#personally i do believe jade would play engineer

[megaderping]

I feel like when people compare Akechi to Light Yagami, they fundamentally misunderstand his character. Their similarities really end at their designs, and Light is the kind of person Akechi would despise. Light Yagami lives a pretty privileged life at the start of Death Note. He has a stable home, with two parents and a sister who care about him. He's a successful student. There isn't really inherent tragedy to his life. The whole reason he starts using the Death Note is a mix of curiosity and a jaded worldview, and when it works it empowers him, very quickly goes to his head, as he believes he is one who can be a god of a "new world" once the shock of his initial kills wears off. While his first kill was to help someone, that altruism didn't last. He is in charge of his choices, while Ryuk mostly vibes and maybe eggs him on a little. Fundamentally, Light has something Akechi lacks: agency, and a comfortable life he took for granted. Meanwhile, Akechi is someone who lived on the bottom rung of Japanese society. His very existence is shameful there, between his mother being a sex worker, his status as an illegitimate/"throw away" child, and his mother's suicide. Years languishing in a foster system that is notoriously inhumane, in a country where 90% of the adoptions are grown men for inheritance and patriarchal reasons, while very few children in the system find permanent homes. When Akechi awakens his power, he approaches Shido not because he wants to kill people but for a stupid revenge plan cooked up by a traumatized child who's been nudged along by a malevolent god. He wants to build Shido up so that at the height of his power, he can expose him for the monster he really is, while another part of him genuinely wants to be useful to Shido, as Cogkechi later calls out. His feelings are a mess of contradictions, and so it's no surprise that Shido was able to mold him into his assassin at only 15 years old. It's also worth noting that Akechi only approaches Shido with his ability to cause psychotic breakdowns. Shido is the one who teaches and instructs him to do shutdowns. He's still complicit, very sunk cost with his revenge plan, but as I spoke of here, even if he wanted to quit, he couldn't alone. Shido's cleaner and control of the law and ability to effortlessly turn him in would render the Metaverse his only safe haven. I think people look at 11/20 Akechi and Akechi in the early parts of the engine room and assume that's just his "true self," when in reality it's another mask. Royal makes it very clear because in Rank 7, he outright warns Joker of what's to come via a pool metaphor and offers an out (though he's MUCH happier if you don't take it/stick to your principles), and in Rank 8, he goes on that big "I hate you" speech... while Sunset Bridge is playing. Y'know, the song that plays at the end of most confidants to reaffirm bonds. So when he smiles as he shoots what he assumes to be Joker, that doesn't mean he's genuinely happy. More likely, he's an emotional clusterfuck, given he also is disoriented enough to namedrop "Shido-san" over the phone, and in the subsequent meeting with Shido, tells him not to kill the Phantom Thieves and that Morgana is "just a cat." Yes, he says they'll make them fear for the rest of their lives, but remember, he's talking to Shido. The things he says are likely all incredibly calculated to sound appealing to Shido. And when you consider that he planned to utterly destroy Shido's reputation after the election, the "delay" makes even more sense.

Later, Akechi goes on about how the people he induced shutdowns on were deserving of their fates, but I don't think he believes it so much as it's the only way he could convince himself that it was worth it, and given how much society failed him, and given how many of the people he targeted were likely rivals/competitors or rich fucks, I think he'd be less inclined to assume good faith. Kunikazu Okumura was not an innocent little victim, after all. He was one of the people who requested breakdowns and shutdowns the most. I think Akechi enjoyed killing him not because of how it'd hurt Haru, but because of catharsis. Because Okumura is just as monstrous as Shido, so why should he feel remorse? However, I don't believe he feels the same about Wakaba, as when he discusses her with Shido, he mentions how her fate was because she refused to willingly work for him. It's another justification, but I personally think Wakaba's death was the most painful for him because he was effectively making Futaba just like him. That's why I think his reaction to Sae threatening Sojiro's custody was genuine. Anyway, evil grinning Akechi is just another mask, as I said. Keep in mind, this is someone who laments not meeting Joker years ago, someone who Morgana outright points out is lying about his hatred. And that's the thing. Light Yagami, while a really fascinating character, is not someone who had all this childhood suffering or lack of agency. He does not regret his actions in the slightest and goes down due to his own hubris in both the anime and the manga. While you can argue that Ryuk set him up by dropping the Death Note, Light was the one who picked it up and chose to use it. Any nudging from Ryuk didn't coerce Light into doing it because Light seized the opportunity. No, if Light Yagami is like anyone in Persona 5, it's Masayoshi Shido, not Goro Akechi. Both believe they are god/god's chosen, that they are the ones who will reshape the world to their ideals, and to be frank, both use and abuse women to serve their own purposes. Goro Akechi goes down sacrificing himself for the Thieves and pleading with them to stop his father and again in Maruki's reality when he refuses to let Joker accept a gilded prison of a world for his sake when he knows better than anyone what it's like to have no true freedom. If you max his confidant, you see him in the postcredits, leaving his survival entirely possible, and I think it works because at the end of the day, Akechi was meant to be a victim and a foil. Light is a villain protagonist and a cautionary tale. Though its his POV we follow, he isn't someone we're meant to root for, but I definitely don't think enjoying the character is a bad thing at all. He's really interesting! I just think that a lot of the Akechi and Light comparisons are surface level at best.

[incorrect-hs-quotes]

JADE: dont fear boys! the engineer is engi-here!

ROSE: I'm a lesbian.

JADE: engi-queer!

[the-monkey-ruler]

I recently got my friend to start watch Lego Monkie Kid and as we’ve been watching it I’ve been explain Journey To The West to him so he has more info and context for what’s happening in the show (even if everything is not jttw accurate) I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain Erlang to him but I don’t know enough about the guy to really do that could you share some info and cool facts about him?

I would not being doing the man justice even if I were to write him a 50-page essay going into his lore, history, impact, and overall importance to the Chinese mythos. But I shall try to sum it up in a tumble post.

Erlang Shen is one of, if not THE, greatest hero of Heaven and arguably the strongest god in the pantheon. His power and skill are only matched by his intelligence and merit. As such he is the perfect rival and sworn brother of Sun Wukong. An amazing foil to the character (I have talked about their foils here and here and here would even recommend looking at these posts if you want more information about him!)

He is a god with a wide range of responsibilities, including the god of water, the god of hunting, the god of national protection, the god of Cuju, the god of drama, the god of children's protection, the god of farming, etc. He has MANY legends that cover his origins (one being that he is the son of an engineer and helped create waterways) but his most popular legend is without a doubt the one highlighted in Lotus Lantern where he is the son of an unsanctioned marriage between a human Yang Tianyou and a goddess Yunhua Tiannu. This was the most popular version of his mythos, always spread in popularity because of FSYY and Xiyouji, thus further solidifying this as a most well-known and widely accepted background.

Sadly, when Heaven found out about the marriage they attacked in arrested his mother leading to his elder brother Yang Jiao and father being killed. Erlang and his younger sister Yang Chan were able to escape death or capture but his mother Yunhua was put under a mountain for her crimes of abandoning her post and hiding a family. His sister Chan and himself escaped and trained under an immortal master and in a short amount of time, while he was still in his youth as a young man, he became powerful enough to fight his Uncle the Jade Emporer (please keep this in mind that in a few years he fought WITH THE JADE EMPORER to save his mother). Details get fuzzy here as some legends have it that she was saved and others say she died in the crossfire but personally, I think that he freed his mother from her imprisonment.

It is because of this attack that he is known a bit as a rebel and follows his own sense of justice. He never involves himself in conflicts unless he is personally asked or he personally believes that the offender is in the wrong. He understands when Heaven must be questioned but also personally has experienced what it means to break Heaven's laws, seeing how his own mother broke Heaven's rules and this crime led to the death of his father and brother. He is always considered to be one of the most loyal and trustworthy heroes in myth as people worship him for such reasons.

It’s only really when the Lotus Lantern myth that was created far later in his mythos does he get to play the antagonist where his own sister Yang Chan commits the same crime as their mother by marrying a human, abandoning her post, having a child and hiding it. And Erlang has to be in the same role that his uncle was and face the issue of punishing his sister for the crime their mother committed. He leaves her husband and son alive while putting his sister under a mountain and guarding her and this really could show a greater depth of his character how he never really processed his father and brother's death and rather continues the cycle of abuse, which I think could be a very interesting conversation. It makes him really multifaceted in how he responds to seeing his sister repeating their mother's crimes and him resenting his own godhood and what trauma it has caused him. That is getting into my own personal interpretation of the character but in either case, he gets defeated by his nephew Liu Chenxiang (also known to be Wukong's disciple in later interpretations) and his sister freed.

But in regards to Erlang's connection in Xiyouji we see that Wukong is supposed to be in the wrong at the start of the novel. While yes he was being given a lower rank and not invited to the peach party he still trashed the party, ate all the peaches, ate all the immortal pills, drank most of the immortal wine, and waged war on heaven. You can have your own take on right or wrong in this case but Wukong was trying to do all this for his own needs, he wasn't trying to change an oppressive system, rather he was trying to be IN CHARGE of that oppressive system, claiming he wanted to be the new Jade Emporer. This was not a rebellion to put a new order in place, but Wukong forcefully tried to be the head of the same order that was 'oppressing' (I say that loosely) him. (please note that this has changed with modern media to show Wukong as a freedom fighter but this is a newer interpretation). Erlang was never put in charge of the fight against Wukong but rather it was a Hail Mary hope because Erlang Shen could have chosen to deny the order if he didn’t see that it was fair.

Erlang was not going to get involved until Guanyin herself had to convince the Jade Emporer to swallow his pride and ask his nephew. Erlang doesn't get involved in heaven's conflicts easily and must be addressed personally if he were to get involved, and even THEN he has the power to deny the Jade Emporer if he sees fit. But Erlang agrees to fight Wukong, not because he was paid to do so, but because it is believed that he does it out of his own sense of justice and believes Wukong is genuinely in the wrong in this war. They have a battle of equal strength, both pushing their 72 transformation abilities to the limits, the only two in all of heaven with such powers and such the only two in heaven that could fight each other. And while it is hard to say who would win, Laozi used the diamond snare in the middle of the battle to capture Wukong and Erlang and Wukong's battle came to an inconclusive draw.

It is the next time that Wukong and Erlang meet in Xiyouji during the Nine Heads Demons fight and Wukong calls Erlang his sworn brother, saying that he has a huge debt to him. It is believed that Wukong is thanking Erlang to sparing his family on Flower Fruit Mountain instead of following the Nine Generations Rule. This rule has it that any criminal's family was to be executed with the criminal as well and Wukong adopting all his subjects as his family would understand that all 47,000 of his monkeys would also sadly be killed when he was to be executed. The punishment for heavier crimes would not only kill your family, but also to destroy your home and salt the earth, your immediate neighbors would be punished, and even the ministers responsible for the region would be punished and demoted.

However, while Erlang Shen did burn Flower Fruit Mountain we saw that not all of Wukong's family died, meaning that Erlang went against Heaven's law and instead spared what family he could. While you can make your own judgments about the burning, Wukong seems to understand that his family was meant for complete annihilation but saw that rather many of his monkeys were spared and he still had a home to come back to. Whether this is because Erlang Shen knew what it was like to lose a family or that he thought that the Nine Generation Rule was too harsh is hard to say. But in any case, Wukong shows great thanks to Erlang to going against the order and calls him brother in their latest interaction. We rarely get to see gods being in an antagonist role and seeing how both Sun Wukong and Erlang Shen can play both hero and villain depending on what kind of story they are shows not only the complexity and depth of the characters but also shows that these are the most humane gods that are in the heavens, and also why I think they are some of the most iconic, and still beloved figures in media.

In short, Erlang Shen is to be seen as a great and just hero but also is allowed his own human flaws and is just as complex as Wukong if I can so say. He has gone through many changes but his most popular interpretations of him have him show his human side again and again, a god that is to be the most powerful but can never escape that he is a creation of an illegal union. That not matter how high he is in the heavens he never stops being one of the most human gods.

[brian-in-finance]

Photo: Patch Bell

Outlander and Karen Pirie star Lauren Lyle on her self-belief and taking the leap to pursue her dream

Nominated for two awards at the Scottish Baftas this evening, Lauren Lyle promises it will be a celebration no matter the outcome.

The Glasgow actress has grafted hard to enjoy a remarkable rise over recent years, headlined by her first leading role in Karen Pirie, the acclaimed St Andrews-set crime drama based on Val McDermid’s novels.

Next year is set to be the 30-year-old star’s biggest yet, with several leading roles in film and TV, including a second series of Karen Pirie, so now seems like a good time to pause and look back on her career so far.

“I moved to London at 19 and if I’d told myself then that I’d have my own TV show, had done one of the biggest shows in America (Outlander) and would be working all the time, I don’t think I would have believed it,” she smiled.

“I would have thought I’d needed to have done something terrible to have got here, but I just worked really hard. I’m working on a show called Toxic Town for Netflix, which has Rory Kinnear and Jodie Whittaker in it, and I asked both what their secret is. They said they didn’t know, they just keep working, and they’re testament to doing great work and not trying to be famous.

“Rory told me he always wanted to be known for being good, and I’m the same. I’m trying to pick good things and be in quality stuff, things that excite me and getting to work with good people.

“I came to London to audition for drama schools and came close but didn’t get in. I think I’d only been to London once before as a kid but didn’t remember it. I was so hungry for it, and being around other actors in this world was so thrilling and I knew this was what I wanted to do and the place to do it.”

Taking the plunge

Lauren moved into a shared house with four people she hadn’t previously met. She took on several jobs to pay the bills while trying to engineer a break, joining a theatre company and eager to learn.

Photo: Patch Bell

“It was a risk but I put my head down and grafted hard,” she said. “I think I’ve always had deluded confidence that I can do something. My mum is a school PE teacher and I was a gymnast and runner and I’ve always been competitive to win the race, but that’s not helpful at times because there isn’t a finishing line or right answer here; there’s lots of different ways to do this, so I’ve had to put those feelings aside at times.

“I had a big agent for about a year before I got a job, and then two came within two or three weeks of each other – Outlander and Broke, with Sean Bean – and my life changed. I did my tax return for that year and realised I’d done about six jobs – dog walker, flyering, receptionist, in Zara’s stock room for 18 months. Random stuff that I did for ages.

“It was bleak at times but I loved going to the theatre and seeing this life dangled in front of me. It was quite inspiring.”

Karen Pirie

Lauren’s recurring role as Marsali in Outlander was her break, while BBC thriller Vigil, where she played activist Jade, introduced her to a different audience. When Karen Pirie came along last year, she felt ready.

“I’m so proud to be part of the show. It was so well made, beautifully shot, and with a crew who were hungry to be there. It was my first lead and I had creative control around what she looked like and who she was,” Lauren explained.

“The director, Gareth Bryn, writer Emer Kenny – who also executive produced – and myself were constantly in conversation. We all had such a brilliant time, and it was a story that meant something and said something of young women.

“It was about a young woman trying to solve a crime about another young woman, so Karen knew what it’s like to be afraid to walk home alone at night, and how a young person can be underestimated in the workplace and how difficult it can be to prove themselves.”

Photo: ITV

Based on Val McDermid’s novel The Distant Echo – about the cold case investigation of a 19-year-old woman’s death which is reopened and given to DS Karen Pirie after a podcast cast doubt on the original investigation – it was a Sunday night hit for ITV last year.

