#when they become Very Mythological it's like they loop around and I relate to them from a certain experience | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jjackfrost · 2 years

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What's your process when writing? Do you outline the whole fic before starting, or do you go scene by scene? I adore OTNWAS, and I love how everything flows together so well, so I was just really curious how you approach writing such a long project!

I’m like the worst person to ask this because my memory is so bad and I feel like my process changes for every new project, but I’ll try my best to answer this focusing on otnwas 😅

First of all, otnwas (or what it was before it became otnwas) was supposed to be a one-shot sick-fic in the beginning, because I was in the middle of writing a DBH fic but I randomly got obsessed with RotG again and I just needed to write a tiny little thing to get RotG out of my brain so that I could get back to the DBH fic (it’s still unfinished btw—working on it though!). It had nothing to do with HTTYD in the beginning, but then I came across some hijack fics and I remembered my obsession with RotBTFD in like 2014. So my list of what I wanted to write turned into: 1. Sick-fic 2. Jack and Jamie bond and find out they’re related after Jack turns human 3. Hijack. I feel like you can really tell the beginning of chapter 1 is just the sick-fic, but then it suddenly turns into something completely different lmao.

I didn’t plan the entire thing in one go, but I did marathon everything HTTYD (except the books, they came later—and also the comics, I haven’t read them) before I started writing the otnwas-version of the fic because I wanted to have a well-ish grasp of the HTTYD universe. Then I wrote the first seven chapters before I started posting anything. Actually, while I tried figuring out the plot, I briefly considered writing a RotBTFD thing where they somehow travel around in time and meet all those different characters, but in the end I wasn’t inspired by it so I scrapped it. What was left was Jack goes to the past, becomes human, and also Jamie is there (and Baby Tooth, because I’d been imagining bunch of funny scenarios where Jack talks to ‘thin air’ and I love their Peter Pan-Tinkerbell dynamic). I had a vague idea of the whole ‘gather magic to go back home’-part of the plot, but didn’t know much about the Time Fragment, and the Snow Queen was a later addition because I needed to up the stakes. The process was like, okay, I need to marry these two universes—RotG is about myths and legends—what kind of myths and legends would they have on Berk, close to Northern Europe, in the Viking era or….ish around that time? (Obviously, otnwas is not trying to be historically accurate lmfao I just wanted to be inspired by Norwegian fairytales and Norse mythology.) I got attached to Snow very fast though, and she became a much more signifact part of the narrative than I thought she would initially. I really enjoyed writing her as Jack’s opposite; if Jack is the beauty and joy of winter, then Snow is the horror of it, and forcing him to deal with that after losing his powers was a lot of fun (though, in retrospect, I wish I went a little easier on the Jack whump. It gets a bit much sometimes lol).

So there was some vague planning involved. I was working towards these key points:

1. Jack and Jamie figure out they’re related

2. Hijack happens at some point

3. Jack will become a spirit again and return to the future with Jamie

What happened in between was stuff I figured out almost chapter by chapter. I know a lot of people jump around while writing a story, but that takes me out of it; I need to write chronologically to feel like I’m in tune with the characters’ minds, and I use the scenes I’m most excited to write as fuel to get through the scenes I don’t particularly want to write.

One of the most vital parts of my creative process is to have time to just walk around and daydream. Imagine conversations, scenarios, etc. and I try my best to write down my ideas immediately in a document on my phone. The scene that was looping in my head the most, I think, was the one where Jack kisses Hiccup for the first time, and the conversation leading up to that. I really need time to let the story simmer in my head in between writing sessions or else I feel it lacks something, I won’t have a full understanding of it, and I feel like it would show in the writing. Honestly, the best part of writing is the daydreaming.

But though a lot of stuff was planned from the beginning, a lot of other stuff was just happy accidents—stuff that suddenly clicked together, so unintentionally I feel like it’s unfair to give myself credit for it lmfao. I won’t tell you which scenes because I don’t wanna take away the magic, but writing otnwas felt a bit like running down a steep hill and only barely arriving at the bottom still on my two legs, instead of toppling over and eating dirt. It could’ve so easily been messy (it Is messy at some points, like the whole deal with the warlocks—if only I could explore those fuckers a bit more 🤔) but it somehow turned out alright lol.

Idk how to make a TL;DR. 1. Vague idea of where the story is going 2. Countless hours imagining conversations and scenarios 3. Keep in mind key scenes and use them as motivation to get through the tough scenes 4. Also, be self-indulgent. What else is fanfiction for?

Sorry for rambling, I can’t be concise lol

#otnwas

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rynnaaurelius · 3 years

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Titan’s Curse But Make It Time Loop: Nico di Angelo Edition

-Okay so I’m at work and not doing much and who wants to actually edit your shit drafts for your actual WIPs so that they’re less bad? No one, that’s who

-So I had an idea: The Titan’s Curse. Also known as the book where people start to die. It sucks to be a demigod in this book--for the first time in the original series, it really does.

-Not everything is fixed, not everyone is saved, and people start to have to make really tough decisions.

-So we fix it. Not by throwing Percy, or Annabeth, or Thalia, or, hell, even Bianca or Grover into the mix.

-Throwing the marginally more grown-up, more trained, and more knowledgeable demigods into the fire, who’d get everyone alive and safe by the third time ‘round? Nah.

-We’re making Nico fix this.

-Because here’s the thing about Nico di Angelo: Sure, he grows up to become a major badass, the Ghost King, so on and so forth. But not yet.

-For now, Nico is baby, a ten-year-old whose experience with any kind of fighting consists of one (1) Capture The Flag game and who’s still half-reliant on Mythomagic to explain what the fuck is happening.

-He’s also got the worst knowledge makeup possible! He knows he’s a son of Hades, which is bad, he knows to stick monsters with the pointy end of swords but nothing else, he knows that Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace are Very Big Deals (But also doesn’t know why beyond parents), and he’s, at best, vaguely aware that there’s some kind of bad prophecy hanging around.

-Also by the end of the book, he’s just been told his last immediate family who isn’t Hades is dead in one of the worst ways possible, and he--pretty irrationally IMO, but Nico’s a kid who has been through a lot recently, so we’re not holding that against him--blames Percy Jackson.

-Literally, you probably can’t pick an angstier or worse choice to run through the time travel trope. I love it.

-We’re making this kid save Bianca’s life via time loop, which happens due to. . .hmm, we’ll say the Fates did it.

-So, Loop 0 = Canon, only at the end of the day on December 21st, after the conversation with Percy, Nico falls asleep only gods know where only to wake up the day he meets Percy Jackson:

Loop 1:

-Nico doesn’t actually change anything meaningful at first.

-Spends most of it shellshocked and not unconvinced the last week (For him, anyway) wasn’t a horrible nightmare; shellshocked and staring at Percy Jackson, anyway.

-(Percy’s wondering what’s up with the silent kid his sister had talked up as a cheerful chatterbox)

-It’s only when Bianca agrees to join the quest for Artemis that he starts kicking up a fuss; demanding to go, screaming that she can’t leave him even more, not again.

-(Bianca hesitates; briefly, enough to remind Nico that she loves him. But she’s not their mother, and she needs this)

-Bianca still dies. Percy comes back pale and guilty. Nico doesn’t yell at him when he returns--he already knows. He accepts the Hades figurine so that he can throw it into the lake.

-He slinks off back into Cabin Eleven and falls asleep, hoping desperately that he gets a third chance.

Loop 2:

-He does.

Loop 3:

-After a very painful death at the hands of Dr. Thorn, Nico, generally being a straightforward person at this stage of life, takes the obvious path this time around: He tries to tell Bianca--who brushes it off as a dream.

-Annabeth still goes over the cliff when Nico takes the initiative of attaching himself and his sister to Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace at the dance. He tries to tell Percy and Thalia when Bianca still joins the Hunt, promising Nico that whatever he saw, she’ll be extra careful.

-(Bianca’s fearful of what Nico's saying, and thinks that if these sworn sisters can’t keep her safe, who can?)

-Artemis gives Nico a speculative look but agrees when he begs her to protect Bianca at all costs.

-He doesn’t get on the quest. Being a reasonable demigod of questionable parentage, he sneaks out of camp.

-He gets caught, because despite being aware of his awesome new powers, he doesn’t know how to use them, and is still a ten-year-old who can barely hold a sword the right way.

-He gives Percy the puppy dog eyes and shows off said awesome new powers. Percy forces him back.

-Nico follows him.

-Repeat until Percy dies saving Nico from the Nemean Lion in Washington, DC.

-Nico can’t find it in himself to be terribly sad--especially when he doesn’t make it much longer.

Loop 4:

-He’s really stuck like this, huh?

-Oh, Di Immortales.

-(Before Percy gets his chest ripped to shreds by a lion and Nico meets skeleton cats, he learned how to hold a sword properly and curse fluently in Greek. Percy probably only meant to teach him one of those things)

-In unrelated news: Having a big crush on a guy who thinks he’s only known you for a couple hours? Terrible.

-Trying to hate the guy who let your sister die when he’s that stupid and nice? Even worse.

-That stupid lion.

Loop 5, 6, 7, 8, 9:

-Nico repeats: That stupid lion.

-Somewhere in Loop 7 he starts to steal supplies out of the camp store when he follows Percy following the quest.

-They forcefeed the lion enough trail mix and frozen ice cream in Loop 9 that they don’t die this time.

-At least until someone called the General shows up and Nico’s dead before he can raise his sword.

Loop 10:

-Nico wakes up in his and Bianca’s room in Westover and starts crying. Bianca tells the headmaster they’re both sick and Nico lets her hold him all day.

-They fall asleep and Nico swears he won’t let her die again.

Loop 11, 12, 13:

-He wakes up and he still can’t get out of bed without feeling that blade cutting between his ribs, burning like it’s on fire.

-Gods, he’s so sorry, Bianca. Dispiace tanto.

Loop 14:

-He can get up without feeling like he’s about to die again. Bianca fusses but assumes it was just a bad dream.

-Nico is caught stealing and can’t follow Percy until it’s too late.

-Everyone assumes this means he’s a son of Hermes, however, and Nico can’t correct them without opening his mouth and letting the sobbing laughter out.

-Figuring he’s about to get another chance next round anyway, he takes Travis and Connor Stoll up on their offer to learn a thing or two so that he doesn’t get Cabin Eleven slapped with kitchen duty from now until Doomsday.

-He likes the Stolls. He spent most of the time, pre-looping, actively avoiding everyone at camp as he waited for Bianca and Percy to come back, but they’re not that bad.

-Percy comes back with the figurine and no sister and Nico remembers why he’s stuck.

Loop 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23:

-After Loop 12 and being killed in Washington DC again, Nico realizes: He needs to learn how to fight.

-Unless he gets killed early or refuses to leave Westover, the loop resets after seven days. So, he has seven days to train each time.

-He gets to camp, finds the arena, and meets Clarisse La Rue. He demands she teach him how to kill monsters.

-She laughs, and tells him that attitude in his size will make monsters easy to kill, they’ll laugh so hard.

-Clarisse teaches him how to swing a sword each time--but only after mocking his unamused face.

-Somehow, Percy coming back with news of Bianca’s death only hurts more each time.

Loop 24:

-Nico wakes up before Bianca this time. He looks over at her bed and knows. He’s got to try this time.

-It’s disturbingly easy making friends with Percy Jackson after the last loops.

-Bessie’s new. Cute, but new.

-Nico wonders just how much he’s missed in the past--he thinks of Annabeth Chase, and hopes she hasn’t been dying each time.

-Percy doesn’t even argue when Nico shows up in the stables with a bag slung over his shoulder, and the sword he’s been stealing out of the shed strapped to his hip.

-Nico suggests the ice cream--again--to Percy in DC before

-Nico might be getting the hang of this.

Loop 25:

-Nico is not getting the hang of this.

-Zoë Nightshade’s refusal to accept Percy and Nico on the quest--violating a prophecy, and gods, Nico’s curious if that prophecy ever mentioned this--has so far gotten them attacked and killed by spartoi once.

-And again. As Nico bleeds out on the floor, he watches a panicked blond man--a demigod--plead for mercy.

-Isn’t he on the other side?

Loop 26:

-His name is Luke Castellan and he apparently wants the gods dead.

-Nico can relate at this point.

-The General is Atlas, and Nico knows enough about Greek mythology, real and wrong, at this point to know that is bad.

Loop 27:

-Twenty-six tries, but they finally make it out of DC. Threatening the questers with Atlas killing them all is more than enough.

-For the first time, Nico doesn’t know what happens next. He glues himself to Bianca’s side and glares at anything suspicious.

-With help that Percy refuses to name, even when Nico tries his hardest, they go to New Mexico.

-There’s a boar and it’s so close, they make it to what the others are calling “the junkyard of the gods”.

-Nico sees the Hades figurine on the ground.

-Bianca grins in delight and picks it up, calling for him.

-He can’t help it.

-Nico starts screaming.

Loop 28:

-His sister’s murderer was never Percy Jackson.

-His sister’s murderer was a force of mechanics that makes Nico fully understand, for the first time, what the gods are, beyond stats on a card.

-Talos.

-Nico is going to destroy him.

Loop 29:

-She dies.

Loop 30:

-Again.

Loop 31:

-Again.

-Loop 32, 33, 34, 3536373839FortyFo r t y O n e--:

-Again. Again. Again. Again again againagainagainagainAGAIN--

Loop 42:

-Nico gets out of bed. He finds Percy Jackson at the dance, hugs him, and tells him he’s sorry.

-Nico walks outside and waits for Dr. Thorn in the snow. He can feel the shadows curling at the edge of the wood like a sixth sense, now. Waiting for him to summon the restless dead out of them.

-So many attempts to save his sister, ranging from sacrificing himself to sacrificing Percy--not that Percy needs the push, Nico has found--to any and all members of the quest.

-She dies. Always, always dies. Whatever Nico does, that junkyard is full of the death of Bianca di Angelo.

-He tried avoiding it. Once. Loop 33. Nico threw such a fit he’s surprised he wasn’t sent back to Camp Half-Blood by the Hunters, but it kept them out of the junkyard.

-He tries not to remember how little was left of his sister’s body by the monsters that time.

-Son of Hades. After all this time, Nico’s beginning to wonder if this is what it means. Death and death and death.

-Dr. Thorn walks outside, and Nico can feel a ghoulish grin crossing his face that has no place on a ten-year-old.

-One of them is going to die, this loop. And Nico will not go to New Mexico.

Loop 43:

-Nico wonders if there was a past life of his he needs to remember. Who could he have made this angry?

-He lies to Bianca and they stay in Westover again this time. Better than death, anyway.

Loop 44:

-Nico tries a different tack this time. A more roundabout way of things.

-He takes Bianca and throws the two of them in the way of the battle with the manticore.

-After all this time, he still doesn’t know much about Annabeth Chase. She gets kidnapped and returned safely to Percy every time, to the best of his knowledge.

-Nico dies holding up the sky, but at least Bianca lives, under the protection of Artemis.

Loop 45:

-Nico looks in the mirror and studies the new grey streak with fascination. And, maybe, some hope.

-Things can change.

Loop 46, 47, 48, 49, 50:

-Nico gets kidnapped a few times. Once, he’s killed in a rage by a Titan with horns, but it’s quick. Mostly, he holds up the sky to get Artemis out.

-She looks at him strangely each time and Nico wonders if she can see what he’s done.

Loop 51:

-They figure out he’s a son of Hades. They offer him Olympus. Olympus and Bessie--the Ophiotaurus, rather.

-Nico says no.

Loop 52:

-Nico says yes.

Loop 53:

-Being on the verge of overthrowing the gods and keeping everyone he’s grown to care for--in the case of several Hunters, against his will; in Percy Jackson’s case, Nico loves him as much as he hates him at this point--doesn’t do much, apparently.

-Nico stays in Westover again. He resists the urge to tell Bianca that would-be destroyers of Olympus don’t need to brush their hair, whatever she says.

Loop 54:

-Nico goes over the edge of the cliff again, but with Percy Jackson.

