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thathopelessromantic · 3 years

Text

Reckless Good (1/?)

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Fic Rating: Explicit

Chapter Rating: Teen+

Pairing: Todoroki Shouto/Midoriya Izuku

Note: Part of the @tododekubigbang for 2021! I'm super excited to share this AU with everyone. And please check out the awesome compaion art from @cryptidcatgod for chapter six!

Todoroki Shouto had accepted his fate as a public figure when he became a pro-hero, but there are some parts of his private life he would like to stay private. When he gets invited to be a speaker in a college lecture series, he goes to the meeting with one goal: to give the coordinator a piece of his mind and finally put an end to people hounding him for information about his family.

The last thing he expects is the curious, and quirkless, hero- and quirk-study professor, Midoriya Izuku, who has no interest in his family's history, and, somehow, even more ties to the hero industry than Shouto. Intrigued by the professor, Shouto tentatively agrees to the lecture series, unknowingly intertwining their futures.

But the more Todoroki sees of Midoriya, the more questions he has. When a villain attack leaves them living together until the culprits are apprehended, maybe he'll finally get some answers.

AO3: (x)

Dear Pro-Hero Entropy,

On behalf of Musutafu University, I would like to cordially invite you to be a speaker in our first annual Hero Talks series. We anticipate university students, as well as members of the public from all walks of life, will be interested in hearing from 10 different pro-heroes, over the course of ten-weeks between September and November, as they discuss their experience in the hero industry, the details of their jobs, and the unique quirks they’ve encountered or that helped them in becoming the heroes of today.

I would be extremely grateful if you were willing to share your expertise and be a part of the series. You would be an excellent addition to our program, and our line-up of great heroes that already includes current number one, Pro-Hero Lemillion, the Permeation Hero, and the well-respected, Youthful Heroine Recovery Girl.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. I look forward to hearing from you!

“I think you should do it.”

Shouto pauses with his cup half-way to his mouth as the silence that had fallen over them is finally broken. Momo primly takes a sip of her tea, pointedly avoiding his astonished look.

“…What?”

Momo clears her throat, placing her teacup back on the table and sitting up, somehow, straighter in her chair. Despite the fact that they are in her home, she looks decidedly more uncomfortable than he feels, even by the bizarre direction of their conversation. “I think you should do it. I think it would be a good opportunity for you, Shouto.”

“Have you met me?” he asks incredulously. “There’s nothing ‘good’ about anything that includes me and talking.”

His phone, with the offending email still pulled up on the darkening screen, sits on the table between them. He doesn’t realize he is glaring at it until Momo plucks it up and away from his line of sight. Waking up the screen, she reads over the email again. He doesn’t know why she bothers – they must have poured over it together at least three or four times when he first arrived, dumbfounded by yet another invitation and nearly laughing over the ridiculous concept of him giving a talk on a college campus.

“It’s not like you would have to wing it, it’s still only April now, so the series won’t be taking place until the second term. You would have time to come up with a topic, write a speech, prepare.”

“No one wants to listen to me read from a piece of paper for an hour,” he replies drolly. “And I don’t have anything to talk about that long, anyways.”

It is her turn to stare at him incredulously from across the table. He resists the urge to squirm under the disbelieving look. Finally, Momo sighs, returning his phone to the table.

“I think you underestimate what people would be willing to listen to,” she clears her throat. “You have a unique perspective on the hero industry that very few have, or get to hear about-”

“Because my dad was a dick?”

“Due to being raised by a hero," she continues on, as if he hadn't spoken. "And not just any hero, but someone who was the number two hero for a very long time, and even briefly the number one hero. Very few heroes nowadays have children, and even fewer have children who go on to follow in their footsteps. You’re a legacy.”

“I’m the only one of any of Endeavor’s kids to become a hero. If they wanted to hear about hero family legacies, they should have contacted Iida.”

Momo sighs, rubbing her temples. He’s noticed her doing that around him with increasing frequency these days. “Well I believe they did, actually. And he agreed.”

Shouto leans back in his seat. “Then he can talk all about being a legacy. What would they need to hear from me for?”

Momo is quiet for a very long time. “…Well-”

“No.”

“You brought it up.”

“Not seriously. I’m not going to talk about that.”

“It was just a suggestion. You, your family, have kept things remarkably quiet after it all went down, and I understand wanting to protect your privacy, considering it really is none of their business, but people are always going to have questions. It’s been years since the trial and the media still asks you every year. At least this way, if you talked about it, you could control the narrative.”

Shouto looks away. The setting sun is just out of sight from the dining room window, but it paints the neighbor’s house and the trees along the road a warm orange. The anniversary of the trial, of his father’s fall from grace in the public eye was just a few weeks away, still looming over him, even years after the fact. He has no interest in ‘controlling the narrative.’ He’d rather not think about it at all, actually. But just like every year before, as the date grew closer, the media got more frantic, more invasive.

You would think after more than ten years of radio silence from the Todoroki family they would finally get discouraged, and yet…

Sensing he wasn’t interested in pursuing this topic of conversation any longer, Momo changes tactics, carefully pulling his thoughts from a dangerous spiral. “Or you could have a meeting with the person who invited you. See what topic they had in mind for you.”

Shouto glances at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Well they didn’t just mass invite heroes, the invitations have only gone out to a select few. I’m assuming the coordinator had some idea of what they thought those particular heroes would talk about.” There is a quiet click of her nails against the glass table top as she picks up his phone once more. “You could set up a meeting with him and see what he had in mind. If the topic is something you’re comfortable talking about, wonderful. If not, you can decline the invitation, and all you’ve wasted is an afternoon.”

Something clicks in his head and Shouto sits up again, an idea brewing. He turns his attention back to her. “I still don’t want to give a talk,”

“Shouto-”

“But you have a point. It wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

Momo smiles, but her brows shoot up, a clear indication of her surprise at – and her suspicion over – his quick surrender. “I’m…a little shocked you agree.”

“Well you’d just keep bothering me about it if I didn’t at least talk to him, wouldn’t you?” She glares at him but doesn’t refute the accusation. “But isn’t it just the dean of the school that sent the emails? He’s probably not the sole coordinator.”

“No,” She shakes her head, handing his phone back over. “It says here he’s a professor.”

Midoriya Izuku, Ph.D.

Professor of Hero and Quirk Studies

Musutafu University

[email protected]

It takes two days after his talk with Momo for Shouto to get around to even opening the professor’s response to his request for a meeting.

Kyouka watches him suspiciously from where she’s draped over his office chair as he paces in front of his desk. “What’s wrong with you?”

She takes an obnoxious sip of her coffee. The smell has permeated the entire room and it makes something in his stomach curl with longing, but his doctor made it explicitly clear that he was to take an extended break from the drink after letting it serve as breakfast, lunch, and dinner a few too many days in a row. Something more painful than longing – perhaps an ulcer he may or may not have given himself from his liquid diet – twists his stomach.

“Why are you even here?”

Kyouka sighs at his question, her head lolling back as she sinks deeper into the chair. He’s not totally sure what she’s doing. He knows for a fact those chairs aren’t comfortable. His best attempt to keep people from staying in his office longer than absolutely necessary.

“Kyouka?”

She takes another sip of her coffee. He has absolutely no idea how she doesn’t spill it all over herself in that position.

“Momo asked me to talk to you.”

He stops pacing long enough to determine that she’s telling the truth. “…Why?”

“Because she doesn’t think you’ve emailed the professor back about that hero series yet.”

He glances at his computer. At the unread email blinking at the top of his inbox, taunting him. “I’m not saying she’s right…but why does she want you to talk to me about it?”

She swings her legs off the arm of the chair to sit up right and glare at him. “I resent the insinuation that I am not a great candidate for making you get your shit together. But,” she stands up, dropping her cup onto his desk and crossing her arms. Her expression is fierce, but he recognizes the barely-there flush high on her cheeks and the nervous twitch of her earphone jacks. “I was also invited to be a part of the series.”

Shouto stops, sinking into his desk chair. Invitations like this were usually a pain for him. For one, he hated public speaking – or even extended conversations. As one of the top students at U.A., however, and as the son of a well-known hero, he had been getting requests for talks and interviews and special features for years. Most of which he usually ignored, knowing what it was they wanted him to talk about. But he knows an invitation like this can be special. Especially for someone like Kyouka, who doesn’t have particularly strong connections with the hero industry, even after graduating U.A. Her parents’ reputation and her internship with Present Mic made her more of a celebrity in the music industry than a well-known hero, despite all the great work she did.

“Kyouka,” he says quietly, earnestly, so that she pays attention to him. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” she replies with a small smile, before her expression changes again. “But shut up, Todoroki. That’s not the point. Momo thinks you’ll be dragging your feet over getting back to the professor. But when she told me about how quickly you agreed, I got a feeling there was something else going on.” She braces her hands on his desk and leans into his personal space, jacks floating threateningly close to his throat. “You were gonna set up that meeting, and then just give him a hard time, weren’t you?”

Shouto freezes, caught. “Uh…”

It’s not exactly an admission, but Kyouka throws her head back and laughs, anyways. “I knew it. We’ve all been waiting for when you finally got fed up and picked a victim. I’m honestly surprised it’s taken this long.”

Shouto doesn’t mean for the quiet, astonished chuckle to slip out, but he supposes if it’s Kyouka, it’s alright. There’s a devilish glint in her eyes as she drops back into her chair.

“So,” she asks. “What are you waiting for?”

“You’re really not going to stop me?”

“We’re public figures, the media has never been interested in respecting our privacy, but we’ve all spent years watching you get hounded over your parents’ divorce and your father’s trial. If this is just another asshole trying to get a scoop, or recognition for finally getting you to spill, he deserves it. Everyone would agree. Well…Tenya and Momo might frown at your approach, but I still think they’d support the general idea. And well,” she shrugs. “If he is just an asshole, all the better for the rest of us to know now so we don’t support what he’s trying to do.”

He hesitates, mouse hovering over the professor’s email. “Are you sure?”

She scowls, though there isn’t any heat behind it. “If I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t say it.” She comes around the desk to stand behind him. “Now hurry up, I have a patrol to get to.”

Reaching down, she opens the email before he can react.

Thank you so much for your interest! Of course we can meet to discuss the details of the series more. Below are my office hours when I will be on the Musutafu University campus. If you are not available for any of those times, please let me know when would work best for you and we can plan a meeting then.

Kyouka leans over his shoulder to read the email.

“Tuesday’s your day off next week, right?”

Shouto rolls his eyes but opens a new draft to reply.

Kyouka grins. “Good boy. I will report your excellent behavior to Momo.” She ruffles his hair before heading for the door, grabbing her coffee cup off his desk as she goes.

“Fuck off.”

She tosses her head back and laughs again. “Give ‘em hell.”

They make plans to meet in a few days, when Shouto has some time off, and the professor forwards his office room number and three different maps of campus “just in case.” Which Shouto found ridiculous….at the time.

Now he’s here, and has been wandering around for God knows how long. It takes approximately ten minutes for Shouto to admit he’s lost, and another five minutes for him to get frustrated over still being lost. He wasn’t sure what to expect of the university campus, but, clearly, he did not prepare enough in advance. The large, sprawling buildings remind him of U.A.’s campus, but rather than extra training grounds, the spaces between are grassy plots filled with students relaxing under the shade of trees or soaking up the sun on blankets. Instead of practicing hand-to-hand, the students sit in clusters pouring over textbooks or typing away on laptops. And they, of course, all appear perfectly at home amongst the labyrinth of lecture halls.

The paved plaza in the middle of all the activity hosts a large fountain and a statue of a man with large, curling horns coming from his temples that Shouto assumes has some kind of importance to the school, but that he doesn’t recognize.

He forwent his hero-suit for jeans, a button-up, and a leather jacket – in addition to sunglasses, a mask, and a baseball cap. The clothing seemed to blend in well enough with the other students, if not a tad understated, but his distinct hair and scar are not so easily hidden and soon enough he notices students staring, following his movements back and forth across campus or whispering amongst themselves.

Eventually, a few brave students manage to catch him as he is trying to reorient himself. Again.

“Um, excuse me, are you pro-hero Entropy?” a girl asks. Two friends flank her, staring with wide eyes.

Caught, he pulls down his mask. “Ah, yes. Hello.”

“Oh my gosh! Hi-Hello, I’m wow…I’m sorry to bother you, but it’s really great to meet you!”

“Are you here about the Hero Talks series!?” one of her friends asks suddenly, quickly slapping a hand over her mouth after the loud outburst.

Well…they aren’t wrong, and maybe they can help him. “It’s…something like that.” He agrees carefully.

The three light up with smiles, two of them jumping up and down in excitement.

“Dr. Midoriya is going to be so excited, oh my gosh!”

“You know the professor?”

All three nod excitedly. “We’re all in his Intro to Combat Analysis lecture! He’s been gushing about this series since he got permission last semester!” the third student finally chimes in.

Perfect. “Do you know where I could find his office? I’m supposed to be meeting with him, but I’ve gotten a little turned around.”

The three jump to help direct him to the right building, gushing all the while over the professor and his classes. By the time they finally part ways, Shouto feels a little guilty about his plan to give the professor a piece of his mind over the whole thing and misleading them about his intention to join the series. They were nice girls after all.

Someone bumps into him before he reaches the building, sending him stumbling off the sidewalk.

“I’m so sorry,” a bright voice calls, gently pulling Shouto back onto the pavement. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. Are you alright?”

Large, bright green eyes behind thin, wire-framed glasses give him a quick once-over, as if looking for injuries. The man meets his gaze through his sunglasses for a moment before glancing down at his wrist watch again. Somehow, he feels even more dazed meeting the man’s eyes than simply being booted off the sidewalk.

“…yes I’m fine, thank you.”

The man gives him a dazzling smile, flashing one dimple and further accentuating the smattering of freckles over his cheeks. “Good, good. Sorry again.” With a quick bow, the man is on his way again and headed into the building before them. The same building Shouto was headed.

Shaking off the strange feeling left behind, he waits a few moments, so as not to appear as if he was following the bright-eyed man, and goes inside. Along the wall there are signs directing visitors to particular room numbers or restrooms, and a bulletin board nearly as long as the wall is tall, full of posters advertising events happening around campus, and Musutafu, as well as ads looking for roommates or a reminder about signing up for a study abroad program. Right in the corner, as if attached as an after-thought, or a secret, there’s a small, handwritten flyer declaring the First Annual Hero Talks series could be counted as credits for Quirk or Hero Study students looking for an independent study if they met with Dr. Mirdoriya before the end of the term. Shouto almost takes the flyer before he realizes, realistically, that the students who might be interested in such a thing would probably benefit from it more than his brief curiosity needed to be sated.

Turning from the wall, he sets out for the stairs. The students instructed him to take the staircase on the far end of the east hall (the closest to the professor’s office, supposedly), to the third floor, where the professor’s office would be the third door on the left.

Midoriya Izuku is written clearly on a small sign hanging outside of the office. A small box sits under it, stuffed full of papers and folders that Shouto assumes are from students. The professor’s half-open door is covered in colorful posters and stickers – including, Shouto realizes, another copy of the flyer about the series and a poster of him, Pro-Hero Entropy, from his debut year. He looks away from his younger self and knocks on the door.

“Dr. Midoriya?” he calls, poking his head into the office.

The first thing he notices is that the hero-memorabilia on the door has absolutely nothing on what’s inside the office. More posters cover the entire front of the professor’s desk, and from the looks of it the top of his computer. Mixed between dozens of books on the shelves and filing cabinets filling two of the four walls are hero-figurines and framed pictures of heroes or preserved comic books. Even more posters and framed pictures cover the rest of the walls.

The second thing he notices, is that the broad-shouldered man dropping a beat-up, leather satchel to the ground besides the desk, is the same man who ran into him outside.

Dr. Midoriya whirls around, greeting him with another 100-watt smile. “Ah yes! Hello- oh! It’s you.”

“Ah, yes.” Shouto shuffles a little further into the office, he pulls his mask down under his chin and takes his sunglasses off, tucking them into the collar of his shirt. After a second's thought, he pulls off his cap as well, shoving the bill into his back pocket.

Dr. Midoriya’s jaw drops, his eyes comically wide, for approximately three seconds, before he comes back into himself, steeling his expression. His hands flutter nervously around his head for a moment and then he smiles again.

“Entropy! Welcome! I’m so sorry I did not recognize you before. Please, come in. Take a seat. Did you find your way through campus alright?”

Shouto gives a small bow, mumbling a thank you, as he comes further into the office to sit in one of the two small chairs before the desk. A poster of some of his old classmates is hung at knee-level, and even on paper, Momo's serious expression is judging him. Kyouka is egging him on.

Dr. Midoriya still stands behind his desk, staring at Shouto like he’s not sure what to make of him sitting in his office.

“Uh…Dr. Midoriya?”

The professor snaps back to life. “Yes! Sorry, sorry,” he sits down finally, pulling off his glasses and putting them to the side. “Welcome, again, to Musutafu University. And thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to consider our series! I really can’t tell you how thrilled I was to get your email.”

Shouto shifts in his seat. The professor talks with his hands, and every movement seems to pull the beige-colored cardigan he’s wearing even tighter around his biceps. Shouto isn’t usually one to speculate about others’ quirks unless in a fight, but he wonders now if the professor has some kind of strength-augmenting quirk – and if he does, how adept is he at using it if Shouto pisses him off? The potential of getting his ass kicked has never stopped Shouto before, but he can already hear the lecture he’d get from Momo, and probably Fuyumi, if he made the news for destroying a college building in a fight with a civilian professor.

Honestly, the property damage would probably be the least of their worries if he starts fighting with civilians.

“I know you don’t normally work with the media or make non-heroic work public appearances so I figured it was a long shot for you to even consider being a part of the series, but I really think you would make an amazing feature.”

Shouto shifts in his seat. Here it comes, he thinks. He really should have prepared what exactly he was going to say more, but he figured it would just come to him in the moment. Now, for some reason, he’s nervous. As if he would accidentally agree or something else equally absurd.

How this sweater had contained the man’s arms so far was a miracle, honestly.

“…but quirks are mutating, or rather evolving, at an astonishing rate. Every generation we see quirks getting stronger than those of previous generations but more and more we are now seeing children with quirks that have little to no relation to their parent’s quirks, or a manifestation of some kind of combination of quirks. You gained attention early on for being one of the first heroes, or even hero-in-training, to have multiple quirks.

“Now that it’s becoming more common, hearing first hand from someone who has had to learn how to control and gain mastery over two separate quirks would be invaluable information, especially for many quirk-study students who will be working with parents and children who are going through this for the first time, and for those who may have some form of a combination quirk but did not have the benefit of a hero-course education that could teach them proper control.”

Wait…what?

“What?”

Dr. Midoriya startles, glancing between Shouto and something unseen in the air around him. “Oh…” he winces. “I’m sorry. Was I mumbling again? I apologize, sometimes my brain works faster than my mouth and I get carried away, where did I…never mind, I’ll start again…slower. So, when quirks first appeared-”

Shouto holds up a hand to stop the professor and his jaw snaps shut with an audible click. “You want me to talk about my quirk?”

“…Yes?”

“Not…my family?”

Dr. Midoriya lowers his arms to the top of his desk, folding his hands together. Shouto thinks it might be the first time he has seen him completely still since they first ran into each other outside.

Now that they’re closer, and his hands aren’t moving, Shouto can also see surprisingly large scars running over the professor’s fingers and onto the backs of his hands. Those definitely don’t look like something you would get as a teacher. At least not as a normal, non-hero course teacher.

