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no-thoughts-only-soup · 8 months

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To Secure / Risk It All

Chapter 8

Aka Curt has another panic attack.

———————————————

It was impossible. It had to be some sort of cruel prank. Because there was no way Chilly Panda was alive.

He wanted to believe she was. That despite all that happened, all evidence saying otherwise, that she had somehow escaped their clutches. Maybe she had somehow called upon her raptors. Maybe she had lived through it, and they hadn’t noticed. Maybe-

“Yeeeaaaaaaas!”

A chorus of cheers erupted throughout the room.

“We’re six now ya’ll!” Den cheered loudly, patting the monitor.

“There is SIX of us and 5 dozen of THEM.” Christian laughed.

Ivan rolled his eyes, though he couldn’t keep a straight face. “Damn, you couldn’t even stay dead?”

- Bitch. -

- 凸(⊙▂⊙✖ ) -

“They couldn’t even kill off Chilly.” Kristine pointed out with a giggle.

“Yeah why the hell did we go through all of that if you’re not even dead?” Christian joked, leaning in closer and tapping on the screen.

Ivan floated next up to him. “Bruh does that mean I died for fucking nothing?”

“Don’t forget Curt having an actual panic attack.” Den pointed over her shoulder at Curt.

At any other time, he would have joined in. Joined in with the laughter. Joined in with the jokes. But it felt like all energy had been sapped away from him, leaving him with just enough to keep standing.

She’s alright. They were still laughing and joking. She isn’t dead. They felt so far away. You didn’t fail her. Everything still felt so heavy.

Den shoved Christian aside. For whatever reason, the action snapped him out of his thoughts. Gathering whatever he still had left, he stepped closer. Kristine took a step aside to let him get closer, and he caught a glimpse of her face.

A smile on her face, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

Was it a pang of guilt? Of remorse for ever helping the Foundation? Was it longing? For being more than a replacement for a lost friend? Was it a feeling of being an outsider? For not being able to understand some of the inside jokes? Or was it a mix of many things?

Curt didn’t know and he chided himself for trying to pry. Those weren’t his feelings to figure out.

“But where are you Chilly? From where are you typing this?”

“Yeah, how the hell do we get out?” Ivan asked.

That was a bit of silence. And finally typing.

- actually… -

Curt felt immense dread in his stomach.

- I’m really dead -

The air around them felt cold. Oppressive.

“Wh-“ Ivan began, but Chilly was already typing again.

- they ran a bunch of tests on me. dunno why and I don’t remember what exactly killed me, but I died. been haunting the facility since -

Curt swallow some spit into his dry throat. “Y-you… they tested you because you’re an SCP like us. To see if you could survive i-if you’re not in a scenario…”

- well clearly not :P -

He couldn’t laugh. He knew she was trying to lighten up the atmosphere, but he couldn’t bring himself to laugh.

He wasn’t alone in that. The closest was a slight, clearly forced smile on some of them.

“So,” Ivan interrupted the silence “are you a ghost like me now?”

- nah it’s different -

- it’s like -

Stop. Backspace.

- well -

Backspace.

- I’m kinda like a more cliché ghost? I can’t talk to u guys outside of this computer, I’m pretty much invisible, I dunno -

Heavy. It felt heavy. The air felt heavy.

A hand grabbed his wrist, grabbing Curt’s attention. He glanced over. Den still had her eyes on the screen, but the hand she had wrapped around his wrist said all that needed to be said. He choose not to address it, letting her keep him grounded.

It allowed him to focus. “Wait, maybe we can fix this. If you join us, maybe you’ll go back to life after we close the scenario.”

“Could work.” Ivan noted. “But we need her body too, right?”

“Chilly, you know what happened to your body?” Den asked her.

Pause.

- not really. I was drugged the fuck up for the whole thing -

No. He refused.

“Kristine,” he turned to her, “do you have any idea where it could be?”

She shifted around a bit, eyes looking in his direction but not really meeting his eyes. “No, I wasn’t allowed near the research stations…”

- curt, arent YOU the b-class? shouldn’t YOU know? -

“Do you think I would ask if I knew!?” He snapped at her, then leaned forward to type at another computer. “Come on, there’s gotta be a way to figure it out…”

The screens flicked from camera to camera, each adding to the growing pit of dread in Curt’s stomach. Every camera he checked, there were armed guards. There had to be something. Anything. They wouldn’t—

“Curt,” Den’s voice called out to him “they probably got rid of her body. I don’t wanna be a downer but—“

“They wouldn’t.” He cut her off. “Her body would be too valuable for that. T-They’d research it…”

“But that’s against the safety rules!” Kristine argued.

“Well clearly Snee doesn’t care about any damn rules!”

Come on, come on! It couldn’t be gone, it should still be there somewhere! He could still fix this, he could-

Christian grabbed his arm. “Dude, stop for a sec.”

Curt pulled his arm back.

“Oi, don’t fucking ignore me.” Christian said, grabbing Curt’s shoulder and forcefully turning him away from the computer. “Listen to me. I know you want to help Chilly, we all do! But we can’t help anyone if we get recaptured. We have to get the hell out!”

“AND LEAVE HER BEHIND!?” Curt roared at him.

Christian flinched from the sudden loud yell, and Curt took the chance to pull his arm away from his grasp. He glared at all of them.

“If we don’t get her out now we may never get that chance again! What the hell is wrong with you guys, am I the only one who fucking cares about her!?”

“Do you?” Christian snapped at him. “Or are you just trying to fix your ‘mistakes’ so you can stop feeling guilty?”

The silence was deafening. A knife wouldn’t be enough to cut through the tension. Everyone’s eyes were on Curt.

He wanted to reply. Make some snapping remark that of course he was doing this for Chilly. That of course he wasn’t doing this for some stupid sense of guilt. For making up to the fact it was his—

But the nasty part within him muted him before he could speak.

He has a point, doesn’t he?

So instead, he turned back to the computer. “…Both. And does it matter, the end result is still the sa—YEOUCH!”

An electric shock went through his hand, not strong enough to numb his arm, but still enough to sting. He shook out his hand. And then he saw Chilly typing.

- curt, leave it. it’s ok -

“Wha- No, its not ok!”

- no really. because, actually… -

There was a long pause.

- I’ve been thinking of taking a break from the group anyways -

He couldn’t breathe.

“Chilly…” Den whispered softly.

- it’s not because of you guys! I dunno how to best explain it, but it’s like, wanting to rediscover myself??? do some soulsearching??? trying to fuck around on my own and seeing what happens? if that makes sense??? -

Ivan raised an eyebrow. “You sure it’s not because of all the bullying?”

The computer vibrated with laughter.

- LMAOOOOO U COULDNT BULLY ME OUT IF YUO TRIED ಥ‿ಥ -

Den grinned and tried to nudge Ivan’s ghostly form. “We’d bully you out first.”

- absolutely (๑´• .̫ •ू`๑) -

- but fr don’t worry about me. ( ͒꒪̛ཅ꒪̛ ͒) if anything I can now go literally fucking anywhere I want and if I wanna be alive again we’ll just infiltrate this bitch -(๑☆‿ ☆#)ᕗ -

Den’s eyes sparkled. “Dude you can haunt a Starbucks.”

- KSNDBKSBSVKSJDBS SCRATCH ALL PLANS IM DOING THAT ⊹⋛⋋( ՞ਊ ՞)⋌⋚⊹ -

As Den, Ivan and Chilly laughed and teased, Curt felt like he was slipping. Everything felt like it was fading away. Their voices felt like they were melting together. The room felt like it was tilting.

No, no, no, he couldn’t fall into another attack now! They were on borrow time, at any moment the guards could barge in and—

But he was losing control. He was losing control. He was losing control. Losing control. Losing control. Control. Control. Control control control control control control control “Hey.” control control control control control control control control control control control control “hey!”

Christian moved into his vision. “Do you need to sit down for a moment?”

Curt stopped, his breath still uneven. His eyes flickered towards the others. They were still talking, but he caught the occasional glances they snuck at him. He stumbled back a little, getting some distance from the situation.

Almost without a single sound, Christian joined him, gently helping him breathe through it. Bit by bit, he pushed down the fear and panic once more.

He was definitely gonna throw up once they got out. If.

No. He steadied himself. We are going to get out. We will get out… or die trying.

And with a last deep breath, he locked eyes with Christian. The question went unspoken, but so did the answer. He stepped forward, interrupting the conversation between the others.

“It won’t be long before Snee finds us. We need a plan, stat.”

Ivan bit his lip. “We can’t get out through any of the exits. Maybe we could try a window.”

“We’d first need to get out of the panic room though.” Den pointed out. “Chilly, are there any guards heading in our direction?”

The computer was still for a moment.

- yeah, there’s a few getting close. doubt y’all are getting out without a fight -

Den crackled her knuckles upon hearing that, but Curt cut her off. “There is no way we can barge through so many. It’s too dangerous.”

“Do we have a choice though?” Ivan questioned.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Kristine suddenly shouted, raising her hand in the air like a desperate student. “If we can pretty much create whatever we want, why don’t we just make a teleporter?”

There was a silence of more than 10 seconds as everyone gaped at her.

Curt sunk to his knees, covering his face with his hands. “OH MY GOOOOOOOD!”

Everyone around him descended into hysterical laughter, Den and Christian even throwing in a “looooser!”, and even Chilly displaying a large L on the screen.

“WHY DIDNT I THINK OF THAT WHYYYYYYYYYY!”

“Ok, ok, I am holding this one against you dude.” Christian laughed.

Curt sighed deeply. “I am so fucking done y’all.

The laughter finally faded enough for Curt to stand up, sigh, and look at Kristine.

“Alright Kristine, how do you wanna do this?”

She thought, but only for a split second. “Can our teleporter be a 2004 Toyota Accord Sedan?”

It immediately prompted another round of giggles and chuckled, and even Curt felt the corners of his mouth move. “Sure, sure. Everyone, stand back a bit.”

Once everyone had made room, Curt spoke: “Alright, so Kristine summons her trusty teleporting 2004 Toyota Sedan…”

The car popped into existence, pushing all of them back even further.

“Shotgun!” Den immediately yelled, followed by Christian pouting over it. Kristine cheered and made her way over to the driver’s seat.

Curt was about to join, but then paused. No. He had to say it. He turned to Chilly instead.

“Chilly,” he began, his heart feeling as heavy as lead “I know I’m not directly responsible for what happened to you. But maybe if I had stepped up sooner, figured it out sooner, then maybe we could have escaped before your death. I’m…” his voice cracked “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t prevent this.”

There was a break in the storm of laughter. All eyes were focused on him and Chilly. Waiting for what she’d say.

And she finally typed.

- BITCH DO YOU NOT THINK I WOULDNT FUCKING HAUNT YOUR ASS IF I BLAMED YOU EVEN A LITTLE???? -

“Wh-“

- CURT FFS HOW LONG HAVE WE KNOWN EACH OTHER??? HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN BULLYING EACH OTHER??? DO U SERIOUSLY NOT THINK I WOULDNT TAKE THIS EXCUSE???? -

“I…I…” he stuttered.

- curt, I don’t blame u for shit so stop being such a sad sack about it -

She didn’t blame him. She wasn’t mad. She could’ve been. She should have been.

But she wasn’t.

- not even I’m blaming you so stop blaming urself already dumbass -

“Chilly…”

He took a deep breath… and smiled. “Thank you.”

Curt suddenly felt something warm against his chest, wrapping itself around him. And even though he knew how stupid he’d look, he hugged back.

It was gone before he knew it, but Christian next to him shifted, grinning ear to ear as held up one crooked arm, akin to how he would sling his arm around his neck. “Girl I better hear on the news how you haunted the White House.”

“You gotta get on an episode of Ghost Hunters.” Den laughed, and then grinned as Chilly’s spirit hugged her next.

When she moved on to Ivan, Curt could finally get a glimpse of her.

She was happy.

Ivan ruffled her head, or at least that’s what he intended, complaining how he was gonna get the full buttmonkey treatment. “Now I don’t got you to divert some of it, they’re all gonna focus on me now.”

And finally, Kristine held up her hand, only a little awkwardly. From the way she beamed, Chilly gave her the high five.

“I’ll bully them in your place.” She proudly vowed.

There was a quick moment of warmth again as she quickly phased through all of them…

And she was gone.

Curt exhaled slowly. And jumped as a loud BANG sounded from the door.

“Ok we gotta get the fuck outta here.”

“Kristine take the wheel!” Den yelled as she jumped into the passenger’s seat, Christian still complaining as he got into the back.

Kristine got into the driver’s seat with a laugh, and Curt went to sit right behind her. Ivan of course couldn’t actually enter the car, but he hang onto the roof anyways.

The door broke down just as Kristine started the car. Curt flipped them off. And a second later, the car and all those inside vanished from the room, and from the facility.

——————————————————-

I was gonna end the chapter somewhere else originally, but I’ve tortured you guys with my absences enough.

Wil edit properly once I got time.

#recreyo #recreyo fic #recreyo au #recreyo scp au #recreyo scp #curt richy #ivan animated #cypherden #frugalaesthetics #k.fel #chilly panda #panic attack #scp recreyo

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sovengardeswag · 2 months

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The Pines Files

After the events of Weirdmaggeddon, Dipper and Mabel are contacted by the SCP foundation and join the ranks. The adventure never ended, it just took a different turn. And now, years later, they're back to Gravity Falls, aka SCP-████. And it is up to them to investigate the ever-growing mystery behind the town and protect the most dangerous and important SCPs there are and face their past.

Chapter 3: Business as Usual

Dinner had not been the awkward, miserable, and accusatory event that Dipper’s anxiety had convinced him it would be. In fact, it was downright pleasant. The places to eat in Gravity Falls weren’t exactly endless, even with expansion, but the town certainly had new places at least, including a Cheesecake Warehouse. The tacky Greco-Roman-Egyptian-80’s ostentatiousness of the place was almost a comfort after the last five years of his dingy [redacted] apartment or the site-19 cafeteria. He took a breath of the restaurant air and went up to the hostess, quickly tucking in his dress-shirt when he noticed it was displaced. “Uh, hi, I’m here to meet up with a party of 4. It would be under the name Pines?”

The young woman looked up from her computer then, asking Dipper, “For 6 o’clock, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“Right this way, sir,” She led Dipper to where Mabel and his grunkles were waiting, Mabel’s charm bracelet jingling as she waved to him, “Dipper! You made it!”

“Course I did! I’m not a flake.” Dipper sat down, taking a menu from the hostess and flipping through the unreasonable number of pages. “Did you guys order yet?”

“Nah, we just got here,” said Stan.

“That’s good. I got kind of turned around on the way here, it’s been a while, ya know?”

“No need to apologize, Stanley and I almost got lost as well. It didn’t help that he tried to find us a shortcut.”

“I’m telling you, Sixer, it would have worked if someone hadn’t started building a bunch of traffic lanes there.

Dipper couldn’t help but laugh a little, it seemed nothing changed with these two. “Was the construction near the lake?”

“Yeah, it was, something about making it easier to go there or something.”

“Speaking of water,” Mabel added, grabbing a piece of pumpernickel from the basket. “How was this year’s trip? I wanna hear everything! How was Armand? Was it the tearful, historical romance style reunion I’m thinking of?”

“Actually, Stanley almost rammed us into a rocky island off the coast of California.”

“Oh, come on, I said I was sorry!”

“It’s not judgment, Stanley, no one can resist a siren song and Armand had everyone stop when he realized it was me.”

“Made them stop? Is he their king or something?” Dipper asked out of curiosity.

Ford clarified, “No, not a king. Sirens operate as fully autonomous anarcho-communes-”

Stan then interjected, “Basically, they’re hippies and it was his ex’s turn with the conch.”

“Well, I think it’s romantic that he recognized you after all this ti- Dipper are you seriously taking notes?”

“No," Dipper lied, quickly putting his pen and notepad back in his pocket. Stan laughed at his embarrassment before he admitted, "Sorry, it’s kind of hard to turn off the whole, ‘take notes on everything and anything weird,’ mentality.”

“Nah kid, it’s fine, you’ve been doing this as long as I’ve known you. Of course, you’re gonna take notes on mermaids.”

“Sirens, Stanley.”

“He gets my point.”

Dipper took his notepad and pen back out of his pocket, clicking the pen before asking, “Can you tell me about the anarcho-communes? Is that universal among sirens or just Armand’s community?”

“Is everyone ready to order?” Interrupted the waiter right on time.

Dipper set his notepad aside, quickly looking over the drinks menu, “Uh, yeah, I’ll have the,” he squinted, “the super-skinny-you’ll-forget-you-had-kids margarita?”

“And I’ll have a pitt-cola please,” added Mabel.

“And two beers for us,” Ford finished off, the waiter nodding and leaving.

“Still not drinking, Pumpkin?”

“Yeah, absolutely not. Besides, someone’s gotta be the designated driver around here.”

“You got me there.”

And just like that, things were almost, well, normal. To say he felt 12 again would be a lie but what it did remind Dipper of was being 17 and about to go off to college, like this kind of thing would last forever, even if his knees hurt sometimes now. He enjoyed his oversized meal and was just allowed to feel happy. He didn’t even mention work, it came up when Ford mentioned it. “By the way, Dipper, are you going to be working with Dr. Clef?”

“I don’t know, why?”

