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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 6 months

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I’m about halfway through the audiobook of The Holy Vible, the book that Elis James and John Robins published in 2018. It’s really varied, with each chapter being on an entirely different subject (they went with one chapter for each letter of the alphabet, which was a gimmick I thought I’d find annoying, but in fact find myself looking forward to seeing what they get into next every time they finish one). John wrote some of the chapters and Elis wrote others, but they both jump in on each other's chapters with little commentary.

A lot of it is, to be honest, not objectively great literature. Listening to Elis spend an entire chapter talk about how great his favourite band is is only interesting if you’ve listened to a lot of Elis James already, and you happen to really really enjoying hearing people tell you why they like their favourite thing so much. Luckily both those things are true of me so I’ve enjoyed this. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who’s not already really invested in their radio show.

Anyway, I’ve managed to hold off for a while on doing another post about how listening to John Robins is bringing up mental health-related stuff for me, but then I got to chapter L in this book, which they have rather convolutedly titled “Living – Grief Is” (because they couldn’t make “Grief Is Living” Chapter G, as they had to use G for Elis’ favourite band, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci). It’s a reference to episode 191 of their Radio X show, the time in October 2017 when John Robins came on the radio to explain how the night before, he got drunk alone in his house, ate ten bags of something called Space Raiders (I’ve Googled them, they’re like chips – crisps – I think), and decided he’d do some writing, but due to being too drunk just wrote the words “Grief is living” in a notebook and then found it in the morning next to the chips wrappers. This story caught on with listeners and led to a bunch of people emailing in with their stories of vaguely harrowing shit they’d done in the middle of the night after drinking too much.

I liked how many people connected with the story, because that’s pretty high up on my list of experiences I’ve had frequently but never tell anyone about (or wouldn’t have – now that I’m making an actual effort to stop drinking, I feel like I don’t have to try as hard to minimize how much I was drinking, and being freed of those mental gymnastics is one of the few upsides to what’s been a mostly shitty process so far). When I’m drinking I’ll hit a point where I’ll start feeling things more and think I need to share this, but also be conscious of how much I will fucking hate myself if I start sending anyone drunk messages (not that I never have done the drunk messaging thing – I used to do it a lot when I was young enough for it to be almost acceptable, like early twenties – but especially in the last five years or so, I’ve started getting so paralyzingly mortified at realizing that anyone could ever hear or read my drunk thoughts that I’ve started avoiding getting too drunk around other people and definitely avoiding sending any messages while drunk), so I’ll open a Word document and just type out whatever I’m thinking. And figure that if any of it makes sense in the morning, I can do something with it.

I also have the quite common habit of eating terrible food in the middle of the night while drunk, so that image – of waking up and finding wrappers from the shitty food you ate and something you wrote that’s harrowingly depressing but also cringe-inducingly stupid – is an experience I’ve had many times, leading me to immediately delete everything and throw everything in the garbage and try to forget I ever did that because I hate the person who did that. Somehow, waking up to find something I wrote in a Word doc about something that was making me sad – I somehow find that almost as mortifying as waking up to find I’d sent those thoughts to someone in a message, even though obviously writing stuff in a Word doc that I don’t send anywhere should be no big deal. But it’s always something I wrote about some emotional thing that’s there when I’m sober and that I try to be an adult and ignore, and then I see how horribly I laid it out when drunk, and I can’t stand to look at it. And obviously I also feel guilty for ordering Subway at 1 AM or whatever I did.

Like I said, pretty high on the list of things I have done regularly but don’t even let myself think about, much less share with anyone else. And it was kind of cool to hear John Robins recount a similar story, and then get all those other people writing in to say “Oh yeah I do that too.” I mean, obviously it’s a bad thing to do and all of those people should stop, and John Robins has stopped, and that’s good. But it is nice to hear it’s not just me. It’s up there with that one chapter from Michael Legge’s book, which described the specifics of a post-drinking morning in harrowing detail – for the most painfully accurate description of this that I’ve heard in comedy. And what do we look for in comedy, if not painfully accurate descriptions of substance abuse problems?

Anyway, John Robins named The Mental Health Chapter in his and Elis’ book Grief Is Living, because he explained that that story resonating with other people is an example of why it is worth sharing these things. I got to this chapter while on a break at work, listened to the first five minutes or so, quickly realized that this was far too emotionally heavy a thing to listen to while being at work, but by the time I worked that out it was too late, it had made me feel too many things. I did even really feel in a place to put on some other more lighthearted podcast, so I tried music instead, played the Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy album that was referenced in the chapter, which was a terrible way to try to make myself feel less emotional and more ready to work. The last session I had to run that day was a rather tough.

John Robins acknowledges early in the chapter that he feels awkward and a bit cringe-worthy doing a “Mental Health Chapter”, and I feel similarly about picking out “The Mental Health Chapter” as the one to make a Tumblr post about. Feels like it’s saying “This chapter is the really significant one in the book, because they Talk About Mental Health”, and I feel weird saying that. If it helps at all, this isn’t the first post I’ve written about that book. I actually wrote a really quite long post rebutting all of Elis’ points in Chapter F – Football, because he spends so long explaining why football is better than other sports and all he does is list things that can apply to any sport, football is not special because it has drama and excitement, that’s just what sports are, and listening to him explain the justification for Popular Team Sport Playing With a Ball And a Net Supremacy did make me feel a bit like I was back in high school having my objectively much bigger athletic accomplishments in a much less popular sport superseded on the announcements for the junior boys basketball team making the regional semi-finals or whatever. I wrote a long and detailed post explaining point-by-point why Elis’ argument is not specific to football and actually lots of other sports do that better, and then I looked at it, said “This is overly defensive high school bullshit”, and deleted it all without posting it.

So here’s my second post about the audiobook I’m listening to, and it is on The Mental Health Chapter, though I’m going to touch on the couple of chapters around it as well, because honestly the best cure for listening to something that makes you feel too many things is to write them down and say them into a void and then they’re gone and you can move on with your life.

When I got home from work, I re-listened to the first few minutes of that chapter, and I started transcribing as I listened because I thought I'd include some of it in this post. I didn't go in with a plan for how much to transcribe, and ended just continuing to write until I'd covered the whole introduction. So here's that:

When Elis and I began broadcasting together, it never occurred to me to be anything other than as honest with him on air as I was in person. If he asked me how I was, and I was sad, I would say so. If he asked me, “How was your week, John?” and I’d had a tough time, I might exclaim, “Awful!” before playing Green Day. It soon became clear that this wasn’t very common in the world of commercial radio. And, as a result, over the years, our Radio X show has contained many references to, stories about, correspondence concerning, all kinds of things one might place under the broad heading of mental health.

I must admit I’m even slightly uneasy using terms like “mental health”, or depression, maybe because I worry that other people – whether rightly or wrongly – might cringe, or tense up, or think, “Oh, this isn’t about me,” or, “I don’t want to hear someone being all open about stuff.” So thank the Lord for our old friend Elis James, who, with a common touch like no other, coined the term “the darkness of Robins”. Little did that man on the street know that not only was he predicting the title of the 2017 Perrier Award-winning show (sorry Fosters, if.com, lastminute.com – that’s what I’m calling it) – and, by extension, predicting that one day I would be crowned the funniest comedian on Earth (plus Australian support) – but he had found the only word I felt totally comfortable using to describe my vibe. (Note to self: potential game show title. Get Elis to pitch it to one of his TV friends?)

I was reluctant to write about darkness. I’m far more comfortable describing how it manifests itself, and then having a laugh about it. I would never want to suggest that my experience was in any way unique, or that my take on it was in any way authoritative. I think perhaps, what I feel most acutely is a fear that anyone suffering from any form of mental health problem may read what I write and think, “That’s not my experience. Maybe I’m even more unusual or alone or weird than I thought.” What I have learned is that the more subjectively one talks about such things – eg. “I ate ten bags of Space Raiders before writing ‘grief is living’ in a notebook” – the more people can see themselves in those stories. Yet, when you try to speak generally – eg. “Depression is like running up a hill through treacle” – you immediately exclude most people. Because our experience of mental health is as varied and individual as our experience of physical health. Just because I get pains in my left hamstring after long drives doesn’t mean your eczema isn’t real. (The sole downside of being one of the world’s most accomplished clutch balancers.)

I wouldn’t say I’m depressed, or suffer from depression – I don’t think I do. However, I do feel dark at times, and my general outlook and baseline mood is often one of darkness. I felt a connection to the word when I first heard Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s masterpiece: I See a Darkness. It’s a flawless album, and the title track speaks to me very personally, as I’m sure it does to everyone who has heard it. Have a listen, and then a read of the lyrics. It’s not as bleak as it first sounds. It’s a song of honesty, friendship, and hope. But it’s still sad, mournful, and dark. I love that balance. There is light in the darkness, but also darkness in the light.

There’s an interview with Will Oldham – aka Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – on music website Pitchfork. It’s a characteristically stupid interview, where, hilariously, the interviewer begins by asking why Will Oldham doesn’t like interviews. And, having heard his reasons – nuance impossible, detail glossed over, interesting topics rushed or edited, complex topics not pursed – he then spends the rest of the interview proving Will’s point. There’s a great bit where he asks if Will Oldham has had much experience of karma. He answers, “Tons and tons.” To which the interviewer simply responds, “Johnny Cash played I See a Darkness on his last album. What was that like?” I mean, come on! Maybe dig a little deeper into the interesting thing he just said. It’s like that bit in Knowing Me, Knowing You where Alan Partridge asks the racing driver if he gets bored of the same old questions, before asking, “When did you first want to be a racing driver?” Anyway. If you don’t want to be annoyed, don’t go on Pitchfork.

But there’s one really cool thing Will Oldham says in the interview. He’s asked, “Do you think that you’re more depressed than most people?” Which, speaking as someone who has given a few interviews over the last year, is a really horrid question – and I’ve had some stinkers. (No, it’s not about her and she’s not seen the show and yes, we do speak.) There’s no way out of that question without A) your answer becoming the story – eg. “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy has depression!”, or “Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s melancholic persona all a lie” – or, B) sounding self-important. Answering either yes or no would make him sound like he thinks he’s somehow special, and separates him from his audience. If you fudge it, it sounds like you don’t want to engage with depression or mental health. And, in fact, it’s impossible to answer, because how do you know how everyone else feels? Such a dumb, unanswerable question.

However, somehow, the brilliant Will Oldham finds the perfect answer: “Not today.” I absolutely love that answer. I love it so God damn much. Because in one exchange, something of the experience of mental health is captured, without anyone claiming ownership of what that experience is like. Everyone has mental health – both positive and negative experiences of it. And everyone’s experience is not only different, but different day to day. In that answer, we have a world where everyone is depressed and not depressed. We’re all experiencing emotions in different ways, at different times.

First of all, I need to acknowledge that in the first part of that, John Robins says much more clearly and precisely something I took way too long to try to explain in a post I made last month, after I listened to him and Elis on the Comedian’s Comedian podcast, about why I like their term “darkness” so much. I like that they don’t set out to explicitly “talk about mental health”; they just tell stories about their lives, and those stories often (this mainly applies to John) involve things that indicate deviation from the platonic ideal of a psychologically healthy person. In 2014, Elis James made an offhanded comment about how John should someday write a show called The Darkness of Robins, cataloguing all these deviations because clearly they resonate with people.

The term grew from there, John started referring to his issues with the vague term “darkness” (ie. “Pretty tired this morning because I couldn’t sleep last night, woke up at 2 AM with a case of the darkness”), listeners started writing in to say this show has helped them with “the darkness”, and nobody has to actually say the words “mental health”. And as John acknowledges in that chapter, that can be a good and a bad thing – maybe in some ways bad because properly naming mental health issues can be important, in some circumstances. But I don’t think a commercial digital indie radio show has to be one of those circumstances where that’s required. “Darkness” is a word that makes it so much easier. It’s a word that can be used to include people who have a whole range of different mental health diagnoses, or multiple diagnoses, and who don’t want to get into all the specifics but do want to be included. And it includes people who are undiagnosed, and people who wouldn’t be diagnosed because their issues don’t meet clinical diagnostic criteria, but they still lay awake feeling terrible and would like a word to describe that.

It’s also a word that strikes the perfect tone. Obviously naming a show “The Darkness of Robins” is ironically grandiose, and there’s something just slightly ironic about it every time they use that word. Obviously they’re being a bit intentionally silly by calling day-to-day psychological struggles something as dramatic as “darkness”. But it’s only a very small touch of irony – just enough irony to take the edge off and make you feel like you’re not formally Talking About Mental Health, but not so much irony that it starts mocking or minimizing the struggles.

I said basically all of that in a post I made last month, and now I’ve said it all again here, and I enjoyed listening to John Robins say pretty much the same thing, but say it much better than I have, and confirm that I was reading it right. They really did hit on a good thing with that word.

I also find that last bit of the above quote really interesting, about the impossible interview question. I’m pretty sure a really difficult part of life is figuring out what bits of your experience are normal and what you should assume is an exception. I’ve gone through phases where I was convinced that everyone’s basically depressed, I don’t think anyone identifies as being “normal” or “happy”. And I’ve gone through other phases where I’ve thought everyone except me is basically normal and I have nothing in common with anyone.

I think during most of my twenties, I leaned more toward the former way of thinking, possibly because I spent most of my time around people who all had something so wrong with them that they felt best when doing a sport where they could literally throw themselves at other people and either physically overpower them or be physically overpowered and being able to do this five or so times a week is all that kept them functioning. If you spend all your time around people like that, you start to think any issues you have are probably normal, everyone has issues, I’m no more messed up than anyone else. On the other hand, last year I started an in-person job for the first time in ages, and either my coworkers are a lot better than I am at being normal and functioning humans, or they’re a lot better than I am at pretending to be normal and functioning humans. I suspect it’s a bit of both.

One time in 2019, my best friend and I had been in an argument for a while about something that does not matter now, and I went over to his house and we ended up getting into it again. He told me this was upsetting, and if I hadn’t come over we’d have avoided all this and would have both have enjoyed our evenings much more, so there was no point to doing this. I said that as shitty as this was, if I’d stayed home, I’d have just spent all evening feeling bad about how we were fighting and worrying about the issue at hand, so for me, this was an improvement on if I’d just stayed home. And he told me “Well that’s the different between us, because my default state isn’t sad. If we didn’t have this argument, I’d have spent the evening feeling fine, because I don’t just feel bad all the time the way you do.” We resolved that fairly unimportant argument pretty quickly, but that sentiment’s stayed with me. Most people’s default state is not sad. It’s possible that I am, in fact, more depressed than most people. Most days.

Not knowing whether you’re “normal” compared to other people isn’t just an issue when it comes to issues of darkness, either. I’m in that cycle of “I’m pretty sure no one is like me” and “I’m pretty sure no one is special and everyone is pretty much the same” with everything. Like people who identify as being really nerdy – we joke about that, but surely we know everyone jokes about how very nerdy they are, so no one is really more nerdy than anyone else, right? Everyone has the thing that they’re a big nerd about, and they think it makes them different from other people, but it doesn’t, because everyone else also has a thing. I mostly thought that, but in fall 2022, I got stuck in a meeting at work where they had an “icebreaker game” of saying your name and a topic on which you could easily give a 30-minute speech. You didn’t have to give the speech or anything, you just had to say what topic you could easily do. There were eight people besides me in that meeting, and seven of them said this was a really difficult question and they struggled to think of anything. One person said Taylor Swift, and that is fine because I am a very non-judgemental person who has no opinion on that (the last clause of this sentence was of course sarcasm, though to be honest, I do genuinely have more respect for someone who could take for 30 minutes about a subject I think is stupid than I do for the people who didn’t have that strong an interest in anything). Maybe that’s a sign that my level of nerdiness does significantly set me apart from most people. Or maybe all those other people were just doing the same thing I was, which is going through the massive list in their minds of subjects they could explain for half and hour, and trying to find one that wouldn’t sound too weird or niche, and not coming up with anything. I hope it was the latter.

