room, struggling to hold still as you treated whatever they came in for even as their lack of stillness worsened their condition.
"Feels good, Y/N! Thanks! You are handy!" He jumped up, throwing a few experimental punches, bobbing and weaving like he was in a boxing match with Muhammad Ali himself. You laughed as he feigned dodging a blow; his antics allowed you to forget the horrors of what you’d witnessed for an all-too-brief moment.
"Hey hey hey, not in the van! Take it outside, jerkwad!" Nico exclaimed hurriedly, coming out from her perch in the drivers seat. She pushed Nero towards the door, forced him outside and slammed the door behind him.
“Sheesh, what an ass…” she muttered under her breath, but you could tell she meant it with affection. She looked like she’d be happiest on a construction site or in a garage. A multitude of tools were strapped to her shorts and you could see oil on her arms, along with tattoos that seemed to revolve around guns and skulls. She pulled out a cigarette, lighting it as she leaned over to you.
“Hi, I’m Nico. Welcome to the Devil May Cry-mobile, I’m your resident genius gunsmith and artist extraordinaire. You joinin’ the team? Would be nice to have another lady along for the ride!”
Your eyes flicked to V as your thoughts debated your options again.
 What about my life? What about going back to school, learning to be a trauma surgeon? Can I really justify putting that on hold, maybe even abandoning it entirely to help these people?
 …How can I not?
V smirked knowingly but nodded before following Nero outside, waving his hand through a cloud of Nico’s expelled cigarette smoke as he passed.
“I guess I am,” you replied, smiling and doing your best to ignore the panic in your mind at the thought of staying in an area full of... demons. The thought of their existence brought a surreal feeling to your mind and you wondered if this entire day had been a dream. A new nightmare shaped to ensure you paid it the attention it demanded.
“Awesome! You wouldn’t happen to know how to cook, would’ja? Nero’s hopeless and V’s somehow worse, and my cooking skills don’t extend beyond cereal and mac and cheese,” she asked with a smile on her face.
You found her smile infectious, and you felt your own lips stretching into a grin as well as you responded, “I’m no master chef, but I get by all right.”
She clapped your back in a friendly manner, taking a pull from her cigarette. The tang of nicotine filled the air as she exhaled, the enclosed space holding the smoke captive. You ignored the scent, used to it after years of exposure.
“All right! Well, we’re probably gonna stay here for the night, kitchen’s in that corner if you’re hungry. The guys generally sleep outside but I think you could squeeze in here with me for now. Sound good?”
You nodded, grateful for her easy acceptance of you even as your mind still struggled to control your overwhelming fear. You found yourself warming to her quickly, despite a history of not getting along well with other women. Glancing at the kitchen, you spotted the cereal she mentioned sitting atop a stovetop. There were a few cupboards but not much else. You hoped you could gather some basic food staples in the morning, but for now the call of hunger was weaker than the call of rest. You yawned, almost cracking your jaw in the process.
“Here, I’ll get ya a pillow and another blanket, bout ready to crash myself!” Nico commented. She opened another cupboard, pulling out a small but fluffy looking pillow and a fleece blanket. She handed them to you, put out her cigarette in an ashtray nearby and gave you a salute before climbing a tiny ladder to what you assumed was a hidden bed.
“Goodnight, Nico. Thanks,” you said through another yawn. You heard a soft click and the van went dark.
“No problem, new girl. Night!”
~~~~Next Chapter~~~~
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My Mental Health
I will start off by saying this: please keep in mind that I am not yet diagnosed regarding my mental health. I do have background (schooling) that informs me regarding certain patterns in my behaviour or my perceptions, but I dont claim to be equipped to diagnose myself or others.
I started to think there was something really wrong after I started college, around November 2015. I think I havent been entirely “normal” for most of my life, but things became very apparent around this particular time. I started to experience episodes of what could be depression (again, Im not yet diagnosed so I cant really say for certain that they are depressive episodes). Small emotional matters would hit me much harder than I know they should have: I remember times of hardcore crying, practically weeping, for extended periods of time, extreme thoughts of guilt, self-isolating behaviours. These episodes were extremely physically draining. I also started to notice that I frequently would feel hopeless, socializing was taxing, sleep was evasive, and motivation to do even enjoyable things was low. Since then Ive had seasons where these symptoms havent been so bad... more like an undercurrent, manageable. But there have been seasons that have hit me very hard.
I think I have always been sensitive and overly anxious. I worry quite often, too much. I ruminate even more so; I think about the past for what I could have done differently, I think about the present for all the things I could be doing, and I think about the future and too often get stuck in a cycle of what ifs and unrealistic expectations. I play out whole scenarios with people in my head, sometimes upsetting myself with the outcome of those hypotheticals. At times I hold myself to a very high standard. I feel stress very acutely. There are times even when I feel a sense of urgency or restlessness for no apparent reason. Im just on edge and honestly, that drives me nuts.
I have extreme anxious reactions to certain things (i.e. people yelling) such as fast shallow breathing, shaking, high emotional response, and of course actually feeling anxiety itself. Involuntarily ruminating on those experiences is also quite common for me and is very emotionally distressing.
I sit there and think about how Im thinking, how my body is reacting and wonder “why am I like this? why am I responding like that?”. Its a very weird experience, observing yourself so intently and questioning your own behaviour as it happens. I dont know if anyone else does that, or does it as regularly as I do, but I find it odd.
I will intentionally mention that I am not suicidal. I have thought about suicide twice in my life, but not seriously enough to consider acting upon it.
I do not typically self-harm either. I would say the closest I come to self-harm is beating my fists against my thighs or against each other repeatedly, but not with enough force to make bruises - honestly I dont know if that is considered to be self-harm. Its certainly emotionally harmful because its unhealthy behaviour, but Im not causing myself physical harm.
I also think I may dissociate? For as long as I can remember, Ive been able to daydream quite easily. In my teen years, daydreaming usually occurred when I was listening to music: Id just slip into “the zone” if you will; aware of my surroundings to an extent but more focussed on whats happening in my head. This happens on a daily basis still, usually when Im listening to music and performing a simple repetitive movement such as rocking or walking. But it goes beyond that. Around this time last year I started to experience something else... the best way Ive been able to describe it is almost like when playing a video game - things are happening but you dont perceive them as real. Reality itself wouldnt seem real to me. Sometimes this would be triggered by a stressor that I could pinpoint, sometimes I would be just out walking to the local grocery store and suddenly my surroundings wouldnt seem real. Sometimes it would happen for several minutes and sometimes for a couple hours. It wasnt really distressing in the moment, but it does concern me now that it has happened frequently.
I think this dissociation (if that is indeed what it is) is a symptom of an underlying mood disorder... Im so overloaded with mental/emotional stimuli that it alters my perception of things around me, or sometimes myself.
Anyway, I have spoken with my doctor about it and will continue to. They believe there is a mood disorder of some kind at play, but because I still continue to do my work with minimal distraction from my mental health (they say I am “high functioning” - Ill probably address that in another post) I will likely not be diagnosed for at least several months and also likely not be put on medication. The last part is fine with me; I take enough medication for my other health problems as it is!
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hotshotshitshow · 5 years
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i guess just because ive been on a roll lately and also oversharing is my lifelong passion i want to verbal diarrhea a lil bit about my own experience of coming to the conclusion that im a lesbian so pls feel free to ignore if u want or whatever i just have Lots Of Thoughts and i just want to get them out. this gets sort of weirdly long winded and shouty and ranty so im sorry. catharsis!
even now i still feel some level of .... idk? shame? regret? i dunno. about the fact that i didnt come to the conclusion that i was a lesbian until i was 25 bc that feels so late to me even though i know for a fact that there are countless other people who came to similar realizations about themselves when they were much older than me.
and ngl there is even a little bit of envy that there are so many kids so much younger than me who seem so sure of their identities (even though i know there are loads of kids who arent sure!!!) and there are moments where i catch myself thinking of myself as “less of a lesbian” because i didnt allow myself to face the fact that i was one until fairly recently ..... and i am still learning so much and trying to cultivate my own identity and just all around see myself as “less experienced” (whatever the fuck thats supposed to mean) than others which undoubtedly is a part of the massive chasm that all my self confidence gets sucked into daily.
