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makeste · 3 years

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an index of Horikoshi Kouhei interviews

these are organized by date, oldest to newest, and I’m including a brief bullet-point summary of each to make it easier to look up specific interviews by content.

also, please note that although I haven’t spoiler tagged this post, the interviews from roughly 2019 onwards include some spoilers, so please watch out for those if you’re anime-only or otherwise not caught up with the manga. that said, the other interviews I think are all good.

putting this below a cut to keep things tidy.

interview with Horikoshi Kouhei and Kishimoto Masashi, May 2015

(note: this is not the actual interview word-for-word, but includes the highlights)

Horikoshi talks about being a fan of Naruto when he was growing up

Horikoshi says he was inspired by the way Kishimoto shows emotion through drawing hands, and that he loves drawing hands thanks to Naruto

Horikoshi mentions that Gaara is his favorite character and that he really liked the Chuunin Exam arc

Kishimoto praises BnHA and says he knew it would be a hit when he read the second chapter

they talk a bit about the worldbuilding and the process of creating a story where 80% of the population has superpowers

they discuss Naruto and Sasuke’s rivalry and Horikoshi mentions that he found it “frustrating” and that he really liked the Valley of the End and thought it would be the end of the series. he says it was very emotional

they talk a little about the stress of writing manga and about the toll it takes on mental health

pre-anime interview, April 2016

talks about his reaction when he found out BnHA was getting an anime

talks about how the series originally came about

says that BnHA is the story of Izuku and All Might and that their story is the “vertical axis” which runs through the main story

says there is also a “horizontal axis”, which is the side characters and quirks and all of the other elements that he considers to be the “fun part” of the story which mellows out the darker aspects of the vertical axis

mentions that he really likes drawing and writing Bakugou

mentions Deku vs Kacchan 1 as one of the early highlights in the series for him

talks about Ochako being someone who has a more cheerful relationship with Deku, which balances out some of the heavier aspects of Deku and Katsuki’s relationship (again, horizontal vs vertical axis)

mentions that if he could pick any quirk he’d pick a “no need for sleep” quirk

talks about reading Dragon Ball as a child

mentions that he really likes American comic book heroes, especially Spider-Man

mentions Goku and Spider-Man as the two that come to mind when he thinks about heroes and what it means to be a hero (specifically, that Goku is the “win” aspect and that he brings reassurance to everyone, while Spider-Man is the “save” aspect who helps other people)

talks about hearing Deku and Bakugou’s voices in the anime for the first time, as well as Ochako, Iida, and All Might’s voices

another pre-anime interview with konomanga.jp, April 2016

(note: this interview is in Japanese, but Google translate does a servicable job with it)

talks more about Spider-Man, including his favorite costumes and comic artists

gives some American comic book recs

mentions that he likes Godzilla and Gamera and always goes to see those movies

talks about his Star Wars influences

talks about his favorite manga as a child -- Dragon Ball, One Piece, and Naruto

talks about becoming a manga artist, and about some of his influences

says that he likes drawing monsters, creatures, and villains, and says that he really liked drawing the panel where Tomura made his first appearance at USJ

talks a little about composition and frame movement in his work, and about the challenges of drawing a weekly manga

mentions that he knows what the story ending will be, but hasn’t yet figured out how to connect the dots to that point

interview with Horikoshi Kouhei and Umakoshi Yoshihiko in BnHA: Ultra Archive, May 2016

(note: Umakoshi is the anime character designer for BnHA. also, this interview was part of the Ultra Archive character book, so you’ll have to scroll a bit through its other contents in order to get to the interview.)

they talk about the process of creating the BnHA anime and sketching out all of the character designs. Horikoshi says the anime character model sheets look just like how he draws them

they talk about Horikoshi’s obsession with drawing hands lol. Horikoshi mentions that the way Mike Mignola (the creator of Hellboy) draws hands was a big influence

they talk a lot about art and drawing in general

Horikoshi talks about Ochako’s character design a bit

they talk about the differences between drawing manga and doing animation

Umakoshi talks about his first impressions of BnHA

Horikoshi mentions that he still has a lot of ideas for characters and quirks that he hasn’t been able to implement yet

they talk about the different character designs and which ones they find easy, difficult, and fun to draw

they talk for a fair amount of time about Iida’s character design

Umakoshi talks a bit about other anime he’s worked on

they talk about the character of All Might, and Horikoshi ominously says that All Might’s future will be “a fairly sad affair”

interview with Natalie Comics, June 2018

talks about the 4th anniversary of BnHA, and the release of BnHA: Two Heroes

talks about the Basement internship arc and mentions that it was challenging for him to write

talks about the question “what is a hero?” and how he defines heroes

mentions Mina, Sero, and Shouji as characters he would like to/plans to feature in the future, and mentions that he already has a story planned featuring Shouji

talks about the popularity of the series

talks a little about Koike-san, his first editor

talks about Two Heroes and its development and story

talks about club activities at U.A., and which clubs Deku and Katsuki would be in

talks about his mom and about some of his childhood experiences which inspired scenes in the manga

talks about why he became a mangaka

talks about what percentage of the series is completed, mentions the original planned length was about 30 volumes but that it has obviously surpassed that

mentions that he has an idea of how the last arc will be planned out

interview with Horikoshi and Eiichiro Oda, August 2018

Horikoshi talks about being a fan of One Piece and mentions he even sent artwork to Oda which was included in one of Oda’s galleries

they talk more about OP and about favorite arcs and how it’s influenced Horikoshi’s work

Oda compliments Horikoshi’s art and they talk about cover artwork and coloring (Horikoshi mentions he uses Photoshop)

Horikoshi talks a bit about BnHA Two Heroes

Horikoshi again mentions that he originally thought BnHA would be about 30 volumes (Oda says he should shoot for 50 but Horikoshi laughs and says he’s not sure he can do ten years)

they talk about how fucking long OP is and how manga stories tend to expand once the story starts taking off

Interview with Anime News Network at SDCC, August 2018

talks about his love of American comics, especially Spider-Man, and says that American comics are a lot more mainstream in Japan nowadays thanks to all the superhero movies

talks about how he got started as a manga creator

talks about being inspired by Dragon Ball, and that All Might in particular was inspired by Goku

talks a bit about the process of creating characters

talks about Bakugou’s popularity and that it took him by surprise at first

mentions that he doesn’t have the stamina for BnHA to be a long series like One Piece

interview with Cinema Today Japan, December 2019

(update: here is the link to @hanashimas‘ translation which is more accurate)

talks about Deku and Bakugou’s characters and their attributes

mentions that at the start of the story Bakugou thinks Deku is above him, so he tries to act intimidating and superior to overtake him

(ETA: apparently this is a mistranslation; he actually says that he intended for Bakugou to be a character who was “above” Deku so to speak, who Deku would eventually surpass. he then goes on to talk about his realization that Bakugou could actually have a much more interesting character arc, which of course we have since seen play out.)

mentions that he planned to have Bakugou and Deku improve on two separate vectors as they entered U.A.

mentions Deku vs Kacchan 1 as a turning point where he had some realizations about Bakugou’s character that humanized him for him

mentions that he always knew Bakugou wouldn’t turn evil and “would never lose to the darkness”

says the scene where Katsuki takes Kirishima’s hand at Kamino was bittersweet because it showed Bakugou’s growth, but also showed the ongoing gulf between him and Deku because Deku knew that Katsuki wouldn’t take his hand

mentions that Bakugou still needs to apologize to Deku

says that Kirishima, Kaminari, and Mina are among the easiest characters for him to draw because they take the initiative and get the other characters excited and help pull the story forward

mentions that he always hears Nobu’s voice in his head now when writing Bakugou

talks about the characters being high school kids still, and that when he expanded on their families he was conscious of that -- “I wanted to show that these protagonists are still children after all”

interview in Volume R (booklet that was released along with Heroes Rising), December 2019

talks again about his manga influences and what inspired him to become a mangaka

talks about the experience of getting his first manga published

talks about what inspired him to write BnHA

has an interesting quote where he talks about the vaguely desperate feeling of “trying one last time”, which was weighing on his mind when he created BnHA, and which also played into Deku’s motivations in the first chapter

mentions All Might as being a character that he’s attached to

talks about his reactions to the anime, the overseas popularity, and the first movie

talks about his heavy involvement in the production of Heroes Rising

talks about designing and creating the bad guys for Heroes Rising

talks about the creation and character design of Hawks and mentions that the original character design was going to have a bird head lol

mentions that Hawks will have a relatively big influence on the story in the future

talks about how the ending of Heroes Rising was his original planned ending for the series

talks about Bakugou’s character development which leads up to that moment

talks about the conclusion of the series, and that all of the characters will come together in the end

interview with all of the past editors of the BnHA manga, March 2021

(note: this is another interview that’s not translated word for word, but summarized. also this interview was with just the editors, not Horikoshi himself.)

they talk about the early reception to the manga, and Horikoshi’s reactions

they talk about the individual moments early on when they realized that the series would be “amazing”

Yoritomi mentions that Horikoshi came up with the designs for most of the Billboard Top 10 pro heroes at the last minute lol

including Hawks (all Horikoshi had decided on prior was that he was going to be “cool” and would be a spy)

everyone praises Horikoshi’s character designs in general

they talk about the start of the anime and that whole process

they mention that Horikoshi cried watching both of the movies

they talk about the overseas popularity of the series

each editor lists their favorite episode of the anime

they talk about Horikoshi sacrificing his original manga ending to be used in Heroes Rising

they talk about that one ending theme song in season 4 that showed the pro heroes’ childhoods, and that Horikoshi had the anime team change Hawks’s to match the backstory he had planned

they talk about the upcoming season 5 and send final messages to the fans

interview in the MHA Drawing Smash Exhibition Pamphlet, April 2021

Horikoshi talks about the art in the exhibition and about the process of creating the artwork

he mentions that the piece with Deku rescuing a falling Ochako took the longest to draw

he says the drawing of All Might was the most fun to draw for him

that’s pretty much it, this one is very short lol

interview in Jump GIGA Spring 2021, April 2021

talks about which characters will play an important role in the final act. specifically mentions Hawks, Ochako, Shouji, Shinsou, Monoma, and Sero

