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butterflydm · 11 months

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wot reread: towers of midnight (chap 50-end)

spoilers for towers of midnight (suicide cw; body horror cw)

Oh, this Elayne PoV opens with an interesting echo of a Rand scene. Here, Elayne strips lands and titles from her former rivals to the throne, knowing that the shame of it would likely lead them to commit suicide rather than live as commoners. Back in ACoS, Rand stripped the lands and title from Colaveare in an attempt to NOT kill her, because he was unaware that her own pride almost certainly lead to her killing herself rather than living with being a commoner. It illustrates some key similarities between Rand and Elayne but also a key difference, in that Elayne is aware of the consequences of her political choices in a way that Rand was not always aware. And she's doing so knowing that one of the people most affected by Colaveare's loss of power (a Cairhienin noble named Bertome) would arrive just in time to witness this.

2. She is using all this as a political lead-in to making her claim to the Sun Throne by giving Cairhienin nobles some power in Caemlyn, by offering the estates that she just stripped from her previous rivals. And... she then offers mercy to the nobles that she just stripped of lands here in Caemlyn, by mentioning that new lands and titles can be found for them in Cairhien. Basically binding the two nations closer together even before she officially takes the Sun Throne.

idk how much we needed the scene afterwards explaining Elayne's brilliance to the reader (but maybe it was helpful to the readers who were inclined to dislike Elayne?). Birgitte does still feel somewhat 'off' here from the character that she used to be.

3. It remains so baffling to me that Min is the central 'researcher' into all things Callandor. Makes no sense. But Elayne and Aviendha (both more logical choices) are off actually having their own independent storylines that aren't related to Rand so... Min it is, I guess.

Min warns him that the sword is more dangerous than they'd believed before and he's basically like, "nah, I know, it's chill." lol, despite the book's efforts to convince me that Min's role here is super-vital, it just... really is not.

4. Instead of going himself, Rand sends an Asha'man off to infiltrate and investigate the Black Tower. I really hate that such an important plotline got relegated to tertiary characters!

5. lol, I do like the scene here with Rand and Cadsuane; now that she's too baffled by him to keep bullying him, their interactions are kinda funny most of the time. He also, relatively casually, reveals here how far back his own memories go. Once again though... I really wish this were in Rand's PoV and not Min's.

Because here, Min is 'troubled' by Rand casually sharing his memories from four hundred years ago and Rand is like, "pat pat, calm down, silly mortal girlfriend, I am not a scary monster anymore, I promise" but like... what is going on in his brain? One of the main reasons that Rand's descent into madness worked so well for the reader is because we got to see it internally, and it feels like we're being cheated when we don't get to see how he deals with realizing that LTT's memories were not all due to madness, and this is part of him and he needs to process it. Getting it all second-hand through Min is just... not enough.

I am glad that Rand doesn't give all the credit of making it through to this point to Min (like so much of the fandom likes to do) but credits many of the people who have cared for him: his father, Mat, Perrin, Elayne, Aviendha, Nynaeve, Moiraine (He doesn't mention Egwene here, though, and he should). It is really frustrating how parts of fandom like to act as if Min is the only person who cares about Rand. Circumstances have pulled away most of the people he cares about and who care about him, but that doesn't make the affection disappear and it doesn't make the help they've given him meaningless.

6. Thousands of Borderlander soldiers down here, even as the Blightborder collapses and their people are overrun in the north. Such a frustrating plotline! Anyway, they slap Rand and ask him a question about a death during the Age of Legends and now things are good and they'll actually fight in the Last Battle.

lol, Min's viewings that she has here are so useless to Rand -- 'they'll probably be in a fight soon but whether that means the Last Battle or fighting against you right now, idk'. Thanks for that complete lack of information, Min.

I feel like this entire thing could have easily been used to show the folly of trusting prophecy over your own good sense? The Borderlanders acted as they did because they believed "better a dead Dragon than a Dragon who will destroy the world" but... they didn't really have any way to fix that problem anyway, lol, so their secret prophecy was just as useless as most of Min's viewings are and the only thing it accomplished was leaving their borders less guarded than they should be. Rand points out to them that, while he may have given them his original ultimatum in an asshole way, it remains the truth -- given how far they are from their own lands, he is the only path remaining to them if they want to fight in the Last Battle.

But, yeah, this is just a subplot that felt like it went on way too long and then died with a whimper and not a bang.

7. Hmm, Elayne points out that Birgitte has been getting more and more irritable, which implies that her change in characterization was deliberate (meant to illustrate how her emotional stability is slipping alongside her memory loss maybe?). Elayne basically calls Birgitte the Fun Police here, saying, "You don't like anything, lately." Anyway, Elayne is making her move for Cairhien here. I would have much rather spent this book on Elayne Secures Cairhien than Perrin's Whitecloak Trial. Instead, we mostly just skim over it, and Cairhien accepts Elayne fairly quickly. After she's claimed Cairhien, she sets in motion: a. sending the current army to Merrilor to meet Rand; b. mobilizing any additional men and women who want to fight in the Last Battle and training them; and c. getting all the city's bellfounders to start working on more dragons.

8. The first paragraph of being back in Mat's PoV and he is wistfully thinking of serving girls sitting on his knee. Strike twelve-point-three.

We also, here, have Mat choosing a red scarf to ~dedicate~ to the memory of Tylin and the others who died to the gholam, briefly considering making it pink (he does emphasis that he considered this very briefly). Ew, gross.

I was just talking in my last post, during the Aviendha's vision section, about how easy it is to make saints of the dead. It really feels like this is a perfect illustration of this: Tylin is dead and can't physically hurt Mat anymore, so it's 'safe' to consider honoring her, in a way that it wouldn't be if she were still alive. Dead sainted Tylin happening so soon after dead sainted Tuon in Aviendha's Rhuidean vision definitely makes me go ~hmm.

9. Mat thinks here that he believes that ~the new empress~ is going to surprise the Seanchan. Not sure what he's basing that belief on, lol. But, just like Fortuona was Making Lies Up In Her Head to justify her decisions, so is Mat, I guess. He wants to believe that Tuon is Different From The Other Seanchan, so he's convinced himself that she is, despite having literally zero favorable evidence (and the reader was just recently in her head, so we know for a fact that Mat is absolutely incorrect that Tuon has surprised the Seanchan in any way -- she has done exactly as expected of her, because she's just a bog-standard High Blood Seanchan)

(side note: I actually do not have any objection to Tuon just being another Seanchan, in terms of her moral code. The weird part about the way it is written in the books is the way that some Westlands characters behave as if she's better in some way, when we've never seen her do anything exceptional, in terms of ethics or morality. I get that the Seanchan are brainwashed to think the Imperial family & the Empress are special, but when Westlands characters act that way, it makes me raise my eyebrows. I talked about this back in CoT & KoD too -- how sometimes Mat behaved as if Tuon had undergone an entire character arc despite that... you know, not happening and her being just as awful (in terms of ethics) at the end of KoD as she was in her intro in WH. It's not Tuon being awful that I object to -- it makes sense that she's awful, given what we know of her culture and that she's the top dog in that culture -- it's Westlands characters inexplicably behaving as if she's A Special One Who Isn't Like Other Nobles that triggers my bullshit meter, like Mat thinking in KoD that's it's ~right and good~ for Olver to bow to her and make much of her despite that going completely against the way Mat normally approaches nobility; hits my bs meter hard).

The reports on the Seanchan that he's reading come from Elayne, btw. Also, he HAS officially signed the Band over to Elayne's employment. So, again, we have this tension where Mat has been set up as the tug o'war rope between ~Fortuona~ and Elayne. Or, more accurately, Mat is setting himself up as the rope. And setting himself up to eventually have his nose rubbed into the crimes of the Seanchan (including Tuon) in a way that he won't be able to deny (post-canon, I assume). Elayne did not give him any reports on the Seanchan attacking the White Tower, it sounds like, which makes sense -- the official White Tower position on weakness is: we don't have any. He notes that there are rumors of the Sea Folk allied with the Seanchan and dismisses THOSE as nonsense started by the Seanchan capturing Sea Folk vessels. Hey. Hey, Mat. What do they do to the people on the vessels? I know that you know the answer.

10. One of the spy reports makes him think of Rand, and we are reminded that Mat has to banish those colors "over and over". Funny how Perrin doesn't have that problem. Perrin finds dismissing the colors super easy. Mat also thinks about how "at least Rand was wearing clothes this time", which is a reminder of how frequently Mat apparently thinks about Rand around bedtime. Again, not a problem that Perrin has ever had.

11. Hmm, a conversation between the two people who seemed to most desperately want to believe that Tuon can learn to be a better person, and the two people who had the biggest changes in characterization between Winter's Heart and Crossroads of Twilight: Setalle Anan has come over to talk to Mat.

Strike twelve-point-four, as Mat tries to pretend he isn't thinking about Setalle Anan's 'ample bosom' (it's the second time he's had thoughts of attraction towards her since his marriage, so I'm not double-counting her as a full point, just like I'm not double-counting Elayne).

When Setalle Anan wonders if he truly knows the Andoran queen, Mat says that she's a "nice enough girl", because (at least in this part of the storyline) Mat has grown enough to see that his original assumptions about Elayne were incorrect.

12. Setalle Anan says that she's trying to work out the puzzle of Mat, and Mat being so close to the queen (who is Aes Sedai) is another piece of the puzzle. She mentions getting a letter from Joline, who has arrived safely at the White Tower and who has asked after Mat, to check in that he's okay, which completely baffled Mat. I wonder if Joline and Teslyn have had some long conversations off-screen about Mat, because Mat has been such an asshole to Joline on-screen that her respecting him so much really is somewhat baffling. But, yeah, the whole "friendly with some Aes Sedai but married to a slaver who wanted to enslave all Aes Sedai" is definitely... well, 'puzzle' is a kind way of wording what Mat currently is (especially to anyone who doesn't know about the prophecy... which is everyone).

Mat asks Setalle Anan what it was like to lose the One Power and no longer be Aes Sedai. She explains that she's happy for those who can still channel but is envious and misses it. The way she talks about it really reminds me of the way how Mat seems to feel his marriage has locked him away from acting on his attraction to other women and it's an interesting comparison to think about, now that it comes to mind. She burnt herself out, she wasn't stilled, so she accidentally did this to herself (just like Mat accidentally married Tuon). She is envious of those who can still channel but happy for them that they have the ability (and Mat keeps checking out women 'for' other men around him... though he never actually tells those other men about the women). She also kept herself in contact with the Kin all those years, essentially punishing herself by reminding herself over and over what she no longer had. Hmm.

Then she asks Mat why he hates Aes Sedai. And Mat essentially... completely sidesteps the question, though he does say that he doesn't hate Aes Sedai. But he immediately changes the question to "what bothers me about WOMEN" and away from "what bothers me about Aes Sedai" and then almost as swiftly, the conversation turns to "what bothers me about NOBLES". I wonder if his mental conflation of Aes Sedai=all women=all nobles is part of what causes some of his odd thinking.

13. This is where we get his ~boots~ argument against nobility, which comes across to me like he's saying that, nobles have so much excess that it makes him uncomfortable, though Setalle Anan believed that he's talking about the complexity of leadership. Mat denies that the conversation is a metaphor in any possible way, which is very Mat of him. I will note that he says that your 'best' pair of shoes should be your walking/working shoes, which are your most important pair.

If you were wondering: no, Setalle Anan doesn't tell him that she betrayed him and told Tuon about his protective medallion. Tuon actually doesn't openly come up a single time in the conversation, which is somewhat interesting, considering how much of the discussion feels like it's half a step away from Tuon.

After Anan leaves, Mat tosses aside Verin's letter, deciding that he will never know what's in it.

14. I genuinely like Pevara but... yeah, sucks that Nynaeve isn't the one headlining the Black Tower story arc. Apparently the White Tower 'embassy' to the Black Tower has just been chilling inside for... weeks? And now they are trapped inside, and gateways don't work. (another dreamspike? I do not recall)

15. Perrin gets to say a special goodbye to Mat. The buffing up of the Mat-Perrin friendship definitely feels like the biggest marker so far of Check Out Sanderson's Bestest Favorite Boy, yeah, lol. Thom twits Mat about his marriage by poking at the sore spot of how it makes Mat a noble now. Grady opens a Gateway to send them to the Tower of Ghenjei, and will open a return Gateway every day at the same time. They leave from Perrin's camp, which is just outside Whitebridge. Then Perrin & co all head to Merrilor.

16. Noal has managed to acquire a fancy outfit and a fancy new walking staff. ...? I hope again that plot device Noal gets replaced by someone more interesting in the show version (if they should get this far). My dream team is, of course, Mat with Siuan (as Moiraine's love interest) and Birgitte (for historical knowledge and to fill Noal's, ah, other role and, much like Noal wants to redeem himself for his failures, Birgitte may want to succeed at saving someone from the Tower where she has failed before).

17. They are able to open a doorway into the Tower by etching the opening symbol for the game of snakes & foxes into the Tower with a bronze knife. The inside of the Tower itself doesn't look like either the Aelfinn or the Eelfinn's bargaining places, Mat notes in dismay. Whatever script is used on the walls here, it isn't the Old Tongue, because Mat doesn't recognize it. Mat realizes this time, as he didn't fully realize before, that the world of the 'finn is a completely different world to their own. Interesting that even now, after Mat has ~gotten hitched~ to his prophecy girl, he still feels like the snakes gave him "no useful answers".

18. One of the Eelfinn appears, to try to tempt them into leaving their tools of protection behind and when Mat realizes that he's feeling swayed by the argument, he asks Thom to play music to break the spell. And the music puts the Eelfinn to sleep. Mat realizes that trying to make a map of the place is useless -- they need to rely on his luck. So he starts rolling dice to decide which direction to go. After another confrontation with multiple Eelfinn where he loses his dice, he begins spinning around to dizzy himself and then picking a direction at random. He then follows that direction no matter how many side corridors appear to tempt them, and he leads them to the room where Moiraine is waiting.

19. Seeing Moiraine again brings up a lot of complicated emotions in Mat: frustration and anger, but also gratitude and awe. He feels like he understands her motivations for her choices now, but still dislikes some of the actions that she took. Thom yanks her out of her prison, even after they find that whatever she's being held in is hot to the touch, and Mat marvels over how tiny she is, compared to his larger-than-life memory of her.

20. After Moiraine is pulled from her prison, eight of the Eelfinn are in the room, on the tall pedestals, dressed in white. Mat warns everyone against saying anything that sounds like a bargain. So Mat is the one to make the bargain, with the terms that the Aelfinn had already given him -- his price would be "half the light of the world" (aka his eye). Mat wonders if being willing to pay this price to save the world makes him "a hero, after all". One of the Eelfinn rips Mat's eye out of his socket with his bare hand.

21. Mat thinks here that he had assumed that Thom was here for the same reason as Mat -- because it was something that needed to be done (aka it was the right thing to do) -- but the way that Thom is clutching onto Moiraine's unconscious body is making him wonder. Noal realizes a hole in the bargain that Mat had made -- he'd said that the foxes weren't allowed to attack them, but had said nothing about the snakes. And so now the chase is on.

22. After a tense chase, where Mat is throwing around fireworks to keep the Aelfinn at bay, and they've long since strayed from the direct path that would lead to their exit, Noal sacrifices himself so that the others can continue escaping, serving his plot device duty and 'dying clean' (does Mat ever actually tell any of the Malkieri about this? I will try to remember to keep a watch out in AMoL). Mat thinks that once he would have thought dying with honor was pointless, but honor has mattered to too many of the memories in his head for him to dismiss it.

23. Hmm, when Thom mentions the idea of maybe getting some Aelfinn answers for himself, Mat tells him that he doesn't want them. "They aren't answers. They're threats. Promises." Talking about what just happened with his eye, or talking about Tuon? (I mean, likely both. It's definitely been something that I've noticed that Mat does not at all seem happy or grateful to the Aelfinn for shackling him to Fortuona, despite how he keeps desperately trying to convince himself that he trusts her and that he finds her super-attractive)

24. Mat thinks back to his time with the Eelfinn, his exact words, and realizes that he asked for a way back and that his ashandarei is the one thing he has that is not explained by them answering his other boons. That it's his key to leaving. He didn't ask them for a weapon, he asked them for a way out. And he is able to cut it to cut their way out of the Tower and back into their own world.

