#it simply is a product of earnest realization that we are human and what that means to each and every one of us

[anarglitch]

Scott pilgrim takes off inhabits the same artistic space as the matrix 4, or even the final fantasy 7 remake. I mean this as a good thing. It has the distinct touch of an artist that made something that defined a generation revisiting the art that outgrew them a thousandfold with more maturity and different interests.

These interests usually skew meta, they're about what drives someone to revisit something made by a past version of oneself, about the experience of suddenly gaining more influence than anyone could reconcile, where criticisms of your work (which you also, no doubt, have many) become synonymous with criticisms of your culture. If you've been here a while, you probably know (and are tired of) what I'm talking about, manic pixie dream girls and aloof average male protagonists, toxic nostalgia, pick your theme and it's a video essay title.

Imagine having every read of your 2004 funny video game-coded coming of age comic reverberate infinitely toward every direction, people saying your main character taught a whole generation of men to be self-absorbed while the exact opposite type of people rant about how your secondary lead "ruined a whole generation of women" because of hair-dye or whatever. Imagine Edgar Wright makes a movie adaptation of your cute little comic that somehow launches the careers of half of the current celebrity pantheon simultaneously. How would that change you?

Well, for one, it makes you less relatable. The truth of an aloof nerdy guy dating in his early 20s is a lot more universal than the truth of an artist in his 40s forever defined by the event horizon of a thing he wrote half his life ago. The matrix 4 couldn't stop talking about how it feels to have created the matrix. The final fantasy 7 remake can't help but to constantly examine what it means to remake final fantasy 7. It's easy to see why someone would hate that indulgent meta trend, I'll probably never write a generation-defining story, why would I care about the first world problems of someone who did? It can feel distant, and at its worst it can feel insulting. Like it's pointing the finger at the fans, whispering 'you did this to me'. I get that.

I get that, but I love it.

It's the fundamental difference between wanting something that is like something you liked, and wanting someone that is from the same creator of something you liked. The difference between feeding the mona lisa into an AI and finding a new authentic da Vinci. You can't make something entirely new if you religiously stick to using the parts of something that's already there. The human behind the work will always have influences you didn't realize, thought patterns and aesthetic preferences that weren't entirely clear in their previous work, no matter how much you deconstruct it. More importantly, the human will also change, and this organic self-continuity will reflect on the art. I don't want the creator of something to hold their own creation with the same zeal as its fans, because someone who did that simply wouldn't have been capable of creating the original piece in the first place.

I don't want a product, I want art.

Scott pilgrim, the original, indulges the most earnest impulse we have-- that of self-mythologizing, of creating a narrative off of our own lives. To depict the mundane as fantastic, interpersonal relationships as adventures. It resonated with so many people because it was earnest, and it was also picked apart to hell and back because it was earnest. Its flaws were on display, and not just the ones it intended to show. But in my opinion, the opposite impulse, that of washing off everything that could be criticized and presenting the cleanest possible image of yourself through your art, is just... bad. it makes for bad art, or it just freezes you. The very first hurdle of creating anything is getting over that, then maybe the spotlight will fall on you. If it does, you'll get everything you ever wanted, but everyone gets to see through you.

So, how do you revisit something like that? You have two options. Either you take all the pieces and try to reassemble them exactly how everyone remembers it, signing your name as a formality, looking at a mirror in which you no longer see yourself, or you talk to it. You dialogue with your own work, with who you used to be. You travel in time and talk to yourself. You question them, acknowledge them but also teach them a thing or two. You don't respect the product, you respect the feeling. You find the same earnestness that made you put pen to paper for the first time, and you point it towards your new loves and fears. Maybe you make it less about the main guy, take the chance to develop your secondary characters, maybe you give the girl more agency. Maybe you summon the future and refuse its answers. Maybe you fight yourself.

That's the harder choice. It submits your new self to the scrutinizing eyes of a whole new generation, it risks alienating the people who identified with your previous piece. It's riskier, probably less profitable, and by any pragmatic lens probably a bad idea. But it's the only way you can make art. It's truth, the truth that got you there in the first place.

It's how you get it together.

[jgroffdaily]

Merrily We Roll Along review summary Part 1

Peter Marks, Washington Post

Like precision code breakers, the team responsible for the revival of “Merrily We Roll Along” have cracked it.

The blessed contributions of Groff, Mendez and Radcliffe — in addition to Krystal Joy Brown, Katie Rose Clarke and Reg Rogers in crucial supporting roles — coalesce in a way that feels almost spiritual.

But when you’re hearing his music so beautifully realized — Radcliffe keeps up impressively with musical-theater prodigies Mendez and Groff — you grasp even more deeply the melodic and lyrical sophistication at work.

Groff’s transformation-in-reverse is a perceptive journey as well, from remorseful Hollywood sellout to star-struck starving artist, pressing his nose up against the window of fame and riches.

Ideally, this Broadway incarnation will be both a hit and a reflection of the higher aspirations of musical theater. It’s even tighter, funnier and more touching than what Friedman staged off-Broadway.

So much ingenuity. So much joyful creativity. So much for audiences to savor.

Kobi Kassal, Theatrely

Further, it's hard to go wrong when you have Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez above the title. The heart of the show lies with this trio whose genuine connection and truth shines out across the Hudson stage eight times a week. Groff, who has the charisma down pat, dazzles as Frank. When paired with Radcliffe’s Charley, filled with loveable charm, and Mendez’s Mary who is utterly gut-wrenching to watch as her true love slips away, this trio equals Broadway perfection.

Merrily marks the third Broadway revival of a Sondheim work since his death, in addition to the premiere of his final work, Here We Are, at The Shed. Many of his shows are beloved, but if you want a healthy dose of Broadway serotonin, get thee to the Hudson immediately. Truth be told, you don’t need to listen to the critics, and if you have gotten this far in the review, I think we are all on the same page. Some true theatre magic is happening on that stage, and for that we will forever be grateful.

Sara Holdren, Vulture

It’s possible for Frank to swing and schmooze his way through this scene as the worst version of himself: “Who says, ‘Lonely at the top’? / I say, ‘Let it never stop!’” he sings to his crowd of sycophants. But Groff is an actor who’s able to communicate hurt and humanity even through a carapace of ego and moral deficiency. (In this way he reminds me of Matthew Macfadyen: Who among us has any business feeling empathy for Tom Wambsgans? And yet …) All through Merrily’s opening scene, Groff’s eyes are dead hollows — deep, dark wells with reservoirs of tears way down at the bottom, threatening to make their way up. He smiles, he sings, his body propels itself around the room, and he’s not there. His Frank is the worst version of himself, but he knows it, and he’s terribly alone and afraid. Watching Groff — who, as the show moves forward and backward, becomes visibly younger: driven, yes, but also sweet and earnest, almost puppyish — I thought of Chekhov’s successful, unprincipled writer Trigorin, who tells his lover: “I haven’t got any willpower. I never have had … Go on, take me, take me away with you. But please, don’t ever let me out of your sight.” Groff makes clear that Frank’s is a tragedy of weakness, not simply of greed.

And Charley! As the twitching, high-integrity, high-anxiety writer, Radcliffe is a complete delight. Next to Groff’s Frank, who’s tall, square-shouldered, and — at least outwardly — self-possessed, Radcliffe is a vibrating sprite, the kind of person whose big brain you can practically see smoking as it spins.

The enlivening pulse created by Radcliffe, Mendez, and Groff gains strength and drive through the production’s rock-solid ensemble. Gilmour (also the costume designer) dresses them in softly period, unified swaths of color as the play moves back in time — blues, then beiges, then, in the lavish, La Dolce Vita–ish early ‘60s, in hard black and white. There’s something smart happening here: Groff, as Frank, wears varyingly sophisticated versions of the same white shirt and black trousers throughout the show, but at the top of Act Two, as Gussie (not yet his wife) seductively introduces him to “The Blob” — a pulsating swarm of influentials, “the ones who know everyone that everyone knows” — Frank’s clothes match the company’s for the first time. He is, whether consciously or not, getting sucked into something. No — it already has him.

Some shows can withstand miscasting — turns out, Merrily can’t. (It’s often said that the casting of very young actors was a large part of the original production’s failure.) Even the big producer, Joe Josephson, who can come off as a Hollywood hack with dollar signs for pupils, is brought a sense of hangdog appeal by Reg Rogers. You get the feeling that Josephson is affable at heart, tired in soul, and that even he might have had ideals once. Friedman’s great insight — perhaps owing to her own long career onstage — is to have sought out actors she, and we, can entirely trust, and to trust them. (It sounds simple. It’s not.) She locates the play’s potential to be caring rather than callous not on the page but in the specific human beings who are here, doing this thing, right now. A central trio as sensitive and superb as this one doesn’t just make Merrily more moving; it makes it much more fun. It even adds a faint glimmer of something resembling hope. If Frank can reconsider, then he may yet change. Or he may not. But either way, an actor must show us, as Groff does, a true encounter with the mirror. With their irresistible energy and chemistry, Mendez, Groff, and Radcliffe lift Merrily up, yet keep it grounded with real, apparent affection and emotional heft. They are the ones reviving the play, by revealing and jump-starting its heart.

[ratcatcher0325]

A Fraction of Justice (Chapter #12)

Hey everyone! Back with a new chapter! 

Chapter #12. Alexander gets to take a bath! But wait... What will he wear? 

Previous: Chapter #11

Next: Chapter #13

CW: Angst, injury, non-sexual nudity, adult language

________________________________________

A FRACTION OF JUSTICE

Chapter #12: Vestal Livery 

Word Count: 2,119 Read Time: Approx. 16 mins

[Alexander’s POV]

The second the door clicked into place and I was, blessedly, alone again, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I looked about myself: I was in a small, cramped, and disheveled little bathroom that was still as big as a five story penthouse to me. The towels hung on the rack were haphazard, threadbare and crooked. The counter was littered with hygiene products: deodorant, toothpaste, lotion and palm oil, a half empty glass of water, tubes of lipstick, makeup brushes, facial cleanser…. The chaos was disgusting to me. This human had so much and couldn’t be bothered to treat it with care. I felt my face flush hot as I considered how much bigger many of these items were than me.

How are you going to get yourself out of this one? As I gingerly peeled my blood soaked shirt over my head, I truly didn’t know. I supposed it could always be worse… she could have been actively malicious, especially when she realized I was powerless to run from her. But still, what a stupid, short-sighted, condescending, willfully ignorant nightmare she was. The way she manhandled me with reckless abandon, simply because she could made my blood boil.

The moment that we had locked eyes, and she’d bent down with a condescending smirk playing about her lips, something clicked inside my head. I wasn’t going to let her bandy me about like the cute little plaything she thought I was, without a fight. Yes, the last time I’d bitten someone it’d almost gotten me killed, but this time around, I simply refused to take her abuse lying down, and since my dagger had fallen out of my belt, and cascaded to the linoleum floor, miles below my feet, I used the only other weapons I had. I needed to train this woman to respect me, and I’d do just that, kicking and screaming until she bashed my head in or, by some miracle, she learned.

Undoing my pants and belt and leaning on her aluminum toothbrush holder for balance, I very carefully disrobed, trying to minimize the excruciating pain around my swollen knee, my heart pounding double time. I despised that human. The moment I could, I’d make my escape. I simply wasn’t made to waste away in a human world. If I could just be fed and given a chance to heal in the meantime, that’s all I’d need to use this insufferable giant for. I hate that I need her for anything, at all.

Now fully nude, I lowered myself to the lip of the sink and, carefully, slid down into the basin. Getting in was easy, how exactly I’d get back out, I wasn’t so sure. Face growing hot again, I wondered if she’d have to come pluck me up. Ugh. I wanted as far away from her prodding fingers as possible.

Slipping into the steaming water, my wounds immediately burned in protest. I clenched my jaw, trying my best to relax despite the pain. Dirt and blood schluffed away from my skin, making rings of grime radiate out from my body and stained the otherwise crystal clear water. I gathered handfuls of warm, clean water and poured them over my head and neck, finally releasing my strands of hair from the clumps of mud they were encased in. Ahhhh…. To be clean again. To feel my skin without a layer of grime and blood in between.

*************

I drummed my fingers on my chin. I hadn’t gotten a single thing done the second I’d closed the bathroom door. I’d tried, in earnest, to get back to work, expecting he’d text me if and when he needed me. But I kept thinking about that funny little pet bathing himself in my sink. Was he okay? What if he somehow slipped and hurt himself? What was I going to do with him once he was cleaned up? He didn’t seem to like me one bit, but I couldn’t just let him wander off could I? In the time I’d carried him across my apartment and let him be, a torrential downpour had begun cascading and pounding against my windows. Even without the rain, the little thing was cripplingly hurt. He’d be eaten up by the first thing he met with big enough canine teeth. I shuddered just thinking about it.

He was clearly pretty smart, with a rich vocabulary and an intelligent person’s irritatingly short threshold of patience. I wondered how he’d learned to talk like that. Did his family miss him? With that attitude I hardly saw how they would. How he’d survived up until this point I honestly wasn’t sure. Maybe I could help him to calm down a bit. I bet behind that prickly exterior there was just a sweet little fella who needed a hug. Or maybe that was wishful thinking and I just wanted an excuse to cuddle him. He was awfully cute.

And here I was, still, not focusing on my class work. I was hopeless. I pushed away from my desk in a huff and went into the kitchen for a glass of water and to clear my mind. As I crossed the hallway, I realized: the poor thing didn’t have any clothes to wear. What he had on was ripped to shit, stained and disgusting. There was no way he could put those on again. He also couldn’t go around in the buff… that’d be extremely awkward for one and I’m sure he got cold much more easily at his size…. I needed to find him something to wear.

That’s when the lightbulb went off. I still had a handful of Barbies from my childhood that’s I’d kept when my nieces would visit. Those dolls were practically twice as tall as him but… maybe I could find something.

Rummaging around in my mess of a storage closet, I found the plastic bin where the dolls were kept. I immediately started to rule things out that were clearly made for no creature with actual human proportions. When I was done I had one item of clothing left.

I bit my lip. Oh, he’s gonna hate this.

************

Oh, I hated it.

In fact, hatred for the flimsy polyester garment she held out before me, would be a significant understatement of how I felt. She’d interrupted my pleasant moment of solitude, forced me out of the water and wrapped me in a towel before showing it off like a child shows off his horrendous crayon drawings as though it’s the next modern masterpiece.

“I’m not wearing that.” Pinched at each shoulder between her thumbs and forefingers, it looked embarrassingly tiny. My face burned as I crossed my arms, defensively. It was, in fact, a horrendously ugly t-shirt for a doll, died a pastel tie die rainbow with a sparkling unicorn ironed stiffly on to the front.

“Awww c’mon! Don’t be such a sour puss about it. Would you rather be naked?”

“Obviously, not.”

“Well… beggars can’t be choosers…” she waved the scrap of fabric in front of my face. I wrinkled my nose in disgust.

“I didn’t ask for any of this. I never wanted you to find me and I certainly was not planning to be stuck here with you. If it were up to me, I’d be long gone by now.”

“Oh yeah? Hobbling around on one leg in the pouring rain? You’d be dead before dusk. And besides, stop changing the subject and being a whiny bitch and just put it on.”

She had a point, as much as I loathed to admit it. Wait… did she just call me a bitch?

She dropped the stupid t-shirt in my lap before leaning on the lip of the sink, her head in her hands. Waiting, pressuring me. I frowned, staring, unflinchingly, into her eyes. This was a battle of wills. She stared right back, brow raised. I held steady for a few solid heartbeats, before sighing.

“…fine…” I grumbled.

