#i definitely meant to go more over the actual episodes and events here

[kijosakka]

dramaturgy; celebrity manhunt, pre-london -- im going to make it easy on myself and skim through pre-london first, as the most divergence in this AU happens during and after the fact. part of pre-london is the pre-season itself, the celebrity manhunt special.

so action comes and goes, noah gets out of the season and remains as chris’ PA for the year break. in that time, months before it actually happens, chris finds out about the new season (with producer word both pushing for ‘more drama/engagement’ or smth along those lines, and *noahs actual involvement this time).

while something something contracts might prevent him from just outright telling noah, i’d imagine that he’d all but say there’s going to be a new season and heavily imply that noah wont be able to get out of it this time. not only that but he also implies that maybe noah should give opening up to people on the show a chance,, cause, yk, hes about to be stuck on a jet with them,, for weeks,,

of course, noah is pissed at first. but in so many weeks or whatever he begrudgingly accepts it and just resolves to throw it like usual. as for the ‘opening up to people’, he lands on owen.

owen was nice enough, genuine to a fault and the person least likely to use any of noahs bare slivers of vulnerability against him. hes safe.

[*noahs involvement within the show as something that the viewers are very interested in. he could be ratings gold and they know it.]

now im a little bit torn over the whole ‘chris’ assistant’ bit; similar to the awakeathon i would imagine it might just be missing entirely and he would be fired before the fact. or it could happen, as a way to give his on-screen character some information. as a ‘look everyone, i have Depth. stop prying into my life please’

either way, whatever. *total drama dirtbags show up, chris locks them out of the venue, they dont win any awards, bus chase etc.

^ note here, per usual noah comes off as his usual uncanny self around the cast. sierra is there as well, im sure thats Something for her. however he does take notice of one (1) alejandro burromuerto, recognizing him and focusing on him. < this comes back during introductions, where he notes his behavior towards the cast.

[*total drama dirtbags existed as the original ‘new TD season’ that noah found out about and worked on for a little bit before he finds out that it was not in fact a real show and a coverup for something else (a grab for an extra contestant for WT) < hence, he knows josé from interviews/auditions he helped with, but doesn’t know alejandro since he decided one brother was Enough]

^ and just for extra clarity on the TDD thing bc ive kind of muddled it, say noah finds out about dirtbags, helps out whatever. and then the news breaks that its a fake phish for a new contestant for an actual show — fine enough, he’s already behind the cameras, so he can just stay there, right?

no, actually. its kinda just slung at him that he has to be part of the cast (smth smth his job is threatened under ‘contractual obligation’ like its not wildly unconscionable). and he is soooo pissed off, so incredibly angry at the circumstances he’s landed himself in somehow.

< but he is aware that he cant just bottle everything up because it will spill over; chris said he needs something to his character, so maybe he can funnel his anger into playing the game a little more. as the most outlet he’ll get before he can throw it and just be done with the show entirely.

^ and then,,, alejandro.

while the actual events of pre-london remain largely unchanged, his dynamics are changed with the presence of four different variables: alejandro, izzy, owen, and sierra.

alejandro i’ll get into more later with a longer post detailing what they think of each other mutually, but im gna touch on alejandro a little; with picking off team victory and believing heather is the only person who’s noticed his facade, he just,, doesnt really distinguish noah as a threat worthy of focusing on.

^ throughout the game and the events of, he does single noah out as the most tolerable of all his teammates but doesnt offer much intrigue beyond that until *new york. (to note, he’s a lot more comfortable with [oblivious to??] noahs detachedness than the rest of the cast since that empty demeanor is p common among whatever diplomatic events hes been a part of)

izzy is someone who’s character i established mostly in the long post i had about her?? but it is worth mentioning now though that she does stick very close by to noah throughout her time on the show, and routinely interacts with him where most of the cast had given up trying altogether.

^ it builds,, a kind of rapport between her and noah?? in some way after the fact he’d recognize it as a nice, ‘i-want-to-know-more-about-you-and-also-befriend-you’ thing, but during he reacts more like a yowling cat tbh. he’s built up this reputation and facade that make people stay away from him, and now izzy wants to stick around him and threaten his defense mechanism? no thanks. (< further reasoning for why he belays insults towards her during WT under the guise of his own facade)

owen is a special case — in the bus chase before the season, noah took the time to sit by him and build up the proper beginnings of a friendship, which owen is thrilled about < during his time on island, owen was really fond of noahs quips and ‘just wished he would open up a bit more!!’,, he thinks some friends would b good for him and hes right

^ and again, owen is noahs safest option to 'endear' himself to the audience with a friend. hes so genuine and understanding of where noahs projected character falls flat, and like izzy keeps interacting and wants to interact with him where the rest of the cast gave up (and noah the person becomes very fond of owen and the reprieve their friendship offers him very quickly)

and finally,,, sierra. i actually want to talk more about the Audience as an entity in this AU in a later post and sierra ties into that heavily. as established, noah is the one cast member she just doesn't know anything about. of each blog she runs dedicated to each member of the show, his is the emptiest; the most baseless. being in proximity with the man of mystery is exciting!

^ noah still comes off as very uncanny valley to sierra and his detachedness is immediately clear. but the key difference to her and and cast is that she has the Audience perspective --- he's intriguing moreso than offputting. (and also theres definitely Something there about the meta-analysis of panopticon as an in-universe topic and how sierra would relate/connect that once it becomes clear to the cast why noah acts as he does)

[*new york (same time space as the aftermath?) as the moment when sierra prattles off information about the cast but comes up with nothing on noah that his own interest is piqued just a liitle bit, and he starts building a proper relationship up with noah as the straightmen to the cast. < also come after london is something he looks back on as a Hmm. moment wondering what noah knows about himself.

^ alejandro does believe their rapport is one-sided bc of his own facade, which i want to mention simply bc he's wrong. it is no-sided. both of them r faking.]

now getting to the episodes themselves -- minor changes/additions:

in the yukon, he doesn't try to cuddle bridgette

^ also in the yukon, he shivers less visibly than the cast (think when in cold weather you get those microtremors that really fucking hurt after a few seconds). this is only because it feeds into the android joke-turned-conspiracy for the folks watching on the aftermath set

in new york, he was not actually asleep in the carriage nor did he explicitly pretend to be. he just Kept Quiet when heather did her thing

in germany, he doesn't go up to alejandro when he falls off the platform, but he does prompt owen to ask something along a similar line [to his canon ones]

in the amazon, he's the one to point out owens absence

in paris, the line of 'this totally works on my dog' he changes to smth like 'totally works on dogs',, for his own exercise of privacy really

in the space of the jamaica aftermath, he again disappears from the rest of the cast à la playa des losers save for owen. owen gets a hello during mealtimes and hes the only one.

and finally, the episodes of 'significant' development with noahs intrigue in alejandro:

beginning before any real events of the show during introductions

^ kicked off in germany similarly to canon, emphasized by newfoundland and the grab for DJ's alliance

and cemented completely [his interest in unmasking him] in jamaica, continuing onward with london around when he discovers that alejandro is acting skittery towards him because of his own suspicions

[justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms]

Headcanons for @chantillymoon

This was really fun to do! I am currently up to episode 261 of One Piece (Water 7) so please keep that in mind while reading. Because I haven't officially met Brook yet, all of my headcanons are based on what I've read in fanfics and a bit of research so hopefully I'm not too far off.

Platonic headcanons on the rest of the Straw Hat crew can be found here!

Fandom: One Piece

Characters: Brook and Usopp x gn! Reader (separate and platonic)

I see Brook as someone who’s always got a song stuck in his head. And he’s going to make it everyone’s problem. But is it really a problem when he actually has the voice for it? Yes. Yes, it is. Especially when you’re listening to him humming the same part of that one song for the tenth time that day.

At the same time, he’s great to have around if you’ve got a song stuck in your head. Brook knows so many songs that you’d be hard pressed finding one he couldn’t sing for you. And if he doesn’t know the song, he’s pretty good at picking up tunes quickly.

Have sore muscles? Those bony fingers are great for digging into twisted muscles and sore spots. Brook may have gone through a lot because of his Devil Fruit but he’s glad he can do something with it to help his friends.

He’s got a surprisingly good eye for fashion…if he had eyes! In all seriousness, please take him with you next time you need to go shopping for clothes. Between him and Nami, you’ll get back to the ship with a whole new wardrobe full of amazing clothes that suit you perfectly.

Whether you’re quiet or talkative, Brook loves just being in your presence. If you’re on the quiet side, he likes the tranquillity of sitting in companionable silence with someone. And if you’re talkative, he enjoys listening to everything you have to say.

Similarly, Brook’s great to talk to if you want to get anything off your chest. He’s a good listener and won’t spread around anything you’ve told him unless he thinks it could harm the crew (even then, he’d most likely keep it secret for a while). He also gives really good advice.

Brook missed out on a lot during his time in the Florian Triangle so he enjoys having a younger friend to help bring him up to speed. That being said, he’s an absolute menace with the way he mixes slag from his era with modern day sayings. Think something along the lines of “oh, they know their onions, they're no noob” and "ok you cad, time to catch these hands".

If you want to learn how to play an instrument or sing, Brook is more than happy to help. He’s had decades of practice and, even though he’s a bit rusty at explaining things to others, he’s patient and dedicated to teaching you.

Everyone has that one artist friend. And Usopp definitely falls into that category. He’s constantly got a sketchbook with him and will draw anything and everything. If you’re also into art, you’ll definitely bond over that.

Will absolutely hid behind you in battle. Whether you’re taller than him or not, he feels comfortable enough around you to chose you as his hiding spot.

Makes up stories about your bravado and wild adventures as well. While the other straw hats might react badly to Usopp telling stories about them, even if they are meant to improve their reputation, he hopes you will react differently.

In the same manner, Usopp would love to practice his pre-battle speeches with you and get some feedback. He’s a theatre kid at heart but he needs someone he trusts to work on his lines with. As one of his closest friends (and someone hopefully less judgmental than Nami), you fit that description.

He is also the perfect person to tell you stories about the other straw hats, especially if you joined later. He’s an entertainer and, even if he exaggerates his role in events, you’re able to piece together their adventures to date.

Much like Brook, Usopp has a good eye for fashion, but more from the perspective of figuring out what colours and patterns go together. If you’re struggling to put together an outfit, he’s more than happy to give you his two cents worth.

Gossip buddies! If you like gossip or have a way of knowing things about people, you, Usopp, and Nami are the designated “gossip squad” of the straw hats. Usopp is always a good source of information, even if he tends to embellish sometimes.

If you have long hair and don’t feel like tying it up, Usopp should be your first port of call. Sure, Sanji’s amazing with styling hair but he’s usually busy in the kitchen and Nami and Robin usually wear theirs down. Usopp has the free time and skills to help you out. Fair warning though, he may get carried away by his creative tendencies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "Blood Sisters"

Enemies To Friends Speedrun: The Episode.

Fond of that detailing on the overhang there, look at it.

I think Sabine already knew the mission was meant for her, she seems a little bit flustered and agitated that Ezra's trying to insert himself into it.

And of course doesn't pass up an opportunity to give him a playful elbow jab.

Hera gives the two the mission, telling Ezra that Sabine's in charge, which he's perfectly okay with. Continuing with the previous episode it's obvious Ezra has sorted out his growing pains teenage angst and has returned to normal.

Normal being "adorable eager puppy", especially around Sabine lol.

I do wonder... from how she acts in the beginning here and some of the later dialogue it sounds kind of like Sabine is going through a bit of a midteen crisis too. Could be either triggered like Ezra's by the events of "Always Two There Are" or could just be her having One Of Those Moods.

Ezra's rambling suggests it's more the latter, that Sabine just sometimes gets All Up In Her Feelings and starts self-isolating and wanting space and pushing people away.

I do like the implication that Ezra's sought her out when she's gotten in these Moods to see if she's okay (and had to be told to go away because Sabine's in, "I don't have any problems, leave me alone." denial lol).

Him checking up on her in concern when he can sense she's out of sorts is a cute thought. :)

Sabine spies some of Ketsu's graffiti but doesn't bring it up and the two proceed to the mission, or as I like to call it, an exercise in secondhand embarrassment.

Someone help these poor children.

Still cannot get over how tiny Ezra was in the early seasons.

Kestu makes her appearance with a flurry of exotic-sounding percussion in the score. This new theme (linked because it's hard to hear under the dialogue) is full of drums and clappers and synth strings and a wild flute and sounds appropriately tense and dangerous for Ketsu.

Ezra nervous little glances between the girls aww.

A little bit of classic Western Gunfight with the shot choices here.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: Ketsu's reflection in Sabine's visor. (Reflections be a bitch to animate.)

Ezra's resigned look when the Stormtroopers stumble across them lololol.

Okay I GUESS the friendly way Ketsu and Sabine can banter in the middle of a firefight and how they wound up shooting from behind the same stack of crates with no issue despite being at odds literal moments ago was supposed to be a sign that they're still friends deep down but--*grumbles, mutters something about rushed writing*

"Bet you're glad you brought backup!" "Yeah, it's working out great! Exactly as planned!"

Ah nice to know the two don't change when it comes to stealing Imperial ships together. :)

She told you to hang on, Ezra.

I do have to laugh at this one poor trooper's veeeeeeeery close call ha ha.

Ketsu's flutes trill out again for this little chase. Which is decently staged, the blown airlock sequence does feel nicely harrowing.

Sabine looks very pretty this episode.

Chopper being a menace, per usual, lol.

Right so whose idea was it to have Chopper cover his eyes because that was a pretty good idea, definitely makes us believe he's scared.

Sabine calling Chopper her friend, aww.

Surprise! She's actually hella cute in a fierce way. I do dig that she has legitimately violet eyes, just a nice little touch reminding us we're not quite in our galaxy.

Sabine's speech here recalls some of Ezra's, about how she used to be out for herself.

"I forgive you." Ssssshhfjhhhhh okay. Okay Sabine. Sure. Seems a bit quick and this is definitely at odds and doesn't quite fit with what we know about her tragic backstory later but... sure. Whatever. We'll just... go with it.

Probably a good thing they established two episodes ago that there's an Imperial checkpoint out here in general Garel airspace, at least this interruption doesn't come completely out of nowhere.

Aaaaaaaand just like that they are suddenly friends again. Okay.

Well now that they've completely dropped all animosity they hash out a predictably explosive plan. One they kind of overexplain a bit.

"Contain the problem immediately!" Oh right, like it's their fault their reactor core's going to explode.

I mean it is their fault in this case but still.

This poor droid pilot though. He was just doing his job, man.

There is an awful lot of Telling instead of Showing this episode, it's kind of irritating me.

Dunno where this is but it's pretty.

Lol Artoo and Chopper's grumpy acknowledgement of each other.

I really can't praise the environments on this show enough.

"Last time I saw these two, they were gonna shoot each other." "If I recall correctly when we first met you, you were stealing from us." Yeah that's not even remotely the same thing, Hera.

Ezra still immediately attempting to befriend Sabine's friend, who's like, "Oh yeah Sabine told me aaaaall about you."

Help me he's so cute. <3

*grumbles in frustration at this conversation* Nothing about this is merited, there is no character throughline here hkfjhdkjhnn.

A very soft and gentle variation of Ketsu's theme here to close us out.

I... don't really rewatch this episode a lot, as you can probably tell. I always thought Sabine just blindly and unconditionally forgiving Ketsu didn't make sense. Not necessarily on her end, because Sabine obviously thinks meeting her new family in the Spectres is the best thing that could have happened to her and she's had a Jedi around probably teaching her a few things about letting go of grudges, but I never understood why it would make Ketsu turn and just... drop her apparently lucrative and desirable bounty hunter career. And it just seems even more weird with what we learn about Sabine's backstory later, that she'd already had her trust broken deeply by her family and then again some time down the line by her supposed best friend who escaped the Academy with her.

Ketsu really doesn't get enough actual characterization for her turn to be believable either.

Beyond those issues the episode is just... kind of dull? Sabine and Ketsu's interactions aren't really that engaging for me so as soon as we leave Garel my brain kind of checks out.

We do get a little bit of backstory stuff that informs and adds layers to Sabine and some other cute bits here and there. But it's not exactly one of my favorites.

Back to form next episode, though, for character arc completions and some "Zero Hour" relevant foreshadowing.

[exceptionally-minded]

Actually I wasn't going to rewatch season 1 of tbb or the arc in tcw because I already rewatched it a few months ago before the delay od season .

But now I start the challenge to watch everything with the bad batch in it till season 2 comes out.... which is already in 3 days (not counting today. The day is almost over anyway).

I won't sleep or eat until I'm through everything if I have to.

And I blame you and your post with the deleted scenes for this idea.

So yeah thank you very much for that... and no, that's not meant to be sarcastic.

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but please remember to sleep and eat. Your health is more valuable than your current hyperfixation. :)

In the past hour I've received several reactions on that post from people who were unaware of the CW Unfinished Episodes. I have been a fan since Clone Wars was a Saturday morning Cartoon Network ritual, so perhaps I've made incorrect assumptions that everyone I interact with here remembers when Disney abruptly cancelled CW, fired half the creative team, and redirected efforts toward Rebels in 2013. Season 7 was mid-production and most episodes were left on the cutting table , including several interesting arcs. Here's a good thread detailing plot summaries and art.

I'd prefer not to give more emotional energy to to the events of a decade ago (besides, Rebels was wonderful, and frankly I preferred the Dark Disciple arc as a novel anyway), but this is relevant again because we've seen some of the stories were saved and used in TOTJ, and models will be used in TBB S2. (NOTE: I am not considering trailer footage as spoilers). For example, the monkey/elephantine beings the Wookiees ride in various trailer footage came straight from the scrapped Season 7 Bad Batch / Yoda / Kashyyyk arc. Image source.