25. My narration here doesn't really cover how much I enjoyed this sequence but it was a lot of fun! I do think that this moment, like some others, would probably feel more impactful if it happened before Rand had his epiphany. Rand having his big moment at the end of TGS kinda... trivializes almost everything in ToM, honestly. Because... well, we already know that Rand has decided not to destroy time and the universe. So, if I had been structuring the last three books, I would have placed Rand's epiphany right here, after Mat & co. make their successful escape from the Tower of Ghenjei (and after Perrin and Egwene have helped each other in TAR). That way, even before they all go to Merrilor, it feels like Moiraine's return is symbolic of Rand's turning point, if they're paired in the narrative like that.

26. We get the counterpart of Gawyn's relief at having Egwene's emotions in his head by learning here that Egwene also finds it a comfort to have his emotions in her head and feel his devotion first-hard in a way that makes her unable to doubt it. So, yeah, Egwene and Gawyn are really on the same page in a way that the majority of romantic relationships in the series never manage. They want the same things out of life and neither of them is forcing themselves to live a life that makes them unhappy for the sake of catering to the other person (examples of this kind of relationship: Rand & Min, where Min forces herself into a poly relationship that makes her feel possessive and jealous all the time; Perrin & Faile, where they both have vastly different ideas about their 'ideal life' and the solution was for Perrin to give up his own ideas and pick Faile's; Mat and Fortuona, who both want to fundamentally change their partner into someone unrecognizable from who they currently are)

27. Mat is thrilled that he managed to survive the Tower of Ghenjei, now that they are safely out (and Moiraine is slowly regaining consciousness). Mat also realizes here that Thom knew all along (or at least for a while) that Noal was Jain Farstrider but never told Mat. It's in a semi-joking way that he wonders what kind of friend Thom is, but, yeah, I've been wondering about Mat and Thom's 'friendship' for a bit now, and this is another interesting piece of evidence about how Thom is not particularly open with Mat.

28. Um, strike thirteen-point-four as Mat thinks about how fetching Moiraine looks, with her flushed cheeks and her hair tumbling about her face. haha, he does feel kinda awkward about finding her attractive, much as Rand felt awkward about finding Caraline Damodred attractive even realizing how much she looked like Moiraine.

29. Mat refusing to let Moiraine heal his eye (not even just to take the pain away, which is all she believes she can manage now) does feel weirdly symbolic of his self-destructive behavior as of late -- he risks his life to save Moiraine, gives up his eye to save her, and then shies away at the idea of her healing him. Much as I once wondered if the Aelfinn devised Tuon as a punishment for Mat, I now have to wonder... is Mat punishing himself? Because that is wildly self-destructive. He could get an infection in his FACE. I'm sure he has countless memories of battle wounds going bad and killing soldiers post-battle. Passing up being healed just seems like he's actively self-harming here.

(I guess the question I'm asking is: how much does Mat subconsciously hate himself right now, that he would do this to himself? Again, we have the contrast in this same book of Galad realizing how nonsensical it is to have Aes Sedai as your allies and then refuse to allow them to heal you, which feels like a direct and deliberate reference point to show us that Mat is not acting rationally here -- either punishing himself or feeling like he doesn't deserve healing? Kinda amounts to the same thing, I suppose)

30. lol, Mat tries to downplay his affection for Rand, yet again, but Thom calls him out on it by mentioning how Mat 'keeps saying' that Rand deserves a festival in his honor for cleansing saidin. Honestly, the case of Rand vs Fortuona does feel so illustrative at this point re: Mat's constant lying to himself -- Mat tries so hard to force himself NOT to feel loyal and affectionate towards Rand and TO feel loyal towards Fortuona, but then his mind keeps betraying him (he keeps thinking of Rand, over and over, in much greater detail than Perrin does; and, conversely, he keeps thinking of all the attractive women in the world that he's Not Allowed to think about due to his marriage to Fortuona).

31. Thom tells Moiraine that Mat married "the Empress of the Seanchan" and Mat cringes at the info being shared (he hunches down and tries to cover his face with his hat and 'forces a chuckle'). Moiraine is startled, but when Mat says it was 'accidentally' because the Seanchan have 'odd customs', she goes, "ah, ta'veren". Mat doesn't think of his reaction here as 'shame' but, yeah, it vibes hard as shame. Moiraine says she needs to go seek out Rand, and Mat agrees that she should, but says he has things that he needs to do in Caemlyn. And then he thinks of Rand (again) and blushes.

32. While I've seen Sanderson get blamed for it -- the Thom & Moiraine engagement scene was written by Jordan, as confirmed by Sanderson's retrospective (Sanderson is one of the fans who did not at all pick up on Jordan's murder-mystery style way of setting up Thom and Moiraine's 'romance' in the earlier books which, you know. Me too, lol). And 'abruptly making a life commitment out of nowhere with barely any lead-up' is also classic Jordan romance writing, lol.

Direct quote from Sanderson: "I will note, by the way, that Verin’s interaction with Egwene in The Gathering Storm was my biggest surprise from the notes. My second biggest was the Thom/Moiraine engagement. Robert Jordan wrote that scene, and I was surprised to read it."

So, yeah, the whole "I would give up being Aes Sedai for you" offer was all Jordan.

That being said, knowing that this scene was written by Jordan also makes me wonder how much of the previous scene that leads into it (Mat blushing over how much he's thinking about Rand and his clear shame over being married to the Empress of the Seanchan) was also written by Jordan. Moiraine actually IS one of the few characters in the Jordan books who occasionally slung around the name 'Matrim', so her using it here isn't a Sanderson 'tell' the way that it is for many other characters. I also wonder if the paragraph of admiration and Mat thinking of Moiraine as 'fetching' was written by Jordan because, if so, that might be the germ of the idea that led to all of the other moments when Mat has been distracted by how pretty all the women he's Not Allowed to admire are Because Wife.

33. When Mat reacts like a cat fallen into a bath at the idea of being bonded (though, hilariously, he does specify that he doesn't want to be bonded to a woman), Thom points out that "your Tuon" is capable of channeling, which is information that Mat has been trying to actively suppress from his memory (and he almost immediately does so again here, very quickly after Thom reminds him of it), another example of Thom bringing up Mat's marriage to specifically twit him about the parts of it that will make him unhappy (like how earlier, he brought up how it makes Mat a noble). But this conversation is kinda the first time that Mat has confirmed to other people that his marriage was 'accidental' due to 'Seanchan customs', I think? Which is information that Moiraine & Thom could theoretically share with other people (like, for example, Elayne, who is already aware that Mat is willing to self-destructively make himself miserable in order to keep a promise, from her experiences with him in Ebou Dar). Also, Moiraine now knows that the Empress of the Seanchan is capable of learning to channel.

34. Mat's missing eye is still throbbing in pain, but he doesn't give a thought to asking Moiraine to heal him. Either deep fear, like Moiraine suggested, or deep hate... for himself, I think (certainly not for Moiraine, as he's surprised himself in this scene with how much affection he's been feeling for her). I'm leaning towards 'self-hate' because Mat doesn't even consider asking THOM to help him clean and dress the wound using normal non-Power means, so it feels very much like Mat has given himself a painful punishment.

He also wonders what Tuon might think of a husband 'unable to defend himself', so, yeah, I think he's also very aware that she is not a supportive and caring life partner. He actually comes across as genuinely scared of her reaction here (he describes himself as 'trembling' at the thought). You're in an abusive relationship, buddy.

35. Olver opens the letter from Verin and gives it to Talmanes -- Verin was trying to warn Mat about the Waygate in Caemlyn being left unguarded and a huge force of Shadowspawn coming through the Ways to attack the city. Talmanes curses and heads off to defend the city, but then we see that it's already under attack. Congrats, Mat! Your stubborn determination not to ever listen to Aes Sedai has helped lead to an attack on Caemlyn.

36. For the first time in this entire book, we get a Rand PoV. In the epilogue. And it's only two pages long. *sigh*

Rand sits in a dream and thinks about what will come in the morning, when he speaks to Egwene and the monarchs of the world. We don't get ANY reflection on the events of the past book or any of his feelings about anything.

He hears distant screams of pain and follows them, and he sees 'Mierin' aka Lanfear, who tells him that she is being tortured by the Dark One and needs his help.

I'm so frustrated that this is the only Rand PoV that we got in this entire book! Why would you do that! What a terrible narrative choice!

37. Lan arrives at Tarwin's Gap -- "he was home again. For the last time." And he and his forces charge towards the Shadowspawn.

38. The very ending of the book is a quote from the 'prophecies of the Shadow' (the ones that Moridin is relying on but have already failed Graendal). We get a mention of "Midnight Towers" here but I have NO clue what it's meant to refer to, since it clearly isn't talking about the Seanchan Towers of Midnight. So, yeah, ????

The title of this book remains such a baffling choice.

How ready are we for the Last Battle?

Rand: organizing; basically ready

Egwene: organizing; basically ready

Mat: finally got his ass in gear. Managed to be the fault point for the Caemlyn invasion, so he was accidentally helping the Shadow there by being stubborn for no good reason. Kinda mirrors him helping the Seanchan by protecting Tuon during CoT & KoD. First he fails his friends through action (protecting a slaver) and then he fails them through inaction (not reading Verin's letter). But he also helps his friends (bringing Aludra to Caemlyn; rescuing Moiraine) so Mat has been a double-edged sword recently, useful and harmful at the same time.

In terms of his marriage: shame, repression, and denial seem to be the main emotions that Mat is bringing to the table. That's a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. The clash of values between Mat and Fortuona feels inevitable, once the immediate stress of the Last Battle and its aftermath has passed.

I am interested (this may or may not be the correct word, lol) on if Mat will become pod!person Mat from CoT & KoD once he's actually in Fortuona's orbit again. So far he's done his best to maintain the illusion in his head that "Tuon" and "the Seanchan Empire" are separate entities and he can help one of them while being opposed to the other one, but obviously that illusion will take a pretty hard hit once he's around Actual (Westlands Territories Only) Seanchan Empress Fortuona 'Slavery Is My Game' Paendrag again. I've genuinely enjoyed a lot of the Mat scenes in ToM but how much of that is because I haven't been forced to endure Mat & Tuon interacting? I guess I'm about to find out!

Elayne: she’s BEEN ready.

Perrin: went through wolf boot camp; basically ready. The wolf-related plotline Perrin does in these two books should have been in his plot during The Slog; Sanderson basically rewinds us to LoC!Perrin and goes from there, giving Perrin character development that should have been happening all along.

The Whitecloak-related plotline was... meh? The most I can give it is 'meh'. It solved a problem that I didn't care about and ignored the problems that I did care about, essentially.

Nynaeve: We don't get enough Nynaeve but what we do get is good, except for her massive communication issues, lol. She should have done the Black Tower plotline in this book rather than it being given to tertiary characters. It's an important enough plotline that it should have happened within the main cast.

Series ranking:

Hmm, this one was somewhat tough to rank because I mostly loved all the Mat & Elayne related scenes, and the Egwene and Nynaeve scenes were also good but I was very frustrated with almost all the Rand-related scenes being someone else's PoV and Perrin was. Not interesting to me unless he was in the wolfdream. So. Better than WH but not as good as EotW. Too Much Perrin, lol (you wouldn't necessarily know this from my reread posts because I was zooming through the Perrin chapters and then spending ages on the other ones, but trust me. There was A Lot of Perrin).

The Fires of Heaven (😍)

The Shadow Rising (😘)

The Dragon Reborn (😘)

The Path of Daggers (😘)

New Spring (😘)

The Great Hunt (😄)

The Gathering Storm (😄)

Lord of Chaos (😄)

...

A Crown of Swords (🙂)

The Eye of the World (🙂)

Towers of Midnight (🙂)

Winter’s Heart (🙂)

...

Crossroads of Twilight (😒)

Knife of Dreams (😒)

#wot #wheel of time #wot reread #wot book spoilers #wot spoilers #towers of midnight #mat cauthon #perrin aybara #elayne trakand

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belovedblabber · 1 year

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I’m so glad to have found other Jod enjoyers on this site. Top John Gaius “makes you want to chew on the furniture” moments?

Okay I can FINALLY take some time to answer this now, huzzah!

I have some other John related asks I'm VERY excited to answer but I have gotten far too sleepy now so I once again have to wait on those because I have a LOT to say and I am incapable of not treating everything like I'm writing an essay and bringing in citations.

But anyway, if I gave all of my top John moments this post would be a thousand miles long so I'm just going to give some of my faves. And this is in no particular order, I'm just putting them down as they come into my head

"Is that the truth, or the truth you tell yourself?" asked Augustine. "What is the difference?" said God. This exchange makes me go INSANE. I can't even be coherent about it right now, I just love how chilling John's response is, and also Muir using God here. I love her very clever choices in terms of what she calls John and when. Calling him God (or by another one of his fancy titles) can either be used for comedy (aka "Thanks," said God) but it can also be used for an absolute wham line like this one and it's just very good. I love it. It's chilling. He's so scary

When Harrow explodes G1deon and everything is going insane and then John just says "Stop" and just freezes everybody. It's such a cool moment. He just STOPS it all, I LOVE it. Also: The Emperor of the Nine houses—the Resurrection—the First Reborn—sat at the end of the table, his plain face splattered with gore, and his eyes were the death of light. Oh my GOD is that such a good line, I am deeply not coherent here but god I love this entire moment, it's such a good reminder of how powerful John is (and then him being like "I did't really want to eat human again Harrow" sdfghj)

The entire section where he reconfigures himself after Mercy exploded him. And then his killing Mercy so casually. But what I really love about it is how stone-cold he is after it all ("I never liked cleaning house all at once") I love how this scene really shows how right Augustine was earlier in the book when he told Mercy "John is never as sentimental as you think." John is so matter-of-fact and it is SO good when we see him turn on a dime like this and start cleaning house (I also love "You acted afraid—" "Acted is operative. But this is not am FAQ.") I am not explaining myself well here but I just love the way that John, who we have seen as this very affable, mellow, often very funny character throughout, turns on a dime and is suddenly so ruthless, right after killing someone who he was begging to forgive him moments before. The absolute callous tone he has ("I didn't offer it to Mercy because Mercy really pissed me off, I'm sorry to say.") is so jarring and it's GREAT. And I've seen people point to this as proof that like, 'oh John doesn't actually love them like he says he does, John is a liar he was faking his affection.' And that is SUCH a boring read. What's much more interesting, and terrifying, is the idea that John can be fully in earnest with his affection, but then just so brutally flip a switch when he's pushed. Idk, it's just a great moment. I am explaining myself poorly here I know asdfghj

"Harrowhark, nobody has the right to know," he said fiercely. "Nobody has the right to blame you. Nobody can judge. What has happened, has happened, and there's no putting it back in the box. They wouldn't understand. They don't have to. I officially relieve you from living in fear. Nobody has to know." I love this line because it's like, John are you talking about Harrow, or yourself? And with the context of NtN this becomes even more clearly John bringing his own baggage to the table. It's so good. I have a whole post brewing in my head on this subject that I am sure I'll inflict on my poor innocent followers at some point

Uhhh, every single John interlude in NtN. I know that's cheating but literally every single one had me going off my rocker.

But even more specifically, John 1:20. That entire section may be my favorite part of the book. I actually had to stop reading for a moment after I finished it (and no joke I did whisper "damn, Tamsyn" out loud and I was, in fact, crying a bit. it was also like, 6am and I had been up all night aserfghj). But seriously I wanted to pick a single part or so from this to highlight but I can't. It's all so good. And heartbreaking. John crying at C— and N— 's wedding, and eating for the first time in ages, the building desperation at the state of the world and how helpless they all feel and that bit of humanity and joy with the wedding, immediately followed by...everything else. "John, your problem is that you care less about being a saviour than you do about meting out punishment." John and Cristabel's final conversation. The absolute heart wrenching stuff with John seeing everyone die and his blurry recollection of it because holy shit it was horrendous. Literally everything else. Also THE MOMENT HE LETS GO, the entire sequence of him trying to take the earth into himself, and then the terrifying description he gives of him eating the solar system and pursuing the departing ships. Also I just really love "All those frightened people. All those run-away rats." I think I just have a very clear uh, 'line read' of that bit in my head, and I love the way he calls them frightened and then the absolute rage in the way he calls them rats. Idk, it's really clear in my head I can't really explain myself better here. But anyway yeah, the ENTIRETY of this interlude makes me go absolutely wild to the point that I cannot be coherent about it.