“Do you want to talk about your family?”

He shifts awkwardly in his seat. The professor’s serious attention directed all at him is suddenly unnerving somehow. “Well, no, I don’t.”

Dr. Midoriya nods, once. “Okay.” A pause. “Honestly, I was surprised to even hear you ask, I hadn’t considered broaching the topic for something like this.”

“You didn’t?” he asks incredulously.

Dr. Midoriya pins him with an expression he can’t interpret but inexplicably reminds him of Aizawa back in high school when he was frustrated with students or a lesson or even a fellow teacher. Especially All Might.

“Entropy, you have made it very clear in the past that you have no interest in talking about what happened to your family publicly. And that is your right. No one is owed anything about your personal life. If you suddenly decided you wanted to talk about what happened, and you wanted to use the Hero Talks series as your platform, you would be more than welcome to do so. Honestly, the publicity from that one lecture alone would probably be enough to guarantee the university allowing this series again in the future. But that is not why I asked you to be a part of it. You want to keep your private affairs private, and I respect that. I picked heroes who I knew the public would be interested in hearing from, but also who would have the most helpful information to offer to the students who are studying these topics, and, frankly, they would learn far more hearing about your quirk than your…homelife.”

“I…I wouldn’t know what to talk about.” Shouto admits awkwardly.

Dr. Midoriya smiles softly. “That’s okay. I can give you some general topics to consider, or more specific questions to think about as main points if that would be more helpful. Let me see…” he turns around in his chair, shifting to the side, and Shouto can see the shelves just under the view of the desk are stuffed full of identical notebooks, each with a carefully penned number on the binding. The professor pulls one out and flips through it. Almost every page is crammed with scrawling handwriting, some written sideways or upside down, squeezed into every blank space he could find. The slightly-less busy pages have drawings of heroes or costumes or diagrams Shouto can’t interpret from the quick, upside-down glance he gets of them.

From his seat Shouto could see there were, at least, two shelves of these notebooks. Were they all like that?

Finally, the professor finds what he’s looking for with a satisfied hum. He sets the notebook on the desk, turning it so Shouto can see. The page is marginally less chaotic than others he saw. At the top, in surprisingly neat handwriting and underlined three times, it reads: Questions for Multiple-Quirk Usage (Entropy).

The rest of the page is made up of dozens of questions about his quirk. Some, Shouto imagines, are just general questions for anyone with multiple quirks to consider (Do you activate both quirks the same way? Can you use them both simultaneously?) and get progressively tailored to questions about his quirk, like if there are places he can’t use one quirk or the other and the temperature ranges of his fire and ice, if particular environmental factors affect his ability to use either of them.

“Uh…”

Dr. Midoriya scratches the back of his head sheepishly. He hides a nervous laugh with a cough before taking the notebook back and closing it. The light isn’t strong in the office, but Shouto is positive the professor is blushing.

“Of course, if a list of topics or questions is something you would be interested in, I can provide you with a neater – and shorter – list. This was just a-a demonstration that there is a lot to consider when it comes to multiple quirks. Of course, not all of that would be relevant for a lecture, and admittedly some are just personal curiosities, but…anyways,” he clears his throat. “I’m assuming if you came here thinking I was going to ask about your family…you don’t actually want to be a part of the series.”

Shouto crosses his arms over his chest, sitting back in his chair. Does he want to be a part of a public lecture series? No. But now he is undeniably curious about this professor and how the hell his brain works.

“Do you have a notebook page like that for every hero?”

“Every hero? That would be impossible…well maybe not impossible-” Shouto raises a brow and the professor bites his tongue. “Maybe…most Japanese heroes since…early Silver Age and well-known international heroes? And any American heroes who would have overlapped with All Might’s time either learning or working in America.”

“How long have you been making those?”

He looks down a little wistfully at the question, thumbing gently at the corner of the page. “I was probably four or five when I started my first one,” he admits with a quiet laugh. “None that are here are quite that old, though.”

Shouto has…so many questions.

There’s a quiet buzz of the professor’s phone going off. He excuses himself for a moment and pulls the cell out of his pocket. His case has the design of All Might’s Golden Age costume.

“I’m sorry, Entropy, I have another meeting and I teach a class after so I can’t talk much longer today.”

“I should be getting going anyways.” Shouto says, standing up and Dr. Midoriya shoots out of his chair.

“Right, yes, of course. I’m sorry we probably took up more of your time than you meant to. Thank you for coming in, it was an honor to speak with you.”

Shouto feels like “honor” is a bit much, he didn’t really even say much at all, and he came here with rather rude intentions but, he doesn’t really know how to argue with the professor’s enthusiasm.

His brain and his good sense, and the small bit of self-preservation he has left, all tell him to keep going, to accept the professor’s gracious dismissal and move on, but he finds himself hesitating in the doorway anyways.

“Uh…Entropy? Is everything alright?” Dr. Midoriya asks, looking at him curiously.

Oh hell.

“If you send me the list, of topics…I’ll think about it.”

Dr. Midoriya’s entire being lights up. “Really?”

Oh, he was really going to regret this.

“…Yes.”

“Thank you! I will forward it to you right away!” He drops into a bow so deep, so quickly, he slams his head into the top of the desk.

Both of them freeze at the resounding crack that echoes in the small room. Shouto takes a step back into the office, already reaching for the professor.

“Are you alright?”

Dr. Midoriya straightens, looking a little dazed but mostly just embarrassed. There’s a bright red mark on his forehead. “Oh my God.” He whispers.

Shouto is surprised, and a little ashamed, by how hard it is to keep himself from laughing at the horrified expression. “Dr. Midoriya, are you-”

The desk gives a sudden, heaving creak and tips sideways. The two watch helplessly as the desk collapses, sending the clutter on top flying across the floor.

Dr. Midoriya makes a strangled noise, covering his face with his hands. “Not again.”

Again?

There are rushed footsteps outside and a young woman with six eyes and lavender hair piled in a high bun peeks her head in through the half-open door. “Dr. Midoriya, did you break something again?”

“I’m sorry Kobayashi.” He bows his head again, though not nearly as low this time, and keeps his face covered.

Kobayashi tuts disapprovingly. “I’ll call for another,” she says, already turning on her heel to leave.

“Thank you, Kobayashi.”

Shouto bends down to gather some of the papers that scattered around his feet. Dr. Midoriya lowers his hands, immediately stumbling over the mess when he sees Shouto cleaning.

“Please Entropy, thank you, but that’s not necessary.”

“It’s fine,” he waves off the worries. “Where would you like these things?”

“Uh,” Dr. Midoriya looks around the office for a moment. “Here, thank you.” Taking the papers from him he makes a neat pile on his un-damaged desk chair.

It’s quick work for the two of them to straighten up the rest of the room, though the professor takes a moment to mourn his cracked eyeglasses, and then again when he realizes some of the posters were damaged by the desk’s fall.

“Thank you again, Entropy. I’m so sorry about all the trouble.”

“It’s…fine.” Shouto says dumbly. “Well I should…go, now.”

“Yes, of course! I’m sorry about taking up even more of your time. Thank you for coming in.”

Before Shouto can reply, two new people arrive, knocking once before they shuffle into the office. Shouto moves further into the room, out of the way, as they collect the broken desk and carry it out of the room.

For a moment, they stand in silence, Shouto coming up with about a hundred more questions about the professor, while Dr. Midoriya stands nearby, twisting his hands together in embarrassment. Finally, his common-sense kicks in enough that after another short good-bye, Shouto manages to walk himself out of the office and down the stairs without doing anything else stupid or impulsive.

He passes someone on his way to the doors, so focused on getting out of the building that he doesn’t notice until they call his name.

He recognizes the wild purple hair and slouched stance of the man approaching him, but nearly dismisses the similarities on principle.

“Shinso? Since when do you come out while the sun’s still up?” He asks.

Ignoring the jab, Shinso pulls off a pair of sunglasses and looks him up and down. Despite also being a part of U.A.’s hero course in high school, Shinso promptly went underground after graduation and has been working in the shadows long enough that only some other pros and hardcore hero-fans are able to recognize him out of costume. “What are you doing here?”

“I was…I had a meeting with a professor,” he admits.

Shouto doesn’t know Shinso well, but he swears he looks surprised by the admission.

And then he laughs. “I can’t believe he actually did it. Good for him.”

Shouto isn’t totally sure he heard him correctly, but when he asks, Shinso makes an expression he can’t figure out and changes the subject.

“I’ll see you later, Todoroki.” He says with a wave.

Shouto waves back, unsure of what to make of the interaction, and watches as Shinso disappears up the same stairs he just descended.

Shoving the strange interaction out of his head, he pushes open the doors and steps outside.

Then he calls Kyouka.

She picks up after two rings. “Did you make him cry?”

He can hear Momo scold her from the background.

“No, but I think I fucked up.”

Kyouka is quiet for a moment but based on the noise he hears in the background, he thinks she’s moving further away from Momo. When she speaks again, her voice is quieter. “Fucked up how? Like news crews are coming to report the damage and you might be going to jail for beating up an old, civilian professor-fucked up?”

Faintly, Shouto wonders what it says about him that both he and Kyouka assumed the worst-case scenario for this meeting was him fighting with a civilian.

“No, fucked up like…I didn’t tell him ‘no’?”

#bnha #mha #tddk #tododeku #tododeku big bang 2021 #midoriya izuku #todoroki shouto #fic #rita writes #6.17.21 #fic: reckless good

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annetteblog · 3 years

Text

Intro & My take on KM

Hi!

I’m new around here so it’s supposed to be (not so short) introduction, since I don’t know how to start a blog heh. I hope to sprinkle my 0.5 cents into the KM conversation and maybe to bring a new perspective from someone, who is not a part of the typical English-speaking West.

Who /the hell/ Am I?

(please, consider it to be said with NJ’s voice from Intro: Persona :D)

I was born in Siberia (it’s in the Asian part of Russia), currently live in the European part of the country while studying at a Uni (European in terms of geography, not in terms of everything else i’m definitely not shading rn lolllll). English is not my first language, I’ve just kind of learnt it to some extent. Due to this it takes me more time to write a post; and I may (and will) make some grammatical & other mistakes. Plus I’m lazy AND busy with Uni, so I won’t even promise to be consistent in posting smth lol. But I thought I need more practice in terms of writing in English, so here I am, actually scribbling something. This feels weird, because I’ve been around stan Tumblr since 2015, but never ever interacted, just read.

How I ended up around Jikook/Kookmin (and BTS) & My (long&messy) take on this matter

Although I had heard of BTS before, I became an Army only in October 2018. I had kinda avoided them, because you know... boybands.... sing songs about romantic love and how they love girls.......... (+I had been around Twitter when 1D been at their peak and I remember a quite toxic community of fans, whom always had scared me). Shortly, hello stereotypes. Obviously, after I got engaged I felt terribly sorry that I had been sleeping on them, but what is done cannot be undone.

Someone I knew back then reposted one of their MVs and I, during my sad hours of procrastination, decided to watch it. Then I saw their live performance with the same song. And I thought “wow these guys can sing and dance and the music is kinda cool, i need to check this out maybe??”

Then a funny thing happened. One of the next videos I watched (the same person had it added to their page) was a 2016 BangtanBomb where JM and JK practiced their Coming of Age dance.

Do you know this moment with Gina from the 1st episode of Brooklyn 9-9:

Well, that was precisely me after I watched it. I don’t even know how to explain this, it was kind of a gut feeling? Whatever you call it, I started to get suspicious and couldn’t even explain to myself why. /actually now a do have questions to this vid and the main one - why does everyone cringe that much? if it’s a girly choreo than they had done some “girly” moves before. why is there such strong reaction??/

I started to get deeper and went to some ru-shipper communities. Shipping culture among Russian speaking fans is... well, weird to some extent, but I maybe address this topic some time later. You need to consider that (as far as you probably know) Russia is quite homophonic country and sadly is not the greatest place for LGBTQ+ community at the moment. The non-frienly influential attitudes hanging in the society + the general shippers’ weirdness = the result is not that nice honestly.

I struggled for some time in order to find more mature people (not just in terms of age but in general sanity), failed, ended up with some EXTREMELY toxic ru-fans of TK, which was/is the most popular pairing here, spent among them like 15 minutes and ran away horrified. After that I didn’t even try to engage with shippers or believers or whatever of any pair and just decided to enjoy the music and the content (which is a great idea, highly recommend!)

After a couple of days I discovered that JK makes videos. I love video, films and visual art so I immediately found them on YT, saw the titles with names of different cities from all over the world and was like “Oh that must be so cool, he’s visited so many outstanding places I’ve never been to, so I really need to watch it! I shall enjoy some beautyyy”. Then I clicked on GCFt.

Well, what can I say. I did enjoy some beauty, but not the type I had initially anticipated. The biggest clickbait in my entire life. JK should be proud of himself.

/as I said - the beauty/

I had already known Troy back then and I known the song’s lyrics so it would not be an underestimation to say - the video just blew my mind. I was like - hold on is this real? seriously?? no really really????? he manage to get away with something THAT obvious?????? dude how

As a person who edited videos AND is not a native English speaker, I don’t buy the explanation “oh he mustve didnt get the lyrics lmao”. You just don’t do that. You don’t. DON’T. You google and translate every shit you don’t understand, every word and idiom you’ve never encountered, because otherwise the possibility of an epic failure is very likely. You wouldn’t want to give your mum a video as a birthday present and then discover that you used a song with WAP-ish lyrics, right? (well maybe that would be okay in your family, I don’t judge, but that’s not the case for people I know). So don’t you dare to degrade JK’s intellectual capacities; such assumption is really offensive. He is a smart boii, he knows exactly what he’s doing in terms of his art.

So I was shocked, but decided to look for the context - maybe I missed some previous events regarding this Tokyo thing (another great idea - always check the context). Well, apparently I didn’t, because the whole narrative with the trip for two, lovely selfies etc. made my poor brain lowkey explode. (I still don’t buy the rings theory thing though)

But I didn’t give up lol! I’m a bit stubborn and it’s very hard to convince me in anything, so I decided to search for more context, more of their interactions, moreeee. Remember, the late October 2018, there were no swan lakes, RB, and even MMA18 hadn’t happened yet.

This time I ended up watching content in more or less consistent way, and when I saw all of these scenes with affectionate JM and a cool badass i-don’t-care-about-anyone-i’m-a-manly-man-with-no-feelings-whatsoever JK, I just hysterically laughed.

Homophobic Russia, remember? I recognized this. Growing up here being LGBT myself, taught me the same type behaviour during my high school days. When a girl I kinda liked but didn’t what to admit it to myself was nice to me or (oh god) flirted with me, I did something similar. It’s like a huge panic mode. Being an introvert doesn’t help either. The funniest thing is that you may not entirely realise what exactly is going on in terms of your own feelings, especially at that age (16-18ish). In my personal case, I thought I liked her but as a friend, only later to realise that well not as a friend oops :DDD The second thing (already not so funny) is that you actually consciously or unconsciously try to avoid the subject as much as possible, as long as possible and pretend that nothing is going on. We’re just bros. Stop doing this stupid gayish thing and don’t look at me like that, you’re annoying. If you ever do this again I (gently) kick you. I’m straighter than a straight line in my math textbook. IDK, but probably that’s your brain is somehow trying to protect you. Again, in my case&position I knew that the consequences for any non-straight person being outed would be bad (TW not to the point of being killed bad, but to the point of being excluded from a big part of society). So for me it was a mixture of the internalized homophobia + lack of self reflection + just being a bit emotionally slow + very! straight community around. Shit happens, I was a teenager and made my share of mistakes, but that experience helps me to recognize the same pattern of behaviour up to this day.

So coming back to KM, because the post is already waaay too long and I just ramble. It’s been 2+ years for me being a part of this fandom, and what can I say... Things become more intense and eventful with every year passing by ;) Funny how I felt that vibe from the 2016 dance practice video. Seeing the Black Swan performance a week ago almost had me choked, no joking. They are amazing.

Pure Art

However, and I would like to emphasize that, I do not incline that KM are 100% romantically involved and/or gay or whatever. I tend to treat people with respect and not to make too much assumptions about their private life. That’s not my business. However, I’m also not a fan of heteronormativity, so I’m just sitting here and observe everything that’s going on putting some distance and not forgetting being generally polite and critical thinking. But if they are just straightest besties please give them an Oscar before Grammy

Anyways, I hope this blog won’t kick the bucket from the very start and I will post something every now and then. You can always ask me questions about some BTS/Jikook related stuff or something about Russia and a Russian view on mass culture topics, since I’m pretty sure some of you have very stereotypical view of what is going on here :) However, do note that I’ve never been to America or Europe, therefore I may not be aware of something verrrry obvious to you or just have a completely different experience.

P.S. And yeah, I’m used to say Jikook, since it’s the name which is used much more frequently in Russian. i like it better and what will u do haha

#jikook #kookmin #what am i even doing here #i'm gonna regret this #long post

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afoolforatook · 3 years

Text

V8 Ch 4 and Qrow’s speech about Clover. And how we talk about how a character grieves, versus how grief is handled by writers.

So I really shouldn’t post this tonight because it’s 4 am and I’m tired and I’ve been thinking about this too much today already and this is something I should read over more..... But I’ve got to get it out before I can try to sleep. So, first off I apologize if this comes across poorly, or overly confrontational. It’s not at all how I mean it and I’m genuinely not upset with literally anyone. Just seeing some things that have me thinking about this more and more and it has me a little concerned, and I want to talk about it a bit more directly.

I’ll probably add to this later or clarify or something… I just had to get it out of my head.

I already talked about this some in response to theonceoverthinker’s post about it, and I’m too tired to try to cover all of that again, so if you want more context on how I feel about this, and why, please go read it.

But I’ve seen some more posts about this conversation, and while for the most part I agree with a lot of what’s being said (and often on both sides of whether or not this was a good speech from Qrow) there’s one thing that I do want to address a little more that I think a lot of people aren’t aware of.

In talking about this it’s important that we differentiate between having a problem with how we think the writers are going to use this speech to frame things, and having a problem with the fact that Qrow said what he said in the context of his current emotional state and grieving process.

Do I think this was just amazing perfect writing and handling of Qrow expressing these feelings? Absolutely not. I have plenty of issues and really can’t say how I feel about it until I know where they are taking it/how they are using it to frame the entire situation.

Do I think it was just inherently awful callous dialogue that frames Clover as only important to Qrow because of his semblance and what that meant for Qrow/interaction with his semblance?

Absolutely not.

And that’s exactly where I have a bit of an issue.

Because I totally understand people’s concern with that speech. And I have a very hard time right now trusting that CRWBY will handle it properly and not just use it to turn the narrative into blaming Clover. I don’t know if I trust them or not. I just don’t know. And that is deeply concerning.

But the just surface of what Qrow said, without knowing how they will use it and further show his feelings, is not just the inherently awful thing I’m seeing some people take it as. And the reasons I’ve seen for people saying so, while completely valid things to take issue with in regards to CRWBY’s intentions in writing them, can’t just be blanket applied as issues with the fact that Qrow said them at all. (this is one of the things I feel fairly certain I’m not explaining well rn, and I’m just too tired to figure out. So I hope it at all makes sense).

My point is; depending on how things go from here on out, CRWBY may be completely wrong for why they included these lines and what they are having them mean. But Qrow, as a character, is not inherently wrong for having said or felt them.

I can totally see why you would interpret these lines as concerning, and just plain poor takes on how to frame what happened in ch 12, and who to blame, and the nature of Clover’s importance to Qrow.. And like I said, it could very well be intended that way and negate everything I’m saying here. But by itself it’s not so black and white horrible.