I’m thinking of that Daniel Kitson bit where he said you assume other people’s mentalities are basically the same as yours, but then you remember that some people hang their coats up on a train, and the illusion of shared experience shattered. I really like that one because it’s such a specific thing, but he did nail it. I cannot imagine hanging my coat up on a train. It’s such a small, insignificant thing, it’s not against my moral principles or anything – it’s just something it would never occur to me to do. And yet, I have been on trains and seen coats hung up on those little hooks. Some people just go through the world differently from me.

I think the smallest, least important thing in my life that gives me that feeling Kitson was describing – that “Oh shit, the baseline assumption I made that we approach life in basically the same way is incorrect” – is when someone recommends some media to me, and then lets me know what paid streaming site it’s on, as though that will have any bearing on how I watch and/or listen to it. I think the biggest, most important thing that gives me that feeling is that some people have children on purpose. Some people out there think “I find getting out of bed in the morning and tending to my responsibilities so easy that I could probably still do it even if you added a lot more noise and stress, as well as a huge number of additional responsibilities, and raised the stakes to the point where an innocent child's life depends on me getting it right every single day for many years, even at this higher level of difficulty.” They don't just think they're mentally and physically functional and will likely stay that way for the next eighteen years - they're so sure of this that they think it would be fine for a child's life to depend on it. The massive gulf between my mentality and the mentality of a person who could do that – the deep fundamental level on which that gulf exists – makes me sometimes think I don’t have any common experience with almost anyone. And then I listen to a story about someone getting drunk alone and writing something stupid like “Grief is living” in a notebook, and I say “Okay, there are some common experiences.”

The chapter before “L: Living – Grief Is” is “K: Keeping it Session”. This is John Robins’ expression that means sticking to session ales when drinking, which means under 4.5% (basically, weak beer). He goes into great detail about how this improves both the experience of drinking, and your life in general. It’s another thing I’ve described before on this blog, which is that it’s a sneaky thing that seems like it promotes responsible drinking, but actually it’s just a sign of a drinking problem, someone who loves the act of drinking alcohol so much that he’s found a way to make it last longer, because if each drink is weaker then you can have more of it, all else equal. That chapter made so much sense as I listened to it, and I was thinking, once again, that maybe I could try this as a way to satisfy alcohol cravings. Until I got to the very end of the chapter, which I’ve also transcribed:

Having banned spirits in my house from April 2017 – due to factors – the power of my moral hangovers has lessened. Yes, I still have the odd cloudy day that I have to write off, and spend ignoring the self-doubt and seeking emergency crying nooks in central London. (Unused studios at Radio X HQ are an absolute Godsend for any tearful digital DJ caught short welling up in public – for example, after watching the film Arrival at a central London cinema in Jan. 2017). But these days are rare. I have had to admit that spirits, rum especially, had a large part to play in the end of every relationship I’ve ever been in, numerous shame wells, and all my major career failures/plateaus, 2007-14. But I’ve now reached a happy medium where, by sticking to session ale and having the odd day off booze, marked in red Sharpie on my official Queen calendar, I’m genuinely able to enjoy my drinking and my life. So, go forth, dear friends. Spread your alcohol over longer nights, extended chats, and deeper nooks. Forgo wasteful units, erase shame from your mornings, and keep it session.

That bit reminded me that – oh right, this is all bullshit. That is a man who, since writing that, has admitted he had a significant alcohol addiction that was not, in fact, resolved in 2018. That man just explained to me, in 2018, that he has now figured out his drinking habits and is able to do it in a healthy and responsible way and it’s all fine. That’s just lying, I’ve done it too. I don’t know how many years in a row I’ve said “I think my drinking was reached problem levels last year, I’m glad I have it under control now.” Don’t take alcohol advice from people who are lying. (I mean, obviously cutting back is better than not cutting back and drinking weaker alcohol is better than drinking stronger alcohol. I just mean, if you’re having ten drinks in a night on a regular basis, there isn’t a way to make that a good idea, no matter how much I – and apparently John Robins – would like there to be. And if an alcoholic tells you there is a good way to do that, they're probably lying.)

Later in the Grief Is Living chapter, John Robins gets more into discussing how mental health problems manifest and what he’s learned about how to deal with them. To his credit he is very careful about this, he keeps saying he’s not an expert, his experiences will not necessarily apply to anyone else, and the vast majority of his actual advice consisted of referring people to experts, or relaying things he’s learned from experts.

He breaks down lifestyle things into categories that he tries to take care of for the sake of mental health – food, sleep, drink, exercise. And then goes into detail on each one, acknowledging that sometimes you can’t get it all right and sometimes people aren’t capable of following advice on this and sometimes it’s not enough, but it tends to help. He then added that while this doesn’t apply to him, the other big everyday lifestyle factor in mental health for half the population is menstruation, as a huge number of people find their mental health fluctuates significantly with that cycle. And then he talks about how many women he’s known who suffer horribly from this and how they try to manage it, and gives some advice about taking it to a doctor if it’s bad and demanding to see a specialist if you get brushed off or told there’s nothing they can do because it’s not right that women are expected to just “live with it” when there are medical treatments that can help with that.

This of course made me think of the routine in his 2014 Edinburgh show, about his girlfriend’s PMS/PMT. I wrote about this before too, how I do see where he was going with that. The routine is less bad than any one-sentence summary (like the one I just wrote) could make it sound, because he was clearly trying to be more nuanced than just “women be crazy on their periods”. He was approaching it with sympathy for how frustrating those feelings are for the woman experiencing them – but at the same time, he was also making a joke about how those symptoms look odd from the outside. Sara Pascoe did almost the same thing in her show LadsLadsLads – said she suffers from clinically bad PMT and then told some stories about times that led to getting emotional in ways that were amusingly disproportionate and that looks odd.

Obviously, the giant, glaring difference between the two situations is she gets to make that joke because it’s her experience. I guess it’s a double standard, but it seems fair enough given the trade-off of who has to actually live with it, that people who get periods are allowed to make the joke and people who don’t should be very, very careful if they try doing the same thing. John Robins was more careful than most cis men throughout the history of stand-up have been, when it comes to writing a “women be crazy on their periods” routine. But still, not careful enough. That routine is the bit of Robins stand-up that I think is least defensible (aside from that other bit about Sara Pascoe at the end of Darkness of Robins – it’s fine, she hasn’t seen the show and they do speak, it’s hopefully fine and he hopefully ran it past her), I cringed through it when I re-listened to his 2014 show recently and I think including it was a bad call. However, I do like that hearing this bit in the book confirmed the way I read that routine, which is that he doesn’t actually think the primary victims of people suffering from PMT are their male partners. That he was trying to talk about how it’s a genuine issue that people suffer from and that sucks for them, but also, we can make lighthearted fun about it! He just… didn’t do it nearly well enough to justify touching a subject that has such a terrible history of cis male stand-up comedians being dicks about that.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into detail here (or anywhere, talking about it makes me extremely uncomfortable and that sort of thing is why destigmatizing and normalizing discussions about it are good, ie. a cis man including it on a list of lifestyle factors that affect mental health because it’s a huge one even though it doesn’t apply to him – normalizing it through jokes in stand-up sets is also good, but probably best to leave that to the people who experience it), but the fact that I have this cycle every month has a significant detrimental effect on my mental and sometimes physical health, as well as in some ways my overall quality of life, and I appreciate hearing it mentioned so casually. To be honest, that’s another situation where I used to think I’m worse off than most people, but now think I’m not. Every person I’ve ever known well enough for them to have told me about their experience with that cycle has had horror stories that should not be normal, but given how common they are, I think that is normal. My ex-girlfriend had that issue described in the book, of doctors brushing off her terrible, abnormal symptoms because this is just what women are expected to go through. My mother had an emergency hysterectomy at age 48 after experiencing so much blood loss over so many years that it gave her permanent disability issues, and it took until that point for anything to get done because women bleeding a lot is assumed to be normal. It is a good thing to talk about and differentiate between common and normal, I think. Sorry about the tangent, I just figured I’ll package all my oversharing in this one post and then we can move on.

I need to get into another part from later in the Grief Is Living chapter of the book, when John Robins talks about the gambling addiction he used to have, and relays some things he learned from the Gambler’s Anonymous meetings he attended for a while. He explained: “I haven’t gambled since the sixth of December 2002. If you’d told me, on the fifth of December, 2002, that I would go sixteen years without gambling, I would have thrown up at the horror of that idea. Slash burst into tears, slash started gambling.” I wrote out that quote just because I found it helpful. Thinking about giving something up forever is overwhelming and impossible and will immediately make you turn to that thing just to cope with the thought of living without it forever. But you can do it a little at a time and someday it’ll add up.

I’m going transcribe one more quote from that chapter:

My point here is this: You are enough. You did something. Too often, we feel like we aren’t in control, aren’t capable of things. And it doesn’t matter whether it was writing a symphony or emptying the dishwasher, you did it. And hold onto that for dear life, because when it’s all you can do not to bang your had against the wall, or stay in bed all day, or drink into oblivion, emptying the dishwasher is a symphony. And it’s with these small, seemingly insignificant handholds that we can begin to pull ourselves out of the swamp.

I included that because it made me think of that blog he wrote for Chortle (which John and Elis' book described as "comedy's Bible/menu/tabloid", which I found quite funny), during the 2007 Edinburgh Festival, that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. I made fun of one particular entry in it, which I mostly stand by, because it was so fucking pointlessly intense in such a Classic Robins way. Firstly, he writes glowingly about a Phil Kay show he saw:

It does begin, however, with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve heard in a comedy show. So much so that I have to take out my notebook to write down the statement “the law of love says ‘you are enough’”. Unfortunately Phil sees me do this and takes me for a reviewer. “He might be a journalist” I look up “bang, you’ve missed a bit of the show” he says. I’m wearing headphones round my neck and he riffs on that for a while then moves on. But by now my face is burning and I become his point of focus after delivering set pieces. I feel terrible for the pressure he now seems to think he’s under when there is no need, “I’m not a reviewer Phil! I’m a fan! I’m a worshipper!” but I stay quiet, sit back, and enjoy his remarkable talent. I was going to give him a review, just for neatness, but I don’t think you can really review his shows, just him. He walks a line of personal confession that any self proclaimed storyteller, myself included, is simply miles away from. Of course it’s an intensely personal thing, but for me, as nice as it is to make badges, this style of comedy is where i find hope for the new wave, or whatever you want to call it. The amazing thing is that Phil’s been doing it for nearly 20 years.

So adorable, so annoying, so pointlessly intense, so pretentious but earnest, so sweet – a 25-year-old inexperienced comedian taking out a physical notebook during a show because he was so moved by the line “The law of love says you are enough” that he just had to write it down. But then, he writes about how the night unfolded later on:

After the Zone, which pretty much sold out and was really good, (a high point was Carl telling a woman with an annoying laugh ‘it’s like being heckled by the Lilt ladies’), we went to the Brooke’s Bar. It was rammed and hot. I met a person I’ve not met before, and it was he who made me realise that Phil Kay is not the only one off up here this year. I won’t mention his name because of what transpires later, but he’s like a cross between Chris Morris and Peter Cook circa ‘Derek and Clive get the horn’, drunk, breakdown era, vitriolic Peter Cook. He’s bounding about the bar vomiting all forms of obscenity out onto an unexpecting audience, save those who know him, who reliably inform me that this is normal behaviour. It’s ‘what’s the worst thing you can say to a stranger’ stuff, captivating as much as it is abhorrent. When it crosses the line into straightforward assault I keep my distance. But he reminds me of me, in a way. Not the assault, but the tractor beam of desperation to perform that throws you round a room of strangers and leads you to ruin their evening.

First of all, I need to acknowledge that this does not sound anything like Chris Morris. And I know Peter Cook had issues, but surely there’s a less dramatic simile than that, that John could have used to explain that some comedian was being a dick in a bar. Anyway, the story escalates very fast after that. Weirdly fast. The guy who is not Chris Morris or Peter Cook leaves, and then John and his friends leave, and they find the guy again in a chip show, where he's shouted verbal abuse at some locals and picked a fight with them.

He is chased out by 6 or 7 very rightly angry men, they knock him to the ground and begin to beat him. It’s the kind of thing you only imagine doing when you’re brain won’t sit still at night; “God, imagine if I shouted ‘Fuck you all’ at a funeral, or went to a Millwall game and called them all fags”. It’s not just social suicide, but increasingly physical suicide that I am watching. As the punches and kicks are thrown we wade in to stop the trouble, in the slightly awkward position of being totally sympathetic with the people who are kicking the shit out of him. One minute they were buying chips, the next being called “foreign cunts” and being told to “speak English” in their own country. He didn’t mean these things, but says them to achieve the desired effect: self destruction. As Burgess said, and never truer than now, “destruction’s our ode to joy”.

As we break it up, and shelter our colleague away from the gathering crowd, tears fall from his battered face, and now I properly see myself in his little boy lost eyes. I know that burning need to feel something, anything, other than what you’re feeling inside. In a former life I’d have put my fist through a door, or smashed a bottle or jumped through a shop window, something more controlled than letting half a dozen drunk Scots administer the punishment. “We need to get on top of this”, I say to him, and beating in my head is that statement, like a fucking beacon; “the law of love says ‘you are enough’” to be honest this guy is more than enough. But somehow I need to show him that like Phil suggests, he himself, is all he needs to do whatever he wants. That release, the blessed release that comes from being half killed by an angry mob can be found inside you, the law of love says so.

You definitely should not shout racist abuse at people who have graciously allowed thousands of annoying performers and tourists to take over their city for an entire month (though you also shouldn't beat people up in the street even if they deserve it, and if you see other people beating someone up in the street you should try to stop it if you can, even if they deserve it). And it's pretty fucking intense to quote the likes of Anthony Burgess to Phil Kay while describing the tear-stained face of a man who just picked a fight in a chip shop. I certainly wouldn't call it pointlessly intense this time - that situation got pretty fucking dramatic. But John Robins' narration also got pretty fucking dramatic, and I made of fun of that in another post a few weeks ago, and I mostly stand by that.

But I have to admit I did feel a bit bad after writing that, because of course I know exactly what he's talking about, I spent over ten years of my life unable to function unless I could go into a small room and physically throw myself against people until I knocked them down or they knocked me down and something hurt enough to stop me feeling anything else. And I realize that is also a pretty dramatic thing to write, it's the sort of thing I'd wake up to find written in a Word doc on my laptop next to a Subway wrapper and an almost empty whiskey bottle (which is, obviously, also a way to achieve that feeling of catharsis), but it is an experience I know well and is probably worth talking about. Maybe if more people wrote their feelings down in overly dramatic blog entries, fewer people would feel the need to go pick fights in the street.

And I thought of that old Chortle blog entry when I heard that line in The Mental Health Chapter of his audiobook written 11 years later: "My point here is this: You are enough." He remembered that line. Or he forgot it and it's a coincidence that he repeated it, that's probably more likely. But it did make me think I should be less of a dick about a twenty-five-year-old comedian contributing even more spelling errors to Chortle, while trying to express the way he connected to someone's emotional experience, in the hopes that it might turn out this one doesn't set him too far apart from other people. After all this, I really don't have grounds to make fun of someone else for doing that (although, in my defence, I at least keep my spelling errors/convoluted connections to an emotional experience on this website/gremlin network, and don't sully the highly respectable Bible/menu/tabloid of comedy with them).

