#honestly everyone's hair is so pretty and stylized

[chaoparty]

Sailor Moon SuperS Plus: Ami's First Love "The word love isn't even in my personal dictionary!"

[sang8262]

JP rambles: default outfit and character design edition

cause i asked about his character design and now I'M thinking about it, also im procrastinating so i have thoughts here goes

mostly about his default outfit, with a tiny bit about outfit 2 at the end. I already know this is going to be a needlessly long post lmao

TL;DR - JP is inspired by playing cards, bartitsu, and vampires/bats. he's a poker faced gentleman through n through

~~also minor spoiler warning for World Tour things, such as having JP as a Master and getting to max level skills/ bond with him~~

This is a safe space and I will be HONEST: I didn't like his default look a lot at first, but I've since warmed up to it!! I still use his outfit 2 (color 10) online tho. I speed ran World Tour for that, I have suffered, and I WILL enjoy it.

Anyway, it was once I realized he has thematic ties to playing cards that really made his default design make sense to me. First, some proof that he takes inspiration from playing cards to begin with.

Once you get Master Skill level in World Tour mode, everyone gets a little cutscene movie featuring their skills, archetypes/ titles, and ends with a quote commemorating your achievements as their student.

JP's starts off like this, with a bunch of playing cards with his name on them falling down the screen:

(also, btw, where we get more of that bat imagery, but i'll get back to that later)

This is what made it click for me and made it really obvious why his name is stylized the way it is, using the font it uses. His name reads the same way right side up as it is upside down, and looks very much like how the values are printed on these cards.

Then, the video includes several 'titles' for each character. Some of these get used in other promotional material too, but JP's are as follows:

King of No Country

High-Rolling Pretender

Gentlemanly Tyrant

In which, again, the poker/ gambling references show up with the phrase "high-rolling", or "king" of no country.

And final proof, is that each Master in World Tour can be given gifts that they will react to in unique ways, and also receive extra bond points for. Sometimes they're things the character likes, or really hates: it's just what gets an interesting reaction out of them.

JP (unfortunately) only has one such gift item he has special dialogue for: antique playing cards.

Although his reaction to them are... less than positive (he literally calls them 'trash'), he also points out how old cards can't be used to play actual games, as it is against the rules.

Within the game's universe, it shows that he cares, or at least knows enough about cards to even have these notable responses to them. Considering it outside the game, the devs specifically decided to make his special World Tour gift a set of Antique Playing Cards, instead of any other item. They wanted to make this connection between him and cards for a reason.

So to me, I think this is a lot of evidence that shows a clear and intentional relationship between JP's character design and playing cards.

In retrospect, I honestly think he does look like the face cards quite a bit lmao. The white hair and beard + mustache, the cravat, the colors too (really strong orange/ red, paired with gold and that bit of marble on his cane), and the cane paralleling a scepter/ sword.

Speaking of, more about the cane: the devs had an interview answering fan questions, and at one point they explain the inspiration for JP. I'll link the video here with the timestamp for this question:

https://youtu.be/ORw3_BK7o70?t=146

But basically they say they wanted to have a character use a cane, and cites bartitsu/ Sherlock Holmes as well. So, even if they worked backwards from 'cane', all the way to 'gentlemanly tyrant who likes chess puzzles and launders money through fighting game tournaments', I think they made it work well with the playing cards aesthetic too!

Finally, I'll go back to the bat imagery that I think is pretty interesting.

Parts of his design subtly incorporate bats, such as his brooch on the default costume:

And more directly in his alt costume 2, seen on his buttons and coat pattern:

And I have to imagine the brooch on his default outfit is somewhat invoking of a bat (with wings and large ears) because of his WT skill Mastery video having a giant BAT in the middle of the screen. I also thought it might be in reference to the Shadaloo organization symbol, which is a skull with wings.

Then even further from the comics, Kalima-- his assistant while organizing the fighting tournament in Nayshall-- warns Luke that JP is like a "vampire who will suck this country dry". The vampire analogy just works so beautifully with how he works as a criminal, not to mention the other aesthetic associations with it.

All in all, I really REALLY love JP's personality and whole modus operandi as a character and villain so greatly in his design. I definitely also feel that his outfit 2 isn't nearly as symbolism laden as his default one, but I am a sucker for formal wear and suits, so I am just, in love. Plus the subtler nods to his bat/vampire-ness is there, if only very minimally.

Edit: noticing this as I literally posted this AH. But also on the playing cards from his WT skill video, it has two different faces, it has both the Jack (or possibly King...) and the Joker:

It continues to add to his duality/ hidden true nature/ deceiver type character so much, it's perfect. And of course, with his name, or pseudonyms starting with "J". So either Jack or Joker works perfectly. I mean literally, he isn't the king of any country... but he'll still bring it to ruin all the same.

Edit #2: omg i keep remembering things i meant to add thank you adhd very cool

BUT, in the original Japanese version of the Mastery skill video, his titles are SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT. As is the Korean translation, which is a more direct translation of the Japanese one than the English is.

'So "King of No Country" was originally also: "No-Life King of a Ruined Country"

And turns out, doing some good ol' googling, that 'no-life king' has some established meanings to it:

Basically, it's related to other media including vampires, undead, monsters, so I'm guessing 'no-life' is closer in meaning to 'immortal', having no natural lifespan rather.

So yeah, even more references to vampirism for ya

but aNYWAY,, Thanks for reading my silly observations!!

I think I got pretty much everything but if there's anything I didn't mention or something to add please please do, I love reading replies and the tags (this site's so much better for this kinda stuff lmao)

[funsize-cenobites]

I hate sounding like a crotchety old man yelling at kids for having fun so I hope this comes across the way I mean it but like I honestly hate how neutered the character designs of Pokemon Violet and Scarlet look... They look so... realistic? Like the drawings look more or less like the pokemon art style but even those are kinda.. bland?

I love the pokemon art style because it was so capable of making everyone look memorable while also being soft and really aesthetically pleasing? The way they drew eyes? Immaculate. The almost chibi but not softness of the world? So adorable. The perfect mix of weird as fuck and normal? Love love loved it.

Like idk I really think this covers it, she looks like a person. She looks normal. But with that trademark Pokemon soft flair. The edges dulled, the eyes bright, her clothes are so cute and stylized and distinct without feeling outlandish. And yes I know there are some freaks, some absolute weirdos in the series and WE LOVE THEM TOO, like the freak with the blue swish thing that inexplicably circles his otherwise pretty normal hair? Love it. Anime bliss.

Maybe I'm just being rude or weird but everything is too high definition now, they have textured hair??? The main character trainers in S/V just look like... literal toddlers. They look like the generic ass school children you destroy in the beginning areas of every other game but instead of looking adorable because they're drawn in the lovely anime style, they look uncanny and boring to me.

I think realism has its benefits and can be used really well and I love the ways in which they adapted the art style in previous newer titles like Sun and Moon and even Legends Arceus but now its just? These are just boring people who could exist in our world. I get it, like Pokemon Go you want it to feel like you're blurring the lines but I play these games to feel like Im in a different world. One that doesnt suck quite as bad as ours. Professor Turo in game just looks like some fucking guy, Sada looks "Eccentric" but not even in a cool Weirdo Freak who gets to just Exist Like That in that world way because no one cares in Pokemon's world. She just looks like someones mom is having a fucking midlife crisis and can't give up brazillian blowouts to fully commit to her Off The Grid lifestyle hobby.

Can we please stop equating 'Better Graphics' with the concept of realism? That's all I ask.

[vinceaddams]

What would your ideal outfit for a ball at Lost Hope be?

Ooh that's a good question! In the book they all wore very up to date fashionable clothing there, but 1810's is later than my favourite eras of fashion, so I'll assume I can dress more like they did in the mini-series where everyone's in fashions of various different eras.

(Not the most accurate, but hey, they're mostly extras and it's a fantasy scene so I don't mind, especially since the main characters have such good costumes.)

With the lighting it's hard to tell what the colours are, but it looks to be a lot of pale greenish greyish colours, which I quite like. I am very fond of lichen-y greens.

My first instinct would be to say a 1740's or 50's suit with frogging on the coat, kind of like this one, but in foresty colours to give it a mossy appearance.

(Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, by François-Hubert Drouais, 1753.)

I'm not sure if that would be appropriate for a ball though. I don't know for sure, but I get the impression that these frogged coats tend to be more informal? And quite a large portion of them are fur lined ones which I think are more for at-home wear.

It would be so much fun to make frogging that looked like little clusters of lichen and mushrooms, on a fabric that's.. hmm, maybe light brownish grey silk brocade that's woven to look like stylized tree bark texture. And I'd have a contrasting waistcoat in lichen green, with a lichen and mushroomy pattern either embroidered or woven to shape.

And of course the usual accessories - shoes with pretty buckles, white stockings, queue bag, plain white neck stock. I'd have my hair nicely styled like this (or Maybe a wig, since my hair is getting quite thin and harder to style):

(Maurice Quentin De La Tour, Self portrait, 1751)

But if propriety forbids my possibly informal frogged coat then I think I'd have go 1730's. I do love love love the fashions of 1785-95, but I'm honestly not so keen on the court dress from that era. That particularly popular style of polychrome floral embroidery on dark velvet with little woven geometric patterns just doesn't do it for me. Late 80's-early 90's is my long time favourite, but more for the fun mix and match stuff, and all the wacky patterns and embroideries. I'm also not quite as fond of the cuts of late 18th-early 19th century court suits as I am of everything else.

But the 30's! No weird mixing of dark geometric velvet and bright florals! And the fuller coat skirts would look nicer while dancing. (I don't know how to dance at all, but I'm assuming I'd learn pretty quickly if I was kidnapped by fairies and sent to dance at a ball all night every night.)

I'd want a suit that's cut basically the same as this 1730's one I finished last year.

But with the breeches and the coat in plain velvet in either green or brown, and the coat cuffs and waistcoat in a contrasting brocade in mostly pale greens and greys. I like it when the coat has contrasting cuffs made of the same fabric as the waistcoat, and it continues well into the 18th century in some capacity, but was much more popular earlier. Which makes sense, since it works so much better with those bigger styles of coat cuff!

(John Vanderbank - John Bourchier, 1732)

Yeah I could just use a plain contrasting silk and embroider it instead, but I'd prefer to do that thing where you've got a gorgeous brocade with an absolutely enormous asymmetrical pattern and the repeat is so big that you can't see the whole design on your waistcoat, and certainly not on your coat cuffs, so you've got unique and varied little chunks of the design.

(Young Knight of the Order of St John by Antonio David, c. 1730, detail)

(Portrait of a Gentleman, Louis-Michel Van Loo, 1734, detail.)

So a big brocade like that, but in a more whimsical pattern depicting twisty old trees and mushrooms and lichen and such. It's a good thing the fabric I'm describing doesn't exist to tempt me, so I can't add this to my already horribly long "to sew" list.

And with the buttons and buttonholes all done in silver thread, like the ones above. Not this layout though, I'd want mine evenly spaced and I wouldn't put those extra buttons on the buttonhole side.

The shirt would be pretty much like the one in the above portrait, just a normal fancy shirt for the 30's with some nice lace. And as long as I'm describing fantasy textiles for a fairy ball, I also want a pattern of little mushrooms woven into the lace itself. Ohhh now I'm sad that I can't have some nice cotton or linen lace with a pattern of little mushrooms in it :( Maybe I could do some whitework embroidered ruffles like that someday...

Ok, yes, that is what I'd wear! 1730's suit in muted brown or green velvet with a waistcoat and coat cuffs in pale green/grey brocade with a huge woven pattern of forest-y things, and with silver buttons & buttonholes. Same accessories as I said for the one with the frogging, because stocks and queue bags and buckle shoes are in fashion for quite a long period of time. Normally the shoes and queue bag are black, but for this maybe I'd soften them down to a nice grey. Early 18th century men's shoes aren't nearly as cute as late 18th century men's shoes, but oh well! I'd still feel darn cute in such an outfit, with my big swishy coat and my hair in nice little poofy curled sections at the sides.

That was really fun to think about, thank you for asking!

[rollingaroundin-bread]

My Sweet Ride is an amazing episode of Phineas and Ferb and the only thing bad about it I that I wish we could have seen more people in full out 1950s clothes!! So I did that!! (Also including some MML kids because I love them and don’t draw them enough!)

Anyways!! If y’all want to see me rant about 1950s stuff for a very long time because I had a blast doing research for this project you should click the keep reading!! :D

Okay a quick prelude!! Not only am I going to talk about outfits I designed, but while doing research I was blown away about the attention to detail the original designers had for these outfits and characters so I’m going to talk about their outfits too! :D

Here are my sources if you want to look into this btw!! :D

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-teenager-fashions-girls-fashion-trends-and-clothing-styles/ 

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-teen-boys-clothing/ 

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-hairstyles/ 

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-dress-styles/ 

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-womens-hats-by-style/ 

https://vintagedancer.com/1950s/1950s-womens-shoes-style/ 

Candace

Okay I’m going to start out by saying I just adore this outfit

That has nothing to do with anything I just really love it!!

I’m thinking I might make one of my own for Halloween but that’s off-topic

Okay- 1950s clothing!!

Candace is wearing a blouse (?) with a cardigan over the top, and a pleated swing skirt.

This is a classic 1950s girl’s style

More specifically its also a classic “preppy good kid” look

Which Candace absolutely is!!

Y’all should notice that all the skirts are past knee-length, which was standard of the time.

Candace also has a neck scarf, a common accessory, and a headband.

Ribbon headbands were still a thing in the 50s but the hard plastic headband was also coming into style in the later 1950s.

She’s wearing a pair of saddle shoes which were one of the popular options of the time among boys and girls

Her hair is long with curls at the end, another classic teenager look in the 50s!

While short hair was more popular among adult women, teenage girls often kept theirs long with slight curls on the end!

Bangs were also standard, but usually shorter than how I drew them

Sorry that bit’s inaccurate through all of them, it’s just easier for me to draw long!

Finally, in case you had any doubt about Candace’s outfit being time period, here’s an advertisement from the article I read:

Vanessa

To start off we have a blouse and pencil shirt for Vanessa

Pencil and swing skirts were the two most common skirts of the time

She’s also wearing a belt, which I modified slightly to look like-

The wide contour belt on the bottom right!

She’s also wearing a pillbox hat, one of the popular hats of the time!

Hats were generally not worn by teenagers because they were seen as “mature” 

But that fits pretty well with Vanessa’s character

It’s the same story with the pumps, which I also changed lightly to match time period ones a bit more

Now what made me make my original post about the outfits in My Sweet Ride was actually the hair

Specifically, Vanessa’s hair is modeled after the Bettie Page style

This hair wasn’t actually that popular with the masses because it was seen as too simple, not classy, etc.

BUT it was popular among rebel girls in the USA

And like!!!!!! Y’all the designers did SUCH a good job to get down into details like that!!!!!!!!

But yeah her outfit’s great!! Next one!

Stacy

For Stacy, I decided to change things up slightly and give her a dress!

Specifically, it’s a shirtwaist dress, which I modeled after the reference below

Why the shirtwaist dress you may ask? Idk I think they’re neat

I thought it fit the vibe I was going for so I did that one I don’t know what to tell you jkdshsf-

Okay so generally, the belt wouldn’t have been a different color but I wanted to tie the green I used in a little more

Btw sorry I changed her color scheme a bit

I honestly haven’t fully figured out her original color scheme so I modified it a bit so it would look nice for this!

Pastels were very popular in the summer after all

I tried to stick to everyone else’s original color scheme though!

