#on one hand: NOBODY can do it like me (hubristic)
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One of the many things I really admire about you is how you DO things. You want to make a comic, you do it. You want to make an edit, you go and do it. You wanna do gifs, you figure out how to do it. You're constantly setting a goal and seeing it through and learning and growing as you go. And I admire that so so much because that's honestly not easy (at least it isn't for me). And I just wanted to let you know that
WOW I’ve never received an ask that made me pace around the room so much!! Thank you for telling me!! Forgive me for rambling in this response but I want to talk about the creation process a little bit— at least how I personally experience it.
Every project, no matter how large or small, is largely a fight between vision and pain. If my vision beats out my pain, I finish the project; if the pain becomes too unbearable, I hit the bricks (willingly or not).
Pain can mean a lot of things. It can mean frustration and dissatisfaction with your work in progress— a lack of technical skill that you can visibly see. It can mean the fear of ruining your vision by putting it down on paper. It can be the feeling that what you’re doing doesn’t matter. And in the context of this ask especially, it can be running headlong into wall after wall while learning how to use a new software.
I suck at learning new software. The learning curve for me is often so steep it feels untenable at times. Why can’t I do the simplest things? Why can’t anyone teach it to me in a way I can understand? I don’t even know if this YouTube video will teach me what I want to learn. And you’re saying I’ve got to watch 20 minutes of it to even see if it’s what I’m looking for?
I need you to know that for everything even remotely complete, even if it’s a work in progress, is built on a mountain of failures, of incomplete works, of past trials and tribulations. What I have of the music video for the SCP antimemetics division, built painstakingly in one of the most inaccessible and unfriendly video editing softwares, AVIUtl, dragged itself out of earthen trenches so that my music video for Pathologic could crawl pathetically. And that paved the way for the bits and pieces of the Kekkaishi music video, which walked so that the things I do for BIRDMEN could run.
I don’t think it’s really as simple as saying, “You want to make a comic, you do it.”
I think if I had never done any comics before in my life, I’d be so fucking frustrated with the process. But because I’ve been drawing comics since middle school, because I drew things and gave up and drew more things and gave up more, I was able to learn the language of comics by the time I entered high school, and by the time I entered college I had fought tooth and nail to learn how to use digital art softwares (I sulked a lot about this. I hated that everything I learned about making manga traditionally became essentially obsolete. I sulked soooo much about it it was unreal. don’t be like me).
That’s why I could finally, at that point, after almost 6 or 7 years of drawing, finally finish a 16-page oneshot for the first time in my life. Because I had hundreds and hundreds of pages of shitty pencil sketches of catgirls and schoolboys and what have yous. And knowing I could do that let me push myself further. I said to myself, I bet I could draw a story longer than 16 pages. I bet I could draw a story that’s 100. And I did. I had to sacrifice vision so I wouldn’t encounter so much pain, but I did it. And that’s why I think I can draw 600 pages now. Because it doesn’t hurt so much anymore, these days.
That’s not to say that drawing comics for me is an entirely painless process. It just means that the only thing I’m fighting is my self-esteem and perfectionism for the most part. I think my technical skills won’t fail me, not for panelling, not for compositions, not for art. It’s all about convincing myself that what I’m doing is worth it. Not the easiest, but certainly much less painful than having to fight that PLUS technical woes.
I think I understand what you’re going through, just a little bit. Maybe you don’t experience things exactly as I do, but I think you’re going through a lot of pain right now. That you have a vision, but you have trouble carrying out, whether it’s because of technical issues, unfamiliarity with the medium, a fear of beginning something you won’t end up finishing, or something else entirely. I don’t have too much sage advice for what to do here, but I want to assure you that what I do isn’t nearly as effortless as you might perceive it to be.
I want to take this chance and say to you that just from looking through your archives I can see that you’ve improved so so so much over the years. You draw often, you do lots of character design work, you’ve got a lovely and distinctive style. I know you mentioned one time that you wanted to draw a webcomic— and I say do it! Just dive into it.
The reason it took me so long to get to my level of competence in comics is because I had to reverse engineer a lot of shit. I used to draw things panel by panel, until I wanted a 2-page spread and realized, “Shit! I have to plan and pace out my story so that everything before the 2-page spread comes to a neat end on the left-hand page!” I used to freehand dialogue until I grew so frustrated with the fact that conversations seemed to constantly go off the rails that I realized, “Yikes, I gotta script this out beforehand...”
And so on and so forth. And maybe you’ll feel like you’ve wasted time and love on something that isn’t good, but just DOING things will teach you so, so much. It’s okay if what you make is bad. You can always start over, do it better this time.
This offer goes out to you, but really it goes out to any of my mutuals— if you ever want to talk about making stuff, whether it’s illustrations or writing or storyboarding, I’m always down. Whether you want technical advice or simple encouragement, feel free to reach out to me. I love seeing what other people are doing, and I know it’s really frustrating and scary to feel out a path by yourself when you feel like you don’t really know what you’re doing.
Art is so scary. It’s so painful. But even so, we can’t help but want to carry through with it, right?
#just thinking thoughts...#asks#confused-beany#waugh you changed your url!!#ohh... sorry for saying so much. but I've been thinking about this too lately.#chorus is actually very very painful to me.#from a technical standpoint it's not difficult. but I find it really hard to pick my pencil up sometimes.#even though I think it's so cool and awesome.#I'm just afraid other people won't feel the same you know?#on one hand: NOBODY can do it like me (hubristic)#on the other: nobody would want to do it like me (self-deprecating)#it's a hard knock life. but I'm holding your hand#if you want to talk btw. discord is the best place. dms are open!
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Yoruichi and Loneliness
I’ve discussed Yoruichi’s official theme (雲路の果て, Kumoji no Hate, “The End of the Cloudy Road”) before. Today I got to thinking that you could very easily cut a video of her set to it that was like what we see of Spike Spiegel in Cowboy Bebop’s ending with “The Real Folk Blues”. Seeing her mostly alone, in the rain, in the dark, looking away from the point of view, just these candid moments of isolation and possibly vulnerability.
I think that that really is a core part of her character. For as much as I talk here about her strength and abilities (as I do think she’s heavily underestimated due to the subtlety with which her power is communicated), I think it’s also clear how lonely and apart she is in a world which is persistently portrayed as isolating and cold. Even by the standards of other lonely characters in the series, she’s lonely.
And I think that’s not only reflected in her appearances or her demeanor (if one pays attention), not only in her song choice, but also in how other people talk about her. There aren’t many instances of that in canon of any real value, but there are some quotes in CFYOW which paint a certain picture of how others perceive her. Note that there will be spoilers for that book from here forward. (Thanks to @mysteriousshopkeeper for providing me with the official translations I needed!)
CFYOW volume I, chapter 2:
“What? So it’s just the aristocracy being pigheaded as usual?” Muguruma said, peeved.
Muguruma was fully aware that he didn’t get along with the nobles, Yoruichi Shihōin excepted, and because they were talking about the Seiretei Bulletin, he quickly lost interest in the conversation.
Hisagi, on he other hand, acted as if he hadn’t noticed anything.
We get Kensei’s thoughts here during a discussion with Shūhei, in which she’s a named exception to his dislike for nobles, evidently not fitting his image of them as self-absorbed. While she admittedly saved his life, that doesn’t necessarily mandate getting along with her because of it—this suggests she’s different from the rest.
CFYOW volume I, chapter 4:
“And the Tsunayashiro nobles?”
“I don’t care about the world of the nobles specifically because of what they are. Kyoraku, Kuchiki, and Yoruichi are fine, but don’t want to get mixed up with the average aristocrat.”
Hisagi also knew about the unreasonable, hubristic Soul Reaper nobility. If they had been charmingly prideful like Omaeda, it would have been another story. But he had seen the nobles’ terrible actions earlier in the Central 46.
He’d heard that even the Central 46 had changed their views due to the war, but many people in the aristocratic district still obviously looked down on those in the general populace or in the Rukongai.
“It would be nice if they were all like Ms. Yoruichi.”
“I think it that would be dangerous in its own way.” Muguruma imagined a group of Yoruichis jumping around the aristocratic district and scowled. He continued, recollecting. “You know, Byakuya got all worked up as a kid when Yoruichi teased him. There was something cute about it, but he ended up maturing into the spitting image of an aristocrat.”
“He can’t help it. He’s one of the Four Great Noble Clans after all.”
“Yoruichi used to be too though.” As he spoke, Muguruma picked up the Seireitei Bulletin from his desk. He flipped through it and continued. “But I’m impressed you took the job. Sure, it was a unique situation, but I think you could have turned it down and spoken to the other companies about it.”
Here we have Shūhei contrasting Yoruichi with the arrogance and irrationality of the average noble, which Kensei seems to agree with, although he regards her as too happy-go-lucky for that to not be its own problem. This confirms the above point about Kensei’s perspective of her being different from the rest—notice that he initially marks out Shunsui, Byakuya, and Yoruichi as acceptable, only to then draw a major distinction between Byakuya and Yoruichi. While she isn’t contrasted with Shunsui, that itself is a major clue.
CFYOW volume II, chapter 9:
Though Hirako had spent some time slipping away to the living world, he was a veteran in the current Thirteen Court Guard Companies. Because of that, he was one of the people who fully understood the Four Great Noble Clans’ absolute power; he knew they weren’t all openhearted like Yoruichi Shihōin or unfailingly loyal like Byakuya Kuchiki.
And here we have Shinji, who rather plainly thinks of Yoruichi as jovial and endearing. Openhearted usually means something to the effect of, “expressing or displaying one's warm and kindly feelings without concealment”. We admittedly see nothing of Yoruichi in civilian settings (as she’s always in or around battles or military preparations), and she often wears her heart on her sleeve when it comes to feelings, but this is still an interesting way of characterizing her.
Setting aside the Urahara Shōten, Kūkaku, and Shihōin Manor itself, you’d expect the Vizard would probably know Yoruichi the next best, and their familiarity with and fondness for her (compare Kensei and Shinji’s thoughts on their fellow Taichō, Byakuya) seems to indicate exactly that. But their perspectives don’t really stack up with the real woman herself.
Yoruichi rather plainly detests Tokinada (as she reveals in chapter 15) far more than Aizen, seriously intends to kill him, and then does have him killed by sending an assassin to finish him off in the name of revenge while maintaining plausible deniability for herself. She then suggests Kisuke wipe Shūhei’s memory because he’s a loose end, which Kisuke may or may not be surprised by and find unusual. The darkness of these actions (hints of which can be found in canon as well; she quite evidently aimed to kill Askin after a certain point) doesn’t really square with how others think of her. She is not wholly good-natured.
I noted the lack of comparison with Shunsui earlier and said it was telling, and I think that because I feel Yoruichi is actually quite similar to Shunsui in being fundamentally a lonely and sort of tragic character; we simply never see it in the same way as we do with him. The narrative doesn’t dwell upon it as it does in his case. And just like with Shunsui, Yoruichi is self-evidently possessed of a certain kind of darkness to her. (Just look at some of her faces while fighting Askin.)
That nobody really sees her darkness or sadness is evidence of how alone she is. Almost no one knows her well at all. They only know their own ideas of her.
(P.S., my stance on CFYOW has softened somewhat as I no longer find this behavior wholly out of character for Yoruichi; I just find her operating around the margins unlikely after how TYBW played out with Askin. In my opinion she’d have just done what Shunsui only seemed to fantasize about and killed Tokinada in broad daylight at the first opportunity when he didn’t have Enrakyōten and before he became Tsunayashiro Clan Head. But then there wouldn’t have been a book. I also think it’s obvious she’s useless during the fights with him, much like Kisuke is rendered useless by Aura, because the book is there to show off certain characters and to establish how awesome [overpowered] Narita’s OCs are as compared to Kubo’s, as Narita did in SAFWY too. Its zeal for reintegrating certain anime elements, like how Yoruichi and Soifon interact, also still comes off as more like character assassination to me.)
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Dead Cells and the weight of small lives pt.1 (about Prisoner)
NGL this is at least partially me saltposting about “I don’t really understand how people read the Prisoner’s dialogue and look at his thoughts and see someone who’s a total unrepentant asshole or the same person as the King” but it’s also commentating on an interesting pattern I observe in the game and its worldbuilding.
The setting of Dead Cells is, no two ways about it, a very unpleasant world. It is awash in death. The apocalyptic zombie plague of the Malaise is just the final nail in its coffin, leaving a handful of uninfected survivors on top of the literal heaps of corpses of the kingdom’s inquisition. A fountain of blood flows in the highest castle in the land. It’s grim. It’s horrible. We can hear someone get murdered through an unbreakable door.
The interesting thing is... what the game tells you to do with it, through the perspective of the main character.
For clarity: Prisoner is not here to save anyone. He is not a hero on a quest. He is- well- a prisoner. On discovering he has a kind of immortality, he begins using it to make his way through the island, learning painful lesson after painful lesson, returning, returning, and returning again trying to achieve some kind of change on this degrading looping time. But the fact that you’re not specifically out to save people is that... well... basically nobody’s in a position to be saved. As mentioned, there’s not a lot of survivors, and most of the ones there don’t need you- they’re doing on their own, and if that happens to not be enough, it tends to be enough very suddenly, where you can’t reach them or weren’t there at the time and are left a little shaken, because they were fine the last time you checked.
Also, half of said survivors are trying really hard to kill Prisoner.
Thus, if you’re used to games where objective 1 is to Save Everyone, Rid The Land Of Evil, Prisoner might seem shockingly callous, I suppose. The thing is, I consider myself the emotional equivalent of a glass frog- I’m very thin-skinned with bleak hopeless narratives.
And yet. There is something about Dead Cells’ universe that doesn’t seem like an attack on me. And I think that it’s what the game has to say about “small lives”. The lives that are considered unimportant in a crisis.
The Island in Dead Cells is ruled by a major hierarchy. This is obvious from jump- one of the first bits of lore text you are likely to ever get starting the game up is this one, for the Prisoners’ Quarters, the first area you start in:
In the social hierarchy of the island, there are the dogs, the rats, and just below them, the prisoners.