Okay I'm done the dramatic parts now. The next chapter is "M: Mind Scenarios", which is much more lighthearted as it looks at the things he thinks about when trying to sleep, although that chapter does contain the line: "I find falling asleep sober so difficult that I’ve twice called NHS Direct because I thought I was having a heart attack," because it's John Robins, so even the fun little ones can get fairly dark. But that chapter is mainly not un-acknowledged alcoholism, it's mainly Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. That is not a joke, it's not something I'm taking out of context to make it sound weird. It's a very literal description of the chapter.

He explains to us that he likes to invent Sherlock Holmes mysteries while falling asleep, and then he spends quite a bit of time - a significant portion of the chapter - reading out an example. I kept waiting for there to be some twist or double meaning that would connect to other things from the book, but no, he just wanted to read us his Sherlock Holmes fanfiction. When he finished the Sherlock story, he didn't add any analysis or explanation of why he'd done that, he just immediately moved on to discussing the cognitive benefits of fantasizing about a nuclear apocalypse.

...Like I said, I'm enjoying the book, but I recommend it to people who are already on board with James and Robins and their whole thing, and I recommend it no one else. I'm having fun though. The vast majority of the book is much more fun than this post.

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disgraced-doctor-junkenstein · 5 years

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(Oh im fine its an rp thing) Well my partner in ah... work related things so to speak isn't exactly the nicest person and they're kinda bad, so i was just curious the corse of action i should take. -torture anon

Ah. Business then. To that Junkenstein nods slowly, carefully dropping his gaze back down to his work bench that he is tinkering on. A spare glance up every now and again as he gradually goes back into constructing frag bombs.

“Nice is subjective unfortunately. Blue is nice,” the German starts to list off. “Rum is nice. Donating food to shelters is nice. Treating an injured animal and releasing it back into the wild is nice. Hearing your enemy sob through a wall when they think they are alone is nice.”

The use of bad though just has him assume that this partner in question is just not good at their job. It feels like a safe bet seeing as nice was used shortly before.

“If you do hire someone then know their price upfront. You will probably have to pay half of it in advance and the other upon completion. That’s… more or less standard procedure.” He clicks his tongue in concentration, pausing his verbal responses if only to give his bomb one more look over before starting on a new one.

“If you can’t wait that long or trust anyone else for the job then you might have to get your own hands dirty. I find inducing a hallucinatory state to a subject tends to make them more lose lipped and susceptible to questioning as well as more honest as opposed to just beating the information out of them directly. Spite is a powerful motivator. You’ll want to be sure that isn’t what’s going on in the back of your subject’s mind.”

#The doctor is in #Glad you are okay Anon #Doc refers to anyone he's experimented on as subjects #Makes them feel less human and distances himself #He is aware of what he is doing but it still makes things easier #Anonymous

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sweetsmellosuccess · 2 years

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True/False 2022: Capsules

Factory to the Workers: Srdan Kovacevic’s plaintive doc follows the steady sinking of ITAS, a worker-owned machine parts factory in Croatia. Having survived the 2005 attempt to privatize the company in the wake of the fall of Yugoslavia, the company continued on another decade of good production, but with many of the older workers retiring, and the young hires jumping ship to fully privatized factories elsewhere, the place has hit hard times. As a fly-on-the-wall recording of the mounting discord and unhappiness with the current managing director, a man actually named Bozo, Kovacevic’s camera captures the grim reality the factory is facing, getting squeezed on all sides (apart from everything else, Bozo laments that the quality of work the factory is producing isn’t helping their cause), as unpaid salaries and bills continue to pile on. Eventually, Bozo is removed, in favor of another cagey veteran of the factory named Varga, whose sunken cheeks and grim bearing bring to mind Ed Harris. Varga promises the workers he will make it work somehow, but by the end, it seems pretty clear, even with his prior experience (he was instrumental in saving the factory back in 2005, acting as their legal representative, even though he wasn’t a lawyer), he’s about as out of ideas as the previous leader. He offers to perform a hunger strike, but few of the remaining workers believe that will ultimately make any sort of difference. The film is dry as a bone, giving one the horrible, sinking feeling of a listless ship taking on water. For anyone who has ever experienced working for a company whose fortunes are clearly on the decline, you can expect significant PTSD. As becomes increasingly clear, a worker-owned model faces horrific challenges in the modern economic climate.

Sirens: I’m no metal-maven, but I could totally appreciate Rita Baghdadi’s loving ode to Lebanon’s first all-female thrash metal band, Slave to Sirens. Led by guitar virtuosos Lilas and Shery, friends from an early age, who grew up significant outliers to Beirut’s deeply conservative, anti-LGBTQ culture, the band is in at an early stage as Baghdadi’s film begins, subject to the various slights and disrespect of their station. The film isn’t a comedy by any means, but in capturing some of the band’s highs and lows, and eventual petty squabbling, it calls to mind Spinal Tap, albeit with very different stakes. For every significant breakthrough (the band gets invited to perform at Glastonbury!), there seems to be a significant downside (they play on a remote stage, in the morning, and only attract a handful of attendees). But rather than focus on the band’s rise to prominence, Baghdadi cannily lays out the complex interpersonal dynamic between Lilas, only recently accepting her queerness, and one-time lover Shery, much more at peace with herself. As their relationship changes — Lilas, at first unable to accept her true nature, pushes Shery away, both musically and personally — the band’s dynamic suffers, until enough time passes and a new way can be forged. What becomes clear — even as the film references the Beirut port explosion, that further roiled a city already at various crisis inflections — are the ways the women, like their fellow citizens, have had to learn how to adapt to ever-evolving circumstances. Lilas, whose mother still hopes that she will settle down and provide her with grandkids, works as a teacher’s aide when she’s not tearing up the stage. By the end, it seems pretty clear that the fortunes of her band are such that she can let go of her day job.

Children of the Mist: In part, Diem HÀ Lê’s film, about a young Hmong woman growing up in a remote North Vietnamese mountain village, becomes a sort of examination on the idea of the documentarian’s role in the interplay between artist and subject. In 14-year-old Di’s village, an ancient tradition holds wherein a young man can perform a “bride kidnapping” of an equally young woman, during the lunar New Year period, more or less forcing her and her family to accept him as her husband, without anyone else’s consent. Di and her friends are intensely aware of the danger (as younger girls, they play-act this type of kidnapping, with the girl playing the mother, completely shut out from being able to protect her daughter), and Di, a spirited girl who has designs on furthering her education, promises Diem from behind the camera, that she would never allow such a thing. But soon enough, during that lunar New Year, Diem’s camera finds Di walking off with a young man named Vang down the road to the village. The director presses the girl, asks her if she’s really okay with this, but Di indicates she’s fully aware of what she’s doing, and all is well. This doesn’t last long. Soon, Di has had second thoughts, and refuses to marry Vang, whose parents, while insisting the choice is really up to the kids, step up the pressure on Di and her own parents to make this consummation happen. For her part, Di’s mom, herself having been kidnapped by her affable-but-drunken husband, also seems of two minds about the situation: She misses her daughter, and hates being alone with her husband, but also has negotiated what she thinks is a promising dowry from the other family, and doesn’t seem particularly keen to give that up. In the film’s most harrowing moment, after extended gentle negotiating gets them nowhere, Vang and his family literally try picking Di up off the ground and making off with her, as if shoplifting a bag of oranges out of a grocery store. Thrashing madly, and getting increasingly hysteric, Di calls out for help from Diem, who is chasing after them with her camera as the family attempt to abscond with her. Shot up in the mountains, Diem lyrically coddles metaphor from the eerily beautiful setting, as mist rolls up the peaks, obscuring everything until you lose the gorgeous details, and instead are left to behold a screen of nothingness.

2nd Chance: There’s a breed of doc, most easily typified in films such as David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s Tickled, or Tim Wardle’s Three Identical Strangers, that begin as to suggest one sort of story, and end up becoming quite something else altogether. Ramin Bahrani, taking a break from his flourishing narrative career, chooses as the subject of this film, the irascible Richard Davis, a born salesman who developed the first iteration of a concealable bullet-proof vest for the military and law-enforcement in the ‘70s, intentionally shooting himself 192 times over the years, to prove his product’s efficacy. Quickly enough, we can see why Bharani was drawn to him: Davis has a huckster’s energy, and a sharp enough wit, to almost obscure the fact that his business empire, was built over a series of lies, half-truths, cover ups, and a personal life so messy, it ended up costing him mostly everything, at least for a time. Notably, all the various people Bahrani interviews, ex-wives, former friends and business partners, still clearly have a lot of affection for the man, who created one empire, lost everything, and rebuilt it from the ground up. Davis has traces of the classic narcissist — spouting a personal mythology (he claims to have survived a gun battle delivering pizzas in the late ‘60s, though very few verifiable records seem to corroborate it) in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary — but, unlike, shall we say a certain former president, he does seem capable of separating his spin-cycles from the reality of many of his poor choices. It makes him a more complicated figure, certainly, but there’s still plenty enough of his own personal history to bolster the film’s peculiar arc. At one point, Davis, whose company, at its height, comprised a good deal of the economy in the small Michigan town in which he founded it, loomed as a sort of pro-police icon, a man who defended the blue line to the point where he kept a running catalog of all the police lives his vests saved, and routinely thinks anyone that shoots at a cop should be killed on the spot (a point, Bahrani not-so-subtly counters near the end, by placing one such cop and the man who shot him together for an emotionally resonant reunion). A megalomaniac (one ex-wife, not unlovingly, refers to him as “a lot”), who can nevertheless at least acknowledge some of the many errors of his ways — his first company eventually put out a new version of their vest they knew wouldn’t protect its users and eventually dissolved under a flurry of resulting lawsuits — Davis remains an engaging, if not admirable, figure. Having bought into just enough of his own myth to achieve his objectives without losing all sense of proportion, he feels like the kind of man who should have his own variety of dissociative mental illness named after him. One gets the impression, he’d probably approve.

Eventually: As a concept, having a pair of willing participants examine the history of their tumultuous four-year relationship by re-enacting key points with various actors in their place, sounds like an intriguing project, but Danish director Rikke Nørgaard’s film, shot with many of her film school brethren, seems less resonant than frustrating. Laura and Malik met at a bar several years ago, and quickly fell into a sort of on-again/off-again cycle, led by Malik, whose generous spirit and quick laugh belay his absolute inability to make a commitment. Over the course of several (typically low-key) reenacted moments — including Malik giving Laura Herpes; him getting upset when she shows up to one of his friend’s parties; and her ultimately drawing the line between them — it becomes absolutely, frustratingly clear that Malik needs significant therapy, and no matter how loyal and kind Laura remains to him, nothing will salvage this situation until he can commit to change. As a further twist of the emotional knife, after the pair have overseen the production of their chosen scenes, they sit next to each other in a screening room, in order to watch the final results of what they’ve created. Over the course of the screening, they laugh, snuggle, entwine their fingers, and openly sob, over what gets revealed. It’s not that you don’t care about them — the harshest moment by far is when Laura states factually their problem is no matter what she does, Malik simply doesn’t want her — or hope things might turn out differently, but the moments between them, while admiringly avoiding melodrama, also don’t really emotionally involve us beyond a sort of surface reading. It clearly means a great deal to them, and Nørgaard, who is friends with them both, but it’s a bit like looking through someone else’s yearbook: Of limited significance.

The Territory: This year’s (very worthy) recipient of the festival’s True Life Fund, wherein audiences are asked to donate money to the particular cause the film spotlights. Past selections have always been apropos, but perhaps never more so than for the plight of the Uru-eu-wau-wau people, a tribe once found secluded deep in the Amazon (they were first connected to the outside world in the ‘80s), and now, encroached by ruthless deforestation landgrabbers, mining concerns, and other invaders, have been forced to protect their land without any real assistance from the government. The country is currently led by arch-conservative president Jair Bolsonaro, who pledged on his campaign to open up the rain forest to anyone who wanted to burn it down for farmland. Encouraged and emboldened by their president’s abdication of conservation, invaders have come in and snatched land from the Uru-eu-wau-wau territory, mostly by clearcropping the trees and then setting intentional fires to the area, in order to take over the now blighted land for cattle (“I feel like this is my land now,” one such individual states, after reducing a large chunk of land to an ash heap). Tasked with protecting his dwindling people (the Uru-eu-wau-wau, once 2000 strong, are now less than 200), Bitaté, a young chief with a serious amount of moxie, deduces the best way to fight back isn’t with their traditional arrows, but with technology: He procures high-tech cameras, drones, and other recording devices, in order to document what’s being done to the rain forest, and putting it out there for the world to see — in one scene, he tells a news outlet they won’t need to send a crew into their land, they can just give him their shot-list. It’s a canny move, as Bitaté recognizes the global importance of keeping the rain forest intact (with its density of trees, it’s responsible for producing more than 20% of the world’s oxygen). Even as a group of farmers, led by Sergio, a land grabber of the highest order (wearing a Texas-themed ball cap, it must be noted), form a consortium in order to maximize the pillaging, with the resulting clashes leading to the death of one activist (a crime that years later still has no suspects), the film, purchased by National Geographic, suggests exposing the calamitous situation for the Uru-eu-wau-wau for the world to see, will force changes to be made to once again protect humankind from itself.

Riotsville, USA: The birth of a police state. Sierra Pettengill’s doc incorporates archival footage — both from broadcast TV and military filming — to tell the story of the fabricated small towns the government created as a training ground for police and the military in order to combat the rising wave of protests and riots roiling the country in the mid-to-late ‘60s. At least, that’s the film’s throughline, but Pettingill isn’t satisfied simply documenting the existence of such training facilities — designed as a kind of live theater for military brass (there were often crowds of important men looking on approvingly in the nearby viewing bleachers to observe these exercises) — but, rather, to put the government’s sudden need for such facilities under the microscope. Much is made of the findings of the Kerner Commission, a bipartisan group of congressmen and other operatives assembled by LBJ to put together a report that he no doubt hoped would lead to no significant political action other than further cracking down on the insurgents (“Remember,” he is alleged to have told one member of the committee, “you’re an LBJ guy!”). Instead, and quite astonishingly, the Commission’s final report strongly put the onus of the trouble away from the usual (RE: black) suspects, and back on the existing racist government policies, which routinely discriminated against POCs, and put them in a constant no-win situation economically, to which such protest responses were perfectly understandable. Naturally, the government took no heed from the report whatsoever, except for the section at the end that suggested a stronger police force might be necessary to keep things under control. To that end, and with a need to quell the uprisings in order to remain electable, the powers that be did what they always feel most comfortable doing, throwing money into the police and military, and adding as few social programs as possible. Pettengill’s film connects the dots only up through the era in which the archived footage is from, but it’s not the least bit difficult to stretch these policies and attitudes all the way to the heavy-handed, often violent response to the #BLM protests of 2020. Same as it ever was.

