#never have i seen anything to perfectly sum up her entire existence. and its not even her brother's faults!! it's all arceus!!!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Something I don’t think I’ve ever seen explored but that could be a possibly interesting subversion of the common conception that Dick is Bruce’s favorite, even according to his other children:

What if the things they viewed as favoritism were really just overcompensation? For instance, when Dick and Bruce started being presences in each other’s lives again after Tim became Robin, it was a gradual thing, they only slowly kind of got used to being around each other again over time. As I’ve often said in the past, my big gripe about this, and why I so intensely dislike all of that being framed as Tim being a catalyst for reuniting them, is its precisely BECAUSE of how it all played out that way, that Bruce....never actually needed to apologize or make amends to Dick or even ASK for him to come back....which compounded the fact that he’d never really ever gotten around to doing all of that because of the conflict between them for other reasons before Jason’s death happened.

And I do think a lot of that has to do with Bruce’s tendencies towards self-flagellation, though this doesn’t excuse it. I honestly do believe that it’d be perfectly in character if the reason Bruce never apologized for all that even then was because he didn’t think what he’d done WAS forgivable, so it felt....false to him, to try and ask for forgiveness. What this fails to consider though, is that apologizing, making amends, TRYING to make up for what you did to the other person.....its not about WHETHER or not they forgive you, or think they can.

Its simply about acknowledging wrong and harm done, and saying....you’re sorry. You regret it. You know it was a mistake and that you can’t take it back, but you just want them to know you’re....not unaware of the harm you caused.

After that, yeah, the ball is in their court, but if you never actually put that out there, how are they ever supposed to truly KNOW that you know that? Believe that?

How can people ever be asked or expected to grant forgiveness when its so commonly depicted as though for the people who hurt them, even just ASKING for it is harder than it must be for the people who WERE hurt to GRANT it?

But Bruce is very much someone who believes that actions speak louder than words, so I could see someone taking the angle that he tries to EXPRESS his regret to Dick in other ways, through various actions and behaviors with or around him.....which could be construed to others in the family as displays of favoritism....

Because they’d have no way or any reason to think of them as attempts at amends or expressions of regret, like they would, say, if any of those similar behaviors were exhibited around Jason - whether they were accepted by Jason or brushed off. Point being, they would GET that this was what it was with Jason, because they’re all aware Jason is angry at Bruce for very specific things, with most of them being aware what MOST of those things are (definitely not counting the ending of UTRH).

(And just pointing out here again for emphasis since its not like I tack it on as a qualifier in all my posts, but I honestly hate how frequently various parts of fandom decide one character or another is Bruce’s favorite or worse, that this is OKAY, like its not a fundamental problem if he definitively has a favorite. Of course that creates divides in a family. To me, ideally, a healthy Batfam has no favorites, they just have members of the family who are more favorite to them in SOME ways than in others.

For instance, I also dislike the idea that Damian is Dick’s favorite, but I don’t think the closeness of their relationship is threatened or mitigated by acknowledging that the bonds between Dick and his other siblings are just as strong, just in different ways. That its ‘special’ with Damian in a way it isn’t with the others because of how close they got that year Dick practically raised him, that makes the nature of their relationship different. But its equally ‘special’ with Jason, because Jason was Dick’s FIRST brother, they were each other’s first family beyond just parental figures, there’s a significance to that which doesn’t just go away, and still neither of those undervalues the fact that Tim and Dick spent years being close as the only two brothers, who had only each other and Bruce, and Bruce sometimes being emotionally or even physically unavailable to turn to making it that much more necessary for them to turn to each other, essentially, between Jason’s death and return and even after Cass became a presence in their lives, due to her usually going to Babs for the kinds of things Dick and Tim would work through together, and then of course Cass is Dick’s only sister which puts her in another category altogether, not better or worse, its simply that Cass is neither Dick’s brother nor was she ever a Robin so they have a relationship that for example, whatever else it consists of, will never be defined or threatened by any of the issues that have plagued the family when it comes to the Robin succession. And Duke and Dick’s dynamic of course is still basically just whatever the hell you individually decide it to be because hahahaha what if you wrote them interacting for more than like, one issue only, DC HMMM?

Point being - FUCK family favorites. The whole idea is stupid and toxic and IMO fundamentally incompatible with an actual healthy, functional Batfamily, so it kinda blows my mind when I see people UPHOLDING the idea of this character being so and so’s favorite or everyone knows Dick is Bruce’s favorite and Jason is Alfred’s favorite and Damian is Dick’s favorite....no. Why. Stop that. They can all be special to each other in entirely different ways for entirely different reasons. Family is not a zero sum game. And none of this means that there aren’t some of them who just GET ALONG better than they do with the others at sometimes, or like these two just tend to have more fun with each other, or this is who this one usually goes to when this happens, etc. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s good, it just means.....things are different between different members of the family. That doesn’t have to equal FAVORITES though. Favorite to share this particular activity with? Sure. OVERALL though? Miss me).

ANYWAY.

Detour aside and circling back to my point.....say for instance the other kids see Bruce appear to be making an effort with Jason, singling him out for praise or acknowledgment....its not hard for them to imagine reasons WHY Bruce might be doing that, which don’t automatically equate to an insecure conviction that Bruce just loves Jason more than them and he’s his favorite....because there are other explanations, other reasons why Bruce might feel a need to act differently with Jason than he does with the rest of them, things unique to their dynamic. Similarly, say for instance Bruce is written making a particular effort with Damian to acknowledge him - there’s lots more angles to spin it as than just favoritism, they had a very rocky start everyone in the family is aware of, so its more likely to just read as like....Bruce making more of an effort where its already understandable to everyone else that an effort is merited.

And Bruce HAS admittedly at different times been written as very clearly making an effort and being a good father to his kids, like, the capacity has always been there of course. But there were ‘good times’ with Bruce and Jason, with Bruce and Dick, with Bruce and Tim, etc, etc. So when the effort being seen comes paired with an understandable or apparent GAP the others are aware of.....the effort is easily seen as nothing more than BRIDGING the already existant gap, rather than....advancing that one particular child AHEAD of the others.

So much of the conflict between Bruce and Dick during Jason’s time as Robin stemmed from the fact that.....there was a huge, existing gap between Bruce and Dick even BEFORE Bruce took Jason in....and there was no effort made by Bruce during that time to bridge that gap. And then Bruce took Jason in, adopted him, made him Robin....STILL while making no attempt to reach out to Dick, make amends, bridge the gap he was steadily INCREASING between both boys and their respective relationships with him....so y’know, its kinda hard NOT to see or at least understandably imagine favoritism from Dick’s POV there....

BUT, its also easy to imagine why from the other kids’ perspectives, Dick might be Bruce’s favorite or the one he’s closest with, and its not because he’s perfect or the original or anything like that, but rather just....time.

Quite simply, Dick is the one kid Bruce spent the most time with, before any of the others joined the family. He spent a good eight years growing up in the manor, Bruce’s only family other than Alfred. Its quite easy and understandable to imagine from the perspective of the ones who came later, this would translate into more closeness, more ease and familiarity, even more respect, more love......because that thing that they each have with Bruce to some degree, that makes them family, the time spent with him, the comfort or praise they’ve received from him, purely in an empirical sense, in terms of rough numbers if nothing else, Dick has had more of it. Bruce has given more of it.

Of course they’re resentful or assume they can’t measure up, in light of that. How can the mere two or three years some of them have had as Bruce’s family compete with the eight Dick had and that’s even just before any of the others came along at all.

So they look at Bruce making an effort with Dick, the way he doesn’t always do with them, they see Bruce making a point to acknowledge Dick or praise him or express he’s putting his faith in him - all the things they’re all eager to hear - and the easiest and most obvious conclusion to draw when asking themselves “why is he like that with Dick, but not with me, or at least never as much”....is that its because of that essential element Dick and Bruce’s relationship has that none of the others do.....time.

The problem is, of course.....they don’t have the whole perspective, and they’re drawing conclusions without paying proper consideration to all the possible alternatives.

Because yes, Bruce and Dick’s relationship has had more time to encompass so many of the good moments and the positives between them......but the reverse is equally true. Its had that much more time to encompass the bad moments and the negatives in their relationship as well. And this is part of the narrative trap created when not focusing on or even just acknowledging the downs of Dick and Bruce’s relationship, specifically where the burden of responsibility is on Bruce.....because it sets up a quandary - “Bruce often behaves differently with Dick than he does with his other children” - but only allows certain interpretations to be read in as possible explanations for this.

So the second you lock in the take that Bruce’s relationship with Dick has never really HAD any low moments because Dick wasn’t fired, they weren’t estranged for years (though cough cough, what’s your explanation for Bruce’s absence from major defining stories of Dick’s at the time where he really could have used some comfort or support from Bruce, like the Church of Blood or Titans Hunt BUT I DIGRESS), and NTT #55 certainly didn’t happen, then its like.....you’ve reduced the intricacies of their dynamic and past history down to only its fundamental positives, and as such are only really showcasing Bruce being more positive than not with Dick while layering in the impression that this is the way its always been.....

And not only are you giving cause to the other children looking at this dynamic and seeing only one possible explanation - whether or not its just because they’ve spent more time together, Dick is Bruce’s favorite and always will be - you’re also creating the inevitability that Dick pretty much MUST be written as equally positive towards Bruce at all times - aka appearing as the loyal footsoldier his siblings often accuse him of being, particularly when they’re having their own conflicts with Bruce and Dick is defending him - OR if you write Dick as behaving negatively towards Bruce or making complaints of his own against Bruce....who in the eyes of all the others, clearly already favors Dick more than them as is.....it makes Dick look like a spoiled, ungrateful asshole who can’t even appreciate the fact that Bruce already loves and respects him more than he does any of them, like nothing will ever be good enough for him.

Basically, as is a fairly common theme for me, lol, my point is that I think a lot of the more negative and two-dimensional portrayals of Dick in fandom come not even from writers innately or initially seeing HIM that way....but rather are just a symptom of the corners many often write themselves into simply by REFUSING to write other characters in certain negative ways....without paying consideration to the ripple effects this would have on the dynamic between both characters overall. And then more readers and fans internalize these negative and two-dimensional portrayals of Dick and add them or have them feed into their own predispositions towards any of the other characters aside from him, and it kinda creates and perpetuates this whole self-sustaining cycle, where Dick so often becomes the ‘bad guy’ in family conflicts purely because writers won’t LET anyone ELSE ever be even just more responsible for a conflict with him.

But the second you put back even just ONE of the elements often cut out from Bruce and Dick’s relationship in support of Bruce, whether its firing Dick, not trying to make amends with him the whole time Jason lived with Bruce, the scene between them after Jason’s death......

Suddenly, you’ve got another explanation for why Bruce might be making MORE of an effort with Dick at times, to show he appreciates him, loves him, is proud of him.....because Bruce fucked up, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. And this is his awkward way of trying to show and not tell, because he doesn’t think the telling is ever going to be good enough, and its not even that Dick’s too petty or spiteful to ever accept Bruce’s apology, its that because its never taken the form of an ACTUAL apology, an ACTUAL acknowledgment of wrongdoing and an attempt to make amends.....its more likely Dick not seeing it for what it is on Bruce’s part is just Dick not wanting to set himself up for more disappointment, figuring he might be reading more into it than is actually there just because he WANTS to believe its an apology of some sort, he WANTS to forgive Bruce and get back at least some of what they lost over the years.

And meanwhile, from all the other kids’ perspectives, they see Bruce clearly making SOME kind of an effort with Dick that he doesn’t always make with them, and that when he does, usually its paired with something in their mind that makes it read as “oh that’s why he’s behaving this way” rather than “oh, clearly, this is proof I am The Favored One,”...BUT having access to only parts of the picture and no clue about a lot of the rest, working off of limited evidence, there’s no real way for them TO draw the correct conclusion....that this is Bruce trying to make RIGHT something that went WRONG.....not Bruce just lavishing Dick with praise and respect and recognition any of them would kill for and he seems to get for no reason....other than the obvious one....Dick’s the first, the original, the one who has a decade headstart on all of us in Bruce’s eyes and who we thus will never be able to catch up to so why try, hey, we should totally just, stab Caesar.

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tymime · 4 years

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So, having seen all 13 episodes of the new Animaniacs, I can say without question it’s a very good show. Not perfect by any means, but definitely worthy of your time if you’re a fan of the original.

Most comments I’ve seen have praised the show, but I’ve also seen some criticism. Mostly from people who haven’t watched it. Now, I seriously believe that it’s perfectly okay to criticize something you haven’t seen the entirety of, but if you’re going by the trailers and clips released online, well… I can’t see what there is to complain about. It’s fantastically animated, well-drawn, and I actually laughed when I heard the first joke. I actually felt some tension release when that happened!

But I would like to talk about some unfair (and also fair) criticisms from people who actually did watch it:

-Too much cynicism/mean-spiritedness One thing I didn’t realize when I was a kid is how often the original show made fun of things that really didn’t deserve being made fun of. The tradition of the Warner siblings pestering historical figures included the likes of Beethoven and Einstein, who as far as I know, never did anything to warrant being cast as villains in any kind of fiction, much less a cartoon. I think probably the most egregious of these was the episode where they torment a thinly-veiled parody of Wolf Blitzer. I don’t know much about the guy, but all of the people on CNN seem like pretty upstanding folk, so I can’t imagine why the writers chose him of all people to target. Sometimes I wonder if the whole “make fun of it because it exists” thing that so much modern humor relies on actually started with Animaniacs… If anything, the new show is actually more light-hearted in some respects.

-Too much political/topical satire Yet again, the original show was not shy in taking occasional jabs at the government and social issues. Cartoons doing that kind of humor goes back as far as Looney Tunes, and of course both that and Animaniacs contain plenty of dated pop culture references, some of which I still don’t understand. And I was alive during the ‘90s!

-Too much gross-out “humor” Now this here is the major flaw of the new show. The original never did any jokes that could make you feel queasy, and if it did talk about anything gross, it was more of a “ugh, don’t you hate that?” thing rather than the grossness being the joke itself. I will never ever understand people who like this sort of thing, and every time it happened my mood immediately went way down and sometimes wouldn’t go back up again until much later.

-Not enough characters I can sort of understand this, but not really. Just think about it- did anyone ever really find Rita & Runt or the Goodfeathers particularly funny? And I feel so sorry for Buttons’ constant suffering I can’t even stand to watch them. (Plus, I’m certain that no one ever liked Katie Kaboom.) One character I definitely want to see return though is Slappy Squirrel. Slappy is an icon as far as I’m concerned, and one of the funniest cartoon characters ever created. It was a shame they didn’t include her in the new show beyond a small non-speaking cameo.

-Not enough of the original crew This is the real tragedy of the new show. I can’t imagine why in the world the WB execs didn’t want to hire any of the original writers or artists, and it’s an insult to all the people who created and developed the characters. That said, it’s quite obvious that the new show was a labor of love, done with a lot of care and thought, written and animated by fans of the original and classic animation in general. This is the first time ever a major production has acknowledged ‘90s kids, and actually given them something worthwhile- something more than just an empty gesture to capitalize on our nostalgia. And after so many years of dealing with internet trolls who think my childhood was worthless, it’s such an incredible relief to know that there are others out there who feel the same way.

So yes, the new Animaniacs has its problems, but to say it’s a travesty is going too far. Like I mentioned in my last post, I was genuinely worried that they would do the same thing they did to the Powerpuff Girls or DuckTales. It was a good two years or so before we even knew who was going to do the voices, and it was literally only two months ago when we saw any animation at all. To say that it’s a relief to finally see it and enjoy it is an understatement.

I think it’s a bit foolish to go chasing after an X factor. Sure, there are many quibbling criticisms I have, like perhaps the timing could be tighter and more snappy, and maybe the storytelling could be refined, but the original wasn’t exactly entirely consistent in those regards either.

And we’ve got remember that the people who worked on the new show are not the same people who blackballed Tom Ruegger and Sherri Stoner. Throw your hate at the WB execs, not the show itself, and especially not the new writers and artists. The folks who hate the new episodes don’t seem to want to let the people who enjoy it have nice things, I guess. A line from the Pinky and the Brain episode “1001 Narfs” actually summed my feelings quite nicely: “We could use a little less cynicism, and a little bit more childlike wonder.”

All in all, I’m looking forward to season 2, and I hope it’s even better than the first.

#animaniacs #animaniacs 2020 #reboot #yakko wakko and dot #slappy squirrel #pinky and the brain #toon #cartoon #animation #nostalgia #90s kids

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takonei · 4 years

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Beta AU - Main story, Chapter 3, deadly life (Part 4)

Note of the author: *grabs popcorn* This is where the fun begins

Chapter 3: What is beyond humans’ control - Deadly life

...

“Where do we even start?” Miu asked.

“Ryoma, did you find anything on Keebo?” Rantaro turned to the other soldier.

"Kaito and I checked on his body to see what was wrong, and all his circuits are intact, from what we’ve managed to look at.” the smaller man explained.

Angie tilted her head to the side. “And... What does that mean?”

“It means basically that no one harmed him in the span of time we were investigating.” Kaito answered.

Tsumugi rolled her eyes. “Of course. That would have been way too easy otherwise.”

Shuichi looked at the Monokuma file. “The cause of death isn’t given, just that he received no injuries... But how could he even die then?”

Kiyo frowned. “Unfortunately I do not have knowledge in robotics, and neither does a majority of us. We’ll have to leave this to you three; Ryoma, Kaito and Tsumugi.”

Ryoma pondered. “The file says he died this morning, he was very much alive when we started the investigation.”

Kirumi bit her nail. “We were not even separated for a long time. I doubt the killer would have time to deconstruct him and rebuild him enough for us not to notice if anything was wrong.”

Rantaro tapped a finger on his arm. “Besides, I don’t think Keebo would have let himself being deconstructed and killed. He would have to fight back.”

Shuichi frowned. Nothing made sense. He wasn’t injured, he died when everyone was away investigating, and all of this in such a short amount of time.

“If the killer actually rebuilt Keebo enough for us not to notice it, they would at least have had tools on them and managed to trap Keebo, right?” Kaito was confused as well.

“Or they were competent enough to disable him without Keebo even being able to do anything.” Tsumugi suggested.

“Doesn’t that look too convenient to you?” Kiyo raised an eyebrow. “That would mean their plan went perfectly, and knew exactly where Keebo was going to be, and plus, out of everyone’s sight.”

“Besides, trust me when I say that there are no tools to quickly disassemble and reassemble Keebo in less than 20 minutes.” Ryoma explained.

Kaito nodded, agreeing with him.

Miu pinched the bridge of her nose. “Let me get this straight. No one would have been able to just disassemble Keebo and put him back so none of us would notice anything, but someone still managed to kill him in a span of 20 minutes?”

Shuichi crossed his arms and pondered. Mechanic or not, this was indeed impossible to pull off in such a short amount of time.

“Are we sure his death wasn’t accidental and Monokuma isn’t just messing with us?” he asked.

“Hey! Bears never lie!” The mascot yelled from his throne. “I made quite clear that one of you is responsible for Mr. robot’s death!”

Tsumugi perked up. “Responsible...?”

Kaito waved a hand in confusion. “Well, yeah? He said so earlier!”

Rantaro had a finger on his chin. “No, I think I understand where she’s getting at.”

“And that is...?” Miu frowned.

“’Killed’ means the person went out of their way to murder him. ‘Being responsible’ means that they are indeed the cause of Keebo’s death, but not necessarily directly or on purpose.” Tsumugi explained.

“... But the person would still be considered the blackened if there wasn’t a victim discovered before.” Rantaro concluded.

“Exactly.”

That put things into a new perspective. At least the person behind it perhaps didn’t want to kill him in the first place.

“So, should we assume the killer acted indirectly, not on purpose or perhaps both?” Kirumi asked.

Ryoma crossed his arms. “One theory at a time. I guess we could try the ‘not on purpose’ one since it’s most likely what happened.”

Shuichi nodded.

Angie looked up and started thinking. “Perhaps the two fought and they ended up killing Keebo instead of simply injuring him?”

“That would mean either Keebo engaged the fight and ended up getting killed in the process, or the killer wanted to disable him and accidentally killed him instead.” Kiyo suggested.

“... Perhaps the killer wanted a discussion with him and it went out of control?” Shuichi added.

“A discussion during the investigation of a murder?” Tsumugi raised an eyebrow.

Shuichi now realized how odd that sounded.

“Are you insinuating the killer knew Keebo was the one to murder Himiko and decided to talk to him?” Ryoma looked skeptic.

“But why would they talk to the killer of all people and not one of us??” Miu felt the same.

Kiyo shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it.”

“It still wouldn’t explain how he was killed.” Rantaro added.

Angie tapped her cheek. “He was discovered in the entrance hall, right? Perhaps the killer pushed him from one of the upper floors!”

Kirumi frowned. “There would have been injuries on his body if that was the case.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Ryoma interrupted. “I worked on his maintenance for some time, and his body is extremely resistant.”

“So pushing him from a higher place wouldn’t have injured his body at all?” Rantaro asked.

The small man nodded. “It’s a possibility.”

“But could that mean he had internal injuries?” Kirumi turned to him.

Rantaro looked at his monopad. “The Monokuma file says ‘no injuries were noted on the victim’s body’, so I’m a bit skeptic.”

Shuichi perked up. Perhaps...

“What if the fall didn’t break a single piece, but still derailed his program?”

Tsumugi’s eyes widened a little. “That’s... Actually plausible.”

Kaito hit his palm with his fist. “We didn’t notice anything on the circuits, but we couldn’t have seen anything if it was the program itself!”

Kiyo frowned. “However there’s something that I have to ask you all.”

They all turned to the therapist.

“Did any of you hear the fall?”

Now that Shuichi thought about it, he didn’t hear anything, perhaps because he was on the upper floors.

But as everyone glanced at each other, he realized that no one did either.

“If Keebo did fall from one of the upper floors, his crash on the floor would have been quite noisy.” Kiyo added.

“So we can rule out ‘the fall’ theory?” Angie pouted.

“I think so...” Shuichi muttered.

Tsumugi sighed. “Back to square one.”

Ryoma shook his head. “Not entirely. At least we know something was done to his programming.”

Kaito pondered. “But still... Doing something to Keebo so his program would derail without anyone hearing and in a span of 20 minutes without him defending himself looks odd.”

“And either indirectly or not on purpose.” Tsumugi added.

“Are we sure we’re on the right track?” Shuichi asked.

Rantaro was nervously tapping his fingers on the podium.

“What I fail to understand is why the second killer is staying silent.”

He was right, sort of. Monokuma would only punish the first killer... But he could understand why the killer wouldn’t want to make themselves known.

“They wouldn’t be the blackened of the case, nor executed. And if the death wasn’t intentional then I personally wouldn’t consider them a killer.” Kirumi added.

Silence.

Tsumugi was intensely thinking.

“What if the killer doesn’t know they’re the killer?”

Miu frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense, how could you not know you killed someone?”

“Then why is no one saying anything already? Unless Himiko’s and Keebo’s killers are the same person I don’t get what they would gain from staying silent!” she exclaimed.

“Let’s not get heated so soon.” Kirumi interrupted. “Let’s recap the possibilities.”

Ryoma started counting on his fingers the theories. “Either the two killers are the same person and their identity could be revealed through this case.”

“A theory we can rule out since we know the two cases are not related. Monokuma said so himself.” Kiyo countered.

“The killer doesn’t know they’re the killer, for whatever reason.” Ryoma continued.

“This doesn’t make any sense but go on.” Miu rolled her eyes.

“The person indirectly killed Keebo and doesn’t want to admit they’re a killer. That’s still a theory we didn’t explore.” he went on.

