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shleepys · 4 years

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AYYYY I hope you all were safe over the holidays and continue to stay safe over these next few months! Right now my state is dealing with record high covid numbers and a bunch of snow, might be different for you guys but hey, even though we're kicking off the start of a new year we still have to be aware of what's been going on and continue to push through it. But yeah!

We can finally reveal for the @harringroveholidayexchange, so I hope you enjoy what I made for the amazing @catharrington! I don't know how everyone else is formatting theirs if they did fic and art but I'm going to put both here! 💕

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Overlooked

prompt! - I’ve always loved the differences in the two boys while growing up, I imagine Steve having huge Christmas parties with champagne flutes and the works and Billy being invited and happy to spend time with Steve, he really is!, it’s just a lot he isn’t used to. All up to author interpretations: make as fluffy or angsty as you want ;)

summary! - Steve forgets they were supposed to hang out elsewhere while his parents threw their annual Christmas party and agrees to stay.

Luckily, Billy doesn’t mind!

The only problem is, they don’t get to hang out... and Billy starts to feel overlooked.

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Billy couldn’t be more out of place.

Parties were his thing, don’t get that wrong. He could get drunk, smoke, fuck, do whatever and if Steve was with him, only then it was infinitely better.

But this wasn’t a party. Not the party he knew. It felt more like a corporate gathering or a birthday for someone he didn’t know and he only ended up on the list because his boyfriend’s involved. Which wouldn’t be a problem if everyone around him wasn’t two to three times his age and he actually got to hang out with said boyfriend.

But it’s fine. It’s been fine so far.

Crystal champagne flutes and ugly holiday sweaters just aren’t necessarily Billy’s forte. He can’t fathom how much Steve’s parents spent on this party alone and can only bet that it cost more than the monthly payment for the house on Cherry Road. Not that he has much resentment towards what Steve’s parents do with their money but it just seems… unnecessary.

He takes a sip from his flute, rustling the jacket resting on his lap before leaning further into the sofa to try and wait this out despite already being here for what seems like hours. Billy gradually looks up again and stares into the other room where he can see Steve and his parents.

He can’t see their faces, but he can see Steve’s. Their backs are turned to him - Steve’s off to the side - they’re merely silhouettes so he can’t tell if his parents are just being gregarious or snobby. Then again, neither of them really talk about their parents so Billy has no clue.

Billy watches as a couple leaves, the discomfort continues to overrule Steve’s face as suddenly another appears and the cycle starts over again for what seems about the hundredth time. He huffs, kicking the shagged carpet beneath him before lowly cursing himself out. Should he have reminded him what they were going to do tonight? Or would Steve have rather stayed here?

He can’t tell whether or not Steve’s just over some of the pretentious attitudes and comments he’s overheard in the past hour or that he’s trying to break the chain and get over to him so they can do something together. He could always get drunk and wait for Steve to get done, he knows where the brunette keeps a bottle of scotch that he stole from his dad’s liquor cabinet in the office.

He blinks, lips sucked in to form a seal as he thinks. “Should I go home?” Billy whispers, soft and hurt. There’s not really a point in staying and maybe he can see if Jonathan has anything new to smoke. Deep, contemplative breath.

Billy stands up and discards his glass on the side table next to him before throwing on his coat and grabbing his scarf. Everything from then to going outside flashed by like a blur, nothing of importance really stricken in his mind other than colored sweaters and the sheen of champagne glasses hitting his eye. His breath is almost heavy as he opens the door and a wave of ice rushes over him. It bites at his nose, almost makes him want to itch it but he ventures out regardless. Billy slowly closes it behind him.

Billy sighed softly, eyes falling to the ground. It’s been snowing all day. Coming and going with the wind and dusting every road, house, and tree with freckles of white. Granted, everything was coated before it got too dark and hopefully, the roads weren’t iced over for any of the poor drunks inside. Steam rolled from his mouth as he exhaled before taking a deep breath. Billy threw the end of his scarf over his shoulder and looked out where his car should be, a somber smile passing his lips but twisting into a frown. Steve told him he could park where his family parks.

His feet felt like they were superglued to the deck, that, or like boulders had been tied to the ends of them. Billy bit his bottom lip and fidgeted with his coat pockets, sort of kicked the snow from under him.

He swallowed hastily, a lump bouncing in his throat as he looked out again. Couldn’t pinpoint the emotion to anything else but a pang of burning guilt. Maybe he should have just gone up to him, shouldn’t have made a big deal out of feeling left out, taken him away from his parents so they could go upstairs or leave.

Someone jerked open the sliding doors. Light poured from the inside, Billy twisted around to identify the backlit figure expecting a drunk only to find a breathless, seemingly worried Steve. Billy wanted to furrow his brows and walk off into the snow where he knew damn well Steve wouldn’t go into with house shoes on, but for some reason, he stayed put. Watches as Steve shuts the door behind him and rubs at his arm.

“What are you doing out here?”

Billy doesn’t respond.

Steve seems to catch on, and their eyes lock.

There have been times when Billy goes outside during a party to catch his breath, maybe sneak around back to talk to Steve about one thing or another, maybe drunkenly make out and hope no one was watching or Tommy had their back. But they hadn’t been to a party for a long while, not since September. And, Billy doesn’t just bring his car keys with him to ‘catch his breath’.

Billy broke contact with a sharp ‘huh’. “Did you forget about me?"

“What? No! Why would you think that?” Steve shuddered, pulling his hands into his sleeves.

Billy looked back up with dagger-like eyes, “Because it seems an awfully lot like you did.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

He could bite back, the very opportunity hanging in front of his nose. But he didn’t. Instead, a familiar quiver caught his lip. Lingering feelings creeping up and forcing his hand to itch at his pocket. Billy shook his head, eyes falling to the ground.

Steve frowned, aware of the events to follow. He’s known the other long enough to recognize the outline of Marlboros in any pocket. Deep down wishes there was some other habit Billy bid in, but that’s a matter of discussion that needs to be saved for later.

Eventually, the pack came out. Steve chewed on the inside of his cheek as he watched Billy, his lighter flaring until the end emitted a pale red before shakily tucking it away. He shook his head again slow and somber like.

“I’m sorry.” Billy started, hands moving along with his words. “And it’s not that I don’t want to be here. You’re just,” he sighed, “busy.”

Steve’s lips sealed tightly at the comment. He saw the discomfort present in the other’s sentences, could feel guilt churn in the pit of his stomach. Thing is Steve wasn’t the slightest bit spiteful, he was pissed at himself for not taking action to check up on the other. Not considering bringing another friend with them in case something like this happened. He’s upset because they were supposed to do something together tonight besides this but he forgot and agreed to be here. Steve watched him take a drag, self-spite running through his veins.

The corners of Steve’s eyes pinched, his throat tightening as he spoke, “No, I’m sorry! This sucks, this whole thing has sucked. I stressed myself out over decorating for the party and was so excited to hang out! I didn’t mean to agree but I forgot! And mom and dad keep introducing me to people. I- I wanted to spend time with you! I didn’t want to be here!” Steve took a step forward before shaky inhale. “This is my fault, this shouldn’t have happened.”

The next few seconds were the two boys staring at one another, each waiting on the other to say something. Billy was at a loss. Steve had a million thoughts streaming through his mind, hoping that the blonde wouldn’t just turn away and leave.

Eventually, Billy glanced at the door, peering through to check if the blinds were shut as a faint smile appeared. Billy’s lips pressed against Steve’s before he could protest, his hand meeting to cup the brunette’s jaw and brush over the apple of his cheek with his calloused thumb and cigarette in the other. Steve’s tears wetted his cheeks, he didn’t mind it all that much. The shock melted into comfort as Steve cherished the kiss, pouted when Billy slowly pulled away from him. The slight tinge of champagne lingering on the other’s lips, the heat of their bodies giving them a little warmth.

Billy craned his head - albeit Steve was taller - until their foreheads met.

“Don’t apologize. I get it.” Billy whispered. Steve gave a small, dismissive ‘huff’.

“My boyfriend should come before a stupid party. I should have told them otherwise.”

Billy shook his head. “The party’s nice. You beat yourself up too much over this kind of stuff, I forget things too. Remember the creek?”

Steve giggled, lips twisting into a smile. “In July when you were supposed to meet me there and didn’t show up? And I stayed there all night?”

Billy frowned as he thought into it, the bitter call at one in the morning that turned into a week of not talking to one another. It ended nicely though - if ‘nice’ was drunk car sex in the middle of the woods. There wasn’t much of an apology there but hey, they’re still trying to work on things and figure out how exactly relationships work because they aren’t exactly a sixty-year-old couple with forty years of experience behind the boy’s backs.

“I still owe you for that. Sorry.” His eyes fell to the deck as he pulled his head away, bumping his cigarette against his finger and watching the ash fall.

After Steve noticed the shift he got quiet, frowned, and eyes followed Billy’s to the wooden boards below. “Don’t apologize,” Steve echoed with a light smile. Gently Steve grabbed Billy’s scarf and drew him in for a slower, deeper kiss.

People forget things, that’s human nature. And sometimes they can be a bit dumb about it too. But this was going to be the boy’s first Christmas, granted it wasn’t exactly Christmas yet, but it was important to them both. Spending time with a significant other on a holiday was amazing even if they can’t shout it out to everyone they know.

These moments always have a sort of energy to them. When the boys share a wordless amalgamation of self-deprecating thoughts after ‘messing something up’ and those little habits come out to bite to express those thoughts oh so clearly. It’s a ball of weird energy that shines in self-hate that the two have been working to eliminate and hey, they’ve gotten pretty far! But, it’s still there. Smiling in the corner of the boy’s minds. Ready to strike at any moment. It’s just a lot smaller now.

Because again, don’t have the forty years and that’s perfectly valid even if the two don’t seem to realize it.

Billy leaned into the sweet kiss before Steve drew back. Billy chuckled and wrapped his arms around the other as he tucked his face into Steve’s neck. Steve shook again, this time cuddling up to the other and ravishing in the heat and short breaths coming out of them both.

“I wanna go inside,�� Steve mumbled, rubbing at the other’s back.

Billy laughed and slowly pulled away to look at Steve. “Too cold?”

“I’m in a sweater and sweatpants,” Steve pulled on his scarf again and toyed with the frayed ends. The grin Billy responded with brimmed with bliss, his hand roaming up and held the other’s with a firm hold,

“I’ll meet you inside.”

Steve had ventured back into the party while Billy snuffed his cigarette into the deck, eventually, the two found one another next to the food Steve’s parents had catered instead of cooking this year. Only thing that wasn’t in foil baking trays was the Christmas cookies that Billy had been dying to try ever since Steve brought them up at the beginning of December. Drinks clattered in group cheers from the surrounding areas, the smooth music now bearable. He never expected that a party this foreign to him would turn out for the better. Never thought he would feel… like a part of it? The crystal flutes, richies, and overall appeal still don’t rock with him, but with Steve, he has someone there for him. And that’s all Billy could ever ask for.

Thankfully, he didn’t feel like he was going to projectile vomit champagne anymore… the nausea sort of faded after Steve kissed him outside. Billy turned to Steve, noting the rosy shade still dancing on the apples of his cheeks from outside.

“Your sweater isn’t that ugly,” Billy emphasized, chewing on an ornament-shaped cookie.

Steve shook his head with an amused sigh, sweeping the crumbs from his shirt. “This isn’t that kind of party, if it was I would’ve had you help me make one.”

“Are you sure? Because I don’t think Karen from Fiance got the memo.” Billy pointed into the crowd at the woman in question. Her sweater took the cake for one of the ugliest, tensile hangs from her torso, lights strung all over, buttons on the brink of falling off. “You think she beats her kids over the head with a bible?” Steve rolled his eyes. Billy smirked at the little glare he’d received. “You should have pulled out your grandmother’s cat vests.”

Steve gagged, eyes wide and ridden with disgust. “Keep talking and you’re going to make me throw up. I never want to see those again.” Billy snorts and Steve shoves him with a laugh, “It’s not funny!”

“But you’re laughing!” Billy remarks and lightly bumps him back returning the bubbling laughter.

A woman seems to overhear their laughs and spins around with the biggest and brightest grin Billy’s ever seen. It kind of startled him. Doesn’t know who she is, doesn’t care to know until he recognizes the cat vest and how familiar those brown, round doe eyes are. She runs up to them, curls bouncing on her shoulders as she approaches with a drink in hand. Mrs. Harrington gasped, grabbing onto Steve’s sweater with eyes darting between both boys, “Is this Billy?”

Steve smirks and rolls his eyes again. “Hi, Mom. I’m back Mom.” She lightly wacks him in the arm. “Yes! This is Billy.”

Her eyes lit up, dazzled with happiness as she stuck her attention on the blonde as he snuck another cookie in his mouth. “Steve talks about you all the time!”

“What? No, I don’t!” Steve’s eyebrows knit together as he tried to defend himself but deep down knew there was no hope, especially after Billy gave him that smug but appreciative little look as his mom went on her story-telling rampage.

Billy laughs, almost in disbelief, “Really?”

“He talks about all of his friends, really. But, oh! When it comes to you he goes on and on and on, he really thinks you’re something.” Billy watched as the tips of Steve’s ears tinted themselves red and smirked. An interesting conversation for later. “I’m so upset that I haven’t been able to meet you until now! You two are always out or asleep by the time I get home.”

Billy’s brows quirked in an expression of sarcasm. “Well, thank you for not waking me up at two in the morning to introduce yourself.”

Mrs. Harrington chuckled, shaking her head before putting her hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I’m going to go get another drink. Oh, and Billy!” She paused and made eye contact, “If you want to come over for Christmas, you’re more than welcome too! Just tell Steve so I know.”

Billy’s brows flew upwards, blush rising and Steve picking it up instantly. She waved goodbye before walking around them and going off on her journey into another room. The boys stared again, each waiting on the other to say something until the brunette spoke up.

"She likes you," Steve muttered, ears still red as ever.

"You talk about me to her? I think that's cute."

He huffed. Had to stop himself from leaning against the other to hide his face. "Mom likes knowing what friends are up to."

Billy loosely smiled, slowly bumping into Steve with his hip before getting a light bump back. “You look a lot like her.” Steve shook his head.

“Not as much as my dad,” Steve turned to see if he was there and frowned when he didn’t see the other but slowly faded into a smile. “I don’t know where he is, he would have loved to meet you.”

The boys got quiet again.

Billy cleared his throat, his head tilted down as if to duck away to hide his blush and the movement didn’t go unnoticed by Steve. “About coming over for Christmas-”

“I want you to.” He softly tugged on his jacket to get his attention. Eventually, Billy made eye contact, grinned with a chuckle following behind. Christmas with Steve? His caring boyfriend, twenty million cookies, a few possible presents, and… some loving parents?

Billy couldn’t be happier.

#stranger things #billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove #steve harrington x billy hargrove #st #strangerthings #harringroveart #fic #art #harringroveholidayexchange #happy holidays #happy new year!

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rorodawnchorus · 3 years

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The Devil Judge, Ep.1 Meta

(On the re-imagined justice process, imageries, parallels in South Korea and our world today)

As with all dystopian fiction, it is not exactly a far-fetched imagining of our world. Instead, it is a critique of our society which seeks to amplify the inequalities and suffering of society through some exaggeration.

The Devil Judge is that: it "re-imagines" South Korea today with a sprinkle of cyberpunk aesthetics (a little too much bluish green tint) and dystopian imagery (of homeless people, a very dirty subway and dingy backalleys on a rainy night).

I kept thinking it was a dystopian "future" but was wondering why they were using only Samsung Note 20 instead of some Samsung futuristic prototype phone. So, those phones do keep audiences grounded in the reality it is portraying -- this is the alternative South Korea of today.

We are barely halfway into the first episode and we've got this extremely charismatic, anti-hero male lead strutting red carpets and making verbose declarations like "I am the power. By the judicial authority delegated to me by the people of Korea, I will run this court. And it is the people who hold this power." (Not verbatim but that's the gist).

Then, meet associate judge Kim Ga-On who seems to be against how the system is running. He seems to be the outlier who rose to his ranks from the bottom class of society (which his colleague Oh Jin-joo says, he looks like he's from the shanty town of Seoul). We start off, barely into the drama at this point, with a dramatic scene of a kindergarten bus ramming down barricades and charging towards the Court building. A group of kindergarten children crossing the road there (I've just no clue what businses kids would have near the court building tbh). A little girl tripping as they were rushed across the road, Ga-On jumping to the rescue, and unable to pick her up in time, shields her with his own body. Kang Yo Han is just there, taking a heavy gun from the guard and unhesitantly opened fire at the bus driver who was flooring the pedal. He misses the driver's head and hits the headrest before firing again. The bus swerves and flips. The driver loses consciousness and Ga On (again!) jumps to the rescue. So, here the tone is set. We've got this "devil judge" who seems to be the ultimate modern day anti-hero who's given immense amount of power.

Much more interesting is that in this dystopian South Korea, we've got what seems like a publicly elected judiciary (or Kang Yo Han is perhaps the first?) and that has always been something that has been discussed in legal academic. Not the idea of electing the judiciary but that the argument of the judiciary not being publicly elected can be seen as slightly out of tune with democracy. (In legal academic, however, this is theoretically seen as being balanced by the separation of powers; ie. the executive branch (=government) and elected members of Parliament/Congress are supposed to be fully separated from the judiciary and should therefore never interfere with the judiciary. But, of course, these are all theoretical stuff. They look good on paper and when discussed in legal essays but in reality, it can often be different (if not, the exact opposite). This series takes things to yet another level by imagining the inception of a publicly televised and publicly voted trial.

This goes against the nature of trials in general because in our world today, the judiciary (wherever it may be) typically have mechanisms (ie. laws and codes) to prevent manipulation by media. The principle of fair trial requires that no external influence affects the process of adjudication (ie. the judgement by judges). There also tends to be avoidance of trial by public opinion because the way the law is interpreted and applied can be rather technical and different from what people may say or think about a certain trials, the decision delivered and also sentencing. Trial by jury is the nearest it gets but that too can be a fairly technical process which do also include considerations like avoiding a two-day trial to prevent influence by the media or other agents on a jury member's decision. (A recent drama mentioning this is Law School). The thing about this idea of trial by the public is that standards of morality can be very subjective and varies from person to person. Judgement by judges are not entirely free from the influence of morality, but the process is a litle more stable through the processes of interpretative practices, case precedents and legal theories. Previously in another Kdrama, Miss Hammurabi (2018), Judge Lim Ba-reun became slightly frustrated by his friend's comment that having a jury trial is like "true democracy" because the "people gets to decide" and he even thinks the judiciary should be elected too. Lim Ba-reun sarcastically said he must have loved every elected politican since they were elected by the public. He tells him grimly that no jury has ever found a policeman who had beaten up a Black man to be guilty. He also pointed out that Nazi, the Holocaust and Hitler were all supported by the public.

In this series, the premise allows all of these imaginings to be realised and played out. It is peak criticism, I think, when they portray the scenes of the TV producer being excited about the real-time ratings and viewer ratings. And also the scene of the broadcasting channel's chairman dancing in joy when he received realtime report of the ratings (vowing to treat his equally wealthy friends to a meal). Even when his other friend seemed appalled by the decision delivered by Judge Kang, the Chairman could not hide his joy in the skyrocketing viewership ratings. This really reminded me of the entire Produce 101 franchise which also heralded the shows for putting the decision in "The Nation's Producers" (ie. voters) and emphasised how it is the Nation Producers who put together ("produce") the National Kpop group that is bound for success and set to receive national love. All of this illusion collapsed (and the Korean franchise died along with it) when the court finds its producers guilty of voting manipulation. The Devil Judge seemed to have a similarly dramatic flair in its emphasis of TV production gimmicks, camera angles, cuts of a person's reaction, etc. The President of South Korea (who has a very light voice, a penchant for orotund speeches and a lack of concern for national policies) and all these top 1% of people tuned in were on the edge of their seats watching Judge Kang orchestrate this theatre of public trial. Kim Ga-On watched him closely and was sure that Judge Kang had something up his sleeves and was definitely up to no good, yet he couldn't tell. When he finally delivers a verdict (that yes, this was a case of professional negligence and not negligent homicide), Ga-On was crestfallen and frustrated because it carries a mere 5 year imprisonment maximum. But Kang turns the table and brings up the newly passed legislation which allows accumulative sentence which then resulted in 235 years of imprisonment.

This sounded very much like how some Korean netizens had previously wondered (online) why Korea couldn't have a sentencing system like the US where the years of imprisonment can go up to 100 years or 500 years. Again, this was like realising an alternative South Korea that many have perhaps tried imagining. Episode 1 ends with Judge Kang stepping down from his high seat when a victim's family member bowed deeply with her hands clasped, as though in prayer, and even kneeled to him. This corresponded well and tied perfectly into the religious/godlike imagery represented in the justice's robes which is reminiscent of the pope's robes and resembles a priest's robe, and the app they named DIKE or Diety of Justice (正義의 神). When Judge Kang hugs the old woman with a compassionate smile, teary eyed and full of empathy, he ends up yawning barely a minute into consoling the weeping woman. Ga-On witnesses this and realises, all of this must have been a gimmick after all. He had his hopes up when Judge Kang serves the sentence of 235 years. The episode ends.