But I digress - have you considered watching the full Clone Wars Bad Batch unfinished episode arc instead? Disney has done their utmost to scrub all evidence that fans carefully catalogued online, but I definitely watched them from someone's Google Drive folder. If I find it, I'll link it. Or perhaps someone else knows what I'm referring to and will help. :)

[bugsbenefit]

i know people talked about this before but it just struck me how odd this shot here is with the Lynx in the background. the possibility that the blue and yellow could be related to Mike and Will is already very much Out There but this is sooo

because the framing here is odd as hell

we start with the Lynx logo (in full dark red) coming into view as the bus drives off (which is prominently only coloured in blue and yellow). literally the silver cat showing up as blue and yellow leave (for the west. okay no, we have no way of knowing in what direction the bus is driving here, but... i wouldn't be surprised if it WAS west) and this is already... interesting regarding the events of s4

but then the shot pans over and we actually get a good read on the Lynx as it nudges itself right in the big free space between Lucas and Mike. we're supposed to catch it here, especially since Robin realizes Lynx is related to the Russian in code the next episode. this is a big "Look here everyone. it's always been right there!". on a rewatch this is going to catch people's eye and make the presence the operation has in the mall feel more real

but then the camera keeps panning and starts moving back to focus on Mike (he did just get dumped which he looks... uhm... annoyed, a little upset and majorly confused by? really not going to analyze how Mike reacts to that breakup bc that is it's own can of worms). but this also cuts Lucas and Will out of the shot and hides the Lynx directly behind Mike. and i mean directly, it's super clean

and just... the way they positioned this is such intentional camera work. they didn't just move closer to Mike, they moved the camera in an arch to change the angle and shift what's actually behind Mike. they could have easily shot it while keeping the Lynx between Mike and Lucas with a much more standardly used zoom or dolly shot. especially since we were already meant to notice the company logo there’s no reason to hide it again

a lot of characters have some pretty cool foreshadowing moments but this is such a weird shot i'm inclined to throw it in the pot of "definitely means something". it took more effort to film this with the Silver Cat positioning itself right behind Mike than it would have if they kept it to the side of him. this was a conscious decision. and usually we get payoff for moments like this. s3 especially plays a lot around with angles and camera swings like this

as an example: the scene of Will feeling the UD on his neck as they walk up the hill where he appears to be completely alone for a few seconds since they hide all other present people behind Will to show how alone he actually is with his struggles. but this is also present in all other seasons, ST just really likes foreshadowing and reflecting people's mental state with phrases and set design placed behind them. like the poster of the nude-ish model behind Nancy as she strips and a poster of Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Nevermore" as Nancy notices Barb isn't at school. words behind Max's introduction about how she's the first girl Dustin has a crush on. the small text reading "Henry" next to Will's neck in s4 before we learn that it actually Was Henry all along. a classic one with the Freddy Krueger claw in the movie store behind Max right before she gets vecna'd etc. etc. TLDR: ST is Big on how it positions it's characters in regards to the backgrounds, Especially if there's Words there (also not even mentioning how movie posters are placed behind characters as foreshadowing as well)

so. the Lynx right behind (and it's really Directly behind) Mike is just... odd? it's so out of place. Mike has NOTHING to do with the Russian Code in s3. had that logo been hidden behind Dustin, Robin, Steve or even Erica it would have been neat foreshadowing. but Mike? he's one of the characters that's the furthest removed from the Russian plot in s3. hiding it behind Will would have also been neat since the Silver Cat most likely stands in for Vecna anyways so literally placing that behind Will's head would be really cool foreshadowing. and hell, even hiding it behind Lucas could have made sense as foreshadowing for s4, with him feeling put on the spot by Vecna and time running out with Max's life on the line

in short. the looming threat of the Lynx behind Any Other party member than Mike would have made sense storywise. which is why i'm so confused by this choice here

words and phrases in the background of ST have pretty significant meaning, especially when they're "interacting" with the main cast visually in some way normally. but the Lynx here is even more significant because we're canonically Supposed to be paying attention to it. and whatever this is trying to say in regards to Mike, we most definitely haven't seen it yet. Mike is probably the party member that's the furthest removed from Vecna, at least physically and not on an intellectual plans crossing level. he literally swerved all direct confrontations until now somehow. the closest he got was when possessed Billy tried to bash his head in and when he was camping out next to a hella possessed Will. but otherwise? Will literally Feels Vecna's presence and has a connection with him. Lucas, Max, and Dustin have an entire plotline in s4 About dealing with and running from Vecna. but Mike got out of all of that. no kidnapping, no psychic connection, and actually ditching town an hour before the murder spree and townwide witch hunt kicks off with Chrissy's body being found. just the regular encounters with Vecna (in various physical manifestations) the whole party is present for and also all while Vecna doesn’t reveal himself yet

Mike got dealt some really bad cards on the show. seeing Will's body, watching El die, being IN the lab massacre, getting attacked by Billy more than once, hunted by The Meat Monster, having a random agent die in the back of a van with him, almost watching El die again, etc. but the one thing Mike is actually lucky with is not having to directly face Vecna

until now at least. s5 is most definitely going to put Mike and Will especially center stage. specifically Because they avoided the Vecna plot in s4

so whatever the Lynx placement in s3 is actually supposed to mean here, we didn't get to see it yet since Mike managed to swerve actually being in a position where Vecna showed up pretty well as of now. however, when we Do finally have to go there in s5... well, i'm curious if the framework here is also going to be an aspect of this shot that's going to make more sense on a rewatch and in hindsight post s5

[fullregalia]

and i took that personally.

I actually was going to use this headline for 2022, but (Taylor’s Version) seemed a better fit at the time, and looking back on ’23, well, I really did take this year personally. 

One charge I am not beating is that I quote The Tempest every time I write about the ups and downs of aging: “Nothing ... doth fade, / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange.” However I’ve yet to find something that captures how bizarre life is better than the phrase “rich and strange.” This year was certainly no different. If you couldn’t tell from the abstruse posts about feeling insecure online, I definitely Went Through It (or at least lower case went through it, lest I be too overly dramatic here) with a strange friendship with a semi-notable person this year. It burned bright and fast and like all other normies who come into the orbit of people with a modicum of notoriety, even if you can hang, it hurts to get dropped for a shiny new thing. The best thing for me to do was to step away from Twitter in August and never look back. Sometimes I miss knowing what stupid thing is going on online (#GagCity) however, if I ever get around to finishing my novel, it’s great fodder for plot. (“How do you serve cunt in a roman à clef way?”)

Besides that personal drama, which wasn’t too bad (frankly, I just got caught up in a one-sided friend crush that took up a majority of Qs 2 and 3), the year was filled with so many interesting things: The movies are back, baby! Country music’s revival won me over. I went to Germany, Switzerland, England, Ireland, and I met a special needs Alpaca named Waffles in Litchfield, CT. Succession ended (RIP Kendall I could fix u), and The Bear’s Copenhagen episode made me cry. I read 30 books, and not all of them were garbage (though some of them truly were). I discovered a brown butter buttermilk cake recipe that I can't quit. It felt like live events were properly in the mix again too; I was able to convince more people to go to Cyclones games with me, but I’m still hitting up Lincoln Center solo (don't men know this is a big date flex??). And how could I not brag about seeing my favorite artist, Ed Ruscha, in the flesh at the opening night of his retrospective at MoMA. But I’ll get into all of that and more below. 

Since this annual recap is not a tradition I’m willing to step away from and never look back (yet), here are my highlights of 2023: 

Books

Thanks to my SAD in the winter, I plowed through the bigger novels in Q1 (e.g., Confederacy of Dunces, I Have Some Questions For You, Birnam Wood). Though the best books I read this year were slimmer like Big Swiss, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, and Trespasses. I believe someone tried to trendcast this, but I think short books have been a thing since ... checks notes ... people started reading? I am still trying to figure out if I cared about The Guest, but I suppose a sense of low-lying dread and hating the narrator meant it worked. I tried to add more urban history into the hold list (NYC, LA, and Palo Alto), but couldn’t get through the latter two before year-end so that’s going on next year’s reading challenge. Seeing as I do LA every January anyway, I’ll save the California books for the West Coast.

I’m a little disappointed that there weren’t many novels I couldn’t put down this year. But I really did focus on contemporary fiction and I think next year I should spend more time on both nonfiction and “canonical” works that I still haven’t gotten around to yet. That is, it may be time to start reading like my dad.

Music

If Spotify is to be believed (it is), I was in.my.feelings. this year (I was). My erstwhile friend crush was a huge Country head, and I am grateful that brief friendship brought more Country--both classic and contemporary--into my life. (I have joked that women will inhale an entire discography/filmography/oeuvre in a weekend for a crush, but honestly show me the lie.) I’ve always been into Americana and bluegrass, but it was good to dig deeper into true country. At the pottery studio I would start with Johnny Cash and just let the algo take it from there for the next 3 - 4 hours. Beyond the musicians I was already listening to a lot (John Prine, Willie Nelson) I listened to more Townes Van Zandt, Nikki Lane, Jess Williamson, and Tyler Childers. 

But of course my top artists were the same as every year: Coltrane, Paul Simon, Prokofiev, Steely Dan. Dean Wareham came up huge for me because I think I played “The Last Word” maybe 400 times this year. You get to the 2:53 mark with the sun shining on Memorial Day Weekend? That’s heaven on earth.

Music was my sanity this year more than it usually is. I had my sad playlist (Jeff Buckley, The Smiths, SZA) for the myriad breakup walks; my Drake playlist for running; my jazz playlist for cooking; and my work party afterparty playlist was even dowloaded by the bar for future use because I spent HOURS figuring out the best arrangement of Beyoncé into Fleetwoord into Dua and they got it. 

I also spent a lot of time behind the wheel with the windows down listening to prog rock, too. Told you I was going through it.

Movies

As the year progressed, my already incoherent listening habits became very movie-forward. That is, I started putting on more movie soundtracks to work to (Nebraska hive we stay riding!! Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross run me over with a truck!!!) and I basically only ended up listening to podcasts about movies (Big Pic, Blank Check, Rewatchables). But the synergy between music and movies was strong this year, as evidenced by the thrilling re-issue of Stop Making Sense and the Eras/Renaissance films. (As always, I implore you to listen to Wesley Morris about everything, forever.)  

After leaving Twitter, Letterboxed became my primary Social Network (lol). Thankfully it’s helping me keep track of what I watched this year. I did a lot of back-list catching up: I watched all the Miyazaki Studio Ghibli films in time to catch The Boy and the Heron the week after I got to The Wind Rises. In no particular order, my favorites: American Fiction, Oppenheimer, No Hard Feelings, Fallen Leaves, Past Lives, Maestro (but that’s because of Lydia Tàr), and because I quite sensibly spent most of this year catching up on Tom Cruise’s entire filmography, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, pt. I. This man will do anything to save cinema! I love it!!!!

The Lawyer Movie Draft match up of Blank Check and Big Pic was one of my favorite podcast episodes of the year. I definitely re-watched The Firm and The Pelican Brief after it. Luv u too, Michael Clayton.

Odds & Ends

My two goals this year were to leave NYC once a month and see a concert/show once a month. I was close to 100% on both, which was nice. If you go to Dublin, be sure to check out Bar 1661. I had an amazing lunch at this Italian place in Bern, Switzerland. If you are in London, I demand you go to Fortitude Bakehouse. As always, the BEC on a croissant at Arethusa is a religious experience. And Zapp’s chips + oysters + wine + this view in Maine = I can die happy. 

I saw three live podcast tapings--my second time seeing both Odd Lots and Who? Weekly and my first time seeing How Long Gone (I’m not proud of it, but I love those two bros and John Early was a great guest). Relatedly, Kate Berlant's one woman show lived up to the hype and Just For Us made me laugh enough I told my folks to see it. I finally saw ABT do Romeo & Juliet at the Met, and there were too many classical concerts to count (highlights being: the Made in Berlin string quartet at Lydia Tàr's Berlin Philharmonic, the Emerson String Quartet performing Shostakovich No. 12, and Chamber Music Society presenting the full Brandenburg Concertos).

On the TV front, for what I lost in Succession this year, I look forward to getting back in Industry next year. My "Smooth Brain Award" for best background streaming goes to And Just Like That and Suits for being too dumb to function. A friend has promised to watch The Curse with me, but that has yet to materialize. At some point I'm going to have to get Apple TV back so I can finally watch the new season of Slow Horses, the first two seasons of which I binged in about a week in February.

Since I’m not actively tweeting, I’m going to put my in/out list here. I was actually on the money with some of my predictions from last year (all light yellow everything and bankruptcy is chic again) however none of you fools got on the “friends holding hands in an 1800s novel way” and I didn’t see enough old bay fries at the bar to make me happy. Let’s see if I can improve my trend casting odds for 2024:

IN: robin’s egg blue, Acting Like You've Been There, cassis and soda, Harvey Wallbangers, Meg Ryan's curly hair in When Harry Met Sally, pretending you know how to sail, whistleblowing, marbled paper, voice notes.

OUT: hard seltzer, oversize blazers, Substack, the pop punk revival, calling things “transcendent,” renter’s insurance, engagement announcements on social media (just get married), Reykjavik, Threads.

I’m probably wrong on all fronts! This take on my predictions is likely also my mantra for 2024. Happy New Year, and to the two to three people who read this whole thing, may it bring you peace and prosperity. Praying the world becomes a little easier to be alive in next year, though I’m not sure that’s how things work these days. If I don’t abandon this effort entirely next year, I’ll be sure to recount what rich and strange experiences came about...

[04dissection]

hi, for ask game~ 1, 3, 4, 11, 16 for Muu and 2, 5, 7, 8 for Fuuta, please 💖

HI ANON!!!!! Thank you so much for the question! This gets hilariously long so under the read more it goes.

Content Warnings: Discussions of suicide

Muu Kusunoki

1. favorite song lyrics?

I think it'd probably be these lines from After Pain.

"If you're going to make me the villain / It's okay to ignore me / If it's endurance, I'm used to it / It's just having another taste of it."

With the added context of It's Not My Fault, and with After Pain being very solidly about events after It's Not My Fault, I suppose you can say this is a part of Muu's difficulties with ascribing fault to herself- actually, since you asked me about both of them, I find it so intriguing T2 seems to exemplify a sort of contrast of fault and guilt that 0304 as a duo has. Muu doesn't feel guilty nor at fault, Rei deserved it because of what she did to her, while Futa does feel guilty and admits fault(or at least seems to), and, in a way, you can make their motives similar: they did what they believed was right. Sorry, tangent over, continuing on.

I just personally love this line because of how it's sung and how it somewhat subverts us expecting to her to hit a higher note(it's been forever since I've actually done any music theory, so I don't know the terms).

To include a line from It's Not My Fault, I really like this one! (Using the translation from Fandom as much as I... dislike using it since I couldn't find who made the translation originally and as we know It's Not My Fault's official translation is... rough).

"Don’t ever hate me, and don’t look for what lies “after and from” the pain. / Wait, wait, it’s not my fault! / You get it, right? It’s you, after all. / What a relief. Can’t be helped. Since I’m always meant to be pitied-"

I adored her referencing After Pain here, and telling us not to look into it- literally telling the audience 'don't look into me <3 you said you don't hate me! so you don't have to look into me!' I specifically always like 'I'm always meant to be pitied.' This line really says a lot about Muu, and especially of how she acted in T1- though that was also partially and probably mostly from fear.

I need to mention, though, Muu's not a manipulator. Even if she tries to, her personality will get in the way of it. The thing with her is that she sees relationships as purely transactional and that the right thing to do is just to let people get their way. It's not that she doesn't care about Haruka, it's that to her, his threat was what he wanted to do, so why should she get in the way?

She wants us to pity her because we, the audience, made pity mean forgiveness- so if we fit that into her framework of relationships, wouldn't that mean that the transaction is her making us feel bad for her in exchange for being voten forgiven? I hope that's something that will come up in T3.

3. favorite non-mv official illustration?

I can just say the cake art, but I actually really like the third anniversary art- which is my profile picture.

But I adore it. It's a very unsettling piece, what this the spotlight lighting and all, and her expression is so wonderfully creepy. I love this art set a lot, it's great.

4. favorite minigram episode/moment?

Episode 22! Specifically the third panel on this page: (x)

It's such a funny little minigram and I adore this single frame of Muu holding Jackalope so much. I like to imagine that she had wanted to hold him since he popped up in the interrogation room during her first voice drama. And I can agree, rabbits are really nice to hold on your lap as long as you aren't stressing them out too much.

Fun fact, actually- the minigrams associating Muu with plaid(31 and 38) is actually the reason why I have the my blog background as the squares. They made me associate her with those square patterns.

11. what are your favorite points about their story and the narrative surrounding them?

Definitely how both her and Rei caused the downfall of the other, in a way. Both repaid aggression with aggression, with one case leading to months of intense bullying and the other leading to a murder. I'm not saying that these are equal, but that doesn't make either good things to do. Muu and Rei both turned that hourglass on the other.

I don't know, it gets to me how much they seem to have torn into each other and the length of time they did. Rei wasn't some completely innocent girl, and neither was Muu- They're both messy with ugly emotions and ugly truths and ugly actions. In the end, both were hurt and more than likely both dead because of the abuse they suffered at the hands of both each other and their peers.

16. how do you think they actually sing in regular life?

I haven't seen what she says on the karaoke cards so if I'm wrong I'm wrong- but I think Muu is an alright singer at best. Her range is.... abysmal to put it nicely and her voice can be rather squeaky at times. If she is able to stay in her range though, she has a rather pleasant singing voice. I imagine she used to sing more and used to have a better voice, but once she began to get bullied she slowly just stopped.

Fuuta Kajiyama

2. favorite mv moment/frame?

Something really gets me about this moment in Backdraft. Something about watching yourself repeat your mistakes, and remembering how gleeful you were doing it- you really just become sick from the joy you derived from awful things. At least that's my interpretation of it.

...As a weird aside, I ended up spending like, half an hour trying to see if there was a word in psychology for what I meant. I'm still figuring out a new search engine over google(playing with a bunch of different ones) so my results are definitely different feeling. But it did remind me of flashbulb memories, so I guess it wasn't for nothing.

I also should mention I love the fact that Bring It On is 4:04 minutes long. As you probably know, that's an error code!

"The server cannot find the requested resource. In the browser, this means the URL is not recognized. In an API, this can also mean that the endpoint is valid but the resource itself does not exist." (x)

5. favorite voice drama line/moment?

Braze You! at the start is just 4 minutes of Es tearing into Fuuta and it's beautiful. I think it's just nice to see Es having a good time, even if that's from harassing Fuuta.

But that's not my favorite moment- Braze You! is definitely very fun to watch, but Baptism of Fire is absolutely one of the best VDs we've gotten so far- with Fuuta calling Es out on the hypocrisy of our previous votes- why WAS Kotoko innocent and him not? While personally, I'd argue that it was dependent on how both were framed in their videos, Fuuta doesn't know about those. And anyways, he's right. We ARE doing this all for fun. Even if he got entertainment out of cancelling people, we're still not that much better than him- in his perspective at least. At the end of this day, Milgram is a work of fiction. There's a degree of separation from the events we can give ourselves, even if the characters attack the fourth wall with all their might.

7. favorite relationships with another character if they weren't in milgram, the way you'd imagine or would like them to be?

Oh this is a difficult one for me... I'll go with Fuuta and and Yuno. She likes messing with people a lot and I think it'd be funny. I adore when characters mess with other characters in a playful way. Yeah this is short, but Fuuta doesn't exactly give me a lot of lee-way with how he talks about everyone.

8. what is your theory for their crime? if there is general consensus on it in the fandom, do you have any other, not-so-widely-accepted thoughts on it?

I generally do believe in the consensus that Fuuta was part of some sort of online 'purist' group- named 'the dark triad,' very ironic name you guys- and seemed to start a campaign on Killcheroy that led to her death- with him doxxing her at some point due to how close she lived to him. I'm not entirely sure on the importance of Rumerie as of now, but I can say for certain that he is important- I mean, the graffiti in Backdraft is literally both Fuuta and Rumerie's online names intertwined- but he's important in some aspect that I just haven't figured out yet.

...While I don't have much evidence for it, I think my major divergence from common consensus is that Killcheroy did not commit suicide. If there's anything that's been obvious symbolism in this series, it's that it uses the practice of taking off your shoes before committing suicide to convey the action- please note that with Mahiru's boyfriend, Hinako, and Muu(Haruka does not participate in this, but he does have his atrocities against shoes). But notably, in Undercover:

Killcheroy Es has both their shoes on.