“Sorry, what was that?? You’re gonna have to speak up…”

“I SAID, OKAY, FINE! Happy now?? I’ll put this monstrosity on.” She seemed delighted, it only darkened my countenance. I went to put it on over my head before pausing, strategically, “On one condition…”

“Oh, we’re making conditions now, are we?” This defiance was adorable to her. I swallowed the bile in my throat.

“All interaction is a negotiation. I’ll wear this… on the condition that you purchase me some actually acceptable clothing as soon as possible.”

“You’re expecting me to spend money on you?”

“If you’re expecting me to wear this godawful nightmare, then, yes.”

“I’m not made of money, you know…”

“Evidentially you have enough to live like a hoarder, everything you own is on display in here…” her lips parted a little, as hurt hardened her eyes. She was speechless. I almost felt bad. I cast my eyes down, pulling the ugly shirt over my head, obediently, “There. Happy?”

This softened her a little, as she took in the hilarious sight of me in this way too big shirt that fit me like a dress. A hand flew up to her mouth as she tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle a laugh. My face burned. “Oh my god… it’s so big on you!” So suddenly that the wind was knocked out of me, she snatched me up, fingers and thumbs pinching my shoulder joints just under the arms. I found myself dangling in the air, held aloft before the mirror, as she kept me uncomfortably close to her cheek.

Staring at our extremely unequal reflections in the mirror, I took in her face for the first time. She had dark, glowing brown skin, her hair, dipping and undulating in dark, curly waves, was piled on top of her head and cascading down the nape of her neck. She had large, expressive, dark brown eyes, high cheekbones and full lips with a bright, not wholly unpleasant smile. She looked so much bigger than me, her thumbnails as big as my entire head. I dangled there, pathetically in her grip, a little toy in her massive hands.

I shuddered to even look at myself. I’d never been so poorly dressed in my life. I was mortified. My face flushed the second I saw my sorry state reflected back at me.

***********

Holding him aloft, I noticed with delight that he was looking at me, taking me in. I tried to stay still and not draw much attention to it, but I loved the feeling of his eyes on me.

Plus, look at how fucking cute, he was, practically swallowed up by this shirt, looking absolutely ridiculous. I watched as his little face turned bright red when he caught his own reflection in the mirror. I was finally able to see what he really looked like, now that he wasn’t caked in dirt and his own blood. His skin was fair, his hair a distinct auburn, cut shorter in the back with longer strands in the front. You look like a little Leo from Titanic. I bit my lip, admittedly enamored by this tiny, angry little man. He had a strong jaw, thin nose and big, ice blue eyes. Those were his most striking feature. His body was lithe, long and graceful. I was willing to bet if he’d been normal sized he would probably be pretty tall.

Hello, little guy. I had to resist the urge to just kiss him all over. He’d probably bite me again if I tried anything like that.

“Well, is this what you had planned for the rest of your day, or?? I’m losing feeling in my legs…” he was staring at me, with hard, grumpy eyes, through the mirror.

“Huh? Oh, sorry. Come on, let’s take a look at that leg….” I watched his countenance fall as his face went pale. He was trying not to show it but it was painfully obvious he was scared. “Hey, I’ll be very careful, I promise.” He hardly seemed to register what I’d said. I scooped him up into my palm, and tipped his chin to look at me with the tip of my free thumb, “I’m gonna take good care of you… Wether you like it or not.”

*************

I did not.

I wished she’d stop touching me, but how else was I supposed to be transported from room to room? My shoulders drooped. I had no other choice but to let her carry me off and do what she liked. I’d be certain to check her if she crossed any lines, though. Arms folded over my chest I gave her a nod. What new humiliation awaited me, next? And when the hell would I finally get to eat something??

[freddyfreebat]

Jack Dylan Grazer Discovers Who He Is in Luca Guadagnino's “We Are Who We Are”

After supporting roles in the It and Shazam!, the young actor shifts gears with his turn as a capricious army brat in the Call Me By Your Name director's new HBO series.

by Iana Murray / Photography by Nik Antonio  —  September 14, 2020

A few years ago, Jack Dylan Grazer took a trip to the movie theater. He was in Toronto and it was one of his days off from filming Shazam!, the DC comedy in which he plays the shape-shifting hero’s foster brother. He decided to watch Call Me By Your Name, and he immediately fell for it. Grazer took note of the director’s name that appeared in the credits—Luca Guadagnino—and turned to his mother.

“I want to work with him,” he told her. With eerie prescience, she assured him: “You will.”

Whether Grazer, now 17, has a knack for manifestation, or it was all just happenstance, his wish came true in the form of We Are Who We Are, Guadagnino’s coming of age drama which follows a group of army brats living on an American military base in Italy. Thematically, the show is something of a spiritual successor to Call Me By Your Name: Grazer plays Fraser, a tempestuous 14-year-old with a pair of headphones constantly plugged in his ears. He’s the new arrival at the base with his mothers (Chloë Sevigny and Alice Braga), and quickly forms a deep bond with his neighbour, Caitlin (Jordan Kristine Seamon), as they both wrestle with their sexuality and identity in the midst of domestic troubles and teenage debauchery.

“He’s an enigma to himself,” Grazer says of his character. “He doesn’t really understand a lot of the things he does but he’s so forthright so he convinces himself that he knows everything. He feels like other people don’t deserve his intelligence. But he’s also very volatile and aggressive at times, and not because he’s coming from an angry place but because he’s constantly questioning who he is.”

If Fraser is just beginning his coming of age when we first meet him, Grazer is inching closer to the end. Starring in enormous blockbusters including IT, he became the Loser Club’s resident hypochondriac at age 12 and a superhero’s sidekick by 15. His films have grossed a combined total of over $1.5 billion. Suddenly the stakes are multiplied tenfold during what are ostensibly, and horrifyingly, the most awkward years of your life. Every misstep is now being monitored, examined through a microscope of millions. (See: His 3.8 million fans on Instagram, to say nothing of the countless stan accounts.) Child fame is a disarming transaction like that: a stable career and all the other perks of being a celebrity, but at the cost of normalcy. That unalleviating pressure forces a kid to mature fast.

Grazer is acutely aware of this fact, admitting outright that he’s “not a normal person.” But he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I became 70 when I was 7!” he laughs. “I don’t know if I really had much of a childhood. But I didn’t want to. I wanted to grow up really fast.”

Nevertheless, he’s still 17. When we meet over Zoom, his shoulder length curls are damp and disheveled (he just got out of the shower), his black painted fingernails contrast with his brightly-lit, white bedroom as he rests his face on his hand. It’s a Saturday morning and he looks tired: It’s his first week back at school, which has traded classrooms for hours of video calls reminiscent of the one we’re currently on. “It feels like the days are shorter because the teachers don’t want to torture their students by keeping them on a computer for six hours a day,” he tells me. “You do miss the social aspect of being at school.”

If you were to judge Grazer by what’s out there on the internet, you’d expect an anarchic and relentless bundle of energy. A quick YouTube search brings up results like “jack dylan grazer being a drama queen” and “jack dylan grazer being chaotic in interviews for 4 and a half minutes straight.” He trolled a YouTube gamer on Instagram Live. His TikToks are inscrutable.

But here, he’s incredibly earnest, as he excitedly talks about his skateboarding hobby (a skill he picked up after auditioning for Mid90s) and his attempts to learn the flute (“I need to learn how to read sheet music, but it’s like reading Hebrew!”). He’s calm and thoughtful, as if this project we’re discussing requires a shift in sensibility.

For Grazer, acting had always simply been fun. While other kids might take up a sport or get hooked on video games, he performed in musical theater with the Adderley School because he “just wanted to play.” His roles so far have been reflective of his carefree approach to the job: Up until now, he’s portrayed best friends with biting one-liners, or the younger version of the protagonist in a flashback. IT is a prime example of both. In the horror franchise, Grazer plays a neurotic germaphobe running from a fear-eating clown, but in reality, the film felt like “summer camp.” Both films never felt like work; he just learned his lines and got to hang out on extravagant sets with his best friends. Likewise, school amounted to being pulled off set by a teacher in between takes to cram in the mandatory hours.

But with We Are Who We Are, he steps into his first leading role, one that required him to convey longing and confusion through Elio-like physicality and subtext. It’s abnormal to talk about the show as a turning point for an actor who isn’t even a legal adult yet, but Grazer explains that the show required him to radically change his approach to acting. He spent six months in Italy (“It felt like I was in Call Me By Your Name.”) and built up the character beyond what was on the page in collaboration with Guadagnino. “His philosophy is that we know our characters better than anyone else—even the writers—because we are the characters essentially,” he explains.

In many ways, Grazer absorbed that philosophy entirely. He describes the experience less as a performance and more like a “rebirth”—perhaps even an attempt at method acting. Over those months in Italy, the distinctions between actor and character gradually became indistinguishable. “I had no other choice but to act and surrender to Fraser entirely and throw Jack Dylan Grazer out the window,” he says. “I would go out and get a coffee as Fraser and walk like Fraser. That was just me trying to get into [character], but then I slipped at some point and just became Fraser.”

One day on set, he looked at himself in the mirror, and the hardened kid standing there with a bleach-blond dye job and oversized shorts was unrecognizable to him. He could only see Fraser. While talking about his character, he seems to unintentionally switch pronouns, from “he” to “I”, as if the two still remain one and the same.

The process was so transformative that it forced him to re-evaluate himself entirely. “I never really struggled with identity before,” Grazer tells me. “But I think the show opened up my eyes to question myself. Being Fraser forced me to question what I wanted and what I stood for and what I believed in. At some points, the show bled into reality.”

When asked how he has changed, he takes a pause and a pensive swivel in his armchair, unsure of how to answer. “I think I was more ignorant before I did the show,” he says, and he leaves it at that.

Coming of agers are a particularly well-trodden genre, but there’s a naturalistic, raw energy to We Are Who We Are that is distinctive from what we’ve seen before. Each character quietly struggles with their own problems and growing pains—for Fraser, it’s his sexuality. Caught in a fraught relationship with his lesbian mother and an infatuation with another man, his story doesn’t tick off the familiar beats. His personal discovery is instead internal and intimate. "I think every single person born as a boy has this guard. It’s this guard that they don’t even realize they have, where they’re initially like, ‘Being gay? I could never.’ But we’re all born as humans who are attracted to whatever we’re attracted to," he says. "I think that’s how Fraser interprets it as well. Yes, he’s reserved and nervous about it in the beginning because he’s unlocking this new idea for himself. He’s figuring it out, and that’s what you see in the show: him coming to terms with this idea."

As our conversation winds to a close, I ask him if Martin Scorsese ever visited the set—his daughter, Francesca, plays the confident cool girl of the show’s teen cohort—and his eyes widen. “That was actually a really stressful day,” he divulges. Still, he revels in the memory, speaking so fast it’s like someone has put him on 2.5x speed as he shows off his impersonation of Guadagnino. The director was so nervous about Scorsese’s presence that production halted that day.

“Luca was like, ‘I cannot do this today because Martin Scorsese is on my set. I don’t know what to do, this is not good for me. I will have a panic attack before the day ends,’” Grazer says in his best Italian accent. “It’s like if you’re a painter and Van Gogh shows up.” 

Admittedly, Grazer is also a self-proclaimed superfan of the Wolf of Wall Street director, and afterwards, he got to spend several days with his idol, as they went on lavish restaurant outings in Italy and talked about anything and everything.

He takes a second to compose himself. A giddy, Cheshire cat smile spreads across his face. The kid in him comes flooding back.

“...Oh my god!” he yells. “I met Martin Scorsese!”

[kannra21]

Sniperhaul fanfic

ˡᵐᵃᵒ ᶦ ᶜᵃⁿ'ᵗ ᵇᵉˡᶦᵉᵛᵉ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᶦ'ᵐ ᵈᵒᶦⁿᵍ ᵗʰᶦˢ

Overhoe finally broke out of Tartarus after a very long time. However, he couldn't have done it without the help of a certain villain mistress. 😏 Who's she and why did she choose to help this terrible (x2) man? Find out bellow.

characters: overhaul (chisaki kai) x sniper lady

word count: 3k

warnings: angst, past memories, handless overhaul, hurt, comfort, gangs, yakuza, just girl taking care of her mans

notes: I'd like to thank the person responsible for proofreading this work bc I'm supposed to keep their identity a secret. 😎 Thank you once again! And of course, the manga and characters belong to Kohei Horikoshi. @meefal you were excited to see the final product so here you go, hope you like it. 🖤

✂-------------------------------------------------------

Overhaul couldn't remember how long he'd been there, he'd lost count weeks ago. The only thing he knew was that he was in "Tartarus", a prison located 5km off the coast of the Mainland. It may function like a conventional prison, but in reality, those who're deemed a severe threat toward the safety of the nation were locked up and monitored closely, regardless of whether their sentence has been decided on yet. The facility was divided into 6 levels, where the potential threat level of criminals was deemed "higher" the further underground you go. It's a prison where, once you enter, there's no chance of leaving.

He sat there in his cell, B10 being the lowest level in solitary confinement. It was too cold for his head to function and too dark for his eyes to see, with the small window above the prison doors being his only source of light. There was also an opening where prisoners received their meals, but considering that he lost his hands, the guards could easily enter without worrying too much for their well-being. They'd leave whatever they offered that day and give him a disgusted look before locking the doors after themselves. He couldn't see his reflection nor touch his face, he probably looked like crap by now. His skin was itching and he felt disoriented from all the germs occupying this space, it's been a while since he's gone out for some fresh air. 

He was practically Quirkless and yet they locked him out in the worst, most dreadful place the isolation block had to offer. He couldn't even feed himself properly, he couldn't do anything by himself whatsoever. But there was only one thing left to him; he spent days and days thinking about pops, Chrono, yakuza and everything he could have if it weren't for those stupid heroes-- no, if it weren't for his plan that so grandiosely failed. It made him feel miserable, desperate even, and with grief soon followed acceptance. It was all his fault, and he needed to live with this burden for the rest of his life. Because of him, pops is still handicapped to the bed somewhere, wherever the heroes might have taken him. 

He stood up and started beating the cell with his leg, curing his frustrations. He didn't know why he was doing it, it was irrational and he's hurting himself unnecessarily, but for some reason it made him feel lighter. At least he could transfer some of his inner pain to the outside world. Other criminals laughed at his patheticness, especially since they knew why the guards were allowed to enter his cell. They shouted that it was impossible to escape, but he wasn't trying to. He knew that it was useless a long time ago. 

Midnight came and all the prisoners mostly fell asleep. Overhaul, however, couldn't sleep a wink. Because of the dark room he spent most of his days in, he lost his sense of time so he was pacing around, deep in thought. He couldn't dream of anything nice anyways. 

"Can't fall asleep either?" a feminine voice could be heard from the other side. Wait. They allowed women here? What could she have possibly done to deserve such punishment? 

He leaned his back on the doors and slid down to the floor, trying to find the right words.

"Yes." he sighed, enthusiasm lacking in his voice "But it's not like I need you to talk about my problems." 

"Hm, whatever. Go beat your head against the bars. Fall unconscious, loser."

The man snorted, which might as well be his first time he ever did that. 

"Well, this certainly sounds effective. It's not like I have anything to lose anyways." 

"Hey." the tone of her voice was earnest, and it aroused further questions in his jumbled up head. 

"What?"

"We're going to get out of here." 

Is she being serious now? "Really? Because as far as I know, we're locked out here for good. We don't even know the severity of our sentences. They can do whatever they want with us."

"Not quite. You know that they're being supervised by 'The Hearts and Mind' party offshoots. They can’t do a thing to us as long as they have their heads to the pikes." 

This might be true, but he didn't believe in anything the government's been telling them lately. It's only a matter of time before they switch their plans and play by their own rules, because stabbing people in the back was the only thing they've ever been good at. 

"How did you end up here?" 

Oh the long-awaited question. She wondered when he'd ask. 