And this is exactly why I’m so nervous about how they handle Qrow’s grief. Because grief is a complicated thing. And what someone like me, who has processed a similar grief in a similar way, gets from this kind of scene can be very different to someone who hasn’t. And all of this said, I’m not trying to assume what anyone else has been through, or invalidate any grief, it’s very likely that others have dealt with a similar loss and feel very differently, or experienced their grief very differently. But, what I hope we all can agree on is that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong.

The thing about the kind of grief that Qrow is dealing with right now? It’s very rarely shown how people actually deal with it, especially in more than just one short scene. And if it is, it’s often romanticised and sterilized to be made into something easily understood by people who haven’t gone through anything like that.

Because the truth is, this kind of grief is ugly. It’s complicated and contradicts itself. It can seem selfish and self absorbed. It is angry and reactionary.

And it is very easy to say that what Qrow said is toxic or wrong. But it’s not. The intention the writers have in having him say it that way very well might be. But just what he said?

Y’all that’s fucking grief.

Fresh. Ugly. Messy. Angry. Confused. Tired. Grief.

Healthy grief does not mean fair, clear headed, sensitive, open minded takes from the get go.

Grief is incredibly flawed and unflattering.

And what concerns me is seeing people say it was outright terribly written dialogue, that was callous, and showed that Qrow didn’t really care about Clover beyond how he made him feel better about his semblance.

Because when you’re grieving like that, one of the biggest fears is that people will tell you you are grieving wrong. That you’re being selfish. That you’re making it all about you. That somehow the way you are grieving proves that you didn’t really love the person as much as you thought. That if you just loved them more, if you were less selfish, if you were just a better person, you wouldn’t think those kinds of things.

And you internalise that shit. You internalise even just the fear of people thinking that. And that’s how people close up about their grief. That’s how people feel guilty for how they grieve. And that makes actually processing your grief and starting to heal so much harder, if not impossible.

Qrow is still in the immediate aftermath of this loss. I’m awful with the exact timeline, but it’s what, like somewhere around 48 hours? With continued trauma going on around him.

It is literally not possible for him to process everything fully like this.

The fact is that someone struggling with that kind of grief and trauma, and it having happened in a situation as complicated as what happened on the tundra (regardless of how terribly all of it was written), they’re going to say things that seem selfish. Or even victim blaming. Because they are processing. They are having to reconcile their own hurt and anger and grief and confusion. Fight between how they feel about the person they’ve lost, and their instinct to, in some way, protect themselves from a painful truth of how things really happened or who was to blame, or what mistakes they made. Even with Qrow accepting some of that blame, maybe even way more than he should, he’s still going to reflexively try to avoid taking parts of it that are particularly painful. I hate 90% of how people think of the stages of grief, mostly because they are not the clear linear thing that is often thought of. But this is the anger in a sense. It’s a protective lashing out. “If Clover had only!-” He wants to be angry, wants to be able to just say Clover was wrong, but as soon as he does he cuts himself off. He feels bad for trying to put the blame on Clover. That’s natural.

Is it cool if CRWBY is trying to frame that as right? Fuck no. But the fact that Qrow is feeling it, is expressing it, is struggling with it back and forth? There is nothing wrong with that.

Hell. Qrow even being able to say that it was his fault in some way, that he chose wrong in working with Tyrian, but then also stand firm in that he did not actually kill Clover, and apparently this is not the first time he’s said that. It might not be perfect. But the fact that he can even be there at this point is huge.

I have said nearly exactly that same speech. I said and thought things in the first week, even months, of my grief, that, even at the time, I knew were selfish. Were making everything about me. I hated myself for it. But I couldn’t stop it. And If I had tried? I wouldn’t have processed everything. I would have chastised myself for feeling things that I thought were wrong to feel. That’s not how you process grief. It’s how you get stuck in it.

But the way Qrow looks at the pin? The way he pulls his thumb over it. The weak little laugh. The way he rushes to hide it. The fact that the first time we see him really asserting himself and his innocence is when Harriet threatens to take it from him.

I know all of that. That exact expression, movement.

He is so close to breaking. And he’s Qrow. He’s self conscious, self hating, isolating, Qrow. Talking about how this just confirms his own ideas of his position in relationships, his own fears about the danger of his semblance? That’s easy. That’s normal. It hurts like shit, but it’s manageable, he’s done it plenty of times before. Now it’s just a bit more raw.

But flat out talking about the entire loss that was Clover? About their bond ,and who Clover was as a person, and his potential, his future? The loss that Clover experienced in having his life cut short?

Maybe I’m shamelessly projecting again. But I truly do not believe that Qrow could manage to think, let alone talk, about that right this moment, and not completely break down. Which he knows he can’t afford to do yet.

Talking about himself. About his semblance and what Clover meant to him in that regard. Is painful. It hurts. It’s heartbreaking. But it’s familiar.

It’s angry. It’s small weak laughs because you are nowhere even close to okay but you can’t be as broken as you really are right now, so you’ve just got to stick it out.

Qrow is Qrow. Regardless of whether the writers pull this off appropriately or not, I have no doubt that this man understands, and has thought long and hard, about autonomy. About the tragedy of how death strips every last shred of it from a person. About the cruelty of someone’s death not even being seen as about them.

But right this moment, he can’t focus on that. There’s too much still to do. To worry about. To protect.

Talking about Clover? Just as Clover?

Facing that unfairness, that loss of autonomy, that stolen future (whether or not that future involved Qrow)? That is an entirely different kind of pain.

I’m four years removed from my loss and I still can’t think about that too much because it’s physically painful. It’s irreconcilable. I can joke and laugh and be crass about how empty I worry my life will always be without Emma. But thinking, talking, about what I feel when I just sit with the fact that she’s not just not here with me, but she’s gone. All the things she never got to do or be or feel. The crushing cruelty of her having no say in how her story ended, or how she is remembered. I have made talking about my grief my career. And that is still something I have no words for. Thinking about it in those first few days? Is a large part of why I don’t remember so much of that time. It was too painful, so I just blocked it out.

I said things. I thought things. I believed things. That were not fair. That were more about me and my pain than Emma. Hell, I know there were moments I was angry, and there wasn’t even anyone to try to blame for what happened. It was ugly emotion after ugly emotion. Bitterness piled upon bitterness. But that was part of the process.

My point is. I totally understand if this speech makes you nervous. If you can’t trust the writers to turn it around into something good, that doesn’t frame it as Clover’s fault, or as Clover only being important to Qrow because of his semblance.

But please know, that what Qrow actually said? Even if he was starting to blame Clover. Even if he was focusing only on how it hurt him because of his semblance. That is a natural part of grieving. It doesn’t matter if it would be an awful outlook for him to have at the end of everything.

He’s not at the end. He’s processing.

And outright saying that him saying that the semblance thing is what ‘really stings’, or being angry that Clover didn’t just listen to him, or anything else, is wrong and uncaring, isn’t fair.

It might not be the right perspective. It might be blatantly wrong and unfair and self absorbed. But that’s okay. He’s not callous for that.

His feelings about Clover, his respect for Clover, his grief over Clover’s death and the loss of his autonomy? None of that is diminished by him having moments where he wants to blame Clover, or where he focuses more on how this hurts him than how unfair it is for Clover. (again. I’m talking about just the surface of him saying this, not the intent and eventual narrative the writers have in doing it this way).

I just want people to be careful as they talk about this. Because it’s valid. And both sides are valid in multiple ways.

But please. Be careful in how you show your dislike for what you feel/fear the writers are going to do, and how you frame the issues with what Qrow said.

Grief is an incredibly isolating thing. And when it’s fresh it’s so easy to feel horrible, to literally hate yourself, for the thoughts you have while processing your grief.

We all want this to be handled properly, and we all are nervous about how bad it could be if it isn’t. But the last thing we need is people saying that Qrow is wrong or selfish for feeling and expressing what he is feeling, while he processes something so overwhelming and complicated as everything that is going on right now.

It’s not fair to Qrow, but more importantly, it’s hurtful for everyone watching who has dealt with or is still dealing with these unpleasant, often shameful and seemingly vilified aspects of grief.

There is no wrong or right way to grieve. There is nothing wrong with you for thinking things you normally wouldn’t, or for focusing on your own pain. The ugly parts of your grief do not mean you don’t care about the person you lost enough.

Just remember that the concern here should be about how the writers intend to use this speech.

Not that Qrow said what he said. Those feelings can be wrong, unfair, selfish. But there’s nothing wrong with him for feeling that way right now. It doesn’t mean Clover meant anything less to him.

It’s just grief.

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oneoftheextras · 4 years

Text

jealousy | villain aizawa x reader |two

masterlist | tip jar

Former student of his turned pro hero, he’s always had eyes for her at UA but never acted upon it. Once she graduates, she takes a role at Endeavor’s agency, and Aizawa can’t stand the thought.

words: 2.4k

warnings: +18, yandere and sexual themes, just creepy at this point

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

A pounding in your head was no what you were expecting to wake up to, neither was the sight of a black padded room with glass doors.

To your shock you shot upright, making the pain in your head worse, you took in your surroundings trying to figure out what was going on, the floors, walls and ceiling were padded, like the type you see in mental hospitals. But one wall was made out of glass.

Shakily, you got to your feet, stumbling over to the glass like a new born deer and trying to find an opening. When that didn’t work, you took a few paces back and projected purple flames towards it. Still nothing.

Sucking in a breath, you ran towards it, throwing all of your weight into your shoulder in an attempt to shatter it.

“You’re just going to tire yourself out” you heard from the other side, as soon as you heard the deep rumble you remembered what had happened. The chase, the rooftop, the capture weapon.

Gazing down at your wrists, you could see the bruises it had left around them and your hands. It hurt to make a fist.

You watched as a figure came towards the glass, it was him again, “Let me out, Eraserhead” you barked, gritting your teeth at him. He was no longer in his black overalls but instead a pair of black jeans and a black v-neck top, that gave you an idea that you had been out cold for a while.

“Call me Aizawa-Sensei, like you used to” he smirked at you through the glass, putting one forearm against it to lean. Disgusted at his words, you threw another bolt of purple flames towards him, you watched it consume the glass and then slide down it. When the flames cleared you saw that he hadn’t moved an inch, not even flinched at the attack.

Desperately you conjured flames on the floor, walls and ceiling, trying to get something to burn, but all you did was make the room very warm, you were starting to sweat through your hero suit.

“You’re going to tire yourself out” he laughed watching your attempts as though he was watching a puppy chase it’s tail, you turned on the spot to face him again “This entire room-” he interrupted himself “This entire building is flame proof, I had it specially built for you” he smiled as though it was something you should thank him for.

You glanced around the room, taking everything in, this wasn’t something that was built over the weekend. “How?” you asked, coming closer to the glass so you could see the room beyond it “It took me a little over 4 years and a lot of help” he said casually.

“Wait, 4 years?” you repeated to which he just nodded, he was staring down at you, watching your features as they reacted to their surroundings.

4 years ago you were a second year student, he was your teacher, but he said ‘a a little over’ meaning you must had been a first year then. “4 years ago I was-” you started thinking out loud.

“Just joining my class at UA” he answered for you, your eyes stopped travelling around the room and stopped dead onto his, you wished you had seen some kind of humour in his face but he was serious.

“W-why?” you asked question you didn’t know if you wanted the answer to “I knew there would be a time when I had you with me, as soon as I saw your quirk I knew how much trouble it could cause if you couldn’t control it. May as well make your future home something you couldn’t burn down” he explained flatly, as though what he was saying wasn’t completely insane.

“I was your first year student, do you know how fucked up that is?!” you shouted, punching your fist against the glass. Immediately you regret your decision and winced at the pain it brought.

“It’s a little strange, I guess, but my intentions were pure, I wanted to build you a safe space you could practice your abilities. It was only when you were close to graduating did I see you in a different light” he raised his eye suggestively and you looked at him with disgust while you nursed your hand which you were sure was broken.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t have those types of thoughts about you until you were in your third year” he added, wetting his bottom lip with his tongue. You couldn’t face him anymore, you turned your back on him and walked away from the glass, you hated what you were hearing but you needed answers.

“Why this? Why all of this?” you gestured to the glass prison you were trapped in, “If you were interested in me once I’d graduated, why not talk to me like a normal fucking person” you spat at him, he features turned defensive against the hatred in your eyes.

“This-” he mimicked your gesture of the padded cell, “-was because of you” he spat back, “Me?” you laughed angrily, as though you were clearly the problem here.

“Yes, you! You chose Endeavour over me” he accused you, pressing the tip of his index finger against the glass as he pointed at you. Baffled at his words all you could do was shake your head and shout out another “What?!” of disbelief.

He had made up an entire narrative in his head that never happened, “When you joined Endeavour’s agency I knew he would turn you against me, I had to have a back up plan, something in place where he couldn’t reach you” he slammed his palm against the glass startling you.

At your scared expression he seemed to calm down, getting closer to the glass again, “I needed to protect you until I knew for sure that you loved me too” he said as though that was something you said to a person.

You walked back towards the glass, looking up at his grey eyes, it was strange to think that if the glass didn’t exist you would be at a very intimate proximity to him, but you were contained. He flattened his hand against the glass, expecting you to do the same.

Crinkling your nose into a snarl and distorting your features to show your anger you shouted “I will never love you”, making sure to drag out ‘never’. His smile dropped and the look in his eyes frightened you, it was a mixture of obsession, pure evil and determination.

“We’ll see” he announced, pushing himself off of the glass and walking out of sight. It scared you more not being able to see where he was than when he was staring at you, something you used to worry about only with spiders. When you could see them you knew what they were doing, but they were up to God knows what when they were out of sight.

How the Hell had you gotten yourself into this situation?

By the clock hanging tauntingly on the wall opposite your cell, it had been about 6 hours since you last saw Eraserhead. Every moment you had used to try an escape, you were thirsty, hungry and exhausted.

Standing with your back flat against the padded wall, you aimed both of your palms at the glass and conjured your purple flames. You pushed yourself as hard as you could, watching the flames grow and lick the glass.

He said it was flameproof, but if you heated it up enough surely it would crack eventually.

Straining yourself, you slid down the wall. It was impossible, the more flames you produced the hotter you made the room, it was making you sweat through your tarnished hero suit and you desperately needed water.

Condensation was starting to roll down the steamed up glass, at least that way you could have some privacy. You unzipped your hero suit and shimmied it round to your waist, allowing your torso to breathe.

You must have passed out from exhaustion because the next thing you new you were opening your eyes to the sound of tapping. Brushing the sleep out of the corner’s of your eyes, you blinked the sleep away, that’s when you saw Eraserhead staring at you and holding a big cardboard box.

Hurriedly, you pulled your damp suit back up to try and cover you and regain some modesty. “Move into the corner” he told you, when you didn’t move he raised his voice slightly “Just do it”. Shuffling back until you felt the padded corner hit your shoulders, you waited to see what he was going to do.

You watched as he pushed a button on his side of the wall and a section of the glass slid into another making an opening, your legs twitched as your instincts told you to run, but you were too weak to fight him and you definitely wouldn’t be faster than him.

Eyeing him cautiously, you surveyed him as he walked into your space, placed the box down on the floor and gestured for you to take it. As he backed away and turned towards the exit, you subtly lifted your hand and flicked your finger in his direction, sending a small flame towards him.

His back was turned but he somehow managed to sense it, whipping his head around to scowl at you but it was too late, the flame had already landed on his top and was starting to burn a hole in it.

“Shit!” he cursed, leaping past the glass and slamming his hand onto the button to seal you in. Only when the door was closed did he pull his top up over his head and toss it to the ground, stamping on it to extinguish the flames.

You made no attempt to escape, you just needed something to cheer you up and watching him dance about had done just that.

He was furious. His eyes were glowing red and if his hair wasn’t tied up in a bun you were sure it would be floating too, although he was now topless too. “What the fuck was that for?” he scowled at you, picking up the ruined top and throwing it into a nearby bin, “Payback” you smiled trying to avoid eye contact with him.

He started to mumble to himself so you took the opportunity to inspect the parcel he brought in, you shuffled along the wall and towards it, trying to hide as much of your exposed body as you could.

Ripping the tape off the box caught his attention, he swivelled himself around and watched you intently, under other circumstances you would have liked to stop and stare at his toned abdomen and strong arms.

“I went to all that trouble to give that to you and this is how you repay me?” he scolded you, you ignored his words and opened the flaps to reveal what was inside. Spotting a plastic bottle your hands sprung for it, you twisted the cap off and sniffed it cautiously, it smelt like nothing so you assumed it was water.

You had to stop yourself from chugging the entire bottle at once, you took a couple of big gulps and then set it to the side, you felt instantly so much better.

Inside the box was some clothes, a few snack bars and other bits. You laid the clothes out on the floor in front of you, noticing that they were all your size including some pieces of underwear, you glared at him not wanting to know how he knew your measurements.

“I thought you would want a change out of your hero costume” he commented, inspecting your every move. At the bottom of the box was a blanket, you stroked it first feeling the soft fabric grace your finger tips and then picked it up to reveal the bottom of the cardboard.

You squealed and threw the blanket into the air when you saw what was left, “What the fuck are those?” you gasped completely shocked, you heard him laugh as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“We have many different types of needs, I wanted to make sure I fulfilled all of them for you” he explained with humour in his voice. In your shock you had managed to kick the box away from you which sent its contents flying across the floor. It was a vibrator and other toys, but not just random toys. They were yours, from your home - the ones that no one other than you had known about.

“You’re sick” you shouted at him, “I think you’ll find I’ve been quite pleasant to you considering” he snapped back, “Do you know how much money the League of Villains have put out for your capture?” he barked.

You were speechless, you had no idea that the League was interested in you, or even knew who you were. Realising he’d caught your attention, he grinned “I could have just handed you over to them and let them interrogate you in whatever way they wanted” he was really trying to rub it in.

Crouching down to be at your eye level, he peered at you through the glass, “If you give me information on the Heroes plans and operations, I can prove to them that you’re not a threat and they’ll leave us alone and we can be happy” his voice had swiftly changed from anger to kindness, he was pleading with you.

“I will never help a villain, let them kill me” you shifted your body so it was leaning towards the glass to make sure that he could see how serious you were.

Running his hand down his face, he stood back up again leaving you to look up at him “I’m only going to ask this once, what are Endeavour’s plans?” his jaw tightened and he waited for you to answer.

You pushed yourself up off the ground unsteadily and strutted over to the glass, leaning your body against it and staring at him dead in the eye “I’ll never tell you” you spat, refusing to back down.

He shook his head lightly and moved his eye line to the ground, “I really didn’t want to resort to this” he muttered, when he raised his head to peer at your angry features his eyes were soft and for a second you believed him.

“Actually, I really did” he smirked and leaned out of sight, you heard a mechanical thump from over your head.

Taglist:

@mylife-demonstrates-murphys-law @hereticpriest @enagmaticether @anxiousgoddest

#aizawa x reader #villain aizawa #villain aizawa x reader #yandere villain aizawa #yandere villain aizawa x reader #jealousy #jealousy part 2 #smut #aizawa smut

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theofficersacademy · 3 years

Photo

Continental winds from the north take up their arms as the long daylight hours wane, and drive out the last of summer’s oppressive heat. As cooler air follows behind, signs of the vibrant harvest season bloom across Fodlan. Hunting dogs pull eagerly at their leashes, scythes are taken down to reap golden fields, and celebration rises in feasting to give thanks for another bountiful year.