I think this series is set to be a great one. (Just as Law School was amazing too!) It has tons of stuff to unpack, lots that goes into the cinematography and camerawork. While characters do seem a little more like caricatures rather than realistic people that are properly fleshed out in the narrative, there is still promise to push beyond these caricatures. I think there is also a lot in the imagery of dystopia and the constant bombardment of messages from the government (which is often the mainstay of dystopian fiction) which emphasises a certain narrative which they want the people to believe. For example, Kim Ga-On is travelling up the escalator when there were ads of the DIKE app, ads on electronic billboards on the justice system, paper posters plastered in the dark backalley where a high school girl is being dragged away by two men saying "The government will now create a safe South Korea". That last one is perhaps the most glaring one to me because when I was in Korea, it was repeated to me by different Korean individuals: "Your things are safe. No Korean will steal it. (Not sure about foreigners though!) You are safe. Crimes don't happen. I checked and there are no sexual offenders living in this neighbourhood." But... spycams can be anywhere. Men secretly follow women to their homes and try to break into them. Sexual harassment can happen anywhere. Robbery and theft can happen.

Personally, my paranoia and anxiety won't ever let me believe such words. No narrative, self-made or otherwise, can convince me enough to think that I am in a safe place. I would always have a nagging thought at the back of my mind telling me danger can be lurking just about anywhere. I think Koreans today do have high levels of confidence in their country. Most people do think it is safe to be walking around in the dead of night without any worry. (Again, I do not quite share the sentiment.) But this is a kind of self-made narrative because I also know my countrymen who travel to other countries like the UK and say "I feel absolutely safe walking the streets in the dead of night while I won't feel the same in my own country" when those are simply ideas they've planted into themselves through the mindset that [This country is better than my country and therefore safer.] There is absolutely no correlation between a "better" country and crime rates (or potential of becoming a victim of crime). Not to mention, being an Asian in a Western country sets you up as a likelier victim of hate crime...

So, I was saying.... This narrative of "safe Korea" is already existing in South Korea today. The need for mass surveillance or a spycam detecting task force in public toilets don't add up with a "safe country" image but the sentiment planted into the people seems to be strong despite all of this. However, Koreans do call South Korea "Hell Joseon". Youth unemployment can be a concern is a country like South Korea and a graying population, increasinly empty gray towns like the one mentioned in the series are all concerns which are ever-present in the public conscious. The mention of plauge and unemployment too must be a major concern now. In a rather similar vein, this narrative of DIKE or trial by the public through app voting creates a sentiment that people can take into their own hands and deliver justice. But what about the people at the margins of society who are homeless and do not own smartphones? What is this concept of democracy that places power in the hands of people? Is it a mere illusion or is power really in the hands of people?

..................................................................................................

(A side note on how the indicted chairman of the company responsible for mass poisoning of an entire town had brushed off concerns about a failing filtration system and the move of industrial plants to Southeast Asia. As a Southeast Asian, it is also something on my mind how South Korea has moved out of China and moved most of its plants to Southeast Asia for cheap labour. But what about the pollution here, the appallingly low wages they pay Southeast Asians (both white and blue collars!) in comparison to the few Korean expat managerial staff or engineers they station out here? I remember how I was at the hospital at 2 am and a small group of blue collar workers in their work uniform came in with their injured colleague; this can only mean they were at work past midnight due to some accident and we are still in the midst of the pandemic. What kinds of welfare and benefits are these blue collars provided with?)

#The Devil Judge #Park Jinyoung #Jisung #악마판사

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lany-d-flow · 4 years

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Whisper Talk: Going Against Alternate Timeline Theories with a Theory, and Answering Questions Saying Otherwise.

Those who look with clouded eyes see nothing but shadows. -Sephiroth, Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

SPOILER WARNING

Pressing “Keep Reading” will bring you into spoiler territory for, well... Final Fantasy 7 Compilation and Remake, so this is your warning, all right buddy?

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of another work. What I predict may very well turn out to be untrue, and if you disagree with my prediction then that’s totally fine! (If you’d like, we could chat about it).

But honestly, I have spent the last few months thinking about this game in an unhealthy manner. I think having all of these whispers inside of my head with my frustration getting bigger is not going to move anything forward. So it’s time to wake up, get up, get out there and write thoughts about what is actually going on with Final Fantasy 7 Remake, while trying to clear up misconceptions that may be leading people astray. Perhaps the latter is the intention of the developers. If it is? Well, let’s move past the clouds and find the sunlight.

All right, let’s mosey into this nonsense.

It’s been months since the release of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. After a long five-year wait for many fans, we got a piece of the story on the Playstation 4 in March and April 2020. It was exciting to see the capital of Final Fantasy 7, Midgar, be brought to life with state-of-the-art graphics. Treading through mako reactors, Sector 7 and Sector 5, the nasty Wall Market, Shinra HQ, hearing conversations of lively NPCs, exploring the subtle easter eggs and symbolism through visual storytelling... Goodness, so much of what this game had to offer was a delight! The developers put their heart and soul into fleshing out a section of Final Fantasy 7 that was, at most, 6 hours long. This level of detail cannot go unnoticed, and I’m sure it’s made everyone excited to see the reimagining of Gaia when we receive future installments!!!!

Oh, but wait... the developers introduced a new monster called Whispers, otherwise known as Arbiters of Fate, and... What purpose do they serve?! Why are these things in Final Fantasy 7 when they never had a role in the original game? Based on everything we saw in the story, they seem to be making sure the story of Final Fantasy 7 runs exactly as it’s supposed to. Without these ghosts, the story will not be 1:1. To make things worse, we have Sephiroth who’s from the future?! No wonder these Whispers are here, Sephiroth’s trying to rewrite history because everything he has tried before failed him!

So based on what we saw in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the developers decided to create a metaphor for the fanbase, and since we defeated ‘destiny,’ we’ve defeated the fanbase’s say in where the story goes, thereby giving the developers permission to change the story the way they want it. Wow, this is pathetic on Square Enix’s part. Final Fantasy 7 is an amazing story with layers and layers of complex themes, why would they try to form it into something else? Now we’re going to have time travel and alternate timelines in the plot and Sephiroth seems unstoppable now. Heck, the developers are probably going to make sure impactful moments in Final Fantasy 7 do not happen, so Zack and Aerith are probably going to survive. And they’re also ditching the Compilation? Can these people be trusted?

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is ruined!!!

Still with me? Well, this is just some of the talk that I’ve heard based on the execution of Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s plot. I won’t try to list every possible thing people are talking about, but I think we get the idea of the impression that our game’s ending put on a lot of players. So I wanted to give my input on what I believe is actually going on with the story, as well as answer many questions popping up about the circumstances of our game’s characters.

So, do I think the developers are changing the story?

Short Answer: No, at least not in the way that many people think. They’re “changing” the story by putting in new elements, moments that tie with the rest of the Compilation, but the main plot points (Overarching plot, the main crisis, the internal plot, the emotional climax, etc.) still need to happen. This series is more than 2 decades old, and with time it has received: a movie, 2 books, a sequel, 2 prequels, and now a remake with existing materials to tie into the game.

Long Answer: All right, if you’re still with me, thank you. I will do my best to explain all of what’s going on. I’ll give my input via understanding how the FF7 Universe works; in other words, what the Whispers are, how the Whispers work, how they’ve actually always been apart of FF7 and are now receiving an expanded role, and how Sephiroth and Aerith showing meta behavior makes sense due to the power that the Planet has given to the Arbiters of Fate (exposure = visions out of context). I will also be answering questions that one may bring up as proof of an alternate timeline/story change and argue what their purpose may actually be.

So, let's Talk about A Whisper

Wait a minute...

So, let's talk about the Whispers.

Let’s start by explaining what the Whispers are, what function they serve to the Planet, and how the Planet creates them in the first place:

Whispers are souls that act as arbiters of fate and have been a part of the Planet for as long as the Planet has existed. They know the fate of the Planet from beginning to end, and their function is to make sure that a specific destiny runs its course. They all unite under the will of the Planet, just like the Sephiroth Clones all act under the will of Sephiroth, which is probably the reason why they were given a cloaky look: the Whispers' function parallels the Sephiroth Clones' function and both act under the authority of something else. They cannot be seen by everyone, and to actually see their physical manifestation, you need to either be 1) deeply connected with the Planet, or 2) receive some form of physical contact from someone who has a strong connection to the Planet. This is established early in Chapter 2 of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Cloud meets Aerith for the first time, and at first glance she seems to be blown away by the wind. After Cloud and Aerith have an exchange and Aerith gives Cloud a flower, immediately after this we are greeted with an illusion of Sephiroth tormenting Cloud and more importantly, Aerith touching Cloud, allowing him to see the Whispers floating around the street. This follows the logic of my two points, as Aerith is a half-Cetra who’s been receiving visions of the past and future for years (her mural of symbolism in her Shinra HQ room was drawn when she received a vision as a child, though she does not understand the full context of what it means), and of course she ended up giving permission for Cloud to see the Planet’s protectors in action.

So how do the Whispers make sure destiny happens as intended?

Well, they do so by constantly observing the actions of the Planet’s people, sometimes in sight, sometimes not. If something happened that is off course, the Whispers immediately act to correct the course of said issue. We see this multiple times in the story. Some examples include: Aerith trying to leave the street where she meets Cloud, then proceeding to leave the street after meeting Cloud, following the Whispers’ intentions; Jessie getting injured in Sector 7 because destiny needs to make sure Cloud goes on the next AVALANCHE mission. If this didn’t happen, then Aerith and Cloud probably wouldn’t have met again; Surrounding the debris on top of Jessie to ensure her death takes place on top of the Sector 7 Tower (I’ll cover the speculation on her “survival” later); stopping Cloud from remembering everything about the Shinra Research Lab; stopping Hojo from revealing the truth of Cloud’s past (no way in Hell are they going to let the internal conflict unfold this early); reviving Barret from the stab wound that the Sephiroth remnant gave him; lastly, pushing Wedge down the Shinra HQ tower to ensure his death happens. Destined events either eventually happened, or they got delayed. This implies that the Whispers are nigh-omnipresent beings, especially given how many they are and how they were able to surround Midgar entirely, and their part of correcting destiny follows the flow of a river. As Red XIII puts it, “The flow of the great river that is the Planet, from inception to oblivion… For it is the will of the Planet itself”.

Cool. So how are the Whispers born? Where do they come from?

It’s actually a pretty straightforward explanation, and Aerith tells us in Chapter 18: Destiny’s Crossroads. Before the Whispers became Whispers, they were “Those born into this world. Who lived and who died. Who returned. They’re howling in pain.” This adds on to what Sephiroth said a moment ago: “All born are bound to her.” All Whispers were once living people, animals, etc. And all that are given life on the Planet are bound by something like a contract: You get made into an image and are given a physical life. In exchange, once that time’s up, you must return to the Lifestream and become a part of the Planet, being one of many who follow her will. You’re born, you live, you die, and you serve another purpose in a collective of spirits who are now tasked with making sure the flow of destiny is as it should be. By following all of this, we can conclude that 1) Everyone who lives on Gaia could eventually become a Whisper, and 2) since Whispers are a part of the Planet, they are formed from the Lifestream, the Planet’s lifeblood. This leads us into the next question...

How do the Whispers know the course of Destiny from start to finish?

Great question! The logical explanation to how they know is quite simple: the properties of the Lifestream. The Whispers are made out of Lifestream, and that gives them knowledge of the Planet’s destiny. I argue it is not farfetched to make this claim, as the Lifestream has shown time and again what it is capable of. Infact, let’s make an analogy of Lifestream manifestations via state of matter.

Lifestream: Its Three States of Matter and their Benefits and Side Effects

Mako is the liquid form of the Lifestream, Materia is a solid form of the Lifestream, while the regular Lifestream itself can be most equivalent to something of a gas/plasma, at least one that can be seen. Throughout Final Fantasy 7 we’ve seen what all of these forms can do. Mako is an extremely powerful energy source that powers all of Midgar through reactors, and is also what SOLDIERs are bathed in to possibly receive superhuman strength; Materia are jewels capable of all kinds of powerful magic; summoning fire, lightning, ice, creating shields, copying abilities of other living beings, healing, elevating other materia abilities, and most notably summon manifestations of powerful beings (Bahamut, Shiva, Ifrit, Odin, Knights of the Round). While the Lifestream itself? That’s all the souls of the planet with a consciousness that follows the Planet’s will. Some can appear as a physical manifestation, but they’re not quite solid, which is how Cloud’s buster sword moves through the Whispers as if he didn’t cut through anything. Use of the Lifestream can also create projections (think Aerith’s Chapter 14 resolution), allow access into someone’s subconscious under certain circumstances, and of course, give people visions of the past and future without any context as to how those events happen(ed).

All three forms of the Lifestream have side effects, too.

Materia can degrade the vitality and strength of the user. Think of it as a trade-off for borrowing the Planet’s lifeblood in the form of a jewel.

Mako can cause extremely intense mental breakdowns and break the psyche of those without strong mental resilience, which is why Cloud was unable to make it into SOLDIER. But he eventually received Mako exposure anyway. What happened? Oh yeah, he went into a comatose state not once, not twice, but THREE times. First during experimentation, second when he arrived at Midgar before Tifa bumped into him, and when he fell into a pool of Mako and washed up on the shore of Mideel.

Meanwhile, Lifestream side effects are non-contextual visions, loss of sanity similar to Mako (think Tifa before she entered Cloud’s subconscious), and if the Lifestream has something in it, infection! That’s how Geostigma came to be: Jenova cells from Sephiroth, Jenova, and the remnants were floating in the Lifestream, and when the latter destroyed Meteor, it also exposed humans to Jenova cells, turning into a severe disease that is deadliest toward hosts with emotional fragility. This is why Cloud has a “Geostigma episode” in Advent Children when he runs into an injured Tifa.

Even with all these side effects, the benefits are far too great to ignore. All this power from the Lifestream is why Sephiroth and Jenova wanted to siphon it for themselves in the first place. By siphoning the Lifestream resisting side effects, one can receive unparalleled powers. Sephiroth himself said it in the original game:

Notice how the last quote aligns with what Sephiroth said in the Edge of Creation about the Nebula?

“Our world will become a part of it… one day.”

We’ll come back to that statement, I promise. But for now, based on everything I’ve told you, here’s what I think is going on in Final Fantasy 7 Remake:

Sephiroth is not from the future. His exposure to the Lifestream for the last 5 years gave him the side effect of non-contextual visions. Among these visions, he probably saw his master plan fail. Eventually he realizes that the reason he has these visions is because of the Whispers and more specifically, the Planet’s Weapon Arbiter. The Whispers are fighting against Sephiroth as he’s gained both a rough understanding of the future and the Lifestream’s powers by siphoning it up. So, his new master plan? Defeat the Arbiters of Fate and THEN continue with his original plan. Sephiroth being omnipresent makes sense given his control over Jenova and her shapeshifting, S cells that allow him to puppetize clones and Cloud, and being in the Lifestream basically giving him more power with one form of that being omnipresence. What’s going to lead to his downfall is ultimately his arrogance: he probably thinks that just stopping the Whispers is enough for him to win. So while the physical manifestation of fate is gone, Sephiroth still needs to meet the same criteria to win: get the Black Materia to summon Meteor, his ticket to siphon up all the Planet’s Lifestream, which means he also needs Cloud to give him the Black Materia, which then means that eventually Aerith will have to summon Holy and eventually become one with the Lifestream to beat Meteor.

See how all of this comes together without time travel theories that go off on insane tangents? It’s established that the Whispers know the course of destiny from past, present and future. But WHERE did it say that they can travel through time? WHERE did it say that Sephiroth can travel through time with the Lifestream? That kind of power would be an enormous retcon to the story and the functions of Gaia, and it would also lead to a really convoluted plot that can deviate from the main themes of the story (trust me, some theories out there are wild). We do know that Whispers are in a singularity and it moves like a river, which as @silver-wield cleverly put in a post about the story of FF7R, translates to:

The arbiters of fate issued a correction to Wedge and made him fall out of the window in the Shinra building. Which means fate cannot be altered, merely delayed, which then leads to a more painful end for not accepting that fate.

...Or perhaps shuffled up with ultimately the same necessary outcome, because the river of destiny was put on a different course but is still heading to the same destination. There are multiple works in the compilation that the writers and developers would like to tie together to the main story. What’s a way for them to execute this? By making a metaphor for the OG storyline and by beating it giving them permission to add new things? From a certain point of view, sure, but the developers never needed permission to do this in the first place. But the side effect of beating the physical manifestation of destiny was likely shuffling parts of the story of Final Fantasy 7, prequels all the way to the chronological sequels. One can make a case for this based on the explosion felt at Midgar when the Arbiter and Sephiroth were defeated in the Singularity. The glitters of light could also reflect this change. From all this I argue freedom came to be, and characters from the Compilation might make an appearance during the main story such as Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo. However, no matter what changes are present, the outcome will be the same. Cloud is not properly himself yet; he still thinks he made it into SOLDIER, he gets slight interferences from Jenova throughout the story (example: Cloud’s hand twitching when against Sephiroth at the Edge of Creation), he has the Buster Sword but still doesn’t remember who its original owner was, so his unreliable narration, downfall and emotional climax still need to happen. Aerith is the only character who can summon Holy and the only character who can call forth the Lifestream, and the only way she can call forth the Lifestream is by becoming one with it. How can she do this? There’s only one way: Death. Sorry guys, but if both Sephiroth and Aerith have prophetic visions of the future, there’s a chance that both know what must be done for themselves to get the upper hand. Sephiroth still wants to siphon up the Lifestream and become an omnipotent God, and the best way for him to do this? Summon Meteor. What does he need for this? The Black Materia. Who does he manipulate into giving him the Black Materia at the Northern Crater? Cloud.

My point from all this is that there are specific beats that need to happen to move the plot forward, no matter what new things they add from the Compilation. Using a different crisis for the overarching plot that isn’t Meteor is a retcon to the story, and why advertise Meteor and have it as the centerpiece of artworks and the title screen if you’re not going to use it in the first place? That’s just… really strange. We can add things in the middle of the plot to flesh out the main themes of a story while staying faithful to the outcomes. Adding something entirely different as a crisis like time travel in a game that has never been about time travel is out of place, unnecessary, and people are placing way too much faith in this being true while not looking at the bigger picture and function of Final Fantasy 7’s power tools. I believe the developers want you to think that the story is changing, that a happier outcome is in store for everyone. This all works with what Final Fantasy 7 did for many players in the first place: subvert expectations by placing us in an illusion with an unreliable narrative. We assumed Cloud made it into SOLDIER until we found out he never made it into SOLDIER and created a facade to conceal the truth that he was afraid to face. We thought Aerith was the love interest when the game kept making us appreciate her perky attitude until she ended up dying and then we discover in the Lifestream Sequence that Cloud’s romantic feelings, his whole reason for fighting, was for Tifa. We thought Shinra was the main antagonist of the game until shortly after going through Midgar, the main antagonist is Sephiroth. We thought we were fighting Sephiroth throughout the game until we find out that the real Sephiroth was encased in a crystal sucking up the Lifestream. We don’t actually fight him until the very end when he merges with Jenova and the Lifestream into Bizarro Sephiroth and Safer Sephiroth.

See where I’m going with all of this? The developers want to continue using red herrings and playing the theme of illusion by using different methods. The old methods will not work anymore, so they have to find a new way to subvert expectations in a way that gets us confused, excited, and uncertain what will happen until we actually play through the next installments. When that time comes, be prepared to get your heartstrings pulled, because reality hits our characters hard, just like it hits us hard. Think Biggs, Zack, Aerith are going to survive, and that Sephiroth is travelling through time to accomplish his devious tasks? Well, think again.

Now that we’ve gotten this far into this Whisper Talk, there are a load of questions I will need to address. So without further ado, Let’s mosey!!!

How is Sephiroth not from the future? His one-winged form from Advent Children Complete was shown in the final boss fight, the boss map looks eerily similar to Edge, and we saw multiple Sephiroths throughout the story. The game is heavily implying that Sephiroth is from the future and he wants to try to achieve victory a second time.

Well, for starters, First Class SOLDIERs having wings has been a thing for a while. Sephiroth was not the only SOLDIER to have a wing. As Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core showed us, Sephiroth’s comrades, Angeal and Genesis, were able to grow wings at will. They had different cells (G cells) which gave them a different ability, make copies of themselves, rather than control others who share their cells, sure, but that is NOT stopping any of them from growing wings at will. It’s something used across the board for all three of these really powerful SOLDIERs and it’s no surprise that this time around, they want to show Sephiroth using more of his abilities throughout the game.

Also, Sephiroth having one wing is nothing new. It’s part of his Safer form and is named on his track, One-Winged Angel. So, as an homage, they wanted the villain of the game to use a wing during his fight in Advent Children.

There’s also another way we can explain this. Sephiroth formed a body of his image in Advent Children thanks to Kadaj. And what purpose does Kadaj serve? He’s a strengthened remnant embodying Sephiroth’s cruelty. In other words, he’s another puppet Sephiroth can manipulate. And he uses Kadaj’s body + Jenova’s head to form his image. A clone and Jenova cells, or just straight up Jenova, allow him to shapeshift as that’s one of Jenova’s trademark abilities. So using this as an implication of time travel doesn’t add up.