Prisoner is sometimes called “The Beheaded” by official detail, but he is called “Prisoner” specifically by one of the service NPCs you meet in the corridors- so one of the most consistent entities you talk to that’s not trying to kill you, who is always happy to see you with a sunny, “Well, hello, Mr. Prisoner, sir!”
He also starts the game in a prison cell, his headless state is made clear to us that it was the result of an execution rather than a war wound (there’s a chopping block and an obviously used axe in his cell with him) and his default equipment is a collar that was clearly once used to restrain him. So when the game pronounces this to you about the island’s hierarchy, Prisoner is not speaking abstractly about ‘those other poor sods’-
He’s talking about himself.
The hierarchy of the island is a specter that stalks you through almost every level of the game- through the massive prison complex which is littered with evidence and recounting of the guards toying with prisoners’ lives, of numbered corpses, a revolting sewer containing a shackled, corrupted monster that seems to have lived her entire life in this very same prison; to the astonishingly humble fishing hamlet that lies directly at the foot of the soaring grandeur of the Clock Tower and the even greater heights of High Peak Castle.
To the discrepancy between the teeming, crowded tombstones of the Graveyard, to the sprawling labyrinthine nature of the Forgotten Sepulchre- where a handful of tombs are presided over by entire walls of skulls that we’re helpfully told belonged to the heads of the delegations of high-ranking dignitaries- said delegations were butchered to attend their masters’ burials evermore.
Right away, this is thrown to us not as something we are outside of or transcend, but a slap in the face. The world tells us that our avatar in this game does not matter- that his face and voice do not matter and these things were taken from him by violence.
The thing is... Prisoner does not shut up. The game is full to bursting with his thoughts. He has so much to say that it’s jarring when we’re used to being alone with all his thoughts to meet another person and suddenly be reminded they hear nothing of what he’s saying, like a dramatic version of Garfield Minus Garfield.
Through revival, through cycles, the expectation of the gameplay is we are living the experience of Prisoner and what Prisoner’s experience is, is a one-man raging against a situation that’s telling him to shrivel up and die because he’s not important. It doesn’t want to be fair to him. It doesn’t want to be nice to him. It doesn’t care how much he’s hurting or if he doesn’t own a decent pair of shoes to his name, or if he doesn’t even have a name to speak of.
But Prisoner does not give up. He in fact does the opposite of giving up. After playing this game for a good while, I fired up some Hollow Knight and it really hit me like a truck that Prisoner spends most of the game tearing around near top speed, cartwheeling and sprinting and hauling up ledges and slamming down ledges. The pace of the game is fast, fast, fast, all intense, all in, and you’re encouraged to take risky gambles with an already precarious system like temporarily taking on one-hit-you’re-dead curses in exchange for more damage output or better loot.
The animated trailers make this even clearer. Prisoner gets his shit wrecked.
A lot.
At best, he can have some moments of feeling like an unstoppable god, but just about the time you start to get really worried for that cute little mushroom baby and their caretaker you are reassured that Prisoner’s reign of hubristic wrath comes to a hard stop thanks to inertia, and spikes.
And I will say more than many cinematic trailers, Motion Twin really did a remarkable job of matching this 1-to-1 with the actual experience of playing the game. I have even literally swaggered into a fight with the Giant much the same way Prisoner breaks out that cool spear flourish Moment Of Challenge only to immediately eat shit directly into his laser beam eyes, that I was not prepared for because he hadn’t used them last fight.
Prisoner is not valiant, triumphant, or wildly successful. His final bastion is skill and ingenuity.
This puts a really interesting spin on what I said before- that Prisoner is not here to save anybody, even himself.
Prisoner frankly does not have that kind of power.
There’s nobody in a vulnerable state you even have the option to choose to abandon. People live or die, and it’s really not up to you. There are a few deaths Prisoner takes into his own hands- the King and the Collector notably- but even those people, like... the King appears comatose by the time you reach him, and the Collector not only tries to kill you but is revived thanks to time strangeness- and another death that can happen, and is erased by the time looping- the unnamed sewer prisoner who wants you to go fetch the teleportation rune for him (ahem. he wants you to retrieve his rune, that definitely rightfully belongs to him) ostensibly to get out of jail but when you find his body, not only is he dead of a fate the rune wouldn’t have saved him from, but his objective, revealed, was that he was trying to get to a treasure chest he’d hidden earlier.
The one time it can really be said, outside of the boss fights or executing the King, that Prisoner really decides if someone lives or dies, is...
Mushroom Boi.
For the uninitiated, Mushroom Boi is a little summonable mushroom child that is equipped as a skill. Triggering the skill once will summon him. Triggering the skill while he’s already summoned will cause him to self-destruct, taking out enemies in the area and, by the game description, “violate your very soul”.
After this, you can without any consequence whatsoever summon him again, and blow this poor child up as much as you want. It does not really seem to slow him down any- but the game still, distinctly, frowns on it. You have a reward in the form of an achievement for keeping him with you without sacrifice, aforementioned crack about sacrificing him “violating your soul”, and, just, how can you be mad at this cute little guy? he has a tiny bow! He’s an extremely useful companion! Mechanically, you do not really hurt for want of the sacrifice ability if you summon him and then never touch that button again.
Given that Prisoner spends so much of the game alone with his thoughts, and the person who gives him access to Mushroom Boi, the Collector, has, to put it mildly, a long history of using and discarding people including implicitly children, there has to be some kind of implicit in-universe-source for the idea that you’d feel crushing guilt for detonating your son and boy like that, and the angle that makes the most sense is Prisoner.
So, Prisoner is someone who feels really guilty for painfully inconveniencing a summonable construct mushroom in a way that it does not seem to hold against him at all. At the same time, there’s really a shortage of ways that you can personally hurt anybody who’s not trying to kill you or being particularly exploitative (aforementioned teleportation rune sewer guy, who Prisoner goes as far as to flip off after he lunges and tries to either claw prisoner or grab the rune from him by force)
The most disrespectful Prisoner tends to be are to one of three categories of people:
Dead bodies that cannot feel or particularly care if he kicks them, that he usually kicks either specifically to loot or, as what seems to be some kind of weird bad idea where he plants his naked foot on a waterlogged corpse and then declares “ew” like what did you expect to happen actually
People who have one way or another tried to exploit him for their personal gain directly at his expense so he nearly gets murdered- or in FACT gets murdered- while they sit back and wait for him to succeed and bring them the reward.
Aforementioned people who are trying openly to kill him and even then he only flips off the Giant basically because the Giant flips him off first. This is kinder than I feel about the Giant. I like the Giant but I feel like someone with laser beam eyes that uses them like that deserves more than just one retaliatory middle finger.
And this meshes with other factors, but the post is long enough I’ll break off here.
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from: EURYDICE › is this the path you want?
from: EURYDICE › i never returned, don’t you want to?
from: EURYDICE › or is the road you’ve always known you’d take?
not to be the most annoying person ever, but too late, i’m cc & i love the hunger games. if you saw me writing my own syot fanfic when i was thirteen, no you didn’t </3 anyway, einar is a born & bred career from district two, if you see me comparing him to cato, yes <3 his whole thing is he’s mostly quiet but he will cause problems on purpose. i don’t have any stats or anything BUT i have wc @ the end of the intro so if you want to just scroll all the way down, do it i dare you.
❛ 𝗮𝗶𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗮𝗶𝗿 › 𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐑 .
[ NAM JOOHYUK, CIS MAN, HE / HIM. ] introducing einar gallowind, TRIBUTE of the 74th hunger games, representing district 2. my sources say that they are twenty - five, & that they’re pretty handy with weaponry. wonder if that will do any good in the arena ? anyways, caesar says you can’t miss them, because they remind everyone of the eerie calm before the storm — the trees shouldn’t be standing this still, echoing footsteps that near hiding prey, a haunting drag of a blade against the ground, forbidden tears and fears that rear their faces in the stillness of the night & a rotting sunflower field abandoned by a once peaceful caretaker.
❛ 𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 › 𝐀𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒 .
blood tw.
the darkness is empty – but it’s home; can’t you remember walking home with nothing but faith on your back? with bloodied bandages wrapped around your fleshy palms & tape around your brittle ankles, gingerly smelling the quarries as your dream gets less & less likely. & home – what you call home, the dimmed lights, the absent parents, the fading colors – home was really never home, was it? you chose your path, didn’t you? named for a fearsome warrior, exterior made of marble & blood earned arrogance, what would they say if they saw the empty glass interior? it’s fragile, make sure you don’t break it before your time.
❛ 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗼𝗻'𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗻𝗲 › 𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐒 .
CHAPTER I.
full name . einar seraph gallowind
nickname(s) / alias(es) / title(s) . tribute of the 74th hunger games, tbd.
age / dob . twenty - five / march 2
hometown . district 2.
current location . the capitol
status . alive for now ig.
specialty . weaponry
gender . cis gendered man
pronouns . he / him .
orientation . bisexual , grayromantic
occupation . career trainee / tribute
face claim . nam joo hyuk
CHAPTER II.
height . six feet , two inches / 190 cm
build . the build of someone who’s been training his whole life – tall, broad, well-built & toned. his limbs are muscular & lean, his torso is well toned & he keeps in shape with daily training.
tattoos . none
piercings . none
scars . small, 3cm scar on his upper left lip.
hair . dark, just a shade lighter than black. kept short, cut often by a family chosen stylist from the capitol – these days, styled specifically to help him look more visually appealing to the general public in hopes he’ll gain more favor.
eyes . the same shade as his hair & generally, has always been told they’re off putting. inherited from his mother, he’s got the same eyes that can easily put people at unease – cold, soulless, harsh – he’s got the gaze of a basilisk but he often doesn’t realize how often he does it.
clothing style . plain & basic so he may be styled however someone else wants. his own style is a mix of darks & neutrals, usually comfortable clothes that he can always go running in or do a quick spar session in.
usual expression . stoic – maybe, too stoic. often emotionless with a lifeless stare, he’s always been more of a silent statue type – right down to his resting expression. it’s uneasy, the way he’s clearly alive but could easily blend in with the grand statues at the most expensive of museums.
speech . rarely heard, but always remembered. einar’s reserved his speech for only the necessary moments – interviews, reviews, conversations ( that he deems alright, if he doesn’t find interest, it isn’t uncharacteristic of him to just walk away mid-sentence ). when he speaks, he commands attention, inherited from his father who’s always known how to work a crowd. einar speaks well, he’s charismatic & equable even if he doesn’t seem it, great at manipulating crowds but he chooses often not to.
distinguishing features . his tall stature, a scar shaped birthmark on the base of his right thumb, the actual scar on his lip.
CHAPTER III.
( + ) positive . intuitive, erudite, striving, benevolent
( - ) negative . hubristic, arrogant, imperious, haughty
moral alignment . true neutral.
likes . the hunger games, most weapons, waking up extremely early so he can have time for himself, being alone, staying up extra late so he can have time for himself, the wintertime, icy winds that bite to the bone, the smell of beef roast i won’t explain, slipping into shoes that fit just right, being in the capitol when visiting his father’s side of the family, meditating & pretending to levitate i won’t explain either.
dislikes . most other districts, most capitolites idk why, tributes who don’t even try ( like what’s the point ), the scorching heat, humidity, victors who’re sad ( get over it? ), corn, artificial food but what can you really do, the smell of the quarries from district two, victor’s village cause he doesn’t live there, hospitals because they’re ugly.
quirks . has a silver heirloom coin that’s been passed down from generation to generation that he’ll flip & weave through his fingers, can stand / sit / stay still for hours at a time without moving a muscle, will get up in the middle of the night to stare out a window & ponder.
hobbies . training restlessly because he doesn’t really know what else to do anymore, twirling whatever blade he has in his hand because he can, wine tasting with his father, running & sprinting, also swimming, watching designer shows & learning how to make clothes because of his mother.
❛ 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 › 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐈𝐂𝐋𝐄 .
trigger warnings : blood, injury,
life has been easy for you – you can’t deny what is fact. einar gallowind, descended from a bloodline of gold; it’s always been fated for you that you’d end up doing something great. if victory isn’t yours to grab, you’ll still be remembered ( and after all, isn’t that what matters most? ). your father, reinhardt gallowind of the capitol – he’s a former broadcaster, a charismatic man on television who sways the entirety of panem with his words & charm. he’s a dangerous kind of evil, one that seeps into your own blood, & you learn very early on that your father isn’t the same evil as the figures that loom over panem – he’s a sly kind of evil. his words sway the capitol, he decides who lives & who dies based on who he chooses to praise, his smile is as sinister as it is warm, you witness it first hand.
your mother is from district two, her last name carries weight in the district but she is nothing in the capitol. lavender goldheart is a sweet girl from a sweet family, but she is the same kind of evil as your father. she is upturned noses at the poor, laughing at the deaths of innocents broadcasted on a far - too - big screen, sending gifts to the already privileged tributes of a game nobody should partake in. she’s the kind of evil that attracts your father & you, you are a product of two evils. you are raised in a district that your father chose to move to, you hold your first blade when you are five, you maim your first opponent at seven, you learn how to keep your composure from a socialite & a broadcaster. two evils of the same variety, they teach you to become worse than they could ever be.
you grow arrogant. to the citizens of district two, to your classmates at the academy you are ruthless & cold, a career tribute of the upmost class – what everyone should aspire to be. you excel in weaponry, your brute strength gives you an upper hand in hand to hand combat, & while you lack in survival skills, you exceed in making sure you don’t have to survive long enough to need them. bold warrior, you are a deadly silent that puts your classmates at unease, they’re only friends with you because they’re scared of you & that’s what your parents want. they want a victor for a son, you want victory to have parents. because they’re never around, not really.
the lights are always off when you get home, you have enough money in the world but will your parents even show up when you ultimately volunteer? what a sad story, you suppose as you ponder it, poor rich boy, his parents never loved him enough so he decided he’d gain their love with blood. it makes you laugh, almost, as you watch the years pass by. you watch the games, you’re hungry for blood as you watch victors come & go – you memorize their names, their stats, their victories – it betters you as a trainee, you suppose. your training continues & you outgrow your classmates ( you are the best, einar, nobody else will say it to you, but you know ), you’re worthy of the games.
but, you are but a boy. you sit on the eve of your twenty-fifth birthday with nobody for company but yourself, you have the riches of the world but you’ve got nothing. you are the owner of a heart that longs to love ( to be loved, ), you have goodness in your bones even if you’re convinced you’ve always been built for evil, you’ve never had the ability to access it. the world your were born in was always against you, the odds were never in your favor – that’s the lesson you’ve refused to learn, but you will – eventually.
