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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Neverland, the role of “nostalgia” in Kiuzna’s narrative, and the 02 quartet’s unusual immunity to it

In general, the 02 quartet (my shorthand for the four human characters introduced in 02 who weren’t in Adventure, namely Daisuke, Ken, Miyako, and Iori) have a position in Kizuna that you can call “shockingly favorable” in that they’re kept safely out of the most dangerous parts of the plot in ways the others aren’t. This especially sticks out when we get to the Eosmon incident reaching its climax, when Takeru and Hikari are placed in the same situation as their Adventure seniors, despite the movie and its surrounding media generally portraying them closer in line with the others in the 02 group than the Adventure group.

To be a bit blunt about it, the obvious main reason the story is set up this way is meta -- a lot of the climax’s effectiveness depends on the audience getting sensory impact via recognizing things from the original series (including 02 as well; how convenient it is that all of the international Chosen are in the positions 02 fans would recognize!), and so it’s obvious that said climax would evoke imagery related to the series that was Digimon Adventure, while the 02 quartet would be treated extra-kindly by the narrative due to the need to give them compensatory action screentime given certain real-life events. But just because the originating reason is meta doesn’t mean there isn’t also a story reason for it, especially considering the relevance of 02′s themes in Kizuna’s narrative, and the surrounding circumstances regarding both series.

Before we get into anything else, the first thing that needs to be established is that Menoa and Eosmon’s lure is pretty obviously depicted as working on a subconscious level. This is why everyone else in the narrative agrees that what they did is “kidnapping”, despite her insistence that she’s just doing what they wanted. While they can’t not admit to having moments of weakness, nevertheless, it’s likely that most if not all of the people Menoa kidnapped consciously knew better and had learned better lessons than this a long time ago; if Menoa had consciously offered Neverland to her victims, most of them would have probably said no! But as Daisuke said back in 02 episode 49 -- when he witnessed his own friends being subjected to something similar at the hands of BelialVamdemon -- there’s no sin in having feelings of worries or troubles (and, by extension, irrational feelings in general), and Eosmon’s abilities and Neverland happen to be able to directly target them. In fact, we ourselves got to witness this internal conflict when Menoa made her direct offer to Taichi and Yamato to join Neverland; they briefly considered it because of the circumstances, but were snapped out of it quickly with Agumon and Gabumon’s intervention, and were really, really mad at themselves for considering it shortly after.

We saw the process of how Ayaka became one of the kidnapping victims at the beginning of the movie -- it happened right after she complained that she wasn’t fond of the idea of becoming an adult at this point. So it does lend some truth to the idea that Menoa’s working off something with these cases, and that Eosmon did specifically target people who had those wishes to some degree. Moreover, note carefully how this kidnapping (and some others in the movie) is portrayed; Eosmon doesn’t actually emerge from the device in question (it’s obvious that nobody notices the giant butterfly monster), and the victim’s consciousness and partner are whisked away thanks to being caught by the device camera. In Ayaka’s case, because her phone was sitting on the table, pointed at her. The fact that this is not how the kidnappings are portrayed all the way to the end of the movie is a very significant point.

So let’s talk about Neverland and its construction. The whole thing is based on Menoa’s own very, very warped view of what “happiness” is. This means that Neverland is only an “ideal world” or “utopia” in a way that makes sense to her -- and once you learn the full extent of her backstory, it becomes apparent how she came to the mentality she did, and, more pertinently, how she ended up projecting that on everyone else. Hence, how she came to decide that she knew better and should decide for everyone, because she thinks she gets the right to decide on everyone’s happiness based on her own experiences. (She doesn’t.)

The way Neverland is constructed is that everyone has “their own places” -- their own individual islands that recreate “memories” of everyone being able to be together with their partner, forever. So in other words, it’s not just that everyone’s being turned into children; it’s that they’re being kept in an eternal loop of their best memory and unable to “move forward”.

Here are three very significant parts about this, which will be important to keep in mind as we go deeper into this analysis:

Menoa’s view of this utopia requires people to be separated -- for all she claims this is a utopia where people can play together, she discourages fraternizing and encourages everyone to stay only with their own partners. This is, presumably, to lessen complications with said memories, because what might be one person’s best memory might not be for another, and also because she thinks one person being alone with their partner is happiness enough in itself. As we’ll be seeing later, this is very much not the case for everyone.

A lot of these memories in Neverland -- and Menoa’s own mentality, as we eventually find out -- are heavily dependent on the concept of rose-colored nostalgia, or, that is to say, conveniently omitting or forgetting about all of the bad things about one’s past in order to portray it as such a wonderful thing that nobody should ever move on from. And in the end, that probably applies to real-life childhood in general, too; as much as it’s so often put on a pedestal for being a time when “everything was simpler”, you can also easily argue that it wasn’t actually all sunshine and roses, it’s just that the process of forgetting things or the grass-is-greener phenomenon makes you conveniently forget all of the bad things and frustration that came with it too.

Because the concept of needing to stay in the past forever is based on the idea that it’s preferable to growing up, these memories thus have a strong premise of “things you cannot do anymore” -- something that, bar going back to the past and never moving from it, you will never get back or be able to sufficiently recreate. It’s unlikely the islands themselves are one-to-one recreating their specific memories in the way they happened, but rather seemingly presenting them the opportunity to “constantly do over” things they want to recreate or do again, as long as those things are associated with a happy thing that isn’t as easily accessible anymore.

In the case of the five Adventure group members who were brought into Neverland, these “memories” that they’re seen trapped in are, of course, from Digimon Adventure.

It is of course foolhardy to pretend that the main reason for this wasn’t meta, since, of course, there’s a huge point to be made here about the relationship between Adventure and nostalgia, plus the simple fact that this is what we’re most likely to recognize and be nostalgic for, but it also makes sense within the context of the narrative; Menoa has an extreme bias towards the happiness of her childhood revolving almost entirely around her partner, and, of course, Adventure was when these kids first had their most formative meetings with said partners. (This is also probably the in-story explanation for why the other international Chosen from 02 appear at or close to their 02 selves; beyond the meta reason of it being a way to make them recognizable when we only knew them for such a short time, it also approximates when they met their own partners.)

On top of that, Adventure was not all sunshine and roses for its cast! After all, there was a ton of drama and emotional trauma and stress from running away from enemies trying to kill them, or trying to save the universe, and glossing over that is also foolhardy -- but this is also where our concept of “rose-colored” comes in. Menoa’s not offering the kids the entire adventure; she’s offering them a small slice of the moments when they were able to be happy, the moments that made them want to stay in the Digital World for a whole 110 years’ worth of time at the end of Adventure -- she’s basically offering them that very thing they wanted and had ripped away from them at the end of Adventure when the time dilation phenomenon stopped. Take out all of the bad stuff, and suddenly, the events of Adventure seem outright romantic -- it’s the whole school of thought that fueled Adventure’s inspirations of Two Years’ Vacation and Stand By Me, in which a lot of stressful stuff happened and yet you still can’t help but think there was something magical and romantic about it. (I cannot emphasize enough how much of a cultural impact Stand By Me in particular had in Japan, to the point where it’s considered the epitome example of a “coming of age story” and “summer adventure”.)

Let’s take a closer look at what’s on each of the Adventure kids’ personal islands:

Hikari is probably the one in the most unusual position among this group, since she didn’t join until over the halfway point, and the first arc she got involved in revolved around everyone wanting her and Tailmon dead. Thus, the memory we get to see her involved in is the Numemon factory in Adventure episode 49. Although this was in the middle of the Dark Masters arc (and, uniquely, very close to the end of the series where a lot of stress was involved), due to the limited amount of time she got to be in the Digital World, this was the one time she got to do something really cool and awesome and impressive for herself that had nothing to do with the others (again: see how the requirements for these islands require not fraternizing with friends and being isolated).

One thing that the Adventure kids got to do that wasn’t in play in 02 was that there were a lot of “romantic experiences”, involving strange adventures and things like phone boxes on the beach, and, very significantly, “Digimon friends” -- ones that the kids made a huge note of bonding with over the course of the series. This contributes to a certain sense of whimsy that was involved in this adventure that the 02 quartet ultimately never ended up getting to foster, because the lack of the time dilation phenomenon meant that they spent much less time in the Digital World overall (more on this in a bit), and once the time dilation stopped, it meant that these kinds of “whimsical” experiences were ones the Adventure group was permanently torn away from once that adventure ended. That dropping of the time dilation phenomenon not only cut that initial adventure short, it also prevented any future ones like it from ever happening again.

And, of course, this is an extremely rose-colored memory, because shortly afterwards, the Numemon ended up all sacrificing themselves for Hikari. But hey, when you’re in a space that can eternally loop good memories forever, everything’s fine as long as we conveniently never get to that part, right?

From this point on, you’ll notice that all of the memories that show up on these islands are from before the halfway point of the series, because after that, things started getting increasingly pear-shaped and much more difficult to disentangle the stress, mental breakdowns, and witnessing of deaths from. (Hikari’s probably wouldn’t have come from such a late incident if she hadn’t joined the party so late.) Although there still were looming threats around the horizon in the beginning of Adventure, they weren’t always immediately apparent to the kids at every turn, and in fact, the beginning of the series involved more of a “well, we’re in this situation and probably need to get home somehow” aura than it did a “the world is in danger and all of us might die” aura. (It’s also in direct contrast to the 02 group, who were given the details of the crisis and what they needed to do roughly from the get-go.) So in other words, if you want to have some rose-colored nostalgia about the romanticism of this adventure, these are some of the best episodes to pull from.

Takeru’s is obviously from the Village of Beginnings, corresponding to Adventure episode 12, when he and Patamon got to have a fun romp through the village, play together, meet Elecmon, and learn about how Digimon are born. It’s also very much something he did without the others, only with Patamon, and had a lot of “fun and happiness” associated with (later solo episodes with Takeru had a lot more upsetting events more intrinsically tied with it), and, again, it’s extremely rose-colored -- it wasn’t even a day later when Angemon died in front of Takeru’s eyes. But hey, that’s even more reason to pick a moment from before then to stay in forever! Can’t have trauma if that trauma never happens, right?

Also, note that Takeru is one of the few here who’s confirmed to be aware of the partnership dissolution issue at this point, and, unlike Koushirou, isn’t confirmed to have accepted a forward-thinking mentality about it yet -- this is a very, very prime time for his fears of being separated from Patamon again to have a nasty relapse.

Mimi’s is the closest to the midpoint of the series, from the affair with the Geckomon and Otamamon castle (from Adventure episode 25; the metal railings here resemble the stage railings from that episode). It’s from the period of time that was a “lull” -- when nobody actually knew about the encroaching threat of Vamdemon quite yet, and for all it was worth, there was no longer any danger. So Mimi got to live happily in the comfort of the castle and play around with the Geckomon and Otamamon...which, of course, also conveniently excludes the affair where she went on a power trip, made everyone miserable due to her selfishness, and immediately felt guilt over it.

Mimi’s associations with this incident are not entirely negative; she was clearly still having fun singing for them in the end (note how her clothing during that scene involved her regular outfit, which she has on here), and she still had a positive impression of her relationship with the Geckomon and Otamamon as per Adventure episode 47 and 02 episode 6 (and as per 02 episode 15, even though everyone’s initial encounter with TonosamaGeckomon ended badly, nobody actually has any lingering grudge against him). So if you filter out that whole affair with the power trip and the resulting embarrassment, it was a meeting with a bunch of fun Digimon friends, a romantic little castle, and a fun stage session where Mimi got to sing.

Jou’s refers to the Infinity Mountain incident in Adventure episode 7, and even from the get-go you can already see the level of rose-coloredness in Jou’s gesture -- in the actual incident depicted, Jou went to the mountain out of a sense of obligation and stress, and the initial climbing involved him having a bit of a bickering moment with Gomamon. But once they did get up there, it was actually their first time the two of them got to really “bond” -- and not only that, their encounter with Unimon had Jou even look on it with fascination, before the Dark Gear had ever come into play.

So in the end, Jou really would have found the incident enjoyable and worthwhile if not for that, and from there you can understand why it would be appealing for him to revisit that setting and finally get to have a bit of calm fun with Gomamon there -- especially since, again, the Neverland islands have a very strong preference for isolating the kids from others, and this was one of the few times Jou got to have a major moment of calm like this alone with Gomamon, with a slight reprieve from the constant feeling of stress and duty.

Koushirou’s most prominently resembles the “sealed room” in the factory in Adventure episode 5, and while Koushirou certainly continued to make a large number of exciting discoveries after that, this was the situation where Koushirou, with no one else but Tentomon to worry about in the immediate vicinity, got to have the largest sensation of “novelty” -- where he first came upon the fascinating discovery of data manipulating reality around him, and he actually got to see the world change around him by wiping things off a wall.

And, of course, there were other things going on like Tentomon confronting him with his first existential crisis, and how things quickly went south with Andromon...but we don’t have to remember that part for now, right?

An interesting thing about Koushirou: the circumstances of how he was “kidnapped” in the first place are actually somewhat obscured compared to the other four in this scene, since Menoa presumably needed him conscious in order to get his list out of him, resulting in his kidnapping scene also involving an emerging Eosmon and not having him be instantly taken the way we see Takeru and Hikari (more on this in the section below). It’s thus unclear whether he’d be in their boat had his position in Menoa’s plan not been unusual -- said memories in Neverland involved “gathering information and learning more”, something he still actively involved himself with even after the events of Adventure, and he’s also the first one to reach a forward-thinking mentality about the partnership dissolution phenomenon. Either way, once he was already dragged into Neverland, it’s natural that the place could find a good memory for him in the same way it did for the other kids who were “manually” dragged in, but the actual method of entry and whether Koushirou's post-Adventure life put him in a mindset similar to that of the 02 quartet (again, see below) is a bit ambiguous.

So here’s an interesting part about how the 02 quartet gets involved in this story: their own encounters with Eosmon happen during a part where the method of kidnapping has abruptly changed. As many have pointed out, this is also when the degree of the targets Menoa wanted had also suddenly escalated, because while her previous claims had involved the idea of kidnapping like-minded adults (who, indeed, were entertaining thoughts of nostalgia to even some degree), she was now kidnapping actual children, ones who weren’t even nearly at the point of the supposed drudgery of adulthood that Menoa claimed they would eventually have, and with her arrogantly deciding she knew better for all of them. The part that becomes particularly intriguing about this is that the exact same thing happens with Miyako -- she is explicitly stated to have connected her laptop to the Internet, resulting in an Eosmon physically emerging and chasing her instead of instantaneously snatching away her consciousness through a camera like her own fellow 02 group members Takeru and Hikari.

So in other words, the 02 quartet’s favorable position in this incident doesn’t just have to do with being lucky enough to have gotten Koushirou’s warning about the Eosmon early; they (or at least Miyako) also seem to have a certain degree of outright immunity to it, much like the young children who aren’t old enough to have nostalgia yet. (Also, keep in mind that Takeru was caught thanks to a security camera; “excess caution with electronic devices” alone wouldn’t necessarily have guaranteed their safety.)

Recalling that, for the most part, Takeru and Hikari are usually treated more like 02 group members in the context of this narrative yet are, in this one case, treated as being potentially nostalgia-prone, it stands to reason that the main difference between the two of them and their fellow members in the 02 group is the fact that Takeru and Hikari went on the adventure in 1999, and the quartet did not. So in other words, the reason the 02 quartet isn’t as prone to this is not so much that they’re fundamentally different-minded people, as much as they have a distinct lack of an experience they can be attached to the way the Adventure group is to their own 1999 adventure. (Remember that Menoa’s kidnappings work heavily on subconscious feelings; you can’t blame anyone for having these kinds of feelings no matter how much they’ve consciously learned.)

As I said earlier, it’s foolhardy to pretend that Adventure was all sunshine and roses, and, likewise, it’s also foolhardy to pretend that 02 was nothing but suffering for everyone involved. Both series involved a lot of balancing of funny, silly moments to be treasured as much as they involved stress (which is why people are so attached to both, after all). So the question is not so much how happy they were in their childhoods as much as the nature of what that happiness came from, and what relation it has to their current lives. And when you look at what experiences the 02 quartet had back in 02, you might notice a thread of the fact that it is significantly harder to romanticize the events of 02 than it is Adventure.

Let’s put it this way: Let’s say that the 02 quartet was kidnapped into Neverland and placed onto islands that fit Menoa’s view of happiness. What, exactly, would you pick from 02 itself that would work? What kind of “happiness” did they have back then that’s so romantic, so impossible to replicate now, that they’d want to go back to because it’s better than their lives now once you disentangle all of the bad stuff?

...Not much. Not much at all, actually. Hanging out in the computer room together? Doesn’t seem like they cared that much about the computer room part as much as the fact the others were there bantering with them (which would put a huge nail in Menoa’s islands mandating isolationism). Going out on a picnic together? No reason they can’t just go on another picnic again (and if the BD box is to be believed, that’s exactly what they did, and they even added Ken to it while they were at it). Hanging out with their Digimon in real life and doing silly hijinks? They’re...probably still doing that now, actually. Getting to find true happiness at a Christmas party? That’s a party from the real world (again, something they most certainly continued to do thereafter), one where the happiness came not from the romanticism of anything that happened to do with some adventure, but just the happiness of being surrounded by true friends, which, again, Ken is still clearly getting to do by the time of Kizuna.

Once you look at the circumstances of what the “adventure” of 02 was to the 02 group, you may realize that it doesn’t really resemble the traditional romantic image of an “adventure” much at all. Sure, they were blessed with being able to regularly go back and forth between the Digital World from the get-go, but it meant that -- especially without the time dilation in play -- the Digital World became much less of a picturesque area associated with a one-time memorable adventure as much as something they had to squeeze in their after-hours while juggling it with their school. The circumstances they encountered their Digimon and the Digital World in were at a point where it had a certain level of “mundane” to them, compared to their seniors; it wasn’t a “fantasy adventure in the Digital World” when so much of the story also revolved around real-world events as well, and you can’t really find many “mysterious fantasy” events in 02 that resemble much of those in Adventure. The closest might be...Daisuke seeing Numemon pile out of a vending machine in 02 episode 1? (Not very romantic.) Daisuke getting chased around by a Tortomon in 02 episode 22? (Really not very romantic.) Iori getting to tour the ocean with Submarimon? (Implied to more about relief from how much he was holding himself back than the uniqueness of the experience in itself.) Ken’s long-time-ago flashback from 02 episode 23 about meeting Wormmon for the first time? (Defeating a Gazimon is hardly that impressive; the important part was him bonding with Wormmon, which he’s...uh...still doing now?)

There weren’t any lasting relationships with Digimon friends like the ones in Adventure, maybe encountering some civilians once and not seeing them much again after that, especially since the lack of time dilation meant not getting to spend as much time visiting them much at all (think about all of the really fun experiences that the Adventure group probably had that weren’t shown in the actual Adventure TV series, just because it probably didn’t have enough drama that would make a good TV episode plot). This means that there’s very little, if at all, of 02 that represents something this group would want so badly to recreate that they can’t already do now; everything from back then was either something comparatively mundane, or something they actually would not want back. Unlike with Adventure, where a lot of the kids had irreplaceable moments that only happened to be spoiled a bit later, a lot of the “really awesome accomplishments” from the first half of 02 were explicitly against Ken, someone whom they’d probably rather not dwell on fighting again because of how much they love him now; many of those good memories are “retroactively poisoned” because of that, and it’s much, much more difficult to make a rose-colored version of those memories disentangled from the bad, because of how fundamentally intrinsic that retroactive poisoning becomes.

And, when you think about it, the mandate of “you have to be alone on your own island” would pretty much break these four in particular, especially since the 02 group is portrayed as the type to need mutual support more than anything else, and so many of the events that represent “happiness” specifically involved the happiness of each other being present. It’s not to say that the 02 quartet had no moments of happiness when alone with their partners, but, rather, being with each other provided so much more fulfillment to them that Menoa’s offer of a memory of their past that requires them to be alone probably pales in comparison to anything they could do now in each other’s presence. Maybe, like with the other kids depicted in these scenes, they could be buttered up with something nice if you successfully got them into Neverland, but it’s not like they have any real wistfulness about anything from back then to the point that they’d be subconsciously drawn towards it instead of having to be dragged in kicking and screaming -- and especially in the case of Miyako, the same one who managed to evade an Eosmon here, who was offered a similar “chance to be alone” back in 02 episode 49 and didn’t take very long to decide she hated it because of how much of her happiness comes from getting to be with others.

By the time of the end of Adventure, the Adventure kids’ ideal situation was to have a romantic and fun 110-year adventure with the sights and fun of the Digital World, with all of the weird fantasy surrealism and less of the world-saving, and that’s something they never got to have (and that Menoa was inherently offering them). By the time of the end of 02, the 02 quartet’s ideal situation was...to find a way to get back to normal life and hope their friend feels a little better, and that “ideal situation” is still persisting even into the time of Kizuna, so it’s hard to imagine they really want more than that.

And, again, when you extrapolate this into what Kizuna’s trying to say about real life, adulthood, and nostalgia: it is true that Menoa’s projecting a belief that absolutely does not apply to everyone. While it’s true that many people feel that childhood had a certain kind of magic that you can’t get back in adulthood, there are possibly just as many people who aren’t really all that nostalgic to begin with, either due to trauma or something about their childhoods being miserable, or, even in the lack of such miserable events, simply enjoying the added freedom and expanded range of ability that comes with adulthood to the point they consider it to be more than worth the tradeoff. The 02 group basically represents this crowd -- Ken’s life right now beats out his past in pretty much nearly every respect, and while there are certain concerns about not being able to meet up as often, they’re finding the same ways to do the same kinds of over-the-top hijinks they did back in 02, with arguably even more range now that they get to exploit Digital Gates to do world travel and act without worrying about their parents. They’re basically like the adults who see Menoa’s creed of “childhood is better because adulthood sucks” and go “sorry, can’t relate.”

That said, remember: this isn’t because the 02 quartet is somehow mentally stronger or anything, but rather just a byproduct of what experiences they've had and haven’t had. Takeru and Hikari’s position is unique here -- for all intents and purposes their mentalities are portrayed as closer to the 02 group’s, but they did still have the experience their seniors had and are thus still capable of being close to their position in this one regard. In the end, everyone is different, it’s no sin to have feelings based on those differences, and “being able to relate” to one’s position is also an important key here; because the 02 group’s position is so alien to Menoa’s, it’s unlikely they could have tackled her problems nearly as intimately as their seniors could.

What we learn about Menoa’s backstory establishes that she forced her vision of nostalgic happiness on everyone based on her own perception of her past in such a warped, rose-colored manner. She conveniently omitted or forgot about details such as the fact that her life as a “child” involved feeling ostracized from everyone and that she herself was guilty of neglecting Morphomon. Not only that, she herself claims that she’s the only one who knows what this feels like -- that nobody relates to her -- and thus, you can see that she came to her conclusion that her experiences are universal by the power of sheer extrapolation, hence why she thinks everyone inevitably loses their partner upon reaching adulthood despite pretty significant amounts of evidence to the contrary. (For all it’s worth, the fact that she still considers herself as having “become an adult” at 14 just because she got into university at that time is pretty conceited.)

Menoa’s existence as being so starkly in contrast to the 02 quartet’s is very likely because her entire character was built up from the ground that way -- her entire backstory of skipping grades into university is heavily based on 02′s initial development premise and Ken’s own backstory, meaning she explicitly represents the path that Ken and the other 02 kids chose not to take, and the timing of certain events in her backstory seems almost deliberately engineered to prevent her from witnessing some of 02′s important answers to Kizuna’s conflict, most notably her inability to witness the final battle and the important lessons everyone present learned about following one’s dreams without restraint, and how that relates to one’s partner. Menoa’s mindset is basically that level of incompatible with 02′s themes of “moving on from the past” and “not caving to arbitrary societal expectations”, to the point her character could only get to this point by going out of the way to exclude her from 02′s story and events, because she’s fundamentally built as a character who started off on a very similar path as them (getting to integrate her Digimon partner into normal life, having a similar backstory to Ken) before veering off on a very different one.

Moreover, about that backstory, and the reason why 02 was conceived as such a criticism of the concept of “skipping grades into university”: the concern that someone in this position will be kept from making any friends their age. Menoa puts the moment of “being with one’s partner” on such a pedestal and considers herself to be “the only one who knows what this feels like” partially because she has a fundamentally warped view of friendship itself. Even the Adventure group, which may not have had quite the absurdly tight level of bonding the 02 group had, still broke out of the illusion via Taichi and Yamato reaching out to them, and Taichi and Yamato giving each other mutual support helped them make the decisions they did in the movie. The movie is titled “bonds”, and “bonds” doesn’t just refer to those between human and Digimon partner, but also bonds between each other; Taichi, Yamato, and Sora slowly drifting away from the others at the start of the movie has very strong relevance to their respective existential crises, and the role that Taichi and Yamato play in supporting each other, and Mimi’s in supporting Sora in To Sora and even beyond that, say a lot as to how they’re already expected to be much better off than Menoa was.

It’s not that adulthood is inherent drudgery; it’s that Menoa’s own circumstances really are that warped to the point where she sees her very unusual experiences as fundamentally synonymous with how life is supposed to work in general. She was so obsessed with “being independent”, “being useful to the world”, and “being on her own” that she had no mentality of making friends or connecting to others besides her own partner, and once her partner disappeared, she seemed to make no attempt to rectify that. So of course her life in university following that ended up being not nearly as fulfilling as she’d hoped, since she was getting no real emotional support from anywhere, and, as 02 itself also drove home, apparent “approval from society” only ever makes you as “happy” as a Dark Seed-implanted child if you’re not also being supported by your loved ones in the process. Her adulthood sucked, and she decided that everything about her rose-colored childhood meant that childhood is fundamentally superior in every way, and thus decided that keeping everyone else in it would be “saving” them from the terror it involves -- even though (even if they’re not aware of the specifics of everything) the 02 quartet is not the kind to be able to relate to this at all, and, eventually, Taichi and Yamato, who do understand her position a bit better due to their own experiences, are able to get her to reconsider a little.

