#I know there was probably little thought put into this overlap in the show. product placement.But whatever I can make of it what I want

[svetzzi]

thinking about how skwisgaar and toki share the falcon imagery again

[thesixthcavalier]

So as mentioned earlier, I want to put my thoughts from watching the first episode of Fallout into some kind of order and a probably too lengthy post. I’m going to do my best to carve this into sections and talk just about what is relevant to each section, but there’s bound to be some overlap and crosstalk. So without further ado let’s get to it!

Sound: I wanted to start with the sound because it’s some of the first stuff that I noticed and which really grabbed me. Sound design and music is such an important facet of modern Fallout games. Not only does the style of music evoke a very specific set of feelings and ideas in regards to the game world, but it generally also feeds into the black humor that we all know and love. And this show has excellently captured all of that. The use of music is sublime, especially because this is a self contained story that allows them to cue up the music they want at the right time. In the games your radio might flip into a track of Butcher Pete while you’re gunning down a raider encampment, or it might be I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire, or it might be Civilization. Any of those fits Fallout of course, and adds to the kind of bleak humor of the songs playing during your wild sprees of violence, or even just trekking across the wasteland.

The series though can do more with it. It can cue up the perfect song to compliment a chaotic raider attack, or to frame the pre-war world mere minutes before everything goes to shit. I think they did this in spades, using the music to add to the world and what’s happening in really glorious and on theme ways. And then past the music we have to talk about the sound design. Maybe this was easy or a given, but I got giddy when the Lucy used a stimpak and it made that oh so familiar sound that, in my brain, means healing in Fallout. The vault doors make their chunky, whooshing noises of pneumatics and hydraulics, the little signs make those small ticking noises as they rotate, every little noise adds to the feel of this being a world where people are living and interacting with things, and I think that’s amazing and really shows a level of detail that could have been glossed over or ignored.

Visuals: This is honestly a big one and I may go on about it too much, but everything in this show is, visually, pleasing and well done. We can talk about the lighting and the action, and that’s all quite good, but for me it really comes down to the props, the costumes, and the set design. The pip-boys, the vault suits, the weapons, the furniture, the drugs, the power armor, everything has been designed with a clear vision and an excellent eye to detail. It could be said that this was a relatively easy thing to do, given Fallout 4 gave us a bunch of pretty clear models that could be pulled right out and utilized. Cosplayers do it after all. But it’s all too easy for people making something like this to do it half assed and end up with a poor product. They didn’t do that, and they in fact made everything look so real and right that I think it deserves praise.

The vaults feel like vaults just from looking at them, with their corridors and heavy doors and buttons and switches, I feel like I could take a player character down into Vault 32 and explore it the same way I’ve done with 13 or 87. Everything just looks proper and in place. The brotherhood’s entire setup is exceptionally on point. Military style base with some areas that are open, others that are cramped. The power armor really sells the feel of a walking tank that moves with servos and hydraulics and will absolutely fuck up your day. And of course it goes beyond all of this and into the smaller details of the visuals too. Things like the posters in the vault, the look of the world when Lucy leaves it, the pre-war stuff that all touches that retro-futuristic vibe that is so core to fallout. The robots we’ve seen, the tech we’ve seen, all of it is just perfectly crafted and a delight to look upon.

Humor: Fallout has always had a dark sense of humor, from the first game right up to the modern ones, and this show is nailing that in the first episode. It’s doing an incredibly job of balance your standard, lighthearted humor against bleaker and more dark jokes, and putting that all aside when things need to be more serious or harrowing. I spoke briefly about the use of music to heighten this, and specifically I think we can call out the raider attack on the vault and the song playing overtop of this ludicrous violence as a great example, but there’s plenty of other points in the first episode that really line up with Fallout’s humor.

Introducing us to Lucy by essentially giving us her character build is not only a great nod for people who played the games, or an excellent way to drop character info that will no doubt be important in her wasteland travels, but it also sets up some excellent worldbuilding with some humor. Lucy is practically in a job interview to get married because keeping the vault population going is important, but difficult at the same time. She plugs her credentials and the fact she has working sex organs and good hygiene like she’s listing her degrees and certifications, and it’s a perfect pin of Fallout humor, of the larger being, whether it’s Vault-Tek or corporations or the government, treating individuals as little more than resources, that’s bang on. Stuff like the blood spattered wall decor, the way the vaulters clean stuff up after the attack, it all meshes wonderfully with the Fallout vibe. We don’t get much humor in the wastes this episode, since we see so little of it. Maximus and the BoS aren’t a funny group in the overall, they offer a more serious tone as is fitting of the setting they’re in, but we do get some excellent bits like the use of the rock-it launcher/junk jet and the mention of what is definitely an old wives’ tale about ghouls attacking chickens. That plus what we’ve seen in the trailers leaves me very confident that the wasteland will have that same wonderful mix of humor that we know and love.

Violence: Obviously we have to talk about the violence. Ludicrous violence is kind of core to the series. All the way back in the isometric games you had gory kills where people melted apart or were ripped in half by machinegun fire, in sprite based glory. The more modern games give us a lot of the same, though in less detail due to everything being a bit more hardware intensive. But we still get limbs blowing apart, people vaporized or turned to goo. This level of violence, often juxtaposed against the upbeat and retro-futuristic feel of the setting in other places, is another hallmark of Fallout that the show is including in excellent detail. The violence and the blood are there on their own of course, we’ve got some gnarly wounds and damage being done, and major props to makeup for their work on much of it. The raider that Lucy fucks up with the blender looks absolutely brutal when he shows up again so kudos there.

And we’ve got the violence juxtaposed against music and other events that add to the feel of the setting. The wild chaos of the raider attack where someone gets a fork in the eye and then goes ham with a machine gun, a raider getting smashed by the vault doors in a pop of bloody viscera, these things add to the chaotic feel and they sell the vibe of the series. And going back around to the violence on its own, that same scene really sells the chaos, horror, and insanity of a raider attack on unprepared people who are fighting back as best they can. Every bit of bloodshed in this first episode is a well made choice to sell some aspect of the Fallout world, and it all comes together really beautifully.

Aesthetic: This kind of ties in to everything I’ve already said, but the show is really nailing the feel of Fallout in every way. The Pre-war bits we get perfectly nail that fearmongering uncertainty that was on America, the division between people, all of that good stuff. What we’ve seen of the world is exactly what I would expect to see in any Fallout game. I think I’ve covered the majority of what needs to be said here already, so we’ll move on swiftly for once.

The Little Things: Just in the first episode there’s a lot of small things that don’t totally fit anywhere else and which I wanted to mention. The biggest one that stands out to me is the wedding dress. I love, love, love the fact that they thought about this kind of stuff. The vault having a sort of small, shared library of clothes for important occasions, the little names and dates on the dress denoting previous weddings, that’s such great worldbuilding in small details. Additionally the use of the vault space makes so much sense. It makes sense that the biggest single atrium would also be where they grow food, and that space would then be used in various ways, with furniture pulled out or added to accommodate everything from a wedding ceremony to a big meal to sports stuff if they have it.

I mentioned the chicken and ghouls old wives’ tale already but that’s another thing that’s just excellent. Humans love to try and figure things out and apply rules to the world, of course we’d come up with some weird, oddball tests for the new, strange stuff that’s cropped up since the world ended! Even if it’s not true plenty of people will think it is and trust in it for little more than the comfort of thinking they know how stuff works. I also mentioned Lucy’s intro, and again I just think it was a great way to give us some brief exposition that will play into how she handles herself going forward. That combined with showing us that she’s capable and able to maintain a calm, level head in a desperate situation gives us a ton of background that will mean when she later gets into a bad spot and is able to get herself out of it, we already know the why of that. Specifically we get her experience with multiple forms of combat and her knowledge of science and repair, so I definitely think we’ll be seeing some turret or robot hacking/jury rigging at some point!

I could keep going I’m sure and talk about my thoughts on the various characters and all that, but more articulate people than I will probably be doing so in better form, and I really just wanted to get my thoughts on all of the above out and in the world. I highly doubt anyone will care or want to read this long of a post, but it’s there if you do, and I am eagerly looking forward to watching the rest of this series just as quickly as I can!

[chibitantei]

You know how game companies release a barebones product and then patch their way to a cohesive and complete game? Anyways, here's something about P5AU!Naoto’s Persona awakening ft. me probably breaking P5’s lore.

For the AU, Naoto’s Personas are Laelaps and Fenrir, both of which are canines. My reasons for picking them are linked on the page (and so will this post), but for convenience’s sake, here. While I was finding suitable Personas, Laelaps was one I had considered, but held off on because he didn’t sound like a rebellious figure.

I reviewed the awakenings for the Phantom Thieves and noticed a few things. One was that they embraced their ‘role’ as an outcast and shed any pretense of trying to fit in with what society had to say about them, whether it was directly mentioned in the speech or not. The other was, obviously, the rebellious spirit.

Naoto is someone who needs to acknowledge her other self, so she isn’t the type who could have P5’s awakening steer her towards the direction of being happy with herself.

So when she acquires Laelaps, it feels more like an incomplete awakening.

Since every PT had some kind of commentary on (Japanese) society, Naoto probably needed to do something similar. I apologize for repeating myself on this point again, but the post would not look cohesive without it. Naoto is a private investigator, but she works much more closely with the police than her canon self does. She’s seen a lot of cases where, well, cases are put on a backburner because they aren’t important, officers putting an end to their investigation to wrap it up faster instead of properly seeking the truth™.

This obviously does not jive well with our resident detective, so when the opportunity arises, she channels her rebellious spirit that is fed up with how incompetent the police are and resolves to help those the police neglect, and you get the idea.

She has this rebellious spirit, but she doesn’t fully embrace being a rebel. Some part of her still tries to fit in with what society expects of her, and that’s where the P4 part of things comes in.

Naoto’s gimmick in P4 is about sexism in the workforce, but I feel like it could be sexism in general. I’ve linked this video before and it’s pretty old now, but P4 came out in 2008. The fact that this 2018 video existed shows that what Naoto’s gimmick was trying to critique was still a big problem and may be one still.

Being treated like she has no place being a detective, why is she still here if she’s going to become a housewife one day, people treating her like she’s fragile just for being a woman (see the image of her social link script below), just to name a few things wears her down, but she doesn’t complain.

On a ‘Naoto’s main gimmick isn’t this but it’s still relevant’ note, there’s her perfectionist attitude. As a Shirogane detective, she believes any mistake or show of weakness on her part will harm her family’s legacy and with Akechi being the more popular detective, Naoto feels an added pressure to be perfect. 

A third thing I noticed about the PT awakenings is that they’re a little selfish and it’s not a bad thing. She doesn’t allow herself to be selfish and live for herself. She also just flat out thinks her hangups aren’t that bad compared to other people. There’s a lot that overlaps with her canon self, but the important part is that she doesn’t allow herself to express anything isn’t annoyance at police or acceptance that things will always be like this.

So by facing herself (literally, you bet I’m having that stupid bastard show up), accepting her negative thoughts, allowing herself to be selfish and understand that she’s allowed to feel things, and finally ignore what society has to say about her, Naoto becomes more like a rebel and Laelaps evolves to Fenrir.

I think that makes sense. Maybe.

I don’t want to make this part a separate thing, so on her Persona skills.

You can find a list of skills I’ve compiled from all the Persona games here. I don’t bother with the 8 skill slot limit because that requires too much work and I’m too lazy for that, and I don’t write a lot of action scenes with her Persona so whatever.

Laelaps only has the elemental skills, bless and curse, and one weak-medium physical skill and Ma/Rakukaja. It represents that Naoto hasn’t reached her full potential yet as a Persona user. At least, the lack of many physical skills (to me) conveyed a more... “refined” kind of vibe since these give me the impression that they can be cast from farther away compared to a physical skill. Fenrir gives her more physical skills and the instant kill ones, Heat Riser, along with a stronger attack stat because Naoto’s finally letting herself go feral as a treat.

I literally do not want to look at this anymore take it away from me.

[selkiewrites]

For years now, I’ve been filled with ideas of a grand medieval fantasy world, many of those ideas gone and forgotten as it’s developed in my head. For context I practically grew up on Eragon, visual media like HTTYD and H20 (props to fans of that), and a larger than normal dosage of celtic culture. See, I went to celtic language revival primary school, and though in reception I recall having to say grace before lunch sometimes, that didn’t last—the rest of my time there was filled with folk music, tales and cultural practices.

Now many years later, I’ve always thought to myself that my world was too cliche, too much “already done” and not enough “wow, that’s new”. Despite that it never went away. Some of my favourite music is soundtracks from high fantasy shows, like Game of Thrones (though as we know the show itself turned out awful, the music is stunning), and when I listen to those pieces I’m back in that world again, or possibly another one. So here I am, dedicating a blog to my musings, whether they be tidbits of writing advice I’ve picked up or actual content and worldbuilding to do with this place I wish was real.

I think a lot of people get caught up in cliche, myself included. I love the themes in my childhood favourite media as well as media I currently love. The question is how do you distance yourself adequately to not be a thief of ideas, while also taking inspiration? The line is subjective, and that's my biggest problem. Some people argue that Eragon, at least the first book, was a ripoff of Star Wars. I can definitely see where they're coming from. At the same time, though, a large portion of the overlap is that they both employ the Hero's Journey. There are other similarities, but there are also a lot of similarities between Hamlet and The Lion King. Both of those stories are massively famous stage productions now, without the majority of people pointing out the "stolen" ideas from Shakespeare's famous work. The line between "stolen" and "inspired" seems to move depending on the audience, the perceived quality of both works, and perhaps whether the "original" is a beloved classic or not. Hamlet, for most, is read or seen closer to adulthood, whereas for a lot of people Star Wars was (and still is) a childhood favourite series. If you're looking for someone to say it's okay to worry about this, then here I am saying it. If you're worried about it, it probably means you're doing your best not to plagiarise. You can still put the story you want to tell down on paper no matter if you aim to publish or not. Cliches and tropes aren't ever going to go away, and each one has an audience that adore it. They're what often attract people to new media, they're what tie us together, the common threads you can often find people talking about when it comes to discussing their favourite media. Things are a little cliche for a reason—they're done so often because people enjoy them. Enjoy your writing like many people out there would.

[twilightdruig]

help?

pairing : george weasley x fem!reader

summary : “hi i’m your neighbor and while i know we’ve never spoken but you’re a single parent of two and my sister recently died leaving me to raise her infant and i have no idea what i’m doing, help?” au

warnings : swearing , mentions of character deaths , fluff , au where george lives alone with his two children in a cottage near the burrow , au where fred and cedric live.

words : 2.6k

a/n : this is my first fic so it’s probably gonna be shit (as you can probably tell i’m not good with titles either) but yeah hope you enjoy :> and i might do a little part 2 on this soon

holly l/n was loved by multiple. a sweet hufflepuff student who was favored by all the teachers and students. her sister, y/n was a scary and intimidating gryffindor who hung out in the library.

ever since the battle of hogwarts death eaters have been imprisoned in azkaban. but, that didn’t mean all harm was gone.

now here y/n l/n was, standing in the heat of the summer, her nephew connor l/n mourning the death of a family member.

the service was beautiful. a few hogwarts students came including luna lovegood and neville longbottom and professor sprout and professor flitwick decided to pay their respects. headmistress mcgonagall sent her condolences through a letter as well.

conner wasn’t old enough to go to hogwarts yet. there was no one else for holly to leave connor with. her husband, ronan died during the war, all connor’s grandparents died and the only appointed godparents were holly’s best friend cedric diggory and her sister y/n.

cedric diggory was now teaching first year flying at hogwarts and is married to cho chang.

y/n was currently doing nothing with her life. she wanted to live alone in a cottage, reading, stitching, picking apples and getting drunk on fruity cocktails. but now? she had to take care of her sister’s spoiled son.

y/n hated children more than she hated the people in her own hogwarts house. more so, she didn’t know how to take care of them.

she had to enroll her nephew in hogwarts, teach him basic life skills and other stuff like that. there goes her life goal on being that cool stoner aunt that hates love and children.

—

“shit, connor!” y/n exclaimed as her 3 year old nephew accidentally ate a ton tongue toffee made by the joke shop in diagon alley owned by the weasleys.

“sorry aunty y/n”

she was never close to the weasleys. all of them, stereotypical gryffindors, loud and chaotic and always the main characters.

the only thing she knew about them is that one of the twins live next to her. y/n didn’t know how to shrink his tongue and thought it was quite the convenience that he lives next door. he was a single dad with two daughters, maybe he could help her control her nephew and technically her adopted son, now.

she sighed. “put on your coat, we’re visiting our neighbors, ok con?” the little boy nodded in response

—

went the small cottage came into view, there were two little girls picking flowers on the front yard and a tall red-headed man on the porch watching them.

“hey! weasley!” she yelled with a small smile as she approached the small gate.

“l/n? what are you doing here?” george asked

y/n gestured to her nephew who was holding his now 3 foot long tongue. “he accidentally ate one of your products and i’m not entirely sure how to fix it”

“right, right” he laughed “come on, connor right? i’ll reverse that”

y/n felt a tug at her oversized cardigan. she looked down to see two identical ginger twins.

“hi there!” one smiled.

“hello!” y/n tried to sound as nice as possible. looking back at her teenage years she remembered laughing at kids who fell of their brooms their brooms when she’d watch first year flying. she remembered laughing at seamus finnigan when something blew up in his face. or when she’d laugh at any kid accidentally getting hurt.

“these are for you! they’re pretty just like you” the other twin exclaimed.

“i’m charlotte and she’s billie” charlotte giggled.

“how do u know our daddy?” billie asked

“oh! um, we went to school together and i live just next door” y/n replied

“do you know our uncle freddie?”

“i know all your uncles and your aunt ginny, aunt hermione and uncle harry. they were all famous when we were in school”

“wow!” they both exclaimed

george and connor came back out. “look aunty y/n! my tongue’s normal again!”

“aunty?” george questioned. “holly. she died quite recently.”

“oh! i’m so sorry. i heard about her. yeah. i believe mum sent some flowers for the service”

“yeah we received them”

“i’ll see you around?” george inquired

“yeah, yeah. and i might need some parenting advice? you knew how i was back at hogwarts”

“i am flattered, dear l/n”

“oh hush. and they get along.” she pointed to the three children running around.

“they do. and yes, i would love to help you tame that little rascal” george laughed.

“thank you, george. really.”

“i’m just next door, yeah?”

“yeah” y/n smiled “come on, connor. we’re going home. but we’ll definitely be seeing these lovely ladies soon.”

“bye pretty lady!” y/n heard two young voices call after her

“daddy, who was she?”

“is she gonna be our new mommy?”

—

george and y/n had been hanging out for the past weeks. he had given her advice on taking care of connor and how to deal with children. they also spent time talking about family and their time back at hogwarts. she was told about the attack of death eaters at one of his brothers’ wedding and how his daughters were named after his brothers bill and charlie.

a knock at y/n’s door interrupted her reading.

“oi, l/n!” she heard a familiar voice on the other side of the door.

“weasley” she muttered.

connor recognized george’s voice and the twins’ giggles, he decided he would take matters into his own little hands. connor knew how stubborn his aunt was at the young age of seven.

“hi billie! hi charlotte! hi uncle george!” the little boy squealed.

“hey there, con!” george ruffled his hair while billie and charlotte ran over to y/n.

connor and the twins were two years apart. connor was going to hogwarts the next year. no doubt would he be trouble to professor mcgonagall but everyone knew they were always her favorites.