❛ 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 › 𝐖𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 .
from district two, anyone he might’ve trained with, anyone who might know his parents, anyone who he might’ve gone to school with, anyone he might’ve sparred with, anyone his family ( either the gallowinds or the goldhearts ) might’ve wronged at one point or another.
scenario one, a tribute that he finds he ends up caring for – he’s outwardly cold & very much skilled, top of his game, trained his whole life & your muse is ... not, but einar’s like well damn what am i gonna do protect this tribute with my life? absolutely not but i’ll make sure they at least get out of the bloodbath.
scenario two, another tribute but he doesn’t care much for them at all. to be fair, einar doesn’t care for most people but he knows them by name because maybe there’s a rivalry there or maybe they just don’t get along or maybe einar did the thing where he just turns on his heel & walked away mid-convo. anyway, on sight means on sight.
for other tributes: someone who isn’t a fan of the careers, someone who has a Bone to Pick, someone who einar will manipulate & lead on to k-word, an unlikely/reluctant alliance, a likely alliance, someone he stares at just to make them uneasy, someone who wants to get him to say more than hey what’s up.
for victors: a ‘never meet your heroes’ cliche where he admires them but they said no thanks, someone who he thinks is lame cause they didn’t “deserve their win”, someone who he thinks is lame cause they can’t handle their win, someone who he thinks is cool cause they could handle their win, someone who doesn’t like him because he reeks of arrogance, someone who likes him because he reeks of arrogance.
for citizens: um. we’ll figure it out. please love me.
#sacrificialstart#please love me#i did this in one hour so if you see mistakes <3 respectfully shut up
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CONGRATULATIONS, MIMZ! YOU’VE BEEN ACCEPTED FOR THE ROLE OF RAPHAEL.
Admin Rosey: I never really thought that Raphael’s application would be so f u n to read. Macabre? Absolutely. Impassioned? Of course. But hilarious to the point where I was giggling? Definitely unexpected but that is what made this so enjoyable and it is ultimately why this application received a r e s o u n d i n g yes from each of us. There was a perspective that I always envisioned for Raphael but was never able to articulate it myself until you laid it out, word by word, with this application, Mimz. Raphael is such a multi-faceted and character that holds so much potential, and the way that you wove it into every aspect of the application made this so fun to read. Thank you so much for taking the time to produce such a wonderful application! Your faceclaim change to Kendrick Sampson has been approved. Please create and send in your account, review the information on our CHECKLIST, and follow everyone on the FOLLOW LIST. Welcome to the Holy Land!
OUT OF CHARACTER
Alias
mimz
Age
21
Personal Pronouns
she/her
Activity Level
i’ll typically check the dash every day, and i try not to keep replies stewing for longer than a couple of days! that said i can be a little slow, especially around exam seasons.
Timezone
pst
Triggers
REMOVED
How did you find the group?
miss minnie bleubeard’s blog
IN CHARACTER
Character
raphael, with a fc change to kendrick sampson
What drew you to this character?
short answer: divine amorality sexy HAHAHAHA
long answer: there was something i read a little while ago about some of the best surgeons being able to dehumanize their patients to a rather frightening degree. there’s a level of abstraction that you need in order to not let your empathy get in the way of the practice of medicine; ultimately, a body is a body is a body, right? and then there’s the moral quandary of healing - it is a doctor’s duty to heal, but what does that actually mean? to what extent is a doctor’s duty to relieve suffering? to obstinately prolong life? if the body heals but the mind still ails, is a person healed? what i’m getting at, here, is that in some ways the healer is the most dangerous character of all.
when i read raphael’s bio, there was a quote in that article from a surgeon named david cheever that came to mind: “as a result of anaesthetics, the surgeon ‘need not hurry; he need not sympathise; he need not worry; he can calmly dissect, as on a dead body.’” to me, raphael is an explosion and expansion of this concept. raphael is, quite literally, a medical ethicist’s worst nightmare, and to me, that’s absolutely fascinating. without sympathy, what separates a healer from an educated control freak with a god complex? with raphael, we can extend this concept to its furthest extreme. raphael isn’t even human - how could he even begin to sympathize with an experience so foreign to him? why would he worry about something trivial as human suffering when it essentially exists as a theoretical concept to him? divine beings have no reason to play by human rules, and as a creature raised by god’s side raphael was so far removed from the concept of human suffering that it’s sort of a no-brainer that he developed a sick fascination with it, like a child who managed to con their parent into buying a grand theft auto game and is obsessed with running over pedestrians because the stakes never quite feel real. it’s a perspective i’d absolutely love to explore in a group rp setting because the nature of rp means that it’s kind of...completely unsustainable? like as writers we’re shoving these characters together, which means that raphael will have to be exposed to mortals. there’s room for a lot of character development there, and it seems like something extremely interesting to explore.
BUT HERE’S THE THING—and this is where the character gets really fun, in my opinion. i’ve talked a fair bit about god complexes already, but when applied to raphael an interesting question is raised: how much is a complex, and how much of it is actually being divine? what really made me want to get my grubby little hands on the reins of raphael’s story was seeing the disconnect between the way his connections are written from raphael’s perspective versus the other character’s perspective. it’s a fun little hubristic shade that makes him an unreliable narrator and infinitely more interesting than a simple morality thought experiment. i think it’s easy to see raphael as this super cool, all-powerful master manipulator (i think that’s a pretty accurate take on his self-image, in fact), but he’s not the only player in this game. for every pawn he’s trying to move, there is someone else trying to use him in a similar way, and i don’t know that he truly understands the ramifications of that. see, i think it’s easy to reduce raphael to the points i discuss in the previous paragraphs because that’s what he wants you to think of him. but this is a world of gods and superpowers and magical political intrigue and game of thrones doesn’t exist so nobody can tell him that he’s on the path to becoming a cersei lannister (admittedly i haven’t watched got so this reference might not be right but i feel like it’s right so uh. yeah!). maybe i just like to see arrogant men getting knocked down a peg? this might be a projection of that. i dunno. i just know that there are quite a few mind games and mental gymnastics to untangle with raphael and that’s fun. he’s fun.
also. i would like to once again reiterate: divine amorality sexy. it’s not good, to be clear, and i don’t condone it, but i’m just saying.
What future plots do you have in mind for the character?
WHEN THE CITY CRUMBLES AROUND YOU AND YOU HOLD ITS VESTIGES IN YOUR HANDS, WHOM DO YOU BLAME?
i think Raphael’s big character arc revolves around a simple question: how far are you willing to go to achieve what you want?
ostensibly, it’s an easy answer: very far. but when your desire is antithetical to your very purpose, when chasing it puts you at odds with the thing you’ve worked to build, do the goalposts move?
(the correct answer is that raphael did not build caelum. he simply destroyed god.)
let’s say, hypothetically, that raphael gets what he wants. the world is thrown into war and chaos and destruction, yadda yadda, raphael gets his blood and his suffering, great. he’s lived through this before (a couple times, actually), so you think he’d realize by now—eventually, the dust will settle. people will tire of suffering. and where will that leave raphael? how many times will you remake the world to watch it burn? can you ever be fulfilled chasing a temporary high?
(the correct answer is no, but raphael is an immortal being. more importantly, he is a patient one. he will wait a million days for rome to be built, if only to witness the single day in which it will burn.)
i think raphael needs to reckon with these questions. i think he’s lived far too long with his mentality unquestioned and that has made him both insufferable and a major threat to society. this is a long and pretentious way to say that raphael honestly kind of needs a hobby whatever the thc-verse equivalent of therapy is, but i think any sort of positive character development is contingent upon a recontextualization of suffering and chaos and raphael’s masks.
of course, this isn’t to say that introspection will only lead to positive character development. perhaps a raphael who looks deeper into his psyche will come to understand that his desires outweigh his role; perhaps such thoughts will push raphael over the edge of propriety and into something more outwardly despicable. no matter what, though, i think that the direction of raphael’s character development will be largely shaped on how he decides to prioritize his roles and goals.
FOR WHOM DO THESE HANDS HEAL?
let’s discuss the archangels, shall we? despite it all, raphael genuinely loves his brothers. i would argue, even, that raphael believes that his scheming is in service to the other archangels; he’s not blind to the way complacency has softened the angels. at this point, the only true threat to the angels is themselves—if michael wants to to unlock a state of sanctifying grace, it will happen at the hand of one of his kin.
i spoke earlier about raphael’s goals ultimately being futile. this is largely because they are diametrically opposed to michael and gabriel’s goals, and while raphael knows this intellectually, i don’t think he’s quite thought about what the long-term implications of that conflict entails. he’s so caught up in the conflict between michael and gabriel that he’s neglected to consider how he factors into the dynamic. could he be the common ground that brings michael and gabriel together? could he be the final straw that breaks them apart? he is excited for the fighting, the fallout; but has he stopped to consider what the long-reaching effects of such a rift may be?
raphael is breaking his family apart because he loves them. will that be enough, when he is sent to pick up the pieces? whose side will he fall on, if he is to pick a side at all?
DID PYGMALION FALL IN LOVE WITH THE BEAUTY OF HIS CREATION, OR THE BEAUTY HE CREATED?
i said this in the previous section but i’d like to reiterate it: i think a big reason raphael is Like That is because the stakes have never quite felt real to him. raphael’s a pot stirrer, but he’s not a creature of action. to this, i say give him real stakes. to be honest, i don’t know exactly what that entails, because i could see a number of ways in which tangible pressure manifests itself for raphael. perhaps his meddling with michael and gabriel steps too far, and his brothers perhaps the angels become suspicious of his maneuvering, in which the spider is drawn into his own web of intrigue. maybe we apply positive pressure, where the ails of the world require a healer and raphael is tapped to higher purpose—and higher power. maybe raphael will find himself tempted by the very demons he holds in contempt.
the point is that raphael has largely been a character who acts through others. even now, we see this through his grooming of romilda, with his subtle manipulation of michael and gabriel. i want him to become a more active character, either by his own volition or by his hand being forced.
similarly, i’m extremely interested in seeing how raphael navigates the political elements of this verse. i expect it stings a bit to be the only archangel not given a position of leadership; perhaps he holds lingering resentment toward zadkiel for being given a role raphael had expected to receive. does he subtly undermine zadkiel’s leadership? i want to watch him play up tensions with the vices, to hide a vicious war-hawk perspective under the guise of a concerned healer. i want him to smile in abaddon and samael’s faces and plot their suffering in his mind. i want to see the snake slither in the grass, to return to his original form as a spider spinning a web of intrigue across his court. yes, i want a more active raphael, but i think the political drama is ripe for development, as well.
WHEN I SPIT UP MY SINS AND BEG FOR REPENTANCE, WHAT WILL COME UP?
this one’s a long shot, but i could maybe...see...raphael……..falling. i can guarantee you that the idea has never even crossed raphael’s mind, and that he would literally rather be smited than be cast out of caelum, but i can see it. i think he might be happier, actually; if he fell, he could really lean into the chaos and suffering thing without any compunction.
of course, this is something infinitely easier said than done. were raphael to be cast out of caelum, he would have nowhere to go. infernum would never take him—he’s made far too many enemies among their ranks. he could wander the holy land, but he’s far too proud to bind himself to its existing social systems. (he wouldn’t be able to look gabriel in the eye.)
raphael would have absolutely nothing.
but he would also be free.
that’s right, i think that a horsemen-style liberation arc would be an absolute banger for raphael. again, i don’t think it’s feasible unless a very specific set of circumstances happen, but just imagine a raphael with nothing to lose, free to go absolutely apeshit. his only prerogative is to make sure you have a bad day. he is free to sow whatever chaos, whatever suffering he so wishes across the land. WHEW.
Are you comfortable with killing off your character?
yes, but i don’t see him going down easily.
IN DEPTH
Driving Character Motivation
entomological curiosity, in short. consider: why did god leave the apple in the garden of eden? why do humans keep animals in glass cases? why do children burn ants with magnifying glasses?
raphael wants to observe the world. a good healer must understand his patients at a fundamental level, and such truths are only revealed when the subject is broken down to its basest parts. you see, raphael was weaned on temperance and virtue; there is a lush decadence to emotional extremes that he finds most fascinating. they are debased. they are crass. they are wantonly sentimental, in a garishly beautiful way.
but this is not all. he wants to stave off boredom, and these are the tools he has to play with. for all of his machinations, raphael is a simple being. raphael has no grand ambitions, no lofty ideals, and that is what makes him so dangerous. he wants to be amused. he wants to be stimulated. he wants to observe a world in which things happen.
ostensibly, this is not as selfish a motivation as it may seem. as a healer, raphael knows something that many do not: serenity cannot exist in perpetuity. it is impossible for the world to remain unchanged—even if the change is not evident, it is happening. an eternal peace is all but a stagnation of the kingdom; the only thing stagnation breeds is degradation. the angels are weakening because they are not being challenged. michael and the virtues may be doing extensive research to find an alternate explanation, but raphael knows this to be the truth.
of course, the irony underlying the selfless explanation of raphael’s motivations reveals the truth of the matter: it is a farce. perhaps it is a lie that raphael has even convinced himself he believes, but it is farcical nonetheless. raphael claims he wants to invoke change because stagnation is dangerous, but riddle me this—if this is true, why has raphael never changed? centuries upon centuries have passed, and the world has changed around him, but raphael himself has remained largely unchanged. he is the orchestrator of change, not its agent nor its subject, and that is just the way he would like things to stay.