Brotherhood: Conceptually, Francesco Montagner’s film, about a trio of brothers, ranging from adolescent to young adult, having to tend to their family’s Bosnian sheep farm on their own for two years, after their deeply religious father is sent to prison for going to Syria and working with potential terrorists, sounds formidable. The three brothers, eldest Jabir, who is tasked with going to Germany and finding work to support his family; Usama, the middle child, who dropped out of school and seems to embrace his life as a shepherd, albeit bitterly; and youngest Useir, who gets to live the life of many twelve-year-old’s dreams, sleeping outside next to a fire, running all over the land, and playing complicated war games with his bros, while his studies suffer greatly as a result, each struggle in their own ways to cope while their military-strict father is out of their lives. It certainly is beautifully shot, but the film has a slogginess to it that’s hard to move past, and Montagner seems to set up many of his scenes beforehand (there are several interactions between the protagonists that feel filled with directly expository information, including dialogues that plainly state everyone’s position). Mind you, that crossing between “true” doc and “false” narrative is precisely the pitch that the festival often aims for, but the expository stuff feels notably clunky here. As we watch over the course of about three years, and the boys become more locked in to their positions — Usama, criticized by his father for losing 50 of his herd upon his father’s release, appears to sort of snap, and seems to become a good deal less vibrant and caring than he was at the beginning; Useir can possibly imagine conjuring up a completely different life for himself elsewhere — there is a sense of time’s progression, but the resonance the film is striving for isn’t forthcoming.

Canoa: Felipe Cazals’ 1976 film, based on a true story, is a further testament to the ways mob-rule isolationism leads to hysteria that can border on the psychopathic. In 1968, a small group of young men who worked for nearby Puebla university, arrived in the small mountain village of San Miguel Canoa, in order to climb nearby La Malinche. Unbeknownst to them, however, the town priest, Senor Cura (Enrique Lucero), had managed to fully ingratiate himself into the town’s stream of commerce (he helped bring in telephones and electricity, but then had the townspeople pay him directly for the service, among other things), a lucrative position based on graft and corruption that was at least momentarily threatened when certain members of the community, less pleased with the stringent, extortionist style of the local padre, threatened to bring in representatives from the CCI, a local, labor-focused organization. Believing the young men were students, acting as communist agitators, and wanting to protect his fiefdom, Father Cura then incited a growing mob, to get rid of the invaders, eventually whipping up such a frenzy of fear and hate, the crowd indeed stormed the house of a local, where they were staying for the night, and attacked the outsiders, leaving a wake of bloodied bodies in their fury. Cazals smartly introduces the idea of direct address to the camera, typified by a wry townsperson (Juan López Moctezuma), who interrupts a sort of bland travelog describing his small village to counter all the PR babble, in order to give the audience the straight(er) dope. The director also stages much of the film like a classic horror movie — think Blood Feast — such that the ending, graphically violent, and sort of horrifying, has been properly set up. Chosen by filmmaker Juan Pablo González, who made the beguiling Dos Estaciones (see below) as part of a festival-wide appreciation of his work (he introduced the film by describing the ways it both deeply affected him as a young man, and defined in many ways what he didn’t want to do, in terms of condescending to the rural Mexicans depicted in this film as easily mislead naifs), he correctly pronounced it as “rich” with material.

Dos Estaciones: True/False, as their name implies, favors those films that exist in the gray area between documentary and verite-based narrative. Juan Pablo Gonzálezs’ film is a pure narrative experience, but shot in a style reminiscent of a doc, including the distance it puts between us and the film’s main protagonist, Maria (Teresa Sánchez), the implaccable owner of a tequila factory in Mexico, a family business she inherited and handles on her own. That is, until she meets Rafaela (Rafaela Fuentes), a young, eager apprentice, who helps Maria handle the enormous logistical challenges of such a business, even as the threat of a possible agave-killing fungus looms almost as large as the unscrupulous methods of an American-based conglomerate strive to swallow her business whole. Much of the film’s documentary feel comes from the careful attention it pays to the inner workings of tequila manufacturing (the film begins with a fascinating scene of farmers pulling out the mature agave roots and preparing them for eventual transport). As per Maria’s joy, she spends a fair amount of time going over the intricacies of the plant’s processing — beginning with steaming the agave plants, cutting them into smaller and smaller pieces until they become like a paste, that is then fermented in enormous vats — such that, if nothing else, we come away with a much better understanding of the methodology behind our bottles of booze. Maria, proud of her accomplishments, and wealthy enough to rule over the small village as a sort of de facto ruler (mostly benign, she seems to enjoy helping out others, including a hair and make-up stylist, played by an actress largely playing herself, as are many of the other actors in the film), giving stern orders, and clearly used to having her wishes attended to, nevertheless has trouble, er, brewing, in the form of significant debt, and the aforementioned scarcity of healthy agave (though she strongly suspects the latter is a myth perpetrated by the Americans). When a massive rain storm threatens her whole operation, she feels forced to take matters into her own hands. The film, photographed by DP Gerardo Guerra, is a visual knockout, but the real force comes from the careful work of Sánchez. Notably, when we first meet Maria, we are following her from behind, as if a titan of industry, in her wake. By the film’s end, we finally get a CU shot of her face, with every emotion finally registering on her stern countenance.

Turn Your Body to the Sun: A pair of Soviet-born sisters attempt to retrace the journey made by their father in the course of his tour of duty with the Red Army in the midst of WWII, in Aliona Van der Horst’s evocative, impressionistic personal history film. Sandar Valiulina was a scant 19 years old when he was conscripted into the Soviet army, to help repel Hitler’s Nazi troops out of Russia. Captured after being dropped behind enemy lines, he was subject to Germany’s callous indifference to their captured POWs, content to let him and his many comrades starve to death rather than waste any resources on them. Given the opportunity to survive by joining the German forces against the Allies, Sandar jumped at the chance (“I wanted to live,” he writes in his memoir journal, as his daughters make their way through his personal effects and letters), although the experiment was largely considered a total failure. On D-Day, supposed to fight against the Allied invasion at Normandy, Sandar instead took off with a friend and deserted the Germans, eventually getting picked up by a U.S. envoy, and employed as a translator for the Allies, who were having to contend with a sudden influx of fellow Russian deserters. Alas, as Stalin had given his troops orders to never be taken alive, upon his return to the motherland, Sandar and his fellow POWs were sent by the Gulag to work in a labor camp in Siberia, where the temperatures could routinely hit -37º. It was there, however, that he began corresponding with the daughters’ mother, an epistolary romance that lasted a full decade before they could finally meet in person. The film works largely with colorized and altered archive footage (the colorization in keeping with the dreamy vibe of the project), slowly re-creating a sense of the travails of a young man who jumped out of a Soviet plane one night, and began a 14-year-odyssey of hardship, humiliation, and degradation that unsurprisingly marked him for the rest of his life. An enigma to his daughters in life, by the end of their journey, as they snowshoe up to the former location of the gulag camp where their father suffered in cold and shame for a decade, there’s the sense that they can finally see more of the picture, and gain an understanding into what drove him when he was finally released.

#sweet smell of success #piers marchant #ssos #movies #films #true/false film festival #2022 #documentaries

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shiningliive · 3 years

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Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love Live 7th Stage Report

Day 1 Report:

Thank you all for waiting, here is my report for the first night of Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love 7th Stage!! I wanted to make sure I covered it in as much detail as I could, however if you just want to see the setlist, you can see it here on tumblr. If anyone doesn't know my personal history with this concert, I have been an Utapri fan for about 10 years, and for the first time ever, I finally managed to hit for tickets to view it in person back in 2020. Although I can no longer travel to Japan, I was lucky enough to be able to watch the first night’s performance (27/11/21) and exchange information with someone who saw the second night. I have also tried to include some information from tweets and other posts from people that attended day two, but this report will mostly focus on the first night. The set list was the same on both nights. The main difference between the two live streams were apparently vastly different camera angles. The cast were also reportedly more confident and had slightly better vocals on the second night. Both live streams had some minor infrequent audio issues (mics being too quiet or mics occasionally cutting off others), but they were also seemingly slightly improved for the 2nd live stream. I believe these were livestream-only issues, and people who viewed live in the MetLife Dome did not experience this. I reccomend reading on the google doc linked below do you can see the proper formatting!

7000+ more words below the read more, or see the full google doc of the report here!

To quickly cover Suzuki Tatsuhisa’s (Kurosaki Ranmaru) and Yonaga Tsubasa’s (Mikado Nagi) absences (although I’m sure I will reference it multiple times throughout this report), both were handled a little bit differently due to the reasons each was not taking part, and the timing of those decisions in the planning of the concert. As far as the audio goes, both Ranmaru and Nagi’s parts in songs were played as regular background audio alongside otherwise off-vocal versions of the song tracks. In Tsubasa’s case, it seemed they knew the whole time, or at least from very early on in planning that he would not be able to attend due to his dysphonia. Tsubasa has been advised by his doctor and other professionals to limit his voice acting work so he doesn’t strain or damage his voice and throat which obviously means no extensive live performances. There seemed to be more consideration put into the camera angles and choreography for songs that include Nagi. It is sad to see him gone, and Heavens would never feel complete without him, but I am glad he is prioritising his health especially since that can be such a difficult decision to make in the idol and voice acting industries. Both Yonaga Tsubasa and Nagi were given huge amounts of respect that they rightfully deserve during the concert. On the other hand, Tatsuhisa’s absence from the concert was decided very late into not only planning, but also after the concert was originally supposed to be held. This impacted the choreography, camera angles, and set list as they were all decided on and rehearsed by the voice actors before they knew he wouldn’t be able to attend. This resulted in the gap left by him in most songs to be more noticeable than Nagi’s as it seems (at least for the first night) they didn’t have time to change most of these elements before the performance, leaving occasionally awkward pauses in dances, or zooms on empty microphones and spotlights. If you do not know why Suzuki Tatsuhisa was absent from the concert, I suggest you take a quick google and form your own opinions on the matter. I will not go into depth here as I am not fully informed on the subject, and I don't know the validity of the claims against him. Regardless, he is currently on a hiatus I believe to prioritise his non-work life and his mental health. It is unclear if he made the decision himself or was advised/forced to cease work by his management. Despite everything, I still hope he can get back on his feet and at the very least stay healthy and well. Whatever conflicted emotions you may now have towards Tatsuhisa, please do not let them influence your opinions on Ranmaru or any of Tatsuhisa’s other characters. At least, that is how I will be approaching him in this report.

Now that the basic information is out of the way, onto the opening! Of course, this report will contain spoilers for pretty much everything in the concert (outfits, staging, set list, mishaps, announcements etc) so this is your warning to stop here if you would like to remain unspoiled for when the DVD/Bluray are released in 2022 (date undecided).

Stage setup: This is the third Utapri live in the MetLife Dome in Saitama! Previously, 6th stage and Welcome to Starish World were both also held here. It is difficult to describe but I’ll do my best. The stage is a lot simpler than recent Utapri Lives. There is one main stage that is just a long rectangular platform. There are four different doors on the bottom layer of the stay. Behind the main stage, there are three higher platforms connected with stairs. Each of these three higher stages also has a screen behind it. There is no extended runway like in 6th Stage, Maji Love Kingdom or the Starish fanmeet. The stage’s theming makes it look very vaguely like a castle. It’s really interesting to see how different the vibe of the concert/arena can be just dependent on how the stage is set up, even within the same arena. I have to say, I think the other two set ups in previous Utapri concerts in the Metlife Dome lent themselves to more interesting staging and effects.For comparison, If you look at the stage for 6th stage or the Starish fanmeet, both of them had a main stage at the back and different types of longer walkways stemming off it (6th stage also had a secondary stage in the middle of the arena) and space around the edge of the floor seats for songs to be performed on carts. It may be due to some covid restrictions in Japan (unable to get in the extra stage equipment etc) or maybe because of a higher seat capacity, but 7th stage only had the basic rectangular stage.

If nothing is said about a songs staging, assume it was just walking around and doing a little bit of dancing on stage with a microphone.

The beginning:

After a standby screen, and overhead view of the audience in the MetLife Dome, the concert opens with an introductory video to the Utapri characters from Starish, Quartet Night, and Heavens. They are shown in the usual order. Ranmaru and Nagi are included, despite the absence of their voice actors. The voice actors from Starish (Terashima Takuma (Ittoki Otoya), Suzumura Kenichi (Hijirikawa Masato), Taniyama Kishou (Shinomiya Natsuki), Mamoru Miyano (Ichinose Tokiya), Junichi Suwabe (Jinguji Ren), Shimono Hiro (Kurusu Syo), and Toriumi Kousuke (Aijima Cecil) rise from platforms below the stage, and the first song begins.

Song 1: Fantastic Prelude

Impressions:

Fantastic Prelude is a great beginning to the concert. The camera angles were the livestream were great, so many different views of the stage, close ups, really everything you’d normally see on the final bluray release. Saying that though, I’m excited to see how the impression of each performance changes once they have been edited for release. Starish are wearing all dark red outfits reminiscent of their Maji Love Kingdom outfits. As usual, the details of each outfit are tailored specifically to each voice actor/character. They also all wear concert rings of their characters' image colour on their right hands. I will go into more detail on the outfits during the character introductions shortly.

The majority of the song is performed on raised platforms high in the air. For the m,ost part, there isn't much choreography for Fantastic Prelude, but they do mimic parts from the official choreography in some parts. Each boy comes on during an instrumental to say a line in character to welcome the audience. It's wonderful to see them all together again after so long, it nearly made me cry.

Song 2: The World is Mine

Impressions:

The first note I took for The World is Mine was “THEY HAVE SWORDS?!?” The song opens with the Quartet Night Voice actors (Morikubo Showtaro (Kotobuki Reiji), Aoi Shouta (Mikaze Ai), and Maeno Tomoaki (Camus) in shadow. As the lights turn on, they each pull out a sword and point it to the sky. Their outfits are primarily dark blue, almost seeming black in some lighting. These are also similar to the Maji Love Kingdom outfits for Quartet Night. During the song, they stab their swords into a hole in the floor where im guessing some staff members underneath take them away. As mentioned, for Ranmaru’s lines, his voice is played in the background and red lights shine on the stage for him. The ‘yonin no kizuna/the bonds of four” is particularly sad without Ranmaru. While I was almost crying at Fantastic Prelude, my hands were shaking while typing my notes for The World is Mine.

Song 3: Gira x2 Seven

Impressions:

The stairs at the back of the stage open and the Heavens Voice actors (Midorikawa Hikaru (Otori Eiichi), Ono Daisuke (Sumeragi Kira), Uchida Yuuma (Otori Eiji), Takahashi Hidenori (Kiruiin Van), Kimura Ryouhei (Hyuuga Yamato), Yamashita Daiki (Amakusa Shion) walk out. They are wearing dark green outfits of course inspired once again by the Heavens movie outfits. An important and very endearing detail with the Heavens outfits though, is that they wear not only their own character's image colour ring, but they also each wear a yellow ring for Nagi who was unable to attend. The first solo line in the song is by Midorikawa, and it seemed his voice and hands were both shaking a little bit. He seemed quite nervous, and I'm so proud of him, it must be so scary to be the first one to sing, and he always seems to put so much pride and care into his role as Eiichi. This is followed by Uchida Yuuma who of course seems so comfortable and confident on stage. Hidenori’s voice broke during his long high pitched note which was a bit tough, but as far as I’m aware he doesn't have as much live stage experience as some of the other voice actors, and even though he missed this note he otherwise really shone on stage and always drew my attention whenever he was on screen. His smile absolutely lit up my loungeroom. I didn't hear anyone talk about him missing the note on the second night either! Like Ranmaru’s voice, Nagi’s voice is also played in the bg audio. On the second night, instead of chanting “gira gira gira gira” after Nagi’s “haato yo moechae” and “Hikari mo tomochae” lines, they chant “nagi nagi nagi nagi!” instead. I really hope this makes it to the bluray version, it sounds like a really sweet and fun moment. Much of the choreo for Heavens group songs leaves an empty space for Tsubasa and it seemed more like a deliberate choice to pay respect to him and acknowledge him as a part of the group than just not being able to change the staging.