Undercover is a music video that definitely needs more examination(There originally was a Mikoto derailment here, but that's a different post), and this is one of those things- because Undercover doesn't lie- it might dramatize, such as showing Mahiru strangling Es while they stand in for her boyfriend, but that's in a way, right- Mahiru is here for the fact she directly led to her boyfriend's suicide. While you could argue and say that Fuuta has no idea what happened- and as such doesn't know if she committed suicide or not, as he says in Baptism of Fire:

I believe this is jumping to conclusions. We have to remember: Undercover is not Fuuta's song. It isn't even Es' song, they're just the conduit. This is the song of Milgram itself, I believe. And Milgram definitely is not restrained by real world law and theory. So far, all the bodies of Es as the victims roughly match to what happened- even Mikoto's, who is just plain unable to access the memory. So why would Fuuta's be different?

That argument aside, while I currently don't have a lot of basis for it as I'm still figuring out a lot of the details in Fuuta's case, I believe Killcheroy died from health complications exacerbated from stress- presumably a heart condition, as a lot of the blood in the Undercover art looks like it came from approximately the chest area. My evidence right now is that I made it the fuck up, sorry, but it's the main one I can think of since I really don't think she committed suicide.

[blueeyeswhitegarden]

1, 7, 25.

This is going to be a bit long so I'll put my answers under the cut here:

1: the character everyone gets wrong:

It's a bit hard to narrow it down to just one character when I think there are a lot of interpretations of characters or developments in Arc V from a lot of fans that I really disagree with. That being said, Yuzu probably gets the worst of it out of the cast. I've seen a lot of people say that she was given the woman in refrigerator treatment or that she exists just to be motivation fuel for Yuya. While I do wish that she got a chance to duel more as much as the next person, I really think people ignore or undermine Yuzu's connections to other characters, most of which still help to advance the plot even as late as the Zarc battle. Without her bound with Sora, Shun would have been carded, Serena probably would have been captured during the Battle Royal and I don't know if Sora would have been able to abandon Academia without their friendship. Yuzu still saved the universe twice, even if she was unaware of it the first time, and I don't think she gets enough credit for that because she wasn't dueling. Yuzu's relationship with Yuya is important. It's arguably the most important relationship in the series, but there's more to Yuzu than just her connection to Yuya and it shown multiple time through different characters and events throughout the series. It never really felt like Yuzu existed just for Yuya's development. They inspired each other throughout the series. Even when Yuya was trying to save Yuzu during the last stretch of the series, she already helped to save him from Zarc, so this felt more like returning the favor as opposed to just being a damsel in distress.

I'll also throw in a mention about Shun since I really don't agree with the notion that he'd be sad and lonely post-finale. I think at least part of this comes down to some fans misinterpreting his duel with Yuya. The episode started with the theory that all of the counterparts were gone forever, which made Shun lash out at everyone there. But through their duel, Shun could feel Yuto's presence in Yuya, making him realize that Leo was wrong. If Yuto still exists in Yuya, which he flat out said was the case, then that meant Ruri still exists too. He didn't accept that they were gone forever like he said he would at the beginning of the duel. He finally had hope that he would see them again, something that Shun never really had despite fighting against Academia all this time. It may not be ideal, but he knows that his best friend and sister are still alive and exist within Yuya and Yuzu. Even putting that aside for a moment, Shun still has other friends like Crow, Kaito, Allen Sayaka and Yuya, so the idea that he'd just be sad and alone forever without Yuto and Ruri physically being next to him always felt too angsty to make sense to me.

7: what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?:

While I don't think it got to the point where I actually hated him, Sawatari definitely came the closest. I was so annoyed about fans praising him over Yuya for his own Entertainment Dueling style. While I could understand finding him entertaining, the way Sawatari wanted the spotlight on himself made his dueling looked too self-centered for my tastes. There was an element of selfishness with Yuya's dueling too given that was a major development in season two, but it was arguably more subconscious as opposed to something more deliberate compared to Sawatari wanting to get all of the attention for himself initially. There were a lot of comments after his duel with Yugo that especially were annoying to me, calling him a better Entertainment Duelist than Yuya. I think it became less of an issue as the series progressed, but it also probably helped that I eventually avoided most of the online community after the Heartland arc too, a decision I wish I had made much sooner during the series' run.

While I didn't hate him either, the fanbase overhyping Yuto also turned me off on him for awhile. I think fans put him on such a pedestal because he was this cool and mysterious character initially. I remember his early appearances in season one would get a lot of people excited and once we learned about the dimensional war through Yuto, he was effectively gone for a good chuck of the series. I think my issue was that it felt like fans were projecting what personality or story they wanted from Yuto instead of seeing what story the show was actually trying to tell. It was not uncommon to see people wishing that Yuto was the main character instead, going as far as to call Yuya the Standard Yuto. While I still liked Yuto, he felt like the most overhyped counterpart during the series' run. Fortunately, after rewatching Arc V without constantly seeing both characters on pedestals, I find it easier to appreciate both characters, especially Yuto. I'm not a huge Sawatari fan, but it's easier to enjoy him as well.

25: common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing:

Unsurprisingly, I'm sick of hearing people complain about Arc V's ending. To be clear, I'm not saying that people have to like it. People are entitled to dislike the ending as much as I am entitled to like it. I really love the ending in fact. It's one of the few endings I can recall where I appreciate it more over time and I was pretty happy with it when it first aired too. I just get tired of seeing it in the tags after all these years. It certainly doesn't help that the backlash to the ending itself was largely excessive in my opinion. A lot of people were afraid to say that they like Arc V after the finale aired. Plenty of people who make fan fics or fan art, including some of my friends here, would get comments complaining about the ending in their work. So many people were told to not watch it or to stop watching it because of how other people felt about it. There was already a lot of annoying backlash after season one, but the backlash towards the ending made it even worse, especially when it can feel difficult to make a post about the series without people using it as an excuse to hate on the series or complain about the ending even more.

It doesn't really help that the majority of the complaints basically come down to the counterparts not getting their bodies back, which I find kind of boring at this point. I understand this to a degree. The counterparts were fan favorite characters with most of the pairings being fan favorite too. People wanted them to umerge and live together. I just think fans were so set on what they wanted to happen that they didn't realize that the series never made unmerging into a goal or really indicated that it could be possible without the En Cards. That doesn't mean people have to like it. I certainly can't blame for people assuming that it would still happen. I thought it would happen for most of the series too, but I think fans were too set on what they wanted to happen that they didn't recognize that Arc V was going in a different direction until the finale. I wouldn't have been against the counterparts magically getting their bodies back after Yuya defeated Reiji, but I don't think it would have drastically improved the finale either.

This also now includes comments about how Duel Links is fixing the ending or it is leading to the true ending of Arc V or anything along those lines. I've been enjoying the Arc V World events in Duel Links, but I find it kind of annoying people use these events to complain about the ending more, especially when I highly doubt that people do that for any of the other events for other worlds. I don't think that the ending of the Z-One event in Duel Links will suddenly make fans want to negate his actual death in the series proper. I don't think people will say Bruno's death in 5D's doesn't count anymore now that he exists in Duel Links either. To be clear, I'm not saying people are wrong for wanting to get the kind of closure they wanted from the ending in Duel Links. I just get annoyed at people trying to use a mobile game to negate the actual ending to the anime when that seemingly only applies to Arc V's events. If I wasn't already annoyed of the complaints about the ending after all these years, maybe it wouldn't bother me as much. It's also one reason why the concept of the counterparts magically getting their bodies back doesn't really do much for me. Obviously the counterparts will be playable in Duel Links, but with the framing so far in the Yugo event in mind, it feels too much like fan pandering, even if it hopefully has more to do with building up to future events or Zarc's eventual Duel Links appearance instead of using these events to change Arc V's ending. Besides that, Duel Links is its own continuity with its own lore. Considering any of the worlds canon to their respective series just does not make sense to me since it has to ignore a lot of details. It makes more sense to see Duel Links as approved fan fiction than official continuation of any of the series.

While this doesn't come up as often as the ending, I also still see people using the DSOD movie as a scapegoat for their problems with Arc V. The issue isn't really that the movie couldn't have had an effect on the series' production. It probably did to a degree if what happened with My Hero Academia's third movie was any indication. My issue is that people still think that multiple people were working on both Arc V and DSOD at the same time. From what I could tell, only one person from Arc V's staff was involved in the movie and that was the same person who has been writing duels since the franchise began. None of the writers from Arc V were involved in the movie. DSOD being written by Kazuki Takahashi was a pretty big selling point. It still could have had an impact on the series' production, but they had two different production teams and I assume two different budgets. I saw people during and after Arc V's run put the blame on the writing problems they had with the series on DSOD. Given that the series had the same head writer for the entire run, I don't think that DSOD affected the writing as much as some people think it did. It always read to me as people putting the blame on DSOD for their issues with the series instead of just admitting that they didn't like the direction the series went to instead.

Thank you for asking. ^_^

[jediknightjameslunagazer23]

Sometime ago, I drew James Lunagazer for an Caduceus ID Tag made by @theblueskyphoenix following Manga Chapter 8's completion, but figuring that the old one was rather outdated, I decided to redo the ID Tag but this time I actually did two versions for James, one for when he's at Caduceus USA during UTK/SO, and one for after he transfers to Caduceus EU at the end and remains there for the start of UTK 2's storyline until probably around either Chapter 2, 3 or 4 of the UTK 2 game story for those familiar, he ends up returning to USA out of certain circumstances which I'll probably later share in an double post since I think this bio would be too long otherwise!

Also I'd like to think there's an Reserve team for treating G.U.I.L.T outside of the main Counter Measure Team just in case, like say one of the main doctors or nurses was ill, someone from there would take over.

(And yes, James is definitely not the most photogenic person! Which is ironic given his father was an amateur photographer, but don't worry! I'm sure he'll get better...! Probably, Maybe. )

Anyway I should probably do an bit of bio for James here, given I gave one to his assistant Nurse Bentley Toby:

James Lunagazer was born on 23rd May 1998 in Scotland, UK as an child and teenager he would be quiet most of the time, but also rather hyper, reencating scenes from Star Wars Prequel Movies and Clone Wars episodes, even watching anime such as Fullmetal Alchemist, Assassination Classroom, Naruto and so on alongside his father who he was very close to as an child especially after he divorced his mother, however it tragically was never meant to last.

As one fateful December night when he was 16, James' father sadly passed away in hospital due to an cancer being discovered far too late, this traumatic event had quite an major effect on the young boy, who could only watch as he felt his father slip away right in front of him, and even now it still haunts him to this very day, he also silently resented certain other doctors for in his eyes if they had bothered to look harder and weren't incompetent asides from one his dad would still be alive.

After his father passed away, James was sent to live with his Grandparents, where he struggled to recover from his father's passing, and it's believed that this is what led to him being more socially withdrawn in later years, but in all that dark grey an little angel seemed to come to him, for shortly thereafter, the family would adopt an certain young girl that had no relatives, as you've probably guessed, that was Kira, honestly the whole idea of being an big brother was rather... alien to James, but eventually he grew to love the little one for being there when he needed it, even though she can be mischievous sometimes.

But this would also lead to James developing an overprotective attitude around the little one especially for if Kira was ill and after treating her one time, James finally found his answer, ("I'm going to become an doctor to make sure that no one suffers like I did!")

In St.Francis medical school/Hospital, shortly after leaving high school James worked incredibly hard, just determined to be an doctor as soon as possible though this did mean that he hardly dealt with his own stunted social skills, and would only speak with teachers leading him to be called teacher's favourite and other nasty rumors, especially around strange occurances surrounding him, which unknown at the time was actually Apollo lending him an hand though subconsciously.

All that led to James being practically shunned and mistreated, and it probably would have made him give up, if it hadn't been for an lucky visit from Nurse Bentley Toby who also had the same powers and sensing the potential sleeping within brought him to Caduceus USA.

This would be around the time the G.U.I.L.T War started, and after showing his potential during an practise operation, James was assigned to the Reserve Unit which was formed for just in case any of the Main G.U.I.L.T Counter Measure Team was either absent or ill, initially James would only talk with Bentley due to him being his main assistant and mentor but after Dr. Tyler Chase and Nurse Leslie came over to help him out with an patient one time, James would finally begin to soften his shell and enjoy others company even coming to view Caduceus USA as his second family.

He still has much, much to learn and emotional obstacles overcome once he becomes aware of his powers, but all in all, James definitely has an lot of potential now it's an question of whether he can achieve it or not.

Additional information about him:

-He would idolise Dr. Derek Stiles in the same manner as Adel Tulba at the beginning and strive to be like him, only to later grow into his own person, but out of all other doctors at Caduceus USA, Derek is definitely the bigger brother figure he's closer to.

-While James is by no means an terrible thinker, in fact some of his improvised on the fly ideas have saved many lives time and time again, he can unfortunately be rather oblivious to meanings of certain phrases and is often the butt of an lot of Tyler's antics due to being gullible.

-It takes an lot to anger James, but if he is you'd better brace yourself, though this can be an double-edged sword as when someone is in the wrong, he would try to make said person see sense, but he's often prone to misreading the situation and can unintentionally make things worse, he does admit when he's in the wrong and will try to fix his mistakes though.

-He and Nurse Angie Thompson do not get along with each other at first, though it wouldn’t be as bad as when Derek and Angie were enemies at Hope.

It all started when James misjudged her for being rather intimidating and bossy just from overhearing an scolding she gave Derek one time when he was late with paperwork as usual, and after an rather embarrassing teasing by James' sister Kira when she was an patient, Angie ripped into him hard verbally out of frustration telling him to set an much better example for Kira, his pride wounded James snapped right back and they were pretty much on thin ice with each other until an time when he panicked during an intense high operation and Angie helped him pull through it, afterwards the pair apologised for misjudging each other and even formed an alliance of sorts.

("It's like what Gordon once said to Thomas after he saved him from falling down an mine, "United we stand, together we fall, you help me and I'll help you!"

"Um...Well, while I may not understand what you said, it sounds good to me, Dr. Lunagazer!"

"Just call me James or Luna! I'm not sure if I'm even good at being an doctor yet, I'm only twenty after all...")

-He has many hobbies outside of work, such as drawing sometimes, and if he gets the chance even craft something as he was an cosplayer in the past, but his favourite hobby is sometimes practicing with an toy lightsaber, claiming it helps him focus and get in the zone better if he imagines it like an operation, even holds it like an scalpel for good measure, he's pretty much an champion being able to best Tyler most of the time, but when he came up against Angie....oh boy.... he quickly regretted being incredibly cocky thinking she would be easy, however he didn't count on her being an trained Aikido fighter!

("She's got no weapons to fight with, Surely I'll win thissss---AAAHHHH!!!!!"

*THUMP!!!*

"O-Oh my goodness!!! I am SO sorry!! Are you alright!? I must have put too much force into that throw!"

"Whooooaaaa.....no worrieeeeeesss..... just spinnnning.....urghhhh, are you aware you have now three heads Angie...???")

Yeeeah, pretty much after that James made absolutely sure to NEVER get on Angie's bad side afterwards, he's still traumatised from that event to this day, if someone even so much as mentions aikido, he'll just freeze up and shudder!

-He quickly gets attached to Nurse Leslie Sears, viewing her as an older sister after he learned she joined Caduceus at 20 much like he did, and even later on learns how to braid his ponytail from her when learning that Amy, Tyler's younger sister her hair that done by Leslie once.

-On another topic, while he might be gullible, shy and even some what of an airhead when it comes to love matters, he might sometimes sneak an tease or two here and there once he gains confidence and for when Tyler goes overboard with teasing Derek about his relationship with Angie later on, he along with Kira definitely enjoy embarrassing Tyler an lot on the subject of Lesile Sears!

("Soooo~....when's the day Amy's going to have Lesile as an sister-in-law Tyler? Hehe!"

"Sh-shut up kid!! Jeez... I think I might be rubbing off on you an bit too much it sometimes, And you just wait as you'll probably have someone like that too someday!"

"H-h-hey!! At least I'm not as uh....uh....um...doh bother!"

"Word of the wise young one, never try to tease someone about love unless you've got an good witty comeback! Whahahaha!"

"Yeah, sure... for if and only IF you'll ever be successful as an wingman in these matters....I'll be sure to take your advice then Dr. Chase!"

"Oh hoho! Now you've asked for it kid! Get back here!")

-He definitely would freak out seeing Apollo in the astral plane for the first time, he thought his heart would stop and that he was going insane from talking to an god in his head, thankfully Derek and Asclepius managed to ease James into it, and now on occasions they let Asclepius and Apollo chat as Father and Son.

-Also due to growing up in the UK for most of his childhood, he would often struggle with American terminology at times, particularly around train services given he watched Thomas the Tank Engine as an young child and read the Railway Series too, and yes he's an massive train lover, even got to ride on Thomas during an Day out with Thomas event for his 3rd birthday and has been to the National Railway Museum in York!

("Oh sorry! Didn't mean to call the Conductor the Guard, Spent most of my early life in Britain after all!")

-He would have an bit of Scottish dialect mixed with Japanese due to watching some anime at times, but not very much he's incredibly rusty at German but can probably understand some of it if he tries, he's mostly British though.

-He wanted to be an Firefighter when he was younger, but ultimately chose the path he has now, even did an Firefighter course in High School once!

And I think that pretty much covers James' bio at least at current time for UTK/SO Manga wise, and phew it was quite the long one, and probably much more to come once I cover his Caduceus EU ID Tag and his UTK 2 story (Or at least general plot ideas for him during those events.) Also given Naomi was moved to Hope in the Manga, I'd figured maybe James could replace her for those scenarios, If you've made it this far through my massive lore dumping, thank you very much for sticking around!

[soysaucevictim]

“todo da vueltas como un carrusel”

(See warnings/summary on Ao3. The violence definitely escalates here, this is the last chapter before the epilogue!)

<Prologue/Start>

Chapter 8: Artillery

“Okay, spill. What were you talking about back there?”

“Weeell, what if I told you it felt like being in two places at once! Probably would be a major head-trip for humans. But like, Jude really is a piece of my own heart!”

Remus’s flippant mention of humans still unsettled Roman, despite not being one to talk. “What are you rambling about?”

“I saw through its eyes and, BOY, that shit was fun.”

“… why?”

“Did’ja see Steve in the crowd?”

“… yes?”

“As soon as Steve noticed it, he completely forgot about the event and came charging at it. It was HILARIOUS.”

Remus pointedly waggled his eyebrows, emphasizing that word.

Roman chose to ignore it, “I guess I should be grateful for the decoy…”

“In between rage fueled huffs, he totally thought Jude was ME. Screaming ALL of the obscenities and making some of the nearby families clasp their kids’ ears at the audacity. It helped that I told Jude to stay hidden from the ‘normal people’.”

“Okay, that is pretty funny. So what did it look like Steve was screaming at?”

“Oh, just a Jasmine character actor. Ended about as well as you’d expect. The outburst had security haul his ass out of the park, ripping off his bib and EVERYTHING. It did take like five quarterback-sized dudes to do it though…”

Roman nodded as Remus continued, “They also saw how he was packing heat aaand I think he’s banned for life now from setting foot in the Happiest Place On Earth! They had to call the cops! Too bad the boys in blue were too incompetent to get a bead on him. Who knew how slippery that fucker could be?”

