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linkspooky · 4 years

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Twice: Death of a Good Man

What is good? What is bad? What is the worth of one life?

That’s the question asked by the decision that Hawks makes to target twice. This post will look at the moral philosophies that overlap with those deicisions. @waxwingedhawks made a similiar post which you should check out, and while we might overlap I’ll be discussing different material. However the gist of this post is, even if Hawks decision was to prevent the deaths of thousands then is it worth it to kill a good man like Twice?

1. Should the Batman Kill Joker?

Slides taken from this powerpoint: [Source.]

There’s one famous example of ethics in hero comics that relates to this very issue of Hawks killing Twice. It’s especially relevant because Twice himself is a character based off the Joker, in that his whole life was changed by one bad day.

The ethical question is should batman kill the joker to put a permanent end to his crimes, and save the lives of everyone the Joker was going to kill in the future.

The quesetion itself demonstrates the conflict of Utiliarianism vs Deontology (or Kantian) when it comes to moral ethics. Utiliatiarnaism and Deontology are two opposing branches of ethics. And (this is simplifying here) the conflict between them arises from differing answers to this question? What is it that determines whether something is right or wrong.

Utiliarians believe that the results of an action are what determined if sometyhing is ethical or not. Therefore, this branch is called consequentialism because it states that the consequences of our actions define our actions. In other words the ends can be justified from the means.

Deontologists believe that the means themselves are the ends. Batman’s no killing rule is a deontological one. Deontologist believe that morals are not determined by the results of our actions, but rather there are set rules outside of our actions that we choose to follow or ignore. A deontologist would say that nothing good can be achieved from unjust means.

Batman believes killing is wrong, so he won’t kill the joker. The utilitarian argument is an appealing one. Batman could save so many lives if he just chose to bend his rule once. However, the appeal of utilitarianism is its flaw.

Utilitarianism summed up, is the greatest good for the greatest number of people. However, it pre-supposes that there is an objective greater good that the decision maker is working towards. Humans are fundamentally incapable of being objectives, and there’s no agreed upon objective “Greater Good”, its an idea that varies from person to person.

The problem with “the greater good” is that a lot can be seemingly justified towards it.

The reason batman doesn’t kill the joker, is the same reason crimminals are afforded civil liberties. It’s a deontological one. The idea that people always exist with certain rights, and should always be treated humanely is done for the sake of everybody. It’s not to let crimminals get away with crimes but rather to prevent innocent people from being wrongly persecuted.

For example you can use utilitarianism to justify putting cameras in people’s homes. If people never do anything wrong then there’s nothing to hide, right? Only the guilty will be punished. However, the reason we see this as a bad thing is because the definition of something wrong can change easily. If you put a camera in someone’s house, suddenly speaking badly about the government can be defined as something wrong, and you can be arrested for it.

As stated in the chart above, Utilitarianism is something that can quickly slide into harming a minority for the benefit of the majority.

To take another example from pop culture, there’s the famous scene in star trek 2 where Spock, a person who tries to live mainly by logical ideals rather than emotional one gives this famous quote.

Spock says, “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Captain Kirk answers, “Or the one.”

However, while Star Trek is the source of this quote they also stated the exact opposite idea in the third movie, where every single characters comes together and puts themselves at risk to revive Spock. When Spock comes back to life, Kirk says the reverse.

“The needs of the one, outweigh the needs of the many.”

The third movie states while it may be true that one person’s life is worth sacrificing to help many people, the other is true as well. That many people can come together and risk their lives for the sake of saving one good man. The point being that the world doesn’t exist in strict utilitarian, or Detonological ideals, but rather we’re always working for a spectrum of both. People should make sacrifices for the greater good, and people should respect the individual needs of the minority are two ideas that only contradict each other in a world of black and white, in a world of heroes and villains.

2. Harming the Minority

So, once again returning to the ethical question set up by the Twice and Hawks conflict. Is saving perhaps thousands of people worth killing one good man?

While Hawks is contemplating this question, the story gives us a very deontological rule. Someone who tries to help their companions can’t be a bad guy. Simply put, the act of helping other people is good, whether it comes from a hero, or a villain. In fact we’ve been shown this in the story before, Shigaraki is a murderer who lashes out at random, and he’s also a person who provided a home to several unstable people and helped them improve their lives, both of these ideas while contradictory exist at the same time.

Hawks and Twice’s beliefs contradict each other on a sociopolitical level. That is, both Hawks and Twice have a different idea on how society should be run. Hawks’ ideas are primarily collectivist, and Twice’s are individualist.

Hawks’ ideas are centered around two things, maximizing effiency, and the greater good. His goal has always been to save as many people as possible and to maximize the efficiency of his actions while doing so.

Hawks will always sacrifice the few for the sake of the many. What he believes, and what he was also specifically raised to believe is that he should be capable of saving everybody. That Hawks should devote all of himself to the sake of the people around him. The ideal of a hero, but not really a person. Hawks believes that whether people are saved or not lies entirely on him, and therefore he always maximizes the number of people he can save with every action.

Even sacrificing parts of himself with those decisions. When Hawks knows that he is not strong enough to kill the High End Noumu, intsead he sacrifices his wings (which are Hawks’ symbol of personal freedom) in order to give Endeavor the strength boost to defeat the villain. Hawks has to sacrifice himself. He always has to sacrifice himself for the many.

Which is why Hawks flies so fast. He genuinely believes (or rather was taught to believe) that if he works hard enough, if he sacrifices himself and is the perfect hero then he should be able to save the people he wants to save.

This is what makes Hawks the man who moves too fast. The reason other people can’t keep up with him is because they don’t devote absolutely all of themselves, to the point where they have no lives outside of their own work to the act of saving others.

Hawks will always choose the selfless choice. Even the decision to kill is a selfless choice. You could argue that Batman not wanting to infringe upon his personal morals to kill Joker even though Joker might kill other people in the future is a selfish choice to make. Hawks would murder Joker in about ten seconds.

Hawks is a collectivst to the core. His argument is that personal feelings and invidual freedoms should be stomped all over if it’s something that benefits the whole of society.

The ideas of Twice and the liberation front as a whole are individualit ones. Basically, individual liberties should not be stepped all over for the process of the greater good.

The League of Villains and the Meta Liberation front are both a response to hero society’s tendency to let the minority suffer for the favor of the majority. I’ve spoken about this point before, but in the abstract the liberation front has broad, agreeable ideas.

Hero society is conformist in nature. People are often bullied because they do not fit the right kind of quirk.

In a society where literally everyone can shoot lasers out of their eyes, bullying people, intimidating them, pressuring them to conform is not necessarily the right answer. Collectivism works on the idea of there being an in-group and out-group. Obviously, for an in-group to even exist people have to be excluded.

It would make more sense to run hero society from the angle of people have thousands of different types of quirks, we should do out best to maximize the inclusivity of society so that no one gets left out. The fact that people sympathize with the liberation army is because the current hero society, rather than trying to be accomodating to the differences between people and protecting the minority, instead chooses to oppress the minority and let people who could have been helped become villains because it’s just easier.

Which is what Twice’s backstory is entirely about. That even trying with your best intentions to turn your life around, you can fall out of society through no fault of your own.

The idea that Twice became a villain not because he’s a good or bad person, but instead because of good or bad luck. Something that Twice really doesn’t have control over.

So, the LoV and MLA are an individualist response to an oppressively collectivist society as a whole. Those who cannot conform, want to destroy the current society that excludes them.

However, Twice values people’s feelings over the greater good of the mission, whereas Hawks will stomp all over his own feelings for the greater good of his mission the twist is that both of them are utiliatarians. Both Twice, and Hawks will justify murder in order to bring their ideal society in place. Twice’s philosophy sounds well and good that people who are outcasts should be taken care of, until you remember that Twice regularly wants to murder people in the name of protecting his small found family.

Twice still believes in a very unhealthy way that he needs to pay everybody back in the League of Villains for accepting him, by being useful to them. Even though the league cares about Twice’s feelings more than his use as a person, Twice still really sees himself the way that Hawks does. The only worth Twice has is a person is how useful he is to other. It’s just both of them justify their utilitarianism through different social viewpoints, Twice kills to protect the few, Hawks kills to protect the many.

3. The Death of a Good Man

Twice has stated these ideas before in the manga. First that he would never kill a friend, and second as what he told Hawks above a person who helps their friends can never be a bad guy. By Twice’s logic alone, Hawks betraying his friend makes him a bad person even if he is betraying that friend for good reasons.

For the final part of this meta I’m going to talk about the flaws of Utilitariansm. I’m going to use an example from another manga, Bungo Stray Dogs with the character Ango Sakaguchi.

In the second light novel we’re told the story of the Dark Era. To summarize, there are three people who work for the mafia, Dazai, Ango, and Oda. The three of them are drinking buddies, and sort-of-friends who meet outside of work and discuss. Eventually their work, or rather the system causes their friendship to fall into conflict.

Of these three people we have: Oda, a handy man for the mafia taking care of orphans who has a person rule to never kill people directly, because he believes it’s an absolute wrong to kill someone. Ango, a spy who incredibly similiar to Hawks will lie, manipulate, and deceive his own friends for the sake of what he always calls the greater good.

Dazai, a mafia executive who kills people and joined the mafia because he was suicidal and wanted to find a reason for himself to live.

Dazai and Ango exist on opposite sides of the political ideas spectrum, Dazai is an inidvidualist who only really thinks of himself, Ango thinks of the good of everybody as a collectivist at the cost of his individual relationships with his closest friend.

Oda is somewhere in the middle between them, however he’s acknowledged as a good person. The twist is Oda used to be an assassin that killed many people for whatever reason in the past. Just like Twice, he’s a dangerous crimminal. However, at the same time he was reforming himself, trying to be to a better person, and taking care of several orphans without a home. He had also stopped killing people at this point.

The story sacrifices one individual good man, in order to achieve what is called a “greater good” for everybody else.

Ango is an individual with a strict and unbreakable moral code, always acting for the good of the majority. In a simple black and white story, he would be seen as a good person. However, not only did his actions result in the death of a good person, or at least a person trying to be good, all of the orphans Oda was trying to take care of died as well. That is a powerless minority was considered an acceptable sacrifice in order to maintain the status quo for a majority of people.

We see Ango make these choices again and again. To betray individual people for the sake of a faceless majority.

In the most recent chapter of the manga, he almost decided to shoot Atsushi in the head in order to make a quick decision to save as many people as possible. He even pretty much convinced himself that his only choice left was to murder Atsushi. Atsushi of course being… another powerless orphan with very little agency within society as a whole.

Ango would sacrifice Atsushi, someone who trusts him and is working with him if he thought it would help the greatst amount of people. Whereas, Lucy and Kyouka are people who would not kill Atsushi if they thought it would save people. They’d prioritize Atushi over the majority. Here we are coming into that conflict again.

However, as I’ve pointed out: the people who tend to be sacrificed are always in the minority. They would have been on the losing side regardless. Which is why true utilitarianism is impossible, because Ango is not making objective decisions here. He’s actually making very personal ones on the premise that he’s being objective. He keeps targetting over and over again peopele who are considered in the minority, and not only that Ango is very good at concinving himself he needs to do these things. Just as we witness Hawks convince himself that he needs personally to take out Twice.

Both of them are convinced that they are operating objectively, but instead are making very personal decisions. They have to be the one to pull the trigger themselves, Hawks corners Twice with a knife and Ango was ten seconds away from shooting Atsushi in the head the moment Atsushi stops being useful to him. Both of them repeat the worst flaws of their utilitarian mindset, by judging people based on their use to society as a whole rather than whether ot not they have the right to live and improve just for being people.

The counter to this logic is empathy. Twice is capable of murdering a lot of people, and has even done so in the past. However, at the same time that doesn’t make Twice a bad person, or a person capable of only doing bad things.

Opening your mind to the idea that people are both capable of good and evil depending on the circumstances, allows a person who has done bad things to be given the chance to do good things for the sake of others around them. Twice has done bad things in the name of the league, but it’s also Twice’s love and genuine compassion for others that has stabilized mentally a lot of the members of the league and allowed them to become better as people.

Someone capable of fighting to kill is also equally as capable of fighting to use that strength to protect. Basically, reality will always be at odds to ideals. Neither Hawks’ ideals nor Twice’s ideals allign with the reality that both of them exist in. Which is why there’s actually no need for them to fight each other.

Empathy is the idea that everybody is struggling to live in their own way, that everybody is trying to live by their own means. Rather than forcing Hawks to Twice to fight, both of them could recognize that the other is struggling and needs help. Hawks needs someone to tell him that he deserves to be selfish, and take care of himself instead of continually sacrificing both himself and his emotions for the greater good. Twice needs someone to tell him that he doesn’t need to kill people, to be accepted by society. For both of them there are other options that exist, it’s just without empathy, without acknowledging the viewpoint of another person neither of them would ever be able to see those options.

What Hawks and Twice need isn’t for one of them to be right, and one of them to be wrong. They don’t need to fight and see who wins. What they need ultimately is each other to make up for what they are lacking individually. They are both victims with several things in common, while they’re capable of hurting each other because of what they have in common, they’re also equally capable of smypathizing with one another and helping to heal.

#hawks #takami keigo #twice #jin bubaigawara #my hero academia meta #league of villains meta #hawks meta #lov meta #philosophy #utilitarianism #deontology #collectivism #individualism #mha meta

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pynkhues · 4 years

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Why does no one ever hold rio accountable for shooting dean? Like everyone hates Beth but nobody ever talks about rio almost killing Dean the father of her kids. Doing the same thing that everyone hated Beth for. Taking away rio form Marcus. Like rio almost took away Dean from his kids. I think it’s very hypocritical.

I think that there are quite a few things to unpack in that question, anon, and some of it I think is genuinely based on the way the story has played out, and the arcs of certain characters and plots, and how the chips ultimately fell with some of the themes and messaging. I also think personally though that some of it boils down to how some people within the audience feel about Rio, and some selective reading on his character and his dynamic with Beth overall.

So let’s explore that!

Prelude to a Bullet Wound

At the foundation of your ask is a pretty specific question I think about how the story depicts consequences, who it holds to account, and who is deserving or undeserving of those consequences overall. Even more specifically – although please correct me if I’m wrong! – is a question about how those consequences are dealt in the Dean x Beth x Rio dynamic.

And that’s actually a really tricky question, because I think a lot of the time we like to compare Beth and Dean’s relationship with Beth and Rio’s with the expectation that that comparison can ultimately be presented as a sort of check-list of does and does-not, which actually does the complexity of both relationships a disservice.

From history to dynamic to context to personalities to attraction, it’s all so fundamentally different when you’re talking about these two relationships, that when you start to talk about the betrayals within both of them (of which there are many in each), they’re actually pretty incomparable.

So this brings me to my first point.

Consequences, Crime and Punishment

I think one of the big misreads of this series from audiences is that Dean hasn’t been punished for what he’s done to Beth over the course of the show.

Because he actually has! Dean has been shot by Rio, like you said. He was briefly kicked out of the house, he was in a car accident, he was ousted from his own company and then he lost that company altogether, he was mugged and humiliated after trying to order a hitman, he watched his wife slip further and further away from him, had to start from the bottom in a new business, was sexually harassed by his boss then lost opportunities, and is now essentially being used as a patsy in a new criminal enterprise.

The thing is, Beth has never really been the one to punish him. She’s certainly made choices and done things that have humiliated him, but none of it was really an act to deliberately hurt him, more she made choices to be selfish in their relationship in a way she never had been (i.e. taking over Boland Motors, sleeping with Rio), but I’ll come back to that in a moment.

The fact that the story has punished Dean but Beth hasn’t is a really important distinction to make, and I think it’s crucial in unpacking both Beth and Dean, and Beth and Rio’s dynamic, as well as understanding some of the audiences hostility towards Dean’s storyline and why the audience doesn’t hold Rio accountable for shooting Dean in the first place.

It’s further underpinned, I think, by the fact that the show has rewarded Dean narratively with Beth’s forgiveness three times over (the first time being at the end of season 1 before the cancer lie was revealed, the second being the moment before Amber revealed Dean had cheated on her more than once in 2.05, and the third was with Beth’s seeming acceptance of Dean kissing Gayle [although I do think that would’ve come back up had we gotten all of s3]), and then placated him with her pity, fatigue, and the lies she’s told to keep him onside and out of her way.

It is exhausting. Dean is exhausting. The Boland marriage limping on season after season is exhausting. It’s also, I think, painfully realistic for a couple like Dean and Beth, who married at a formative age, and who’s foundation was built on Beth’s subservience, her desperate need for security and stability, and her willingness to dim her own light to brighten his.

A quick personal aside:

When my parents were in the dying days of their 30+ years relationship, their marriage counsellor told them that a relationship’s dynamic is really set within the first year of that relationship. You can change it after that, but it requires a lot of work and a deliberate effort to change that dynamic on many, many levels, and for many couples, it is too much work. It certainly was for my parents.

If you think about Beth and Dean in that context, it means that Beth’s energy with Dean is still somewhat stuck within a shell of being a neglected, private teenage girl trying to look after her sister and Dean being the son of a successful businessman, entitled with the knowledge he’d inherit that successful business one day.

They are not those people anymore, and they both know it, but their relationship dynamic does play out that way. Dean will never see her as more than his to take care of, and Beth will forever fight the instinct to see Dean as the provider she never had growing up – something the show has addressed explicitly in many ways.

And the thing is, that’s not Beth and Rio’s relationship at all.

The foundations that they have built this thing between them on are both shakier and stronger, built on Beth’s need to survive in the moment and thrive in the future, and Rio seeing not the neglected teenage girl that Dean saw, but a fierce woman prepared to drag him for having the audacity to try and kill her in her own home.

Beth’s relationship with Dean is, in many ways, an essential component of Beth and Rio’s dynamic, simply because Beth won’t let Rio ever treat her the way Dean has and does. Beth holds Rio accountable in a way she doesn’t Dean (although very interestingly to me, she has at points looked to him to provide for her in the same way she’s looked at Dean), and it means she punishes Rio in a way she doesn’t punish Dean. She does this in no small part because Rio holds her accountable and punishes her in ways Dean doesn’t as well, simply because he expects so much more from her.

This is probably best encapsulated in 1.06, where Rio ups her drop (ergo, her degree of responsibility in the crime world) while Dean assumes she’s a victim, but it’s touched on routinely across the seasons.

Beth and Rio ultimately respect each other. Even when they’re deliberately undermining each other (usually Beth, haha) or deliberately condescending and patronising each other (usually Rio, haha), the basis of their relationship has been built on Beth showing promise, and Rio taking a chance, and grown into a complicated dynamic of control and autonomy, desire and fulfilment, want and approval, possession and abandonment, all playing out as some twisting, sexually charged game which, as I’ve said before, they both simultaneously want to win, and don’t want to play at all.