Stacy also has a headband tied up into a bow, which was standard

And to change things up I put her in a ponytail (with the end curled) which was popular with the teens!

Sklsdjhdkj I sound very “how do you do fellow teens“ while writing this that’s unintentional sorry

Shoes are penny loafers, another popular shoe at the time

I liked the little bows on the ends of some of the ones I saw and thought it was very Stacy!

That’s about it for her!

Phineas

This has nothing to do with anything but I love drawing Phineas

He’s just a funky little triangle!! I love him!

I’ll admit here that I didn’t look into men’s hairstyles, so you won’t hear about that from me sorry!

Phineas is wearing a black button-up, standard. 

Black and white matched everything so they were the most common undershirt colors

Over that, he has a jacket that looks to be varsity jacket inspired, which was seen as super cool!

Full jeans were coming into popularity in the 50s but only with the younger generations

Finally, he also has saddle shoes like Candace does

So yeah it’s a solid 1950s outfit!!

Ferb

Ferb’s a greaser, need I say more?

No, really he has everything

The white t-shirt and jeans combo is exactly the greaser look, so much so that most teenagers avoided it to not fall into stereotypes

Tighter fit jeans were coming into style in the later 50s, so that’s also accurate

The leather jacket just amplifies the greaser look

The one thing is that for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what shoes he was wearing

So I gave him a pair of sho-loks and called it a day!

More about sho-loks in Milo’s portion!

Isabella

Isabella makes an appearance with the first (and only) poodle skirt of the group!!

Poodle skirts, while definitely what most people think about when you say the 50s, actually weren’t that popular among teenagers

The embroidered designs were seen as childish, so children and preteens wore them the most

But here’s a fun tidbit you may not have caught from the show, Isabella is, in fact, a child

(I don’t know why I built that up so much sorry ldksjfhkds)

Anyways I decided if I was going to give anyone a classic poodle skirt it might as well be Isabella!

I modeled it after this poodle skirt:

She’s also wearing a blouse with a peter pan collar, the most popular collar of the time

Another headband tied into a bow because it’s Isabella I had to give her a bow

Standard belt (nothing really to say about that)

And another pair of penny loafers with little bows because they’re cute gosh darn it!

Milo

Okay, I’ve been writing for a while but honestly a lot of the rest of these I just drew directly from reference so…

I did say I would talk about shu-loks here though and I will!!!

Now we know Milo is shoelace-adverse

And while there are plenty of slip-on options I found the shu-lok to be fascinating!!

As you can see above, the tongue snaps down to keep the shoe on your foot!! Isn’t that cool? :D

So yeah I gave Milo those!!  

Zack

We know Zack plays football so I gave him your standard sporty outfit

Sorry I just find girls outfits infinitely more interesting so I kinda focused on those skjhgfdss

Oh! I do have something to say here!!

Converse were your typical sports shoe for the 50s so he has those!! Almost forgot that tidbit!!

Yeah, thick soles with wrinkles and stuff were seen as cool among teens so they got popular!

Melissa

Finally, we have some patterned pants!!

Yeah- checkers, plaid, stripes, polka dots, etc. were all very popular!!

I just didn’t want to draw them a lot ‘cause it’s hard sksfjdhgs-

But I gave Melissa checkers because it would get the black and white of her color scheme and I liked the way the checkered pants looked!!

Girls did wear pants at the time by the way!!

During summer and weekends mostly since they weren’t allowed to wear them to school

Short-sleeved turtle necks were also a thing and I thought that combo would look neat!!

Also, converse because it went with the outfit and that’s kinda what she’s wearing in the show!

Hair in a ponytail and side part bangs, both popular!

Yeah okay, that’s about it for Melissa!

Amanda

By this point, y’all are hopefully getting the gist of 50s fashion so we’re going fast now

Blouse, swing skirt, penny loafers (different style but still penny loafers), headband

(here’s what I modeled the whole thing after:)

I do want to mention the pullover sweater because I thought I should include one and I really like the flower embroidery on them

Then finally we come to her hair!! I already mentioned the headband but I was specifically modeling her hair in the pageboy style which looks like this:

Obviously, it looks a little stylized but what can you do?

And that’s it!! I had so much fun doing research and designing this and I think they all turned out pretty good!! I’m going to do more go this in the futures so if there's someone in particular you’d like to see let me know!! I’m planning on doing Cavendish, Dakota, and Sara at least in the next batch!! 

[bedlamsbard]

All right, reactions to Mando 2.05, “The Jedi”, in...semi-coherent form. Spoilers, obvs. I hated this episode, so keep scrolling now if you don’t want to see negativity.  This is not in any kind of order except stream-of-conscious.

again, I reiterate, spoilers.

again, I reiterate, this is REALLY negative.

Rosario Dawson...yikes.

how...did Bo-Katan know that Ahsoka was on Corvus? are they in contact? since when? Ahsoka seems to have been on Corvus for long enough to be a nuisance to the Magistrate (Morgan Elsbeth), but normally Ahsoka is very efficient and she just...really does not seem to be here? I did not get the impression she was planning on sticking around for any period of time.

(the same could be true for Frog Lady and Bo-Katan on Trask several episodes back. that wasn’t a convert, that was three Mandalorians hanging around the port in cloaks. I guess they could be doing that on the regular, but? would the Empire not then be more worried about being attacked by Mandalorians?)

there was only ever a very, very slim chance that I was going to be happy with any translation of Ahsoka from animation to live action.  I am on record as thinking that animation is the medium for Star Wars and that live action is always going to be a weaker medium than animation and that a lot of things that can be done in animation just cannot be translated to live action in any meaningful form.  I knew Ahsoka’s fighting style couldn’t translate to live action convincingly (here’s what I said about the mo-capped duel in TCW); it never occurred to me that they couldn’t pull off TOGRUTA given that Shaak Ti, you know, exists, and also there are so many excellent Ahsoka cosplayers.

(Consider KM Creations’ excellent silicone lekku (S7), which have beautiful movement; the cosplayer behind that is CallMeSnips and her epilogue prototype is from SWCC is in there somewhere.  I think Rei Kennex’s are latex (you can tell they don’t have much movement) but at least they’re the right length.  I think Ahsoka94′s are also latex (again with the movement); this is her Mortis vision grown-up Ahsoka.)

AND YES, THE LEKKU/MONTRALS WERE A DEAL-BREAKER FOR ME.

I feel very “you have made your bed and now you have to die in it” about that -- apparently the reasoning is for stunts and movement, but for me here’s the thing: her lekku length wasn’t optional.  This is not the equivalent of changing a hair style, which some people seem to think (believe me, I have read so many hot takes); this is like...I’m trying to think of a good comparison.  Like putting Peter Mayhew or Joonas Suotamo in a wig because Chewie’s head was too hard for the actor to see out of, or giving them normal human hands because they can’t grip with the Wookiee hands.

Also your main character wears a helmet at all times that (if it’s anything like my Mandalorian helmet) is pretty poor visibility and full body armor and THIS was your breaking point for stunts?

Ahsoka’s lekku and montrals grow as she ages. These are about S7 length; as @reena-jenkins put it, THEY DE-AGED HER HEAD.  Ahsoka fans coming in know this.  PEOPLE SAW THE REBELS EPILOGUE.

I wonder how many of the people being self-righteous about being totally fine about Ahsoka’s lekku are the same people who claim that Katee Sackhoff is too young to play Bo-Katan.

this also puts them in a weird position in regards to the inevitable merchandise: do they go with normal Ahsoka from TCW and Rebels, the one everyone is familiar with, or do they go with these stunted lekku?

(I can’t believe they’re going to make Her Universe sell merch with this Ahsoka on it. it’s not going to happen but I wish HU was going to be petty enough to not sell any nu!Ahsoka merch.)

Here is some nice art of how Ahsoka’s lekku and montral should have looked.

hoo boy were those prosthetics also just Bad.

“but the stunts” buddy I’m sure Pedro Pascal and his various stunt doubles aren’t having a great time in full armor with almost no visibility either

if you’re going to put the character in, do it right

YOU CAN’T CHEAT

look, I am really, really aural -- the best example I can give is that even though intellectually I know that Matt Lanter and Hayden Christensen both play Anakin Skywalker, I literally cannot parse them as both being the same Anakin Skywalker and for that reason TCW and the PT don’t exist for the same continuity for me.  (This also goes for Ewan McGregor and James Arnold Taylor, Natalie Portman and Cat Taber, and Samuel L. Jackson and TC Carson. I can kinda cope with the multiple Palpatine VAs. Yes, the decision to use Hayden and Sam in Ahsoka’s vision in “Shattered,” even blending into Matt’s voice from Hayden’s, threw me so badly I couldn’t take the vision seriously.)  Ashley Eckstein has a very distinctive voice, and moreover has been the only person to ever voice Ahsoka up to this point (even in the Ahsoka novel audiobook). Barring a MIRACLE I was never going to be able to parse another actress’s voice as Ahsoka’s, solely because of how my brain works.

I could probably have parsed someone else’s face because animated Ahsoka is pretty stylized but the voice thing is a huge problem for me because of how aural I am.

(I say this but when Squadrons did a more live action-style Hera -- knowing they mo-capped Vanessa Marshall I think they used Vanessa’s face for Hera’s, which is also what it looks like on the revised art and face sculpt for the Black Series Hera -- I kind of had a meltdown about it (for...weird reasons). And that was the same VA.)

(The timeskip between TCW and Rogue One, then Rebels, probably saved Saw Gerrera for me here, but he was also never a main character.)

can you believe that Sam Witwer’s Maul got more live action respect than Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka

I love Sam’s Maul but wow

this is particularly jarring because Dave Filoni and Ashley Eckstein always seemed like they were friends? I realize that this gets skewed by how little of their actual lives we see online, but that is the vibe that I’ve gotten from interviews and social media posts.

can you believe that TROS gave more respect to Ashley Eckstein’s Ahsoka than Dave Filoni’s Mando episode did (here is her statement on TROS.)

back in March, when the Dawson casting rumors first dropped (or leaked, as the case may be), Ashley posted a statement about it saying that she was not involved in The Mandalorian. she has over the years been very vocal about desperately wanting to play live-action Ahsoka, who is a character solely associated with her up until today, and honestly this just breaks my heart.

I am not the massive Ashley Eckstein fan that many Ahsoka fans are, but I have never heard anything bad about her (I saw her at my hotel at SWCC while I was waiting for my roommate to arrive! that’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to her, a distance of about six feet), and I really desperately hope that someone told her about this beforehand and she didn’t find out from watching the episode.

Also, while I’m here talking about Ashley Eckstein, the characterization here was extremely off, in that specific way that happens when a writer/director is working with their absolute favorite character, DAVE FILONI. I do trust Ashley to course-correct Dave on Ahsoka (in the same way we’ve heard about Sam Witwer pushing back on people about Maul), and that...was not happening here.  (I think Katee Sachoff said something similar to this about Bo-Katan in her interview last week, as well.)

how did you get Bo-Katan so right and Ahsoka so wrong

look, Dave Filoni is truly living up to George Lucas’s legacy in that he can story tell pretty well but he’s not actually that great at nitty-gritty of writing and directing. (none of the really good TCW episodes are his.)

this episode made me think of A Friend in Need (which he directed) which is not, like, a BAD episode but quite notoriously includes the Bo-Katan ass-slap and also Ahsoka beheading four Mandalorians at once.

it also includes a helpless village of oppressed and exploited Asian-coded civilians who are there mostly as background scenery so the bad guys can be bad and the heroes can feel righteous

I’ll come back to that one

the level of violence in this episode was...weird. honestly, too high? in a way that probably would not have registered if it was anyone but Ahsoka. look, I am an animated shows person. I know TCW and Rebels inside and out. I know that neither one is particularly shy about killing off faceless bad guys (though if you watch Rebels S1 compared to Rebels S4 they really dial back the amount of fatal violence the main characters commit in the last season, lol).  But this felt off for Ahsoka in a way I can’t really articulate.

why is Ahsoka attacking a random Mandalorian (her allies are Mandalorians!) who is walking through the woods WITH A BABY? WITHOUT WARNING?

part of that is just her movement -- when they animated her for TCW back in 2008, they made a deliberate decision to give her mannerisms and movement and a fighting style that a human can’t do because she isn’t human and animation can do that. which means that they hobbled themselves when they came to translating her to live action because uh a human can’t do that.

something about her lightsaber blades looked really, really wrong and I can’t put my finger on what. it’s like they just used the illuminated blades of the stunt sabers but didn’t do the extra CGI that the films do? I don’t know.

Ahsoka did a LOT of dramatic posing and what WAS that?

Dave can’t direct live action, that’s what that was

since when can you canonically convey that much information mind to mind

are Ahsoka and Grogu a dyad in the Force (I know the answer is no but also: what? what was happening?)

the only people we’ve seen who can do that sort of thing are Quinlan Vos and Cal Kestis, who both have the rare talent for telemetry, and even that’s not mind to mind communication, that’s touching a thing and going “YIKES”

you are telling me that Ahsoka Tano, whom six months ago we saw take on Darth Maul, a whole barrage of Mandalorian warriors, and her entire clone trooper battalion and walk away without a scratch, had to work up a sweat fighting one woman with a spear

you do know that we all saw TCW and Rebels right

and here’s the problem! this episode makes zero sense if you HAVE seen TCW and Rebels because (1) she doesn’t look right (2) she doesn’t fight right (3) timelines? we’ve never heard of them? (4) is Thrawn back? did you find the Chimaera? (you all do remember that Ezra and Thrawn aren’t out there alone and are in fact with a 40,000 man crewed star destroyer right) (5) did you NOT find them? (6) are you even looking? (7) this is supposed to be AFTER the Rebels epilogue unless you’ve decided to take advantage of that specific ending scene not being super specifically dated and if it’s before IT MAKES IT EVEN WORSE! because I desperately hate that epilogue and its implications EVEN AS IT IS! (8) why would you call this episode “The Jedi” when since 2013 Ahsoka’s whole thing has been not being a Jedi

to be fair I’m pretty sure S7 tried very hard to course correct that but unfortunately, they could not because the rest of canon exists

are you still trying to deny me grown Ahsoka and Rex when we know you got Temuera back for a five second shot of Boba

to be fair I would have the same aural problems with Temuera voicing Rex because that’s Dee Bradley Baker as far as I’m concerned (I reiterate that this is because of how my brain process character and sound, not anythign else)

if you haven’t seen TCW and Rebels this is a random Jedi wandering around for no specific reason namedropping a completely random person who has no prior significance unless it’s going to turn up later

this entire show has consisted of namedropping random people and things with no prior significance within the show itself and it remains entirely unclear whether they’re ever going to have significance within the show itself

look, I can buy Ahsoka not wanting to train the kid both for her stated reasons and for some implied stuff from earlier on in canon (the kids in the Ahsoka novel, the babies from Future of the Force), even what happened with Ezra, and obviously she has Plans and cannot haul a baby around with her when that baby is going to be a baby for an indeterminate amount of time

which honestly is something that ought to come up because even if Ahsoka wanted to train the kid by the time she grew old and died he might, if we were very lucky, have advanced to being essentially a pre-teen and then would be on his own again? this is also true for Din.

lol sure go cast yourself out into the Force, I’m sure there’s absolutely not a single darksider still wandering around the galaxy who might perk up at “ooh, free apprentice!”

I’m literally starting to think that this show takes place in an alternate universe where Luke and Leia either don’t exist or died at some point in the OT

me, baffled, last season: you’re telling me Cara Dune, Alderaanian, had never heard of the Jedi? was she not keeping up with whatever Leia Organa was doing? was the Rebel Alliance actually big enough that PEOPLE IN IT HADN’T HEARD OF LUKE SKYWALKER?

what...is Luke doing right now. isn’t he training Leia?