The students and faculty sent out on the investigations of the Relic rumors have now returned to Garreg Mach, and life is once more back to normal. The students of the Blue Lions house do not get to rest long, however, as the Church has a new mission for them... The Five Great Lords of the Roundtable have received a threat to the relic Thyrsus’ safety. Aware of the situation surrounding the Relics in the previous moon, they have made a formal request for aid to protect one of the Alliance’s most sacred treasures. In spite of the Alliance’s Founding Day celebrations, the Blue Lions of Faerghus find themselves packing up for a trip to Gloucester territory...

Blue Lions Mission: Protect the Thyrsus!

We are back on our regular season rotation, and this one belongs to the Blue Lions! As before, threads using tasks from the Blue Lions board must contain a Blue Lions character as a participant, but there are also non-mission tasks available to everyone without restrictions.

It soon occurs to everyone involved that sending the Blue Lions during a time when the Alliance celebrates its independence from Faerghus is a gaffe at best and a serious insult at worst. The prideful lords outwardly take the assistance in stride, but in private you are all relegated to heavy labor and busywork in preparation for the festivities, far from the Thyrsus you're supposed to be protecting. It might be more tolerable if it wasn't for this feeling that the lords somehow blame you for the mixup, and not the schmoozing cardinal that arranged the mission in the first place...

BL Mission Task Board

Dozens of lords coming into the Gloucester Estate means dozens of horses that need to be stabled up and taken care of for as long as their owners are here. The tedious task of taking care of these animals has, unsurprisingly, been dropped on your lap. This morning, shortly after putting out some horses to pasture, a Demonic Beast attacks. You’re able to fend it off, but the horses have fled in the confusion. Hopefully you can round them all up before their owners begin to miss them…

A personal invitation has been extended to Lord Acheron, fulfilling what rumors say is a political favor. You have the distinct honor of escorting him and his elderly aunt to the festivities. Remember to nod and smile. [grants Heavy Armor +1]

This year, House Gloucester holds the distinct honor of hosting the Crescent Moon Ball, the formal ball meant for celebrating the Alliance's Founding Day this moon. Dress up and observe the latest fashion trends, schmooze like the good little nobles you are, and hit up the local hotties. You might get some information about the Alliance’s Relics for your trouble...

Tourney time! Leicester takes pride in their own brand of knighthood and chivalry. The Horsebow Moon has always been a prime time for archery competitions and jousting. Try your hand at the games, and show off your skill with a bow! [grants Bow +1]

Part of training to be a young Alliance noble is participating in mock roundtable meetings, and the three-day event this year is made even more exciting by the presence of students from backgrounds outside of the usual big names in nobility. According to Golden Deer students, the script is the same every year, and you prepare to state your facts for and against declaring war on Almyra. Yet when the meeting begins... you discover that the topic is actually about separating from the Kingdom. Bullshit your way through it and try not to offend anyone.

NEW! You’re given the bad news with the typical aristocratic tact: it would be prudent to recuse yourselves from the investigations as they are carried out. That is to say, that many of the Alliance knights won’t allow you to enter the Gloucester mansion to see the crime scene for yourselves. It seems like not everyone got the memo, though, as a pair of greenhorn knights seem willing to escort you inside. They’re suspicious, but if you act like you’re suppose to be here hopefully they’ll let it slide. [grants Authority +1]

NEW! Your investigations bring you to the hunting forests, sitting on the border between the counties of Gloucester and Riegan. As you make your way through the murky forest, pushing your way past overgrown brush and hedge, you spot a brilliant red light gleaming in the darkness. When you approach, you recognize Thyrsus... but see no hand that holds it. Moving under its own power, it fires a potent Ragnarok spell over your heads. Well.... unfortunately there hasn’t been a “Combat Against Flying Weapons” elective for you to take. You’ll have to improvise as you go! [grants Any Weapon +1]

Non-Mission Task Board

It’s time for the seasonal fishing tournament! This year, however, it seems a strange mixture of fish has been added to the pond. Why do these fish have teeth!? And why does this one give off an electrical shock!? Some anglers might find this just an exciting change to the ordinarily boring tournament, but others might feel they need to investigate the sabotage... Or perhaps YOU’RE the one who dumped these exotic fish in the pond. [grants Axe +1]

Legend has it, any who chance to sit beneath the boughs of the old willow tree at the far back of the courtyard fall subject to a curious charm: they find their tongues tied if they should attempt to speak a lie, and they find themselves compelled to obey any instruction given them by another party, no matter how silly or untoward. Most sensible students diligently avoid this tree lest they find themselves put under its spell, but some braver souls take up a seat - after all, it’s the perfect place for a high stakes game of truth or dare. Is the legend true, however, or is it merely a matter of vain pride? [grants Reason +1]

A new trend has swept over Garreg Mach in these early autumn days of the Horsebow Moon. Various notes have been springing up around campus. Some claim to be looking for love. Others simply want to yell into the void about a frustrating assignment they’ve been given. And yet others might bemoan the presence of ghosts in the monastery’s halls… The letters are many and varied. The one thing they have in common is the fact they are all anonymous, and there is an implicit understanding that discretion is required to play the game. Will you take up a mystery pen pal?

The students return to the monastery with some answers, but more questions than ever before. What information you manage to uncover is swiftly censured by the Church as they continue to formulate their response on this matter. For those who live their lives pursuing knowledge, it’s time to bust into the restricted sections of the library and really start looking for the answers you deserve.

NEW! You spot a new, unsigned flyer tacked onto the school bulletin board, “Assistance Needed. Battle prowess required. All interested parties, please meet with me at the back of the marketplace.” You meet with a tall, cloaked figure with dark-lensed spectacles and white hair peeking out of his hood. He can’t introduce himself, but he at least elaborates on his mission. You are to travel to an abandoned quarry in Faerghus and gather a bag’s worth of Nepenthe Ore. Of course, there’s a catch: a large spider-like automaton guards the quarry, frightening away intruders with strange noises and a powerful beam of concentrated magic. No one knows who built it, but regardless you’ll need to figure out a way to get past it.

NEW! A small flight of wild wyverns have roosted in the mountains nearby, resting before their next leg in their journey to their wintering grounds in the east. You could observe them from a safe distance and take notes on wyvern behavior and social interactions... but that’s some nerd shit. You’ve heard stories of knights leaping onto the backs of wild stallions and taming them with sheer grit and determination. Would that philosophy work on a wyvern? It’s on you to find out! [grants Flying +1]

NEW! Each and every class of students has upheld the time-honored tradition of organizing a “House Prank” to pull on their beloved faculty members, and your class will be no different. With the stress and excitement of the upcoming Battle of the Eagle and Lion palpable in the air, it’d be good to get a little harmless mischief in and have some fun. At your professor’s expense, of course.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does the divided task board work?

This season’s mission is assigned to the Blue Lions. Therefore, tasks from the ‘BL Mission Task Board’ must be undertaken by someone that is affiliated with the Blue Lions.

Tasks from the ‘Non-Mission Task Board’ have no house restriction and can be undertaken by anyone.

These aren’t the only threads I can do, right?

Of course not! These are just prompts to help give some ideas of possibilities. You’re always free and encouraged to make up your own threads. You’re also more than welcome to worldbuild on your own, using these prompts as a base.

How do I claim the skill points?

In order to qualify for the skill point, the thread must clearly allude to the listed task and preferably feature the task being completed; however, the point can still be claimed even if your muses narratively fail the task (failure is sometimes just as fun to write as success, after all). You do not need to message the masterlist to claim your skill point.

Can I only do one task?

Nope, you can do as many as you’d like with as many different partners as you’d like! You can do the same task with more than one person! However, you can only claim the skill point for each task once.

What if my partner leaves or drops a skill point thread?

If the dropped thread has at least 2 notes (not counting likes, only reblogs with replies in them) and you have hit at least 400 words on your end, you may still claim the skill point.

Remember to use (and track!) the #toa open tag for any open threads, and you can also post a link to your open thread on the appropriate Discord channel! If you have any other questions or concerns, shoot us a message through the masterlist or on Discord!

#toa mission #mission: watchdog

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zazujoy · 4 years

Text

Darryl finally talked to his kid! I have a whole lot of thoughts about it so here’s what’s basically a line-by-line analysis of that episode 37 conversation.

Darryl: hey uh, Grant kiddo, you wanna tell me what happened last night?

Grant: uhh . . . yeah, I hung out with Yeet, and uh . . . yeah, no it just didn’t- it wasn’t-- he’s not . . . not for me. I’m good, it’s uh-we’re fine.

Darryl: I’m sorry kid.

Grant: Yeah, no, it’s good. I’m fine. How are you? Are you-There’s a lot going on with your dad, you-your whole thing, and Paeden . . . how are you?

Darryl: Yeah, I mean, you can tell there’s a lot going on there. Look, I mean we can- I’ll tell you what you want if you really wanna hear something from me, but you know, I’m here for you, and I wanna-- you know, it’s been wild and there’s been a lot going on, and I’ll just say that personally I feel like I’ve seen a change since that Fortnite since you went into that . . . I don’t know what you call it, but that big bird thing, it was pretty wild--

Okay, first thing I want to call attention to because it becomes important again later: Darryl calling Grant “kid/kiddo.” I’m struggling to properly express what I find significant about this, but while it’s a minor thing, I do think it’s important. It’s something that sort of subtly calls attention to the . . . power imbalance?? Between them--not an imbalance in a weird creepy way, but it emphasizes that it’s important to Darryl that he treat Grant as his son, not as his peer.

Along with that, I think the use of kid/kiddo somehow adds a bit of emotional distance, even though it’s a term of endearment. Darryl’s desire to protect Grant is extremely important to him, and I think interacting with him in this way is a subconscious expression of that desire/an indication that Darryl is, to a lesser extent, trying to connect with a younger version of Grant than the kid in front of him. Darryl trying to shield Grant from things he deems him “too young for” is born out of a good and healthy desire to protect him and set good boundaries, but it also gives him an excuse to not be as emotionally vulnerable as he needs to be at times.

Which brings me to my next point: I really like the way Darryl directs the conversation back towards Grant here. I think a lot of people interpreted this as Darryl once again being unwilling to express his own emotions or be vulnerable, and that definitely plays into it, but more than that I think it comes from that same protective instinct. Grant isn’t responsible for Darryl’s emotions or well-being in the same way that Darryl is responsible for Grant’s, and while Darryl’s parenting is definitely very flawed, that’s one thing I think he’s done a great job of recognizing and remembering. Establishing from the start that he’s here for Grant and avoiding making it about himself reflects that.

Darryl:Yeah, you know, I only thought of that because I went hunting with my dad and I shot an animal and I know that was, you know, it was a little tough, it was mostly just really the first experience I really had with death. But yeah, you haven’t been the same since then, and it’s been tough that we haven’t had the time to talk, and we’ve got the time right now, and I just want to know what’s going on with you.

Anthony: When you said “oh it was a little hard,” and you play off the hunting incident, he kinda looks away with an air of irritation.

Grant: No, I--it’s uh--yeah, it was a little hard, it was--

Okay so you know how I just said that Darryl trying to protect Grant and not make his emotions Grant’s responsibility was a good and important thing? I was right but this is the moment in the conversation that we start to see the negative effects of the way he’s been handling everything (not that this is the first time we’ve seen that; it’s been evident in basically every WIlson family interaction throughout the podcast, but in the context of this particular conversation, this is the point where my opinion shifts from “this is a good and responsible thing to do” to “Darryl you need to express some level of vulnerability to your kid because not doing so actively harms him.”)

I also think that here, Darryl’s fear of expressing his own emotions plays a role moreso than in the previous lines where he turned the conversation back to Grant. In that earlier line, it was more about protecting Grant, whereas now it’s both that and his own issues with vulnerability. These two things are absolutely interconnected, though--it’s not that “I can’t express emotions because I need to be a strong leader” and “I can’t express emotions because I want to protect my son and keep that from becoming his responsibility” are separate motivations so much as a chain of cause and effect: “Keeping my emotions to myself lets me be a leader and be strong get us through this, and if I want to be a good dad and protect my kid I need to be strong.” Of course, this thinking doesn’t take into account that

a. Repression does not equate to strength

b. Grant needs more than protection; he has a whole host of emotional needs outside of just that, and he needs Darryl to make an effort to make that kind of emotional connection

c. Darryl downplaying his own pain makes it harder for Grant to feel safe and comfortable expressing what’s going on with him. Like, we hear him directly repeat that “it was a little hard” bit and try to shrug off what happened, and throughout the conversation he continues to downplay it a lot.

Again, “I shouldn’t make my kid responsible for my emotions” is a good and healthy standpoint, but it’s also tied to a lot of Darryl’s personal issues that he needs to address, and feeds into some of the less healthy aspects of his parenting.

Darryl: well hey kid, look, when I was saying that I wasn’t trying to compare--my point was I was trying to say that I think if I went through what you did, I don’t know how I would have been. I would have wanted to talk to my dad about it, ‘cause my dad was there for me when I shot, you know, my first animal, and maybe it’s just--all things considered, it was a learning experience for me, and I can’t quite remember exactly what it was like back then, but you know, it was hard, but I think it was a little hard because I got to talk to my dad about it. So, you know, I want you to know that you can talk to me and I want to hear what happened.

Grant: what does hard look like to you, even? What does that mean? I saw you vomit and shit and I saw you learn that your dad is--all this . . . and it just doesn’t-- it seems like water off a . . . I don’t even know. I don’t know what I’m saying.

What I love about the way Anthony plays Grant is just, in general, the way he expresses feelings and concepts, especially as it relates to his depression. Anthony’s able to capture and express both what it’s like to feel that way and what it’s like to verbally fumble around trying to find the right words to express it. Grant, at 12, doesn’t have the same vocabulary/experience/point of reference with which to verbalize his depression that the players and audience do, and that’s played well while still clearly getting the emotional point across

This line is a great example of this. He stumbles around with the “water off a duck” thing at the end, but he hits on a question that’s key to this whole conversation and this whole relationship: “what does hard look like to you?” And another thing I like about that is that it’s been set up well; Grant asking this is in line with what’s happened previously in the podcast: Darryl brushing things off during For Knights, during the Paeden reveal, just now talking about killing an animal for the first time, etc; and Grant telling Yeet how everything seems to come so easily to Darryl. It’s an issue that’s been building up, and addressing it here, in this way, works really well narratively.

Darryl: Look, what’s hard for me? I mean, this is hard, but I’m . . . you don’t have to judge what you’re feeling based off of how I’m feeling. When you grow older, things are different, you know, and I might feel things a little less than I used to, cause of, you know just things that have happened in my life. And I don’t think--just because you’ve seen me act a certain way doesn’t mean that that’s the correct way to act. And this has definitely been hard, and I wish that … if there’s people around, or if your mom was here, I would talk to her. But I’m honestly just trying to get us through all of this, and get us back safe. So I don’t want you to be looking at me to think like that’s the way . . . don’t worry about how I’m feeling in terms of knowing how you’re feeling. That’s why I’m here to talk to you about it.

“You don’t have to judge what you’re feeling based off of how I’m feeling” is, in my opinion, the most important thing Darryl says in this whole conversation. I don’t actually have a lot more to say about that because I think Darryl/Matt expressed it really well, but yeah. Super important, and one of the few things I think Darryl got 100% right. Not that it’s the only good or right thing he said, but a lot of the other good things he says get mixed in with slightly more questionable ideas (I’ll get into that later), but this? It’s just good. Mr. Wilson sir, I’m proud.

Grant: yeah, no, I get it.

Darryl: Tell you what, Grant, I’m not gonna force you to talk to me. I trust you, and you’re obviously dealing with a lot, and I know I can’t push you, but I am worried that maybe I’m not doing this the right way for you to feel open. So I’ll tell you what: anything you want to ask me, I’ll tell you honestly, I will tell you the truth, because I’m always gonna tell you the truth. And when I’m not telling you things, I’m not trying to lie and I’m not even trying to avoid it, I’m just trying to do what I think is best. And trying to protect you from certain things right now. But maybe that’s just not doing it, and my dad always talked to me, so . . . if there’s anything holding you back, you know, ask me and I’ll tell you anything.

Hell yeah, fuck yeah, this is what I’m here for. One of the biggest themes of the podcast is that all four of the dads have major flaws in their approaches to parenthood, and during this adventure they need to come to acknowledge and address that. I said a few weeks ago that Ron was the only one who had really done that so far, but I’m happy to say I’m officially including Darryl in that club now. Throughout the podcast, we’ve seen him address pretty much every situation the exact same way: he wants to be strong, to be a team leader, to push forward and get through this.

Acknowledging that this approach isn’t working here is a huge step forward for Darryl, and it’s so important that he was able to recognize that and adjust accordingly, rather than simply pushing forward as he’s done in the past.

Also! I brought up the kid/kiddo thing earlier and it’s relevant again here, because this is the first point in the conversation that Darryl just calls him “Grant” without throwing “kid” in at the end, and I like the way that that tiny detail emphasizes the shift in the conversation. Darryl doesn’t completely abandon his reticence, but he’s engaging with Grant more directly than he has been, rather than using that father/son dynamic as a way to put more distance between them. He’s acknowledging him as a whole, independent person (“I trust you”) and giving him the space to set whatever boundaries he needs.

Grant: Okay. So, when I was talking to Yeet the other night, he said something that I wanted to ask you about. He said that he was feeling like uh . . . like he couldn’t feel anything? Like there was nothing. But when he was in certain situations, he would feel something. And it would make him be like “oh cool, I’m here” and that was kinda scary to him, and he didn’t . . . uh, he didn’t really feel like he could talk to anybody about it, because nobody else knew how it felt to feel that way. And I was like “yeah my dad definitely has never . . .” Like have you ever, has that ever . . . I don’t know, it’s stupid, you know what, forget it--

Darryl: no, I mean, to feel numb? Or that you can’t say anything to anybody?

Grant: Yeah, or like you’re not there. Like you were there, and now you’re . . . not. That’s like a thing that Yeet has.

MR. BURCH I JUST WANT TO TALK

For real, the decision to have Grant present his depression as something Yeet is dealing with instead of directly talking about it is maybe my favorite character decision from this whole damn story.

A major theme in Darryl and Grant’s relationship is the distance between them. We see Darryl putting distance between them with every “we’ll talk later,” and Grant mirroring this behavior by consistently shrugging Darryl off and, especially after the chimera incident, basically refusing to engage with him.

In this instance, Grant filtering his depression through “my friend is dealing with this thing” is another way to establish distance, but in a much healthier way than before. It would be great for Darryl and Grant to have a relationship where he can talk openly and directly about it, and I hope we see them get to that point, but as of right now they’re not there. Grant knows that, and instead of pulling away completely like he’s done in the past, uses Yeet as a way to keep enough emotional distance that he feels safe. He stops treating it as a black-and-white issue (“if my dad understood this, I’d tell him about it, but he wouldn’t get it so I’m not going to try”) and instead does what he needs to in order to engage with his dad at their current level of trust/emotional intimacy.

That element of “keeping a safe distance” is especially clear when you compare this section of the conversation to the conversation Grant had with Yeet. With Yeet, he was a lot more vulnerable and open, getting into more detail and letting himself break down a bit, whereas with his dad it’s clear he’s keeping some of his walls up. He’s summarizing his feelings/experience (while pretending it’s not his), not processing them or directly showing them.

Obviously my experiences are not universal and not every story about a mentally ill teen needs to reflect my own life, but this particular thing is something that’s super familiar to me. I can remember the exact moment that I, at 14, realized my parents weren’t people I cried to anymore. When I did open up about stuff, my friends were the people I cried with and vented to, and (sometimes) my parents got a cliff’s notes version later of what was going on with me.