“So, he’s still at large and even more pissed off about us?”

Remus nodded entirely too eagerly, “El hijueputa was definitely a string-pull away from unraveling like Oogie Boogie! But hey, Jude totally let me Feed on that shit show!”

At that point, Remus was doubled over, cackling while relating everything to Roman.

-

For the time being, Remus’s little creation did allow his family to breathe. Remus leisured in regaling Jude’s adventures in leading Steve on a wild goose chase.

Remus recalled it some of the time, holding off from prancing about, causing chaos around him. He said he just liked to be able to experience the ocean the way he felt he was meant to.

Roman tried to find little ways to Feed himself. While he was grateful his own Hunger wasn’t so violent, it did take far more creativity on his part to sate. Roman was nevertheless wary.

A warranted worry, when he started hearing intermittent screams coming from his neighborhood. He noticed intermittent and animated conversations held between the neighbors outside. It was strange because whenever he had the chance to check, Remus was actually asleep through all of it, if in the middle of tossing and turning.

One time, Roman took a walk by one of the conversations, “… you had one of those too!?”

“I have no idea why I was in a boat, I get way too seasick for that–”

“Yeah. Getting knocked around like a drenched rag doll sucked.”

“Did you guys see something in the water too?”

“You mean the tentacles!?”, they collectively shuddered.

Roman pretended he was just listening to his mp3 player and walked along.

It was getting bad when he heard his mom being one of the people waking up screaming. For as long as he could remember, she never had an episode quite like this.

“Mamá!?”, Roman dashed toward his parents’ room.

When he got there, his dad was already attempting to help her calm down. It took awhile for her to get control over her breathing again. She eventually spoke, “It’s-it’s okay. Just a bad nightmare, you two. Thanks for the concern.”

He thought about Janus’s warning. He felt a different kind of restlessness that simply knew Remus was responsible for it.

Later that day, when they were alone, Roman pulled his brother aside. “We need to talk.”

Remus looked at him confused, “About what?”

“I think… your Horror has been going around giving the neighborhood nightmares!”

“Sounds like fun!”

“No! Not when you got to Mom too.”

Remus gave him a shrug, “So that’s why my Lair’s been a little... roomier. I wish I was actually aware of that happening.”

“I-I don’t want our parents hating us.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it, Robro.”

“Why!?”

“Don’t you think they would’ve kicked us out by now… or worse, if that was going to happen?”

“W-well…”

“Sometimes I don’t get why they haven’t, though. We are pretty dangerous, after all. Humans are weird.”

Roman shivered again, “… do you even care about them? Us?”

Remus’s tone suddenly became piercing, “DON’T. Test. Me. With. THAT.”

Roman immediately regretted questioning him, “I-I’m sorry. I just– worry…”

-

The early part of the school year meant many things for the Espinozas.

One of those things being Carrie and Vic’s anniversary. While the twins were in high school, their parents had started to entrust the two to handle themselves on the occasion. They would often have a night out somewhere a little fancy, while the twins did other things.

This year was different in the palpable unease over the separation. Roman and Carrie were the most worried, wanting to keep the ranks close. They wanted to make it a quaint dinner at home. Vic and Remus convinced them that they needed this, now more than ever.

The twins took off before their parents did, to have some fun at a nearby major climbing gym. It was open late and they arrived after sundown. Roman wanted to trounce some of the members there at the wall and Remus simply enjoyed watching his brother decimate pretty much everyone there. So what if he had a clearly unfair advantage as a dragon. It was a small miracle that he didn’t get them too angry to tolerate them.

Roman felt like he had a pretty good Feed while there, “Thanks, Rem.”

“I woulda suggested something like the Aquarium of the Pacific tonight but–”

“I– didn’t want to be too far away from home.”

“I know, I know.”

“You think they’re enjoying themselves?”

Remus shrugged, “I’d rather not think of our parents getting all lovey dovey, thanks.”

“Fair point, excuse me while I vomit a bit into my own mouth at that thought.”

Their parents told them when they were going to leave that night. Nearly a couple hours later, Roman got fidgety, “I-I think we should go back, now…”

The twins almost lost track of the time, Remus especially. Even though he didn’t seem too worried, he didn’t fight over it, “Okay, fine.”

When they did return, at first somewhat relieved that the car wasn't in the driveway. But when they noticed the front door was left slightly open, they knew something was wrong.

Roman stepped closer, asking vainly, “¿U-upe?”

The picture got worse once they entered. The place was trashed. There were things knocked over, dents left in the walls, and cracks in the kitchen tile floor. There was a struggle. Roman frantically looked around to find their parents or any indication of what even went down here.

He dashed to the kitchen counter top, noticing something. Remus followed, confused, “What’s up?”

“Look,” Roman grabbed a crumpled note and unfolded it.

It took Roman only a second to read it. He gasped, “O-oh God.”

Remus frowned as he read too, “ORANGE VILLA HIGH SCHOOL GYM. I HAVE YOUR FAMILY.”

Roman was thrown into a panic, “Fuck-fuck-fuck–”

Remus grabbed his brother by the shoulders, “Let’s just GO.”

Roman collected himself and nodded.

-

It was well past the open hours of the campus, once they arrived.

There were few lights on for the skeleton crew still working there. Roman knew something was wrong as every security camera looked obliterated. Remus on the other hand was just scowling, single-mindedly storming toward the gymnasium.

Some lights were shot out. Remus remained unfazed by the low light, as Roman followed close.

They were in the last hallway toward the gym entrance when they saw blood. A lot of blood. And a body.

Roman stared at it, “I-I’m going to be sick…”

Remus approached it, “I didn’t like Mr. Wells. But he didn’t fucking deserve this.”

It was one of the janitorial staff, shot dead. Without another word, the twins took off into the gymnasium.

The first thing they honed in on was the sound of muffled distress across the court. A pair of people bound and gagged back to back in a couple chairs.

Roman shouted, “NANAY!”

Remus shouted simultaneously, “PAPÁ.”

They weren’t thinking about the danger, until they heard a gunshot and the bullet buried itself inches from their feet. The muzzle flash had come from one of the higher bleachers.

They stared at the gunman. Steve Silverhammer stood there with an intense look of cold anger, readying another shot.

“GOOD. YOU’RE FINALLY HERE. I WAS GETTING IMPATIENT.”

Roman looked at his parents and back at Steve, “Why couldn’t you leave them alone!? They’re just–”

“HUMANS? NO. THEY’RE JUST BAIT.”

Steve fired another shot.

Their mom screamed under the gag, it was clear that she was hit but not where. That was the final straw. Roman saw red as he ran up to Steve about to do what he should’ve done last time. He readied his claws, bounded forward, and managed to land a deep slash across Steve’s chest.

Steve was prepared for that, despite wincing. As Steve evaded further blows, Roman saw the massive pile of pins sitting nearby. Roman lost his focus and froze. Steve gave a short laugh, slamming the rifle stock hard into Roman’s face, making him tumble down to the court’s floor.

Before Roman could get back up and reorient, Steve grabbed several of the pins and threw them all around the court. Roman was a sitting duck, again paralyzed by Steve’s blasted curse, as Steve took aim.

Remus was incensed, he growled like a feral animal and clenched his own fists white. Jude appeared before them, just in time to float into the line of fire.

Another shot.

Jude let out an unearthly screech but it was still able to move and take Steve’s attention. Long enough for Remus to start hunching over, breathing heavily.

Roman could barely get his mouth to work, his jaw flaring in pain and still fixed by his curse, “R-Rem?��

When Remus looked up, his eyes flared green and he smiled with incredible ferocity. The smile started to distort and lengthen in ways it shouldn’t be able to. His teeth seemed to sharpen. Roman saw how much larger the superimposed image of Remus’s Horror was and its tentacles rapidly swept up the pins on the court.

Before anyone could ask. Remus’s mouth opened up into a giant maw, consuming many of the offending distractions in one fell swoop.

Remus’s mouth closed like a zipper and his parents’ eyes widened at the display. With no delay, he shot a humongous tentacle out to grab Steve. The move knocked the rifle from Steve’s grip and it clattered into the bleachers.

Roman had the opening to run toward their parents.

As Remus slowly started to crush Steve, Roman took the gags off their parents. He frantically looked over his mom to find out where she was hit.

Carrie stammered, sucking in breaths to deal with the pain of her wound, “I-It’s okay… he just– he just–”

She glanced down at one of her legs, blood pooling around it. It didn’t take long for the two of them to realize the shot landed in one of her shins. It wasn't clear how bad the injury was, in that moment. Roman growled as she continued, wincing in pain, “I-is Remus going to–?”

Vic, the sweet man that he was, pleaded to Steve, “Your family provides well for you and-and– what would–”

Somehow, Steve was able to rasp sharply as Remus was squeezing him, “What makes you think I give a shit about them? No matter how many Beasts I've slain, they NEVER believed me.”

Remus’s face twitched as he slammed Steve into the opposing bleachers with enough force to cave them all in. Remus couldn’t stop, not that he wanted to. The violence and thrill of it put him in a trance. Remus continued to slam him repeatedly into the ever enlarging crater.

It almost completely distracted Carrie from her pain, as Remus threw Steve into the scoreboard on one of the gymnasium's wall. It was with enough force to dent the metal case and crack the plexiglass elements. When Steve became unresponsive, he limply fell out of it and landed on the court’s floor with a sickening thud. He was basically pulp, making both their parents avert their eyes for a moment.

Remus moved onto tearing the place apart, his Hunger overriding any awareness of what he was really doing. He tore down one of the baskets with the backboard and some of the supports that attached it to the ceiling. Said supports showing signs of corrosion damage that certainly wasn’t there before. He threw it into the intact set of bleachers causing debris to explode in all directions.

Vic gasped.

Roman was too focused on trying to free their parents and worrying about their mom to comment.

Remus continued his rampage, filling the space with distracting cacophony.

After a few beats, Steve started to twitch and convulse.

Carrie noticed and struggled to be loud enough to get anyone’s attention, “R-Roman. Roman. Ro–”

Remus wasn’t paying attention when the remaining pins were flung every which way. Nor did he notice when Steve’s rifle was thrown toward Steve.

“Roman. ROMAN.”

Steve sluggishly reached for the gun, still horrifically mangled.

“What? I’m almost d–”

Carrie screamed, “TURN AROUND!”

Roman turned around and saw Steve. He was still extremely broken, shaking as his body slowly started to recover from Remus’s beating. He had just enough reset bones to be in the middle of pulling out another round from his pocket and reloading the gun.

Roman cursed that Remus didn’t destroy all of the God-forsaken pins. If not for them, Roman would have been quicker to react. It may’ve been because he was getting hungrier or the fact there were fewer around, but this time he did manage to start clawing his way toward Steve.

Vic screamed, “REMUS. STEVE HE’S–”

Steve made the split second decision to aim at Remus this time. Gun braced near his face, the aperture swaying, Steve let loose a breathy but crazed laugh, “I… can’t… let...”

Steve squeezed the trigger once and then twice when it didn’t fire. Despite the stall, there wasn’t enough time to react once another bang was heard. Remus froze.

The explosion was bigger.

The explosion was wrong.

The gymnasium rang, before becoming deathly quiet.

Remus blinked, desisted and patted himself down. He was baffled why he wasn’t–

The silence was interrupted by Carrie making some dry heaves.

Once the dazzle of the explosion wore off, Roman saw it.

Everyone saw it.

Steve was entirely unrecognizable.

Steve wasn’t moving anymore.

Steve wasn’t breathing at all.

The twins stared at him while their parents had turned around.

The twins blinked at the bloody mess that used to be Steve, smeared across the wall.

The twins saw the rifle. It burst apart at the loading chamber. Misfire.

The silence dragged.

The silence ended when they heard the sound of someone frantically running toward the gym.

It was Janus, panting as they looked at the scene in front of them.

“A-are any of you hurt?”

Remus started cackling, “Are you kIDDING ME!?”

Everyone was taken aback, including Janus, “Care to elaborate, little sea monster?”

“It’s like crushing a fly that had the sheer fucking AUDACITY to piss you off. I feel fucking GREAT.”

The twins realized there was an absence of feelings that they should be having, while their parents sat there lost in shock. Janus cleared their throat to speak again, eventually pointing at the corpse under the scoreboard, “We really must take our leave, before this place crawls with Heroes. Come, I’ll take you and your… parents to aid them someplace safe. I’ll clean that up shortly too...”

The twins nodded as they carefully ushered their freed parents along.

His family’s touch seemed to spur Remus to smile back at them in a way that looked actually human. Despite none of them coming away from the ordeal unscathed, Roman was glad they could save their parents.

Between the twins, they made the unspoken promise to protect them ever more fiercely.

-

Feel free to ask to be on a tag list, if you wish!

-

<Previous> | <Next>

[that-fema-corps-blog]

Day 18

August 21, 2022

Woke up at 8:00 and got breakfast before the first part of our two-day race/diversity training at 10:30. (Disclaimer: I am white and also didn't type anything here during the breaks, so I definitely missed some stuff, especially since I'm going off of hours-old memory.) Engage to Change (etc...) gave the presentation. The two speakers were a black man and a white woman, and each speaker shared several personal stories to drive home the main points.

One of the first sections was on the difference between non-racist (passive, supports status quo which is often racist) and anti-racist (active efforts against racism). We had a small group discussion on times we were non-racist rather than anti-racist (ex. not calling out a friend or coworker for saying something racist). The speakers shared the following Martin Luther King Jr. quote from the Birmingham Jail:

...I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice...

We discussed how a significant part of interpersonal and institutional racism resulted from white people being non-racist (more like the "negative peace" MLK describes) rather than anti-racist ("positive peace"). So, in actuality, non-racism is passive racism. We also discussed how many white people's avoidance of discomfort often leads to the reluctance to discuss/confront racism in favor of claiming "colorblindness" and/or trying to keep the order/negative peace... "We're great allies so we support your message, but I don't like your methods, so please stop trying to change anything because it's mildly inconveniencing me and I don't want to have to think about it :)"

We then learned about the Thomas Meyer experiment, where legal firms were sent an application from a person named "Thomas Meyer" to analyze and rate. The applications had several mistakes but were all identical, with the exception that some of the applications said Meyer's race was white, and others said his race was black. When Meyer was believed to be black, those rating the papers gave him a lower score and identified more mistakes than when Meyer was believed to be white. This demonstrated how racial biases are often present in institutions even when not obvious.

Then we read and critiqued a public apology letter by a University of Oregon law professor who wore blackface to a Halloween party. She largely avoided taking responsibility, as seen here:

During a Halloween party I hosted at my house, I wore a costume inspired by a book I highly admire, Dr. Damon Tweedy’s memoir, “Black Man in a White Coat.” I intended to provoke a thoughtful discussion on racism in our society, in our educational institutions and in our professions. As part of my costume, I applied black makeup to my face and wore a white coat and stethoscope. In retrospect, my decision to wear black make up was wrong. It provoked a discussion of racism, but not as I intended. I am sorry for the resultant hurt and anger inspired by this event. It is cruelly ironic that this regrettable episode began with my admiration for a book that explores important aspects of race relations in our society, but ended up creating toxic feelings within our community. I intended to create a conversation about inequity, racism and our white blindness to them. Regrettably, I became an example of it. This has been a remarkable learning experience for me. I hope that all who are hurt or angered by my costume will accept my apology. I meant no harm to them or others.

This professor was given a year of paid leave before returning to teach an introductory class about race that students were required to take. We discussed how the refusal to reprimand the professor would likely contribute to more institutionalized racism in the area: students of color would be less likely to feel comfortable applying/attending. This would result in disproportionately fewer students of color and recent graduates in the area, eventually leading to white people being over-represented in the legal field.

The final section for today's diversity training was on invisibilized and uncompensated labor, including emotional labor, code switching, and (historical) chattel slave labor. We had a short group discussion about other types of invisible labor and were let out for the day.

We had a couple hours off before a team meeting at 18:00. We discussed which of the two projects we each wanted to take, which interstate we would take, and which landmarks we wanted to visit along the way. Then I made myself dinner, played a couple games with a teammate, and watched a movie with the group.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Ineffable Con 2020 Fun Facts

Fun facts from the Ineffable Con 2 (2020) guest panels :): 

Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

David G. Arnold (the music composer)

Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

1. Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon and Rob Wilkins

What do they have from Good Omens:

Rob has the statue from St. Beryls, all four motorbikes from the four horsemen, Crowley’s Devon watch, box signed by David Tennant with Crowley’s sunglasses and Aziraphale’s cocoa mug with Michael Sheen’s DNA :).

Douglas has the playing cards from Episode 1 and heavily annotated Good Omens book they used for filming with inscription by Neil: ‘For Douglas, make us love, make us cry, 3rd August 2017’.

Neil has Aziraphale’s chair from the bookshop that he bought from the BBC and he uses it for Zoom meetings.

What is their favourite thing that was not in the book and was added to the TV show:

Neil: all of the first half of Episode 3 - an absolute joy.

Rob: also the beginning of Episode 3.

Douglas: David Arnold’s music and Peter Anderson’s front titles.

Could Aziraphale get out of the Bastille easily if he wanted to?

Neil: if he could: absolutely. Did he have any conception of the mess he was in: probably not. It’s one of Neil’s favourite pieces of acting - the absolute delight on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that Crowley’s there and then he turns around and rather petulantly, grumpily goes oh it’s you - that moment of joy on Aziraphale’s face when he realizes that he’s been rescued is one of Neil’s favourite things. 

Neil and yoghurt starter: I had this slightly mad thing where I would explain to everybody that fans were yoghurt starter. And I said, ‘Basically you start out with yoghurt starter and you put it into your warm milk and you leave it, and the yoghurt starter goes off and turns the entire thing into yoghurt. 

Neil realized that there was a cat in his house (Neil doesn’t have a cat :)). After the panel Neil said that he was going to look for the cat with a can of sardines and Douglas joked that he would find Michael Sheen in a cat costume.

What was the best and worst about making the series:

Douglas: the best - the camaraderie, getting to know the people, the cast and crew. 

Rob: the best - realizing that the book could be translated to the screen and watching it happen. The worst - coming to the end of the shoot and saying goodbye to everybody.

Neil: the best - the amount of love from everybody, the worst - fighting budget battles (producers wanted gone all of the cold opening and the death of Agnes Nutter).

Did they expect that Good Omens would attract so many LBGTQ+ people and how they feel about that:

Neil: Yes, absolutely. There are definitely people out there who seem to think that I accidentally wrote a love story with all of the beats of a love story including a break-up halfway through, without somehow noticing that I’d written a love story. And I may not be the brightest candle on the candelabra, but as an author who’s been doing it for a long time, I’m very well aware of when I’m writing a love story, thank you very much. And so from my perspective I knew that the love story would be one of the driving things that would get us from the beginning to the end. And I also made a bunch of decisions about our angels and our demons in terms of casting, in terms of gender that everybody backed me up on, which I loved. You know, the idea that the archangel Michael is played by Doon [Mackichan] is something that is... or Beelzebub is Anna Maxwell Martin, whatever, there’s... it’s not like we are going: these are women, there are men, we are going: these are demons, these are angels. They... this is not a thing. And also doing something like Pollution, where you go in and go: okay  well if we were doing this in... if 1989 was now, if there were they pronouns, we probably would have done that. We didn’t think of it at the time but that’s no reason why we can’t do it now. And we did and I remember having a... not exactly a battle, but a... my very tiny skirmish with one of our execs who was very nice and very bright and was like: ‘Why are you saying they?’, and I’m like... and I... explaining, and he’s like: ‘Well I’ve never heard of that before.’, and I’m like: ‘Oh, okay, but trust me, just trust me, it’s all fine, just trust me.’