“aunty y/n! uncle george brought cookies!” connor yelled excitedly. y/n was never the type to bake or cook. she did try to but it always ended in almost burning the house down. she usually fed connor fruits or store bought food.

“you didn’t have to” y/n responded while taking the plastic box.

“oh yes i did” he teased “i heard you’ve been starving this poor little fellow”

“daddy didn’t bake those cookies” charlotte stated “grandma did” billie continued

“oh” she smirked at george then turned to the twins “tell your grandma i say thanks!”

“uncle george! i wanna show you something outside! the twins can come too!”

“connor, what are you gonna show them?” y/n grumbled.

“your paintings! they’re amazing” her nephew jumped.

“paintings, eh?” george smiled “okay, let’s go, champ. see those paintings of your aunt.” the two scurried outside, two redheaded girls following after.

y/n groaned and fell back into the couch, finishing her book.

—

it’s been a few days since george and the twins came with cooking to y/n and connor’s cottage. she wanted to throw connor a little surprise birthday party.

connor has loved the twins and george so much, he thinks of them as blood relatives. y/n decided to call up cedric and cho to look after connor while she’d do some errands.

the two arrived exactly on time as y/n was preparing to go out. she had on a simple cardigan and loose denim pants.

“ced! cho! hi, how are you guys?” y/n greeted as she saw her old friends apparate into the cottage.

“hi y/n!” cho greeted “hey nerd” cedric snickered.

she sent cedric a small glare before connor jumped at the two.

“uncle ceddy! aunty cho! you’re here” he shouted.

“yeah buddy! your aunt’s gonna run some errands and visit your uncle georgie?” cedric winked at y/n. she had been owling cedric about george and how he’s been helping her with connor.

“are you going out with uncle george?” connor asked, eyes twinkling.

“i don’t know, actually. i might check him out next door.”

“george weasley?” cho teased.

“yes, cho,” y/n rolled her eyes “but on that note, i have to go”

“bye, connor! behave okay?” she crouched down and squished his cheeks.

“bye, ced! cho!” her voice faded when she dashed out the door.

—

y/n passed george’s cottage to see if he actually might want to come with her and do errands.

she was standing outside the small gate, hesitating. ‘maybe he was busy’ ‘he wouldn’t want to do errands with me’ ‘maybe he would if i told him it was for connor’s birthday’ she thought. y/n didn’t know why she was overthinking her choices. the first time she was standing right outside the gate she bursted in and demanded george to fix whatever happened to her nephew. now, she was nervous. her palms were sweaty and clammy.

she pushed herself in and walked to the front porch. she knocked a few times and was met with a head of messy brown hair.

“hermione?!” she squealed

“y/n!” hermione jumped to hug her old friend.

there were overlapping voices in the background and when they pulled away she was met with multiple mops of ginger hair, a head of blonde hair and another with black hair behind hermione.

“l/n?” ginny weasley asked, quite shocked what she would be doing outside george’s door.

“oh! did i interrupt something? i am so sorry!” she said feeling a bit nervous.

“oh! you must be the dearest y/n george keeps talking about!” an old woman she thought was mrs. weasley approached her from behind her children.

“hi there!” y/n said feeling a little embarrassed she might’ve barged in on a family reunion.

“ah! l/n? i have heard of your family! muggle-borns right?” arthur weasley joined his wife.

“uh, yeah!” she pursed her lips “i am so so sorry i interrupted! i should go. tell george i’ll swing by next time”

“oh it’s absolutely alright, dear” molly reassured her.

“george! there’s a really pretty girl! get your arse out here!” fred yelled to george who was probably inside the house.

“is she here?” charlotte and billie ran to the door.

“hi girls! tell you dad i was here yeah? say i’ll come by next time” most of the weasleys came back in. she took it as her time to go on with her day.

“oi! y/n! wait up” the voice she recognized as george’s called after her.

“george, hey”

“where’r you off to?” george pointed to the small bag that was swung over her shoulder.

“errands. connor’s birthday is coming up so i thought i’d prepare something for him. first birthday without his mum, you know”

“his birthday’s coming up?” george looked as excited as a child on christmas morning.

“yeah. why?” she smiled

“you’re talking to one of the best party planners there is. you also did talk to another one of them… i think”

“fred?”

“oh yeah”

“i wanted to ask if you wanted to come but seeing as to your family is in your house… i’m gonna take a wild guess and say you aren’t available right now” she giggled.

“maybe if you went another day” he said sympathetically. george really wanted to go and prepare connor’s party with her. he treated him like his own and boy did he remind him of how fun it was to be a kid. he loved his aunt so much it was adorable.

“george. seriously, it’s okay. spend time with your family” she laughed.

“yeah, yeah. i’ll see you when you get back” he waved.

—

connor’s small birthday gathering was in full swing. y/n became acquainted with george’s siblings. bill, charlie, percy (whom she was actually friends with back in hogwarts), fred, ron and ginny. hermione was a very good friend of hers and so was harry. she recognized fleur from that day in the cottage as beauxbatons triwizard champion.

connor had quite a bunch of guests for his birthday. cedric, cho, luna, neville, fred, percy, ron, harry, hermione, bill and fleur and their little victorie. of course, billie and charlotte helped george and y/n fix up the party. mr. and mrs. weasley sent a small cake for connor when they heard about y/n not knowing asingle thing about cooking.

fred offered to take care of the twins and connor while george and y/n ran off somewhere. the two found themselves near a small creek. y/n explained how the cottage was where she’d go off exploring and the only person who knew was holly. she was overjoyed when her sister got the cottage she used as a hideaway.

george was surprised when there were lights and blankets and everything. the soft sounds of running water was calming.

the two were pretty intoxicated when they sat down; stumbled onto the picnic blanket. y/n was sober enough to not spill her deepest darkest secrets. george on the other hand…

“have i ever told you how pretty you are?” george mumbled next to her. y/n only snickered and blushed.

“um, can i hold your hand?” he continued, taking a look at the girl next to him.

“sure” she winked.

“you know” he started again “i actually fancied you a bit back in school”

“yeah?” she rolled over to her side “i wonder… what did you like about me?”

“i don’t even know. my heart just felt so full with you. still does, right now, holding your hand, under the stars by a stream.” he had this glint in his eye when he looks at her.

“hey,” she brushed some hair out of his face “these past few months have been great. and you’re a huge help with connor. you know i’ll always be there for you, right?”

“yeah darling,” he yawned “yeah”

“wait, george!” she sat up “no. don’t fall asleep!”

“fuck” she groaned before falling back down on the blanket.

“i think i love you” she whispered.

—

morning rolled around and they were still lying somewhere in the forest behind the cottage. some childish chatter and laughs were heard from where they were still sleeping soundly.

until, a red ant bit y/n and george’s intertwined hands. “ah shit!” y/n woke up from the bite. her yell also woke up the sleeping man next to her “what?! what happened?” he jumped.

“oh. did i wake you up?” she asked.

“no. it’s honestly no worries” he said “but i do have a killer headache”

“an ant bit me” she muttered, wanting to scratch it.

“hey, no don’t scratch! i’ve had a lot if experience with insect bites” he explained “want me to kiss it better?” he teased.

“oh, ha-ha” she rolled her eyes but blushed.

“we should probably head back” he checked his watch while standing up.

—

“ah! there the lovebirds are!” fred exclaimed.

everyone was cleaning up from last night. there were children running around while chasing balloons and each other.

“yeah,” george started “we, um, fell asleep”

“sure ya did” this time ron teased the two.

“i’m gonna clean up here,” y/n offered “you guys should go home. you know, get some rest”

cedric gasped “y/n l/n! are you kicking us out?” he said in mock offense.

“technically, yeah. i doubt connor got any sleep”

“maybe we should,” fleur said with her accent “victorie was very excited for the party she is very worn out”

george snuck behind y/n “i think i love you too” he muttered under his breath. he wasn’t sure if she heard it. she did.

“i’ll see you later, y/n!” he yelled “come on, princesses, we’re going home. we’ll see connor and y/n later”

connor and the twins hugged while y/n said thank you’s to all the guests.

maybe it wasn’t such a bad decision to ask for help.

[seeminglyseph]

I know I can’t know everything about what Autism Representation is good or bad, as I have ADHD instead, but with the overlaps and the way like...

cut for length of rambling:

Cove has patterns, when an emotion hits it’s 100% and blocks out pretty much anything but feeling that thing, hence his ‘crybaby’ tendencies. Intense feelings, even big ones, can be super overwhelming. But if you give him some time and safety to work through that phase he comes back to a level phase where you can start working with problem solving, a pattern I relate to really really hard and am trying to teach myself how to work around. (it’s honestly way more productive if you realise you gotta spend half an hour having your brain overridden by chemicals and just ride it out before you start trying to put logical problem solving into action.)

He frequently is mentioned going off into his own world, but if you wait him out or eventually prompt him, it’s likely what he’s doing is forming a thought, deciding if it makes sense, figuring out what it means, and then how to say it in a way that would be understood by other people.

He remembers childhood events with crystal clarity. I don’t entirely have this, but I have other factors and used to be similar. If you want to remember something then you remember it forever. You can bring him the shell from the first day he came over to your house and he understands exactly what it means and where it’s from. 

And the gameplay, while not giving you a specific ‘diagnosed with something’ option, the options provided to you can absolutely allow you to build a character with those traits. even down to being a different sort of person around different sorts of people. sometimes you gotta be comfortable to be yourself and you have the option to do that.

it really feels like being seen and being more than tropes. I flat out did not notice anything “strange” about Cove’s behaviour my first time playing the game. When I got to the point where it describes his diagnoses I felt like I had no idea what was happening. But with time I also realised through gameplay I’d given him a situation where he didn’t have a lot of panic responses? And when he did over sudden things like his mom showing up out of nowhere or Terry and Miranda’s argument, sitting with him and working him through it and having a general non-judgmental or ‘I am on the same page’ behaviour can make him feel more comfortable. It honestly feels a little like being able to be the kind of friend I’d wished I had growing up. Hell, being able to explain Baxter to him in terms of “look he’s probably insecure and dialing it up to 11 to hide it. He wants to be your friend, and while you clamp down when you’re nervous, he seems like the type that talks. It’s the ‘if I get a laugh I win’ method of interacting with humans. He’s people pleasing, if you communicate what will please you he will probably adapt to that.”

which feels so much more effective than ‘he’s just a harmless flirt’ because like Baxter says, he’s patently against stepping on toes. He wants people to like him and stage presence gets him there. (I can’t wait for his DLC I wanna spend more time with him too.)

Jeremy in step 3 says “If you’re worried about what I think of you then you’re worried about something stupid. It literally doesn’t matter what miserable shitheads think of you, including me. You’re doing fine, just let people like me be a write-off.” and Cove seems to respond by...... forming an unbreakable bond of friendship. Which, relatable, I reacted the same way to Jeremy. (we’re friends now, he’ll realize eventually. He came to my wedding!)

It just all feels written from an experienced perspective with research and thought put into everything and like... shit I hope one day I can write something with half so much though and care put into it....

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

I find it really intriguing how the ATLA writers could have gone a “brotherly love” route with Zuko and Aang, but they never did. Even in LOK, the only thing that I remember Iroh saying about their relationship was that they canonically became the best of friends and that Zuko knew Aang better than anyone, even more than Katara and their children. I find the direction of their relationship a contrast to how often the bond between the male protagonist and the male antagonist that are spiritually linked in other media is reduced to “they were like brothers” and put aside for the respective heterosexual romances of the leads, even though the relationships between the leads often have homoerotic subtext and can be interpreted through a queer lens. I guess what I’m wondering is: would you classify Zuko and Aang’s relationship as brotherly? Do you support interpretations where their relationship is viewed as brotherly? And finally (I’m sorry for all of the questions): why do you think the ATLA writers - who seem to mostly be composed of cishet men - never took the “brotherly love” route and left the nature of their relationship ambiguous?

This ask has been in my inbox for a Hot Minute 💀 my apologies, my friend. And since I haven’t seen LOK, I won’t try to speak on the front. Before I continue, though, @likealittleheartbeat has an AMAZING analysis here about the interpretation of Aang and Zuko’s relationship through a queer-platonic lens that I found to be an incredible read and arguably could answer this ask on its own, lol!

I guess the general “issue” that must be addressed to answer these questions is simply how we define brotherly. That “we” can be divided into the viewers and the writers, only adding another layer of complexity. Because the reality is that we can’t jump into the creators minds and see exactly how they intended Zuko and Aang’s relationship to be interpreted. We can make deductions, e.g. the existence of Kataang and Maiko suggests Zuko and Aang were not intended to have a romantic relationship within canon (duh, lol). In fact, you could even add another division to the “we” - the writers, the viewers, and the characters themselves (i.e. interpretation through the cultural lenses that inspired the show).

All of this is to say that there is not going to be one agreed-upon definition of “brotherly,” lol! Since you seem to be asking for my personal opinions, I’ll go with my personal definition. If anyone has differing thoughts in response to these questions, please feel free to add them in a comment or rb! I think there’s a lot to explore here and my sole opinion is Not the be-all and end-all, lmao.

So, what is my personal definition of “brotherly”? I’m not going to try to make a formal definition, lol, but the gist of my interpretation is a platonic relationship akin to that of siblings. To me, there is a difference between having a “brotherly relationship” with someone versus a “friendship” (I almost used “friendly relationship” but that didn’t feel right jskdfhakdls). I think these two can overlap and/or be the same, but - for example - I have friends who I would say without hesitation that I am incredibly close with, but I also would not classify that friendship as “sisterly.” (Again, these are strictly my personal thoughts, and I encourage further discussion in comments/rbs!)

I’ll take your questions one at a time:

Would you classify Zuko and Aang’s relationship as brotherly?

Personally? Probably not. To me, there is a sense of superficiality associated with the term “brotherly” that in my eyes can be reductive to platonic relationships between men (can be, not always lol). I think with Zuko and Aang, the relationship just runs much deeper than “brotherly” can connote. For one, they are the primary narrative foils of the show! The only relationship that comes close to theirs in terms of narrative significance is Kataang (which is a very different dichotomy, btw, I’m not trying to compare them lol). We have numerous episodes dedicated to the parallels between Aang and Zuko, including but not limited to “The Storm” and “The Avatar and the Fire Lord.” I mean, this is an actual quote from the latter episode:

Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?

We see variants of this line and the notion of friendship itself associated throughout that episode explicitly with Roku and Sozin, Roku and Gyatso, and of course the Gaang at the end, but implicitly we also know it’s about Aang and Zuko, too. Aang says, “Everyone, even the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation, have to be treated like they’re worth giving a chance.” One common take with this line that I’ve seen is interpreting it as foreshadowing for Aang’s decision to spare Ozai - which obviously is a fair assessment - but we cannot also ignore how much it applies to Zuko joining the Gaang. Specifically, Zuko reconciling with Aang.

We all know Aang was the first person to extend friendship to Zuko back in “The Blue Spirit” and tbh, after he saw Appa licking Zuko, you can tell Aang was nearly willing to extend a second chance to Zuko then and there lol. Aang and Zuko’s friendship, them being drawn together, is a relationship that transcends lifetimes, transcends social norms/expectations, transcends a loss greater than anyone can imagine (for Aang) and offers a new opportunity arguably far more than deserved (for Zuko). I think ascribing a qualifier of “brotherly” to their relationship therefore limits this transcendence because of how much their dynamic encompasses.

Do you support interpretations where their relationship is viewed as brotherly?

Of course! One of the reasons I love A:TLA - especially my small corner of the fandom - is how many interpretations that every relationship presents, be it a small “difference” (such as calling Zuko and Aang’s relationship “brotherly”) or a more drastic one (exploring fanon possibilities with rarepairs, let’s go #AangRarepairWeek 😎). So even if this interpretation isn’t one I’m inclined to in the literal sense (i.e. it’s the “brotherly” qualifier I feel I dislike, because I do love platonic Zukaang as much as romantic Zukaang), I absolutely encourage others to make the most of their fandom experience and product/support content that they enjoy!

Why do you think the ATLA writers - who seem to mostly be composed of cishet men - never took the “brotherly love” route and left the nature of their relationship ambiguous?

I will say that we don’t really have any way of knowing the sexualities and gender identities of every single A:TLA writer, lol. I’m not saying they were all queer in some way, of course, but I just want to establish that we don’t and can’t know unless told. If that makes sense 😂

As I mentioned earlier, I have no way of getting inside the writers’ minds to determine their intentions when they were writing Zuko and Aang’s relationship, so all you’re gonna get here are my best guesses lmao! For one, there wasn’t really a need to outright label Zuko and Aang as having a “brotherly” relationship. The existence of Kataang and Maiko again speak for themselves. Most viewers - especially casual watchers - don’t need the show to state “these two only love each other in a brotherly way” to conclude that the relationship was platonic (or rather, was not romantic), especially considering that the show was made in the mid-2000s (i.e. sad but true, most people weren’t watching A:TLA with a queer lens 😔). So I wouldn’t say they left the relationship “ambiguous” so much as there wasn’t need to qualify it further than simply being platonic.

Of course, I do think there is an ambiguity that comes with Aang and Zuko’s relationship, which I love to exploit in my Zukaang fics 😌. Was that ambiguity intentional? Again, I’m inclined to say no. But I can’t speak with certainty and - as I discussed earlier - I truly think Aang and Zuko’s relationship would be limited by being called “brotherly” when their connection runs so deeply and is intertwined so heavily with the spiritual themes of the show. Thus, it’s possible the writers were purposefully emphasizing that spirituality by not labelling them as “brotherly”! But as I said, there’s really no way to be sure.

At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters how someone chooses to label Aang and Zuko’s relationship. I mean, I’m always a little horrified when a person completely overlooks their narrative significance as foils (because I personally can’t imagine dismissing either of their importance to the other), but hey, to each their own. Brotherly, queerplatonic, romantic, and hell, anything in-between - these interpretations are anyone’s for the taking. Have fun with it! 💛

(I hope this at least kind of resembles the answer you were looking for, anon 😂)

[shihalyfie]

Adventure and 02′s production philosophy and its impact on the storywriting (or: “a series made with love is best understood with love”)

It’s hard to really judge a series too much by its production details, but Adventure and 02′s staff has been very open about discussing background and production to the point we’re able to involve it in discussions. In fact, to a certain degree, we’ve gotten rather reliant on said production notes to explain too many things that weren’t clearly depicted or stated in the series -- I’ve spent a fair share of time complaining about how frustratingly subtle this series is -- and you see a lot of strange conspiracy theories or myths about production that circulate in all sorts of different directions. Undeniably, it’s a series that spoke to a ton of people, but there are still so many things that have perplexed people over the last two decades, and when you ask someone “what’s good about this series?”, people struggle to say it in clear words, often only able to resort to a rather oversimplified explanation like “the character development is good” (but what is character development, anyway?). A lot of times, some small things that initially don’t seem to track have led to some pretty wild, far-reaching fanbase-endorsed theories, when in fact the actual reality of the situation is much more mundane.

I think, in general, the best way to “understand” Adventure and 02 is simply to have an open mind about everything in regards to it. This is something I can only say because we currently have more than enough evidence, given production testimony, that this is the kind of series that was made with that kind of philosophy -- I will not shy away from the fact that there are things in this world that are made maliciously, meant to “one-up” the audience or using half-baked explanations as a way to cover up the fact that it wasn’t well thought-through. But in the case of Adventure and 02 specifically, almost everything we have heard about it is to the contrary, and, in practice, I find one can get much more out of the series by adjusting one’s mindset to think about what they’re looking out for and not, because once you have, the beauty of the series opens itself up even in places you’re not looking for it.