“Val has been complimentary and incredibly supportive of me,” Lauren continued. “She had to sign off on me playing the character. I was worried if she would be happy with the Methil accent. She visited the set and I prepared myself, but she said I was very good.

“She messaged me on Twitter when the awards nominations were announced and congratulated me and said we would need to go for a drink. I’d love to have a drink with her – I’m sure she would have some great stories!”

Scottish Baftas

The drink will be flowing this evening at the Scottish Baftas in Glasgow where, in addition to Lauren’s two nominations, Karen Pirie is also in the fiction director and scripted television categories.

“The show came out too late for the 2022 awards, but it’s nice that we’ve since announced a second series. We have a big Karen Pirie table. My parents are coming – my dad has a new velvet jacket to go with his tartan troos – as is my boyfriend, who is South-African-Australian, but we’ve recently discovered he has lots of Scottish heritage, so he might wear a kilt, and my agent will be there, too.

“Everyone is dead excited and the whole team is there to celebrate.”

Lauren’s nomination in the Audience Award category sees her vying with Brian Cox, Lewis Capaldi, Tony Curran, Hamza Yassin and Meryl Williams.

“To be in a category with Brian, Lewis and the legend that is Meryl from The Traitors, I feel that’s the only time in my life this will happen. I’m tempted to say to Brian that if he ever needs me to play his granddaughter or daughter, I’m here. Someone should cast us all as a family.”

New projects

With a second series of Karen Pirie expected to start shooting early next year and a rumoured return for the final series of Outlander – “we may be talking, who knows” is all Lauren will say – 2024 will be another busy one for her.

She will follow up her first starring role in a movie, Mercy Falls, which was released earlier this month, with another two movies to be released next year – thriller Something In The Water and The Outrun, with Saoirse Ronan and Jack Lowden.

Photo: Robert Wilson / Starz

“We filmed Something In The Water in the Dominican Republic. It’s like Bridesmaids but a thriller. The Outrun was filmed on Orkney. Saoirse and Jack saw me in Vigil and asked if I’d be part of this film, which is the first from their production company.

“I had to get the Orkney accent just right. At the first read-through, Amy Liptrot, the writer of the book it’s based on, said it needed to be a bit less Shetland and a bit more Orkney, so I went away and made sure it was right.

“Everyone was so welcoming on Orkney. The beaches were ridiculous. I was stung by a weever fish, which apparently is an unusual thing to happen. My foot was on fire for a day.

“I’ve also been making Toxic Town, a new series for Netflix which is about the Corby poisonings, one of the UK’s biggest environmental scandals, which no-one really knows about. It’s about mothers in a David vs Goliath battle for justice, and I’m wearing lots of ‘90s and ‘00s power suits.

“As well as Jodie and Rory, it has people like Aimee Lou Wood from Sex Education, Joe Dempsie from Skins, Claudia Jessie from Bridgerton, Michael Socha from This Is England, and Robert Carlyle, who is the nicest man in the world.”

Shooting in Scotland

Despite living in London, Lauren finds many of her jobs are being shot in Scotland, which she’s happy to see.

“Nowhere looks like Scotland and a lot of productions are coming here for that reason,” she added. “It’s really cool to see it happening and it’s a testament to the quality of workers you get here.

“Plus, it gives me a free trip home to see my family.”

Photo: Stuart Wallace / Shutterstock

At last year’s Scottish Baftas, Dunkirk and The Gold actor Jack Lowden spoke glowingly about Lauren Lyle.

The pair have since become friends and colleagues, and Lauren is keen to support new talent coming through in Scotland just as Jack did with her.

Speaking about this evening’s Scottish Baftas, Lauren said: “Me and Jack were talking about how great it is to get a lot of Scots in a room to congratulate each other, all these people doing well from this proud place, on international stages representing our country, heritage and culture, which we’re so proud of.

“It’s a great opportunity to shake everyone’s hands and say ‘aren’t we an amazing team?’

“I want to know who the other young people are. We’d like to be able to speak to the younger Scottish actors and welcome them in. Jack did that with me – talking about me, being supportive and asking me to be part of his film. I don’t know if we’d met at the point he spoke about me at the Scottish Baftas. I was very flattered.

“He and Saoirse have been really cool and supportive, and I hope to do the same at some point. With season two of Karen Pirie coming, I message its writer, Emer Kenny, and tell her to keep an eye out for this guy and this girl.”

Remember… she will follow up her first starring role in a movie, Mercy Falls, which was released earlier this month, with another two movies to be released next year – thriller Something In The Water and The Outrun, with Saoirse Ronan and Jack Lowden. — The Sunday Post

[daily-rayless]

Late but I'm gonna be MAXIMUM PREDICTABLE and ask about Van for the character meme.

Honestly, it's never late, not when it comes to talking about characters.

Van it is!

Favorite thing about him:

When I first played Abyss in 2008, I liked Van well enough as an antagonist but didn't pay him much attention. But as time's gone by and I've played more and more JRPGs, I've come to appreciate what a well-written villain he actually is, particularly in that he's so connected to so many of the party members. That adds a lot of emotional weight to the larger conflict about the Score, which, on its own, would feel pretty abstract and unrelatable. Having Van be Luke's and Asch's teacher, Guy's childhood friend, Anise's and Ion's colleague, Tear's brother, and a combined researcher/test subject in the field of science Jade developed and now hates, makes everything feel very personal. I feel like a lot of games don't try that hard when it comes to establishing emotional, personal stakes with the main villain, so I think that has to be my favorite thing about him. Runners up would be the piercing long-lashed blue eyes, just as a pretty design choice and to serve as an immediate visual link with Tear. And also the name -- there's a real art to creating made-up fantasy names, and sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't, but the cadence of Vandesdelca Musto Fende sounds very believable to me. I think it's...trochaic tetrameter? Is that right? You could slip it anywhere into "The Song of Hiawatha" and no one would notice.

Least favorite thing about him?

This is going to sound silly, seeing as we are talking about a villain, but calling Luke a "foolish replica" is so... come on, Van. It's so mean and small-spirited. Van is a person who's able to respect his enemies (like the elderly engineers) and those who dissent from him (Asch and Ion). He reserves his scorn for people he deems weak, like Spinoza. So I guess it makes sense that he scorns Luke, because Luke is pretty weak at that point. But who helped make him that way? I see you, Van, at the start of the game, just smiling and nodding at the things Luke says. Van didn't try to make Luke strong because it wouldn't serve him for Luke to be strong, and then he denigrates Luke for it. (Granted, more people than just Van, including Guy and Natalia, were also feeding into Luke's immaturity.) Van creating Luke just to kill him? Real bad. Van creating Luke just to kill him and then calling him a really mean name? Real bad and petty, and, given Van's behavior throughout the game, I expect more from him. Though I do see how it serves the narrative, as it's such a contrast to the end of the game, where Van would be glad to have Luke assist him.

Favorite line?

I will always come back to the optional Natalia fight and Van telling her "I will bury you as an offering to Asch." I feel like there's a lot to unpack in that line -- it's the first, only time we see Van display such strong emotion towards Natalia, someone he's presumably known for years. He clearly says it to hurt her. It's arguable how he means it on the Asch side -- would he make her "an offering" to spit on Asch's legacy, or would he do it as some twisted form of respect? But there's another (similar) line on the main story I really like too, right towards the end of the game where Van's body has been restored and the final fonstone has been read. Then Van turn to the party: "Step across the sea of corpses and make your way to me...Asch...and Luke." First off, we have Van acknowledging Luke as a viable player in what's about to happen. Secondly, I think it's interesting that Van sets himself up in a passive role -- he's the endpoint of the quest, he's the reward waiting around for someone else to get to him. You could say he's set himself up as a final test, as a teacher would. Thirdly, he's acknowledging it's going to be a bloodbath and he's fine with that, it just makes it a good villain moment. And fourthly, the drama of "sea of corpses". You can see why Dist likes Van, he has a good dramatic flair, not overblown, but there enough to keep things fun.

brOTP:

Probably canonically, the closest thing he has is Guy. But I feel like, given how their lives have diverged and how little time they spend together (along with the six-year age-grap, and Van probably being absent for most of Guy's most important developmental years), Van and Guy feel more like relatives than friends. Relatives in that they care about each other, they're always going to be in each others' lives. But they don't keep up too much on each others' day to day lives and interests. (Otherwise, how could Van have hidden his plans so perfectly from Guy?) And I think Asch wants that kind of closeness with Van, and possibly for a time deludes himself into thinking they have it, but I think there's too much deception and manipulation coming from Van's side to allow me to think of them as bros. I could imagine a younger Van, before he became commandant, becoming friends with another Oracle knight, maybe another man, maybe not. And this friend is on the outside of Van's plans, so Van doesn't have to exert any manipulation, and they get to be normal together, not literally planning the total upheaval of the world. I could imagine an arc where Van got close to this person, only to reach a point where he asked himself, "But what does it matter? [Friend] will have to die -- I need to get some distance." Or maybe, "If [Friend] knew the truth of what I'm doing, this would end anyway." Or maybe the youthful Van tried to recruit this person, his first God-General, and was rejected? Just adding to his bitterness. But yeah -- among the canon characters, I'm not sure Van's in a position where he can have that close, equal friendship. He cannot achieve bro-ness.

OTP:

I don't have a Van OTP. I think I've always felt he's way too focused on other things for love. I think my assumption would be that during the game, he's not romantically involved, and if he's sexually involved with someone, it's either very casual or strictly business. But if I were to pick a shipmate... I mean, Largo does make a lot of sense. Van seems to trust Largo, which implies respect, and Largo makes his own respect and admiration very clear -- I think, in fact, Largo is surprisingly dependent on Van for his sense of identity (being Largo rather than Badaq) and for any feeling of having meaning in his life after the destruction of his family. I suppose Van and Guy could also be an interesting angle of approach due to their shared history, and the way Guy parallels Van in his own relationship with Luke. And then Van and Jade also operate as foils. As for the women in the cast, none of them immediately suggests herself. I think he and Cantabile have some animosity in their past. Maybe there was something there?

nOTP:

Ah, you noticed a glaring omission in my last answer? Yeah. For some reason, VanLegretta has always put me off. I don't have any moral opposition to it, and I don't really have a reason rooted in the story or characters for why it bothers me. I don't question anyone else for liking it, I'll happily read fic that includes it, and I don't even dislike it that much. But, for as long as I've been playing Abyss, the pairing mildly but consistently irks me. It may be that having the main female antagonist be romantically involved with the main male antagonist is an overused trope in JRPGS -- I can think of Antenora in Wild Arms 2, Violetta in Grandia 3, (possibly) Sarah in Suikoden 3 just off the top of my head -- so does it just feel too tropey to me? But most of my favorite ships are extremely tropey, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I don't know. It doesn't work for me, though Legretta being in love with him against her will is at least an interesting element.

Random headcanon:

I don't think I have any? I like to imagine him being the one to give Tear their mother's pendant. As morally dark as Van is, I like that he's still very capable of that kind of sweetness and gentleness. It makes him feel more real.

Unpopular opinion:

I know there are lots of polarizing things to say about Van, but I'm going to be really pointless and say that something that's always bothered me are his brown fingerless gloves. I just think they look kind of bad with his gray sleeves, and they're distracting. They don't look polished and professional enough for the commandant of an army. (Oh, and the shoulder spikes do?) I would've picked something else. He looks better as an eldritch mutated half-Lorelei horror. He might have feathers coming out of his arm, but at least he doesn't have the gloves.

Song I associate with him:

Oh, this is cheating by picking someone else's, but I've always liked how this one fan took Within Temptation's "Hand of Sorrow" and connected it to Luke, Asch, and Van all together. Again, it underlines how closely tied into the heroes' backstories and the game's central themes Van himself is.

Favorite picture of him:

I like his hair-down surfer look in Rays, but for my favorite, I'll say this panel from the Asch manga. (Apologies for the curvature of the page.)

This is a scene where the manga improves on the game. It's much more intense and visceral (hello bonus violent silhouettes with Van being extra spiky), and the personal aspect of Asch's and Van's conflict is front and center. This isn't just an argument about philosophy or ethics, it's an argument between a master and a student who have worked closely together for years. I really like how Van seems not only immovable in that panel, but he's also -- still. No matter what Asch tries to do, no matter how quick and violent he can be, Van's standing at the eye of his storm -- Van is the eye of his storm, quiet, unchanging in his purpose.

Thanks for the ask, I enjoyed this one a lot!

Meme taken from here.

[queerestqueertoeverqueer]

every quote used in the bbcdoctorwho countdown

i don't know why i felt the need to make this when they started the countdown, but i did and it's been sat in my drafts for a month, so here :,) i cannot believe this is actually coming to an end <33

S11E1 - "I'm just a traveller. Sometimes I see things need fixing, I do what I can" (Thirteen -> Yaz)

S11E2 - "Oh, you've redecorated... I really like it!" (Thirteen -> The TARDIS)

S11E3 - "She changed the world. In fact, she changed the universe" (Thirteen -> The Fam)

S11E4 - "Something's happening with the spiders in the city... They're out of control!" (Jade -> Thirteen)

S11E5 - "A doctor of medicine?" "Well, medicine, science, engineering, candyfloss, Lego, philosophy, music, problems, people, hope. Mostly hope" (Mabli -> Thirteen, Thirteen -> Mabli)

S11E6 - "Love, in all its forms, is the most powerful weapon we have - because love is a form of hope, and like hope, love abides in the face of everything" ❤❤ (Thirteen -> Prem & Umbreen)

S11E7 - "Welcome to another rewarding shift at Kerblam!, fulfilling orders from the human colony of Kandoka!"📦 (The System -> The Fam)

S11E8 - "It's a very flat team structure"🧙‍♀️ (Thirteen -> Willa / Graham -> King James)

S11E9 - "You want the same thing you've always wanted - to be with us! So you've built a world you thought we'd like, and taken forms we won't reject" (Thirteen -> The Solitract)

S11E10 - "None of us know for sure what's out there. That's why we keep looking. Keep your faith. Travel hopefully. The universe will surprise you... constantly!"💥 (Thirteen -> Paltraki, Depth, Andinio)

S11E11 - "This is the DNA of the most dangerous creature in the universe..."🧬 (Thirteen -> The Fam) S12E1 - "Everything that you think you know... is a lie!"🤯 (The Master -> Thirteen)

S12E2 - "When did you last go home? You should really take a look..."🪐 (The Master -> Thirteen)

S12E3 - "People can save planets, or wreck them. That's the choice. Be the best of humanity"🌍 (Thirteen -> The Fam)

S12E4 - "Let them talk, the present is theirs. I work for the future. And the future is mine" 💡 (Nikola -> Thirteen & Yaz)

S12E5 - "Let me take it from the top - Hello, I'm the Doctor" 👯‍♀️ (Ruth -> Thirteen)

S12E6 - "Ryan Sinclair picks up a dead bird in Peru, and might just have saved the world!"🌊 (Thirteen -> Ryan)

S12E7 - "We immortals need our games, Doctor. Eternity is long, and we are cursed to see it all"🖐 (Zellin -> Thirteen)

S12E8 - "Sometimes this team structure isn't flat. It's mountainous, with me at the summit, in the stratosphere alone, left to choose"🤖 (Thirteen -> The Fam)

S12E9 - "Be afraid, Doctor. Because everything is about to change... forever"👀 (The Master -> Thirteen)

S12E10 - "No time to be tired. Still work to do out there. Lives at stake. Armies being born. People need the Doctor"🪐 (Ruth -> Thirteen)

S12E11 - "Two hearts. One happy, one sad" ❤💔(Thirteen -> The Fam) S13E1 - "I can feel it all. I can feel the universe breaking..."💥 (Thirteen -> Yaz)

S13E2 - "I accept your offer of a massacre!" 🥔 (Skaak -> The General)

S13E3 - “You have put yourself at risk in here, Doctor. Time is playing games with you all...” ⏳ (Mouri - Thirteen)

S13E4 - "You are recalled... to Division" (Claire -> Thirteen)

S13E5 - "You, me, and the end of the universe - it's personal now. And I'm gonna win!"💥 (Thirteen -> Swarm)

S13E6 - "Nothing is forever. No regeneration... no life" ⏱ (Time -> Thirteen)

S13E7 - "Come on you brilliant humans! We go again, and we win"🎆 (Thirteen -> Yaz, Dan, Sarah, Nick)

S13E8 - "I wish this would go on forever..." 🏴‍☠️ (Thirteen -> Yaz)

[singsweetmelodies]

wait...........piarles 10 things au...... this idea is rotating in my brain PLS elaborate.

