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v2xe · 10 months ago

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i got too carried away and ended up hitting the tag limit 🫠 hope it's alright if i just put this here instead

#SDJFGSDFNM asgsdfasd AGSDF GURGLES LIKE IM CHOKING ON MOUTHWASH FINALLY SOME GOOD FUCKING FOOD#I CANT BELOIEVE IM ONLY SEEING THIS FIVE DAYS AFTER IT WAS POSTED good lird#see i understand why there would be a split in the fandom abt this bc there is also a split in tumblr user v2xe#when i first played my reading was that sarah and jack's relationship was INTENDED to be portrayed as romantic#only the writers kind of expected them sharing some friendly lines + jack being the protag and sarah#being the princess would be enough for the audience to go “ah yes. romance”#and that the tragic and borderline romantic subtext jack has w astos was just incidental in the way it happens when writers#accidentally end up developing male characters and their relationships more than female ones#esp since se's games' track record w this is…….not great#(<-she is haunted by secondhand accounts from the tranches of ff16's writing)#and tbh i was ready to just assume this was my own little interpretation where it isn't that deep but it could be. and i could just build#myself a fun little sandbox in the hole i dug where the story could have expanded certain themes further but didn't#but after reading that one interview where the writers were like "maybe sarah was in love with him maybe she was just infatuated with what

#he represented" i turned into one of those shitty gore stick figures because what the fuck!! the writing agrees??#which meshes perfectly w her being sheltered which!! while i thought abt it i never really went into it like this and it makes!! sense!!#& a the same time yeah!! sarah IS a symbol. which having played ff1 i think was a cool way to go about expanding her role from that gam#oh so she's a symbol? she's a reward? the motivator that pulls you along to start your journey? ok fine then. i'll give you a Symbol#and if you asked me i think jack genuinely cared/s(?) about her (just not in a romantic sense)#and unlike other things i say here i can say w 100% confidence that the writers wanted us to notice he cares#like it always fascinated me how in the jp version jack's speech patterns change DRASTICALLY whenever he's speaking to sarah#idk much japanese but the formal/respectful way he spoke stood out massively compared to his usual form of speech#i get that this could be harder to portray in english without seeming unnatural but i'm sad they didn't include this tbh#bc we don't see him talk to ANYONE like this in the game i believe- not the king or queen not astos not anyone#they WANTED you to notice. they put a big neon sign pointing at jack and sarah there's SOMETHING important here#(tangent for some reason the spanish version got this backwards and it's ash and jed who address sarah formally while jack speaks in the same blunt manner...but that#version was so rushed it still has placeholder text in the script so i woulnt put too much faith in it having like…authorial intent lmao)

#& in general there are some very slight differences between the eng and jp ver that imo carry v different implications?#like how in eng jack just kinda sounds annoyed at sarah's request and his “of course” comes across as exasperated and sarcastic rather than#genuinely polite- which makes the scene of him tapping his foot seem like an intentional gesture of “stfu already” rather than “desperately#trying to contain the wave pure compulsive rage that drives me for 2 minutes so i can be polite to this girl" yknow? #anyway what i mean is that its interesting how his affection for sarah was also "weaponized" for the plan like the one he has for his friends #and yet sarah's role is more as a symbol than an emotional catalyst? to me at least-& i keep wondering WHY it's diff for her in particular #&it's not bc she was WRITTEN poorly i feel-if the writers did fall for that kind of trap we wouldn't have sophia or neon imo #it almost feels like theres all these conspicuous arrow signs pointing at something but i cant fucking see what it is??

#but after reading this i can see how that was kinda the point i think #at the end of the day this is jack's story. and us experiencing everything from his pov at all times is a big part of why the story works so well #it makes sense he wouldn't care for anyone's emotions or inner thoughts until it's too late- therefore the game doesn't show them #& sadly that includes sarah and what's going through her head #bc i kind of wish we couldve seen more of it- what was she thinking as she died? what did she feel? was it clean and straightfoward? #hope? despair? sadness? nothing at all? too many things at once? did she feel betrayed as she remembered? did she feel resentment for the #one man who could change her world by watching her die? how was she any different from the organic reconoissance unit Iving dead in a floati #-ng island somewhere surrounded by dead bats and FUCK I haven't even talked about astos yet #it's a tragedy that despite them having canonically interacted multiple times we never get to hear any of it :(( #tho i have to put a big * on all this because i know that this could very much be me critiquing the game on what i WISH it did #rather than on how it archieved what it was actually trying to do #imo sarah has the markings of god's little lamb(symbol of hope) most likely to be slaughtered #dare i say final fantasy's very own anthy himemiya #there's something about a character whose purpose is to essentially be a symbol #and who is also a sheltered young woman whose hopefulness is not a flaw but who is perhaps too idealistic for her own good that really intrigues me!! #and from that view i like how you can see her unwavering idealism as sheltered naivety or as something good and celebrated(? in the narrative #anyway sarah both as a character and how she fits into jack's story leave so so much room for fun stuff and i really appreciate that #in a better world i think they would have a lovely friendship

#ok running out of power now so ill stop and hope this doesnt read like gibberish or realize i missed sth if i reread it in the morning #i am so so sorry for the wall of tags none of this has much of a throughline this is just thought vomit bc this post made me Think #by which i mean this post is rearranging my brain and activating neural pathways i didn't even know i had rn #& in all seriousness im so so so glad i saw this!! even if i wish i had done it sooner!! its great to read someone's thoughts like this <33

"You Never Forget Your First Love."

The other day, a mutual (hi! you know who you are I think probably hello hi! thank you for the Posting Impetus!) said something that made me curious (for, like, the 80th time, actually; lol. I Have Thoughts) about something: what's the split on people who subscribe to the "Stranger of Paradise probably intended for us to believe that Jack & Sarah were in love" mindset, vs. not? In general, but ESPECIALLY around these parts.

I genuinely didn't read it that way myself (& I do NOT normally give media (general) this much credit, but the writing in this game is sublime; I had no choice but to fully engage Scholar Mode on it), + I think it's interesting that SPECIFICALLY any of my fellow tumblr people / AO3-heads / Gay People Online / etc. seem to have. (I expect nothing from people who haven't been basting themselves in the same online sub-subcultures as me for over a decade. They're allowed to write wrong things on wikis, and have done so already; it's whatever.)

I wanna metapost badly again, so let's go. Join me. No poll. If you have an opinion on this, I'm looking directly into your eyes and beckoning you towards your own keyboard + also the reblog button / comment section, like a weird ghost. What did you think when you first played the game?? What do you think right now? What are you about to think after you have read a bunch of my words. Tell Me. I Need To Know This.

Spoilers for, idk, everything? Today we will use everything we've got to talk about Princess Sarah.

1. As a Narrative Element

This game makes a point of referring to Sarah as things like "a symbol of hope and peace" as often as possible, & when it isn't doing that she's usually in the role of An Object Or Device Of Some Kind, anyway. She's important because she's capable of holding light and dark in balance & SOMEONE'S gotta hold onto this dark crystal for safekeeping, and also we're gonna need to upset that balance on purpose later. There's that conversation in the Wicked Arbor about whether the Strangers would "choose" her (as opposed to "treasure") as the "reward" for succeeding in their mission[1], & there's the one in the Sunken Shrine where Jed asks Jack what he thinks of her and Jack says that he doesn't care about her as a person[2] BUT that protecting her is mission-critical (lol), too.

Sarah's death is metaphorically charged. It's the point of no return: the dark crystal breaks, the balance of light & dark gets extremely ruined, & Literally All The Darkness In Cornelia converges in one place (Fool's Missive XXVII). That's the payoff for the "symbol of hope and peace" motif, and communicating this idea that "the metaphorical light of hope just For Real Died, Like Catastrophically Imploded, No Take-Backs" feels to me like it was the highest priority here. Second-highest goes to "Jack had way more humanity before, but he set it aside on purpose and is actively in the middle of losing the rest of it." "Sort of." "I'm not getting into what counts as humanity or doesn't because if I did we would be here forever."

Basically, I'm saying that the tidiest read on the situation is "Jack despairs because Sarah dying means in a very literary and final way that everything is ruined forever, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with, like, Love (romantic)." I don't think the text of the game is particularly signaling that Love (romantic) is involved, and I think that if it meant to, it would be more obvious about it. You could bundle "an romance" into the "humanity" thing if you wanted to, but I'm not inclined to, based on some additional list items that you can read below this one.

[1] The fact that Neon ALSO says she feels bad for her for being thought of in this way only reinforces my conviction that the game is pointing at Sarah & yelling "REMEMBER THAT SHE IS MOSTLY A SYMBOL!", tbh. Who wants to go point out how freaky the mechanics of Being An Royalty are w/ me and the boys??

[2] I will give the Wiki WrongPosters this: I can totally see this as some kind of irony thing, given that he's still missing like a fucktillion of his memories when he says it. However! As mentioned above, I have other reasons not to read it as evidence that he was ever, like, romantically interested in her.

2. As a Sheltered Youth™

We don't have a TON of information to work with RE: Sarah as, like, a person, but here are a couple of hard facts to start with: she's 19 (per the data book, but she'd have to be somewhere in the 18-to-early-20's age range regardless or her whole deal wouldn't really make much sense, imo. She's a baby...!), and she's royalty. I think this ties into her utility as a walking metaphor, among other things; she's archetypically young, fresh, & idealistic. I'd call her naïve but the game obviously isn't interested in portraying it as a weakness, so positive words only; why not.

You could argue that people look to her as a symbol of hope because she hasn't directly experienced enough strife to exhibit hopelessness or fear in response to bad news in the abstract. I find it interesting that before Jack, like, knocks the wind out of her & tells Sophia to take her outside so she can see for herself how bad things have gotten at the end of the game, she says that her duty is to die with her people if she has to, & it doesn't even seem to occur to her that she could lead at least some of them away to safety...? When she changes her mind, she still talks about herself as a symbol before she ever uses the word "leader". She sees HERSELF in terms of symbols and metaphors, and takes action based on her designated role As One Of Those. Not very practical.

There's also the dialogue you can have with the queen the first time you're allowed to run around in the throne room at the beginning of the game, where she asks Jack to smile in front of her daughters (NOT just Mia; daughters, plural). Even if she only means "dude can you be polite please," the fact that this is The thing she has to say to Jack is telling. Is it going to upset your 19-year-old daughter to see that the Guy Whose Job It Is To Kill Monsters looks serious? Why do you think this? Does your 19-year-old daughter understand how serious the situation is, generally speaking? Do you not WANT her to for some reason? Boats don't work anymore unless a weird elf messes with them first. Not thinking very hard about the implications of this is something a sheltered person does.

Residual time loop un-memories aside, a young woman in this situation is so obviously going to have a huge crush on Jack Garland no matter what. He Is So Cool, first of all, & he's also Different from the adult men she gets to see on an everyday basis (family, guards, rando townspeople[3]...). It's not like the political social scene could POSSIBLY be thriving in this world, either; it all seems to be one kingdom we're dealing with and they're kind of busy with the external threat of being Under Fucking Attack By Monsters. Does she even get fun treats like "handsome visiting dignitaries" & what-have-you? The game doesn't present us with any potential options, here. Jack is mysterious, he has special-boy Warrior of Light status, his one job & apparent life's purpose is protecting the kingdom she loves, he's pretty nice to her (even in later cycles he at least goes out of his way to be polite!), & additionally, he's shredded. THIS makes sense to me.

There's a Q&A in the data book that has something to say about JACK as a symbol & what that has to do with this whole thing but we'll get there. We'll get there.

[3] Tangent: what's up with how Cornelia's entire adult male population appears to consist of aging queens. Why did they only make models that look Like That for the NPCs? It's awesome but I have 1 quastion

3. JACK JUMPSCARE !

I'm not about to say that he's just humoring her, or anything, but please humor ME for one second & put yourself in Jack's shoes. Not the default shoes; we can have more fun than that. Maybe the Banded Boots. Blurple ones? Shaped like a cartoon would wear them? Big spikes on the back for no reason? I love those things. Anyway, you're Jack. You're working for literally the king, & the work means Everything to you for reasons you can't even necessarily explain except to say that it JUST does. The king's eldest daughter (very young adult; Never Been Outdoors; a little overly-sociable but nice enough & what do you expect from a princess, anyway) has imprinted on you like a duckling for whatever reason. You would be nice to this person, yes? You'd be patient with her while you're in town. You have Brutal Murders to be doing, but not until, like, 2 days from now, or whatever; you're sharing space with her in some capacity in the meantime & it's in your best interests to keep her happy. (You probably even enjoy doing this, if you're Jack of a Way Earlier Cycle; I'm in no way ruling that out. Sharing your music collection with an enthusiastic Baby Adult? That's fun. I think he was probably having fun. Okay, you can step out of the fun purple shoes if you want; the Humoring Me Minute has concluded; thanks.)

Also, @2000sanimeop and I think that if Jack felt that way about her Astos would have been a little More Something about how much it was gonna suck for him when she died. In Fool's Missive XXVII he uses the word "painful," but that's about it. He doesn't even bring it up in XXV, which is the one where he says he's curious about whether she'd survive being turned into a fiend (side note: Astos fucking rocks. Why did he write that down?? I love him). & Hey SPEAKING OF ASTOS,

4. I wouldn't put Jackstos on a wiki, either.

The writing in Stranger of Paradise, SERIOUSLY, WITHOUT EXAGGERATION, is some of the best I've seen in literally anything ever. It suits not just its medium but also its sort of Place in History Relative to Other Video Games & the things it chose to DO with that medium & that niche INSANELY well. It is CUSTOMIZED. It's SO INTENTIONAL. I can't get too far into this or we'll be here all day, but the essence of what I want to say here is: there are relatively few facts presented to us by this game, compared to the implications we can go about drawing from those facts & other, external sources of context.

Sarah calls Jack her first love; that's a fact. No facts are presented to us that REALLY say much one way or the other[4] about what Jack thinks of this, himself; "fucktillion memories missing" Jack says he doesn't care, but he's missing a fucktillion of his memories, and DLC2 Jack has a set of dialogue options (hi Anne the Malboro I love you Anne the Malboro) that can point either way depending on what the player chooses, which is kind of nothing, on balance. As the audience, we can (should!) draw whatever conclusion we want about it, but none of those conclusions are text.

[4] I WILL GET TO THE DATA BOOK IN ONE SECOND. HOLD ON.

And, okay, please let me level with you. Let's be on the same page. Jack & Astos had some kind of thing going on, imo, OBVIOUSLY, but I want to be CLEAR and I want to get CREDIT for the things I'M bringing to the table to help generate this conviction. I drew that conclusion & I read that reading based on subtext, context, personal history, personal preference, & sheer gay zest for life. It is also, emphatically, NOT TEXT.

Astos refers to Jack with the ol' "...friend" in Fool's Missive XXI. He calls him "my Jack" in Fool's Missive XXXI. Canonically, textually, he has some big fucking COMPLICATED fucking feelings about this man. These are facts. If you're playing this game as Some Guy, I can see how you could potentially absorb these facts & still pay them much less regard[5] than I did & continue to. My argument here is that god I wish I lived in a world where Some Guy could extend the same courtesy to me and not treat Sarah's textual affection for Jack as something that necessarily indicates Some Kind Of Reciprocal Romantic Whatever, Definitely, Obviously, Of Course.

