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alreadyblondenow · 4 years

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When December comes | Hendery

✦ Hendery x reader x Lucas ✦ Fluff, Smut, Angst, Royalty AU, Nutcracker AU ✦ 3/5 for HOLIDAY SERIES: Once Upon A December

Summary: As an adopted legitimate princess and future queen of two kingdoms, you grew up proving yourself that you deserve the role that has given to you. Nothing is simple about being an adopted princess but being arranged to marry Prince Hendery turned your life upside down.He left you, eventually. And by the time he came back to your life, you have a loving boyfriend, and Prince Hendery…. is arranged to be married to your sister now.

Word count: 8,690k

Warnings: adopted reader (if thats triggering at any point, please click away) A lot of smut, unprotected sex, mentions of sex, swearing, mentions of other idols, fingering, mentions of rough sex, heavy cheating, major character death

A/N: PURE FICTION. This is a love triangle fic but not much focused to Lucas, more on Hendery. Inspired by a bunch of royalty movies, especially princess diaries, Nutcracker (ballet), inspired by the song Satisfied from Hamilton. Love writing for Hendery so much. Check my recent post for Hendery’s thirst photos whahaha, as per Lucas character here idk I always see him as sweet and lovable and he always knows what to do. The guy has serious good leadership skills if you haven’t’ notice and i think its sexy. I’m glad this didnt reach to 10k bc u know me i hate my works being long af haha enjoy reading mwa!

For @jeongyoonohs sorry it took me so long to finish this :( But this is for you!

OPENING

Once upon a time, in a kingdom not so far away, ruled by a king and queen who can’t have a baby no matter how many times they’ve tried. The sad news spread all over the kingdom and caused chaos everywhere mainly because they were scared for the fall of their beloved kingdom.

But the king is wise. He made an alliance with the kingdom of his truest friend and together they helped each other’s kingdom by making an agreement. “I can’t have a child, but my queen and I have decided to adopt a baby girl,” the king says to his fellow king.

“And my wife is carrying a baby boy”

“It’s settled then. My adopted daughter will be arranged with your son, and someday be married to each other” They shook hands and made the agreement official by sealing it with their signatures and royal seals in front of their queens.

The kingdom that lost their trust with their king is now calmed relieved after hearing the great news of the two kingdoms having an alliance. And to fully earned their trust again, they searched far and wide for a baby girl that will soon be the future of their kingdom.

“And that baby girl is you my darling” your grandfather finishes his bedtime story to you. Caging you in his strong arms, cradling you like you’re truly related by blood. “Grow up as a fine woman and save this kingdom” he added. You embraced your grandfather back and smiled so sweetly at him, tracing his handsome features… then you remembered.

“Tell me the story about the Nutcracker prince,” you singsong to him. He doesn’t tell you the original story, but instead, he always tells you his version and it’s always better. His embrace became tighter, then he looked at his expensive watch to check how many minutes does he have left.

“Okay. I only have a few minutes left, princess” He started by introducing the Nutcracker prince to you which is actually magical because even though you’ve heard of this so many times it never gets old and you’re always excited to hear it again.

He described the prince as a soldier like him, but a younger version he says with a giggle. And that Nutcracker slash prince slash soldier is made specifically for you so that one day, the two of you can rule two kingdoms all at once. “Why do I need a prince?” you pout, and your grandfather is startled by your question.

“Well, jeez, I don’t know. I’m sure you can still be a fine queen without a prince, right?” he says while tucking you in and preparing you for bed. “But let’s just say that princesses like you need a proper man like the Nutcracker because… grandfather will not always be by your side” of course he can’t mention death to you, no, you’re too young to know about these things. So he kissed you goodnight on your forehead and promise to see you early in the morning again.

Growing up as an adopted princess was never easy because the eyes of a judging kingdom have always been against you and your family. That’s why as you grow up, you swore to yourself that you will prove them wrong and that you are the future of this kingdom. At a very young age, you made your parents proud of your gift of leadership and continue to make them proud by doing great in school.

Until one day, the queen finally got pregnant.

The kingdom became so busy about the queen’s pregnancy and literally, every person is excited about your baby sister. You were only nine years old and you were innocent as you can be so you don’t know that the attention is slowly shifting to your baby sister. You didn’t mind of course, again, you were just a kid. But as you grew older and older you can finally foresee a life behind the shadow of your baby sister. The real princess. It’s like she took everything from you… but whenever you remember that you’re adopted, it seems like she’s just taking what’s originally hers in the first place.

Today is your thirteenth birthday and you celebrated it with your grandfather in an amusement park. He is the only person left in your life who can see you as a rare gem and you’re thankful for him. As you walked around the busy park, with a few bodyguards on your sides, you and your grandfather laugh and laugh while you’re eating hotdogs on a stick.

“Your father told me that you refused to have a ball for your thirteenth birthday? Why?” he asked while enjoying his food.

“I’m not a real princess grandfather, I don’t deserve a ball. And besides, riding that scary rollercoaster is better than dancing with a bunch of princes whom I don’t know in the first place, and playing dress-up the whole night”

“Hmm. Don’t you say that you’re not a real princess, there was a Y/n before your baby sister. And the kingdom is still looking forward with you ruling us someday because you’re older than your sister and you’re still a legi-“

“timate daughter, I know, I understand grandfather thank you for reminding me” you wiped the ketchup on his lips and smiled at him, “What will I do without you? I hope that my Nutcracker prince is exactly like you. Wise and strong”

“Don’t worry about that darling, you’re still young, and I’m still here” he giggles and walks you towards that scary rollercoaster ride.

ACT 1

Things slowly change around the castle and you learned to distant yourself from your parents but not forgetting your duty as a first born and legitimate adopted daughter of the king and queen. And as you enter royal high school, you thought that your life will get uglier but no. Surprisingly, school made you feel alive and less of a princess and more like a future leader.

But most importantly, you finally met your Nutcracker. Prince Hendery.

Usually, prince and princesses meet for the first time during a royal ball, soiree, or a simple lunch at the palace’s garden grounds. But you and Prince Hendery, met in the school hallway for the first first time. It is as if your whole world slowed down, every student walked in slow motion while you and Hendery locked eyes on each other. And the best part is, he did not know that you’re the princess who’s meant to be forever with him.

At first, you don’t talk to each other and just simply exchange smiles and glances from time to time whenever you cross paths in the hallway, eating at the cafeteria, or ‘reading’ at the library. You thought it wasn’t fair that you know everything about him but he doesn’t even know what you look like.

“You know I’ve been flirting with this princess for months already, do you know her name?” Hendery whispers at his fellow prince, Xiaojun, and told him to take a look at where you’re seated. Xiaojun then scoffed at his friend and playfully slapped Hendery’s face knowing that he is completely clueless about who you are.

“I don’t know if you’re always going to be this dumb, you’re going to be a king someday. Anyway, that princess is Y/n. The Y/n” and that is all it takes to make Hendery realize that he has been flirting with his soulmate for weeks now.

From there on the prince has become bold with his gestures. Sitting with you during breaks, even flirting with you in front of your friends and his friends. Prince Hendery has the most beautiful smile you have ever seen, hair is black and soft and you bet it smells good either, he was tall but just right for your height. Not only he was perfectly handsome, but he is a gentleman too. In other words, everything about him screams prince charming.

You and prince Hendery were the talk of royal school. Everyone knew about your arrangement and the alliance of your kingdoms. You even hear people talk on the hallways that you’re literally made for each other that’s why everyone envied you.

“Let’s grow up first, okay?” Hendery says, giving you a single rose during your school’s Valentine event. A simple gesture that says there's no need to rush on being in a relationship and make everything official between the two of you but also, it was a subtle move to show everyone that you already belong to each other so there should be no competition.

You fell in love with each other from a distance, not rushing through love, taking your time, and enjoying your youth because you have a lifetime together. Although, Hendery likes reminding everyone that you’re his in the most subtle way, may it be hugging you in public, kissing your cheek before you go home, and smiling your way whenever he sees you around the school.

From freshman year until your senior year, you and Hendery waited until you’re both legal of age to finally make it official. The news was all over the TV, tabloids, articles, and magazines that you’re in love with each other. It was a cute high school sweethearts story and every day was perfect.

Senior year just started and you and Hendery decided to study together but the planned study session became a make out session, giggling and cuddling in his bed while still wearing your uniforms. The prince was looking at you, admiring your pretty face touching your features softly then suddenly he noticed that he can almost see your breast. He looked away, of course. And covered his head with one of his pillows as he groans in frustration.

“What? Why?” you asked, completely clueless. He didn’t answer you, instead, he covers your exposed skin with a small pillow. “Oh shit, I’m sorry” you apologized immediately and became shy like him too.

“It’s okay. If I’m being honest I wanted to touch you but, I knew better than that. Can we promise to be each other’s first and last?”

“You mean sex?”

“Exactly, sex”

“Only if we seal it with a kiss,” you bite back in a flirty tone, looking at his pink lips that are slowly coming closer to you. When your lips touched, you returned the kiss and swing your arms around his neck, situating him accidentally in between your legs. Skirt lifted and all. Your bodies are becoming warm in an instant and you both know you need to stop before you make wrong decisions.

“How's that for a promise? Let’s get married when we grow older and have sex every day” he bit the shell of your ear, making you giggle and laugh with him. Being this horny with each other is normal, you thought. You are both young and full of passion, and it amazes you how Hendery wanted to wait until you get married and be kings and queens.

Senior year is perfect. Every day.

Until one day, Hendery’s father died and he stopped coming to school. You hear different kinds of gossip every day. 'Is he a king now? That's why he's not coming to school?', 'School is boring for king Hendery now', 'Are they gonna be married soon?', 'Are they even ready to rule yet?'. Again, you were the talk of the nation. The headline ‘Prince Hendery left Princess Y/n’ was everywhere and you can't do anything about it. You weren’t hurt that he left everything, you were more worried because maybe he’s all alone and grieving. You wanted to ask his family but you respect their privacy.

“So he just left?” you told your grandfather everything. He just came back from his cruise around the world and you’re happy to see his visible tan lines, for sure he had a great time.

“Yep, just like that grandfather,” you walk shoulder to shoulder around the palace’s garden, looking at the flowers and harvesting some fruits.

“Well, I’m sure he had his reasons. Just stretch your patience my darling, you know what they say, love is patience” he pats your hand before picking a lemon. “Enough about the prince, I heard you are making quite an impression now. The king is beyond impressed” he was talking about your win, elected student body president. Apparently, it’s a big deal for your father, because, during his stay in royal school, he was elected as president too.

“I didn’t try too much, I think I won because of my popularity and not because of my leadership skills” you once again doubted yourself but of course, your grandfather is here to straighten you up.

“Show them you’re both. Popular and a great leader”

It was always a good talk with your grandfather, but whenever you remember that Hendery is not with you anymore it automatically makes you sad. You missed him. So much.

ACT 2

But even though you missed Hendery and it’s like he took a part of your heart and brought it with him, life goes on. You faced Senior year and showed everyone your perfect smiles like nothing is bothering you. But at night, when you’re all alone, you just can’t help but look at your pictures with Hendery on your phone and miss him.

Life goes on.

With or without your prince.

You studied day and night, kept your eyes on the prize, and busy yourself until your heart is finally healed. You waited for him of course, you waited long and hard but you can’t wait forever.

As you continue to know yourself, get involved with a lot of organizations in college, your journey has become even more thrilling when you met Lucas. He’s not royalty nor does he came from a rich family, he’s “just a man who’s brave enough to ask a princess on a date” his exact words.

Lucas is a whole new adventure to you. He’s the epitome of new things and new experiences. But your favorite thing about Lucas is, he can make you forget that you’re a princess even just for a few hours. He made you happy every day because he never forgets to tell you that being happy is the most important thing in this world. He loves you with every part of his being. And he’s ready to face your world and be with you in every step until you become queen.

“N-no I don’t want to be king. I can be your butler and still love you for all I care” he covers your naked body while you both come down from your highs. Tonight is one of those nights that you can be with Lucas without having your bodyguard. He was praising you during sex, calling you ‘princess’ or ‘my queen’ whenever he thrust and pushes you on the edge, so you asked him a stupid question if he wants to be king. “I just want to be with you, people may see me as a gold digger once the news that you have a commoner boyfriend comes out, but we both know that’s not true right?”

“Of course, not” you embraced him and apologized for the question, hiding your face on his chest. You feel his big hands caress your back to comfort you and soon plant kisses on your temple. He’s always sweet and gentle like this. If only people would see the kind of person Lucas truly is.

“But what if he comes back? What will happen to us?” he was talking about Hendery. When Lucas knew that you’re arranged to be married to Hendery, he didn’t take it lightly. He was mad but not to you. You didn’t talk for weeks and you’re both heartbroken, but Lucas realized that it's better to love you fiercely now than waste his time worrying about the future.

“I will talk to my father, don’t worry about that. Wong Yukhei don’t you trust me?” you kissed his chest to put him back in the mood and change the subject. Of course, he can’t say no to you.

After getting your degree in college, you started working for the king and queen, spearheading foundations, and knowing the kingdoms that you’re going to rule someday. Remember when you thought your parents will forget about your existence because they had your sister? Well, that didn’t happen. Your parents were proud of everything you’ve achieved and they wanted your sister to follow in your footsteps.

Slowly, you proved to them that you don’t need a king to rule this kingdom. Introducing Lucas to your parents did not go well at first but eventually, they saw that you and Lucas are happy with each other despite having different worlds.

Still, they want to keep your relationship hidden.

It’s Christmas Eve and you’re all dressed up right now, ready to shake a lot of hands and dance with a bunch of princes and dukes and god know what else but you can’t help but take care of a few things before you enjoy this night. You were signing some last minutes contracts and reading proposals when you heard a soft knock from your door, “S-sorry. Come in” you see your boyfriend dressed up in a tux, looking so handsome. He smiled at you before he enters and closed the door behind him, “well you look dashing” you put your pen down and crossed your arms.

“I’m here to pick you up your majesty, the guests are waiting downstairs and your grandfather-“

“Oh he’s here! Perfect!” you exclaimed and express your excitement upon hearing that your grandfather is here. You haven’t seen him for a very long time and you have lots of stories to tell him. “Oh shit- by the way. Lucas, uhm… Can you zip my dress, I forgot I unzip it because it was uncomfortable. Stupid ball gowns” you said, turning your back to Lucas and waiting for him to take care of your zipper. But before he zips you up, he kisses your exposed shoulders and massaged them.

“Don’t forget to have fun tonight okay? I’ll be watching you like a hawk the whole night- well actually, not you. The men that will dance with you tonight” Because Lucas has no rank or title, he can’t earn a dance with you because it’s against the conditions that your father gave.

“All done your majesty,” he says and stepped back to open the door for you.

Every Christmas Eve, throwing an extravagant ball has been your family’s tradition for centuries. It is known by royalties across the globe and this fancy Christmas party is actually part of your kingdom’s history. Different respective kings, beautiful queens, annoying princes and princesses, dukes and duchess are invited and all are here not only to have fun but also here to talk business with you.

The night goes on, dancing with a few guests before you meet and spend some time with your grandfather. You wanted to whine and complain to your assistant but she’s just doing her job so you shrugged it off. “How many more left?” you asked while waiting for the next Prince to ask to dance, “two more your majesty. Your grandfather is next after this” you smiled and thanked her, giving a bow to the next prince who’s about to dance with you. And the moment you lift your head to meet his eyes, you thought you were dreaming.

For a moment you forgot proper princess etiquette and gave Hendery a tight hug, shocking everyone at your behavior but they’re even more shocked about Hendery’s appearance. ‘The son of the dead king has finally shown himself’ you hear everyone murmur around you but you don’t care. You smiled so big seeing that handsome face again. He kissed your hand and asked you to dance which you accepted gladly, now that Hendery is back and you’re all dressed up wearing your tiara, you feel like a real princess finally meeting his prince in a storybook.

“Where have you been?” you whispered to him.

“I’m sorry I left you like that, I was devastated” he whispers back as you two dance in the middle of the ballroom with the other royalties, trying so hard to hide the excitement. While you were dancing with Hendery, you remember that handsome smile that made your knees weak, his sweet gestures to prove his feelings for you, and your promises to each other.

Is it really true that first love never dies or your love for Hendery was just too strong that it never died?

When Hendery was about to hand you over to your grandfather, your father and mother came out of nowhere with your younger sister on their side. Is it because they’re happy to see Hendery too? Or are they going to press you regarding the arranged marriage again? You cling to your grandfather as you get nervous but careful not to show it. “Ah! Hendery welcome back! How was your time in the army, good?” your father exclaims. So all this time he knew where Hendery is.

“I had a hard time your highness, but I made it back in one piece” Hendery answered and made a small joke that made you all giggle and let out a small laugh. Oh you missed him.

“Hendery, I want you to meet Y/n’s younger sister” you watch him kiss your sister’s hand, “and also your future bride to be”

You were completely taken aback by what you just heard and the words that came into your head were, ‘I thought you were mine’ but you didn’t speak your mind and listened further to what your father is saying. But as you listen more, you feel like your dress was becoming tighter and tighter in every second that you can’t breathe anymore. “She will be your queen in your kingdom, and Y/n will be an independent queen here” your father explained proudly.

“But she’s too young” you pointed at your sister but you see how your sister’s eyes are sparkling. Too late. You thought. You watch her be charmed by Hendery’s visuals, that damn smile captured your sister’s heart in an instant.

“Hendery can wait until his bride is in the right age to be married, right son?”

“Of course your highness, it’s my duty” he answered confidently.

After the unexpected talk, you excused yourself, went to your room, and breathed outside on your balcony. You can’t forget your sister’s face as she looks at the man you used to kiss and you used to love. She has no idea what controversy she will face in the future, she is so young and blinded by infatuation…Or maybe you’re being like this because you’re jealous.

“Believe me I’m just as shock as you are”

A familiar voice made your heart race and your body stiffen in no time. You turned around secretly hoped that you’re wrong, but you will never forget his voice and also how his mere presence makes your heart excited. “How did you get in here?”

You hear him scoff and stood behind you, “We used to make out a lot in your room-and mine too of course. I still remember the way to your room by heart” he looked up the stars to stop himself from looking at you. You looked so beautiful tonight that he can’t stop blushing and admiring you.

You were silent. Mainly because you don’t know what to say and you’re not sure what to feel either.

“It’s going to be fine” with all his courage he tried hugging you like how he used to when you were only teenagers. But you pushed him away and stepped away from him. Hendery felt a slight pang in his heart, he never thought that you could do that to him.

“Were not together now don’t you get it? You were gone for years Hendery, a lot has changed”

“You’re hurting me, this is not our fault we love each other what's wrong with that” he reasons out, trying to lower his voice because someone might hear him.

“Loved. Past tense. My sister likes you and you are arranged to be married to her Hendery” you close your eyes as you remember what happened again earlier.

“If I have known that life will take you away from me, I shouldn’t have wasted my time and showered you with love and affection when we were young”

With a heavy heart, your first love left you in the cold night with a confused mind.

ACT 3

To make it up with your grandfather, you spend Christmas morning with him while drinking tea by the palace garden and telling him numerous stories about Lucas…and also your talk about Hendery last night.

“Don’t do something stupid that your future self with regret” he says, stirring his coffee and chewing his bread with jam. He was talking about cheating, he didn’t tell you exactly but you get it. “Did you tell your boyfriend already about what you felt upon hearing your sister’s engagement?” You shook your head and see your grandfather get disappointed but he understands that everything that’s happening now is not easy for you.

“He’s away, for now, left first thing in the morning to go to Hong Kong for his family” you felt hopeless again.

“Oh everything will be fine. I’m sure he will understand, that man is wise. I’m rooting for him” he says like Lucas is his son.

“What- really not Hendery?” you let out a laugh because your grandfather is cute.

“Nope. Now, don’t ask me why. Figure it out yourself” he winks and continues to eat his breakfast.

As days go by without Lucas, you and Hendery continue to meet each other accidentally whenever he visits your sister. You’re a busy woman, but your mind seems to have time to think whether they kissed already, hold hands, or admitted their feelings to each other if there's any.

You saw flowers on your way to your office and you thought that maybe it's for your sister, from Hendery and you can’t help but to get envious and jealous. He used to give you flowers back when you were in high school and now… he’s doing it to your sister too.

While you were reviewing proposals, you got a phone call from your personal phone and it's Lucas which you’re very excited to answer. “Hey” you singsong, putting the phone between your ear and neck while you continue to scan through papers.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, everything okay back there?”

No. You wanted to tell him that you’ve been having these weird feelings towards Hendery. “No, baby. Everything’s fine, I’m working now… As usual- how's everyone there?”

“They miss you. They wanted you to visit next year” he says, breathing deeply before he continues. “Listen, I want to stay here for a little longer. I miss them too you know-“

“And it’s fine! Baby, I understand. You’ve done so much for me already, go and be with your family” you felt guilty for caging Lucas in your country. Even though he’s the one who wanted to stay here, still. You can feel that he’s homesick sometimes.

After working in your office, you went straight to your room and purposely skipped dinner because you knew that Hendery is still here. When you opened your door, the same flowers that you thought Hendery gave to your sister is sitting on your coffee table with a small envelope that has your name on it.

Dear Y/n,

Back when we were in high school, I gave you a single rose for Valentine's day and I told you, “Let’s grow up first”

Now that we're all grown up, and still obviously madly in love with each other, I will not hold myself back from loving you. Not anymore.

I’m sorry for leaving, please give me a chance and meet me at the back of the palace at midnight. I’ll be waiting.

Bold of him to think that you’re still madly in love with him. How can he say that?

You look at the letter as you grow weak and let yourself flop on your couch, face first and still undecided if you’re going. Frustrated and guilty, that’s what you’re feeling ring now. Frustrated because you don’t know what to follow, your heart or your mind. Guilty because your heart says you should go.

At the end of the day, you find yourself walking in the dark on your way to the back of the castle to meet Hendery. Hugging yourself as you cling more in your thin cardigan, trying to keep yourself warm as you feel your heartbeat faster by every second you come closer to the meeting spot. You see Hendery at the back of a thick tree, face illuminated because of his phone screen. “Oh you’re here. Sorry I was about to ring your phone” he admitted.

