#the goal of an executive is to try to steer the show into the direction of profitability

[sebastienlelivre]

Just leaving this here. No reason.

[fweasleyswhore]

Who We Are - F.W.

Chapter Four: Nothing More

Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three

a/n: the world may fall apart idk but rn i kinda have hope and that was enough to get me goin and fucking finish this chapter omg, im sorry i hope im providing a small amount of solace i know its hard rn

summary: Executing the prank leads to a moment alone with Fred that leaves you with butterflies and more questions than you can keep count of. 

word count: 3.1k

warnings: fluff, just fluff and some shet writing baybeeee

tags: @you-make-children-cry @bohemianspacebabe @levylovegood @louist-pics @rochellestark @hufflepuffzutara @weasleybeb @whoreforfredweasley

The end of term quickly approached. I stood in my green dorm throwing things messily into my trunk. Today was the big day and my nerves were showing it. I had to help the twins prank Snape, that I was ok with, then I was spending the break with the twins and their family, that was scaring me. I was aware that all of the Weasleys were in Gryffindor, even Bill, and Charlie who had since graduated. I knew that my friendship with the twins, as well as Ron would give me cushioning but people, especially Gryffindors were never too inviting to Slytherins. I understand why Slytherins are seen as mean and cold, and I won’t lie I have been cold before. I turned people down often to focus on my studies and I don’t realize how I come off doing so. That was a bit of a curve in my relationship with the twins. They were apprehensive in continuing our friendship after my sorting and when they did I was thrilled, but we had a lot of issues none the less. 

“Cmon, transfiguration can wait.” A second-year George pushed. I rolled my eyes, unable to study or keep focus as they continued to pester me. 

“No, it can’t.” I snapped. “I need to do this, so please just let me finish it.” They glanced at me, obviously on edge due to my outburst before walking away. I sighed in relief and continued to scribble down notes. I had to get perfect marks to become a Healer, that was my dream and that was why I was sorted in Slytherin, my ambition and goals were at the top of my mind at all times. I was going to be a Healer. I knew since I was a child I wanted to help people. 

I cringed closing my trunk as the memory resurfaced. I remembered the fight that followed that, I never meant to upset them or hurt them but I would put my studies first. I have loosened up since but I have shared my goals with them and they have been extremely understanding and stopped pushing me as much, giving me time to study. They understood my curtness and I promised to be kinder even when I was stressed. My temper caused some tension between us especially at the beginning of our friendship, but now they don’t see my house or the color on my robes but the girl they met on the train four years ago. My favorite days were the days where I would sit with Fred and George by the lake, they would work on a prank invention and I would work on my homework. It was comfortable and homey, they always made me feel at ease. 

I picked up my trunk, pulling it out of the dorms and common room. There was eagerness in my steps as I made my way to the Gryffindor common room,  levitating my trunk up the stairs I felt my heart rate pick up. I had never spent the holidays with friends, much less with the family of the boy who I had a crush on. I tried to regain my breathing walking into the common room. It always felt warm and comforting, a stark contrast to the Slytherin common room. Dropping my trunk by the portrait hole I scanned the room for my redheads. Spotting them, their backs to me as they talked feverishly to Lee Jordan who sat in front of them. 

Jumping over the back of the couch I plopped in between them. Lee erupted into a fit of giggles as both boys jumped away from me. George glared, shoving me with his shoulder. This didn’t discourage my grin, looking over to Fred I saw him pouting. I bit my lip, reaching up I ruffled his overgrown locks. His pout transformed into a small smile. Seeing his features transform caused my smile to grow. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him. His scent engulfed me much like he was, cinnamon and fireworks overpowering the rest of my senses. I smiled as my hand traveled up to his chest, resting on it to steady myself as I crashed into his chest. I didn’t notice George and Lee staring with amused looks adorning their faces, all I was focussed on was Fred. His fingers traced small patterns on my arm. 

Instead of address his affections he steered the conversation back on track. “So Lee, any thoughts.” I turned to see Lee, he looked as though he was going to burst into laughter, swallowing his amusement he shook his head no. I looked over to George who had a very similar look on his face. I realized their amusement was directed at Fred and I and I felt my cheeks heat up as I looked at the floor, slightly embarrassed. 

“Are you ready?” I pulled my gaze up to Fred. He was looking at me concerned, the weight of his arm was lessened and I felt him pulling back, seemingly aware of my embarrassment. I quickly forgot about it as I nodded up to him smiling. I squeezed his jumper slightly with my hand. 

“More ready than I’ve ever been.” I gushed. His arm relaxed and he pulled me closer laughing lightly. I tried to focus on him as the butterflies erupted inside of me. 

“More ready than the last test you took? I swear you studied for two days straight.” I glared at him as he laughed more at my expression. It was true, I did study a lot, I was worried about my marks, but that was justified with the perfect score I received. 

“It was worth it, besides I forced you to study and you did well, don’t make fun of me you benefited from it.” He sighed defeated. 

“Let’s go lovebirds! I do believe you need to talk to your professor.” George threw a pillow at us and got up. His long legs pulled him up and in a few strides, he stood waiting for us at the portrait hole.  I blushed and pulled myself off of Fred, putting my hand out to help him up which he gladly took and we ran off to the potions classroom. 

I peaked my head inside, seeing Snape. From behind my back, I waved the twins off, signaling for them the hide as I walked inside the classroom clearing my throat. 

“Mr. Snape?” He aggressively shut the book in his hands and turned to see me, his black hair swaying slightly. He raised an eyebrow, nonverbally telling me to continue. “Could you help me pick out a potions book to study over break? I haven’t been very happy with my marks and I wanted to improve, I just wasn’t sure which one to pick and Pince isn’t here.” He let out a short groan, placed his book down, and strode out of the door. 

“Follow me.” His monotone voice rang through the hall. I skipped slightly trying to keep up with him. I glanced behind me and I watched the twins slink into his room, Fred sent me a wink before going into the room. I blushed and turned back towards Snape as he led me through the hall towards the library. The library visit was long and aggravating, Snape made a lot of remarks about my grades, calling them less than, but I pushed my anger aside and tried to focus on the task at hand which was to distract him for as long as possible. Eventually, once I had checked out three potions books, filled with information I already knew he was back on his way to his classroom and I ran up to the common room to find the twins. Walking through the portrait hole I was met with roaring laughter, the common room was packed with people all adorning red. Finding the source of their laughter wasn’t hard. As my eyes looked through the crowd I saw Fred and George, covered head to toe in a pink paint like substance, both of them looked extremely happy despite the color of their robes.

“I did not just spend half an hour with Snape for this to backfire.” I said walking up to them, I tried to sound serious but it was hard to contain my laughter as I got a better look at them. 

“You didn’t! Let’s just say the cauldrons weren’t the only thing that turned pink.” George said sheepishly. 

“Yeah let’s just say it was the desks as well…” Fred added. 

“And the chairs…” George continued. 

“And the walls…” Fred cringed. 

“Don’t forget the ceiling.” George laughed out.  

I shook my head at the two boys. Fred smiled at me and it made my heart race. “You two should clean up, before Snape sees you looking like his classroom.” They nodded and we all walked up the dormitory stairs toward the bathrooms. 

I watched amused as George walked through the doorway, he was pulling clumps of pink paint out of his hair. Fred turned to me. 

“Do you want to wait out here?” He asked. 

“Well I didn’t think you wanted me in there while you showered.” I laughed out. “Give me your robes when you get out and I will try to get the pink out.” He nodded and walked in after George. I leaned against the wall trying to imagine Snape’s classroom, wishing I could have seen his face. Soon enough a dripping George walked back out of the doorway, he had a towel in his hands and another wrapped around his hips. 

“Like what you see?” He winked as he used the towel in his hands to dry his hair. Dramatically he stopped and flexed, turning around and doing different poses. 

“Will you go get dressed.” I laughed out. “Are your robes in there? I’ll try and get the pink out after Fred’s out.” He nodded and walked up the steps, he didn’t leave without showing me a few more poses but eventually he disappeared into his dorm. 

“Y/N?” My head picked up at the sound of my name, I recognized Fred’s voice although slightly muffled by the door. “Will you come in here?” 

I walked tentatively toward the door. I pushed it open and saw the big bathroom, the left side had multiple shower stalls and there were benches and cubbies to my right. Looking around I saw Fred leaning against a sink straight in front of me, he had a towel wrapped around his hips much like George but it sat slightly lower. I closed the door behind me and took a few steps forward. 

“You ok Freddie?” I asked. He turned to face me and I gulped, his toned torso and pale skin was dripping due to the humidity in the room. The room itself was slightly foggy and the longer I looked at him the more hot I felt. The damp air caused my clothes to latch onto my skin and seeing him in front of me made my breathing hitch. 

He let out a short groan. “I can’t get the pink out of my hair.” Looking at his hair instead of his body I could see the clumps of pink he couldn’t get out. I walked forward and reached my hands up to move his hair, our chests were close to touching, I could feel his eyes on my face which was getting hotter the longer I stood there. I kept my focus on his ginger locks, moving them around to inspect them the best I could considering our large height gap. 

“Did you use cold water?” I asked. He nodded curtly and swallowed, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Well you hardened the paint and it’s practically dried in your hair now.” 

He groaned again. “So I bloody gave myself hypothermia for nothing?” I bit my lip to suppress another laugh that was dangerously close from escaping. I watched as his eyes travelled down to my lips momentarily causing a new wave of heat and nerves to hit me like a bus. 

“I’m sorry Freddie, I can try to get it out for you if you want.” I offered, I felt bad for him, I knew he didn’t want to cut his hair and if we didn’t get it out we might just have to. 

“You want to shower with me?” He smirked down at me. I felt my cheeks warm up and my mouth go dry. 

“I meant in the sink.” I gulped and slapped his chest lightly. His smirk didn’t falter as he lowered his head in the sink. I turned on the hot water, testing it to make sure it wasn’t too hot I directed his head into the line of water. I massaged his head lightly and I felt him relax as I did so. I saw the way his shoulders lost their tension and the muscles moved lightly as he sighed. I felt accomplished seeing that I was helping him. 

I took my eyes off of his back and watched the water turn pink and go down the drain. When the water was looking clear again I racked my fingers through his hair to make sure I didn’t miss any clumps. Satisfied I turned off the water and turned around to grab a towel for his head. Drying my hands I heard him ring out his hair. 

“Wow, thanks.” He said breathily, I turned to see him inspecting his hair in the mirror. I walked up to him with a smile on my face. 

“No problem.” He smiled back, leaning down he went for the towel in my hands. Before he could grab it I threw it over his head. He pulled the towel off his face with a pout. 

“That wasn’t nice.” He began to dry his hair, moving his arms up and fast which caused his muscles to ripple beneath his skin. I gulped eyeing him as my body felt warmer than I would have liked in that moment. 

“Maybe that's my definition of nice.” I said breathlessly. My voice was a little weak and I knew my cheeks were flushed. He eyed me before halting his actions, the familiar smirk grew on his face and he walked up to me, closing the distance between us so there was less than an inch separating our bodies. 

“Is it?” He drawled, looking down at me. I looked at him from beneath my eyelashes, watching every movement he made as my heart felt like it was going to explode. I watched his eyes as they flickered between my own and then down to my lips. I felt us get closer but I wasn’t aware we were moving. “You know I quite like-” 

“Oi, stop snogging!” George’s voice made us both jump away from each other. I looked toward the door but it was out of sight. Relief washed over me as I realized that probably meant he didn’t see us so close together. “The train is leaving in less than an hour and I want to get food before we leave.” I watched as Fred collected his things, he sent me a sympathetic smile and walked towards the door. I didn’t move both confused and embarrassed. I heard a smack followed by a yelp from George before the door shut leaving me alone with their soiled robes and my racing thoughts. 

- 

The train ride was full of chatter. Pushing past people to find an empty compartment I heard a lot of whispers about Snape's classroom, the boys behind me were trying to suppress their giggles as we walked down the tight hallway. I stumbled a bit but towards the end of the train cart but I found one. 

“Finally.” I exclaim, I pushed through the door and struggled to lift my trunk over my head. Suddenly it became lighter and I watched it move above my head and onto its rack. Turning I saw Fred pushing it into place. “Thanks.” I breathed out. 

He smiled down at me. His hand lingered on my trunk caging me between the seats and him. Seeing him above me made my heart flutter, his hair was getting longer and it fell into his eyes, leaning up on my toes I brushed it out of his eyes slightly. I watched him tense slightly and sputter for a moment. He froze and I sat down happily knowing I made flush. He sat down next to me, leaving little room between us despite the empty bench. I looked across to the other side of the compartment where Lee and George were eyeing me amused. Rolling my eyes I tried to send them my best ‘drop it’ face. 

The train ride was filled with giggles and Fred and George telling us about the prank from their point of view. Half way through their story I zoned out, eyeing the rolling fields in through the window. My thoughts traveled back to the bathroom, what happened there and what could have happened if George didn’t interrupt. 

Was he about to kiss me?

My logical side said I was crazy for considering it but my romantic side couldn’t deny the fact that he kept looking at my lips. I brought my hand up to trace my lips, imaging what could have been as the scenery outside changed from farm land to the city. 

“Almost there!” I announced. I remembered I was staying with them and I was put on edge immediately. The thoughts of doubt resurfaced about being rejected because of my house. I felt my heartbeat quicken and my palms get sweaty. 

“Mum’s so excited to meet you.” George said snapping me out of my thoughts. I looked at him puzzled. 

“She wouldn’t stop writing about it,” Fred laughed from beside me. “You’re going to room with Ginny is that ok?” I nodded as a response still feeling the nerves buzzing around inside me. 

“Yeah,” George snorted. “She didn’t us to sleep in the room, I don’t blame her though, I don’t want to be up all night because you and Fred are snogging or more than that.” He feigned disgust and I tried to push down the embarrassment as I pushed my focus on the window. I watched as the train entered the station, out of the corner of my eye I watched Fred chuck a chocolate frog box at his twins head and Lee laughing only to be kicked by George. I suppressed my smile and watched the station change from a blur of people into more recognizable shapes as the train stopped.