“many characters’ actions will converge into a single one, so maybe the best way to say it would be ‘keep an eye on all of them!’“

says that for Hawks’s flashbacks and the Todoroki family’s past, he was influenced by Sion Sono’s works

mentions that the drawing of Deku and Ochako from the MHA Drawing Smash exhibit isn’t directly related to the main story, but that while drawing it he kept in mind how their relationship would develop if he explored it deeper

says he had the final act (or at least the chapter 306 reveal part of it) vaguely planned for a long time, but started to think about the specifics in volume 21 during the Endeavor vs High-End fight

says he’s already decided on the ending, and that “the path to it has been longer than I initially expected, but the main elements that I’ve decided before starting the series are still the same”

Q&A trivia from Vol. W World Heroes’ Mission, August 2021

(and alternate translation by aitaikimochi)

talks about All Might not having many friends among the pro heroes (but says he’s become “slightly attached” to Aizawa since he started teaching at U.A.)

describes what Bakugou, Tsuyu, and Mineta’s rooms look like

talks about Jirou and Momo’s relationship and the kind of things they like to talk about when they hang out together

says that Shouji’s face will eventually be revealed, and that he is “not sure” about Hagakure’s :’)

talks about the types of YouTube videos Shouto watches (pretty insightful answer which is equal parts sweet and sad)

says that Midnight’s classes were the most popular among the students

says U.A.’s robots once rebelled against their creators (lol wtf)

says his three favorite movies are Akira, The Ring, and Spider-Man: Far From Home. he says Akira in particular is his bible

and that’s it for now, but I will update this post with future interviews as they are posted, and if anyone has links to an interview I’ve missed please let me know.

#horikoshi kouhei #horikoshi kouhei interview #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha reference #makeste reads bnha

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felassan · 3 years

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Jon Renish (Foundation Technical Director @ BioWare, working on DA4) recently did a Twitch stream where he played through some DAO. Although he works on DA, this is his first time playing through DAO. He’s playing through it looking at random details from a dev perspective as he’s currently working on DA4 and therefore wants to know more about the previous games.

On the stream he mentioned some tidbits on the development of DA4. There were also some insights and anecdotes about the development of DAO and similar. It’s a 3 hour stream so I collected them here in case that’s of use to anyone (for example not everyone can watch streams which don’t have subtitles/captions). The stream is a fun/interesting watch though, so if you’re curious or able to watch I recc doing so. 😊 The rest of this post is under a cut for length.

Please note that there’s some paraphrasing on my part, this is not a transcript. There are also some additions from another dev who featured on the stream to give some commentary. The stream also contains more snippets that at times I couldn’t make out (I tried my best!).

(There is a mention of Cullen’s VA in the text below.)

DA4

Jon said he can talk about things about DA4 that aren’t “consumer-facing”, but he can’t say anything about the game that would be consumer-facing but which isn’t already publicly available. There are several reasons for this. One, that’s not his job, there are people whose job this is and they let each other do their respective roles. Two, BW are a publicly-traded company, so if he said something that could affect that that would be insider trading. Three, they’re not done making DA4 yet, so if he said that they have added [x] to the game and people got all excited about that or pre-ordered on that basis, but [x] ended up being cut, people would be like ‘BioWare lied to us’, when it’s just that things changed during the course of development, as is often the case

He’s glad that fans are excited for the game but notes that fan expectations are always double-edged. It can be really tough as some people started ‘playing’ the game in their heads as soon as they heard of it. That’s fine, he loves that, but he hopes that peoples’ expectations don’t turn into requirements. Clearly BW have alluded to certain characters, like Solas, being in the game, but some fans say things like “If [say] Morrigan isn’t in the game, then, rahhh!” Y’know, there’s a lot of talk about how certain characters have to be in the game, and yeah.

On characters which are quantum (i.e. characters which can die or which can have similar end-states as death in previous games): their being quantum makes it really hard for the devs to work with those characters in subsequent games. The devs naturally aren’t going to put as much effort into characters which could have died previously. A character can have had an amazing appearance throughout/role in a previous game, but if there is a risk of something happening to them and of them being removed [effectively] from the plot, it just doesn’t make sense to have them as a major character in a subsequent game. If a character can, say, sacrifice themselves in some glorious ending, the devs have to make sure that if they use them again, in worldstates where the character didn’t do that, the character is kind of ‘muted’, as the devs don’t want to disrespect the players who made a different choice

A comment in chat expressed a wish for Shale in DA4. Jon’s response is that he has no idea on that front

Bugs don’t come out of crunch, they come out of development in general. Crunch does impact on the quality of a game though. In recent years BW are always really trying to reduce crunch, they’re currently working really hard to bring it down. The best way of doing that is by controlling scope. As creatives it’s tough to balance wanting to make great stuff and be industry-leading with the desire to constantly do extra passes over things they’ve created like the audio, art etc. Their biggest enemy is time, other ways of reducing crunch or time spent in general include iterating tools to make often-repeated processes as time-efficient as possible

I think the following was an observation on the industry in general as opposed to a BW-specific/-exclusive comment: he thinks that as a result of this sort of thing [working to reduce crunch], a lot of games are going to have to be smaller and a lot more focused in scope i.e. the devs will have to focus on hitting the key selling points of that particular game/series as hard as they can, and cut down on branching out sideways/wide on a bunch of random other stuff

Jon doesn’t personally engage in character creators in games, but he knows that for some players that expression is worth a lot of time and focus. BW want to be industry-leading in this kind of stuff as it’s something which is interesting/key/integral to their games

In a way BW have made their own nest of problems what with every DA game being so different to the previous one. Still, he notes that each game has a staunch fanbase that says that their particular favorite game is the best one in the series

He doesn’t want people who think that DA4 isn’t what they want to buy it and be upset - there are so many other great games out there! BW are going to make the game they’re going to make - if some people like it, that’s great, and if some people don’t, that’s cool. Sometimes waiting until reviews are out and/or really seeing beforehand if a game is something that you want [has things/features in it that you want] prior to getting it - as opposed to jumping right in or pre-ordering - is a good idea. Fans don’t always know what they want, but they do know what they like - these are 2 different things

He hopes that whatever they ship for DA4, people go “I enjoyed this experience”, and that then, if there’s additional content for it down the road, people can decide, “do I want this further content?”

On hair: BW are using the new hair technology in the latest version of the Frostbite engine, so they’ll see what they can do! This was said in response to a comment about the hair in the latest FIFA games (as EA make FIFA)

A comment in chat asked about a flying mechanic (griffons). Jon’s response is that flying is such a heavy gameplay mechanic that you can’t put it in a game without everything in the game being built about it (see Anthem)

Relating to the above comment, in DA4 mounted combat would be cool but then they’d have to make the game ‘around’ mounted combat and make the mounted combat feature meaningful

On the underwater concept art: it should not be interpreted as a promise of gameplay. BW have amazing artists who sit down for a couple weeks while they’re in early production and just draw loads and loads of all kinds of stuff. Concept art is like a moodboard or Pinterest board. Elsewhere in the stream he advised, take all the concept art together like a mosaic and ask, ‘what is the overall theme[s] here?’, and to zoom out from individual details. [This stuff echoes PW’s word on concept art]

BW don’t generally write things or the choices as bleak as the choices in DAO were anymore. This is a conscious choice on their part, they want their game to be fun [note: this was said when the side quest in Orzammar where the Warden has the option of convincing a dwarven mother to abandon her young baby to die was being played through. It seems to refer to intensively grimdark choices/beats of this kind]

I think this was more of a general comment on games: SSDs (solid state drives) mean that players will see shorter elevator rides (Mass Effect - was this a reference to the remaster?) and fewer switchback corridors (those are actually loading zones). Generally, these are going to change mechanically the time it takes to do stuff in games

The devs have lots of features on their backlog that they’d like to offer players but each will ofc involve implementation and subsequent maintenance, and each one that is chosen to add is being chosen over something else. And sometimes, it’s hard for them to tell if [x] feature or [y] feature would be better to add to the game

They’re about to work on a giant feature (a pure tooling feature, something that isn’t consumer-facing) that is probably going to take ~2 staff years of effort [I think “staff effort” includes multiple staff working concurrently, so 2 years of staff effort doesn’t = 2 years of time chronologically] to get done in the next few months. They’re investing all this effort across the people working on it because they don’t want their artists and designers etc to have to deal with the problem that it’s going to solve anymore. I’m not sure what this feature is but elsewhere in the stream they referred to tooling and automation and gave the example of, the better your tooling is, the fewer times you have to manually set the camera for a human vs elf vs dwarf position, for dynamically-generated [cinematic?] content and for the first pass to be automated (if this is the case, less time is spent/wasted on redoing it and manually touching it up) [see last bullet point in this section]

He doesn’t know how big DA4 is going to be but said “let’s ballpark and say like most games it’ll be somewhere between 70 and 100 GB”

If we kept our Wardens as the PC throughout all 3 games, at the end they would be so powerful that it’d be a bit like “Let’s just do [thing], I’ve killed gods before, whatever”. He thinks it’s good that they have fresh characters each time in DA in order to reset that power level. Some people want more Commander Shepard in the next Mass Effect and he feels like, ‘what else could you possibly want / what else could that character possibly do after 3 games?’

When asked how much freedom he/they have now to focus on next gen, he said that there’s actually almost no difference on that front. The problems never change. They now have better renderers, better ray-tracing, better graphics cards etc, but they have always made DA games for high- and low-spec PCs, so it’s actually about gameplay systems. The freedom isn’t power-based and them getting access to more cores and more RAM generally isn’t going to change how the games are played. The games still have to be made for hard drives on PC. Dev creativity matters more than power here. The challenge of building a BW game is more about/from managing loads of different plotstates, loads of different art pieces, etc

On the title situation (two): names are the last thing they worry about because names have to go through legal before being approved. Every name, including character names, has to be checked in case it’s a famous person, or associated with something bad, or offensive in a different language due to localization etc

They don’t do face scans of people with big beards

There was also a bit about changes/developments to/in the cinematic design process and associated tooling [?] but I found it too hard to follow sorry >< This bit of commentary begins at timestamp ~ 1:52:45 and continues til ~ 2:00:05 [keep listening through the bit where they pause for a cutscene]

General BW

There’s currently ~350 staff in Edmonton, ~200 in Austin and more elsewhere

He notes that DA games sell pretty well, but relative to EA games in general, they’re a drop in the bucket compared to FIFA

DAI

5% of players of DAI never created a character [Q: does this refer to people who just used the default appearances/presets with no editing, or people who only played multiplayer?]