All of this means that where Beth and Dean are within a dynamic of placation and diminishment, Beth and Rio are constantly going toe-to-toe with each other either side of some line they’ve imagined up. It means they do hold each other accountable, that they ensure the other feels the consequences of their actions, that they never release their hold on the other (even if sometimes it looks like they do).

As a result though too, it does mean that that line can be crossed, and when it is, it’s almost always in a big, big way.

Uhhh, Sophie, this is a lot of meditating on Beth and Dean and Beth and Rio’s relationship for a question that was about why no one cares about Rio shooting Dean, but hates Beth for shooting Rio

Right! It is! But I also think it’s important in understanding why both acts had such different responses from audiences, and that namely boils down to the fact that I think most people saw, consciously or subconsciously, the act of Rio shooting Dean as a consequence of Dean’s behaviour, not of Beth’s, and therefore a punishment for Dean’s behaviour in the narrative overall, not a punishment of Beth.

Dean getting shot was a story-level punishment of Dean that felt earned.

It was Rio handling what Beth couldn’t, and it is satisfying to watch, particularly in the context of later seasons, because it does feel like a marked act of narrative accountability.

It’s just unfortunate that it resulted in so much of the fandom ignoring the fact that it was an incredibly harsh punishment to Beth, something that we’ve been dealing with ever since because it clearly made Beth feel like she couldn’t leave him during his treatment, and by the end of that treatment she had, once again, softened.

On the other hand, Rio getting shot by Beth was both a story-level and a character-level punishment that was ultimately unearned on either of those levels.

It’s not that it didn’t make sense in terms of the escalating push-pull dynamic that is so central to Beth and Rio’s relationship and chemistry, but that there wasn’t enough build-up for it – and Rio hadn’t done enough to deserve it – which in turn made the punishment not fit the crime (which is to say nothing of the racist optics of it). It was a damning act that, quite simply, didn’t work in the context of season 2 overall, and as opposed to criticising the writing choice, some fans chose to turn that into a hatred of Beth’s character.

A brief aside

I do always find it interesting that many of these same fans refuse to confront the fact that Beth and the girls have had relentless punishment at the hands of others – particularly Rio – since this show started, but that feels like a whole other post.

Smoke and mirrors

These two acts are interesting to look at in the context of these respective dynamics, but they’re actually not parallel events. In that sense, I actually find the act of Beth insinuating herself into Rhea and Marcus’ life a much more comparable act to Rio shooting Dean than Beth shooting Rio was.

They were different types of violence – a psychological one over a physical one – sure, but had the same underpinning themes of home invasion, involving each other’s families in the fucked-up dynamic between them, and revealing a degree of Beth and Rio’s intimacy to the other’s (ex)partner (Rio through touching Beth in front of Dean, Beth through the pregnancy lie meaning Rhea knew Beth and Rio had slept together). It also puts them both as instigators on similar playing fields. They were, after all, actions that both Beth and Rio sought out doing.

It makes for a really interesting parallel that I wish we all talked about more!

Beth shooting Rio on the other hand was a manifestation of a set-up and a betrayal, a kidnapping gone wrong, an effort to strongarm Beth into killing an FBI agent, and yeah. Not my favourite plot choice on the show, haha, so I absolutely understand why it isn’t others’ too.

A final note

Look, all story analysis aside – at the end of the day, a portion of the fandom woobifies Rio and loathes Dean too, which no doubt plays a large part in some people’s response to these two acts. You only need to look at the volume of Rio x Reader or Rio x OC fics on here and ao3 to see that there’s a big chunk of the fandom out there who projects other fantasies onto his character, which is, of course, entirely fine! It’s just a shame some of them choose to let that influence the way they view canon and publicly treat other characters on the show too.

#this is a long post folks #beth x dean #beth x rio #beth boland #rio #rhea #staying's worse than leaving #gg 2.01 #gg 2.13 #gg 3.01 #gg 3.02 #power plays #interior lives #checks and balances #sunday answers #Anonymous

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sparklingpax · 4 years

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Rambles about TFP Megatron

This is opinionated, based on speculation (is that the right word??) and memories of episodes and moments in books. Please don’t be offended and get angry at me. I’m literally writing whatever comes to mind about this. Also sorry if none of it makes any real sesnes; again, these are my thoughts as they come so those tend to be incoherent and,,,,,unconnected?? Idk um

So scroll along if you’re not interested but here I go :’D

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I feel like I might get bashed for this (or not) but I really feel like Megatron in TFP is a tortured, misunderstood, haunted soul and I’m on his side as much as I am on the Autobots’ side.

Idk some people think he’s evil just because and has no redeeming factors but I really really beg to differ,,,, (no im not inviting debate because I get too scared of arguing with people I respect everyone’s opinions so I’m not trying to impose this one!)

He isn’t justified in the things he’s done, the many he has made to die, nor is he justified in any way for the physical and/or mental abuse of others, the top example being Starscream. However, I think we should point fingers at the initial corruption back on Cybertron, right after the whole “golden age.”

There’s really no one else to blame except the corrupt leaders who put the caste system into being. If it had not been so, Megatron would have never been born as D-16, an unknown and unimportant energon miner with no real future other than eventual, imminent death. He has a right to be as angry as he was, and as ready and willing to kill and overthrow that governmennt.

He took it too far, is all I have to say.

That’s also the difference that led to Orion and Megatronus falling out of friendship and “brotherhood,” as well as the whole ‘not being named a Prime but Orion was’ thing. Optimus felt the same way--though you have to acknowledge that even he could not understand fully and truly the anger Megatron had felt. Orion Pax had never known being worth absolutely nothing, and having no prospects or future. He was a scholar, gifted with knowledge and a job. He was not a higher-up, of course, so he was not exempt from feeling frustration at the limitations of his particular caste. But I think that’s also what gave Orion the ability to see the whole thing through a more level-headed gaze.

And that’s where it also isn’t fair to Megatron. How can you blame him for only having rage? He didn’t have a middlle-ground place like Orion did. He only had the “short end of the stick” his whole life.

So....um......I rambled and I’m not really sure where any of this was meant to go. I actually only inteded to write maybe one or two sentences but um now it’s all this. ^^’’’

Again, I’m not inviting debate because debating and arguing makes me really,,,,really nervous. I’m just having some thoughts..and I can totally understand the valid reasons people have to not feel that Megatron is a good character at all, and that he doesn’t have a real motive and is simply just “evil.” I respect that. I disagree, but I see your points ^//^

Just been thinking about this stuff lately, been watching episodes of TFP, reading the novels again....I really do feel bad for him, even though I am aware that what he did was wrong. I can’t help but feel like I should defend him, at least laying out the reasoning he had--though flawed in the end--and how he felt to give a little perspective.

And one final thing, if you wish to make a claim that his anger about being a slave is not real, and that he uses it as some sort of twisted “card to play” as a justification, just wanna bring this up. You’ve see the movie right? Regardless of whether you think it was a good or bad movie (I really enjoyed it but thats just me ^^’’) there’s a part at the end where Megatron says the Decepticon cause is finished, and that because he now knows the “true meaning of oppression” he no longer wants to inflict it on others. There are probably other ways to interpret this, but the way I see it is that he really may have lost himself a little when fighting the war. But being possessed and commanded by Unicron woke that up again. He’d been in command for so long, he himself forgot how much a leader could hurt their own troops, or what it felt like to be stepped over--to be hurt and insulted because you cannot do anything about it. When he tries to fight back against Unicron, it’s not because of the petty reasons of simply “wanting the power” or hating not being in charge, but I think he was enraged at being seen as a slave again. Something he’d fought a war for millenia to ensure never happened again--to him or anyone else.

And I think he also finally re-understood the last part of that statement.

That’s why when he was freed, he ended the war right then and there, and left--never to be heard from again.

I have no proof for these statements really, but I think it was purely guilt at having forgotten this war was not just about his own anger at injustice, but also to fight for the others who also felt as he did--his other, fellow Decepticons.

This is not really to say he is sorry for how he treated some of them, since he is a problematic dude and has his own reasons he’ll stick to if confronted about what he did to, say, Starscream or Starscream’s seekers when he tried to get Starscream to fear him. Or the many vehicons he didn’t care a single bit about. But I think the key is that he did change as a character--because he finally understood.

He now has more perspective, and I think that’s why he isn’t really “just an evil character” who “has no real cause,” but someone who suffered so much and then had nowhere to go or anyone to really look to for help or guidance when his rage was handed a sword and hundreds of followers. Given his background, what else could he have done but lead them all forward in a fight?

He really didn’t start the physical war himself, either. But he took it on as his responsibility and obligation to fight.

Even Optimus--or Orion, at the time--his first and only friend that he pushed away, could never understand. No one but his fellow decpticons, especially the ones from the lower ranks, would ever understand the true essance of the cause of being “Decepticons.”

Though he was bullshitting Optimus when he gave the reason for the name, I feel like at the same time, that was what he genuinely believed--that the cause of Decepticons and his fighting this war was branded as wrong and their beliefs were all lies. Megatron probably, deep in his spark, felt that if such things were branded as “lies” when they are really the truth, then he was proud to wear such a badge.

And when he ended the cause, I think what he meant was that he was ending his involvement in it, for he himself had failed to uphold what Decepticons really stood for through all the murder and oppression he caused, blinded by his emotions. Therefore, the only sensible, just thing to do was to leave. To go somewhere else. Whether he hoped someone else would lead them or not, we will truly never know and I have no intention to make any guess to that. Only Megatron himself could tell us that.

Both Megatron and the decepticons were not justifiied in the things they did, but if you can at least take in why they did those things, maybe you won’t dismiss them as simply “bad guys for the sake of being bad” and understand that they had a story too...

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antialiasis · 4 years

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Jesus Christ Superstar: all of my thoughts

Allll right, this will be me watching my way through Jesus Christ Superstar 2012 (the arena tour with Tim Minchin/Ben Forster) and rambling about e v e r y t h i n g as I go, prompted by me having a lot of thoughts approximately every two minutes while watching it on YouTube/rewatching it/listening to multiple other JCS productions in between. Unusually for me, there will be very little complaining. This production is not perfect but that's not really what I'm here to talk about right now, shush, let me just go on about why I love this musical, at incredible length.

(I will be talking both about particulars in this production and about JCS in general as a narrative, without explicitly distinguishing the two, but please rest assured I do know which is which. I am pretty hardcore, I have seen five different productions live (including the 2013 leg of the arena tour) as well as the movies, listened to a lot of different Gethsemanes, I know this show.)

(this will also jump wildly between deep intellectual analysis and just me shamelessly appreciating the whump content, please bear with me)

can I start off by saying I really love the band and instrumentation and arrangements in 2012

The JCS overture is really long but I love it and it's always fun to see exactly what they do with it when it's staged. This production goes with showing Jesus's followers as protesters clashing with police, following news headlines, and then, during the calm choral "betrayal leitmotif", they're all gathered around Jesus staring at him in the most ominous way - then, as the first notes of "Heaven On Their Minds" play, Jesus closes his eyes and shakes his head a little, as if snapping out of a thought - as if he just felt the coming of betrayal. Neat.

Anyway, "Heaven On Their Minds"! This is such a good song. When I first saw JCS, as my school's production in 2005, and it opened not with Jesus but with Judas, presenting these totally reasonable concerns that he has about Jesus, I was already so intrigued by where this was going. Judas is the actual protagonist of JCS; one of the main narrative things it's doing is telling these events largely from his point of view, imagining how what he did might be interpreted to be sympathetic and understandable. This is why he gets the opening number and the final proper song with the show's closing musings. If you put on JCS and treat it like it's a story about Jesus with Judas as a side character, you're doing it wrong.

The iconic opening riff of “Heaven On Their Minds” is what I’m calling the “Agony” motif in my musical motif chart, because the places it recurs are the moment Judas resolves to hang himself in “Judas’s Death” and... “The 39 Lashes”. Originally I connected it to Judas, but “The 39 Lashes” has nothing at all to do with Judas; instead, the one thing that connects these three occurrences of the motif is pain - which really rather underlines how painful it is when Judas’s mind clears and he sees what lies ahead.

So, Judas: he was one of Jesus's closest friends, and a real, true believer in what this movement was originally about: charity, compassion, noble ideals. But lately, he's seen it turn into more of a cult of personality around Jesus himself - you've begun to matter more than the things you say. Now they're all thinking Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God - and worse, it's like Jesus is starting to believe it himself.

(Tim Minchin does this little frustrated eyeroll on you really do believe this talk of God is true, and I love it. I know his vocal performance is not to everyone's taste, and I get why especially with the unwarranted autotuning on the official recording, but I just love his actual acting here, his expressions and body language, so much. I was watching him for most of the show when I saw this live, because I usually spend most of JCS looking for whether Judas is doing something interesting in the background, and it was choice. Unfortunately the editor for this official recording isn't quite as interested in what Judas is doing in the background as I am, alas, and there are a lot of bits where I'd like to get a better look at him but we don't, but there are still some very good reactions.)

So, the reason this is bad, this whole messiah thing, is not only that calling Jesus their king might rub the authorities the wrong way, but also that now they're all expecting Jesus to up and free them from Roman oppression. Which is just not a thing that he can do! Judas is worried if Jesus doesn't deliver his followers will turn against him (and they'll hurt you when they find they're wrong). He's worried if Jesus actually does try anything, or heaven forbid, his followers just do it on their own - Jesus's words are already being taken out of context and twisted to justify whatever the speaker feels like - if they step so much as a toe over the line, that'll be all the excuse the Romans need to regard the Jewish community as a whole as violent insurgents or a delusional cult and bring in the army. This movement used to be a beautiful thing, but it's become an existential threat with the potential to get them all killed. And - when Judas tries to voice these concerns, Jesus brushes them off. He won't listen. Things are spiraling out of control, and Jesus won't do anything about it.

(Note, by the way, that a big part of Judas's worries is worries about Jesus in particular getting hurt.)

(Judas is very focused here on the future, all these things looming on the horizon that could happen if things continue as they are - so when we transition abruptly into the upbeat "What's the Buzz?", where Jesus tries to get his followers to think less about the future and more about the here and now, for all that it feels like a musical and textual non-sequitur we're actually kind of staying on theme.)

Jesus hasn't been doing anything about things or listening to Judas, and is very focused on the here and now, because as it happens he knows (or at least believes) that in a few days he is going to be tortured and executed, and really he doesn't entirely know what's going to happen after that, and this is pretty terrifying and stressful and right now he's dealing with that by trying to not think about it.

Why are you obsessed with fighting times and fates you can't defy? He basically means this at this point. Why would you try to fight inevitable fates? That’s pointless; it’s not like Jesus would ever do that. You just don’t think about them. Jesus is fine. It’s fine. This is fine.

(Mary is the one person who’s actively helping Jesus take his mind off things and stay in the moment. Emotionally he really needs to just relax and think of nothing and be told everything's all right, and Mary's the person who provides that. She alone has tried to give me what I need right here and now. I contend that this is the main point of Mary's role in the first act of JCS, more than her infatuation with him.)

Buuuut of course Judas has no idea what's behind this. As far as he can tell Jesus is just kind of hypocritically wasting his time on hedonistic indulgence, like the whole Son of God thing's just gone to his head, and like everything else about the situation, it's concerning, and he tries to speak out about it, in “Strange Thing, Mystifying”...

...which prompts Jesus to lash out. There was a sort of frustration behind some of his lines in “What’s the Buzz”, but he still just seemed to be preaching a general philosophy of staying in the here and now. At Judas’s criticisms, though, he's defensive and confrontational, exhorting him to not throw stones... and he's not done: I'm amazed that men like you can be so shallow, thick and slow! There is not a man among you who knows or cares if I come or go!

That's a total strange overreaction, especially since he starts out addressing Judas but then goes on to "There is not a man among you", when nobody else was saying anything, much less anything implying they don't care about Jesus. So, obviously, this isn't really about what Judas just said. What this is showing us is that Jesus has a lot of pent-up frustrations and concerns, too, and he's in a strangely delicate mood. It's kind of an odd sequence watching it for the first time; this lashout is weird! I thought it was weird when I first saw the show! But that’s the point. It’s here because it is weird, because Jesus is not as fine as he seems.

(This is what almost every song with Jesus in it in Act I is about. It's a series of incidents - many of them based on actual bits from the Bible - of Jesus lashing out unexpectedly and/or being strongly disillusioned with his followers and vaguely, bitterly alluding to his upcoming death. The weight of anticipating his own execution is taking a real psychological toll on him from the start, and this is all building towards where all those fears and doubts and worries and anger come out in "Gethsemane". It took me the longest time to properly notice this, that Jesus isn't just sort of being a drama queen out of nowhere here; these events are being presented like this to connect them into a cohesive speculative narrative that this was all just manifestations of Jesus's anxiety about the fact he believes he's going to die in a few days and he's not sure what he's really accomplished.)

While the apostles join together in a chorus of No, you're wrong! You're very wrong!, Judas silently pulls out a cigarette, because 2012 Judas smokes to calm his nerves and I love it. The nerves don't stop him rolling his eyes again in the background at Jesus's Not one of you!, though. (Jesus has probably been having these weird, oddly self-pitying lashouts for a little while now - it feels like a "this again" sort of eye-roll.)

Judas tries again to confront Jesus during "Everything's Alright", even more emphatic, but in a more sincere and genuine way - he really wants to get through to him. No, seriously, Jesus, why are you wasting expensive ointment on your feet and hair when the poor are starving - you know, the thing this movement was supposed to be about. Mary, probably a bit higher in emotional intelligence than Judas, can obviously tell that Jesus is just pretty stressed out right now and really needs some rest, and basically just tries to get Jesus to ignore him until he goes away - but Jesus responds to him anyway. Starts calm, but there's an oddly defeatist quality to what he's saying - there’ll always be poor people, we can't save them, look at the good things you've got... and then he launches into another bitter lashout: Think while you still have me, move while you still see me - you’ll be lost, you'll be so, so sorry, when I'm gone. Strike two on Jesus-is-not-as-fine-as-he-seems.

(Seriously, though, at this point it'd be reasonable to be pretty alarmed; from an outside perspective, these lines sound kind of suicidal. Perhaps that’s why Mary immediately steps in again to try to calm him down.)

Meanwhile, Judas silently backs off. What he takes away from these two confrontations is that Jesus isn't really happy either. He's not actually thrilled with his followers or what’s going on; he just seems to feel helpless and unable to change anything at all, and has apparently just resigned himself to it, instead of even trying to fix it.

I love how gloriously ominous the "Hosanna Superstar" bit of "This Jesus Must Die" is. It really makes this upcoming cheerful song sound like an omen of doom and horror, the way it feels to the Pharisees. It’s the same melody as “We need him crucified” in “Trial Before Pilate” - apt, since the crowd’s devotion to Jesus is the real problem that causes the Pharisees to believe they need to get him killed.