[kauladoeswriting]

Life Will Change, Chapter 3

It’s late and who knows what it’ll look like editing half a sleep XD I tried. Summary: Because Enzan should have known he was asking for too much to be able to start school without any complications. Word Count: 3292 Fandoms: Persona 5/MMBN Fusion Previous Chapter | Next Chapter Ao3

April 18th, 2016 Morning

The night had remained blissfully calm. Right up until that calm was shattered to pieces by a blaring alarm. 6 AM wasn’t an unusal time for Enzan to wake up, but maybe a small, unreasonable part of him thought it’d be the one of the many changes from life as an executive. Enzan pushed himself up, letting the blanket he was using fall in a puddle around his waist. It took a moment to adjust to his new room. He wondered if he’d ever get used to it.

His sleep had been mostly uninterupted by talks of the velvet room. It was beginning to feel like that one time was a freak accident, a dream made up by a mind that was already way too stressed out. Maybe the fact he’s gotten to relax a little the last few days helped? (That doesn’t explain all the oddities he’s seen since he’s come to Tokyo.) It was unimportant. Today was Enzan’s first day of school, and with the train accidents, on top of this being his first time traveling there, he wanted to be prompt and professional. After all, he knew very well the deck was stacked against him, and there was no reason to give them reason to dislike him further. In a few minutes, he had himself dressed in his school uniform, and his backpack mostly packed already, with his phone shoved in the side pocket.

“Enzan-kun, are you awake?” Meijin’s voice called up the stairs.

“Yes, I am, Meijin!” He called back, looking into the mirror he had managed to uncover one last time. First impressions were everything. Looking clean and neat would make for a good one. “If you want some cereal, hurry down now!” “Yes, Meijin!” Enzan scooped his backpack off the floor, and hurried down to meet Meijin in the kitchen for a second morning in a row. He set the bag down neatly against the wall, and sat down at the table. He poured himself a bowl of cereal, and got to eating as fast as he could. He had enough time to spend maybe ten minutes, accounting for train schedules.. A newspaper was flopped on the table in front of him. “I’ve already looked through it today, you can flip through it if you want!” Meijin was hurrying back and forth, looking for his things. Was the scientist always this disorganized? The sight confused Enzan enough that he was distracted from eating once again. This was new, compared to the Meijin he had gotten to see the last few days.

“Did you oversleep?” Enzan asked finally. “No no, nothing like that.” Meijin disappeared briefly into the living room and came back with his laptop. “I just wanted to see you off on your first day of school.” And he just… hadn’t gotten ready yet. He didn’t lie, it was just a partial truth.

If Enzan noticed, he decided not to call Meijin on it. He just hurried through the rest of his cereal, careful not to spill any milk on his uniform. He finished on time, and avoided the horror of soggy cereal. A double win. By the time he had finished, Meijin was leaning in the doorway, looking perfectly put together, as if he hadn’t been running around the house like a madman trying to get all of his things shoved into his computer bag at the last second. “All ready to go, Enzan-kun?” “Yes, I am.” Enzan picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulders. He went to put his dish in the sink to wash it really quickly, but Meijin called him away. “We’re both in a hurry, let’s leave that for later. Let’s get out of here.” Meijin had already said he couldn’t take Enzan to school. But he cared enough to at least see him off.

Unfortunately, it seems as though Enzan should have checked the weather before he left. Maybe then he wouldn’t be stuck under an awning by his school’s train station, wondering how he was going to get the rest of the way to the school without ruining his uniform. There was shuffling beside him as the two students that crashed into him yesterday came out from the train station. “It’s raining?!” yelled the boy. Netto, was it? The girl, Meiru, sighed and tucked the folder underneath her school coat. “It seems so. Didn’t I warn you to bring an umbrella?” Enzan stuck his hands in his pockets, and turned away slightly, as if paying attention anything but his new companions. He didn’t want to eavesdrop on the other students. Or at least, he didn’t want to look like he was. Netto looked busy with the box in his arms, as if that’d save him from the judgement of his friend. Meiru sighed. “I have an umbrella if you need it.” Netto perked up slightly, his cheeks colored in embarrassment. “Thanks Meiru-chan.” He shifted the box in his arms, and took the umbrella from her. With a swift motion, he extended the umbrella out and held it over his head. “If I hurry, I should be able to get something to eat! See ya, Meiru-chan!” And off the brunette went. “Netto, you forgot your folders- And he’s gone…” Meiru sighed. “I’m sorry he didn’t stick around to introduce himself.” Enzan stiffened, but was able to force himself to keep his business face on. Was it that obvious he was listening in? Because if it was, he was slipping. “He seemed to be in a hurry.”

“Yeah, he is. His club supervisor wanted Netto there early so they could get work done early…” The early bird caught the worm after all. Enzan thought it was a perfectly reasonable sentiment, but it appeared that Meiru didn’t share his opinion. Although...

“They’re not going to have a whole lot of time before class begins, are they?” Enzan’s phone beeped, and he pulled it out, wondering if he just got a notification. “No. Netto slept in, because thanks to this, he’s gotten almost no sleep this last week.” Meiru’s hand was tightend around the strap of her shoulder bag.

Enzan located the cause of the vibration and frowned. The strange app he was sure he deleted had opened itself. Definitely malware. He really needed to be careful about using it for any sensitive purpose until he could get a part time job to replace it. “They must be working hard.” Phone issues aside, Enzan wasn’t unused to long nights working towards a goal. It came with the territory. “It seems quite rigorous.” With a flick of his finger, he had closed the app and attempted to uninstall it once again. Meiru sighed. “It… It’s not just the hours.” She admits. “The teacher supervising it, Yamitaro Higure... he acts like he’s a CEO of some large warehouse, or a factory... where all the students are his employees.” Enzan raised an eyebrow, distracted from his phone’s odd behavior. “CEO? Factory?” What an… interesting way of describing it. (He didn’t realize the strange app had once again reappeared, nor that it was listening to their conversation.)

“Yeah. You’re a transfer student, right? I saw you with your guardian yesterday.” Her eyes drifted towards the school. “So I guess you wouldn’t really know.” “Know what?” “He charges outrageous fees. Just… steer clear. It’s not worth it.” Perhaps being broke was a blessing. “We’re… going to be late. I’m sorry for burdening you with my thoughts. Let’s get going.” Meiru turned in the direction she was looking, beginning to walk that way, when a wave of nausea hit her. And Enzan too.

It felt like it lasted longer than it did. Enzan shook it off quickly. Perhaps his breakfast didn’t agree with him; there was nothing to be gained from just standing about, musing on smething that didn’t matter. (He was fine with the cereal yesterday ...)

He shoved his phone in his pocket, deciding he’d deal with it later. “I agree that we should go.” Meiru had bent over, resting her hands on her knees for a bit while she caught her breath, and then straightened up with a nod. “Y-yeah. I’ll show you. It’s your first day, right?” She lead him down the streets of Tokyo, though neither of them could shake the feeling that something was wrong. Very wrong.

“I couldn’t have walked the wrong way!” Meiru was panicking, and Enzan couldn’t blame her. The building they were in front of most certainly was not a school. Rather, a large warehouse with an elaborate store front would be a whole lot more accurate. 

Enzan would almost liken it to one of those big box stores that could be found in America. 

She poked at her phone, growing increasingly frustrated. “I’ve lost all signal.” She frowned. “Do you think you could…” Her voice drifted off. “Yeah. I can.” He pulled his phone out, but the strange app was still up. Swearing under his breath for letting himself get distracted, he swiped up to close it. And it wouldn’t close. It didn’t take long to realize that his phone wasn’t going to power down either, meaning he’d probably have to let it die. 

Wonderful. “My phone doesn’t seem to be working properly either.” It was strange that they were both having issues at the same time...

Putting her phone back into her side bag, Meiru looked over the building. “Maybe it’s just a weird prank or something. Though I wonder why Netto didn’t text me about this…” She didn’t seem sure of herself. This was a really weird prank, if it was one, wasn’t it? It wasn’t like Enzan ever went to public school before this. But surely, surely, if pranks involving cloaking the whole school was a thing that happened, there would be a news article about it.

As they pushed open the doors, it didn’t seem anything like a school that Enzan had ever heard of. Two desks flanked the door, each with a student behind it. One was girl with hair in blonde braided pigtails, and the other a boy with a sweater on underneath his school jacket. Both of them had one of those “Hi, my name is _” Tags stuck to their chest, each with a number on them. 

The girl’s was a lot higher than the boys. Meiru looked between the two worriedly.

“Tohru-kun, Yaito-chan, what’s going on?” She asks. They must have been in the right place, if Meiru knew the two kids. Still not any kind of set up for a school though. 

“Welcome to the Shuujin branch of Higureya!” The two echoed together. “Please pay the 5,000 yen for the enterance fee!” Enzan blinked. Shuujin. That was the name of the school, was it not? He was already enrolled, Why would there be any additional fee? This is definitely where the school had been the night before… Meiru looked confused too. “Guys, this isn’t funny. What’s going on here?” Meiru’s eyes flickered between her two friends. “Just… why do we need to pay?” “Because we’re an exclusive club. You must pay to join. Those who can’t pay should leave.” Enzan didn’t like this feeling. “Who are we paying, anyways? I think we should talk to them.” “President Higure-san is simply worth far too much to meet with those who can’t pay our generous enterance fee.” The blonde girl answered by herself this time. Meiru turned to her. “Yaito-chan, can you just explain-” “If you don’t leave soon, I’ll have to call security.” The boy said, voice quiet and flat. Meiru spun around to face him. “Tohru-kun, please, can you-” A siren cut her off, and a metal gate fell behind her. “Intruder! Intruder!”

None of these order of events were making any degree of sense to Enzan. He had lost it somewhere around their school being turned into a warehouse and Meiru’s friends apparently were turned into the kind of corporate drones Enzan might have expected to see underneath his father. Creatures that could only be described as formless blobs shoved into a suit slithered up behind the desks, each with a weird ornate mask shoved onto its face. “This isn’t necessary, we can be going.” Meiru assured, backing towards the gate, hoping that they’d accept her peace offering and let them go. Enzan followed her back towards the gate, keeping her behind him just in case. He didn’t like the look of those so called guards.

It didn’t open, and those blobs were getting closer. Enzan knew somewhere in the back of his mind it was fruitless, but he turned and tried to shield Meiru anyways.

----

They couldn’t really get more fucked than this, right? The wording was far more crude than Enzan usually preferred, but it seemed to fit their situation unfortunately well. He and Meiru were surrounded by these amorphous blobs that might have almost looked like a child’s robot in suits if he squinted, if they weren’t carrying actual weapons. And they were leading him and Meiru to… somewhere, well towards the back of the giant warehouse, that even Enzan’s internal map was having difficulties keeping up with.

Despite Enzan’s best attempt to keep Meiru safe, it was hard to find a position that could be considered so, surrounded as they were by these wanna be robots. Meiru kept her hands curled tightly around her book bag, holding it in front of her, eyes locked on the ground. Enzan looked back and forth, looking for a chance to escape. He had no idea what was going on here, but it was definitely disturbing and he had the sinking feeling that the two of them may not be walking out alive if they didn’t escape somehow from this warehouse that had taken over the school.

Maybe if he could find some sort of break in the robot’s formation, he could possibly fight one into letting them by and then maybe they could navigate out of here? That sounded farfetched, even to Enzan. He was just one guy, against robots.

The robots guided them to a door marked “Mister President Yamitaro Higure”. Higure, Higureya, someone was really full of them selves, weren’t they? Meiru’s hands tighened even more, digging her fingertips into her palms around her strap. One of the robot blobs knocked on the door. Higure, Higure, Higure, where had he seen that name before…

Right, on that poster from yesterday. He ran the club that Meiru had been complaining about just a little bit ago. Not that any high school teachers had any business having robots that seemed to be carrying actual weapons

The door swung open, and reminded Enzan of those cheesy B Action movies that he’d watch late at night in his office while working. And as the door opened, there was going to be a mob boss sitting at the desk. It should be noted that Enzan honestly did not expect to be as close to correct as he was.

“You…” Meiru probably couldn’t get more tense than she already was, but her shoulders noticably stiffened, and she made an attempt to straighten her back. Whatever happened here, Enzan was going to do his best to deflect any trouble off of her. 

He really hoped he was just being uncharacteristically dramatic, but really, everything around him suggested otherwise.

“So these are our intruders, huh?”

The man in front of them was the oddest combination of sleazy salesman and well dressed man. He had a plaid brown vest on with an over exaggered fur coat and a black fedora, along with unruly messy hair. “Yes sir.” One of the robots informed him. “Intruders? This is our school!” Meiru said. She was glaring with all she had at the teacher. The teacher adjusted his ridiculous over exaggerated sunglasses. “Your school, huh…?” The man looked thoughtful, stroking his chin as if there was a goatee there. “You didn’t pay the price of admission though, huh?” Price of admission. The counters up front? “You can still make it up though, huh? You would make a great addition to the advertisement team.” “I want no part of that awful thing you call a club.” Meiru responded. “Why not? It’d be more useful than you harrassing my workers, huh?” Higure would be flicking the ash away from a cigarette if he had one. Maybe it was just paranoia that made Enzan step closer to Meiru.Was it just him or were those robotic blobs getting closer to them?

Undeterred by Meiru’s glaring, or Enzan’s increasing guard, Higure pressed on. “The advertisment team is lacking, anyways. It could use a little pizzaz, huh? Imagine the touch a woman’s hand could bring!” “Why would I do that?” She asked, looking like she was going to argue more. Not wanting to see what would happen if he blew up, Enzan made the executive decision that he was going to step in. She could yell at him later if it bothered her.

“Listen, I think she’s making it pretty clear she doesn’t want any part of this, so if you’ll let us go-” One of the shadow robot blobs grabbed Enzan by the back of his jacket and roughly pulled him away. It worked out in his favor somewhat, though. At least the man’s eyes were drawn to him instead of Meiru. Maybe he could create a cover for Meiru’s escape? But to his dismay, it didn’t last nearly as long as he hoped. After all, Enzan was a stranger. He was unimportant. His eyes quickly scanned the room, looking for some way to fight back. There was no way he was just going to stand down now. 