The mounts don’t actually go faster than running, this is an illusion

I think they said it has 55,000 lines of dialogue. [I’m pretty sure I remember devs elsewhere saying it has 80,000 lines of dialogue]

One of the companions had to have their name changed during development because of legal/translation reasons. It sounds like the original name sounded too close to something offensive

DA2

Back when DA2 was internally code-named “Nug Storm”: this was at the beginning when it was pitched to the team on a set of slides. The image on the slide for that pitch had devil horns, a metal hand and no flesh, it was just made out of fire and flames

DAO

The engine DAO is made on is the third engine that they tried for it during development. [David Gaider has gone into the DAO engine stuff some on Summerfall’s series of DAO playthrough streams]

The cracks on the cracked eluvian asset are modelled after the crack on the Tardis in Doctor Who from around that time, as at the time some devs had been talking about Doctor Who a lot. A dev actually added this factoid to DAO’s entry on TV Tropes but someone else (evidently not a DA dev) came by and deleted it saying that it was too much of a stretch x)

Before the game had its name there was an HTML script that randomly generated possible titles for consideration, it adds verbs and nouns together e.g. “Grim Dark”. One of the craziest possibilities that it once generated that the devs always remember is "Bone Wind”

One of the portraits that’s used for decoration around the world in-game (it’s of a bearded human man) is actually of a specific BW staff member

He played through Stone Prisoner, where Wilhelm’s son Matthias gives exposition in the cellar. Matthias is voiced by GE and this had been pointed out to Jon earlier on. Jon: “I don’t think that character’s voice acting was super strong there”

On the in-game area towards the end of Stone Prisoner: Outdoor areas in games are large and one of the things needed for them is streaming, so different chunks can be ‘streamed in’. There’s a tower [?], and technically the top of the tower was made an outdoor level so that sky stuff could be there, though it didn’t really need to be. The person that made it an outdoor level chose the very smallest chunk size for the terrain mesh, which determines how fine of a streaming they do. So when playing, every time you moved like 4 meters, the game would stream out 50-100 chunks behind you and the same in front of you (this is the bubble around the player of what actually exists). Because it was so small, it was constantly thrashing the CPU and disc to do all the loading. The devs were like “this isn’t going to work”, but they barely had any time. The solution: they made a new level that was outdoor and copied all the sunlight and other settings, but with the largest chunk size. They copy-pasted the entire level from one to the other. The problem with that many chunks then is that there was a giant expanse of flat terrain sticking out of the middle of the tower. They didn’t know if the story was going to involve shots of the outside of the tower for this sequence or not, so they took the terrain deformation tool and bundled all the terrain vertices at the bottom of the tower in a giant clump. So to this day there’s a mess of vertices and twisted terrain at the bottom of the final level that probably no-one has ever seen [not sure though if this anecdote is in reference to a place in that DLC or somewhere elsewhere in the game?]

There were also some tidbits on Anthem, however I didn’t note them down (sorry).

If you think I misheard or misunderstood anything from this stream please let me know and I will edit/fix it. :)

(Thankyou to some of my friends who explained a tech detail from this to me.)

[source] <-- current rewatch link

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #dragon age #bioware #video games #greg ellis mention #morrigan #queen of my heart #solas #mass effect #anthem #next mass effect #i love these factoids and insights into game dev it's so interesting and fun #i actually started this post yesterday but 2 hours in I was so sleepy (it was mad late) so I called it a night

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rawr-ily · 4 years

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A Stupidly Long Bokuto Analysis

CEO of thought dumping and calling glamorized rants “essays”

I already made a character analysis for my kin character (Oikawa) so here’s one for my favorite/ultimate comfort character :)

"The world" is a recurring theme with Bokuto. He has a strange habit of always looking at the bigger picture. By which I mean, he doesn’t really look out for little details. He's simple minded, so he takes things at face value. Tokyo isn't enough for him. Japan isn't enough. Asia isn't enough. He wants the world. He doesn't care if it seems like too much, or if it's unreasonable. He knows what he wants, and he's going to get it.

This is more noticeable in the manga. For example, there's the iconic "No matter what they say, we are the protagonists of the world" . Yes, I know Akaashi is the one the says this line, but it really mainly applies to Bokuto. We know Bokuto has this strange sort of charisma that makes him ridiculously likable to pretty much anyone. Now, I REALLY didn't wanna make this about Akaashi, but it seems like that's actually Furudate's intention. It's almost as though he didn't want to give us direct access to Bokuto's thoughts for most of the series. Instead, how did we get that? Akaashi. Akaashi is the narrator for Bokuto's thoughts. Bokuto is so random, so unique and strange, that it wouldn't make sense for us to have access to his mind. Yes, we get direct thoughts from him time to time, but Akaashi is the one who really tells us most of it. He's there to filter out Bokuto's thoughts because it would be too strange for us to understand. We would never be able to figure out Bokuto because he can't even figure out himself. That's technically Akaashi's "purpose" in the story. I don't mean that in a bad way though. I would explain more, but I wanna keep this about Bokuto as much as possible.

ANYWAY, we can sort of see Akaashi as an "extension" of Bokuto. When Akaashi says "we are the protagonists of the world", he is not talking to himself or the reader. He's talking to Bokuto, because he knows Bokuto wants the world. Another thing about this quote is that he begins with "No matter what they say..." This kind of made me to a double take. Why would someone say they aren't? But then I remembered in the manga, we get a scene of Bokuto running with some classmates. It was probably for a gym class of sorts. It's Bokuto's turn to set the pace for their run, and everybody's upset because he always goes too fast and too overboard. Bokuto doesn't really notice, and he goes forth anyway. However, after a while, he looks back and realizes nobody is running with him anymore.

Sound familiar? Kageyama's teammates left him in the same way Bokuto's did. They couldn't keep up, so they abandoned them. We're more familiar with Kageyama's past, so it's a bit easier to understand Bokuto's if you see that little parallel. I might be reaching a little here, but it's possible that people have told Bokuto that the world doesn't revolve around him in the same way Kageyama was mockingly called a king. It's a common thing said to people like Bokuto, who don't really understand much outside their own head. It's not a bad thing, but many people misinterpret it as arrogance or a disregard for others. Bokuto's charisma apparently didn't work for everyone, considering how annoyed his classmates were; I think it's a possibility that people made some snide remarks.

We also see that Bokuto is actually incredibly desperate for validation. He constantly brags about his amazing talent, always wants people to see the cool things he does, and thrives off compliments. He wants attention, and that's not a bad thing at all. It just means he wants people to acknowledge how great he is, and he feels happy when they do. That's really just scraping the surface of all that quote tells us, but I want to move on to something else.

Another recurring thing about Bokuto is his use of the word "ordinary" It seems that he doesn't really understand what the word means, but I think he knows its meaning better than anyone. Bokuto using the word first stood out to me when Fukurodani player a difficult match against another school in Nationals. I'm not too familiar with the timeline, so correct me if I'm wrong. Bokuto told the rest of Fukurodani that, up until that point, he was "an ace coddled by his team" and now he's ready to be "just an ace". He wants to be an ordinary ace, which seems quite strange. This is Bokuto, and wants to be ordinary?

Bokuto has a different understanding of "ordinary" than most people do. He's simple minded, not stupid. It's not that he doesn't think; he just thinks differently. He's that unique type of person who thinks out of the box by default. When most people think of ordinary, we think of boring, plain, normal. It's been given a negative connotation by most people. Bokuto doesn't listen to connotation.

Remember that he takes things at face value? This is an example. To us, ordinary is boring. To him, it's a goal. Bokuto sees ordinary as what things are supposed to be. He wants to be an ordinary ace. Aces are supposed to be the awesome, powerful stars of the team. Aces are supposed to be the best. He wants to be the best. Therefore, he wants to be an ordinary ace. It took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to fully understand that entire bit, to be honest.

It's actually more clearly stated in one of the last manga chapters after MSBY vs. Schweiden. Akaashi interviews Bokuto for the manga company he works at, and Bokuto tells him that he has become "ordinary". Akaashi is confused and tells Bokuto that he has never been ordinary. Bokuto laughs and makes some remark about how Akaashi didn't realize just how ordinary he's become. We get a little throwback to Akaashi's 0.5 second thought process, and he realizes immediately that Bokuto doesn't use the word "ordinary" like he does. Even more impressive, he seems to also realize exactly what he means by it. Akaashi tells him that he (Akaashi) was mistaken and Bokuto is actually "super ordinary".

THIS PART TOOK ME A GOOD TWENTY MINUTES, AND AKAASHI DID IT IN 0.5 SECONDS. He's the real master at Bokuto analysis. Though Bokuto doesn't get enough serious background, so he's a difficult one to analyze. It's also much harder to put him into words? Again, he's a very unique character. He even has a surprising amount of duality in him. Though we as a fandom perceive him as an optimist, it seems his mood swings often force him into a state of overwhelming pessimism. I actually find it quite funny. It's almost like his left brain and right brain are fighting a battle, and left brain almost loses but summons the strength to momentarily completely overwhelm right brain before it takes back control. I got a very strange visual from that though.

Regardless, it just means I think his mind tries to balance out his naive optimism with intense flashes of pessimism. Bokuto gives his all to EVERYTHING. That's actually sort of an issue for him. If he's happy, he's VERY happy. If he's upset, he's VERY upset. He wants to be the best at all he doesbecause he just wants to have fun. He's not having fun when he loses, so he doesn't want to lose. It's so simple, but it's strangely inspiring. It's the straightforward answer to Tsukishima's question. Why do we push ourselves to be the best when we know there is no such thing? What motivates us? Our desire to win. What makes us want to win? Our desire to win is fueled by hatred for losing. Why don't we want to lose? We don't want to lose because it's not fun. Why isn't it fun? It just isn't. Bokuto doesn't try to dig for those answers. After all, why is anything the way it is? What does it matter? He doesn't care as long as he's enjoying himself.