but like obviously its not like just BOOM one day i was like “from here on out i am a lesbian now!!!!!!! :)” bc even from a very young age i was always more drawn to women and could not wrap my head around the idea that someday i would have to marry a man and completely idealized my mom’s best friend who was a big burly woman who drove a truck and wore flannels and knew that i wanted to be just like her when i grew up and never ever marry a dude (which in retrospect was sort of weird because my mom usually hates women like that and i grew up with her periodically warning me to “stay away from fucking dykes theyre mean awful ugly women”)
and then the always confusing for everyone period of middle school where i dated a boy for three days before breaking it off because the whole situation gave me more anxiety than i could deal with but i just chalked it up to me being an emotionally immature teen but also being completely obsessed with my best girl friend and wanting to impress her and have her attention all the time and being unable to understand why i was so upset when she started dating some  guy and me just assuming that i was upset because i had a crush on him that id never realized i had before
and then id go home and spend hours online looking up content for my favorite shoujo-ai anime ships and talking with other wlw on the gaiaonline guild forums and asking them questions about how you knew if you were gay or not and if liking almost exclusively girl/girl ships meant you were gay and only being told in response “plenty of heterosexual girls like girl/girl ships!! youre the only one who can tell if youre gay or not!! :)” and just feeling completely confused and alone and having no idea what to think!!!! and then having one day that i remember very specifically where i had a shining moment of clarity for all of half an hour where i thought “i AM a lesbian!!!” and feeling so happy in that moment before my brain took over with the thoughts of “but what if you come across one particular guy sometime...... can’t rule out that possibility” but i knew i really wanted to be a lesbian but just could not allow myself to think i was one
and then fast forwarding up to undergrad where i briefly dated an online guy friend (hi) for like. a month? and then abruptly breaking that off in the worst way possible because i had no fucking clue what i was doing and once again chalked it all up to being emotionally immature and from that moment out identified as aromantic because i figured there was something fucking wrong with me and romance was just not something i could do!!!!! and thinking there was absolutely no fucking way i could be a lesbian and it was completely not even remotely an option because there were certain aesthetic things about men that i appreciated and also never once having had a “proper crush” on anyone or at least not one that i could identify because everyone always talked about love feeling like fireworks and something big and id never felt that for anyone ever so obviously that meant i was incapable of love!!!! so i shoved the whole notion of trying to figure myself out way way way down and didnt look at it for years afterwards 
until i got into graduate school and for some fucking reason my brain decided it was time to dig all that old shit back up and i SUDDENLY COULD NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT AGAIN SCREAMS. and feeling more attracted to women than ever even though i always knew that i liked women 
and i still couldnt entertain the idea that i might be a lesbian because even though id been in a very happy relationship with beansly for a few years at that point and knew for a fact i was not aromantic there was still that thought of “Ok But What If You Meet One Guy Sometime”
and this sounds dumb as fuck but it wasnt until beansly straight up told me “if i had to label you id think you were a lesbian” that my brain went “what if theyre right” (TO WHICH I IMMEDIATELY WENT NOPE but acknowledged that the fact that they called me that made me feel really really good) (but kept thinking about that and kept bringing it back up to myself and ruminating over and over and over it) and then even more dumb as fuck i couldnt admit it to myself until i saw a fucking tumblr post that had something to the effect of “a common thing for lesbians who dont know theyre lesbians yet is that they really want to be a lesbian. its ok to be a lesbian” AND THEN I FUCKING CRIED LIKE A LITTLE FUCKING BABY AND HID UNDER MY BLANKIES but the fucking relief and validation my dude but then being presented with a whole new heap of Problems such as “how the fuck do i come out to people. everyone will think i am faking and Not Enough” and just having to deal with the struggle of owning that label and allowing myself to feel good about it and not let my brain convince me that i am somehow unworthy. and i am completely worthy because i love women and not men and thats the one fucking qualification i need to meet so my brain can go fuck itself into oblivion. ive spent so much time worrying over how much of myself i owe to men and holding myself back for a man that does not exist and will never exist and part of why i keep excitedly bringing up the fact that im a huge fucking lesbian is because in my mind its a huge testament to my personal progress and taking ownership over myself and no longer holding myself back over hypotheticals
so yeah anyway at the end of the day i still have so much more growing i need to do and i still see myself as a small shakey little chihuahua with a big mouth but i am a damn stronger person than i was even a year ago!!!! and learning that your attraction and what label you identify with is supposed to make you feel good was one of the best things i ever learned. i just really wish i could have had the self awareness or at least resources that i have now when i was younger and could have figured it out a little sooner. i know it doesnt make me “lesser” and technically i am still a very young person and have my whole life ahead of me but. idk i just wish id had it in me to be more honest with myself sooner. idk how other people can be so sure of themselves when they are so much younger. that just wasnt me i guess
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roominthecastle · 6 years
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“Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.” - Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric
Well, look at that ancient Greek dude rolling out a pitch-perfect summary of - what I currently consider to be - Liz’s core issue on TBL. My core issue is that I cannot keep things brief, so I’ll poke this some more bc damn S5 was so much better than I expected, and it left me with an urge to try and sort this canon mess into sth I can swallow.
What’s the deal with Liz, why is her relationship with Red in such a terrible shape at the end of S5, and why is that a likely promise of better things to come?
It’s possible to look at this deterioration as a more or less continuous (organic!) process that reaches back at the very beginning; a process to which both characters have contributed their fair share over the years and now they are reaping the consequences and setting themselves up for a potentially healing collision.
I. Liz has narcissistic traits. Red is a natural born charmer with closely-guarded secrets and a pervasive guilt-complex. Putting them together is like putting mints in a bottle of coke: even on a perfect sunny day it's the kind of fun that leaves a mess.
II. Liz’s traits are amplified by Red’s behavior and Red’s behavior is warped by Tom’s presence. When Red scales things back (i.e. stops going on guilt-trips whenever others don’t feel like facing the consequences of their actions), it only makes things worse. This is the dark side of their intense "lock and key" dynamic, the deep angst pit that has been fore-fronted since S3B due to a rapid sequence of betrayals Red suffers from those closest to him. Tom triggers both empathy and repulsion in him, which in turn feeds his self-hatred and prompts him to keep enabling Liz out of guilt, creating an unsustainable bubble that finally bursts in S5.
III. The current name of the game for Liz is repression and denial, for Red it’s still obsession and rumination. At any given time Liz works off of a partial image of him, which is less about him keeping things from her and more about her purposefully ignoring parts of him in a misguided and doomed attempt to keep an illusion of safe simplicity (she does this with Tom, too). Meanwhile Red displays clear signs of compassion fatigue, which comes with its own destructive habits and distortions of reality.
IV. Sprinters are bad at running marathons. This simple truth has been a background tension factor in the Red/Liz relationship from the get-go. It’s mirrored in Red’s earlier troubles with Madeline and in Liz’s “Tom problem”. It keeps them united yet out of sync, which leads to misunderstandings, doubts, and quite a lot of friction.
more on these behind the cut:
I. Liz has narcissistic traits. Red is a natural born charmer.
Liz has a narcissistic streak and a tendency to delude herself as a messed-up coping mechanism, all of which she voices right off the bat in the pilot episode when Cooper asks her to profile herself (and to give us a brief intro to the character). These manifest chiefly as
(1) angry, aggressive outbursts (2) a sense of entitlement/egocentrism (3) blame-shifting
and she displays these traits to varying degrees throughout the show.
Now add to these the standard “Reddington Effect” that gets pointed out by other characters, articulating what Liz has been feeling since day one:
“There's no one on earth who can make a woman feel like the center of his universe more than Raymond Reddington.” (204)
“I was star-struck. It was exciting and captivating and... it consumed me. My work, my marriage.” (411)
We can also witness this "soft power” in action when Red approaches Zoe, Berlin’s daughter, to use her against her father. We can see how easily he can charm and pull people in to get what he wants. Sometimes it hilariously backfires - as it should - but that’s beside the point rn. The point is, Liz seems to receive this standard treatment, too, and she’s immediately, intensely receptive to it.
We can see both the positive (fascination-attraction) and the negative (rejection-aggression) side of this chemistry early on. She gets exposed to Red’s regular charm routine but it’s ultimately a v different experience because what those women quoted above don’t know (and what Liz still doubts) is that with her, his feelings run very, very deep. She is both the means and the end, the journey and the destination. Neither can walk this road without the other but walk it they must.
II. Liz’s traits are amplified by Red’s behavior and Red’s behavior is warped by Tom’s presence.
Thank God I have Tom, because with you, I never know what to believe. I have never lied to you. How the hell would I know?
Red’s secretive, seductive, guilt-ridden behavior feeds Liz’s narcissistic impulses.
(1) His ingrained "I will never tell you everything” ground rule regularly forms a volatile mix with her proneness to irritability and anger. There are countless examples of this (often understandable) reaction with a wide range that goes from a raised voice to actual physical aggression.
(2) It also clashes with her belief that she's automatically entitled to be told everything, regardless of the possibility that knowing might not make much difference to her but could get others killed, or the fact that she’s often careless w/ sensitive info and sometimes straight-up ignores the answer anyway.
This is an irresponsible and wasteful way of going about getting answers. Wanting to know doesn't entitle anyone to know. It's not at all surprising that Red - whose very life depends on carefully calculated discretion - is rarely fully forthcoming. Still, this is a major source of friction, esp as it seems to run counter to him telling her how special she is and treating her as such with a consistency that most well-adjusted people would fall for. A narcissistic personality like hers stands even less chance. This triggers jealousy and possessiveness very early on, and later engenders a full-blown expectation that when push comes to shove, he would always put her needs above anybody else’s, including his own. This (partially conditioned) expectation is in play e.g. when Tom re-enters her life and also when he violently leaves it again.
(3) Red is also burdened with a lot of chronic guilt which makes him an easy target for blame-shifting by those select few he loves. He often allows Liz to push blame on him for things he is not responsible for and he suffers in silence because “in his heart, he knows he must pay”. This also enables her to delude herself into thinking that he's indeed the unified source of all her problems, which makes her receptive to Mr. Kaplan’s terrible Solution to Nothing that targets him as such. Red has branded himself a “sin eater” and this gets taken full advantage of in a way that veers into emotional abuse. It paves the way for Operation Possum and its fallout that ripples across the next two seasons.
These 3 major negative “lock and key” interactions combine and reach a very unhealthy peak in S3/B. Liz’s thoughtless, pointless fake death stunt pushes Red to an edge he barely manages to pull himself back from, and it throws a wrench in the delicate cogwheels of their relationship where the degree of functionality and “healthiness” has always hinged on proportionate reciprocity (of good and bad alike). The faked death plan is - among other things - so disproportionately cruel and so exceptionally dumb and pointless, it unhinges this interplay.
It shakes Red from his grief- and guilt-induced stupor and cracks his habit of putting Liz on a pedestal. In S4 it is now Dembe who gets to be referred to as the "light in the darkness", which, given the changed circumstances, is a much better arrangement for both Liz and Red. Red would never ask anyone to carry this burden but the truth is, he needs someone like that by his side to keep him from falling to pieces. Dembe is a centered, reliable, well-adjusted person who can carry this heavy weight. Liz can't and she shouldn't, either. Now Dembe needs to be the lighthouse keeper as they navigate their stormy relationship.
On top of pulling Liz from the pedestal, Red also begins to scale back his willingness to play buffer and absorb blame. He pushes back against the kind of behavior he partially conditioned and enabled. He refuses to give in to Mr. Kaplan’s absurd and reckless vendetta that still targets him as the “root of all evil” in Liz’s life. He refuses to keep serving as a scapegoat for Tom’s failings and Liz’s self-imposed blindness, but the most significant “slight” contributing to the big fracture in his relationship with her is his refusal to share the secret of the bag.
“That’s why you’re here. That’s… Not to help me, not to avenge Tom’s death, but to help yourself and get your precious secret back.”