Thus, the Pharisees have basically the same concerns Judas does - Jesus's mass of fans is growing out of control, they're blasphemously insisting he's their king, and it's only a matter of time before this brings the wrath of the Romans down upon the entire Jewish nation. They only go a bit further by believing the only way to properly quash this movement is to put Jesus to death. (Which is kind of dubious - surely there's a danger that martyring him will just make people more devoted - but I appreciate that they, too, get basically sympathetic motivations. It’s the oppression of the Romans that’s the real enemy here; they only see Jesus as a real problem because of how the Romans might react.)

By "Hosanna", Jesus has recovered his usual composure and passion. This is the one Jesus song where he does genuinely seem to be doing all right, and in that way it serves as a good contrast to literally everything else in this musical. In it we see a glimpse of the preacher and activist that he’s been for these three years, almost bursting with glee as he tells the Pharisees they're not going to be quiet at all thank you very much. He preaches his message to the crowd: There is not one of you who cannot win the Kingdom - a kind, positive echo of yesterday's angry lashout. He loves this, and he still loves this movement. This is what it's all supposed to be about.

...only, of course, for some people to yell "Hey, J.C., J.C., won't you die for me!", and he turns his head, his smile fading just a little (I wish the camera stayed on him a little while longer here). But he recovers and carries on. Ha ha, yeah, he'd die for you.

Jesus's own rally leads directly into Simon's rave, full of adoring fans begging Jesus to touch and kiss them. Same enthusiasm, but more obviously a product of that cult of personality that Judas was worried about. And there in the middle of it is Simon, so bright-eyed and enthusiastic about the whole thing, telling him about how with his probably over 50,000 followers, he should add just a smidge of hatred towards the Romans, and you will rise to a greater power, we will win ourselves a home! He's one of those who want Jesus to be leading a violent revolution to free them.

I like how the first portion of "Poor Jerusalem" echoes a slow, somber version of the same melody as "Simon Zealotes" as Jesus laments, almost to himself, that none of them, nobody at all, understands power, or glory, or anything. This time Jesus isn't really angry, just kind of exhausted and contemplative. Nobody really seems to get his message; these poor misguided people won't get the revolution they're hoping for; Jerusalem itself is doomed. The city wouldn't be willing to do what's needed even if they knew.

To conquer death, you only have to die is one of my favorite lines. I’m an atheist, but as a kid I remember being taught at the Christian summer camp I went to that by dying himself, Jesus conquered death. That idea is twisted and presented the other way around here: to conquer death, you only have to die. Only. An darkly ironic presentation of it as if it were easy. It’s not as easy as Jesus would like it to be - but he truly believes that it’s what he must do.

"Pilate's Dream" has the same melody as the second half of “Poor Jerusalem” - because both Jesus and Pilate are contemplating an unsettling future that they have seen.

I do think it's a little wrong that 2012 Pilate chuckles at the end of "Pilate’s Dream”, though. The whole point of this song, as far as I can tell, is that he's unsettled by this dream, and it's probably part of why he's so reluctant to sentence Jesus to death later, so I think it's an incongruous choice to make it seem like he just sort of brushed it off as nonsense.

As I mentioned before, the arena tour staging includes Simon buying a gun during "The Temple", a really chilling detail that I liked a lot and that is in no way discernible in the official recording. Maybe the editor didn't notice, maybe it just wasn't very clear in the footage they got anyway, maybe it's some sort of ratings issue where showing a gun for a few seconds would just be too much (while the lengthy, brutal torture and execution scenes coming up are totally fine). Obviously it doesn't mean anything for the later narrative or anything (especially since the actual narrative is taking place in 33 AD and guns don't actually exist, regardless of the staging choices of any particular production), but it’s a nice way of using staging to lend further support to the overall point of how Jesus's followers variously fail to understand his teachings - it strengthens both Jesus’s and Judas’s concerns.

When Jesus and Judas arrive at the temple, they're arguing once again, though we don't know what about. Given the way Jesus is striding towards the doors and Judas is trying to hold him back, I imagine Judas is worried that doing something like running into the temple and breaking tables and screaming is the sort of attention-grabbing, polarizing stunt that'd be a really bad idea, and Jesus is upset and doesn't care.

(The bouncer doesn't let Judas in. I'm guessing Jesus tells him Judas is harassing him or something, within the staging-narrative where the temple is a nightclub that has a bouncer.)

So Jesus goes and smashes a table and yells at everyone to get out. This is probably where Jesus begins to alienate a lot of people, who were having a great time at the temple only for him to come in and have a breakdown at them.

(He's so angry, breathing hard, fists clenched after everyone's left. This isn't really about the temple either. He's really begun to realize how many of his followers don't get it at all, and he doesn't have time to fix that. He's been trying for so long and he's so tired.)

The leper bit makes a pretty similar point. Jesus wants to help all these people, and tries - but there are too many, and they're crowding him, and he's not going to be around to help them for much longer - so he desperately tells them to heal themselves, and they leave, probably thinking wow Jesus is kind of a jerk.

I'm sorry, I don't have anything to say about "I Don't Know How to Love Him", love ballads are pretty consistently my least favorite song in every musical, I like and appreciate Mary but my investment in this song pretty much begins and ends with its role in setting up the twisted reprise in "Judas's Death"

I enjoy the fourth-wall-leaning audacity of having the guitarist spotlighted on stage playing the solo before "Damned For All Time", and Judas is looking at him like "who are you, go away", and keeps looking evasively back at him while he's slowly getting the Pharisees' number out of his wallet and calling it. (It also helps show Judas feels pretty guilty and shameful about doing this, and works better for that than having extras on stage - if it were extras, we might expect that them witnessing this could actually mean something later, but when it's the guitarist, it's obvious he's just serving as an anonymous stand-in for a hypothetical random stranger who isn't literally part of the story.)

I like the shot of Judas looking into the security camera outside the Pharisees' building. (That’s decidedly not the same hairdo Tim Minchin has on stage, though.)

Judas opens his talk with the Pharisees, without even greeting them first, by frantically justifying himself, talking about how this is weird and hard for him but there was just nothing else he could do, he's not hoping for a reward or anything, he's been forced to do this, he's not a dirty traitor, please don't think that. He really doesn't want to be here. But here he is anyway, because Jesus can't control it like he did before - and furthermore I know that Jesus thinks so too, Jesus wouldn't mind that I'm here with you. He's seen Jesus over the past few days and he's pretty sure he has this figured out. Jesus can see just as well as he does where things are headed - it's just he's helpless to control it and doesn't know what to do about it. So this has to be done. He'd probably want Judas to bail him out of this, just get him arrested and the movement shut down, for everyone's sake. (Jesus is so self-sacrificing, after all.) Right? He'd be fine with this. Right? (Judas is fine.)

("Damned For All Time" is just Judas wildly word-vomiting trying to placate his own guilt and I love it. He's legitimately afraid of where things are headed if he doesn't do this, and thinks it has to ultimately be the right thing, but that doesn't make him feel any better about it.)

(I like how Caiaphas just sort of coolly listens to him ramble his head off like this while he sips his drink.)

Judas goes for a cigarette again (calming those nerves), and Annas helpfully lights it for him - prompting Judas's next ramble. Annas, you're a friend, a worldly man and wise - Caiaphas, my friend, I know you sympathize. It's not like he's selling Jesus out to anyone unreasonable. Annas is nice! We three, we get it, right? You get it. We're the people who can see when a difficult thing just has to be done, did I mention I HAVE to do this and this is not about money - only for Annas to tell him to cut it out with this blather and excuses and just give them the information they want. And also, they'll pay him handsomely!

I don't need your blood money! Judas says, then I don't want your blood money! Sometimes these lines are reversed, which sounds better - there's something more satisfying about the vowel in need than in want - but I think textually this original order is important. First he's sort of polite-ish-ly declining, saying no, he doesn't need any money, but then when they insist, he declines more firmly, that he doesn't want it either. (I love the way he shoves Annas's hand away.) It's so important to Judas's own principles that he came here because he thinks it's right, not because he wants payment; the idea of being paid makes it way worse.

...But then Caiaphas grabs the cigarette out of his mouth (leaving him a bit shaken with nothing to hold onto anymore) and goes well, you can give it to charity, or to the poor; they understand that's not why he's doing this, but they'd still like to pay him a fee. And that's the reason he ultimately does take the money: because just a few days earlier he was telling Jesus off for letting money be wasted when it could have gone to the poor. How could he do the same?

(Judas is not doing this for the money in this show. He is not being tempted by the money. He was not going to take the money until he was told he could give it to charity. One of the professional live productions I saw just did not understand this at all, and no. Judas is the protagonist! He is not here for the money! It's done right here, with the Pharisees just throwing the money at him after he names Gethsemane, and him not even reacting, just slowly picking it up afterwards. Tim Minchin gets Judas.)

I like to think the Well done, Judas / Good old Judas chorus is sort of the voice of the Divine Plan, such as it is, which he's now done his first part in.

"The Last Supper" has slowly become one of my favorite parts of the entire show, and I particularly enjoy it in this particular production.

Judas walks in and doesn't look at Jesus at all - can't quite bear to, at the moment. Jesus looks after him, knowing exactly what's going on... and that's when he starts in on The end is just a little harder when brought about by friends.

Jesus has a drink of the wine, which I like a lot. This definitely is a drinking sort of moment. I like the idea of him being a little inebriated in this scene.

For all you care, this wine could be my blood. For all you care, this bread could be my body. The end... This is my blood you drink, this is my body you eat. Judas reflexively rolls his eyes again - Jesus off on one of these weird sorts of rants yet again. (As with so much, I love that Jesus Christ Superstar takes this bit of the Bible and lets it just be a weird thing to say, recontextualizes it as an empty, halfhearted statement that he doesn't feel like his followers even care hours before his impending arrest, instead of treating it as something profound and meaningful. Again and again, Jesus is portrayed less as a noble profound religious figure and more as just a person haunted by mounting dread and anxiety, and I love it so much.)

Jesus sort of tries to make this into a nice, comforting thing, to ask them to remember him when they eat and drink - but it doesn't work. It's happening tonight, and here they all are, these people, his supposed followers, who don't understand a thing he's said, ever, and Jesus just breaks. I must be mad, thinking I'll be remembered! Yes, I must be out of my head! Look at your blank faces! My name will mean nothing ten minutes after I'm dead! (Judas looks up vaguely, kind of concerned - Jesus, this is further than he usually goes.) One of you denies me, one of you betrays me! And that's when Judas really looks up. Jesus knows.

There's a pause, a commotion, and Jesus is going to just retreat and leave it at that - but no, then he keeps going. He calls out Peter specifically for being about to deny him three times, shoving him, and then yells about how one of my twelve chosen will leave to betray me! At which Judas finally stands up. Cut out the dramatics! You know very well who! It's obvious that somehow Jesus found out. (Maybe Judas thinks the guitarist might have told on him.)

Judas's surprised You want me to do it? when Jesus tells him to go do it delights me. Judas, I thought you knew that Jesus totally wanted you to do this. It's almost like you didn't really know that at all and just convinced yourself of that to feel better about it. (Obviously, though, Jesus clearly doesn't actually want it so much, does he, the way he's shouting.)

Judas tries to explain himself but Jesus doesn't care - he doesn’t want to hear about why one of his most trusted friends wants to betray him to the authorities, not when this has to happen and he can’t prevent it. Judas is really nervous and defensive and hurt by his hostility, declares he hates Jesus now. (You liar, you Judas! Jesus says, which is kind of hilarious and also - yeah, he's a liar, he doesn't hate Jesus at all.) You wanted me to do it? What if I just stayed here and ruined your ambition? Christ, you deserve it! Judas still kind of wants to just stay and cancel the whole thing, even if it's simply justified as petulant spite. But Jesus tells him to just go already; he just wants to get this over with, as quickly as possible, because it hurts.

Judas is near tears as he turns away to get his things. The apostles have no idea what's going on, singing, some of them trying to see if Judas is okay, which suggests they have no idea what they were even talking about - whatever this 'betrayal' is supposed to be, it doesn’t cross their minds that Judas is about to get Jesus arrested.

Judas trudges up the steps, batting them away, still on the verge of tears - only then he stops, his face changing. And he throws down his backpack and turns for one final confrontation with Jesus. You sad, pathetic man! Look what you've brought us to! Our ideals die around us, and all because of you! This is still about their ideals for him, after all. And yet, saddest of all, someone had to turn Jesus in - like a common criminal, he first says, but then, like a wounded animal, someone helpless to help themselves, who needs to be pitied and put out of their misery. Jesus could have done something. Jesus could have put a stop to this. Why does he have to do it? (Why does he have to do it?)

Every time I look at you, I don't understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned. Why? Jesus does have a plan, of sorts, of course - it's just that this is all part of it. Judas doesn't believe Jesus is actually the Son of God, or that he could possibly have a "plan" that involves dying for some grand cosmic cause. As far as he can tell Jesus's actions are just bizarre and pathetic and self-defeating, and he's been saddled with the unfortunate, dirty job of saving Jesus from himself.

(Judas presumably still doesn't realize that the Pharisees plan to literally have him killed. I doubt he'd be doing this, or at least not in this way, if he knew.)

In the wake of this final confrontation, Mary hugs Peter, who Jesus just shoved and accused of denying him. She considers going to Jesus too, but Peter convinces her they'd probably best leave it alone. Peter himself seems to be considering going to Jesus, but then doesn't. Everyone dejectedly goes to sleep. Jesus is alone for tonight, his apostles alienated, his right-hand man gone as Jesus must wait for him to return with soldiers and set the dreaded end in motion. This must be the loneliest, most awful night of his life.

Jesus rubs his hand hard against a stair as the apostles are finishing their song - an agitated fidget that I am far more fond of than I should be. As he realizes they've all gone to sleep, he grips it instead, something to hold on to. Will no one stay awake with me? Peter, John, James? He just sounds broken and like he's about to cry. Which is good. He sings all of Gethsemane sounding like he's on the verge of tears and that's exactly how it should sound, do not at me.

(Please bear with me as I go on about this Gethsemane because it's my favorite one ever at this point, haters to the left)

See, when I first saw this production (I saw the official recording once before I realized it was still on and I could see it live), I didn't really like Ben Forster's Jesus for the first half! He seemed sort of over-the-top and I wasn't the biggest fan of his voice and all in all I was ehhh on him. But then he did "Gethsemane" and I just felt it to my core in a way I'd never felt it before, and it floored me. I've watched and listened to a lot of versions of this song. There are better singers who make it more pleasant to listen to - but they tend to be very dignified and Jesus-y about it, like this poised religious figure just having a brief moment of vulnerability and emotionality. Even the performances specifically praised for being emotional tend to be the ones that just make it really angry. And I've seen a lot of great ones of both varieties! But Ben Forster just makes it so raw and human. Like this terrified, exhausted, desperate human being who's spent the entire preceding hour of this play dreading this thing that's coming, his resolve finally faltering in this moment of agonizing solitude as his doubts and fears and frustrations finally come pouring out, how much he wants to call the whole thing off, begging to either not have to do this or at least be properly convinced why he should. It's what made me properly start to look at Jesus's character progression during this story in the first place and notice all the buildup about his fragile mental state that's always been there in the lyrics. This is the “Gethsemane” that made me really, truly care about Jesus.

he's rubbing the stair again at the beginning of the song, I'm sorry I love fidgets and nervous gestures you guys

I've never heard anyone emphasize three years the way Ben Forster does, and the desperation of it hits me in the heart. Weren't these three years enough?

Let's talk about You're far too keen on where and how, and not so hot on why, which is pretty key to this show’s interpretation of Jesus. He and the Almighty are definitively not the same entity here; Jesus knows or believes he knows a lot of things about how this is all going to play out, and even some of the future beyond that (in "Poor Jerusalem"), but he doesn't actually understand what his death is supposed to accomplish. He knows that he's going to be crucified and it's going to happen because Judas betrays him and so on and so on, and that this is all supposedly very important, and Jesus has been willing to accept that without question, but really he doesn't know the whys here and never has, and as much as he's just never questioned it anyway because of his absolute conviction that this is God’s plan, he can't not do so now, when he's going to have to suffer an agonizing death in the service of these inscrutable goals, not sometime in the vague far future but soon.

(Technically, for all we know, Jesus isn’t the Son of God. God doesn’t answer him; the song is a monologue. Jesus has suspiciously specific knowledge of the future but that’s about it as far as actual concrete evidence of his divinity goes in this show. But what matters is that he believes this is what God wills.)

His initial All right. I'll die. Just watch me die! is so spiteful, only for the following lines to just turn into this anguished scream, and it kills me

I love the way he collapses on the stairs, and just finally breaks down and starts crying, and there's that agitated rubbing of the stair again

The second three years is just exhausted and my heart still breaks for it. These have been a hard three years. Seems like ninety.

Why then am I scared to finish is probably my favorite line in this. He just sounds so broken and desperate and actually scared, and his body language is so tense and agitated and desperate; he's so angry at himself for being scared when this has been the plan all along and for some reason now he just can’t seem to go through with it.

And then he has that realization. What I started? ...What you started. I didn't start it! This isn't his plan. He's just a cog in God's machinery. It's a fixed, unavoidable fate, isn't it? And he finds a kind of desperate acceptance in just thinking of it that way - at least for a moment (before I change my mind!). But it's a spiteful acceptance. He's addressing God now. I will drink your cup of poison, nail me to your cross and break me, bleed me, beat me, kill me, take me now! Because it's you who are doing this. It's your cross, you who are killing me. Note the contrast to earlier: Let them hate me, hit me, hurt me, nail me to their tree. It's not actually the people who are responsible for any of this, even if they’ll technically be the ones to do the deed; it's God's plan, his cross, his crucifixion.

I love how he looks so tense standing there afterwards while the audience is applauding, because he's not actually waiting for applause, he's waiting for the soldiers to arrest him and set him on the path to his execution. Arms spread at first, in a come at me sort of way, but then he just clenches his fists at his sides, eyes closed, still waiting.

There he is. They're all asleep, the fools. Implying Judas wouldn't have just gone to sleep, if he'd been left there. AU where Jesus has literally anyone to comfort him, instead of standing there alone desperately pleading to God to not have him killed. Hnngh.

The kiss is just as it is in the Bible, of course. But there, it's presented as a sort of extra nasty element of this betrayal, that he'd be betrayed with a kiss. Here, it's more like Judas just wants to say goodbye, one last time, and does it in this kind of tender way.

And... Jesus breaks down crying, clings to him, pulls him into a hug. Because of course he does. The reminder that Judas still cares, memories of everything they've been through together, and the knowledge this is probably his last chance at some kind of comforting human contact? Of course he does. He just wants to not be alone, for a few seconds, before the end.