When it comes to Sephiroth’s 70 alternative accounts, each of them have a straightforward explanation, including the one that confuses most people. Here we go, according to the FF7R Ultimania:

An illusion only Cloud can see:

Cloud has S cells injected into him. The same S cells are also Jenova cells. Jenova cells allow hosts to read the memories of those nearby, inherit the memories of other hosts, and give Sephiroth shapeshifting and puppeting abilities on those who have S cells. This is how Cloud created his SOLDIER facade thanks to Zack’s injection, similar memories and instinct to hide from the truth. What’s likely going on here is Sephiroth is able to make Cloud hallucinate thanks to said S cells, hence why it’s an illusion ONLY Cloud can see. We saw this during the Nibelheim flashback, meeting Aerith for the first time, after the Sector 7 Plate collapse when he was behind Tifa. This is another way of showing Sephiroth’s omnipresent power.

Also, if we're going to get really specific about the properties of Jenova cells, we can look at a source like FF7 Ultimania Omega:

Jenova's mimic ability Jenova has a mimic ability which allows it to read the memories and feelings of others, then adjust its appearance, speech and behaviour accordingly to imitate what it has seen. Jenova once used this ability to get close to the Ancients and infect them with its virus, which killed many of them.

This ability is not limited solely to Jenova itself, for those who have its cells within them passes it as well, though in an incomplete form. Immediately prior to the start of the game, when Cloud's mind was shattered, he ran into Tifa and seemed to immediately return to "normal"; this was because of the mimic abilities of the Jenova cells inside Cloud read her mind, seeing her memories of him, which were then combined with his own ideal vision of himself, fashioning a new personality for himself.

And there you go. Jenova's signature abilities are shapeshifting and illusion. It's mentioned in her backstory, It's shown in her boss battles, it's shown in Jenova-infected hosts, and it's even shown in her OST! The illusion aspect being something only Cloud can see makes sense, thanks to his Jenova S cells, so the developers are expanding this ability.

Black Robed Man:

Simple. These are Sephiroth Clones, also known as Remnants. Each of these puppets have S Jenova cells injected into them, which is what allows Sephiroth to create illusionary projections of himself via their bodies. They can also create an illusion of Jenova’s Lovecraftian forms. If predictions are correct, there’s a chance that a couple of them could end up becoming the Advent Children (more on that later).

Flashback:

Also simple. This connects to what was mentioned in Cloud’s illusion. Cloud knows events he should not thanks to his Jenova S cells, and flashbacks like, “Within my veins flows the blood of Ancients. This Planet is my birthright!” are events that will be featured later in the game in moments like the Kalm flashback. Moving on!

Unknown:

This is where people get confused. But believe me, the answer is MUCH simpler than most people realize. The Unknown Sephiroth is the last form of Sephiroth that we fought in Final Fantasy 7. Yes, the shirtless one. From here forward I'll call him SOLDIER Sephiroth. For reasons I do not know, they decided not to make him shirtless this time around (too sexy by far?) but believe me when I say that that Sephiroth is the same one we saw at the Edge of Creation. How am I so sure of this? Look back at how Cloud met that Sephiroth in Remake and compare it to what happened in the Crater. They have the same tunnel of light and Cloud’s visiting a persona of Sephiroth that exists in a dimension unaffected by time and space. The Lifestream gives Sephiroth the opportunity to pull Cloud's conscious mind into this dimension. Cloud being in the Singularity during the final battle of FF7R Part 1, and the Singularity containing Lifestream = ability to take Cloud to meet SOLDIER Sephiroth in a pocket dimension, the Edge of Creation. In OG, being exposed/near the Lifestream in the Crater allowed Cloud to visit Shirtless SOLDIER Sephiroth in another dimension and finish him off, with Aerith helping Cloud return his consciousness to the real world.

See?! It actually makes a lot of sense, only this time Sephiroth hasn’t been stripped of his God powers and is currently siphoning the Lifestream. So this time around, Cloud couldn’t beat down Sephiroth. The reason the FF7 Remake Ultimania labels this Sephiroth as unknown is because it’s following a narrative where it assumes you do not know everything yet. Final Fantasy 7 Remake has only covered Midgar, and there’s still many places and moments we have yet to explore. But the Ultimania is not going to cover them until they are published in the next installments, and why would it tell us unrevealed "secrets" of the story? So for now, it has to act as if this is a mystery. This is the same case with Zack being labeled as “Missing in Action” rather than dead in the Ultimania, because we have not reached that moment in the plot yet. But I’ll cover that a bit more on one of the next questions.

As for Sephiroth being prophetic in the Edge of Creation, it’s simply foreshadowing what we’ll eventually have to face. “That which lies ahead… does not yet exist” is telling us that the final battle still has years before it’s ready to be unleashed. As for the Nebula, “Our world will become a part of it… one day,” this is a more vague statement of what I quoted earlier:

“By merging with all the energy of the Planet, I will become a new life form, a new existence. Melding with the Planet… I will cease to exist as I am now. Only to be reborn as a god to rule over every soul.” The Nebula that Sephiroth is staring at is stated in the FF7R Ultimania to represent Sephiroth’s wing(s). This same Nebula also has a similar shape to the original sketch of Safer Sephiroth. So, based on what SOLDIER Sephiroth told Cloud, we can conclude that Safer Sephiroth will one day be born and be the last fight for our team, maybe even taking place in the Edge of Creation. BUT it’s not quite time for that to happen yet, as Safer Sephiroth's physical body is still resting in a crystal at the Northern Crater. So there you have it!

Lastly, conceding the battlefield against Sephiroth, it is an homage to Advent Children and Edge, yes. That does not automatically mean that Sephiroth is from the future. We just fought arbiters of destiny who turned themselves into depictions of the three Advent Children. This is ultimately the developers' way of ending the game with an exciting boss battle and a somewhat familiar scene. It's just a manifestation of one of Gaia's locations while in the Singularity. Also, this whole boss battle was ultimately a fanservice-esque decision by the developers, particularly Co-Director Naoki Yamaguchi. They originally did not plan to have this boss battle in the first place, but they wanted to end this game on some kind of high note with the main antagonist. They could've ended the game with the Arbiter boss battle, and I think doing so would have confused less people, but the reason behind the Sephiroth boss battle has been spoken. We can conclude this: it was a Jenova/Remnant copy of Sephiroth using expanded abilities like his wing and absorbed some of the Whispers' power before this Sephiroth was defeated by the team and the Whispers were released from his grasp. There is no need to overthink this decision (but yes, I don't think it was entirely necessary).

But what about the Arbiters manifesting into images of Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo? Whisper Rubrum, Viridi, Croceo, and Bahamut SHIN are all representations of Advent Children’s antagonists and their bio says they are from a “future timeline.” Isn’t this proof that there’s time travel and alternate timelines going on?

Well, you are right about the enemy intel bio in Final Fantasy 7 Remake stating that these guys are manifestations of figures from a future timeline. BUT that does not imply that multiple timelines are forming. Technically speaking, we all live in one timeline that follows through a singularity. This is the same case for Final Fantasy 7, and the very place we are fighting these Whispers is called the Singularity. The reason the Whispers are forming into these creatures is because of their future knowledge. This is their way of shapeshifting into powerful foes that can defend themselves against the team. They are turning into foes that destiny will one day birth, but in the form of something akin to a Weapon just like the main Arbiter itself, and this is also the developers way of adding a homage and possibly a hint of the foes that will appear in the future. They are NOT the Advent Children themselves, otherwise there would probably show more personality, and they would also… look more like them. So what happened with “time” after defeating these Advent Whispers and the Arbiter Weapon? Well, it sharpened the curves of the river and put destiny on a new course, but to the same destination, hence the “set beginning and end” that the developers mentioned before. In the river’s new course, we’ll get new events that while still having original events that will all be more fleshed out. In part of this new course of destiny maybe there’s a chance that we will see the Advent Children themselves. How can I be sure of this? After speaking to a friend about it, the remnants we encountered give us a hint. Marco, #49, resides in Sector 7. Who was a teenager that resided in Sector 7 before becoming a remnant and then Advent Child? Kadaj, also known as the manifestation of Sephiroth's cruelty. Meanwhile, we have #2 in Sector 5, who shows strong features fitting for someone in SOLDIER. Who fits this category? Loz, also known as the manifestation of Sephiroth's strength. People have theorized that #2 is Zack, but I do not agree and will address that later. The only remnant candidate we have left is Yazoo, the manifestation of Sephiroth's allure. This makes sense as he’s the most silent of the trio, so the developers will keep his remnant in mystery for now. But there you have it. By Nomura stating, "Come back to me a few years later and ask me what remake means," what I believe he means by "remake" is write the original story of Final Fantasy 7 with characters in other parts of the compilation included. Hence, a shuffled story with the same necessary outcomes.

Okay, but didn’t the developers say that Final Fantasy 7 Remake is not canon to the Compilation, thereby making it a different story from the Compilation and proving the developers are ditching the original story in the process?

Let me tell you right now: if those lines were what they actually said in full context, then they were lying. How am I sure? Because throughout FF7R, parts of what happened in the Compilation are included in the story. Zack’s Last Stand was featured in a flashback; Hollow’s lyrics greatly parallel the lyrical version of Price of Freedom; one of Cloud’s old Shinra Military comrades was featured and mentioned Kunsel, from Crisis Core; and of course the big Arbiters being manifestations of the Advent Children.

For saying the Compilation is being ditched and is the bad ending, why include characters and homages specifically from the Compilation? If they really were, they wouldn’t put pieces of it into the story like this. All that was stated by Director Tetsuya Nomura was that FF7 Remake is not canon to the Compilation YET. Keyword YET. The story is incomplete and the developers need to see Remake through from start to finish before they can say it’s truly canon to the Compilation. And what have Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima and Producer Yoshinori Kitase said about the story?

Does this sound like they’re ditching the Compilation to you? I think this should sum up how they are tying the series of Final Fantasy 7 into one big package, but there are some people saying that the team seeing Advent Children and the Planet 500 years later, followed by Red XIII saying it’s “a glimpse of tomorrow if we fail here today” as proof that what happens in the future is a bad ending. This is not entirely true. It makes sense for humanity to be gone 500 years later with the Planet living on because that was the life that the team was trying to save in the first place. What Red XIII told us was simple: that if Destiny wins, then the river of Destiny will run the same course, and that includes the events of On The Way To a Smile, Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, and of course humanity being gone 500 years later. This is another case of the team receiving future visions without context, as I addressed before. They saw an event where they maybe saw people they knew, but do they know what leads to it? No. So what they assume about the outcome of the future and what’s good and bad may not necessarily be correct. They will find that out as the next parts of Final Fantasy 7 Remake are released.

Okay, but aren’t the characters free to do whatever they want now that they have beaten Destiny? As Aerith said, they have boundless, terrifying freedom.

They have freedom from the Whispers, and like Zack once said, “The price of freedom is steep.” They can begin their journey without the worry of the Whispers acting up if they do something that strays far away from what’s necessary. That doesn’t mean that they are not going to head to all the destinations we needed to reach in the original game. We will still probably have the flashback at Kalm since it’s the nearest town away from Midgar. We still need to pass through the Mythril Mines to get to other destinations. We still need to pass through Corel, Barret’s hometown, to get to the Gold Saucer where we will meet Cait Sith and reach Barret’s character climax. We still need to reach Gongaga and this will likely be a required place to visit because of how much more importance Zack is given in Remake. There’s also no working reactor in Gongaga so there’s a chance that yellow reunion flowers will grow as foliage. We still need to head to Cosmo Canyon, where Bugenhagen will teach us more about the Lifestream and where Red XIII will learn the truth about what happened to his father Seto. We still need to head to Nibelheim where a lot of confusion is going to rise within our team--specifically Cloud and Tifa--and also where we need to release Vincent from the Shinra Mansion. We still need to cross Mt. Nibel (we might get a flashback from Cloud) and head to Rocket Town to meet Cid and drink some goddamn tea. We still need to head to the Temple of the Ancients for the team to find out what needs to be done to save the Planet, and also the place where Sephiroth will manipulate Cloud and the team into giving him the Black Materia. We still need Aerith to head to the Forgotten City as it’s the only place she can use her prayer to activate the White Materia and summon Holy. We still need to head to the Northern Crater as that’s where Cloud will likely have his downfall and submit to Sephiroth….

We could keep going on with this, but I’m sure you see my point. New things will happen but there are important locations that the team needs to reach in order to come closer to their goal of stopping Sephiroth. The simple thing is that, from here on out, the Whispers will not intervene, giving us the illusion that things will change, but we most likely will learn the hard way that the necessary outcomes will still happen. So once again, the river is on a new course to the same destination.

Okay. You’ve talked about Sephiroth not being from the future, but what about Aerith? Her prayer stance in the opening cinematic looks eerily similar to her stance in the ending of Final Fantasy 7. Based on this, is she from the future/did she see the outcome of the Meteor-Lifestream-Holy Conflict?

No. What probably happened was the developers paid homage to that ending screen. What follows immediately after that is Aerith picking up a crushed reunion flower, symbolizing the non-reunion that Aerith and Zack could not receive in life, but eventually receive in the Lifestream. And once again: Aerith has received visions of the future, but without context as to why and how they happened. In a novella it’s mentioned that Aerith received a vision as a child and drew her mural of symbolism in her room as a result. We know she’s been receiving non-contextual visions for awhile, but being forced into a big responsibility by the Planet is something she needs to learn to accept, and that’s part of her character arc we will receive in the next parts of FInal Fantasy 7 Remake. There is no evidence she can time travel, and she doesn’t always know the Whispers’ intentions. When the team asked her what they were doing while surrounding the Shinra HQ Tower, she simply replied, “Who knows?”. She’s not omniscient. She has some meta knowledge and a big responsibility, but does not know how to handle this role yet. And that's where character development comes in for our Maiden of the Planet.

Cool, but why are people like Rufus and Hojo able to see the Whispers in the first place? And maybe Zack, too?

Actually, there’s a pretty straightforward explanation for this. As we know, to be able to see the Whispers, once again you have to either be heavily connected to the Planet or touched by a special person. Aerith spent a portion of her childhood in the Shinra HQ Tower. Who else was there with her? Her biological mother Ifalna. These two are both Cetra, one half and one full-blooded. Hojo likely spent hours upon hours with both of them, especially Ifalna, so receiving contact from them is not farfetched. Also, that gross f***** of a scientist does unfortunately play an important role in the plot and keeping the flow of destiny on course. As for Rufus? This man was a teenager when Aerith and Ifalna were living in Shinra HQ. It’s very possible that he ran into one of the two cetra and maybe received contact from them. If he didn’t? Don’t forget, this man is the president of Shinra throughout almost all of FF7. Even if the team opposes him, they still need him. He is very necessary to destroy the barrier that blocks the team from getting into the Northern Crater. Without his actions, the team cannot make it to Sephiroth. It’s that simple. And even though he can see the Whispers, how much does it matter? It’s only going to matter if the Whispers make a resurgence sometime in the plot. There you have it.

Okay, but why is Zack alive after his Last Stand? And why were the Whispers present during this? Also, what about the Stamp bag? Isn’t this proof of time travel and alternate timelines?

And here’s where the red herring comes in! He did beat the Shinra Army. And yes, the Whispers were present. BUT why were they present? Remember what was mentioned earlier? The Whispers are dead souls returning to the Planet, and if that’s the case they have been part of the Planet for a LONG time. This means that they were ALWAYS present through the course of events in the Planet. The reason we see them during Zack’s Last Stand is likely to throw one off at first, until they connect the dots with how old the Whispers actually are. And they are showing themselves in the Last Stand because this is an extremely important event that has to happen for Cloud’s next journey to begin. We didn’t quite get to see how the Whispers changed up the event, but they likely did form it in a way where the developers wanted to trick us. It's also left ambiguous if he can see the Whispers or not, although they do not seem to alarm him IF he can see them.

Now, about the Last Stand, If you compare Remake’s Last Stand to Crisis Core and Final Fantasy 7 OG, you’ll notice that Remake’s moment has similarities to the OG scene.

Zack walks, drops Cloud in a safe place, and defends himself against the soldiers in all three. So here's where the cutscenes get different:

FF7 OG: Zack fights against Shinra infantrymen. We don't see the troops, but Zack thinks he defeated them. Afterwards he heads to Cloud but immediately gets shot by a group of Shinra troops, and I mean shot. Afterwards, there is no dialogue between Zack and Cloud, Cloud grabs the Buster Sword and starts breaking down in the rain. Thus, his journey--nearly--begins.

FF7 Crisis Core: Zack confronts the Shinra army. He begins his monologue:

Boy oh boy... The price of freedom is steep. Embrace your dreams, and whatever happens... Protect your honor, as a SOLDIER!

We then proceed to battle the Shinra army. Eventually, the screen fades to black and we see Zack mortally wounded. The same group of Shinra troops from OG come over and bullet Zack to death. Eventually, Cloud wakes up in shock, and Zack parts Cloud his sword and last words:

For the both of us... You're gonna... Live. You'll be... My living legacy. My honor, my dreams... They're yours now.

Cloud then proceeds with a breakdown, and afterwards begins his journey, where he'll bump into a certain someone while in Mako comatose. Sheesh I hate watching that scene due to its deadly side effect.

Where does Remake stop?

Right in the area where Zack’s grave is, a cliff with a steep descent to flat land. It’s the same spot where Zack got shot by a Shinra infantryman who pursued Zack throughout his running away from Shinra Mansion; it's the same spot where Cloud placed the Buster Sword to honor his close friend’s wish; and the same spot where Zack declared, “For the both of us… you’re going to live. You’ll be… my living legacy.” The developers intentionally stopped us from seeing the outcome of that moment because it’ll either be the same place where Zack will die, or we’ll see his fate get delayed and placed somewhere else.

I have also seen people argue that #2 is Zack, or if not Zack, then Zack’s corpse.

This is false.

Remember why Zack was placed in a cryosleep tube in the first place? Because, like Cloud, he was considered a failed experiment by Hojo because the S cells could not turn him into a Sephiroth clone. Zack becoming a Sephiroth clone would be a major retcon to the story and how he was able to escape with Cloud in the first place. Zack becoming a clone would mean that he was never a failed experiment. And what would happen if he wasn’t a failed experiment? Cloud wouldn’t be able to escape and FF7 wouldn’t have happened. Could Hojo have picked up Zack’s dead body after his death? Maybe, but is there evidence that his corpse would still become a clone? That’s extremely unlikely in my personal opinion. We would have to assume that Hojo did another clone experiment this time around and the Shinra troops decided to take his body with them when they had no good motive or order to do so anyway. Their orders were likely “shoot to kill” and that’s it. We don’t need Zack’s corpse to be remade into a clone, and we certainly don’t need him to be a clone if Sephiroth wants to do something like create an illusionary projection of Zack. Remember what happened in the Northern Crater? Sephiroth used Jenova to create an illusion of Tifa in order to trick the Black Materia holder into “helping” the team.

Lastly, that bag of Stamp's Champs, Original Flavor.

It’s interesting, isn't it? And Nomura told us to pay close attention to both stamps. This is probably the biggest case of an alternate timeline being real, but after thinking about it for a while, I argue that it's not proving an alternate timeline exists, but rather it's being shown to give focus to two different heroes. And how does this work in the FF7 world? Well, Shinra probably has simple rebranding of Stamp on a Shinra product. It’s not uncommon for corporations to rebrand their products into a different name (just look up Lay’s Potato Chips and you’ll come across Walkers, as shown in my poorly collaged photo). BUT there's another example to talk about, as a friend mentioned. Stamp's Champs are the "original" flavor. This original flavor and Terrier is being used to represent Zack in FF7, as he was once called a "puppy" by his mentors in FF7 Crisis Core. Now, that bag is calling to the original hero, who was Zack (could also be an homage to how Zack's design was originally assigned a "different" role in FF7 OG) up until he passed his dreams on to Cloud. So what this means is both Stamps are used for wither a different flavor or got rebranded after a certain amount of time passed, or the Stamp brand has the same flavor is different depending on the location in Gaia. Now for the second functionality for Stamp: It's being used as a red herring to mislead the players deeper in to the mouse trap. Remember Stamp’s original function in the context of Shinra? It served as a propaganda device for Shinral to promote its use of warfare for wealth to mislead the public into thinking Shinra’s deeds were for progress and beneficial for the Planet. It’s very possible that the developers are using Terrier Stamp as a propaganda device to trick the face-value players into thinking everything’s going to be different for the story until we're shown otherwise. And if it actually is an alternate timeline? It will not affect our team. As established previously, there is no time travel that our team is capable of, and the Whispers act on a fixed flow under the Will of the Planet and are almost omnipresent, so they must correct the course of destiny in the present and as quickly as possible. That alternate timeline would probably just be used to show us that no matter what we do, what’s set in stone needs to be kept in stone. So, don’t get your hopes up that Zack is going to survive, especially since he already passed on the Buster Sword to Cloud in the present "timeline" that we're playing.

But why is there a different Seventh Heaven sign shown during the ending sequence? Isn’t this proof of an alternate timeline?

Careful now. There’s a big possibility that what was shown during that shuffled sequence of events was the original Seventh Heaven bar. That’s right, there was a Seventh Heaven before Tifa’s in Sector 7. How do I know this? It’s a sidequest in Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core. Zack met an unnamed carpenter in the Sector 7 slums and helped name the bar. The canon answer in the narrative is to choose the name Seventh Heaven. So what’s likely happening here is 1) we saw a past event of the first Seventh Heaven bar being worked on, as the folks of the slums are building their homes together; 2) we are seeing the folks rebuild the Sector 7 slums, and perhaps to honor what was once there, the folks are building another bar and making sure to keep the original name Seventh Heaven, or 3) pretty much what I said before and it’s happening in an alternate timeline. Regardless, there’s a good chance that Crisis Core is being referenced here. And if it isn’t and it’s different events happening in an alternate timeline? Once again, our friends can’t go to that alternate timeline because time travel is not a power they have. So, it doesn’t really affect the main beats of our journey. What may happen, though, is our team will visit the Sector 7 slums later down the line, and they’ll have a reunion with a rebuilt home before settling the score with Shinra and Sephiroth. Until we see it, though, that’s just headcanon.