“Oh, no reason. I just met him a few times when he worked for the GOC. He would have been very young at the time, I’m not sure if he would remember me.”

“I’ll say hi if I see him.”

Mabel butted in then, saying, “And if Dipper doesn’t see him but I do, I’ll say it.”

The next morning, Mason headed straight to work. It was almost surprising how quickly he adjusted back to routine. When he arrived at the staff room to await his assignment, he even found that he was early, knowing the town like the back of his hand, minus that little hiccup from yesterday. With people mostly just milling around the staffroom and not sure what else to do until assignments were handed out, he scrolled through his phone, checking the comments on his neglected YouTube channel. He almost didn’t notice that someone said something to him. “Oh, sorry, what was that?”

The person who spoke to him was a woman of about 25. “I asked if you’re a local,” she said.

“Uh, no, not really, I’m from California. I used to spend summers here though. Why?”

“Oh, you just seemed like you were,” she clarified. “I’m new and almost got lost on the way here. I should have expected it but this town’s layout is kind of weird.”

“Eh, you’ll get used to it. To tell you the truth, this is my first day at this facility. I was transferred from site-19, so we’re both having a first day.”

“Wow, really? I wish my first assignment was there. I read through some of the containment procedures, it seems like some of the objects there would be amazing to work with."

“Some of them can be. Others are just awful. They can’t all be coffee machines that give you dragon’s blood.”

“True, but still- “

It was then that attention was called to the front of the staff room by a member of HR, “Alright everyone, eyes up here! Since everyone’s new here, I’ll speak nice and clear, but I’ll only call your name and department once. If you miss me, check your employee portal within the next 15 minutes. If you mess that up, then I don’t know what to tell you. Get a job somewhere else. Preferably someplace you don’t have to pay attention.” And just like that, he started, “Anderson, Gnome Relations.”

Mason made a face at the harshness of it all. It wasn’t like they were D-class who couldn’t be trusted. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the image of the D-class choking on his own blood forced itself forward, and he got a sinking feeling in his stomach. He put his phone back in his pocket and just stood there, waiting with his own thoughts. Then, he was called, “Pines, Special Projects!”

Now, that got Mason’s attention. He knew that there was some sort of project here being worked on, as the woman he had been speaking to had been called to special projects too, but he hadn’t been told about anything specific he was working on. Only that he was now a general researcher. Either way, he went up to the HR rep and grabbed his assignment sheet. There it was, clear as day, special project headed by Dr. Jack Bright. Lab number 586. But he still wondered what this project was about. With there being only one way to find out, he headed to lab 586 as fast as he could.

When he arrived, he found that he was the last one there. He also noticed that, with the exception of a dark-haired man wearing an amulet, he had seen everyone else in the staff room, but it was only the young woman who had talked to him.

It was Dr. Bright, for who else would be wearing that amulet, who greeted him first. “Ah, there’s the man of the hour. It’s good to meet you, Dr. Pines.” He shook Mason’s hand.

Dr. Bright then looked to the other researchers, “Ok, now that everyone’s here, let’s establish our specialties.”

Mason looked to the other researchers, two women, and one man. The middle-aged woman spoke first, “Lucia Gonzalez, specialist in magical barriers.”

The man spoke next, “Peter Cheng, cryptozoologist.”

And lastly, “Katie Benson, forcefield engineer.”

And Mason finally added, “Mason Pines, specialty in general anomalies.”

Dr. Bright corrected him, “Actually, that’s not why you’re here.”

“Huh?”

“You’re here because you’re our leading most expert in SCP-[REDACTED].”

“Wait, really?”

Bright nodded, “Of course. None of the other researchers here are locals and everyone who was there during; what’d you call it in your research? Weirdmaggedon? Transferred out, retired, or quit. So that leaves you.”

“Oh, huh.” Mason had a realization about their group. A cryptozoologist, an engineer, and a specialist in magical barriers. “I’m guessing our work has to do with the containment barrier.”

“Exactly!” Bright then addressed the team as a whole. “Ladies and gentleman, we are trying to replicate the barrier that prevents escape from this site. This will make containment breaches a nigh impossibility.”

While Dr. Gonzalez and Dr. Chen looked impressed and Katie looked like she’d been told she was going to be crowned queen of the elves and worshipped for all her days, Mason had a question. “Um, Dr. Bright, not to be rude or anything but I already see a problem. The barrier isn’t exactly picky. If we make one, anomalous staff won’t be able to leave the site.”

“And that’s why this is a research project and not a building project. Part of our job here is figuring out how to make it selective. Good thinking though.”

Mason could certainly understand that. Magic barriers like the one around Gravity Falls were feasible, if finicky, and forcefields were practically child’s play in this line of work. A selective magical barrier that could be activated at any site? That would be quite a feat. And it seemed his colleagues agreed, as Katie piped up, “Where do we start?”

“We need to review literature and footage first. I have the physical files over there,” he pointed to a box on one of the tables, “and video footage should have been sent to your secure portal by now. Don’t hesitate to tell me if we need anything else.”

Mason headed straight to the case files, taking out the first one he saw. He knew that coming to Gravity Falls would be the change of pace he needed. And would you look at that, the first file was labeled June 1st, 2012.

It was an incident in which a gnome seemingly attempted to build a tunnel under the town in order to leave for some unknown purpose. Apparently, the little guy tried for days before giving up. If he had to guess from the timeline though, he was probably heading out to look for a queen. Mason called out to Dr. Bright, who was looking over footage on his laptop and taking notes, “Hey, is there any way for me to edit these incident reports?”

Dr. Bright paused his video and told him, “You’re gonna have to put in a request in the foundation portal. But some of these aren’t on the staff wiki so you’ll have to retype them.”

“Damn,” he wrote down what he knew in his notes instead. He’d have to make that request later. But this report at least told him something. The barrier went below the town. “Do we know how deep the barrier goes?”

Dr. Hernandez looked up from her own file, “What do you mean deep?”

“A gnome tried to get out in the early 2010s by tunneling but couldn’t. File says he tried to use a drill made out of sticks, acorn bits, and unicorn horn shed. Obviously, it didn’t work but it means the barrier extends underground.”

Katie looked up, questioning, “Wait, acorn bits?”

She went unaddressed as Dipper went on to say, “The question is though, how far down does it go? And is there a floor like a fish tank?”

“Shit, you’re right,” Bright stopped watching his video entirely and went to the files, sorting through them, “Everyone, look through the files about the amber dinosaurs. It could be that the floor could be down the mineshaft.”

Dr. Chen began furiously typing at his laptop then, knowing exactly which file to access. “Hold on, I’ve got it. It’s under SCP-[REDACTED]-118. The mine goes to 1500 meters and there has never been digging from anomalies at the maximum depth, but that could be due to a lack of food.

Katie then pointed out, “Shouldn’t we start with the ship? I mean, it might be the source of the barrier, so it makes the most sense to start checking there.”

“That’s a good point. So that gives us two options for the initial study. Either we can go to the crash site or we can go see the bottom of the mineshaft.”

“Why not both,” asked Mason. “I mean, even if we can find a definitive answer at only one site, it can be worth checking to see the limits of the barrier at two different points.”

“Well, that settles it then. We’ve got some field trips to plan. I say we start with the crash site, rule out that possibility and maybe see if we can find any working equipment, especially anything that might be generating a barrier. Then we can test the mineshaft.”

Barely an hour in and Mason had already arranged two fieldtrips for this little project. As he smiled to himself, he thought that he was in for a good time.

Agent Mabel Pines was not having a good time. She was almost late to her shift after Baby escaped her house and had to be wrangled back inside. Then she was late when someone’s tractor got stuck in the middle of the road. On top of that, today was supposed to be boring. As a member of MTF team Mu-Alpha-Epsilon, which specialized in the maintenance of magical creatures, one would think Mabel would be spending all her time wrangling something but alas, that was not the case. Today was contraband day, meaning she would have to go through boxes and boxes of gnome hats and goblin claws and all manner of magical body parts both antique and contemporary. Check if it was the real thing or a forgery and report accordingly for further action. And she was supposed to do that all day. As she ran into the contraband room, wearing a sparkly blue sweater over a white work blouse and a black pencil skirt, she looked around to make sure no one noticed her lateness. Luckily, no one did so she set to it, looking through the closest box. Unicorn horns. Great.

Unicorn horns were always a huge pain in the ass. Their similarity to narwhal tusks made them hard to check visually. They weren’t allowed to bring headphones into the contraband room, so that made audio inspection a tedious option, especially since they had to be careful to not damage the horns. She already felt like she was developing brain fog. And then her superior walked over, and she sighed. “Look, Reg, I’m sorry for being late, it won’t happen again.”

“Actually, I didn’t notice you were late,” said Reg. “You’re needed in the field today. Dr. Clef wants your expertise for a project in the unicorn grove.”

Expertise? Mabel had never heard it called that before. However, any excuse was a good excuse to avoid contraband day. She stood up and told him, “Of course, I’ll go change into my tactical gear right now.” And with that, she dropped the unicorn horn she was inspecting and headed straight to her locker.

While tactical armor was meant to be stealthy in the dark, the conditions of Mabel’s contract allowed a certain level of customization that wasn’t available to other MTF agents. She of course had a small American flag patch as required for identification purposes, but her helmet was decorated with purple swirls like fog or smoke. On the straps of her uniform, she also had various charms and pins of pigs and cats, including a custom tabaxi charm she would vehemently deny was a tabaxi.

Mabel didn’t know many of the doctors, just because she wasn’t in contact with them very often. So the surprise on Clef’s face when he saw the state of her tactical gear was expected. “Agent Pines?”

Mabel took his hand and shook it, telling him, “Yep, and you must be Dr. Clef. Don’t mind all the knick-knacks, we’re not on a stealth mission, so they won’t be a bother. My great uncle Stanford says hello by the way. You might have met him when you were in the GOC?”

Clef looked at Reg and Reg said, “Special contract.”

“Ah, that explains the decals." He turned his attention back to Mabel and said, “I think I’ve met him, yes. Tell him I said hello back. But I have to know, your file said you’ve had experience with these unicorns. How'd you handle that as a little girl?”

“Oh, it was awful. These unicorns are complete jerks.”

Reg nodded, concurring, "I've never dealt with a unicorn who wasn't at least a little hostile."

"I can only imagine. Granted, I've never dealt with one outside of combat before." But then, it occurred to him, "You said this wasn't a stealth mission. How are we going to get the hair then?"

"I did say that, I'll explain on the way there. Later Reg." Mabel claimed the driver's seat, Celf taking the passenger seat while Reg stayed behind. Staying true to her word, Mabel explained the incident from 2012, not finishing the story until they reached the edge of the woods.

"So the plan is to basically beat some unicorns into submission?"

"No, no, I'm going to threaten some unicorns into submission. I won't start punching unless they refuse to help. And you can join if you want, Doc."

"Thanks?"

With that, the two went into the woods together. walking paths Mabel had walked a million times. When they reached the deepest part, Dr. Clef played a recording of the druid's chant from a tape and the grove opened up to them, revealing the great waterfall and an ever-present rainbow. The moment they stepped in, Agent Pines and Dr. Clef heard a whinny and the sound of hooves on grass. Before them stood a beautiful, powder blue unicorn, resplendent in the sun.

She then began to speak, "I am Celestabellebethabelle, the last of the unicorns. What brings you here, brave advent,-" She then recognized Mabel, "-oh, it's you again. What do you want?"

"Same thing as last time, lady, we need hair."

"Are you kidding me?" She stamped her hoof as she said it. "You beat me and my friends half to death, make off with my treasure, rip my hair out, and expect me to give you more? Just like that?"

"I figured you'd be less of a dillweed about it if anything."

Dr. Clef then stepped in, "Agent Pines, if I may." He then approached the unicorn, telling her, "Look, I understand your history with my colleague is tumultuous, to say the least, but it's important that we have unicorn hair. World ending importance."

"So you say, Doctor, but I can see that you are not pure of heart. Your soul lurches with the weight of your sins and your lecherous nature. Why should I trust you?"

"That's not gonna work on him. Look, we just need it for a barrier and we're not leaving without it. Now, I can either just give you a haircut and go or we can fight again. It's up to you, just keep in mind that I'm a grown adult now."

Now, Celestabellebethabelle was cruel, she was unkind, a poor excuse for a unicorn, an already very arrogant species, but she wasn't stupid. It would be very easy for Mabel, who had only grown stronger with age and was in her prime, to beat her again. She also had a weapon this time and unicorns were not so endangered that her presence would be missed. She could see it now, her hair used for that barrier, her blood made into potions of youth, her hooves boiled down into magical glue, her horn made into an undying MP3 player. With little choice, she thus lay down on her legs, telling Mabel, "Fine you can take my hair. If you yank, I'll gore you. And don't let him touch me, I don't want some freak giving me a bad haircut."

Clef made a face at that but Mabel paid it no mind as she told the unicorn, "Don't worry, I won't give you a bad haircut."

She took a pair of scissors out of Clef's bag as well as some plastic garbage bags and knelt down to cut. She knew it would be harder to keep her promise with dry hair but she didn't let that deter her. Dr. Clef said they needed lots of the stuff, so she took five inches of the unicorn's mane, the proud beast huffing and muttering the whole time. At one point, she told Mabel, "You know there really was a time when we could sense if someone was pure of heart."

"Yeah, I've heard."

"Do you know why we lost that ability?"

"I'm guessing it's because you started lying to little girls." Mabel closed her scissors rather audibly at that.

"No, it's because we stopped being approached. Magic is use it or lose it and when humans don't care about being pure of heart, why use it? What I'm saying is that it was basically your own fault that I was mean to you."

Mabel then held the scissors to the very root of the unicorn's fine hair, "Oh no, looks like my hand slipped." She then cut off a lock of hair and added it to the already copious pile.

Celestabellabethabelle screamed in fright, "Alright! I'm sorry that I was a bitch!"

Mabel then went back to giving a normal haircut, "You sure were."

She then finished up, wrapping the unicorn hair in itself as neatly as she could and putting it into the bags. As soon as Mabel let go, the unicorn ran to check her mane in the lake. It was certainly a lot shorter but that wasn't a bad thing. She looked as fashionable as any dressage horse. She couldn't even see where Mabel had cut off a whole lock. "This is acceptable. Now get out."

"Wouldn't have it any other way." With that, she and Clef left the grove. The walk back was slower with each of them holding a bag of unicorn hair. Not one to let the opportunity for conversation to slip by, Mabel told Clef, "Sorry she called you a freak."

"It's alright, I've been called worse and sometimes even deserved it."

"She's not very creative."

"You know, I haven't read up on the old unicorn files, was there ever a time they could read someone's heart?"

"Nah, they couldn't. I just wanted to see where she was going with that. You never really know how they'll react when they're caught in a lie, so it's best to keep them talking until you can turn it around on them."

"Well, that's quite a strategy, I suppose that's why Agent Grey recommended you."

"Maybe, but it's probably just because I know the place best." She looked at his bag and a thought occurred to her, "So, I know what unicorn hair is used for and that I'm not supposed to ask for specifics but do you mind telling a lady if the reason for doing this is classified?"

"Oh no, I can share some details. We have an object being brought in from another site. It is imperative that we not only bring it but that it's as safe as possible. It's alive and non hostile and I'll leave it at that."

"The non-hostile part is doing a lot of heavy lifting there."

"Maybe so, but that's still a lot of possibilities."

"You got me there." She then looked at her watch. That haircut had taken longer than she thought it would. "Well, it's lunchtime. Do you want to join me?"

"Oh, no thanks. I need to get started on the barrier right away. You can drop me off back at the site."

Mabel shrugged, "Suit yourself. Just remember to eat, Doc."

"Thank you for the concern, I'll be fine though."

With that, they got back to base and the day went on as normal. Or as normal as any day could be. Honestly, anything was better than sorting through contraband. When she left, she didn't go home. Not straight away at least. She first went to Dipper's apartment, walking straight in, "Dipper, you won't believe the- what are you doing?"

Dipper was standing over his tank with a fishbowl in one hand and a net in the other submerged and cornering the terrified axolotl that was Bill. Dipper must have been at it since he got home from work, as he was still wearing a lab coat.

Bill used Dipper's surprise as an excuse to swim into his hide, Dipper explaining. "I needed to feed him and my fish and don't trust him. That can wait though, what's up?"

"I had a very interesting day is what happened. They're building an anti-possession field."

"What?" Bill and Dipper said this in unison, the axolotl sticking his head out of his Aztec pyramid. Only Dipper heard the former demon's wary tone, ignoring it in favor of his own curiosity. "Did they say what it was for?"

"Dr. Clef said they were transporting someone or something friendly to the Gravity Falls site and wasn't at liberty to say anymore, but I think the fact that it's friendly says enough."

"What do you think it is?"

"I think it's SCP-166."

"I kind of doubt that. She's not exactly easy to move. You need to remember I worked at site 19 longer than you. I passed her room a million times and that thing is like a vault. Plus, we've both read her file. They'd have to move her Oregon Trail style. Besides, are you even at liberty to openly discuss this with me?"

"It's not classified if it's just speculation and he gave me those details at least. Besides, who else could it be?"

"I don't know but think of it this way, has she ever been at risk of possession before?"

"He's got a point, shooting star. Say what you will about nuns, they can teach a girl a thing or two about mental fortitude."

"See, even Bill agrees with me."

"Are you seriously listening to Bill right now?"