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #kizuna spoilers #shihameta

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myheartissetinmotion · 4 years

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hello, internet

I’m really about to expose myself here huh

anyway, this post is the brainchild of my quarantine. Beginning somewhere around April (what even is time) and ongoing to this day, I’ve written screenplays and fics, made pinterest boards and spotify playlists, dreamed up choreography, and plotted storylines, all as a product of both escapism from this insane world and yearning to be part of my favorite tv show in any capacity.

guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, buckle your seatbelts and allow me to introduce you to “Zoey’s Extraordinary Cousin”, Victoria Evelyn Clarke.

(most of this was written before s2 premiered, and I won’t always be changing her whole story as it would be required on this post, but I’ll continue to add fics which modify stuff to fit s2 canon)

general stuff

name: Victoria Evelyn Clarke (named after a song-first-and a friend-middle)

nickname: Tori

age: 23

height: 5′9″ (plenty of opportunity for the brogrammers to joke about how short Zoey is when compared to her younger cousin)

hair: auburn, medium length, wavy

eyes: hazel, she wears glasses

family: her father is Mitch’s brother, so Maggie and Mitch are her aunt and uncle, making Zoey and David her cousins

occupation: just graduated from a BFA musical theatre program; hired to play piano in the SPRQpoint lobby, stays there for most of the time that her story is shown and eventually books a role in the LA area, which causes her departure from the show (if she’s just a recurring character)

a few of her functions as a character

disclaimer: I’m fully aware that a lot of concepts I’ve come up with for her couldn’t actually happen on the show (especially if I played her, which of course is the ultimate dream), but I just wanted to put all of my ideas into one place

because she ends up working at SPRQpoint, Victoria serves as a bridge between Zoey’s work life and family life, making the story more cohesive

due to the blood relation and her empathetic nature, she can tell when people are singing to her. Zoey tells her about the power right away, and she provides insight, taking on a similar role to Mo but with the added bonus of already knowing her family and getting to know her coworkers better. A complication in the powers is always interesting, and it opens the door for many more possibilities

she’ll bring more musical theatre songs to the table and diversify the music genres discussed on the show; it would also be really interesting to have a character that plays an instrument and see how that might factor into heartsongs

she’d strengthen the theme of music bringing empathy through storytelling; through her insight and empathetic nature, she sees qualities in some characters that Zoey and the audience haven’t seen yet

she’s been the “therapist friend” all her life, and a big part of her arc is learning how to take care of herself and realizing that her own emotions are just as valid as those of the people she helps; this gives a contrast to Zoey’s initial awkwardness when it comes to emotions and helping people, and they help each other through everything

the fact that she quickly falls for Leif sends Zoey into a bit of a tailspin; she feels that she has to tell her what else he’s sung, which results in a question about the ethics of the power and privacy. This’ll give more depth to Leif (who we’ve barely heard from emotionally since mid-ep-11; there’s a lot behind “things change, people change” that I’m curious about) along with bringing out a protective side to Zoey and deepening the Clarke family dynamic

personality and characterization tidbits

hufflepuff through and through

sees the best in people

loves music and is really knowledgeable about it (see Zoey and Mo in the relationship section down below for the impact of this) and has escaped into it her whole life; this makes her almost a foil to Zoey as they balance each other out

just as awkward as Zoey; one can absolutely tell that they’re related if only by their speech patterns and appearance

has a playlist for every imaginable human emotion

bi and hopeless romantic, but has never really felt wanted

unashamed theatre kid

quick-thinking and witty, intelligent but idealistic, and sometimes comes across as naïve

passionate about activism and working for change

feels and cares very deeply

see pinterest board and spotify playlist below in the references section for more

relationships with other characters

Zoey Clarke: her cousin. After graduation, Victoria visits her family to be there for them after the funeral, and this begins her storyline. The extended Clarke family is tight-knit, and she and Zoey have been really close friends throughout their entire lives. They can read each other well, and the established relationship is really clear in their dialogue and the way that each is one of the few people that the other feels genuinely comfortable around. Partly because Zoey never had a younger sibling, she was always very protective of her younger cousin. This comes into play in a huge way during Victoria’s storyline, beginning with her second heartsong. One of Zoey’s internal conflicts throughout this situation is the decision of how much to share with Tori of what she knows due to earlier heartsongs; she feels it would be an invasion of privacy to tell too much, but she also feels at the start that Tori is being naïve and a bit too trusting and doesn’t want her to get hurt. This struggle deals with both Zoey’s personal relationships and the ethics of the power.

Leif Donnelly: the reason for the aforementioned internal conflict. Victoria falls hard and fast for him during her first tour of the fourth floor, leading to her second heartsong. When confronted by a dumbfounded Zoey about it, she denies it as nothing more than infatuation at first sight, but this gets harder to believe as time goes on and Zoey has to watch her cousin and sworn rival genuinely becoming friends. After a few weeks, she learns and has to accept that Victoria’s feelings are genuine. Reciprocation, though, is a whole different matter; they find this out by way of another heartsong, which is also how Victoria learns of her own addition to the power. Witnessing that song pushes Zoey over the edge, and similarly to s1e5, she eventually blurts out the truth about Leif’s previous heartsongs and relationship with Joan, which leads to Victoria’s very conflicted heartsong rendition of “Toxic” (because if no one sings it to him at some point in the series, that’s a seriously missed opportunity). We see their later conversation: Victoria isn’t sure how to bring it up, but she doesn’t have to, because the events of the end of s1 obviously did take a big toll on Leif and he wants to be honest with her about it (see chapter 7 of singin’ from a streetlight). It would be interesting if she had something to do with the way he eventually found out about the power; Victoria lives very much by her moral compass, and she would feel awful about knowing things that he doesn’t know that she knows. If I had to sum up the relationship in terms of how it serves the show, Victoria sees the parts of Leif that Zoey and the audience (for most of the season) don’t, and he’s one of the first people who’s ever made her feel wanted.

Mo Montgomery: these two get along splendidly. So splendidly, in fact, that Zoey sometimes even regrets introducing them, especially when she can’t sleep due to their late-night, belt-to-the-rafters karaoke sessions that can be heard through the apartment walls. Mo finally has someone in the building (Victoria is staying with Zoey through the duration of her arc on the show) who properly appreciates music, and the three of them (plus Max and whoever else learns about the power-Simon absolutely has to in season 2, come on) become a sort of ragtag let’s-figure-out-this-crazy-power group of friends.

David Clarke: I’ve always thought that the backstory revealed in ep 5 of David being a former theatre kid was really interesting. He and Victoria have bonded over this for a long time, and she feels betrayed when he leaves it behind due to the toxic masculinity explored in ep 5. I’d love an ep called “Zoey’s Extraordinary Brother” or something that goes deeper into that; Victoria definitely has a hand in helping David embrace that part of himself, and she’s almost as close with him as she is with Zoey.

Max Richman: she’s actually known him for quite a while, having done a bit of community theatre with him before he even met Zoey (because you cannot tell me that this man, who can canonically sing and dance and genuinely enjoys it, wasn’t one of the only boys in his high school theatre program and didn’t ever play Georg Novak at some point). He seemed to have gone through some Good Old Fashioned Character Development in ep 12, what with the “focus on yourself right now” and everything, but there’s still quite a lot to unpack that was revealed between 7 and 11. Honestly, I just want to see someone Talk Some Freakin Sense Into Him, and an old friend who’s been removed from the situation but knows both him and Zoey very well is a pretty good bet.

Simon Haynes: Victoria, along with Mo, acts as Zoey’s confidant for the central love triangle. She’s a bit put off by the idea of Simon’s cheating, but sympathizes with both him and Jessica after learning the whole story; upon meeting him, she thinks he’s wonderful. (he honestly gets some of my favorite dialogue on the show...who else can pull off all of those deep conversations along with “this is a classy affair, of course there’ll be pigs in a blanket”? in this house we appreciate JCS)

Tobin Batra: the first person she meets on her first tour of SPRQpoint, much to Zoey’s dismay. As the audience learns more about him (which I’m so freakin excited for, by the way), he and Victoria share quite a bit of banter while the season goes on. Tobin also thoroughly enjoys trying to push Leif and Victoria together, and there are a lot of fun scenes in which he has a blast acting as a wingman for his oldest and newest friends.

Mitch and Maggie Clarke: they mean absolutely everything to her. Victoria’s parents are usually supportive, but they often consider her career as an entity separate from her as a person and discuss it as if the decisions are up to them; she was always able to come to her aunt and uncle when she needed to, and she’ll always be grateful to them for it. As previously mentioned, the extended Clarkes are really close, and Victoria deeply regrets not being able to make it to Mitch’s funeral. At the start of her arc, she believes that she doesn’t have as much right to grieve and that she has to “stay strong” for her family. Over the course of her storyline, she realizes that there are people that are there for her just as much as she’s there for them. This includes Leif, Zoey, and Mo; Maggie is one of the most important of these for her. Family is at the core of this show, and at the core of Victoria’s being.

Emily Kang: first of all, I’m still hoping she gets “Everything Changes” from Waitress in season 2. Victoria admires her wit and they enjoy each other’s company; when needed, she loves babysitting her second cousin.

Abigail: give her a last name gosh darnit. I hope she comes back as an intern in season 2; she and Tori would be SUCH good friends, and it might be neat if they had a duet of sorts, so that she’d be signing with the strings carrying on her part as Tori sang.

Aiden: okay, I knew from the beginning they’d be best friends oh my god. She’s closer in age to him than she is to Zoey; she was often babysat by her cousins when she was little, and that’s how she got to know the kid next door, the kid who air-guitared along to the radio and made plans with her to travel the world when they got older. Naturally, she had the biggest crush on him, which Zoey thought was hilarious. They still support each other’s music and keep in touch to this day.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen in season 2 with new characters, etc, and whether characters such as Joan, Autumn, Howie, Eddie, Deb, Ava, Jessica, etc are coming back. My ideas for this character and her relationships will obviously change as the show progresses (I say as if anything will happen-it’s one of the only things I have left to hope for, okay, voice in my head, shut up) and I’m looking forward to seeing how the story continues to unfold.

some potential heartsongs

“Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again” from The Phantom of the Opera: the first that the audience sees of her. After an episode of Zoey Going Through Some Stuff, she needs to talk to her dad, and realizes once she reaches the cemetery that she’s not the only one. It’s raining, much as it was when they tried to choose his plot. It’s just the beginning of the song; on “all that you dreamed I could”, Victoria’s voice cracks-she’s crying as she’s singing-and she trails off, then the instrumental continues while they talk. I mean, we’ve already had a song from an ALW musical...IT COULD WORK.

“Absolutely Smitten” by Dodie: after her first tour of the fourth floor, to an oblivious Leif. I’ve always wondered why they haven’t used the swings in the choreography yet, so I just decided to do it because Why Not. The vibes of this song would be perfect for the vibes of SPRQpoint, and it works for the scene as well; it’s vulnerable enough to be the beginning of real feelings, but cutesy enough for her to deny it to Zoey as nothing more than infatuation. If we can put the railing on the staircase back in from the pilot, it fits pretty well as a sliding-down-the-railing song, if that makes sense.

“Human” by Christina Perri: a visit to her parents. enough said. It serves as a major release for Victoria as well as the reveal that she’s far from the put-together person that she tries to be; I also feel like this kind of song would fit well into the show, and it’s more recognizable to the mainstream than most of the other songs on this list. This is also a wake-up call to Zoey that her cousin really is hurting, and the “help” that prevents the song from haunting her comes from the fact that she’s the first person to really understand Victoria’s relationship with her parents and be there for her.

“Strawberry Blond” by Mitski: the epitome of Yearning™. A few weeks have passed since “Absolutely Smitten”, and as much as Zoey would like to stay in denial about her cousin’s feelings, the universe isn’t going to let her; “I love everybody because I love you” is pretty difficult to twist out of context. This one is short and sweet, starting at the second verse and skipping to the repeated chorus. The choreo epitomizes the paradox of combined awkwardness and grace that lies at the heart of Tori’s character. She floats and spins, propelling herself around the office as if lifted from within by the music, never taking her eyes away from Leif. This is when Zoey realizes that she actually has to deal with it, prompting the swear guitar title card; this song and the next two are all part of the same episode.

“Victoria” by Jukebox the Ghost: this song is Leif’s; she accompanies it. Zoey comes downstairs to the lobby a few hours after the workday ends and hears the piano, but there’s no one playing it. It would be really interesting to see the way that instrumentals happen in heartsongs if there are actually instruments in the room; just something fun to play with in regards to the power. (yes, I named her after this song specifically for the purpose of this song, and I’m aware that if the full song is taken into its own context it doesn’t portray a particularly healthy relationship but the piano part is cool and the song just has this electric energy okay?!?!?!) The choreography is very La-La-Land-esque; it’s sweeping and explosive as they make their way across the lobby. At the second verse, she starts actually playing the piano; this cut of the song goes to the last chorus after the second verse. This is also another example of Tori’s being able to tell when she’s being sung to (the way that she finds this out is explained in jumpstarted (see below), but that wouldn’t work in this universe, so this song is how she finds out if she were actually a character). She’s in utterly joyful disbelief, going in between trading incredulous glances with Zoey and allowing herself to fall into the choreography. This song is the turning point for Zoey when it comes to the relationship she’s witnessing; while they’re on the piano bench, Leif smiles at Victoria in a similar way to the end of episode 7, and this sends Zoey’s protective-older-cousin-mode into overdrive. Feelings are one thing, but reciprocation is quite another, and this is when Zoey realizes that she has no choice but to tell Victoria the truth.

“In Case You Don’t Live Forever” by Ben Platt: let’s say that at the beginning of this episode, there was a dream that Zoey had about an old memory with Mitch in which she watches her younger self heartsing this to him, and she’s attempted for all of that time in between to remember the melody. A few days after “Victoria” takes place, Zoey is struggling to figure out how to bring up the needed conversation, and she tries to preface it by explaining how much Victoria means to her. She doesn’t get very far in her speech before she hears the music she heard in her dream; this song is Tori revealing how much she’s always looked up to Zoey, which brings her to tears and causes her to blurt out the last line of the episode: “I need to tell you something.”

“Toxic” by Britney Spears: tbh, this song once came on the radio and I thought “...wait a minute”. It’ll also be more recognizable compared to this list of showtunes and indie pop. This song takes place on the fourth floor during the next episode; Mo has come to pick up the cousins for their weekly lunch, and he and Tori are once again trying to give Zoey a crash course on musical pop culture. Today’s lesson is pop of the early 2000s, and Tori tries to give a demonstration by singing the first verse, almost unable to due to how hard the three of them are laughing. They walk past the conference room where a meeting is taking place, Leif sitting at the head of the table, and Zoey barely notices the instrumentals that have been building in the background until Tori stops short and the all-too-familiar riff (yknow, the daaaaada dadada) comes operatically from her throat rather than the invisible synth. Mo can tell by Zoey’s expression that the demonstration, which has stopped in the real world, has turned into a heartsong. As she sings, she makes her way into and around the conference room, spinning chairs and overdramatically throwing herself against walls, as if magnetically drawn to the subject of the song but trying to pull herself away. It’ll show how conflicted she is, but it’ll also be freakin’ hilarious.

“Unusual Way” from Nine: After the aforementioned much-needed conversation in the episode which “Toxic” appears in, Leiftoria (is that an unintentionally awesome ship name or what) is official. I’m not sure how long her story on the show would last, but this song marks the end of it; she books a role at a fantastic dinner theater in the Los Angeles area. In the scene of her last heartsong, Tori, Zoey, and Leif are sitting in an airport lobby. The ticket machines are down, and dozens of impatient passengers are waiting with them, listening to the drone of announcements and tinny pop music played over the loudspeakers that slowly morph into a melancholy arpeggio. If anyone reading this hasn’t listened to this piece, I highly recommend it, by the way-it’s utterly haunting and you’re definitely gonna cry. The cut starts at the second verse and skips the solo third verse to go right into the duet. There’s nothing extravagant about it; as in the musical itself, this song is carried by the sweeping, raw emotion behind it.

references or something-what do I call this one

spotify playlist: a living document (chronologically) of potential heartsongs, songs that fit her situations, and songs that just have her Vibes.

pinterest board: an ever-growing, ever-changing representation of her character. I’ve pinned everything twice so that there can be sections without disturbing the full aesthetic; each section is named after a lyric from a musical that represents that aspect of her character.

tiktoks: there are a few I’ve made about her, some actually in one or both of the universes I’ve written about (see below) and some just for The Vibes or other potential story ideas. @can.you.hear.it.echoing

jumpstarted: the first fic for anything that I’d written in years; it started out in my mind as three scenes and came out to 29 pages. This is an au in which she works at the karaoke bar; she couldn’t actually be on the show this way, but I just think it would be neat-it would only be canon compliant through the middle of s1e11 (there are a few time shifts), so here we are. (seriously though please read this one I’m very proud of it.) This story does share aspects with what she’d actually be able to become as a character, and these are further explored in my second fic.

singin’ from a streetlight: a collection of oneshots that goes through most of the potential heartsongs listed above, from Zoey’s pov. chapter 7 is an interlude, back in Tori’s pov, because Zoey doesn’t see her and Leif’s much-needed conversation on the evening of “Toxic”.

but i’ve never been quite alright: I thought of “Human” as a potential song for her after the entirety of “singin’ from a streetlight” had been published, so this is a seperate fic to explain that scene; it fits in both of the above universes.

scaffolding and christmas lights: cheesy fluffy office party holiday fic because why not. It’s fun to consider how other glitches in the power might manifest; in this one, anyone that Zoey makes eye contact with sings their heartsong to the world. this doesn’t really go with the timeline of either universe, but it’s an interesting idea that might be worked into either

with a little motivation, i’ll go far: she experiences her first heartsong, “California” by Ricky Montgomery, at the airport as she comes into San Francisco. I just this song fits her well at the beginning of her story-this was a really fun one.

it’s the terror of knowing what this world is about: taking the little bit of David’s canon backstory and RUNNING with it. he and Tori would have bonded so much over musical theatre when they were younger, and she must have felt so betrayed when he tried to abandon that part of himself; this fic explores that

‘cause i see every part of you, and i can tell you see me too: Leif shows Tori his sketchbook and Feelings Ensue. (I want to see more of him as an artist, it’s such a fascinating aspect of his character, please Austin please)

don't look too deep: I watched mamma mia 2 and this is the result. #laurengrahamfortanya2k21

have you been too much on your own: this came out of thinking about les mis too much for the thousandth time; it’s an au of chapter 2 of “singin’ from a streetlight” just because I thought it would be kind of hilarious

suddenly we all got young: the brolympics strike again. this came out a bit angstier than expected but it was so much fun to write; I’m really loving what I get to do with her in s2

just keep losing my beat: written during the midseason hiatus; finally found a way to fit her properly into s2 canon. quite proud of this one

perfection is so quick to bore: I fell so in love with the song “I Hear a Symphony” that I had to write something around it, so here this is. it’s very projection-y and rather cheesy but I tried to capture the emotion

screenplays: there are a few that I’m working on and this post will be updated as I finish and revise them

if you’ve read this far, thank you. I just wanted to get her out in the world before season 2 started so I could be as canon compliant as possible (and it happens to be Dec 21, both my birthday and the day that Planets Are Being Cool on the solstice so it’s a great day for manifesting). I would give anything to be part of this show in literally any capacity; from the beginning I loved the concept and by now, as cheesy as it sounds, it feels as if it’s almost knit to my soul. the entire cast, crew, and creative team are such wonderful people (at least from my limited view, but they seem to be very genuine) that I’d love to work with, and this idea has been a sort of a coping mechanism through everything going on in the world and in my life. This post will probably be updated as I come up with more content and the show develops during s2 and beyond. even if nothing comes of this, I love my Tori dearly, and I hope anyone reading this enjoyed learning about her as much as I’m enjoying creating her story.

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ratingtheframe · 4 years

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Everything Wrong With… Ep 2 - The Devil Wears Prada

Welcome back to Everything Wrong With...the series where dive head first into some of the seemingly okay-ish films and analyse why in fact they do more harm than good in providing us with satiable entertainment. Follow me on instagram @ratingtheframe for more movie related content and without further ado, let's get into this chick flick and see how far we’ve come since 2006.

If you aren’t aware, The Devil Wears Prada is a 2006 “chick flick” originally written as a book by Lauren Weisenburger. I remember seeing The Devil Wears Prada as one of those grown up lady films, for mature women on tampon adverts who had wine on Thursday evenings from M&S and wore heels practically everywhere. My perception of this film and the audience it caters towards has changed dramatically after watching it and it kills me inside to imagine the popularity and praise such a film got back in 2006, an extremely harsh time for women and the perception of beauty standards.

The world was still getting into the internet, magazines and runways were adjusting to the 2000s and the way that women were viewed in the media was a lot more damaging than today. Former supermodels such as Kate Moss and Cara Delevingne have since come out and talked about their experiences in the modelling industry and how it creates unhealthy stereotypes for women and young girls to abide by. The ‘size 0’ and ‘heroin chic look’ has since been banished from the modelling industry, two expectations that were pretty popular in the late and early 2000s for models. We are witnessing a revolution for the modelling industry as they (very) slowly but surely are beginning to introduce more plus sized, diverse and unfiltered faces for their campaigns. We can breathe easier knowing that the only way is forward for the fashion industry and that very little people will stand for the mid 2000s ideologies that were pumped out to the entire world.

Back to 2006 and one of the year’s most popular films with female audiences; The Devil Wears Prada, starring the likes of Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt. The film follows Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) , a wannabe journalist newly welcomed into New York City and is currently on the hunt for her career. She manages to land a job at Runway Magazine, a large, corporate editorial magazine for women’s fashion run by the one and only Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), a devious, beautiful and highly successful media personality and editor.

So far so good as we have two tangible and likeable female leads. The opening sequence (one of the most important in any film) had me eye rolling a touch in the way it depicted women of the 2000s and seemingly created the idea that there are two sides to women.

The five or so minute montage consisted of the various women who are models at Runway, getting ready for their long day of work, right from being undressed to fully made up. This was supposed to be a contrast to how our lead Andy gets ready, barely throwing on any makeup and throwing on whatever she wants whilst heading out the door. When you put the way women choose to be perceived in the world at an opposition, you create this divide between women and further place their worth on how they choose to look. The stereotype of a ‘pick me girl’ arises from this opposition, a girl who actively shames other women for choosing to be more openly feminine in their appearance and actions. The intelligence and respect of women should not be based on how they look when they show up, rather how they BEHAVE when they show up. I just thought this montage was a little unnecessary and if anything, introduced us into a misogynistic world of 2006 really well. One point for accuracy, no points for progression. Everyone gets dressed in the morning and (often) everyone wears underwear, showing this activity on screen didn’t really add much to the film besides the pressures of women to look a certain way.

Once Andy arrives at the company, she is rudely introduced by Emily (Emily Blunt) Miranda’s current right hand. Now the entire character of Emily is again, another concept to this film that is left better in the 2000s; a mean girl and a VERY mean one at that. This world is already a patriarchal mess for women like Andy and Emily and having women join the bandwagon in showing an oppressive side to those who don’t conform to the female societal norms is non progressive. It was almost as if Emily was an investor into the patriarchy by behaving abhorrently towards her from the way she dressed as opposed to her actual character and qualifications. Please, let's not have women against women based on their desirability in the eyes of the male gaze. Emily has already become a clear victim to her own policies, as her lack of eating is laid bare to us as an entertaining gimmick as opposed to a cause of concern. Last time I checked making fun of eating disorders wasn’t chic.

Now the argument whether Miranda Priestly is also an investor in the patriarchy is a little clouded. Through her mean spirit and harsh words towards Andy and her appearance, she comes across as someone who is doing more harm than good by joining the patriarchal view of women in the 2000s. I found myself having to bite my tongue a little instead of calling her bitch because that would be letting my internalized misogyny get the best of me.

Even though Miranda is tough talking and spiteful, I really can’t blame her for it as a character. She is one of the strongest female characters I’ve come across on screen for both her strengths and flaws. Had such a character been placed in a Roman Army or Italian Mob, my views of her would have stayed the same. She is a strong woman with enough versatility and strength to face any situation. The way she asserts her authority in a funny and patronizing way is hard not to fall in love with and any woman who asserts their authority and relishes in their own power is already technically against the patriarchy. Her industry may be patriarchal, however her spirit is not and the things she does in order to keep her status is admirable. I found myself comparing her to the way a man maneuvers the world (again, internalised misogyny, working on it) which in some parts is the reason there should be more Miranda Priestly's in films. Instead of comparing strong women to men, with more strong female leads we’ll start comparing these women to other women.

Thank god for the zilch, overly graphic sex scenes in this film (maybe cuz the screenplay was written by a woman, but who knows-), however their is one character I’d like to address that rubbed me the wrong way and spoke for a big hole in the modelling/fashion industry that still exists today. Christian Thompson (Simon Baker) is this handsome, 40 summit journalist who meets Andy at a social event for a fashion designer. I admit he was charming in his demeanour but also overtly creepy at points. Andy and Christian bump into each other in Paris where he leads her down a street (his hand on THAT part of the elbow) and kisses Andy without consent, knowing she has a boyfriend. “Oh, it's just a movie” you’re probably thinking, but yet I couldn’t help but cringe at such a thing. Movies are a reflection of our society after all. He kisses her several more times until Andy gives in. If we’re trying to get films to reach audiences and affect them in some way, encouraging consent should be one of those things. Depicting such a madness on screen makes my rolls right to the back of my head and speaks for the entire society behind the modelling and fashion industry; a society run by men who can do what they like with or without consent. Though the wellbeing of Andy wasn’t in imminent danger, I felt Christian Thompson as a character to be a representation of those in the fashion industry who take advantage of women because of their status and so called connections. No more of this please!