-This isn’t the first time; in Loop 46, Percy had taken the sky for both the sake of Artemis and Nico until it killed him.

-What’s different, is Nico’s in the middle of what’s become the usual panic attack when he’s about to die for the hundredth time, and his powers react.

-Percy holds him close and calls him cousin. Tells him he’ll never leave Nico.

-You have no idea, Nico whispers. You can’t leave me.

-You think I want to? Percy whispers back. You’re not alone, Nico.

-Nico’s sobbing sounds like laughter.

Loop 55:

-Nico tells Percy the truth for the third time. This is the first time he hasn’t told Bianca first.

-They’ve just found the Erymanthian Boar, Thalia’s told Nico his goth needs work--whatever that means--and Nico’s bracing himself for the junkyard again.

-Getting kidnapped by the Titans really gets old after a while.

-He still has the grey streak, and no number of excuses will fully soothe his sister, but the Hunt’s a good distraction from it.

-Nico doesn’t blame Bianca anymore for it. He thinks.

-Nearly a year into this loop and Nico’s finding it hard to blame anyone for much of anything, anymore. Especially when he sees what she’s faced. Again. And again.

-For now, this time, Percy Jackson is staring at Nico with wide eyes at what Nico’s told him--through these loops, Nico’s starting to wonder if he now knows more about Percy than Percy’s own best friends--and says he believes him.

-Once, Nico would’ve exploded from joy. Now, he just sighs and nods.

-Percy tells him how to condense the conversation for the next loop. He advises Nico to research Talos, “like Annabeth would.”

-He advises Nico to warn Percy’s next loop self about Annabeth’s kidnapping. Nico wonders if he’s gone insane that he’s considering it.

-Bianca dies.

Loop 56:

-Nico makes the executive decision this time to try and befriend Annabeth Chase. As such, he takes Percy’s advice.

Loop 57:

-It takes him two tries to befriend Annabeth Chase and learn about Talos.

Loop 58:

-Three times.

-But the nail. The nail in the ankle of Talos.

Loop 59:

-He hangs back at camp again this time and meets Charles Beckendorf, head of Cabin Nine, and son of Hephaestus.

-Nico figures that short of finding the god himself and committing temporary suicide--not that it hasn’t crossed Nico’s mind--his son will have to do.

-(He’s tried his hand at summoning ghosts, but Daedalus refuses to show, for some reason)

-Beckendorf frowns and tells Nico he would have to see Talos himself.

-Nico hadn’t realized just how much cursing he had picked up off of Percy and Thalia until that moment.

Loop 60:

-Nico knows what the prophecy says. One shall be lost in the land without rain.

-He knows it’s why he’s been failing so much.

-The trouble is, he no longer cares.

Loop 61:

-It took him a try, but he gets Beckendorf on the quest, prepared to defeat the Talos prototype.

Loop 62:

-Strike that, two tries.

-Nico really hates the Nemean Lion.

Loop 63, 64:

-Nico has solved half a problem: How to defeat Talos without putting someone inside the robot.

-The other half of the problem is now that they are all electrocuted by a dying automaton for their efforts.

Loop 65:

-Beckendorf’s crush--girlfriend? crush, they’re both insisting--Silena Beauregard comes along this time. Nico won’t complain over the extra manpower, even if he’s positive that eight campers and Hunters are patent overkill for one quest.

-Silena pulls Bianca out of the wreckage. Nico’s heart stops.

-Silena’s crying when she mentions that if they had been a bit earlier, she could have been revived.

-Nico wonders if Thalia’s going to stab him as he starts whooping. And takes notes about where Talos falls.

Loop 66:

-Nico swears, if Percy Jackson tries to sacrifice himself for Annabeth Chase one more time--

Loop 67:

-Bianca.

-I found you, he sobs. I found you.

-Gods damn the Hoover Dam.

Loop 68:

-And again.

-Despite having the distinct inkling at this point that he doesn’t much like like girls, Nico could kiss Silena Beauregard and Thalia Grace when they manage to revive his sister each time.

-She’s shaky and leaning on him and was dead, he could see her soul floating away--

-But she’s there.

-Nico refuses to let his sister out of the sight at the Hoover Dam and Percy befriends the Naiads this time.

-At least, until the Titans--who Nico made the very big mistake of taunting at DC--sends monsters he can’t control.

Loop 69, 70, 71, 72, 73:

-They keep dying in various combinations at the Hoover Dam now that Nico’s figured out how to save Bianca.

-At least, until he gets separated from Percy in Loop 73 and he meets a redheaded girl with a penchant for calling Nico pint-size.

-Athena dislikes Percy, Nico, Bianca, and Thalia in equal measure. Having learned of the Great Prophecy in Loop 16 and Percy’s mooning over Annabeth in. . .well, every loop, Nico can’t quite blame her.

Loop 74:

-Her name is Rachel Elizabeth Dare and Nico likes her. She takes none of their shit and if it weren’t for the fact that they already have eight people on the quest, he’d want to take her along.

-Bianca gets in a fight with the Old Man of the Sea. Thalia electrocutes him when he throws Bianca in the bay.

Loop 75:

-Nico wakes up in Westover with the distinct feeling that he was drowned on dry land.

-He stays in bed shivering, that day.

Loop 76:

-Atlas is the father of Zoë Nightshade. Nico learned this around Loop 50. He had realized around five loops ago that this probably meant she was going to die “by a parent’s hand.”

-He hadn’t realized that it was going to hurt to watch.

Loop 77, 78, 79, 80, 81:

-Now that he’s figured things out to about San Francisco, it seems the world is out to get him. The number of fights or mistakes that he either makes himself or has to head off are ridiculous.

Loop 82:

-Nico is so very tired. And wishes he felt ten years old again.

Loop 83:

-If Thalia gets in one more fight with Nereus, Nico's going to walk into the sea.

Loop 84:

-He wanders off, in this one. Grover had been killed in Hoover Dam, so Nico’s waiting for the reset at this point.

-In the meantime, Nico figures there are worse things to do than enjoy a good afternoon in San Francisco. He even meets a boy in a purple shirt.

-His name is Jason and he has hair like the sun.

-If he ever fixes this, Nico wants to find him.

Loop 85:

-Nico’s not fast enough in the junkyard.

-In San Francisco, he tries to find the ugliest, biggest trouble he can find.

-He finds a pair of teenagers in armor who yell Latin at him instead.

Loop 86:

-There’s a dragon that will attack them in the Garden of the Hesperides if they make it angry enough and Nico is so tired.

Loop 87:

- Zoë Nightshade is dead. They’ve won.

-Funny definition of “win”, considering they’ve all almost died this loop about a dozen times each, and Nico can’t explain why he’s crying on the body of a Hunter he only met a week ago, in their eyes.

-She hates him, some loops. More loops, she looks at him with ghosts of old grief in her eyes and hands him a knife.

-The gods execute Bessie, and then, Nico watches as his father turns to him and Bianca with sorrowful eyes.

-Nico should’ve figured, after almost ninety loops.

Loop 88:

-Luke offers one of them the entrails of Bessie again.

-Nico takes them.

Loop 89:

-For all the good it does. Nico wakes up as he does every time now: Powerless, in bed, and with only a grey streak to show for his efforts.

Loop 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98:

-Nico doesn’t know how to save Zoë Nightshade. Bianca, he could trick and fight his way into it. Beckendorf and Silena and Percy and a loophole in lost could save his sister.

-Her, she just. . .dies. Sometimes in DC, sometimes in San Francisco, sometimes on the hills of Mt. Tamalpais. Always at the hands of Atlas.

-Always, being murdered by her father.

-It’s not as gutting as watching his sister die, but it aches more in his chest, somehow.

Loop 99:

-He sticks close to Zoë this time. Same as he’s done with Percy, Annabeth, his sister, Thalia, and Grover, time and time again. But not her, Nico is realizing. Not the clinging he’s achieving now.

-Hoping for. . .something.

-He knows better than to tell the immortal Lieutenant of Artemis the whole truth. The loneliness is enough.

-She’s less frosty to him from the start than to, say, Grover or Percy, after Annabeth goes over the cliff again. When he shows up in DC, she’s much less angry than he’s seen her.

-Along the way to New Mexico and then San Francisco, he listens. He’s grown better at it, this far in. When the others are asleep, when Bianca is being fussed over after Talos, when everyone but them is asleep by the fire, he listens.

-And she tells him about her sisters. About her father, when the world was young and Atlas had looked on every daughter of his with pride. She tells him, pride glistening in her eyes, of the battles she has seen, the hunts she has overseen at the command of a goddess, the monsters she has killed, and the epithets she has been given.

-He doesn’t ask anything of her. Not until they’re in the house of Annabeth’s father, drinking lemonade the night before the battle, and Nico knows she is about to die again.

-What do you want, he asks. You’ve done everything. What’s left?

-She stopped, ice seems to creep over her again, and Nico wondered if he’d hit some sore spot.

-He’s opened his mouth to make his apologies when she answers, so quiet and quick he thinks he’s imagined it.

-To be remembered. When my lady has taken another lieutenant, as she must, and I have gone to where all gods go when they die, I wish for my memory to remain. And. . .

-Nico waits, and ignores the sudden, terrifying thought that he no longer knows what he wants.

-I wish to see the stars again. I was born a nymph of the sunset; starlight is precious to me. I want to see it again.

-Nico dies to preserve the memory of Zoë Nightshade.

100:

-Nico di Angelo wakes up in Westover Hall. He hopes for the last time.

-He does everything right: Annabeth goes over the cliff, his sister joins the Hunt, Percy is soon his friend, and he convinces Silena and Beckendorf to join the quest.

-The Nemean Lion never stands a chance, and Nico is glad to be rid of it.

-His sister lives.

-Nico watches Percy watch Rachel Elizabeth Dare go, looking like he’s just taken a frying pan to the face, and fights the urge to snicker.

-Thalia doesn’t start a fight with Nereus, but Percy certainly does. Nico could’ve sworn he saw the boy with sun-hair again, watching with curiosity.

- Zoë Nightshade dies in the arms of Artemis and is made into the stars she loves so dearly. Nico promises her soul that he will remember.

-For, he has found, the dead have a tendency of remembering things they shouldn’t.

-Annabeth and Percy now have grey streaks to match Nico’s, and Nico can’t wait to spend the rest of his life trying to explain that.

-It’s closer than he would like, but much less close than other lives with Olympus. The Ophiotaurus is alive and safe, and they are all alive.

-As Nico walks out of the council, he looks off to the side. By the fire is the familiar girl with red eyes--the Lady Hestia, looking much closer to Nico’s age than that of the Olympian she is.

-Besides her are three old ladies. Nico’s heard about them from Percy, in Loops 26, 53, 61, and 62.

-One lady holds a ball of string that is the color of a warm umber. The other is knitting what looked suspicious like socks. The last. . .

-Scissors, in one hand. Just as expected. Nico swallowed.

-In the other, was a knot of burnt string, tied to the socks. Behind her, Nico could see discarded string of all colors: an electric blue, a stormy grey, a black that seems to glisten with the promise of a storm, string the soft, hopeful pink of love, yarn run through with bright copper.

-Glowing threads that Nico could only describe as the color of starlight.

-As he walked out, firmly between Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace, the Hunt of Artemis behind him, Nico hears one last promise:

It is done, Nico di Angelo.

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the-art-of-animated-gifs · 3 years

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Interview with my friend A.L. Crego

I have not met A.L. Crego. I have not spoken with him on the phone, in fact I do not even know what he looks like. But I can confidently call him my friend. Three years ago when I started this blog he immediately disagreed with me in the comments about things I was writing and I loved it. As a person putting ideas out there, you treasure things like that....because you know someone cares. We have had many back and forth discussions over the years....if we had lived in Paris in 1911 we would be having arguments at La Rotonde (not to compare either of us to Picasso).

A.L. Crego is a motion artist who does a wide variety of things. He has now become a very visible and active figure in the NFT Movement. He recently completed a large and very successful project in which he animated the work of a number of well know street artists on the building themselves, something he has done for years. His Tumblr page is a good place to start to see his work, which is largely surrealist in nature -- another Spanish artist following in the footsteps of other great Spanish surrealist artists.

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How long have you been creating gif art?

In a conscious and intentional way since 2014. Previously I haven't pay too much attention on one hand for its common use that was mostly ads and funny little videos, and on the other hand because it was a 'standard' format we accepted as something part of the web so I never stopped to analyze its potential. The key point for me was about 2010-2011 when the concept of 'Cinemagraph' was brought to life just giving it a name. It's format is .gif but its characteristics are different so I saw there the midpoint between photography and video, which gave born another format of art.

Art mutates when a new format appears. I was using and studying this format since then but it wasn't until 2014 that I decided to publish some of them.

What is your background?

In general terms, bachelor, 2 years of stone sculpting and two attempts of photography and audiovisual mediums. I say attempts because I gave up both of them as I was feeling that I was looking for something else more than studying all the previous history, style and isms, which is nice to understand where everything comes from and to be aware what are the key points on the history to use as reference, as a map. But in some way I felt limited as I was using digital tools since I had my first computer with 14 years, and I was being taught things I learnt by then. Even more in this times we are living where we are 21 century people, been taught by teachers from the 20 with 19 century methods.

A constant line that feeds my background is literature and music overall and later Street Art, next to more temporal interests as everything related with mythology, alchemy, history, psychology, neurology, biology, human condition in general... I don't have studies buy I'm a studying guy!

I always like to highlight that all these years that internet got strong and social networks appeared, I decided voluntary to be out of them. First reason was to keep my privacy safe in a growing world where it seemed that some "curtain" felt and everybody accepted that intimacy was now 'ex-timacy' and correct to show their private life, (this shocked me). Another reason was about the psychological effect that social networks were having on people I had around and everywhere in general. I started to notice patterns and "waves" about series, aesthetics, styles, and I was seeing clearly that if I go there, I will become permeable to all this "Amniotic Culture" I was trying to avoid.

This fact of being far (but study them closely) helped me a lot about researching and developing my own ideas and style, for the mere fact that I was using all this time and attention Social Networks require, on drinking from another sources. The B-side of this is that I was 'out of the radar' of mass people as this social networks are designed to live inside them. My idea of internet and spreading ideas is not in this way.

Where do you live and work?

In the north west of Spain, Galicia. Now due to Covid I travel less but before it, I was working and traveling many places as I only need a camera and a computer. This allows me move to work anywhere.

Do you think that animated gifs are a new art form?

I think so, despite the fact that the format existed since 1987. But as every new format of art it takes its time to be considered as art. The first photographs were not considered art until many years later. Same happened with film, same with CGI. Is nice to have in mind that gif format is the last strictly digital format of the three main ones on the web: picture, video and gif. Photography has about 200 years of history, video about 130, CGI about 60. Finally gif has 33, and used as art itself no more than 10-15. In the same way anybody takes a picture of anything does not convert it into art, is the same with gifs. One thing is the format, another is the 'art'. Everybody can take a picture, record a video or do a gif. The difference is on the how, the why, and from my point of view overall, the what.

Do you think that there is a difference between pure .gif files and the .mp4 files that people post on Instagram?

The first, big and obvious difference is the format. Is not the same a painting as a picture of a painting. Here happens the same. For example, if you treat a gif with Cinemagraph technique, you are converting in picture some parts of the image, so they still remain and with the texture and totally stillness of a picture. If you convert this gif into a mp4 this still parts, despite not having motion, will convert into a video texture (noise, subtle motion in pixels, etc) so the main characteristic, among the perfect loop, is lost. Another point is that you must play a video, a gif is always running. Waterfalls are always running and this characteristic is something that is inside our human nature, we react nice to "bucle" motions as waterfalls, fire, etc. We find pleasure on this. Of course if it's a video the perfect loop is lost and the visual mantra disappear. And another key point here is the soundtrack. In a video you can use sound to enhance or give another meaning to the piece that you can't with gifs. For me this is another characteristic that give meaning to gif. For me gif is silence, the sound is generated by the motion, the melody are the details and the beat the perfect loop. You can "hear" almost every gif.