WHAT HAS AHSOKA BEEN DOING FOR TEN YEARS are we seriously supposed to believe she peaced out of the Rebel Alliance after Malachor and whatever the hell they’re going to make that out to be (honestly at this point I’m betting on “they will never touch it”)

does or does Ahsoka not know that Luke exists

hoo boy can you just see them trying to cast a younger Luke, or do you think they’d CGI de-age Mark Hamill?

oh yeah let’s go through this again in a season with someone else playing young Luke, let’s, I’m not emotionally invested in that so I’m prepared to be entertained

hasn’t Sebastian Stan been floated (even if just on Twitter) for young Luke?

why are these not-imperials on this planet. what are they doing here. what’s the point.

 why is the planet...being burned? I was half-expecting, like, normal deforestation (in terms of logging for lumber) but I’m also a bit ??? about this.

since when is beskar resistant to lightsabers, I thought cortosis was the only thing that was? whatever, it’s new canon, they can do whatever they want. (ETA: apparently that’s been true for a while; I am more a Jedi person than a Mandalorian one as far as the EU goes and my Mandalorian lore is my weakest point.)

dear god were these fight scenes bad

I did spot Morai and I appreciated the tookas

okay, I am taking the next thing out of bullet points because I was really, really upset by it, and as an Asian-American woman it affects me directly.

I was really, really shaken by the use of village of (space) Asian people who were portrayed solely as background victims to be tortured and exploited.  Star Wars has a long history of Orientalism, and some of it I can look away from and some of I can’t.  Mando especially has a very bad track record with its treatment of Asian characters (Fennec Shand), and in recent years the rest of Star Wars live action has also been pretty bad about it; I will never forget how shaken and upset I was by Paige Tico’s death at the beginning of TLJ, and Rose’s sidelining in TROS was a lot to deal with. There has also been some pretty appalling anti-Asian racism from the Mandalorian fandom that I have seen in regards towards casting rumors about Sabine (which brought me to the point of tears as recently as yesterday).

I had been braced for Rosario Dawson Ahsoka because it’s been rumored for so long, if never officially confirmed by Lucasfilm, and after they pulled the original VA for Leia from Resistance a few years ago (without ever making an official statement but it was after she made really dismissive statements during the Kavanaugh hearings) I was still really hoping they’d pull Dawson for the transphobic assault allegations, or that the rumors were false, or...something.  I was not expecting the way that they treated the Asian civilian population here.  I kept hoping that there was going to be something, and it’s like they kept almost going there with Governor Wing (you want to make either his name or his position clear in the actual episode, maybe?) but then kept pulling back, which just made the whole population victims that had to be rescued by outsiders. And exploited, and tortured, and abused in general.

And yes, I’m aware the Magistrate/Morgan Elsbeth is an Asian-American woman.  That doesn’t make it better?  Since Ahsoka presumably kills her offscreen?

(Also Diana Lee Inosanto is a stunt performer and a fight choreographer, why is that fight scene so wooden, damn.)

okay back to bullet points to wrap up

I realize I haven’t said much about Din and the kid and that’s because they didn’t...do...much? I guess if you’re actually invested in them “YAY HE HAS FEELINGS” is a major thing but I’m not

I have flashes of being invested in Din, but the problem is that I never know what the hell this show is doing because it’s all over the place.  We are 5/8 of the way into season 2 and I have no idea what it’s trying to do: they keep setting stuff up and then not doing anything with it. I can make vague predictions based on what’s set up and based on my knowledge of canon, but this show is so weirdly set up and paced that I can never tell if they’re something for A Reason, for the lulz, or for the Aesthetic.

I feel extremely vindicated by the revelation a few weeks ago that Din grew up in a cult but I also straight-up feel like I spent the past year being gaslighted about what Mandalorians were, and that’s...not a great feeling. Do I think that the show is going to do anything with that? Fuck, I don’t know. I hope so. I know what I’d do as a writer. But I can’t predict anything they’re doing and that makes me really uneasy.

jeez, at least when George Lucas was making Star Wars you knew he was doing it to entertain himself and tell a specific story rather than constantly having to go back and wonder what story lines got compromised for a project down the road.

like, is this why they did mo-cap Ahsoka in S7, to brace us for live action Ahsoka here? I know they had already filmed Mando S2 before S1 came out. WHY THEY DIDN’T THEY REUSE LAUREN MARY KIM AS AHSOKA’S STUNT DOUBLE THEN? it’s not like she hasn’t stunted in Mando before?

if this was supposed to be a backdoor pilot to a Rebels sequel...I will flip a table

I enjoyed the Bad Batch eps in TCW S7 but knowing that there’s going to be a Bad Batch show I’m now wondering if they’re only in S7 to backdoor pilot that show

how far back does this go? did they put the Legacy of Mandalore story line in Rebels S4 solely to set up for this? especially considering that that’s the one thing in S4 that actually has saga weight and then they immediately got rid of everything it accomplished to set up for this?

I presume that this is the reason they refused to release the turnaround for Ahsoka’s epilogue look two years ago. apparently it doesn’t matter given they changed her entire epilogue color scheme and also her lekku and personality.

Look -- at the end of the day, there was only about a 2% chance I was ever going to like this episode, but I was holding out for it nevertheless. I do get surprised from time to time! I liked the Bo-Katan episode! This was, however, a hot mess. And yes: a lot of the things that bother me are not going to bother other people. (I haven’t seen anyone comment on the Asian villagers, for example.)

[koivoid]

DRDT Bonus episode analysis

Hmm. Under cut in case of spoilers.

(Hope’s Peak Academy will sometimes be shortened to HPA.)

Also, please feel free to suggest anything that I could add here, because I exhausted my one singular brain cell thinking of theories for this. Possible grammar or spelling mistakes too.

1. Okay, first things first. US Hope’s Peak backstory. 

So, it’s confirmed that the US Hope’s Peak was built after the Tragedy, so it’s probably not very related to the canon killing games. 

So first, Japan’s ultimate students rebuilt Hope’s Peak Academy to restore peace and hope to the world. Things eventually returned to normal. The Ultimate students were hailed as saviors, and the US decided to build Hope’s Peak in the US so they could have ultimate students of their own.

(Sorry for varied image sizes, I was too lazy to crop them properly)

So, this last screenshot here reveals that there are two HPAs in the US. I wonder if that’s relevant.

Also, “weird curriculum”? Huh, I wonder how the curriculum is. Unfortunately, we don’t have any hints on this. (At least a think so.)

So then, what happened in the one year where the entire cast had to lose their memory?

Well, clearly they lost all memories of school life at HPA. But something else major must’ve happened, right? That must be related to why the killing game started. And I also believe that a few out of the cast had involvement in it, specifically Xander, Teruko, and Mai, but I won’t explain here.

(Oh. There’s also an big organization mentioned called “XF-Ture Tech”. Min was visited by the founder, of all people. Also, it’s called “future tech” while the mascot of the killing game is a talking TV cat??? Hmm....)

2. The “Unnamed Classmate”

The unnamed classmate is most likely Mai Akasaki, the red-haired girl in Teruko’s flashback. I just realized that some people might not know about her existence, so I’ll make a summary post on her later, as well as the hidden quotes and everything.

In Teruko’s flashback, and in a hidden quote on Mai’s profile, it confirms that she has a floral tattoo on her arm. And if you go to the DRDT tumblr, there’s a post with all the sprite patterns; you can see her tattoo there. Mai’s tattoo is strikingly similar to the stylized text boxes in this video, and it can’t possibly be a coincidence.

Another thing is, if you look at the CG post on the tumblr, you’ll see a phone close to the camera with a bunny phone charm. While it could be Min’s, there’s a higher chance of it being Mai’s as it states on her profile that she likes phone charms.

Something you may be wondering... what’s Mai’s talent? On her profile, it lists her talent as ultimate ???. However, it’s pretty much confirmed that Mai is an ultimate as she is in the same class as Min, in East Class 27. And Min says, “I can’t help but compare myself to all my classmates who have real ultimate talents,” implying that Mai has a genuine talent.

Her talent can’t be something that can lead her to a career, as she’s studying with Min for an official HPA test. The question is, what’s the test for? And why does she have to take it? It’s possible that she’s a lucky student, but:

It would be kinda weird if she needed to write how amazing it was to be an ultimate if she was randomly selected. Also, Mai says “It’s not like you’re a Lucky Student who was picked by lottery.”

Oh, and also:

It’s implied that Mai doesn’t care much about Hope’s Peak. So then, why did she go? Did she want to help someone? We don’t know. (But it is implied that she bonded with everyone in her class, if you look at the quotes on Mai’s profile.)

But if Mai was in East Class 27, then there’d be 17 students in one class. Unless... one person doesn’t actually belong in the class. (Or maybe I’m overthinking it and 17 students is the norm.)

So what’s Mai’s relation to the current killing game?

I honestly don’t know.

Maybe she was supposed to be in it, but avoided it. Maybe Mai’s dead, and that’s why she can’t participate. Idk.

3. One last thing.

Him?? Who’s him? Is it their homeroom teacher?

Wait, but now we have an idea on who the “Teacher” is!

(Credits to @xandersimpinghours​ and the anons for this image! Seriously, go look at this blog, there’s a lot of lore and theory stuff there too.)

So this letter... or whatever this is implies that there was another killing game before DRDT, or this was written by one of the DRDT participants. And if this is the same “Teacher” that him mentioned...

That means one of the DRDT characters wrote this, either during a separate killing game or in the future of DRDT, or Mai is trapped somewhere and/or turned into despair.

So, in conclusion?

I literally don’t know my brain is frying itself from typing all this.

[with-the-same-tattoos]

I'm not trying to start tea but,,, big pet peeve is when people that aren't artists try to critique your work. Like okay? You do it then. Go ahead, draw something. We're waiting🙃

On a second note, sketchiness in art, especially when it comes to your pieces, is very stylized. Some people throw flicks of paint on a canvas and call it a day. I would call that the exact opposite of "clean". Anyways, I just really wanted to let you know that I always adore how flowy your style is and all the little hair strands that go every which way. And don't get me started on your coloring style and all of the pretty earthy tones you use. Ooof, I could go on and on about how much I love your art style! I tend to be very meticulous with my art and you've definitely inspired me to not worry as much about every little thing being perfect. It's alright to not be perfect!

; v ; hearTS HEARTS HEARTS I RLY APPRECHIATE THAT AHAH TYSM FOR THE KIND WORDS IT MEANS A LOT;;;;;

But seriously, I have to say, IN MY CASE, I don't mind nor should I mind critisism from anyone!!!!! As someone who is trying to do this professionally !!!! (Not that my slasher doodles are something im doing professionally, theyre my free time work & happyzone stuff) i want to work on genuine illustration & concept art and it is paramount (i hope im using that word right) to understand what people want and what I can sell etc. I want to do this for other people; i want to help others visualize their ideas, weather it's through graphic design or illustration, that is a genuine passion of mine. And i need to be able to take feedback and especiallu to understand how my work comes off to other people. Sure, it might feel a bit bad sometimes, there are some critiques ive gotten that have genuinely hurt me even though I know the issue to be real, but I love art and I want to get better at it, I want others to enjoy it, and i want myself to enjoy it. I need to hear critisism & opinions, and decide for myself weather it's a critisism i agree with or not. Eg, I don't agree with cleaning up my work, at least the stuff I draw for myself, because I personally enjoy it messy. I do agree that I should clean up my more professional work a bit, now that I've thought about it. But I also agree w a lot of the critisism that i do get and it helps me develop!!!! I dont care about the tone either; honestly, I quite like bluntness. I also like opinions from people who dont do art. Art belongs to everyone, its as much a visual media as a handcrafted one, and you can understand parts of art without making it.

However I AM SOMEONE TRYING TO DO THIS PROFESSIONALLY. I DON'T AGREE WITH PEOPLE BLUNTLY CRITIQUING PEOPLES ART WHO ARE JUST TRYING TO RELAX AFTER THEIR WORK / DOING IT FOR FUN. THIS IS A REALLY IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE FOR ME.

Because then the only thing that genuinely matters is what the person wants to do with their work. Not how it looks to others, not the traditional rules, not the time spent on it, not the- whatever, unless those things matter to the creator and developing with those things is a part of the enjoyment of their hobby. So this is not a call to go comment on other peoples art unless they have invited it. If people want to enjoy art, let them. Im someone who thrives off of multichrome interaction, but some people arent.

Sorry for rambling I just wannet to clarify my standbpoint ; v ;

[cross-d-a]

if you're doing those characters then please give me more amazing takes on princess mute 🥺💕

OMG IM SO LATE ANSWERING THIS BUT HERE I FINALLY AM

Also omgg thank you SOSOSO much for asking me about Princess Mute?? THE LOVE OF MY LIFE??? You know me so well, vish!! I love and adore you so much!! Thank you for giving me the chance to blabber on about the woman I love!! ⁽⁽٩(๑˃̶͈̀ ᗨ ˂̶͈́)۶⁾⁾

ALSO! I’m gonna do my best to like- not spoil all my plans for whispers, haha

The rest is under the cut bc I just have a lot of FEELINGS~ about our resident zombie girl 

❤⃛ヾ(๑❛ ▿ ◠๑ )

How I feel about this character

OH BOY OK I JUST??? LOVE HER??? A LOT???? I wasn’t expecting to get quite so immediately and intensely attached to her?? But from the second I heard about her in the legend I was just gone. Completely done for. I’m generally a sucker for mythology, and there’s just SO MUCH that’s fascinating about the tale behind the Princess Mute and the South Sea King? 

Even though Princess Mute is so central to the myth, the South Sea King is deemed as the most important? I mean- duh it is his tomb, but Princess Mute is the catalyst? None of this would have happened without her? She’s main character material and yet she isn’t the main character of her own story?? She has practically no agency? It’s so? Fucking? Fascinating?? And there is so fucking much left unanswered? The myth says she turns into a goddamn monster?? Is this- figuratively? Or literally? Is she a monster for breaking gender norms and committing the ultimate taboo by killing the Emperor??? Like- holy FUCK? Like- LOOK at this pic from Ershu’s Expensive Powerpoint:

and a close-up for good measure:

(note the HORNS/HELMET?? the LIGHTNING STRIKE!!! 👀👀👀 how she’s dressed as a SOLDIER?? that SPEAR??? also she’s depicted as much bigger than the emperor!! which, of course, means she’s more important!!!!)

and, HELLO!! She’s called the PRINCESS MUTE. She is only known/named in association to someone else. Her name has been erased from history. It isn’t important to anyone. Which is so fucking ironic. She’s Princess Mute. Her voice has been stripped from her, just like her agency. This tale is the Mute Emperor’s and not her own. Her suffering means nothing to anyone. Her life means nothing other than for the Emperor to desire and the South Sea King to mourn over (and WOW!! ISN’T THIS JUST!! SO perfectly encapsulating Nanpai Sanshu’s female characters and their relevance to the story/male characters)

(so what is her goddamn name???? I mean, I know what I’ve named her, but sorry dudes. Again. I don’t wanna spoil too much :) )

also, WHY is the South Sea King covering her eyes when she’s sent off to sea in the origami boat?

What actually happens to her after this? The body we see of the South Sea King has long white hair so I assume he died pretty old? So why does she look so goddamn young? 