"It's not like I need you to talk about my problems."

He smiled, he liked this vicious side of hers. But he also realized that she could be nice as well because if that wasn't the case, she wouldn't spread promises of the escape. At least that's what he thought. 

"Sorry about that." 

"It's okay. We've all been here for a very long time, now weren't we? We lose our cool and act like total assholes."

"Direct and straight to the point I see." his deadpan voice could be heard from the other side of the bars. 

"'Been raised this way, for the better or worse." it didn't sound like she was bragging, yet it felt like she was just talking about herself, honest and confident, to cover up what she felt was wrong. The incoming topic which she'd rather avoid. 

The villainess didn't want to open up about her past, so she just answered his question. 

"I killed people beyond counting, following AFO's orders. He always wished to become the world's greatest demon lord and thus promised us enormous change in the hero society. So in order to achieve that, he needed his underlings. And that's how I ended up here."

"You were loyal till the end."

"You know what they say; there can be no progress nor achievement without certain sacrifice."

Wise beyond her years and just as sad. He wondered how her face looked like, how the world's been treating her. 

"I had my own sacrifices as well."

"Do you regret them?"

...

"I do." 

Now it was her turn to snort "Really? And I thought that people situated this low couldn't have regrets. You remember what they said about us. 'Beasts in human clothing', 'Simply dreadful beings'." 

He felt insulted, maybe the things she said were true but it's not like he was anything similar to these pigs he shared the same air with, unfortunately.

"I regret hurting the person important to me. The old man who once took me in when I was very young. He was the infamous boss of Shie Hassaikai." 

Something clicked in her, it's such a small world they're living in, "Yakuza? I know you guys. We used to trade with you back in the days."

"Todou Gang?" 

"You said it."

"But... you were a force to be reckoned with. One day you just collapsed and not a single trace could be found. According to certain sources, there was no way anyone could determine the exact cause of your downfall. So what happened?" 

"I killed them all." 

... 

"AFO told me to kill them to prove my loyalty to him and, of course, to make sure that there was no one I could turn to other than himself." 

For some questionable reasons, and he didn't dare to admit that it was empathy he felt towards a random stranger and a former gang member he shared some history with, Overhaul wanted to fill the silence that lingered between them. Perhaps, because he felt guilty for making her reveal more than what she initially intended. 

"I used pops' niece, a 6-year-old girl who had an extraordinary Quirk; it allowed her to rewind a person's body back to a certain state. That means she could put a body back to before it was injured or before the person even developed a Quirk. With that, I wanted to create a Quirk-erasing drug to get rid of the Quirk society altogether and to make sure that yakuza could rise once again. I cut her skin every day to take blood samples and to test her regenerative abilities. However, pops didn't approve of it, so I handicapped him to the bed and planned on waking him up the moment I realized my plan, to make him proud of the achievement. Unfortunately, it didn't play out as I wanted and I never reached him."

The silence followed and the woman wore a disheartening smile on her face. It's not the answer she expected, she didn't ask for another sad story from another messed up person she's met in her life. But the intentions were pure and for her, it was good enough. 

"We both fought for something only to lose it all, huh?" she laughed, but it was prominent in her tone that it was bittersweet. 

"At least you're brought here in one piece." 

"At least you can still revive your parent."

Were they comforting each other? Were they jealous of each other? Were they wallowing in self-pity? They couldn't tell. The only thing they certainly could was the embarrassment they felt from the moment they realized that some of the prisoners were eavesdropping and making fun of their vulnerabilities. See? That's what they hated the most about opening up about themselves; they were worried about their feelings being perceived as a joke. The only way to protect themselves was to rise up the walls and never let anyone get closer, except they didn't regret exchanging a word or two, as long as it was the two of them. 

The next day, 8:34PM Mainland-side entrance, the guardians of 'The Bronze Gate' announced a code red security lockdown. Panic and shouting could be heard from across the hall and the security alarm announced the potential danger. 

"Close any and all passageways on each floor. All workers are to enforce strict measures to maintain order."

"The surveillance system is down! It seems like we've been hit by some sort of EMP attack!"

Static waves were spreading around the metal frames and the prison doors of the isolation block unlocked. Overhaul could hear the commotion outside and the villains leaving their cells in a hurry, but as much as he tried, he couldn't push the heavy doors open.

"3 seconds until we're back online- wait... What the... With the system down we can't monitor the inside!"

"Nice, 3 seconds be damned." he beat the door with his legs, pushed the surface with his shoulders, leaned all of his weight on the godforsaken thing just so it could finally open. Nothing. It seems like he lost a couple of pounds during his stay here. He couldn't believe his eyes, this couldn't be happening to him. After all this time of patient waiting and hoping to meet pops once again, it turns out he'd be the only one still trapped and all because he didn't have any hands. He panicked, he really couldn't decide on what to do next. But then he remembered-

"Go beat your head against the bars, loser."

That's it! This might be his only chance to escape! He didn't have much time left though, he could hear the shooting nearby so he definitely needed to hurry.

"The system won't come back on!! The ones in solitary confinement are breaking out!! Inside!"

"Control unit's on site!! Execute lockdown in the isolation block!"

"Follow procedure! If even one of them steps a foot outside their cell-"

"Fire!! Open fire!!"

Muscular threw whatever he could find in this messed up place back at them, excitement prominent in his big smile "You ain't gonna kill me with those puny toys! So how about you show me the exit already?!" 

Other villains were joining him, still overwhelmed by the sudden freedom they've been given "Dammit... After all that time..."

"Meat..." Moonfish mumbled as he cut his opponents with his blade-like teeth. 

The villain lady joined them in the run, still carefully examining her surroundings in case they were tricked into something, "The system isn't responding to my Quirk. 'Guess Tartarus really is falling." 

As she was running down the corridor, she could hear beating noises coming from one of the doors. It sounded dull so the person must have been using their head. 

"Eh, don't tell me the idiot actually listened to my advice. He must be desperate." 

She came to the doors and turned the circular lock in a hurry. She really didn't want to stay in this place any longer, but she couldn't leave him behind either. It's not like she could use him for anything since he was basically handless and Quirkless so why was she doing it? She didn't have an answer. Maybe it was their talk from the other day, maybe because they were both gang members with a history, maybe because of her regrets and her wish to do something right for once. Or maybe because she was just this kind. Nah, this couldn't be it, she never did anything in her life that didn't require a certain purpose. She cast her heart aside a long time ago and did what was necessary for the accomplishment of the mission. It would be weird if she suddenly started using her heart again, now wouldn't it? She was AFO's personal assassin, there was simply no way. 

He came out of the room with eyes wide in puzzlement. He was finally free and ready to find pops so he could possibly revive him and try to fix things as much as he could.

They looked at each other for the first time. They never said it aloud, godforbid, but they liked the other's eyes. And perhaps the eyes were a window to a person's soul, their broken souls, tormented by the life's temptations. They were still so young, probably in their twenties, and yet they looked older at the same time. Maybe because of the seriousness in their faces, their stronger stance, the way they defied their fate. They were destined to fall apart, no one would argue with it, but circumstances drove them to take action and rise from the bottomless chasm. And now they had each other. 

"We need to get out of here," she stated and pulled him by the sleeve that hung loosely from his shoulder. They escaped Tartarus and raided a small shop near the coast to change clothes and to mingle into the public unnoticed. She quickly picked out a dress and threw herself at work while Overhaul was still standing by the shop display, looking out for the potential intruders.

He couldn't erase the thought of this being some sort of a really weird first date; the girl coming out of the stall and the guy examining her looks. He shook his head, he never had this kind of thoughts in his entire life. He needed to pull himself together. 

The bob-hair came out and adjusted the ammo on her utility belt. He looked at her from the corner and she was stunning; intimidating with a tad bit of femininity in design. He stood there and watched how good it fit her curvy form. The thoughts wandering in his head sounded so wrong, terribly wrong. He needed to bring himself to stop. 

"Oh right, I almost forgot." she took a shirt off the shelf and came to him, showing him the garment in her hands "You need a little help, right?" 

"Sure.'' his voice was small and he stood still while she undid his buttons. Maybe from the outside he looked completely calm, but from the inside he was a complete mess. He looked at her face and wondered if she knew, the kind of effect she's having on him. She raised her head and he looked to the side, there's no way he could look her in the eyes at this point. He hoped she didn't notice. 

"You like this one, don't you?" she asked, filling the awkward silence. 

"Looks don't matter, the most important thing is to change and avoid getting caught." She looked annoyed. Great. He wanted to shove his head though the wall. Wait… Why was he thinking that? 

"I choose the clothes I like. It makes me feel better in my skin."

"You look good in it."

She looked at him surprised and he quickly corrected himself "the dress looks good."

"Sure." she trailed off and put the new shirt over his shoulders. She could feel his muscles tensing. This was probably because of the cool air, she assured herself. 

"Why did you break me out of Tartarus? It's not like I could be of any use to you." 

She buttoned up his shirt and fixed the wrinkled parts on the garment, hand accidentally brushing over the left side of his chest, feeling his heartbeat.

Well... that was a surprise.

"I thought that maybe you could be of some use to the demon lord. Not Quirk-wise, but you may offer a valuable set of information. Something that the demon lord would appreciate greatly." she could feel it slowing down and her heart dropped just as much.

"But also because I... liked you."

He looked at her incredulously and she smiled. She pinched him to bring him out of the trance and he complained. "Don't be awkward, say something."

"I like you too... I, this is my first time I ever said this to anyone. It's weird."

She slapped him gently on the shoulder and he reached to take it but, yea, no hands.

"What the hell?"

"You're the one who's weird. But I guess that I like you this way." she stood on her toes and kissed his cheek "Ew, you should definitely shave though. No doubt about it."

The former yakuza boss swore; he'll never understand women. But for some reason he couldn't deny that he was particularly drawn to this one. He wondered if pops would approve of her.

[blackwoolncrown]

The defining feature of conversation is the expectation of a response. It would just be a monologue without one. In person, or on the phone, those responses come astoundingly quickly: After one person has spoken, the other replies in an average of just 200 milliseconds.

In recent decades, written communication has caught up—or at least come as close as it’s likely to get to mimicking the speed of regular conversation (until they implant thought-to-text microchips in our brains). It takes more than 200 milliseconds to compose a text, but it’s not called “instant” messaging for nothing: There is an understanding that any message you send can be replied to more or less immediately.

But there is also an understanding that you don’t have to reply to any message you receive immediately. As much as these communication tools are designed to be instant, they are also easily ignored. And ignore them we do. Texts go unanswered for hours or days, emails sit in inboxes for so long that “Sorry for the delayed response” has gone from earnest apology to punchline.

People don’t need fancy technology to ignore each other, of course: It takes just as little effort to avoid responding to a letter, or a voicemail, or not to answer the door when the Girl Scouts come knocking. As Naomi Baron, a linguist at American University who studies language and technology, puts it, “We’ve dissed people in lots of formats before.” But what’s different now, she says, is that “media that are in principle asynchronous increasingly function as if they are synchronous.”

The result is the sense that everyone could get back to you immediately, if they wanted to—and the anxiety that follows when they don’t. But the paradox of this age of communication is that this anxiety is the price of convenience. People are happy to make the trade to gain the ability to respond whenever they feel like it.

While you may know, rationally, that there are plenty of good reasons for someone not to respond to a text or an email—they’re busy, they haven’t seen the message yet, they’re thinking about what they want to say—it doesn’t always feel that way in a society where everyone seems to be on their smartphone all the time. A Pew survey found that 90 percent of cellphone owners “frequently” carry their phone with them, and 76 percent say they turn their phone off “rarely” or “never.” In one small 2015 study, young adults checked their phones an average of 85 times a day. Combine that with the increasing social acceptability of using your smartphone when you’re with other people, and it’s reasonable to expect that it probably doesn’t take that long for a recipient to see any given message.

“You create for people an environment where they feel as though they could be responded to instantaneously, and then people don’t do that. And that just has anxiety all over it,” says Sherry Turkle, the director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It’s anxiety-inducing because written communication is now designed to mimic conversation—but only when it comes to timing. It allows for a fast back-and-forth dialogue, but without any of the additional context of body language, facial expression, and intonation. It’s harder, for example, to tell that someone found your word choice off-putting, and thus to correct it in real-time, or try to explain yourself better. When someone’s in front of you, “you do get to see the shadow of your words across someone else’s face,” Turkle says.

In last month’s viral New Yorker short story “Cat Person,” a young woman embarks on a failed romantic relationship with a man she meets at the movie theater where she works. They only go on one date in the story; they get to know each other primarily over text. When the affair ends messily, it reveals not only how the bubble of romantic expectations can be popped by reality’s needle, but also how weak digital communication is as a scaffolding on which to build an understanding of another person.

In an interview, the story’s author, Kristen Roupenian, said the piece was inspired by “the strange and flimsy evidence we use to judge the contextless people we meet outside our existing social networks, whether online or off.” Indeed, even for the people we already know, we increasingly rely on contextless forms of communication. This puts an unusually large burden on the words themselves (and maybe some emojis) to convey what is meant. And each message, and each pause in between messages, takes on outsize importance.

“Text messages become marks on rocks to be analyzed and sweated over,” Turkle says.

It’s not always easy to figure out what someone meant to convey by using a certain emoji, or by waiting three days to text you back. Different people have different ideas about how long it’s appropriate to wait to respond. As Deborah Tannen, a linguist at Georgetown University, wrote in The Atlantic, the signals that are sent by how people communicate online—the “metamessages” that accompany the literal messages—can easily be misinterpreted:

Human beings are always in the business of making meaning and interpreting meaning. Because there are options to choose from when sending a message, like which platform to use and how to use it, we see meaning in the choice that was made. But because the technologies, and the conventions for using them, are so new and are changing so fast, even close friends and relatives have differing ideas about how they should be used. And because metamessages are implied rather than stated, they can be misinterpreted or missed entirely.

This metamessage opacity spawns thousands of other text messages a year, as people enlist their friends to help interpret exactly what their romantic interest meant by a certain turn of phrase, or whether a week-long radio silence means they’re being ghosted. (The New Yorker parodied this collaborative textual analysis in a video in which a group of women gather, war-room style, to answer the question “Was It a Date?”)

Features intended to add clarity—like read receipts or the little bubble with the ellipses in iMessage that tells you when someone is typing (which is apparently called the “typing awareness indicator”)—often just cause more anxiety, by offering definitive evidence for when someone is ignoring you or started to reply only to put it off longer.

* * *

But just because people know how stressful it can be to wait for a reply to what they thought would be an instant message doesn’t mean they won’t ignore others’ messages in turn.

Sometimes people don’t respond as a way of deliberately signaling they’re annoyed, or that they don’t want to continue a relationship. Turkle says sometimes taking a long time to write back is a way of establishing dominance in a relationship, by making yourself look simply too busy and important to reply.

But oftentimes, people are just trying to manage the quantity of messages and notifications they receive. In 2015, the average American was receiving 88 business emails per day, according to the market research firm Radicati, but only sending 34 business emails per day. Because—who has the time to respond to 88 emails a day? Maybe someone isn’t responding because they’ve realized the interruption of a notification negatively affects their productivity, so they’re ignoring their phone to get some work done.

I find myself ignoring or procrastinating even important messages, and ones I want and intend to respond to. I had to create a bright red “Needs Response” email label to battle my own “delayed response” problem. I regularly read texts, think “I’ll respond to that later,” and then completely forget about it.  Working memory—the brain’s mental to-do list—can only hold so much at once, and when notifications get crammed in with shopping lists and work tasks, sometimes it springs a leak.

“A lot of the time what’s happening is people have five conversations going on, and they just can’t really be intimate and present with five different people,” Turkle says. “So they kind of do a triage, they prioritize, they forget. Your brain is not a perfect instrument for processing texts. But it will be interpreted as though it really was a conversation, and so you can hurt people.”