“I guess that would be possible...” Angie pondered.

“... And finally the killer didn’t do it on purpose and still doesn’t want to admit it even though we’ll have to find out in order to continue the trial.”

More silence.

“I think we can rule out the last one, right?” Shuichi asked, hesitant.

Kiyo glanced at everyone, to perhaps try and see if that was the case.

“...We can rule out the theory.” he declared.

“Although I don’t think that’s the case, I would like to add a theory.” Kirumi raised a hand.

“And that is?” Tsumugi replied.

“What about a suicide?”

Shuichi’s heart skipped a beat. “A... Suicide?”

“None of us actually had the ability to kill him in 20 minutes. But if he knows about his own program, then it wouldn’t be impossible for him to deactivate himself.” she explained.

“I don’t know who built Keebo, but I don’t think the creator wouldn’t at least add the three laws of robotics in his programming. That’s a basic thing to do.” Tsumugi looked skeptic.

Angie blinked. “The what now?”

“A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.“ she recited. It’s as though she learned them by heart.

“In other words... He should have a program preventing him from ending his own life.” she summed it up.

Rantaro hummed. “Besides, earlier, Monokuma basically said it wasn’t the case.”

...

“First off. The body discovery announcement plays only when the death wasn’t from natural causes! Which means...”

“... That one of you really is responsible for metal-face’s death!”

...

“He said ‘one of you is responsible’. He didn’t include Keebo in this.” he explained.

“Hey! Stop using my words against me!” Monokuma yelled from above.

Shuichi swore he could read a ‘watch me’ on Rantaro’s lips.

Ryoma didn’t seem to want to enter the conflict. “Anyway. The killer either doesn’t know they killed him, or they indirectly did kill him and stays silent.”

“I’ve been observing everyone since the beginning of the trial. And I think we can go on with the first theory.” Kiyo noted.

Shuichi raised an eyebrow. “But how would the killer not know about their crime?”

Tsumugi’s gaze shifted to the side, to no one in particular. “... I’ve been thinking about this theory and since Keebo is a robot that is plausible.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Kaito asked.

“The killer could have modified Keebo’s program without knowing about it, and that’s what led him to his death.” she explained.

“But still, in 20 minutes without Keebo even defending himself?” Miu countered. “We’re still talking about something impossible to pull off”

Rantaro frowned. “Hey Ryoma, Kaito, are you sure you didn’t find anything suspicious with his circuits?”

“I think saying the cause of death is unknown isn’t exactly right. From what Kaito and I have seen, his battery is completely fried, but none of the circuits looked out of place.” Ryoma explained.

Tsumugi fiddled with her hair. “So the killer couldn’t have changed anything in 20 minutes. That’s what we established.”

Kaito nodded. “Yeah... Pretty much.”

“Then how about this.” she started.

“The killer modified Keebo’s program to fry his battery even before Himiko’s death.”

Ryoma’s eyes widened, then he started thinking. “The killer modified the program before Himiko’s death... They didn’t know someone would act tonight, and the battery was programmed to die this morning, killing Keebo with it?”

“Precisely.”

Kaito remained confused. “But still, wouldn’t Keebo try to defend himself against the killer?”

“I don’t know Kaito, you tell me.” she bluntly said.

The biker almost jumped. “... Excuse me?”

“I have been informed that you were the one doing his maintenance while Ryoma and I were sick.”

He was speechless, eyes wide.

“And as far as I know, you were the one he trusted for his maintenance those last few days. Now tell me, was it accidental or intentional?”

Kaito couldn’t even say anything.

"No... I didn’t- I-” he stuttered, unable to find words to defend himself.

He nervously laughed. “Haha... That’s... That’s a joke, right?”

Silence.

“Guys... Come on... This isn’t funny...” he muttered.

Ryoma looked at Tsumugi. “You’re saying that Kaito’s maintenance went wrong and Keebo’s battery ended up frying during the investigation?”

“C-Come on! Keebo was fine this morning! T-There’s no way he wouldn’t have noticed his battery was dying!” Kaito exclaimed.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. A human bleeding to death would obviously notice their wound, but a robot isn’t designed to feel pain, so even though he was dying this morning...” Tsumugi explained.

“... He probably didn’t notice it until it was too late.”

Kaito’s grip on his podium tightened, his eyes were darting on all sides, head low so he wouldn’t have to face the others.

He didn’t believe this.

And neither could Shuichi. Miu seemed to feel the same, judging from the terrified look on her face.

“B-But even if I made a mistake during his maintenance t-there’s no way it would derail his program that much and kill him!” he exclaimed.

It looked like a part of him knew, and the other didn’t want to believe it.

But he was right on that point... Even if Kaito wasn’t the best mechanic in robotics, it surely wouldn’t have made him derailed that much, right?

Unless...

“Come on! You guys believe me, right?! I didn’t do it I swear!!”

It’s going to be difficult, but this is the only way.

This is the only theory that makes sense.

He has to make him understand.

To continue this trial and hopefully learn more about Himiko’s killer.

He doesn’t have a choice.

Argument armament start!

“That’s wrong!”

“I’m not responsible for Keebo’s death!”

“I only performed a

simple maintenance on him!”

“I didn’t try to do anything!”

"I don’t even have

the knowledge to

make him derail

that much!”

“It’s not my fault I swear!”

“You have to believe me!”

“There’s no proof I’m the one who killed him!”

“He’s a robot,

he would still

have known

if I did

anything wrong!”

“Those are just theories, you guys have to be wrong!”

“There’s no way such a tiny maintenance mistake alone could have derailed him that much!”

Flash back lights damage

“Kaito... The flashback lights already damaged him, remember? It’s possible they modified his program and it derailed just enough for a mistake to be fatal...”

“I...”

The biker didn’t have more to say. Was he finally accepting the truth...?

“I didn’t... It’s not- It’s-” he couldn’t even form a proper sentence.

“It’s not my fault, right...? I’m- I’m not the one who killed him, right...?”

This was difficult to look at. To think Kaito was responsible for Keebo’s death... It felt unreal.

Surely it was an accident, but someone’s life ended nonetheless.

He remembered when Miu tried to poison them a few days ago... It was intentional, but she didn’t end up killing anyone.

For Kaito it was the opposite. He didn’t plan on killing anyone, but ended up doing so by accident without knowing it.

Shuichi knows Miu still feels guilty over the incident and tries her hardest to make up for what she has done.

How would Kaito even act after the trial...?

Shuichi couldn’t bring himself to think about something else.

If Himiko didn’t die, Kaito would have been the real blackened and been executed for it.

But things were different from a normal case.

Kaito was going to live, and will have to feel the guilt of killing someone.

To have blood on his hands for the rest of his life.

But of course that would be assuming he isn’t Himiko’s killer.

Shuichi brushed off this thought. Judging by Kaito’s reaction to killing Keebo, surely he wouldn’t be the one who killed Himiko so brutally, right...?

“Monokuma...” Rantaro turned to the bear, visibly frustrated.

“You said you would give us details on Kokichi’s condition if we solved Keebo’s murder. Is Kaito really the killer?”

He stayed silent for a few seconds.

“... You are absolutely right!”

Shuichi felt a chill running down his spine.

“The blackened who killed Keebo is Kaito Momota, the Ultimate biker! But because of his status as the second blackened, he will not be executed for this crime!”

#ndrv3 #danganronpa v3 #ndrv3 au #beta au #main story

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thebeautyofdisorder · 4 years

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The Undone & The Divine (BBC Dracula) - Chapter 8

A/N: Okay, sorry it’s been like two weeks since I posted the last chapter. I am such a mess. This is a bit shorter, more of a set up than anything, but informative? I have so many ideas for this, that it took me a minute to figure out in sequence what’s going to happen when.

Pairing: Dracula & Agatha/Zoe, off and on Dracula/OFC

Rating: M, for blood, language, and mercenaries with guns.

Chapters 1-2 Here - Chapter 3 Here - Chapter 4 Here - Chapter 5 Here - Chapter 6 Here - Chapter 7 Here

Can be found on AO3 - Right HERE - or enjoy below the cut

Chapter 8

By all accounts he appears as a human man, at varying states of age depending upon how regularly and well he is fed, lingering even at his most satiated at around 45-50 years – presumably the age of his death. His hair is thick and inky black, kept shorter and slicked back when in public view; his nose aquiline and aristocratic; his eyes appear black at a distance but in close quarters and lighting seem to have a dark mossy-brown hue; admirable bone structure, and a mouth that is at times both harsh and jovial depending upon what impression he wishes to put across at the time. His accent is tainted by those of his victims, but always holds a slight thickness and gravel, reminiscent of his native tongue. His teeth, even when not in the state of blood frenzy, still seem longer and sharper than normal, particularly the canines. His fingernails also are long and honed to a point, and seem to be of inhuman durability and sharpness. He is excessively tall and somewhat broad, though of a generally slim build regardless of his bestial strength. No physical deformities upon the rest of his body when in his humanoid state, though his eyes can seem to gleam in the darkness like those of other nocturnal beasts.

When in the presence of human blood, those eyes dilate and become ringed in crimson, and all blunt edges of his teeth sharpen to slight but lethal points. Animalistic tendencies manifest – hissing, snarling, growling, the hunched stance of a predator, etc. Interestingly, he also seems to bare all the normative signs of the common morphine addict – tension, restless movements, irritability, the inability to control his emotions and behavior. He possesses speed the likes of which the human eye can barely detect, but only in small bursts in the midst of attack, by my witness. He was able to manifest a continual fog, as stated earlier in my narrative, and could very well be at fault for the storm swirling in the seas now, as I write. He can deform himself to fit into any small space, one could assume, though I have only seen him do this by defiling the physical forms of other living beings – notably a wolf at the convent, and the late Jonathan Harker, who was also undead at the time. Whether that’s relevant to this ability, I don’t particularly know. He can call wolves and bats to his service, and possibly flies – whether this works with all creatures and he’s merely chosen these for theatrical purposes, or if he’s limited to creatures of darkness and decay, I have yet to discover.

The ‘kiss of the vampire’ is a strong opiate, meaning most victims are often unaware of his bite or the danger they are in until it is too late. He can create and control the dream state in which they enter, often choosing scenarios of an erotic nature. Whether this is for his own amusement or because of the effect it has on the blood, I can only deduce. This method seems to be equally employed through both sexes though I have yet to see any direct indications of intercourse, willing or unwilling. If he possesses a sex drive at all, it is seemingly outranked by his desire to feed.

He is highly intelligent and possesses a biting wit, which in another context might even be endearing, and his charm is carefully honed to attract potential victims. Though his mental weaknesses are notable, including his arrogance, lack of self-awareness, and dependence on his victims to take in and retain key skills and information. As opposed to learning the language of a new land through study, he merely drains one of its countrymen and absorbs their inherent knowledge. This leads to a flurry of unpredictable behavior and reckless death, and also speaks of his impatience and lack of discipline, which has undoubtedly lessened with age. He was, in life, an excellent ruler and even better general with a skill for strategy currently wasted on petty mind games. If he could ever reach a point of managing his appetite for blood and destruction, he could be an invaluable resource - a first-hand witness to the last four hundred years of European history.

I’m sure you will, dear brother, quickly dismiss this as folly, but however much you would like to categorize him as yet another mindless demon from the pit, I assure you he is anything but. He may fear the cross, but don’t think there is a heavenly power that instilled that fear. It reeks of an entirely human weakness. You would do well to remember that, should you run across him or any of his kind in the future. While his existence seems to have been very luck of the draw, it’s nowhere near as anomalous as Dracula himself would like us to believe. Others could have survived and done what he has done. In fact, I could almost guarantee it.

Zoe read through Agatha’s words again, this particular afterward for maybe the twentieth time since she’d found it. Not for any particular information, more over just marveling at the clarity, simplicity, and dare-she-say fondness with which it was written, in comparison to the information she’d been brought up with. Shockingly, the nun was able to more realistically sum up the vampire than any other Van Helsing before or after her (granted, she had the firsthand experience), and with so much less fire and brimstone, religious nonsense. It was half of why she’d spent so long away from ‘the family business’ as it were, until she’d had to take over the institute. Science had always been the only god she would acknowledge.

Whatever logic Agatha had administered from across the pond however, while well used, had been entirely riddled with her elder brother’s showmanship and particularly Catholic brand of fending off the forces of darkness. Agatha may have seen him as the devil incarnate, but that didn’t stop her from acknowledging his humanity – and in that, Zoe couldn’t help but agree. Dracula was very much still a man, no matter how immortal or powerful, and he still had all of man’s other weaknesses, sans physical vulnerabilities. Minor detail.

She supposed it had made it easier for both the zealot and the scientist to see their subject of animosity as no better than a rabid dog that needed to be analyzed and destroyed. But that had never been the case at all. A self-serving lesson to learn, she had to admit, but an important one. So long as he had retained some of his humanity, there was certainly hope for her.

It was the only thing keeping her sane through the mock trial this experiment had turned into. Every turn she was being questioned and analyzed harder than she had since grad school, and yet still regarded as the antagonistic and dangerous party. It was a contradiction that made her genuinely question the mental capacity of her colleagues.

Yes, let's aggravate the person we're terrified of. Honestly.

Their latest critique, however she loathed to admit it, was actually sound. They needed a control. A 'direct contact' feed to compare to her bottled one, and they all knew there was only one vampire to compare to. Clearly they didn't actually expect him to participate, they only wanted to de-legitimize her process.

But it would make an impact, wouldn't it?

-----

It was just before sunset, traces of red just beginning to seep onto the surface of the sun, and for the first time in a great while, Count Dracula was unenthused. He was beginning to be rather fond of daylight, even if it came with certain disadvantages, as he was beginning to discover. Perhaps vampires were better off as creatures of the night after all.

Most if not all of his preternatural abilities were greatly weakened by the sun, though why he wasn't sure. It made him feel languid and slow, which was perfectly fine for an afternoon on the beach, but highly inconvenient when he got hungry and none of his more willing resources were available. Physical conditioning or a lesser reality of the lore he'd always accepted, who was to say?

Who indeed.

He had given Zoe plenty of space to run her little experiments without interference, aside from keeping an 'eye' out to ensure she wasn't in any immediate danger. But there was only so long that would last, and despite having ample opportunity to create more brides...he felt like he needed more answers before that inevitability occurred.

Agatha had been right, annoyingly, as usual. Lab rats were not something he needed, especially ones who could question him on topics even he didn't fully understand anymore.

If the Van Helsing women were good for anything, aside from healthy competition, it was certainly bluntness and clarity. Being the only thing close to another vampire of any mental capacity to be in his proximity for over 300 years certainly didn't hurt.

Zoe Van Helsing was someone he needed, a concept he could scarcely understand and wasn't entirely fond of, but if he wasn't mistaken, she needed him as well - and hated it even more.

----

"Dr. Helsing, is this really necessary?"

Zoe found herself staring at the younger but far more egotistical doctor through the glass that separated them with an expression not unlike one would give a particularly frustrating insect who refused to die as fast as she wished it would.

"Is what necessary?"

The man, Dr. Connors, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, punctuating his next words with unnecessary flare.

"Well, our sponsor doesn't understand the necessity of this trial, when it cannot possibly prove anything. All of our intel on the 'vampiric condition' states simply that they require blood to sustain life, but also that it's nearly impossible to kill them. Surely your continued … existence without blood doesn't fully prove or disprove anything. And without anything to compare it to…"

"For now," she interrupted stubbornly, attempting to ignore his tendency to discuss her as though she were a theoretical construct.

"Even so," he continued blandly, "There are surely better uses of our time, in the face of an increasing number of...undead. Preventative measures, protection for the innocent. Unless you can get some sort of control data…"

Their 'sponsor' had sent this idiot to report back on how his precious money was being spent, and it had become an increasingly infuriating thorn in her side. Or stake in her heart, she was sure he hoped. Zoe had just begun to second guess her tendencies toward homicide, when she felt the tell-tale hairs begin to rise on the back of her neck.

"Oh fuck me," she cursed aloud, completely indifferent to the confused looks of those observing her. They wouldn't be confused for long.

"Careful what you wish for Doctor."

Everyone but Zoe took a startled glance around. She turned around, eyes directly finding the dark ones on the outside of the glass, quirking a stern brow despite the relative chaos of everyone else receding into the corners in panic.

Count Dracula merely flashed her a shit-eating grin in response, relishing her disapproval in equal measure to the human fear beginning to fill the room. Pungent and yet satisfying, she noted, rather unhappily.

"Oh Zoe how the tables have turned," he couldn't resist prodding at her through the encasement, ignoring the guns pointed at his back in favor of taunting her, hands in his pockets. The picture of malicious nonchalance.

She wasn't trapped, as he had been. They'd learned their lesson in that regard at least, but it was a barrier she'd permitted for her own sanity. Watching everyone walk on eggshells around her was grating, and it ruined her focus. Plus, it helped with the sensory overload until she got more accustomed to it.

"And yet you're still the one at gunpoint," Zoe shot back with a hint of a blithe smile.

He turned and directed his overly fond smile towards the tattooed gentleman with the over-sized assault weapon, greeting him like an old friend. The man that Zoe had never seen with a single facial expression looked so dumbstruck that she had to fight down a laugh. This was apparently the last straw for their visiting dictator.

"Count Dracula," came more of a squeak than a shout from the bespectacled doctor's mouth, with such a forced amount of distaste that Zoe was now certain he had lost his mind entirely. "You will not be permitted to attack anyone here."

Shooting Zoe an incredulous look, mostly as she could read translating to ‘Is he serious?’, the vampire watched her answering eye roll very obviously telling him ‘He's an idiot, but reports to the money’.

Dracula finally looked away from their silent exchange, and took out a small pocket flask, not unlike the one he'd left her before, and shook it in the other man's general direction as he passed by him with total indifference.

"Not to worry, I brought my own," he stated, opening it and taking a long swig. It cleared a direct pathway for him easily, bee-lining for Dr. Bloxham who sat at the control panel. She naturally flinched on his approach, despite trying to hide it. He noticed and flashed her a charming smile, to his credit only showing the slightest hint of fang.

"Terribly sorry about the finger," the Count apologized humbly, almost convincingly sincere as he draped a long arm over the back of her chair. "...But would you mind letting me in?"

Bloxham looked somewhat confused. "You want to go in there?" Her eyes shot up to the ceiling. The sun had not completely set. He gave her an encouraging smile with a faint trace of pity.

"I would love to go in there."

Zoe merely rolled her eyes and tapped on the table with relative impatience, as he paced through the parted seas of scientists and interns alike to join her in the completely ineffective glass prison.

"You evil little thing, you didn't tell them," he accused with quiet glee as he approached her from the opposite side of the table.

"If their superstitions help them feel safe, then all the better for me," she excused in a murmur, hoping he hadn't just given the game away completely.

His grin was one of near pride, as he bent his tall form forward to rest his hands on the table. "I can go slit his throat if you want me to. Heaven knows you won't."

She sighed, not trusting herself to answer. "Why are you here?" she asked instead.

"You needed me, didn't you?"

------

Okay, so this could go really amusingly or very terribly - we’ll see what I come up with, eh? Shouldn’t be as long of a wait this time, fingers crossed.

Tag List: @break-free-killer-queen @mephdcosplay @charlesdances @punk-courtesan @crowley-needs-a-hug @hoefordarkness @bellamortislife @malkaviangirl @imagineandimagine @chelsfic @dracula-s-bride @my-fanfic-library @hyacinth-meadow @mymagicsuitcase @littlemessyjessi @desperatefrenchwriter @ss9slb @crazytxgradstudent @claesbang @mr-kisskiss-bangbang @gettingcrazyforlife @carydorse @dreamerkim @gatissed @alhoyin @girlonfireice @festering-queen @jangleprojet @guardianbelle @vampiregirl1797

Share with your friends, if anyone else wants tagged let me know!

#bbc dracula #dracula 2020 #claes bang #dracula #dragatha #zoe van helsing #my writing #the undone & the divine

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barquedanslagueuledelatempete · 4 years

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Is it not the case that the older one becomes the more life reveals itself to be deceptive, the smarter one becomes, the more ways one learns to help himself, the worse off he is, the more one suffers. A small child is completely helpless and yet thrives. I remember once having seen a nursemaid on the street pushing a baby carriage in which there were two children. The one, just barely a year old, had fallen asleep and lay in the carriage dead to the world. The other was a little girl around two years old, chubby in short sleeves just like a little woman. She had pushed herself forward in the carriage and easily took up two thirds of the space. The smaller child lay next to her as if it were a package the woman had brought with her. With an admirable egoism, she appeared not to care for anyone or anything except herself, if she could just make herself comfortable. Then a coach came down the road. The baby carriage was clearly in danger. People ran to help, but with one healthy shove, the nurse managed to push the carriage into a doorway. Everyone was horrified, including myself. Yet throughout this commotion, the little Madame was completely calm. She continued peacefully to pick her nose, her expression never changing. Presumably she thought, what do I care? It is the nurse’s problem. One will seek in vain for such courageousness in an older person.

The older one gets, the better he understands life and the more he comes to care for and appreciate comfort. In short, the more competent one becomes, the less content. One will never be completely, absolutely and in every way content, and it is hardly worth the trouble to be more or less content, so one might as well be thoroughly discontented. Anyone who has really thought through the issue, will agree with me that no one is ever granted even as little as a half an hour out of his entire life where he is absolutely content in every conceivable way. It goes without saying that more is required for this sort of contentment than that one has food and clothing. I was close to achieving it once. I got up one morning in unusually good humor. This positive mood actually expanded, as the morning progressed, in a manner I had never before experienced. By one o’clock, my mood had climaxed and I sensed the dizzying heights of complete contentment, a level that appears on no scale designed to measure moods, not even on the poetic thermometer. My body no longer seemed weighed down by gravity. It was as if I had no body in that every function hummed along perfectly, every nerve rejoiced, the harmony disrupted by each beat of my pulse which served in turn only to remind me of the delightfulness of the moment. I almost floated as I walked, not like the bird, that cuts through the air as it leaves the earth, but like the wind over the fields, like the nostalgic rocking of waves, like the dreamy progress of clouds across the sky. My being was as transparent as the clear depths of the ocean, as the night’s self-satisfied stillness, as the soft soliloquy of midday. Every mood resonated melodically in my soul. Every thought, from the most foolish to the most profound, offered itself and offered itself with the same blissful festiveness. Every impression was anticipated before it came and thus awoke from within me. It was as if all of existence were in love with me. Everything quivered in deep rapport with my being. Everything in me was portentous; all mysteries explained in my microcosmic bliss that transfigured everything, even the unpleasant, the most annoying remark, the most loathsome sight, the most fatal collision. As I said, it was exactly at one o’clock that my mood reached its peak, where I sensed the heights of perfect contentment. But then suddenly I got something in my eye. I do not know whether it was an eyelash an insect or a piece of dust. I know this though, that my mood immediately plummeted almost into the abyss of despair. This is something that everyone who has ever experienced these heights of contentment and still speculated to what extent complete contentment was possible, will easily understand. Since that time I have given up any hope of ever being completely contented in every way, given up that hope that I had once nourished, of being, if not always completely content, then at least occasionally completely content even if these occasions never became more numerous than, as Shakespeare put it, “a tapster’s [barkeeper’s] arithmetic was capable of summing up.”[1]

1 summing up: Kierkegaard quotes Shakespeare from his Danish version of Schegel and Tieck’s German translation: “en Øltappers Regnekunst var tilstrækkelig for at opsummere dem.” Shakespeare’s words are “a tapster’s arithmetic may soon bring his particulars therein to a total” (Troilus and Cressida, Act 1, Scene 2).