I feel like Patrick has to be Pierre? (bc rugged lil bitch (affectionate)) but also I cannot imagine Pierre ever doing something like that to Charles (as Kat) so please please please let me study your brain!! if anyone can get me to believe a characterization its you

well HELLO darling anon!! 😘 about the 10 Things AU - we've been chatting about it on the discord a bit, and i see 2 possible ways it could go.

one is, like you & i both initially envisioned, the version where pierre is patrick and charles is kat.

you see it, right? 🤭

as to the "but pierre wouldn't do that to charles" aspect of it all... well, to make it work, i think we'd have to go with a scenario where pierre doesn't know charles at all, and he's in a bit of a fuckboy era, so getting told to take out a pretty boy for a bit of cash sounds like the perfect deal to him.

(in this version of the au, charles would be a bit less of a sharp kat stratford figure and more of a "my dickhead footballer ex broke my heart so now i'd rather play piano than have anything to do with more boys." not that he'd be a weak character in any way - certainly, he'd give pierre QUITE a piece of his mind when pierre tries to pull the moves on him - but he wouldn't be quite as, well, bitchy as kat stratford is in the original, because that's simply not who charles leclerc is. in his own words - he is nice.)

anyways. so we have defensive, closed-off (but very endearing) musician!charles in this au, and fuckboy footballer pierre who initially gets paid to take him out - but when charles turns him down, he gets intrigued beyond the initial bet, and it becomes a personal challenge to him to get charles to go out with him. he's super competitive (as is charles) so of course it becomes a whole thing between them, until finally they mutually fall for each other. the paintball scene DEFINITELY features.

and, yes, there would be a scene where charles finds out that pierre was paid to take him out - and he's heartbroken, while pierre feels like the worst asshole in the world. because, yeah, it may have started out because of the bet, but it became so much more than that, and charles actually means everything to pierre now, and and and -

and, they kiss and make up, and pierre sneaks charles into a recording studio somehow as his grand apology gesture, and then they finally live happily ever after <3333

so it wouldn't be an exact 10 Things au - more just inspired by the excellent vibes & some plot details. and, you know, the infamous paintball scene.

but as i said - this is only one version of the au. there is another, as suggested by the brilliant mar @pinkierre, wherein pierre is kat and charles is patrick.

as mar pointed out: pierre is actually kinda the perfect casting for kat stratford?! he's snarky, sassy, and a little more openly jaded than charles is, so i believe he actually would deliver some of those zinger one-liners kat stratford is infamous for.

COME ON. there's a vision there, yeah?

and as mar also pointed out, charles would TOTALLY sing & dance a song for pierre on the bleachers to win him back. he would.

also, yuki would be the little brother in this scenario, and liam the one who hires charles to date pierre.

speaking of charles! charles... would be considerably less sweet than we traditionally characterise him. but this is not completely OOC, either - if you look at some interviews of teenager!charles... this boy was SAVAGE, and he did not give a single fuck. the only thing he really cared about was karting, and if we make that his motivation in this au too... well, maybe he needed some of liam's money for a new engine, or parts of some sort, or something. and he cared more about karting than he did about some sharp-tongued pretty boy.

but MAYBE, once he's tried & failed the traditional flirting moves - pierre, in no uncertain terms, informs charles that he is a TERRIBLE flirt, and he's lucky he's gorgeous otherwise nobody would ever go out with him - after that, charles tries a different tack, because he needs this money, and that's when he realises that pierre likes karting too, and has the same sense of humour as he does, and is just as competitive as him. and then they start to get along, and slowly fall in love, and then the rest is history!

this isn't the piarles dynamic i usually write, but imagine pierre with all his single-minded focus and passion dedicated to academics... and charles who's a bit less fussed about academics in favour of adventure & adrenaline. smash the two of them together!!

OMG. imagine now the party scene... pierre having a bit too much to drink, charles helping him out, the "your eyes have bits of green in them...!" it just fits so WELL, right? it could be so fun, omg.

so YEAH! those are the two options i (with some input from the brilliant minds on discord) can envision for a piarles 10 Things au. i think that both versions would be DELICIOUS fics, and if i didn't have a WIP list longer than charles' new ferrari contract, i'd definitely be adding it to my list of things to write 🙏

as it stands, though, this one will probably just remain a daydream... but OH, my gosh, what a delightful daydream!!

[metalandmagi]

Winter 2021 Anime Worth Watching!

Since 2020 basically sacrificed itself to give us the most stacked anime season of all time, I’m currently buried under the weight of almost 20 shows airing per week. So for anyone who’s looking for some anime to watch this winter, here’s some first impressions! I’m speed running my list this time by only talking about the new shows...because otherwise this would be my great American novel. 

If anyone’s interested, I have master lists for both 2020 anime and 2019 anime, because there’s no shortage of fun things to find. 

New Shows!

And before anyone asks, So I’m A Spider, So What? isn’t on here, because CG spiders freak me out.

Cells At Work Code Black: This...less comedic spin off of Cells At Work (made by a different studio) takes the wholesome concept of Osmosis Jones meets cute anime girls and turns it on its head. In this much more depressing version, we follow a rookie red blood cell who works in the body of an overly stressed, alcoholic smoker who puts every strain on the body imaginable. I love Red Blood Cell AA2153 and his co-workers, but man am I glad we get the regular Cells At Work airing this season too, because I need something fun and uplifting after seeing my sweet son go through hell every episode. 

*Heaven’s Design Team: Have you ever wondered how God came up with some of the weird ass animals that live on this planet? Like, what’s the deal with giraffes? And why can’t we have dragons and flying horses? Well this is a comedy about the engineers and designers in heaven creating the new animals that are going to inhabit the Earth. That’s it, that’s the show. It’s kind of in the same vein as Cells At Work, having comedy blend with a surprising amount of educational information. If you want something light and funny, this is the show for you (though I don’t think it needs to have full length episodes). I’m just hoping there’s an episode about how the hell the platypus was created. Also it’s the only new one available on Crunchyroll.

Horimiya: A romantic comedy about a girl named Hori who fits the image of a perfect queen bee and a quiet bespectacled boy named Miyamura who never makes an impression at school. When the two meet by chance outside of the classroom, we see that Hori is practically raising a younger brother by herself, and Miyamura is actually a sweet guy who happens to be covered in tattoos and piercings. This show is an exercise in breaking down the images people have of others in their minds, and it’s a concept that really hits home in a fun and meaningful way. Honestly, this has become one of my immediate favorites. The characters have great chemistry, and I can’t wait to see more of them!

Monster Incidents (Kemono Jihen): When big shot Tokyo detective Inugami is called to a rural town to investigate a series of strange animal deaths, he finds a mysterious boy with the nickname Dorotabo who has been shunned by the other children in town. As the detective gets closer to Dorotabo, he discovers that there may be more...inhuman secrets to the boy than he realizes...and Dorotabo discovers that Inugami has some secrets of his own. This is a hard show to sell without spoiling the first episode, but it had twists and turns that kept me engaged from start to finish. I’m really interested to see where the plot goes, because I thought this was going to be something totally different just from the PV and series summary. If it plays its cards right, this could be a great paranormal detective show!

Wonder Egg Priority: A psychological drama about a girl named Ai who starts having dreams about a mysterious egg that promises to give her what she wants most in the world...a true friend. Before long, she begins to see how the dream world and reality are tied together, and trippy antics ensue. It’s hard to say more without spoiling anything, but I had to go back and add this one in because I made the mistake of thinking it was an OVA when it’s actually a full series. And what a series it’s starting out to be. This anime has all the psychological discomfort of a Satoshi Kon product with the beauty and style of something from Kyoani (even though it’s made by Clover Works). It’s really one of those anime you just have to see to understand.

Sk8-∞ (Skate the infinity): An original skateboarding anime from Bones, featuring a typical sports anime protagonist who takes a new transfer student who has never skateboarded in his life under his wing. Together they compete in dangerous races and take the skating community by storm. The character designs rival Appare Ranman’s in outlandish creativity, and I can smell the main characters’ ship dynamic a mile away (considering they’re exactly the same as the protagonists from Robihachi). If you’re looking for some wild and crazy fun with top notch skateboarding animation, don’t skip this!

2.43: Seiin Koukou Danshi Volley-bu (Seiin High School Boys Volleyball Club): Yes, it’s another volleyball anime. And no, it’s not just a clone of Haikyu. This story follows Yuni Kuroba, a physically built but emotionally weak teenager who finds out his childhood friend Hajime is moving back to their hometown for high school. Yuni discovers Hajime has become an exceptional volleyball player and they join their school’s volleyball club hoping to turn the unknown team into a rising star. If anything, this anime is much more like Stars Align or Free, where the sport is a backdrop for letting the characters explore their personal problems. Or at least it seems that way after the first episode. I went into this show ready to throw it in the trash because how could anything compete against my beloved Haikyu, but I found myself really enjoying the dynamics of the main duo and I’m curious to see what the rest of the team is like.

And speaking of sports anime rip-offs…..I can’t believe I’m including this but…

Skate Leading Stars: The show where the animators clearly wanted to design another throw away idol anime but saw how popular Yuri On Ice was so they decided to make whatever the hell this show is instead. It revolves around a fictional team sport called skate leading, and we follow the world’s most insufferable main character, a former figure skater named Kensei who wants to return to the ice and join his school’s skate leading team after he finds out his childhood rival is going to compete in the sport. Look, this show is just trashy enough to get a certain type of audience hooked, and it mainly has to do with the best boy of the winter season, Hayato Sasugai, the aspiring team “coach” who pulled most of us into watching this show with his punk appearance, snide comments and smug personality. He’s basically the lovechild of Izaya Orihara and Shizuo Heiwajima in a high school sports anime setting. The show treats itself with the perfect amount of sincerity to get away with being absolutely ridiculous most of the time without making you feel like you’re watching it from a dumpster...like Try Knights. You will know after one episode whether this show is for you. All I can say is, Hayato is worth the watch, and I haven’t seen any 3D animation used for the skating scenes (yet) so that’s a win for me. 

Honorable mention:

Jobless Reincarnation ( Mushoku Tensei): Yet another isekai where the main character is hit by a car (big surprise) and gets reincarnated into a fantasy world...but he happens to remember his previous life and narrates himself growing up as a jaded adult. I’m only including this because it looked amazing animation wise, and I love the opening where getting hit by a car and dying is actually traumatic. And I love the protagonist’s parents (who are retired adventurers who just want to bang all the time). But honestly...the main character is the fucking worst, and I don’t know if I want to keep watching it because of how creepy and weird he is. Like...he’s the hit on your fantasy mom as a baby kind of creepy and weird. But for anyone who wants a cool looking isekai that had an amazing PV, it’s worth checking out. 

Continuing Series!

Because the real gold of the season is in all the established anime getting their next seasons, I’m just going to list some of the things that are also amazing and definitely worth checking out if you haven’t already (because I’ve already talked about most of them at some point and don’t know what else to say).

Attack On Titan season 4

The Promised Neverland season 2

Beastars season 2

Log Horizon season 3

That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime season 2

Re: Zero season 2 (second cour)

Dr. Stone season 2

Cells at Work season 2

Osomatsu-san season 3 (second cour)

Higurashi New (second cour)

Jujutsu Kaisen (second cour) 

Not to mention all the shows I don’t watch that everyone else loves...like World Trigger (which I have seen quite a bit of, but long shounen shows are too much for me now) Quintessential Quintuplets, and Non Non Biyori. 

So there’s just some of all the anime airing this season. Hopefully, someone can find something they like. Here’s to a great year...well, of anime at least...

[dgcatanisiri]

Tried to make a brief summary of the issues of Mass Effect Andromeda’s handling of queer men and how it relates to why we’re (broad use here) upset with the Legendary Edition failing to provide better representation than the originals, and it kinda turned in to what amounts to an open letter for BioWare.

So, what the heck, here it is.

A little personal background. I spent my high school life completely in the closet. After graduating, I had a new computer and the opportunity to play a new game. The game chosen was BioWare’s Jade Empire. Still a fairly recent release, and I was a big fan of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, also by BioWare. So, being a young gay man, still uncomfortable and uncertain of who I was, I was very excited when I got to play this game that would allow me to play a gay romance, a romance that featured two men. I burned through two playthroughs of the game within less than a week, enjoying that rush of acknowledgement that yes, gay guys could be the hero. It was a massive affirmation for me at the time, something that said that my sexuality was not going to prevent me from being the hero, which legitimately was a message that I felt like most media was giving me to that point, because gay men barely appeared in anything other than guest roles for an episode or two on a TV show, but certainly not in video games. That game, that experience... I’ve said for years that it had cemented me as a BioWare fan for life.

If I say that now, it is a statement with a few caveats.

The history of the failure of Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 to provide any male/male romances is well documented. I was excited, very eager to romance Kaidan Alenko in Mass Effect 3. But even then, I noticed that there were things that were lacking in the romance. It was noticeable, for instance, that the basic dialogue between male Shepard and female Shepard was unchanged, if either was starting a new romance with Kaidan. The thing that always felt... WRONG about that was that if I’d had the option to begin a romance with him in the first game, I would have. Yet there’s not even a bit of dialogue that even references that inability, no comment of “I didn’t think you were available,” or anything of the sort, nothing to say that, say, Shepard was interested in Kaidan at the time, but didn’t believe he’d be receptive, didn’t want to damage their friendship, something of the sort. There was even a cut in the romance scene, where female Shepard will sit in Kaidan’s lap before being lifted up and carried to the bed, but with male Shepard and Kaidan, just fades to black. And then in the Citadel DLC, while all the other pairings walked in to the casino arm in arm, male Shepard and Kaidan are leaving plenty of room between them. There’s also the absence of any cuddling as they return to the Normandy.

To say nothing of the lack of Steve Cortez during the story segments of Citadel – he is not part of the big team entrance to the apartment, just spontaneously appears in the lounge room. He doesn’t participate in the briefings, and he is not a casino date, despite being part of the assembled team. Cortez also suffers from the fact that his romance spends so much time on how he needs to move on from the death of his husband, Shepard can come across as predatory towards him, trying to push him out of his grief and his pants. Due to the lateness of his arrival in the story, in game three, as opposed to game one or two, there is significantly less time to establish him as a person – beyond his past as a pilot and the death of his husband, we gain almost no concept of his personality or personal history.