* * *

Still, even though instant written communication can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing, people prefer it. Americans spend more time texting than talking on the phone, and texting is the most frequent form of communication for Americans under 50.

While texting is popular worldwide, Baron, of American University, thinks that a strong preference for communication that can be easily ignored is a particularly American attitude. “Americans have far fewer manners in general in their communication than a lot of other societies,” she says. “The second issue is a real feeling of empowerment. I think we have become a version of power freaks, not just control freaks.”

In a survey Baron conducted in 2007 and 2008 of students in several countries including the United States, the things that people said they liked most about their phones were often related to control. One American woman said her favorite thing was “Constant communication when I want it (can also shut it off when I don’t).”

“What I have seen in this country, and I don’t know if it’s a national trait, is people wait until they think they have the perfect thing to say, as though relationships can be managed by writing the perfect thing,” Turkle says. “And I think that is something we pay a very high cost for.”

In Baron’s survey, people also mentioned feeling controlled by their phones—bemoaning how dependent they were on the devices, and how the constant connectivity made them feel obligated to respond.

But texts and emails don’t create as big of an obligation as phone calls, or a face-to-face conversation. When young adults are interviewed about why they don’t like making phone calls, they cite a distaste for how “invasive” they are, and a reluctance to place that burden on someone else. Written instant messages create a smokescreen of plausible deniability if someone doesn’t feel like responding, which can be relieving for the hider, and frustrating for the seeker.

More than anything, what the age of instant communication has enabled is the ability to deal with conversation on our own terms. We can respond right away, we can put it off for two days, or never get around to it at all. We can manage several different conversations at once. “Sorry, I was out with friends,” we might say, as an excuse for not texting someone back. Or, “Sorry, I just need to text this person back real quick,” we might say while out with friends.

As these things become normal, it creates an environment where we are only comfortable asking for slivers of people’s distracted time, lest they ever obligate us to give them our full and undivided attention.

[idealbeauty365ketous]

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[generallypo]

“I heard your voice, so I came... Aoba-san.”

Hooo-boy, if that doesn’t get me emotional every single time. Call it my bias for eccentric bundles of sunshine and softness, or my crippling weakness for the secretly-handsome-and-devastatingly-earnest type, but you can’t change my mind: Clear is, hands down, DMMD’s best love interest. Character development-wise, thematically, romantically, he nails every trial thrown at him, gets his man,  and proceeds to break your heart in the tenderest, sincerest way possible. I am hopping with Huge Fan Energy, so this post is gonna be unapologetically long and self-indulgent and grossly enthusiastic. Yeeeee.

———— 

Look, DMMD meta analysis has been done to death, I get it. This game is old. But I think it stands as testament to its excellent production that it’s still a game worth revisiting years later — especially during these times when social contact is so hard pressed to come by and we all rabidly devour digital media like a horde of screeching feral gremlins. (Have you seen Netflix’s stock value now? The exploding MMO server populations? Astonishing.) It’s pure, simple human nature to want to connect, to cling to members of our network out of biological imperative and our psychological dependency on each other. As cold and primitive at that sounds, social contact also fulfills us on a higher level: the community is always stronger than the individual; genuine trust begets a mutually supportive relationship of exchange and evolution. People learn from each other, and grow into stronger, wiser, better versions of themselves.

Yeah, I’m being deliberately obtuse about this. Of course I’m talking about Clear. Clear, who is a robot. Clear, who is nearly childlike in his insatiable curiosity regarding the human condition.

And it’s a classic literary tactic, using non-human entities to question the intangible constructs of a concept like ‘humanity’ — think Frankenstein, or Tokyo Ghoul, or Detroit: Become Human, among so, so many works in various media — all tackling that question from countless angles, all with varying measures of success. What does it mean to be human? To be good? Who are we, and where do we stand in the grand scheme of things? Is there even a scheme to follow? … Wait, what?

Jokes aside, there are so many ways that the whole approaching-human-yet-not-quite-there schtick can be abused into edgy, joyless existential griping. Nothing wrong with that if it’s what you’re looking for, except that we’re talking about a boys’ love game here. But DMMD neatly, sweetly side steps that particular wrinkle, giving us a wonderfully grounded character to work with as a result. 

Character Design — a see-through secret

Let’s start small: Clear’s design and premise. Unlike so many other lost, clueless robo-lambs across media, Clear does have a small guiding presence early on in his life. It takes the form of his grandfather, who teaches Clear about the world while also sheltering him from his origins. It means he learns enough to blend sufficiently into society; it also means that Clear has even more questions that sprout from his limited understanding of the world.

Told that he must never remove his mask lest he expose his identity as a non-human, Clear’s perpetual fear of rejection for what he is drives much of his eccentricity and challenges him throughout much of his route. As for the player, the mystery of what lies underneath his mask is a carrot that the writers get to dangle until the peak moment of emotional payoff. Even if it’s not hard to guess that there’s probably a hottie of legendary proportions stuck under there, there’s still significance in waiting for that good moment to happen. And when it does, it feels great.

His upbringing contextualizes and affirms his odd choice of fashion: deliberately generic, bashfully covered from the public eye, and colored nearly in pure white - the quintessential signal of a blank slate, of innocence. Contrasted with the rest of DMMD’s flashy, colorful crew, Clear is probably the most difficult to read on a superficial scale, not falling into the fiery, bare-chest sex appeal of a womanizer, or the techno-nerd rebel aesthetic that Noiz somehow rocks. Goofy weirdo? Possibly a serial killer? Honestly, both seem plausible at the start.

And that’s the funny thing, because as damn hard as he tries to physically cover himself up from society, Clear is irrepressibly true to his name: transparent to a fault. He’s a walking, talking contradiction, and it’s not hard to realize that this mysterious, masked stranger… is really just an open book. By far the most effusive and straightforward of the entire cast, his actions are wildly unconventional and sometimes wholly inexplicable. But given time to explain himself, he is always, always sincere in his intentions — and unlike the rest of the love interests, naturally inclined to offer bits of himself to Aoba. It doesn’t take the entire character arc to figure out his big, bad secret — our main character gets an inkling about halfway through his route — and what’s even better is that he embraces it, understanding that his abilities also allow him to protect what he cherishes: Aoba. 

So what if he doesn’t fit into an easily recognizable box of daydream boyfriend material? He’s contradictory, and contradiction is interesting. Dons a gas mask, but isn’t an edgelord. Blandly dressed, but ridiculously charming. Unreadable and modestly intimidating — until he opens his mouth. Even without the benefit of traversing his route, there’s already so much good stuff to work with, and sure as hell, you’re kept guessing all the way to the end.

Character Development — from reckless devotion into complaisant subservience, complaisant subservience into mutual understanding. And then, of course: free will, and true love. 

At its core, DMMD is about a dude with magic mind-melding powers and his merry band of attractive men with — surprise! — crippling emotional baggage. Each route follows the same pattern, simply remixing the individual character interactions and the pace of the program: Aoba finds himself isolated with the love interest, faces various communication issues varying on the scale of frustrating to downright dangerous, wanders into a sketchy section of Platinum Jail, bonds with the love interest over shared duress, breaks into the Oval Tower, faces mental assault by the big bad — and finally, finally, destroys those internal demons plaguing the love interest, releasing the couple onto the path of a real heart-to-heart conversation. And then, you know, the lovey-dovey stuff. 

Here’s the thing: as far as romantic progression goes, it’s really not a bad structure. There’s room to bump heads, but also to bond. The Scrap scene is a thematically cohesive and clever way to squeeze in the full breadth of character backstory while simultaneously advancing the plot. In this part, Aoba must become the hero to each of his love interests and save them from themselves. Having become privy to each other’s deepest thoughts and reaching a mutual understanding of each other, their feelings afterwards slide much more naturally into romantic territory. They break free of Oval Tower, make their way home, and have hot, emotionally fulfilling sex or otherwise some variation on the last few steps. The end. 

That is, except for Clear. 

Clear’s route is refreshing in that he needs none of these things — the climax of his emotional arc actually comes a little after the halfway point of his route. When Clear’s true origins are revealed, he comes entirely clean to Aoba, fighting against his fear of rejection but also trusting that Aoba will listen. It’s a quiet, vulnerable moment, rather than the action-packed tension we normally experience during a Scrap scene. 

That doesn’t mean it’s prematurely written in — it simply means that he reaches his potential faster than the other characters. Because of that, he’s free to pursue the next level of his route’s development much, much sooner in the timeline: he overcomes his fears of his appearance, he confesses his love to Aoba, he leaves the confines of a largely dubious master-servant relationship and allows himself to be Aoba’s equal. Clear’s sprite art mirrors his emotional transformation all the way through, exposing him to the literal bone — and Aoba’s affection for him doesn’t change a single bit. Beautiful.

The whammy of incredible moments doesn’t just stop there, though. I don’t exactly recall the order the routes DMMD is ideally meant to be played in, but I believe Clear’s is meant to be last. And if you do, I can guarantee that it becomes a hugely delightful gameplay experience — in order to achieve his good ending, you must do absolutely nothing with Scrap. It doesn’t just subvert our player expectations of proactively clicking and interacting with our love interests; it grabs the story by its thematic reins and yanks it all back to the forefront of our scene. 

In every route besides Clear’s, Scrap is a tool used to insert Aoba’s influence into and interfere with his target’s mind. Using his powers of destruction, Aoba is able to prune whatever maligned thoughts are harming his target; in any conventional situation, using Scrap is the right choice. 

But one of the central problems in Clear’s route is his conflict between the impulses of his conditioning and his desire to live freely as a human would. Breaking free of Toue’s programming is what initially made him unique; growing beyond the rules imposed by his grandfather is what makes him human. In the final conflict scene, Clear’s decision to destroy his key-lock is an action of true autonomy, made with perfect understanding of the consequences and a sincere, selflessly selfish desire to protect someone he loves. In order to receive his good end, you have to respect his decision. It doesn’t matter which option you pick — by using Scrap, Aoba turns his back on every positive choice he made with Clear and attempts to exert his authority over him. This is Aoba becoming Toue; this is Aoba trying to reinstate himself as ‘Master’ right as he approved Clear as his equal. That’s blatant hypocrisy, and it doesn’t matter if Aoba is trying to do it for Clear’s ‘own good’ — that’s not Aoba’s call to make. If you truly wish to respect Clear’s free will, you will stand by. This is the truth of the moment: Clear has no emotional blockages that Aoba needs to fix. Believe in him, just as he believed in you.

The path to his heart is, and always has been, clear. Scrap was never needed from the start.

While Aoba might be the main character, Clear is undeniably a hero in his own route just as much. Tirelessly earnest and always curious, he leaps headlong into the unknown and emerges with his newfound enlightenment. He’s unafraid of weathering trials, even to the point of accepting death, and returns anew from oblivion to a sweet, cathartic ending. That’s about as textbook hero’s journey as it gets — if that doesn’t make him unquestionably, certifiably, unconditionally human, then I will scream.

And only finally… there is the free end. The final CG is like a throwback to our first impression of him: indistinct, purposefully obscured from proper view. But this time, we know better — and so does Aoba. Looks were never what mattered in Clear’s route. If you were patient, and you were open-minded, and you listened… well, what we realize now is that Clear was doing the exact same thing for you, too.

From a carefree, aimless robot-man with only the gimmick of “eccentric ditz” to carry him forward, we get a supremely more interesting character by the end: a man who has graduated from the well-intentioned but claustrophobic conditioning of his childhood; a weapon who has defied the imperatives placed on him by his creator’s programming; a wanderer who has, through unconditional patience and empathy, discovered love, and striven to become a better person for it. Who was it that ever doubted Clear’s character? He’s the goddamn goodest boy that ever wanted to be a real boy. Of course Clear is human. And in fact, he does it better than every single one of the actually human love interests. You can’t change my mind.

The Romance — kindness is really fucking attractive, okay.

Like I’ve said earlier, I have my Big Fan Blinds stuck on pretty tight. I might be conjuring sparks from thin air. But I think every choice was a deliberate creative decision on the writers’ part, and they deserve all the kudos for it — I’m just the lucky player who gets to enjoy it. But aside from Noiz (who I also think is a perfect darling as well — I could go on and on about him), Clear’s route is a model example for consent and healthy relationships in VN storytelling. This is reciprocated on both sides: never does Aoba infringe on Clear’s boundaries, and neither does Clear. They’re sensitive to each other’s needs and concerns; they ask for permission and stop when it isn’t granted (and when it is, boy do they get frisky — I’m not complaining!) I don’t need to say much more, because I think that consent is both fantastic and yes, incredibly hot (the scene in DMMD is tons more sad, go play Re:connect!). Good writing shows off the massive erotic potential enthusiastic consent puts into intimacy, and Aoba’s and Clear’s relationship is honestly a dream playground. The point is, I think Aoba and Clear genuinely do find equal balance in their relationship by the end of his route (and certainly through Re:connect). If you follow through Re:connect’s storyline, there’s even more thematic richness that comes through in the form of Clear’s greatest asset: communication. The couple get to discuss the long-term implications of them being together; they both offer concerns, points, and assurances to the other, and it’s just a soft, honest moment not so unlike the worries of a real relationship. Hearing is kind of Clear’s motif sense, but it’s really great to see that Aoba also subtly picks it up, really flexes his own communication skills to better engage with Clear. 

Point is, Clear’s route spoke to me on a lot of little levels. Design-wise, he’s already got a ton going for him, and his story builds upon it rather than against it, enriching his development and grounding him a little more solidly in the DMMD universe (and in my heart). His route, aside from being emotionally ruinous, carries a pretty solid chunk of world-building (only beaten out by Mink’s and Ren’s, probably), and the romance feels organic, healthy, and realistic. He’s not the only one with an excellent route, but he’s my favorite. If you read through all of this, you’re a real trooper and I’m extremely impressed. Thanks for tuning in. Peace.

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

12 Angry Men: Facets of Film

Once a movie gets a great cast, good characters, a well-written script and a good production team, there’s only one thing left to do before it’s ready for the big screen.

Or more specifically, there’s a whole lot of things left to do before it’s ready for the big screen, all encapsulated in a not-so-simple process: moviemaking.

Turns out, there’s a lot to making a movie.  There’s cameras, music, sets, special effects, costumes, and a whole lot of other stuff that has to go into piecing together the parts of a coherent narrative in a way that makes sense to an audience, as well as looking appealing.  These are the elements that can sometimes catch the attention of an audience, taking a film from good to great based on the ‘movie magic’ elements of the movie in question.

These are typically most easily seen with big budget, special-effect heavy films like Star Wars or Independence Day, but of course, the tips and tricks of Hollywood are used in even the smallest of the small.  It’s inescapable: if it’s filmed, there has to be even the barest minimum of these aspects to making a movie.

At first, this can sound like I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth here.  After all, as I’ve pointed out in previous articles, the most important thing in any movie is the characters and story, as without them, the ‘movie magic’ seems like so much sound and fury.

And that’s true.  Without a substantial story or characters the audience cares about, no amount of special effects or pretty cinematography is going to save it.  However, that does not mean that the ‘trimming’ isn’t important.

The purpose of all of these elements of movie-making (facets of film, if you will) is not to replace the story, or distract from it.  They are used to structure it, to enhance it, to assist the story and make it easier to subtly get across things to the audience.

For example, in 12 Angry Men, Juror #8 is the only character in a white suit, emphasizing the idea that he is our hero, one of the ‘good guys’.  The fan in the room, invaluable on the hottest day of the year, only begins to work once the tide of the votes have begun to change.  Neither of these things is coincidence.  They are put in the film for a purpose: to tell you things about the characters and the story that the movie itself doesn’t have to in words.