“Meiru-chan, you don’t hold the cards here, huh? You either help, or I’ll have to have you disposed of.” The blobs pushed closer to her, weapons raising up. She glared at them pulling her bag up to her chest, as if hoping swinging it at them would help her out of her situation.

You aren’t just going to let her be hurt, are you?

The voice, not one Enzan could place, caught him off guard. As well as the pulse of pain across his forehead

Of course not!

He tried to grab for the statue on the desk, but it felt like everything had suddenly become muted. Enzan heard bits and phrases between the pulsing headache.

‘increased sales’

‘you don’t matter if you don’t make money’

‘why not help - it’s for the greater good’

‘You don’t have a choice.’

Just standing there won’t change anything. 

You’d be risking yourself again, just to save her.

I don’t care!

I can’t just… stand by!

It wasn’t an accident, then. You won’t let her be a corporate tool.

I shall lend you my power, then, Enzan-sama.

Enzan-sama? Who are you?

Enzan didn’t notice that the conversation had died down. That everyone was looking at him, and somehow at some point he had fallen to his knees. Slowly, he climbed back to his feet, intending on correcting this issue. The voice, who ever it was, was right. He couldn’t step down.

“Leave her alone!”

“I was gonna let you live, huh, but if you want to ruin my business too…”

...There was weight on his face?

Who am I? I am thou….

On instinct, his fingers curled around the mask, pulling and pulling despite the pain blossoming across his face. 

With a spray of blood that would have startled him if he hadn’t been in a daze, the mask came off.

And thou art I. Let us step in, shall we?

And then for the briefest moments, the world exploded in blue flame. When the flames cleared, it was hard to believe it was the same person who had been standing there just moment’s before

“Hello, Blues.”

[bangwoolofbangtan]

How BTS and Its ARMY Could Change the Music Industry

By Rebecca Davis

It was just a year ago that BTS’ Love Yourself: Speak Yourself tour was selling out stadiums all over the world. Each night of the 20-date trek, which grossed $116 million, a total of nearly a million ticket buyers around the planet witnessed a thumping opening liturgy at the top of the K-pop band’s set in the form of the song “Dionysus.”

As flames shot up from the stage, seven figures emerged in supplicant white amid Greek columns and a long altar. Rapper RM (full name: Kim Nam-joon) led the way, twirling the staff of the titular mythical deity, as group mates Jin (Kim Seok-jin), SUGA (Min Yoon-gi), j-hope (Jung Ho-seok), Jimin (Park Ji-min), V (Kim Tae-hyung) and Jung Kook (Jeon Jung-kook) flanked him in a display of choreographed precision. The crowd, reaching peak pandemonium in a night full of deafening screams, made willing maenads and satyrs, transported by the band’s presence. An anthem about rebirth and self-discovery through the ecstatic collective experience of music was received as intended — as if from the gods.

Idol worship is by no means a new concept in pop music — remember John Lennon’s provocative statement in 1966 that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus”? — but there’s something about BTS that turns fandom up to 11. The global brigade of BTS acolytes is collectively known by the acronym ARMY, short for Adorable Representative MC for Youth, a moniker chosen by Big Hit Entertainment, the company that launched the band. ARMY comprises the lion’s share of a Twitter audience that’s 29.2 million followers strong, more than triple that of any other K-pop group, and growing daily. BTS’ Instagram presence of 30.6 million followers (also rising rapidly), is trailed closely only by YG Entertainment’s Blackpink, at 29.3 million.

“It is because ARMY exists that we exist,” Jin says.

To understand the scope of BTS Inc.: An influential 2018 study by the Hyundai Research Institute estimated that the ripple effects from the boy band’s ecosystem contribute roughly $4.9 billion annually to South Korea’s GDP, on track to generate more value over 10 years than the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. The study gauged that in 2017, one in 13 visitors to the country came for BTS-related pilgrimages. That ratio may soon be growing. Spotify has reported a 300% spike in new listeners to the group since the Aug. 21 release of “Dynamite,” BTS’ first all-English single.

The BTS boom has also driven Big Hit to launch an IPO in October projected to raise some $811 million. (Each BTS member will be awarded shares worth approximately $8 million.) Of Big Hit’s revenue in 2019, 97.4% was generated by BTS, including $130 million worth of T-shirts, cosmetics, dolls and other merchandise.

The numbers are no accident. The South Korean government began investing strategically in the arts and the digital economy to help steer the country out of the 1997 Asian financial crisis. On the heels of “Parasite” sweeping the Oscars, the worldwide success of BTS may be another sign to the West that Seoul might be the center of a new force in creative production.

Big Hit, and the K-pop music bus­iness in general, have proved just how much a band, and a company, can prosper through a direct-to-consumer relationship, driven by digital platforms and dedicated apps with lots of behind-the-scenes content that keeps fans emotionally involved. It’s engagement on a scale that no Western artist has ever achieved, despite decades of radio promotion and the best retail strategy.

For the global music industry, the band’s success has meant a serious rethink of how a record company — in BTS’ case, Sony Music’s Columbia Records, which distributes the group’s music in the U.S. (though the band is not signed to the label) — builds and maintains a fan base. You could almost look at it as a collaborative arrangement: As music is being made in real time, decision-makers and strategists at Big Hit and Columbia are taking in and processing the comments and views of ARMY and pivoting accordingly.

“It creates a self-sustaining engine that, eventually, becomes hits perpetuating more hits,” says Neil Jacobson, a former president of Geffen Records who runs Hallwood, a talent agency for producers and songwriters. “A label wants that fan connection happening all the time so that they can consistently release and promote music. But in the past, there had always been intermediaries that labels had to talk to in order to manifest exposure. Now, there is a mechanism for an artist to speak directly to their fans. That didn’t exist before, and it has turbocharged the process.”

It’s all led to this “Dynamite” mo­ment: The single has sold nearly 700,000 adjusted song units since its release — good for a gold record certification by the RIAA. The song is quickly becoming the band’s biggest radio hit to date (without a featured artist, it’s worth noting), and represents a significant breakout beyond its core audience. After that, will Grammys follow?

“They check all the boxes,” says Jenna Andrews, the vocal producer on “Dynamite” who also serves as an executive at Sony’s Records label. “I’ve never seen anything like BTS in terms of singing and dancing. This is just an indication of what’s yet to come. They’re going to take over the world.”

Kathryn Lofton, Yale University professor of religious and American studies and author of the book “Consuming Religion,” says that the bond BTS has with its ARMY is different from the typical singer-fan connection because “BTS’ driving commitment is to their relationship to the fan group, to the manufacturing of their communal joy for you to participate in.” It’s why she views BTS as “a religious project; they are seeking to make a togetherness that you can’t stop wanting to be a part of.”

Lofton also makes a point of distinguishing ARMY from the groupies associated with Beatlemania. Sure, BTS fans know the hagiography and backstory of each member, but everything about the band’s output prioritizes the collective over the individual.

The band itself has certainly leaned into the comparison with the Fab Four. For instance, it re-created the iconic moment of the Beatles’ 1964 debut at the Ed Sullivan Theater last May on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” — in a black-and-white segment that showed the K-pop band performing as mop tops in tailored suits.

But while John, Paul, George and Ringo had spotlight moments of their own, both within and outside the band — songs they wrote individually, causes they took up personally — with BTS, it’s all for one all the time. Unlike many other groups, the members share single, collective Twitter and Instagram accounts, and release even solo material through their shared channel. Accomplishments are never spoken of as belonging to any one group member but rather as the work of the team (and, of course, ARMY). In their videos, they often begin in solo shots but end up together.

This all strays from the typical tropes of Western boy bands including New Edition and ’N Sync, which have all proffered “star” frontmen. The thinking for decades had been that a record company would be lucky to have one breakout solo career among the bunch.

But BTS’ selfless approach didn’t happen randomly: The group was envisioned as a collective to heal the alienation that ails us in the digital age. Its name — “BTS” stands for Beyond the Scene — is an invitation to fans to join them offstage via almost daily video content featuring moments in their intimate if immaculately curated private lives on YouTube, Twitter and Big Hit app Weverse.

In 2011, Big Hit’s revenues from its then-main acts, Lim Jeong-hee and boy band 2AM, were plummeting. As the shadow of bankruptcy loomed, Bang Si-hyuk, now chairman, and Lenzo Yoon, global CEO, felt the company needed a total revamp. They stopped all normal work for months and called on employees to perform market research instead, seeking a new vision and formula.

Bang describes the conclusion they reached in a recent Harvard Business School case study of the firm written by Anita Elberse and Lizzy Woodham: “You would think that with the development of digital technology, people can come together more easily, but we found that it is actually more likely that people will feel more isolated. And so we need to find a way to help them, inspire them and heal them.”

Reflecting on the choice to develop a group that satiated this need, Yoon says in the study: “I think back then in 2011, with the conclusions we drew, we found the wild ginseng, as we say in Korea.”

On “Dynamite,” Big Hit worked with Columbia to further cultivate that ginseng. Pitched by Jacobson to label chairman Ron Perry, who guided and essentially A&R’d the song, worked to radio by Columbia executive VP and head of promotion Peter Gray (who has broken hits for Dua Lipa, Kelly Clarkson and Kings of Leon), and all overseen and informed by the years of management savvy of Big Hit, it’s the kind of artist development that was a music business calling card and that has lost its place in the fast-paced world of digital releases.

Radio exposure is not considered as impactful in Korea as it is in the U.S., notes RM, and so BTS — “maybe naively” — didn’t hit the ground in the U.S. thinking, ‘What can boost our airplay?’” the last time around. Still, RM notes that the band has “100% trust” in Columbia, Big Hit and the greater BTS community. “ARMY and the label are all trying their best,” he says, recounting how in the band’s early days, fans would send bouquets to radio DJs to get their songs on the air.

“Our goal is to try to show ourselves, expose ourselves to ARMY as much as possible,” adds Jin. “There are a lot of platforms now.”

In some ways, BTS’ ARMY has grown into its own force and brought the group along for the ride. In the world of K-pop, the expectation is that entertainers stay far away from politics, but as the genre has grown more global, it has begun to reach a transnational cohort to whom matters of social justice are top of mind.

When Variety broke the news on June 6 that BTS and Big Hit had donated $1 million to Black Lives Matter, BTS fans quickly flocked to #Match­AMillion through a link sent out by the fan charity Twitter account @OneInAnARMY. They hit the financial target in just 25 hours.

Erika Overton, a 40-year-old Georgia resident and one of the co-founders of the account, says of the experience: “It was one of the craziest nights I’ve ever seen. I was on Twitter all night. We were refreshing the page every couple of minutes, going, ‘Oh, my God …’” Witnessing ARMY’s U.S. battalion bring the message of Black Lives Matter to fans in other parts of the world who were unfamiliar with the movement was a “big educational moment that was really, really beautiful to see,” says Overton, who is African American.

What Overton saw was facilitated by networks of fan translators who also turn Big Hit’s Korean content into dozens of languages. Other ARMY groups provide counseling or tutoring services, invent themed recipes or write informational threads on everything from the history of the music industry and how charts work to Jungian philosophy, which deeply informs the BTS albums.

Some fan accounts have even become registered nonprofits, with dozens of administrators spread around the world putting in nearly full-time work on top of their day jobs.

In addition to Black Lives Matter, BTS this year donated $1 million to Crew Nation, a Live Nation campaign to support live entertainment personnel impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. And it has continued its campaign with UNICEF to end child violence. But the band members are reticent to take on the role of global activists. “I don’t consider ourselves as political,” says Suga. “We aren’t trying to send out some grandiose message. We would never see ARMY as a conduit for our voice or our opinion. ARMY speaks their own initiatives, and we always respect their opinions, as we respect any other person’s.”

RM, on the other hand, keeps the door open for a kind of apolitical politics based more on actions than words: “We are not political figures, but as they say, everything is political eventually. Even a pebble can be political.”

The scale of its influence is not something that the group takes lightly. “Our [‘Dynamite’] video has seen 80 million, almost 90 million views in just a day. In a way, that’s very weighty — and almost frightening,” RM told Variety the day after its debut, explaining that the balancing act is often one of how to juggle the burdens of being both role models and artists.

Some Korean scholars feel that BTS’ statement in support of BLM shows how ARMY is actually out ahead of Big Hit, spontaneously enacting its own initiatives to which the company must then respond. “Big Hit thinks they can create a company-dominated [approach to] fandom, but fans are agents doing only what they want, not what they don’t want,” says ethnomusicologist Kim Jungwon of Yonsei University in Seoul. For Kim, the fluidity of ARMY’s unplanned, collective responses “is the possible answer to BTS’ success.”

Candace Epps-Robertson, an ARMY member and assistant professor of rhetoric at the University of North Carolina, says the affirmational content of the group’s lyrics and videos may sound simple, but lay the groundwork for millions of fans to learn to engage critically with each other and develop a transcultural sense of global citizenship. “The message of ‘you, yourself, are enough, and you should love who you are and start with that — I think people miss how radical that can actually be,” she says. “We can’t overlook the power of that as an invitation to people to be part of this community.”

The Grammys, where BTS is eligible for record of the year, among other categories (nomination ballots for the 2021 awards, slated to air Jan. 31, went out on Sept. 28), provide a chance for the group to gain industry recognition as a mainstream contender, not just a K-pop act.

Asked why the Grammys matter so much to them, Suga seems to bristle a bit at the question. “I grew up watching American award shows, so obviously we all know and I know the importance of the Grammys,” he says. “It’s a dream anyone working in music has.”

RM says having the goal of a Grammy, an industry-voted award, “motivates us to work harder. As Suga said, if you are in music, the Grammy Awards are something that you cannot help but to look toward and set as an eventual goal.”