And- the million dollar question here (WHICH I HAVE A LOT OF HEADCANONS FOR BUT I DON’T WANNA SPOIL WHISPERS): What happened to her after she killed the Emperor????

ALSO!! WHY IS SHE HOLDING A DINGLAN RULER WHEN SANSHU FINDS HER IN THAT FIRST EXPEDITION?? (internet says it’s a “special ruler used for making shrines, carving wood statues and making tablets of gods. Later used in measurement of architectural scale; measuring instrument for the netherworld, wishes best for tomb owner) did she design her own father’s tomb?? is there more to her becoming a leather figurine than filial loyalty/sacrifice?? 

Why does she have a tattoo?? I go a bit into this in my fic, but from my understanding it was unusual for people (women especially!) to have tattoos during this time! (this is just from my research! if I am wrong please correct me!) 

For anyone who hasn’t read whispers, there were a a few tribes (minorities!) during this time who tattooed themselves (and to this day, they continue this tradition :) ). The Li were often attacked by invaders who assaulted the women and sold them as slaves. The women ended up tattooing their faces and bodies to make them less appealing, and it ended up becoming a tradition. When a girl came of age she’d get tattooed. Then we’ve got the Dai, who (from what I understand!) got tattoos of animals with characteristics they wished to embody, such as to show their virility and strength! So they’d tattoo tigers and dragons, etc.

So why does Princess Mute have one? Who gave it to her? WHAT ACTUALLY IS IT!!!!!! (eternal frustration that we never see a clear shot of the whole thing!!) It kinda looks like a heavily stylized fish? With some waves. But I am unsure! But it would make sense, considering the ongoing theme of snakes and fish throughout dmbj.

Also, her scars seem very strange. Like- if someone skinned her (YIKES!) then- her scars don’t really seem like they’re a result of skinning (double yikes!!). You’d think that for a woman who was the daughter of the King, they’d take more care to preserve her face?? So why does it seem like someone has done their utter best to ruin it? Did the Emperor do it himself? Did her father? Or did someone else do it?? Did she do it herself????

Also, I just wanna cut the bullshit with the creepy hand clam thing. A hand clam isn’t gonna wrap their fingers around Wu Xie’s hand to stop him from blowing himself up. Like. I get that it’s the censorship. I get it. But- you can’t tell me it wasn’t actually the Princess Mute who saved him. I just?? This moment is so powerful? It literally knocked the breath from my chest.

Princess Mute’s story is just so fascinating and tragic and I am just a mess over how she isn’t in control of her own story? She never is. Except for when she kills the Emperor. (AND when she saves Wu Xie) And I think that’s fucking telling. 

Of course, it felt like they had more of a storyline planned for her which never happened, but I’ll get more into that later.

Basically, I just have SO MANY QUESTIONS!!!

It’s like- I dunno. Seeing a gorgeous woman flip an obnoxious man over her shoulder and slam him to the ground without breaking a sweat and watching her walk away with stars in your eyes. You barely know anything about her but you’re already half in love and you just want to know more.

I’m super Gay for her, if you couldn’t already tell.

Honestly, she just perfectly represents all the female characters and their treatment in dmbj with all the extra PIZAZZ of the mysterious supernatural/mythological elements. She just makes me go feral and I adore her with my entire heart.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

NUMBER ONE I SHIP HER WITH MY CUTE AND PERFECT GF XIAO BAI!!!!!!!!

They are my two favourite (okay and my wife Su Nan!) female characters in dmbj. I think their stories parallel each other pretty beautifully? They’re both women in a powerful position, though with limited agency. They both defy gender norms and accomplish things (I’m counting killing the Emperor as Accomplishing Something) in a very male-dominated world. And- okay. I know the Princess Mute is technically dead. But she also?? is someone still doing stuff?? and pushing along the storyline?? as a zombie?? So I’m just gonna say that both of them aren’t truly killed off for the Man Pain like all the other female dmbj characters (except for Xiu Xiu, and I guess Chuchu but ChuChu’s situation is kinda....Iffy. At best.)

Also both of them are linked pretty heavily with Wu Xie? They both have an interesting relationship with him. And Princess Mute leads Wu Xie to Xiao Bai!!!

And okay this is spoiling a bit of whispers, BUT!!! Warehouse 11 was built atop the South Sea King’s temple. Isn’t that fucking important??? I stand by my headcanon that Xiao Bai is a Warehouse kid (descended from the Founders) and so she grew up there. And like- ignoring censorship bc I can AND because Reboot leaves a lot of supernatural stuff up in the air anyway- wouldn’t growing up atop an insanely powerful temple do something to you? Wouldn’t it affect you in some way?? There’s just!!! SO much potential between Princess Mute and Xiao Bai!! Plus!! I think it’d be great for Xiao Bai to form a relationship with another woman. She needs some female solidarity in her life.

And- well. I just ship Princess Mute with all the dmbj women, really. Princess Mute has two hands, why can she use them both?? I’ve got a couple Princess Mute modern au’s going and in one of them she just- sweeps A’Ning and Su Nan off their feet :)

I really can’t ship Princess Mute with any male characters, I think. There’s just- so much underlying trauma surrounding her agency and how she’s been used by the men in her life. Also, I like wlw & mlm solidarity. Let Princess Mute and Wu Xie wallow over their Stupid Crushes. Or Princess Mute & Xiao Ge. I’m not picky.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Purely bc of my own au, I am very much invested in Princess Mute & Li Cu (& spirit snake). As I mentioned before, there’s a running theme of loss of agency in their own lives and suffering the consequences of others’ actions. Plus, there’s a lot of supernatural happenings surrounding the both of them. Why wouldn’t they find a connection?

And, obviously, I adore Princess Mute & Wu Xie. Princess Mute saved Wu Xie and then Wu Xie was promptly obsessed (can’t say I blame him). They had such an interesting relationship in Reboot that was just- so fucking tragically dropped. 

My unpopular opinion about this character

SHE SHOULD BE MORE POPULAR!!!!!!!!!! She is so goddamn fascinating and gorgeous and I just!! Want!! Everyone to adore her as much as I do!!!!!!!! At least I feel a bit accomplished for swinging some readers over to her side in whispers!! That’s something!!! 

I’ve got like- a million au ideas with her. I’m going to be the creator of the content I wish to read!!!!!

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I WISH SHE COULD HAVE GOTTEN A SATISFACTORILY COMPLETED STORYLINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She just gets completely dropped after she leads Wu Xie to Warehouse 11. So once more, she is a plot device and not. And actual. Person. Her importance is tied irrevocably to the male leads. Her agency is not her own. Wu Xie cares so much about her, and okay, he’s trying to figure out a mystery and we all know how he gets when he’s trying to puzzle out a mystery-- but you can’t tell me he just- stops caring after he encounters Warehouse 11??? What happens to her after that?? Does she rot away in a box in Wushanju?? Does Ershu take her back?? I’m just?? WHAT????

I want to know her side of the story and not what everyone else has said. I want her to actually properly communicate with Wu Xie. I want her saving the day again and I want her being fucking badass and I want her and Xiao Ge being soft together and I want her and Xiao Bai to bond fall in love and I want everyone to just- fall in love with her? And care about her? And I want to to find herself caring about these fucking idiots too???? Can you imagine her and Liu Sang bonding over shitty fathers and lack of agency and Trauma?? Can you imagine Princess Mute getting her life back and the freckles returning to her slowly darkening skin and her being silly with Hei-ye bc he keeps shoving increasingly ridiculous sunglasses at her. And can you imagine her trying on jeans for the first time and picking out a cute bomber jacket and shoving a baseball cap on her head and dipping her feet back in the sea and befriending shibie bc she’s just?? that?? cool?? while Iron Triangle is off on the side fretting like she isn’t befriending some very dangerous creatures but it’s okay bc she’s a dangerous creature too and she understands fear and desire and hunger. 

I want her returning to Thunder City. I want her getting closure. I want her story to get closure. Period.

And I know it didn’t happen bc censorship and Nanpai Sanshu and just- a host of Other Things. But I want it, and she deserves it.

--

AAAHH VISH!!!! Thank you so much for letting me yell about Princess Mute!! Sorry I couldn’t go more in depth with headcanons but!! Like I said, I don’t want to completely spoil you for whispers, so I’ll keep those close to my chest for now 

٩(*ゝڡゝ๑)۶♥

[devilsskettle]

(^^^ from howling (and bleeding) at the moon: menstruation, monstrosity and the double in the ginger snaps werewolf trilogy by erin m. flaherty) 

tw for discussion of suicide ideation

okay. so. i agree with the “doppelgänger narrative” idea but the idea that brigitte “[comes] to stand for the symbolic order she resists so enthusiastically at the start of the film” is, in my reading of the ending, a misinterpretation of what ginger’s “monstrosity” signifies in the film. flaherty’s reading follows a common structure of creature features in which the monstrous transgresses social norms, so the overarching conflict is the “other” vs. normalcy. in that case, killing the monster at the end is a return to normal and reinforces societal expectations. however, i don’t think that ginger snaps is actually that kind of story. at the beginning, both ginger and brigitte “resist so enthusiastically” being part of society to the point of rejecting life, becoming isolated and codependent. before ginger gets her period, brigitte tells her that she better not become basic like all the other kids at their school, but she leaves her behind pretty quickly once she becomes interested in teen society sex drugs and rock n roll and is more accepted by her peers. brigitte continues not to give a fuck about what anyone thinks of her, even though ginger is part of that world now and not their own. part of ginger’s transformation actually helps her gain social acceptance - she is now part of the “symbolic order” even as she transgresses it. i’m not saying her transformation doesn’t transgress this order, or that she gains the acceptance of everyone at her school - trina in particular certainly isn’t a fan - but especially at the beginning, the changes that she undergoes is perceived as her becoming a “normal” teenage girl instead of the freaky death-obsessed kid ostracized by her classmates. 

i would argue that ginger’s transformation makes her both super- and unfeminine - super-feminine in the sense that all the side effects of puberty for people with uteruses (menstruation, body hair/shaving, developing new body parts, hormones/mood swings, and awareness of sexuality/being sexually active) are exaggerated during her transformation - and a lot of these symptoms are ways in which a woman’s body is policed or found unacceptable or gross; unfeminine in the sense that, first of all, she’s becoming inhuman and gender is a very human concept, and second of all, she still doesn’t fit the mold of female expectation (i.e. shaving, dressing a certain way, being demure or nurturing, not being overconfident, not being a slut OR not being a prude, not having physical strength, etc). flaherty does make this argument via david j. hogan’s dark romance: sexuality and the horror film: “in complete confrontation with the classic view of the werewolf as ‘masculinity carried to an outrageous extreme,’ the werewolf is actually aligned with femininity carried to an extreme,” an idea that i think works really well in discussion of ginger snaps in particular. she also rejects the identity of “girl” several times - “wrists are for girls, i’m slitting my throat,” yelling at brigitte and saying she’s “just a stupid little girl” - and disparagingly points out the difference between the expectations for male and female sexuality - “he got laid, i’m just a lay.” so.... i definitely do get the interpretation of ginger’s death to have a kind of punitive logic for transgressing gendered expectations in these two different ways, but i think that’s a meta-criticism on the part of the writers, not the role that brigitte fills (for a movie that rejects the “death by morality call” of hollywood monster movies, they really did still punish her narratively for moral transgressions lmao - like flaherty says, “it appears that as subversive as the ginger snaps films are in respect to the werewolf narrative, they also reflect a deep cultural ambivalence about female identity. there is no option offered to ginger or brigitte, and due tot heir unwillingness to accept the roles predetermined for them in the society in which they live, they must be punished”). honestly i think i am nitpicking a little bit because i guess i do ultimately agree with flaherty that the story follows a normalcy > otherness > return to normalcy pattern with gendered ideas of what normalcy is, and where she loses me is her interpretation of brigitte and ginger’s social standing. to me, ginger seems really frustrated trying to navigate gender roles and her own position in society - but she is engaging with society.

you know who’s still not engaging with society? brigitte. she isn’t part of that “normalcy” at all, so to me, her rejection of the lycanthropy that ginger embraces signifies less that she sides with the social order and wants to reinforce normalcy, and more that she did a lot of growing up over the course of this movie as well, in a different direction than ginger did, and she reclaims her agency as well as her will to live. i feel like the monstrosity vs. normalcy framework ignores the fact that both ginger and brigitte are actively suicidal at the beginning of the movie - the first shot we get of ginger is her holding a knife to her wrist. at the beginning, brigitte hesitantly agrees to their suicide pact despite her obvious reservations. at the end, she strongly asserts, “i’m not dying in this room with you. i’m not dying.” so if we consider ginger’s mimetic role for brigitte, killing her isn’t reestablishing the social norm, it’s rejecting her own destructive and suicidal tendencies. i think her narrative arc teaches her: 1) how to make her own decisions separate from ginger and have agency in her own life, 2) recognition of her mother’s feelings of estrangement from her family, 3) how to connect with other people in a way that isn’t codependent, 4) rejection of suicide ideation. all of these lessons are ways of treating yourself and others with respect, compassion, and understanding - even though brigitte doesn’t change dramatically, magically becoming a saccharinely nice person or a social butterfly. she maintains her isolation and personality much more than ginger does over the course of the film. while at the beginning their fascination with their own deaths “not only demonstrates the duo’s disgust at the banality of their suburban surroundings, it also proclaims their self-stylized exclusion from the heterosexually fueled dynamics of the teen scene” (via menstrual monsters: the reception of the ginger snaps cult horror franchise), it’s ginger, not brigitte, who ends up participating in this “compulsive heterosexing high school culture,” where brigitte’s choice to not commit suicide isn’t her opting into this culture, but attempting to find a less destructive way of escaping or coping with it. 

flaherty argues that because brigitte’s first period is never discussed in the films, “she remains a child and therefore is unable to understand the true restrictiveness of woman as Other, what leads ginger to eventually embrace and enjoy her monstrosity,” but in unleashed, a fair amount of time has passed and i think it’s fair to say that brigitte no longer seems child-like (that role is assumed by ghost), and also she starts experiencing the same kind of monstrous sexuality as ginger did in the first movie - i think it misrepresents her characterization in the sequel to say that she maintains “child” status. i also think it’s not relevant to try to distinguish between “girl” and “woman” in terms of the monstrous-feminine. she still experiences alienation and otherness because she’s female and transgresses gender roles. so.... i don’t know. it’s a weird argument to make, especially since, like i said before, i consider this story a kind of coming of age for both sisters. “lycanthropy and femaleness” are not “ultimately unknowable” to her because.... she does become a werewolf over the course of both movies and she’s already female (like..... getting your period doesn’t magically make you a Real Woman lol)

i also think it’s significant that as a stand-alone movie (ignoring the sequel, which is worth watching but seriously bleak as hell) the ending is tragic but tacitly hopeful as well - as far as we know at that point brigitte has the cure (which actually works!) and is not going to kill herself. in her final confrontation with ginger, she has the cure in one hand and a knife in the other hand, and i think that nicely represents the choice that is hanging over her head the entire movie: choosing to live or choosing to die. (flaherty calls this “a telling moment of double phallic-appropriation” which..... meh. okay. not every weapon/tool used in a horror movie has to be a phallic symbol but also, sure, whatever. that’s one way to read it i guess). ginger made her decision at the very beginning of the movie 

this quote by karen walton expresses this interpretation really well:

The two sisters had this childhood bond with their pact. These two sisters were also best friends who created a bubble for themselves and took strength from each other, nourished and informed each other for a long time; but the film is not just the story of Ginger turning into a monster. It is also a story about Brigitte surviving her sister who is on a death spiral. Ginger's is a story of self-destruction. But where people get confused is that they think Ginger is the hero, but the film is really about a sister who survives a sister, who survives a best friend. An intimate relationship that becomes unhealthy and deadly.