Darryl: Yeah. I mean, I can’t speak to Yeet, but of course. I think that’s a thing that everybody . . . I mean look, one of the greatest regrets I have is that you never got to meet your grandpa. And I don’t know if you ever know exactly how . . . I mean, you’ve heard some stories about how your mom and your dad got together, but I . . . it was the reason your dad never graduated college. Like it was hard. When my dad died, I didn’t know how to handle it. He died--you know he had cancer, and he was slipping away, he had brain cancer, and I didn’t want to go to college. But he told me he was strong, he would make it, and when I was there freshman year, he went back to work. He wasn’t supposed to go back to work but I think he was just tired of being stuck inside, and he shouldn’t have been there. And he slipped, and he wasn’t ready, and he died. And I wasn’t there. And I told my mom I didn’t want to go to college. And yeah, I mean, I was shut down. I didn’t know how to feel for the longest time. And that’s . . . it’s normal. I think there’s a lot of things in life that happen to people that you don’t know how to feel. And I don’t know what’s happened to Yeet. This world is crazy, people are going into slavery when they’re young kids, so, God, I can’t even imagine what’s happened to Yeet. But--

Oof. Oof. Okay.

First off, props to Darryl for finally expressing an emotion! Talking about his dad’s death and the way it affected him and admitting that he didn’t know how to feel is a super important milestone for him.

I do take issue with “everyone feels like that sometimes” and “that’s normal” though. I know this wasn’t Darryl’s intention, but hearing things like that when I was a depressed young teen was the absolute worst thing, because to me it communicated “being sad all the time is normal, not wanting to exist is normal; everyone deals with this and I’m just handling it worse than they are.” I didn’t need people to tell me it was normal, I needed someone to acknowledge that something was wrong and that I needed and deserved help. Again, my experiences aren’t universal, but I’d wager Grant has similar needs in this case.

All that said, I think this had more of a positive than negative effect for Grant. Even though Darryl stumbles a bit and hits on that “everyone deals with that” idea that I dislike, he also expresses that, at least to an extent, he can relate to what Grant is going through. Grant might leave this conversation thinking “this is normal and I should just get better at dealing with it,” but Darryl is also trying to tell him that he understands, that he’s a safe person to talk to, and that Grant isn’t alone, and I think those messages come through too, even if they’re not expressed perfectly.

Grant: What made that go away? What did you . . . when did you stop feeling like that?

Darryl: I mean, your mom. She-

Grant: oh.

Anthony: And he immediately starts crying. Not sobbing, but just like tears streaming down his face.

Matt: Tears start streaming down Darry’s face too and I go

Darryl: Yeah, it’s--she’s the best woman in the world, I mean, she knew, and honestly, sometimes I feel like you know, if I feel like I’m not good enough, I wonder if maybe she just stays stuck here, that she was . . . oh, I shouldn't say that, you’re too young for that. But your mom loves me very much and I love her very much. And yeah, she’s the reason I got through it. And you know, it’s never gone, which is why I don’t know what I should do. I don’t know if I should talk to my dad or . . . the fact that he could be here for some reason, but . . . look, kiddo, life’s never gonna get easier, life’s never easy, but as long as you’ve got people around you that love you, and I love you, you’ll get through it. And you’ve just got to hold onto the positive stuff.

Grant: Thanks. Yeah, no I--I love you too.

Oof 2: Electric Boogaloo.

Much like in the previous few lines, there’s a mixture of good and bad messages here, but in this case I think the more harmful ones come through more strongly than the good.

“Life’s never easy, but as long as you’ve got people around you that love you, and I love you, you’ll get through it” is good! HOWEVER, Darryl essentially saying that Carol fixed all his problems is an issue for a couple of reasons.

1. “Love cures depression” is just in general a really shitty idea to perpetuate, and it’s especially hard-hitting for Grant in the aftermath of getting rejected by his crush, who was one of the few people who made him feel anything. Plus, it pushes Grant back towards his perspective that his dad “got the thing that mattered the most to him early on in life.” Darryl made a lot of progress in showing Grant that he understands some of what he’s going through, but communicating that Carol made everything better and that love made those issues go away dampens that effect a bit.

2. Darryl has a habit of idolizing the people he loves and looks up to, and we hear that especially every time he talks about his dad or Carol. He puts them on pedestals and that makes it a lot harder for him to realize they’re humans with flaws and problems of their own.

Darryl: You wanna just cry for a little bit?

Thinking about this in contrast to Grant telling Yeet two episodes ago that he’s never seen his dad cry or be scared. I have no further comments.

Darryl: Grant, are you hungry?

Grant: Yeah, no yeah I’m always . . . I mean, I would eat.

I’m not the first person to mention this, but in previous episodes Grant has turned away food and said he’s not hungry, even after not being fed for a few days (that’s depression, babey!), so “I would eat” is SUCH a good, subtle indication that he’s doing a little better.

Darryl: Hey Grant, I just want you to know, you don’t--it doesn’t have to be fixed right now. And I just want you to know, if you ever want to talk again and you just need me to be there, like . . . it’s not a one-time thing.

This line is competing with “you don’t have to judge what you’re feeling based off of how I’m feeling” for the title of Most Important Thing Darryl said. It’s so so good that the characters and players know that this isn’t something that one conversation will fix, and that this is just one step in an ongoing process. This one conversation didn’t by any means fix Grant’s depression, but it was a huge step forward in terms of establishing a relationship between Grant and Darryl where he feels safe and supported talking about it.

#dungeons and daddies #dndads spoilers #dndads #Joy to the World

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ournewoverlords · 5 years

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Booksmart slaps. It’s just a huge amount of fun to watch - the key word here for me is “good-natured”. This is a good-natured movie that teases and pokes fun at a lot of people - a lot of *kinds* of people, from the queer drama kids to the dopey jocks to the Gen Z overachieving feminist types who have pictures of Michelle Obama on their wall and can quote Susan B Anthony from memory - without ever making fun of anyone in a mean-spirited way, and highlighting that no one is ever “just” their tribe. The ending ties the story up neatly with a feel-good bow about how no one is really what they seem on the surface, especially not in high school, when everyone’s trying so hard to be invulnerable… which also means they can’t be *seen*. There’s a lot of great character work here that I think could’ve been fleshed out even more (the 1 hour 45 min runtime feels shockingly short in the day and age of Endgame) but still feels natural and sincere, and the huge array of secondary characters - real characters, not just insert-famous-cameos - gives this movie not just humor but so much life and buoyancy.

(Warning: light spoilers beneath cut)

What keeps it from reaching the top tier for me, though, is that it somehow still feels like something I’ve seen before, even though the window dressing is so different. It’s definitely rare to see female best-friendship displayed so frankly, genuinely, and *hilariously* on the big screen, and I can’t remember another movie where the nerdy valedictorian is a boss and knows it, not to mention one where one of them is a lesbian (my young baby lesbian Amy!! protect that cinnamon roll), but the story of two blood-sworn, childhood-, everything-friends reaching the last chapter of their adolescence together in fun and games and boozy celebration, all while the fear of how they’ll face the great unknown without the other is this silent undercurrent churning beneath… that feels familiar to me? That doesn’t keep me from loving this particular theme, because it IS a great one, I just mean it’s not as original as Ladybird, so it lends itself to comparison more easily.

Superbad, for instance. I actually kinda hate how every review (including the one linked here, which is totally in line with my sentiments) keeps calling this “the female Superbad”. Yes, it’s a coming-of-age comedy about two friends at the end of the senior year trying to go out with a bang together, and yes, it’s a little raunchy, and yes, it really is all about the friendship between the two main characters at its core… but the whole texture, color, and point of Booksmart are completely different.

By texture, I mean that even as the two girls are the “heroes” of this quest, it’s still interested in the characters outside them, such that you really get the sense that they are their own people, with their own lives and inner life. In the briefest of screentimes you grasp instantly why someone like Molly would be attracted to easygoing jock Nick (but then connects to the hopelessly-messy-but-sweet Jared), and why Amy likes the skatergirl with the big toothy grin. The other kids and love interests aren’t just vessels for Molly and Amy’s own awakenings. In fact, some of them have their own troubles, and they’re all really pretty good kids.

It’s interested in the way that the two mains are, in their own way, not the most perfect people. How the world’s really not out to get them; in fact, they’re the ones who have to learn to fit into it. I talk more about this below, but this was the part I liked the most, because it feels particularly true to life in a way that I don’t think I’ve seen in many other coming-of-age narratives, much less light-hearted comedies.

Speaking of light-hearted, the whole tone of the humor is waay different from Superbad’s too. It’s funny as hell, which is probably the most important thing at the end of the day — there were a few scenes that had me and my entire theater howling — but amazingly for a coming-of-age comedy, I remember very few of the jokes being gross-out or sexual, or even all that cringe. Booksmart mines a lot of physical humor just in their sheer facial expressions (if a picture is a thousand words, Beanie Feldstein’s face does the work of a thousand punchlines), but it’s mostly the little throw-away lines and hilarious sketches (the attempted robbery in the car! Amy’s overly-well-meaning parents! everything GiGi and Jared do) that string everything together and carry the day. That’s not to say that there aren’t serious moments that are given due weight too — Amy under the water, submerged in that song is just an absolutely beautiful shot.

It reminds me a little of Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade, which I think is a more interesting comparison than Superbad here. Booksmart tries to capture some of that raw realness that Eighth Grade had, underneath all the silliness and humor; it is, in many ways, about how hard it is to be vulnerable to someone else, even (especially) the people you love. It pulls at a lot of strands and among them are the idea that this is what high school is really like, that to be honest all these boys (and girls!) who hold your heart in their clumsy, sweaty fingers will be like leaves in the wind years from now, that standing on the entrance to adulthood isn’t a physical change, it’s not about booze, or losing your virginity, or getting accepted by your peers. Becoming an adult is inner work, alright, but it’s also not work you can do on your own. Because it’s about how you treat yourself, but it’s about how you treat other people too.

But I think where Eighth Grade really succeeds is this it has this kind of specificity to it — it really, really is about this awkward girl, and her lonely existence, and about being a girl who is becoming a woman in a certain context. And that specificity gives it a kind of honesty that rings painfully true to me. Booksmart — probably because it is trying to avoid stereotypes and do something entirely new here, which is totally commendable — almost feels a little too universal. It feels like you could replace Molly and Amy here with dudes, and it wouldn’t be a huge change in dynamics outside the pussy hats and Malalia worship, because these two are defined more by their identities as “overachieving party-pooping best-friend NERDS” than by being girls per se. These are two whipsmart dorks who are best friends, and happen to be female, rather than a portrayal of female best friendship per se. And the other kids treat them that way too: no one gives a shit Molly’s chubby or Amy’s a lesbian, they give a shit that they’re exasperating know-it-alls.

Which is REALLY refreshing. I’m being unfair here — it’s *because* it’s so rare to see female friendships or just girls in general depicted this way on screen that I think it doesn’t quite “fit” my own intuitions about real life. But I’m a weird case of someone who really struggled in high school, and definitely didn’t have friends much less deep ones like theirs, and I bet other women would recognize themselves in these two and their relationship much more. The frank vagina talk and the fact that Molly and Amy are actually really self-assured and even pretty damn well-liked are just super freakin’ cool anyways. In particular I LOVE the way they’re still dorky, in a way I so rarely see female characters allowed to be because female characters written by dudes tend to be so poised and “above” the main male protagonist (probably because the screenwriters are thinking back to their own high-school crushes, who must’ve seemed so mature and unattainable to a nerdy teenage boy).

It goes back to what I said about this being an affectionate, feel-good movie where everyone turns out to be pretty decent in the end. It doesn’t set out to be much more than that, and I’m not sure if I wanted it to be, but I think it’s that fact they didn’t go all out that keeps it from being a 10/10 for me. It’s just very sweet and knowing and funny and always making sure to laugh with these oddball kids, but that same gentleness keeps it from being something great; it’s like you need some claws to expose something “real”.

It’s a little strange to me, for example, that the movie dishes out a lot of high-school tropes — all the kids are playful representatives of some stereotype — but doesn’t seem to have any real bullies, and happily accepts the two not-very-outcasted outcasts at the party with open arms. And the girls each get their heart crushed, but only for like five minutes before they (tbqh) each get an upgrade. Every Gen Z tribe gets represented — from the failing stoner who actually has an offer from Google to the misunderstood school slut to poor Jared, my sweet beautiful mess of an unloved richboy — in this kind of Glee grab-bag kinda way, but without Glee’s sense that what ties us all together is this fucking shared suffering called high school; Booksmart’s high school is more like a utopia where everyone wears what they want and gets to be quirky and different and much cooler than you think in their own individualistic way. (They even have Jessica Williams as a teacher! UGH, so jelly.)

There’s something that’s actually really subversive about this, because 1) no one’s a villain and 2) to the extent that Molly and Amy are unpopular, it’s kinda brought on by themselves. *They* were the ones who chose never to hang out with the other kids, because studying was more important. *They* are the ones who have to learn something. Molly was the one who judged everyone by the school they got into, even as the others never gave a shit about it. Amy came out two years ago, but the reason she’s never had a kiss isn’t so much because she’s a lesbian, but because she’s too timid and unassertive as a person. Molly’s character arc is discovering that she’s too freaking judgey and she needs to stop assuming she knows everything from the cover, Amy’s is to realize herself as her own person outside of the (admittedly powerful) centrifugal force of her best friend.

Those are GREAT ideas for arcs, it’s just that the execution of them didn’t completely land for me — maybe because the jokes were competing so much with the serious bits for screentime, it had to scramble at the end for the moment of character growth. So it didn’t feel fully “earned” to me, even as it worked on the thematic level of truly seeing people when you aren’t blinded by your own assumptions.

Still, it’s a really satisfying movie with a different take on a common trope, and packed with killer lines and secondary characters like Jared that are just so great (he’s one that feels especially on-point to me because I recognize one of my old classmates in him — a great kid, just… swimming through life in a different lane). The cameos by the adult actors — Jessica Williams, Lisa Kudrow, Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte — were predictably fantastic. In fact all the acting and casting was SO GOOD (I found out later that the casting director was the one who did Freaks and Geeks!). I’m impressed by Olivia Wilde in her directorial debut here, it’s clear that she has an ear for comedic beats and some of the shots were wonderful — in a lot of comedies the camera is just kinda static and it’s all talking heads, but here the angles, the POV shots, the longer takes that move in and out of sound add so much dynamism. Excited for what she does next.

#booksmart #booksmart spoiler #booksmart review #olivia wilde

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renardtrickster · 5 years

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How was Voltron ruined?

This message is kind of spooking me because I was working on a draft that talked about that, but I’ll still answer it here, prescient anon.

Voltron was ruined because it was the birthing grounds of what would be the modern “Anti Community”. The “Anti-Anti Community” had a hand in it as well, but it was primarily the former. And I know that those are stupid names, but when it’s the widely accepted vernacular. Anytime I say “Anti”, substitute it with “Anti-Shipper” and “Anti-Anti” with “Anti-Anti-Shipper” (shoulda been “Pro-Shipper” but once again, nobody on Tumblr can pick smart names).

Also necessary disclaimer, while I ascribe certain attributes to each side of the Shipping Discourse, I’m not trying to paint with a broad brush. While I had one friend that liked Sheith and another that liked Klance and neither turned out to be terrible, so now I’m speaking in broad terms.

Basically when Voltron was happening, there were two massively popular ships going at it. “Sheith” was Shiro and Keith, “Klance” was Keith and Lance. I don’t know why or when, but they started duking it out, and became the proto-movements I listed above. Keith signaled the Anti Community, and they opposed the Sheith ship. Pro-Klance attempted to denounce the Sheith ship by spinning a narrative that it was like, pedophilia or something because Shiro was older than the other paladins (they only said he was the oldest of the main cast, please note this trend for later). Erstwhile, Pro-Sheith shippers just wanted to watch their cute guys in peace, and opposed the stark buttmad ravers. In essence, Pro-Klance set the grounds for the Anti Movement, and Pro-Sheith set the grounds for the Anti-Anti Movement.

While this may seem like a case of “good but misguided” versus “good”, it was anything but. The Keith side, as I said before, had an agenda and it wasn’t actually protecting kids from pedophilic ships. Anyone with eyes could see that it was primarily “I want my yaoi guys to kiss and not yours” with a coat of lead paint on it. The rest is history and frantic tumblr posts. The infamous FICTION IS REALITY ask where some anti-Sheith dude tried to say that pedophilia in fiction promotes actual real-life pedophilia (and some other stuff but that photo is blurry and I can’t read it), nevermind the fact that Sheith being pedophilia is a completely fabricated statement because all they had to go on was “Sheith’s the oldest” (and implying that Lance was older than Keith which had never been said). The mass waves of Sheith shippers being harassed, sent gore, and in some cases SENT CP which is fucking abhorrent (and hypocritical since their opposers claimed to hate pedophilia, really causes 🤔). The one Klancer who somehow got leaks of the show and threatened to release them if Klance wasn’t made canon (an incident wherein nobody put on airs of fighting justice anymore). And the supplementary book came out, confirming Shiro at 25, Keith at 18, Lance at 17, meaning Klance was the underage ship all along, cue everyone screaming NOT CANON and looking for contradictions, even though Klancers would not have listened to any proof had Keith and Lance’s ages been swapped. I also heard something about Klance SS Uniform fanart on twitter but I blacked out when someone told me that because I can only handle so much.

Keep in mind that Sheith wasn’t just squeaky ducks either. I remember that one posts where a Sheith shipper made a Down With Cis Bus-tier story about some kid yelling at them in a Wal-Mart for shipping Sheith. And while I can’t recall any specific examples, I know there must have been some examples of the “ship and let live” side actively trying to oppose Keith (thus the serpent bites its tail and Anti-Anti becomes Anti). But this was a minourity of the Sheith side, Klance was definitely pulling its weight when it came to being horrible.

And this was the VOCAL MINOURITY, but it was vocal enough to be the only thing I ever heard about Voltron. Between the vitriolic shipping wars and the actual show having its own issues (it took way too long for them to actually form Voltron), the show’s reputation was ruined and all anybody will remember is the protoplasmical shipping wars and how they grew into the modern Anti and Anti-Communities.

And now the people who rode the Klance bus and hated the Voltron writers are both following and working on She-Ra. It’s going to crash and burn like Voltron did, and while I don’t want to watch it because it looks like shit, I’m going to learn about it against my will.

AND TO THINK, all of this could have been avoided if everyone had Sheith as a Matespritship and Klance as a Kismesissitude. But they didn’t because ultimately this was a coward’s game. Also sorry to drag on, but I wanted to fully illustrate what TF happened outside of just saying “shipping wars” because that wouldn’t be satisfying enough and also I Want People To Learn.

#long post #LIKE REALLY LONG AAAA #infoxicated #please don't send me gore for dunking on a dead fandom and dead ships #Anonymous

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eorzean-capitalist · 6 years

Text

The more flowery a person’s speech … the more suspect the feelings, or lack of feelings, it concealed. -- Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

There’s a lot to unpack from the fauxpology that appeared recently on a new blog from Oz. I’ve seen this before... from multiple abusive people.

So let’s dive in, shall we?

There are some things I need to address, some of which I need to apologise for. I want to be clear this is not me entering into a debate, this is not my version of events, this is an apology for where I have made mistakes and where I have at times hurt many people who ultimately did not deserve it, many of whom are my friends and loved ones.

Some of which you need to apologize for? Some?