John 5:4, and everything John says about forgiveness, and what he'll do next, and taking his friend's memories. Again I can't really be coherent about this entire section, but I will give my fave bit from it. "There can be no forgiveness for those who walked away," he said. "Just as there can be no forgiveness for me—even though I rip the very fingers from my hands...throw them into the jaws of the monsters who hunt me...as I run from them across the universe, end to end. Something will satisfy them eventually, but nothing satisfies me. Nothing." I put that last bit in italics because it is maybe my fave line from John. There's just something about it. It's just so tragic and chilling and terrifying and I LOVE it and I love how it is sort of this like, succinct and perfect sum of the tragedy of him. Idk it's just, chef's kiss.

Okay finally, not a direct John moment per se, but this: John loved her. She was John's cavalier. She loved John. For she so loved the world that she had given them John. For the world so loved John that she had been given. For John had so loved her that he had made her she. For John had loved the world. I have so many thoughts and feelings on this that I cannot articulate but oh my goddddd. It's so good. First of all the whole playing off of John 3:16 thing. And just...the wording, the way it all flows. I cannot be coherent about this I just go insane. That ending For John had loved the world hit me like a brick the first time I read it, and continues to do so every time I reread it. There's something so simple and final and heartbreaking about it. I think it sums of the tragedy of the character and his story in one simple line. If that makes any sense whatsoever.

ANYWAY, this is an absolute ramble of an answer I know, but the prompt here was 'makes you want to chew on furniture moments' and I feel like with that vibe in mind the level of not hinged I am here is at least thematically appropriate. Also thank youuuuu for sending me this ask, it has made me very happy

#the locked tomb #john gaius #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #harrow the ninth #ntn #htn #thank you so much for sending me this ask!

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tempobaekh · 3 years

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Rating Penthouse: War In Life characters

I asked my followers on Instagram to give me Penthouse characters to rate and my thoughts about them so I thought to post it here as well. Now this is my personal opinion about how I feel about the characters and how much I will rate them

⚠️⚠️THIS CONTAINS A FEW SPOILERS⚠️⚠️

My Instagram: Tempobaek

Logan Lee

10/10

Lemme just say I love him SO MUCH

LOGAN LEE BEST BOY

I absolutely loved his character and the fact that he was one of the few people who wants justice and is honest made me love him even more

Him playing Go Hu Dong was amazing as well and I didn't recognize him at all at first like he played it so well with the accent, costume and wig and everything

His accent and language switch in between English and the Busan accent Korean was so fucking sexy🥵

✨Mr. Joo✨

My man was also smart with his revenge

He was also serving amazing LOOKS every episode in the two seasons and I loved every single one of them

And I'm going to be honest here, after watching the preview for S2 ep13 his laugh was creepy in one of the clips and after reading a few theories I lowkey thought that he would be the next villian

I regret suspecting him now

But instead of that they gave us a bigger plot twist and blew up our man with a bomb😩

He literally went ✨LiGhT iT Up LiKe DyNaMiTe✨ (I'm so sorry)

I would've rather have him be a villian than die in the bomb

I MISS HIM ALREADY AND LOVE HIM SO MUCH😭

DID I MENTION THAT I LOVE HIM

Joo Seok Kyung

7/10

Another one that annoyed me angered me so much🙄

Like she was ruthless and had no mercy when it came to bullying and putting people down that she thought were a rival or putting people down in general

She didn't change even when Rona died

She also went as far as to like cheat her way to win the Cheong Ah Art High School trophy and blackmailed Cheon Seojin to win the trophy

But there were times where she would show emotions and those would be often her break down and weak moments

And those moments would really show how she is broken inside and puts up a careless and brave image, she is someone who needs healing even though healing takes time

I also saw someone saying like 'oh Seok Kyung hates her mom so much'

Yeah she hated her mom but she didn't hate her to death like she didn't wish death upon her

Seok Kyung was heart broken when she heard Suryeon's death and that showed that she still loved her mom even though Suryeon didn't give birth to them

I was heart broken when I saw that she cut her hair because here was no one there to tie it for her bc Suryeon loved Seok Kyungs long hair and that's why she didn't cut it but after he mothers death no one was there to tie her hair for her

I started seeing her in a different light after a while bc again it showed that he character was very broken emotionally and needed healing

I'm interested about seeing more of her character development after the last ep where she defended Rona

Also my girl is so hot, another one that was serving amazing looks

Joo Seok Hoon

8/10

He was lowkey annoying at first ngl

Like my man was just🧍🏻‍♂️

It annoyed me so much how he defended his sister so much, fell for her tricks, covered up for her and did anything she said EVEN though its wrong

But after some time I understood that he cared for and that she was the only family left to him

I mean Seok Hoon hate Joo Dan Tae so he doesn't counts and Suryeon was dead at the moment

I will still not forgive him for bullying Seol A even though he regrets it

It also annoyed me how he didn't stood up for Rona at all in the first season even though he liked her

By he got so much better in S2, he was even part in the revenge plan

He is literally the human CCTV camera in Hera Palace like he knows more than even the viewers know

The way he was protective of Rona when he found out she was alive was so aDORABLE

And my man was amazing in the last episodes

I love him

Cheon Seo Jin

4/10

THIS WOMAN MAKES MY BLOOD FUCKING BOIL

Like I sometimes just was to 🤜🏻👩🏻

But sometimes I wanna hug her😩

Idk I feel like she became a horrible person bc of greed and that he father and mother placed too high expectations for her

Instead of praising her for her accomplishments her parents wanted her to do more

Maybe that's why she was desperate for love and affection and found that in Joo Dan Tae even though he pretended to like her

But that definitely does not dismiss her horrible actions

But also the harsh past made her the could hearted person, like she left her father to die

She felt more care towards her daughter after she almost lost her because Eunbyeol tried to commit suicide

She was in alot of pain and you could see it in her cries and when she was on the phone with the person

Soyeon's acting was amazing in that scene

She started to care more about her ex husband and daughter when she saw how much Eunbyeol was suffering and she realized that she genuinely liked Ha Yoon Chul hwen she saw how horrible Joo Dan Tae was

I did feel bad for her sometimes but after seeing that she didn't change I really didn't feel any sympathy for her

She needs therapy

Girlie was shocked when the doctor said she is losing her voice like bestie you are screaming every episode

She was also serving amazing looks every episode

Ha Yoon Chul

5/10

The first male character I simped for

Like I am not going to deny it but he is hot🥵

But the first few episodes he was an absolute asshole and greedy

But I never expected him to be Yoonhee's ex boyfriend

I did like him a tiny bit when he saved Yoon Hee from Kyu Jin

His entrance in S2 with the helicopter was damn hot

And I WAS SO SHOCKED WHEN HE SAID MEET MY WIFE OH YOON HE

LIKE YAY MY SHIP IS SAILING

I spoke too soon

His character development and fighting skills were hot as well

He was ADORABLE with Rona and Yoonhee

I seriously thought that Rona was his daughter

BUT THAN AT THE CHEONG AH FESTIVLE OOF SIR I WANTED TO PUNCH HIM

I WAS SO MAD WHEN HE SABOTAGED RONA'S PERFORMANCE

I began hating him after that💀

Like he went 📈📉 with his character development

AND THEN HE CLEANED EUNBYEOL'S MEMORY FROM THAT NIGHT LIKE SIR SKSHSKSHKS SHE DID HAT TO YOUR DAUGHTER

I actually asked my dad what he thought about what Yoon Chul did and this was his reponse:

"If you look at it from a parents perspective they would want to do anything if they saw their child in pain like he did but I would've also scolded her and had a conversation with her about why she did it instead of wiping her memory from that night like he did. "

So that's that

I LOVED IT WHEN YOON HEE CAME WITH THAT BLOW AND TOLD HIM RONA WAS HER DAUGHTER

Jonghoon's acting was chef's kiss in that scene

I was going to rate him a 4 but I gave him that 5 when I saw how he was at court, he admitted to his wrong doings but also still had feelings for Yoon Hee

I wanna see his reaction in s3 to Rona now bc now that he got to know that is his daughter I wonder how he will be

Lee Kyu Jin

1/10

AN ASSHOLE

USELESS

WHY IS HE HERE

Like I have nothing to say about him rather than I hate him and that he useless just like his wife and son

HE IS LITERALLY NOTHING WITHOUT HIS MOM

I'm only giving him that one bc he was funny in the episodes

THATS THE ONLY REASON HE IS THERE JUST FOR COMEDY PURPOSES

Go Sang Ah

0.5/10

ANNOYING 2.0

USELESS 2.0

ALL SHE DOES IS SPEND HER HUSBAND AND MOTHER IN LAW'S MONEY

LIKE SHE AIN'T EVEN WORKS

UNLIKE KANG MARI

The only thing she does is gossip

And spills the tea☕

SHE IS LITERALLY NOTHING WITHPUT HER HUSBAND AND HIS FAMILY

Giving her a 0.5 bc she is kinda funny eh

Lee Minhyuk

0/10

ANNOYING 3.0

USELESS 3.0

ASSHOLE 2.0

Idk if it runs in the family but again he is useless

And a dumbass

He also nothing without his parents

Why is he there tho like you ain't even funny

All he can do is cause trouble

And bullied Jenny

His dumbass slipped and broke his own arm and blamed it on Rona smh🤦🏻‍♀️

Sometimes I just wanna 🤜🏻👦🏻

Also my dude was trying to sound all intimidating by saying

"Oh Jenny's father is a scary man, yOuR dEaD BaE rOnA"

Like dude worry about yourself bitch you are dead first for bullying Jenny

But like I hate the character but LOVE THE ACTOR HE IS SO HOT OMFG

Joo Dan Tae

0/10

ANOTHER ONE THAT PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH AND MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL

SOMETIMES I DONT WANNA 🤜🏻 I WANNA 🔪

LIKE I HATE HIM WITH A FUCKING PASSION

I DONT CARE ABOUT HIS PAST OR ANYTHING HE IS A GREASY, GREEDY, PSYCHO, OBSESSIVE MANIPULATIVE, POSSESSIVE PSYCHO

Like I legit thought he was nice in he first ep and then I saw him kiss Seojin and-

Me: 🤨😧😃🤮 MY EMOTIONS WENT LIKE THAT

LIKE HE IS SO FUCKING POSSESSIVE OVER SURYEON, AEGYO AND SEOJIN LIKE ITS DISGUSTING

I WAS GETTING YANDERE BEHAVIOUR FROM THAT OLD MAN

PURE TRASH

Bae Rona

9/10

I LOVE HER NOW

RONA BEST GIRL

She was also annoying at first and was very ungrateful

But over time she got better, still a tiny bit annoying sometimes but better

When she came back from the US I WAS LIKE GIRL NO YOU FINNA RUIN THE PLAN

I do feel bad for her bc she went through alot with bullying, her mom going to jail not only once but twice, her getting to know that Yoonchul who she started liking sabotaged her performance, and also literally almost dying

My girl has been through a lot

AND WHEN SHE RUNNED TOWARDS THE STAIRS OUTSIDE WHEN EUNBYEOL WAS CHASING HER I WAS LIKE GIRL RUN TO THE HALL YOU RUNNIN OUTSIDE

I am excited to see her reaction to getting to know that Yoon Chul is her dad

Part 2 is also posted!

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astrangergivingthestrangewelcome · 3 years

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The Die Is Cast Held a Gun To My Head and Made Me Write Meta

The thing currently getting me about "The Die Is Cast" is if Odo hadn't been there that would've been it for Mr. Elim Garak. He might have died on that bridge for the wanting of relationship with his father he didn't process. More likely he would have been captured on the bridge with Tain. And if they weren't discovered until In Purgatory's Shadow/By Inferno's Light then Garak would have been in prison for 2 years in close contact with Tain. No doubt he would survive but. I kinda think that would have been it for Garak. That relationship and reexposure to Tain and the reemphasis of those Obsidian Order facist values would have been it for any growing Garak could do.

(I'm saying this thinking about how his pysche would be affected by the prison circumstances as well. Obviously he spent most of his life in the Obsidian Order, and yet he still retained enough of a soul to have guilt and doubts. I just think that Tain + prison + years of prison would have warped him beyond any recovery)

This is kinda obvious but the only thing that really gave Garak a chance to idk? Get even a little unfucked up was his exile. And obviously his exile was a really bad time for him but whether he liked it or not getting away from Cardassia was the only way he was ever going to see that Cardassia was rotten to core, it was making him rotten as an extension, and any patriotism he felt was going to have to be spent rebuilding that system.

And he spent years unwillingly/unwittingly learning and building relationships and even healing a little (asking Bashir's forgiveness was big) but the moment that Tain and Cardassia came back into his life he just buckled. Straight-up. He turned off Odo's torture device sure but he still tortured Odo. The minute he could go back to Tain and the Obsidian Order he said yes and he did, even though watching the scene I see that Garak was very much on edge and discomforted around Tain. This is a completely heartbreaking example of how ideologies and abuse are so hard to unlearn and so easy to relapse into.

Garak does not successfully rebel against them here. He helps out Odo I guess, and this act of mercy -well maybe the better word is human-oid-ity saves his life. But he does not leave his father behind. He wants to. He can't. He was going to get pulled under by the weight of everything, he was going to lose his fight. Two people in the world would have mourned him.

He gets back to DS9 and his line "I'm actually quite a good tailor" is so much bc some part of him likes not being in the moral gray zone all the damn time and enjoys his life and his friends but he CAN'T accept that about him and I just. This fucking episode. Gives Garak a LOT of depth but shows how still fundamentally fucked he is, and deeply lacking the ability to unfuck himself without real help. I'm sure there are so many people like him.

#guys garak is making me feel things #the show did good things with Garak but like #so much better things could have been done #give him a redemptiom arcccc #give him a nuanced redemption arccccccc #I don't think he can ever find peace bc his crimes will always exist and he will always have to face the consequences of that #but give him the peace of understanding where he went wrong and how to start doing right #garak #elim garak #ds9 #star trek

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apenapaperandadoofus · 3 years

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I won't say I'm in love + Suit Saeran and in Suit Saeran's POV!??? I MEANNNNN??? And like the other believers singing the part of the muses??? YES? 😌 I love this prompt and this sounds sooo fun 😆

YES YES YES I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS AND THE BELIEVERS?! YESSSSSSSSSSS

Also a Jumin version is also incoming since two people asked for it hehe, but I just COULD NOT HELP BUT WRITE THIS ONE FIRST NANSSBBS ITS SO CUTEEE

Also I had a lot lf fun until the last part where I was editing and tumblr actually went fuck you and deleted everything so thanks for that

(also if someone idk wants to draw this or whatever hehe please tell me bc I will actually sell my soul to you.) I will try and uh draw a bit but as yall now, middle hands I don't rest know how to so PFT

Prompt from: give me a mm character and a song

I won't say I'm in love (Saeran x Fem!MC)

Song: I won't say I'm in love (Caleb Hyles)

"And don't you forget that you stupid toy." Saeran said, as he closed the door with a bang. "You all know the rules. Don't you dare touch my toy, and don't let anyone else come in here am I clear?" He told the believers, who stiffened and stuttered, "Yes Mr. Ra- Sorry, sorry! Mr. Saeran...."

Saeran scoffed at the believers but decided to go easy on them this time. After all, today he was in a pretty good mood thanks to his toy.

Or well, at least that what he thought before stopping in the middle of his tracks. Today he wasn't really able to see that scared, helpless look on her face. It was the exact opposite, today she was resilient, and actually fought back, and although he had to admit he liked the fiesty act at first, now it was getting really annoying. I mean, at this point she should be begging on her knees, asking him to please have mercy, that she love-

Wait.

Love??

Saeran's eyes widened as he realized what he has just imagined. He didn't want to hear her telling him how much she loved him. That she needed him, yes, the she was going to do whatever he wanted too, but that she loved him??