and i’ve talked a little bit about why i feel uncomfortable with attaching a ~*girl power*~ narrative to ginger so i won’t get to much into that but i have some thoughts about that here 

also i’ve said a little bit about this before and i am basically copy/pasting from a post i already made but with a doppelgänger story like this, especially with a focus on women and madness, to me it immediately brings to mind jane eyre. i am thinking in terms of the mimetic function of jane/bertha and brigitte/ginger, with the repressed emotions and desires of the protagonist coming through in the actions of the “madwoman” character. especially brigitte’s assertion of “now i am you” when she voluntarily lets ginger turn her into a werewolf. the “madwoman” is portrayed as bestial, hypersexual, intemperate with substances, jealous, vengeful, as well as dealing with extreme anger toward confinement (ginger’s panic at getting locked up and her escape and weaponized sexuality brand of revenge is so similar to bertha like. trying to burn rochester alive and biting her brother badly enough that he passes out and other shit like that). but ALSO the other women in jane eyre have a mimetic function as well, where they can be read as potential paths for jane to follow (these choices generally can be summarized as dead or married). i think ginger snaps can be read the same way - ginger, trina, and her mother are the models of womanhood brigitte is presented with, and she is repeatedly told that what’s happening to ginger is normal, that all women experience that, and soon she will too. like the women in jane eyre, they’re models of femininity that she rejects but has to navigate because there are no other models for her. these three characters are either killed (directly or indirectly) or abandoned by her by the end of the movie. it’s actually ginger who defines the roles that women are cast into: “a slut, a bitch, a tease, or the virgin next door.” this is similar the female archetypes that jane has to navigate (and resist) throughout jane eyre. anyway this is a really roundabout way of saying that although brigitte does reject her worldview from the beginning of the movie, she doesn’t accept social order and normalcy. she doesn’t fall into any easily defined category. which is the point - “no one thinks girls do fucked up shit” but of course they do, no one thinks they can be more complex than these categories but of course they are, no one entertains the possibility that brigitte isn’t going to follow some made up universal experience of girlhood but she resists that through the end of the movie. she’s still a total weirdo <3

so yeah, i will also disagree with the assertion that both sisters lose their identities, because while i think there is a loss or a shift of identity in both ginger and brigitte, like flaherty argues, part of brigitte’s narrative arc is figuring out who she is without her dependence on her sister. brigitte saying “now i am you” feels less about loss of identity to me than actually identifying herself with the traits she sees (or used to see) in ginger - where ginger’s response (“i know you are, but what am i?”) indicates actual loss of identity rather than something transitory 

oh and also one of the main claims of this paper is that the male werewolf’s source of pain is beyond the “lifetime of morning-afters where he must confront the previous night’s excess,” and is really his “bodily alignment with another ungraspable Other, the woman” which 1) i don’t think follows the definition of the Other she establishes earlier in the paper as something that is repressed in a self or society - this use of “otherness” seems more about alignment with something different than his own identity and less about the jekyll and hyde comparison she evokes with the expression of a repressed self (imo i don’t think she should’ve used that story to support her argument since it isn’t actually about werewolves, even though i get her point about the repressed self, it’s kind of irrelevant to her argument), 2) brigitte in the first movie doesn’t seem repressed to me - she genuinely doesn’t seem to have the same impulses as ginger does and it’s not until the sequel that she actively is attempting to repress the changes that are happening to her; however, since the paper does concern the whole trilogy, i think the point is still valid, but there’s such a heavy focus on the first movie that i feel the need to dispute that interpretation of her character arc, and 3) i don’t think this interpretation really lines up with classic werewolf movies - there’s nothing particularly feminine about your standard werewolf except arguably the cyclical alignment with the moon that ginger snaps uses as a menstruation metaphor, but like. for example. i would never watch an american werewolf in london and think, “oh, his distress isn’t actually about killing innocent people, loss of control, loss of sanity, guilt and mourning because of the death of his friend, a predetermined fate, and suicide, it’s about him being female-coded” or something. like, yes, “the tragedy of the male werewolf is believed to lie exclusively in the deep anguish he feels in violating the very societal boundaries he has come to live under” and it’s interesting to dig deeper into that in terms of gender and sexuality, but i don’t think femaleness is inherent in the distress of the male werewolf - of course this is true in ginger snaps (with jason’s transformation being particularly distressing to him because it mirrors menstruation). the assertion that the classic werewolf “bleeds uncontrollably until his transformation is complete” similarly seems unfounded to me because i’ve never seen that in werewolf movies and she doesn’t cite where she finds that symptom of the transformation - maybe i am missing something there? if anyone knows of a depiction where that’s the case let me know, because that’s definitely a stronger argument for werewolves = menstruation-coded.

and re: the quote i cited earlier about werewolves = femininity taken to the extreme: i don’t think that argument holds true in the classic depiction/cultural perception of the werewolf. i think this post makes a more supportable (and concise) argument:

There are hardly any female werewolves because they break all the classic rules of femininity. They force you to confront female violence, strength, size, grotesqueness and uncontrollability. Historically female shapeshifters always shift into something dangerous (snake) or sleek (cat) or dainty (bird) but female werewolves ignore the masculine gaze completely. They're distorted beasts that have no ulterior motive except to destroy. Nothing about them is nurturing or modest. They're the opposite of what a woman "should be." Their omission from pop culture is not an accident.

all that being said, i did enjoy this article, especially starting at the section titled “wrists are for girls; i’m slitting my throat:” ginger fitzgerald’s monstrosity and all the stuff about ginger’s transformation as a reflection of "monstrosity” as a teenage girl, and suburban landscape of repression. one description of brigitte’s conflict that i actually really like: “unlike the male werewolf’s double, brigitte yearns not for the eradication of her other half but for the reconciliation.” i think it’s a really interesting read, even if i don’t agree with a lot of it. and maybe i’m way off base? maybe i’m interpreting brigitte as a character too generously? let me know what you guys think 

[loopingtangent]

I want to watch the Mandalorian (pt. 2)

<FIRST> | <NEXT>

Because once started, we might as well continue. We’re gonna watch the animated clone wars movie. all I remember of this is that it wasn’t very well liked when it came out 13 (?!) years ago. 

(12/29: also, delays due to education, and holiday. but i’m sitting with cake from family member’s birthday, so lets finish this film)

(also, RIP original C3PO and Darth Vader, you will be missed by many) 

ONWARD: 

- half of me hopes that Jabba reproduces asexually. the other half is wondering who his son’s mum is... okay, the expected/got for the son of jabba was pretty god.

i like how anakin interacts with little stinky. you see how he dislikes having to deal with it in the first place, but just accepts it as time goes by. hes empathetic with stinky being ill, and doesnt withhold medicine.

(i’m having a hard time coming to grips with the idea that this man becomes darth vader)

- okay, i’m enjoying the banter between kenobi and skywalker. its starting off a lot better than before. (I share the same views of myself teaching as anakin...)

Anakin Hair Rating: 4/5 stars, this isn’t terrible. i like the floofy hair of the 2008 era. reminds me of daniel radcliffe in HP4. 

- i’m actually liking anakin in this. he’s got a decent personality. Ahsoka is fun playing on his personality as well. i’m also enjoying the different style of using a lightsaber she’s got. while most are using it like a sword, she seems to use it more like a dagger. (I’m not familiar with, like, actual sword fighting, so forgive me on the non-specifics, like everyone seems to use theirs more like a club or baseball bat, whereas she holds it differently, and makes different moves with it.). huh, please dont let this be a learn from the younger generation (Future Loop: it isn’t thankfully...) it might be an actual buddy cop movie, esquee. (Future Loop: not quite)

- i love kenobi negotiating surrender... the sheer amount of big dick energy on the man to do that whole scene is amazing. (padme, i’m questioning your life choices again.. ) (future loop: I’m trying to find a gif of this, and apparently this is not the first, nor the last time he will pull this move, which makes it even more ballsy) 

- Ventress? that’s a weird name... I like her look though, its quite fun. 

(the actual linguistics of it, i mean. half of me wants to go into a Among Us tangent (we’ll see) (Hello, and welcome to my tangent - so like, in among us, the imposters are venters, but by that logic, is it only the male imposters, and the female imposters are ventresses?)

- i’m kind of digging the political ridiculousness of this movie. i feel like jabba wouldnt be lead by the nose like this. he’s a big guy in charge of a lot of things. him just accepting things people say as fact seems counterintuitive, but its fun to watch. 

i honestly dont know how the hutts stay in power. they are a dictatorship of morons. why on earth would you talk about your evil plan, and not SEAL/LOCK THE DOORS INTO THE ROOM?!?!

i usually have a good idea of how a story will end. but i dont here, which is nice. as its a war movie (technically), i can see it successfully ending either way. (Future Loop: alright, now that Ziro has been officially introduced, i’m gonna assume the jedi win this little skirmish, as I doubt we see him again.)

so anakin definitley doesnt go to kill jabba, but his daughter definitely does 20-30 years later...

-also, palpatine is in such a good spot politically. like, “i know what i plan on doing, but lets actively sit in on what the opposing side is doing to be three steps ahead of them”

OVERALL: 

- the fucking remixed the intro music: review of it, i’m unimpressed. sounds like they lengthened the beginning, which makes it just feel really slow.

- i like the animation, it is very stylized, which makes it enjoyable to see.

- the story felt like it should have just been a 3 part tv show intro. there was enough background, but the characters failed to approach anything remotely arc related. 

(NOTES: so, apparently there is a tv series that’s going to be watched for this too... for 20-ish minutes per episode, i think i’ll try to include 5-6 per post, because a post per episode is kind of insane, and a season per post will end up killing me.)

Tag List: 

@lorelaideville​ (lmk if you want to stay tagged)

[yakocchi]

King of Vampire (General Election 2020) // Count

the actual stylization is KING_of_VAMPIRE but that looks like a dumb ign for a mmo back in 2006

so elections have begun..... yay.... im gonna try bc this is the only otome mobage election where i feel like my bias actually has a decent ranking for incentives. actually this year he has p much zero chance to do well on the categories but the incentives for those are lousy anyway so is ok

Unmarked Spoilers of all kinds behind the cut! Please credit if you take any of it, thenk u (･ω･*)

 —There was an invitation to a party that night. When we headed to the specified location, “he” and I get locked in a room for some reason...?

➤ this is the general intro for these mini-stories, which is why “he” is in quotes

❋

[Count]: “Did you wake up, dear princess?” [Kara]: “Mn... Count?” When I suddenly awoke— Golden eyes and hair, light glistening off of them, with dewy skin came into view. Such a form caused me to instantly come to my senses, my face flushing red. [Count]: “Ah, it is because I had just taken a shower.” (a-ah-... That’s right, we had been invited to a party, when we then came to this room... And, for some reason, were unable to get out...) I recall what had happened afterwards, and my body burned from head to toe. And the reason for that was...

❋

(Hmm... Both the door and windows just won’t come open, so we really just can't leave this room in any way.)

[Kara]: “Count, what should we do?” [Count]: “About that...” The Count, with a single letter in hand, surveyed the room... [Count]: “...It’s not bad, this room.” [Count]: “There’s a bed, a bathroom, and even light snacks are fully provided— Without a doubt, this is truly quite the playroom for adults.”

(A ‘playroom’? I feel like that term doesn’t match up with what he had just mentioned at all...) Casually tilting my head, the Count then offered his hand out to me, smiling. His smile, in some part of it, was that of a wicked adult. [Count]: “Kara, if it’s going to be like this— How about we make some fun out of the situation?” [Count]: “Come here, and let us indulge ourselves in adults’ games—“

❋

...And that is how I ended up, thoroughly, becoming a dear resident of this bed. (U-ugh, when the Count seduces me like that, I just can’t resist him...) [Kara]: “S-So, by the way! Has the door opened? Does it look like we can leave?” In an attempt to clear up the heat that still remained within my body, I strike up a few words with the Count. In doing so...

[Count]: “...” [Count]: “No? The door still appears to be locked.” He replied, an elegant smile dancing on his lips. (...Is that true? For a moment there, it felt like he was scheming something, somehow...) [Count]: “It shall be all right; anyone here with suspicion in their hearts will realize the truth before long, after all.”

➤ I’m sleepy so idk if this makes sense rn but what he’s trying to say is “don’t worry about it, you’ll figure out whether or not I’m telling the truth eventually so just lemme smash” He answered as if he had seen right through my mind, and slid himself beneath the sheets. His skin pressed with mine, and a smoldering heat spilled over in that single moment. [Count]: “Otherwise... Can you go check right now if we can leave this room?” [Kara]: “Nn-...” He stroked up my naked body, his lips approaching the shell of my ear. That alone made the doubt in my mind, and similar things— become trivial, unimportant. [Kara]: “...If I say that I’ll go check, will you let me go?” [Count]: “Rather, on your end... Do you want me to let you go?” [Kara]: “That way of asking... it’s sly of you.” Bashful, yet at the same time not wanting to be separated from him just yet, I replied to him with this, and the corners of his lips raise in apparent delight. [Count]: “Mm, I’m aware. So, with that...” [Count]: “Now... submit to me, Kara.”

—“This is a playroom for love. In order to leave this room, one must seduce their woman and succumb her to that mood.” The knowledge of those words being what was written on the letter, and that the lock on the door had been long already undone— Ultimately only came to me after he had drove me to nothing but cries and moans.

 FIN

oh ok so it’s only fun when u mess with mc. im starting to see a pattern here these anniv-styled profiles are pretty old now so im surprised they didn’t make any new ones since then

this story reads kinda weird to me bc this story is one of the first in a long time to retain his usage of kimi (for the mc) and –i ending particle in very intimate settings. like, pretty sure the last time they did that in a ministory and/or route was before he had a main route. i guess for the –i endings you could take that as him being playful (tho imo usually from my perspective i feel like he tends to go the opposite way in terms of language genteel aka become more coarse in language). makes me wonder how exactly writing gets done in cybird, given that the writing staff in ikevam like ~3 ppl.

anyway this election is honestly zzz for the mid-low tier charas bc each of the categories are already picture-perfect for the top charas and category benefits only reach 1st-3rd in which only the 1st is worth talking abt bc the podium prize is just can badges. cybird u unga bunga why tf would anyone want an incentive that likely requires further money spending sexy will be arthur, charming will be idk vincent/mo/isaac, and kiken is just vlad probably. zzz NEXT

i do hope he moves up higher in rank from last year, but looking at prior numbers i dont think he’ll move up that much.... esp now that vlad will likely yeet most everyone off the cliff and even charles seems like he could beat out some of the old favorites. uh haha faust thanks for potentially being the new last place guy much appreciated for the 14 devoted will stans

as always, thanks for reading!

[taeminstetrislips]

SCHOOL TRIP SERIES - ITALY PT. 3

Florence

After a bus ride full of UNO games, the group finally arrives in Florence. The entrance is announced by your professor at the head of the bus and in response, the entire group goes quiet. The occasional sigh of someone ogling the sights out their window is the only noise heard besides your professor. He begins reviewing the brief history you learned about the Medici family and their impact on art in the Italian Renaissance. Your first destination would not exist if it weren’t for them: The Boboli Gardens behind Palazzo Pitti.