BTS’ global influence will soon collide with national duty, and a Grammy Award or three could help maintain its momentum. The band members all have to participate in Korea’s mandatory military service by the age of 28 — and four of them are within two years of that threshold. “Big Hit really wants to target the Grammys before [the members] go into the army,” says an industry source privy to the company’s marketing plans, adding that, from Big Hit’s perspective, it would be best for business if the boys all perform their service at the same time.

The group renewed its contract with Big Hit in 2018, which commits the members to another seven years with the firm, but the army service issue could knock off two years within that time span. A company statement ahead of Big Hit’s IPO shows that Jin, the oldest group member (he’ll be 28 in December), must conscript by 2022 even if he gets an extension of the draft deadline. The statement discloses that plans to prerecord content to be released over the course of any army tenure are being discussed.

South Korea officially changed its rules in July to allow draftees access to once-banned cellphones on weeknights and weekends, meaning BTS could theoretically continue some interaction with fans. However, the taking of photos, video or audio recordings remains prohibited. (Historically, most Korean celebs have fallen silent during their service.)

Soldiering aside, with the push from Big Hit’s IPO, multiple TV appearances — including an ongoing weeklong takeover of “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” — the chart success of “Dynamite” and growing Grammy buzz, BTS is poised to make some serious noise this fall, which is saying a lot for a group known to shake the decibel scale with a wave or a wink. But perhaps the most significant measure of its ascent is underscored by the frequent speculation of the band’s place in a new moment for the music industry.

“What would it mean not just to include the sound of Korea in the annals of world music, but to actually propose that the South Korean sound is the next chapter?” posits Yale’s Lofton. “What if BTS are actually the next Beatles?”

©variety.com

[lily-of-the-eyrie]

🎓🔍 Scene Commentary: Colonel Edition ②

Here comes part 2 out of 7 of the Scene Commentary thread, covering Shay’s adventures at Fort Arsenal in  [SQ3-2] A Long Walk and A Short Drop [vid over here]. 

This time we’re gonna talk about the next step in the Colonel’s process of getting to know Shay/winning him over, and also extensively pick apart the hidden plan of how he directs Shay into serving the Templars’ interests. 

This round’s highlights: 　❗️Gist’s Hanging: A Staged Interaction? 　💭 A Staged Interaction: Tinfoil Edition

🌟 Thanks again to the-colonel-who-cares for beta reading help!

Okay, let’s get going with the show:

[SQ3-2] A Long Walk and A Short Drop Shay returns to the Finnegans' residence and hears about a friend of the Colonel's getting into trouble.

　After renovating the church, Shay decides to go back to update Barry and Cassidy about his gang-busting activities, but found upon his arrival that the Colonel had beaten him to it. It's like he knows Shay's gonna come back home right away... Hm.

　By this time, we see that Shay and the Colonel are on friendly terms―Shay shows no particular sign of tension throughout their conversation here. In fact, when the Colonel quickly asked him to help out a friend of his, he readily accepts.

　The Colonel mentions that said friend, Gist, had run into trouble investigating "a nest of criminals". Said criminals are likely about to execute him for snooping around their base if someone doesn't go there and save him, which honestly sounds like quite a bomb to drop on a guy you literally just met earlier that day. 

　Still, despite how unbelievable this might sound, the Colonel wasn't randomly throwing requests at Shay to see what sticks―he likely knows that Shay is more than capable of rescuing Gist on his own, and, more importantly, he sounds like someone who would want to. After all, he did just see Shay take down a whole gang hideout by himself, and the ex-Assassin's recent actions show that he's the kind of guy who has a strong desire to protect the people victimized by the gangs (ie.-the Finnegans). Shay then proves this hypothesis correct when he declares that he won't let the outlaws have another victim.

　As for why he doesn't go there and save Gist himself, the Colonel mentions that he has "urgent business in Albany". This isn't explained in any of the subsequent scenes, so we never really know what this "urgent business" is actually supposed to be. It could be anything from military duties to a Templar meeting...or, if you want to go full-on conspiracy theory mode, it might even just be an excuse to sit this round out to see how Shay would go about saving Gist.

❗️Gist’s Hanging: A Staged Interaction?

　This scene plays out naturally enough as a something to move the plot along, with the Colonel pointing us towards the next story mission, but I've got the strong suspicion that the whole "saving Gist" incident was staged.

　The setup of the situation is particularly fishy: given that Gist's day job as a surveyor/merchant/landlord doesn't exactly entail sneaking into gang hideouts, it's likely that he's there specifically on Templar business. As a fellow Templar active in New York, the Colonel must've known about Gist's current task at Fort Arsenal, so no surprises there... But how, in a time before instant messaging, did the timing work out so well that Gist literally just got caught as Shay and Monro are having that conversation at the Finnegans', cutting it so close that the poor man was literally in the process of getting hung as Shay arrived at the scaffolds? And the weirdest part is that the Colonel seemed to know that that was exactly what was going to happen.

　On one hand, it could all be coincidence. The Colonel might just have told Shay to go check up on Gist because he's worried about the worst case scenario in his Fort Arsenal operation, and wanted Shay to help out in case Gist ran into trouble; if no trouble occured, well, that's great, but you know, just in case.

💭 A Staged Interaction: Tinfoil Edition

　On the other hand: what if the episode was staged? Considering what we know from when the Colonel confessed the truth after Fort William Henry―that he'd known all along that Shay was an Assassin―it's reasonable to assume that everything before Fort William Henry is likely a false reality of sorts, created and maintained to keep nudging Shay into "demonstrating his loyalty and resourcefulness to the Templar cause" (albeit without his knowledge)...which pretty much means it plays like a microcosm of the grand New World Order that the Templars were trying to create. 

　In this light, though, how can we frame the events of this episode? One take I can think of is that the Colonel, who had grown an interest in Shay's personality during their meeting at the Greenwich gang HQ, may have told Gist to go Fort Arsenal and deliberately get caught, creating a situation where he can (1) test the goodness of Shay's character and the extent of his skills, and (2) use Shay’s inclination towards kicking criminal ass to take out the Assassin-affiliated gang members roosting at Fort Arsenal.

　Let's go back a little further up the timeline, to when the Colonel first found Shay. From his perspective, there are only two things about the man that are certain:

1) He's an Assassin, because he has a hidden blade; 2) He has the manuscript with him

　Notice that this includes nothing about what Shay is like as a person, given that he's completely out of order until earlier that morning.

　Now (1) is pretty straightforward, but (2) is where interpretations can get fuzzy. After all, the Templars have no clue what went down at the Homestead―all they know is that this guy has a very important manuscript stolen from Wardrop, one of theirs who got assassinated the previous year, and for some reason he wound up half-drowned on New York's shores with a bullet in his back. Was he an Assassin courier caught in a fight with enemy soldiers? Was he attacked by bandits? Maybe one of the Templar affiliates chased him down and took the shot? All in all, the situation's unusual, and would’ve raised a lot of questions for the Templars who found him. If they managed to ascertain that it wasn’t one of theirs who did this, this may be the point at which the Colonel might've gotten the hunch that Shay turned his back on his former Brotherhood.

　Assuming that he had turned traitor to the Assassins though, the logical route for the Colonel at this point would be to somehow direct Shay into working against the Assassins, preferably in ways that benefit the Templars―as someone who was once an Assassin, there would be a great many things Shay presumably knows that would give him an edge as an Assassin hunter over a regular Templar (eg.-Assassin skills, details of Assassin operations, where the Brotherhood's hideouts are located, etc.), making him a very valuable asset. However, there's a clear hitch―even if it's true that Shay did betray the local Brotherhood and is now hostile to them (seeing him hack the Assassin flag off the Greenwich gang HQ's flagpole should make this extremely obvious), there's no guarantee that this means he's not equally hostile to the Templars, who were indeed his old enemies...and might still be. So clearly, the Colonel couldn't just walk up to Shay and ask him to blow up Assassin bases for the Order, and given that he might still kill Templars on sight, this makes the mere act of keeping him alive a risky venture. Given that the continued presence of an Assassin is literally an issue of life and death for the Templars, it's not surprising if the Colonel's plan of sparing Shay to see what he can do with him is met with resistance from a chunk of the Order, notably from William Johnson. Still, he managed to get that plan going, but evidently steering the potentially hostile Shay into serving the Order's goals is going to take some creativity―and a good helping of scrubbing any hint of Templar affiliation off of the Templars dealing with him.

　All this discussion of what to do with Shay presumably got wrapped up before the man even woke up, given he was bedridden for a couple of months, so naturally, the discussion revolved around how to put him to use as an "ex-Assassin pawn" and took none of his personality traits or motivations into account. Due to the events at the Greenwich HQ incident, though, the Colonel learned a few definitive things about Shay—chiefly of the "he's a lot like Finnegan Jr." strain. Considering how important Finn Jr. is played up to be for the Colonel in terms of their shared goals (Doing Good By The People™ and all that jazz), I think it's more likely than not that this encounter affected how he viewed Shay, and by extension his strategy of how to treat the ex-Assassin afterwards.

[Speaking of Finnegan Jr., I wonder how he figures into all this. It’s highly likely that the boy's death happened by Assassin hands because this is Assassin’s Creed™ and not Random 18th Century Colonial Sim™, so I'm not sure the Colonel's feelings are exactly neutral when it comes to his hooded nemeses (even if he's less explosive about the A-word than Johnson was). Whatever was in his head when he first fished Shay out of the waters and saw the hidden blade strapped onto his arm, it probably wasn’t pretty 😂 Still, if the Colonel did indeed have an axe to grind with the Brotherhood and still managed to behave so calmly around Shay, that’s some top grade emotional regulation skills.]

　So, going back to Gist―by setting him up as the victim to be "rescued" by Shay, who had to effectively take out the gang members in Fort Arsenal and therefore dislodge the Assassins from that location in order to save him, the Colonel had essentially pulled a brilliant strategic move to remove the Assassin presence in the area under the guise of protecting an "innocent civilian", all without lifting a finger himself. But Gist probably wasn't a passive actor in this scenario―if this scene really was set up as a Templar plot, then he'd have worked together with the Colonel on the script. Given that he's good enough at acting that he could even teach Jack Weeks how to "mimic people of various social status and origins", and that he was the one Templar who had to stick right beside Shay for a whole year without blowing his cover, pretending to be a civilian in distress is going to barely be a challenge for him.

　Of course, given that Gist was really hanging by a rope when Shay arrived at the scene, it's a rather risky plan; if Shay didn't manage to save him in time, there's a very real risk that Gist might wind up really choking to death on the scaffolds... Unless the Colonel accounted for that too, and had posted, say, Weeks nearby as backup, because even if we assume that Gist and the Colonel worked so well together that Gist would consent to risking his neck like that upon request, leaving your subordinate to probably die like that is just irresponsible leadership, which, knowing the Colonel’s dynamics with people working for him, just sounds unlikely.

　Whatever the truth of the event though, if the Colonel's aim was to prove that Shay is worth keeping alive to the rest of the Colonial Rite, his success at taking Fort Arsenal should be a pretty good piece of evidence in his favour.

[aion-rsa]

How Babylon 5 Made Star Trek Better

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

There are a few patient zeroes for  proving serialized storytelling on TV viable. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Battlestar Galactica, and the so-called “golden era” of TV aren’t possible without a few under-the-radar precedents. Different critics will point to different examples, but when it comes to science fiction and fantasy shows, that list gets a lot smaller. Some might say Buffy’s interconnected season-long arcs are the most influential, while Trekkies tend to lean heavily on the innovation and risk-taking of Deep Space Nine’s serialization in later seasons. In fact, one prominent DS9 podcast — The Rules of Acquisition — has effectively argued that DS9 created the foundation for all contemporary TV that followed. And then there’s The X-Files. 

All of these examples are valid because, clearly, in the late 1990s, there was a vortex swirling that led to a revitalization of TV conventions that was most noticeable in genre shows. Buffy and DS9 probably deserve equal credit, but in terms of its influence on science fiction, and Star Trek in particular, the series that is (sometimes) overlooked is Babylon 5. By July 1994, Babylon was wrapping up its first season, and the future of science fiction on TV would never be the same… 

In retrospect, Babylon 5 made Star Trek better in the 1990s. Like Paul McCartney being inspired by the Beach Boys in the ‘60s, Babylon 5 was the scrappy ‘90s sci-fi underdog that, in a roundabout way, inspired the best of Trek to be better. Here’s why…

Did Deep Space Nine rip-off Babylon 5? (Or vice versa?)

If you were watching sci-fi TV in the ‘90s, you probably had at least an argument about whether or not the two TV shows about people living on a space station were ripping off each other. I had an ill-informed one with my dad in 1995. My dad claimed he thought it was clear that Deep Space Nine (which premiered on January 3rd, 1993) had ripped-off Babylon 5 (which premiered on January 26th, 1994), and I claimed the reverse. Neither of us was right, but it’s easy to see why fans we’re so perplexed at the time. Here’s the list:

Both shows featured a cast of humans living with aliens on a space station, trying to work out various peace deals. 

Both had no-nonsense female first officers, Kira on DS9, Ivanova on B5 (though in the B5 pilot episode, “The Gathering,” the first officer was Laurel Takashima, played by Tamlyn Tomita, who very recently turned up on Star Trek: Picard.)

In the first season, both had lead characters who were “Commanders” not “Captains.”

Both of these Commanders (Sisko and Sinclair) were veterans of major battles/wars, and their characters were (initially) defined by this experience.

Both space stations were positioned next to a strategic portal through space; the Wormhole in DS9 and a major JumpGate in B5.

And finally, both shows expected the viewer to have watched some, if not all, of the previous episodes in order to know what was going on. Again, in the ‘90s, this was not common for any TV.

So, what’s the deal? Well, as Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has gone-on record saying many, many times: “Were Pillar and Berman [DS9 creators] aware of B5 at any time? No. Of that, I am also confident. The only question in my mind is to what degree did the development people steer them?” 