I suppose that's one of the nice parts of being so simple minded. He's able to enjoy life to the fullest because he doesn't want to focus on things he doesn't like. That means his future character growth will be about having to do things he doesn't like because that's a part of life. It'll actually be quite sad to watch Bokuto grow up. What he needs to do is find a balance for all the duality in him so he doesn't need to give up his childishness or force out his mature side. If he can find a balance, it just means he'll be able to do both when he needs to. If he can do that, he'll get through everything life throws at him. He can still have fun.

He doesn't get enough serious screen time, so I can't really say anymore about him that can be reinforced by things from the anime or manga. This was only around 1.5K, so hopefully it was a pretty easy read? I still don't wanna edit this, so just tell me if things don't make sense! Also, please remember that Bokuto IS NOT AN IDIOT, SO PLEASE STOP CALLING HIM ONE IF IT’S NOT FOR COMEDIC PURPOSES. Thank you :)

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what-is-your-plan-today · 4 years

Text

Leave No One Behind

Ch 12- Win Some, Lose Some

Part 2

Co written with @icanfeelastormbrewing

Summary: After 2 years of being at the resort Ari and the other agents are gearing up for yet another mission, but there’s a little bit of trouble in paradise for him and Hannah…

Warnings: Bad Language words. Smut (NSFW, 18+ only)

Pairings: Ari Levinson x OFC Hannah Horowitz

Part 1

Ari woke the next morning and instantly realised something was missing. Simon’s ass from his face. With a stretch he cracked his neck slightly and opened one eye to find that Hannah was also gone. With a little yawn he sat up, rubbing his eyes before he swung his legs off the side of the bed and stood up, heading to the small bathroom. Once finished, he located a pair of swim shorts form the chest of drawers at the side of the hut and pulling them on he made his way outside.

Hannah wasn’t far away. In fact, she was stood straight in front of the hut at the water’s edge as Simon stood by her side, the pair of them simply looking out over the ocean which was alive with the rich, warm pinks and oranges of the rising sun. She was dressed in Ari’s shirt from the night before, her hair in a tangle of curls as it fell down her back, and there was something so raw and intimate about the moment it made Ari’s breath catch. Slipping back into the hut he located Hannah’s polaroid camera and quickly made his way back outside. He took a quick snap, and returned back inside, placing it back down along with the photo to develop before he strode back out of the door and down to the water’s edge.

Of course Simon heard him coming and turned, eliciting a little bark as he trotted towards him. He leaned down to give his dog an ear scratch before he smiled at Hannah who had turned her head over her shoulder to face him. She responded with a smile of her own, looking back at the ocean as he wrapped his arms around her from behind dropping a gentle kiss to her neck.

“You’re up early.” He said as her hands gently came to rest on his strong arms as they pulled her back into him, the fabric of the shirt she was wearing brushing against his bare chest.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She shrugged.

Ari’s nose nuzzled against the skin below her ear and he pressed another soft kiss to her jaw line “You still feeling a little down?”

Hannah took a deep breath and shrugged as her nails raked over his arms.

“You know, if it’s too much…you could go back.” He suggested and felt her still.

“As in, for good?”

“Yeah.” Ari shrugged, “Like I said, I don’t think we have an awful lot of time left…”

“I’m not quitting” Hannah said simply, turning in his arms. “I came to do a job, and I’m gonna see it through.”

“I knew you’d say that” he chuckled and Hannah watched her hands as they smoothed up over his pecs to his shoulders before she met his eyes.

“Why ask me then?” she arched an eyebrow as she looked at him, his hands flexing on her hips.

“Because I love you and I don’t wanna see you sad or unhappy because of me ever again.”

“This isn’t because of you.” Hannah shook her head “You egotistical ass.”

“Harsh!” Ari cocked an eyebrow as she grinned as he huffed out a laugh, “But I mean it Han. I don’t want you feeling like you have to stay.”

“I don’t” she shrugged “Honestly, don’t worry about me. It’ll pass Ari, I promise.”

She pressed her lips to his in a soft kiss before she glanced over to their left and nodded as two people passed them on the beach. “Guests are stirring, I should go shower and get ready for breakfast.”

“Ok.” He nodded and she looked up at him, biting her lip.

“Wanna come scrub my back?”

“You know…” Ari’s hands locked at the base of her back “The amount of times you ask me to do that, you should really invest in a loofah.”

“Yeah but, where’s the fun in that?” she grinned “Besides, why have a wolf and howl yourself?”

Ari gave a snort as she grinned again, stepping out of his hold, slipping her hand into his before she tugged him along with her over the sand towards their hut, Simon trotting behind them.

****

One of the best traditions the team had come up with since they had started running a now not-so-fake hotel was the party they always held the night before a group of tourists were due to leave. It was the perfect excuse to let loose and celebrate together with another group of satisfied guests, albeit not the ones that were counted on the board. There was always a great bonfire, drinks and good music all accompanied by lots of laughter and wishes of a safe trip back home.

That night was to be no exception to the rule and as Ari and Max were putting the final touch to the makeshift dance floor and checking the sound system, which had been upgraded since the first time they threw that kind of farewell party, Jake and Hannah were in charge of starting the bonfire under the watchful eye of Sammy. Rachel was looking after them all and ensuring they had a steady supply of beer before she settled down on Sammy’s lap. Simon stood a little away from the group, minding his own business which was chasing and trying to bite his own tail.

They were all discussing the choice of music for the night, as Ethan had sent them some new records with the latest shipment, and Max picked one out to check the sound system was up and running. As the upbeat sounds of Rio by Duran Duran rang across the beach the conversation had taken a rather odd turn, shifting to the discussion about who was the best front man- Simon Le Bon vs John Taylor.

"I used to have hair like John Taylor..." Jake piped up, taking a swig of his beer.

"So did Sammy." Hannah snorted, the look on her brother's face made her burst out with laughter as besides her Ari chuckled, his arm draped over her shoulders.

Sammy groaned. "Yeah, laugh all you want but we don't need to discuss that."

"And the stash?" she pressed, making Jake laugh out loud and Rachel chuckle. “Can we discuss that?”

Sammy glared at Jake and then at his sister. "Shut up, Han."

But, despite Sammy's deadly stares, Hannah continued her tirade. "You should have seen him. It was pretty...”

"Cool?" Jake cut her off.

"Disturbing." she blurted out with a grin.

"You two can kiss my ass." Sammy snapped at them, the pair of them dying with laughter by then, before he patted Rachel's hip and stood up to go and get changed.

A few hours later the party was in full swing, and the alcohol was flowing. Hannah who was visibly drunk by then had disappeared for some time and had returned with her polaroid and was busy annoying the boys with it.

“Pose for me guys…you’re so pretty.” She grinned, before she looked at her brother “Well, apart from you Sammy."

"Fucking fuck you Han." Sammy protested as he staggered, almost falling over.

Rachel started howling just as Ari chuckled and hiccuped. "You can’t, don’t talk to her like that man." he said, shoving Sammy a little, spilling some of his beer in the process. "Oops." he hiccuped again.

"She’s a dick." Sammy snarled.

"Yeah but man…just no." Ari managed to say, his tongue feeling thick and not quite cooperating.

"Lobo stop mooooving. I’m tryina take a photo." Hannah whined, looking at them. "Sammy can you just... like not be here. In the picture I mean." she said as she shifted her weight on the sand trying to not lose balance.

"Red if you make us stand here any longer my clothes are gonna go outta fashion." Jake complained as he let his head fall, his arms over Max and Ari's shoulders.

"Your clothes were outta fashion when my papa was alive, Jake." Hannah quipped, fast as lighting

"Bitch!" Jake groaned.

“Hey, don’t call my girl names, asshole." Ari teased, yanking Jake's arm off his shoulder and turning to shove him which ended in both men faking a heated fight on the sand. "For fuck sake Hannah." Sammy yelled, stepping away from Jake and Ari's mock fight. "Take the camera back inside. You’re drunk."

"So are you." she said, sticking her tongue out at her brother.

"Yeah but I ain’t holding a camera, it’ll end up full of sand or broken."

She paused and looked at him as his words sunk in, and then she shrugged “Yes Dad” and started walking towards her and Ari's hut, stumbling on the sand, drunk as she was. Only she stumbled a little more heavy than she was anticipating and unable to steady herself she was fully expecting to face plant into the sand, until a hand gently grabbed her arm to stop her from falling.

"Thanks." she whispered honestly as she looked up to see one of the younger guests from the group that had been diving with Jake the day before smiling at her.

“You’re welcome.” He spoke, but not loosening his grip, instead he kept his gaze locked on her, grin spreading across his face.

Max, who had been watching the guy with curiosity, nudged Ari and nodded his head towards the scene.

"What the fuck is that bastard doing?" Ari yelled, a big frown on his sweaty forehead as he released Jake from the headlock he’d had him in.

"Touching up Cracker...I think..." Max shrugged.

"Quit stirring Max " Jake spoke, brushing the sand off his shirt. "She tripped and he stopped her falling bud, that's it."

Ari groaned and took a sip from his beer, eyes still watching. Eventually he saw Hannah step back and laugh before heading up towards their hut. But he didn't miss the way the dark haired man’s eyes followed her, or the way his pals all nudged him and gestured in Hannah’s direction, all of them grinning.

"I’m watching you, you German bastard." Ari mumbled but loud enough for Sammy to hear.

"I told you. It’s always Germans." Sammy said before hiccuping.

"Fuck off. My parents are German." Rachel shoved Sammy.

"Yeah Sammy, the in laws won’t like you talking like that." Max scoffed and Ari snorted as Sammy's eyes opened wide with realisation.

"Sorry babe." Sammy apologized and then glared at Ari. Having heard his snort "Yeah, like my mother likes you, asshole."

“You know your mother loves me, jerk. So much so I went round for dinner last time I was home and she made meatloaf."

"What? Why did you…" Sammy stuttered and Ari grinned at him. "Fuck…"

"No, that’s Ethan’s job." Ari quipped, making everyone but Sammy burst out with laughter.