It is less about the secret itself and more about Red prioritizing it above her. She is jealous again but this time it is not directed at a person but at his “precious secret” that ultimately separates him from her, and once again it masquerades as projected and misplaced anger stemming from her deeper desire for their relationship to be close and genuine.
We have been here before when the Fulcrum surfaced:
"That's why you came into my life then. And that's why you're here now. Not because of me or who I am to you, whatever connection we might have, but because of some... object. Some thing."
and after her name gets cleared in S3/B:
I thought maybe after all we've been through the past three months that you might want to take a break. It's a mythic battle, and it's not anywhere close to being over. It's your battle, not mine.
and then again with the bag of bones. “Not me but” is the underlying issue that gets to her in each of these instances and it always manifests as anger.
From her warped perspective (warped by pain, confusion, and narcissism) he is deeply hurting her and taking everything from her to keep himself safe and cozy. It is the complete betrayal of her (partially conditioned but still unreasonable) expectation that he’d always put her and her needs first. In her eyes, this is again proof that their relationship, just like the one with Tom, has been a mere tool, a manufactured illusion, which - coupled with the impostor reveal - must truly mean Red never really cared for her at all.
But her assessment is once again dead wrong because she refuses to take a careful look at all the available information in proper context - a broader context where her personal issues are not the only ones of importance and where Red not bending to her every wish, esp those that make him deeply miserable or an instant murder victim, is not a sign of lack of genuine feelings but of a healthier attitude. She is also projecting anger at her own dishonesty with herself on him, and while it worked back when Red was receptive to it bc it was conducive to his self-flagellation, this messed up coping mechanism is finally breaking down, too, due to his increasing resistance and the multiplying events that signal he was never that alleged single source of evil.
"We want the same thing."
Indeed. It's the need underpinning Liz's anger, the same one Red has already articulated, albeit indirectly: "an inextricable intimacy and a commitment." Liz uses anger to express this, Red uses fish stories and Tom.
We were both half right. Together, we were right.
Liz sees Red's commitment forever lying elsewhere: with his precious secrets. Red sees Liz's commitment tied up in her relationship with Tom even after his betrayal, even after his literal death. They’ve been longing for the other to break away and commit, but this longing still manifests indirectly and out of sync: she pulls Tom between them like a guardrail (and DG, too), so Red flees into his “work” as a defensive response, which she interprets as lack of genuine interest and withdraws further into safe denial, and we have a vicious cycle on our hands. Despite all that, she still wants him to give up his secrets and he still wants her to give up her fixation on Tom. It’s no accident Red is so captivated by her when she describes her fantasy to him. It’s v much his, too.
But they both feel betrayed right now and both cling to their respective security blankets: Red to his secrets, Liz to her anger.
III. The current name of the game for Liz is repression and denial, for Red, it’s obsession and rumination.
Liz's remark about Red during her therapy session is telling and relevant here:
"Some of what he's done is unimaginably bad. But some of what he's done for me is unimaginably good."
She has been privy to many good things Red has done for others (hell, an entire county once) but those are not factored in when she evaluates his "goodness". No, this is about her and again, it produces only a partial image. It is a good start to say to an outsider that they don’t have the full picture of who he is (or can be) and therefore their understanding is skewed. However, the same goes for Liz and she refuses to accept that her POV is limited, too, and that she is complicit in it being so. DG is a prime example: she is handed a DNA test and everything that contradicts the result is pushed aside at once. The same happened when Tom told her he was a changed man: she ignored the contradictions, so she could have the illusion of stability. Red withholds information but it’s Liz who blatantly lies to herself about many things.
But back to the quote above: so only what Red does for her is weighed on the scale of goodness. Only that defines his moral character. It is decidedly untrue but again it's a manifestation of possessiveness and something Red partially conditioned in her in moments where e.g. he says saving her helps him live w/ himself (104) or where he implies that being with her allows him to become less of a monster (209). As a result, he is reduced to something less but something confined to her, something conveniently simplified that - depending on her need - is easier to either embrace or scapegoat. When he goes along with what she wants (whether it is actually good or not), he is a welcome, positive presence. When he refuses her (no matter how justified or necessary it is), he is deemed toxic and gets rejected. But after Tom inserts himself back into their lives and after the fake death betrayal, Red seems to have less and less willingness to silently confine himself to her whims and wishes, and they finally reach a breaking point in S5.
Fans on both sides of the "why does Red care so much about Liz" fence focus heavily on love as his primary drive, and label the nature of the R/L relationship accordingly: parental and romantic respectively. What else could explain such grandiose display of unconditional love other than being related or being in love? To quote Red, "perhaps there's a third option." There is and despite it being on full display (or maybe because of it since the show has conditioned us to assume a convoluted mystery everywhere) we often overlook its importance:
With Red, guilt is the operative word. This is the governing emotion right next to love (a more recent development) to which many of his grand gestures are anchored. The pervasiveness of guilt in Red's life is pointed out several times in the show, most notably in episodes 104, 216, and 319:
“The farmer, who is no longer a farmer sees the wreckage he's left in his wake. It is now he who burns. It is he who slaughters. And he knows, in his heart he must pay.”
“The truth of it is, once you start down this road there's no logical place to stop. For the first few years, it may work. You'll draw some measure of virtue from being her invisible benefactor. But that won't last. It's all a fraud. That it's really not about her at all. That it's all about you. And you're just going through the motions to salve your own guilt. All the money, all the time and effort, all the favors in the world cannot possibly equal what you took away from her. Everything else is just a nice gesture.”
“It was a Hobson's choice. There was a woman and her child. Both were doomed. Both would die. I could either save one or lose both. I chose the child. It was the worst thing I've ever had to do in my life. Worst thing by far. I was arrogant. I presumed that there was an order to things, that there was... that if I nourished and protected and taught the child, she would be safe and happy. And she was neither. No matter what I tried to do, all I brought her was misery and violence.”
In each, the debilitating nature of guilt is given emphasis, the symptoms of which are exhibited by Red throughout the show. Chronic guilt can be an extremely powerful drive. As Red notes, "once you start down this road there's no logical place to stop". He genuinely believes he owes Liz an immeasurable debt and that nothing, not even wrecking or even giving his own life for her, could make up for it. If we look at his behavior from this perspective, the primary answer to why he is willing to go to such great lengths for her becomes obvious. He loves her, too, of course, but love is - as noted above - is a more recent, healthy development, and it still has to co-exist with deep-seated guilt that keeps it in a toxic choke hold. This combination is the main reason why he cannot deny Liz anything (see: Tom) and why he's so vulnerable to blame shifting. When someone believes they deserve to be used and punished by the one they also come to love more than anything, the danger of abuse skyrockets, too.
Guilt-driven gestures, no matter how grandiose, are ultimately selfish and fake, as Red observes. But after he finally meets her, love starts creeping into the picture, shifting their dynamic and imbuing it with something real and selfless. And Red starts pushing back a little now where Tom is concerned. This sprouting, deepening love, however, gets badly trampled on when the guilt-trips and betrayals come. Red endures them because guilt says "you deserve it", but it no longer has quite the same hold as it once did. Heartbreak is a somewhat sobering experience but until the still unknown source of his guilt is uncovered and addressed, his relationship with Liz, his love for her, cannot reach genuine fulfillment.
IV. Sprinters are bad at running marathons.
Red and Liz want the same thing (as we have established above) but she is impulsive and wants it now whereas he is wary and plans long-term.
“I can’t tell you what I’m gonna want 10 years from now. Even a year from now. I just know what I want right now.”
Liz is no fan of delayed gratification. She has wants and she wants those satisfied "right now" even if it means she has to trade a more secure, more enduring yet still unavailable future (Red) for a readily available present of poorer quality (Tom). The former requires hard work (of the sweat, blood, and tears kind), honest self-evaluation, careful planning, and lots of patience. The latter is just easy and right there, so she cuts straight to the finish line, then it all promptly comes crashing down on her.
This is what happens after her exoneration in S3B. She goes to Red but instead of some quality personal time, he acts prickly and distant, then whips out a giant map to show her how just much hard work still needs to be done before Odysseus can even consider returning home. Her response? She rejects it (and him with it) and goes straight back to Tom. He promises to give her everything she wants right there and then at a discount. She only has to bury her head in the sand regarding a couple of things and since Liz is prone to self-delusion and denial by default, she jumps at the opportunity. This is where her relationship with Red begins to go off the rails.
“Circumstances are far more complex than we ever imagined. I’m betting on the long play. The future.”
Red plays the long game when it comes to the most important things in his life, and he doesn’t shy away from torturous self-examination and self-denial to secure enduring results and a better future for those he loves. Liz’s relationship with Tom was a sprint with many corner-cutting and the inevitable letdown. They had a short present, but no future. With Red, there is a future still but Liz has to run a marathon to reach it and being a sprinter, she struggles a lot.
But she is not the only one struggling. Red is still traumatized by the loss of his family, which makes him instinctively reluctant to try to settle down again. Those who inflicted that debilitating loss still represent an active force in the world (see: the map). The longing to settle down is certainly there. It’s a dream he shares with Liz. They practically wish upon it under the stars while “Our House” is playing, but on top of his guilt and grief, the circumstances seem to be forever against him, so he doesn’t dare actively push for it like she does (he even rejects Agnes at first). He redirects his focus to the “job” to try and create a safer environment and maybe a future opportunity. This folds back to the marathon approach that Liz rejects at first but now, after Tom's demise, she must face. She vows to destroy Red but I don't think it will be a literal destruction. Deep down they still want the same thing and even though they have yet to admit it openly, they want it with each other.
Their time spent on the run in S3/A is immersed in the theme of a shared home. Liz and Red seek refuge in a theater where the stage is set as a home. This is where Liz tells Red about her fantasy and this is where Red immediately retreats behind a wall when he realizes that Liz will be pulled back into Tom's orbit.
“I’m not interested in what you want. I’m interested in what you deeply desire. I can sense that death and vengeance aren’t what drive you, Elizabeth. Or feed your soul. [What does?] A lost world, I suspect. Another life. If you can’t face your truths, I can’t be of service.”