See, the production of a film is directly tied to the story it’s trying to tell.  It serves as a vehicle, the method by which the story is told.

With that in mind, it makes a lot of sense that the production of a movie be as important as it is.

All of these ‘movie making tricks’, camerawork, music, set design, etc., are all factors involved in what I call ‘visual shorthand’, or ‘storytelling shorthand’.  The point of these elements is very simple: to tell the story in ways that the audience can understand immediately, without having to be told in dialogue.  The skillful application of these methods makes the film easier to understand, as well as more impressive and enjoyable.  It is the use of these elements that mark the difference between a competent director (or an incompetent one) and a great one.  

This leads us to today’s question.  

Did 12 Angry Men happen to use its ‘facets of film’ wisely?

At first, it might seem like the film is already in trouble.  Sidney Lumet was untested in the movie directing business, having only worked on television shows before, and it seemed unlikely that this low-budget piece set largely in one room would be the show-stopper as other epics of the time such as Ben-Hur or Bridge on the River Kwai.

Frankly, that’s true.

12 Angry Men is by no means a big-budget extravaganza, but that does not negate it’s uses of movie magic.  Indeed, as a matter of fact, this film turned out to be an excellent study in the subtle uses of ‘storytelling shorthand’.  Let’s take a look, starting with one of the more easily overlooked elements of a film: cinematography.

On the surface, it can seem like 12 Angry Men is shot in a rather dull manner.  The camera switches between shots of the whole room and table to shots of the individual or grouped jurors who are speaking.  And to be fair, there isn’t a whole lot else to be done with the camera in a film that relies on dialogue, and never leaves the jury room.

But the production team was smarter than that.

While both the cinematography and the sets are simplistic, that does not mean they are simple.

Even the casual viewer can pick up on the rising tension as the film progresses, and while the aforementioned viewer might attribute this to writing and performances, there’s a little more to it than that, aided by the subtle use of camerawork.

While it’s true that the excellent writing and masterful performances do the bulk of the tension rising, the camera operators had something to do with it as well.  The careful movie-watcher will notice a subtle change with the camerawork between the beginning of the film and the end.

In the beginning of the film, the shots are wider.  There are very few closeups, and the ones that do exist are there to establish characters.  The camera is a respectable distance away, across the table from each juror.  As the film goes on, however, the frequency of these shots changes.

As time passes, more and more close up shots are used, emphasizing more emotion as we learn more about the jurors as people.  This furthers not only our personal connection with the jurors, but the intensity of the situation, letting the audience feel the urgency without having to be more obviously cued.  Director Sidney Lumet put cinematographer Boris Kaufman (Oscar-Winner cinematographer for On the Waterfront in 1954) on the task, saying this: “I shot the first third of the movie above eye level, shot the second third at eye level, and the last third from below eye level. In that way, toward the end, the ceiling began to appear. Not only were the walls closing in, the ceiling was as well. The sense of increasing claustrophobia did a lot to raise the tension of the last part of the movie.”

And it really works.  Very simple, but effective, much like the movie in general.

The film being shot in black and white serves it well, with stark contrasts and even more attention drawn to Juror #8’s white suit, the only real piece of ‘costuming’ involved.  After all, all the ‘costumes’ needed to consist of was very simply suits, normal dress for the time.  Even the set was very simple.  It’s a jury room, again, nothing special.  The only other settings in the film is the outside of the courthouse, during which an excellent use of the camera takes the audience around the interior of the building before settling on the room in which the trial is taking place.  It’s an excellent mood-setter, giving the audience a taste of what to expect in tone before the film gets going with its story.

But there’s more to the production of a film than sets, cameras, and costumes.  Let’s talk about the music.

Again, the observant viewer may have picked up on the fact that there isn’t much of a score to 12 Angry Men.  The music is there, but there are a lot of quiet moments in the film without music playing.  There are two notable instances, however, where the music does quite a bit with mood-setting:

The first instance is in the beginning, as the jury retires to the jury room to deliberate on a verdict.  The music is slow and sad as the camera focuses on the defendant, heightening audience sympathy for the character, a wise choice as it increases the audience’s interest in hearing the verdict, and increasing the reaction when the vote comes down so heavily in the ‘guilty’ favor.

At the end, however, there is a noticeable, if subtle, change.

The same style of music is played as Juror #8 heads down the steps out of the courthouse, but done as more of a triumphant fanfare.  The day is won, justice has been served (hopefully).  The music really only plays during scenes with little to no dialogue, with the rest of the film’s background being mostly silent, emphasizing the dialogue and performances going on.

How about those performances, huh?

All twelve main parts in this film are played to perfection, even more impressively as each character is thoroughly human.  There are no knights, no cops, no ‘heroes’ to be found here as typically thought of in the realm of film, these are all, plain and simply, men.  They are people that we can easily imagine running into or even being ourselves.  Each character is played believably, in genuine, unpolished humanity, and in a way, it is this element that sets this movie apart.

The costuming isn’t anything special, and the sets, while well constructed and believable, is very simply a jury room.  They are both contemporary, and aren’t the point.  This film isn’t about flashy visuals, sweeping landscapes, or incredibly powerful musical scores: it’s about the performances.

Any film, no matter how good the script, cinematography or effects are, is nothing without decent, believable performances from its main cast, and it is here that 12 Angry Men truly shows its merits.

Every line of dialogue in the script is spoken with raw realness.  The characters sometimes pause and stutter, all shown as individuals (even those with smaller parts) with lives and opinions of their own.  Every juror is perfectly realized, from the earnest, organized Juror #1 to wishy-washy fast-talker Juror #12.  Every part, notably Jurors #8 and #3, feels real, as though they are people, not characters, and it is there that the movie shows its strength.  The acting perfectly matches the gravitas and realism of the rest of the film, with each character clear enough that the audience establishes a connection with them, and after all, that’s the point.

There isn’t a single piece of this film that feels out of place, or unbalanced.  While the film’s production can seem unremarkable at first, a deeper look shows that every aspect of this film fits in exactly where it’s supposed to for the film to hit home.  Nothing overshadows the script or the actors, with each ‘storytelling device’ used to heighten and accentuate, remaining subtle and in the background, allowing the audience to focus on the story and characters.  Although it can seem like there’s not much to look at with this low-budget, single-set piece, Sidney Lumet’s Hollywood debut proves that you don’t need a budget to effectively use the tools at your disposal.

It all fits together, blending to become a quiet, subtle masterpiece that more than deserves its title as one of the greatest movies ever made.

But as I mentioned, none of this was an accident.  We looked at the moviemaking magic, it’s time to look at the magicians themselves.  Join us next time while we take a look at the facets of filmmaking: the behind the scenes of 12 Angry Men.  Hope to see you there.

[x0401x]

Hoshiai no Sora: Cast Comments

Q & A with the voice actors of the main cast. Translated from the official Twitter. Feel free to point out any corrections, and please check out some of the creators’ accounts:

Akane Kazuki (director)

Itsuka (character designer)

Takeshi (animator)

Kyuujou Kiyo (illustrator)

Takahashi Yuuichi (animator)

MLANG (animator)

Hanae Natsuki-san (voice of Katsuragi Maki)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

At first, I guessed he was a cool and behaved kid, but this changed into the impression that he was a child with no two-facedness to him and a feel-good personality, who firmly conveys his own opinions without being swayed by the people around him. Also, he laughs and makes merry in accordance to his age too, so it is fun to play him.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I was part of the soft tennis club, so I am extremely happy to get to perform in this production. Through this series, many things had me thinking, “This happens, this happens” and it makes me reminisce to my school days. I was the vice-president, but our tennis club was not that earnest about competing, so we did not go as far as Shijou Minami Junior High, but I believe the club activities had a similar air to them.

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

This is a work that touches the rare subject of soft tennis, while the number of schools that only have regular tennis gradually increases as one goes from middle to high school. It is a given for people who take part in soft tennis, but the delicate feelings of middle schoolers are also being depicted here through getting quite deep into their core, so I believe this is a series that makes the ones watching feel and think all sorts of things. Please watch over it until the very end.

Hatanaka Tasuku-san (voice of Shinjou Touma)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

Shinjou Touma is a child with an extremely strong sense of responsibility. The environment he grew up in has an influence on this, but he ends up exploding due to shouldering too many things and not knowing how to let it out when it became hard for him... The more I get to know him, the more I feel like giving him a hug. That’s the kind of person he is.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I was part of the basket club during my six years from middle to high school and on the bench. That’s why I would let my voice out higher than anyone, and since I could not manage to do anything whenever I entered the court, I would just run, anyhow. The nickname I earned from this was “Runner”. I was neither “center” nor “forward”, just “Runner”.

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

Honestly, I have absolutely no idea of how this work will be receptioned. But I thought, “I want to respond to the things that the director wants to write about and to his passion, from the bottom of my heart”. That’s why I had strong thoughts about getting close to the individuals that appear in this story, being hurt and moving forward together with them, and taking part in this series. I am truly glad to have become involved with it. Please do have expectations for it.

Matsuoka Yoshitsugu-san (voice of Ameno Itsuki)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

He is a boy with a deep darkness to him, except this darkness has a proper reason to be, so I look forward to when people get shocked upon finding that out. He is also a cute boy, so I hope people will enjoy the many emotions, expressions and lines from him.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I was in the wind instruments club, but I was always thinking about skipping. There were few guys in it, so whenever classes ended, a senior would often come to pick me up! Like, “Matsuoka! I’ll go with you!!” I really gave him a lot of trouble.

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

It is turning into a story that will not go through conventional methods. Many individuals of all kinds appear in it, but this is a series that depicts each human being very rawly, so I hope people will enjoy this rich story until the end. We also want to perform “Hoshiai no Sora” to our utmost, so we will be in your care from now on too!

Satou Gen-san (voice of Futsu Rintarou)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

Rintarou is a very serious and kindhearted person who can observe his surroundings better than anyone. On one side, he is extremely sensible, overthinks, does not manage to give his opinions and ends up hiding his true thoughts, so when I perform him, I make sure to do it while deciding in my mind, “Don’t leave Rintarou on his own no matter what” and, “Stay close to him until the end”.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I used to belong to the kendou club, but the club activities were aimed to win the nationals, so practice was extremely severe. During practice match expeditions, we would ride in the late-night bus and keep practicing from morning to evening non-stop just like that, and to make our bodies grow bigger, we would eat a mountain of curry, fist-sized minced meat fried cakes and gigantic hot dogs in one go until we got upset stomatches, so I have the strong impression that it was strict and terrible if nothing else.

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

I think its contents resonate with the hearts of both people who are currently students and people who are working as members of society. If they could love the characters of Hoshiai no Sora, who are somewhat heartrending but try to live day by day with utmost effort, I would be really happy.

Toyonaga Toshiyuki-san (voice of Soga Tsubasa)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

I have the impression that he is a child right in the middle of puberty, who ends up saying what he thinks aloud. It feels like he takes a while to find the will to do things, so I think he is simply carefree.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I was a ghost member of the basket club. I joined because a girl I liked back then was a member of the female basket club. My motive was impure, huh (laughs).

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

I think it will be pretty impactful for those who watch it thinking that it is an uplifting youth-and-sports thing. It depicts all sorts of problems that actually happen in reality. Please do watch these strong messages with your families; I would be happy if they become a trigger for people to reflect on things.

Satou Keisuke-san (voice of Takenouchi Shingo)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

I thought Shingo was an upfront kid in a very good sense. Also, I felt that, in contrast with his strong-look appearance, he is very considerate of his friends, has a side to him that’s got guts, and is adorable too. I am really looking forward to how he will progress from now on.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I was in the basket club, but all I did was slack off. There were only four members and the club activities only included running, and after that, we would do nothing but chat. Then we would run off so that the teacher of that period would not find us out (laughs). I would think, “One way or another, these are also memories of my youth”.

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

Developments that people cannot predict at all are waiting, and they make you extremely anxious. It is fully loaded with obsession for even minute details, so you will be unable to take your eyes off it from the beginning to the end! I hope to enjoy these moments together with everyone. “Hoshiai no Sora” is in your care!

Koyabashi Yuusuke-san (voice of Tsukinose Nao)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

Nao is a child whose appearance and mind are flighty, and also a mysterious kid who speaks of dellusions as if they were actually reality. But during club activities, he makes efforts in his own way so that he will not drag everyone down, so the gap between this and his fickle personality left an impression on me.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I was in the wind instruments club. I wanted to play the trumpet, but the pretty senior who was teaching us during the trial enrollment played the horn, so I was swayed by her sweet talk, and before I realized it, I was playing the horn myself (laughs). I should beware of sweet temptations, is what I thought during my middle school years.

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

People might get tripped up if they are watching it thinking that it is an anime where children are enjoyably playing soft tennis to their utmost. It is precisely because those kids are at that age that I would like people to observe thoroughly the depiction of the mindsets they embrace.

Amasaki Kouhei-san (voice of Ishigami Taiyou)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

I think Taiyou-kun is a gentle child. He cannot decide things on his own, always taking action by matching up with other’s opinions. I felt that the way his Kansai dialect sometimes has a common language ring to it was realistic.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I was in the swim club. During summer, we would swim over 10km from morning to evening. We would run the competitive club relays in the PE festival wearing one layer of swimsuit. I think it was an experience I can no longer manage.

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

“Hoshiai no Sora” is a work made extremely carefully, and even during the post-recording, the love I can feel from the creators is huge, so I think it is a very good series. There is not much I can say, so I hope you all can see for your own eyes when you watch it on-air! We will be in your care!

Mineda Mayu-san (voice of Mitsue Kanako)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

When I first saw her, I thought, “I guess she’s a shy and quiet girl?”, but that was splendidly betrayed. Kanako is the type to straightforwardly say what she thinks to the other party, and I think this aspect of hers, in a good sense, reeks of humanity quite a bit.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I was the president of the art club, but I would walk around campus after school and observe the activities of other clubs. That includes the soft tennis club and the like. To all the art club members of back then, I’m sorry for being such an undisciplined club president...

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

This story intersects with the many emotions of middle schoolers living in the current era, who might actually exist somewhere within Japan. Also, the sounds of batted balls and squealing of sneakers are very real and have intensity, so I would like people to pay attention to them as well.

Yamaya Yoshitaka-san (voice of Asuka Yuuta)

Q1. Please tells us your impression about the character you play.

He is androgynous and has a soft demeanor, and I think he is truly a boy of kindhearted disposition. He somewhat lacks confidence, so he steps back and has a bird’s-eye view of things, but there is a reason for it. I would like people to pay attention to him along with the other characters’ worries.

Q2. Please tell us a memory of club activities from your middle school days.

I was in the soccer club. I had many experiences, like how plain fun it was kicking the ball, having awkward relationships, and learning the joy of getting sweaty doing practice and winning.

Q3. Leave a message for the people watching the series.

This is not just a multi-protagonist story about the youth of bright and uplifting boys. Troubles and issues that surely exist somewhere out there, though people usually do not try to look at them, are depicted realistically in it, and there were times it made my chest hurt. I want everyone to watch how each of them will face the things they are shouldering until the very end.

[skvaderarts]

Apocrypha Chapter Twenty One: Expedition

Masterlist can be found Here! Thanks!

Chapter Twenty One: Expedition

Notes: Can we talk about how amazing Bury the Light is? Ok, good. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page. Moving on!

(-~-)

Considering the fact that he’d spent the better part of the night trying to ignore the feeling of tiny toddler toes digging into his back, the darkslayer had slept relatively well.