He didn't want anyone to love him. Angrily, screaming at himself (or well, at Ray, he had come to the conclusion that it was all that marshmallow's fault) he walked over to the garden. Nothing made him feel better than picking up flowers he knew Ray loved, and then destroying them immediately. It was a hobby of his to be honest.

As he walked through the beautiful garden, he had a mental conversation with himself, mostly about what he thought about....her.

Love....why would he want her to love him? It just didn't make any sense. Just why?

Because you love her.

A voice said, and Saeran immediately turned around, trying to find the idiot who said such a blatant lie.

Love her?

In typical Saeran fashion, he scoffed and then tried to come up with a whole list of why his toy wasn't even worthy of his affection. Yet....when he tried to do it....his mind couldn't come up with anything.

Oh.

Oooh.

Oh fuck no.

Saeran ran a hand through his hair and sat on the nearby fountain. He noticed that it was right in front of her room, which still seemed to have the lights on.

Seriously what's that idiot doing awake still....and hey, why do I care?! Seriously, that airhead Ray might've fallen for her, but I'm definetly not going to follow the same path as that dumbass.

He sighed.

"Seriously....If there's a prize for rotten judgement....I guess I've already won that.

No girl is worth the aggravation

That's ancient history, been there, done that." He groaned as he buried his face in his hands and-

"Who d'you think you're kidding

She's the earth and heaven to you."

"HUH?!" Saeran quickly looked up, only to find....the gardener tending to the plants. Hm, the lack of sleep must be making him hear, and especially think, crazy things. He sighed and went back to placing his head on his hands but then-

"Try to keep it hidden,

Honey we can see right through you

Boy you can't conceal it

We know how you're feeling

Who you thiiiinking of!"

Saeran immediately stood up and looked around the garden once again. "Oi whoever is in here, you have three seconds to run before I go and rip your head off."

Silence.

Fucking finally. He thought, as he took a deep breath in and tried to go back into his mediative state.

He turned around to sit back on the corner of the fountain, when a believer appeared out of nowhere.

"The hell are you-" Saeran started, but the believed walked over to him with one finger in the air.

"Aghhhhhh" he said as he stopped in front of him. "Saeran....my boy....you're in love."

"WHAT!? NO WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU, AND WHY ARE YOU EVEN- WHO DO YOU- I-' he stuttered, when anither believer came out of the bushes and placed a hand on Saeran's shoulder.

"Aw baby boy, why don't you just go and admit it?"

Another believer appeared from the other side and sighed dreamily. "It's a beautiful thing, so you shouldn't be afraid." The believer said, with a very high pitched voice.

"WHY ARE YOU-HUH!?"

"Love is a beautiful thing Saeran." Saeran heard a deep voice say in front of him, and he almost punched the believer in the face as he came out of the fountain, yes, wet robes and all.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?" Saeram screamed, but the believers (?) Only laughed and then proceeded to get together and strike a really weird group pose.

"We are...YOUR OWN PERSONAL MUSES! AND WE WON'T LEAVE, UNTIL YOU FINALLY REALIZE THE TRUTH!" They all said.

Saeran, who was now pretty annoyed because of the self proclaimed 'muses' and also because he forgot to bring his gun so now he had nothing to threaten them with and let out his anger and insecurities, glared at the group of people and crossed his arms.

"And what is this so called truth?" He asked. The muses smiled even more

"THAT YOU ARE IN.....LOVE!!!!"

Saeran swore he could see confetti suddenly fall from the sky and he let out a sarcastic chuckle.

"Yeah right. With who? MC? Please. I'd never be in love with her."

"But you are!" One of the muses said.

"Just admit Saeran!" Another one chipped in.

He was taken aback for a minute before he went back to giving them muses a deal glare. "I'm not admiting anything. This is stupid seriously, just go away."

"No! We won't! Until you say that you're in LOVE!* The deep voiced muse said and Saedan raised an eyebrow.

"What me?! Seriously?! In love? Please. I'm leaving if you're not, I'm not dealing with this bullshit."

Saedan quickly walked over to another side of the garden, when suddenly the muses appeared in front of him. He turned around, only to find the muses once again.

Everywhere he went, he saw them, and everytime his patience kept running thinner and thinner.

"JUST SAY YOU'RE IN LOVE SAERAN!"

He stopped in his tracks and turned around, stomping his foot.

"NO! No chance no way I won't say it, no...no!" He shook his head side to side and glared.

The muses groaned. "You swoon, you sigh, why deny it? Oh oh."

Saeran blushed. "B-because, it's too cliche! I won't say I'm in love!" He angrily walked over to a bush and glared at the flowers as if that would suddenly help him get rid of his problems. (It was a bush of forget me not's, one of Ray's favorite, ironically it seemed that's where his body took him, probably out of instinct.)

Angrily, he took one out and glared at it.

"Ugh...I thought my heart had learned its lesson...It feels so good when you start out. My head is screaming 'Get a grip boy..." He angrily threw the flower on the ground and stepped on it and let out an exasperated sigh. "Unless you're dying to cry your heart out...." He mumbled and then cursed as he saw the muses again.

"UGH BOY YOU CAN'T DENY IT!! Who you are is how you're feeling!"

"I don't even know what that means-! I-WHY ARE YOU SINGING- I DON'T LIKE HER!""

"Baby we're not buying!"

One of them (it also has to be the one that came out of the fountain due to the wet sleeves) poked Saeran's cheek and smirked.

"Hon we saw you hit the ceiling"

Saeran felt himself blush even more, a gasp escaping from his lips.

"Face it like a grown-up, when you gonna own up that you got, got, got it bad!"

Saeran groaned as he saw the believersline up in a single file and then proceed to do that dance move where each jumps out one after the other.

"God!! No chance no way I won't say it, no no!!!" Saeran stomped his foot once again and shook his head, like a toddler, and the muses rolled their eyes.

"She's just...she's so annoying. I hate her, I hate her face, her hair, her smile, the way her eyes light up when she talks, or how happy she looked when I showed her the garden..."

One if the muses laughed, bringing Saeran out of his trance.

"Give up, give in, check the grin you're in love!" They teased him, which made Saeran gape at them as if he was very offended.

"This scene won't play I won't say I'm in lo-UGH!!

"We'll do it until you admit you're in love!"

"Leave me alone!" Saeran stomped off towards the other side of the garden and the muses followed.

"You're way off base I won't say it...." The muses glared at him with a skeptical glance and he glared.

"Get off my case I won't say it" he growled and say on a bench near by, crossing his arms with his face all red.

"Boy don't be proud it's okay you're in love."-

"Mister Saeran...Mister Saeran!"

Suddenly Saeran looked up to see the believer who was gardening before. "You fell asleep on the fountain...shall I get you anything?"

Saeran scoffed and pushed the believer's hand from his shoulder.

"Don't you dare to ever touch me again. Go away, I was just- just- ugh! Leave before I tell the others to prepare another cleansing ceremony."

The believer quickly nodded. "Yes sir, of course! I apologize!!!" He quickly left and Saeran watched as he ran away, and then he sighed.

Suddenly he found himself staring at....her room, and for some reason, he felt a very deep part of him glad that she was finally getting some sleep. Then, his eyes widened and he let out a sardonic laugh.

"Fuck....."

He looked back to the flowers and sighed a small, sad smile on his face. "Well....at least out loud....I won't say I'm in..... love."

The End

BONUS:

Believers: *Looking out from the window at the garden and Saeran.*

Believer N°643: Hey he's been sitting there for a while...

Believer N°262: yeah almost about 2 minutes and 32 seconds....

Believers:.....

Believer N°643: d'you recon we should wake him up?

Believer N°262: and immediately get massacred? Nah man, I have a wife, a kid! You wake him up.

Believer N°643: what no dude I don't want to die, I have dreams!

Believer N°262: *whispering but also yelling* YOU'RE IN A CULT YOU'RE NOT SUPPODED TO HAVE DREAMS WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU!?

Believer N°643: THEY'RE IMPORTANT

Believer N°262: WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT THAN THIS WHAT DO YOU EVEN WANT!?

Believer N°643:....... *Looks at the camera*

Believer N°262:.....

Believer N°643: Iwsnsssnsnsns

Believer N°262: what?

Believer N° 643: I...I want to start a band! It's...it's a work in progress but Carol and Jimmy have already agreed. It's going to be...it'll be cult based... probably.

Believer N°262: you....YOU STARTED A BAND AND DIDNT TELL ME!?

Believer N°643: IM SORRY

Believer N°262: I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS! WHAT ELSE ARE YOU KEEPING FFOM ME!?

Believer N°643: THE CHILD ISNT YOURS IM SORRY

Believer N°262: THAT- YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO ACTUALLY ANSWE- wait... Bartholomew the Second isn't mine...?

Believer N°643: *slowly shakes his head* ...no

Believer N°262:....dude.

Believer N°643: IT WAS A SATURDAY NIGHT AND YOU KNOW WHAT THE SAVIOUR DOES ON SATURDAY'S, WE HAD WAY YOO MUCH ELIXIR. ALSO IM YOUR FATHER.

Believer N°262: what THE FU-

Announcer: Join us next week in The Cult, it's like The Office but it's actually a cult, made my someone who has been writing for about an hour non-stop and it's actually 1AM in her time zone so she's clearly already loosing her mind, GOOD NIGHT FOLKS

*audience applause*

*The Office theme but cult version starts playing as the credits roll, THE END*

(I'm sorry I don't know what the fuck this is but my fingers just started typing it on their own I'm sorry pffff

#mystic messenger #saeran choi #suit saeran #mysme #saeyoung choi #choi bois

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young-bev · 4 years

Text

An essay abt Fabian Aramais Seacaster

This is the essay that i wrote for my greek myth class. The assignment was to find a contemporary example of Hubris and Nemesis.Understand that some story elements are simplified and glossed over bc this was only supposed to be three pages and i wrote five. Idk like one person on tumblr wanted to see it and a few ppl on twitter as well. So enjoy??

In recent years there has been a rise in popularity in TableTop Role Playing Games (RPG), this is due to shows like Critical Role, The Adventure Zone, Not Another DnD Podcast and Dimension 20. These shows have amassed large followings and have even gone and performed live around the world. Viewed as a collaborative storytelling medium, using dice to define the success of one's actions, it is only reasonable to wonder if the traditional storytelling devices seen in classic mythology translates into this medium. Examining the plot to Dimension 20 Fantasy High a clear example of hubris comes to mind. This hubris is shown by a Player Character (PC) named Fabian Aramais Seacaster in the second season of Fantasy High. To understand the significance of the hubris and Nemesis, one must understand Fabian’s personality in the context of this show and how that relates to the situation he was placed in. Understanding Fabian as a character will also allow the viewer to understand how cruel Nemesis was to him. Nemesis’ cruelty can also be examined as a part of games mechanics and reflected in the relations between Dungeon Master and Player.

For ease of understanding, I will first explain the context in which Fantasy High takes place. In the introduction to the show, the Dungeon Master (DM) Brennan Lee Mulligan explains that: “Now we can answer the age-old question of; What if John Hughes ran a tabletop RPG game?” The show follows a group of heroes who call themselves the Bad Kids as they attend the Aguefort Adventuring Academy: the world’s premier training ground for would-be Heroes. It is the first episode of the show that Fabian is introduced. He is a half-elven fighter raised by infamous pirate Bill Seacaster and Hallariel Seacaster. Played by Lou Wilson, Fabian is: “Everything [Lou Wilson] wanted to be in high school; rich and hot.” as he stated in an episode of Fantasy High: Extra Credit. It is here in Fabian’s very first scene that the viewer is given a key insight into Fabian’s hubris. While talking to his father before the first day of school, Bill Seacaster says to Fabian; “You’re my son, you’re a direct reflection of me! You and your glory is the same as mine and my glory! That’s how we relate to each other!” (Mulligan, S1 E1). This statement is important because it will directly play into many of the choices Fabian makes in the following episodes. In the very same interaction, Fabian is gifted by his father an Auguefort Owlbears letterman jacket, as Fabian hopes to make it onto the team with the tryouts happening later that day. The jacket becomes a great symbol for both Fabian’s hubris and identity as he does not initially make the team but still decides to wear the jacket to school nearly every day. As hubris is defined as someone viewing themselves as either above or below their true social rank. hubris is also seen as acting out of an overblown sense of importance. In a society where a social ladder is clear, Jocks and cheerleaders ‘rule the school’ and the nerds find themselves at the bottom, wearing a letterman jacket for a team that you are not a part of is very much believing yourself above your true position on the social ladder.

While the jacket is a minor display of hubris in the first season as Fabian does eventually find his way onto the Owlbears, it is not until Fantasy High: Sophomore Year that Fabian’s hubris is met with Nemesis. In sophomore year, the Bad Kids find themselves on a quest to retrieve the crown of the Nightmare King. Their journey leads them to the pirate city of Leviathan. Here the city is made up of ships roped and assembled together, it floats in the Celestine Sea. On their first night in Leviathan, Fabian separates himself from the party and heads off, now pensive as this city reminds him of Bill Seacaster. On his own, he meets members of his father’s cult. Warlocks who have given patronage to Bill Seacaster as he is now causing chaos as a devil in the nine hells after dying at the end of freshman year. Initially, these pirates praise and celebrate Fabian as he is their patron’s son. They believe Fabian their saviour. Their reaction changes, however, when they ask Fabian to describe how he defeated Bill Seacaster in combat. These warlocks believe Fabian to have killed his father in a grand and epic battle. Although, in actuality, Fabian killed his father in an act of mercy after their home was attacked by mercenaries. Fabian tries to explain this to these pirates and they immediately become frantic and fearful of the lack of potency and power of their patron. They believed Fabian a powerful enough swordsman to defeat Bill Seacaster, thus powerful enough to defeat one of Bill’s long standing rivals, a man named James Wicklaw (Mulligan, S2 E5). With a hurt pride and desperate to prove himself, Fabian declares: “I am perfectly capable of leading an army, Alright? I am my father’s son through and through. And I am as good as he is...” (Mulligan, S2 E5). It is here with wounded pride that Fabian sets out to prove himself in the eyes of his father’s cult. He leads them in an attack against James Wicklaw. Fabian’s hubris here comes from overcompensating for his hurt pride. He goes above his social standing, believing himself powerful enough to defeat Wicklaw on his own. This is however not true, as Dungeons & Dragons is a game where antagonists have challenge ratings and players gain levels in certain abilities. It is up to the Dungeon Master to balance encounters and choose antagonists appropriately. James Wicklaw was a Mind Flayer, listed in the Monster Manual as a level 7 challenge rating. Fabian at the time was a level 8 Fighter (Perkins, p.222). While this seems balanced, Fabian was immediately grappled and stunned, leaving him unable to do anything but watch, while Wicklaw and his crew slaughtered the 20 followers he had brought into battle. Nemesis comes to Fabian by removing his sense of identity. As Chungledown Bim, one of the warlocks says to Fabian before dying; “Ye ain’t no pirate and Bill would spit in your eye…I’m gonna shit in your mouth” (Mulligan, S2 E5). Ultimately these words would affect Fabian so much that they will come to haunt him in later episodes. Punishment in Dungeons & Dragons does play out differently then it does in classic Mythology. Where the gods of the pantheon are near impossible to reason with and are cruel and unforgiving in their punishments, the ones in control of the world of D&D are you and your friends. A good DM is on the side of their players but it is their job to react as the world in which their players find themselves. In this situation, Lou Wilson made a series of dangerous and reckless decisions as Fabian but these decisions were exactly the decisions that Fabian would make. He is prideful, he is overconfident, he is selfish and ultimately insecure when his pride is threatened. By losing his sense of identity, Lou and Brennan made the decision away from the table to push Fabian’s punishment past simply a character choice and into the mechanics of the game. At the table, we see Fabian shed his father’s eyepatch and sword along with his letterman jacket. These items are obvious symbols of Fabian’s sense of self. It isn’t until a later episode that the viewer sees the true effect that losing his identity has on Fabian. He suffers from exhaustion and pneumonia in the following episode and seems to have fallen into a depressive state. In episode 8, the Bad Kids go to face Wicklaw again, this time together as a team. It is here that the viewers and the other players learn that Lou and Brennan decided to remove all classes and feats Fabian had taken throughout the campaign. This leaves him with a single attack. Talking about this decision in the Fireside Chat, Brennan and Lou said: “[Lou Wilson]: A lot of it is a relationship and trust between you and your DM; in that your DM sees you make that choice, the less strategic choice…and meets you in the middle...It was so much more fun because...Brennan rewarded my choices with the reality and groundedness they deserve...’[Brennan Lee Mulligan]: ‘I think there comes a moment when playing D&D, where you can say: ‘I can really blow it and tell a better story’...I need to honor the danger Lou has put himself in and I need to put consequences here and I just can’t be vindictive.” This quote highlights the main difference with how hubris is treated in this media. Nemesis and the other Greek gods do not care, as characters, if their punishments are juste. They are particularly vindictive and often do not care if you die because of your hubris. Athena did not care about the importance of storytelling when cursing Arachne for boasting of her weaving skills, she simply cared that Arachne be punished for her hubris (Buxton, p.80). In opposition to this, a Dungeon Master and their players are more similar to the poets composing the myths. They make choices while considering the narrative, they enforce nemesis in a way that adds to the narrative. Using Nemesis allows the DM to enforce consequences onto the players allowing their decisions to feel more significant and raise the stakes. However, because of teamwork between player and DM, Nemesis will be much more forgiving to a Player Character then a Non-Player Character (NPC) or those showing hubris in myths. In conclusion, hubris and Nemesis still find their place in the world of RPGS. Fabian Aramais Seacaster is a clear example of this. He boasts of his abilities, believes himself a captain, when in actuality he is at his best when working in a team. Nemesis removes his sense of identity and confidence, forcing him to face his enemies without the skills he had honed in the past few years. She forced Fabian to realize that his true strength comes from the bonds he has with his friends and not borrowed from another's reputation. Nemesis forced Fabian to face his insecurities for which he was overcompensating, playing a key part in the larger elements of Fabian’s journey to becoming his ‘own darling man-boy’.

