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bxriles · 3 months

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The Importance of Authors Fulfilling Promises to their Readers

Seeing people defend Gege's writing of jjk these over these last few months is WILD. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and that includes me. So here's my 900th unhinged rant on this subject because hoooo boy there are THOUGHTS on this topic.

Before anyone comes for my throat, these are my opinions. You get yours and I get mine. And this is LONG lmao.

I've seen all the justifications for Gege's current writing saying that jjk is about being different from the standard shonen manga and being more realistic in its storytelling (i.e., killing the powerful characters) and whatever and YES. All of that is true. I don't have a problem with any of that. I would say all of that is why most of us fell in love with this story to begin with. Examples of this (done well) includes:

Nanami's death. Tragic. Broke my heart. But I think Gege was right to kill him. Nanami had served his purpose at that point, he died protecting the next generation, and despite how sad I was to see him go, I thought it was good writing. There was no need to keep him around at that point. Gojo gets put in the box. This made perfect sense to me from a narrative standpoint. Gojo Satoru is a NIGHTMARE for ANY author to write. His very existence is a problem because he can solve all of the problems of the universe and remove all conflict from the story. Sealing away the most powerful character was a perfect way to take him out of the narrative while still leaving his presence lingering over everyone. This also deviates strongly from traditional shonen because no character that powerful would have ever been sealed with ACTUAL ramifications in something more "standard" like Naruto! It broke the mold in the best way possible. I'd also say that the way Kenjaku went about sealing him was excellent. There really weren't any ass-pulls to get him in that box. Kenjaku takes Geto's body (a strategic decision), hides that body from everyone at the school, executes an insane plan that he knows will exhaust Gojo and mentally push him to his limits, and then SURPRISE! Here's your dead lover's best friend's body! Now get in the box(((: I thought it was good writing and completely necessary for the plot to progress. Megumi's possession. From the very beginning, Sukuna has been interested in Megumi. Seeing that pay off? Watching Sukuna do the worst thing we can imagine to Megumi? Amazing. Wonderful. Loved everything about it.

So, I don't have any problems with jjk's previous storytelling. I thought that it was well executed, broke the previous Shonen formula, and delivered good story telling.

You know what I do have a problem with? Writing like this:

Higuruma is suddenly as talented as Gojo. Bro what? I like Higuruma, but this dude has been a sorcerer for all of what? Two seconds? He's a suicidal lawyer who just got magic powers and only VERY RECENTLY started working with Yuji and company and he suddenly has as much talent as Gojo Satoru? The man with the Six Eyes? Be. For. Real. What is the point of this? If you needed an OP character, you already had Gojo. So again. What was the point?

Higuruma's possible death. We're only up to chapter 248 at the time of me posting this, so this may change. But as of right now, we've been told Higuruma is dead. He may come back, but we don't know. Either way, we're told dude is gone. What was the point of this death? We already saw Yuji lose a beloved male mentor figure (Nanami) and we already saw someone who had the potential to kill Sukuna fail (Gojo) soooooo... What was the point? We've seen this done before and it's boring to see it hashed out yet again but with new characters.

Kenjaku's motivations and death. I personally think that making Kenjaku a mad scientist for the sake of being a mad scientist is lazy. With all of his hair brained schemes (guys, he like straight up fucked Yuji's dad, come on), you would have thought he had some legitimate motivation. I can admit this is my own personal opinion and some might like this, but I think this is a weak explanation for all the nonsense he's done. And his death? Like... Okay?? Some rando newbie sorcerer is the one to kill Kenjaku? Kenjaku--one of the top two Big Baddies? All right?? I wouldn't say this is bad per se, but I would say it feels very unearned. (And before anyone freaks out, yes I know it's technically Yuta who delivers the killing blow, but it really was Takaba who put the work in and got Yuta to that point. Again, it feels unearned.)

And finally, the big one. The one that most people are upset about and the one that most people reference when they talk about the decline in writing and one that's about to get a(nother) long ass rant from me.

The lack of any meaning in Gojo Satoru's death.

I need to be perfectly clear that I do not have a problem with Gojo dying. Again, he's a nightmare character for an author to handle so I get it. I have a problem with HOW he was killed. Sukuna using Megumi's body was great. The whole battle of the domains was decent. But the end??? Gojo hits Sukuna point blank with a hollow purple (after Sukuna said he would die if he was hit with a point blank hollow purple) and then...? Sukuna pulls out some BS world cleaving slash that cuts Gojo in half (off screen mind you), heals himself, and then is perfectly--PERFECTLY--fucking fine after getting hit by an attack that he said would kill him???? And then he isn't weakened at all? Bro what??? How is that good writing? Even if you're all about subverting expectations and JJK breaking the shonen mold, how is that good writing? How is that satisfying???

Gojo's death meant nothing. He did nothing. He didn't even weaken Sukuna. He didn't give the students a leg up. It meant... Nothing. And I know that some people think that's the point, that jjk has realistic storytelling and that it's realistic to have a meaningless death but I would STRONGLY disagree. You want meaningless deaths in JJK for the sake of "realistic" meaningless deaths? You have Tsumiki and Yuki. Sure, Tsumiki's death pushes Megumi into the pits of despair because Shonen manga loves a good bit of *man pain* but what was her real influence on the story? Outside of the Megumi thing, she had zero impact on jjk. And Yuki?? Killed off-screen for some reason??? To buy Choso some time??? When she is arguably the more important one??? All right?? Christ, fucking Junpei's death meant more to the narrative and he was basically a fucking footnote in the grand scheme of things.

The problem with Gojo having a meaningless death is that Gege as the author broke his promise to his readers. Gege sets up a story that tells us how influential Gojo is and spends quite a bit of the narrative showing us once again how important he is. Whether he meant to or not, writing a setup like that means there will be expectations from your readers that no matter what happens to that character, it will mean something to the narrative. A good example of this done both well and poorly is Game of Thrones/ASOIAF, which is another story that breaks the mold of a genre like JJK.

Ned Stark is a POV character in the first book. He's important. He's the Lord of Winterfell and becomes the Hand. He's honorable. He's good in a world that favors the wicked and people know it. And then he gets killed and his death haunts the narrative and it means something. Robb starts a war. Sansa becomes a hostage to the Lannisters. Arya has to flee. Jon has to reaffirm that he's a man of the Night's Watch and can't go help his brother. The Red Wedding. Catelyn becomes Lady Stoneheart. The Boltons take Winterfell. The North Remembers (it's being set up better in the books I swear). And it goes on and on and ON. We're told from book 1 that Ned is important. George completely deviates from the fantasy genre by killing off one of the main POV characters in Book 1, but he still fulfills the promise that Ned's death will mean something and that Ned will be important even though he's dead. Ned's death then haunts the story from that point forward. An example of this done poorly? The show. We're told Jon Snow is important. We SEE that Jon Snow is important. Jon Snow is the rightful heir to the iron throne. And what happens? We get a season of "I dun want it!" and then he kills Dany and goes back to the Night's Watch to live out the rest of his days with his boys. He's not king. Killing Dany had no real repercussions. D&D tried to show us that it was Jon's identity that made Dany snap but it felt half-assed since she was already heading down that path before she found out. A promise was made that Jon Snow would ultimately mean something by the end of the story and guess what? Absolutely none of it mattered. He didn't even kill either of the Big Baddies. And he didn't do anything with knowledge of who his parents were. He wasn't Azor Ahai. He wasn't the prince that was promised. So it meant nothing. A promise was made to us by George (and the show runners ugh) that Jon was important and then it turned out that he wasn't. And the public outcry that GOT S8 received speaks for itself on how bad that writing was.

To me, Gojo's death is no different. The narrative sets up his importance. Gege makes a promise to the readers that this character will ultimately mean something and then... Nothing happens. That isn't "realistic writing" or "breaking the shonen formula" at all. That's just bad writing. You're not any less of a fan of jjk or any less of an analytical reader if you don't buy the whole "this is good writing because that's the point of JJK--to break the shonen mold!" There are ways to achieve that sentiment that are good. And I would even go so far as to say that the people like me who are irritated with this writing have no issues with Gojo dying. We have issues with how he was killed and how poorly it was all executed. And I'm not going to be told I "don't get the point" of JJK because of it.

And then there's the fact that Gege has set his story so far apart from other shonen manga (like Naruto or BNHA) that the readers will no longer tolerate any sort of "lemme pull this out of my ass" writing that they would have otherwise tolerated from Naruto or DBZ or Bleach or BNHA. (Note: I do love those stories btw! But they're guilty of this storytelling.) So when Gege shows us that Yuji suddenly has RCT (that's fine ig, he's been training) or tells us that Higuruma has as much talent as Gojo or does some bullshit that saves Sukuna from Higuruma's sentencing or has a random explanation that he pulled OUT OF HIS ASS for why Sukuna will inevitably get his shit rocked by the students, all of which are CHILDREN, when the strongest sorcerer of the modern era couldn't do shit to him, then YEAH. I'm going to think it's bad writing.

And yes, I am aware that JJK is Yuji's story, not Gojo's. I understand. I'm not saying I want Gojo to be the main character. I'm saying that this absurdly powerful character who influences everything was wasted in the hands of the author's current writing.

TLDR: It's not "good" writing or "realistic" writing for an author to write meaningless shit that ultimately does nothing for the story when that author has already made a promise to their readers to do the opposite. Criticizing this type of writing does not make you any less of a JJK fan and it does not mean that you "don't get it." You are allowed to be critical of a work you love.

Argue with the wall if you disagree.

#jjk ramblings #rant #jjk spoilers #gojo satoru #ryomen sukuna #gege akutami #jjk manga spoilers #once again #there is no changing my mind that this has been bad writing #gege when i catch you #argue with the wall #jujutsu kaisen #hiromi higuruma

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johanthefriskiestofbits · 8 months

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oooooo please tell me (who knows nothing on the subject) about orv swap au

hehehe. hehehehehehe. hehehehehehehhehehehhheheheh <- guy who is so normal

the premise of orv swap au (name has yet to be finalized) is this: what if kdj and yjh swapped narrative positions (reader <-> character) but very little else? what if a video game player enters a time loop to save his favorite character from dying over and over again and also to end the apocalypse?

admittedly it's not super fleshed out yet (a lot of the changes this premise would introduce are still not hammered out yet) but here are some points under the cut (novel spoilers ahead!)

orv swap au starts with pro gamer yjh who feels :/ abt his job, but hey, it pays the bills. despite (or maybe because of) his relative popularity as a pro gamer and networking with the agency/sponsors/people to impress, he's kind of isolated in a way that's detrimental, a facade of someone he's not whenever he's on camera

something to play around with is the idea of agency? maybe this yjh doesn't feel like he has any and has his hands tied between the lifestyle and being under public scrutiny and not having enough of a support system to leave everything behind. maybe he doesn't know what else he would even do. maybe he's aimless and drifting with nothing to hold on to.

his favorite video game is what i've been thinking of as World's Hardest To Play Indie Game (not based on difficulty but just on the experience of consuming it) a boring, exposition heavy, player-hostile, poorly designed, slightly buggy mess of a barely-playable game: twsa, a game that was not finished upon release and experiences with sporadic updates every now and then.

the ending tree to this game is so convoluted its insane. also theres no save states so if you die (very likely) u restart babeyyy.

twsa (video game) does have multiple endings, all of which happen when kdj, your main character, dies. some are farther into the apocolypse than others, some paths require meta knowledge of future events or character actions or items or whatever. the "true ending" is either analogous to the original 1863: kdj makes it to the end at the cost of everyone he loves, or hsy's modified 1863: kdj makes himself enemy of the scenario to secure a way out for the kimcom remnants.

there's branches on the choices tree where everyone dies and everything sucks and is bad forever and theres choices to make where kdj gets to make a family and they don't really get to settle down but they can get pretty close to it among the ruins of the apocalypse. through all his testing, yjh finds that these endings are nice but peter out - to get to the end of the apocalypse yjh has to claw his way there inch by painful inch, through betrayal and sacrifice, and he still cant fully get past it

i originally wanted to finagle a yoohankim 3 way swap but i couldn't figure it out. swap aus are a lot easier to work with when they're even numbers, at least to me, so this au features a ysa who is a video game company employee by day and by night she really has become god this time (and also a terrible indie dev). and this is how jungdoksang can still win !!!!

also yjh's coworker from Real Life hsy :) i haven't decided if she's like an employee for the same agency, or if she's someone else in the gaming circles that yjh interacts with sometimes (in my heart theyre in like some sort of discord server together), or something like that but she's around. whatever she does she is twitter cancelled for something. to me.

the only other character swaps are lsk and yma. yma is yjh's estranged sister (in broad strokes there's a vague bad parent situation going on here) (they used to be close until they drifted apart and slowly started hating each other [there is an abyss between them that neither of them can bridge]) (he feels that she betrayed him and threw him under the bus so he left [maybe he gets kicked out]) (she feels that he abandoned her to whatever situation they have going on [he didn't even try to take her with him]) and he has to find her when the apocalypse starts. yjh older sibling to yma gives us a whole different little dynamic to explore from kdj ysk (there's different levels of responsibility and guilt and blame when you're talking siblings that are soooooo interesting to me. sorry that i see any set of siblings and immediately try to figure out how to make them worse)

lsk is kdj's mom who appeared into existence at some point with kdj and they were both just adults. that's weird isn't it. oh well. i guess she can become a transcendent later too for funsies

everyone else stays in the same configuration of Real Person vs Character to me this is a very important aspect

this point has no precedent with the swap, nothing particular that would change to cause this, but it would be so funny if lgy was a little gamer boy who is an avid yjh hater. hates that guy. shows up to competitions to boo him. tunes into yjh's silent no-mic speedrunning streams to mald in chat but yjh +mods don't ban him bc its kinda funny.

anyways the apocalypse starts when yjh and his coworker/fellow gamer hsy are on a train to twitchcon and lgy is also there (also headed to twitchcon) and he brings bugs because he likes them but also to sabotage yjh specifically. its just funny if this happened. you understand

instead of having reader-related skills and abilities, yjh's skills are video game player based! he gets flavor text insight on people, location, and items, things like that. notably, he has the ability to reset, to bring himself back to the beginning of the apocalypse

orv swap proper follows yjh as the Player of the Game (Consumer of the Narrative) who lives hundred of lifetimes in this ruined-world-become-reality "replaying" [read: time looping through] the game to reshape it to save his fave character from self implosion (kdj with no dissociation is very prone to dying. all the time.). to revisit the idea of playing with yjh and the idea of agency, of creation, the only way to get past the apocalypse is to go off the beaten path, to choose options that weren't even there in the game. when in space, at his darkest point, yjh becomes a writer. in this story, at his darkest point, he has to become a creator too

please do not ask me how the epilogues go i dont know how the epilogues go (i don't want to throw yjh back into a train for milennia after he Just went through a thousand resets so i'm sending kdj for that but i havent fully planned how or why)

anyways, hope that helps!!! :)

#orv au #orvswap #i think i will main tag this. just the one tag tho. poorly planned au be upon ye.#orv #orv spoilers #<- for blacklists!#i only realized after creating this au that this is just how p//mmm goes except its videogame themed and hater lgy is there lol #anyways wheres that post that says time loops are about tragedy and theyre about saying i will make this right #and secret third thing time loops are about love #also each individual dynamic for the creater-player-character triangle in this is so interesting to me to explore like #you have the new kdj-yjh one (mostly similar tbh. was the crux of the au after all) which is a fun space to play in #but then you have a brand new kdj-ysa one to work with which is !!!! a writer and her character. a creator and her creation #and then you have ysa-yjh as the creator and her audience of 1!!!!!!! where is yjh that he needs to be saved? how does ysa answer that call #to love to the point of creation.... to tear the world asunder..... to create the worlds most unplayable rpg.......#lets meet again in another life. ysa reaches out toward yjh but cant reach him before she wakes up. cant quite tell him its not his fault #and Dont Even get me Started on yoo sister dynamics ill go insane #because theyre siblings but for a while (and def at the beginning of the story) it hurts to be around each other (its a betrayal #its a pang in your chest its a you were supposed to protect me and you were supposed to love me and i dont even know you anymore)#but also the swap means the 4th wall eats yma and leaves yjh begging for her back ('dont you hate her?' 'shes my little sister'#which is neither agreement nor denial but also both at once)#its ya boi #tango mango #anyways thanks for the ask im very normal about the ask

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autisticsupervillain · 10 months

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It's Fictional Throwdown Friday!

This Week's Fighters...

Not-Them vs Alternate!