“Why am I here? What do you want?” You asked in the softest way possible. He saw that you’re shivering and invited you to go around the tree. There you see a blanket and small pillows and the lake was perfectly lit by the moon. What a beautiful view. And while you were admiring the view, you feel him place his jacket around you and motions you to sit on the ground with him.

“Please for once let’s pretend I didn’t leave you. I didn’t want my father to die, I didn’t expect our kingdom to suffer. And you’re the only good thing that’s left to me. So please”

You looked at him for a second that soon turned into minutes. You bit your lower lip and you remember that you weren’t mad at him for leaving, so why are you mad at him now?

Slowly, you accepted the warmth that he offered and sat close to him, sharing the blanket and keeping you close. “You’re here to hear me apologize sincerely” he gulps before he starts talking and explaining why he left, looking into your eyes so you know he’s telling you the truth. He told you that his father’s last will is for him to join the army and to be a soldier because in his father’s eyes he’s not yet ready to be a young king so he didn’t have a choice but to leave.

You were heartbroken while hearing his part. “I was never mad at you for leaving. I was worried about you”

He smiled sweetly at you. The kind of smile that makes your body warm and heart flutter, he pulled you close and you let him. “I know. Mother told me you were looking for me, but she can’t tell you anything. I told her I’m the one who should tell you someday. I’m sorry” he embraced you tightly, his cheeks resting on your shoulders. And right then and there everything is clear to you. You still have feelings for him.

“What are we gonna do now? My sister, Lucas” you asked him as you rake away strands of hair from his face.

“I’m not in love with your sister” he admitted without hesitation.

“But I love Lucas” there’s that guilty feeling again. You feel your heart breaking for Lucas, he doesn’t deserve being cheated on like this.

“I thought you were mine” he whispers. And even if it's a whisper the hurt was obvious from the sound of his voice. He didn’t see it coming. He didn’t think that this will be more complicated than he imagined.

“Funny. I thought the same thing when my father told us you're enggaged to my sister” you admitted and scoffed.

“Give me a chance to win you back. And if you're not coming back to me, just let me be with you for a little longer. I beg you”

There was a moment of silence and Hendery understands that you needed that silence to think, “Okay” you said. And saying ‘okay’ never felt so wrong. You cupped his face and tried to turn this moment around, “what's it like to be away from home?”

“Sad. I think of you every day and of course my family but they get to see me but you... not even a picture just our memories in my head”

Now that Hendery is a prince slash soldier, you remember the Nutcracker story your grandfather used to tell you for bedtime. That’s when you realized that you and Hendery are truly made for each other.

But you have Lucas...

As your night with Hendery continues and makes up for lost time, the emotional reunion turned to giggles and laughs when your time together has ended. He invited you over to his own house for a date since he can’t take you out like he used to, and reminded you that you gave him a chance to win you back, and thanked you.

On the next day, your mind was blanked. You can’t believe that you’re cheating on Lucas and have been refusing to answer his calls.

Days went on like this until you’re not awkward with Hendery anymore and you’re comfortable again around him. He showered you with love, you accept it wholeheartedly. Every day was sweet with Hendery even though you’re both aware of the future consequences but no one seems to care for now.

You go to his place and spend time with each other, whether talking the whole night and telling each other stories, him making you giggle and laugh with your legs on top of his thighs while you both sit on his couch enjoying a glass of wine or whenever you’re busy reading something or you brought a little work at his place and he can easily take your stress away by making you laugh.

Today, you came early and decided to cook for him and have dinner together. You don’t know but Hendery is leaning on the door frame of his kitchen with a flower in his hand, watching you chop some peppers in his kitchen. He felt like he finally won you back. Just seeing you hum while you prepare dinner makes his heart so happy. He then walked slowly and hugged you from behind, resting chin at the top of your shoulders, and showed you the flowers he has for you.

You smiled so big, dropping the knife on the chopping board and turning around to give him a kiss.

That’s your first kiss again.

He was shocked but you did it again. You realized he was trying so hard that he’s slowly being successful in winning you back and you’re actually scared of the future but he makes you happy.

“What? It’s not like we haven’t kissed before” you touched his lips and felt his embrace tightens every second. “Dinner in 30 minutes” you smiled and went back to finish chopping the peppers and finding a nice vase for the flowers he gave.

After dinner, a few glasses of wine, cheese, and grapes, you and Hendery are buzzed and talking about work as prince and princesses while enjoying the view from his couch. The lights are turned down low and you didn’t even notice at first but the mood has been making you horny even though your topic was stressful and your minds are clouded with alcohol. You don’t know what came into your head but you sat on his lap with lidded eyes, touching his body feeling his hard rocked abs through his white dress shirt.

He giggles and laughed at you. He’s so fucking handsome when he does that. “Seriously you have to stop you will embarrass yourself in the next morning,” he told you to stop but he fixed the way he sits and made sure you were comfortable on top of him. He teased you more, smiling so handsomely and making your heart flutter.

“I'm not that drunk just buzzed. Want me to prove it?” You challenged with a flirty tone that turns him on.

“Mhmm. Okay,” he tilts his head and waited for this proof you were saying.

“I still remember how we sealed our promises with a kiss. Like that day when we promised to be each other’s first and last” your fingers went up to his hair, ruffling his soft black hair and massaging his scalp.

You don’t know what happened but the mood changes and he’s avoiding your eyes. ”I’m sorry,” he says.

“No no don’t be, you’re here now make it up to me” you kissed his neck while he gets drunk even more because of your kisses. Your hands are placed on his neck like you’re telling him you still belong to each other, rolling your hips slowly to make him horny as much as you are.

“Did you have sex with anyone already?” his question made you stop what you’re doing to him and pulling away from the kiss to look at him, you thought he didn’t like what’s happening. But to your surprise his lips went to your neck, kissing you softly but full of lust. You feel his warm tongue just below your jaw and it felt great.

“Lucas, how about you?” You moaned out, shamefully.

Usually, his heart will hurt whenever you mention Lucas, but he’s the one kissing you now. So instead of getting hurt, he smirked. “A couple of girls. Life can be stressful I need an adult stress release. Any kinks?”

“Not that I know of? You?”

He stopped and looked at you to tell you the story. “Well remember when we were making out and I accidentally saw your breasts?” you nod at him, “I think I developed some kind of breast kink and I always imagine that I’m having sex with you instead of a stranger” he admitted and looked at you clothed breast right now. “That's how much I miss you” he placed a gentle kiss on your lips and went back to leaning comfortably on the couch. He got shy but he can’t stop looking at you.

To be honest your heart swells knowing that he desperately wants you like that. As quickly as you can, you untuck your blouse and removed it in front of the prince. “You can experience the real thing tonight “ you intertwine your hand with his and slowly placed it on your breast.

Breathing heavily. Both of you. You’re like teenagers who are just about to have sex for the first time.

He sat up to meet your lips and kiss you the way you deserved to be kissed, slowly you feel his hand travel to your back to unclasp your bra. You removed and fed his lust, revealing your breast to him for the first time. Hendery was so nervous that his hands are shaking when he removed strands of hair away from your face and held you on your shoulders, slowly he lowered your body on his and started kissing your collar bones and chest before he proceeds to your breast.

It was quiet and all he can hear is your moans and the sound of his wet kisses. You wanted to tell him that his lips feel great against your skin, and simply tell him to fuck you already. When his mouth finally reached your hard nipples and bit them softly, you parted your lips and your arms swings around him and push his head to your breast even more. You noticed he knows how to use his tongue, you figured he has been doing this to someone else for years and years while the whole truth is he always wanted to do it to you. The way he flicked his tongue brings you back to reality and when he sucks your nipples good your grip on his hair tightens and when that happens he bites your nipples again to make you shiver. This man is good.

He placed his hands just below your boob area to hold you still while he does whatever he wants to your breast. Sucking, pinching, bitting, and kneading. Everything felt good and your moans are good proof. With his strength, he got up from the couch and carried you to his room while you kiss with lust. He lay you down on his king-sized bed and kissed your body down while unbuttoning your pants and pulling them down until you’re only wearing your panties. Hendery then unbuttoned his dress shirt in between your spread legs, kneeling in front of you, stripping until he’s only wearing his boxers briefs. He situates his body on top of you grinding on your clothed private parts, hands all over each other’s body. He then went back to kissing your nipples and sucking them but little did you know Hendery is just distracting you while his hands are slowly coming down inside your panties.

With a great shock, you closed your eyes and parted your lips as you feel Hendery’s cold fingers slide up and down on your wet slit while his mouth is still sucking your nipples. It was a whirlwind of feelings, everything felt good, and seeing Hendery enjoy turns you on too. By the time you had your first orgasm, shaking and body so sensitive with swollen nipples, Hendery was kissing you softly and asking you in the most innocent way if you’re okay. The sound of his giggles makes you calm, the way he whispers soft praises beside your ear while his hands roam freely around your body. Truth is he’s genuinely happy right at this moment because he doesn’t need to imagine anymore.

He went back to kissing your body down until he reaches your wet core and licks it up and down for a while before he lines his cock. In between your widely spread legs, you watch Hendery lick you good and feel him moan from time to time. “Hendery” you called him, kneeling in between your legs in an instant, flashing his beautiful body to you. His skin is flawless, strong arms, perfect abs, and of course, fucking beautiful smile. Everything about him makes you weak right now that you just opened your legs, reach for hard cock, and line it to your entrance yourself. “Woah” he giggled and stopped you, “Okay calm down, I’ll fuck you good I promise” he pumped his cock in front of you and lines it immediately just how you want it and slowly enters you. He wasn’t big like Lucas but he kept his promise, he fucked you good.

So good that you asked for more as you grip his Egyptian cotton sheets and let your body be dragged with every hard thrust he give you.

So good that you asked him to go slower because you don’t want it to end yet.

So good that you asked him to cum inside you and asked for another round.

On your third orgasm, your hole is dripping with mixes of your cum and Hendery’s while the handsome prince is kissing your neck as you come down from your high. “I love you” he whispers but he was too late, you were sleeping soundly already, arms wrapped around his neck. He smiled and kissed you one last time before he pulls out and cleans you up.

He didn’t sleep that night, he just watched you sleep beside him. Let you cling to him in the middle of the night, watch you roll in his bed and expose your body, but of course, he’s quick to cover you again. And when the time comes, he wakes you with kisses on your shoulders, embracing you tightly and kissing you more.

“Wake up” you hear him whisper and you try to open your eyes the moment he told you so. You see his window, it was still dark so you closed your eyes again. “Want to watch the sunrise with me? You’re going to love it” he went down from his bed and opened his curtains so you can have a full view of the sky while you enjoy your comfort in his bed. You sat up and waited for him to join you again and stay warm together. Slowly, you see how the sky became pitch black to deep blue to light blue until you can see the pretty view outside his house. It was calming. He was holding your hand the whole time.

After watching the sunrise with him he fell asleep while holding your hand and you think he’s cute for having a tight grip even though he’s sleeping. While he was sleeping, it’s now your turn to admire his handsome features and watch him sleep before you start your day and make breakfast.

You hate to admit it but it looks like he has completely won you over.

“You look good in my dress shirt” he greets you good morning and kissed you on your temple while you set the table. You feel his hands in your hips, slowly coming down to your butt, and realized that you’re only wearing his dress shirt and thin panties. He still can’t believe that this is all happening, “are you real?” He whispers.

“Yes. Now come on, I have a meeting with the parliament. Need to go home and get ready” you eat some fruits as you scan your schedule for the day and there you see it and completely missed it.

Lucas went home last night. And you left your personal phone in your car. Fuck you said to yourself but didn’t show it to Hendery.

Leaving this morning became harder than you expected and you spent a total of 20 minutes kissing and flirting with Hendery before you finally open the door.

You went on with your day and made an excuse to Lucas as to why you didn’t pick him up at the airport last night. You were at your office with stacks and stacks of paper works and you weren’t even acting stressed when he came in because you were indeed stressed with everything.

“Oh baby, I’m really sorry” you greet him with a kiss and left everything on your desk. Lucas saw how stressed you are so he understood immediately and didn’t even bother asking. “You’re coming home to me tonight right? I missed you” he added and pouted like the big baby that he is.

“Uh-huh. Of course yes, I’m all yours” you smiled and he hugged you so tight before he leaves you to work again.

“Of course. You’re always mine” he said and kissed you goodbye.

The nights are cold for Hendery when Lucas got back because he can’t get a hold of you. No text, no call, no email. No nothing. And once again, he was heartbroken and he felt like he’s losing you again.

When he visited your sister a week since the last time he saw you, Hendery saw you with Lucas and didn’t even think of taking another glance. He had all these emotions ball up in his chest and he needed to release them.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were visiting today” your sister was surprised and invited him into her room. When she turned your back at him, he saw your figure in your sister. He’s back to imagining girls to be you, he’s back to that sick habit of his. But he can't help it. Effortlessly, he flirted with your sister, and surprisingly your sister was horny. Very horny for Hendery. One thing led to another and the next thing he knows he’s fucking her hard from behind kissing her shoulders and imagining that it’s you.

“What’s that noise” you murmur to Lucas while you were having a nap with him. Lucas giggled and whispered back, “I think Prince Hendery paid her a visit and... you know...” he was giggling and keeping you close to him as he went back to his nap, completely clueless that you’re hurting.

Everything that you and Hendery built from the past few days falls down when you came to his house and had your first fight.

ACT 4

“You didn’t call! Or texted that he’s already back you just left me hanging!”

“And that’s a good reason to fuck my sister?”

“It just happened!”

“Bullshit!” You shouted back. Louder than before, completely overpowering his shouts. With all his bravery, he got you a glass of water, came closer to you, and caressed your shoulders to keep you calm.

“I fucked up and I’m sorry, please,” he says sincerely.

Then you realized something.

“You don’t have to say sorry to me. It’s okay if you and my sister fucked because someday you will be married to each other. Were the ones cheating”

He listened to every word you said and begged you to take it back because he’s losing you again. When you finally said, “let’s end this Hendery. Do you want to have more fights like this in the future? What will you feel if I tell you that me and Lucas fucked last night-“

It was like thunder, disturbing the silence of his quiet house when he grabbed the glass of water and threw it in one corner.

“Exactly my point. We don’t belong to each other anymore. I’m sorry”

“Y/n. Please-“ he begged once again but you just repeated everything you said and left him.

The end.

It was the end of your story with Hendery.

But just as you thought that you’re done handling one heartbreak for the day, you’re wrong. Lucas called to tell you the news that your grandfather had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital.

After everything that happened on that day, you never made peace with Hendery and never talked to him again. Lucas saw you at your lowest and took care of you every day after the funeral and never left your side.

Months passed by quickly and Hendery is staying in your palace as per your sister’s request and continue to ignore each other for safety. Sometimes you greet each other for formality but never as friends and as past lovers. Lucas is not stupid to not see what’s happening.

Two months before your coronation day, you were sitting on your throne with your leg up and pouting as you’re thinking if you’re really ready to be a queen. You see Lucas enter the hall but you did not move an inch. He sat on the cold floor in front of you, reaching for your hand and kiss it.

“I miss him, I wish he could see me as a queen” tears started to fall but Lucas is quick to dry them.

“He saw you as a queen already even when you were only a little girl” you understand what he said and you’re thankful for him for not leaving you at your lowest and choosing to be with you even though he found out about you and Hendery. “So... I wanted to do this, while you’re still you. And not...the queen” he says awkwardly and pulls out a small red velvet box.

But you sit properly and stopped him from opening it and saying the question that will change your life, “how can you stay to a woman who cheats?”

“Your grandfather told me love is patient. I had a meaningful talk with him, you’re right he’s wise. He told me you love me and he said if one day you do something stupid and wrong, which turns out you did... He told me ‘check your heart if you still love her, and if you still do marry her and don’t ever let her go again’"

Tears started to fall from your eyes again. “So will you marry me Y/n. Let me be the one to dry your tears forever?” He let out an awkward laugh, nervous about the next thing that will come out of your mouth.

“Yes, of course, yes” you cup his face, and this time you’re the one to dry his tears away.

Little did you know that Hendery heard everything. And he is beyond heartbroken.

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imagintheworldaway · 4 years

Text

Used Pt 2

Anonymous said: Hello i loved your post “used” with Harry and i just wanted to know if you are planning a part 2 in the future?!?

Anonymous said: Loved your most recent imagine of Harry! Can you plzzzzz make a part 2 of used, where she’s a bad B and becomes even more successful and she’s better off without him? Thank you!

A/N I loved that you guys loved the first one! I went through a few different ideas / endings for this one and I think I'm happy with the outcome! warning it is a long one so strap in!

Used Pt 1 can be found here

Requests are open!

That night at Harrys apartment felt like a life time ago. The breakup wasn’t messy as neither of us addressed it really, I archived all of my posts of him and he had done the same for me and that was about it. It didn’t take the fans to catch on but what can you expect, they know more about me than I do. it had been almost 6 months to the date, not that I was counting or anything but I honestly felt like Harry was my soulmate at the time. Oh how love can blind you.

The past few months I had submerged myself into my channel and my fans. I had done an array of meet and greets and was interacting more with them, and honestly my love for YouTube was restored and I felt like a whole new person. I had had a full make over and due to this my channel had grown immensely and I had hit 50 million subscribers, a huge achievement which I never though would happen. it was amazing to see the amount of support I was gaining from my fans and how much I had grown, from a naive teenager to a young adult. I had received an overwhelming amount of support from my friends. When Harry and I broke up they tried not to take sides but It was evident that that couldn’t last forever and I was ok with that.

I had just finished a meeting with my manager at her office. With my new look and attitude brands seemed to swarm at me and I was gaining so many new opportunities it was kind of crazy. It was like I was a completely different person and it seemed to be working in furthering my career. I got in my Uber and made my way to my new apartment, after the break up I felt like starting a new was best and so I moved into my new multi million apartment in knightsbridge. It was nice to be in an area by myself as it meant that I had more privacy and was able to truly live my best single life. Plus a tour of new apartment left many of my friends in awe, and honestly I loved that I could show off all my hard work.

I thanked my Uber driver and made my way to my apartment, once inside I collapsed on my sofa and kicked off my heels, which I was still getting used to in all honesty. Having changed from living in baggy jumpers and old trainers was a bit of a shock but I loved wearing my more out there wardrobe, with tighter clothes and higher heels, my makeup always done to perfection, I always felt like people had their eye on me and I felt amazing. My change in personality and look hadn’t gone unnoticed either, although they didn’t say anything I could tell my friends liked my new attitude, after wallowing in self pity for a few months I think they’re happy that I’m back and stronger than what I was before.

I still thought about Harry from time to time. How I not so secretly still had one of his jumpers and when I was alone id wear it, just to feel his embrace once more. When we had initially broken up it took him less than two days to send Freezy round my apartment to drop off my box of things and to request his stuff back. I know Freezy felt bad but what choice did he have if Harry wanted to erase me from his life then so be it. More fool him, I had grown so much and if he was truly clout chasing then he should’ve stuck around a little longer.

I woke up to my doorbell ringing. I must’ve fallen asleep on the sofa. I stretched a little when the doorbell kept ringing. “Jeez I’m coming” I mumbled to myself. I pressed the array of buttons for who ever it was to get through the front gate and after a few minutes I opened the door to reveal Talia. “Have you been sleeping?” She giggled at me as she walked into my apartment, propping herself up on one of my breakfast stools. “Hmm, oh yh, busy day” I laughed closing the door and standing the other side of the breakfast bar looking up at her.

“Soooooo” I edged her to start talking. “Oh right sorry, your release party, Simon was pestering me to ask you if a certain arsehole could come?” She said the last part in a sheepish tone. Fuck, my release party I completely forgot, I had had so much on my plate that I forgot I was opening a club and releasing my own line of spirits. I stood up looking at Talia with a confused look “why the hell would I invite my ex to my release party?”. I reached up and grabbed two wine glasses pouring us each a glass of rosé. Passing over a glass to Talia as she pondered her reply. “Honestly I said the same but apparently all the lads feel bad as everyone we know is invited except for him” she swirled her glass of wine and took a sip as I copied her mentioned. In all fairness it was rude that I invited everyone but him, plus it was going to be the event to beat, and I had a few spaces on the guest list. “T, I don’t know” I shrugged at her sighing. “If I was you id tell him to stick it where-“ Talia started before I cut her off “I know, I know, it does seem a little harsh, I have invited so many people and, well, you know what fuck it, I’ll get my manager to add him to the list if you let him know” I decided. Talia looked gobsmacked, I had never seen her this speechless in our lives. “Are you sure, he’s a dick like you really don’t have to” she said cocking an eyebrow at me. “Look its not fair, plus there’s going to be hundreds of people there and the likelihood of us actually interacting are practically 0” I stated. Which was true, there was going to be just about the whole British YouTube community there, as well as some celebrities and journalists, and I would have my team around me at all times so the chance of him even getting near me is slim.

That night Talia and I had gotten wasted, watching movies and just have a nice little girly night. However, right now I was shaking in my heels. My hair and makeup had been done to perfection and I was in a body hugging dress which showed off all of my curves perfectly. I looked almost like a model that’s how good I looked. I of Course was going to be the last to arrive at the venue, I needed everyone to be chatting with flutes of complimentary champagne when I entered so all attention was on me, as conceited as this sounds my publicists and manager had worked months for this to run as perfect as possible. I arrived at the venue and I could hear the music from outside “you ready?” My manager, Lucy asked. I nodded my head and made my way through the back entrance. I stood behind the stage door with a mic in one hand and a bottle of my own vodka in another. “Deep breaths, you’ll smash it” Lucy smiled at me, I just nodded and plastered on a smile, I heard the music die down a little and the door opened and I made my way on stage. An eruption of applause and cheering began from my friends and guests. I smiled taking it all in for a moment before I raised the mic to my mouth.