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 fantasy high #dimension 20 live #dimension 20 spoilers #this is the second school project ive done about fantasy high #fabian aramais seacaster #Fantasy high #Lou Wilson #brennan lee mulligan #an essay

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gayregis · 3 years

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honestly whats interesting about geryen is that like. having only the canon book material their relationship is imo much more understandable as two victims clinging to a dynamic where they endlessly drag one another down and cant ever truly heal bc theyre both incompatible and stuck rather than some genuine romance. esp with how geralt whos like Severely starved for affection and also fully lacks emotional intelligence binds himself to a woman who at the time had done nothing but manipulate him

like idk all their cutesy romance bits in the later books feel completely out of place when from what we've seen since SOD they were apart for years with a brief break on thanedd and we can figure out that every time they were together for a longer period of time it ended horribly. they were literally never in a genuine healthy relationship (in TOC they spent a night together where they also immediately started falling back on their toxic behaviors) and idk it doesnt sit right with me in any way

also im so sorry but just as a sidenote. sapkowski fully failed in the romance department where he made it canon that yennefer needs a spell for geralt to get it up. like he cant try and make me believe theyre so in love and that its well written after he made me read that

i mean i disagree with this because i think having similarities with another victim can help you process what happened to you, to share vulnerability... i feel like they are just very similar people at the end of the day, and this can foster both a supportive and a detrimental environment. i dont think geralt bound himself to yennefer because he lacked emotional intelligence, i think he’s an adult man capable of making full decisions and he bound himself to yennefer out of compassion because they were both in pain.

i think he and yennefer both hurt each other in the last wish (geralt was thinking misogynistically towards her, as she points out - the comment about “for the stony way you look at me, for your eyes which fish for every detail (...) for thinking that you could stand face-to-face with yennefer of vengerberg and beliver her to be full of self-admiration and arrogance, a calculating witch, white staring at her soapy tits!” and yennefer got her “revenge” for this which basically is a statement which says, you can’t use me. and her revenge isn’t a #girlboss moment, it’s not feminist, it comes out of fear of being used and disrespected, it’s a reaction to the abuse she has suffered before. neither one of them is willing to trust the other, and they bring each other down, as you said - but then geralt’s wish, which binds them together, condemns him to her, i think is like an extension of a hand from one victim to another. she can’t understand at first, she’s shocked that he would give her another look after they both treated each other poorly, she’s shocked that he didn’t kill her. he demonstrates goodwill to her when he didn’t have to, and i don’t think this comes out of a lack of emotional intelligence, i think it comes from having emotional intelligence, the intelligence to recognize that she’s in the same kind of pain that he is. and geralt, as we know from his characterization, is the merciful type that would choose to un-curse a striga instead of kill her, wouldn’t bring his sword to deal with a “devil”... he’s compassionate, and he extended this compassion to yennefer to show her that they don’t have to be enemies. however, this initial act of kindness and the honeymoon-esque love at first sight love that envelopes them then isn’t the kind of love that lasts a lifetime. they fall out of love soon enough (inverting the love at first sight trope). they then have to basically come back together to work at what love really is, because real love takes work - and at first, they can’t do it, they cant commit, but then...

i think there is appropriate context between the sword of destiny and time of contempt for why they now succeed in bein together for longer periods of time, and the answer is ciri. being parents individually helped them grow out of their more immature and selfish behaviors, made them relize that there is something more important than just themselves (more personally, i dont care if this specific part is unrealistic, because. self indulgent fantasy).

so yeah also idk really what you mean by falling back into toxic behaviors in time of contempt because like idk what did they do in time of contempt that was toxic?? have sex????? yennefer playfully dragging him for his fantasy of playing house?? i just dont think that yennefer is as manipulative to geralt as you are making her out to be. i could be wrong since geryennefer parts tend to bore me in the books so i dont reread them with the repetitiveness and intensity that i reread a hansa scene with but thats from what i remember anyways

#its funny to me bc i really dont think i care abt this ship at all and yet i just tried to analyze it like fghjk so what is the truth then #yennefer #geralt #i dont even have a ship tag for them LMAOOO #anon #ask #im not disagreeing that sapkowski mostly failed at writing a romance but i will say that if you think about it its plausible

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lala-pipo · 3 years

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(1/18) *peeks from behind the wall* I hope I am still welcomed here hahaha cricket anon is here! <3 I am very sorry for making you worry last time O.O, for sure no matter what happens to the story, I'm going to be right there to read it! Huehuehue, I literally was not lying when I mentioned that this story is bringing me lots of joy this year :3 Cricket anon is fine now! hahaha my last work place was really bad, kind of black-company-level-bad, and it really took a toll on my mental health…

Dear cricket nony, I already answered one of your non-anonymous asks privately because I was so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of email notifications I got from tumblr and Ao3 that I had to thank you right away, but I still want to do it publically because even after days I’m still overwhelmed that you took so much time to write me a whole essay. I’m still all soft and wobbly and squishy on the inside. Your notifications really made my day, week, probably month – so thanks so much again. It really means so much T___T

(2) so, I kind of took two months? break from social media and just literally try and figure out my life lol basically quarter-life crisis also happening, but yeah slowly getting better now! I hope you are doing fine as well, sending you lots of hugs and love ~^^~ Firstly though!! I wanted to say sorry too that it took a while for me to reply hahaha… BUT!! Let me tell you omg during my rest of 8 weeks, I have managed to re-read ALL. SEVEN. CHAPTERS!! So many things to share!!

I’m so sorry to hear that your last workplace took such a toll on your mental health and I really hope that you are going to get better. I cross all my fingers for you and send you good vibes only. Please don’t feel pressured to comment at all. I mean everyone loves receiving comments, but it shouldn’t feel like a chore. So if you feel like sharing your thoughts I’m always glad to read them, but if you don’t feel like sharing them, please don’t feel bad about it. <3

(3) However, since my comments were a grand total of 4,000 words lol, I inserted them in AO3 under "cricket anon" in every chapter! :3 You might get confused as you read them because I take notes as I read the chapter lol hahaha I hope my comments might bring some joy <3 Ahh! By the way! These anon messages are partly not anon since anon asks are limited to 10 per hour? I didn’t know that! :( But since I accidentally have revealed myself to you lol I think it should be okay!

I’ll also try to answer your comments on Ao3 in the upcoming days because (if I remember correctly) you had some questions and I hope I can answer some of them. ^^ But I’m impressed that you went through all the chapters again. We’ve reached 150k now, which is quite fascinating to me because there are still quite a few chapters left. I wonder how long the story will be in the end *hides* I didn’t know that either! I’ve been on tumblr for so long and yet this 10 ask limit is new information for me, but it makes sense in some way – if I think about spam accounts or people going around spreading hate or something.

(4) Also, I think I’m going to make my snorts reactions straight onto AO3 from now on, rather than spamming your ask box with 10+ anon messages hahaha but I’ll still come here to share you my overall reactions and analyzations huehuehue and also to possibly warn you about the length of the comment lol something I noticed, from chapter 1 to chapter 7, the comment got longer lol more things to discuss about, I guess!? But yeah!! Let me reply to your reply to my previous ask here!!

LMAO I admire your dedication. Do whatever is most comfortable to you, I will be happy either way ^^ I think it makes sense that someone can comment more on later chapters because the painted picture gets fuller and fuller with details, there is more information about the different characters, the storyline is more developed and so on… ^^

(5) Is the sad scene in chapter 6, you were referring to the conversation that Jong-Taem were having, and then Jong tried to diffuse it into another lighthearted banter, and Taem is just. tired. of. Jong avoiding the conversation? and despite all that, Taem still let Jong come into his room and cuddle to sleep? idk... I find that scene really heartbreaking :( or maybe it was another scene?

For me it was the shower scene tbh. I don’t know, but it always struck something inside of me (is it weird that I’m saying this although I’ve written it?) There is something very fragile about Jonghyun in that scene and Taemin does feel a little helpless and is so caught up in his own thoughts, in his own needs, what he wants (and doesn’t get from Jonghyun) and yeah – it always makes me go :( but yes, the follow up scene is sad as well because you sit there and think – you two are just so damn dumb, which is something most people, who read this story so far – seem to think constantly, because yeah, they are very dumb – each in their own way. ^^

(6) I think I mentioned in the AO3 comment somewhere that even I started to feel like Taem can just leave Jong because Jong is not trying to understand Taem, I mean, nothing to do with his mood swings or his claim that Taem will get bored of him, just that he isn't trying to see things from Taem's perspective whereas Taem is trying! so! hard! and he even tried to ignore the fact that Jong avoid the vital conversations for like the 10th time already :(

Feelings are a very difficult topic – and while chapters 1-9 are very focused on what Taemin does, thinks, wants, needs, wishes etc. the focus does shift a little over to Jonghyun starting from chapter 10. So the reader does get an inside of why Jonghyun might have acted the way he did. If his behavior makes sense is up to the reader (and Taemin as well) to decide – but I think it shines a little more light onto Jonghyun, who the reader doesn’t know much about – feeling wise –, although he’s one of the main characters of the story. ^^ It’s the onion layers that get peeled one by one. ^^

(7) Yeah, re-reading this definitely showed me muCH MORE parallelism in Jong-Key and Taem-Jong dynamics. Even with Taem's mood in a sense? Like how Jong used to be really upset when Key has a new friend, and then suddenly okay when they do sexy times. Before, I only noticed the puppy-love-ness parallel, but then there is more to it, like I said, Taem's mood affected by Jong a lot, just like Jong's by Key, and also the way Jong claims that Key doesn't understand his feelings,

(8) well, it applies to Jong not really wanting to understand Taem's feeling? by just brushing it off as Taem will get bored of him or Taem doesn't know what he is talking about. I mean as a reader, I am also not sure, if it’s either Jong doesn't care or he is scared to show himself or both or maybe there is another reason? Hahaha ^^;;

This is true and done on purpose. ^^ This knowledge doesn’t play a key (haha) part in the storyline, but it is there to show how blinded one can get by one’s own feelings. After adapting to his new life in a dorm Taemin sees through Jonghyun and Kibum’s relationship quite well, but later when it’s about his own relation to Jonghyun he’s completely blindsided and doesn’t see how unhealthy it is at first – him going back and back and back over and over again in the hope that Jonghyun’s behavior towards him might change.

(9) You mentioned that there will be more Jongtae drought, and honestly, I think they need it? I think some space for them to think about things and you know do other things and talk to other people about other things lol maybe it will clear up their heads hopefully? Ahh!! You said the beginning of chapter 5 is for your own sanity lol I totally understand ;), it was a very sweet scene, soft, and kind of endearing compared to what is coming in the next chapters TnT

It depends on how we describe the drought. The hard cut was done in chapter 8. I went in like a warrior and just cut all the strings, not showing any mercy. ^^” I don’t want to spoiler anything, but yeah – the hard drought will continue throughout chapter 9 – soft drought from chapter 10 …… till ….. *closes mouth* 6v6

Working on chapter 8 made me write two lovey-dovey JongTae oneshots because I couldn’t stand seeing them fight in my own fanfic, in front of my salad. T_T so yeah, the beginning of chapter 5 was for my sanity. While writing chapter 8 I also realized again while I never really write angst, fights – anything dramatic really, because I’m a very chill person in real life, and I like my fanfics to be very chill as well – so writing this was completely out of my comfort zone. For others it’s writing smut for me it’s writing angst lmao. I usually want to wrap up all the characters in fluffy blankets and make them tea, and yet here I am – letting Taemin suffer for so many chapters. I’m a monster T_T

(10) Yeahhh, about the fact that we don't see Key so much since it is in Taemin's point of view, and also the fact that our (the audience)'s perception of Key is very much influenced by how Taem sees Key, right? I think I even mentioned somewhere in the comments, that in a way, a Rashomon effect is present as the readers read the story right, since they are all on accounts of Taem's witnessing, but then also maybe I am just reading too much into this lol

It would be the Rashomon effect if I wrote the same fic out of Jonghyun’s perspective and Minho’s as well for example. In this case Taemin is just a very unreliable narrator and we don’t (well I do :’D) but the reader doesn’t know what’s really going on, if everything Taemin is experiencing is true or if it should be taken with a grain of salt. Considering that everyone in the dorm, except for Taemin, gets along well with Kibum, we might want to believe that Kibum isn’t the bad guy Taemin wants to make him out to be. ^^

(11) Honestly, I could hear my English Lit teacher saying "maybe that is not the author's intention" hahaha xD Yes yes yes!! more chapters for Taem's development!! I am ready for it!! I mean the end of chapter 7 marked the sign of the broken vase, and paired with the JongTae drought, I am looking forward to the next part of the story!! Some character development at this point is perfect I think!! And also!! About the advices, I think I commented a few times on some of the chapters.

(12) I didn't notice that before! And after you pointed it out, I think I made some comments on Minho's, Key's, and Onew's advices to Taem and definitely, based on how the events unfolded, we could argue that the advice was bad - in a way though, I can't seem to tell (yet, maybe?) if the advice giver was genuinely trying to help or do they have ulterior motives? hmmm but either way, I like how you placed a lot of thoughts in the story, even on things such as advice.

(13) Because for sure, in reality, people tend to give bad advices, and act on bad advices. It is true that most fics tend to focus only on the good advice and then the story ends happily ever after. Real life is most definitely not like that :3 your "slice of life" tag is holding up to its name ;) Thank you so much for your hard work!! You added 10,000 words for chapter 7?? omg… huhuhu (insert a bowing LINE sticker)... yeah, for sure, the way the story unfolds in my head,

(14) probably is different to other readers, right? And for sure, very different to you, the author! There are probably a lot more instances, scenes, implications, interpretations? that we as readers are unaware of! Thank you so much for all your hard work TnT, as readers, having more context into the story does give much more clarity on the flow of the story and the feelings of the characters, etc. Thank you for all your hard work! (bow bow bow)

That was something @hwarang-number commented on as well while betaing the story. What if Minho has ulterior motives?!?!?!?!? In Minho’s case it does make sense to give out bad advice to lure in the innocent lamb haha but for example what would Jinki’s or Kibum’s ulterior motives be? Sometimes people want to give out good advice, but in the end it just turns out to be bad advice – unintentionally – humans are just humans after all – and none of us is all knowing, we all perceive things differently, and what might work for one person might not work for the other. I did add 10k to chapter 7 and 25k to chapter 8 – because chapter 8 felt like the most incomplete out of all the chapters in this story.