Conditions:

A Type Three Alternate is used.

Scenario:

The Not-Them has begun impersonating Sasha and has just settled into her home when Sasha's Alternate breaks in, looking to replace her itself.

Analysis: Not-Them

Fear. One of the most fundamental aspects of human emotion. The impulse that has kept us alive long enough to dominate the planet. Everyone is afraid of something. The dark, the ocean, the sky, the unknown. It is perfectly natural to be afraid of something. But that doesn't mean that your fears can't... define you. Hollow you out and replace you until only the Fear remains.

Thousands of years before human society existed, something, somewhere, felt very afraid. This created the Thing That Was Fear. The sentient, incorporeal fear of being Hunted that all wilds animals have. As humanity and nature evolved, sentient creatures began to fear more things. They feared drowning. Darkness. Being buried alive. Being slaughtered in wars or being burnt alive by fire. And so these Fear expanded to accommodate these new fears, splitting into fifteen different Entities to represent each of the new schools of Fear that sentient thought had created. One of these Entities or Great Powers is the fear of strangers. The fear of the uncanny valley. Of importers. The fear that I Do Not Know You. Otherwise known simply as the Stranger.

The Stranger, like all the other Great Powers, interacts with our physical reality through use of Artifacts, Cursed Locations, and Avatars. These Avatars can be selected, wherein one Marked by a Power dies and is resurrected as an extension of the Power's being. One can even willingly choose to become an Avatar. But others are simply... created.

Today's subject is one of the oldest of them all. So ancient that it is responsible for changeling legends. The entity selects a victim at random, kills them, and then shapeshifts to replace them, warping reality to alter the memories of everyone they've met and change all physical evidence to match their new appearance.

Only one person is left unaltered to remember the victim, so that the creature may taunt them. Only one is left to realize that the person wearing their friend's skin is simply.... Not-Them. Until the creature geys bored, slaughters everyone, and moves on to its next victim, as it has for centuries.

Despite it's sadistic insistence on mind games and trickery, the Not-Them is more than capable of ripping people apart directly, taking a monsterous form with long, disjointed limbs to skin its enemies alive. It's durable enough to survive a sewer tunnel collapsing on top of it, and deadly enough to fight evenly with not just a werewolf, but also a fully awakened Avatar of the Hunt, Trevor Herbert.

Avatars of the Hunt are among the most directly deadly Avatars out there, frequently known to Hunt other Avatars for sport. Trevor in particular is a skilled Vampire hunter and it's been stated that a fully realized Hunt Avatar is one of the only things capable of potentially killing a fully realized Avatar of the End. This should make Trevor stronger than your average Desolation Avatar, who are capable of reducing people to nothing but charred skeletons. The amount of energy you'd need to produce for that would be equivalent to 0.05 tons of TNT.

Source:

Needless to say, the fact that the Not-Them can survive a free for all between a werewolf and two Hunt Avatars is remarkably impressive, marking it as perhaps one of the Strangers strongest minions.

It is by no means invincible, however. It's reality warping effect cannot alter old forms of technology, like cassette tapes, so it can be found out that way and under the Ceaseless Gaze of the Archivist, it crumbles like anything else.

But it is still paranoia incarnate. Do you know the person sitting next to you? ....Are you sure?

Analysis: Alternate

The Father. The Son. The Holy Spirit. The three facets of God as layed out by the Christian Bible. His creation of the universe and governance of it from then on are detailed heavily within the ancient tome, detailing the beginning of creation to the death and Resurrection of His son and beyond. The worship of His grace and idolization of His son's sacrifice make up the backbone of one of the largest religious faiths in the world today, with His word as written in the Bible having forever altered the course of human history.

Unfortunately, it is all lies.

Jesus Christ did not rise from his grave on the third day. He resurrected still, granted, but he did not rise. If you listen closely to the sand, you can still hear him screaming.

At a critical moment in biblical history, a stranger wearing Archangel Gabriel's face appeared to lead mankind astray. This "Alternate" Gabriel taunted Joseph gleefully at the foot of his bed, boasting about what he would achieve with himself as mankind's new shepherd. Satan had won. Christianity had been following his word for decades. And after centuries of worship, he no longer had any need for mankind. Rejoice.

As such, Satan dispatched his Alternates to replace mankind. Ancient shapeshifting demons that had existed since the era of Adam and Eve. These entities are split into four distinct types. Doppelganger's are perfect physical copies of the person they were intended to imitate, completely impossible to distinguish from the original. Unspeakable is the type which the Alternate Gabriel belongs to, about which little is known. The fourth type are "Tulpas", or Alternates brought into existence by someone's imagination. But the third type is the one being discussed today, as it is the most iconic. "Flawed Impersonators".

Type Three Alternates are nearly identical to Type One, but with the distinctly imperfect appearances. They resembled a "funhouse mirror" version of those they wish to impersonate, with impossible physical features. Long limbs, faceless heads, pitch black bodies or even completely upside down anatomy. One wonders if they're simply mocking their victims with their distortions...

These beings share a hive mind and work together with the goal of killing and replacing all of humanity. Aside from the exception of Gabriel/Satan, they all share the same general powers. They can fly, mimic your voice, and are superhumanly strong, to the point of tanking bullets and ripping police officers apart. Despite this, however, they do not typically kill their prey through physical means. They much prefer to drive the MAD...

That is to say, they infect their prey with the mental illness known as Metaphysical Awareness Disorder. The Alternates are aware of secrets "not desired to be known by mankind". Secrets of reality that could break the human mind in half. By whispering these secrets to you, Alternates can drive you to suicide, with a staggering 97% success rate. Though that 3% suggests that the effect can be resisted, even by ordinary humans, it is staggeringly difficult to do so.

The steps to mitigating the effects of MAD are as follows:

Avoid frequent religious practices

Avoiding believing in or caring about philosophical implications.

Do not acknowledge that man in the corner. Don't open your eyes as he watches. Mere inches away from your face.

...You're still certain that that is your friennd sitting beside you, yes? He's awfully close now. He looks like he wants to tell you something. Share something that's been driving him MAD....

Throwdown Theme:

youtube

Throwdown Breakdown:

I don't think I need to spell out at this point that the Not-Them is physically much, much stronger than the Alternate. Tanking bullets in one thing, reducing humans to charcoal is very much another. What this debate almost solely hinges on is the question of if the Not-Them can be affected by MAD.

Now, the Not-Them hasn't shown any particular resistance to supernatural mind manipulation. You could count the Avatars of the Stranger not being affected by the Unknowing, but that's more likely just the Stranger not attacking it's own Avatars. But, by that same token, it's entirely possible for regular humans to survive MAD.

That raises the question what exact information MAD conveys to drive people, well, mad. There is some speculation that MAD is instilled by revealing the truth behind Gabriel and Christianity, given that being particularly religious is a major risk factor for it. No matter your religion, learning that Christianity specifically is real and the world is being ruled by Satan would certainly be a horrific thing to hear. The problem is that I'm not sure the Not-Them would care.

For one, the setting of TMA is itself horrific. If you told any character from it that the world is being ruled by Satan, their response would probably be "well that would explain a lot". Even then, the Not-Them has no investment in the struggle between the Great Powers. It just wants to kill and torture people for their fear. It doesn't care who's running the world so long as they don't get in the way.

But even that is running on assumptions. The Mandela Catalogue is very purposefully vague about at lot of its storytelling, so the exact nature of the information "mankind doesn't wish to know" is up for debate.

Until we get a definitive answer on what MAD entails, my answer is this. The Alternate is an ancient eldritch abomination that drives people to suicide by spreading a dark truth about the nature of the universe. The Not-Them is a similarly (though not quite as) ancient entity who is already aware of several dark truths about the universe and the madness that the Alternates spread can be (rarely) survived by humans as it stands. As such, I put my money on MAD not working more often than not, at which point the Not-Them rips the Alternate apart.

If nothing else, we've answered the question about who is sitting next to you. Presumably.

This Throwdown's Winner is...

Not-Alternate!

#fictional throwdown fridays #the magnus archives #not them #the mandela catalogue #tmc alternates #tw unreality

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ultimateplaylistmaker · 2 months

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Speaking of which, how do you characterize the Pregame bois?

I have a document on this

No one is surprised

I have playlists on them

still no one is surprised

They are named Koharu and Shinichi, you may recognize Koharu because thanks to a convoluted series of event he kinda evolved from pregame kokichi to his own original character so I've been kinda tempted to change pregame kokichis name to something else.

I'll put their information under a cut because im too lazy to turn this out of a list into a paragraph form

Kokichi - Koharu

God complex

Believes himself to be the only real person

Wants to be prime minister

Incredibly dangerous manipulator and near perfect liar

Dresses softly and acts weak and shy to make people trust him

Has his entire school under his command with a puppet king in the student council

Knows everything about everyone, no one moves without him knowing about it.

Views the people around him as toys for him to play with or tools to use

No desire for a relationship as he doesnt think anyone could ever even get close to matching him, so any relationship he did take would be uneven and just for appearances.

Parents died at a very young age so he grew up in a rough orphanage where he learned to never trust anyone or anything

Craves challenge and interesting experiences but no one can adequately challenge him so he’s bored

Doesn’t have many social skills outside of manipulation and as such struggles with emotions, whether it be his own or other people’s, even if he hides it pretty well

No hesitation to ruin lives to get what he wants.

Occasionally has secret breakdowns about being alone and stressed but he represses those and pretends it didn’t have them

Loathes people who hurt animals, views them as the lowest scum. Humans are worthless but animals are soft and loyal. Eating meat is one thing, he doesn’t care about that because that’s just life, but if he catches you throwing a rock at a cat or something, your life is over.

Uses bullies to manipulate people by seeming in need of help or pitiable

Feels like he’s never truly seen, he crushes that down as useless observation, he doesn’t want anyone to see the real him, it’d ruin everything.

Monaca is his favorite character and idol, his facade is based on her “pitiable children are the most powerful” philosophy.

Doesn’t make friends as he finds other people to be annoying and unfulfilling, they all seem very shallow and boring for anything beyond use as a toy or tool. No one would like him if it wasn’t for his facade anyways, its all just superficial tolerance. No one actually wants something that actually goes both ways, everyone just wants a shoulder to cry on, no care about the shoulder itself as long as it’s comforting them. So he’ll give them that, it’s easier.

Tries not to doubt himself but does have a rare moment of crippling uncertainty and wondering why he even tries, no one actually appreciates him anyways and he’s so bored and alone, why does he try?

Acts weak and soft and sad and teary and skittish but it's all a lie to both protect himself and gain power

Joined the game to prove his superiority by ending the world’s so beloved game and also become a celebrity. It’s one of many steps in his very long and detailed plan for world domination. Besides the game had long since grown old and stale and predictable

Shuichi - Shinichi

Manic

Self esteem constantly shifting between highs and lows

Yearning for positive contact and romance and also sex

Shockingly self aware of what a mess he is

Protective of the few people who tolerate him or he likes

Sexual and Violent intrusive thoughts

Resentful but tired

Enjoys really dark subjects

Devoted

Really bad at social cues and knowing whats normal or not

Masochistic and Sadistic

Actually really really good at solving mysteries but easily distracted and easily derailed from his conclusions

Wants to fix himself but a lack of support along with society’s apathy means he’s kinda been left floundering.

Ignores things that make him feel shitty to focus on positives

Parents encourage him to be more assertive and tough, this does NOT help his intrusive thoughts

Honestly just desperate for love and affection, he’d never actually hurt someone for it, but man, sometimes he really wants to.

Smokes to try and keep his chill

Can’t casually get into anything, is either 100% in or 0% in

Reads and writes a lot of fanfiction, actually somewhat a big name for his really well done characterization of more violent or manic characters.

Met Koharu once and saw through him immediately, they never met again after that but he really freaked out Koharu and is honestly lucky he went to a different school.

Danganronpa is his favorite show because it lets him safely indulge in his twisted desires and feels rather cathartic. Plus he loves the mysteries! Joining and finally killing someone for real should be the ultimate catharsis and finally put an end to this sickness in his head....right?

#ndrv3 #anon chaos #bonkichi #kagehara #pregame

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greywindys · 2 years

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I'm completely neutral on the subject so I hope I don't come across as disagreeing with you or anything but why do you dislike TNN/P5? I've just noticed you've stated that a few times now so I wanna know the deets🤣

You definitely don't come across as disagreeable at all! I'm not offended by curiosity, or even respectful disagreement. So, feel free to disagree with me after this answer. I dislike TNN for a few reasons, some directly related to the phase, some simply for the state of fandom at the time, which isn't exactly TNN's fault, but it is what it is.

How it started - I distinctly remember Damon remarking that he felt bad that fans missed 2D on Humanz, which led to him recording TNN (or at least played a notable role in his decision). This was the first crack in my faith in the project. For all the hyping fans do about Jamon ~not caring what people think, and ~not caring about dumb popularity points like those other stupid artists, this was..unexpected. I'm probably projecting my own philosophy as a creator here, but it's incredibly difficult for me to imagine a scenario where I would change my plans because my audience wanted me to. My original vision, my creative process, is all important to me, even if people get annoyed or disagree with how I operate. More than anything, creating has to be fulfilling for me. I used to think Gorillaz was the same, and maybe they still are to some extent, but I didn't like the idea of Damon essentially creating an apology album.

The album was boring. Come at me! Lmao. But yeah. I've analyzed the fuck out of "Souk Eye," but I've only listened to it all the way through once. I would take another Humanz over TNN, musically.

Murdoc being the plot, but never in any art. People always complain about Murdoc "taking over the story." I agree to a point. P5 still sucked for me as a Murdoc fan because there was barely anything for me to gif or edit this phase. I would trade Murdoc in a support role for more Murdoc animation.

Murdoc being in jail the entire, Murdoc "dying." TNN took place during a time where Murdoc hate was at its peak. I wrote out of spite, but it was genuinely annoying to see people I was friends with being told they were terrible people/abusers etc for liking Murdoc. When he "died," even though it was obviously temporary, people only got harassed and mocked more. This may sound petty, but it was SO annoying.

The set up didn't lead anywhere. If I was going to suffer through so many unfunny memes and people obsessing over their hate for a fictional character, it could have at least ended with something. I was relieved and happy it didn't turn into a 2D possession story line, but the ending was so botched. I just wish it had been a different plot entirely.

But I can also say good things about TNN. It gave us 2D's journal, and "Souk Eye." Murdoc actually re-joined Gorillaz on my birthday that year - literally on the exact date (not that Jamon had any way of know or planning for that, but it was wild).

TNN came out when I wasn't expecting it. I had started writing The Answer at the end of Humanz with the hope that the I wouldn't make too many waves writing 2Doc with a less active fandom. Gorillaz always took long hiatuses, so this was what would happen this time, right? Lmao. Needless to say, it made me very anxious. I also had to adjust my plans chapter to chapter to stay up to date with TNN "lore." It again wasn't anything Gorillaz could control, nor was it their responsibility, but ngl, this did frazzle me at the time. In the end, I see it as a positive because it challenged me, and helped create a fandom experience that I would never exchange for anything. That story means a lot to some people (and me for that matter!), and I would also never want to take that away from them.

So, the final assessment is that my feelings are very mixed. I had fun in the little section of fandom I carved out for myself at the time, but everything around me I associate with chaos and volatility.