#kierkegaard #contentment #Bonheur

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abigailnussbaum · 5 years

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The Boys - Good & Bad

Being an itemized list of the strengths and weaknesses of the first season Amazon’s superhero show The Boys, based on the comic run of the same name by Garth Ennis, which I haven’t read.

GOOD:

The show looks good. It’s not tremendously visually inventive on the level of, say, Legion or Doom Patrol, but it’s got a definite style, and not just in the action scenes. The stagings pop, the street scenes look crisp and interesting, the boardroom scenes take advantage of the set designers’ inventiveness. There’s the requisite loss of saturation once our two main characters lose their respective love interests, but it’s not color-graded out of existence, the way a lot of other shows trying to evoke masculine despondency do. A “gritty”, laddish superhero show conjures up certain expectations where visuals are concerned, and The Boys exceeds them at almost every turn.

There are actual episodes! With beginnings and endings and common themes! I had no idea streaming shows could still do that, but The Boys is really good at finding mini-stories within its overarching plot and structuring its episodes around them (which should be a basic implement in a TV writer’s toolkit and instead has all-but disappeared). Episode 2 is about the Boys realizing how screwed they are by having captured a nearly-unkillable superhero who has seen their faces, and trying to figure out a way to kill him. Episode 5 is structured around Annie and Hughie’s visit to a superhero-themed Christian revivalist festival. It gives the entire season a more engaging structure, and pulls you along with the story in a way that most streaming shows don’t even attempt.

There are some genuinely clever worldbuilding choices that emerge from the “what if superheroes, but awful” premise. The fact that superheroes star in their own movies, for example, or that their power competitions become major sporting events, is hilarious, and perfectly conveys the sense of moral bankruptcy that I think the show is going for. And the crossover the show posits between superhero worship and white Evangelicalism is an obvious and perfect fit, tying into the latter’s barely-concealed love of power and authoritarianism. Also, there are some inventive demonstrations of how combining superpowers, limited intelligence, and corporate greed can lead to horrifying results, some funny - The Deep trying to rescue a dolphin from captivity - and some genuinely gutting - the plane crash scene in episode 4 is the queasy highlight of the season, as the viewer realizes just a few seconds before the characters do just how badly they’ve screwed up, and how horrible their future choices are going to have to be.

The cast is uniformly excellent, and pretty much everyone gets a lot of different layers to play. The highlights are Elisabeth Shue, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, and Tomer Capon (bit of hometown pride here, but it’s easy to see why he’s such a well-regarded young actor in Israel), but pretty much everyone is good and interesting to watch. Even Karl Urban, who gets the show’s most thankless task - he has to carry most of the story while playing its least nuanced character - manages to infuse some humor and complexity into Billy.

There are a lot of interesting, complex relationships, the top one being Homelander and Madeline Stillwell. As a character says near the end of the season, it’s a relationship that is “hard to quantify” - does he want to fuck her, or kill her, or be her child? Does she want to control him or does she genuinely get off on his desire for her? Other relationships are less fraught - Frenchie and Kimiko are incredibly sweet together - but still a lot of fun to watch.

The show seems to understand that at the root of almost every villain, and certainly privileged ones, is childishness. You see this in the way The Deep sinks into self-pity after experiencing the consequences of his sexual assault on Annie, or the way A-Train becomes obsessed with blaming Hughie for his girlfriend’s death, even though he’s the one who killed her. You see it most of all in Homelander’s resentment of Madeline’s baby and the attention she lavishes on it. It’s simply stunning how openly envious this grown man is of a months-old infant, and it makes every scene the two share almost unbearably tense, because you’re just waiting for Homelander to snap and kill the baby. Which ends up much more effectively conveying the point the show is trying to make than the sudden shock of him actually doing it would have - the fact that this character would clearly feel themselves justified in killing an infant, and is only holding back because he knows there’ll be a fuss, is the sum total of the show’s criticism of absolute power.

(This emphasis also justifies the show’s insistence that Hughie is redeemable, because though he starts out quite immature, he does grow, unlike the superpowered villains. He starts the season killing a super who hasn’t really done anything to him, just for the rush of it, and ends it saving the life of the super whose selfishness destroyed his world, because he’s actually realized that his are not the only problems that matter.)

Someone seems to have realized that having a female (Asian) character whose name is simply The Female is an absolutely terrible idea, and the show gives her a name as soon as possible. There’s also hints that she may be regaining the power of speech.

BAD:

The use of violence - and particularly sexual violence - against women ends up privileging men, even when those men are the perpetrators. Both Hughie and Billy are motivated by the loss of the women they loved, and in both cases the show plumps for the classic approach of single scene featuring the love interest being angelic, and doesn’t bother to shade either of them in or give them a personality or a chance to speak on their own behalf. And even when the victim is a main character, as when The Deep assaults Annie, the focus is much more on him than on her. Annie processes her trauma in a scene and a half, and it ends up being folded into her overall dilemma over how to be a superhero. Whereas the Deep spends the rest of the season coping with the consequences of his actions and folding them into his general lack of self-esteem. While there’s the germ of an important point there - just because this guy has problems of his own doesn’t justify his assault on another person or make him particularly tragic or compelling - the show’s insistence on going back to that well, even as the season approaches its climax, is simply baffling.

This feels, in fact, like a smaller component of the show’s broader problem with sexual ethics, the fact that it seems to have no way of distinguishing between sexual behavior is depraved, and sexual behavior that is just weird or maybe a bit kinky. Like, the fact that the Deep has consensual sex with dolphins is not worse than, or even equivalent to, the fact that he assaulted Annie. The fact that Homelander prematurely ejaculates when he and Madeline have sex isn’t a worse reflection on his character than the fact that he may have raped Billy’s wife. And yet those cases are treated as equivalent by the narrative. It ends up feeling profoundly anti-sex, rather than anti-sexual-violence, an impression that is only intensified when Annie and Hughie - the show’s sole “good”, loving couple - have sex that is completely vanilla (and despite Hughie’s earlier assurances that he isn’t intimidated by Annie’s strength, he still ends up being the dominant one in bed, and she even lets him be on top). It also prevents the show from any serious discussion of the one aspect of sexuality that is unique to its setting, the possibility of supers inadvertently hurting their human partners. The scene in which Popclaw crushes a man’s head between her thighs is the nadir of the season precisely because it’s played for laughs, for that “aren’t we outrageous” vibe that everyone told me the comic was suffused with. When actually you could do something interesting and character-based with it, if the show actually cared to.

(Having said all this, I do think that the show is a lot better on the subject of sexual violence than it could have been, and a lot better than the source material might have dictated. It feels significant that - with the exception of the aforementioned Popclaw scene - we never see any act of sexual assault on screen. We see Homelander and the Deep scoping out their victims, Rebecca Butcher and Annie, and maneuvering them into a position of vulnerability. And we see the aftermath of the assault for both victims. But we don’t see the act itself, in a series that is otherwise perfectly happy to depict consensual sex, even if it judges anything resembling kink. I also thought the handling of Queen Maeve, as a woman who has lived for years under a sustained campaign of sexual harassment, was extremely powerful - again, the focus is on how the abuse twists the victim up and makes them feel powerless and alone, not on any overt act of violence.)

I really don’t get why I’m meant to care about Billy Butcher. It’s not even that I don’t like him - I just find him completely uninteresting. He works as an engine of plot and a way to inject chaos into the other characters’ lives (the repeated device in which he authoritatively promises to solve the team’s problems, only for the show to cut away to him alone, wearing an expression that makes it clear that he has no idea what to do and is about to make everything worse, is pretty funny and effective). But as a character in his own right and with his own story, he just feels too one-note and monomaniacal for me to care about. I care what happens to MM and Frenchie and Kimiku and Annie and Maeve. I even care a little what happens to Hughie. I simply can’t bring myself to give a fuck about Billy.

I don’t see why I should be rooting for Hughie and Annie to make it work. It’s great that he feels she helped him rediscover his moral compass, but in the meantime he lied to her, used her, and concealed the fact that he had murdered one of her teammates from her. Annie has the right of it when she hears his confession and replies “the thing is, I don’t care”. It would be one thing if their reconciliation at the end of the season was more of an ethical one, a case of Annie choosing to rescue Hughie and the Boys because she knows they don’t deserve to die, not because she forgives him. But I got the impression that we were meant to read it as a romantic reconciliation too, which Hughie hasn’t even come close to earning.

If you must have interchangeable Middle Eastern terrorists as your go-to, killable background villains, doesn’t it seem obvious that there should be at least a few positive, named Middle Eastern characters in the foreground? (I suppose Frenchie might count? But given Capon’s heritage, he could just as easily be a Sepharadic Jew, which doesn’t really avoid the problem of Islamophobia that the show cheerfully blunders into.)

The plot kind of loses the thread towards the end of the season, partly, I suspect, because of the need to set up characters and plot points for season 2. It’s a particular shame because the plotting had been so strong in the first half of the season.

The sound mix is terrible. It should tell you something that I even noticed this and worked out the right term to use for it, because I’m usually completely illiterate on these matters. But after the millionth time you’ve had to raise the volume during a dialogue scene, then immediately lower it during an action scene, you start to wonder if there isn’t something wrong.

Overall, this is a much smarter, more interesting, and more entertaining show than discussions of the comic had led me to expect, but I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t benefitting from the fact that we’re so saturated with superhero stories right now. There’s less pressure to be the one subversive superhero story, which leaves The Boys room to be more character-focused, and to use superheroes as more of a metaphor for the corrupting influence of power and the evil of corporate overreach. Its supers feel a lot more like generic celebrities - A-Train is an anxiety-ridden athlete; Annie is a pageant kid; Maeve is an aging movie star whose career and soul have been blighted by ubiquitous sexual harassment. Characters who are genuinely set apart by their superpowers, like Homelander, are in the minority (and even in Homelander’s case it turns out his psychopathy has more to do with having been raised in a lab).

Basically it feels like the people who adapted the comic saved it by telling a story that is much more generic than the original, which may be entirely to the good. But I do wonder whether the second season won’t veer further into exactly those parts of the show that I find least interesting. The final scene seems to suggest much more of an emphasis on Billy’s manpain and his conflict with Homelander, and the introduction of superpowered terrorists threatens to move the show away from the criticism of power that made the first season work.

#the boys #this was a lot better than i was expecting #while still having enough flaws #that i can easily see it falling apart in season 2 #still #if you were holding off because of the comic's reputation #the show is a lot smarter and more nuanced

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canardroublard · 5 years

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TMFU, Gaby’s fashion, and some feminist film analysis

Back when I slapped together a reblog post about the men’s fashion in The Man From UNCLE in between physio appointments, which somehow got like way more notes than I ever really expected or even wanted, I didn’t address the fashion of the lead female character, Gaby. It was outside the scope of the OP, and I didn’t feel like I had anything new or interesting to say about Gaby’s fashion, or lack thereof.

(My beta says those earrings are the ugliest thing ever. I disagree. It’s a wonder we’re still friends)

Anyways, we see only one brief scene of Gaby in her own street clothes, and a slightly longer sequence of her in her work clothes. The rest of the film, she is wearing clothes chosen for her by Illya. Saying “we just don’t have enough info” is a perfectly reasonable approach to this. So this was the other reason I had no intention of making this post.

But then people started getting interested. Someone reblogged commenting about Gaby’s fashion, and I discovered that I have very strong opinions about something I’d previously claimed was unknowable, and it made me wonder what was going on in my brain.

Then I talked to some other TMFU friends who all seemed interested in what I assumed was common knowledge/nothing unique. So, they may have been feigning interest out of politeness, but it activated the art history side of my brain, and here we are now!

The boring stuff but please read this

I am not attempting to tell anyone how to interpret this film. I am not even trying to change people’s minds or persuade them to my thinking. All I am doing is sharing my thought process. I wasn’t even going to do this for Gaby until people asked. To this end, please don’t attempt to argue with me about this. I don’t want to argue. I won’t respond to it. If you disagree, then please, just move along.

And I’m going to remind people that I love TMFU. I love this movie so much it hurts. Why am I putting this reminder here? Because I am about to apply some critical analysis to it, and in places this will be cynical, and it will not always look kindly on the film. If you just want to exist in a happy “I love TMFU!” bubble and not hear anything less than 100% positive about the film (which is a totally valid choice, I don’t fault anyone for that), then don’t read. But don’t yell at me for being mean or criticizing the film, because I warned you.

Tldr; or, if I were still being graded for this stuff here’s my thesis statement

When analysing Gaby’s fashion, there exist considerations which don’t apply to the male characters. Namely, she is a woman and the male gaze is a thing. So I am very, very wary about taking at face value any expressions of traditional femininity in the choices made for her outfits, hair, makeup, etc. Therefore, when considering her character, I find it much more useful and informative to give more weight to the aspects of her appearance which do not connote traditional femininity, rather than those that do.

For readers who have studied enough media analysis to follow my thought based on that alone, there’s the thesis statement, y’all can go home (or at least skip to the end where I come to a conclusion). If you’re lost, then read on.

(mobile readers, the cut here might not work, and if so I apologize for what is going to be a very long post. Tumblr’s “keep reading” functionality is inconsistent at best, but I tried)

Context is for kings essential for analysing media in a meaningful way

(Or, some brief background. Stick with me here, we’ll get to the good stuff soon)

So, art doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Attempting to analyze any artwork (in this case a film) while disregarding the culture it was created in and the intentions of the creator is...not going to get you very far. Asking “what is art” is a question that quite frankly exhausts me at this point (looking at you, Duchamp) but the closest I’ve ever come to an answer is that the only thing that separates art from everything else is intent. And intention only exists within cultural context. So yes, intent and context don’t just matter peripherally, they are one of the biggest considerations one needs to make when analyzing works of art. The creator in this case being Guy Ritchie et al, the culture being British/American Popular Cinema in The Year of Somebody’s Lord Two-Thousand-And-Fifteen.

Everyone views and creates (if applicable) art through their own distorted, murky, imperfect lens of personal experience. And one of the most persistent Things in western art is that cishet men create art based on their experience of Being A Dude. This is crucial, because this lens of cishet male perspective literally underpins almost all of western culture including popular culture. And thanks to feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, we have a name for this.

The male gaze and you

I’m going to quote Wikipedia here, because honestly this intro sentence sums things up rather neatly (with one exception which I will address momentarily).

In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer.

What does that all mean? That the Viewer and the Artist are both cishet men by default, and any women are Subjects of art. Women are viewed, never viewers. Men take action, women are subjected to actions. Furthermore, women are supposed to be pleasurable to view. By men. Since the Viewer is male by default.

But I would disagree that the pleasure is inherently based on women being sexual objects. That’s honestly a really damn limited read on the whole theory, and it’s one that Wikipedia itself contradicts later in the article. More broadly, cis men also derive other forms of pleasure from the presentation and viewing of female bodies, including aesthetic pleasure (the enjoyment of looking at beautiful things).

The theory of the male gaze is not without limits. As originally theorized, afaik it’s not particularly intersectional. It doesn’t really address queer perspectives or perspectives of POC. However, these issues are something I just can’t address here, unfortunately. And when looking at popular media, I still find the concept of the male gaze, imperfect as it may be, is a helpful means of analysis, so it’s worth having in your toolbox.

Circling back, the easiest way to sum up the male gaze, if you’re still not super clear on what it is, is with a demonstration.

Ever seen a shot like this in a movie?

And did you immediately roll your eyes? Feel gross? Congrats, you have just perceived and reacted to the male gaze.

Now we actually get back to TMFU

But the male gaze also shows up in many more subtle, insidious ways than fanservice-y boob shots. For this post, let’s focus on the following considerations, which might help everyone follow my thought process more clearly.

Gaby is a woman

She functions as the love interest of Illya in the script (I am not talking from a shipping perspective. What you ship does not matter for this discussion. I am talking about the narrative function of Gaby in the script as written. Put on your “cishet man” goggles for a moment)

Illya is a man who is attracted to women, specifically Gaby (again, I don’t care if your shipping conflicts with this. I am analyzing the film based on a literal reading of it as if I were a cishet man. Why? Because that’s who made the film. That’s who it’s “for”. I am all for queer readings of film--hell, I ship OT3, I myself have chosen a queer reading for how I interact with it, but I’m not critiquing people’s readings, I’m critiquing the film itself and to do that I have to critique its intentions and cultural context.)

Cishet men are traditionally only allowed to be attracted to women who are conventionally attractive. If they were to be attracted to anyone else it would destroy their fragile senses of self and their heads would explode or something. At least I assume that’s what must happen, based on how terrified they are of it.

Therefore, Gaby must be conventionally attractive, because it is literally required of her or otherwise the whole underpinning of western straight malehood crumbles and then where would we get such a pure, vast source of unadulterated toxic masculinity?

(Yes, this is a very cynical read on things. I’ve studied, like, three centuries worth of this bullshit. I’m tired. Let me be cynical.)

Or, to force myself to be less cynical, Gaby has to be pretty because...nope, this is still going to turn out just as cynical.

But what I will say in favour of this movie is that it gives Gaby and Victoria both a lot of agency and general awesomeness, which is quite unusual in this sort of big-budget action film, and it’s one of the big reasons I love it. I’m not saying that the entire film is sexist. On the contrary, there’s a ton of stuff to celebrate about how it portrays its female characters. But these aspects don’t change the cultural context, and we still have to consider the impacts of the male gaze.

Anyways, point being is that as filtered through the male gaze, Gaby is never given the option to, say, wear no makeup (or the appearance of such, as the guys are afforded, this being cinema where “no makeup” still means makeup) because that would look “ugly”. Instead she needs to have a “baseline of pretty” which is way higher than reality because she is not a real human being with her own agency, she is a character created by a cis male writer/director team in a film directed by a cis man in a genre that caters to cishet men.

Gaby doesn’t exist in a vacuum. She exists battling centuries and centuries worth of sexist convention.

Now then, remembering all of that, let’s actually look at her. There are woefully few good pictures so I’m going to have to piece things together a little. Starting with the coveralls.

This is a great look, I love it. And I’m going to give Ritchie a lot of credit here because it would’ve been easy to go for a “Michelle Rodriguez in F&F sexy mechanic lady” look. In case I need to provide a visual:

(Repeat above gif about rolling my eyes)

Now, to be clear, I am not making any judgement about the way any real-life women dress. I’m sure there’s plenty of female mechanics who have their hair down and wear tank tops while working. That doesn’t bother me. I don’t care if real life mechanics choose to do their jobs in a string bikini. Or in cosplay of the bee from Bee Movie. I don’t care (and quite frankly it’s none of my business) because they are real people who can make their own decisions. But what I am talking about here is a fictional character who does not have her own agency. I am critiquing how male creators choose to dress their female characters.

So I personally choose to read much more into the unpretty aspects of Gaby’s outfit, because these are not the “obvious” or “easy” things. Obvious and easy are “of course she wears makeup” and “of course her hair looks good” and “of course she doesn’t look like a swamp witch who bathes in mud and spends her days cursing passing men”. Those things don’t challenge or disrupt the assumption that women must look attractive for male consumption.

Gaby’s introduction to us is with her in a pair of grease-stained, baggy coveralls, not wearing any obvious makeup (again, this is cinema, so she is wearing makeup. For cinema the goal posts around “wearing makeup” always need to be moved from where they’d be irl). There’s very little here that screams ‘pretty’. And that is fascinating to me.

I don’t know how deeply Ritchie thought this through when giving final approval to the costume, hair and makeup. But unpretty is not the default here. It’s a choice

And look at this. This is the stance and dress sense (and socks!) of a woman who does not give a damn about looking good for the male gaze, whether the in-movie gaze of Napoleon, or the implied gaze of the viewer and creator. It’s not ‘pretty’. And this is the only time in the film we see Gaby in her own everyday clothes, as she only escapes East Berlin with the literal clothes on her back.

So how do I think Gaby dresses? I think that for the most part she dresses....like this. Practical. Comfortable. With a few simple touches of things she likes/finds pretty, perhaps, but not with a specific interest in being pretty. She dresses for herself, not for others. And if that isn’t something to aspire to, I don’t know what is.

#gaby teller #tmfu #the man from uncle #meta #costume design #male gaze #fashion #thank you to michael bay for providing me with such a good example of the male gaze

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kadywicker · 5 years

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endgame Thots spoilers ahead...................................

.......................

..............................

so honestly i think the quote that best sums this up is thor’s quote about stopping trying to be what’s expected and just being who he is. i’m aware that characters are written and ultimately the writer controls what happens BUT i think that perfectly sums up the difference between character arcs & in character actions.

everyone is complaining about thor and steves arcs and it’s like..... arc wise yes thor shouldve been king & steve shouldve acclimated to the future. but arcs are ALSO written and most of the time characters are forced into situations and it’s a completed character arc bc it rhymes/it’s poetic/it completes a cycle. BUT that is not the same thing as a character doing something in character. steve WANTED to go back and live with peggy. thor WANTED to explore the universe away from duty. maybe they didnt complete specific arcs that everyone expected but... they’re being who they are. in contrast to that you have tony who WANTED to stay with his family but chose to sacrifice himself & this completed his character arc beautifully. but those two kinds of ends for characters are not at odds with each other and one is not automatically bad writing bc the other one exists.

that being SAID here’s some more general thoughts

thors appearance was p bad im gonna be honest that was like. the one uncomfortable thing to watch

i literally sat there bawling and hiccuping when tony died like..... im an iron man stan now and im so fucking sad what the FUCK

the whole theater lost their collective minds when carol showed up & then at the end when t’challa showed up which just shows you where everyone is

but the MOST applause was when steve used the hammer. my hands hurt from clapping. everyone was screaming.

whats the deal w peter??? like he went back to school & in homecoming all his old classmates are there like did his entire class get snapped fhasdfsdf

a bitch was crying about scott and cassie what the fuck

MORGAN????????????

FUCKING MORGAN OH MY GOD THAT POOR SWEET BABY. SHE WAS SO CUTE AND ILOVE HE R RR R AND TONY IS SUCH A GOOD DAD? HELLO?

the scene where all the mcu ladies go to beat up thanos healed my gay heart and idc if its pandering i want it

HOWEVER the promised gay rep was THE stupidest thing ive ever seen in my life like i get that disney sucks but dont promise smth amazing and build it up and then have it be some random fucking man at a group therapy session

loki................... he just straight up left hfasdofsfd is he okay out there

VALKYRIE GOD I AM. SO FUCKING GAY YOU GUYS. HER HAIR? MAAM???

also im a bit confused on the time travel thing? they said it wouldnt affect their present if they went to the past & established that its different timelines. but then.... how did steve end up old in the future? i mean this isnt a major gripe though ANY show dealing w time travel literally always has time travel plot holes so if i see u guys saying this means its bad writing im gonna lose my mind. time travel is impossible for a reason (unless its to the future but even then its bc of time dilation) and its gonna end up w plot holes when ur trying to write a show w it

am i the only one that got the “blue meanie” reference? tony said it about nebula and my obscure knowledge from being a misguided 12 year old obsessed w the beatles. came in handy. blue meanies were the villains in the beatles movie yellow submarine. theyre these motherfuckers.