"You’re sick, you know that? That’s disgusting." Sammy glared at him.

"Everything is disgusting according to you." Jake stated, with a shrug.

"To be fair the thought of my mom banging my boss...." Max said, shuddering at the thought.

"Shut up Irving!"

"He’s very charming with all those elegant outfits." Rachel conceded.

"Yeah well he can go and charm someone else." Sammy glared at her.

"Don’t you mean some-mum else?" Jake snorted, making Sammy groan as they all sniggered.

"But Rachel has a point. None of you have seen his silk robe." Ari spoke and Max was fast in following suit. "Mama N has." He grinned at Ari who grimaced, readying himself for Sammy's final outburst.

"Will you all shut the fuck up?" he growled.

"Ok, ok sorry Sammy." Ari tried to calm him down as he shook his head

"What’s up? Are you angry again Sammy bear?" Hannah, who had just come back, asked noticing her brother's angry face. And she felt Ari's arm curl possessively round her waist, pulling her to him as he chuckled at Sammy's roll of eyes at her sister's pet name for him.

"Sammy doesn’t like Ethan banging your mother, Red." Jake explained, crooking a smile at Sammy.

Hannah wrinkled her nose at the mention of Ethan being her mother's partner. "Well... whatever" she started and then shrugged "Come on guys, let’s dance. I wanna dance." she suddenly changed topic as she grabbed Rachel's hand pulling her towards the “dance floor”.

"Bye then." Max raised his beer to the retreating girls.

"Yeah I’m gonna go dance too." Jake announced, and Ari saw his eyes flicker over a pretty blonde woman who was stood with a group of her friends.

"By dance you mean grind against some clueless tourist?" Max jabbed at Jake who flipped a finger at him as he left.

"They won't be clueless for long." Ari snorted. Half an hour later, after some dancing and more drinking, Ari noticed Hannah and Rachel were surrounded by the German Tourists who had all been watching Hannah. Ari was observing from a distance, the jealousy building slowly but surely, and when at one point he saw one of them wrap an arm round Hannah's shoulder and dip his head unabashedly towards her face he snapped.

"Fucker" he snarled as he started striding over but was stopped by someone grabbing his shoulder. He turned round only to see Sammy was the one holding him back.

"Don't cause a scene man. Han's got it, look." Sammy nodded his head in the girls' direction causing Ari to turn to look in time to see Hannah pulling away, her hands planted on the guy’s chest, shaking her head firmly.

"Yeah, back off asshole…" Ari hissed. "Wait. Is she smiling at him? Why is she smiling at him?" he asked Sammy, his eyes never leaving the scene though.

"She's just being polite." Max said in an attempt to downplay the issue.

"Sure." Ari snorted as he watched Hannah still smiling, her hands still on the guy’s shoulders. "Whatever. I’m ending this now." and he motioned to start towards the guy again. Sammy groaned and called at him to stop, but this time it was Max who physically did it.

"Look chill. There’s nothing going on there and like Sammy said, you’ll cause a scene. Besides Jake is close by."

But Ari was pissed and he was equally drunk, his alcohol fuelled brain wasn't working logically as all he could see was Hannah smiling at that guy that was far too close to her. As he stood watching, his jaw twitching, fists balling at his side, eventually the guy stepped back and held his hands up, turning to leave the girls alone.

Hannah watched the guy as he went, shaking her head at his complete and utter forward nature, and then spotted Ari. His handsome features which were usually soft when he looked at her were hardened and his gentle blue eyes blazed with rage she hadn’t seen in a long time. She frowned at the outward display of anger and she excused herself from Rachel and Jake and headed over.

"I’m gonna grab a snack." Max was the first to split, as soon as he noticed Hannah approaching.

"Good idea." Sammy agreed and they hastily headed off.

Hannah watched them for a moment as they left and then turned to Ari, whose jaw was twitching. "What’s wrong Lobo?"

"You tell me Firefly." he replied and she frowned at his flat tone.

"I don't know that's why I asked." she said softly, not wanting to fuel whatever was bothering him.

He scoffed. "You can’t be that oblivious."

Hannah stared at him and frowned again. "Are you talking about that guy just then?"

"Oh, so you do know what I’m talking about then."

She groaned, his jealous nature which was cute at times was at others fucking annoying. "Ari, he made a pass at me, I told him no. I'm not sure what else there is to say."

She frowned, feeling slightly puzzled not least because she had done nothing wrong but if Ari really believed what he had seen, then he surely would have been straight in there. He had done it before…

"Why you think he made that move?" Ari asked shrugging slightly at Hannah’s shocked expression.

"You think…” Hannah trailed off, her puzzled expression sliding into one of anger as she realised what Ari was implying and she narrowed her eyes. “You know what? Fuck this." she snarled and turned to leave.

"Firefly!" he growled. "Where do you think you’re going? Come back here! Hannah!"

Hannah stopped and turned to face him, gathering all the self-control she had in her not to slap him straight across his face for yelling at her. "To bed Ari. But for the record the only reason I'm not screaming at you right now is because of all these guests. You're being a fucking asshole, Levinson."

"No, I’m not." he hissed. "You’re being a brat Hannah."

"I’m being a brat?" she let out a sarcastic, hearty laugh. "Fuck you." she spat at him and with that she stormed off in their hut direction.

Ari stood frozen watching her leave for a moment and when the realization of what had just happened washed over him he kicked the sand. "Fuck!" and he paused for a few seconds, considering his options, before he went after her. He could tell she was aware he was just behind her as she sped up till she finally reached the hut and went to slam the door but Ari got his foot in the way.

"Nice try Firefly."

"Fuck you Ari." she spat those words at him again.

Simon looked up from where he had been dozing on the bed, his head cocking to the side at the raised voices.

"Hey! I’m the one who has the right to be pissed."

"No, no you don’t Ari!"

"Ok, now, you listen to me…" Ari said sternly as he brushed his hair off his face.

“I don't wanna listen. I'm done." she bit back.

"Fine, whatever." he said as he took off his shirt and went into the bathroom. He usually let her go first but not that night, he was making his point and was determined to stand for it, whatever it took or so he thought as he looked at his reflection in the mirror, his hands gripping the basin so hard his knuckles were now white. He sighed and tried to steady his breathing before sorting himself out and emerging into the room again.

"Can I go in now?" Hannah asked sarcastically, standing up from where she was sat on the bed.

"All yours." he replied, equally as sarcastic.

She stalked past him, staring straight ahead, before she shut the door behind her. Once alone in the room she sat on the toilet, her head in her hands as she started sobbing, all the rage she was feeling seeping from her eyes. That was not how that night was supposed to go, but she had no fucking idea what or why he thought she’d encouraged anything. And the hypocrite was talking just the previous day about keeping the guests satisfied after she’d teased him about flirting. Did he really not trust her that much? She was well aware they were both drunk, so that was probably worse than it should be but still…it hurt. She felt the tears sting her eyes and wiped them away as he breathed in deeply before standing to wash her face and clean her teeth.

When she came back into the bedroom Ari was led on his back, looking up at the ceiling. She made an effort to ignore him and grabbed a vest and a pair of shorts, changed and got into bed, turning so her back was to him before clicking off the small lamp at her side of the bed.

Ari turned his head to look at her, letting out a sigh. He hesitated for a moment but he then shuffled and turned towards her back and was about to stretch his arm out for her when she spoke.

"Don’t you dare touch me, Ari."

He grit his teeth at her hoarse voice. He could tell she had been crying but at that point in time he was pissed off. He tried to come up with an equally hurtful comment to show his annoyance but all he managed to say was “Good night firefly."

As no response came on Hannah's part, with an angry groan and a roll of his eyes he turned back the other way and for the first time since they started sharing a bed 2 years ago, they didn’t fall asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms.

And the space between them felt like miles.

******

The next morning Ari woke up to Simon, as always, led on his face. Pushing him off, the dog giving the usual low grumble of protest, Ari grimaced a little at the movement, his limbs feeling heavy. The room was quiet, but he could hear Hannah in the bathroom. With a groan he dropped his arm over his eyes in an attempt to keep the light from painfully flooding his system. His head was pounding and the inside of his mouth felt like he had been eating the sand from the beach.

He cast his mind back over the events of the night and he could remember drinking, fooling around and then everything going to shit. He really didn’t want to think about it, but his stubborn brain led him to replay it over and over again. The more he thought about it, the more he knew he had been an ass, but that bastard making a move to kiss his girl had sent him into overdrive. Fortunately the current set of tourists were leaving that morning and once they were gone Ari could concentrate on damage control with Hannah.

At that point the door to bathroom opened and he moved his arm away from his eyes to see Hannah stepping back into the room, already dressed in a pair of red shorts and a loose fitting white t-shirt that slouched off her right shoulder giving him a flash of her blue bikini strap. Ignoring the fact that the room was spinning, Ari sat up slightly in bed to look at her for a moment before he tentatively spoke.

“You woke up early Firefly” his voice was a little croaky, fuck he needed water.

“Couldn’t sleep” came the clipped response.

“Han…” he sighed, but she clearly wasn’t in the mood to speak to him.

“I think I’m gonna go for a walk on the beach.” She replied, her tone flat. Ari started to protest but she completely ignored him. “I need to get out of here. I’m suffocating”

“Hannah.” He tried again, and this time she took a deep, annoyed voice and snapped her head round to look at him.

“What?” she demanded.

He knew that speaking to her whilst she was still angry at him would merely result in them arguing even more so he sighed, shaking his head. “Nothing.”

“Whatever.” She rolled her eyes and walked towards the door. As she wrenched it violently open, Simon bounced off the bed and trotted after her as she left, slamming it behind her causing Ari to wince at the noise.

He lay back with a groan, cursing himself. Hannah was really pissed, and now his mind began to wander furiously. He had to make this right, he couldn’t risk losing her. Not again.

“For fucks sake Levinson, get a grip” he chastised himself. This was an argument, a stupid, ridiculous argument that’s all. Worrying about losing her was a little extreme. Wasn’t it?