Let’s talk a little about the production philosophy behind Adventure and 02 and how it shaped a series that left such an impact on so many kids, and what we can learn from it!

“Something important that we wanted to tell the kids who were watching”

The two most important figures to know when it comes to Adventure and 02 production are its producer, Seki Hiromi (who would eventually go on to produce Tamers and Frontier as well, along with being supervising consultant on Kizuna), and its director, Kakudou Hiroyuki. I would say that both of these figures are probably the most influential people in shaping the series as we know it, but in different ways -- Kakudou was the one most responsible for building the world of Adventure and 02 and setting up the standard for having all sorts of background worldbuilding details that weren’t shown in the series, whereas Seki was the one who pushed for them to include family backgrounds and things that ought to be relatable to the average kid, so that they could empathize with the problems shown on screen.

Both of them had different ways of going at it, which is all for the better because it allowed the story to be enriched from both sides, but the common thread between the two was that they wanted to use this opportunity to “show the kids important things”:

Kakudou is the kind of person I would say is very “media literate” -- he was very well-read in books and well-versed in cinema, not just Japanese but also internationally, and also very in-tune with the Internet by the standards of a director in 1999. (Part of the reason we know so much about Digimon production now is that he still keeps up with everything on social media and throws in a few comments here and there.) His comments on the final episode of Adventure include a list of all of the things he credited for inspiring him during this series, and he later stated that he had a goal of conveying all of those “interesting things” to the kids watching, so that they could also find it interesting. So in other words, Adventure and 02 were basically his love letter to everything in media that he’d come to appreciate.

Seki was the one who pushed for humans to be involved in the series so that the audience could empathize with them, and for all of the “real world worldbuilding” like the kids’ family backgrounds. She’s also functionally responsible for the base premise of 02 at all, having been thoroughly alarmed by the story of a young boy skipping grades into university (to the point this plotline resurfaced a whole 20 years later in Kizuna). It can be said that the heavy “human drama” elements and family background emphasis continuing into Tamers and Frontier are probably her doing, and in terms of Kizuna, she also was responsible for personally vetting the dialogue to keep the kids in character, and it was said that it came off like she loved the characters as if they were her own children.

The result is that, firstly, Adventure and 02 is a series that is very well-thought through. Ridiculously well thought-through, in both background lore and character backgrounds and mentality. So many surface-level criticisms of Adventure and 02 come with an accusation that the writers were “lazy” or “did a writing cop-out”, but we actually have more evidence that the Adventure and 02 staff thought out so many details in the background that they kept forgetting that they hadn’t actually told the audience about it yet. (No, seriously, there’s a thread of official staff repeatedly forgetting that they may not have actually outright mentioned one of the background details they’d planned out in advance.) Even despite all of the extra information we’ve gotten since in the drama CDs and Animation Chronicle and such, it seems there’s still way more information that was planned out that we still haven’t learned about, and it’s presumably why there are so many little things that are too consistent to be coincidental and yet were still never actually stated. It may have been awful at communicating those details well, but those details were most definitely there, and both series have a shocking amount of consistency in adhering to them.

The second is that not only did the producer and director want to convey those important things, they also encouraged the rest of the staff to do it too:

One of the concepts behind the prior series was for us to pack in as many interesting things that we’d seen, heard about, or read about as we could into it, so for 02, we thought, what else could we put in beyond even that?, and so we looked over what we needed to have, and put in all the things we could so that they wouldn’t be left out, and the story became a multi-layered one, overlapping and accelerating. It was to the point that, after we’d gone through 02‘s story, the scriptwriters told me that they’d worn everything they had out to the ground.

So in other words, Adventure and 02 were basically a sort of potluck where they encouraged everyone on staff to come up with interesting things that they wanted to show the kids, and throw it all in -- and it’s presumably why the second half of 02 is so “crowded” (more on this later), because you had everything from all of the writers on staff adding another thing into the potluck, until everyone could get it out of their system. Yoshimura Genki, one of 02′s head writers, said outright that she used the famous 02 episode 23 to convey her concerns about some very real and horrible things happening to kids at the time, and it’s easy to imagine that all of the other writers and staff members were given similar encouragement to do so. Even the (in)famous 02 episode 13 was something originally created from Kakudou seeing Dagomon, thinking he was really cool and wanting to make an episode about him, and remembering that Konaka was good at Lovecraft and basically going “he’s gonna love this, we should get him to do an episode.” In fact, it’s said many times that a huge attitude behind production was to “not be ashamed of anything” and try whatever they wanted.

Which means that the result is a series that isn’t actually all that well-organized in plot or structure -- 02′s plot writing is of course an infamous pile of knots, but even those who are willing to be a bit more critical of Adventure often point out that its plot is simply more linear, being basically a video game-esque boss rush of “evil enemy, followed by even more evil enemy”. Most people do not watch Adventure or 02 for the actual plot writing. What they do watch it for is all of this stuff mentioned above -- that all of these different people on staff were given the question “what do you want to say to this audience of kids?” and took the opportunity to say something fun or meaningful. And, hence, why it’s best to understand Adventure and 02 not necessarily by the minutiae of its plot, but rather, “what was this series trying to say?”

Writing the series as it went along, under massive constraints

In general, Japanese anime is produced as it goes along -- even the character writing is subject to change depending on the voice actors’ performance (this was cited for Adventure specifically, but it’s well-known common practice for non-adaptation anime in general). That said, Adventure didn’t even have a guarantee of how long it was going to be at first -- it was generally expected that it’d be a one-year series (like most Toei series), but they weren’t even sure about it. This resulted in a very “loose mindset”, in which they decided to basically wing it, and the only thing determined for sure was that the epilogue (that we now know as the 02 epilogue) was going to be at the end of it.

As I mentioned above, scrutinizing the plot of Adventure too closely reveals that it’s not actually that coherent of a narrative, just more linear -- and, even by official admission, Hikari wasn’t planned to be the eighth child at first nor was the Tokyo arc of episodes planned to be that long, and yet this entire section is one of the most famous parts of Adventure. A lot of the best parts of Adventure and 02 seem to be the result of sheer accident...

...Or was it accident? Can you say that “going in with a positive mindset and a desire to do something meaningful” is accident? Even if you didn’t plan things out from the beginning, if you go into everything with an attitude of wanting to make the best out of something and make the best out of opportunities you see and hear about, is that really an accident? Couldn’t you perhaps say that this kind of thing is why Adventure and 02 hit so well with people to begin with?

By the time we get to 02, 02 started off as a very different series from the get-go, and it’s always struck me as very odd that people act like 02 was tacked on and didn’t have nearly the exact same staff. It was Kakudou himself who petitioned for 02 to start off with a light atmosphere, and the series itself was fundamentally meant to be addressing the new concepts of “relationships” instead of Adventure’s “self-assertion”, and explore concepts that hadn’t been covered in Adventure. The reason 02 is so different from Adventure is exactly because the staff didn’t want to rehash things for another year, and instead wanted to take the opportunity to cover stuff Adventure didn’t. And the fact that 02 is lighter than Adventure at first, but quickly gets darker, is also by design:

The story had gotten rather heavy by the time of Digimon Adventure, so we decided to make it come off as brighter. And then, it actually ended up getting even heavier somewhere down the line, but there was no way we could just avoid depicting important life problems.

Which is also a similar sentiment reflected by Seki herself, when thinking about how her suggested plotline ended up making the story darker:

An overly intelligent child, prone to falling into loneliness, cut off from his friends and family, and with a Digimon slowly coming and staying close to him…I remember that kind of image forming. We were supposed to have been aiming to have them going to the Digital World with the mood of a picnic, but the fact it didn’t end up so easy for them may have been my fault…or so I remember thinking as I reflected on it.

02 didn’t get dark for the sheer sake of getting dark, and in fact it’s not like the staff necessarily wanted it to get that way, but there were so many meaningful things that they wanted to tell the audience of kids that they allowed it to. It’s also kind of odd how the fanbase has this idea of there somehow being staff conflicts or people bickering in order to produce 02, but there’s no indication of this at all -- at most, 02 unusually had two head writers instead of one, Yoshimura Genki and Maekawa Atsushi, but it was even said that they had a clear division of roles, with Yoshimura on the “villains” side and Maekawa on the “protagonists” side, and there’s no sign of conflict.

(A lot of people also tend to give more credit to Yoshimura since the villains are some of the most masterfully crafted part of both Adventure or 02, but this is still somewhat reductive; Maekawa is very open about the fact that he was rather inexperienced during 02′s production, and considering the fact that the 02 protagonists aren’t nearly as underdeveloped as the fanbase claims they are, and Maekawa would later go on to write a PreCure entry that basically saved the franchise and a very well-acclaimed Super Sentai entry, both with many parallels to 02, his role should not be discounted, especially since 02 is often liked by its fanbase for the duality between both its lighter and darker sides.)

So we had the staff basically on a roll of throwing in everything important they wanted to say to the kids, both “fun” and “meaningful”, and then, two things impacted the way it ended: firstly, they weren’t allowed to go with their initial proposal for the final enemy because it was too gory, and secondly, the decision was made midway through that they would not be making a third Adventure series, and would have to end more quickly than expected.

I think, whenever you hear stories of “we were originally going to do this but couldn’t,” people generally tend to assume that they should have done the original plan (especially if the original plan was particularly gory or brutal, because everyone loves to think that edgy is better), but, perhaps fittingly for a series that’s about not drowning in past regrets of “what should have been” and learning to move on, the staff has never really shown any indications of really, thoroughly regretting any of the decisions they made for 02, even if the second half came out messy. If you look at that original proposal they had for 02′s final enemy, in which it would be an enemy “reduced to an idea”, it certainly explains a lot about why BelialVamdemon was defeated by the power of sheer positivity in the final ending -- obviously that would make a lot more sense with a conceptual embodiment of malice, instead of a returning enemy from the prior series -- but at the same time, that loss of that concept led to the creation of Oikawa, Archnemon, and Mummymon, which have consistently been praised as one of the most compelling parts of 02 and its finale, and Yoshimura herself even gushed about the concepts they got. So it’s not “we couldn’t do what we wanted,” it’s more “we couldn’t do what we initially wanted and made something out of it, arguably an even better something in certain ways.”

And as for the lack of the third Adventure series, all indications point to the fact that this was something by personal choice of the staff, not by higher-up mandate -- not that I enjoy speculating about other people I don’t know, but if you actually follow what Kakudou has said about his work on Adventure and 02, and the fact that he considers his later work on X-Evolution to functionally be getting everything else out of his system (even saying that he liked Bandai doing a lot of the work for him), Kakudou doesn’t seem to want to be the main leader of his projects for the most part, mostly seeing Adventure and 02 as the one time he got to dump all of his one-time ideas that he personally wanted to accomplish, and otherwise being satisfied doing episode direction work for others -- testimony as to the handoff between 02 and Tamers consistently depicts him as expressing sentiments similar to “please let me have a break.” (As of this writing, he still does work for Toei, but has never been lead director on a full series since.) Kakudou didn’t like having to deal with a bunch of increasingly canon-contradictory works because, as an infamously detail-oriented and consistent person, dealing with that kind of thing didn’t really seem to agree with him, and moreover it’s understandable that he (and the other staff) would feel that it was better to end it there instead of overstaying its welcome and stretching things out.

Certainly, when you look at the second half of 02, its plot is “crowded” in nearly every direction (not as incomprehensible as people like to claim it is, but definitely going in a lot of places at once). The infamous 02 epilogue is probably the biggest example of the disparity between staff thought and how it came off; remember that it was one of the first things decided about the series at all, meaning that the staff was deliberating over it and under the impression they were building up to it for a whole two years, but when it finally dropped everyone was blindsided and even often made accusations of the staff coming up with it at the last minute while drunk or something (not helped by the staff clearly being so fixated on their own production that they even included details that were completely incomprehensible to anyone not aware of the potential third series plotline). Yet, ever since then, many people who have sat down with it have figured out that it’s not that incomprehensible and that many of the aspects of it make sense on a theoretical level or are foreshadowed in the series -- it’s just that they tacked it onto the end of an excessively crowded finale with no warning and didn’t sufficiently communicate their reasoning for it, requiring people to spend the next 20 years puzzling it out and Kizuna to come around to drop even more clues, and also failed to realize that one of humanity’s most die-on-a-hill issues about media (shipping) would make people a lot more offended than they likely intended. (PreCure has successfully pulled off “adult timeskip” epilogues in recent years, and they’ve all been received well, but the difference is that they actually pad out the episode with a proper lead-up instead of just chucking it in your face right after Oikawa dies.)

And, ultimately, the staff has never shown any signs of having regret over this. Kakudou takes the stance that they were able to close out 02 in a good way, despite all of the circumstances. The rest of the staff, including Seki herself, and overall Toei as a whole, has doubled down further on the latter half of 02′s plot events and the epilogue’s place in canon despite the infamous controversy around it, and I have to say that I do at least understand why they’re like this when you consider the circumstances and their likely feelings on it -- regardless of everything, they’re proud of the work they did on it, and even if not everything went according to original plan, they loved taking the opportunity to use the sandbox to express things they may not have been able to in their other projects, and the epilogue was their baby that they’d been raising for two years. It’s the ultimate question of “satisfying the creators vs. satisfying the audience” -- not to say that I completely agree with the call to be this unaware of how people were going to read this, because it’s not good to blindside your audience or hurt their feelings, but at the same time, it’s said that you will never be able to satisfy an audience at all if you’re not satisfying yourself first. And in the end, despite everything, that something in Adventure and 02, built out of that earnest desire to say something, came across in some ways and touched the hearts of kids all over the world.

So the result was that the Adventure and 02 staff did everything they wanted, got it out of their system, and handed an imperfect but carefully-crafted baton to Seki, who decided that it was a good opportunity to do something completely new, and deliberately picked Tamers’s director Kaizawa on the grounds that he’d had no experience with the series before. Remembering that Seki was on Adventure and 02 and was clearly happy with it, her decision to do something new with Tamers was just that -- to do something new -- and it’s honestly kind of saddening that the series’ respective fanbases treat each other with significantly less respect than their actual creators do, since both series still shared a lot of staff, Kakudou went on to be an episode director for Tamers (and even calls it a “masterpiece”), and Konaka clearly has a lot of respect for his predecessor series as well, with Tamers being its own product made with conscientiousness and a desire to make things meaningful for kids (Kaizawa himself has expressed a lot of strong opinions on this topic). A lot of anti-02 folks have often spread a conspiracy theory that Tamers came out of a “writer revolt” because they hated being “restricted” by 02 and wanted “more freedom” -- but that is completely contrary to the above evidence where 02′s production process arguably gave the writers too much freedom, and Tamers head staff was picked deliberately due to their lack of connection to the prior series so that they could do something conversely new and fresh...

One thing that’s interesting about Kizuna is that its director, Taguchi Tomohisa, has spoken very often about his love for the original series, right down to respecting its ability to cover very serious topics. His recruitment philosophy for the movie also seemed to have “being a fan of the series” as a big plus factor, and he moreover shows a lot of respect for the staff members involved in production, both the people he recruited and the long-timers like Seki. “Being a fan of the series” doesn’t necessarily constitute skill by itself, but there’s a lot of similar sentiments in “let’s make something that shows respect and does something interesting and important” and “let’s make sure the staff gets to do something without regrets” also seem to be pretty huge factors in consideration here, rather similar to the original series...

What this means in terms of understanding the series

I do not think that, just because a creator clearly had good reasoning for putting in what they did, the audience necessarily has to accept that. It may have had good intentions, but "intentions” don’t justify things coming off the way they do, or at least, the 20/20 hindsight can make us all get together and think “if that was your intention, there were probably a million better ways to execute that.” And, as someone writing this blog, there are times I really think “if you could have please just thought a little harder about making those ideas clearer so we wouldn’t have to have these arguments...”

However, I do think there is something illuminating about the idea of “adjusting one’s mindset” in response to the above revelations, and going in with an open mind when trying to get something out of the series for one’s own sake. I mean this truly in the sense of encouraging others to find something interesting and new -- this is not a blog I write expecting people to see things the same way I do, as much as I like encouraging people to look out for things they might have not noticed beforehand.

I started writing for this blog regularly last year (I hadn’t even planned to start regularly doing it) after a rewatch of Adventure and 02 with some friends and some honest discussion about the series after it, and one thing we all agreed to do when we did that rewatch was “we are not going to go in with the intent to criticize it.” That is to say, we decided to throw out all of those sentiments that you have to “admit” everything wrong with any series when even bringing up its name -- which is not to say that we’re glossing over potential criticisms or their validity, just “we’re doing this rewatch to have fun and to enjoy and appreciate things, and that will be our priority going in.” After making that agreement, something really magical happened, and it was that we started catching things without even looking for it, things that had clearly been planned but hidden in the background, or things that were caught by one person in the group watch chat and pointed out to the others, and it turned out that a huge chunk of the “criticisms” we might have originally gone in with actually did have answers, we just hadn’t realized it because we were too brainwashed into the mindset of dismissing things as “well, that part’s just bad writing.”

Of course, we’ve seen bad writing -- it’s not like we were going out of our way to absolve everyone for every mistake -- but that base mindset allowed us to better appreciate things we might have missed earlier that weren’t immediately apparent. I’ve said many times that I don’t think the things I write on here are that huge speculation -- in fact, in writing meta, I often throw out a lot of stuff because I think “yeah that’s too absurd, let’s just stick with the simplest explanation” -- as much as I just thread things that are in the series but are frustratingly subtle, because I’m taking things that seem like throwaway details and going “hm, well, instead of just dropping it the first time like ‘probably bad writing’, let’s maybe look at this one more time and see if there was a reason?” And those reasons present themselves surprisingly easily without even that much effort, and after a while you come to realize: this is a really consistent series!

It’s actually very rare that things outright contradict themselves, because it really does not take long to piece together a rational explanation (because those things are in the series, just buried)! This was a detail-oriented series that had a ridiculous amount of attention paid to it, even if it didn’t communicate that! Whenever I post meta, I often get comments from people who say outright that they’d had the same impressions, they just didn’t know how to put it in words! There’s been multiple cases of people independently coming up with readings of the series that the fanbase historically dismissed as a reach, only for official to come out and confirm they were absolutely correct, and a common thread between all of these is that they were referenced in the series, it’s just that people kept wanting to dismiss them because “there’s no way they’d be that detailed”! A truly contradictory series falls apart when you subject it to higher scrutiny (even when you’re being optimistic about it), but there’s a strange thing about Adventure and 02 in that they actually fit together even more when you look closely -- and, again, things start coming in when you don’t even expect it, just because of your mindset.

I suppose the take-home here with all of this is that a series like this is best understood when you have an open mind and a desire to listen to what it has to say. As I said before: Adventure and 02 (and especially 02) are not series that most people watch for the plot, and, to be honest, it’s clear that plot wasn’t even a priority for all of the staff in the first place as much as it was about conveying important ideas and sentiments. And I’m not going to say whether not prioritizing plot or not is a “good” or “bad” thing -- for some people, that kind of thing is understandably very important, and a series like 02 can be very frustrating to deal with as a result! -- as much as, for those who have a genuine interest in sitting down and understanding these series, I cannot recommend scrutinizing the plot too much simply because it will not get you very far, and, to be honest, whenever I see a lot of analyses of Adventure and 02, I really do often wonder if they actually understand the core of the series and the sentiment and emotion behind it, or whether they’re just doing it on a technical surface level so they can say they did (which is usually partially as a bid to passive-aggressively dunk on later series to prove Adventure is superior). The entire concept of objectivity is a lie in itself, but this is not a series that you can get much out of if you try to evaluate it with that kind of detachment; it’s a series that spoke to you through theme and passion first and foremost, and to receive that message and “enjoy” the series is most effectively done when you detach all of those doubts and approach the series without malice.