I LOVE YOU 3000...............

i never cared abt clint or natasha but wow that shit hurted

literally the entire funeral scene was the worst thing that ever happened to me i sat there sobbing so hard my throat started hurting

i am iron man...................... u sure fucking are man :(

SAM. GOT. THE SHIELD. SAMS CAPTAIN AMERICA BITCHES WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUCK HELLO????? IM SO HAPPY. I WAS HOPING FOR THAT

bucky looked pretty for his 3 seconds of screentime

im as much of a st*cky fan as anyone else but did you guys truly think disney was gonna do that like....... if u think the movie sucks and is bad writing bc ur ship isnt canon u r gonna have a real bad time watching just about anything. i get being upset abt queerbaiting bc there was a bit of that wrt cast interviews and writer interviews but in the actual movies like...... it wasnt gonna happen idk what u guys expected :/

also fanfiction still exists u cant let canon stop u from having ur own imagination like u can literally write WHATEVER u want. half the fandom still writes 2012 avengers fics where they all live in the same tower. its fine. its okay. the actual movies arent the be all end all u can choose ur own adventure

HE WENT FOR THE HEAD

tony & peter hugging was so much for me and im so fucking sad right now yall. and peter telling him goodbye. ouch! he looked up to tony even if that was misguided at times

also i didnt care abt tony and pepper either and here i am. caring. endgame truly just made me Care.

gamora is BACK & her being her past self and missing is just fodder for quill/gamora fanfiction i cannot WAIT to see the next guardians movie and watch them fall in love again.

i love nebula so goddamn much what the fuck. daughter.

i personally dont care for steve/peggy and in my own personal headcanons and preferences im gonna do away w that whole...... thing bc i dont personally like it but it still isnt really bad writing imo & guys hes been in love w peggy from the start that cant be shocking now

SAMBUCKY RISE...........

on your LEFT everyone also lost their minds on that one i think thats when they started losing it and then when tchalla showed up the screams went even louder and i think everyone was just screaming for 2 minutes

i know i already said it but I LOVE YOU 3000. FUUUUCK ME

pepper as iron man was sooo fucking good she better take up the mantle like ooooh fuck. oh my god. that was amazing and i love her sm

okay okay i think that sums it up im done now but anyway endgame is good & most of the ppl complaining are just the type of ppl that like to Hate Absolutely Everything bc its edgy and cool to be like that. go see it. form ur own opinion. dont feel obligated to follow the masses (at least on tumblr. everyone else seems to love it lmfao but theyre not pressured by this website to act like everything is Bad and Terrible) & be bitter about it. like what you like and take out what you dont like it is That Simple. its a good movie

#endgame spoilers #avengers spoilers #a4 spoilers #avengers endgame spoilers #tagging every spoiler tag ive seen and can think of so no one gets fucked bc this is a lot

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creative-type · 5 years

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The Murder of Arthur Wright XII

First Previous AO3

Chapter Twelve: The Thing About Elves

“That &%$#@$# fired you?”

Margot nodded. She was tired, having not slept well the night before, and had been ready to put the whole disaster behind her. Monday was a new day and a new week, and she was more than ready to start afresh.

A surprise invitation to lunch at one of her favorite restaurants didn’t change that, and Margot forced a smile. “The best I can say about the whole thing is that it’s over and done with. How was your last job?”

Lyra propped her chin on a hand and studied her in a way that made Margot’s stomach flutter. She was still in her armor, and was likely to ship out for a job later in the afternoon. They had so little time to see one another during the height of the mercenary season. Margot didn’t want to waste it complaining.

“Tell me you at least cussed him out,” Lyra said imploringly.

“I couldn’t do that,” Margot said.

“You mean you shouldn’t do that. You’re more than capable of dressing down some #$$%@&$,” Lyra said. She narrowed her eyes. “But what about the detective? It sounds like he’s eyeballs deep in a mess.”

Margot stirred her tea absentmindedly. She heard their waitress laugh with another table, and briefly her thoughts turned to Viola Cassetti. She shook that image away.

“I don’t know,” Margot said honestly. “After Mr. Wright left things got pretty heated between me and Cain.”

“Tell me.”

Something about Lyra’s tone startled Margot back to attention. Lyra’s gaze was intensely focused, never once wavering from Margot, not even when someone behind her dropped their drink and shattered the glass into a hundred pieces.

She wanted to know. Margot couldn’t quite hide her surprise in time, and Lyra’s lips quirked into a crooked smile.

“Please?”

Margot laughed at the absurdity of it. “Well, if you insist. It goes like this…”

“I can’t believe it,” Margot breathed. “The &%$#@$# fired us.”

She turned to Cain, but he didn’t seem to see her. He was left staring at the place where Felix Wright had been standing, jerky stick dangling limply from his lips.

“I told you to stay away, Cain. You never were good at listening.”

Margot whirled to see a man leaning against a doorway labeled Harris. He was a tall, lanky man with reddish-brown hair in bad need of trimming and a two-day old beard. There was a vindictive spark in his eyes that Margot didn’t like.

“Who’s he?” she asked.

“My boss,” Cain said tersely. “Took over after Mr. Westmacott left.”

“Al Harris, at your service,” he said, extending a hand. “You must be the professor that I’ve heard so much about.”

“And yet I’ve never heard of you,” Margot said. Harris’s grip tightened for a fraction of a second, and Margot pulled back as soon as was polite.

“Ah, well, Cain’s always been a bit of a glory hound. Not that I blame him, really, but this time it looks like he’s really bitten off more than he can chew. Ain’t that right, Cain?”

Cain didn’t answer.

Harris smirked. “Anyway, unless I’ve gone blind and deaf this Wright case is done for good. There ain’t no reason for you to stick around, Professor. If you’ll excuse us, I’ve got work for Cain. Good, solid work that’ll put food on the table and coin in our pockets.”

“This isn’t over,” Margot said. She turned to Cain. “Is it?”

Harris shot Cain a significant look that made a muscle in Cain’s jaw twitch. His chest swelled, as if he were drawing a breath to argue, but something in his employer’s gaze made him stop. He deflated like an old balloon, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “Give me a minute, boss.”

Cain jerked his thumb back to his office, and a confused Margot followed. He rested his head against the door after closing it, knocking his hat right off of his head. He made no move to retrieve it.

“Why didn’t you let him go?”

The plaintive question caught Margot off-guard and it took her a moment to realize he was talking about Felix Wright. “We needed answers.”

“We needed him on our side,” Cain snapped. He whirled towards her, as angry as she had ever seen him. But even in his anger he kept his voice low as he said, “Wright was the only reason I was able to work this case at all, and you cheesing him off was the last straw.”

“Don’t you dare blame this on me, Dashiell Cain,” Margot said. “It’s not my fault your client is an overgrown child with an inflated self-importance. Honestly, at this point in time it wouldn’t surprise me if he killed Master Wright himself!”

“You think I don’t know that?” Cain demanded. “Gods, I knew he was a pretentious blowhard the moment I laid eyes on him. But he was my client, and part of this job means keeping you client happy or else I don’t get paid!”

“Is this what this is about? Money?”

“Look at me, Professor!” Cain said, gesturing at his cramped office. “I’m not like Mr. Westmacott and this isn’t some penny dreadful. I’ve lost income working this case because I believed that—“ He cut himself off suddenly, his face screwed in impotent frustration.

“It doesn’t matter. I…thank you for your help, Professor. I wouldn’t have made it this far without you. But this is the end of the line. There’s nothing else I can do.”

“But what about the Wrights?” Margot asked. “What about the Cassettis? You’ve drug me into some bad situations without me knowing. What are you hiding?”

“I’m sorry. You won’t have to worry about any of that stuff again. I won’t be bothering you any more.”

Cain held open his office door for Margot. The anger was gone, leaving misery in its place. “I need you to leave. Here, I promised I’d give you these.”

Margot wanted nothing more than to argue as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled sheets of paper that held Master Wright’s research notes. She took them wordlessly, knowing that nothing good would come of it. She suspected that he was already in trouble with his boss, and it said a great deal that he was willing to part with Master Wright’s precious research willingly. Even after everything he had put her through with mobsters and murder investigations Margot didn’t want him to lose his job.

She gathered herself to leave, and as she passed made a point to look him dead in the eye.

“This isn’t over, Cain. Not by a longshot.”

Lyra listened thoughtfully to Margot’s entire tale, and when she was finished took a deep draught from her drink. When she set it back on the table she asked, “So what’s next?”

“I don’t know,” Margot said. She didn’t much like admitting her own ignorance. She tried to wash the bad taste out of her mouth with a drink of her own. “I feel like there’s so much I don’t know.”

“Like what?”

“Well, Cain for one,” Margot said. “He seemed so earnest when it came to this investigation, but if he’s tangled up with the Cassettis…”

“And it sounds like he is,” Lyra said.

“…Then I need to step lightly. I did some research on them last night, and it wasn’t pretty.”

Lyra hummed in agreement. “What else?”

“The dynamics of the Wright family don’t make any sense to me,” Margot said. “It seems like everyone hated him except Abigail, and she’s dead. Even his own wife didn’t seem all that put out at his funeral.”

“Makes perfect sense to me.”

Margot quirked an eyebrow, and Lyra grimaced. “If grew up with elves, I promise it’d make perfect sense.

Margot waited for her to continue, but she only took another drink and looked like she wished it were of the alcoholic variety. When Lyra realized Margot was looking at her she seemed to retreat into her armor, a look of sour displeasure on her face.

“I’ve only worked with elves in a professional capacity,” Margot prompted gently. “I would like to understand, if you’d teach me.”

For a moment it looked like Lyra would refuse, and Margot would have been content not to pressure her. She knew precious little of Lyra’s life growing up, except that it was an unhappy experience. It wasn’t her place to force Lyra to talk about it—even indirectly—if she didn’t want to.

Instead Lyra sighed, and with deft motions plucked the salt shaker off of the table and unscrewed the top. She dumped the contents on the table and drew a crude rectangle with a finger.

“So pretend this is Elvish society. All the little boys and girls are told from the moment they’re old enough to understand that they have to grow up to fit into this box, and if they don’t then they have no place. Women’s job is to get married and have babies, magic is the greatest area of study, the goal in life is to improve your social standing, and so on and so forth, ad nauseam.”

There was something close to bitterness her tone, hidden beneath a mocking lilt. She drew a trapezoid over the rectangle. “Of course it’s impossible to fit perfectly into the box because it’s an ideal. It doesn’t actually exist—not that that doesn’t stop people from trying, but whatever. Most, with enough pressure and social training, fit into a shape that’s close enough. They are the quote-unquote ‘normals’.” She wiped away the picture and drew a new rectangle, this time drawing a circle over top.

“Then there people who just don’t fit. Sometimes by choice, sometimes it’s by nature, but they’re outcasts. There isn’t a place for them in society. And when this happens there are three potential outcomes.”

Lyra wiped away the edges of the circle that went beyond the rectangle. “Conform, cutting away whatever parts of yourself that don’t fit.” She wiped away the salt again, and this time drew a separate rectangle and circle. “Leave and try to rebuild a new life for themselves somewhere else. Hopefully somewhere where they can find people who accept them for who they are.”

She paused, her voice strangely thick. Quietly, Margot prompted, “And the third outcome?”

Lyra looked up at her, her eyes burning like a fierce green fire. “They break.”

She wiped the salt away, the line of her mouth set in a grim line. “I guess if you were to sum it up in a word it would be rigid. There isn’t much opportunity to deviate from the norm, whether its your social class or gender role or anything else. Which works out well enough if you fit in, but if you don’t...”

Lyra let her voice trail off and she shrugged. Margot hated seeing her so unhappy, and after a moment of hesitation she placed a comforting hand on top of Lyra’s. Her eyes widened in silent surprise.

“Thanks for trusting me. It means a lot.”

“Yeah, well, whatever.” Lyra’s cheeks flushed pink. “Can we please talk about something else? Like, anything else?”

Margot laughed. “You never did tell me about your last job. Your letter mentioned something about winged horses?”

Margot was still thinking when she returned to her office. She had never given much thought to Elvish society before. There had really been no need. She of course knew of elves reputation of vanity and self-importance, but had never put much stock in it. She knew and worked with plenty of elves that were nothing like their stereotype. Lyra was as far removed from the ideal of a prim, proper, young woman as day was from night.

But stereotypes had to start somewhere, and if Lyra was right then there was an enormous pressure on the Wright family to fit into an idealized picture of a perfect family. It seemed like Felix conformed, Desdemona left, and Abigail…well, based on what Margot knew Abigail broke.

There was another option that Lyra hadn’t mentioned, but whether that was because she hadn’t considered it or didn’t think it possible Margot didn’t know. Change. It was inevitable in every culture, including one as rigid and unyielding as an elf’s. Social mores of all kinds were constantly being challenged, broken, and reshaped over time.

Margot sighed quietly to herself as she sat heavily behind her desk. A spark of magic reheated a cup of stale coffee. There was so much work for her to do that had nothing to do with Master Wright or Dashiell Cain, but she couldn’t bring herself to it. She couldn’t let this go unfinished.

A flick of the wrist Conjured a pen, while another Summoned a scrap of parchment. Margot began writing everything she knew about the murder of Arthur Wright, and when she was finished she began to organize her thoughts. Unanswered questions were listed on a separate sheet of parchment.

What she came up with was this:

Ten years ago Master Wright leaves a teaching position at an elvish university to pursue his research full time, the same year Desdemona runs away from home and is subsequently disowned after allegedly stealing a substantial amount of silver from the family manor. Shortly after, Felix’s engagement dissolves and he becomes estranged from his father before venturing off to start his own business, becoming involved the Cassettis and meeting Isabella along the way.

Despite taking considerable risks and possibly engaging in illicit activity, Felix Wright is successful. He and Isabella are married, and the couple are welcomed back into the good graces of the family. Though he never completely reconciles with his father, Felix begins working with Master Wright.

Three years ago Abigail Wright commits suicide, and Master Wright hires detective Conan Westmacott for a case that includes tailing his disowned daughter. Dashiell Cain watches Desdemona with little fanfare until the day she approaches Westmacott for a meeting of unknown importance.

Days later Mr. Westmacott unexpectedly retires. Cain becomes a full-fledged detective, and also runs afoul of the Cassetti crime family.

In the months prior to his death, Master Wright begins a correspondence with me regarding my paper on the divergence between the scientific and magical properties of elements, and uses it as an additional safeguard on his life’s work. A safeguard that goes beyond the traditional norms of magical experimentation.

Days before Master Wright’s death Mr. Westmacott returns to Cain’s office an unopened note of thanks that reignites Cain’s interest in the case, leading him to sneak into the mage’s conference to see what he can find.

The night before unveiling his life’s work to the public, both Master Wright and Felix attend Anansi’s show, in which the illusionist makes several references to Desdemona Wright. After the performance Master Wright goes to demand an audience with Anansi while Felix gets drunk and plays cards. The latter doesn’t return to the hotel until after two o’clock in the morning while Anansi claims he never spoke with the former in any capacity.

Felix makes a scene with the hotel staff and is rescued by his father. They argue, and after Felix retires to bed while his father continues working.

The day of the mage’s conference Master Wright is distracted and irritable, forgetting that he had invited me to the unveiling. Desdemona is seen shortly before the explosion by Cain, who manages to sneak his way into the conference. An unknown, catastrophic failing causes a thermal runaway reaction, causing the teleportation device to overheat and explode, killing Master Wright and injuring Felix Wright.

Desdemona’s whereabouts after the incident remain unknown.

Cain’s connection with the Cassettis remain unknown

Felix’s connection with the Cassettis remain unknown

The Cassetti’s interest in Master Wright’s research remain unknown

The details of the case that led to Mr. Westmacott’s retirement remain unknown

The sender of the thank you letter remains unknown

The circumstances surrounding Abigail’s death remain unknown

The reason Desdemona ran away remains unknown

Anansi’s reason for performing the Death of Desdemona remains unknown

Whether Master Wright confronted Anansi remains unknown

The exact cause of the explosion remains unknown

Margot stared at the parchment and rubbed her forehead. There were too many unknowns and not nearly enough answers, so many that she was nearly overwhelmed by looking at them. All this time she had been running from one place to the next, but the only thing she had succeeded in doing was bring up more questions.

A sharp knock at the door snapped her out of her reverie. Hurriedly she slid the parchment into the pocket of her dress and took a bracing swig of her stale, now lukewarm coffee.

“Come in.”

Margot expected the door to open to the friendly face of Ford or Hikaru or any one of her colleagues at the Academy. What she got was the proud, regal personage of Adeline Wright.

Still in deep mourning, Master Wright’s widow swept into the office with the grace of a black swan. Grey eyes that missed nothing scanned the modest interior with vague disapproval before tracking back to Margot. “Good afternoon, Professor. I do hope you’ll forgive me for calling unexpectedly. I have much to discuss with you that cannot wait.”

Without waiting for an invitation she took a seat opposite Margot and folded her hands across her lap. “I don’t wish to keep you from your work, but I have been speaking with my son.”

“Oh?” Margot said, masking her surprise with another sip of coffee.

“It seems that the death of his father has led him to several…indiscretions. I would like to apologize on his behalf. I’ve already spoken to Mr. Cain, but I feel like the gravitas of the situation requires me to discuss the matter with you as well.”

It took a moment before Margot realized what Mrs. Wright reminded her of. On more than one occasion she had had the misfortune of dealing with the parents of unruly students, begging for a chance at a passing grade or a second chance after they had been kicked out of her class.

Margot had a feeling that Mrs. Wright wouldn’t do something as undignified as beg, but she didn’t doubt that there was an ulterior motive for her presence in her office. Margot wondered what it was.

“Felix is a grown man, Mrs. Wright. Surely he can make his own apologies.”

“My son is not well. He is at home convalescing after his distressing ordeal, an ordeal he would not have had to endure if not for the machinations of yourself and Mr. Cain,” Mrs. Wright said. The corner of her mouth turned with displeasure. “After all, it was you who put in his head that his father was murdered.”

She cut Margot off before she could protest. “My son is grieving. Whether from ignorance of malice, you and Mr. Cain have taken advantage of him while in a vulnerable state. Both of you ought to be ashamed of your outrageous behavior and grateful that I do not intend pursue the matter further unless forced.”

Mrs. Wright paused. She studied Margot, her grey eyes cold and calculating, and when she spoke her tone was frigidly polite. “I am willing to overlook your emotional manhandling of my son, but this sordid business ends today. My husband died in an accident. A tragic, horrible accident that nearly took the life of the one you are so desperate to accuse. And in return for my silence, I expect you to keep yours.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow,” Margot said.

“Then allow me to speak plainly: If you continue to sully my son’s good name I am willing and prepared to fight fire with fire. One word, Professor, and I will ensure you become a persona non grata within the academic community. With my connections there’s not a school in the country that would hire you.”

Margot blinked, and slowly leaned back in her seat. There was a part of her, the contrarian that wanted to do nothing more than do what she was told she shouldn’t, but in the back of her mind she heard Cain’s voice.

Some people need a light touch, Prof. You need information, not to scare her away.

“I apologize if I’ve caused you any great distress, Mrs. Wright, but your son hired Mr. Cain because he thought the accident might be more than an accident. Don’t you want to be sure?”

“My husband is dead,” Mrs. Wright said, her voice hard as flint. She lifted her chin imperiously and asked, “Do you have children, Professor?”

“I don’t.”

“Then it is impossible for you to understand. Now that my husband is gone my love and duty is towards my children, and I would see Felix and Isabella succeed in society. The idea that Arthur was murdered is an insult not only to my husband’s memory but to the proper authorities who are investigating the accident.”

“Have they found out why the teleportation device exploded?” Margot asked.

“Whether they have or haven’t is none of your business, Professor,” Mrs. Wright said. “None of this is your business. Again I repeat myself: I will overlook you and that orc’s disgraceful behavior as a token of thanks for your heroics at the mage’s conference. All that I ask is that you leave my son to grieve in peace.”

Mrs. Wright rose to her feet, leaving the or else implied but clearly understood. She spared Margot one last, withering glare, before spinning primly towards the door. “Good day, Professor.”

She left, and Margot let out a breath. She felt like she’d just survived a whirlwind.

“What to do, what to do, what to do,” Margot murmured to herself. She finished the last of her coffee and retrieved her notes from her pocket, grateful that Mrs. Wright had not seen them.

Margot stared at the pages for a long while without really seeing, her interaction with Mrs. Wright churning in her mind. Did she truly believe Master Wright’s death was an accident? Was there something she knew? Had the official investigation turned up any answers?

She held up Master Wright’s formula. The pages were crumpled and worn from repeated foldings and spending extended periods of time in Cain’s magical pocket. If she could just understand them…but no. Even decoded, a large portion near the center of the pages was blank, likely representing the areas of Master Wright’s notebook that were destroyed in the explosion.

Mrs. Wright had been perfectly clear. If Margot chose to pursue this her career was at risk. She had little doubt Mrs. Wright had the clout to make good on her promise.

The thing was, Margot didn’t much like being told what to do, and the only thing Mrs. Wright had succeeded in was reigniting the spark of curiosity that had led her to allying with Cain in the first place.

With a flick of the wrist Margot Conjured a pen, and scrawled on the bottom of her list of unanswered questions

Mrs. Wright’s whereabouts at the time of the murder remain unknown.

#The Murder of Arthur Wright #daughter of the lilies #dotl fanfiction #creative-type writes #margot

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sowhatsleftt · 5 years

Text

Chapter 1

Heat, noise and people: that sums up pretty well what Camila remembered about that night. It wasn’t usual though, especially for her, to remember about a summer night out with her friends during college. But that one was hard to forget.

The brown-eyed girl sat on the sidewalk with her legs crossed, resting her weight on her arms, her hands pressed firmly against the ground.

“You know guys, if we leave now we might hit Pizza Hut before it closes.” Camila said checking the time on her phone screen. “We won’t get in this club anyway.”

That was probably the seventh time she tried to make her friends give up the idea of getting into this party across the street which its line was about to turn around the corner. It was extremely hot out there, and she could see people getting out of the club to smoke dripping in sweat. Besides, they had been there for at least two hours and the line didn’t even seem to move one step.

She knew it was one of the most amazing parties of the summer break, but was that necessary? Besides, she was settled to just keep drinking on the sidewalk with her friends and observe people getting out of the club too drunk to walk by themselves.

“Mila, we all know why you don’t wanna go inside.” That was Hanna, her best friend. She was blond, blue-eyed and seemed to just have walked out of and plastic surgeon’s office, but she never even stepped at one. “And I can’t blame you, but let’s just see how this goes, maybe the people in line will just give up.” She shrugged it off, taking a sip of her beer. “Besides, we’re in New York. Pizza Hut it’s 24/7.”

“Whatever…” the brunette rolled her eyes and sighed. Hanna was right, Camila did have a reason why she didn’t wanna go inside besides the two hours line and the people all wet. But she was defeated, eventually she would have to face the reason. She just sighed, accepting her loss and finished the beer in her hand.

“Wait… So that’s why she’s complaining about this? Is Sasha inside?” Lucy, the other friend said chuckling. She was two years older than them, but took the same classes as Camila and Hanna in Med School “I thought you were over her!” She admitted, handing a new beer to Camila.

“Well, she was.” Hanna raised her eyebrow, “Until they made out last week.” She spat flatly.

“Oh no…” Camila shook her head.

“WHAT?” Lucy almost screamed, while Hanna was laughing, but didn’t look surprised though. “Why I didn’t hear about this?”

“See? That’s why we can’t have nice nights out.” Camila shoot a piercing look to Hanna, “We just slept together last week, it wasn’t that big deal… really.” She confessed trying to get rid of it.

“Really? So why don’t you wanna go inside?” The eldest in the group asked. “It’s not that I don’t wanna get in… I just don’t think we will even be able to get anywhere close to that door.” The brow-eyed tried to explain pointing to the line, even though her friends just stared at her knowing it was an excuse.

“What did she say to you?” Hanna asked suspiciously, knowing that there was more to it than Camila was letting out.