He lay there, his mind arguing with itself for a few minutes before the sound of voices drifted through the lattice screens which covered the window to their hut. Knowing that he really should get up to see the guests off he kicked off the blankets and swung his legs off the side of the bed before he headed into the bathroom. After a quick shower he pulled on a clean pair of swim shorts and a light and pink hooped t-shirt before he shoved on his socks and hiking boots and headed out.

Breakfast was a quiet affair. Everyone was visibly hungover, plus the tension between Ari and Hannah was festering in the air casting a shadow over the usual well natured meal. There was no gentle touching, no longing looks, no grins, no giggles. The atmosphere was sour, and impossible to ignore.

“You ok, Han?” Sammy looked at his sister as she was picking at a croissant, not really eating much of it.

“Fine Sam.” Her response was short but not angry. Sammy frowned and looked at Ari who was drinking his coffee, deliberately avoiding anyone’s gaze.

Rachel and Jake exchanged glances as Max studied Hannah for a moment. Suddenly conscious everyone’s attention was her she pushed her plate away from her and stood up.

“Excuse me, I need to feed Simon.”

She moved away from the table, Ari following her with his eyes, his head bowing slightly once she was out of sight.

“Something wrong with Cracker?” Max asked.

“Leave it.” Sammy instructed, his eyes flicking to Ari’s before his best friend turned away. He then glanced at Rachel who gave a small sigh and stood up, ready to go and find her but Ari stopped her as he drained his coffee and issued an instruction.

“Make sure everyone is checked out, the bus will be leaving in 30.”

Rachel looked at him, blinking but she didn’t argue “Sure.”

With that he stood up and wandered outside, lighting up a cigarette. As he took a drag he leaned on the wall and out came the group of tourists that had been dancing with the girls the night before. He nodded his head to greet them, a little stiffly, offering no trace of a smile. His eyes watched the asshole that had made the move on his Firefly as he nudged one of the guys on his left, laughing as one by one they settled on the sun-loungers, a few meters away, suitcases by their side ready to depart.

Ari tuned his attention to the ocean, watching the early morning sun bouncing off the surface, and he was trying not to listen, he really was, but he just couldn’t help it when one of the guys, clear as day, asked the asshole if he had said goodbye properly to the Spanish hotty. Ari stiffened, and found himself suddenly undecided as to whether he was happy he could understand German or not.

“I wish.” The asshole laughed in his home language “She seems to have disappeared into thin air. I’m so pissed I only got to speak to her on the last day.”

“You’ve been eyeing her up since we arrived man!” one of the other guys shot back “Pity she turned you down.”

Another snorted “Yeah man, flat out no!”

Sniggers arose from the group and then one of them looked up, Ari hastily averting his gaze, but he clearly wasn’t quick enough.

“Keep it down, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her with the owner”

Asshole shrugged “He’s American, not German, can’t understand us!”

Ari fought to keep his face straight. Dick.

“You know, you’re worse than that dog that wanders around!” the guy that had told them to shut up shook his head “You cannot keep it in your pants anywhere!” “Can’t help it. But come on, guys! You seen her?”

“Yes, yes we have. She cute.”

Asshole sighed “Pity we’re leaving, reckon I could have worn her down, got her on her back with a little more time.”

Ari felt his jaw clench, he’d heard enough. With a cough he cleared his throat and then felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to see Rachel looking at him.

“All set.”

He nodded and turned back to the group of boys “Bus is ready if you want to climb up.”

They all turned to look at him and the one sat nearest on the edge of a lounger nodded. “Sure man.”

Ari watched them all gather their luggage and make their way back into the hotel. He nodded as they all walked past him, Asshole taking up the rear, and as he went to pass, Ari placed his arm over the doorway, hand curling round the edge of the frame, blocking his way.

“Hey…” Asshole began to protest but Ari fixed him with an icy glare.

“Next time you wanna talk about getting my girl on her back, maybe check I can’t actually understand you…and for the record, if you weren’t leaving today you’d be shark bait.” He hissed in German, before he moved his arm as Asshole swallowed, his eyes wide with shock and horror. Ari smiled and then spoke to him in English “Have a safe trip home, dick.”

The guy scurried away as fast as he could, Ari’s eyes burning a hole in his back as he left. Once he was out of sight the anger Ari was feeling gave way to guilt as he had basically accused Hannah of leading the asshole on, even though he knew that wasn’t the case. Hannah wouldn’t dream of doing something like that. Sometimes she could be a little flirty but then so could he, it was just who they were, and to accuse her the way he had done was ridiculous. But then again he had been drunk, and even when sober he was a total mess when it came to his girl, and now she was giving him the cold shoulder.

He had to fix this.

Taking a deep breath he headed inside to look for Hannah and found her in the office with Rachel. Immediately he spotted her red puffy eyes and the concern on Rachel’s face and that made him feel like complete shit.

“Rachel, can you give us a minute?” he asked softly. Rachel looked to him before she shrugged.

“Sure”

She turned and left the office, not before giving him a filthy look and once she was gone Hannah looked at him.

“What do you want Ari?” She sniffed and Ari took a deep breath

“Sweetheart, I'm sorry”

“Sorry for what exactly?” she tipped her chin up to look at him, and Ari should have known she wasn’t going to let him off with a mere, simple and overarching apology.

“Last night. I was out of order” “Talk about an understatement! You basically called me a slut.”

“No, Hannah.” Ari began to protest “That’s not what I said.”

“Not with those exact words maybe, but you implied it Ari.”

“It’s not what I meant.” He repeated his sentiment, “Look, I’m so sorry Han. I don’t know what got into me”

“You know…” Hannah shook her head “I knew you had this jealous streak in you but..” she took a deep breath and licked her lips .”I think I need some space”

At that she made to pass him in the doorway but Ari gently grabbed her arm. “Han, wait.”

“Let me go Ari”

Ari glanced down at his hand and released her arm “Hannah.”

“I just need to be alone.” She swallowed “Please.”

At that Ari gave a small nod and stepped to the side allowing her to leave. With a groan he ran both hand through his hair before his right fist slammed down on the desk in a fit of rage.

“Fuck!” he yelled out, his voice and the thud of his hand punching the desk echoed around the room and he ran his hand down his beard. He was really worried now that he’d completely screwed everything. Today was fast shaping up to be a complete shit storm and it wasn’t even midday yet. For a second he considered heading after her but he knew he needed to respect her request for space, so instead he headed into the bar area, grabbed a bottle of bourbon, necked a shot or 3 to sort his headache out and turned on his heels and left.

****

Later that afternoon Hannah was heading to her hut when Rachel stopped her and said that she needed Ari’s passport for some paperwork which Colonel Madibo requested when he had stopped by on his Annual Visit a month or so prior. Rachel had failed to find Ari so had instead asked Hannah if she could find it in his absence.

As usual when she needed something, Rachel couldn’t wait, so Hannah shrugged and headed back to the hut to see if she could find it and decided to try his backpack first off. As she dug around her hands curled around a leather book. Curiosity piqued she removed it to see it was a note book of sorts and she flicked open the first page, finding it simply to be a log book, written mostly in code but she recognised it as being a short hand that most agents were trained in. It appeared to be accounts of the missions they’d run but as she closed it, she noticed that there were a few photos tucked into the back cover. She gently pulled them out and smiled as she saw the first one was of Ari and Maya when Maya was a toddler. Ari’s hair and beard both much shorter. The next one was a Polaroid of the team at the front of the hotel, then there was one of her and Simon which she had never seen before, but that had been taken yesterday morning from the looks of things, and then one of her, Ari and Sammy which was of her graduation. She frowned a little, unsure why Ari kept this with him considering it was from so long ago at a time when they hadn’t even been together. She turned it over, as if expecting to find the explanation there but she didn’t find anything but Ari’s haphazard scrawl in the bottom right hand corner- “Firefly’s Graduation”

A wave of nostalgia washed over her as she thought back to that day, the gift Ari had bought her, and that being the time she realised she was hopelessly in love with him. She swallowed, before tucking the photos back where she found them. After a little more digging in the backpack she found his passport and headed back to the main hotel and into the office. She held it out to Rachel who smiled, the grin immediately slipping as she caught sight of Hannah’s face.

“You ok?”

“Yeah…have you seen Ari?”

“Not since before no.” Rachel took the passport she was holding out from Hannah “you know I’m sure he-“

“Yeah, I know.” Hannah shook her head, not wanting to talk about it anymore “Listen, Rachel, I don’t want dinner. I’m tired so I’ll grab something later if I’m hungry.”

“Ok, sure.”

She gave Rachel another smile before she made her way back out to the beach. She stood, hands on her hips as she contemplated going to find Ari to talk but before she could she heard Max yelling at her to take care of Simon who was chewing some of the equipment he and Jake were trying to store. With a groan she went to retrieve the pain-in-the-ass dog, took him back to the hut where she led on the bed and closed her eyes, completely drained.

When she woke a few hours later it was dark. The hut was completely silent apart from Simon’s soft snores and Ari was nowhere to be seen. Standing up she grabbed a warmer top as it had gone a little chilly outside and leaving Simon snoozing on her bed she wandered out onto the dimly lit beach to find him. The resort empty, not a soul to be seen, and it was completely dark apart from the light which was pooling out of the door which led to the main reception area. She made her way to the door which was open and saw Ari sat straddling the desk, legs dangling either side. They were swinging to and fro slightly, the muscles in his strong thighs straining and stretching as he did so, cigarette in his mouth as he studied the ‘Satisfied Guests’ board on the wall. With a soft sigh he led back against the desk, closing his eyes.

“Ari?” Hannah spoke softly and he turned his head sharply towards her. He eyed her for a moment, clearly trying to size up her mood and she allowed her face to soften slightly and he gave a slight smile in response.

“Hey firefly.”

“It’s late.” She stepped into the room a little more.

“I know.”

“So what are you doing sat on the desk?”

“Just reviewing our satisfied guest number.” He shrugged “Which is gonna go up tomorrow.”

“Exactly, so you should come to bed, you never sleep the night after a mission so…”

“I was gonna take one of the spare rooms.” Ari admitted and Hannah rolled her eyes.

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“I’m not being dramatic” he shrugged. “You said you wanted space…”

“I’ve had space all day.”

“I know I just…well, was waiting for you to decide when you’d had enough…”

Hannah took a deep breath, bit her lip and nodded to the board he’d been studying. “Look at the back.” She instructed.