Babylon 5 had been in development since 1987, but there’s not really any reason to believe that camp Star Trek was super-interested in ripping off a space station show and using it for its own purposes. So, the theory floated by JMS and others is basically this: Because B5 had been pitched to Paramount before landing with Warner Bros, it’s feasible that Paramount Studio executives encouraged the DS9 team to use various elements from the B5 pitch without telling them about the existence of B5. There’s also one rumor that states that Warner and Paramount were planning on launching a joint network in the early ‘90s, and that from a studio-level point-of-view, at some point in time, Babylon 5 and DS9 WERE THE SAME SHOW, even if the people making the shows were unaware of that. That last one is pretty out-there, and also hasn’t been publicly verified, so, there’s a good bet it might not be accurate. 

Bottom line: Today, most consider the similarities between B5 and DS9 to be superficial and mostly coincidental. It’s water under the space bridge, Wormhole or Jumpgate. And yet, there are more concrete connections.

The Babylon 5 + Star Trek connections 

In front of the camera, Babylon 5 had a few obvious Star Trek connections. The recurring villain Alfred Bester (named after the famous SF novelist) was played by Walter Koenig, best known to Trekkies as Pavel Chekov. Patricia Tallman, who played telepath Lyta Alexander on B5, was a familiar stunt performer on The Next Generation and DS9 (often doubling for Gates McFadden, Nana Visitor, and Terry Farrell ) and also appeared in notable episodes like “Starship Mine.” On top of that, at the height of the rivalry between B5 and Star Trek, Majel Barret — the first lady of Star Trek and Gene Roddenberry’s widow — guest-starred in the 1996 Babylon 5 episode “Point of No Return.” She played a character named Lady Morella, the widow of the Emperor of the planet Centauri Prime. This cameo was a calculated move on the part of B5 creator JMS and Barret. Basically, the goal here was to send a message to all fandoms: Be cool.

Behind-the-scenes, there were a few more big Star Trek connections. Harlan Ellison was a “Creative Consultant” for Babylon 5 and Trekkies obviously know his mega-famous Trek episode, “City on the Edge of Forever.” And, JMS himself was also a big Trekkie. But we’ll get to that.

How Babylon 5 (maybe) made Trek writing better in the ‘90s

Okay. So, there’s no reason to believe that Deep Space Nine ripped-off Babylon 5 in the ‘90s, but that doesn’t mean Deep Space Nine and Voyager weren’t made better by the existence of some friendly competition. Documentaries like What We Left Behind make it clear that DS9 had its own agenda, separate and apart, from, well, pretty much anything. That said, DS9 didn’t start out as a serialized show. Those big story arcs came later. Babylon 5 on the other hand, did start out serialized, which when you consider that most seasons were 22 episodes long, that’s really saying something. DS9 always had ongoing storylines, but the heavy serialization — the types of back-to-back story arcs that happened during the Dominion War — happened years after the show got off the ground. Did Babylon 5 give the writers’ room of DS9 the confidence to go this route? Most would probably say no. And yet, B5’s serialization was its signature. With DS9, the serialization became its signature eventually. 

Adam Nimoy, son of Leonard Nimoy, directed the most pivotal episode of Babylon 5, the 1996 season 3 finale, “Z’ ha’dum.” These days, this kind of thing happens all the time — Jonathan Frakes directs episodes of Star Trek: Discovery and The Orville in the same year. But back in 1996, this kind of thing was more shocking. It’s not provable, but with so many Star Trek people working on Babylon 5, it feels unlikely that the writers and producers never watched the show. Because if they had, it seems like they would have been fired-up. 

How Babylon 5 saved Star Trek’s special effects in the ‘90s

In the early 1990s, real sci-fi on TV didn’t use CGI. If you wanted to do spaceships, you used models. Even the sci-fi epic seaQuest DSV got away with heavy CGI use because, in essence, the ships were half-hidden underwater. But not Babylon 5. From 1994 onward, everything about the series was CGI. Initially, the VFX company that provided these effects was a company called Foundation Imaging. Because B5 had a budget of roughly a third of a Trek series of that era, CGI effects were the only way to survive. You might not think the CGI on B5 looks that realistic now, but you have to put it in context. Outside of maybe The Last Starfighter, nobody had really dared to do outer space ship VFX with anything other than models. B5 proved it could be done. The series also pioneered virtual sets, a practice that every single sci-fi show benefits from to this day.

But this isn’t an instance of Star Trek noticing someone doing CGI and thinking that it was a good idea. Foundation Imaging literally became a part of the Star Trek franchise in 1996. After 1995, Warner Bros decided to create the CGI for Babylon 5 in-house, which left Foundation Imaging in trouble. Luckily in 1996, the company started doing CGI for Star Trek: Voyager, which led to a longtime association with the Trek franchise. Up until 1996, for spaceship exteriors, Trek almost always used models. But that started to change after Foundation Imaging began working on Voyager. Though another VFX company — Digital Muse — did a bunch of DS9’s effects, Foundation Imaging was eventually needed on DS9 as well. Remember the greatest spaceship battle in all of DS9? Yep, that’s (mostly) Foundation Imaging.

In “Sacrifice of Angels,” the scope of the starship battle was too big for models to be used, and the workload too large for Digital Muse to handle alone. And so, Foundation was responsible for the epic moment in which the USS Defiant breaks through the Dominion lines. For most DS9 fans, this exact scene defines why the series is legit awesome. And, the truth is, if Babylon 5 hadn’t employed Foundation Imaging, if Babylon 5 hadn’t relied on CGI effects, the Defiant might not have flown like that. Everyone knows great VFX can’t save a bad sci-fi movie or TV series. But, in the late 90s, it was also true that bad VFX could prevent great sci-fi from being accepted. If Trek hadn’t slowly made the switch to CGI, it’s hard to believe Voyager would have continued to be exciting. Without Babylon 5 and Foundation, you can forget “Year of Hell.”

How Babylon 5’s creator predicted a Star Trek reboot

 In 2005, after the cancelation of Enterprise was announced, JMS and Bryce Zabel co-authored a treatment for a possible reboot of Star Trek. This outline wasn’t done because anyone asked them to. It was done out of love for Star Trek. The basic concept was, at the time, fairly radical — do an entire reboot of Star Trek, in fact, the pitch was called Star Trek: Re-Boot the Universe. The idea was to give a new origin story for Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the rest of the TOS crew. JMS used examples from his work in comic books: Fans can accept that this happens in a different universe. Sound familiar? 

By 2009, the entire trajectory of Star Trek was redefined by the first J.J. Abrams reboot movie, which, superficially, is what JMS and Zabel pitched. True, the current Star Trek renaissance has gone away from the reboot universe. But, the viability for big-budget, cinematic Star Trek probably couldn’t have happened without the reboots. Again, we can’t prove that the JMS/Zabel pitch inspired Paramount to do their own reboot, but just like there may have been some synergy between DS9 and B5, the basic pitch is just too similar to ignore. 

Conclusion

Babylon 5 was a not a Star Trek rip-off, but it did take place in the 23rd Century, and like the classic Trek, featured heroic human starship captains and their alien allies teaming-up to save the galaxy. In a sense, there was a retro-feeling to all of Babylon 5 that probably reminded ‘90s Trekkies more of TOS than of TNG or DS9. Throw Walter Koenig and Harlan Ellison into the mix, and B5 was like a tribute band for Star Trek: The Original Series. These days, fans of The Orville make similar comparisons between that series and the TNG heyday of the ‘90s. The difference, of course, is that B5 was created by J. Michael Straczynski, a guy who cut his teeth literally creating the scripts for your favorite ‘80s cartoons; from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe to The Real Ghostbusters. In short, Straczynski was someone who understood what sci-fi TV was in the ‘90s, and he knew its limitations. When he set out to make B5 he clearly did it with a lot of love for Star Trek. JMS  hired Star Trek actors for Babylon 5. He attempted to bridge the divide between Trek fandoms and the B5 fandoms. He even dreamed up a way to bring Trek back from the dead after it was seemingly canceled in 2005. J. Michael Straczynski maybe never formally wrote for Star Trek, but without him, and without Babylon 5, the world of Trek would have been much, much darker.

The post How Babylon 5 Made Star Trek Better appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[hopeisour4letteredword]

Puppy Love Ch2

Summary: Yuri has somewhere between two and four children, depending on how your definition of "child," a dog, two jobs, and a too-small apartment. Reconnecting with his estranged best friend wasn't supposed to be on this week's to-do list.

Link to AO3 in the notes.

Yuri doesn’t forget to go grocery shopping mainly by dint of wanting private time to sulk before he goes home. Fucking Flynn and his handsome fucking face and perfect career track and judgmental attitude. By the time he gets back to the apartment and throws together dinner, he’s all but pushed Flynn from his mind in favor of what he needs to get done at the bar tonight and how many hours he’ll be able to sleep between closing there and opening the café in the morning. He banters half-heartedly with Judy as she unloads the dishes from the dishwasher, straight into the kids’ hands. They all slump around the coffee table to eat.

“How was Repede’s trip to the vet?” Estelle asks.

“He’s full of vaccines,” Yuri says, trying not to sound surly. He doesn’t really want to think about it. “No rabies, parvo, hepatitis or Lyme disease for him.”

“Good!” Karol says. He reaches under the table to pat Repede on the head. Repede sniffs his fingers hopefully for food. “Repede’s gotta be healthy, who else will keep Yuri in line?”

“Me,” Judy offers. Yuri socks her lightly in the shoulder. “Hey, don’t hit a lady.”

“You’re not a lady, you’re a menace to society.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“It really doesn’t,” Rita says.

“You sure wouldn’t know that firsthand,” Yuri says. “Anyway, Judy, you have to let Raven tip you again—the old man won’t let me pay vet bills anymore.”

“I do let him tip me,” Judy says. Yuri curses, loudly. “Why would I turn down that much money? ...He pulled one over on you again, didn’t he?”

“That son of a bitch,” Yuri says, stabbing his fork into his spaghetti with more force than necessary. Karol stares at him with wide eyes. Yuri sighs. He’s supposed to be watching his language. “Sorry, Karol.”

“You’re moody tonight,” Rita says. She steals one of Karol’s meatballs while he’s distracted. He hollers with outrage and tries to steal it back. They wave forks wildly in each other’s directions. Yuri makes the executive decision not to intervene unless someone gets hurt for real. “You wake up on the wrong side of the bed or what?”

Yuri rolls his eyes at her and goes back to eating, ignoring her. The next time he looks up, there are four sets of expectant eyes on him.

“Seriously, guys?” He scowls at them. “...I ran into somebody I know this afternoon. I don’t want to—“

“It wasn’t Zagi, was it?” Karol asks, anxiously.

“What? No. I’d have all the blinds closed and the deadbolt drawn if it was Zagi.”

“We ought to just call the cops on him next time,” Rita says.

“Bold of you to suggest inviting the cops to an apartment inhabited by both Judy and myself,” Yuri says. “Considering we’re basically be gay, do crimes incarnate.”

Estelle has been quiet, looking thoughtful, but now she suddenly brightens. “Oh! Yuri, did you see Flynn at the vet? He’s a vet tech now, isn’t he?”

Goddammit, how did she do that?

“Yeah,” Yuri says, sullenly.

“That’s wonderful!”

“Sure.”

“I’ve really been wanting to get you two back in touch,” Estelle says, beaming at him. Of course she has. Estelle’s an angel and Flynn’s probably never had a single damn reason to be cross with her. She doesn’t get it. “I mean, I didn’t because I don’t know whether I should tell him where I am now, since he knows Dr. Dinoia... And I didn’t know how to explain how I know you without mentioning that I’m here....”

“Who’s this Flynn you two keep bringing up, anyway?” Rita demands.

“Hold on, I think I have a picture of him somewhere,” Estelle says. She scrolls through her phone for a moment, then holds it out for Rita to see.

“That guy?” Rita scrunches her nose up. Karol insistently motions for Estelle to show him, too. Judy peers over his shoulder. “Yuri’s friend? I wouldn’t have made that connection.”

“You’ve met Flynn?” Yuri looks at her askance, morbidly curious. “How’d that go?”

“He tried to boss me around as part of some stupid outreach project with our class and the local university,” Rita says. Sounds like Flynn, alright. “So I was like, ‘I know more than you,’ and after a bit he told me to keep up the good work and left me alone.”

“He didn’t even chew you out?”

“Nope,” Rita says, around a mouthful of spaghetti.

Estelle lowers her fork with a frown. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Flynn chew someone out, either...”

“Great,” Yuri mutters, digging back into his food. So it’s just a him thing, then. Cool. Fine. Another fuck-up extraordinaire Yuri Lowell privilege. He loves having those.

“I thought you’d be happier,” Estelle says, still frowning. “Aren’t you excited?”

“Thrilled.”

“You two missed each other so much!”

“Heart-rendingly.”

Rita kicks him under the table. “Don’t pick on Estelle.”

“I’m not picking on her,” Yuri says. His jaw aches from gritting his teeth so much today. “I don’t want to talk about Flynn right now. Karol, how was practice?”

The kids all exchange looks. Still, Karol is always eager to talk about lacrosse, and within seconds the tense silence gives way to his enthusiastic, interminable chatter. Thank God. Yuri gets some peace of mind for exactly as long as it takes to finish dinner and take Repede on a lap around the block. He studiously does not check his phone and does not think about what, if anything, he would say to start a conversation with Flynn. It works great right up until he and Judy are loaded into the car so he can drop her off at her bartending job on the way to his own.

“So,” she says, drawing the word out. “Flynn, huh.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” Yuri says, keeping his eyes focused on the road.

“It’s been an awfully long time to still be mad,” Judy says.

“Shut up, you don’t even know him,” Yuri snaps, then stops, taking a deep breath. “...Sorry.”

She shrugs, unfazed. “I knew it was a sore spot when I brought it up.”

They’re both quiet for a minute. Slowly, feeling out the words as they come to him, Yuri says, “I don’t have any reason to think things would be any different now than they were the last time I saw him.”

“Hmm.”

“He’s further along with his life plan, and I’ve added, like, three new obstacles to whatever the fuck mine is anymore, along with not going anywhere with it in the first place.”