But why is Biggs alive? Aren’t Wedge and Jessie alive, too?

Biggs is shown to be alive, yes, but at what point of time and for how long? Also, even though he is shown to be alive, how is that going to drastically alter the story for our friends? He may stick around and have a minor role later, but he could very well die again depending on where the Destiny River is heading, and there’s likely very little he can do to somehow drastically change the story. Is he going to suddenly appear and sacrifice himself to make sure Aerith survives? Highly doubt it. See what I mean? Even if someone like him is left alive, he’ll either receive the same fate in a different way or just get a role that won’t change much of the main story. So, are Wedge and Jessie alive? Wedge, absolutely not. He was pushed down Shinra HQ Tower and there is no way he was able to survive a fall that high. There is no evidence that he “survived” after that fall as well. As for Jessie, we saw her gloves and headband on a dresser next to Biggs, but that’s it. Why would they place those next to him and not next to Jessie if she’s still alive and being taken care of? She was high atop the Sector 7 tower and it’s very unlikely anyone besides our team was able to run up and grab her on time. She was also in a worse state than Biggs and probably got crushed by the tower collapsing. In other words, she got crushed twice. Once when she set off her bomb and Cloud and Tifa bump into her; the second, when the plate dropped. What the glove and headband are, are likely nothing more than the remains of a friend who couldn’t make it. There may have been time for someone to pick up Biggs and that’s how he ended up in a bed, covered in bandages. As for more proof he’s the only one who survived? Wedge had 3 cats he held. Out of the three, only one named Biggums survived. The other 2 missing, I believe, are symbolism for the fate of the AVALANCHE trio. There you have it, three charming but minor characters who had written character arcs that got fleshed out in Remake, but don’t serve an extremely important purpose to the main plot points of the game (no offense to the trio, I do like Mr. Not-Charlie-Sheen and I wonder what they will do when the inevitable happens).

This is cool and all, but what about Sephiroth's line? "Seven Seconds till the end. Time enough for you, perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see." Also, this Sephiroth used more informal phrasing in the Japanese acript, such as "ore." He seems to be aware of what the future holds, too. So what do you make of this?

Ah yes, this moment, also one of the first pieces of script the writers thought of:

Well friend, I actually covered this topic before:

Seven Seconds Before the End: Theory vs. Context

While that post was made to debunk a theory, I believe what I wrote in it can easily be taken into the context of this post. That's one thing people constantly overlook about this line: it already has a given context. What do I mean by that? Check out the story log here:

In the world beyond, Sephiroth shows Cloud a vision of the planet seven seconds before its demise. Having strayed from the course destiny set for them, they strike out on a path toward an unknown future.

This is what Sephiroth was referring to: the end of the Planet. Unfortunately people are taking this line WAY out of context and using it to write theories that stray far away from the line's meaning in the first place. It's part of what Sephiroth is after, and it's part of what Cloud is fighting against. The team fought against the Arbiters of Fate because they believe what they saw was the end of everything for them without seeing the long-term outcome, while Sephiroth lured the team to fight against the Arbiters of Fate because he may have seen his failure, and believes that with the physical manifestation of the Whispers gone, he can continue his plan without any chance of failure. A part of the future, no matter what seems to happen, will involve making a decision seven seconds before the Planet's demise. What will cause the Planet's demise? Meteor. That is the main calamity we are trying to stop after defeating Sephiroth, and we need to defeat Safer Sephiroth and SOLDIER Sephiroth to make sure his will cannot block Holy from being summoned, as well as prevent Aerith from calling forth the Lifestream. So once again, this is from Sephiroth's rough understanding of the future, and it's a meta message for the players of what the ending of Remake might entail. It is NOT Sephiroth from the future suddenly sending his body/consciousness into the past in a really odd moment to give Cloud a warning.

Even with all this, the ending of Final Fantasy 7 Remake stated, "The Unknown Journey will continue." What do you have to say about this?

Yes, there is an unknown journey. This is a journey with new content to tie the rest of the Compilation together, like a possible story shuffle mentioned earlier. There's bound to be new and revised scenes in between the set beginning and end, hence "the unknown journey." I talked about this before, but for the developers to put something like "The same journeys from 2 decades ago will continue" is counter-intuitive to what they just showed us in the ending and would mess with all the anticipation for what's to come next. We have to think about this in a different perspective, and not the perspective of "oh, nothing is going to change." The developers need to keep people excited, and part of keeping that excitement is marketing a tease. It's pretty much how marketing works, too. A marketing scheme that only tells the literal facts without trying to juggle the consumer's emotions isn't going to interest the consumer that much compared to the marketing scheme that teases at the possibilities. As for the reason Yoshinori Kitase will then say that the team is continuing FF7R as FF7 has? He's in a different mindset during interviews like that. The game Final Fantasy 7 Remake is telling us things like a book, ending the events with a To Be Continued cliffhanger. Meanwhile, Kitase can state that FF7R will continue as FF7 because that's technically a vague statement. We know we'll get key locations and scenes, but we don't know how they'll get fleshed out. And we sure as heck don't know about any new scenes and how those are going to be executed in the next installments. In other words, think of a classic sandwich with a hipster rendition. The set beginning and end are the top and bottom buns, the protein is almost the same, maybe a couple spices added in there; and the unknown is all the new toppings added in your hipster-style classic sandwich. I know this is a strange analogy, but hopefully it gets the point across. So don't worry too much; Nojima, Nomura, and Kitase haven't shown us the new condiments yet!

Conclusion

If you're still here after reading through my wall of jargon, thank you! After all that I've written, I hope I was able to accomplish my goal: to ease your worries about the developers' plans with the story. And I hoped to do this by giving an in-universe explanation as to why certain things are happening. There is context to the Whispers' powers, and with the Whisper following a continuous flow of destiny, pieces of the future and past are scattered in that river. Sephiroth's been basking in this river for years now, so he got similar exposure as Aerith did and now has rough knowledge of what's to come. I think people who are clinging to time travel theories are taking the Whispers' powers out of context. We saw vague bits of the future; Aerith did, Sephiroth did, we did, and do you know who else? Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and Red XIII. Heavy exposure to the Whispers gives visions as a side effect. They're not travelling through time from the future to fix things when they've always existed as dead souls who returned to the Planet; they're continuously moving around Gaia and watching folks--especially key players in saving the Planet. The flow of a river doesn't stop, it keeps moving through its closed course. Maybe it can change its course in a slightly different direction, or get shafted into sharper curves to delay the flow, but it will still head to its final destination no matter what. While we are in the current of this new course, we'll stumble upon some untouched terrain before we get to the set ending.

However, even if we know about the inevitable, that isn't going to stop us from feeling intense pain for our heroes.

Thus the journey continues.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go sit my ass down and drink some god-damn tea.

Special Thanks

@otp-oasis-heavenxearth (Also known as @magicalchemist)

For taking the time to read my rough draft and pointing out the goofs, bringing in your theory ideas, as well as helping me solidify my confidence in Final Fantasy 7 Remake's future. Seriously, if you haven't, check out her blog. She's incredibly knowledgeable when it comes to FF7 and looks through every different perspective while sticking to the facts. In other words, straight up awesome!

@silver-wield

For allowing me to cite your post, as well as being the first person that made me faithful the developers are staying true to their word with their direction of FF7R. Seriously, thanks! If you haven't, check out her blog. Her attention to detail is incredible!

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gayregis · 4 years

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this is kind of controversial so bear with me. as a slavic person i really feel like twn kind of “stole a part of our culture” (no not because there are poc, fuck the people who say that) like, the books and games have a really distinct slavic feel to them, even if they are inspired by europe in general, but twn kind of... throws all that out. it feels like just another western fantasy trying to be the next got. quite a few slavs have been trying to bring this to light but it’s greatly overshadowed by the numerous people simply being racist about the cast. this may seem dumb or like “white people pretending to be oppressed” but. slavs don’t really get the best treatment in western media as is and erasing us from one of our best known franchises kind of really sucks.

no i agree with this. i think the stupid fucking racists that are mad that there are actors of color in the series have totally taken this argument into red flag territory so that now it’s dangerous to broach this topic without attracting those freaks.

the witcher adaptation is not ‘slavic’ because it has no cultural reference to poland or any other parts of the region. both in writing and in visual design, it is incredibly generic and bland, as you said: “another western fantasy trying to be the next game of thrones.” this is disappointing and frustrating.

i’ll speak from my perspective as an american witcher fan: i did not know anything about polish culture/language/etc from my public school and postsecondary education. the only time we ever were taught about the region was in education about world war II and the cold war (in which they don’t teach us anything except that “poland must have been weak because it fell so quickly, and it then was part of the big bad soviet union :( ew communism ew”. the closest thing to poland that we learn about is russia (NOT conflating the two, i’m just saying the closest in proximity/language group/etc), and we learn very negative things about russia. and i live in a “liberal” area of the US.

of course i’m nothing near an expert now, but i have learned more from being in this fandom, mostly because i have looked into the publishing of the books, differences between original text and the english translation(s), cultural references and mythology. and of course i have had way more conversations with mutuals/friends from poland than i ever would have if i had not joined the fandom.

things that highlight the witcher books being “polish/slavic” to me, that weren’t in the netflix series at all: writing, humor, character tropes and mythology, specific foods, specific social groups and distinctions (peasantry vs nobility), governmental offices and organization, pacing.

and it seems like it was scrubbed on purpose to make it more ‘palatable’ to a broader american/british audience. ... which didn’t have to happen at all! a lot of what american audiences found interesting about the witcher (mostly demonstrated through the witcher 3) was its “uniqueness” in that it had a lot of cultural references that weren’t familiar to americans - for example the leshens in tw3 were quite popular because not many american fans had ever heard of them before, they sounded like a totally unique concept.

but they intended to take out the “distinct slavic feel” that you describe, ON PURPOSE:

this can be seen with people like alik sakharov running into conflict with lauren hissrich and the overall writing and visual direction:

The first season of Netflix's The Witcher was incredibly successful, but it did undergo a few changes on its way to the small screen, and that included a shift in directors. Alik Sakharov was originally going to direct episodes 1, 2, 7, and 8 of season 1, but only ended up directing episode 2 in full. Marc Jobst would reshoot significant parts of episode 1 and would take over 7 and 8, and up until now, we didn't really know why he departed. Showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich previously commented on his departure, but we finally heard from Sakharov in a new interview, and he broke down what he thought of his work on season 1 and why he ended up leaving

(...) Sakharov talked about the different points of view regarding the approach and vision for the show, and that conflict was the main reason why he left.

“You see, in my perception, Eastern-European literature has a completely different pace," Sakharov said. "It is no coincidence that Andrzej Sapkowski has so many storylines and characters. The producers set the task of setting the adaptation at an action pace and filling it with colorful special effects. That was their vision. My vision was very different and I tried to convey it to them, giving my arguments. Unfortunately, I was not considered convincing enough, so I decided to leave the project.”

The Witcher Director Explains Why He Left The Show

which is just so fucking annoying and disheartening because it’s part of what makes the witcher... the witcher. one can’t deny that sapkowski was largely influenced by the world around him (for better, or for worse... i’m looking at you, wwii antisemitism analogies with elves and dwarves instead...) and that was all taken out.

but they added so much sensationalist stuff to it - violence where it doesn’t make sense / isn’t necessary (the giant genocide that calanthe apparently carried out?), sex and nudity where it doesn’t make sense / isn’t necessary, all while taking away so much of the original text and dialogue, adding in cheap one-liners instead of paragraphs of emotion. the americanization of the media goes hand-in-hand with making it stupider, so it can reach the broadest possible audience to make the most possible amount of money.

and the effect of this is that all of the new fans coming in from the show don’t know anything about this and treat it like american media. one of the ways where this can be seen most prominently is how the fandom ‘affectionately’ nicknames jaskier “jask” ... and treats “buttercup” like a totally different pet name that geralt can call him... when... that’s not how... grammar and words work...

this is one of the reasons that i unironically like the hexer way more as an adaptation of the witcher books. one can’t deny that they’re more truthful to the original work.

before this i’ve also read a little about how the witcher becoming a big thing (not even reaching the western countries yet) was important because before it, only western fantasies like tolkien were considered to “sell well” by publishers so they wouldn’t take their chances with a polish author. it can’t be denied that the witcher is a cultural phenomenon and gave more international representation to poland just overall and in arts/culture. and the netflix series totally washed this all away in their interpretation.

what makes me mad as well is that they had a great opportunity to use traditional polish folk wear / motifs / art in the costume and set design and visual direction of the whole thing, and they just completely did some random bullshit that looks horrible and grotesque (no one looks like they come from the same planet or time period, much less the same continent). it’s not “fantasy,” it’s just random and nonsensical. extremely disappointing considering how much potential they had to consult polish artists, costume designers, historians and medieval scholars. (the witcher doesn’t take place in medieval europe but it is certainly influenced by it, and imo historical direction in series like this are always good for the art.)

it’s also really fucking annoying that the netflix staff think they’re so progressive and amazing for adding in like 5 characters of color that almost all serve to support or antagonize the main white leads. the netflix series isn’t even good representation for people of color by a long shot imo and yet it’s touted by its showrunner as something extraordinary. why can’t we have people of color involved while also keeping what is considered as polishness or slavicness. it’s entirely possible, but netflix didn’t want to do either of those things because it wouldn’t get them as much money.

#ask #anon #the witcher netflix

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a-sleepy-reader · 3 years

Text

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov: an Analysis and Review

Foreword

Trigger warning for themes of paedophilia, sexual assault, stillbirth, manipulation, violence, and tragedy as well as gruesome descriptions of death. If you want a review free of spoilers, please scroll to the section labelled ‘Conclusion/Review without spoilers.’

Introduction

Calling Lolita a controversial novel is a safe bet. Some readers revolt at its topic, others still protest it as the inspirational romance of the century. Both give Lolita a bad name. I will say it once very clearly; plot-wise, Lolita is a book about a paedophile who grooms, manipulates, isolates, and rapes a twelve year old girl. It is disturbing subject material to say the least, subject material that has to be given more thought than its protagonist’s ramblings of adoration for the book’s namesake.

For instance, despite its fluctuating reputation, Lolita has found itself to be a playful and humorous novel to many, a “...comedy of horrors” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. So what is Lolita, exactly? A comedy? A thriller? Both? It is time to examine this twisted novel and see just how tangled its thorns are.

Plot synopsis

Humbert Humbert is a typical man by most standards: a handsome, French writer and professor with a soft spot for road trips… and little girls.

Humbert categorises the sexes into the male, the female, and the nymphet, the latter of which describes peculiar young girls Humbert feels an intangible attraction to. It is with such a nymphet that Humbert self-describingly falls in love with; rambunctious twelve-year-old Dolores(whom he dons ‘Lolita). He cannot keep his mind off of her; ‘light of my life, fire of my loins.’ In however poetic a prose he may choose to describe it, Humbert feels a physical bond to young Dolores like to no one else since his dead childhood sweetheart. Humbert goes so far to pursue the girl that he marries her mother, whom he plots to drown in the blue depths of a lake to have Dolores all to himself. However, what Humbert describes as a work of fate led to the day Dolores’ mother’s brain lay strewn about the road, smeared by an incoming car. She didn’t need to be subject to Humbert’s schemes to die.

From there on, Humbert has legal custody over the twelve-year-old fire of his loins. Raping Dolores becomes a routine. Though she does initially say yes, she is a minor incapable of consent in the imbalance of a grown man with everything to lose if she is to either escape or stop the affair; she will lose her only family if she reports him, and risks breaking his heart if she cuts off the affair altogether-unfortunates only know what people do when they have nothing to lose. Orphaned and trapped, Lolita agrees to Humbert’s ‘love.’ As he described it, ‘she had nowhere else to go.’

Two years pass before Dolores falls ill during their second road trip and is taken out of the hospital by an uncle aware of Humbert’s affairs. By way of escaping with this newfound relative, Dolores is finally free from Humbert’s possessive grasp. Depressed by his separation from the girl, Humbert lives a miserable life for several years before receiving a letter from Dolores herself saying she is married and pregnant. Though Humbert suspects the man behind both titles is her own uncle, Dolores refutes this by saying that, though she was in love with him, they did not settle because she refused to be in his pornographic film.

Enraged with the uncle, Humbert arrives at Dolores’ uncle’s house and murders him before being arrested. It is here that we learn Lolita is Humbert’s autobiography of the events surrounding his ‘love’ for the book’s namesake. Though he wishes for the girl-turned-woman to live for a great many years, the victim, escapee, and survivor dies in 1952 during childbirth. Her offspring is a stillborn.

Analysis

It’s a curious thing, really. That so many interpret Lolita as a romance, I mean. Of course, it often presents itself in its writing as a summery romance to read on the beach. A handsome man meets a female. An attraction is felt. Male and female confess an attraction for one another which leads them on a series of road trips following the female’s mother’s incidental death. The language is no exception to this tone-just read the first paragraph:

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.”

It’s made up of beautiful, flowery sentences, language suggestive of the pure romance of a man ‘in love.’ With a twelve year old girl he rapes. Yes, Lolita is one of those novels that wears many outfits, its outermost lining being that of a tragic love story of one traumatised man and his ungrateful lover. This perspective is especially interesting when taking into account Lolita’s exquisite writing; could the flowery language have prompted so many to interpret this book as a romance? Could Lolita be representative of how so many wield words to distract or deceive those trying their best to disapprove of them? Either way, few deny that Humbert is lying, to himself or to the reader, of exactly how the events of his fascination with Dolores occurred. Digging further into the book, Lolita becomes an unreliable narrator’s documentation of the rape and manipulation directed toward a naive minor trying to cope with her mother’s death. Further still, it is a comedic satire of a paedophile’s attempts to justify his crimes... and failing miserably. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I wasn’t even her first lover.” Deeper still and it’s one man’s search for his childhood sweetheart(dearest and deadest) he never finished loving, so he seeks, endlessly, to shower her lookalikes with unwanted ‘love.’ Without end. Without fulfilment.

Lolita is a story of infinite stories.

Review

What first struck me about Lolita was its beautiful writing; its eloquent prose, imagery, and metaphors hopelessly hooked me from the first paragraph. Nabokov never ceases to use amazing similes, description, and personification to amplify the reader’s experience of the goings-on of Humbert and the girl. This is especially striking in contrast to its tragic subject material; Humbert will rape, and he will manipulate, and he will scheme a murder, and he will hurt so many innocent lives, but he will do so with seemingly effortless grace in the scribbles on a paper.

Despite this, I did not find Lolita to be a difficult read regarding comprehension of the text. True, many a word I did not understand, but, despite this, I could always tell what was being communicated; the language is certainly not as dated as Hemingway nor Shakespeare. It may even be a calming read for those with a strong stomach, and will certainly teach a thing or two to those wishing to learn more about poetic writing styles done well.

Some may find the book to be lacking in terms of plot and overall excitement, but I feel this is a subjective view rather than a relatively factual one; Lolita is not an action book. Nor is it a drama. Humbert sometimes spends pages describing the exact locations of a road trip, or exactly how he earned money in the 50’s, and so forth. Some may find this mundane; I will admit that I was, at times, bored by it myself. However, what Nabokov sacrifices in brevity he makes up for with a profound understanding of Humbert’s emotions, environment, and thoughts.

One slight criticism I do, however, have, is that I found all of the characters in Lolita were fairly bland for me. True, Humbert is unique in his attempt to beautify the macabre, but beyond the initial shock factor of his morale and the revelation that he is seeking the love of a girlfriend from his childhood, Humbert can be mostly summarised as ‘quiet, manipulative, scheming, and possessive of Dolores.’ I was not invested in him as a character, probably due to a lack of good qualities within him; it is true that by one perspective, his story can be interpreted as tragic for him, though through the more common lens of Lolita being a 336-page manipulation of the severity of the atrocities of an evil man, Humbert loses all good qualities beyond his capabilities as a writer.

The same goes for Dolores herself, as I found her to be fairly two-dimensional; she is very sensory and seeks goods of food and adventure and she has a rambunctious heart unconcerned with how others’ feel nor how others perceive her. She is what many would call a ‘wild child,’ and though she becomes more withdrawn later in the book due to the numerous abuses she endured, I did not see much depth to her beyond face value.

That being said, I certainly do not think the characters are bad, just that they are underwhelming in comparison to the rest of the story.

I recommend Lolita to those enthralled by character-driven stories of nuanced emotions and traumas, a sort of story of the broken attempting to break the whole. If you are not put off by very thorough descriptions nor by a purposefully thin plot, I have the impression Lolita will revolt, horrify, hypnotise, and seduce its readers into its soft, macabre pages.

I give Lolita a rating of 90%.