“Oh my god… She didn’t say anything, ok? Guys, can we just talk about something else, please?” “That’s why you didn’t come to the bar with us last week, wasn’t it?” Lucy asked excited, looking like she had just discovered the wheel. “You get so weird when it comes to someone you’re sleeping with…”

“Ok, Scherlock, are you done?” The youngest scoffed, hearing Hanna burst into laugh. “It didn’t mean anything, I would say it was a relapse, that’s all. We’ve all had those.” “I don’t remember hooking up with any of my teachers… but yeah, perhaps you’re right.” Lucy mocked her.

“Ok, in my defense, I thought she was a student.” Camila raised her hands in defense.

“Yeah, she’s right… I thought so too.” Hanna pointed.

“Me too, until we walked into her Anatomy class…” The brown-haired returned.

“Do you remember Camila’s face?” The blue-eyed remembered excitedly after taking a sip of her beer. “Oh my God, I thought she was going to vomit.”

“Yes!” Lucy answered laughing out loud. “Sasha’s look was precious too, even though we had never seen her, I could tell she wanted to get herself into a hole right there.”

“And we thought they wouldn’t hook up anymore… It’s been what? A year? And they still do!”

“No Hanna, it’s been one semester… And we don’t.” Camila clarified and checked her phone once again.

“It seemed like a year to me.” The eldest admitted.

“Same…” Hanna agreed and finished her beer, placing it’s can aside. She looked at the line across the street and groaned “Ughh, will they ever give up? I just wanted to dance for five minutes.”

“You and those sixty people standing there.” Lucy pointed.

Camila glanced at the line and sighed, she didn’t know if it was a relief or a worried one. The youngest girl knew it wasn’t a good idea to face Sasha with the amount of alcohol she had running in her system right now, for both of them. The whole thing was so complicated she didn’t even know how it started, let alone if it was finished. The only thing she knew was that the longest she managed to avoid her teacher, the better.

The thing was, Camila was 21 now and she knew that it wasn’t illegal or something, but her issues with her teacher felt like an impossible thing to handle. Even though she thought she was much more conscious about her actions now than 6 months ago. But being a medicine student, everything got really intense for no reason. Being away from her family, from her friends, living alone for the first time, college demanding all her time and she couldn’t afford to lose her scholarship because she knew her parents could barely afford her living New York. Everything seemed to be just too much.

The 21 years old girl was just thankfull for having friends like Hanna, Lucy and Ash around to help each other go through everything. She knew how much difference they made on each other’s life, even though they could be a pain in the ass mocking her sometimes, they were always there for each other.

The brow-eyed girl took a deep breath and heard her best friends talking about this final test they had last week. Camila’s eyes found something more interesting though, something she had missed since they were sitting there. Standing in the line waiting to enter the club was this brunette girl, all dressed in black, her long hair tied up in a ponytail, and even though it felt like a hundred degrees out there, she had a black leather jacket on. She was different from the other girls there though, she looked quiet and focused. Her eyes seemed to be looking for something, or someone. Camila couldn’t see much, but she could see her eyes. They were extremely green, not to mention intense, and she could feel it from all those meters away. But not in a romantic way, more in a real fact way.

The brunette standing in line didn’t seem to notice anyone beside her, she just kept looking for something, but being extremely subtle about it. In fact, Camila wasn’t sure if that the green-eyed was part of the line, because no one else seemed to notice her standing there either. The people over there were way too drunk to be conscious about anything.

Camila could tell that the girl was worried about something, because despite being subtle, she was growing anxious. She kept pressing something on her ear, focusing her look on different places and talking very short phrases to herself. The observer knew it because no one there was taking to her, or even looking at her.

The next scene lasted no longer than 60 seconds. As if she knew she was being observed, the brunette stared back at Camila, her eyes lingering there for the next seconds. Camila froze, but couldn’t break the eye contact, her eyebrows frowned because she couldn’t really point at it, but something about that scene was way too intense. The girl in black stared like she already knew her, but Camila would definitely recognize someone that looked like that. Even so, there was a possibility that they could have met some day that Camila was too drunk to remember, because those days existed a lot, just not in Camila’s memory.

She didn’t really had time to think about it, because the other girl staring at her broke the eye contact to press on her ear again. Now Camila could tell, she was definitely listening to someone, with those mini hearing things inside her ear. The green-eyed stared at her again, this time her face looked even more serious and a bit worried, looking like she wanted to tell Camila something. But the girl sitting on the side walk remembered thinking that maybe she was just too drunk and imagining the whole thing.

Camila took a look at her friends for a second, to check if she was the only one watching that scene, maybe they could assure her that she wasn’t that drunk, but they were too deep into a conversation about how much damage wheat made to your brain. Camila decided that they all had to much alcohol.

Like I said, the entire scene lasted about 60 seconds, but the following events seemed to last an entire lifetime. Just when Camila looked back to the club and tried to find the brunette again, she was gone. And the brown-eyed girl had this weird feeling in her body, she didn’t have time to share it with her friends though. Just when she was about to talk, a terrible loud sound came up, followed by screams.

The three of them were thrown away in their backs with the explosion. Camila felt everything hurt when she tried to get up, laying down again in reflex. She could smell the smoke and hear the screams and cries as she tried to understand what was going on. She heard Hanna say something, and that’s when she managed to open her eyes.

Just when she did, the first thing she saw from a few meters away was the brunette in the leather jacket again, standing outside the flaming club. The green-eyed looked exactly like before, her hair perfectly tied up, her clothes didn’t have a single scratch, unlike everyone else beside her. She had the same expression on her face, but now instead of worried she seemed angry, looking through all the people who were trying to run away from the flames. A few seconds later, her eyes found Camila’s through all the black smoke coming from the club. Camila saw it when she skipped a breath, looking guilty when recognized the girl laying on the floor. Camila didn’t understand why, but the green-eyed seemed to be both sorry and relieved.

They kept staring at each other, the brunette standing across the street trying to look for any sign that could tell Camila was okay, as she kept glacing between the brown-eyed and everyone hurt around her.

Hanna was the first one to manage to stand up when her instinct finally overcame her pain. When she saw Camila awake she quickly bent over to help her get up. Camila stood there and watched the green-eyed again, not really putting together how she could look so clean and undamaged.

“Mila! Help me!” Hanna called out when she saw Lucy unconscious on the ground and the brown-eyed rushed over the pair to help.

“Lucy, c’mon! Wake up!” The youngest tried to call, but she wouldn’t respond.

A few seconds later they started to hear sirens approaching as they tried to wake Lucy up. Camila searched for anyone that could help, but everyone who wasn’t laying down hurt was running away in fear of another explosion. Her eyes found the brunette again, but this time she looked extremely different.

Her green eyes were back to focus on something, and again she didn’t even look like she realized where she was or the chaos happening around her. She found Camila again, but this time their eyes met for just a second. When the firemen cars got her attention, Camila turned her head to find out the brunette was gone again. All Camila could see was the chaos, people running around, people unconscious laying on the street, people screaming, and too much smoke coming for the giant hole on the club wall.

Heat, noise and people. That sums up what Camila remembered about that night.

5 years later

It felt like ten elephants had stepped on Lauren’s head, that would be the only explanation for all this pain she had going through her entire body, specially her head. She had this twinge in her skull so strong that she could feel it throbbing. Her eyes were still closed because she was afraid of what she might find out once she opened them, since she couldn’t remember where she had fell asleep. Her hands slowly made their way to massage her temple, not really understanding if that was a nightmare or something.

That’s when she felt something hanging from her pulse, slightly touching her chin. It was minimal but, believe me or not, it made her shiver way more than all the pain she was feeling. Lauren slowly opened her green eyes to find out that reality hurt even more than the bruises on her eyes.

“Well, fuck…” She grumbled, taking a look around to check the hospital room. “Shit.” She complained and brought her hands to cup her face. “Shit, shit, shit.”

She couldn’t believe that was happening. She didn’t even know how she got there. And she must have been there for quite a while now, judging by the catheter in her arm, the bandages on her legs and the medicine bag hanging beside her bed was half empty, which she assumed to be going through the catheter. How could she have slept through all of this? But Lauren couldn’t afford to worry about this right now, because she definitely had somewhere else to be.

Speaking of which, her eyes quickly glanced to the nightstand beside the bed, hoping to find if any of her belongings could by a miracle be standing there.

“Of course not.” She mumbled to herself. Even so, if her equipment got to the hospital with her, she would probably be handcuffed to her bed right now. And Lauren honestly didn’t know which option she preferred. Maybe handcuffs wouldn’t be that bad…

“Oh, so you’re talking! That’s good!” Someone entered the room with a big smile, noticing that Lauren was awake. She assumed it was her doctor, with this clipboard and a pen in her hand and a stethoscope around her neck, the edges falling down her chest. She didn’t even look at Lauren, just went straight to examine the meds hanging above the bed. “Well, I assume the pain hit you by now.” She concluded and finally turned around to face her patient.

Lauren couldn’t think about anything else that wasn’t a curse word when she recognized the girl wearing the white medical coat. She remembered about her; it was the girl standing across the street five years ago, right before she blew up the club. She remembered it because she spent most of her life working to improve her memory. Apart from cursing to herself, Lauren also prayed that maybe by a miracle this girl wouldn’t remember her.

She wasn’t really convinced, but the doctor stared at her for a few seconds, her eyebrows frowning, probably trying to remember where they had seen each other. Lauren knew that back then, they had stared at each other for like five minutes or so, but she also knew that she looked pretty guilty of what happened, not that she actually was, but because she could see the other girl trying to look for her when the police came up.

“Ahm… Not really.” Lauren lied.

“Sorry, what?” The doctor snapped back from her thoughts, staring down at the patient again.

“The pain, I’m not really feeling anything.” The green-eyed remembered. She frowned, looking down to her body as if she was looking for what could be hurt.

“Are you sure?” The doctor asked concerned and grabbed a small flashlight from her pocket. She pointed to Lauren’s pupils one at a time, slightly lifting her swollen eyelids with her thumb. Lauren nodded, trying to prevent to show any pain when she touched her face. “You look pretty hurt.” She said truthtfully.

“I’m positive.” Lauren assured again. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.” She tried her best to look convincing.

The brown-eyed girl grabbed her pen again, and took a few steps closer to the patient’s legs. She pressed the tip of it on Lauren’s shin, “Can you feel this?” She asked and the other girl nodded. “And this?” She asked pressing on the other leg and Lauren nodded again. The doctor grabbed her stethoscope and examined Lauren’s chest for a few seconds. “I mean, you don’t have a broken bone or something, but this should hurt.”

“I’m fine, really.” Lauren reassured, “I guess you just did a great job.” She shrugged it off, her shoulders almost screaming by themselves in pain when she did it. “When can I get home?”

“Well, first things first. I’m Doctor Cabello, but you can call me Camila.” The girl extended her hand and the other took it quickly, squeezing it. “I need to know your name since you didn’t have any documents when they brought you in and no one came looking for you.”

“I’m Sara, nice to meet you.” Lauren lied again, but she was used to it by now.

“Okay, Sara… What happened to you last night?” Camila finally asked.

Last night? Lauren’s stomach twisted; she had been there for an entire day? She was so fucked. Then she started to remember what happened to her last night, she had been so upset with the hospital thing that she completely forgot what brought her there in the first place. Needless to say, her mission had completely failed, but why? How did she end up so hurt? She remembered easily entering the building, letting the Central know by her communicator, they responded that she had back up if needed and that they were watching everything through the camera on her uniform. All the doors were locked, obviously, but she had no trouble going through the rooms. That’s when she thought something was off, because since Lauren got off the helicopter on the roof, she hadn’t seen anyone inside the building. She reported it to the Central and was told that they were probably in a meeting or something. She thought it was odd but didn’t say anything. She kept transporting through the floors until she found this glass room. Lauren remembered pulling out her gun when she saw something move from the ceiling to the floor. When she realized it was too late to even escape, she had been breathing that gas since she entered the room. That was the last thing she remembered.

“I fell.” That was all she managed to say, her eyes still lost in all the memories.

“You fell? From what? A plane?” The doctor tried to joke, but the other girl didn’t even listen. “I mean… Are you sure that’s what happened? Do you remember everything?”

“Yeah, sure…” That was the first time the doctor saw her look different, not having that serious look on her face anymore. “I’m sorry, I fell down the stairs… They are switching the floor at my place, I must have tripped or something.” She shrugged.

“Ahm… They said somebody found you on the street.” Camila confessed with a worried look.

“I’m sorry, my head is kind of dizzy, it must be the meds.” Lauren clarified, “I remember it, I went for a run and must have fell down the park or something.” She corrected and sat up straight for the first time. “Can I go home now?”

Camila giggled and observed the clipboard in her hands. “I’m afraid you can’t, at least not until your observations hours are over.”

“But I told you, I’m fine.” The green-eyed shared again, “Can’t you just give me a prescription?”

The doctor shook her head no, “I will but, just that won’t do it. That’s the hospital policy.”

Lauren sighed, “And when will that be?”

“In seventeen hours.” She answered glancing at her watch. “It would be twenty four hours but they can only discharge you in the morning so… Try to enjoy yourself.” The doctor said with a small smile in an attempt to change the mood. She saw it had no effects on her patient though. “Look, is there something I should know?” Camila asked seriously.

“What do you mean?” Lauren froze, what if she remembered about her? Or what if they had found her equipment? The agent knew she could get out of hospital in a second, in fact, she wondered what she was still doing there, but she couldn’t really erase her doctor’s memory, even if she wanted to. And if by any chance she got suspicious of something, that was Lauren’s ass on the line.

“I mean, did someone did this to you?” The brown-eyed woman said in a concerned low tone. “A boyfriend, maybe?” She went on, “I’ve seen this, we can call the cops, they know how to handle it and…”

Lauren let out a small sigh in relief, “No, that was me.” She assured reliably. “I assure you that no man could have done this to me.” And she really meant that.

“Are you sure? Sara you can trust me, you’re really hurt, they can catch whoever did it.” The doctor looked so certain that Lauren whished she could believe her.

“I’m sure, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Okay then…” Camila backed up a little and examined Laurens forehead cautiously. “This is healing pretty well, have you ever had any stitches before?”

Stitches? What did they even do to her? “Yeah… a few.” Lauren confessed.

Before the doctor could respond, something bipped on her waist, it was this little thing that looked like a gps or something but instead of maps, it had words on the screen.

“I gotta go, but I will check on you later ok?” The brown-eyed said and checked the med’s bag again. “This should be over in a few hours, but I will tell the nurse to come change it soon.”

Lauren shook her head quickly, “You don’t have to, really. I told you I’m okay.”

“That doesn’t mean I believe you.” The doctor said smiling as she made her way to leave. “You should see how you look.” She arched an eyebrow and stopped by the door. “I mean, it’s okay considering everything, but still…”

Lauren laughed for the first time and nodded, “Was that a compliment?”

“Just press that button if you need something okay?” Camila said, pointing to a yellow button beside Lauren’s bed and saw when she nodded. “See you later.”

She left before Lauren could answer. The girl was funny, Lauren thought. And she was almost sure that she didn’t recognized her from that night five years ago. Also, for a few minutes she made Lauren forget the reason she was there, this could be dangerous though. The green-eyed sighed when she realized she was alone, how could she even let this happen? How could the Central let this happen? And why did they let her end up at the hospital? She could have been easily treated back home; they had the newest medical technology available and probably the most excellent doctors of the country for this reason. Something just didn’t make sense. All the facts just started to pop in her head, remembering about last night’s mission. She must have missed something.

But she should just solve this back in the central. She carefully pulled the catheter out of her skin and found her black clothes folded resting on the drawer. She got up quickly to get them, but just when she was about to change she saw the door knob twisting. Without even thinking she teleported to the bathroom. She heard somebody get in and prayed not to be anyone from The Pact.

“Hey, are you in there?” She heard someone knock on the bathroom door.

Lauren sighed in relief, it was a nurse “Yeah, I’ll leave in a second.” She responded.

She wasn’t really planning to go back there, but she wouldn’t alarm the nurse just 5 seconds after the doctor had left her room. She would wait the nurse leave and teleport to the central, she already knew which hospital she was in from the sheets on her bed so that helped.

“Okay then, someone left this package for you at the reception, so I’ll just leave on your nightstand.” The nurse let her know and probably left when she saw Lauren didn’t respond.

How did anyone know she was in there? She just lied about her name. The green-eyed got so curious that she had to see what it was, and who sent it. So she got out of the bedroom when she didn’t hear anything else. The first thing she saw was this sunflower standing on her nightstand. Lauren approached it until she saw this little card placed between it’s leaves.

She thought about it for a few seconds before picking it up. It could be a trap, but she was so curious that she had to open. Obviously she regretted as soon as did. The agent brought a hand to her face and sighed, not really sure of what to do next. She kept glancing between the card and her black clothes on her bed.

She took one last shot at the card before making a decision that she knew she would regret soon. “Fuck it.” She mumbled and ripped the card that said:

“Get well Soon Sara.

And don’t leave.

- Love, dad”

#if i could stay #camren #fanfiction #fanfic #camrenfic #lauren jauregui #camila cabello

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SnK Chapter 108 Poll Results

The poll closed with 1,200 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

RATE THE CHAPTER 1,159 Responses

While 4’s outnumbered the 5’s for only the second time in a year, 85% rated this chapter good to excellent. The average score for this chapter was 4.08 out of 5.

dude the art in this chapter!!! i said it once i'll say it again, totally unreal. The art was on point, and just overall this was a breath of fresh air after the head swirling exposition flashback-extravaganza that 107 was.

So many things are going to happen and this chapter was not the calm before the storm but maybe like the storm before the hurricane.

Isayama binging Game of Thrones is paying off. This set of conspiracies on top of conspiracies, with so many parties involved, is just building up to an explosive finale.

First chapter since the suicide charge that’s made me cry.

Great chapter with misleading hints on the upcoming horror that awaits Paradis

It was a very great chapter that combined events from numerous sides perfectly. Wasn't too rushed or too slow either. Although the 104th development is very depressing…

As usual, another chapter with lots of answers and yet I feel like I'm more in the dark than ever. Damn, Isayama sure has a way to keep the questions burning and the plot twists coming!

Why can't answers ever be answers in this series?

Got me shooketh. Eren bb what u doin?

WE’LL GET TO THE DETAILS OF THE 104TH FLASHBACK IN A MOMENT, BUT ASIDE FROM THAT, WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE PART OF THE CHAPTER? 1,168 Responses

The 104th flashback was the favorite fandom moment! The crew blushing at each other got almost a quarter of the vote followed by the “who takes the titan” love fight. “All of the above except Zevi” came in a respectable third.

Christ Gabi's so gonna be mindfucked if she hears DauperGirl's backstory about how Sasha saved her and also Dark fucking Connie I asked for some relevant screentime for him but come on Yams nOT LIKE THIS

I didn't know I could love Jean more, but boy I was wrong

I'm just glad Sasha isn't forgotten, we always have flashbacks of her and now that Gabi and the girl Sasha had saved stumbled upon each other... Well i just hope that if someone gets killed in the woods it isn't one of Sasha's family

let me tell you how absolutely thrilled I am to see Armin driving that train. I am always into watching this boy devour new knowledge and apply that shit. Both his engineer parents would be so proud if they weren't, you know, dead and all.

Armin driving, the Springles dumbception, Mikasa carrying like six or eight times my weight's worth of railroad spikes, Mikasa's ponytail, Mikasa blushing!!

Levi pointing out his team-mates height was kinda funny.

The GabixFalco moment is all I live for

Why weren’t the guys all shirtless while working on the railroad?

Levi was holding a mug normally. unacceptable.

THE 104TH FLASHBACK WAS FILLED WITH SWEET AND SHIPPY MOMENTS. WHICH WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 1,160 Responses

30% of respondents got the warm fuzzy feelings over everyone’s interactions with each other in the flashback. 17% loved seeing the 104th protecting each other from inheriting Eren’s titan, and at a near tie, Springles arguing about who’s a bigger idiot and Eremika’s blushy glance came in third.

Eren confessing his love and being a cutie pie

Jean immediately settling down after Armin gives an explanation. LET ME LOVE MY JEARMIN MOMENT TOO OK

Eren telling everyone he doesn't want them inheriting the titan so they can live long lives

THEY HIT ME WITH SPRINGLES IN MY FACE AHHHH WHY

Don’t really care too much about it.

The glorious foreshadowing of commander Kirstein

I really loved the sweet blush moment between Eren and Mikasa. I thought that everything was lost and Eremika was only an annoying ship created by WiT. Now Isayama decided to give Eren and Mikasa a little more light. I doubt something will happen between them because of Eren's action, but I see that Mikasa is very important to him.

WHAT IS YOUR THEORY ABOUT THE WINE? 1,159 Responses

Almost half of respondents speculate that the wine has some of Zeke’s spinal fluid in it, with about a third believing that it’s poisoned. If anything, most of the fandom agrees that something is fishy with that bottle...

Oh, right. The poison. The poison for the MP, the poison chosen especially to titanize the MP so Zeke can play his 4d chess game, the MP's poison. That poison?

As much as I want to say "it contains shifter spinal fluid," wouldn't the shifter spinal fluid disappear when it makes contact with the air like other Titan spinal fluids? Yeah, I feel a bit skeptical to see the wine is poisoned with titan spinal fluid, but I can see why fans are speculating it in light of the recent events.

I didn't think anything was up with the wine at the time I read it, but I've seen all these cool spinal fluid theories drifting around and now I want in on that.

IN VINO VERITAS

Nicolo spit in it.

its filled with the tears of the fandom

IS THE PREGNANCY A FAKE? 1,166 Responses

“Fake idk, but all this is fishy as hell” sums up a lot of responses. Close to 60% of the fandom thinks the pregnancy is authentic, 8% believe it is a fake, 30% are unsure.

She may be pregnant, but obviously not in love with the guy

I wish it were, but I'm sensing strong "Ymir reborn" vibes from all this mess so I dunno.

Pregnancy fake? Nah. Daddy reveal fake? I think so!

I'm starting to think it was Eren who suggested it, but because he needed to extend Zeke's lifetime (I'm still convinced the jaegerbros have something wild up their sleeve).

We don't really have enough real information yet to understand her motivations. There is definately something fishy going on though because I just can't see Historia doing something like this out of nowhere. Giving birth puts her at risk of dying, thus leaving Paradis without a queen. Also surely she has not forgotten Ymir and the promise she made to live her own life. If the pregnancy is indeed real then I hope we get real answers soon because I am so confused right now...:/

IF HISTORIA IS PREGNANT, WHAT IS HER MOTIVATION? 1,150 Responses

Almost 1 out of every 2 people think Eren had a hand in Historia becoming pregnant. Nearly a quarter of all respondents think Yelena worked her voodoo magic and basically forced Historia to become pregnant to prolong Zeke’s life. 1/6th thinks Historia left the Greek isle of Lesbos and actually wanted to have a mini-me with farmer-kun. An even smaller part thinks she’s not even pregnant at all.

Eren doesn't want her to become a titan at all as it would pretty much repeat the entire thing that the Reiss family used to do with passing down the Founding Titan every 13 years, I think Eren wants to protect Historia from becoming a titan at all

Eren used the power of the Founding Titan to manipulate Historia to have a baby for an unknown reason.

I think *she* doesn't want to become a titan, ever, so she's using this as a delay until Eren can do something.

I'd say politics and delaying the inevitable.

She wants to be a hero of the Eldians and be remembered as someone who sacrificed herself for them

Imma be real with you chief... I can't say yet. Too many conflicting options, considering the possibility of a fake pregnancy

DOES HISTORIA HAVE FEELINGS FOR FARMER BOY? 1,144 Responses

With nearly 65% of the votes, most people do think Historia is using farmer boi, while around a fifth of all respondents thinks they are in fact working together and the pregnancy is just a ruse. A mere 10% thinks they are actually in love.