“It would be awfully harsh of him to judge you for that,” Judy says. “Considering most of the obstacles in your life come from an inability to ignore people in need.”

Yuri laughs, bitterly. “Flynn’s pretty good at harsh judgement if you catch him in the right mood. Or the wrong one, I guess.”

She reaches over and gently pats his leg. “Maybe he’s changed. What did he say to you at the vet?”

“He told me I never change, scolded me for picking up freeloaders and for being rude to the old man, suggested Repede destroyed Estelle’s shoes because I don’t exercise him enough...”

“And?” Judy prompts, when Yuri makes the fatal mistake of hesitating.

“...And said he missed me and wanted to catch up over coffee sometime.”

Judy’s silence speaks volumes.

“All of the first things I said still happened,” Yuri says.

“And you can talk to him about them,” she says. “But Estelle was right, you know. I can tell you missed him, too. Everybody who hears you talk about him can tell.”

Yuri grips the steering wheel harder. “Just because we missed each other doesn’t mean everything will magically work out.”

“No, but it might mean it’s worth the effort of trying.”

“This is why I didn’t want to talk about this.”

“Why, because you know I have a point and you can’t argue with it?”

“Judy.” They pull into the parking lot of her bar. For once in their shared career history, they’re early. Of all the nights, it had to be this one. Judy takes off her seatbelt and rests her fingers against the handle of the door.

“Let me make you a deal. Mm... more of a bet, perhaps.”

“...I’ll hear you out, at least.”

“You have to talk to Flynn about your relationship and shop for a new apartment...” she raises her free hand to forestall his protests. “And I have to talk to Rita about my anti-military robotics raids and figure out how to rescue Ba’ul.”

“What’s the bet?”

“If I accomplish my goals before you accomplish yours...” Judy drums her fingers against the handle. “We’ll sit down as a family and have a discussion about your little crush.”

Yuri feels the color drain out of his face. “That’s not—I don’t have a crush.”

“Hmm. Your pining, then?”

“I’m not pining either!”

“You’re right, that conversation wouldn’t go anywhere,” Judy says. “It would just devolve into you and Rita calling each other gay. We can talk about the self-esteem issues sabotaging your relationships instead.”

“Get out of my fucking car.”

He reaches across her to yank open the passenger-side door. She catches his hand. “But if you accomplish your goals before I accomplish mine... Should I pick your prize, or do you have something in mind?”

Yuri stares at her, eyes narrowed. Judy smiles back, sweet as honey and sharp as a razor.

“...If I win, you have to get therapy for your daddy issues.”

Her face falls into a scowl, but she extends her hand to him. “Fine. Do you accept the bet, then?”

Yuri shakes on it. “Hope you like shopping for therapists.”

“Oh, baby. You just keep telling yourself that.”

She lets herself out of the car and blows him a kiss as she disappears into the employee entrance of the bar. Yuri, for the second time that day, gives himself thirty seconds to freak out behind the steering wheel. Then he takes a deep, fortifying breath and puts the stick shift into reverse.

Life goes on, apparently with Flynn in it whether Yuri likes it or not.

[managician]

ARC V Anniversary Day 4

Discussion prompt:  Who’s your favorite character(s)?

Hoo boy, I ended up making a top 10 because there’s so many lovable characters in this cast and I want to talk about them all... Warning for incredibly long descriptions as the top goes on (I’m sorry for mobile users)

10. Reira Akaba

Look at this precious bab. Right off the bat I knew I would like them — I have a kind of weakness for child characters (Rua is one of my faves from 5DS too for a reason), but I never actually expected to love them as much as I do right now. Seeing this little afraid kid with no sense of self grow into a person of their own and playing a literal key role in the resolution of the final conflict was so satisfying. 

09. Ray Akaba

Aand naturally, with me loving Reira it probably comes off as no surprise that I love Ray too. Even with the extremely limited screentime, she shot through the roof as one of my favorites. She was no goddess or super powerful entity that had the equal means to fight Zarc, but she did so anyway. And she won. She’s the porter of an incredibly inspiring message and pretty much symbolizes the core of ARC V’s narrative; she saw trouble and she knew cowering in fear would solve nothing, so she took a step forward with courage and believed in her own worth. POINT IS, Ray is awesome.

08. Rin 

Ahh, Rin... It’s one of the few cases where it’s hard for me to articulate what I like about her the most. I actually wasn’t super invested in her when I first finished watching the show, but one of my friends really likes Yugo and Rin and that got me to think more about her beyond her lack of screentime, and I found myself suddenly appreciating her a lot. She has all her pragmatic yet caring personality and goals scattered throughout the show if you pay attention to her interactions with Yugo, and you can actually get a extremely solid grasp on the kind of the person she is — even her deck plays into it (a logical and ruthless Burn Damage deck, which showcases she’s not here for anyone’s bullshit). 

07. Shun Kurosaki

Shun is a fairly biased case for me, I’ll totally admit. I didn’t actually like him that much during my watch of the show though, and it wasn’t until the XYZ/Fusion Arc that I looked at the events of ARC V in retrospective and realised how much Shun had been involved in. I’m a sucker for stoic and ruthless characters learning to trust people again, and Shun fit into the mold perfectly. And he definitely did strike me as cool from the first go, with Rise Falcon’s insane OTK against the LDS Trio back in Standard, so even if I wasn’t actively rooting for his character I wanted to see what direction he’d take. Seeing him grow and finally make peace with the Yuto/Ruri situation at the end of the show made me incredibly happy; I think that he could finally start leaving all the bitterness and pain behind and begin a new journey of hope with his comrades. 

06. Serena

Another case of me being somewhat (okay, really) gay and biased for girls. I loved Serena right from the first go; her pushy and pretty aggressive personality caught my interest, and we got a glimpse of her backstory with Reiji pretty soon after her introduction, which made me feel connected with her very easily. Yet another misguided Academia student — though her arc is completely different compared to say, Sora’s or Dennis’s. She had even less information about the outside world than the rest of the Fusion gang did, and so of course the key for her was learning the truth. Thanks to Yuzu and Shun she was able to check by herself how horrorific her Academia comrades’s actions had been, and she immediately decides to fight against the injustice. There’s something admirable about her relentless courage and will to do what’s right, and she never stops being herself and fighting like she wants to the very bitter end. Pretty inspiring for me, honestly.

05. Reiji Akaba

And we enter Top 5, starting off with Reiji, who is frankly the trickiest character for me on this list. Unlike many people I know I didn’t ever think of him as an evil or dettached rival, because of... His scarf. Yes, his stupid gravity defying-scarf. Red symbolizes heroism in many Japanese shows, so I had the hunch that Reiji would end up acting nicer than he did at the beginning of show. And boy, did he. He’s an incredibly compelling and well-rounded character who is a clear contrast to Yuya’s bright entertainment, and he expresses his emotions in a very subtle way. He’s an unexpected rival who subverts tropes left and right, just like the protagonist; and while it’s clearly a case of the “I Had To Grow Up Too Early” trope, it’s executed so brilliantly well that you can’t help feel sorry for him, even if you don’t particularly like him. ...Which was actually what happened to me, I barely cared for him in my first watch of the show... And then I loved him and suddenly he was in my top favorites. He’s so great.

04. Sawatari Shingo

I’ll say it right from the go, I didn’t ever think a character of Shingo’s type could get me so interested. From the beginning of the show I saw him as Yuya’s ‘rival’ in a purer sense of the word than Reiji; they’re both Entertainment Duelists and have a more direct confrontation in the championship’s Action Duel. But that’s all he really was to me, another showcasing of Entertainment and a fun character to see when he was on screen, nothing else. And yet I found myself taking a deep liking to him when he finally tried to steer his own path; despite being a loud, kind-of comedy relief character if the situation requires for it (somewhat akin to Jounouchi in DM, perhaps), at the same time he’s a quite talented Duelist who enjoys pulling a crowd’s attention towards him. He wants to impress people and that’s something I could relate to in a very intimate way, as much as I preferred Yuya’s ideology. And he grew so much during the BB Arc with Crow too, it was so cute.

Tied for 3rd spot - Yuto and Yuzu Hiragi

Aka... I tried really, really hard to pick one... But I had to give up. Sometimes I say Yuto’s 3rd and Yuzu 2nd and some other days it’s the other way around, and then sometimes I straight up can’t decide. Like today. 

I wasn’t big on Yuto at first at all. He did intrigue me, especially because thanks to him we were introduced to the same-face plot that set off the whole Standard arc in the first place, though that was it. I thought he was cool, a character you can appreciate if he comes up with screen, but don’t actively think of outside of that. Broodingly dark characters tend to piss me off unless they quickly grow on me, which probably added to me not feeling very interested in either him or Shun at the beginning of the show; even with that, I appreciated his rather calm and pacifist nature in comparison to his partner... 

And then Episode 37 happened and I was completely thrown off the charts. His desire to bring smiles to people and to not hurt anyone anymore to the point of refusing to attack Yugo pulled at my heartstrings, and I’m a complete sucker for self-sacrificing characters, so when he protected Yuya at the expense of his own soul and entrusted that desire onto him... I was sold. His influence is rather subtle but shows passionately many times, and I found myself falling in love with his character despite the lack of screentime and dubious characterisation that every XYZ character suffers from; I think he’s the best one out of the trio in that matter, though. And his interactions with Yuzu, Ruri and Yuya are so sweet; overall he’s just a character I can find myself easily toying with and I love his role in the show.

What can I say about Yuzu? She’s my favorite female lead from all YGO series. I found her rather annoying but cute during the first... Ten or so episodes. And then I fell in love with her because holy damn, she’s such an amazing character. She actually Duels, has a beautiful and kickass deck and is deeply involved in the plot from start to end (which is already more than can be said for the other shows), not to mention she’s such an inspiring role model. Yuzu always actively worked to improve herself and it’s refreshing to see her be so open with her feelings and caring for people. She’s so strong and I really enjoyed all the bonds she had with the rest of the cast — when you had half of them going through hell and back to help her, it felt legitimately heartwarming and believable, because she always does her best to forge a connection with people and isn’t afraid to say what she thinks.

She felt like one of the most human characters in the show for me, as her best strength was the power of encouraging and inspiring other people (Yuya, Serena, Yugo just to name a few) rather than being unbeatable or not being allowed to fail. She’s everything and more I could hope from a female lead and she inspires me everyday.

01. Yuya Sakaki

*falls to the ground and sobs*

I can’t even begin to describe how much I love this precious ball of sunshine. Anime protagonists are always without fail a 50/50 chance for me, I either love them with all my soul or I hate them and I’m 200% more invested in other characters. Yuya (un)surprisingly fell into the first category from the very first episode, he’s so adorable and seeing him go on a journey to leave behind his years of bullying and depression and turn into someone he can be proud of is hands down the most inspiring thing in this series. 

He genuinely makes me so happy and his character development is the very thing that made me invested in ARC V in the first place, I will never get enough of what an amazing and compelling protagonist he is. His attitude of trying to stay happy and make the people around him happy as well, but ultimately falling victim to his own emotions and crashing hard against reality is so brutally and openly real that my heart aches just from thinking of it. I’ve learned with him as I watched the show; as an audience we experienced the same happiness, sadness and pain that he went through, and I’m so proud of him for getting so far and never giving up despite all the odds always being against him.

He’ll always hold a special place in my heart, he’s so important to me and I’m just really glad he exists! 

[douxreviews]

The Umbrella Academy - ‘The Day That Wasn't’ Review

The Handler: "You're a great disappointment to me."

To put it bluntly, that quote more or less encapsulates the feelings I'm left with after 'The Day That Wasn't.' To get across fully the gravity of my abrupt reaction to this episode, obvious context is needed first, and not just in the manner you'd think.

It's a bit quaint to watch this feature a second time around and have my initial perceptions of certain characters drastically change for the better or for the worse; Luther's becoming tiresome as he fails to live up to his status as 'team leader' by repeatedly discussing why stopping the end of the world is priority numero uno, yet fails to offer up any pragmatic solutions himself, instead choosing to shoot down other workable and hands-on solutions offered up by the other siblings. On the other hand, we have Diego who's redeeming himself for me each passing episode with his wholesome qualities. Setting aside his penchant for reckless murder for the moment, his interactions and bonding with Klaus - in this episode's case, helping him reach sobriety - are among some of my favorite across the entire season. It's not exactly clear why Diego has such a soft spot for Klaus, and it's up in the air if that's a development the series will take the time to explore.

No, instead, this episode takes a big chunk of time to further progress the romantic tension between Luther and Allison. For the record, I will say that this development doesn't quite bother me as much as it does others in the audience, I'm more skimming the edges of the 'indifferent' camp. What is a little tedious for me is that The Umbrella Academy is choosing to wait until the ending of its sixth episode to finally lay the cards on the table about Luther and Allison, something the audience and the other Hargreeves siblings already knew was present. Nonetheless, it is each of their arcs making a sort of progress, and so with their feelings for each other out in the open, this possibly allows them the opportunity to grasp a new perspective on fending off the end of the world.

More truths are bought to light with Luther himself when it's shown to him by Pogo that Sir Hargreeves never took Luther's research on the moon seriously because he had only sent Luther there after his near-death experience due to seeing Luther as useless. Appropriately, this doesn't go over well with Luther and his reaction, performance-wise, is executed well, partly reminiscent of Loki learning his true heritage in Thor. The weight of this revelation too is why it's so conflicting for me to critique Luther sometimes, seeing that his trauma sustained from his father is just as valid as each of his siblings.

Meanwhile, Klaus has found newfound motivation for ditching his stashes of narcotics in the form of Dave, a comrade from Klaus' platoon that appears to have also been involved romantically with Klaus before his untimely death, a monumental factor in Klaus' uneasy state ever since he got back. From my understanding, Robert Sheehan had a bit of a hand in the androgynous wardrobe of Klaus, and I wonder for a moment if he also steered the direction of Klaus' relationship with Dave, and just how much was to be revealed to the audience about the two of them. What's relieving to see in Klaus' development here is that the importance Dave had to Klaus is showcased in the formidable manner of Klaus making great efforts to sober up and opening up to Diego about Dave more or less being the catalyst for that. Some series choose to beat the audience over the head repeatedly with the unquestionable assertion that they feature an LGBT+ character, but in doing so, they sap the remaining characterization out until their sexual orientation is the only thing left to define them by. In Klaus' instance, The Umbrella Academy smartly takes the route of 'show, don't tell'.