“Thank you all so much for being here today and supporting me in my new business venture. If you would have told me a year ago that this is where I would be I would have laughed. These past few months I’ve grown more than I ever have, my channel, my business and more importantly myself. I can’t thank you all enough for the continuous love and support, without you guys or my fans I wouldn’t be where I am today. So id like you to all enjoy a complimentary glass of my new Vodka and enjoy yourselves. Because tonight is about friends and loved ones. So let’s get wasted!!!” I recited my speech cheering at the end. I got a mass amount of applause and cheers and I smiled looking over the crowd. I could see all my friends together happy, the way it should be and I smiled until I saw him, he actually came. My smile faltered slightly and my breath hitched in my throat. I quickly shook it off and made my way to the stairs, exiting the stage. I was quickly engulfed in a mass of hugs and bodies, people I knew and some I didn’t all congratulating me.

I had done it I had made it and all on my own.

After about half an hour I made it over to my closest group of friends. They all cheered when I went over and I did a mock curtsey, careful not to reveal too much. I got handed a glass of something and started polite conversation. “We’re all so proud of you” Gee gushed “you’ve done so well I can’t believe that you are basically the most sought after name at the moment” freya added. “ I couldn’t have done it without you guys” I smiled. “Oh shut up little miss humble” Ethan who had clearly had a bit much to drink already. “You’re the queen of UK YouTube, you have your own empire going and you built it all yourself” he grinned at me before smothering me in a hug. “You need to be in more of our vids then maybe we’d be doing just as well as you” Simon commented earning a laugh from the group. “Here’s to Y/N the baddest bitch I know” Talia toasted and everyone joined in. I smiled as we fell into polite chatter. “I’m just nipping outside” I informed my friends smiling at them before making my way to the balcony. I leant over the edge and smiled, nothing could ruin my life right now. I thought to myself. That was until I heard footsteps approach me from behind and the body heat of someone I could recognise in an instant next to me. “Before you say anything I’m here to congratulate you” Harry said. I kept my gaze forward, not wanted tears that I didn’t know still existed for him to spill. “I’m so proud of you, honestly I am, so are my family, they miss you, I miss you” I turned my body and met Harrys gaze. I studied his face, he had bags under his eyes and the usual scruff on his beard was longer than he usually kept it, his hair was also scruffy, not scruffy like usual but tangled and unkept. He was wearing smart trousers and a nice button up shirt, no blazer, Harry hated formal clothes. “Thank you” was all I was able to say as I smiled at him. “You know, with every day that goes by someone reminds me how I fucked up and should have kept a death grip on you, that you were the best part of me and now I’m just some boring kid who plays Fifa” I half chuckled at the end. I felt sorry for him, it seemed that I had grown and succeeded and that Harry had stayed stagnant in his life. “Harry, I, I don’t know what you want me to say” I looked at him with sorry eyes, I think maybe I still loved him, but I had been doing so well without him I just I didn’t know whether I wanted to kiss him or kill him. “No I, I get that, I was a dick. I was in a rut and I took it out on you. And well honestly seeing you do so well without me just shows how I was holding you back. I’m proud of you, I’m happy for you, honestly I am bear, sorry Y/N” we had made eye contact at this point. So many memories came flooding back to me. Our first kiss, our first date, the nights we spent talking about what we wanted to name our children, and how we wanted to have a house in Guernsey and one in London. How we were going to grow old together and never let the other go.

I broke my gaze when I heard Lucy call my name. I took a deep breath. “I loved you harry, with all my heart, with all my being and I was willing to stay and love you no matter what. I think I still do love you. But right now I need to focus on me, my empire has only just started and I don’t want us to back peddle. The only way for me is forward no mater if you’re there with me or not.” I spilled my heart out to Harry before I heard Lucy call me name again. “Sorry” was all I could say before I headed back inside. I wiped a stray tear from my eye and took one last look at harry, I had left him so broken. But now was time to put me first Y/N is number one in my life and as much as I wanted to fall back into my old self I couldn’t. I had made promises and shown that after heartbreak you can build and make yourself stronger than before. And I was not about to throw it all away.

#sidemen #Harry Lewis x reader #Harry Lewis one shot #Harry Lewis imagine #wroetoshaw #harry lewis #w2s

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nutty1005 · 4 years

Text

Xiao Zhan, welcome to the cruel entertainment business

Original Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/6qaJPp9O1exu4M8xtbt71A Original Author: 杨晋亚 Translator’s note: The original author is part of Yuli Studio, this article is published in Yuli Studio’s Weixin Official Account on 15 Sep 2019 as a part of “Behind the Screens” Volume 210.

“I never thought it would happen this way, this was fated.”

A month ago, he was just accepted by audiences due to “The Untamed” and just became one of the most popular actors. Now, he had to take on the responsibility of a movie’s box office as the main lead actor, and show his worth to the movie industry.

Three days before “Jade Dynasty I” aired in the cinemas, Yuli Studio met up with the nervous Xiao Zhan, who told us his fears, “Movies, well, they are very direct, very pragmatic and very cruel, so there’s no choice, since we’re already here, I just have to work hard to do my best.”

With traffic and popularity, comes others’ views and opinions – some expected him to withstand the stress of the box office, but there were also others waiting to laugh at his failure. “Jade Dynasty I” was the first obstacle Xiao Zhan was breaking through, and the path ahead was still long.

Xiao Zhan, welcome to the cruel entertainment business.

Xiao Zhan at “Jade Dynasty I” Press Conference

Looking back at the movie journeys of all the traffic actors, no one was like Xiao Zhan, who took on a movie while he was still a nobody, and this movie aired just barely 2 months after he made a name, putting his resource conversion ability to a public test.

On the first day, the box office was 142 million, on the second day it broke 200 million, these were the results “Jade Dynasty I” achieved during the Mid Autumn movie season, which exceeded many people’s expectations. The first day was with fans support, the second day still had interested moviegoers, Xiao Zhan’s first time as the lead actor on silver screen and he miraculously withstood the box office.

“Jade Dynasty I” Super Topic + Maoyan Movie Professional Box Office Chart

This was Xiao Zhan’s third time on the silver screen.

The first time, he was a little monster dressed in flowery clothes in “Monster Hunt 2”, drowned in a sea of group actors, almost unnoticeable as the camera panned past him in a second. The second time, he was a special agent, a side character that barely had 1 minute of screen time, in “The Rookies” during that year’s summer movie season. The third time, he became the main lead actor and took on the entire movie, presenting the process of innocent Zhang Xiaofan becoming a demon.

The production team of “Jade Dynasty I” revealed that, whether or not Xiao Zhan became popular, the movie was planned to air on 8 Aug, however because the post production was incomplete, hence it was shifted to the Mid Autumn movie season.

Director Cheng Xiaodong said that the luckiest decision he made for “Jade Dynasty I” was to cast Xiao Zhan, “I never thought that his acting would be so natural so good, he is not pretentious, and he is very humble, when you tell him something he will listen and improve.”

Stage photographs from “Jade Dynasty I”, Xiao Zhan before and after demonizing

On set, Cheng Xiaodong even actively added some scenes for Xiao Zhan, for example the scene at the start of the movie where Xiaofan was fantasizing about his senior, Tian Linger, “I found that he could act in all layers, he could do dull and dimwitted, he could do the demonizing transformation later on, so this movie he had many layers, the pace kept changing.”

To Xiao Zhan, Zhang Xiaofan of “Jade Dynasty I” was an unforgettable milestone, it was considered to be his toughest filming. Filming in conditions under 20°C and being blown by a giant fan, hung upside down for a free fall of 30 meters, in order to maintain his sense of the role, he even turned off the heater in his trailer, just so that his body will adapt to the temperature outside.

Before “Jade Dynasty I” aired, Xiao Zhan once said, “If the reception of the movie isn’t very good, I just have to work harder in the future. If it was not bad, then I am grateful that you saw my hard work from that period of time.”

After the movie aired, Xiao Zhan became the center of discussion for “Jade Dynasty I”. The movie’s quality was the result of an entire movie crew’s hard work, but now that all the discussions had landed on Xiao Zhan, to a certain degree, that was the price to pay for fame.

Stage photograph from”Jade Dynasty I”, Xiao Zhan as Zhang Xiaofan

On 23 Aug, there was a video on Weibo that was reposted a few tens of thousands of times.

In the video, Xiao Zhan had just ended a day’s filming, and after he got off the car, the 20 over fans waiting at the hotel entrance got rowdy, they blocked Xiao Zhan’s path and took pictures of him in his face using their phones. Spotting a gap at the side, Xiao Zhan suddenly took off running, and then he safely entered the elevator.

During the filming period of “The Oath of Love” recently at Wuxi, crazy fan actions were happening everyday as Xiao Zhan went to and from his work, sometimes they would surround and block him in the underground car park, sometimes when he got into the car they would forcibly block the car doors from closing, sometimes they would knock on his hotel room door to stuff notes to him.

Xiaofan, a staff who worked around Xiao Zhan said that the sasaeng problems was already very serious, the company wanted to provide him two assistants and security guards, but Xiao Zhan insisted not to.

“Because he didn’t want to give off the impression that he started acting like a big shot after he got famous.”

During the interview, Xiao Zhan spoke about the sasaeng problems again

From the media’s perspective, we have witnessed many artists change after they got famous, some would have a star aura, some would be exuding confidence from in to out, Yuli Studio’s reporter Lanpangzi once visited the set of “The Untamed”, and one year later met Xiao Zhan again at the “Jade Dynasty I” press conference, Lanpangzi discovered that Xiao Zhan was still as warm and accommodating like the boy-next-door.

At the backstage of the press conference, a few tens of guests spoke to Xiao Zhan consecutively, he was smiling at everyone, and slowly fulfilled each and everyone’s request to take a photograph together, and only until 4pm that afternoon he was able to finally have time for a few mouths of a lunchbox. The continuous non-stop interviews started at 4.05pm, all the reporters wanted a photograph together, and he tried to accommodate even under such tight scheduling.

After becoming famous, Xiao Zhan had more and more interviews, and if he was not careful, he would be accused of putting on airs if the arrangements of the interviews were done wrongly. Xiaofan said that Xiao Zhan himself was especially aware of this point, “He is now even more nervous than before, and he had expectations of all of his staff, please don’t think that he is putting on airs just because of our errors.”

Xiao Zhan at the “Jade Dynasty I” Press Conference

After joining the “Jade Dynasty I” press conference in Beijing, Xiao Zhan had to quickly fly back to Wuxi to continue filming.

Before “The Untamed” finished airing, Xiao Zhan had already entered the filming for “The Oath of Love”, and filming while at the height of his fame would mean that he would miss a lot of event opportunities. When his fans were worried about his limited exposures, Xiao Zhan’s thoughts was that: “What’s there to be worried about, I feel that an actor’s life comes from his works.”

In fact, Xiao Zhan had received a lot of invitations from many events, so his biggest worry was how he could maintain his normal acting condition.

“Some events you just had to complete, and then I had some commercial obligations prior, like that day at Suzhou, that was a contract that I signed then,” Xiaofan said, “the last thing that Xiao Zhan wanted to do was to take leave.”

Xiao Zhan’s current schedule at “The Oath of Love” was from 8am to 10pm, if he had to take leave, it meant that when Xiao Zhan returned to the set he would have to work overtime to film his scenes.

Stage photograph from “The Oath of Love”, Xiao Zhan as Gu Wei

The performance teacher accompanying the filming , Yang Xu, witnessed Xiao Zhan’s helplessness and anxiety.

“His load in ‘The Oath of Love’ was especially big, basically we could only discuss his scenes that day while he was doing his make up in the morning, because the filming would end very late at night, I wanted him to go back for more rest. Moreover the fan problems now are too prominent, sometimes he would also talk to me a bit, although I don’t think this incident affected his mood or his performance, but it definitely affected his normal resting time.”

For a while, Yang Xu was very worried about Xiao Zhan’s condition, but what surprised him was that, although the filming would end very late at night, but by the next day, Xiao Zhan would have memorized his lines and made full preparations before coming to the make up room.

“That was what made him powerful, and I found that he would actually really use every bit of spare time to prepare for the role and his lines, for example, while doing his make up, even when going to the toilet, he would be holding the script, and then during the rest period after filming every scene, he would be reading his lines with me while drinking coffee, because lines reading needed partners, I said you just take me as your partner.”

When he was away from the set on leave, Xiao Zhan took late night flights between Beijing and Wuxi almost every time, and in the photographs taken by his fans at the airport, he would also be reading his script.

Stage photograph from “The Oath of Love”, Xiao Zhan as Gu Wei

Every early morning at the make up room would also be the spare time for Xiao Zhan and Xiaofan to talk about their work and release stress.

“Now he does not seem to enjoy the applause and glory from the opportunities that came with his sudden fame, a lot of it was some anxiety and confusion,” in Xiaofan’s eyes, these two months in Xiao Zhan’s life definitely changed.

“Suddenly, we experienced a lot of things that we don’t quite understand, it could have been a small mistake at work, but we would gain the attention of anti-fans or fans. He is more of an introvert, he doesn’t go out to entertain, stays at home more, leads simple life, and suddenly his life came under the spotlight, wherever he went there will be fans following, he was definitely anxious.”

The seniors in the industry would also give Xiao Zhan some advice, and share with him some of the survival rules in the entertainment world that he had not experienced. “For example we will having having a fun conversation, or someone would be telling some something he does not know about in the industry, the next day he will tell me that the conversation made him quite excited, he learned a lot, I feel like he is a sponge like person, continuously absorbing,” a senior in the industry revealed.

Xiao Zhan

On 10 Aug, a day before the filming starts for “The Oath of Love”, performance teacher Yang Xu finally met Xiao Zhan again.

The script for “The Oath of Love” was given to Yang Xu quite early on, Xiao Zhan also wanted to quickly get into the preparation for this role, but because the promotion schedule for “The Untamed” was too tight, they did not manage to squeeze out some time to discuss about the script face-to-face.

“That day’s morning he just fixed his costume, we only met briefly at night,” Yang Xu recalled, but what put him at ease was that Xiao Zhan already made full analysis and preparation of the script, “At that time, I felt assured, his analytical skills of his roles were getting stronger, he was already able to analyze the script independently.”

Yang Xu, who was once a teacher in Central Drama School, participated in many dramas, such as “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, as their performance instructor. When he joined “The Oath of Love”, it was already his third time working with Xiao Zhan.

Stage photograph from “The Oath of Love”, Xiao Zhan as Gu Wei

While filming “The Untamed”, Xiao Zhan told the visiting staff from Yuli Studio that he wished to improve his lines. After finishing “Jade Dynasty I”, Xiao Zhan proactively went to Yang Xu for a few classes.

The airing “The Untamed” in this summer made many viewers notice the actor Xiao Zhan.

In the “Bloodbath at Nevernight City” in episode 32, Wei Wuxian stood on top of a roof, facing off the accusations from all of the sects, crying and laughing, unable to explain himself. In this part, the Yiling Patriarch’s rage was at his max, and it was Xiao Zhan’s golden moment of his acting abilities, and many drama fans were surprised to find out that the filming of that scene was done in the same day as another scene – that day’s morning was the filming of youth Wei Wuxian in the library, and at night he immediately went into the condition of the Yiling Patriarch dying in Nevernight City.

We asked him how he could film such extreme conditions within the same day, Xiao Zhan confessed that he himself did not know, “I saw some gifs and clips, if I had to suddenly redo this scene, I don’t think I can outperform that me then, I guess that time it was the accumulation of time and condition, maybe that period of time I had already blended into the role.”

Stage photographs from “The Untamed”, Wei Wuxian at Nevernight City and the Library

Drama fans attributed this to Xiao Zhan’s “self-sacrificing styled acting” performance method, in the drama, Wei Wuxian depended on someone to use the “self-sacrificing curse” 16 years later to resurrect – this “self-sacrifice” meant that Xiao Zhan gave himself entirely to the role of Wei Wuxian.

To Yang Xu, Xiao Zhan’s instinctive acting method, where he became the role, actually came from this “sincerity”, and this was where the advantage of Xiao Zhan as an actor lied.

“Xiao Zhan is a very sincere person, I spoke to him then that sincerity is a very important quality in an actor. This sincerity meant that he could 100% give away himself, he was the same when he was taking classes with me. Because when we were practicing, he also needed to share some of his privacy or live experiences, he would share them very sincerely.”

Stage photograph from “The Untamed”, Xiao Zhan as Wei Wuxian

Yang Xu felt that the introvert and quiet Doctor Gu from “The Oath of Love” was more like Xiao Zhan in his everyday life. But Xiao Zhan felt nervous about this role having similarities with his own character, because he felt that he had not acted in any contemporary dramas. Before filming started, he constantly asked Yang Xu about the differences between contemporary dramas and period dramas, whether he was to portray life as more at will compared to period dramas.

Yang Xu told him, at its core they are acting out human emotions, therefore he must truly experience the life of this character, and then build a realistic communication with his partner.

“Yang Zi is a more quick-witted actress, her performances are very varied, if at this time Xiao Zhan wasn’t about to build enough communication with Yang Zi, or not focused enough, then the two of them might not be able to match up. But what’s good is that Xiao Zhan is very sincere, and he could receive Yang Zi’s performance, and then reply with his layered emotions. I was on set watching a few of their scenes, I personally feel that Xiao Zhan did very well.”

From “Jade Dynasty I” to “The Oath of Love”, Yang Xu saw the growth of Xiao Zhan within this half year. During the process of working with Yang Zi, Xiao Zhan became willing to try more variations, willing to breakthrough his fixed style of acting, and look for changes in every scene and every line.

“He is very concerned about how he crafts every single character, he has his own expectations of his performance and profession, he will never be satisfied with his results and what he has attained in performance. He will forever be seeking, and with this seeking, he will have motivation to learn and grow. And he is very talented, I always tell him, you definitely can become a good actor.”

“The Oath of Love” Character Poster

We reverse the time back to early 2017, Xiao Zhan has just joined the filming of “Battle Through the Heaven”, as the minor role Lin Xiuya.

Then, Xiao Zhan had just entered the entertainment industry for barely a year, and acted in a web drama that he jokingly called it his “dark history” later on.

During the performance classes before the filming of “Battle Through the Heaven”, Xiao Zhan stood out from all the newcomers, not only because of his outstanding looks, but also because he was well-mannered and polite, very hardworking during the filming, and left a great impression on the staff.

“Battle Through the Heaven” was filmed throughout the Chinese New Year period of 2017, the new actors did not go home, and one of the seniors in the crew was talking to them, telling them that as a singer in China, their career progression might be more limited, and they should go down the path of acting, but the path of acting is a path of no return, they could only move forward and not backwards, therefore you will need to put in everything for it.

Stage photograph from “Battle Through the Heaven” Season 1, Xiao Zhan as Lin Xiuya

Born in 1991, Xiao Zhan was the representative of “over-aged commoner pursuing an entertainment business dream”, he only started to learn dancing at the age of 24, debuting as a part of a boy group. That spring, the 26 year old took in what the senior said, and started to consider the possibility of changing his career path.

At that time, Xiao Zhan was not confident, he felt that he came from an idol group background, and he was not sure if he could become an actor. But one of the strengths of Xiao Zhan was that he would not consider whether he could or not, instead, he would “choose, I just want to do it well, do it first, we’ll see the results later”.

Just like him starting to learn dancing with no foundations, but he saw effects after a month; during the idol competition his mentor Shu Qi suggested that he train his gaze, and a few weeks later he started to shed off the commoner in his gaze; in the transformation to become an actor, the senior encouraged him to lose weight first, and come to the set of “The Wolf” 3 months later, he really lost 10lbs.

“The Wolf” was Xiao Zhan’s entry work, followed through the entire drama as a part of the lead actors, and gained an acting quality improvement from 0 points to 50 points. A member of the staff revealed that hotels with better conditions were further away from the set, and in order to leave more time to acting, Xiao Zhan took the initiative to pick a hotel that was near the set despite it having worse conditions.

Stage photograph from “The Wolf”, Xiao Zhan as Ji Chong

During the filming period of “Battle Through the Heaven” and “The Wolf”, transforming from a singer to an actor facing cameras, that sensation once caused Xiao Zhan to lose the sense of himself, unsure how he could let the audiences believe that he was that role. During the filming of “The Untamed”, Xiao Zhan was still not confident enough, compared to the newcomers around him that came from acting schools, Xiao Zhan did not have any advantages.

“My thoughts and intentions had always been very simple, that is I want to do it well,” Xiao Zhan said, during the filming of “The Wolf”, he filmed in the day and took classes at night, writing his acting analysis in the late night, he also broke down once or twice, writing them while crying, but eventually he persisted.

The seed of stubbornness and refusal to admit defeat is deeply rooted in Xiao Zhan’s body, as a child he would go to Shaoniangong every weekend to learn drawing, and nothing would keep him from it, because that was something he wanted to do from his heart; when competing in the idol competition, facing many teammates who were from music academies, he thought to himself that “if you could do it, then I could do it too, and I’ll do it even better”; when filming, he believed that viewers would not be concerned whether he came from an acting background, but the most direct answer would be whether he acted well or not.

“The Untamed” finally brought the actor Xiao Zhan to everyone’s notice.

That summer, he became the entertainment business’s new top traffic power, his supertopic firmly in the top three, all kinds of gossip forums had posts about him, and “Jade Dynasty I” also showcased his appeal.

Stage photograph from “The Untamed”, Xiao Zhan as Wei Wuxian

Why was he able to receive so much love this summer?

There were many within the entertainment circle that looked well upon Xiao Zhan, two of them could provide answers or a type of assessment:

“Xiao Zhan used his acting abilities to conquer me”; “I see the shadow of every worker on him, he carries the hopes and dreams of every man pursuing a dream.”

There was a microblog titled “Recording Xiao Zhan’s every man moments” that obtained 330 thousand likes, and within it, fans shared many little stories about him.

For example, after living for 28 years, Xiao Zhan’s most prideful moment was to have his logo sell well as a designer; the backgrounds of his group’s concerts and the web drama’s slides were all drawn by him; his mobile phone home screen was the God of Fortune, like every person who hoped for a sudden windfall.