As much as I wished that they had at least become friends and agreed on the pregnancy for some secret reason, what we saw so far of Historia makes it look like it's much more likely that she is indeed using him.

He's a willing conspirator due to his old guilt, regardless of the status of the pregnancy

I don't think she is using him, but she is not in love either.

It's complicated

She is using him to hide that Ereh is the dad.

The only person Historia loved and felt strong bond with was Ymir. She may like the farm boy but I highly doubt she is in love with him.

these questions are hard.

Wouldn't that be the twist no one is expecting? Someone in AoT actually fell in love and started a family?

WHO IS THE CLOAKED FIGURE WHO APPROACHED HISTORIA? 1,137 Responses

Half of respondents believe that Eren was the hooded figure who approached Historia. 33% believe Rogue’s theory that it was Yelena. A small percentage believe that it could have been Hange. Armin, Levi, and Floch were also popular write-ins! Quite a few people are also hopeful the ghost of Ymir came to have a chat with her.

I have no clue, tbh. But I think it's someone we don't expect yet.

Creeper in the bushes! Red herring!

idk honestly. Probably a random MP spy we will never see again.

I DONT FUCKING KNOW AND ITS KILLING ME

I have a feeling the cloaked figure is a red herring, maybe just a random person working at the orphanage.

I like the idea of Armin being the cloaked figure but idk what to think at this point, we really need Historia's POV.

If Historia truly is pregnant, I think the cloaked figure is just Rogue's imagination. If she is faking pregnancy, I think the figure is Eren.

Isayama

Ymir's ghost

HOW IMPRESSED WERE YOU WITH NILE STANDING UP FOR HISTORIA? 1,163 Responses

We’re happy to report that more than 50% selected “Bless this man for existing” when Nile stood up in defense of Historia.

Nile Dawk is underrated

Rogue is a dick

It was nice to see Nile again :D

IF THE SURVEY CORPS HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO TRY A DIPLOMATIC ROUTE FIRST, WOULD THE ATTACK ON LIBERIO STILL HAVE NEEDED TO HAPPEN? DO YOU THINK WAR WAS INEVITABLE? 1,144 Responses

We’re a pessimistic bunch. 64.2 % believed war was inevitable, but the many of the write-ins expressed that the attack on Liberio was not inevitable and probably made a bad situation worse.

How can you go for the diplomatic route when you're too underexploited to be either steamrolled by Marley or colonized by Hizuru?

I think conflict would be inevitable but diplomacy would've mitigated the damage dealt. It would've sparked off but I think in a different manner.

I think war was inevitable and the strike was necessary but I don’t feel great about Eren’s unilateral actions.

Invitable or not choosing the war path before anything else is never and will never be the right way

Liberio may not have happened, but the world was never going to accept paradis anyway and would have eventually attacked

My heart bleeds bc I think Eren done fucked up but a tiny voice in the back of my head is like 'what if eren and zeke really have the One True Master Plan after all and just can't/won't share any of it to take the burden themselves h ah ah pain one can really know war is inevitable until it breaks out.

Probably. If War still happened after a surprise peaceful meeting, they may have gotten sympathy from the public.

There has to be some universe in which war is not inevitable. Nothing controlled by people should be considered inevitable until it's happened.

War was sadly inevitable, but the attack was not.

DOES HIZURU HAVE ANY REAL INTENTION OF HELPING PARADIS OR ARE THEY ONLY INTERESTED IN RESOURCES AND THE RUMBLING 1,155 Responses

“They are only in it for themselves” is the strong fandom consensus with nearly 70% believing Hizuru has no interest in genuinely helping Paradis. 28.8% believe there may be be a little sincerity in their offer of help.

Hizuru's to-get list: resources, rumbling, Mikasa.

We don't know her real motives but there must be something she's hiding or something she wants for her people in all of this. Everything comes at a price, maybe she'll ask something horrible in exchange for her help.

I think there's still more to Hizuru's intentions that we have not been shown. I still think Kruger and Kiyomi are somehow connected.

This is Kiyomi helping Paradis in the name of Hizuru behind the actual nation ruler. She has her Seacret plan.

They are in it mostly for themselves and I personnaly think that Mikasa is the only reason they don't sell them out

HYPOTHETICALLY SPEAKING, IF ONE OF THE 104TH ARE TO INHERIT EREN’S POWER, WHO DO YOU THINK WOULD BE THE BEST CANDIDATE? 1,148 Responses

Jean’s convincing arguments resonated with most respondents, with 54.8% choosing him. Armin was a close second, with folks wanting him to take on the quadrupel duty of holding 4 titans at once.

Eren cared, but he changed a lot... and that is here the possibility of someone eating him really soon ( i mean they gave us a flashback entirely focused on who will eat him, this is just a huge death flag to me).

I was honestly confused why Armin wasn't considered an option to inherit the titan, since Erens main concern is not shortening anybody's lifespan but Armin doesn't have to worry about that....

Depending on how the story develops, I think Eren would choose either Floch or Falco as the successor of the Attack-Founder Titan. Doubtful that he'll actually pass it on, though.

Theory: Eren doesn't want anyone to inherit his titan, he wants to get this whole war business over before his time runs out

Jean confessing that he'd eat Eren gave me life

WHO HAD THE BEST REACTION TO EREN’S CONFESSION? 1,159 Responses

Nearly half of voters enjoyed Jean calling Eren out for making the atmosphere awkward with his confession all the while blushing himself. 28% of respondents appreciated Mikasa’s knowing smile and blush.

Eren is wholesome. He and his squadmates are precious. I wish eternal happiness for them (Sasha in food heaven).

All good. All also gay. (especially the Erejean)

Eremika and Springles on one page oh my fucking god

WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE FLASHBACK? 1,156 Responses

The responses are fairly evenly divided on this question, with slightly more than half saying the flashback was to show Eren still cares about his friends and reinforce his humanity. The other half consisted of those saying Eren changed, and a good portion of write-ins that felt the flashback fulfilled both purposes.

Both to show how much he changed, and to prove he still cares for his friends

To convey how serious the situations become that it's bringing if he cares or not into question

To. Make. Us. Cry. By drowning us in angst.

To show that Eren's not fully in control of his own mind. The WH and the Founder worked together to through Paradis under the bus 100+ years ago and now BOTH are in his head messing him up through P A T H S.

Both. Neither. I don't even have a red sunset as an excuse for my red cheeks. That entire scene was so adorable!

I think it was to show how much their whole situation has changed. It was also probably Yams adding some more salt to the wound. It'd be nice if he were less of a sadist.

DOES EREN STILL PRIORITIZE HIS FRIENDS? 1,154 Responses

78% of voters total believe that Eren still prioritizes his friends, however 41% of the total votes believe that it’s not with the same intensity as it was in the flashback. 15% of voters think Eren is no longer the Eren we knew and does not care for his friends anymore.

Not enough information to say one way or the other. Liberio indicates complexity in how Eren shows he cares

He cares about them as much as he did before and so he's willing to sacrifice everything for that sake, including their trust.

Yes, but he isn't the person he was, so his prioritizing will look different.

As already said, I think he is convinced he does, but loses the sight of the greater good.

Eren is a lost cause.

He cares about them even more than before. His time's running out, he sees them about to return to the old cycle, and he wants to settle things while he still can

I think *Eren* still prioritizes his friends. How much of Eren is still in there.... that I'm not so sure of.

He might still be doing it all to protect those he cares about, but he's now willing to put their life in jeopardy to accomplish his goals if he has to.

I Think he prioritises his goals but based on his reaction to Sasha’s death, I think he still cares for them but he is clouded by whatever his end-goal is.

yes...as sacrifices

i think he's being driven to madness. he's pressuring himself to a huge extent to keep everyone he cared so much about safe and out of harm, and it's literally driving him insane. i think he laughed at sasha's death simply because the pressure is making him crack to the point where he can't even cry about it anymore. he's become so desensitized to losing after a short period of victory at the start that it just seemed inevitable. of course he lost someone, of course he failed, he's going to die anyway what's it going to matter? we only hear from connie that he laughed as a response, so we don't know what was going through his mind at the time, but the long and short of it would be that yes, i do think eren still prioritizes his friends. however, he's lost his belief in himself to keep them safe and may have given up on their happy ending long ago now.

FROM THE PRESENT DAY 104TH CONVERSATION, WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS DO YOU BELIEVE ARE MOST LIKELY TRUE 1,159 Responses

Most believed there was a lot truth in the 104th conversation. The two options most people found fault with where “Eren is responsible for Sasha’s death” and “If Eren is against them, he should be replaced”.

Eren is on side that has the best chances of his friends ending alive, but that isn't his friends' side.

I'd rephrase two of those options. I believe Armin DOES want to save Eren, but unlike Mikasa, he has a contingency plan -replace Eren if he refuses to cooperate. I think Armin would keep that as the last option, and would only go for it if there literally isn't any other choice. So yes, he *is* trying to save Eren, because that option hasn't been barred yet. I also think Eren *thinks* he's on their side, whether or not everyone else thinks so or not.

Eren is so f*cked up cuz he has 3 titans. Being one of them the founder Titan complicates things.

I think Eren is & isn’t on their side. One of his goals is to protect them at all costs, but he may have to do some things they are against in order to achieve those goals.

Eren was willing to sacrifice his humanity for the lives of his friends

Eren is plotting a Zero Requiem and is willing to distance himself

I am neutral Switzerland.

WHAT DOES THE NEW 3DM GEAR REMIND YOU OF? 1,153 Responses

Nearly 50% of the people who answered this question refused to see anything phallic in this panel, and decided to call us perverts instead. To that we say: a dirty mind is a joy forever ;) Over 30% just had one question: But why? To the remaining 20%: you are our people. Thank you!

You polls people are perverted and I'm here for that.

Erenstans can suck my 3DMG 2.0

The new 3D gear is clearly a reference to the acclaimed Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon.

WHAT’S YOUR REACTION TO THIS PANEL? 1,156 Responses

32% of respondents just want someone to give Eren a reason to smile again, 30% are uneasy about Eren’s stare and believe he is no longer on Paradis’ side. 23% of voters would love to be mean-mugged by Eren all day and 13% of voters wished he would have been given shoes instead of a shirt.

Blushing Young Eren: A blushing baby who I want to adopt! Mean staring Adult Eren: Holy Bloody Mary on a pogo stick, he's making ME blush!

Is Eren wearing the same shirt as when he was a kid? Was he wearing it all the time?

Eren's prison bed is way too long

i'm tired of Eren's angry stare, I want to find out what's his deal, and him to go out from that prison, I swear to God, he spends like 30% of this manga either kidnapped or in prison, he is 19 and was 3 times arrested and 3 times held against his will by various captors.

I just hope that Eren can prove that he is on their side because I know he will always care about his friends.

WHAT’S YOUR REACTION TO THIS PANEL? 1,160 Responses

Reiner’s burst of motivation and drive has you all split - either for Reiner to go rescue the kids or for him to stay away from Paradis for good! (PS all of you that didn’t answer Pound Me are lying to yourselves)

All aboard the Paradis Feels Train, next stop Reiner's Suffering.

LET REINER HAVE CUSTODY BACK OF HIS CHILDREN.

Reiner is a sexi boi

REINER SAVE YOUR BABIES

WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE REINER’S PRIMARY MOTIVATION IS TO RETURN TO PARADIS? 1,164 Responses

The vast majority thinks Reiner’s main motivation is rescuing the two little rascals, but 27% thinks he wants to face Eren one last time. A small part also thinks Reiner will live up to his role a traitor and will switch sides again. Then there’s the folks that believe Reiner stopped being suicidal. If only everyone would have such optimism.

His hands are overflowed with strength, his eyes are filled with resolve and will to live - what a great timing for Isayama to make a new round of suffering for Papa Braun

Reiner wants to return to paradis because it is a suicide mission.

I hope that this time Reiner is not going to cause more problems and fight to Eren and SC. I hope he has learnt something, understood his mistakes and is going to walk on the right path.

I can't wait to see Reiner becoming Helos

I really want a reunion of Reiner and the 104th kids ok

I wouldn’t be surprised if Reiner’s main motivation for returning to Paradis so quickly is to save Gabi and Falco, but then...I’m tempted to believe there’s more to it than that, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there IS more to it either. Maybe he still wants Eren to kill him, or maybe he suddenly feels that he has to die on Paradis and he wants to get it over with quickly, or maybe there’s just some other shit on his mind that might surprise us at least a lil bit, I don’t know.

Papa Reiner just wants to save his children. He has no alignments anymore. He just wants to keep his kids safe and die already. I'm crying over mY SON REINER JUST LET HIM BE HAPPY.

Reiner please stop scarring yourself by putting yourself at war with paradis consistently omg

Reiner just wants to suffer

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES

Most people who took this poll primarily discuss the chapter contents on Reddit, while around 1 out of every five people roams on Tumblr, with Discord taking a distant third place. From now on we’re only going to allow one choice for this question, to see if we can find some major differences between platforms. Thank you for your cooperation!

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE CHAPTER?

bitccchhh where do i even start

Really great chapter, felt like one of those that needs to happen so that you get everyone's perspective before something major happens.

No one knows what's going on except those damn Jaeger Bros.

Armin said Zeke and Eren had a jaegertalk but nobody knows what they talked about....so....that can't lead anywhere good

Save Gabi from Paradis? Please. More like save Paradis from Gabi, amirite?

Good chapter, I just wish it was longer. So far we've had every chapter consist of a mix between flashback and present time. While I appreciate the flashbacks, I hope we get back to more present time soon so the story can move forward at a quicker pace. I really wanna know the full details of Historia's situation and also when tf is Annie coming back for real it's been 4 stinking years…

It was absolutely great. The juxtaposition of the sweet moments the 104th cadets used to have just one year ago with the atmosphere of hatred and distrut towards Eren that dominates now is heart-breaking. Other than that, the father story is really fishy, especially because it was told from an outsider's perspective. as opposed to say, Historia's. I honestly believe the father is someone else and farmer-kun is just a cover up.

(About Eren's panel) he has been wearing the same shirt since he was 10

Loving the Paradis flashbacks after a year of being willing to sell my soul for them.

I feel it's a bit ridiculous to say that none of Eren is left in there. My interpretation of his character post-basement thus far hasn't been that far from his post uprising personality. The difference is that he seems more at a loss for alternatives and even more determined to finish things by any means necessary (if that's even possible). But, I do think he's got some secrets to rival zeke's.

I have high expectation on Gabi. Her arc began from a rather generic/metaphorical one yet it's become more and more emotionally relatable and unpredictable. I once thought Falco was the core of Marley arc but now it looks like he might be the one who is more of the story tool among them.

I cannot believe that something that happened like 70+ chapters ago (Sasha saving that little girl) will be pivotal for the ending. Sasha truly was the real MVP.

104th don't know that real meetings are done with chairs, not couches and armchairs!! Kids, that's not how you were thought to do things.

It was an interesting chapter. We had more explanation, but even more questions to ask: why is Historia's pregnancy fishy, who suggested her to do it, why did Eren attack Marley, what happened that made him even more angry, and turned him into a mass murderer, what is going to happen in sasha's house and how is Marley going to counterattack.(and where is floch) It's getting even more interesting, and I really can't wait to see how Isa is going to explain and unfold all this

I liked the Connie dark moment. He finally got some attention from Isayama. I thought that he was totally forgotten. I wish Connie shown his other sides more often. He is way too good, calm and pure.

I have my doubts about Armin's theory that "when Zeke and Eren activate the Coordinate, Eren will be the one in control," because unlike Smiling Titan who was mindless, Zeke is a Titan Shifter.

Really bummed with Historia's story right now. Why not have Zeke bang a ton of women instead?

EAST SEA CLAN CONSPIRACY THEORY INTENSIFIES AAAAAYYEEEEKKK

Eren brought this on himself. Getting devoured is only facing the consequences of his actions. I hope Mikasa is the one that kills him in the end.

Eren is not father, but cloaked figure is definitely him.

Everyone in this chapter is precious and people can fight me on this. And I'm looking forward to what Hottie Eren bun has to say!

Honestly, I feel like we as readers are still quite in the dark on character motivations, like Eren and Zeke's so a lot of these questions I am conflicted on. I mean that in a good way.

We still haven't heard a lot from Zeke and Levi present day, I really hope it's coming soon. And someone needs to go and talk to Eren! (other than Hanji)

I’ve already called it, but I’m calling it again for record keeping purposes: Historia is going to die in childbirth.

I'm very, very glad that some members of the SC and 104th are starting to wake up and realize that Eren isn't in control of himself and therefore dangerous. I'm fascinated to see which path this takes them down.

I think at this point, Eren is simply fighting for what he thinks is correct, period. It's black and white. Eren probably doesn't see them as right and if they aren't, they are obstacles to overcome. If that is the case, Paradis cannot continue to cling to him. Hence why I can understand Armin saying the things he did.

I honestly don't think Gabi and Falco's lunch will be focused on Gabi suddenly feeling sorry for Sasha after a sad story. After all, she has her own grudge (Zofia -who has the same hair than the girl-, Udo, the gatekeepers...). If anything, this dinner party is here to tell us how Ragako was titanized, and how Zeke intends to spread the virus through food. Enjoy your meal!

Still hoping to see Levi knee Zeke in the face

Isayama is trying to kill me. The eremin/ema talk next chapter, if we really get one, is going to kill me. I will be dead. By isayama's hand. Killed.

I'm betting my pizza, my cat, whatever that this freaking monkey is pulling a ragako 2.0!

One of the best moments was when Gabi asked Falco why he’s following her because HE doesn’t have to die. She genuinely cares about him.

Jean leaning back was the best panel ever drawn

Mikasa in the little ponytail reminded me about how gay I was

can Levi kill Zeke already?

Where is Floch???

All of the above except Zevi

That’s all for this month! Thanks again to everyone who participated. We’ll see you again for chapter 109!

#snk poll #snk polls #snk spoilers #poll results

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octerminal · 6 years

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how do you think ramona's class/background influences her relationship with kaidan?

Oh, anon…you have NO idea the monster you have just unleashed, lmao. I’m so sorry in advance.

I have thought a lot about this! It’s one of my favorite things to think about! Because I think it influences a lot! My Shepard is Earthborn/Sole Survivor/Infiltrator.

Let me start with the one that I’m still puzzling out myself, which is Sole Survivor. On the one hand, I do like Sole Survivor. On the other hand, I think BW dropped the ball with them. And to a degree I understand why, because there’s only so many variances they can account for without getting the story sidetracked. But, like, here’s the thing: Akuze was orchestrated by Cerberus. That’s a thing you find out in ME1. So ME2 for SoSu Shep in particular has to be fairly…upsetting, to say the least. This is both a strength and a weakness. A strength because it makes ME2 that much more interesting, but a weakness because the game only acknowledges this, like, twice. First with Tela Vasir in LotSB, and then in ME3 during the Cronos mission. Every other time is swept under the rug, and Shepard’s made to defend Cerberus or, at best, softly condemn them. A lot of “They used to do good work, but…” or “I never saw this coming because they used to do good work, but…” and it’s just frankly sloppy because there’s no believable reason for me to think SoSu Shep would ever think that way. Cerberus is personal for her in a way it isn’t for War Hero or Ruthless.

So now add in Horizon and its aftermath. Horizon is by far one of my favorite parts of the trilogy. But…if Cerberus is personal for SoSu Shep in a way it isn’t for War Hero or Ruthless, so is Horizon. Shepard is alone in ME2 in a way she never is in the other games; she might have people by the end of the game, but it doesn’t start out that way. She’s trapped and she knows it. Yeah, she gets Garrus early on (the only one in the beginning that she can immediately trust to not be in Cerberus’ pocket since she has prior dealings with him), but Garrus has his own demons in ME2, and anyway, he’s only one person versus an entire ship full of Cerberus. Even the ship itself is Cerberus. So enter Kaidan on Horizon, and mix in a Shepard who’s feeling cornered and wants out of Cerberus’ grip but who’s been alienated from every other available avenue that could help her fight the Collectors, and you get…well, You Know.

My Shepard in particular is not very emotionally open or honest - like, for example, the first time she finally tells Kaidan she loves him is at the beam run, despite knowing she’s felt that way since Horizon. (This, and the fact she’s renegade leaning in general, have to do with her Earthborn background but I’ll get to that part later.) The idea of being vulnerable in that capacity with someone is terrifying to her, but on Horizon? I have her specifically ask Kaidan to join her. She’s desperate and she needs someone like him, and so she extends herself in a way she never would normally…and Kaidan rejects her in no uncertain terms, lol. He questions her alliance with Cerberus, pokes holes in all the defenses she tells herself to make herself feel better. (“I’m not working for them, they’re just giving me resources!”) He tells her that she’s changed (a sore spot, given her own insecurity over Lazarus)* and then…leaves. Like, ouch. I’m of the opinion that Horizon - including the confrontation with the VS - was orchestrated and intentional, and TIM’s desired outcome** so that Shepard would be pushed further into Cerberus and further alienated from the Alliance (because the VS would be their closest ties to it at this point in the series), and I think that’s something my Shepard recognizes, too. But that doesn’t mean it hurts any less, particularly when you consider that again: she’s alone, she’s desperate, and she made herself vulnerable in a way she never would normally.

But at the same time, if Kaidan had agreed to join her…she would have been extremely suspicious, lol. Like, that’s not the Kaidan she knows! A dude willing to abandon his post and work for a terrorist organization just because she’s supposedly leading this particular cell? Nah. If Shepard had been in Kaidan’s shoes, she’d have reacted the exact same way. She knows that too. But it’s still a complicated situation and I don’t think it’s sufficiently addressed in canon because the SoSu element makes everything so much messier. For comparison, while Horizon hurts my War Hero (Shiara) and Ruthless (femShepley) Shepards because they care about the VS (particularly my Ruthless one, obviously), it’s not the same. They have no prior trauma because of Cerberus; the extent of their interactions with them would just be the ME1 missions. In those cases, Cerberus is just another enemy to tackle. It’s not personal. Political, maybe. But not personal.

So yes, I absolutely think that Sole Survivor and Kaidan would have to handle Horizon and its aftermath in a different way than what’s presented in canon. Not, like, dramatically so or anything…I just think it’d take different words or more talks or something, but I just don’t know what yet and that’s the problem. It’s enough to where I’ve considered dumping the Sole Survivor background because it’s frustrating trying to think of solutions, but altering that would change a lot about my Shepard that I’m not willing to part with. Like, Sha'ira’s gift of words sum up how I view her perfectly:

“I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you, makes you strong. That strength is what kept you alive when everyone else around you was dying. You alone survived. You will continue to survive.”

But if I changed that to Ruthless (the BG I’ve considered switching her to), it would instead be:

“I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you, makes you strong. You never hid your strength, either. It serves you well. Terrifies your foes. Few will dare to stand against you.”

And…that’s just not her. And yeah, I could disregard this - it’s such a tiny part of the series that’s never touched upon again - but the EB/SoSu combo validated every image I had of my Shepard when I created her, so I’m very attached to it and determined to make it work, lol. Like I said, it’s the part about her and her relationship with Kaidan I’m still figuring out the most.

So what about the other parts of her background? Let me do the Earthborn portion next because I already know that’s going to be very long. I have put a lot of thought into Kaidan’s family, his parents, and his upbringing…not all of it is to relevant to your question though, so I’ll try to restrain myself lol.