Douglas: And you know I have to say, just following on what Neil’s saying, I’ve been directing for quite a while, and I tend to notice if characters are falling in love, I tend to notice a love story happening in front of me, and I think it’s there, and everything is meant, guys, everything is meant.

Neil added: I would just say, there are some things that you do while you’re writing a script intentionally. The fact that... I wanted to do this, well, it was a thing I did that I really enjoyed doing... where whenever people accuse them of being a couple: they don’t deny it, they don’t argue, there’s no flustering on their part. They absolutely… you know, everybody… what I’m trying to say is:  yes, other people in the story are perceiving them as a couple too. And here is Uriel perceiving them as a couple, here is wonderful Dan [Starkey, playing the passerby] …and you know, you do scenes like that because that’s... you are trying to make a point here and you’re trying to make a point on how people are perceived.

Season 2, yes or no [fiends, all three of them!]:

Douglas: What’s that?

Neil: Of what?

Rob: Is it muted for me as is for everyone else?

Neil confirmed that they are going to be Funko Pops. [yay!]

2. David G. Arnold (the music composer)

He didn’t read the book before he was approached to do the music. He was asked to do it by Douglas Mackinnon he knew from the Victorian episode of Sherlock and he said yes before even knowing what it was about because he wanted to work with Douglas again.  

The first piece of music he wrote for the show was the brass band doing the Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon [Episode 6, in the park before the kidnapping].

The second piece of music he wrote was the lullaby that Crowley sings to Warlock. He always liked the lullabies like in Mary Poppins so he said to Neil: Why don’t we do it like Walt Disney, but if Walt Disney was possessed by Satan? That was about 7 months before he needed to write anything again while they were shooting and it kept going round his head the whole time - the melody stuck with him and when it came to the Opening Title of the show, this became the middle bit.

The original opening title was Everyday by Buddy Holly and each episode was supposed to be closed with a different version of it: a death metal version, an angelic choir version, a carmina burana version... and he actually made all those. But he likes to find the musical identity of the show and put it in the opening titles because it’s important and it tells you: ‘This is the word you’re going to experience’, so he wrote his own opening title with the lullaby in the middle and played it to them [probably Neil and Douglas] with Buddy Holly as the backup and: Neil just turned around in his chair and said, ‘That’s Good Omens.’. From that point the instructions were with no rules, just to create whatever he wanted: the further you can go the better, the weirder and the stranger you can think the better. It’s a rare thing to be shown a world like Good Omens and be let free to run around in it. 

His favourite ending title is the Queen one in Episode 1.

One of the reasons he didn’t do a theme for Crowley and a theme for Aziraphale is that the theme of the show is theirs - it’s theirs and they share it and it’s both of theirs and there is no separating in that regard. 

About Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship reflected in the music score: It’s interesting isn’t it, because the relationship changed in a way slightly frequently and majorly infrequently. It seemed right from the start that their relationship was somehow seeded and planted and had begun by the time we saw them even though they may not have realised it themselves, you know, with the pair of them on the wall, considering one is a demon in the Garden of Eden and one is an angel. They act very charitably towards each other and they act with a lot of things you might not expect. And underneath that there is a sort of sense of togetherness and support even though they both know that their paths are going to diverge and they have different responsibilities. So I always felt like, right from that moment, when the wing came up on the wall, that there was something special about their relationship. Three moments that stuck with him: in Episode 3 saving the books in the church when they completely rely on the other for survival in the way that they were very open about, one in the car outside the nightclub in 60s Soho - the Holy Water, you go too fast for me, that genuinely tearing, that there was reluctance in those words that he spoke and that sort of things as a composer is gold, it’s about making those moments more, and in the last episode in a scene they’re not event in when we see Adam and Dog in the fields and Anathema that music there which celebrates Crowley and Aziraphale’s music which is the theme of the show - their shadow has passed over everyone’s emotional journey, and everyone’s emotional journey is theirs as well. The argument in the bandstand was important as well.

His favourite leitmotif from the series is the lullaby.

About the scene in the car in episode 2 when Thomas Tallis changes into Queen: Terry’s favourite piece of classical music was the Thomas Tallis piece [Spem in Alium] so Neil asked if they can go from Thomas Tallis - a choral piece from 16th century - to We Will Rock You, and: ‘You never say no. You don’t say that you can’t do it. What you have to do is to be the first person who solves the problem.’ In the end it was a two-days work just for this little bit and he mentioned that he never had these sorts of challenges anywhere else before.

His favourite non-musical detail in the show - the crucifixion, how the scene was shot, how it was upsetting, and how it was made more effective by Aziraphale and Crowley’s inability to stop it, that they had to observe and watch it, that it had to happen. I remember seeing that at the time and thinking, I wasn’t expecting that level of brutal honesty, in terms of the pictures that I was looking at and what they chose to show. And I think all the more effective for it. 

3. Claire Anderson (the costume designer)

When creating the costumes for the characters she started with mood boards. 

Aziraphale - she knew that he needed to have something winglike in his collar so that’s why there are sweeping lapels very often. Using velvet [for the waistcoat] because that was nice and soft and had all the appropriate qualities. His watch and fob that has little gold wings hanging from it and other tiny bits of symbolism. Tartan bow tie. Beautiful cashmere checkered trousers - not quite tartan but a nod to it. A mid to late Victorian coat, Michael only made his decision on the coat a couple of days before the filming. Aziraphale in the present settled on a ring with angelic symbol and harp cufflinks, earlier his ring in ancient times has got a much more roughly hewn set of wings on it, so before jewellery making became sophisticated he modernised slightly - he magicked it up to be a bit more modern, more gentleman signet type of ring, but he never modernises entirely. His heart is much more in the past.

After they began to define Aziraphale they started to look at how the Heaven army of angels might look - the element of tartan came sort of from Aziraphale and the angels have a not-tartan kilt with a semi military type jacket and a military band across that might hold arms or not, because they are not really violent. She used spats to make them look quite neutral and genderless so hiding fastenings and concealing little details like that seemed a way to do that.

Gabriel doesn’t wear spats because he’s on Earth such a lot. His shoe has a cover with two buckles on the side giving the same neutral element. He wears a cashmere light-as-air suit.

The other angels are all in bastardized versions of what era they may have died in, so they could have died in the 1930s or the 1800s and the costume would have an element of that era about it - though of course as an angel you can change things.

The Quartermaster Angel - the costume is a combination of slightly Indian type military, maharaja pants, longer spats from another era, all combined pieces of military tailored to be magical and slightly nonsensical, as Heaven might be.

Crowley - she felt that he wrapped around like a snake sheds its skin so she wanted something double breasted because that seemed to envelope his snakey charm. David wanted to be more casual than wearing a suit. Under his collar he always has a flash of red like the snake that he comes from - the red belly. They put a red seam into the sole of his boots so always there is a hint of where he came from. The red tie in the blitz. He was more rock and roll than Aziraphale and modernised more to a snakehipped rock and roll star really. His present jacket - the fabric there is quilted, they found an 80s jacket that had elements of things they enjoyed - part of that was that it had a slightly quilted quality to the fabric which was like a textured snakeskin. It took quite a long time to create the fabric and then to make the jacket from that - they quilted some fabric and washed and whooshed it repeatedly to create a bit of puckering in it. He has a snakey scarf around his neck like a chain mail linked scales of skin scarf that he wore that complemented his neck chain. The trousers he wore in Victorian times are the same he wore in the 60s when he meets young Shadwell. His present trousers - slightly waxy denim - we just were looking for a slithery finish. Crowley’s neck chain - there is only one in the world - her tailor has a Gothic church full of interesting stuff like busts and drapes with old things, this chain mail scarf was there and David was looking for something to complete his costume and liked it. 

Hastur and Ligur are her favourite characters - they were so enjoyable to create. She had an amazing book of 1920s and 30s criminals and they used that as a starting point, because they were all quite worn out and bedraggled and poverty stricken and like hell might be ideally. They burnt and decayed the bottom of them as if they were rotting from the Earth and rotting back into the ground - all demons have sort of gators as if they were rotting from the ground up.

One of the most difficult things was the demons - when they realized they had a few days to create hundreds of demons in South Africa (4-5 days for almost 200 demons). It was as if I had been dissolved in holy water when they asked me for another 150 costumes.

The sleeves of Anathema’s coat have been inspired by a Victorian cycling coat. 

The historical costume that Newt’s ancestor wore influenced his and Shadwell’s costumes - they used elements of the historical costume to put a little cape on Newt and Shadwell and their wax coats to give them the quality of that look. Newt's costume has a lot of mustard to make him feel a bit awkward and uncomfortable - it's not the most flattering colour on a northern European complexion.

The nuns’ headdress needed to look a little bit demonic - she bought a whole book on nuns’ headdresses for research. They also used the V in the nurse's apron because that was nicely demonic. The nurses' watch has got this Satanic symbol at the top - a little take on the medical since old nurses’ uniforms used to have watches.

For Madame Tracy she went back into the 70s, slightly Biba-esque makeup and a cape. They had only one pair of her goggles so it was always a nightmare to find them.

Which part of the cold opening is her favourite: I love ancient Rome because there is at least 6 to 12 metre of fabric in a toga and that was quite fun wrapping that around the boys and creating those., and her favourite was the Globe.

The lapels represent wings in every way and every shape and every form. Wings are very important.

4. Peter Anderson (Peter Anderson Studio created the opening title animation and in-show graphics)

The first thing that the director Douglas Mackinnon (with whom he worked on Doctor Who and Sherlock) said to him was: for all the graphics, for all the title sequence, for everything, I want you to promise me one thing, and that is very, very simple, promise that you send me emails that say: ‘this might be absolutely nuts, but my idea is...’.

The opening title it’s full of easter eggs - it’s a type of sequence that’s been designed to watch a thousand times, for example: on the escalator down to Hell there is one character running up deciding that he doesn’t want to go to Hell or the sea is full of plastic bags because we don’t look after the planet.

Every single face in the title sequence is either Crowley’s or Azriphale’s, they are repeated all the way through - inspired by Neil saying that there’s good and evil in all of us, so there is a grand procession of people of all the characters from the story - marching towards Armageddon - but all the characters have been taken over by good or evil. And along the way our two heroes are kind of playing tricks on each other, doing good, doing evil

The opening title combines multiple elements - two dimensional animation elements, three dimensional animation elements, CGI and live action (the people in the procession were created by live action on a travelator). So the result is a kind of strangeness - such as 3D figures with 2D animated tracked heads - which makes it unique.

Their first idea and version of the opening title was based on tapestries of old, subverting them, but then they wanted something more new and fresh.

Both Douglas and Neil were an important part of the opening title creation process.

The opening title sequence took about a year to make from the creative start with four intensive months towards the end.

One of things that inspired him was a Bauhaus theatre image from 1930s.

Question if the hand-drawn font for the graphics will be a purchasable font: no, because it was original and it’s unique and it was created just for this - it was for the love of the show and the story and it will be kept there.

In the scene where there are three photos of witchfinders - Neil and Douglas revealed in the DVD commentaries that two of them are their grandfathers - the third one is Peter’s great uncle.

Originally the signs telling us things like ‘Thursday’ or ‘Mesopotamia’ - were done as if somebody (who was living inside the television screen) ran up close to the screen and showed us the sign. In the end they simplified it, only showing the signs. The one time that it was sort of left in the show was when in Episode 5 a little demon in the video game shows a sign ‘GAME OVER’.

Outside of his work on it, what was his favourite thing on Good Omens: spending time with Douglas and Neil, and also working with Milk VFX - I think I can honestly say it's the best job I've ever worked on with the nicest people. 

5. Paul Adeyefa (Disposable Demon)

He first read the book when preparing for the audition - the character wasn’t in the book but he got into it, loved it and couldn’t put it down.

He didn’t know about the name Eric until the script was published and people started calling the demon that, he really likes the name and thinks it fits.

There was a version of the script where the demon was going to be dressed in different costumes each time he was discorporated (for example one in long hair wearing a dress) - they would be all the same but different incarnations, in one version they had different accents. 

The first scene he shot was the one where the demon goes to Heaven to deliver the Hellfire (and also wants to hit ‘Aziraphale’ which was cut). That first day was also his favourite moment of shooting because there was an immediate welcoming atmosphere and everyone was lovely and in love with the production.

Disposable Demon is like a permanent intern, running errands for the higher ups in Hell.

His favourite part of the costume were the eyelashes (though he loved the whole costume).

If he could change anything about the costume he would also want cool contact lenses - some brightly coloured ones.

Question what animal (like other demons have on their heads) comes to mind when we see the Disposable Demon: he didn’t think about it at the time, but later he saw people talking about his horns as bunny ears and found it interesting, and also the facts that there are so many of him and that he is quite happy and friendly for a demon so the bunny makes sense, so he might be a sort of a rabbit. Or perhaps something goat type because of the horns.

Question if there is another role in Good Omens he would have liked to have played: he always thought that the four horsemen were very cool and Pollution was his favourite so probably Pollution (also was the most jealous of Pollution’s contact lenses). 

If there were a season 2, he would be there in a heartbeat.

Question about Eric’s feelings on Crowley, if he’s a bit of a Crowley fan: I think he might be. There is something about Crowley and how he is somehow a little bit different from the rest of the demons. - and the Disposable Demon has, much like Crowley, interest in the human world. He could well be 6,000 how many years old, the same as everyone else, but he seems to have this younger vibe and I think he thinks that Crowley is quite cool.

Good Omens fandom is his first experience with a fandom of this scale. It speaks a lot, the fact that this kind of very, this minor character, a character who is only on screen for a very short amount of time gets any kind of attention at all, it's quite amazing really, it goes to show how big and enthusiastic the fans are. I never experienced anything like that.

6. Jeremy Marshall-Roberts (the owner of Mary the Bentley)

When Crowley used a miracle to switch off the Bentley lights in Episode 1 at nuns manor it was done by: there was actually a very small guy called Louis turning on and off the switches quickly.

David Tennant was allowed to wear the snake eye contacts for only 3 hours a day otherwise they could damage his eyesight.

For Mary, the Bentley, it was the second time she was ‘blown up’ on film - first being in the Endeavour with Inspector Morse about three years earlier.

He was a bit nervous during filming the bookshop fire scene because the Bentley was so close to a real fire - not wanting the paint to blister. The car was moved off after a few minutes of filming but still.

About the damage to Mary: Unfortunately, we overran, and Rob my stunt driver had already booked a holiday and off he went and so when he returned in January, on the 10th of January, I had this new driver who really had no clue how to drive old cars, so I showed him around, I showed him to go around corners. He came around the corner, the door was not closed properly for some reason and the door flew open as he went around. And instead of slamming on the brakes which is extremely efficient and would stop him straight away he kept on going, hit another car and really smashed the door quite badly. It did take the car off the roads for 10 months. The door was completely remade because of this accident and it cost the total of  £24 000 to rebuild the car to get it back to running as it is today.

The Bentley’s part most difficult to maintain and service is the engine. 

Would Mary be available for a potential season 2: definitely!

[tricksters-captain]

Bucky Barnes imagines - Some Sunny Day Part 4

AN: What a crazy episode! I definitely think this episode was one of the best so far and I cannot wait to see what happens next after that insane ending!

Overall Summary: Before the Blip, you and Bucky were close. After you both returning and Tony’s funeral, you decided to go back to your home town to spend time with your family. When duty calls, you return.  

In this chapter: Now in Latvia, you and the boys must find Karli before the Dora take Zemo away (Based on S1 EP4)

(PART 1) (PART 2) (PART 3)

Pairing(s): Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader, Sam Wilson x Platonic!Reader

Word Count: 6,123

Warnings: Spoilers for episode 4, violence, strong language.

Once inside Zemo’s apartment, you started to look through the cupboards. 

Zemo had excused himself to take a bath but you felt starved. 

Even with the limited stock you managed to whip something up for you and Sam. 

“Thank you.” Sam took the bowl from you gratefully. The food Zemo had given you on his private plane wasn’t exactly edible and you were still feeling the affects of the Nagel fail in your body. 

“Well, the Wakandans are here.” Bucky announced as he entered the apartment; having returned from his walk. “They want Zemo. Bought us some more time.”

“”Were you followed?” Sam looked up at him. 

“No.” Bucky made his way over to you and Sam by the kitchen island. 

“How can you be so sure?” Zemo pondered. 

“Cause I know when I’m being followed.” Bucky sent an unimpressed glance to the man in the bathrobe. 

You pushed a bowl of pasta towards Bucky but he shook his head and pulled out his phone.

“It was sweet of you to defend me at least.” Zemo stated. 

“Hey, you shut it.” Sam quipped. “No one’s defending you. You killed Nagel.” 

“You gotta eat.” You whispered to Bucky. 

“Do we really have to litigate what may or may not have happened?” Zemo rounded the island so he was closer to you all.

“I’ll eat later.” Bucky mumbled back to you as he furrowed his brow at twitter. 

“There’s nothing to litigate. You straight shot the man.” Sam argued with Zemo. 

“Sam.” Bucky had found something. 

“What?” Sam turned his attention to Bucky and away from Zemo. 

“Karli bombed a GRC supply depot.” Bucky showed you his phone screen so you could read.

“What? What’s the damage?” Sam’s concern grew quickly. 

“Eleven injured, three dead.” You said after skimming over the article. 

“They have a list of demands and are promising more attacks if those demands aren’t met.” Bucky added as Sam sighed. 

“She’s getting worse.” Zemo spoke up. “I have the will to complete this mission. Do the three of you?”

“She’s just a kid.” Sam was right. She was only young, she reminded you of you when you first joined the avengers. Desperate to fight for a cause. 

“You’re seeing something in her that isn’t there.” Zemo disagreed. “You’re clouded by it. She’s a supremacist. The very concept of a Super Soldier will always trouble people. It’s that warped aspiration that led to Nazis, to Ultron, to the Avengers.”

“You’re talking about our friends.” You felt the need to remind Zemo that you were actually apart of the Avengers as you placed your empty bowl in the sink. 

“The Avengers, not the Nazis.” Bucky felt the need to clarify. 

“So, Karli is radicalised, but there has to be a peaceful way to stop her.” Sam was determined there wasn’t a need for a fight. 

“The desire to become a superhuman cannot be separated from supremacist ideals. Anyone with that serum is inherently on that path. She will not stop. She will escalate until you kill her.” Zemo explained as he reached for the bowl you had originally offered Bucky. “Or she kills you.” 

You swatted his hand away to which he frowned at. 

“Maybe you’re wrong, Zemo. The serum never corrupted Steve.” Bucky argued his point. 