"No, I just know I'm right. Anyways, is that the only reason you're here?"

"A little, but I also wanted to see how your first day was."

"Oh, it was great, I'm working on a project. Details are classified though."

Mabel groaned, "Seriously? Classified on your first day?"

"Yeah, on my first day." He went back to trying to catch Bill, telling Mabel, "All I can say is that it's incredibly important and that there's a reason I'm in Gravity Falls for it."

Mabek huffed but then, she got an idea, "Do you want to play D, D, and more D tomorrow?"

Dipper had finally gotten the screaming and squirming axolotl into the bowl at that point. He looked at Mabel, regarding her carefully before asking, "One-off or campaign?"

"One-off, you're the DM."

"Deal."

"What?" Bill stuck his head out of the bowl as he asked this, truly confused now. He didn't even pay attention to the delicious blood worms Dipper dropped into the bowl. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"That's a need-to-know basis and you don't need to know."

"Oh, come on!"

#gravity falls #dipper pines #mabel pines #stan pines #stanford pines #bill cipher #dr bright #dr clef #fanfic #scp foundation #sam’s writing #sam speaks #sam writes

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cd-covington · 1 year

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Hey friendo, also linguistics and fictional universes nerd!

I heard that you're game to share your wisdom with us mere mortals (aka authors) so here goes.

I'm writing a cyberpunk novel. Everyone speaks english cause writing a new language is FAR beyond my skill set, but I want to play with grammar as a way to show the reader class differences. (This is what happens when you let a socialist write a novel.)

In this futuristic dystopia, only the very rich can afford unlimited data (aka Canada in 2023). My thought is the working class have adopted speech patterns to minimize unnecessary words--dropped their article (goodbye 'the'), drop context markers unless necessary (goodbye 'that'), that kinda thing. The rich, being rich, speak in sentences the reader will recognize as grammatically 'correct.'

Two questions for Your Lingistic Eminance:

What do the middle class do? How do they sound?

2. Are there any great grammatical patterns I could include that I haven't thought of yet?

Thanks so much! I am VERY EXCITED to hear.

This is a great question! The short answer to part 1 is that they’ll mimic the upper class/upper middle class aspirationally, as least in situations where the UC/UMC will notice them, in what we call hypercorrection. A couple ideas for part 2 are dropping the subject of the verb if it’s obvious (which we already do in English - “love you” as a sign-off in a text message, or diary-style “went to the store. Didn’t find avocados.”) or deciding that even the limited verbal inflection that remains in English is unnecessary, so no more 3rd-person-singular s. (This is already present in several varieties of English, including African American English.)

The long answer for part 1 is really cool and relies on one of the foundational studies of sociolinguistics, published by Bill Labov in 1966. A 2012 paper by Mather replicates Labov’s study and points out some methodological problems caused by increased movement within the US and from outside the US (more on that in a minute), but it finds essentially the same stratification of this particular phoneme by social class.

For his original study, Labov wanted to see if socioeconomic class affected the way people spoke. He lived in New York City, and one of the distinctive features of a New Yorker accent is the absence of /r/ sounds (New Yawk). (As I wrote a little bit ago, rhotics aren’t real, but their presence or absence (or the ghosts of their presence) is a key feature of accents.) But Mainstream American English does have /r/ sounds, and this variety has what we call prestige.

Prestige varieties are typically spoken by the group with the most social (political, economic, etc) power – and, crucially, there is nothing inherent to the variety that makes it “better” than another variety. It’s just the one that the powerful use, and thus the one “correctness” is measured against.

So. New York English typically does not contain /r/ sounds, but the prestigious (standard) variety of US English does, and various social factors lead to the upper & upper middle classes preferring the more standard variety, while the lower and lower middle classes will prefer the non-standard variety. (Some of this has to do with group identity and using the non-standard variety to showcase group membership, but that’s an entirely different question.)

When Labov designed his study, he wanted to look at /r/ immediately after a vowel, because that’s where you notice its presence or absence most readily, so he used the phrase “fourth floor.” In fourth, you have a vowel followed by an /r/ which is followed by an obstruent /th/, which is phonotactically a different beast from floor, where the post-vocalic /r/ is the end of the word. And in the most typical New York English of 1962 (when he gathered his data), both of these /r/s were absent. But he wanted to study the effects of social stratification on the presence of /r/, so he devised a study based on proxy variables (aka markers).

The marker he used for socioeconomic class was department stores, assuming that employees would come from a similar class to the store they worked in (i.e. someone from the upper middle class isn’t going to work at TJ Maxx). He picked a low-cost one (S. Klein, now defunct) to represent the lower class, Macy’s to represent the middle class, and Saks Fifth Avenue to represent the upper middle class. (All stores are on the Lower East Side.)

To gather his data, he approached an employee of the store and asked where he could find a department that he knew was on the fourth floor. When they answered, he pretended he didn’t understand, and the employee repeated themself. This gave him proxy data for casual (first ask) and careful (repeated) speech.

What did he find? As expected, the employees of the lower-class store used /r/ far less often than in the other stores – in fact, barely 10% of the time. The charts in Labov 1972* are confusing, so I’ll use ones from Mather 2012, because I think they’re clearer.

The working-class proxy store had, and still has, very few employees who pronounce the /r/ in fouRth flooR 100% of the time, while the middle- and upper-middle-class proxy stores have higher and increasing rates of 100% /r/ pronunciation. (This indicates that /r/ pronunciation is probably a prestige variation, and increasing use indicates that the middle class and higher is adopting this variation.)

This graph confused me for about 5 minutes, because all [r-1] isn’t the same as “all [r-1],” so what it shows is the percentage of /r/-pronunciation in total. If someone said, for example, “fou’th flooR,” they would get an [r-1] for the category R2 and an [r-0] for R1. (The study may be foundational, but his coding of variables leaves something to be desired.) So, you can see that Klein, representing the working class, has between 5% and 18% of people pronouncing an /r/ at least once, while Macy’s and Saks are all 20% or higher. (The drop in /r/-pronunciation in R3 at Macy’s is interesting, but it’s not explained in the papers I read.)

*I have a scan of one chapter of something labelled “Labov 1972,” but not the 1966 book or the 2006 2nd edition.

I can’t find the paper I’m looking for that shows the crossover effect, where upper middle class speakers use /r/ less than middle class speakers (it may have been on paper, not a pdf, so it’s lost to the recycling bin of time), but fortunately it’s summarized in Allan Bell’s textbook (The Guidebook to Sociolinguistics, 2014). This didn’t come from the “fourth floor” study, but one where he had people read word lists or phrases, as well as elicit them in regular speech. Most interesting is the line “class 6-8” (lower middle class), where it spikes between C (reading) and D (word lists) and crosses over the line “class 9” (upper middle class). I don’t think I can improve on Bell’s wording, so I’ll quote him. The lower middle class hypercorrects: “in pursuit of prestige, the class that is just below the most prestigious actually overshoots their model. This became known as the lower-middle-class crossover effect” (168).

So, 1000 words later, we have evidence for the existence of social stratification of a particular variable, and the theoretical methodology has been applied again and again in different situations and with different variables in the last nearly 60 years, and it seems pretty robust (with caveats and methodological improvements and so on, of course). You can, in fact, stratify linguistic variables by categories that include race, gender, and class. The aspirational class (the one just below the most prestigious class) wants to sound like the prestige class, so they imitate what they think the prestige class sounds like, and in so doing frequently overshoot and use the variable in question more than the prestige class, while the lower classes are far less likely to use the prestige variety. (And I haven’t even mentioned covert prestige yet, which is when a non-prestige variant is preferred in certain groups, because it symbolizes membership in the non-prestige group.)

If you think this is interesting, consider backing my Kickstarter, where I’ll be writing a book about how to use linguistics in your worldbuilding process. Or if tumblr ever sorts out tipping for my account, leave me a tip.

#worldbuilding #linguistic worldbuilding #zillanovikov #linguistics

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sakurachan7734 · 4 months

Text

Interview with SCP 4395-1

On February 12 at 10:05 the foundation conducted a interview with SCP 4395-1 aka “the possessive doctor” who is also the oldest offspring of SCP 049 and SCP 035 the interviewer watch had interviewed SCP 4395-1 in their cell operating on a body

Begin log

Watch: hello there SCP 4395-1 I will be asking you a few questions provided by the foundation

Aristotle: ask away

Watch:* sits down* so can you explain what this pestilence is? Your father won’t this explain to us so maybe you or your sister will

Aristotle: father says that I cannot tell

Watch:* sighs disappointedly* I knew it anyway next question when did your father teach you how to operate on your patients?

Aristotle: when I was about 8 or 9 there is so much more that I don’t know but my father says that he will teach me that when I’m older

Watch: ok so that spear you carry around where did you get it and how did you get it?

Aristotle: I cannot tell you but let’s just say I got it on one of my adventures with my sister

Watch: well that’s better than no answer how was your life before you and your family were captured?

Aristotle: it was good moved around a bunch, though

Watch: ok what do you, SCP 1096-1, the class-D subject, Zachary Dove and SCP 60728 do during containment breaches? Because there’s some case we don’t see you on the cameras.

Aristotle: what I do with them is none of your business

Watch: ok…why do you keep asking for a sharper even though we keep denying?

Aristotle: what do you think?

Watch: to sharpen your sphere?

Aristotle: bingo

Watch: either way you’re not doing your sharpener

Aristotle: I will figure out a way watch me

Watch: ok anyway do you know anything about SCP 001?

Aristotle: I have never heard of such creature

Watch: seems like we will never get a straight answer anyway so we know your real name is Aristotle and we have noticed that you get mad whenever someone calls you ari why is that?

Aristotle: it’s a dumb shorten version of a name that’s why I don’t like it

Watch: ok when was your sister born?

Aristotle: well she was laid in France and she hatched in Wales

Watch: ok and your parents say that you died when you were 11 where did that happen?

Aristotle: also in Wales I was killed with a axe

Watch: ok have you found the perfect cure yet?

Aristotle: no but I’m sure I will

Watch:* whispers* you’re just like 049

Aristotle: pardon?

Watch: nothing anyway are you and your sister able to remove your masks?

Aristotle: I can but my sister can’t or she will die

Watch: ok good to know

Aristotle: What is the point of asking these questions?

Watch: excuse me?

Aristotle: what is the point of asking these silly little questions? I’m pretty sure they don’t help you with your research of me or any of our anomaly you questioned.

Watch: no no that’s not the point of these questions you are getting this all wrong!

Aristotle:* slams the scalpel down on the table* that didn’t answer me!

Watch: don’t you get that tone with me I’m the ones asking the questions! Now calm down and answer the questions

The cameras showed SCP 3495-1 throwing their spear through the window and attacking watch then the cameras go black 3 mtf guards show up and pull SCP 3495-1 off of watch and put SCP 4395-1 into a isolated room until everything had calmed down

End log

#scp foundation #scp #scp containment breach #scp fan child #scp watch

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myrandomfandomramblings · 3 years

Text

Wildmoore week 2022 – Day 1 (tropes/emotions)

Trope: slow burn

Wildmoore is the most well executed relationship I’ve seen on TV in a long time, if not ever. And it got me thinking, what is it about Wildmoore that works so well? The answer I came up with is the development. They took two great and related tropes enemies to lovers and slow burn and executed them perfectly while avoiding every common pitfall and in doing so made it original.

When I first saw people calling it a slow burn I didn’t agree, after all they were together less than 2 seasons after they met. But that’s the point. It was 2 seasons of steady, deliberate growth instead of x number of seasons of will-they won’t-they or on-again-off-again that I usually associate with the trope. Which made me realize that Wildmoore is the epitome of exactly what slow burn is all about. It’s about keeping the flame burning and slowly building the fire until the light and heat are overwhelming. Not about building the fire up just to watch it fade to embers over and over again. And that conjured a picture in my mind of the Survivor fire making challenge aka the perfect metaphor for the ideal slowburn aka Wildmoore.

Below I will outline why Wildmoore was the perfect slowburn using the Survivor fire challenge as a metaphor (because, why not?)…

For those that aren’t familiar with the Survivor challenge it’s pretty straight forward. The contestants are given a station that looks like the drawing below and they need to build a fire that is tall enough and strong enough to burn through the rope. When the rope is severed the flag raises and the contestant wins. In this metaphor the flag raising is the ship becoming canon (because then we all win).

Importantly, none of the survivor contestants have pyrokinesis and thus they can’t build a fire without supplies. This is equally true for ships. You can’t build a good relationship (fire) without a foundation (supplies).

So on survivor the supplies are simple: coconut husk, twigs, a flint and a machete. The machete is used to shave magnesium from the flint and to strike the flint with to create a spark. They start with the coconut husk, shave some magnesium on it, then light it with a spark. When the spark catches, they slowly add more and more sticks until they have a legitimate fire that can burn through the rope:

To extend my metaphor to these supplies. The coconut husk is the base, you can’t separate individual strands. It’s the ship’s dynamic, their day-to-day. Built through the characters having screen time together, in any context, in fact usually not focused on their relationship. As well as building strong, compelling characters individually. These are the small moments that you would typically describe in groups rather than individual moments. The moments that you could technically leave out of the show and the show would still make perfect sense but would just be a lot less rich. For Wildmoore it’s their banter, the fear in their voices when the other’s in danger, the longing looks and playful smirks, the hand-holding and “What do you want?/What do you need?/How can I help?s.” Coconut husk doesn’t ignite if it’s just one strand, one moment. You have to build a wad or ball by being consistent with these small moments and dedicating appropriate screentime, which was done perfectly with Wildmoore.

The twigs or kindling on the other hand are the big moments, the plot points that really progress the relationship. For Wildmoore, it’s Sophie sitting with Ryan on Coryana when she’s “dying”, Sophie finding out Ryan is Batwoman and erasing Ryan’s file from the Crow’s database to protect her identity, then quitting the crows (‘I didn’t want to force you to trust me. I wanted to earn it.’). It’s Ryan going to Sophie for help discovering the truth about her birth mother. It’s Luke noticing them flirting and calling them out on it, Sophie having a dream about Ryan and an entire episode of fake dating complete with too many great moments to list. It’s Ryan’s reaction to Sophie sleeping with Renee and Sophie’s pleas for them to talk about it. It’s each kiss or sex scene and each real conversation full of honesty and emotion.

Similarly, the flint is the romance and sexual attraction/tension of it all. Just like many beautiful/useful things other than fire can be made from coconut husk and twigs (bird nests/houses, rodent beds, baskets, sculptures and crafts) there are well developed platonic relationships that have interesting dynamics and great big moments but what these relationships don’t have/ shouldn’t have is the romantic/sexual attraction. Afterall, you don’t need flint to build a bird’s nest, but you do need it to build a fire. The romantic/sexual attraction can be shown in two ways 1) chemistry and 2)’explicitly/inherently’ romantic/sexual moments. The chemistry is the shaved magnesium from the flint. It’s beautiful, can’t be broken down into individual pieces but it coats everything. You know it when you see it and it catches immediately even with the smallest spark but won’t stay lit for long without other materials. And there is no doubt that Javicia Leslie and Maegan Tandy have amazing chemistry as Ryan and Sophie.

The ‘explicitly/inherently’ romantic/sexual moments are the strikes to the flint that create sparks. Now I put explicitly/inherently in quotes because to quote a great tumblr post “nothing is ever inherently romantic. The meaning of a gesture is determined by the people involved in it, not some random outsider.” To me the “people involved in it” when referring to a TV ship are the cast and crew and arguably most importantly the writers as they are the one’s controlling where the storyline goes and whether or not the ship will sail. So when I think of inherently romantic moments in TV I think of lines with word usage that deliberately conjures thoughts of romance in the audience (even if the moment it’s self isn’t particularly romantic). The point of these lines is to get the audience and frequently also the characters to consider it as a possibility not necessarily to actually progress the relationship. For Wildmoore these moments include “Are you flirting with Sophie right now?”, “Well, you’re wearing a push-up bra so it’s a date.”, “Girlfriend, actually.”, “Great first date, huh?”, “…it’s a classic dream about longing, I knew you really liked her.” “…It wasn’t a sexual dream…” “Ryan Wilder is hot as hell and you are amazing, together.”, Future Ryan talking about having kids with Sophie, “Sophie likes you back” “One minute I think she’s into me…”/ “…I was into Ryan, long before I knew she was Batwoman.”/ “You had a crush on Ryan…”, “Of feeling something real and blowing it.”, and of course the kiss and sex scene in the context of everything else and the couch scene in 3x12 ending with “officially a thing.”

All these elements are needed to make a good ship. If you only have an interesting dynamic but no significant moments, fans are frustrated by the lack of progress. Or in my fire analogy all the coconut husk burns up and you end up with only embers or the flame going out completely long before it reaches the rope. If you have big moments but not enough screen time to build a solid dynamic the relationship feels forced or rushed. This equates to trying to light the fire with only sticks, it won’t work they will never catch, and you are essentially cutting the rope with scissors in order to get the flag to raise, which is far less exciting. In addition, if you have both but no romantic/sexual chemistry/moments you may have a great BroTP but it’s not intended as a slow burn.

Lucky for us Wildmoore had it all, all the ingredients for the perfect slow burn and thus the winning survivor fire making challenge, but they also had something that they don’t have on survivor but is super common in TV ships, and that is an obstacle or in this fire building metaphor a log. Just like a log would smother the flame of any fire it was added to unless the fire was already very large and thus prevent it from reaching the rope. These obstacles are large important plot points that prevent the characters from being together in a good, happy, healthy relationship.