One part was the recognition of his working capabilities; the other part, the Xiao Zhan, who became a designer after graduation and went through a year of working life before pursuing his “entertainment business dream”, was indeed very different from the idols that were cultivated from the idol machine, he came with common sense and life experiences, his past was definitely able to resonate with every man.

Xiao Zhan

A fan once sent this microblog – Xiao Zhan’s temperament is so good, perhaps it’s because he had been honed by his clients. Xiao Zhan himself replied her with a meme: “What do you mean?”

The experience as a contractor, plus always facing people with a smile, everyone’s first impression of Xiao Zhan was that he was a gentle person with a good temperament.

Xiao Zhan always habitually considered others’ feelings first.

Staff Xiaofan revealed that the previous assistant was not capable enough, made a lot of mistakes, but Xiao Zhan never lost his temper at him.

Yang Xu accompanied Xiao Zhan every morning in the make up room for script reading, there was once Xiao Zhan had insomnia the night before and was in a bad shape, he took the initiative to apologize to the teacher, “That day I could feel that he was actually very tired, but he still tried his best to maintain his condition to discuss his role with me, later on he came to me and said, teacher I’m sorry, my condition was bad in the morning, you took still so much effort to explain the role to me, I feel quite bad, you can come slightly later, otherwise you’ll feel bad looking at my current state. I was very touched then, I said you just rest well and don’t worry about me.”

In the idol competition, someone once questioned Xiao Zhan’s character as passive and unenthusiastic. To Xiaofan, this is because “he is always humble and polite to people he doesn’t know well, and he’ll treat everyone with a sense of propriety.”

A reporter once asked Xiao Zhan if he was a Mr. Nice Guy. Xiao Zhan replied, “I feel that those who feel like this are probably acquaintances. People who know me very well will know that I’m actually quite stubborn and quite strong-headed.”

Xiao Zhan

Xiao Zhan said, he did not like to make the atmosphere uncomfortable, he hoped that everyone could all be harmonious.

But in the “Secret Garden”, Xiao Zhan will unexpectedly shed off this shell of warm smiles and display the tenacious edge in his heart.

Xiao Zhan had a microblog that held the heartfelt words between he and his fans, and some words Xiao Zhan would quietly post in the comments, and those who care for him would always see it.

Last year after “The Untamed” started filming, there were those who believed that he would rise to fame very quickly, but there were also those who mocked him for “being famous on credit”, Xiao Zhan, who had a nickname “Brother Wealthy”, quietly posted a comment on the sentiments then, “I have money, I don’t go on credit.”

In his daily life, Xiao Zhan does not like to cry, he said he has given all of his tears to his characters. Once in a while, everyone can also see that soft Xiao Zhan coming out of his protective shell. Last year during the Hangzhou concert, he looked at the hall full of his fans’ support, singing the song, “Satisfaction”, that his fans fought for him, he tried to keep in his tears.

After bursting to fame, whether Xiao Zhan will continue to display his strong or soft moments, we would not know, but Xiaofan revealed that the staff do not control Xiao Zhan’s microblog postings, the “Secret Garden” continues to be his method of communicating with his fans.

But we can be certain that Xiao Zhan is slowly learning and adjusting to the rules of the entertainment business, becoming more careful, he will sometimes tell his staff, “We need to be more careful than before.”

Xiao Zhan’s Mid Autumn greetings

The night after the premiere of “Jade Dynasty I”, Xiao Zhan secretly went to record a program at CCTV. That night at 8.30pm, word from the scalpers circle came out, “Xiao Zhan’s activity, those who can come to the area near the world trade center message me! Limited seats! Hurry!”

Later on, there were a lot of fans gathering at the north entrance of CCTV, and until late night at 11pm, there were still large groups of fans quietly waiting. Xiao Zhan and his staff would sometimes wonder, when would days like this ever end, but they also understood that this is an anomaly, things would slowly stabilize after a few months, and the future still depended on his works.

After completing the filming of “The Oath of Love”, Xiao Zhan will go through a period of rest and adjustment, and enter filming again at the start of next year.

“What worried him previously what that he didn’t know where his opportunities were, didn’t know which path he should take; now of course he’s firmly decided on being a good actor,” Xiaofan revealed.

Xiao Zhan at the premiere press conference of “Jade Dynasty I”

His vlogs since his debut, until yesterday when he spoke to everyone online, Xiao Zhan always started with “I am still Xiao Zhan”.

After rising to fame, Xiao Zhan told himself that he needed to work harder in his life, and work hard to remind himself to stay common and still be that very initial Xiao Zhan.

However, no one would be able to foresee the possibilities of Xiao Zhan in his career, “No one restricted that I have to be this type of Xiao Zhan my whole life,” since he is someone who likes to stay on his feet, and very willing to try and change.

Entering this cruel entertainment business, Xiao Zhan still continues to be a honorable working class, lying on his sofa after knocking off; traffic comes and goes, he tells himself that he should not compare with anyone else, he should only compete against himself, and be a long distance runner.

Only passion and sincerity can withstand the long and slow passage of time.

Xiao Zhan looking at that year’s fireworks

#xiao zhan #sean xiao #xiaozhan #肖战

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shihalyfie · 4 years

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Shihanne’s Kizuna meta -- Part 1: The meaning behind Kizuna, and the actual cause of partnership dissolution

Kizuna is a very easy movie to misunderstand, and it’s not helped by the fact that the official translation kind of sucks. (Seriously, I highly recommend you check out the translation of one of the novels -- the Dash X or the Shueisha Mirai version -- because of how badly the official one sucks.) On top of that, a lot of its information is packed in the subtleties of a lot of its lines, which means that, without paying very close attention, you can walk off with a completely misleading interpretation of what the movie is trying to say. A lot of times I see people talking about how the movie’s message is about adulthood sucking, or partnership dissolution being an inevitable thing...when the movie actually makes multiple indications that this is not the case.

(The rest of the post contains major spoilers for the movie, so be warned.)

Do note that the below is only my personal interpretation, and because there is a lot to unpack with this movie, please feel free to disagree with or disregard any of my interpretations here.

Kizuna has a lot of things to say about adulthood, but the most obvious theme is, of course, “don’t be too trapped in nostalgia” -- represented by Menoa’s desire to trap everyone in Neverland so they can never move forward, and, on a meta level, the ridiculous amount of Adventure imagery associated with people who can’t move on (yeah, they weren’t really subtle about that part...). But as a result, the idea behind the movie is often taken the wrong way -- does this mean that they’re trashing on the very series they’re meant to honor? Is the movie about people having to swallow adulthood being painful? After all, the movie says that partners disappear when you become an adult! Isn’t the movie saying we all have to accept that (even though the sheer existence of the 02 epilogue should imply otherwise)?

Nope! The movie actually does have another inner layer about what it means to become an adult, and how to develop a healthy relationship with your adulthood that isn’t just violently cutting everything away -- in fact, it considers that to be another unhealthy extreme that it warns against. It’s just that this theme is a little more latently hidden, and you have to connect the dots a little to figure that out.

I think a lot of the reason so many people miss this is predicated on the fact that you are not supposed to take Menoa’s statement at face value. It’s her statement as presented in the official trailers and a lot of the advertising material, so it’s easy to think that she’s supposed to be the deliverer of the movie’s message, but that is very much not the case! Understanding this is key to understanding the core theme of the movie, and what it’s trying to say in terms of a lead-up to the 02 epilogue.

Menoa’s statement on adulthood, which is what the concept of partnership dissolution is supposedly predicated on, is the following (quoted from onkeikun’s translation of the Dash X Bunko novel, which uses the movie script):

Do all of you know why it’s children who are chosen to be partners with Digimon?... It’s because children are full of possibilities... The future is rife with limitless choices. You grow as a person by making those choices. “Growth” and “possibilities” together produce vast energy. As I’m sure you guys are already aware, the evolutions of your Digimon partners are triggered by your growth... When that power is gone… Your partnership with your Digimon ends.

Keep in mind that Menoa has built this “theory” based on her own experience. She’s convinced that her “choice” to become an adult was what took Morphomon from her. She’s convinced that Adulthood is Bad, and that Choices are Bad. Menoa is very much biased from her own experience, and her theory is not reliable. Seriously, do you think someone who eventually decides that forcing everyone into an eternal loop of their childhood is an excellent idea is a reliable source for these kinds of things?

Not only that, she’s also claiming that this is supposed to apply to all adults just because this happened to her. Although she claims that this is part of her research, there clearly have not been enough cases of partnership dissolution for this to be a well-known issue. Given that she lost Morphomon at a young age, and she’s one of the oldest Chosen Children, it’s natural that she might think that this might be a universal phenomenon and that it might not have “kicked in” for everyone else, but nevertheless, she’s committing a major no-no in scientific research -- extrapolating based on a painfully small sample size, and letting her own biased perception of events manipulate what she sees as the result.

When Gennai supposedly “confirms” the partnership dissolution phenomenon, note that he does not actually confirm Menoa’s theory.

Unfortunately, you are experiencing the case where your partnership is dissolving... But if you guys still have infinite possibility…Then it’s possible…

The fact that Gennai refers to it as a “case” is very important (it’s very clear in the Japanese line too, jirei). This is a thing that may happen. It is not a thing that is guaranteed to happen, and it’s not necessarily a thing that comes with adulthood like Menoa thinks. What’s more, he even acknowledges that “having infinite possibility” is still possible for adults -- something that doesn’t fit with Menoa’s theory on Adulthood Being Bad and how it diminishes possibility.

As the movie eventually goes into Menoa’s plan for “saving” Chosen Children, she justifies her motive by saying that losing partners is “fate” (shukumei). She thinks that losing partners is an inevitability. She thinks that this is just something that comes with adulthood, and that unless she forces everyone to stay in their childhood, their only recourse will be to suck it up and to be miserable.

This is why the climax is dedicated to Taichi and Yamato proving her wrong.

“What you’ve chosen wasn’t a mistake!” “But no matter what waits for us after making that choice…!” “We have to live with the decisions that we make!”... “We might not be able to change our fate. But!” “We can change our destiny!”

In essence, Taichi and Yamato are disproving both parts of Menoa’s theory on Adulthood Being Bad. It’s not that choices are inherently bad, it’s just that sometimes there are consequences of said choices...but it’s not like said consequences lead to dead ends. Taichi and Yamato, in contrast to Menoa’s belief in “fate”, believe in “destiny” (unmei) -- the difference being that they believe in being able to change that predetermined fate by their own efforts.

The concept had come up earlier in To Sora, too --

Hey, Sora-san. I think it was destiny that we became Chosen Children. But I don’t think it was fate.

It’s a completely different conversation, but Mimi is basically talking about the philosophy that pushes the Chosen Children forward -- that sure, some things seem to be predestined and beyond simple luck, but also that they’ve had choice in manipulating the events and changing what seems normally inevitable.

So if Menoa’s theory about partnerships dissolving in adulthood is questionable to begin with, then what does cause partnership dissolution? Again, it’s not actually established that this is something that happens to everyone. We only have four confirmed cases within the scope of the movie: Menoa herself, Taichi, Yamato, and Sora. So what do they have in common?

Well, the night before the ring appeared on Taichi and Yamato’s Digivices, they had this conversation:

“You should take Gabumon with you to your classes,” Taichi said jokingly. Yamato smiled wryly. “Don’t be stupid. Why don’t you take Agumon to your classes?” “It’s not that simple. I have my own life to live.”

And during the events of To Sora -- which presumably happened right before the ring appeared for Sora -- this happened:

When Piyomon had come to inform her that Koushiro had sent a message, Sora had said to her angrily, “Don’t bother me!” The distress and irritation of her practice not going well had caused Sora to take it out on her. But even when lashed out by that irrational anger, Piyomon had been the one who apologized. When she saw Piyomon hanging her head apologetically, Sora had felt a surge of regret but no room in her heart to apologize as well. “I need to focus on this right now…” She had said as her excuse, and looked away.

And in Menoa’s case, a certain something shows up in the Shueisha Mirai Bunko version of the novel -- it’s implied in the movie itself, but the novel itself says it pretty explicitly:

Waiting in front of the swing at her family’s home, where they’d always played together when Menoa was a child, was her beloved friend. Lately, she’d been studying so much that they hadn’t been talking to each other at all, so she wanted Morphomon to lavish her with praise. She wanted her to say, “Menoa, you’re amazing!”

See a pattern? All of the known cases of partnership dissolution involved neglect of their Digimon partners in pursuit of “adulthood”.

Taichi and Yamato ditched Agumon and Gabumon at the start of the movie and left them with their siblings. Agumon hadn’t even been to Taichi’s room before, even though Taichi lives by himself and is clearly lonely -- his reaction when Agumon finds his AVs, “you have to be an adult -- “ tells all, because he clearly thinks of Agumon as “a child” who shouldn’t be near his New Adult Life. Sora may have apologized later, but it sounds like there’s been a constant pattern of her starting to focus so much on her studies that she’s emotionally neglected Piyomon. And, of course, Menoa herself rushed so much to become “an adult” that she neglected her beloved partner in the process -- they weren’t even talking anymore! And the fact that the swing is discussed in past tense, when Menoa was a child, indicates that Morphomon may not be the only thing Menoa had tossed away in pursuit of “becoming an adult”.

(Note how Menoa constantly talked through the movie about the fact she and Morphomon had “always been together”, as if Morphomon had been ripped unfairly from her suddenly and for no reason...only for the revelation that Menoa was guilty of neglect to drop at the end. I repeat: Menoa is not a reliable person to be taking words at face value from.)

It really, really doesn’t seem like coincidence that Taichi and Yamato’s Digivice rings appeared the day after they flippantly laughed at the idea of taking Agumon and Gabumon to school because it would get in the way of “having their own lives to live”. Recall that Digimon in the Adventure universe have always generally been taken to represent an alter ego, or a part of oneself. (They were literally developed to represent part of the human soul in physical form.) On a symbolic level, your partner disappearing is representative of you losing touch with yourself -- and your own childhood innocence -- because of some arbitrary, societally-enforced standard of “becoming an adult”.

Fun side note? As mentioned in the movie, Eosmon is named after the Greek goddess of the dawn, who also has another interesting story about her: she fell in love with a mortal man and, not wanting him to die before her, requested that he be given eternal life, but neglected to ask that he be given eternal youth, and was forced to watch as her lover kept living on and on and withered further and further with age. Neglected the concept of youth, huh.

That’s why partnerships seem to dissolve with adulthood, but it’s not from the simple act of becoming an adult -- it happens when you take that adulthood and decide that you’re going to reject all of those “childish” things about yourself in pursuit of that goal, and lose yourself in the process. And sure, they may have tried to fix it right away, but these things aren’t just momentary moments of weakness; they build, and build, and build, and build, until you’re at the point of no return and need to take drastic measures to get it back.

And in fact, if you inspect the staff interviews (which have been, presumably, deliberately vague about this in the hopes of having the audience figure it out), they hint at it, too:

For this movie, we had the concept of "separation from their Digimon", which means being able to completely separate yourself from your past self, or rather, wondering if it might be better to cut yourself entirely from your past adventures in becoming more like an adult.

Not only that, but this explanation tracks much better than what Menoa claims is the case. Under Menoa’s explanation of choices diminishing possibilities, characters like Daisuke and Jou who had their paths already determined from an early age should have lost their partners a long time ago, and conversely, Taichi and Yamato, who weren’t sure on what to do with their lives at the beginning of the movie, should not have lost their partners. But “emotional neglect from the obsession with growing up” tracks even with our “outlier” cases -- Menoa “forced” herself to become an adult at the very-not-adult age of 14 and lost her partner, while Oikawa also didn’t actually get to “meet” Pipimon until he accepted that exact same thing -- that he needed to embrace the “power to dream” instead of considering himself a “tainted adult”.

(Ichijouji Ken, who could be argued to be guilty of emotional neglect of Wormmon in some sense, initially seems like a violation of this principle, but closely observing the Kaiser’s behavior during 02 indicates an often paradoxical thread of behavior implying that he seemed to have been rejecting and yet wanting him nearby at the same time, which is part of the reason Wormmon’s death breaks him so badly. In fact, it often feels like he goes out of his way to acknowledge Wormmon for the specific purpose of rejecting him. In a metaphorical sense, knowing that Wormmon is representative of Ken’s own inner self, the metaphor of Ken being in perpetual internal conflict of constantly trying to outwardly reject his own heart for being “weak” yet never truly being able to escape it until he’s finally forced to accept it for good is not lost. It was not a positive relationship with Wormmon by any means, but it was, nevertheless, a conscious and active relationship, for which “neglect” does not feel like an appropriate word.)

When you look back at Menoa’s life and backstory, it then becomes clear how she made her mistake in her theory. Menoa basically threw away her childhood in order to become an adult, and she never learned to embrace the happy medium between having an unhealthy attachment to the past and violently cutting it off. Late in the movie, she claims that there’s nobody else who understands how she feels, and we also learn in her flashback that she had an obsession with doing things “on her own”, or in other words, she cut off any potential friends or people who could help her (Morphomon seems to have legitimately been her only friend and confidant). So in her mind, “losing touch with your inner self and having no connection to the happiness of your childhood” is fundamentally synonymous with becoming an adult. That’s how she develops her mentality of “adulthood is drudgery and has no value, and we’d be better off never getting there” -- and that adulthood strips people of possibilities and therefore provides no recourse from losing your Digimon partner, and that the only way to reclaim anything from your childhood is to just shove yourself back into its box. Her own life had no such hope in it, so she projects that lack of hope onto everyone else.

With that in mind, the two major questions that come from this:

Will this happen to everyone? Hard to say, but I don’t think it would necessarily. Remember, even though Menoa is one of the oldest Chosen Children and had this happen to her at an abnormally early age, not everyone has such an unhealthy relationship with adulthood, nor is as likely to neglect their partners nearly as much in the process of figuring out what adulthood means to them. That doesn’t mean that those it does happen to made some “mistake” or “messed up”, though -- press materials and the BD commentary made it clear that this was not a movie intended to endorse “one way to live”, and sometimes the degree of introspection and experimentation with what adulthood means to you does result in momentarily trying to cut things away until you figure your life balance out, especially if you want to take on a challenge with as high of a hurdle as Taichi’s road to becoming a diplomat.

So what’s the solution? Although it’s still left to everyone’s imagination to figure out the details, at the very least, figuring out yourself and snapping yourself out of this very unhealthy relationship with “growing up” and holding yourself to arbitrary, false standards is probably a great start! Menoa had her “vision” of Morphomon the moment Taichi and Yamato’s words reached her within Eosmon. Gennai specifically says that partnership dissolution will cause the Digimon to disappear in terms of losing their “form” (sugata), but given that Digimon in the Adventure universe are supposed to represent a part of yourself, they’re probably still there (just not there)! In that light, getting them back...is probably not actually all that hard, if they can sit down and take some time to figure themselves out. That’s why Menoa never figured it out this whole time in the last eight years; she was so busy focusing on “scientific” ways to get Morphomon back, and staying perpetually stuck in a twisted nostalgic version of her past, that she never actually sat down to think about herself and what she was doing. And that’s why the movie’s climax is about Taichi blowing the whistle to wake everyone up -- it’s still about moving forward, but it’s about using your past to move forward, instead of gravitating to the extremes of either latching onto it eternally or attempting to abandon it outright.

So really, the solution is for everyone to get some damn therapy.

Given that, the path to the 02 epilogue doesn’t actually seem that particularly difficult compared to how Menoa made the problem initially sound like. It’s not like every adult is going to inevitably have this happen as a process, and thus it’s not like everyone has to find some magical technical solution that’ll rectify one of the laws of the universe. The solution is really more somewhere between the unhealthy extremes presented in the movie -- Menoa’s fixation on nostalgia and the past being the only good thing in her life, and Taichi and Yamato (initially) rejecting said childhoods in favor of “adulthood” -- and figuring out how to use and cherish your childhood, past experiences, and inner self to move forward.

And given Sora’s revelation in To Sora about taking care of herself more, and Taichi and Yamato starting to settle on their career decisions for real by the end of Kizuna, they’re already on their way to figuring things out. Or, in other words, it’s likely that they’ll get their partners back simply through the natural course of making their way to the epilogue. Taichi’s starting to value his childhood experiences as important in his future work in diplomacy. Yamato, according to the Shueisha Mirai version of the novel, is becoming an astronaut to entertain the “romantic” dream of going to space with Gabumon. Sora, as per the 02 epilogue, will end up known not for being an iemoto heir but a kimono designer -- a skill that she’s presumably going to be discovering on her own, and not under obligations to others. Gennai himself said that there was hope as long as they still had “infinite possibility” -- something that Taichi, Yamato, and Sora were closing up on themselves at the beginning of this movie, but were starting to re-open the door to again once they started reconnecting with themselves and embarking on some proper paths by the end of it.

“We’ll definitely come to see you” -- indeed, they will.

(Next is the sequel to this meta, where I discuss Kizuna’s relationship with not only 02′s epilogue but also 02 itself as a whole, and the reason the 02 group has such an unusual position in this movie.)