“Touché.” Zemo picked up a biscuit instead. Holding it on his finger as he spoke. “But there has never been another Steve Rogers, has there?”

“Well, maybe we should give him to the Wakandans right now.” Bucky suggested to you and Sam as he moved over to the couch. 

“And you’ll give up your tour guide?” Zemo asked as he opened the cupboards to look for some food. 

“Yes.” Bucky didn’t hesitate. 

“From my understanding, Donya is like a pillar of the community, right?” Sam interrupted with a new thought. “So, when I was a kid, my TT passed away.”

“Your TT?” Bucky asked, unsure of what Sam had meant. 

“Yeah, my TT, yeah.” Sam nodded. 

“Who is your TT?” Bucky asked as you sat down beside him. 

“Fine. When I was a kid, my aunt passed away and the entire neighborhood got together for a ceremony. It was like a week long. Maybe they’re doing the same thing for Donya.” Sam proposed. He could be right. 

“Worth a shot.” You proclaimed. 

“Your TT would be proud of you.” Zemo sounded more awkward at the use of the phrase before he pulled out a fancy looking tin. “Turkish delight? Irresistible.”

Sam caught the small sweet that Zemo had thrown. 

“I say Zemo put’s some clothes on and we head over to the refugee camp that Donya was staying. See if anyone knows anything about a funeral or ceremony for her.” You ignored Zemo as he looked down at the sweets. 

“Sounds like a plan.” Sam stood from his seat at the island and looked over at Zemo. 

Zemo nodded before disappearing into a bedroom to change. 

It didn't take long to get to the camp from Zemo’s apartment. 

“Shame what’s become of this place. When I was young, we used to come here for fabulous dinners and parties. I knew nothing of the politics of the time, of course, but I remember it being beautiful.” Zemo seemed saddened by the state of the buildings being used as the camp. 

“I’m gonna take a look around upstairs. See what you can find out here. And keep an eye on him.” Sam told Bucky as he gestured to Zemo. 

“I’ll stay out of your way.” Zemo promised. 

“(Y/n), you look around through there. See if you can... You know.” Sam pointed down through one of the ground floor doors. You nodded and left the men.

Most of the adults fled when you entered the building but you noticed a young girl who looked too busy with what she was doing to notice. She had looked maybe 16 or 17 years old and she was embroidering an old silk scarf. 

“That’s beautiful.” You knelt down beside her but as you spoke, her eyes shot up and widened with shock and fear. 

“T-t-thank you.” She stuttered as her eyes flittered around the room for help. 

“It’s okay. I was just wondering if I could have a look at it.” You smiled softly at the girl as you held your hand out. 

She reluctantly gave it to you. 

“This truly is beautiful. You are very talented. May I buy it from you?” You placed your hand in your pocket and pulled out a note that you had previously stolen from Zemo’s jacket.

“You c-c-can have it.” She whispered as she stood. You rose with her as you folded the scarf to place into your pocket. 

“I insist.” You took her hand gently and cautiously and placed the money in her palm. She smiled but she still was nervous and full of worry. You figured she knew who you were. 

You folded your hands over hers and that’s when you unplugged the cork on your powers. 

You closed your eyes and within seconds all the girls memories flooded into your head. 

You tried not to react as it happened. 

You tried your best to filter through the memories quickly. When you reached the time after the blip, you slowed down. You saw the horrors of them being rejected, being abandoned and then you saw Mama Donya and Karli. 

You focused on Karli. 

You watched Karli smile and laugh with all the children, she’d play and look after them as Donya looked after Karli. 

Closer memories brought what seemed like events that only just happened. Karli visiting with supplies. 

You saw the mourning of Mama Donya from everyone and then you saw the arrangements for the funeral. 

You opened your eyes and let go of the girls hand. She thanked you again and left. She would have never realised what you had seen as the memories are shown to you within a matter of seconds. 

You leant against the table and inhaled deeply. 

You felt weak again. 

You pushed yourself off the table and headed back out to Bucky. 

Zemo was surrounded by a bunch of small children.

“You okay?”Bucky asked. The second you reappeared he immediately noticed a change in you. 

“I’m okay.” You lied. “I spoke to one of the teenagers inside. I looked inside her head. You were right, Sam. They are having a funeral but she only knew that she would be taken to it later this afternoon.” You explained as Sam joined you both. 

“Good work.” Sam wrapped his arm around you and gave you a small squeeze of appreciation. 

They both knew how hard it must've been for you to use your powers after the Nagel incident. 

The toll of touching the dead had knocked you for six in the past and in a matter of forty eight hours you had touched the dead and looked into the memories of a live person. 

You’ll need an energy boost before you can do this again. 

Zemo turned back to you and you all returned to the apartment. 

“Well, I got nothin’. No one’s talkin’ about Donya.” Bucky slouched down on the couch in defeat. 

“Yeah, it’s because Karli is the only one fighting for them.” Sam joined him on the couch. “And she’s not wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked. 

“For five years, people have been welcomed into countries that have kept them out using barbwire. There were houses and jobs. Folks were happy to have people around to help them rebuild. It wasn’t just one community coming together, it was the entire world coming together. And then, boom. Just like that, it goes right back to the way it used to be. To them, at least Karli’s doin’ somethin’.” Sam explained himself. 

“You really think her ends justify her means? Then, she’s no different than him or anybody else we’ve fought.” Bucky pointed over to Zemo. 

“She’s different. She’s not motivated by the same things.” Sam argued with Bucky.

“Sam’s right.” You spoke up. “When I looked into that girls head I saw a lot of Karli. She means a lot to those people, she is their light, their Captain America. But she’s just a kid. From what I saw she has a whole lot of love in her heart and I'm not saying that hurting and killing people is right but she sees it as the only way to help her people.” 

Zemo had walked over from the kitchen with a tray as you spoke. 

“That little girl. What’d she tell you?” Bucky questioned him. 

“The funeral is this afternoon.” Zemo only said what you already knew. 

“We know that. Now you know the Dora’s coming for you any minute. In fact, they’re probably lurking outside right now. Keep talking.” Bucky demanded. 

“Leaving you to turn on me once we get to Karli. Hmm. I prefer to keep my leverage.” Zemo sure knew how to push someone’s buttons. 

Bucky shot up and threw Zemo’s cup against the wall. The crashing of the glass made both you and Sam jump to your feet. 

“You wanna see what someone can do with leverage?” Bucky threatened Zemo. 

“Take it easy. Don’t engage him. He’s just gonna extort you and do that stupid head tilt thing.” Sam tried to de-elevate the situation. “Let me make a call.”

“You want some cherry blossom tea?” Zemo offered Bucky as Sam walked away.

“No, you go ahead.” Bucky grumbled, scowling at the Baron. 

“Come on.” You took Bucky’s hand and pulled him away from Zemo. 

You headed into the bathroom and started to fill up the tub with some cold water. 

“Will you get me some ice?” You asked Bucky to which he complied. 

Once the tub was full of ice water, you stripped and climbed inside. 

Bucky had taken a stool and faced the door to give you some privacy. 

“You shouldn’t let him get to you.” You said as you settled into the water. Your body was screaming at you as the ice touched it but you knew it’d give you the wake up call you and your muscles needed. 

“I don’t.” Bucky grimaced. 

“You don’t? Oh, so the shattered cup in the other room was just a scare tactic?” You mused. 

“Yep.” Bucky grumbled. 

“Okay.” You sighed before going under. 

The cold water hit your brain and you immediately sat back up. 

“Feel better?” Bucky had heard the splashing of the water. 

“Yeah.” You admitted, running your hands over your face and hair. “Can I have my towel?”

Bucky kept his back to you as he passed you the towel. 

You wrapped it around you and stepped out. 

“You can look.” You told him.

Bucky turned and his eyes went straight to the bruises that covered your legs and arms. 

“I’m okay, Buck.” You assured him as you watched the cogs turning in his head. 

“I forget you aren’t...” Bucky’s words dropped off as he stepped closer and lightly took your arm, examining the damage. 

“That I’m not a super soldier?” You smirked. “I may bruise but I can hold a lot more than most, Buck.” 

“Doesn’t stop me worrying.” Bucky admitted as he lowered your arm. 

“I know.” You whispered, looking up at the man’s deep blue eyes.

“You better get dressed. You already know what Sam is thinking with us both being gone right now.” Bucky went to go towards the door when you stopped him. 

“I had a dream about Wakanda on the plane ride here.” You confessed. 

Bucky stopped and looked back at you. 

“It was the day you finally beat the Winter Soldier.” You told him. 

*Flashback*

“These are incredible, Shuri.”  You smiled widely as you threw the new high tech Vibranium knives that Shuri had made for you. 

“I know. I know.” Shuri was well aware of her awesome brain. 

Shuri pressed the combat button on the wall which simulated attackers for intense weapon training. 

You inhaled as you closed your eyes. 

A footstep gave away your first attacker. You threw the knives to the holograms and the attackers were down. You ducked and dodged and jumped around the room as you practised with the knives. 

Shuri cheered you when you finished. You smiled through your heavy breaths and Shuri jogged towards you to give you a fist bump. 

“You are something else, my friend.” Shuri praised you. 

The doors opening behind you made both you and Shuri turn to see who had entered. 

It was Bucky. 

He rushed towards you with a bright smile. His lips seemed to quiver and his eyes were glassy. Something had happened. 

It had happened.

He embraced you tightly and you returned it. Your fingers gripped onto Bucky’s long hair as he buried his face in your neck. 

You looked back at Ayo (who had followed Bucky) and Shuri and mouthed a ‘Thank you’. 

Ayo bowed her head at you before leaving the hall. 

Bucky had finally gotten over HYDRA’s programming after all these years of being held prisoner by a few words. 

You and Bucky stayed like that for what felt like hours. The relief from Bucky washed over you and bound him to you until he was ready to part. 

It was an incredible day.

*End of Flashback*

“Maybe you could sense that the Dora’s were close on our tails.” Bucky suggested. 

“No, we all knew that they’d come for Zemo eventually.” You dismissed the idea. “I think it was after seeing Zemo treat you like him again.” 

Bucky remained silent. 

“I don’t think I ever told you how proud I was of you that day.” You folded your arms over your chest as you leant back on the tub.

“You didn't need to.” Bucky assured you. “I already knew.” 

You watched Bucky leave the bathroom so you could change. 

When you had returned to the main space again it was just about time to head out again. 

You felt a little nervous as you didn’t really want a fight with Karli since you weren’t 100% but you figured you had felt a hell of a lot worse before.

As you left the apartment, a voice and face you didn’t particularly wanna see called out. 

“Karli Morgenthau is too dangerous for you guys to be pulling this shit.” John Walker and his little side kick were walking down some stairs towards you. 

“Ah! How’d you find us now?” Bucky called back. 

“Come on. You think three Avengers can walk around Latvia without drawing attention?” Lemar, Walker’s partner, scoffed. 

“No more keeping us in the dark. You could start by telling us why you broke him out of prison.” Walker pointed out Zemo. 

“He did that himself, technically.” Bucky corrected Walker.  

“This better be an unbelievable explana––”

“––Hey, take it easy before it gets weird.” Sam interrupted Walker before things could get heated in front of civilians.

“I know where Karli is.” Zemo kept walking as the others stopped. 

“Well, where?” Walker asked, stopping Zemo by stepping in his way. 

“All we know is it’s a memorial. So, we’re gonna intercept her there.” Sam informed them.

“That means civilians. High risk of casualties.” Lemar relaid to his partner as you continued to walk.

“All right, good, we’ll move in fast. Take her by surprise.” Walker started to talk through his plan when Sam stopped him. 

“No, I wanna talk to her alone.”

“I’m not losing her again.” Walker argued with Sam. 

“Look, the person closest to her died, she’s vulnerable. Now is the best time to reason with her.” Sam was trying to defend his reasoning but Walker wasn’t having it. 

“What? No. Wait, no! No! Stop. Hold on. Stop, okay?” Walker ran up ahead to stop everyone again. “I think we’re way past reasoning with her, unless you forgot that she blew up a building with people still in it.” 

“Sam, you walk in there cold, she could kill you, man.”Lemar tried backing up his partner. 

“If I go in hot and the op goes wrong, more people will die.” Sam handed over the other scenario. 

“You’ll let him do this?” Walker looked between you and Bucky. “Are you gonna let your partner walk into a room with a Super Soldier alone?”

“He’s dealt with worse.” Bucky told him flatly. “And he’s not my partner.”

“I used to counsel soldiers dealing with trauma, okay? This is in my wheelhouse.” Sam walked past you and Bucky to face Walker.

“I know. And I know those soldiers, which is why I know this is a bad idea.” Walker still wasn't on board. 

“Wait, John.” Lemar stopped Walker.  “If he can talk her down, it might be worth a try.”  

“Thank god Battle-scar here has some sense.” You declared. 

“It’s Battle Star actually.”Lemar smiled at you but you ignored him. 

“We’ll deal with you later.” Walker told Zemo as he caved in.

“I’m sure it will all come to an agreeable conclusion. My associate is just up ahead.” Zemo lead you towards the young girl he had spoken to earlier that day. 

“Hello, my friend. This is for your family. Can you show us the way?” Zemo handed her some money and the girl beckoned for you all to follow.  

“What the hell?” Walker seemed a little confused by Zemo’s ‘associate’ being 12.

The girl lead you to the building where the funeral was being held and you all waited for a signal. 

“Karli’s in there.” Zemo announced as the girl ran off. 

Sam went in whilst Walker cuffed Zemo. 

“You got 10 minutes. Then we are doing things my way.” Walker told Sam before he left. 

“Aggressive.” Zemo mumbled after being handcuffed. “But I get it.”

You rolled your eyes subtly at both Walker and Zemo. 

You took up a position by the door with Bucky. 

You watched Walker sit down, his grip on the shield was tight as he slowly huffed in and out. 

You frowned as you studied the man. Your eyes glanced over to Zemo who was also watching Walker. 

You shared a look before you let your eyes fall back down to your feet.  

“Uh-uh. No, no, no. This is a bad idea.” Walker started to pace as he let his impatience get the best of him. 

“It hasn’t been ten minutes, John. Just sit tight.” Bucky sighed unimpressed by the young solder. 

“Don’t do that. Don’t patronise me.” Walker glared back at Bucky. 

“Sam knows what he’s doing.” You backed Bucky up. 

You all watched Walker stop as he thought. His heavy breathes causing his chest to rise up and down quickly. 

“I’m goin’ in.” Walker didn’t want to listen anymore. He stormed towards the door but both you and Bucky stepped in his way.

“This is all really easy for you, isn’t it? All that serum runnin’ through your veins.” Walker didn’t even look at you as he squared up to Bucky. 

That really bothered you.

You took hold of the man’s upper arm and yanked him to look at you. 

“You may be Captain America right now but we don’t follow you. We said we’d give him 10 minutes. So, he’s getting 10 minutes.” You glowered at the man. 

“Your partner needs backup in there. Do you really want his blood on your hands?” Walker leant towards you, trying to be intimidating but it wasn’t working. 

“Just wait.” You looked the man in the eye with a subtle threat in your stare. His jaw clenched as he tugged his arm away from you. 

Walker went back to look at the clock again. 

After a couple more minutes, he tried once more. 

“Time’s up! Our turn.” Walker didn’t hesitate to push past you as he charged ahead. 

Bucky kept his tongue in his cheek as he watched it happen. 

You and Bucky stayed behind Walker and his partner as they marched ahead.

“Karli Morgenthau, you’re under arrest.” Walker announced as he entered the room. 

“This is what that was?” Betrayal flashed across Karli’s face as she looked at Sam. 

“No, wait––” Sam didn’t have a chance now that Walker had intervened.

“––Tricking me until help came?” Karli started to back away. 

“We had enough time to talk.” Walker exclaimed as he headed straight for Karli. 

“Nazi! “ Karli wasn't going the easy way. She hit Walker back and he went straight into a table. 

Lemar tried to keep you and Bucky back but you had easily managed to get round him to chase after Karli. 

Bucky being what he was managed to get ahead of you but you were close on their trail. 

Sam had found his own way but ultimately you all lost Karli. 

“I lost her.” Bucky sighed.

“This place is a maze.” Sam looked around at the several doorways with a frown. 

The sound of gunshots is what caught your attention next. 

“Come on.” You rushed through the building trying to get to the source. 

You didn’t manage to get there before Walker did. 

Zemo was unconscious on the floor and vials of the serum were smashed around the concrete floor. 

“What happened?” You asked as you looked down at the mess. 

“He was shooting at Karli. I stopped him but she got away.” Walker lifted his shield a little to symbol how he had stopped Zemo. 

“Let’s get him up.” Sam started down the stairs and you followed. 

Zemo woke up after a little encouragement and some smelling salts. You had decided it was best if you split up on your way back to the apartment. 

You and Sam were going to stay with Zemo and see if you can dig up anything on socials and the computer and Bucky was going to do a round and see if she had holed up anywhere familiar. 

Sam sat at his computer, he was contacting Sharon whilst you stood with your phone searching Twitter to see if any Flag Smashers appearances or Karli were popping up in recent tweets. 

Zemo laid down on the couch with a wet towel and a strong glass of scotch. 

“You got anything?” Sam asked you. 

“Nothing. I don’t think we’ll find her this time if she doesn’t want us too.” You put your phone down in defeat. It wasn't usual for people to give her Karli’s location anyway. 

“I think you’re right.” Sam hated to agree but this was the first time you had come close to actually talking Karli down and it failed. 

“And now with the serum’s gone. Who knows what her next move will be.” You knew that Karli didn’t have the option to create more super soldiers now and that gives her a disadvantage. The idea of an army is gone now and she would only have her current foot soldiers to help her. 

Zemo moved for the first time in ten minutes as he lifted his cold compress. 

“Were you ever offered it?" He asked aloud. 

“What?” Sam furrowed his brow at the man. 

“The serum.” Zemo replied. 

“No.” Sam smirked at the idea. 

“If you had been, hypothetically, that is, would you have taken it?” Zemo inquired. 

“No.” Sam answered instantly, his smile dropping. 

“No hesitation. That’s impressive.” Zemo nodded before removing his towel. “Sam. (Y/n). You can’t hold out hope for Karli. No matter what you saw in her, she’s gone. And we cannot allow that she and her acolytes become yet another faction of gods amongst real people. Super Soldiers cannot be allowed to exist.”

“Isn’t that how gods talk?” Sam queried. “And if that’s how you feel, what about Bucky?” There was a silence from Zemo. “Blood isn’t always the solution.” 

Before the conversation could continue, the door opened and Bucky strode inside.

“Something’s not right about Walker.” Bucky stated as he removed his jacket. 

“You don’t say.” Sam huffed with amusement. It was clear as day that Walker was at his wits end with the pressure on him.

“Well, I know a crazy when I see one. Because I am crazy.” Bucky poured himself a glass of whiskey. You rolled your eyes at his statement. 

“Can’t argue with that.” Sam retorted. 

“Shouldn’t have given him the shield.” Bucky was back on this topic again. 

“I didn’t give him the shield.” Sam rose to his feet to face Bucky.

“Well, Steve definitely didn’t.” Bucky sipped on his drink just as the doors flew open. 