[5] Longer Tangent: I have been informed that the Some Guys of the world are currently pretty good at Recognizing a character that behaves in a way that's Pretty Gay, but tend to stop there, possibly for the combined reasons that A. they're not very familiar with a lot of the the ways gay relationships often work (you know, soul resonance. mutual recognition. sharing a brain etc.) and B. the Object Of Affection is usually the player character and they subconsciously shy away from thinking of a Guy They're Supposed To Identify With as gay. This is practically a lead-in to an entire separate post I could make, so I'll leave it at that, lol.

The writing is too good for that kind of assumption! I'M SERIOUS!! It's mind-blowingly subtle & endlessly fascinating to hold up to the light & view from every possible angle, and "Jack & Sarah were in love" + "Jack & Astos were in love" are BOTH ANGLES. I'm personally very very interested in giving the text credit for that. I think it's impressive. I think it's really, really cool, and I think it was on purpose. Speaking of which,

5. Word of God agrees with me, btw

This is from the Q&A section on page 156 of the Confidential File. The translations below are my own (I think they're straightforward enough, but lmk if you know more than me & I'm actually being stupid in there somewhere. Alt text has the JPN, if you want to copypaste it or something). Someone asked:

Why is it that you established Garland as someone Sarah has a romantic interest in?

The answer is from Daisuke Inoue (director, one of 3; the other 2 are from Team Ninja; he's from Square Enix):

That was because, from a narrative standpoint, we wanted Sarah to be the kind of person who holds onto hope. You can imagine that she saw the "hope" to save the world in Jack, a potential Warrior of Light. Sarah is seen by her people as a symbol of a bright future, but if there were nobody to give her hope, that might destabilize her emotionally. As for whether she felt genuine love for Jack, or just mistook her feelings of admiration towards him for "first love," we'll leave that to your interpretation.

The first time I read this, I thought the question was implying the aforementioned Reciprocal Something, but on closer inspection that doesn't even seem to be true! "思い人" seems to indicate a directional relationship; as in, the question assumes that Jack is an object of affection to Sarah, but assumes nothing about what Jack thinks.

Also, the answer uses the word "初恋" (hatsukoi), which is a very established Concept as far as "first love" goes, but in that one cutscene, Sarah says "初めての恋" (hajimete no koi), which is. Different, but I couldn't tell you how, lol. It's Not The Exact Same Phrase, but I'm not sure whether it's meaningfully different in this context. If I had to guess, I'd say that IF ANYTHING it could be a way of saying "first love" without invoking the cultural CONSTRUCT of First Love (as much)? But it's whatever. The localization holds up. All sources show that Sarah had Feelings about Jack, and all sources CONSPICUOUSLY neglect to mention Jack's feelings about her.

It was on purpose. This is my license to be as annoying as I want for one second here. I am right. All the other writing in this game is notably subtle, efficient, intentional, and skilled, AND ALSO, WHEN do you ever see anyone write such a richly beautiful, mostly-subtextual relationship between two men, which can easily be read as a romantic thing, and NOT explicitly canonize a very possible romantic relationship between at least one of those men and a woman, like not even in an interview or anything. What the fuck, man.

I'm putting away the Respectable Scholar Hat now. This is so funny. The person asking this question didn't EVEN go as far as assuming Jack & Sarah had any kind of Actual Romance going on, & the answer STILL dials it back to "she might have been conflating her feelings about Jack AS A SYMBOL with actual affection, also. We'll let you decide : ) ". This game is everything ever.

#sop #veeposting

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alphonseelriic · 2 years ago

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Hi Sofia, hope you're not overworking yourself despite being busy! 🤧

Ooh what is Christmas like there besides being hot? I always wondered why they don't have more popular shows portraying a summer Christmas cus I've never seen that! Like do people do bbqs or something too instead of feasts indoors? 😆 Haha to be fair, where I live it doesn't get snow either and the weather is hit or miss about how cold it is during Christmas season but generally much warmer than most areas' winter 😅. I too admire the white Christmas tho.

Awww your beach days sound positively relaxing!! <3 Hope you'll get there soon!! I miss the beach now too 😩

No way! Eng/lit sounds difficult haha!! Huge props to you, I imagine there's a lot of papers involved? What do you want to do with your degree? *sending you all the de-stress comfort things during these times*

Thank you for the rec too!! I'll keep that in mind! Unfortunately I read so slow, so I always go for the mindless watching. 😅

Is shounen your favorite genre? I too love characters who are more than face value. And omg I lovee Haikyuu and almost everyone in there, so I can see that!! Yamaguchi's development was so heartwarming in the beginning.😭

And don't worry I've seen all of FMAB, it's one of my favorite animes so feel free to talk about anything there. I've only watched the anime for Ao no Exorcist but I remember liking it a lot and Rin too. ☺️ So you have good taste!! Thank you for all the insight into your favs, very interesting about Gon too (I'm anime only again lol) ❤️. And please don't stop on my account, I enjoy hearing all your thoughts so be as long as you want haha.

Question of the week, do you have any favorite colors or palette and why?

Take care!

- Animanga 🎅

Hello Secret Santa!! I'm sorry for the late reply, today I had a really important and difficult final and I studied all week hahah but it all went well! I got a good grade and I'm in a really good humor rn ;) it's nice seeing the results of your hard work. Hope you're doing well too!!!

Yeah I feel summer Christmas is a really missed opportunity for sure. In the case of my country (and, for what I know, most of south america) most people have reunions with either their nuclear or extended families (in my case it's the latter bc my family is pretty big and close) and eat dinner together, we open the presents at 12 and then stay hanging out till 2 o 3am. My grandma has a big front yard so we put a pair of long tables and seats over the grass. Lately we've been going to my aunt's instead, who has a pool ;)

In general it's a really family oriented and relaxed holiday, but I think it's a cultural thing rather than a southern hemisphere thing. I really don't know how they celebrate in Australia and New Zealand for example :p now I'm curious...

Oww I feel the struggle, living in a place that doesn't have snow can be a bummer sometimes. Winter here feels very gray without it :( but it is what it is....

Yuppp I've written a looooot of papers throughout the career and I still have to keep writing them 😅 they never end, but I was the one that signed up for this so I can't complain much. Hmm to be honest I kinda jumped into this career bc I love reading and I was a dumb 17yo who didn't think much ahead (bad. bad thing to to) but now I would love to work as a text corrector for publishing companies!! But also any kind of job involving libraries is good for me for the time being, I'm not a very ambitious person really. I know the most common path for lit people is teaching but I don't think that's a good match for me, at least not for now. Maybe someday.....

Hahahahah don't worry about it! Despite me loving to read I'm also really slow at reading manga. And I usually only do it when I really liked the anime adaptation to begin with. I think the only one where I started reading the manga first was Spy x family (and now it got an anime and blew up)

I honestly haven't thought about shounen being my favorite genre but I think it's true 🤔 I honestly didn't realize the grand majority of anime I mentioned was shounen LMAO but yeah I tend to like it a lot, specially the less formulaic ones. Aww I'm glad you also love FMAB and Haikyuu :') Yamaguchi's journey was lovely to watch and what cemented him as my fav was how easy it was for me to connect with him! I was also shy and a big pushover in school and I had to learn how to get out of my shell and stand up for myself, just like him. Thanks for the compliment also, Uno reverse card at that 💕

Usually my favorite color palettes are ones with cold colors! Purple is my favorite color in all its shades (but mostly lighter ones) and I love how it goes with blues and greens! I def prefer the more pastel shades in general. Lately I've also been more attracted to warmer colors like yellows and soft oranges, but lilacs and lavenders will always be my favorites 💟

Thanks for the ask and happy weekend!!

#asks #secretsanta2022

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milenadaniels · 3 years ago

Text

Before the Night Fades, 8.6k - POV Outsider on Buck/Eddie double date shenanigans (AO3)

“I have a bottle of champagne, four champagne flutes, one engagement ring to go into one of those champagne flutes, and a note to deliver it all to table 34 with dessert,” Tomas explains, wide-eyed, throwing his hand back to the prep station where said champagne is waiting on ice next to four flutes and a small ring box.

“Okay?”

“Okay so there’s two men and two women and I have no idea who’s getting proposed to. I’m not even 100% on who came with who."

---

Or, EddieAna and BuckTaylor double date and it ruins everyone's night.

The nearly-post-COVID return to normal rush is going exactly as well as management at the Tilted Cactus expected it would, which is to say it’s going as miserably as the waitstaff at the Tilted Cactus expected it would.

The owners lost a lot of money to lockdowns, diminished capacity and the general (extremely warranted) paranoia of co-mingling in public during an international plague for the sake of overpriced appetizers. And despite accurately predicting the business would boom once the doors re-opened, management didn’t feel the need to account for more staff to serve said business.

So despite owing $34k on her student loans (that’s after a generous gift from both her parents and her maternal grandmother), barely being able to afford rent in LA, and the utter lack of career prospects, Mere is taking a break in the backroom, next to the dirty mop bucket, mentally running through her finances before she officially gives her notice.

She can’t quit, she knows that.

Turns out leaving New Zealand for LA with nothing but a dream and the idea that if Taika could do it so could she was not the most future-proof plan she could have come up with. The starving artist thing was so 2010.

But Mere’s made up her mind. She’s not made for this abuse. This is bullshit. She’s going to pack up, go home, and you know, do...something else. She’ll figure it out.

Mere pulls herself up from her indelicate crouch on some empty crates and goes in search of a piece of paper — or a fucking napkin, who cares — on which to write up her official resignation.

“No, in section 3A,” she hears Tomas fake-whisper. He’s one of the few new hires to grace these hallowed halls and still thinks it’s disrespectful to talk shit about customers even in the backroom. Umida, a five year veteran of this distinguished profession, has been trying to disabuse him of this particular nonsense.

“Where the fuck is section 3A, Tommy? We have sections 1 to 9, we don’t have any letters.”

“The new sidewalk sections have letters, to distinguish them from inside.”

“You mean sections 10 and 11?”

“...Mr. Peters said they’re using letters.”

“Mr. Peters can swallow my entire ass. The sidewalk sections are literally right outside the door from 9, why would they not be called 10 and 11?”

“Or ‘Hell On Earth’ and ‘Kill Me Please’, as we call them colloquially,” Mere offers, startling Tomas as she pushes through the swinging door she’d been hiding behind. Patio dining is highly encouraged and an excellent way to dine if one has patios. The Tilted Cactus does not have patios. It has a temporary license to put tables on the dirty sidewalk outside their restaurant, where waitstaff get to weave around pedestrians, dogs, and carts like they’re completing an obstacle course.

“Yeah, those work,” Umida agrees, emphasizing her point with a dispirited index finger in Mere’s direction.

“Okay, whatever,” Tomas says with a pained eye roll. “Can you please just check it out and let me know?”

“What’s happening?” Mere asks. She’s leaving this popsicle stand (ideally, on fire as she walks away slowly into the night) but she’s also starved of both human attention and the inherent drama of the culinary world so she’ll be damned if she misses out on one final showdown.

Tomas takes a breath to steel himself. “I have a bottle of champagne, four champagne flutes, one engagement ring to go into one of those champagne flutes, and a note to deliver it all to table 34 with dessert,” Tomas explains, wide-eyed, throwing his hand back to the prep station where said champagne is waiting on ice next to four flutes and a small ring box.

“Okay?”

“Okay so there’s two men and two women and I have no idea who’s getting proposed to. I’m not even 100% on who came with who.”

“You don’t have gaydar where you come from?” Umida asks in perfect deadpan.

Tomas glares harder, crosses his arms and juts one hip out. “I come from San Francisco. We invented gaydar. I’m saying I’m pretty sure the guys are together, but I’m also pretty sure they’re each with the women they’re sitting next to. So figure that out.”

“Like a double thruple?” Mere asks, now actually becoming curious.

“Like a ‘I don’t know what y’all are smoking this far north but I don’t understand your weird relationship dynamics and I’m still on probation and I can’t lose this job because I can’t move back in with my brother because I will murder him and I can’t be an only child with aging parents in this economy so can you please just go out there and tell me what the fuck is happening so I can throw this ring at the right person and punch out sometime before I ‘accidentally’ fall on the meat clever downstairs?’ kind of situation.”

Umida and Mere share a glance.

“Okay, well, don’t despair, new guy,” Mere says with a pat on his arm. “Save the meat cleaving for the capitalist elite. We got you. Let the pros handle this.”

“What did the note say?” Umida asks. “One ‘e’ or two? We can at least eliminate half of our options.”

Tomas does not check the note to spot whether the note-taker had written ‘fiancé’ or ‘fiancée’. He stares them down and fips the note in his fingers so the text faces them.

“It says ‘finance’.”

“Ah.”

“We’re going to need a more hands-on investigation, then,” Mere announces.

—————————-

Mere goes first, only because Umida was on her way to swap a side dressing for her table when Tomas intercepted her.

Mere carries a jug of water and makes the rounds of the outdoor tables, trying to hold in her visible distaste for the pseudo-patio vibe the owners tried to make happen out here. There’s a bike stand and a taxi stand two feet from where people are trying to have a romantic dinner. Every now and again, the LA traffic gets rowdy and noisy, completely butchering the atmosphere. There’s a shitty speaker funneling in some Frank Sinatra but it really does nothing to help.

But after this mystery is solved, none of this will be her problem anymore.

Like Tomas said, there are two men and two women sitting like cardinal points around a round table. The women are on the north and east ends, the men on the south and west ones. Two of them are brunets, one a redhead, and one a blond. They’re all disgustingly gorgeous.

And that’s all she’s got.

“The ravioli sounds so good,” the brunette woman says, casting a look at the brunet man to her side.

“Yeah, it does,” he says.

“Mm,” the blond man disagrees. “It’s got feta.”

“What’s wrong with feta?” Asks the redheaded woman.

“Absolutely nothing is wrong with feta,” he responds with a superior smile directed at the man next to him who’s preemptively adopting the look of someone ready to hear some bullshit. “Unless you have an underdeveloped palate and are simply overwhelmed by such strong delicacies as a moderately salty cheese.”

“Okay, don’t talk to me about an underdeveloped palate, Pennsylvania,” the other man responds, posturing despite the softness of his eyes.

“Hey, I said nothing to besmirch the great state of Texas. Texas is a wonder of culinary delight. I’m saying you’re...a simple man.”

“Feta’s disgusting and that’s a hill I’m willing to die on,” the brunet says with smug finality, holding the other man’s eyes until they’re both smirking and looking back at their menus.

Well then.

Mere’s a little bummed as she fills the water at table 36. She’d been hoping the mystery would run longer than 2 whole minutes, but these guys are definitely together. So the mystery will only come down to who’s getting eng—

“Thankfully Chris inherited a more refined palate,” the blond man — Pennsylvania — chirps as the last word.

“He did,” the brunette woman chimes in with a playful smile. “He loves my cooking. You both loved that greek salad I made last week, didn’t you? That had feta in it.”

“It did!” the brunet man replies, slipping his hand overtop hers. “And I loved it. So clearly context is a factor.”

Mere almost spills the rest of the water all over the lady at table 38 as she takes in the man and woman mooning at each other. Though if it’s any consolation, the redheaded woman looks as unimpressed as Mere feels.

“Yeah, I have no idea,” Mere reports back to Tomas.

“The redheads are playing footsie under the table now. That’s one couple at least right?” Tomas asks. The two of them are parked behind the bar where they can see through the window outside but the exterior tint prevents anyone outside from seeing them. The bar is still used for pouring drinks but the stools are gone — can’t maintain 6 feet between them — so the staff pretty much have the run of this corner of the restaurant.

“He’s not a redhead,” Mere mutters, looking out the window to catch the action. “It’s like a dark blond. And I don’t know, I’m pretty sure the two brunets are together, but then blond guy’s foot is way into the other guy’s space.” For a moment she’s distracted by just how damn long his legs are. “That’s certainly...familiar.”