I bring all of this up to help set the stage of what was expected when Mass Effect Andromeda was nearing release. Mass Effect had been full of problems of representation of queer men specifically (not that they were perfect on the count of female/female relationships either, because there’s plenty to talk about there, but as I’m not a lesbian or bisexual woman, I don’t feel comfortable talking about their experiences for them). While there were flaws, Dragon Age, what is often considered Mass Effect’s sister franchise, HAD managed to provide male/male romances in every iteration of that franchise.

In fact, considering that Dragon Age’s most recent installment, Dragon Age Inquisition, had been put out with a lot of fanfare about the first gay male companion, who was considered rather popular in the fandom, and the game itself receiving the Game of the Year award that year, indicating that, if there was any risk in the business sense of providing representation of queer men, it was negligible at most in the bottom line of that game, the attitude of a lot of gay men in the lead up to Andromeda’s release was some variation of “okay, Mass Effect has been flawed, but BioWare’s learned from their past mistakes, and they’re coming off the heels of a hugely successful game that had a gay character whose gayness was front and center in his storyline... We can expect that things will be fine, and we don’t have to worry.” That was the dominant attitude I found in a lot of my queer-oriented spaces.

But we started getting uncomfortable as the developers remained cagey about romance options in Andromeda – there were Twitter responses to “we’re concerned about Mass Effect’s history of gay representation, we would like to know about the options” that came out as “we checked and yep! They’re there!” These responses came across as flippant and even tone-deaf – the reason that the question was being asked was because of prior failures to be included, and not simply a desire to get all the details before launch.

As the trailers started coming out, the questions continued from the fans, and the response from the developers... continued to be uncomfortable. When asked directly for a listing of romances prior to release, the response was that the developers wanted players to learn as they played, that “the fun is in experiencing it!” This was a specific response when it was learned that the romance options could be flirted with regardless of orientation, but they would shut it down. Despite the fact that the trailers DID include content from certain romances – specifically, the male Ryder/Cora and male Ryder/Peebee romances.

This was uncomfortable for a lot of queer players like myself because it spoke to a lack of consideration of what it is like to be queer. In many places, it is a serious question of safety to even put yourself out there to find a partner, to flirt with someone openly unless you are already certain that there is a chance for a positive response. There are places where a queer person flirting with the wrong person can get them harassed, assaulted, even killed for doing so. Even in the safety of a virtual construct of video games, these are honed instincts that queer people have developed. And no matter how many times we would say this to the developers, no one seemed to understand. Likewise, the fact that the trailers felt free to show off heterosexual romances, but not queer ones felt... questionable.

Then, finally, firm details started coming out, and... There were problems. Early data-mining said that there was an even split of romances between orientations. But there was a bit of discomfort around the reveal that the gay characters, Suvi and Gil, were limited to the ship, rather than being companions who would accompany Ryder on missions. There is a history of companions being given more involved storylines and involvement than secondary characters. It also didn’t help the disappointment from queer people who’d been eager for Cora or Liam as romances, who were firmly established as straight (Cora herself had a popular lesbian following).

That discomfort increased when it came out further that, ACTUALLY, Jaal would not be available for Male Ryder. This caused a lot of upset. Now it was a case where there was NO M/M squadmate romance option. This on top of the group of fans who were uncomfortable with the idea that, in a sci-fi series, gay men couldn’t romance an alien, while this had become a staple of the series, considering Liara, the character from a species described as equivalent to Star Trek green-skinned Orion girls, had been available for straight men and lesbian/bi women from ME1, and straight women got in on the act with Garrus and Thane in ME2, on top of straight men also getting Tali.

This got worse when the achievement listing for the game was released and there was an achievement for “romancing three different characters.” Meaning that it was absolutely impossible for a gay man to play the game and get this achievement without playing a sexuality other than his own.

This is why I led with my experience with Jade Empire, why it was so affirming to me. Because to hear all this, ten years later, to see what had been so affirming to me a decade prior be functionally dismissed, be shown to take a secondary position at best... It hurt.

And the game proper did not help that feeling at all.

So first we meet Gil Brodie. Engineer of the Tempest. One of the first things we learn about him is that he has a close friendship with a woman named Jill. And then he immediately tells us that one) she is a fertility specialist, and two) she “says [he’s] part of the problem” because he won’t have kids the natural way. This is immediately setting off red flags to me – I can think of plenty of my friendships where we give one another grief for various things, but I would never think of introducing any of them to someone else with that fact. So my reflexive thought in this situation is “what kind of a friend is this really?”

And then, as the game goes on... This is the only thing that Gil’s conversations involve, the prospect of having kids. We do not learn much more about him, just have him talking about considering the idea. The lock-in for his romance requires Ryder to meet Jill, who Gil again says that she will talk his ear off about his “civic duty” to reproduce, a fact that makes those earlier red flags wave higher and more furiously, because who DOES that to a total stranger? And this is passed off as being “charming.” This leads to the culmination of the romance, where Gil says that Jill has decided she wants to get pregnant and she wants Gil to be the dad.

There’s... A LOT going on here, so let me work through this. First, one of the few things Gil says as a bit of establishing his character is that he is impulsive, that he joined the Andromeda Initiative, the journey from the Milky Way galaxy to the Andromeda galaxy without really thinking through what it would mean, that it was a one-way journey with no way to back out once he’d gotten there. So this is already saying to me that this is not a person who really SHOULD be a parent, at least at this point in his life.

We also get a couple of emails from him in-game that paint him as putting in thirty-six hour workdays into the engines on the Tempest, that he cares about and puts a lot of time into those engines. So when I think about him as a father, I see him having to give up something he’s deeply passionate about to do it, because the Tempest is certainly no place to raise a child – they can’t exactly put a playpen in the cargo hold, for example.

This would be one of the first things that I would think of as a discussion element, but... it’s not there. All that we get is a couple of casual comments about how Gil should know that bringing a child into the world is a big thing, something that shouldn’t be done lightly. But this is framed as Ryder questioning Gil’s fitness to be a parent at all, rather than questioning if he’s thinking this through and having considered this enough to be ready to take on this responsibility, or if it’s even something that he even wants.

Because that’s the other big thing here – this is not Gil’s idea. This is not something that he makes clear is his desire. No, it’s Jill who has decided that she wants to get pregnant and use Gil’s sperm. For all that he matters in this whole thing, he might as well be a turkey baster. He’s basically an accessory in his own story, because he goes in to this with all the passion of a math equation: “The Andromeda Initiative is a colonization effort. Therefore, the idea is to have babies. Therefore, I should find some way to reproduce.” This isn’t him having a passion or desire to have kids, just it being “something you do.”

This is, genuinely, a failure to understand the character who was being written. Gil’s writing reeks of having been written by someone who does not know what they are talking about. There is an element to the gay experience that is not innate but learned. When we realize that having children is not a thing that will just happen, that if we want this to happen, it will require a lot of additional steps, there are many who will simply say “this isn’t for me, this is more work than I’m willing to put in to for this.”

Now, Gil could have been someone who had decided it was worth it, but that butts up against the idea of him being impulsive, that he doesn’t think things through. There is no time given to focusing on the reason he decides this is the right choice for him, to the point that many players felt that this was not Gil’s decision but something that Jill was pushing, that she expected him to jump on her command. Because we have so little of Gil, as a character and an individual, but plenty of him talking up her, this “friendship” feels toxic to many.

Just about everyone I have ever spoken with about Gil is deeply uncomfortable that literally, the only way that he will not have a child at this point is if a romanced Ryder stops him – if I am playing a game where I don’t romance him, I actively just stop interacting with him at a certain point so that this never comes up, because this does not come across as happy. It comes across as forcing a gay man into a heteronormative experience to satisfy some traditional idea of “man and woman, raising kids.”

And, as the cherry on top, if you do tell Gil that you’re not comfortable having kids – a very real thing, whether gay or straight – then, unlike other romances, Gil and Ryder do not share a kiss at the finale of the game. And, during the last conversations on Meridian, the only thing Gil even brings up is Jill being pregnant, whether or not it’s his child.

This is what “representation of gay men” amounted to in Mass Effect Andromeda. A homophobic story that was about a gay experience written by someone who is not a part of this community and does not know or understand the experience personally, going through the motions of development when really, all that is cared about is the end result. To say that most of the gay men I know who have played this game find this homophobic is to undersell the point.

It doesn’t help that, of all the Tempest romances, Gil also clocks in with the least amount of romance exclusive material – a few flirts, the romance lock in and scene, and being able to stop Gil from having kids. Other than that, his friendship and his romance are virtually identical.

Speaking of, the romance scene consists of a make out session that fades to black, before coming back in with Ryder and Gil, shot from about shoulders up, briefly wrapping up their conversation that preceded the fade to black. This is noteworthy when the heterosexual romances between Ryder and their human love interests, as well as Peebee and Jaal, the former having a similar body model to naked human women, just blue, and Jaal, who is naked at other points in the game, have much more involved romance scenes – Cora’s in specific received special attention.

All of this, individually, may have just been reflective of time crunch and other external pressures – we all understand the realities of game development, that for all the ambitions that go in, when the deadlines are nearing, something has to give. But taken collectively... The kindest question is to ask why all of the “give” happened in regards to the gay man?

The end result with Gil honestly feels like he was written in response to the bad faith arguments that had come up in the period after the name for the game was revealed and it was made clear that the game would follow a colonization effort. There were a contingent of people who said that “there shouldn’t be gay people coming along, a colonization effort needs to reproduce.” This is a bad faith argument from homophobes, trying to justify why they don’t want gay people in “their” games. In answering their question, the question they only “ask” in order to explain why they don’t want to have gay people in the game without saying that, it comes across as catering the gay content for a heterosexual audience. It should go without saying that this is a bad position to take.

So, that’s Gil. What about Reyes? Well, Reyes himself is bound to a single planet, which, again, points to a minimizing of how much content he will even get, since his content can only be accessed on this single planet. Likewise, Reyes, as a character, is someone who falls in to several old, tired tropes with regards to bisexual men – he is a shady, untrustworthy character, in this instance literally a criminal, meant to be evocative of the “dashing rogue” archetype. This is a characterization that has often been BioWare’s go-to with regards to bisexual men, because we see this archetype drawn on in Jade Empire’s Sky, Dragon Age Origins’ Zevran, Dragon Age 2’s Anders, and even elements exist in Dragon Age Inquisition’s Dorian (even if he is a gay man). It’s a well that BioWare has frequently tapped when it comes to a romance option for queer men, to the point that it starts to feel like BioWare in general believes that this IS what queer men are.

There’s also the questionable portrayal of Reyes that leads to a description of the trope “the depraved bisexual,” an explicitly bisexual character who uses sex and sexuality as a manipulative tool, that they treat others as simply there to be their toys. Over in Dragon Age Inquisition, one of the romance options was specifically NOT made bisexual in order to avoid this trope, but Reyes himself seems to be a candidate for that trope all the same.

All this, and, again, the romance options for gay men were unequal to those for everyone else. This prompted the campaign #MakeJaalBi – Jaal was, notably, the character initially assumed to be the bisexual male companion, and on release, his romance was heterosexual exclusive. But datamining revealed that there was code for him to be romanced by male Ryder. Indeed, on release, it was noteworthy that Jaal could not even be flirted with by male Ryder. Liam had a distinct turndown for male Ryder, a couple of them, depending on when Ryder flirts with him. Jaal had no such turndown.

And this worked. BioWare released the patch for Andromeda that gave Jaal a bisexual romance. However, this was the only change that Mass Effect Andromeda received in regards to the issues of the romances before support for the game ended. While it was seen as an improvement, it was also questioned why this was the only change, when... Well, I spent the better part of two pages outlining the problems of Gil’s portrayal.

(I feel I would be remiss to not mention there was also a character, Hainley Abrams, who would, upon interacting with her, proceed to deadname herself to Ryder, as if that is the only way to establish that a transgender person is trans. This was also changed in a patch after the trans community complained, and, in conjunction with the above, led more than a few people to wonder if the Andromeda script had been looked over by any queer sensitivity readers, given the earlier issues with Gil. This does go out of the scope of everything else in this discussion, but it is worth mentioning.)

When Mac Walters says players will talk about how Shepard is each of theirs, that every individual player approaches Shepard as being “their” Shepard, he isn’t wrong. He says the characters, and the relationships we have with the characters is the heart and soul of the series, he isn’t wrong. And yet... When I play the trilogy, my heart and soul are being torn apart, because I do not get to see myself in the trilogy. I am not there in this story, at least for two thirds of the way. And in that third that I am there, I feel like I am cared about less than my counterparts who are heterosexual.

The idea that “making” characters available for same sex romance changes them is like saying that there is some inherent difference in a person because of their sexualities. While it’s true that the experiences of queer people does offer different perspectives on matters, it does not fundamentally alter the person, the individual that we are. It does not change our heart and soul. Restoring the bisexuality of characters like Jack, Jacob, Ashley, Thane, or Tali is not changing who they are. Making Kaidan bisexual in ME3 did not change who he was, and restoring a romance between him and male Shepard in ME1 would not change him either.

Every game has some cut content surrounding queer content specifically, and a great deal of that content is specifically for gay players like myself. I said at the beginning that I once thought of myself as a BioWare fan for life, but that now comes with caveats. The caveats are pretty simple – while the games produced by BioWare once felt affirming, now they feel like they’re only grudgingly allowing me to be there. That if I must be there, I should just take the scraps I’m given and be content with that, rather than being treated as an equal.

I like to think that this is not the message that the people at BioWare wish to impart to their players. I like to believe BioWare’s statements of wanting to be an inclusive and welcoming environment for their players, regardless of gender, race, sexuality, orientation, whatever identity and label one chooses. But based on the experience of the last four games, of the Legendary Edition perpetuating the homophobia of over a decade ago... I have a hard time believing that.

BioWare games once made me feel like I was equal to the straight heroes across my media. Unfortunately, I don’t feel that way about their games anymore. Not when, after having the opportunity to restore the bisexuality of Kaidan – of multiple characters, really – in the Legendary Edition, I am still being told that offering representation for people like me is something that only comes grudgingly.

And if that’s what I see now... What does it say about what the future of the franchise will offer? If every game in this series involves fighting for content that, in particular, heterosexual players will see offered as the rule, what motivates me to want to continue to be invested and involved in this franchise?

[awarmbowlofhomemadesoup]

How Charlie F*cked Up her Own Project Promotion

As a marketing copywriter, I can say Charlie’s promotion of her hotel is professionally lacking. 

(Note: I first started this as a fun post but ended up taking it seriously)

In the Hazbin Hotel pilot, Charlie presented her passion project. Unfortunately, it didn’t go well as she was laughed at and mocked on live TV.

While the viewers and the anchorwoman, Katie Killjoy, had been unnecessarily mean, their rejection is pretty much understandable in a marketing perspective. 

A copywriter writes persuasive marketing and promotional materials to persuade readers to buy, subscribe, etc. When Charlie promoted her hotel, she was trying to persuade the demons to go to the hotel. 

While copywriting is generally the art of selling through writing (video script, landing page, etc.), its structure is similar more or less to the art of verbal promotion. 

Before we begin, I’ll be referring to her hotel as a project and the demons that she wanted to go to the hotel as prospects. 

So here are the mistakes she made in her promotion. 