#asks.#Anonymous

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red-dyed-sarumane · 1 year

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what the fuck is up with akire ocs. masterpost made way too quick while i need to sleep. i was going to add images but im tired feel free to look at the toyhouse pages tho

723 - behavioral issues. by choice. shes just like that.

aira - trapped in xeir own personal ever changing hell. like literally xi is stuck in a world that feeds off of & changes based on fears.

aisha - killed by her best friend.

alstroemeria - selectively mute until an injury made her permanently mute. often mistreated by people who think they know best bc she can't verbally argue with them

amari - she is willingly in such a fucked up relationship. constantly being framed by and the subject of bad rumors from her gf (fuyue)

amaryllis - no one listened to her or took her seriously so she ran away & when no one came to look for her realized no one really cared anyway! (isolation)

ash - was trapped in the same hell world as aira but made a deal to get out. her morals are destroyed from it & she tries to trap others in the world so she doesnt have to go back

cestria - idk what her deal is. shes just violent. hashtag influencer things i guess

cherry - u know what i dont think she has any. hm.

chime - no sense of self. theyre exclusively a mirror, intentional or not, of the people around them

chira - commits to the bit too much. will exploit people for views

cleo - refuses to get involved even when she can help. she only wants the scoop on drama

crian - currently, she beats herself up over not being able to help void before they ran away & thinks its partly her fault

daelryc - trust issues

dusk - naturally more violent than ur average person. also trapped against her will

feisha - family issues only fushia knows about. they wont talk about it to anyone else.

fjahva - his mom hates him. he gets kicked out if he tries to come back home. among other mistreatments

flora - trapped against her will & forced to participate in ethically questionable experiments

fushia - mild childhood bullying

fuyue - everything (no). malicious, petty thief, constantly lying for her own amusement, frames her gf for her crimes, blackmails, etc etc etc. why? shes bored

glacia - bully. manipulator. potential murderer but she hasnt stooped that low yet

greeml - theyre self conscious of their ears bc theyre pointy. thats like their worst problem. bc i love them

hanabi - social media poisoned mind. shes not an influencer she just needs to get offline

helix - playboy. self obsessed. used his own blessings on himself enough the other deities demoted him to demigod.

iono - despite neither of her parents being qualified to care for a kid she surprisingly doesnt have any serious problems

iraidis - carrying the weight of being rejected by several generations of people & erasure of proof of her existence

itsumi - shut in by choice & lost all her communication skills. very familiar with escapism

jade - idk i havent thought about it enough yet

keppi - also carrying the weight of generational rejection and erasure

kin - theres just so much wrong with her. she's taking herself down and the world with her. or just kinako. either works

kinako - straight up no will to live she endures whatever kin does to her. or doesnt. she dies a lot.

konome - orphan? lives in the woods with his sister & causes problems for people (""natural"" disasters)

kumo - god complex (they are not a god). the fact they arent dead is a miracle bc they are so stupid and bold and rash

kyeslu - weird girl. no one hates her per se but no one really gets along with her either.

lavender - also trapped in her own hell world

lilium - cave explorer. in the tundra. i think that counts.

linesus - (my sister :) ) well. shes dead. guess she had worm farming trauma too idk

lyra - bullied :(

lyrica - also in personal hell world

maien - shes just massively unlucky.

malshay - power complex (is that what its called??) needs to prove shes better than everyone.

manayo - causes problems on purpose. shes a fox demon she can do what she want tho

meimu - haha trauma of dying repeatedly while the worlds falling apart etc etc shes an aru sekai fan oc thats all i need to say

meision - idk i need to think about her more

meringue - got mad once (unfairly discharged from her job) and now shes a serial killer. hashtag girlboss or whatever

meshika - orphan? lives in the forest with her brother causing problems for people. has definitely killed people but good luck proving it

mkoom - victim of capitalism

nuria - disrespected & killed. now carries the stress of maintaining an entire world with her mind

oken - trauma (?) of turning into a cat against his will

paolo - would rather be a bird than a person

pomgara - distrusted & frustrated by it so shes rather sharp

refrichi - trauma of using her ability. not only accidentally killing people but also casual self harm so she can protect herself (she controls blood. if that makes it make more sense)

rhonda - unsuited to her home country & the problems that come with that. not necessarily stockholmed but she did fall in love with a serial killer

roselii - bad home life. she's overprotective bc of it

ryuusei - isolation of being in space only to come to earth & have to act like a celebrity

sarlina - blank spots in her life bc her ability consumes memories if shes not careful.

saturday - petty.

saturn - burden of maintaining balance in the world. emotionally isolated bc of it

scarlet - bully manipulator liar etc etc and all for her own gain. started bc she didnt want to get punished for bad grades & then she never stopped

sepheria - trust issues. emotional isolation bc shes from a different time period & no one will understand

sera - forced into a sort of celebrity type role he didnt want

seyla - idk what to say here she doesnt really cause problems & she doesnt really have any. mischievous at most

shaia - abandoned his duties as the weight of them was too much. somehow still a deity regardless

sometya - doesnt like people. scaredy cat. yet theyre always off exploring other worlds

sora - ability related trauma. naturally a kind hearted person but she's killed people & it haunts her

teila - tired of rejection she'll promise anything to get her way. ironically shes a shitty mom who rejected her son

tobio - trust issues & quick to argue.

towaka - accidentally got herself trapped in a video game & no longer has control over herself or a way to communicate

vanilla - fear of the unknown & stays in an area that frustrates her bc of it

viridia - victim of her own sister, verbally tormented, tricked into going places she shouldnt & losing important items bc of her only to come home and get told her sister wouldnt do that she should be more like her.

void - we've been over this. bullying into a mental breakdown into 8 years of physical and emotional isolation

wyndi - also carrying the weight of generations of rejection & erasure

xeli - victim of various poisoning attempts that dont work bc theyre immune

yuclenya - isekai'd into a world she knew nothing about, didnt speak the language, was cornered by people looking for a fight, only found out she had an ability when she used it out of fear & it thoroughly cut up her hands

#akire's ocs #i should pick up alter world stuff again. it would be cool if i could figure out how to execute it right #anyway we are going to ignore the implications of repeated themes & just go 'wow! characters!'#kind of sad the cats took over as ultimate partnership bc lyra & sepheria had an interesting relationship #bond with ur gf by taking her back in time to escape her bullies #i feel bad bc i have a lot of disconnected stories in the same world & people like to complain about others doing that #i guess its okay bc i only draw them once wvery 5 years anyway #if u want story specifics for anyone u can ask btw. since i never say much anywhere

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unofficialperson · 2 years

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who would win cassius or ioannes? also how does possession and exorcisms work on btg?

Ioannes would win. He's more experienced, not just fighting against people in general, but also mages specifically. Cassius, broadly speaking, is actually at a natural disadvantage against magical opponents. Blood magic is wildly unstable and it tends to leave your mental defenses down making it difficult (but not impossible) to defend or counter spells. His magic means that he needs to make a connection with his target, but it's sort of like opening all your windows and doors and inviting a robber into your house. If that makes sense. Ioannes in this aspect is more protected. He is also, simply put, just more powerful. Sorry to bring up the actual game aspects, because that's a boring way to answer this, but their actual in game levels are Cassius starting level is 10 or something and Ioannes is level 25 or whatever. (Max level cap being levels 0-30).

sorry that this got so long and that I used a bunch of metaphors to try to explain it so if it doesn't make sense, I can try to explain it better. A lot of these concepts/translations are subject to change, since none of this even comes up until like act two or three actually. Also I said "posess" like five million times

Possession is, by definition, when someone or something else takes control over your body or inhibits it fully. So being puppeteered via blood magic is considered possession, just as is having a ghost, other spirit, or demon enter your body and control it directly that way. Let's call the first method, pseudo posession and the second one true possession.

With pseudo posession, you have to sever the mental connection either indirectly (countering the magic itself) or directly (interrupting the mage who casted the spell).

True possession is harder to deal with. Most of the time people end up killing the possessed person in attempt to resolve the situation. But that's not a solution because typically it just means someone else could potentially be possessed. The difficulty of the situation is complicated depending on the type of spirit. Ghosts (spirits of people who have died and are stuck on the Mortal Plane for whatever reason) can posess people, but typically ghosts are very weak and rely mostly on psychological tricks or emotionally bargain. The people that ghosts try to control or posess are people that they personally knew and are currently haunting. So sometimes, things like grief or guilt can lead a person to willingly let a ghost take over their body. Ghosts can also forcibly take over animals, however it does lead to major confusion and anguish due to the "wrongness" of the action. Ghosts usually are "stuck" in their ways, so they prefer bodies that are similar to their own (people), because there's more familiarity with that.

Demons are trickier. They don't exist on the Mortal Plane, so they have to be summoned physically, enter through one of the Gates of Nine (Hell, their plane of existence has multiple entrances that were forcibly created in existence by the Demon Lords, and were forcibly closed by crusaders), or they can try to posess someone (the more powerful demons can enter the Dreamworld, where the Curtain between dimensions is thinner naturally). (Not related, but there's multiple planes of existence that sort of "stack" on top of each other and sometimes have a bleed through effect on the neighboring planes, for the Mortal Plane this is Hell, the Fair Courts, and the Dreamworld).

Anyways, so exorcism....this is hard to explain but essentially an exorcist will forcibly make the possessed person go into a sort of sleep state to enter the Dreamworld, where they too will enter and then forcibly make or "kill" the spirit that is possessing them. Its sort of like being inside someone's headspace. I guess you could also view this as being psuedo possession.

Traditionally, exorcism was once a duty (actually rarely used, because it used to not be a needed service, but in the past hundred years, the Mortal Plane has changed drastically) of necromancers (the priest, not the class), and they worked in groups and this version of exorcism was done from the OUTSIDE-in. So they would pour their power into a person to "override" and cut the connection off. Sort of like overfilling a glass of water to get a bug at the bottom out.

However the priest order has unfortunately waned as a tradition because necromancy was blamed for the Great Plague, and a great number of priests were slaughter (and with some irony, their practices were stolen by the very people killing them, and distorted from being a religious/cultural teaching/practice to the stereotype of "spirit summoner/manipulator that raises the dead").

Ioannes, instead of trying to work indirectly to force a spirit out of someone, which was possible with the collective power of a group, was the one who came up with the method to, essentially project into a persons mind and work from there. It's more forceful. From an outside perspective, I'm sure it looks odd.

Okay I've been trying for too long, so I'll post my sketches for this post separately .

#hey jeremiah #arcann #btg nonsense #This seems like I'm contradicting myself re: Cassius versus ioannes #I can't really explain the difference just know that there is one #Yes this means Hell canonically exists in btg but not heaven #There's ten known planes and also Timespace and alternate realities so it gets screwy #But that's hardly important to this posts so ignore it #Also there's other exorcists. Technically ioannes is sort of inventive w magic and he has trained ppl in the past

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selectmytutor · 2 years

Text

How to Motivate Students to Learn Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of measurements, numbers, and space, and it is one of the first sciences that people worked to create due to its importance and value. Mathematics is used in almost every facet of life, including everyday tasks like timekeeping, as well as professions like accounting, finance, banking, engineering, and software development. These duties necessitate a solid mathematical foundation.

The name "mathematics" comes from Greek and means "learning inclinations," There are various fields of mathematics in science that deal with numbers, such as geometric shapes, algebra, and others.

As with other subjects, math typically evokes a specific type of fear, leading many students to accept that they'll never be able to get it right regardless of how they attempt.

This type of obstacle can be highly challenging for maths tutors - they can deal with students not comprehending something; however, if the student believes that they'll never progress and is convinced that they will never make progress.

What exactly causes some students to be getting ahead in this subject while others get left in the dust? The brightest students who do well in other matters do poorly in mathematics, so to claim that it's just an issue of intelligence is an unsatisfactory explanation.

That is the issue is that a lot of students aren't being taught the fundamentals of mathematics correctly. In contrast to other subjects, where learning happens linearly, with history being the most apparent instance - mathematics is based on knowledge. Knowing that Edward Confessor died in 1066 And was killed in 1066 doesn't prevent a student from learning that Henry the Eight in 1547, but being unable to comprehend the basics of algebra could stop the student from moving forward to understand calculus.

The teaching of mathematics must be designed so that, even from the very earliest stages, every student comprehends the mathematical concepts being taught. This may sound idealistic, and the argument could be that the same principles must be applied to every area. In the ideal world, no student would ever leave a class without understanding the material they learned in that class. In math, every stage of learning is vital for a student to advance, so miscalculations must be discovered in the early stages.

What can students do to get them to pursue maths? According to the adage, you should teach your child to be curious, and they'll become your instructor. Many students struggle with math because they cannot see any connection between math and the world. Aside from a few boring questions on calculating compound interest or calculating the distance that someone has travelled when they're travelling at a particular speed for a specified amount of time, many students don't understand how mathematics is a critical component of various aspects of life.

The tutors must strive to explain to their students the mathematical patterns evident in the natural world, such as the patterns formed by snowflakes through the spirals of galaxies that are far away. Honeycomb's tessellating cells within beehives naturally develop hexagons, and interlocking bubbles can also create hexagons at their intersections. Examples like these can help pupils understand how mathematics works in nature and possibly change their view of the subject.

Instead of using stale examples of distances and money, teachers could focus on music, something every student will be attracted to. Students could spend time with the musical scale where the different notes are tuned following fundamental ratios of fractions; the octave doubles an original frequency, the perfect fifth multiplying the frequency of the beginning by 3/2, and the ideal fourth multiplying it by 4/3. This way, students can experience ratios and fractions entirely newly. A basic understanding of music is required, and plenty of internet videos provide audio of these fundamental musical ratios, which form the foundation of all songs.

Another method to keep students inspired is to use game-based learning. These are programs specifically designed to assist students who struggle with math. Many students like playing games on computers and often at the expense of their academics! Therefore, why not take their passion and let it assist them in their learning. There are numerous online learning platforms for free which will offer a range of math-related games.

Students might have had to endure many years of boring academic mathematics classes and battling through pages after pages of textbook problems. In this classroom environment, it's easy to see why many just shut down and forget about mathematics after they convinced themselves many years ago that they don't have a curiosity in maths. If you can highlight the fascinating aspects of math, you'll keep their attention. Features with special effects and cell phone technology encryption, even cog ratios and gears in cars, are all things that depend on math. If you can spark your students' interest, they'll become more attentive to lessons and seek out knowledge by themselves.

Conclusion

To build and extend their early knowledge and learn to focus on and elaborate on the mathematical components of everyday life, children require adult support and instruction. Contact well-experienced online tutors if you wish to improve your maths skills. They will assist you in achieving your academic goals.

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arlecchno · 10 months

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I AM HAVING A GREAT SUMMER BREAK THANK YOUUUU IM GONNA BE ABLE TO MEET MY INFAMOUS BESTIE NAMED ROOF SOMETIME SOON ACTUALLY‼️‼️

AND I CAN INFACT “SIGN YOU UP” BECAUSE I HAVE A PART OF THE PROLOGUE THING WRITTEN :D here is the doc !! since i dont want to kill tumblr by pasting the entire thing in this ask lol . if you have any feedback after reading it would be appreciated if youd share it ehe . for better reading context though , the “prologue” happens much before the main storyline when rin and ashe are still pretty young so dont take their prologue selves as their core personalities and stuff , they will change :3c

lmao rin would absolutely walk you through her routine and ashe would just shrug their shoulders and say he just uses what the servants give him LMAO - they both do have very good hair and skin though since theyre given the best products in their kingdoms .

also this happened when we i asked how theyd respond to your message LOL

figuratively praying for your survival rn im wishing you the best with asphodelus . i live laugh and love all your series but sPEAKING OF YOUR SERIES you writing aL HAITHAM ?!!!!???!! sign ME up bro !!!

heart eyes . stares in al haitham simp and kinnie .

do u mind if i ask what u study tho ? js curious tbh . and also , yk honkai star rail ? asking bc ive been kind of brainrotting over it lately tbh im so gay for the star rail men HELP ME SJKDNSKD [ dies in homosexual ]

i got carried away but ykw why not say another random thing . if youre an anime watcher you should totes watch houseki no kuni / land of the lustrous 😍😍😍 both the anime and manga are amazing ( read as: OH GOD THE ANGST ITS KILLING ME AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH (( esp in the manga …)) ) and i love love love the series sooooo much im OBSESSED ‼️ not forcing obvi but i cannot rec this anime / manga enough because my goodness the visuals are to die for and im a big simp for the soundtrack of the anime ( thats probably weird to say but idc )

ANYWAYS IVE PROBABLY SAID ENOUGH LMAO !! again best wishes to you for your studies and writing <3 <3 GOOD LUCK SOLDIER 🫡🫡🫡 LOL

just read the prologue AHHHHHHHH it's so good already rin and ashe are already my favourites!!!! the part where the sat on the railing and thought of one another as cold and fire..... i seriously cannot wait for what's to come like i NEED to see what they're going to be like when they're older and are ruling their kingdoms, i can already imagine the amount of angst and the flipsides of their personalities in the timeskip 🫂 them being young right now though hshdjji i want to squish their cheeks so bad

thank you man i still have yet to start the next asphodelus chapter LOL not sure if i'm still up to writing it now that i'm on the works of writing alhaitham aka my no.1 babygirl 😞💔 the writer's block on asphodelus is crazy

YOUR CHIBI IS SO CUTE THO AND YES!!!! alhaitham islove alhaitham is life am i right or am i right

i'm still in hs so i study the usual hs subjects yada yada but i also take additional electives like accounting and economics! honestly speaking i kind of regret taking economics but it's a bit too late to back out now LMAOO i also take another elective which is this math qualification but like,,, we don't talk about it man i'm failing in every damn class 😭 so yeah my schedule is PACKED packed it's a bit silly

YESSS OF COURS I KNOW HSR!!!!! when it first came out i was like really obsessed with it but now that i finished the main story i'mkimd of slumped 😞 dw tho i'll be back once 1.2 comes out because.... blade and kafka obviously hahahahhahahah lol i need them hahahhaha

my favs are dan heng, blade, gepard, serval, seele and many more!!!!!! they are all so babygirl i just need gepard and blade and my babygirl collection is complete 💯

will definitely watch that anime/read the manga whenever i'm free!! always open to recs because i've kind of been bored lately with the lack of entertainment 😭 currently jjk s2 and these 2 kdramas (king the land & see you in my 19th life) are the only ones that have kept me going GOD i need to consume more media 😔😔😔 thanks for the rec i'll check it out soon!!!!! and did you say angst 👁️👁️ oh i'm definitely tuned in

THANK YOU AGAIN AND I HOPE YOU'LL HAVE A GREAT SUMMER!!!!! AND ALSO good luck to you and your friend on your story 📌📌 you guys are doing really great the prologue already got me hooked haha KEEP IT UP!!! (from your no.1 rin and ashe fan 😋) SAY HI TO THEM FOR ME TOOO <333

#h answers #RAHHHH IT'S FINALLY THE WEEKEND #i am free from the hellhole #well only for two days #but you gotta make the most of it yk

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therealvinelle · 3 years

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Ok I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm just now copying your Norwegian Bella AU into a text translator, and if you don't already have 50 people in your inbox demanding a translation then shame on ALL OF US because this is glorious! And while Google Translate does have a certain charm (it translated "piper hun ut" as "she beeps") I'm curious to see how you'd put it in English.