Conclusion/Review without spoilers

Lolita is a vile, endlessly layered story of trauma and the endless search for lost love, horrific abuses, of humorous wit and smirking irony, and of one man’s endless destiny of deceit. I suppose Humbert’s own initials best summarise the smile and wink this book will deliver as you holler at Humbert, weep for Dolores, or perhaps even vice versa. They do say Russians are witty, and Nabokov does not fail this reputation even when we analyse how Humbert Humbert’s initials sound in the author’s native language:

Ha-ha.

#literature #books #classics #book review

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tailorvizsla · 4 years

Text

A Proper Mandalorian Courtship - Chapter 1

Title: The Armorer and an Introduction Word Count: ~2350 Pairing: Paz x Reader Rating: PG-13 Warnings: Cursing, canon-typical violence, crack humor that’s also serious Summary:

Mandalorian courtship is very simple: declare your interest in someone, spend time together if they reciprocate, and get married after a year or so. Getting married is even easier – simply swap the vows and announce it a few days later to the Tribe so you can all celebrate the happy news. Then spend the next few months fending off the nosy Elders (who all want to know when they can expect to hear more little feet on the ground). At the end of it all, Mandalorians court the same way the rest of the galaxy does.

Except for Paz Vizla. Despite his Traditionalist background, he goes about this courtship and marriage business in a very nontraditional way...a very, very, very nontraditional way. This can also be found at AO3. Chapters: 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

📚 My Master List 📚 Author’s Notes:

This is my first attempt at a multi-chapter story in a very long time.

I’ve been working on this since February. It’s been finished for a few weeks now, but I’ve been procrastinating in posting because I have had such a hard time justifying why Paz behaves the way he does even though we only see him for like 3 seconds in the series. I’m not sure if anyone else does this, but I like having a reason to write a story, even if it’s just to get the fluff out. For this, I wanted to flesh out Paz’s character for future works, but I have had such a hard time figuring out the words for it that I just...didn’t post. It felt wrong to continue forward without being able to explain to myself why he does what he does. Something that @plexflexico said in one of their responses to a review I left resonated with me and finally inspired me to post this publicly.

“Paz might have had less than a minute of screen time, but that time was VERY enlightening because both scenes were at moments of great tension and high emotion. I felt that any man who could succinctly put his people’s plight into words, and was so angry over this betrayal by someone who should have known better that there was no way this was simply a brute. This is a man who thinks and feels, deeply.”

This. This is exactly what I couldn’t find the words for. This, to me, is Paz Vizla. I have seen stories/HCs that portray him as a brute in an attempt to show him as a strong, confident, and masculine character. I am not fond of that portrayal because it lacks depth. I don't see that from a man whose culture embraces competency and skill before gender or sex. For those of you who have not read Asterism, go do it now, I promise you will love every single word. @plexflexico perfectly captures every emotion and thought of each scene just perfectly. This is Grade Amazing Super Plus Rank writing and Plex deserves an award for their work. And also for the inspiration because her Paz is the man everyone who wants a man deserves to have in their life.

The Foundry is the most sacred place for any Tribe blessed enough to have one of its own. It is the physical manifestation of the Resol'nare: education and armor, self-defense, the tribe, the language, and the leader. Here, children and new recruits receive their first set of beskar'gam and swear their oaths to follow the path, making the Foundry the spiritual birthplace of every member of the Tribe.

At night, when the work is finished, and the flames are dimmed, the young and old gather within so they may learn from and educate one another. Most importantly, this is where most individuals begin their first lessons in Mando'a, under the guidance of the Elders. The foundry is where the armaments are made and dispensed for the protection of each person and the Tribe as a whole. When a hunter returns with their offerings, they return to the Foundry, and disperse it to those who depend upon them for sustenance and care. Finally, the Foundry serves as a place for the leadership to gather.

Armorer has had the distinct honor and privilege of being both armorer and leader to her people for many years, though she is now only the armorer for the tribe. Upon joining with tribe Marell, she relinquished her role as the Alor. However, the respect and authority she commands is not diminished in any capacity. Should Alor Dezha not be available to decide on a course of action, the Tribe will come to her, and her decision will be both supported and respected. Dezha respects her a great deal, and he will often seek her opinion if his path is unclear. Despite the differences in their interpretations of the Oath, they have come to live in harmony with one another. They strengthen what is weak in each other, and that is how it should be in a flourishing Tribe.

Tonight, she once more has the honor of being part of a marriage ceremony. Lifting her heavy hammer, Armorer brings it down onto the glowing ingot of metal, watching as it flattens and spreads under her blow. She continues to strike the metal with slow, methodical precision until it reaches the proper thickness. Then the Armorer takes it back to the flame, where she allows it to glow blazing white. It only takes a few moments, and she returns it to the anvil. The steady clang clang of her hammer is punctuated only by the occasional trip to the flames.

The union of two Mandalorians in marriage is – and always has been – a joyous occasion, for that union brings forth stability for the children and the Tribe. Traditionally, the parents take turns hunting, or if the Tribe has the numbers, both parents will hunt together, and leave their children in the care of the rest of the family. Having that one trusted person, the one who knows their every strength and weakness by their side, leads to success, both in the field and at home.

She pauses once more to check the ingot. When she sees it is properly folded, she divides it in half, and begins to form each blade precisely with her smaller hammer. Two Mandalorians, forged into one soul and body by marriage, whether they are together, or they are apart. Two blades, made from a single piece of steel, to symbolize that union. When they are formed to her satisfaction, she takes the blades to the oil vat and quenches them, a satisfying hiss escaping the bubbling liquid.

Then she returns to the forge, narrowing one of the flames to begin the differential tempering process. Here, the tang and the edges of the blades will be hardened to resist shattering, yet the spines will remain flexible, so that they may flex as needed. Once joined, the couple hardens themselves to outsiders; instead, they will turn their affection and respect inward, so they may grow together. Where one is brittle, the other is flexible, and together, they become stronger than they would be individually. She withdraws the first blade from the flame just as the pale amber color creeps to the edges of the blade and plunges it directly into the water bath to cool.

It takes hours to sharpen the ceremonial blades on the grinding belts, but she works steadily and carefully, honing the edges with precision. The hilts are left bare; they will be wrapped by the parties entering the marriage. When they speak their vows, they will exchange blades, so they may carry a piece of the other with them when they are physically parted. She nestles the blades into separate boxes lined with soft fabric. When she delivers the blades tonight, the newlyweds will handle the rest on their own. Armorer lowers the heat of the flame before she returns to her quarters. There she draws the curtain across her living space. Exhaling, she takes a seat at her low table with a pot of hot tea to await being summoned by the Elders to acknowledge the vows. Her shoulders are tense and tight. It is a good sign of hard work.

It has been many years since she has witnessed a proper Mandalorian courtship unfold and blossom into marriage. The Armorer has known from the start that Paz would be the one to fully embrace the traditional ways. Now, he has chosen to make himself an example to the younger Mandalorians and enter the bonds of matrimony. Her heart swells with pride as she imagines the future progeny they will gift to the Tribe, whether they are born or found. However, she takes the time to close her eyes and pray to the spirits. The newlyweds will need guidance.

Hopefully, the wedding night will not result in nearly as much structural damage as the courtship had.

The first time Paz ever laid eyes upon you was shortly after the Armorer had finished negotiations to join with yours. It took nearly three weeks of negotiations, but your Tribe had ultimately yielded. No sane alor would turn away a dozen Hunters and their children, anyway. Paz admits that he did not find you all that impressive at first. You were – and still are - pretty average. Your armor at the time consisted of a bes’kar helmet and a steel chestplate that looked like the Armorer’s. Everything else was made of leather.

Tradesperson, he thought to himself, and he put you out of his mind.

As time went on, Paz came to like you, and even enjoy spending a few minutes with you here and there as his duties allowed. Even though you openly admitted that were an average warrior (at best), you did your job freakishly well. You had made your desire for a large family vocal, and that, combined with your skills, had caught the attention of several Hunters visiting to deliver the latest news. According to the Elders, the offers of marriage had come flooding in the instant you completed your first hunt, even though you hadn’t completed it until your twenty-third birthday.

When the average Mandalorian completed their first hunt by their nineteenth.

And Paz completed his on his seventeenth.

It didn’t take long for him to understand how you earned the loving-yet-frighteningly-accurate nickname shu’shika from the Tribe – you truly are a tiny disaster. You are dearly loved by your Tribe, but there is a tendency for things to break while you are around.

You are stubborn to a fault. That Paz can deal with. Over the past thirty or so years, he has had plenty of practice to out-stubborn his subordinates, and he always wins. The same holds true with his bounties. With you? There have been a few situations where he has come dangerously close to cracking and losing his temper. It is only your terrible self-defense skills and his affection for you that keep him from simply putting you in a headlock until you submit.

Paz sometimes wonders if you provoke him on purpose because you know he will not throw fists with someone who lacks proper training. He takes no pleasure in winning a fight if it was never a true fight to begin with.

Far too often, you get mouthy with him, to the point where he sometimes wants to grab you around the waist and launch you straight into the lake for being such a brat. You are never truly disrespectful, but you have no problem telling him what you think. Even when he does not ask for your opinion. He does, however, appreciate your honesty with him, since others are usually too intimidated by him to be as direct as you.

You’re kriffing fearless, to the point of recklessness. His threats to launch you into the lake have gone from true threats to playful teasing, and it always earns a laugh from you.

Your forgetfulness…it is truly obnoxious. At this point, he has stopped reminding you to pick up your shit. He has grown used to simply picking up your things off the floor (or the couch, or the tables, or the showers), stuffing them in a bag, and dumping it all on your table in the workshop. Just like everyone else in the Tribe does for you. Or, if he wants to see you, he will pocket your datapad until you come wandering into the common areas, and hand it over without a word. It never ceases to amaze you that Paz somehow seems to know exactly what you are looking for.

Paz has no doubts that if you ever set your bucket down, you will lose it. He kind of finds it endearing. But only from you. He has no problems holding armor, weapons, or personal property for ransom if some idiot leaves it unattended.

If there is even a single power cable in a wide-open room, you will invariably find it and trip over it. Stairs have to be clearly marked with vibrant tape to remind you of their existence even though they’ve been there for ten kriffing years. Your navigational skills are nonexistent. It is all Paz can do to refrain from simply attaching a tracker to your backside to keep you from getting lost whenever someone takes you to the market.

The first time he had taken you to the market, he lost you within forty-eight seconds. He panicked the entire time he looked for you. Fortunately, he found you trying to dig enough money out of your bag to buy some ice cream, with no regards as to how you were going to eat the kriffing ice cream with a damn bucket on your head.

Sometimes, Paz feels like his relationship with you is going to give him a full head of grey hair before his fiftieth birthday. But he thinks you are the most beautiful disaster he has ever seen in his life.

You get his dumb jokes and laugh at his silly puns. You let him steal the end pieces of the bread when you bake. You try so damn hard to improve your hand-to-hand combat skills, even when Doctor Shen threatens to tie you to a bed to keep you from hurting yourself. You turn to him first when you want to learn a new technique. You play hunters-and-prey with the children for hours, like you don’t care that the others are grumbling about you spoiling the kids. You listen to him ramble about whatever random topic he has picked up that week, and while you may not know anything about it, you ask questions and take the time to learn more about what makes him happy. You even offer to share your tiingilar with him, even when you only have a quarter ration of it.

He has spent most of his forty-four years alone in life. His eight-year relationship had ended exactly ten years ago when his partner chose to commit adultery. He was on the verge of proposing marriage when he caught them in his bed. Neither had been wearing their helmet. It was a privilege his partner had never granted him, even after nearly a decade together. After that gut-wrenching betrayal, something had shattered in him. Paz invested himself in his work fervently, his bitterness turning him away from the possibility of a long-term relationship. Now that he is older and wiser, he feels a sort of emptiness to his days. Like his successes mean nothing without having someone to share them with. He wants someone there to encourage and support him in his hunts. Someone who is not as cynical and burnt out from the constant threat of death and war. Someone who still has that shereshoya – that Mandalorian lust for each new day and every experience that it brings. That brightness in your soul draws him to you like a moth to the flame. It is your hidden gentility that has him so happily trapped in your orbit.

He wants to make you strong where you are weak.

He wants you to make him strong where he is weak.

Seeing you waiting for him at the shooting range brings a spring to his step. Hearing your laughter at one of his awful jokes makes him glad he wears a helmet so no one can see the ridiculous grin on his face. Smelling the sweet, flowery soap that you use makes his knees go all wobbly, though he’s not sure if it’s from affection or just from age. Just feeling your hand brush up against his makes him turn into a sweaty, flushed mess.

Paz Vizla feels like he’s strapped to the wing of a TIE fighter spinning out of control as it plummets to the ground below, or something like a fully-grown rath’tar has wrapped itself around his heart to squeeze. His belly is jam-packed with spice-crazed minochs and his heart is pounding wildly. When he thinks about kissing you one day, maybe just gently pressing his helmet against yours, his heart gets so full he can barely breathe.

You make him Feel Things he has never felt before.

Paz Vizla turns into a hot kriffing mess under his armor when he is around you, and he wants off this malfunctioning jetpack.

Feel free to leave comments, concerns, or critiques. I love all sorts of feedback <3

#star wars #the mandalorian #paz vizla #paz vizla x reader #paz vizsla x reader #romance #humor #the armorer #din djarin #original characters #tailor's world #tv: the mandalorian #paz vizsla x f!reader #paz vizla x f!reader #tailor writes #series: a proper mandalorian courtship

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heyyyharry · 4 years

Text

Chapter 13: The Oscars

(from the My Girl Trilogy: Stay Mine)

…in which they attend the Oscars and Y/N almost misses it.

Word count: 5k

AU: actor!Harry, older!Harry, younger!Y/N, (4-year age gap).

Song in the kitchen scene: A Million Times - Alice Kristiansen ft. Julian Lamadrid

Wattpad link (Thea as Y/N)

“And the Oscar goes toooooooo...HARRY STYLES!”

“Stop making fun of me!”

“I’m not!” Y/N plumped down on to the treehouse floor, sitting with her legs crossed as she shook Harry’s arm gently. “Come on. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I’m not being hard on myself. I’m being realistic,” he replied, toying with a yellow leaf he’d found on the floor just to avoid making eye contact as they spoke. Y/N didn’t get why he was embarrassed and so doubtful of himself. She had seen him on stage when he’d been Romeo last year. He was one of the best kid actors and no one could convince her otherwise.

“Your new drama teacher was a meanie,” she huffed, arms folded across her chest.

Harry finally cast her a glance as the corners of his mouth turned up. “You’re not being objective. Mrs Berry was.”

“You’re a kid! Kids are allowed to make mistakes. That’s the only way they can learn and improve. My writing sucks but you don’t see me giving up.”

“Has anyone ever told you your writing sucks?”

“Celine’s brother.”

“He’s an arsehole.”

“Harry!”

“Sorry,” Harry chuckled, lifting both hands. “He’s a bum.”

Y/N didn’t laugh when he did. If her mum and dad knew he cursed all the time, they wouldn’t let her hang out with him anymore. “Well,” she exhaled. “I feel sorry for your teacher. She probably has nothing better to do with her life than crushing kids’ dreams because her dreams had died with her talent when she became a teacher instead of an actress.”

“Are you sure you’re ten years old?” Harry smiled, giving her a look that could be interpreted as either amazed or amused or both.

She’d never told him, but he had one of the best smiles she’d ever seen, which was why she was sure he would become successful. Having a great smile was a great quality for every actor. At least that was what her best friend Celine had told her.

“Are you sure you’re older than me?” she rebutted.

He lifted his shoulders in a half-shrug. “I’m gonna listen to you because you’re a know-it-all.”

She said nothing and launched herself to her feet, clearing her throat. He watched with a confused look on his face when she picked up his water bottle and held it with both hands like the way an actor would hold the Oscar statue.

“Harry is too shy to come on stage and accept this Academy Award,” she said, “so I’m gonna accept it on his behalf. He’d like to thank his family, his drama teacher Mrs Berry, and his biggest fan Y/N aka Bambi. These are the people who helped shape his career.” Harry doubled over laughing as she lifted the water bottle above her head. “Thank you so much for this award. Have a good night, Los Angeles!”

Y/N contemplated her reflection in the full-length mirror while Harry was watching her from the couch on the side. She cast him a sideways glance, to which he responded with a thumbs-up and a grin.

She sucked in a breath, looking back at herself. She looked different. She felt different. She had worn plenty of expensive gowns that didn’t belong to her and attended countless exclusive events with Harry before. But this. This was the Academy Awards. And she was wearing the kind of dress that was meant to turn heads on the red carpet, the kind of dress that models wore on the runway. She used to watch award shows with her best friends all the time, and could never imagine herself pulling off such elegant outfits. But now, she almost looked like she belonged at the Oscars.

She wasn’t wearing any make-up and her hair was in a simple low ponytail, so she knew the dress had done all the work to make her look desirable. Harry’s designer had taken the inspiration from the iconic silver dress in The Little Mermaid, when Ariel returned from the sea and reunited with Prince Eric. Harry had joked that Y/N resembled a fawn more than a princess, and she had smacked him hard on the arm, proving that she was neither.

“Is it too tight?” asked Meili – the designer. She was so kind that Y/N felt like they’d been friends forever. But on second thought, being a professional, it was Meili’s job to make her clients feel most comfortable in and out of her designs.

“No, this is perfect,” Y/N said.

“Are you sure?” She confirmed with a nod. “All right.” Meili patted her gently on the back. “How about we try walking?”

And so Y/N descended the steps and sauntered about the fitting area to make sure she was comfortable and able to breathe normally. Harry had risen from the sofa and come to stand beside Meili, his eyes dancing with amusement as he watched Y/N strike a silly pose.

“What do you think?” she asked him.

Instead of answering the question, he turned to Meili. “Can you show me how to take it off?”

Meili had quite a good laugh watching Harry with his hands up in defence as Y/N tried to hit him without hurting the dress. It was then that the sound of her ringtone from her bag came for his rescue.

He pecked her cheek and stayed to chat with Meili about his outfit while Y/N answered the call from her agent.

“Y/N!” Laura said before Y/N could speak. “What are you doing, babe?”

“I’m at the fitting for the Oscars.”

There was a pause followed by a dramatic sigh. “Oh, I nearly forgot that you’re attending the Oscars. Are you nervous?”

“Kind of.” Y/N giggled. “But I suppose you’re not calling me to ask what I’m doing, are you, Laura?”

“Of course not! I’d like to remind you that we’re having a party next Saturday!”

“Right, right, party–No!”

Both Harry and Meili whipped their heads back to gape at Y/N.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I thought it was a brilliant idea–”

Y/N shushed her boyfriend as she indicated the phone to let him know she wasn’t talking to him.

“Hi, Laura!” he shouted, and Laura, who obviously had heard it, squealed like a schoolgirl and demanded to be put on speaker.

Y/N tapped the speaker icon as she slumped into the couch where Harry soon joined her, sitting with an arm around her shoulders. “Hi, Laura,” he repeated.

Laura laughed excitedly. “Hi, Harry! We’ve never met before but I’ve heard so much about you!”

“And I’ve heard so much about you!”

“I’m your client, Laura. Not him,” Y/N snorted as Harry kissed her temple.

“Oh, yes, right.” Laura cleared her throat to compose herself. “So what’s the matter? I thought–”

“The Oscars is next Sunday night, Laura. I have to catch the plane on Saturday morning. I can’t go to your party.”

“Your party, Y/N.”

“What party?” Harry asked.

Y/N opened her mouth to answer but Laura was faster. “To celebrate your girl’s debut novel! It hasn’t come out yet, but everything is settled. It’s a tradition. I always throw this party for my client. Everyone at the agency will be there and there will be some guests from the publishing house and some published authors. It’ll be grand.”

Y/N sucked in a breath and pinched her temple, her eyes met Harry’s. His expression was unreadable. To Laura, she asked, “Can we push it back a few days?”

“Absolutely not! I’ve sent out the invitations. You told me any date this month would do!”

Y/N had. And she kind of regretted it now. She’d been chatting with Gemma when Laura asked her about the date. Gemma had been devastated by what had happened with Winton, so Y/N had been busy comforting her and told Laura to just pick any date she’d like. It was all her fault; she should have reminded Laura about the Oscars.

Y/N glanced back at Harry, hoping he didn’t think she’d purposely prioritized her success over his. Because why would she think her first novel was a better reason to celebrate than his first-ever Oscar nomination?

But Harry didn’t seem vexed. His dimples appeared as he traced his fingertips along the strap of her sparkling dress. “It’s okay, Laura,” he said to the phone. “You don’t have to change the date.”

Y/N’s eyes went round as Laura hissed, “Yes!”

“Baby–”

“You’ll go to your party,” he said, “and I’ll send my ride to pick you up and take you to the airport. They won’t leave without you, silly.”

Right. She’d be travelling on his private jet.

“But...I’ll be late.”

“So?” He shrugged nonchalantly. “I can manage the first few hours without you. Why should your career be any less important than mine?”

“He’s right, Y/N,” Laura said.

Y/N swivelled in her seat to face him as she took his hand. “I’ll just come to say hello to the guests–”

“And give a speech!” Laura interjected, making Y/N roll her eyes and Harry chuckle.

“Fine, I’ll come to say hello and give a speech and then I’ll come to you.”

“Deal?” His lips twitched as he gave her his pinkie.

“Deal,” she said, hooking her pinkie with his.

The party was insane.