So it’s never outright stated as much in canon, but I’m under the (very fair, imo) impression Kaidan’s family is fucking loaded. Here’s what we know about them:

They have an apartment in English Bay (ME3)

They own an orchard that makes wine in the B.C. Interior (ME1, ME3)

Kaidan owns a strip of land on the Sunshine Coast (ME3) (it’s unclear to me though whether this is either of the above, or something different)

Kaidan has a cousin who owns an agriculture business (ME1) (This one doesn’t necessarily point to Kaidan’s family being wealthy, although it does seem to imply they have ties to agriculture?)

Kaidan’s father is former military and he retired before the First Contact War (ME1, ME3) (Again, doesn’t necessarily point to wealth)

I’m not Canadian, let alone a Vancouverite, but I do have a friend from that area (and also, like, Google exists) and it’s my understanding that…English Bay is a very ritzy area. Like, I looked up real estate and a lot of the price results were in the millions. Considering that Mass Effect takes place in the future and Vancouver has only become even more of a metropolis (I believe it’s canon that it’s merged with Seattle to form a mega-city?)…I find it hard to believe that those prices haven’t risen even more than they already are now.

So if Kaidan’s family can afford an apartment in an area that expensive, uh, they can’t be hurting for money. Then factor in the other stuff I listed. Making wine? Owning an orchard to make said wine? To be honest, just the fact they’re able to afford at least two different properties*** is enough for me to think they’re fairly well off, especially when there’s this from the codex:

“While every human enjoys longer and better life than ever, the gap between rich and poor widens daily.”

Like, this isn’t some utopian age for humanity. Poverty still exists, and it’s clearly just as bad if not worse than it is currently. So that’s to say: it’s kinda two extremes with an exceedingly rare middle ground. Kaidan’s family very clearly does not fall on the less fortunate side if they have an apartment with an ocean view and make wine in their spare time.

Okay, I promise there was a point to all that. The point being that Earthborn Shepard comes from the exact opposite spectrum. She grew up in extreme poverty with…nothing, not even a family. She’s seen the worst humanity has to offer long before Cerberus shows up in her life. She’s seen - lived - the ugly parts about Earth the Alliance doesn’t like to broadcast. She’s had to do things that would frankly offend Kaidan’s “sometimes the way a thing goes down does matter” ideal, because things like integrity have no place in your life when you have nothing and no one and you’re fighting just to survive to the next day when no one but yourself cares about you seeing it. And that’s a way she had to live her life for eighteen years - it’s not something she can just shut off, particularly not when the skills she learned living that way are what helped her survive Akuze. (Remember Sha'ira’s words?)

These are things Kaidan can’t truly relate to, not even in his capacity as a biotic who’s apart of a society who doesn’t understand him at best and hates him at worst. Because there’s a difference between Kaidan’s situation, and being so much of a faceless nobody that it wouldn’t even be news if you went missing. Kaidan has a family, and one that presumably loves him. He has money. He’s never had to fight to survive in the way Earthborn Shepard has, not even if you HC that his time between BAaT and joining the Alliance took him away from his parents and their wealth (which I do). These are also things that shape a person so completely, to ignore them would be to ignore what made this person into who they are today.

(I do, however, think Kaidan can sympathize because of his unique position in society and because he regularly puts himself in another’s shoes, anyway.)

Earthborn Shepard isn’t still living in poverty by the time the trilogy comes around. She’s actually made a name for herself - which in and of itself has to be very confusing for her, because I envision Earthborn Shepard as someone who suffers constantly from imposter syndrome - and she has funding. A lot of it. Like, an exorbitant amount. Shepard has to spend so much money throughout the trilogy if she wants better equipment for herself and her crew (and even for her ship) which is kind of a necessity if you want to, you know, survive and be competent and stuff.

I think she reconciles all of this with the fact that yeah, this is necessary, she’s not being frivolous - but there’s always going to be a part of herself that feels guilty, because that’s just something that’s beaten into you when you grow up that way. Spending money feels bad.**** There might be moments she doesn’t care. There might be times where, in the moment, it feels good. But at some point, however fleeting, there’s always going to be that guilt. These aren’t feelings that are easy to get over, even if you objectively know they’re irrational.

Contrast this with Kaidan. I see Kaidan as someone who is considerate and not particularly wasteful. (That doesn’t stop me from making jokes, though.) I also see him as someone who is not interested in spending his parents’ money and would rather depend on himself alone, so if he’s spending money it’s out of his own paychecks that he gets as an Alliance marine. (This scene from Crazy Rich Asians is pretty much exactly how I envision Kaidan on this subject.) All of this is to say that I don’t see him dropping thousands of credits on every new toy he wants with no second thoughts (and I do think he’d pause at big price tags, particularly because I feel like living extravagantly is something the Alliance would discourage)…but the fact remains is that he does have that safety net and he always has. He’s never truly had to worry about being homeless, and if he’s had to worry about starving it’s because he’s a biotic, not because he doesn’t have the money to support himself.

There are also other behaviors that would be borne from growing up in poverty, like Earthborn Shepard being unwilling to part with old equipment until she absolutely has to (the Alliance makes being a hoarder rather difficult) because what if she needs it later? What if she can get some more use out of it somehow? Yeah it’s broken but it’s hers, she still needs it, go away. Kaidan would hang onto certain things (omni-tools, amps, weapon mods) longer than most people would too, but it’s because he’s a tinkerer and likes tech stuff.***** My Shepard is too, but it’s more than that and it’s that “more” that’s different.

When it comes to this difference in their socieo-economic class, I don’t think it’s something that’s particularly noticed or brought up during the trilogy. The only times I can think of where Shepard might get the realization Kaidan is different from her in this regard is in the Pinnacle Station DLC if Shepard win’s Ahern’s bet and gets his apartment on Intai'sei, or during the Citadel DLC. But even then, I feel it would a very brief realization she pushes to the side because it’s frankly not important right now and they have more important things to worry about. Like, you know, Reapers. So I think this is something that would only come to a head post-war, but it is definitely a source of tension on her end that they would need to tackle at some point.

Otherwise…remember how I said the reason my Shepard is renegade leaning and emotionally closed off is because she’s Earthborn? Let me bring back Sha'ira’s words:

“I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you, makes you strong.”

This is what she says specifically to Earthborn Shepards. Colonists and Spacers get something different. And really, this is how I see Earthborn Shepard. She’s someone who’s had to survive things - not a singular great tragedy, but a lifetime of hardship - and she’s someone who’s never had a support network. She’s the way she is because she’s never known any different. She’s not renegade leaning and emotionally closed off because she thinks it’s badass; she’s renegade leaning and emotionally closed off because being any different would have gotten her killed before now. I think this is a very, very important distinction Kaidan has to realize to make their relationship work, because otherwise I do think Kaidan would have a hard time being in a (successful and long-term, anyway) relationship with renegade leaning Shepards. Integrity and stuff like that is too important to him; if he feels like Shepard follows no moral code and is unabashedly selfish, why would he want to associate with them more than he has to? I can’t see him wanting to.

It is a very hard and long process for my Shepard to learn that it’s okay for her to be vulnerable sometimes. This is the greatest source of conflict within how I play Kaidan’s romance. Shepard is unyielding and only gives Kaidan’s scraps - remember how I said she doesn’t tell him she loves him until the beam run? Yeah, Kaidan doesn’t deserve that. No one deserves to be strung along in a relationship where they’re the only ones putting themselves out there, but that’s what Kaidan does for a lot of the trilogy. I don’t play it that way because I think it’s romantic or because I think Shepard is in the right; I play it that way because I like the idea of someone learning that it’s okay to be loved and to love in return, particularly when they don’t feel like they are lovable. But like I said, it’s a long process, and the only reason her and Kaidan’s relationship doesn’t burn out and die is because Kaidan consistently puts himself out there so that she doesn’t have to. This is why it’s important to me that Shepard’s the one to propose post-war, because I feel like it’s only fair she put herself out there that way for a change.

(For the record, I don’t think Kaidan takes all of this lying down. I know he has no way out when it comes to Shepard, and it’s for that reason I think he’s willing to put up with a lot more than he knows he should, but he still knows that…well, no, he doesn’t deserve this and that Shepard has to do better. He has to become really adept in Shepard-speak by the end of the game, and I think that helps a lot - he knows Shepard is trying and that she loves him even if she doesn’t say it, it’s just…messy. But it’s definitely something they talk about post-war, along with the socio-economic stuff.)

So now how do their game classes interact? Well, because so much of Shepard’s experiences are a mystery to Kaidan, I wanted Shepard to be on that end for once. Yeah, Shepard’s lived through things Kaidan has never had to - but likewise, Kaidan has lived through things Shepard has never had to. She’ll never understand what it’s like to be a biotic and just what, exactly, that means. I feel like Earthborn Shepards in particular would be exposed to a lot of anti-biotic sentiment growing up since they’re, well, Earthborn, and I think a lot of negative post-spaceflight sentiments (alien xenophobia, biotic discrimination, etc) would be concentrated on Earth because it’s the homeworld and they’re the least exposed to the rest of the galaxy.

But anyway, to get back on topic. L2 biotics build up static electricity. That means that it’s likely that if you touch them, you’ll get an electric shock. Imagine having to be conscious of that fact, and having to be constantly aware of your surroundings so you can unload that built up static electricity into something inanimate so you don’t accidentally shock someone. Little things like that are something someone who’s nonbiotic would never think about. Then there would be Kaidan’s post-mission regimen. He literally has a port on the back of his scalp that’s connected to his brain, or at least near it. He has to keep that clean, and you fight some really gross things throughout the trilogy. Thorian creepers? All that gunk? He has to be careful that his port never gets contaminated in a way nonbiotic Shepard never has to, because like…your omni-tool getting gunked up is way different than a port that’s literally inside of your head getting gunked up. (I also imagine this area in general is a sensitive area for biotics, like, not the kind of place they like anyone casually touching.) These are all things that would be frankly alien to someone who’s not a biotic. As an N7, I think Shepard would’ve worked with more biotics than the average marine like pre-Normandy Ashley and pre-Fehl Prime James, but she’s still not a biotic herself and has a lot of learning to do.

(I have several moments I consider landmarks in their relationship, and I think one of them is in ME3 when Kaidan is completely fine - comfortable, even - with Shepard touching anywhere near his port, when he wasn’t in ME1. It’s a massive sign of trust for him that’s not lost on her.)

None of this is even getting into the social treatment of biotics, either. This is something Shepard has to figure out for herself, which I think she does in ME1 with the Rahna story and stuff. Kaidan’s the way he is because he’s a biotic; you can’t separate that fact from him. You take away Kaidan’s biotics and you take away a lot of who he is as a person and why he’s that way. (…She probably can relate to that sentiment, though.)

They do have to have some things in common though. I don’t like the idea of them only bothering to talk to each other because they think the other is attractive and then it forms into something deeper, lmao. So that’s (part of) why my Shepard is an infiltrator******. Both she and Kaidan are unabashed tech geeks. You know how in ME3 if you bring Kaidan along to Tali’s mission, they have that argument about omni-tools? Yeah, my Shep and Kaidan have talks like that all the time about, like, everything tech related. They’ve also had the omni-tool talk because her preferred one is Savant, which he thinks is pretentious because I love the idea of Savant tech being seen as The Snob Tech of the industry because it’s so expensive and its users frequently insufferable. But I HC it’s the only omni-tool that can handle an infiltrator’s needs without overheating, including running the tactical cloak.

So that’s the common thread that gets them started between all the differences and the bad first impressions (she is renegade leaning, after all). I don’t think the way I play Kaidan’s romance is particularly popular, but that’s fine with me. I like a little conflict. I like the idea of two people not being inherently or instantly compatible, and having to work to form an understanding of one another. I like the idea of their relationship being something that they have to work for and keep working for, because while they love each other, sometimes love isn’t enough. You need communication, too. And that’s what I like, so that’s how I play them. (And also because I like angst - to a degree - and mutual pining, of which I think there would be A LOT of when you play Kaidan’s romance this way.) Obviously after a certain point things do become easier simply because they’ve been around each other long enough to develop a banter (”I’ve been thinking…” / “Oh, no. Okay. Hit me with it.”) and a better understanding of how the other person thinks. But you still need communication and I’m not interested in things ever being “easy” just because they’re so in love and that magically cures everything.

This was very, very long, and I know I apologized in the beginning but I’d like to do so again. You just managed to ask the exact question that I have put a lot of thought into and it was very hard for me to resist going full word vomit, lmao. Thank you very much for the ask!

(Also addendum, it’s so weird hearing her referred to as “Ramona”…I know that’s what I have down on my character page but I actually haven’t settled on a name for her yet despite her existing for like, almost 3 years at this point. Naming Shepard is singularly one of the hardest parts of Shepard-building for me, I don’t know why?! So for reference, Ramona and my “ch: nadia shepard” tag are the same character. Who knows if I end up sticking with either, but they are what they are for now lol. Also, you had absolutely no way of knowing this, I know. I actually assume no one reads my character pages, ever, so this ask is a welcome surprise!)

*This is another big thing with my Shepard, but it’s only tangentially related to Kaidan so I didn’t bother bringing it up in the main post. But particularly since she has the renegade scars? Oh, yeah. “Maybe I’m just an advanced VI that thinks it’s Commander Shepard” is putting how she feels about herself post-Lazarus mildly.

**I have a giant meta post that’s been sitting in my drafts since April about exactly this. Like, about Horizon and its aftermath and how it was allowed to happen to start with, and how the VS is uniquely and repeatedly manipulated against Shepard as a means to hurt them. I should really finish that post, because damn, I love Horizon.

***Specifically on Earth; owning land on colony worlds probably isn’t as much of an indicator of wealth

****To be fair, I think in ME2 this is alleviated somewhat because it’s TIM’s dime and spending his money on useless shit is one of the only way she can rebel without showing all her cards

*****I read a HC once that said because Kaidan’s an L2, it’s probably a lot harder for him to find L2-compatible biotic amps, so I can see him being very protective and hoard-y when it comes to his amps

******Also, sniper rifles. It’s offensive to me as a lesbian that femShep has twig arms when those sniper rifles weigh A TON; there is no way her biceps wouldn’t be out of this world. It’s doubly offensive when you consider the fact Kaidan’s buffer than she is despite being a Sentinel. (I ignore this and pretend it doesn’t exist, much like a lot of Kaidan’s ME3 appearance.)

#replies #ch: nadia shepard #*#long post for ts

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brittanacedes · 6 years

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I'm interested in your S3 hate list, if you don't mind

Because this list would be so long if I named every individual issue I had with the season, I tried to break it up into sections and grouped things together. I also listed them in order of my biases because admittedly some things that made me hate the season, others might not care about at all and vice versa.

IKAG. Honestly, the seething hatred I have for that episode is probably enough to bring down the entire season for me, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve already discussed why that episode is The Worst 42 Minutes of Anything I’ve Ever Seen On Television before, so lemme not rehash it further.

Brittana. Pretty much everything about how Brittana was handled in S3 is so beyond frustrating and makes me SO bitter. I don’t even think I can properly explain all the reasons they failed Brittana in S3, but let me try. They dated all season but they literally only had 5 minutes worth of conversation the whole time, none of which were private (always in a crowded place or supervised by an adult). Brittany had zero POV regarding anything in their relationship and was completely ignored in what should’ve been their biggest storyline that season (IKAG). The sextape storyline, full stop. Just utter garbage. They officially got together in 304, but weren’t allowed to kiss until 313, and only after fans had to literally fight the writers on Twitter for it. They had no discussion about their future all season long, unlike the other couples. It took forever for them to get a duet and it was meh when they finally got it. They existed purely in the background for most of the season, and most of what we got was just thanks to Heya doing their thing. There was just so much wasted potential for them in S3 that just went down the drain.

Brittany. They failed Brittany in so many countless ways in S3. The most obvious way is how she was pretty much mute for a great deal of the season, to the point that they even had one of their ~hilarious meta jokes about it. She had no storyline, which sucks enough, but to make matters worse, the storylines she SHOULD have had went to/were about other people: she wants to run for student council president to prove to herself and others that she’s not dumb, but that lasts for about an episode before she’s reduced to the dumb cheerleader handing out pixie sticks and promising Topless Tuesdays and tornado protection, all so Poor Kurt can lose unfairly - and then once he does, her being president isn’t mentioned again until Prom, when it’s just used as a joke for the prom theme. As mentioned above, she and her girlfriend were outed and she got to say one single line about it (”She is normal”), and honestly the biggest offense: SHE FAILED SENIOR YEAR AND ONLY GOT A SINGLE THROWAWAY LINE ABOUT IT IN THE FINALE AFTER PUCK GOT A MULTI EPISODE ARC ABOUT EVERYONE HELPING HIM GRADUATE.

Quinn. Do I even need to summarize how awful every single thing about her this season was? Surely even people that love S3 know how horrible she was treated, yes??? So lemme just leave it at that: Quinn.

Samcedes. First it was dropped and Mercedes got reduced to saying lines about “chocolate babies” or whatever it was with her new love interest that they gave no importance to. But then they finally bring Sam back and give them a storyline, and it was a messy, convoluted mess. They give them a small decent arc, only to have them cheat (which was OOC for both their characters) and then drop them. They had a cute scene in 3x16 but then??? Were they dating??? Who the fuck knows! They got no screentime or focus for us to know.

Finchel/Double Standards. They ATE the show. Yes, they were always the main couple of the show, but OH BOY, did they get shoved down our throats in S3. The amount of screentime they got would’ve been awful on it’s own, but when you factor in the double standards and how little the same gender ships got in comparison, it was honestly so gross. And let me not forget what Rachel Berry’s character was reduced to in order to facilitated their storyline that season. Rachel Hudson was just painful to watch and in the end, it all amounted to nothing.

Finn. I’m not gonna list everything I hated about him this season because it’s a touchy subject and everything, but wow. My issues with how he was written were at an all time high that season. Obviously everyone knows how I feel about his role in Santana’s outing, but the hero worship!!!! Remember when the Juniors dedicated their song to the Seniors specifically to Finn in the finale? Honestly summed up that season perfectly.

#GleeHatesGirls. It was a running theme throughout the show, yes, but it was at its peak in S3. If my write ups for IKAG, Brittana, Brittany, Quinn and Rachel didn’t prove that enough, there’s also how Tina was made a prop all season long, the entire domestic abuse storyline in Choke, Quinn getting HIT BY A CAR but Blaine singing Fighter the next episode, the comparison of how Santana’s outing was handled vs Karofsky’s (and Brittany’s failing vs Puck’s), all the ~bro scenes compared to how few girl scenes there were, the fact that Kurt dedicated his song in the finale to the dudes in the room even though he was pointedly excluded from ALL the bro scenes, and lets not forget the almost all dude ND line up for Sectionals (that beat the all girl group, I might add).

Bad/Offensive Episodes. In the spirit of not giving every episode it’s own write up, a special shout out to: Asian F (Mercedes Jones Deserved Better), The First Time (Rachel’s virginity basically being a consolation prize, The Car Scene, Brittany’s disgusting line implying she was raped), IKAG, obviously, Extraordinary Merry Christmas (so! boring!), Saturday Night Gleever (the sextape, enough said), Dance With Somebody (Whitney episode so soon was tacky as fuck and the Klaine storyline was awful), Choke (how about teaching the BOYS not to be abusive perhaps???) and Goodbye (just absolutely horrendous from pretty much any angle you look at it).

Misc. Who gave a fuck about Rory or Joe? The Shelby/Puck storyline! Yikes! How the fuck did the Troubletones lose to ND? lmao. Quinn and Santana fixing the prom queen votes for Poor Rachel when Becky was Right There! Them talking about how their high school experiences were ~perfect compared to Rachel’s LMAO. Hey Tina, I know we’ve ignored you all season but here’s an episode dedicated to you learning to just sit down and shut up and wait for your turn. It’s never gonna come but still! The disgusting people shipping Santana with dudes (namely Finn and Sebastian)! Admittedly not entirely the show’s fault, but having her have scenes with them while barely any with her actual girlfriend didn’t help. I don’t pretend to like Klaine, but they got the shaft post 3x05, too.

#ask #so yes i listed a few things that i can objectively see what people would like in the season #but almost everything on the list was either overshadowed by issues bogging it down #(couples all being together)#or they don't actually speak to the quality of the season and are more emotional reasons #that make people remember it more fondly than it deserves #(last for the originally cast)

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margarethelstone · 6 years

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One Day I Will

Okay guys, so what you’re about to read is a part of my Big Tangled/HTTYD crossover, Once Mine. But, wait! If you’re not into crossovers, and only care for the Dragon World (and Hiccstrid) you can still enjoy this story. This particular chapter works perfectly well on its own, so you don’t have to worry about not getting something. All that is required is a basic knowledge of the events of ‘Heather’s Report’.

Of course, I would be the happiest person on Earth to know that it encouraged you to read Once Mine as well.

Enjoy!

fanfiction.net (ODIW) fanfiction.net (Once Mine)

Arm-in-arm, side by side, they kept staring at the shape of a boat that slowly ebbed away from the sight, a boat on the deck of which their new friend was heading towards her long missed home. An oceanic breeze was enfolding them, while the last beams of the setting sun illuminated their tired, yet joyful, finally peaceful faces. All in all, the scenery was more than romantic.

And that was when she punched him again.

“Hey!” he cried out, sending her a mock-offended glare, and shook his head, seeing the perverse grin on her lips. He’d already managed to get used to it; more than once was he to feel her knuckles on his shoulder, though usually, it signified nothing but sympathy.

Truth be told, it was rather an unusual way of showing one’s affection – why, if everything about her was unusual, as well.

“Good Thor, why is it always violence with you?”

The blonde girl glanced at him dismissively, and only shrugged her shoulders, once again fixing her gaze on the horizon’s line. Neither she, nor her dark-haired companion said anything for quite some time.

“Disappointed, aren’t you?” the warrior broke the silence eventually, causing the most natural astonishment of the boy standing beside her.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he answered sincerely.

“Oh, come on. You were sure you’d get that hug.”

“I… don’t… why…”

“I saw what you did there.” She nudged him much more gently this time. “And I saw your face when she turned towards Toothless. If that makes you feel any better, I also expected her to throw her arms around your neck rather than mine.”

Hiccup rolled his eyes, unable to hold back a smile.

“You think we’ll see her again?”

“Who knows. If we do, I bet it will be in the most unexpected circumstances.” Having summed up the matter like this, Astrid yawned lingeringly, simultaneously turning on her heel and stretching her arms above her head. “That day was way too long. What do you say we go back home, throw ourselves on our beds and sleep it all off?”

“Sounds like a plan.” The boy laughed quietly. “Although I still have a few trinkets waiting for me in the workshop; but of course, I’ll gladly walk you home and to the very door of it.”

She raised her brows, eyeing him sceptically.

“You don’t need to walk me home.”

“We’re heading in the same direction anyway.”

The warrior wanted to respond with a more cutting comment, eventually however, she only waved her hand and set off towards the village, letting Hiccup join her at his own pleasure. She winced when the cold sea gust reached her. It really was getting late – the sun had just ultimately hidden below the far ocean line – and with every passing second it was getting colder and darker on the island of Berk. Moreover, she truly was exhausted by the events of the last few days, not only – and not primarily – because of a physical struggle.

She was happy to think how well it all ended for them; but she was even happier to know that the entire upheaval could be now put behind them.

She peered at the boy walking next to her, and smiled seeing him nervously rubbing his neck, clearly desiring to raise some mysterious issue, yet not having the courage to do so. It was a gesture she hadn’t noticed him do earlier, and she couldn’t help wondering if it was only a one-time action, or was it a new habit that, for some reason, Hiccup developed exactly at this time.

Personally, she found it quite… adorable.