The Djinn makes a clear distinction between “what you want” and “what you deeply desire”. It is echoed in the tension-filled dream Liz has where Red removes Tom from the picture just when he is about to spill a secret (nice piece of foreshadowing btw), then stalks up to her bed and asks her the same thing - not just what she wants but what she really wants. This image of Red stepping up as a sexual-romantic partner after her husband’s demise is shoved deep down in her subconscious. It is one she is not yet ready to face, but it is there - the option of making a home with him, an option he, too, keeps at arm’s length due to past trauma and present circumstances, and it adds even more tension to their interplay.
This exact type of unresolved tension has already popped up on this show when Madeline Pratt re-entered Red's life w/ some grievances.
"Florence was everything, our way out, a fresh start. But to you, it’s all just a job."
She feels betrayed and played for a fool because Red chose to continue living his danger-magnet criminal life, prioritizing it over her and their intended home.
"They used Pratt as bait, faked the kidnapping in order to bring Red into the Kings’ custody."
Later on, counting on his savior complex, she lands him in hot water to get even. She stages her own kidnapping and lures Red into a trap set by an enemy with a score to settle. If it sounds familiar, that’s because we see something similar play out between Liz and Red. It’s low-key in the background during S3-4 (w/ the whole home theme) and gets kicked into high-gear in the S5 finale (when Liz thinks he played her for a fool so he can continue living his criminal life):
We were out. You said the ship we were on was headed to Spain. Change of plans. Because? Because after far too much time playing defense, today’s the day we switch to offense.
They could get away and start a new life but Red refuses to quit his "mission". As mentioned above, he tells Liz they still have a lot to do and her reaction is disappointment, and when Tom offers her everything Red is not yet able (to go away and start fresh), she accepts. And this is when their downward spiral begins in earnest and all the accumulated hurt peaks in S5, in Liz's very Madeline-esque plan to fake a kidnapping and lure Red to one of his enemies for some answers and score-settling (the same business the Kings were into w/ their illicit auctions):
If you’re gonna tell him you hurt me, he’s got to believe you. You knew Reddington would come for you. He got to do what he always does: try and save me.
Indeed. And he is about to confess his greatest secret to save her life when they get interrupted and an alternate solution presents itself. He kills Sutton, takes the bag and leaves. Liz vows to destroy him after this and I think she is right. Raymond Reddington needs to die for good this time. He needs to die so the man behind that mask can finally emerge. He needs to die so Liz can finally face and understand the full picture.
Red’s guilt feeds on the secrets he keeps and Liz continues to cling to her anger because these secrets are a wedge between them. The murky past and their distorted perception of it (Red's warped by guilt, Liz's scrambled by memory manipulation) hold them and their relationship hostage, so it must be disclosed and sorted for both their sakes. The second chance will not come until this happens. When it does, I think it will be the most cathartic moment in the history of this show.
This collision course is their way back home.
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mymelochan · 6 years
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a brief rumination
it feels... weird, to say that i have a good relationship with my mother now. especially considering its been less than a year since i wrestled the bottle of vodka from her hands and told her to go fuck herself (and nearly got myself kicked out in the process.)
for the past two years its felt like she was the enemy. like she was just a vindictive self-centered alcoholic who had nothing to offer me and only served to make my life more difficult.
but now i feel like ive really come to view her more as, y’know, a PERSON. a person who’s just now beginning to sort through the traumas and emotional baggage she’s carried with her this far. she had an addiction, she’s working hard to get past it, and that’s INCREDIBLY admirable. 
i want to be happy about this, but instead i just feel... guilty. i feel like i’m betraying someone. as though by forgiving her, i’m becoming just as bad as her and willfully blind to the problems she’s caused.
i just hate this feeling of being stuck in the middle and having to choose sides. i don’t want to ruin any of the relationships in my life, but i feel like that’s what’s happening.
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pastramimommy · 3 years
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10/25/20
What are the things that bring you joy that you still have or can emphasize in your life?
Things that bring me joy that I still have: 
-contact with my family, immediate and extended. this is the most we’ve ever talked and its the closest i’ve ever felt to all of them. I’m now finding myself looking forward to talking to them and going home to see them (who woulda thought lol) I never really felt that way while I was in DC, but i do here. Not sure if thats bc I have more voids to fill while in NC but either way, my appreciation for my family is at an all time high.
-exercise and my self-discipline to do it regularly. that is the number one thing that keeps me sane and I am so proud of my self for maintaining my ability to run and the fact that i still really enjoy it. 
-friends at home. even though i’m doing an ASS job keeping up with them, I know they are there for me. I won’t keep taking this for granted though, I’ll be better about reaching out. 
-I am having a really hard time writing this list. I really wouldn’t say that I’m sad here, bc things are going well. 
-MUSIC. what keeps me tethered to this world!! It’s hard that such a huge part of my identity is on the backburner bc of covid and by the time it’s safe to go to concerts again, i’ll be too old for that shit. Definitely not a serious problem, but it’s still a thing to me.
-smaller things that have brought me joy in NC: embroidering, the fact that i picked up ukulele much easier than anticipated, i still write to my penpal, new ear hustle episodes, cookout, blackpink, the boba place brian showed me, getting to know erica (a fellow filipina), american tobacco trail, youtube workouts, haikyu, oatmeal
I’m fighting the urge to ruminate and write negative things bc i’m supposed to write about things that make me happy. i guess i should just release them anyway bc im journaling? 
ok i tried to think about it but all i was really sad about was the same shit ive been whining about, how dissatisfied i am with the social scene here. i actually put on real clothes yesterday and i was just looking for something to fulfill that need. it might just be attention honestly. i forreal just thrive off of attention. im the worst lol i know its human. but i know i was trained to seek that over everything for so many years of my life, its hard to get out of this habit. frickin internalized misogyny. im literally not attracted to any of these people but i just like to know that i can catch interest. like it matters?? WE KNOW IT DOESNT. maybe it’s the lack of intimacy as a result of covid. but i literally have had no ounce of horniness towards anyone. i am repulsed by the world. now i only feel respect and admiration towards people, not lust or anything. complete opposite of how i used to be. maybe its my covid coping mechanism. this is such an interesting stream of consciousness wow i guess ill leave it at that.
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thomcoldman-blog · 6 years
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Review: Iconoclasts
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Iconoclasts, like the subject of a Junji Ito-esque horror, feels like it was made for me, in especially devilish and unsettling ways. It combines a lot of the elements of the classics I adore into one big ambitious, clever, gorgeous mess of a game; the item-meets-environment puzzle-solving of The Legend of Zelda, the looping, layered level designs of Metroid, the smooth traversal you'd expect from games like Mega Man X. It's a game with its eyes to the giants of the action-platformer genre, most nakedly influenced by Metal Slug and Monster World IV, but the truth is I can see so much of a million other games I love in Iconoclasts, it's almost like developer Joakim “konjak” Sandberg has been peering inside my head for ideas of where to take the game next. But you needn't have me tell you that – on the surface, from its Metroid-esque map screen, the enormous SNK-style bullet sprays and the SEGA green hills and blue skies, Iconoclasts indeed looks like a pretender to the throne, another indie retro game tribute-cum-rehash to the heyday of This Sort Of Game. Fortunately, despite first impressions, Iconoclasts has its own tune to sing.
Breaking from tradition should be paramount for any game named after “iconoclasm”, the practice of essentially rebelling against the status-quo. Iconoclasts goes one further, and becomes more of a rumination on the costs and challenges of tearing down the old and the daunting task of facing what may replace it. The story takes this theme and runs with it, depicting a world overseen by a fascistic militia known as the One Concern. This force believe everyone need have their place in the world (naturally, not a place of their own choosing), and will rain down “Penance” upon the homes of anyone who steps out of line. Despite their ranks consisting mostly of visor-clad grunts in grey, they never quite feel like a generic group of baddies, as their grip of terror comes with a religious undertone, spooking the citizens into paranoia of violent reprisal at the hands of the divine being the One Concern follow. As Robin, the daughter of a deceased mechanic now illegally fixing all manner of problems in the settlements, you attract no small amount of disdain from the citizens, who'd much rather you packed in the unlawful assistance and settled down. Naturally, this doesn't quite happen, and Robin soon finds herself becoming a one-woman resistance against the Concern, aided by a handful of similarly aggrieved allies along the way.
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Iconoclasts' storytelling feels distinct and notable for a number of reasons, but first and foremost it's surprising the lengths that Konjak has gone to to develop a layered narrative in a genre where traditionally no-one bothers. The game is still driven largely by its tight platforming and satisfying puzzle-based progression, so with those successfully built you could forgive the plot for being fairly obvious girl-defeats-big-dragon fare. But here, Iconoclasts' feels eager to be seen as newer, fresher and more relevant. The characters aren't happy-go-lucky, but often filled with grief, terror and rage, and it all acts as a compelling motivator beyond filling out the map screen or crafting another upgrade. Having large boss battles with their impressive levels of animation and challenge accompanied by a sense that the characters have been through a great amount to reach the confrontation makes Iconoclasts feel more mature than its inspirations, even as you're throwing down with a giant cat or caterpillar.
The writing is sharp and sweet, not lingering on any point for too long so you're back into the action in due time, whilst never feeling perfunctory enough to make you want to hit Skip anyway. It feels tight; a feeling that permeates through most of the game. It never goes overboard with the number of characters you meet or are expected to remember, and uses them sensibly. The leading villains of the One Concern are the highlight, appearing throughout the entire game more-or-less as recurring showdowns, a constant thorn in Robin's side (and vice versa), and a font of expression for the game's themes of idealogical decadence and implosion. Much as the One Concern bleed the planet dry of its most essential materials, Iconoclasts bleeds its characters dry for drama and intrigue, giving each character exactly enough screentime to make a strong, lasting impression.