For Wildmoore this obstacle was the animosity between them during the early stages or enemies phase of their relationship. This prevented them from getting to know each other, working together, trusting each other, and of course Ryan telling Sophie she is Batwoman. Luckily, if appropriate time and energy is spent addressing this obstacle it can lead to richer storylines, more well rounder characters and a stronger relationship. This can be equated to chopping the log. If you chop up the log you get more kindling, which can be used to feed the fire.

For Wildmoore this storyline allowed us to explore Ryan’s past, see Sophie grow as a person, and watch their trust in each other truly be earned. It also allowed time for them both to move on from people they once considered the love of their life.

In summary, Wildmoore had everything they needed to execute the perfect slow burn and we got to see every second of it. Every chop of the log as Ryan let her walls down to let Sophie in, every handful of coconut husk as they exchanged banter and comfort, every twig as their relationship deepened and every spark as they initially fought their feelings before finally acknowledging them. We watched the fire grow until with a simply uttered “officially a thing” the rope snapped, the flag raised, and our ship set sail. Now I really hope we get the opportunity to see it continue to grow. To see their first official date, their first “I love you’s”, Ryan meeting Sophie’s mom, and everything in between. See the little flame, become a full on bonfire that we can add those rainbow fire packets to and watch rainbow flames dance every week while roasting marshmallows.

#wildmoore week #wildmoore #ryan wilder #sophie moore #batwoman

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faorism · 3 years

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as previously mentioned, eventually, hardison won’t be the only one doing his new line of work; he’ll train them up. he'll have a small but dedicated team of chaotic good geniuses. he names them tikkun, meaning "to repair," referencing tikkun olam, "the obligation to repair the world around you" (as brilliantly suggested & defined by @piratedykes).

he is doing his george clooney satellite monitoring and the group has a reputation because boy do NGOs and nonprofits and activists and community organizers like to fucking gossip about shit especially when it goes right?? or rather, one person in one org's fundraising team will reach out to their counterpart in another org and be like...... yo you were frantic last week about [challenge] and how you have to raise like a bajilliion dollars in emergency funds and also ideally take down a warlord but you will settle for money for water and first aid, and i havent heard from you but.... your org's twitter is like, popping right now and it looks like [challenge] has evaporated?? how??? are you okay the hell.

and second fundraising officer is like...... it.......... is good. its been the weirdest wildest week but its good.

and the first officer is like............. no wtf do not leave me like this. how did you do it.

lets say consultants.

consultants?

listen. can't say more. but if everything ever really really goes to shit, and i do mean really, just... consider applying for the rapid response flexible spending grant from the tikkun fund (NOT the tikkun olam foundation, different folx). lets just say that $850 from tikkun goes a long long way.

and the first officer looks it up, and the fund has a boring but efficient website. the fund is barely three years old but they have a small but mighty giving portfolio of tiny tiny orgs like their own, and when this first officer rubén follows through and delves deep into the orgs...... they notice..... wow these folks really had....... a suspicious amount of good luck swing their way at very critical moments.

rubén sits back and is like. huh. okay. weird. but they trust their friend and they keep the tikkun fund in the back of their mind. and one day, yup, theres a fucking crisis and god, god [their community] needs money and the situation is not a blip on anyone's radar outside [their community] but this matters too! and rubén remembers that little fund and yeah, $850 can't fix it next to nothing but that's $850 they desperately desperately need. and luckily the application is super short and rubén gets the vibes their reporting requirements are gonna be super quick and easy as well. so they submit it and then they go and turn around to shake money from somewhere anywhere and.... by the end of the business day, they are wrapping up because they've already worked three hours late and they havent eaten since lunch aka an old granola bar in the back of their file cabinet, and....... what. is that........... yeah. their tikkun fund application has been accepted with clear instructions about how they can proceed to get payment. and rubén wants to cry god god okay.

and rubén sends a quick email to this alec hardison (he/him/mr. but please alec is fine) thanking him profusely and so earnestly, cc'ing wyn the org's executive director. rubén goes home and Do Not Disturb's their work stuff and is ready to start it all over the next day.... but. when they get to the office, they find out wyn has organized an emergency meeting looking... confused and hopeful and so wildly excited. there's a guy next to her dressed smart, but what really stands out with his eyes: they are kind and welcoming but there's a coy twinkle in them like he's got a secret he's itching to share.

and wyn is like. hey so. this is alec hardison and blah blah introduction stuff. (and rubén is like omgggg internally) we spoke last night, and mr hardison's agreed to come on pro bono with his team to assist us and... okay. okay imma be real here for a moment. there's some stuff that's gonna be on the down low here on out and if you don't want part of it, you can take leave for the next week or two we will give you space, but... we know what will happen if shit continues and im not standing for it. i hope you will join me, but you won't be forced. and she turns to please-just-alec who thanks her and turns to the exhausted team and says:

in the jewish faith, we got this concept. tikkun olam, meaning our obligation to repair our world. it takes heroic and wise eyes to see what's wrong around us, and to follow that urge is what we must do as people sharing this planet we call home. and listen, i didn't know about y'all before yesterday, but i can see just how much you've been putting in day in and out for your community. you're the good guys. and when you're doing all that good against so much bad, sometimes, sometimes it feels like you ain't got no one in your corner. but i hope together, with the support of my tikkun crew, we can repair what has been hurt and damaged. and yall, and here, alec lets that secret out in a smile, i cannot wait to fuck some shit up alongside you.

#alec hardison #leverage #leverage redemption spoilers #can you tell i worked in fundraising #of hearth and home and other promises #faorism headcanons #maybe ill post this to ao3 #long post #i need to figure out how to make a read more on a phone

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masterthespianduchovny · 3 years

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Ted Lasso’s reputation as a wholesome, nice, feel good show at times comes at its expense. This isn’t the fault of TL, but rather:

1. People who literally judge or write the show off based on these three descriptors. They think they know exactly what the show is about and how it’s going to play out and they don’t.

2. People who literally watch the show yet don’t understand it. These past weeks I’ve come to understand that some people who’ve watched the show either miss/don’t comprehend things OR fundamentally don’t understand the show.

I’m unsure if this is some type of media illiteracy for the second point, but I literally had to break down how the show works to someone who was shitting on it. Don’t get me wrong, people are allowed to dislike the show. That doesn’t bother me. However, when your criticisms either come from a lack of knowledge or the inability to understand how the show is structured, there needs to be an intervention.

In my honest opinion, I don’t think the foundation of the show is comedy nor is it drama, the genre of the show is influenced by Ted’s emotional state. It’s labeled as comedy for all intents and purposes, but observe how the tone/genre of the show largely matches Ted’s highs and lows. Some may say that’s normal, but I think there is a nuance here that’s missing.

A fan or fans pointed out that this season isn’t funny and that’s because Ted isn’t funny (again, the show is mimicking Ted’s emotional state); most of his jokes do not land. He’s trying way to hard and not at all at times, which is intentional.

He’s overdoing it and people are saying it’s bad writing when, in fact, it’s very good writing. We see more and more how Ted is missing things, behaving oddly around the therapist, internalizing shit, etc AND refusing help aka avoiding Rebecca presumably. Something is wrong and only one person notices this and Ted tried to pretend he was fine.

This show has noticeably become darker, which typically doesn’t happen to alleged feel good comedies. When it does, it’s like an episode or two, but in the case of TL, it’s steadily been doing this season the first episode of season 2. Furthermore, it introduced many of these themes and plot lines on season 1.

The show has also made us re-examine many “funny” moments and assess if there is a different context behind what we believed we knew and saw.

The show for the most part has been very internally consistent because it’s never been bound by it’s genre.

It’s quite ironic and sad that one of the most repeated and (at times inappropriately used) iconic lines “be curious not judgmental” is only applied to assholes and shit behavior rather than super nice/people pleasers, such as Ted.

It reminds me of the poem “Not Waving But Drowning”, which I’ll copy and paste at the end. The title is essentially “on the tin”, but basically it’s about someone drowning and people not going to help because they thought this person was happy go lucky and waving at them. The person didn’t have any help while they were in a crisis because people missed the signs. Which pretty accurately describes what’s going on with others see Ted MINUS Rebecca.

Lastly, the show is an examination and deconstruction of niceness for better and worse. What does it mean to be nice? What drives people in how they treat others? It’s not saying niceness is the cure for everything and that it will fix us, it’s saying we should start with kindness. We should try to understand what’s going on and be sympathetic.

Hell, I don’t even think it’s saying everyone can be redeemed (aka Rupert as of now). It’s saying that when we try to be better people, not immediately give up on someone, and understand that other people have different experiences, that is something that can help us connect and understand one another better.

But we are all flawed and it takes accountability and hard work to right out wrongs. Not all is forgiven just because we see the error of our ways. We have to actively towards forgiveness not matter how hard.

What’s interesting about Ted is that he’s the catalyst behind this change in AFC Richmond, however, he’s one of the fundamentally misunderstood people on the show, which is intentional on his end. He hides what’s really going on with him because not even he wants to see it. His kindness is driven by genuineness, but also trauma from his dad’s death and bullying. It’s gotten so bad to the point that it’s pathological for him to be nice to the detriment of himself as he suppresses his own traumas.

People (un) intentionally use him and don’t reciprocate most of the time. To be fair to them, Ted wants it that way. Except they also aren’t paying attention. Yes, everyone has their own problems, but how is no one curious about the man who is always “happy” that just got a divorce and is separated from his kid most of the time? Who flat out admitted to that he took a job across the ocean for a sport he knew nothing about to give his wife space? Or that he had a panic attack during a major game?

At this point, Ted isn’t hiding his struggles all that well, yet only Rebecca realizes that he isn’t well.

Ironically, some fans use Ted Lasso as their feel good show all while overlooking what the show is trying to say about certain behaviors and relationships.

Although it takes nothing to be nice, don’t make others responsible for your happiness whether you are the giver or the receiver. It does no one any good.

Ted thinks helping others and avoiding his own problems will make him happy and it doesn’t. Even when his marriage was good, it was a band aid for his problems. As a result, he started unraveling because he wasn’t fixing things or fixing enough things and people.

The show is saying a lot and through subtext and nuance, which is being ignored because the show isn’t what people assumed it was. This show doesn’t exist to help people escape from their own problems and/or the pandemic. Like, it’s nice that it did for some, however, we have to allow the show to tell the story it wants to tell. They never misled anyone about the nature of the show.

On the other hand, the show has helped people who see parts of themselves in Ted and either want to get help or finally understand that some of their behavior are maladaptive and detrimental to themselves.

Some people are seeing what they want to see and projecting on the show (as they do many) and are criticizing TL for what it isn’t, rather than understanding what it is.

TL has many compelling things to say, but since it isn’t behaving how people want it to, they can’t engage meaningfully with the show, which is unfortunate.

——-

“Not waving but drowning”

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

#ted lasso #ted lasso discussion

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falling-pages · 3 years

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Let me be your strength: MoriHaru

I transcribed this at 2 a.m., so it's not edited nor well put-together. But I liked it and thought it was cute, and there is not nearly enough MoriHaru content. Shoutout to @ohshcscenerios for listening to me cry about this AND for making the mood board!!!!

Summary: When the pressures of life threaten to snap Haruhi like a twig, she learns to fall into the arms of an old friend.

(AKA me thirsting over Takashi for 4k words)

Takashi Morinozuka x Haruhi Fujioka

Genre: Fluff

Warnings: Talk of terminal illness

It wasn’t the champagne that made Haruhi lightheaded or twisted her stomach into knots, but she refused her second glass and sent the waiter away with a polite wave. The heat from the throngs of crowded pressed down on her, though the space was large and cool. She wished she could move outside, but the unbearable heat of a summer evening kept her clinging to her cold glass of water and air conditioning.

She dabbed at the sweat lining her brow, threatening to wash out the makeup Renge had so carefully applied. Haruhi rarely wore it, and when she did Renge always did it for her. They usually stuck together at parties, but she had slipped away as soon as they walked inside. For that, Haruhi couldn’t fault her--the ball was to celebrate hers and Tamaki’s engagement, after all.

The foundation was sticky in her pores, thick eyelashes framing her vision. She was too hot, too tired, too shifty. She tried to enjoy the party, but the source of her discomfort roared deep inside.

“Hello, Haruhi.”

She jolted, briefly, at the voice, so locked up in her thoughts she didn’t even notice the man approach her. Her old classmate towered above her, but his presence was welcome.

“Hi, Mori,” she sighed, leaning into the shadow he cast. Her skin cooled, but her heart burned at how close he was. “It’s nice to see you.”

Mori chuckled, eyes aglow with mirth. Or maybe alcohol, she couldn’t really tell. She had spent the last few minutes searching for anyone she knew at the ball, and it had seemed everyone was classily drunk on their wealth and drinks. It only added to her longing to go home, the guilt lodged in the back of the throat.

How could she be at a party when her father was so sick at home?

“Same to you,” her friend replied. His silver eyes raked down her body, taking in her dress, her makeup, her hair. His glance didn’t feel perverted, though, nor unwelcome. More like an artist working his eyes over a classic masterpiece. “You look very beautiful.”

Haruhi blushed magenta. Renge had worked her magic, lining her eyes and brushing pink wax against her lips, transforming the tired law student into a high-society lady for a night.

“Thank you,” she whispered, holding his gaze, despite every nerve telling her to look away. “You don’t think it’s too much?”

Mori inhaled. He blinked, washing his eyes anew, forcing the bourbon out of his system. He needed to see her straight, and he looked. He looked carefully. Dutifully. Rolling something over in his mind. “On you?” he answered. “Never.”

Haruhi sucked her tongue and smiled, letting herself feel beautiful, letting her insecurities dissipate under his gaze. “You know, this is all Renge’s work,” she explained. “The makeup, and we went dress shopping together.”

Mori grunted, envisioning it a precursor to wedding dress shopping Renge would surely drag her to in the upcoming months. He had to admit, the young lady did a great job -- the light green stitching against the pale yellow silk made Haruhi look like a flower in spring.

“We had to lock Tamaki in the house to keep him from coming with us,” Haruhi continued. She joined Mori’s laughter. “He still thinks of me as a doll he can dress up and play with.”

“Would you rather he had gone with you?”

Haruhi considered, squinting her eyes. “I’m not sure if he would have calmed her down or just doubled the madness.”

“Calmed her down, doubled your madness.”

“Yeah.”

“Mm.”

They shared an easy smile before Mori stepped away, by her side, to scan the crowd. Tamaki and Renge were sitting at a table overflowing with wine and hors d'oeuvres, chatting as he fed her a bit of cheese on a cracker. Both of them, likely drunk out of their minds, fell into laughter as he missed her mouth, snapping the cracker against her cheek.

“They’re good for each other,” Haruhi mused, not bothering to hide her wistfulness. “The king of excessive compliments, and the queen of backhanded ones.”

Mori noticed the lilting quirk in her voice, veering on the slight edge of jealousy. He grunted again, prompting an explanation.

“While we were getting ready, I asked her if it were too much,” Haruhi said. She sipped from her water glass, swallowing delicately. “I didn’t want to outshine the bride-to-be at her own engagement party. And you know what she said? She said, ‘Don’t worry, you don’t outshine me.’” This time Haruhi was the one to grunt, indignation crossing lines on her forehead. “Maybe she didn’t mean it like that. Maybe she meant something nice in French and it just came out bad in Japanese.”

Mori stayed silent as a waiter approached them with a tray of champagne. He reached for a flute, raising his eyebrows in a silent question to her, but she shook her head, and he refused as well.

“It’s strawberry.”

Haruhi perched her lip in question.

“The champagne.” He finished his bourbon, setting the glass down on a nearby stand. “They did that for you. They remembered you like strawberries.”

Haruhi briefly smiled, but took another sip of water. “That’s kind of them.”

Mori noticed the way she gripped her drink, the way she stared at the happy couple with blacked-out pupils. She couldn't be jealous of them individually, he knew. But of them as a couple? As a concept? Of their happy smiles?

He wanted to tell her she could outshine a thousand suns, that the golden shimmer on her cheekbone reminded him of a fairy queen, that in the lightness of her skin she could have trapped the moon. But he didn’t; he raised his fist to his mouth, cleared his throat, and tore his eyes away.

“You’re jealous,” he muttered. “Why?”

Haruhi snapped her gaze back to him. He had always been able to read her like a book, a riddle solved without explanation as the others stood scratching their heads. He looked back down at her, seeing how small she really was beside him. Confusion stirred in her deep eyes.

“Are you not?” he repeated.

She tore his eyes away from his, feeling movement in her chest. The terrifying ordeal of being known. She knew the champagne wasn’t the cause of her stomach knots, this time, either; rather, the smell of his cologne, strong and musky, left her lips parted in silent contemplation.

“I am,” she confessed. The drink weighed heavily in her hand. “They’re so carefree. There’s not a thought behind those eyes. They’re happy and don’t have stress or law school or a sick parent at home they should be caring for right now--”

Mori took the glass from her hand and set it on the table before stepping in front of her, bowing and extending his hand. She paused her rambling, just now noticing the change of music into a love song and the couples thronging onto the dance floor.

“Haruhi,” Mori said, “may I have this dance?”

Without hesitation she slipped her hand in his, allowing him to lead her onto the floor.