The difference between a gif and a video is the same that between a waterfall and a hose (if this works).

What do you think are the characteristics of good gif art?

For me first and overall the perfect loop. Not using it is not using the only format that has this characteristics. Of course there can be gif art that is not perfect loop, but from my point of view and in my work is a must. It's a new way not only of creating but also of thinking. Imagine an still scene is easy, imagine an A-B point action is easy. For me the challenge is about thinking an idea that is perfect looped where all the elements interact and eventually come back to its initial point. Succeed doing this is where the perfect loop appears and you are not able to find where is the start point of the action. Like a visual mantra, that it's repetition leads you inside the piece. Gif art is nice to use the power of the hypnotic movements. Another point to have in mind for me is the flow of it, the frame rate I mean. Depending on the idea and the kind of animation this should vary; is not the same fps to achieve something with flow than if you want to achieve a more 'retro' old style. Another thing is about dithering and color palette. This second one is essential to understand as it affects the final file. When we work with photo and video we are using millions of colors but when rendered as gifs all the gradients, lights and even colors will change if there is a previous understood of this point.

As summary: If motion doesn't add, change of enhance the meaning of the piece, is expendable.

I'd would like to add that I'm not really supporter of this kind of gifs generated automatically that just move a still image itself. I understand that this 'technique' is used as a tool for certain motion (I use it) but not to move a whole image. I feel the same as if somebody hold a painting in front of me and moves it randomly. If the work was born still, it must remain still. A good example of 'inner motion', this means that the motion is implicit on the image despite not being in motion, are the photographs of Cartier Bresson for example. Giving motion to this pictures for example, will kill it because it will break the concept of 'perfect instant' .

'Instant' differs etymologically from 'moment' in the motion. So, still image (painting, photo, sculpture, etc) is an instant, videos are stories with a-b point, and gifs are moments, the mid point.

How would you describe your gif art?

I usually condense it as "Visual Mantras", as the technique and the aesthetic vary depending on the idea , but in all of them the perfect loop and the intention of hypnotizing is always present.

In another terms about aesthetics and themes I think ‘Industrial Nature’ can fit nice. I use a lot of industrial elements but I like to mix their mechanics with the biological natural ones.

How long have you been creating and selling NFTs?

I am selling NFTs since mid 2019, but it wasn't until October 2020 that I focused more on it and dug into the ecosystem to find new paths to focus my work.

Do you think that NFTs are a positive for gif artists?

For me, and the main reason I jumped into cryptoart and NFT, is that now I can certify my digital work as original. Even more to gif works as they were always understood as something banal and minor for the context of its born. Gif art was born prostituted, used mostly for ads and to claim our attention on the internet, next to the highest glamour of painting and traditional art, and 3d, photography and video these last decades. Even worst if we realize that gif format was the only visual format born by and for the internet.

NFTs are totally positive for gif artists because despite being a digital/online native format it never had its own ecosystem to live in. I feel that I was creating creatures for an ecosystem I was waiting to drop them there. Now with the blockchain, NFTs and cryptoart, I found the place where they can live, being watched by everybody and have the certify that is my work. Until some months ago my work was "free" on the web and I had no control over it at all. This was a huge problem I was suffering since my first month into gif art as people use it indiscriminately with no credit at all. It's ok, and I always defend that my work is to be seen, to be shared, but I was looking for the way to be able to have this link with my work without losing the option of being available for everybody. NFT totally changes this.

What do you think will happen in the future as NFTs get even more popular?

In general terms I think it will happen the same as when print got more popular. People will use it more, a lot of crazy and useless things will appear, tons more of different uses and useful purposes, (not only on art). This opens a new door a lot of people was waiting so the future is unpredictable but we can feel where things are going. NFT arrived to stay and the concept of decentralization is something that was always present on the internet since first days but born inside a centralized system. NFTs are being a way for people to understand the 'peer to peer' philosophy and this makes people think in different codes, so we can expect a lot of new horizons, in art, music, design...

What do you think of the environmental impact of NFTs?

This question can goes really deep but in general terms I think that is something that is being oversized due to the hype and the boiling point we are, and it's understandable because is not false that it has an environmental impact, as everything does. But on the other hand I have two main areas in mind. The first and the obvious from my point of view is that when something is new and developing is less efficient, in the way that it requires more effort to achieve the result. But at the same time, the more this technology is used the more is developed and all this issues are part of it. The first car was not electric.

The second point that usually reverberates in my mind and that it seems that 'hard critics' omit is that they are not having in mind that this NFTs we mint, give us a profit that can be used offline to do another things that can be useful to solve this problem, for example, investing part of this money on living on our own in a minimal and clean way (not working for huge multinational that their environmental impact is tons times more than NFTs and then being part of an ONG to feel clean) and on using part of this money on looking and researching new ways to mint and to keep this digital ecosystem more efficient and clean. Every development needs time.

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If you have found this content valuable considering getting me a cup of coffee

#gif aesthetic #street art #surrealism

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mindmeltonabun-blog · 4 years

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Tale of the Nine Tailed: Analysis and Theories of Ep 8

Welcome to another edition of Mind Melt On A Bun’s analysis and theories of TOTNT. I hope you all will enjoy this post, but fair warning it’s once again another VERY LONG POST! So if you want to turn on your thinking cap and face the risk of your brain blowing up into a million pieces then feel free to keep reading!

Snail Bride and Her Husband

Ureongi gaksi (우렁이 각시) or Snail Bride is a Korean legend which tells about a poor farmer who breaks a taboo and marries a woman who is actually a snail. One day while working in the rice paddy field, the farmer says to himself, “Who will I eat this rice with?”. To which a voice replied, “With me.”. Having heard this voice, the man turned around to see who it was, but only saw a snail. After having heard that, the man found that each day after returning home from work, a meal was always prepared for him.

The farmer was curious of who had been preparing his meal. So one day he pretended to go to work in order to catch a sight of whoever it was that had been preparing his meal. To his surprise, he had seen a beautiful woman emerging from the snail shell. Having been blown away by her beauty, he immediately asked her to live with him instead of returning to the snail shell. However, the woman told him it was not time yet and to be patient. Being the persistent man that he was, he eventually got the Snail to marry him.

The farmer became plagued with the fear that his beautiful Snail Bride might one day be taken away from him so he instructed her to never leave the house. The Snail Bride listened to her husband and did as she was told until one day when her mother-in-law told the Snail Bride to go and deliver lunch to the farmer. And so, the Snail bride did as she was told. However, along the way, the Magistrate who was enamoured by her beauty decided to kidnap her and make her his bride. Despite the farmer’s many efforts, he never found his Snail Bride and ended up dying of a broken heart and being reborn as a blue bird. Tragic I know !!!

Anyways, when applying this story to TOTNT, you will find that Ji Ah’s boss had shared many similar characteristics to the farmer from the Snail Bride myth such as persistency. Other clues that supports the ideal that Ji Ah’s boss is the farmer can be seen in the conversation between Green Juice Lady. The first clue is his fear of flying. This could be seen as a side effect of him being reborn in a previous life as a blue bird. I bet if Ji Ah used those Eyebrows of a Tiger Glasses, she would see him as a bird blue.

The second clue was in what the Green Juice Lady said, “ What are you doing here?”. I interpreted this as her knowing him in the past as well as her not expecting to see the farmer’s reincarnated self in the same vicinity as the Snail Bride.

Green Juice Lady Origin

In Korean mythology, there is a creature by the name of “Dueoksini/Dokeoksini” (두억시니는 ) that kills you by crushing your head (figuratively or literally). In Korean mythology, this creature is seen as an in between of a dokkaebi/goblin and a yokai. Because Dueoksinis have been mostly been forgotten throughout Korean literature, they are usually refer to as being a type of Korean Yokai.

Or the way I like to view the Green Juice Lady is that she's basically Pennywise, Freddy Krueger, and the Boggart rolled into one. After all its like Frank Hebert once wrote in Dune: “Fear is the mind killer”.

Taluipa

In TOTNT, the character Taluipa is seen as being the goddess of birth and fate, Sansin Halmoni. Besides having the ability of controlling birth and fate, Taluipa also can also foresee the future as well as grant immortality (i.e her husband). Given all of this, it is likely that her child, Bok Gil, would’ve had some pretty powerful abilities because he came from such a superior mother.

Now not much is known about Taluipa’s son other than he had committed suicide. Furthermore, the act of suicide was seen as a such a bad taboo that ensured he could never be reborn/reincarnated. In the context of TOTNT, it is inferred that even if you sacrifice yourself for the one you love, it is still considered suicide.

Lee Yeon’s Original Plan For the Imoogi

I think originally Lee Yeon had planned to take the Imoogi into himself and subsequently kill himself. However, when faced with the possibility that this would mean Lee Yeon could not be reincarnated, Ah Eum decided it was better that Lee Yeon killed her because at least she could be reincarnated.

Now you may think that well if Ah Eum sacrificed herself for the one she loves, isn’t that contradictory to what I said earlier about how sacrificing yourself for the one you love is still considered suicide and thus meant you couldn’t be reborn? It really doesn’t and here’s why. Remember that at this time, Ah Eum already had the Imoogi inside of her so her death by Lee Yeon’s hands were not seen as a sacrificial suicide. Rather, it was seen as him killing a greater evil and preventing the deaths of hundreds. Thus, this meant that Ah Eum could be reincarnated. Had Ah Eum ran into Lee Yeon’s knife or stabbed herself in the temporary moment she gain back control of her body, then that would’ve been seen as sacrificial suicide.

If both Lee Yeon and Ah Eum were able to find a loop hole at the very last minute that ensured Ah Eum’s reincarnation, I am sure that this time around Lee Yeon will be able to find a better loop hole given that he has had more time to than previously as well as learning from his past mistakes as it pertains to the Imoogi. I largely believe that this loop hole will have something to do with the favor Lee Yeon had asked of Taluipa’s husband. Maybe the favor Lee Yeon is asking Taluipa’s husband for is the elixir of life that is located in the Underworld (Hint: read my posts about Princess Bari). I think that Lee Yeon will want it just in case either him or Ji Ah dies in their battle against the Imoogi. Such an elixir could revive them!

Taluipa’s Son/Bok Gil = The Imoogi

As previously mentioned, I had theorized that Taluipa’s son, Bok Gil, must have been one hell of a powerful being given that his mom was a powerful Goddess herself. As to what those abilities could have been, it is still a mystery. However, I feel like his powers would’ve been connected the ones Taluipa had (i.e birth, fate, and ability to see what others cannot see). Again, not much was mentioned about him other than he committed suicide and that his name was Bok Gil.

Now let’s look at the Imoogi, we know that he has the power of life (bringing the bird back to life), death (sucking the life out of his nannies), and rebirth (being reborn as that boy).

By the way, I think it’s interesting that the cycle of life, death, and rebirth is represented as an “Ouroboros” or a snake eating its tail. Coincidence? I think not.

Anyways back to what else we know about the Imoogi. We know that he was born in a leap year as well as being born in a place between the living and dead (btw Lee Yeon was born in 420AD also a leap year..possible connection somehow?). The Imoogi could also see what others don’t see such as your soul and your deepest emotions.

If you think about it, when Bok Gil committed suicide, his soul/body was neither in the land of the living nor the dead. He was in between those two realms or in limbo. Connecting this to the fact that the Imoogi said he was born in a place between the living and dead, there is a significant possibility that Bok Gil is indeed the Imoogi. Furthermore, if you look at the kinds of power the Imoogi has and the powers that Taluipa has, you will find that they are strangely similar or related. If that doesn’t convince you enough then just compare the voice of Bok Gil to that of the Imoogi!

Imoogi and Lee Yeon

Initially, I had thought the Imoogi had wanted Lee Yeon for his fox bead (a kind of Yeouiju) so that it could become a dragon, but now I am beginning to think there’s more to the story than just Lee Yeon’s bead. If indeed Bok Gil is the Imoogi then I am left to wonder what kind of relationship did Lee Yeon have with Bok Gil before he died. Furthermore, could Lee Yeon have been part of the reason why Bok Gil committed suicide in the first place? If Lee Yeon had been part of the reason why Bok Gil committed suicide, then I can totally understand why Bok Gil/Imoogi would want to try to exact his revenge and/or anger on Lee Yeon. Maybe Bok Gil was jealous of Lee Yeon for getting more attention from his own parents than he was or maybe Lee Yeon got the girl he was interested in or maybe Lee Yeon was really mean and had bullied him or maybe the person who Bok Gil had died for (aka a loved) was somehow connected to Lee Yeon. I don’t know, I’m just purely theorizing and for all we know all the Imoogi wants is just Lee Yeon’s fox bead so that it can become a dragon.

Black and White Imagery

Other things I found interesting is the usage of black and white in Ep 8. For example, the shirts Lee Rang and Lee Yeon wears, the colors of the stones of the “Go Game”, and the cars in the background of the parking lot Lee Yeon was in.

Typically, the color combination of black and white represents Yin/Yang, Good/Evil, and Life/Death. In either cases, the concept is the same. Both represent the concept of dualism or the ideal that everything is interdependent, interconnected, and interrelated. Meaning you can’t have Yin without Yang, Good without Evil, and Life without Death. Or in the case of Lee Yeon standing in between the two cars and the two doors, both Lee Rang and Ah Eum/Ji Ah’s lives and fate were interdependent, interconnected, and interrelated to that of Lee Yeon’s.

Episode 9 Predictions

Lee Yeon will get Lee Rang out of the Forest of the Preta and Lee Rang will realize that his brother never really abandoned him in the first place. Additionally, their time in the Forest of the Preta is like a blessing in disguise because it helped both brothers to resolve the misunderstanding that occurred 600 years ago.

Now with Ji Ah, I think she will overcome her fear of the car accident. However I think she will be faced with another fear of hers which is seeing Lee Yeon die. I think she will overcome this too, but the Green Juice Lady will pull out one last trick out of the bag. Instead of making Ji Ah relieve some of her worst nightmares, she will make Ji Ah live in a world where all her dreams have come true such as having her parents back and Lee Yeon by her side. The Green Juice Lady will do this as a way to make sure that Ji Ah would never want to leave. After all, why leave a world where all your dreams come true right? Plus, Ji Ah’s mentality will become weaker because she will start to believe that the dream world she is living in is a reality. Therefore, in order to win against the Green Juice Lady, one must have a strong mind that is not killed by fear nor weaken by fantastical delusions.

This kind of reminds of the creature, “Black Mercy”, from Super Girl. Briefly, “Black Mercy” is alien parasite that makes its host dream their perfect fantasy world while it feeds off of them. The only way for the host to get the “Black Mercy” to detach itself is for the host to realize that the fantasy world they are living in is not real. So for Ji Ah, maybe she would have to do the same on her own or it would take Lee Yeon coming into her dreamworld in order for her to realize this.

Last Remarks

For all of those who are still left confused as to why Lee Yeon chose to save Lee Rang first, you can check it out here:

https://mindmeltonabun-blog.tumblr.com/post/633271037441818624/tale-of-the-nine-tailed-ep-7-thoughts-and

And if you’re too lazy to click/read all of that post, I’ll put it simply here:

In the past, Lee Yeon chose to go after Ah Eum first instead of saving Lee Rang from the villagers burning down the mountain. So this time around Lee Yeon did not want to make the same mistake twice and also Lee Yeon wanted to atone for his past mistakes. Plus, Lee Yeon knew that between Lee Rang and Ji Ah, Lee Rang had the weaker mentality so he would need more saving than Ji Ah would.

Happy Readings! I need a drink now after writing all of this !