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“Making the most of what you have” is a running theme in this game, reflected not just in its use of character but also location and mechanics. Robin is equipped with a stun gun and a wrench, and for a lot of the game, that's more or less it. She eventually gets a bomb launcher, and a third weapon type I won't spoil, but that's her lot. Iconoclasts isn't interested in giving you a huge arsenal, because you don't need it. Instead, the weapons serve primarily as solutions for the game's puzzles, and in combination with a couple of wrench upgrades giving Robin electrical properties, Konjak gets a LOT of mileage out of these tools. Robin's wrench lets her tighten bolts to activate level elements, as well as swing off mid-air bolts to reach higher ground or clear chasms. This movement feels exquisite, with your momentum coming off the bolt never in question, and it combines with a auto-targeting 4-way directional aim on the stun gun for quick, speedy combat scenarios. Puzzles often involve shooting the bombs through tight gaps to create an opening, using electricity to activate switches, moving level elements around via tightening bolts ��� how to interact with the pieces of a room is rarely in question, but the number of combinations of bomb-powered platforms, mid-air bolts, electrical switches, tight platforming and certain enemies feels limitless thanks to Konjak's incredibly inventive level design.
When you're not using the few tools at your disposal to blast through puzzles, there are plenty of enemies to take down instead. Standard cannon-fodder is found in a lot of rooms, but the game offers a tricky parry move and a mid-air stomp for defeating a variety of enemies that can't all be K.O.'d with a volley of stun-gun blasts. Keeping on brand, it never goes overboard with the number of enemy types, but Iconoclasts is smart enough to make sure each of the 7-or-so areas of the game has their own distinct fauna, such as skull bats in the dank flooded caves or bizarre bipedal cacti in the desert, each with some killer animation tooled for high readability and expressiveness. The bosses are by far the peak of the game's gorgeous sprite-art; screen-filling titans lumbering toward you with equally screen-filling attacks, and lithe assassins striking fast and hard as they leap between the sides of the screen. One highlight is an enormous caterpillar train operating in a circular forest area, chasing you down as you use your wrench to zip along magnetic rails; another, a flaming-hot femme fatale who rains hot death from the sky as you attempt to knock her into electrified railings. Each boss tests your reactions and pattern-reading skills in diverse ways, often offering allies to further differentiate encounters with their own special means of assistance. They're all instantly memorable, from the initial giant mech showdown to a frankly ridiculous ultimate confrontation that might leave you equally perplexed and enthralled.
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Iconoclasts mixes up its combat and movement with its “tweak” mechanic, giving the player three perks to use in their journey. These can include defensive measures, speeding up weapon cooldowns and even making new moves available, like a handy dodge roll. Unfortunately, taking damage causes these abilities to become disabled, only becoming active once more by grabbing “ivory” dropped by enemies or from smashed or fixed objects. Iconoclasts' difficulty level isn't punishingly hard, but it's challenging enough where you'll take your fair share of scrapes, and losing useful skills such as speed boosts or attack boosts due to mistakes can be irritating. This mixed together with the fact tweaks must first be crafted using secret collectibles – and can only be crafted once their blueprints have been obtained – makes the tweak system feel more frustrating and underutilised than it could have been. Acquiring tweaks has enough barriers to entry that removing the ivory requirement wouldn't be overly generous – as it is, it never feels enough of a boon to making secret hunting anything more than its own reward.
That concern aside, Iconoclasts is an impeccable result of its 7-year development history. The story of Iconoclasts argues simply in favour of doing the right thing – not settling for quiet subjugation, not rioting against the status quo just because, but simply identifying something broken, and getting to work fixing it. In looking at the classics of video game yesteryear, Konjak clearly didn't see much broken, but what there was, the game makes a valiant effort at fixing. A tight compelling story, a rejection of empowerment-based progression in favour of a puzzle- and boss- design focus, impeccable movement with smart quality-of-life choices and a look bursting with colour, detail, blood, sweat, tears and love – in sticking to doing a few things really, really well in surprising new ways, Iconoclasts is the most successfully ambitious action-platformer I've played in years, and a game I've been wanting for a long long time.
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Score: 5/5
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jondaenerysdaily · 7 years
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Do you still believe that theirs is a song of ice and fire if Jon Snow is the ice and fire himself?
At this point, we’re inclined to believe that it’s a combination of Jon and Daenerys, not just Jon–so yes, we believe that theirs is a song of ice and fire.
“He has a song,” the man replied. “He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.” He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany’s, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. “There must be one more,” he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. “The dragon has three heads.” He went to the window seat, picked up a harp, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.  (Daenerys IV, ACOK)
Dany’s vision in the House of the Undying is of Rhaegar, ruminating on the prophecy he had discovered as a boy and which he thought meant he was the Prince that was Promised and then, subsequently, that his sone Aegon was the Prince that was Promised.  He believes that the song of Ice and Fire is that of the Prince that was Promised.
The problem is that Martin very much plays with how prophecy works:
“An ant who hears the words of a king may not comprehend what he is saying,” Melisandre said, “and all men are ants before the fiery face of god. If sometimes I have mistaken a warning for a prophecy or a prophecy for a warning, the fault lies in the reader, not the book. But this I know for a certainty—envoys and pardons will not serve you now, no more than leeches. You must show the realm a sign. A sign that proves your power!” (Davos V, ASOS)
“No,” the old man said. “It must be you. Tell them. The prophecy…my brother’s dream…Lady Melisandre has misread the signs. Stannis…Stannis has some of the dragon blood in him, yes. His brothers did as well. Rhaelle, Egg’s little girl, she was how they came by it…their father’s mother…she used to call me Uncle Maester when she was a little girl. I remembered that, so I allowed myself to hope…perhaps I wanted to…we all deceive ourselves, when we want to believe. Melisandre most of all, I think. The sword is wrong, she has to know that…light without heat…an empty glamor…the sword is wrong, and the false light can only lead us deeper into darkness, Sam. Daenerys is our hope. Tell them that, at the Citadel. Make them listen. They must send her a maester. Daenerys must be counseled, taught, protected. For all these years I’ve lingered, waiting, watching, and now that the day has dawned I am too old. I am dying, Sam.”  (Samwell IV, AFFC)
“Born amidst salt and smoke, beneath a bleeding star. I know the prophecy.” Marwyn turned his head and spat a gob of red phlegm onto the floor. “Not that I would trust it. Gorghan of Old Ghis once wrote that a prophecy is like a treacherous woman. She takes your member in her mouth, and you moan with the pleasure of it and think, how sweet, how fine, how good this is…and then her teeth snap shut and your moans turn to screams. That is the nature of prophecy, said Gorghan. Prophecy will bite your prick off every time.” (Samwell V, AFFC)
So Martin’s clearly not setting up a prophecy to be at face value, which means that Rhaegar’s view of the Song of Ice and Fire is not so much about the true meaning of the prophecy, so much as Rhaegar’s failure in interpreting it accurately.
So yes, you can say that Jon’s is the Song of Ice and Fire, that he is of both Ice (Stark) and Fire (Targaryen), that he was born amidst salt and smoke (as people argue).  Or you can keep your mind open to the idea that it might not be just Jon, especially given that almost all of that prophetic fulfillment also has possibilities in Daenerys and, of course, 
“No one ever looked for a girl,” he said. “It was a prince that was promised, not a princess. Rhaegar, I thought… the smoke was from the fire that devoured Summerhall on the day of his birth, the salt from the tears shed for those who died. He shared my belief when he was young, but later he became persuaded that it was his own son who fulfilled the prophecy, for a comet had been seen above King’s Landing on the night Aegon was conceived, and Rhaegar was certain the bleeding star had to be a comet. What fools we were, who thought ourselves so wise! The error crept in from the translation. Dragons are neither male nor female, Barth saw the truth of that, but now one and now the other, as changeable as flame. The language misled us all for a thousand years. Daenerys is the one, born amidst salt and smoke. The dragons prove it.” Just talking of her seemed to make him stronger. “I must go to her. I must. Would that I was even ten years younger.” (Samwell IV, AFFC)
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manetsgarden · 5 years
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Alternate Title: Be Still My Foolish Heart? (Anything to drag Hozier into my chats) 
I’m not talking about unrequited love, I’m talking about how we create crushes on people we don’t *really* have an actual interest in. You might think you don’t do this, but I promise you know someone who does. People far and wide that I’ve talked to do this thing where we fixate on someone we know we can’t have. We harbour these little (or big) crushes on people who are long since gone, maybe they live in another city, maybe they’re in a relationship. Regardless, we’re only interested because they’re off limits. We’re not harassing them, or being a problem for their relationship, chances are they have absolutely no idea we harbour feelings for them at all, we do it for entirely selfish reasons. We do it, mostly, so that we can think romantic thoughts without having to deal with the actual anxieties and stressers of having feelings for someone.
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In my case, I never showed an interest in the person who I later, having moved to Scotland, decided I had a big crush on, when I lived in the same city as them. I was actively uninterested in them the entire time I knew them in Canada, and once I left I found myself thinking oh actually they’re great and wouldn’t they make such a great partner? In reality, there are a wealth of people around me who would also make wonderful partners, but I’m too focused on this person in a far off land, that I’m not genuinely interested in, to bother looking around me. The best part: when I went home at Christmas my crush disappeared. Not the actual person, but my crush, the actual feelings I had just disappeared, I had no interest in seeing them or knowing what they were up to. As soon as I was in the airport going home I was like hey? What’s going on? Why did that happen? And why am I NOW only just starting to think romantically about them again? Seriously?!
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In part, this is why when I came back to Scotland I initially was off of all dating ever. And then why I re downloaded Tinder. It’s time for me to stop harbouring feelings for someone I don’t have a genuine interest in (even writing this I’m thinking…but do I?) I also started talking to people about this. I have one friend who I *KNOW* does this. I’ve known for years and as soon as I started doing it I texted her and was like “oh my god it’s happening.” But then as I talked more and more to other people, it turns out this is something we ALL DO.
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I know multiple people who have done this for years. People who harbour some sort of questionable crush on someone who treats them poorly, or who shows no interest in them, or who wouldn’t be at all what they’re looking for if they actually dated, just because it’s a convenient thing to do. Convenient is maybe the wrong word. They do it mostly out of habit at this point, maybe originally something happened to make them thing “huh, they’re cute”, but they never acted on it. Usually it’s someone where it would be weird or inappropriate now, a family friend or someone from a close knit friend group. I think for them, it’s born more out of habit than anything else. It also gets complicated for us when we then start to date someone, and you’re forced to contend with this long-held habit of ruminating over someone you probably don’t actually like, it feels weird to always have this sort of idea of a person on the back-burner, waiting to come back to if the actual relationship you’re in now doesn’t work out.