“They’re lesbians,” Umida declares when she returns from dropping off plates at table 32.

“They’re lesbians?” Tomas parrots skeptically. “I did not get that vibe.”

“I could see lesbian for the redhead, I think,” Mere says. “Don’t know about the brunette.”

“Lesbians come in all flavours,” Umida informs them haughtily. It’s the start of Pride month and her hijab is held together by an “Ally” pin. “You can’t tell someone’s orientation just by looking at them.”

“But you’ve declared them lesbians,” Mere points out.

“Because lesbians are approaching their table and only lesbians know other lesbians.”

“That’s definitely not true,” Tomas reproaches.

“No, she’s right, lesbians coming up!” Mere watches as two more unfairly gorgeous women approach with two young boys in tow. Honestly, screw LA and their beauty standards. The parties look surprised to see each other, but they clearly know each other well. One of the boys stays with the women, but the other one breaks off to join the table.

“No, I mean you can know lesbians without being a lesbian.”

Umida and Mere ignore him.

“Okay, that’s one of their kids, right?” Umida asks. “Lesbians babysitting for date night?”

“He’s got Pennsylvania’s curls,” Mere agrees. "That's the blond guy, by the way, I think he’s from there. Brunet guy is Texas for the time being."

The boy reaches the table and is pulled into a strong hug by Texas, who then directs him to a hug with the brunette.

“Oh, unexpected.” Mere would have sworn he was a dead ringer for Pennsylvania. “But okay, that confirms the hand-holding I saw. We have a set of parents. And unless this is a super modern table, I don’t see the parents being here on dates with other people.”

“Mm, I don’t know.” Umida dithers. “That’s like an auntie hug, not a parent hug. Like if she is the mom, the kid is not happy with her.”

“Wait,” Tomas says.

The boy is wiggling out of Brunette’s grasp and rounding the table to Pennsylvania who’s waiting with a wide smile and open arms, and instead of letting go after, the boy finagles his way onto Pennsylvania’s lap to steal a breadstick. Pennsylvania reaches into the basket for another breadstick to pass to the little boy still waiting with his moms and Mere’s heart tugs a little.

Texas watches on from across the table with unrestrained fondness. His leg shifts to press against Pennsylvania’s who looks up with a smile.

“Boom, gay dads!” Tomas crows.

“And lesbians,” Umida adds.

“Redhead definitely has no part of this,” Mere notes. The woman is smiling but it’s polite and practised, not warm or welcoming. “I guess the brunets could be siblings maybe? Really close siblings?”

Finally, the babysitters make to leave so Pennsylvania kisses the boy’s temple and guides him back to his feet. Texas presses his own kiss to the boy’s curls as he passes, saying something they can’t make out from behind the glass. Brunette gets only a wave as he leaves.

“Gays and lesbians,” Umida concludes smugly.

“Okay, good,” Tomas sighs with relief. “So we know who the couples are, now who’s gettin—”

“Um,” Mere interrupts, pointing at the table.

Redhead’s foot is making its way up Pennsylvania’s leg and he shoots her a grin.

“For fuck’s sake,” Tomas spits as he walks away.

“Did you even take their order yet?” Mere calls after him. He doesn’t answer.

———-

Mere gets pulled away because now that she’s not quitting in outrage until this table 34 drama is over, she figures she should actually get back to work. Happily, having not seen her for the last 20 minutes, Mikael figured she had left or died and had taken over her section. She agrees to split half the tips with him and lets herself be pulled back into the tide of madness.

“Got it figured yet, Tim-Tam?” she asks when she passes him near the bathrooms.

“The guys are sharing their orders,” he says despondently.

“That’s not that incriminating. I split my orders with people. I’m not about to pay full price to discover if I like something.”

“No,” Tomas glares before gesturing to the window with disgust. “They’re sharing their orders.”

Tomas stalks away to hopefully take an herbal break to calm down and Mere goes back to the window just in time to catch the insanity. Mere feels Umida come up behind her and tries to suppress her shiver when her “what in all that is holy” skates across her bare shoulder.

Pennsylvania has just finished piling some of his spaghetti on Texas’ plate, which is exceedingly normal. But now Pennsylvania is reaching for Texas' burger.

“He didn’t cut that,” Umida notes.

“No, he did not.”

They have pretty messy burgers at Tilted Cactus, ones that are hard to share because if you cut them down the middle they tend to lose structural integrity. Of course, this isn’t a big concern if you’re sharing already-bitten-into burgers. Which these absolute freaks are doing.

“Gays and lesbians,” Umida declares again, the earlier smugness replaced with an air of disgust.

But when Umida walks away, Mere watches Brunette wipe something off Texas’ cheek and frowns. One throuple and redheaded side piece? Maybe?

————

“I’m struggling with lesbians as a theory,” Mere tells Umida the next chance she gets at the pickup counter. “I want to believe, but…”

“Yeah, I’m doubting now too. They’re almost exclusively talking to each other. But then I realized it was more getting-to-know-you conversation and this would be a hell of a weird first date.”

“Huh, so heteros all around?”

“Well, I also caught on that they’re spending all this time talking to each other because the guys are like in their own world. Finishing each others’ —”

“Sandwiches?”

“Exactly,” Umida grins, unexpectedly delighted by the reference. “So I don’t know. I really don’t envy Tommy.”

“Me either.”

“Hey Manish,” Umida yells out to the other side of the pickup window, “I’m picking up for Lenore but she’s got a two-seater, why do I have four dishes here?”

“Because Lenore can’t write for shit,” Mere says, picking up the order slip and squinting at the scrawl. “These are for table 24, not 29. It’s a four-seater.”

“Alright, well I guess you’re helping me, then,” Umida says with a wink.

Umida is fully capable of carrying four dishes on her own but she’s asking Mere to come with her so Mere’s already reaching for the plates, hoping the blush on her cheek can be written off as heat from the kitchen.

————-

During a slow stretch, Mere takes it upon herself to refill water and wine glasses in section 10.

From table 32 she can hear them talking about elementary school workloads.

“Oh, ah, I meant to let you know,” Pennsylvania says to Redhead, sitting up in his seat. “I can’t make it to the movies next Friday, can we move it to the next week? I should know my schedule by Wednesday.”

“Sure,” Redhead says with a hint of bite to her pleasant smile. “But I thought you had Friday off.”

“I do,” Pennsylvania says, his lips curving into a small, excited smile, “but Christopher won his class’ public speaking competition and they’re doing a kind of show of all the winners for the parents, and it’s on Friday.”

Mere moves around table 34 and heads for table 36 next, but catches the looks of discomfort on every face aside from Pennsylvania’s. He doesn’t realize he’s said something wrong, but the rest of them have.

“Isn’t that just during school hours?” Brunette woman asks.

Texas hesitates before saying, “yeah, but we’re taking him to Universal after to celebrate.”

Out of pity, Mere doubles back to table 34 and reaches for his water glass to fill. People tend to keep their drama buckled while the waitstaff is there. And sure enough, Redhead glances up and paints a tense smile on her face.

“Yeah, not a problem. That sounds exciting.”

There’s a bite to her words, and by the way his shoulders tense and his fingers curl more tightly around his fork, Texas seems to have picked up on it.

————-

By the end of the entrees, most of the staff have caught onto Tomas’ predicament and one by one everyone from the table-bussers to the cooks have gone out for a smokeless smoke break to try to be the one to divine what the hell is happening at table 34.

None are successful.

“This isn’t even like a romantic date,” Mani laments. “Like none of them are that dressed up and they’re talking about like natural disasters and shit. I don’t get a proposal vibe from like any of them.”

“Who even goes on a double date to propose? Who does that? It’s so tacky!” Gabby says from behind the bar where she’s helping herself to a quick nip before she heads home.

“Who still thinks the ring in the champagne bit is a good idea, is my question. It’s a choking hazard!” Mere says. “How romantic to start off your engagement with a trip to the ER.”

Tomas ignores them all. He looks about 10 minutes away from saying to hell with his probationary status and drinking the next hour away straight out of the vodka bottle at his elbow. “I know it’s Pride and I should be representing but I could really do with a little heteronormativity right now.”

—————-

Tomas is stalling.

Table 34 asked for dessert, of course, and when he vaguely floated the idea of champagne, Texas had readily agreed, so this is happening. The champagne flutes are lined up on a tray, the champagne in them is warming with every minute that passes, and he is no closer to figuring out what to do.

“What if I put all the glasses in the middle and they have to pick which one they want?”

“Okay but the person getting proposed to tonight likely doesn’t know?” Mikael says.

“What if you pretend you didn’t see the instructions?” Shania pitches. “As if we can ever write stuff down correctly anyway. Just say it said to bring out the champagne but nothing about the ring being in a flute! Just hand it back to the proposer and let them get it done.”

“You think we don’t know who the proposee is but we know who the proposer is?” Tomas bites. “If I knew that, Shania, I could have just called them away with a phone call or something and asked them who to give the flute to.”

“Geez,” Shania exclaims, hopping off the bar counter to walk away. “You try to help…”

“And then there were three,” Mario announces as he comes back from another completely unnecessary round of filling water glasses outside.

Tomas’ head snaps up from where he’d been staring into the countertops. “What?”

They all rush to the window and sure enough: Redhead is gone.

“I didn’t see her come in,” Mere says, almost breathlessly. If she’d come in to use the restroom, they would have seen her.

“No, she’s gone-gone,” Mario supplies. “Said she had to get back to work but I’m pretty sure she just wanted out. That’s the chick from the news, you know?”

“People still watch the news?” Mere wondered aloud.

Tomas tsks. “Redhead was the least probable suspect!”

“Well we can rule out Brunette and Pennsylvania as a couple, right?” Umida asks, waiting briefly for the gathered crowd to nod. “Okay, so we’re down to the brunets together, or Pennsylvania and Texas.”

“Or polyamorous,” Mikael sniffs. Mikael is trying polyamory. He doesn’t know there’s a bet going on how long he’ll last. It’s a fine relationship style to get into but one he and his jealousy and insecurity issues are deeply unsuited for.

“Apologies, Mikael, or polyamorous. So you have...yeah, 3 of 3 options left for that ring,” Umida grimaces.

“Wait!” So-Hee cries. She’s supposed to be hosting at the entrance but COVID-19 protocols mean people don’t show up earlier than 5 minutes before their reservation so the podium isn’t very backed up. “What does the ring look like? That could be a clue, right?”

They look to Tomas, whose face is blank.

“You didn’t look?” Mere accuses him, though to be fair it never occurred to her either.

So-Hee pounces on the deep purple velvet box without waiting for Tomas to answer.

“Please god,” Tomas mumbles, grabbing the box out of her hands and prying it open with almost reckless enthusiasm.

All six members of staff currently on duty at the window crowd around, many heads bumping together to catch a glimpse. The ring nestled in the box has a slim, dainty band with a solitaire diamond jutting out proudly, with filigree details on either side.

“Oh thank sweet baby Jesus, that is a woman’s ring!” Tomas nearly yells.

“It could be a man’s ring,” Umida protests weakly, almost sad to see the drama come to an end.

Mere’s a little put out too if she’s being honest. But even if they couldn’t tell from the design, the sizing is way too small to fit on either of table 34’s men’s fingers, as So-Hee demonstrates by plucking the ring up and sliding it onto her own tiny finger.

“Yeah, get it stuck on your sweaty fingers, So-Hee,” Tomas protests almost hysterically, feeling his win come into danger. He wrestles it back off her finger and shoves it back in the box before taking a deep cleansing breath.

“Okay, I’ve got a dessert course to deliver,” he says, the picture of calm professionalism as if he hasn’t spent the last hour losing his entire shit.

———-

They should disperse then, but like brothers in arms after battle, all of them feel the need to stand guard as Tomas prepares to deliver the goods.

Some of them, like So-Hee, stand because they’ve foolishly become emotionally invested in the upcoming nuptial bliss.

Some of them, like Umida, stand because they fell in love with their version of events and they feel the need to properly mourn for what might have been.

“They’re co-parenting that boy,” Umida grumbles. “We all saw that! They can’t deny that!”

And some of them, like Mere, stand because they really can’t be bothered to get back to work.

But stand together they do as Tomas plops the ring in one flute and carries the tray out.

“Excuse me,” comes a voice off to the side of their group.

So-Hee, ever the consummate people-pleaser, actually turns to take care of the customer. The rest of them stay fixed at the window. “Yes, sir, can I help you?”

“Maybe? I couldn’t help but notice that young man taking some champagne out.”

“Yes, would you like to order a bottle as well?” So-Hee pokes Mikael. “We’d be happy to bring some out to you.”

“Ah, no,” the man says. “Well, yes. But I’ve already ordered some. I called earlier, when I reserved my table.”

Mere stiffens, her sixth sense borne of years of customer service piquing. Beside her, Umida takes note as well.

“I asked that champagne be brought to the table with dessert, and I left a box...one that looks a lot like the one on your counter there. And I’m sure it’s just a coincidence but I couldn’t help but want to make sure it’s not my ring that just went out to that other table.”

Mere’s wide eyes spring to Umida’s.

“Oh my fuck,” Umida whispers.

Then they’re both racing for the door.

“Wrong table, wrong table, wrong table,” Mere mutters under her breath as she dodges a stroller and a dog walker trying to reach Tomas —

“Oh, Edmundo!” Brunette exclaims brightly.

Umida’s hand braces Mere like a soccer mom in a car.

It’s too late now.

There’s nothing they can do but watch this trainwreck happen.

Happily, Redhead vacated the seat nearest to them so they have an unobstructed view of Brunette’s eyes filling with tears, of Texas’ wide eyes, and of Pennsylvania’s face losing all colour.

From context, Texas is the Edmundo Brunette is so pleased with.

But Edmundo is shaking his head, his brow furrowed. “I...wha— ”

Pennsylvania comes back to himself first, though the smile he paints on his face is strained and frail. “Ah, con — congratulations.”

“Wha— Buck, no.”

Pennsylvania — Buck — stands up from the table like a colt learning to walk, his eyes darting across the table without landing anywhere. “I — ah — I should let you guys celebrate.”

“Buck, no, I—” Edmundo’s voice is firmer now, his hand darting out to reach for Buck, and Brunette starts to catch on that nobody’s getting down on one knee with a flowery speech.

“Edmundo?” she calls, her bright smile dimming.

Edmundo looks torn and trapped in equal measure, and Mere wonders for a heartbreaking moment if maybe he’s as confused about his relationships as the Tilted Cactus employees have been tonight.

With a sigh, and a reminder that she’s out of this place like Cinderella at midnight, Mere falls on the proverbial meat cleaver. Stepping around Umida’s still outstretched arm, Mere weaves herself in front of Tomas just in case there’s any physical fallout, and pitches her voice low so the neighbouring tables will have to strain to listen in.

“Excuse me, my name is Mere, I’m the assistant manager. I am so sorry to inform you there’s been a terrible mistake. We’ve delivered a ring to your table that was destined to another this evening. We apologize deeply for any confusion this has caused and we will of course be comping your meals.”

“It—Oh.” Brunette’s eyes land on the ring on her finger, and her remaining excitement implodes into embarrassment so quickly and resoundly that Mere’s surprised it doesn’t produce an audible sound. The fingers of her opposite hand grip the ring and pause for a moment before slipping it off. There’s no box to slip it into so Mere holds out her hand, the other tucked neatly behind her back.

“Thank you,” Mere says quietly. “Please forgive us for the mistake. We will be investigating what happened so it never happens again.”