Just that little bit of touch sparked an inferno in his lungs, and he strained against the desire to just wrap her in his arms and whisk her away.

Once they floated to a free space, he took her right hand clasped in his left and took her waist with the other, spreading his fingers over the soft bodice of the gown.

“Is this okay?” he whispered.

“Yes,” Haruhi gasped, nearly euphoric at the feeling of his strong hands on her. She had been alone for so long that she didn’t even realize how touchstarved she was until his thumb rolled over her knuckles. Like it was right, like it was the only thing that mattered.

Mori led her in a waltz, guiding her clumsy feet with his experienced steps. He was a man so prone to the wild that she had nearly forgotten he was raised in aristocracy, trained and learned in all things fine and elegant. He probably learned this waltz as soon as he could walk.

And yet he held her with firm hands, looked at her with gentle eyes, softly correcting her mistakes without annoyance, only a speck of amusement playing in the upturned smile on his lips. He was in control, and this dance was the only thing she didn’t have to stress over. It made her want to fall into his arms and have him take care of everything else, too.

She noticed, too, his handsome features, as there was nowhere else to look but his face. He was taller now than in their youth, a broad-shouldered man of 26, heady and well-established and strong. She thought him too tall and muscled to be a graceful dancer, but she had forgotten he was a hunter, a fighter, a swordsman at his core. His suit, dark green and black, barely clung to his athletic frame. He was absolutely massive compared to her. Gone were the lanky, tall boy and flat-chested girl that once walked Ouran’s halls. Now they were man and woman at their peak.

She wondered how he had not found a wife yet, then wondered how she had never noticed him before.

He noticed, too. Every girlish feature he had adored in high school matured into ones of a woman mother nature scorns. When his fingers brushed her ribcage, she turned her attention back to his face. He was looking at her with the same intensity, but not the same recognition, like he was seeing something he had always known. His nose was noble, lips full, jaw sharp as his eyes. But what caught her attention was the scar, white against his tan face, jutting through his left eyebrow. It had healed long ago, the result of a kendo accident his first year of college, but the hair of his eyebrow never grew back correctly. The scar was turned and jilted and railed against the puckered skin, so untameable that Mori had stopped trying.

But Haruhi thought it suited him. The man could outrun the wild, but the wild would always catch up to him. The bit of evidence that he was more than what his last name got him.

Suddenly, she wanted to touch it. She had never felt the urge before; she barely noticed it, to be honest, and would never disrespect her friend like that.

But then again, he had never held her so intimately before.

Before she could, Mori cleared his throat. He had waited until she was settled in the dance to question her further, but she was staring so intently at him that he kept quiet. Had he been less tan, she would have seen him blush.

“What else is going on,” Haruhi?” he asked, turning slightly to avoid bumping into another couple.

She took a breath, disappointed that her reprieve had ended. She enjoyed looking at him. If he allowed it, she would have all night.

“You know, my dad,” she said simply, and Mori nodded, pulling her closer. Feeling his hand squeeze her made her woozy. “He’s still so sick. Not getting any better, not getting any worse. Just on the verge of needing someone to care for him at all times.”

Mori nodded again, chin hovering above her head. She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he spoke. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No, thank you.” Haruhi did not miss the singular I. “Kyoya has been gracious with paying for the medical care, and for the nurses staying at our house. You all have done enough. Truly.” She looked up at him and did her best to smile, but even she knew he wouldn’t believe it. “It’s just so difficult because he needs care 24/7. So I feel guilty about going to class, guilty about sleeping, guilty about being here.” Her steps and voice faltered, eyelids fluttering to avoid tears. “I shouldn’t be here,” she whispered, tugging her hands away from him. “I should be at home, with him. He needs me--”

She tried to turn around, but Takashi grabbed her waist and pulled her to him, shuffling so she could look into his eyes. Her gaze wandered just above them--to his scar, he was sure--but he shook her very slightly, very gently, like waking a baby. “Haru,” he whispered, taking the liberty of a nickname. Her eyes flashed in pleasure, in a memory, bright with tears and charm. But her bottom lip trembled.

“You deserve a break,” he said, using his strength against her for the first time, making her look at him, to hear every word he spoke. “You have done so much. You have suffered so much. You deserve a break.”

Haruhi tried to fight him, but it was useless--he was right, and he was here, willing to provide it. Beneath her anger, beneath her sadness, there was just exhaustion, burning like a bed of red-hot coals, and she was dangling just over the edge of it, so close she could feel the hellish fumes on her face. They drew smoke up her nose, wracking coughs through her chest, burning and blistering her palms as she clung to the rope just barely keeping her alive.

Either the rope would snap, or she would.

Her father had depended on her ever since she was a child, and she had no choice but to claw her way up the frayed thread. But now her lungs burned, her fingers bled. All she wanted was rest.

She had to drop sometime.

A warm hand on her shoulder roused her back, and she looked into her friend’s steel gray eyes, now warm and pooling like molten lead. When his fingers glided along her cheek, she realized she had been crying, and wiped away the tears. He didn’t speak, only caught the ones she missed.

“I’m not strong enough,” she whispered. Her mouth twisted into neither a smile nor grimace, but a ghostly combination of both. “They were right. I’ll never be like my mom, I’ll never be good enough.” Her exhaustion poured over her in buckets, weak knees finally giving in, stumbling forward into Mori’s chest. He caught her without reservation; he had since the moment they met, and he always would.

He was strong enough to stay still when she fell, propping her back up and sheltering her against him, within his arms. He held her fastly, tightly, as she cried, nine years worth of pining and love for the taking, manifesting in front of their very eyes.

He knew how difficult it was. He had just graduated from the same law school only months prior, had the same professors and took the same classes. He himself barely scraped through at times. Even though he had given her his old books and notes, she struggled--and no wonder, having to constantly take care of her father.

“You’re right,” he said against the shell of her ear. She shivered, and he ran a hand up and down her back to soothe her. “You’re not like your mother. She ever had to carry the burden you do.”

Mori saw the weights tied to her feet, dragging her over the edge. She was going to slip, and soon--she couldn’t continue the facade of strength when she barely slept at night, barely processed her mornings over coffee, barely found the motivation to shower and brush her teeth when all she wanted was to sit at her father’s side and cry.

Maybe she thought she was concealing it well, but he was a Morinozuka, trained and battle-hardened and able to pinpoint weaknesses. He didn’t want her to hide from him.

A cold hand wrapped around Haruhi’s heart, and she pressed further into Mori’s chest. Then she realized herself and flung back, cheeks reddening at her boldness.

“Gosh, I’m so sorry, Mori, I forgot my place,” she said, keeping her eyes fixed on his very expensive shoes.

“No, no, Haru, no,” he said, scrambling for words. He cursed his silent nature. “I’m not going to let you fall. You are safe with me. I am never going to let anything happen to you.”

For a man whose strategy was always holding his cards close to his chest, he threw them down, baring his heart and soul to her mercy, desperately, as he tried to comfort her. He bent down, awkwardly long limbs sufficient in holding her, pressing her head to his chest. Her shampoo smelled so sweet, like the cherry blossoms waving just outside, and she felt so small curled up in his protective embrace. It sparked a heat in his knuckles, anger in his heart.

No one so sweet and good should have to suffer like this.

When she was ready, she moved away from his chest, accepting his willing hand wiping away her tears and the handkerchief in this pocket to hide behind until she regained her composure. Her makeup was ruined, and her hair was in disarray, but Mori thought she had never looked more beautiful than under his arm, pressing her cheek against his hand, chasing his comfort.

As soon as she smiled at him again, he took her hand and spun her back into the waltzing position. Mori built up the confidence to speak again.

“Is it alright if I call you Haru?”

A blythe smile. Pink tinged around her ears. “Yes.”

“Good.” He swallowed. “Haru, you are strong, and beautiful. It breaks my heart to see you like this. If you need to lean on someone, lean on me. Let me be your strength."

A fluttery sigh escaped her lips. “Okay.”

Mori nodded, leading her quickly back into the dance. Amazing, how many songs could be waltzed to. His agile feet knew them all by heart, so he could bask in the young lady’s presence.

Their eyes met periodically, blushes exchanged, and then gazes wandered. His traveled to the dance floor, landing on Tamaki and Renge.

They danced like two fools in love--which they were, obviously. Clumsy, falting steps, swathed in each other’s arms, mouths colliding in mismatched kisses and loud laughter. When he read their lips, he saw them chattering away in French. He saw the light pouring into each other’s eyes, both of them the sun pouring warmth through the window of the other’s soul.

He saw the way Tamaki’s bride-to-be looked at him, and wondered if the woman in front of him would spare him the same glance.

“You’re jealous,” Haruhi said suddenly. “Why?”

He turned to look at her, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Why did she use his own words against him?

She hid her smile behind her hand. “Are you not?”

He rolled his eyes, taking her firmly by the waist, as her hand returned to his shoulder.

“If you must know,” he muttered, twirling her under his arm, smiling as she giggled, “I am jealous. Because Tamaki has a beautiful lady in his arms, whom he loves, and who loves him, whom he can kiss and woo whenever he pleases.”

The orchestra suddenly roared, or maybe it was the blood in his ears when he noticed Haruhi’s hand tense in his. But, at least she didn’t drop it. She spun back into his chest, clinging to his shoulder like her grip would imprint on his suit. And when she looked at him, eyes bright and wide and full of wonder, he saw the knowing glint within.

She cocked her head aside. Her steps slowed, and she looked at him, running her eyes up and down his body as if just now realizing how long they had been dancing together.

“And you long for that?” she asked.

Mori sighed, ears pricking as the music ended. He let her go and bowed, assuming her wariness a rejection. Parallel to the floor, at least, gave him time to hide his face, regain his composure, mask the pain flowing quickly to his hands.

“Yes,” he sighed. And then, throwing all decorum out the window with a cracking toss of the head and a to hell with it for social commentary, he spoke again. “I long for it the way a bird longs to fly. And it makes me jealous of them, because I, too, had a beautiful lady in my arms, whom I love most dearly, whom I also wish to kiss and woo, but I do not know if she loves me back.”

His heart rose in his throat, and he gasped as he uttered the last words, oxygen leaving his lungs and brain at the sight of her chewing her lip. She had likely never heard him speak so many words at once. But they had clouded his mind. He had lived with them for nine years, pushed them down beneath the surface even as they slithered and crawled around in the form of blushes on his cheeks and pats to her head.

Finally, she spoke. They had stood there for an eternity, watching the other breathe. Wondering whose heart would give out first.

“Well,” she whispered, stepping forward and taking his hand, “she does.”

And then she pressed herself on her tiptoes and kissed him, just in time of the climax of the new song, in beat with the swells of strings and cymbals and trumpets, forgetting, momentarily, where they were. Takashi didn’t forget, but he couldn’t have given less of a damn. He turned off his practiced decorum, the polite manners of the aristocracy, all he had ever known, and kissed her like a man starved. Like she was his last meal, like he was poisoned and she was the antidote. It was Tamaki and Renge’s ball, yes, but he, too, deserved to be selfish for the first time in his life.

Haruhi knit her brows in concentration. His body was so hard, rough and solid and muscled from his years of training, but his lips were soft. Even harder were his practiced hands as they clung to her waist. They bunched the dress, moving and touching and exploring, and it reminded her of some exploring she also wished to do.

Without breaking the kiss, her hand wandered from his shoulder to his jaw, threading in his hair, before landing at his temple stroking the fine hairs of his eyebrow. But she hesitated. Even as her tongue was in his mouth, she was nervous.

When her fingers brushed the scar, he grunted. Though it was muffled by her mouth, the shame filled her stomach. She moved her hand back to his hair, but he grunted again, pulling just inches away to see the mortification hollowing her pupils. He pulled her hand forward, pressing a kiss to it, and replaced it where it belonged. He clutched her closer, watching in amusement as she touched as she pleased. The scar was rough and tattered, like the rest of him, but it distinguished him from the fine elegance of the ball.

She never cared for fine elegance, anyways.

Mori leaned down to press a softer kiss to her swollen lips. Haruhi’s stomach twisted into knots. How this force of nature could love her so tenderly was beyond her.

But when the song ended all too soon, he took her hand and led her to a table, snagging a glass of water for her. He whispered her name, his voice the soft type of strong that made her feel safe. “If you’ll have me, I’d like to call you mine.”

Haruhi’s mouth filled with cotton. She cautiously moved her hands up his chest, circling the knot of his tie.”Mori…”

“Call me Takashi, please,” he said, reaching down to hold her face. His thumb swiped gently over her lips, seeing how flushed and full they were. “Or you can call me Mori, or anything else you wish. It only matters to me that it comes from your lips.”

She gave off a sigh, a damp, fluttering sound from the back of her throat. “Yes,” she cooed, breathless. “Yes, Takashi, yes.”

At her perfect annunciation, Takashi swept her into his arms, lifting her high into the air, almost like the first time in Music Room Three, but this time she was smiling, and laughing, and maybe it was the candlelight and stringed musicians that made him feel so romantic, but he thought he could see forever in the way her glistening tears met her smile.

#ouran high school host club #haruhi fujioka #takashi morinozuka #mori x haruhi #moriharu #takaharu #takashi x haruhi

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anakinisvaderisanakin · 3 years

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Grudge; aka a young Jedi tries to drop a bridge on Vader’s head, and it goes about as well you’d expect (for the people out there who want to see Vader being the insanely powerful murder machine he is)

“This oughta buy me some time,” the young Jedi muttered to himself in relief, while he watched the reinforced foundations of the giant suspension bridge stretching across the gouge of which he found himself at the bottom begin to give way.

He strained every muscle in his body, sweat pouring in thick globs down his forehead as the sandstone structure rumbled and whined in protest, cracks appearing in intricate patterns as they traveled and expanded rapidly along the eroded sides. The suspension cables stabilizing the viewpoints that had been carved into the natural overhang of the rock at either side of the bridge’s anchor points had already snapped under pressure. Picking up tremendous speed, the man-made platforms came hurtling down both sides of the canyon - and with them gushed an abundance of loose boulders, rocks, pebbles and sand knocked free by the sheer power of impact. A cloud of golden brown dust rushed past the young Jedi, who fought to keep his eyes open and ignore the grains blurring his vision with tears and mud.

A tiny but sharp rock struck the side of the Jedi’s cheek hard enough to draw blood, and he winced, faltering momentarily but quick to regain his bearings. His gaze remained fixed upon the top of the bridge, and the supporting pillars shouldering its ornate design against the bedrock lining the sides of this artificial crevice mined in the sandstone. Once, this canyon had functioned as a floodgate system, the only reminders of its glorious past now being the saltwater dam waiting several miles downhill. That, and the dry, dusty and cracked salt lake desert resting beneath the young man’s feet. This had been yet another attempt by the Empire to exploit and deploit a new, untouched system for its natural resources. The flood delta upstream was all but dried out, its ancient trackways drained, abandoned and littered with wildlife carcasses. Yet another ecosystem destroyed by Imperial greed.

But Jedi Knight Jarl Oda hadn’t come to Jansenn to become an environmental activist, although he had been tempted to at the very least severely cripple the Imperial machinery ruling the system more than once. No, Oda had come to seek refuge. Like any other survivor of the temple massacre - if there were any left, and he’d like to prefer he was not alone when compared to the alternative - he had seen the message recorded by master Obi-Wan Kenobi. He’d narrowly escaped unseen, lingering clone troopers discussing their plan to execute all Jedi on sight aloud. Following a direct order, gunning down their own generals. Their own friends.

It was shocking, but Oda had never taken to blindly trusting the clones - master Krell had seen to that. In his formative years, and during the war, that had been considered a fatal flaw by the council. He had often butted heads with fellow Jedi Knights like Aayla Secura or Anakin Skywalker over his unwillingness to rely upon his troops. Now, he was beginning to think himself lucky for his suspicions. His master may have been punished, unjustly Oda would like to believe, for refusing to humanize expendable soldiers. He had survived only because of that inherent doubt in their reliability.

Finally, as Oda twisted both palms upwards; he took a wide stance for maximal leverage, closed both fists, and tugged. Hard. With unwavering determination and with everything he had in him, narrowed eyes still focused on the looming, black clad figure atop the bridge. The ominous shadow of a man didn’t move, even as the structure beneath his feet came undone in slow motion. He didn't seem particularly concerned by imminent death, not even when the final fortification shattered and the bridge came crashing down.

Oda was prepared for the shockwave when tonnes upon tonnes of solid rock collided with the manufactured flood bed; salt crystals propelled like projectiles in every direction. What he wasn’t prepared for, however, was just how powerful the impact would be. The Jedi had no time to steady or brace himself as the first shockwave set him off balance, and the second sent him flying. The cloud of debri whirled past him in a flurry, dragging his helpless body with it and Oda instinctively covered his face with both arms for protection.

The sound came a millisecond later. Earsplitting. A deafening explosive crack, like the roar of a thunderstorm and the detonation of a thousand bombs combined. The Jedi covered his ears with a whimper when pain pierced his ear drums. An ominous, distinct pop followed closely by a shrill, high pitched ringing settled in his temples and muted any further noises like a swab of cotton. Panting, the young man found himself feeling quite a bit less confident even as he groggily managed to get up on his knees. The dust cloud kicked up by the bridge’s collapse disoriented him, both sight and sound reduced by the blast. His body ached, and his arms trembled from the sheer extersion of bringing down such a large structure. Oda had never attempted a similar feat before, and had never even imagined he might need to.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, Oda at least figured he had time to recover. No one could have survived a two hundred foot drop into a durasteel reinforced salt lake canyon, with a fifty foot overpass crashing down on top of them. Not even this menace, whoever he was.