More fuel is thrown on the pyre regarding Vanya's increasing animosity towards her siblings. Understandably, she's pissed she wasn't reached out to by the others for her consult on how to stop the end of the world, but after she storms off, Allison's the only one to express guilt over this. It's disappointing that we haven't been allowed much of interactions between Vanya and her brothers because they all seem, to a practically comedic degree, very indifferent to her presence whenever she's in-and-out of the mansion. This potentially could feel very wonky in the future if things come to a head and the academy becomes compelled to defend Vanya from the threat Leonard may present, because their sense of protection over Vanya may feel out of nowhere.

Finally we come to Mr. Five's subplot. Five is taken by The Handler to The Commission's main headquarters and as soon as she begins laying out the inner workings of the institution in specific detail, it was very apparent that Five's end goal all along was to exploit The Commission's technology to his advantage. By the time of the climax, Five does just that, and manages to turn Hazel and Cha-Cha against each other by sending each a message instructing them to kill the other. He also neatly acquires the name of the supposed mastermind behind the imminent apocalypse: Harold Jenkins. Once Five has what he needs in tow, he returns to the prime-line to warn his siblings - one day earlier. The setting where this episode started up, with Luther, Allison, Diego and Klaus discussing how to ward off the apocalypse, is returned to, only with Five in attendance this time. Which means everything we witnessed, everything that was developed for these characters over the last forty-five minutes amounts to nothing. Zip. Nada. All so the series can end this chapter on a quirky little cliffhanger that could have played out just as easily if Five returned one day later.

I've seen this episode twice now and maybe I'm just missing the point this ending is trying to make but this is really an ineffective way to advance a narrative. If anything, had Five returned a day later and dropped the bombshell about Harold Jenkins, I sense that the siblings would have been even more prone to cooperate, now that they have an altered perspective on things to come: Vanya would have discovered Leonard possessing Sir Hargreeves' journal, Luther and Allison have new incentives to continue living, Klaus reunites with Dave in the afterlife (possibly making it past his withdrawal as well), and Diego learns Mom is alive again, courtesy of Pogo. And now all of that is undone and we are frustratingly left back at square one, so now who knows how long it'll be before these guys get their act together?

I'll humor my lingering optimism and say that this ending may be able to be forgiven come next episode if a new turn of events pushes these characters back into the acceptances we saw this episode. So better luck next time, academy.

Name That Tune:

Of course we wouldn't be fully convinced that Klaus spent a year in the late 1960's if his presence in Vietnam wasn't played to the backdrop of The Doors, more specifically 'Soul Kitchen'.

Hargreeves Humor:

Allison: "But can we trust him? I don't know if you've noticed, but Five's a little..." Klaus: "Our little psycho."

Klaus: "We all died fighting this thing the first time around. Remember?" Diego: "Klaus, shockingly, has a point." 

Aaron Studer loves spending his time reading, writing and defending the existence of cryptids because they can’t do it themselves.

[deniscollins]

Wells Fargo Says Its Culture Has Changed. Some Employees Disagree.

If you were a Wells Fargo sales employee, what would you do if your manager asked you to send customers mortgage documents even though the interest rate or fee calculations were incorrect — resulting from missing paperwork — so the team could record that the documents were sent out quickly. When you questioned this, the managers said don’t worry because another set of documents would be sent to the customer after the missing paperwork came in with the correct calculations: (1) obey boss and send out paperwork with incorrect information to meet goals or (2) refuse to do so? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Wells Fargo has spent years publicly apologizing for deceiving customers with fake bank accounts, unwarranted fees and unwanted products. Its top executives say that because they have eliminated the aggressive sales targets that spurred bad behavior, the bank’s culture has changed.

Many employees say that is news to them.

There is no evidence that employees are secretly opening accounts in customers’ names or tricking them into buying unnecessary auto insurance, as some did in the past. The bank has altered how it pays workers and added safeguards to catch bad behavior.

But Wells Fargo workers say they remain under heavy pressure to squeeze extra money out of customers. Some have witnessed colleagues bending or breaking internal rules to meet ambitious performance goals, according to interviews with 17 current and former employees and internal documents reviewed by The New York Times.

In Des Moines, where the bank — the nation’s fourth biggest — has a large debt-collecting operation, workers in December were expected to handle at least 30 calls an hour and recoup $34,000 in unpaid credit-card and other debts for the month. In January, the targets rose to 33 calls an hour and $40,000, goals that many employees there failed to attain, according to internal records.

“For us front-line workers, there’s an overwhelming sense of frustration,” said Mark Willie, who works in the Des Moines office and is part of a group, the Committee for Better Banks, trying to unionize Wells Fargo employees. “There is a general fear of retaliation for speaking out.”

Two mortgage-processing employees in Minneapolis said managers pressured their team to send documents that they knew contained incorrect information to borrowers to meet internal deadlines.

In a survey of more than 27,000 employees in the bank’s information-technology department late last year, top concerns included their ability to raise grievances with managers and whether “Wells Fargo conducts its business activities with honesty and integrity.” Workers recently flooded the bank’s internal blog with hundreds of angry comments about Wells Fargo’s sales incentives, pay and ethics and leaders’ “doublespeak,” according to screenshots of the blog reviewed by The Times.

Wells Fargo executives said in interviews that the bank’s culture had improved and that fewer bank employees had direct financial incentives to sell products to customers.

“Our entire system of how we pay, coach and develop team members is designed to focus on customer experience and customer outcomes,” said Mary Mack, Wells Fargo’s head of consumer banking. “Things have changed a lot.”

Ms. Mack said none of the debt-collecting employees in the Des Moines group had lost their jobs last year for not meeting the goals. She declined to comment on the Minneapolis mortgage processors, but said the bank investigates employees’ allegations.

Wells Fargo was regarded for years as one of America’s best banks. Then, in 2016, its pattern of wrongdoing became public. The bank admitted that employees had opened as many as 3.5 million phantom accounts in customers’ names to meet stratospheric sales goals. It also admitted forcing customers to buy unneeded auto insurance and charging improper mortgage fees.

The scandal has been costly for Wells Fargo. Its chief executive was pushed out. The bank has paid more than $1.5 billion in penalties to federal and state authorities, and $620 million to resolve lawsuits from customers and shareholders. Most painful, the Federal Reserve punished the bank in February 2018 by prohibiting it from expandinguntil it cleaned up its culture and internal checks and balances — a restriction that remains in force.

The Fed has said that before it will lift its constraints, Wells Fargo must devise a plan to ensure that the deceptive practices won’t happen again. Once the Fed signs off on the plan, the bank must demonstrate significant progress and win approval from an independent reviewer. The bank is still negotiating the details of the plan with the Fed. Its chief executive, Timothy J. Sloan, has twice pushed back his estimate for when the restrictions will be lifted.

On Tuesday, Mr. Sloan will testify to a congressional committee about the bank’s progress at overhauling its culture.

At the heart of its rehabilitation efforts, Wells Fargo said, it has changed how it motivates employees. No longer will they be individually rewarded for reaching sales targets, or punished for falling short. Branch workers were told that their primary job is to serve customers, not sell them things.

But the sales incentives have changed, not disappeared, according to the current and former employees, who work in branches, loan-processing centers and other parts of the bank. (Most spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect their jobs in the industry.)

In the past, branch workers were eligible for bonuses if they persuaded customers to apply for a credit card or to take out a loan.

Now, employees are urged to refer prospects to salespeople in the bank’s mortgage or wealth management division, and some branch workers are eligible for bonuses if those referrals turn into sales, multiple employees said.

“Some retail bank positions or more experienced bankers might be eligible to be rewarded,” Ms. Mack said. “The pressure element is not there, but the opportunity to reward team members is.” She said sales weren’t the only factor that influenced bonuses.

In addition, most branch employees can get bonuses based on their branch’s overall performance.

A. J. Bula, a former branch employee in Richmond, Va., said his managers had criticized him when he failed to generate enough customer referrals to the sales team. The sales-oriented culture “was still there,” said Mr. Bula, who left Wells Fargo in July. “Just get someone something.”

A personal banker who works in a North Carolina branch said his manager had told him to increase his referrals to the bank’s mortgage team and financial advisers. He said he had ethical qualms about trying to sell more products to his customers, who are mostly college students and retirees with limited money.

For salespeople, the goals are even more explicit and detailed.

One former salesman, who sold credit-card-swiping terminals to businesses on the East Coast, shared his 2018 performance plan with The Times. It might look familiar to anyone who works in a sales-oriented job.

The salesman was required to book at least 15 sales meetings a week. For every 30 opportunities he logged, 10 needed to result in a sale. His calendar had to show regular meetings scheduled with Wells Fargo branch managers, whom he was told to lobby for introductions to potential customers.

The salesman said that when his managers had wanted him or his colleagues to ratchet up their sales, they had used coded language: “We’re not helping enough customers.” He quit last summer because of the relentless pressure to hit his targets.

Another Wells Fargo salesman, who said he had also left because the sales pressure had been too intense, confirmed his colleague’s account and said he had received similar performance targets.

Ms. Mack said only 20 percent of equipment sellers’ compensation was based on their sales performance.

In another division of the bank, which handles mortgage applications, several employees said managers dangled rewards to get them to process loans faster.

In previous years, workers got bonuses if they processed 25 mortgage applications a month, getting all the necessary documents in order, verifying borrowers’ sources of income and sending out paperwork. Then the target was raised to 30. At the beginning of 2017, it went up to 35. (Mark Folk, a bank spokesman, said the increase had stemmed in part from the introduction of technology intended to speed up the process.)

The employees said the intense pressure led some workers to break the rules.

In one Wells Fargo office in Minnesota, two current employees said managers sometimes asked them to send customers mortgage documents even though the interest rate or fee calculations were incorrect — resulting from missing paperwork — so the team could record that the documents were sent out quickly. In those instances, the employees said, another set of documents would be sent to the customer after the missing paperwork came in and the calculations were corrected.

Ms. Mack said that, starting in January, the bank had stopped paying bonuses based on hitting mortgage-processing goals.

Employees’ frustrations with the bank extend beyond the pressure to keep hitting lofty targets.

Melissa Kinnard, who worked in Minneapolis as a financial adviser, said the company had sometimes pushed her and other brokers to steer clients toward investments that would generate recurring fees for the bank, including in a case where “it was not in the client’s best interest.”

Frustrated by what she saw as the bank’s culture, Ms. Kinnard quit in January.

Days later, the bank sent a letter to her clients, in her name, announcing that she would be teaming up with another Wells Fargo employee to handle their accounts. The Jan. 29 letter, reviewed by The Times, falsely indicated that Ms. Kinnard still worked at the bank and that she endorsed the other employee’s credentials.

Ms. Kinnard repeatedly asked the company to retract the letter. It didn’t.

“That letter went out in error,” Mr. Folk, the bank spokesman, said on Friday. “We apologize for the mistake.”

Many Wells Fargo employees are also upset about what they said was a drop in their compensation after the bank phased out many of its old sales bonuses.

On the company’s internal blog in January, Patrick Timmons, who works in Minneapolis on resolving customer complaints, accused Wells Fargo’s executives of trying to “string us along with an endless series of platitudes and doublespeak.”

While the bank’s leaders receive “obscene pay packages,” its rank-and-file workers are struggling, he wrote. (Wells Fargo’s chief executive, Mr. Sloan, was paid more than $17 million in 2017, up 36 percent from the year before.)

“I completely agree,” a teller in Miami responded. The teller said there was “a disconnect between corporate and branch/officer workers.”

Alex Ross, a bankruptcy specialist for Wells Fargo in Minneapolis who is also an activist for the Committee for Better Banks, stood up at Wells Fargo’s annual shareholder meeting last April and told Mr. Sloan that many employees felt unable to speak frankly with their managers about problems. He said that some feared that they would face retaliation if they complained.

“Candidly, we need to hear from our team members more often,” Mr. Sloan responded. “I don’t want you to think that we are not listening. We absolutely are.”

Mr. Ross said in an interview that he hadn’t seen any change since then in the way workers were treated.

“There’s a sense among the workers that most of the reforms the bank has made are very superficial and only being done for P.R. reasons,” he said.

[wegrownnow]

She had a plan. A perfect plan. She’d executed it to perfection and everything would have been fine if her target hadn’t chosen that night to suddenly take a liking to hiring sex workers when he’d literally never had anyone in his home before from what Georgia’s research showed. She’d surveilled him for over a month and there was truly never another soul in his home that entire month. He went to others’ homes, businesses, public places, to do his dealings and she knew him to be the type who never let anyone know where he lived. But Georgia was better than him and she found him without trouble. That night she’d easily gotten into his home and taken him out without a mess but the scream she heard as she turned to leave left her hot and cold at the same time. She turned around and locked eyes with the woman who looked truly panicked and terrified. In the heat of the moment, knowing she’d seen her face and that she could have the cops trying to find her and that would only make it easier for whoever wanted her dead to attain that goal... Georgia acted reflexively. She took the shot. She was frozen by what she’d just done but she knew she had to get out fast so she ran. She ran to her car and drove without knowing where she was going until she stopped and found herself outside the building housing Jesse. She entered the room and stood at the foot of his bed, shaking with nerves before she reached for his calf gently to wake him up. “Jesse,” she whispered weakly, “I need you, please.” She didn’t have a plan beyond this but she knew they couldn’t sit and talk where they were. She needed him to steer her in the right direction, or any direction at all.

[foruneyti]

Pt. I Greetings. This is all Foruneyti-centric but I hope it is helpful in general. —EA

Hithere! Thank you so much for sending me such a detailed report haha,it really helps me out! Because it was such a lot I will respond persection. I hope you don’t mind!