At first Judas just sort of lets him do it, but by the time the soldiers come along to separate them, Judas is clinging to Jesus, too. Ohh, my heart.

The apostles wake up at the commotion and are immediately on their feet to fight off the soldiers. There is not a man among you who knows or cares if I come or go, Jesus said, a few days ago; now here they are, worrying for him, wanting to save him. But he has to stop them. He mustn't be saved, and they'd only get themselves hurt. Put away your sword - don't you see that it's all over? It was nice but now it's gone. That exhausted resignation.

Why are you obsessed with fighting? Stick to fishing from now on. He doesn't sound angry here - it's just kind of a gentle rebuke. He's touched that they tried. I like that he plays it that way; it'd be legit to make it angry, but in the context of how Jesus has spent a lot of time feeling like they don't really care at all and in this moment it finally becomes clearer to him that they do - not to mention that this is basically his final goodbye to them - it makes sense to let it be kind of tender.

From this point on, Jesus has to just quietly accept his fate. He's very silent, barely says anything - because now things just have to play out how they play out, and nothing he says will change anything, nor should change anything.

The reporters asking questions here (to the melody of "The Temple") are one of the relatively few major anachronisms baked into the actual lyrics as opposed to any particular production. They're not really reporters; it's kind of a representation of some of his previous followers watching this as a kind of spectacle, expecting him to make a dramatic escape or fight back, excited by what's happening (you'll just DIE in the high priest's house!), rather than sympathizing or caring. These are the people who are going to ultimately turn against him as a mob and pressure Pilate into crucifying him.

Caiaphas asks if Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus says That's what you say, yet another line based directly on the Bible. Growing up I always just found that kind of a silly thing for him to say - why won't he just stick to his story instead of suddenly acting like he never said such a thing? But it makes real sense here. Again, Jesus is resigned to his fate, to passively letting this happen. He's not going to deny it or try to get out of it, because he can't and mustn't. But he has no desire to speak up about how the rocks and stones will sing for him right now, or actively provoke them and give them more reasons to persecute him. He's just going to stand here and let things happen until it's over.

(also, he probably doesn't really feel so much like the Son of God right now)

Judas, thank you for the victim! Stay a while and you'll see him bleed! In this production, Caiaphas and Annas both say the last sentence together, but originally it's just Annas, which has always led me to feel that where Caiaphas is pure cold pragmatism and just believes this is what needs to be done for the sake of the nation, Annas is bit of a twisted son of a bitch. He's obviously intentionally twisting the knife here, because he thinks Judas's conflictedness about the whole thing is a bit pathetic and hilarious and likes to see him squirm.

(let me complain again about the editor not letting us see Judas's reaction to this line)

Peter's reluctance to throw his phone on the fire is a mood

also him threatening the homeless people with a broken bottle when they keep pressing him on whether he was with Jesus, before Mary takes it off him, is something I enjoy

Pilate and Christ probably takes place at Pilate’s gym in this staging to show Pilate hasn’t even made time for Jesus in an official capacity - he’s just being unexpectedly brought before him in his off time, hence why he’s particularly dismissive here.

Jesus barely looks at Pilate. Another dispassionate That's what you say.

How can someone in your state be so cool about his fate? An amazing thing, this silent king. Of course, Pilate doesn't understand any more than anyone else that Jesus being crucified is the plan. Again, Jesus is just letting this play out.

He does look up when Pilate declares he should go to Herod instead, though. It must be torture for him having this drawn out further. Poor Jesus, having to suffer through a comic relief number when he just wants to get this over with.

Jesus does look at Herod as he's making all these offers of letting him free if he'll just perform a miracle. It's got to be a tempting thought despite everything. But no, he must still sit there and let it happen.

"These results are for entertainment purposes only and do not reflect any real votes. The outcome is predetermined by the character of King Herod who clearly is going to find Jesus guilty of being a fraud otherwise it would be a very short Act 2." Going all the way with that fourth-wall-breaking.

the bit where they put the hood over Jesus's head sure hits some specific button I didn't realize I had

Judas there with his head buried in his hands in the background towards the end of "Could We Start Again Please" ohhhh

I feel like the usual implication with the abrupt opening of "Judas's Death" is that Judas has just been seeing Jesus being beaten, whereas here he's explicitly sitting there with the apostles contemplating what he's done and just gets up and freaks out when Caiaphas and Annas happen to walk by. I like him punching Caiaphas, but the way he just goes from zero to sixty there does feel a little weird. I don't care, though, Judas in the background during "Could We Start Again Please" is worth it.

For all that Judas is mortified by the way Jesus is being made an example of, he can also see the way his name will forever be associated with treachery, and none of his good intentions meant anything at all in the end. He’s wracked with guilt at what he’s done, but additionally all he can see in the future is being vilified and reviled, blamed for Jesus’s murder.

Ugh Annas kicking Judas while he's down he's such a bastard

Tim Minchin goes so all out on making "Judas's Death" just ugly anguished screaming and crying and I am so here for it.

Judas has never believed in the divinity of Jesus, but Jesus has some strange, intense, frightening quality that both Judas and Mary can feel, and just before his final breakdown, although Judas is telling himself that He's a man - he's just a man!, he seems to be starting to feel that that's not quite true: he starts to wonder if Jesus will leave him be after his death, and then right after the "I Don't Know How to Love Him" reprise is where his mental state takes a turn as he realizes God is behind all this, that perhaps the whole thing was planned.

The projecting images of Jesus' torment up onto the background screen as Judas is despairing is also very good - Jesus hasn't even been sentenced yet but he knows where this is headed and he sure is imagining it and feeling responsible for it.

Judas, like Jesus, concludes here that it's God who orchestrated all this and he never got a choice. In his case, though, it's serving as a way of running from his guilt. We got to hear all about his reasons for thinking this was the right thing to do, after all - it's not as if he was literally controlled into anything. He didn't realize he was dooming Jesus to a horrible death at the time, but he still did it of his own free will. And it isn't a real comfort - all it means is that in his final anguished moments he has someone to scream his despair at. You have murdered me!

(hang me from your tree)

the particular scream and sob that he does as he kicks the box out from under him hits my buttons very hard hhhh

Poor old Judas, so long, Judas, goes the Plan chorus. There's a pretty callous quality to that, appropriately enough for a very callous Plan involving a lot of suffering.

Please give my compliments to the sound designer who makes a point of turning on Jesus' microphone so we can hear his strained breathing before "Trial Before Pilate" begins

Jesus's resolve to say nothing of substance is breaking by this point, and he actually answers Pilate's "Where is your kingdom?" I have got no kingdom in this world, I'm through, through, through - there may be a kingdom for me somewhere, if I only knew. It's probably pretty hard to feel like he's headed for a triumphant resurrection right now, and the fact he's spilling those doubts to Pilate in a moment of frustrated honesty is pretty tragic.

(Some versions, including the 1973 movie, change this lyric to if you only knew. No! Bad! The whole point here is Jesus doubting it! If you want to change it you should not be putting on this show!)

Then he's a king? It’s what you say I am! I look for truth and find that I get damned! This frustration coming out here is so good.

Pilate's frustration is very good too - just dripping off every line. This mob of people insisting he sentence this harmless fool to death (one who reminds him uncomfortably of this dream that he had the other day), crowing about Caesar all of a sudden like they're oh so very concerned with protecting Caesar's authority.

As Jesus once again refuses to talk, there’s a brief mournful instrumental interlude before Look at your Jesus Christ - this is a slowed-down version of a bit of “Prescience”, the motif from “Pilate’s Dream”. He remembers that unsettling dream, consciously or unconsciously, and feels sympathy and pity for this strange man before him. After that is when he begins to argue that Jesus hasn’t committed any crime and there’s no reason to kill him.

can we appreciate that Webber and Rice went and made a song called "The 39 Lashes" that's literally just Pilate counting excruciatingly to 39 while Jesus screams in pain

can we also appreciate Jesus writhing on the floor after rolling down the stairs, Ben Forster really goes for it in acting out all this pain and torture and I love him for it

Why do you not speak when I have your life in my hands? asks Pilate, and Jesus just about musters the energy to say, You have nothing in your hands. Any power you have comes to you from far beyond - everything is fixed and you can't change it! He's kind of desperate to make Pilate understand this. Pilate keeps on trying to get Jesus to say something that'll let him release him, but that can't happen, because this must be so. Pilate needs to just play his part and get it over with, please get it over with.

And so, Pilate has to appease the mob and let him die, even though he doesn't want to at all, and tries to wash his hands of it. Much like in his dream, though, he'll in fact be remembered as the guy who sentenced Jesus to death. Clearly didn't wash your hands well enough, Pilate

It's such a delightfully bold creative decision to place an upbeat number like "Superstar" right here as Jesus is about to be crucified.

It's fascinating to see the differences in how this song in particular is staged; it's so abstract and disconnected that different directors really go nuts with it. Some productions, including the 2000 movie, imply Judas has come out of Hell to taunt him; the movie in particular makes a point of having Judas lazily, cruelly stand on the cross while Jesus is trying to carry it, grinning at his agony, surrounded by scantily clad demon women, though he has a moment of doubt and guilt as Jesus stares at him. (That movie generally posits Judas as not in control of his actions at all - so God is apparently basically just making him do this as part of his torture in Hell, which is delightfully twisted.) Others (including this one and the 1973 movie) have him among angels, as if he's descended from Heaven. In the 1973 movie Carl Anderson seems largely to just be singing it to himself - it cuts to Jesus carrying the cross a few times, but Judas isn't there.

Here, "Superstar" feels a bit like a delirious hallucination Jesus is experiencing. Judas descends on the stage lights that are about to form the cross (what an entrance) and performs the song surrounded by angels while Jesus is being affixed to the cross; they look at each other, but Judas doesn't really interact with him. There's definitely no taunting; Tim Minchin plays it in a very good-natured way, not even the kind of angry questioning of Carl Anderson in the 1973 movie. Effectively, despite the hallucinatory vibes, the way it comes across to me is Judas really is actually there in spirit, from a timeless afterlife, having had an eternity to think and come to terms with and understand what Jesus was doing - and finally just asking him some questions, without judgement. Is he what they say he is? What does he think about Buddha and Mohammed? Why didn't he choose a different time period where it would've been easier to spread his message? Did he know his death would inspire millions? It's all a sort of musing, fourth-wall-leaning modern perspective, not hostile, just curious.

Also this version just makes me happy because Judas seems happy and mentally at peace in the afterlife and who doesn't want that

Anyway, from that to Jesus crying on the cross. And I mean crying. Once again Ben Forster delivers the human suffering element of this story. "The Crucifixion" is a weird, weird song, chaotic and noisy and kind of offputting and tends to feel sort of inappropriate for the mood; in this production you don't even notice because the staging is so brutal. There's no cool symbolic dignity to this; Jesus is just crying and screaming and sobbing the whole time, yelling the disconnected final-words lines in an agonized, delirious haze. You actually believe you're watching a man dying in agony, God damn. It hurts and I love it.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? is the most gutwrenching line, of course. (And straight out of the Bible, lest we forget - I think it’s fascinating that in the likely oldest gospel of Mark as well as Matthew, this horrible, heartwrenching, human cry is all he says on the cross, while the gospels of John and Luke instead each feature their own disjoint sets of more profound-sounding sayings. It’s hard not to wonder if the other lines might be inventions by those gospels’ human authors or their sources, people who perhaps just didn’t want Jesus’s final words to be something so achingly desperate and vulnerable.) He's done all this to carry out God's great plan, and yet in this moment, in the middle of this nightmare of slow, unending agony, he feels certain that God has abandoned him and he's just dying, alone, pointlessly, for nothing. Ow, my empathetic heart.

You can hear him feeling death approaching at last and the relief he feels at that realization just before It is finished and Father, into your hands I commend my spirit

(it's easier to believe again when his suffering is finally, mercifully about to end)

Ben Forster also does a very good job not visibly breathing when he's playing a corpse. On this blog we appreciate the little things.

I've always found it pretty neat and interesting that Jesus Christ Superstar does not include the resurrection or any allusion to it at all; he just dies on the cross, they mourn and carry him away, and the show ends. Again, the only thing in this show that’s at all supernatural is that Jesus seems to know the future, and even that is fairly ambiguous. It's a story about human suffering, and it's a hugely compelling story without him rising from the dead at the end, which'd just kind of cheapen it. You can imagine that he did, but this ending invites you to contemplate that this story is just as meaningful if he did not.

In conclusion, Jesus Christ Superstar is one of my absolute favorite things and the 2012 arena tour is my baby

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

#jesus christ superstar #ramble #review #character analysis #my buttons #holy jesus this is long #8500 words of JCS rambling #which is almost as much as I wrote about episode four of Breaking Bad

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automatismoateo · 3 years

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Why I left my religion and how it changed my life via /r/atheism

Submitted April 23, 2021 at 09:01AM by Iamnameless_ (Via reddit https://ift.tt/3gzpZxk) Why I left my religion and how it changed my life

I have tried for years to put what I went through into words or to make sense of it, but no matter how hard I try I can never paint a full picture of how awful It felt to be born a girl in a Muslim household.

This is for the many little girls out there who feel what I’ve felt. Who spend their nights crying and feeling lonely, scared and trapped. This is a success story and I hope that it will bring hope to you.

Before I begin, i would like to state that there is a difference between Islam and the culture around it. The problem isn’t Islam nor is it the religion itself. It is the toxic culture that has been built around it by muslims and the hidden truths that women are too scared to reveal.

I grew up in a Muslim household in a western country. My parents were extremely religious - to the point where it was extreme.

My father abused my mother my entire life and in return she took out it out on us. Now of course, not all Muslim men are abusive, although it is easy to get away with and not exactly frowned upon. My father was never involved in our lives, he didn’t know our birthdays or anything about us really. My mother had the obligation to take care of us, she would spend all day cooking and cleaning and dealing with the abuse. She became numb, empty and trapped. Consequently, she became even more religious, trying to convince herself that her sacrifices and her pains were going to be rewarded by god. She became so afraid of my father punishing her for our behaviour that she also became toxically controlling.

I could go on for days and write shocking and horrifying things, but I need to protect myself and I’m also not ready to reveal everything I went through because to be quite honest, I find it humiliating and it makes me cringe (even anonymously).

My parents always told us stories about how woman that didn’t obey the rules of Islam were killed. They would go in specific detail and give us examples and names. We grew up in fear and we were taught that girls basically had no rights, they had to do everything their parents said until they got married and then their husband would tell them what to do. My brother was free as bird. He could do anything he wanted.

My mother would make me clean the house and do the dishes while my brother just sat there playing video games. Whenever I would ask why I had to do it and not him, she would answer “because you’re a girl”. I must’ve heard that sentence a billion times and each time she repeated it, I hated her even more.

When I was about 6 years old, my mother came to pick me up from school and as we were leaving my biggest fear at the time occurred — a boy in my class said goodbye to me. My mother became furious. She told me that I was never allowed to be friends with boys and looked at me with such disgust as If I had done something awful. She told me that in our religion and culture, girls are not allowed to be friends with boys. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I developed terrible anxiety from that behaviour. Every time that my mother would pick me up from school, my palms would become sweaty, my heart would race and all I would feel is fear. It seems to ridiculous and almost funny to write, but at the time it was a genuinely scary thing.

When I was about 8, we went to a park with some family. I layed down in the grass and my mother came to me and grabbed me by the arm violently and told me that girls aren’t allowed to “lie down” infront of men (who I was related to). Again, it was confusing but she had this way of speaking to me and looking at me that made me fear her and do everything she said.

When I was 11, my breasts started to develop very rapidly. All of the sudden, I was becoming a woman. I was forbidden from wearing shirts that didn’t cover up my entire upper body. It felt unfair and wrong. I didn’t understand why my body (that I didn’t chose) was causing so much uproar. I wanted to play, to be free, to wear comfortable clothing. I didn’t even understand sex, I was a child, yet sex (or the fear of it) was the premise of my life. It was who I was, it was everything I did. My parents based my entire existence on sex.

We had a family friend who had a daughter my age. She was born with one of her Fallopian tubes twisted and as she got older the pain was so awful that she would scream in anguish. The girls mother refused the simple surgery that could stop her pain because the doctor had to enter through her vagina and cut her hymen to do the procedure. I overheard my mother saying that she shouldn’t get the surgery because what if one day she gets married and her husband doubts her virginity. It absolutely shattered my heart and changed my view on Islam forever.

Around that age, I got my first period. I was absolutely terrified to tell my mother about it. It was only after the second time that it happened that I had the guts to tell her. She was extremely uncomfortable and didn’t look at me. She didn’t explain what was happening and she made me feel dirty and disgusting. After that, things got worse and worse.

I went to high school and suddenly it all hit me in the face. I understood my entire life. I understood that I had been taught none sense and lies. I understood that I had been mentally abused. I understood that i was going nowhere with the life I had. I became angry, heavily depressed and suicidal.

I wasn’t allowed to have a social life and I wasn’t allowed to wear tight or “revealing” clothes. I had to be home after school on the dot. Literally, my mom would wait at the door for me and if I was even a minute late she would scream at me as I walked in. Like genuinely yell at me for being 5 minutes late and accuse me of being with boys and doing bad things and lying. It was traumatizing, since I was always telling the truth (at least then). Every single day, I would hop off the bus and run home. And then I would fight with my mother over non existant boys and cry all night long- and repeat. This went on pretty much my entire adolescence and I lost my fucking mind. I can’t even begin to explain the pain. I just didn’t want to live. School kept me going, I had good grades, greats friends and I just loved it. But I had an awful secret and I never said a word about it. Every night I would get on my knees and pray to a god that I didn’t believe in and that I hated, that I would die. I just couldn’t imagine getting out of my situation.

I looked up things online a couple of times, wondering if I was the only one going through this and I was shocked to see that it was common. When I was 16, I tried to kill myself. I woke up one morning and I felt absolutely nothing it was like I was already dead. I couldn’t handle it anymore, I was alone. Nobody could see, nobody could tell and this was my life forever. I ended up at the hospital and lived but I couldn’t care less. I told the nurses that I didn’t want to see my family and I was taken to a psych ward where I stayed for a few days. I felt peace for the first time in my life. I was all alone but I was free (ironically I was locked up in a hospital room). When they asked me why I did it I couldn’t get the words out so I was very vague. My mother and brother came to visit me and although they were crying, the first thing she said to me was “how could you do this to us and to your father” and that this was haram and that I needed to pray to god and everything would be ok. I tried telling her that I couldn’t live like this anymore but I was too afraid to say that I fucking hated god and that I felt more oppressed than a dog. So when the doctors asked me if I felt better and if I wanted to leave I said yes and I guess they just assumed I was a stupid teenage girl. I went back home and things were a little different for a few days but then and it got bad again.