It had been challenging to him to even tolerate the concept of sharing a bed with another living being at first, more or less due to the fact that he had not done so in over two decades. Add to that the fact that he was still adjusting to the sensation of sleeping in a bed again after spending a lifetime in the underworld, and the fact that he had a difficult time sleeping through the night because he’d trained himself to wake up almost instantaneously at the slightest sound as a defense mechanism to prevent his enemies from being able to easily sneak up on him, and you had a recipe for an unpleasant night’s sleep practically evening. But there wasn’t much that the little boy could to to sway that outcome one way or another. Vergil was going to be cranky come breakfast time regardless of how little or how much he tossed and turned in his sleep.

Practically the second that the sun dared peak over the threshold of the windowsill, Kyle sat up and yawned, repeatedly jabbing Julio in the back with his free hand as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Once the middle child was up, so was his older brother. That was simply the way the children did things. As soon as Julio was roused and somewhat capable of functioning, he jabbed his little brother back, an action that immediately led into a poke fight. Had an adult, especially Vergil, been awake to see it, they would’ve more than likely dissuaded them, but the only “qualified” candidate was trying his level best to just tune out the world around himself and get a few moment’s rest.

Well, that was until Carlo woke up.

As if from nowhere, the little child sat up in the bed next to his grandfather and whimpered in frustration. His tiny child brain was incapable of processing the concept of lethargy, and as such desired nothing more than to turn back over and go to sleep. The main issue with that plan was that he didn’t comprehend this idea, so his only recourse was to become immediately flustered and frustrated. Clearly seeing that they had probably woken their baby brother up by accident, the two older boys shared a glance between one another before Kyle went to his younger sibling’s side and tried to shush him while Julio tentatively attempted to wake Vergil up in a manner that he assumed wouldn’t get him a stern lecture later on. Or worse, simply upset him.

Julio didn’t have the slightest idea why the older man was so… antisocial? Was that the right word for it? Regardless, he wanted to stay on his good side. While he wasn’t scared of him by any means since he assumed he meant them no harm and that Nero wouldn’t have entrusted them to someone who was a danger to them, he still didn’t want to make someone he barely knew upset. Vergil was supremely intimidating, especially to a small child. He didn’t want to be on his bad side, especially since he knew that he would probably tell Nero. The last thing he wanted was his father and his grandfather to be upset with him.

“Um… mr. Vergil? Can we go downstairs? I wanna find our mom.” Julio asked quietly as he gently prodded Vergil’s shoulder. He paused for a moment, waiting for Vergil to turn over and face him or sit up so that he could tell if he’d heard him, but he didn’t move. Still, right as he was considering repeating his request, the child stopped short of raising his hand to repeat his action. Something told him that Vergil was awake and probably just considering his request before delivering a reply. He couldn't be sure, but it just seemed like it to him.

“... Do you have any idea what time it is?” Vergil said in an almost hushed tone, still not moving. Not a single muscle shifted aside from the motion his lips made as his vocal cords moved in the proper manner necessary to assist in the production of the vernacular required to render his request audibly detectable. (Wait… what? Wha?)

The young boy glanced over at the analog clock that sat on the bedside table, unsure as to what the time had to do with anything. He’d overheard someone mention that breakfast went until noon, so he could only imagine that they hadn’t missed it yet. The others wouldn’t leave without them, right?

“Um… It’s nine o’clock, sir.”

Vergil sighed, still not moving. “Is that AM or PM, child?”

Julio furrowed his brow and glanced between Vergil, the window, and the clock, wondering for a moment if simply pointing out the level of light in the room would be an action that could get him into trouble for being rude. It was clearly morning. The sun wouldn’t be out if it wasn’t unless they’d been transported to another planet during the night. And if that was the case, they had an entirely different problem on their hands. After signing under his breath, he shrugged nebulously and decided to respond. After all, what harm could it do?

“That would be nine AM. It’s morning.” He made an earnest attempt to cover up how confused he was by the obvious question he’d just provided an obvious answer to, but Vergil caught the tone of his voice effortlessly. The blue devil slayer didn’t really care one way or another. He simply wanted to see what the child would say to him. He was Nero’s son, after all. Perhaps being around Kyrie or ever the adults at the orphanage they’d adopted him from had taught him some manners. He was inclined to assume the former as opposed to the later. 

From what he understood about public childcare institutions, especially the ones based in remote places like Fortuna, the concept of individual children receiving one on one time with the adults that supervised them was a completely foreign one. They more than likely had no time or interest in making sure that every single child was taught perfect manners, unless it served to expedite their adoption.

Why oh why did he have to meet Nero’s mother in Fortuna?

There were so many places he could conjure up that would've been preferable to that hyper-religious cultist paradise. And yet, there he’d found himself, digging through the archives that the Order of the Sword possessed, more than a little invested in finding out what -if anything- they could tell him about where his beloved father had disappeared to. To this day, Vergil had no idea where Sparda was or what had become of him, and it drove him slightly insane to consider it for any length of time. While it was realistic to assume that he had died and that he simply would never know, Vergil found it incredibly difficult to do so. After all, if the legendary Dark Knight Sparda had been struck down in combat against some unknown advisory, shouldn’t every demon in the underworld know about it? In all the time he’d spent in that accursed place, he’d never once heard such a rumor pass through circulation. The underworld worked on a different time rhythm than the human world did. Their little three day excursion turning into six weeks had been a perfect example of that. What was less than half a century to a seemingly immortal population?

He needed to stop thinking about it. The children needed to be returned to their parents. And he needed to find something to eat before he became even more irritable than he already was. After all, it was far too early to develop such a negative disposition towards the rest of his day. He hadn’t even ran into Dante yet. No, he had to pace himself or this day, like every other day, would get the better of him. There were too many possible undesirable outcomes to contend with to get so befuddled before even parting ways with his bed. He would get the children dressed and ready to meet back up with the rest of their family, and then he would plan accordingly from there. But first, the breakfast bar. He truly did need a snack.

For the sake of the hotel, he hoped they had something with blueberries in it…

(-~-)

Sun pierced the delicate green leaves as a cool breeze blew in from the north. The mountains parted, allowing an ample forest to line its borders. The creek that snakes across the ground in front of them had originated farther up the pass, it’s spawning point basically invisible from where they currently stood. And all the while V couldn’t help but wonder how in the hell he had allowed himself to be talked into this group hiking trip with the girls.

Nero had cited a desire to spend a few hours alone with Kyrie, a request that had garnered a few surprised looks and a teasing whistle from Dante, but they had resolved to head out without him, leaving the young devil hunter to his devices and at the mercy of his lovely domestic partner. Dante had decided to stay behind as well, stating that there was something he wanted to look into. While V was certain that probably had something to do with the fact that the girls hadn’t invited Vergil on this trip due to his lack of presence at the time they had decided to embark on it, he still wasn’t sure why he had decided to come at all. There had never been a time in his entire life that he had aspired to go hiking. Yes, he did enjoy nature in all it’s wild splendor, but he was also woefully clumsy, and clambering up a steep embankment was liable to get him injured in one way or another.

The group had stopped for a moment to catch their breaths when Patty chimed in, more than likely uncomfortable with the silence that had settled over the group. He’d realized that she was the talkative sort practically the moment he’d first seen her, though they had yet to actually introduce themselves to one another. She seemed friendly enough from what he could tell, however, and the others clearly adored her. The young blond woman had been around for quite some time and it showed.

“Ok, so like, I’ve just gotta ask… Does anyone know where we're going?” Patty asked as she gestured to the wide open space around them. She was clearly taken aback by the expanse laid out before her.” Because I like walking around in the woods as much as the next girl, but if I have to get Dante to find us out here or something, it’s going to be super embarrassing and he is never going to let me live it down. You know how he gets.”

“Look, your guess is as good as mine, Blondy. I don’t live here, either. Not even close.” Nico shrugged as she stood up from fixing her shoe. She’d managed to get caught on a fallen branch, and was having a hell of a time picking all the little pieces of debris out of her foot. “What I can tell ya is that V has a magic chicken, and that magic chicken is gonna help us find our way back if we get lost. It’s about the only thing it’s good for besides roasting over a campfire on a stick. A big stick because it’s a big chicken.”

V sighed, already aware that his avian companion wasn’t going to take that comment lying down. He could feel Griffon itching for a fight already, and he was still in his dormant form. The second he manifested, he was probably going to raise hell. For whatever reason, the mouthy bird had a special type of hate reserved for those who referred to him as a chicken. Perhaps he didn’t enjoy the idea of being edible? If so, he was in for a rude awakening if Shadow ever got particularly hungry…

As expected, Griffon suddenly materialized in front of him, clearly riled up and ready for a fight. His beautiful iridescent blue wings sparked it traces of electricity as he flapped furiously in place, shooting Nico an especially angry look. She just stared back at him, he hands on her hips. “You got somethin’ to say, lil chicke? Because you look upset. Better cool off before you roast yourself from the inside out.”

“Why you- now you look here missy, I’m no chicken! I’ll have you know, I was very dangerous in my heyday. You wouldn’t have wanted to mess with me when I was a few hundred sizes bigger!”

Nico shrugged, unthreatened by the mouthy bird. Picking fun at him was one of her favorite pastimes.” Then I would've just needed a bigger net… and a much bigger grill, because it sounds like there would’ve been leftovers! Now unless you're gonna help me fix my boot, go bother Trish or somethin’. I’m a lil busy.”

Griffon mumbled something under his breath about how he’d like to help her, earning him a stern look from V. While the summoner knew he wouldn’t actually do anything to Nico and she wouldn’t do anything to him, he still didn’t need him getting any ideas. Griffon was a crafty sort, and basically everything he did had some sort so wicked streak involved. The last thing he needed was Griffon accidentally igniting some of the dry underbrush and setting the entire forest alight. V had come there to enjoy the splendor and spectacle of nature, not destroy it. Rampant industrialization would do that at some point in the future without any needed input from him. All he needed to do at the moment was not trip over any of the rocks as he made his way to the precipice of the hill. 

Supposedly, there was a lake up ahead. That was the entire reason he’d hauled his beach gear all the way out there. After spending an entire day at the beach, the rest of the team had come to the conclusion that hanging out at the beach for hours at a time with nothing of real substance to entertain themselves with got relatively dull surprisingly quick. And while the pristine waters of the bay area and the shops were fun to look at and good at taking them for every cent that they owned, the forest provided much appreciated things like privacy, shade, and silence. The forest was obscenely quiet compared to the boardwalk, almost uncomfortably so. V almost had to almost physically fight off the urge to smirk as he considered all the quality reading time he might get in during this little expedition. Maybe camping was worth it after all…

“So, I don’t think we’ve talked before! I’m Patty Lowell. And your… um?”

It genuinely took V a minute to register that the young blond woman was talking to him. While they were not particularly far apart in age, he was considerably taller than her, so she just slid below his range of detection without much real effort on his part. That and her talkative nature had earned her a spot on his list of people that he tended to tune out. He had nothing against her, but he just liked to hear the silence inside of his own head every now and then. From what he could tell, she was quite nice, however.

“My apologies, Patty. You can call me V. I intended to introduce myself sooner, but I was… preoccupied.” He said, leaning over slightly to get a better look at her. She looked up at him and smirked, nodding in approval. He didn’t seem to need to elaborate any further as to what had held him up. Still, he was somewhat surprised upon reflection that he had managed to make it through an entire train ride and a dinner with her present without speaking to her even once. He wondered for a moment if she thought he was avoiding her. Hopefully that wasn’t the case.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you! I didn’t think Dante had any family for years before you and Nero showed up. He used to seem so sad sometimes, but now there’s four of you guys! Who would've ever guessed that would happen?” Patty seemed elated as she practically skipped along the path next to him. Despite his towering height compared to her, his commitment to careful foot placement meant that he had to walk considerably slower than he normally did. He didn’t feel like falling on the loose rocks that dotted the river banks they were walking near.” Your his… nephew, right? Like, your Nero’s brother? Older or younger? I bet you're older. I don’t know why, maybe you just seem like you're more mature or something.”

V shrugged slightly and nodded. He wasn’t entirely sure if he’d consider himself more mature than Nero. Perhaps he thought things through a little longer before enacting his plans, but his younger sibling was bright and capable in his own right. Not to mention the responsibility he’d helped take on by helping Kyrie adopt the children. Where were they, by the way? He was willing to bet that little Carlo would enjoy the woods. Maybe they would meet up with them later?

“You’d be correct in that assessment. I am slightly older, although by what margin, I can’t say. We have different mothers.” V said simply, cursing himself internally as the ascended the steepest part of the embankment. The lake was becoming more visible now, though it seemed to be closer to the size of a very large pond than a lake, per say.

Patty made a face as though he’d just told her something absolutely scandalous. He could tell she was being dramatic on purpose, but she’d done so nonetheless and it was honestly somewhat entertaining how animated and excitable she was. To be fair, the idea that Vergil had managed to get multiple members of the opposite sex in bed with him during his youth while Dante had no children of his own was quite interesting in its own right. Maybe she wasn’t too off base after all.

As they reached the top of the hill and approached the pond, V took in the area around him. The scent of fresh water and wet leaves permeated the air as unseen birds chirped and crickets rubbed their legs together to produce their melodious song. Despite the ever present fact that the forest was simply uncomfortable quiet still nagging at the edges of his subconscious, he decided to push his concerns aside for a little while and try to relax. He was determined to make the most out of the situation, especially considering the way yesterday had gone, and it seemed that everyone else was, too.

He could only hope that Nero and Kyrie didn’t make… well, anything else.

Three was enough, as far as he was concerned.

The compact house they called home simply wasn’t big enough for any new editions.

(-~-)

Well, this was fun to write! Only two or three chapters left of the Beach Arc, and then they return… and then the fun really begins. Cue the Phantom of the Opera theme, because things are about to get… dramatic.

[alpha-centari27]

Sonic’s villain never needed a sidekick. Dr. “Eggman” Robotnik had robots, but it was always a solo gig.

Turns out, Robotnik needed Stone, Lebanese actor Lee Majdoub’s assistant character in the new “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie, more than any of us realized — and so do we. So much so, movie fans are now hoping that this new, hopelessly earnest and thirsty new character shows up in a sequel.

Majdoub’s character was initially supposed to be an exposition tool, “to give someone for Robotnik to talk to,” Majdoub told The Washington Post in a phone interview. But as Jim Carrey, who plays Robotnik, improvised, developing his villain into a lonely, Ivy League-educated misanthropic mad doctor, Madjoub in turn made Stone into something of a doting pupil, desperate for attention from his mentor.

“Through chatting with Jim and developing a rapport with him, we turned their relationship into something more fun and personal,” said Majdoub. “Even Jim said at one point that there’s got to be something about Stone. If Robotnik hates humanity so much, why is it this one guy that sticks around? Stone was always reliable, always there for him, and knew what he was going to do before he did it."

The central theme of “Sonic the Hedgehog” is how men deal with loneliness. Sonic wanted friends, and had none. Robotnik wanted no friends, but had Agent Stone. Their relationship bordered on abusive (by way of slapstick physical comedy). 

Now, Agent Stone is developing his own audience of admirers, inspiring fan art which reimagines him as a classic Sonic villain, and notably, art that “ships” a loving relationship between the two villains.

“It’s definitely admiration,” said Majdoub, laughing, recalling the art. “I think more than anything, Stone just wants attention from Robotnik, and wants to mean something to him. There are elements of their relationship he’ll go through that typically someone won’t go through just to get that. He probably sees, ‘Wow this guy stresses out a lot. Maybe I can make him a latte to ease him up and it’ll all be okay.'” 

Majdoub’s character was just another surprise in a film full of them. The film was mocked mercilessly last year for a disastrous first impression of the Sonic design. Yet against all odds (and lots of extra work), “Sonic the Hedgehog” is now Hollywood’s No. 1 film of the moment, and it’s likely to stay that way for another weekend. The Washington Post’s Style review called it “sweet, funny and smart."