“Of course,” Brunette says lightly, forcing some life back into her voice. “I’m sure you didn’t mean any harm by it.”

Her eyes lift then and take in the scene across from her. Edmundo and Buck still standing, Edmundo’s hand wrapped round Buck’s wrist to keep him from leaving, and her eyes shutter once more.

“If you’ll excuse me, I need to freshen up,” she says politely, rising from her seat and escaping into the restaurant.

Edmundo watches her go but says nothing, frozen still, holding onto the man beside him.

With all eyes more or less off them now, Mere gathers Tomas and Umida and hauls ass back into the restaurant.

————-

The ring is cleaned and inspected by Gareth, its actual owner, who is amiable enough to not escalate the situation further. His fiancée-to-be is none the wiser on any of these happenings — luckily their table, 29, is indoors — so his proposal is still on for the next course. But, just in case it doesn’t go the way Gareth hopes and he turns on them, Mere preemptively comps their meal too and congratulates him before he’s reseated.

On her way back to the kitchen, she grabs Lenore and uses the last hour of her completely fake authority to formally bar her from ever answering the phone again, or taking notes from the phone, or writing anything anywhere ever again. Lenore, having heard about the drama at table 34 and having seen the crying woman rush to the bathroom just now, accepts with little resistance.

And Mere, heart heavy with the weight of what they’ve done to this poor woman, mentally shakes her fist at her own curiosity and need for schadenfreude. If she’d bailed on this place an hour ago, she wouldn’t be leaving with this heartache by proxy.

As if beckoned by her thoughts, Brunette emerges from the bathroom just as Mere is crossing in front of it. She looks better, her tears packed away, and her cheeks only slightly reddened. Mere is about to offer her something — a glass of water? wine? a whole bottle? — when Edmundo steps into view. Mere doesn’t break stride until she’s behind the protection of the pay terminal privacy partition where she can see them but not be seen.

“Hey,” he says softly, his frame pretty loose and relaxed for a man who looked so troubled moments ago.

“Hey,” she returns with a forced smile.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know—”

Brunette cuts him off with a hand. “It’s not your fault. They made a mistake. It happens.”

Edmundo nods.

“But…” Brunette continues, fidgeting with the strap of her purse. “For a moment, it didn’t seem far-fetched that it...might be real, you know? I know we’ve been taking things slow, but we have been seeing each other for nearly a year now. And I thought… I don’t know what I thought, but it...it didn’t seem so far-fetched.”

Edmundo’s shoulders have grown tense, and it doesn’t escape Brunette’s notice. She smiles sadly.

“But then I looked up and you weren’t even looking at me. You were looking at Buck. You were so scared he would leave and that — that just doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean, even if the...the ring was a big misunderstanding, wouldn’t it have been better that he leave so we could talk about it privately? But you were scared, because he was upset… And if he was...I don’t know...upset that you hadn’t told him about this, you could have caught up later and discussed it, cleared it up.”

Edmundo says nothing, but he hangs his head and gnaws on his lower lip.

“But you were scared. Scared of him leaving in that moment. Scared...that he’d leave with the wrong idea? That he’d leave thinking you were — we were... ” Brunette sighs sharply. “I think I’ve been a fool.”

“You haven’t—” Edmundo tries to say.

“No, I have. It’s felt so many times like there’s been a third wheel in this relationship, and I genuinely didn’t realize until now that it was me. And maybe I’m naive but I’d like to think you didn’t realize it until today either. That you’re just as big a fool as I am. And maybe Buck is too.”

Edmundo opens his mouth twice to say something but nothing comes out. In the end, he settles on, “Ana, I’m sorry. I...didn’t realize. I don’t even know if I understand what I realize. But I...I know you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met and you didn’t deserve this.”

Brunette — Ana — smiles again sadly, and if a touch bitterly, she’s entitled to it.

“Thank you,” she says softly, before fidgeting with her purse strap again. “I’m going to go. You’ll...say goodbye to Buck for me?” Edmundo nods.

“Goodbye, Edmundo.”

“Take care, Ana,” he responds.

Ana takes a few steps before stopping and turning. “Good luck. I think…” she shakes her head before repeating, “good luck,” and leaving out the side doors.

Mere unglues herself from the privacy wall and slinks sadly back to the bar where she finds Tomas and Umida already halfway through a glass of red each. There’s a third, untouched glass waiting for her.

“We’re horrible people,” Mere decides. “Brunette and Texas just broke up.”

“We didn’t do this,” Umida protests half-heartedly. “Technically, Tomas did.”

“Ugh, you ass,” Tomas sputters. “The note said table 34, you all saw it. It’s Lenore’s fault.”

“It is Lenore’s fault,” Mere agrees before downing half her glass like a shot. Out the window, she can see Pennsyl — Buck — slumped in his chair, staring at the tablecloth. There’s a fresh bottle of wine on the table, two empty glasses at his and Edmundo’s places. Mere raises a glass at Tomas for the gesture.

“If they don’t end up drinking it, I’m taking it home,” Tomas says, “I already wrote it off.”

That’s fair.

Unfortunately for him, when Edmundo gets back to the table, he immediately pours them both a very full glass.

Buck straightens out in his chair, looking concerned and looking around for Ana, who doesn’t materialize. Edmundo says something that has Buck relaxing but looking guilty. Then Edmundo shuffles closer and puts a hand back on Buck’s wrist.

“Okay, back to work,” Mere orders. “We’ve intruded on this drama way too much already.”

When she finds her way back to the bar some twenty minutes later for a totally appropriate reason, table 34 is empty.

————————

A year later, Mere finds herself sitting on the Tilted Cactus bar counter on a Friday night, legs swinging and popping olives like they’re mints. She ended up not quitting her job the night she intended to. Between the excitement, the drama, and the on-duty alcohol, she was feeling pretty chill about sticking it out at the Tilted Cactus a while longer.

But she ended up quitting two days later when the owner found out about how she impersonated an assistant manager and gave her hell for it. She could have stayed, he wasn’t really going to reprimand her. But listening to him talk down at her while her stomach filled with dread at the idea of having to apologize and walk back into that hell hole…nah. Fuck the Tilted Cactus, fuck the owner, and fuck two weeks’ notice. They weren’t getting a minute out of her ever again.

She took the gamble of taking out more student loans and was wrapping up her EMT certification. She’d be in an ambulance soon enough, actually helping people. Not the dream that got her to America, but one that would suffice for now. Make up enough karma to get her feet back under her.

“The lesbians are back,” Umida announces excitedly in a whisper as she fits herself between Mere’s legs against the bar.

“Which lesbians?”

“THEE lesbians,” Umida returns, pointing out the window.

“Those are two guys, babe. Three if you count the kid.”

“They’re lesbians,” Umida insists, waving her hand to dismiss the kid from her labels. “They have strong lesbian energy.”

“You’re claiming them for your people?” Mere grins fondly. It’s the start of Pride again and Umida’s Ally pin has been traded in for a lesbian-flag coloured hijab secured with the updated BIPOC Pride flag pin. She’s very pretty in pink, right down to the lipstick Mere isn’t allowed to kiss off of her until her shift is up.

“I am, they’re mine. I claim them.”

“Wait,” Mere squints, trying to pin down the familiar feeling she’s getting, “are those…”

“The guys! Eddie and Buck. I told you they were semi-regulars now. And we were right, that’s totally their kid. I don’t know how, especially since we know they weren’t together before that night, but he’s their kid. My money’s on one of them being trans because he’s literally their spitting image combined.”

Mere sighs happily and hugs Umida to her. “Well, I’m glad some good came out of that night.”

“Umida?” a young voice asks from across the bar. In the year since the reopening, a slew of new hires have joined the ranks to replace all the veterans leaving and Mere barely recognizes anyone anymore. She saw Mikael (unsurprisingly single again) a couple of weeks ago but he’s clearly on his way out too. Tomas lasted until his probation was over before quitting. Umida, in no small part because she was the longest lasting employee, was rightfully promoted to the role of assistant manager. Mere still hopes she’ll leave this hell hole soon but in the meantime, at least she’s getting paid. And authority looks really good on her.

“What up, Jerome?”

Jerome pushes his dark blue fringe back and holds up a sheet of paper. “I have a note here to deliver a ring to a table with dessert but it doesn’t say who’s supposed to get it.”

“Oh my god, no, no way,” Mere laughs and tries to push Umida away. “Let me out of here.”

Umida’s arms close around her hips, preventing her escape.

“Calm down. I created a form so that night doesn’t happen again. Jerome, did you use the form?”

“Um, yeah.” He shakes the sheet of paper in his hands. “I mean whoever took the call did. They checked off the table number, and it’s a ‘fiancé’ not a ‘fiancée’, but it’s a table with two guys so…”

“Okay, but there’s a field for the name, did they fill it out?”

“How am I supposed to know who they are from a name though?”

“Oh my god, kid, you schmooze,” Umida says. “You roll up to their table, you lay on the customer service thick and introduce yourself and ask their names. People are idiots, they’ll tell you, just like that.”

Jerome cocks his head in contemplation. “Yeah okay, but no, there’s no name. It’s blank.”

“But you made a form,” Mere mock whispers.

Umida turns on her, her eyeshadow catching the bar lights as she narrows her eyes. “This is not the form’s fault, don’t you blame this on the form! The form has a field for a name! The form provides!”

“The form is flawless,” Mere agrees quickly, running her hand down Umida’s arm soothingly. “You can’t account for user error.”

Umida glares harder before looking up to the ceiling in supplication.

Mere, who has never in her life been able to resist picking at a scab, asks, “what table is it?”

Jerome checks the paper. “34.”

“The cursed table. The cursed lesbians!” Mere gasps, squirming out of the way when Umida tries to pinch her side.

“Well it’s not like the kid is a contender, so it’s 50/50,” Umida points out. “Much better odds than last time.”

“And to be fair, if the wrong guy gets the flute, he can just improvise and propose with the ring in hand,” Mere continues. “Overall, much less exciting drama than last time. 3/10 for me.”

“Thank god. Yeah, let’s do that.” Jerome walks away with his marching orders and Umida turns to Mere. “I have to actually go work. You gonna hang out here?” She’s off in a half hour and they have tickets to the back row of the latest Marvel nonsense.

“I got booze, olives, and an unobstructed view of my favourite drama. I’m all set.” In lieu of a proper kiss, Mere lifts Umida’s hand and kisses her wrist, delighting in watching her girlfriend’s eyes soften. She blows Mere a kiss and flits away to put out fires.

Mere is usually on her phone while she waits for Umida but tonight she watches table 34. The guys — Eddie and Buck, Umida reminded her — are across the table from each other, Eddie is relaxed in his chair but Buck is leaning forward, elbows on the table as he tells their son a story that has him cackling in his seat. They’re not holding hands, but anyone looking can see they’re together. They have ridiculous heart eyes for each other, and from her vantage point she can see those long legs intermingling again, one knee occasionally jostling into the other. Little tangible reminders that they’re there and together.

She saw hints of this that night, and to see it have taken hold and blossomed...suddenly she’s really invested in them having a great night. One of them planned this night out, wanted to surprise the other, and she doesn’t want that going to waste because of a blank field on a form.

Mere’s wearing a dark long-sleeve blouse, not too far off the dress code, so slips off the counter, snags the backup apron they always leave behind the bar and ties it around her waist. One of the newbies whose name she doesn’t know watches her from the host pedestal and Mere raises a fierce eyebrow at them until they go back to minding their own business.

She rinses out a jug and fills it with water and ice and slips back into her customer service posture to make the rounds of the tables in section 10.

“Well now, I recognize you handsome folk, don’t I?” she schmoozes when she gets to table 34, picking up Eddie’s glass first to fill.

Eddie doesn’t place her and she doesn’t blame him, he was under a lot of stress that night. It takes Buck a second but he gets it.

“Oh hey, yeah! Weren’t you — “ Buck cuts himself off awkwardly and casts an eye to Eddie and the kid. “You, ah, gave us our meals for free! Because of the, um, mix-up.”

That’s enough for Eddie to place her, and where Buck relaxes back into his chair as she fills his glass, Eddie goes stock still.

Bingo.

“What mix-up?” the kid asks.

“Ah, they put something in our drink by accident,” Buck lies without lying. “Real choking hazard! So they gave us our meals for free.”

“That’s dangerous,” the kid says.

“It was dangerous,” Mere agrees, filling his glass. “Choking hazard was right. Could have turned a really great night all wrong with a trip to the hospital.”

Eddie’s brow furrows slightly and Mere struggles to keep a neutral face.

“It’s never a good idea to hide things in food. I don’t know why people keep trying instead of just calling us for advice. We have tons of ways to help people with surprises.”

“I completely agree,” Buck says. “We’re actually firefighters and you wouldn’t believe how many accidental choking calls we get.”

Eddie swallows, his eyes looking mildly panicked.

“Firefighters!” Mere schmoozes harder, smiling at the kid as he gets excited again. “Well I certainly feel safer then.”

“Ah, you probably shouldn’t. I was actually one of those calls once,” Buck says halfway through a smile and grimace, pointing to his throat where there’s a faint scar. “Emergency tracheotomy on the floor of a restaurant. But that wasn’t a surprise, just, ah, too enthusiastic about the breadsticks.”

Eddie’s looking decidedly gray now, eyes laser focused on the scar.

“Okay, well I’ll just go ahead and clear these,” Mere says, jokingly reaching for the bread basket until Buck laughs back.

“I’m better now, promise! Small bites, chewed thoroughly!”

“Hmm, I don’t know,” she dithers dramatically, nodding to the kid. “If I leave those here, can I trust you to keep an eye on your dad?”

“Yeah!” the kid agrees with a toothy grin.

Buck’s cheeks redden quickly but he’s still smiling, his head ducked shyly in a way Mere doubts is due to her teasing. Eddie, meanwhile, is still looking poleaxed though fondness is fighting its way back in.

“Well, I was just subbing into this section so this will be goodbye for us but it was great to see you guys! Enjoy your evening!”

“Thanks, you too!” Buck says with an easy smile. Eddie manages a “thank you” and Mere has to restrain herself from patting his shoulder as she walks away.

She’s only just returned the apron to the bar when she sees Eddie walk in and head straight for the host before being led to the back.

“Ready to go?” Umida asks, back in her unsensible heels and cross-chest messenger bag.

Mere takes the hand she extends but tugs her closer instead of following her out, before saying the worst thing she’s ever said in her life, “Actually, do you mind if we stick around a little longer?”

“Something good about to happen?” she asks, peeking out the window.

Mere tugs her in closer and leans her chin on her shoulder. “I think so.”

Twenty minutes later, when Jerome passes by with a tray of assorted chocolate treats and two overturned coffee cups, Mere and Umida find themselves bracketed by half the front and back staff. Gossip still spreads like wildfire it seems.

Buck’s overturned coffee cup and plate is the last thing Jerome puts on the table, and as soon as it’s down, he excuses himself. He keeps a professional pace until he’s past the exterior doors and then he’s racing to take a front seat at the bar.

Eddie turns over his cup but doesn’t reach for the carafe, he wipes his hands on his jeans instead.

“Oh my god, he’s so nervous,” Jerome whispers.

“The kid is so in on it,” the host whose name Mere never caught says, and they’re right. Where Eddie’s tensed up, the kid is bouncing in his seat like he knows something’s coming.

“Come on, guy,” a bus boy mutters, checking his watch. His break is almost over.