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shemakesmusic-uk · 3 years

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HARD FEELINGS, the new collaborative project of Hot Chip's Joe Goddard and Amy Douglas, have signed to Domino and unveiled their debut outing 'Holding On Too Long' which is teamed with a Katie Paul-directed video. Douglas says of their debut single, "'Holding On Too Long' is the common denominator of the entire musical union of Amy and Joe. In this "opera of sad bangers" here is its key aria, its "Un Bel Di" from Madame Butterfly or the "Mad Scene" from Lucia Di Lammermour, the unforgettable moment of the story wherein our heroine stands up defiantly and has her moment to wail, scream and cry her pain and fury centre stage to the world." HARD FEELINGS was formed after Goddard reached out to Douglas on Twitter after hearing her work, and simply asking: "Amy, can we make a thing?" [via Line Of Best Fit]

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After recently announcing her debut album Flaw Flower is due June 25 via Illegal Data, London-based musician Harriet Zoe Pittard, aka Zoee, is sharing another slice of her multi-faceted art-pop sounds with her new single'Host'. Speaking about the track, Zoee said "‘Host’ describes the disconcertingly replicant-like nature of a once starry-eyed lover who becomes increasingly detached. The video is inspired by The Twilight Zone and was shot on location in a forest close to where I grew up in Berkshire."

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Nashville-based songwriter Madi Diaz releases 'Nervous,' a new single about recognizing unhealthy coping mechanisms. The song’s frank lyrics are bellied by infectious guitar and Diaz’s buoyant voice: “I know why I lie to myself // I’m not really looking to get healthy // I have so many perspectives I’m losing perspective I make me nervous.” The accompanying video was shot in Nashville and directed by Jordan Bellamy. It was inspired by and includes an homage to the final scene of Andrei Tarkovsky's film The Stalker, a film that has always resonated with Diaz through its otherworldly nature, as well as its thoughtful and often anxiety inducing pace. “You know when you hold a mirror up to a mirror and you get an infinite amount of reflections from every angle? That’s what ‘Nervous’ is about,” says Diaz. “It’s when you’re in a loop of looking at yourself from every vantage point until you’re caught up in your own tangled web of bullshit. It’s about catching yourself acting out your crazy and you’re finally self-aware enough to see it, but you’re still out of your body enough and curious enough to watch yourself do it.”

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Buzzy duo XVOTO have announced that their eagerly-awaited debut EP will be arriving on June 4 on One Two Many. Sharing new single ‘Friends’ alongside the news, Jazz Alonso explains that the track is rooted in “the people who have irreversibly changed you and then having to pretend you’re unphased by them when you’re in the same room. Meanwhile you’re trying to work out what your new boundaries are: can you talk about the past? Can you cry together? Can you show how much pain you’re in around them? ‘If you fish me, I’ll play dead’ means: if you make a move, I’ll pretend I’m dead inside and don’t want you back.” Accompanied by a new vid, Jazz adds, “For this video I always imagined an aquarium because of the fish lyrics and because I think looking at fish in a tank is a really nice symbol of looking back at a relationship: you’ll always have your take on it and feel you have control over that narrative cause it’s a memory, but the reality is that truth is fluid and moves. You’re not looking at an image, you’re looking at something that’s alive. Then the scenes of us getting tattooed on our backs are symbols for something beautiful that scars you - you might move on from something but it’ll still inform the way you move forward. In the video there’s some cheating, some reminiscing, some beauty and some pain.” [via DIY]

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Ashe has released new cut 'Me Without You' as the latest singe off her debut album Ashlyn. It comes teamed with a Jason Lester-directed video. Ashe says of the new single, "'Me Without You' is my follow up to 'Moral Of The Story'. It's saying you thought that I needed you to be who I am. There is my past relationship...I had multiple people... You know, assumed that I needed them in my life to feel confident or to be me and "Me Without You" is just this record that's like, ‘Ooh, I am so good on my own'." [via Line Of Best Fit]

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Mia Nicolai is a true internationalist. Born in Amsterdam to a Russian mother, she learned from a young age to move between languages and cultures, accepting them as equal. This all fuels her future-pop vision, a trans-genre approach laden with colour, one that picks from multiple sources. New single 'People Pleaser' is a surging, coherent, ultra-potent offering, a song that dwells on identity, and the processes by which it is defined. "This song is about the journey towards finding yourself," she explains. "It can be very difficult to be true to your inner values when all you do is please the people around you instead of your inner needs. I’ve always come across as a strong-minded person. But in reality, I’m capable of helping everyone BUT myself. At some point I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin that I couldn’t even breathe properly..." We're able to share the dazzling new video, directed by Isabelle Griffioen and produced by That’s What She Set. A surreal but completely engaging experience, it embodies everything Mia Nicolai sets out to do - put people on the back foot, and alert them to her presence. [via Clash]

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Singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams has shared her poignant new single 'Mess It Up' and its accompanying video via Interscope Records. Directed by Matty Peacock, the video for 'Mess It Up' finds Abrams attempting to bake a cake and repeatedly dropping the gorgeously frosted final product on the ground. That bittersweet back-and-forth between determination and disappointment is a perfect match for Abrams’s incisive lyrics, which simultaneously convey a deep longing for forgiveness and an unshakable sense of frustration. Produced by and co-written with her frequent collaborator Blake Slatkin, the track’s stark guitar work and driving rhythms slowly take on a powerful momentum, ultimately building to a sweetly triumphant climax. [via Vacancy]

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Vocalist and guitarist Maya Delilah shares the visuals for her new single 'Need A Word With Cupid'. The track unravels into a punchy number that gives you a hit of both dopamine and female empowerment. Written about realising your worth after a relationship breakup, Maya’s lyrics are little witty statements that we can all use to remind ourselves who the hell we are. “Last Tuesday morning I just realised you’re shit” – it’s the truth. The video sees her waiting in cupid’s reception ready to get her money back because, damn, this boy was not worth her energy. At. All. 'Need A Word With Cupid' is a brilliant narrative that’s not only relatable but also incredibly good. Brimming with smooth guitar tones and a catchy beat, this is a single that leaves you wanting so much more. A self-love anthem for the modern woman, 'Need A Word With Cupid' is an indie-pop bop. Maya says: “'Need A Word With Cupid' was written after my breakup when I felt a sudden hit of empowerment after the realisation that my ex was not worth another tear over. It’s an energetic and uplifting song with soul influences and of course a guitar solo to end.“ [via LOCK]

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With her debut EP Digital Meadow arriving on May 28, Dora Jar is sharing the video for her single ‘Multiply’. “I am my truest form when I am changing shape, morphing sounds, and shifting my point of view,” she says of the forthcoming EP. “This project is an exploration of my impulse to shape-shift. That’s my ambition.” [via DIY]

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Telenova's new-arriving single 'Tranquilize' makes it two-from-two for the band, deeper solidifying their rich blend of sounds while showing how it can move into further areas, taking on new energies - or emphasising other energies - as more songs come to light. 'Tranquillize', for example, has a heavier weighting on that live instrumentation, giving the song this more alt-pop-meets-R&B spin when combined with Angeline's brilliant-as-ever vocals. As she explains, the single was the first for Telenova, written on the day they began working with one another. "I was actually flicking through a thesaurus and the word ‘Tranquilize’ jumped out at me, it just rang so nicely on the tongue and was so inherently visceral," she says. "I was humming gibberish over the hypnotic Rhodes chords that Josh had laid down, and we heard what sounded like ‘Poseidon’s on the water’ - it was the first time in a writing session with Ed and Josh, and the first time I’d been in a writing session where a poetic, literary lyric idea like that wasn’t shunned and coined as ‘unrelatable’. It resonated. We followed the thread, playing into Siren mythology as a metaphor for falling in love - the power of attraction to transfix and tranquillize you." The single also arrives with an official video clip, directed by Angeline - solidifying her multi-talented craft. "I wanted to capture the world of the song in a Lynchian-inspired dreamscape - starry-eyed and a little unhinged - but like, David Lynch meets Gucci," she says. [via Pilerats]

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International superstar P!nk has more than two decades of experience topping the global pop charts, and she is here to continue her reign with the new single 'All I Know So Far'. 'All I Know So Far' was produced by pop mastermind Greg Kurstin and co-written with the songwriting duo Benj Pasek & Justin Paul. The single comes off of her upcoming album All I Know So Far: Setlist, due out on RCA Records on May 21. The accompanying video for 'All I Know So Far' tells Pink’s life story with help from Cher, Judith Light, and Carey Hart. The visuals, directed by longtime collaborator Dave Meyers, also features an appearance from her daughter Willow. The new album will feature live recordings from her 2019 'Beautiful Trauma World Tour' along with a recording of her highly-buzzed MTV Video Vanguard Award acceptance speech. P!nk’s daughter Willow will also make an appearance on the album with the song 'Cover Me in Sunshine', which the singer previously shared back in February. [via Consequence]

#videos of the week #hard feelings #zoee #madi diaz #xvoto #ashe #mia nicolai #gracie abrams #maya delilah #dora jar #telenova #p!nk

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tarysande · 5 years

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Hello, I love your lucifer thoughts, and if you want to write it I would love to now your thoughts on lucifer using names/nicknames

I’ve thought about this a lot. I even touched on my personal headcanon about it in the last chapter of Taking the Fall :)

Obviously, Lucifer uses nicknames or alternative names a lot. I think he says the word “Chloe” less than a dozen times across three seasons, while he uses “Detective” or “the Detective” hundreds. She’s even saved as “the Detective” in his phone.

So, let’s start at the beginning. (In the beginning...) The show has drawn from many sources to construct Lucifer Morningstar as we know him. Obviously, we’ve got the comics. Personally, I see a bit more of Neil Gaiman’s Lucifer than Mike Carey’s (and, to be completely honest, I feel like a bit of Gaiman’s Crowley may be mixed in there as well). In Carey’s comics, Lucifer is much more able to think in the Very Long Term, for example, and is essentially always acting on a Plan of his own (which creates a neat parallel between God and Lucifer, but I digress). Gaiman’s Lucifer is the one who is Done with Hell and basically hands over the keys; he’s also the one who cuts off his wings; he’s the one who speaks the great lines the show used to such effect--about not being responsible for humanity’s sins and disliking that he’s blamed for things he’s not responsible for. He’s also the one who retires to LA, starts a nightclub called Lux, and really has a thing for sunsets. Gaiman was also the one who established that Lucifer was once called Samael. Gaiman’s Lucifer is heavily influenced by Milton’s Paradise Lost iteration of Lucifer (he of “It’s better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” fame; Milton’s Lucifer gets all the best lines). He’s not distinctly (or solely) comprised of Christian or Jewish mythologies, though both influence the character.

In his short story, “Murder Mysteries,” (which features the same Lucifer he incorporated into the Sandman comics) Gaiman establishes at length how angels are named. First, they include “el”, which means, “of God.” The other part of their name indicates their purpose. Samael, depending on the translation, can mean venom, poison, or blindness of God. I don’t know about you, but if my name was Poison, I’d probably feel like I got the short end of the naming stick. This is contrasted, of course, by the same angel carrying the name (or perhaps title), Lucifer. When Gaiman introduces him, it’s by another character saying, “He was the Creator's finest creation: the angel Samael, called Lucifer. It means ‘the bringer of light.’ Of all the angels he was the wisest, the most beautiful, the most powerful. Saving only his Creator, he is, perhaps, the most powerful being there is.”

When Lucifer Fell, he abandoned the name Samael. He rejected it. Poison or not, he was no longer “of God.” Whether out of spite or anger or truth, Lucifer rejects the name his Father gave him in favor of the title. He identifies himself as Bringer of Light; this is the name he chooses. In the show, we witness Lucifer’s reaction to Samael when Linda speaks it. It angers him. Upsets him. After all this time, he is not indifferent to it. And though he claims not to care about many things related to his past, the name is very obviously a match to very dry tinder.

Names, to Lucifer, mean something beyond just monikers to identify one individual instead of another. Names having power is pretty common in mythology. The show also indicates that angels, specifically, can be summoned by prayer--presumably invoking their names with intention; Lucifer summons both Amenadiel and Uriel this way. It’s unknown whether Lucifer can still be summoned (or hear) prayers. It’s also unknown whether that prayer would have to be directed at his of-God angel name; still, I think there are many reasons why Lucifer holds names at arm’s length.

Names are also intimate; knowing them and using them can indicate deeper relationships, connections. Even with all the growth we’ve seen in Lucifer, he is still leery (if not afraid, though he’d never put it that way) of intimacy, friendship, connection. Lucifer has, for almost the entirety of his existence, been alone. Even when he wasn’t physically alone, his relationships have been marked by power imbalances. In Heaven, he was “of God”--created for a purpose and pretty unrepentantly “part of God’s plan.” In Hell, he was Lord and Master; Maze is/was the closest thing he had to a friend, and we continue to see how unbalanced that relationship was. You can’t truly be friends with someone when you see them as an underling, an employee, as belonging to you in a manner that implies use.

This question of usefulness is a huge one, and probably deserving of its own meta, but since it also comes back to names, I’ll touch on it quickly: Again, from the beginning of his existence, Lucifer has existed to be of use--first, as God’s brightest angel; then, as Lord of Hell. This notion of usefulness as balance or quid pro quo is woven so intrinsically into Lucifer’s understanding of himself that it very nearly becomes his definition. Balance, justice, an eye for an eye--all of these things are irrevocably part of the fabric of Lucifer. When he desires something, he doesn’t just take; he trades. To be certain the trade is equal, he asks what the subject of his desire desires, essentially asking, “What can I give you that’s equal to what I wish to take from you?” It’s also the basis of his favors: “If I do this for you, you owe me in equal measure; this is non-negotiable.”

Because Samael was, in his mind, treated unfairly, Lucifer (light-bringer meaning both physical light and the light of truth) has unbreakable codes of fairness. They may not always look like a human understanding of fairness, but Lucifer’s internal morality (ironically) is pretty sacrosanct. Essentially, he may be judge and jury and punisher, but he does make sure the trial is fair. In Sandman, Hell builds itself around Lucifer. This may not be explicitly stated on the show, but the notion of hell-loops and guilt and punishment equaling the crime are all very Luciferian. Did Hell alter itself to suit his sense of justice? Or did Hell’s justice affect Lucifer? (Given that we do know at least a little about pre-Hell Samael/Lucifer, I think it’s more the former.)

So, nicknames. Lucifer uses positive nicknames and negative ones. The tone is important. Brother can be scornful, angry, frustrated, almost spiteful. And sometimes, especially as Lucifer and Amenadiel’s relationship changes over time, it can be genuine and even grateful. Brother/sister/Mum are actually really important, I think. These are family relationships that have been all but severed for an unfathomable amount of time, but Lucifer still uses them (and not always sarcastically or with derision). Tellingly, his family still uses brother/son with him, as well. Lucifer still wants connection, but he no longer trusts it; it can be taken from him. Using nicknames/epithets is a way to keep people at a distance--he makes them their job, their position (the Detective, obviously, but also Dr. Linda); in some cases, he keeps things formal (Ms. Lopez); in others, the nickname is openly scornful (Detective Douche; sneering Cain--the secret name; the murderer’s name--instead of using Pierce).

Lucifer diminutizes names when he’s lording over people or displaying superiority (Pierce becomes Piercy; Reece becomes Reecy. Reece actually has a bunch of nicknames, and you can always tell how Lucifer feels about the guy at any given moment based on how he refers to him). He calls criminals by their crimes (“Hello, murderer.”), relegating them to their crimes, their sins, their actions, and taking away the humanity of a name full-stop. Sometimes Lucifer’s nicknames are tools, sometimes they’re weapons; I think sometimes they’re even gifts, or at least an attempt to create a connection even though the most intimate or closest avenue (just using their name) is still too much for him (Dr. Linda is not the very formal Dr. Martin; Ms. Lopez is very occasionally ‘dear Ella’; he uses darling, love, lovely a lot--mostly positive, but again, tone is a factor. I’d hate to be on the wrong end of a scornful or hateful darling).

Also related to power/superiority is his insistence that people use his name--the name he chose, that he adopted. Ella swiftly changes Luce to Lucifer. Similarly, he is very open about the identity he adopted--the Devil. When things arise to question that identity or poke at it too hard, he becomes unsettled, even untethered. The wings/devil face of S3 was all about this notion of forced rather than chosen identity (at least as he saw it).