Troquantary is referring to this post. In which Bella doesn't speak English.

Fun fact, you're the only one who's gone into my inbox to request this. I was so sad, had the translation half-written and everything, but I was too proud to beg. So thank you, Troquantary, for popping this ask.

As for the dictionary fuckups, sounds about right. I made a few typos, too, that made Google Translate suffer even more. (Such as managing to mix up "henne" (her) and "hendene" (hands), resulting in Aro patting Bella instead of clapping his hands. Poor Google.)

Also, there are a few cultural references and language things that would be lost in the translation, in an attempt to keep them I included notes clarifying things.

Some things, like Aro and Carlisle's very old man way of speaking, are easier said than done to translate, you'll have to bear with me there.

Additional notes are that I added a few things to this version, many of them because translating is hard, but a few because while translating I thought "oh you know what would be much funnier-" and then wrote that.

Alright, without further ado:

When Renée left Charlie she did not go to Florida, she went to Oslo. And she went all in to make her daughter a true Norwegian, hiring Norwegian nannies and making sure never to speak English around the child. Since transatlantic flights are expensive, little Bella Swan rarely got to visit her father, and as such she never did learn what should have been her native language.

She quickly forgot what English she did have in favor of Norwegian, with the exception of words like “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m Bella”.

The few trips she took to visit her father were all the more awkward than in canon since she couldn’t play with the Black kids. Let not the blame fall upon Charlie: he took Norwegian classes and speaks conversational Norwegian. He can’t speak to Renée, because her Norwenglish is incomprehensible even to Norwegians, but he can communicate with Bella.

Not that he’s had a lot of chances to do so.

Bella makes it to seventeen years old, she’s in second grade at Handels* and is a major outsider among the preps there, and then Renée marries a handsome skier**. Together they shall travel the continent all winter to participate in as many skiing races as they can, and in the summer they’ll take gigs at Hurtigruta to see the coast.

*“Handels” is the nickname for an Oslo high school infamous for its pupils being rich and beautiful blonds who are going to be CEOs when they grow up.

**Skiing as a sport is huge in Norway

***Hurtigruta is a famous ferry that travels across the Norwegian West coast

Bella, who sucks at skiing and is too young to work at Hurtigruten, takes the hint.

With dread in her stomach and dictionary in hand she goes to her father in America.

Where she doesn’t speak the language.

Faen.

Charlie gives her a car, and I wish this meta was set in the present because I could have joked about electric cars and the automat only driver’s license*, but Twilight is set in 2005 so I can’t. The car part proceeds without drama.

*An increasing number of Norwegian youth take the driver’s license for automatic cars only, and we’re the country in the world with the highest percentage of electric car purchases.

School is worse than in canon, because she is now a thousand times more sensational than if she was merely the new student. She is from another country! All of Forks keels over with excitement.

To make matters even worse, our girl doesn’t understand a word of what people are saying.

She is too awkward to let them know she doesn’t know English. It’d become a thing, and they might think she’s dumb. To be fair, it’s not good that she’s been through primary, secondary, and now a year and a half of high school and still sucks at English.

So she nods, smiles, mumbles “Hi, I’m Bella” to the new faces, and blushes heavily when anybody says anything.

People assume she’s shy. That’s a bit boring, but oh well.

She has her biology class with the redhead hottie she noticed during lunch. She watched him and his family, they were fascinatingly pretty, but she doesn’t know anything more about them. Sure would have been great if she could have asked the tiny girl (was it Jess?) about them.

Biology proceeds as in canon - Edward badly wants to eat the delicious girl, but fortunately doesn’t.

She runs into him in the office when he tries to switch to another biology lesson, but she has no idea what he’s saying so she only has the suspicion that this somehow concerns her. Which is still uncomfortable, but Bella is probably the problem here. The hottie surely can’t be.

He’s missing from school for a week, Bella finds that weird.

He returns, and to her great horror he starts talking to her.

“Hello”, he says.

Bella dies inside. He’s too handsome!

"I'm Edward Cullen," he continues, and ok, she got that. The hottie is called Edward, that’s good to know. She’s not sure she caught that last name, though, Köln?

He says something else, it’s gibberish to Bella even though she’s concentrating, and at the end there he says “Bella Swan”.

She gulps.

"I'm Bella Swan," she confirms and nods. That should be correct. God, she hopes it’s correct.

He smiles a crooked, boyish smile. She’s awed. She didn’t think it was possible to be so beautiful.

He says something else.

Bella didn’t catch it.

She blushes even harder, she hasn’t been more embarrassed in her life. Here he is, the most handsome guy in all the world, and she has nothing to say to him. Literally, they don’t speak the same language.

She should tell him.

It’s one thing to chicken out of telling the town she doesn’t speak English, but there’s something different about Edward Cullen. He deserves the truth.

But...

He’s the most beautiful person she has seen in her life. He is American, too, so the odds of him knowing Norwegian are microscopical. If he finds out she doesn’t understand a word he says he’ll stop talking to her, and selfish as she is she doesn’t want that.

So with a slightly guilty conscience (but not enough to fess up) she contributes to the conversation with enough words and smiles to pull through. "Yes", "No", "Thank you", and "That's nice".

He is surprised by several of these answers, but instead of giving her odd looks and losing interest he grows more invested in the conversation.

Class ends.

The next day the near accident happens, and he saves her. She is stunned - dear god, did he just pick up a whole car? After teleporting across the parking lot..?

Soon she’s in the ER, and more than a little bit stressed about that fact since she knows the Americans have a terrible healthcare system.

She hopes Charlie has an insurance.

An insanely beautiful man walks into the ER, and Bella is shocked. He is just as handsome as Edward and Edward’s lunch friends!

He introduces himself as Carlisle Cullen, and Bella can only assume this is someone’s older brother. Possibly related to the blonde girl.

He smiles at her, says something, and she answers, "I'm Bella Swan."

He frowns.

That must have been the wrong answer, then.

His hands return to investigating her scalp, and to her great surprise he switches to perfect Norwegian, "kjenner De* noe ubehag når jeg holder her?" Do you feel any discomfort when I touch here?

*De is the Norwegian polite pronoun for “you”. Du = thou = the French tu, and De = you = the French vous. These polite pronouns went out of use in the 1980’s, save for when addressing royal persons, and would be considered antiquated in 2005.

He hurries to add, "Norsk lærte jeg i... fjor sommer. Det var et nettkurs." I learned Norwegian… last year. Online class.

"Hvilket da?" Which one? Bella asks, because Charlie needs to hear about this. The doctor has beautiful, if slightly outdated, pronunciation.

The doctor’s smile turns uncertain. She gets the feeling there’s something he doesn’t want to say. "Husker ikke," I don’t remember, sier han etter en litt vel lang pause.

That’s a shame. And weird.

"De hadde hellet med Dem i dag, som ikke ble truffet av den bilen." You were lucky today, not getting hit by that car. he then says, noticeably changing the subject.

"Det var ikke hell, det var Edward," It wasn’t luck, it was Edward, she replies sharply.

The doctor definitely looks uncomfortable.

She continues, "Han krysset skolegården på et blunk, og plukket opp hele bilen. Jeg så det," He crossed the schoolyard in a moment, and picked up the whole car. I saw it,

The doctor laughs. "Om han kunne det hadde nok gymkarakteren hans vært meget bedre. Nei, frøken Swan*, jeg beklager å si at det høres ut som at De er litt omtåket. Det er helt normalt ved hjernerystelse." If he could do that, his PE grade would be a lot better. No, Miss Swan, I’m sorry to say you seem confused. That’s normal with concussions.

*Addressing a young woman as “frøken” is even more outdated than using polite pronouns.

Why does Bella get the feeling he’s lying?

She’s discharged.

We’ll jump ahead to her trip to La Push - that trip uneventful, since Jacob knows she doesn’t speak English. They stick their hands in their pockets and stare at the sea.

The next day she’s shanghaied to Port Angeles, because apparently she said “Yes” at the wrong time when talking to Jessica (Turns out Jess’s name was Jessica!) and accidentally said yes to a day trip to Port Angeles.

Like in canon she wanders away from the others, and as in canon she is nearly gang raped. And again as in canon she is saved at the last moment by Edward.

He buys her dinner, and she can’t believe her own luck- and misfortune. A date with the most handsome guy on the planet (hence the luck) and she can’t say a word to him (hence the misfortune)!

He says things to her, lends her his jacket, and really this is it for Bella, she’s peaked, life can’t get better than this.

(That’s a lie, it would be better if she spoke English.)

He’s so amazing.

She’s gotten pretty good at navigating conversations with him, so she nods and aha’s her way through.

In his car on the way home the tone takes a more serious turn.

He asks her about something, and it’s a serious question, that much she’s gathered. She answers in the confirmative.

He is silent.

Did she say anything wrong?

(Edward, on his end, just asked if she knows what he is. She said yes, so calmly, not even a trace of fear in her.)

A few days later he takes her out on a walk in the woods.

He shows her a meadow in the woods, and when he steps into it he lights up in the sunlight.

Bella is in shock.

She knew there was something different about him, but- holy cow. This guy isn’t human.

Is she dating a god?

She stumbles into the clearing after him, and they spend a day together where he says things, and she can barely hear any of it (nevermind understand it) because she’s so distracted by how pretty he is.

The next day he takes her to a house in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want to guess that this can be where he lives. Surely gods don’t live in houses?

He shows her inside the house, and introduces her for Dr. Cullen and a lady with a name she doesn’t catch.

Bit weird that these two are acting like a couple of parents, they’re far too young and divine for that.

Edward shows her around in an old-fashioned office, and she doesn’t know what to make of i when she sees a painting of Carlisle. Edward launches into a long story when he sees her watching it, unfortunately she doesn’t catch any dates or artist names. At one point she heard the word “suicide”, though, and that’s not good.

She doesn’t get much out of the story.

The baseball game doesn’t happen because Bella didn’t pick up on what Edward wanted and didn’t realize she was being invited to a thing. They spend the afternoon watching a movie instead.

The relationship continues, impeded slightly by communication problems, but she’s mostly able to cover those up.

Until her birthday comes around.

She gets a papercut.

Jasper lunges at her. Edward throws her into a glass table, and then everyone is leaving.

Carlisle is kind enough to switch to Norwegian when he’s stitching up her arm, perhaps remembering the last time she was his patient. "Jasper har ikke vært på dietten vår så veldig lenge." Jasper hasn’t been on our diet for very long.

"Diett?"she asks. She’s never seen Edward eat anything. She wasn’t clear on what the Cullens ate, honestly she thought they were above such things. She was thinking maybe photosynthesis. The knowledge that they apparently eat food astounds her, but diets?

"Dyreblod istedenfor menneskeblod," Animal blood in stead of human blood, Carlisle clarifies.

Whachasay?

Carlisle gives a slight smile. “Jaspers liv som vampyr fikk en brutal start." Jasper’s life as a vampire got off to a brutal start.

...

Vampire?!

Bella’s missed something here.

Oh dear lord, oh fy faen, she has missed something.

“Åja”, uh huh, is all she can say, and suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s sitting there with a bleeding arm.

And Carlisle.

Who is a vampire.

Over the course of the following conversation Bella makes a host of discoveries.

Edward has been a vampire this whole time, and he’s a telepathic vampire. Whether Bella should be a vampire too or not has been a matter of hot debate, but due to religious reasons Edward doesn’t want that.

Carlisle also brings up how Edward died of the Spanish flu.

"Jeg var under den oppfatning at Edward fortalte deg bakhistorien min?" I was under the impression Edward told you my back story? Carlisle asks at one point, and Bella just has to ask very nicely if he’d be so kind as to repeat it.

Turns out the guy is nearly four hundred years old.

Jaha.

Jahahaha jaa ha.

That’s… a lot.

She wanders out of the house in shock, and hardly notices Edward’s strange behavior over the next couple of days.

One day he picks her up at school, and takes her behind the house.

That works out.

He’s a vampire, but he never hurt her. He is endlessly beautiful, perhaps easier to love now that she knows he’s not a god. He’s her Edward, and that’s suddenly easier now that she knows.

They can still be together.

But now that she knows this about him, it’s about time he knows something about her as well.

It’s time to finally be honest with him.

So when he opens his mouth, she opens her mouth as well, but she doesn’t get any further than to “Edward-” before he launches into a monologue.

She’ll have to wait until he’s done before saying her piece. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to stop talking anyway.

And what he’s saying seems to be serious, so it’s probably best to let him finish.

Edward concludes his monologue by kissing her forehead. Then he disappears.

Where did he go?

A big unsure, Bella goes back to the house. She’ll just have to wait until he gets back.

She doesn’t know what to think when Charlie returns from work and tells her the Cullens have all left.

Oh, god.

Edward must have found out she doesn’t speak English.

She made a mockery of him.

He has every right to leave.

Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

Bella sinks into a depression.

The hallucinations begin, as in canon, though Hallusinward speaks Norwegian. Thank god for small mercies.

The friendship with Jacob (dictionary in hand) blooms, as someone has to help her see those hallucinations.

The cliff diving happens, and Alice shows up. Bella’s not sure what this is about, but she has gotten good enough at English to know that something bad happened, and Alice wants them to do something.

She’s a bit surprised to find herself on a plane to Italy, though.

Alice tells her to “Run to Edward” and ok, she got that, actually.

So she saves Edward.

After that she’s taken into the sewer, which turns out to house dozens of vampires.

Bella, Edward, and Alice are received in some kind of hall, where an unusual vampire has quite a bit to say. She understands some of what he’s saying, at least the part about “la tua cantante”. She knows a bit about Italian, see, so she knows that he’s talking about a song now.

She wishes she knew the context.

At one point he takes her hand, and appears fascinated by it. She wonders if he’s a palmreader. Not very vampirey, but what does she know.

He asks her a question.

"Yes," she says.

Saying yes has gotten her this far, after all.

But when he lights up and claps his hands together, and Edward and Alice stare at her in shock and betrayal, she knows she must have said the wrong thing.

The two are dismissed from the room before Bella can do or say anything, she’s just listening to Edward make a racket outside in the hallway.

Not good.

The unusual vampire brings her further down in his sewer palace to a basement, and she is given comfortable clothes to wear.

This is getting terrifying.

The vampire leans towards her - and she chickens out.

"Jeg snakker ikke engelsk!" she squeaks. "Non habla ingles!" I don’t speak English.

Han stanser, og ser forvirret ut. "Que- Hva behager*?" I beg your pardon? spør han etter et øyeblikk.

*A very formal, and slightly outdated (you can use it, but people will think you’re putting on airs. And they will be right) way of saying “excuse me?”

Sobbing, Bella tells him the whole story, from how she didn’t want to be the weird kid in school to how she’s now somehow in Italy without knowing why nor what she just agreed to.

When she’s done the vampire starts laughing.

"Dette forklarer jo en hel del," This explains quite a bit, ler han. "Men, kjære Bella, jeg er redd det ikke endrer noe." But, my dear Bella, I’m afraid it changes nothing.