Pt.2 Somethings that I like in your writing: >Your dialogue. It iswonderful and truly witty at times, and it flows so naturally. It isa joy to read. I wish I could converse in real life the way Healerdoes in the story. So many writers resort to blatant awkwardness inconversation to move a relationship or friendship along; instead, youmake your characters clever and intelligent enough to get out ofunusual places in conversation. I appreciate that so, so much.I’m really glad that this is the case! I love writingdialogue and I’ve come a long way since I started writing (whenever Iread my older stories the dialogue is something that stands out to menegatively) so hearing from other people that it is witty and flowsnaturally is absolutely wonderful; thank you. Pt.3 >Your descriptions: in general, your descriptions are a goodbalance between “telling” and “showing”, which like yourdialogue make the story flow quite well. >Your originalcharacters. They are actually characters, unpredictable in some ways,not merely mouthpieces for ideas or story exposition (Kari of Yllgardis a great example here). Meeting them and getting to know thembetter feels worthwhile, rather than distracting.It’sa relief that those things are also going well! I really aim to givemy characters more layers so that they won’t be one-dimensional andboring, but with so many characters in the casts it’s hard to keep itbalanced and sometimes I even forget one or two exist hihi. Pt.4 >Perhaps first and foremost, I love that Healer is her ownperson, with useful skills and the ability to be simultaneouslycompassionate and an independent thinker. She does not brook abuse(of anoyone else or of herself) mildly; she is morally centred andstands up for her moral beliefs (I would like to add here that(Pt. 5) I think it would be appropriate for the deaths Loki hascaused to trouble her more than it does; I understand her reasons forforgiving Loki himself, but to some extent I would expect Healer’snatural compassion to extend to the many, many families Loki hasdestroyed). Though she is lonely at times, she is not just a hollowshell waiting for some other person to fill her with emotions andexperiences.This is also a big part of what I wanted! ThatHealer would be a character of her own, with feelings and thoughtsand memories of her own, and that without Loki she would still grow –though their growth is definitely amplified by one another. I wantedher to be independent so that their love and relationship could growand blossom healthily. As for the deaths Loki caused, it’s truethat I am kind of letting it fade to the background. I wanted tofocus more on the person Loki was becoming than the person he hadbeen, and since I believe he was not fully in control or didn’t havemuch of a choice during most of what happened back then I didn’t wantto make too big of a deal of it. Now that Healer has to grieve forher own she wouldn’t have the energy to grieve for the many livesthat were lost years and years ago.

Pt6 or 7? Somethings that I do not like in your writing (save the firstcomment, I am trying to be usefully critical here):>The sex. I amnot here for that; honestly I just think it is gross. It is nothingagainst your writing particularly; I just do not enjoy that sort ofthing in stories, ever. When I found Foruneyti, I was looking for aninteresting story that explored a Loki redemption arc in a believableway; many kudos to you for drawing me in despite the sex.Itotally understand! I personally enjoy sex as well as writing aboutit and so for me it is part of a healthy relationship, which is why Iadded it to the fic. You can expect more to come. I’m glad that youstill enjoyed the rest of the chapters though! Sometimesyou do strange things with grammar tenses. For instance, the lastsentence of the fifth chapter of the most recent instalment of “InHer Loving Memory” goes, “The man rose his sword, and sheclosed her eyes.”I am fairly confident that “rose” is anintransitive verb, and “raised” is what you should use whensomething is actually being done with a specific object. Pleaseunderstand that this little nitpicky sort of thing is an indirectcompliment; the rest of your writing (dialogue, descriptions, etc.)is so well-balanced that it is little things like this that throw meoff. Ah!I’m incredibly sorry for that. I can’t really use the excuse of notbeing a native English speaker anymore, but sometimes things likethat still slip. Things like raise and rise, lay and lie; but alsothings that even I think are super silly. I often type reigns insteadof reins, or mix up expressions. I check chapters three to sixtimes before uploading them and I still stuff like that when Ire-read it later. Feel free to point it all out on a chapter when yousee it, so I can immediately change it. Pt7 or 8? >Very occasionally you claim that something clever happensand then you drop the ball. The scene in chapter 14 is a goodexample. The passage goes:“…Should you try to introduce him tothe conversation? Ask him if he had ever experienced such battles?You listened intently to what they had to say, but every question youasked steered the conversation(Pt8 or 9?) in the direction you wanted to go. It was masterfullyexecuted manipulation, and neither of them noticed, until theopportunity came for which you had been waiting and you turned yourheard to the side, glancing at the prince from the corner of youreye. “How about you, then? Surely you must have great tales totell.” …That is abrupt and jarring, not masterfully manipulative.I think this is a more serious mistake where you should have changedthe scene so that it was appropriate(Pt9 or 10?) for the Healer to be so abrupt, or else thought through thescene more thoroughly to give Healer something truly clever to say.Another example would be when Healer tricks Yllva into confessing tothe murder. That seemed unrealistically stupid, even for a spoiledprincess of evil.Ihope you don’t mind that I will defend myself on this one. The lines’Youlistened intently to what they had to say, but every question youasked steered the conversation in the direction you wanted to go. Itwas masterfully executed manipulation, and neither of them noticed,untilthe opportunity came for which you had been waiting (…).” Aremeant to convey that time passed, that she has been conversing forquite some time, asking more and more questions that subtly got herto the point she wanted: a break or pause in the conversation thatallowed her to drag Loki into it. In that break or pause it wasappropriate to ask Loki about his tales without making it seem likeshe didn’t care about the other soldier’s stories. If I had to writeout all the stories the soldiers told, and all the questions Healerasked, it would have made the chapter far too long and far too slow.As for the part where she tricks Ylva, keep in mind that thegirl is not the smartest. She tried to murder Healer with poison sostrong it would no doubt cost quite a lot of money. That way it wouldbe traced back to her sooner or later, and with a devastated andenraged Loki (as well as Thor and all the other soldiers in thegroup) in that scenario she wouldn’t have benefited from it at all –and the consequences would have been dire. When she noticesHealer doesn’t die she gets more reckless and directly poisons herfood. She could have done it herself, in which case people (mainlyservants) would have seen her going to the kitchens where shedefinitely never comes, or, more likely: she had a servant do it forher. That means at least one servant knows its her, and so when thestaff would get questioned by the at that point merciless Loki itwould come out sooner or later as well. Either way: dumb. So,now that we’ve established that Ylva is not very bright, she is inthat moment set on defending herself however possible. When she heardHealer semi-accuse her of something she hadn’t done she had to denyit to try and save her hide – and she hadn’t really thought aboutthe words with which she chose to do so. In her panic she blurted outthe first that came to mind and so fell right into the trap. Ofcourse, it’s fanfiction, and so I’ve taken a few liberties on howrealistic things are, but in my opinion it makes for a far moreinteresting story than when the investigation starts and it takesthem two more chapters to just confirm what we already know: the girlhad truly tried to murder Healer. Ona final note, not concerning anything critical: I would just like toadd that as an addition to the Foruneyti universe “In Her LovingMemory” works incredibly well. What an emotionally powerfultale. (Lastpart) I read the scenes at the tree (Healer’s and Loki’s) and wasstruck by the aching sadness in both. I look forward to seeing whereyou go with that tale. May your writing (for Foruneyti and elsewhere)proceed excellently. Sincerely, EA

Thankyou so much! I really hoped it would, and emotionally powerful was(and is still) the goal. For it to affect your feelings is all Icould have wished for.  

Again,thank you for leaving such extensive feedback. If you want to discuss anything I’ve said in this post just send in another ask, I really love talking about my work. For anyone elsereading this post: do you agree, disagree, or do you have somethingto add? Feel free to respond to this post or to send me an ask ofyour own! (anonymous if you want). The more opinions I get the easierit will be for me to see what things I will need to focus on more! ❤

[aion-rsa]

Archer Producers Discuss Season 12’s Kingsman-esque Opener

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains spoilers for Archer season 12 episode 1.

After eleven seasons, over 100 episodes, and four radical reinventions, Archer has become one of the most ambitious and respected animated series of its generation. The show has elevated itself to something greater than a (hilarious) parody of the spy genre and has slowly allowed both itself and its characters to evolve in fascinating ways. Around these massive changes, Archer has never lost sight of itself. Its core sensibility and acerbic characters never falter.

Twelve seasons in, Archer has returned to a relative place of normalcy. Season 11 brought Sterling Archer back to reality from his coma, but season 12 is where the harsh ways of the world really begin to set back in. Archer himself may have his groove back, but his team is still in a highly unstable place and this season presents a version of them that are more vulnerable than ever before. Archer’s executive producer Casey Willis and producer Pierre Cerrato get candid about season twelve’s direction, the new enemies that The Agency face, the glorious return of the Tacti-Cane, and more. 

Note: Casey Willis and Pierre Cerrato jointly provided answers under their production tag “Floyd County Productions.”

Archer Season 12 Episode 1 – “Identity Crisis” 

Written by Shane Kosakowski “Archer and the gang just saved the world from a nuclear catastrophe and their reward is five nights in a rat-infested Moldovan hotel.” 

DEN OF GEEK: This premiere picks up right after season 11’s finale and really functions as the continuation of that story. Was it always the decision to immediately continue from the events of the finale or was there consideration to give more of a breather and push the clock forward with this premiere?

FLOYD COUNTY PRODUCTIONS: We really wanted to explore the ramifications of Archer and the gang saving the world. How could they capitalize on this achievement? That’s why we set the events just a few weeks after the end of the season 11 finale. That’s also why we brought in the Cloudbeam folks as “Malory” is getting desperate and needs to make some money. Additionally, we knew we still wanted Archer to have the Tacti-cane, so having this season start only a couple weeks after the events in #1108 felt natural.

Was this season approached any differently than previous seasons or was any kind of mission statement that you guys wanted to make with this premiere?

This season we approached the story in a similar way to season 11. We had story goals and character goals and we plotted out the season and tried to show growth in the characters along the way. 

To talk about the creation of the show for a bit, the first thing on our mind this season was the safety of our cast and crew. This is the first season that we started and will complete in a work-from-home scenario. To facilitate that, we had to make a lot of adjustments to our workflow. We have such amazing cast members, writers, artists, animators and production staff, and everyone really stepped up to not only make one of the funniest and best looking seasons of Archer, but to do it safely. We are so proud of everyone and can’t wait for you all to see this incredible season.

Last season was the first year that had Adam Reed in a reduced capacity and no longer steering the ship. What was his level of involvement this season?

We worked with Adam in a similar way to season 11. Casey Willis and Adam worked together to create a framework and some episode ideas. Then Casey, Matt Thompson, and Mark Ganek fleshed out the season even further and we assigned writers to individual episodes. It’s really the best of both worlds because we get to work on a thousand-foot view of the season with Adam, and then get to hear new and exciting voices from our writers. We are very proud of the writers who came onboard this season and we look forward to working with them again in the future.

Is Fabian Kingsworth, the head of the International Intelligence Agency supposed to be a riff on the Kingsman movies? There are definitely parallels going on there.

It wasn’t intentionally Kingsman specific; it was more about the whole concept of the gentleman spy. We felt it would be a great foil for Archer and something that might remind him of his pre-coma physical prowess. When we got Kayvan Novak (What We Do in the Shadows) in the booth, he had a lot of great ideas and affectations that gave life to Fabian.

Why did the IIA feel like the right sort of antagonist to be Archer and company’s major source of frustration this season?

We wanted to play with the idea of small business versus a giant company. The Agency is the boutique mom-and-absent-pop spy shop, while IIA is the big-box retailer of the spy world. We wanted Archer to have a villain to play against this season in Fabian, but he represents something larger that the whole gang can get behind and try to fight. It also is a bit of a throwback to earlier seasons of Archer when our characters were concerned with the difficulties in running a small business. Now those concerns are amplified with the threat of a giant corporation like IIA taking all the business.

There are some excellent action setpieces at the end of the episode that involve a helicopter, truck, and eventually a fist fight between Archer and Fabian. Talk a little of the construction of those sequences and if they’re inspired by any movies or anything in particular?

​​We’d like to praise our Art Director, Justin Wagner, and our Associate Art Director, Chi Duong Sato, for bringing that sequence to life. They worked with the storyboard team to create all the action and we worked with our editor, Ted Murphy, to put it all together. Unfortunately, there was a lot we had to cut for time including a mini-gun shredding another vehicle! 

Initially we drew some inspiration from Mad Max: Fury Road, but it’s nothing compared to a San Diego Comic-Con piece we did in 2015. In that piece, we had Pam dressed as “Immortan Joe” and Krieger as the “Doof Warrior!” Pretty sure you can still see it online!

In this premiere there’s great use of a helicopter, which at a point may have seemed grand for the show, as well as some really effective 3D CG stuff. Talk a little on some of those more exaggerated elements and how work on the other seasons, like Danger Island, helped prepare for larger setpieces and the growing sophistication of animation.

We feel the show evolves every season as we learn new techniques and refine others. If you look back to the episode “Jeu Monegasque” in season two, you can see some of our first attempts are integrating 3D animation. It may have also been the first 3D helicopter on the show. From that point to now, we feel we have had an incredible evolution. In season nine, for example, Cyril’s mech suit was a combination of all of our departments working together to make the suit look incredible and move in an imposing way. Archer owes a lot to the teams that keep improving the look of the show year after year.

This premiere forces The Agency to work outside of their comfort zones a little because they don’t have any money, but this largely gets resolved by the end of the episode. Was there ever a version of the season where The Agency was destitute for longer? 

Malory is a master of misdirection, so things might not be as stable as they seem. You are just going to have to keep watching.

This premiere teases that the IIA could poach certain Agency employees. Was that ever under deliberation, even if it just went on for a temporary period during this season?

Again, you need to keep watching because it may be more than just a tease!

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Our writers’ room walkthrough for Archer’s 12th season will continue with this season’s fifth episode. Previous writers’ room walkthroughs that break down Archer’s earlier seasons can be be found here

The post Archer Producers Discuss Season 12’s Kingsman-esque Opener appeared first on Den of Geek.

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