That’s when my entire life changed. I tried dying and it didn’t work. So now I had nothing to lose, it was either die or die trying. I became rebellious, started talking back, starting talking to boys, starting hanging out with friends after school and lying about it and wearing clothes and changing them after leaving the house. I realized that whether I did or I didn’t, I was going to get yelled at and since I was a “girl” I couldn’t be trusted, so I decided to make it worth something. I wasn’t scared of my parents anymore because I realized that they were just people- like me. And that they were sad and miserable so I made it my goal to not end up like that. I decided I was going to leave home at 18.

After my suicide attempt, I had to see a social worker once a week. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I never told her what was going on at home specifically because I was embarrassed, scared and in-denial. But I opened up to her in small ways and spoke about the way my mother treated me in general and it opened up my eyes little by little. I realized that I was never the problem. I realized that I was a child. I realized that parents can be bad and wrong. I realized that my home life was abnormal and toxic. I realized that my mother was a victim, that she was an abused woman trying to cope by “protecting” her children and feeling important. I realized that my father was weak. That he was a coward all along and that he needed to feel strong by asserting his dominance. But most importantly, I realized that I was so much more than I was taught I was - I was smart, I was strong and I was a person not just an object for men’s pleasure.

At 18, my mother began to suspect my secret life. She came into my room and told me that girls who do bad things in Islam get killed. And for the first time, I wasn’t scared. I could see how weak she felt and how scared she was. And so one day I went to school, I took the bus back home and a few stops before my house, I thought to myself “oh wow I can’t do it anymore”. So I got off and I went to a friends house and I didn’t go home that night. My parents called, texted, found me on all social media, contacted my friends, sent out threatening texts... A part of me was absolutely terrified that they would find me and do something bad. But the other part of me couldn’t get enough of the freedom and the air. I went to school the next day and told a counsellor and the police everything. I didn’t want to get my parents in trouble, in fact I felt really terrible and selfish. I told the cops that I didn’t get any real threats and that I didn’t want to file a report or anything, but that I just wanted this on record in case anything ever happened to me.

At first, they would send me abusive terrible texts everyday. About how I’m terrible, disgusting, selfish, that god hates me, that I will burn in hell, that I’ve ruined their lives and their honour. And then afterwards they would beg me to come home and tell me they love me. But then they would text me that I’m weak, that I couldn’t handle gods words, that I was a sinner. And then that they loved me and just wanted me back and that we could go back to normal. And then again, I’m ungrateful, I’m dumb, i gave into tentations, I’m a whore.

I didn’t see my parents for a year. They contacted me non stop, begging me to come visit so that the rest of our family wouldn’t notice I left home. They stopped inviting people over so that they wouldn’t ask questions. They told me that if I’m seen with a boy or wearing revealing clothes their lives would be over and they begged me to not do so for them.

I spent the entire year healing my wounds, my trauma and working on myself. I moved into a studio apartment and worked part time while being a full time student. I got a student loan that allowed me to live, i didn’t have much but I had never ever in my entire life felt so happy. I felt like I was on top of the world, I could do anything and be anything. (I had an incredible support system during this period and I was followed by a specialist. I got help and opened up to people. It was difficult, a process and alot of hard work. Without all that I don’t think this would’ve been a success story).

At 19, I met my parents in a cafe out of guilt. I felt sorry for them but I just didn’t feel love. They told me that they accept who I am but the only thing they ask is that I come back into their lives and that I hide this part of my life to the family and friends and that I visit every now and then so that nobody suspects anything. Obviously, growing up in the culture I knew how bad things would be for them and I understood. I saw them a couple of times here and then but I never felt like myself when I was there. I guess I did it for them and because I just felt awful that I had to ruin their lives to make mine better. But as I said, it was death or this. It just was never who I was meant to be.

Today I am happy and so grateful for everything I have and everything I went through. I would never ever change my past or my childhood because it made me into somebody I love and it took a long time to get here. I learned that pain can be worth something and it can be beautiful once it’s overcome. More importantly, I learned that as a girl I am strong and resilient. That I can handle so much more than I thought and that I can achieve anything or even more than what a man can.

I’m fortunate, privileged and lucky. My story could’ve taken several tragic turns. Im lucky that I live in a western country, that I have this possibility of freedom. I’m lucky to be educated and surrounded by wonderful people.

My story isn’t meant to anger people of Muslim faith. In fact, I hope that my story and the many many others that I know are out there will open up a discussion in the Muslim community. Instead of shaming and using scare tactics to control our daughters, we should be teaching them with love, trust and truth. I wouldn’t have left Islam if my parents taught me religion instead of toxic culture. But more importantly, I hope that this might show some girl out there that she definitely isn’t alone and that she’ll make it through.

I know it can be difficult for non-Muslim people to understand how all this is possible or to understand the gravity of it, how common it is and how painful it is. But just imagine all your rights being stripped away from you because you were born a girl. Kind of like being in quarantine for 18 years! It’s funny, I hear all my friends complain about quarantine and not being able to go out or be free and I just laugh to myself and think Imagine that, plus the mental abuse, plus the oppression—because that’s how it felt. Every single day.

How is it acceptable for my father to abuse my mother but not for me to wear a tank top?

How is it okay for my brother to drop out of college but I’m not allowed to stay at the library past a certain hour?

Why is my 40 years old uncle engaged to a 17 year old girl, but I can’t date a man that I meet who loves me and treats me with respect?

Why does a 10 year old boy have more rights than a 30 year old mother?

#reddit

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princeasimdiya12 · 4 years

Note

That anon is an asshole. Why do you hate Shuichi? I think he fits the theme of truth and lies, but his character development is a complete joke as he has zero struggles after his waifu dead. He never once second guess his actions in class trials and doesn’t even think of major consequences (killing the de facto prime minister and not noticing a serial killer is amoung them). His stans over analyze his actions and try to justify everything he does.

They were quite a jerkhole. I can imagine that most stans would be protective of their favorite characters if anyone were to express disapproval.

And thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my personal feelings on the matter anon. And those are some interesting reasons to dislike him but I have some other reasons.

My answers will be hidden under the “Read More” because they’re long answers. But these are my thoughts and reasons for why I hate Shuichi Saihara.

Reason 1: The Protagonist Switch was Lackluster

Right off the bat, I personally dislike that we were promised a unique and compelling protagonist like Kaede only to switch her with a generic insecure protagonist like Saihara. The use of the protag switch isn’t a bad plot twist and it can be clever, it’s just that the result of switching Kaede for someone like Saihara left a bad taste in my mouth.

I loved Kaede because she was unique as a DR protagonist. Along with having a colorful design and talent, she was assertive, confident and willing to take charge. She was actively involved in the story by stepping up as the group’s de facto leader and trying to motivate them. She was also flawed in the sense that she was quick to butt heads with others and she didn’t completely trust others or practice her own beliefs of trusting in friends. And personally, I’m not even upset that she tried to kill someone. It’s still considered something different for a DR protagonist to do, especially if it was for the greater good.

But when we get Saihara, he continues the trend of being a generic sad boy who feels insecure about his talents and wants to be stronger. Most of his screentime is spent moping about his problems and how he doesn’t feel good enough. He doesn’t have the same presence as Kaede and just stays in the background while the rest of the cast move the story as much as they can.

In all honesty, if they had introduced Saihara as the new protagonist, or at least make it so that his predecessor wasn’t as compelling as Kaede, then I wouldn’t have been too upset. At the very least I wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up for a protagonist who was actually different compared to the past protags.

Reason 2: Waifus In Refrigerators

For those that don’t know, fridging is the concept of (brutally) killing off a fictional female character in order to create an emotional impact for her male love interest and his character development.

Kaede’s death and how it impacted Saihara is textbook fridging.

I strongly detest fridging since it robs a female character of her agency and role in the story. It treats her as a tool meant to motivate her male love interest to either avenge her death or grow as a person. Kaede’s death along with her final wish is what pushes Saihara to try and beat the killing game. And from then on, Saihara will take the moment to reflect on Kaede’s tragic end and how he inspired him with her kindness. Kaede loses her identity as a complex leader who was willing to commit murder for a greater good. Everyone just remembers her as Saihara’s innocent dead love interest who inspired him to keep on fighting. It’s also worse in the 6th case when it’s revealed that Tsumugi took advantage of Kaede’s trap to kill Amami which further pushes Kaede into the image of an innocent angel that did no wrong.

And it’s also frustrating since this isn’t the only time that the Danganronpa series has killed off its female characters in order to develop their male love interests.

In SDR2, Peko dies trying to save Fuyuhiko which in turn motivates him to stop acting like a jerkhole and be more cooperative with the group.

In DR3 Future Side, Chisa is the first victim of the killing game which pushes her boyfriend Munakata to become a more direct antagonist towards Naegi for protecting the Remnants.

In the same series, Kyoko allows herself to be poisoned in order to protect Naegi. It’s through her death that Naegi decides to confront Munakata in a final showdown. And while Kyoko does get brought back to life at the end of the show, it should be noted that she was only brought back just to be part of Naegi’s happy ending package. She loses her agency and is brought back just to be his newly revived girlfriend.

In DR3 Despair Side, Chiaki is brutally killed in order for her classmates to become Remnants of Despair. But it’s her final heartwrenching moments with Izuru that inspire emotion inside of him aswell as deciding to turn against Junko.

So Kaede being killed for Saihara’s development is the fifth fridging example in this series and it sucks that Kodaka and his crew rely on this trope throughout Danganronpa.

Reason 3: The Narrative Forces You To Like Him

Another issue that I found irritating about Saihara is how everyone began praising him.

Just after the first case, everyone constantly praises and coddles Saihara for being such a great detective and for growing so much. For me, that praise feels undeserving since he barely did anything to earn it. Thinking back to each of the past protagonists, they didn’t have everyone’s respect in the beginning. They each had to work had and face adversity throughout their stories in order to earn their praise and respect. Even Kaede, who despite being a confident leader, had to deal with people frequently judging her leadership and actions. So I find it questionable that Saihara already earned everyone’s respect after solving only one case.

By having all the characters praise Saihara, the narrative pushes you to accept him as the new protagonist and recognize how awesome it is to have him. But for me, it just makes me dislike him even more. I refuse to like something just because everyone else does and it won’t take away my admiration/love for Kaede.

It’s also jarring since anytime a character has the spotlight, it somehow has to involve Saihara.

“Wow Himiko! You’re much more expressive now than before. Just like you Saihara!”

“Man, it sounds like you had a harsh life growing up Harumaki. Just like you and your detective work, eh Shuichi?”

The narrative can’t help but force Saihara to be around and praised by the people around him despite the spotlight not being on him in that given moment.

Reason 4: He’s Not a Good Detective

While Saihara’s role as a detective may fit the theme of Truth and Lies, that doesn’t mean he was good at the job. My issue being that he was unproductive and biased for the role.

While he did set up that trap in Chapter 1 to catch the mastermind, he doesn’t do anything as proactive in the later chapters. He spent most if not all of his time going to training with Kaito and moping about his problems. It goes on like this for 4 chapters and it takes Kiibo threatening to blow up the school before he actually gets to work on solving the mystery of the killing game. As a detective, you’d think he would put more effort into actually solving the mysteries of the killing game or try to put some thought on who the mastermind could be.

The biased part comes with how he interacts with others and how he’s more critical of people based on how they treat him. Saihar has a tendency to be very judgmental towards the students and doesn’t look at the entire picture.

He writes off Ouma as the embodiment of lies and doesn’t bother trying to learn more about him or his true motivations.

And on the opposite side, he openly praises his friends while blatantly ignoring the problematic things they’d done throughout the story.

He considers Kaede to be an inspirational role model despite how she betrayed him and wanted to commit murder behind his back.

He worships Kaito and treats him as a perfect hero despite never noticing his ongoing illness or the fact that Kaito didn’t trust his friends enough to reveal his own insecurities.

He deems Maki a reliable friend despite the fact that she went behind his and everyone’s back in order to kill Ouma and was willing to gamble everyone else’s lives if it meant taking revenge on the supreme leader.

Shouldn’t a detective be more persistent when presented with a mystery while also acknowledging all the sides (both good and bad) of a given person? If his personal bias was treated as a flaw by the narrative, then that would actually give his character significant depth. Especially if he worked on managing his biases and learning to acknowledge all the sides. But it isn’t treated as a bad problem.

For me, the fact that he’s supposed to be a detective who “grows stronger” and is so good at his job despite all of this really rubs me the wrong way. If anything, it shows me that he’s really bad at the job.

Also, I would like to bring up that I don’t count him investigating the murder cases as being a good detective. Why? Because Hajime and his class in SDR2 were able to solve their class trials without a detective figure. Being a detective, or having one, doesn’t make solving the class trials any easier.

Reason 5: An Unnecessary Cliche

Personally, I really see no reason for why Saihara’s character needed to be the generic insecure protagonist for this particular installment of Danganronpa. It’s the same cliche storyline featured in a grand majority of anime and light novels. It’s repetitive and irritating knowing that so many stories focus primarily on a sad generic boy who doesn’t feel good enough and wants to be stronger.

It’s also worth mentioning that in comparison, the past protagonists at least had narrative reasons for why they were generic and insecure in the first place.

For Naegi, he was the first protagonist of the installment and his normalcy was meant to contrast the extremely talented and radically different students he’d be involved with. As the game progresses, he uses his normalness to bond with the students and rally them together in the name of hope.

For Hajime, he’s treated as a deconstruction of the generic insecure protagonist. It’s because his feelings of inferiority and longing to be special that he decides to accept Hope’s Peak’s experimentation and become Izuru Kamakura: an incredibly talented super-being who lost his humanity.

For Komaru, she was regarded as an ordinary girl that had the potential to lead others which is recognized by the adult resistance and Monaca. So throughout the game, both sides were pushing her into becoming either the next symbol of Hope like Naegi or next symbol of despair like Junko. But she ultimately decides to be neither of them and wants to be her own person.

There were reasons for why each of these protagonists were considered generic and insecure as it contributed to the narratives. But for Saihara, there’s really no solid reason for why he’s the only normal one of the V3 cast. And everyone is more than happy to praise him as the best one out of the cast despite doing so little to earn it. At most, Tsumugi reveals that Saihara being an insecure boy who grew stronger thanks to his friends was for the sake of a fictional storyline. Obviously it was meant to mentally break him but it honestly feels like a weak reason to keep the trend of a generic insecure sad boy. Not to mention there are other reasons for why I believe this doesn’t work.

The setup for the “Danganronpa is a fictional TV show” twist didn’t have enough buildup so it doesn’t make the cliche that strong.

Saihara still continues the role of the insecure boy who grows strong and saves the day. While Tsumugi states that his role was written for him, Saihara still continues the tropes of his archetype by saving the day. It’s ultimately because of him that he’s able to convince his friends and the viewing audience to give up on Danganronpa. It was the writer’s way of having their cake and eating it.

If the reveal was meant to be a shot at how it’s become a cliche, then why not live up to it? If they wanted to show how Danganronpa was running for too long or how it’s cliches were getting old, then why not commit to those ideas? Instead of having everyone praise and worship Saihara, make them question if they’re really going to depend on a generic guy to save them. Instead of being just a cute quirk, actually show the negative sides of Saihara’s anxiety and depression and how they would hinder him from participating in trial discussions. Maybe even have Kaito lose his temper at Saihara because of how much he mopes around.

There’s so many ways they could have gone with deconstructing Saihara’s stereotype or showcasing how it’s become old and stale. So it feels disappointing that they never went that far.

And another reason for why I dislike his characterization is because it brings to mind Ryota Mitarai from the DR3 anime. Just like Saihara, Mitarai is a main character who’s described as generic, insecure and spends most of his time whining about how useless he is. Despite this, he manages to survive the killing game since the other more unique characters are killed or move the events of the story. I personally found Mitarai to be a frustrating character. I detest characters who constantly whine about how useless or miserable they are as a means of getting sympathy from the audience. So having to deal with Saihara who more or less shares multiple characteristics with Mitarai felt very exhausting.

Conclusion

So those would be my reasons for why I hate/strongly dislike Saihara. I can admit that alot of these reasons weren’t so much because of Saihara or his actions but how he was written throughout the story. He still did alot of things I didn’t like don’t get me wrong, but alot of fault can be traced to the writers and how they decided to write him and Kaede’s characters. I still find his archetype as a generic insecure boy who mopes around to be an unappealing archetype but I’m sure most of his fans would suggest otherwise.

If you’ve managed to read everything here, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to do so. I can’t imagine many people would want to read a critical post targeted towards one of the most beloved characters in Danganronpa. So thank you for doing so.

And as always, if you agree or disagree with anything I’ve written, you’re more than welcome to reblog this with your comments. I’m always up for friendly discussions.

#dangan ronpa #danganronpa #ndrv3 #new danganronpa v3 #dr critical #anon #analysis

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smylealong · 3 years

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Year in review - 2020

2020 has been a mixed bag of an year. Where on one hand it has been a raging dumpster fire with a global pandemic, lockdowns, social distancing, online schools, politics, forest fires, Karens and the general sense of ennui that the year brought. On the other hand, the year gave us all time. Time to reflect on ourselves. Time to teach ourselves new things. Time to binge watch. And boy did the streaming platforms make full use of it. Listed below are the best things I saw in 2020. (Across languages and in no specific order.) IT IS A LONG POST. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.

HINDI Thappad: Dir: Anubhav Sinha. Starring: Tapasee Pannu, Pavail Gulati, Diya Mirza, Kumud Mishra and Ratna Pathak Shah. On surface level, the premise seems frivolous. After all, it was just a slap. Just. One. Slap. Yet, with that one slap, the protagonist’s neatly organized world comes apart at the seams. From there begins Amruta’s (Tapsee Pannu) journey into exploring the micro-aggressions and tiny slights that she has turned a blind eye to, for the sake of keeping peace. The film never veers into a glorification of violence nor does it get overly preachy. It is a mirror to the patriarchal society and raises pertinent questions about the things that the society as normalized. Things that shouldn’t be normalized.

Bulbbul: Dir: Anvita Dutt. Starring: Tripti Dimri, Avinash Tiwari, Rahul Bose, Parambrata Chatterjee and Paoli Dam.

Horror does not always lie in the things that go bump at night. Sometimes, horror is what society expects of you. Horror is the consequence of not fitting into the role that has been written for you. Sometimes, it is terrifying to be a woman in a male-dominated society. That is what Bulbbul explores. Wrapped in a beautiful package, Bulbbul tells the raw story of a child-bride who is punished, harshly, inhumanly, for acting her age. If you haven’t seen it yet, drop everything and watch it. It’s on Netflix.