(By the way, this is not me claiming I’m inherently a “better” analyst just because I also prefer to use this mentality when approaching it; it’s just that I’m a bit frustrated that this kind of approach is so hard to find, despite Adventure’s popularity, because losing out on the heart causes so much rich potential to get lost. This is also the reason I recommend @analyzingadventure‘s work so much -- I’m so sorry about tagging you for the third time here! -- because they’re as positive about Adventure as I am about 02, and their insight and thought into the series coming from the angle of “appreciating” it with genuine positivity is something I believe is truly valuable in a climate where this is very hard to find.)

And this is what I mean, “to approach it without malice”. I don’t mean that you should go in prepared to never have criticisms of it ever again, nor that you should just absolve everything and assume that everything is fine, but rather that going in with a mindset of “we’re going to look for things to love” instead of “we’re going to ‘look past’ the bad” alone has the magical effect of shifting your entire view of the series, way more than I would say with any other. And, again, that’s only something that can happen when the base product was made with this much sentiment and honesty to begin with, and moreover fighting against the mindset to criticize is tough when we’re dealing with a fanbase that’s acted like being “fair” requires “acknowledging” the faults of everything in the same breath you praise it until the horse is beaten for two decades and everyone’s exhausted. (And then yells at you if you dare criticize anything that’s put on the fanbase’s pedestal.) It’s kind of the question of: should this really be about media criticism and whether it’s “objectively” good or bad, especially since this has been brought up so often for two decades now, or might it be better to think about how to have a more positive experience with something that you may not have had before?

Once you get rid of that mindset of “critical by default”, you start to realize things that the series did knock out of the park, or were exceptional, that got too obscured by the distractions of fixating on its plot -- 02 is a plot mess for sure, but I have never seen any series that is so sincere and earnest about its actual themes and things it wanted to say, and it’s something I love it even more for. And buried under that criticism of everyone not getting “equal attention” from an evolutionary forms perspective is the fact that, from a story perspective, they deliberately went out of their way to make sure everyone gets mostly equal focus, which is something that sticks out especially when you start watching other long-running series that aren’t as good about this, and although it’s not completely perfect by any means, they do a damn good job keeping everyone in the 8- and 6-person groups relevant to the very end, which is pretty impressive! And, in the end, you end up having a much healthier relationship with the series -- again, it’s not glossing over everything to pretend nothing is wrong per se, but rather, you’re able to appreciate it and love it for what it is, instead of constantly feeling like you’re making up for its “mistakes”.

[oquinn53]

BNHA THEORY RAMBLING WITH SPOILERS

Okay so second bnha rambling with theories because I can’t think straight so I think of bnha! Specifically Deku.

Specifically, Deku’s endgame. There are so many theories out there and I just.... think about Deku specifically a lot. I mean he’s the protagonist and everything and I love him and a common theory that I actually do kinda think about a lot is Deku losing OFA. But I don’t think he’ll end quirkless. I think a lot of things need to happen but let’s start with me rambling about Deku’s characterization, how it can all be wrapped up in this:

Deku has PTSD. (This part is LONG and talks about masochism and mentions suicide and all that. Other points are shorter!) And I don’t mean post war arc or even post Bakugo’s kidnapping, if we want to go that far back. Deku has PTSD from the VERY start. This kid is a walking mental illness. Sources? Hi, I’m a Civilian With PTSD and I saw Deku at the beginning and I watched Deku’s horrible mental health deteriorate EVEN MORE than it started off as. This is really important to me, to state that he has it from the beginning, because I believe in the character growth and development. I might be talking out my ass but it’s fun so. Why do I say he starts out from it? Let’s look at symptoms.

A) hyperfixation, my old friend. Deku fixated hardcore on All Might and Heros in general. But he fixated specifically on All Might and he gets EMBARRASSED about it a lot. (Funny enough, the embarrassment of it is also a symptom of ADHD but I’m not as well versed in that). Hyperfixation is a very very common coping method.

B) His anxiety. Kinda self explanatory here. He’s a bully victim. He also has been literally classified as LESS. Quirkless. But also defenseless. Useless. We’ve heard that, his anxiety is there but it’s because of what DEFINES him. His self identity was born from what everyone else tells him. He’s a determined boy, but his sense of self is only wrapped up in what other people think—or specifically, what All Might thinks. Which blends a bit with...

C) A loss sense of identity. I talked about this a little bit he last part but Deku’s goal to become a hero is so tied to All Might that even when he gains the quirk, he has to have it beaten into him with warning of losing the use f his arms for him to realize he’s NOT All Might. But that’s still what he sees, even when he switches to using his legs more. He has no idea who he is. He just copies. He copies Bakugo’s moves again and again. And while it’s cool to see all the parallels and growth of Deku learning from others, there is a message of “making it his own” when Deku copies others again and again because he has no idea who HE is. He analyses like crazy because figuring out how other people do things is the only way he can figure out how HE can do things. Also, the whole language change because his image of victory is Bakugo? Literally his speech pattern isn’t his own, his every day one matching his mother’s.

D) repressed and heavily released emotion. He’s 0 or 100, both when he gets OFA and with his emotions. I mean. Feral!Deku. Do I need to say more? Yes, because I was to drive home how not okay Deku is from the very beginning. Boy cleans the beach and screams bloody murder. He has no idea what emotion to have and needs to let it out. Doesn’t matter he just did a shit ton of physical release, he has so much emotions that he doesn’t know what to do with. Just like Bakugo’s anger, Deku’s emotion usually comes out as his tears. Boy cries a lot but sometimes tears aren’t enough and Deku screams a LOT. Even his own excitement bursts out in bigger ways, with his mumbling and fact dropping (god, also slightly autistic coded maybe? Blurred lines with ADHD there, it again, not my area of expertise)

E) black and white thinking. He’s young, so that explains some of this but just like I mentioned above with the 0 or 100, he represents the mindset of civilians. He literally blinds himself at the very start to even what’s happening to HIMSELF. He sees hero and he sees villian and those are his two categories. Bakugo literally tells him to kill himself and Deku thinks about how that would negatively affect Bakugo. He doesn’t and never does see Bakugo as a villian for this. He sees “wow that wouldn’t be good for his Hero image” and because Deku sees Bakugo as a hero, everything has to fit into that. And while Deku has huge growth with this next part, he also originally viewed villains as just villains. He learned a LOT and while the society’s image becomes less black and white for him (because the whole manga revolves around the gray morality of it all) he still doesn’t see much gray area. It’s win or lose. With the sports festival, he literally won the race without his quirk. He got through the Calvary battle despite being a giant ass target. He placed in the top 8 (which he probably would have gotten higher on if his goal didn’t change) and despite accomplishing his goal with Todoroki, he broke down about not doing what All Might asked him despite gaining permanent scarring and a hell of a warning re his arms. But to point back at the beginning, this is reinforced with his entrance exam. Passing the written exam meant NOTHING because he did “””nothing””” in the practical.

F) last point, Deku’s a masochist. Obviously with the broken bones and things but I’m not even just talking about the physical damage he does to himself—which is, what, 95% of the time what he gets most of his wounds from? Anyway—I’m talking about his mindset. Masochism isn’t just the physical act of causing pain. It’s that mindset of deserving pain. The reasoning doesn’t matter. Deku only “betters” himself for the sake of giving more to others. He trains so hard, not for himself, but for others. On the outside it might seems like his goal of becoming a hero is his own but he sacrifices his body and dives into situations where he’s literally been warned he’s going to die and he just does it anyway. Eri’s Arc and him “changing the future” is what I’m referring to here and you could say “well he DID say he would change that future!” And okay, sure, but he was told Sir is never wrong. But he would rather rush into that future where he dies than take even a moment to think through his actions. But anyway, my point is him at the beginning so I specifically mean the training montage. Where he was ALREADY on a tough schedule that he knew would be difficult and he literally adjusted it and added MORE. Because, to circle back to other points because mental illness always overlaps points, he can only think of himself as 0 or 100, black and white, Able To Save or Failure. If he can’t be at 100 then he believes he deserves pain and causes it to himself. The only time he regrets his injuries is when it prevents him from giving MORE of himself to others. He learns his shoot style not because he doesn’t want to hurt himself but because he doesn’t want to become useless to others. He trains and loses sleep and puts his body through hell because he thinks of himself only as something for others. (I think wanting to save Shigaraki is a powerful moment not because it’s Pure Boy Deku but because it’a his own thinking, his OWN want, but.... it’s still not for him and will still cause him pain). And a last point on this, Heros Rising showed us that Deku is willing to give up his quirk and his dream to win and it showed us that while he believed he didn’t have any other choice, he was deeply disappointed in himself. Winning wasn’t enough. Hurting himself THAT MUCH wasn’t enough. He let All Migjt down and giving up his dreams, almost dying, becoming quirkless, all wasn’t enough to counteract the shame he held. Like god. Baby.

Other small observations or relevant commentary:

1) The doctor who told Deku he was quirkless is the same doctor who worked on Shigaraki. Same doctor who can perseve dead bodies. Same doctor who worked with AFO and all that. (See? Short! Will be relevant soon)

2) One for All is tied to All for One. OFA was literally created the moment a hand reached out to help. Can one even exist without the other?

3) Bakugo needs to apologize. Horikoshi has literally said in an interview post Heros Rising that Bakugo needs to apologize. Sacrificing his life to save Deku is NOT how you apologize to Deku. Deku will ask for a receipt on this type of apology. Return to sender. Unacceptable. So. Bakugo needs to apologize.

4) Deku’s dad isn’t in the picture yet. Hasn’t even been spoken of except for the fact we know his quirk is fire breathing and his name is Hisashi. Oh and he’s abroad. Oh and Horikoshi said he’ll be in the picture at some point. Given we’re in the final arc......... this might not be relevant at all to my theory because I have mixed thoughts on AFO being Deku’s dad but it would connect a few things in the theory.

SO. Finally, all of this together had me thinking about Deku’s characterization and what this (now with COMBAT related ptsd and not just civilian ptsd) means for his ending.

Like I said, I think he’s going to lose OFA. And I originally didn’t think so because Heros Rising showed his losing it and why would they do that again? The movie is canon. Horikoshi himself said so and was a huge part of the production of it. So they did that and wouldn’t do it again. Except.... Deku GAVE OFA away. Which is significant because it was his choice. And he had shame and we witnessed how much that hurt him, but we haven’t seen what’s now been tried TWICE: OFA being forcibly taken from him. Maybe by Shigaraki, since that is building up big time. But maybe by saving Shigaraki.

Either way, what’s more significant to me than how he has it taken is what that means for him, based on everything else above: he would lose his entire self identity. He would literally have no idea who he is anymore except for the only reference he’s ever had, which his from when he was quirkless. He gained friends only after he had a quirk. Every bond he has is tied to him being a hero and he was told it was impossible for him to be a hero without a quirk. Even All Might’s adjusted answer to him at the beginning involved giving him a quirk as the answer for him being able to become a hero.

I think this is the absolute perfect chance for Bakugo to say “since when did you need a quirk to be a hero”. And it doesn’t matter much what the context is, what causes Deku to still need to be a hero (whether a Situation or just an identity crisis) and I think about Quirkless Deku as a hero a lot, since that’s how he was originally written in the one shot before he was revamped for bnha.

But I don’t think Deku will end quirkless either because of who his doctor was. I think Deku had a quirk. I think the doctor stole it. Whether that’s because AFO is Deku’s dad and saw his quirk and knew he had to take it for some reason or whether it was independent and the doctor saw it and took it. The whole toe thing can be written off so easily that Deku could easily have had a quirk at some point.

And maybe, if AFO and OFA are cancelled out, the quirks that were stolen go back to their original owners. Meaning Deku gets his ORIGINAL quirk back.

As in, Deku gets his own identity.

And what would that quirk be? Hm. I don’t know. But. His mom can move small objects. His dad can breath fire. A mutation, maybe? I’ll leave that one up in the air.

And there are a lot of implications here that this could mean for him, as far as healing. And I just want him to be happy.

[wisherbysharlight]

I Wanna Get It, I Didn't Get It, Til Now

Word Count: 4084

Pairing: Analogical

The second in a series of different pairings being capital O Oblivious because that’s a trope I will never ever get tired of.

Virgil sits at the same library table every single day, alone, until one day, Logan needs a seat.

They are both kind of idiots.

Warnings: none that I can think of

AO3 Link

Virgil loved his library table. He would get there after his work study shift in the registrar’s office, around 7pm on weekdays and 1pm on weekends, and the section on the second floor would be mostly clear. Second floor was quiet but not silent, so it didn’t feel oppressive, and he didn’t feel insecure about whether his headphones were too loud or not. His favorite table was just to the left of the water fountain, had an outlet built into it, and the chairs were adjustable enough that he could lean back and press his knees against the side of the table while he typed. He loved his table so much that he’d come even if he didn’t have homework to do, just to scroll through endless Tumblr pages or work on his personal writing. He’d had his table for 3 months with no problem at all, which was why he was baffled when someone came up to him while he was reading and stood expectantly next to the table, overly full backpack hanging off his shoulder.

 He recognized the other man immediately, he was another library regular who usually sat two tables away, always messing with his hair and adjusting his tie pushing his glasses up his nose and drawing Virgil’s eye with movement. He took his headphones down and put them around his neck, though he could still faintly hear his music, “Hi? Can I help you?”

 “The outlet is broken on my table, and I was wondering if I could join you and utilize the other half of yours?” mystery-man asked, gesturing to where Virgil was only using two of the four outlets.

 “Oh sure, of course, go ahead. Sorry about your table,” Virgil offered, brandishing his hand vaguely at the chair across from him.

 “You have nothing to apologize for, of course. I appreciate your amenity. I submitted a work order request, hopefully it will be repaired soon,” the other man took the seat and set his things down before extending a hand across the table, “Logan Perry. I believe I’ve seen you here frequently so this is at least a good opportunity to get acquainted.”

 Virgil blinked a bit, trying to process, then hurriedly pulled his hand out of the makeshift paw he’d made out of his sweatshirt sleeve and shook Logan’s hand so he wouldn’t think that Virgil didn’t want to, “Um. Yeah. I’ve seen you around too, I think. Virgil Storme. Nice to meet you.”

 Logan tipped his head to the side curiously when Virgil leaned over, as though he was listening hard, then adjusted his glasses, “Hmm. Interesting melody. I appreciate the solid bass rhythm. Who is the artist, if you don’t mind my asking?”

 “The... Artist? Oh, you mean the band I’m listening to?” he picked his headphones up but only put one ear on, “It’s Arctic Monkeys. They’re like, known, for solid bass lines, which is probably what you could hear.”

 Logan hummed like he was intrigued, then began pulling books out of his bag and… wow. That was a lot of books, each one thicker than the last. Chemistry I, Physics II, Theory of Numbers, Discrete Mathematics… Virgil had a headache just looking at the titles, “Uh… Wow. That’s some collection you’ve got there. What year are you?”

 “I am a first semester sophomore. I struggled choosing a major, so I opted to dual major in Math and Physics and minor in Philosophy and Conservation Studies. Also a minor in Astronomy, but that came with no extra courseload, just strategic choices in electives. I enjoy learning quite a bit, so I opt to stay during break semesters, and I am on track to graduate on schedule with no more than 18 credits a semester,” Logan rattled off, like he’d gone through the spiel before and was expecting certain questions and wanted to head them off, “And yes, before you ask, I do take breaks, I am not a hermit with no friends, and as far as I know I am not a robot.”

 Virgil blinked dazedly again, trying to absorb the bucketful of information being thrown at him, “Cool. Sounds like you’ve got it under control then. I’m dual-major too, but creative writing and interactive media design have a bunch of overlap.”

 Logan nodded, pulling out what must have been the notebook he was looking for with a triumphant noise, “You want to be a game designer then? Very lucrative career to choose, especially with the current market for such employs.”

“I wanna write books, actually, but like you said, markets good for game writers and I wanna have a fall back in case everything sucks, ya know?” Virgil admitted. He’d been told his stories were good, sure, but there was always a chance it would all go to shit, and the only way to account for that was to put 110% in and have a backup plan for his backup plan’s backup plan.

 Logan gave him an indecipherable look that passed in a moment before he went back to his neutral expression, “Understandable, I suppose. If you would ever like a second opinion on a piece, please allow me to offer my aid. I may not be as fluent in creative ventures, but I am a fan of such works, and my roommate often uses me as a sounding board for his own ideas.”

 Virgil tried not to let his surprise show, he didn’t want to offend his new… desk-mate? Acquaintance? Study partner? Whatever Logan was to him now. “Sure, uh, that’d be great. I don’t know if I can offer the same, since, ya know, science is really not my strong suit, but I can try?”

 Logan pushed his hand through his hair and pulled a hairtie off his wrist to pull it up into a slightly messy bun that kept his hair out of his eyes. Virgil noticed it actually looked more red than brown as the light hit it, and was so distracted he almost didn’t notice Logan offer a genuine smile, green eyes sparkling and catching Virgil off guard yet again with just how attractive he actually was, and flipped his laptop open, “That would be much appreciated Virgil. Thank you.”

 They worked together in silence for the next hour and a half, then both headed back to their dorms. Virgil felt even more productive with just Logan’s presence and aura of concentration, and he found himself hoping the work order took a while to be completed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next day, Virgil arrived at his table to find Logan already there, two coffee cups in front of him, studying a tome of a textbook raptly. Still, he looked up when Virgil took his seat across from him and pushed one of the coffee cups his way, “I made myself a tea downstairs and figured I’d make a second in case you wanted one. It’s a vanilla flavored English black tea, not the garbage they serve in the dining halls.”

 Virgil grabbed the cup greedily, “Oh shit this is perfect, I had an 8am and desperately needed caffeine.” He took an experimental sip and groaned a bit as it hit his tongue, closing his eyes as the warmth passed through him like a calming fire, “Thank you, Logan, it’s delicious.” He thought he heard a choking sound, but when he looked up, Logan was looking back down at his notebook. He thought he saw a slight flush to his face, “Hey, you alright?”

 “Oh yes, I’m fine. I just needed to clear my throat,” Logan insisted, though he did not look up from his book and his cheeks got even brighter. Virgil supposed he was probably a little embarrassed since he was normally so poised and put together.

 “Ok, if you’re sure!” He opened his laptop and checked his to-do list, and was thrilled to realize he didn’t have anything urgent in terms of schoolwork. He opened his novel document instead, and immediately remembered why he’d left off where he did as the frustration resurfaced. Well, he thought, now was as good a time as ever to see if Logan meant it when he said he was willing to help. “Hey, Lo, could you help me find a word for what I’m trying to say here?”

 Logan finally looked up from his book, sticking a bookmark in and closing it before adjusting his glasses and giving Virgil his full attention, “Absolutely, I could do with a break from formulae. Go ahead.”

 Virgil felt a little off balance with the full weight of Logan’s stare, and his brain suddenly chose this moment to remind him that he was very, very gay. He cleared his throat and looked back down at his laptop so he wouldn’t be distracted, “Oh. Um. Thanks. So this guy is looking at his friend who he hadn’t really noticed in a romantic sense before, but i need a word for ‘‘momentary gay panic at how pretty he is’ without saying it like that. Like more poetic? Or just less casual.”