Once you are all let off, you are lead through the beginning with narration from you professor almost like a tour guide. He describes Florence as being one of the largest contributors to Italian art with its many guilds. After a good thirty minutes, you are set free to wander. You easily break loose from the group and start to wander over to something that caught your eye earlier. Whether or not the rest of your friends followed, you didn’t know. Something was summoning you to this tunnel-like path, completely made of trees bending and folding into one another above you. You look at the perspective in front of you and take note that if you were a painter, you’d love to try and capture the beauty you saw before you. Letting the weight of your head fall backward, you squint into the sunlight streaming in between the leaves above you. It isn’t until then that you slowly turn 180 and catch Jaehyun looking at you. You let out a small laugh as a sign of slight embarrassment, but he doesn’t take his eyes off you. His small smile only grows into a grin before he walks closer.

As if in slow motion, he walks over to you and the wind picks up. It gently tosses his hair into his eyes and across his forehead as he speaks. “I saw you take off on your own and wanted to make sure you were okay. Looks like you found a pretty cool place.” Once he reaches you, his hand stretches out toward the side of your face and retreats with a leaf he pulled from your hair.

“Oh, thanks.” You say in response to the gesture and respond to his last statement with, “Yeah, I saw this before on the walk and knew I wanted to check it out before everyone else got here for pictures.”

“Fair,” he responds, continuing the walk through the tunnel toward the other opening where you are let out into yet another stylized garden with statues whose light and shadow of depth changes as the clouds pass over the sun. The two of you take time to silently observe the statues, walking calmly and enjoying each other’s presence. Although, you can’t help but notice the tension you feel in your chest as you occasionally sneak a peek at him or make fleeting eye contact. One time, you catch him looking at you first and he holds your gaze for a second, his eyes widening as if he was scared to be caught before slowly relaxing and turning away with a smile on his face. That dimple returns.

You get distracted by a buzzing in your pocket. Checking your phone, you see a text from Johnny that the rest of the group is by the lemon trees. You share this information with Jaehyun only to realize that neither of you remember how to get there. The two of you laugh together as you quicken your pace and try to navigate your way back to the group. At one abrupt turn, you are cut off by your professor strolling down a pathway. He looks at you suspiciously and you wonder why for a moment before realizing that this is the second time you were caught with Jaehyun somewhat out of breath away from others. You try to pretend that slightly dirty thought didn’t cross your mind and ask your professor if he knows which way it is to the lemon trees. He points you down the right path and you are on your way to the rest of the group.

It isn’t long after you unite with the group that you are all pulled away and driven to the Accademia Gallery. The goal is to see Michaelangelo’s David even though it is going to be very crowded. When you arrive, the crowd is so large that you all try your best to push through without knocking someone’s camera or phone out of their hands. Finding your way to an opening, you pull the first wrist closest to yours through the crowd to the backside of the sculpture. You see that you’ve gotten Johnny and his fancy camera. He’s talked about his interest in photography before and you remember how excited he was to get to photograph such a famous piece. Once he gets a good angle and a couple good shots, he comes back to you to thank you for getting an open spot. You ask to see the photos and he shows you.

“They’ll be better with editing. Honestly, that’s just as important for a photographer as the actual taking the picture itself,” he explains. “Oh my God, do you remember prof talking about this dude’s weak ankles?”

You laugh at the memory, “Yeah, I guess they look kinda weak?”

“Dude needs to hit the gym,” Johnny says, clearly with excessive sarcasm. However, some middle-aged American tourist lady nearby feels offended at the joke and shoots the two of you a death glare.

You point her out to Johnny with a small nudge of your elbow and nod in her direction. Once he’s seen her, you continue to poke fun at the proportions of the body, including parts that may not be appropriate for public conversation. This pushes Johnny to say, “ Can’t relate,” in a very deadpan voice loud enough for the woman to hear. She audibly scoffs in disgust at him, while you jab him in the side with your elbow while trying not to laugh. He pushes you gently in return, but you’re caught off guard and lose balance, almost directly falling into the woman. Now it’s your turn to glare at Johnny.

Just to change things up, you and Johnny begin a very educated discussion about how the proportions are exaggerated for perspective, how the symbol of David was actually a symbol for the city of Florence at the time, and the time when he was attacked by a man with a hammer, etc. etc. Basically, you were throwing all the facts out there that you knew until, finally, the woman walked away. Satisfied, you break through to the end of the crowd and scan the room for your friends. After strolling for a bit, you see Xiaojun just in a trance looking at the drapery on a female statue. “How’s it going?” you ask, somewhat startling him.

“Wow. Just- this is so- wow.” He manages.

You can’t help but laugh, “Very articulate. I like your review,” you tease. “Is this your favorite piece here?”

“So far, yeah.”

“Is there a gift shop here? Maybe we can get you a little replica.”

He gives you a small glare before turning back to the piece in front of him. “There has to be a gift shop somewhere nearby, we can go look if you want?” You nod in agreement. Shortly after, Renjun shows up followed by Sungchan.

Renjun asks, “What are you guys up to?”

You respond, “We were thinking of trying to find a gift shop somewhere nearby to pick up some souvenirs, wanna come?” Renjun agrees, then looks to Sungchan. “I’m down for anything as long as we can eat after,” he replies.

With that, Xiaojun takes on the responsibility of finding a place nearby. Once you arrive, the store says it’s a “gift store” but inside are not the museum keepsakes one might expect. Instead, there are a bunch of knick knacks and jewelry. But you all agree that you’ve made it this far and might as well check it out.

You wander through the scarves and stuffed toys before turning around and discovering the jewelry behind you. Renjun reaches out to a pair of earrings that had caught your eye and hold them up to the side of your face.

“How are they?” you ask.

“Really pretty! You should get these,” he says. You take them from his hand and check the price. It’s a little more than you want to spend and you think that you’d better save your money to buy gifts for your family or friends instead of yourself.

“They cost a little too much. Shame. They’re very pretty.” Renjun simply smiles in response with understanding. You don’t have much time to be upset before you’re distracted by a call from Johnny asking where you are.

“I’ve tried calling Sungchan AND Xiaojun AND Renjun. Jaehyun and I already left the museum,” he says on the other end of the line.

“We did too. We’re at a gift store right now but I think we’re going to go for food soon,” Sungchan interjects with agreement in the distance, “Want to just meet us there?”

“Sure.”

“Any ideas on where to eat?”

“Yeah, Jae and I found a spot we want to try out. I’ll send you the address.”

“Great. See you there,” you say before ending the call and rounding up the gang before making your way to the restaurant.

Masterlist

//Author's Note: Sorry for the long wait. I'm in grad school now so updates will take a while. But, I haven't given up on the series yet so let's keep it going y'all!

[nettlestonenell]

Armie Hammer wants a sequel to The Man From U.N.C.L.E.—shouldn’t you?

This post is a long time in coming, Gentle Readers and @jammeke​, but now, though it might be here, before your very eyes, to think it will be well-laid out would be a mistake. It’s set to be just about as messy as Ilya’s misplaced loyalties and murky motivations.

How dare!

I probably first watched this film well over a year ago (courtesy @jammeke​ posting things about it). I used Sling OnDemand (I think on TNT). In the ensuing viewings I also watched it in that way, but as I was sitting down for a fourth(?) viewing, it kept coming to me that I was tired of watching it with commercials I couldn’t skip, and I had a sneaking suspicion that it had been edited for time and I was missing out on scenes. [pointless aside: I was also watching the film in chunks, and never as a whole]

Where is she now? What’s the time stamp? How far along did she get? Are you shagging the hotel hostess yet?

So, I, uh, set out to buy it on DVD—without any luck! In the sense that copies I could find cost more (w/ shipping) than buying it to stream. So, I bought it to stream on Amazon. Do I regret my choice, Gentle Readers? No, no I don’t. I do regret burden of knowledge in learning that TNT was already playing the entirety of the film. That was a hard pill to swallow.

Nope, I’ve looked. That’s absolutely everything. Nothing additional lurking around here...

So here it is, as it is, @jammeke, “My Notes on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”

Look, I don’t know what this film is. I probably can’t fully articulate its appeal. Or maybe I can--certainly after transcribing four page I’ve tried. Number One thing to know about me and fiction/films is that a top draw for me is seeing something out of the ordinary, such as beautiful locations, a historical era, delicious costumes. There are times, frankly, this can trump weak story and undefined character for me. (The best films, of course, combine all three) Certainly, The Man... delivers in the delight of the eyes. Additionally, I must confess that growing up as a person older than @reblogginhood​ but younger than Miss Fisher, so much of what was on TV was essentially reruns of this film’s iconic Look(tm). So, when I see women dressed like Gaby I am just another three-to-seven-year-old overcome with the drop dead glamour of it all.

Darling, tell me how you really feel...

Some questions I have:

·         IS Armie Hammer a hulk of a man? Everyone in this film seems to think so, yet he always tracks to me as trim (rather than hulking)

·         Why translate via captions some Russian speaking, but not all?

·         IS Napoleon’s backstory directly cribbed from USA’s White Collar?

·         DOES Gaby have a German accent?

·         Does Ilya get preternaturally attached to all the people he’s ordered to look after? Also, what is his bonding rate with kittens?

Sorry, wrong iteration. 

 ·         If Lady Villain knows the lens is wrong—if her technical understanding is that in-depth--does she really need Gaby’s dad to make the bomb?

·         How old was Gaby during the war?

·         What happens when Ilya gets a NEW puppy assigned to him? (please let this be addressed in film #2)

Hooray for:

·         That bathroom fight! *all the Burn Notice feels!

·         Gaby is her own lady, and chooses sides as necessary—not always unilateral in her support for either male character. Case in point: she sides with Ilya over the clothes, and Napoleon over the incident of the wallet.

·         That delicious (speaking as Rusty, here) Ocean’s 11-stylized action. It’s pretty, so I’m not bored with it. Sometimes a sandwiched montage gets shown, so I’m REALLY not bored. I’ve got 18 tiny moving boxes of things to look at!

·         Pinkie rings. There, you’ve told me everything I need to know about that character.

·         Solo in a beret. English has not yet found a word for the feeling it evoked in this viewer. Somewhere between ‘precious’ and ‘oh, no’.

See, there? Now you’ve felt it too.

·         Goggles! All the accessories! Dune Buggies! (I mean, that’s what I’m calling Napoleon’s chase-scene ride)

Things I adore:

·         It seems (after some research) that more than a few folks view Gaby as a third wheel, and though she’s not exactly a Princess Leia commandeering her own rescue and exuding competence and a deserved take-charge-attitude at every corner, she IS a foci for both male characters (though romantically it would seem only for one), just as Ilya is a foci for both her and Napoleon [no one seems to worry about Napoleon, though they should--film #2, anyone?]

·         Mechanic Gaby not needing a beauty makeover, or being dragged into one. She gets some nice clothes, but it’s never suggested that she’s not attractive or acceptable before putting them on, and I respect, nay, embrace it.

Oh, my heart. She’s still not as tall as them!

·         Ilya, drab pigeon Ilya, knowing fashion

·         Oh man, don’t even get me started on the power of the statement, “it doesn’t have to match”

·         You knew it was coming on this sublist: the wrestle-fight. I mean, c’mon. Poor little Gaby, locked behind the Iron Curtain, living a life of always being watched. She’s in the swankest hotel (I mean, Napoleon chose it, so we can be sure it’s swank with an E). She’s trying to celebrate her freedom, her liberation. She’s playing verboten music, she’s drinking to excess. Girl wants—and deserves—a party. And Ilya is…not built for that (that he knows of). For some fun, just imagine if she had been given Napoleon to room with instead.

                            o   I will say that this scene, and some of their other interactions have what I would call early (non-sibling) Luke and Leia energy. Ilya seems to have moments of being struck by Gaby in a way Luke is struck by Leia in the early part of the trilogy. When Leia takes charge, and Luke accepts it. When Leia does something incredible, and Luke is left open-mouthed. *no, I don’t see OT Star Wars in everything. Shut up.

·         “He fixed the glitch.”

·         Again, shout-out to the non-action action.

·         “I left my jacket in there.”

·         The whole race to rescue Gaby I am in love with beyond words. [I have noted it as “Crazy Jeep Drive with Warhead!”] Probably b/c it comes across as totally egalitarian. Both men want her rescued. They’re no longer in competition. It’s just as important to Napoleon as it is to Ilya to catch up to her. Also, it is bonkers, like some sort of X-games version of a commercial for the vehicles they’re driving. And screaming Willie Scott does not make an appearance.

         Someone says “winkle” out.

·         Look! Another note about the screen divisions and how I love it, shout-outs to the original Steve McQueen The Thomas Crown Affair (a contemporary of when this movie is meant to be set), and TV’s 24.

Things that get a great, big NOPE:

·         Jerrod Harris: you’ve been in so much streamable content in the last decade I can’t hate you, but frankly, you’re terrible here—unless you’re supposed to be giving a mannered, not-campy-enough-to-be-enjoyable performance here. Your American English puts me in the mind of Alex Hawaii 5-0′Loughlin where it feels you’re concentrating so hard on your accent that you fail to convince anyone that you’re a harried, over-worked and exasperated spy handler. Your performance is at odds with every bit of dialogue you’re given to say.

·         That awful, mishandled title that doesn’t even connect to the film until the final moments (a sequel set-up, for sure)

·         Look, you don’t introduce Hugh Grant casually mid-way through your film in a throwaway appearance. I mean, he’s HUGH GRANT we all know something’s up now.

·         This is not exactly a great big NOPE, b/c I love a flat cap, Tommy Shelby—but I feel like a less tall man with a far rounder face in a flat cap would track more as Russian to me that AH does. To me, he just looks like he’s about to go golfing.

Over par? Unacceptable!

·         Is Victoria a British-accented Italian? A British woman who married—what? Gaby’s uncle isn’t Italian!? An Italian who went to school in Britain? My head hurts. Also, is her hair meant to be unconvincingly bleached?

Other commentary:

·         Napoleon’s adult ne’er-do-well backstory is so far from being emotionally equivalent to Ilya’s childhood trauma [and his enslavement to the USSR] it seems bestial when he calls it out on multiple occasions. Badly done, Solo.

·         Gaby is the film’s key (sorry, Buffy fans). Everyone is connected to her. Yes, she could have been given a bit more on the character front, but I don’t see her as as much of a flaw in the film as some others/reviewers seem to.

·         Look, essentially (and not very nuanced-ly), Ilya is a stalker. I think the film goes a certain distance in establishing that his early behavior toward Gaby is not normal, but concurrently it does not truly call him out on it. He’s essentially viewed as an odd-duck, sure, but not a true threat to her (should she not reciprocate or tolerate his intensity toward her). I think I might be able to cite his behavior when Gaby comes on to him (that he doesn’t jump at a chance with her) that maybe he’s given a little more nuance than a straight-on stalker, and it helps that he and Napoleon never get into a pissing match over Gaby’s person, only over her new clothes. But overall the film has to walk a fine line (and the jury is still out on how successful it is, I’d say) between playing Ilya’s laser-like attention to Gaby for its humor, and calling it out for the unsettling, threatening behavior it is.

·         Honestly, it wasn’t until I engaged the Closed Captioning that I understood Napoleon was calling Ilya the ‘Red Peril’. So, that was nearly three viewings in.

·         I give the screen credits A+, on both ends. Not to mention the end credits are actually INTERESTING with lots to see and learn! (Certainly we learn more about HG in them than we do at any time during the film)

Things I would have liked:

·         More of fish-out-of-the-Iron-Curtain Gaby moments

·         A better dichotomy shown of East vs. West Berlin/Germany. There’s nothing easy either visually or otherwise to distinguish the two.