Character welcomes and intros:

Each voice actor does a very short line in character to welcome the audience to the concert and introduce themselves. This is done in the usual order, Otoya - Shion. Since these speeches are pretty much all “Im ____’s Voice actor ______. I hope we have fun tonight” I’ll just mention a couple unique things about their outfits before moving on.

Takuma is of course wearing glasses

Kishou had some hair clips on the left side of his hair

Suwabes hair is styled similar to Rens with one long spike of his fringe in between his eyes. I can't remember if he had part tied back in a short ponytail or not. He addressed the crowd by saying “Ladies and gentlemen, no, everyone!” which was lovely.

Shimono has pink hair clips in his hair in the same pattern as Syo’s. I believe he also wore these in 6th Stage. His nails are painted black

As usual, Toriumi is wearing a hat

Shouta has highlights in his hair syed the same colour as Ai’s and it is also styled like Ai’s hair with part pulled back into a short ponytail. He dyed his hair back to black the day after the 2nd performance haha. His nails were painted a very light purple, and his outfit has white frills on the hips of his coat.

Maeno has his nails painted, is wearing blue contacts, and wears the same hairstyle and accessory (or at least very close) as he did in 2018’s Quartet Night Live Future. And of course, he had to call us all gumin. Shouta and Shoutarou bowed as he did so.

Midorikawa is wearing glasses, and drew on Eichii’s mole again

Ryouhei has his hair dyed blond for Yamato

Following the short introductions, there is a small video slideshow of the Heavens 7th Stage art to introduce the beginning of the Heavens section.

Song 4: HEAVEN'S GATE

Impressions:

Although it's been performed before (you’ll find that to be a common theme with 7th Stage), we start with Heaven's Gate! As much as I would've liked to see some new songs represented, it’s always nice to see more Heaven's Gate. They are all on platforms high in the air like in 6th stage. There was an empty platform for Yonaga Tsubasa, and after the platforms sank back to the stage level, I think there was once again space left in the choreography for him as well.

Heavens MC

Midorikawa opens and introduces a Heavens only MC. They talk about how its been a long time yet they’re back in the same arena as 6th stage. Apparently last time Midorikawa had a cold, so he feels like this is a revenge match haha. Yamashita points out their yellow rings to symbolise that their hearts are always one with Yonaga Tsubasa even if he isn't there. They call out and wave to Nagi, asking if he can see them as they hold up their rings. They say that since he isn't with them, they’ll have to battle it out to be just as cute as he usually is. This leads to OnoD impersonating Nagi/Tsubasa’s cute voice and mannerisms to read out a short greeting that I think was prepared for Nagi by Yonaga in the Heavens Line group chat. “Heavens is the best isn't it! Angels, please be super excited and have a lot of fun, by Nagi.” OnoD of course instantly gets embarrassed and collapses to his knees. Apparently they talked about something different on the second night, and Midorikawa delivered a different message from Nagi. I wonder if they’ll edit together parts from each night’s talk segments for the DVD/bluray.

Song 5: Fumetsu no Inferno

Impressions:

My notes for Fumetsu no Inferno start with “YUUUUMAAAA!!!!”. It’s hard for me to pick a favourite Heavens song, but Fumetsu no Inferno is so great, and Yuuma especially shines so much while performing it. I especially look forward to seeing it on the DVD/Bluray release which I’m sure will have improved audio mixing for the live vocals. Smoke shoots out in front of the stage as the Voice actors raise to be on three different platform heights, arranged in a triangle. Since I feel that so much of this songs greatness comes from Eiji’s harmonies and high notes in the background, its wonderful to see Yuuma front and centre in the middle of the bottom row. All stages become the same height again. During the livestream, whenever they were close to the smoke or fire, you could hear it through their microphones.

There is a very short video introducing the Quartet Night Section.

Song 6: Dancing Over Night

Impressions:

Each boy comes out of a different door on stage with a group of backup dancers. I think this was the first time we saw the dancers, and I like their outfits, they're wearing simple european styled long black coats and black pants with a plain white shirt on underneath. Each of them does a little dance as they come out, and there is quite obviously a pause in the choreo for when Tatsun would have walked out. There are plenty of red penlights in the audience for Ranmaru, as well as some yellow for Nagi too! Towards the end of the song, they stand in formation on the stairs with dancers to form the shape of a diamond.

Song 7: Love EVOL (Short ver)

Impressions:

Something you might notice here, is that the versions of the heavens solos were shorter versions! I didn't notice this, likely because I hadn't listened to their new solos a lot yet, but I saw people mention it on twitter! I remember thinking Fumetsu no Inferno also felt short, so it's possible there were other short versions that I didn't catch. Super odd decision since the run time of the concert was already much shorter than the last couple.I was definitely not expecting Love Evol, or any Quartet Night solos since there weren't any released at the time when 7th stage was supposed to occur! Sadly though, there are no Heavens or Starish solos. Hopefully next time. I do find it funny though that I predicted Starish and Heavens solos, and we got the exact opposite. It was instantly noticeable that Aoi Shouta is very comfortable with live vocals and dancing on a stage. He looks so comfortable, and all his movements were polished to absolute perfection. Super cute of course too. The music paused and he did a little finger heart, smile, and laugh at the camera.

Song 8: Steward Dance (Short Ver)

Impressions:

I'm very proud of Maeno for doing a little dance! He seems to be more confident with choreo every concert. The performance is super cute, performed in the higher pitched Camus voice which switches to the deeper Camus voices. He’s also dancing with backup dancers who at once point mime being a table in front of Maeno that he pretends to take a teacup off and drink from.

Song 9: All Right All Night (Short Ver)

Impressions:

Not a lot of notes for this one. Morikubo on stage with backup dancers, a bit of dancing, including some hip swaying. It did have a part that I feel was really hindered by the audience not being allowed to yell/cheer, or use their voices to take part in audience calls, so i'm curious how it comes across on the Bluray/DVD release. After his solo, Morikubo welcomed out the other QN boys for a Ranmaru solo.

Song 10: Only One (Short Ver)

Impressions:

The Quartet Night voice actors and a bunch of backup dancers to a tribute (?) to Ranmaru by dancing to Only One. At first I thought they might sing it in his place, but no, just dancing. Okay, so I seemed to interpret this quite differently to other fans. It could’ve been a difference between the camera angles in the livestreams, and it certainly was nice to see Ranmaru acknowledged, but honestly I mostly found this performance really funny?? And I don't say that to at all demean Ranmaru or the effort that obviously went into it by the voice actors and dancers, but rather than a tribute that made me emotional, if felt more like a rushed “oh shit we couldn't change this performance in time” with CONSTANT close ups, zooms, and pans across an empty microphone with the loneliest spotlight on it you've ever seen. Talking with someone that saw the second night, this wasn't really the case there, as the camera angles mostly focused on the remaining QN boys doing the choreo. However, saying all that, Ranmaru is definitely missed, but to me this performance felt so out of place and made me feel his Morikubo, Shouta and Maeno doing a really nice pose for the camera which I‘m sure will be screenshot and posted all over the palace once the DVD/Bluray are released.

Quartet Night MC

More “kono gumin ga” thank you Maeno it is always appreciated. I think on the first nights performance, it was about 5 degrees Celsius in Saitama, so they said they hope everyone brought blankets and clothes to keep warm. Maeno said “Its as cold as Silk Palace.” As I mentioned earlier, due to covid safety measures being taken in Japan/the MetLife Dome, the audience wasn’t allowed to cheer or raise their voices during the concert, so they released voice recording concert merchandise that fans could use to record their voices in advance cheering a set amount of different cheers in support which they could play during the live. They asked to have the background music removed, and everyone who bought them to all press play on the count of 3. You couldn’t hear it on the livestream, but I’m really excited to hear them on the official release! If I heard correctly, they got goosebumps and Shouta cried when Starish first performed Fantastic Prelude. From Morikubo: “Its been a while since we’ve been able to return here with all four of us, but sadly we cannot do our best to keep our spirits up and entertain you! I hope you enjoy the rest of our songs let's get excited!”

Song 11: Kizuna

Impressions:

After their talk, they go to sit on the stairs and act as if they are in a car like how the song appears in the anime. The was a cute use of handheld camera right next to them on the stage so you felt like you were in the car with them. I think this was maybe the same choreo we’ve seen before for Kizuna. Seeing Kizuna with only ¾ Quartet Night members feels especially lonely since I feel like so much of the song's charm is dependent on their harmonies, and finishing each other's lines. Having said that though, they all put so much effort into the performance and asked the audience to call out the “whoa-oh”s in their hearts. From memory, I think they all looked emotional at the end of the song.

And of course, there is a small video introducing the Starish boys with the 7th Stage art.

Song 12: Maji 1000% Love

Impressions:

As soon as the intro to Maji Love 1000% started playing as they walked out, I got so emotional. It really is such an important song to the franchise and my personal nostalgia. That nostalgia was interrupted when Suwabe and Takuma accidentally started early when they were supposed to wait for the fireworks/fire effects to go off in front of the stage. Very funny little mishap that will 100% be cut out of the final version, so I’m glad I got to see it! To be fair, I was also definitely expecting the song to start when Suwabe started singing! They use a lot of split screens throughout this performance so we can see the different boys together while they sing their little duo lines (for example, Mamo and Takuma split screen for “Dochi wo erabu princess” line.)

Song 13: Shining Romance

Impressions:

Lots more handheld camera on the stage for this one on the first night! Super cute performance, each of them have the concert mino towels which they spin around in the air and dance with. Since there’s no Shimono solo. I’m glad they got them in there for a performance, it seems like such a Utapri Live tradition at this point! There was a very fun close up of Shimono that I enjoyed a lot. I definitely enjoyed this song, but I feel like it will be even more fun to watch when more camera angles are edited together for the DVD/bluray that focus on each of the boys more with their little towel twirling and silly dance moves.

Song 14: Star Wish

Impressions:

I love Star Wish! Possibly my second favourite Starish song (ignoring Nostalgia for 1000% 2000% etc) so I was so happy to see it live, especially since it’s one of the only relatively new songs we got. I wonder if they would be waiting to do Quartet Crown and Endless Score for when all of the Quartet Night and Heavens voice actors are able to gather together? The staging for Star Wish was all them standing stationery at mics which kinda reminded me of Night Dream’s staging. Very simple staging, but it worked very effectively. The lack of dance choreo also meant their vocals really got to shine. Something else I loved that I feel might show up better on bluray release, is that as each of them said their solo syllables in “Ki-su-ya-mi-su-go-ku” etc, each of them got individually lit up by a spotlight in their characters image colour.

Starish MC + Announcements

Terashima almost falls down the stairs and the others made fun of him for it. Takuma sais this is now Starish’s third concert in the MetLife Dome! I wonder if they’ll keep up this tradition if we get more lives in the future. Terashima Takuma: “Even if we cant be close to you in person we can be close in our hearts.” They bring up that apparently shouta cried backstage seeing the 7 members of Starish perform 1000% together. Takuma passes over to Suzumura-han as usual for announcements! I love that Suzumura gets this responsibility, and you bet he did his robot voice. They tease him saying that the voice was a bit different than usual, and Suzumura says “Hey! Even the announcer can have growth/character development!” Of course, usually by the time I see the announcements on a bluray, we’ve already known them for months, so this was so exciting to see live! The first thing they announce is the Bluray and DVD release for 7th Stage sometime in 2022. Nothing unusual there. However, he goes on to say: “Of course it’s getting a bluray release though right? So we have more announcements!” They announce the return of animated Utapri content that we’ll receive via a one hour Utapri TV anime special! The Special will serve as a bridge in canon to connect the story between Maji Love Kingdom and the 2022 Utapri Movie, Utapri Maji Love Starish Tours. On the second night, they also announced the title of the 1 hour special; “Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love Starish Tours ~Tabi no Hajimari~”/Uta no Prince-sama Maji Love Starish Tours ~The Beginning of the Journey~”. Takuma points out how whenever they enter announcement mode, all the pennlights turn blue for Suzumura. Apparently on the second night, Zuzumura did a wasurero beam so people would act surprised when they announced it again. After the announcement they acted as if his wasurero beam was too powerful and made everyone forget all about Utapri. Takuma announces that the next song will be Starish’s last in the concert and although I knew they’d definitely be doing an encore, I was still surprised because we were only an hour and a half in!

Song 15: We Are Starish

Impressions:

They kinda do the dance/movements from the anime. In general, this has pretty basic staging, but Mamo and Kiiyan’s vocals were perticularly good. I really don't have a lot of notes for this one!

Following We Are Starish, it’s Maji Love Kingdom time! There is a video montage that once again shows the 7th stage artworks in the Maji Love Kingdom shuffle unit song groups in order as well as short clips from their songs from the movie to remind you what they looked like in the anime. For example, they first show Otoya, Ai, and Van, then a little clip of Up Down Up.

Song 16: Up Down Up

Impressions:

Here we get the first outfit change!! Each group wears outfits reminiscent of their movie outfits without just being copies. Instead of being white, the Up Down Up outfits are mostly black with shite shirts underneath and their signature colours applied similarly in patterns to how they were in the movie. The screen in the back of the stage shows a lot of footage from the performance from the movie. As far as the performance goes, they are joined by backup dancers, and all three of them do quite a bit of the dance from Up Down Up. It’s super cute! Something I was looking forward to with these songs was seeing different combos of penlight colours in the crowd, and the lavender, orange and red lights look really good! The dance moves for “up up down up” look really fun, they asked the audience to do them together at the end. All three of them look like they're having so much fun! Sadly Shouta and Takahashi couldn't throw or princess carry Takuma like Van and Ai did with Otoya in the movie haha.

Song 17: Egoistic

Impressions:

Somehow the staging for this one didn't emphasize Tatsuns absence as much for me, despite only having two other people on stage. It was still noticeable though, but I imagine with editing for the Bluray/DVD release that would be improved on. He would have killed this live, but Kiiyan and Midorikawa do really well with just the two of them! Their outfits have leather jackets and pants, and they each have harnesses across their chest like the movie outfits. I’d say Midorikawas outfit looks closer to the movie than Kiiyans did. They're both just standing with stationery mics on stands, but the shots of them on the big screens in the back have a filter that looks like metal bars over the top so it looks like they're in a cage like in the movie! Kiiyan intentionally kicks over his mic stand, and it looks super cool. And of course, Kiiyans improv vamping (is that the right term?) in the instrumental parts.

Song 18: Feather in Hand

Impressions:

I was hoping for water effects with this one (like Masato’s solo in 6th Stage), and sadly there weren't any, but they did have feathers flying through the air! At the start, Maeno has one in his hand, and I wasn't sure if he had it the whole time or if he actually caught it. These outfits are probably the most different from the movie since it seems like they wanted to stick with majority black and white looks so all the members still looked cohesive when they were together at the end. The outfits mostly resemble the movie outfits since they both had a lot of diagonal lines. Later in the song, they go on raised platforms high in the air similar to the movie. No matter who he’s on stage with, Yuuma always seems so comfortable, and Maeno and Suzumura are both so good, but I still couldn’t take my eyes off Yuuma! He’s just so charming. The light blue, dark blue, and purple lights also look great in the audience for this one!