Mere’s heart is beating hard in sympathy with Eddie’s as they all watch Buck ignore his coffee cup in favor of serving their kid from the tray. Then he signals to Eddie’s plate, who can’t not lift it for the offered chocolate tortes. Finally, there’s chocolate on everyone’s plates and Buck sits back to try a piece of brownie and Eddie can’t take it anymore.

He motions to the carafe and Buck perks up, finally reaching for his cup. But just as his fingers close around it, some idiot’s dog barks on the sideway, calling his attention away. His fingers flip the cup without ever looking at it, or the plate underneath it.

“Oh come on,” Umida moans.

The dog passes with its dumbass owner and Buck puts his cup back down, or tries to, but finds something in the way. He tries again, pushing the intrusion away with the bottom of the cup.

“Oh my god,” is whined in Mere’s left ear and when she turns her head she’s surprised to find not another Tilted Cactus employee but a customer dressed to the nines, pearls and all.

“Ma’am, did you —”

“Shh,” the woman returns, her eyes never moving from the window. Mere turns back too.

Finally, Buck has managed to push the offending items off the plate and settle his cup down and it’s a nail-biting few seconds where it actually looks like he’s going to reach for the carafe and go about his business.

But like a true wingman, the little kid points directly at it, prompting Buck to push the napkin aside and pick up — the ring.

Buck freezes, holding the ring between his thumb and index. His cheeks flush and a smile begins to break over his face before he looks startled and the smile falls abruptly away.

It’s about this time Eddie realizes that proposing by recreating the night they got together was never going to be the best idea when the impetus to their relationship was an engagement ring accidentally sent to the wrong person.

Eddie vaults out of his seat and into the empty one next to Buck, wrapping his hand around the one holding the ring, and bringing his other hand to his cheek to gently turn his head until Buck is looking at him. They can’t tell what he says, but they can watch Buck’s eyes fill with tears, watch as Eddie gestures to their son who’s smiling wide and reaching out for a hand, which Buck instantly provides. His attention comes back to Eddie then, who’s saying something that gets them both looking a little fragile and it’s hard to say if he actually popped the question yet but Buck is surging forward to kiss him hard and fast. Eddie gives as good as he’s getting for a moment before he slows them with small, gentle kisses. And when they finally break apart, Eddie plucks the ring from Buck’s fingers and slides it onto his ring finger as Buck watches, his eyes wide and half incredulous.

Outside, the nearby tables break out into applause, startling the trio and reminding the two men that they are indeed out in public. Eddie acknowledges the applause with an embarrassed hand and waits until they have a modicum of privacy again before taking Buck’s hand and kissing right near the where the ring now sits. He then reluctantly shuffles back into his seat.

Inside, Mere is hugging Umida to her with a strength buoyed by love. Around them, the staff are starting to disperse, some wiping their eyes, some with goofy grins on their faces.

“Young man,” the lady in the pearls says to Jerome, holding out her credit card, “I want you to charge that family’s meal to my card.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s very generous of you.”

The woman sniffs delicately and leaves without another word. Hopefully Jerome knows where she was sitting…

“I’m glad she did that,” Mere says into Umida’s shoulder, “I was going to, otherwise, and I’m a broke-ass student.”

“I would have pitched in,” Umida says, her voice soft and pensive. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Mere agrees, sliding off the bar counter for the last time. “Oh, hold on.”

She gets closer to the window and turns the flash off of her camera before taking a pic.

“I think that’s bordering on creepy now,” Umida says without judgement.

“It’s not for me.” Mere sends the pic off with a note and three ring emojis.

They don’t make it out of the restaurant before her phone dings.

“What does Tomas have to say?” Umida asks with a smirk.

Mere pulls up the text and reads, “Gays and lesbians. Both, at the same time. Never doubting Umida’s gaydar again.”

Umida laughs victoriously, which shouldn’t be as sexy as it is, and Mere lets her drag her by the hand down the street, letting the nostalgia from tonight settle in her chest.

If there’s anything she misses from working the restaurant scene, it’s getting this glimpse into people’s lives.

Yeah, most of the work was gross, obnoxious, or mind-numbing. But every now and again, she got to be a part of strangers’ stories. Got to be there for the happiest days like graduations, or bridal showers. And even the sadder stories could be beautiful sometimes, like when she got to be extra kind to the elderly woman coming into the restaurant alone for the first time in ten years, or watch a family have their last supper together before their kid moves away for school. It’s just all so human and some kind of wonderful.

She hopes her career as a paramedic will have just a little bit of that kind of magic.

#911fic #buddie fics #buddie #my fics #okay this is fic 2 of 2 for pov outsider for me!#completely opposite tone of the last one this is just fun and dumb :P #hope y'all like it!#my posts

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nami-ramen · 3 years ago

Text

K I’m done with this shit aa

Gruntmi(subject-01/my sona/oc) instead of waking up after 15y after they’ve been putted in “cryo sleep”(I dunno how to properly say that on eng sry) woke up after around 50(or even more)years(originally they waking up in MPN classic events)in dusty and abandoned base in the room with creatures that look like them but they all looked already dead for a long time...

especially weird that after that they don’t remember anything and they didn’t get all those powers like they original ver. …or at least for now

After some time days of wandering(and approaching not a single soul)they found empty and abandoned doc’s base.when they check what’s inside they noticed that everything looked like someone(maybe group of people)been here and stole mostly everything but hidden hatchway door to basement(I used translator here so it might been written weird but I hope u know what I mean)stayed untouched.

In basement they found giant robot(with “HANK” Wooten in its chest) and something that look like a plastic heavy box with wires and same word on one of sides).Gruntmi figured out that it looks like one of those bots(even if it’s look quite dangerous) in nexus core and it’s might be a battery.theu putted that “battery” in robot’s body.it immediately activated and tried to attack(and leave wound on Gruntmi’s eye) but after few seconds robot fall on knees barely staying activated itself with low energy.instead of running away(like a normal person) Subject-01 come closer and tried to help…

After some time Gruntmi found in basement more interesting things:a few boxes filled with tapes and fugue machine that looks like some kind of really weird bed(at least you can lay inside of it and,oh wow,not die).with understanding of “ok this thing need energy to work” duo wandered around base to find any kind of generator or smth(and hank mostly tried to kill them again)after finding one small relocatable generator, activating weird machine ,putting one of tapes(that been named “1sr.IMPORTANT!”)in machine and getting inside of machine they’ve met someone called 2bdamned(or just “doc”)…

…or at least the recording of their memory.they explained that smth happend in place that called”the other place” and huge amounts of energy started to burst out from the ground and killing everything,and before it happened around base they decided to build for them and others 3 of their team bodies from metal and rewrite memories of all team in “cores” to survive this apocalypse.he know that something can go wrong and “the agency”(aahw) may found them after that(they might use some kind of bunkers to survive and “Auditor” very powerful ,especially with keystone fragment/hall)so doc hide the most dangerous of them in different place and recorded tapes of their(doc’s)knowledges.Doc know that someone or even Hank(if hank activate the self somehow) use this and “revive team and S.Q/anti aahw”

After that Subject-01 understood that someone stole others 3 bodies and cores so they decided to find them with Hank’s help…but at first they need to figure out how to make Hank trust them…

I’m gonna fucking die I dunno how to write especially on English really

I think I made a lot context and grammary mistake here but I’m too tired to search for them and correcting text rn

#madness combat #madcom

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envythepalmtree · 3 years ago

Note

4, 10 and 14 from the ask game for "don't you dare look away"?

4. Where do your story ideas come from?

For don't you dare look away specifically, I got ideas from a lot of places. The concept of doing a long, multichapter character study came from delicate by lantur which is a character study of Riza. And reading Xingese Roy fics from non-east asian authors made me want a fic that I could relate to, that was similar to my own experiences.

I love pre-canon stories. It was two novels, The Rise of Kyoshi by FC Yee (prequel to ATLA) and Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (prequel to The Hunger Games) that really opened my eyes to how powerful a prequel story can be. Showing how the characters and the world develop into who they are in the canon timeline.

Another big one is my criticisms of canon. I tagged the fic as "technically canon compliant, (that's a new genre I invented where everything that happens in canon happens in the fic, BUT the fic narrative challenges or directly contradicts the canon narrative)"

And that might not make sense so I'll give an example. In the OVA Yet Another Man's Battlefield, we have 18-year-old Roy, Maes, and an Ishvalan kid named Heathcliff at the military academy.

I might expand this into a full criticism meta later, but the gist is: Heathcliff's harassed for being Ishvalan. Roy and Maes stand up for him. The way it's written, Heathcliff gets very little lines and (in my opinion) the racism isn't given much nuance. There's a part that goes like this:

Racist Bully Guy: Whoa. What are you doing, Hughes? We're you're friends?

Maes: You think so? You think I'm friends with cruel bullies?

Then he like. joins up with Roy to beat the guys up. It's very dramatic and framed as a whole "yeah we're good allies!!" moment.

I didn't like that, so here's how I wrote it:

“Whoa,” said Sven. “What are you doing, Hughes? We’re your friends!”

Hughes was now pointing his gun at the Year Twos. “You think so? You think I’m friends with cruel bullies?” (Hughes spat bullies as if it were the worst thing in the world.) “I hate people like you!”

Roys eyes widened.

Hughes smiled at Roy. (Not at the Ishvalan kid.) “The object is victory.”

“Heh,” said Roy. “Focus on it.”

[then they get in a fist fight with the Racist Bully Guys™]

10. When you write fics, how much of canon are you willing to ignore/skip over?

For don't you dare look away, at least, I think I mostly answered that one above! With my fancy new genre Technically Canon Compliant I like to keep all the events and dialogue while changing the themes/messaging completely :))

With Technically Canon Compliant, another thing I like to do is pick and choose which dialogue/settings/order of events I want from different versions. The manga and Brotherhood have different settings for scenes like Roy's conversation with Berthold before his death and the conversation about personal responsibility with Kimblee. Both change the story in slightly different ways.

It was also kinda fun going "well, I like this manga sentence better than the Brotherhood eng dub sentence, but then I like this eng dub sentence better" and recreating the dialogue using the translations I like the most.

14. How do you come up with chapter titles?

!!! chapter titles!!

So here are my chapter titles:

[Text:

1. wash away

2. burn down

3. the stars I need to be

4. noble gases

5. wash away (noble gases)

6. hand in hand with destiny (noble gases)

7. burn up (noble gases)

8. alkaline earth

9. wash up (alkaline earth)

10. burn up (alkaline earth)

11. halogens

12. wash down (halogens)

13. i can earn the wax and wick (halogens)

14. lanthanides

15. burn down (lanthanides)

16. wash down burn away (lanthanides)

17. don't you dare look away (lanthanides)

End text]

The 2 things you probably noticed:

Most of them have either "wash" or "burn" and a direction

Are those words from high school chemistry class??

Addressing the first point: yes yes yes!! I like water and fire imagery as much as the next writer, but what I was obsessed with specifically for don't you dare look away were the actions that those two things do. Washing and burning.

Roy's mom was named Chong 冲 which means "wash away." Her parents named her that because her family was going through some hard times when she was born, so they named her Chong to wash away their bad luck.

She gave Roy the Xingese name Feng 烽 which means fire, but not in the destructive sense. It means light and warmth and good things. Roy does not use his Xingese name.

Fun fact: In irl Chinese culture, you'd never give your kid a fire name if you had a water name. It would bring bad luck. And obviously Chong and Roy both had such good luck :)

And for the second point!! I divided the fic into five sections, each focused on a different period of Roy's life. Four of them are arcs that are named after a group of elements in the periodic table.

Intro arc: Age 4-6

No chemistry name for this one because Roy hasn't become obsessed with alchemy yet!

Noble gases arc: Age 10-12

The noble gases are at the very end of each row on the periodic table. They have a full valence shell and aren’t in need of any more electrons; they’re satisfied. They don’t react with any other elements, like a stuck-up noble who has no need to interact with peasants.

For a while, Roy was a happy child. He also looked down on those he felt higher than.

Alkaline Earth Metals: Teenage years

The alkaline earth metals are the second group on the periodic table. They’re shiny, silvery-white, and readily lose their two outermost electrons. They have low densities, low melting points, and low boiling points. In other words, they melt and boil easily.

Roy is young and has a few things to lose. He’s naive, unexposed to the world, and has shiny dreams.

Halogens: Military academy

Halogens are nonmetals in group 17 of the periodic table - the penultimate elements. Missing only one valence electron, they’re extremely reactive because if only they had one more element to fill their shell, they would be complete.

Roy just needs to prove himself. If he can erase his flaws, the parts of himself that aren’t the perfect Amestrian soldier, he’ll be complete.

Lanthanide series: The Ishval genocide

The lanthanide series is a group of silvery-white metals that tarnish when exposed to air. They burn easily, but commonly bind to water.

Roy joined the military as a naive, idealistic young man and was exposed to the reality of what his country was when he committed atrocities on orders. He burned so many, easy as a snap. Then he bonded himself onto a path to heal the country.

Gosh I'm so proud of that.

Anyway!! The promo post is here and you can read don't you dare look away here.

#don't you dare look away #xingese roy #roy mustang #aure writes fic #fma fanfiction #aure speaks

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wild-aloof-rebel · 4 years ago

Link

In a candid conversation with the Star, Manji said “Schitt’s Creek” producers did not instruct him as to how Ray should sound.

“It is a very slight Indian accent — somebody who was probably raised in Canada, but probably was born in India or Pakistan,” he said from his home in Los Angeles.

“I don’t regret that because I think it actually works for Ray. He wasn’t like everybody else in that town. He was from somewhere else.”

Manji said he’s OK with viewers questioning his choices, but rather than focus on accents, he said, critics could ask why his character didn’t have a more fully developed story, like a relationship or a family.

“If you want to criticize something, do that,” he said. “We need to have three-dimensional characters.”

[full article text below the cut]

At the start of Rizwan Manji’s acting career in the 1990s, the only roles available to him were those playing convenience store clerks and cab drivers. The parts usually required him to fake an Indian accent — just for laughs.

“We would joke about it. ‘This is so offensive, this is so offensive,��” recalls the Toronto native. “It’s not like we didn’t know.”

More than two decades later, Manji’s grin-and-bear-it perseverance has paid off. At 46, Manji now boasts a long — and diverse — list of TV and film credits. In September, he joined castmates from the hit CBC comedy series “Schitt’s Creek” in celebration as the show nabbed a record-breaking nine Emmy Awards.

That doesn’t mean, however, he still doesn’t grapple with questions about his acting choices.

While “Schitt’s Creek,” about a wealthy family that loses its fortune and is forced to move to a backwater town, won raves for its messages of inclusivity and positive queer representation, a segment of viewers took to social media to criticize Manji’s character, Ray Butani, the town’s bumbling jack of all trades — who speaks with an accent.

What irked them was that Ray, one of the few recurring people of colour on the show, seemed like a caricature — a rehash of the stereotypical, emasculated South Asian male. They also complained that Manji’s accent came across as “cringey.”

“Why go to the effort of writing in a character with an Indian name, played by an Indian actor, whose main personality trait is that he is stupid and has an accent?” Rishi Maharaj, a Port Hardy, B.C., engineer and avid TV viewer, wrote on Twitter days after the show’s Emmy sweep.

Across North America’s TV and film industry, there is broad consensus about the need to fight stereotypes and offensive tropes in casting. But the debate among actors of colour over whether they should fake accents remains fraught.

Some Hollywood actors, such as Aziz Ansari and John Cho, have reportedly turned down roles, citing the history of Hollywood playing up accents for laughs. (Think Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi in the 1961 romantic comedy “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” complete with taped eyelids, buck teeth and cartoonish accent).