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Is this the adult version of having a crush on celebrity? Do you remember when you were a teen and were convinced you would marry a Jonas Brother, (or whoever was really cool and hot to you as a teen)? As much as I joke about Hozier, I don’t do this with celebrities anymore, but apparently now I do it with people who I actually know? I don’t convince myself we’ll get married, but I spend the time I used to spend thinking about celebrities now thinking about crushes and wondering what they’re doing, or what it would be like if they were here.
So what do we do? Coming clean about our feelings seems redundant because I’m 100% sure in my situation, and about 75% sure in the situations that my friends are in, that we don’t really have feelings for them. Is it just a question of catching yourself having the thoughts and trying to quell the habit? Is it really a harmful thing? Do we really have to do anything about it if it’s not harming anyone? If it’s not holding you back from dating, or if you don’t want to be dating, is it okay to continue down this path of slightly confusing behaviour? Or, is it just an innocent form of escapism?
Have you been in this position and moved past it? I imagine I could, but I think I would always remember in the deep of my subconscious this little inkling of feelings towards that person, or maybe I won’t. Maybe I’m just thinking this because last night I had a gin-fuelled dream that he married one of our friends from uni. And the queen was in attendance. And I was the only person there who was unhappy about the whole thing.
PSA: If you are harbouring this type of a crush for me, I have sad news for you, the person I am talking about in this article is probably definitely not you. Also, if we live on other sides of the Atlantic, it’s not going to work out. Also, I met someone here that I quite fancy so sorry, you should have come across the Atlantic sooner.
Have you done this? Do you have advice? Do you want to read more about my chaotic approach to dating? Feel free to browse around my ‘Carrie Bradshaw Series’.
Am I Getting To Know Someone Or Am I Leading Them On? | Hiking the Cliffs of Moher Vlog
Find me:  Instagram | Twitter | Tumblr | YouTube | Facebook
Why Do We Think So Much About People Who Don’t Think About Us? Alternate Title: Be Still My Foolish Heart? (Anything to drag Hozier into my chats)  I'm not talking about unrequited love, I'm talking about how we create crushes on people we don't *really* have an actual interest in.
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sightofsea · 7 years
Text
this is rly dumb and there is the HUGE chance im going to regret this but ok
basically when i was 15 i wrote an approx. 200k OC doctor who fanfiction featuring a kind of half self insert/half attempt to subvert mary sue comapnion stereotypes named jenna quigley. and ive been thinking about it more lately like the general storyline bc like. idk. n i figured i should write it out.
i should mention this is all 11th doctor era bc i was a huge fan at that time, and it takes place between that time he leaves amy n rory to when he does his farewell tour bc i wanted to try n add some canonical irony that ill get to later
so basically its all narrated from jenna pov as kind of stories she’s telling to the tardis database via recording. why, we don’t know yet. she;s. ok so in the plot she was from our universe n was an AVID fan of the show which like tacky i know but whatever. she starts out 15 and in basically my house and neighborhood (this fic started from a constant daydream i would have of going on adventures w the doctor bc i was a nerdy 15 yo so like. sue me) and there have been a disturbing amount of disappearances in the surrounding area that local police are stuck on. so everyones kinda afraid to go out into their own homes and at one point, jenna is doing something out in her backyard and actually witnesses one of the abductions, but is surprised to see the kidnapper looks like the silence, aka the television show shes been watching. she thinks shes going bonkers. her family leave her alone for the day to go to a thing for one of her siblings and she’s just kind of ruminating on this event when--lo and behold, an officer arrives at her door.
and jenna, she’s very skeptical about this guy. like, given recent events she doesnt trust her own eyes. and the guy is...off. like his badge n credentials, if she concentrates, looks like something else for a flash of a second, and for some reason the figure of him is kind of hazy whenever jenna tries to look directly at him. he is shown to have a quirky, friendly demeanor n jenna figures well, i gotta tell someone about what ive seen, so she invites him in. they have a brief chat n its obvious to the reader that this guy is someone VERY familiar (mostly due to my bad writing at the time) and jenna begins to explain what she saw and how its like this one show she watches, and this guy suddenly becomes very very interested in this before realizing he’s got it all pieced together and asks for jenna’s help in navigating the area to find what is, ultimately, a silence space ship.
jenna agrees and over time realizes this guy is most definitely connected to something in the whoniverse and originally believes he might be a time agent bc that seems more likely given their number as they travel to the ship. its also revealed that the officer has brought jenna along bc the key thing about what she saw is that she actually remembers the silence and can see past perception filters due to the qualities of alternate universe, slightly alternate brain chemistry and so on. its not exactly perfect--she can’t get through perception filters rly, especially good ones--but its enough to know something is wrong n remember certain things others from the dw universe might not be able to like the actual silence aliens themselves.
anyway they make their way to the ship, which has come through a massive tear in reality that the officer came through. in the fic lore i guess tears are seen as usually benign things meant to leak ideas of universes into other universes as a kind of waste disposal system, and as a side effect create inspiration in those who are close to them. this tear, though, became too big, kind of like a leaky pipe, and actual material was able to get through by keeping a frequency from both ends of the tear as a kind of safety rope. and to maintain their energy as a stranded ship the silence have been using humans as batteries. i put a lot of thought into this, i know.
SO once theyre in the ship the “”officer”” (we know who he is by now lets just face it) and jenna are captured n separated. jenna is held hostage and it is revealed she is a part of a second half of the “silence will fall when the question is asked” prophecy which goes “the unexpected shall follow the guided task” (i loved rhymes) which is further revealed to the be the following: change the timeline and destroy the doctor. and jenna, being jenna, is like “listen u guys i dont even know the guy so uh failed step one i guess”. she’s saved by the “”officer”” in the nick of time through work of faulty electrical work (like? i know its for style but the silence have all those lights on the floor n it is VERY dangerous) so the whole ship is blacked out n she hears the differently pitched speech patterns (”why do u sound all different” “they took my equipment nevermind lets go”) and after doing some work to reverse the frequency and basically make the ship implode back into its original universe they run back to jenna’s home in the dark, seeing as she was out for quite a bit. her family is conveniently not home yet n decided to hang out with some friends. and when she gets back n is finally in the light SURPRISE!!! turns out the officer was the doctor all along in disguise from the silence using a perception filter. 15 year old me was a literary genius.
n u might think hannah this is rly long is it done now and of course it isnt!! that was just the intro!! after the initial shock jenna kind of parses what era the doctor is from, which is pre-silencio but after finding out about it n in that 200 yr stretch that was never rly shown. and jenna’s like, a whole season ahead of him basically and knows all this stuff and is trying to engage with this guy she’s a huge fan of without like accidentally spilling the beans on his future. she sits him down to explain the whole tv show thing n lets him watch an episode while she goes to her room to pack like clothes n her laptop because its not every day the doctor just flies in and she’s 15 so shes like hellz yeah im gonna be a COMPANION not even THINKING of the consequences in terms of the multiverse, the prophecy and her family (she does leave a note but its self centered n kinda lame tbh just like be back whenever). afterwards she walks the doctor back to the tardis and is like so where we gonna go n the doctor looks at her like jenna you are a literal child im not taking you anywhere and jenna though some MASTERY of writing that was basically hey look over there! and doing it anyway sneaks into the tardis when the doctor isnt looking n becomes his stowaway.
for the next few weeks she just kind of chills in the tardis with this fear that the doctor will immediately bring her back home so might as well have fun and kinda sneaks around him and keeps couch hopping from room to room. the tardis does not like her one bit due to the whole different universe funky energies thing (and this was pre-clara and i really wanted to see a companion the tardis didnt like so) and has multiple conversations with it via the interface hologram which meant i could write cameos for classic companions and write the tardis as a character bc i was a nerd.
SO after weeks of casually avoiding the doctor eventually she gets caught by him and hes not happy about it so shes like well ok then send me home n then she gets the real kicker which is the tears all mended up. after the material was put back in place it went back to being benign n too small for anything to travel between. so jenna basically stuck in this foreign universe with a very slim chance of returning back to her old life and her family and friends and she mistakes the doctors anger at the situation for anger at her so shes like basically im all alone here oh god n has a crisis n has a dramatic run off into the bowels of the tardis hallways
eventually the doctor finds her and they bond over being kind of the last of their kind in a way and he takes a kind of fatherly role and is like well youre already here and im miserable on my own so why dont we two birds one stone it n just go on adventures for the time being and takes a kind of fatherly platonic role with jenna bc i was sick of seeing companions hook up with the doctor and was confused as to why they wanted to hook up with him (spoiler alert: huge lesbian)
so they set off on their adventures. the first one was about the doctor and jenna accidentally boarding a ship of genetically engineered soldiers called evos being shipped off to a galactic war and finding out some of them had rebelled and had been camping out in the ships underbelly. they had no mouths but were able to communicate via sign language n empath touch powers of transferable memories. the captain was a bitch who didnt see the evos as living things n eventually in a stand off either offered them a chance for the other, still podded evos to live and for them all to live a horrible life or have the podded evos be ejected into space in return for them to have a chance to fight for their freedom. the choice ended up coming down to jenna, somehow, i think, and she chose freedom and cost the lives of like 200 evos but were able to get the ones they were able to save (about, like, 100 i think) to safety and create their own civilization away from harm on a distant planet and their success and triumph to live their own lives i guess canceled out the fact that jenna played a part in the deaths of 200 beings. it was. i dont even know 
the next “episode” after a brief interlude of less impactful adventures and discussing mortality was a sherlock crossover episode that im too embarrassed to go into detail about but did reveal jenna’s newly formed abandonment issues due to her stranded in a strange universe situation and the fact she had a self harm problem that, surprise, mirrored mine. her n the doctor went on some more adventures over the next few months that were mentioned in passing. it should be noted that this first “act” i guess takes place over a solid year
the next episode featured river song bc i was gay for her without knowing it and i had just learned about easter island in history class and i decided to expand on one of the adventures said in passing during the series to kind of root my fic in canon bc i was a smarmy bitch. it involved being perceived as gods and the silence and using the flesh as a means of luring villagers to be used as human batteries and also putting a percetion filter on the ship so what was actually a crater was perceived to be a mountain. through this episode we saw the doctor again facing his own mortality, river sitting jenna down after a series of events pieced together her abandonment issues n harm problem n being like you cant rely on the doctor for this alone trust me i know its fun but when it starts ending it wont be. jenna gets kidnapped again by the silence n is reproduced as flesh to try and steer the doctor n river away from saving the day but overcomes that impulse and eventually pulls herself out of it and helps save things.