Lack of Research about Her Prospects

Getting to know the prospect is important. It helps create a persuasive promotion for them to take action. 

This can be done by interviews, polls, surveys, etc. Facebook insights allows you to know how many people of gender, age, occupation follow certain topics. 

From all this information, we can build a Prospect Profile.

YOUTUBE SUBSCRIBER PROFILE EXAMPLE

If you're a Youtuber selling knee braces through exercise videos and you want people to subscribe, who are your videos for? 

Knee braces are often used by athletes or the elderly. If your target is the athletes, you’ll need to build a Prospect Profile around them.

According to most buyer information, athletes who buy knee braces are mostly male (gender) athletes (occupation/hobbies) aged 20-40s. 

Now it’s time to delve deeper on what makes them tick: their desires, needs and worries. 

We can do this by giving surveys or taking note of video comments, etc. But from this buyer information data alone, we can have a better understanding of the prospects. 

These are active men who want to be at the top of their game. (desire)

Athletes will want to play their sport while keeping their healing knee in check. (need) 

Emotionally, athletes will also have pride in their performance. (desire). 

Athletes may also have the fear of not being able to play anymore, professionally or hobby-wise. (worries) 

With this Prospect Profile, we can persuade them to subscribe by showing how your exercise videos can help them with their desires, needs and worries about their sports performance. 

The same goes for Charlie’s approach to the sinners of hell.

THE DEMONS’ PROSPECT PROFILE

As a privileged Disney-princess-like character, Charlie is disconnected from her prospects who live a harsh afterlife. 

She believed in them that they deserve a chance to be redeemed. Which is a nice thought. 

But what she didn’t seem to know or understand is the perspective of the demons that she was trying to help.

For these demons, they are already conditioned to believe they are already the worst of the worst. They have demonic forms that remind them of their sins. They live in poverty and violence with the logic that they deserve to because of their sins. 

For them, redemption is already too late and impossible.   

What does Charlie know of them? What will motivate them to redeem? What psychological resistances will she have to take down in her persuasion? 

Surveys, polls and interviews are doable in order to answer these questions. 

By gathering information of her prospects and understanding them, she would’ve made a more persuasive pitch that is designed to their outlook. 

Weak Credibility, Zero Proof

As a copywriting professional who has to persuade people to take the desired action, this is my biggest pet peeve in Charlie’s approach.

Michael Masterson is renowned for inventing the Four-Legged Stool which is used to build a rock solid promotion. 

Here are the legs of the four-legged stool:

Credibility is proving beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the project will do what you claim. This can be done by being “scientifically proven” or by certifications, personal profile of the founder behind the project, etc. 

Track Record is proof that the project works on others. Track record can be in the form of testimonials or numbers. This can be stock performance, number of satisfied customers or even percentages such as “99.99% germs killed”.

Benefit or Promise paints a picture of what the project can do for them. Example is selling a sleek car with a unique fast engine (practical benefit) that also makes the buyer feel like an exciting individual (core emotional benefit).

An Idea must be huge enough to appeal to the prospect and simple enough to be communicated to someone else. This adds a unique and new dimension to the promotion. For example is Acorn, an app where you can invest spare change.

If the promotion only has three legs of the stool, it's liable to fall over. 

Now let’s look at Charlie’s promotion:

WEAK CREDIBILITY

Charlie is able to use her status as the Princess of Hell to add credibility to her project. Other than that, she has no proof that her project works as pointed out by Katie Killjoy. 

To prove that redemption can be possible, Charlie could’ve referred to studies showing the success rate of maladaptive behavior rehabilitation. Even expert opinions in religion could help support that a demon soul can still be redeemed.

Not Scientifically Proven. The rehabilitation system she has shown in her song “In Every Demon is a Rainbow” also has poor scientific proof. To the point that she is going to harm her prospects more than help them.

a. Abrupt Cutting Off of Vices. Throwing away their vices isn't preferable or effective to people who are reluctant to do so as compared to Gradual Reduction Treatment (DrugRehab.US).

b. Toxic Positivity. In another scene of her song, her patient was simply injected with positivity so that they'll be happy and full of kindness without reflection of themselves. 

As someone privileged enough to get the best education in hell, she should at least have a better knowledge in mental health.

NO TRACK RECORD

This is another leg of the four-legged stool that is missing.

Their proof of successful redemption is when a demon soul to goes to heaven by rehabilitating them. 

Angel Dust, as their first and only "patron”, is too premature to be part of the track record. Staying “clean, behaved and out of trouble” for two weeks is not yet proof of a successful redemption.  

 At best, what Charlie said is a naively hopeful but weak proof.

Even if Angel Dust didn’t get involved in a turf war, the demons have every right to remain skeptical when she couldn’t even give a successful track record of even one demon soul that had redeemed themself to go to heaven. 

Her heart is in the right place of wanting to help everyone. But she’s just wasting everyone’s time if it wouldn’t even work in the first place. There’s a time and place for the saying “Go big” and a time and place for “Start small”.

PROSPECTS DIDN’T BELIEVE THE BENEFIT/PROMISE

Her prospects would benefit going to heaven instead of being in hell.

Charlie did a great job painting a picture of a happy afterlife in heaven with her song “Inside of Every Demon is a Rainbow”. Unfortunately, the benefits “Just puppy dog kisses and cotton candy dreams And puffy-wuffy clouds, you're gonna be like, wow! ” may not be well received by demons who had become jaded and cynical of living life in hell.

Aside from her lack of proof, Charlie doesn’t know her prospects enough to effectively reach them and dismantle their skepticism.

POORLY COMMUNICATED IDEA

The idea of her project is to go to heaven through redemption. 

While it’s easy to understand, the idea could’ve appealed to the demons with a more convincing approach if Charlie understood her prospects well. And if her idea is well-supported by facts. 

Her promotion only has two legs of the stool: Benefit and Idea. Her promo fell because she lacked research of her prospects. She lacked actual proof. She lacked credible information.

Because of all of these, she lacked the means to effectively promote.

The Art of Persuasion 

Persuading people to take the desired action is often difficult. This is why marketing professionals and companies exist. 

And this is where Alastor comes in with his charismatic seedy salesman mass communication skills and overlord status, making him the hope and solution to Charlie’s dilemma. Even if he did outright say that he was only interested in watching demons fail.

But other than that, Charlie, as one of the most privileged demons in hell, should have greater access to quality information and services on things such as marketing. And mental health science.

[eleanorbloom]

When You’re Ready Ch. 13

Pairing: Bryce Lahela x f! MC (Eleanor Bloom) x Ethan Ramsey.

Word Count: 3.6k

Warning: Bit of angst and cursing.

A/N: Hello! This chapter is shorter than usual because I decided last minute that the last third fitted better in next chapter. Eleanor went really deep today trying to figure out her feelings, so, even if could seem a bit boring, it’s really important for the next two chapters.

I also wanna give a special thanks for all the support I’ve recieved from all my works! I can’t believe we are on chapter 13 already! When I updated my masterlist today I realized that this will be my 20th work publised here! 20 work in two and a half months. That’s a looooot 😲😲 So, thank all of you for your constant support and patience with my mistakes and my experimental writing. Currently this is not as difficult as it was in the first chapter, when I had no experience writing fiction in english, but now that I have more confidence, I’ve been experimenting with style and more elaborated words, metaphors  and situations, so thank you for your patience in this matter, I hope I find my voice and stick to a more stable style soon hehe.

BIG HUGS to all of you!! ❤❤

I hope you enjoy this new chapter!

Taglist @utterlyinevitable @binny1985 @shanzay44 @choicesficwriterscreations @laiba-the-person @starrystarrytrouble @lahellacute @lucy-268  @cinnamonspongecake @romewritingshop @bratzlahela​ @mckenzie-bae​ @mercury84choices​

___________________________

Chapter 13. Million Reasons.

I’ve got a hundred million reasons to walk away

But baby, I just need one good one to stay.

 Tchaikovsky was almost inaudible among the horns and cars passing by the streets of Boston. It was hot for midday, and as much as the AC was the best way to mitigate the heat, Eleanor would always prefer the Bostonian wind percolating through the window at her side of the car.

She was lost in the people walking hurriedly through the sidewalks with who knows how many concerns, joys, and miseries, in a quick game of people-watching to shut her mind for a second. To forget she was alone with Ethan in his car on their way to the Harbor Marina. To ease the pit that she feels in her stomach every time she expects something from someone. A sign of useless hope, disappointment guaranteed. A pain of hope that would always turn into deception.  

And now, even with all past experiences, with all the painful conversations in mind and the heartbreaking goodbyes playing in her mind like a broken record, there she was, waiting for something from him again. Her biggest flaw always manifesting.

She could’ve avoided the trip, make an excuse, politely decline, but it would’ve been evidently unprofessional refusing to go with Ethan just after what had happened the day before. He would have known. He knew her enough to notice it. And if she wanted their working relationship back, she had to act professionally. Set an example. And the simpler way to go with it was asking Esme to check on her patients while she was away and then joining him in the parking lot at the agreed time.

She didn’t know what to expect, though. She didn’t even know if she should expect something from him at this point. Worry, apologies, more arguing, more recriminations.  

What she actually wanted was to confirm he wasn’t the asshole he was yesterday, that he didn’t mean what he said. That the man she still loved wasn’t this selfish and hurtful. But of course, she had to have in mind that the apologies may not come as she expected, or that they may never come.

But her desire wasn’t created out of nowhere. The moment she saw him this morning, she knew something was different. The cold glare, the conscious ignoring, the distance. There was none of that. Somehow, she felt like the wall between them had fallen. His eyes were looking at her differently, his demeanor towards her was soft, and even his voice wasn’t grave as it used to. But maybe it didn’t mean anything. He had just understood he couldn’t keep being this cold and unprofessional, and he was ending all that and now they would act as nothing happened. Like this almost two months didn’t happen, and they are two friendly colleagues.

“May I ask how are you doing? I’ve been worried about you after what happened yesterday.”—Ethan asked giving a quick glance at her.

Eleanor was taken aback. Although she was daydreaming with the best possibilities, she didn’t expect his words all of a sudden and decidedly mentioning the discussion they had yesterday.

 She turned her head to her left and stared at him defiantly, determined to not give in so easily, even if that conversation was all what she wanted.

“You were worried, really? Yesterday it didn’t seem.”

His shoulder slumped imperceptibly at her response, though he tried to remain imperturbable.

“I know. I know it looked like I didn’t care about what you were feeling, but at that moment, I felt… overwhelmed with everything.”

As Ethan didn’t continue, Eleanor turned her head forward, fixating her eyes on the car that was upfront them. After a few moments, she felt how Ethan glanced at her every few seconds.

“What’s wrong? Aren’t you gonna say anything?”—Ethan said after a minute of silence and no reply to his first question.

“Like what?”

“Like how are you doing? I told you I was overwhelmed at that moment, that’s why I reacted that way. But I am genuinely worried about you.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I just had the stupid hope that you would explain why it was so overwhelming to you to the point of not giving a fuck about the mess I was. My bad.”

“And what should I say?”

“For god’s sake, Ethan.”—She snapped in a jaded tone.—That’s something you should know considering what happened yesterday. If you think you did something wrong, of course, ‘cause if you think that you were all good all the time, there’s nothing left to talk”

 “I…”—He stopped as the words couldn’t come out of his mouth.

A brief moment later Ethan parked in the Harbor Marina, and Eleanor didn’t even wait a second after Ethan turned the engine off, to get out the car and walk to the spot where Caroline Bloom indicated the yacht would be parked. After a minute, Ethan appeared behind her with the ultrasound in tow, just as she found Leland and Caroline talking with a group of people on the deck of the yacht.

“Ah, Doctors! Just in time! We’re about to set sail.”—Leland greeted as Eleanor and Ethan stepped in the boat.

“Where can we set up. Mr. Bloom? Somewhere private is best”—Eleanor asked motioning her head to the machine.

“Later, later, I was in the middle of an important discussion and I’d like to finish it before you resume your poking and prodding.”—He chuckled at the incredulity on Ethan’s face, and then added: —“Relax, make yourself at home. I’ll be with you as soon as I can”

Ethan tried to stop him, but Eleanor spoke before he could say anything.

“We're on a boat, Ethan.”—She pointed with obviousness.—“He’s not going anywhere, and it’s not like Tobias can sneak ahead of us while we’re here.”

And without expecting a word from him, Eleanor turned around and walked to the opposite side of the boat looking for a quiet spot to sit in and take in the stunning view that was forming as the yacht navigated across the sea.  

Soon she got absorbed by the deep blue ocean in front of her, the saline smell, the brisk air, and the luxury of the quietness, feeling free from all the noises, smog, and the suffocating heat of that summer afternoon.

Those involving feelings made her wonder how different it felt from the fragment of the sea she was swimming yesterday evening. It was the same sea, the Atlantic Ocean, boarding the same city, Boston, with only a dozen miles away, but still, it made her feel so different.

How the depth could add so much beauty, when it is so terrifying and risky the farthest you are from the shore, from the safety zone? Because the farthest it is, the more mysteries and dangers can be found inside.  

How much you can find if you jump and dive into the immensity of the ocean, with equal parts of wonders and terrors waiting for you at the bottom of the sea? Is it worth the risk?  Or it’s better contemplating from above or just from the safety zone?

Soon she realized that the same question applies to people. The deepest connections come with baggage, unknown baggage. Equal parts of wonders and terrors, or maybe more terrors than wonders or the other way around. It’s unknown, but most of the time, jumping and diving into the depth of a person, between their fears, traumas, manias, dreams, feelings, could worth any risk, even if it’s a pure gamble.

Did that apply to what made her love Ethan? She had been looking for the answer for months, even in the oddest and more impossible places and situations, and today it wasn’t any different. Maybe the water had the answer. 

Was it the sense of deepness?  Since the beginning, they had a deep connection, even if it wasn’t romantic at first. Ethan understood her way to see life, her passion for medicine, and to help as many people as she could. And she, in return, could understand that he drives his life by a series of principles, that the medicine and the people come always first. But how deep she knew him actually? It was inches from the shore? Feet? Miles? Was she willing to go for miles away from the shore and jump in? Take the risk of getting to know the deepness of his heart, with hall his pains, frustrations, limits, and flaws?

And what about Bryce? She couldn’t help but think about how poorly she knew him on the inside at first, even when they began dating. She knew his charms, his strengths, his qualities, his capacity, but never knew his fears, his flaws, his failures, his deepest regrets. And now she knew him. Since she met Keiki, everything changed, and the missing part that stopped her from loving Bryce on another lever was filled like a jigsaw. He used to show her exactly how he felt. Tired, scared, angry, sad, jealous, all of it. And that was an important component to love a person unconditionally, fully. To fall in love. Something that she had found difficult before Bryce let her in. And now she could say with all honestly that there wasn’t a single part of him that she didn’t like.

The deepness… Something she had always been craving but maybe never knew what it meant. Past friends and lovers made her believe she found it. But it wasn’t. She thought she found it with Ethan. Hard not to. It was a grown-up man, smart and curious. He always had a way to push her and understand all her motives and what drove her in life, so it gave her the sense that that was the deepness she had always been looking for. But now that she has met a new kind of deepness with Bryce she had to wonder: Was it what she was looking for? That’s what she wanted in love? Or Bryce had had the answer all along?

She was so immersed in the profundity of her thoughts that didn’t hear the steps approaching her until Ethan stood by her side and offered her a lemonade.