They worry that parts requiring them to speak with accents do nothing to help the cause of minority actors who are often typecast in secondary roles or as sidekicks, and who continue to be under-represented on TV and film.

Others say it’s important to represent linguistic diversity and see no harm portraying characters who speak in broken English, as long as their accent is not the butt of a joke and in keeping with a character’s backstory.

In a candid conversation with the Star, Manji said “Schitt’s Creek” producers did not instruct him as to how Ray should sound.

“It is a very slight Indian accent — somebody who was probably raised in Canada, but probably was born in India or Pakistan,” he said from his home in Los Angeles.

“I don’t regret that because I think it actually works for Ray. He wasn’t like everybody else in that town. He was from somewhere else.”

“If you want to criticize something, do that,” he said. “We need to have three-dimensional characters.”

The character that has generated one of the most heated debates in recent years when it comes to accents is Apu, the Indian-American shopkeeper on the long-running animated series “The Simpsons.” Until recently, the thick-accented character was voiced by actor Hank Azaria, who is white.

In 2017, American comedian Hari Kondabolu came out with a documentary, “The Problem With Apu,” in which he pressed the case that the show fomented racial stereotypes about Indian people.

In interviews at the time, Kondabolu shared that, as a kid, Apu was “the only Indian we had on TV” and that he was happy for “any representation.” But then on the playground, he had to deal with kids mimicking Apu’s accent.

In the documentary, he gets Dana Gould, a former writer on the show, to admit, “There are accents, that by their nature, to white Americans, sound funny. Period.”

With criticism mounting, Azaria, who had voiced Apu for three decades, announced he was stepping away from the role, telling the New York Times earlier this year: “Once I realized that that was the way this character was thought of, I just didn’t want to participate in it anymore.”

There is growing sensitivity among artists, writers, directors and producers to avoid stereotypes and invest in “fully humanized, realized characters,” Steven Eng, an actor and voice and speech instructor at New York University, told the Star.

“There’s certainly been a whole history — that I don’t think any of us can deny — in film and television and the theatre where characters were stereotyped,” he said. “I think there’s so much more awareness, so much more determination to not go that route.”

But even “groundbreaking” shows, such as “Kim’s Convenience” and the recently cancelled “Fresh Off the Boat,” which were heralded for elevating Asian-Canadian and Asian-American visibility and immigrant experiences, have not escaped criticism, accused by some viewers of employing storylines and accents that do not ring true.

Cast members, in turn, leapt to the defence of their shows — and their accents.

“Some people are like, ‘Oh, stereotypical accent!’” Constance Wu, lead actress on “Fresh Off the Boat,” told Time magazine regarding her character’s Taiwanese accent. “An accent is an accent. If there were jokes written about the accent, then that would certainly be harmful. But there aren’t jokes written about it. It’s not even talked about. It’s just a fact of life: immigrants have accents.”

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, the lead actor in “Kim’s Convenience” told Maclean’s his character’s Korean accent is “part of who he is, but it isn’t the joke.”

“Yes, we’re in the entertainment field, and we will mine some of that because it is situational humour. You will get a point where we’ll say, ‘Here’s where some fun can be made, playing with the accent, and his inability and people mishearing what he says.’ But at the same time, that’s not all it is,” he said.

Jimmy O. Yang, who starred in the HBO series “Silicon Valley” and whose character spoke with a heavy Chinese accent, told Huffington Post the key is to portray immigrants with humanity.

“It’s maybe a better thought to change the perception of an accent than to avoid it all together,” he said. “I take offence (when people don’t go for parts with accents) ― it’s like saying, ‘I’m better than my immigrant brother with an accent.’”

Yang added he drew inspiration from his mom and relatives in Shanghai to develop his accent for the show. “It’s not just a (lousy) impression of a Cantonese Bruce Lee accent.”

Still, some actors have declared outright they will not do it.

“For me, personally, any time I’ve been asked to do that, I feel like — it feels like it’s making fun of people that have that accent if I do it and don’t have that voice,” comedian Aziz Ansari told NPR in 2015, years before he faced a public allegation of sexual misconduct.

“It feels like you’re doing it so white people can laugh at Indian people,” he said at the time.

That’s kind of how Maharaj felt watching Ray on “Schitt’s Creek.”

“I did find it cringey. The first thought that came to mind was it reminded me of Apu in ‘The Simpsons,’” he told the Star.

In The Problem With Apu, South Asian-American comedian Hari Kondabolu confronts his long-standing “nemesis” Apu Nahasapeemapetilon – better known as the Indian convenience store owner on The Simpsons. Creator and star Kondabolu discusses how this controversial caricature was created, burrowed its way into the hearts and minds of Americans, and continues to exist – intact – nearly three decades later. Featuring interviews with Aziz Ansari, Kal Penn, Whoopi Goldberg, W. Kamau Bell, Aasif Mandvi, Hasan Minhaj, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Aparna Nancherla

“To me what it sounds like is what a person from Saskatoon thinks a person from India sounds like. ... I’m sure he could’ve been a funny part of that show without an accent.”

Maharaj wasn’t alone. Arif Silverman, an actor and playwright in New York, posted a lengthy Facebook post in October sharing his conflicted feelings about the show.

“Schitt’s Creek has become one of my all-time favourite shows. But they did their South Asian characters dirty,” he wrote.

“Especially Ray, who plays directly into the racist South Asian trope of being an emasculated, goofy buffoon who no one takes seriously, not least in part because of his accent.”

Silverman told the Star Ray’s accent seemed “part of the joke” and struck him as a “betrayal” from a show that preached inclusivity and whose main romance was a gay love story.

“I’m half South Asian — my mother is from Bangladesh. … And so I think a lot about representation of South Asians in the media,” he said. “If you’re really going to talk about inclusivity it can’t be at anyone’s expense.”

Manji says he faced a lot of struggles as a brown actor at the start of his career.

Back then, he was often pigeonholed into narrow roles, such as the cabbie or 7-Eleven store clerk. One hundred per cent of his roles required him to fake a South Asian accent.

“It was very strictly, like, the joke was on the accent,” he said.

But he accepted the parts because he needed the work.

He did draw a line with one type of role.

“I’m Muslim, so I was more the guy who was like, ‘I’m not being the terrorist.’”

There was one time, however, when he auditioned to play an Islamic Studies professor on the show “24.” He was given limited information about the character. It turned out he was a bomb maker.

But the money was too good to pass up. He took the part.

“I rationalized it in my head, ‘Oh, it’s season 8, and they have good Muslim characters. … I don’t know if I made the right decision,” he said.

“To be clear, I’m OK with being the bad guy. I’d love to play the bad guy. It’s just when it’s this kind of thing where you’re screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ and bombing people.”

In 2010, Manji was cast in the short-lived NBC sitcom “Outsourced” set in an Indian call centre. He and his castmates employed accents, which some critics derided for lack of authenticity.

It’s fine if people want to criticize the quality of the accents, he said, but it wouldn’t have made sense for these characters not to have accents.

“The show was shooting in America about living in India. I don’t know what the other option was,” he said, adding that he channelled his father in developing the accent for that show.

Another thing to keep in mind is that accents have to be understandable to North American audiences, Manji said. For instance, during the filming of the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War,” Manji, who played a Pakistani colonel, said he settled on a “sweet spot” where his accent “sounds foreign” but is “not so thick that it becomes comedic or unintelligible.”

Manji said he did not have to audition for “Schitt’s Creek” but was offered the role of Ray, the town’s real estate agent, travel agent, photographer and Christmas tree salesman.

When he went for his first table read in Toronto, he’d had no prior discussion with the show’s writers or producers about what Ray would sound like.

Because most of his demo tape consisted of his work on “Outsourced,” Manji assumed that was the kind of voice producers were looking for. He went with a slightly toned-down version.

“Afterwards, I went up to Dan (Levy, the show’s co-creator) and said, ‘Hey just want to check in.’ He said, ‘I love what you did. It was funny.’ That ended up being the character for six years.”

Maharaj says he can’t help but feel Manji was selling himself short — playing to what he thought “a white audience might expect or respond more favourably to” to get the job. He likens it to job applicants of Asian descent who anglicize their names on resumes.

“I’m encouraged to hear he had agency, that they weren’t like, ‘We need you to do the accent,’” he said.

“I’d feel better if they were asking him to do a British accent or Brooklyn accent because if you’re doing this Indian accent and the character is comedic, it is nonetheless playing into that trope.”

Levy, who is also from Toronto, declined an interview request. Instead, he released a statement through his publicist.

“Ray was conceived as a character of Indian decent which we cast with Canadian-born actor Rizwan Manji, who is of Indian decent. No accent was called for in the casting or specified in the scripts,” it said.

“The thoughtful choices that Rizwan made in his portrayal in the audition room perfectly encapsulated the warmth and the energy of Ray. All characters on our show were created with love, respect and humanity. It has been gratifying to have these intentions reflected through the overwhelming audience support for these characters. That said, I welcome any perspectives that encourage conversations about diversity, especially in entertainment.”

Despite what critics might think, Manji said he has felt more empowered in recent years to make creative decisions about his characters.

Manji, who had a role in NBC’s musical comedy “Perfect Harmony,” which was cancelled this year, said when he was approached about playing the part of a pastor, he was the one who initiated the idea of giving the character a foreign accent.

Because the character was raised by missionaries, it wouldn’t have made sense for him to not have one.

Conversely, when he was asked a couple years ago to read for a pilot for a dramatic series in which his character was a Muslim father he told the casting director he didn’t want to do an accent.

“I said, ‘You know what? I’d rather not. That’s not going to excite me about this part,’” he said.

“I ended up getting the job. I found my voice.” (The pilot never made it to series).

Manji, who guesses about 60 per cent of his roles in more recent years have involved accent work, says remarks by actors who refuse to do accents are “dangerous” because they could end up limiting the types of roles available to minority actors.

His worry is casting directors will go to India in search of authentic accents, overlooking North American-born actors, like him.

“I’m already marginalized.”

Nobody fusses when Meryl Streep performs with an accent, he adds.

Ishani Nath, a freelance entertainment and lifestyle journalist in Toronto, says anytime she sees an accented character who also provides comedic relief, it raises a bit of a red flag.

But she’s hesitant to criticize actors for taking those roles, knowing that opportunities are not easy to come by.

“I’m way more interested in criticizing writers, producers, (and asking): Why are you asking for these roles to be accented? … Is there an actual reason and backstory?”

Nath says she is starting to notice deeper conversations about how different cultures are represented on screen and what nuances can be added to make characters more complex.

She says a good example of this is the hit movie “Crazy Rich Asians,” whose actors exhibited a range of regional Asian accents.

“It’s important to note that the problem with accent roles isn’t the accents themselves — plenty of characters in ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ have accents, but no one has the exaggerated or generic ‘Asian’ accent that has historically been played for laughs in Hollywood,” she wrote in a 2018 article in Flare.

Jhanik Bullard, a writer and member of BIPOC TV & Film, a collective of Black, Indigenous and people of colour working in Canada’s entertainment industry, says it is no longer acceptable for characters to have accents “just because.”

“It should actually have an authentic origin as to why this character sounds the way they sound,” he said.

Audiences are also not as forgiving as they may have been in the 1990s if the accent sounds botched or inauthentic.

What is encouraging, he says, is that more doors are being opened for people of colour to tell their stories and there are more platforms for those stories to be to told.

To that end, Manji says he and his partners have initiated a handful of projects that are in various stages of development. One is a show about a Muslim guy who becomes mayor of a major city. Another is a sitcom about a “normal Muslim family” — something that “resembles me more.”

Does the character he envision for himself speak with an accent?

“Since I want it to be closer to me, then I would say not.”

#definitely a good discussion about ray and about riz's other roles and about south asian rep in general #schitt's creek #schitts creek #rizwan manji #ray butani #press #toronto star #long post

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cannibalisticcorpse · 3 years ago

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didnt get tagged but im high and realllllly wanted to do this

How many works do you have on AO3?

What’s your total AO3 word count?

214,757

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Dream Team/dsmp, Achievement Hunter/fahc, Cow Chop/fake chop, Red vs Blue, RWBY, Wolf 359, (and these are all deleted/orphaned now) voltron, supernatural

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

i promise the titles do not reflect me as a person

1. The Dick Pic Fic - 1884 kudos

2. the text fic - 1136 kudos

3. The Kitten Fic - 589 kudos

4. The Cup Fic - 516 kudos

5. The Piss Fic - 406 kudos

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i try to, but sometimes i get like.... the same comment so many times that i cant really say anything more on it yk. but i usually try to say thank you at least T-T

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Cassiopeia and Cephus - GeorgeNotFound/DreamWasTaken, T, 1,187 words, among us AU, additional warnings in note

summary: Dream leans in and whispers, “George you’re supposed to be Cetus the sea monster, and I’m Andromeda, cast in stone.”

Do you write crossovers? If so what’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I wrote fake ah crew/john wick where trevor was just... john wick.... that's it tho. i think it'd be fun to write a dsmp fic where every british person just talked like gavin but i dont think that's a crossover technically...

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...... i had a member of a youtuber group i have a tattoo on my shoulder of read one of my fics, a gorey smut fic, out loud, live, to over 1k people and then he read my twitter @ at the end of it. (and this was just 1 instance)

:biteslip: so yeah i guess you could say i've received hundereds of death threats and other nasty shit

i will say most of it is deserved to be fair

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

uh.......

yes. i have a kink request fic going so that's like..... everything? idk i usually write to vent and that means i write violent stuff sometimes and that gets turned into smut

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i know of, but i have inspired a lot of fic titles and plots. i had a 13 yr old accuse me of stealing their fic once?? idk i just blocked them

Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope

What’s your all time favorite ship?

ummmmm i dont know actually. maybe dnn?? snf? idk

Whats a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

T-T birds, stars and sunshine, the soulmate zombie apoc au

features childhood best friends to loveres bbh/skeppy, meet cute love at first sight karlnapity, and meet cute enemies to lovers dnf

it's such a good au but im so shit at world building for it

What are your writing strengths?

i genuinely don't know, the only common compliment on my writing i can think of is writing characters.... in character.. and dialogue? idk im a good ideas guy kinda

What are your writing weaknesses?

also genuinely dont know but im gonna say describing smells, feel free to tell me if any of u have read any of my shit

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

a few words are nice and cool, but just make it natural and don't over-do it? like if you're fluent in the language or have an editor who is then like pop off and write multi lingual characters, if it's like a whole conversation i beg u to put a translation after it. i only speak eng

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

supernatural

What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Concept of Joy :(((( i've been writing it with my partner for over a year and i love it sm...

if u see this and you write, please do this too and tag me at the top so i see it for sure :]]]

#ao3 tag game #m!george

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rigelmejo · 4 years ago

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Things I’d like to do, in order of me doing them versus no time yet lol. Bold - i plan to genuinely freaking commit to doing it even if other things come up. italic - i really want to be able to do these, if i don’t have time now i’ll try to do them later on.

Currently doing:

finish reading hanshe (currently doing, on chapter 52 out of 155 haha rip me)

finish reading guardian english translation (currently doing, also dang my reading speed got slow lately lol)

finish listening to chinese spoonfed audio (on like 12 or 15 out of like 39. i’d like to finish it so i can say i’ve done it, and at least have some exposure to everything it’s got to offer word/sentence wise once)

exercise 5 times a week. 50 crunches, 70 pushups, 15 minutes cardio at least. until the end of the month (i tried this last week then bam twisted my ankle lol - someone tried this to get fit and it worked and you know me i Love proving to myself if things work and i also Love simply things i can remember that are flexible. i have been switching between jogging or HIIT that’s mainly muscle building, depending on how i feel... gonna count it all as long as i do something consistently 5 times a week. maybe next month i’ll do that kpop dance challenge i found that looked cool but for now i just wanna do something i know i can stick to because its simple and flexible)

finish reading Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide (i almost forgot ToT but unless i’m giving up japanese again lol... well... we’ll see... either way i am in the process of doing this and there isn’t really a good stopping spot so i should just finish reading it)

Also just general watching chinese shows, reading chinese (so hanshe OR whatever i feel like). I’ve been pretty consistent about that and it helps even if i jump around to different materials so i don’t have to really list anything specific.