He tells her that she has agreed to serve him and his army of undead warriors into eternity.

Well fuck.

"Du skal få slippe det, når du ikke visste hva du samtykket til - men skjebnen din forblir den samme. Loven er loven." You’re released from that promise, as you didn’t know what you agreed to - but your fate remains the same. The law is the law.

After a moment of silence, during which she looks terrified, he hurries to add, "Vi har en lov. Du må bli en av oss." We have a law. You must become one of us.

A law that Bella Swan has to become a vampire?

People are finally speaking Norwegian, and Bella is still lost. And it’s too embarrassing to keep pestering this poor, polite man with questions.

So she nods.

He gives her a glittering smile, and bites her.

When she wakes, Aro offers her an English course. A language course that, naturally, leads to her staying in Volterra. Why not learn a few more languages while we’re at it, dearest Bella?

Some time later Edward breaks into Volterra to save his Rapunzel, only to barely recognize her now that she’s a vampire who says things. Lots of things, she talks all the time now. WHAT DID ARO DO TO HER.

Too mortified to admit that she never spoke English, Bella claims she’s been brainwashed.

Aro is having too much fun to correct her, and the whole sad affair sets off a regrettable flood of rumors.

#troquantary #norwegian things #bella swan #twilight #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #evighetens kyss #evighetens kyss meta #evighetens kyss renessanse

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lilith-jean-stark · 3 years

Text

Secrets

Warnings: none!

Summary: You and Peter find out each other’s secrets by accident.

A/n: I’ll be setting up a blurb night soon! So stay tuned 😎

You got off the train and made your way to school. Another boring day at mid-town high. Being the sister of Tony Stark had its perks, but it also had its downsides. No one knew that you were Tony’s sister, but you had to admit that being the secret sister was nice because you didn't have people up in your face all the time, except Peter Parker. Peter Parker was the only one who knew your secret. You and Peter had been friends for years and up until a couple weeks ago he had no idea about your secret. You stupidly were doing work for Tony in your notebook while having lunch at school one day, when Peter happened to sit next to you.

*flashback*

"Ugh this formula isn't working." You thought to yourself. Maybe it was just this noisy cafeteria that was making it difficult to think.

"Hey whatcha doing?" Peter said sliding beside you on the bench. Peters eyes widened "Stark industries?" He said a bit too loudly.

"Peter shush!" You snapped and scurried to get your notes into your book bag.

"What are you doing with formulas from Stark industries?" Peter whispered.

"That's not what it is." You rolled your eyes, "silly Peter." You booped his nose with your index finger.

Peter blushed, "uhm yes y/n it is, uh," he stuttered then shook his head to break his gaze with you, "Yes it is, I have an internship, I've seen them."

"I can't say." You groaned, annoyed he didn't take the nose boop as bait to change the subject.

"Come on, it's not like I'd tell anyone." He whined.

"Okay fine, but you have to swear that you won't tell anyone." You said sticking your pinky out for the two of you to pinky swear.

"I swear." Peter said locking his pinky with yours.

You leaned in and whispered "Tony Stark is my older brother and I kinda own part of Stark industries."

"No way!" Peter looked at me in shock.

"Yes way, but it's not a big deal." You laughed and showed him a picture of you and Tony with your parents before they died.

"Wow, he's pretty cool, isn't he?" Peter said in awe.

"Maybe to you because of your internship, but as a brother he's kinda lame." You smirked and nudged Peter with your elbow, to let him know you were only joking.

*end flashback*

You smiled to yourself at how understanding Peter had been about keeping your identity from him. You stood at your locker and sorted the books you needed for class into your bag.

"Y/n!" You heard Peter shout from the other end of the hall.

You waved to him and he jogged down the hallway to you.

"How's it hanging Parker?" You asked as he leaned against the locker next to yours.

"You ready for that Chem test tomorrow?" He asked.

You rolled your eyes, you and Peter had known each other for years and he still forgets that you’re pretty much a genius.

"Sorry forgot we have a prodigy here." Peter put his hands up in defense. "Actually May has been asking about you, she wants you to come over for dinner tonight." He said, crossing his arms.

"Peter you didn't tell her did you?" You said in a hushed voice.

"What? No! She asked what you've been up to, because you know she hasn't seen you around in awhile. So I lied..." Peter trailed off and looked at you with hopeful eyes. "I said you had an internship at Stark industries too."

You laughed slightly, "I'll send Tony a text and let him know I won't be home for dinner.

"Sweet, you're not mad?" He asked.

"No peter I'm not mad. You're actually a genius for telling her that." You smiled at him for being so sweet and for protecting your secret. Even though you knew he was dying to tell Ned and pretty much anyone who would listen.

"Oh and Ned might be by later too. He's got this lego Death Star he wants to build." Peter said staring to get all giddy.

"Wait, didn't you two build that a couple months ago?" You raised an eyebrow curiously at him.

Peters face went red, "oh yea i meant he needed help with his homework." He said quickly and started off down the hall, "gotta go gonna be late for class."

You sighed and headed to class. You didn't think anything of Peters weird behavior, due to the fact that Peter was sometimes scatter brained.

Peter got to math class and sat next to Ned.

"You can't come over tonight." Peter whispered to him.

"Why not , the Death Star isn't going to build itself Peter."

"Y/n is coming over for supper and she thinks we already put it together. She'll get suspicious." Peter whisper yelled.

"Fine, but it wouldn't have to be rebuilt if someone didn't make me drop it." Ned rolled his eyes at him "And you haven't told her about you know what yet?"

"No I can't Ned." He mumbled.

Later after school peter went and did his usual spider man stuff. He was just about done and was heading home and then realized that he had forgot about you. He raced home and climbed into his room through the window. His bedroom door was already shut, so he dropped to the floor and took his mask off.

The door opened, "hey Peter, May said to make myself at home..." you started to say, your eyes focused on your phone.

Peter quickly pressed his suits release button and let it fall to the floor, then kicked it under his bed.

"She said I'd find you in..." You stopped short of yourself when you looked up from your phone, to see Peter standing there in front of you in his boxers. It was just like Ned all over again, Peter had thought to himself.

"Woah Sorry Parker." You put your hands up in defense and smirked, holding back laughter. You stood there staring at him and laughed, "I guess I should have knocked."

Peter blushed, "Aunt May, can you please stop letting people in my room without knocking!" He shouted.

"I'll go check out what May is up too and come back when your dressed." You said.

"No, its fine!" Peter said, grabbing a sweatshirt and pulling on pants.

"Why were you in your underwear anyway?" You asked.

"I was warm." He lied.

You shut the door and glared at Peter. "You better not be lying to me. You realize that I have access to the worlds largest data pool, if I want to know something, I’ll find out."

"Look Y/n, i am not lying." Peter almost couldn't get the words out. You frightened him sometimes, you were very confident and fierce, never caring what others thought of you.That and you were smarter than him and you were pretty much one of the most powerful people in America with being a stark. Even if Peter was a good liar, you could still tell whether he was lying or not and if looks could kill, you would be shooting daggers from your eyes.

Peter watched you as you tilted your head to look behind him. "So what's that?" You pointed to the underneath of his bed.

"Nothing, just stuff."

"Peter?" You pushed past him and grabbed his Spider-Man suit and pulled it out from under the bed.

"You just happen to have a bright red leotard?" You questioned and then spread it out before he could rip it out of her hands. "Peter!!!!" You gasped and dropped the suit, "That's spider mans suit, I built that!" You shot him a look, "wait are you Spider-Man?" You asked as your eyes grew wide with realization.

"Yes." Peter said annoyed and grabbed the suit, hiding it in his bookbag. Then he realized what you had said, his eyes widened "you built that?!"

You grabbed the bookbag and pulled the suit from it. "Yes I did, Tony asked me to do a suit for some spider guy. I didn't think he was talking about you!" You exclaimed and examined the suit. "What did he tell you about the suit?” You asked.

"Mr. Stark said he made it." Peter said nervously.

"God of course he did.” You rolled your eyes. “Anyway that's besides the point, you're Spider-Man and you've been using my tech to help you fight crime? Did Tony tell you about the formulas too!? Is that why you caught me in the cafeteria." You looked anxious and kept looking at the suit.

"No, the formula I noticed was mine..." Peter looked down at his hands.

"Wait, the spider web goo, you made that?" You looked at him in disbelief.

"Yes I did, I gave the formula to Mr. Stark because he wanted to see if he could improve it. Then he told me to leave it how it was. I was confused when I saw you with it because Mr. Stark was the only person I told. So I figured you had to be working on Stark industries stuff if you had my web formula." Peter explained.

"Peter that's the coolest chemical reaction I've ever seen! I love playing with that stuff!" You said excitedly.

Peter blushed and you pulled him into a hug. “Let’s get out there before May starts getting suspicious.” You said almost as a hum, you were as happy as could be and even happier now that you and Peters secrets were out.

#peter parker oneshot #tom holland x female reader #mcu imagine #mcu x reader #mcu fanfiction #spiderman #peter parker x reader fluff #peter parker imagine #peter parker x reader #peter parker #peter parker x y/n #tony stark #iron man #iron fam #anthony edward stark #tom holland x y/n

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autisticsupervillain · 7 months

Text

It's Fictional Throwdown Friday!

This Week's Fighters...

Not-Them vs Tom Hansen!

Conditions:

No restrictions.

Scenario:

After gaining a reputation for stopping the Exocel outbreak, Tom Hansen becomes a go to contact for dealing with the supernatural. The government assigns him with dealing with a series of mysterious disappearances that lead to him discovering the Not-Them.

Analysis: Not-Them

Source:

Needless to say, the fact that the Not-Them can survive a free for all between a werewolf and two Hunt Avatars is remarkably impressive, marking it as perhaps one of the Strangers strongest minions.

But it is still paranoia incarnate. Do you know the person sitting next to you? ....Are you sure?

Analysis: Tom Hansen

The ocean depths are a mysterious and dangerous place. At the lowest survivable levels of Earth's surface, strange creatures straight out of Lovecraft's nightmares evolved to survive the dark, cold, crushing depths of the ocean floor. And humanity was about to unearth some of its most dangerous creatures.

In the coldest parts of the Atlantic Ocean, Russian oil diggers discovered a new form of life within the ice they were mining. Exocels. Parasitic creatures that were completely uncategorized by existing scientific theories. Capable of overtaking the higher brain functions of their host and mutating them in response to dangerous external stimuli. Naturally, the crew of the Star of Sakhalin begain trying to weaponize these new creatures to sell for a profit. Predictably, it didn't work out. The ship was quickly overrun by mutant zombies and a distress call was sent out.

The call was answered by Tom Hansen, an officer of the United States Coast Guard who really wants to be Leon Kennedy. He and his crew were sent to rescue everyone on board, only to find everyone already dead or zombified. Narrowly surviving the massacre of his crew, Tom was left alone on the ship as the only thing stopping the Exocels from falling into the shadowy hands of the CIA.

Luckily, Hansen comes equipped with every weapon a survival horror protagonist could ever need. He comes decked out with the usual affair of pistols, shotguns, and automatic weapons, each laser scoped to ensure perfect accuracy. Even his standard M1911A1 can completely pop a human’s skull like it was made from confetti, to say nothing of his MP5, AK47, and Benelli M4. But all of that pales in comparison to his sawed off M79 Grenade Launcher to blow apart any Exomutant that gets hit by it, even shredding through Exo zombies that evolved specifically to withstand bullets and fire arms.

Tom would quickly adapt against the rapidly evolving Exocels, using a modified harpoon gun whose harpoons emitted a protein gas, allowing his shots to distract Exocels with delicious smelling harpoons. Perfect for luring them into a trap or grouping them together for a grenade. Hansen has fought through squadrons of Russian mercenaries, defeated invisible Exocel zombies, dodged a steel door that was blasted at him by an explosion, and survived getting infected by an Exocel that tried to eat him alive from the inside out twice.

With nothing but raw wit, determination, and witty one liners, Tom rigged the entire ship to blow with C4 and faced down the man behind the entire disaster. Kamsky, the mad scientist turned sentient Exomutant out to replace humanity with his zombified master race. Kamsky is strong enough to completely demolish a metal bridge just by jumping right through it, generating an energy equivalent to 397,700 kilojoules.

Source:

Ultimately, Hansen defeated Kamsky, blowing the Star of Sakhalin to pieces and exterminating the Exocel threat once and for all.

Throwdown Theme:

youtube

Throwdown Breakdown:

There is an important distinction to make between both of today's combatants. One is a trained soldier and the other is a bully.

The monsters that Hansen fought are decently stronger than the Avatars the Not-Them is stronger than (397,700 kilojoules vs 239,851) and also considerably more versatile. The only thing that the Not-Them has ever been in a serious fight against is the two Hunters it fought while pursuing the Archivist. Overcoming them is certainly impressive, yes, especially considering the caliber of vampires and Avatars they've gone up against, but they are still primarily melee fighters and this is still its only fight ever. Hansen, meanwhile, is professionally trained, has outgunned rouge mercenaries, and has defeated ever evolving parasite zombies who could become bullet proof and turn invisible. There's a considerably difference there.

Whenever its disguises are blown, the Not-Them has always resorted to just rampaging like a sadistic monster. Meanwhile, Hansen has proven he can make the best of bad situations where the odds are stacked against him and improvise on the fly. While the protein gas from his harpoon gun wouldn't effect the Not-Them, the rest of his weapons sure would, allowing Hansen to play the range game against the Not-Them's lack of ranged options.

In a situation where the Not-Them can't rely on its disguises, it is nothing more than a sadistic bully and a rampaging monster. And Hansen has killed plenty of those.

This Throwdown's Winner is...

Tom Hansen!

#fictional throwdown fridays #cold fear #tom hansen #the magnus archives #not them

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soyouthinkucanwrite · 3 years

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The money thing (part 1/2) - Daniel Ricciardo

It's always the little things, isn't it? The smallest stupidest things make almost no difference and then make all the difference in the world. They make everything special, but they also have the power to tear everything appart.

You and Daniel fight about money for the thousand time and he's had enough of it.

Warnings: super angst, but with a happy ending :)

Guys, this turned out WAY BIGGER than I expected, so I'm just gonna do a part 2, okay? Okay, thanks for understanding!

Song that inspired me: A list by HVOB

You and Daniel had been dating for a couple months now, having met through a common friend and hitting off almost instantly. You lived in Amsterdam and he, well he lived all over the world really, but his "time off" (meaning not racing) was spent between Monaco and London (for work), and Amsterdam now too, of course.

The changes were small and subtle at the beginning, like your weekends being spent traveling to meet him wherever in the world he was and consequently spending almost all your savings on plane tickets. You never complained to him (you planned on spending the money traveling anyway, so you didn't see the point), but didn't accept when he offered to buy your tickets, either. There's been some awkwardness around the subject but it usually died on its own.

*beginning of flashback*

"You’d have gotten here in time if you'd gotten the early flight like I told you" you remembered him saying that time you got in the paddock after the qualifying session had begun and couldn’t kiss him good luck.

"Baby, I told you. It was crazy expensive! Absurd even!"

"(y/n) for god's sake! What are we saving money for? I told you, you have my credit card number, I've offered to get you one, this is ridiculous, I can't believe I literally earn millions and my girlfriend wasn't there with me because the ticket was too expensive! I'll fucking fly you private if I have to!" he was almost yelling in his driver's room. You could only stare from the corner.

He took a deep breath running his hands through his hair. "Sorry. It's just... it was crap out there. I needed you" you grimaced at his words.

"Sorry. I really am..." you tried to approach him. "I'm here now?" you touched his arm. "It can't have been that bad, you're still on the top 10 and we both know what you can do from the 8th car..." you smiled at him.

*end of flashback*

He started to spend much more of his time off with you at your place, so you decided to get a place by yourself (having a roommate was great for company and splitting the rent, but having a roommate there while you guys just wanted some much-needed privacy was not working). Then there were more traveling to meet him, furniture for the new place, clothing for all the events (GPs or not), uber rides here and there... all of that without mentioning that you weren't being able to get the freelance jobs you used to get to make some extra money, so yeah, to say things were tight was an understatement. You tried to do all your shopping alone, so he wouldn't offer and you wouldn't refuse or be awkward about it, but Daniel seem to be glued to you whenever you were in the same city (not that you’re complaining).