“Oh. Thank you”—She said startled, looking at him for a brief moment before turning her eyes to the front again.

Ethan cleared his throat and imitated her, fixating his eyes on the water swiveling in front of them.

“I knew there was something between Lahela and you.”—He said after a few minutes of silence.—“I heard rumors, and even Naveen told me he had seen you with him, but I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t want to believe they were true. I thought you were having a fling with him and nothing more than that. He does seem like the guy with whom you just… sleep with and have nothing serious.”

“Wow, even you get carry away with reputations, looks, and prejudices? You of all people, Ethan?”

She turned to face him, changing the cobalt of the sea for the sky blue of his orbs. It was an act of bravery. His eyes still managed to make her feel weak. There were too many memories linked to those beautiful sky eyes.  

“I have to admit that I did. That’s why I couldn’t believe it, and that’s why yesterday I reacted that way. I couldn’t understand that you were so naïve to be with a man that was just using you. I could have never imagined that he…  that he could be serious about you and be deserving of you.”

“The number of sexual partners of a person doesn’t say anything about them. You can’t judge a person by that.”

“It’s not the number, or what does he do with his life, it’s just that he seemed to be a person who can’t commit and respect you, so I was worried he might be fooling you.”

Eleanor snorted.

“You talking about commitment? Oh, god, you cannot be serious.”

“Why not?”

“You have no idea what commitment is. You always ran at the slightest idea of commitment when I mentioned it.”

“That’s because I know my faults. I took a step back because I know what I could and couldn’t give you, and I thought he couldn’t give you enough.”

Eleanor looked around, checking if there were people near that could hear their agitated conversation, even if she was trying to be as discreet as she could be.

“You thought, you thought.”—She repeated, irritated—“You just assumed things, but never cared to ask. If you were so worried about me, why the fuck you never asked me what was going on?”

“Because it wasn’t my place to do it.”

“Oh, but yesterday you did seem to have a place to say all that crap about Bryce.”

“I know. That was very disrespectful. I shouldn’t have interfered in your private life like this”

“Disrespectful?! Really, Ethan? You insulted my boyfriend in my face. You told lies about him in front of me when you didn’t even dare to confirm your suppositions. That wasn’t unrespectful, it was hurtful, selfish, and cruel because you didn’t do it just once, you did it twice.”

He sighed and his shoulder slumped as if he felt defeated at the mention of the word boyfriend coming out of her mouth. As if he had been still in denial, but there was nothing left to deny now.

“I know, it would have been better if I asked you, but… We were nothing to ask you something so personal. I was just your boss and your colleague.”

“Are you sure about that, Ethan? Because let me remind you that aside from all the Gwyneth thing, you ignored me from the moment you started suspecting I was dating Bryce, because yeah, I always knew you were suspecting. So, you weren’t acting just like my boss, you were my jealous ex-something who ruined my first months in the Diagnostics Team just because you were a coward that didn’t have the balls to face the truth, as always.”

Ethan stared at her ruefully. He wasn’t capable of saying anything, but the least he could do was nod and accept her accusations.

The uncomfortable look lingered only a couple of seconds before they were interrupted by Leland Bloom announcing that he was ready to let them examine him.

An hour later, after spending the rest of the trip chatting with Caroline about her husband and the possible missing information about his symptoms, and socializing with the rest of the guests, Ethan and Eleanor got in the car as soon as they put a foot in the Harbor Marina.

A few minutes after Ethan drove onto the main highway, he broke the silence between them for the third time.

“I’ve been thinking about why I never asked you about Lahela.”—He started— “And the truth is that I didn’t know how to deal with the fact that you could love someone else.”

She felt a lump inside her stomach as she noticed how painful those words were for him. How much he didn’t want to say them. How much he hated to be in that position. 

“Ethan…”—She whispered, completely moved by his vulnerability. –“But why? Why you let me go if you weren’t sure you wanted that in the first place?”

“It was the only thing that I could do, Eleanor. I wasn’t ready, and I think I’ll never be ready to let you go, but I had to do it for your own good.”—He scratched the back of his head— “I could’ve never imagined that it would hurt so much seeing you moving on so easily.”

She gave him a humorless smile even when he wasn’t looking at her.

“It hasn’t been easy, Ethan. I have a constant fight inside my head, every day. You have no idea how scared I am at the possibility of breaking the heart of the only person that has given me everything, and the constant guilt of not being able to love him the way he deserves. It’s a nightmare, and has been hell after you indirectly started blaming me for doing something I only did for me, because I needed to heal after you left."

“You’re right. I’m sorry, Eleanor. I know I shouldn’t have made it more difficult than already was. I was so selfish.”

Eleanor shook her head, incredulous.

When Ethan parked outside Edenbrook, Eleanor turned to him.

“Why, Ethan? Why you always have to get to the point where all that’s left is your apologies? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s all you know. I’m always forgiving you, and I’m tired of that. When will be the time when you won’t get to the point of hurting me, of avoiding say you’re sorry and just… do the right thing?”

He couldn’t say anything. 

His posture stiffened as he closed both hands on the steering wheel until his knuckles went white. She was right and he couldn’t hold how angry he was at himself anymore.

“Listen.”—She said in a conciliatory tone. —“This hasn’t been easy for any of us, that’s a fact. We both have our ways to deal with the pain. I chose to do it by giving myself the chance to love again, because someone offered me a way out, knowing perfectly well what I had been through and respecting my boundaries and my fears. You chose to do it the worst way. With denial, jealousy, and selfishness. It was wrong but now is your chance to make it up by leaving us in the past and by being the boss, the colleague I need, but no more than that.”

He nodded.

“Eleanor…”—He took her hand before she could get out of the car.—“I understand what you’re asking me, is what you truly deserve but… I need to know if... that’s really what you want?”

She faced him again

“Why is it important now? You never cared about what I wanted, only what was ‘good’ for me.”

“I know, but maybe I’ve realized that I was wrong. That there are more important things that what I consider good for you.”

“I think is too late for that.”

“Is it really too late? Even if you’re still in love with me?”

Her eyes widened for a second when she felt a shiver down her spine. She never thought he would react that fast. Maybe he knew he was racing against time. He wasted so much time these months and he had to act quickly.

What was happening, was something she had dreamed for weeks since he left, and maybe a couple of times since he was back; but now she didn’t know how to react. What to feel. What to expect. It was confusing. Bittersweet. Because it felt wrong. He couldn’t open the door to Ethan just like that, even if Bryce had ‘allowed’ her to, because those weren’t the circumstances she had imagined. However, that’s what she got, and she had to take charge of her choice.

What she was about to say had a mixture of feelings. She couldn't deny that there was hope, but it wasn’t the same as the hope she had four months ago when he left.  It was clouded with fear, the fear of making the same mistake again, and it was tinted with the feeling that she was doing something wrong. Maybe, deep inside, she didn't want to do it, but she felt like it was her last resource.

And the other feeling was… Bravery, she knew opening the door would help her to put in order her feelings, just as Bryce told her the day before. If she let Ethan be the man she loved, maybe there was a chance to know if she was willing to jump the ship and dive into the deepness of his wonders and terrors. She sensed that only getting to know him as he really was, would, at last, find out if she still loved him or she was just trapped to a part of Ethan that only existed in her memory.

It was risky, it would be hard, but that was what she probably needed to end all this tiring process. In any case, it was just open the door to possibility, but not to let him in.

“Maybe not.”

He couldn’t help but smile with relief.

“Don’t get your hopes too high, though”—She added—“I’m still with Bryce and I won’t break up with him just because maybe you gonna try to make things work out between us.”

She was opening the door, but she wouldn’t make things easy for him. Bryce hadn’t had things easy with her and took a big risk. She wouldn’t let that Ethan think he had some sort of advantage just because she was in love with him. If he wanted her, he’ll have to strive.

“I understand.”

“Okay, anything else? Because I’m done with this situation.”

“Just one more thing.”

“What?”

He stared at her for a few seconds, trying to transmit sincerity and regret.

“I’m really sorry about what happened yesterday, Eleanor. For how I made you feel and what I said about Lahela. That was totally out of line and wrong. I shouldn’t have let it affect me this bad, but it did, and I hurt you on the way. I am sorry. I know you don’t want to hear any more apologies, but you deserved a better apology than what I gave you earlier. I hope this is the last time.”

Eleanor remained silent for a few seconds, thinking. She was done with grudges and fights. She got what she wanted and had no intention to prolong the bad relationship between them. After all, she always knew Ethan wasn’t bad on the inside. But he made mistakes and he’ll have to live with them, at least until he proved with facts that he was really sorry, and those weren’t empty words as usual.

“I accept them, but don’t expect things to go back like they were before.”

He nodded with somber eyes.

 A moment later, she got out of the car without looking back. 

 _____

[thearsonistbitch]

Aisha * Aisha and I first met by mere accident as teenagers around October 2010. She was under the ruling of her father and I was heading for Sloane and needed some extra cash. The deal led to her father putting me in a bed room with her. We were both quite confused, her of why I wasn't like the men that had treated her like trash and me of why she was in my room to begin with. For me, regardless, it was love at first sight. After leaving her with her devil father, I regretted it but thought that I would never run back into her and I had to get to Slaone. That was until we met again in Sloane in July 2019, where a hardheaded best friendship blossomed into her becoming my wife June the next year. 

Alec * Alec and I go back. We tend to get each other on a more.. creepy level than others. One day, he needed a fix and thought it was a bright idea to trot on into a drug lord place as if he owned it. Least to say, we've been through some wild shit but all in all he's like a brother to me.

Celeste * I had met Celeste in New York, winter of early 2019. She needed protection from Hell Hounds and I was willing to provide it to her. That was until I wound up missing. She'd had a pretty big grudge over it despite not knowing what actually happened. 

Donnie * Donnie and I partied a lot while in New York. Fell into the wrong crowd together. That kind of yippiddee doodah bullshit. Winter of early 2019, he decided to drug me and sell me off to the highest bidder or some shit. Somehow I escaped but wound up being captured and went missing a week later. Talk about friendship. Currently, I don't trust him a single bit. But I keep my mouth shut the best my ability, to avoid upsetting Aisha as hes like a brother to her. 

Eden * Eden and I met as young teenagers full of hope and hormones at a musical camp of some kind. I just went because I liked music and it gave me a free roof over my head and food in my mouth after escaping the asylum. A few girls had caught her and I having innocent gay fun and wound up crushing her fingers and dreams of being a pianist. Least to say she probably hates me now and blames me for her failures. Let alone that she pretty much avoids me like in the plague. 

Giovanni * Giovanni and I have a very complicated relationship, if you'd even call it that. He's not very good at making a deal, let alone keeping it. That and he's rather annoying and thinks that he's greater than everyone else when that's far from true. Our relationship is confusing but I know 100% that I can't trust him. 

Jade * Jade and I go back to Trent reigning Sloane days. We had made an agreement then, but she ended up leaving before we could complete the deal. Now, we have a new arrangement and so far, she hasn't done anything to disappoint.

Jude * Jude is an odd character. After finding out he played banjo, I wanted to work with him, play some music. All things were great until he started asking about me. I told him about my parents and how they treated me but he thought different of me rather than them, said that I should have taken advantage of having parents period or some shit. So now we don't really associate with one another. 

Julian * Julian and I have been thick as thieves for years. Even when he left Sloane, I kept contact with him. His personality and mine just go hand in hand and despite him liking to act like my boyfriend in the past, he is definitely like a brother to me, practically twins sometimes. He's helped me through and with a lot and he's the most trustworthy person I know. I don't consider many people my best friend but he's definitely one of them.

Kane * Kane is a pretty amazing individual. I met him back in his late teenage days, when he fucked with fake IDs. I needed a new one and he was the guy for me. Weve clicked since then. He's like family to me and though I'm not one that needs protecting, he likes to protect me and my wife. He helps scratch my back and I help scratch his, and we've worked pretty well that way. 

Katarina * When Katarina came to town, I heard that she had a troubling past with a pretty ugly gang. I thought she'd have done good Intel on other gangs given the one she was affiliated heavily with, so in exchange I've provided her protection through Hell Hounds to help calm some of her fears. 

Mason * I originally met Mason through Talon. He seemed like a pretty cool dude then and it's been proven to be true ever since. His family and him are like family to me. I've helped him and he's helped me. A similar exchange I have with many. After the fire at Sorry Mom, I reached out and offered him to work with Hell Hounds. He politely declined until things led to others and his girlfriend wound up pregnant. He needed money and the offer still stood, so I worked with him and gave him a side job that he could work with and handle on his call. 

Mia * A damsel in distress. That was Mia in a nutshell. I was her neighbor and listened to her and her boyfriend fight endlessly until one night everything grew silent. I grew suspicious to checked next door to see if things were alright. That's when I found her almost dead and rushed her to the hospital. We've grown a bond and friendship ever since. 

Mick * Mick and I go back to the Trent reign days as well. We were always fond of each other and grew a friendship rather quickly. When he left and the death of Trent took effect, I did something for him and myself that gained his trust. So much so that him and I tend to work together on some special projects every now and then.

Oliver * Oliver is another guy in Sloane that is a big help and like a brother to me. We go way back. Knowing what it was like being trapped in an area where you had no contact to the outside world, I wrote him often and kept him updated on the world he was missing. His older brother is a detective and least to say, he's out to get me and Hell Hounds. But I guess Ollie believes in the whole "blood is thicker than the water of the womb" business. Because instead of letting his brother take me down, he shifts him off my trail and gives me a heads up on what his detective brother is up to. I'm thankful for that and a lot of other things he does for me. He's an amazing individual. 

Romy * Romy and I really don't know much about each other. But I offered her a deal within Hell Hounds due to her nurse status. When my boys are hurt, she helps care for them under the table. So far she's been trustworthy. Hopefully nothing happens for me to take away that trust.

Shae * I was very judgmental and rude towards Shae at first. I thought she practiced things that had a lot to do with some past traumas of mine. But despite my judgment, she was willing to help me out and continues to help me work through and find out more and more of what happened to me when I went missing back in New York. It's an odd friendship but a pretty good one nonetheless. I just hope she knows how sorry I am for being such a dick to her. 

Spencer * Spence is another one I grew to trust and consider a close friend of mine, let alone like a brother. He was running from a group so I offered him protection under Hell Hounds, in exchange he taught me around the engine of my motorcycle. He disappeared for a while but once he was back, he was on my doorstep offering me something I just couldn't pass up. He's a great partner in crime, let's just say that. 

Taylor * I knew Taylor back when she was a teenager. She was a party girl and after we met at a not so great party, we went to find a better party on our own. She hadn't dabbled into the blissful depth of drugs so I helped introduce that life to her. Now, I provide to her every now and then but recently she's been on the straight edge path. To each their own I guess. But nonetheless her and I are pretty good friends. 

Vidalia * I was suggested by my therapist to organize and start a group therapy thing. I thought it was bullshit but Vilem pushed me and convinced me to go with the punch. Vida had been one of the first to walk in the door. We got to talking and figured we could ditch, even if I was the organizer. A few burning buildings, drugs, alcohol, a pack of smokes, and some truths later, we created our own form of therapy and opened up more than any therapist could crack us. Least to say, we created an odd friendship over fire. I'm an arsonist, so that didn't come to surprise me. 