#digimon #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #shihameta #kizuna spoilers

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hoekaashi · 4 years

Text

3 am Talks - hq pt 3

a/n: almost done, two more left!! i’m not sure why, but these ones were really fun for me to do and i had to cut myself off before i wrote whole fics for each one. also thank you to my wifey for helping me with akaashi, idk why his was so hard for me to do ): pairings: bokuto x reader, akaashi x reader, ushijima x reader, tendou x reader, semi x reader warnings: some spoilers for post timeskip, minor cussing, a bit suggestive (ushi) taglist: @babydabi, @suckersuki, @bakugoustanaccount, @animoozies part 2 | part 4

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

⇾ definitely someone who talks about the first things that just pop into his mind ⇾ would literally change topics in the middle of his sentence ⇾ “did you see my last spread, I was centerfold Tsum-Tsum was not happy but when I offered to trade places with him, it made him even more mad - I just got an email saying my new knee pads have been shipped YES - babe are you hungry? Let’s go to the convenience store and get some snacks” ⇾ all over the place ⇾ but the second sleep starts to hit him, he become even softer than he already is ⇾ this baby would def be asking for validation without outright asking for it - we all know he lives to be praised but as he gets older, he stops asking for it directly ⇾ i feel like he just becomes more self-conscious after he realizes that being on a national team means that now the entire WORLD is scrutinizing him ⇾ i could keep going on about him imma stop

“I couldn’t help it, I started laughing.” Even hours later, Bokuto was trying to hold in laughter from the memory of the event. “I think that’s why he’s mad at you Kou.” Bokuto pouted. “I offered to help him up.” “Yeah, but you were also red from laughing so hard and wiping the tears from your eyes. I don’t think he appreciated that.” Bokuto got quiet and you knew what that meant. “But at the end of the day, the pictures came out amazing. You look amazing.” His smile, although soft compared to his usual grin, came back. “You think so?” You hummed. “If volleyball doesn’t work out, you could be a model. I already know one of my friends has a shrine dedicated to you. Which honestly feels weird, but hey, if it’s harmless why should I care?” you said, going off on a tangent. Bokuto brushed off the compliment that normally would’ve stroked his ego. “Nah, I don’t think I could handle the pressure.” You cocked an eyebrow. “People constantly judging you and criticizing you. You know me, I thrive with praise and…” “Become emo with criticism?” He let out a dry chuckle. “Yeah. I’m trying to change.” You reached over and caressed his cheek. “There’s a difference between growing up and mellowing out and changing who you are. You’ve done the growing up part and you’re slowly mellowing out as much as you can. But please don’t change.” “But people keep saying -” “Forget what they say. I love you the way you are now.” Bokuto’s full grin returned to his face. “I love you more.”

.・゜-: ✧ :-　-: ✧ :-゜・．

⇾ more of a listener he learned his ways from babysitting bo ⇾ he would just enjoy listening to whatever you had on your mind ⇾ one to add his own commentary and thoughts to whatever you were saying ⇾ if he were to talk though, he would reminisce ⇾ talks of bokuto and his old team, things he misses ⇾ but speaking of bokuto, he would go off on how proud he is seeing his former ace doing so well for himself now - even if he still isn’t a normal player ⇾ depending on how open he’s feeling, he might even wander into his insecurities and childhood, things he doesn’t really open up about unless he feels really close to you

“And then I booked it out of there,” you finished your story. Akaashi hummed. “What about the other girl who was still working?” “Look, she never sticks around to help me when I have extra work, I wasn’t going to stick around to help her.” He cracked a smile at your pettiness. “Wait, didn’t you have lunch with Bokuto today?” “Yes. It was nice.” You waited a moment thinking that Akaashi would add more. “That’s it? It was nice?” “Well, you know how he is. But it was nice to see him trying to change himself. Well, improve himself.” You rolled over from your back onto his chest and reached up to play with his hair. “We talked a lot about playing during high school and what the others are doing these days. Everyone is so busy now, it’s hard to keep up. I’m proud of them.” You didn’t let the smile on Akaashi’s face go unnoticed, commenting on how it always seemed to be there whenever he talked about his former ace. “Leave me alone, I’m happy with how far he’s come on his own. I can’t but smile when I think about the people I love.” “Do you smile when you think about me?” “Of course I do, you idiot,” he replied before kissing your forehead.

.・゜-: ✧ :-　-: ✧ :-゜・．

⇾ i very strongly believe he would talk about parallel universes ⇾ he would go into the existence of them but also like ‘what if there was a way for people in a parallel universe who could watch me as if my life was a movie’ ⇾ if he was in a more serious mood, like if he had a big match coming up or sum, he would talk more about his goals ⇾ the things he hopes to accomplish in the future, the outcomes he wants in life ⇾ if he was tired, it would be more like akaashi - more listening, less talking ⇾ i feel like he would always want to know what’s happening in your mind so he would ask you the most random questions or just want to listen to you talk as he drifts off to sleep

“Do you think they saw me when I tripped over Leo and dropped the dishes?” You remembered when he tripped over the cat the two of you were raising and ended up breaking a few plates. As annoyed as you were that the plates you like broke, it gave you a reason to go domestic shopping with your boyfriend. You sighed. “No Toshi. If they were watching you, it would be when you’re playing volleyball or taking a shower.” “But you’re in the shower with me sometimes. You think they saw what we were doing?” “If they did,” you started with your eyebrows raised, “I hope they enjoy it as much I do.” He chuckled. “Why when I’m playing volleyball?” “Because that’s your job now. What else would they watch you do? Play with Leo?” He didn’t reply as he looked down to the cat in his lap. Petting it, the two of you sat in silence for a while. You finally thought he dropped the topic as you started to drift to sleep. “I wonder if the people watching like me. Or what if they think I’m the villain?” You sat up in bed. “Why would you think you would be a villain in a show about volleyball?” “I don’t know. I could be a side character that no one likes.” His voice got quieter the more he talked. “Aw, Toshi. I’m sure you have many, many fans in this parallel universe who all wish to be dating you. You never intentionally hurt anyone. You tried, in your own way, to work with Oikawa, but it’s not like you sabotaged him or anything.” He nodded. “He should’ve come to Shiratorizawa. We could’ve been that impressive first year duo instead of Hinata and Kageyama.” You rubbed his shoulder. “I know, baby. You remind me of that at least once a month.”

.・゜-: ✧ :-　-: ✧ :-゜・．

⇾ he would get deep ⇾ talks about his childhood where he was bullied to where he is now ⇾ while he has his insecurities, he would still be very proud of himself and how far he’s come and everything he accomplished ⇾ on the topic of being proud, he would never pass up the opportunity to talk up his bff ushi and he would hype him up even though it’s just the two of you ⇾ he wouldn’t forget about the other third years aka his other ‘best friends’ (i use quotes bc he only has eyes for ushi lezbehonest) ⇾ the talk would shift over to you and how lucky he feels to have found you ⇾ half of the things he would say would just to get you all embarrassed and shy so he could tease you about it

You woke up an hour ago because when you went to snuggle with your boyfriend, his body was missing from bed. For the last hour, he talked to you about how much he’s grown over the years, not once stopping to let you say anything. You finally had enough of this monologue. “Satori, how much more can you possibly say? It’s been a whole ass hour. Get your ass to bed so I can snuggle with you and lemme sleep.” Sighing, he walked away from the window where he was using the light from the moon to set the mood of his speech. Getting into bed, he waited until you were satisfied and closed your eyes. “But also, Wakatoshi has gotten so far on his own. I couldn’t be more proud of my best friend.” “Satori, please. For the love of God.” “Babe, you gotta let me air this out. Good communication and all that.” “We don’t have a single problem that needs to be ‘aired out’ right now. I got work in the morning and you like the sound of your own voice.” That still didn’t stop him. “And Semi, I gotta hand it to him, the man finally learned how to dress properly. And his music isn’t that bad either so I gotta find something new to annoy him with now. Reon is still keeping his fighting spirit alive and playing volleyball too. My friends, all doing so well.” Tendou glanced down at you who had fallen asleep to his heart beats. “But you. I’m the most proud of you. I’m so lucky to have found you. Not that I needed someone in my life at the time, but all the happiness you’ve given me on top of the great things in my life. You’re an amazing person, and I appreciate the impact you’ve made in my life.”

.・゜-: ✧ :-　-: ✧ :-゜・．

⇾ before we start with semisemi, he plays bass and sings in his band but he also plays the piano and guitar (these are MY OWN hcs, none of this is canon) ⇾ that being said, he would stay up late at night playing his guitar, working on songs and quietly singing lyrics to himself ⇾ his talks would be about purpose - like why he’s on this earth similar to hinata ⇾ aha ha ha so if yall read kuroo’s, you know how i feel about scorpios ⇾ semi babe is not safe from that either ⇾ while he is bad at opening up, he also has a short temper so expect apologies for his random outbursts from him ⇾ imma touch on this more in my semi relationship hcs so i shall stop here

You had been on your computer, finishing up some work of yours that you had been procrastinating on with Semi sitting on the couch, strumming his guitar as he worked on a new song. You hadn’t been paying attention the entire time, not until you closed your laptop and sat back in your chair. “Eita, what’s that song?” Your sudden question caused him to jump a little. “Oh, uh, I didn’t realize you were listening.” “I just heard you singing. What is that?” He rubbed the nape of his neck. “I was hoping to hold out until it was finished.” You walked over to him, draping your arms around his shoulders and leaning your weight on him. You read the lyrics he had so far, your eyes growing bigger with each line. “What… is this?” “An apology.” You pulled away from him. “I know I’m not the easiest boyfriend and that when I have a problem, I should say something rather than exploding on you over the littlest thing. I didn’t really know how else to express this without messing it all up.” “I’ve known you for a long time, I wouldn’t be with you if I didn’t figure that much out.” “But still, it doesn’t mean that I should just stay this way. I should be growing with you as a person, not stuck how I am. I really do need to learn to express myself better.” You let out a small chuckle. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.” You had. Four times already. “And this will be the last. Thank you for putting up with me.” Your arms wrapped around him once again. “Next time, I expect an entire album with love songs dedicated to me. Got it?” “Well fuck, I better not mess up. I don’t have enough material for an entire love album.” You shoved him. “Hey! Maybe I will leave your sorry ass.” “I’m just kidding! Babe! Where are you going?!”

#bokuto kotaro #bokuto x reader #akaashi keiji #akaashi x reader #ushijima wakatoshi #ushijima x reader #tendou satori #tendou x reader #semi eita #semi x reader #hq #haikyuu #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fluff

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eleanorose123 · 3 years

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Reading one of your old post made me want to talk about this, many seem to dislike that Ron saved the day at the end of graduation, even saying that it made a disservice of Kim’s character. (I disagree with this to a degree although I do have some nipticks about the finale)

I personally have no problem with Ron saving the day (episodes like Sink or swim, the fearless ferret and odds man in are some of my favorite episodes of the show) but I have to admit that something about the ending never set down well with me, I do love that it was Kim what inspired Ron to finally use his powers, it’s just that I wish both of them had taken down the aliens together instead of only Ron if you know what I mean.

Like imagine if Ron had finally mastered his powers and both him and Kim had taken down the aliens together as a power couple, that would have been even better imo.

And like you said I wonder how people would have reacted if the gender had been reversed, the people who didn’t liked the ending would they had cheered up instead?

Now I wonder how much the show would have changed and how well it would had been received had Kim been a boy and Ron a girl.

I think a very important part of the show was how it defied gender roles, Kim was the hero and Ron was the sidekick and the show came to be because the creators wanted to create a role model their daughters could look up to.

I wonder how different the show would have been in general and how the audience would have reacted to it had Kim been a boy and Ron a girl.

If I’m allowed to be honest I wouldn’t mind Ron being a girl because Imo he was the character who had the most development through the show, it’s like the showrunners weren’t afraid of having him show his flaws nor if putting him into goofy situations, if anything that’s why he became my favorite.

He usually didn’t succeed at first so when he did I remember getting happy for him.

And either way Ron was always very gender non conforming he had a few “feminine” traits and usually did his own thing.

I don’t think any of that would change had he been any other gender and even though I am a girl he was always the character who seems the most relatable to me, it would have been great to see a girl character who acted like him growing up (the closest character I think that is similar would be Lilo form Lilo and Stich).

Now that I think of it why can’t characters that are girls be shown to be more openly flawed and have them have their own share of goofy and silly moments?

THIS was something to wake up to dfkjhfdjkfd but okay, I'll voice my opinions on the matter [cracks knuckles]

While Graduation was absolutely the finale of the series, it wasn't the finale for Kim's story. That was back with the So the Drama movie, the intended finale for the series before fans begged for an epilogue season. Kim coming to terms with her teenage drama of thinking no (real) boy would want to be with her when she's a crimefighter world saver and discovering that she's always had that right by her side the whole time was her own successful story, coupled with the entirety of an epic movie plotline that imo was the peak of the series. That was HER finale, and season four was a series of epilogue challenges and events for her.

Graduation was a finale meant for Ron. He was the one of the two who was struggling the most with the idea of a future, the one with fears and doubts about what the next step will be because Kim knows what's she's doing (from his perspective) and "is heading to the stars" but Ron is "stuck on Earth". Kim got some wonderful moments in Graduation from saving herself and Drakken, and keeping Ron grounded from his panic through out, resulting in the absolutely chilling moment of her admitting to him that SHE is scared too. Kim has been Ron's inspiration for strength and security, but right now? She's just as scared as he is about the future, and when she is danger about being killed by giant aliens, it's RON'S turn to step up and save her.

The series overall has always been both Kim and Ron's stories, so I really didn't mind that Ron saved the day in Graduation because it fit the narrative needed for that story. He was able to channel and control a power he had in himself practically the whole series and used it to protect the person he cared about and the world he helped save over and over again. Yes, it would've also been cool if they BOTH got to deal the final blow, but honestly, I didn't mind this side of things.

Graduation was meant to show that there are more people capable of saving the world than just Kim Possible. There always has been. Jim and Tim brought power back to Middleton High to keep civilians safe, Wade continued to provided global updates for the situation, Ron and Shego rescued Kim and Drakken, Drakken was the one with the actual plan to stop the alien's plot, and Ron dealt the final blow. The series has always been bigger than just our epic titular lead, and that two parter showed it off well.

The gender thing doesn't super bother me imo. Yes, it is absolutely true Kim and Shego didn't do as much as Ron and Drakken did in Graduation, but they got to do so much in the series as a whole that it didn't feel completely out of balance. Kim is the hero, Ron is her sidekick, they've always been cool with that dynamic, Graduation just flipped the script temporarily.

This is just a longwinded way of me saying I liked it. Was the series perfect? Nah. Would I have changed some bits personally? Of course. But I find Kim Possible in its entirety to still be a VERY well done series that I find enjoyment in to this day.

#long post #omg what a long post #kim possible #ron stoppable #i have a LOT of kp thoughts fdkjhdfjk

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peachcitt · 3 years

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okay, so style reference you say? I'm 👀

YES STYLE REFERENCE I SAY

this is going to be. a very long post i think with probably a lot of tangents and probably with a lot more thorough explanation than you could ever want but. here we go

because all of my theory/explanation posts end up So Long, i like to organize myself by keeping myself to a structure, and i also like to think if i put stuff in sub categories with bolded titles, people reading can skip ahead to the stuff they want if they're low on time or don't feel like slogging through everything. so here's the structure of the official Peach Style Reference Narrative

1. Early Days - how i started writing, my early inspirations, origins

2. Current Days - discussions of current style references plus examples and comparisons, discussions of original content versus fan content

3. Future Days - where i expect my writing to grow, trajectories i want, conclusory thoughts

without further ado, let's get into it!

1. Early Days

like i mentioned on the discord server, ive been writing creatively for. a very long time. i just turned 20 (like. literally today. we love to see it) and that seems very young, but i remember writing creatively when i was maybe six or seven, and before that i played with dolls a lot, which meant every day i was creating little narratives for myself. in addition to this - and this is probably why i started writing so young - i was (and am!) a very avid reader. i was that little jerk in elementary school reading chapter books and going into the older kids' section in the school library because i'd already mentally surpassed the books in the section meant for kids my age. so, basically, ive been writing for maybe 13 or 14 years at the least.

when i was young, my favorite books that i remember trying to copy in my own stories were: the magic treehouse books, harry potter, and percy jackson.

the magic treehouse

i honestly could not tell you which magic treehouse book it was, but i remember reading a specific magic treehouse book where the magic lady that left the treehouse for the kids sends the kids (jack and annie??) a note in distress, and she didn't get to finish signing her name because whoever had gotten her had interrupted her. it had been printed in the book with the ink on her name running.

i could not tell you anything else that happened in that book, but i can tell you that at some point in time soon after i read that book i started writing a story with an interrupted letter just like that. i loved the drama, the mystery of it all. i wanted to do something that was a little scary like that, a little exciting.

harry potter

harry potter isn't much of a style reference, but it was a huge impact of my childhood. truth be told i kind of hated the books when i was really young because i grew up watching the movies, and when i tried to read the books when i was in elementary school, the teenage angst that hits about book 5 simply Did Not make sense to me. i also find the language of harry potter to be super cumbersome, and sometimes it feels to me like the books are long just for the sake of being long. they have a huge cultural impact, but i feel the same way about harry potter's style as i do about dickens. cool and interesting, but, like, could you get to the point already? (and also my opinion of j.k. rowling has steadily been growing worse and worse over the years, for obvious reasons. harry potter is nostalgic for me, but i can't look at it now without thinking about it critically, which really lowers my opinion of it)

however, you could probably call my first fanfiction a harry potter fanfiction. i started it when i was maybe six or seven, and it was a rewrite of the chamber of secrets with my childhood best friend as the main character (she didn't know about it, i just had her as the main character because i thought she was cool). i of course never finished it, but harry potter probably did a huge part of planting that seed of magic in me. everything i want to write included some form of magic - although my perspective on what can be considered magic has steadily expanded over the years.

percy jackson

of all my childhood "style references" that still influence me to this day, percy jackson has got to be the biggest. for starters, it's magic. second, it's main themes are about friendship and family - things that i like all my stories now to always include. third - and most important - is the narrative voice.

in terms of narrative voice, percy has a huge personality. he's witty and snarky, but also very thoughtful and poignant. a lot of my early writing was in first person, and it's probably because of percy. also, percy jackson was the first fandom i really got into, and it was the first media that i started officially writing and posting fanfiction for. percy's voice is so clear and hooking, and i wanted to be able to write something funny and real like that.

also - chapter titles. the original pjo series is famous for its weird and hilarious chapter titles, and even though i didn't really start writing fics or stories that were long enough to need chapter titles until a while later, i loved the idea of putting in a chapter title that would make a reader laugh, or maybe even make a reader feel a little apprehensive about the events to come.

but back to percy's narrative voice. i loved that style, almost conversational, so much that i started thinking like it. when i wasn't doing anything, like walking home in middle school, i often found myself narrating my life in my head like percy would, trying to find that humor and spark in my every day surroundings. i still find myself doing that very often, but not necessarily in the classic pjo style. now i narrate everything in my head a little differently, but that practice narration in my early days really helped my shape my voice, i think.

other series i read when i was younger include: a a series of unfortunate events and the name of this book is secret. i don't remember seeing a lot of influence in my early writing from those books, but i definitely think the styles of those books hit me a little later, which i will talk about in the next section.

but, yeah. these were the big three of my childhood. i also read a lot of ya romance, children's mystery books, princess stories, and various types of fantasy, which i think you could probably tell from the genres i like to stick to now. except i don't write a ton of mystery because, as much as i admire the complicated plots, im not sure if i'd have the patience to plan all that out.

in terms of the rest of the genres, a ton of my earlier writing included classic ya romance and fantasy tropes - chosen girl, love triangles, angsty overpowered teens, etc etc. even though those kinds of stories are not necessarily the kinds of stories i want to write or read now, i think my early writing of those kinds of things was really valuable. it's kind of a dirty secret with finished or unfinished works generally considered 'cringe' - often that writer is a new writer, or they're trying something new, or they just haven't found their voice yet. all of those things are perfectly okay and normal, and a lot of people in the writing community preach that kind of thing, but i don't necessarily see people cutting new writers slack in actual practice. writing "overrused" tropes isn't cringe, it's normal, and, besides, what trope isn't overrused? people have been writing and telling stories for thousands of years - nothing is really new. what matter is that someone new is telling the story, and that's what makes it valuable.

so, yeah, a lot of my childhood writing is cringe to me now, but i wouldn't be where i am without it.

with that being said, let's actually look at where i am now

2. Current Days

im going to break this section down into two parts, sort of: original fiction and fanfiction. because i think both of these things have become really important to me, and i don't believe i personally could exist as a writer without one or the other. it's a symbiotic relationship.

we'll start with fanfiction.

my relationship with fanfiction is relatively positive in online spaces: i write what i want to see from media that i like, and i have fun doing it. i also get some comments on my fics by lovely people that detail exactly what they like - some even go so far to talk about narrative style, voice, or tone - and that's really helpful. generally, i see fanfiction not only as a fun hobby and vent space for my strong positive feelings about certain media, but also as a place for me to try new things, experiment, and earn positive feedback.

i don't often share my original fiction online (and if i do, never at the same scope as my fanfiction), so i don't get that same opportunity to see what "works" with readers. fanfiction gives me the space to see that, and i apply new knowledge ive learned to my original fiction. that's what i mean by a symbiotic relationship.

in terms of specific style references for specific fics (which is what i know you probably most want to see), i'll try my best to pick them all out and give specific examples.

those benevolent stars and i am the messenger by markus zusak

in my favorite book list, i saw you mention tbs, so i'll start there. to be honest, i had no idea what my style reference for tbs was when i first saw your tags, and i almost didn't think there was anything specific. style references are a bit sneaky like that - if you've been referencing for someone for a long time, it becomes less of an intentional reference and more of just a you think, so it gets harder to tell.

lucky for this post, i just finished doing my yearly reread of zusak's i am the messenger, and as i was reading, i noticed a few spots where i was like wait hey i remember doing that.

for starters, iatm has been my favorite book for about six or seven years now, so i would say that some aspects of my style certainly comes from zusak because of how much i love iatm but also his other books. zusak has this huge talent for writing short, punchy sentences that convey so much in just a few words, and i think i've ended up trying to do that in my own writing. often, in my writing you'll see fragmentary sentences such as "He stopped. Blinked. Looked at her." that's not from anything specific, but i know ive written something like that maybe a million times over. zusak doesn't do the same thing - often his fragments are jam-packed with imagery in a way that mine aren't - but there's a thoughtfulness in his fragments that are in mine, too. a sort of pause. a hint that there's thinking happening in the narrator or a certain character. for example, i did a quick flip through of my copy and we have:

"We stare across the table.

Just briefly.