Song 19: Souai Traumerei

Impressions:

Suwabe, Takahashi, and Shoutarou rise from below the stage. They’re wearing all black, with lots of things to create a long coat-like silhouette that reminded me a lot of the movie. I’d say these are the closest to the movie outfits. They pause the music in the middle and each give a little emo speech in character about love and while doing so, they each pick up a lily! The lilies are lit up in their character's colour. I really hoped they'd, they put the lights out, and turn off the lights in the lillies so it looked like they dissolved like they did in the movie, but they didn't. Still super cool to have them at all though! There wasn't as much cool choreo in this one, but thats fair enough, it was still really nice.

Song 20: Colourfully Spark

Impressions:

So cute! But especially since its such a cute song, it was sad to be missing Nagi! Again, like Feather in the Hand, these outfits are lacking a lot of the colour that made them recognisable, and even the cuts of their outfits are quite different! Instead, the colours are applied like splatters of paint on the mostly black outfits. The backup dancers have cute colourful star shaped balloons. Shimono couldnt get out all of his little “aaaah” note, it was more of an “aA-”. They do the little arm motion choreo like the movies choreo which I like! The stage in the background has three little mini stages. each one is lit up in a different boy’s colour. The middle one is yellow for Nagi. You can tell they had more time to plan for no Yonaga with this one, theres not as many awkward empty camera angles. This is another one that I feel like would benefit from more close ups in the final edit for the Bluray release since I swear every time they did cute expressions or focused on the choreo it cut away to far away or shots from the side where you couldnt really see them! After the song, Shimono tried to say “arigatou!” but they cut off his mic so there was just a very loud “ARI-”

Song 21: Kaleidoscope

Impressions:

I'm guessing this will be cut out for the bluray, but there was this horrible sound effect in between Colourfully Spark and Kaleidoscope that kept playing on repeat. However! This was so they could set up the hot air balloons! They can’t fly through the air on hoverboards, so this is the best option I think haha. Super cool to see these return after they were in 6th Stage. Quite similar execution to Visible Elf there, so go rewatch that If you want an idea of what they look like. Each boy is in their own hot air balloon. From memory, was Ryouhei scared of heights? I swear I heard that somewhere, and he was certainly holding onto the railing on the balloon’s basket the whole time. They land, and sing the end of the song on the stage. Their outfits are kinda work casual, but they're each quite different. Instead of being grey like in Maji Love Kingdom, they're mostly white with black accents. Mamo wore a white blazer with thin black pinstripes. They each mime drawing a big heart in the air at the end.

Song 22: Ai wo Sasageyou

Impressions:

Midorikawa announces that this is “Heaven's final song”. They're each still wearing the outfits from their Maji Love Kingdom songs. This is another one I didn’t have many notes on. I LoVe Ai wo Sasageyou, but there wasn’t a lot of interesting staging for this one, but similar to Star Wish, that meant their vocals sounded a bit better since there wasn’t much choreo. At the end, they're all one one rising platform together, and they each strike a pose after saying their solo lines.

Song 23: Fly to the Future

Impressions:

Most of my notes for this were me freaking out as a Shouta stan because HIS MIC WASN’T WORKING. Its really hard to tell, but it seems like maybe it was working in the arena but they didnt turn on his mic to transmit to the livestream? I couldn't tell if he looked a bit frustrated because it wasnt working or if I was just seeing things. His mic wasn't working properly for a while, but later on when the 3 of them stand a bit closer, you can hear Shoutas voice quietly and it sounds like it’s maybe one of the other boys' microphones picking it up from the arena. This was thankfully fixed on the second day. At the start, there was a shot of Shouta singing, but all you could hear was Morikubos voice. His solo bit at the start of the song was also completely silent, just the instrumental. It was interesting however to hear the start of the song without Ai’s harmonies, I feel like his voice really adds a lot to the other three boys’ deeper voices. This was another song that made use of a handheld camera on stage in parts. Morikubo announces that this is ”Quartet nights final song” before Shouta’s mic is out again for his solo part. Thankfully it gets fixed towards the end of the song though! It felt even more exciting to hear his voice back in a very triumphant part of the song! At the “arigatou, soshite, korekara mo” they’re on a raised part of the stage. I have to admit, I was so focused on Shouta’s mic I totally forgot about Tatsuhisa’s absence haha. At the end of the song, Shouta’s eyes looked a bit watery, and I couldnt tell if he was frustrated because maybe his mic didn’t work, or if it was just the lights reflecting off them. I imagine it had to have been working at least somewhat in the arena because I’m sure they had spare mics on standby that someone could have ran on and given him if it truly wasn't working. But anyway, this has been your full rundown of my panicked “Oh no Shouta’s mic isn't working” notes!

Song 24: Ultra Blast

Impressions:

Again, not many notes about this one, but it did have nice fire effects! There was a nice 7 way split screen effect showing them all at once, but Kiiyans screen was fully covered by fire. Toriumi misses one of his solo lines. And of course, this is the “last song of 7th Stage” with the usual incredibly transparent fake-out ending before an encore! It’s always fun to see them finish and just walk straight off the stage.

Since the audience wasn't allowed to cheer or raise their voices, you can't hear them calling for an encore, but they did clap for one instead!

Encore 1: Welcome to Utapri Kingdom

Impressions:

Whoohoo, encore! Only a two song encore though, and the talk was nowhere near as long as 6th Stage’s! Some people might prefer this, but I was looking forward to another 45 minute talk full of crying haha. I guess they’re saving that for next time! I was also totally expecting them to wear the concert t-shirts, but they’re all still in their Maji Love Kingdom outfits! In any case, Welcome to Utapri Kingdom works really well for an encore. I'd love more songs with all 18 of the characters in them. Of all of my many mistakes in the set list predictions I made in 2020, I'm glad I at least got the encore songs right! Maeno is wearing at least four Camus rings, and all of Heavens has their yellow rings back on after removing them for the Maji Love Kingdom songs.

Following Welcome to Utapri Kingdom, there is a very short talk. Takuma covers how the concert was supposed to happen in April of 2020, and all the hardships everyone has gone through in the past 2 years in order to stand here together. Shouta looked to be crying a little bit. Takkun talks about all the different things people have gone through to be able to perform/watch live. Takuma passes over to Yamashita Daiki who starts their solo goodbyes in character. This is one in reverse order, starting with Shion, and ending with Otoya. Each voice actor says about one sentence and I didn’t manage to make notes for all of them, but for example, Uchida Yuumas goodbye was “I would be happy if my feelings were able to reach you. I will make sure that my memories of today remain in my heart forever. I'm Otori Eiji’s voice actor Uchida Yuuma, thank you!” One the second day, I heard that Takahashi accidentally cut off Ryouhei’s goodbye speech and they both started speaking at the same time. Takahashi got embarrassed as they others made fun of him and Suzumura did another wasurero beam.

Encore 2: Maji Love Kingdom

Impressions:

Although this is the final song, I again didn't take too many notes so I could just enjoy watching it. Like in the movie, each group does each other's hand signals! They end the song in a heart shape on the stairs like at the end of the performance from the movie!

After the song Takuma thanks the shining dancers as they walk off stage. Finally, to end the first night of 7th Stage, Takuma leads the others into saying thank you, and the curtain/screen behind them rises. Mamoru Miyano’s ‘Encore’ starts playing in the background as Takuma invites Heavens, then Quartet Night to leave the stage. As Starish stands up to leave, Shimono gets to his spot quickly and Suwabe says “Ochibi-chan there's no need to rush.” They all look a bit emotional, and Takuma says “Let's definitely meet again, that's a promise.” I will hold you to that promise Takkun! The screen lowers, and they squat and look under it so the audience can see them for as long as possible as they wave goodbye underneath it. The concert ends with a “See You Again” message on the screen.

Final Impressions:

I'm so happy I was able to watch this livestream. It was such a special night. This was only possible thanks to the friend I had in Japan who let me borrow her Japanese phone number to use ticketPIA, and of course thank you once again to everyone who gave me their codes back in 2019 to apply for tickets. I doubt I would have put this much effort into getting access to the livestream and covering it in such detail unless I had originally gotten tickets thanks to you. I am sad I had to cancel my trip to see the concert in person in 2020, but the fact that the voice actors, and of course the staff went ahead with their plans for 7th Stage despite their many hardships really shows their devotion to this franchise.

I wonder if there were restrictions on having songs performed on the carts, because I don't think there were any at all. If so, probably due to them needing to be distanced as much as possible on stage. This also could be what impacted a lot of the staging if they couldnt be as close to each other as often, and had to potentially rework some cart songs to be “standing stationary at a mic and doing a bit of dancing” songs. Saying that though, They definitely did their best they could with lots of restrictions in place in Japan at the time, and I am so incredibly thankful that they made the concert available via livestream, even if it was still difficult to access as someone living outside of Japan. The TicketPIA process was very complex and I saw a lot of Japanese people complaining about it on twitter as well, so I hope they may streamline the process in the future for both Japanese and international fans of this franchise that we all love so dearly!

Like everyone else, I have also been through a lot this past 2 years, and earlier this year I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes which will make it more difficult for me to travel in the future, however I am more determined than ever to do my best to make it to any future Utapri concerts. Utapri has been a part of my life now for about 10 years, and I’m so happy I binged it one day when I was sick in 2011. It led to me meeting some of my closest friends, and it has been so great being a part of this wonderful and forever growing international fanbase through my ShiningLiive blog and admin work on various Utapri zines has been so wonderful. I look forward to following the future of Uta no Prince-sama for as long as I can. If you’ve read this far, thank you! 8th Stage, here I come!

My Twitter ShiningLiive Tumblr

#utapri #uta no prince-sama #7th stage #god this is long

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localteleportingtoaster · 2 years

Text

Madness Combat Head-canons (SFW)

*Deimos has accidentally lit cereal boxes on fire. Whenever he has an anxiety attack, his hands might light up... or his face, or burn off all of his fabulous hair for the poor guy... (or burn all his puebes off as a bonus without pain of shaving.)

*Because of their constant life-on-the-run, Sanford has been found to sleep on Doc in the truck while Hank usually drives without major injuries, asleep in Docs lap like a baby. Because Deimos will usually take the front seats, staying alongside Hank to make sure he doesn’t “mess up”, the backseats can be turned into a sort of couch to sleep in. Lucky them.

*2bDamned might seem like a grumpy old man, but that’s because he’s a grumpy old man. ��Who has to deal with reviving the dead and being a workaholic to keep his skin on Hanks side of this little Nevadan war.

*2bDamned owns many rats, that he trains to steal anything they need from food, to money and such. One of the many tricks Doc has imprinted onto his rats is to come to their own name callings! Hanks favorite is when the baby rats learn new tricks like dragging Deimos’s cigarettes into the trash, earning baby food.

*Sadly, they cannot afford, nor feed any other pets other than a giant mountain of rats that can feed themselves. 2b will always spare food, treats, water if he has anything. He will ensure the babies grow properly if they have to evacuate, keeping the rats in his trunk, or around a building space.

*The Auditor can be found crying every Monday at his desk because he hates paperwork. His fire crackling is how he cries, so they say that his fiery periods are every certain weekday. To counteract this negativity, he looks for therapists to talk about happy things... not much good has happened, really. This causes him to look into the little things in life, from trying new soda drinks and looking into new color shades of red. He likes to try on new suits, even enjoying putting his enemies into cool clothes that would work for them. 2bDamned actually talks to him, both enjoying fashion, and even discovering long lots crossdressing! (Of course, 2bDamned was tired of being captured, but talking instead of torturing was nice, so he went along. Very supportive of an anti-pessimist.)

*Phobos’s traumatized fight/flight/freeze brain will freak out and catch-up on little tone changes, along with increases in volume or any small signs of violent behavioral change. Due to this, he will snap around whenever something knocks over, looking like a menacing villain with a red glowing eye; when he’s a little mess in his own brain. He feels a lot of complicated emotions as a side platter along his god complex, so he’s really fidgety.

*Most grunts who dedicate themselves to the internet to get away from their reality have seen a rat account of cute photos of rats and updates on tricks they can do! It’s a really nice addition to their lives, since cats and dogs don’t exist in Nevada. Many dream subjects besides a rich fantasy is fluffy grunts, experiments and technology advancing, and art!

*Since pigment is harder to come across, some will resort to painting in unsanitary sources... but others like to grind up black rocks, or look for charcoal, et cetera and do as much as possible! There’s probably deep in the web a secret art club that barely anyone can find out about, but many attend, including Sanford. Sanford likes to find more sanitary ways, and has a grinder to murder materials in, experimenting until he finds the right chalk he wants to find some bases for.

*Other places and countries outside of Nevada have blocked them out, and ran away, heavily containing the chaos in Nevada. The word “Nevadan” is the same as referring to a devil spawn in the outside world, looking at Nevada's crazy shit other than Florida. Many have voted to put all Floridians in Nevada to contain the crackheads chaos dimension... Unfortunately, Nevadan grunts are terrified of any normal humans, which are either killed on sight and hunted down due to humans terrific looks to grunts, etc.

*Grunts put human skulls on their walls as great achievements, like dragon skulls. Phobos does the same with many skulls, bones and items.

*Phobos is obsessed with Dragons, still looking into invading the outside world they know nothing about due to isolation in search of these beings. He wants to achieve godhood. That just needs a dragon!

#madness combat #hank j. wimbleton #deimos madness combat #sanford madness combat #2bdamned madness combat #somewhere in nevada

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thatoneao3writer · 3 years

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DocM77 is canon in the TTAU pog!!!!!!!!!!!

As someone who does watch hermitcraft, I have some headcanons. (By some headcanons I mean an entire backstory. I may have gotten a bit carried away...)

Doc gives off some serious Supervillain and Mad Scientist Vibes, (not part of the headcanon, so I was thinking that whenever he appears, he acts very cartoonishly supervillain-y, and occasionally makes some super sus comments.

Anyone who actually knows him is just like, “Nah, it’s fine. He’s a really great guy, he’s just Like That. We’re pretty sure he just has a weird sense of humor lmao.”

But even they aren’t entirely sure sometimes.

Little do they know...

Okay, so, on hermitcraft, Doc worships(?) this giant statue of a goat called the goatfather, (which is Very Clearly a reference to The Godfather,) so I was thinking... TTAU... goats... organized crime... hmmm...

Maybe Doc used to be a... business parter of Schlatt’s parents. (Imma just say that their family crest is a goat or something.)

Because of Mad Scientist Vibes, I’d say he was definitely involved in the human experimentation side of things, heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was his idea, but he definitely doesn’t know how the Schlatts treat the subjects even outside the lab. (He left when he found out. Sure, he’s doing terrible things to them, but that’s for Science. They’re doing terrible things to them for no REASON.)

Unfortunately, the Schlatts managed to track him down and make him one of the subjects.

He now has a cybernetic left eye. Yay?

The Schlatts couldn’t actually hold him for long; they forgot the rather important detail that he designed all their security systems.

When he escaped, he dismantled the security system in such a way that even parts of it that seemed intact still had loopholes, to give other subjects the chance to escape.

Both Quackity and Dream were able to escape at least partially due to aforementioned loopholes.

He now works designing gear for the government superhero program, but he doesn’t really know about their... shadier practices.

This is how he met and started mentoring Sam, who was in high school at the time.

He may or may not have additional powers from when he was experimented on by the Schlatts, and if the govt. found out, they’d probably start experimenting on him.

Probably friends with 5up and Fundy. Either didn’t know what happened to Fundy, or 5up told him and he helped with the rescue mission. Either that or 5up didn’t tell him, he found out on his own, planned and staged a rescue mission that just happened to be on the same day as 5up’s planned rescue mission, and then ran into 5up and the Syndicate on the way.