[chibipika]

LC Extra: Masks

Lexx tapped his foot against the park bench that he was leaning against, humming a tune while idly scrolling through posts on his phone.  Nothing too engaging, and he was only half paying attention to any of it.  Maybe the news would be more interesting.  The destruction of Sootopolis was still the hot-button topic of the day, and he was somewhat curious to see what the mainstream news had to say about it.  Did they have any clue what it was really about?

“*I’m bored.  When’s she getting here?*” a voice spoke from his shoulder.

Lexx gave the Pichu an amused glance.  “Shouldn’t be too long.”  It wasn’t like Ajia to be late for things, and she did have access to perfect long-range teleportation, after all.

Still, she was late.  Five minutes, to be exact.  Pichu gestured suddenly, and Lexx glanced up to see Ajia walking toward them, illuminated by the street lamps.  He waved, and her expression flickered slightly.  Only a second betrayed the fact that she wasn’t happy to see him.

Her Pichu’s face lit up, and she leaped from Ajia’s shoulder to race down the path toward them.  His own Pichu jumped down to greet her.  The two siblings exchanged a few sparks from their cheeks, then immediately took off chasing each other through the tall grass.

“How is everyone?” Lexx asked, and he sounded genuine.  His mask was already up.

Ajia had been expecting him to ask something like that, but that still didn’t make it any easier to give him an answer.  “Starr’s livid, and Jade’s worried sick because one of her Pokémon was badly hurt during the Aqua battle.”

Lexx frowned.  “Ah geez.  I was trying to not hit you guys,” he said, rubbing the back of his head.  “I mean, you know it wasn’t anything personal, right?”

Ajia sighed exasperatedly.  “That doesn’t make it better.”

Lexx turned away.  There was a part of him that knew that.  He had to come up with something that would help.  “It’s not like my life wasn’t on the line,” he offered.  “Pretty sure Raven was out for my throat.  Probably still is.”

Ajia gave him a sideways glance.  Either she was failing to keep her frustration behind the mask, or this was the amount she was allowing him to see.

That’s how their game always went.  Pretend everything was fine.  Chat the way they always used to, leaving their allegiances aside.  Then, when it was done, they’d go back to serving their sides like nothing had changed.  That was just how things were.  He hadn’t had any reason to assume that would ever change.

And yet, it had.

He needed to fill the silence.  Maybe Ajia would find this interesting: “Jade stopped by yesterday.”

Ajia paused, looking wary.  “She did?”

“Yeah.  Think she mostly just wanted to chew out Seb,” he added.

Ajia smirked.  “Good for her.”

Lexx crossed his arms behind his head.  “Seb might’ve told her some things that you don’t know yet. You might wanna ask later.”

Ajia gave him a look that was hard to read.  “More like he was trying to manipulate her into believing more of his garbage.”

Lexx waved a hand dismissively.  “Nah, she wasn’t having any of it, from what I could tell.”

Ajia smiled, looking rather too pleased.  “Good.”

He tiled his head.  “Would it really be so bad if she agreed with him, though?”

Ajia was ready for that one.  “You know, there’s times where I feel like Starr’s right about you,” she said, and the words cut deeper than he wanted to admit.

“Really?  That’s no fun,” Lexx said, playing it off with an overly-defeated face.  “I don’t even mind that she hates me, it just sucks being ignored.”

“You know, if you’d just apologize…”

Lexx was quiet for a bit.  “Doesn’t feel right to apologize for something I’d do again,” he said simply.

Ajia gave him a hard stare. “You know what she went through because of it, right?”  Her words were firm, but still gentle, in that way that she’d perfected. Precision-engineered to reach through his chest and dig into his heart.

Lexx broke eye contact first, and he had the distinct feeling he’d lost that round.  “It’s complicated,” he just said.

Ajia shook her head with a faint smile.  “I know those sympathy ploys better than anyone.”

Lexx gave a crooked smile.  “Not a ploy this time,” he said.  But then his gaze hardened.  “Seb’s my friend, Ajia.”

“I thought I was your friend.”  The mask slipped.  Some of the hurt leaked into her voice.

“You are,” he replied quickly, rubbing the back of his head.  “I don’t want you to get hurt either.  It’s just… well, like I said… complicated.”

Ajia lifted her eyes to meet his.  “Does he really see you as a friend, or just another pawn?”

Lexx chuckled slightly, shaking his head.  “Ajia.  Your tricks aren’t going to work on me like they did with Starr.”

Neither of them spoke for some time after that.  Ajia stared out at the half-moon hanging low in the sky ahead of them.  Several times, she almost found the right words, but then decided against them.

“Look at us,” she said finally.  “Neither of us believe a word the other one says.  How did this happen?”

Lexx leaned back against the park bench, following Ajia’s example and staring up at the sky.  “You guys could work together with us.  Offer’s still on the table.”

Ajia sighed deeply.  It had been a long, long time since she’d found that tempting.  “I can’t.  Not after knowing what he’s planning.”

“Do you really—” Lexx stopped, thinking better of it.  Ajia must have considered pressing further, but in the end, she didn’t.

“There’s probably gonna come a time when you’ll have to,” he finally answered.

Ajia fought back a shiver.  “I don’t like thinking about that.”

“Seb’s got good reason for not explaining everything,” Lexx said, suddenly fixing her with a serious look.  “I’m sure you can relate.”

Ajia grimaced.  “I’ve been trying to break that habit.  Lying to people to keep them safe.  That’s not who I want to be.  And besides, he’s not lying to us for our sake.  His lies only ever make things worse for everyone.  It’s not the same at all.”

Lexx gave her a playful smirk.  “Ah come on, that’s not fair.  You know we’re not like, trying to make people miserable or anything.”

“That’s what’s happening, though.”

Lexx flinched.  He’d crossed a line, and he knew it.  But had he really had a choice?  They needed to beat the Kanto force no matter what.  Nothing else mattered.  Right?

Maybe...

Lexx struggled to think of the right words.  All the usual confidence had slipped through his fingers behind the mask.  “Look.  I don’t like things being like this either.  So… how about this: I’ll tell you something Sebastian doesn’t want anyone to know yet.”

Ajia shook her head softly.  “You know I can’t believe that.”

“You don’t have to,” he said earnestly, holding both palms out.  “You can just sort of… think it over and decide if you want to use it or not.”

The wind rustled through the trees, punctuated by the occasional jolt from the two Pichu racing around through the tall grass.  They’d been at their game ever since Ajia showed up.  For them, everything was simple.  It didn’t have to be so complicated.  No layers of secrets and lies.  No masks.

“Alright.  Let’s hear it.”

[aion-rsa]

In 2020, The Deutschland Series is As Relevant As Ever

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The final season of the Deutschland spy series begins with an ending. In the opening episode of Deutschland 89, the Berlin Wall falls, giving East German citizens free movement to West Germany and beyond for the first time in decades. What follows in the eight-episode final season is a social study in how different people react when their reality is suddenly and fundamentally altered. In the year 2020, as the world continues to reel from the seismic changes COVID-19 has wrought, it’s an unexpectedly relatable experience.

“Deutschland 89 is really about how people have to reinvent themselves during a crisis,” says Deutschland series co-creator Joerg Winger. “So I think, in that way, it does reflect today, but that was not intentional.”

From the beginning, the Deutschland series—which launched in 2015 with Deutschland 83, continued in 2018 with Deutschland 86, and just concluded with Deutschland 89—has used history as a metaphor for contemporary politics. Because of this and because, as Faulkner famously wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” it has never been hard to find topical parallels in the Deutschland story, especially when the world skews unfortunately closer to the historic tensions depicted.

“I still remember when Joerg and I first started working on Deutschland 83, thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll have to remind people of the Cold War. Maybe they won’t remember any of this,’” says co-creator Anna Winger (who also co-created Netflix’s 2020 German-American drama Unorthodox). “And then the tension with Russia began again, and there was this sort of egocentric writer moment where you’re like, ‘Did I write it and make it happen? Why is this happening again?’ … Certainly, we couldn’t have predicted tension with Russia coming back, but I think that the polarization definitely, the idea that you’re on one side or you’re on the other side, and that there is this kind of way in which the world has become divided, we were definitely exploring that.” 

Deutschland 83 follows East German kid Martin Rauch (Jonas Nay) as he is forced by his HVA agent aunt Lenora (Maria Schrader) and his estranged father Walter (Sylvester Groth) to become a spy in West Germany. Using the real-life Able Archer incident (which some historians believe is the closest we’ve come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis) as setting, the first season is a fast-paced yet complex cautionary tale of what can happen when we lose track of the bigger picture in favor of political allegiances. 

On a more character-driven level, Deutschland 83 is the story of a young man caught between a desperation to stay alive so he can return home to his ill mother and pregnant girlfriend and a desire to keep the world from erupting into nuclear disaster. Because of this, much of the success of that first season and moving forward relied on the casting of the overwhelmed yet capable Martin. When Nay read the script for the Deutschland 83 pilot, he knew he wanted the part.

“I think that the first episode of the whole series is a masterpiece in throwing you directly into something,” says Nay. “I think, dramaturgy-wise, it’s really brilliant. For me, as a reader, I was so addicted. I immediately wanted to know where it went and I so deeply wanted to play that part of Martin.”

Later, Nay would find out that Anna Winger had his picture on the wall during the writing process, imagining him as Martin, but Nay didn’t know that when he went for the part.

“I hadn’t played something of that genre, or anything comparable to that before,” says Nay. “So I don’t really know where she had the impression from that this could be a part for me, actually. The things I shot before were more like society drama, feature films. It was really, really, really different.”

Joerg Winger says that Nay was always their first choice.

“There was a discussion we had at a later point with the directors in 83, who were thinking, maybe we need someone who’s more of a conventional hero, like a young James Bond kind of actor,” says Joerg Winger. “But I think, for us, it was really important that he has something vulnerable since one of the tweaks of the spy genre in Deutschland 83 is that it’s a spy show combined with a coming-of-age drama, and Jonas has the vulnerability and almost the boyishness and innocence. He’s a very good, solid person. And that translates also, I think, into his performance.” 

The initial idea for the series came from Joerg Winger’s own military service experience during the 80s as a conscripted Bundeswehr soldier in West Germany, intercepting messages from Russian troops in the German Democratic Republic. But, for many people watching the series who were born after 89, a divided Germany may be hard to imagine.

“With young people, it’s almost like what you learn in school ends with World War II, and then you never really got to the Cold War,” says Anna Winger. “So, for a lot of young people, at least in Germany, they would say to us, ‘This is like science fiction.’ It’s like, ‘Imagine a world, and there’s a wall that goes down the middle of Berlin, and West Berlin is cut off from supplies, and you can’t get across it.’ And you know, if you were to describe all that to anyone who was born in Berlin since 1989, it would sound absurd. It’s like, ‘And the dinosaurs roamed the earth.’ It’s very crazy to them. So, in a funny way, I’ve always thought the show is a little bit like the past as science fiction.”

Nay, who was born in 1990, days before the reunification of Germany, is one of those people.

“I think there’s actually a lot that changed my awareness of close German history, in particular the 80s, of course,” says Nay. “I remember that when I read the first series, the first question that came to my mind was: ‘Were we really so close to a nuclear war? Would anybody have told me if it was so close? Isn’t that crazy that nobody told me before? Is it real or is it just made up, to increase attention?’ I was like, ‘OK, it seems a little odd to me that we were close before to a nuclear war and I never heard that before.’ I’m really curious now what is going on behind closed walls, what I don’t know about nowadays.”

While all three seasons of the Deutschland series explores many of the same themes, the three-year time jump built into the fabric of the show means each season gets a soft narrative reset for its characters and setting. When asked about the choice to have three-year time jumps, Joerg Winger said it was somewhat incidental. Because of Able Archer and some of the Neue Deutsche Welle music circa 1983, the Wingers knew they wanted to start their story in 1983. They also knew that they wanted to do a trilogy and that it should end in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because of this, of the three settings, 1986 is the most random.

“I think it’s a little bit like the Buddhist wisdom: wherever you dig, if you dig for long enough, you’ll find something,” says Joerg Winger of the 1986 setting. “We were a little bit nervous about the 86 question. When we started 86, we were like, ‘OK, so what are we going to find in ’86?’ But then there’s just so much.”

When we catch back up with Martin in Deutschland 86, he has been exiled from East Germany for three years, living in Angola where he teaches English at an orphanage. While the other two seasons in the story keep their focus relatively tight on East and West Germany, Deutschland 86 expands its Cold War scope to visit places like Libya and Paris, where geopolitical tensions are manifesting in different ways but are still part of the same global story.

“We started writing 86 the day after the Trump election,” says Anna Winger, “and I remember feeling really focused on looking at capitalism, because the story of 86 is kind of about the capitalist core of the engine that kept the communist regime going. And you see all these guys who are holding on to what they’ve managed to build at all costs, even though it’s all really coming apart.”

The Deutschland storyline comes to fruition in Deutschland 89. Three years following the events of Deutschland 86, the East German government is in even more dire straits. They are out of money, and the people are protesting. The final season is set against the backdrop of the collapse of the East German government.

“People didn’t know what was going to happen for a few months, and that is a very unusual situation,” says Anna Winger of the time period. “And also, for all these spies, they were really good spies, and suddenly, they had no country, the goals were completely unclear, and they were in the same place. The crazy thing about people in Berlin who live on the East side is they haven’t gone anywhere, but everything else has changed. It’s as if their country completely changed, and they’re still living on the same piece of earth, and that’s wild.”

The Deutschland series may explore East German life in the 1980s at different stages of Communist collapse, but the parallels to the experience of living in today’s crumbling capitalism are striking.

“I think as we came towards the end of the arc of the trilogy, certainly we got deeper and deeper into exploring late-stage capitalism and how that’s the patriarchy holding onto power in any sort of regime,” says Anna Winger. “We’re writing a show about late-stage communism or socialism, but it still has a lot of parallels to late-stage capitalism.”

In the midst of it all, is Martin Rauch, an audience surrogate for an everyday person just trying to live a good life with the people he loves amidst political and social turmoil. By Deutschland 89, Martin is understandably much more jaded than his 83-era self, but he has also somehow held onto his humanity.

“What Anna and Joerg always told me was that when they created Martin and how they wanted him to succeed, he should always have this moral compass that he’s following,” says Nay. “In a big contrast to all the people around him, like [his aunt] Lenora or [his father] Schweppenstette, that they are following rules given from somebody else or they’re following their idealism, their socialist idea. Martin had the chance of getting a pretty uncolored picture of East and West, of both the states and both the sides. He had to find his own [way].”

Martin’s ability to hold onto his humanity, to maintain some kind of admirable moral compass despite all of the things he has been through, is where much of the optimism in the Deutschland series ultimately lies. 

“I always saw it like Martin being in the middle and people from left and right trying to pull him in directions and he’s always trying to see or weigh out which is best for him and also for people around him,” says Nay. “He’s like, yeah, it’s a hero thing I guess. I don’t know. Yeah, Joerg and Anna wanted Martin to keep that. So it was kind of a challenge to, of course, let Martin grow up and let him harden and let him be very, very suspicious, more and more, not trusting anybody because what he learns is that, if he trusts somebody, he’s going to be betrayed so he has to keep it in himself. That is the development that he goes through through all the seasons. Then, given this little lovable touch of hero-ness and moral compass, not losing that. It was kind of a balance act I would say. I gave my very best.”