this episode also imports an important plot device of misplacement, which i shouldve put in earlier if im honest. the basic idea of it, within the fic lore, was that the universe, multiverse, whatever had to compensate for temporal displacement all the time when choices were made, but when big things that would alter history happened--like a giant supposed mountain blowing up 200 years after it had already blew up--it had a fail safe to transport the object causing the harm to the exact place but in a different time where the event would have less of a temporal impact. theres also an important note here where the doctor doesnt recall jenna being with him on their first adventure together. both are setting up the larger plot.
after the deal with the kidnapping and the flesh and all their adventures the doctor becomes kind of protective of jenna because i mean the dude also has abandonment issues like lets be real. so he kind of tones down the danger in fear of jenna dying or getting hurt. i mean, its been a year and theyve kind of become these friends who snark at each other like a family would and its nice that jenna has this person she can trust because she watched the show and like, knows him and knows his tells and calls him out on his bullshit before he can even get started and feels a kind of responsibility for due to the prophecy she was given and the doctor has someone to talk to and someone he also doesnt have to hide from really because she already knows almost everything. theyve been equally protective of each other--jenna keeping the doctor in the dark about the prophecy about her and keeping mum on the fact that she knows he isnt going to die, and the doctor worrying about jenna’s safety and trying not to screw her up like he has past companions to kind of try to atone for his past mistakes and make it up to this girl whose life he kind of unintentionally ruined. ok honestly idk why im getting in depth but i spent. years on this fic you dont understand
so. after a while jenna just kind of calls the doctor out like come on lets at least go somewhere fun and end up spending christmas eve in new york in the forties and befriend this newly single mother and jenna fakes a REALLY BAD accent to get across that her n the doctor are related n poor to gain sympathy. they do all the things she wants like times square and macy’s, where surprise! she sees amy n rory n their son and just kind of like. guides them away from the doctor like guys. this aint ur guy. and it would fuck EVERYTHING up also hi i know your guys’s entire life story, cute kid, etc. they give jenna some advice dealing w the doctor and she tells them that she’ll try her best to make sure he doesnt like, go self hating n all that bullshit n they part ways. her n the doctor meet up again and throughout this whole first part jenna’s been noticing people following her? with like, these weird orange-y eyes. and she thinks like fuck ok this’ll ruin the adventure, maybe theyll leave but they end up starting to go after her and reveal themselves to be a species called the visicheck
after escaping and dumpster diving because the visicheck hunt based on scent, jenna and the doctor start heading towards the single mother’s place for refuge (she had seen their situation n offered a place to spend christmas eve) and on the cab ride over the doctor explains that the visicheck r these ancestors of the family of blood, and basically are lifeless specks that latch onto living things and possess them until they burn them out and move onto the next one. they consume what is the basic energy a thing needs to exist and be alive, and for different species there’s different levels. lets say a dw universe human is ur basic ten on the scale. because of different circumstances in different universes, jenna is basically a 120 on the scale. like, these things could possess her body and use it for centuries to wreck havoc with the kind of energy she holds. and jenna, thinking about the prophecy of changing the timeline and also not wanting to basically be the living dead is like yeah ok fuck this is bad. 
they find some brief refuge in the single mothers apartment for a time and enjoy a lovely christmas eve dinner but eventually the visicheck catch up to them. the doctor escorts the single mother n her kid into a cab to get as far away as possible while jenna is just supposed to keep holed up in the apartment, but things arent so easy and they end up breaking in. she’s able to hit them over the head with a pan n kind of stave them off for a bit and heads for the roof, but is eventually backed into a circle. knowing the visichek can’t possess something that is dead and not wanting to potentially endanger the universe just to keep her life jenna jumps off the building in a dramatic fashion that i wrote to play with the carol of the bells because i thought it was cool, and you know what? it was. it really was.
and so jenna dies
at least for a bit
she wakes up in the tardis, rly confused because like, she died. like she knows she did. and the doctors not speaking n acting all broody and she finally gets the story out of him that after she died (posted as an anonymous person in the newspaper, i should note, and put in an unnamed grave to keep the whole “written in stone” thing in line) he kind of. went off on his own for a bit before rly hating himself for letting jenna die right in front of him and went back to catch and save her before she landed, therefore altering the events as it happened. and jenna is...not happy about this. like, one bit. because, in a twist of fate, because she is both living and dead the universe must compensate by going to misplacement, but jenna can’t fully complete the misplacement “”process”” i guess until she is in the exact location she is misplaced from, only different time and all, and in this case she’s in the tardis which almost always has its shields up, so she can’t even complete that bit. so, as explained, the universe will start the process over whenever the tardis decides to fly off again, and send jenna to a different time within the tardis’s general vicinity.
basically, she’s gonna be stuck hopping around the doctor’s timeline. like, all of it, until she finally meets up with the right doctor who knows her n has been past this point. which could take years for her. and, mind you, the task she was “assigned” in the prophecy was to change the timeline, and as a result destroy the doctor. so this is basically jenna’s worst nightmare, and she finally spills the beans about the prophecy in a fit of anger before trying to say goodbye and being whisked off
and this is where the angst stuff happens
basically, for the next year or so (when i rewrite in my head its two years, makes more sense) jenna is thrown around one end of the universe to the other, trying to stay out of the way of the doctor’s events while also trying to, you know, survive and eat and drink and sleep. she’s basically a homeless vagabond for most of it, and her abandonment issues and self harming kind of escalate. she begins leading a really lonely life, and grows this kind of love/hate relationship with the doctor where she really hopes to see him again but also grows bitter against him for putting him in this situation. she visits companions before their time with the doctor, like donna, by accident and stumbles through meeting them and trying to just keep going. in her loneliness she starts talking to a version of the doctor in her head, which starts taking more and more of a form to her before its a fully grown kind of hallucination she’s created out of loneliness (which was kind of based off of me being a lonely kid and having pretend conversations with characters to simulate human connection which is. sad. i know. really sad. its a lot). 
for a time jenna is stuck with the doctor and martha during the months leading up to human nature/the family of blood, and inadvertently meets martha and gets a job at the school as a fellow maid through helping martha drag the doctor to the place. she figures its the only stability she’ll have for a while and since she was never shown in the show it isnt rly affecting the most important bits of the timeline, and resolves to stay as far away from john smith as she can and just live out her life until the events of the episodes start happening and she’ll vamoose. she adopts an accent to blend in and when she has free time finds the stashed away tardis, which initially does not recognize jenna as a companion until finding archived recordings from the future bc duh its a time machine, which brings the whole pov thing full circle, and interacts with the interface to get answers about her growing questions about the silence and her situation and learns about a device called the cage, which has been alluded to in previous “episodes” only by name, as a great machine created by the silence that is meant to basically make it so that anything inside of it would be erased for existence, past present and future, using energy form the cracks in the universe. this was still at a point in the actual series where we knew nothing so i just kind of went buckwild.
anyways
jenna ends up having to interact with the tenth doctor as john smith once, and kind of aims all of her bitterness towards her future self at him and realizes that isnt fair, apologizes, and has a cathartic moment of finally moving past a grudge with the wrong version of the doctor. eventually the events of the episodes start happening and she vamooses before getting sent off to god knows where again, yippee
eventually through the next year jenna kind of begins to rly lose hope. like, it’s been a year already, she doesn’t know if she can keep living like this. so she makes a deal with herself to wait out until the end of this second year of time travelling vagabonding before she decides to off herself to save herself and the universe the trouble. 
she keeps going through the motions and actually stumbles upon a future, post-silencio doctor, with rory and amy in tow, and in a fit of like oh my god relief she kind of runs up to him and is like i found you, finally, holy shit n the doctor looks at her like im sorry but i dont...know you? like i genuinely dont know who you are. you might have ur timelines all switched up. and jenna knows this isnt true and freaks out and kind of just is like, theres like fifteen days until the deadline, all hope is lost, gonna just completely self destruct n cuts her hair and stops eating, but on the day of the actual deadline she keeps stalling as she zaps from place to place before finally deciding to end how it should end by jumping off a building n she has this heartfelt convo with this imaginary figure thats kept her company all this time
so she makes the journey up this apartment building in this basically abandoned future...chicago, i think? yeah. and you know, is about to do when whaddaya know, a familiar voice is calling out for her. she thinks its just the hallucination but eventually realizes that its actually the doctor, one that knows her, and they have this really heartfelt hug before she punches him square in the face
after the fact is a lot of secret keeping on jenna’s side. she doesnt want to be a burden and just kind of wants things to eventually get back to normal after a period of just resting finally and lies about her time being thrown around the doctors timeline, telling him it was only a few months instead of two years, and hiding the evidence of her self harm and other forms of self destruction to try and get things back to the way they were. the doctor can see through jenna’s bullshit though and over a month of just kind of chilling in the tardis and getting better she eventually tells him and after being pulled into an adventure with alien bees and a prison break and characters very much based off of the captor brothers from homestuck they kind of find their original rhythm
the next adventure was the one where i stopped writing mostly bc the plot absolutely sucked. it was a beach adventure episode, involving aliens and aliens who were mermaids and being stranded on a remote island. also, at the time i was going through a sexuality crisis and decided jenna was gonna go through it too and made her realize she was gay for one of the alien mermaids and totally made out with her. you can see how the plot was failing a bit, and the only thing i dont regret is the whole mermaid makeout thing really. 