“What?” he frowned at her sudden change of subject.

“I said, look at the back of the board, Ari.”

He gave her another puzzled look before he shuffled over and spun it round, his eyes roaming the 5 digits that had been carved into the back. “3. 19. 80.” He looked at her “That’s you birthday 2 years ago.”

“Yeah.” She nodded, “I wanted that date permanently carving into something other than my brain.”

“I’m not…”

“It was the first time you told me you loved me” she explained softly, and Ari felt his eyes widen “I waited so long to hear you say it.” She took a deep breath “Which is why I can’t understand why you think I’d ever look at anyone else.”

Ari sighed, turning the board back round, as he spun his body to face her, legs dangling off the edge of the desk. “I don’t, Han. I was just being a stupid, jealous prick.”

Hannah took a deep breath, looking at him. His eyes were down cast, his face pinched with regret. She exhaled and shook her head “No more ok? I can’t deal with your stupid fits of pathetic jealousy and possessiveness.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” He shook his head, looking down at his hands. “I just, well, you’re not the only one who waited so long for us. Sometimes I worry that, well you’ll realise that I’m just an asshole after all and that you could do so much better.”

“I already know you’re an asshole.” She shrugged, a smile playing on her lips “But you’re my asshole. And I don’t want to do any better.”

Ari’s eyes locked onto hers and he let out a deep breath, smiling softly before he gave a jerk of his head “C’mere…”

“Ari…”

“Just get up here Firefly”

The roll of her eyes and little groan would have maybe fooled anyone else into thinking she was frustrated, but not Ari. He caught the smile on her face as she walked over towards him and hopped up onto the counter. With a grin, Ari looped both his arms around her waist and clumsily pulled her with him as he fell back, both of them laying chest to chest, his arms round her holding her close. She gave a low chuckle, shaking her head.

“Dumbass.”

“Yeah.” He agreed, reaching up and tucking her hair behind her ears with both his hands. He then cupped her face gently, before he leaned up and gave her a soft kiss.

“I love you.” He said gently “And I really am sorry.”

“I know.”

“You know that I love you or you know that I’m sorry?”

She hesitated for a second before she smirked and arched an eyebrow “Both”

Ari chuckled and Hannah grinned and lay against Ari’s chest, snuggling into his t-shirt, the top of her head up under his chin. Neither of them said anything for a little while, just lay there basking in one another’s warmth, the argument forgotten until eventually Hannah felt her eyes growing heavy.

“Ari.”

“Yeah”

“Seriously, we need to go to bed.”

“Yeah…” he hummed back, his hands stroking up her neck.

“I mean it.”

“Mmhmmm.”

“Ari!” she said exasperatedly and he gave a low groan.

“Okay, okay…”

With what felt like a Herculean effort Hannah pushed herself up and hopped down from the counter, Ari doing the same, his boot clad feet echoing around the empty room as the soles slapped on the tiles. He stretched his arms, causing his t-shirt to ride up a little at the bottom as he ran both hands through his hair. Silently, he held out his hand and Hannah slipped hers into it, and together they headed out of the door pausing only to turn off the lights and make sure the main doors were locked.

**** The next morning was hectic, for two main reasons. A new batch of guests had arrived and in between that they were doing the preps for the mission later that evening. Rachel and Hannah were busy with the guests whilst Max, Jake and Ari were busy with the equipment. Radios needed to be tested, the trucks needed to be checked over to ensure there would be no mechanical issues and Sammy was busy making sure the medical supplies were stocked and packed.

Once that was gone, Ari took himself off for a run, in an attempt to burn off some of the usual nervous energy he had the day of a mission. He was out for a good hour, and as he rounded the edge of the cove onto the last few hundred yard stretch of beach up to the resort he spotted a few new guests were sat out in the sun reading and chatting. He nodded to them as he rounded up the small path off the main shore line, coming to an abrupt halt as Simon ran up to him from goodness knows where, almost tripping him over.

“Hey bud…” Ari panted a little, removing his headphones and clicking off his walkman “Where’s mom?”

“Here.”

Ari spun round to see Hannah stood there in a pair of shorts and a white tank top, the strings of her bikini visible round her neck, her hair damp.

“Hey sweetheart.” He smiled, and she took a moment to look him up and down, noticing the sweat dripping from his forehead and his damp t-shirt that was sticking to his torso. “Pervert.”

She shrugged and grinned before she spoke again, her cover accent thick on her tongue. “Good run?”

He nodded as he continued his deep breathing looking round “Not as much fun as this morning’s exercise though.” He flashed her a cheeky wink as she chuckled and took the soft kiss he offered. “How’ bout you? Good dive?”

She nodded “Still waiting for that elusive Hammer-Head sighting. You know, I’m beginning to think Irvine made it up.”

With a chuckle Ari gently looped an arm round her, pulling her to him as they headed into the main room of the resort, Hannah shoving against him, protesting at the fact he was basically wiping his sweat all over her but their teasing and joking died down as Rachel immediately accosted them, her German accent flawless as always.

“There you are. I was just talking about you with our new guests.”

Ari looked up to see 3 people in chairs in the reception area, and as the man in front of him stood and turned he saw it was Walton Bowen, the guy from the CIA that he had last seen in Khartoum Airport.

“Mr. Thomas, nice to see you again.”

“Now this is a surprise.” Ari smiled, shaking the hand Bowen offered before his hands dropped to his hips, his breathing still recovering from his run.

“Well, I'm sure it is. You're not an easy man to find. I think I saw you nearly two years ago. You were an anthropologist back then.” Bowen eyed Ari shrewdly taking a drag from his baby cigar.

“Right, well...” Ari smiled again, “Didn't pay the bills.” He offered as means of an explanation for the huge change in career direction.

“Yeah…” Bowen looked at him again, his eyes then flicking to Hannah.

“Sorry, where are my manners.” Ari apologised, “Rosa, this is Mr Walton Bowen. Works for the US Embassy?” he made it a question, even though he knew full well all about Bowen’s actual background having been debriefed back in ‘79 following his arrest.

“Of a fashion” Mr Bowen smiled. “Cultural attaché”

“Right.” Ari nodded “Well, Mr Bowen, this is Rosa Garcia, my partner and head of guest relations.”

“It’s a pleasure.” Hannah smiled, shaking Bowen’s hand.

“Likewise.” Bowen smiled, releasing her hand.

“And you’ve already met my general manager, Angela.” Ari concluded and both Bowen and Rachel nodded in agreement before she spoke.

“I was just about to give Aziz the dinner order, will you be staying?

Bowen shook his head “That’s very kind but, no thank you. We’ll need to get back.”

“Ok, well in that case can I grab you anything for now?” she asked.

“I could go for something.” Ari looked at her, knowing full well the mission meant he would miss dinner and they usually ate a little earlier. Rachel understood perfectly and gave him a nod, turning to go.

“I’ll help.” Hannah turned to Ari who nodded and dropped a kiss to her temple before she hurried out after Rachel. He turned back to Bowen who was simply looking at him, his eyebrow raised a little.

“She a guest who never left or…”

“It’s a long story.” Ari smiled.

“I’m sure it is Mr Thomas.”

Ari nodded and then gestured towards the dining room, indicating one of the tables. “Shall we?”

Bowen turned to the two people who were with him and with a jerk of his head they moved outside. Ari watched them go before he nodded and the two men made their way over and settled at the large table the team usually ate round. Ari grabbed them both a bottle of water from the fridge at the far side of the room and settled in a chair, his elbow leaning on the back of it, as relaxed as he could make himself. They made small talk until Hannah and Rachel, or Rosa and Angela even, having had Aziz fix some crudités and hummus brought them out and dropped them onto the table before they too moved outside to take some to the two other unannounced guests. As Ari watched Hannah then walked back past them into the kitchen, and he returned his attention to Bowen, trying to appear interested, all the time simply waiting to find out what the man had actually turned up for. “Well... the hawks are demanding stricter Sharia law. Nimeiry is increasingly paranoid.” Bowen spoke, dipping a carrot into the hummus. “If you ask me, this entire country is a fucking tinder box.”

“Really? We don't really feel that out here.”

“No?”

“No.”

At that they both looked up as Hannah walked back into the room with a jug of iced tea and placed it in the middle of the table.

“Thanks honey.” Ari smiled at her as he reached for it “You wanna join us?” He paused and glanced at Bowen who gestured with his hand to say he didn’t mind so he poured 3 glasses and Hannah sat down at the seat next to him. Ari sat back in his chair, his arm casually draping over the high back of hers, her hand dropping to his thigh, fingers curling around the curve of the muscle, gently squeezing. He was tense, she could feel it. She softly rubbed his skin and his hand moved slightly in response, the pads of his fingers began tracing random shapes on the top of her arm.

“State's sent cargo planes for us, ready to evac in the event things take a turn for the worse. Oh. -And this refugee crisis, it's... it's really not helping.” Bowen shook his head as he looked at Ari, then Hanna, who met him with a blank look.

“Refugee crisis?” Hannah frowned.

“Yeah, you have entire refugee neighbourhoods just disappearing.” Bowen gestured with his hands “Into thin air.” “And that’s bad?” Hannah’s voice was puzzled. “Refugees are normally viewed as a burden, I’m not following.”

Clever girl… Ari looked down at the table, scratching his head

“The UN offers a stipend to the Sudanese for every refugee they house, so when people start to disappear that's just... bad for business.” Bowen finished matter of factly.

At his blasé tone, Hannah felt herself growing a little angry at the way he was talking about real life people. Her people more specifically, as if they were nothing but commodities to be traded.

“Well…” Ari cut in, “The only crisis we face is whether or not we catch fresh lobster.” The three of them laughed as Ari shook his head. “Just kidding.”

“Well, I just got back from Gedaref, where the Mukhabarat had executed another 30 people.” Walton Bowen deadpanned and instantly the mood around the table changed. Cold washed over Hannah and besides her Ari shifted ever so slightly in his seat, the smile slipping from his face. “This is quite serious.2

Ari inhaled deeply and raised his eyebrows, he was done. They had a mission to prep for, and now more than ever he had to make sure that it was a success especially as his prediction seemed to be coming true- the net was closing in on them now and who knows how long they had. “I'd like to stay and chat, but I gotta get back to work.” He spoke, looking at Bowen.