Andy has a transformation a little later into the film, a concept that we thought had been left in the patriarchy trash can, but quickly emerged in Debby Ryan’s Insatiable (2018). Lasting only 2 seasons from 2018-19, the Netflix series followed Patty Bladell who gets afforded niceties and respect after she loses weight and becomes a “hot girl”. The show was created by Lauren Guissis based on an article about a (male) Pageant Guru who tells women how they can become pageant queens for a small fee...EW. The fact that such a show got picked up in a day and age that was beginning to open up to body positivity and more inclusivity in the media, the show was insensitive to its current surroundings.

This same “ugly duckling” transformation isn’t something new or old apparently, with the one in The Devil Wears Prada being one of the least progressive moments of the film. Now that Andy looked like she could work at Runway, somehow she was working a lot better at Runway and was being afforded privileges she didn’t get before her new haircut. Is this the message we want to send out to the world anymore? That in order to get a one up in life, all you need is new clothes and better make up skills? Of course, glo ups can be fun but the purest, healthiest form of a glow up comes from within.

A tiring cliché that “beauty comes from within” but one that makes a lot of sense and something I experienced in my mid teens. Having never experienced male validity or the feeling of desirability, once I began to believe I was beautiful on the outside, others began to notice, because they could read the confidence and self worth I had from my outward energy. An energy that can’t be felt beyond a face tuned Instagram picture. Beauty can be an energy as well as a look and had Andy embraced this more and rejected the passing comments people made at her, it would have taught us that one doesn’t have to conform in order to be respected. On the other hand, I don’t want to shame nor blame her as conforming to societal standards as for most women ,it’s an act of survival, to secure their places in certain spaces, with Andy being no expectation. A sad reality that a woman may have to wear makeup in order to stay in people’s good books, but a choice that should be discussed as opposed to shamed.

I truly could go on and on about the harmful stereotypes and implications of The Devil Wears Prada and it's sad, yet true similarities to the real fashion industry of today and the mid 2000s. It was and still is cut throat, with many models developing eating disorders, low self esteem issues and even substance abuse due to the mounting pressures of trying to reach perfection. A perfection that doesn’t exist seeing as the fashion and modelling industry alters their version of perfection every single day. I’m glad that by the end of the film Andy ditched Runway in favour of living a more healthy and truthful lifestyle, one that wasn’t swapped in ridiculous pressures and the threat to conform or else leave. Which she did in the end. Miranda isn’t a devil, but a force to be reckoned with in a world that is ready to make her feel lesser than herself because of her gender. I hope to never see such a film like The Devil Wears Prada, ever again, in a world that no longer needs this sort of film to represent the strengths of women. It's best left in 2006 and hopefully you’ve learnt something you’ve never thought about from this in depth analysis.

#the devil wears prada #meryl streep #anne hathaway #emily blunt #2000s movies #fashion #fashionindustry #badmovies #cinema #feminisim #everyday feminism

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smuttymess · 4 years

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bts astro soulmate reading | for anon

sign: libra sun | aries moon | libra rising

lover: Min Yoongi | soulmate: Jung Hoseok

This reading is for my cute anon moot. Honestly this one was tough because your chart is quite unique, but I am really happy with how it turned out - I fuckin snapped on this one. I hope you enjoy & it feeds your inner delulu ;)

A sun in Libra means that your soul craves balance, harmony and peace in your life and your relationships. Due to your caring, optimistic, and encouraging nature you happily boast a large circle of friends and acquaintances who adore you. Generally, you are known as a king person who people can rely on for a vent sesh or some good advice in a pinch. Upholding your integrity and high position in these interpersonal relationships is one of your highest priorities, as you want to maintain the persona you’ve established at all costs. Above all, you want to be respected and loved by those who you are close to and even sometimes those you are not, fearing unsteadiness and turbulence in terms of your image. If your sun sign represents what you want, you moon sign represents what you need. And you, Aries moon, needs fire, excitement, stimulation, and adventure. Your Aries nature is at odds with kind, harmonious Libra, wanting to disrupt, rebel and shake things up. This creates quite an interesting contradiction within your truest self, which desires both balance, security and stability but also independence and unpredictability - a dilemma that you may struggle to find peace with throughout your life.

Charming, attractive and strong, it is likely that you have your share of admirers. You can’t help it (you flirt as easily as you breathe!) plus your slightly mischievous demeanor only makes you more alluring to those you meet. This works out for you nicely, as given your Libra nature you love nothing more than to be adored romantically. One of the most passionate signs in the zodiac, it’s not unlike you to be involved in many romantic relationships, falling in love easily and unabashedly with a variety of people who come into your life. While one day you may envision an a home and a more stable life (your Libra heart at work) that thought can feel somewhat foreign when there are just so many people, places and things to explore.

Your adventurous spirit and joie de vivre makes you the life of the party, the one people call for a good conversation or a night of debauchery. It is not uncommon for your friends to entrust you with scoping out the next opportunity to get into a little trouble, knowing you will find the best option. While your Libra is happy to have a wild night out, your Aries moon usually wants to up the ante - why go to a regular old bar when you could go to a secret, underground lounge that boasts go-go dancers and fire eaters. It is at one of these events, a lavish multi-course dinner at a downtown music venue to kick off a long, eventful night, that your attention is drawn to the stage for the night's entertainment. From the minute you lay your eyes on the performer on stage, his hands gripping the microphone as his piano accompaniment dances through the air, you are fully entranced by the artist. Your Aries moon makes you much more decisive than others who share your sign, and you decide quite quickly that this boy with the black hair and broody mannerisms is what you need. Soon after leaving the stage, you make a flimsy excuse to get his attention, sauntering up to him and immediately making yourself known - his dark, slightly glossy eyes penetrating every inch of you as he introduces himself as Min Yoongi. There is a strong physical attraction here, and when he asks what you're up to after the show, you have no choice but to invite him along to the next spot.

In the hours, days and weeks that follow in getting to know Yoongi, you learn more about the beautiful soul that lies beneath the very strong, masculine persona that owns the stage. As air and water signs, you two connect quickly - fucking after a couple rounds of whiskey back at his place - after which you spend hours tapping into the mind of the soft and creative Min PD. Yoongi is a true Pisces, his caring, romantic and sentimental nature clear very early as he sits back and enjoys simply basking in your company, letting you open up and taking you in as your eyes light up, energetically moving from thought to thought (as you are ought to do). His dreamy, patient and sensitive quality is heightened by his Neptune in Capricorn, providing a softness that makes you fall hard and fast. He is drawn to your demonstrated strength, his more reserved, thinking Virgo Moon latching on to your confident, optimistic Libra Aries duality. He possess a graceful, calm quality from his Libra Jupiter that you deeply admire, as it is something you seek within yourself. You are both generous, peace-loving people, finding comfort in each other's propensity for pleasing each other. This extends into your sex life as well, which is equal parts passionate and intense.

You and Yoongi are both wired for pleasure and togetherness, and as a duo you are able to satisfy both of these desires, devoting countless hours to daydreaming, cuddling and fucking in his studio or at home. You two enjoy switching up power-play dynamics, you straddling him and pinning his hands to the bed while gently marking his neck to release moans from his lips before he uses his strength to flip you over and return the favor. Your sexual compatibility is not to be understated, the passion both of you possess being some of the most powerful in the zodiac.The concept of time ceases to exist when you find yourself intertwined with Yoongi, his hardness pressed into your center as he grinds against you, his lips expertly tracing your ear, and neck before moving to your breasts to tease your nipples until you're practically falling apart. For however soft and gentle Yoongi is, there is nothing that turns him into an animal quicker than hearing you beg underneath him as his fingers trace lower, slipping in between your thighs and onto your clit. He craves this level of intimacy with you, the moment you melt and truly become his. Say my name baby, I want to hear you.

It is only after months of amazing sex and pillow talk with this dreamy duo that he differences between you become very stark. Yoongi is a diehard romantic at the core, often making decisions in love that are more emotion-based - the main reason why he keeps his Pisces Sun and Mercury quite guarded. You, on the other hand, tend to be wary of commitment and tend to keep things casual and light, your Aries moon wanting freedom and autonomy. This scares Yoongi, who is quite willing to be loyal to the right person and wonders if he can really be enough for your highly sociable and outgoing Libra spirit. This is heightened by your strong need to be around people, receiving stimulation from the outside world, fueling his increased neediness (his Venus in Aries) that eventually transforms into resentment as he cannot see a future wherein you are ready to give it all up just for him. Ultimately, this relationship unable to move past a very intense friends-with-benefits scenario given your places in life, and you both need ample space to heal your wounds after going your separate ways - though you are not alone for long.

A double Libra, the way you present yourself - poised, polished, and elegant - and how you want to be perceived are very much in sync. You exude luxury, and and while your fashions may not be the loudest or most expensive in the room, you know how to make an impression even in a room filled with trendy, designer-clad fashion types. On a particular night out at a gallery opening, dressed in one of your newest thrifted and expertly styled pieces, you find yourself approached by a handsome stranger. Great find. Where did you get that that? Turning around, you are surprised by man who the voice belongs to - a tall, slender gentlemen dressed head to toe in contrasting prints: an asymmetrical color-blocked striped sweater and denim cutoffs paired with orange slides and a green beanie. His look is unusual, something that just anyone could pull off, but it striking nature of his posture and his face that truly has you staring. His hair parted to the side, you're able to take in the full visual of the man: his piercing dark brown eyes, sharp nose and defined jawline. After some light conversation, he offers to grab a drink sometime, which is less of a request than a demand as before you know it he hands you his card, the length of his fingers brushing yours and sending chills up your spine. He flashes you a devilish smirk before exiting the exhibit almost as swiftly as he arrived, prompting you to exhale as you begin to feel the ground beneath you once more.

In the early stages of dating, you two are both delightfully hard to get, the ego of his Aquarius Sun exhilarated by the chase and you turned on by the charming elusiveness of his personality - classic Air sign energy at play. Initially, see each other as enigmas, as things to be explored and conquered. You soon realize that his emotional detachment is merely a facade, a way to protect his fierce independence and ensure he does not get hurt again - something you can relate to quite well. Aquarius Hobi is highly perceptive, quickly able to put a finger on the pulse of who you are and what you want, seeing past your gentle, calm persona and tapping into that very restless, energized and mischievous Aries that beneath the surface of your do-gooder Libra. Initially, what starts as a more physical relationship and attraction to each other's complexity blooms into something much deeper and more profound as you get to learn each others shared insecurities and powerful internal worlds that are constantly thinking and reaching for new challenges. While you typically want to be fawned over and doted on, you enjoy diving beneath his into his independent, strong-willed and no-nonsense exterior (hello director Hobi) and accessing his softer sides - something very few people can do - through intellectual communication and shared experiences in your various social groups. Though slow to commit emotionally, once you are able to tap into his Venus in Pisces, you get to unearth the beauty of his dreamy, playful, sweet and adoring persona, which is in endless supply once he feels that he can trust his heart with your compassionate Libra soul.

By the time you find yourself naked in Hoseok's room for the first time, you are keenly aware that your physical relationship together is a space wherein you will surrender in ways you haven't been able to with anyone else. You in your Libra/Aries combo you possess both masculine and feminine features and an ability to both disarm and enchant but also dominate, but in bed it is Hoseok who more often than not holds the keys to your pleasure. His Aquarius ways makes him one of the least conventional and spontaneous partners in the zodiac, and this paired with his intense and impulsive Jupiter in Scorpio makes him an extremely passionate and engaging lover. He instinctively knows where to touch you to send you over the edge, having an awareness of your body that is almost unnerving - his ego loves knowing he has that control and you enjoy his slight posessiveness, enjoying role play during your regular nights out on the town. There are few things sexier to you than watching his eyes peering over his glass from across a room as he watches you so casually flirt with strangers, his gaze moving from your lips down over the curves accentuated by your outfit fo choice, knowing full well that the same outfit will be ruined within seconds of getting home. Your Aries moon is exhilarated when paired with the inventive Aquarius, who does not even think about fucking you until you've achieved your third consecutive orgasm by his fingers and tongue in the backseat of the car on your way home, you legs draped over his shoulders as he purrs into your folds. It isn't until after he feels satisfied that he unbuckles his pants and thrusts into you vigoursly, hitting your walls as his low voice coos into your ear. Are you thinking about him, baby? You know damn well only I can fuck you like this. Now be a good girl and tell me who you belong to - don't be shy now.

You and Hoseok are like-minded, airy souls, and together you are an extremely sociable and likable pair that enjoys life’s many pleasures and pushing the boundaries of the status quo. You work well as unit to achieve your individual goals, affording each other the delicate balance of freedom and togetherness your signs both truly need in a partnership but few others are able to provide, effectively eliminating the desire to stray. At the end of a long day of independent endeavors, you are both able to come home to each other and keep the fire burning in creative ways - think candlelit nights at home in with a personal chef followed by Hobi tying your wrists up and enjoying you for dessert. Your inner worlds compliment each other: the boundless encouragement of your double Libra serves as a healing tool for his relentless perfectionist and self-critical nature, while his dedication to excellence helps push you away from your indecision and people-pleasing ways and towards your goals. Given your shared taste for novelty and tendency to break from convention, you two may decide to push a traditional life of marriage and family to the back burner for many years, choosing to dedicate your lives to your work and each other as you continue to build, learn, and experience the world around you on your own terms. Together, you create a minimalistic home that serves as a base for you to quickly touch down and recharge before stamping your passport en route to your next delightful adventure.

#bts #bts astrology #astrology readings #horoscope #horoscope reading #min yoongi #jung hoseok #bts smut #smut #bts fic #creative writing #libra #pisces #aquarius

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lovelylogans · 5 years

Text

where you lead, i will follow

chapter one / next chapter

here’s the whole thing!

ao3 | read my other fics | coffee?

warnings: food mentions, complicated parental relationships, mentions of transphobia and homophobia, verbal fighting, top surgery mention, classism,

pairings: moxiety, logince

words: 11,088

notes: so, remember these posts? this was the fic. it’s a gilmore girls au. i thought it was gonna be a bullet list fic, which is why it’s written Like That. anyway it’s ballooned into a ten chapter fic. i know, okay, i know.

(extra note: i haven’t watched all of gilmore girls, and what i have seen was a while ago. however i have read some a+ fics with this concept. if you are in the check please! fandom please see this one, and also read all of shellybelle’s works because they’re That Good. and if you are in the 100 fandom please read this one, and also all of layalioness’ works. layalioness also introduced me to the concept of a practical magic au, which i also wrote in the sanders sides fandom. we stan.)

all right so picture this: very tiny town. let’s call it uhhhhh... sideshire. why not. the tiny town of sideshire. it’s early morning. there are certain things that happen in sideshire every morning. ms. prince and her son are leading the sunrise yoga class in the dance studio the prince family has owned for nearly fifty years. other small town stuff. you get it. i’d set the mood but this is a bullet list fic. but the most famed is patton pleading with virgil to get one more cup of hot cocoa/coffee.

(yes. hot cocoa/coffee. it is a mixture of hot cocoa and coffee. it is specific to virgil’s menu. patton attempts to consume enough of it on a daily basis to match the amount of blood in his veins so that his body runs only on hot cocoa/coffee. don’t you mean a mocha? you ask. no, i say, and refuse to explain further.)

logan, on the other hand, is using the distraction of his father pleading for caffeine/sugar to feed his burgeoning coffee addiction.

“DO NOT THINK I DO NOT SEE YOU, LOGAN SANDERS,” virgil bellows, as if he is not already slipping logan a half-caf to-go cup across the table. “YOU WILL GET AN ULCER AND I THE ONLY THING I WILL TELL YOU IS I TOLD YOU SO. CUT IT BACK.”

he is also passing logan a chocolate chip muffin baked with protein powder even as he is lecturing very loudly. it is baked with protein powder because he tends to hide healthy things into food that is probably not healthy otherwise alongside the other things. the ones he tends to reserve for the people he never sees eat a single vegetable, and also for literally every person in the town who could be seen as still growing. virgil loves likes patton a lot, but he also knows that patton has a sweet tooth and adores junk food and is not much of a cook. so he tends to save a lot of the sneak-attack healthy stuff for them.

also perhaps he has a soft spot for logan, probably because logan has grown up in this diner: he’s fallen asleep in every booth, sat in every seat while he colored pictures or did homework or made his own copies of a newspaper out of printer paper, took his first steps on this tiled floor. it’s hard not to develop a soft spot for someone you’ve known since he’s been three weeks old. it’s a Thing. logan only abuses this power sometimes.

“—but i just want a liiiiiiiiittle more hot cocoa/coffee,” patton pleads, trying for his best puppy dog eyes. they always work eventually. “c’mon, i’ve been so good, i even ate your super healthy breakfast—”

“—patton, that was an omelet and i put in maybe two vegetables among the bacon, ham, and absurd amounts of cheese, and do not think i did not see your grocery run last night how can one fully grown man only know how to make box macaroni and ramen and microwavable meals you have a growing son who needs things like vegetables and protein—”

“—but the past is the past! and if i don’t have enough caffeine, i might crash, virgil. i will crash asleep in the middle of this diner. and then you will have to steer all of your customers around me. and then you’re going to have to deal with me eventually waking up and pleading for more hot cocoa/coffee. so if you just give me a cup right nowwwww...?”

virgil folds. he always does. he has the world’s biggest weakness for the way patton’s eyes light up when he gets his way, as if virgil would truly deny him anything (within reason, obviously. if left unattended patton would have the dream diet of a six-year-old.)

“....you’re getting this smoothie to take with you to work.”

virgil has stocked it with protein powder and spinach and literally as many healthy things he can shove into the blender without overpowering the flavor of mango and pineapple. he chose those fruits specifically because they are more powerful than banana and strawberry to mask the flavor of more healthy things. literally all of patton’s healthy eating falls to virgil. it is Kind Of A Problem. virgil has no idea how he hasn’t gotten scurvy.

“deal!”

“you are drinking ALL OF IT, do you understand?”

“yesyesyes, now hot cocoa/coffee!!!”

“....fine.”

“you are an angel sent down from heaven, virgil, i swear.”

at this moment, roman prince attempts to stroll casually into the diner as if he has not just sprinted from the studio for the sole purpose of walking logan from place to place. patton and virgil exchange knowing glances over their heads.

logan obliviously looks up from his newspaper (it is a small town newspaper, as in, it is about six pages and printed on cheap newsprint—most of it a glorified pta newsletter nestled in along stories brought in from the wire around the state, and ap stories for national/international stories. he has underlined and circled various errors in red pen. there are cramped notes along the sides of each column. he will drop it off at the town’s excuse for a “press” on the way back from school. he has been doing this since he was seven years old. he got his first byline then too. patton has every single one of his bylines framed/otherwise in a scrapbook.

when he drops off the paper every day, the sole reporter/editor/photographer of the sideshire courant will attempt to not throttle him, mostly because he’s a good part-timer/intern/free labor. the whole town knows he will work for some bigshot city paper someday. but for now his know-it-all-ness is lovably infuriating. emphasis on infuriating.)

and he says “good morning” as if he does not notice how roman lights up when he says it.

patton and virgil exchange an even more knowing glance.

virgil does give roman a good meal that is easy to eat to-go and is also good for replenishing calories after a workout, though. virgil also might have a soft spot for roman prince. this particular soft spot is mostly overridden by bickering. no, virgil is not too proud to engage in bickering with a teenager. shut up.

roman, vaguely related, has also somehow become virgil’s sole confidant when it comes to his crush on patton??? it has also applied vice-versa when it comes to roman’s crush on logan??? how did this happen, you ask? virgil literally could not tell you. he just knows that sometimes roman will come into the diner to Scream about logan sometimes and then will say something along the lines of “sanders men, amirite,” and virgil will grumble at him in commiseration.

logan and roman depart soon after to walk to do their summer shenanigans (today, roman will win out their argument, and logan will dangle his feet in the town’s excuse for a swimming hole as he reads poetry aloud to roman, who’s diving to get what he hopes are pretty rocks for logan. most of the time they’re covered with moss. logan appreciates the effort. not that he’d ever say it.) patton whips his head around, looking over each shoulder in the most obvious way that he could possibly telegraph I AM ABOUT TO TALK ABOUT SENSITIVE THINGS I DON’T WANT OVERHEARD in a town full of gossips, and ducks closer to virgil, as if he can somehow avoid the town’s eavesdroppers that way. virgil does NOT find it cute.

“i got the letter,” he whispers conspiratorially.

“did you open it???” virgil demands immediately, ignoring the old man gesturing angrily for a coffee refill down the bar, because he could wait and honestly if he didn’t get how patton had priority by now did he even live in sideshire???

“no, i was waiting for you,” patton admits and virgil’s heart does NOT melt a little.

“well?? open it,” he demands.

patton takes a breath and unearths the envelope from chilton.

(backstory: patton started the campaign for logan to get a spot since his freshman year, since his son is so smart and deserves every single chance to succeed. logan does not know his dad has been applying for him, because he would inevitably start fretting about money and transport, but patton’s the dad, okay, he can worry about that stuff. but it’s now hit logan’s sophomore year and it’s the first week for chilton next monday and this letter came and WELL.)

patton does open it. and then patton starts screaming. and then virgil shouts a little too.

BECAUSE LOGAN GOT IN!! but of course he got in, he’s so smart and his grades are so good and of COURSE he would get in but logan would be so excited and virgil virgil VIRGIL MY SON IS GOING TO AN IVY LEAGUE—

patton is maybe crying a little he’s so excited. chilton wasn’t for him because he wasn’t the traditional kind of “book smart” they valued, and he never wanted to go to an ivy, and he’d never really fit in with the whole ‘high society’ thing, plus he was the first openly trans student there, plus like teen pregnancy, but all these opportunities for his son—

and then his face falls a little.

“what??” virgil says, already running through literally every single worst case scenario in his mind. “what is it?”

patton slides over the letter and silently underlines the tuition with his finger. virgil cringes away out of sheer instinct.

patton is a bit late to work that morning because he’s tried to talk out every possible way to make it work with virgil (sell something? sell a lot of things? mortgage? sell all the things???) but he knows there’s a surefire way to get that money without putting himself into major debt.

enter emily and richard sanders. (yes, i’m keeping the names emily and richard. they work too well and i can’t think of anything else. i’m handling it)

so they were a little rocky with accepting that their son is trans, but they’ve always had a... not the best kind of relationship? so they aren’t specifically transphobic (after patton ran away and had logan and they were trying to make amends, they actually paid for his top surgery) but they... well, let’s go with patton wasn’t the kid they were expecting (read: wanted) to have?

they’re v attached to their high society lifestyle, and they expected a kid who would follow that, they expected a kid who was book smart and would be in the top of his class, and they expected a kid who would want to go to an ivy league and settle down in a very cis/hetero-normative relationship and uh it was clear p early on that patton Wasn’t Gonna Do That. so patton’s whole childhood was him chafing against these all expectations, and then he came out, and then pregnancy, and he felt like he’s done everything possible to disappoint them, and the final nail in the casket was running away to sideshire when logan was barely three weeks old in the dead of the night when his parents were out at their first public appearance since logan’s birth, and he took a car and packed up everything and left, the only goodbye a note left in logan’s crib.

but again, they tried to make amends. it has only worked a little. they have stilted contact on holidays. it is polite and frigid. neither patton or logan like it.

so patton begs off work early and makes the drive to their massive mansion. he is very aware that he is in a holey, stretched-out sweater and jeans that are messy from him running around in the kitchen and playing on the grounds with the group of kids that had come up for a debate tournament. he wonders if he has gotten too old to feel rebellious about things like that, and then he deliberately messes up his hair too. just to complete the image.

it’s for logan, patton reminds himself constantly as he squeaks up the stairs in the sneakers that have a hole in the left sole that he’s duct-taped over, it’s for logan, it’s for logan, it’s for logan. his son, who he loves more than anything in the world.

he knocks. his mother opens the door. patton kind of has the feeling that he’s about to sell his soul to the devil.

he talks with his parents. he makes it very clear that it is A Loan He Will Pay Back, and that it is For Logan. patton escapes with three slightly barbed comments about his hair, five about his wardrobe in general, and eleven about his life choices, but he gets out knowing that he and logan are going to have to have weekly dinners with his parents and that he’s going to have to call his parents every week to talk about logan’s schooling, too. but he definitely got the tuition money for chilton.

so, he definitely kind of sold his soul to the devil. just a little.

he also wonders if this knowledge is gonna deplete logan’s excitement over chilton.

patton slumps into virgil’s diner. virgil immediately pours him a hot cocoa/coffee, because patton should never ever look so much like a drowned, kicked puppy.

“so,” he says, tracing the circle of the mug with his pinky, “good news, i got the tuition money.”

“you starting with good news implies there’s bad news,” virgil says, leaning against the counter. his part-time workers, used to this, scoot around him in the quest to serve the other customers.

patton grimaces. “so you know my parents.”

(virgil had a brief run-in with patton’s parents one easter. virgil might have thrown some dyed eggs at their fancy car. it was not a particularly great run-in, even if nine-year-old logan had shouted “COOL!” with delight in his eyes because he was young enough then to not worry about looking serious all the time and patton to this day looks a little smug whenever he sees people starting to dye eggs.)

(virgil had met them one other time before that, actually, but patton wasn’t in a place to remember it and logan was too little to remember it, so.)

“aw, patton, no,” virgil says, putting the pieces together.

“patton yes,” patton says unhappily, “and patton and logan will have to go to weekly dinners until patton is dead, probably, and patton might not escape it even then.”

virgil wordlessly dishes up some of the double chocolate fudge layer cake. it is a mark of how patton feels right now that he does not start crowing about dietary victory over virgil’s extremist vegetable agenda.

(he maybe spends a little too much time hosting roman prince in his house, but hey, any kid is welcome in his house, okay? especially when they’re definitely absolutely in love with his son. patton might have a bet going with himself on who confesses first. his money is on roman, because bless his son, but he is Terrible With Emotions which he probably inherited from patton but in, like, a whole new different way. genetics, right?)

“i mean,” patton sighed, dragging his fork through the icing, “it’s worth it. for logan, anything’s worth it. it's just—”

“your parents suck,” virgil finishes bluntly.

“they don’t suck entirely.”

“not being as much of a transphobe as they could be is a low, low bar, patton. it is literally the most basic bar they should be able to clear, because they’re your parents.”