I think I’ve mentioned it before but hwarang_number is super attentive while reading and figured most things out that I’ve implied – even smaller details which I thought might get lost in the chapters – which I’m still impressed by, but I also said before that everyone reads stories differently, and some aspects that might not be important to me as the author of the story might be important for the readers and the other way around. For the past chapters I just tried to fill in the gaps that might confuse readers unnecessarily. In the original draft of chapter 8 Taemin is doing the deeds with Minho far more spontaneously because he’s so frustrated with Jonghyun – it made sense like that as well – but I think his frustration got more depth through the added scenes. :)

(15) Ah!! By the way!! Please don't feel like you are forced to reply to all of my messages! Having you read them already makes me happy! I don't want to make it feel like an obligation to you because... well omg my comments like super loooooong hahaha ^^;; And yeah!! Take your time with the next chapter by the way!! I am rooting for the development of the story no matter how it will go :3 I will be waiting for the next update (though no pressure, just want to put it there haha)

Dear cricket nony, if you write me 50 message I will still try to answer all of them ㅎㅅㅎ I might just take a little longer. I hope you will like chapter 8 as well, despite the drought ^^

(16) Next time, this cricket anon will bring some more noise ~ I hope your real-life stuff works out well too :D Once again, thank you for answering all of my messages, and for writing this awesomely written fanfiction! While I wait for the next chapter, I think I'm going to re-read songs of siren hehehe :3 Please stay safe!

Please do! Song of Sirens is definitely a story I would have loved to treat like “Dorm Life” in a sense that it would have turned out better if I had worked on it longer, but I’m still a fan of the big brain energy I had running through my veins when I came up with the mythological aspect of the story…lmao So I hope you will enjoy re-reading it. ^^ Chapter 8 is longer than Song of Sirens (just as a side note haha)

(17) Ah!! I forgot to mention!! After I re-read it, my most favorite literary device that you used in this fanfiction (lol this commentary is beginning to sound like a Literature essay) is the Biblical Allusions? I am not sure if this was your intention, but the juxtapositions of Bible verses or reference to God, in Taemin’s thought reminds me heavily of Taemin’s songs, particularly Heaven? It be a sexy time song if you look at the lyrics, but the composition is that of a choir church song

(18) I find the contrast chilling, and maybe you were trying to invoke that feeling to the readers? Orrr maybe I am perhaps, indeed, reading too much into this hahaha ^^;; but really! I really enjoy reading your fanfictions and coming up with analyzations, it’s very fun, and the fact that I can discuss or ask you questions about it is just makes it even more fun – since in Literature classes we can’t actually ask the author of their true intentions right hahaha okay!! I am done :3 Thank you!! <3

It was my intention and still is, so I’m glad you picked up on that. ^^ I always wanted to write a fanfic in which Taemin’s religion plays a role – even if it’s just on the side – I always make some references to Dante’s circles of Hell (when Taemin is being dramatic again) or I also made a reference to Hieronymus Bosch’s painting The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things in chapter 8. (I’m a big fan of his work – that dude was wild – the way he painted blows my mind every time I look at one of his paintings). So yes, dramatic Taemin talking about religion and throwing around with biblical references is my brain being wild. ^^

I would say that ‘Dorm Life’ is not a really deep story, but I did put a lot of thought into it to not make it your regular smut/romance fanfic. I mean it took time, still does – but I’m glad when people, like you dear cricket nony, appreciate it. So thank you so much for your kind words and sending me all your thoughts and interpretations. <3 I hope you will have a lovely December – please stay healthy and please take good care of yourself. <3

#cricket nony #non-fic post #dorm life #Anonymous

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wanna-hear-a-joke · 5 years

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Am I really writing out Joker Fan Theories at 5am

Yep! It's 5:30 in the goddamn morning and I really can't believe I'm writing Joker fan theory based on my psychological breakdown of the character, I really can't, but I just watched it again and I don't think I'll be able to sleep unless I do. I must exorcise the demons.

[ Disclaimer: this is just my personal interpretation, not what I am claiming the filmmakers ‘actually’ intended or not. ]

in short: 1. Arthur's “condition” (pseudobulbar affect) is real. 2. Most of what happens is real - and Arthur can (somewhat) tell. 3. Arthur did not kill Sophie. 4. Arthur did not kill his mother to get revenge. CLICK READ MORE 2 LEARN WHY 😜

1. Arthur's “condition” (pseudobulbar affect) is real. This is one of the things that bothers me THE most, because websites like TV tropes have claimed it as fact that one of the "twists" is that he never really had a condition, just a sick sense of humor! I think this comes from taking what Arthur says in the hospital scene too literally. He does see the dark humor of his situation, but he is still beset by mental illness, trauma, and brain damage. He is very clearly laughing in anguish at the start, and part of what makes the ‘character arc’ satisfying (as tragic as it is) is he frees himself from what was causing that anguish. That’s what he means. As Joker, he no longer has any reason to feel afraid, nothing can hurt him anymore and he’s liberated himself from the pain/fear he experiences as Arthur- which is what triggers the laughter. Idk how so many people get this one wrong but it’s driving me nuts as someone who actually has dealt with PBA-like symptoms from PTSD. It’s real y’all and JP portrayed it with shocking accuracy.

2. Most of what happens is real - and Arthur can (somewhat) tell. It's meant to be ambiguous to the viewer, but with the exception of the first Murray Show scene and Arthur's fantasies about dating Sophie, everything else actually does happen. What Arthur’s fantasy sequences convey is a lonely man who is unable to connect with others and lives in daydreams to escape the pain of his dismal, dreary life. Arthur struggles with empathy and his fantasies are self-centered and distinctly themed around being cared for. He was raised by a mentally ill narcissist that he likely took care of from a young age, and clearly yearns for the kind of unconditional love a parent is meant to provide. It's how he copes with the lack of connection in his life. He’s checked out. Dissociated. Not to mention, in denial or unaware of how bad his trauma actually is. He is probably so used to living this way that he’s not fully aware of what he’s doing, but I maintain it’s not like, a fabricated hallucination.

Where the delusion comes in is... well, I don't think he knows how to read people and his judgement of situations seems to be pretty impaired. This is not the same as a Fight Club-esque scenario where he’s completely unaware of an elaborate hallucination, but a dissociated withdrawal where he passively engages with life while retreating to his mind and making up his own version of events. For example, he sees Sophie give an half-hearted "yea ok buddy" smile in the hallway and thinks "oh she smiled, good, she thinks it's funny." The guys at work might anxiously laugh at his unnerving, dead-pan jokes and sarcastically say he's ready for the "big clubs," and he takes it at face value. People are laughing at his standup, so he must be killin it!

Did he wear cologne for a date he never went on? Yes, but I think it’s just as likely he put it on while getting ready, envisioning a date, and ran with that version of events because it’s preferable to reality. He may even feel pressure to impress his mom and “prove” himself as a man to her by claiming he went on a date as a sort of rite of passage.

3. Arthur did not kill Sophie. Arthur visits Sophie's apartment in a last-ditch effort to find comfort. With his mother in the hospital, his idealized father figure mocking him on national TV and being rejected from Wayne, he has nothing and no one to turn to. He's also just unearthed traumatic details from childhood that he'd probably much rather have kept buried. Sophie is his last thread of hope at this point. I'm sure Arthur had a version in his head of how this would go- perhaps rehearsed many times over. He runs his fingers over furniture in the apartment as if he's thinking "so this is what it’s like," comparing it to the fantasies he's constructed (much like he later does on the Murray show) but his expectations are shattered the moment Sophie reacts in fear. I really don’t think he’s thinking “but what about all those dates we went on?” more like “oh this is where she was supposed to ask if I’m ok... shit, better do the finger gun she laughed at that before.” Because of his struggle with empathy he couldn’t have anticipated how she might react to a strange man in her apartment. To be honest, my best guess is that he just left feeling upset, confused and embarrassed. We don’t see Sophie again because we don’t need to, his “last hope” for a loving human connection was a farce. (also logically it just does not fit with the timeline of everything else imo- he would have been 100% caught; the sirens in the scene afterwards are either to draw parallels to his mother or further illustrate Gotham as a crime-ridden shithole)

4. Arthur did not kill his mother to get revenge. While he very clearly harbors resent towards her, I believe his main motivation for killing her was his plan to kill himself on TV- he needed to do this to grant himself the freedom to carry through with it. It’s more symbolic to him, is what I’m saying. I wouldn’t call it a mercy killing (idk if he’s capable of the type of empathy to consider that), but he no longer sees their situation improving and he no longer takes pride in being her caretaker after learning the ‘truth.’ He sees his life as one big cosmic joke, and this act fully frees him to get to the “punchline,” all former attachments to his life as Arthur as now severed and he’s got nothing left to lose. This would not have been possible had he left her alive. In addition to this, and... I can’t believe I have to write this out, but everything that happened at Arkham is real. The file is real. The criminal neglect and abuse Arthur faced was real and so horrific it was headline-worthy. When he is seen in the “flashback” sequence, all that’s communicating is his imagining of how his mother’s time at Arkham went down, it may even give some context for how he viewed her as a child. Whether or not Arthur is actually Wayne’s son is deliberately very ambiguous but I personally believe that he is.

#Joker #Joker 2019 #joaquin pheonix joker #arthur fleck #I can't believe I've done this

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lemmeoverexplain · 5 years

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Salem Witch Trials; AKA Why Religion, Herd Mentality and the Blame Game are Scary as Fuck

Heeehehe so like, I was real obsessed with this for a hot minute and read a bunch about it and realized something kind of annoying which is the fact that you can basically just blame all of the Salem Witch trails on dumbass Puritans and they’re stupid intense culture of fear and religion. So yeah, fuck the Puritans, fuck early America, and fuck undiagnosed diseases. Also thanks to this I learned that America legit had a witch court, so, that’s something.

Ok, so to set the scene, it’s 1690’s Salem. Salem was the edge of the civilized world and it was completely inhabited by super intense Puritans. Puritans were basically crazy over the top Christians, who believed that they needed to ‘purify’ Christianity by sucking every Catholic (superstitious/ folklore-y/ fun) part of it out and drown it in shame before burning it. They believed that children were sinners that needed to be fixed and so any child growing up with them had it super rough. Having all these morals usually beaten into them and the fear of god held over their heads about everything– and this was the norm. Everyone treated their kids like this because no one wanted kids with the devil in them.

This is all important I promise.

This all added onto the fact that the Natives (specifically a tribe called the Wabanaki) were also attacking Puritan colonies (though this was the Puritans fault because the Wabanaki actually tried to trade with them and sent a big group of their people to go meet the puritans and chill but the puritans just captured them all and sold them as slaves which rightfully pissed off the Wabanaki who lead a bunch of battles against the colonies until a 10 year peace truce happened).

Anyways, so the people of Salem were scared, hardcore religious, and being attacked by the elements, low supplies, and natives all the time. Neighbors fought neighbors and no one seemed to want to subscribe to good old Mr. Rodgers’ philosophy so everything was kind of hell.

Queue Mercy Lewis, aged 3 and living with her family in a small town that falls victim to one of the native raids. Her entire family is killed and she manages to survive, going on to be a servant for most notably, a man named George Burrows and a family called the Putnams.

George Burrows will become important later but for now: Mercy is living with the Putnams as their servant in Salem (the Putnams were a huge family, described as a clan, that politically ran Salem. They backed the church viciously and Thomas Putnam agreed with just about anything Salem’s minister, Samuel Parris, had to say. Both these guys become important later so remember them). Mercy, working at 18 years old as a servant for the Putnam family (namely Thomas Putnam, his wife Ann, their daughter Ann Jr. and Ann’s cousin Mary Walcott) has managed to put the whole incident about her entire family getting slaughtered or captured behind her and has been living nicely throughout the 10 year truce between the natives and the Puritans–then it ends.

The clock expires and the Wabanaki attack York and leave it in flames. January of 1692 Mercy hears the news and begins having fits.

My theory is that she’s suffering from a form of PTSD and that the news of the raids starting up again triggered her and she began suffering flashbacks and the fits are a result of this. I mean, the symptoms for PTSD are eerily similar to the symptoms of ‘bewitchment’.

According to the Mayo Health Clinic some symptoms are “Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks)” and “upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event” Scary dreams? Flashbacks that lead to uncontrolled fits? Possession would have been a very easy way to explain away all these problems.

Around the same time that Mercy (’s PTSD) starts acting up, Ann, Ann Jr. and Mary all start showing the same symptoms as Mercy. And, Parris’ (remember that minister dude I mentioned earlier?) daughter and niece, respectively, Elizabeth (Betty) and Abigail.

Some people believe that the other women were simply faking their fits, but I don’t think so. At least, they weren’t doing it on purpose. There’s something called “Mass Psychogenic Disorder” described as basically being intense herd mentality or mass hysteria, it’s when a group of people are all affected by something simply because others are as well. A mass placebo basically.

I believe that something to this effect was happening to all of these women, most of whom were younger girls who had been pressured and mentally damaged thanks to the world they were living in. They saw (unconsciously) Mercy’s actions as a reasonable way to have basically a mental breakdown and their bodies–seriously needing some kind of a break from the constant pressure–had them mimicking Mercy’s symptoms because of the easy out it was. “We’re possessed by a witch” is a lot easier and was more reasonable than them saying “the constant fear I’ve been exposed to my whole life about the outside world and the religious pressures I’ve been forced into are seriously fucking me up.”

Then, after they begin collapsing more and more people begin to and then suddenly we’ve got the witch trials on our hands. And, shit gets political.

So now that I’ve thoroughly bored you with all that, I’ll start in on politics (if you’ve stuck around this long thank you). The politics and Salem were basically split into two halves, one side (the Putnams/ Parris/ the more well off wealthy people) wanted a church in Salem so that they didn’t have to travel the five miles to go to church. But the other side (the more poor people) didn’t want a church because they knew the taxes that would come with it would be ridiculous and Parris was already asking for a shit ton of money from them all.

So you’ve got Anti-New-Church people and then the Pro-New-Church people, the families that had the girls suffering from ‘bewitching’ (this is what the actual diagnosis was called back then, basically just anything the doctors didn’t understand they were like “yep, that’s one fuckin’ witch alrighty you pissed someone off sorry dude pray or some shit idk”) were almost ALL Pro-New-Churchers, and almost ALL the accused “““““witches”””” were Anti-New-Churchers.

For example: George Burrows.

(Told you he’d be important)

George Burrows had been the minister before Parris, and he was a pretty well off, cool dude, except he didn’t know when not to be a smartass and he was known to be notably laid back about religion which the hardcore Puritans were not about. He had gone against the Putnams before, when he had taken out a loan from Thomas Putnam and then wasn’t able to pay it back when the people of Salem stopped paying Burrows. Thomas took Burrows to court and Burrows defended himself and won the case, this royally pissed off Thomas and the Putnams because they didn’t appreciate being publicly humiliated by this arrogant smartass and Thomas held the grudge.

Flash forward, and Thomas’ daughter, Ann Jr., and her cousin, Mary, both accuse Burrows of being a witch. They say that they’ve seen him in visions and that he’s the leader of all the witches and killed a bunch of people and is bewitching the soldiers currently fighting on the front against the natives. Coincidence? I think not.

Theory time: So I believe that Thomas, having suddenly to deal with his wife, daughter, niece, and servant all suddenly bewitched, decided to use all of this to his political advantage and had them accuse people who were his political enemies.

People believed the girls, and Burrows was arrested. Partly because he’d managed to survive a number of Native Raids and that was suspected to be because of his darker skin (yay racism!). Plus his dark skin made people think he was a Native and they believed the Natives worshiped the devil.

So Burrows goes to trial and he defends himself, saying that the Puritan theology is superstitious nonsense because they’re using dreams and visions to condemn people. The Puritan’s react as you’d expect, and they have him hung for accusing them of being ‘superstitious’ because that’s everything they’re trying not to be (ha). BUT while Burrows is standing with the noose around his neck he begins to recite the lord's prayer, which is exactly something that has been stated a witch cannot do. So the people spectating start freaking out and call for him to be released because clearly he’s not a witch.