Diversity in Hollywood has been a big part of the discourse surrounding filmmaking these days, and “Sonic the Hedgehog” has a diverse cast without ever calling attention to it. James Marsden and Tika Sumpter portray an interracial marriage that simply exists, which the script doesn’t call any attention to, even with its jokes. Majdoub, a Lebanon-born Canadian citizen, called it refreshing.

“I love it, when a production or project doesn’t feel like we have to be like, ‘Hey look at us, we casted diversity, yay us,’” Majdoub said. “It just was. It’s a family movie that just has representation. And the fact that we don’t have to hit you over the head with it is refreshing.” 

Majdoub said he’s lucky to be with an agent that avoided stereotypical roles for Middle Eastern men. For him, it was about the long game, and not being typecast.

“I have friends who have that struggle, having made decisions and feeling they can’t get out of it,” Majdoub said. “I think as an industry, we’re going in the right direction. Could it be better? Of course. Could we be moving faster? Yes. I’ve just been really fortunate."

Majdoub felt genuinely moved by how positive everyone on the project was, even despite the shock and controversy caused by the first trailer, which caused such an outcry that director Jeff Fowler and Paramount Pictures delayed release of the film to completely rework the main character’s design.

“It was more a shock to see how many people were speaking out, and how much engagement there was,” said Majdoub, who grew up with the character but didn’t realize the franchise had a rabid online fan base. “It was realizing how important of a character this was to people. So many people wanted their voices heard, and to see Jeff and that team not miss a beat, to come out and listen, was amazing. It’s a big struggle these days, wanting to be heard, and it’s lovely to see what happens when it’s done right."

[mybullshitsensesaretingling]

Abrasive

Request: Hey, I just wanted to say I'm a big fan of your work and I was wondering if you can write another spock x reader imagine where spock and reader hate each other but that's because they don't know how to express their feelings for each other and Jim locks them into the same room?Thank you😊 - @mateapejic17mp

A/N: Sorry this one took so long. I was trying figure out how to make it different than the last one.

“I’m a grown adult, Jim. I don’t have to be friends with anyone I don’t want to be,” you said, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Isn’t that the exact opposite of your job description?” he asked as he sorted through the pile of PADDs on his desk.

“I’m a diplomate, not a pleasure planet entertainer,” you snapped.

“No need to get snippy. I just think the six months you have to spend with us would go smoother if you got along with my first officer.”

You sucked in a deep breath and when you let it out a small, forced smiled pulled at your lips.

“Fine,” you said, “I’ll play nice.”

“You’re not going to though, are you?”

“No.”

Jim sighed and rubbed his face roughly with his hands.

You raised your shoulders. “Sorry.” Dropping your eyeline to your hands and starting to pick at your nails, you continued, “He just really grates my cheese.”

“Does he?” You could hear the laugh he was holding back.

“Like cheddar.” You stood up, preparing to leave. “And I refuse to - on principle - get along with him.”

“We’ll see about that,” he said as you walked out.

-

With three PADDs, two empty coffee cups, and one full one set out in front for you, you dove deeper into your work. A coworker’s voice came in an endless stream from one of the PADDs. You nodded along as she spoke, your figures working tirelessly on the other two screens.

“I was not aware you were in here,” Spock stated from the doorway.

“Jim said I could work in here,” you told him without looking up.

“I’ll come back later.” You heard him turn to go back through the door but instead of the usual swoosh sounding from it, an angry beep went off.

Now you looked up.

“What was that?”

“It appears the door has been locked,” he said.

“So unlock it,” you said returning to your work.

“I can’t.” You looked back up at him, prompting him to explain, “It has been locked using a code I do not have the clearance to.”

“Mary, I’m going to have to call you back,” you said to your coworker before ending the subspace transmission being displayed on your screen.

“I’ll contact the captain, explain that a mistake has been made,” Spock announced as he reached for the communicator.

“There was no mistake,” you sighed, leaning back in your chair. “We’ve been tricked.”

Spock’s eyes moved back and forth between you and the locked door trying to put it together.

“Jim,” he started slowly, “did this in an effort to get us to get along.”

“Well, get the man a prize,” you snarked.

“Perhaps Jim would not have found this necessary if it were not for your aggressive personality.” He turned back to the door, thinking up a way to get out. “Then we could both get back to work.”

The corner of your mouth twitched despite yourself. “And he bites back.”

Spock had no visible reaction to your comment.

“Might as well sit down and get comfortable; we’re going to be here for a while.” You tapped on one of your screens.

“You’re not going to try to appease the captain?” he asked.

“No, because while Jim seems to have confused our lives for an after school special where everyone can be friends, I’m grounded in reality enough to know that some people just aren’t meant for that.”

“You are suggesting that we are a pair of those people.” It wasn’t a question.

“You disagree?” you asked.

“Your stubborn and near immediate decision to dislike me has not left much room for me to disagree.”

You eyed him for a moment, before deciding to drop the conversation altogether. There was no point to it. You were a busy person and you didn’t have the time for any part of this situation.

It was hard to be productive while you were fighting to ignore Spock’s presence, commanding yet respectful, but you were determined to work through it. That was until the error notification showed up on your screen.

Letting out a load groan of frustration, you repeatedly hit the refresh button, knowing that it wouldn’t do anything.

“What are you doing?” Spock asked critically.

A message popped up on your PADD.

Jim T. Kirk:

Talk to him.

“Your dear captain cut off my connection to the server.” You tossed your PADD back on the table and added from between your teeth, “He’s insisting we talk.”

Raising an eyebrow, Spock waited in silence to see where you chose to go from there, his brown eyes - that you hated - studying you.

With a heavy sigh you made your decision, “I suppose we have no choice.”

“Shall we start with your distaste for me?” he asked crossing his arms. The sharp personality that you decided he had from the first look was in stark contrast with his soft features, which, just for the record, you also hated.

“I thought we’d dip our toes in, but okay, sure, let’s dive right into the deep end.” You straightened up in your chair. “You’re very abrasive.”

“I don’t see how that could be a valid reason given that you, yourself are quite abrasive.”

You narrowed your eyes, but found you couldn’t argue.

“You’re cold,” you offered as another reason.

“I do not believe my body temperature varies greatly from that of a human.”

You rolled your eyes. “No, closed-off. Indifferent. Unfeeling.”

“Now you are just demonstrating your ignorance of Vulcan culture.”

“Am I?” You crossed your arms, mirroring his posture.

“Vulcans are far from unfeeling.”

“Is this the part where you explain to me how ancient Vulcans were out of control because of their emotions and Surak saved the whole species with meditation? Because I’m already bored.”

He made a face that didn’t quite line up with any human expression.

“I’m sorry, that came off far more xenophobic than I intended.” You uncrossed your arms. “I understand that both your culture and biology play a role in how you display emotions and I’m sure it is just a matter of getting used to you, but honestly I’ve met plenty of Vulcans - and goldfish for that matter - that were better conversationalists than you.”

“You’re very up front with your opinions.”

You scoffed. “Because you’re so good at keeping yours to yourself?”

It was at this point that you were beginning to fully understand Jim’s reasoning behind locking the two of you in there. The realization of how fundamentally similar you and Spock were angered you more than anything Spock had ever actually said to you.

“I am not nearly as aggressive when presenting them,” Spock said.

“I prefer passionate.”

“You choose some odd things to be passionate about.”

“You don’t choose passion. It finds you,” you told him. “And it found me everywhere. It’s what makes me so good at my job.” You bit your lip and admitted in a quieter tone, “And really bad at it.”

“I don’t see how you can be both good and really bad at something.”

“Mmm. It is a gift,” you mused. “This trick is to be so amped up about things that you get others amped up and make them agree with you but then start fights when people don’t agree with you. Because you’re amped up.”

“I see,” Spock said simply.

With an absent minded hum, you reach for one of your screens, but your hand stopped halfway through its journey, when he spoke up again.

“Have you considered not fighting?”

You let out a breathy chuckle. “I have actually.”

“It was unsuccessful?” he asked in earnest.

“Doing my job without arguing would be like you doing yours without… I dunno, a microscope.”

“Fascinating.”

“Ya know, you have a great untapped potential as a debater,” you said as you grabbed a PADD that had pinged.

Jim T. Kirk:

See, you’re getting along. I was totally right to do this.

You quickly typed out a response.

(Y/N):

I’m punching you in the knee cap when I get out of here.

Jim T. Kirk:

And you’ll be totally justified.

“Is that Jim?” Spock asked.

“Why are we friends with him?” you asked instead of answering his question.

“I believe he conned us into it,” he said evenly.

You barked out a loud laugh. One of your hands flew up to cover your mouth as you stared at the man in surprise. He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. You lowered your hand an inch or two.

“Was that a joke?”

“It was merely a statement. Any humor you found in it was unintentional,” he told you.

“I’m sure,” you chuckled.

“Vulcans do not joke.”

“Maybe not. But you’re half human and you’re,” you pointed a finger at him, “funny.”

Your PADD pinged again.

Jim T. Kirk:

Tell him you like his butt.

“What sort of repercussions would I face if I kill someone while aboard this ship?” you asked, still glaring at Jim’s message.

“You would be placed in the brig until we reach the nearest starbase where you would be handed of to Federation authorities. From there you would be brought back to Earth where there would be a trial, presumably resulting in jail time,” Spock explained.

“So just the regular repercussions then? Good to know.” You set the PADD back on the table without responding to his message. “Did he have a little talk to you about me before locking us in here?”

“Yes. He seemed to believe my displeasure with you was a thinly veiled disguise for my romantic feeling for you.”

“Did he?”

“At the time, I very strongly disagreed.”

At the time? You tried to keep your cool, picking up your coffee cup to hide the whirlwind of thoughts that just started up in your mind.

“We had many similar conversations. Some of which shouldn’t be discussed in polite company.” You took a sip of your coffee that had long since grown cold.

“And did you agree with him?”

“I think it’s been well established that I like to argue.”

[borisbubbles]

16. SERBIA

Balkanika - “Nova Deca” 19th place

Out of all the positive morphs I experienced this year, Serbia was the one that I suspected the least. I never hated them the way others did, but eh, I didn’t think highly of them either. Especially when the backstage clips showed them enterting the stage dressed up like members of some inauspicious fertility cult. “Oh.” I thought. “Another Genealogy. Except it won’t make the final. Whatever, NEXT”

How wrong I was though, because it did qualify and caused me to re-evaluate all I knew about life and come to the fucking conclusion that... this is really fucking good??? HOW is an exaggerated mess that has accurately been described as “Balkan Megamix Volume 3″ this great? 

I actually don’t have a clear answer for this as i’m writing this down (we haven’t reached the songs I would spam the replay button on yet), but the core of it is that Balkanika tried REALLY hard to condense 900+ years worth of Balkanic musical tradition in a mere three minutes and fucking pulled it off by... striking battle poses like some Ethno-Power Rangers

GO GO BALKAN RANGERS!!!

The choreography as a whole is just so extra and beautifully overacted. The entire way through, the members of Balkanika strike poses as if in Madonna’s “Vogue”, guided on by the beguiling tunes conjured by Ljubomir’s magic whistle-wand [ed.: here’s the best gif i could make of Old Rasflutin’s background flailing, but it’s way funnier if you pay attention to his presence as you watch “Nova Deca” unfold, so SCROLL UP AND REWATCH RIGHT NAO!!!]:   

Such a beautiful presence we’re not worthy of, y’all. All while the rest of Balkanika are either serving some epic 90 Percussion realness:

or chanelling some Project: Waters of Life sillyness

This could have so easily turned into a San Marinese goopy mess (which I don’t think too highly of, as you know), and briefly it looked like this would be the case; Instead, we found something better.

The plain answer however, lies in that Balkanika didn’t try to be funny and that makes a massive difference. Every piece of overacting, from Mladen’s creepy stares to Ra-Ra-Rasflutin (Serbia’s greatest love machine) prodding the action on from the background, is the product of intense belief and dedication, which... makes it hysterical, but in an endearing sort of way. Balkanika really just can’t help themselves. <3 

However, as I have to take things into account other than just act, I can’t really drag Balkanika much higher than this. Their song, while cool in concept, is kinda a bit too overloaded with quirks, which are largely lost to me because you know, show-stopping staging. (lol I just realized this is such a reverse “O jardim”, how neat they will now be forever ranked next to one another in this ranking). “Nova Deca” also suffers from the fact that I already had a large slew of other faves before I started to love them. As a whole, I think they have the least to offer of those left in the ranking. Oh well, at least we’ll forever have this: 

<3

RANKING SO FAR:

16. Serbia (Balkanika - “Nova Deca”)

17. Portugal (Cláudia Pascoal - “O jardim”)

18. The Netherlands (Waylon - “Outlaw in ‘em”)

19. Ukraine (MÉLOVIN - “Under the ladder”)

20. Macedonia (Eye Cue - “Lost and Found”)

21. San Marino (Jessika ft. Jenifer Brening - “Who We Are”)

22. Sweden (Benjamin Ingrosso - “Dance You Off”)

23. Austria (Cesár Sampson - “Nobody but you”)

24. Latvia (Laura Rizzotto - “Funny girl”)

25. Azerbaijan (AISEL - “X my heart”)

26. Israel (Netta - “Toy”)

27. Norway (Alexander Rybak  - “That’s how you write a song”)

28. Montenegro (Vanja Radovanovic - “Inje”)

29. Armenia (Sevak Khanagyan - “Qami”)

30. Poland (Gromee ft. Lukas Meijer - “Light me up”)

31. Greece (Yianna Terzi - “Oniro mou”)

32. Georgia (Iriao - “For you”)

33. Belgium (Sennek - “A matter of time”)

34. Italy (Ermal Meta & Fabrizio Moro - “Non mi avete fatto niente)

35. Romania (The Humans - “Goodbye”)

36. Ireland (Ryan O'Shaughnessy - “Together”)

37. Croatia (Franka - “Crazy”)

38. Belarus (ALEKSEEV - “Forever”)

39. Russia (Julia Samoylova - “I Won’t Break”)

40. Spain (Amaia & Alfred - “Tu canción”)

41. Iceland (Ari Ólafsson - “Our choice”)

42. Australia (Jessica Mauboy - “We Got Love”)

43. Czech Republic (Mikolas Josef - “Lie to me”)

FOOTNOTES (optional)

1) I decided not to credit Sanja Ilic simply because he wasn’t on the stage and I feel it’s kinda unfair to credit him just based on his merit as a composer, while Isaura composed AND performed second fiddle to Cláudia, without a letter of on-screen credit. 

2) Re: Intentional vs Unintentional humour: The reason why intentional humour rarely works for me is that it comes with the built-in pressure to laugh, which... makes me less inclined to find something funny because it kinda takes away the choice element of it. Like, I think I have a fairly okay sense of humour, I can decide for myself what I find funny, you know? This is why intentional humour rarely works for me, while unintentional humour nearly always does. For reference, dial back to where I ranked Israel and Norway and Czechia and San Marino (or “Yodel it” and “Space” from last year), all acts that piggybacked on scripted humour

3) DoReDos are one of the few instances this year where intentional humour totally worked for me, although I also realize they’ve largely been hit-or-miss. But we won’t be discussing that soon.

4) Me being a history nerd, I also think the idea of “weaving a song out of literally every Serbian musical quirk ever” is a really cool song concept. It really comes close to an earnest, Balkanic version of “Swedish Smörgåsbord”  <3 5) “Nova Deca” is a way more accurate representation of what actual balkan music sounds like (as opposed to the tiresome, tedious, boring Balkan Ballad). The Folk music channels in Bulgaria, for instance play “Nova Deca”-esque songs all day.   6) A funny argument between my mom and I occured during this song. My mom, who is Bulgarian, argued that Balkanika plagiarized their song from Bulgarian Polyphonic Singing. When I pointed out the song was based on the Byzantine musical traditions, she claimed that the Byzantines stole them from the Bulgarians, which is historically implausible (see note 8). This is one of many reasons I think little of ethnocentrism and nationalism, especially from the Slavs and Greeks. Everyone accuses one another of cultural appropriation (see again: Macedoniagate), when in fact, their geographical proximity exposed them to similar cultural ideas and their geopolitics (warmongering) turned it into a mutually unintelligible wash. 