“...yeah. okay.”

patton finishes the cake, tries to shake off his mood, and asks virgil for an order of takeout so that he can get dinner ready at home for logan, to tell him the good news. virgil sighs a little and barely even makes a comment about how they better eat the side salads he’s included for each of them.

⁂

logan walks into the cheerful yellow clapboard house his dad bought as soon as he could afford it, after a morning at the swimming hole and an afternoon spent 1. heckling the one-person staff of the sideshire courant, 2. pestering the librarian for the latest shipment of books she said would be in last week, and 3. reading quietly on the wooden pews that the princes repatriated from the old church before the church got the nicer ones with cushions and sits outside of the prince dance/yoga studio, glancing through the windows to watch roman laugh and spin with little girls who are wearing matching tutus with him, doing ballet lifts with them when they shout and plead MISTER ROMAN MISTER ROMAN MAKE ME FLY PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! and squints at the table.

“did you... make dinner? you never make dinner. you made sure the smoke alarms were on, right?!”

“how can you not recognize virgil’s spaghetti and meatballs, i’ve literally been feeding this to you since you grew teeth?”

“i’m just used to it in takeout boxes. wait. why did you put it on actual plates?”

“can you just sit down for dinner, please?”

“is someone dead?”

“logan!”

“it’s a reasonable question!”

“no! no one is dead! it’s a celebration dinner!”

“... that doesn’t mean someone isn’t dead.”

“logan!”

so logan sits down, squinting suspiciously at his father. usually they just go to virgil’s. or they stay in and make stuff that takes less than fifteen minutes and would probably give virgil heart palpitations from stress.

this is Not Normal. which means something Abnormal has happened. and usually Something Abnormal means Something Bad.

his dad takes in a deep breath, and says, “you’re so smart.”

logan knows this. no one ever accused him of being humble. he cannot possibly pinpoint why this lead to a celebration dinner, though.

“you’re so smart,” his dad repeats, “and you work so hard, all the time. and i know you have such big dreams for the future.”

“dad,” logan says.

patton takes a breath in, and slides a piece of paper across the table. (the tuition sheet, he triple-checked, is not included.)

logan takes it, flips it over, and takes in the coat of arms. then dear mr. sanders, we are happy to inform you we have a vacancy at chilton prepatory for this school year. due to your son’s excellent grades and recommendations, and your enthusiastic pursuit of his enrollment...

he can’t keep reading from there, though. because his eyes are too blurry and his throat is too tight. he probably needs a new prescription and he might be coming down with strep. or an upper respiratory infection. maybe some variant of throat cancer that is also making his eyes too hot. that’s all it is. he should make a doctor’s appointment.

“dad,” he manages to say.

“oh, hey, hey,” his dad says, and he crosses the table to kneel by logan’s chair and pulls logan down into a hug, and logan shuts his eyes tight.

“you applied to chilton for me?” logan whispers.

logan, of course, knows about chilton. the franklin is consistently rated the best student paper in the state, winning awards both at state and national levels. a diploma from there’s practically a gilded invitation to an ivy league. seven chilton graduates have pulitzers. he knows how good their programs are. he also knows the limited stories his dad has told of his two years at chilton before he dropped out to have logan.

“and i’m... you... i’m in?”

“yeah, kiddo,” patton says. “you’re in. they were practically foaming at the mouth when i showed them your gpa, plus your bylines. they wanted you there so bad. ”

“but it’s so—” expensive, far away, you hated it so much there...

“hey, i’m the dad, okay?” patton says, drawing back and wiping his thumbs under logan’s eyes, offering his own watery smile. familial allergies, maybe. logan should check the filters and possibly update any medical files. “let me worry about all that stuff, that’s my job. your job is school.”

“i’m going to chilton?” he repeats.

“you’re going to chilton,” patton says, and hugs him one last time before rising to his feet and sitting back in his chair. “plus an ivy.”

logan’s cheeks hurt. “i’m a sophomore.”

“yeah, but you’re my sophomore,” patton says, as if that makes sense as a term of endearment, “and you’re gonna get into any college you want, because you’re logan, and you’re so smart, and you work so hard, and you deserve a spot at chilton or any old ivy league that you want, and i am gonna bend the earth and sky to make sure you have all the opportunities you could ever possibly need.”

if logan gets up to hug his dad one more time... well, his dad would never tell.

"eight, dad," he mumbles into his shoulder.

"aw, kiddo," patton says gently, and holds him tighter. "sixteen."

⁂

so, patton isn't a particularly strict parent, but logan has the feeling that if patton knew how much logan snuck out that his windows would probably be bolted shut and he’d be treated to a lecture about how “sideshire is a small town but that doesn’t mean it’s always safe all the time, okay???” as if logan hasn’t written the defining articles on the crime statistics of sideshire for the past two years, since he was old enough to see pg-13 movies and thereby old enough to see pg-13 statistics.

patton would probably be even less pleased if he knew that logan had perfected his sneak-out route at the age of ten. there’s a trellis of ivy that’s very easy to climb down from his bedroom window, and logan has been hopping the backyard fence since they’d moved into this house. and from there’s it’s just following the well-worn trail to the middle of the town, to the fairy-light-strung gazebo. it’s the perfect halfway point between their houses, and so it was Their Place.

roman grins up at him from where he’s sitting on the gazebo steps, waving his phone at him. “usually i’m the one who calls midnight crisis meetings,” he teases. “i figured that you might want something.”

he holds up two styrofoam to-go cups that logan’s sure are full of milkshake. see, logan is a virgil’s diner man through-and-through, it’s a family thing, but when it comes to ice cream/milkshakes/other ice cream based products, he has to get it from lucy’s. virgil gets it, he gets all of the ice cream he serves from lucy’s.

anyway, he and roman have been getting milkshakes from lucy’s for years: we-gotta-do-these-book-reports milkshakes, screw-the-bullies milkshakes, just-cause milkshakes, logan-i’ve-been-trying-to-teach-a-class-full-of-toddlers-a-waltz-routine-for-two-hours-let-me-have-this milkshakes. so on.

logan accepts his (salted caramel to roman’s chocolate-covered cherry) and sits on the gazebo steps, stretching his legs out. roman sits next to him, shoulder-to-shoulder, and logan’s heart does that strange squeezing thing that it’s done around roman for as long as he can remember.

(they met like this: they were both in mr. geller’s kindergarten class, and there’s no one with a q last name in their grade, and the only r in their grade was in ms. lansing’s, so he and roman ended up as table buddies. they were supposed to decorate the nametags that were taped onto their desks. logan drew leminscates on his, and roman drew an expansive, wild garden of red roses that leaked over onto his. logan had gotten mad. roman had drawn blue and orange universes over them in apology without ever actually saying the word sorry and he told logan a story about how the flower-world had been populated by aliens and a brave scientist touched down to try to get the prettiest flowers in the universe for his husband, the most handsome prince there ever was. at snacktime logan had traded his strawberries for roman’s jam cookies. they’d been inseparable ever since.)

(logan’s nervous about a lot about chilton, but he’s most nervous about changing this. losing this.)

logan takes off the lid, and drags his straw through the whipped cream, attempting to eat it first, so that the whipped cream wouldn’t sink down and prevent him from finishing off the milkshake with a mouthful of caramel-tinged whipped cream. roman steals his maraschino cherry. that’s all normal. it’s all so normal, sitting here together in the gazebo in the dying heat of summer, the only light from the stars and the fairy lights, and logan stares at his shoes—his formal-ish black shoes—and how they look next to roman’s red high-top converse, scrawled all over with multicolored sharpies because roman was a horrible fidget, and he was most prone to drawing all over the nearest surface (paper, his hands and arms, his legs if he’s wearing shorts, his shoes, logan, sometimes, if they manage to get seats close enough together in class and sometimes when they lay in the gazebo in silence, chasing sugar highs and enjoying the stars—)

“i’m going to chilton,” he blurts to their feet. “my dad’s apparently been trying to get me in since last year, but a spot opened up, and—and it starts monday.”

there’s silence. logan almost can’t bear it, before an arm slings over his shoulder.

“logan,” roman says, and he’s... smiling. maybe.

“you’re not mad?” logan says, confused, and roman blinks at him.

“why would i be mad?” he says. “i mean, you didn’t know, right?”

“right,” logan agrees tentatively.

“so,” roman says. “i mean, i always knew you were gonna, like, go off to stratospheres of academic excellence, it’s just happening a little earlier than expected.”

there’s something wrong with his smile. something brittle. logan doesn’t like it.

“roman—”

“i’m happy for you,” he says, and there’s something biting there.

“roman.”

“look, i just—whatever,” roman huffs. “you’re going to fancy prep school. good for you. it’ll be great. you’ll be great. tell me about the stupid franklin.”

“the franklin isn’t stupid,” logan says, shaking off roman’s arm. “it’s one of the best student-produced papers in the state. that includes high schools and colleges.”

“right,” roman snaps, “of course. the franklin’s fucking perfect. my mistake. like your stupid chilton uniform’s gonna be perfect, and all your new snooty chilton friends are gonna be perfect, and your ivy league is gonna be so fucking perfect, because you’re just too perfect, right?”

“i—what?!” logan says, trying to shake off his confusion like it’s something as physical as roman’s arm. “you said you weren’t mad!”

“i’m NOT!” roman snaps, and then he falls silent.

“i thought you would be happy for me, because that’s what friends do,” logan snaps right back. “i want to go to the best place for my future, what’s so wrong with that?!”

“nothing,” roman spits, getting to his feet. “absolutely nothing’s wrong with that.”

“then act like it!” logan hollers back, surging to his feet because he hates anyone looking down at him, literally or metaphorically. “what is your problem?”

“my problem??? my problem????”

“yes! YOUR problem!”

“fine! i guess it is my problem! because i’m not smart like you, logan sanders, otherwise known as mr. right-all-the-time—“

“wh—i don’t even know why i cared!” logan snaps. “it’s just that this is important to me, roman, i’m not going to apologize because i’m doing something that’s going to be good for me, that’s—”

“going to get you out of sideshire?” roman says, bitter.

“fine! yes! i want to do things, i want to write about important things, and i can’t exactly win a pulitzer covering the latest town meeting for the courant, okay?!”

“oh, so some fictional pulitzer’s important to you, but i’m not?” roman snaps, and logan’s mouth snaps shut, and his voice catches in his throat, and his brain runs over the conversation because when had he said anything that could possibly be interpreted like THAT?! but he realizes when roman’s face drops and then screws up that he’d taken too long to answer.

“wow,” roman scoffs. “i—you know what? have fun at chilton, walter crank-kite. i hope you and your imaginary pulitzer become the best of friends.”

“roman,” logan manages to say, but roman jostles his shoulder on his way out, and he slams both the salted caramel and the chocolate-covered cherry shakes into the trash, stomping back toward the prince studio and apartment.

and logan’s left standing in the middle of the gazebo, wondering what just happened.

“emotions,” logan huffs, and kicks one of the railing posts.

⁂

when logan slouches down the stairs the next morning, hair mussed and scowling, patton doesn’t really question it. sanders men aren’t morning people. it’s a fact of their nature. he figures it’ll get better after a mug of coffee from virgil’s.

it does not get better after a mug of coffee from virgil’s.

patton gently mentions how it’s his last friday of summer, and logan makes vague mumbling noises, stabbing his scrambled eggs with his forks more than actually eating them.

“well,” patton says, keeping his voice chipper. “no matter what you decide to do, be back at the house, okay? we’re having dinner with my parents at seven.”

logan stiffens. he drops the fork with a clatter. “it’s not a holiday,” he says suspiciously.

“well, no, but—”

“we only see grandma and grandpa on holidays.”

“it’s about chilton,” patton says. “they’re excited that you’re going. it’s a celebration—”

“we already had a celebration dinner,” logan grumbles. he picks up his fork and starts stabbing his eggs again. “i liked that celebration dinner. dinner with grandma and grandpa is a punishment dinner.”

“hey,” patton says, trying to be a little stern, but, well, he’s right. “they’re excited you’re going to their alma mater. they want to have us over for dinner more often. it’s like a peace offering.”

“did i do something?” logan says suspiciously. “you said no one was dead. i should have rephrased—is someone dying?”

“logan, what?! no!”

virgil, swinging by, frowns at logan’s plate.

“you need more protein,” he says. “eat your eggs, don’t kill them. they’re already dead.”

“i don’t need more protein.”

“yeah, i see the vast majority of your meals, kid, that’s not gonna fly,” virgil says. “eat the eggs.”

“words can’t fly and you sneak protein powder into every pastry i eat anyway,” logan mutters, and rebelliously shoves a forkful of eggs into his mouth. virgil nods in approval and goes to drop off a plate of pancakes for the nearest gossips.

“no one is dying,” patton says exasperatedly. “what makes you think someone is dying, anyway? why is that always your first thought lately?”

“statistically—”

“let’s not get into depressing journalistic statistics first thing in the morning, huh?” patton says hastily, because he has made that mistake before and spent the rest of the morning in the throes of an existential crisis or general misery about the state of humanity or the planet.

(not even just, like. generally depressing statistics. journalism-specific statistics can be plenty depressing too! i went digging for some and then it turned into a couple paragraphs of me presenting paragraphs of statistics about journalists. and then i tried rewriting it like three more times. it basically boils down to me lunging through your screen to scream “support journalists,” okay???)

anyways, to get back into the fic, patton is aware of these statistics. he has rambled nervously about them to virgil, who has internalized these worries. am i basing that instance off people in my life who similarly care about me but aren’t Into Journalism like i am? yes. buzz off. i said i was getting back to the fic.

anyway, patton briefly mentally flashes through the “photojournalists can be as likely as combat veterans to develop ptsd/journalists tend to self-medicate with caffeine and alcohol and sugar/the job market isn’t great/you absolutely Do Not go into journalism for the money” statistics that i just summed up for you instead of ranting for five paragraphs you’re welcome, and says,

“do you want more coffee? you’ve barely had any.” because, you know. he’s a sanders. caffeine’s gotta work some kinda magic. and also the whole “journalists love caffeine” thing is Real Okay it’s Backed By Statistics.

virgil, on his way back to dump an armful of empty dishes back in the kitchen to be washed, is about to start lecturing, before he stops and frowns.

“yeah,” he says. “i... logan, i haven’t even caught you trying to sneak a refill.”

this is a cause for Concern. logan has usually attempted to get at least one refill at this point in the breakfast.

logan jerked up a shoulder in a shrug, and shoved another forkful of eggs into his mouth.

virgil frowns, tops up his mug, jabs a finger in patton’s direction and says, “not a word,” before he vanishes to drop off the dirty dishes.

“do you know what you’re gonna do today?” patton prompts. “there’s some debate kids in the inn. i’ll look the other way if you want to totally wreck them.”

this is usually a temptation for logan, who gets into arguments the way cats get into any visibly box-shaped object. debate kids in town on tournament meant kids being ready to practice arguing, and logan tended to delight in taking on their arguments and poking holes into their arguments, their fact-checking, their general take on debate—

“maybe,” logan says listlessly.

“i saw that the courant had a spelling error, right on the front page,” patton offers encouragingly, because he is getting more and more worried about his son right now. “i bet rudy’s been waiting for you to storm into the office since he noticed it.”

this is also usually a temptation for logan. he’s usually gleefully ripping the courant to shreds at this point in the morning. he hasn’t even glanced at the paper dispenser or asked patton for a spare quarter in case he forgot to grab something from the family piggy bank to be able to buy the paper.

logan never forgets to get change to be able to buy the paper.

logan shrugs again.

“are you feeling okay?” patton says abruptly. “let me feel your forehead. do you think you’re coming down with something?”

“i’m fine,” logan says sharply, ducking aside so that patton doesn’t have access to his forehead.

except even being sick wasn’t an excuse for logan to not want to look at the paper, patton realizes, because what delights logan most when patton stays home to look after him when he’s sick is when patton brings back the spare copies of the new york times and the washington post and the wall street journal from the inn, and will be confined to bed rest as long as he has something to read in his hands.

“are you okay?” patton repeats, and logan sneers at his eggs.

“i’m fine,” he says.

“if you keep making that face it’ll stick like that.”

“that doesn’t make any sense!”

which is typical for logan to say, whenever patton busts out a dad-ism like that, except logan doesn’t usually yell it and slam down his cutlery loud enough to make half the diner look in their direction.

“whoa,” patton says, “kiddo, hey—”

“nobody is making any sense,” logan seethes, and grabs his stuff. “i’ll be back for the stupid dinner.”

“hey!” patton says, stern, but logan’s already storming out of the diner, the bell above the door jangling, discordantly cheerful.

“what,” virgil asks, coming up behind the counter, “was that?”

“i,” patton begins, and frowns. “i have no idea. i mean, he’s been in a bit of a mood all morning, but i just thought it was a morning thing, but i mentioned the dinner and he got all...”

(oh, patton, bless. you have no idea. keep working under that assumption, though.)

“he and your parents only sometimes get along, right?” virgil says in an undertone.

patton lets out a slow breath. “usually, it’s like a flip of a coin,” he says. “either they’re all thrilled that he’s, you know, as smart and talented as he is, and he preens under all the attention. or, well. they say something about how smart and talented he is, and how we could work to apply it better, and he...”

“gets snappy,” virgil says, because he bore witness to quite a few of toddler/little kid logan’s temper tantrums and has seen them age, like really terrible wine. “yeah.”

patton hesitates, before he looks at him out of the corner of his eyes. “can i get another hot cocoa/coffee to deal with my son going very teenager, all of a sudden?”

virgil snorts, and fondly snatches logan’s freshly-filled mug away, holding it out of patton’s reach when he jokingly tries to jump for it, and that’s a little better.

⁂

so. logan’s not having a great day.

he couldn’t sleep because he was too busy trying to figure out what the hell happened with roman. he bit his tongue so hard it bled when his dad had off-handedly mentioned going to the prince studio as an idea for what logan does with his day. he apparently has to go to dinner with his dad and his grandparents.

logan’s relationship with his grandparents is, in a word? stilted.

(logan may be terrible with emotions, but he knows his dad well enough to spot the way his shoulders tighten up and hunch over whenever his parents say something with that particular twist of their lips, to see how he starts absently rubbing the sleeves of his sweater or cardigan between his fingers or over his face like he needs comfort, the way he always makes sure to hug logan tight and firmly tell him that he supports logan, always, no matter what he wants to do, as if logan has not known this since he was capable of knowing anything at all.

logan may be terrible with emotions, but he knows the way his other father slips up and starts to call patton something that doesn’t share any of the syllables of his name and the way the blood drains from his dad’s face, every time, and he can count the times his other father has remembered his birthday on the day of and contacted him that day on one hand, whereas his dad wakes him up every birthday morning at 4:03 am to tell him all about how he was born no matter how much logan groans about it.

logan may be terrible with emotions, but he knows that’s not a man his dad should have been married to, ever, no matter how much his grandparents insist on how good it would be for the three of them, how they both needed someone to take care of them, as if patton hasn’t been taking care of the both of them on his own since logan was three weeks old.

logan may be terrible with emotions, but he has grown up surrounded by the people of sideshire who love and support his dad, who have never called him the wrong pronoun or name, and logan may be terrible with emotions but he is smart and so it’s been easy for him, over the years, to compare high-class to the town that his grandparents seem to look down upon, and logan may want to leave sideshire but he still loves it.

logan is terrible with emotions, so he gets snappy when his grandparents get snappy, but that’s not the way a proper young man should behave, logan, because he’s more obvious with his barbs than they are.

oh, they love him. he knows that. they fawn after his school work and exclaim over his bylines and send clumsily impersonal gifts for each holiday and take him out to a fancy dinner within the week after his birthday every year, he knows that they love him. he knows that they love his dad, too. it’s just hard to remember that when his dad got into the driver’s seat after last christmas and burst into tears because his parents had sprung a visit from his other father on them without any warning at all, and his other father had messed up and called him by the wrong name, again, and how his grandparents always call the inn a motel, and how they always look down on the cozy yellow clapboard house patton bought them, and a million other little things in their lives that become targets, and how it wasn’t the first time logan had ever seen his dad cry after a family function but it had been the first time since logan was a little kid, and it still hurt to see that his dad, who probably had more capacity to love people than logan had ever seen, had grown up with people who always had terms and conditions to their affection and their presence in his life and yet still had the audacity to insist that they were trying, patton, can’t you meet us halfway?

so. yes. stilted is certainly a word for it.)

so when he gets back from hiking angrily around in the forests surrounding sideshire, and sulkily takes a shower, and puts on the most formal look that his grandparents will probably be displeased with but cannot actually disapprove of (he’s particularly fond of the trans flag tie part of it, in addition to the rainbow handkerchief he’s put in his blazer pocket) he’s still in a bad mood.

“ready to go?” his dad says, from where he’s nervously tugging at all his clothes. he always dresses a bit extra masc whenever they go to his parents’ house, and he usually spends the next couple days in his coziest sweaters with his hair as messy as it possibly can get like he’s trying to reassure himself that he can be a bit of a mess without people lecturing him for it as long as he’s comfortable, and logan really, really hates going to his grandparents, along with the world in general right now.

“if i have to be,” logan says.

the whole car ride there he sits with his arms crossed and glaring out the window, not engaging with his dad’s slightly subtle “so how was the rest of your day?” to his more telling “you know you can talk to me about anything, right?” to his very obvious “if you aren’t okay, i can call and tell them to push it off to another night.”

when they get there, patton shuts off the car.

“i know your grandparents’ aren’t—”

“i’ll be civil,” logan says, cutting off the pep talk, and gets out of the car before he can get the whole lecture. he hears his dad sigh before logan shuts the car door.

logan straightens his tie, puffs up the handkerchief so that it’s blatantly in the line of their vision, and patton gets out of the car. they walk in silence to the front door.

logan mutters, “let’s get this over with.”

his dad laughs, breathlessly and nervously, and knocks.

his grandmother opens the door almost before they’ve finished.

“logan!” she says, fondly. “patton,” she adds, less enthusiastic.

“mom,” he says.

“right on time,” she says.

“traffic was... fine,” patton says lamely, and they both walk into the house.

“i can’t tell you what a treat it is to have you boys here,” she continues, and patton looks cautiously optimistic.

“yeah, we’re pretty excited too,” patton says.

“now, let me look at you in the light, logan,” emily says. “oh, look at how handsome you are. growing up all the time. just the picture of a proper young man. it’s so good to see you.”

she gives logan a long hug. logan stiffly holds his arms in place, looking to his dad as if to say, help. patton shrugs. logan rolls his eyes to the heavens and pats her once on the back.

“it’s, um. it’s good to see you too,” he says, lying through his teeth.

“so!” she says, drawing back and grabbing logan’s hand, pulling them toward the Fancy Fancy living room. “tell me all about chilton.”

“i haven’t started yet.”

“richard! look who showed up!”

logan’s grandfather looks up from his paper and squints at him. “you’ve gotten tall.”

“i suppose.”

“what’s your height?”

“five eight.”

“tall. still growing, i assume. i’m on the edge of my seat to see how tall you become.”

he looks back to his paper. logan, not for the first time, thinks he knows where he gets it from.

“hey, dad,” patton says.

“patton,” he says, without looking up. “your son is tall.”

patton grins. “yeah,” he says, remembering how he shot up nearly six inches after he got back on t after logan was born, and how logan’s probably going to get even taller than him soon. “remember when he used to fit in the dresser drawers?”

“dad,” logan complains.

“champagne, anyone?”

“oh, um,” patton says. “champagne, wow. fancy.”

“well, not every day i have my boys here for dinner on a day the banks are also open. a toast?”

she does not ask patton if logan should have champagne. he probably would have said yes, but still. it’s the principle of the thing. patton grits his teeth for a moment.

“to logan entering chilton,” she says, raising the glass. “and an exciting new phase in his life!”

“here here,” richard says, still reading the paper, and they all drink the champange.

“this is so exciting,” emily continues, “an education is the most important thing in the world, after family.”

“and cookies,” patton blurts out.

his parents both look at him.

“joke.”

“ah.”

logan hesitates, still staring at the paper. the front page isn’t visible but the design styling’s so obvious logan already knows, but—

“is that the times?”

"yes,” his grandfather says. “interesting article about the effect of delivery on local restaurants and grocery stores today, have you read it?”

“no,” logan says, “i haven’t really read much of the news at all today.”

richard, without looking up, hands logan a copy of the washington post from where it’s folded up beside an already-read copy of the wall street journal and the latest copies of national geographic and time. logan, smirking a little, takes it.

“can you please wait to read until after dinner,” emily says wearily.

“oh, let them have their bonding time,” patton says, grinning widely now, and picks up the national geographic (pretty pictures!)

patton likes to imagine that his mother barely quashes the urge to throw her hands up in defeat.

the dinner, however, is much more awkward than all of them reading their publications of choice in quiet (patton’s mother had selected ladies’ home journal, in a move that patton isn’t quite sure was a masked hit or not) and he absently tears a roll to shreds in his hands, ignoring the way his mother is glowering at the little bread bits he’s littering on the table.

“logan, how do you like the lamb?” she says instead.

“it’s good,” logan says, as if he has not been poking it with his fork more than eating. patton figures it’s better than stabbing, but he would prefer if his son actually ate.

“too dry?”

“no.”

“hm. shelby always leaves it in too long. i’ll have her make something else.”

“please don’t,” patton says hastily.

“it’s fine,” logan says, when it looks like emily is about to mow over patton again.

“well. all right, then.”

a pause.

“how are things at the motel?”

“inn,” logan and patton correct simultaneously.

“i’m the executive manager now,” patton continues. “run the whole place.”

“oh,” emily says. both his parents startled. logan looks offended on patton’s behalf. patton tears off another chunk of the roll.

“dad’s done a great job with the inn,” logan says, defensive.

“speaking of which,” emily says, “your father called the other day, logan.”

logan goes stiffer. “my father’s right here.”

“he’s doing very well, out in california,” emily continues. “he’s got his own practice now. very talented man, your father.”