And for japanese? I would really like to try one of my games in japanese this summer but that is Highly dependent on how prepared i feel. i’d like to try maybe though, just because like... even if i never learn as much as i’d like, a big goal had always been just to play my favorite games the way they were originally written. if i can follow enough to just see a lets play and look up words i want to understand, follow the grammar, catch some line differences between the original and localization, i will already be so happy. even though more in depth understanding will be a long way away from now.

Going to do soon:

listen-read method guardian (because i literally have avenuex’s wonderful audiobook that PERFECTLY matches the webnovel chapters - i plan to listen-read with just the eng translation tho)

read guardian chinese print version (while i may push this off a while... it would be appropriate to read in august as an anniversary of watching guardian drama lol... i also kind of think the closer i do this to the listening-reading method, the more i will comprehend and easier it will be and more details i’ll get out of the sections that are unique to my print novel version... after hanshe i would love to put this as my actively-reading chinese novel)

read His Evening Star (<3 <3 asap! like as soon as Guardian eng translation read, i’m starting this)

read Silent Reading english translation

continue doing Nukemarines LLJ memrise decks (i made some progress, and wanted to go back after reading Tae Kim’s Grammar Guide... again IF i do this is highly relevant on if i can keep managing some time for japanese study we’ll SEE lol ;-;)

Going to do eventually...:

listen-read method Silent Reading (at least TRY, although i already know the chapters and audiobook-episodes do NOT end in the same place so like... its valid if i try and give up... I would just love to do this because i WANT to listen to the audiobook... and if its too annoying trying to sync audio to text when i know the audio varies off from the text half the time, then i might just try to listen to the audiobook ON its own)

listen to DeFrancis Chinese Readers Audio (i can look at the book, optional, if i’d like... i should USE the books since i bought them lol. Emphasis on trying to shadowing the dialogues because so much is basics i should be able to speak decently. I’m thinking this would be a good replacement for ‘background listening’ for when i finish chinese spoonfed audio. Also i really want to utilize these textbooks since i bought them ToT)

read 2ha

read Can Ci Pin!

read Tian Ya Ke (extensive reading like guardian, the eng translation then the chinese chapters... reading might go faster this way then with constant word lookup in Pleco, tho i can of course read in Pleco instead if I want)

read Qi Ye (same thing as above - read the eng translation, and then the chinese version either extensive or in Pleco with word lookup)

read yuwu

read the new priest novels E Danglars translated!

FINISH tamendegushi (the chinese novel i keep reading HALF of then giving up)

FINISH tamendegushi COMIC (i literally own the manhua print but when will i finish reading ToT)

Possibly Listen-Read to MoDaoZuShi, SVSSS (both have audiobooks now. A plus of mdzs is i have never read it so it would be a surprise. A plut of svsss is i’ve l-r method 8 chapters before and the audiobook matches VERY in line with the chapter endings so its super easy to follow along)

read DaoMuBiJi books (a long endeavor... currently mostly just reading the english translations, i’m on book 3. But I was reading the chinese version too which i could switch to if i want a reading material in Pleco or just extensive reading... but reading it in chinese is not a priority yet...)

#study plan #april #april goals #april progress #nts #note to self #i have... so much stuff i wanna get done

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slaygentford · 4 years ago

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hi ms emily i was wondering if you had any tips for Critical Litchrature Reading? i did an eng lit a-level a million (5) years ago so i Did know how to read critically but then i did a history degree where i had to read so much boring shit a week that when i have read for pleasure now it’s been stuff that smooths my brain over. which i know isnt always a bad thing! but i’d like to get back into big brain takes i just dont know how? like i tried reading mrs dalloway and i struggled bc subtle writing now makes my brain melt. sorry if youve answered this already and DOUBLY sorry if the answer is literally just ‘practice and experience’

oh this problem is so easily solved!! you’re starting with mrs dalloway, and mrs dalloway is a BIG one to jump right into, that's like trying to decipher Einstein after taking algebra. I'd recommend starting with some poetry, and of course now that I'm trying to think of some every syllabus I've ever written just flew directly out of my head. um. glass essay by Anne Carson. that icebox poem that’s a meme now is like the great Gatsby of poetry, it’s practically created for people learning to read literature. no joke, Richard siken? worth a revisit also. THIS ARTICLE will get your brain juice moving as well.

short stories, try drown, by junot Díaz (sorry, I know, but it’s really good at teaching you how to read). Dubliners, Joyce, specifically the dead, is very good for starting to re-learn. ahhh shit I just thought of one and forgot it. fucking...brownies, zz packer.

for novels, try Jane eyre, wuthering heights, those are less opaque. beloved, 100 years of solitude, slaughterhouse five. WAIT, do slaughterhouse five first. I firmly believe that if you can properly read slaughterhouse five you can read anything. it’s extremely simple and extremely not and very moving and I think maybe the best but least perfect book ever written but that is just me.

THEN go into like, you know, modernism (Woolf, Joyce’s novels, stein), all that. to me modernism is the last hurdle in Getting Literature and the tallest one, or maybe that’s just how my brain works. but you gotta work up to it.

other approaches include: you can pick stuff that sounds interesting and then look up book club and reading questions for them, which is the most accessible way to do this by far. you can get one of those big anthologies of short stories that come with introductory essays in them, which is how we’re taught to close read, and that could set you on the right path. you could supplement this as you keep reading, if you really want to, with like actual real theory (this is what I was taught from in my theory 101 class).

remember that what you need MOST out of this is a fellow player/interlocutor/improvisor, someone who’s read it too and says “yes and” to each of your ideas. the good news is the internet is huge and free and also I am here and also your brain is here. if you see something in a text and youre like, is that a symbol/motif/parallel/whatever, UHHH yeah the fuck it is cuz you just said so! so say “yes and” to yourself while reading, pull on every thread you find.

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99liners · 3 years ago

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Hello Jamie! I hope you're doing good?

Fellow indian here👋.I wanted to ask you how is your eng so good?I really want to know.If you read by any chance , plz drop some recommendations.I really want to be a better eng speaker.Have a good day;)

henlo! i am okay bub, and you?

omg, you think my English is good? i constantly feel like i am lacking in diction and that it can be better 😅 but thank you so much! it's a great compliment and i humbly accept it.

i do read, yes.

i used to read extensively, especially when i was in middle school but life has gotten busier ever since.

this is going to sound racist, but if you want to better your English, stop reading from Indian authors; Chetan Bhagat and the like (i am not basing this off blind hatred but i have actually read, at least, four books of Chetan Bhagat before coming to the conclusion. so, i am speaking from experience). if it's someone like Salman Rushdie, then go for it.

most importantly, don't make it a task.

first, choose the genre that interests you the most. it can be anything from romance, horror, detective stories, non-fiction, auto/biographies, and so on. then start with the most popular one in the genre. search about related works in the same genre and find the books that appeal to you. don't feel like you have to be all aesthetic and read underrated books, go for the overrated ones first. the over hyped, best selling ones. again, do not treat it as a task, like paying too much attention on the words or the flow but just read it as you would any book. read it naturally and you will realize that you have started to notice the linguistic style of the author, the diction, the flow of the words, automatically. that is very necessary. that is how you grow as a reader when you start noticing the small things.

i come from a family full of doctors, and my father has these huge ass encyclopaedias and as a kid, i just used to flip through those pages just to see the images and touch the shiny pages 😂 but with time, i started reading what was written underneath but still it would not make sense to me (cause it's a science encyclopaedia and i was 8-9 years old) but i would read it to know more. i remember i did not understand the concept of space being limitless, it absolutely baffled me. and as i learned more, now i am obsessed with space.

then in middle school, abba got me the full collection of sherlock holmes and i kid you not, i ate that book up. i was so engrossed in detective stories that i ended up reading all those short stories and novels more than twice. and then i found similar books and expanded my genre further.

i think another advantage i had was my English tutor. although, i am from a very small town but i had an amazing tutor who had passion about his subject. i think i still have a lot of dialogues from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice (in the original Elizabethan text) jotted down to memory.

read: language wise, as far as i have read, Salman Rushdie is so good, his depictions are pure art. i have never been to kashmir, but through his writings, i could visualise it. same goes for Haruki Murakami. his depictions of Japan from the 80's is breath taking. it is like visualising a black and white art movie. read classics like: art of war, pride and prejudice, the great gatsby, 1984, metamorphosis, frankenstein, all the plays of Shakespeare, especially, Julius Caesar, Paulo Coelho’s works, and my absolute favourite, to kill a mockingbird.

write: to master any language, you must develop a habit of writing in that language, as well. if you are already in school, then you would be writing a lot of essays for your coursework but if you have graduated school, that’s alright too. start small: next when you text your friends on WhatsApp / FaceBook Messenger / Instagram Direct, etc, type in English instead of your mother tongue. most importantly, absolutely avoid using text message shortcuts like “u” “ur” "plz", they will be the bane of your improvement.

grammar: additionally, if you want to improve your grammar, consider buying Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis. it barely costs like 150 bucks and is a must if you want to improve your skills.

hope this long ass answer holds even an ounce of useful advice that you can utilise. let me know if you have any further questions!

#asks #anon #english #linguistic advice #English reading #English speaking #grammar advice

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themelodicenigma · 3 years ago

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why do some people say final fantasy 7 remake English localization is bad compared to others also what makes a good and bad localization.

People have a multitude of things that shape their perspectives, if just how they decide to talk about stuff. I can't speak for every single person, but I know that there certainly are a lot that make the mistake of not ACTUALLY understanding the localization on the same level they might want to for the JPN version. Even if they don't actually do there, too. This all being the "What", which is the content itself. At the center of a lot of the stigmas surrounding ENG localization comes from the ideal of the JPN version being more valid than the ENG, and that mindset is carried forward (even unconsciously) in how they approach the material. Hence, why for some people, they WANT to only see the differences and nothing more, and the mindset they've molded hits it with a lot of other extremities in how the localization is viewed. That's definitely happened for the Remake for a lot of critical fans, at least the ones I've seen.

But, there are a lot of fans who are just fueled by whatever they want to care about, and look at everything else through that lens. There are fans that, it doesn't actually matter that something is different in how they perceive it—if it agrees with what they feel, they're inclined to rationalize it in a way that justifies the difference. But, see something that disagrees with that lens? Flip. I've seen it happen far too often, and it almost makes me want to forgo correlation/causation from the observations that it typically involves shipping related perceptions. In both the FF7 and KH community, this type of process is WAY too rampant and is at times what creates a bad foundation of how people look at localization.

In any case, I can say the ENG localization is great based on my personal enjoyment of it, but if I want to judge it more objectively, I'd just say it did what they needed to in order to meet even the basic standards of a localization's job in capturing the story—this isn't explicitly determined by the literal nature of translation, as some fans seem to want. What makes a generally "good" localization is it's ability to, at the very least, retain the essence of how the story is told in its native language for the sake of telling that same story—can they put this in another language in a way that makes sense contextually. This can go beyond what literal translations can do, or in a way, the act of translating itself. The execution of this allows for a lot of ways in which this can be explored—if it's a "bad" localization, it generally does this on a level that doesn't make sense for the context. Though, if I was to say a localization was either/or overall, it'd have to go beyond just few isolated moments that don't even affect other things. You can have off moments within a great product.

For the Remake's ENG localization, between the VAs delivery and ability despite being newly casted for the characters, the written dialogue working well for the contexts of the scenes and that of the story [which conceptually goes beyond language]—on it's own right there, it's executed well. If I compare this to the native language of JPN, the ENG localization still does a good job of telling the same story, but for a different language and audience. Which shouldn't be unexpected considering we're not dealing with a parody/fan creation of some sort, like TFS DBZ Abridged—the localizations are all products from the same company and team. The story is the same, the characters are the same, the localization draws from what makes sense for the scenes and from that of the layers of context surrounding the characters—it does its job like all the rest.

This doesn't mean that the way Square Enix creates their products will be "perfect", in whatever that means for a creative project anyway, no matter what language it's presented in. But, unless spoken for, it's going to be what they want it to be, and we as fans shouldn't think of it as anything less without probable cause. The way the ENG localization was approached ain't it, and saying they misinterpreted scenes is almost egotistical, if even just flawed in discussing the localization process. There's no need for that.

On a translation/localization level, I can always look from the outside at certain lines that I would've wrote differently, sure. But, I also understand my way isn't the only way—this is something I've learned even from the basics of writing my own works. Choosing multiple routes of dialogue or the myriad of ways to represent an action/meaning, knowing there were a multitude of ways I could do this effectively—throw in doing that for the sake of language and cultural fictional approach, and you have something similar to the localization process. It's easier when it's just myself and for my work alone, but when you have a whole team of translators who are another cog in the development process for those who originally wrote the text...

At the end of the day, we can have an appreciation for the similarities, the differences, and understand that both are valid because they're both representations of the work from the same people. And I have no issues discussing the "what" [contents] in detail for full examination, but all the other stuff that misconstrues the "how/why" of the actual development process?

It's totally unnecessary, even wrong when people take it too far, and it doesn't create a case of even the claims of how the "what" is different in a way that is significant from the actual content.

#ff7 remake #square enix #localization

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wetsteve3 · 4 years ago

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Giuseppe REMONDINI (1895-1959)

I promised to deepen the figure of a great designer born in Italy but unfortunately-nemo propheta in his homeland, said the ancient essays-only once emigrated abroad he was enhanced as he deserved, and now I keep my word.

The human and professional history of engineer Giuseppe Remondini, born in Castel d ' Ario in 1895 and died in Torfou (Seine et Oise) in 1959 in fact, almost all in France and is closely linked to the Jonghi motorcycle brand, from was founded in 1930, although in reality Remondini's creative genius expressed himself with patents and numerous inventions also in the car sector and elsewhere.

Remondini, completed his studies in Italy, debuted working first at Alfa Romeo and then at the well-known Frera motorcycle factory in Tradate that literally blows it at the brand of cars. But it is with Nagas & Ray in Milan - that as a simple importer of foreign production motorcycles, he wanted to become a builder - that his design skills are finally free to fully express himself. Remondini, whose reputation is starting to be remarkable despite the still young age, in the last months of 1926 conceives a beautiful 350 single-cylindrical side valves that already in the first months of the following year is ready to go into production. Rationality, innovation and speed of execution are immediately its main skills, so much so that after a very short time of the motorcycle it also creates a ′′ Sport ′′ version with valves in the head. And also towards competitions, the young engineer will always show a great interest, often promoting his achievements through participation in races and successful speed record attempts, which he attends on time, not pulling back even when it comes to getting literally dirty hands.

In 1929, with the Wall Street collapse, the great world depression unleashed: the two partners Alessandro Nagas and Tullio Ray prefer to flee, but allow Remondini to continue the activity, renaming the bikes under the name Jonghi. Even on the name of Remondini's new financier who enters this stage, you could very well write a book or a movie script. But while the one about the life of the prolific Italian technician would have a documentary taste even if anything but boring, the events of dentist Tito Rodolfo Jonghi, who came from Argentina with powerful political support, could provide the plot for a rather lively thriller, not to mention say gloomy.