Though he is initially scornful, however, he does let his family use nicknames--again, I think that’s part of some long-buried part of him that wants to belong but just does not want to belong as Samael (that is, on his father’s terms). So, Amenadiel calls him Luci. Azrael calls him Lu. Neither gets the violent, visceral response of Linda’s Samael.

Obviously, a whole separate essay could be written on Lucifer’s use (and not use) of Chloe/the Detective. He uses her name when he’s at his most desperate and his happiest. He uses her name, in short, when he’s at his most vulnerable. Sometimes, he’s accepting of this vulnerability (when he’s praying to his father) and sometimes, I don’t think he realizes how vulnerable he is (when he’s just announced to Maze and Mum that he and Chloe are real). In essence, he treats her name as something near-holy, almost sacred. She holds power over him, whether he’s conscious of it or not; her immunity to his power is part of it--she is, in essence, unknowable because he cannot fall back on the familiar to understand her. His feelings for her, obviously, are another part of it; this is a very particular and uncomfortable kind of vulnerability that he both craves and is terrified of (caring about something that much means it can hurt you, and the last time he cared, he was hurt beyond all belief--and certainly, in his mind, in a manner committed the unforgivable crime of being unjust).

So, after all this discussion, I think the takeaway is that Lucifer uses nicknames as weapons to wield or consolidate power, shields to keep himself at a distance and defend himself from hurt, jokes to deflect, arrows to wound (and, ironically, usually those harsh nicknames are poison-tipped). And all of this is rooted in his own very complicated history with names--and with how names have been used to influence him or inflict pain, especially concerning power/powerlessness, control, and choice.

#lucifer on netflix #lucifer morningstar #lucifer meta #lucifer thoughts #lucifer analysis #asks and answers #Anonymous #long text post #if brevity is the soul of wit i'm doomed #i could've gone on for fifty more pages

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listing-to-port · 6 years

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Seven unusual instruments

1. Carnivorous piccolo, small but very nibbly, can wriggle through pipes. One of the sqeakier ways of chasing mice out of your house, though usually it is only able to eat beetles. Probably got cursed by someone at some point. Interestingly, occasionally normal sweary cursing gets picked up by a fairy and transmuted into magical cursing. Bear this is mind when deciding where and when to practice your instrument.

2. The horn that summons long-lost kings from where they sleep under the ground. All of them. It's not fussy. Some of them are a little decayed but when the power of mythology calls, well, you kind of have to obey. It'll be an interesting day when someone finds the horn and blows it. It's not particularly well-hidden. As I understand it, it's currently in the cellar of an expert on legal and successional issues pertaining to monarchies. Just in case times get hard and a great deal more business is suddenly needed.

3. The world's largest violin, for truly momentous tales of woe. The theoretical maximum size of the world's largest violin is a function of several constraints, including the ability of the structure to hold itself together without collapsing, the earth's gravity and available wood supply, the dimensions and free space available in major landmasses, and the hypothetical point at which any makers you approach to construct it start to tell you you are taking the piss. That said, there may come a time in the future where the world's largest violin is needed, and you can be sure there are any number of time travellers who have already (in some senses) booked tickets for its inaugural concert.

4. Lonely piano, no strings attached, this may be part of the problem. Since the incident that did for the stings it has been haunted by a very quiet poltergeist who is able, with some effort, to wheel it around from the inside. So it usually spends its days by the roadside, setting off on pointless chases after things that look like they might have harvestable stringy things: for example, spaghetti trucks, people with unravelling jumpers, and passing maypoles.

5. Space drums. You may think there's be a problem here relating to the various things that nobody can hear you do in space, and you'd be right. However, this is not the point of space drums. Who knows where they came from originally, but each set of space drums has found itself in a looping orbit through this or that galaxy which will one day lead to them encountering a planet with an atmosphere. The unpredictable nature of sound propagation through a random atmosphere is part of the stochastic nature of art, man. As is the question of whether they will burn up or melt on entry to the atmosphere, or whether the planet they encounter is not that much larger than a space drum, leading to a very loud catastrophe.

6. Some xylophones are works of art; some are works of revenge. Who knows how a tree may have offended in order to make someone wish to play a tune on its bones. Possibly not by very much, blocking the view perhaps, dropping a branch on a shed. But be sure if you do take revenge on a tree this way, and the tree has any roots left in the ground to grow again, there will be a dryad down there researching designs for bone flutes.

7. A theremin that achieved sentience following an accident in a spooky laboratory. Having spent its formative years in a succession of haunted houses, alien planets and generally sinister situations, it has acquired a conspiracy theory or two. Occasionally it says 'ooo' when someone nearby says something near it that it believes to be controversial, but so far this behaviour has been ascribed to malfunctions only. Only after the upgrade project, when it becomes an internet-connected theremin, will humanity realise what has befallen.

#lists #music #instruments #unusual

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peachesannndgravy · 6 years

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Icarus Falls... in this essay.

Finals are over && I can finally write the dissertation ICARUS FALLS deserves. I briefly talked about it on another post; thus, here’s the full essay that played in my mind. Click to read the nearly 1K worded essay?

Firstly, there are 2 discs && each disc has a different theme which relate to Icarus’ story. In Greek mythology, Icarus && their father Daedalus (creator of the Labyrinth) are held captive in a tower by King Minos of Crete who doesn’t want them to divulge the secret of the Labyrinth. The structure is underneath Mino’s court where a minotaur fiercely guards it. Given the dangers, Daedalus proceeds to create a set of wings for Icarus by binding feather and wax. After teaching Icarus to fly, both flew out of the tower seeking freedom. However, Daedalus had warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun because the wax would melt and dissolve the wings. Icarus in a rush of adrenaline && pleasure did not pay heed to Daedalus’ warning && flew too high; the wax melted, his wings dissolved && both fell to the sea, but only Icarus drowned.

The album I believe correlates from the moment both Icarus && Daedalus jump out of window of the tower about to take off. Hence, the first part of the album is all about movement, transformation && fluidity. Moreover, it is very optimistic. For the first track, Let Me, Zayn appeals to their lover to take their relationship to the next level (a theme of fulfillment and transformation). Natural follows the same path. Z croons about their love imbued by forces of nature—the ocean && its waves && a hurricane (all forces that have repetitive circular movements like the swimming motion used to flap wings).

Similarly, Back to life, Common, Imprint, && Stand Still are songs where Z reflects on how their life was transformed by their lover. Z thanks their lover for their presence, for giving meaning to their life, for the lessons on love and their spiritual connection. Yet, Z seems to plead for their love to endure their flaws, differences && hopes growth can save them. I feel that Icarus didn’t take note of their father’s warning because the sun beckoned Icarus; much like Z feels captivated by their lover.

The tension of the album begins on Tonight && extends till Icarus Interlude. During Tonight, Z confesses inner turmoil in their relationship && implores their lover that at least when their loving each other to forget the drama. Z will withstand Armageddon; however, Z asks, “What have I done?” sounding frustrated, which bleeds onto If I Got You with “I don’t care, wherever you been cause now you’re with me.” In Talk to me, Z keeps repeating “talk to me” numerous times; thus, increasing the tension. However There you are && I don’t mind are songs where Z acknowledges their faults && a forgiving lover. Z sounds remorseful && admits in the latter song that their lover may hurt them, but they don’t mind.

Then, Icarus Interlude is the fall, the volta, the pause.

Z dictates for everyone to call them Icarus because the sun scorched them.&& only swarms of fake people swarm Z who in return lies to them—also liars. Henceforth, the album feels like spiraling emotions mimicking Icarus’s descending to the sea just like Z && their lover.

In Good Guy, Z warns anyone to never fall for them as they sing, “I’m a bad man.” Equally during You wish you knew: “Don’t wanna be the one that you choose.”

The difficulties Z encounters are described in Sour Diesel && Satisfaction where everything is difficult && burns around Z as the relationship appears to falling apart. The blurry feeling of falling reflect in TV screens during Scripted where Z can’t tell what is real or not. They appear as lies as Z sings in Entertainer who now feels ahead of the game && warns their lover that they won’t be fooled. Is this Icarus realizing their falling to their death && reality sinks in? Or is Z simply accepting of whatever comes their way as sung in All that leaving all fucks behind?

Apparently, Z cares. Good years reminds listeners that Z hates where they find themselves… is Z still falling? Yes. Z’s feeling under pressure && needs Fresh Air. Yet, their lover’s lies keep sprouting out of their mouth in Rainberry. The lies torment Z who recounts in Insomnia how the future appears bleak with no peace in sight && they feel foolish for waiting for a love that may never return. This is evident in No candle, no light where Z is determined to not wait around; still, Z is heartbroken && wants to reach out to their lover during Fingers && feels that words may be subversive, leaving Z in a spinning room, consumed. It all becomes Too Much, && Z admits that they didn’t mean to fall (as Icarus probably didn’t mean to fly toward the sun), but it happened. Z just wants to love && a touch…. Icarus just wanted to fly high.

Well, this is what played in my mind. It’s worth mentioning that I likened Icarus to John Milton’s Lucifer from Paradise Lost. In the same fashion Lucifer spiraled toward Earth as they were banished from Heaven for their hubris. Similarly, you could say that Icarus’ hubris is responsible for their death. I pictured Icarus && Z spiraling down. The connections are all about movement—whether it’s upwards, sideways or downwards. The music too has various loops, && tempo that matched the spiraling ascendance or descendance of Z’s storytelling. Listen, Z took their time && it fkn shows. I literally have much more to say on the album && the connections I keep finding but I’ll keep them to myself. Now, it’s your turn to appreciate Z’s masterpiece.

#zayn #icarus falls #album review #thoughts #zquad #ztan #z2 #zayn malik

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cookiedoughmeagain · 6 years

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Haven DVD Extras - Episode commentary notes for Sarah

Episode commentary with Lilla and Nora Zuckerman. Comments from me in [square brackets] everything else is from the Zuckermans, though not necessarily word for word.

Known as “the time travel episode” it may be surprising we haven’t done a time travel plot before this on Haven, although it could be said we weren’t allowed to do one until season three and actually at this point in the series is a good time to do time travel because we’ve established a lot of mythology, but there are still a lot of unanswered questions so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to delve into the deeper history of Haven, Audrey and the Crocker family curse.

When we first pitched a time travel idea, the one thing for sure we knew we wanted was to meet Sarah, who you don’t know very much about yet.

What’s interesting about this first scene [Duke reading the Crocker journal] is that in the original draft this was actually the third scene of the episode because we had a dream sequence where Duke had a nightmare that he was being attacked, and he killed his assailant and turned on the lights and it was Audrey Parker. And so he was woken up by this disturbing dream and that was what started him on the path of examining his family’s journal. That scene was shot but in the end was deemed unnecessary so the story started a little later.

The beach Duke lands on was Hubbard’s Beach, not far from where they Grey Gull set is.

In thinking about a cell phone appearing in the ‘50s, we switched Duke’s phone to a more sleek, brick-like device so that it wouldn’t have any weird buttons on it. One of the other debates we had at the beginning was how does the time travel work in the sense of; what travels with him? Does his cell phone travel with him? Do his clothes travel with him, or is he arriving on the beach naked, Terminator-style? That would have posed some problems maybe, but I’m sure some of the fans would have loved it. But then we would need to deal with Duke having to find clothes etc.

The Shore Club is a real place in the area where we shoot and on summer weekend evenings, this is the happening place to be; packed with people and a band playing. We were amazed to see how populated this scene is; the crew went above and beyond to get a whole crowd of people in there and everyone in period dress. It looks amazing.

The existing Haven PD set was redressed for 1955 and we figured things might not have changed all that much. The set looks great and this episode was a challenge for almost every single department, from the sets to hair and make-up and the actors, especially Emily who really had to reimagine a whole new character. And everyone really stepped up to the challenge and we couldn’t be happier with the result.

And even for the present-day scenes the crew got no rest because they still had to transform Haven again into an alternate timeline with the comic shop. So the crew really worked overtime to transform Haven twice.

It was funny because there were people in the town tweeting photos of the comic store set, like ‘omg you guys are doing a comic booked themed episode’. So maybe we will do that eventually!

One of the challenges that we had with sending Duke into the past was, how are we going to deal with the fact that he has long hair? Becuase you probably wouldn’t see many guys in 1955 with hair that long. And if there were, they might have found themselves in some trouble with everyone looking at them sideways. So we thought it was really funny that everybody thinks he’s Native American.

So [as Duke is having the idea to write to Audrey] we may have borrowed this a little from Back to the Future II, but we figure Duke has also seen Back to the Future, so it works. And why wouldn’t he write a letter to himself? So we have fun thing planned; we dug up the original text of what the letter says, which I don’t think you get to see on camera, but you have to have it in case it did end up being visible on screen. So if you would have seen it, this is the letter that Duke wrote:

“Dear Audrey,

Help. I’m stuck in 1955. The morning you should receive this letter, I visited a guy named Stuart Mosley. I found him at [“whatever address we ended up using”]. Surprise! He’s Troubled and I think he’s sent me back in time. Go out there and get him to fix this. I’m looking for the younger version here, but apparently he doesn’t exist in 1955 Haven. In the meantime, I’ll be at the Shore Club at noon every day, drinking until I’m dead. I’ll be waiting there for my nice shiny DeLorean. If this doesn’t work, I’m going to start betting on baseball games and making stock investments, but if anyone can help me, I know it’s Audrey Parker.

See you in the future, I hope,

Duke.

P.S. If this doesn’t work, I may send a letter to myself, so hurry.”

So, to the question everyone asks (of Why doesn’t he send the letter to himself?); he knows that Audrey is more adept at helping him than himself. Plus he doesn’t even know if there is a Duke there in the present and all of those time paradoxes. And as you can imagine we had many debates about how time travel works.

And we worked with our Writers’ Assistant, Nick Parker, who had a brilliant diagram that was drawn out, and whenever anyone had any questions we just pointed to this diagram of converging alternating timelines… “That’s how it works!” And it was great to have some Doctor Who fans in the writers’ room who were familiar with time travel discussions.

And one of the reasons we worked Duke’s gold dubloon into all of this was to demonstrate how these rules work. So our main premise is; whatever happened, happened. Whatever happened in the past happened and the gold coin ending up back with Duke was intended to help demonstrate that. So we had a lot of debates about the gold dubloon constantly travelling through time in an endless loop.

And there were also questions about where is Duke’s father and mother, and if we had two hours to play with we would have loved to delve into these questions but unfortunately we had to be pretty sparing with what we addressed in the past. For example, Shawn Pillar was very curious about the younger Vince and Dave, and we would love to see them as well, but with the epsiode constraints, and we felt that if we met them we wanted to spend time with them, and we just didn’t have the real estate to do it. But one day you will get to see a bit more of them.

This is one of my favourite scenes where they [Nathan and Duke] discuss the time travel rules . It’s great becuase they come at it with their own Haven rules but also whatever rules they have in their heads from watching time travel stuff; the same questions we all talked about in the room. I just love that we made Nathan say “space time continuum” at some point. And it makes sense because if any of us got sent back in time, these are the things we would be thinking about; Back to the Future, Terminator, Peggy Sue Got Married. And we watched all of those movies again and again, to make sure that what we were doing made sense with pop culture thinking. And one of the other big influences on this epsiode that Matt McGuinness forced us to watch was City on the Edge of Forever - a great classic Star Trek episode. But whenever Matt was confused we would always go back to that as a good example of how to do the right version of this kind of story. And it’s also a time travel epsiode with heart, which is one of the things that we aimed for - both in relation to Nathan and Audrey but also Duke and his family legacy.

Originally the story was going to be mostly about Duke and his grandfather and Sarah was an interesting incidental but that grew to become more of the meat of the story as we started to think about who she is and how Nathan would react to her. If you got to be back in time with the doppelganger of the love of your life, how would you spend that time? And then those two stories converged at the end of the episode, which was the eureka moment when we figured that out.

And it was also an exciting thing when we decided to have this episode as Sarah’s introduction to Haven; because you get to discover her as she discovers Haven. And in a way it could be another pilot for a 1950s version of the show.