He had hunted Oda through the vacant landscape of Jansenn for 48 hours without yielding. The hunt had begun as a creeping suspicion, as a foreboding sensation of being watched. The Jedi had no clue who his assailant was, but rumours spoke of Imperial Force wielders trained specifically to trap and dispose of any remaining Jedi stragglers. Oda had made several good friends in the underbelly of the Galaxy these past couple of years since the fall of the Republic. Perhaps he had become careless, or perhaps the vigor with which the Empire pursued Jedi had grown exponentially. Either way, Oda had a target on his back and a price on his head that not even his friends could erase. It had been a matter of time, but he hadn’t expected these assassins to be so relentless in their pursuit.

Coughing, Oda spit up a garbled mix of salt crystals, saliva and blood. His head was spinning, and he staggered backwards when he stubbornly got up on his feet. The moment felt like it had lasted an eternity but it couldn’t have been more than half a minute. Even in his disoriented state, the Jedi noticed that the topmost sheen of debris was already fading, carried away by the dry acrid winds overhead. But that wasn’t what bothered Oda and drew his attention. As he wiped his nose, attempting to stall the gush of blood trickling from the left nostril, the colour was left drained from the man’s bruised face.

The entire midsection of the expansive, collapsed walkway appeared to be hovering. Oda blinked rapidly, not believing his eyes and with a growing dread setting in, he tried to write it off as a hallucination caused by sudden head trauma. As if whatever external force that was manipulating the levitating wreckage had read his mind; the thick fog of obliterated gravel, sand and salt perforating the air seemed to settle in an instant. There was nothing natural about the way in which every single airborne particle of dust laid down as neatly as if someone had smoothed it out with their hands. In an instant the air was crisp and clear. The sun’s blinding light spilled into the canyon, reflected by billions of salt lake crystals. With one, single synchronized swipe, a serene peace settled as the rubble littering the bottom of the complex was brushed aside to create a perfect pathway. Oda didn’t want to look, but he already knew the culprit behind the inexplicable bending of physics.

Where only a collapsed bridge should have been resting, crushing its passenger under its weight - stood the man Oda had hoped to destroy. One of his large hands was aimed in Oda’s direction, palm open facing him. The other was raised to about eye level in a tightly clamped fist. There was a slight tremble to that one balled hand, but in its Force grip, the man had successfully both blocked and abruptly stopped the remains of the falling bridge mid air before they could even touch the bottom of the canyon. Around his imposing figure laid the shattered marble pillars, the stone railings that had lined the walkway in pieces. Suspension cables hung from the carved sandstone that had supported the viewing platforms. In the midst of the chaos, the majority of the demolished structure remained suspended just a few feet above the mysterious man’s domed black helmet.

Oda could only stare, mouth wide open in horror. His feet seemed nailed to the ground. His eardrums still burnt, but the ringing had begun to subside and the uncanny, eerie silence of the scene was tense and overbearing, suffocating. Shifting slightly, the large, imposing figure of a man on a mission that stood before the young Jedi began to approach. His strides were slow and meticulous, but he didn’t falter. Oda’s gaze remained transfixed by the large chunk of stone still floating freely; its vast shadow blocking out the sunlight.

“Did you believe dropping a bridge on me would be a sufficient way of stalling my advances? I am afraid I must disappoint you. Now, shall we see how you enjoy a similar treatment?” the man rumbled, his voice sharp and its bark was a sinister warning.

Oda instantly realized what it meant, and he did his best to flee on wobbly, unsteady legs as the strange assassin crouched. The man brought his arm back to take perfect aim and in one flawless heave - he hurled the remains of the bridge at the boy full force. The distance was enough to allow Oda to dodge the majority of the formation heading for him, even as it broke apart along the way - but it was not enough to completely escape the explosion that sent shattered rock and gravel raining down on him when its proponent collided with the lake bed. Tumbling, the enormous limestones that had decorated the walkway seemed to chase the Jedi with unfathomable speed for something so substantial.

Oda glanced back, confident he was in the clear when he noted that he was gaining. He thought he might get away despite the burning in his lungs and the taste of iron and copper welling up in his throat - the salt he had inhaled scraping his airways from the inside. He even dared to smile - only to stumble on an unexpected depletion in the ground ahead. With a yelp, the Jedi lost his footing and tumbled forwards onto his palms and knees. Unable to break his fall, he rolled around; the sharp salt tearing holes in his clothes, digging deep into his flesh. A sickening pop and a snap was followed by a wet crack, and Oda came to a sudden stop.

Pain shot up the young man’s spine as he was unceremoniously pinned in place. Adrenaline pumping, Oda twisted halfway around and through the agony he soon realized that his right leg was locked in a vice between reinforced canyon floor and a chunk of the bridge’s support pillars.

The Jedi gulped down the urge to throw up, blood gushing from the multiple spots on his body the salt lake’s unforgiving bed had ripped up and rubbed raw. Nausea struck full on, as he attempted to push the remnants of what was once a craving appropriating the planet’s local population’s cultural, decorative art off of his mangled limb. To no avail, Oda’s hands shook and refused to stay still, blood painting the palms a deep crimson. He was trapped, backed into a corner, tears welling up in his eyes as the monster responsible for his suffering appeared over the crest of this brand new ridge of fallen rock he had created.

The man was impossibly tall, broad shouldered and carried himself with a dark pride. All black, his cape billowed behind him like a pair of giant wings as he crossed the distance between them with one leap. The grace behind it was jarring when linked to the man who had performed the feat. The man appeared to be regarding his handiwork, and there were no signs of strain or struggle within him. It appeared as if the immense power that fuelled the impressive Force wielding he had just performed didn’t so much as phase him.

“Let - let me go… I don’t h-have anything! I’ll disappear, just p-please,” Oda heard himself brokenly sniveling in between sobs and sniffles - put face to face with his own mortality, he found himself pathetic.

“You are as cowardly as every other Jedi. Tell me, how does it feel to look death in the eye?”

There was no malice or direct spite in the man’s deep voice, his wheezing respirator serving as an unwelcome third part invited to witness this mocking display. It triggered some kind of memory, but Oda couldn’t say what it was. Instead, the Jedi focused on the monster’s stoic face plate and how it seemed to emulate something akin to disgust, or distaste despite its perpetual aloofness.

Oda realized he was being treated if he wasn’t human, as if he was just a pest or a vermin this sinister man was looking to exterminate before continuing going about his day. The Jedi could picture this menace of a man going home as soon as he’d been dealt with, and never again think of him. Never again deliberate on his fate, never regret his death. Tears poured down the young man’s bruised, cut up cheeks, and he shook his head vehemently.

“Please, I - I’ll do anything…” he begged in vain, voice cracking mid sentence.

“You have nothing to offer me. I have no use for you, and even if I did, you would be the last person I would consider worthy of making an exception for.”

The man’s montone, almost bothered delivery changed with an uncanny ease. Suddenly, there was a tangible sense of contempt seeping through his mechanical, synthesized vocals.

“I… do I know you? I don’t understand.”

Oda had never sensed such unhinged, unadulterated hatred spilling from another human being. It was enough to taint the monster’s entire Force signature; infecting it like a virus, and the Jedi realized he had never in his life come across someone so deeply connected to the Dark Side. Still, as the tidal wires of agonizing pain continued to send his nervous system into shock and meltdown - the anguish only serving to heighten his awareness of this man’s loathing - the young man found himself perplexed through his terror. Something told him this was a personal vendetta.

A Sith Lord, master Krell had said once. When you meet one, you’ll know. That’s what this nameless, faceless menace was. A Sith Lord.

“No. You do not know me, and you never will. But I know you.”

The Sith Lord drew closer, with a superhuman speed to his calculated, menacing approach. Oda tried to rear back, but with his leg crushed, he could do nothing but whine as agony washed over him and kept him incapacitated. The Sith seized the young man’s temporary weakness as an opportunity, placing one large, heavy booted sole over the Jedi’s heaving ribcage. As the assassin applied pressure little by little, Oda gasped - finding himself nearly unable to draw breath and the panic that had been threatening to overtake his senses broke through.

“I don’t - no - I---” he tried to reason and plead, but his executioner-to-be would have none of it.

“Master Yoda would not have taught you this, but I happen to believe in an eye for an eye. And while it would be decent of me to play fair, I have good reason not to. You owe me an arm, but I believe I will take… your life.”

Oda’s eyes widened as he stared right into crimson red lenses of the face plate covering the Sith Lord’s face. It all came rushing back to him. The lectures in the temple halls, the relentless bullying he had spearheaded. He’d just been a kid himself, he hadn’t enjoyed the new kid’s natural talent with the Force. He hadn’t enjoyed the attention the kid had received, he had been driven by a childish jealousy. He had thought the boy had gotten over it, as they grew up.

Yes, Oda might have accidentally broken the kid’s arm in a wrestling match. Yes, he might not have meant it when he’d said sorry and apologized at the time. Yes, they had gone on missions together when they had both been knighted. Yes, they had shared some sort of friendly connection on Ilum. Still, the kid had always been prone to holding grudges til the end.

Heart dropping into the pit of his belly, the Jedi instantly realized the identity of this Sith Lord. He didn’t doubt he would have died even without the personal connection, and it all made sense. Of course it was that kid who had turned on the Jedi council and their teachings. Of course it was that kid who had slaughtered the younglings in cold blood, who had brought about the Empire’s rise to power. Of course it was that kid, whomst master Kenobi would never sell out by name. That kid, who was excused and forgiven again and again.

Of course it was Anakin Skywalker.

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thealexchen · 4 years

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One Year On: Life is Strange 2 Critique

December 3rd, 2020 marks a year since Life is Strange 2 ended. I was inspired by @smitethepatriarchy‘s text posts (here, but there are several other answered asks worth reading) and @suhaplays’s text post (here) criticizing Life is Strange 2 to write a critique about how Life is Strange 2 handled certain themes and social issues.

(tw: gun violence, police brutality, animal death, incarceration, racism. In this essay, I use the word “queer” in a reclaimed sense, as a queer person myself. Of course, spoiler warning for all five episodes of Life is Strange 1 and 2).

A year on, my feelings about this game have soured... a lot. When the game was first announced, I was overjoyed that our new protagonists would be two Latino boys. Finally, we would have a culturally meaningful, groundbreaking video game with people of color and their experiences at the forefront!

Then the game was met with immediate backlash and I utterly exhausted myself defending it for weeks on Reddit and Tumblr. Throughout 2019, as the episodes came out I became increasingly disillusioned, frustrated, and disappointed with where the story was going. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so damn miserable while playing this game.

Then in the summer of 2020, when Tell Me Why began rolling out pre-release material, I noticed that they posted a Q&A about transphobia, gave content warnings, and discussed at length about their collaboration with GLAAD, Checkpoint, and the Huna Heritage Foundation to make the game with sensitivity and proper research. I cannot speak for trans and gender non-conforming people on whether Dontnod succeeded at doing so with Tell Me Why. But Life is Strange 2 did… none of that.

Essentially, I realized that the reason why I was so frustrated with LiS2 is because it focuses way too heavily on a trauma narrative. This comes off as insensitive to players of color without any content warnings or extensive research.

Sean didn’t have to get kidnapped, kicked in the face, and called a racial slur by a gas station owner. Daniel did not need to watch his puppy get mauled by a mountain lion for the sake of a “difficult choice.” Sean didn’t have to lose his eye for the sake of heightened drama. Sean didn’t need to get called a racial slur and humiliated by his native language/beaten in the desert for refusing to sing. Daniel didn’t need to get shot— twice. Hell, all of “Faith” probably could’ve been cut— how is a church cult that brainwashes Daniel and beats Sean half to death relevant at all to the story?

Even if not all of the game’s violence was racially motivated, the consistent trauma that Sean and Daniel endure does not make for positive representation— or even good characterization. There is a difference between sympathetic characters and well-written characters, and trauma does not make Sean and Daniel any more complex or likable-- just more fucking traumatized.

LiS2 is more grounded in reality, but that also makes plot holes that much harder to excuse (Daniel’s powers being spotted, most of the Parting Ways ending, Sean’s prison sentence). But most of all, it grounds all of Sean and Daniel’s pain and trauma in reality.

There is no magicking away a town-destroying storm with time travel. Sean can’t keep his dad alive by ripping up a Polaroid. After Max unlocked her powers, she was still a Blackwell student, reconnecting with Chloe, taking photos, saving lives, and uncovering a murder mystery. After Daniel unlocked his powers, the Diaz brothers lost everything.

The game never lets you forget that Sean and Daniel are homeless, wanted, constantly in danger, and that they are never getting their old lives back. It permeates the entire game, and for players of color, just reinforces a sad, miserable, grim reality about living in the United States. It is, as @smitethepatriarchy said, potentially triggering for players of color, and it is certainly not something I needed to be reminded of.

And the representation of POC? It feels shallow and ill-researched. It would only take a Google search to find out that Dia de Muertos (a holiday to honor the dead, no less) was from October 31 to November 2 in 2016, the year the game takes place, but Daniel only talks about Halloween in episode 1. Sean and Daniel never discuss any Mexican customs, foods, or holidays. Sean doesn’t speak Spanish with his immigrant father, only during a scene when he’s traumatized (again!) by two racists, and again when talking to Mexican immigrants— in jail. Daniel doesn’t speak Spanish at all. Most of their allies throughout the game are white, including Finn and Cassidy, who appropriate Black culture with their dreadlocks.

So what’s left? Sean and Daniel’s existence as people of color is, at worst, just a narrative prop to justify everything that happens to them. They are people of color on the surface only. In a meta-sense, the game only considers the color of their skin and their last names as what is narratively important… yikes.

I don’t have anything against people who genuinely loved the game and were moved by its messages and story. But I can’t help but feel bitter that white players have the luxury of only thinking of this game as a work of fiction and not feeling any personal reliability to Sean and Daniel’s racialized trauma.

I don’t regret playing LiS2, but I do regret all the time and energy I spent defending it in the beginning. I understand now that I shouldn’t let people’s opinions get to me, nor should I feel obligated to like or defend a game for its attempts at representation. But now, I think I understand how queer fans must have felt in late 2015 when Polarized released. After following the game for 10 months, to see that Chloe’s ultimate destiny was to die and Pricefield is another ship plagued by the Bury Your Gays trope (in the ending that the devs clearly put more work into) must have been just as disillusioning and infuriating. I understand why some fans were so quick to unfollow LiS or develop mixed feelings about the series, because that’s how I feel too after following LiS2’s development from September 2018 to December 2019.

Before I end, I will admit that Life is Strange 2 arrived at a time when I needed it. I still stand by my belief that DN did a great job characterizing Sean, Daniel, and Chris without toxic masculinity, which is the best thing they could’ve done for a male-focused follow-up to a game about queer women. I love that Sean is still a canonically bisexual man of color in a major video game and that DN didn’t forget their queer audience. I love the world and characters that DN built, but I still prefer AU fanfictions of their normal lives, without all that trauma.

So, I will continue to treasure Lyla and her 10 minutes of screentime (aka the only shred of Asian American representation I can get from this series). I still reblog LiS2 fanart to support the artists. I still support Dontnod, because as Tell Me Why has shown, they are capable of researching and writing stories with more sensitivity. And let’s be honest-- I’m still gonna be hella excited if Life is Strange 3 is announced.

But so many aspects of Life is Strange 2 were bungled that it came off as a remarkably average and forgettable experience. A year on, I don’t hate Life is Strange 2, but I am writing this to move on from it.

Thank you for reading.

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buddiewho · 3 years

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I was bored this weekend so I rewatched season 4a. Spoilers ahead.

Honestly, I don't think things get popping until episode 3 [but weren’t actually nearly that great until the last 3 episodes tbh] and I am not even being Buddie biased or Buckley-Diaz family unit biased [this might be a bold face lie, but on second rewatch, I noticed I was paying more attention to everything else as well]. 4x03 is just a really good episode. Good old emergencies, mixed in with Eddie's paranoia over Hildy. Then from there it's Buck Begins and the whole Buckley family secret. Then of course, I feel like when we get to Jinx that starts some kind of path. The universe path, you know? There Goes the Neighborhood also continues on this path. Buck is still trying to work through some stuff; a terrible date, the bit about SAFE SPACES. Then Breaking Point. Everyone has one right? Even Christopher and getting angry or as Buck put it “ I heard you blew up at your Dad” and that’s not over yet though. Taylor needing a friend. Nearly Buck reaching one, but he managed to repair it. Eddie for the sole fact Christopher runs away. Hen and Karen actually not having a breaking point until... Chim and Maddie breaking and repairing it in regards to how Baby Mango arrives in this world. Athena and Bobby just being parents to everyone as usual.

Fun fact. Breaking Point was on as I typed this and it's the one on one scene between Buck and Chris. "I don't want to miss anyone else," Christopher says after he names all the other people he misses first. Buck is probably also telling himself, don't make it about you Buck, this isn't about you, but you are going to promise, "I'm not going anywhere." The last three episodes (Jinx, There Goes the Neighborhood, and Breaking Point) were like some kind National Treasure bullshit; *Nicolas Cage voice* "The secret lies with Charlotte." "Paul Revere went by horse and it was two lanterns not one" or some bullcrap that movie talked about (not going to lie, I once thought it was comedic), but I just mean the overall premise of National Treasure being about secrets or coded messages and a Treasure Hunt (which if I'm correct is also a name of a potential 911 episode...?)