I have no intention of any kind to publicly address this any further. I do not think it would be of any benefit to anyone, particularly the people I have hurt, to escalate this more than it already has by arguing about any specific claim’s full context. If you wish to speak with me privately, I encourage you to reach out to me personally

Private, where you can continue to try to control the narrative. Private, where you can attempt to keep gaslighting your victims. Private, where no one else can see what you’re saying and go ‘Um, no, that’s not correct’.

And whose benefit here are you really concerned about? Because I can tell you right now, your victims would /love/ for you to publicly acknowledge the hurt you caused them. It just wouldn’t be very fun for you to be open to the kind of scrutiny you’ve called to attention on other people for daring to go against your dictates and mandates.

Unfortunately, I have to be clear about what, exactly, I’m apologising for. In the noise and fury surrounding the last week or so, accusations have been made that are not simply bad interactions taken out of context or even objectionable but otherwise fairly mundane failures of decency, but utterly detestable and even illegal.

Jesus christ, put down the fucking thesaurus. We get it. You know big words. Would you stop tap dancing around the point and actually get to it?

Actually, I’ve read this run-on sentence several times and I really can’t make heads or tails of it. What are you trying to say here, Oz? Are you accusing your victims of making shit up? Despite all the evidence that’s been posted? Are you suggesting that somehow talking about the shit you’ve done is illegal? Like really?

I do not say this to excuse anything I have actually done or anywhere I have actually been wrong, but so that I can apologise for where I have indeed done wrong without admitting to baseless claims of acts that are not just morally reprehensible but in some cases illegal.

“So I want to cherry pick what to apologize for. The stuff that’s just kinda assholish I’ll admit to but everything else is illegal because I say so.”

I have never doxxed, stalked, sexually harassed, or threatened the the life of anyone

Um. Sure, Jan.

Additionally, I have never sent anonymous hate messages through Tumblr or any other medium. I have never condoned any of those behaviours, encouraged them in others, nor have I ever made false claims of any of the prior acts.

Uh huh. Have you forgotten we’ve all SEEN you do this shit? You may not do anon tumblr hatred, but you do threaten people. I’ve seen you go on complete tirades over and over again. People have actually posted testimonials and screenshots of logs where you are threatening them. Seriously, stop denying you do this shit.

I have made many mistakes and, yes, I have made some very bad choices. While I am absolutely guilty of being unnecessarily aggressive, disdainful, and combative, I have not done any of those things. I am not going to speculate about the motivations of the people making these claims, but suffice it to say they are entirely false and the people making them have no reason to believe otherwise. There are things I have to own and apologise for, but these are not among them.

They just made some very bad choices, folks. We should totes give them a break.

I regret I must start an apology with a qualification like that, but given the nature of the more extreme and spurious claims some have made, I have no choice. It would be disingenuine and even irresponsible of me to extend a blanket apology and include deeply reprehensible acts I have never committed nor would I ever commit.

I think what they’re trying to say here is ‘I would do anything for love... but I won’t do that.’

Also, if you need four flowery paragraphs of highfalutin language to start off your ‘apology’, you’re doing it wrong.

What I will apologise for are the places where I have failed and while they are not as many as claimed, they are dire

Now we begin the minimizing stage. They admit to doing some things, but not everything, and even those some things are very small really. Just a few things. Yes, dire things but JUST A FEW THINGS.

I allowed myself to listen to voices that lauded me for drawing hard and sometimes arbitrary lines with people, showing swift cruelty, and forgetting there is a very real difference between flawed people who have made mistakes or even just poor choices and people who set out to knowingly do harm for its own sake

“Guys, I made some bad choices. I was lead astray by other nebulous people. Clearly they were the ones to guide me into these dire, terrible actions. I apologize for them dragging me kicking and screaming down this awful path.”

What’s worse is that these are lessons I learned long ago, but I allowed myself to be comfortable and even lazy. I did not hold myself to my own standards and through my unwillingness to examine my own behaviours, I hurt others.

I hope you pause to meditate on the fact that this is why people say your behavior has never changed.

There are times I have shown anger or drawn a line around spaces under my control and done so justly There is a time and place for anger. Like any emotion in a healthy volume and the right context, it has a role to serve.

The problem is, you are addicted to your righteous anger. You go from 0 to 60 in 0.005 seconds, and when you blast people, you refuse to listen to them when they try to reason with you. I’ve read the logs. I’ve seen you run in, scream at people and when they try to placate you, continue to berate them.

Your first reaction to anyone challenging you or ‘threatening your territory’ is to go nuclear. Full blast nuclear. And you do. not. stop. You will continue to post about them for months. Vagueposts sniping at them. And you don’t just do it yourself, you command your people like they’re your little army to avoid the people you’ve decided are on your Naughty List on pain of becoming your next victim.

That’s on you. It is all on you. No one else is to blame for this, no matter how you may try to blame your ‘choices’ on mysterious others in your life.

In many cases, what I did was apply that anger too broadly and too eagerly. I was too willing to see the hurt in response to my actions as a proof of guilt from the people I refused to see the simple human dignity of. I allowed people who I felt wronged me or people dear to me to become less than people in my eyes, something reserved only for the most awful of people, not individuals who simply commit some passing faux pas in a bad circumstance or, indeed, do nothing beyond some relatively minor violation of the social contract.

On this, we can agree. Would that you had said this rather than all the shit above.

After a period of suffering genuine manipulation, abuse, and gaslighting by a truly vile person, I allowed my feelings of abandonment and outrage at an injustice to stew and mutate into a broad and directionless anger. No matter what happened, my failure to properly gauge my emotions and find healthy, positive outlets for those feelings was not just unacceptable, but my fault. What’s worse is that I sought and found help. I knew what I had to do, and it took me too long to begin the process of healing, a process entirely within my control. While I refused to heal, I indulged in pain and the social rewards that come from it. Not just my own pain but the pain of others.

More blame shifting. Remember, folks, while they did hurt people, they were the REAL victim here.

The worst part of all of this is that among the choices I made, they were not choices I made out some misguided belief or, in most cases, not even out of misinformation. They are things I did in spite of my own beliefs. If you asked me on a good day, I would tell you I believe it is absolutely critical to reach out to people you feel have wronged you and while it’s important to protect the things and people vital to you, you should never allow yourself to succumb to a hateful, tribalistic, ingroup/outgroup attitude without fully appreciating the harm that does not just to other people, but to yourself.

On a good day, if you asked me, I would tell it is absolutely crucial to be no one’s attack dog and to avoid people who celebrate the harm you do to others. I would tell you it is easy to build the support of people who see you as a vector for the harm they want to see done to others. I would tell you it is not just easy, but a passive process to become a threat to other people and that is the very last thing you should want to be. When I say I was overly comfortable and lazy, that is exactly what I mean.

You know what they’re doing here? Trying to be subtle about it, but definite blame shifting going on here. They are blaming other people for jumping on the bandwagon THEY created. They got off on manipulating public opinion about people, and are now blaming the very people they manipulated into feeling that way.

Nice try, but i c wat u did thar.

I failed to be the better version of myself I have been. I can say I never set out to harm people specifically because I wanted to or I because I enjoyed the idea of punishing others, which I didn’t, but the effects of my actions are the same as if I had. I invited and engaged in unnecessary conflict to no gain, I meted out judgement where harmful, and I did all of this with the reassurance I would be rewarded in ways I never should have sought.

“See, folks, I just wanted the approval of other people. So I hurt you because I sought out that kind of approval and it’s their fault for making me want their approval.”

In every instance of wrongdoing, I was a hypocrite. In allowing myself to see people as their failings, something I absolutely know is wrong, I justified a level of hostility that is not just inappropriate, but destructive to myself, to those around me, and of course to those on the bad end of that hostility. For that, I apologise from the bottom of my heart.

Furthermore, I need to apologise for the influence I’ve had. Beyond my actions themselves, I have helped create a culture of cyclical anger, division, and anguish that has done real harm to our community. Not only have my actions reflected poorly on my friends, who I can assure you are not supporters of those actions, they have fed into a subculture on Balmung of a deeply hostile and hateful moral rectitude. I contributed to an environment where people looking to do harm can and can do so largely without consequence.

You know, if you had just said this, I might actually believe you were sorry. Unfortunately, this is buried in so much bullshit it’s hard to take seriously.

I can complain about there being absolutely false and completely groundless claims made about me, but it is my fault there is an environment for those claims to come from. Obviously, there are other bad actors in our community, but I am the only person I have control over and I have to accept my share of the blame for the culture I helped create and I am sorry. In different moments, I have tried to contribute constructively to the space we share and in others I have actively torn it down.

Like other things, it’s something I know better than to do. As has been said both to criticise me and to defend me, I have an old and long-buried history of being a malignant presence in another community. I am proof that people can grow beyond their immaturity, but that one still has to be vigilant about not falling into their old habits. It is a lesson I know and chose to ignore for temporary comforts.

I am sorry for allowing a kind of zeal to take hold in me that let me ignore the difference between a sexual predator or their defenders and people who simply briefly upset someone in some minor way. At my best, I hold myself to a high standard of proof and responsibility, aware that taking action against someone is harming them. It’s doing something they may have to carry with them for a long time and if we take that action wrongly, then we’re hurting someone without reason. At my worst, something I have shown far too much of, I allowed myself to stoop to the lowest standard of a bully, the exact kind of person I so comfortably and openly resent.

The problem with this line of thinking is... you’ve only managed to do it AGAIN. How is that proof of growing or changing? You can’t even bring yourself to apologize properly, how is anyone to believe that you’ve changed at all?

I am also deeply and truly sorry to the people around me. My friends, both in my free company and not, have shown me a patience and grace that I certainly failed to show others. I am not just glad but lucky to have people around me willing to tell me when I have done wrong and all I can ask is that you not judge them by my worst actions. They and the community we have built together are surely better than I am and I can think of no better testament to that fact than the guidance and tolerance they have shown me.

I can agree with this up to a point. Obviously most people in your FC are not to blame for your actions. Though you should probably consider the kind of atmosphere you’ve fostered in your own FC. Considering the testimony of many ex-,members, you made it pretty awful for them while they were in there. Be better.

There’s not a deep, meaningful takeaway I have to offer from any of this. I’m not saying any of this from some place of wisdom other than that of someone recently reminded I am not beyond succumbing to the worst inclinations common to all people, inclinations many people manage to avoid succumbing to themselves.

All I have left to say is that I am sorry. I have before, can now, and will later do better. In turn, all I can ask is that you give me the grace do so.

“I’m only human, folks. Please leave me alone so I don’t have to really, truly, face up to my actions.”

#abusive people #thelegendofkungjew #balmung

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ooc-but-stylish · 6 years

Text

The FFXV Dossier

or,

More Proof that the Writers at Square Have No Clue WTF They Are Doing

Ravus Dossier: “Eldest son of House Fleuret, Blood of the Oracle, and older brother to Lady Lunafreya. His mother was burned alive in the fires that consumed Tenebrae twelve years ago.”

It wasn’t bad enough that Sylva was run through by Glauca’s sword, she also was still alive after that and then legit died in a fire. Then Luna proceeds to mention her mother not a single time throughout the game, with the motherly presence replaced by Gentiana, the Most Ineffectual Attendant and Friend Ever. They didn’t have to do that to Sylva, but they did.

“Blaming the “cowardly” King Regis for her death,”

He was indeed a coward. No quotation marks needed. Carry on.

"Unfortunately, the Rulers of Yore deemed him unworthy of their power, and singed his left arm as punishment for his hubris."

Less “singed” and more “he got his own arm burnt off, was in incredible pain, and needed a Magitek prosthetic replacement and also his sister saw him burn-- to death, for all she knew-- and didn’t say a damn thing nor make any effort to help him”, but sure.

“The empire’s assault on Altissia was an unequivocal failure that resulted in massive casualties. As High Commander, Ravus is forced to take responsibilty for this disastrous outcome and is succinctly scheduled for execution.”

Good of the dossier to clue us in on missable but important character information that would explain later parts of the story or why anyone is anywhere.

“Yet Lunafreya convinces her brother that his initial impression of the prince was wrong, and he has a change of heart.”

First of all, Lunafreya has no sense of self and her existence is defined by her continued positive relationship with a prince and a king she hasn’t seen in twelve goddamn years.

Second, this game runs on morality centered on whatever character the narrative wants to fellate. Luna didn’t tell Ravus that she chose to let Regis’s hand go. That gave Ravus the impression that Regis abandoned all of the Nox Fleurets to their fate instead of just two of them (although IMO, that he still abandoned them doesn’t get less bad).

Third, rather than having writing that examines the flaws of characters perceived or presented as Good People, instead what the narrative does is it twists characters into pretzels to sell that Regis was 100% pure and free of even the perception of wrongdoing, defended by another “sacrosanct” character (Luna) who is never wrong ever and is the best judge of character just because the game says so and look at how nice and good she is.

Anyone who disagreed with Regis “didn’t understand what he was going through”, even though his actions involved the manipulation and death of someone he was supposed to protect and care for (Noctis) and the sacrifice of many other people on top of that (Insomnian citizens, Luna, Ignis, Nyx, etc.), with all the blame of the events falling onto Noctis, who was deliberately raised not to know about a majority of the things he needed to do in the game nor the true extent of his burden because Regis wanted to “treat him like a normal boy” to make himself feel better about the fact that his son would die young anyway.

So, I don’t blame Ravus for thinking Noctis was an ignorant shit.

The problem is that at no point is Ravus disabused of the notion that Noctis is that way on purpose nor allowed to act in light of that knowledge. All Luna does is shill for Noct and tells Ravus that he’s wrong and he should change his mind about the guy because he will rise to the occasion in the future. She defends Noctis in a way that more or less admits that Ravus is right about his assessment but that it’s somehow irrelevant. In reality, Ravus is under no obligation to wait for that undetermined future time (10 years later... Ravus would wait a total of 22 years for Noctis to prove himself?) or expect that future behavior/redemption will make up for present misdeeds-- from Ravus’s POV Noctis shows no behavior that lends to the idea he knows what he’s doing or that he’s not just blowing off the fact that Luna is dying for him.

I still maintain that if Noctis knew that Luna was dying as the price of the covenants, he and Ravus would have seen eye to eye. However, every time someone makes it known that “Luna is dying”, the context is twisted to make it seem like she died because of Noctis and that she possessed the Ring of the Lucii (known to drain life and cause ill health), not because the gods robbed her of her life as part of waking them up-- a reality which makes Noctis a few steps removed from being the cause of Luna’s death. But I digress.

At the point Ravus “redeems himself” of his negative opinion and shows it, he has no other choice: Luna is already falling apart and near-death so he has to be a LuNoct shipper all of a sudden, and later on Noctis is the last remaining option to save the world that Ravus wanted his sister to live in and give people the future he wanted her to enjoy. Then it turns out that wasn’t even Noctis he was talking to, so he got no closure.

The problem is also that Ravus’s issue with Noctis and Regis is one that the narrative shows he’s not allowed to have. An opinion that Regis is a coward and Noctis is ignorant is some kind of “hallmark of villainy” for this game, because how dare people disagree with the protagonists and have a negative opinion on them! So Ravus needed to be “redeemed” and “see the light” about how great Noctis and Regis are when

he shouldn’t have had to

being a stan for the protag is not the same as being a good character

it’s not even the requirement of being a hero, or even a good person

and wow, look at all the good it did him considering he still fucking died. His name is Ravus and they didn’t let him have a gray view of the protagonists. He died and his body was defiled.

Gentiana Dossier: "Gentiana prefers not to interfere with the everyday occurrences of the mortal world"

Including, of course, a twelve year old Luna being beaten by Caligo. And Luna being murdered by Ardyn the day after Gentiana appeared in Altissia. And Sylva being murdered by Glauca (or rather, BURNED ALIVE in the fire near Fenestala Manor). Those everyday occurrences. Ok.

Crepera/The Rogue Dossier: "One of the guardians of the Old Wall, consumed by the Starscourge and forced to submit to Ardyn’s will.”

Ardyn is such a Sue he can infect spirits now? Ok.

I mean, the Old Wall fell apart when Nyx summoned them to fight Diamond Weapon and Drautos, and calling upon them is a power granted by those who have the Ring of the Lucii, but Ardyn still brought some Kings of Lucis back to possess them with powers antithetical to the ones that could control and awaken them in the first place. This is after he summoned a Wall to cover the Citadel that’s identical to the one powered by the Crystal and the Ring of the Lucii when the Crystal already rejected him and he should have no right to its abilities as well as not having the Ring in his possession. Splendid.

"Having lost her father and older brother to the daemons"

Oh, so the Kings of Lucis could have more than one child! But Noctis doesn't have a sibling because......?

“At the time, however, the thought of a woman ruling the kingdom was preposterous to some. Thus the Rogue reigned from the shadows, helping Lucis to overcome a difficult era without once revealing her face to the masses.”

Okay, so the sole surviving daughter of the Lucian monarchy is ruling the place but the problem people have with it is her sex? Ok. I mean this is an isolationist country that's already hated by the people outside of it for its practices and general neglect of the neighboring lands but having a woman at the helm is the real problem. My god. But it is good to know that, in a world with massive genocidal water snakes, giants holding up meteors, clones, robots, malarial space herpes, frosty ice giantesses being maids to Discount Female Jesus Figures, all of which exist on a planet smaller than fucking Rhode Island, sexism still remains intact. So good to know.

Like it wasn't known that the previous King had a son and a daughter? So no shit if the father and son die that the daughter would be left, unless a) a total foreigner would rule the country, for the sake of "muh male dominance" which is shit, b) someone not descended from the Lucian line would rule the country, for the above reason, which is still shit c) the daughter disguised herself as a man and for maximum roleplay got herself a wife too, because people can’t accept a woman being in charge for some reason, but anyway it still makes no sense because the solution after all was that she still does her job, but she does it behind the scenes because she morphed from King of Lucis to Harry Potter whenever the Dursleys have a guest in their house.

Fuck, I mean, doesn’t the Rogue wield a big honkin’ shuriken? I thought this "ruling from the shadows" thing was more like her conducting assassinations by moonlight and winning the hearts of her subjects by daylight like a murderous Sailor Moon! The flavor text says she “spurned the public eye”, so you know what'd also be acceptable? Her not being in the spotlight because that’s just part of her personality, but I hear Square has no idea how giving women personalities is supposed to work. A "King of Lucis" that avoids paparazzi like the fucking plague would be A++ but nah, it’s because this fantasy world still needs sexism in it, and this King of Lucis who’s gotten her position by “birthright” and “natural causes” still gives a fuck about social mores. Utter horseshit.

#ffxv critical #ravus nox fleuret #crepera the rogue #gentiana #regis critical #regis negative #gentiana negative #lunafreya critical #long post

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ilosttrackofthings · 2 years

Note

Idk if youve every heard of DeadMeat on youtube but he said Ill always know what you did last summer was his least favorite horror movie ever its funny that you consider that one to be best of the franchise. Kinda curious on what you like about it

I somehow completely missed this ask for like a week so sorry about the late response, nonnie.

First off, I never said it was a good movie, just that it's the best of its franchise. I know you didn't say that but I just wanna make that clear. It's definitely a cheap, straight to DVD movie. Which is honestly part of why it's so good. It knows what it is, it's not trying to be better than its premise deserves.

But why do I like this movie despite it being objectively bad? I'd imagine that youtuber probably hates it because it's a bad horror film, but that's not my thing. I'm not judging it as an entry in its genre. I'm judging it by the strength of its story and, well, 'Always' avoids literally all the narrative problems of the first two films.