Lootcase: Dir: Rajesh Krishnan. Starring: Kunal Khemu, Rasika Duggal, Vijay Raaz, Gajraj Rao.

This was a charming little movie that had me in splits. A story of a simple man who chances upon a bag full of money. What follows is a hilarious tale of lies, deception and comedy of errors. Kunal Khemu proves that Bollywood does not realize just how talented he is. Vijay Raaz’s deadpan comedy and Gajraj Rao’s evil smiling desperation are a delight to behold. I’m smiling even as I am writing this. This was fun!

Raat Akeli Hai: Dir: Honey Tehran. Starring: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte, Ila Arun, Shweta Tripathi, Tigmanshu Dhulia.

This was India’s answer to Knives Out. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is at his finest as the honest and frustrated (in more ways than one) police officer who finds himself attracted to the mistress of the murdered man. What follows is a tale so full of twists and turns that I could not predict where it is going. When you have Siddiqui at the helm, you are almost certain to get a good film. But when he is backed by stellar performance from the able cast, that takes the film to another level altogether.

Patal Lok: Dir: Avinash Arun and Prosit Roy. Starring: Jaideep Alhawat, Niraj Kabi, Abhishek Bannerjee, Swastika Mukherjee, Gul Panang, Ishvaak Singh.

Wow. Just. Wow. This is arguably the BEST thing that I have seen all year. On the surface this is an attempted murder case. But what it actually is, is a mirror to our society. It is a human story. A story of greed, corruption, power, violence, misogyny, depravity and true evil. It is a story of love, hope, support, kindness and humanity. It is a story of us. My hats off to the entire cast and crew for coming up with something truly special.

ENGLISH

Haunting of Bly Manor: Created by: Mike Flannagan. Starring: Victoria Pedretti, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Amelia Eve, T’Nia Miller, Rahul Kohli.

Based on Henry Jame’s Turn of the Screw, this was a poignant tale of love, loss and pain. While it pales in comparison to its brilliant predecessor, Haunting of the Hill House, and the 1961 screen adaptation of the novel, The Innocents, Bly Manor still manages to be a worthy watch. In Mike Flannagan’s deft hands, we get to see a completely different perspective of the Haunting. I won’t say more, for spoilers, but this was definitely one of the better things I watched this year. Especially since I almost eschewed English movies/series this year. (I did watch some forgettable movies like Extraction and Mulan, but even mentioning them here feels sacrilegious.)

Korean

This year, I returned to Korean Dramas after a long time. My last Korean Drama before this year was Faith that I saw in 2014. Since Boys Over Flowers (Read Kim Bum) is my guilty pleasure watch, I decided to have it on in the background sometime in March or April this year. (Honestly, in 2020, who knows?). BOF took me to The King: Eternal Monarch. And TKEM introduced me to Woo Do Hwan who gave me some of the best times in this year. Three of his dramas feature here.

Save Me:- Dir: Kim Sung-soo. Starring: Ok Taec-yeon, Seo Yea-ji, Woo Do Hwan, Jo Sung-ha, Jo Jae-yoon.

Do you fancy a kick to your teeth? Because that is what this series is. What starts a simple story of a regular family’s struggles upon moving to a new town, quickly turns into a harrowing nightmare in which you are simply the viewer. The story delves into cults and the insidious power they hold. Through Seo Yea-ji’s brilliant performance as Im Sang-mi, we see a K drama heroine who is not a damsel in distress. She isn’t the one throwing the punches, that is done by Ok Taec-yeon and Woo Do Hwan. Still she is the one that leads the fight. If that wasn’t enough, Woo Do Hwan, plays Seok Dong-chul. Arguably one of the best male leads I have seen.

Mad Dog:- Dir: Hwang Ui-kyung Starring: Yoo Ji-tae, Woo Do Hwan, Jo Jae-joon, Ryu Hwa-young, Kim Hye-sung.

What a treat this show is! Smart protagonists pitted against equally intelligent antagonists and a taut plot that rarely sags (It does sag just a wee bit in the middle but it picks up pace very quickly). Woo Do Hwan is fantastic as the ever changing, tough to pin down, Kim Min Joon. The layers in this character! This show will keep you guessing. Every cast member is stellar and no one has a single misstep. A must watch!

My Country: Dir: Kim Jin-won Starring: Yang Se Jong, Woo Do Hwan, Kim Seol-hyun, Jang Hyuk.

This series brings a set of very complex emotions in me. Don’t get me wrong. I love the series. Its story, characterization, costumes, cinematography, acting, action scenes, OST. They are top notch. A+. But... and this is a big one, this series is also a glaring display of what happens when a writer falls in love with one of their characters. As a writer, I can say that we love all our characters. But it is very dangerous for a writer to move from simply loving the character to falling in love with the character. When that happens, the writer becomes afraid of letting that particular character make mistakes. Or glosses over their flaws. Often at the expense of the other character. Which is what happened here. The writer fell in love with Seo Hwi and Nam Seon ho paid the price. Hwi could literally assassinate people in front of Hui Jae and still be forgiven for it, while Nam Seon-ho gets demonized for trying to save Hwi by telling lies. I could go on and on about how unfair this series was to Seon-ho, but that would be a separate post altogether.

Tale of a Gumiho: Dir: Kang Shin-hyo Starring: Lee Dong Wook, Jo Bo-ah, Kim Bum.

I started this series for Kim Bum (I LOVE THE GUY). I was prepared for some cheesy, goofy fun with some good looking people. But soon, I was watching it for the story. A smart Urban Fantasy with elements of Korean Mythology, this was UF done right! This series made me do research. I am so tired of seeing the same old myths in fantasy that this came as a breath of fresh air. Intelligent protagonists who communicate well (gasp! what? That happens?). A flip-flopping anti-hero. A truly psychopathic villain and a bunch of other well-fleshed characters make for one entertaining watch. I highly recommend it.

Chinese:

K-dramas made me revive the Tumblr account that I had created sometime in 2017 and which lay dormant since then. Soon, my Tumblr feed was filled with gifs and metas of a show with pretty men. I did not pay much attention to it, till a post about Jin Ling’s Uncle made me snort. Even though I didn’t understand what it was talking about, it was still funny. Realizing that the show is on Netflix, I saw the trailer and wasn’t impressed. Then there was the length. 50 episodes! Holee-moleee. “No. I ain’t got that much time,” I said and moved on. But then, I saw a gif of a man smiling. I had never seen a smile that dazzling. There was something about that smile that made me go back and click on the first episode. And in less than ten minutes of the episode, they killed the man whose smile drew me to the show. WTF? But I had seen gifs of him. There had to be more. Then, the show began and I had no idea what was happening. I decided no smile could be worth the brain-cells I am having to expend for this. Chuck it. But people in Tumblr said, hold on. You will understand it. Episode 2, and I still wasn’t sold. I gave it till episode 5. Then, before I knew it, I finished the 50 episodes and currently reside in the rabbit hole that is The Untamed.

Dir: Zheng Weiwen and Chen Jialin Starring: Xiao Zhan, Wang Yibo, and a host of others. I can’t write the name of the entire cast, even though I want to.

PS: In case you don’t know, the man with the pretty smile is Xiao Zhan.

#2020 year in review #long post warning

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yandere-wishes · 4 years

Text

Yandere Fling Posse Headcanons // Hypnosis Mic X Reader//

NGL I didn’t really like Fling Posse before writing this,but now ....💓💓💓 Also huge thanks to @minoux-x for her help with writing these HC’s!!

🍭🎲🏮🍭🎲🏮🍭🎲🏮🍭🎲🏮🍭🎲🏮🍭🎲🏮🍭🎲🏮🍭🎲🏮🍭🎲

ramuda amemura

🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭🍭

At first glance, Ramuda can't even be classified as a yandere! He's so sweet and loving, constantly showering his sweetheart with candies and new clothes. Every word that leaves his mouth is a love-filled melody that melt's his s/o's heart! He's just the absolute best boyfriend anyone could ask for!...

But life isn't a fairy tale and Ramuda must certainly isn't the prince charming he pretends to be. All those gifts and sweet words where just strings to tie you up with turning you into his little dancing puppet. You'll soon find yourself all alone, walking on a tight rope of Ramuda's lies. Everything is so blurry, just when did you stop texting your childhood best friend and when was the last time you even saw your mother and father. Every single memory you can recall seems to be centered around the pink-haired lollipop enthusiast.

"Sweetheart..."

Sometimes when you lie in bed next to your "boyfriend", squeezed tightly to his chest. Your mind rushes back into the past, burrowing through each and every nook and cranny of your soul to attempt to recall any stretch of the imagination that may have even hinted at life before Easy R. Sometimes you recall certain hobbies you use to take pleasure in, reading, writing, drawing, basic things that everyone must have enjoyed but...but then he said that you didn't need them, all your books began to slowly disappear, all your sketchbooks just vanished one day and every time you tried to type a single word, Ramuda would lay himself over your lap demanding attention. Funny how now, the tables have turned and you're the one begging for the pink-haired man's attention every second of the dame day.

Ramuda practically treats his darling like a little doll. He's persisting in making sure to erase anything in her life that isn't him. He doesn't mind her being numb and brainless, so long as conscious enough to give him kisses and hugs, suffocating him with all her attention. He adores dressing them in the "cutest" most girly dresses that he can make. styling their hair and fixing up their makeup. But be warned one wrong move, one simple word about not liking one of his dresses and you're in for a painful punishment.

Punishments are where Ramuda's dark side really shines through, where his carefree "playful" person cracks, revealing the ugly truth nesting within. His punishments are always dehumanizing in a way, always reminding you that you are nothing but a doll, a marionette with the sole purpose to entertain him. His favorite discipline is pokes sewing needles into his darling's flesh, making her scream out in pain and confusion. Oh, how her cries of pain are sweeter than any dessert! Speaking of sweets, if you dare misbehave than Ramuda is going to take away your "eating privileges" only if you beg will he let you have a tiny scrap to eat. Usually in the form of the vilest tasting candies in all of Japan.

"wanna have some fun with me?"

Gentaro Yumeno

🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮🏮

Gentaro is an extremely manipulative yandere, who's also greatly delusional, he'll slither his way into the mind of his darling, twisting their every thought to revolve around him and only him. He likes watching his lover fall into an endless pit of despair, making them question their own reality and truths.

It took almost an eternity for "Phantom" to find his one true darling. He's all so extremely picky about what they must be like. He wants an intellectual who he can compare wits with. Someone who understands him on spiritual bases. Easy to say that such a person was extremely hard to find. But when he does find "the one" there is no way in hell that he's going to let them get away that easily. He'll stalk them where ever they go, following them, day and night, memorizing their schedules. When he starts to notice the lack of his attention his darling gives him, Gentaro will start to take his delusions out on paper. Writing draft after draft about the "perfect" love story between you two. How he's the intelligent scholar that recuses the poor maiden from her mundane, dreadful life, whisking her away into a world of fantasies and knowledge. But soon, very, very soon, poor Gentaro will get bored with these tales and wish to experience the real thing. It's then that he truly becomes the protagonist of his stories. "saving" you in the dead of night, open the door of both your heart and mind to his great reality.

"I love you (Y/N)~"

Life with Gentaro is extremely complex. You never know what true and what's a lie. Your self proclaimed "lover" is a pathological liar, with an icy heart! Failing to distinguish between his lies and reality often leads to both punishments and parts of your sanity chipping away. Of course, Gentaro would never hurt you, no, no he loves you too much. If you wake up to a broken leg to finger pulled out of their socket it must have been someone else. He twisted the fables in such a dreamy manner that you are just about to believe him...that is until he says he infamous catchphrase "that's just a lie" and continues to degrade you for not being able to distinguish such a clean distortion.

Over time you begin to cage yourself in a glass cage made up of Phantom's lies. Using those that benefit you and make you truly believe that he loves you to guard you against the harsh reality of all the cruel, inhumane things he has done to you.

YOU LOVE HIM AND HE LOVES YOU...... OR IS THAT TOO JUST A LIE?

"I promise that is no lie, my love"

Dice Arisugawa

🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲🎲

Dice is a very hard yandere to pin, mostly due to his rather air headed and careless nature. But a good way to describe him is a delusional obsessive. In the eyes of Dead or Alive you are nothing more than a prize, a valuable trophy much more precious than any gold or diamond, but a prize never the less. He will do anything to win his lovely darling. Noting is off the table. killing some punk that made eyes at you? Sure, let him just roll his dice to see whether he should use a knife or ax. Maybe you require money? That's no problem, he just needs to borrow some cash from Rio to play with and hopefully win you a generous sum. Of course, he is going to expect some reimbursement sooner or later.

Dice isn't a fool, he's going to aim for a more unfortunate, desperate darling. One that he can easily talk into joining him in a "friendly" game of cards. It's the game of a lifetime, nothing is off the table. Dice is ready to bet his every last yen he owns, his arms, legs, heck even his organs. Just so he can lure his naive little lover in so deep that she'll have no choice but to bet her self as the final prize. BET IT ALL, That's when the gambling junkie will swoop in, revealing his final hand, a royal flush!

That look of utter despair and helplessness in his darling's eyes is more addicting than any Slot Machines. It's making his heart rush a mile a minute. He's almost positive that his rib cage is going to break from the sheer pressure of each heartbeat. You're him now! He won you! Oh, luck was truly on his side tonight!

"You're my lucky charm (y/n)...."

Life is just one long game with Dice Arisugawa, he'll teach you every rule, ever outcome. But it's all up to you, every breath you take has it's consequences, every step has to be pondered on. But all so very soon you will become an expert at his little Backgammon game. Gradually Dice will let his guard down, after all the name is rather naive and far too trusting for his own good. This would be the perfect time for his sweet darling to escape...that is if she hasn't become too broken and addicted to Dice.

Dice isn't very harsh on punishments, he's quite lax with any form of disobedience. A quick slap to the face or some shouting is as far as he'll go. Of course, they're also the lingering threats that he so casually spews. "(y/n) if you don't behave I'll bid you off the next time I'm out of cash."

"Now, now (y/n) is that any way to talk to the man that practically owns your life? Why don't I just kill you right here and now? I'm sure your body parts must be work some yen, right?"

They're mild, bordering on humor, but it's hard not to take them seriously when you see just how obsessed Dice can get with any game at any time. There is always the possibility you'll wake up without a kidney, or a lung or maybe even your right arm, just because he ran out of money for a poker game. These tiny threats and obsessive tendencies are enough to make his darling completely docile and submissive, out of pure fear for what the unpredictable blue-headed man may do to her.

"...I'm never letting you go~”

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the--sad--hatter · 5 years

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No Good Deed (Steve x Reader)

For @adeleoctobre who gave me the lovely request...

Hey, I don't know if you would want to write that but just an idea that crossed my mind. Reader is on the more administrative and diplomatic kind of thing, like relations with the UN... The avengers don't understand why they need her or the amount of work and stress she is under... I don't know if that would interest you or what ship would be good with that, it's mostly an idea 😅

You weren’t egotistical enough to think you could singe-handedly change the world but you wanted to a part of the change. You wanted to be one of the people that broke on of the spokes on the wheel and stopped the endless cycle of corruption. You wanted to stand up for the little guy. It’s why you studied politics, why you moved to Washington and took on unpaid internships, fetched coffee for bastard politicians and made sure to schedule their dinners with their wives and their mistresses on different evenings, never overlapping.

You needed to be in the game before you could really start playing you told yourself. Keep your head down, work hard, don’t make any noise until you’re in a position where they have to listen.

But your years of patience didn’t pay off, they seeped into your bones, making you brittle and bitter.

The Sokovia Accords. They were the bane of your existence. All your carefully thought out arguments and research against them had been twisted and manipulated by your bosses and suddenly you were the woman who anticipated problems before they happened. Steps were taken to cover up and hide everything you’d been afraid of, pre-emptive press statements were drafted to cover the backlash you’d warned them of.

“We aren’t stopping potential threats, we’re causing them. We make people sign their names, put them on a list and there will be blowback. Before you know it we have Enhanced individuals accusing us of waging war and they will fight back.” You warned.

“You’re right. We need to make sure we have access to our own Enhanced individuals. People with these abilities have a duty to use them as well, let’s make sure that’s in The Accords. The UN needs to be able to use these assets.”

You tried to stop it and you ended up making it worse. You’d worked your way up the chain of command to make a difference, naively thinking that the more power you gained, the less power the big guys would have over you.

You weren’t one of the people who was breaking the wheel, you were just another spoke on the infernal thing.

And to make sure they’d really rubbed the salt into the wound, your bosses gave you the worst possible assignment.

On-Site Accords Liaison to The Avengers.

Between Tony Stark constantly hanging up on Secretary Ross or putting him on hold, and Captain Rogers having defied the accords for months on end before he and his friends were pardoned and brought home, The UN had decided they needed someone at the base with the team. That was where you came in. Begrudgingly.

Very begrudgingly. But it wasn’t like they wanted you there either. They made that clear from the get-go, with their overly stiff and formal hello’s, their watchful eyes and resentful remarks.

Some were worse than other. Tony Stark, who had spear-headed the Accords but didn’t like beaurocrats, went out of his way to be as childish as possible. He was late for meetings, spoke over you, handed in sloppy reports and even his AI had been programmed to randomly close doors on you, stop the elevator at the wrong floor, ‘forget’ to pass on messages. Stark alone had doubled your already considerable workload.

Then there was The Black Widow. She was extremely polite, always smiling at you and offering to pour you a cup of coffee when you passed each other in the kitchen. But her eyes were cold and calculating, and frankly terrifying. Every encounter with her left the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end and you went out of your way to avoid her. Which was probably what she wanted. At least her reports were always succinct, if a little descriptive about the violence.

Captain Rogers was the worst. His old-school charm and manners held him back from ever being cruel or rude, but you knew what he thought of you. It was clear from the stiff body language, the way he would force himself to nod a greeting or just cross his arms and glare at you during meetings. Getting him to hand in his reports was like trying to get blood out of a stone.

The only person who treated you with any measure of respect was Colonel Rhodes and even that was nothing more than professional.

You were alone in a world that you were making a worse place, doing a job you resented and loathed by the people you respected most of all. But what could you do? Explain to them you were on their side? They would never believe you, hell, you wouldn’t have believed you either.

You were tied up in bureaucratic tape though and no matter how desperately you wanted to scream and rage and tell Secretary Ross to go fuck himself with a rusty pitchfork, you couldn’t. So you did what you had always done, the only thing you could do. You held your head up, took all the shit and kept shovelling it.

“The UN wants a team to go to London and…”

“Sightsee?” Captain Rogers asked coldly, raising a challenging eyebrow at you.

Most ‘missions’ were recon, spying, sightseeing.

“Collect information.” You continued, as if he hadn’t spoken.