The thing is, you always had trouble dealing with money. Sure, you liked to pay for your own stuff so as to not owe anything to anyone (especially boys), but it was so much deeper than that. Ever since a kid, you hated asking for money from your parents, and sometimes even the thought of buying stuff that was a bit more expensive made you sick. You couldn't explain why, you just felt guilty having so much and knowing that most people have never even seen that amount. It's not that you didn't want to spend it and save for the sake of it, you just didn't handle the idea of money very well. Needless to say, dating a millionnaire was bound to cause trouble in the relationship for you.

You were currently at his place in Monaco. It was the summer break and you had decided to spend some days just chilling at home, just the two of you - which you were glad since going out means hair, makeup, clothes, accessories, shoes... and, let's be honest, the kind of places he usually took you is not the kind of places you just throw something together last minute (the Instagram models and other driver's girlfriends looking you up and down were enough to make you think about spending money you did not have to hire a stylist or something like that). The whole situation was really stressing you out and you knew you would have to be honest with him eventually, instead of only dodging the subject and refusing most of his offers to pay. You tried to. You kind of tried. You suggested staying at home, in bed, most of the time, and he gladly agreed, but that strategy wasn't gonna work forever. You had to be honest with him. But at the same time, you knew what he was going to say and do, and the thought of him spending money on you, even if just by handling the restaurant bill, wasn't something you were much more comfortable with. Besides, it was only a matter of time before the "gold-digger" term starts to fly around in the small world that was the F1's.

You were laying on his couch, the Olympics playing on the TV but you were too busy overthinking the money thing to pay attention. Daniel was laying with his head on your lap, absently caressing your thigh and watching the TV. His phone went off and he moved to pick it up.

"Hello?" you watched as he answered the phone. "Hey mate, how's it going? Uh nothing, we're just chilling at home. Getting some rest... Yeah, I'm getting rested, you dirty-minded son of a bitch" you rolled your eyes while he laughed out loud on the line with someone. "Yeah, I know... the 19th is it? No, it's fine. Yeah, yeah. I'll be there. Alright, mate. Thanks for calling. Have a good one! Bye!" he hanged up and leaned in to peck you on the lips.

"Good news?" you asked him.

"Not really. Just wanted to kiss you" he shrugged, smiling. You smiled back and hugged him, pulling him in for another kiss. He was always so caring with you, always finding an excuse to kiss or touch you. You knew some people didn't like it, but you loved it. Physical touch was definitely one of your love languages.

"What's happening on the 19th then?" you asked him once you guys set apart from the kiss.

"Gotta be in London. Gonna run some testings and other boring race stuff..."

"Hum..." you hummed in understanding.

"You know what would make it less boring though?" he asked and you just looked at him, you already knew what he was going to ask you and it wasn't that you didn't want to spend every minute of the day with him, but you simply couldn't afford any more traveling, especially not in such short notice. "If you came with me. Huh? What do you say? A week in the Queen's land? Then we can fly together to Spa and after the race, I can go with you to Amsterdam. The next one it's the Dutch GP anyway, I'll just get there sooner" he laughed. It was crushing you, the man of your dreams was literally beaming at making plans with you, talking about spending the next few weeks glued together and you couldn't say yes.

"Dan, I have to work" you smiled sadly.

"Can't you work from distance? Or, I don't know, I mean... I know it's tiring, but you could come to London and fly home a bit early, then just meet me in Belgium?" great, his solution includes even more flying. And the thing is, you really didn't mind the flying. You always slept during the whole thing anyway, so you never got tired and the jetlag was minimal. You could work from distance, sure. Your boss wouldn't mind, as long as you got there eventually to check in on everything. But the whole logistics were just too expensive. There was no way you could afford it.

"I... sorry, I don't think I can" you said sadly and watched as his face dropped.

"That's fine, baby. I get it. I'm asking too much, all this traveling... don't worry about it" he tried to mask his emotions but you knew better. He knew you could in fact work from distance, so he was probably thinking the reason you couldn't do it was because you didn't want to.

He got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. Meanwhile, you couldn't help but bury your face in your palms. This was so frustrating!

"You wanna go for a run or something? Maybe get something to eat?" he called from the kitchen, already moving on from the subject. You knew this whole thing was only gonna keep build up till he got tired of your excuses or you blowing up, probably the former, but you just keep going.

"Yeah, sure" you answered, getting up from the couch.

You and Daniel were both very active so going for a run, hiking, riding bikes, or whatever in the middle of the day was really routine for you. The Monaco summer weather was as beautiful as always and the sun was shining bright. You enjoyed the rest of your afternoon racing each other, kissing in the harbor, and just taking in the views, spending quality time together. Money wasn't even a thing in your bubble for a while.

"I'm getting hungry" he said on the way back home.

"Me too, and I'm super hot. I could go for a juice or something right now" you were all sweaty from the running, but you didn't care, he was too.

"You're always hot baby, I don't think juice gonna help with that" he grinned at you and you just rolled your eyes at him.

You passed by one of his favorite spots for food, nearby his place and he suggested getting some take-out, to which you agreed.

"Green juice, and a chicken wrap?" you tried to decide while the both of you waited in line.

"I'll never understand how you drink that"

"I've seen you drink that too, it's actually very refreshing"

"Because I'm forced to, I'm a high-performance athlete baby. But I'm on a break, so I'll have a coke, thank you very much" you laughed at him. He was holding your hand and tried to kiss you, wrapping his arm around you, you didn't dodge his kiss, you would never, but still laughed at the fact he wanted to kiss the sweaty mess you were right now.

"I'm gross, only you" you laughed.

"That's my baby, with no makeup she a ten" he rapped shrugging and grinning.

"Alright Lil Wayne, I know that one, don't even finish the verse" you laughed at him, making him laugh out loud, getting everyone's in the restaurant's attention.

"It's true, though"

"Sure..." You just shook your head smiling. Then you heard someone call his name.

"Hey! Daniel!" you both turned around to see Charles and Charlotte sitting in a corner, him waving at you two. You had met Charles a couple of times before but never spoke too much to him. They seemed to be leaving anyway, so they walked towards you guys, instead of towards the door.

"Hey mate, how's it going?" Daniel greeted him with a handshake. "Hey, Charlotte! You know (y/n) yet?"

"Hi! I don't think so, hi! How are you?" she greeted you smiling.

"Hi! Nice to meet you. Hi, Charles!" you said.

"Hey, (y/n). You're keeping him in line during the break? Char won't let me cheat my diet either" he laughed.

"Oh, that ship has sailed long ago! Daniel will just roll into the paddock if it's up to him" you laughed back.

"Hey! I think I've earned the right to some extra calories, we've been working out extra hard lately" Daniel said waving his eyebrows suggestively, making Charlotte giggle, Charles rolls his eyes and you go even redder than you were from the actual workout, while he just laughed out loud.

"I don't even want to know" Charles said. "Always great running into you mate" he was getting ready to say goodbye.

"Are we seeing you guys tomorrow?" Charlotte asked you.

"Tomorrow?" you asked her.

"Stefano's birthday" she said like it was obvious. Stefano Domenicali was the President and CEO of Formula 1, but you didn't know that yet - still, her tone made it seems like it was someone Daniel knew, so you just looked at him. He just rubbed his neck, looking a little embarrassed. "Oh, wait. Please tell me I didn't just said something I shouldn't" she looked at Charles.

"No, no. He invited me. Us, actually" Daniel reassured her. "I don't think we're going though, forgot to mention to you" he said looking at you.

"Uh mate, I wouldn't skip that if I were you. He didn't even invite all the drivers I heard" Charles said. "Maybe just stop by to say hello?"

"Stop by... a yacht... at the sea?" Charlotte said grinning at him. Daniel looked at you.

"You feel like going? It should be fun" he asked you.

"Sounds fancy... I mean, I don't mind if you go" you said.

"Common... I’m not going alone" he nudged you.

"I don't even have anything to wear, Dan" you told him.

"Oh! We can go shopping together!" Charlotte said and you had almost forgotten they were still there.

"Perfect!" Daniel answered for you. You could only imagine the types of stores she shopped.

"Tomorrow morning, then? Daniel can text your address to Charles for me? I'll pick you up!" she was being really nice about it.

"I thought you wanted to go today?" Charles said.

"That's when I thought I would have to go shopping with you, so I could use the extra time since you're the worst shopping partner ever!" she laughed at him.

"Burn!" Daniel laughed.

"His fashion taste is not the most reliable, let's face it" she laughed and kissed his cheek. "It's a date then (y/n)?" she looked expectantly at you. You didn't want to let her down, it was so hard to make friends with the girlfriends of other drivers, they were usually so... not nice. You could always just help her and find something to wear in your own stuff later.

"Yeah, sure! See you tomorrow, at 10?" you said simply.

"Perfect!" she beamed.

>>> end of part 1 <<<

#daniel ricciardo #daniel ricciardo fanfic #Daniel ricciardo fluff #daniel ricciardo x reader #daniel ricciardo imagine #daniel ricciardo fic #f1 fic #f1 fanfic

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blackswaneuroparedux · 3 years

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Anonymous asked: I have always appreciated your thoughtful views on the defence of the British monarchy, and as a university historian it’s reassuring to see someone using history to make invalubale insights to a controversial institution. I wonder what are your own thoughts on the passing of Prince Philip and what his legacy might be? Was he a gaffe prone racist and a liability to the Queen?

I know you kindly got in touch and identified yourself when you felt I was ignoring your question. I’m glad we cleared that up via DM. The truth is as I said and I’m saying here is that I had to let some time pass before I felt I could reasonably answer this question. Simply because - as you know as someone who teaches history at university - distance is good to make a sober appraisal rather than knee jerk in the moment judgements.

Contrary to what some might think I’m not really a fan girl when it comes to the royal family. I don’t religiously follow their every movement or utterance especially as I live in Paris and therefore I don’t really care about tabloid tittle tattle. I only get to hear of anything to do with the royal family when I speak to my parents or my great aunts and uncles for whom the subject is closer to their heart because of the services my family has rendered over past generations to the monarchy and the older (and dying) tight knit social circles they travel in.

Like Walter Bagehot, I’m more interested in the monarchy as an institution and its constitutional place within the historical, social, and political fabric of Britain and its continued delicate stabilising importance to that effect. It was Walter Bagehot, the great constitutional scholar and editor the Economist magazine, who said, “The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.” In his view, a politically-inactive monarchy served the best interests of the United Kingdom; by abstaining from direct rule, the monarch levitated above the political fray with dignity, and remained a respected personage to whom all subjects could look to as a guiding light.

Even as a staunch monarchist I freely confess that there has always been this odd nature of the relationship between hereditary monarchy and a society increasingly ambivalent about the institution. To paraphrase Bagehot again, there has been too much ‘daylight’ shone onto the ‘magic’ of the monarchy because we are obsessed with personalities as celebrities.

Having said that I did feel saddened by the passing of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. After the Queen, he was my favourite royal. Anne, Princess Royal, would come next because she is very much like her father in temperament, humour, and character, so unlike her other brothers.

I have met the late Prince Philip when I was serving in the army in a few regimental meet-and-greet situations - which as you may know is pretty normal given that members of the royal family serve as honorary colonel-in-chiefs (patrons in effect) of all the British army regiments and corps.I also saw him at one or two social events such the annual charitable Royal Caledonian Ball (he’s an expert scottish reeler) and the Guards Polo Club where my older brothers played.

I’ll will freely confess that he was the one royal I could come close to identify with because his personal biography resonated with me a great deal.

Let’s be honest, the core Windsor family members, born to privilege, are conditioned and raised to be dull. Perhaps that’s a a tad harsh. I would prefer the term ‘anonymously self-effacing’, just another way of saying ‘for God’s sake don’t draw attention to yourself by saying or doing anything even mildly scandalous or political lest it invites public opprobrium and scrutiny’. The Queen magnificently succeeds in this but the others from Charles down just haven’t (with the exception of Princess Anne).

However, many people forget this obvious fact that it’s the incoming husbands and wives who marry into the Windsor family who are relied upon to bring colour and even liven things up a little. And long before Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle (very briefly), or Lady Diana Spencer, were the stars of ‘The Firm’- a phrase first coined by King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II's father who ruled from 1936 to 1952, who was thought to have wryly said, "British royals are 'not a family, we're a firm,” - it was Prince Philip who really livened things up and made the greater impact on the monarchy than any of them in the long term.

Prince Philip’s passing belied the truth of a far more complex individual: a destitute and penniless refugee Greek-Danish prince with a heart breaking backstory that could have been penned by any 19th Century novelist, and also eagle eyed reformer who tried to drag the royal family into the 20th century. At the core of the man - lost scion of a lost European royal dynasty, a courageous war veteran, and Queen’s consort - were values in which he attempted to transform and yet maintain much older inherited traditions and attitudes. Due to his great longevity, Philip’s life came to span a period of social change that is almost unprecedented, and almost no one in history viewed such a transformation from the front row.

Prince Philip would seem to represent in an acute form the best of the values of that era, which in many ways jar with today’s. He had fought with great courage in the war as a dashing young naval officer; he was regularly rude to foreigners, which was obviously a bonus to all Brits. He liked to ride and sail and shoot things. He was unsentimental almost to a comic degree, which felt reassuring at a time when a new-found emotional incontinence made many feel uncomfortable. Outrageous to some but endearing to others, he was the sort of man you’d want to go for a pint with, perhaps the ultimate compliment that an Englishman can pay to another Englishman. This has its own delicious irony as he wasn’t really an Englishman.

There are 4 takeways I would suggest in my appraisal of Prince Philip that stand out for me. So let me go through each one.

1. Prince Philip’s Internationalism

It may seem odd for me to say that Prince Philip wasn’t English but he wasn’t an Englishman in any real sense. He was a wretch of the world - stateless, homeless, and penniless. That the Prince of Nowhere became the British Monarchy’s figurehead was more than fitting for a great age of migration and transition in which the Royal Family survived and even flourished. That he was able to transform himself into the quintessential Englishman is testimony not just to his personal determination but also to the powerful cultural pull of Britishness.

He was born on a kitchen table in Corfu in June 1921. A year later in 1922, Philip, as the the great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria and nephew of Constantine I of Greece, was forced to flee with his family after the abdication of Constantine. He grew up outside Paris speaking French; ethnically he was mostly German although he considered himself Danish, his family originating from the Schleswig border region. He was in effect, despite his demeanour of Royal Navy officer briskness, a citizen of nowhere in an age of movement. From a very young age he was a stateless person, nationally homeless. Indeed, Philip was an outsider in a way that even Meghan Markle could never be; at his wedding in 1947, his three surviving sisters and two brothers-in-law were not permitted to attend because they were literally Britain’s enemies, having fought for the Germans. A third brother-in-law had even been in the SS, working directly for Himmler, but had been killed in the conflict.

Even his religion was slightly exotic. He was Greek Orthodox until he converted to Anglicanism on marrying Elizabeth - what with his wife due to become supreme head of the Church and everything - but his ties with eastern Christianity remained. His great-aunts Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine and Tsarina Alexandra are both martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church, having been murdered by the Bolsheviks; Philip’s mother went on to become an Orthodox nun and a “Righteous Among the Nations” for saving a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Greece, spending much of her time in squalid poverty.

His parents were part of the largely German extended aristocracy who ruled almost all of Europe before it all came crashing down in 1918. When he died, aged 99, it marked a near-century in which all the great ideological struggles had been and gone; he had been born before the Soviet Union but outlived the Cold War, the War on Terror and - almost - Covid-19.

The world that Philip was born into was a far more violent and dangerous place than ours. In the year he was born, Irish rebels were still fighting Black and Tans; over the course of 12 months the Spanish and Japanese prime ministers were assassinated, there was a coup in Portugal and race riots in the United States. Germany was rocked by violence from the far-Left and far-Right, while in Italy a brutal new political movement, the Fascists, secured 30 seats in parliament, led by a trashy journalist called Benito Mussolini.

The worst violence, however, took place in Greece and Turkey. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, what remained of Turkey was marked for permanent enfeeblement by the Allies. But much to everyone’s surprise the country’s force were roused by the brilliant officer Mustafa Kemal, who led the Turks to victory. Constantinople was lost to Christendom for good and thousands of years of Hellenic culture was put to the flames in Smyrna.

The Greek royal family, north German imports shipped in during the 19th century, bore much of the popular anger for this disaster. King Constantine fled to Italy, and his brother Andrew was arrested and only escaped execution through the intervention of his relative Britain’s George V. Andrew’s wife Alice, their four daughters and infant son Philip fled to France, completely impoverished but with the one possession that ensures that aristocrats are never truly poor: connections.