Can I backtrack a moment to 4x07? You know the awkward double date that Buck invited Taylor to? Buck is sitting awkwardly in that chair, wondering about his life choices and little bit of a song played. The lyrics, "There's someone else for you." Just that bit of the song, for the record and I don't think it was already playing in the previous scene to end so coincidentally over Buck’s face?

I'm also not over Taylor talking about looking for a miracle in which Buck gave to her and Eddie also called Buck a miracle worker.

Okay, the end of Breaking Point: Ana comes over to the house, like some awkward new beginning parallel to Madney being cute as they prepare for Baby Mango. Buck patches things with Albert. Then the not so happy crescendo/breaking point for Hen and Karen. Adopting Nia may not happen.

It's really coded like a treasure hunt and if there's an episode named that, well, that'll be hilarious. I'm forever going to hang onto Future Tense as a way of showing us the future, Buck and Eddie have yet to realize. So when they do realize it, it'll be soo damn good. So if the presumed treasure hunt the universe sends the boys on (with everyone else on their own kind)- but if Buddie doesn’t end with them figuring out what connects them and how they want to be connected...like if they don’t meet in the middle at the X marks the spot (or the universe tether aka Christopher) then I really am just creating this treasure hunt out of thin air and it doesn’t exist like the Dad profusely told Nic Cage’s character in National Treasure...or maybe it’s also like PLAYING DETECTIVES? Cagney and Lacey inspired True Crime podcast brought to you by Buck and Eddie two LAFD firefighters and best friends occasionally featuring their Captain of the 118; plus Bobby’s friend Michael and his partner David who reluctantly participates in these shenanigans but could provide key medical evidence/research. In my mind, they read [mostly Buck and Eddie] their cases/script for this made up podcast as 1940s detectives. Smoky voice Buck: “It’s a locked room mystery.” *1940s detective music* Smoky voice Eddie: “Correction. It’s a locked yard mystery...” Anyway...

Did I mention the clowns to ya'll? We didn't forget abut those clowns did we (Jinx might actually be my fav episode of the season after FUTURE TENSE). The clowns are so pointedly shot after Eddie mentions Ana to Buck. Okay. Then there's also the love languages thing. That's a book Buck’s therapist would've recommended right now or for some reason he’s choosing to read it? As we can see, I think the show might be reeling it back in for Buck. As Eddie put it "I don't know what inspired this software upgrade." Coincidentally, Buck 3.0 is looking to the FUTURE. Anyway, the love languages. NO one immediately thinks about the coffee machine prank. Absolutely no one so I won't even make that a thing, but I notice in that scene Buck "outs" Eddie by telling the team about Ana.

Hen: Ana who?... Is this the one you yelled at? Eddie: I apologized for that. Chim: Yeah okay and you still didn't ask her out? Eddie: She's Christopher's teacher. Bobby: I thought you said she got a new job. Buck: *crickets*

What's the intention behind Buck bursting this supposed secret and then not have him encourage Eddie? Like in his way, Buck could’ve said well, does she do this or that? Words of affirmation? Gift giving? Are yours and her love languages truly compatible? Oh, wait, there’s implications behind the book Buck is reading but also...there's implications behind Chim and Bobby's statements. They're implying okay so go for it. Neither Hen or Buck really do that. Why don’t we have Hen jumping on the encouragement train either? Instead she brings it back to that one unfortunate moment any of them really remembers of Ana... Hmm, it's secrets and coded messages and the one thing that Buck has said from this entire season that truly resonates with me:

Buck (directed to Eddie): The universe is screaming at you and it's like you're not even listening.

Irony is. Neither is he.

Oh wait, another line that resonates with me (and I made a recent post with it too):

Bobby (directed to Eddie): They're so focused on what they don't have that they might miss out on the chance to have something else, something real.

Something real.

You really want me to think this line is about Ana Flores, even if Eddie thinks it somewhat is? And the foundation of it is to encourage Eddie to think about moving on, to stop being so STUCK (2x04 anyone?). If it really is about Ana then we're actually painting Bobby as the character who has no idea...? None whatsoever as to HOW CLOSE Buck and Eddie could be, if that's what they wanted. Seems fake, but okay. Bobby's line actually should highlight that they both are looking in the opposite direction when in fact the SOMETHING REAL is right in front of their faces. The something real is what Eddie came home to after his supposed date.

Just saying because to me it looks Buck and Eddie are still looking in and RUSHING INTO the PAST TENSE and have yet to understand the FUTURE TENSE.

#buddie #911 spoilers #a rewatch #a messy one #but sure why not #how could I still not watch it with Buddie goggles on or my clown hat #...

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aropodcastfuck · 3 years

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MAG 114 Cracked foundation shows us another dimension and I never noticed

In this statement the giver Anya Villette is cleaning hilltop road house and when she discovers a basement she didn’t know existed and when she comes back out of the house the day is two weeks before she entered, her friends don’t know her and her favourite coffee e shop is gone.

She fell through the HILLTOP PORTAL INTO THE DIMENSION TMA TAKES PLACE

I can’t believe I never noticed but holy shit I mean it’s right there, that alone doesn’t sound like a lot Ik cause we know there’s a portal it makes sense

But if she was cleaning a HTR house in another dimension then that house exsisted d and that portal exsisted and most importantly, the FEARS exsisted

So what does that mean? Well in my brain it means the fears were already in that dimension so when in the finale they send them through to another which already has them, have they doomed that world

Are the fears doubled? Are the entities cross-dimensional so in that dimension they perform as they were aka not a hellscape or is worse idk I just relistened to this ep and my brain is going haywire

#the magnus archives #tma #tma spoilers #annabelle cane #hilltop road #tma theory #I can’t believe I’m still finding things #this is my 3rd listen Jonny #pls stop flexing your talents #mag 114

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firelxdykatara · 4 years

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um not to start anything “zuko had everything handed to him by the end of the show even though it took him until nearly the very end to realize he’s wrong: a country, a crown, his girlfriend that HE left behind, the love of his uncle that zuko spent most of the show yelling at and being a dick to, and that’s why he just doesn’t deserve ANYWAY I’M JOKING but this is how y’all be talking about aang” who even talks about aang this why????

It sounds to me like some Aang stans grossly misunderstand criticisms surrounding the writing of Aang’s arc in book 3, in particular during the finale.

This is actually a pattern I’ve noticed with distressing frequency, particularly of late: any criticism of Aang at all--of his actions, the narrative scaffolding surrounding them (never having to apologize for kissing Katara without her consent, for example), or of the failings in the way his narrative was handled (in book 3 especially)--is written off as hate and derided by stans who I can only assume believe that the writing of his character arc was perfect and he never did anything wrong that deserves fair criticism ever in his life.

To this, I can only state my firm disagreement.

The thing is, they don’t really have any counter arguments to refute the points that actually get made (which isn’t to say there aren’t bad faith criticisms of his character just like everyone else, but unlike most of the cast, ppl seem far more inclined to act like there are no valid criticisms of his character or his writing), which is likely why they just write it all off as unfounded hatred of their precious bean fave and ignore it accordingly. But that doesn’t, like, make the issues with his writing, or with book 3 as a whole, go away, and the fact that they refuse to engage with good faith criticism (and, in fact, often refuse to engage with criticism at all by pretending there’s no foundation for any of it--I’ve actually seen people try to justify Aang’s actions in, for example, Bato of the Water Tribe by insisting that Sokka and Katara were actually worse and that Aang lying to them shouldn’t be held against him because they were Mean About It which.... yeah I could go off for days about that alone) says more about their lack of actual engagement with the text of the show than it does about the people who are criticizing his character.

The things that we say were handed to Aang--the deus ex lionturtle (which gave him energybending), the Rock of Destiny (aka the thing that gave him back the Avatar State without having to even attempt to do the work to unblock his chakras again himself), and Katara, presented to him as the prize he’d won at the very end of the show--are things that he did not do the work to actually earn.

Which will probably get some peoples’ backs up, so let me rephrase--the narrative did not put in the work to show how he actually earned these things, preferring to waste time with pointless filler in the front half of the season and then only bring up problems and then solve them within the four episode finale because they left no more room for these very plot critical points earlier in the show. Take Aang’s unwillingness to kill Ozai, for example--this is something that absolutely should have come up far earlier in the season (prior to the invasion at least), and the fact that it didn’t says two things: one, that because the writers knew Aang wasn’t actually going to face Ozai during the eclipse, they didn’t think it mattered to follow through on what Aang planned to do if the invasion had been successful; and two, his sudden clinging to his people’s pacifism seems directly at odds with where the entire narrative of the show had been headed to that point. Why is he suddenly insisting he’s the consummate pacifist when we’ve seen evidence in the show of not only Aang reacting in violence and vengeance (towards the sandbenders, and that wasp he killed), but also evidence that Air Nomads were not the sort of pacifists who would roll over and just let someone commit genocide (the fire nation corpses surrounding Monk Gyatso, clear evidence [which Aang never seems to so much as consider at any point during the series, despite the fact that it could have been a point of much-needed growth and maturation, or at least examining his own people’s beliefs and realizing that, at twelve, he had a flawed and incomplete understanding of his own culture] that even Aang’s mentor was willing to kill in order to protect his home and his people)? Why, if he’s so damn pacifistic, did he never seem to consider with guilt any of the lives he took while in the Avatar state and fused with the Ocean Spirit?

And no, by the way, I’m not saying he’s to blame for the deaths Koizilla caused, but I am saying that it doesn’t make sense that he feels no remorse over all of that blood. Particularly since we see that he considers actions taken while in the Avatar State to be his own--he feels guilty when he goes into the AS and scares his friends, and he very specifically removes himself from the AS to avoid killing Ozai, which tells me that he does consider the AS’ actions to be his own. And if all life is sacred to him to the point where he won’t even eat meat (although Air Nomad vegetarianism makes no sense, but that’s another rant entirely) why doesn’t he so much as mourn for the lives lost during the attack?

These are all questions which the narrative itself never considered, and it’s frustrating because many of them are questions which should have been asked--and answered, or at least attempted--in the course of the final act of Aang’s character arc. He had a great set up going into the third book, with Monk Gyatso’s teachings filling in some of the blanks in Aang’s (again, flawed and incomplete--I challenge anyone to try telling me that if they were completely removed from their culture at age twelve, and it was subsequently wiped completely from the face of the earth, that they’d have anything close to a deep and nuanced understanding of it; twelve-year-olds don’t have a deep and nuanced understanding of anything, nevermind an entire culture and worldview, which is why Aang kept parroting soundbytes from the monks without actually understanding them) understanding of Air Nomad beliefs, but this thread was completely dropped in favor of... I’m still not sure, honestly.

Was Aang running away from his problems and effectively lying to his friends (does he ever actually come clean about being completely unable to access the Avatar State of his own volition?) more important than going back to the Guru, or at least his teachings, and coming to understand his own culture? Where was his arc of regaining the Avatar State because he worked for it, because he tried to re-open his chakras and, for example, came to understand what letting go of his attachment to Katara really means? (That’s actually one of the most frustrating bits, because a) he gets to have his possessive and unhealthy attachment to Katara and get the Avatar State back, despite paying lipservice to letting her go at the end of book 2; and b) he never seems to get what ‘attachment’ the Guru was actually referring to--letting go of Katara doesn’t mean he had to stop caring about or even loving her, but it does mean he was supposed to give up his selfish and possessive attachment to her, which means no nodding when some actor in a play calls fake!Katara ‘the Avatar’s girl’ and no assuming they were supposed to be in a romantic relationship despite never actually asking about her feelings and no kissing her without her consent just because he wanted her to feel the same way about him and didn’t care whether or not she actually did [otherwise he would have asked, and he never once even tried].)

Instead, rather than having a season-long arc of re-navigating his chakras, opening them, and regaining the Avatar State under his own power, he gets thrown against a well-placed rock which does all the work for him at the very last second. Energybending, which wasn’t even thought of as a possibility earlier in the season, rather than being a concept he comes to discover on his own as he navigates his chakras for a second time and comes to understand the how the energy flows between each one, is likewise just given to him by a third party, with no work necessary on his part. And as for Katara, well, I’ve ranted at length about that in the past, but their last one-on-one interaction before the epilogue is when Aang kisses her without her consent, and she gets pissed off about it and storms off. There is nothing to bridge the gap between that and make-out city, nothing at any point indicating Katara’s feelings (because, as far as Kataang was concerned, her feelings never mattered) and how they were changing, no apology from Aang for violating her boundaries, no understanding of what he did wrong and why it was wrong. Nothing. Not a single conversation.

That is why we say that Katara was handed to him like a trophy. Because she was. Kataang was endgame not because it made any sense for Katara, but because Aang was the hero, and he saved the day, and he deserved to get his forever girl on top of it. There was never any real attempt to broach Katara’s feelings on the matter--she’s never shown reflecting on their pre-invasion kiss (in fact, by all appearances she completely forgot it even happened), and she is never once asked what her feelings are, not by Aang or the narrative--because, at the end of the day, they didn’t matter. Aang was getting the girl he wanted, and that was that.

We say that Aang was handed these things without working for them because the entire narrative of book three seemed particularly engineered to making sure he didn’t have to. Zuko, meanwhile, had to work for everything he achieved--the gaang’s trust, Katara’s in particular, his crown and his kingdom. (No, he didn’t particularly work to get Mai back, but that’s a whole other discussion, and he would’ve been much better off if she never showed up again after TBR.) He didn’t get to take any shortcuts. Aang’s arc is all shortcuts, at least in book 3, and that’s when they attempted to show how he got from point a to point b at all.

Anyway, the situations couldn’t possibly be any more different, and idk who said that but whomever it is clearly does not understand where the criticisms about Aang and his hamstringed book 3 arc are coming from.

#atla #aang critical #atla critical #kataang salt #salt for ts #asked #Anonymous

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peekbackstage · 4 years

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Hello. At first let me thank you for your blog. I mean your posts and opinion as an insider is so interesting to read, it’s like you let us see a little more in this entertainment industry. After reading some posts I can now clearly see why so many stars live hard life, often have anxiety and even suicide thoughts. I mean their life seems to be fully controlled until they become really “someone” in this industry. Does it mean that until it happens they will do anything their company want and have nothing to do. I mean even if they get hate, they should pretend like they don’t care and can’t even say something against haters. My question is so random, I’m sorry. I also wanted to know, why so many singers and idols go acting even if they know many will hate it, they know they will get comments like “idols don’t let real actors to play”. I’m not sure about c-ent as I’m new. But I saw many such comments and reactions in Korean media. So why do they do it? Will they earn more money than being a singer or? Why not to try acting then? Why do they try to become idols? I mean there are so many talented singers and trainees who want ro sing. But eventually we see that many people who debuts as idols soon or later give up singing and try acting. I was just wondering. Thank you in advance, sorry if my question is too obvious. And better late than never. Happy New Year :)

Disclaimer: The following post is informed by my own experience working in the music industry. Chinese industry practices might vary.

In Asia, the world of entertainment tends to be pretty tightly regulated. It’s generally pretty difficult to get a foot in the door and even more difficult to actually “make” it. This post is going to mostly discuss Korea and Japan’s industries, as I am most familiar with those two markets.

LET’S TALK A BIT ABOUT IDOL HISTORY!

(Skip this entire section if you aren’t interested in history.)

In 1962, Johnny Kitagawa, the CEO of the entertainment company, Johnny’s & Associates, launched Japan’s first boy band, Johnnys. While this group saw some minor popularity, it paled in comparison to the group that is often considered to be Asia’s “first” idol group, Four Leaves, who debuted in 1967.

Four Leaves was a project composed of bishounen (pretty) boys who sang and dance but didn’t play any instruments. They were hand-selected and trained by Johnny Kitagawa himself, who largely focused on the artists’ personalities, attributes, and physical characteristics.

Four Leaves’ success was so great that Johnny’s sought to replicate it, creating the first idol (aidoru in Japanese) training camp system which is the foundation of all idol companies these days. Just like idol companies today, Johnny’s selected young bishounen boys who were admitted via an audition process, and then placed them in a dorm together. There, they would train as Johnny’s Juniors (aka trainees) until they were ready to debut.

By the 1980s, Japan had quite a few idol management companies (jimusho) that wanted to replicate Johnny’s success. By that time, the idol industry had matured, and the training camps had become extremely rigorous, Olympic-style singing, dancing, acrobatics, etc. all for the sole purpose of improving stage performances. By the time SMAP debuted in 1988, the system was already in place. But what SMAP did changed the game entirely: they launched their own variety show, effectively putting themselves into every Japanese household and endearing themselves to every single Japanese housewife.

This caused their popularity to skyrocket, which in turn led to the creation of the ecosystem we now all know: the all-encompassing idol who sings, dances, and acts in tv shows, variety shows, plays, and films. Brand deals and endorsements also really took off during this time, especially with the most popular member, Kimura Takuya.

(It must be noted that SMAP became very popular not only in Japan, but also all over Asia!)