“Fine. Next time just email us all the information or have Friday relay it, there’s no reason for you to be here.” He said and you had to hold yourself back from visibly flinching at his words.

“No reason for me to be where I’m not wanted you mean?” You asked coolly, collecting the files scattered around and piling them in your arms.

The team had been walking out of the meeting but at your words they paused and looked back curiously, and that was what had alerted you to what you had said. You hadn’t mean to speak aloud but if you were honest, you were too mentally exhausted to put any effort into being polite anymore. So you just finished collecting your things and breezed past them all, ignoring them.

You didn’t see them again until four days later, when they returned from their mission gone wrong.

They had decided against observing and taken a more hands on approach, taking down the alien tech dealing base. To say the UN were pissed was an understatement.

You could hear Secretary Ross yelling from the hallway as you hurried down it, slipping into the meeting room unnoticed.

“On who’s orders did you decide that you could take down the base, rather than gather intel like you were instructed?” Secretary Ross demanded.

“Mine.” You said quickly, autocratically, before anyone could say anything else that would land them in more hot water.

“Yours?” Ross said derisively, looking at you for the first time since you entered the room.

“With all due respect sir, pre-emptively taking care of a problem before it becomes an issue is what I’m good at, it’s why you gave me this job.” You said bitterly.

“And you thought that The Avengers needed to act, rather than observe did you?”

“I did.” You said firmly.

You saw Ross turn over the information in his mind, weighing up his anger against your record.

“Fine. I trust your judgement.” He said, with just a hint of nastiness in his tone.

The Avengers all studiously ignored you as Ross took a deep breath and nodded once.

“Dismissed.” He grumbled.

You turned on your heel and vacated the meeting swiftly. You didn’t want to stick around incase Ross came up with any more questions that you would have to think of convincing lies for, you needed time to come up with the story and put it into a report, changing the teams reports to match yours.

The way you’d been doing for months without them knowing.

“Why did you take the blame?” Steve demanded as you ran into your office, his hand stopping the door from closing behind you.

You hadn’t even realised he’d been following you.

“Because I could.” You sighed.

“What did you mean, pre-emptively taking care of a problem before it becomes an issue is what you’re good at?” He asked.

Your shoulders dropped and you hung your head as all the fight drained out of you.

“I told the UN that there would be a backlash from enhanced individuals that didn’t want to sign the Accords. It’s why there’s a provision in them that The UN can call on anyone at any time to use their abilities for whatever The UN see’s fit.” You admitted.

“You’re the reason that people are being drafted? You turned civilians into soldiers? You did that?” Steve spat furiously at you.

“Yes, I did.” You said coldly.

“Does free will mean nothing to you? Or do you really not see Enhanced Individuals as people?”

“Apparently I don’t.”

“How could you do that?” He asked.

How indeed.

“You ruined lives. I hope you’re happy with yourself, ma’am.”

“Happy?” You snapped, looking up at him with so much anger that he looked taken aback.

“You think I’m happy? I never wanted to do this Captain, I was trying to stop the Accords. I was naive and stupid, so convinced that I could make a difference. I thought I could change people’s minds, show them why this was a bad idea but all I did was give them worse ideas. My legacy will forever be this, putting people on a fucking list. My fucking hubris, my good intentions all led to me being the thing I hated most in the world. I don’t blame any of you for hating me, I fucking hate myself but don’t think I don’t know I’m a monster, don’t think I don’t lie awake at night feeling the full weight of my sins.” You raged, all your frustration pouring out of you.

When the dam breaks, there’s always going to be some damage. And suddenly it all came spilling out of you, the helplessness, the frustration, the self-loathing. A garbled scream of fury and angst rose in your throat and you couldn’t swallow it back down, releasing a yell that sounded like a wounded animals you slammed your fists down onto the desk with a loud, echoing thump.

“I wanted to do good!” You screamed.

Abruptly, the anger whooshed out of you and you were left hunched over the desk, your shoulders shaking with unrepressed misery.

“I just wanted to do good.” You repeated in a whisper, too far gone down the well of emotion you’d been drowning in for years to try and stop the tears burning in your eyes.

When the first sob tore free you were so consumed by the pain and the freedom that came with finally releasing it that you barely registered the large hand that came to rest between your shoulder blades. The tears fell freely, splashing onto the wooden desk and that was when Steve Rogers rested against the edge of the desk and pulled you out of your hunched position over it, guiding you into his arms so he could close them around you and hold you while you fell apart.

You cried for the person you could have been, the things you should have done and the innocent people your cowardice had hurt. You cried because you needed it, because you’d locked it all inside for so fucking long and you couldn’t contain it any longer. You cried because he was comforting you and he should have been hating you like you deserved.

“I’m sorry.” You whimpered.

“I believe you.” He said soothingly, rubbing his hands over your shoulders in an attempt to calm you.

You stepped back from him, wrapping your arms around yourself and ducking your head to cover your embarrassed expression.

“I need to write up my report for Ross.”

“You should send it to us so we can make sure our reports match.” He said with a nod.

“Just send me them, I’ll make the adjustments as necessary.” You said dismissively.

A speculative look passed over his face as he regarded you before he nodded and left the room.

You collapsed onto your chair, thoroughly spent. But, you had a job to do and so you did what you had always done. Straightened your spine, threw back your shoulders and got on with it.

To your shock, over the next few hours you received several emails. Every member of the team submitted their mission reports to you, promptly. Even Stark. You felt some of the tension in your shoulders release at this little bit of stress being removed from your overfilled plate and went through them all with a fine tooth comb, making sure they all had the added detail of receiving the order to Engage from you directly. By the time you finished and forwarded them edited reports to The Un, the sun had long since slipped below the horizon and you were in need of coffee before you finished up for the day.

Grabbing your mug you made your way to the communal kitchen, hoping it was empty. It was not.

“We’ve been waiting for you.” Natasha said as soon as you walked in.

The team all looked up from their various seats around the room. Apparently they were also knee deep in paperwork because their were boxes and boxes of files scattered around.

“You know where my office is, there’s no need to wait for me to emerge to seek out coffee.” You said wryly, saluting her with your mug.

“We knew you had a fuckton of paperwork to do, thanks to us, so we didn’t want to disturb you.” Barton said, pouring coffee into your mug for you.

“We know what you’ve been up to little miss Un.” Stark said teasingly.

“You’re going to have to elaborate on that Mr Stark, I do a lot.” You answered.

“More than you should. We’ve been going through all our mission reports since you arrived. Want to know what we found?” Sam Wilson asked.

“It appears you have been subtly changing details in our submitted reports, making sure everything was in line with The UN’s demands.” The Vision said, clearly not understanding that the question was rhetorical.

“So what?” You sighed.

“So what? So what she asks? You’ve just been casually watching our backs for months and none of us had any idea.” Sam said derisively.

“What we’re trying to say is, we know that you’ve been helping us and we’re sorry we didn’t realise it sooner.” Steve cut in.

You should have been relived, elated even. But you were numb and tired and frankly, it was too little, too late.

“Apology accepted.” You said blankly, walking away before anymore could be said on the matter.

Thankfully, nobody followed. You weren’t angry or bitter about the way they’d treated you and you weren’t happy or grateful about the apology. You were just tired.

You were stuck in a rut of just doing your job and nothing else and that was what you kept doing in the following days. But there were little differences that you came to notice that slowly but surely loosened the constant knot in your stomach.

Friday was infinitely more helpful, passing along messages, getting you to the right floor without you having to ask, casually reminding you that you’d been working for hours and should get some food.

Reports were submitted in a timely manner, usually in person instead of emailed. Sam Wilson and Clint Barton always bringing a mug of coffee for you when they handed theirs in.

Natasha and Steve were the biggest change, their attitudes warming considerably to you. Casual, yet heartfelt greetings were tossed your way when you passed by them, and genuine enquiry’s as to how you were doing.

It took time for things to change, you were so deep into your little pit of misery that you couldn’t quite come up for air straight away but eventually you did.

“Sup girl?”

“That better be a big ass cup of coffee Wilson, do you have any idea how much rewriting I had to do to try and justify you fighting a helicopter with your bare hands?” You snapped playfully, smirking at him.

He threw back his head and laughed, passing the mug to you.

“But you were a little impressed when you read it, right?” He asked.

“Was on the edge of my seat the whole time.” You admitted, shaking your head fondly at him.

“Latest mission was pretty straightforwards, shouldn’t be too much editing to be done in this one.” He informed you, handing it over.

“I’ll just put it here, next to this highly classified file.” You remarked ‘accidentally’ knocking the file to the ground.

He played along and picked it up for you, eyes scanning over the information.

“Hmm.” He said, grinning at you as he handed it back.

“Be a shame if somebody saw that and warned Cap to get a lawyer to defend Barnes publicly, before the UN could make a big deal out of this.” You mused.

“Yeah, real shame. You know that eventually Ross is going to figure out what you’ve been up to right? Not that we don’t all appreciate your help kid, but are you prepared for the backlash that’s eventually going to be coming down on you?” He asked in concern.

“Going to be a mighty crying shame when Ross finds out that he coincidentally found out on the same day I got offered a job by Stark.” You sent a knowing grin at him and winked.

“So you’ve got a back-up plan? Listen, we just don’t want to see you hurt.”

“It’s all been worked out Sam, trust me. Pre-emptive strikes are my thing after all.”

You were finally doing some good, protecting the protectors and you knew that one day it would all come crashing down around you but you didn’t care. You weren’t alone anymore, you were part of a team.

“This might have to wait till tomorrow.” You said, glancing at the clock and tapping his report.

“Oh, got a hot date?” He teased.

“Matter of fact, yes I do.” You said smugly, your words coinciding with the knock at your office door.

“You ready sweetheart?” Steve asked, a warm, excited smile gracing his features.

Yes, Steve Rogers had been the biggest change recently. His concern for you grew into something more and the comfort you found in his arms strengthened your soul. The hours he spent in your office, helping you rig the system had slowly become filled with longing glances and wondering thoughts. His chair always seemed to end up a little closer to yours every time he visited, his hugs lasted a little longer until one day his lips had sought out yours and it felt so right, so natural, so wonderful. You hadn’t looked back since.

“Aye aye Captain.”

____________________________________________

A/N - I know it’s not my best work, but it ain’t my worst either and I needed to get back into the swing of things so hopefully it was good enough that you liked it a bit.

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#Steve Rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #captain america #captain america x reader #avengers x reader #The Avengers

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jambamoose · 3 years

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Why I Voted For Joe

I’ve been thinking a lot about the reasons why I voted for Joe Biden. I was pretty excited to vote last year with a few candidates I felt that I could really get behind that seemed transparent (enough). But like most elections, the exciting choices didn’t prevail, and with it went my deflated passion as it came down to Joe Biden. He’s a career politician that has gotten it wrong so many times in the past, on a lot of the issues he’s now running in contrast to today. I get it, he’s very flawed and a liar like every establishment politician.

It’s easy to talk about the reasons why I don’t like Donald Trump - The greatest hits are all out there (and I’m sure mine will qualify, as well), but I find myself voting on a very simple foundational level - Words matter.

I’ve seen a lot of career Republicans and lifetime supporters stick by his side at all costs because of policy, blatantly ignoring what he says because of loyalty to the party and stubbornness to stick to a philosophy that they’ve always bought into. I don’t care if someone’s a Republican - I was one myself years back, but at what point do we realize that a lot of things happening right now are not just a result of a flawed media (and they are very flawed), the “China virus,” or “wokesters,” but words that come directly from our President? Why do you think a traditional President speaks the way he does with careful, predictable messaging? Sure, re-election is always in play and the approval rating of the people, but it’s because EVERYONE IS WATCHING. You are responsible for representing millions of people, and being the face of a country for the rest of the world. What you say matters. “Oh, he’s just messing around about injecting bleach, or that we’re turning a corner with covid, or that it’s not that bad and we shouldn’t be afraid of it. He denounced white supremacists!” Are you watching the same person I am? Can you not read between the lines of what this man truly feels and thinks? Donald Trump may not be a white supremacist, and that may not be what he’s trying to inspire, but the words he says and the attitude behind them are inspiring that behavior across the country. The trickle down effect is real. I’ve seen it daily in my own community.

On the final day of his campaign, he laughed it up with a rally crowd about firing the Infectious Disease Expert that has been 95% correct on all of his information and warnings to the public, instead of trying to appeal to all Americans with any sort of unifying message. Doesn’t that matter to people? He harps on this need for law and order while his supporters surround Biden buses in giant trucks to run them off of the road. Do you know who would be first to denounce that behavior? Joe Biden.

There’s no substance to the things he says, no ounce of thought or well-planned research or compassion for those of us that are both equally scared for our health and of losing our jobs - Two things that are not separate from one another. Everything he does is emotional and reactionary. We’re currently divided over HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people dying in our own country. Where do you think that stems from? Why are people intentionally going out in public without any protection whatsoever after opening up the economy. Why is Gretchen Whitmer labeled some power hungry woman for measures she has taken that SO MANY OTHER STATES HAVE? We met more than halfway, and this is your response, and these deaths are the result. How can we cling to Christian values and Pro-Life talking points while ignoring 200,000 deaths in the name of Constitutional rights?

His reactions, his demeanor, and the things he says inspire millions to carry out that message, whether it was intentional or just top of mind. And it has consequences. It’s as important as any policy he may hold (we wouldn’t know, because there was no chance to debate about actual things we care about - Like healthcare, probably the #1 most important topic to Americans)

He ran on this platform of being the anti-politician, a refreshing alternative to establishment politics, and 4 years ago on election night, I told my partner, who at the time didn’t buy a word of my thought process, that I would give him a chance and welcome productive change to many decades of the same problems. But to not call Donald Trump a politician is to blatantly ignore everything he has done in the last four years. He is no different than Joe Biden or those that came before him, he just doesn’t have the political/voting track record for us to publicize.

I don’t know if Joe Biden is a “decent man” or if he cares about all Americans, or if he’ll succumb to the demands of the party, but I do know that I’m really scared for my family’s health going into next year when every single person of importance is warning us of apocalyptic type losses while our leader tells us it’s going away. That’s terrifying. A President should assure us that they have a plan in place based in reality, not lies that treat us like we’re children.

I don’t like snooty liberals that look down on the uneducated or the rural farm country folk. You’re no better. I am no better. I don’t like a media that has twisted the knife on every story for years in unethical ways. And I HATE when I allow myself to throw punches on social media, which is putting irreparable damage on our mental and social health. I also don’t condone property damage when it comes to protest in any form, but I also know that kneeling for a football game in peaceful protest of police brutality did absolutely nothing but cause American flag wearing chest pounding and “If you don’t like America, you can get out” responses, and those affected reached a boiling point.

When did American Pride turn into ‘My way or the highway?’ or this strict obsession with centuries old documents where women had no rights and black people were slaves? When did the idea of figuring out systems (as a nation) that are inclusive to all people begging for help become Anti-American?

I’m voting against dangerous messaging to the everyday American. We were divided before Trump, and we will be divided after him, and that’s on us to look inward and figure out, but before this, debate was at least possible. We discussed policy, not wild conspiracy theories and which part of the country the Civil War was breaking out that day. We didn’t wake up every day pulling our guns out to battle the other side. I feel divided from people I love because of this man, who does not represent the Republican Party that I thought I knew. I know there are good Republicans out there that deep down know that this man does not reflect their values. We have to get past party loyalty.

I won’t celebrate a Joe Biden presidency because I believe he is a great candidate, and I do not count myself as a far-left, proud member of the Democratic Party, but I’ve also seen a lot of troubling behavior from people I know all in the name of this man, and Joe Biden will at the very least provide a refreshing restart. We’ve got a LOT of work to do as human neighbors far beyond the presidency -- I need to be better and engage those that think differently than me with compassion and understanding of where that person is coming from and their story. I’ll be first in line volunteering to fight for real change for my community when this pandemic ends, but I know that there is no hope anytime soon for that future to mend fences if Donald Trump returns.

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brookscharis · 4 years

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how to own your story

I have to share my shortcomings and weaknesses. I refuse any space for the enemy to put me in a little box lined with mirrors so I can hatefully stare at myself from every angle. If I was to live for myself and fulfill a self defined purpose, I would only focus on my strengths and show off my greatness - my great taste in music, clothes, media, etc. But now that God has revealed Himself to me and showed me how, compared to Him, I’m not great at all, I’ve allowed Him to fulfill His purpose for my life. Which is the same for all believers –– to make Him and His greatness known, not our own.

I wrench and twist with embarrassment and pain when I think about the things I’ve done. How I’ve treated people and even how powerless I feel in the present. I lack the clarity to truly see my actions or know if I’m still perpetuating the same patterns. The enemy tells me that I’ll never get it right, that I will always be in this infant state of never changing. But, good thing satan is named, “the Father of Lies.” It’s true that I will never get it right, that’s what helps me to stay dependent on God. I am an infant in the eyes of God, I’m His child and He’s my Father. However, I am a new creation that God has began a good work in that He is faithful to finish.

I worry that I don’t deserve the mercy of God, even though I know I don’t. His mercy is a gift that doesn’t depend on what I do or who I am, but it’s just who He is. I often ask myself how I have the audacity to represent God when I’ve been so mercilessly selfish and defiant toward authority in my past. But it’s not audacity, it’s being obedient despite how I feel, we are called to be ambassadors of the Kingdom. I know I’m unworthy of the calling because I struggled with (and still struggle) with hating anyone and anything that got in the way of my desires. I played favorites and I never took no for an answer. And it was praised as “ambition” and being “determined”. But really, it severed close friendships in my life and led me to diva levels of pride.

At the beginning of my Junior year in college, I cut off friendships that I had for 2 years -- cold turkey with no warning. As soon as I made that decision, I instantly regretted it and decided to run away from the seeds that I planted. I was interested in studying abroad, not by coincidence but because of convenience. It didn’t matter where I was going or what the program actually entailed, I impulsively poured all of myself into the process of fleeing the continent. I moved out of my dorm before Christmas break and went home to wait until February to leave for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

While I was home, I kept replaying the details over and over. I cut off one in person and three others through Instagram DMs. I would jump from regret to “that’s what they get!” incessantly over and over again. My sudden rejection toward them felt justified because I felt like an outcast in the group, I only liked hanging out with one of them. Even though they would include me in plans sometimes, I had difficulty understanding the inside jokes or feeling wanted. I had a favorite friend and started developing friendships with the others because she was friends with them. I was fake, but I blamed them for a long time. I had so much resentment toward them that swelled into pride and it blinded me. It took being home, 3 months after cutting them off to realize that I was running from them because I was wrong. I despised the connection they had with each other to the point where I didn’t even value them as people. I let hatred and jealousy keep me from respecting them enough to end a 2 year friendship face to face. I was a coward. I hated myself for a very long time. Every day my brain would go on a loop, “you’re toxic, you’re trash, you’re emotionally abusive, you’re a narcissist, you’re an abuser.” My thoughts were debilitating me and I let them, I felt like this was the proper punishment for what I did. I felt like I needed to condemn myself.