But then this guy Cotton Mather (yeah him and his father Increase have weirdly cool names) who’s been writing out the whole deal with the witch trials and actually became really interested in Burrows’ case, and came to watch the hanging assures them all that he is a witch and that they’re doing the right thing in killing him.

Ha. About that buddy…

So anyways, Burrows is killed all because (in my theory) the Putnams can’t lose.

For the final part of this, the whole “Blame Game” part, you need to understand the underlying bribe that was going on in the court system. Which was basically: if you confess to being a witch and accuse others, you live. Otherwise you die. Take for example Tituba, the first person Parris’ daughter and niece accused of bewitching them. She was the Parris’ Caribbean slave and she confessed to being a witch and accused others of helping her. She survived, and got out of jail (to go back and be a slave for a new master which sucks ass but). Vs Bridget Bishop, the first “““““Witch”””””” to be sentenced and hung, who vehemently argued that she was not a witch.

These aren’t single examples, and it slowly became known that if you confess and accuse, then you don’t get tried and you don’t die. This just lead to a slew of wild accusations that were fueled by the panicky people of Salem and the mass hysteria of herd mentality. That only started to die off when Margret Jacobs confessed to having lied about her witchness and the people she accused. This combined with people like the Corey’s (Martha and Giles Corey, a married couple who were accused of witchcraft. Giles refused to plea guilty or innocent, instead protesting the obviously rigged system and was slowly pressed to death by stones over the course of three day, all the while refusing to confess. Martha did the same but she was just named a witch and hung.) With the Corey’s martyrdom, the court was forced to try even those who had confessed and this successfully stopped people from falsely confessing and eventually lead to the court refusing to even process accounts of witchcraft.

Anyways, the TL;DR of this is basically: a society based on fear and mistrust, coupled with a reward system for outing others only leads to bad news.

[Sources]

Mass Psychogenic Disorder

PTSD Mayo Health Clinic

History Channel.com

Wikipedia

History Channel Documentary

#salem witch trials #history #witches #american history #early america #puritans #fuck puritans #witchcraft #salem #gross people #pstd #mental health

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nordic-breeze · 5 years

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I was going through my files and I came over this document I sent to my friend @distant-rain pretty much the same day I realized I had fallen in love with Arthur, after weeks of being in denial or shrugging off my daydreaming of this cowboy as nbd or thought experiments and boy was I confused.

I knew next to nothing about RDR1 when I wrote this December last year and I didn’t know much about RDR2 post chapter 2 either except for Arthur’s fate, which I had just learned of, and oml was I upset and confused. Though also scaringly accurate about certain things.

Now over six months later, I love this cowboy even more. And I kept true to my word. If anyone wanna read the rambings of a fangirl who had just found her new obsession be my guest.

I was blown away by how massive this game is. The level of detail is incredible and I greatly appreciate the effort put into creating this world. Yeah, we’ve all heard about the horse testicles shrinking in cold weather but it’s not like it’s just one bizarre detail being essentially a dick joke in an otherwise average game. No, RDR2 is detailed enough that it actually makes sense to add in peculiarities like that. The amount of wildlife alone, I mean, ever since the PS2 era I’ve been used to seeing animals in games but R* created whole-ass ecosystems in RDR2, several of’em, from snowy mountains to marshlands, with animals that act so much like actual animals. Just listening to the birds singing, it’s like being out in an actual forest!

Characterization is another thing that amazed me, in particular the protagonist. I knew nothing about the first RDR when started playing RDR2, nor did I know anything about RDR in general other than it was western-themed and made by the GTA-guys. I expected somewhat of a similar characterization as GTA where every character is a stereotype or a caricature. I genuinely liked GTAV’s story for what it was and even though every character was more or less an asshole, some of them were also weirdly likeable and even earned my sympathy (and hint of affection) occasionally.

But it never really went deeper than that nor was it particularly long-lasting (still way more than I expected tho). I bonded with one of the characters more than I thought I would but not nearly as much as I would had the characters felt more like actual humans and not like the epitome of stereotypes. But it is what R* wanted and it worked. I expected the RDR2 characters to be the same but to my surprise the characters, especially Arthur, are fleshed out, complex, even relatable (depending on your actions I guess). Unlike GTAV, they act and react like actual human beings. Well, human beings that have lived their entire life (more or less) as outlaws. In a country and time period foreign to me. But still they felt human. Ofc I’ve not gotten to know any of the NPC’s as well as Arthur but from various missions and eavesdropping on their conversation I’ve gotten to know them a bit. Hosea is my favorite. He seems like a good man despite being an outlaw and I love how everyone goes to him for advice and how supportive he is. I also wish more people (esp a certain Dutch man) could listen to him more. I also really like Charles. He definitely got morals and could be a good influence on Arthur and the others. I haven’t seen much of Sadie yet, but think I’ll like her too. Lenny seems nice. That one scene when he and Arthur went out drinking together was absolutely brilliant! And lil Jack’s adorable ofc. Only one I don’t like is Micha or Miach or whathisname. I know no one in the van der Linde gang are saints but that guy is a total psychopath. I kinda wish Arthur had gotten his way there when he said they should just leave him in jail as he was nothing but trouble and it annoys me how Dutch is sticking up for him. Yeah, speaking of, not too fond of Dutch or that German guy either atm.

But all in all very impressed by the large open world, the level of details to well, everything and the characterization. Soundtrack is great, graphics are stunning, animations smooth, the horse-riding simulation is just extraordinary and you never know what’s gonna happen as you ride through the map. The amount and variety of random events and encounters are truly impressive. Often comical, like that wildlife photographer who keeps getting almost eaten up by the wildlife he’s trying to document, sometimes eerie like the serial killer side story, or sad like when Arthur met with his former love. Or a combination of said elements like the pig farmers I ran into. With no pigs. But were still veeery well fed. You know, when people are just a liiitle bit too friendly? That eerie feeling you get when you just know something’s wrong but you can’t quite put your finger on it. Until you can. I thought they were husband and wife I really did. You shoulda seen my face when I realized they were in fact brother and sister. Me and Arthur had the exact same face. They were living as husband and wife tho. Well, up until I killed them.

I also love the contrast between the more ‘modern’ world and the simpler life. I could go into town, buy food at the saloon and rent a room or take a bath at the hotel. Or I could ride a few mins out into the wilderness, hunt and gather my own food, cook it over a bonfire and sleep under the stars. Electricity exists, but people are still completely dependent on oil lamps and open flame. Trains and trams exist, cars have been invented, but people still mainly travel on horseback. This contrast between old and new as an era is ending and the modern era is about to begin has been an amazing experience considering the level of detail the game has. The colonization of the new land, which has been largely unknown to me, the contrast between this and modern-day America we see on TV. So many people did not even speak English, I often find abandoned buildings, or burnt-down buildings, some with bodies inside, leaving me wondering what happened to them, I found a ghost town whose inhabitants had been wiped out by a plague. It was tough for many I reckon.

In fact, I find the exploration of this foreign but also somewhat familiar, beautiful but harsh world and its many random events and encounters waaay more interesting than the actual main story itself, which is why it took me forever to reach chapter 3. In fact, the story is probably my least favorite part about RDR2, as backwards as it may sound. I’ve never been into western stories or aesthetics, and I’m certainly NOT into the whole ‘outlaws till the end’ stuff ugh. I fail to sympathize with the whole ‘boo-hoo the world no want outlaws like us no more it’s unfair’. Ugh, go cry me a fucking river. And then go get a job. A real job. Yeah, I get it that adapting to society is tough, life’s tough deal with it and stop preying on others. Wow, robbing two trains in short time and staying in the same fucking area actually has consequences, I’m so shook!

So yeah, story-wise I don’t quite ‘get it’ and Dutch is really starting to get on my nerves, which is probably why I prefer to just ride off alone and experience the world. I guess RDR2 story will rely heavily on being torn between gang loyalty and your own morality and principles but since I have virtually no concept of group loyalty that is all lost on me. My own morals and principles all the way. I’m like, ‘these people suck, take Hosea, Charles, Sadie, Tilly (maybe John Marston and his family) and leave these bitches behind’.

At the beginning, I did kinda liked Dutch. He seemed genuinely sorry for Sadie, took her in and saved her life, even if it meant another mouth to feed in dire times. And he showed Kiran mercy despite hating the O’Driscol’s. But as I’ve progressed thought the game, his grand speeches about sticking together, sticking with him, slowly but surely has turned from pep-talk to keep people’s spirit up to sounding like a cult leader desperate to keep his following no matter the cost. Yesterday when I was playing, I overheard him quote some quasi-philosophy book to Lenny and used the words to twist them into his own convictions to support his decisions. And when Lenny objected, Dutch literally said ‘you’re breaking my heart, kid’. Wow Dutch, talk about manipulating your protégé.

It was the mission when those lawmen approached Arthur as he was fishing with Jack that really made me consciously see Dutch in a new light. Up until then, RDR2 had mostly been fun and games but that conversation left me feeling a bit uneasy. But I just figured it was the main story finally picking up pace and also, I figured I was near the end of the chapter. I carried on, suddenly eager to see what would happen and was thoroughly surprised by how the chapter ended. In a bad way.

While both chapter 2 and chapter 3 begins with a ‘new start’ vibe, chapter 3 felt very different from chapter 2. Mostly it was that feeling that Dutch’s obsession with ‘sticking to this life’ is going to get people killed. Idk, it’s this eerie feeling something’s wrong but can’t quite put my finger on it-feel again. But thanks to internet being internet I already knew some spoilers so I couldn’t help but to look up something and… well, let me put it this way. I’m never going to finish this game. Ever. It breaks my heart because in so many ways it’s truly an amazing game and a fantastic experience. But I’m just not that into the story, I don’t like where it’s heading and I don’t want to see what’s coming to character(s) I’ve come to care deeply about.

I still want to explore the world more, see what unfolds, do more challenges, add stuff to my compendium, maybe get some trophies… but I doubt I’ll ever progress much story-wise. Quite the contrary, I might reload an earlier save and just stay in chapter 2 forever.

(wrtten a couple of days later)

Seems my instincts was right on the money, esp concerning Dutch. Sad thing, I do believe he is sincere. In the first few chapters at least. He is manipulative but I also believe he’s convinced himself that he’s doing the right thing. And then his obsession will eventually get the better of him and when people and the lifestyle is slipping away from him, he doesn’t handle it well at all. Ugh, it’s so frustrating, I just wanna gather all my favs and yell: “leave nooow, before it’s too late!

It’s not for the sake of spacing it out or making it last. I just don’t want to progress in the story at all. I hated losing Horseshoe Overlook. HATED IT HATED IT HATED IT!!!! Yes the new place is beautiful, yes I know it’s the life of the outlaws and RDR2 does show that life for better and for worse whereas most stories tend to romanticize the whole thing, yes as outlaws they can’t stay for too long in one place. But as mentioned I have a hard time sympathize with and immerse myself into that lifestyle. Yes, I got all my upgrades and a whole new area to explore, a bigger nearby town, and closer to that big city. Still hated it. Horseshoe Overlook was my place. The Heartlands was home. And the view was stunning! And I liked Valentine. It was small and dirty but I had good memories from there. Until I had to shoot up half the town. My motivation for continuing the main story is at absolute zero.

It was more what the transition represented, I guess. You never know what will happen in RDR2. And it’s true, for random encounters, and many of the individual missions. But when it comes to the story as a whole, I feel like I already now can predict how it’ll play out. Every chapter begins with the gang on the move, finding a place to settle down and have a fresh start, even chapter 1 (as they were on the run bc a heist gone wrong or something). Then they settle down, go into town to get to know the area and establish connections and looking for easy money, often at the expenses of others. X random events later, they get too overconfident or careless, screws up or get hunted down, it ends with a shootout, then they are on the run again, finds a new place to settle down where Dutch promises that THIS TIME IT WILL BE DIFFERENT until they’re wanted on the entire map and can’t go anywhere cos the wild west is ending. I really liked it at Horseshoe Overlook and whenever Im in that area again I’ll just get sad.

I had no idea I’d gotten so emotionally invested so I was really surprised at how much I disliked moving camps and all. I’ve also gotten so fond of Arthur. I was so busy with exploring, doing challenges, learning to hunt etc I didn’t even realize it happening. Until one scene had me almost tearing up! I think because, we as the player really have to look out for him. Even though I make sure that he eats regularly, he’s still underweight. When out riding I usually set up camp when night falls so that Arthur can get some rest. Something I’d never think about in any other game. And I always give him coffee in the morning. Then it’s his journal that gives such valuable insight into who he truly is as a person. There’s no doubt he’s so much more than just a mere outlaw. He writes surprisingly well and is open and is surprisingly honest about his thoughts and feelings. How torn he is between the life of an outlaw and wanting to be a better man, a better person. How he admired Charles because, for him it was ‘so easy to just be good’ whereas he himself always feel torn between good and evil. And his journal entries when he meets his long-lost love Mary and saves her brother from the cultists. The expression on his face as he said goodbye to her on the train station… how utterly heartbroken he was… how she still loved him too… man, that one tore at my heart. Still does when thinking about it.

I wish I could take Hosea, Charles, Sadie, Tilly, John’s family and maybe Lenny too with me, run off and start anew. Charles would have good influence on Arthur and encourage him to turn his life around and find his place in society and encourage John to be a better father and role model for Jack and they could all learn how to live as free men and women without robbing or hurting anyone (unless they deserve it). Like, Charles is an excellent hunter and tracker. He’d totally get enough food for the gang and maybe even enough to sell. He could train Jack too. Hosea was always more of a conman/grifter than a brute/robber. He could con bad guys or rich assholes Robin Hood style. If anyone gave him grief, John and Arthur would settle the score. Arthur could sell animal pelts and John could take up carpeting. They’d be such a happy lil family. But, RDR1 is yet to happen so it’s all just wishful thinking *sigh*

#red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #the ramblings of a fangirl #about me

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crackheadaonymous · 5 years

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Salem Witch Trials; AKA Why Religion, Herd Mentality and the Blame Game are Scary as Fuck

Oh boy, so last time I did this I ranted about Jack the Ripper being a girl. That theory was super crackhead-y and crazy, and it’s been a while but I went down another rabbit hole and found a whole new theory, so here we go I guess. So welcome to–

Salem Witch Trials; AKA Why Religion, Herd Mentality and the Blame Game are Scary as Fuck

Ok, so to set the scene, it’s 1690’s Salem. Salem was the edge of the civilized world and it was completely inhabited by super intense Puritans. Puritans were basically crazy over the top Christians, who believed that they needed to ‘purify’ Christianity by sucking every Catholic part of it out and drowning it in shame before burning it. They believed that children were sinners that needed to be fixed and so any child growing up with them had it super rough. Having all these morals usually beaten into them and the fear of god held over their heads about everything– and this was the norm. Everyone treated their kids like this because no one wanted kids with the devil in them.

This is all important I promise.

This all added onto the fact that the Natives (Specifically a tribe called the Wabanaki) were also attacking Puritan colonies (though this was the Puritans fault because the Wabanaki actually tried to trade with them and sent a big group of their people in to go meet the puritans and chill but the puritans just captured them all and sold them as slaves which rightfully pissed off the Wabanaki who lead a bunch of battles against the colonies until a 10 year peace truce happened)

George Burrows will become important later but for now: Mercy is living with the Putnams as their servant in Salem (the Putnams were a huge family, described as a clan, that politically ran Salem. They backed the church viciously and Thomas Putnam agreed with just about anything Salem’s minister Samuel Parris, both these guys become important later so remember them). Mercy, working at 18 years old as a servant for the Putnam family (namely Thomas Putnam, his wife Ann, their daughter Ann Jr. and Ann’s cousin Mary Walcott) has managed to put the whole incident about her entire family getting slaughtered or captured behind her and has been living nicely throughout the 10 year truce between the natives and the Puritans, then it ends.

The clock expires and the Wabanaki attack York and leave it in flames. January of 1692 Mercy hears the news and begins having fits.

Some people believe that the other women were simply faking their fits, but I don’t think so. At least, they weren’t doing it on purpose. There’s something called “Mass Psychogenic Disorder” described here: [Link] as basically being intense herd mentality or mass hysteria, is when a group of people are all affected by something simply because others are as well. A mass placebo basically.