Character Traits
CHARISMATIC - there’s a reason very few have cottoned on to raphael’s true nature, and it’s not (just) his pretty face and magical girl-esque aura. there’s something effortlessly captivating about raphael, a pace to his cadence that has you hanging on to his every word, a lightness to his smile that makes you want to coax it out whenever and however you can. everything about raphael puts people at ease, except for his eyes, which tend to put people on edge if he’s not careful. he’s not gregarious or the outgoing sort of charismatic by any means, but he does manage to exude an overwhelming charisma.
PATIENT - it’s important to remember that before raphael turned on god, he waited for him. raphael performed healings for centuries and never raised a hand against his father in that time. think of all the angels that fell, that rebelled; raphael was not among them. no, raphael played the dutiful son, allowing his resentment to fester and boil deep underneath his skin, but never to surface. for centuries he served loyally, biding his time. remember: lucifer fell. raphael did not. which one killed god? as i mentioned in the plot section, raphael will wait a million days for rome to be built to witness the single day it burns. prolonged suffering is perhaps the most beautiful of all. fortitude goes hand-and-hand with patience.
INTELLIGENT - in a few ways. raphael is well-studied, with extensive knowledge of biology and chemistry and history and politics. raphael is emotionally intelligent; he hides his true nature behind a veneer constructed to meet expectations. he may not be as talented as gabriel in this regard, but it is a skillful construction nonetheless.
MANIPULATIVE - i mean. yeah.
ARROGANT - he thinks he’s smarter than god???????????????? tbf god was a bit of a headass in this universe but we’ve all read enough tragedies to know where this kind of hubris ends up going.
CRUEL - there’s a bit to unpack here. i’d argue that there are two types of cruelty: malicious cruelty and callous cruelty. raphael is certainly capable of both, but i think he embodies the latter. with certain notable exceptions, raphael’s cruelty is rarely personal; it is a thoughtless sort of cruelty, the type inflicted upon beings considered expendable. raphael is selfish and petty and powerful, and these traits coalesce into a casual cruelty.
In-Character Para Sample
cw: light gore
Look at how they look at him. God’s good little lambs, lined up all in a row, passive and pliant and patiently awaiting benediction. Patiently waiting for Raphael.
Raphael hates them.
No. This is false. It is difficult for Raphael to muster up stronger feelings toward mortals than a vague sort of amusement, the sort of affinity one might have for a particularly stupid kit when it does something surprisingly clever. In this regard, he understands that he differs from his kin. Gabriel, in particular, has developed a particular fondness for the mortals. Why anyone would wish to strip mortals of their most fascinating behavior—to the point of openly defying their Father—is beyond Raphael. He has given up on trying to reason with his brother on the matter.
The first supplicant is beckoned forward. They pray to the Lord and Raphael touches their forehead with one palm, cups their chin with the other. His fingers splay carelessly around a throat all but bared to him and the ceremony is so mechanical Raphael allows his thoughts to wander.
How easy it would be to tighten his grip. How beautiful it would be, to watch the lamb’s naive adoration flash into fear, to watch fear darken into betrayal and resentment and the most beautiful emotion of all: despair. He can feel the pulse at his fingertips. It would quicken in a stress response, he knows. It would quicken, then it would pound, and then maybe it would stop. It all falls to Raphael’s whim. In this moment, Raphael holds their life in his hands. They have all but laid on his sword for the promise of absolution and when they look up at Raphael with their dumb, trusting eyes he can see the sparkling tracks where tears once fell, down the hollow of a cheek into the pool of a collarbone. He finds himself overcome with the desire to trace the fall with his tongue. “Give me your pain,” he murmurs. Let me taste it. Let me understand.
He takes it. He does not taste it. He does not understand.
He releases the mortal. Those beautiful tear tracks are already fading. “The Lord be with you,” he says, and perhaps he even means it. His Father’s gaze burns into his back, even from a world away. He’d laugh at the irony, were he free to. Is this the weight you so desire? he wants to ask the devotee. No, Raphael knows the truth: God’s love is a shackle. God’s love is a leash and it is holding Raphael back from his fullest potential.
“And also with you,” the lamb responds. Their head is bowed obediently in prayer and they shuffle away, appropriately awed. The next supplicant is beckoned forward.
The light of Raphael’s presence obfuscates the darkness in his eyes.
—
Later, much later, Raphael finds himself studying his hands. He flexes them, balls them into fists, stretches his fingers as far as they will spread.
How easy it would be to tighten his grip.
The hand is at once an individual unit and a summation of individual parts. The hand contains twenty-seven bones and thirty-four muscles connected by over a hundred ligaments and tendons. Wrists connect to metacarpals, which connect to carpals, which taper off into delicate phalanges. Individually, each of these parts are largely useless; were Raphael to take a scalpel and drag it through a tendon, across the joints, the strings would be cut and the puppetry would cease to dance. You would be left with a small pile of carpals and metacarpals and phalanges, loose strings of muscle and tendon. At times, it is difficult to fathom how such mundane component parts are the instruments of extraordinary acts.
Raphael flexes his hand, watches bone shift under skin. If he remembers correctly, mortals have an idiom about knowing your hands, or something along those lines. He will not pretend to be familiar with mortal culture. Did you know that, wings aside, mortals and angels all have the same bone structure?
Of course you did. It is common knowledge that God made all beings in His image, or so the story goes.
This is an easy answer, but one with interesting implications. Let us extrapolate. If mortals and angels are essentially biological mirrors, and each are made in the image of God, does that mean that God will bleed like His creations? Slide a scalpel across God’s knuckles—will His puppets cease to dance?
Raphael could find out. It would take only a single blade, sliced through a single tendon.
Now, Raphael is not so arrogant to believe himself the blade. He would not even consider himself the hand. Such a role requires a particular kind of conviction—
( —and that sort of conviction is made manifest in bitter disillusionment—the sort inflicted upon Michael. How easy it would be to find himself in his brother’s ear, whispering of their Father’s capriciousness and the unnecessary cruelty that resulted for the poor, poor humans— )
( —and that sort of conviction is made manifest in righteous anger—the sort inflicted upon Gabriel. How easy it would be to find himself in his brother’s ear, whispering of their Father’s neglect and the unnecessary cruelty that resulted for the poor, poor humans— )
( —and that sort of conviction is made manifest in a whetted hunger—the sort God gifted to each of His angels. Hunger breeds hunters and heaven is full— )
—that Raphael simply cannot embody. Rage has never been his forte.
Consider, however, that the hand is controlled by nerve impulses. A spark is all the hand needs to transform from a collection of bone to an agent of action. Yes. He clenches his fists. Here are the bones, the veins, the tendons, the muscle. Angels and mortals all share the same bone structure.
Does God?
Extras
pinterest.
raphael has classically beautiful wings. i’m talking TEXTBOOK cherubic angel wings, with the sweeping white feathers and all. raphael kind of hates them, though he takes a great deal of pride in them.
raphael doesn’t have a signature weapon. he’s proficient with blades, yes, and fights with a surgeon’s precision, not the strongest nor the fastest but eerily efficient in his blows. but he is a healer—at the end of the day, his empty hands are all he needs. (his empty hands are what you should fear.)
raphael hates the heretics pro forma but. but. he cannot deny a certain...fondness for them. the heretics exhibited such dedication to a futile cause; they believed their suffering to be something noble. it’s a laughable notion, certainly, but a sentiment so distinctly human it’s almost charming. should they wish to return, to throw themselves on the knife over and over and over, well. raphael shall not complain. he shall smile beatifically, perhaps abate their suffering, even—and watch them do it again.
in a modern au, raphael is a reality tv producer. ok actually he’s probably a surgeon but i think he’d make a very good reality tv producer. alternately, there is a universe out there where raph fixated on like...baking, or k-pop, instead of suffering. those are good timelines, i think. maybe not the k-pop stan timeline.
raphael is the living embodiment of that dwight schrute “we need a new plague” meme.
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Phoenix Wright: Rise from the Ashes OPINIONS
Greetings, Tumblrinos! I have FINALLY aquired the original Ace Attorney trilogy on PC and have just finished the first game. I didn’t have any issues with the first four cases BUT I have a lot of UNANSWERED QUESTIONS about the fifth case, which was not in the original game. There were many things I loved about it (it gave me so much delicious evidence to play with) but I feel like its long, complicated plot had a few more HOLES than I like to see in a game all about finding contradictions and I have to SHOUT MY QUESTIONS/OPINIONS TO THE GREAT TUMBLR VOID so heeeeere we go! :D SPOILERS (duh)!!!
NUMBER ONE: WHY did Gant MURDER NEIL MARSHALL?!??!?
This is never addressed in the game, which I found very odd. This case is, I think, the longest in the main series and yet it ended SO SUDDENLY?!? Gant admitted how he killed Goodman to stop him reopening the case but he never gave a motive for killing poor Marshall AND SO I am left to speculate.
Of course, we know that Gant wanted to control the prosecuters and so it’s reasonable to think that he did it purely to frame Ema and thus get Lana under his thumb. However, he states that his motive for collecting evidence against Ema was simply “insurance” in case the case was examined too closely...? Is he lying? He might lie in order to distance himself from Lana and Goodman’s murder but then he goes and confesses anyway so why would he bother to do that?
Okay, so, murdering Neil worked out pretty well for Gant. He was promoted, Lana was promoted and he had leverage over Lana AND SO it looks like Gant purely wanted to frame Ema and that’s why he killed Neil. HOWEVER, this is still WEIRD AF.
Okay, so, in order for this to be EVEN REMOTELY PLAUSIBLE, Gant would have to be on the extreme end of murderous psychopathy. To murder your colleague who’s UNCONSCIOUS is just... It’s insane behaviour. He killed Goodman because Goodman was a threat. Marshall was just... THERE. ALSO, he’s have to be a huge hypocrite! Gant says that he did everything because he hates criminals and wants to catch them, no matter what AND YET HE LIFTS UP AN UNCONSCIOUS MAN, IMPALES HIM ON A SWORD AND PATS HIMSELF ON THE BACK FOR CONVICTING DARKE?!?! AND HE SEES NO ISSUES HERE?!?!
Furthermore, I don’t think that any of this was necessary to convict Darke. Lana seems to think so but it looks like Marshall and Gant had pretty much cracked Darke when he made a run for it. Lana wasn’t there for the interrogation. Not sure how relevant Darke is to Gant’s motivation but it’s interesting that it’s thrown into the MOTIVATION SOUP that we’re presented with.
Therefore, it appears that Gant killed Neil because he believed that it was for the greater good: by controlling both the police and the prosecutors, he would be able to ensure that those he deemed to be guilty would be punished. Fair enough.
Okay, so, Gant and Lana are about to crack the case. Gant states that he’s already up for his dream job. If they succeed, Lana will be able to become Head Prosecutor. SO all that Gant needs is leverage over Lana. BUT SURELY, she already admires and respects him. They’ve been partners for years. They’ve cracked many cases together. They are the dream team! Pretty sure they even have a name in game like “Dynamic Duo” or something... “Legendary Duo”, thank you, Google. Presumably, Lana trusts Gant. He could give her forged evidence or omit things and she would most likely use it without ever knowing, much like Miles Edgeworth did.
SO, if Gant hadn’t killed Neil and framed Ema/Darke, Lana would most likely still be Queen Prosecutor and would trust Gant. So, not only did he take a HUGE RISK killing Neil (MORE ON THAT LATER), he also jeopardised the valuable relationship of trust between himself and Lana, replacing it with BLACKMAIL. Perhaps, blackmail might seem like a more solid bond to someone as TWISTED as Gant BUT there are two problems with this blackmail.
FIRSTLY, there is the possibility that the person being blackmailed will SNAP. This doesn’t seem to be a huge risk with Lana. SECONDLY, this blackmail is based on LIES. It potentially becomes USELESS if someone figures out that Ema is not responsible so he’d have to believe that he’d left no traces (so I guess we can add HUBRIS to his list of character flaws). Oh, and this brings up another problem. In order to follow through on his threats to Lana, he’d have to admit that he covered up the truth in the first place!
Okay, so I have decided that killing Neil didn’t accomplish that much of a REWARD for Gant so let’s look at the RISK. He PICKED UP an unconscious, fully grown man without disturbing the other two unconscious people in the room or Neil himself. The building was full of people for the award ceremony, presumably. To be fair, it took place in Gant’s office and so it’s unlikely that anyone else would walk in but the office had massive windows!
Although unlikely, the possibilty of someone else witnessing Gant’s murder definitely existed. Furthermore, there was the more likely possibility of someone IN THE ROOM regaining consciousness and catching him in the act. Darke had hit his head, but Ema had merely fainted and I can’t believe that Marshall never regained consciousness while someone cut out a segment from his waistcoat, PICKED HIM UP and SKEWERED HIM ON A SPIKE. I mean, c’mon. Even if you agree that it’s possible that he didn’t get woken up by being impaled, how would Gant be so sure that this wouldn’t happen.
The more I talk about this, the more questions I have but I MUST SAVE THEM FOR NOW.
Okay, so Gant walks into the room, sees three unconscious people and thinks, “Gee! I could totally do a murder right now and frame one of these people, tee-hee. OMG if I make it look like Ema did it, Lana will TOTALLY have to do what I say, like, for EVER.” So, Gant does a murder and tries to cover it up but leaves A FRIGGIN’ HUGE OBVIOUS TRAIL BEHIND HIM THAT ANY IDIOT COULD SPOT, HOLY COW. IN FACT, WE’RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT THAT NOW.
WHY DID NOBODY QUESTION THAT THERE WAS A SQUARE CUT OUT OF MARSHALL’S WAISTCOAT??! THIS IS SO OBVIOSLY HIDING EVIDENCE!!! LANA EVEN HAD A PHOTO OF HIM WITH THE SQUARE MISSING AND A PHOTO OF HIM TAKEN MINUTES BEFORE WITH AN INTACT WAISTCOAT!!! NOBODY THOUGHT TO POINT THIS OUT?!?!?