Philip had a traumatic childhood. He was forged by the turmoil of his first decade and then moulded by his schooling. His early years were spent wandering, as his place of birth ejected him, his family disintegrated and he moved from country to country, none of them ever his own. When he was just a year old, he and his family were scooped up by a British destroyer from his home on the Greek island of Corfu after his father had been condemned to death. They were deposited in Italy. One of Philip's first international journeys was spent crawling around on the floor of the train from an Italian port city, "the grubby child on the desolate train pulling out of the Brindisi night," as his older sister Sophia later described it.

In Paris, he lived in a house borrowed from a relative; but it was not destined to become a home. In just one year, while he was at boarding school in Britain, the mental health of his mother, Princess Alice, deteriorated and she went into an asylum; his father, Prince Andrew, went off to Monte Carlo to live with his mistress. "I don't think anybody thinks I had a father," he once said. Andrew would die during the war. Philip went to Monte Carlo to pick up his father's possessions after the Germans had been driven from France; there was almost nothing left, just a couple of clothes brushes and some cuff-links.

Philip’s four sisters were all much older, and were soon all married to German aristocrats (the youngest would soon die in an aeroplane crash, along with her husband and children). His sisters became ever more embroiled in the German regime. In Scotland going to Gordonstoun boarding school, Philip went the opposite direction, becoming ever more British. Following the death of his sister Cecilie in a plane crash in 1937, the gulf widened. As the clouds of conflict gathered, the family simply disintegrated. With a flash of the flinty stoicism that many would later interpret, with no little justification, as self-reliance to the point of dispassion, the prince explained: “It’s simply what happened. The family broke up… I just had to get on with it. You do. One does.”

In the space of 10 years he had gone from a prince of Greece to a wandering, homeless, and virtually penniless boy with no-one to care for him. He got through it by making a joke of everything, and by being practical.

By the time he went to Gordonstoun, a private boarding school on the north coast of Scotland, Philip was tough, independent and able to fend for himself; he'd had to be. Gordonstoun would channel those traits into the school's distinct philosophy of community service, teamwork, responsibility and respect for the individual. And it sparked one of the great passions of Philip's life - his love of the sea. It was Gordonstoun that nurtured that love through the maturation of his character.

Philip adored the school as much as his son Charles would despise it. Not just because the stress it put on physical as well as mental excellence - he was a great sportsman. But because of its ethos, laid down by its founder Kurt Hahn, a Jewish exile from Nazi Germany.

Hahn first met Philip as a boy in Nazi Germany. Through a connection via one of his sister’s husbands, Philip, the poor, lonely boy was first sent off to a new school - in Nazi Germany. Which was as fun as can be imagined. Schloss Salem had been co-founded by stern educator called Kurt Hahn, a tough, discipline-obsessed conservative nationalist who saw civilisation in inexorable decline. But by this stage Hahn, persecuted for being Jewish in Nazi Germany, had fled to Britain, and Philip did not spend long at the school either, where pressure from the authorities was already making things difficult for the teachers. Philip laughed at the Nazis at first, because their salute was the same gesture the boys at his previous school had to make when they wanted to go to the toilet, but within a year he was back in England, a refugee once again.

Philip happily attended Hahn’s new school, Gordonstoun, which the strict disciplinarian had set up in the Scottish Highlands. Inspired by Ancient Sparta, the boys (and then later girls) had to run around barefoot and endure cold showers, even in winter, the whole aim of which was to drive away the inevitable civilisational decay Hahn saw all around him. To 21st century ears it sounds like hell on earth, yet Philip enjoyed it, illustrating just what a totally alien world he came from.

That ethos became a significant, perhaps the significant, part of the way that Philip believed life should be lived. It shines through the speeches he gave later in his life. "The essence of freedom," he would say in Ghana in 1958, "is discipline and self-control." The comforts of the post-war era, he told the British Schools Exploring Society a year earlier, may be important "but it is much more important that the human spirit should not be stifled by easy living". And two years before that, he spoke to the boys of Ipswich School of the moral as well as material imperatives of life, with the "importance of the individual" as the "guiding principle of our society".

It was at Gordonstoun one of the great contradictions of Philip's fascinating life was born. The importance of the individual was what in Kurt Hahn's eyes differentiated Britain and liberal democracies from the kind of totalitarian dictatorship that he had fled. Philip put that centrality of the individual, and individual agency - the ability we have as humans to make our own moral and ethical decisions - at the heart of his philosophy.

At Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, the two great passions of his life would collide. He had learned to sail at Gordonstoun; he would learn to lead at Dartmouth. And his driving desire to achieve, and to win, would shine through. Despite entering the college far later than most other cadets, he would graduate top of his class in 1940. In further training at Portsmouth, he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the exam. He became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.

The navy ran deep in his family. His maternal grandfather had been the First Sea Lord, the commander of the Royal Navy; his uncle, "Dickie" Mountbatten, had command of a destroyer while Philip was in training. In war, he showed not only bravery but guile. It was his natural milieu. "Prince Philip", wrote Gordonstoun headmaster Kurt Hahn admiringly, "will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a trial of strength".

2. Prince Philip and the modernisation of the monarchy

In his own words, the process of defining what it meant to be a royal consort was one of “trial and error.” Speaking with BBC One’s Fiona Bruce in 2011, Philip explained, “There was no precedent. If I asked somebody, 'What do you expect me to do?' they all looked blank. They had no bloody idea, nobody had much idea.” So he forged for himself a role as a moderniser of the monarchy.

He could not have had much idea back in 1939. Back then in Dartmouth in 1939, as war became ever more certain, the navy was his destiny. He had fallen in love with the sea itself. "It is an extraordinary master or mistress," he would say later, "it has such extraordinary moods." But a rival to the sea would come.

When King George VI toured Dartmouth Naval College, accompanied by Philip's uncle, he brought with him his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Philip was asked to look after her. He showed off to her, vaulting the nets of the tennis court in the grounds of the college. He was confident, outgoing, strikingly handsome, of royal blood if without a throne. She was beautiful, a little sheltered, a little serious, and very smitten by Philip.

Did he know then that this was a collision of two great passions? That he could not have the sea and the beautiful young woman? For a time after their wedding in 1948, he did have both. As young newlyweds in Malta, he had what he so prized - command of a ship - and they had two idyllic years together. But the illness and then early death of King George VI brought it all to an end.

He knew what it meant, the moment he was told. Up in a lodge in Kenya, touring Africa, with Princess Elizabeth in place of the King, Philip was told first of the monarch's death in February 1952. He looked, said his equerry Mike Parker, "as if a ton of bricks had fallen on him". For some time he sat, slumped in a chair, a newspaper covering his head and chest. His princess had become the Queen. His world had changed irrevocably.

While the late Princess Diana was later to famously claim that there were “three people” in her marriage - herself, Prince Charles and Camilla - there were at least 55 million in Philip and Elizabeth’s. As Elizabeth dedicated her life to her people at Westminster Abbey at the Coronation on June 2, 1953, it sparked something of an existential crisis in Philip. Many people even after his death have never really understood this pivotal moment in Philip’s life. All his dreams of being a naval officer and a life at sea as well as being the primary provider and partner in his marriage were now sacrificed on the altar of duty and love.

With his career was now over, and he was now destined to become the spare part. Philip, very reasonably, asked that his future children and indeed his family be known by his name, Mountbatten. In effect he was asking to change the royal family’s name from the House of Windsor to the House of Mountbatten. But when Prime Minister Winston Churchill got wind of it as well as the more politically agile courtiers behind the Queen, a prolonged battle of wits ensued, and it was one Philip ultimately lost. It was only in 1957 that he accepted the title of “Prince.”

Even though he had almost lost everything dear to him and his role now undefined, he didn’t throw himself a pity party. He just got on with it. Philip tried to forge his own distinct role as second fiddle to the woman who had come to represent Great Britain. He designated himself the First Officer of the Good Ship Windsor. He set about dusting off some of the cobwebs off the throne and letting some daylight unto the workings of the monarchy by advocating reasonable amount of modernisation of the monarchy.

He had ideas about modernising the royal family that might be called “improving optics” today. But in his heart of hearts he didn’t want the monarchy to become a stuffy museum piece. He envisaged a less stuffy and more popular monarchy, relevant to the lives of ordinary people. Progress was always going to be incremental as he had sturdy opposition from the old guard who wanted to keep everything as it was, but nevertheless his stubborn energy resulted in significant changes.

When a commission chaired by Prince Philip proposed broadcasting the 1953 investiture ceremony that formally named Elizabeth II as queen on live television, Prime Minister Winston Churchill reacted with outright horror, declaring, “It would be unfitting that the whole ceremony should be presented as if it were a theatrical performance.” Though the queen had initially voiced similar concerns, she eventually came around to the idea, allowing the broadcast of all but one segment of the coronation. Ultimately, according to the BBC, more than 20 million people tuned in to the televised ceremony - a credit to the foresight of Philip.

Elizabeth’s coronation marked a watershed moment for a monarchy that has, historically, been very hands off, old-fashioned and slightly invisible. Over the following years, the royals continued to embrace television as a way of connecting with the British people: In 1957, the queen delivered her annual Christmas address during a live broadcast. Again, this was Philip’s doing when he cajoled the Queen to televise her message live. He even helped her in how to use the teleprompter to get over her nerves and be herself on screen.

Four years later, in 1961, Philip became the first family member to sit for a television interview. It is hard for us to imagine now but back then it was huge. For many it was a significant step in modernising the monarchy.

Though not everything went to plan. Toward the end of the decade, the Windsors even invited cameras into their home. A 1969 BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary, instigated by Philip to show life behind the scenes, turned into an unmitigated disaster: “The Windsors” revealed the royals to be a fairly normal, if very rich, British upper-class family who liked barbecues, ice cream, watching television and bickering. The mystery of royalty took a hit below the waterline from their own torpedo, a self-inflicted wound from which they took a long time to recover. Shown once, the documentary was never aired again. But it had an irreversible effect, and not just by revealing the royals to be ordinary. By allowing the cameras in, Philip opened the lid to the prying eyes of the paparazzi who could legitimately argue that since the Royals themselves had sanctioned exposure, anything went. From then on, minor members of the House of Windsor were picked off by the press, like helpless tethered animals on a hunting safari.

Prince Philip also took steps to reorganise and renovate the royal estates in Sandringham and Balmoral such as intercoms, modern dish washers, generally sought to make the royal household and the monarchy less stuffy, not to have so much formality everywhere.

Philip helped modernised the monarchy in other ways to acknowledge that the monarchy could be responsive to changes in society. It was Prince Philip - much to the chagrin of the haughty Princess Margaret and other stuffy old courtiers - who persuaded the Queen to host informal lunches and garden parties designed to engage a broader swath of the British public. Conversely, Prince Philip heartily encouraged the Queen (she was all for it apparently but was still finding her feet as a new monarch) to end the traditional practice of presenting debutantes from aristocratic backgrounds at court in 1952. For Philip and others it felt antiquated and out of touch with society. I know in speaking to my grandmother and others in her generation the decision was received with disbelief at how this foreign penniless upstart could come and stomp on the dreams of mothers left to clutch their pearls at the prospect there would be no shop window for their daughter to attract a suitable gentleman for marriage. One of my great aunts was over the moon happy that she never would have to go through what she saw as a very silly ceremony because she preferred her muddy wellies to high heels.

A former senior member of the royal household, who spent several years working as one of Prince Philip’s aides, and an old family friend, once told us around a family dinner table that the Duke of Edinburgh was undoubtedly given a sense of permanence by his marriage into the Royal Family that was missing from earlier years. But the royal aide would hastily add that Prince Philip, of course, would never see it that way.

Prince Philip’s attitude was to never brood on things or seek excuses. And he did indeed get on with the job in his own way - there should be no doubt that when it came to building and strengthening the Royal Family it was a partnership of equals with the Queen. Indeed contrary to Netflix’s hugely popular series ‘The Crown’ and its depiction of the royal marriage with Philip’s resentment at playing second fiddle, the prince recognised that his “first duty was to serve the Queen in the best way I could,” as he told ITV in 2011. Though this role was somewhat ill-suited to his dynamic, driven, and outspoken temperament, Philip performed it with utter devotion.

3. Prince Philip’s legacy

One could argue rightly that modernising the monarchy was his lasting legacy achievement. But he also tried to modernise a spent and exhausted Britain as it emerged from a ruinous war. When peace came, and with it eventual economic recovery, Philip would throw himself into the construction of a better Britain, urging the country to adopt scientific methods, embracing the ideas of industrial design, planning, education and training. A decade before Harold Wilson talked of the "white heat of the technological revolution", Philip was urging modernity on the nation in speeches and interviews. He was on top of his reading of the latest scientific breakthroughs and well read in break out innovations.

This interest in modernisation was only matched by his love for nature. As the country and the world became richer and consumed ever more, Philip warned of the impact on the environment, well before it was even vaguely fashionable. As president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the UK for more than 20 years from 1961, he was one of the first high-profile advocates of the cause of conservation and biological diversity at a time when it was considered the preserve of an eccentric few.

For a generation of school children in Britain and the Commonwealth though, his most lasting legacy and achievement will be the Duke of Edinburgh Awards (DofE). He set up the Duke of Edinburgh award, a scheme aimed at getting young people out into nature in search of adventure or be of service to their communities. It was a scheme that could match the legacy of Baden Powell’s scouts movement.

When Prince Philip first outlined his idea of a scheme to harness the values of his education at Gordonstoun by bringing character-building outdoor pursuits to the many rather than the fee-paying few, he received short shrift from the government of the day. The then minister of education, Sir David Eccles responded to the Duke’s proposal by saying: “I hear you’re trying to invent something like the Hitler Youth.” Undeterred he pushed on until it came to fruition.

I’m so glad that he did. I remember how proud I was for getting my DofE Awards while I was at boarding school. With the support of great mentors I managed to achieve my goals: collecting second-hand English books for a literacy programme for orphaned street children in Delhi, India with a close Indian school friend and her family; and completing a 350 mile hike following St. Olav’s Pilgrimmage Trail from Selånger, on the east coast of Sweden, and ending at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, on the west coast of Norway.

It continues to be an enduring legacy. Since its launch in 1956, the Duke of Edinburgh awards have been bestowed upon some 2.5 million youngsters in Britain and some eight million worldwide. For a man who once referred to himself as a “Greek princeling of no consequence”, his pioneering tutelage of these two organisations (alongside some 778 other organisations of which he was either president or a patron) would be sufficient legacy for most.

4. Prince Philip’s character

It may surprise some but what I liked most about Prince Philip was the very thing that helped him achieve so much and leave a lasting legacy: his character.

It is unhelpful to the caricature of Prince Philip as an unwavering but pugnacious consort whose chief talent was a dizzying facility in off-colour one-liners that he was widely read and probably the cleverest member of his family.

His private library at Windsor consists of 11,000 tomes, among them 200 volumes of poetry. He was a fan of Jung, TS Eliot, Shakespeare and the cookery writer Elizabeth David. As well as a lifelong fascination with science, technology and sport, he spoke fairly fluent French, painted and wrote a well received book on birds. It’s maddening to think how many underestimated his genuine intellect and how cultured he was behind the crusty exterior.

He didn’t have an entourage to fawn around him. He was the first to own a computer at Buckingham Palace. He answered his own phone and wrote and responded to his own correspondence. By force of character he fought the old guard courtiers at every turn to modernise the monarchy against their stubborn resistance.

Prince Philip was never given to self-analysis or reflection on the past. Various television interviewers tried without success to coerce him in to commenting on his legacy.But once when his guard was down he asked on the occasion of his 90th birthday what he was more proud of, he replied with characteristic bluntness: “I couldn’t care less. Who cares what I think about it, I mean it’s ridiculous.”

All of which neatly raises the profound aversion to fuss and the proclivity for tetchiness often expressed in withering put-downs that, for better or worse, will be the reflex memory for many of the Duke of Edinburgh. If character is a two edged sword so what of his gaffes?

There is no doubt his cult status partly owed to his so-called legendary gaffes, of which there are enough to fill a book (indeed there is a book). But he was no racist. None of the Commonwealth people or foreign heads of state ever said this about him. Only leftist republicans with too much Twitter time on their hands screamed such a ridiculous accusation. They’re just overly sensitive snowflakes and being devoid of any humour they’re easily triggered.

There was the time that Philip accepted a gift from a local in Kenya, telling her she was a kind woman, and then adding: “You are a woman, aren’t you?” Or the occasion he remarked “You managed not to get eaten, then?” to a student trekking in Papua New Guinea. Then there was his World Wildlife Fund speech in 1986, when he said: “If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.” Well, he wasn’t wrong.