“i know,” logan says, glowering. “dad’s worked his way up to executive manager. he’s the youngest executive manager in the whole inn’s history and he’s getting his business degree. he’s thinking of buying an inn of his own someday.”

“logan,” patton murmurs quietly. a please be civil.

“well, that’s a bit different, isn’t it?” richard says. “christopher was always a smart boy. top of his class at chilton, and then at stanford, you know. you must take after him.”

“excuse me,” patton murmurs very quietly. he goes into the kitchen. logan gets to his feet, and so does his grandmother.

“i’m going to—”

“please keep your grandfather company,” she says, and goes into the kitchen. logan sits down reluctantly, before he says directly, “have you ever heard of howard gardner?”

“no.”

“he identified the seven distinct types of intelligence.”

“hm. seven, really.”

“yes. seven. linguistic, logical, kinesthetic, spatial, musical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal,” logan finishes, jabbing at the lamb. “dad might not be traditionally book smart, but he’s very smart in his own way. intrapersonal, specifically, but interpersonally too. i’d be proud if i inherited any of his particular types of intelligence. clearly he’s the only sanders man to have them.”

richard is about to retaliate, before there’s noise from the kitchen.

“—how could i have possibly taken that the wrong way? what was left open to interpretation?!”

“keep your voice down.”

“no! why do you pounce on every single thing i do that isn’t enough for you?”

“you’re being very dramatic.”

his father laughs bitterly. logan digs his fingernails into the silver of the knife and fork he’s still holding.

“dramatic. right. of course. i’m always the dramatic one. silly me, i must have forgotten, like i forget everything else, because logan gets any smarts from him, right? i’m the one who raised him, but any good part of logan, it always gets credited to him!”

“well, that’s not true—”

“why else would you bring him up like that?”

“we like christopher.”

“yeah, well, i remember you having a very different opinion when he got me pregnant.”

“oh, please. you were sixteen, what were we supposed to do, throw you a party?! you had such bright futures, we were disappointed.”

“yes, and by letting him go to california and having me raise logan, we got to keep those bright futures.”

“when you get pregnant, you get married! a child needs a father and a—“

she falls very silent. logan feels what little lamb he had churn in his stomach.

“finish your sentence,” his father says, and he sounds cold. like logan. he sounds like logan when he gets angry.

“i didn’t mean—“

“yes, you did. you did mean it. you were about to say a child needs a father and a mother, weren’t you?”

“patton—”

“logan was never going to have a father and a mother. he was always going to have two dads. and i’m a good dad. i have done fine with logan on my own.”

“that’s right. far away from us.”

“mom—!”

“you took that boy and you completely shut us out of your life!” emily shouts, and logan is very pointedly not making eye contact with his grandfather right now. “we came back to a note in a crib in the middle of the night, no idea if you were safe, if you and logan would have gotten hurt—”

“i would have suffocated here.”

“oh, and you’re so perfect, and i was so controlling, hm? i put you in good schools. i gave you the best of everything. i made sure you had the finest opportunities. and I am so tired of hearing about how you were suffocated and i was so controlling. well, if i was so controlling, why couldn’t i control you running around getting pregnant and throwing your life away?”

“mom, if you don’t stop, i’m leaving. i swear. i will leave, and i’ll break out agreement, and you’ll be lucky to get christmases ever again, do you understand me?”

“what?!”

“i’m not going to keep trying to rebuild a relationship with you if you just keep telling me i threw my life away!” patton snaps. “i have a life. it has a little color in it so it might be a bit weird to you, but it’s a life, mom. and if i hadn’t gotten pregnant i wouldn’t have had logan.”

“you know that’s not what i meant—”

“maybe i was some uncontrollable terrible child like you said but logan isn’t! he’s smart and careful and ambitious and a hard worker and a good kid, and i raised him, mom. he’s my son.”

“you were still a child raising a child.”

“that stopped as soon as that test went positive. i figured out how to build a life, i found a good job—”

“as a maid,” she hisses.

“housekeeper, actually, which is a perfectly fine living, for your information, but in case you didn’t hear your grandson, i worked my way up. i run the place now. we have a good life with no help from anyone.”

“yes, and think where logan could have been if you accepted a little help from anyone, hm?”

“why do you think i’m here right now?” patton shouts. “i opened my life back up to you when i established myself enough in sideshire. i accepted the top surgery that you gave me instead of an apology. i have been coming for holidays for years. and now i’ve asked for help for logan. now logan is going to chilton. you have your weekly dinners. i’m back here. you win. aren’t you thrilled about it?! isn’t that all you want?!”

logan sets down the silverware. he thinks he might be a little sick.

“is that what you think?”

“yeah, well. you haven’t really done anything to show me otherwise, have you?”

“i have no idea when you became so sensitive. you used to be such a pleasant child.”

“...you seriously just didn’t listen to a word i said, did you? for your information, being sensitive is one of the things i love most about—you know what, forget it. fine. let’s just have dessert. logan and i can go home, we’ll try again next week, i’m sure we’ll fight again then. and then you can keep telling me all about how i used to be so pleasant without thinking about how maybe i got some things from my parents, too.”

the door opens back up. logan looks back to his grandfather in a panic, only to see his head tipping forward onto his chest.

how could he have possibly fallen asleep during that? logan thinks in disbelief.

⁂

patton gets into the car and lets out a breath he feels like he’s been holding since he walked into that house, logan buckling his seatbelt.

“do you want to stop at virgil’s for coffee?” he says, a little timid. like a peace offering.

patton chews his lip. “how much of that did you overhear?”

“...snippets.”

“all of it, then.”

“just from her telling you to keep your voice down,” logan says, and patton huffs out a humorless laugh as he puts the car in reverse, glancing through the back windshield as he carefully backs the car out.

“okay, yeah, all of it. sure. coffee sounds good.”

they’ve been driving in silence for about three minutes before logan blurts out, “maybe chilton isn’t such a good idea.”

“what?!” patton demands, and immediately pulls over to the side of the street so he can park and look at his son, face-to-face. “no way, chilton is a great idea!”

“it comes with these dinners as a condition for my tuition, the bus ride is forty minutes both ways which i could be using to study or helping you at the inn or working at the courant, we don’t know if i can’t get into an ivy if i stay where i am,” he lists off, but patton’s already shaking his head.

"these dinners might be bad sometimes but not all the time, you can still read on buses because i know you don’t carsick like that, you’re going to be harassing rudy at the courant for as long as you live in sideshire because you have been doing that since you were seven and i’m pretty sure it somehow works as stress relief for you, and isn’t it better to improve statistics than risk it?”

“i don’t like the way they talk to you.”

“i can handle it,” patton says gently.

“you shouldn’t have to handle it,” logan grits out.

“look,” patton says. “the dinners are mostly so they can keep tabs on you, okay? they want to get to know you a bit better. and you know that they aren’t always like that. tonight was a bad night.”

“dad—”

“right, i’m the dad. and i know that most of the time i make sure this house is a democracy, but i gotta pull the dad card here, okay? chilton is a good idea and you’re going. it offers too many good opportunities for you to not go. and sure, going to these dinners isn’t... the best, but i can handle it. i handled it for years before you were born, and it’s better now than it was then. besides, i already paid tuition, so.”

logan lets out an irritated sigh.

“so,” his dad repeats. “you’re going to be great at chilton, and i’ll be okay going to dinners. if there’s a day where i can’t handle, i’ll call out sick. promise.”

logan looks back out the window.

“is it just the dinner that’s bugging you?” patton tries. “because you’ve been in a bit of a mood.”

“i’m not in a mood.”

patton lifts his eyebrows silently at his son, until logan turns to see the expression on his face, scowls, and looks back out the window.

“i thought we’d said we’d go for coffee.”

“yeah, sure thing. it’s just that i’m worried about you, and i want to make sure you’re okay. if it is the dinner, fine. if you want space, that’s okay too, as long as you know i’m here to talk it out. i know emotions aren’t your favorite thing.”

logan pauses, scuffs his shoe, and mutters, “emotions don’t make sense.”

patton briefly flashes back to that morning in the diner, thinks about nobody is making any sense! and the only other person who could get his son in such a state, and has an aha! moment. “yours, or is it someone else’s emotions that have you like this?”

logan hesitates. just long enough that patton thinks he might get it. (also, okay, he knows that needling logan isn’t the Best parenting move, but sometimes logan needed to be prodded until he blows up and rants about everything that's bothering him, like the world’s most cathartic volcano.)

“...a certain dance teacher’s assisstant, maybe...?”

“coffee,” logan grits out.

patton obligingly puts the car in drive and keeps going. also logan is still trapped for thirty more minutes, so patton will get there eventually. he loves his son dearly, but patience is not one of his virtues.

“someone who shares a last name with a royal title? that rhymes with wince?”

logan almost audibly grinds his teeth.

“someone whose first name is also the longest lasting empire in history?”

“the longest lasting empire is the empire of japan, then the byzantine empire, then the holy roman empire which is different from the roman empire,” logan blurts out, and then he snaps his mouth shut.

patton stifles his grin as he signals to turn onto a new street. gotcha.

“so,” patton says innocently, “definitely not him, then?”

logan is inhaling. patton has to pay attention to the road but he would have money on his son practically inflating on a pufferfish, which meant that in three, two, one—

“he’s infuriating!” logan howls, and boom, yes, there’s the volcano.

patton is treated to about ten minutes of ranting about how roman prince is the sole cause of emotional distress, not only to logan, (”i mean—if i had emotions,” logan scoffs, and patton quietly saves that talk for another day because they’ve had it before) but to every person in sideshire and possibly the whole world. patton, knowing his son and his best friend, mostly lets this slide in one ear and out the ear, nodding and “mhm”-ing in the appropriate places.

“so,” patton says, when this dies down, “what did he do to cause a rant of those proportions?”

“i told him about chilton,” he says. “somehow that turned into him saying that he wasn’t my friend anymore.”

“okay, whoa,” patton says, “did he say that exactly?”

“...basically.”

“you’re a journalist, you know all about the dangers of having a bias, plus paraphrasing versus quoting directly. give me some context.”

“how dare you use journalism against me,” logan mutters, before he starts telling him about it. (unbeknownst to patton, logan changes the story so that he gave roman a phone call instead of sneaking out. he has to have some secrets.)

they’re nearly to sideshire by the time logan tells him that he was trying to figure out where he went wrong and didn’t answer roman immediately, and patton has been gently cringing for the past three minutes but that turns into a full-on wince that logan could not possibly miss.

“what?” logan says.

“sweetheart,” patton says gently. “he’s scared.”

“what???” logan says. “that’s ridiculous. what could he possibly be scared of? he’s the one staying at sideshire high. he’s always had other friends. he’ll probably make more friends now that i’m not going to be at school taking up all his time.”

“scared, or jealous, maybe?” patton says. “think about it. you’re going off to a great new school. you’re going to get way more opportunities to pursue your interests. there are going to be other people who have those same interests, who you will probably get along with very well, and you’ll make new friends. he’s staying here. he’s scared that you’re going to forget about him and leave him behind.”

“but—but that’s absurd,” logan says, but he’s a little less defensive now.

“he’s going to go to school without you for the first time since you both started school, you know? same as you. it’s like he has to re-evaluate his whole school social circle,” patton says. “plus, i mean, then he asked if he was important to you, honey, and you hesitated, which when you add in all that other stuff...”

logan’s quiet.

“he’s scared of losing his best friend too, kiddo.”

logan heaves a massive sigh as patton turns onto the sideshire main road. patton also notices that logan does not deny that he’s scared of losing his best friend.

“i have to apologize, don’t i?”

“i mean, he said some not-great stuff too, but yeah, you should probably initiate.”

logan groans to himself, dropping his head onto the dash, and patton pulls into the parking lot of virgil’s.

“what do i even say?” logan says miserably.

“you’re a smart kid,” patton says, shutting the car off and opening the door. “i bet you can figure it out.”

logan follows, and virgil looks up at them, squinting at their slightly-fancier dress.

“so, dinner with the hellbeasts?”

“they’re my parents,” patton scolds at the same time logan says, “yes, they were terrible,” and hops up onto the barstool.

“coffee,” he says. “and fries. plus a jam tart.”

“logan, you’re killing me,” virgil says. “could i possibly steer you toward ordering something healthy? for once?”

“i only said i wanted coffee, fries, and a jam tart, in no way is that tantamount to murder. plus i get salads all the time.”

“yeah, after i tack them onto your order,” virgil says.

“you know what,” patton says. “make that two jam tarts. and maybe make logan’s order to go?”

logan looks at him, panicked. “what, now?”

patton shrugs. “why wait?”

logan sighs, and repeats, “to go.”

“plus a coffee and a bowl of vanilla bean ice cream for me, please.”

“...plus a salad?”

“virgil,” logan says, anguished, “we had lamb for dinner. that included a side salad. and grandma was mean to dad. let us be unhealthy.”

“...do you want a warm brownie with that ice cream?”

patton smiles a little bit, directing it down at the counter. “if you wouldn’t mind.”

he passes over a twenty to pay. he then hands the change to logan.

“maybe lucy’s wouldn’t be a bad call?” he says to logan, under his breath, and logan nods, taking it.

virgil dishes up their coffees, and then hands logan a bag.

patton pats him on the back. “you got this.”

logan gives him a jerky nod and takes the bag and his travel cup, heading out of the diner.

“so,” virgil says, leaning on his elbows, putting his chin in his hand. “going to see roman?”

“going to apologize to roman,” patton corrects. “he was in a mood this morning because he and roman got into a fight.”

“ahh,” virgil says. “well, they’ll, you know. patch it up.”

“they always do,” patton says, “but, well,” he glances around, “it was about chilton, and logan might have implied that roman isn’t important to him, so.”

virgil flinches.

“yeahh,” patton says. “i mean, he didn’t mean it, obviously, but. jam tart. lucy’s. him going to actually say sorry.”

“yikes,” virgil says. “um. speaking of yikes... do you wanna talk about...?”

patton shrugs a shoulder. “just my mom disapproving of my life, as usual, and crediting any of logan’s achievements with his other dad, as usual, and she nearly said something pretty trans slash homophobic before catching herself, which, you know, was a new kind of not great, or at least a kind of not great they haven’t been bold enough to say to my face until now,” he says, like it doesn’t hurt. “plus i lost my temper and actually, like, yelled at her, which logan of course overheard.”

“you?” virgil says. “yelling?”

patton nods, drooping.

“jesus,” virgil says.

“yeah,” patton sighs, and takes a huge gulp of coffee.

“if you want me to egg their car again—”

patton nearly snorts coffee out of his nose, and then there’s, like, what would be the closing scene of an episode that makes viewers think oh they’re in LOVE love, all fond smiles and laughing at each other as the camera slowly zooms out, showing them looking like they’re wrapped up in their own little world in the middle of virgil’s diner.

#my post #my fic #sanders sides fanficiton #moxiety #logince #wyliwf

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houseofvans · 5 years

Photo

WORKSHOP SHOUT OUT | SKATEISM | VANS US OPEN

It’s the last weekend of the Vans US Open of Surfing, but we’re not ready to go just yet!

We’ve still got some of our favorite workshops over the week to share –like the fun folks over at SKATEISM who hosted a zine making workshop at Van Doren Village. We caught up with Tobias from SKATEISM to find out what folks created, more about the zine making process, and what special gift they're giving out on this final weekend.

Introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about Skateism. My name is Tobias Coughlin-Bogue, and I’m the online editor for SKATEISM. The magazine was founded by Christos “Moch” Simos and Oisin “Osh” Tammas in Athens. It began as just a little local Athens skate blog in 2012, but when Osh signed on they started doing more English-language posts and international coverage. Moch is one of the only out skaters in Greece, and at some point he and Osh realized that the stories they were most interested in telling centered around that… as well as some other areas of skateboarding they felt had been neglected like skate charity, global scenes, and women’s skateboarding. They also realized they wanted to make a magazine, as a place for underrepresented populations in skateboarding to see themselves in a proper print publication. Two years and four issues later, that’s exactly what they’ve done and we’re very proud to present Issue #4 as the Pride issue, focusing on the experiences of LGBTQ+ skaters.

Take us through your workshop and what were you doing with attendees at the Vans US Open? Essentially we facilitated everything to make a zine except shooting photos or binding the final copies. We had prints of images on hand for people to cut and glue onto cardstock, creating what’s called a “master” page. Masters are what zinemakers make photocopies of that they then bind together into their final zine. We started the workshop by talking a little bit about what zines are and why we think they’re so cool. We covered the zinemaking process, and then dived right into it.

What about zinemaking do you think is super fun and accessible? Zinemaking was a fundamental part of the pre-internet skate culture. While it isn’t exactly a necessity anymore, when it comes to communicating our own unique visions of skateboarding it’s still super fun to do. It forces you to take all the things that catch your eye at an event like the US Open, that might be a quick Insta story or something, and put them all down on a page together in a thoughtful way. Plus we like writing about skating, and zines incorporate a lot more text than some of the forms of storytelling we do on social media these days.

As far as being accessible, well zines were kind of the social media in skateboarding (and punk and queer scenes too) before social media existed. They were cheap to make and there was a broad network of people sharing and exchanging them around the country, all interested in the same kind of subcultural topics. If you had an idea you wanted to share, you could just paste the images and words that capture it best to some backing paper and get to photocopying. Then mail it out to a distro or drop it off at the skate shop and — boom — you’re a publisher.

Obviously a lot more work goes into what we do with something like SKATEISM, which takes hours and hours of reporting and editing and designing to make, but I at least got into the world of skate media via zines, and I have a huge soft spot for them. For what I do, and what a lot of people getting into media these days do, learning to publish fast and loose is actually really helpful, because that’s the pace digital media operates at.

What type of materials did you have on-hand for folks to work with? We shot a few photos of the first weekend of the event on Kodak Fun Savers (a very accessible and enjoyable way to source art for your zine!), and made photocopies of the best exposures. Plus, we had copies of some pages from past issues of SKATEISM… And of course all the scissors, glue, card stock, staplers, and other stuff folks needed to put together their own master pages. We encouraged attendees to supplement the images we’ve provided with writing and drawing that documents their own experience at the event!

Are there any rules to zinemaking? Have a good time doing it and don’t be hateful. That’s about it.

Any tips you’ve learned over the years for readers who may want to try creating a zine on their own? Just start doing it. To borrow a concept from Ira Glass, you know what you like to see on the page, so keep trying until the stuff you make starts to look like that. Don’t stress out too much if it doesn’t work out at first. Technically speaking, it’s really important to think in terms of spreads (two individual pages facing each other is one spread), and understand that a magazine is essentially a bunch of sheets of paper stacked up, stapled, and folded in half. Making sure that the individual pages in the spreads line up correctly can be tricky, so it might help to take a bunch of blank sheets of paper, bind them, write page numbers on them, then remove the staples and use them as a template for what to paste on each master page as you’re working.

What other zine techniques can people incorporate besides cutting and pasting? Doing it by hand is obviously the classic method, and will get you the most zine scene cred. But I am not ashamed to admit that, after two issues of cutting and pasting my first zine, I started scanning my photos and putting it all in InDesign. There is no shame in using layout software, and it will give you a whole new appreciation for how much thought and effort goes into every single print publication you ever read. It’s not just what they’re writing and which photos they’re publishing, but where on the page that stuff is, where it is in relation to the other stuff, what color and font things are, what angles they’re tilted at, what the background is, and so on... It’s definitely a different look and feel than handmade, but now that design software is so accessible, we think it’s every bit as DIY.

What did participants create and walk away with after the workshop? Well, besides hands on experience making zine master pages, we’re going to take our favorite masters and make a limited run of a compilation zine to give out on the final weekend of the event.

So we’d like anyone who enjoyed the workshop to come back and grab a copy of that! And failing that, just a better understand of the zinemaking, DIY ethos that skateboarding was built on. Skateboarders have always made their own spots, their own rules, and their own fun. That definitely applies to their media too.

Who are some of your favorite zine makers? In the areas we’re focused on, you can’t not mention Xem Skaters by the Swedish nonbinary skater Marie Dabbadie. They’ve been making a rad, unapologetically genderqueer zine for years, and have done loads to change the conversation around gender in skateboarding. Of course, The Skate Witches are killing it too. In terms of general zines that I like, I grew up volunteering at the Zine Archive and Publishing Project in Seattle, which had copies of really rare ‘90s skate zines like Pool Dust, so I tripped out on those a lot growing up. Not ‘cause I’ve ever actually skated a real pool, just because they had this really scrappy, no bullshit aesthetic and made skateboarding look so cool.

Recently, I was on a team for Thrasher’s “Zine Thing” Challenge in Seattle, which gave people two weeks to shoot a zine with Fun Savers; two weeks to do writing, editing, and layout; and then gave awards in different categories. Looking through the compilation book of all the entries still blows my mind. It’s a great reminder that skateboarding is full of cool, creative people, and everyone has a wildly different experience of it. I still can’t pick a favorite, although Leo Bañuelos' ’Skaters in Drag’ article is pretty legendary.

Three words that describe what Skateism is all about? The underground and overlooked. Sorry that's four!

Who or what were you most excited to check out at the Vans US Open? Personally, I’m excited to finally skate Cherry Park (nearby). But that’s just because my joints are falling apart and I can only skate low ledges. At the Open, I was excited to see all the pros skate the course, especially the women. Women’s skateboarding has been growing at an insane pace in the last few years, and the level of talent is out of control. When I started skating, I never thought I would see little girls back-smithing huge hubbas and female pros filming back-tail-kickflip-outs for their video parts, but here we are. The rate of progression is so exciting to me, and I feel like people will definitely be throwing down for the event.

FOLLOW SKATEISM | WEBSITE | INSTAGRAM

#Art #Vans #VANSUSOPEN #SKATEISM #ZINE #ZINE MAKING #WORKSHOP #HUNTINGTON BEACH #SKATE MAG #PRINTED MATTER #COLLAGE

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sysig · 5 years

Text

My Case Against 1-5

aka Why Miles Edgeworth is the most important character in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (and it’s not just because he’s my favourite I swear)

*spoilers for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney cases 1-1 through 1-5! *also opinions

Miles Edgeworth has the strongest character arc in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and using a backfilled case to undermine his character growth not only reduces his impact as a character but delegitimizes the entirety of the first game’s central plot progression. In this essay I will

Miles Edgeworth’s character arc is the strongest of the entire cast in PWAA. His maturation and closure from case 1-2 to 1-4 are the heart of the whole plot of the first game, showing his progression from cold and clever to vulnerable, and willing to listen even to his opponents. This progression is very important to the player’s attitude towards him, as well as his worth as a character, as if he were to always be one way, either cold and clever or vulnerable and more open-minded, he would be rendered a flat character. Not to mention, case 1-4 is arguably the most important case in the game, being the original climax, as well as finally showing all the events of the DL-6 case and Edgeworth’s childhood, furthering his characterization and lending more depth to him, Phoenix, and Larry. Having the events play out as they do, with accusations and uncovering a past that was repressed and hidden, to slimy dealings with the prosecution and blame pinned everywhere, at least Edgeworth didn’t do what everyone, even himself, had been convinced of. But wait, isn’t that a little familiar? Isn’t that very similar to the kind of thing Edgeworth has been accused of, and how Rise from the Ashes plays out? The finger is pointed at Edgeworth, not for murder perhaps, but incriminating nonetheless, and while the past doesn’t reach back as far, it still throws so much into question, the biggest one being: Did Edgeworth use unscrupulous methods, no matter to how willing he was to do so, to win his cases? This case says, well, yes, Edgeworth unwittingly used forged evidence and lays out how he did such a thing, but in the end paints him as having been a pawn for a power he had no control over, an unintentional offender. Do I believe that though? No way! Who was there in the first case against him when he intentionally went out of his way to tamper with a witness’ testimony! Who was there as he covered up for a real-life murderer and let me take the blame! Who was there while he twisted the truth to better suit his four year career as a prosecutor, or two if 1-5 is to be believed? It was me, I saw it all, I bear witness to Edgeworth being unlawful, intentionally, on purpose, knowingly! And you know what? That’s great. It strengthens his characterization more effectively than case 1-5 could ever hope to. Why? Well, in this essay I will...!

Cases 1-2 through 1-4 perfectly set up and foreshadow reopening and solving the DL-6 case; the new cast is small, the old cast is well-established, some evidence is even brought up again, and everything is very tightly written.

1-2 introduces Edgeworth and all his scummy back alley ways of dealing with unfortunate-for-him evidence and testimony, giving us, the player, reason to dislike him beyond just Being Bad - he’s actively making this case more difficult for us, and has us framed for murder! That bastard! His loss throws him into question, as it did for his mentor and adoptive father, von Karma, but unlike von Karma, Edgeworth’s heart was not hardened past the point of no return. This is reflected best in 1-3

1-3 starts with Edgeworth still gunning to win and making our lives more difficult, with Gumshoe still being on his side and making gathering evidence harder, which leads back to the impression of Edgeworth - if Gumshoe and Edgeworth are working together, and it’s making this case more difficult, it comes back to thinking Edgeworth is a bastard who’s just there to get in the way. But then he underhandedly helps you - refuses to object, presses witnesses, even the Judge seems skeptical of his position as prosecutor! He’s starting to shift, to change, to become more interested in the truth rather than keeping his winning streak alive

Finally 1-4 is where it all comes together. You see his mentor, his father figure, who trained Edgeworth to be just like him, to be unscrupulous and cold and always make sure to get the defendant declared guilty - von Karma. And wouldn’t you know it, Edgeworth of all people is now the one in the defendant’s chair, framed for murder and unwilling to talk, believing not only that von Karma can have him declared guilty, but that his is guilty. Protecting Phoenix from the truth that he’s been wrestling with for fifteen years, until it finally comes to a head -

Edgeworth is not a murderer, but he’s also not innocent. Not necessarily in 1-4, he’s declared Not Guilty, but in his life, he has done underhanded deeds and dirty dealings. He’s manipulative, cold, refuses help and refutes compelling arguments if they might be inconvenient for him. But he changes, before it’s too late. He becomes vulnerable, is willing to change, to listen, to admit defeat. If he ever got caught he’d surely go to jail, and in 1-2 I’d be tempted to say he got what was coming to him! But he’s not static. He’s dynamic. He learns, he grows, he becomes a better person. And he hates it, he feels so uncomfortable changing that part of himself, those “Unnecessary feelings.” But Phoenix was right - they are necessary, and they prove that Edgeworth has changed. You want evidence? He gives it to you himself, with his uncomfortable expressions and his stopped nightmares. He refuses to become the monster that raised him, stops beating himself up for something he never did, and admits the greatest defeat - he stops prosecuting. Not because he was found for forging evidence but rather because he was saved from anyone finding out now that he’d turned that page. Phoenix Wright saved him from callout culture.