WHY THE FLYING FUCK WOULD MARSHALL WRITE EMA’S NAME ON THE WOBBLY VASE?!?! This particular piece of evidence didn’t come to light until the current trial but it’s just so stupid! Obviously, Ema didn’t try to kill Marshall. It was an accident. Why would Marshall think, “I must not let this demon child get away with this heinous crime!” and use his last strength to do this nonsense. Furthermore, HE WAS IMPALED ON A SWORD. HE COULDN’T HAVE REACHED THE VASE. HE WAS TOTALLY SKEWERED.
Speaking of that ugly-ass vase, did none of this top notch investigation team try and piece it together? Presumably, they did. That would bring up the question of the missing piece. Gant, you idiot! No wonder all of the investigators were suspicious.
I guess that Gant thought he was untouchable and could just shut anything down with his authority but he made such a mess of everything that he was caught out by many people and eventually had to resort to the ol’ Stabby Stabby just to shut people up. Gant’s supposed to be this brilliant person but he just comes across as an idiot with a TERRIBLE personality. I feel like a lot of Ace Attorney villains slip up because they’re in positions of power and think that they’re untouchable but I think that this is the stupidest one I’ve encountered so far.
Okay, so, ASTONISHINGLY, Gant’s plan works. He gets away with THE MURDER and now it’s time for some sweet, sweet blackmail... He tells Lana that Ema will be convicted of murder if the truth gets out. Wait, WHAT??!?! HOW!? IN WHAT UNIVERSE COULD EMA BE SEEN TO BE GUILTY OF MURDER. Manslaughter, perhaps but she was acting in self defense! She pushed a guy wielding a knife. I DO NOT BUY THIS AT ALL. It seems likely to me that Lana would still co-operate because she was afraid of letting Ema know that she was responsible for Neil’s death but that seems to me to be the extent of the hold he has over Lana. Lana claims to have sold her soul for this. Does she believe that it’s worth it to spare her sister from the truth? Perhaps.
SO, IN SUMMARY, in order for this to be any kind of plausible, Gant has to be EXTREMELY SOCIOPATHIC, HUBRISTIC, HYPOCRITICAL and brimming with, my favourite, UNFATHOMABLE STUPIDITY! The UNFATHOMABLE STUPIDITY is what I have the biggest problem with. He is supposed to be SMART and CAPABLE. So are the rest of the team assigned to the serial killer case. I just, ugh... It doesn’t make sense...
NUMBER 2 (finally): WHERE’S THE BLOOD, BITCH?
Why is there so much blood by Lana’s desk in Gant’s office? Neil died on the other side of the room AND YET there is no trace of blood to be found there! I sprayed the HECK out of that suit of armour and there was NOTHING. If Neil was skewered there, he would, PRESUMABLY have bled A LOT. Also when they UN-SKEWERED HIM. In fact, we know that he was coughing up LOADS OF BLOOD while he was skewered, thanks to Lana’s photo. SO, WHY. IS. THERE. NO. BLOOD. THERE. Presumably, Gant had the office thoroughly cleaned in the TWO YEARS since the incident but, then, why can I still see blood in Lana’s half? And surely there would have been blood traces there two years ago when this, ALLEGEDLY, UBER-COMPETANT TEAM investigated?
Number 3: WHY THE EVERLOVING FLYING FUCK did the police decide that Goodman had been MURDERED in the evidence room?!??!
What did the police find to lead them to believe that a murder had been committed?!? They had a video showing someone dressed like Goodman entering the evidence room, followed by that annoying af megaphone guy, who got beaten up, cut on the hand and knocked unconscious. THAT’S NOT A MURDER. NOBODY DIED. THERE WAS NOTHING TO INDICATE THAT A MURDER HAD TAKEN PLACE! WHY WOULD THEY REPORT IT AS A MURDER, LET ALONE GOODMAN’S MURDER!!?!? THIS MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE!?!
Furthermore, WHY WOULD THEY HAVE MEEKUMS DELIVER THE REPORT TO EDGEY BOY WHEN HE WAS THE ONE THEY SOMEHOW DECIDED WAS THE MURDERER?!?!? At the time, I thought that Gant sent Meekums or whatever his name was (cba to look it up because he was SO ANNOYING) because he knew that Edgeworth would ignore him because he was so annoying and he’d be able to make Edgeworth look bad in court later. But, seriously, what was even in that file? There was no murder!!! If Gant was trying to throw us off, why would he draw our attention to the evidence room and the two-year-old case?!? Whyyyyyyyy!?!?
Tbh, I have no explanation for any of this. IT DOES. NOT. COMPUTE.
THING THE FOURTH: Why was Lana’s hand not bleeding in Angel’s photo?
Lana says that she cut her hand because she was shaking while stabbing Goodman’s corpse. YET, Angel’s photo VERY CLEARLY shows her without any injury. Angel ran down to the car park because she saw Lana stabbing Goodman. Therefore, by the time Angel took the photo, Lana must have already stabbed the guy. Also, Angel states that she saw Lana stab Goodman repeatedly and that she was wearing a muffler. So, the stabbity stabbity must have happened before the photo was taken.
Question the Fifth: Who the Hell calls an exhaust pipe a “muffler”?!?!
Well, I just googled it and it’s something that reduces noise coming from the exhaust pipe. Yay learning!
Question the Sixth: Why did the cameras not catch Gant giving Goodman the old stabby stabby?
Presumably, Gant erased the footage immediately after exiting the room but this was never addressed, for some reason. I guess it was already a long af case but I like details, dammit!
7: How did Gant clean up so quickly?!?
Bruce Goodman died of bloodloss. That’s A LOT of blood to clean up! He summoned Edgeworth to the room to collect the screwdriver only 20 minutes after he himself first entered the evidence room with Goodman. In those twenty minutes, he must have had the fight with Goodman, waited for him to stop bleeding, moved the body, stuffed it into Edgeworth’s trunk, found cleaning products, mopped up ALL THE BLOOD from a guy who DIED OF BLOODLOSS, hiden whatever it was that soaked up the blood (slorp), erased the video footage and somehow not got ANY BLOOD on himself and WASN’T SEEN by ANYONE stuffing a body into a car ON THE DAY OF DATA TRANSFERENCE!?!? HOW?!
8: Seriously, how many identical white detective coats are there?!?!
Marshall wears one to impersonate Goodman, Goodman is wearing one when he is MURDERED, Lana is wearing one in Angel’s photo and, weirdly, it has a bloodstain on it in the same place that Marshall’s one does. However, we can still see Marshall’s costume coat sticking out of his locker. WEIRD.
SO YEAH
This concludes my list of puzzling things in this episode! There are probably more random things that I’ve forgotten but, in that case, they can’t be bugging me too much. What really IRKS me is the question of the “murder” in the evidence room and how UNFATHOMABLY STUPID everyone, especially Gant was 2 years ago. These two things just make the episode feel a bit incomplete to me. I admire the ambition of this episode but I feel like some things slipped through the cracks and left my brain aching for the wrong reasons.
#ace attorney#phoenix wright#rise from the ashes#damon gant#lana skye#unfathomable stupidity#rambling#raving#neil marshall#spoilers
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Ignite the Stars: Chapter 2
Read on AO3
My Lady…
Her steely pink eyes snapped open at the intrusion, bringing a halt to her meditative trance.
“Speak,” was all she said, tugging her consciousness away from the vast recollections she had set it on, but placing her focus on the commander's muffled voice instead. It was better this way. To not be distracted by colorful hindrances, but to focus on painless tasks, and the will of her malevolent Emperor.
Lady Mayura, the plans are not aboard the ship and no transmissions have been made. However, an escape pod was jettisoned during the fight, with no lifeforms aboard.
What a sly princess, Mayura marveled, holding her fist tight at her side. “She must have hidden the plans in the escape pod. See to it personally, Commander, that a detachment is sent down to retrieve them. The Emperor will be dissatisfied if the plans slip from our fingers.”
Yes, my Lady.
There was a moment of pause and then a hitch in his breath, just as Lady Mayura moved to silence him.
“Commander?” she asked, voice thick with indignation, having had enough of pointless conversation with hubristic imperial officers.
I’m receiving a transmission from his majesty, Emperor Papillion…
His voice came off as weak, much like the breathless drone of a corrected admiral. But he cleared his throat, evenly continuing. Lord Hawkmoth wishes to speak with you, My Lady.
“Very good commander, see to that detachment,” she said, voice hollow, as she ceased the sound of her communicator and presented herself to face her master. Her dedication to him was without question, but she knew the prices paid by her Emperor’s fury and the venom of his voice. News that a young princess had gotten the upper hand in their civil war was not the news she wished to present to her lord. Not while breath still remained in her chest.
“Yes, my Lord,” she said evenly, dropping herself onto the cold floor with her sturdy bow. “How may I do your bidding?”
'
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* '
* *
They move slowly through the Tatooine sands, leaving their trails visible to any creature that possesses eyes. Civilians pay them no mind, but the monsters of the desert are quick to follow their trails.
“How did we get into this mess? I really don’t know,” muttered the protocol droid. “We seem to be made to suffer. It’s our lot in life.”
The smaller droid ignored Threepio’s wailing, moving onward dutifully with a one-track mind for her majesty, Princess Marinette.
“I’ve got to rest before I fall apart. My joints are almost frozen.”
Bleep blip, was the only response he received, being willfully ignored by the steady persistence of Artoo, scouting out the land for the woman that the Princess had pleaded for. And so he turned, despite C3PO’s many protests, venturing into rocky land in search of settlements. Bleep blip, bleep blip, bleep blip…
“What mission? What are you talking about?”
Whistle, beep, beep.
“I’ve just about had enough of you. You’ll be malfunctioning in a day, you nearsighted scrap pile. And don’t let me catch you following me, begging for help because you won’t get it.”
And in his own malfunction, with the ignorance of a droid, Threepio parted ways with his companion, leaving each of them left lonesome, free for the taking of the night time monsters.
On the smooth path walked by the muttering See-Threepio, cloaked creatures with glowing eyes walk toward him silently, knocking him sideways and then quickly dragging him into the darkness.
Artoo, just a dome-shaped droid of blue and silver, rolls through as eyes peek through the jagged rocks. Though startled by the lit eyes of his attackers, he is defenseless against their numbers, being pushed to a halt and dragged backward into their transports.
Without defense, they have no choice but to let themselves be taken to the den of the monsters.
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A line of dusty machines was spread out across the plane of dessert, being presented to Etienne and his handful of credits. Each model was unique in its own right, beaten and amuck with dirt, but of use, nonetheless.
Adrien paced his way beside his uncle, allowing him to bargain frugally while he pretended to observe the other models. His uncle had his focus on a red droid, and though it may do him good to pay attention, Adrien allowed his gaze to head back to the horizon, where the twin suns were ghosts of themselves, just two heavy moons that cooled off Adrien’s sunburnt cheeks.
Earlier, if he had seen it right, he swore a star destroyer had graced the air, leaving a streak of light across the northern sky. He had allowed himself, for the first time in many long weeks, to let himself hope. Even Nino had agreed, peering through the scope, that it was a rare thing to see. For something of that size to so closely touch the backwater planet of Tatooine. It often seemed like this was the only life out there, with no way in and no way out. People just didn’t leave. Not the ones who lived there, mind the bounty hunters and smugglers.
Adrien had seen the ship as a sign. A sign of an escape. A way out. A way to freedom. And he couldn’t keep himself from clinging to it.
“We’ll take the blue one,” his uncle said, placing a hand on Adrien’s shoulder and positioning him to look at the machine. Adrien just nodded, smiling at his uncle in approval as he began to inspect the droid for himself. Just as soon as he forced himself to focus, Etienne called to him, examining a gold-painted protocol droid, motioning for his nephew to come and follow. “Take these two over to the garage, will you? I want them cleaned up before dinner.”
He frowned, meeting his uncle’s eyes, but kept silent.
Adrien had hoped he would have time before nightfall to meet Nino at Tosche’s Station. It was a desperate attempt to gather the parts he needed to fly, to one day take off and leave the desolate planet. But more than that, it was Nino’s last night on Tatooine, being that he was sailing off at dusk to join the Alliance. Leaving Adrien behind in the confines of his protective Aunt and Uncle, as a useless farmer, with nothing to offer for the greater good of the galaxy.
He shouldn’t have ever hoped for anything else.
“You can waste time with your friends when your chores are done,” Etienne said gruffly, nudging his nephew toward the droids. “Now come on. Get to it.”
He sighed, turning to the golden droid beside him. “Alright. Come on.”
'
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* '
* *
He couldn’t help but feel as if he was running out of time.
The Empire’s steel grip loomed heavier each passing day, like a dark shadow on a once golden galaxy, stripping life and replacing it with oppression. For many years, the shadows didn’t reach the outer rim the same way it did the capital, but as all things did, even Tatooine was changing. Freedom was a myth. A place of safety was nonexistent. Everybody knew the Empire was corrupt, but nobody was brave enough to consider how to stand up against it.
Not until the Rebel Alliance.
Adrien had always been sheltered from the chaos of the infectious Empire since he had been a boy, being told not to ask questions and to focus on what he could control, like his work. But that was easier said than done as he grew older, being exposed to calamities he couldn’t disregard and news that he could never forget. Nino had been his first friend who had ventured outside of Tatooine, filling him in on many of the things Adrien would never have heard of otherwise.
The Rebel Alliance was one of those things.
Adrien burned at the thought of escape, to join such an Alliance, to have a cause. Moisture farming kept civilization going, but it hardly filled him with relief. Nor did it fulfill him the way it did his family. Not the kind of fulfillment he could find in blasting the Empire’s oppressive shadow to ashes all across the star systems.
Instead, he found himself scrubbing down a droid with a damp cloth while lowering another into an oil bath. “Very important stuff,” he muttered, wiping the sweat from his brow and setting the rag down on his workbench.
Clearly, all of this was much more important than freeing entire races and civilizations. At least, that’s how Uncle Etienne seemed to see it. As something that couldn’t be helped. As something that had to be ignored.