Y/N had specifically asked Laura not to overdo this, but the agent had insisted on throwing her favourite client the most Gasby party she could pull off. Y/N didn’t even know half of the faces who’d shaken her hand and congratulated her on her debut novel which hadn’t been released yet. She felt like a fraud. What if these people ended up hating her book? What if this party made her seem like a show-off? She was already dating an Oscar nominee; she didn��t want to be branded as any more privileged than that.

She kept the speech she’d promised Laura as short and simple as possible, then returned polite smiles to the guests as she made her way to the back of the room. She wouldn’t be surprised if these folks thought that she had zero personality. When it came to self-branding, she needed all the help she could get. How did Harry do it? How did he charm people into liking him before they even viewed his work? As much as she loved him, she couldn’t help but envy him sometimes.

She wiped her sweaty palms on her dress before getting another glass of champagne and finishing it a second before Laura came up to check on her.

“You okay? You look a bit pale,” Laura said.

“Well, I tend to get anxious at formal events,” Y/N snorted, shaking her head. “I usually attend these kinds of parties with Harry. He’d do all the talking and help me get involved in the conversation. He’s very charismatic.”

“I’m charismatic!” Laura said with a hand on her chest. Y/N responded with a smile. Laura wascharismatic. The problem was, Y/N was more comfortable with Harry. Or maybe she couldn’t help but feel guilty that she’d miss the red carpet walk with him. She hated to be the one to break a promise.

“You need to stop checking your watch like modern Cinderella at the royal ball.”

Y/N dropped her arm back to her side. “I’m so nervous, Laura.”

“About this party? People love you!”

“About...everything.” This party. Her 2 AM flight. The Oscars. Showing up late. Missing Harry’s category. Her book release. The likelihood of having people roast her book unforgivingly on the internet.

She had the tendency of freaking out over insignificant matters whenever good things kept happening to her. Because, as usual, bad luck would come for her when she was most defenceless and took away her joy. This time, she could feel it in her stomach.

Laura gripped her shoulders and squeezed them tight. “You are my superstar, Y/N. You are the shit. You are the most brilliant–”

“Okay, I get it, I get it,” she laughed, pulling Laura into a hug. “Thank you for tonight. I owe you so much, Laura.”

“Don’t be stupid. You saved my life. Literally,” Laura smirked and gently patted Y/N’s cheek. “Now, let’s go say goodbye to the guests. It’s almost time for you to go.”

Y/N didn’t need to be told twice. She’d been waiting for this moment since she’d arrived. People might wonder why she seemed more energetic saying goodbye to them than when she’d welcomed them to the party. But she was just happy that she could finally leave. The last thing she wanted was to show up late for her flight (Harry had said the plane wouldn’t leave without her but she hated delays anyway) and missed more of the Oscar ceremony tomorrow than she’d allowed herself to.

The journey to LA happened in a rush. She’d slept for most of her twelve-hour flight because she’d been so exhausted. Harry’s bodyguard only woke her up when they were about to land. The next thing she knew, she was taken to his LA house. She had never been there before. It was much bigger than the one in London, but less homely, perhaps because she’d known every corner of the place that was supposed to be theirs. This one just seemed like a resort.

The hair and makeup team and Harry’s stylist were waiting upstairs to make her Oscars-ready. She’d eaten quite a lot on the plane before it took off, so she feared she wouldn’t fit in the dress. Magically, she did. And she felt so silly for feeling like she might burst into tears.

When the makeup artist asked how she’d like to have her makeup done, she told them to make her recognizable. They didn’t ask her to elaborate on that, so she hoped they knew what she meant. She didn’t want to be the centre of attention tonight, especially when she was going to show up late. The only attention she craved for was Harry’s and she was going to get it anyway, with or without this glamorous costume.

Fortunately, the makeup artist did a fantastic job. They gave her simple eye makeup and red lips and put her hair up into a classic high bun. It wasn’t until tonight that she couldn’t stop staring at herself in the mirror. Harry would be so impressed.

As Harry’s team did some final touches on her face, one girl showed her some clips and pictures of Harry on the red carpet. He looked dashingly handsome and comfortable, and when being interviewed, he said he loved her and couldn’t wait to see her later. The part of her that had been feeling guilty could finally let go of that breath she’d been holding. She thanked the makeup team for everything and came downstairs when her car arrived.

The chauffeur was a middle-aged man with greyish hair and a kind face. He was talking on the phone and ended the call as soon as he saw her. He looked rather tired, but before she could ask for his name and if he was feeling well, she remembered that she’d left her clutch upstairs, and so she asked him to wait while she went back to get it. He told her to take her time.

When she came downstairs for the second time, the man was on the phone again. He didn’t see her return so he didn’t hang up. Y/N couldn’t help but overhear the last part of the conversation where he told whoever he was speaking to that he would be at the hospital as soon as he finished his job.

“Is everything okay, sir?” she asked once he’d finished the call. He whipped around, seemingly startled to see her there. “You can tell me if something is wrong. I might be able to help,” she said.

The chauffeur looked hesitant at first. He worked his jaw for a moment before he could tell her, “My daughter...is sick. She’s just been taken to the hospital. I’ll go see her as soon as I take you to–”

“No! You’re going to see her now!” cried Y/N.

He squinted his eyes at her as if he thought she was testing him. “Are you...are you sure, Miss? Mr Styles told me–”

“I’ll talk to Harry for you. Don’t worry.”

Telling someone not to worry never seemed to work. The man screwed up his face as he shoved a hand in his hair. “Should I send you another car, Miss? Mr Styles said...he said that you couldn’t drive.”

“Of course I can!” Y/N blurted, then realized how defensive she’d sounded.

She could drive. However, she was afraid to sit behind the wheel.

Ever since her accident, she’d been using public transport and let Harry drive her around instead of doing it herself. He knew it wasn’t just her anxiety of getting into another accident. Her mother had died in a car crash, and Harry had seen how scared she’d been when he’d crashed his motorcycle. Those final thirty seconds after the collision and before she’d gone unconscious, Y/N had felt it all at once. Her mother’s death, her almost losing Harry, her head cracking open and the numbness when she lay on broken glass and her vision faded to black. She could only hope she would get through her fear this time.

“I’ll take one of his cars,” she reassured the man. “Don’t worry about me, sir. Your daughter needs you.”

The man thanked Y/N repeatedly and hurried back to the car parked in the drive. Y/N waited until he was gone, checked the time to make sure she’d make it, then she sucked in a deep breath and headed to the garage.

Harry was a bundle of nerves trying to act composed while the other nominations were being presented. There were cameras everywhere and they could zoom into his face at any moment so he could not look like he might throw up. He was here for his Best Actor nomination; it’d be so embarrassing if he couldn’t act like he was having the best time of his life.

Y/N should have been here a long time ago. Where the fuck was she? She’d texted him that she’d drive here by herself. He didn’t want to be pessimistic, but the last time she’d sat behind the wheel, she’d ended up in the hospital.

It’d been half a year since, but he couldn’t forget that feeling when he got the call. He was praying to God that the next time his phone buzzed, it would be her telling him she’d arrived safely. If something unpleasant was going to happen (as it always did), he would accept anything as long as she was safe.

The moment his phone sounded, he jolted so hard he might have startled the lady sitting beside him. Jeff’s words swivelled in his head: Do not check your phone during someone’s acceptance speech.Well, screw that. His girl wasn’t here and the last thing he would worry about was looking like an asshole on live television.

➣ I’m here.

When he saw those words, the lump in his throat dissolved and his body relaxed into the cushion. His fake smile had been replaced with a genuine one, so at least people who saw him texting during Brad Pitt’s speech would just assume he was texting his girlfriend, who was supposed to fill the vacancy next to him.

Good. I saved you a seat, he typed and sent.

➣ I’m staying backstage. I can’t go out there.

Harry’s smile dropped as he squirmed in his chair. Why? Are you okay?

She took a bit longer to reply.

➣ Yes, don’t worry. There’s a screen here. I can watch you.

Harry muttered a curse as he put his phone back into his pocket. After a moment of leg bouncing and lip biting, he decided to go check on her.

Y/N splashed water on her face, which was now clean of makeup and checked her pathetic reflection in the mirror one last time before she left the bathroom. She’d been sweating so hard on the way here that by the time she’d arrived, Harry’s beauty team’s two-hour of hard work had been ruined. She’d even ripped her dress by accident when she’d nearly fallen headfirst in the car park, so going out there to sit beside Harry would do so much damage to his reputation.

Besides, she was fatigued after the long flight and hadn’t rested since she got off the plane. She’d thrown up as soon as she’d texted him and found the bathroom. So it was for the best if she didn’t make an appearance tonight. It was less intimidating here backstage. She could just watch him on the screen and–

Where the fuck was he?

Her eyes frantically searched on the screen for her boyfriend.

Where had he gone?

No, he couldn’t–

“Bambi!”

She smacked him with her clutch as he rushed in for a hug. The backstage security and a few others couldn’t help the amusement as they watched them. Y/N flashed the strangers a smile before turning back to her boyfriend, who looked so stupidly happy it should be illegal. “Jeff would kill you! Go back out there!”

“But you’re here,” he said.

“I’m not nominated, you idiot!”

“I’m the idiot? You drove here!”

“I have a fucking license!”

“Then you’re an idiot with a fucking license!”

He didn’t wait for her to rebut and locked her in his arms, squeezing the air out of her like he hadn’t seen her in years. She held him back, for a second forgetting that she was sweating like a pig, her hair had fallen loose and her face weary from jetlag. She didn’t feel any less desirable, though. She knew he loved her anyway.

“Go out there with me,” he said, cupping her cheeks and kissing her nose.

“Are you crazy? Look at me!”

He pulled back to consider her appearance, his eyebrow arched. “You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

She glared at him as he grinned. “The world doesn’t wear rose-coloured glasses like you do.”

His face grew serious. “You’re right. Maybe I see a princess and they see a frog.”

Too familiar with his teasing, she snorted, “Your ability to go from Prince Charming to an arsehole never fails to amaze me.”

“My pleasure.” He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers just in time his phone chimed in his pocket. “Shit, that must be Jeff. I must go before he finds me here.” He let out a long heavy breath and then stroked her hair like she was a child. “Can you stay here by yourself, baby?”

“Keep talking like that and people might think you’re my dad,” she said.

“Daddy.” He smirked.

She hit him again, shaking with laughter. “Go!”

“Okay, love you, idiot.”

“Love you, too, idiot.”

He kissed her on the cheek and then he was gone.

Harry didn’t win.

Even though he’d said he wasn’t disappointed, and he didn’t seem disappointed at all, Y/N still suspected that he might be faking it. It wasn’t such a big loss since he’d been up against some big contenders. He was young, so there was a bigger chance for him to get an Oscar in the future. However, she knew the feeling of not expecting anything but still feeling awful when you didn’t get it. She’d known his chance was flimsy, and yet she had hoped he’d win somehow. She might have to wait until next year to hear his acceptance speech.

Exhausted (Y/N more than Harry), they skipped the after-party to have one at home by themselves. They drank champagne and danced barefoot around the kitchen in their nice clothes. The house which Y/N had compared to a resort soon became familiar with his presence.

Streetlights, stumbling home

To our very own, after party

Won't lie, when we're alone

You're my favourite poem to recite

Harry turned down the volume of the song playing on the speaker. As Y/N poured some more champagne, he climbed onto a chair, standing on one foot, the other foot resting on the kitchen island.

She watched him with lazy eyes and took another sip. “If you fall, I’ll let you fall.”

He chuckled. “I’m overwhelmed by your love, Bambi.” Then he shook his head and pulled out a folded piece of paper from his pocket. It took her two seconds to figure out that it was his acceptance speech. She slid into a chair and gazed up at him with her chin on her knuckles.

He cleared his throat extravagantly and began by thanking the Academy, the cast and crew and the director of his movie, then his family and his team. It must be the wine that made every word he said in that posh accent extremely funny. She laughed so hard she almost fell off the chair.

Then, he took the longest pause to consider her, and the room sank to silence as he worked his jaw before he proceeded. “There’s this girl I love. She used to be my little secret but now she’s here watching me accept my first Academy Award. She’s the reason I’m here today, so I owe this one to her.”

Then he raised his glass as if it was the award and hopped off the chair. Before she could applaud, he’d pulled her to her feet and pressed his mouth against hers, kissing her as if she was the only thing he wanted. She kissed him back just as hard, hands in his hair, on his neck, his chest, his back, his face. Her whole body was on fire. It must be the wine. She needed to get out of this dress and get him out of his suit.

Went to bed without you (While you were sleeping)

Felt colder it used to (I crossed an ocean)

And I can't wait (And I can't wait)

'Till I get back to you

“It sounded better when I first wrote it. I’m kind of glad I didn’t win,” he said against her lips as he picked her up and sat her on the edge of the kitchen island.

She tipped her head back and laughed. “At least you weren’t going to propose to me on the stage.”

Suddenly, he stopped. She blinked as he pulled away, his mouth red and glossy from kissing her. She hadn’t even got a chance to feel bad for making that joke and he’d already stepped back. The next thing she knew, he was on one knee on the floor.

She slapped a hand over her open mouth. Her mind went blank, and the music in the background faded to white noise. The thundering beats in her chest made it hard for her to breathe. He wasn’t going to, was he? But if he was, was she going to say yes?

“My beautiful mermaid, frog, little deer,” he began with a straight face, and she choked out an unexpected laugh muffled by her hand. “I love you,” he said. “And I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” Then he sucked in a breath. The suspense was killing her. “But...I don’t want to marry you–”

“Excuse me?!”

“–right now.”

She could tell he was trying his best not to guffaw at her reaction. She was confused and amused at the same time. What was going on? Was he really that drunk? He didn’t seem that drunk. She would kick his arse if he thought this was funny!

“I just want to let you know,” he went on despite the look on her face, “that I will ask you to marry me. I know you hate surprises and if I asked you unexpectedly, the chances of you saying no would be much higher. So let’s consider this as a proposal for a bigger proposal.” He wetted his lips, his eyes fixed on hers. “Y/N, my darling, will you allow me to ask you to marry me someday?”

She laughed out loud though her eyes were already filled with tears. She didn’t know why she was crying but she couldn’t stop. She blamed the wine and him and his stupid speech and whatever the fuck he thought he was doing right now. “I hate you.” She laughed through her tears. “I hate you so much.”

He got up, his eyes wide. “You hate me after I told you I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you?”

“Yes.”

He closed the distance between them, standing between her legs with his hands on her hips. “Yes, I can ask you to marry me in the future, or yes, you hate me for what I said?”

“Both.” She threw her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth against his. “I love you. I hate you. I love you,” she said in between kisses. “I love you so much I hate you.”

“Tonight is the best night of my life,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “I didn’t want to win. I just wanted you to be there with me.”

“I’ll be there with you next time.” She rested her forehead against his. “And next time, and next time, and forever...”

You don't fall in love once but a million times

Waking up each morning with you by my side

When I drift away, I'll come back with the tide

I'm falling in and out again

Falling in and out again

#my girl series

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bougiebutchbitch · 3 years

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okay, seriously how do I get better at writing. because it feels like I am trying, but I'm not improving. Your writing is very inspirational to me, so I thought I would ask. No need to reply if you're busy or give an in-depth answer but any tips would be really appreciated. Thankyou for sharing your stories with us.

You: no need to give an in-depth answer

Me, already typing an essay -

First off - anon, I'm sorry you're having a tough time. I promise you're not alone. And you are making progress! It's just that growth is hard to see when you're the one who's growing.

Creative skills don't develop in a straight diagonal line. For most people, our critical appreciation of our craft improves at a different rate to our skillset. There's a really good graph somewhere, but I can't find it on Google. So, here's a basic visualisation:

Edit: my amazing gf sent me this video!

As we become more adept, our standards rise above our skill level. Then we hone our craft to approach those standards. Where those lines overlap, we might enjoy a brief euphoric period of 'Oh my g-d my art is the greatest thing in the entire universe' before our critical standards rise again.

Feeling like you're not making any progress is totally natural. But please consider these things:

1) Your critical insight might just be outpacing your progress - and that's great! It means you're honing your personal definition of 'good' writing. You're finding places where you can improve, which will lead to more growth in future!

2) Sometimes, progress will feel more like a plateau than a climb. But what is a plateau if not a stable surface to build on?

3) Rest is an important part of creativity. Athletes have rest-days. So do writers. You need to absorb the world around you in order to translate it into your art. When everything starts to feel stale, take a step back. Focus on living, not making.

But!! You didn't ask me to waffle on about the importance of understanding your inner critic.

Here are some actual, practical tips (under the cut....)

I am very flattered that my fics inspire you! Thank you! Conveniently, that feeds into my first tip:

Read things that inspire you, in the genre/medium you want to write in. If you want to write Good Fanfic, read Good Fanfic. If you want to write Good OG Novels, read Good OG Novels. 'Good' is a very subjective quality, and everyone has a different interpretation. Trust in your own taste.

Obviously, reading outside your interests will broaden your worldview! But for fast improvement in one particular genre or medium, it makes sense to focus on that genre or medium.

Read critically. Don't just absorb what's on the page. Did you like something? Why? Go back and read it again. Figure out how the author gave you the sensation of being sucker-punched, using only words. What techniques make this chapter so gripping? Why are you crying right now? How does the author manipulate sentence structure and syntax to create rhythm and stimulate emotional effects?

And... perhaps most importantly... what parts don't work? What would you do differently? Can you think of a way to improve on this scene?

That's how you discover your own voice, while borrowing the best tricks from another writer's toolkit! If you want to build a house, you should know your construction materials. The same goes for writing.

Use Betas! I know - ugh, the mortifying ordeal of being known. But even just feedback from one trusted person (and I mean 'trusted' in the sense that you know they'll give an honest opinion, no sugar coating) can make such a positive difference to your writing. I don't bother with Betas for fanfic, because that's stress-relief for me personally. But I always use Betas on any professional writing project. Their insight is invaluable. I could write an entire post on how to best to utilize Betas, but that's for another time!

And finally...

Just keep writing, bro!

Breaks are very important! But there's a healthy break, and there's giving up. At the end of the day, you've got to put in the grind to see the results - and it is a grind, and I have so much empathy for that. But I promise the only way you'll stop improving is if you stop writing.

#writing #writing advice #fanfic #writers on tumblr

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poodlepunk · 4 years

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Expanded Author Notes: Once and Again

Hi! Can’t believe I just finished these two stories. Sorry it took so long, I got quite emotional about writing the final chapter! I’m really going to miss this version of Tamaki and Kyoya. I love when other writers talk about their process and headcanons, so if you’re interested, here are a few of mine from the Once and Again series! Everything I thought would be too annoying to put in the notes section!

(Contains some spoilers for the Ouran manga and for the two fics And So Kyoya Met Him! (Again) and Once Is Never Enough)

1. What inspired this fanfiction?

I’ve always loved this pairing and Ouran (from the anime). I like how the anime leaves the romances between all of these wonderful characters ambiguous. I was happy and content, thinking to myself that of course Tamaki and Kyoya could have made something happen post-anime.

Then, while trapped in my house by a global pandemic, I somehow came into possession of the 18 volume manga box set and devoured it with my eyes in 2 days.

That’s when I saw the side note that Kyoya ends up drifting apart from Tamaki and Haruhi (except for texting occasional pics of his cat?????), and eventually he marries some lady that will make the Ootori family look good. UHHHH NO THANKS. This was an extreme knife in the heart to me (and I’m sure, everyone reading this).

There is also one panel in the final volume (on the Barcelona side trip). It’s a low-quality panel, but basically Tamaki punches Kyoya in the shoulder, and Kyoya just gives him this stunned, small look. And I immediately interpreted that as “OH GOD, HE TOUCHED ME.” It broke my heart and every time I even think about it, I need to write another 1000 words of Kyoya finding love and happiness.

Haruhi will be 100% fine, but Kyoya needs Tamaki, and that’s what I wanted to give him. In 2020, we all deserve it.

2. Why does Kyoya have brown eyes?

In the anime, Kyoya seems to have gray-ish eyes. I always wonder, when people read fanfic about anime characters, whether they see the characters as they’re drawn or as actual 3d people? I tend to imagine them as actual humans with the features of their anime drawings. Like a live action movie. So I’d imagine Kyoya as a very, very handsome Japanese man with brown eyes. And Tamaki as a ridiculously handsome French-Japanese man with blonde hair and blue eyes so brilliant they could be called violet.

3. Is it easier to write Kyoya or Tamaki?

Definitely Tamaki. I feel much more similar to Tamaki, in that a lot of texts I send are seventeen party hat emojis. Side note, I’m also eurasian like Tamaki (though definitely do not have violet eyes). I really like the aspect of him being from two cultures, thinking about his identity and where his home is.

But I do love writing them both.

My interpretation of Kyoya comes more from the manga, I think, where he’s shown more to have a secret heart of gold (finding Tamaki’s mother, helping him catch her before her plane leaves, defending Tamaki to his father--god he would literally do ANYTHING for Tamaki). He also seems to be quite innocent (despite all his scheming) and holds himself apart from matters of the heart. I love the moment when he’s helping Tamaki get to the plane to see his mother, but refuses to join him to watch the emotional reunion because he’s “not good with emotions.” I really wanted to help him find that side of himself.

Tamaki is just my sweet, clueless sunshine boy. I could see him being one of those people who is very popular and in control in high school, makes friends wherever he goes, but gets a bit lost in college/adulthood. Especially with his difficult upbringing, need to please people, and living with the terrible decision to leave his mother behind. I could see him shutting down or turning a bit self destructive. I think Kyoya is a grounding influence on him, and someone he would always look to for stability, someone who would be solid in a crisis.