The characters are sympathetic!

Unlike the first two movies, this accident is genuinely a dumb accident. The kids orchestrated a prank that went wrong due to some random, off-screen character who is never identified just doing their damn job. It's not their fault anymore than it's the dead character's fault. Their fear that they'll be crucified because it's a small town and they were involved in the death of a powerful man's child is very real and understandable. There's no stench of classism because they just killed some hobo, and there's a real connection to the dead character to make it hurt that much more. It's easily the better setup of the films.

The deaths are logical!

In the first film, we get Ben killing random side characters. With Leonard from tbbt, we can assume this is because he assumes Leonard is in on the secret. Only ... that's not really expressed to us as the audience. It's a leap you have to make, making the killing itself feel more like a decision made so we can get to the slashing already. There's a similar problem in the second film with Ben being given some bullshit vendetta against everyone in town. (He also just terrorizes the kids unnecessarily in both films. Get to the killing already, loser.)

In 'Always' we learn that (spoilers) the seemingly random characters who are killed, knew the secret. They may not have been part of the pact the kids made, but they personally chose to hide the truth to protect them and that made them a part of it. Which not only makes sense of their murders, but it also adds to the tragedy of the film. Because the kids didn't need to hide anything. They were so afraid of being dragged through the mud and the very people they were afraid of were protecting them all along. It's very sad and sweet.

The twist is dumb as shit but it makes the movie better.

Seriously. It does. Tell me when you watched it you weren't thinking, with every hinted killer, that you didn't want it to be them. You didn't want this person or that person to be a bad guy because you felt sympathy for them. (Imagine telling the writers of the first two films you can feel sympathy for characters who aren't the protagonists. It'd blow their minds.) Tell me you weren't remembering the dumb son twist from the second film and preemptively wincing. Even in my disbelief as the insane twist was rolled out, I was relieved.

The slasher aspect makes sense!

Ben has no reason to dress up to kill anyone. There's zero reason for him to have a standard serial killing uniform going. He's just some dude and only the kids have any reason to pick him out of a crowd, which they can do just as effectively whether he's in that dumb costume or not. He has so many more options for his murder spree but he doesn't entertain any of them. He's just like 'got a slicker, got a hook, that's all I need.' Like an idiot.

But in 'Always' of course the killer's wearing the standard uniform! He has to what with the twist and all!

Is 'Always' dumb? Yes. Does it defy its own internal logic? Yes. (I'm looking at you hook during the final fight.) (But also the whole twist covers just so many of the seeming logical inconsistencies from earlier, I'm genuinely impressed.) Is it a good movie? No. It's bad. But it's entertaining and the story works.

#i'll always know what you did last summer #talkytalktalk #i know what you did last summer

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it-goes-both-ways · 6 years

Text

Over the last few years I've been posting more and more of my actual views, which I'm not exactly ashamed of but realise they're not so much unpopular opinions as downright rejected ones. I pretty much know why I have them, I'm aware of my biases and make every effort to restrict them to words, not allowing them to affect my relationships or treatment of others, restricting the hyperbole and rants to this blog and my long suffering partner. Unfortunately I seem to attract the worst kind of women in real life, which is not at all helping. Every time I reveal something I worry about being rejected, told I'm a monster, a failure, a disgrace, an embarrassment, but each and every time I've gotten nothing but acceptance. I am greatly honoured by your support thus far, for tolerating my increasingly frustrated outbursts and hope I won't push you away with this, but it's been all consuming for almost my whole life, and part of “cleaning up my room” is putting all that baggage out there to be scrutinised and hopefully understood, sometimes all that is needed is a willing ear, suppression only breeding resentment and isolation.

All the bullshit feminism has caused, from protesting the male pill and shutting down shared parenting efforts to the Duluth model and erasing men who are raped by women or by counting them under "violence against women" stats to boost the female victim numbers. Mary Koss, the progenitor of the 1 in 5/4/3/-69/ π r2 stat claiming that it's "inappropriate" to consider male victims of forceful envelopment by women as they are merely ambivalent about their own desires. Lobbying for laws that regard mutually drunk sexual encounters as automatically rape by men, underage consensually sexually active couples (even if they're months away from age of consent or the girl is older) as child rape on the part of the boy, guilty until proven innocent, accusation is the evidence, kangaroo courts, sentencing discounts on top of the preexisting bias which causes a 63% disparity and difference in treatment to the point where if you take every step of the justice system into account the crime rate is pretty damned even (with women often using proxy violence so they have plausible deniability, and avoid responsibility/physical risk). Treating women as the definitive victims of prostitution no matter which side of the transaction they're on. Banning men from charity fundraising events, transpeople only allowed if they provide evidence that they are biologically female. Having the NHS class women choosing to have genital piercings as being victims of female genital mutilation, while male genital mutilation performed at birth is not so much as frowned upon let alone illegal by any single country on the entire twatting planet. In fact you can buy some baby foreskins if you want to, or rub them on your face, the target market being protected from the very process that brought them their anti-ageing face cream, complaining that it costs more than men's moisturiser.

The innate gynocentrism of humanity has always led to women being their top priority, now even above children, it tries to pander, and acquiesce to their every demand while being told it hates them. The cases like the woman who filmed herself raping her own baby and getting the oh so harsh sentence of community bloody service and house arrest. The "poor, neglected" woman whose husband had become distant from her (wonder why) so she raped her son's friend, whose punishment was being banned from his school, which she considered too harsh as she missed her son's graduation. An audience of hundreds of normal regular women cheering and celebrating a man being drugged by his wife, who then cut off his penis and threw it in the "garbage disposal" permanently destroying it, just for asking for a divorce (can't think why he'd want to leave), despite no further context it was declared "fabulous" to the ecstatic jubilation of the empathetic sex. There's the idea that men commit the vast majority of rapes while calling female teachers "seducing" their students mere trysts, shameful liaisons that do not deserve prison, female prison guards committing the overwhelming majority of rape of male children and youths in juvenile detention (89%), among other women who rape men and boys (my own mother being one of them), this in addition to the rape rate among female prisoners being 3 times that of male ones, not a single damned thing is done about the propagation of the bullshit narrative. Somehow the fact that female rapists tend to target children is irrelevant because male ones target adult women, and "you don't see women going around raping adult men" (even though the stats are still around 50/50 because it's a human problem, unless those women are exhibiting toxic masculinity or something). There's the 10,000 men and boys slaughtered in their schools by Boko Haram while girls were released and allowed to go home, the boys being set on fire, their throats slit, or shot if trying to escape, no one giving the slightest hint of the merest ghost of a toss, until they realised that they weren't getting the attention they craved so they kidnapped girls, causing an international outcry and the media/celebrities changing their motivation from "eradicate western education" to "oppress women and stop them getting an education". There's the refusal by both the left and the right to look beyond the plight of women when it comes to Islam, they not only ignore the laws which oppress men, but declare those men the "real" misogynist patriarchal oppressors and innately sociopathic rapists. There's the refusal to recognise that women are a part of society and have far more influence than anyone wants to admit. There's Muslim men's obligation towards women, the segregation in Saudi where they have many public places from which men are banned unless accompanied by a female family member, where they'll be arrested for accompanying a woman to whom he is not related while the woman is merely sent home, where men face potentially fatal consequences for the same "crimes". Where homeless boys in Pakistan are pretty much guaranteed to be repeatedly raped day after day.

Then in my own life, being 6 or 7 years old, my sister 8 or 9 and told to stay put as our Reliant Robin went up in flames, having to be pulled out by a stranger, a man, because we were more afraid of disobeying than of burning to death, mother not even sparing us a glance as she grieved the loss of her car, later keeping it in the garden like some sort of shrine. Around the same year, at an LRP event (Lorien Trust's The Gathering), being left in the tent alone late at night and going to look for her, finding her on top of an unconscious man, she at least picked up on the fact that I was revelling in her severe hangover the next morning. Sneaking downstairs one night to see the aftermath of one of her "encounters", the man was broken, so started my extreme protectiveness of men and distrust of women, to the point of being called a gender traitor for the first time at around 7 years old by my 60+ year old year 1 teacher (who also wouldn't allow me to use left handed scissors or to write left handed, unwittingly making me ambidextrous. Being left with a violent babysitter who made me sleep under the table, or on the floor beside her bed (despite having 4 bloody beds), who wouldn't let me eat since burning the toast, beat me for asking for a glass of water and wouldn't even allow me to drink out of the tap, she once threw me in a wheely bin and poured dishwater over me, mother was in the garden just a few doors down, yet did nothing. She’d always try and get her boyfriends to beat us but they always just laughed it off (they’d put up with abuse themselves but never lasted long after she started bringing us into it), one in particular was into BDSM and later got mother a job as a dominatrix (she was disappointed by our complete lack of surprise), and even he had to draw the line at demonstrating how sexual intercourse works to his girlfriend’s 6 and 8 year old daughters.

My sister and I as little more than toddlers, mother putting our onesies on backwards so we couldn't take them off, having to go to the loo with them still on. Having the door handles put on upside down so that we couldn't reach up enough to open it to get to the loo so we ended up pissing ourselves. Having a daily diet of four slices of bread and the cheapest of generic vegetable spread as we weren't allowed mother's butter, being starved as punishment or just because she felt like it (having won custody of us only to spite dad), leading to malabsorption and osteoarthritis at the grand old age of twenty bloody six (3 years ago now), once a week we got an actual meal. Being around 8 or 9, visiting my auntie who was in hospital after having a stroke, having already had MS she was left paralysed, just 23 years old, granddad put together a system for her to speak by grouping letters and having her blink once for the stated grouping or letter or twice for basically undo. I gave her my only teddy which I carried everywhere, a stuffed donkey I got from Spain, she kept it. Staying in her house, continuing my habit of accidentally setting fire to the toaster, being left alone most of the night and going to look for mother in the village pub, finding her in one of her drinking competitions, walking in and vagblocking her, much to her frustration and anger. Being treated like a replacement husband, even trying to talk me into having a sex change despite only mild dysphoria, which was later greatly lessened by having an implant which stopped periods, eliminating most of the feeling of wrong (most cases of sex change regret are people who were abused, either treated like shit for their biological sex, treated as if they are opposite sex, or sexual abuse). Hearing about how the only way she'd get any when she was with dad was when he was asleep. Why did he end up dying a slow, agonising death while she gets to carry on regardless? Asking me about who I liked, later discovering exactly why she wanted to know, a man I care about was raped because I didn’t pick up on her ulterior motives. Having mother and her friends try to teach me to manipulate men, get them to pay for me, trying to turn me into a gold digger, only making me hate them even more. Coming of age (16), no longer eligible for child benefit, mother having been visiting friends more and more often until she didn't come back, only finding out that she'd been gradually moving out when we got the eviction order.

I'd been training myself to eventually join the army from the age of 5, once when I was 6 mother had asked me to go to the supermarket to get a bag of potatoes, she usually got a 20kg sack, must have taken me an hour to get it home, a man helping me carry it some of the way. When I finally enlisted I had to stop taking codeine for the malabsorption, it wasn't as much of a problem if I was eating every day (I usually forget as my body had been conditioned by neglect, not even bothering to remind me to eat any more), my hips had always made crunching and cracking sounds when I move, but as my body adjusted to the lack of codiene the pain became unbearable, upon being diagnosed with osteoarthritis I had to give up any hope of ever being a soldier, I've lost my purpose, and have nothing to replace it with, couldn't even work a whole shift when I got a factory job, humiliating, I'd informed the woman of my condition and she'd assured me that it was just a machinist job. It wasn't. It was everything you shouldn't do if you have any sort of hip problems. I'd never felt such agony and I'd fractured my bloody skull (at an LRP event). The woman was such a nasty bitch about it, she went from compassionate and understanding to mocking me for being upset that I was so damned useless now. I offered to forfeit my pay but her colleague, who also had arthritis and could no longer work the floor, was obviously far more genuinely empathetic than the woman, my brief boss was also sympathetic and even paid for a taxi to take me home after I refused an ambulance. The pain didn't subside for days.

I've never had a female friend who hasn't betrayed me, my "best friend" in school found it hilarious to punch me in the back in the middle of class, causing me to yell inadvertently as the air was knocked out of me. In year 8 the other kids stepped up their game and went from throwing stones to a house brick, when I got back to school she asked where the stitches were, just so she could punch me and reopen the wound. I was never allowed to retaliate, it would always be me who would be threatened with expulsion even if I only snapped after years of beatings which everyone knew was happening. Every birthday the other kids would falsely accuse me of something so I'd have to spend break times stood outside the headmaster's office, the equivalent of the stocks. Whether it was asperger's making me so unlikeable or if I genuinely am just a massive thundercunt, I never found out what I did to provoke them. Every time I put my trust in a woman it gets thrown in my face. My neighbour decided she was my best friend for life and would call at all hours of the day and night to get me to pick up her bloody methadone twice a bloody week, go to the chippy at 11 o'bloody clock at night, she's always trying to get me to take the pills she buys off a disabled neighbour. There are three things I refuse to take, hormones, anti-depressants, and sleeping tablets and she's always trying to get me to take them. The last straw was when her husband, who I got on very well with and whom she abused constantly, died, I told her to be careful what she wished for. When I finally called her out on using me she leapt immediately to the "after all I've done for you" bollocks.

Time after bloody time it's the same damned story, even regular everyday normal women will talk about things that would get a man arrested or at least publicly lambasted, that erections equal consent, that MGM is not at all a violation of the right to bodily autonomy, that it's absolutely fine and dandy to hit your male partner only to call the police if he defends himself, that female paedophiles shouldn't be punished because boys always want sex no matter what age they are but girls mature younger, right the way back to "We should have the vote but not have to pay with our lives as men had to in their millions while we shamed men and even underage boys into doing the same". What terrified me as a child was women's ability to completely turn off their empathy, the "woman scorned" is seen as karmic justice, there are people defending even the most brutal crimes: assault, murder, rape, mutilation, over something as minor as rejection, or an accidental drive by fart, or just the crime of being a man who wanted a divorce. Empathetic sex my absolute arse.

A fellow MRA publicly humiliated Adam on a livestream when we went to the men's day march and conference, we were staying in an air B&B, Adam and Will Styles still riding the high of giving their first speeches, only for the woman to dredge up shit that was no one's bloody business and ruin the whole mood for no bloody reason, she also attacked 6oodfella on one of the hangouts. Another one was giving private information, with a vicious twist, poisoning the community against one of our group, Paul Elam didn't want to get involved and Janice Fiamengo immediately cut ties, treating him like a bloody criminal, what the hell did the woman say to her? I could see the Woolly Bumblebee thing coming a mile off, I worry whenever youtubers I like get girlfriends because they seem to either completely change or disappear, like Spino and Bread and Circuses respectively. I'm suspicious of female MRAs, I don't want to be but often even the sane ones are just tradcons. If it weren't for the Honeybadgers and you lot I'd have no hope at all.

The constant stream of "toxic masculinity", oppression, patriarchy, of women complaining that their air conditioned (which is also bloody sexist somehow), seated jobs at a till are paid less than the men (and women but they're not going to mention that) carrying heavy boxes, driving forklifts, working in a cold warehouse, and risking serious injury or death infinitely more than they ever will. The selfishness, solipsism, and sociopathy is too much. Throughout history women have never cared about men aside from ones they have a bond with, have never appreciated a damned thing men have done yet they demand that men prioritise them. Why should they?

I’ve seen and experienced the worst examples of female nature in action, “toxic femininity” if you will, and the difference in reaction to it, never being believed as a child no matter how many times I begged other family members and even strangers to please let me live with them instead, I’ll sleep in a tent, look I brought it with me. Pathetic, but you’d have thought someone would have cottoned on. I'm not going down the anti-women route as my sister has, given her own treatment of her partners and her own admission, she’s not so much pro male as anti-female, but it’s increasingly difficult not to resent them even if everything has a biological explanation. I still defend women if the facts bear it out, even if I don’t necessarily agree on a personal level, reals over feels, the people I agree with most also being female has definitely helped me not fall over the edge, one of whom feels very much as I do to the point where she doesn’t consider herself to be a woman due to her own observations and experiences. But the longer this goes on, the more laws are changed, media is poisoned, speech is suppressed, how the hell do I stop myself from just giving up entirely? How on earth can I stop myself from becoming an all out misogynist? Because it is women, not just feminists. It’s female nature being allowed to go unchecked, even when the same happens with male nature women are still prioritised. There are exceptions on both sides but it’s not enough to change the overall trend. There’s never been a balance, and because of human nature there never will be, which is where the problem lies. I know there’s no hope, that it’s utterly futile, completely pointless, and it’s driving me more towards extremism. I completely understand why we’ve lost so many MRAs to suicide. But I’m still going, even if the only way to make even the slightest change is to appeal to female self interest I’ll still do it. Everything I’ve been passionate about throughout my life is a pointless endeavour, I can’t stop myself from caring or change my fundamental character, it’s a downward spiral and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.

#Personal #Very personal

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liesandarbor · 7 years

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On Sandor and Sansa in AGOT and ACOK, and their arc and connection

Sandor Clegane is a broken man, a mad warrior dog. When Gregor put his face in the fire, his father told everyone that it was Sandor’s Bedding that had caught fire:

“My father told everyone my bedding had caught fire, and our maester gave me ointments. Ointments! Gregor got his ointments too. Four years later, they anointed him with the seven oils and he recited his knightly vows and Rhaegar Targaryen tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘Arise, Ser Gregor.’”

This paragraph from Sansa II in AGOT alone gives us so much insight about Sandor’s life. Sandor spent his childhood and adult life repressing the whole entire event.

Lying to people, watching his brother get to escalate through the ranks of knighthood, all the while being a bitter shell that is furious at the world for all of its injustice. He wanted nothing more than to be a knight as a child, to play with his brother’s knight toy, and the first injustice he learned was his face to the fire.

Fast forward to AGOT: Sandor could protect the smallfolk, but he gets spit at. He’s nothing but the King’s dog, and feels like he’ll never do better. And why should he want to do better? Every time he tries, he gets his snout pushed in shit.

Pulling apart Sansa’s plot, we have to recognize that one of Sansa’s main characteristics, besides the naivety, is that she is inherently good. She is a courteous little lady, brought up to always respect others, even the big, scary mean beast.

In ACOK Sansa III, Lancel delivers the information that left her beat, bloodied, and almost naked in front of the court.

Sansa had always thought Lancel Lannister comely and well spoken, but there was neither pity nor kindness in the look he gave her. “Using some vile sorcery, your brother fell upon Ser Stafford Lannister with an army of wargs, not three days ride from Lannisport. Thousands of good men were butchered as they slept, without the chance to lift sword. After the slaughter, the northmen feasted on the flesh of the slain.” Horror coiled cold hands around Sansa’s throat.

And then, in Sansa VII, several chapters later, we see Sansa during the Blackwater, exercising kindness towards Lancel:

Sansa went to Ser Lancel and knelt beside him. His wound was bleeding afresh where the queen had struck him. “Madness,” he gasped. “Gods, the Imp was right, was right …”“Help him,” Sansa commanded two of the serving men. One just looked at her and ran, flagon and all. Other servants were leaving the hall as well, but she could not help that. Together, Sansa and the serving man got the wounded knight back on his feet. “Take him to Maester Frenken.” Lancel was one of them, yet somehow she still could not bring herself to wish him dead. I am soft and weak and stupid, just as Joffrey says. I should be killing him, not helping him.

Sansa’s empathy and inherent kindness for other people is something Sandor Clegane has not exactly often experienced in his life. He has never had anyone to tell him that his asshole knight brother is bad, he grew up being told that what happened to him, that his brother shoving his face into the fire, was not something he should be mad about.