At each other." (I am the Messenger, p.144)

so you see how my common sentence fragment of "he stopped / blinked / looked at her" tracks with a fragment like this? i like the way zusak broke up sentences to make you dwell on them a little longer, consider the importance of each section, so i started doing that wayy before i wrote tbs i think.

also, at the time i wrote tbs, i think i was in the process of, or had just finished doing my reread of iatm, and, like i said, zusak loves imagery. tbs is a very imagery-heavy fic. tbs was influenced by a lot of music - a lot of the scenes have very specific pieces of music that i wrote imagining the tone and vibe of. iatm also references a lot of outside media sources, mostly music and films.

there are a couple of scenes in tbs that i think i wrote specifically mimicking or accidentally referencing from iatm. for example, we have this scene in tbs:

"It was almost like he could feel Marinette’s eyes on his back, steady and gentle. 'But you still love her.”

'Yeah,' Adrien said quietly, 'I still love her.' His eyes moved along a streak of purple that bled into a dark blue. 'I hate her a little bit, too.'

Marinette was silent.

He turned around, giving her a smile." (Those Benevolent Stars, chapter 3)

and this scene from iatm:

"'Do you hate me, Ed?'

Still stupid with bubbles and vodka in my stomach, I answer. Very seriously.

'Yes,' I whisper. 'I do.'

We both smack the sudden silence with laughter." (I am the Messenger, p. 233)

obviously there are differences, and i don't think i did it on purpose, but the interaction is very similar. i love the gentle intimacy of that scene in iatm, that weird complication relationship between the main character and the person he loves, the hurt, the brushing it off with laughter. so i wrote a scene that incorporated those things

zusak is also really good at writing moments of quiet into his books that aren't necessarily important to the plot, but are still important. if you've ever read that ghibli meta post talking about the 'quiet' between scenes in studio ghibli scenes, meant to give both the audience and the characters space to breath, it's like that. nothing in iatm is not imporant - it all serves a purpose, even the quiet moments, and i try to do the same thing. there's moments like that in tbs i think, like:

"Marinette gave him a small smile before turning back to her ice cream. Adrien tried to eat his ice cream a little faster, licking up where it had dripped onto his hand.

They were quiet for a while longer, and Marinette finished her ice cream. She leaned back on her hands and looked up at the dark sky, littered with stars.

He could see them all in her eyes, too." (Those Benevolent Stars, chapter 3)

and in iatm, you get scenes like:

"Our feet dangle.

I watch them, and I watch the jeans on Audrey's legs.

We only sit there now.

Audrey and me." (I am the Messenger, p.120)

so i definitely think tbs is a very i-am-the-messenger/markuz zusak-inspired fic. there's a lot of zusak's quiet, and there's the pieces of zusak's style that i've picked up along the way that really shine in tbs

tomorrow and this body's not big enough for the both of us by edgar cantero

ive talked about cantero a few times recently, but, as you've probably noticed, in relation to my fic called 'tomorrow.' i wrote tomorrow pretty soon after reading this body's not big enough for the both of us, and i used tomorrow specifically to experiment with cantero's visual writing style. in all the books by cantero ive read, there's this kind of hyper-awareness of a film gaze - how a certain scene would be shot on a camera, dialogue as script writing, and other things like that mixed with prose. i thought it was fascinating, and after finishing this body, i really wanted to play around with that idea. so i wrote tomorrow keeping in mind a "film gaze." for example:

"Two figures sitting on a rooftop, silhouettes. The moon hovers over them carefully, a crescent afraid to break the silence. One of the figures takes a breath, looks up into the sky at the hesitant moon, and he sighs. He closes his mouth again." (tomorrow)

versus in cantero's work, where we get descriptions like:

"And then, like a high-heeled coup de grace, she arrived.

She paused briefly outside the door, her hourglass silhouette cast upon the glass panel with the fresh shiny vinyl letters" (This Body's Not Big Enough for the Both of Us, prologue)

the tone of the two excerpts are very different, but there's a very visual sense to both of them, like they are being described from a shot in a movie rather than a regular work in prose. in tomorrow i also work a lot with specific camera imagery - saying where the camera goes in the scene, what it focuses on - and this body doesn't do this too much, but cantero's meddling kids does at least once that i remember.

regardless, after finishing this body, i wanted to try my hand at the visual structure that cantero uses in his works, so i really leaned in to the idea.

chat noir's white french man hit list for feminist purposes and grasshopper jungle by andrew smith

this is, as of right now, the most recent fic on my ao3, and i started it the literal day i finished grasshopper jungle. i think you might be getting a theme here - i read a really good book, and then immediately after i start writing something. the easiest way to get inspired as a writer is to read.

chat noir's hit list is a fic that is very much aware of the fact that it is a story being told - you don't know by who or for what real reason until the end, but it's a self aware sort of story. it's also very snarky and sarcastic, and it expands past just the confines of its own story; it's about chat noir and his hit list, but it also talks in depth about emilie agreste, chat noir's relationship with ladybug, and his relationship with himself. this is very much the kind of thing that you would find in an andrew smith book - grasshopper jungle is a story being told to you, and it's also about more than just the original pieces of the plot. the narrator tells the story that expands past regular confines of the story he means to tell - he's telling the 'history' of his life and his town, but he also talks about his great-great grandfather, the origins of the ketchup his girlfriend's dad eats, and what's happening in other parts of the country as he and his best friend are hanging out. the line in chat's hit list of "stars exploded, the sun did not, life continued on" was very much a grasshopper jungle and andrew smith-inspired line.

at the end of adrien's narration in chat's hit list, he says:

"It should be mentioned at this point in time that this story is not over, although I’ll stop telling it here.

So that’s the story of Chat Noir, who is also Adrien Agreste, who was very much a normal boy, except for the fact that he wasn’t. It’s a sad story, but it is also a happy story, and it is highly confidential. I’m sure you understand." (Chat Noir's White French Man Hit List for Feminist Purposes)

and at the end of grasshopper jungle, as the main character is closing out his narration, we get:

What I have written here is not the history of Eden. It is the history of the end of the world. All real histories will be about everything, and they will stretch to the end of the world.

The end of the world started when Andrej Szczerba slid into the cold sea as his boy, Krys, watched and wept and drifted closer and closer to the United States of America.

Nobody knew anything about it." (Grasshopper Jungle, p.382-3)

It's not overtly similar, but the structure is the same: recognition of the end, short summary of where we started and left the story, tag phrase that was used prior in the work. when i was writing the end of adrien's narration, i didn't mean to mirror grasshopper jungle so closely, but sometimes things just happen that way - honestly, so many of the things i do in my writing aren't intentional, they're subconscious. when i make a conscious choice, it's related to plot or to a new strategy im applying to style or voice that i'm not used to, but a lot of the things i do fly under the radar in my brain unless im purposefully trying to piece them apart like i am here.

i will say the meta-story of chat's hit list was pretty directly inspired by grasshopper jungle because i love meta stories, and i like using opportunities to put them in. i just love the idea of reading a story of someone telling someone else a story, which is what the two books by andrew smith i've read have been, and i think that's just fascinating, which is why i used it here.

ive gotten a couple of comments on chat's hit list that liken the narrative style to pseudonymous bosch's the name of this book is secret and lemony snicket's a series of unfortunate events, which i thought was really interesting, because i was purposefully trying to make the voice an impression of andrew smith's voice adapted to the tone of ml, but i could definitely see their reasoning.

andrew smith, like i mentioned before, likes specifics - what exactly people were doing at certain times, where a specific bottle of ketchup came from, etc. from what i remember of the name of this book is secret and a series of unfortunate events, i remember the descriptions included in those books chock full of highly specific, snarky details that aren't truly necessary, but do a whole lot in terms of adding a certain flavor to the narration. i won't try and look up examples from unfortunate events and the name of this book, but here are a couple examples:

"See, the thing about Emilie Agreste, formerly Emilie Graham De Vanily, is that she was what could be generously called a ‘radical.’ Born in 1969, like most amazing and world-altering things, Emilie Graham De Vanily grew up in London alongside her twin sister, who is a nice enough woman and who is not really that important to this story, and she was raised with the firm and gentle hands of people who had witnessed war and cruelty and had found that they did not like at all. Emilie Graham De Vanily grew up learning about the true history of England, which is not a very nice history, truly, and she grew up knowing that people with white skin like her were historically not all that great. That, historically, was a very radical thought." (Chat Noir's White French Man Hit List for Feminist Purposes)

from chat's hit list, and this:

"In 1905, being seventeen years old made you a man. In 1969 when hungry Jack fought in Vietnam, seventeen years old was a man. My brother, Eric, who was somewhere in Afghanistan, was twenty-two.

Krzys Szczerba came across the Atlantic with his father. They planned on working and earning enough money so Krzys's mother, brother, and two sisters could come to the United States, too. People who did that were called Bread Polacks. They came here to make money." (Grasshopper Jungle, p. 68)

from grasshopper jungle. once again, obviously very different, but you can tell im playing around with that same feeling of giving a surplus of facts in my narration in the same way that andrew smith does. you can't really tell in the grasshopper jungle excerpt, but oftentimes the surplus of 'facts' serves almost a comedic effect, which is definitely something that you can feel in chat noir's hit list.

[REDACTED] and six of crows by leigh bardugo

as a reward for sticking around through this, i'll give out something fun here. the current long fic that ive been working on recently has proved to be very bardugo-inspired, particularly six of crows-inspired.

in six of crows, bardugo gives us action right off the bat and then integrates flashbacks into lulls of action so that there's never truly a dull moment. i found [REDACTED] to be a fic where i wanted to use flashbacks in a similar way, so that i would get something like:

"She doesn’t stay for the whole parade, but she stays for enough of it. Nothing unusual happens, just like always, but she still makes cursory patrols around the city, ending up at the Eiffel Tower, just like always. She sits on the railing way up at the top, and she crosses her ankles, swinging her legs back and forth and humming softly to herself as she watches the sun set.

'Little kitty on the roof, all alone without his lady,' he used to sing when he’d gotten back to their meeting point from patrolling his half of the city before her. It was just a silly little song, one that he’d clearly made up for himself."

It didn’t hurt until he’d been akumatized, and she’d seen that one version of the future - the one where he’d destroyed the whole world because of Gabriel Agreste. She’d seen him then, a lonely figure in white, humming his little song to himself. Who knows how long he’d been like that before she’d been transported to him, how long he’d been really and truly alone. (REDACTED, chapter 1)

and in comparison, we get a lot of scenes in six of crows like:

"Kaz leaned against the ship's railing. He wished he hadn't said anything about his brother. Even those few words raised the memories, clamoring for attention. What had he said to Geels at the Exchange? I'm the kind of bastard they only manufacture in the Barrel. One more lie, one more piece of the myth he'd built for himself.

After their father died, crushed beneath a plow with his insides strewn across a field like a trail of damp red blossoms, Jordie had sold the farm. Not for much." (Six of Crows, p.205-6)

bardugo uses most of the flashbacks during a time in which the main characters are on a long sea voyage, which means they have a lot of time to reflect on their pasts and what brought them to these situations - it's a smart way to fill the empty space of the sea voyage and to really dwell on how important the voyage is. in a similar way, i chose to use the flashbacks in dull or lulling moments in the events of the story, ones in which marinette lets her mind wander or sees something that makes her remember something specific.

however, here's a situation where you can see me adapt the style into something that makes more sense for me, personally: in my excerpt, the tense changes between the current events and the flashback events, while in bardugo's excerpt, the tense stays the same at a comfortable past tense. when i was writing my fic with the flashbacks, i thought the constant, sometimes abrupt, switching would get confusing, so i made sure to always have a clear line using the past and present tense that readers could consciously or unconsciously take notice of.

so there are a couple of instances within some fairly recent fics i have that have specific callbacks to specific books. there are a whole bunch more, i think, but these are the ones that ive played around with intentionally the most recently or the most often.

3. Future Days

based on my recent rapid experimentation in fics (the most recent four fics on my ao3 have been very experimental in comparison to most of my works), i really anticipate a lot of growth in my overall style. ive been having a lot of fun experimenting and throwing in things that a few years ago i would've never even thought of, so im really excited to see where that might lead me, style wise.

i think as a writer there's always room for growth and learning, and that kind of growth and learning comes from not only practicing writing, but also reading. i cannot stress enough how valuable and impactful reading is on writing. considering ive been trying to read a lot more than i have been in recent years, it makes a lot of sense that ive been making a lot of weird decisions and learning more about what i want to see in my own writing.

honestly, if you ever want to know about any of my other fics, or you want to see how this kind of thing translates to my original works, just shoot me an ask! this post is already long enough, so i think i'll go ahead and end it here, but just know you can always ask questions<3

thank you so much for asking me this question and letting me indulge, and thank you for reading!!!<3<3<3<3

#ask #miabrown007 #writing #writing meta #writing style #writing style reference #my writing meta #this took. actually i will not say how long this took because i do not want to hurt myself that way #just know that this took a while. did it need to? fucking no absolutely not you didn't ask for something this long i did this to myself #this is why i didn't answer this for a couple days btw i wanted to take time to actually sit down and write down a thorough post like this #for you and i didn't have the time when you first sent it #technically i should not have had the time today but that sort of thing doesn't count in the middle of the night #happy birthday to me im giving myself a super long meta post where i info dump about some of my favorite things #also you did not. you did not ask for writing or life advice and yet i also gave that. im sorry it just happens i don't know how to stop #im so tired. i have class tomorrow (today) my cat's being a little piece of shit. we love to see it #thanks so much for asking this and i seriously mean it when i say you can ask any time #i obviously didn't go over the majority of my fics and most of this was done off of memory alone #(in terms of my own fics. the books i had to flip through to find the quotes i wanted)#so if you have any more questions about a specific fic don't hesitate to ask!! that goes for everyone btw #anyway now i have to pay attention to my cat and then go to sleep goodnight love y'all

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thedefinitionofendgame · 3 years

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The Definition Of Endgame

/'en(d),gām/ the idea that two people are meant to be together, forever

hi, I'm kaykay! welcome to my little blog corner of the world where (most) characters get their happy ending, no matter how the writers left them. I'm an avid reader, hopeful writer and love TV shows, movies and books with all my heart.

Story behind my username:

I've always used the word "endgame" when talking about fictional couples (and sometimes real ones)

To me, endgame means forever. And no matter what their storylines are, my OTPs are endgame to me. Nothing will ever change that.

Your endgame(s) might be different than mine. That's okay. As long as your favourite couple(s) are endgame to you, forever is possible.

please checkout this post about rules (!)

my sideblog can be found at @endgamequotes :)

I write fanfics (same username as this blog)

You can find my ao3 pseud here

And my fanfiction.net page here

I'm always open to fic prompts; send me an "ask" anytime :)

My fanfic masterlist can be found below via "keep reading"

I used to have the username @/oakleyfraser4 but changed to match my Tumblr & Instagram handle. All works under the previous username still belong to me

All of my original tumblr posts can be found at the hashtag "#the definition of endgame"

Thanks for checking my page out! Happy blogging :)

Fanfic Masterlist | @thedefinitionofendgame

ON TUMBLR

ON AO3

Series: Amelia & Link’s Dream Come True

Grey's Anatomy

two under two - Amelia and Link discover they’re having another baby only half a year after Scout

i will never stop loving you - A sudden death has Link remembering how much he loves Amelia

even when forever falls apart - Accidents happen, but one in particular leaves Amelia feeling alone and lost

Series: Mark & Lexie, Meant To Be

we’re gonna be so happy - Lexie and Mark in the last moments of their time together on earth

Non-series fics

don’t waste one single minute - On Meredith’s beach, Mark and Lexie are reunited and Meredith reflects on what loss and love is like

Series: Jo & Alex, What Should've Been

walked through hell - When a familiar face shows up at Grey Sloan Memorial, Jo is hit with news she never thought she would receive

baseball takes your mind off things - Slexie, Merder and Cristowen play baseball to distract themselves from the results of the recent hospital cuts (6.03 extended scene)

Station 19

Series: Andy & Sullivan, The Only Good Thing

I Love You, Baby - Andy is keeping a secret from her husband but Robert isn't dumb and intends to find out sooner or later

Non-series fics

A New Adventure - Maya and Carina's son is graduating, which causes his moms to feel a lot of emotions

Collection (Grey’s Anatomy X Station 19): Code Red

Love Is Enough - Surrera's journey to make it back to each other, after the season 4 finale

Code Red - s18 of Grey's Anatomy and s5 of Station imagined by me and @greys-for-days

The 100

Series: John Murphy & Emori’s Forever

The Story Behind The Grand Canyon - Murphy’s heart was never the same after the love of his life died, but he has to keep it together for his-their-daughter

John & Emori : The Happy Ending They Deserve - John Murphy and Emori have been through so much, they deserve whatever goodness life has to offer

Little Thief - Auntie Raven finds herself hanging out with her favourite thief, none other than Alexie Murphy

Three - Murphy, Emori and their daughter make up a family, and that’s all they ever need

Dance With Me - Murphy and Emori take advantage of a night together after barely surviving the day

Chaos Makes Love - Emori has a secret she’s keeping from Murphy, but when he finds out the news, his reaction is not what she expects

Underneath The Sheets - In Becca’s lab, Murphy and Emori have a moment alone, although not the usual moment that happens between these two

So Much For Forever - Murphy doesn't make it to the ship before the bombs, so he and Emori spend their last minutes, forever together (canon-divergent with 5.13)

You Always Mattered To Me - Murphy tells Emori just how much she matters to him

Fall To Pieces - Emori and Murphy loved each other and they will fight for together until their last breath

You Almost Had Me - Emori does her best to change Murphy's mood when it's clear he doesn't want to play "Primes" (7.01 extended scene)

Series: The Ring Years

Every. Single. Damn. Time. - Raven learns the importance of knocking during Spacekru’s time on The Ring

Friday Fun Nights - Game night for Spacekru consists of algae-alcohol, spilled secrets and a the bonding of friends to family

Bellamy & Raven...With Benefits - Raven and Bellamy are bored...and solve this in an interesting way

Series: It’s Hard To Be A Hero’s Kid

It’s Hard To Be A Hero’s Kid - Arden Murphy, the second youngest of Murphy and Emori’s kids, faces the best and worst parts of growing up, discovering who he is, and learning what love means

Series: Levitt & Octavia Together In The End

Levitt Alone - Levitt meets Octavia and even though it’s him looking into her mind, she hasn’t left his alone since he walked in

Levitt Is Not Alone - Levitt reflects on how Octavia changed him and decides to do something reckless when he sees her again

Level Eleven - Levitt and Octavia admit their feelings for each other and share a moment alone to learn more about each other (7.09 extended scene)

Series: Troped: The Fanfic Challenge

What Is Mine - Jordan learns the important lesson of family and friendship as he attempts to get back something he feels he rightfully deserves

The Life We Seek To Find - Murphy and Emori make the daring decision to travel across the unknown wasteland of Earth in order to find the so-called ‘City Of Light’ in the hopes of finding a better future for their family

All I Want For Christmas - Tired of being single, Murphy decides to take matters into his own hands and agrees to “fake date” his coworker, Emori, during Christmas holiday events

You're All I Have - The backstory of Levitt, and how he ended up on Bardo in the first place

Non-series fics

May We Meet Again (written prior to 7x15 airing) - A blurb of what I think the ending of the 100 (season 7) could look like

The Mother-Daughter Book Club

Secrets, Lies & Other Hidden Things - The original book club girls are in for a surprise when they decide to “restart” the MDBC, as their kids seem to be just like their moms. Luckily there’s book club magic to help them out along the way

Heartland

10 Years, A Heartland Story - 10 years after season 11, who knows what could happen now? Follow the Borden family as their three kids grow up, all while still calling Heartland “home”

This Is Us

This is You + Me - Kevin is interviewed about his career, his wife and his kids all while thanking the lucky stars be met Sophie all those years ago.

#blog owner #about me!#pinned post #fanfic masterlist #the definition of endgame

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galaxina-the-pyro · 4 years

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Candace Against the Universe Predictions

Note: This is MY LIST of possible outcomes that can occur in the movie - they may differ from what your predictions are, and that’s okay. This was just made for fun.