Also thank you for indulging my headcanon that Tamaki is an amazing dancer at college parties and karaoke singer. I imagine he would be the most fun friend of the group to spend a night out with because he has a musician’s timing, rhythm, and no shame. You’d want him on your side in a dance battle. Also why I imagine he would be great at sex lol.

The Sports Day arc of the manga is one of my favorites--Tamaki tends to recognize Kyoya’s feelings before he does, but he never calls them out directly. Instead, he has to play a long, elaborate game with Kyoya to get him to acknowledge them. He spends so much time and effort trying to make Kyoya happy and give him what he needs, even when Kyoya doesn’t want to accept it. This was a lot of the inspiration for Once Is Never Enough.

On a personal note: this year has been rough (for everyone, hope you are hanging in there!!). I was supposed to be spending the winter (three months) in Tokyo, but that did not happen due to Covid. Writing this fic and taking these boys all over the world really helped me to revisit some of my favorite places.

The good news is that I will have to watch a lot more anime to keep working on my preschool-level Japanese. And then write more fics! I’m so excited about it.

I cannot BELIEVE that the only thing standing between me and being a fanfic writer like the many I have always admired, was literally pushing a button on ao3. If you’re thinking about it, I encourage you to try it!!

My inbox is open if you want to chat about Ouran, writing, these fics or anything :)

Also, I don’t know if I will ever write these fics personally (I’ve been thinking about it) but here are some things that I would love to see and WHY DON’T THESE FICS EXIST YET (someone please do this or rec them to me if they exist):

1. The hurt/comfort story of Kyoya helping Tamaki battle his mother’s disease

2. Kyoya helping Tamaki get back on his feet after his (amicable) divorce from Haruhi or (bitter) divorce from Eclair

3. Where is Kyoya’s mom? The reversal story where Tamaki helps Kyoya with HIS family problems for once.

There are so many great ones, but I just wish there were even more stories about these guys. Maybe one day we will get the Fruits Basket style Ouran season 2.

I’ll be honest--I’ll probably not be able to keep from writing at least one Christmas one-shot about these two.

Thanks for reading these notes! Hope you enjoyed them! :)

#my fic #kyotama #tamakyo

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antialiasis · 4 years

Text

Jesus Christ Superstar: all of my thoughts

Allll right, this will be me watching my way through Jesus Christ Superstar 2012 (the arena tour with Tim Minchin/Ben Forster) and rambling about e v e r y t h i n g as I go, prompted by me having a lot of thoughts approximately every two minutes while watching it on YouTube/rewatching it/listening to multiple other JCS productions in between. Unusually for me, there will be very little complaining. This production is not perfect but that's not really what I'm here to talk about right now, shush, let me just go on about why I love this musical, at incredible length.

(I will be talking both about particulars in this production and about JCS in general as a narrative, without explicitly distinguishing the two, but please rest assured I do know which is which. I am pretty hardcore, I have seen five different productions live (including the 2013 leg of the arena tour) as well as the movies, listened to a lot of different Gethsemanes, I know this show.)

(this will also jump wildly between deep intellectual analysis and just me shamelessly appreciating the whump content, please bear with me)

can I start off by saying I really love the band and instrumentation and arrangements in 2012

The JCS overture is really long but I love it and it's always fun to see exactly what they do with it when it's staged. This production goes with showing Jesus's followers as protesters clashing with police, following news headlines, and then, during the calm choral "betrayal leitmotif", they're all gathered around Jesus staring at him in the most ominous way - then, as the first notes of "Heaven On Their Minds" play, Jesus closes his eyes and shakes his head a little, as if snapping out of a thought - as if he just felt the coming of betrayal. Neat.

Anyway, "Heaven On Their Minds"! This is such a good song. When I first saw JCS, as my school's production in 2005, and it opened not with Jesus but with Judas, presenting these totally reasonable concerns that he has about Jesus, I was already so intrigued by where this was going. Judas is the actual protagonist of JCS; one of the main narrative things it's doing is telling these events largely from his point of view, imagining how what he did might be interpreted to be sympathetic and understandable. This is why he gets the opening number and the final proper song with the show's closing musings. If you put on JCS and treat it like it's a story about Jesus with Judas as a side character, you're doing it wrong.

The iconic opening riff of “Heaven On Their Minds” is what I’m calling the “Agony” motif in my musical motif chart, because the places it recurs are the moment Judas resolves to hang himself in “Judas’s Death” and... “The 39 Lashes”. Originally I connected it to Judas, but “The 39 Lashes” has nothing at all to do with Judas; instead, the one thing that connects these three occurrences of the motif is pain - which really rather underlines how painful it is when Judas’s mind clears and he sees what lies ahead.

So, Judas: he was one of Jesus's closest friends, and a real, true believer in what this movement was originally about: charity, compassion, noble ideals. But lately, he's seen it turn into more of a cult of personality around Jesus himself - you've begun to matter more than the things you say. Now they're all thinking Jesus is the messiah, the Son of God - and worse, it's like Jesus is starting to believe it himself.

(Tim Minchin does this little frustrated eyeroll on you really do believe this talk of God is true, and I love it. I know his vocal performance is not to everyone's taste, and I get why especially with the unwarranted autotuning on the official recording, but I just love his actual acting here, his expressions and body language, so much. I was watching him for most of the show when I saw this live, because I usually spend most of JCS looking for whether Judas is doing something interesting in the background, and it was choice. Unfortunately the editor for this official recording isn't quite as interested in what Judas is doing in the background as I am, alas, and there are a lot of bits where I'd like to get a better look at him but we don't, but there are still some very good reactions.)

So, the reason this is bad, this whole messiah thing, is not only that calling Jesus their king might rub the authorities the wrong way, but also that now they're all expecting Jesus to up and free them from Roman oppression. Which is just not a thing that he can do! Judas is worried if Jesus doesn't deliver his followers will turn against him (and they'll hurt you when they find they're wrong). He's worried if Jesus actually does try anything, or heaven forbid, his followers just do it on their own - Jesus's words are already being taken out of context and twisted to justify whatever the speaker feels like - if they step so much as a toe over the line, that'll be all the excuse the Romans need to regard the Jewish community as a whole as violent insurgents or a delusional cult and bring in the army. This movement used to be a beautiful thing, but it's become an existential threat with the potential to get them all killed. And - when Judas tries to voice these concerns, Jesus brushes them off. He won't listen. Things are spiraling out of control, and Jesus won't do anything about it.

(Note, by the way, that a big part of Judas's worries is worries about Jesus in particular getting hurt.)

(Judas is very focused here on the future, all these things looming on the horizon that could happen if things continue as they are - so when we transition abruptly into the upbeat "What's the Buzz?", where Jesus tries to get his followers to think less about the future and more about the here and now, for all that it feels like a musical and textual non-sequitur we're actually kind of staying on theme.)

Jesus hasn't been doing anything about things or listening to Judas, and is very focused on the here and now, because as it happens he knows (or at least believes) that in a few days he is going to be tortured and executed, and really he doesn't entirely know what's going to happen after that, and this is pretty terrifying and stressful and right now he's dealing with that by trying to not think about it.

Why are you obsessed with fighting times and fates you can't defy? He basically means this at this point. Why would you try to fight inevitable fates? That’s pointless; it’s not like Jesus would ever do that. You just don’t think about them. Jesus is fine. It’s fine. This is fine.

(Mary is the one person who’s actively helping Jesus take his mind off things and stay in the moment. Emotionally he really needs to just relax and think of nothing and be told everything's all right, and Mary's the person who provides that. She alone has tried to give me what I need right here and now. I contend that this is the main point of Mary's role in the first act of JCS, more than her infatuation with him.)

Buuuut of course Judas has no idea what's behind this. As far as he can tell Jesus is just kind of hypocritically wasting his time on hedonistic indulgence, like the whole Son of God thing's just gone to his head, and like everything else about the situation, it's concerning, and he tries to speak out about it, in “Strange Thing, Mystifying”...

...which prompts Jesus to lash out. There was a sort of frustration behind some of his lines in “What’s the Buzz”, but he still just seemed to be preaching a general philosophy of staying in the here and now. At Judas’s criticisms, though, he's defensive and confrontational, exhorting him to not throw stones... and he's not done: I'm amazed that men like you can be so shallow, thick and slow! There is not a man among you who knows or cares if I come or go!

That's a total strange overreaction, especially since he starts out addressing Judas but then goes on to "There is not a man among you", when nobody else was saying anything, much less anything implying they don't care about Jesus. So, obviously, this isn't really about what Judas just said. What this is showing us is that Jesus has a lot of pent-up frustrations and concerns, too, and he's in a strangely delicate mood. It's kind of an odd sequence watching it for the first time; this lashout is weird! I thought it was weird when I first saw the show! But that’s the point. It’s here because it is weird, because Jesus is not as fine as he seems.

(This is what almost every song with Jesus in it in Act I is about. It's a series of incidents - many of them based on actual bits from the Bible - of Jesus lashing out unexpectedly and/or being strongly disillusioned with his followers and vaguely, bitterly alluding to his upcoming death. The weight of anticipating his own execution is taking a real psychological toll on him from the start, and this is all building towards where all those fears and doubts and worries and anger come out in "Gethsemane". It took me the longest time to properly notice this, that Jesus isn't just sort of being a drama queen out of nowhere here; these events are being presented like this to connect them into a cohesive speculative narrative that this was all just manifestations of Jesus's anxiety about the fact he believes he's going to die in a few days and he's not sure what he's really accomplished.)

While the apostles join together in a chorus of No, you're wrong! You're very wrong!, Judas silently pulls out a cigarette, because 2012 Judas smokes to calm his nerves and I love it. The nerves don't stop him rolling his eyes again in the background at Jesus's Not one of you!, though. (Jesus has probably been having these weird, oddly self-pitying lashouts for a little while now - it feels like a "this again" sort of eye-roll.)

Judas tries again to confront Jesus during "Everything's Alright", even more emphatic, but in a more sincere and genuine way - he really wants to get through to him. No, seriously, Jesus, why are you wasting expensive ointment on your feet and hair when the poor are starving - you know, the thing this movement was supposed to be about. Mary, probably a bit higher in emotional intelligence than Judas, can obviously tell that Jesus is just pretty stressed out right now and really needs some rest, and basically just tries to get Jesus to ignore him until he goes away - but Jesus responds to him anyway. Starts calm, but there's an oddly defeatist quality to what he's saying - there’ll always be poor people, we can't save them, look at the good things you've got... and then he launches into another bitter lashout: Think while you still have me, move while you still see me - you’ll be lost, you'll be so, so sorry, when I'm gone. Strike two on Jesus-is-not-as-fine-as-he-seems.

(Seriously, though, at this point it'd be reasonable to be pretty alarmed; from an outside perspective, these lines sound kind of suicidal. Perhaps that’s why Mary immediately steps in again to try to calm him down.)

Meanwhile, Judas silently backs off. What he takes away from these two confrontations is that Jesus isn't really happy either. He's not actually thrilled with his followers or what’s going on; he just seems to feel helpless and unable to change anything at all, and has apparently just resigned himself to it, instead of even trying to fix it.

I love how gloriously ominous the "Hosanna Superstar" bit of "This Jesus Must Die" is. It really makes this upcoming cheerful song sound like an omen of doom and horror, the way it feels to the Pharisees. It’s the same melody as “We need him crucified” in “Trial Before Pilate” - apt, since the crowd’s devotion to Jesus is the real problem that causes the Pharisees to believe they need to get him killed.

Thus, the Pharisees have basically the same concerns Judas does - Jesus's mass of fans is growing out of control, they're blasphemously insisting he's their king, and it's only a matter of time before this brings the wrath of the Romans down upon the entire Jewish nation. They only go a bit further by believing the only way to properly quash this movement is to put Jesus to death. (Which is kind of dubious - surely there's a danger that martyring him will just make people more devoted - but I appreciate that they, too, get basically sympathetic motivations. It’s the oppression of the Romans that’s the real enemy here; they only see Jesus as a real problem because of how the Romans might react.)

By "Hosanna", Jesus has recovered his usual composure and passion. This is the one Jesus song where he does genuinely seem to be doing all right, and in that way it serves as a good contrast to literally everything else in this musical. In it we see a glimpse of the preacher and activist that he’s been for these three years, almost bursting with glee as he tells the Pharisees they're not going to be quiet at all thank you very much. He preaches his message to the crowd: There is not one of you who cannot win the Kingdom - a kind, positive echo of yesterday's angry lashout. He loves this, and he still loves this movement. This is what it's all supposed to be about.

...only, of course, for some people to yell "Hey, J.C., J.C., won't you die for me!", and he turns his head, his smile fading just a little (I wish the camera stayed on him a little while longer here). But he recovers and carries on. Ha ha, yeah, he'd die for you.

Jesus's own rally leads directly into Simon's rave, full of adoring fans begging Jesus to touch and kiss them. Same enthusiasm, but more obviously a product of that cult of personality that Judas was worried about. And there in the middle of it is Simon, so bright-eyed and enthusiastic about the whole thing, telling him about how with his probably over 50,000 followers, he should add just a smidge of hatred towards the Romans, and you will rise to a greater power, we will win ourselves a home! He's one of those who want Jesus to be leading a violent revolution to free them.

I like how the first portion of "Poor Jerusalem" echoes a slow, somber version of the same melody as "Simon Zealotes" as Jesus laments, almost to himself, that none of them, nobody at all, understands power, or glory, or anything. This time Jesus isn't really angry, just kind of exhausted and contemplative. Nobody really seems to get his message; these poor misguided people won't get the revolution they're hoping for; Jerusalem itself is doomed. The city wouldn't be willing to do what's needed even if they knew.

To conquer death, you only have to die is one of my favorite lines. I’m an atheist, but as a kid I remember being taught at the Christian summer camp I went to that by dying himself, Jesus conquered death. That idea is twisted and presented the other way around here: to conquer death, you only have to die. Only. An darkly ironic presentation of it as if it were easy. It’s not as easy as Jesus would like it to be - but he truly believes that it’s what he must do.

"Pilate's Dream" has the same melody as the second half of “Poor Jerusalem” - because both Jesus and Pilate are contemplating an unsettling future that they have seen.

I do think it's a little wrong that 2012 Pilate chuckles at the end of "Pilate’s Dream”, though. The whole point of this song, as far as I can tell, is that he's unsettled by this dream, and it's probably part of why he's so reluctant to sentence Jesus to death later, so I think it's an incongruous choice to make it seem like he just sort of brushed it off as nonsense.

As I mentioned before, the arena tour staging includes Simon buying a gun during "The Temple", a really chilling detail that I liked a lot and that is in no way discernible in the official recording. Maybe the editor didn't notice, maybe it just wasn't very clear in the footage they got anyway, maybe it's some sort of ratings issue where showing a gun for a few seconds would just be too much (while the lengthy, brutal torture and execution scenes coming up are totally fine). Obviously it doesn't mean anything for the later narrative or anything (especially since the actual narrative is taking place in 33 AD and guns don't actually exist, regardless of the staging choices of any particular production), but it’s a nice way of using staging to lend further support to the overall point of how Jesus's followers variously fail to understand his teachings - it strengthens both Jesus’s and Judas’s concerns.

When Jesus and Judas arrive at the temple, they're arguing once again, though we don't know what about. Given the way Jesus is striding towards the doors and Judas is trying to hold him back, I imagine Judas is worried that doing something like running into the temple and breaking tables and screaming is the sort of attention-grabbing, polarizing stunt that'd be a really bad idea, and Jesus is upset and doesn't care.

(The bouncer doesn't let Judas in. I'm guessing Jesus tells him Judas is harassing him or something, within the staging-narrative where the temple is a nightclub that has a bouncer.)

So Jesus goes and smashes a table and yells at everyone to get out. This is probably where Jesus begins to alienate a lot of people, who were having a great time at the temple only for him to come in and have a breakdown at them.

(He's so angry, breathing hard, fists clenched after everyone's left. This isn't really about the temple either. He's really begun to realize how many of his followers don't get it at all, and he doesn't have time to fix that. He's been trying for so long and he's so tired.)

The leper bit makes a pretty similar point. Jesus wants to help all these people, and tries - but there are too many, and they're crowding him, and he's not going to be around to help them for much longer - so he desperately tells them to heal themselves, and they leave, probably thinking wow Jesus is kind of a jerk.

I'm sorry, I don't have anything to say about "I Don't Know How to Love Him", love ballads are pretty consistently my least favorite song in every musical, I like and appreciate Mary but my investment in this song pretty much begins and ends with its role in setting up the twisted reprise in "Judas's Death"

I enjoy the fourth-wall-leaning audacity of having the guitarist spotlighted on stage playing the solo before "Damned For All Time", and Judas is looking at him like "who are you, go away", and keeps looking evasively back at him while he's slowly getting the Pharisees' number out of his wallet and calling it. (It also helps show Judas feels pretty guilty and shameful about doing this, and works better for that than having extras on stage - if it were extras, we might expect that them witnessing this could actually mean something later, but when it's the guitarist, it's obvious he's just serving as an anonymous stand-in for a hypothetical random stranger who isn't literally part of the story.)

I like the shot of Judas looking into the security camera outside the Pharisees' building. (That’s decidedly not the same hairdo Tim Minchin has on stage, though.)

Judas opens his talk with the Pharisees, without even greeting them first, by frantically justifying himself, talking about how this is weird and hard for him but there was just nothing else he could do, he's not hoping for a reward or anything, he's been forced to do this, he's not a dirty traitor, please don't think that. He really doesn't want to be here. But here he is anyway, because Jesus can't control it like he did before - and furthermore I know that Jesus thinks so too, Jesus wouldn't mind that I'm here with you. He's seen Jesus over the past few days and he's pretty sure he has this figured out. Jesus can see just as well as he does where things are headed - it's just he's helpless to control it and doesn't know what to do about it. So this has to be done. He'd probably want Judas to bail him out of this, just get him arrested and the movement shut down, for everyone's sake. (Jesus is so self-sacrificing, after all.) Right? He'd be fine with this. Right? (Judas is fine.)

("Damned For All Time" is just Judas wildly word-vomiting trying to placate his own guilt and I love it. He's legitimately afraid of where things are headed if he doesn't do this, and thinks it has to ultimately be the right thing, but that doesn't make him feel any better about it.)

(I like how Caiaphas just sort of coolly listens to him ramble his head off like this while he sips his drink.)

Judas goes for a cigarette again (calming those nerves), and Annas helpfully lights it for him - prompting Judas's next ramble. Annas, you're a friend, a worldly man and wise - Caiaphas, my friend, I know you sympathize. It's not like he's selling Jesus out to anyone unreasonable. Annas is nice! We three, we get it, right? You get it. We're the people who can see when a difficult thing just has to be done, did I mention I HAVE to do this and this is not about money - only for Annas to tell him to cut it out with this blather and excuses and just give them the information they want. And also, they'll pay him handsomely!

I don't need your blood money! Judas says, then I don't want your blood money! Sometimes these lines are reversed, which sounds better - there's something more satisfying about the vowel in need than in want - but I think textually this original order is important. First he's sort of polite-ish-ly declining, saying no, he doesn't need any money, but then when they insist, he declines more firmly, that he doesn't want it either. (I love the way he shoves Annas's hand away.) It's so important to Judas's own principles that he came here because he thinks it's right, not because he wants payment; the idea of being paid makes it way worse.

...But then Caiaphas grabs the cigarette out of his mouth (leaving him a bit shaken with nothing to hold onto anymore) and goes well, you can give it to charity, or to the poor; they understand that's not why he's doing this, but they'd still like to pay him a fee. And that's the reason he ultimately does take the money: because just a few days earlier he was telling Jesus off for letting money be wasted when it could have gone to the poor. How could he do the same?

(Judas is not doing this for the money in this show. He is not being tempted by the money. He was not going to take the money until he was told he could give it to charity. One of the professional live productions I saw just did not understand this at all, and no. Judas is the protagonist! He is not here for the money! It's done right here, with the Pharisees just throwing the money at him after he names Gethsemane, and him not even reacting, just slowly picking it up afterwards. Tim Minchin gets Judas.)

I like to think the Well done, Judas / Good old Judas chorus is sort of the voice of the Divine Plan, such as it is, which he's now done his first part in.

"The Last Supper" has slowly become one of my favorite parts of the entire show, and I particularly enjoy it in this particular production.

Judas walks in and doesn't look at Jesus at all - can't quite bear to, at the moment. Jesus looks after him, knowing exactly what's going on... and that's when he starts in on The end is just a little harder when brought about by friends.

Jesus has a drink of the wine, which I like a lot. This definitely is a drinking sort of moment. I like the idea of him being a little inebriated in this scene.

For all you care, this wine could be my blood. For all you care, this bread could be my body. The end... This is my blood you drink, this is my body you eat. Judas reflexively rolls his eyes again - Jesus off on one of these weird sorts of rants yet again. (As with so much, I love that Jesus Christ Superstar takes this bit of the Bible and lets it just be a weird thing to say, recontextualizes it as an empty, halfhearted statement that he doesn't feel like his followers even care hours before his impending arrest, instead of treating it as something profound and meaningful. Again and again, Jesus is portrayed less as a noble profound religious figure and more as just a person haunted by mounting dread and anxiety, and I love it so much.)