the rest of the series from that point on was supposed to go something like this: jenna has to go back to her old high school, except in the dw universe, and finds out she actually doesn’t exist in this universe??? which is weird. the doctor plays teacher and they live in the prop attic of the school investigating a counselor that literally feeds off of emotions until the students are a husk and die. there was going to be a filler where the doctor and jenna start the doctors farewell tour (it is revealed when they finally find each other at the end of the timeline jumping debacle that the doctor has like two years left until silencio happens, with like a hundred years passing between new york n finding jenna) and the doctors mortality is discussed and jenna begins to wonder what happens to her since she isnt at the event or anything going forward, and begins to worry about the prophecy again.
the finale of jenna’s adventures was supposed to go like this: they end up tackling the silence again, only with the help of the cage, after jenna notices the doctor beginning to forget more and more things about her. they get captured and the silence plan to place the doctor in the cage and eradicate him from existence so that the question to be asked never existed to begin with. i hadnt figured out how yet, but basically jenna would finally click everything together and realize it was her destiny to do this, and even had a better chance since it eradicated her from this universe, and she still had a life in another one and could maybe start over and appreciate her family and friends a bit more, and would pull a switcheroo so that she would be put in the cage and slowly eradicated from existence. from that point the silence ship would kind of go haywire from the power being used by the cage and jenna would drag the incapicitated doctor back to the tardis and saying she has to go record something real quick, and then we dont hear from her again.
last scene would be of the doctor, years and years into the future, during one of his alone periods, sifting through the tardis database and happening upon the archived recording files and listening to them, not remembering exactly but living through these events with a person that was there but also never there to begin with, and the last recording being an actual face recording of jenna saying you know, she doesnt regret a minute of it, go out there and have a nice life and dont feel bad for her before saying goodbye and zapping out of existence.
last “scene” i guess would be a fifteen year old jenna, rather than the 18-19 year old we’ve come to know, waking up the day it all started and realizing she accidentally napped through the whole day when her parents wake her up. it seems apparent she doesn’t remember a thing, but her parents say something offhand that wouldve been a prolific line and she has a sense of deja vu and hints towards her someday maybe remembering but also having a chance to live a life without the trauma of her life lead in the other universe
+
so uh yeah. idk why i decided to write all of this. actually i do i have an essay i have to write but. idk this fic was a huge part of my life for like. a good amount of time and despite its tackiness im actually very proud of it and just wanted to share its story without having anyone ever have the link to it and read it because despite my careful planning i did narrate like a superwholock for most of it and it was REALLY annoyin. but this fic and the character of jenna actually helped me work through a lot of my own bullshit and im still kind of in love with it. and in the years to come actually m*ffat fucking used these plot points like the tardis hating the companion n the doctor forgetting about a companion like years after i wrote this shit but i think i wrapped up the cracks in the universe n silence thing pretty fucking well so uh. petition for fifteen year old me to rewrite the last half of season 6 i guess. anyway its 2 in the morning and i just wrote honest to god a full 5,000 words about my doctor who oc fanfiction so uh. yeah. fuck.
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nanshe-of-nina · 7 years
Text
Incorrect Crusades Quotes
Raimond IV de Tolosa: the fool tries to make one million dollars.... but the wise man knows that its much easier to make $0.000001 dollars one trillion times
Guglielmo Embriaco: Arrives 15 minutes late with siege towers.
Pope Urbanus II: UNITED NATIONS: ah!! please help us! we need just a normal man's opinion!! we got you a seat ME: How'm I to trust you, while God is bleeding
Étienne Henri, comte de Blois: Hell Yes;. the army is putting me and my guns on a plane back to iraq. Thius is like real life DLC
Matilde di Canossa: disappointed by lack of respect for the pope by the goofus brigade. i on the other hand respect the mans ass cheeks. i respect the mans legs
Alexios I Komnenos: I am Mediterranean Man! Hear my cry: TZATZIKIIIIIIiiiiiii and tremble with fear.TZATZIKIIIIIIiiiiiii and away!
Pierre l’Ermite: me and a bunch of stupid assholes are going to start a community in the middle of the desert to either die or prove a very important point.
Baudouin Ier de Jérusalem: im gay too and i love shit and im a nerd.
Bohémond de Hauteville: THERAPIST: your problem is, that youre perfect, and everyone is jealous of your good posts, and that makes you rightfully upset. ME: I agree
Hugues Ier, comte de Vermandois: i may be a dim-witted narcissist but at least i hafve really good opinions about life and other things
Morphia of Melitene: I AM VERY BAD ARMENIAN LADY ! I AM SO BAD THAT EVEN DEVOL IS AFRAID OF ME ! I WILL TEAR ENYBODYS SPIRIT & GIVE IT TO HIM ; WHO PUT DISLIKE !
Hugues de Payens: girlsl... i shall virtuously employ the expansive breadth of my tech wisdom to protect you all from Daesh... even if you dont follow me...
Danishmend Gazi: prince hussein…wheres my goodboy bailout
Tancrède de Hauteville: my romantic girl friend sees the super blood moon reflected in my greased back hair and pledges then and there to bow to christ our master
Thomas de Marle, seigneur de Coucy: I wanna live inside a castle built of your agony. AND I WANT TO CRUMBLE IT WITH AN AXE TO YOUR CAROTID ARTERY!
Kilij Arslan I: @danishmend pass the savings onto me mother fucker
Al-Mustazhir: "buckwild" or "hogwild"?? im writing a poem for my gf
Anna Komnēnḗ: He was so sexy that my body went all hot when I saw him kind of like an erection only I’m a girl so I didn’t get one you sicko.
Imad ad-Din Zengi: each 'Ridge' in your crinkle-cut potato chip costs 4 gallons of precious slave blood to create and adds a satisfying "Cruntch" to every bite
Thierry d'Alsace, comte de Flandre: this post is 2 years old. ive since lost custody of my children and my wife left me. still wild about candles
Anfós Jordan de Tolosa: my followeres, who all hate me, and wish to kick my ass, are nobodys, and they lack the combat training to injure me, because theyre infants
Enrico Dandolo: Everything happens for a reason, little one. And that reason is me.
Hodierne de Jérusalem: 12 year slave huh? sounds like my marriage. which I dont enjoy. to the degree that it is succinctly described by that particular movie title
Alix de Jérusalem: announcin,g in 2016 my new brand alliance with cool arab man
Sybille d’Anjou: im moving to israel, where the boys are nice, as soon as i get confirmation that they use the same kind of toilet paper that we use here
Raimon de Peitieus: im sorry to Wawa for attempting to behead myself in one of their restrooms. i promise to take the Wawa experience more seriously from now on
Andrónikos I: If a billion people have to be impaled to prove it, my worthiness as a Komnēnós will be DEMONSTRATED.
Louis VII de France: in another life... i would make U stay...
Renaud de Châtillon: i put years of hard work into getting my torture degree at torture college & now everyones like "oh tortures bad","its ineffective" fuck off
Friedrich I, Holy Roman Emperor: the conflicted supersoldier stares over the horizon as he smokes a cigarette. "war is the most fucked up thing ever." he takes a sip of beer
Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani: what happens when kirby swallows the qur'an and is granted its considerable power. my 81 chapter fanfic explores this issue -- and more
Heinrich der Löwe, Herzog von Sachsen: Wow, I do not care about that problem.
Henry II of England: i said im sorry. ive taken my lashes upon the cross. my brand is still good and anyone who cant see that is worthless
Agnès de Courtenay: looks like im forced to address false rumors that i own 3 dildos on a shelf labelled "breakfast" "lunch" & "dinner". this is an absurdity .
Amaury Ier de Jérusalem: MarioGodKenneth is stuck in prison again and ive received $0 in donations towards his bail.
Salah ad-Din: We ran in with our wands out just as we heard a croon voice say. “Allah Kedavra!”
Bertran de Bòrn: Im a monk in real life, the matrix is real and hummingbirds and other really fast animals are proof positive that bullet time eixists
Corrado del Monferrato: if a sniper shot me i would run over to where he is and kick the gun out of his hand and kill him because hes not specialized in melee fight
Guy de Lusignan: Our only hope now is that the enemy kills so many of us, they become slightly depressed.
Bonifacio del Monferrato: This is a Bulgar hunt, man! A Bulgar hunt! Game over, man! Game over!
Richard I of England: cant wait to get back to iraq and blast some ragheads-- itll be just like halo but with less lag #tcot #nowTHATSghetto #nowplaying #bun
Leopold V., Herzog von Österreich: (in really quiet, barely audible voice) hope your dick falls of bitch
Philippe II de France: wish Obama would authorize some drone strikes against my ex-wife!
Baudouin IX, comte de Flandre: "i wish they got, WiFi down here" - guy who died in the paris catacombs
Simon IV de Montfort: I love the smell of heretics in the morning. You know, one time we set an entire town on fire, for 12 hours. The smell, you know that burning flesh smell, the whole town. Smelled like victory.
Alexios IV Angelos: Local man ruins everything
Raimon-Rogièr, comte de Fois:  bigmouth fake priest telling me to "drink a shitload of holy water and kill yourself" as penance? this has happened at three churches now
Friedrich II, Holy Roman Emperor: I will tell you this right now: I’m from hell. Im highly fucked up. Ive been known to say rude things and watch the carnage unfold brutally
Thibaut Ier de Navarre: i do enjoy spending my weekends "Joining the Army". oh how i hate when monday rolls around & i must say goodbye to all of my soldier friends
Shajar Al-Durr: i ruminate over a scrapbook full of middle finger pics to keep myself demure, respectful and humble. "i deserve these", i utter shitheadedly
Louis IX de France: the nile river is red with blood and your fucking birthday present won't cleanse it. perspective, you fucking rat
Robert Ier, comte de Artois: Leeeeeeeeeeeeeroy!
Charles Ier de Naples: welp, time to rescue egypt from muslims. asomebody please carry all 900 pounds of me to the site of the protests. wait nevermind im good
Beatritz de Provença: What is the point of being married to a prince if he can't wield unfettered power to crush my enemies!?
Baibars: my name is Destyn. i build crossbows and sell weed to all your dads and im 15
Edward I of England: i am going to plunge a sword into our bed and officially end outr 40 yr marriage if you do not stop yelling while i am recording my stream's
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