(~)

Doofenshmirtz and Isabella’s duet (which, yes, they ARE going to have a duet in the movie, this was confirmed) is going to either be a rap battle, or a song about the two having to work together to solve a problem (I really want it to be a rap battle)

Doofenshmirtz’s reasoning for having a rivalry with Isabella stems from the fact that he doesn’t want a child telling him what to do - by the end of the movie, though, he grows to respect Isabella

Isabella might remind Dr. D of Vanessa when she was her age

Phineas and Candace have an emotional argument about how Candace would rather live on a planet without her brothers than go back home where everyone is concerned and stuff - this leads to Phineas saying they never should’ve come to rescue her and things get really emotional after that

Phineas, Ferb, and the gang listen to some of Doofenshmirtz’s backstories during the trip, and are immediately fascinated by them - they don’t doubt a single tale, but it leads to them asking a lot of questions that never get answers

Phineas, Ferb, and Doofenshmirtz build an inator together

The big bad villain of the movie (if there is one) creates a doomsday machine meant to destroy any planet that goes against his/her people’s way of thinking (the entirety of Earth included), and Doofenshmirtz saves literally everyone by installing a self-destruct button on it, which the main villain accidentally presses

Candace and Vanessa get kidnapped at the same time rather than separately

Perry somehow someway has a musical number in all this - somehow, he sings something, possibly in his head

Doofenshmirtz shares his stories about how he keeps getting beaten up by a platypus to the other kids, and these are the only stories that Phineas and the others don’t quite buy, since, you know, platypuses don’t do much - Doofenshmirtz ALMOST name drops Perry before something happens that totally interrupts him

There will be at least ONE Phinabella moment - at LEAST

Before getting kidnapped, Candace gets the impression that Jeremy is going to break up with her for either not showing up to the game mentioned in the preview, or possibly ruining the game in her attempts to bust Phineas and Ferb

Phineas’ present shown in the preview was for Candace, possibly on another day where he and Ferb are trying to make amends to her for something that probably happened previously - this present is brought with them on their trip to save Candace, and Phineas is determined to give this gift to her

The unknown gift is what makes Candace cry (again, that’s been confirmed to happen in the movie as well), and makes her realize that she can’t live in a world without her brothers, no matter how insane they are

Candace sees that weird imaginary zebra that calls her Kevin, and he actually gives some sound advice - or not. Either way he has a speaking role

The aliens attempt to sacrifice Candace (and probably Vanessa) to some kind of god/goddess

Isabella is trying to earn her “Space Travel Rescue” patch in this movie - she also earns several other space related patches

Isabella’s patches are brought into question by Doofenshmirtz, which probably starts the conflict between them as Isabella attempts to prove she can do literally ANYTHING she sets her mind to - however, he still ends up questioning them, not because he doubts Isabella’s abilities, but because he wonders why anyone would want to earn patches involving shrimp net repair, sap collecting, and other nonsensical accomplishments. He also questions how there are space-themed patches and WHY

There is a sad, cute song in this movie, and I will stand by that

Candace befriends an alien - this alien may or may not be the main antagonist of the movie, but said alien shares in Candace’s frustrations over not being taken seriously, not being appreciated, and having her “hopes and dreams” dashed by younger siblings

We learn the NAME of Phineas and Candace’s biological dad, which is, coincidentally, Lawrence - a different Lawrence to be sure, but still, his name is Lawrence, probably to hammer in to fans’ heads that their bio-dad doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things

Isabella’s dad has a speaking role

Irving was GOING to be a part of this adventure, but was inevitably left behind - they gang once in a while mentions him, acting like he’s there when he actually wasn’t

Phineas actually snaps at Ferb or Isabella or whoever about saving Candace, being super worried about her and stuff - he apologizes immediately

Ferb ends up having another uplifting speech, that dissolves into a wave of frustration as he goes to destroy the aliens that kidnapped his sister

Phineas, Ferb, and the gang find Perry in space - no one questions how he got there, not even Doofenshmirtz. Maybe Candace and Vanessa do but they stay quiet

Vanessa learns that Perry’s family is the Flynn-Fletcher’s

Candace and Vanessa have a duet

Monogram constantly interrupts Perry on his adventure, leading to Perry eventually throwing away his communicator - he feels a sense of freedom that is brief upon getting a new one when he gets home

Schnitzel gets a cameo

No she doesn’t. That’s not actually possible. This was a test to see if you actually read this

There’s a “death scene” in this movie, but the character who “dies” is okay

Milo’s brief presence in the movie inevitably is what causes the events to play out

Candace, Vanessa, and Isabella all sing a song together

Buford ends up using the canoe (that he carries throughout the entire movie, that was also confirmed) for everything except for what a canoe is supposed to be used for

Buford has an “I am so in love with her right now” moment (if it’s with Vanessa, Ferb ends up Vulcan Pinching him for seemingly no reason)

There will be a very touching Canderemy scene

The alien that teams up with Phineas, Ferb, and the gang plus Doofenshmirtz either turns traitor, or makes a noble sacrifice in order to ensure their safety

The alien is probably the younger sibling of the alien Candace befriends

Meap has an appearance in the movie, whether it’s a cameo or him playing a very small part in their overall adventure

After returning to earth Doofenshmirtz claims he’ll never go to outer space again, but then suddenly gets a sense of foreboding as Milo and Melissa walk passed him from far behind, hinting at certain events in Milo Murphy’s Law

Weird Al has a musical number in this movie (not Milo. Just Weird Al)

There’s a montage on when Phineas, Ferb, and Candace were much younger (bonus points if younger Isabella appears in this montage at least once)

Phineas, Ferb, and the gang sing a song together (probably about the power of friendship or something, I dunno)

One of the characters keeps saying space puns and drives everyone crazy (I’m voting on Phineas, but Buford is also a good contender for this, probably a better one in fact)

Phineas and Ferb both cry in this movie

There are nods to Isabella and Baljeet’s heritages (cuz I think that would be neat)

The Fireside Girls help the gang out from Earth, much like in the episode “Out to Launch”

In fact, all the episodes involving Phineas and Ferb going into space are mentioned in this episode - one such mention gets a “but that hasn’t happened yet” response from Ferb

Phineas, Ferb, and the gang end up getting captured

There’s more than one epic fight scene in this movie

One of the items that caused the possible disaster at the “big game” mentioned in the preview was the very t-shirt canon that Candace uses to fight off the alien invasion

Isabella ends up nearly admitting her feelings to Phineas when the gang are in a deadly situation with seemingly no way out - they’re either rescued by Doofenshmirtz or Candace

At the end of the movie (probably post credits), although the aliens are defeated, they end up abducting Thaddeus and Thor’s sister, Mandy - instead of helping her, they decide to go play video games

Baljeet has a musical number about the probabilities of them being able to save Candace (which is very slim); Phineas and the others keep being positive while ultimately ignoring Baljeet’s warnings

Somehow, Klimpaloon makes an appearance; we ALL know the Giant Floating Baby Head is gonna appear, so what’s the point?

Doofenshmirtz and Vanessa have a very sweet father-daughter moment (maybe one that hints at Doofenshmirtz’s future reformation, but I dunno)

Vanessa and Norm also have a sweet moment, as the reason why she was captured was because Norm is considered her younger brother, much to Doofenshmirtz’s chagrin

Vanessa and Ferb talk to each other once in this movie

Vanessa and Monty are dating in the time frame of this movie - whether Monty actually shows up in the movie or even should show up in the movie, I dunno

Isabella teases Ferb about his crush on Vanessa before he shoots back about her crush on Phineas - all while Phineas is standing there, completely oblivious

Phineas and Ferb actually have an argument

Phineas has a Candace moment. I dunno what that would look like, but that’s what I wanna see

The couple with the wife who’s like “What did you think a(n) [insert specific thing] was going to fall from the sky?” make an appearance

Isabella gets lost in Phineasland at least once

At the end of the movie, business goes back to usual - Candace attempts to bust the boys and fails, but she’s surprisingly cheery about it, probably saying something like “Ah~...home sweet home.”

The movie ends with the guitar riff, like in any Phineas and Ferb episode

#phineas and ferb #candace against the universe #catu #predictions #catu spoilers #phinbella #phinabella #canderemy #ferbnessa #montessa

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strangertheory · 4 years

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Will and El are technically the same person? Along with Hopper? Did I get that right? This is so confusing.

Hello there! Thanks for Asking.

My current hypothesis regarding what might be happening in Stranger Things is that we are following a story about a DID System and that many characters in the series are perhaps alters and hosts (separate states of consciousness and identity within one human mind) dealing with trauma memories and seeking to learn to work together to protect one another and the DID System as a whole.

The short answer to your question is: only if you perceive of alters (different states of consciousness that have their own individual sense of identity and self) that are sharing the same human mind as being “the same person.” Generally those with DID will refer to themselves as being “multiple,” as being hosts in a DID System, as being alters or as having alters etc. Each alter will have their own distinct memories and life experiences that they’ve lived (both in the external world and the internal worlds that might exist in their mind) and that are part of who they know themselves to be just as individuals with a single state of consciousness have built their sense of identity over many years of lived experiences.

kaypeace21 and I might be (?) the only two bloggers on Tumblr analyzing the concept that El, Will, and Hopper (and potentially many other characters) are all sharing the same mind and are part of a DID System (but if there's anyone else I'd enjoy following their blog!)

@kaypeace21‘s hypothesis is that the writers of Stranger Things are telling a fictional sci fi / fantasy story that, like in X-Men or Akira (etc.), involves characters with superpowers and psychic abilities. Her theory is that because Will has both dissociative identity disorder and psychic / supernatural abilities that he has unintentionally and subconsciously brought his alters, his trauma memories, and his internal worlds to life and they’ve escaped his mind and are now in the real world and in Hawkins.

Although I do consider @kaypeace21′s hypothesis that everything has been brought to life and has emerged from Will’s mind into Hawkins by supernatural means (like David Haller’s / Legion’s alters do in X-Men) to be a very well-argued theory and analysis of what might be happening in Stranger Things, I have recently pushed my own hypothesis regarding what is happening in the story towards questioning whether the supernatural events and superpowers of Stranger Things might exist exclusively within internal worlds in our characters’ subconscious. I’m unsure of how much of their “real” physical world we have seen yet in the series if I follow this train of thought, and how much of it is memories that are symbolically playing out in an internal world of their mind. In short: I think there might be a certain level of consciousness and wakefulness at which they’re all still in the same body that we have perhaps not fully seen or realized yet because of the creative way that the series is telling the story (although this might have been imaginatively represented in season 2 when Will and/or the Mindflayer are conscious/unconscious at the Lab with Dr. Owens.)

Perhaps El and Will only appear separately and can only interact with one another in internal worlds, while co-conscious, or within liminal spaces between wakefulness and unconsciousness because Hawkins is not always their “real” world but is an internal world in their shared brain. Maybe Hawkins is similar to the Upside Down, which I also believe is a mental construct, but more comfortable since it’s meant to be a home for alters to live rather than a place that trauma has been hidden away. I think that El is a gatekeeper in the DID System. And I currently hypothesize that Hopper is also possible part of that same DID System and that Hopper is a protector and potentially also a gatekeeper. (Hopefully I will find the time to write a new post about Hopper sometime in the near future.)

The questions that I keep asking myself are: what if some moments in the story are not actually taking place in the ‘real world’ even within the Stranger Things universe? What if many moments in the series so far have been fantastical because they were moments in characters’ lives that were re-imagined by their subconscious mind in order to cope with trauma? Not hallucinations (because as Hopper says “these aren’t nightmares, it’s happening”) but imaginative re-workings of "what happened” in their life that are easier for their mind to process. PTSD and internal flashbacks and also reworked memories that manifest themselves more symbolically and metaphorically within fantastical internal worlds.

Many movies on the Stranger Things 4 Video Store Friday movie list encourage me to continue questioning the boundaries between Stranger Things characters’ physical lives and what they might be experiencing as flashbacks or as memories within internal worlds and different states of consciousness. A few films on the list which inspire me to question what might be going on in Hawkins and what Hopper, El, and Will (and many other characters) might be dealing with include Altered States, The Fisher King, The Matrix, Inside Out, Inception, The Truman Show, What Dreams May Come, Drop Dead Fred, The Cell, The Neverending Story, and many others.

The first season of Stranger Things had a lot of artistic and thematic strength in its mystery and layers of ambiguity, but I suspect that once Stranger Things was renewed and they knew that they could have multiple seasons they began planning how to reveal what’s going on behind the curtain of mystery in a meaningful way by the end of the story.

The big question is: what has been happening in these characters’ lives? Am I “overthinking things” as some of my friends have told me? Is it really “not that deep?”

Here are a few blogposts that I have written on this topic in which I explore some of my thoughts regarding what might be happening in the series if Stranger Things is about a DID System, internal worlds, and alters dealing with trauma:

🧠 What is going on with the eerie parallels between Will and El?

👀 My response to an Ask: "Do you think there’s any relation or symbolism between a Brenner and Lonnie other than being shitty/abusive father figures?"

🦸‍♀️ My response to an Ask: "What are the source of their powers?" in which I share my "first layer" and "second layer" meta theories/thoughts (re: The DID Theory) + a brief follow-up Ask regarding the concept that El's powers might only exist in internal worlds if she is a fictive alter

🏞 My response to an Ask: What do you think is going to happen with the Upside Down especially if Will and El's connection grows?

In this post I briefly address how El, if she were a teenage girl alter that exists in an internal world of the mind but who is sometimes conscious in Will’s body in the “real world”, would have experiences comparable to those of a trans girl

Truthfully: I am at the point that I speculate that nearly all of the characters exist as alters either exclusively or are introjects which are alters based on people that the DID System knows that exist in the external world. But I realize that would be quite the plot twist and might push the question of “what is real?” farther than some fans might be willing to go.

I recognize that this is a lot of information and theoretical content and blog links to provide to you in response to your general Ask but I wanted to offer you reference points and direct you to other blog posts regarding this theory in case you wanted to learn more about the evidence and analyses that led me and a few other bloggers to these hypotheses. If you have any other questions regarding my theories regarding what might be happening in Stranger Things (whether that’s this topic or others) please don’t hesitate to send me another Ask or to DM me directly. I always enjoy talking about ideas with other fans. :)

If this concept interests you I know that kaypeace21 would greatly enjoy sharing her own theories with you and answering any questions you have. I highly recommend that you visit her blog, read her posts, and message her if this topic interests you because my thoughts are often very different from hers and you might enjoy reading both of our blogs for two different theories based around the same hypothesis: that Will has dissociative identity disorder and that this influences all events in the series. If you are interested in reading about her current analysis that hypothesizes that superpowers are real in Stranger Things, that Will has dissociative identity disorder, and that both monsters and some other characters have emerged from Will’s subconsciousness into the “real world” of Hawkins then I recommend reading these two blogposts that she wrote: 🧠 Part 1: Will Created the Mindflayer and Upside-Down Theory + Part 2: Some of your favorite characters are Will’s split personalities (psych/narrative analysis) CW: abuse, sexual assault, psychological trauma (a content warning is also noted before the section in the post itself.)

I do agree with many aspects of kaypeace21′s theories and I think she explains how dissociative identity disorder might influence many events of the story so far in a way that I do find compelling, but the critical difference between our hypotheses is that kaypeace21 currently proposes that Stranger Things features characters with DID that also have superpowers (like David Haller in X-Men) but I currently think that the vast majority of what we have seen on screen in the series so far is “not real” and exists only within characters’ minds and I do not believe that El has any superpowers except when she is within internal worlds. (And that’s a fairly notable difference.) I also don’t think that the Mindflayer exists as a blobby mass of melted people except within internal worlds in their mind. I wonder if the vast majority of season 3 took place entirely in an internal world version of Hawkins and when Will said “what if we locked him out here with us?” to El that he might have been more accurate if he had said “what if we locked him IN here with us?” in very simple terms: I want to know if Will has actually woken up yet from being sedated in season 2 at all, or maybe whether he's sometimes present in the external world but then sometimes switches back to the internal world, etc. (But perhaps the events of season 4 will invalidate this thought of mine. I look forward to seeing what happens!)

Thank you again for your message. I hope my response wasn’t too rambling, that I didn’t repeat myself too much, and that it remained coherent in spite of how late at night I am writing this. I might return and edit this in the morning. (I’m wrapping up this reply at 12:56 AM but I started writing this at 10PM. Time flew by! Time for sleep.) Goodnight :)

#stranger things theory #stranger things theories #the did theory #stranger things is perhaps about a did system + internal worlds alters and trauma #el and will #will and el #and hopper #and many others

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nutty1005 · 4 years

Text

Xiao Zhan: Learning to Live with Different Opinions

Original Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/kFwWw70e6UvJ75egnRe7BA This article is published by Blogger World 博客天下 Weixin. This is also part of the article published in Blogger World 《博客天下》2020 8th Issue.

Giving others the space and freedom to voice different opinions is also a form of respect. Accepting criticisms during growth, displaying kindness in adversity.

Eye of the Storm

Acting is a profession, once you become famous, you will be labelled as “a celebrity” and you become a public figure, but in essence, you are still an average person. Just like everyone else during the pandemic period, they still need to stay quarantined at home and consider their daily meals.

“Celebrity” Xiao Zhan, who has a huge fan following, was also at home catching up on the movies on his to-watch list, watching dramas, reading, practicing his culinary skills – his work was no longer as tightly scheduled as before. This was supposed to be a rare relaxation period, but because of the sudden internet controversy, he found himself landed in the midst of public outcry, and this shattered his initial peace.

At first, he was quite confused, although he understood that any public figure would come with some sense of controversy, but when some of the controversy affected his friends and family, he felt that these were unfair to them. This point was something he could not quite understand.

After the passage of time, he slowly calmed down, and he attempted to learn to live with these different opinions. He feels that giving others the space and freedom to voice different opinions is also a form of respect, and he will accept criticisms during growth, and display kindness in adversity.

After a problem appears, the best method is to resolve the problem, and not to create another problem. This problem will obviously inspire fans (of any idol) to reflect on their actions, and consider how to reasonably handle themselves as a fan. At the same time, artists will also consider how to handle their relationships with their fans, and their teams will need to be more precise in their work. Whereas to the general public, when viewing the whole incident rationally, this can be also considered to be a part of creating a healthy internet environment.

Chance

When some people consider Xiao Zhan as one of the core members of the controversial “traffic” celebrities (TN: Traffic is a term that is used in China to describe idols with a lot of fan following), and lambast him for it, it is necessary to view his journey rationally – understand his chance entry into the entertainment business, and his unique qualities that set him apart from the rest.

Born in 1991, Xiao Zhan is almost 30, but he actually had not been famous for more than a year. Before this, like many other youngsters, he went through high school, university and work life, and never thought that he would become an artist. His university was Chongqing Technology and Business University; he majored in graphic design; while schooling he had received titles such was “Advanced Literary Individual” and “Excellent Team Member”, and also participated in the charity poster design competition organized by his university, winning awards “First Standard Award” and “Most Popular Award”; he even started his own studio with his friends. As such, it can be said that he went through a complete university education, and hence he has a certain amount of knowledge literacy.

After graduating in 2014, he worked for almost a year in a design firm. In June of the second year, because he loved singing, he joined a variety show “X-Fire”《燃烧吧少年》, in hopes of being seen by more people. This was not an easy part of his life – he had to learn dancing with zero foundation, stretching, memorizing movements, with great difficulty. Finally, he debuted as a member of the X-NINE X玖少年团 boyband.

That year, he was 25, and this fulfilled the lyrics of a song by Stefanie Sun – “The 25 year old me, there are differences now.” Then, he thought 25 years old was far away, but in the end it was really different.

However, at that point in time, China talent search variety shows did not have the popularity it would have later on, hence he was not popular upon debut – there was a period of dormancy. In the years following that, he switched paths to become an actor, and participated in web dramas, television dramas, as well as a minor role in the movie “Monster Hunt” 《捉妖记》, totaling a number of 7 to 8 shows. Because he did not come from an acting background, he felt inferior to his partners, who graduated from acting schools, during the shoots. During this period of time, he also doubted his decisions, and wondered if he had a future.

Later on, in the interview with Ren Min Wang 人民网 “Friendly Chat” 《友聊》 he said, “If initially I knew that I would later on go through so much things, I might retreat.” This is actually very similar with the encounters of many other actors, from low to high, from silent to outstanding, experience, works and reputation all have to go through an accumulation process.

At that time, he already had fans, although not too many. In his Weibo, he once had a post that was meant to communicate with his fans, named “Secret Garden”, to tell one another stories, encourage and comfort one another – it was a type of positive interaction.

Fame

The true fame came on the June of 2019. The web drama “The Untamed”, where he starred as the leading actor, aired. This drama came with a fan following from the novel it was based on, and with exquisite production quality, good acting portrayal and performance, this drama became the hottest drama of that year. It scored 7.7 in Douban (TN: Somewhat like China IMDB), which was considered above average in China, and it is worthy as a piece of “work” – although Xiao Zhan said in this interview, “Currently, I don’t think I have any piece of noteworthy work, hence I cherish every opportunity to participate in creative work.”

From this, he obtained a huge reputation, his fan size grew multi-fold, and this objectively created more difficulties for his team working behind him. From a commoner to an artist, and then to a celebrity, based on Xiao Zhan’s behavior, he is careful and cautious. When interviewed by China Youth Papers 《中国青年报》, he said “When I encounter difficulties, I will not give up easily, I will think of ways to resolve it”; “Respect everyone around me, I have to uphold the heart to honor and respect everyone around me.” When interviewed by Guang Ming Times《光明日报》, he hoped “the works that he participated in could transmit some positive values.”

At the end of last year, in CCTV Movie Channel, he also reviewed his legendary experience of 2019, “There are no adjectives to describe my 2019, hence I will say thank you, thank you to all the experiences, to all that I have.” He never talks about what role he is most satisfied with, but only that he could do better, “maybe it could be the next one”. At the same time, he expressed that he will put the focus of his career in 2020 on acting, “to an actor, works are my foundation.” This clearly shows that he is clear about his own acting career.

But evidently, the start of this year was not smooth sailing for him. This internet controversy, as a related party, he received numerous criticisms, whether with good or bad intentions, and how he viewed this whole incident, what psychological process he went through, how a public figure should bear the social responsibility, and what his next steps are…

For this, the aim of this Blogger World interview with Xiao Zhan is to “understand the problem, obtain a common understanding”.

Understood Some Things

(TN: R = Reporter, XZ = Xiao Zhan)

R: Earlier when the pandemic was at its peak, what were you busy with?

XZ: Quarantine, just like everyone else during the pandemic period. I remember it was during Chinese New Year period, following the news, seeing the medical personnel fighting at the forefront. It was especially touching when you see that they were relentlessly fighting even though they were facing a lack of medical supplies. At that time, I spoke with my staff, thought about wanting to do something, and do what I can. After the discussion to decide what to donate, we started contacting the relevant suitable organizations, communicate on what was needed, etc.

Besides this, I also received invitations to record ID videos to cheer on Wuhan and songs to beat back the pandemic. Because the songs required more professional equipment, hence I remember around the end of January, we went to the recording studio. At that time, the pandemic was at its critical period, to ensure safety, there were very limited staff on site, everyone were wearing masks, everything was strictly disinfected, every staff had to perform multiple roles, but we finished the recording with high efficiency. To me, this was a very special experience. Other then that, I was quarantined at home.

R: When you were at home, how was your daily life? How did you spend the time?

XZ: Actually just like everyone else, watch the news, watch dramas, watch movies, read books and rest. It is also quite inconvenient to order takeouts during quarantine period, hence I also trained my culinary skills. Just right at the time there were charity events to aid the farmers, hence I bought some fruits and farm products.

R: Were you concerned with the daily changes of the pandemic, what did you feel and think about?

XZ: Of course I did, I was following up on the pandemic news everyday, there were many moments that touched me. Previously there was this piece of news, a pair of husband and wife, there were both medical staff at the forefront, recognized each other despite wearing isolation robes and hugged together, that scene of reunion touched me very much. But at the same time, I saw that there were a lot more people who needed assistance, and I also felt personally that what one person can do is very limited, and I did too little.

R: When the internet controversy happened, what were you doing, what was your initial reaction, and what happened after?