The rasping voice trailed off. He squatted silently before her, a hulking black shape shrouded in the night, hidden from her eyes. Sansa could hear his ragged breathing. She was sad for him, she realized. Somehow, the fear had gone away.The silence went on and on, so long that she began to grow afraid once more, but she was afraid for him now, not for herself. She found his massive shoulder with her hand. “He was no true knight,” she whispered to him.The Hound threw back his head and roared. Sansa stumbled back, away from him, but he caught her arm. “No,” he growled at her, “no, little bird, he was no true knight."

In Sansa’s chapters, we see Sandor surveying her shrewdly, speaking harshly, telling her how everyone is a liar. Many readers construe this as the Hound being a straight up dick to Sansa- but there is a difference between “The Hound” and “Sandor Clegane” (something GRRM makes us aware of in Feast, with The Hound being dead and Sandor Clegane being at rest). Sandor’s harsh words and guidance is only the beginning of Sandor Clegane being a temporary substitute fraternal figure to not just Sansa Stark but also to Arya when he comes across her RE: the BWB. Sandor’s political guidance for Sansa in King��s Landing came just in time to teach her to not be so trusting, and to teach her to keep her head down to avoid abuse.

Sandor once more comes to Sansa before leaving King’s Landing, with the intent to take her, the only kind person he’s met there, away with him. He respects her wishes to stay in King’s Landing, harshly gives her some “Hound” action before leaving

"I could keep you safe,” he rasped. “They’re all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I’d kill them.” He yanked her closer, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. He was too strong to fight. She closed her eyes, wanting it to be over, but nothing happened. “Still can’t bear to look, can you?” she heard him say. He gave her arm a hard wrench, pulling her around and shoving her down onto the bed. “I’ll have that song. Florian and Jonquil, you said.”His dagger was out, poised at her throat.“Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life.”

And what does 12 year old Sansa Stark do, in the face of a big, mean, angry, burnt man who she knows is suffering so much pain, more than he’s let on to anyone but her?

She sings.

Sansa Stark fucking sings. She sings a song of mercy to Sandor (something his arc is crying for), she sings to him to tell him that he can rest, she prays for him throughout the narrative over the next books, she thinks and wonders what has become of him.

The Hound angrily tells her that she’s a bad liar, she’s stupid, people will play her, but the Sandor sees an innocent, easily hurt little girl, who people mistreat and who has had to tell her own lies to survive, just like he did, and that’s the connection.

Sandor Clegane sees a girl who had to grow up and learn, just like he did.

And Sansa is on the path for growing up, the path for learning. Will they be reunited in the future, when they’re older, healed, and wiser? I hope so. Because as Septon Meribald said, “There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many types of birds.”

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #sansa stark #sandor clegane #mine #sansa meta #sandor meta #sansan meta

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valntinemorgenstern · 7 years

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Review: Lord of Shadows

★★★★★

As always, my thoughts on Cassandra Clare’s books are prolific, multiplicitous, entangled, sometimes joyous and delighted, sometimes troubled and difficult; I could happily write numerous lectures and essays on this woman’s books, and Lord of Shadows comes as no exception. So, in the interest of keeping this as readable as possible, the first section of this review will contain my general thoughts, and the section after it, a more detailed (and, probably, sweary and incoherent) fangirl mess list of my very spoilery thoughts/opinions/feelings.

General

In my opinion, Lord of Shadows is a huge improvement on Lady Midnight (I wrote an exceedingly long review on it last year that more resembled a disorganised splurge, but in sum:). For me, LM was an enjoyable, enthralling read as Cassandra’s books always are, but I was baffled by the claims that it was her best-ever book. For me, it consistently failed to hit the right chord, the characters didn’t spark on the page; the pacing lagged, and then rushed; I had a multitude of issues with plot, structure and character decisions. Most of all, the characters failed to draw me to them in the way that I was accustomed to with most of Cassie’s vast cast of characters. I’m pleased to say that I feel mostly over all of that now. I’m certain that this was also present in LM, but I think I appreciated this a lot more, given how much easier I was with the story as a whole — I was consistently impressed in this instalment with the quality of writing. LoS is strewn with some fantastically lyrical, poetic flashes of prose that, as I was reading, I just had to kind of sit back in astonishment, turning over that scintillating metaphor, or that line of dialogue, or that paragraph of description in my mind. At the risk of repeating myself, it’s obvious that Cassandra is, stylistically, far more mature, daring and sophisticated than the Cassandra writing TMI 6 years ago (I also think that this is related to a greater tendency to indulge in some flowery and exploratory prose, hence the ever-growing length of her books, but I’m not complaining).

I think by nature of the fact that this was the second in the series, there was no time that had to be spent lingering over long expositions and the tediousness of setting up unfamiliar characters; it didn’t take 300 pages for the motor to start turning. One of the developments that surprised me was how much the narrative eye in this instalment really starts to wander from Emma / Julian as its primary focus, as it mostly is in LM. I absolutely loved how much it started to scoop up the rest of the Blackthorn family, and even other characters like Arthur and Kit (though I can imagine there are some Jemma fans who might be a bit disappointed with this decision). For me, having this distance from Emma’s POV was wonderful / I really welcomed the opportunity to attach myself more deeply to other characters (to be honest, I wasn’t hugely enamoured with Emma in LM) and this made the story so much easier to invest in. In the end, it has actually warmed me to Emma a lot more, so I’m happy.

Very Spoilery

FREAKED OUT by how many things I ended up predicting (without knowing I ws predicting them?) Consistently dogged by the feeling of déjà-vu and that I’d secretly thought that thing might happen. By no means had an exhaustive list of theories, only a couple of solid ones, and the rest ephemeral, half-baked, flippant daydreams of ‘oh, what if x got with x? wouldn’t THAT be a twist!’ and then….it happened. It happened with: Dru and Jaime becoming a thing (what sort of thing has yet to be seen, but HMM); Kit x Livvy (like, Livvy what even was that? hey you’re a male; you’re in my line of sight!); Arthur’s death (this is a whole topic in itself and Don’t Get Started™); the hinting that Ty and Kit may become parabatai in lieu of an immediately romantic relationship (their dynamic reminds me so much of Will and Jem) and thus HA HA history repeats itself in both ways…

OVERJOYED about the fact that Mark x Emma never properly materialised. Last year, this was not only an alarmingly popular ship, I thought, but also one that Cassandra seemed to be teasing would be become canonical in LoS. At this point I legitimately and seriously considered whether or not I’d bother reading Lord of Shadows, as this was probably the biggest NOTP I’d ever had. It was a deal breaker for me. So, very pleased.

I went into this determined not to ship Mark / Cristina / Kieran as a three way, and wow oh WOW, did Cassie utterly, remorselessly obliterate this! Major, major FUCKING KUDOS to Cassie’s skill and craft here for managing to completely overturn the way I feel about this polyamorous ship. I completely take back everything I said about feeling uncomfortable with this, because DUDE I am struggling to see how they’re gonna avoid a threesome at some point. This ship is electric and has so much chemistry, I’m not gonna lie, there were moments where I was thinking I was shipping it even more than Jemma…

LOVED everything in Faerie. Just! Ugh! Loved how dark and dreamy it was and the high-fantasy overtones and how reminiscent it was of mythology and Goblin Market and Arthurian romance.

All the classical + 18/19th literature allusions! The lit student in me was elated. ‘The nightmare life in death was she’ MY SOUL WAS IN COMMUNION WITH YOU CASSIE.

So lovely to return to London again! (and, woah, wasn’t expecting them to be there most of the book?) Tempered, though, by its portrayal as run-down, neglected Institute that has (somehow? I WANNA KNOW CASSIE) fallen out of The Herondale’s hands and into the management of The Highsmiths? Made me very sad indeed to see this.

i could write a whole meta of the depiction of Herondales in this book. (Lmao for a series allegedly supposed to focus on the Blackthorns and, for once, not-about-the-herondales, they still end up being a pretty damn important)

There is like, not a single POV from Kit (shocked by how huge his role is in this book?) where his Herondaleness is being mentioned, questioned or alluded to. HA I EAT THIS SHIT UP

How delightfully frustrating that, with regards to Kit, far more questions posed than answered. (The woman in his dreams? So he remembers his mother? How come only now? How the hell do the seven riders of Mannan have anything to do with him / how do they recognise him? Evidently the mysteries surrounding his heritage are tangled up in Faerie as well…) Loved how protective he was of Ty, and how brilliantly they work together. In LM, Kit was depicted as very sheltered and innocent, but he really comes into his own in LoS — loved how he was starting to mould what he’d learnt from his father with what he was learning as a Shadowhunter.

TMI DREAM TEAM REAPPEARANCES FUCK YESSSSSSSSSS MAGNUS YOU’RE A BABE AND HAVE THEY MADE STATUES OF JACE YET??

THE ENDING

T H E E N D I N G

WHAT IN GOD’S NAME

It was like: trundling along nicely, some angst, but danger is mostly over, cue some boring meetings (Idris tho!! I have missed you!) and then — BANG BANG BANG BANG! Magnus (and Tessa?!) is/have been illWHAT?! Robert is dead, and Livvy is dead. CHRIST ALIVE. One thing after the other.

Did not see any of that coming. At all. Gut-wrenchingly, heart-stoppingly shocking stuff. I had to put the book down, and gaping, looked up laughingly and whispered a series of profanities to myself. That said, I expected Robert to die at the end of TMI (and was sincerely surprised he managed to survive it — had a whole theory about it) and wondered, at the time, why Cassie kept him going. Now I see why she waited till now: a strategic decision, so that there would have formed a dark force i.e. the Cohort to replace the vacuum his death as Inquisitor would leave with.

Livvy!!! I am so, terribly sad.

I am also so so scared for Queen of Air and Darkness.

#lord of shadows #LoS spoilers #cassandra clare #the dark artifices

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meggannn · 7 years

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andromeda review

I finished the game Monday night so I’ve had a few days to think over my feelings. No major plot spoilers in this post but putting behind a cut anyway.

I want to rip the bandaid off, so I’ll get the bad news out of the way first.

THE BAD

It’s clear what influence Frostbite -- and by extension EA -- has had on Andromeda, and it’s not always good. It’s a big world, which was kind of what they signed on for by setting the stage in a new galaxy: if it wasn’t big, people would complain we never got to “really see” Andromeda. So they made it big and pushed the exploration thing. It’s not as big as Inquisition, thank god, with not nearly so many pointless fetch quests, but there are still enough sidequests to deter the average player and don’t really move the plot further. I’m actually the kind of dedicated idiot who actually doesn’t mind collecting pointless shit across seventeen maps if it actually gives me more information about the lore or characters, but when it just comes with XP and a check mark, it irritates the living heck out of me. Andromeda has a fair amount of both types.

In the long run, this is a very minor complaint, more about what Bioware doesn’t put in the game than what they do, but I was let down in the lack of… creativity? In the new Andromeda species. After finishing the game however, for plot reasons, I can see why there are several reasons why they would keep the bipedal humanoid alien design, but it’s still a little disappointing. Lore-wise, I think traveling to a new galaxy would be the perfect stage to design more mind-bending aliens like the Leviathans or rachni (the Reapers controlled the direction organic life evolved in the Milky Way, but not Andromeda, right?). Aliens with different types of societies! Aliens that are bigger or smaller in scale than us! Aliens that have different ideas of the word ‘intelligence’! And we got only two sentient species, one of which actually has some form of settled home in Andromeda, the other of which we try to slaughter when we’re within fifty meters of each other.

For people who have played the original trilogy, it becomes kind of obvious they’re retreading familiar ground, and sometimes it gets predictable. Not just with their themes -- which I expect -- but their plot twists. I’ll avoid spoiling too much. There are also moments it feels as though they’re trying to ‘top’ the trauma Shepard went through in the original series by putting Ryder through worse, so much so that when Ryder’s in serious danger it feels a bit like they’re crying wolf. They somehow managed to do this without making Ryder feel like ‘the new Shepard’ -- which is a good thing -- but still, it’s a bit odd and disconnecting. It’s like you can see the talks at the tables when the creative director said “and then we’ll do THIS” and nobody considered if it was, um, logical.

With the writing, there was occasionally a lot of -- for lack of a better phrase -- telling and not showing, or in some other cases, stretching the limits of lore believability just to create conflict for the player to fight. I tend to hate when people use “show don’t tell” as a criticism because I think they’re usually overlooking something, but this is a common theme with BW games and in Andromeda it happens pretty consistently. We are constantly told that the angara are always “free” with their feelings and rarely if ever hide their emotions from the world, yet aside from Jaal’s consistent emotional vulnerability (who I thought was great btw), angara mostly tend to speak and talk and walk exactly like us. Having a conversation with an angaran NPC felt exactly like an asari or human NPC, except, you know, in how they looked.

((MILD PLOT SPOILERS: If you’ve reached Aya you’re probably fine to read)) I’m obviously relieved Bioware didn’t go in the colonization direction -- something I didn’t want to have to worry about the first place -- but instead there’s an undeniable white savior (or “human savior”) theme instead. (It became especially prominent later in the game.) This is difficult to document exactly because it’s not as explicit as other classic examples -- in MEA, Jaal has a large presence and is actively involved in protecting and saving his people; the Initiative/Ryder has to work their ass off to prove their intentions are peaceful and even then the angara are portrayed to rightfully still be skeptical -- but at the end of the day, the angara are a POC coded culture and ~only a stranger can save them~. The angara have also become Mass Effect’s elven equivalent from Dragon Age, in terms of how much and how often the story throws them into the mud. At least unlike the elves, they don’t argue that it’s the angara’s fault, but after a while it feels like slow and cruel torture of a native species that’s already been through hell.

The Chosen One narrative is how Bioware operates, I get it. But I’m getting tired of people treating the Pathfinder/Inquisitor like a hero-in-the-making before they have the chance to prove they’re even a person. (Sorry to keep bringing DA2 up, but this is why I liked Hawke so much -- you worked to Championship from the ground up, and everyone knew it.) What is so freaking special about the symbol of Pathfinders that makes everyone flock to you when you first step onto the Nexus? Did the Initiative really pin all their hopes on scouting landscapes and settling colonies in hostile or extreme environments on the shoulders of four people?

The disappointing LGBT romances are already well-documented, but I have to give a particular call-out to how they handled the only mlm’s storyline, because it was terrible. (It’s honestly astounding how it passed the desks of multiple people and nobody thought to say hey, maybe this is offensive?)

After watching Jaal’s romance… I’m still not convinced aliens should ever be straight in any circumstance, but I don’t think just a patch would solve this one -- I think Jaal’s romance employs a lot of you’re-the-girl-of-my-dreams tropes that were meant to specifically appeal to women, so swapping Sara for Scott in this case might feel lazy or contrived. Liam’s romance, though -- which I LOVED and I highly recommend people watch if they have a few minutes on Youtube -- is completely free of any sort of gender stereotypical tropes and would work just as well with any Ryder.

Okay now onto the good stuff, which was fortunately most of it.

THE GOOD

Despite all of the above, I really, genuinely, enjoyed this game and think both old and new Mass Effect players would enjoy it. There are some growing pains -- Ryder asks a few dumb questions for exposition that most ME fans know by heart and other times an NPC comments on this or that lore reference that new people wouldn’t understand in the slightest, but it doesn’t ruin the experience. I finished at around 75 hours and 97% completion with most of the remaining activities the ‘no lore included’ fetch quests I was complaining about earlier. And despite my whining about the sidequests, I actually did genuinely like them, for the most part. They gave me more information about each of the worlds and how people live there, often because the same people would give me multiple quests, or reference each other, so the locations felt like real places that people lived in.

The companions and their relationships -- including romances -- are really good. Like, not to call it leagues better than Inquisition, because Inquisition had great companions, but unlike the Inquisitor I actually felt like Ryder had a place on the ship. I knew what their job was, sure, but I also know who they were when they interacted with people, even allowing for the freedom of player choice. The Initiative isn’t military, and neither is your ship, though plenty of the squad have professional firearms and crisis training, which is a great shift from Shepard and the Normandy -- it comes with more casual banter, but it also has its downsides, because there will be fights on your ship between people, because many of them are not professionals, just highly skilled expertises, and they aren’t used to working with others. It sucks because you have to mediate the arguments, but it’s also realistic.

The animation is fine, and yeah the CC sucks and I wish it were better, but it’s hardly the end of the world. Mass Effect always did better with aliens than it did with humans, so it’s hardly a surprise, and personally I think if people are going to throw a fit over their PC not having the right kind of eyebrows or a glitch where a character holds a gun backwards that happens once in a 70+ hour game, and that ruins the entire experience for them… they might want to pick another hobby.

I’ve seen people complaining that the writing is shit, and it’s true that occasionally I’ll hear a cheesy line and think a fifteen year old could’ve done better, but the largest majority of the time, I wonder what those complaints were smoking. The writing is great. I feel like these are all real people -- and I especially feel Ryder is a real person, a real sister/brother, a real twenty-something thrown into a million problems they’re unequipped to handle.

I was surprised to actually be… impressed by the way they handle angaran relations. The white savior thing is still true and will always be true, but I appreciate that Ryder has to work their ass off to prove they’re trustworthy, and even then, the angara that still openly distrust aliens aren’t wrong for it, and Ryder has to respect that or risk their respect. They’re wary, and they have every right to be, and the story doesn’t punish them for it. (Even the Roekaar are slightly sympathetic in a way, because a majority of them are fighting because they’re scared.)

Open world games are usually something I dread, but I didn’t mind the open landscapes for the most part, because the Mako -- I mean Nomad -- gets you around pretty fast, you’ve got banter to listen to in the meantime, and the upgrades really helped whenever the terrain became challenging. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s really too much, but for the most part, I honestly didn’t mind, and I was surprised I didn’t.

The journal prioritization system reminds me of DA2 in a good way; compared to previous ME games, and even Inquisition, MEA makes it a lot easier to tell which quests are worth doing/plot relevant, and which would just amount to my dicking around in the wilderness for XP or loot.

The combat is excellent -- not to rag on the original series’ system because there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with it, but I can definitely see major improvements in creativity and flexibility. It’s fluid, much more mobile, and the jumpjets let you get so much more creative. Letting people mix and match powers is a little far-fetched, but you can handwave a lot of with SAM’s profile implant, so I don’t really mind. The only irritating thing is that you’re limited to three powers at once, but since you have about a million powers available to you in the first place and can equip four favorite profiles at once, it seems a fair trade. (I’ve found a way around this anyway -- instead of bringing up the HUD and going to favorites, if you pause the game in the middle of combat, you can fool around with your skills AND change profiles and resume combat with no cooldown.)

It felt like ME1 in all of the best ways. Like I mentioned above, it’s true they’re sort of treading familiar ground in their themes and plot twists, but there were certain parts of the final mission in particular were most definitely purposeful references to/love letters to the original trilogy. It makes it feel like the start of a new journey; I told a friend when I finished that I felt exactly like I had when I finished ME1 for the first time, excited and scared and pumped to start playing sequel.

My overall experience was a great one; I’m planning on starting my second playthrough as soon as I can, probably tomorrow. It was familiar to old fans who loved ME1 for its newness and strangeness, it’s friendly to new players, and I think it’ll be remembered strongly in the future if it is the beginning of a new series like I expect it to be. (LBR, if it isn’t “part one” of a new story...... it makes no sense. It’s practically screaming for more.)

#andromeda spoilers #mea #mass effect andromeda #megan plays me

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