7) Besides, the entire point of the Balkans is that they support each other due to their cultural similarities in spite of wishing horrific, painful deaths on one another.  <3

8) HISTORY LESSONS WITH BORIS #1: Polyphonic Singing.  Polyphonic singing evolved as a Byzantine response to Roman Catholic liturgical chanting (instituted by Charlemagne, who as Holy Roman Emperor, took measures in making the religion more accessible to the common folk. How do we make the Bible popular? By teaching rich people how to read! What a genius. <3 ). Thus, polyphony spread as Byzantine Christianity spread, which would later become Eastern Orthodoxy after the East-West Schism in the 11th century AD. (hence why polyphony is such a big cultural benchmark all Eastern Orthodox nations, including Russia and Georgia, but not Armenia until their annexation by the Russian Empire in the 19th Century AD (since Armenian Christianity is a cadet branch of Oriental Orthodoxy, which split from Catholicism in the 4th century AD).  Anyway, Bulgaria historically played a massive role in spreading Christianity and its liturgical chanting to their pagan Balkan neighbours, after the Bulgarian Knyaz (a fancy way of saying “Khan”) Boris I converted under the pressure of Byzantine Emperor Michael III. Boris (whom, as you might have guessed, I was named after) used Christianity to pacify the squabbling lords of his realm (which included both pagans and Catholics) and oversaw the creation of the Glagolitic (liturgical) and Cyrrilic scripts to speed up the spread, paving the way for Bulgaria’s Golden Age under his son Simeon. During that Golden Age, btw, much of what is now Serbia came under Bulgarian control, including Belgrade.  So while the Serbs probably did learn polyphony from the Bulgarians, the Bulgarians absolutely, totally, learned it from the Byzantines, who invented the damn’ thing, in their own spin on Charlemagne’s popular church choirs. Mum, you’re WRONG. O:-)

[queernuck]

Information without Borders

“Information functions by always being in motion.”

Lain, speaking to herself during the final episode of Serial Experiments Lain, after establishing memory as a mere “record” that implies a drifting Heideggerian present, seems to pick up on the continual means by which the Wired is represented as a kind of rhizomal structure of power lines and devices, one that is hauntingly familiar specifically because it leads to a reminiscence of our approximation of certain digital encounters in the supposed-Real, the blurring line between mobile and other modalities of computing (perhaps stationary computing, if it could be called that) and exactly what function “presence” serves within the larger “Real” and hyperreality in linkage to it. One of the most famous images of Obama as the Commander in Chief is of him distinctly at a remove, observing as Operation Neptune Spear played out in Abbottabad. The importance of drone warfare to contemporary geopolitics, how Obama left a kind of impact upon the use of the Predator drone that specifically acts as a rearticulation of digital presence in order to systematize presence in the virtual, is inextricable from his presidency. Often associated with the aesthetics of the Obama years due to her own support of him, Beyoncé’s most recent and perhaps most impressive achievement comes specifically as a Virtual performance, one that relies on the hyperreal of Coachella in order to expand beyond it.

The previous appearance of a Tupac hologram at Coachella has largely been turned into a punchline, or aptly seen as a kind of commentary upon the means by which the digital reduces black artists to objects of white consumption. This indicates not only “white consumption” as a certain and specifically realized sort of consumption-production, but moreover the digital object, the projection, the hologram as part of a means of embodiment beyond the self, beyond the will at hand. Rather than being a cyborg, in these cases, these holograms are of a different sort, are a kind of augmentation and prosthesis for white artists engaging in a manipulative resignification of black art. This leads to the rumor that Justin Timberlake would use a similar Prince hologram at his performance during Super Bowl LII, which he thankfully had the sense to avoid. However, he still used Prince’s image in a fashion that comes rather close to the hologram presence of Tupac at Coachella, and for this reason the distinction between the two is rightfully blurred, through these means of analysis we see that the exact manifestation of the holographic in the “Real” is contingent specifically upon an affect, upon that with which it is interacting, and “presence” as realized in a phenomenal discourse of encounter, the phenomenological account. 

The fundamental problem with Prince appearing in hologram is not that this appearance is not genuine, but rather that it is coerced: understanding the hologram of Prince in terms of relation that imply the same embodiment as a “Real” vocabulary allows the development of the body as a singularity of expression and interaction important both to Serial Experiments Lain and to larger questions of digital presence, exchange, computation as part of the structure of producing-production in the age of the blockchain and bitcoin. Prince had been interviewed on the subject of holograms and presence through the digital, harkening to a less digitally advanced realization than that presented by Timberlake but one that shared the same Virtual character. He specifically rejected it because of a sense of presence, of memory and the creation thereof, that remembers these legacies as past, as dishonestly re-created by a certain sort of appropriative turn, and coercively bound to producing-production that relies specifically upon presenting these artistic realizations as genuine and entirely of the present, rather than of a kind of projected-future where the collaboration could be sublimated into a singular whole, where the gap between artists would seem so insignificant that it would eventually be understood as if it were a “Real” collaboration. This refusal by Prince leads one to encounter a fundamental collapsing of the Real as separate from the Virtual, which is a misunderstanding at best. However, his development of separation even in relation to the Virtual is still important in that it refuses the alteration of capitalist historicism, of capitalist reterritorialization of bodies in time, of memories and the remembering of the body, that overwhelmingly work to serve certain interests.

The way in which this is dealt with in Serial Experiments Lain, the process of embodiment and presence in memory that echoes Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Heideggerian presence in Dasein, the embodiment and encounter formative of Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception, requires a specific sort of meeting with another, and moreover the development of a process, a phenomena of memory and calling-to-mind connected with the creation of that person. Lain’s existence is embodied in such, is realized through a specific kind of development of memory, such that her existence within the world, outside the Virtual of the “Wired” within the series, is specifically in memory, in the contingencies of memory as formative of structures of encounter, ideation, imagining of a potential body and realization of it in memory as a result. The hologram that Lain often manifests as, that Lain in many ways “is” results not simply from the Wired as a digital interface, but rather the Wired as a digital representation of the Virtual metaphysical space surrounding human experience and its repetition, realization, the continual mythmaking and resignification necessary for encounters to become meaningful, for memories to pass from memory into remembering-as-act, the contingency and plasticine nature of memory as altered, specifically reterritorialized by Oedipal processes of appropriation and resignification. That Lain has a close relationship with her father, that one of the students is the victim of grooming by a teacher, the way in which Lain’s own creation of self involves a kind of imagery of vulnerability and childishness that hides her own Oedipal realization of self, the way in which she knowingly un-knows herself, how the parallel realizations of Lain’s existence flow through certain digital machines (including bodies) leads to a certain matching of difficulty with importance when reading exactly what the flow of information at hand represents. 

The devices present in Lain and known as Navi are in many ways reminiscent of present-day computing devices, despite the difference being more readily discussed. That the series was working from an aesthetic standpoint of the late 90s, with limited knowledge of future developments of the digital, but still supposed a kind of personal and portable ability to connect to a certain digital protocol shows the development of such desires before devices that meet them, the realization of a possible Virtual interfacing before it is met, the rhizomal machines assembled and simply unable to flow until the later realization of Smartphones as nexuses of development. The importance of this is in that it shows the machines through which information may flow, the binary machines of interfacing arranged in a schizophrenic network that exists before the realization thereof allows it to direct, start and stop, certain series of flows. The way in which memory, in Lain and Heidegger alike, includes futuricity, includes the creation of past and present and future in a certain singular field like the Deleuzean notion of an eternal capitalist present, the Derridean critique of the ontology behind Fukuyama’s End of HIstory, specifically develops into a point at which the antipostmodern, anticommunist critique of history as a field, as an epistemic series of relations, becomes clear. That there is a singular concentration by supposed-scientific inquiries upon the postmodern as a modality of influence upon history in academia, in university spaces, due to the proliferation of critical theory or Foucauldian anti-history as a means of critique is a specific defiance of even scientism’s own epistemic grounding. The revision of dogma due to advances in methodology, the questioning and resignification of understanding that seeks specifically to do away with the frameworks of colonial control, of a priori anthropological development necessary for these sorts of judgments, the singularity of Western Civilization and its globalizing sort of Orientalist disparity-making, the location of history in a very small part of the world and a very small interpretation thereof, represents a kind of ironically earnest embodiment of exactly the sort of attitude that postmodern thought is being accused of.

The reterritorializations necessary to these discussions, the means by which one begins to seize upon a kind of codification of what is possible, meaningful, worthwhile to conduct within the digital is continually challenged by actions like those of Beyoncé, who has perfected the art of the Virtual performance, the Virtual as indicative not only of the space at hand but rather a larger schizophrenic reception of her performance that is just as much a part of it as the immediate reception, if not more so. Apart from how she specifically takes the pop necessity of the DJ, of the remix and mixtape and mix between songs in order to create the kind of post-Girl Talk Musique concrète that is often replicated but never quite duplicated, uniquely realized in her work due to the proliferation of influences she embodies in performance and studio catalog alike, she has taken the enormity of her audience as part of developing the space within the Virtual she occupies. Just as Lain appears to everyone as a kind of grasp toward becoming God, Kami within the original Japanese, Beyoncé plays with images of Christian belonging, fertility, becoming-goddess borne out by her own transcendence of any particular apprehension as one sort of celebrity or another. The devotion with which her fans meet her, the way that her Coachella performance is a groundbreaking and transcendent vessel that exceeds its staging for the digital of the crowd and the cameras by becoming Virtual, a kind of reversal of the holographic such that it does not appear on stage for consumption but rather is projected from and of Beyoncé, the Beyoncé of the Virtual, forms a kind of embodiment beyond the body. 

This process of extension, of embodiment within the Virtual, is part of the linkage to the ideation of the Drone, the Presidential ordination and ordering of war crimes as his own handiwork, the libidinal pooling of reactionary ideology around forces like Seal Team 6 or figures such as Tanto (a surviving operator from Benghazi) leads to the kind of supposition of the historical as a space in which development occurs from the top down, in an arboreal fashion, rather through knots of rhizomal interaction within arborescence. As America wages proxy war in Syria against Russia and Assad, the means by which it takes the ideology of Democratic Confederalism as a sort of curiosity, rather than as a genuine anti-capitalist threat, should be seen as foundationally disheartening for Rojava in the same way that critique of the ELZN is often disheartening. These struggles last because either they present useful means of justifying and describing state power in relation to organization outside of capitalist producing-production, or because they are distanced enough from it that they pose no logistical threat. The way that, conversely, having an enormous part in the cocaine trade lead to the importance of FARC and the ELN in the latter parts of the 20th Century, the way in which the ZAD infringes upon a fetishized commercial instinct, how blocking pipelines and making apparent the violence necessary for information to flow through them in the form of resources, oil, the kind of flows of bodily fluid represented by those in the pipeline, leads to the structuring of numerous questions of struggle and development against hegemony and the successfulness thereof. Certainly, to use the ELZN as an example, fostering organization outside of capitalism, demonstrating rhizomal means of creating and continuing to support community stands as an important influence upon other radical actions, and the success of the ZAD, of other movements against hegemony and arboreality are notable even in failure. However, the way in which reterritorialization and rearticulation so readily leaves these groups vulnerable, creates the means through which previous allegiances become either their betrayal or their own turn toward reactionary ideology, is part of developing empire away from itself, neocolonial investment in a memory of future, the knowledge that tomorrow’s problems are realized today and that intervention must be staged, justified, and carried out in such a fashion as to match with certain liberal-democratic metapolitics of anti-democratic violence. It is a certain sort of fascist ideation that is in play here, and it is absolutely necessary to the realization of contemporary globalized metapolitics. The body of the drone, the holographic quality thereof, its mixed embodiments and the more-than-human, all-too-human body it represents thus becomes part of a larger structure of violent subjectivity. 

Information, the Virtual and its flows, are often hard to quantify specifically because there is no coherence to their realization, they are realized not only outside conventions of what is necessary to the producing-production of certain services and goods, but often in direct defiance. This leads to a kind of paradoxical development wherein the developing of a subjective space is itself the repetition of Oedipal subjectivities, already flowing and defined, such that the future and past are part of a static and codified eternal capitalist present.

[comradewodka]

((So, I am actually trying to get a longfic for that cupid/psyche au off the ground, but uh.

Here’s a little thing that came to me in the meantime? You can find it on AO3 here.))

When people describe typical English weather, they talk about rain and fog, or tolerably low temperatures that persist for much of the year. They don’t mention the week or so where summer finally elects to get off its arse, hot weather hitting hard in a country equipped to handle the exact opposite.

They make the best of it, at Elias’s country abode— windows slung wide to snatch every scrap of moving air, chilled fruit and damp cloth courtesy of the Silver Lady, playful ‘accidents’ with the garden hose. But miserable as it is, Chise resists the temptation to lay like a lump for days on end. Feeling useless is far worse than physical discomfort, and anyway, some errands won’t wait for the world to finish melting.

Fortunately, a teleportation spell spares them the long bus ride into town. Chise relaxes her grip on Elias’s cloak and wonders whether he minds the heat at all— imagines her otherworldly tutor deigning to rely on such a mundane thing as public transportation, and hides a smile in her sleeve.

While navigating a busy square, Chise spots a small cart parked at one street corner. A handful of children are already gathered around, but past them, she can see— yes! The vendor seems to be selling shaved ice, a treat she hadn’t seen since leaving Japan, and... hadn’t actually been able to eat for... well, years before that.

Ruth isn’t around to speak on her behalf, but something in her eyes must have made the plea obvious. Elias coaxes her into selecting a flavor— grape— buys her a cup of ice, and they continue on their way.

Two shops and several purchases later, Elias turns to ask for her assistance in reaching a jar stored in a low cabinet— and stops to stare, mildly alarmed.

“Chise... Your lips. They’re blue.”

“Oh!” On reflex, she reaches up to touch them, though of course nothing feels unusual. Her fingertips come away clean. “There must be dye in the syrup.”

Undeterred, her skeletal guardian leans down for a closer look. If Chise didn’t know any better, she might suspect he’s short-sighted, with the way he’s always stooping down to examine objects of interest from inches away.

The habit is innocent enough— a product of impractical height differences and an intense personality. But when he does it to people, it can be a little intimidating.

“I have no facial flesh, myself, and I’ve never been particularly interested in how human anatomy operates, but...” Trailing off mid-thought, Elias reaches out to grasp Chise by the chin, pressing gently against her lower lip with the gloved tip of his thumb. Immediately, she grows still, questions tangled in her throat, flustered and unsure of his intentions.

...Until Elias uses that pressure to push her lip down, baring her teeth right up to the gums. Chise jerks back with an incredulous ‘mmph!’, one arm ready to fend off any further attempts at oral examination— what is she, a horse on market day? But Elias has already stepped back, offending hand upraised in a conciliatory gesture, irises narrowed into a distinctly pleased expression.

“On the inside, we are much the same. Is that not so, Chise?”

It takes her a moment to realize that he’s referring to her skull. A macabre take on the old cliche, for certain, but... from Elias, it feels like an earnest discovery. Genuinely unaware that the sentiment might have been said earlier or more eloquently, he’s simply proud to have stumbled upon this little play on words, glad—in his way— to have remembered that they share something essential in common.

“...Yeah.” With a small smile, Chise holds up the last of her dessert, offering him a taste. “You’re right.”