XZ: I was quarantined at home at that time, when I first saw it I was extremely surprised, why there were suddenly so much topics, felt a bit confused, and understood it later like everyone else. Actually with regards to controversy, as a public figure, I was willing to bear these controversy, but some of them affected my friends and family, I felt that these were unfair to them. I could not quite understand (why they did this). And that point in time was the most critical period of the pandemic, I did not want my issues to take away too much attention, and bother everyone, hence I did not make much responses. Later on, my friends also gave me advice, and this period gave me more time to ponder over it, I also went out to do voice overs, in preparation for my future jobs, slowly I understood some things, so after a while, I started to slowly calm down.

R: You once said that in order to survive in society, one needs to learn to be complex, do you realize the complexity even more so now? Where there any changes to your life views?

XZ: There is definitely complexity, I do not think this is anything bad. Facing complex situations, we do not have the ability to force any changes, but I feel, as long as we maintain the most initial kindness and purity, work hard to do the best for the things we have decided. I have always upheld these principles, and these are also what I want to do.

R: Do you feel misunderstood? How do you adjust yourself?

XZ: It is still the same phrase from the previous interview, “When serious – work, when confused – read, when alone – think, when upset – sleep.” Actually I think this phrase can be used to aptly describe my condition for the past few months.

R: After a period of time, how do you feel about the controversy now?

XZ: We need to learn to live with different opinions, and also respect everyone’s rights to voice theirs. But this world is like this, there is a balance of energy, there are those who love you, who like you, at the the same time there will be people who hates you, who dislikes you. Giving others the space and freedom to voice different opinions is also a form of respect. Accepting criticisms during growth, displaying kindness in adversity.

No one likes you for no reason

R: We will talk about your experiences as an artist, when did you realize that you are famous? How did you feel?

XZ: Last summer, after seeing that there were more people who supported and liked me, very thankful and grateful. My father told me since young “no one likes you for no reason”, hence I hope I can live up to everyone’s like.

R: When you first entered the entertainment business, what goal did you hope to attain?

XZ: Actually my thoughts were very simple then, that is work hard to do the best in the competition, and hope to receive more recognition.

R: In being an artist, what did you feel is the most toilsome?

XZ: Every profession has its own toils, I treat my work very seriously, hardship is actually something you cannot avoid. If I really have to say something as toilsome, then it will be how I face the complex environment.

R: Many felt that you became famous overnight, but actually you already participated in several different dramas, how was your condition like then? What desires did you have for the future?

XZ: Actually there were not much difference, previously I just hoped that I always have jobs, have the opportunity to contact better roles, now is just work seriously, act properly, live everyday to the fullest. Continue on the path of an actor.

R: How did you learn performance? Where there any experience that was especially memorable?

XZ: At the start, I had no concept with regards to performance, later on I also took performance classes, with directions from performance teachers. The experience that was especially memorable was during the shooting of “The Wolf”, there was a crying scene on the highlands, a night scene, and it needed to rain, but that time, no matter what I did, I could not cry.

R: What do you think the relationship of front stage and back stage is?

XZ: I feel that front stage and back stage is not a type of relationship, but is the same job. Without the serious work and support of the backstage, the front stage will not be able to become better.

R: The character Wei Wuxian gave you a lot of glory as well as some controversy, how did you view the role?

XZ: I treat every role I have acted in seriously and with deep respect, because their story are all alternate lives that I would never experience. And portraying these characters, I really hoped that we can achieve success mutually, and win the recognition and love from the audience. I am lucky and thankful to have participated in a part of Wei Wuxian’s life, and this role also became an important part of my acting career. Also I am very grateful to the hard work from all the staff as part of this creative work, and gifted this character vitality. All these creative artists gave me the chance, and allowed me as an actor, using my own thoughts and performances, to bring forth the character Wei Wuxian, even more vividly in front of the general audiences.

R: With regards to “work”, how do you define it?

XZ: I feel that a piece of work is not just the result of a person’s hard work, behind it are also everyone’s sacrifices and creation. Currently, I don’t think I have any piece of noteworthy work, hence I cherish every opportunity to participate in creative work, and also treat every job seriously, in the future I will do my best in singing and acting.

R: The journey of fame, how did you establish your confidence, from inexperience to mature?

XZ: It is definitely a slow process. Actually it is just like that lyric in my new song “All traces passed by turned into light spots.” That is when you encounter difficulties, from it you learn and grow, the accumulation of every step, you are always on the path of growing.

R: In facing the exhaustion from work, the disturbances from the outside world, do you feel that fame is a double edged sword? How do you hope to be viewed by the outside world?

XZ: I feel that anything has its pros and cons, I have already learnt to handle it with common sense, I hope that I am still the same initial me, to be able to maintain humility and politeness.

R: Are you afraid of the uncertainty of life? Do you have insecurities?

XZ: Of course I am. Life is made up of a lot of uncertainties, many times I would also feel insecure, but isn’t the unknown life’s greatest challenge? The feeling of “singing as you walk” is great.

Be yourself, actions speak louder than words

R: You once said in an interview that you do not want to be a perfect person, can you explain what you meant?

XZ: I feel that no one can be perfect, neither can I.

R: Actor, artist and traffic celebrity, what do you think the difference are in these terms?

XZ: Actor is my career, artist and traffic celebrity, to me, are just a label, that is on every public figure. I will do the best for my job, in the future I will be even more serious in my singing, acting, and continue to bear whatever social responsibility I should bear.

R: You once said that communication is very important, now that you are too famous, will this bring about difficulties in communication?

XZ: The changes in my identity definitely brought along some inconveniences, but to my friends, my family and me, the communication has always remained the same. In facing those who like me and support me, I feel that I am communicating with them via my works, hence I will humbly accept all good intent criticisms and corrections on my profession.

R: You did not change your Weibo account after your debut, and also said that that you are very real, and you want to show everyone the real you. To the public who do not understand you, what do you have to say?

XZ: I always said, I am not a perfect person, but that does not prevent me from working hard towards becoming a better person. I am a more direct person, I also wanted to present the real me to everyone, hence I never considered changing my Weibo account, those were all my experiences and memories, the testament to my growth. I will not use youth or commoner as an excuse.

I started using Weibo when I was 19 or 20 years old, when I was still young and a commoner, and I said some very inappropriate words or opinions that are unacceptable now, and it probably did cause trouble or hurt to others. Hence I also wanted to say, after reflecting, to those who were hurt by these opinions, I express my most sincere apologies. If I could use my current experience and sensibleness back then, I would definitely respect everyone’s effort in their work, and will not comment rashly.

R: Your Weibo used to be very lively, full of witty words, you also liked to snatch the top comment on your own posts, and interacted with your fans, but later on, these posts were generally non existent, almost as if your image became flat, how do you feel?

XZ: Just representing myself only, I feel that the image on social media cannot encompass an entire person, that is only an outlet. I am always willing to communicate with everyone, but I am also afraid to bother others, if the effect of bother becomes greater than sharing, that would be something that I very much would not want to see.

#xiao zhan #sean xiao #xiaozhan #肖战

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hey-sunshines · 4 years

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Preference for them proposing? Also if you don’t mind I would love if you could include Tim, Curly, Angela and Cherry. It’s alright if you don’t want to write the lesbian relationships, I get some peeps aren’t comfy with that. Happy pride tho!

OOOOO I’ve been thinking about this for awhile so thank you for giving me a reason to post this!

As far as the lesbian relationships, I don’t mind writing for them at all! All for all kinds of love! But for full disclosure, I am a straight CIS gendered female and I’ve only been in a relationship with a man, so if there is some nuances that I don’t get/understand, please let me know. I want to learn about the LGBT+ so I can support them fully!

Darry: He would propose with his mom’s ring. Of course, Soda and Pony wanted it too, but Soda and Pony came to the same conclusion that after all of the years that Darry gave up his own live to take care of his brothers (like going to post-secondary or having any real life of his own), it was the only way that Soda and Pony could really pay him back. I don’t think he would date that much the first year or two after his parents died, as he’s so worried about getting things right with taking care of his brothers and doesn’t want them taken away. He is also nervous about finding someone to understand his situation. He probably wouldn’t want to get married until Pony is off at university at least. Since he didn’t have to save up for a ring, he saved up a little for the wedding itself and for a nice dinner at a fancy restaurant. He always tried his best to give you nice things/take you out to nice meals, but money was tight and it didn’t happen often. But he was going to make this night special and make you feel like the Queen you are in his eyes. He wears a nice suit, picks up a bouquet of your favourite flowers and goes to pick you up at your place. He is so shy and jumpy the whole dinner, although he knows you’ll say yes (getting married was something you two have talked about before, because Darry likes a game plan/hates surprises) he’s still nervous to ask. You know he’s off his game, but you can’t pinpoint what’s wrong and you know he’ll tell you when he’s ready. The whole dinner goes smoothly, with candles and flowers on the table. Right before the dessert arrives, Darry gets down on one knee. He gives this speech about how much he loves you and how you’ve made him a better person, especially over the last few years, and how he wants to spend the rest of his life growing together. He struggles to get through parts of it because he’s stuttering/rushing through parts of it because he’s so nervous.

Soda: Soda wouldn’t wait as long to get into the dating game as Darry (although he does take some time after Sandy), but he does wait until Pony is done school to propose, as he makes it when he says he wants help Darry out with the bills. He was not as well planned out as Darry. He still wants/tries to make it romantic, but Darry is the type of person to plan things out and Soda is not. He goes and buys as best of a ring as he can afford and proposes that same night. He takes you to the place that you first met, he picks some flowers from a field near by and when he gets on one knee, he talks about wanting to go on adventures with you for the rest of his life.

Pony: I always imagine he meets someone while away at university/college and that he proposes at graduation/the graduation party that the gang. He wants to make both of your special days even more special and wants to share the moment with the people he loves most in the world. He spends a lot of time picking out a ring and planning the perfect proposal. He talks to your best friend to find out the type of rings/jewelry you like, so that he can get something that you like. He writes out a long speech of what he wants proposes. He practices with Soda and Darry for months because he is a little cinnamon bun who wants to make the proposal as perfect and as romantic as possible. (I can just see Darry and Soda rolling their eyes by the end of the month because they’re so tired of hearing him practice). Darry and Soda go all out decorating the place to make it look nice, telling the rest of the gang and you that it’s for the graduation party, but it’s really for the proposal. They even convince the gang to look presentable, because “this is a graduation party, you idiots, I know you haven’t been to one before, but look like you have.” Darry helps Pony look his best beforehand, helping him with his tie and such and Soda gets the camera ready, because he’ll be damned if he isn’t going to put the proposal picture on the wall next to Pony’s graduation pictures. It ends up going just who Pony plans it and he gets his whole speech out perfectly, despite Two-bit and Dally heckling a little towards the end of his very long speech.

Two Bit: He ends up getting his younger sister to help him pick out the ring, because he isn’t the best at jewelry. He takes you to see a funny movie on a Saturday night. He isn’t drunk by the end of the night like he usually is, because he wants to make the night special and remember this moment for the rest of his life. He makes promises to you to improve when it comes to drinking and makes jokes all the way throughout his proposal. But when he actually got to asking you the question, he’s the serious he’s ever been.

Steve: He tries to act cool and nonchalant about the whole thing, but really he is soooo nervous. Soda had to hype him up before he goes out to propose to you. He tries to make the proposal very personal, talking about all his happiest memories with you leading up to proposing to you. He got Soda to help print off a bunch of pictures from throughout your relationship so that he could frame them and put them around the room for when he proposes.

Dallas: He proposes with one of his own rings, as he wants you to wear a piece of him always. yes it’s more manly ring, but it meant a lot to him and to you. He doesn’t make a big deal about the proposal, as he’s not as into romance as some of the others are. It’s not that he doesn’t want to make it special, but romance and gushy stuff doesn’t come naturally. He proposed in bed after sex and cuddling together. Think My Big Fat Greek Wedding style. He barries his face in the blankets after asking because he’s blushing so hard and doesn’t want you to see. He’s so excited when you say yes, that he doesn’t let you go all night.

Johnny: He’s so sweet and a little cinnamon bun. He takes the day off work and decorates the apartment with fairy lights and tea candles and flowers and flower petals. He makes you a nice dinner. He cleans himself up, slicks back his hair, and puts on his nicest cloths. He’s so nervous when you get home and see the decorations. You gush over it, but also start asking if you forgot something (”is it our anniversary? “is it one of our birthday”). But he just kept saying that he just wanted to make you feel special. When he finally got to asking you, he stutters and kept saying he doesn’t deserve you, but he loves you and wants to do everything he can to deserve you. You have to tell him multiple times that he does deserve you and you’re lucky to have him.

Tim: Like Dallas, he gives you one of his rings and doesn’t make a huge deal about it. He talks about it with his brother and sister for a little bit beforehand though because he is nervous. He takes you for a drive out to hill to watch the sunset and ask you while sitting in the car watching the sunset.

Curly. He hadn’t planned it and he hadn’t bought a ring, although he did genuinely want to marry you . You two were arguing. You were pushing him to take your relationship the next level/for him to take your relationship more seriously because you two had been dating for like 5 or 6 years and were tired of not moving forward. He finally yelled out “fine, lets get married” at which point there’s like 30 seconds of silence. You two go together the next day to get the ring.

Angela: She bought a basic ring, as neither of you were flashy people. She wasn’t sure when she would propose, so she carried the ring with her for awhile, just in case the perfect moment came up. Eventually it did, when the two of you were star gazing and the conversation turned to the future and you were talking about all the things you wanted to do. When you asked her what she wanted to do, she said, “I don’t know exactly what but I do know that I wanted to do it with you” bringing out the ring and proposing to you.

Cherry: Because she’s from a wealthier family, she had bought a really nice ring and teken you for a nice weekend vacation resort. THe day is planned out perfectly with romantic events, such as boat rides and swimming. It is topped off with a sunset horseback ride along a trail that ended on top of a large hill/small mountain. She brought a picnic dinner with flowers and the works (well as much as she can fit on a horse if that makes sense). She finally asks you after you two have finished eating and watching the sunset, cuddling up on the blanket together.

#The Outsiders #the outsiders headcanon #Ponyboy Curtis #pony curtis #Sodapop Curtis #Soda Curtis #Steve Randle #Johnny Cade #Dallas Winston #dally winston #tim shepard #curly shepard #angela shepard #cherry

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sulietsexual · 5 years

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So, I finally saw the new Little Women on the weekend, and I have to say, I was ... really underwhelmed, especially given the extreme over-hype which has surrounded this film for months.

Little Women is my favourite novel of all time and, yes, I am an avid fan of the 1994 movie. The book always fills me with warmth and emotion and I love the March girls so much, each of them in their own way. I went into this film with muted expectations, so I wasn’t disappointed per se but it definitely left me wanting more.

Let me start with the positives; the film definitely has a certain charm to it. I appreciated that they tried to include a lot of dialogue from the novel. The cinematography was very pretty in places. And I genuinely loved the actresses who portrayed the March sisters. Saoirse Ronan’s Jo was vivacious and fun and she imbued the character with Jo’s clumsiness, lack of propriety (a little too much sometimes, which I will talk about later) and overall likability. I don’t know why everyone’s complaining about Emma Watson, as I found her Meg to be lovely. I thought she perfectly captured Meg’s softness and her gentle stoicism, although I could have done with a little more fire to her character, people tend to forget that Meg has a bit of a feisty side. Florence Pugh was great as older Amy, and bless her, she tried her hardest as young Amy, but I still maintain that Younger Amy needs to be played by a younger actress, otherwise she comes across as far too bitchy, as opposed to just bratty. Eliza Scanlan was fine as Beth, but I wish they’d given her more to do (more on this later).

As for the rest of the casting ... I was a bit underwhelmed. I was excited for Laura Dern as Marmee, but she disappointed me, which probably has more to do with the writing of the character. She felt far too modern and very under-developed. Timothee Chalamet (sp?) as Laurie was a total miscast, he was far too melancholy and kind of creepy? Laurie is supposed to be a cheeky and vivacious character, with the occasional fits of melancholy, not the other way around. Meryl Streep was wasted as Aunt March, but I knew she would be, given what a minor character Aunt March actually is in the book. None of the other actors made much of an impression on me, tbh.

Unfortunately, for me, the negatives are greater than the positives and one of the biggest complaints I have about this film is that it really seemed to lack soul and heart. Little Women is a novel which makes me cry every time I read it and I didn’t shed a single tear during this film. Scenes which I love from the novel left me cold during the film.

I appreciated that the film tried to include events from the novel which often aren’t portrayed onscreen, such as Meg buying the expensive silk knowing she couldn’t afford it, Beth and Mr Lawrence’s friendship, Amy telling Laurie off for his indolent ways and Marmee’s speech to Jo about how she is angry every day. But a combination of rushed dialogue, the weird back-and-forth jumps between past and present and a script which didn’t slow down to appreciate the emotions of the scenes meant that many of these scenes felt empty, as if everyone was simply going through the motions. The film is accurate to the book and captures many of the events, but it misses so many emotional beats. I want any adaptation of Little Women to fill me with warmth and emotion and this film just ... didn’t. A particularly egregious example is the fact that this movie didn’t film Beth’s death scene, opting instead to have Jo wake up to an empty bed, in a scene which is obviously supposed to mirror the previous scene and drive home how Jo “couldn’t save” Beth this time around, but all it does is undermine the emotion of Beth passing and the grief her family - particularly Jo - feel over watching her pass away.

And while we’re on the subject of Beth, can we talk about what a non-character she was? I know that Beth is the least developed of the sisters in the novel, and as such, adaptations sometimes tend to overlook her, but she was barely a character in this film. Even her illness - arguably the biggest component of her characterisation and arc - was overlooked and under-played. I didn’t feel any fear or trepidation for her when she first fell ill, and her entire sickness was so rushed and downplayed. Eliza Scanlan is an incredibly talented actress (just watch Sharp Objects for proof of this) and yet they gave her so little to do.

Laurie too became almost a non-character, and I feel that this was a result of the constant time jumps. There was no room for him to develop or grow and many of his Big Moments were omitted from the film (such as him sending for Mrs March when Beth is ill, the way he swears to keep their secrets and provides the PO Box for them, going to London to make himself worthy of Amy). Also that disgusting scene from the New Year’s Eve ball when he turns up half-dressed, drunk and with two women hanging off his arms; no where in the novel would Theodore Lawrence ever behave like that, and the fact that this scene was our second introduction to the character soured his entire characterisation. Laurie was such a pale shade of what he is in the novels, and because of this, his relationships with all the sisters is severely undermined and downplayed. You certainly won’t ship Jo/Laurie from this movie, but nor will you feel much semblance of friendship between the two, despite the fact that they’re such kindred spirits in the novel. He shares more scenes with Amy, but they’re devoid of feeling or emotion (and chemistry) and so his eventual marriage to her falls flat.

I think one of the reasons for Laurie’s lack of characterisation is the weird time jumps. I know that a lot of critics are praising this technique, but I hated it. For one, it was often confusing as to whether we were in the past or the present, given how quickly the scenes jumped between the two. Secondly, this style of storytelling severely undermined characterisation and character development, and it juxtaposed scenes in a very weird fashion, negating the original point of the scenes and the lessons the girls were supposed to learn from them. For example, Meg’s misbehaviour at the Moffats being directly juxtaposed with the scene in which she confesses to John that she bought the expensive silk makes Meg look like she hasn’t grown or changed in five years. We missed the beautiful scene where she confesses her “sins” to Marmee and the growth which came from that experience, and instead jumped straight into what looked like an unhappy marriage (and why in god’s name were we introduced to Meg and John’s marriage before they had even spoken to each other in the past? Once again, the development of this relationship was undermined by the fact that we saw their courtship in reverse - we didn’t get the impact of Meg promising to love John despite his poverty only to betray him by buying the expensive silk). And this is just one of many examples of this technique robbing us of the emotion of the scenes.

The film felt so rushed at times and because of this, it has a very modern feel to it which I really didn’t like. If you want to “modernize” the story, fine, but do so by placing it in a modern setting. Having a period setting while using modern dialogue and a modern sense of propriety didn’t work. A scene of Jo hiking her skirts up to her knees with her bloomers on display while in public was awful, as was the scene where she unabashedly started to strip down while Laurie was in the room, and both scenes just undermined the period setting and were extremely jarring. Again, because the film was so rushed and the dialogue so quick and rapid-fire, we lost the emotional impact of many scenes. Period pieces need to be slow, you need time to savour the dialogue and actions, to feel the emotions and take time to appreciate the depth of the events and relationships.

And speaking of relationships, I cannot get over how much this filmed missed the mark when it came to the sisters’ relationships. Such a huge part of the appeal of Little Women is the bonds between the sisters and this film just blew right past them! I didn’t feel any deep connection between the sisters, and this was particularly noticeable with Jo and Beth, who share such a deep bond in the book. I think part of this problem stemmed from the fact that it took five scenes for the sisters to actually share a scene together; our introduction to the girls happens in four separate scenes, with each of the girls by themselves, in their own setting. Compare (because I have to) with the 1994 movie, in which the first four scenes of the film focus on the girls together, only separating once Meg and Jo attend the Gardiners Christmas party. The sisters’ relationship is such a huge component of the novel, but this film spends little time or focus building it and it is definitely a big reason as to why the film feels so empty.

There is so much more I want to say (for example, the horrendous way in which the film somehow made Jo look like she’d regretted turning down Laurie and held onto said regret for five years and how they juxtaposed her sending him the letter saying she would marry him, which WTF, never happened in the novel, with Laurie returning, having married Amy, like, way to pit the two sisters directly against one another, which even the 1994 adaptation had sense enough not to do) but this post has already turned into a freakin’ essay and most of my grievances have been aired.

To end this (very long) rant on a positive note, I want to reiterate that this film was charming in many ways, and while I do have many complaints, it was still a decent adaptation of my favourite novel, which wasn’t so far removed from the source material that I couldn’t enjoy it. It will never match the emotional depth and warmth of the 1994 movie, but I can see myself coming around to it in the future and liking it for what it is. I just wish more care and effort had been put into it and it had concentrated more on the emotion of the novel rather than the events.

#little women #little women 2019 #little women spoilers #phew this was long #long post

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