 Logan cleared his throat, face flushing again, and Virgil had a moment of alarm when he realized he didn’t even know if Logan was ok with LGBT stuff, and oh god, what if he was a homophobe and yelled at him or he just made him super uncomfortable or - “While romantic language is typically much more my roommate’s forte, I can certainly, er, relate, to the situation you are describing, and attempt to describe it as Roman would.”

 Virgil let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he was holding, relaxing once he realized the source of Logan’s hesitation was not derived from intolerance but instead from hitting a little too close to home. Then, in a moment of emotional whiplash, his breath caught again as he realized it hit a little too close to home and that meant Logan was likely attracted to men and that was nerve-wracking in an entirely different way. He forced himself to relax, knowing that Logan was likely waiting for an answer, and stammered out, “Y-Yeah, that would be good. Anything would help.”

 “I believe a good way to phrase it would be ‘Suddenly caught unaware by the realization that he may be attracted to this man’. You could also describe side effects of the feeling itself, such as flushed skin or quickened heartbeat or what I believe my friend Patton calls butterflies?, rather than spelling it out explicitly.”

 Virgil couldn’t hold back a grin as the inspiration hit him, “Oh! Duh! Show don’t tell would work perfect here, thank you Logan you rock!”

 He didn’t miss the way Logan looked momentarily shell-shocked and made a mental note to be sure to give him more compliments in the future, if he was that maladjusted to them.

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Virgil hissed as his pencil broke again, clicking the end to get more lead a bit more aggressively than he probably needed to. Calculus was the devil, he’d decided. He was in hell and series and sequences were his instrument of torture.

 Logan cleared his throat and Virgil’s head shot up in surprise. When had Logan gotten there? Oh good, tea, that was always welcome. He grabbed the cup Logan extended towards him and started chugging before Logan could even give him the usual background on what kind it was like he had every day for the past month. The other table was definitely fixed by now, but the two of them had gotten so used to the company that they’d just kept sitting together. “Virgil, are you… alright?” Logan asked tentatively, and Virgil looked up again, guilty and a bit crazy eyed.

 “Fuck that was so rude. Yes. Yes, I’m fine, sorry, thanks for the tea Lo, I’m just stressed about this godforsaken calc II exam I have Monday. I don’t understand any of this stuff,” he gestured to the packets and notebook and textbook spread out on the table.

 “That’s quite alright, I’m familiar with the stress of midterms. Though I may be able to help alleviate some of yours? I am a junior TA for Calc II, I could potentially provide assistance,” Logan offered.

 Virgil let out a breath of relief, twisting one of his rings in an attempt to quell some of his nervous energy, “Oh that would be incredible. My Grad TA’s office hours are during when I have work, and he’s kinda a dick anyway.”

 Logan exhaled heavily like he was trying not to laugh. “Chad, I assume?” he asked and Virgil nodded, “Well I can definitely be more helpful than that glorified orangutan.” It was Virgil’s turn to be startled into laughing, “Here, let me see what you’re working on....”

 An hour and a half later, Logan was watching him work carefully and when he tentatively circled his final answer he gave him an encouraging nod and a smile, “You’ve got it now. See, it’s all about the rules and the patterns.”

 “Oh Logan I could kiss you,” Virgil enthused, still looking in amazement at his own work, “You just saved my entire life, thank you.”

 Logan cleared his throat and turned away, though when Virgil looked up he could see that the tips of his ears were red. Ugh, you’d think after a month he’d be used to being complimented by now. “Well, if that was all, I, er, I need to work on some of my own assignments.”

 “Yeah, yeah, of course, I can do more practice myself,” Virgil told him, waving him away with a smile, “You’ve absolutely helped enough,  I’ll get you that jam you like so much or something. I owe you so much.” 

 Logan mumbled something in return but when Virgil asked him to repeat it he stammered, “I’ll be right back!” and ran off to the bathroom. Virgil shrugged and went back to puzzling through the rest of his study guide.

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“-so, theoretically, there could in fact be another planet in this solar system, but it would need to be far enough away or small enough to not affect the gravitational pull of Pluto’s moons in a significant way or just in a way which is balanced by another gravitational pull which forced our equations to not identify any irregularity.”

 “Well shit,” Virgil breathed, “So, theoretically, how possible are aliens?”

 “Damn close to guaranteed,” Logan told him with a grin, “Intelligent life, that’s another story, but I still believe they are highly likely-”

 Virgil set his head in his hands, pushing his work to the side so he could simply listen.

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“I’m going to head down to the cafeteria to make another cup of tea, would you like to join me?”

 “Sure thing, Lo, I desperately need to not look at this anymore.” Virgil felt a teeny bit of pride when Logan choked on nothing in what Virgil assumed was shock as he stood up to stretch and revealed his outfit, his heels giving him the extra three inches he needed to be what Remy called scary tall, which was actually enough to effectively tower over Logan, and the confidence to leave his sweatshirt unzipped over a mesh crop top and ripped jeans that he knew looked good, as he had been assured so around 100 times before he agreed to go to the library in it in the first place, “Sorry, forgot you got here after me, my friend’s playing a show tonight after this and I told him I’d hang with his boyfriend and make sure no one gets obnoxious. So I got a little dressed up, cuz I didn’t wanna have to go back to my apartment in between. Besides, when I’m this tall no one fucks with me in general, not just in the mosh pit.”

 “That is… certainly an outfit,” Logan wheezed, then took a sip of his water in an attempt to wash it down.

 “You ok L? You’re all red, I don’t need you dying on me,” Virgil asked, concerned his friend was actually drowning on his own water bottle.

 Logan waved him off, gulping water down like he’d been stuck in the desert for days. “Yes, yes, just a little, erm, parched. Got a bit too focused and forgot to drink and you startled me.”

 “Whatever you say, Professor,” Virgil teased, stretching his arms up to try to roll his shoulders, “Just don’t get too enthusiastic there. Last thing we need is you to choke to death cuz you were thirsty.”

 Logan seemed to make a concentrated effort not to choke again, adjusting his tie and turning on his heel quickly to head down to the cafe, and Virgil considered it a win.

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There was someone else at their table. The new man was broad shouldered, with dirty blonde hair that had just a bit of a beachy wave to it, skin tanned perfectly like he’d never spent a day out of the sun. How was that even possible? They went to school in Massachusetts and it was January. He was gesturing wildly while he spoke and Logan was doing that half-laugh he did when he thought something was funny but didn’t want to admit it and Virgil felt… something… pang deep in his stomach. Of course, Logan was ridiculously hot, Virgil had no chance at all, even if he’d been starting to feel like there was something between them. He definitely didn’t have a chance if Logan wanted someone that looked like that. He couldn’t help but be a little vindictive though as he plastered a smile onto his face and headed over, setting his bag down with a resounding thump, “Wow, this quiet corner just keeps getting more crowded, huh?”

 Logan startled a bit, and Virgil could have been imagining it but he thought he saw a flash of hurt at Virgil’s tone, “I-I suppose. This is Roman, he needed some assistance with his screenplay and I suggested he come here, but we can go back to our apartment if it will be too much of a nuisance for you.”

 Virgil would have eaten his own shoe to take back his original words, but he couldn’t, so he covered up as best he could, “R-Roman. Your roommate. Of course. Hi, I’m Virgil, you can definitely stay. Sorry, just had a long day at work, I’m a little - er- cranky, or whatever.”

 Roman gave him a smirk that was just a tad too knowing for Virgil’s taste, “Don’t worry, Mr. Prince of Darkness. I’ll be out of your hair soon and you two can get back to doing whatever the hell it is you do every day. Just need the human thesaurus here to help me out a bit, and it’s not like he’s ever home anymore with how often he hangs around here for your little study-”

 “Roman,” Logan hissed quickly, and Virgil saw Roman shoot him an unimpressed look.

 “Study sessions.” Roman finished, “Now come on Pocket Protector, what’s another word for pining. I’ve already used it twice, and longing and yearning are both not quite a right fit.” Virgil had a momentary thought that Roman should be very glad looks couldn’t kill, with how Logan was glaring him down. “Nothing? How about some flowery language for black hair or blue eyes, hmm? Think you can help me there?”

“Roman Michaels.” Logan bit out, and Roman gave him a bright, shit-eating grin.

 “No? How about helping me with a sweatshirt sharing scene, how about that? I mean, it’s a cliche, sure, but I’m sure we can put a spin on it, like make it clearly well used and important...”

 “I will dye your hair fluorescent orange in your sleep Roman, I swear,” Logan seethed, and Virgil was stock still, eyes wide as they darted between the two roommates.

 ”Maybe some music recommendations then? Those are slightly less cliche…”

 “Destroy your conditioner and hide your blow dryer, add cheap hair gel to all your shampoo,” Logan continued, attempting to speak over him.

 “I know you’ll suggest a height difference, I believe I can fit that in,” Roman’s voice was rising too, and the new occupants of Logan’s old table were firing dirty looks at them.

 “Guys?” Virgil asked quietly and both of the roommates stopped immediately, turning to him with fire in their eyes, “Um. I guess this is like... a touchy subject? But people are staring cuz you guys are sorta… loud.”

 Roman and Logan both flushed brightly, turning to give awkward waves to the other table while Virgil tried to comprehend what had just happened, “So like… Logan you’re pretty passionate about Roman’s screenplay, huh?”

 Roman groaned dramatically and shoved his laptop in his bag, standing abruptly. “I can’t believe there’s two people as oblivious as you,” he muttered like a curse, then almost literally flounced off with a clearly meaningful look shot at Logan that Virgil couldn’t quite figure out but made Logan flush brighter.

 It was silent for a couple minutes, just the taptaptap of Virgil’s pen against his notebook sounding out through the space between them, before Virgil couldn’t take it and spoke up, “You wanna talk about why that was a thing for you or nah?”

 “Y-You don’t know? Seriously?” Logan looked incredulous, then laughed a little to himself, “Virgil. He was teasing me.”

 “Teasing you? About what?” Virgil asked, trying to think through what it could possibly be, “You that against, like, cheesy romcom cliches?”

 Logan shook his head, still looking like Virgil had amazed him in some way, “Virgil. Please. Think about it. Black hair, blue eyes, height difference, well-worn sweatshirts and music recommendations. You don’t have any idea what he could possibly be mocking me for?”

 Virgil’s brow creased in thought, and suddenly it hit him and he audibly gasped, making Logan swallow nervously, and the word pining soared to the front of his mind, “Y-You. You mean?”

 “I am… Interested in you Virgil. Romantically. I have been since far before I ever sat at your table, the broken outlet just provided a good excuse for me to finally attempt to talk to you. Roman was… blunt but he had informed me that he was, and I quote, ‘Coming to see what the fuss was about’ after I got, I admit, a bit too in depth in lamenting my inability to ask you out on a date. I had no idea he would be so infuriatingly obtuse about it, I hope he did not make you uncomfortable. Obviously, you do not share the sentiment-”

 “Whoa whoa. Hold on there. Who said I didn’t?” Virgil cut in quickly before Logan could keep babbling, recognizing social anxiety when he saw it, “Cuz I sure didn’t.”

 “...I’m sorry?”

 “You should be. Can’t go assuming stuff about people, L. Now why don’t you ask me, straightforward, if I am interested. Because I can guarantee you will like the answer.”

 Logan cleared his throat, then swallowed thickly, his cheeks lightly pink, “Well then, Virgil, I like you very much and would like to know if you would like to accompany me to dinner this Friday night? As a date?”

 “I’ll do you one better, since I also very much like you back, and I don’t think my anxiety could take waiting that long. Let’s go get some food right now. I’m starving and I would very much like to kiss you and I want to get at least one date in before I totally ruin your opinion of me and do that right here in this library, and Friday can be our second date, deal?” Virgil offered, extending his hand across the table to Logan.

 Logan grasped his hand and brought it up to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles with a heady glance up through his glasses, “V, I think you will find that there is not much that you could do which I would not fully endorse at this moment. But I absolutely accept this proposal. Let’s go.”

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 5 years later, almost exactly to the day, Roman is insufferable during his best man speech about the fact that he is the reason they even got together in the first place, and insists that if left to their own devices they would still be meeting at 7pm on weeknights and 1pm on weekends at a table in the corner of the library with the good chairs and never, ever confessing their love. Logan and Virgil are too busy clinging to each others’ hands and staring into each others’ eyes to dispute it at all.

[jedi-order-apologist]

Hello there! Could you maybe put together small SW novels recommendation list? You reference books often and I assume you can suggest a few good ones that shed light/give more insight into the Jedi culture. Thank you for your blog and have a good day 💗

Thank you! I hope you have a good day too.

I actually haven’t read that many Star Wars books, all things considered - there are a lot, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the prequel era stuff, let alone the rest of the franchise. I only recently started getting into the books, and there’s probably a lot more really good ones out there that I just haven’t had the chance to get to yet.

What I could do is go through what I have read and give my opinions on those. So far, in no particular order, I’ve read:

- The novelizations for the prequels and some of the original novelizations for the OT. More on my thoughts on those here (and specifically for the ROTS novelization here), but in summary: TPM novelization is a bit weak, AOTC novelization is decent and really helped sell the romance to me in a way the film fell flat for me, ROTS novelization is nothing short of phenomenal, ROTJ novelization is also pretty good, I don’t remember the ESB novelization enough to say anything on it, and I never read the ANH (or technically just Star Wars) novelization. I’d say they’re worth checking out at least once.

- Shatterpoint. I really like this one, it deals a lot with Mace struggling with the dark side, and it captures the idea of falling to the dark side as something rooted in defeatism, which really resonates with my interpretation. There’s quite a bit of discussion of Jedi philosophy and why they do and believe the things they do (or at least how Mace Windu sees it) - I’ve cited it before in my meta because I think it lays out pretty well why they resist the dark side. It also deals a lot with the costs of war - especially psychologically. There’s also a decent element of Jedi as family through the father-daughter relationship of Mace and Depa. On top of all of that, it’s very well written (same author as the ROTS novelization). I strongly recommend this one, though be warned that it is a very heavy, brutal book - oh, it’s not completely bleak, and it has it’s moments of humor, but it is not a happy story. It ends in victory, both in the immediate situation, and with Mace coming to terms with some of what he’d been struggling with, but I wouldn’t call it a happy ending, more that…well, as Mace says, he’s the last one standing.

- Yoda: Dark Rendezvous. I read this one most recently, and I made a long post on why I absolutely loved it. It’s not perfect but I think it’s the best portrayal of the Jedi in the books that I’ve come across so far - this book really goes hard on the “Jedi as family” idea, which I love, and there are really good conversations on (and inspiring examples of resisting) the dark side, and working through but not giving into grief. Everyone should read this book, it shows the Jedi as an inspiring people with so much tenacity and compassion, doing their best. And it eviscerates every bit of nonsense about the Jedi (and especially Yoda) being “emotionless” or “loveless”- it’s full of amazing passages that are absolutely perfect responses to these notions, direct refutations of them even (as well as refutations about the idea of the dark side having any kind of merit at all) because they get slung around in the story by a lot of the characters. If I could only pick one Star Wars book to suggest someone read, it would be this one, absolutely.

- Kenobi. Do you like Westerns and a sad Obi-Wan with a chronic hero syndrome that doesn’t help him with the whole ‘staying under the radar’ thing? If yes, you will probably like this book. It doesn’t really get much into Jedi culture, since…well, they’re dead, and most of the book is written from an outside perspective, not Obi-Wan’s. I think that was a good choice, because while he’s understandably going to be very sad during this time (it takes place during his very early days on Tatooine), constant exposure to that, in my opinion, would overdo it and wear out the audience. So the outside perspective of how sad and weird he is, where the characters don’t understand the context behind his behavior, but the audience does, works really well. I have some issues with it - for instance, while it’s kind of hilarious how much everyone wants to jump his bones in this book, I do wish that they’d kept the chemistry between Obi-Wan and Annileen strictly platonic (and the language around romance in this book rubs me the wrong way). And how people find out his last name is a bit contrived. But it’s a decent read that I’d recommend.

- Jedi Apprentice (series). I’d recommend this with the caveat that you have to go into it keeping in mind that it’s written for younger readers. Which absolutely does NOT mean it’s all fluff and sunshine and rainbows, very far from it (I call this series “Obi-Wan Kenobi’s Collection of Childhood Trauma” for some very good reasons, and the fact that he tries to sacrifice himself to suicide-bomb a door open with the slave collar wrapped around his neck before he even gets taken on as a padawan is just one of them), but there’s a lot of stuff that…doesn’t feel like it was explored fully to an adult reader’s satisfaction. It has a lot of the usual kind of fridge logic that often comes into play with kids’ media, and while it was written to be favorable towards the Jedi, that fridge stuff gets taken by fandom as reasons to criticize the Jedi quite often. More on that here.

- Cloak of Deception. This one’s…okay? It does spend quite a bit of time with the Jedi, but it feels pretty surface level. Luceno’s strength is in the fantasy space politics; for whatever reason his character interactions always fall flat for me, though I’m not sure if I can articulate why they’re so unsatisfying to me outside of a handful of good moments. But if you’re looking for a look into the politics leading up to TPM (or at least, Legends take on it), this is (one of) the books to look at. I say one of because I actually read Darth Plagueis first, and there is a bit of overlap.

- The Approaching Storm. This is the lead-in book to AOTC. It does a decent job with a look at the Jedi, I think, with a few snags (Barriss straight-up heals brain damage/mental illness to the point of complete personality changes, which seems way outside Jedi abilities to me, and there’s a bit of “maybe we shouldn’t take people from their families” angle instead of the Jedi as family angle). Also for some reason it refers to Barriss and Luminara as humans. And while the book tells us a lot about how important it is that the Jedi negotiate this conflict, most of their actual obstacles are getting places, with the negotiation itself getting glossed over. But it was a decent read, I think.

- Labyrinth of Evil. This is another Luceno book, this time for leading up to ROTS. The character interactions worked a little better here - or at least they had more of their moments - Anakin basically going “Marriage what marriage I don’t see a marriage” in front of Obi-Wan was pretty damn funny…and everyone knows the “infinite sadness” line that follows off of that. I’ll be curious as to what the current continuity gives us for what set off the invasion of Coruscant, because this (as part of Legends) gave us a pretty good reason for it. I’d recommend it, again, for the examination of the political situation, and there’s some decent action in here too. There’s a few insights into the Jedi but it’s hit or miss whether I agree with them, and they’re not the focus.

- Darth Plagueis. This one’s probably the best of Luceno’s books (that I’ve read), but it’s not Jedi-friendly. Most of that’s because, well…it’s from the Sith’s perspective, so they’re not going to be very pro-Jedi. I’m mostly okay with that because a lot of their criticism of the Jedi is very clearly coming from an obviously bad faith position (”the Jedi let the Republic decay” the Sith say as they devour a man’s heart and talk about how the Sith need to make all the problems of the Republic worse), although there’s one scene at the end that I really don’t like because it appears to really claim that the Jedi would’ve told Anakin to never talk about his mother, which doesn’t match up with, well, AOTC, for one thing, or just my impression of them in general. But what this book does do well is a look at how the Sith influenced the political situation, and a lot of midichlorian lore (seriously, this book feels like a middle finger to prequel hate - “oh you thought the fantasy space politics were boring? You thought midichlorians were stupid? Here’s why you’re wrong”). Luceno’s way of doing character interactions actually serves this book really well, because the Sith are able to be written as the focus characters without making them sympathetic in the least. If you’re looking to get invested in characters, probably not the book for you, but if you’re looking for fantasy space politics, it’s pretty good.