But rewind to before I made it home for Christmas break, I was in the Chicago airport and I missed my flight. I had a layover for about 2 hours so I decided to find a place to chill. While sitting down and thumbing through YouTube video recommendations on my feed, I found “Wretched TV.” The first video I saw was of a tall skinny, Abraham Lincoln looking white man on a podium debating theology with college students. They asked the hard questions about Christianity that I could never answer as a believer. I was captivated by the certainty and logic of the man’s answers and I found myself going down a rabbit hole. I thought this was my first introduction to the world of apologetics, however, before this I saw Preston Perry do the same thing in a more conversational manner on his channel “BOLD TV”.

“Wretched TV” led me to “Living Waters Ministry” videos and that channel changed my life forever. This was the first time someone ever broke down the gospel for me in a way that I could understand. I could see the full magnitude of my sin and the holiness of God. Ray Comfort (the guy in those videos) referenced the verse, “No one is good, no not one.” (Romans 3:10) And in that moment, I had a hope that I couldn’t explain. I felt like I was a good person before I did my friends dirty, but now that I made that mistake, I was a good as filthy rags to be disposed of. But this man, Ray Comfort, was telling me – actually, a stranger that he was interviewing in his videos – that we are all in danger of eternal punishment, even if we think we’re a good person. Because to be “good” is to be morally excellent, which only God is. The standard isn’t even based on doing “good” things or deeds in order to appease God, it’s placed on doing it from a genuine heart posture that wants to serve God. “All have fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) After I watched one video, I watched another, and another and another. The questions I had about faith that I was never comfortable enough to ask in church were given answers in these videos. I finally felt like I was getting it! I finally saw Jesus as the God who doesn’t want to condemn me for my life of sin, but wants to save me from my life of sin.

Even though I grew up in church, I never heard the gospel as it’s own separate message, it was always just sprinkled into the sermon –– that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. I didn’t know what that meant and I didn’t really care. I knew that to keep things peaceful in my home, I needed to go to church with my family and pray before I ate dinner. Later on in high school and early college, when I was distant from God and believed in astrology, law of attraction, angel numbers, and pursued a same sex relationship, I still prayed in Jesus’ name. I knew of Him in a religious sense, but not in a personal way. In 2018, when I had enough of the confusion and darkness of new age beliefs, I surrendered everything, including my sexuality to God –– I fasted, worshipped, went to church, and was even baptized –– but I did all of this from the wrong place in my heart. I did it to earn favor and love from Jesus, I did it because I wanted Him to change me and make me a better person. I didn’t know that He already loved me so much that He sacrificed His own life for me, before I ever wanted Him. He did that just in case I wanted a relationship with God. Just so I could be saved from the torment of sin and be right with Him. I was already favored and chosen by Him. Even while I was His enemy, He kept me and protected me. Once I realized that, I clearly saw Jesus as my savior and friend. It didn’t feel like a religious story anymore, it became reality and I could clearly see that there is no other way to the Father. I want to know Him more out of gratitude, not obligation. If it wasn’t for the Holy Spirit drawing me near to God, if it wasn’t for those videos popping up on my feed to share the gospel with me, if it wasn’t for God’s word being truth and Him revealing it to me –– I would still be tormenting myself over my mistakes.

Like Romans 8:1 says, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Actually, you should take the time to read all of Romans 8.

We are not the hero in our story, it’s always God. He is our Redeemer and our Restorer. If it wasn’t for God’s mercy on me, I would not have this blog. I would not post Tik Toks about His love and how to grow closer to Him. I would be bound by the past and the opinions of others would still be my god (I still struggle with this, but I’m learning how to surrender more and more everyday). I am a new creation with a heart of flesh and not stone, I was spiritually dead and now I am alive, I was truly lost but now I am found. I was blind but–– ya’ll get the point.

I did nothing to be in this position. I didn’t see much of a choice when deciding to follow God or continue in the darkness and confusion of my life of sin. I hated my life, so I gave it away. Like Matthew 16:25 (NIV) says, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.” He is love. One of the reason why I fell in love with following Jesus is that, as humans, we are to fully embrace how in need of God we are. How is anyone supposed to know Jesus as a savior if we front (or pretend) like we don’t need saving? The Christians around you who model being “perfect” need the most prayer because that’s pride. If we boast in our weaknesses, that’s when Christ’s power rests upon us (2 Corinthians 12:9). There’s no need to project a god-like image when Jesus didn’t even do that Himself (Philippians 2:5-11).

Your story is never supposed to show how strong and great you are, but how merciful and present God is in our times of trouble. When we are afflicted, He is with us. When we afflict others and do them wrong, He corrects us and is merciful. Share His greatness so other’s can have the same hope that you feel from reading my story. It’s not about us and it’s not about our reputations. It’s about making Christ known.

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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I greatly enjoy how I finished Blood and Wine, got the “bad” ending...

... and liked that one the best.

Based on information gathered from all three playthroughs I don’t trust Syanna one bit. Someone who has harbored resentment most of her life and plots that elaborate an assassination attempt doesn’t just drop it because the guy who caught you suggests, “Maybe forgive your sister!” and you talk childhood memories a bit. In the tragic ending she’s very persuasive in saying that she hates Anna Henrietta, would absolutely try to kill her again if given the chance, and is pleased to finally be able to express that honesty. The “good” ending might end on a high note of them hugging, but there’s no way I trust that to last.

The tragic ending is, well, obviously tragic. Syanna is dead anyway, so Detlaff was ultimately killed for nothing. Especially when we consider that Anna Henrietta’s resulting death erases all the good you do by killing “The Beast” and lifting the kingdom’s spirits. With their ruler gone it all falls apart and, as Geralt says, chaos now reigns.

Meanwhile the “bad” ending has so much going for it?? The biggest issue to my mind is Dettlaff’s massacre going unpunished, but you simply gain too much else to prioritize that alone. Syanna is punished in a more fitting manner, at the hands of Dettlaff himself, rather than through Damien trying to protect Anna Henrietta. Or worse, her basically getting off scott free because we know Anna Henrietta blindly favors her sister, no matter what she might say about treating her like any other criminal. She got a cushy palace “cell” while kept as an actual prisoner. No way is much going to happen now that they’ve actually made up. Some might consider death via vampire too harsh a punishment for her crimes, though I’m not sure I do, especially since we only have her word that the knights really treated her as badly as she says/deserve death for it. Syanna tells so many lies throughout that I simply don’t trust that sob story at face value. Particularly when combined with the revelation of other twisted information. She accuses Anna Henrietta of never looking for her and we learn that’s also a lie born of her desire to paint her sister in a cruel light: “I did... you just didn’t want to be found.” Syanna has a solid history of manipulation, twisting information, and outright lying to paint herself as the victim, so it’s possible---likely even---that this extends to her “they beat me, starved me, and left me out in the winter cold with only a lace dress” story. We do know none of the knights were perfect men based on Damien’s information---harsh business practices and rumors of dealings with the criminal underworld---but de la Croix was just... stingy? Hardly the worst vice in the world, especially compared to all we see in the DLC. He likes money but he also stood up for and befriended Detlaff, the story putting more emphasis on his compassion than any cruelty. And by all accounts except Syanna’s, Milton was an upstanding knight. He mentions that his past weighs on him, but whose doesn’t? For all we know he could be referring only to following the order to banish Syanna at all, not to any mistreatment along the way. Dandelion’s journal entry even reminds us, “Was he also a good man? That I do not know. Geralt told me later some incidents from his past gnawed on his conscience. We shall never know precisely what moral burdens he carried, for Milton de Peyrac-Peyran perished in the palace gardens, the Beast's fourth victim. May he rest in peace.” So again, we’ve only got Syanna’s word here. As she herself points out, this was supposedly the behavior that comes forth when no one else is watching and she made sure she was the only witness left to tell the tale.

Regardless of whether the knights deserved revenge killings, we ultimately can’t say Syanna didn’t bring the consequences of that down on herself. Syanna outright tells you in The Land of a Thousand Fables that she’s either going to burn everything down or get burned herself. She was prepared for an outcome like this and was willing to risk it. Dettlaff, meanwhile, finally gets to be free of her manipulation. He’s also no longer a threat to anyone given a) that specific context of manipulation, now finished, is unlikely to ever repeat. He only kills because he’s being blackmailed with a loved one’s life, b) him outright promising to stay away from men now (a common theme in the game: letting monsters go if they promise to do better), and c) having Regis tail after him to keep doing the work of teaching him how to better control his emotions. Anna Henrietta is still alive, keeping her kingdom intact. She’s now reconciled with Dandelion in her grief. Damien kind of hates you but he was never interested in having the full picture anyway...

...and then there’s Regis. From nearly the start this contract is built around his friendship, his loyalty, and his desperate desire to help Dettlaff rather than just killing him like a common beast. Something that resonates all the more if you do the Unseen Elder quest and talk to him about how living here is akin to the most uncomfortable scenario you can imagine with the added “bonus” of people trying to kill you if you put a single toe out of line. He needs all the friends he can get, regardless of life debts he might owe them. Plus, those friends include you, as Geralt. You find out Regis is miraculously alive after (almost) dying for you in an effort to save your daughter... I wasn’t about to turn my back on him if there was any possible way to save his blood brother. Especially once you learn about the punishment one higher vampire receives for killing another. It would be one thing to tell Regis, “Sorry, your friend has done too much wrong. I have to kill him” and something else entirely to say, “Sorry, your friend has done too much wrong so you have to kill him, considering that’s literally the only way to end things. And once you do you’ll be forced to leave your home and be hunted by your own kind forevermore. The notes in your journal? About not being human but not feeling like you fit in with vampires either? I’m going to make that a reality.”

Yeah... saving Syanna’s not worth all that in my opinion. Obviously each ending is meant to be bittersweet in its way, there’s no perfect happy ending as we expect of the Witcher, but only one keeps a kingdom intact, punishes the puppetmaster who started all this in the first place, and allows Regis---someone actually innocent and just wanting to help---to keep his home and remain a part of his people. I’ll just be over here then, thoroughly embracing the “bad” ending with absolutely no regrets lol

#witcher #blood and wine #witcher 3 #blood and wine spoilers #random musings #mymetas #gaming

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deansmyapplepie · 5 years

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You Bring Out the Worst in Me

Pairing: demon!Dean x demon!reader

Tags: demon!Dean, demon!reader, sexual innuendos, suuuuuper dark and sexy

Word Count: 1,800 O_o (I didn’t think it was that long lmao)

A/N: This was a request from anonymous!

Hi there! I really love your fics. Could you do a Dean x secret demon! Reader. Sorta based off the song How You Remind Me by Nickelback? Thanks!

This one was honestly so much fun to write. The dark vibe is unlike anything I’ve written before, so you’ll have to tell me what you thought! Thanks for requesting!

(Gif not mine)

Being a demon didn't come with many difficulties. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Your lifestyle was one you were sure others envied. After all, it was literally your job to give in to temptation and wreak havoc on the world whenever possible. You could do practically whatever you wanted - granted that you didn't interfere with Crowley's plans, which you never had. As a result, you had become one of his most trusted and loyal servants over the years. If Crowley needed something done, you were his go-to. You specialized in dirty work. But several years ago now, he had tasked you with your most significant assignment yet. With his off and on alliance with the Winchesters, it was important that he always knew what they were planning.

"The best way for us to do that," Crowley had told you, "is for me to send one of my most committed to be in their presence at all times. Someone to live with them. Befriend them. Gain their trust." The drumming of his fingers on the throne came to a stop as he turned his gaze on you. "I mean you, my dear Y/N." You bowed your head in a sign of both respect and submission.

"Of course, my King. I am honored to have been chosen for this task." Crowley gave you a small, genuine smile, something exceedingly rare.

"There is no one in all of Hell that I trust more than you, Y/N."

"Nor I, you, Sire. I would do anything you asked of me." Crowley nodded as he stood, walking to pour himself a drink.

"I'm aware," he said over his shoulder. "Which is why I wouldn't want anyone else to do this for me."

"For how long do you require me to report back my findings?" you questioned.

"Keeping you among the Winchesters could prove to be a most valuable asset. You will remain there for as long as necessary." Clasping your hands behind you, you pushed your shoulders back in determination.

"Then, I will become their most trusted confidant for as long as you see fit. If they so much as breathe in a manner of suspicion, you will know within a second." Crowley put his glass down, the sound echoing throughout the otherwise empty throne room.

"You've been a most loyal servant, Y/N."

"Thank you, my King." He fell silent, examining you for a moment before turning away.

"If you should fail on your endeavor, you won't be coming back." You frowned again, not attempting to hide it this time. He had never spoken of failure with you before.

"Sire?"

"The Winchesters will not take kindly to being spied on or lied to by one of our kind. If discovered, I doubt you will make it out alive." You regained your composure, a newfound resolve resetting your face into a blank slate.

"I will not fail you."

"Then you may take your leave," Crowley instructed. "You've much to prepare for if you're to play the part of a human hunter convincingly."

Since that day, any news or information you had to offer went through a messenger demon. It was too risky to speak to Crowley in person now. Anything that could raise even the slightest bit of suspicion had to be avoided. The boys had been betrayed more than once before, you knew that. As a result, gaining their trust had proven to be exceedingly difficult, although, you had been expecting that. After several weeks of helping them on cases, though, you were in. They began opening up to you, treating you as one of their own, until finally, they offered you a room back at their bunker. The whole process had been tiring, no doubt, and after befriending you, it had still taken a few months for them to suggest that you stay with them, but you knew the wait was worth it. The future results were going to be fruitful. Even on a near-impossible assignment, you still had yet to fail your King. He had asked you to gain their trust, and that was exactly what you had done. Especially Dean's. What you had with him was incredibly complicated, and you knew a relationship with a hunter was frowned upon by your brothers and sisters, but it had been a much easier path to get him to open up. The poor man had some serious feelings for you, and you supposed in your own sort of twisted way, you reciprocated those feelings. Although, you knew you were probably feeling things that weren't real. You were just biased because of all the sex. Dean's feelings, however, couldn't be faked if he tried. You had your suspicions that he may have even been in love with you. And that made him vulnerable; a vulnerability that you had every intention of using towards your advantage. You knew from the start that Dean would be much less likely to believe your fictional backstory and place his trust in you than his younger brother. But this? This made it easy. You had spent many hours fabricating your sad tale of why you became a hunter and even longer solidifying the details to make it all seem real. In short, your father and older brother had been killed by a malevolent spirit. Your mother had gone on a grief-driven rampage and practically gone crazy in the process of searching for ways to kill the thing. Eventually, she lost her last shred of sanity, and the same spirit killed her too. But in the seven years before her death, your mother had raised you like a hunter. By the age of ten, you knew how to fire a shotgun and perform a full exorcism. In Hell, you had heard the name John Winchester many times. He had been notorious for seeking out the demon Azazel that killed his wife. With that kind of grief to haunt him, you could only imagine how he must have raised the boys, which is why the part of your story how you were raised as a hunter seemed to be the perfect touch to fully get the boys' sympathy. That story was your masterpiece - a lie better than any you had ever told before. And the Winchesters fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

After Dean's transformation into a demon, Sam began to lean on you for support more than ever. You knew how badly he was hurting. He was willing to do just about anything to get his brother back, and that made it especially dangerous. For him. When Sam had finally captured his older brother and brought him back to the bunker, you couldn't help but look on in awe. Dean radiated dark power in a way that damn-near overwhelmed you. His anger and grief fueled the dark flames that burned away what was left of his conscience. This was a totally new and improved Dean. His morals and good-naturedness were holding him back before, but now with those gone, he was stronger (and in your opinion) even sexier than before.

Now, here you were alone in the bunker with him. Sam had gone to a nearby hospital to get blood for a cure that would turn Dean human again. You weren't going to let that happen. Now that you had your very own Dean Winchester in Demon form, there was no way you were letting him go. As you approached Dean in the bunker's dungeon, you felt his eyes land curiously on you.

"You just can't stay away, can you?" His bright green eyes melted to black, and you couldn't help but smirk. After all this time, he still had no idea what you really were. Stalking around the devil's trap, you eyed the man hungrily. This was where things got complicated. How were you supposed to get him out without getting stuck in the trap yourself? "You know nothing I ever felt for you was real, right?" he jeered. "It was all an act because I felt sorry for you." You snorted.

"Keep talking, Dean," you replied. "Your words have no meaning to me." He raised an eyebrow at you.

"You really think I can't get under your skin?" he asked. "We've been together for three years, Y/N. I know things about you that you don't even know yourself." You had to bite back a laugh as he continued to ramble on. "Sam and I wouldn't have offered to take you in in the first place if you hadn't been so damn pitiful. You can't take care of yourself, you're not a good hunter. I mean, seriously, is there anything you can do?" You took a few steps back and pulled the gun the boys had given you from your waistband, clicking a bullet into place.

"Trust me." You aimed the weapon. "You don't know the half of it." The sound of the gun firing echoed throughout the room for a few short moments before everything went quiet again. Dean stared at you from his chair where he was bound, surprised that he hadn't been your target. You tossed the gun aside, bobbing your head at where you had shot. Dean followed your gaze to the floor, where the slightest notch from your bullet had broken the outer ring of the devil's trap. Disbelief flashed in his eyes for a millisecond before he ripped free of his bonds, slamming you roughly into the wall nearest to him.

"Wrong move," he snarled as he glowered at you. You laughed, earning a confused look from him.

"Really, Dean?" you said. "You still haven't figured it out? Even now? Can't you feel it?" For the first time since meeting him, you flashed him your true eyes. "I'm on your team. Well, I guess you're on mine now, actually." Dean's frown almost instantly turned into a heated smirk.

"How long?" he inquired.

"Since before we even met." He gave you a crooked grin, eyes still black.

"You Crowley's pet?" It was a good question. Since Dean had gone demon, you hadn't heard from your King at all. Perhaps he had forgotten about you altogether. You leaned forward and pulled on Dean's bottom lip with your teeth.

"Maybe," you answered coyly. "But I might be in the market for a new master if you're offering." Dean growled, pinning your wrists above your head with one hand, and digging his fingers into your hips with the other. The sound of a door shutting above your heads stopped all movement.

"Y/N?" Sam's voice called. A wicked grin spread across your face.

"Sammy's home," you cooed. Dean released your wrists.

"We'll finish this later," he assured, black eyes gleaming as he sauntered towards the door. "Sammy," he called tauntingly.

This was going to be fun.

Thank you so much for reading, guys! If you liked it, please give me feedback! I love hearing from you!

As always, links to my masterlist, inbox, and taglist are in the bio! <3

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