“It isn’t fair,” he said softly, crossing the workshop with a fresh cloth. “I’m never going to get off this rock. Nino’s right,” he said, clenching his teeth as he dug away at the worn dirt of Artoo’s countless missions. The droid beeped sympathetically, turning his upper dome to acknowledge the attention of Threepio.
“Is there anything I might do to help?” the man of gold intervened, still lowering into his oil bath.
“Can you alter time? Transport me to another system? Quicken the harvest?” Adrien asked with a sigh, tossing the rag to the side.
“I don’t think so, sir. I’m only a droid and not very knowledgeable about such things. Not on this planet, anyway,” he continued on. “As a matter of fact, I’m not even sure which planet I’m on.”
Adrien rolled his eyes, preparing himself for many hours of the droid’s rambling. Company is company, he decided, digging around for something more effective to clean Artoo.
“If there’s a bright center to the universe, you’re on the planet that is farthest from it.”
“I see, sir.”
He was growing tired of the formalities. “You can call me Adrien.”
“I see, sir Adrien.”
“No,” he said, chuckling softly, comforted by the company. “Just Adrien.”
“Adrien,” the droid repeated. If the droid could smile, which he couldn’t, Adrien was sure he would have been now as he enthusiastically made his introduction. “And I am C3PO, human-cyborg relations. And this is my counterpart, R2D2.”
“Hello,” Adrien said casually, beginning to scrub yet again.
He liked droids a lot. Though he didn’t go around admitting it, he spent most of his childhood interacting with artificial intelligence, finding company in the likes of scrap metal and wires far more than he ever did the other children. He had always been so secluded from the other civilizations, being demanded to work long hours on the farm while the other children hung out closer to Mos Eisley. Nino was the only kid at school who would walk the trek to the Mars farm, and even then, he couldn’t do it often. So droids, though artificial, had served as good companions more often than not.
Beep, beep, blip ...was the blue droid’s greeting.
Adrien was making no progress with the droid. “You’ve got a lot of carbon scoring here. Have you two been caught in a lot of blaster fire?”
“With all we’ve been through sometimes I’m amazed we are in as good condition as we are, what with the Rebellion and all.”
Adrien paused, his hand slipping, eyes lighting up instantly as he turned to the talking droid. He blurted it out faster than he should have, nearly leaping to his feet at the droid’s words. “You know the Rebel Alliance?”
“That’s how we came to be in your service, if you take my meaning, sir.”
Adrien’s hands pulsed, turning to face the droid completely. “Have you seen any battles?”
“Several, I think. Actually there’s not much to tell. I’m not much more than an interpreter and not very good at telling stories…well, not at making them interesting, anyway.”
He chucked, letting his eyes dim slightly at the droid’s reluctance to tell him more. Usually, droids were more forthcoming than humans, which is one of the reasons he valued them so much. But due to humans, droids often had restrictions on what they could and couldn’t say, and details of a revolution such as the Alliance were things not meant for the eyes of a young farmer.
So he tried to let it go and focus on his work.
Adrien’s hand was getting sore from digging, wiping away at the worn machinery. He was fed up with the dirt lodged in the droid's mechanics, making it difficult to access his inner structure.
Pulling abruptly on one of the Artoo unit’s bolts, a sudden flash of blue light passed over his fingers, causing him to stumble backward. And then, lifting his eyes to the configuration, just a flickering silhouette of a girl, with eyes wide with dread, but yet hope. With strength, her voice carried a sweet spirit.
A girl.
A beautiful girl.
Help me, Caline Bustier, you’re my only hope...
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#Ignite the stars#miraculous ladybug#Adrien Agreste#Chat Noir#marinette dupain cheng#Ladybug#Adrinette#Ladynoir#marichat#ladrien#Miraculous Love Square#love square#star wars#miraculous fic#fanfic
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Between Skin and Stone
Part 1
I would put another 4 years between now and Friday. I would make every day another four years, and live a fluttering, winnowing looped existence until Time itself grieves and gives up its passing. “The years shall run like rabbits,” Auden writes, exposing the confidence of young love that cannot comprehend the gravity of its favorite hyperboles.
I have no confidence. That’s what Tobias hates most about me, partly because Tobias is full of confidence. But I will readily do what he is too afraid to. I will leap into the unknown, the incomprehensible. I don’t have to understand the rational, I just have to know it’s ticking on somewhere else in the world, while I give myself over to entropy. Perhaps it is a fault; perhaps one should not so easily slip into in-between worlds, so frequently dabble in nonsense. But my vision is forever split down the middle of time. I take the eyes of the lovers and the clocks. Every time a train in London leaves on time, yet also every time a bright-eyed girl severs a flower from its roots to show her love, the world beats forward in its lively arrhythmia. It gasps and skips between skin and stone, between structure and spirit.
I would go back and bear it all again, the blood, the broken hearts, the dark rushing water. I’ve got nothing to lose. This is why, before I know what I’m truly doing, before I decide that this is what I’m doing, I am at the bell tower. It’s half past midnight. My gloved hands clutch the ends of my scarf. A few distant bedroom windows flicker to dark in the span of time in which I’m waiting. My breath spills in rivulets into the cold, still air, and the full moon illuminates the glittering remnants of last week’s snow.
“Malka Rose,” comes a smooth, soft voice behind me, “the queen herself. You made it! I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist.”
I can see Jasper’s clever, always-in-the-know expression before I turn around. I almost smile at the reference to the meaning of my name.
“Well,” I yawn, “I couldn’t sleep. You know how it is. I have papers to write. I thought I’d take a little walk and enjoy the night air, and here we are.”
He looks down at me through oversized circular frames. “It’s a romantic idea, of course. A secret room with a one-of-a-kind musical instrument, invented by Dr. Jabari himself! I mean, it’s straight out of a mystery film.”
His natural enthusiasm shields him from the chill, I conjecture. Meanwhile, I am cold everywhere I go. I try to keep my teeth from chattering.
“Plus,” he adds, “I have the strangest feeling that this will be good for everyone. I don’t know exactly what I mean. But Tobias is always somewhere else lately even when he’s with us, I know you see it too and I know it worries you, your parents are getting divorced and I can see it hurts you even though you claim it doesn’t, everyone’s going through something weird and I feel like this will open up the creative energies in our collective psyche and make exciting things happen…” He extends and swirls his arms around while he talks.
Not bothering to dispute Jasper about my own feelings about my parents’ divorce, I am silent for a moment, trying to decide whether or not I agree with him, and whether a collective psyche could be a real thing. Sifting through the Freud and the Jung and whatnot I studied superficially once upon a time, I come up with nothing, and decide to trust him.
“And, even if it doesn’t,” he continues, “we’ll still have another beautiful symbol on which to project all of our failed fantasies and existential sadnesses.”
“Very nice,” I say, shivering. “How do we get in?”
“I’ll show you.” He offers his arm. “But you have to promise to uphold the secret. We, the poets and artists, have been maintaining our secret haven for centuries. And, as of late, guarding it from would-be vandals, partiers, and smokers. It must be kept pristine.”
I laugh quietly at the implication that Jasper is centuries old, though I would have no trouble believing it if he were. Also at the implication that poets and artists could not be vandals and smokers. I know what he means, though.
“You know me. I barely talk to anyone outside of you, Helena, and Tobias. I won’t give it away.”
He leads me around to the entrance of University Hall. He produces a key from his pocket, dangling it in front of me like a coveted prize. My eyes widen, as even though Jasper is Jasper and has pulled off numerous improbable stunts, I have never known him to steal like this.
“How did you get that?!”
“Tobias ‘lent’ it to me once, to bring him some papers he left at the printer after closing.” He grins. “And he never asked for it back.”
“He forgot?”
“Nope.”
As Jasper conveys his trusted confidant status with a smug wink, I’m starting to get annoyed. The winking, the grinning, the I-know-things-nobody-else-knows air is grating at my nerves, my tolerance for it diminishing. When one is around Jasper, one is always aware of an unspoken hierarchy. That there is someone beside you who is forever more experienced, more knowledgeable, more favored, and ultimately more capable and perceptive than you are and can ever aspire to be. This makes Jasper a very good friend to have, a friend you feel unreasonably safe around, and yet often, quite a frustrating companion. But right now, something stirring within me tells me that the rush of bitterness accompanying this exchange has less to do with Jasper and I than with Tobias and I.
Jasper unlocks and opens a smallish mahogany door with a rusted handle, and then we are finally out of the cold.
“Okay, Malka Rose, your life is about to change, are you ready?”
Am I? Am I ever? My answer is an internal shrug. I’ll do anything. I’ll walk off a cliff with a casual wave goodbye. I don’t feel the meaning of anything before I do it, and sometimes I think I’m invincible, but not in a hubristic way. In a numb, chaotic, confused, unpreventable way. In a “death can’t kill me if I’m already dead” way. Jasper can see through my eyes, though, in the dim lamplight coming through the window, and he knows what they’re saying on my behalf, even when I don’t. He closes the door, and the world falls away as we breach the hall and begin climbing the stairs towards the belfry.
#my writing#original writing#new WIP#dark academia#chapter 1#rough draft#original fiction#tw death mention#between skin and stone
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╱ – IN CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE – ╱
whats your name ?
she wonders if she can get away with lying. it’s definitely something she’s good at – but saffi’s pretty good at everything as long as she just concentrates. steely grey eyes look from the paper to the others writing down their answers and she methodically works her way through every consequence that could come from lying. it’s a questionnaire , she finally decides. if they really wanted to learn her dirty little secrets , they’d try harder. her left hand writes down her answers , hubristically signing her name instead of just writing it down.
— ' saffi michaelides ’ —
what’s your age & birthday ?
her handwriting is neat , almost so neat that it might look like it’s computer generated – just kidding , but she’s definitely been there before. if she had more time , maybe she’d try a little more for perfection. ‘ i celebrated my twenty-third birthday on june sixth this year. ’ she contemplates a smiley face , but decides against it.
where are you from ?
she almost cracks a smile , thinking of home. but almost immediately thoughts of home and what awaits her when she goes back flood her ever-busy mind , erasing all thoughts of even attempting to smile. ‘ boston , massachussets. ’ she doesn’t even want to go back home , she’s smart enough to disappear. she’s already formulated enough plans to disappear without getting anyone in trouble , she knows all she has to do is execute it.
describe yourself in three words.
her lips purse , a signature look when she’s actually thinking hard. most things don’t take much effort for saffi nowadays – she’s old enough to know most things and she’s always two steps ahead of everyone , but ask any question about herself and she magically doesn’t know the answer. ‘ hard-working, ’ she writes down one , slowly. ‘ ambitious, ’ her black pen scratches the paper. ‘ enterprising. ’ perhaps she’s being too nice to herself , but god knows she deserves it.
what fictional characters do you relate to the most ?
this question makes her smile. she’s always resonated with one character and one character alone , physically and mentally. ‘ easy – annabeth chase. ’ she misses her childhood , reading the books without a care in the world. she wishes she used greek mythology more in her real life , but the law doesn’t really call for the memorization of seventy-thousand ancient myths or quotations from the odyssey. ‘ rumor has it , rick riodran based her off of me. ’ a rare moment of witty humor.
who are you closest to ? describe your favorite memory with this person.
it’s a tough reality , but saffi doesn’t think she’s close with anyone , really. this comes from years of fake friends and series of manipulations , but at the end of the day – there’s nobody to blame but herself. she blinks , pen hovering over the white paper. ‘ my dad. ’ she guesses , it’s a good enough answer and nobody will second guess it. she is probably the closest to him , after all. ‘ he’s a good role model and he’s helped me through every step of my life. sure , he’s not perfect – but nobody is and i can’t fault him for being human. ’ it’s not what was asked , and she chews the inside of her cheek – gently , not wanting to give herself another injury.
‘ my favorite memory with my dad was when i was graduating high school. i hadn’t turned seventeen yet but it’d been a really rough year for me – especially with my dad returning to congress and everyone throwing his name around for a presidential candidate. the tabloids were ruthless that year , i remember instead of writing articles about me graduating a year early and attending yale , they were talking about if i’d lost my virginity to my newest boyfriend. silly , right ? considering i was literally sixteen. anyway , i cried after graduation because while it should’ve been a proud moment , i had been humiliated all year. my dad took me out for milkshakes at one in the morning. we ditched the bodyguards and we went to a little boxcar diner and we just talked for maybe an hour. i don’t even know why i’m writing this down , nobody else knows this. it’s kaos , i guess. ’ her handwriting here is especially messy , almost illegible.
what’s your favorite holiday ? why ?
she doesn’t celebrate holidays , truthfully. they’re childish and she really doesn’t see the point in them , but she’s had the same answer since she was six , when adults started asking. ‘ christmas. ’ she doesn’t want to elaborate , but she forces herself to continue writing. ‘ i love the atmosphere of the holiday. it’s snowing , it’s winter , people are kinder , people are more grateful. it’s a good holiday. ’ it’s a bullshit answer , one she’s perfected over the years as it became unacceptable to say she enjoyed to expensive presents and the wine her parents let her drink.
what’s a little known fact about you ?
everything about her intelligence was a little known fact to general america. she’d grown up as the daughter of the handsome politician and the ex-beauty queen , she’d only ever been known as a rich girl with a pretty face and a stunning smile. ‘ everything , honestly. ’ she’s pressing down a tad harder when she writes. ‘ let’s see , i graduated high school with one year of college complete and one year early , i got a perfect act score and near perfect sat score , i graduated from yale when i was twenty and i got the highest lsat score of my class – but i’m sure you know about my list of boyfriends when i was a teen , right ? ’ the words are laced with bitterness , but she can’t help it. she crosses the whole thing out , outlining the block of words and coloring it in so it’s just a block of black ink. underneath it , she writes, ‘ i’m allergic to strawberries ! ’
if you could describe your life six word story style, what would it be ?
a wry smile plays across her lips , pen gliding smoothly. ‘ i’m so much more than that. ’ a sentence she’s said to herself all her life. no explanation wanted , so no explanation needed.
what’s a song you think will describe your summer in kaos ?
she’s stumped and it doesn’t happen often. she doesn’t know many songs that describe her situation , girl is tired of everything so she runs away from home and tries to stay away for as long as possible. ‘ a sky full of stars by coldplay. i don’t know , it just reminds me of my brother and what i could feel this summer. ’
#kaos:talk#⠀⠀⠀ 𝚜𝚊𝚏. ╱ development.#jfc this got so long im so sorry but#saffi is more of a thinker than a talker sfjdskfjsksksfjsk#also i was gna make a graphic but ... brain is gone
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sound off if you’re alive.