By this point, South Korea was taking notice, and by the 90s, debuted their first generation of idol groups, which included the likes of H.O.T. and Shinhwa, who all went through more or less the same style of training that Japanese idol jimushos put through trainees through.

It must be noted that during this time, South Korea was pretty invested in trying to find the right secret sauce to also debut their artists in Japan, given the mature idol market there. S.M. Entertainment succeeded in doing this with their second generation artists, BoA, Super Junior, and TVXQ, by partnering with Avex Entertainment in Japan. (They even went as far as debuting a visual kei idol group, TraxX, which was actually produced by Yoshiki from X-Japan, to capitalize on the entire visual kei market in Japan.) JYP followed suit with Se7en and Rain, and YG Entertainment debuted BIGBANG and 2NE1.

During this period of time, it must be noted that the big talk of the town was surprisingly not pop internationally - it was actually Jrock, which had a big surge of popularity in overseas markets between 2007-2009. (Hence S.M.’s desire to debut a visual kei idol band in Japan.) The Hallyu wave hadn’t really started yet, but within a matter of a few years, Kpop was suddenly the hottest new thing just about, well, everywhere.

In fact, it was so popular internationally, that by 2013, Kpop had become the #1 biggest contributor to South Korea’s GDP. It was so important to South Korea that the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism established KOCCA (the Korean Content Agency), which began heavily investing in the export of all things “Hallyu,” but especially Korean music. International industry conferences worldwide suddenly started to see the rise of Korean showcases, which took place literally everywhere. KOCCA was determined to export their idol culture all around the world.

To capitalize more on international success, companies such as S.M. Entertainment and JYP began to incorporate Chinese members into their groups. This was specifically to give them a foot into the massive Chinese market, which, until the Hallyu ban in 2017, had a massive demand for all things Kpop.

It was around this same time that TFBoys in China debuted. The industry largely considered them to be the first real homegrown mainland Chinese idol group that rose out of a similar training system used in both South Korea and Japan.

HISTORY LESSON OVER!

Why did I feel the need to explain all of this history, you wonder? Couldn’t I just answer the question in a straightforward way?

Well, not really. It’s pretty important to understand that oftentimes, in the industry, idols aren’t seen as true artists - they are actually seen more as manufactured cultural products. The more products there are (i.e. music, acting projects) the more money there is, which in turn leads to more opportunities. When they are just starting out, idols never get to pick what activities they actually participate in - especially if they haven’t yet established themselves as very successful artists.

And even when they are established, oftentimes, an idol company will push an artist to try expanding/broadening their various creative outputs with acting. Why only sell music, when you can make money through tv and film?

Add in the additional benefit of not having any risk at all involved in said tv/film project and it’s win/win for the company - because they aren’t putting up any money upfront to produce and market the project.

Companies want their idols to pursue acting gigs because it increases the market share for the artist and more opportunities for their artist to create new fans who might discover the artist through the drama or film. This tends to be a big part of the idol ecosystem, though it must be noted that not all idols do go down this route if their company determines that their music products might generate far more money than their acting products.

This is especially true for rappers in particular, whose solo musical releases might not generate as much fanfare (or as much money) as an acting gig - especially in South Korea, where there is already a very mature, established Korean hip hop genre with plenty of very established hip hop artists. (There’s also a very popular hip hop competition show, Show Me The Money, that regularly features celebrity Korean hip hop artists.)

Sometimes, it just makes more sense to take acting opportunities, as they can generate better income than music.

Talented singers sometimes might also choose to go the acting route for the same reason - also because opportunities keep coming across the desks of their managers, who sometimes talk them into the projects. Other times, it may simply be that once an idol tries their hand at acting, they realize they have a real knack for it and end up wanting to pursue more acting projects.

In any case, there isn’t a single, universal reason why idols choose to go from singing to acting, but there is a universal reason why all idols inevitably do make the switch: money.

And for companies in particular, acting projects their artists star in are 100% pure profit with zero financial risk.

In any case, quite a few artists started out in music, tried their hand at acting, and then continued to do both. We see this especially with artists such as Vanness Wu, IU (Lee Ji-eun), and BLACKPINK’s Jisoo, who are all still active in both acting and music.

I hope this massively long post was informative and also helped answer the question, “Why do idols go from singing to acting?” (I also hope I helped explain the way the idol ecosystem works and how it all started!)

Thanks for the questions and for reading.

Edit: Oops, I totally forgot to answer the question, “Why do some people become idols?”

The answer is pretty simple: it’s really hard to get into the entertainment industry, and many people see idol factories as a straightforward roadmap into a career in entertainment. While it isn’t the only way into entertainment, it often is the path many artists do ultimately choose to take.

#Anonymous #ask #history of idols in asia #jpop #kpop #cpop #idols #music industry #entertainment industry #acting #peek answers

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thekrawratalksbnha · 4 years

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alright let’s talk: what is up with the todoroki family (bnha 291 analysis and theories aka 2k+ words of word vomit as i try to process this chapter)

so. we have new information and it’s not really what a lot of us were expecting. i know that i at least was expecting a story that aligned pretty closely to the story we got from shouto — just with a more, uh, tragic ending.

but well…that was wrong. so lets talk about it. what we know about the todoroki family, what we assume and try to figure out what their deal is.

so grab your beverage of choice, a snack, get comfortable, because this is probably going to be a long ride.

where it started:

ah yes. the sports festival. what an arc. and of course, it’s the arc that kicks of the “keeping up with the todorokis” arc we all know and love. here, todoroki spills his tragicTM backstory with midoriya and we are off to the races.

it’s the conversation and subsequent thoughts from shouto that shaped our understanding of the todoroki family.

so quick rundown of what was revealed:

endeavour bought rei. it was a quirk marriage and endeavour was only after rei’s ice quirk.

shouto was raised to be a hero who surpasses all might, to fulfill endeavour’s own ambition

shouto only remembers his mom always crying

endeavour created shouto to surpass all might

generally implies that at this point in time, he doesn’t view shouto as much more than a means to an end (his perfect little doll, anyone?)

he’s not impressed with shouto’s rebellion

he views shouto as his greatest creation, his masterpiece

he was already in training at 5 years old, trained to the point in which he threw up (revealed in shouto’s memory)

shouto was kept separated from his siblings (revealed through memory)

rei states that the children are becoming more like endeavour and that she sees endeavour in his left side (revealed through memory)

endeavour sent rei to the hospital after that for injuring shouto (revealed through memory)

shouto had suppressed memories of rei and her encouraging him to still be a hero and that his power is his own

so wow a lot of information provided in this arc. and it’s really important to recognize that it’s this information that most assumptions were built off of. any new information provided up until now could reasonably fit into the narrative shouto laid out in his conversations and his memories, and so they were.

but was that wrong to do? in re-examining this arc, and in light of new information there are a few key factors that should be addressed:

it’s almost entirely from shouto’s perspective. all the information we get is through shouto’s eyes. (with a little bit from endeavour — but not much)

shouto is a kid, the youngest and in this arc has already proven he is capable and did forget and misremember incidents and events. his perspective is in no way 100% reliable.

shouto only blames two people for the negative events in his life. himself, and mainly — endeavour. in this arc (though it has since seemed to change), he was willing to and did see endeavour in the worst light possible (for valid reason but nonetheless, he wasn’t inclined to give endeavour the benefit of the doubt)

the point of going over this? in moving forward breaking down the rest: it’s really important to consider that there is valid reason to believe that shouto could be wrong. or maybe not wrong, but not fully right either. like us, he’s probably made assumptions about his own family based on his own experience. and while most of it is probably founded and he has good reason to believe it that doesn’t mean it’s true.

so how can we figure out what is true?

other perspectives:

good thing we’ve got a few other perspectives to look at. so what do we know from the other members of the todoroki family.

rei has been pretty far removed from the family since her hospitalization. she’s been improving and now has a good relationship with most of her children. she actually vouches for endeavour to natsuo despite everything.

fuyumi lives with shouto and endeavour. she is the most vocal about wanting to give him another chance, and has hopes for them to be a family again.

natsuo was close with touya before he “died”. perhaps the most against endeavour out of the bunch. endeavour was a stranger to him but natsuo holds the neglect and treatment of shouto, rei and touya against him.

notice so far there is a pretty definitive through line here.

rei and fuyumi both seem more inclined to give endeavour another chance. both reference positive attributes and fuyumi has admitted to wanting to be a family again.

natsuo and shouto (to different extents) both never reference anything good endeavour might have done. the closest we get seems to be shouto admitting endeavour is a good hero. both never reflect on their relation to endeavour with anything resembling fondness. and while shouto seems open to idea that endeavour could try to be better, both have made it clear that they are unfamiliar with what a “better” endeavour would look like.

the most important note here considering the new information: natsuo and shouto are the youngest in the family. natsuo is four years old than shouto, meaning most of his memories are probably from after shouto’s birth (ie after endeavour got his “perfect” child), with a few from a few years before. and obviously shouto has no memories of a time before he was born.

fuyumi and rei on the other hand, both probably have a fair amount of memories from before shouto. fuyumi would have been around 7 at the time of shouto’s birth and rei of course has been around since the beginning.

so why does this matter?

well because it makes it a lot easier to understand some of the information we received in 291. speaking of which, now that we’ve established all this — let’s dig into that.

the pre-shouto family

291 gives us the first time we see the todoroki family before shouto’s birth. and again, while making no arguments on whether or not todoroki enji was a good father or not, it’s clear that it was very different.

some major points:

endeavour speaks about touya in a way that is very different from the way endeavour spoke about shouto back in the sports festival. and in general. it’s unclear if this difference is related to how endeavour feels about touya and shouto or if it’s a pre-atonement v seeking-atonement endeavour. nonetheless - it’s interesting to note.

endeavour comments about being fine (happy?) with the fact that neither touya or fuyumi had his dream quirk. while he hadn’t forget about it, at the time he believed touya could fulfill his ambitions and wasn’t necessarily pushing for a child with the half-hot/half-cold quirk.

touya wanted to train. the scene in the training room with touya was very different from the scenes with shouto. despite the harm his quirk caused him, touya seemed to be enthusiastic about training.

rei agreed to having more kids thinking that it would be good for the siblings to be able to encourage each other. the siblings weren’t separated before shouto to our knowledge.

endeavour reveals that he kept searching for touya.

an important note: all the perspectives—literally all of them—contradict each other to some extent. i talk about how all the todorokis are unreliable to some extent here, but for the purposes of this chapter: i’m assuming endeavour’s to be the most correct. largely because at the time of the events in question age-wise, endeavour was the most capable of remembering accurately. he could very well be downplaying things, or have misread situations — however, since his atonement arc begun, he’s been able to recognize some his wrongdoings and the pain he cause his family. i’m not saying his perspective is entirely true, just that it’s probably more accurate than dabi. regardless…

so once again i pose the question: what the fuck does all this mean?

well…

endeavour was probably kind of…okay, until ~around~ shouto’s birth.

the implications of what that means for shouto sucks. but given the information we have, that seems like the most likely situation. but let me be clear:

i’m not saying he was good. i’m just saying he wasn’t awful yet.

and when you think about it, it makes a lot more sense them him being awful the entire time. it’s clear that no matter what, endeavour was after someone to succeed him and be better than him — but it’s the most overpowering when he talks about shouto.

yes. he did marry rei at least partially because of her quirk. but keep in mind that we don’t have any reference for how they met/got married beyond shouto, who as previously established isn’t the most reliable in regards to his family’s dynamics.

BUT while he did train touya, it didn’t seem to be as forceful as it was with shouto. if they were more of a family unit prior to shouto’s birth, a lot of rei and fuyumi’s accounts, feelings and beliefs have a lot more foundation. fuyumi’s aspirations for the todoroki’s to be a family isn’t unfounded because she has memories of a time that they were, unlike natsuo and shouto. rei’s belief in endeavour having the potential to be a good man makes a lot more sense if there was a time that he was.

keep in mind that while the endeavour we know was very focused on the rankings, he did ultimately choose to be a hero. and that has connotations about his character.

so at long last what is up with the todorokis.

well let me give you my best guess:

what if enji and rei married — not necessarily out of love, but not a straight up arranged marriage either. i think maybe enji initially noticed rei because of her quirk, and they went through some weird strange version of courting. obviously, they had conversations because at some point he learned that about rei’s favourite flower. so maybe it wasn’t love. but with the information we have from all sources, i think there is a lot more we don’t know yet about this story.

they had their first kid, touya. when touya’s quirk developed, enji probably started teaching touya how to use it. the two of them probably spent a lot of time together and enji’s approach to training touya was probably much gentler than his approach with shouto. he also was well aware of touya’s weakness since it was a more extreme version of his overheating. nonetheless, touya wanted to be trained and endeavour could see the potential touya had, putting his ambitions on his first son.

rei and enji agreed to have another kid. rei wanted touya to have a sibling and enji was still hoping for someone with a balance of both quirks. when fuyumi didn’t have both, he thought it was fine and continued forward working with touya.

now we have next to no information about the time around natsuo’s birth. my guess is that things were pretty status quo. the scene with touya and enji in the training room, touya looks to be somewhere between 5-7 maybe. so i’d guess that it took place somewhere around natsuo’s birth (probably shortly after)

i think that scene, is when enji probably started to realize the hard limit touya was facing with his quirk. which could have been the start of a downward descent. maybe endeavour started trying to train the weakness out of touya. maybe he got more intense. maybe he started neglecting touya at this point. it was probably the first big step onto the major slippery slope endeavour was about to go down. what he wants is no longer necessarily achievable and his ambition begins to get the better of him.

he probably was slowly starting to guess that maybe touya wouldn’t necessarily live up to his aspirations — but he still didn’t have a better option.

and then shouto came into the picture.

i’m not saying shouto’s birth was a complete 180 for endeavour. nor was it in any way shouto’s fault. but i do think it was the figurative final straw in enji’s descent. the catalyst.

by best estimate touya would have been around 9 when shouto was born (running off of the theory that dabi currently around 24). so sometime between dabi being 9 and 14, enji put all his attention onto shouto.

and think about that moment: shouto is born and at some point it becomes apparent that he has the quirk endeavour has dreamed of. and the reactions start to make sense here.

endeavour who has long since dreamed of this, forgets everything else. it’s a point of obsession for him. up until now, half-hot/half-cold was theoretical. and he fucks up big time. cuts off the other kids, is brutal to shouto, because he has a clear path to victory now. shouto just has to be perfect. and this cause not only for him not to really view shouto as a kid. but also to destroy his relationship with touya.

touya still a young kid at the time goes from probably training and spending time with his dad everyday to never seeing him. after having the entirety of his life up till this point being told that he is endeavour’s successor, he’ll be able to do what endeavour couldn’t and then getting replaced, it’s a jarring shift. and it makes dabi’s grievances make sense.

everything touya has known has changed going from being the favoured child to being completely ignored and neglected. and cue his rapid descent. his crying to natsuo about why he existed because he doesn’t know anymore. the fact that ultimately the belief up until this point was that he pushed his quirk too hard alone and that lead to his death. his taunting of shouto as a puppet for endeavour.

meanwhile shouto is suffering through what we know he’s been suffering through.

and yeah from here on out, endeavour is an awful dad. but as of right now, most of the evidence in my best interpretation of it leads to the idea that maybe he wasn’t as awful at the start.

but also, it gives reason for endeavour’s “redemption” arc. when he got what he wanted in becoming number 1, his whole reason for creating and hyper focusing on shouto was reduced to nothing. so he starts to realize the affect his ambitions have had on his family. the idea that endeavour could be capable of any sort of true atonement feels a lot more likely if you consider that he has and has demonstrated the ability to not be a flaming piece of trash person in the past.

the want for atonement, todoroki enji’s current characterization just makes a lot more sense if you view it as something that didn’t come out of nothing. as something that was always there, just pushed aside in favour of relentlessly pursuing his goals. and it makes sense that the real bad stuff would have kicked in once it seemed like his idea failed with touya and then receiving exactly what he wanted in shouto.

so yeah: that’s what i personally think is up with the todoroki family history. there’s so much to talk about and i definitely missed somethings so full apologies if i forgot about any glaring facts.

there’s a lot more that could be said. and there’s some smaller topics related to somethings mentioned here that i want to dig into a bit more.

until then, this has gotten way too long so anyone who actually made it to the bottom here—thanks! feel free to come yell at me about endeavour or dabi or shouto or anything else really. this is a super interesting arc and it’s great to see so many elements coming back into play.

also i do want to mention: my whole stance on the “is dabi right? is endeavour right? who is good?” is pretty generally neither. i think endeavour and dabi are both very strong characters that operate in that morally grey area. while i’m not necessarily a fan of the endeavour redemption—knowing what we know now it makes a bit more sense to me. at the end of the day, right now, both have done awful things and neither should really be excused for what they’ve done. but no one has to be right or good. they are both deeply flawed characters and that’s what makes them very interesting to follow. so props to hori for executing them really really really well. love them or hate them, the parallel’s and arcs between endeavour and dabi are very interesting to explore, and i’m living for it.

my opinion is in general to stop fighting over who’s right or good or at fault or justified and just like idk, enjoy the story.

any way, i’m done. until next time!

#bnha 291 #bnha 291 is killing me #bnha spoilers #bnha manga #bnha manga spoilers #todoroki shouto #keeping up with the todorokis #todoroki enji #todoroki touya #todoroki fuyumi #todoroki rei #todoroki natsuo

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