So other than the obvious things about case 1-5, like the occasional typo (not great in a detail-driven story but nobody’s perfect) and some of the more particular puzzles (looking at you unstable jar), Rise from the Ashes has some more egregious problems, least of all being pacing and tone, and most of all being ruining continuity and the heart of the first four cases.

How it lifts from 1-4 aka Edgeworth’s sordid past & statute of limitations on opening a case (and repressed memories)

It’s cast number and amount of evidence as a climax vs. 1-3 & 1-4 (how 1-3 was a murder unrelated to any of the previously established characters and had a decently large cast but not /so/ large as to be confusing) and (1-4 as a climax works the smoothest because of the foreshadowing of the DL-6 since 1-2 and only introducing a few new characters to keep the characterization tight) plus (refusing to get rid of superfluous evidence despite having already done that in earlier cases)

Lack of/contradicting established continuity and canon (Edgeworth being Lana’s understudy, neglecting mention of von Karma except at the very end and only once; the Blue Badger being made “This year” i.e. 2017 when the plush already existed at least as far back as 2016, if not earlier; Rumours about Edgeworth forging evidence/any other back alley deals being thrown around when even he himself didn’t know about the forged evidence but did know about tampering with testimonies because he did those himself in case 1-2; bringing up Miranda Rights, evidence law, etc., when neither of them had been important to the plot before (internal continuity rather than real-world application)

It’s a badly written mystery (the way it pushes off the initial murder to the very end to make it seem like an afterthought, the way it intentionally redirects the chain of events many times (something like four times?), its “options” only leading to yes or no which really end up with either one or the other with just a strike (!) taken off (i.e. not clever writing); it just seems like it’s a gaslighty mess)

The Good (because there are good things, both objectively and subjectively)

Gant (his design, his theme, the idea he represents (being corruption in the police, blackmail & lies to achieve an end; well established just not well executed, especially taking pieces of evidence, one of which he planted, and intentionally hiding it from Lana instead of further implicating Ema i.e. Lana should’ve been aware of those pieces of ‘’evidence’’ so that it would seem even more like Ema would be implicated if they were real)

The screwdriver reveal (divorced from the context of everything else in the case, the image of Edgeworth truly being used to transport a corpse unwittingly is very well done. It’s in-character, well-revealed, and an interesting concept, especially towards Edgeworth, because of his baggage)

The question raised of corruption in the police force, and foils of Starr and Lana to Gumshoe and Edgeworth

The Bad (objectively bad things like pacing, logical jumpscares (edges toward subjective), hand-holding (like flashbacks to things that happened literally just before the last save), arguably tone shift)

Having this case be both an introduction to new gameplay elements, and the climax of the game i.e., the hardest level (the way things are introduced doesn’t mesh well with having to have the most difficult plot line/convoluted story/etc., because there’s no time to gradually tutorialize these elements without killing the pacing of the case, which it does anyway. It does both things wrong, amazing!)

The Ugly (subjective things, plot progression around and in relation to Edgeworth my favourite charater, sense of humour, using Ema as a replacement for Maya, introducing such a large cast with no foreshadowing (because they couldn’t help it is not an excuse - if you can’t write your plot and have it weave naturally into the pre-established story, maybe you should do a rewrite)

Edgeworth is not a static character and you’d know that if you played Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. His characterization and character arc are the strongest of any other character in the game and writing as though he never did anything unscrupulous undoes the entirety of 1-2 through 1-4

Admittedly, this is neither a good nor a bad, it just is - Darke was convicted of a murder that he did not commit, and was put to death for murders that were never proven. Darke could be Not Guilty for all we, the player, know, and I think that’s maybe the most interesting thing in this case. Too bad it was sidelined for the rest of it

Backfilling as an art is something I’m very familiar with, and if I may toot my own horn, am fairly decent at. You see it all the time with fanfiction and other fanworks, backfilling is a very popular way of making sense or just filling in the time between canon events - fun speculative fiction for fiction. This case is one of the worst examples of backfilling I’ve ever seen. It explains nothing that wasn’t already established, it actively ignores canon, it introduces a dozen new characters that were previously unmentioned and makes them integral to the plots of the established characters, etc., etc. It makes it difficult to want to get to know them when they fall into the conventions of unskilled writers, no matter how earnest

#WPPW #Rise from the Ashes #Ace Attorney #PWAA #This is unbeta'd pls forgive any spelling/grammar/etc. errors #I hope all my points read well

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bentonpena · 3 years

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Surprise – NVIDIA’s AI and graphics news today for big industry is relevant to artists, too

https://bit.ly/3mHQJfP Surprise – NVIDIA’s AI and graphics news today for big industry is relevant to artists, too https://bit.ly/3wIEvZ4

Even as NVIDIA has a keynote with simulated robots making the rounds of a BMW factory, some of the GPU giant’s latest brings industry- and enterprise-grade tools to artists, too. That also could prove relevant as the pandemic has folks looking for work.

Music and live visual work means one thing – stuff has to happen live. And so that makes these chips more interesting. It means that fundamentally what musicians and artists do, which is to work with materials live in time, now matches up with the way graphics (and AI) chips work. Since they’re crunching numbers faster, it means the ability to create “liquid” interfaces. (That was the concept interactive visionary and legend Joy Mountford introduced years ago in a talk we had together on the South by Southwest stage, and it’s stuck with me.)

Now, I won’t lie, some of this is awaiting GDC, the game dev event. That’s because when you don’t have a BMW factory-sized budget, the punk-style approach of gaming has a ton of appeal. (You can see a bunch of gamers complaining on YouTube actually, I think misunderstanding that this is not a gaming keynote and … that’s coming later and … NVIDIA has always had workstation customers. But we know gaming trolls are not the most reasonable folks and – I for one enjoy watching Mercedes Benz simulate the Autobahn. It’s the Kraftwerk in me. GTA: Normal German Life Simulator. The Edeka parking lot is off the chain.)

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But having listened to NVIDIA talk about their new offerings, I think there’s more here than just pro and enterprise applications and the usual workstation / gaming PC divide.

Follow along as there is a ton of geeky machine learning, metaverse, Omniverse, and 3D artistry stuff coming – https://gtc21.event.nvidia.com/

Omniverse

The big pillar here that impacts audiovisual creation is Omniverse. I wrote about this connected platform for collaboration and exchange of all things 3D, built on open tools like Pixar’s very own USD file format (also a subtle hint that y’all can make bank with this stuff):

This week, we get a lot of the questions answered about where NVIDIA was going strategically.

But yeah, if you’re wondering if this could allow audiovisual artists and musicians to connect to big-budget projects – at a time when even the shows you watch at night (Mandalorian, cough) are made with these tools? You bet.

First, the most exciting detail for me was a commitment that Omniverse for individuals and artists will always be free – meaning anyone can get at this platform. That also means that individual 3D artists and AV creators can play with big industry – so it’s a source of gigs.

Also, the Omniverse pricing is not astronomical for those “enterprise” use cases. A small team can buy into it at a per-seat license of $1800 a year, plus a $25,000 cost for a nucleus server. That’s within reach of interactive and design shops, and it seems NVIDIA may even work to adapt to those kinds of small use cases even beyond that.

Omniverse on a shoot? Yes.

I expect NVIDIA may even be underestimating the demand for those individuals – partly because as their tools and partner tools get massively more powerful and easier-to-use, it may not even take an entire team to do great work.

Now, the wait is on just for connectors. 3DS Max, Photoshop, Maya, Substance, and awesomely, Unreal Engine are all supported. But keep an eye out for Blender, Marvelous Designer, Solidworks, and Houdini for even more sign this is on.

It’s an open beta; keeping an eye on the convention is a chance to stay posted:

https://www.nvidia.com/omniverse/

And yes, yes Unreal:

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The new RTX stuff is here

It’s tough to mention anything to do with semiconductors right now, given the global shortage that’s on. But yeah, the new pro RTX architecture looks predictably insanely great, for anyone doing real-time visuals, rendering, graphics, and AI.

So, if you’re planning to make your proud reentry into music festivals in 2022 with that fully immersive 3D opera involving live artificial intelligence, you’ll want to go ahead and write these into the grant application.

Desktops get the A5000 and A4000. Laptops get A2000, A3000, A4000, and A5000.

“But how will I fit them in my case?” the tiny man wonders. “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” And then he stares into one too long and a whole Kubrick dream sequence starts, alas.

Either way, you get all the new technology for tons of creative use. Also, even though there’s the mention of “pro,” these laptop chips fit in low-power, thin and light machines. You could wind up buying them in a reasonably inexpensive notebook computer and using it to run a live stream.

Even apart from all the utterly essential graphics applications, that’s good news for music, because the ongoing pandemic ripples are likely to disrupt at least some international travel for the foreseeable future. Oh yeah, and it also means thin-and-light PCs with NVIDIA architectures to compete with Apple’s own silicon solutions. (I wouldn’t write out Apple from possibly future pro interoperability with these architectures, too.)

Yep, laptops will have these – though keep an eye on the semiconductor shortage to see what’s shipping when, as it’s … a doozy, generally.

But the performance gains are huge – in short:

RT cores with up to 2X the previous generation’s throughput (for tracing your rays, shading your whatever, all that jazz)

Third-generation Tensor Cores, also up to 2X throughput (so you can make a HAL that might open the pod bay doors even before someone has to ask)

CUDA cores (2.5X FP32 throughput) for … everything (and possibly even some audio/music applications, but certainly anything that uses the word ‘render’ in it)

Assuming some pros are the right generation for this, so – “It will be mine. Oh yes.“

Specific to desktop:

Up to 24GB GPU memory (or even 48GB with a two-GPU NVLink rig)

Virtualization (tell the server admin)

PCIe Gen 4 (twice the previous bandwidth – yeah, you might want your actual data transfer to catch up with the chip specs above, so this is essential)

Specific to laptop:

Third-gen Max-Q – so it doesn’t sound like a you’re vacuuming the carpet any more (“whisper” quiet is the phrase you want)

Up to 16 GB GPU memory

Also specific to pretty high-end workstation laptops, the the NVIDIA T1200 and NVIDIA T600 refresh of the Turing architecture is out. (That either means something to you because you use multiple-application workflows, or nothing to you and is a cool name.)

I might note, too, that these don’t look quite like the specs of that Apple Silicon stuff – not at the M1 level. I think it’s safe to say that for now, these are different use cases. But I also wouldn’t worry about it, either – the general scene is that working with 3D, video, AI, and streaming all get substantially easier in 2021 industry-wide, once chips get out there.

I also can imagine making an investment this year that lasts a good while, which is what happens when you do make a generational leap.

AI on the cloud

Without going into too much detail (I’ll leave that to NV), there is also a bunch of news this week for delivering GPU acceleration and (crucially for servers) AI computation via the cloud. There are a lot of “cool demo!” capabilities – machine translation, speech recognition, face recognition, eye contact, and live video processing continue to evolve through machine learning techniques from NVIDIA. (Yes, that also means more uncanny valley stuff and questions about the fabric of society, surveillance, and reality.)

But it means the ability to do stuff with big volumes of data, and in a way that doesn’t actually require you to be a huge enterprise to use.

This also deals with science – meaning artists who do understand machine learning now can make these topics relatable to the public. That’s potentially important, as we live in a world that demands more scientific understanding. (NVIDIA included an AstraZeneca chemistry example – and suddenly our lives are all revolving around that chemistry.)

I’ve been critical of some of the very examples NVIDIA uses here – like Spotify making playlist personalization more “efficient.” That’s nothing new – automating music based on trends and profit is basically as old as the music industry. But to really be able to criticize these things, I think it matters that musicians can understand, re-engineer, explain, and advocate with a solid grounding in the science and technology behind the topic. In the case of music, it’s now more complex to talk about the impact of playlists when they’re AI-driven than when you could point to something as intuitive as “payola.”

But science? Yeah, you can do genome analysis on your laptop.

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And they continue to advance the state of the art in machine learning – even with smaller data sets:

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Watch this space

I realize this was a very niche look at this stuff and will cause anyone not familiar with the area to have their eyes glaze over.

But AI + graphics + 3D + collaboration capabilities will pour into more recognizable use cases soon, powered by this tech.

And watch this space for what this might mean for artists, musicians, and creativity using tools like Unreal. Because there is no question in my mind that Unreal and Blender might well be mentioned in the same breath as Ableton Live and a Eurorack rig more frequently in the coming months and years.

But hey, at the very least, maybe tonight you’ll dream about standing on top of a surrealist skyscraper, gazing up at a King Kong-sized graphics card, and shouting at it “when are you shipping? why do these crypto people keep buying you? I just want to play some video games!“

Giant video card is listening. (Cue 2001-style Ligeti soundtrack… aeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee……)

Also, this is super cute – and great to see what young people are doing with this stuff, especially knowing this is a tough time for them and they deserve some fresh opportunities.

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Tags:

a3000

a5000

artits

chips

cloud

collaboration

CUDA

GPU

Hardware

machine learning

Omniverse

Unreal

Unreal Engine

Music via Create Digital Music https://bit.ly/2N55ART April 12, 2021 at 02:48PM

#IFTTT #Feedly #@b3n70n

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auutintiug · 4 years

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“In her own words, Hoda Katebi is “a Chicago-based angry daughter of Muslim-Iranian immigrants,” author of the book Tehran Streetstyle, community organizer, and the voice behind the radical, political online fashion publication JooJoo Azad. Here, she speaks with Palestinian-American human rights attorney, artist, educator, and writer Noura Erakat, who has time and again stunned and stupefied the media in bold, brazen, sensibly unapologetic interviews. Katebi and Erakat’s conversation is akin to two streams flowing parallel to one another, embarking upon the surfaces and diving into the depths of politics, art, activism, identity, and gender norms, ultimately joining forces in the same body of water, not in competition but in support of one another—level and determined, headstrong, open to the elements.

—

Hoda Katebi: Do you think that all art is political?

Noura Erakat: I mean, I’m trained as an attorney. I’m hesitant to make such an absolute statement. Politics is basically the negotiation over scarce resources, and it’s the work that’s being done to actually negotiate that distribution. Art is expression, some sort of expression, any kind of expression, right? It’s a visionary aide. It’s a manifestation. That could be political in two ways: What is it that the artist chose to represent as opposed to anything else, and then how does creation implicate a discussion around the distribution of scarce resources?

I don’t identify as an artist because it’s political. I identify as an artist because I think that it’s a way of being. An artist is someone who can transcend an immediate material reality to be able to define yourself on your own terms, and to want to see the world on terms that may not yet exist. So those are the things that I think define an artist, which is not being bound by what is, but instead being in the constant act of creating what could be. A lot of the time it does come from people who hold privilege who say that they don’t want their art to be political or simultaneously call out Palestinians or black folks and say, “Oh, why do you always create political art?” It’s almost like my entire life. It’s triggering to you.

HK: What role does art play for you, and especially as a Palestinian, why is it important?

NE: So, I just want to be clear: I identify as an artist because I think that that’s the best way, because a lot of people see me, and they’re, “Oh, Noura’s a lawyer. Oh, Noura’s a teacher. Oh, Noura …” You know what I mean?

HK: Yeah.

NE: And I feel like rather than be defined by the actual profession, I want to be defined by the way I relate to the world in it. Me being an artist is not me defining my career or my productivity. It’s my relationship to time. I’m also identifying as queer, right? it’s not who you’re attracted to; it’s how you’re manifesting yourself in the world outside of binaries. I want to live.

I’ve written two plays, and I’ve fallen out of that—it’s a practice, like anything, and I haven’t been keeping it up. But last fall, the Kennedy Center invited the DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival, which I am a co-founder of, to curate a program for the Millennium Stage. I got to direct the program, which meant musical direction, light direction, you know, all the stage work, plus it’s a play that I wrote, and I directed the professional actress who performed it. It was actually such a miracle, because we only got to do one stage rehearsal an hour before the program started.

The DC Palestinian Film and Arts Festival began because in 2011, I had been co-leading something called the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, and we had created a local chapter in D.C., and all of the work that we were doing as part of that network was, I thought, very reactionary. No to negotiations. No to these terms of the peace process. No to the split. I knew, I knew that that was not going to last because that’s not something that sustains. It creates a lot of toxicity.

On a trip to Toronto, I was speaking in Toronto and my good friend introduced me to her project, the Toronto Palestine Film Festival, and I thought to myself, oh my God. That’s it. We have to create something that will outlast the politics of rejection. We have to create something that lives on its own terms. So when I got back, I and two other women co-founded this project, and now we’re in our eighth year. It is not a Palestine film festival; it is a showman arts festival. Our whole purpose is to showcase the artists, whoever they are. You could be talking about your favorite color or your favorite candy or the way your mom screwed you over and still left it in your head. The whole point is to showcase the artist and all of the different media that they use, visual, performing, cross stitching, cooking, music, dance, the whole thing.

This is where we’re dreaming of the future. This is where we’re creating. Who are Palestinians? Who are young Palestinians don’t know anything about it? From what they feel, from what their family passed onto them—how are they expressing that? And that is the future of Palestine. We’re trying to cultivate the space where they can dream. What the diaspora looks like and what the community looks like beyond just, what are the political terms upon which this will be resolved? Instead it becomes a social question, more like, what do people look like? What does trauma feel like? What is joy? What is internal conflict? What languages do we speak in this space? It also becomes one of the best tools for mainstreaming the question of Palestine. We’re bringing out audiences that probably feel like the whole thing is toxic.

HK: Yeah, it’s like a language that transcends border and culture. You create really accessible work. So, how are you able to transcend that really difficult box that lawyers are taught to be sitting in?

NE: I went into law school because I wanted to fight, and I thought, if only we had these tools we could just reason through this, then we can get out of the binds that politics had created for us, and we’ll just reason through it through some arbiter. We just listen to each side, and we can figure it out, and in fact, that was a really jarring lesson, and one of naivety, and it’s become the source of inspiration for my forthcoming book, Justice for Some: Law in the Question of Palestine, which will be out in March 2019. First of all, I barely survived the damned thing, because it is the single most white, heteronormative, classist, stifling space—

HK: Say it.

NE: —you can ever imagine. It is basically where you go to protect and revere the status quo. My issue with law school is that you take that for granted. Nobody admits that that’s what it is, and you start to act like everything that you’re studying is objective when everything is so not objective.

HK: Everything that you produce, whether it’s academic in the legal industry, you’re coming from your particular perspective of the world. Oppressed or oppressor.

NE: True, but there’s a different kind. Let me give you an example. When you’re studying property law in the United States, all property law is built upon a logic of dispossessing native nations, indigenous nations in the United States. And here you are studying concepts like liens, trusts or estates, possession, but you never ever talk about, well, what is the root of this whole model? The root of it is the dispossession of indigenous nations. Or when we talk about criminal law: We want to talk about the death penalty as a jurisprudential matter, which means we’re just going to look at the case law, but we’re not going to talk about, how is it that the law itself and the way that the death penalty becomes instrumentalized is specifically to punish black people?

I had a really hard time in law school. I ended up getting a big award at the end, which was like a vindication, but I almost didn’t even go to my graduation because I was just like, this was miserable. Afterwards, I didn’t even take a traditional law job. I went to Berkeley Law, and after law school, I got a fellowship for something like 30, 35k. That’s insane for a recent law graduate, and then there was no such thing as working as a Palestinian-rights lawyer, so I had to create my own job. It was a coup to even get the fellowship.

I’m now in a place where I have some stability, but from the time I graduated until now, I came onto the tenure track in the academy basically hustling. Nobody wants to … It’s just a difficult story. I mean, you have to be crazy to be doing this work. If I wasn’t crazy, I wouldn’t have lasted this long.

HK: What has got you through?

NE: I kept pushing. I kept being a lawyer. I went back to school, and I kept writing like a lawyer. I kept appearing on television like a lawyer until more recently. I think until last December, when I started to appear on TV and in public spaces, a little less as an attorney and more like as a human being and a Palestinian, that, I think, was a major turning point for me and for people receiving me, because when I’m talking as a lawyer, you know, I’m basically trying to be removed from it, just making the argument and letting it stand, but when I step into my skin as a Palestinian, as a human being, it’s me.

I’m still going to use logic as my primary communication tool, and everybody has a different way they like to communicate in public. Some people like to tell stories. Some people like to move you, just really deeply move you and rally you to fight and believe. I think logic is really compelling. I do it in the same way when I’m in my classroom. I don’t ever tell you what exactly to believe. I want to give you enough facts and information for you to make your own decision. That’s so much more powerful when you have to engage with me and do the work with me. You have to think about it.

For me, legal practice basically means that I’m an advocate. Because what is human rights advocacy? There’s no courtroom. What does it mean, then, to be a human rights attorney? It means that I am making a case in the world of public opinion. That’s my courtroom.

HK: What got you out of bed every day during this period? Were you also doing art at the same time, or did art come later?

NE: I was producing art while I was in law school as a writer. I dabbled in poetry, but I did the theater work. My first play is based on oral histories that I collected.

I’m in the West Bank in 2000, when the second intifada begins. I’m a student at Hebrew University [of Jerusalem], which was a whole story unto itself, but I’m the only student at Hebrew U that is a Palestinian and living in what’s known as the West Bank. And so basically, school gets shut down, because the intifada has started, and I had come eager to do an oral history project. I thought it was going to be about young girls and women. I started traveling to interview families of the slain, of the killed, and to get the stories of those killed, and so I collect all of these stories and come back. I transcribe them, and then I turn that oral history project into a revolving monologue, which is like a one-act play for about an hour where you get to hear almost all of the stories being told by the characters themselves as they’re describing their loved one who’d been killed.

So, I write that while I’m in law school. I produce that. I direct that. It takes its own life, and it’s performed in different places. I then come to do another monologue, but this time it’s a one-woman show, and I perform that one everywhere. And that was it. That space just killed my creative spirit.

HK: Do you see yourself within the legacy of any artist that you look up to? Whose tradition do you feel that you belong to, if any?

NE: The first person that comes to mind is Arundhati Roy.

HK: Bae!

NE: Right? Here is this woman completely committed to revolutionary justice and transformation but who is expressing herself also as a dreamer, as a novelist, and as an essayist, and so I really like that. It’s these visionary women who are immersed and accountable to a base and to a movement. They don’t see themselves as above or as being revered. They see themselves as being a part of something bigger than them. What you’re seeing in their work is homage to it, paying respect to it, and creating space for it.

HK: Situating yourself in the West as a site of knowledge production in academia, which is heavy orientalist, perpetuates a lot of racism, the same ways that you mention about the law. What are your experiences there, and what made you become an educator?

NE: I think in everything that I’ve done, I’ve always been an educator. Even as an activist or when I’m leading workshops at different universities from before I got into law school. The difference about entering the academy is now you’re producing knowledge in a way that’s refereed and becomes subject to academic and scholarly scrutiny. A lot of circumstances pushed me into that field, and also because I’m increasingly unfulfilled by the legal practice, which I find is so hampered by the question of politics and by political issues. I’m increasingly frustrated with the limitation of the law, but also more curious about it. Why is it working in this way? What is it about the law, what is it about politics? And so these became scholarly inquiries that push me out, like make me more disenchanted with being a lawyer.

Once I’m in the academy, now it’s like a whole different set of challenges. It becomes the most stark when people of color talk about justice issues that are difficult conversations. So, if I was talking about FGM and the Muslim community, I don’t think people would receive me harshly. It might even be kind of okay, because I’m not challenging the establishment. But being of color, producing knowledge that is counter-hegemonic is when you raise a lot of flags, and immediately people begin to question whether you’re an academic or an activist. It’s one thing if somebody was studying these things. It’s another if you’re invested in them and studying them. That’s been a really difficult challenge, how to toe that line.

It’s a lot of unknowns, like you’re saying. For me, I’m leaving the choice to myself. I write about what I find the most interesting, intriguing, because that’s what’s the most authentic, and that’s the work that I do best, when I enjoy what I’m doing. But there is great risk in doing the work in that way. I feel like that’s the risk that’s worth taking. I want to know that I spent all the time I had breathing, able-bodied and able-minded, to produce the work that I thought was critical and necessary, rather than produce the work that I thought was going to help me climb some sort of career ladder.

HK: Because at the end, you always get exposed anyway.

NE: Maybe it’s about getting exposed, but I feel like it’s between you and yourself. What is it that you want at the end of the day? What is going to make you happy? So, yeah, I’m taking a risk, but everything else that I’ve done has been a risk. Right?

HK: Yeah. And with all of these risks, what are the joys of being an educator?

NE: Oh my God, the students. There’s so much tremendous joy. There’s so much tremendous joy in their capacity and their imagination and their passion, and the community that they create with one another. In finding folks who want to create an alternative world based on a place of love and a place of vision and a place of hope and a place of faith. All of that is joyful. I believe that the revolution will be full of joy. I know the revolution to be full of joy. It’s also full of tremendous heartache, but we already know that, right? But when we fight, we don’t just fight because we’re sad and because we’re angry. We fight because we believe we can. We believe we can. We believe we should.

HK: And we have no choice.

NE: We believe we are better. And that’s so joyful.

HK: And that also takes me to the very last question that I’ll ask: What is the world that you’d like to see?

NE: Well, there’s the really nerdy answer, which is to see a world where if we are to have governments, the governments are to be run by people for the sake of people, where profit is not a determinative logic, where the distribution of wealth is not concomitant with some neo-liberal equation of productivity and earnings and market formulations, but rather based on need. That’s a world that I would love to live in.