I believe that something to this effect was happening to all of these women, most of whom were younger girls who had been pressured and mentally damaged thanks to the world they were living in. They saw (unconsciously) Mercy’s actions as a reasonable way to have basically a mental breakdown and their bodies– seriously needing some kind of a break from the constant pressure– had them mimicking Mercy’s symptoms because of the easy out it was. “We’re possessed by a witch” is a lot easier and was more reasonable than them to say “the constant fear I’ve been exposed to my whole life about the outside world and the religious pressures I’ve been forced into are seriously fucking me up.”

Then, after they begin collapsing more and more people begin to and then suddenly we’ve got the witch trials on our hands. And, shit gets political.

So now that I’ve thoroughly bored you with all that, I’ll start in on politics (if you’ve stuck around this long thank you). The politics and Salem were basically split into two halves, one side (the Putnams/ Parris/ the more well off wealthy people) wanted a church in Salem so that they didn’t have to travel the five miles to go to church. But the other side (the more poor people) didn’t want a church because they new the taxes that would come with it would be ridiculous and Parris was already asking for a shit ton of money from them all.

For example: George Burrows.

(Told you he’d be important)

Ha. About that buddy…

So anyways, Burrows is killed all because (in my theory) the Putnams can’t lose.

These aren’t single examples, and it slowly became known that if you confess and accuse, then you don’t get tried and you don’t die. This just lead to a slew of wild accusations that were fueled by the panicky people of Salem and the mass hysteria of herd mentality. That only started to die off when Margret Jacobs confessed to having lied about her witchness and the people she accused. This combined with people like the Corey’s (Martha and Giles Corey, a married couple who were accused of witchcraft. Giles refused to plea guilty or innocent, instead protesting the obviously rigged system and was slowly pressed to death by stones over course of three day, all the while refusing to confess. Martha did the same but she was just named a witch and hung.) martyrdom, the court was forced to try even those who had confessed and this successfully stopped people from falsely confessing and eventually lead to the court refusing to even process accounts of witchcraft.

Anyways, the TL;DR of this is basically: society based on fear and mistrust, coupled with a reward system for outing others only leads to bad news.

#salem #salem witch trials #witches #religion #death #people #trials #politics #theory #herd mentality #psychology #old shit #people are gross #case and point #also there's a lot I didn't go over in this and I'm sorry but like holy crap #this was already like a five page thing #so #yeet #also I don't know if anyone even reads these but if you thanks and I'm sorry

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renee-walker · 6 years

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Yet another super incomplete, entirely incoherent, and most definitely not chronological list of my thoughts, this time on Stranger Things 2 eps 4-7

I will never be over my feelings about Joyce Byers and her love for her children. Obviously Will is the focus at this point, but omg the raw ferocity of her love and concern just leaps out of my tv and murders my mom heart. And wow, I could do this in every ep, but the most major shoutout to Winona Ryder’s acting chops. She never overdoes it for a second, which I think is a feat when she constantly has to convey so much desperation and terror. Amazing.

ALSO. Noah Schnapp, holy shit. I mean we didn’t honestly get to see hardly any of him in the first season, but wow I will never stop yammering about what a great job this show did in choosing the kids who make up the main cast. There’s not a weak link, and the scene where Will tells Joyce that the monster/shape/what the fuck ever that thing is got him pretty much broke me.

Ew, Dustin’s bizarre affection for his slug toy turns out predictably badly, but how awesome is it that by pure serendipity, he winds up with Steve? The second they got in the car together, S says, “I love the way this show always sticks together the characters you wouldn’t really expect to hang out,” and YEP, he is so right. And I mean, can we talk about Steve’s face when he asks Dustin how he knows it’s not a lizard and Dustin’s like, “I know because it’s face opened up and it ate my cat.” STEVE’S FACE. Just like, “Okay, fair.” I am die.

Tbh I really don’t see the point of Max’s brother. He’s a dick and apparently a giant racist and I guess he could be there just so Max can have that heart to heart with Lucas on the bus but idk. I just really don’t find anything about him interesting or compelling and I’m super confused as to why he’s always so goddamn shiny. Also did I just hang with the wrong crowd in the ‘80s or did all parents just let their kids sit around in their living rooms, smoking and drinking beer while lifting weights? I didn’t know any of these parents, but my best friend’s mom did let us have wine coolers when we were 13 so clearly I was a giant fucking rebel.

Hopper and El’s fight sucked a whole lot of ass, and although I love Hopper, I seriously wanted to hit him myself when he called her a brat. Yes Jim, I get that you have manpain AND I LOVE YOU but holy fuck this is a traumatized child who’s entirely isolated from the world. I don’t blame her for taking off.

And then of course we have another episode of Poor Life Choices With Jim Hopper, in which he decides the best idea ever is to dig into the upside down all by himself, without telling anyone what he’s doing or where he is, and that’s bound to turn out super great, RIGHT? Spoiler alert: It does not turn out super great. I still freaked when the vines got him, ngl.

Omg, Bob. I know what’s going to happen to him and I hate it so much I can’t deal. HE’S SO FUCKING CUTE. And as @faith5by5-1013 said in a comment on my last post, I just love that there’s no love triangle bullshit here. Like Hopper is (more or less) happy for Joyce and Bob and Bob accepts Joyce’s history with Hopper and it’s just refreshing is all. ANYWAY Bob breaks me because of course he figures out the map since he’s Bob the Brain and his ridiculously adorable instant acceptance of all this wild fuckery is the stuff that dreams are made of. Get yourself a guy like Bob Newby, is all I’m trying to say.

The entirety of everything with El and her mom was just well, the worst. I’d assumed that Brenner had done something like electroshock on Terry, but assuming and watching are two different things. And for fuck’s sake, Eleven is a CHILD, which I think is something that’s very easy to forget with Millie Bobby Brown’s precociousness and her wild acting skills. Watching Eleven pretty much relive her mother’s horror is the worst, and it only makes Eleven’s eventual choice NOT to kill Otis (oops wrong show, lmao) even more meaningful and poignant.

Erica Sinclair is everything. The end.

MAJOR ASIDE. I could not get over the gajillion ways in which this show is using Paul Reiser’s character to remind any viewer familiar with Aliens of that movie. I mean, shit. He repeats phrases that are almost verbatim dialogue from Aliens, there’s the motion tracker stuff when the demodogs attack the ambushed lab dudes, there’s the “Stay frosty.” Yeah, Aliens was 1986 and this is supposedly 1984, but nobody can convince me that all this wasn’t intentional. That said, I’m starting to have the feeling that Dr. Owens isn’t going to turn out to be as awful as Carter Burke.

I used to use Faberge. Like, I was DYING.

SO, both my kids pretty much hated ep 7, and while it certainly isn’t my favorite of the eps I’ve seen so far, I really appreciated a number of things about it.

Like, I never stop thinking about the fact that Eleven has spent her entire life in a lab. Her face when she sees the city lights at night is just everything. There are so many aspects of life this child has never had the chance to touch, and it makes me hurty inside just thinking about it.

I do think the ep was too long, but whatever, this isn’t the kind of issue I’m gonna be mad about. Since the beginning of the season, the show has been riffing on what could possibly be “home” for El. This ep is so important if only because it answers that question for her in a deep and final way. Kali’s gang was honestly pretty dull and I didn’t give much of a shit about them, but I did give a lot of shits about El finally answering some very specific questions about her past and learning to make her own choices with this new information.

Look, one of my greatest fictional kinks ever is That Person Who Chooses To Be A Wonderul And Good Person Even Though Every Single Thing In Their Life Suggests They Should Absolutely Be An Axe Murderer. And of course El is exactly that. There’s nothing in her past that should make her choose mercy, but when it counts, that’s exactly what she does. And I could not love her more.

Also lbr. I pretty much died when she figured out that Mike, Hopper, and everyone else were in danger and was just like, peace out motherfuckers, I gotta save my friends and family. Not all heroes wear capes. Some of them wear a lot of eyeliner and hair gel:)

Final thoughts: I’m super surprised they waited this long to reunite El and Mike. I really do not want to watch Bob Newby die. I’m glad Jonathan and Nancy are together but I still find my interest waning whenever they’re the focus. Omg WHY AM I LOVING STEVE HARRINGTON?

#stranger things #stranger things 2 #stranger things spoilers #eep i can’t cut this because mobile #sorry!

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lolana07 · 7 years

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Fear 3x13

I don’t know where to start on this episode there is just too much to say so apologies in advance for jumping all over the place but AHHH this has to be the best of the series so far. I’ve read multiple reviews online saying how this episode balances the zombies vs human aspects of the show and dammit! It does that so damn perfectly I can’t even I don’t know where to start! Okay, deep breath, here we go:

I’m going to get my more negative thoughts go first, so without further ado, WHAT THE ACTUAL FFFFRACK NICK AND MADISON! Half of me is so $%@#@%# happy Alicia is not with her mother anymore, the other half is like, Madison that’s your daughter. We all know you prioritized Nick over her, but seriously? You just, what gave her a hug and some provisions and just? Waved bye? And then fought Nick? Are you @#$#$%$@?!!? Okay I do have to say, thank goodness, she got to the bunker when she did…but that’s about it.

And Nick. Nick I hope you and ThatGuy pull a Thelma and Louise by seasons end. First you joke and tease your sister about Jake saying someone’s gotta protect him, then you cause his death (Don’t Even Come At Me!) and then you lie to her face about it to cover for ThatGuy? Go Float Yourself! And now you’re going to tail Alicia to make sure she’s safe? With ThatGuy?! Oh hellll no!

Anywho, on to more exciting thoughts :)

I sadly had very low expectations for this episode because I though Disaster Madison and Co. were only minutes away from the ranch and were going to devise some crazy plan to ‘save’ the ranchers along with He Who Must Not Be Named and Nick. So the first maybe 10 minutes I semi glossed by thinking Madison was going to burst in and bring along pandemonium. Then when Alicia mentioned less people more air, I completely forgot about everything outside the bunker and air vent, and the episode went to deliver amazingness is spades.

On talking dead they mentioned Alicia pulling out some AP Biology math skills and wow without a graphing calculator? Daaamn!!! But when she said fewer people less carbon dioxide, Ofelia’s face of recognition was on point. I just can’t even, but making that suggestion knowing that a guy in the ‘room/circle’ was bitten? I don’t know if Alicia really knew what she was getting into, not really. I’m not sure I really knew what she was getting into, that’s how enthralled? I was during my first watch. Up until the first..sacrifice? She was compartmentalizing the entire ordeal. Confidently asking people to come forward, clear voice eye contact, everything. Maybe it was shock from the past few hours outside, idk.

Ofelia said it last time as they walkers were flooding past the trailers, that the ranchers now listen to Alicia, and they will follow her. This episode completely cemented this, and then brutally ripped it away without mercy, and it was gorgeous. One of her first scenes is handing out water and putting her own panic on the backburner, and looking at the larger picture.

There are multiple references to other shows that could be made, but having seen the ‘come forward’ scene in the previews, I thought there was going to be a riot and someone was going to die and through the riot, they reanimated and that’s how the zombies got in. But noooooope! I shouldn’t have been surprised, but due to my low expectations for the episode still lingering….then the ranchers started giving themselves up, and dammit that’s probably when I started getting emotional. That one Nation man who stood up with that look of I don’t even know on his face? How can you not get emotional over that expression? But then later onnn, ughhh!

Ofelia and Alicia’s hug bye and then Ofelia glancing behind, ahh! That got me too! Last episode was bad enough, thinking all three weren’t going to make it, but now thinking that again? I’ve said it before but I am loving these two working together these past few episodes, and I’m so upset they are separated, so upset. The fangirl in my wishes Ofelia was able to go with her but oh well.

I understand why the bunker may have medicine, but why so much morphine? Morphine is Intense, so what was it doing in there? Such you may need some, but boxes of it? And what is Christine doing with the bitten? If she was doomed from the start, she would have been done by the time the air started knocking them out..? This whole morphine scene was gorgeous in the most dark and impossible ways. Yes a main character is leading the scene, but for me it was the extras, or the background characters who just hit this scene out of the park. Their reactions and faces and trying to give themselves a way out….damn! Just wow, Alycia took a backseat in this one, and it was perfect.

This is also where the episode gets harder to talk about because part of me tries to think, what if that were me? In either position? Would I be selfless enough to give myself up? Would I be able to let a loved one go who was bitten? Would I be okay knowing what would happen to me? Would I be able to do what Alicia did?

I do wonder why Christine didn’t help Alicia actually…do it. She gave her a pep talk (which oddly was like Madison saying Alicia you’re always the strong one), gave her knife back, and .. until later, that’s it. Their talk though was perfection. She made up for her Madison-esque pep talk tenfold and told Alicia to never make decisions based on fear, and damn I need to come back to this character/discussion again later! Both ladies delivered their lines perfectly, the lady who played Christine almost stole the spotlight from Alycia, and Alicia telling her story about camp and Nick and the song, and then the song coming back later….I may not hear that song the same way again. And not just bc its real-world contexts. But WOW speaking of acting! I mean this entire episode the acting I just can’t even, you can tell everyone put in their 200% on this, and it shows in every sequence in that bunker and air vent. Like I said Christine almost stole the scene, and the background characters just sold the dire situation and sold the emotion. If any of them had given less than they had, I think the episode would have failed. But it was perfect. Alycia’s this land is your land camp monologue was gorgeous and heartbreaking and just encompassed everything that character I built on. I hope she gets recognition for this one. Its amazing.

Question: When Alicia took care of the first guy, from the beginning who she noticed was bitten, and helped her through it all, he kept saying he was sorry for everything he had done. And I don’t know what he is referring to. I thought he was new to this episode, what am I forgetting? Was he one of Troy’s?

Ofelia Interlude:

I completely forgot Ofelia and Crazy Dog were in the vents. Completely. I also thought in the preview/trailer, Crazy Dog was being attacked, so I thought he was done before the episode even started. And just another surprise was this really touching and raw moment between him and Ofelia, who we have seen work together and then I thought they were going to die last episode and just sdfsdfsdfsf I can’t!

It’s All Downhill From Here:

I will say, as many have, one of the episodes few flaws is that Alicia, out all Everyone in the bunker, was the only person to survive. . . . . . . . . .. ??? What? No even one more? ……….. What?

Other than that, the rest of the bunker balances the human aspect of the show with the zombie aspect perfectly. I was so engrossed in the acting and story that it never occurred to me what it meant if someone died because of lack of air while in the bunker. I guess I forgot that the ‘disease’ is airborne, so I didn’t even think about the suffocated reanimating, because I was like, oh no air then you can’t move obviously….. Until Alicia woke up that second time and I remembered zombies don’t need air.

Okay this is reaching, but part of Alicia’s second awakening reminded me of Rose on the door in titanic…I know that’s bonkers but something about her singing the song and the fuzziness of the first few seconds just had me for a sec. Then the zombie rancher woke up! The scene of Alicia knocked out and the zombies getting up though!!!! Very chilling!

Ofelia Interlude No. 2:

Okay I’m a broken record but I thought they were going to die again and part of me ughh wishes one of them did! I am glad that they showed Ofelia being affected by the gunshot close to her ear though.

While it was greatttt seeing Alicia fight off the zombies and get Christine into the locker, it’s also heartbreaking because literally all her hard work of protecting the ranch and trying to find water and merge the groups together and killing the bitten to save air for the others to live was completely worthless in the end. She’s taking out everyone she fought so hard to save, and she couldn’t even save Christine in the end. I like how Jake teaching her about arming up helped her here, so it wasn’t unbelievable that she was able to shoot them down. I also have to hand it to the music dept here too, it’s just greattt. Then Madison shows up.

And that’s where the episode ends!!! (Actually no Ofelia finding out about Daniel, @%#$%#%$!!!) Haha, ugh. I was posting as I watched and I was so amazed by this episode I prematurely was like it can do no wrong it’s amazing I love it! And it’s at this part of the review you can go up top and see what it thought of the last few minutes.

Thanks for reading!! Next week looks great but I won’t get my hopes too far up

@zombiechels @thedoctor-smith @3coffeecups @viguaquis @adistantstarblog

#fear the walking dead #ftwd #alicia clark #ofelia salazar #feartwd #lo watches TV finally

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