He has a prosthetic right arm. When asked how he lost his arm, he responds “I got in a fistfight with a god.” People tend to assume he means he lost a fistfight to a god. He always corrects them. He won, the god just got mad and took his arm to “punish him for his hubris.” (This is a reference to how he canonically lost his right arm on hermitcraft). Everyone’s preeetty sure he’s making it up, but he has a killer poker face, and the story never changes, so honestly, who knows?

You thought the traps/defense systems set up by Sam or Dream were bad? You haven’t seen ANYTHING yet.

He is definitely great friends with Tubbo.

On that note, Tubbo is the only person who has ever successfully broken into Doc’s lab without activating ANY of the aforementioned traps.

-🤺

OoOOoO this is so cool!! Makes me want to watch Hermitcraft >< Also, if ya'll want to include other Hermits in the au, just send in an ask about them and let's see how they can fit in :3

#docm77 #awesamdude #5up #itsfundy #tubbo #ask #fencer anon #ttau

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lucky-sevens · 4 years

Text

on doctor carmilla and her relationship to the mechanisms

welcome to my carmilla analysis post! all her lore is too big a subject to handle in one post, so i’m starting with this more specific one and seeing where it goes!

the main thing i’m going to be talking about here is the fan interpretation of her. i’ve collected all the evidence that supports fanon carmilla*, and i’m going to use it to discuss why fandom interpretation, while it has a basis, could be better done/more accurate to the character. i’m collecting evidence here both to support the fan interpretation and criticize it; this is very much not a discourse post, it’s an analysis post!

*i’m defining this as unnecessary experiments on and/or further abuse of the mechanisms.

(that being said, please don’t make her racist/ableist/homophobic; i’ve seen far too much of that, and it makes me incredibly uncomfortable as she is a disabled japanese lesbian and is also most likely trans. i mostly see this in modern aus, but it’s in ‘canon compliant’ works as well- the largest offender here is the popular headcanon that she forced jonny to change his accent to a british one, which for what i hope are obvious reasons given this section doesn’t sit right with me.)

rest under the cut! warnings for medical trauma, including non-consensual drugging and mind alteration, and discussions of abuse (both from a parental figure and from a significant other). it gets heavy; please stay safe!

first off: this isn’t really on the lore of her backstory, but i will touch upon that occasionally as it’s important to understanding her character! i would really suggest to listening to exhumed and (un)plugged (bandcamp / youtube) and ageha (prototype edition) (bandcamp / youtube) and reading her wiki page to get a grasp of the deeper lore; not necessarily before reading this, but definitely if you’re planning to make her a major character in your work.

we only have two first-hand sources into carmilla’s interactions with the mechanisms; lashings (part one / part two / transcript) and homesick (video / transcript). in both of those, we see that the mechanisms- or at least jonny and nastya- are very uncomfortable with and/or afraid of her. lashings has a few examples of this, regarding nastya; her tone is noticeably quiet and cold whenever she speaks to carmilla and near the end of the show, carmilla hugs her from behind without warning, making her freeze up.

homesick is even clearer in this regard- after the song is performed, carmilla and jonny have this exchange, which i’ve copied from the transcript in its entirety as it’s all potentially relevant.

[JONNY] (very, legitimately afraid) ALRIGHT ALRIGHT- Stop stop stop stop stop, whoa whoa whoa okay okay okay- I can’t take it anymore! Are you going to kill us or not? Cause I’m (stuttering)- It’s lovely when we’re playing songs, and it's great. But we shot- well, one of us, shot you out of an airlock, and I wanna know. What are you going to do to us? Other than killing me?

[DOC C] Now is not the time, Jonny, I’m feeling a bit tetchy.

[JONNY] Watch it. You’re- you’re planning something. Something.

[DOC C] Medication time.

[JONNY] Yes-- (cutoff)

the video ends here. the lines at the end are most likely a leadup to the song welcome to medi bay co, but given carmilla’s tone in the recording, it could also be a threat towards him. this implies she has non-consensually drugged him in the past. his conviction that she was going to kill him also suggests that that has happened as well.

from this, we can conclude carmilla’s actions in the common fanon are not out of character, but her motives and thoughts towards the mechanisms could often be considered so. the default motivation for her seems to be to experiment- she’s driven out of boredom or curiosity, and is simply using the mechanisms as test subjects. there are a few cases to directly cite in canon of her experimenting on someone (out of something other than necessity so that they survived)- the first one is from exhumed, and is not in reference to the mechanisms, but instead a clone of herself (x). (i won’t elaborate too much on the post i linked as a source here, but it’s very interesting and i’d suggest giving it a read!)

doesn’t fit too much here, but you know what does?

Highly amused by the moral ambiguity of the events leading to his supposed demise – where both Brian and the priest believed themselves to have the moral high ground, she rebuilt Brian with a slight modification – an inbuilt morality core, with two settings.

brian’s switch. the bio straight-up says she made it out of amusement, which is a huge issue as anyone can flip it (except brian himself; don’t have the source on hand, but there was a post a while back that mentioned it was on the small of his back, which he can’t reach) and it changes his entire mindset!

however! this is the only case of something like this happening!

maki has said that carmilla cared for the mechanisms, and considered them her adopted children. while the evidence i’ve noted earlier almost becomes worse with that knowledge, it’s a different mindset than test subjects.

this is getting into a bit more of personal thoughts/headcanons, but we know carmilla had a lot of trouble with healthy relationships, including familial ones. she could wholeheartedly care about the mechanisms, and just not know how to form an actually positive relationship with them. in addition, if you view my personal headcanon that carmilla made loreli into a vampire instead of the other way round, she sure does have a problem with people she’s attached to dying, doesn’t she? she’s more sympathetic in general than she tends to be painted, and she has had good interactions with the mechanisms. (mostly drawing on what maki has said on the mechscord for this- sadly, invites are currently closed).

not elaborating on it too much here, as there’s a lot to unpack vis a vis lore and red stringing, but it’s also likely that carmilla does grow and change and get better as a person- she left the mechanisms most likely of her own volition, as maki has said she ‘didn’t leave via the airlock’, and made an active effort to fix her past mistakes. this is in contrast to the other mechanisms (except possibly brian) who never make any kind of effort to stop being terrible people. (may write a meta/lore explanation on this eventually, but it’s too large a topic to cover here!)

tl;dr: carmilla was abusive towards the mechanisms, but she was more likely to be well-meaning, rather than bored or curious.

#the mechanisms #the mechs #dr carmilla #my posts #meta #compiliation post #kinda

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graceslavenderhaze · 3 years

Text

Hear the sirens, {connor stevens}

synopsis: After the shadow man was defeated their was no new supernatural anomalies in town, then you and your wayward family showed up.

also this gif is lovethephantoms gif but I still can’t figure out why the handle won’t come up underneath the gif.

another female requested reader however when referred to in the writing the pronouns are gender neutral.

This is part one of three!

The Midnight Society had finally settled back into life as it normally was. Gabby had passed her PSAT’s and gotten her permit, still working her way to get out of shadow bay. Hanna still heavily involved in her activism and getting more signatures than before hand on her petitions, making the world a better place even if it was one step, by herself, at a time. Luke back to focusing on school and wrestling, he was still benched for weekend meet for disciplinary due to being late to practice which gave him plenty of time to work on the science project he owed . Jai back to being the comic book nerd his friends loved him as, no longer feeling like he had to own up to any sort of standards when his friends loved him the way he was. Then there was Connor. Who found it harder than his friends to move on, it wasn’t that easy for him. His dad didn’t know what happened so he carried on with the fishing trips like usual. Luke and Hanna had started dating after the glow dance so he was adjusting to his best friend not always being available. While he knew that the shadow man was gone, something in him still felt dark. Like a part of him had been permanently darkened by what he’d been through. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up whenever he walked by cemeteries, or historic settlements of shadow bay. He pushed it all down and acted like nothing happened. But he still slept with the lights on. He still had nightmares most nights.

The Amana family Coven had been around for centuries. It was one of the few that was a female centric coven throughout the dark ages in magic along side the golden ages. The eldest of the coven was Gaia Amana, whose daughter was Leticia Amana, they remain the only two witches in the coven. Leticia married Willow a human woman that had been orphaned in her childhood due to an magical accident claiming her parents. They had two children. Two daughters. One who was a Witch with the gift of clairvoyance. Another who was a Banshee with a generational blood curse.

That Witch, with the clairvoyance? That was you. Your Sister was the Banshee. This was the story of your family and the magic deeply routed throughout your family and bloodline, biological and adoptive. Growing up with magic isn’t a fairytale. You never stayed in one town longer than four years, where there was witches there was hunters who never strayed far.

So anyone who had magic lived by three commandments for protections.

Thou shall not bear the knowledge of magic,

Thou shall not caress a practitioner of magic,

Thou shall not survive a witches love.

By those three commandments your family was able to continue to practice their respective magic without worrying about witch hunts in town. But the times had changed from when your grandmother first took over the coven. It was the twenty first century and spirituality and supernatural abilities were somewhat mainstream, not the truth but the refraction of what was going on. It blurred the lines of what was actually going on. So when it was time for the quadrennial move, your mothers had chosen a small town in Canada. Shadow Bay. There was hardly any supernatural occurrence’s there. With the exceptional of a magic shop but witch hunters had standards so they’d never show up there anyways.

You’d gotten used to the somewhat lonely routine of your life. The moving every four years, the secrets about your magic, while it wasn’t ideal. You loved your magic and you wouldn’t trade your abilities for anything else in the world. But having some solid friends would’ve been a nice start.

The drive wasn’t the longest you’ve ever taken, it also wasn’t the shortest you’ve every taken either. The only difference was that due to getting your license recently your grandmother let you drive her car. You’d lived in a lot of placed over the years. Apartments, ranch, colonial, victorian. Now you were living in a cottage in the woods by a lighthouse. Pulling into the drive you passed a group of six people. Five teens who looked around your age and one who seemed to be younger possibly in middle school.

“Keys are in the mail box.” Your grandmother said, you looked over. “That’s harsh.” You said unbuckling and opening the door to retrieve the keys from the mail box. If the group of teens weren’t staring before they definitely were now. “Can i help you ?” You asked turning around at the group of teens who were like you thought, were staring.

A tall blonde in a leather jacket and all black, A red head wearing an army jacket and docs, A brunnette with curly hair who had a denim jacket on, A tanned brunnette boy wearing street clothes, A pale brunette who had a skateboard not far from his grasp, and a little boy wearing a cap and a wand in his hand.

“Did you just move into the haunted house in the woods?” The brunnette in street clothes asked with zero hesitation. Haunted? “Jai!” The red head exclaimed slapping his arm. The blonde still was staring at you. Like there was this connection flowing between the two of you, you felt it too. “Sorry he has the social skills of a second grader. I’m Hanna Romero.” She said extending a hand towards you. “Y/n Amana.”

“This is Gabby Lewis, that’s Jai Malyas, He’s Luke Mccoy, on the end is Connor Stevens,” So staring boy has a name. “And that’s my little brother Seth.” She said giving a full rollcall for you. “Sorry i just have to ask, the haunted house in the woods?” Jai said not putting his question down. Everyone turned to him and you laughed.

“So you believe in the other side?” You said crossing your arms and raising your eyebrows. The group fell silent for a minute. “Well I mean is there really another side? Maybe all the funs having here.” Connor said smiling at you, lying. You didn’t need magic to know. You just knew the faces of people who’d experienced the supernatural and didn’t know how to explain it afterwards.

“All right then pretty boy.” You said slightly taken aback Connors eyes widened. “Are you going to shadow bay high once you get settled?” Gabby asked you. You nodded, “Yeah my sister and I are suppose to start next week.” Gabby looked at Connor and then back to you, “We could show you both around, give you the old razzle dazzle.” She said. You smiled, “Yeah i’d really appreciate that!”

“No problem! Right Connor?” Gabby said, nudging him. You turned your eyes backed to him. “Yeah no problem at all.” He said running a hand through his hair. You nodded. “I should probably go but i’ll see you guys next week.” You said, each of the teens saying a goodbye to you and you got into the car where your grandmother was waiting, dropping the envelopes with the keys on the dash board.

“Well that looked like a lot more than just getting the keys.” She noted as you started to drive up into the woods. “Just some local kids who offered to show me around when i start and also said our house is the local haunted house in the woods.” You said turning as the road winded. She nodded, “This town is going to be different, you can feel it can’t you?” You could and it gave you butterflies.

That night after dinner you sat up decorating your room. You’d never had your own room before and now you had free creative decisions. You sister knocked on the door holding two cups of tea, “Tea time?” You nodded. You were older by two years, it wasn’t much but sometimes it still managed to wedge a gap between the two of you for certain subjects. She placed your mug down on your desk were you were placing posters up and she sat on your bed. “So Grams said that you were flirting with some outsiders type beat boy earlier.”

You turned taking a sip, “I was not flirting. I might’ve called him pretty boy. But that’s the highest form of flattery rather than flirting if anything!” You said to your sister. “What if you date him? What if you fall in love and have cute babies?” She gushed. “I just met him!” You exclaimed to her turning around, “Oh come on, haven’t you ever wanted to date someone?”

“I don’t date. We move too much besides there’d be too much lying. It would just be heartbreak for me and whoever i’m with.” You said turning your attention back to decorating rather than the conversation. Silence washed over and the question that had been on everyone’s minds was asked once again. “Is it gonna be different here?”

You stalled, exhaling slowly. “You have the gift of clairvoyance, if anything you can tell out of all of us.” She said with excitement. “No i’m not doing it.” You said shutting her suggestion down. “Oh come on!” She persisted.

“Astral projecting isn’t meant for figuring out if we’re going to live out our coming of age fantasies, it’s meant for real magic. I’m not doing it. If any clairvoyant dreams come to me, that’s one thing. I’m not chasing them.” You said breaking down the now empty box that once held pictures, posters and other wall hanging knick knacks. Your sister pouted, “Buzzkill.” She muttered under her breath, “Well were either of the girls cute and give gay vibes?” She asked as she finished her mug and placed it on the floor.

“Ask them yourself. They offered to show us around on our first day. But no powers. If you want a relationship it has to be fully yourself no magic sire ties. Magic sometimes makes it messy.” You said unfortunately speaking from experience. Magic was beautiful but it doesn’t come from nothing, there is a give and a take. Like everything else in the universe.

That night you found it hard to sleep, you usually had issues sleeping the first night in a new town. It was some sort of internal clock routine. You snuck out of the front door, for a house that had been around for as long as it had been it wasn’t the loudest. The floor boards didn’t creak every time you walked over them, the doors didn’t screech whenever you opened them an inch at a time, and the house didn’t settle several times a day. But for all you knew a spell could’ve been casted to prevent that.

You found comfort being on your own. Having clairvoyance was overwhelming at times. You had no control over your powers, they never had a specific trigger, so naturally you just steered clear of people in general. You figured there was no way to be given unwanted visions of the future if you just didn’t have anything to do with anyone at all. Your own loneliness was your own fault. Walking through the woods you felt the feeling of dark magic, it was a distinct feeling that you hadn’t felt often but it was unforgettable when you did. It over takes you, like a wave but instead of being able to see through the water its ink. It’s heavy, and dark. It drags you under.

You hear several snaps of twigs behind you and slightly startled you turn to see the animal or whatever that was behind you. Ready to cast a spell incase whatever followed was a foe and not a friend you gathered your hands in front of your body, “Either you come out or it’s going to be a bad night for you.” You called out into the darkness. Several more twigs snapped under what you assumed where footsteps as a dark shape came out from behind the tree.