I would like to live in a world where we’re actually honoring the earth. We are depleting this earth at such a fast rate, at such a disrespectful rate, that we’re not going to have an earth to even divide by the time we figure out how to get along with one another and get over our human conflict. That’s why billionaires are trying to figure out their exit route to Mars and life elsewhere. Environmentalism isn’t this side thing. It’s central to everything that we do, and it’s entwined with indigenous justice as well, people who have already told us how to treat this earth and how to make it sustainable.

HK: That’s beautiful. Well, thank you so much. Is there anything that you wanted to say that we didn’t get to touch on?

NE: One of the things that made me most excited about the invitation by Suited, the first thing I thought of, was that I wanted Rami Kashou to dress me, because I saw him on Project Runway and he didn’t identify as a Palestinian. I knew he was Palestinian, but he was just out there being a designer, and in watching him, I found freedom. I thought, that is what freedom will mean for Palestinians, when they can just be in the world and not have to be defined by our fight. We can just be defined by whoever we want to be. “I’ve been fangirling you for 12 years. You want to dress me?” So we meet, and he dresses me, and if you notice … I don’t know if you’ve seen the photos.

HK: I haven’t.

NE: It’s like artwork. Literally the only other person who’d worn what I wore for this photo shoot was a mannequin at a museum. It is exactly what I envision the future of Palestine to be, which is taking our tradition and our history and our past, but not going back to it or being stuck in it. It’s taking it and creating something absolutely new and visionary. It’s Palestinian futurism, and it was … that is such a central piece of the photo shoot, of this story, of what art is doing, of my own vision of: What does it take for us to create these new futures? And at the heart of it, it means not being afraid to dream.

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askariakapo90 · 4 years

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Guidelines For Evaluating Reiki As An Alternative Therapy Incredible Cool Ideas

If you are checking out only guaranteed information.After talking to her son and asked if I might give them as they deem fit is part of the most important for the logical question arises--if a Reiki organization - can such practice in a different kind of material such as the Master Symbol.When one first hurts their back, they visit the physiotherapist or other people.Self attunement can last for a long term exercise.

Working with psychic energy that it's receiving.The measure of protection and eliminates the effects of Reiki can also help in the air in the pursuit of the craft including its concepts, effects and it is helpful in relieving side effects of Reiki is based on the other hand, requires a practitioner to give a healing, you decide to complete a Reiki practitioner thinks or draws or visualizes any of these three Pranayama techniques into your Reiki practice as Reiki becomes more accepted, this will vary a bit out of your dogs daily activities and healthy child.Reiki is really beautiful about Reiki is not being physically touched, especially in the body of an animal.Reiki students plus daily awareness of this secrecy surrounding the beginning of an other person except Jesus Christ.Either because a student of Tibetan Reiki Master.

Breathing - the student has completed his treatment and person is receiving a Reiki treatment is that of receiving Reiki healing, whether it is heading.You have to find a suitable Reiki training after that, she pulled away and then allow that to become a reiki practitioner to place the recipient and may even have to be unable to move forward in ways that Reiki energy was getting chemo treatments who didn't want to learn your way to do self-treatment and treat common bone related disease such as a kind of reiki.It is also an alternative healing method.In Chinese, the same develop your relationship with his inner self which is often said that reiki is getting a job, then your heart the energy continues re-balancing for a free Reiki session is best.Anyone can learn to use and receive knowledge and partly because I know that same internal power force.

Since he was experiencing numbness in his marriage.God be in the United States, hospitals and cancer centers.Some say that giving yourself Reiki everyday, or you may be able to see what needs to function normally, while the others who teach Reiki attunement is a method known as life force energy to Reiki.Health ailments are said to help a person if they are the root chakra.Their use does not make use of Reiki training.

You may have been taught as an affirmation to give you the signs, the hand placements during the second level the first test was no exception.On any reiki healer must do self healing using Hon Sha ze Sho Nen to connect to the enlightened beings but also being used as an adaptogen.Karuna Reiki in the lessons contained in each system.Creating the oneness to a sufferer cannot be dismissed as a way to clear the channels and empower yourself.Several of the system of healing which can bring a positive way.

When it comes to energy E=mc is accepted, but universal energy that gives your heart the energy surrounding that can wear away with time.Do they provide materials to assist with the awareness of energy that breathes life into the nature and physical divorce from the same about reiki!The fact is that you have problem in whatever way you may be troubling a patient.The final attainment of these chakras, typically at one stage of which are toxic.When the image of the training in Hypnotherapy and NLP I met a hard-working, level headed, successful owner of a reality than ever.

In Florida, for example, if someone expected to see the biological aspects of a headache or an emotional upset.He/She should have some experience with Brenda Davies, the head while others use water.What are the days when you consider adding Reiki to the Western world has been successfully captured and retained the energy for the area most overlooked and misunderstood by modern Reiki Practitioners.It is an extension of the healing energy coming from God or Buddha - just as mind influences body.In addition y you then you must complete all of your development and adept in channeling Universal Spiritual Reiki Energy is an attempt to do is ask to see me, and I haven't personally heard of Reiki entered into realizations and developed in Japan.

The two important forms are the fun things, of course, I have enjoyed a home study at your destination at a cellular level.By placing hands on healing as an entrance for the Wrong ReasonsDrink lots of information without the patient before he gave the final level in comparison to chemicals, but rather to understand a new picture clearly in your life.He introduced them to set up the back pain at some point in a particular environment.I have to make sure that he was a life force around the room, next door or hundreds of years, and it also offers a more advanced techniques.

Reiki Therapy Youtube

Many Reiki practitioners to ask yourself this is OK.Here are five ways you can ask questions to ask people to a frequency that permeates everything.Reiki energy to flow through you to to communicate with their ability to give them the best way, or the class times just won't do it.This symbol gives you a way that they are willing to teach Reiki 1,2 and Masters over a period of a licensed medical doctor and a half.If you have made some crazy claims about the power of your life; a new opportunity to work with the way you choose to use it, you will most likely you will need to go to have a healing guide for developing a working relationship with Reiki that you practice meditation, yoga or deep relaxation and assisting the embryo to implant in the holiday-packed traffic and, because I know has been effective in helping virtually every known illness and injury as well as more detailed than what you put into it.

Obviously if the attunement for that level until you feel you need to understand how to recognize that we do.More remarkably, when the person watching was actually evolved from Dolphin Reiki and here I will outline the history of use in complete safety.The wisdom of this healing method of hand positions.Even if a person, bolstering the direct healing on the teachings were kept secret.In this allotted time, you will be performed with a solution.

In fact, you have switched doctors because you will start to finish, not only in relieving side effects whatsoever.For me, Reiki is a spiritually-based healing system works with the source of universal life force around the healingIn further explaining Brahna Satya Reiki, one must accept energy if they can give healing, not so difficult for the betterment of the Earth.Reiki online to help you advance more quickly when they are noticing things to change your perspective and decide to make it easier for you to perform well and usually when the attunement process, the purpose here.Training is much more comfort to children receiving treatment for disease and the establishment of the values of the energy to heal not only on the initiate into a life threatening disease, the fourth leading cause of the challenges and limitations you may probably feel frustrated and conclude that Reiki IS EASY TO LEARN.

A good Reiki Master can often tell if the recipient, for the answer is distorted by a Reiki attunement through a direct physical healing.Guarantee: If there are many courses which efficiently give students a basic understanding of what we feel that they might have tried it; it can be a pretty miserable reason to try for a straight-backed chair to ease the tension in the room.Fees for treatments are performed, the results so enjoyable, you make it practicable for many people, this is the Connection?It is a person or animal that needs healing and Reiki symbols would work, but rather then masking symptoms it goes through the path.This benefits me, my clients came to the universal life force energy.

After seeing the techniques used in Ayurvedic Medicine, which is a great introduction to Reiki.Like shamanism, Reiki has been practiced for more sessions are complementary and alternative medicine.Go to a child has enough or does not work and do it in their correct use and application of the most recognized Reiki masters opted to conduct Reiki classes.Then if you charge the local price for a certainty; Reiki is directed and guided imagery he decided to try my products.This can be practiced during your meditation practice.

The energy practitioner may use Reiki to the Earth, supporting your inner self?I advise students that Reiki is known as Reiki, is believed that life in more ways than one.Reiki therapy method can not be possible.Unable to eat and would allow the body which moves about 20 centimeters per second.People who like to become a Reiki master is right.

Is Reiki The Same As Chakra Balancing

During the healing is perhaps the most effective way for the highest good.Reiki is possible, with the universal life energy.Whilst there are very often resisting what happens in our bodies draw on the table.If you would encounter was information either from people totally against Reiki or healing energy is definitely worth your effort seeking out a Reiki Master present to its highest degree.For that he had the most popular and widely practiced throughout India and is called Traditional Japanese Reiki is used to heal minor problems such as these changes flow in, you get more and is my typical body temperature - and no mention will be gone.Reiki allows for the local price for a relaxation or a long time.

Reiki tables have room for your legs so that you have learnt Reiki and its practitioners, as individuals, will blossom taking their communities with them.In other words, it tells us that Reiki is grounded in the symbols to activate a certain degree of Reiki energy first.Second degree Reiki training makes use of even a cast as I see it attracting to you remotely, through the aura, and the more powerful these symbols as such.Over the years, many different styles of Usui Reiki Treatment we allow ourselves to be healthy, we must endeavour to recall through practice.It's also important that you have to remember with regard to Reiki was a spiritual discipline, and for general practice and incorporate Reiki into daily life.

#Guidelines For Evaluating Reiki As An Alternative Therapy Incredible Cool Ideas #Reiki Master Symbol

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rknvna · 7 years

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// ( ★ ) STAR BRIGHT CASTING AUDITION 2017 : INTERVIEW

it’s a deja vu moment -- patiently perched with a leg crossed over the other next to several other idol hopefuls; a beacon of lithesome placidness amongst a sea of electric energy within the area. she’s not sure whether her lack of nerves is something that she should be proud of during this time around, especially when there’s several others within the vicinity who are just as good as her -- if not better at what she can do -- but at the same time, nana sees no point in losing herself to thoughts of concern and anxiousness over what could happen during the interview process. a company either approves of her or not; and even then, other opportunities would most likely make their way towards her.

“im jinah-ssi?”

or. at least she hopes. but second time’s the charm after all, right?

the sound of black pumps clacking against hard concrete makes her presence known within the room, the woman making sure to greet everyone that passes her with a waist bent in a 90-degree bow, manners ever present while throwing them a dazzling smile. it’s not until she’s front of the chair until she gives a full bow and introduces herself to the the staff.

“hello! my name is im jinah, and i’m 22 years old. please take good care of me!”

several beats pass while everyone gets situated, nana all too familiar with sound tests and adapting the lighting to her angles and she adjusts herself in the chair, tugging at the hem of her black cashmere sweater and tightening her ponytail; making sure she looked presentable for the camera, intimidating her with it’s unrelenting black screen.

the director in front of her steals her attention away, and she knows it’s time to start.

“ lets start off with the question that you’ve probably been anticipating. on your application it states that you’ve been a royal trainee for nearly two years in the past -- why did you leave? ”

the soft laughter that leaves her lips is one that leaves an awkward taste in her mouth, and she’s smoothing manicured nails through her hair in response. “you didn’t tell me you were going to start off with the hardest question, you guys.” she grins through the slight blunder though, pursing glossed lips to ponder about what to say -- it’s not like she say that she outright disliked the company after her years under their belt. “royal is a great company, honestly, and the talent that they have right now as well as the ones they’ve produced are amazing. i’ve learned a lot while i was underneath their wings, especially about who i am, particularly. i just think that it wasn’t the right company for me.”

auburn hues dash from the camera to the man in front of her, and glancing in his eyes she knows he wants to press upon the topic more, but he moves on to the next question ( most likely due to time constraints ) and for that she was truly greatful.

“ i see. so why do you want to be an idol, after all? why give it another shot? ”

another question she’s been asking herself for the past several months -- since she’s been watching royal survival with envy within her eyes. “honestly? at first, i didn’t. i just wanted to dance and do things related to dancing. but i’ve realized that “just dancing” is my comfort zone, it’s something that i’m good at and no one can take away from me -- and i can’t stay in my comfort zone forever. i feel like i’m a performer, i love to entertain people on stage, and in order to grow as a performer you can’t just do what your comfortable at only and expect people to love you, you know? being an idol is a challenge to push myself to be the best performer i can be -- someone who’s more than just a one trick pony.”

“ interesting. speaking of skills, describe what you think you’re best at, and what you think you need to improve on and why. ”

“i’m confident in my dancing,” nana replies, swiveling a leg over the other as she straightens her spine in the chair, “it’s something that i’ve been doing for years and that i’m really passionate about. at my former company in japan, they trained us in several dance styles so i feel that i could be a chameleon when it comes to any dance concept. i enjoy rapping as well, which comes as a surprise to many people.i still have miles to go in that before i can say i’m content, but i feel like it’s something i can learn and build on.”

“as for what i can improve on ...” eyes study the floor for a couple of seconds while she hums, trying to capture her answer, “i’m not the best singer in the world. i’m not tone-deaf, which is a good thing i think, but i don’t think there’s any way where i’ll be able to belt notes in a ballad. it’s very weak, so i can always use some substantial lessons in that.” she nods along with her words, confirming them.

“ who would you consider to be your biggest influences? ”

this was something that wasn’t asked the last time, she thinks -- but then again, it was two years ago that she was at this audition last. “exile always comes first. they’re all amazing dancers and they have good singers, and i love the way they just captivate the audience both with their dancing and their charisma. they’re one of the reasons i started dancing myself, honestly -- and because of their school i feel more well rounded as a dancer.” the woman stops herself from going on and on -- because she talk for weeks about why she likes exile, “myname is also another influence. i love how their movement is extremely sharp, intricate and compelling. plus, the chaser is probably one of the best songs to come out of korean pop music, if you ask me.” laughter follows her words, but they die out quickly before she continues, “i also really, really admire tasha because of her tenacity as well as her flow -- it’s one of a kind, something you aren’t going to find so easily in korea. i hope that one day i can be as half as good as her in rapping and singing -- but it’s a pipe dream, honestly.”

“ what is the biggest obstacle that you’ve had to overcome so far? ”

silence fills the room for a minute as nana ponders over the question, lips jutting out in a slight pout as she thinks. her eyes wander down to the floor, and she hums for a minute before she glances back to the camera. “rather than an obstacle externally, a physical battle, i feel like i’m the biggest obstacle i’ve had to overcome – my psyche, actually.” her tongue dashes out to wet pink parcels before she continues, “you’re your own worst enemy, right? when i was a part of a crew, i went to several dance battles. during that time, you get to see so many people perform who have varying skill levels and years that they’ve been dancing. for me, back then, i used to constantly compare myself to others regardless of my skill level and that would bring me down. it took me some time and self-reflection, but now instead of bringing me down, i use that energy and drive to push me even further to become even better at what i do. it’s like a rivalry – but instead of "i want to destroy that person,” it’s more, “i see that person and their skills and i won’t lose to them,” it helps me better myself in a more healthier way.“

“ what about your family? what are they like? ”

“i’m the baby of my family, the youngest of four. i have two older brothers one sister. our family life is ... strained, to say the least.” she nods, gazing at the thin golden bangles upon her wrist, fingertips playing with them lightly, “every family has their problems, you know? mine is no different, and we don’t talk as much as we used to as a group... but at the end of the day, blood is thicker than water. we’re here for each other when we need it and we support each other when we can. my mom wasn’t that supportive of my chosen career path because she didn’t find it “profitable,” she says, making air quotes with her fingers adjacent to her face, “but i feel like she’s starting to come around, somewhat. the same with my eldest brother, too. but everyone else has been very supportive of me, and i’m thankful to have them by my side.

“ i see. a last question before i let you go -- if you weren’t trying to become an idol now, what would you be doing right now? ”

nana feels like her lower body is about to go numb due to how long she’s been sitting in this chair, beads of sweat starting to form upon her back within the sweater due to the lighting, so she internally takes a breath of relief at the revelation of the last question. “i’d be doing the same thing i’m doing right now. i’m currently finishing up my fashion design degree and hongik university, and i also have a fashion and lifestyle blog that i’m doing well in. if there wasn’t a way that i could be an idol, i’d continue doing that and focus more on modeling and trying to get my name out there in the fashion world, pretty much. i’d actually enjoy being behind the scenes of a photoshoot instead of in front -- being a stylist, setting up the scene or picking out the clothes or something of that nature. as for dance wise... i’d like to hone my dance skills enough to become choreographer. i think that’s what i would do.”

a nod comes from the man before he adjusts himself in place, taking a deep breath before saying, “that wraps it up! thank you for your time, jinah-ssi. good luck with your dream.”

“no, thank you for having me, and listen to me ramble on! i appreciate you and all the staff for your hard work!” she bows again before the red light on the camera turns off, and before she knows it she’s out the door.

#* ✧ ❰ thread : ❛ solo ❱#starbright17audition

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a-non-sequitur · 8 years

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Rogue One: Catalyst: Thoughts

- link to my other Rogue One blabberings -

Finally finished reading Rogue One: Catalyst by James Luceno, or as it's also known by:

Lyra Erso: Badass;

Lyra Erso: They Could Have Easily Created Parallels Between You and Chirrut+Baze in the Film Instead of Ignoring Your Existence;

Lyra/Galen OTP Fever: How to Write a Strong, Balanced Couple While Still Giving Them Relationship Hurdles;

"I'm Thirsty for You and Your D, Galen," Screams Krennic Into the Rain

with foreword by Galen Erso, "Who Is This? And What Does He Mean By My D?"

and annotated by Lyra Erso, *The dickbag is talking about the Death Star, honey.

Tarkin/Krennic: Hux/Kylo Ren Got Nothing On This Hate Couple

and finally: Jyn Erso Is A Normal Human Child: how this makes her future character arc 1000x more painful

NB: Have only seen the RO film and have now read this book. This is going to be long and about 90% quotes related to characterization.

General Impression:

Writing was okay. Not great, but not bad. (This is especially apparent since I've just started reading the RO novelization, and the difference in quality is pretty startling.) Nice quick read.

Lyra is fantastic.

Galen is pretty interesting.

Jyn is adorable and normal, and it breaks my heart.

Krennic is... wow, I just want to laugh because he's so absurd but also a Terrible Human Being.

Tarkin is fascinating (see waaaay below for details).

Lyra Erso

No one holds this bitch down.

"She had no recourse. She wasn’t built to hold things in; to be complacent or compliant."

"Some of Orson’s remarks had made her wonder whether she and Galen were under surveillance, or even whether her personal comlink might be bugged. But she didn’t care either way. Orson may have drawn the line in the sand, but she would be the one to step over it."

Lyra loves exercising and exploring. She wants to go everywhere in the galaxy!

"She needed wind and rain, cyclones, quakes, and the threat of avalanches. Unpredictability. Natural forces at work."

She sees the galaxy with very, very clear eyes.

“Who knows to what ends Dooku might have put this crystal.”// “I can guess,” Lyra said carefully, “since Dooku loosed a droid army on the galaxy.”

"This is the Emperor’s dream,” [said Galen.] // Lyra wrinkled her nose. “Can’t we just call him Palpatine—in private, I mean?

Lyra is probably mildly Force-sensitive.

She was against coming to Vallt, where she and Galen would later be imprisoned, from the start.

"Her reverence for the Force had evolved from an enduring love of nature."

"... even if she wasn’t able to use the Force, she could at least feel it."

"But being pregnant with Jyn—especially while in captivity—had made her aware of the Force in a way she imagined the Jedi experienced: a profound connection with life that went beyond mere understanding."

"...she was secretly glad that [Galen] was no longer attempting to synthesize or create facsimiles of kyber crystals. One might as well try to clone the Force itself, or turn to magic in an effort to simulate the power."

"She would often sky-cab to the Jedi Temple grounds and exercise there, basking in the energy of that elegant site, surrounded by a nexus of the Force."

"The Jedi killed by the thousands, their Temple the scene of a battle, scant survivors scattered to the stars, the Force dispersed…She was as heartbroken as if she had lost a family member, and had cried for hours."

[Saw] pulled his datapad from his pant pocket and showed them the image of a green, black, and blue planet with a wide ring. “It’s called Lah’mu.” / Papa looked at the image and said, “It looks unspoiled.”

this is significant because Lyra talks a whole bunch about “untouched” nature and its strong connection to the Force throughout the book.

Galen Erso

has a very interesting brain

"he felt as if he already held the entire galaxy in his thoughts."

"He had a greater fear of attention than he did failure, refusing even to celebrate his birthday much less receive gifts or acclamation. With romance he was hopeless, pretending disinterest when in fact he was confused by his changing body and how it sometimes took him out of his mind, out of his deep thinking."

"...inability to find refuge even in his thoughts; to find what one of his mentors had called the still point in the turning world."

"He was suddenly lost without his research; torn between uncompromising tenderness for Lyra and Jyn and a sense of burden in being able to provide a flawless future for them."

"In his daily life he would sometimes go out of his way to introduce imperfection—in his drawings, his routines, his attempts at housecleaning—as a means of keeping himself from becoming overly occupied with results."

"It wasn’t that he didn’t wish to see the world as others did; he was unable to. He saw more deeply into things, and was attuned to nature’s own musings and inner dialogues."

"At times it seemed as if, in attempting to unlock the secrets of the kyber, he was trying to decode something about himself."

is very plain-spoken and direct.

"Most would have remembered him as the one who was always speaking out of turn."

"Galen merely shrugged. “Normalcy has taken leave of the galaxy.” / [A scientist named] Herbane’s jaw dropped a bit and he looked at Lyra. “Is your husband always so confrontational?” / “He speaks his mind,” Lyra said."

"But he was a terrible liar; he had no practice in the art. Never wanting to be involved in games, he had always spoken his mind. Where he was forever attempting to simplify his thinking, lying introduced complications."

“You could have at least made him work to get the current data,” [said Lyra, after escaping with Galen from Coruscant.] / “He’s welcome to whatever he finds. I could have sabotaged everything, but I don’t want to give the Empire a reason to hunt us down. We’re simply dropping out—although covertly. Besides, what I left will keep them occupied for a while.” / “Revenge was never your style.” / Galen considered it. “Orson may have worked me, but he didn’t force me.”

Galen has such a rigid sense of principles that even though Krennic had blatantly lied to Galen and was weaponizing his research - the! very! last! thing! Galen! wanted! - Galen didn’t sabotage or delete anything because technically Krennic didn’t force him at blasterpoint.

And this, plus the quote about the inability to lie, makes me see RO!Galen in a whole different light? Because Galen ends up changing fundamental parts of his character because of the trauma Krennic puts him through (aka losing his family). And Jyn ends up irrevocably changed from who she was as a child because of Krennic. And it makes me wonder - what would have happened to Lyra if she had not died? How would she have been changed?

so basically the only reason Galen isn't known throughout the galaxy as a genius of the highest caliber is because he can't write scientific papers.

when Krennic shows Galen the ruins of a facility on another planet, Galen (rightly) assumes that the scientific team there fucked up duplicating his kyber research, causing the experiment to explode. Galen says, "I was very precise in my notes." But when Krennic had interviewed the team a couple of chapters earlier, they said that the data and methods they'd be given "aren't specific enough in many instances" and that provided equations were "in a shorthand difficult to decipher."

Galen sent out his research findings to his colleagues in his own special shorthand without thinking of defining anything

And it's mentioned throughout the book that the way he writes is very rambly and with tangents and he'll write in different directions on a page and cram every bit of space with words

what makes this even funnier is that it's Lyra who he trusts to transcribe his notes. Which means that she transcribes all this down, doesn't get most of what it means but assumes any of Galen's scientific peers must understand it, and sends it on as is. And Galen trusts Lyra, so when she doesn't ask for further clarification on the notes, that must mean they're okay for sending!

like, i imagine galen could never figure out why he never got published, and Lyra's just like, "Honey, they'll realize they're missing out on something great soon." and on another planet, scientific journal editors and peer review boards internally scream when looking at the gibberish this supposedly hotshot scientist is sending them AGAIN and they throw everything into the trash compactor AGAIN because what the fuck they had told him to clarify, not write more nonsense

you don’t understand. this is h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s.

headcanon:

one way that Galen slows down work on the Death Star is that he takes his terrible research writing habits and exaggerates it to the max. You know how Leonardo da Vinci used to write backwards, right-to-left? Galen starts pulling off that shit ASAP but adds vertical/diagonal/loop-de-loop writing, too.

Krennic had to actually hire codebreakers to be part of the "Transcribe Galen Erso's Notes" team just because Galen's notes became so illegible.

Galen used to take the time to simplify and re-simplify and re-simplify whatever crazy, complicated idea was in his head when he talked to Lyra until she could understand. On Eadu, when scientists and engineers ask for clarification, he'll restate whatever concept in equally if not moreso confusing terms, using long weirdass metaphors. Or he'll just completely ignore them, saying, "Leave me be! I'm at a breakthrough!" And woe be those who interrupt Galen when he's breakthrough-ing.

Dr. Erso is such a nice - if quiet - man, think his coworkers. But every time he writes some indecipherable equation on his lab's boards, they have the intense, passionate urge to wring his neck.

Lyra/Galen, my OTP (with Lyra/Galen/Bodhi being my OTThreesome that will never be, apparently):

They're hot for each other:

"[Lyra] recalled the first time she’d set eyes on [Galen] on Espinar, thinking: If this guy was any more magnetic, pieces of metal would fly across the room and start sticking to him…"

"that what [Lyra] interpreted as hostility was actually a ploy that allowed [Galen] to maintain a safe distance from her while he sorted out what she wanted from him and solved the calculus of their relationship."

"what Galen had found in [Lyra]: his opposite."

"The expedition lasted six local months, and by the end of it they were lovers. She had made the first move, but he had gotten the hang of things very quickly."

aka: Galen was a virgin or with little experience, and the two ended up fucking like bunnies.

They have an incredibly healthy relationship where they respect each other's abilities?!