·         HC being given a more specific American accent (from an actual locality). This, for an American viewer, works better than the flat, unlocated American accent many a British actor will bust out. *Mind you, HC does a generally good job, but he fails utterly on both “Immediate” which he pronounces at least twice as “immeedeejt” [rather than imm-E-deeot] and “Nazi” as “NAHT-zee” [rather than “NOT-zee”]. And let’s not get started on that late in the film use of ‘earnt’, a word that—well, it’s just not in the American English twentieth century lexicon.

·         C’mon. You gotta tease the Hugh Grant more.

·         Solo is a blank before the war. I’ve read thoughts on the film calling out Gaby as the blank character, but they’re wrong. Solo is the blank. He’s the ‘made’ man, his identity seemingly assembled during the war and after. For example, he doesn’t go into the war a thief, nor (it would seem) a particularly educated or urbane individual. Now THAT’s a juicy backstory I’d love to learn about, perhaps in film #2--or #3? What creates a Napoleon Solo? What would he be doing if he weren’t on the government’s leash/incarcerated? Is anyone left caring about him back wherever he calls home? I mean, who doesn’t love a gender-flipped 60s-era Holly Golightly backstory? [And yes, I would love there to be an ex-wife or even a current wife mixed up in his origins as well—Guy Ritchie, call me!]

Notes I have that I’m not sure if they still make sense to me:

·         Only mom calls me Napoleon (do he say it ‘mum’?) Is he a secret Canadian?

·         Solo’s torture, 1st view recall Napoleon’s childhood? *I think this means that after watching the first time I somehow erroneously believed that during the torture Napoleon’s childhood was a topic gone over. This was wrong. HOWEVER, this would have made far more story-sense than the backstory we’re given on an easily disposeable villain.

·         “Even the average Russian agent. You’re special.” ?

·         Uncle is Baddie (*so glad I made this note to myself)

·         Ilya’s dad IS an embarrassment. I’m not sure what genius commentary I had in my mind, here. Perhaps that Ilya himself is embarrassed of him? Not just Ilya’s handler’s? [Also, aside: Napoleon totally slut-shames Ilya’s mom, which is the doublest of double standards from ‘I got myself the biggest and most ornate suite b/c I-wanted-plenty-of-space-for-my-random-seductions’ and I really wish Ilya had thrown that back in his face] *yes, of course I know that Ilya and Napoleon would not likely equate a wife/mother’s sexual exploits with that of Solo’s, but let’s be honest, this film tweaks the nose of (I won’t say reverses, it doesn’t go that far) plenty of tropes and gender expectations, and this certainly seems like a missed opportunity to call Solo on the carpet (which I hope film #2 does far more)

Things I wrote down so long ago I don’t recall what they mean:

·         CC-save

In conclusion:

What does film #2 look like? What title does it get? Will the Peter/Neil White Collar dynamic continue to grow? *note that I have no confidence a second film will ever come to pass...

In the end, all I know is, “It didn't help when American Tom Cruise, who was slated to play U.S. spy Napoleon Solo, dropped out, prompting the casting of Cavill (who had previously read for the Russian role).“ I would not have watched that film.

[jdevyn]

AU! IkeRev Suitors in a KPOP Group! HCS

Because while I was making the Just Do It Lyric video if Blanc, Oliver and Kyle were to sing it had me thinking if they were part of a subunit, what the actual group would be like... 

(I wanted to do a super group and have all of the suitors in one big group but it was too much to try and make facts for all of them so I handpicked my own suitors I would put in a group together. They are listed in order of oldest to youngest for this AU)

Stage name: Lance Real name: Lancelot Kingsley Position: Leader, Lead Rapper, Sub Vocalist, Producer Nationality: Korean-Taiwanese

Has trained the longest out of the everyone in the group with 6 years

Has also known Harr the longest amongst the members

Although he is half Taiwanese he only speaks Korean

Is known for his amazing charisma on stage, however off stage he is very quiet and actually very clumsy. One time after their comeback stage as they were exiting he walked into one of the floating cameras

In a Dingo interview when asked who was the most troublesome member he said Oliver. "Mmm... He might be the most troublesome but... He takes care of the other members well."

He produces the group's songs, and often co-writes music with Harr

He is very shy with people he doesn't know very well

He gets very competitive when they play games, and if they can choose partners he will normally choose Jonah who is just as competitive, so that he can win

All the members agree that he is the best listener and they can go to him if they have any problems

He is good friends with Bang Chan from Stray Kids

Currently shares a dorm with Fenrir and Jonah

Stage name: Blanc Real name: Blanc Lapin Position: Lead Rapper, Lead Vocalist Nationality: Chinese

He is known as the mother of the group 

He is also known as the gentleman of the group by the fans 

He is fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese, his Korean is actually a lot better than he gives himself credit for

He is known for his signature deep voiced raps

Actually has a really good singing voice which surprised a lot of fans when he first sung an a song

He trained for 4 years before debut

He is closest with Kyle and Oliver. Kyle approached him first as he was able to speak Mandarin to him. "I was really happy when Kyle spoke to me in mandarin when I first joined. I was really nervous my Korean wouldn't be understandable."

Oliver makes fun of his Korean when he can though, and sometimes teaches him the wrong meanings to some words

He is the leader of the subunit with Kyle and Oliver

He is good friends with Jackson from GOT7 and Lucas from NCT

Currently shares a dorm with Oliver

Stage name: Joker Real name: Harr Silver Position: Main vocalist Nationality: Korean

He was forced by his friend to audition because he has such an amazing voice

He actually failed several auditions before he was accepted

He actually didn’t want to pursue any more auditions. “My friend, he kept pushing me to keep auditioning. He would help me with the critiques I got so I could better polish them for the next audition. If it wasn’t for him, I really wouldn’t be here.” 

When asked if he was still in contact with this friend he said he was “He’s self declared himself as my number one fan. (Laughs) He’s really crazy, I honestly feel like he would be better suited in an idol group. He has red hair and amazing visuals.”

He still gets very nervous performing in front of a crowd. He was once criticised that he was lacking in his dance and stage presence in the  comeback they were doing in an interview once. This made Jonah mad who is also the group’s other main vocals, "I would like to hear you sing as well as him then." Jonah got reprimanded by Lance soon after the interview

Learning choreography is hard for him, he is always the last to leave the dance studio, luckily for him Oliver always stays to help him out

He writes, and composes some of the groups songs along with Lance

He is good friends with Hwasa of MAMAMOO whom he looks up to for her stage presence and singing

Currently shares a dorm with Seth and Kyle

Stage name: Oliver Real name: Oliver Knight Position: Main dancer, Lead Vocalist, Visual Nationality: British

Born in London

1/2 of English line

Speaks English, Korean, Cantonese and Mandarin fluently. He is currently learning Japanese with Kyle

He was scouted when he was 12 when a video of him dancing went viral

Was a YG trainee

Is an overall well rounded idol, he can sing, dance, and rap

He is actually a very good singer and originally joined to be a main vocalist, however they needed a main dancer and his position was switched

Is pretty active on his Instagram often posting pranks he pulls on the other members

He is often thought to be a fairly quiet person, however he is the most playful, and when people get to know him they say his visuals and personality don't match at all

He likes to collect teas from the places they tour

He is good friends with Kai from EXO and Woozi from SEVENTEEN (Woozi: "... This greedy guy, share your height with me.")

Currently shares a dorm with Blanc

Stage name: G.SPEED Real name: Fenrir Godspeed Position: Main Rapper, Sub Vocalist, Face of the Group Nationality: Korean American

He is the group's mood maker

2/2 of English line

He was born in Los Angeles

He was scouted at the mall

Passed his audition with his vocals, but he ended up really loving rapping

He along with Seth appear the most on talk shows to promote the group

Amongst the group he does the most V-LIVES. Sometimes when he appears with Oliver they both speak English for the international fans. Kyle also sometimes joins them as he is trying to polish his English

His idol is G-Dragon

Has the most energy on stage and is often the one yelling SORI JILLUH!!!! (Make some noise!!!!!)

He was voted as the most ambitious of the group always wanting to do a different stage for the fans

Friends with Bobby from iKon

Currently shares a dorm with Lance, and Jonah

Stage name: Seth (Stylized as SETH✩) Real name: Seth Hyde Position: Lead vocalist, Lead dancer, Visual, Sub Rapper Nationality: Korean

He is the official visual of the group

He skipped school to audition

He did not get along with Oliver when they first met. They get along much better now and fans consider them adoring frenemies. They often get competitive against each other, however if they are on the same team for games they actually get along scarily well for the sake of winning

They once almost had a full blown fist fight when during dance practice Seth had really accidentally extended his leg too far and tripped Oliver

Lance had to intervene to calm the two

Now they often reenact the moment during fansigns for laughs

When asked if he would ever cut his hair, he said “It’s my charm point don’t you think?”

He said he would consider cutting his hair for a comeback, MAYBE

He is friends with a lot girl idols including YooA from Oh My Girl, Miyeon from (G)I-DLE and CHUNG HA

Currently sharing a dorm with Harr and Kyle

Stage name: Kyle Real name: Kyle Ash Position: Main Rapper, Lead Dancer, Sub Vocalist Nationality: Korean

Fluent in Korean, Mandarin, and getting very good at English. He is also learning Japanese with Oliver. His reason for learning is actually because he loves anime

He is extremely intelligent, with an IQ of 155

He originally was planning to study to become a doctor after high school 

He auditioned on a dare but he passed

He became friends with Jeonghan of SEVENTEEN during Idol Olympics when he went searching for a quiet place to nap between events, and he found Jeonghan napping in the space he was going to

He is also close friends with Vernon of SEVENTEEN

He is often praised for his rap flow and writing

He is currently learning the guitar in his spare time

He says he is envious of Oliver’s dress sense, “Oliver hyung always dresses so well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in just a t-shirt.”

He really admires Seth’s fashion sense even if he annoys him, “Ahh it’s annoying... Seth hyung always is on trend.”

Currently shares a dorm with Harr and Seth

Stage Name: Jonah Real name: Jonah Clemence Psoition: Main vocalist, Visual, Maknae Nationality: Taiwanese

His parents originally wouldn't let him audition, but he kept singing late into the night and would annoying them all day until they caved and said he could audition. He ended up being the only one who passed the auditions

He is currently starring in a Korean drama

He is a huge fan of Girls’ Generation Taeyon

He is actually really good at aegyo, but is really shy to do it

Has a younger brother named Luka

Seth told a story of how whenever Jonah would talk about Luka on a talk show Luka would always text him right away saying, “STUPID HYUNG DON'T TALK ABOUT ME!!”

The interviewers laughed, and asked if Luka actually calls his brother stupid and the whole group was like, YES!!

Jonah completely missed the point though and he was just overjoyed that his younger brother watched him on TV

He is the maknae of the group however he hates it and all the other members make fun of him for this especially Seth

He is friends with Jungkook from BTS and Eunwoo from Astro

Currently shares a room with Lance and Fenrir

[artificialqueens]

Praise Me Up (Gigi x Nicky) - moonshot

A/N: moonshot here! thank you for the anon who suggested the gigi/nicky rivarly prompt! I had so much fun writing this, basically 4.1k words of Nicky driving Gigi insane while some of the season 12 (and some special guests) are in for the ride! Please feel free to let me know what you think of it! - moonshot

 Gigi knew she was the perfect candidate for the promotion. That was until she found out Nicky Doll, the infuriatingly stunning model-tier beauty from the French branch of the company and recently had moved to NYC, was also being considered for said promotion.

-

Gigi knew she was the perfect candidate for the promotion. That was until she found out Nicky Doll, the infuriatingly stunning model-tier beauty from the French branch of the company and recently had moved to NYC, was also being considered for said promotion.

At first, she wasn’t bothered at all when Nicky came to the office permanently. One could say she was almost excited to have someone else so verse in high fashion, as the older blonde had worked for the lengths of Vogue Paris. Gigi had always thought that the foreign woman would bring an added layer to their already impressive fashion editorial.

That was until Gigi realized how much alike they really were, flaws and all.

And the realization came pretty much during the first time she was officially introduced to Nicolette Doll .

The American blonde was well known around her office for being an avid make-up enthusiast thanks to her former job as a make-up artist prior to joining Needles & Co., arguably the most notable fashion editorial in the nation, the year before, so it was almost a given that her colleagues would ask her for advice, especially Heidi from the Closet.

Cue to her blonde wannabe-Broadway star Jan calling Gigi over to her desk to ask for advice for a special night out with her girlfriend.

“Gigiiii, you have to help me! I don’t know which lipstick to match with my eye look for tonight! It’s Jackie and mine’s anniversary, I can’t do my usual nude lip, I want something more… fancy?” The New Jersey woman pouted, half whispering not to have said girlfriend hear the conversation from the desk booth down the row.

“What’s the eye makeup you’re going with? The usual purple, lilac moment?”

Jan nodded, “Yeah, you know me. Do you have something in mind that could work with that?”

Gigi stood quiet for a moment, her mind running through all the various possible combinations, “Well, I would go with a-”

She was interrupted by a sultry accented voice, “I’d suggest a dark nude color with some coral undertones, I got one from MAC, it’s called Stone, I can let you borrow it if you want”.

The long-haired blonde squealed in joy, “Oh my god, that would be great, Nicky. You’re a lifesaver!”

The fashionista turned around to see who was the supposed ‘live saver’. She was met with the brightest icy blue eyes she had ever seen, framed by an impeccable soft smokey eye. A pair of pouty lips accentuated by a fiery red lipstick smiled at her in an almost mischievous way. Short blonde hair, perfectly styled, completed the editorial worthy look.

“I don’t believe we have met before,” she extended her hand, covered by a sheer black glove, “Nicolette Doll,” the French woman squared off Gigi’s slender figure from head to toe, “you can call me Nicky. I got transferred here last week. Genevive Goode, I suppose? I heard a lot about you from the others”.

Gigi shook her hand firmly, a fake smile on her face, how much she hated when people used her first full name, “Yeah, that would be me. Gigi is fine. If I’m not mistaken you have worked for Vogue Paris, right?”

“You’d be correct, it’s thanks to Miss Chachki’s kind words on my behalf that I was able to get a position in this editorial. I’m sure you’ve heard of her”.

Of course , Gigi had heard of the legendary Violet Chachki, her idol ever since she had found her passion for fashion.

“I sure have,” the younger woman didn’t let any of her inner discontent come through on her face as she continued to speak, “well, I hope you are finding our office to your liking”.

Nicky smiled back, a glimpse of something Gigi couldn’t quite understand in her gaze, “So far I’m liking what I’m seeing, chérie,” she commented, quickly turning to Jan to let her know to remember to give her the lipstick before her attention went back to the blonde in front of her,  “I can’t wait to work with you, miss Goode”.

“Likewise,” Gigi simply replied as she watched the French woman walk down the room to what she assumed was her new desk.

She was definitely not looking forward to working with Nicky.

As the months went by, what was driving Gigi insane was the fact that, besides herself, everyone seemingly beamed after the French beauty.

Jan - and Jackie by proxy - had already gone out multiple times to the karaoke bar down the street from their office with the blonde woman, only to have them talk about it the following day while they sipped on their steaming cups of coffee. Gigi had learned that Nicky was not only gorgeous but also a phenomenal singer because of course, she was.

The older blonde had become Jaida’s, her desk neighbor, go-to party girl for the free drinks Friday nights at the local queer club. A position that use to be Gigi ’s. Granted that the dark-skinned beauty still asked her to come out with them but never in a million years the young fashionista was going to get caught going to the club when Nicky was also involved.