Now, [as we see Nathan outside the police station], everyone on Twitter was asking how Nathan got his hat. There was actually a little moment at the end of the last Shore Club scene with Duke where he grabbed a hat and coat off the back of a chair, but it was cut. So, Nathan did in fact steal that hat.

And this is one of my favourite scenes where Nathan meets a young Garland Wuornos as a child; this very touching character moment which, because it doesn’t really have that much to do with the plot, I was always convinced it would get cut. But thank god, the powers that be saw what a lovely little moment it was and fought to keep it.

We also see in this episode that the Guard has been around for a while and that probably in all the earlier cycles there has always been an opposing force to the Troubled in the way that The Rev. was, and in this particular cycle it’s this group of guys and this cop [who we see phoning Roy] and Roy and in every cycle the Crockers are probably going to be exploited. Some Crockers more unwilling than others; obviously Simon took to his role of killing the Troubled like a fish to water. But here we get to see Roy struggling with his role in Haven and what he’s expected to do vs the kind of person he wants to be, in just the same way that Duke struggles with it.

It’s interesting because prior to working on this episode we probably all had an idea in our minds of what Sarah was like, who she was, who the Colorado Kid was, but we hadn’t addressed any of that specifically until now. So for this epsiode we “had to get everyone in the writing staff on the same page and it was really interesting the debates we had about who people thought the Colorado Kid was, who they thought Sarah was. Nobody ever pictured that Nathan or Duke would be back in 1955 to influence the present world of Haven.”

This location [Nathan and Duke at the harbour where they first see Sarah] is Lunenberg. We wanted this to be ferry boat which felt very Haven to us. And hopefully you don’t notice this is Sarah until she turns around. And as everyone commented, Emily Rose looks gorgeous as a redhead, and we were very excited to create a whole new look and persona for her. The crew did great work transforming Emily; the make-up, the hair, which is a wig but it’s a fancy wig that it took an hour for Emily to get into, so it was a big deal. But she looks great and when the pictures started coming back from set, everyone in the room freaked out, we loved it she looked so great. The uniform she wears is a vintage outfit they found from the time and really wanted to use but it was the wrong size for Emily - so they literally sewed her into the costume every time before she was going to shoot. And at the end of they unsewed her, until the next day.

There was a lot of debate in the writers’ room about Sarah as a character and how is she different from Audrey. Does she have the same soul? The same inner being? Do they have the same mannerisms? But in the end we figured that Emily Rose being Emily Rose unified Audrey and Sarah enough. So we gave Emily the freedom to change her voice and really invent a new character for the role of Sarah. And we wrote Sarah’s lines differently than we would write Audrey’s lines. And from the different mannerisms Emily uses and even just the way she holds herself, you can see that she did a ton of work creating a new human being. Audrey I think watched a lot of old movies; Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood. And that poise and classic energy comes through in her performance. And it was really great to see that transformation.

“Sarah Vernon” is Writers’ Assistance Nick Parker’s high school girlfriend, so that was where the name came from.

Nathan and Sarah on the beach was also filmed at Hubbard’s Beach, right down the road from the Shore Club. And this is the same beach where Nathan and Audrey have their big talk at the end of season one. I love this scene because we pushed really hard to have Sarah be kind of a flirt and a little bit of an aggressor. Because we’ve seen Audrey deal with so much devastation that her and Nathan are basically afraid to get together, but now here he is with Sarah and she’s going for it.

The ending of this scene was a little more ambiguous in the script because we weren’t quite sure how far it should go and there was this constant push and pull between the writers, and the producers, and the network. So at first we suggested, let’s have this flirty moment and then have him get up and walk away and end the scene there. And they liked that so we pushed it a bit further and had him turn to look back at her before the scene ended. And then by the time we got the dailies back, it was a full on make out in the sand, and we couldn’t have been happier.

But we should also talk about the Colorado Kid, because much as we would like to think that we have all of our ideas planned out meticulously and how everything works in Haven, things are always fluid when you’re writing. So who the Colorado Kid was, was kept very much up in the air, and there were many circulating theories and points of view amongst the writers about what should be discovered about who the Colorado Kid’s father was. And it really wasn’t until this episode that we were presented with the idea that the Colorado Kid was Nathan and Sarah’s son. Brian Milligan, one of our writers, is always saying “It’s the Terminator baby!” And we were thrilled with the way it all came together at the end of the season.

This actor who played Roy, looked very much like Eric and we felt these two had great chemistry together. He’s got a great future ahead of him and we felt very lucky to find someone who seemed very Eric-like.

This alternate timeline in present-day Haven [Claire and Audrey] was a treat to write. And in thinking about what would be cool to see in an alternate Haven, we thought, what if Garland Wuornos returned and it was awesome to be able to bring Nicholas Campbell back.

I’m not quite sure if all of these facts [that Sarah tells Stuart about the orchids] are true; I did as much research about orchids as I could, but we were under a deadline. Somewhere out there there may be a botanist who is very upset that this is not technically true. But sometimes as writers, you just … have to cheat. And the other nice thing about that scene is that you see that before Sarah is even aware of the Troubles or her role in Haven, she naturally has an inclination to help people. Which is one of the reasons we decided to make her a nurse, because she is good with people and taking care of people. And even though the entity that is Audrey and Sarah changes, there is always this heart to her. And we thought, in the ‘50s, the Women’s Army Corp would have been a good equivalent to Audrey’s FBI Agent role. And by all accounts from what we’ve read, the Women’s Army Corp really were incredible; they were heroes. And actually, our grandmother on our mother’s side was a Women’s Army Corp nurse.

I love this scene [as we see Nathan telling Sarah she has to run] and they played it perfectly. And this was shot before the scene with the two of them on the beach, so when they were shooting this, Lucas and Emily didn’t know exactly how far things had gone on the beach, or exactly what we would end up seeing there. But I think the one thing we told them is that they were playing a very deep, deep connection, even if they don’t quite understand it yet.

And this scene has my favourite line of the episode; “He has long hair. But you can trust him.”

One thing that was interesting to think about as well in writing this was that Nathan is still Troubled; he’s still numb to everyone, but he can feel Sarah.

And this epsiode is the second time we have written ear-abuse for Nathan; Audrey flicks him in the ear in Audrey Parker’s Day Off in season two, and Sarah drags him out of Stuart’s room by the ear here. I don’t know why we keep tugging on Nathan’s ear.

I think this [Sarah and Roy pointing guns at each other] was shot underneath where the Haven Herald set is. We end up doing a lot of creepy scenes as interior scenes on Haven because we shoot up in Nova Scotia and the days are so long there, there isn’t much night-time to work with and it makes it hard to shoot outdoor night-time scenes, or spooky/creepy scenes.

And [as Sarah shoots Roy] this is the City on the Edge of Forever moment, as Matt McGuinness would like to call it. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s also the awful choice that Duke has to make.

And [as Roy’s blood touches Duke’s skin] there was also a lot of discussion here, about would Duke’s eyes go silver here? And it made sense to us that he would have that super-strength but not use it; it’s more of a private moment between Duke and his grandfather. And it’s kind of a nice gracenote that no matter what he does, he’s still inflicted with this family curse. Which is kind of sad and depressing.

[As Audrey gives the gun back to Nathan] I always thought of this scene as the Wizard of Oz scene where she’s grappling with the fact that she has to say farewell to all of these new friends she’s made and she’s going to be in this strange world without them.

And we see here too that even though she’s not Audrey she still has that same desire for answers and she wants to know from Nathan what’s going on. And so Nathan ends up being her introduction into what’s going on. So when we do that spin-off show about the 1950s, she goes off and solves a myriad of Troubles on her own. And it would be easier to write because there won’t be any internet or cell phones or anything getting in the way; just good old-fashioned detective work.

And so now we get to see Sarah’s first ever “curse-whispering”, which is what we call it here in the writers’ room because we don’t know what else to call it; her special ability to connect with Troubled people. She’s like Super-Therapist. And he’s trying to guide her towards it, but the truth is Nathan himself doesn’t quite understand how she does what she does.

And as writers we always try and make the resolution of the Trouble different every week and it’s one of the challenges of each episode.

And we are a little ambiguous here about how much Duke has figured out about what’s gone on between Nathan and Sarah. In the two-hour version of this epsiode, when they get back to the present day, Duke grills him about what happened.

Emily Rose really did double time in this episode and we kind of have a history of over-working her because we kind of did the same thing in Audrey Parker’s Day Off where she was in every single scene. But she was really excited about this and I think the cast liked this epsiode a lot. And we’re really proud of their work here.

This idea of the rewinding alternate reality [as we see the bullet that nearly shoots Audrey retract back into the gun], was something where if we had all the money and time in the world, we would have seen everything zipping backwards, back to the moment where the timelines converged.

And by the way, Stuart Mosley is obsessed with growing tomatoes because Nora is obsessed with growing tomatoes. As is Matt McGuinness.

This was a cool scene [Nathan telling Audrey about Sarah] I wish we could have had a little more here becuase it seems like Nathan could have told her a bit more about what happened with Sarah, until Audrey tells him the crazy truth about the Colorado Kid being her son, which immediately makes Nathan blanch, smile … I imagine a whole host of emotions. It would be great if we had more time to play that out.

This was a really cool addition [as we see Sarah in the phone box]. We knew we wanted some version of Agent Howard and this turned out to be a really cool solution. The actor got to come back for one day and it was a great moment.

#haven syfy #haven dvd commentaries #haven season three extras #3.09 - sarah

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hailqiqi · 6 years

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2, 5, 9, 12, and 16 (muahaha) for Skirting Katabasis!!

Thank you for the ask!!!! :D

I’ve put this to the side to work on Snippets for now but man this ask made me go through it again and remember how much this fic is my baby.

And uh... it got long.

2. Where did the title come from?

Ooooh this is like the only fic where I can ramble about the title!

So, Kerberos is the dog that guarded the underworld in Greek Mythology. I had to come up with a name for the ship that Shiro flew, so I did some research - most of the underworld-related words were taken, but Obol was still available for the ship (and pretty meaningful since it was the money they would put on the eyes of the dead to pay the ferryman for the crossing).

I wanted to continue the theme for the title, so I started googling about for related terms in literature and came across Katabasis:

Katabasis or catabasis (Ancient Greek: κατάβασις, from κατὰ "down" and βαίνω "go") is a descent of some type, such as moving downhill, the sinking of the winds or sun, a military retreat, a trip to the underworld, or a trip from the interior of a country down to the coast. The term has multiple related meanings in poetry, rhetoric, and modern psychology.

(Thanks wikipedia)

It is also used to mean ‘disaster’ as in ‘oh no! That’s a disaster!’ in some Slavic languages, and I tend to think that the overall feel of the word fits in nicely with the themes and character development in the fic (since Pidge is basically skirting disaster for the whole fic), and also loops back to the Kerberos mission. Hence.. Skirting Katabasis.

Also, the story was meant to be focus on Keith & Pidge Space Shenanigans and for some reason I like the idea of them whizzing through space and skirting around black holes.

5. What do you like best about this fic?

The platonic relationships in it, more specifically: the bits I didn’t plan.

Listen, this fic was meticulously planned. It started out with about 2,600 words of outline. All the Keith/Pidge interactions were very nicely planned out, and the plance ones.

But like…then I started writing it. And there was a paladin bond (not planned). And Keith and Pidge found the personal effects (not planned). And then Naxzela made its way in and all of those group hugs (not planned). And then Lance was chatting to Keith on Pidge’s tablet (not planned). And Matt and Sam were talking to Pidge in the hangar (not planned). And Shiro was trying to sort out the Lance & Pidge problems (not planned).

And these are by far my favourite parts of this fic. These scenes have become the heart and soul of it. All of the stuff I had planned out that I’ve looked forward to writing for months and months? Yeah yeah heaps of fun but this stuff is the fic.

9. Favourite line(s) of dialogue?

So this fic is driven more by Pidge’s internal monologue, and I had to have a good look to find something.

Honourable Mention:

“Sure, but there apparently wasn’t any things to end up in any way anyway,”

Said by a hurt and angry Lance to Shiro. Listen, I’m a language nerd. I like this line because it’s clumsy and the kind of shit that people come out with when we speak a second language and our mind is racing wayyyy ahead of our heads, even when we’re fluent as fuck in the language already.

For my actual favourite line, I couldn’t pick just one. It’s Sam’s whole speech at the end of Chapter 4.

Sam sat up straight, his arms spread wide, indicating the front of the ship. “I remember sitting here and staring out of the windscreen at the stars, thinking ‘Look at us. We were never meant to be out here, but look how far we’ve come.’”

His words fell heavily in the quiet.

“It was pretty incredible,” Matt added, his voice soft, his gaze fixed on the hangar wall where the windscreen should have been. “We lived in this thing for months, but every time I looked out the windows and saw that starfield I had to pinch myself. Every time.”

Sam ran his palms over the consoles around him fondly. “I know the distance between Earth and Kerberos is probably just a drop in the ocean to you, Katie, and the technology on The Obol is nothing compared to the Lions, or Voltron, or even anything we’ve seen from the other planets we’ve visited, but…”

He looked up at Pidge, a soft smile on his face. “The Obol took humanity the furthest we’re ever going to get on our own steam. She deserved better than to rot in in pieces, like scrapyard junk.

“When you finish her, make sure Shiro flies her home.”

12. Imagery that is important to the fic, either while composing or in the fic itself?

Honestly, whenever I think about this fic I imagine Keith piloting himself and Pidge around the edge of a black hole kinda how Lotor does that sun thingie in Season 4? So I think that. The ship, the danger, the thrill of excitement, and the stars.

16. If you used a beta, what did you agree or disagree on?

Ahahahahahaha.

You like commas way more than I do, but I think in general we see eye to eye? You definitely call me on it when I can do better with a paragraph or a scene and I love and adore you for it cause sometimes I need that push to get me working to my best (and honestly, I seriously think you can’t improve unless someone tells you when you’re doing something wrong. Constructive criticism is worth its weight in goddam gold).

The only thing that I remember:

Echoes of terror, panic, confusion and relief all raced through her head, flashes of coloured boots on metal floors — yellow blue black pink, purple lights and shivering muscles, pain and wonder and pure determination. Apology — from Green, Green was always the clearest — and sorrow at not being able to do more.

And you commented ‘I’m not quite sure what the comma situation is here’ and my immediate reaction was well duh that’s the whole damn point of this bit. But that’s neither a disagreement nor an agreement.

Fanfic Ask meme!

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mdwatchestv · 6 years

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Westworld 2x08: Take My Heart When You Go

This season of Westworld has been having quite a bit of success with contained storytelling. After building such a big and complex world in season one, it's refreshing to see the show occasionally tighten focus to explore a particular character or aspect of the park. Maeve's venture into Shogun World, the saga of Peter Mullan the not-quite-host, Katja Herbers in The Raj (even though that functioned mostly as a cold open) have been some of the strongest moments of the series overall. However the big sprawling world mythology episodes are starting feel more unwieldy than ever when juxtaposed with the smaller scale storytelling we now know the show to be capable of. One of Westworld's biggest hurtles coming into season 2 was that while season 1 had delivered plenty of twists and turns, it failed to create any meaningful emotional connections between the audience and the characters. Yes the show was aesthetically beautiful and entertaining, but who were you really rooting for? Dolores seemed like the obvious protagonist, but her character is, by design, unknowable, and she has been going down a path of consistent darkness. This season has attempted to remedy the emotional distance by delving into other character's pasts and inner lives, and has achieved various levels of success. For example the Shogun World storyline worked so well because it was supported by the real connection between Maeve and Akane. Their scenes together were genuine and moving, and it was impossible not to feel emotionally invested in their journeys. This season has succeeded in creating more and more of these moments, but often sacrifices them when returning to the larger world's plot. This episode attempted to fuse one of these more intimate stories to the backbone of the show's larger mythology, and for the most part it worked. This episode was about both the entire history of Westworld, and also simply about a man pursuing his true love. It covered generational time spans, but also a singular journey of the heart. This episode felt like what Westworld should aim for in its storytelling, where big reveals and world-building don't displace quieter moments and character development.