- Rogue Planet. This one has a good interpretation of the Jedi, I think, though you do have to contend with the “written before AOTC” issue of authors not realizing that Jedi weren’t supposed to get married and have children. But I liked the look at how they handled discipline - Anakin gets in trouble, and he’s brought before the Council, and the whole process is about questioning him to get him to realize and admit what he did wrong, not punishment. They then make the decision to redirect his energy into something productive by sending him and Obi-Wan on a mission. Also, Anakin sees a Jedi therapist at the end of this book, so it’s a good one to throw back at anyone who claims that the Jedi never helped him or that the Jedi don’t do therapy. But…plot-wise…it’s a little weak, mostly in that not much is resolved because it’s mostly setting up for stuff that won’t pay off until much, much further down the line (as in, whenever the Yuuzhan-Vong show up). The ship-growing thing was cool though.

- Wild Space. If you’re looking for a ridiculously dramatic Obi-Wan whump fic that’s one step away from sticking Anakin, Obi-Wan, Padmé, and Bail in a foursome, this is the book for you. If you’re looking for things like accurate characterization, an interpretation of the Jedi consistent with the films, believable interpersonal communication, or an actual plot…you will be sorely disappointed by this book.

- Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth. This is the sequel to Wild Space. It has a second part, Clone Wars Gambit: Siege, which I have not been able to bring myself to read, which probably tells you all you need to know about my thoughts on the first one, though you can read more about them here. In short, I strongly do not recommend this book at all, and find it to be pretty terrible characterization (even though it’s played for sympathy) of the Jedi and especially Obi-Wan. Wild Space at least has absurdity going for it. Stealth does not.

And that’s it! That’s all I’ve read so far. I’m sure not everyone will agree with my opinions, but in terms of my personal recommendations/non-recommendations, this is what I have.

[katyatalks]

Otomedia April 2019 - Character Designer Kameda, Eyecatch Team Kenja, Series Co-ordinator Seko & Director Tachikawa - Interview Translation

Here’s Character Designer Kameda, Eye-catch Team Kenja, Series Co-ordinator Seko & Director Tachikawa’s interviews from April 2019’s Otomedia! Semi-summary style as there’s a lot to get through - naturally, this is a long one, but there’s plenty of cool stuff in here that makes for a good read. Includes stuff like why certain scenes were cut from the anime (boxcutter Minori, the cat, etc.), Joseph’s original character design, where Reigen got some of his ‘wise sayings’ from, the reason behind the kaleidoscope imagery in the S2 intro and outro, and plenty more!

KAMEDA YOSHIMICHI Character Designer

Asked how the production environment was for season 2, he says that it was “strangely pretty hectic - lots of stuff going on (laughs)”. States that with season 2 they understood the direction that MP100 would take more than they did with season 1. Something he and Director Tachikawa struggled with in season 1 was what kind of anime style would be best for the manga.

For season 2 the majority of the staff working on it had seen season 1, so production was steady.

He says that before season 2 he’d been working on “Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Treasure Island”, but work for season 2 began before he was finished with that film.

Just before working on season 1 of MP100 he’d worked on One Punch Man, “and it’s thanks to that that I was able to snap into work on Mob Psycho 100, but this time around it was a bit of a hard fight.” While drawing the designs for the new characters who’d appear in season 2 he eventually found himself readjusting to the proportions of MP100 (vs. Doraemon’s style)

Mentions how Tachikawa has been working on the MP100 OVA previously so getting back into work on Mob Psycho didn’t seem to be that strange for him, but for Kameda personally it took a bit of getting used to.

He’s asked if there’s anything regarding Mob’s character design that is essential to maintain a certain ‘Mob’-ness about him, to which Kameda replies; “The length of his fringe/bangs, ie. whether or not you can see his eyebrows.” Discusses how there’s only a certain amount of space between where his hair ends and his eyelids start to give an expression, and the depth of his expression varies greatly depending on if he has eyebrows or not.

“Mob is a character who isn’t really expressive, but regardless, it is important to be able to show his expressions. That’s something I told everyone to pay attention to.”

“In season 1 we avoided drawing Mob with eyebrows as much as possible, but in season 2 we see them again and again, and then we have the super handsome sparkly-eyed Mob that we see in S2E5! Since that episode, even in his normal state, it became fine to give him eyebrows (laughs).”

“This season, he’s had a lot of angry scenes. The start of episode 9 has him quite notably angry. For that, you’ve got to give him eyebrows.”

Q: “Would you say season 2 lifted the ban on eyebrows?” A: “Season 2 lifted the ban on eyebrows!” States he himself didn’t draw eyebrows much at all during season 1. “Right now, I’m doing work on the final episode, and I’m giving those eyebrows a certain plumpness (laughs).”

He is asked if there were any other changes made to the characters. “This is a very minute change, but for certain characters like Mob and Reigen I made a change to their silhouettes - beforehand, their hair had a rounder shape, but now their hair has become a little more playful.”

“I suppose rather than a choice I made on purpose, their hair ended up this way because it’s easier to draw. It’s probably the result of the great amount of advertisement art I drew after season 1 finished broadcasting.”

Asked what he thinks season 2’s “power-up” point is or where it’s changed compared to season 1, he says that they had a lot of young animators participate this season and the quality of their digital work was amazing.

Mentions how with digital animation the look of things like smoke and sparks, and spatial representation, improves.

“For example, in S2E3, when Reigen is looking through the window, the camera passes by him and while approaching the girl, the camera turns to the wall and enters it… the animator made the environment for that scene in 3D with a virtual camera.”

Q: ”A good amount of new characters show up this season - which of them is your favourite?” A: ”Shinra Banshoumaru! I made him chubbier than he is in the manga. His belly that sticks out, his short legs, his harem pants… I drew those, but Tachikawa-san told me I was going too far. But I persisted; ‘Tachikawa-san, we live in a time where there’s no chubby characters in anime! If there’s any anime that can challenge that it’s Mob Psycho 100!’ I was like a bulldozer with the things I said, and as a result I got him how I wanted him!... I say that, but Tachikawa-san also topped-up the amount of belly-sways Shinra has (laughs).”

He's asked about characters post S2E9, to which he mentions Joseph's clothes being different in the manga. "He wears a greyish suit in the manga, but I feel like Joseph has more of a white image. Plus, a grey suit would overlap with Reigen. At first I had Joseph wear a black leather jacket, but a few days later I reviewed that and went, 'nah, that's not right.' I had it changed to white."

He is asked about any scenes up until S2E9 that he particularly fussed over, or any that left an impression on him. “Episode 7. It’s a great Reigen story, and I had the privilege of being the animation director for it. I paid great attention to Reigen’s expressions. It’s an episode with a lot of good cuts, so I wanted to make sure they were all the best quality they could be.”

Q: “Of those cuts, which would you say is the best?” A: “It really leaves an impression on you in the manga - when Reigen says, ‘You’ve really grown up, haven’t you’, a message for beyond the camera. [...] Then, in the final part of the episode, when he talks to Mob on the bridge. Episode 7 truly has some great expressions; my favourite faces.”

He’s asked if there’s anything coming up that he’d like us to pay attention to & any highlights - mentions the battle between Shibata and Gouda. Says the anime brings action and originality that only anime can achieve.

His final message to readers is that if you haven’t read the manga yet, don’t go running to read it, wait for the anime first, so you can experience the tension of not knowing what happens next. “The quality of season 2 is insane, right up until the end.”

---

KENJA Eyecatches Kenja are described as a video production group, who have made promotional advertisements for MP100 (both for the manga and S1 of the anime), and were in charge of the eyecatches for season 2. The eyecatches were mainly made by koya, Takarai & 0gt. koya, their representative, has worked as ONE’s assistant, and Takarai participated as an animator this season.

Asked how they ended up doing the eyecatches for season 2, koya says that Satou Miyo (who was in charge of the season 1 ending) was a classmate of his when he was a graduate student. “We got back in touch and the message I got was, ‘I’m doing work on the ending of Mob Psycho 100, do you want to work on something too, koya-kun?’ (laughs).”

Takarai had his way in via already being an animator for the show, and koya discusses being ONE’s assistant. “ONE-san and I get along very well, so I’d tag along to anime events. I got talking to Director Tachikawa and now here we are.”

They were originally told that it’d be fine to have the same eyecatch for before and after the commercial pause, but they were worried that watching the same thing twice would be a bit unbearable, so they made two for each episode instead.

koya: “Ended up being tougher than I thought (laughs).”

Takarai: “Well, simply put, we doubled our work load (laughs).”

The eyecatch for episode 3 is brought up. Takarai; “Eyecatches have this image of being stand-alone things, but for this episode, it snuggles up to the plot. It was a choice that made me anxious, but looking at everyone’s reactions to it, I was relieved.”

Their final message to the readers comes from koya, who states that going on Twitter and seeing everyone react to mob psycho 100 stuff as it happens in real time is very encouraging. “Even just, ‘I wonder what the eyecatches will be today?’, makes me happy.”

---

SEKO HIROSHI Series Co-ordinator

Asked where he thinks season 2 has powered up compared to season 1, he says that season 1 had to introduce all the characters - season 2 starts off with the characters introduced, so the action kicks off full-throttle.

He’s asked what his thought process was in choosing what parts of the manga to leave out of the anime. “My process is, I first write with absolutely everything from the manga in the script, then choose what to cut from there. The flow of the story as a whole is important - I keep that in the forefront of my mind, and choose to keep things that are vital to the story. Other than that, I try to keep scenes that show off the personalities of the characters. There’s been moments where I’ve had to cut scenes, even though I really like them, just because they wouldn’t fit into the length of the episode…! Other than episode length, there’s also parts of Mob Psycho 100 that we wouldn’t have been able to include due to broadcasting code.”

He’s asked which character he thinks grew the most, to which he says Mob. “What stuck with me was episode 3. ‘Mob’s been thinking about this kind of stuff’... I was like, ‘oh’. 

He’s asked if there’s any other character he feels has had a big change since season 1. “Naturally, Reigen. [...] I feel like Reigen has had a layer peeled back, after episodes 6 and 7. He’s an adult, and he does act that way sometimes, but there’s parts of him that haven’t matured… but I feel with the completion of that arc, he’s taken a step closer to becoming a fully-fledged adult.”

He’s asked if there’s been any part of the season up until episode 9 that’s particularly left an impression on him, to which he says episode 8. “The marathon. [...] That was a part that made me think, wow, this manga is amazing. You have a regular school marathon, and then come home to find your house on fire - not something you’d be quick to find anywhere else, huh. (Laughs)”

He discusses how originally season 2 was 12 episodes, and the house fire would’ve come at the end of Part A of the original episode 8, and Claw Arc would commence with the B part. It was with Warner Brother’s intervention that season 2 became 13 episodes, as an individual from Warner Bros. wanted to have the fire come at the end of episode 8.

He’s asked which of the new characters in season 2 has particularly been on his mind. “His entry is a little later on, but I love Serizawa from the Ultimate Five. How should I put it… it’s not surprising that he’s the way he is. He was a hikikomori, and he doesn’t know anything about society, so he believes in and follows his ‘boss’. I think this sort of situation can happen to anyone. He was brainwashed, so to say. But, what becomes of him? His story is one that I really love, so he’s definitely the character on my mind.”

He’s asked what it is about Mob Psycho 100 that makes it Mob-Psycho-100-ish, to which he says that the characters don’t feel like they’re just characters - they’re all a bit hopeless but that’s what makes them loveable. 

“The Telepathy Club guys, for example… if they were real they probably wouldn’t be able to become proper members of society, but we still think of them fondly. Perhaps we’re too harsh to people who we deem hopeless in this world of ours.”

“No matter who you are, ONE-san will be warm to you. I think the goodness in Mob Psycho 100 comes from ONE-san’s personality.”

---

TACHIKAWA YUZURU Director

Says that the average age of people working on season 2 dropped slightly compared to season 1. “We had people who love the manga, people who had only seen season 1, and those who love both. So there was a harmonious atmosphere.”

States that there was a lot of creative freedom given to the staff. “We can play around. That’s a merit of a show of this calibre - you can do as you please.”

States that Season 2 powered up compared to season 1 when it comes to emotions. Says that even in fight scenes, the personalities of the characters and their relationships shine through, which is something he wanted to maintain when shifting the MP100 manga into anime form.

“There’s quite an oscillation when it comes to emotions in the first half of the season. Episode 1 is warm and fluffy; episode 2 has a mix of laughs and horror; episode 3 impacts you… as do 4 and 5 (laughs). Then, episodes 6 and 7 moved plenty of our staff to tears. They’re full of heart.”

States that within all this oscillation, “from the start to the end, something we paid attention to was making sure the theme of ‘Mob’s ongoing growth’ was present. That ‘he is able to change himself’.”

“He’s able to change because he has everyone, and everyone around him is able to change, too.”

Discussion of season 2’s ED. “The emotional intensity of season 2 shifts a lot, and when the show makes you feel down it makes you feel /down/. So, I asked for an ending that’s warm and fluffy - something that calms you when you watch it. The illustrations are incredibly cute, but actually, the ending is not just cute - there’s stuff depicted that holds a deeper meaning.”

He’s asked about the kaleidoscope imagery present in the intro. “Originally the S2 outro didn’t have any kaleidoscope imagery, but I wanted to add it in, so now there’s that link between the intro and the outro. Mob continuously changes as a result of the people he meets… that’s a theme of the outro, but it’s also a theme of Mob Psycho 100 in general. There’s several parts within a kaleidoscope, but put the parts together and they create something new and charming. Mob gains friends, and as a result of all these different friends, he’s able to grow… that’s the meaning behind the kaleidoscope, and why it’s present in both the intro and outro.”

Interviewer brings up that Tachikawa previously said that season 1 was written with Reigen & Mob’s shishou-deshi relationship at its core, and asks what is at the core of season 2. “Reigen is also a protagonist-type character in Mob Psycho 100, but this time around we focused on Mob… season 2 has ‘The people surrounding Mob and his relationships with them’ at its core. Episodes 6 and 7 are pretty firmly about Reigen in that ‘people surrounding Mob’ role. Then there’s Mogami, and Serizawa later on. But, even deeper at its core season 2 focuses on how Mob grows as a result of the people he meets.”

Interviewer brings up that Tachikawa previously said he wanted to animate Reigen’s press conference, and asks how it was having that wish become reality. “We have it in season 1, that scene where Mob meets Reigen for the first time. When we put that in season 1, we thought if we’d ever get to animate the press conference, we’d use that scene again but have Reigen’s monologue from the manga this time around. I’m glad we were able to do that.”

Reigen’s past not being in the manga is brought up. “With the anime, I wanted to show a bit of how Reigen ended up where he is now. We don’t see the company Reigen used to work for in the manga. Occasionally, Reigen will come out with some ‘wise sayings’, such as ‘the secret behind business success lies in your smile’, so we thought it would be good to have those words come from where he used to work. We struggled deciding whether Reigen’s past should be as a water filter salesman, or as an insurance salesman. Ultimately, we asked ONE-sensei, who decided for us: ‘I like the idea of him selling water.’”

Discussion of Tsubomi coming to S&S as not being in the manga. Tachikawa wanted a scene in which Reigen, Ritsu, Teru do something for Mob - “something that sets things back to normal, after Whitey Arc.” ONE gave the idea, then published it as an omake manga.

He is asked what he’d like us to pay attention to with the final episodes. “Each character has their own motivation, but at the end of the day those motivations all add up to  ‘defeat claw’.” Mentions a bunch of new characters making their entrance.

His final message to readers is that a lot of work went into the final episodes and attention was paid to detail, so please enjoy.

---

Original twitter thread has a few more pictures in it, link to that is here.

Otomedia April 2019;

ONE’s special interview here.

Sakurai Takahiro [Reigen VA] & Itou Setsuo [Mob VA] joint interview here.

Kokuryuu Sachi [Shou VA] interview here.

Itou Setsuo [Mob VA] & Irino Miyu [Ritsu VA] interview here.

Character Designer Kameda, Eye-catch Team Kenja, Series Co-ordinator Seko & Director Tachikawa's interview here.

[itsclydebitches]

You really have to wonder where the heck volume 8 is going to go. I get cliff hanger season finales, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t a good thing for a show leave people wondering what the fuck is going to happen next season because the situation is so simultaneously confusing for the audience and hopeless for the protagonists. This really ties into your RWBY has no plan criticism. Okay, so they’ll land the bullhead and do...what? WTF are they going to do?! Seriously! Ugh 😑

RWBY has actually got me thinking a lot about early forms of visual, serialized storytelling. Authors prioritizing the emotional impact of a cliffhanger - “Omg that was so intense! I have to come back and find out how this is resolved!” - over the actual continuity of the story - “So... how will we solve this problem?” - is nothing new. Indeed, it’s somewhat popular because you’ve already achieved the primary goal of getting viewers to come back and consume your product. It almost doesn’t matter if the product is good provided you continue to generate those feelings of, “Dammit, I have to know how they get out of this situation” and get viewers back in their seat. Even when the viewer has reason to believe that the explanation won’t make sense/won’t be satisfying. It’s a capitalist perspective to storytelling (I just want to make money) as opposed to an artistic perspective (I just want to tell a good tale).  

Ben Singer refers to these as cop-out cliffhangers and (in film, far earlier in comic strips) they began in the early 1910′s. To quote from his book Melodrama and Modernity: Early Sensational Cinema and Its Contexts, emphasis mine: 

“By late 1914 or early 1915, virtually all episodes [of serials] culminated in suspenseful cliffhanger endings. With this design, serials encouraged a steady volume of return customers, tantalized and eager for the fix of narrative closure withheld in the previous installment. In this system of artificially perpetuated desire, serials conveyed a certain acuity about the new psychology of modern consumerism. Actually, the design is slightly more elaborate due to the cliffhanger’s system of narrative overlap wherein the next episode briefly retraced (usually with cop-out modifications) the immediate situation leading up to the cliffhanger” (210-11) 

AKA, a lot of serials ended with a threat seemingly impossible to overcome (woman is falling to her death - cliffhanger), rehashed that ending at the beginning of the next installment (woman is falling to her death - opening), and in doing so changed some crucial aspect that allows the characters to escape when they previously couldn’t have (woman now has a parachute when she didn’t before). As that example shows, such cop-out cliffhangers include continuations that completely re-write what came previously, such as Undersea Kingdom where in one installment you’ll end with the characters getting blown off a cliff of their own, but the next installment begins with them still at the edge, erasing any continuity. Other cop-out cliffhangers are a little more complicated, such as A Woman in Grey where installment #1 shows a massive block about to crush our bound Ruth and in installment #2 it misses her... even though she was directly underneath the block in installment #1. I expect RWBY to fit within this kind of cop-out, simply because we’ve seen them do it numerous times before. We’re presented with Situation A, then Solution B that doesn’t really make sense, and the fandom is left to connect the two themselves. Which they do, often letting RT off the hook in the process. As Singer says of that Grey episode: 

“A charitable reading would surmise that during his attack Hunter [another character involved] had inadvertently moved the bed on which Ruth was tied [resulting in the block not hitting her]; but since that is not established, it is probably more likely that the film simply hopes viewers will be too excited by the thrilling events to remember the spatial details of the previous episode’s cliffhanger crisis” (143) 

Authors may have thought they could get away with this in 1920 (audiences have always paid attention) but this is the digital age. Every installment of RWBY is re-watchable. More importantly, it’s GIFable. Viewers don’t even need to put forth the effort of re-watching the show because others do that labor for us, condensing these moments into bite-sized pieces we see on our dashes for months on end, to the point where we know the canon even better than the authors do. Yet RWBY continues to present “solutions” with the (presumed) hopes that a) audiences won’t remember what actually happened, b) audiences will be too caught up in the excitement of the story to care about logic, or c) audiences will do the work of connecting the two scenarios for RT, often doing a whole number of logistical gymnastics in an effort to get the solution to make some sort of sense. I’ve seen all three of these results countless times, but that doesn’t mean audiences should have been put in that situation in the first place. It’s not “good” writing, but it’s what I expect of Volume 8. I don’t think RT is so bold as to actively erase canon to the extent we’ve seen in some serials, but providing us with “solutions” to the Salem problem that don’t line up with what we learned in Volume 7? Absolutely. 