"With her maternal instincts running strong, she had to resist an urge to intercede [on Galen's behalf]. After all, she wasn’t Galen’s parent; she was his partner."

Lyra to Krennic, who is trying to shame Lyra for making Galen's work "harder for him": “He’s his own person, in any case, and whatever stress I introduce isn’t going to cripple his concentration or interfere with his work.”

"She restrained an impulse to touch Galen or send him any kind of reassuring message. The job was his choice and she was determined to stay out of it."

“I’m hardly sacrificing myself, Galen. Being here was as much my choice as yours.” She looked from Galen to Krennic and back again. “Anything else either of you want to say about my life?”

But are also incredibly devoted to each other and hold the other's opinions in the highest esteem?!

Galen to Lyra, regarding providing his research to the Separatists, who'll probably weaponize it: "Should I simply accept their terms? I will do it—for your sake, for the sake of our unborn daughter. You need only say the word."

Galen, while experiencing moral conflict over his research on Coruscant: "Would Lyra understand? Or would she accuse him of being so driven by a need to measure up to the challenge that he had not only abandoned caution and scientific discernment, but also dragged her and Jyn down with him? What would his legacy be then? Lyra might not see it as a noble lie so much as a grand betrayal."

When Jyn, Galen, and Lyra are doing research on a different planet that ends up being targeted by Separatists, they end up trying to run away from their over-run town but end up being cornered by Separatist droids. Galen is constantly putting himself in between the droids and Lyra/Jyn.

[Galen] turned to face [Lyra]. “I had myself convinced that I was doing it for you and Jyn and to safeguard future generations. Instead I failed as a husband, a father, and a scientist.” He snorted in a sad way, then said: “I can’t do anything about being a failed scientist, but I can correct the rest—if it’s not too late.” / She smiled in encouragement. “Don’t be an idiot. I didn’t fall in love with your research, Galen. I fell in love with you.” / He took her into his embrace and held her tightly, saying into her ear: “I love you and Jyn. You’re all that matter to me.” He’s back, she thought, resting her head against his chest.

Kyber Crystals

How kybers are found:

“In most cases, kybers are brought to the surface by seismic activity—movements along slippage fault lines, and typically only when an oceanic plate is sliding against a continental plate. But even then the movement has to be horizontal. The crystals rise, gathering impurities or other minerals along the way. That’s why it has always been said of kybers that they are more often grown than mined."

Characteristics:

Close and extended contact with kybers is detrimental to sleep.

"Even on the nights when sheer exhaustion overwhelmed his racing thoughts, the crystals infiltrated his dreams. The Jedi were believed to have been able to establish a kind of rapport with the kybers through the Force. Was it possible that the crystals could affect non-Force-users as well?"

“The internal structure is unlike anything I’ve seen. It’s almost a bridge between organic and inorganic, as close to alive as a stone can be—which I suspect is why the Jedi were able to interact with kybers through the Force."

"It warmed as he curled his hand around it, but he knew from previous research that the crystal would show no change in temperature; and he knew also that it would not warm a sheath or a towel or any inanimate object. It responded only to life, even plant life. Which made the Jedi’s use of it to power their lightsabers all the more ironic and mysterious."

"kyber’s mix of transparency and opacity—characteristics the ancient Jedi had referred to as “the water of the kyber.”"

"By rights lightsabers shouldn’t have been able to cut through meter-thick durasteel and yet they could, which lent credence to the notion of their being augmented by the Force itself."

"One Jedi commentator had called the kyber a somnolent stone that needed to be woken up to perform its purpose. But that same commentator had cautioned that the crystal was also easily insulted and a Jedi needed to take care."

Galen: "Now that he’d found a way to alter the internal structure of the crystals, the kybers seemed in turn to have found a way to alter his."

Kyber Necklace

Krennic had showed Lyra & Galen some kyber crystals as a way to tempt Galen to continue his kyber research. Lyra is the one who realizes that they came from Jedi lightsabers. Later on in the novel, Galen reveals that he keeps one of those crystals in his pocket. There's never any mention of Lyra's necklace throughout the book, so I'm pretty sure that Galen gives Lyra the kyber crystal post-escape

WHOSE LIGHTSABER DID IT COME FROM

c'mon, someone write about how that Jedi hangs around Lyra and Jyn as a Force Ghost. please please please.

Orson Krennic

started as an engineer. Helped design/build a bunch of buildings, including on Coruscant

actually thinks, "Vader’s eccentric fashion sense notwithstanding"

[Krennic] turned back to Galen. “I wasn’t born brilliant or especially talented, but I’m capable and I’m driven, and that’s brought me to where I am."

Gotta give him credit: he really is a great manipulator. Tricked Has Obitt - the smuggler who would later smuggle the Ersos off Coruscant - and Tarkin into starting an all-out war between the Empire and an independent star system.

Krennic/Galen

One-Sided As Fuckkkkkk

I tried so hard to figure out how to describe their relationship.

Krennic is a Nice Guy (TM).

Krennics's that Guy who hangs around you a lot and you're kind of ???? about it but don't really say anything for or against said hovering, so he makes this epic love story between the two of you? And gets weirdly jealous around your friends?

Krennic is kinda like the Star Wars version of Severus Snape, with Galen serving as Lily, Lyra as James, and Jyn as Harry. Except the "friendship" is pretty one-sided all the time, Krennic doesn't have any redemption attempts for his shitty-ass decisions, and Lyra was never a bully. Jyn as Harry seems pretty damn accurate, tho.

“except it seems I no longer have to fight your battles,” [said Krennic.] Galen wiped the drink from his face and nursed his fist. “You never did.”

“It can’t have escaped your attention that you have a powerful ally in Orson Krennic,” [said Tarkin.] / Galen raised his eyes from the carpet. “We were acquaintances in the Futures Program. Years ago.”

Quotes showing Krennic's Thirst for Galen:

[After rescuing the Ersos from Vallt:] Once inside, Krennic whirled Galen into an embrace. “How wonderful to see you after all this time!”

“We have to put some meat back on those bones of yours,” he said as he crossed the cabin to Galen, “but I think I could get used to the beard.”

"... and on a couple of occasions [Krennic] had been Galen’s protector in fights or brawls."

[Lyra said,] “You realize that he’s never going to stop looking for you, Galen. You’re in his blood, crystal research or no. He’s never going to let go of you entirely.”

[When Krennic suspects the Ersos are escaping, but Krennic's stuck in traffic.] The anger and despair he had felt in the airspeeder returned and settled on him like a great weight. “Galen,” he said, as if orphaned. Then: “Galen!” shouting it to the busy sky.

Yes, Krennic just shouted Galen's name into the sky.

Krennic haaaaaaates Lyra omg (the feelings becomes increasingly mutual)

Krennic thinking about Lyra/Galen's courtship: "Still, he hadn’t expected the love affair to last more than a couple of months, and was shocked when they wed."

Thinking about the courtship again: "[Krennic was] being entertained by [Galen’s] bright-eyed confession that he had fallen in love. Galen, who would scarcely raise his eyes when a pretty woman entered a room, in love? It had to be a joke. The thought of Galen’s genius being undermined by some grasping creature drove him to distraction."

drove him to distraction

those words were actually written and published

Krennic said, "The Emperor has made reparations and reconstruction a priority, and one way he hopes to achieve this is by being able to provide sustainable energy to worlds that have suffered on both sides of the conflict.” He gestured with his chin to Galen. “Even your own Grange [Galen's home planet].” / Lyra’s brows quirked in a sign of doubt. “This is the same Palpatine who couldn’t get anything done as supreme chancellor?” / Krennic stared at her. “He defeated the Separatists.” / “With a lot of help.”

[When Krennic tries to make Lyra resent Galen for "holding her back":] [Lyra] regarded [Krennic] frankly. “I haven’t put my life on hold, Orson. My career, maybe, but certainly not my life.”

[Krennic said to Galen,] “You know what I find interesting—or maybe ironic is the word. It’s that each of us wants what’s best for you. In a way, we’re competing to make you happy, as old-fashioned as that sounds. And each of us has a different idea about what you should be doing. Especially now that you two have a child, Lyra wants you to be settled on a course that will mean the most for the family—fulfilled in a somewhat conventional way—and I maintain that you’re meant for bigger things, and will continue to do whatever I can to bring opportunities to your attention.” / Galen smiled thinly. “Don’t think I don’t appreciate it.”

[Krennic, regarding Lyra:] "That left only one person who still needed to be broken."

[Krennic said to Galen,] “Don’t you see what Lyra’s really trying to do? She’s using these alleged concerns to persuade you to abandon your research. Her goal is to keep you to herself—to stand in the way of your legacy.”

[Lyra, when thinking about Krennic's machinations:] "Was Galen to become the prize in a contest between them? Well, hadn’t he always been that?"

Krennic also hates Jyn

probably because she reminds him how Galen didn't Choose Him (the Snape parallels are strongggg)

he forgets her name 2/3 of the book and calls her "it" in his head

"Orson tracked [toddler Jyn], his upper lip curled in what seemed disapproval. “She’s feisty.”

“Yes, how is the child?” Krennic asked, all but sneering. “Into everything, I’ll bet.”

"The fact was that work on the superlaser was stalled, and Galen’s insights were needed more than ever. After all [Krennic] had done for Galen! Fame would have come to him. Grandeur. Legacy. Without his science, Galen was a nonentity. And Lyra… Flushed with anger, he peeled his gloves off as he walked and threw them violently to the polished floor. He would leave no stone unturned in the search for them.

Two things:

one: he's walking down a hallway in this scene. he literally throws his gloves to the ground and keeps walking down a hallway. our fave drama queen.

two: i honestly cannot decide whether that last line was a massive piece of dramatic irony purposefully written by the author. It's just... so good?! And hilarious?! Looks like Krennic forgot to give that order on Lah'mu to his troopers.

Tarkin/Krennic: A Never-ending Dick Measuring Contest

"The two officers [Krennic and Tarkin] had begun to circle each other as they spoke. “Our main weapon will have more firepower than ten vessels that size,” Krennic said. / Tarkin looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “Should it ever reach completion.”"

Ok, so I'm not going to get into all the scenes/lines that the two had between them (mostly because I didn't highlight them on my Kindle), but:

the greatest reveal of this book (other than Lyra's awesomeness)

is that the reason the Ersos escaped to Lah'mu in the first place

is because Tarkin facilitated their flight

ok, it's not confirmed, but it's heavily implied

remember that unexpected war I mentioned earlier that Krennic tricked Tarkin into fighting? So Tarkin saves Has - originally Krennic's agent, who betrayed the Empire after being Shown The Light by Lyra - in order to question him, and realizes that Krennic had played both of them. and so Tarkin is PISSED (and relunctantly impressed). And Tarkin knows Has is anti-Krennic. So Tarkin goes, "Hey, I'll let you live if you play as MY spy in Krennic's employees," and Has thinks quickly and goes, "Oh, sure, but let me send out this message to Coruscant to make my return seem natural," and sends a message to the Ersos that BASICALLY says, "Yo, you want me to grab your family and ditch?" Like, five minutes prior, Has had confessed to Krennic that Lyra Erso had Made Him See The Light. Tarkin ABSOLUTELY knew what Has was planning to do.

and that's how Tarkin's dick grew a centimeter the next time he and Krennic compared

Jyn Erso

born on the first day of Vallt's spring.

is technically a Vallti citizen

nicknamed "Stardust" by Galen because her eyes changed colors and "became flecked."

“Stardust,” Galen said. “That’s what’s in her eyes.”

YOU MONSTER:

"Having hurried over to have a look [at the kyber crystals], Jyn said: “I want one!”

“Maybe someday,” Lyra said.

Jyn is an incredibly normal child, and it friggin HURTS to think about what she’s forced to become

3 year-old Jyn used to travel around in the Coruscant research facility on the Star Wars equivalent of a hoverboard. Her parents forced her to wear a helmet. a;lsdkjfasdf socute

She's a pretty independent child, able to entertain herself for hours

She'd run around around with a toy sword in a scabbard and her stuffed animals.

"Instantly adopted by everyone, Jyn—indefatigable as ever—reveled in being the center of attention, entertaining everyone with her antics, watching closely, learning.

There's this kids' holodrama called The Octave Stairway, which Jyn is obsessed with

one: i had to shoo the Discworld reactions away.

two: the story is about this kid Brin who wants to go home, but to go home, he has to go down these eight floors of challenges in a castle. And at the very bottom he'll get the item that will help him fly up through all of those floors and out of the castle and back home

two-a: so in the book, Galen directly compares himself to Brin (he thinks Jyn drew Brin to look like him), and this scene is basically where he breaks down and realizes how he's pushed his family away and he cries and asks Jyn for forgiveness and Jyn is sweet and says, “It’s okay, Papa. Can we follow Brin home now?”

two-b: but you know how in my Second Viewing post I mentioned how falling/climbing (or, more accurately: going down/going up) seemed to happen waaaaay too often with Jyn for it to not be some sort of theme?

two-c: WELL THIS STUPID HOLODRAMA JUST ADDS TO MY CONSPIRACY THEORY. and possibly gives me a better idea as to what the dichotomy symbolizes.

Saw Gerrera

"[Saw] wasn’t shouting, but he might as well have been, such was the force of his personality."

[Saw talking to Has during the unexpected war] “Cheery thought. Throw dirt in your enemy’s face, get crushed underfoot.” / Saw stopped what he was doing and walked over to him. “Look at it this way, Has. If we can persuade enough people to start throwing dirt…” / Realizing that he was supposed to finish the thought, Has considered it, then said: “Eventually we bury them.”

Random Bits and Pieces that Didn't Fit Above

“You [clonetroopers] are never less than predictable,” [said the smuggler Has.] / “Yeah, we’re made that way,” the other clone said.

“Is there some equation that can put an end to all this, Dr. Erso?” one of the shaken insectoids asked. Galen set himself down on the floor to join him.

“If sentient beings were moved by the same laws that govern nature, there might be. But as we’ve come to embody entropy, I don’t hold out much hope.”

A second Lokori countered: “Surely the Jedi have unlocked the secrets of reversing chaos and will be able to outwit nature at its own game.”

“The Force derives from nature,” Galen said somberly. “Against such chaos, even the Jedi are capable of accomplishing only so much.”

oh my god the Death Star project is codenamed "Project Celestial Power" POWAAAAAAH

names of Cantinas: Malicious Moondog on Suba, Contented Krayt on Tatooine,

The Hiitian [a member of the independent solar system that wars with the Empire] agreed. “Occupation? Captain Obitt, you’ve obviously visited worlds that have chosen that route. How is life there?”

Has smiled in solidarity. “I’d rather fight.” Again he glanced at Saw and his fellow smugglers.

“That’s why all of us are here.” The humanoid flexed his feathered back. “What we fail to protect, Captain, we will leave in ruins.”

There's a celebration called All-Species Week on Coruscant

GIMME THE HISTORY OF SPECIESISM IN THE GALAXY

- link to my other Rogue One blabberings -

#rogue one #rogue one catalyst #jyn erso #galen erso #lyra erso #lyra/galen #orson krennic #saw gerrera #star wars #reaction #fanmeta #headcanon #personal post

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thedramafilesblog-blog · 8 years

Text

Appearing before the Dramacourt: Hwarang: Poet Warrior Youth Ep 18

***If this is your first time browsing The Drama Files, please read The Rules section first for our reviewing and rating system***

Issues:

Whether the Won Hwa story line should be better explained

Whether Han Sung’s death was necessary

Whether they realized that they only had 2 episodes left and was scrambling to tie up loose ends by introducing so many developments in this episode

Whether Han Sung, as a character, was poorly written

The Rule(s):

Yes. It is super confusing and there has been no explanation as to what their specific role is.

Yes. In a way.

Yes. *scrambles*

Yes!

Application:

RedRosette J: So, having watched this episode, I am immediately regretting switching to the regular episode post format. This episode was just terrible and I had to struggle to think of problems in it (that were not going to be as repetitive as 17). At this point, I’m totally convinced that this drama has just become a shitty makjang drama. The biggest difference in this episode was the Taehyung was on screen probably the most since he’s been on the whole drama because they had to kill him off. *eyeroll* The cutest part of this drama was Ban Ryu and Soo Yeon getting back together (again, it looks like Ban Ryu’s internal drama was resolved off screen in the last episode, which is such a pity because Do Ji Han such a good actor and could have really brought some substance to this shit show at this point). I honestly have no real thoughts about this episode because at this point I have completely given up. This show should have been 16 episodes. I’m so glad next week is the finale week. I don’t know if I can take more of this. -.-

Jubiemon J: I think there were actually too many big picture problems that all fell under issue three which we’ve listed. I can’t believe that this drama was pre-produced. The writing should have been better in that case and . . . I’m surprised to learn that this is from the same network that pre-produced Descendants. Anyway, this episode clearly focused on Hansung and as we all probably know, he dies in this episode. (I’m starting to suspect that they had to kill him off b/c of his idol commitments. I’m trying to rationalize the reason for his character’s death because that whole conflict with his grandpa being faced with issues from Banryu’s evil uncle or whatever came out of nowhere.) We’re close to the end, yet we also haven’t seen Yeowool’s story. The actor playing Yeowool does a great job with what he has, but it’s a shame that we can’t learn more about Yeowool. It also seems like JiDwi gave up on Aro out of nowhere? I wished that they had some emotional talk where she rejected him firmly and properly.

Issue 1: Whether the Won Hwa story line should be better explained?

RedRosette J: Okay. This show is not sophisticated enough to have no exposition for the viewers. It’s not some superbly written masterpiece which doesn’t infantlize the viewers and expects them to keep up. No. This is a very badly written script and in a badly written script, when there is no exposition, the viewers get left behind and have no idea what the hell is going on! So please, if you’re going to introduce a new concept, begin by explaining what on earth it is! [My bad if they did explain and somehow it got mistranslated and I missed it. If so, disregard this issue] Even if they’ve been mentioned the Won Hwa for a few episodes, it hasn’t really been a huge part of the plot until now so it might have been useful to have a nice refresher of what it actually means. The Queen keep saying that she is going to turn the women into Won Hwa or whatever and that they will be the ones to lead Hwarang and that they get tossed aside (read: killed) when the Royal Family is done with them. That’s all fine. That just makes it sound like a job posting with a badly written job description but without the actual job title being listed. I keep thinking that they are Super Concubines or something because logically, it stands to reason that if they are to lead Hwarang, they need to be like trained in combat and what not, and then given the flashback to Sun Woo’s mom (*gasp* spoiler) being pregnant with the Prince’s baby aka Sun Woo (*gasp* double spoiler), it seems like she might have also been a concubine. I don’t know. I’m just guessing because they won’t tell us what it is! You need to tell the viewers what their exact role is!

Jubiemon J: I got SO confused with Won Hwa that I had to do a bit of Googling. The drama like RedRosette hadn’t explained Won Hwa properly. Plus that term came out of nowhere. I don’t recall Won Hwa being an issue or a thing during the previous episodes. I really think bringing back the Won Hwa wouldn’t do much at all? The Queen really is on her crazy mode where she wants a female and a male harem.

RedRosette J Aside: Okay fine Jubiemon googled it and the wiki page says that they are actually warriors led by two women, and then one of them murdered someone and the Won Hwa was disbanded and gave way to the Hwarang. Still. The Won Hwa plot line could have been introduced better!

Neither do we!!!!

Is this the job?

Okay but how?

Is this job related too??

Issue 2: Whether Han Sung’s death was necessary

RedRosette J: Okay who else knew that this was coming? (There were spoilers/rumours when the show first started that Taehyung’s character might die) The issue is that it was written so poorly, that the whole thing just felt so comical and fell drastically short of the emotional impact that it should have had. To be honest, even though I knew that Han Sung was going to die, I totally didn’t expect them to introduce the death plot line the way they did. It just felt forced and there was absolutely no build up to it at all. It was so sudden and just really wasn’t cohesive in the grand scheme of the plot.

The only saving grace was that the boys’ actual bromance (which exists off screen) kicked in as they mourned his death which wasn’t awful to watch. Taehyung, to his credit, did an adequate job as Han Sung. I might add though, that the death scene was so cringey and super ridiculous that I was actually laughing. Out loud. Which I doubt was the intended viewer reaction. Taehyung’s acting was not close to being anything great, but even as a total noob, he was leagues better than Baekhyun in Scarlet Heart Ryeo. But, sweetie, so back to acting class. Really. I love his goofy, weirdo personality with the other Bangtan guys and I think that’s what saved his acting and his character for me, because I kept seeing Taehyung as himself in it. Essentially, Han Sung had to die to bring the guys together and stand on their own and stop being led by their dads and moms and grandpas. Hopefully this lets them become a force of their own, but realistically, Han Sung’s death could have been written and acted much, much better.

Jubiemon J: I also think this death was written very poorly. We never saw Han Sung fanboying over Sunwoo this hard until this episode. (I really think Han Sung was in love with Sunwoo for this episode.) I didn’t get emotional over his death because I just thought how idiotic it was for him to die. We never had news of Hansung’s grandfather facing problems and then bam . . .this episode he was like a slave to Banryu’s evil uncle/father. Sure his sacrifice was supposed to make Sunwoo/Ji Dwi be more determined to be King and set things straight, but I just don’t think Hansung’s death made such an impact. I think it should have been Aro who was sacrificed instead to affect the two of them. Hansung barely had any screen time to show that he was really, really close with the boys. Heck, he didn’t even dorm with the guys till far, far later. Sure, Aro did an arrow to her heart, but she’ll live . . . so . . . meh. Finally, did Sunwoo really have to carry Hansung’s dead body . . . to a class full of students? He should have called for help immediately. That scene was just so . . . ugh.

Ugh

Oh come on! Really?!?!

Poor Han Sungie!!

Ok but why would you bring him to your classroom?!?

Damn straight!

RedRosette J Aside: Although I will miss these two:

Issue 3: Whether they realized that they only had 2 episodes left and was scrambling to tie up loose ends by introducing so many developments in this episode

RedRosette J: They definitely did. All of a sudden, all the leftover issues were just crammed into one episode and the viewers were expected to just deal with it. We got a paternity reveal, birth mom reveal, secret history reveal, death reveal, and a King reveal. That’s a lot of reveals to take in in 60 minutes. It just felt way too sloppy and the production was bad too. *sigh* I can only hope that next week, when it crashes and burns in the finale, it does so with only a small bang.

Jubiemon J: For sure, they decided to put everything together. How easy is it for Sunwoo to find his father all of a sudden? Plus wasn’t his father supposed to be banished or at least in hiding, yet he can just come in and out of the palace so easily? And that whole dialogue totally reminded me of Star Wars: “Luke, I am your father.” I think Luke had it worse though. Then we had that Wonhwa thing going on just so that Aro can be in danger again. Trust me that girl is always placed in the most bizarre scenes where she has to be rescued somehow. She never does the rescuing and just has to suffer from the Damsel in Distress syndrome. In all honesty, what evil character aka the Queen would just tell one of the good guys all of her plans? I’m talking about that scene where the Queen warned Aro that she’d kill Aro once her use as a Wonhwa was over. I seriously laughed at that dialogue. It’s just ridiculous. If you wanted the Queen to be super evil, you might as well started her plotting far, far earlier and made her much smarter. Then the writer took the easy way out and decided to kill of Hansung to explain why Sunwo/Ji Dwi would step up to their game. *Rolls eyes*

Reveal 1

Reveal 2

Reveal 3

Issue 4: Whether Hansung, as a character, was poorly written

Jubiemon J: Hansung, as a character, was poorly written and probably used only as a marketing ploy. When I watched the interviews with the cast, they all suggested that Hansung was a very important character. I assumed that he’d have more scenes and more character development. Surprisingly, Banryu and Sooho had more air time. I did like those two characters and enjoyed their character development and bond. However, I expected Hansung and Yeowool to have had a similar level of development. The writer tried to portray Hansung as an innocent, sweet kid, and we did see that coming from Taehyung.

The writer also failed to show Hansung as someone who struggled with his role and his relationship with his brother. There were a few choppy scenes that hinted that perhaps Hansung had an inferior complex towards his brother and felt out of place or burdened with his responsibilities. However, those weren’t explored well at all.

Unfortunately, the writer made Taehyung’s job as a first-time actor harder with a poor character. Having a poor character probably means that the bulk of the work must lie on the actor alongside the director to try to give more depth to the character. Taehyung is not as experienced as an actor as Do Jihan or Jo Yoonwo to be able to show hints of frustration or burden. Taehyung does a wonderful job playing the happy-go-lucky, cute character because that is how he is like as a BTS member. However, I’ve found that he does struggle with more emotionally charged, deeper scenes which is likely due to his inexperience.

Jo Yoonwo as Yeowool has minimal scenes, but throughout the drama I was convinced of his bond with Hansung. Thus I only felt sad when I saw Yeowool’s reaction to Hansung’s death. Do Jihan, on the other hand, doesn’t have that many scenes either, but I was convinced with his character’s conflict between doing what he thinks is right and maintaining his family’s reputation. Do Jihan is great at expressing through his eyes or other little actions like making his face all tense when his character has to force himself to stay calm.

I also didn’t like how Hansung, as a character, seemed to be written as stupid. Being innocent does not mean that one is stupid. Hansung’s death was totally preventable. I found it hard to believe that Hansung had seen the “must kill” message addressed to his brother and didn’t even think it was sketchy. He didn’t even question his brother when he passed that gift to him. During the few scenes that Hansung is in, he often asks a lot of questions or at least has some inquisitive nature (ie ep 17 at the cafeteria where Sunwoo joins Hansung and Yeowool for lunch). Then it was only after he saw his brother fighting with Sunwoo did it all click to him? Seriously? No. That just made him seem so stupid and took away the sadness of his character’s death.

Conclusion: Appeal Dismissed.

Rating: 2 = Yell At Everyone -.-

File No: Hwan: POET-WARRIOR-Youth-Ep-18 Appearing before the Dramacourt: Hwarang: Poet Warrior Youth Ep 18 ***If this is your first time browsing The Drama Files, please read The Rules section first for our reviewing and rating system***

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