“Yes, we have dinner to do and some night diving to prepare.” Hannah added.

“Sure. Okay.” Bowen nodded as the two of them stood up “Enjoy the...” he waved at the food on the table with his other hand as they both walked towards the exit, but Walton said something else that stopped them both in their tracks.

“Kabede Bimro, right?”

Ari glanced at Hannah, the pair of them hastily covering their shock with what they hoped looked like a confused glance and Ari shot a look at Bowen “Excuse me?”

“Hmm? Oh I just think it's such a funny name. Kabede.” The man shrugged.

“Yeah…” Ari made a face as if he found the whole thing baffling, before he turned back, his hand dropping to Hannah’s back but before they could move Bowen spoke again.

“And what about Ethan Navon…”

Hannah gave a little start. It was slight, an almost imperceptible slip, but a slip none the less. She swallowed, recovering, and turned to look at Ari, frowning.

“Guy, do you know what he’s talking about?” she asked.

Ari shook his head “Not a clue Firefly” he used her nickname in the hope it would calm her, and also to play the whole situation as naturally as he could. He looked at Bowen “I really have no idea who these people you’re talking about are, should I?”

“You tell me”

“I wish I could.” Ari gave a chuckle, shaking his head again, and giving Bowen a look that he hoped made the man believe that Ari thought he was crazy.

“You know, Mr Bowen…” Hannah spoke again “It’s getting late and it can get dark out there pretty quickly. If you’d like a room for the night we can fix it.”

“Not necessary, but I wouldn’t mind a look round.” Bowen shrugged “Maybe I’ll come stay sometime in the future, that is if I’m still in the Country, of course.”

“Go ahead” Ari nodded “Just shout if you need us.”

At that the pair of them made their way as calmly as possible from the dining room and into the kitchen, where the rest of the team was congregated. “What's the CIA doing here?” Sammy asked, “What did he want?”

“I don't know.” Ari ran his hand over his beard.

“He mentioned Dad, Sammy. Hannah looked at him.”

“I heard” Sammy nodded.

“I think he was trying to warn us.” Hannah shrugged.

“Fuck! He knows about Kabede.” Jake slapped his palm on the side behind him and Ari stood up tall, looking through the doorway at Bowen before he turned back.

“We gotta go.”

“No, this is just so fucking stupid.” Sammy shook his head “Tell Kabede it's too dangerous. We'll pick it up in two weeks when we have a chance to assess the threat.”

“We have 200 people—“ Ari began to protest but he was cut off by Sammy

“Yeah, and we'll have 200 people less if we fuck it up.” He hissed.

“For fuck's sake, Sammy, will you just trust me for once?”

“Well, if we're doing this, we need to leave now.” Hannah spoke, looking around “So what's it gonna be?”

Max, who hadn’t spoken a word since Ari and Hannah had joined them, swallowed the sandwich he had been eating and wiped his hands on his shorts “We go.”

“That simple?” Sammy looked at him and Max turned to Sammy, fixing him with a stare.

“Yeah, that simple.”

#leave no one behind #ari levinson #ari levinson x ofc #ari levinson fanfiction #red sea diving resort #red sea diving resort fan fic #chris evans characters

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disneytva · 5 years

Photo

‘The Owl House’: It’s a Hoot!

You would never think that the dark art of 15th century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch would serve as the inspiration for a children’s cartoon. Well, thanks to Dana Terrace and her wild imagination, the strange creatures conjured by the European painter have found their way in the new Disney Channel series The Owl House. The show, which debuts in January, and is already in production of its second season, follows the adventures of a young teenage girl named Luz who decides to pursue her dreams of becoming a witch after she stumbles into a strange realm, inhabited by feisty witch Eda and her tiny warrior friend King.

Terrace, a former director on DuckTales and storyboard artist on Gravity Falls, recalls starting to collect her notes and images and putting together her pitch for the story back in 2015. Then, she finally began pitching her story about a young girl who becomes a witch’s apprentice only a few months after she started directing DuckTales.

“Many of the characters have barely changed since then,” recalls Terrace. “I knew I wanted an older witch mentor figure and a young optimistic girl who was the main character, who learns and grows throughout the show. There’s also this trickster little jerk character named King (voiced by Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch).”

The setting for The Owl House changed a little bit since its early days. Terrace says for a brief time, she was toying with the idea of the whole show being set after the young character dies, so that the Owl House is all set in the afterlife. What really had a clear impact on her work is the work of artists such as Bosch, John Bauer, Remedios Varos and the puppetry of Jim Henson.

Real-Life Models

In addition to the crazy creatures of Bosch and religious illuminated manuscripts, Terrace found inspiration in some of the familiar elements in her life as well. “I have always wanted to tell a story about a rough-around-the-edges mother figure, based off of my aunt, nana and mother who raised me,” she recalls.

Terrace says the show’s central character Luz evolved from late-night conversations she used to have with her former roommate roommate and close college friend. “We were both dorks together,” she recalls. “We tried to cut our own hair and it never worked out. We didn’t have many friends. So, in a way, Luz bubbled out of our conversations. When I told her that I was going to base the main character on her, she said, ‘Yes , but you’ll have to make her Dominican.’ So that’s what happened. Luz now also works on the show as a storyboard artist and consultant, and I get to work with my best friend every day.”

As a young girl, Terrace used sneak into the living room to watch cartoons and copy what she liked in her flip books. Her love for shows such as The Simpsons, Pokémon, The PowerPuff Girls and Studio Ghibli movies finally lead her to study animation at School of Visual Arts in New York and make her way out to L.A. to pursue a career in the animation business. Her first big break happened when someone discovered her art blog and sent her a storyboarding test, which led to her landing a job at Gravity Falls and opened other doors as well.

During her big pitch to Disney, Terrace says she was a bit worried to mention Bosch and his odd, evil creatures, but to her surprise, one of the executive’s response was, “Heck, yeah!” “They have been nothing more than enthusiastic and helpful from day one,” she notes.

After spending a good year writing and making the pilot, Terrace began building her production team in 2018. Art director Ricky Cometa and supervising producer Stephen Sandoval also joined the Disney TV Animation production. At capacity, the show has about 50 staffers as part of its pre-production crew, and an overall count of 120 including the overseas teams at Sunwoo, Rough Draft and Sugarcube in Korea. We’ve been very fortunate to work with all of them,” says Terrace. “They’ve made the show really, really spark.”

The Owl House has attracted a top-notch list of vocal talent as well, including Wendie Malick as Eda, Hirsch as King and Sarah-Nicole Robles as Luz. Among the guest star lineup for the show’s first season are Matthew Rhys, Isabella Rossellini, Tati Gabrielle, Issac Ryan Brown, Mae Whitman, Bumper Robinson and Parvesh Cheena. Terrace points out that having a sterling class led by Malick has been a real treat. “Our witch could have been a very hard character to cast, because we wanted to have sass and energy, and Wendie was absolutely perfect. She came in with all her talent and experience, and my first instinct was ‘You don’t need any direction. Do whatever you want to do because you are amazing!”

She also mentions that she knew Alex Hirsch was going to end up playing the little sidekick King. “I used to hear him pitch when I worked on Gravity Falls. I knew that he can bring a lot to the characters he plays. He would also give me some helpful advice about running his own show and working at Disney.”

Art director Ricky Cometa (Steven Universe, Costume Quest) says he was swept away by Terrace’s wild ideas and spectacular imagery, things that were not usually seen in children’s animation. “The second she came in and said, ‘I want you to read this show bible. The first thing that caught my eye was ‘Bosch and the demon world?’ I very much needed help to figure out what this world looks like. We had this blank canvas and there was a lot of religious iconography. I knew we were going to push the boundaries. I mean we are doing the demon realm on the Disney Channel? You bet I’m in!”

Cometa points out that it was clear that they needed to balance the darker aspects of the witch’s world with the more light-hearted and fun components of Luz’s comical adventures. “At first, I wasn’t sure how dark we could have made the world this world that Luz jumps into initially. We had to make clear decisions about when the story needed to be scary— when do we highlight the darker moments versus when the story is lighthearted and welcoming. It was all about finding that right balance of warmth and spookiness.”

Terrace agrees. “If we made everything super scary and spooky — which is something I’m not afraid of, scaring my audience — but if we made everything the same color, then the scary parts and the day-to-day light-hearted parts wouldn’t have popped. We needed that contrast for writing purposes.”

Amazingly enough, Terrace is only the fourth woman to solely create and run an animated series for Disney — following in the footsteps of Sue Rose (Pepper Ann), Chris Nee (Doc McStuffins) and Daron Nefcy (Star vs. The Forces of Evil). She says one of her biggest challenges on the show was going through the learning process to run a writer’s room, which includes four other writers and a writer’s assistant. “Before this show I had always written and drawn my own comics and cartoons, but this was the first time I had written scripts professionally. Learning the process of writing scripts and learning to run a writers’ room was probably the biggest challenge for me. Luckily, I was with a team of talented writers, and we all kind of learned together. Most of that team has carried on to the second season, and we’re very excited to keep writing together.

As the show begins its run on Disney Channel, Terrace says that ultimately she hopes audiences will be entertained by Luz’s world and her off-the-wall adventures. “There are so many different kinds of animated shows out there and so many traditional and streaming services, that I don’t think it’s possible to have a gigantic blowout hit anymore. At the end of the day, no matter how much stuff is out there, stories with interesting core characters and relatable, understandable stories will shine through.”

#The Owl House #Owl House #Dana Terrace #Disney Channel #Ricky Cometa

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wiypt-writes · 3 years

Text

Leave No One Behind

Ch 12- Win Some, Lose Some Part 2

Co written with @icanfeelastormbrewing

Summary: After 2 years of being at the resort Ari and the other agents are gearing up for yet another mission, but there’s a little bit of trouble in paradise for him and Hannah…

Warnings: Bad Language words. Smut (NSFW, 18+ only)

Pairings: Ari Levinson x OFC Hannah Horowitz

Leave No One Behind Masterlist // Main Masterlist

Part 1