[raineydaywrites]

Nesting Chapter 13

on ao3 (x)

Fic Summary: Taako and Lup are determined to kick ass at going to university, even though their childhood education was anything but traditional.

Then, Taako finds himself in a situation that threatens to undermine all their hard work.

But there's plenty of university students that have kids! Really, this is just another chance to show how much better they are at everything they do- they can definitely manage to graduate and raise a kid at the same time.

Chapter summary: The IPRE crew is starting to come together!! This is pure fluff.

Chapter: Once he'd started showing, it didn't take long for stretchy and flowy clothing choices to be his only real options. He wasn't yet stuck with only pregnancy clothes, would be able to fit into some of the stuff he'd already owned for a little while yet, but he was getting there.

By now he'd basically stolen a good percent of Lup's stretchy and flowy clothes as well, finding himself frustrated with the decrease in his wardrobe options. She'd let him for the most part, with only the occasional annoyed look instead of any confrontations about the matter, which he was very grateful for. He didn't want to feel self-conscious about the way he looked now, but every once in a while the thoughts popped up and being able to wear mostly clothing that he'd already liked instead of generic pregnancy clothes all the time was helping with that.

Random people around him were starting to notice. He could tell. Very few of them had said anything quite yet, because it was rude to assume and all that, but he noticed the way that people's eyes would catch briefly on his stomach, or they would offer him a seat or whatever without saying anything.

He appreciated the seat thing, honestly. His feet and legs had hurt a lot recently, which he hadn't expected so early in. He still had so much time to go; both he and the baby still had a lot of growing to do, so the discomfort was sure to only get worse from here. Sitting down as much as possible made that a lot better.

Being clocked as a pregnant person by strangers wasn't making him as dysphoric as he'd feared. It happened sometimes, but he could handle it for the most part. He could accept being seen as feminine at times, as long as it wasn't the only thing people saw him as ever. So he was getting by.

No, for the most part, it was just weird. This whole thing was so personal and private, and yet so many people knew about it without knowing a single other thing about him. Taako had always been a bit showy, but that didn't mean that he wasn't also a very private person. He liked being the center of attention when he was in control of it.

He wasn't in control of almost any of this.

Wasn't all bad though. Kiddo had started moving around a lot more- they weren't really kicking yet, which Lup was incredibly disappointed about, but Taako appreciated the fact that the movements weren't hurting him, so as far as he was concerned, baby could wait on that as long as they liked.

It was weird to feel someone moving inside of him like this, but it was nice too. A reminder that he hadn't messed them up. They were here, they were alive, and they were active.

The morning sickness wasn't completely gone, but it had diminished severely and now his biggest appetite problem had jumped to the opposite side of the spectrum. He was hungry all the time, and sometimes for really weird stuff, but at least that problem was one he was more comfortable handling. Now that he could cook again without fearing that he'd quickly lose anything he got down, he had this shit taken care of. And if he didn't have whatever he was craving, he could just transmute it from something else. He pitied the poor fools who couldn't, who just had to deal with it some other way.

He and Lup had turned in their applications for the planar exploration expedition a little bit ago, and now the only thing to do was wait. Taako had wondered if he should disclose his pregnancy in the application. The only thing worse than getting turned down for the expedition would be to be accepted, only to be told that they wouldn't send someone pregnant on a mission like this.

But in the end, he decided not to. There wasn't a set date for the mission yet, at least, not one that they'd revealed to the applicants or the public, so it might not even be an issue by then. It would definitely take months for them to make their selections, and probably a fair amount of training time after that, so there was no point in giving them a reason to doubt his capabilities before they even really considered him.

He really hoped that Lup would get the opportunity at least. If he couldn't go, the next best thing was for his sister to get the chance. She had insisted that she wouldn't go without him, but he refused to be the reason that she missed out on an opportunity like this.

But Lup had equally refused to leave him alone when he was heavily pregnant and soon to give birth.

They'd ended up managing to compromise that she would stay if the mission date would overlap his due date, because he didn't exactly love the idea of going through those experiences alone either. He'd really been trying to avoid thinking about the entire idea of labor, because he knew it would be one of the most painful experiences of his life, and that was both terrifying and unavoidable.

"The shit I'm gonna go through for you..." Taako mumbled to himself- mumbled to the parasite, more specifically, because he wasn't normally the type of guy to talk to himself when no one else was around. If only because he had very rarely been in a situation where he had no one else around.

He was sure he'd heard somewhere that babies could hear stuff at some point, but he had no idea when. He'd thought about looking up stuff like that, but it kept slipping his mind.

He'd only ended up looking up one of those 'how big is my baby' sites once, because it had made his hormones go absolutely wild and he'd turned into an absolute mess, crying about how tiny the little guy was. He had been very glad that Lup had not been in the room with him, because even though he knew she wasn't going to judge him, especially right now, she still would have found it very funny, and he'd have felt embarrassed about it.

He was a stone-cold bitch, not a sap who cried over cute things!

It was different though, when his hormones were acting different than usual,- when it was his cute thing.

He was allowed to think his own child was cute! He just didn't want anyone to think that he couldn't still be a badass while also loving his kid! He's a multidimensional being, he's allowed to feel both things!

He let one hand rest on his stomach over where the baby was fluttering around while he checked the mailbox.

He hadn't expected anything interesting, so he went still with surprise when he pulled out two envelopes from the Institute- one bearing his name and the other with Lup's.

He would wait for Lup to get back before he opened them. They should do this together- he didn't want to do it without her anyway, no matter what the results were. If they were good or if they were bad, he would figure it out with his sister by his side- as they always had been.

Still, despite his determination not to open the letters without Lup, he couldn't stop his mind from thinking about it.

The envelopes were rather thin. Was that a bad sign? Would they have sent more information if they'd been accepted? The two envelopes were about the same width, which could either mean that they'd both gotten the same results or that there was no extra info for people who had been accepted to the next phase.

Which basically meant, he still had absolutely no idea of what the results were, just as he always had. The only difference now was that he couldn't stop thinking about it.

He tried to get some homework done, but it quickly became clear that that was a lost cause. But he couldn't seem to get invested in anything else either- nothing fun, nothing productive- he just sat at the kitchen table, one leg bouncing anxiously as he waited for his sister to get home.

Her class should be done by now, what the hell was she doing?

When the front door finally opened, he shot Lup an exasperated look, and asked exactly that.

"I went for coffee with Lucretia," Lup said, frowning in mild confusion.

"Ugh, gods, of course you pick the absolute worst time to go on your first date with her," Taako groaned. He may have been low-key encouraging them to spend time together, but he hadn't expected it to backfire on him like this.

Lup blushed at his words, and Taako rolled his eyes as she sputtered, "It's not like that! We're friends!"

So apparently, even the silver lining he'd thought he spotted for a second there was taken from him.

"Did something happen?" Lup asked, putting away her bags without even looking at him. She had gotten used to the fact that Taako could be extra irritable than usual with his mood swings, and since he didn't look hurt or sad or scared or anything, she figured it was probably no big deal.

"We got the results from the Institute!" Taako announced, and Lup spun to face him, her eyes going wide.

"What? Oh my gods, gimme!" she said, reaching grabby hands out towards her brother.

Taako handed it over to her, already ripping open his own, finally.

His eyes quickly skimmed the letter, past the formal niceties to figure out what he actually wanted to know.

 You are invited to the next round of selections. An interview-

Having parsed the relevant part, he looked up to Lup with a huge grin on his face, and felt it grow bigger when he realized that she was giving him the same smile.

"You got into round two, right?" he asked anyway, needing to make sure.

"You know it!" Lup said, delighted, holding up a hand for a high five that Taako immediately returned.

"Me too, natch," Taako said, casual, as if he'd never doubted it for a second. He pulled Lup into a hug, even though that had been getting harder to do recently.

Gods he hoped they'd planned this thing for a time when he could actually go. He was already starting to show by now, and it would only get more obvious as the interview date neared, so he could hardly hide it from them.

Not that he'd ever try to keep it from them completely. He couldn't hide it forever, and it would only piss them off if they found out after they'd actually offered him a spot. And for all he knew, it could be hella risky for the baby to leave the planar system, and he really ought to ask the experts first instead of crossing his fingers and hoping for the best. He couldn't risk hurting the kid for an opportunity that he knew he was good enough to get again in the future. Going on the very first expedition would be a dream, but it would still be amazing to go on any expedition.. It would be a disappointment if he had to wait, but not one worth hurting his kid over.

Still, he'd have preferred to get in at least a good first impression before breaking that bit of news to his hopefully future employers. He knew that he could be a bit of an acquired taste, but he could do a good first impression when he tried. This wasn't going to help with that. They probably had a tone of applicants who weren't PR nightmares in the making. Taako was good, but he wasn't sure he was good enough to convince them to risk the press tearing them apart over sending a pregnant person on a potentially dangerous mission.

Nothing to do about it now though. He'd go, and he'd make his best case for himself, and they'd make a decision. All he could do was try his best to convince them that he was absolutely irreplaceable.

-

Lucretia had asked to come visit the weekend before their interviews were scheduled. She'd seemed really excited about something over the call, and Lup and Taako had news to share as well, so Lup told her she could come over now if she wanted to.

Taako had rolled his eyes at that, as if he wasn't also excited to boast about being invited to the next round, just as much as she was.

Even if Lup had admitted to herself that okay, maybe she had a bit of a crush of Lucretia, that didn't meant that everything she did around the other girl was a sign of that! She wanted to hang out with a friend and get praised for what a good job she and her brother had done! That's it! She just liked having friends and being complimented!

When Lucretia arrived, she was wearing a bright yellow sundress, and Lup couldn't quite take her eyes off of her. She looked really good in it.

See, now that was the kind of thing that Taako had a right to tease her about- even if she really hoped he'd ignore it instead of tormenting her with it.

Didn't seem like that was all that likely though, given the shit-eating grin he gave her at the look on her face, before greeting Lucretia with, "Looking good, Creesh!"

"Thanks!" Lucretia smiled at him, tossing her hair a bit and posing cutely, which was absolutely unfair. "It's finally getting warmer out so I couldn't resist."

"Hey, when you look that good in something, why try to resist at all, right?" Lup said. That was probably too strong a compliment. "That's my attitude, at least," she added. It was true- Lup knew she was hot and she enjoyed showing that off- and hopefully it would make the first thing she said less incriminating.

A slight blush had taken over Lucretia's face at the continuing compliments, and considering how hard it was for a blush to show on her dark skin, she must have been pretty affected by it.

Gods, Lup had to do something about that. It was weird how Lucretia could be so confident in some ways and so insecure and withdrawn in others. She was clearly proud of her work and her skills, but in social situation, she turned into a nervous mess. Lup found it equal parts endearing and exasperating.

"So what's this big news?" Taako asked, breaking the silence and prompting Lucretia to perk up in excitement, back to confident once again.

"I've ghost-written a few biographies before- I don't think I told you guys that, but anyway- and so I earned a reputation, of sorts and I was invited to apply as a chronicler for a really interesting project soon, and I just got the news that I've been officially chosen!" Lucretia announced, giddy with excitement.

"That's awesome!" Lup said, high-fiving Lucretia, and Taako echoed the sentiment and offered a thumbs up from his position on the couch. "What the project?"

"I'm not supposed to give out too many details, but it's a kind of exploratory mission for the Institute," Lucretia explained.

"Wait- you mean the one to explore other planes, yeah?" Taako asked.

"Yes- how you do you know about that?" Lucretia asked, tilting her head like a curious bird.

"We applied as arcanists for the mission," Taako said, voice trying to project 'casual and sure of himself,' but slowly getting more and more excited too. "Got past the first round of approval and we're going in to interview next week."

Lucretia's mouth popped open in surprise, before splitting into another wide grin. "Are you kidding me?"

"Nah, babe, totally serious," Lup said, bouncing on her toes eagerly. "They haven't made final selections for arcanists yet- obviously- but it would be so cool to go on the mission with you!"

Lucretia nodded eagerly. "Of course. I hope you get it!"

Taako stood up from the couch with a tiny bit of difficulty that Lup and Lucretia pointedly didn't comment on to give Lucretia another high five, and then offering another to Lup as well, just for the hell of it.

"How come you get to know already?" he asked, mock annoyed. "Must be saving the best for last."

Lucretia just giggled, too happy to take any offense to that. "I think probably there are fewer writers who even applied than there are arcanists. Like, a lot of writers are probably much happier not going out on brand new ships with experimental technology into places we've never been to before. Not that I can understand that at all. So it's easier to narrow us down than the narrow down all the people who have literally been studying to do exactly this."

"Okay, we have to get chosen now, Ko. This whole setup is just getting better and better," Lup said.

"For sure. I am not going a couple months without either of my best babysitters," Taako said.

"You think I'm gonna be super good at babysitting, Koko?" Lup raised an eyebrow. "You realize I know jackshit about babies, right?"

"My cheapest babysitters," Taako amended.

"I am not watching your kid for free, even if they are my nibling," Lucretia immediately denied, shaking her head. "Knowing you, they're going to be a handful, and I demand payment in food, at least."

"Yeah, my cheapest babysitters, like I said," Taako insisted. He paused a moment, as another thought occurred to him. "You think they'll let us bring the kiddo if we promise not to let 'em bother everybody else? Like, they'd have three separate family members to wrangle them; I'm sure we could work something out."

"No?" Lucretia said. "I mean, like, that would be ideal, I admit, but I don't think the people arranging this mission are insane. No offense."

"I mean, totally worth a shot though, right?" Taako turned to Lup. "Worst they could say is no! You miss 100% of the shots you never take!"

"That is never gonna happen, but yeah, we can ask," Lup said. "You never know. I mean, Creesh, you say they're not insane, but isn't this whole concept a tiny bit insane? If you think about it?"

Lucretia shrugged, grinning, not letting any worries that this wouldn't work out dampen her excitement. "You know, I suppose you have a point. Ideally, this mission isn't being led by people with such poor decision making skills, but if it is- hey, silver lining, we all get to go together!"

"Yeah!" Taako cheered at her willingness to go along with the goof. "That's the spirit!"

Lup laughed so hard she thought she might fall over. Gods, as much as she loved Taako, she was realizing that having more people than just him around was even better. She hadn't realized how isolated they were until recently. She didn't actually need anybody but Taako, but it was kind of nice to have them anyway. Her family was getting bigger with at least the addition of the baby, and maybe she could even count Lucretia as family too, indirectly at least.

It had always been her and Taako against everyone else, and they could handle that. But getting a few more people on their side wasn't a bad thing. Far from it. It was the best thing.

[frenchibi]

hey, so i thought maybe you could tell us a little what you're currently interested in? ♥ like, what have you been doing during quarantine, are there any new shows you watched that you enjoyed a lot, did you maybe take up a new hobby or something? :)

Hello!! I did not forget this lovely message, I was just in no state to answer (who’d have thought that recovery from surgery is, y’know, taxing) BUT I’M BACK NOW and ohhhh do you know what you’ve unlocked by asking me this question...?? I cannot give you a comprehensive list but I can tell you a couple of the things that I got into during quarantine, and the things I am currently super passionate about! My memory is, uh, not great but thankfully I do journal and write down things so I am confident I can answer this for you :D (plus I do always love recommending things so - aaa??? Thank you for this ask????)

Putting things under a cut because I physically cannot chill but if tl;dr I want you to take away one thing from this it’s that everyone should read Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Thoughts below.

(Also. I would love to go off about my interests more on here but am not sure what... shape that should ideally take? Text posts? IDK pls give me suggestions, help me out?? dfhasjkldf)

Movies

I have not seen many, but I can and will scream about The Old Guard over and over because... it was everything I never knew I needed in an action movie?? I don’t reblog many things about it anymore but I love love LOVED it!!

Also, upon recommendation by one of my friends from India, I have been delving into the world of Bollywood movies and WOW Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara was so fucking good??? idk if it’s on Netflix in every country but it is in mine and I highly recommend it. It’s thoughtful, honest, emotional and shot absolutely gorgeously, and it also has that cheesiness that is just... so good... sometimes you just need the cheese y’know???

(Side note, 2020 was the year I saw Pride and Prejudice (2005) for the first time and I am a changed woman. It is now my ultimate comfort movie. Please see it if you have not, I cannot believe it took me this long. I saw it for the first time on an airplane (in january... a lifetime ago) and have seen it many, many times since.)

TV Shows

So, to everyone’s shock but especially my own, I have not really been into TV lately? I watched The Boys because my brother recommended it (it’s good, but gorey and pulls no punches, the R rating is deserved), and recently started watching Jujutsu Kaisen because my sister recommended it (I haven’t watched a new anime in like a year which is kinda wild to me? But I am enjoying this one - the opening SLAPS and what I’ve seen so far has been fun! Plus I’m watching it with my sister and I like sending her reactions xD),,, and that’s pretty much it for this category?? I am aware there is a LOT of good shit out there I just.. .don’t seem to have the attention span for multiple episodes of a Thing these days. Meh. I’m sure it’ll come back to me eventually ^^

Musical Theater

One of the main reasons I think I haven’t been big into TV is because my Musical Passion is in FULL SWING (haha get it). Probably because the only thing that has remained for me during this quarantine is my singing lessons (and lemme tell you... over skype, that shit is ROUGH but still better than not singing at all) and I have been obsessing over learning new songs and finding shows through recommendations and compilation videos on youtube... So.

Shows I listen to a lot these days include Starry, Anastasia, The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, Come From Away (I made a post recently specifically about musicals, you should be able to find it under #French speaks) - specific songs in my range that I am currently learning and obsessing over include “Bring on the men” from Jekyll and Hyde, “The Mad Hatter” from Wonderland, “Show Yourself” from Frozen 2 (I liked it ok I DID), and “Go Tonight” from The Mad Ones (this one makes me cry... I’m making my sister duet it with me bc I can’t stop thinking about it).

Also, if you’re interested in hearing me sing things, head over to my instagram where I post covers (and also art)!!

(Musical people, I am curious to hear opinions about Great Comet, and also The Count of Monte Cristo - two shows I’ve been meaning to check out!)

Video Games

Listen. Animal Crossing New Horizons is awesome and I’m glad I have it (...give me Brewster back, Nintendo, or I WILL RIOT), but I have been branching out into other games for the Switch (might as well make this purchase worth it amirite) - current faves include Celeste (which is SO HARD but also SO FUCKING FUN) and Spiritfarer which I specifically bought to play at the hospital bc I knew I was going to be there for a few days, and let me tell you - best decision of 2020. Please watch the trailer if you haven’t heard of it, it’s GORGEOUS and beautiful and emotional and I loved every second of it. Both of these can also be purchased for PC and I think they are definitely worth the investment!!

In other news I’m back on my Stardew Valley bullshit. It’s just so calming.I revisit it a lot lmao

Books

So... I have been reading. A LOT. I read over 70 books this year, which for me is... average tbh? I have had some less productive reading months but overall I have torn through stuff and BOY do I have recommendations if you want them?? For the sake of brevity I will only mention a few here:

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space”. That is all. This was my first five star fiction book of the year and I will never be done screaming about it. There is a dedicated but smallish fandom here on tumblr and it deserves SO MUCH MORE. Please, please please. Everyone should read this damn book. It’s confusing in the beginning but I promise it’s worth it IT’S SO GOOD!! And also the sequel is out and it’s also confusing and SO GOOD!!!