Hell, even her own best friend, Crystal, had grown fond of the foreign woman, much to Gigi’s displeasure.

“Oh, c’mon! She isn’t that bad at all! She actually complimented my makeup!” She proclaimed excitedly, twirling a long strand of her brown mullet around her index finger.

Gigi looked up from the stylized drawing of her latest dress idea with furrowed brows, “Crystal, she said you look pretty for someone who paints like a clown ”.

The brown-haired woman’s expression didn’t change, if anything, her smile had just gotten bigger, “Still, she said I’m pretty!”

“Ugh!” the blonde went back to her drawing, mindlessly filling in the drawing.

“Honestly, Gi… you should give her a chance. You two have a lot in common!”

“That’s the problem! It’s basically like looking at a copy of me! I bet you that if I shaved my head, she would come in the next day sporting a bald head and call it being avant-garde!”

Jaida butted into the conversation, having just come back from the bathroom, “Girl, don’t you dare go bald. That Halloween look as that damn robot still haunts my nightmares,” she added from behind the sitting blonde before taking a closer look at Gigi’s drawing, and chuckled, “Nice drawing of Frenchie”.

“What?” The young blonde looked down at her drawing, this time paying attention to what she had drawn. It did look an awful lot like a stylized version of Nicky.

“Fuck!” She whined out, quickly crumpling the drawing and tossing it to the other side of the office.

It was as if the universe was against her when the piece of paper landed just in front of Nicky as she walked into the room. She bent over and picked it up, quietly examining the drawing. She swayed her hips as she walked towards the trio, a smirk on her face.

“Chérie, if you wanted me to model for you, you could have just asked,” she said with a wink before walking to her desk, prompting a laugh from Gigi’s two close friends.

The fashionista groaned loudly, a blushing creeping on her, “I hate everyone!”

Thinking back to the day when Miss Needles called into her private office on the 12th floor, Gigi knew something was up when she was forced to share the elevator with Nicky on the way up. She was tempted to close the door on the older woman but she had been too slow. What a pity.

“Which floor?”

“12th”.

Gigi tensed her jaw for a moment as she pushed the button before resting her back on the wall. The ride was awkwardly silent, neither of them thrilled to strike up a conversation as they went up.

“ Toi t'es bon qu'à planer, ouais je sens t'as l'seum, j'ai l'avocat ”.

The older blonde has seemingly had enough of the silence as she quietly sang in what Gigi assumed was French. She would never admit Nicky’s singing was actually as good as Jan had boasted her to be.

“ Entre nous y'a un fossé, toi t'es bon qu'à faire la mala ,” the French ran a hand in her short blonde hair, eyes closed as she waited, that smirk Gigi detested flashing on her lips.

Before Gigi could say anything, the familiar sound of the elevator doors opening filled the small space. Nicky gestured to her to go out first, “After you, chéri”.

The younger blonde scoffed, quickly exiting the elevator and making her way to the door of her boss’ office, not waiting for the older woman.

She gently knocked three times and waited for a reply.

“Come in”

How she was tempted to close the door on Nicky’s face, again.

Gigi entered the office to find Miss Needles standing up, looking out the window to the New York skyline. The statuesque woman turned around with a bright smile on her face that surely contrasted with the intense sharp makeup she was wearing.

Working for Aquaria Needles had been a pleasant surprise for the young fashionista. She was a little over a year older than Gigi and yet, at 24, after working in her teen years as a runway model, she had already taken over her mother’s role as editor in chief while the matriarch of the Needles family had decided to step down from the spotlight for a while.

Gigi had gathered quite the respect for Aquaria, who was truly a 180° from her stoic, almost spook-inducing mother, Sharon. However, she knew not to get on her bad side as she was still a Needles, after all.

“Oh! You’re both here already, that makes my job much easier as I can explain myself just once,” she started as she sat down in the expensive-looking faux leather chair, “please take a seat, we have a lot to discuss here!”

The two fashion queens of the office sat down, keeping their bodies as far from each other as possible, neither really trying to hide their discontent for each other.

“So, as both of you know, May is coming up and so is our annual special issue for the Met Gala. Now, I’ve been keeping an eye on both of you as you two are our best designers,” Aquaria continued, her bright blue eyes staring intently to the two women sitting in front of her, “Miss Hytes-Mateo has recently announced that she is transferring to our branch in LA in a couple of months time, which means the position of creative director will need to be filled up”.

Gigi’s eyes widened, which had been the promotion she had been looking up to ever since joining the team as a mere intern two years prior. She had to have that.

“And this is where you two come into play, for the next month leading up to our May issue, I’ll be regularly checking with both you two and Brooke Lynn to determine who is the best candidate for the position once she’s gone. Have I made myself clear?” Aquaria finished up, waiting for a reaction from either of them.

Nicky was the first one to speak up, “It’s an honor to be even considered for such position, Miss Needles”

The editor in chief smiled, her hand waving in front of her, “oh please, you can call me Aquaria, Miss Needles reminds me too much of my mom. Anything you’d like to add, Gigi?”

“I’ll make sure to show you that I’m the perfect candidate for this promotion,” the younger woman replied, she wasn’t going to let that French blonde take her spot.

“If you don’t have any question, I think we can call it a-”

Aquaria was interrupted by the door opening. The two designers turned around to see a short petite woman peeking in the room, her long blonde hair perfectly framing her face.

“Sorry to interrupt, Miss Needles but your mother just called and wanted to remind you that she is expecting you to have lunch with her tomorrow at noon,” the woman said with a soft voice.

Gigi turned back to the editor in chief, not failing to notice the blushing cheeks on the young woman’s face. Everyone around the office knew about Aquaria’s crush for her assistant, Miss Heller (she could still hear Widow’s voice, “It must run in the family! Didn’t her mother meet her current fiancé because the woman worked for her? Miss Thunder, was it?”).

“O-Oh okay, thank you for reminding me… but I told you to call me Aquaria, Brianna”.

“And I told you, as much as I want to, your mother won’t let me, Miss Needles,” she replied playfully before turning her attention to Gigi and Nicky, finally noticing the duo, “oh, sorry for the interruption. Goodbye!”

She closed the door behind her, leaving a quiet Aquaria, staring at the door.

After a minute of silence, Nicky cleared her throat, waking Aquaria up from her own thoughts.

“Yeah, yeah okay work, we are done here! Both of you, enjoy your day. I’ll be sure to let Brooke Lynn know you are ready to start,” the editor excused them, turning her chair around to, once again, stare at the beautiful skyline.

The two designers exited the editor’s office in silence, walking up to the elevator. Gigi nervously tapped her foot as they were descending back to their floor.

As they reached their floor, she felt a hand grab her wrist, “may the best woman win, chérie”

That was the only thing Nicky said before leaving Gigi alone.

She sure planned on winning.

For the following month, if Gigi had thought Nicky was insufferable before, now that they were officially competing against each other, the French woman was downright perfect in everything she did. Nicky with her stupidly gorgeous frame, impeccable style, and sultry voice. And those sheer gloves, those goddamn gloves.

If Gigi did something that earned her praises from Brooke Lynn, there would come Nicky Doll with something that was just that much more innovative, bringing the spotlight on herself. It was driving Gigi insane. The younger blonde was desperate to find something, anything , that she could use against the older woman.

The young blonde sat quietly as she elaborated her next move to bring Nicky down, her close friends chit-chatting next to her.

“Girl, I think y’all two should just fuck it out!”

Gigi rolled her eyes at Jaida’s suggestion for the nth time. Everyone in her friend group had caught onto the fact that she despised the French designer and mercilessly teased her about it.

“Not this again! I don’t like her, Jaida,” she replied with a dead-pan voice.

“Who said anything about liking her? You can cut the sexual tension between the two of you with a goddamn butter knife!” Widow commented with a knowing look, the blonde promptly ignored it.

“Bet 20$ y’all fuck by the end of the month,” Jaida announced, getting a laugh out of the Missouri women.

“I bet 30$ they fuck by the end of the week ,” Widow added, always in to poke fun at the young tall fashionista.

“Oh God! Fuck you both!”

“Chile, girl, save that for Frenchie over there,” the dark-skinned beauty chuckled out.

Gigi simply rolled her eyes again, her attention shifting its focus from the conversation to a particular blonde that was standing across the room from her.

She furrowed her brows. She hadn’t realized that Brooke Lynn had come down to their floor. Nicky was talking to her with a smirk on her face. Something she had told must have been so funny as the Canadian laughed out loud. The French woman touched the taller woman’s arm and it looked like she was… flirting ?

The younger designer inhaled sharply. How dare she?

Gigi quickly got up from her seat, ignoring the confused looks on her colleagues’ faces. She walked over where the two women had been talking, clearing her throat before speaking up.

“ So sorry to interrupt but may I have a word with Miss Doll right now? It’s urgent,” she faked a smile but it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Oh, sure. We’re done here anyway. Thank you so much, Nicky. I’ll reserve a table at that restaurant then. Have a good rest of the day you two” The tall Canadian replied before making her way to the elevator.

Gigi didn’t lose any time as she grabbed the older woman’s wrist and walked both of them to the nearest free storage room, closing and locking the door behind her. If they were going to talk, she didn’t want anyone interrupting them.

“What the fuck do you think you are doing? You flirt too now? Is that what they teach you in France?” the young fashionista’s voice fully expressing her anger.

For the first time since they had met, Nicky was speechless and confused, “ Pardon ?”

Gigi scoffed, “Oh, now you play dumb? Do you think I didn’t see you flirting with Brooke Lynn just a minute ago, getting all touchy? Talking about going out to restaurants? Are you that desperate that you’re going to sleep with her for this promotion?” She let out all at once while the short-haired blonde stood in silence.

She had an unreadable expression on her face. She opted not to reply, instead, she slowly took off her gloves, placing them on one of the shelves.

“You are absolutely un-fucking-believable. I wasn’t flirting with her. If you had even just once got out of your head, you would have realized how desperate you sound right now,” she answered calmly, slowly walking up to Gigi, who was in return backing up, “She came up to me to ask for my opinion on which one was the best French restaurant in Manhattan, as she wanted to surprise her wife for their anniversary”.

The younger blonde gulped, suddenly feeling the tie around her neck suffocating. She found herself trapped between the wall next to the door and Nicky’s body, the distinct smell of her Chanel n°5 perfume going straight to Gigi’s head.

The French woman took her tie in her hand, toying with it as she further pressed their bodies together. She slid one of her thighs in between Gigi’s slender legs. The latter can’t help the soft moan that escapes her lips.

“You know what I really think of you, uh?” Nicky put her hand underneath Gigi’s chin, forcing her to look her in the eyes as she spoke, “You’re just a mommy’s girl, wanting to please everybody, having them say how much of a good girl you’ve been, isn’t it right?” The French woman let her hand down the younger girl’s body, reaching the single button on her blazer and unbuttoning it.

Gigi shivered as she felt the cold air hit her bare chest, Nicky’s warm hands making her feel even more the temperature difference.

“That’s why you think you hate me, but, chérie, you’re just scared of me,” she continued, her slender fingers grazing on the erect nubs on her chest while her naked thigh pressed harder against the clothed core, “Scared that someone might be better than you and get that praise you desperately need. You want everyone to think you are this perfect little bitch who is better than everyone else. That facade doesn’t fool me, I see right through it. You still have so much more to learn, you have no idea, chérie”.

The younger woman whimpered as she felt Nicky’s lips press down hard and bite the pulse point on her neck, her knees almost giving out on her if it wasn’t for the older woman’s thigh keeping her in place. The short-haired blonde smirked as she traced the very evident mark she had just left with her tongue, her mouth slowly making her way up to Gigi’s ear.

“That’s for thinking I would sleep with Brooke Lynn for the promotion, salope ” she growled out before biting down on the earlobe. The American gasped loudly, inadvertently jerking her hips forward, causing even more friction between her center, covered by her favorite tailored pants, and Nicky’s thigh. She froze at how good it felt, something she hadn’t felt in months.

The French woman didn’t lose any time in pressing herself harder against Gigi’s body, her mouth ghosting over the younger woman, “Oh, won’t you look at that, uh? Fucking yourself on my thigh? That eager to prove you don’t need my hands,” she pinched one nipple and palmed roughly the other exposed mound, “or my mouth to come?” She taunted her, biting the other woman’s lower lip, “well, then, be my guest, chérie ”.

Gigi moaned as Nicky kissed her roughly, the short-haired woman’s hands never leaving her chest. The younger girl brought her arms around the other designer’s neck as her body started to rock her hips against Nicky, melting under her touch.

“If I knew it only took putting my thigh between your legs to shut your pretty mouth up, I would have done it the first day I came here,” the French woman mocked her as she focused on leaving more marks on Gigi’s pale skin, flushed by the pleasure she was receiving. She felt Nicky’s skirt ride up as she fastened her thrusts against the naked tanned skin.

“F-Fuck you ,” Gigi managed to let out only to be met by a laugh from Nicky.

“Already am, chérie,” she commented, as she left another hickey on Gigi’s sensitive spot on her neck.

As the friction got greater and as she grew hotter, Gigi could start to feel her heat and wetness seep through her pants, wetting Nicky’s skin in return.

“You’re so close, aren’t you? So desperate to come all over my thigh?”

The younger designer was at a loss of words, her heart pounding so loudly as she could feel herself being moments away from her release, she could only nod.

“Well, then, be the good girl you are and come for me. Let them hear how much of a salope you are for me, uh?” Nicky finally whispered in her ear, as she met Gigi’s thrusts.

The American woman gripped tight onto the other woman’s blouse, not caring if she was crumpling the fabric. The intense orgasm washed over her, her legs trembling, her breath hitching as she tried to recover.

Nicky backed off, looking down to the thigh that was now glistening with a light coat of sweat and Gigi’s wetness. She ran two fingers over it before bringing them up to her own mouth, keeping eye contact with a flustered Gigi as she licked them clean.

The younger designer was trying to catch her breath when she saw that same stare she had when they first met in Nicky’s eyes. The older blonde took a longing gaze all over Gigi’s still exposed skin.

She smirked, “À bientôt, chérie”

She took her sheer gloves off the shelf where she had placed them, quickly putting them back on before turning to unlock the door and left.

Gigi blinked a couple of times, trying to register what had just happened. She looked down on her own body, realizing she would have to change after the mess she did.

“ Fuck! ” she muttered before buttoning back up her blazer and making her way to convince Heidi from the Closet to let her change into one of the outfits they kept around for the magazine photoshoots.

She came back to her desk 20 minutes later, trying her best to look as if nothing had happened, which turned out downright impossible as soon as Jaida saw her.

“Hey, what’s with the midday outfit change… wait, is that what I think it is? Oh my god! Y’all did it!” she exclaimed in shock before turning to Crystal, who had walked over, “Damn it! Girl, you were right, they couldn’t last the day”.

The mullet-haired woman rejoiced, “Yay! 50 bucks for me!”

Gigi shot her a look, “Crystal?!? You betted against me too?!”

Her best friend shrugged her shoulders, “What? I need money to save up for the eventual future One Direction reunion because I KNOW it’s real!”

The young designer shook her head, she was never going to see the end of the teasing. She opened one of the desk’s drawers, grabbing her color correction palette and her favorite full coverage concealer.

As she worked her way around her now colorful neck, she looked up to meet Nicky’s icy blue eyes. She scoffed when the French blonde winked at her, however, the smirk on her own face betrayed her.

The American woman crossed her legs. It was just the beginning and Gigi knew it, but now she didn’t mind the competition. If anything, it added some French flavor to the plate.

But first, she had to google what the fuck did ‘salope’ meant.