Ultimately, the Deutschland series ends as it told its story: thoughtfully, and with a fundamental empathy that doesn’t guarantee a happy ending but rather something better. The possibility of holding onto one’s humanity through pain and suffering and amongst forces so much larger than any one person. In 2020, that may be the flavor of happy ending we need most of all.

“In 89, the shit’s hit the fan, and it’s really over, and people are scrambling to redefine themselves,” says Anna Winger. “But I suppose, if there’s a message to the whole thing, it’s that there are possibilities in chaos. And this is truly something I think we can learn from Germany: is that maybe there’s the possibility of reinvention that is positive, that there’s hope in reinvention, and that maybe when things come apart, there’s a chance for something good to come out of it.”

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The entirety of the Deutschland series is now available to watch on Hulu.

The post In 2020, The Deutschland Series is As Relevant As Ever appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2JLtG55

[mehenxe]

◈ ◈ ◈ ◈ & ღ & ♫ bc ur a slut for music ; & ✮ (i want explanaTIONS ...gET META W THIS SHIT )

◈ — share some head-canons you have for a muse of your choosing, but x4.

[ elijah kane ] ◈ — all efforts to get him into studying how to make robotics like hyacinth have resulted in a lot of miniature woodland creatures able to sprint across desks. it’s not exactly what anybody had in mind, but hey, you never know if ilya might not want to send in an actual animal for something he has going on. they can call up sugar kane industries ( big face-palm here ) to take care of the job. ( wyatt voice: seriously, you couldn’t think of anything better than sugar kane. ) / hyacinth kane has a nice ring to it. elijah has tested out several different nicknames: sugar kane also for them, mistah k, ( missus k? ), cinthy ... cindy ... ( sean: yeah! cindy k! like cindy crawford! / who the fuck is cindy crawford? / wyatt — / how old are you. ) / he’s had a life-long dream to be able to go scuba-diving off the coast of — some exotic island he can’t remember the name of. beforehand, it was one of those things that he was too afraid to do, but full-out war changes your perspective. in truth, he’s always been a water baby, growing up going swimming in the local rivers and running pellmell down the dirt lanes. he grew out of it, and then grew back into it. whether or not he’s going to be able to do that without monroe tagging along ( and then by default, ilya, and then probably hojin will want to come, and then ravi will have to, and then oliver will want to watch over them and then jinho will buy a whole yacht with his dumb vampire money — ) — ah, well, there’s worse people to spend an extended holiday with. his father will come along too: sit on the deck in a lawn chair and drink a virgin margarita as he deserves after putting up with this whole extended family. and with his son being a you-know-what.

[ alice bedi ] ◈ — there was a time where she was interested in wigs. she had percival sit down on her shack’s bed and watch as she perused through at least fifteen different styles of wigs. each one got a firm head-shake: too rough on your complexion; lilac looks good as a colour, but the style is horrid; why did they think it was a good idea to make a bob that length? a tough customer. she returned back to wearing veils, her preferred style being that of mantilla, or the veil that’s worn to chapel over a jade comb. due to the volume and length of her natural curls, she rarely wears the combs at all, but will if it’s a particularly formal occasion, like that time she accompanied percival to a ‘high-society event.’ ( translation: they crashed a party because he was bored, and she had a bad feeling about him going alone. ) / as the local librarian’s assistant, she’s the first to get in the way when someone is overtly curious: why are you asking so many questions? hmm? the irony is that she herself asks just as many questions — she insists that the difference is: she reads the room and knows when it’s inappropriate to ask them. ( and if she knows it’s inappropriate to ask them, and instead chooses to risk asking them regardless, it’s because she knows it’ll smooth out in the end. / despite what she wears daily, one of her most favourite colours is moss green. there are a multitude of reasons. moss is her favourite foliage. it’s similar to algae, another favourite foliage. and it reminds her of someone who she says is her sister; however, anybody who knows her, knows that she has no blood-siblings. one or the other might be a lie, or both might be the truth. when she’s in a mood, she’ll smear the moss at the base of her neck like a perfume, a splotch of green beneath white.

[ huang shen ] ◈ — he designed an irrigation system to work, specific to his farm, to be able to make rice paddies despite the surrounding environment. it’s a southern crop in the united states, but there was no way he was going to move to the south just to expand the business. his entire family was so relieved about it that they danced through the sprinklers and set off fireworks — and none of them are really into that kind of thing. it’s particularly incredible due to the area they’re in, being very prone to sometimes too much drought and too much rain, and both are responsible for driving out selling numbers of crops. his plan is to switch into an agricultural degree, and perhaps even expand it into engineering, so that he can continue helping this way. / one of his surprises for algernon was learning sign language. for the longest time, months even, shen made it out like he had no idea what was being said, and let damien, as surly as ever, be the translator when algernon was unwilling or unable to speak. in the background, however, he was working with a tutor and seeking to understand better what it meant to be both HoH and mute. then, when algernon’s birthday came around, everyone went silent ( holy god he was so nervous ) and he gave an entire romantic, long speech entirely in sign language. he’s sure that some of it got lost in translation due to how hard his hands were shaking, but the way that algernon kissed him afterwards, it didn’t seem to affect much. now, they communicate constantly on this even ground. / he’s started up horseback riding again — and has roped tobias into doing it alongside him. tobias might have grace on the stage floor, but certainly not on the back of a horse; he somehow ended up upside-down beneath the horse’s belly, and then fell down in a tangle of limbs. shen has taken to the western side of things, re-learning how to barrel race and rope cattle; but he and tobias have had to separate their lessons due to these antics. lucas isn’t allowed to come to any of them; his stupid remarks send them into fits of laughing. ( bold of us to assume he doesn’t just sit in the truck and shout anyways. )

[ deok bae ] ◈ — due to the empire no longer supporting his upgrades, nor looking in his general direction, he has had to find other ways to obtain new modifications. this is including, but not limited to, going and pulling them out of other people’s bodies as catharsis — but usually, he defects to yuri and silas to fix him up. to his chagrin, the LED-light in his forehead has absolutely no use whatsoever, only displaying his brain’s processing as a symptom of installation. he pulled it out himself via the tip of a knife’s blade. the next time that he’s seen by those who haven’t seen him in quite some time, he might be unrecognisable. i am not deok bae — perhaps deok bae is no longer himself either. if there was no connection to eli in his head, he would forget that; perhaps he would merely succumb to the machinery, perhaps he would succumb to the wolf-dom. there are several pairs of teeth in his mouth awaiting for their moment to bite. / when he was a teen, his version of ‘sneaking out’ would be to wheel his chair to the gardens at the back of the temple, where he would sit and think for hours and hours. his father would come and find him there; sometimes, master jhcor would instead. his father would return him back to where he needed to be, but master jhcor would sit beside him and gaze serenely until bae felt the need to speak what was on his mind: his angers, his fevers, his rages. one time, he was surprised to see that it was not master jhcor, nor master deok, but zan coming to sit with him. his heart had sat in his throat the whole time, half-expecting zan to laugh at him or say something particularly piteous. instead, the conversation was — well, looking back, absurdly normal, all things considering. when bae blinked tiredly, zan rose and took the handles of his chair and took him back. he hadn’t intended to ask him to do so, but it was done anyway. / bae drinks a lot of soda. it’s somewhat fitting, if you believe all that talk about how coca-cola can double as a cleaner due to the high carbonation and way it’s made. he does seem to get shiny after several cans — it’s also convenient that he can’t experience sugar-highs nor malfunctions of the liver or stomach due to too much consumption. he considers himself to be a soda connoisseur as a result. he offers a lot of hmm, that’ll taste disgusting comments that annoy the shit out of the others — but then kisung takes a drink and bae ends up being right, so there’s no regrets.

ღ ━ favourite canon ships for your muse(s). are there any you dislike?

there’s ... none that i dislike. there’s moments of come on, but that’s bound to happen. i think the favourite ships are the ... guardian / princess vibes ( whether it’s literal or not: akane / the samurai, quinn / sehrin, jian / elaine ). i also love the growing from previous immaturities towards each other ( grey / tobias, jihoon / wyatt, playboy / jordan ) — and himbos of course ( hojin / ravi!! ) there’s also the whole ... tsh, vampiric aesthetic that we get ( minzhe / yongha ) ... the ones like jisoo / mingfei, cyrian / ulysses, cadoc / pestilence ( exploring violence against but without the stickiness ). of course, if i keep going, i’ll end up listing all of them and then where would we be.

♫ ━ a small playlist for a muse of your choice

for nam jungsoo, because i actually once did make a playlist for him:

1. brand new — sic transit gloria ... glory fades 2. within temptation — what have you done 3. iamx feat. imogen heap — my secret friend 4. florence + the machine — shipwreck (the odyssey) 5. crown the empire — hologram

i mean, the songs are still kinda relevant considering his current character ...

✮ ━ top three favourite muses that you’ve played

but is it possible to pick three favourites ... that’s the real question. maybe. jianguo, because of catharsis, because of cultural exploration and similarities. grendel, because of the depth, the personal torment, the surrounding family. jinho & julius, because of exploring that darkness. and famine — man, now that’s something. there’s a lot more than three though. like blood and jisoo and tobias and arthur. but. the questions INSIST THAT I CHOOSE.

[flightfoot]

Addressing Syren Salt

Okay look. So sometimes I see Adrien salted for his actions for Syren. For him sitting around while he waits for Ladybug to get back, finally getting fed up with being left in the dark (though notably, he does NOT take it out on Ladybug, he’s more annoyed at whoever’s telling her not to share), and finally threatening to give up the ring.

Just to remind everyone of the actual exchange:

Cat Noir: This is so dumb! (stands up) Claws in. (detransforms) Plagg: (groans) What's taking her so long? (Adrien holds up his hands to Plagg, and starts to pull off his ring a little bit) Whoa, easy! W-What are you doing?! Adrien: (grimly) If you don't tell me what Ladybug is hiding from me, I'm done! Plagg: You can't do that! Adrien: (bitterly) Why not? No one'll know if I quit. No one'll care! Plagg: I will! Adrien: Why? (cynically) Because you won't have anyone to give you Camembert? Plagg: Oh, I'm sure there'll be another Cat Noir to give me cheese... (pauses, and turns to Adrien) ...but he won't be you. (Adrien's expression softens) Master Fu: (suddenly appears next to Adrien) Hello, Cat Noir. (Adrien turns and gasps in shock)

A few things to note here: His reason for getting rid of the ring isn’t just a childish tantrum to try and get what he wants. He genuinely doesn’t think he matters here, that his absence will harm anyone. It’s not like he’s needed for the Miraculous Cure or for purifying akumas, he technically doesn’t HAVE to be there, especially since Ladybug now has other allies (or well, just one ally at this point in the show) that she can call on. So it’s not like this is some huge ultimatum that will doom Paris if he goes through with it, at least to his perception.

Also honestly I’m pretty sure he’d just give Plagg to someone else so they can be the new Chat, though it’s hard to know for sure with so little canon material to draw from for that kind of thing.

Yeah, he’s upset for being left out of the loop, and honestly I can’t blame him. I think that’s just being human. Especially since they ARE supposed to be partners, not Hero and Sidekick. It makes more sense when Ladybug starts training to become a Guardian I think, but Chat doesn’t even know the Guardian EXISTS, so he has no idea why his partner, his equal, suddenly HAS more secrets concerning the Miraculous than he does. And not even knowing WHY she suddenly knows where to get more Miraculous, why she’s allowed to know more than he is... yeah that would bother me too.

It kinda makes me wonder; if Marinette was in his position, with Chat suddenly pulling more allies out of nowhere, being allowed to know their identities, and just generally knowing more about the Miraculous and not being allowed to share, would she be bothered by that at all? At repeatedly being told to wait for Chat to go do something somewhere, but not being allowed to know what it is or why, when previously they were pretty much equal partners, at least as far as knowledge and experience goes? Do you think that would bother her at all with it happening repeatedly?

That’s not really the crux of the MAIN salt I see concerning Syren though. The major salt seems to be centered around him threatening to quit while Paris was underwater, under the assumption that he’s thinking about quitting while many, many Parisians are dead or drowning, and that he needs to suck it up.

If this was a more serious, gritty show, I’d probably agree. Like most live-action superhero movies? Sure. Or grittier superhero shows that have major, potentially life-ending consequences for supervillain attacks, like season 3 of Young Justice? Absolutely!

But Miraculous Ladybug IS. NOT. ONE. OF. THOSE. SHOWS. It’s fairly lighthearted and the world was pretty much engineered so that no matter what horrific devastation and consequences is visited on the people of the ML universe, it doesn’t have major negative consequences. That’s part of why the Miraculous Cure exists, which is something that those other more serious shows DON’T have. Even in situations where the Miraculous Cure ISN’T brought out to play the actual logical negative ramifications of the events of ML episodes are glossed over, to say the least. Adrien should have had some MUCH more obvious negative effects from going through several months of just rushing out and attempting to take down Desperada with Ladybug every five minutes, for instance.

And as far as death and destruction from akuma attacks go? The general rule seems to be “if you’re not actively, currently seeing people being harmed, then no civilians are currently in major peril, even if they logically would be. And even if they ARE shown as being in peril, they’re only background dressing really UNLESS they’re an actual character and not just a stock background model.”

For example, in Origins - Part 1, StoneHeart leveled a skyscraper. Logically it would have been FILLED with people, so everyone in it would have died, along with anyone it fell on. That would have been hundreds, if not thousands of people dead, with (at that point) no reason to believe that they would recover, AND Parisians weren’t used to this kind of thing yet so they weren’t just jaded to it.

Yet, neither Adrien or Marinette seemed to be horrified at so many people dying, nor mourning their deaths. And as for the news coverage afterwards? (And remember, Ladybug didn’t use her Miraculous Cure until AFTER Stoneheart was defeated the second time, so there was a good 24 hours or so to assess and count the dead).

But the news didn’t talk about those people’s deaths, only the people who were turned into statues:

Nadja: (standing to the side of a picture of one of Stoneheart's minions, tablet in hand) The stone beings are scattered all over Paris, and for the time being, they are showing no signs of movement. (a variety of pictures is shown) Police have cordoned off the area. André: (on television alongside officer Roger) We won't stop until we find a way to get these people back to their normal selves, but for now, we're not making much headway. (The camera flips backs to Nadja standing next to a photo of Ladybug and Cat Noir.) Nadja: Paris is relying on our new guardian angels, Ladybug and Cat Noir, to save us all. Our lives depend on them.

Miraculous Ladybug just doesn’t have people be seriously physically or psychologically harmed by akumas in a way that lasts.

Now the show can be REINTERPRETED in such a way that these things DO matter and have lasting effects, but if so, then this isn’t the only episode that would apply to. It would apply to the WHOLE SERIES. Which means that in say, the Bubbler, Ladybug used up her charm and delayed fighting Bubbler for several minutes KNOWING that adults were floating up into the sky while children and babies were wandering around and getting into who-knows-what trouble, possibly getting injured or killed.

Just in general, the whole series would have to be reinterpreted, and unless their canon personalities were altered in that scenario, I’m pretty sure they’d act a bit differently if people were dying or being seriously injured all around them and it MATTERED. Like they’d be WAY more stressed for one thing, and both of them would have some pretty severe PTSD from watching and listening to other people die or be badly wounded, and so would a lot of other Parisians.

Also pretty sure that if there were drowning civilians in need of help that we’re supposed to consider in canon, then Ladybug would have said something like “I need to go, you help the civilians until I get back!” or something, just to establish roles.