The Rider took notice of her intrigued glare, and confounded, he shifted uncomfortably, unable to understand the sudden interest in him.

“A-Astrid? What… What is it?” he asked, completely taken aback.

Good gods, hadn’t he already learnt how to control that stuttering?

“I was wondering what you are so focused on.”

“I… Ah, it’s nothing.” Pretending not to care, he waved his hand absently, even though he was well aware that Astrid wouldn’t ease up on him like that. In fact, he himself knew that there were thoughts he should voice – he simply didn’t feel like doing it at this particular moment. “I’m doing a review of the past few days, that’s all.”

“There certainly are things you should think over.”

Resigned, Hiccup sighed.

“Okay, I know what you’re trying to say. I acted like an idiot, believing in Heather’s stories in spite of all of the signs that something was wrong. I ignored all of your observations, I didn’t believe you when you told me about what you’d seen during that night, and -”

“Hiccup, stop.”

Even though the command obviously referred to the torrent of words that came out of the young Viking’s mouth, Hiccup halted in the most literal sense; having stopped like this, he glared at the girl that stood by his side, with a question reflecting in his bright, green eyes. Still, whatever it was that was happening inside of his head, Astrid gave him no time to pronounce it out loud.

“That’s not what I meant. All I’m saying is that a lot has happened recently, and that we all have issues we must reconsider. Although… it’s good you’re aware of your own mistakes.”

A sparkle that twinkled in her eyes while she was voicing the last sentence positively proved that she wasn’t going to let go of the matter completely. Hiccup snorted.

“You couldn’t just, I don’t know, comfort me?”

“I could. And I will, one day. When you earn it.”

“Amazing. So you agree I behaved like a moron?”

“You leave me no choice here.”

“Fantastic.” The boy looked away, not entirely sure how he should treat his best friend’s answer. On one hand, Astrid sharply cut off his remorseful speech, laughing up his explanations and general agitation – on the other, she openly admitted that she found his behaviour at least invalid, stupid even.

And even though it was no revelation to him, it didn’t make him feel a little bit better.

“You’re still angry with me, aren’t you?” he muttered, not even realising how accurately the tone of his voice conveyed the qualms that were still torturing him. “What am I asking, you must be. Exposing the island is one thing, but you yourself… No, please Astrid, let me finish this. It’s not even the fact I let them trick me, but even knowing what was going on, I insisted to stick to what I thought was true. When you came to tell me about Heather meeting the Outcasts… Gods, you don’t know how hard it is to talk about it.” He stroke his palm against his face, full of despise for his own being. “I don’t know what happened to me. After everything we’d been through, I should’ve trusted you, not her. And it’s all clear and obvious now, and that’s what you had every right to expect.”

His hand found its way to his neck again, and he still couldn’t force himself to look her straight in the eye. Astrid kept observing him silently, fully focused on that slightly incoherent, not entirely understandable dilatation.

Hiccup sighed again.

“That night I said things I never should have said. I had no right to assume that you were mistaken, and I surely shouldn’t have reject your warnings that easily. It won’t happen again. I just wanted to say… I’m sorry, Astrid.”

Not until he poured out the last word, did Hiccup dare to look up at the girl. Her facial expression showed nothing but concentration – her brows were furrowed, but revealed no ire, her mouth was closed, but it was not tightened. She was staring at him half-expectantly, without that spiteful, teasing grin – with no grin at all.

That was probably the worst part of it.

‘Say something. For the love of Thor, Astrid, please say something,’ the brunette Dragon Rider kept repeating in his thoughts. Till that moment he’d been assuming that Astrid can’t be too mad at him – until he himself voiced all of his guilts out loud.

She had every reason to be mad at him.

“You know, that last line would be enough.”

Roused from his own meditation, he focused his sight on her. She still looked absolutely serious, however, something in her glare told him she didn’t at all feel like being cross with him.

He swallowed nervously.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Though, as I was saying, it’s good you see what went wrong.”

“And you’re not upset?”

Astrid shrugged.

“Now, when it’s all over anyway? I think I’m too tired to argue with you at the moment.”

“That’s… understanding of you.”

“Which doesn’t mean I’ll forgive you.”

“Oh.”

“Or more like, I forgive, not forget. You can bet your leg I’ll bring it up at the suitable moment.”

“I don’t doubt that.” The boy allowed himself a shy smile. “All I need now is your ‘I told you so’.”

“Well, if you admit that I’ve earned it yourself, I don’t think there’s a point in me actually saying it.” Astrid smiled more widely, no longer able to hide the amusement that the sight of her intimidated, confused friend had caused.

As far as she could recall, Hiccup had been “different”. He’d been that quiet, private, isolated kid, in whose eyes playing with his peers (whose games, she had to admit, were far from refined) was much less entertaining that the almost legendary troll hunting and his own sketches. He’d also been, or at least he’d seemed to be gauche, as though he couldn’t adjust to the world in which he’d come to live. He had always been smart, she had no doubts about that – but there was something in his behaviour that had made him look as if he’d been unable (or maybe, unwilling?) to use his outstanding intelligence to improve his existence on the isle of Berk.

And he’d constantly been baffled.

Each and every time she had happened to appear in the smithy, she was met by his perplexed stare; no matter what he’d been doing earlier, having noticed her he always came back to work with a doubled investment, as if he was trying to conceal the fact that he was aware of her presence in the first place, letting Gobber take her order instead.

It had always amused her, and she’d never thought it could have been anything improper. She knew she was pretty, and she knew what an impression her personality made on her peers. She neither took pride in it, nor let it vex her – she didn’t need Snotlout courting her to realise her worth, and she certainly could do without it. Yet, she couldn’t deny that she liked to compel awe.

Still, Snotlout’s importunity or Fishlegs’ amazed staring were one thing; Hiccup, as usual, was a very different matter. She couldn’t have said whether she’d liked him or not – they had hardly ever spoke, and even if they had, the boy had usually got lost in his own stammering, making the whole conversation an absolute failure anyway. Astrid had shrugged her shoulders then, and set off to her own business, totally and perfectly indifferent to the miserable boy she had been leaving behind her.

Hiccup had not disturbed her. That’s all that she could have said.

And then everything had changed. The Training, Toothless, the battle at the Dragon’s nest – the events from a year before not only had turned the life of Berk upside down, but they had directly influenced the boy without whom they wouldn’t have taken place. Hiccup had changed. He had grown in strength and reason, earning the sense that he was a worthy young man. He’d finally gained the confidence that his opinions had mattered – and suddenly, he’d stopped being afraid of sharing them.

The fair-haired warrior had finally found a companion, with whom she could simply talk, debate, dispute. Someone with whom she was able to cooperate.

However, as she was gazing at him now, she realised she was glad that the Viking hadn’t got rid of his shyness completely. Honestly speaking, it was a feature she pretty much liked about him.

She shook her head.

“Really, Hiccup. It’s fine.”

She nodded towards the village, wanting to end the discussion that in her own eyes seemed entirely unnecessary. Hiccup had understood his own silliness – and he had apologised for it. She needed nothing more.

The boy divined her thoughts, and with no further dallying, he set off in the pointed direction, close by the golden-haired girl’s side.

Toothless was following them close behind, reminding the Riders of his presence with occasional jogs, plainly eager for a flight. Still, his taunting remained unanswered – however tired the two friends were, they really didn’t feel like parting their ways just yet, even if they didn’t fully realised it themselves. They simply walked in silence together, focused on their own musing, enjoying the company of one another. At that time, it was all they wished for.

Despite all this, Hiccup couldn’t help but shoot furtive, uncertain glances in the direction of his dear friend, incapable of chasing away the thoughts that were invading his mind. Even assuming that the misunderstandings between them were clarified, the young leader still had a lot to think about.

And Gods, it wasn’t easy.

Glancing at the warrior that was walking beside him, he couldn’t not think of the danger in which she had been just a few hours earlier. Of course, he hadn’t doubted that Astrid would perform perfectly, eventually finding her way out of the trouble, all while staying safe and sound – she always had. Had he not had that confidence, he would never have agreed to carry out that insanely risky operation.

On the other hand, it was a plan prepared by the warrior herself, and he knew better than anyone that when Astrid set her mind on something, it was hard to talk her out of it. If there was one person on Berk that was more stubborn than he was, it was Astrid Hofferson.

“You’re sure about this?”

“No! But this is our only chance!”

That was all her.

They were marching closely by, so that their hands brushed repetitively. Astrid seemed not to notice, concentrating her sight on the path before her or sporadically peering at Toothless, who still hadn’t ceased to demand her attention. Her companion couldn’t force such an indifference on him, and tensely setting his teeth, he was once again thanking the deities that the girl was too busy to actually look at him.

He inhaled deeply, somewhat disappointed, and making sure Astrid’s attention was fully focused on the Night Fury that was pacing beside her, he fixed his gaze on his friend’s profile.

His friend. Exactly.

That was how he would describe her to anyone who’d ask him about the relationship that linked them, and what is more, it was also how he called her in his own meditations. They were friends, there was no doubt about that – Hiccup dared to think that their friendship was intimate and strong, and he was far from underestimating it. Astrid was more than just his advisor, his right-hand girl, his second in command. It was her he came to when finding a solution to his problems seemed impossible, it was her he asked for help when his own wit let him down. It was her with whom he first shared all of his plans.

Astrid supported him when everything appeared to be falling into pieces, and she never seemed to doubt in him, at the same time remaining perfectly ready to whack his head with a shield, when she only realised that his ideas were getting out of the reason’s hold.

In other words, she trusted him to the point at which he had to trust her.

The Viking swore inwardly, recalling how much he’d abused that trust during the last few days.

‘What about us, Astrid?’ he asked himself, unable to take his eyes off her. ‘What is between us?’

He had put the question so many times already, and he still couldn’t find an answer that would satisfy him. If he’d been to explain the matter a dozen or so months earlier, he wouldn’t have had the slightest troubles doing so: shortly and truthfully, he would’ve responded that he was entirely infatuated, as strongly as only a fifteen years old boy can be – all while she paid him no mind whatsoever. Analysing his previous feelings, Hiccup had to agree that they were rather shallow and silly – but at least they weren’t as tangled up as the ones that were whirling inside of him presently.

However ridiculous it might seem, he really couldn’t define his attitude towards her. The old crush had long been gone, extruded by a healthy, firm, friendly relationship… and yet, Hiccup would have lied if he’d said that friendship was all he desired. It was like building a foundation for the further rapprochement, without which their acquaintance would have been – at most – nothing but a relation between a pair of naively besotted teenagers, and thus only a mere shadow of what it could become with the minimal involvement on their side.

He wanted to treat it seriously, and was convinced that rushing things would bring them no good – then again, the thought of Astrid concluding that she didn’t want anything more herself, terrified him. He reminded himself over and over again that he was overreacting, that he was dwelling on the subject too intensively – but it was of no use.

Maybe he was only sixteen years old. Maybe, in the eyes of the older generation he and Astrid were just a couple of kids, quite responsible, but surely far from maturity. This, however, did not mean that their emotions were any less important, nor that they deserved to be given less attention.

The dark-haired Rider had stopped looking at his companion long ago, instead boring into the ground below him. His metal prosthetic wasn’t clattering against the wooden panels of the dock’s platforms anymore, as they had left those in the distance behind them; the sky was darkening rapidly, and he remained silent, deaf and blind to the surrounding that changed around him.

He kicked a stone that happened to lie in his way.

“Hiccup?” Astrid roused him from that odd wistfulness. The boy met her glare, and immediately spotted the anxiety that was reflecting in her way too blue eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he denied a little too quickly. “Everything is fine.”

She raised her brows, not believing a single word of his.

“Hiccup.”

“What?”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I wasn’t trying to lie.”

“Then tell me what this is all about.”

“What for?”

“Because I’m starting to worry.”

Once again was he to halt in his tracks, this time on his own account; but that surprised, he simply had to stop.

“What do you mean: worry? I’m fine.”

“First you stare at me for minutes, and then you can’t even look me in the eye properly. Don’t pull that face at me, just because I’m not looking, doesn’t mean I can’t see.”

“But -”

“Look, as for me, you’re way overthinking it. As always.” In the most natural manner she put a hand on his arm and squeezed it lightly. “I had to give you an earful, but that’s enough. It doesn’t matter if we meet Heather again or not, this particular episode is now behind us. Draw conclusions, but don’t stew.”

Hiccup smiled weakly.

“You almost sound as if you wanted to comfort me,” he mumbled. “But it’s not about Heather.”

“Then what is it about?”

“Nothing important.”

“You still can’t lie.”

He sighed ostentatiously.

“I’d just rather not answer that.”

‘But one day I will,’ he finished in his thoughts. One day. When he would finally deal with the doubts that were plaguing him, when he would sort out his own hopes and longing, finally, when he would muster the courage needed for the task – then he would answer her. All he could do was to pray to Odin that he wouldn’t miss his chance.

Astrid didn’t say a word, only nodding to show that she accepts his explanation. Then, she glanced at the house before which they had halted – her own house. Hiccup followed gaze; until that moment he hadn’t been aware that they had already reached the destination of their short journey. Something in his chest stung him unpleasantly when it occurred to him that in a very short while he would have to say his goodbye.

Hardly had he managed to realise that, he felt a punch on his shoulder, one that was way too strong for his liking.

“What on… Astrid!”

“That’s for not being honest with me,” the warrior answered his cry without the slightest falter. “And for making me upset during the last days. I forgive, not forget.”

And then, not giving him another second to think it through, she moved closer to him, and brushed her lips against his cheek.

“And that’s for everything else.”

And just like that, as if was the most obvious act in the world, she turned on her heel, and briskly ran upon the stairs that lead to her hut. Having opened the door, she hesitated, peered at the couple that was watching her from below; with a strangely uncertain grin she threw them a short ‘goodnight’ - and with that, she was gone.

Hiccup kept staring at the wooden frame for a long while, ignoring Toothless’ nudging, which was becoming more and more regular, while the dragon clearly was annoyed with the lack of attention of his human friend. At last, the boy looked down at him, shook his head on both Night Fury’s impatience and his own distraction, and jumped onto the saddle almost immediately after.

If he’d had problems figuring out the meaning of his own feelings earlier, he was not even trying to do it now; he well knew that it wouldn’t change a thing. At this point he could only count that his relationship with the blonde girl would clarify in some natural way, and that it would happen sometime soon.

The more rational part of his being was telling him it would be exactly the opposite.

#hiccstrid #fanfiction #hiccup haddock #astrid hofferson #young hiccstrid #httyd #RoB

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ingek73 · 4 years

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The Royal Family, The Media and ‘SussExit’ – Part 4

Zanye Linda August 18, 2020

The British Royal Family, The Media and 'SussExit'

It is often said that the Monarchy is a representation of British society. One of the ways they have managed to survive is by re-branding themselves to appeal to the mood of the country. In 1914, strong anti-German sentiments within Britain caused sensitivity among the royal family about its German roots and so in 1917, King George VI decreed the royal surname change from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. When Harry met a mixed-race American woman, the royal family saw another opportunity to rebrand themselves as a modern monarchy, representing multi-cultural Britain, one that is diverse and inclusive, especially in light of Brexit, and they had the headlines to prove it. Or maybe, others saw it for them.

Modern Monarchy Sussexit

Royal Wedding Sussexit

Change is essence of monarchy claims The Telegraph

The institution basked in the publicity of Harry and Meghan’s nuptials and was eager to accrue the benefits that come with being diverse and inclusive. Like many organisations today, it appears that the diversity is only in name and hardly backed up by the organizational structures. Meghan became the token black person giving the monarchy the appearance of being open and inclusive. Many black and brown people encounter this phenomenon on a daily basis in their work spaces and is the reason why very quickly, the overt and covert racism in Meghan’s coverage by the media was called out. It was like a transplant of personal experiences for many.

Just like the charity work the royal family uses to justify their existence and continual draw on millions of pounds from the public purse, openness and inclusivity was a ‘sham’. There was never any intention to do the work that comes with being a diverse and inclusive institution. There is hardly any diversity in the royal household, and it appears they were sorely lacking cultural competency as an organization. How is that that, being clear and direct about work expectations is somehow seen as confrontational?

It really is quite puzzling considering that, this is an institution that has realms outside of the UK, and attempts to wield some influence via its leadership of the commonwealth. What does it really say, that the royal household was simply incapable of accommodating a bi-racial woman- a highly productive one too. Or maybe they just refused to make room for her. Black and brown Commonwealth natives should be questioning why they are okay to be counted in the umbrella of influence of Britain and its monarchy, but are not quite welcome into the corridors of leadership.

Further, the Royal Rota that covers the activities of this institution is also quite homogeneous. It is the reason why so-called journalists use problematic language without a second thought. There is no diversity of background, thought or experience, and as a result, you have a group of people sharing information from a narrow, uninformed perspective. Unsurprisingly, you do end up with fluffy superficial and gossipy nonsense, packaged as news. If you’ve read their cover stories of engagements, you will see that for the most part, there are just a handful who are capable of capturing the depth and substance of some important work that a few of the royals do.

Harry and Meghan do not see it as enough to simply show up for public engagements, shake hands and say a couple of words before returning to their privileged lives. They have a demonstrable commitment to using their position to bring about change for the issues they care about, a concept that is not entirely foreign to the royal family when you consider Prince Charles’ many years of activism. It appears that, they did not anticipate Meghan to excel in her ‘royal’ role and to remain committed to using her platform for good. Here was a woman, a working royal, who within a short span of 18 months was able to deliver solid impactful projects, in addition to the run of the mill royal fare.

Together with her husband, they ushered in an approachable way of ‘royaling’ that appealed to many, thus drawing more eyes onto the institution. On social media, it was quite common to see tweets from some self-described republicans, expressing a level of personal conflict because they found themselves liking a royal. There is something to be said for the ‘traditional’ way the royals like to do things. Whether it’s for comfort or identification, it’s all well and good. If the monarchy is so concerned with popularity -which appears to be the driving force behind all the scheming and cut throat dealings- It is unfathomable, that they actively drove away assets that extended their reach across demographic, generational and geographic landscapes.

They say a rising tide lifts all boats. Because of the interest in Harry and Meghan, networks in America were covering their engagements, and it wasn’t uncommon for producers to tag other royal family members’ activities to these Sussex reports on Good Morning America or Today Show on NBC for instance. Outside of major events like weddings or births, American media would never have reported on typical royal engagements. The appetite for that simply didn’t exist.

“The problem with these two(Harry& Meghan) is that they want to do, rather than to be”.

Tim Shipman

Rather than embrace the positive public response, the institution instead royally screws itself on behalf of some fragile egos. As Tim Shipman put it, “The problem with these two(Harry& Meghan) is that they want to do, rather than to be”. I think this sums it up perfectly. Being royal is a carefully crafted PR game – a public image created by media hype men and women in which they appear to be doing charity work, but mostly delivering zero impact all while being fiercely protected from public scrutiny; as one person put in on Twitter – ‘Britain’s favourite Ponzi Scheme’. The monarchists are quite happy to pay for the performance, and now they are left with the royals they deserve.

In October 2018 when the smear campaign against Meghan kicked off, Robert Jobson reported that William “is extremely competitive with members of his family when it comes to media coverage and was especially salty about Meghan and Harry’s appearance in Cardiff in January”. The fact that Harry and Meghan were getting a lot of the media coverage bothered William and his court headed by Simon Case. It was after he joined the team that the tone of coverage around Meghan changed. The agenda was simple; anything Harry and Meghan was given a negative spin, period. Facts be damned, double standards be damned. Remember Simon Case was the man behind Will and Kate’s budget flight publicity stunt.

In an attempt to discredit the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and turn the public against them, the team at Kensington Palace worked with the UK media and their global counterparts to launch a smear campaign with the Duchess as their primary target. With total palace backing, the media were emboldened to print lies, ridicule and undermine Meghan’s initiatives, invade the couple’s privacy, bribe former friends and colleagues of Meghan to malign her character. As recently released court documents show, Kensington palace denied Meghan the right to reply to anything written about her, a directive that was extended to those closest to her. At the same time, all her paternal relatives were free to appear on and be compensated by UK networks, to say the most disparaging things about her unchallenged.

Simon Rex claims he was offered money to lie about Meghan

Harry paid damages over photos of his Oxfordshire home

Court documents refute tabs lies

The media with support of the palace used everything they had against the couple. Byline Investigates, captured the whole operation well in their article titled Why Harry and Meghan Move is Really About Dishonest Journalism writing in part that the media are “flogging racist and misogynist myth of a ‘difficult’, mixed-race American woman preying on a vulnerable prince”.

There was clearly a pattern of bullying and harassment driven by jealousy at play, which in part involved constant briefings about the couple by palace officials, the most prominent being their plan to step back as senior royals. This particular case may develop legal legs RE Prince Harry and the Sun newspaper. It is alleged that the SUN paid the partner of a royal aide Christian Jones, who still works in the court of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, for sensitive briefings. This leak followed a pattern of behaviour on the part of palace officials who constantly sold stories to the media, many of which later on turned out to be false. The media went ahead and printed them knowing there would be no repercussions because the palace had taken away from the couple the right to push-back under the selectively applied royal practice “don’t complain, don’t explain”.

Amidst the lies, leaks and constant negative briefings the royal family sent Harry and Meghan out on public engagements and royal tours expecting them to work with the very same people that dedicated column inches and airtime to abusing and tormenting them. This created a toxic workplace and there was no attempt by the royal family to remedy the situation that was taking a serious toll on the couple’s mental health. I don’t know anyone who would love to work perpetually in such a toxic environment.

When Harry and Meghan made their future plans public one of the conditions put forward was very simple. They no longer wished participate in the Royal Rota, as it currently operates. Members of the rota get a front seat to all events and are expected to share information with journalists outside the rota. If the rota put their own spin on events, how can we expect to get fair reporting? I would argue that this monopoly is what has emboldened them to sacrifice their integrity for propaganda. As a result, we see foreign media quoting these same problematic reporters and inviting some as experts on panels.

Contrary to media( read Royal Rota) reports that Harry and Meghan’s refusal to participate in the rota system was done to avoid media scrutiny, the couple wished to bring more transparency to their work by giving access to a more diversified media pool, subject matter journalists and media organisations that don’t have a quid-pro-quo relationship with the House of Windsor and in doing so subjecting themselves to even greater scrutiny. They understood that in choosing not to work with the Royal Rota, they would need to give up public funding, hence the need to pursue financial independence like some other current members within the family.

In the end their requests were denied and there has been a clean break. It has turned out to be a blessing because there are no bothersome entanglements with an institution that is invested in their sabotage. They were eager to use them as a foil – to distract the public when those within the family were alleged to have cheated on their spouses, had sex with underage girls or misappropriated charity funds. And then trot them out on public engagements, royal tours or to generate positive sentiment within the Commonwealth.

Meghan’s treatment at the hands of the establishment was dehumanising; she was commoditised, made into a thing to be used and abused by the powerful forces that pursued her mother-in-law to her death. That is why her husband, Prince Harry made the decision to step back as a senior working royal and move his family to another continent. It was always going to be untenable, based on the institution’s stance with the couple. When they failed to defend Archie from racist abuse, it telegraphed the story. Harry’s slightly tinged family will never be protected.

To protect them and avoid the same fate that led to his mother’s untimely death, they have rightly and wisely removed themselves from that destructive environment.

For once, we have a Windsor who is actually taking his marriage vow before God seriously. He swore to love and protect. He’s doing exactly that, and now they’re home – their own home. May love, peace and prosperity abound wherever they are

#meghan markle #prince harry #royals #duke of sussex #duchess of sussex #brf #meghanpedia #royal rota #british royal family #toxic tabloids #duke and duchess of sussex

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