CRITICAL ROLE SENTENCE STARTERS || ACCEPTING || @pr0ngs
It is, perhaps, not their finest hour.
They’ve got a lot of those, not-finest-hours. In fact, if one were to tally up the proportion of their lives that made up not-finest-hours, as opposed to their finest ones, and even to perfectly average ones where they did nothing more exciting or terrible than perhaps eat breakfast, the statistics would probably worry any sane person.
Luckily, most of their not-finest-hours are discussed only in the half-darkness of their dorm, curtains drawn and nobody to witness their bruised egos and/or body parts. Aside from the ones that are witnessed, no one will ever know that they existed.
Here and now, in this not-finest-hour, there’s smoke in Sirius face and a sort of prickling all up one side of his neck. His ear is hot, and although he’s noticed that happening when Remus gives him that look, sometimes—the fond, crooked one, with the little smile thrown in—he doesn’t think that this is quite the same thing.
“Ouch,” Remus says from the smoky darkness. It’s a crisp, dry ouch. The kind that says more this is all your fault, you know than i’m actually injured, though it can be hard to tell with Remus. Spending one day of the month in throes of agony as he does, he’s never one to make to a fuss for anything less than a broken bone.
“I think I can taste tomorrow’s breakfast,” Peter says, thickly. He sounds dazed; he’d been second-closest, after Sirius, who lies there and stares up into the darkness, eyes watering, and wonders what he’ll do if he’s melted half his face off. Wear a mask, he supposes. Retreat to a cave. Live forever in the shame of faded beauty, marred by his own hubristic arrogance—
“—Sirius!”
He realises James has been calling him for a while now, and remembers that he has not joined in to let the others know that he is, in fact, alive, though at what cost has yet to be established.
“I think my ear is falling off,” he says, conversationally. There’s the slightest breath of relief from the other two at hearing his voice, and searching hands—Remus’, he thinks, though it’s hard to tell in this hazy gloom—find his shoulder.
“I’m sure you’re fine,” says a voice, and that’s definitely Remus, only it’s coming from the other side, so this must be James.
“Will you still love me if I’m hideous?” he asks, letting the hands pull him up. A wand flares with light and illuminates James, glasses askew and hair all pushed up on one side of his face. There’s a faint, sooty residue up one of his arms.
“You look all right to me,” says Peter, doubtfully, and yes, of course it’s Peter who’s helped him up. Sirius knew that.
“Yes, well,” Sirius says. “You wanted to ask out Olivia Mallow, so I clearly can’t trust your judgement.”
“You all right?” James asks, interrupting the budding squabble. “Aside from, er, the melting ear?”
Sirius reaches up to the ear in question and prods at it, cautiously. It all seems to be there, though everything from that side is a bit muffled. He sticks a finger in it and wiggles it aggressively. When that doesn’t help, he tips his head and bangs the other side, as though he thinks there might be something stuck in there that he can dislodge.
“Might be a bit deaf in my left side from now on,” he muses. “But I’ll live.” James grins at him, and Sirius grins back. Did they intend to almost melt their faces off tonight? ‘Course not. And yet, here they are, the two of them, grinning at each other like it’s the best fun in the world.
#pr0ngs#;drabble: m#v: I solemnly swear#god it's been so long since i drabbled#these fingers are rusty as hell
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The Parable of Sisyphus
King Sisyphus was known from Homer onward as the craftiest of men. He betrayed one of Zeus’ secrets by revealing the whereabouts of Aegina, in return for causing a spring to flow on the Corinthian acropolis.
In return, Zeus then ordered Thanatos, Death, to chain King Sisyphus down below in Tartarus. Sisyphus was curious as to why Hermes, whose job it was to guide souls to the Underworld had not appeared on this occasion. He slyly asked Thanatos to demonstrate how the chains worked. As Thanatos was granting him his wish, Sisyphus sezied the opportunity and trapped Thenatos in the chains instead. Once Thanatos was bound by the strong chains, no one died on earth.
Before Sisyphus died he told his wife to throw his naked body in the middle of the bpulic square. This caused King Sisyphus to end up on the shores of the river Styx. Then, complaining to Persephone that this was a sign of his wife’s disrespect for him, he persuaded her to allow him to return to the upper world. Eventually he was dragged back down for his trickery.
As a punishment for this, he was made to endlessly roll a boulder up his steep hill. The maddening nature of the punishment was reserved for King Sisyphus due to his hubristic belief that his cleverness surpassed the gods. Zeus accordingly displayed his own cleverness by enchanting the boulder into rolling away from King Sisyphus before he reached the top, which ended up cosigning Sisyphus to an eternity of useless efforts and unending frustration.
Therefore I find it impossible for a chapter where Kanou dies, without facing any kind of justice at all and way too easily, and one where he namedrops Sisyphus himself and take it at face value.
It’s a story specifically about cheating death. Which, Ishida has taunted us with the possibility of for a long time, and also both Koma and Irimi, and also Marude have made symbolic returns from the dead in story.
That’s not the only interpretation of the Sisyphus story though. There is the greek one, one of hubris, of a man thinking he can outwit the gods and then paying the price to have all of his intelligence and cunning go to waste as he’s put to a mindless task. (If we’re going by greek interpretation alone then Kanou definitely should not get out of it this easily, consequences matter in Greek tragedy beyond death and for Kanou it should be having his mind stripped away from him b/c that’s the only thing he values to the detriment of others much like Sisyphus).
However there is a more modern interpretation of his tale. “The Myth of Sisyphus” is a modern take on the Myth that is tied heavily to the existentialist branch of philosophy, though, Camus himself probably wouldn’t call himself an existentialist. He likened what Sisyphus did, rolling a rock up a hill only to have it fall back down again to be an impossible task, an absurdity. That life itself was Sisyphian.
The central concern of The Myth of Sisyphus is what Camus calls "the absurd." Camus claims that there is a fundamental conflict between what we want from the universe (whether it be meaning, order, or reasons) and what we find in the universe (formless chaos).
Hmm, sounds weirdly familiar.
Camus reasons there are only two results to this question. Either humanity makes a leap of faith and assumes there is some meaning through god, or that their is no meaning to life at all. I think it’s not coincidence that one of the very existentialist clowns is a catholic priest then.
Camus opens his essay with an even more extreme utlimatum though. He asks if the latter conclusion is true, if life has no meaning, does that mean life is not worth living? If that were the case, we would have no option but to make a leap of faith or to commit suicide.
“There is only one really serious philosophical problem,” Camus says, “and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that” (MS, 3).
So we have in this chapter, once again another figure commit suicide suddenly and leave everything else he’s done to chance even though it may render his work entirely meaningless.
I think it’s no coincidence then that in this narrative right now, the biggest influencers the two kings for the world are explicitly depicted as having a suicidal wish to their actions.
Remember, Furuta’s plan is now confirmed by Kanou to have explicitly hinged on him being eaten as well. As far as we know it worked, Furuta’s entire side where the nucleus was implanted has been torn off and that was the arm he was regenerating while speaking to Ui.
But by all thematic purposes, their narratives shouldn’t succeed. As far as we’re being shown though, Kaneki is getting exactly what he wanted. He got to die in style, and still everybody around him is throwing love at his feet.
Nobody holds him accountable for the bad decisions he made as king, for letting ghouls starve and die. It makes sense why they wouldn’t however, as currently there is no Kaneki to hold accountable there. If Shuu screamed bloody murder about how he killed Karren and doesn’t care about ghouls now what exactly would it accomplish? When there’s no Kaneki to hold accountable for that?
Those words struck me as so raw, because remember Karren’s final thoughts were these.
Karren’s one moment of happiness in life comes from saving a person she loved, and then that same person’s only care in life seems to be the happiness of her murderer?
That’s completely absurd. It’s a contradiction that should be impossible to reconcile. On the other hand it makes sense in Shuu’s character, Shuu has always been extremely pro-living because he came from a normal place of love. It makes sense that Shuu would try to move on and ensure the happiness of the people he had less, rather than fixate entirely on the people he lost.
That’s exactly it though, Shuu would not want Kaneki to die. Kaneki’s friends will not allow him to die. The message they’ve said to him is “Live.”
I agree with that. No matter what Kaneki has done so far he should live, nothing would come from his death, from another pointless suicide like Arima and Kanou.
Tokyo Ghoul thematically as a manga has always been extremely anti-suicide and in favor of living. This is the illusion that we’re being presented to us right now. That Furuta and Kaneki’s solutions are working. That them putting their lives in moral peril, is somehow going to be a catalyst to unite both sides. That reunion will never come however, if based on a lie.
The absurd is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled, and any attempt to reconcile this contradiction is simply an attempt to escape from it: facing the absurd is struggling against it.
This is what we’ve seen this entire arc. People attempting to reconcile things which cannot be reconciled, and therefore they just try to escape it entirely.
“What meaning is there to live while facing death- Oh hey, Touka.”
Impossible contradiction life and death, and then escapism.
Camus is interested in pursuing a third possibility: that we can accept and live in a world devoid of meaning and purpose. Living with the absurd, is a matter of facing this fundamental contradiction and maintaining constant awareness of it. It’s what Amon himself preaches, even if he doesn’t practice it.
Ironically in 98, the same chapter in which our absurdist is crowned as king, Amon gives us the key to escaping it. He gives it to the Quinx as well.
Now, of all characters who has actually held Kaneki accountable for his actions. Who has actually questioned him.
This is a question that deserves an answer. It’s one Kaneki ignores and has entirely yet to give.
The third solution Camus presents is not love, at least not yet, but rather being made to face reality. Which is why if Touka, Hide, and Tsukiyama are the embodiments of Kaneki’s positive qualities, the one who want to save him. Then equally valid are the embodiments of Kaneki’s negative qualities, his endless struggling, his trauma and lashing out, his inability to decide or act on time.
Camus presents us with the solution, we cannot distract ourselves, we cannot take a leap of faith, and we cannot die to escape it. The only solution to live with it. However, living means continually and without hesitation facing that same reality.
That’s not going to come from Goat or Hide, both forces who love Kaneki too much to stop him or look at him at face value. Hide who blames himself for the thing Kaneki decided to do.
Tsukiyama who lies about Kaneki caring about ghouls and humans equally. Goat, who is both easily as swayed by Itori’s words as they are by Tsukiyama’s.
The answer must lie in both ends, both those who love Kaneki and those who want to see him held accountable. That’s the only way Kaneki himself can ever grow or change as a character, and learn to face the absurd unwaveringly.
Oh one more thing.
"Those who prefer their principles over their happiness, they refuse to be happy outside the conditions they seem to have attached to their happiness. If they are happy by surprise, they find themselves disabled, unhappy to be deprived of their unhappiness."
Since that is Camus it can very well be interpreted into his absurdism. Because the world makes us free, one is free to find their own meanings and to make their own goals, but if once the goal is reached, they can't see an inch beyond it, they have failed to actually confront absurdity and have just been hanging onto a single thread, hoping something other than themselves would carry them through life.
(Sourced from @lunamatista who I consulted with for the majority of this).
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Own goals: a critical appreciation
Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images
Nothing better encapsulates the mad tragicomedy of sports than a good own goal
I remember my first own goal in slow-motion, horror movie clarity. It’s a corner, the keeper has abdicated to hide on the line and I’m at the far post, five yards out, with the ball coming at me like a me-seeking missile. What a defender should do, in these circumstances, is move towards the ball and head it somewhere harmless. I did not do that. Instead, I shaped for a hubristic right-footed volley, which I sliced, hubris and all, straight into my own net. For this crime I was rightfully banished from the good kingdom of Farpostia, never to return under pain of being yelled at a lot (and eternal damnation).
So. Own goals. As a defender, they’re a humiliating fact of life, each a little tragedy. But, as the great Mel Brooks once observed, “Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die,” and that sentiment explains why own goals are also objectively some of the funniest things in sports. There’s nothing quite like knowing that someone rich, famous and supremely talented has had a very bad day.
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Tragedy for Lee Dixon and Arsenal supporters, high comedy for everyone else. All own goals, of course, are funny. But some are definitely funnier than others. What makes the one own goal better than another? What elevates Dixon’s exquisite lob over, say, a random, unfortunate deflection? Obviously Dixon’s own goal is funnier. Why?
The answer, I think, lies in the tragic nature of own goals. To mangle Aristotle (who probably deserves it), we can sort own goals into two branches, simple and complex. In what we’ll call simple own goals, the team conceding never has much of a say. Bad luck simply demands and receives a sacrifice, that sacrifice feels a little stupid for a while, and life goes on.
Complex own goals, on the other hand, require active participation from the defending side. In fact, the less the opposition is involved, the better. The destruction demanded by destiny is self-authored. Oedipus promises to discover Laius’s murderer. Lee Dixon passes back to Dave Seaman. This self-immolation is what elevates own goals from farce to farcical art. It can be achieved as individuals (e.g. Emanuele Giaccherini) or in groups (e.g. Aaron Lennon and Gareth Bale, embedded below). But either way the best own goals must be active.
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They should also convey the full force of despair. The Bale own goal linked above, while very funny, has a too-rapid denouement. There is no time to appreciate the own goal while it is alive, in the process of being an own goal. By the time we comprehend it, it exists only in part tense. It may regretted post hoc, but we never see that desperation in the moment.
(You’ll note that nowhere above did I mention importance. This was deliberate. Own goals are embedded in competitive sports, true, but they’re an art form in their own right and ought to be treated as such.)