All right. That’s it. Let’s go. I’m now ordering you to turn him over.” Walker commanded, his face red and his ears steaming. 

“Hey, slow your roll. Shield or no shield, the only thing you’re runnin’ in here is your mouth. Now, I had Karli and you overstepped. He’s actually proven himself useful today. We’ll need all hands on deck for whatever’s comin’ next.” Sam approached Walker to try and pump his breaks. 

“How do you want the rest of this conversation to go, Sam, huh?” Walker chuckled softly as Sam remained silent. “Yeah. Should I put down the shield? Make it fair?”

Sam scoffed, shaking his head at the man’s antics. 

Walker put down the shield but the only thing flying next was a spear that struck the pillar by Walker’s head. 

It was the Dora Milaje. 

They had come for Zemo. 

From your time in Wakanda you understood the language as Ayo spoke to Bucky. 

“Even if he is a means to an end. Your time is up.” Ayo reverted back to English. “Release him to us now.” 

Walker introduced himself to Ayo, not that she cared for him.

“Well let’s, uh, put the pointy sticks down and we can talk this through, huh?” Walker suggested, only to be met, yet again, by silence from the Dora’s.

“Hey, John, take it easy. You might wanna fight Bucky before you tangle with the Dora Milaje.” Sam tried to warn him but he wasn’t backing down. 

“They don’t have jurisdiction here––”

“––The Dora Milaje have jurisdiction wherever the Dora Milaje find themselves to be.” Ayo cut Walker short. 

“Okay.” John chuckled lightly. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot.” Walker made the mistake of putting his hand on Ayo’s shoulder. 

Ayo responded with an attack. 

The surrounding Dora’s fell into defence positions as Ayo and Walker fought.  Lemar bounced into action, trying to help his partner out but it only warranted in more fighting. Or more asses getting kicked by the Dora Milaje. 

“We should do something.” Sam said as you, him and Bucky stood together watching. 

“Looking strong, John.” Bucky called out. 

“Bucky!” You tried not to laugh as you scolded the man. 

“Guys...” Sam nodded to Ayo about to strike John with her spear which made Bucky reluctantly intervene. 

“Ayo, let’s talk about this.” Bucky only landed himself directly in the mess. 

You realised how serious this was as Ayo didn’t hold back and went ahead to help Bucky. Sam went over to help Lemar but was met by more Dora's.

You grunted as one of the women attacked you. You had almost forgotten just how incredible they were at combat. Almost. 

You were backed against a wall with the spear to your chest when the room fell silent. 

You looked over at Bucky to see his arm was on the floor. 

You wanted to move towards him but you were stuck until orders were given to release you. 

“He is gone. Leave it.” Ayo had opened the bathroom doors to reveal the manhole had been opened. Zemo had escaped. 

You were trying to slow your breathing when finally the Dora’s fell back. 

She retracted her spear and left with Ayo and the others. 

“Did you know they could do that?” Sam asked Bucky as he pushed himself off the floor. 

Bucky reattached his arm. He groaned as he swung it round to adjust it. 

“No.” He said but the shock on his face from before had already given away that answer. 

You looked past Bucky to where Walker was still on the floor. 

“You all right, man?” Lemar offered his hand to help him up. 

“They weren’t even Super Soldiers.” You heard Walker mutter. 

“Come on.” Lemar tugged him to his feet. 

“I can’t believe he pulled an El Chapo.” Sam walked over to the bathroom and stared at the hole. 

“I can.” Bucky wasn’t really that surprised and neither were you truthfully. 

“Come on.” You beckoned the boys out of the apartment so you could talk. 

You got down to the streets and away from Walker before you spoke again. 

“Walker isn’t stable. He’s on the brink of cracking.” You kept your voice low as you spoke to the boys. 

“What do you mean?” Sam asked. 

“We may not like him but he’s not stupid. He knows that he can’t be Steve, do the things Steve did and it’s killing him. He's so obviously trying to win this fight by himself and it’s going to drive him insane if he isn’t the one to beat Karli.” 

“But he can’t beat Karli. You saw her kick him across the room like he was a cardboard box.” Sam reminded you of what happened earlier. 

“We have to get to Karli before he does because he’s either gonna stop her or kill himself trying.” You weren't worried for the man but worried about what would happen if he finally snapped. 

Suddenly, Sam’s phone started to ring. It was his sister. 

“She said what? Right. Hold on, hold on. I know, I know. Listen, pack an overnight bag and take the boys...” Sam sounded worried. 

“What happened?” Bucky asked. 

“Karli called Sarah. She threatened my nephews.” Sam told you both. “Okay. Go somewhere safe. Only pay cash. All right? Tell me when you arrive. I know. Look, I love you. I’ll never let anything happen to you and the boys. Okay. Bye.” He hung up and then immediately texted an unknown number. 

“What does she want?” You knew Karli was desperate but threatening kids was a different story.

“Karli wants to meet. She left a contact number.” Sam’s phone buzzed with a new text. “She said come alone.”

“We’re coming with you.” Bucky wasn’t going to take no for an answer. 

“Alright but keep your distance.” Sam didn’t bother to fight you on it. “We better suit up.” 

You suited up by adding a few more weapons to your body. You placed your favourite thigh holsters on that held your Vibranium knives out on display. 

Sam got his wings and soon you were at the location. 

“Karli!” Sam bellowed as you entered the building. 

Karli leant over a balcony to make herself seen. You remained on the ground floor but looked up at the girl. Bucky followed Sam. 

“You called my sister? That’s how we’re gonna play this?” Sam was upset and understandably so. 

“Sam, I would never hurt her. I just wanted to understand you better.” Karli confessed.“I see you, um, didn’t come alone.”Karli peered down at you then up at Bucky. 

“You have to end this now.” Sam told her. 

“I don’t wanna hurt you. You’re a tool in the regimes I’m looking to destroy. You’re not hiding behind a shield. If I were to kill you, it’d be meaningless. I was gonna ask you to join me. Or do the world a favour and let me go.” Karli spoke pretty boldly for someone who seemed to be alone. Super Soldier or not. 

“Hey, Sam, new Cap is moving, looks like he’s found them, or maybe they found him.” Sharon’s voice came through on Sam’s intercom. 

“It’s Walker.” Sam looked down at you and then Bucky. 

Karli jumped from the balcony at the realisation the jig was up but Bucky was quick to jump too. 

Karli kicked Bucky back but you managed to weaken Karli as you flipped over and kicked her in the jaw. 

Sam put her down momentarily as he flew down and kicked her also. 

“I’ll send you the location. Go!” Sam ordered both you and Bucky before he took off. 

You knew Bucky would be fast enough to run there but you didn’t have that luxury. 

You crossed the street to a parked motorbike and opened up it’s wiring. Just as you managed to get it running, Sam’s coordinates came through. 

You docked your phone and set off. 

You dodged through the narrow streets and traffic to arrive at another large building. Karli must have a favour for buildings you could get lost in. 

You drove through the doors and skidded to a stop. 

Bucky had gotten there before you. You could hear his grunts from a flight or two up. 

You raced up them only to be met by a super soldier fighting Bucky. 

You sent a knife forward, it embedded itself into the man’s soldier, he cried out which gave Bucky some time to throw him down the stairs. 

You tucked up, over the tumbling body, holding onto the railing and the wall. 

Bucky jumped over the rails and with one final blow knocked the soldier unconscious. 

“Stay there.” Bucky told him before climbing back up to you. He thanked you for the help, handing you back the knife that had been in the man’s shoulder. 

You then both went ahead to find Sam and Walker. 

They were fighting more super soldiers a floor up. 

You didn’t hesitate to go in for the attack.

You pulled a knife and threw it to Bucky for help; he caught it midair. 

You screamed with frustration as the soldier you were fighting, pulled your arm behind you and slammed you into the pillar. You managed to swivel around, taking out the soldiers legs as you freed your arm. 

You threw a knife into both his biceps. You only intended to injure, not kill, them anyway. 

He groaned as he pulled them and tried to use them against you. 

All at once, the fighting stopped when you all witnessed Karli kick Lemar into one of the concrete pillars. 

Lemar’s body slumped down with blood painted across his lips. 

John broke free from his attacker and slowly made his way over to Lemar. 

From the sight of the body, you already knew he wasn’t walking out of there. 

Walker desperately tried to wake him up. 

That’s when Karli took her chance to flee. 

You and the boys took off after her but lost her again pretty quickly. 

When you rounded the building, you saw a crowd gathering. 

What you saw next made you feel psychically sick. 

John Walker stood above Karli’s right hand man, blood splattered up Steve’s shield and across his uniform. 

He had killed the man in front of all these civilians. He had killed a man as Captain America. 

(PART 5 HERE)

Bucky Barnes Tag List

@florencxs​ @mystictimetravelcolor​ @yourphotographyteen16​@shannon-posts​@darkbluenovember @sexwithhiddlesbatch​@thefandomimagines​ @mydarkness-itsnotmyfriend​ @sad-huffle-nerd​ @glitchingghosts​ @themaddies-obx​ @avenging-parker​@delilahsdaydream​​ @felicityofbakerstreet​​ @purplewcrld​​ @opheliaaaa​​ @avisexe​ @lindseyrae20​ @thanossexual​ @smolanxiousdeku​ @soccer-100000​

[inawickedlittletown]

Queerbaiting and Buddie

(word count: 1,900)

I keep saying that I don’t want to spend any more time on 9-1-1 meta or fic, but the events of this weekend made me open up a document where I had some unfinished meta and in light of the S4 finale airing tonight, I thought I might at least write this: 

“Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation. They do so to attract a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion of relationships or characters that appeal to them, while at the same time attempting to avoid alienating other consumers.” 

That is how Wikipedia defines queerbaiting. And I really feel like everyone needs to read that and then read it again and realize that what is happening on 9-1-1 with Buddie is NOT queerbaiting. 

I don’t want to go into the long history of queerbaiting because we would be here all day and anyone that wants to do some research should go and do so. There are a lot of resources out there. Use them. 

But the short of it is this: queerbaiting has a lot more to do with the way a show is promoted, with the way that anyone involved in the show talks about a queer ship, and with the show deliberately scripting scenes that hint at a relationship without any intention of following through. Expectations and wanting a queer ship to go canon and those expectations not being met do not alone equate to it being queerbaiting. 

For any of us that have been around a long time there are a lot of perfect examples and if you compare Buddie to any of them, they are very different. I’ll name a few:

Merlin/Arthur

John Watson/Sherlock

Emma Swan/Regina

Derek/Stiles

Castiel/Dean Winchester (though they did go canon...barely)

Lena/Kara

Buck and Eddie do not fit into that list. Which isn’t to say that someday they could belong there, but I just do not believe that they will even if Buddie never becomes canon. And this all lies in how Buddie as a ship has been treated both on screen and off. I’ll break it down by season. 

S2: 

Eddie is very clearly introduced as a new character, a straight Army veteran with a disabled kid and family drama. He and Buck have immediate chemistry. We can’t deny that, or deny that from that first episode there are immediate sparks. Unintended sparks, but sparks nevertheless. And it is easy to tell that no one on the production team expected that and the story reflects that. 

Yes a foundation for their friendship is formed and yet the season long story focuses on Eddie’s relationship with his estranged wife and Buck is dealing with his own growth after being left by Abby. Their friendship shines and their scenes are great but none of them suggest romance and there are actually a lot of episodes where Buck and Eddie barely interact in S2 aside from in the background or for small work related moments (this mostly happens after Shannon returns). 

S2 does give us the first acknowledgement from the powers that be aka Tim Minear that they know what the fans have seen. This is why the elf scene exists, but it exists in a space where it’s a nod to the fans and not meant to do much more than that. The other moment is during the call with the livestreamer. But S2, places them completely and without question on a strong friendship. 

S3: 

We see a lot more conflict for Buck and Eddie in this season and we see how close and important they are to each other. Those are the two main things. That can be read as friendship easily and it’s a season where both Buck and Eddie deal with their pasts and in one way or another start to get closure while their friendship remains intact. 

Yes there are some scenes that make us squint and go huh, wtf? (I’m looking at you kitchen scene), but narratively we also know that neither of these boys is ready for a real relationship with anyone, let alone each other. But we can bask in how close they are as well as how Christopher fits in into all of it. 

But in S3 we are also introduced to Ana and we see the return of Abby. We also get to see that Buck and Eddie have become closer than ever and that the lawsuit only serves to highlight the importance that they both feel about having the other available to them. I’ll also quickly mention that Eddie Begins worked hard to highlight Buck’s devotion to Eddie. 

S4: 

Without considering the events of the finale (I am avoiding spoilers and know nothing about it or the speculation), we’ve seen Buck and Eddie both grow and get further closure on their past. This season has paralleled them well and their friendship has not faltered, they’re as close as ever. 

The beginning of the season was heavily focused on Buck and we saw him grow as a person and begin to work on himself in a healthy way and we’ve seen Eddie be supportive of that. 

We also have Ana to consider and her relationship with Eddie as well as the return of Taylor and yet the appearance of these women has not changed the Buck and Eddie dynamic. And I find it fascinating that Eddie beginning to date Ana, is the thing that prompted Buck to start dating. The parallels are all over the place but it is the strength of the friendship and the way they care so deeply about each other that remains whether that becomes romantic is still to be seen, but it could still go either way.  

Off-screen by the end of S2, Tim Minear had already addressed Buddie by throwing in that elf scene in a wink/nudge fashion that said “I see you” and in the scene with the girl with the livestream with the comments. During S3 he tweeted about being frustrated by the fans demanding and being hostile and thinking that that would make him more likely to do what they want (I’m paraphrasing what I remember seeing). Tim has never once said that Buddie will happen or shut the door on the ship entirely, but he did say he did not want to engage in conversation about it because he doesn’t want to get into arguments with fans. 

Oliver has always been enthusiastic about Buddie and has even said that he would be perfectly fine with it happening both a while ago and more recently in promo for S4. Conscious of queerbaiting and not wanting to give fans false hope, he has specifically said that he does not know if it will or won’t happen and that he wouldn’t speak on that as he’s not the one making that decision. His support for it happening does not mean he has any sway one way or the other. He’s said this a few times and even wrote a letter to the effect to make it clear to fans that the last thing he wants is to disappoint someone due to something he’s said. 

All in all, it just isn’t a constructive environment for anyone working on the show to interact with fans on this topic because any time that they do, they get attacked by overly enthusiastic buddie shippers that in many ways are making everything worse. 

In all of the interviews from Tim that I’ve seen, he has always been very quick to hint at what was coming up on the show in a way that at times has been misleading on purpose. The number one thing that comes to mind is early in S4 where Buck was said to get a new woman in his life. Tim absolutely made it out to seem like it was a girlfriend while knowing fully well that it was a therapist. This is an excellent example of what promoting and hinting is actually like. No one from this show has done that in regards to Buddie. 

No one has gone out of their way to hint that it may happen in a way that excites the fans. And this is one of my main reasons for knowing that Buddie is not a queerbait. At no point in the life of the show so far has anyone used Buddie in a promotional way to bring in viewers. Because THAT was the whole point of queerbaiting in the past. 

It was a way that some showrunners found to bring in a lot of viewers when they needed to up their numbers in order to show networks they were worth keeping around. Someone figured out that LGBTQ people wanted to see themselves represented so much so that they would tune in to anything that promised an LGBTQ character in some fashion. It was a tactic that worked well in the landscape of tv where there was so little LGBTQ content on mainstream media that anyone wanting it would latch onto anything. And then they just wouldn’t deliver on those relationships or characters. In 2021, that is not the world we live in any longer. 

In today’s tv landscape there is so much to watch and so much to pick from and diversity has grown, it is celebrated. Queer characters are well represented as are queer relationships and queer stories. The times are different. A while back I was listening to a podcast (Bait: a queerbaiting podcast) and something I found interesting was how the hosts both agreed that in today’s tv landscape there is no more real queerbait and that we won’t easily find anything like the ships I mentioned above. I think I agree more with this than I expected to, because I do think that it exists in some spaces, but it definitely isn’t what it used to be. This is a good thing. 

Specific to 9-1-1, this is a show that has that diversity and that isn’t afraid of tackling that diversity and giving us interesting and nuanced perspectives and stories embracing that. We have characters of color, women in positions of power, a F/F relationship, two multi-racial relationships, a disabled character, other queer characters including a M/M relationship. There is so much in this show that embraces diversity and that embraces the reality of what the world looks like. To call it queerbait is to disrespect everything else that this show is and has done and the hard storylines that have been tackled that we would not have seen on tv ten years ago. 

And I get that Buddie would be another breakthrough. It would be a novel way to tell a queer story, and it would be amazing if it were to happen. The set up is there, but it isn’t fully realized, and Buck and Eddie can still be read as just friends if we take off the shipping goggles. But it also isn’t queerbait or likely to become queerbait and people have to stop calling it that. 

What Buddie resembles is one of the many unintended slow burn ships that have frustrated viewers in many forms across fandoms and we just have to go along for the ride and maybe it will happen. Or maybe it won’t. But if we know anything about relationships on tv, it is that a lot of the fun comes from the journey, even if the destination is good too. 

[cyndavilachase]

I’m Looking Forward Now 💖Thank you and good bye

So, it’s been a little over a week since Steven Universe Future ended… 

I’ve been hesitant to write this, honestly, but I’m tired of holding myself back from properly expressing myself in fear of appearing overly invested in the media I consume, even in private. Writing helps me organize my thoughts and feelings, and I feel like these thoughts in particular may resonate with many, so I want to share them. I want to talk about what Steven Universe has done for me personally, both as an artist, and as a person.

I’ve been around since the day the first episode of the original series aired. I actually remember when Steven Universe was just a logo on Wikipedia’s “List of Upcoming Cartoon Network Shows” list, back when I was a freshman in high school. It piqued my interest, but when commercials finally dropped for it, I thought it was going to be bad because of the way marketing handled introducing Steven as a likeable character. There was still something about it that made me want to give it a chance though, so I went online and watched the pilot before the first episode's release. I was hooked immediately. I knew I was going to love it, and I did. I fell so absolutely in love with Steven as a character, and the world that he and the gems lived in. I became obsessed. I was always so excited for new episodes to come out. Little did I know what else it would do for me as I went through my adolescence alongside it.

As the show progressed, it was evident that what I wanted out of a western animated childrens’ cartoon was finally coming into fruition: this show was becoming serialized. There was continuity, there was plot, there was character development-- it was getting deep. It was pushing the groundwork that Adventure Time laid out even further (thank you, Adventure Time).  

I will give credit where credit is due: earlier western childrens’ cartoons I grew up with like Hey Arnold, and Rugrats, among others, also touched on heavy topics, but Steven Universe was able to take similar ideas (and even more complex ones, concerning mental health and relationships) and expand on them outside of contained episodes and/or short arcs. These themes, which were a part of the show’s overarching story, spanned across its entirety. Continuity was rampant. 