Jesus sort of tries to make this into a nice, comforting thing, to ask them to remember him when they eat and drink - but it doesn't work. It's happening tonight, and here they all are, these people, his supposed followers, who don't understand a thing he's said, ever, and Jesus just breaks. I must be mad, thinking I'll be remembered! Yes, I must be out of my head! Look at your blank faces! My name will mean nothing ten minutes after I'm dead! (Judas looks up vaguely, kind of concerned - Jesus, this is further than he usually goes.) One of you denies me, one of you betrays me! And that's when Judas really looks up. Jesus knows.

There's a pause, a commotion, and Jesus is going to just retreat and leave it at that - but no, then he keeps going. He calls out Peter specifically for being about to deny him three times, shoving him, and then yells about how one of my twelve chosen will leave to betray me! At which Judas finally stands up. Cut out the dramatics! You know very well who! It's obvious that somehow Jesus found out. (Maybe Judas thinks the guitarist might have told on him.)

Judas's surprised You want me to do it? when Jesus tells him to go do it delights me. Judas, I thought you knew that Jesus totally wanted you to do this. It's almost like you didn't really know that at all and just convinced yourself of that to feel better about it. (Obviously, though, Jesus clearly doesn't actually want it so much, does he, the way he's shouting.)

Judas tries to explain himself but Jesus doesn't care - he doesn’t want to hear about why one of his most trusted friends wants to betray him to the authorities, not when this has to happen and he can’t prevent it. Judas is really nervous and defensive and hurt by his hostility, declares he hates Jesus now. (You liar, you Judas! Jesus says, which is kind of hilarious and also - yeah, he's a liar, he doesn't hate Jesus at all.) You wanted me to do it? What if I just stayed here and ruined your ambition? Christ, you deserve it! Judas still kind of wants to just stay and cancel the whole thing, even if it's simply justified as petulant spite. But Jesus tells him to just go already; he just wants to get this over with, as quickly as possible, because it hurts.

Judas is near tears as he turns away to get his things. The apostles have no idea what's going on, singing, some of them trying to see if Judas is okay, which suggests they have no idea what they were even talking about - whatever this 'betrayal' is supposed to be, it doesn’t cross their minds that Judas is about to get Jesus arrested.

Judas trudges up the steps, batting them away, still on the verge of tears - only then he stops, his face changing. And he throws down his backpack and turns for one final confrontation with Jesus. You sad, pathetic man! Look what you've brought us to! Our ideals die around us, and all because of you! This is still about their ideals for him, after all. And yet, saddest of all, someone had to turn Jesus in - like a common criminal, he first says, but then, like a wounded animal, someone helpless to help themselves, who needs to be pitied and put out of their misery. Jesus could have done something. Jesus could have put a stop to this. Why does he have to do it? (Why does he have to do it?)

Every time I look at you, I don't understand why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned. Why? Jesus does have a plan, of sorts, of course - it's just that this is all part of it. Judas doesn't believe Jesus is actually the Son of God, or that he could possibly have a "plan" that involves dying for some grand cosmic cause. As far as he can tell Jesus's actions are just bizarre and pathetic and self-defeating, and he's been saddled with the unfortunate, dirty job of saving Jesus from himself.

(Judas presumably still doesn't realize that the Pharisees plan to literally have him killed. I doubt he'd be doing this, or at least not in this way, if he knew.)

In the wake of this final confrontation, Mary hugs Peter, who Jesus just shoved and accused of denying him. She considers going to Jesus too, but Peter convinces her they'd probably best leave it alone. Peter himself seems to be considering going to Jesus, but then doesn't. Everyone dejectedly goes to sleep. Jesus is alone for tonight, his apostles alienated, his right-hand man gone as Jesus must wait for him to return with soldiers and set the dreaded end in motion. This must be the loneliest, most awful night of his life.

Jesus rubs his hand hard against a stair as the apostles are finishing their song - an agitated fidget that I am far more fond of than I should be. As he realizes they've all gone to sleep, he grips it instead, something to hold on to. Will no one stay awake with me? Peter, John, James? He just sounds broken and like he's about to cry. Which is good. He sings all of Gethsemane sounding like he's on the verge of tears and that's exactly how it should sound, do not at me.

(Please bear with me as I go on about this Gethsemane because it's my favorite one ever at this point, haters to the left)

See, when I first saw this production (I saw the official recording once before I realized it was still on and I could see it live), I didn't really like Ben Forster's Jesus for the first half! He seemed sort of over-the-top and I wasn't the biggest fan of his voice and all in all I was ehhh on him. But then he did "Gethsemane" and I just felt it to my core in a way I'd never felt it before, and it floored me. I've watched and listened to a lot of versions of this song. There are better singers who make it more pleasant to listen to - but they tend to be very dignified and Jesus-y about it, like this poised religious figure just having a brief moment of vulnerability and emotionality. Even the performances specifically praised for being emotional tend to be the ones that just make it really angry. And I've seen a lot of great ones of both varieties! But Ben Forster just makes it so raw and human. Like this terrified, exhausted, desperate human being who's spent the entire preceding hour of this play dreading this thing that's coming, his resolve finally faltering in this moment of agonizing solitude as his doubts and fears and frustrations finally come pouring out, how much he wants to call the whole thing off, begging to either not have to do this or at least be properly convinced why he should. It's what made me properly start to look at Jesus's character progression during this story in the first place and notice all the buildup about his fragile mental state that's always been there in the lyrics. This is the “Gethsemane” that made me really, truly care about Jesus.

he's rubbing the stair again at the beginning of the song, I'm sorry I love fidgets and nervous gestures you guys

I've never heard anyone emphasize three years the way Ben Forster does, and the desperation of it hits me in the heart. Weren't these three years enough?

Let's talk about You're far too keen on where and how, and not so hot on why, which is pretty key to this show’s interpretation of Jesus. He and the Almighty are definitively not the same entity here; Jesus knows or believes he knows a lot of things about how this is all going to play out, and even some of the future beyond that (in "Poor Jerusalem"), but he doesn't actually understand what his death is supposed to accomplish. He knows that he's going to be crucified and it's going to happen because Judas betrays him and so on and so on, and that this is all supposedly very important, and Jesus has been willing to accept that without question, but really he doesn't know the whys here and never has, and as much as he's just never questioned it anyway because of his absolute conviction that this is God’s plan, he can't not do so now, when he's going to have to suffer an agonizing death in the service of these inscrutable goals, not sometime in the vague far future but soon.

(Technically, for all we know, Jesus isn’t the Son of God. God doesn’t answer him; the song is a monologue. Jesus has suspiciously specific knowledge of the future but that’s about it as far as actual concrete evidence of his divinity goes in this show. But what matters is that he believes this is what God wills.)

His initial All right. I'll die. Just watch me die! is so spiteful, only for the following lines to just turn into this anguished scream, and it kills me

I love the way he collapses on the stairs, and just finally breaks down and starts crying, and there's that agitated rubbing of the stair again

The second three years is just exhausted and my heart still breaks for it. These have been a hard three years. Seems like ninety.

Why then am I scared to finish is probably my favorite line in this. He just sounds so broken and desperate and actually scared, and his body language is so tense and agitated and desperate; he's so angry at himself for being scared when this has been the plan all along and for some reason now he just can’t seem to go through with it.

And then he has that realization. What I started? ...What you started. I didn't start it! This isn't his plan. He's just a cog in God's machinery. It's a fixed, unavoidable fate, isn't it? And he finds a kind of desperate acceptance in just thinking of it that way - at least for a moment (before I change my mind!). But it's a spiteful acceptance. He's addressing God now. I will drink your cup of poison, nail me to your cross and break me, bleed me, beat me, kill me, take me now! Because it's you who are doing this. It's your cross, you who are killing me. Note the contrast to earlier: Let them hate me, hit me, hurt me, nail me to their tree. It's not actually the people who are responsible for any of this, even if they’ll technically be the ones to do the deed; it's God's plan, his cross, his crucifixion.

I love how he looks so tense standing there afterwards while the audience is applauding, because he's not actually waiting for applause, he's waiting for the soldiers to arrest him and set him on the path to his execution. Arms spread at first, in a come at me sort of way, but then he just clenches his fists at his sides, eyes closed, still waiting.

There he is. They're all asleep, the fools. Implying Judas wouldn't have just gone to sleep, if he'd been left there. AU where Jesus has literally anyone to comfort him, instead of standing there alone desperately pleading to God to not have him killed. Hnngh.

The kiss is just as it is in the Bible, of course. But there, it's presented as a sort of extra nasty element of this betrayal, that he'd be betrayed with a kiss. Here, it's more like Judas just wants to say goodbye, one last time, and does it in this kind of tender way.

And... Jesus breaks down crying, clings to him, pulls him into a hug. Because of course he does. The reminder that Judas still cares, memories of everything they've been through together, and the knowledge this is probably his last chance at some kind of comforting human contact? Of course he does. He just wants to not be alone, for a few seconds, before the end.

At first Judas just sort of lets him do it, but by the time the soldiers come along to separate them, Judas is clinging to Jesus, too. Ohh, my heart.

The apostles wake up at the commotion and are immediately on their feet to fight off the soldiers. There is not a man among you who knows or cares if I come or go, Jesus said, a few days ago; now here they are, worrying for him, wanting to save him. But he has to stop them. He mustn't be saved, and they'd only get themselves hurt. Put away your sword - don't you see that it's all over? It was nice but now it's gone. That exhausted resignation.

Why are you obsessed with fighting? Stick to fishing from now on. He doesn't sound angry here - it's just kind of a gentle rebuke. He's touched that they tried. I like that he plays it that way; it'd be legit to make it angry, but in the context of how Jesus has spent a lot of time feeling like they don't really care at all and in this moment it finally becomes clearer to him that they do - not to mention that this is basically his final goodbye to them - it makes sense to let it be kind of tender.

From this point on, Jesus has to just quietly accept his fate. He's very silent, barely says anything - because now things just have to play out how they play out, and nothing he says will change anything, nor should change anything.

The reporters asking questions here (to the melody of "The Temple") are one of the relatively few major anachronisms baked into the actual lyrics as opposed to any particular production. They're not really reporters; it's kind of a representation of some of his previous followers watching this as a kind of spectacle, expecting him to make a dramatic escape or fight back, excited by what's happening (you'll just DIE in the high priest's house!), rather than sympathizing or caring. These are the people who are going to ultimately turn against him as a mob and pressure Pilate into crucifying him.

Caiaphas asks if Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus says That's what you say, yet another line based directly on the Bible. Growing up I always just found that kind of a silly thing for him to say - why won't he just stick to his story instead of suddenly acting like he never said such a thing? But it makes real sense here. Again, Jesus is resigned to his fate, to passively letting this happen. He's not going to deny it or try to get out of it, because he can't and mustn't. But he has no desire to speak up about how the rocks and stones will sing for him right now, or actively provoke them and give them more reasons to persecute him. He's just going to stand here and let things happen until it's over.

(also, he probably doesn't really feel so much like the Son of God right now)

Judas, thank you for the victim! Stay a while and you'll see him bleed! In this production, Caiaphas and Annas both say the last sentence together, but originally it's just Annas, which has always led me to feel that where Caiaphas is pure cold pragmatism and just believes this is what needs to be done for the sake of the nation, Annas is bit of a twisted son of a bitch. He's obviously intentionally twisting the knife here, because he thinks Judas's conflictedness about the whole thing is a bit pathetic and hilarious and likes to see him squirm.

(let me complain again about the editor not letting us see Judas's reaction to this line)

Peter's reluctance to throw his phone on the fire is a mood

also him threatening the homeless people with a broken bottle when they keep pressing him on whether he was with Jesus, before Mary takes it off him, is something I enjoy

Pilate and Christ probably takes place at Pilate’s gym in this staging to show Pilate hasn’t even made time for Jesus in an official capacity - he’s just being unexpectedly brought before him in his off time, hence why he’s particularly dismissive here.

Jesus barely looks at Pilate. Another dispassionate That's what you say.

How can someone in your state be so cool about his fate? An amazing thing, this silent king. Of course, Pilate doesn't understand any more than anyone else that Jesus being crucified is the plan. Again, Jesus is just letting this play out.

He does look up when Pilate declares he should go to Herod instead, though. It must be torture for him having this drawn out further. Poor Jesus, having to suffer through a comic relief number when he just wants to get this over with.

Jesus does look at Herod as he's making all these offers of letting him free if he'll just perform a miracle. It's got to be a tempting thought despite everything. But no, he must still sit there and let it happen.

"These results are for entertainment purposes only and do not reflect any real votes. The outcome is predetermined by the character of King Herod who clearly is going to find Jesus guilty of being a fraud otherwise it would be a very short Act 2." Going all the way with that fourth-wall-breaking.

the bit where they put the hood over Jesus's head sure hits some specific button I didn't realize I had

Judas there with his head buried in his hands in the background towards the end of "Could We Start Again Please" ohhhh

I feel like the usual implication with the abrupt opening of "Judas's Death" is that Judas has just been seeing Jesus being beaten, whereas here he's explicitly sitting there with the apostles contemplating what he's done and just gets up and freaks out when Caiaphas and Annas happen to walk by. I like him punching Caiaphas, but the way he just goes from zero to sixty there does feel a little weird. I don't care, though, Judas in the background during "Could We Start Again Please" is worth it.

For all that Judas is mortified by the way Jesus is being made an example of, he can also see the way his name will forever be associated with treachery, and none of his good intentions meant anything at all in the end. He’s wracked with guilt at what he’s done, but additionally all he can see in the future is being vilified and reviled, blamed for Jesus’s murder.

Ugh Annas kicking Judas while he's down he's such a bastard

Tim Minchin goes so all out on making "Judas's Death" just ugly anguished screaming and crying and I am so here for it.

Judas has never believed in the divinity of Jesus, but Jesus has some strange, intense, frightening quality that both Judas and Mary can feel, and just before his final breakdown, although Judas is telling himself that He's a man - he's just a man!, he seems to be starting to feel that that's not quite true: he starts to wonder if Jesus will leave him be after his death, and then right after the "I Don't Know How to Love Him" reprise is where his mental state takes a turn as he realizes God is behind all this, that perhaps the whole thing was planned.

The projecting images of Jesus' torment up onto the background screen as Judas is despairing is also very good - Jesus hasn't even been sentenced yet but he knows where this is headed and he sure is imagining it and feeling responsible for it.

Judas, like Jesus, concludes here that it's God who orchestrated all this and he never got a choice. In his case, though, it's serving as a way of running from his guilt. We got to hear all about his reasons for thinking this was the right thing to do, after all - it's not as if he was literally controlled into anything. He didn't realize he was dooming Jesus to a horrible death at the time, but he still did it of his own free will. And it isn't a real comfort - all it means is that in his final anguished moments he has someone to scream his despair at. You have murdered me!

(hang me from your tree)

the particular scream and sob that he does as he kicks the box out from under him hits my buttons very hard hhhh

Poor old Judas, so long, Judas, goes the Plan chorus. There's a pretty callous quality to that, appropriately enough for a very callous Plan involving a lot of suffering.

Please give my compliments to the sound designer who makes a point of turning on Jesus' microphone so we can hear his strained breathing before "Trial Before Pilate" begins

Jesus's resolve to say nothing of substance is breaking by this point, and he actually answers Pilate's "Where is your kingdom?" I have got no kingdom in this world, I'm through, through, through - there may be a kingdom for me somewhere, if I only knew. It's probably pretty hard to feel like he's headed for a triumphant resurrection right now, and the fact he's spilling those doubts to Pilate in a moment of frustrated honesty is pretty tragic.

(Some versions, including the 1973 movie, change this lyric to if you only knew. No! Bad! The whole point here is Jesus doubting it! If you want to change it you should not be putting on this show!)

Then he's a king? It’s what you say I am! I look for truth and find that I get damned! This frustration coming out here is so good.

Pilate's frustration is very good too - just dripping off every line. This mob of people insisting he sentence this harmless fool to death (one who reminds him uncomfortably of this dream that he had the other day), crowing about Caesar all of a sudden like they're oh so very concerned with protecting Caesar's authority.

As Jesus once again refuses to talk, there’s a brief mournful instrumental interlude before Look at your Jesus Christ - this is a slowed-down version of a bit of “Prescience”, the motif from “Pilate’s Dream”. He remembers that unsettling dream, consciously or unconsciously, and feels sympathy and pity for this strange man before him. After that is when he begins to argue that Jesus hasn’t committed any crime and there’s no reason to kill him.

can we appreciate that Webber and Rice went and made a song called "The 39 Lashes" that's literally just Pilate counting excruciatingly to 39 while Jesus screams in pain

can we also appreciate Jesus writhing on the floor after rolling down the stairs, Ben Forster really goes for it in acting out all this pain and torture and I love him for it

Why do you not speak when I have your life in my hands? asks Pilate, and Jesus just about musters the energy to say, You have nothing in your hands. Any power you have comes to you from far beyond - everything is fixed and you can't change it! He's kind of desperate to make Pilate understand this. Pilate keeps on trying to get Jesus to say something that'll let him release him, but that can't happen, because this must be so. Pilate needs to just play his part and get it over with, please get it over with.

And so, Pilate has to appease the mob and let him die, even though he doesn't want to at all, and tries to wash his hands of it. Much like in his dream, though, he'll in fact be remembered as the guy who sentenced Jesus to death. Clearly didn't wash your hands well enough, Pilate

It's such a delightfully bold creative decision to place an upbeat number like "Superstar" right here as Jesus is about to be crucified.

It's fascinating to see the differences in how this song in particular is staged; it's so abstract and disconnected that different directors really go nuts with it. Some productions, including the 2000 movie, imply Judas has come out of Hell to taunt him; the movie in particular makes a point of having Judas lazily, cruelly stand on the cross while Jesus is trying to carry it, grinning at his agony, surrounded by scantily clad demon women, though he has a moment of doubt and guilt as Jesus stares at him. (That movie generally posits Judas as not in control of his actions at all - so God is apparently basically just making him do this as part of his torture in Hell, which is delightfully twisted.) Others (including this one and the 1973 movie) have him among angels, as if he's descended from Heaven. In the 1973 movie Carl Anderson seems largely to just be singing it to himself - it cuts to Jesus carrying the cross a few times, but Judas isn't there.

Here, "Superstar" feels a bit like a delirious hallucination Jesus is experiencing. Judas descends on the stage lights that are about to form the cross (what an entrance) and performs the song surrounded by angels while Jesus is being affixed to the cross; they look at each other, but Judas doesn't really interact with him. There's definitely no taunting; Tim Minchin plays it in a very good-natured way, not even the kind of angry questioning of Carl Anderson in the 1973 movie. Effectively, despite the hallucinatory vibes, the way it comes across to me is Judas really is actually there in spirit, from a timeless afterlife, having had an eternity to think and come to terms with and understand what Jesus was doing - and finally just asking him some questions, without judgement. Is he what they say he is? What does he think about Buddha and Mohammed? Why didn't he choose a different time period where it would've been easier to spread his message? Did he know his death would inspire millions? It's all a sort of musing, fourth-wall-leaning modern perspective, not hostile, just curious.

Also this version just makes me happy because Judas seems happy and mentally at peace in the afterlife and who doesn't want that

Anyway, from that to Jesus crying on the cross. And I mean crying. Once again Ben Forster delivers the human suffering element of this story. "The Crucifixion" is a weird, weird song, chaotic and noisy and kind of offputting and tends to feel sort of inappropriate for the mood; in this production you don't even notice because the staging is so brutal. There's no cool symbolic dignity to this; Jesus is just crying and screaming and sobbing the whole time, yelling the disconnected final-words lines in an agonized, delirious haze. You actually believe you're watching a man dying in agony, God damn. It hurts and I love it.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? is the most gutwrenching line, of course. (And straight out of the Bible, lest we forget - I think it’s fascinating that in the likely oldest gospel of Mark as well as Matthew, this horrible, heartwrenching, human cry is all he says on the cross, while the gospels of John and Luke instead each feature their own disjoint sets of more profound-sounding sayings. It’s hard not to wonder if the other lines might be inventions by those gospels’ human authors or their sources, people who perhaps just didn’t want Jesus’s final words to be something so achingly desperate and vulnerable.) He's done all this to carry out God's great plan, and yet in this moment, in the middle of this nightmare of slow, unending agony, he feels certain that God has abandoned him and he's just dying, alone, pointlessly, for nothing. Ow, my empathetic heart.

You can hear him feeling death approaching at last and the relief he feels at that realization just before It is finished and Father, into your hands I commend my spirit

(it's easier to believe again when his suffering is finally, mercifully about to end)

Ben Forster also does a very good job not visibly breathing when he's playing a corpse. On this blog we appreciate the little things.

I've always found it pretty neat and interesting that Jesus Christ Superstar does not include the resurrection or any allusion to it at all; he just dies on the cross, they mourn and carry him away, and the show ends. Again, the only thing in this show that’s at all supernatural is that Jesus seems to know the future, and even that is fairly ambiguous. It's a story about human suffering, and it's a hugely compelling story without him rising from the dead at the end, which'd just kind of cheapen it. You can imagine that he did, but this ending invites you to contemplate that this story is just as meaningful if he did not.

In conclusion, Jesus Christ Superstar is one of my absolute favorite things and the 2012 arena tour is my baby

Thank you for coming to my TED talk

#jesus christ superstar #ramble #review #character analysis #my buttons #holy jesus this is long #8500 words of JCS rambling #which is almost as much as I wrote about episode four of Breaking Bad

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