So far we’ve spoken exclusively about own goals in soccer. But it’s hockey in which the denouement can reach its most cinematic. Most hockey own goals are simple. It’s a sport built on the absurdity of ice and vulcanized rubber; unfortunate bounces are common enough to be barely worth mentioning. But there are a very special set of circumstances in which ...
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... yeah. Perfect.
A delayed penalty own goal fulfills our requirements for own goal greatness by definition. The opposition is literally not allowed to touch the puck. The goalkeeper leaves the ice for an extra attacker, leading to a mad scramble back for an inexorably goal-bound puck. And then we have the reactions.
Loui Erikssen’s valorous attempt to hold off the entire opposition team, his pass to nobody, the gentle slide goalwards, the trailing defender hurling himself through his own net ... this, friends, this is the art form at its most pure.
Here’s another delayed penalty own goal I enjoyed. It’s not as good as the Canucks one, but it holds a special place in my heart because from a game I happened to be watching live (I’m a Senators fan. Please stop laughing).
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This will not be, I hope, taken to say that soccer doesn’t have its fair share of magnificent own goals. Any search on Youtube will both disprove that and unearth treasures almost beyond comprehension. It’s simply a reminder that we ought to appreciate the mad tragicomedy of sports wherever we can find it.
I hope the folks watching me score my own goals found them funny too.
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11, 12, 16
Sorry for the delay in answering @cinquespotted and thank you for asking! :) Been a manic couple of days and I needed to think about non-fiction books about classics because that’s not so easy to answer when I haven’t been in academia in the subject for almost ten years. (Yikes…)
11. recommend a piece of non-fiction about the classical world
I was thinking about this on and off for a couple of days and then the answer hit me. Adam Nicholson’s The Mighty Dead. I’m not sure that “non-fiction” is quite the right way to describe this utterly brilliant book. It’s a lyrical, imaginative, semi-fictional investigation of Homer’s influence and power, as simultaneously oblique and direct, beautifully written and πολυτροπος as one of Homer’s heroes.
I also pulled out my undergraduate dissertation bibliography which was the last time I read classical scholarship seriously and I remember being blown away by some of the things on it. (Unlike many students, I absolutely adored writing my dissertation - I was very lucky.) Here are a few of the academic books I read which I recall enjoying even at the distance of 9 years:
- Chew, Kathryn. “The representation of violence in the Greek novels and martyr accounts”- Frye, Northrop. The Secular Scripture: A study of the structure of romance (not classical per se but brilliant and influential - I read more Frye for my masters and I’m a big, big fan)- Konstan, David. Sexual Symmetry- Loraux, Nicole. Tragic ways to kill a woman- MacAlister, Suzanne. Dreams and Suicides: The Greek novel from Antiquity to the Byzantine Empire
Yep, my dissertation was basically about sex and death. (What else is fiction about?) No, I didn’t do it on purpose…
12. who is your favourite poet? why?
(Oh how nice, this meme was created by someone writing British English. How delightfully unusual!)
Am I allowed to cheat and give two - one Greek and one Roman? Good! :P
On the Greek side, I have to go with Homer. I mean, I honestly feel he (he? As if we know!) might be my favourite author. Or at least sit up there alongside Austen. I guess at the moment I’m in more of a Homer mood than an Austen mood. Polite tea drinking and elegant sniping in a ball room really isn’t cutting it for me at the moment. (YES I KNOW THERE IS MORE TO AUSTEN THAN THAT. SHE’S MY FAVOURITE AUTHOR AND I’VE WRITTEN A DAMN MASTERS DISSERTATION ON HER. I’m just having a reaction against that kind of writing atm. I don’t know why. I don’t know what to do about it. I feel sad. But that’s another post.)
HOMER
I mean, where does one start? I’ve always loved The Odyssey from reading Book 6 for Greek GCSE and tittering over Odysseus covering his naked manhood with a fig leaf (lines inexplicably missed out from the Bristol Classical Press’ edition for fear of offending the sensibilities of school children, clearly not realising that by missing them out there is no indication that Odysseus isn’t stark naked in from of Nausicaa the entire scene lololololol). I did a final year paper involving reading the whole poem in Greek (spoiler: I failed, but I read about 2/3rds of it missing out the many books of recognition in Ithaca and it was a wonderful experience reading 100s of lines of Homer and getting a feel for the vocabulary and the rhythm of it all. I wish I had been a more dedicated student and had actually completed the whole thing.) It was my favourite paper. Professor Simon Goldhill (who looks and sounds like Zeus) opening the lecture series by booming, “The Odyssey is all about how to be a MAN”. ανδρα μοι εννεπε. First line of the poem. I get shivers thinking about it. Odysseus - his character. WHAT A GUY. (I don’t mean to say you have to like him or approve of him - that’s not what appreciating fiction is about, you clodpoles, but you have to admit he’s an amazing, amazing character and concept.) We actually had Professor Edith Hall come to my school today and she gave a talk on Odysseus as a hero and ngl I actually almost teared up at one moment. I just can’t believe such a great character exists and over 2000 years later, he still speaks to us and we can trace SO MUCH in Western culture back to these texts. Actually, while I was nursing a raging crush on Odysseus (I was 20 okay), it was Penelope who was the revelation to me in that paper. Did Penelope know her husband was back before the recognition scene? This had never occurred to me before and I was plunged into debates on the stability of the text and characterisation and feminism and narratology. I mean, it was just amazing! And whatever nitty gritty you might go into with it, I was just struck by this wonderful, admittedly overly romantic idea, that Penelope was absolutely Odysseus’ equal. That in this ancient epic, we had a woman who bested a man at his own game, that she was playing him - and he loved it. These two tricksters, separated for too long, finally getting their happy ending. And I know it’s not about that. But it also is. Emotionally, that’s what I got. And it made me so, so happy. Because, honestly, I don’t have a problem studying works written by, for and about men if they’re good, but there are SO FEW opportunities studying classics (at least traditionally; the approach is changing now which is great) to grapple with amazing female characters or figures - and here I had Homer’s hero and Homer’s heroine. I mean, there are many other things I love about the Odyssey but this is already long enough.
I always joked about the fact that I managed to get a classics degree from Cambridge without having ever studied the Iliad. (Ikr, it’s crazy!) And youthful, hubristic me was okay with that. I was an Odyssey girl through and through. I’d read the Iliad and it was all battles and death and the catalogue of ships. YOU FOOL. So the first time I really had to deal with the Iliad was when I found myself teaching it to A Level Classical Civilisation. And it was an absolute revelation. I’m teaching it for the third time at the moment and it’s not getting old. Every time I see something different, every time the students find something new, every time I cry quietly in class when we are reading. The places vary but the moments that are guaranteed to set me off are Achilles’ grief over Patroclus, him putting on his armour and his final unbending towards Priam. Why the armour? I’m not entirely sure. I think it’s something to do with this sense of inevitability of the approach of the end, of imminent climax (somehow more significant than the climax itself). It’s like how the lighting of the beacons in LotR is such a powerful scene. It’s not that the thing itself is particularly full of pathos but because of everything it signifies. I can’t altogether explain it but it always really affects me. When my uncle died the other year, I was reading the death of Patroclus with my class at that time and my mum came to visit. I didn’t know how to talk to her or talk about my uncle’s death and we had this absolutely awful walk around a country park in the rain (I am never going to be able to go back there for the memories it triggers) but somehow the only way I could articulate something of what I felt was by clinically and factually describing Achilles’ anguish and explaining to my mother how the ancient world mourned its dead and what Patroclus had meant to Achilles and what blinding grief and rage would drive him to do. And she gripped my hand and we both wept, silent tears, and we walked on in the rain talking about the Iliad. I’m actually crying again, writing this, right now. I am not sure there is ANYTHING in literature more powerful than Achilles’s rage and anguish.
If Odysseus is the hero of romance and comedy, a clever hero whose very wiliness makes my heart sing and my academic brain bounce up and down looking for mythic parallels, Achilles does something else altogether. I’ve been thinking about him a lot recently - partly because I’m teaching the poem and once again we’ve got to Book 16 and Achilles’ tragedy is becoming the focus of the remainder of the poem (if it wasn’t before) so it’s literally my job to think about his character - but also in the context of my recent obsession with SW, Reylo and Kylo Ren’s Episode 9 possibilities. I’m not trying to be trivial here but it saddens me SO MUCH that people have the nerve to police interest in that character, one of the most fascinating and complex to grace the screens of a fantasy blockbuster series in - well, honestly, I can’t think of another one. What a treat we have. Nobody has a problem loving Achilles’ character and weeping over him (and making soft pastel shipping graphics of him and Patroclus…) but he was objectively speaking an awful person in many ways. A violent, unpredictable, psychopathic overgrown adolescent who holds an awful grudge. But of course, that isn’t the full story and it’s not the purpose of this post to educate the internet on the nuances of Achilles’ character and his profound tragedy. I’ve got emotional enough, but honestly, we NEED Achilles. We need that larger-than-life expression of all our deepest fears and regrets and violence and destruction - and also wit, compassion, sense of justice and deep love and loyalty. I think someone once said that everyone should read the Iliad at least once in their life. Whether they did or not, it’s true: everyone should.
Okay, so I was also going to talk about how much I love Ovid too but that would be literally going from the sacred to the profane, the sublime to the ridiculous and I have spent way too long on this already. So, yeah, I really love Ovid as well.
16. Cicero - love him or loathe him?
I unironically love Cicero.
Okay, so I started along this journey from the worst of reasons. The first guy I ever liked in high school was obsessed with Cicero. At the time, I’d never read anything by him, so I decided to like him because liking the same things as your crush is an A+ way of getting him to notice you and like you back. (Spoiler: it failed.) Along the way, I got really inspired by Cicero’s wife Terentia. My first internet handles were Terentia. (I WONDER IF HE KNEW I HAD A CRUSH. lol he did. it was awful. I cringe.) Anyway, Terentia was fabulously wealthy and responsible for financing Cicero’s political career, married twice more after Cicero’s death, including to the historian Suetonius, and died aged 103. What a BAMF.
So first off, I love Cicero’s Latin. He’s my favourite Latin prose author to translate. Even if his speeches are sometimes on the dull side (we had De Imperio as an AS set text a couple of years ago and it was such a snooze-fest), the actual style of writing is so lucid and balanced and satisfying I can forgive him the content. I love all the rhetorical devices and how you can still see them at work in (good) political speeches today. I just get tremendous pleasure from translating him. It annoys me no end that the prose unseen author at A Level at the moment is Livy. I have no patience for Livy’s Latin; it doesn’t thrill me at all.
But I also kind of like Cicero the man. He lived at one of the most fascinating periods of history and although you can’t altogether trust his bias, he was a really important figure in that history and documented so much of it. I wish we had more sources to sit along side as I think he definitely puffs himself up, but nevertheless he’s invaluable. I even quite like his arrogance. He’s the ultimate self-made, intellectual man in Rome and I think he has reason to be proud of what he achieved. He must have been formidable to listen to.
Thank you for letting me ramble on about classics and literature like this. I miss writing on tumblr and not just reblogging pretty things.
Ask me about classics (or anything else obviously)
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New Post has been published on Black Barth News
New Post has been published on http://blackbarth.com/us-held-hostage-long-trump-right-bar-msm-white-house-gaggle/
‘US held hostage for too long, Trump right to bar MSM from White House gaggle’
Many Americans are secretly loving the Trump administration’s media offensive, because for the longest time these organizations, they believe, have held a monopoly with their haughty attitude that they know better, says political commentator Lionel.
In the latest clash between the Trump administration and the media, several Western news outlets were barred from Friday’s off-camera Q&A session with White House press secretary Sean Spicer.
Outlets denied entry to the “gaggle” included the New York Times, Politico, CNN, the Guardian, BuzzFeed, among others. However, Trump-friendly conservative publications, such as Breitbart News, the One America News Network, and the Washington Times, were granted admission, as well as TV networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox News.
RT: We’re hearing two different versions here. The media say they were barred, but the White House says it didn’t block anyone. And that it was a different type of briefing – off camera, and held at the press secretary’s office. Who do you think is telling the truth?
Lionel: Nobody cares! Nobody cares! The mainstream media – the “lamestream” media, the alt-left, anti-Trump, fake news media, the media who has a lower respectability rating, below lawyers and used cars salesmen – everybody is secretly loving this, because for the longest time the American public has been held hostage by these people, who’ve had a monopoly with this haughty, hubristic attitude that they know better. Let everyone around the world know this. You have no idea: the 24/7 incessant drumbeat of everything that is anti-Trump. Look, I am not standing up for the man. I didn’t vote for the man, I am not here to push his agenda, I am telling you the facts. Everything about Trump: his family, his daughter, his sons, his hands, his color of skin, his wife, her perfume lines, her shoes, everything… “He is crazy, his hair, he walks around in a bathrobe…” There is not one story, not one story that any news editor said: “Oh, I am sorry, but this is too cheap. This is too low a blow. No, we can’t print this.” Nonsense! It has reached critical mass. There are many people, myself included, who love this, because we, the American people, have been held hostage…
CNN, for example, is 24/7. Not that they don’t like the president’s policies, they hate him. They revile him; they loathe him. And it’s not even tempered; it’s not hidden; it’s not camouflaged. It is so personal… I mean this is across the board. Do you know that it’s so bad that it’s even seeped down into interpersonal relationships? There are those who don’t talk to me because they think – God forbid – I am a Trump supporter. There are people on Facebook. This country is going crazy. There are families that haven’t spoken; there are divorces.
RT: Last week Trump branded several media outlets as “enemies of the American people.” Is that kind of language dangerous?
L: No. Somebody may say: “Do you think amputation is a bit extreme? Yes, but sometimes it is necessary.” Do you know how they are still pushing the “Russia stole the election” story? Do you know how long we have been doing this now? Do you know I am still waiting for somebody to tell me how Russia fixed the election, how Russia can tamper with the election? Nobody has explained it. It is like a myth, like Yeti, or the Sasquatch, or Loch Ness Monster. It’s this myth, this meme, this trope.
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