The real activity of this unusual character-who enjoyed the important support of his uncle, a general and political discussion named Belloni, involved firsthand in his affairs-was not in fact in the dental sector, who apparently had exercised only for a short time at home , but rather in arms trafficking in great style. In particular cannons, which, according to the case, came particularly from the United States and then headed to France, once sorted they were used to equip regular armies or-pecunia not olet-others who were much less. The commissions for its brokerage, which in such cases are paid to the trader by both sides (producer and buyer) were many zero figures, and also fruit useful ′′ hooks ′′ with political and finance environments.

In fact, Jonghi-who demonstrated as well as an authentic passion for engines, also a strong entrepreneurial attitude, quickly accumulating a discreet luck-was described by the progressive newspapers of the time with colorful adjectives to say the least, but the fact is that good Remondini We needed a financier, the ′′ warmonger dentist ′′, whatever the origin, had a lot of money to invest, and it was enough.

Several Nagas & Ray motorcycles, during the transition period, were simply branded ′′ Jonghi ", but the goals of the good technician and his financier were more ambitious, so the company in 1932 was transferred to France, to Choisy-le - Roi, where the market offered more possibilities.

Naturalized French, Remondini would have assumed Joseph's name, although curiously all his patents will continue to bring back the christening name Joseph, often crippled in ′′ Guiseppe ", a sign that however the bond with the motherland was not completely broken , even if Remondini from that time would have worked almost exclusively for overtime companies and his family would have permanently moved there. Just quote his son Arrigo, who became an excellent mechanic and then a Matra technician arrived to work in Formula One.

Let's go back to the purely motorcycle aspects of Giuseppe Remondini's career (it's singular, in fact, as well as all French texts, generally quite nationalistic, always report it with the Italian name) to report how the newborn Jonghi Jonghi 350 designed by Remondini , already in 1932 won in addition to the Rome Grand Prix at the remarkable average of 132 kilometers per hour, with maximum tips of 180, also the edition of that year of the 24 Hours of Bol d ' or endurance, in addition to the Border Grand Prix. in Belgium.

The tireless designer, however, does not only conceive a complete range of street models, with precious characteristics, but in short time he also perfects the racing one, first transforming the distribution into bialbero-which will run with brilliant results, also achieving various world primates and national-but also adopting the distribution with waterfall of gears and experimenting with the four valves and other more or less innovative solutions.

Managing a wide and ambitious range, taking on the cost of competitions in an economic environment that still has considerable criticality, however, is quite demanding, so already at the end of 1932 the Argentinian dentist-entrepreneur prefers to go back to cannons and machine guns ..... After a written agreement, however, it allows Remondini to continue to use the ′′ Jonghi ′′ brand, which is now known and appreciated, even if the company since 1933 has assumed the name of ′′ Construction Remondini Père e Fils "... and not because Giuseppe Remondini involved the children who have yet to arrive in the activity, but due to the fact that for funding, once Tito Jonghi came out, he turned to his father, a well-known professor in Italy. Corporate change doesn't affect the activity, since even in that period several victories come in important races and in national championships. In case the commitment to set different speed records, even long-lasting, may seem unusual, with a model equipped with a ′′ classic ′′ solution such as side valves by a company that makes the top distribution one of the greatest business cards. But the clever Remondini was interested in promoting even that type of motor-in vogue also poer its constructive economy and simplicity of maintenance - demonstrating with facts how, if well built, it could also be suitable for rather brilliant models.

Now we need a book, to also synthetically describe the countless inventions, patents, racing bikes and Remondini's discoveries: just quote that in this period he even made a front-wheel drive car, tried long on the road with positive outcome , and whose characteristics put the famous ′′ Traction Avant ′′ by Andrè Citroen enough in the background, even if the same inventor realizes that producing it in series would require capital of which he does not have. So, like many other valid inventions, this one goes back to the fateful drawer.

Like any technician capable of baking continuous jet ideas, obviously he also shoots some empty cartridge: for example an auxiliary motor for two-stroke bicycles (a pattern that maybe didn't love excessively...) that is underpowered and not even too reliable, even If for various aspects of the original, like almost all his creations.

But if we had to choose only two motorcycles to represent the creative genius of Eng. Giuseppe Remondini, in addition to the magnificent bicylindrical ′′ Silver Star ′′ 500 born all too beautiful and expensive for 1950, we could adopt as a symbol of his skill the 125 ACT (cammes tree in the head) of the same year.

Let's just think for a moment about the characteristics of the vast majority of the four-stroke models produced by competition in the same period and then look at the cascading distribution of gears, the line and other aspects of this small large motorcycle, which compared to much superior cylinder models , by endowment he really doesn't have much to envy.

And the same goes for performance, given that with the ′′ usual ′′ Monneret driving, as early as 1948, when Remondini had not yet presented this bike in public (from dealers it will only arrive in 1951, after its debut at Paris Salon of 1950, together with 500) had set a record with the prototype of the 125 road, modified with a tiny windshield and the low handlebar, turning for an hour at the average of over 122 kilometers per hour ..... not bad for a road bike in 1948!

Definitely, Giuseppe Remondini didn't like to ′′ fly low ", and even when trying with utility vehicles such as the scooter, he didn't give up his original touch and full of useful innovations.

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patolozka · 5 years ago

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On Crowley and Mary Magdalene META

So I was thinking about the whole ‘Crowley could be Mary Magdalene’ concept and I decided to put a few things together. I don’t want to persuade anyone of anything I was just thinking.

This META was written for @a-zira-fell and @azirafuck because they were feeding me with this stuff the last week.

So here is it:

1. Before the GO show aired in May we knew that Crowley wore female clothes at Golgotha from the stills that were shown to us in April. (It was THIS meta by @intersexaziraphale that I read about it). But after the show I think we promptly forget everything about it because there were so many things to think about.

https://intersexaziraphale.tumblr.com/post/184424971273/so-i-realized-that-not-everyone-knows-what-i-do

2. In the show in the crucifixion scene there is this exchange between our duo:

C: Come to smirk at the poor bugger, have you?

A: Smirk? Me?

C: Well, your lot put him on there.

A: I'm not consulted on policy decisions, Crawley.

C: Oh, I've changed it.

A: Changed what?

C: My name. "Crawl-y" just wasn't really doing it for me. It's a bit too... squirming-at-your-feet-ish.

A: Well, you were a snake. So, what is it now? Mephistopheles? Asmodeus?

C: Crowley.

A: Hmm.

A: Did you, uh... ever meet him?

C: Yes. Seemed a very bright young man. I showed him all the kingdoms of the world.

A: Why?

C: He's a carpenter from Galilee. His travel opportunities are limited.

C: That has got to hurt. What was it he said that got everyone so upset?

A: "Be kind to each other."

C: Oh, yeah. That'll do it.

In the script there is no bigger change in the exchange and about Crowley there is not much more than that he is wearing black. But we saw how he looked like in the show.

3. Then there is this Neil Gaiman’s tweet

Source: https://vintagefloof.tumblr.com/post/186199778332/confirmation-from-mr-gaiman-on-twitter-today-that

4. And also this meta by @olliaaron about Crowley’s and Aziraphale’s clothing during crucifixion:

https://olliaaron.tumblr.com/post/186239033859/so-i-read-something-about-this-and-heres-an

5. What do we know about Mary Magdalene

· She may have been Jesus’s wife, but we don’t know for sure. {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· She is for the first time noticed as one of the women who “ministered to Christ of their substance.” (Luke 8:3) {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· She travelled with Jesus as one of his followers and was a witness to his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. (According to the four canonical gospels) {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· Mary as one of the women who travelled with Jesus and helped support his ministry "out of their resources", indicating that she was probably relatively wealthy. (Luke 8:2–3) {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· There is a statement seven demons had been driven out of her (Luke 8:2–3) and that prompted her to became Jesus‘ follower. {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· She was one of women who found the sepulchre of Jesus empty (with Salome and Mary the mother of James) and saw the “vision of angels”. (Matthew 28:5). {Eastons Bible Dictionary} The angel told them that Jesus had risen from the dead. Then the risen Jesus himself appeared to the women as they were leaving the tomb and told them to tell the other disciples that he would meet them in Galilee. (Matthew 28:1–10){ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· She hastens to tell Peter and John (John 20:1, 2), and again immediately returns to the sepulchre. There she lingers thoughtfully, weeping at the door of the tomb. {Eastons Bible Dictionary}

· The risen Jesus appears to her but she at first mistook him for the gardener. After she heard him say her name, she recognized him and cried out "Rabbouni!" (which is Aramaic for "teacher"). She tried to touch him, but he told her, "Don't touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father”. The Gospel of John therefore portrays Mary Magdalene as the first apostle, the apostle sent to the apostles. (John 20:1–10) {CZ Wiki}

· According to Luke 24:1–12 a group of unnamed women went to the tomb and found the stone already rolled away, as in Mark. They went inside and saw two young men dressed in white who told them that Jesus had risen from the dead. Then they went and told the eleven remaining apostles, who dismissed their story as nonsense. {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· After the resurrection she returned to Jerusalem. {Eastons Bible Dictionary}

· In apocryphal texts, Mary Magdalene is portrayed as a visionary and leader of the early movement whom Jesus loved more than he loved the other disciples. {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· The earliest dialogue between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is probably the Dialogue of the Savior, a badly damaged Gnostic text discovered in the Nag Hammadi library in 1945. In saying 53, the Dialogue even attributes to Mary three aphorisms that are attributed to Jesus in the New Testament: "The wickedness of each day [is sufficient]. Workers deserve their food. Disciples resemble their teachers." The narrator commends Mary stating "she spoke this utterance as a woman who understood everything." {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· In Gospel of Thomas in saying 114: Simon Peter said to them: “Let Mary go forth from among us, for women are not worthy of the life”. Jesus said: “Behold, I shall lead her, that I may make her male, in order that she also may become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.“ {ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· In Gospel of Philip: And the companion of the saviour [was] Mary Magdalene. [Christ] loved Mary more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on the mouth. The rest of the disciples [were offended by it and expressed disapproval]. They said to him, "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Saviour answered and said to them, "Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness."{ENG Wiki Mary Magdalene}

· The Gospel of Mary: The Gospel of Mary was probably written over a century after the historical Mary Magdalene's death. The gospel does not claim to have been written by her and its author is, in fact, anonymous. Unlike in the Gospel of Thomas, where women can only be saved by becoming men, in the Gospel of Mary, they can be saved just as they are.

Then there is this:

Source: https://azirafuck.tumblr.com/post/186236114966/so-i-was-already-on-board-with-the-whole-crowley

6. How we can see Mary Magdalene in art

As you can see, majority of the paintings pictures Mary Magdalene with red hair and more so some of them even in dark colours.

Source of the pic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene

7. Dan Brown

I’m a big fan of Dan Brown and of course I know his ‘Da Vinci Code’ is only a fiction but still…

According to Dan Brown, there was a woman in Jesus‘ life. According to him, Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. And according to his book Leonardo da Vinci painted Mary Magdalene on ‘The Last Supper’, not John. And you know what hair colour does she have there? Red.

Source: https://cdn.getyourguide.com/img/tour_img-312981-148.jpg

Some pieces from book Da Vinci Code about Mary Magdalene

"The marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene is part of the historical record... Moreover, Jesus as a married man makes infinitely more sense than our standard biblical view of Jesus as a bachelor... If Jesus were not married, at least one of the Bible’s gospels would have mentioned it and offered some explanation for His unnatural state of bachelorhood." (The Da Vinci Code, 245; cf. 244)

“Behold the greatest cover-up in human history... Not only was Jesus Christ married, but He was a father. My dear, Mary Magdalene was the Holy Vessel. She was the chalice that bore the royal bloodline of Jesus Christ” (Code, 249)

“Jesus was the original feminist. He intended for the future of His Church to be in the hands of Mary Magdalene.” (Code, 248)

“The Church, in order to defend itself against the Magdalene’s power, perpetuated her image as a whore and buried evidence of Christ’s marriage to her, thereby defusing any potential claims that Christ had a surviving bloodline and was a mortal prophet.” (Code, 254)

Source: https://www.westmont.edu/~fisk/articles/bruce_fisk_on_the_da_vinci_code.html (it’s a big article about why it all can’t be true, but it has its moments)

And I add one of my favorites:

"Who is she?" Sophie asked.

"That, my dear," Teabing replied, "is Mary Magdalene."

Sophie turned. "The prostitute?"

Teabing drew a short breath, as if the word had injured him personally. "Magdalene was no such thing. That unfortunate misconception is the legacy of a smear campaign launched by the early Church. The Church needed to defame Mary Magdalene in order to cover up her dangerous secret—her role as the Holy Grail." (Da Vinci Code, 205)

8. Gender in Good Omens

We know that angels don’t bother themselves with gender. But to me it looks quite like Crowley was manifesting himself the first four thousands more as a female than as a male.

In the garden of Eden, he is a demon, of course, but still you can see a slit in his clothes. I don’t think Aziraphale has some too. It could be only that his clothes are ragged but still…

In the Noah’s ark he looks more woman then man on the second glance. His long hair, his dress with belt…

At Golgotha it’s most prominent. There you can see he presents himself as a woman.

And after that, only 8 years later, the big change. The short hair, the glasses, all male.

And only other occasion in which we can see Crowley as a female is with Warlock as his nanny. But that is a different story.

9. So let me summarize it.

v Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ follower and travelled with him.

v Crowley knew Jesus, he showed him the world.

v Mary Magdalene was a witness to Jesus’ crucifixion, burial, and resurrection.

v Crowley manifested himself as a woman during Jesus’ life and he was a witness to Jesus’ crucifixion.

v Mary Magdalene was probably wealthy.

v Crowley has no problem with money.

v Mary Magdalene is often pictured as a woman with long, curly, red hair.

v Crowley had for the first four thousand years long, curly, red hair.

v After the crucifixion Mary Magdalene left and went to Jerusalem.

v After the crucifixion Crowley left Palestine and went to Rome.

v Out of Mary Magdalene had been driven seven demons.

v Crowley is a demon.

v Mary Magdalene saw an angel (or two angels) that told her Jesus had risen from the dead.

v Crowley has no problem with seeing angels.

v Jesus said to Mary Magdalene after resurrection: "Don't touch me, for I have not yet ascended to my father”.

v Crowley is demon, that could do it. ¨

v In apocryphal texts, Mary Magdalene is portrayed as a visionary and leader of the early movement.

v Crowley invented many things and was a leader of a sort on Earth.

v Three Jesus’ aphorisms are attributed Mary Magdalene: "The wickedness of each day [is sufficient]. Workers deserve their food. Disciples resemble their teachers." She is also described as: "she spoke this utterance as a woman who understood everything."

v Well, I don’t think like you but I think it’s a pretty good description of Crowley if you ask his co-workers.

v Jesus said he may make Mary Magdalene male to become equal men.

v Crowley changed after his death to male and also changed his name.

v The Gospel of Mary was probably written over a century after the historical Mary Magdalene's death. The gospel does not claim to have been written by her and its author is anonymous.

v Mary Magdalene’s gospel was found in Egypt covered in feathers.

10. So I think Crowley could be Mary Magdalene. Crowley and Jesus could be together. Crowley could be the one painted all the time on all the Mary Magdalene’s pictures.

The idea about Crowley being Mary Magdalene is not mine. It’s all tumblr.

#Good Omens meta #my first meta #Crowley as Mary Magdalene #some thoughts #my meta

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