Philip quickly developed a reputation for what he once defined, to the General Dental Council, as “dentopedology – the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it”. Clearly he could laugh at himself as he often did as an ice breaker to put others at ease.

His remarking to the president of Nigeria, who was wearing national dress, “You look like you’re ready for bed”, or advising British students in China not to stay too long or they would end up with “slitty eyes”, is probably best written off as ill-judged humour. Telling a photographer to “just take the fucking picture” or declaring “this thing open, whatever it is”, were expressions of exasperation or weariness with which anyone might sympathise.

Above all, he was also capable of genuine if earthy wit, saying of his horse-loving daughter Princess Anne: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay she isn’t interested.” Many people might have thought it but few dared say it. If Prince Philip’s famous gaffes provoked as much amusement as anger, it was precisely because they seem to give voice to the bewilderment and pent-up frustrations with which many people viewed the ever-changing modern world.

A former royal protection officer recounts how while on night duty guarding a visiting Queen and consort, he engaged in conversation with colleagues on a passing patrol. It was 2am and the officer had understood the royal couple to be staying elsewhere in the building until a window above his head was abruptly slammed open and an irate Prince Philip stuck his head out of the window to shout: “Would you fuck off!” Without another word, he then shut the window.

The Duke at least recognised from an early age that he was possessed of an abruptness that could all too easily cross the line from the refreshingly salty to crass effrontery.

One of his most perceptive biographers, Philip Eade, recounted how at the age of 21 the prince wrote a letter to a relation whose son had recently been killed in combat. He wrote: “I know you will never think much of me. I am rude and unmannerly and I say things out of turn which I realise afterwards must have hurt someone. Then I am filled with remorse and I try to put matters right.”

In the case of the royal protection officer, the Duke turned up in the room used by the police officers when off duty and said: “Terribly sorry about last night, wasn’t quite feeling myself.”

Aides have also ventured to explain away some of their employer’s more outlandish remarks - from asking Cayman islanders “You are descended from pirates aren’t you?” to enquiring of a female fashion writer if she was wearing mink knickers - as the price of his instinctive desire to prick the pomposity of his presence with a quip to put others at ease.

Indeed many people forget that his ‘gaffes’ were more typical of the clubbish humour of the British officer class – which of course would be less appreciated, sometimes even offensive, to other ears. It’s why he could relate so well to veterans who enjoyed his bonhomie company immensely.

But behind the irascibility, some have argued there also lay a darker nature, unpleasantly distilled in his flinty attitude to his eldest son. One anecdote tells of how, in the aftermath of the murder of the Duke’s uncle and surrogate father, Lord Mountbatten, Philip lectured his son, who was also extremely fond of his “honorary grandfather”, that he was not to succumb to self-pity. Charles left the room in tears and when his father was asked why he had spoken to his son with so little compassion, the Duke replied: “Because if there’s any crying to be done I want it to happen within this house, in front of his family, not in public. He must be toughened up, right now.”

But here I would say that Prince Philip’s intentions were almost always sincere and in no way cruel. He has always tried to protect his family - even from their own worst selves or from those outside the family ‘firm’ who may not have their best interest at heart.

In 1937, a 16-year-old Prince Philip had walked behind his elder sister Cecile’s coffin after she was killed in a plane crash while heavily pregnant. The remains of newly-born infant found in the wreckage suggested the aircraft had perished as the pilot sought to make an emergency landing in fog as the mother entered childbirth. It was an excruciating taste of tragedy which would one day manifest itself in a very princely form of kindness that was deep down that defined Philip’s character.

When about 60 years later Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spin doctors in Downing Street tried to strong arm the Queen and the royal household over the the arrangements for the late Prince Diana’s funeral, it was Philip who stepped in front to protect his family. The Prime Minister and his media savvy spin doctors wanted the two young princes, William and Harry, to walk behind the coffin.

The infamous exchange was on the phone during a conference call between London and Balmoral, and the emotional Philip was reportedly backed by the Queen. The call was witnessed by Anji Hunter, who worked for Mr Blair. She said how surprised she was to hear Prince Philip’s emotion. ‘It’s about the boys,” he cried, “They’ve lost their mother”. Hunter thought to herself, “My God, there’s a bit of suffering going on up there”.’

Sky TV political commentator Adam Boulton (Anji Hunter’s husband) would write in his book Tony’s Ten Years: ‘The Queen relished the moment when Philip bellowed over the speakerphone from Balmoral, “Fuck off. We are talking about two boys who have just lost their mother”. Boulton goes on to say that Philip: ‘…was trying to remind everyone that human feelings were involved. No 10 were trying to help the Royals present things in the best way, but may have seemed insensitive.’

In the end the politicians almost didn’t get their way. Prince Philip stepped in to counsel his grandson, Prince William, after he had expressed a reluctance to follow his mother’s coffin after her death in Paris. Philip told the grieving child: “If you don’t walk, I think you’ll regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?”

It’s no wonder he was sought as a counsellor by other senior royals and especially close to his grandchildren, for whom he was a firm favourite. His relationship with Harry was said to have become strained, however, following the younger Prince’s decision to reject his royal inheritance for a life away from the public eye in America with his new American wife, Meghan Markle. For Prince Philip I am quite sure it went against all the elder Prince had lived his life by - self-sacrifice for the greater cause of royalty.

This is the key to Philip’s character and in understanding the man. The ingrained habits of a lifetime of duty and service in one form or another were never far away.

In conclusion then....

After more time passes I am sure historians will make a richer reassessment of Prince Philip’s life and legacy. Because Prince Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life; a life intimately connected with the sweeping changes of our turbulent 20th Century, a life of fascinating contrast and contradiction, of service and some degree of solitude. A complex, clever, eternally restless man that not even the suffocating protocols of royalty and tradition could bind him.

Although he fully accepted the limitations of public royal service, he did not see this as any reason for passive self-abnegation, but actively, if ironically, identified with his potentially undignified role. It is this bold and humorous embrace of fated restriction which many now find irksome: one is no longer supposed to mix public performance with private self-expression in quite this manner.

Yet such a mix is authentically Socratic: the proof that the doing of one’s duty can also be the way of self-fulfilment. The Duke’s sacrifice of career to romance and ceremonial office is all the more impressive for his not hiding some annoyance. The combination of his restless temperament and his deeply felt devotion to duty found fruitful expression; for instance, in the work of Saint George’s House Windsor - a centre and retreat that he created with Revd. Robin Woods - in exploring religious faith, philosophy, and contemporary issues.

Above all he developed a way to be male that was both traditional and modern. He served one woman with chivalric devotion as his main task in life while fulfilling his public engagements in a bold and active spirit. He eventually embraced the opportunity to read and contemplate more. And yet, he remained loyal to the imperatives of his mentor Kurt Hahn in seeking to combine imagination with action and religious devotion with practical involvement.

Prince Philip took more pride in the roles he had accidentally inherited than in the personal gifts which he was never able fully to develop. He put companionship before self-realisation and acceptance of a sacred symbolic destiny before the mere influencing of events. In all these respects he implicitly rebuked our prevailing meritocracy which over-values officially accredited attainment, and our prevailing narcissism which valorises the assertion of discrete identities.

Prince Philip was Britain’s longest-serving consort. He was steadfast, duty driven, and a necessary adjunct to the continuity and stability of the Queen and the monarchy. Of all the institutions that have lost the faith of the British public in this period - the Church, Parliament, the media, the police - the Monarchy itself has surprisingly done better than most at surviving, curiously well-adapted to a period of societal change and moral anarchy. The House of Hanover and later Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (changed to Windsor), since their arrival in this country in 1714, have been noted above all for their ability to adapt. And just as they survived the Victorian age by transforming themselves into the bourgeoise, domestic ideal, so they have survived the new Elizabethan era (Harry-Meghan saga is just a passing blip like the Edward-Wallis Simpson saga of the 1930s).

There was once a time when the Royal’s German blood was a punchline for crude and xenophobic satirists. Now it is the royals who are deeply British while the country itself is increasingly cosmopolitan and globalised. British society has seen a greater demographic change than the preceding four or five thousand years combined, the second Elizabethan age has been characterised more than anything by a transformational movement of people. Prince Philip, the Greek-born, Danish-German persecuted and destitute wanderer who came to become one of the Greatest Britons of the past century, perhaps epitomised that era better than anyone else. And he got through it by making a joke of everything, and by being practical.

I hope I don’t exaggerate when I say that in our troubled times over identity, and our place and purpose in the world, we need to heed his selfless example more than ever.

As Heraclitus wisely said, Ήθος ανθρώπω δαίμων (Character is destiny.)

RIP Prince Philip. You were my prince. God damn you, I miss you already.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #prince philip #duke of edinburgh #queen elizabeth II #the queen of spades #monarchy #britain #british #royalty #politics #history #culture #europe #crown #icon #great briton #society

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h50europe · 3 years

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Why the myth about Steve's PTSD doesn't add up and other inconsistencies

In the last few episodes of H50, PL tried to sell us a mentally broken Steve suffering from PTSD. Only the whole thing came a bit too late. The clip you see is from season 4 and ended up - no, not in the series - but somewhere on the floor of PL's editing room. And why? after Kurtzman and Orci departed, along with their writers, PL took the helm and started turning Steve into a super-soldier. He stylized him into something that wasn't meant to be. Instead of developing the characters, PL began to incorporate more and more hair-raising action sequences into the series and then let Steve fight on the front lines. There was no mention of Steve's mental state, and a lot was explained by PL with: it just happened "offscreen." Yeah, sure. PL can't create a decent character. He can only produce stereotypes and one-dimensional beings. Like Adam. What potential would that character have had had he been turned into Five-0's antagonist? But no. So his role remained diffuse and monotonous. Sometimes even tragicomical.

Back to Steve. When SEAL Team started on CBS, PL also lapsed into SEAL mania. If someone who writes fanfiction were to produce as much garbage as this man did, he would be chased away from every writers' platform in disgrace. PL's Super SEAL also had to rescue his team members from a blazing inferno. Not man by man, no, he flew a helicopter right into the danger zone and lifted a whole cabin out of the burning jungle. If lunacy had a name, it would be PL. While the action became more and more exaggerated and unrealistic, the same happened to the protagonists. After the departure of Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park, PL completely lost his mind. And please, don't blame the writers for the nonsense that was thrown at you. A series stands and falls with the showrunner. He dictates what he wants and passes it on to his staff.

And so, lovable Steve became a soulless robot who only showed feelings here and there. Danny diminished more and more into a sidekick. McDanno became a ship that drifted anchorless through a stormy sea and threatened to capsize again and again. From season 8, it became a reboot of the reboot. PL tried an ensemble show and failed more than miserably. Often the actors just stood around bored. At least that was the impression. The only highlight was episode 8.10. A feast for all McDanno fans. But even here, the outcome of "who shot Danny" was more than insubstantial.

Wait, there was something about SEALs... Oh, yes. Junior appeared on the scene and became Steve's lapdog. I really wondered when there was going to be an episode where he would fetch sticks for Steve. Luckily we had Eddie for that. And because he thought he was so clever, PL invented the episode speed dating. How many subplots can you squeeze into one episode at the same time? In some episodes, you couldn't even take a look at the bag of potato chips without losing the thread.

The case of the week became the yawn of the week. There were so many loose ends that PL then came up with something called retconning. That's what you do when you're no longer satisfied with what was once established in the series years ago, or it no longer fits. But PL went one step further and did the same with the characters. The more the series was dragged out, the more the characters deteriorated and became OOC. It means, often, they were not recognizable at all. And that's where we come to Steve. Because PL, in his desperation, didn't know what else he could do to Steve, and so he killed Joe White. He did it in such a cheesy way with a fake sunset that it made you sick.

Of course, one episode later, there had to be another gig of PL's favorite Barbie. He stuck a fake beard on poor Steve/Alex, so he couldn't even hug Danny/Scott properly. The episode also raised more questions than it answered any. And Steve? He still didn't suffer from PTSD, even though he had now lost Joe White and a fellow SEAL. Everyone is dropping like flies, except for Steve, who is standing like a rock. No matter what. He doesn't need in-depth talks with Danny, nor psychological care, nor any sleeping pills. No, he's doing great. He also opens a restaurant with Danny because apparently, the carguments are already getting on PL's nerves. Unfortunately, this plot device leads into nirvana. The idea was nice, but nobody thought it through to the end. And the merry-go-round continues. Until we get to season 10, where it gets even more absurd. Now PL is almost bombarding us with McDanno episodes, or at least it should seem that way. Oh well, he's already planning for season 11, so a new character has to come on board quickly. While in the beginning, Steve's mother, Doris, dies.

Alex was allowed to take on the subject. Of course, only under the strict eyes of PL. He then nullifies Alex's idea that Steve kills his mother. Because a good soldier and Super SEAL won't do that. Little does PL know. THAT could have been the opening of a PTSD scenario for Steve. However, apart from that, this episode would have had any potential for a multi-arc. Just imagine Steve chasing his mother across multiple episodes. Again, PL stepped in and butchered Alex's episode. You can really feel sorry for the guy. PL at his best or worse? He just can't help it. And then, on the very last meters of the series, he brings someone new, who is allowed to cruise around with Steve most of the time. Because Danny was kidnapped by Wo Fat's widow, PL also invented quite late to have some villain at his disposal. This wannabe mastermind must really have been living under a rock somewhere if she wasn't even mentioned by her husband or appeared earlier.

Because towards the end, PL obviously ran out not only of steam but also of ideas, everything culminated in a wildly illogical scenario. Steve has to live through a dramatic day with Eddie, who stands as a metaphor for Steve (as I said, PTSD was never a thing for Super SEAL), Danny bangs his brains out in a ladies' room with a complete stranger, who dies shortly after that in an accident with Danny's rental car. Apparently, there was no budget to turn the Camaro into scrap metal. Danny then also goes home alone, ignoring the incoming emergency vehicles. Everything remains open at the end of the episode. While Steve expresses his gratitude to Tani and Quinn and says, he would be just as lost as poor Eddie without the dog and all of them. The strange thing is that you never notice anything until that sentence. A few forced dialogues are supposed to make the drama visible, but they all happen way too late or are so poorly written that you miss them.

PL had decided early on to make Steve a Teflon hero. That also means he didn't need to put much substance into the character. Which you can clearly see if you compare the first three seasons to the rest of the series. But towards the end, PL wanted to turn the tide and forcefully rewrote Steve's past. There is a huge difference if you compare Steve from seasons 1 to 3 with Steve from season 10. It is only a sparse remnant of what made this character so great. This change in Steve's personality also affects his relationship with Danny. The witty, affectionate banter degenerates into a snappy, humorless bitch-fest that takes all the joy out of it.

The final two episodes could have been written for any other crime show. As mentioned, we have Cole, who even gets a book'em Cole from Steve, which can only be described as out of line. And it begs the question, was that what Lenkov originally had in mind? Danny out of the show and Cole in? Was the last episode, which mainly featured McCole, something of a test run? Did all the McDanno moments happen only to tear the two apart eventually? Was the real final scene the one where Steve and Catherine take Danny's coffin back to Jersey? Was Danny not supposed to survive? Was that the real reason Steve wanted to get out of Hawaii because he wanted to pay his respects to Danny? And would he really have returned to Hawaii later? Or would he have turned his back on Hawaii? To me, this ending is more plausible than what PL served us. Then, Steve handed over his credentials to Cole instead of Danny, his second in command. Honestly, you can't make the end of a series any more sloppy and dumber than that. And I won't even lose a word about the last 1:30 minutes because I think everything has already been said.

No PL, mission absolutely not accomplished. You created Teflon-Steve. You never wanted him to show any weakness. You turned him into a superhuman who can survive anything. Only to pull the rug out from under him on the last few meters to the finish line and spit on his legacy. How can you dismantle such a great series and its characters like you did? How much do you have to hate something to do that? In the final interviews, the showrunner didn't exactly cover himself in glory either. Everyone who grew up with the series from day one knows that its end was wrong on all the possible levels and that the showrunner is solely to blame for that. It takes a fair amount of egoism and carelessness to drive 10 years at full throttle against the wall. Not many people can do that. Whether you can be proud of that, however, I doubt.

My respect if you have made it this far. Each of you gets 10 extra brownie points for it.

#McDanno #steve mcgarrett #danny williams #scott caan #alex o'loughlin #H50 the final chapter #H50 series finale #Lenkov #Eddie #Junior #seal team

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