Educated by Tara Westover. This is an autobiography and it’s one of those books that like. Stick in your mind for months after you’ve read it. It’s about how this woman escaped an abusive household that was religiously oppressive and also like... survivalist (prepping for the apocalypse) and avidly believed in conspiracy theories - by educating herself, working her way up to going to Harvard. Nothing I say could do the emotional impact of this book justice - and also just, the perspective this book gave me?? Incredible. Education is the most powerful tool and this woman grabbed it by the hair and did not let go and I was FLOORED. Everyone should read this. I don’t even usually read biographies but DAMN.

The Winternight trilogy by Katherine Arden.(Book 1 is called The Bear and the Nightingale). This is a bit of a slow burn type deal - it’s a retelling of a Russian fairy tale (I think?? Or like a folk... story? Something like that) and it is just. So magical. It’s not fast paced but it works up to FANTASTIC moments, the focus is on family and magic and change and “making your own way” and all three of these books were wonderful. It reminded me of Naomi Novic’s Uprooted and Spinning Silver (both of which I also loved back in 2019 and would highly recommend) and they are PERFECT winter reads if you’re looking for something to get cozy with. I liked book 1 well enough but books 2 and 3 knocked it out of the park. Fantastic. Loved them.

I have many more recs but this will do for now hahah

Music

Gonna keep this brief too - my music taste is all over the place, but here are some songs I have been obsessed with recently!! Beware of genre whiplash though because these are Very Different from one another (and different from the musical theater stuff above)

Factories - Autoheart (that bridge gets me every time, idk why. This is one I could have on repeat for hours and not get tired of it either. Something about it just gets me!!)

History Read - The Altogether (The lyrics!! Tbh the entire Silo album is GREAT, but this one is my fave. Their music is so... mellow, in the best way??)

Weather Man - Valley of Wolves (ok this one is just a banger. I’m a sucker for a good sing-along-able hook (that’s not a word. you get me though right) and this fucking DELIVERS. I also just think “I make these dark skies blue, I make these mountains move, let the rain come down, I’m pushing through.... [pause] ... ‘cause I’m the weather man” is such good execution of a concept?? That PAUSE GETS ME it’s just SO FUN?!?! idk man I like a good upbeat banger and this is that.)

I believe (get over yourself) - Nico Vega (this one is just a callout at myself tbh?? “you’re a fool” I AM and I needed to hear it?? It’s also SO FUN to sing!!! We love a banger.)

Kiss me you animal - Burn the Ballroom (mentioning this mainly because it reminded me, lyrically, of Gideon the Ninth and I need someone to confirm this for me before I go insane?? “everybody knows that home is where your teeth sink, love” - I mean c’mon??? Also it’s a banger. I do like some rock from time to time... and this also has a killer driving bassline. This is super fun to drive to, too!!)

((If we have overlap and anyone wants to exchange playlists with me - I am SO here for it. Always looking for new music!!! I mean it!!))

Youtube

Last and certainly not least... meet my newest hyperfixation!!! I have always loved watching video essays, and booktube videos, and arttube videos - and my current niche of favorite creators is the Polygon video team!! They made videos about video games and board games and anything gaming-related and I just. I’m only peripherally a “gamer(TM)” but I love anything and everything they create. (Also you don’t have to know much about video games to enjoy all of their content!! A lot of it is still accessible to Non-Gamers(TM) or casual gamers!) BDG is my new favorite creator, the Unraveled series he does on the channel is a work of genius - but I have also started watching their streams and older series and I am enjoying myself SO MUCH! I love boardgames so their series on them, Overboard, is so fun and entertaining (and I already know a bunch of games I want to buy based on seeing the gameplay), and it also made me invested in the other creators - particularly Simone, I would die for Simone?? And Pat? And Jenna? They each have their niche and they work really well together too and their videos are my Main Serotonin Machine in these trying times(TM), thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Also. If you’re already following me here and you are familiar with Polygon things I BEG YOU TO COME AND TALK TO ME ABOUT THEM because I am like, bursting, but I also don’t want to flood my dash with stuff that 99% of my followers are unfamiliar with y’know??

...I think I’m going to leave it at this - it’s already a lot!

But thank you once again for asking and for letting me Go Off about things I am interested in!! I just... I very often wish I could do this more, but I’m not sure how to go about it? Should I just do text posts about things?? Would that be interesting to anyone?? Or is that like, annoying? Should I start a review blog or something? dhfajkldhf I just want to talk about things that excite me, but whenever I’m here I often just stick to reblogging other people’s stuff... help?? What do y’all want to see??

[mychemicalimagines]

Happens Like That- Jim Halpert-Chapter 1

Summary: Jim Halpert and Melissa Ford have been best friends since he started at Dunder Mifflin in 1999. Now that a camera crew is following the employees around so they can film a documentary, do they finally tell each other their feelings? Or do they just let them go? Either way, what will become of these two best friends? 

Warnings: Cussing and Smut in later chapters.

Words: 2780

Tag List: @you-a-southpaw-doll @elskinner45 @imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl

A/N:I have NOT watched every single episode of The Office. Certain episodes will not have EVERYTHING that was done in the show and things might be wrong. Also Melissa Model Gifs are Sophia Bush...Her hair style and length will change. I look for her facial expression when I pick them. Please do not tell me this in the comments. There will be no Pam/Jim.

If you have any questions just message me. If you want to be tagged please send an ask or message me.

Pilot Episode 

No-One’s P.O.V.

Michael Scott walks into Dunder Mifflin Paper Products, a camera crew following along behind him. Everyone was informed a camera crew would be there so they can do a documentary on a Paper Products and their employees.

Michael smiles at the camera. “I’ve been at Dunder Mifflin for 12 years. The last four as Regional Manager. If you want to come through here…” He opens the door and walks through it, where two girls are sitting, Melissa Ford and Pam Beesley.

“So, this is my kingdom. As far as the eye can see. This is our receptionist, Pam Pam! Pam-Pam!” He says, doing an impression of Bam-Bam from The Flintstones, banging on the counter of the desk. “Pam Beesley. Pam has been with us forever. Right, Pam?” He asks, glancing, briefly, at the camera then back to the two girls.

“Um...well...I don’t know.” Pam says, looking at Melissa, then the camera, and finally at Michael.

“If you think she’s cute now, you should have seen her a few years ago!” 

Pam’s eyes widen at his comment. “What?”

Michael, however, doesn’t answer her. Instead, he just looks straight at the camera.

“This is Melissa. Mel. Melly. Melly Belly!” He chuckles, gesturing to Melissa. “Melissa Ford here is my personal assistant. Pam is getting married soon, so Mel here will becoming both assistant and receptionist.” Melissa smiles slightly at his words. “She’s been my assistant for 4 years and you were the regional manager assistant for…?”  Taking the cue to answer his train of thought, Mel nods and goes to speak, only to have him cut her off before she can. “Don’t care. You’re my assistant now. So, ladies any messages?”

“Um...yeah. Just a fax.” Pam replies, pulling a piece of paper off the fax machine and handing it to Michael.

“Pam! This is from Corporate. How many times have I told you? There’s a special filing cabinet.” He says, and looks up at Pam and Melissa.

“You...you haven’t told me…” Pam tries to say.

“What filing cabinet?” Melissa asks, looking confused.

“It’s called the waste paper basket!” He crumbles the paper up and throws it over their heads. They both look confused and shocked, which just has Michael laughing, and exclaiming, “Look at their faces!” before he walks away from the desk.

Melissa’s P.O.V.

I look at Pam and whisper, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to him.”

I look back at the computer screen she and I both share. About ten minutes later, one of our corporate leaders comes in, Jan Levinson-Gould. I quickly stand up.

“Hello, Jan!”

“Hello, Melissa, Pam.” She replies, smiling slightly.

“Michael is in his office.” I say.

“Thank you. Melissa, can you bring the agenda, please? And, Pam? I would like you to take notes.”

 With this, she turns and walks to Michael’s office. I reach over to the side of my desk and grab the planner. I hand Pam a notebook before we walk to Michael’s office and take a seat. 

“Was there anything you wanted to add to the agenda?” Jan asks Michael, who just bites his lip and rubs his thighs as he shifts in his seat.

“Umm...me no get an agenda.” He says.

“What? I’m sorry?” She says, clearly confused.

“I didn’t get an agenda.”

“I faxed you one this morning.” Jan says, glancing at Pam and I.

“Really?!? I didn’t...Did we get a fax this morning?” Michael asks, looking at us.

“Uh...ye-” Pam tries to tell him, but he just cuts her off.

“Why isn’t it in my hand?” He demands, looking at Pam before averting his gaze to Jan. “A company runs on the efficiency of communication, right? So, what’s the problem, Pam? Melissa? Why didn’t I get it?”

Pam and I both share a look before I look back at Michael and explain why he doesn’t have a copy in his hand.

“You put it in the garbage can since that was ‘the special filing cabinet’.” 

“Yeah. That was a joke.” He tries to say, but he chuckles a little. “That was a joke. That was actually my brother’s and it was bills. It doesn’t work with faxes.”

After that, Jan offers to let him use her paper, and they begin talking about downsizing the company. I look at Pam and swallow deeply. Oh no.  About an hour later, I look up as I hear the scraping of a ruler on a desk. Dwight is using his ruler to push Jim’s papers back onto his own desk. 

Dwight Schrute is the Assistant to the Regional Manager. I’m the Regional Manager’s Assistant. Dwight likes to remind me at least once a week that there is a difference. To me, they’re the same, but just worded differently.  I just don’t do any sales calls like Dwight does.

Jim Halpert is one of the top sales people here at the company. He is also my best friend. He and I are always pulling pranks on Dwight. The main reason is to get a rise out of Dwight. Jim rolls his eyes and finishes his sales call, before he looks at Dwight.

“Your papers are on my desk!” Dwight huffs in explanation,  still pushing the papers back on to Jim’s desk. 

“It’s not on your desk!” Jim replies.

“It’s overlapping. Its spilling over the side!” Dwight says loudly, finally getting the piles of papers onto Jim’s desk.

Jim just rolls his eyes and stands up. He walks straight over to me.

“Melissa, you wouldn’t happen to... you know...have a pack of pencils?” Jim says, smirking.

“Well...James, as a matter of fact, I do have a pack of pencils,” I say, and open the drawer to my right. “They’re unsharpened, though.”

“Well, if you could, could you help me sharpen them?” He asks.

I smirk and pull out two sharpeners, handing one to Jim. For the next ten minutes or so, Jim and I sharpen about 20 pencils. He takes the pencils, kisses my head and walks back to his desk. 

Pam turns to me and says quietly, “You like him!”

“What?” I giggle, nervously, “Nooo!”

“Yessss,” Pam says smiling and pokes my side.

“Alright, alright!” I giggle and nod. “I do!”

Pam smirks and leans back into her chair and crosses her arms, “Since when?”

I blush and look away, mumbling my answer.

“What was that, Miss Ford?” Pam smiles, and crosses her legs.

“Since the day he started?” I glance at her.

“Wait? Really?”

I nod and giggle.

I’ve always had a crush on Jim. He started about a year after I did and when the old RM hired him I just knew he’d be the one for me. I’ve been too nervous to do anything about it. I just became his best friend. 

He’s so sweet and funny. He’s always been so nice to me. I’ve always wondered why he hasn’t had a girlfriend since working here. I look up as I hear a desk moving. Jim moves his desk just enough to fit the pencils between the desks.

Dwight must have went to the bathroom. He has already taped most of the pencils, sharp side up, on his work phone and I think on his mug. He manages to get about 6 or 7 pencils in between the desks when Dwight walks back over. 

“You can’t do that!” Dwight exclaims, sitting back down. 

“Why not?” Jim asks, looking over at him then leans back into his chair.

“Safety Violation. I could fall and pierce an...organ.” Dwight says, hesitantly.

“We’ll see,” Jim says, crossing his fingers.

Dwight glares slightly then grabs his phone and start slamming it down on the pencils so they fall to the floor. Jim smirks and glances up at me. I giggle to myself. I glance behind Jim as Michael exits his office. 

He walks straight to Pam and I’s desk. “Pam...messages?” 

I stand up, not caring about the messages that I’ve been staring at for twenty minutes. I walk past Jim’s desk, messing up his hair as he takes a sales call. He looks up and smiles at me. I wink and walk to the break room. 

I start making a fresh pot of coffee and reach into a cabinet getting my favorite coffee cup that I stashed in there. I hear the door open and looks over. Jim walks in smiling.

“Hey,” He says, walking closer and leans against the counter.

“Hey!” I smile.

“So...are we still on for a movie and Chinese tonight?” He asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“It is Friday...so...” I smirk, looking toward the coffee machine as it beeps.

“Just making sure. I was thinking we could watch that new movie ‘The Longest Yard’?” 

“Sure! Should I wear a football jersey?” I tease. “Remember! It’s at your house this week!”

“I know, I know.” he chuckles.

I fill my coffee cup and Jim walks me toward the door. Just as we walk out of the breakroom, Michael walks out of his office. 

He cups his mouth, calling out, “Attention all Dunder Mifflin employees! We have a meeting in the conference room ASAP!” 

Jim and I glance at each other and sigh. I walk over and place my cup on Jim’s desk, and steal a piece of paper along with one of the pens he has. He places his hand on my lower back and ushers me into the conference room. 

We walk straight to the back into our usual area. I sit down in the chair Jim pulls out for me. He leans against the wall right behind my chair. Ever since he started here, and we became best friends, this is how our meetings would be. 

Unless there’s more chairs, and he can sit next to me with his arm behind me, lightly resting against my upper back, he just stands behind me. Everyone piles into the room and I lean back in my chair. 

Jim leans down and whispers, “I bet this has something to do with the message you sent me this morning.” 

I nod in agreement; he’s probably right. After the last person sits down, Michael walks in and stands in front of the room. 

“Now I know there’s some rumors out there, and I just kind of want to set the record straight.” He says.

Dwight stand up and walks straight to Michael, “I’m Assistant Regional Manager, I should know first.” 

Michael sighs, “Assistant TO THE Regional Manager.” 

I sigh before looking up at Jim and mouthing, “1,846.” 

He nods to me but shakes his head. Since Dwight was promoted, Jim started helping me keep track of how many times Dwight has said he was Assistant Regional Manager. When he was promoted, Michael even said he was just Assistant to the Regional Manager. I look back at Michael and Dwight.

“Okay. Um..Can you tell me please? Just tell me quietly. Can you whisper it in my ear?” Dwight says, leaning toward him.

“I’m about to tell everybody. I’m just about to tell everybody,” Michael says, irritated.

One of the accounting guys, Oscar, says “Can’t you just tell us?”

“Please. Okay. Do you want me to tell them?” Dwight says.

Michael laughs, “You don’t know what it is!”

“Okay you tell them with my permission.” He says, stepping back. 

“He doesn’t need your permission, Dwight.” I say, shaking my head.

“Thank you, Mel,” Michael says, smiling at me.

Dwight glare slightly. “I’m Assistant Regional Manager. You’re just the Regional Manager’s Assistant. Shut up.” 

I roll my eyes.

“She knows what this meeting is about. So you shut up.” Jim says.

I smile up at Jim. He winks at me. 

Michael looks at Dwight. “He’s not wrong. Anyway! Corporate has deemed it appropriate to enforce an ultimatum upon me. And Jan is thinking about downsizing either the Stamford branch or this branch.”

Oscar speaks up after a second, “Yeah...but...Michael, what if they downsize here?” 

Everyone starts asking if they do downsize here and what they should do. I look up at Jim. He looks down at me and sighs.

He starts rubbing my back and whispers, “Don’t worry. We got this.”

Michael starts lying out his ass then ends the meeting.

Noone’s POV

  The camera crew stops Jim and has him come back into the conference room for an interview. He smiles at Melissa who goes back to her and Pam’s desk where she starts looking at her emails. Jim sits down and one of the camera guys ask him a question.

“If I left, what would I do with all this useless information in my head? You know? Tonnage price of manila folders? Umm... Melissa’s favorite flavor of yogurt..which is vanilla.”

It cuts to Jim looking over at Melissa from his desk and there she is, eating her vanilla yogurt.

Next Melissa is sitting in the conference room a little while later.

“Jim said Vanilla?” She laughs. “He probably knows me better than anyone else.”

Melissa’s POV

I walk out of the bathroom when I hear Dwight bitching again. I sigh and look over. I see Dwight’s stapler in a thing of Jello. I smirk and walk over to my desk. Last night Jim came over and we did this prank together...again. 

We’ve done this multiple times but Dwight never suspects me. I look over to see Dwight talking to Michael and the New Temp while Jim eats one of the Jello packs he stole from my house.

I giggle, look back down and start playing Solitaire on the computer. After Michael makes dessert jokes, Jim walks over to me. 

“What time are you coming over?” He asks, leaning on the desk.

“Umm. 6:30?” I ask, looking up at him.

“That’s fine with me.” He says. “I’ll order the food as soon as I get home.”

“Great! I’ll stop and get the movie and change.”

Before Jim can reply, Michael steps out of his office.

“Melissa. Can you come here please?”

I look up at Jim confused, but I stand up and walk straight to Michaels office.

“Yes, Michael?” I ask, taking a seat in the chair next to him.

“So, umm...as you know, we might be downsizing. And Jan says we gotta start with you. I know you’ve been here for awhile but it’s time to pack your desk.” Michael says, and looks down, but I can see him watching me from the corner of his eye.

“Alright. Bye!” I stand up.

“Wait! You’re being X Punked! It was all Ryan’s idea!” Michael points to the New Temp. 

I glance over. “Wait? I’m not fired?”

Michael shakes his head. “No! What would I do without my hot assistant?! You’re never getting fired!”

I sigh to myself. “Damn. Thanks Michael.”

“You’re very welcome, Melissa.” Michael smiles. “Can you send Pam in?”

“Sure!” I walk out. “Pam. Michael needs to see you.”

Pam looks confused but walks around the desk, over to us.

I stop her for a second and whisper. “Don’t believe him. He’s lying. Just cry alright?” 

Pam nods and walks into Michael’s office, closing the door. I look at Jim who is looking confused. I kneel down.

“Michael tried to pull a prank saying I was fired, but I was gonna walk.” I whisper.

He nods. “Gotcha. What did I hear about ‘hot assistant’?”

“He said ‘what would I do without my hot assistant?’ Apparently I’m never getting fired.”

He laughs. “What can I do to become a hot assistant?”

“Get a hotter ass.” I smirk and stand up, then walk to my desk when Pam walks out. She has tears falling down her face. She smirks at me and walks over. 

“Thanks for the heads up. I made him cry a little.” 

I wink and look at the time. It’s now 5 o’clock and everyone but Jim and I were leaving. We notice the camera crew was still there. They weren’t leaving until everyone else officially leaves. 

Jim shrugs and waves the camera over. “Come on.” 

He grabs a plate from his desk that has a towel covering it. We walk into Michael’s office and Jim lays the plate on the desk and uncovers it. It has Michael’s World’s Best Boss mug in a thing of orange jello.

“So that’s where the extra box went!” I say, giggling. 

Jim smirks. “Let’s go.” 

We both walk to our own desks and grab our coats. I grab my purse and walk with Jim to the door. He opens it for me and then places his hand on my lower back, walking me to my car.