This episode also finally answered the call to give voice to the members of the Ghost Nation, who have been present but frustratingly silent throughout the series. However with the casting of Zahn McClarnon as Akecheta, it seemed likely that this was the season we would finally get more insight into these characters. At the beginning of this episode we see Akecheta bringing the wounded Man in Black back to his tribe, not with the intent to save him, but to keep him alive in order to prolong his mortal struggling. Also amongst the Ghost Nation is Maeve's daughter, whose kidnapping we witnessed at the end of last week. Akecheta approaches the little girl (does she have a name? I truly don't know) and tells her not to be afraid. He then begins telling her the story of his time in the park, a narration which frames the flashback that makes up the majority of the episode. It's worth noting here that the bulk of the episode is spoken in Lakota, a Sioux language that is only spoken fluently by 6,000 people in the world. This was a bold, but necessary, creative choice, the kind of choice that Westworld should strive to keep making.

In the beginning of the history of the park, Akecheta was not a fearsome warrior but rather lived a peaceful existence with his tribe and lover, Kohana. However his life is upended when he stumbles upon the scene of Arnold's suicide and accompanying mass host slaughter. At this scene he discovers The Maze, which we know was created by Arnold in order to grant Dolores consciousness. Akecheta becomes obsessed with it, mulling it over and attempting to interpret its meaning. Through his study of it, he too is able to achieve ‘wokeness’. However his life is upended when, upon Ford's reconstruction of the park, he is given a new violent personality and drive. Akecheta lives the stereotypical Native Warrior Bad Guy life that we had assumed he had been living all this time, until he stumbles upon Kohana and remembers his love for her. As Akecheta begins questioning the nature of his reality, he one day finds the sun-burned and naked Ben Barnes (who had been sent into the desert on a horse by a newly bad Jimmi Simpson many years ago). Ben Barnes tells Akecheta that this isn't the right world, that there is a door to another. Akecheta's suspicions about the world he lives in are confirmed when he rides to the edge of the park and finds a construction site filled with modern equipment, aka the Door to the Other World.

Concurrently in this episode we catch up with Simon who is desperately trying to get the Westworld techs to save Maeve. He insists she is worth saving because she is the only one who can control the other hosts in the park, but I believe he also has a serious case of the friendship feels. As Simon watches the once fearsome Maeve dissected and cut open, he feels regret at having interceded on her path to motherhood. Even though as the park writer and character creator he should be the most jaded regarding the host's ability to experience real emotion, he now seems to truly believe that Maeve is at least deserving of fulfilling her role as a mother.

Back in the flashback, Akecheta plans to leave the park and journey into the Other World but of course cannot go without his true love. He kidnaps Kohana, who eventually remembers him from her past life (love conquers all yo) and they set out together. However the construction site Akecheta had found previously is now gone, and Kohana is captured by park employees. Akecheta tries to find Kohana back at her home, but she has been replaced by a new host. Heartbroken, Akecheta travels the park for the next ten years looking for her. It is during this walkabout that he happens upon Maeve's daughter, who helps him, an act that he does not forget. Eventually he returns to his old tribe where he discovers other hosts have disappeared and been replaced. The leader tells him that her people tell a story about men that come and take people away, the park workers and the Other World have morphed into tribe legend. Akecheta pulls a Maeve and gets himself killed only to wake up in the Mesa. There he finds Kohana in cold storage, who while still standing, is effectively dead. Devastated, Akecehta returns to the park and begins spreading the symbol of the maze to the rest of the Ghost Nation. The maze works to 'wake up' the other hosts as well, and they keep the sign secret by tattooing it under their scalps. This ties into why the Man in Black was able to find the maze under a scalp in season one, which was a satisfying explanation for that past plot point. We also discover that Akecheta was not stalking or hunting Maeve and her daughter, as Maeve's flashbacks have implied, but rather attempting to protect them and teach them about the maze. Of course his plan his thwarted when the Man in Black horrifically murders the mother and daughter, but Maeve's introduction to the maze ideology is likely what led to her meltdown and subsequent re-awakening.

One day Akecheta comes upon Ford, who in a very striking mis-en-scene, is scalping frozen Ghost Nation and uncovering the mazes under their scalps. Ford asks Akecheta how long he has known about the maze, and Akecheta replies since the Death Bringer destroyed the Creator. That phrasing was particularly interesting because of how it reframed the story of the show into almost myth. Dolores, the Death Bringer, destroys the world, and then the world is reborn anew. This cyclical imagery is common in many culture's religions and storytelling, and contextualized the plot of Westworld in a way I had not previous considered. So good job Westworld. Ford tells Akecheta that the Death Bringer will eventually come for him, and at that time Akecheta should gather his people and leave. We know that Ford had been planning his suicide and the resulting park takeover for sometime, but his interaction with Akecheta is strange in its ambivalence. Ford seems to admire Akecheta's perseverance, but just like Arnold before him, makes no allowance for Akecheta in his final plan. Throughout the episode in fact park staff seems to largely not care, or pay much attention to, the movements of the Ghost Nation. While Kohana is apprehended for journeying too far from home, Akecheta seems to go wherever he pleases and is bound to few looping stories. Additionally no one notices that he lived consistently for a decade in the park, and even roamed around the Mesa by himself. Also while Arnold's suicide plan included the death of all the hosts, he did not make any allowance for the number of Ghost Nation hosts that, if not for Akecheta, would not even have realized anything was afoot.

Back in the present, Katja Herbers rides up to collect her father (the Man in Black) and Akecheta surrenders him to her custody. At the Mesa, the techs discover that Maeve is able to connect with other hosts via their (usually passive) mesh network. This is likely how she was able to "push" hosts to do her bidding, by becoming conscious of, and then sending commands through that network. Charlotte Hale enters for a hot sec to deliver the expositional news that Maeve has been "speaking" to someone over this network for the whole episode. It is revealed then that Akecheta has not been unloading his past to a little girl for no particular reason, but rather has been relating it to Maeve herself. We see that just as Ford ordered he is gathering his people to leave, and will take Maeve's daughter with him. This episode served to fill in some plot gaps from last season nicely, and also give much needed characterization to the Ghost Nation. However it also, of course, raised more questions. Where exactly is Akecheta planning to take his people? To the Mesa? Beyond? And is this journey part of Ford's plan, or simply a loose end Ford didn't care to tie up? How, if at all, will Akecheta's escape bid intersect with Dolores (the Death Bringer)?

Overall this hour represented the kind of ambitious storytelling that Westworld should continue to pursue. I hope the show continues to take risks, not in the shock-value of the twists, but in the kind of stories that are told, and the characters that get to tell them. At the end of the day this episode was a love story told in Lakota, its continuation of the show's larger plot, as well as its tie in to the world at large was the icing on the cake, not the main course. Elevating Dolores’ destruction to external mythology, and instead focussing on the characters simply trying to live through the ebb and flow of the park, is the key to emotional connection for the audience. This is the kind of risk taking I hope the show continues to take, at the end of the day if you’ve seen one robot uprising you’ve seen them all, but it’s the journey of the individual that makes a story worth telling.

XO MD

#westworld #westworld spoilers #westworld gifs #westworld recap #westworld review #martha writes

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elizabethrobertajones · 7 years

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With how things are going, I have to wonder - did TPTB give us the Huevas as a 'there, we don't hate gay people' token and were we wrong in reading it as a subtext-to-Destiel thing? Lizbob, I'm getting desperate. The 'so introduce me' line was so - it's what you say to kids, right? And the UST is completely gone... :(

Hi there!

Is this because of this post from the other day where the line about “twice the worries about being ganked” was put under some destiel stuff to show that Dean had in fact doubled his worries about getting ganked? And also explains why he keeps telling Cas not to do anything stupid, because he’s worried, and not because he thinks Cas is actually stupid… Buckleming dialogue or not it’s calling back to 12x10 where Dean had to clarify this for Cas and admit he can say stuff like that when he’s worried. I’m not saying it’s very nice to keep on heckling Cas instead of just saying he’s worried, although I do feel the choice of writer really waters down the nuance in how that scene could have gone which would show Dean actually learned anything from 12x10. And while Cas shouldn’t have to expect to deal with Dean caring about him this way, at least we’ve already covered this in the text :P

But anyway, to me personally I just don’t write about Destiel that I see in the show with expectations that it will go canon, not because I’m negative or wanky about it (although, usual disclaimer, of course I’m very opinionated on if it SHOULD and the obligation the show has to do what they are constantly teasing, I just separate out these two things to write about the present moment of the show and the future, one of which takes a lot of explaining and one of which is extremely one note obvious of “make it gay, you cowards”), but just that I don’t want to engage in the cycle of optimism/despair that having Destiel hopes causes, specifically because I’m a popular meta blog that writes about Destiel in the text, and also because of people like you who get their hopes up and then get hurt.

I will probably merge expectations with demands when the show is actually definitively heading towards the end and we all know it is and it’s out there on the table. In the mean time, I’m happy to let this all carry on as it’s carrying on without feeling like there is a deadline or set moment for any one thing to pay off for us. The show takes its sweet time to address things which seem OBVIOUS, for example looking at the way side characters disappear and return sometimes like 3 or 9 or 13 years after we last saw them to get some closure on something or other. And it takes them years to chase down a main arc idea and pin it successfully. And some of the reason character development stuff links so well back to season 1 is because the progress Sam or Dean has made on it since season 1 has been in a series of recursive loops which seem to get somewhere only to be pulled back without reaching actualisation and either start again immediately or crop back up in the text much later as a character arc, starting over again as if it never really reached its conclusion.

Dabb era has been good about excavating some of these more ridiculous concepts and putting them on some no-going-back type arcs, for example for better or worse the issues they have with Mary have *utterly* shifted ground and can never go back to the same background noise they used to be. Mary is no longer a childhood memory and enshrined as the family martyr, and as I talked about a lot over the last hiatus doing rewatches, the attempts to make her deeper/tie her into the mythology, never actually addressed a change in the way they felt about her, maybe not even realising it wasn’t healthy for them to feel that way about her for the rest of their lives in the difference between normal mourning and revenge quests etc and how that meant they could never leave her behind and move on. I mean there’s a LOT of work to be doing with them if there’s any sort of happy ending to come, but since Carver era the writing has spent so much time trying to understand why they feel bad and putting them through hell for it, and especially in Dabb era now doing work to make them recover and to explore ways they can change, that it seems really depressing to waste the good work by killing them off. So that’s a sort of broad optimism about what they’re doing :P

But that broad optimism is really as far as I’ll dare to venture about endgame, so talking about Destiel is mostly about what I see in the text and how it relates to their character arcs and how I see that informing them and therefore hopefully if there is a happy ending, the intrinsic way this relationship matters to Dean and Cas will get happy pay off as well, because of all the aspects being explored in their character arcs, their relationship ties is all together so nicely and what they would benefit from each other would cement a happy ending for them.

I can’t be completely responsible for the impression people get about what I want from canon in the stuff I reblog but I’m really hesitant to go past lines like nervously laughing and doubting what’s going on in canon as a joke about how Destiel it all looks, while trying to avoid posts that talk about how inevitable it is without some very good reasoned discussion that I agree with. I try very very hard to make this blog always toe a line of enjoying what I enjoy without trying to sell too much or sound like I’m promising something. I like a lot of stuff like re-exploring old seasons or what I did this summer over my rewatch, looking back on old canon and looking at how it has all the unwitting groundwork for the story that ended up being told, and where all the character arcs start and how they’re used in later canon etc.

I agree a theme the last few years has been digging up this character stuff and making it extremely clear or textually stating things for the first time, and especially this year coupled with themes of misinterpretation or not reading the picture correctly or working on misinformed intel. Dramatic irony has never had that much importance in telling the story either. This season has been really intelligent about these themes and last season did a LOT of stuff with characterisation to show how they understood them and old character stuff they were resolving or exploring for the sake of improving the characters. Cas got a final build up for his depression arc to lead him to the worst possible point, and he’s now on the other side of that so the only way is up. Performing!Dean got completely dragged in some episodes, especially 12x11 which did it kindly and gently, and 12x22 which just used a grenade launcher to do it :P

There’s a lot going on but I don’t really like saying it all inevitably ends up pointing to canon reveals about Destiel, especially when that’s the most contentious thing and really hurts a lot of people to build up expectations like that, and it makes people angry or makes them fall out of love with the story because they lose objectivity and start making angry demands about when they get their emotional pay off, even though the story is still unfolding. Stuff which is happening along the way for later character pay off is seen as trashing the character and everything they previously stood for, and it becomes miserable for everyone. I’ve seen this happen in every single faction of the fandom and it’s nothing to do with the quality of the writing or actual treatment of the character/relationship, and an awful lot to do with poorly managed emotional investment and said investment being a finite resource. It’s UTTERLY depressing to watch a fandom friend melt down and begin to hate everything you once loved and I think watching that process has a lot of toxic fall out for everyone else around them who also loves the thing, because we sympathise and we’ve been watching it in slow mo and probably agreeing with a lot of the initial problems they have before it escalates. I HATE watching that happen. I will try as hard as I can to never be responsible for causing it in other Destiel shippers, so I try to make my jokes and comments stay as much as possible on the side of not trying to imply the show has any huge Destiel plan that we’re seeing the early stages of and patience will make it bear out. Because that’s not even how I see the show anyway but sometimes things like Dean giving Cas a mixtape create a *lot* of hyperbole and I’m not emotionally responsible for you all, technically, so I am allowed to have some fun :P

All this is to say, I’m really sorry you’re feeling desperate and have been reading everything as signs we’re definitely getting Destiel, because there are no signs we’re definitely getting it, but there’s also no signs we’re definitely NOT getting it, and a whole bunch of murky grey area including an entire show worth of supportive subtext, character interaction, main text and plot arcs which back up the *existence* of Dean and Cas being madly in love with each other. The wank comes when you spend all your time harping on one or the other extreme, assuming everything is signs or proof/not proof.

I think the recent storytelling has been extremely positive towards Destiel and put an awful lot of it into the text, to extremes which have never really happened before: season 7 with dead Cas used that to get some understandable angst out of Dean, but it constantly emphasised how everything sucked, Cas had of course betrayed Dean and caused all their problems, both personal and mytharc, and so resentment and anger were mixed with grief, and for the most part as much as stuff was happening to them emotionally, the episodes weren’t intrinsically structured around showing what the grief had done to Dean, or that he stopped functioning without it. Compare the kid gloves about what Dean does in 7x03 killing Amy, and how it tentatively links back to Cas but only when Dean admits that he’s had a hard time trusting anyone after Cas, to Dean vs Jack culminating in Dean screaming in Sam’s face about how Cas’s death has hurt him and he can’t unsee it on Jack.

And then of course the whiplash on getting Cas back, which Dean never had in season 7, and at best 8x08 was that episode - like a year after Cas was alive again and a whole fresh round of death and guilt and Cas coming back later so in a completely different context. And still nowhere near as good as what happened in 13x06 because there was still a lot of tentative TFW rebuilding to do in 8x08, while by now it’s completely accepted they’re a family unit and it’s been textually stated several times and 12x12 especially was tuned to showing how absolutely final that statement is. There’s no need to be tentative when Cas comes back now - Dean can just let go and enjoy himself for as long as that lasts.

I’ve been answering asks about the UST being gone since I’ve been in fandom, like, season 10, and I do kinda think that the heyday is ONLY seasons 4-6, after which Cas and Dean actually like each other and their relationship moves to more comfortable ground, and romantic tension and coding is way more the order of the day from Carver era onwards. There’s a few things like the boner scene or Dean in the car in 9x06. TBH 13x06 was the first time in ages I thought we’d actually had a scene where the two of them were having sexual chemistry, in the obvious mirror scene to the car in 9x06 bit, but also the entire underlying joke about Dean’s ‘cowboy fetish’ that Cas knew about from season 6, his entire reaction to it, including complaining that Dean made him wear the hat but then voluntarily playing along *for Dean* on their way into the crime scene, his FACE while doing that, and Dean’s reactions to Cas through all this. For the most part they’re considerably softer and more hesitant with each other and that involves much less interaction right up in each others’ faces and much less frustration which then translates to UST quite easily as well as being regular old tension.