What did this mean? It meant kids cartoons didn’t have to be silly and fun all the time and characters weren’t just actors playing a part in 11-minute skits. Steven and the gems would remember things that happened to them, and it affected them and how they would function and play a part in their story. This was a huge deal to me as a teenager. I always wanted the cartoons I grew up with featuring kid characters to feel more. In my own work, I often felt discouraged when combining a fun, cutesy western art style with themes as dark or layered as anime would cover. I always thought it had to be one or the other because an audience wouldn’t take a combination of the two seriously enough, based on discussions I had with classmates, friends, and online analysis I read at the time. Steven Universe proved to me otherwise. This show was opening the door for future cartoons exploring in-depth, adult concepts. I felt so seen as a kid, and was inspired to stick with what I love doing.

I was actually very worried about the show’s survival. It was in fact immensely underrated and the fandom was miniscule. Then in 2014, JailBreak dropped, and it’s popularity exploded. Part of it was because of the complex plot and the themes it was covering like I mentioned, but also because of its representation. 

I remember when fandom theorized that Garnet was a fusion due to grand, tragic reasons. Turns out, she’s simply a metaphor for a very loving w|w relationship. This was huge. I cannot stress how important it is that we continue to normalize healthy canon queer relationships in childens’ media, and Steven Universe finally was the first to do that proper. Introducing these themes offers the chance for a kid to sit there and ask themselves, “Why is this demonized by so many people?” I asked myself exactly that. Ruby and Sapphire were my cartoon LGBT rep. They were the first LGBT couple I ever ecstatically drew fanart of. I was dealing with a lot of internalized homophobia at the time, and they showed me that I was allowed to love women and feel normal about it. The process of overcoming this was a long one, but they played a part in my very first steps into becoming comfortable with my sexuality. I could go on and on about it’s representation in general-- how it breaks the mold when it comes to showcasing a diverse set of characters in design, in casting, and in breaking gender roles. It’s focus on love and empathy. Steven himself is a big boy, but he's the protagonist, and the show never once makes fun of his weight, or any other bigger characters for that matter. It wasn’t hard to see why the fandom had grown so large.

Fandom was always a joy for me. It was a hobby I picked up when I was in middle school, like many of us here did. I would always cater my experience to fun, and fun only. I only started getting more deeply involved in SU’s fandom when I had just turned into an adult. During the summer of 2016, between my first and second year of college, I drew for the show almost every day non-stop when the Summer of Steven event was going on and posted them online. This was a form of practice for me in order to become not just more comfortable with experimenting with my art, but also to meet new artists, make new friends, and learn to interact with strangers without fear. I dealt with a ton of anxiety when I was in high school. When I was a senior applying to art school for animation, I decided I was going to overcome that anxiety. I made plans to take baby steps to improve myself over the course of my 4 years of college. Joining the fandom, while unforeseen, was definitely a part of that process. I started feeling more confident in sharing my ideas, even if they were fan-made. I fell in love with storyboarding after that summer, when I took my first storyboarding class, and genuinely felt like I was actually getting somewhere with all of this. I remember finally coming to a point in my classes where I could pitch and not feel hopelessly insecure about it. I was opening up more to my friends and peers. 

But this process, unfortunately, came to a screeching halt. 

My life completely, utterly crumbled under me in the Fall of 2017 due to a series of blows in my personal life that happened in the span of just a couple weeks. My mental health and sense of identity were completely destroyed. All of that confidence I had worked for-- completely ruined. I was alone. I nearly died. My stay at college was extended to 4 and half years, instead of the 4 I had intended. I lost my love for animation-- making it, and watching it. I could no longer watch Steven Universe with the same love I had for it beforehand. It’s a terrible thing, trying to give your attention to something you don’t love anymore, and wanting so desperately to love again. I dropped so many things I loved in my life, including the fandom.

Healing was a long and complicated road. I continued to watch the show all the way up until Change Your Mind aired in the beginning of 2019, and while I still felt empty, that was definitely a turning point for me with it’s encapsulation of self-love. I was hoping James Baxter would get to work on Steven Universe since he guest-animated on Adventure Time, and it was incredible seeing that wish actually come true. The movie came out and while I enjoyed it and thought highly of it, I was still having issues letting myself genuinely love things again, old and new. It was especially difficult because cartoons were my solace as a kid, when things got rough at home. I remember feeling sad because the show ended, and not getting the chance to love it again like I used to while it was still going.

By the time Steven Universe Future was announced, I was finally coming around. I was genuinely starting to feel excitement for art and animation again. I wasn’t expecting there to be a whole new epilogue series, but happily ever after, there we were! Prickly Pear aired, and the implications it left in terms of where the story was going did it. I was finally ready to let myself take the dive back into fandom in January of this year. My art blew up, something I wasn’t expecting considering my 2-year hiatus. Following this, I was invited into a discord server containing some of the biggest writers, artists, editors, and analysts in the fandom. I had no idea there were so many talented people in the fandom, some already with degrees, some getting their degrees-- creating stuff for it on the side just for fun. The amount of passion and productivity level here is insane, and so is the amount of discussion that has come out of it.

I didn’t realize it at first, but it was actually helping me gain back the courage to share ideas. I lost my confidence in pitching while I was taking the time to heal, and graduating meant there would no longer be a classroom setting I could practice in. This group helped immensely. 

I have made so many friends through this wonderful series, and I have so many fond memories talking to like-minded creatives, getting feedback and a myriad of sources for inspiration, as well as all of the memes and jokes and weekly theorizations that came about as we all waited on the edges of our seats for episodes to air. I needed this so badly, I needed to get back in touch with my roots, when I would go absolutely hog-wild over a cartoon I loved with people who loved it as much I did. Future has been a blessing for me in this way. I graduated feeling like I was back at square-one, but now I feel like I’m on my way again.

It’s 2020 and while I’m doing great right now, I am honestly still recovering from the total exhaustion that followed after graduating a few months ago, and finally leaving the campus where my life fell apart behind. Needless to say, watching Future was like looking into a mirror. Watching one of my favorite characters of all time-- one that grew up with me-- go through so many of the same things I went through not too long ago was absolutely insane to watch unfold. It’s such an important thing too, to show a character go through the process of breaking down over trauma and all the nasty things that come with it, and to have them go on the road to healing. Steven got that therapy. He wasn’t blamed. The gems were called out. The finale was everything I could have ever hoped for. The catharsis I experienced watching it was out of this world.

As I continue my own healing journey, I will always look up to the storyboard artists, revisionists, and designers that I have been following over these past 7 years, as well as the new ones introduced in Future. It's been such a joy watching these artists release their promo art for episodes, talk about their experiences working on the show, and post the work they've done for it alongside episodes airing.

Thank you Rebecca Sugar, the Crewniverse, and the fans, for making this such a truly wonderful and unique experience. Thank you for reminding me that I am, and always will be, an artist, a cartoonist, and a fan. Thank you, my followers, for the overwhelmingly positive response to my artwork. I have had so much fun interacting and discussing the show with you all again over these past few months. Steven Universe and it’s fandom will always have a special place in my heart, and it will always be a classic that I will return to for comfort and inspiration for decades to come. I am sad that the cartoon renaissance is over, but so many doors have been opened thanks to this show. I am so, so excited to see what this show will inspire in the future, and I hope one day I get the opportunity to be a part of that. 

Goodbye Steven, thank you for everything. I wish you healing, and I wish Rebecca and the team a well-deserved rest. ♥️

-Cynthia D.

[xiyao-feels]

Finally got around to writing down some thoughts on the differences between Empathy and the original—per scene and then a general reflection.

Episode 10

(episode 10 differences)

Going through this chronologically, our first comparison is the captain encounter. Honestly I think NMJ was straight-up inventing most of this—even aside from the sheer absurdity of MY, what, smuggling XY out of prison, bringing him into the middle of everything (he runs into the Captain and friend AND WWX!), XY…just going back into prison…well, anyway, putting all that aside—the Captain's questions here seem like NMJ's preoccupations, not the Captain's. The Captain is hugely contemptuous of MY, but he's not, like, obsessed with his innermost heart, you know? "You're lying! I just saw that. You were talking. Tell me honestly. What's your ulterior motive?"—that's NMJ, not the Captain at all. Plus there's the way the Captain grabs MY basically the exact same way NMJ does. 

Next up there's MY telling NHS he's going to go check on XY—minor phrasing differences aside, one thing that's interesting is we don't get all of MY's reaction/decision before he tells NHS in Empathy, just the tail end:

Ahhhh, now, the bit where NMJ sees MY stab the captain! You can see here the beginning of a pattern of Empathy erasing the Wen. MY throwing himself in front of the blade to save NMJ is removed, of course, but so is NMJ fighting WZL, as he was before going to the prison in episode 10; in the Empathy he's just kind of standing there. And then sees MY, uh, creepily pick up a sword??? And follows him??? Instead of hearing that XY's escaped and running to the prison because of that, which is of course what happened in episode 10. (So XY is erased some in this scene, too; even when it comes to MY's excuses, he says It wasn't me, but we don't get to 'Xue Yang killed him', as we do in the original.)

Some other points of interest here… Of course the expression NMJ sees on MY as MY kills the captain is only shown in Empathy. Interestingly, also, while MY is quite clearly terrified at NMJ's approach in both, in episode 10 it's presented immediately, while in the Empathy he has a beat before he starts reacting that way.

The last scene—NMJ confronting MY and kicking him out of Qinghe. In the Empathy, we start with MY having been thrown onto the floor, rolling—but this isn't there in episode 10, and to be honest I think it probably didn't actually happen. First, while I can see NMJ throwing MY onto the floor, I don't actually think he'd throw him quite that hard at this point in time? And it's also got a lot of visual echoes of JGY rolling down the stairs; I think he's projecting backwards. Of course, it still takes MY longer to recover in episode 10; Empathy consistently minimizes the physical harm done to MY.

So the conversation is interesting because it's really just two different conversations in the Empathy vs episode 10. In episode 10, MY leads with the Captain's abuse of him, and he's clear that it's habitual, ongoing, long-term. In Empathy, he leads with the Captain releasing XY, /adds in/ that the Captain wanted to kill him (that's not there in episode 10!), and absolutely skips over and minimizes the abuse: the beatings aren't mentioned, the credit-stealing isn't mentioned, the insulting and humiliating… even the 'Every time' is removed from before the 'he humiliated my mother', making it seem like this was a one-off provocation instead of habitual. NMJ's somewhat unhinged rant about MY's motives, including the would you have killed everyone at the cave if I hadn't helped you, is also Empathy-only (and then when MY starts to reply NMJ is like, Don't lie to me! and MY shuts up, suggesting perhaps that a denial would have been lying, which may be part of why people think this is a remotely reasonable assertion).

Some other interesting things—in episode 10, we see NMJ lift his sabre and then lower it, unable to go through with it; in Empathy, we don't see that at all—in general I think there's less of a sense that he's struggling with his decision, in Empathy, it's more just like He Is Doing The Righteous Justice. Fascinatingly we also don't see him put Baxia away in Empathy—I think he must because we see a scene where he already had, in episode 10, but we don't actually see it. We also don't see MY, injured, get up and thank NMJ and walk out, or indeed NMJ's conflicted gaze after him; the scene cuts off too soon.

Episode 22

(episode 22 differences)

There's only one scene for episode 22: the WRH, NMJ, and MY scene, inside Sun Palace. Right off the bat, we have the Wen erasure again; the episode 22 scene starts with WRH directly addressing NMJ and tormenting him and his Nie cultivators, whereas the Empathy one only starts when MY walks in. (Although interestingly MY addresses WRH as xiandu, while he doesn't seem to say anything with his bow in episode 22).

This one is an interesting scene because there's relatively little overlap? In the episode 10 scenes, you mostly saw different versions of the same events; in this one there's some of that, but there are also large chunks of time that are only in episode 22 or only in Empathy. Most of the MY-interacting-with-NMJ is only in Empathy, including, yes, the damn sabre touch. But we do have the beginning of MY talking to NMJ in both. MY's expression is different in Episode 22 vs Empathy—it's a little hard to capture in a still, but it's a lot more, mmm, simpering-mockery in the Empathy version?

Ah, one detail that's interesting—so, in CQL—which is to say in Empathy because we don't see this sequence at all in Episode 22—when that Nie cultivator calls the place 'a den of Wen' he uses 温/温氏, for Wen, and then when people are insulting MY in this scene they're using 走狗. But in MDZS all of those are actually 温狗, Wen-dog. Which is definitely more directly disrespectful to WRH than the 走狗 insults, but I feel like in general CQL doesn't use 温狗 a lot, while in MDZS it's all over the place—so while it's an interesting detail I'm not sure it's suggestive for Empathy in particular. Hmmm.

We return to things being shown in both Empathy and Episode 22 with NMJ shoving MY back. In Empathy, we only see MY stagger a little, while in episode 22 it's quite considerable—again, Empathy's tendency to minimize the physical damage MY suffers.

And then MY kicks NMJ in return! Okay this is actually fascinating, because in Empathy, it looks like this totally wipes NMJ out, and the scene stops here. But that isn't at all what happened! He's knocked onto his back, yes, BUT he recovers and comes up and shoves MY hard enough he goes flying: 

He gets up and goes to attack MY, and would probably have killed him if WRH hadn't interfered. Which, don't get me wrong, is entirely reasonable of him given his understanding of the situation but it is not at all the impression you'd get from Empathy. If anything NMJ's collapse in the Empathy after MY kicks him looks like the collapse he has after WRH finishes with him, in episode 22. And MY saying How dare you be so rude in front of Clan Leader Wen when he kicks NMJ is also removed—the whole sequence here is really another example of the removal of the Wen from the Empathy scenes. 

Incidentally, MY didn't actually kill all the Nie cultivators, in this scene. If you look while MY is flying back, at least one of them is still alive:

And then you can see all four are dead while NMJ's attacking WRH:

But MY has been on the floor recovering from NMJ's attack, so he definitely didn't kill the at least one and quite probably two who are still alive.

WRH asks MY if NMJ killed Wen Xu question; you have MY staying quite noticeably silent, which I think is still meant to be understood as MY saving NMJ's life. I guess they changed it because the MDZS version really doesn't work with the flow of events as happens in CQL? For the record, in MDZS MY answers yes, but then immediately suggests that they torture him instead of killing him immediately, and then once WRH isn't set on killing him immediately, kills WRH on the spot and starts lugging NMJ's unconscious body out of there. So there's no WWX for distraction, and Sunshot's army definitely isn't right outside, there's only LXC he sent a message to and who hasn't quite shown up yet—so in MDZS he's taking a bigger risk, and more unambiguously saving NMJ's life and winning them the war. Which is not, to be clear, to in any way minimize CQL MY's astonishing bravery and achievements.

Episode 23

(episode 23 differences)

So in both we start with LXC holding NMJ and looking down at him. In episode 23, when NMJ sees MY, we see LXC see and notice his reaction and /then/ look over at MY in concern, whereas in Empathy we don't get that moment—it just goes to both of them looking at MY.

NMJ demands his sabre back, and in both MY complies, though in the Empathy one he takes a beat longer and looks more worried about it. In the original, MY also has "Let me explain" which is dropped from the Empathy.

In both we have NMJ attacking MY with Baxia, and trying to get past Shuoyue—in the Empathy it's a bit shorter, though, and we also lose LXC asking NMJ what he's doing this for. I think that goes with cutting LXC seeing NMJ react before he looks over at MY, above; the effect is to make NMJ's response seem more obvious/natural, when in fact LXC is pretty baffled by it at the time.

"he became the Wen's underling and had been helping the tyrant at Nevernight!"—the language on 'became the Wen's underling' is actually different in episode 23 vs Empathy. In episode 23, you have 原来投靠了温氏; in Empathy, though, it's 原来是做了走狗. Note the 走狗 as earlier!

Okay, and now the big one: LXC giving NMJ reasons they should trust MY/not kill him. Empathy cuts most of this. It keeps that MY is the one who sent the map, but it drops: that the reason LXC is here today is because MY sent him a message; that MY was the one who schemed to get WRH's guard down, and then /killed him/; that MY was the one who saved LXC's life after CR burned; and that MY independently approached WRH to spy on him and has been sending LXC letters the whole time. /That's really not trivial. That's a lot to cut./

I wonder if this has any relation to the common idea that LXC did not in fact have a lot of very good reasons to trust JGY.

(Incidentally it's after the MY killed WRH reveal, in episode 23, that NMJ lowers his blade.)

...also. so. In episode 23 LXC asks MY, you know, didn't he already tell NMJ about all this (a question which makes a lot more sense in MDZS, where NMJ has already woken up before LXC joins them, but I just run with it), and MY says, you saw it ZWJ, even if I had he wouldn't have believed me. And NMJ—again it's kind of hard to capture in a still, but he pretty much reacts like he thinks that's ridiculous and MY is just making excuses/being manipulative?

And then of course that gets erased from the Empathy, as well as as just mentioned most of the reasons LXC actually gave. So. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Oh, this also means it cuts what I'm pretty sure is the first on-screen use of A-Yao—it does show up later in the Empathy version of this scene, so I don't think that's hugely significant, but just as a note.

Then there's MY kneeling in preparation for apology, which is in both Empathy and episode 23. The Empathy cuts make it seem like he kneels pretty much right after NMJ lowers his blade, though, and we don't get to see him making the deliberate choice to step out if LXC's protection to kneel—again, I think it makes LXC seem more understanding of NMJ than he actually is here.

The apology proper is only in Empathy; honestly it mostly seems fairly reasonable to me, although it does mean you only hear LXC saying "But I believe, when he was doing such things, deep in his heart he must have been…" after the version that cuts most of his reasons for believing that. In terms of actual changes, I wonder if LXC reacted more quickly/strongly to the bit where it looks like NMJ is actually going to kill MY? It's definitely more understated than his previous reactions, and it would fit with the other changes made.

Last scene: the oath. At this point I think it's fairly well-known that NMJ looking at JGY, and LXC turning his head to look at them both, is only in Empathy—there's also, maybe?, a small change to the text; in episode 23, "Both God and people will be furious with us" is 天人共怒, but in Empathy it's 天人共戮. I say maybe because—on the one hand, the subs definitely use a different character, and it's in both the YT subs and the Netflix subs even though those aren't always 100% identical, but while I'm not usually checking the audio for this I did here because it's just the one character and the audio pretty much sounds the same to me? (ep 23) (Empathy) Could just be my ear, or a mistake on the subs' part or the audio part, who knows.

Overview

Looking at all the changes together, a few patterns emerge.

First, people who are doing damage who aren't JGY—the Wen, XY—tend to get minimized or erased from the narrative. Similarly and to some extent as a result, the harm caused by JGY is exaggerated; also similarly, the good that JGY does is also minimized or erased. Meanwhile, the damage done /to/ JGY is minimized—both the environment of abuse he suffered at Qinghe, and the physical harm done to him, which he usually recovers from much more quickly in Empathy (even when the attack itself is made stronger as, unusually, it is in the confrontation where NMJ kicks MY out of Qinghe). Finally MY is made more manipulative than he necessarily is; while I'm not saying he's never being manipulative, NMJ understands his expressions of weakness as /purely/ manipulative and inherently false, when in fact the weakness MY expresses is very real, however calculated, or not!, its expression may be.

Honestly—in this JGY who does way more harm and way less good than he actually does, who is more powerful and experiences less damage than he actually does, who is never actually weak but only acting that way to manipulate people? I feel like I'm seeing a lot of where popular takes on JGY come from.