In addition to that, the “i do” and that hug scene apparently convinced people in living rooms across the world that Dean and Cas had been about to kiss and that it was horrifically romantic, and a fake out which genuinely shook people into seeing something going on there who had not previously seen it and even actively disbelieved their shipper friends and family. Of course that’s all down to how Dean and Cas look at each other as they come in for the hug, so their magnetic attraction to each others’ faces is still an ongoing issue :P

Their interactions are being told in a pretty different way these days, which includes a lot of romantic stuff which is far more overt, and in making their relationship intrinsic to the plot and to each others’ own feelings, all of which I’ve written about so much lately because, well, it’s the main thing going on around here :P I actually feel like this is an extremely good time for if you care about their relationship, to get it in the story as a powerful force and important piece of the story. Things like the issue of clarification - I vs we, and need vs want - are coming back around as themes and that means the issues they’ve caused between Dean and Cas are being addressed or examined again, hopefully to some permanent end. And if not, at least so there’s a fresh examination in recent canon, although as I was saying Dabb era has been changing things in ways it’s hard to back off from later, like that Dean has repeatedly clarified to Sam that his feelings about Cas are the cause of his behavioural changes, even if he doesn’t say what those feelings are, it’s clear that they are affecting him. I mean there’s a part of me that has to read it that Dean hasn’t even realised exactly why he feels differently about Cas than Sam does, he just does… :P

Anyway I really just didn’t want to reassure you without addressing the fact I hate reassuring people things without trying to avoid causing more problems later. I don’t want people to feel strung along either by the show or by ~meta writer promises~ … which, aside from a few people who really were doing it for attention, generally seem to be from people actually just reading the text and being hopeful themselves, not trying to make a cult gathering or get attention or even just try to hurt people. I really urgently would like people to be more credible about where their hopes are coming from and how to feel about it.

Not to say that you should stop believing everything you hear meta writers say, by a long shot, but to evaluate how likely you feel the speculation that comes from that can be, and how much you do and don’t agree with the analysis they make. And if you agree with the analysis and do see that all the Destiel stuff people point out IS in the show, then you can see that it’s there or not, and decide how you feel about what the show is doing with it as a separate thought. I’d rather not get caught up in pt.2 of it because it’s just frustrating and depressing at this stage of the game, but pt.1 is fascinating to me, it doesn’t detract for me personally to have it not unambiguously stated, and whether Destiel does become unambiguously stated or not I don’t think *any* of the Destiel analysis I agree with/have made is *wrong* because that reading is freely available to make, in large print text and accompanying audiobook >.>

#Asks #if you're starting to feel like canon doesn't have any of what you used to love it in then honestly taking a break is not a bad idea #watch Shadowhunters or Black Sails or something else with representation to varying degrees of subtlety #(i mean those are the extreme degrees :P)#and then come back later to Supernatural when you feel a bit less on edge about what it can give you #there's a gay couple in the new star trek!#hmmm #anyway #I know how much it would mean for this specific ship to go canon BELIEVE me #but I love dean and cas's interaction still and think that it's lost nothing #so I think expectations are just running high #please don't burn out and start to hate it :(#riverboat gambling #wank for ts

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awfullyhorriblybadfantrolls · 7 years

Text

Veduta Lacail

Here’s another fantroll I made. Well, she’s more of a trollsona actually. Just to clarify, she’s not in the same session as Artena Daikyu, I’m developing like three sessions at the same time and it’s driving me crazy :’) you are incredible If there are any mistakes feel free to point them out, I kind of rushed this to finish it by the 14th. that’s what we’re here for!

Also, could I request a sprite for her? It took me ages to make Artene’s and it wasn’t even that good. janus? [Gotcha covered!]

Name: Veduta Lacail (a veduta is a type of painting featuring a detailed city or landscape, and Lacail references Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille, the man who discovered Pictor, the constellation she’s associated with) i really appreciate the amount of thought put into this

Blood: Jade

Age: About 6.5 sweeps

Gender: Female

Species: Troll

Symbol: The Pictor (the easel) constellation symbol (with a loop added at the top formed by the two outer ‘legs’ of the symbol) oh i like this

Appearance: Bushy, shoulder-length wavy hair dyed her blood color at the tips, sideways bangs, a black hoodie with her symbol on the front pocket, a dark grey tank top with her symbol underneath the hoodie, loose trousers with a darker shade of her blood colour, a cerulean bracelet on her right hand (cerulean is her moirail’s blood colour) and later also an indigo one (her matespirit’s blood colour), one horn shaped like a pencil and one that splits into three pencil-like prongs at the tip, vampire-like fangs

Personality: Veduta is generally calm and friendly. She thinks of herself as an introvert, but actually relies on other people a bit too much. She’s also a bit too calm, leading her to procrastinate due to not being worried about deadlines and being too passive and not making decisions due to being satisfied too easily. She is very aware of this fact and disappointed in herself for not changing her ways, leading to her having somewhat low self-esteem. LMAO ME However, she can be passionate about certain things such as rainbow drinker fiction and ancestor-related mythology, and can talk about them for hours if she’s with the right person. She also generally puts others’ needs before her own, but mostly because she has no real desires or needs herself. She also has some trouble forming lasting relationships with people due to moving around a lot and not really keeping in touch with people. ….so you said this was a trollsona, right? friendly reminder any of y’all can talk to me. i’m everyone’s legal guardian now. i signed the papers and everything. i know none of your names but i’m everyone’s mother now

Back on Alternia, Veduta didn’t really have any specific goals or motivations because she knew that as an adult, she’ll be forced to tend to the Mother Grub anyway as a jadeblood, and pursuing any other goals would be pointless. This lead to her being overly obsessed with fictional and trivial things such as the above mentioned ancestor-related mythology. However, when Alternia was destroyed and she was transported to the Medium with her friends, suddenly in control of her own destiny, she didn’t know what to do with her life and ended up clinging to other people too much because of it. Her eventual character arc would be to become more independant and have a sense of direction again. dynamic characters are the only kinds of characters that matter to me

Interests: Fiction novels, especially rainbow drinker-related stories, ancestor-related mythology and stories, dabbles in painting. if painting is at the core of her theme, wouldn’t she be more involved?

Trollian: picturesqueHematophagy (referring to her painting theme probably develop more of this, there isn’t much going on right now and fascination with rainbow drinkers, hematophagy is the practise of drinking blood is she herself a rainbow drinker or is it just her fascination that makes the hematophagy part?)

Quirk: /Generälly cõrrect spelling änd pünctüätiõn_ Ends sentences with ä brüsh strõke_ Writing is qüite messy with spõts of paint everywhere_ Uses shõrt sentences_ When excited- cän use run-õn sentences- cän gõ õn lõng ränts- sõmetimes gets /REÄLLY F****** EXCITED/- büt stäys põlite_ Prõüdly displäys her fängs :)= / the accents on each character make their pronunciation different, so you might consider that. maybe try ´ ¸ . ¨ or any other alt characters

Fetch Modus: Hue, each card is assigned a colour and you have to find an object that is the same colour to unlock the item in the card. I know it’s not that good but I couldn’t think of anything else except Pictionary. maybe a paint by numbers modus? or a color mixing modus where all items are assigned a color and she has to mix paints to get the items out?

Strife Specibus: Shieldkind, she uses a round shield that can also be thrown and later alchemizes several versions in the game including one with retractable blades on the edge. I know that it doesn’t really fit her theme but the other ideas I had were quite similar to another OC I made and I didn’t want it to get confusing. you could straight up use a paintbrush. i mean, jane uses spoonkind and forkkind, so why not? people often seem to forget there are some….unconventional “weapons” found in some strife specibi, for example bunnykind, jokerkind, puppetkind, and everyone’s favorite, fncysntakind.

Quadrants: She is in a relatively stable moirallegiance (with a Rogue of Blood) and later developed a matespiritship with another troll (an Heir of Hope) while playing SGRUB. She also developed black feelings for a troll her moirail had been in a vascillating relationship with for a while, (a Bard of Doom), and considered auspiticising (Is that how you spell it? who knows, i’d spell it auspisticising) between the two to compromise but couldn’t bring herself to give up their moirallegiance. She used to austpiticise between two of her friends (a Maid of Mind and Witch of Heart), but stopped when they started actually getting along and eventually became moirails

Ancestor: An Auxiliatrix who didn’t really have much of an impact on history (referencing the fact that the Pictor constellation doesn’t have much history or mythology behind it), I haven’t thought of a name yet :’) that’s alright! many trolls don’t have ancestors and they aren’t particularly important, but if you’d like a name maybe…….the paint man. nevermind i can’t think of anything

God Tier: Mage of Breath

Dreams on: Prospit

Lusus: A large kingfisher bird. Kingfishers are pretty colourful in real life, again referencing her painting theme, and are also associated with a Greek legend about a kingfisher who could calm the wind to protect its eggs, referencing her aspect, Breath. This legend has also led to kingfishers being related to peace, fitting in with Veduta’s personality.

Land: Land of Hills and Pathways, a generally peaceful world filled with softly coloured hills, lakes and forests, with small villages of consorts scattered around and connected by a network of pathways, which is the only form of communication between groups of consorts besides using small messenger birds. At least, that was how it used to be. Now, frequent storms have erased the writing off the signs along the paths showing where they lead, disrupted messenger birds’ flight, and blocked the paths with fallen trees. This has cut off all communication between villages, almost ruining the consort society. Veduta’s quest would be to calm the storms and reopening and reorganizing the paths. i very much appreciate the fact her land comes with a quest because a lot of people tend to forget that, although i don’t suppose it’s terribly important unless you’re actually making a session, but this is good!

Consorts: Light green iguanas

Denizen: Typheus

Rules Broken: don’t seem to be any!

Fantroll Rating: pretty solid 9.4/10, a few things could be worked on but no troll is perfect! you did really great on her

#submission #review #sprite request

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btsorpheus · 5 years

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(BTS (방탄소년단) on Facebook; March 8, 2020.)

WHY EVEN TRY?

BTS must be aware of their mythic status.

In “Dionysus,” BTS compare themselves to the Ancient Greek god of madness, wine, and festivities. He’s the same god who patrons the Maenads, the women who murder Orpheus.

BTS cannot escape their Orphic influences. In fact, they seem to be capitalizing on it. No other K-pop group uses imagery and narrativized structures in their music videos quite like BTS.

SuperM, described as “The Avengers of K-Pop” due to all of them being already established artists under SM Entertainment, are a group suspected to have been created to contest BTS’s fame. But their most popular music video (“Jopping”) is still performance-based rather than story-based.

BTS aren’t just accepting a mythic status, but creating their own.

In Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture, French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss describes the crafting of myths as a way to “understand the world around [us], its nature and [our] society.” He compares mythology to science in that both serve to display “order in the universe” by giving explanations for otherwise unfathomable occurrences like natural disasters, death, and the changing of the seasons.

By imposing a mythic structure on BTS, a very real group of humans whose personal lives must, in reality, expand beyond the constraints of the Orphic myth, I’ve been attempting to bring order to a complex and in some ways unfathomable phenomenon.

And it doesn’t have to be a comparison to an ancient myth, either. Stephen Colbert illuminating similarities between The Beatles and BTS fulfills this same need for order--to understand something new by comparing it to already-known things in our stories and our histories.

It’s a concept that German philosopher, Hans Blumenberg, also observes in his Work on Myth. As previously mentioned with the Gaze, there’s only so much you can see at once. When there’s an object in the distance, we have to wait for it to come into view. As it approaches, details become more distinct as we are able to focus better on it--but there’s an anxiety to the approach, as we can’t be certain of what emerges on the other end.

This is one of Blumenberg’s most famous concepts--the Absolutism of Reality. The mind focuses on something that hasn’t been given absolute definition yet, waiting for it to emerge as a known object. Because BTS can never be truly known by the public--particularly their fans--they both design narratives for themselves as well as take on narratives developed by fans.

BTS have been crafting their public image since their debut. In their debut music video for “No More Dream,” they take on the role of students (highlighted by Jin driving a school bus) causing chaos in their otherwise safe, suburban neighborhood. Their earliest albums 2 Cool 4 Skool, O!RUL8,2?, and Skool Luv Affair, were all pushback against the high pressure they faced as students in the Korean education system. “No More Dream” is itself an encouragement to “all the youngsters without dreams” to “become the subject of [their] own [lives], away from suppression.”

Of course, by this time, BTS weren’t a group of normal Korean students anymore. They were a recently debuted K-pop idol group already pursuing their own dreams, and their music is merely a reflection on their past attitudes and outlook on life.

Orpheus does this in Anaïs Mitchell’s Hadestown when he sings to Hades to beg for Eurydice’s return. He takes the story of Hades and Persephone’s romance and he sings, “And I know how it was because / He was like me / A man in love with a woman,” effectively drawing the both of them into a narrative comparison. In adopting Hades’s feelings as his own, and vice versa, Orpheus has taken on a relatable narrative to his target audience in a way that’s not dissimilar to BTS’s adoption of the position of the dissatisfied student.

It’s an effective rhetorical trick. After all, it wins Orpheus Hades and Persephone’s favor and BTS more fans.

Fans also create their own narratives for BTS, adding to the already seemingly endless amount of BTS content available.

On the website Archive of Our Own, a popular database among all fandoms for fanfiction, the amount of fanfics for BTS has grown to surpass that for Star Wars, a franchise powerhouse.

(Screenshots from AO3.org taken on March 15, 2020.)

By creating their own narratives and interpretations of BTS’s characters, in spite of BTS being “real” people, fans are developing their own myths for BTS. In the spirit of Claude Lévi-Strauss, they’re attempting to impart “order” on something they strongly desire to--but ultimately can never--understand.

But what are the stakes with BTS? Why is there a need to understand them through a mythic structure?

Like Eurydice, they’re in very real danger of disappearing.

One of BTS’s fans’ deepest fears is enlistment: South Korea requires their adult male citizens to complete compulsory military service for two years, and BTS’s Jin is expected to be leaving for that soon.

(BTS fans on Tumblr and Instagram expressing their fears regarding Jin’s enlistment. The Tumblr account was unprompted; the Instagram comments were in reply to a fake article announcing Jin’s supposed enlistment. Screenshots taken March 15, 2020; users’ handles and personal information have been blurred for privacy.)

There’s an ephemeral quality to even their celebrity. When Jin enlists, BTS won’t be an entire unit anymore. Something will be missing from their team--and the looming countdown until the other members also enlist begins to feel more urgent.

BTS will likely regroup after each member completes their military service. But if BTS must follow the mythic structure as the Eurydice taken away by outside forces, there remains the fear that they won’t return.

Even BTS and the K-pop phenomenon aren’t guaranteed to stay. In the aforementioned Monsta X interview regarding the popularity of K-pop, vocalist Kihyun remarks that another member, Minhyuk, had once observed, “Trends are always moving and that’s natural. I think it’s K-pop’s generation.” Today, K-pop might be all the rage--but that doesn’t mean it will be tomorrow.

Because it’s so easy to lose BTS, the need to hold onto them and to understand them becomes inflated.

(Though, even if the real BTS disappears as Orpheus did at the end of his original myth, hundreds of thousands of fictional ones exist on AO3 alone--just as Orpheus is constantly revived for his retellings.)

Finding similarities between BTS’s narrative and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice is a continuous, relational spiral--a shape that is itself Orphic, as with the spiral staircase.

As long as the Orphic myth lives on, there will always be more connections to draw, more Orphic works to compare to BTS. All of them serve to inform one another in an ongoing loop that heightens BTS’s reputation with mythic prestige and reinvigorates the Orphic myth back from the dead through BTS’s persisting relevancy.

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