“I surrender!” The figured called out with slight fear in their voice. “My hands are up!” The voice sounded so familiar as they neared towards you. Once they were within eye sight you noticed it was one of the boys from earlier, Connor. “ Take it easy there cobra kai.” He said gesturing to your hands which could be assumed in a fighting position, which they were just not the fighting position he thought it would be.

You took your hands away from the stance they were place in front of your body, “So, you enjoy taking walks in the dark and startling people pretty boy?” You asked crossing your arms. He lowered his flashlight so he wasn’t practically blinding you anymore. He laughed lowly for a second, “To be fair with the way i was snapping twigs, if you were startled that sounds like a you deal.”

You smiled at him for second, “I’m Connor Stevens by the way, we met earlier but i don’t know you if remember me.” He said running a hand through his hair, a nervous habit probably. “Oh so you assume that you’re unforgettable. Not a chance pretty boy.” You said taking several steps closer. Slightly taken aback once again by your boldness for the second time in the one day. “I have a name you know.”

“Oh so you don’t find pretty boy flattering?” You asked coyly, going silence after trying to create an argument. “Thought so.” You said smiling. His eyes stayed glued onto you, his dad has taught him better than to stare.

“Sorry, i just keep getting this deja vu feeling but i would definitely remember meeting you.” He said unfiltered getting close enough for you to catch a vision, you back up slightly and he’s hurt by this. It’s written all over his face. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” He apologized quickly and sincerely.

“Oh no i just have this thing with physical touch, it’s nothing personal. You’d remember meeting me? Are you reading into my character?” You said with a slight cockiness mixed into the tone. He nodded, “No it’s just you’re literally one of the prettiest girls i’ve ever seen.” You dropped the flashlight that you’d brought with you. You rushed forward to pick it up as did Connor, both your fingertips grazed each other.

The images flooded through your head. You saw past images first, not older than a month or so. It was dark, he was in the woods running, then there was a book of spells it looked like ever other witches book, and then he was grabbed into the dark. Inside of something that looked like a lighthouse but rotted on the inside and there was absolutely no light. Then there was present, this moment right here right now. The future was the two of you in front of the high school, you guessed. Then it was just the two of you, your aura’s with a red string connecting them at the pinkies. But then it was him holding your hands as something tried to drag you. Then it was over.

You blinked a few times before looking back up at Connor, “Are you okay? You looked like you saw a ghost.” He said with a slight laugh dropping the flashlight into your palm like it was burning him to touch. “Something like that.” You muttered lightly and standing back up. Silence washed over, “I should probably get back home before anyone notices i’m gone.” You said. He nodded, “See you around, cobra kai?”

“See you pretty boy.” You confirmed turning around to walk back to your house for the night. Sneaking back in just as quietly as you left. You managed to fall asleep before the sun rose this time. Once you fell asleep, the visions still lingered on a loop. Despite how much you hated it on a deep level it was comforting compared to the nightmares that had a tendency to plague you from time to time.

The next morning your family had gotten take out from the local diner for breakfast and during the morning conversation no one mentions anything that gives away your nightly adventure. Throughout the rest of the week you and your family continues to get settled into your house. You hadn’t seen Connor on any of your nightly walks through the woods throughout the rest of the week and as the day of starting school gets closer you just assume you’ll see him along with his friends.

Your sister and you were sitting in the office after you’d gotten your schedules and other paperwork. “We have two student volunteers who offered to show you around.” The secretary said as she handed the two of you a peppermint, Slightly disappointed, going under the impression you’d get to hang out with Connor and his friends today. The door creeks open and you turn. Gabby and Hanna enter the office, you notice through the glass pane of the door Luke, Jai and Connor standing in the hallway waiting for them.

“Ah, Hanna Romero and Gabby Lewis. This is Y/n Amana and Ramona Amana.” She said as the two of you stood up. “If you need anything during your next few days don’t hesitate to reach out.” She said sincerely, offering a comforting smile. Your sister and you both exchanged thanks before leaving the office.

You saw Luke nudge Connor to which he muttered a shut up, you smiled. “Nice to see you again pretty boy.” You said smirkingly, Jai looked up from his phone. “Again, you went into the haunted woods?” He said looking at Connor, who blank faced. “Thanks for ratting me out. Besides, there wasn’t anything out there other than Y/n and their fists of fury almost giving me a black eye.” He said punching you lightly in the shoulder, laughing with you.

“What’s the deal with those woods anyway? It seems like everyone has some story about them.” Ramona asked no one specific just wanting a general answer after hearing the endless week of comments. The group went silent, “Okay so like did someone get murdered there. Some true crime type beat?” You asked as you leaned against the wall next to Connor. Leaning your head on his shoulder, he leaned his head on yours after a few moments of hesitation.

“It’s an unbelievable story.” Jai said as he looked at the comic in his hand with a confused look and then closed it, Ramona smirked. “Oh we know a lot about those type of stories.” She said standing next to Gabby. Both were stealing looks when the other wasn’t. “Where are you guy’s from?” Hanna asked with confusion and a slight laugh. “Where aren’t we from.” You said under your breath catching the attraction of the group.

“We’re military, we move a lot.” Ramona said. The cover story that had been engrained into you both from elementary school. “Damn that must suck.” Luke said getting elbowed by Hanna, “I mean thank you for your service.” He corrected himself. You laughed a little as Luke tried to awkwardly save himself. You saluted him, causing Connor to smile.

“Nice bracelets.” Gabby said to Ramona, she looked down at them before looking back up. “Thanks.” She said slightly flustered and blushing. “Mo you should see if you and Gabby have any classes together.” You suggested slightly trying to wing woman. “What? Oh yeah!” She said handing over her schedule eagerly to Gabby. Soon enough the two walked off.

“So, Hanna do you have the list for morning announcements?” Jai said, Hanna met him with a confused look as did Luke. “Announcements? Oh yeah! We’ll see you guys after home room!” As they left Connor and you in the hallway. “Your friends really lack subtly.” You said as you watched them go down the hallway, Hanna arguing with Jai while Luke occasionally looked back.

“Oh you have no idea.” He said turning back to you, “Oh! How do you feel about horror movies?” He asked reaching into his backpack. “Top three movie genre. Why?” You asked, he pulled out a small “slashers rule” pin and handed it you. “A formal apology for scaring you in the woods the other night, and you seemed like you’d like it.” He said gesturing to your backpack decorated with pins and patches, you smiled. “I love it.” His nervousness seemed to fade with those three words. “I’ve never really had friends or anyone give me something like this so, thank you.”

“That must’ve been lonely.” He said as you shrugged, it was lonely but it was also complicated. “Yeah but i’m not lonely anymore.” You said as you subconsciously ran your thumb over the pin and looked up at him. He blushed, you’d learned he did that a lot and quite easily none the less.

“So you ready for the shadow bay tour?” He said pushing off the wall, rubbing his hands together. Students had started to clear out of the halls paying absolutely no attention to Connor and yours’ affair in the corner. “Oh definitely. Just so you know i’ve been to four schools over the past eleven years, so you’re competing with that.”

“Oh it’s a competition?” He said with fake outburst laced onto his voice, you nodded with a sarcastic smile that turned genuine. “I think i can handle that.” He said as you two began descending down the halls of Shadow Bay high. Despite your own personal barriers and everything you’d ever been taught in your life, you were falling for Connor. Your better judgement knew that you’d pay for that at some point in your life. Sooner or later, you always did.

hello my loves! This is part one of three and i’m currently working on the other parts!

#are you afraid of the dark #ayaotd #are you afraid of the dark imagine #are you afraid of the dark x reader #connor stevens imagine #connor stevens x reader #luke mccoy #gabby lewis #hanna romero #jai malyas #the midnight society

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violenceenthusiast · 4 years

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Dean Winchester made me gay (but not like that)

Not to be sincere on main but with the Supernatural finale fast approaching I’m thinking about what this stupid, wonderful show has meant to me over the years, particularly as a queer kid.

I started watching Supernatural while season 5 was airing, at age 12. And the really wild thing is that I started watching before I was even on tumblr SO unlike most shows, I didn’t start watching based on whispers about queer representation– I just,, thought it looked like a cool show I might like.

So here I am, a middle schooler with no clue why the worst part of every day was getting dressed, why I felt funny? confused? nervous? when girls gave me hugs, why I didn’t quite fit in with the boys but didn’t quite fit in with the girls either, and so much more (aka standard Queer Kid Confusion lmao).

Now here I have to talk about the netflix documentary Disclosure for a second (which, if you haven’t seen is one of those things everyone should watch). The doc is largely a timeline and analysis of trans representation in tv and film as narrated by people in the industry who are trans themselves (tight as hell). But there’s this one part where this guy is illustrating why queer representation in media is so important, and he tells us that “80% of people don’t know a trans person in real life” (paraphrasing from memory) so for many people, tv and film are their only point of contact and point of reference for what it is to be trans and/or queer. and then he delivers the real kicker– “the same is true for queer people”. When I tell you that rocked my world to hear him say that... because he’s right!!

I was lucky enough to grow up in a pretty lefty, Jewish community but even then my information about queerness was limited to a) gay exists and b) gay is ok (in the abstract) but c) gay is the thing boys call each other when they step out of line. After all, it was still the 2000′s. I didn’t know anyone gay in real life, perhaps my only exposure to queerness was captain Jack Harkness when he kisses the doctor in s1?? but most importantly I didn’t know anything of the subjective experience of queerness.

And so I start watching this show. And there’s Dean. He loves powerfully and protects those he loves. He is strong and smart and clever and funny and accomplished but despite that is so so tied down by, and beholden to, what others (john, sam, society) expect of him and the roles he needs to play as a result (father, mother, brother, savior, protector, man’s man). He is proud of yet embarrassed by his interests that fall outside of these expectations– Sam, as the bookish one who ~went to college~ gets the reputation of the nerd but we all know the real nerd is Dean, with his cowboys, sci-fi, and chick flicks, his books and his movies and his music. AND on top of all that, he has nowhere and no one that’s just his, save perhaps for the impala but even that is not really his (yet). And for me, as a queer, Jewish, nerdy kid who didn’t know they were queer or why they didn’t feel they fit anywhere... Dean Winchester was everything.

Enter Castiel.

And my world expanded. I watched as Dean, a fellow aquarius (lol), found safety and home in Cas. I watched their uneasy alliance, backed by an unshakeable bond, turn to trust then to friendship and rapidly into something more, something ephemeral, something,, profound. Love fundamentally changed them both. Their love for one another specifically changed them both. I watched as they moved heaven and earth (and hell) for each other, literally. But most importantly I got to see it all through Dean’s eyes. Of course we see much of Cas’s experience of events but for much of the early seasons of Cas’s run on the show he (and his interiority) is kept from the boys, and from us, at a bit of an arm’s length. Dean is the main conduit for us as the audience, and he certainly was for teenage me.

I watched as this scared man who had to grow up too fast found solace in another man, in a way that was (in many ways literally) alien to him. I saw his panicked moments and second-guessing and fidgeting and furtive looks and wayward glances. All the things that us destiel truthers (🤡) pointed to at the time were, for me, not simply about shipping but about seeing myself in Dean. Seeing my own reluctance to be near women, my own hyper-awareness about how close we were standing and where I was looking and how long I was looking for. My own discomfort in and eventual shedding of the prescriptive gendered roles and behavior I had been handed. Dean falling for Cas and the beauty of it, how naturally and how easily they fit together against all that was working against them.. it allowed me to see something in myself and for myself that I could never have imagined alone.

So for all the (rightful) criticism of Supernatural and destiel as awful queer-baiting, for me, a kid beginning to see themself for the first time through this story and these characters... it never hit that way for me. Literally what was I supposed to do but go stupid go crazy and think about nothing but Dean and Cas and Supernatural for the rest of forever?? I never in a million years would have expected or could have hoped for the 15x18 confession and I’m scared and excited for what will happen in the finale but no matter what happens... I’ll forever be grateful to this show for giving me the imagination to see myself as I am.

#supernatural #spn #destiel #dean winchester #15x18 #lgbtq representation #im gay and nonbinary and i dont know what to tag this #they/them lesbian if this gets big somehow pls dont misgender me....#anyway!!#this has been rattling around in my brain for a few weeks now #like literally WHAT was i supposed to do but be obsessed forever #so i started writing it down and this happened #💚💙#ok L to me i meant to post this earlier in the evening oh well #fern posting

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gamergirluprising · 4 years

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(WARNING SENSITIVE INFO WILL BE DISCUSSED OR GIVEN. IF YOU CANNOT HANDLE INFO REGARDING SELF-HARM OR BULLYING I’D ADVISE YOU NOT TO READ ON. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED)

Hello, everyone, I’d like to share somethings that have urked me and outright surprise me when getting deeper and deeper into this whole shebang cause honestly, this is too much to NOT notice. If you're wondering what I am talking about I am referring to all the stuff I found out about Viv and the fact that she never truly seemed sorry for what she's done to said people based on what I have found out and what she's said in recent years.

Now you all may say "G, she said she's sorry and that's that. Don't bring up things that happened years ago or have been resolved." and look, man, I'd leave it alone if it was CLEAR that she was truly a person of her word, wasn't a hypocrite, and didn't cause 3 people to be suicidal and cause/know of witchhunts that she KNOWS happened and/or wanted to happen. You guys can like her all you want and defend her, but be sure they are good defenses, understand WHERE I am coming from, and be mindful of what I am saying. Don't just ignore everything she did just cause you THINK she's super nice or because she's your idol.

I will also emphasize that I wish for NO ONE to send any unnecessary hate or anything of the like to Viv. You don't stoop to someone else's level just cause they did some bad crap. I just wanted to say any of this, loud and clear, cause its straight facts that shouldn't be buried just cause she wants to hold onto her image the best she can. That isn't at all fair to those victims who have been wronged and had their names tainted over her destructive and mean-spirited hypocritical behavior. AGAIN DO NOT ATTACK VIV AND DON'T THINK ME CALLING HER OUT IS A REASON TO HATE HER. We can be better than her in terms of handling things. Do not also think me calling her out shouldn't have been done JUST CAUSE you don't wanna hear it or not. If you don't wanna see it, you don't have to read it.

with that being said, LET'S DISSECT.

S T A R V A D E R

First I have to start off relaying to you guys what Starvader had stated at the beginning of the document so you'll get a jist of why she even spoke up in the first place.

"I type this document with no malicious intent only my personal thoughts on how I feel recently about the situation since its been on my mind well every day now since 2013. At least five years I’ve had thoughts below as to my personal experience of meeting an ex idol and why sometimes meeting your idol isn’t the best approach. For me, that ex idol is Vivienne Medrano creator of Zoophobia and Hazbin Hotel. I’m not aiming to defame this creator nor do I think people should stop liking their work or stop supporting them. If you like their work there is nothing wrong with that but I will refuse to silence myself any longer due to how much this rarely leaves my mind and tends to come up. This has been a situation swept under the rug and most would probably state ‘ well why are you bringing all this up now it was so and so years ago you guys squashed this etc etc “ that being the case, sorry doesn’t fix emotional trauma that comes up frequently during depressive episodes and comments do tend to stick to people in a certain way. Apology or not, words have a heavy weight to them."

I put this here even though I will be putting a link to her doc because people will most likely not read or press the link and just act as if Starvader wanted blood. No, she stated her mind and was clear when saying she wanted no harm done to Viv.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRX8VEoTS7Xot7D9u5i7MMEgtT44mNEtgpl4FY7QDZCA7ZY2j-CTJF7Uw_JwSJ6WUQNVvaTQv60Igte/pub

In this link It tells anyone who comes across it what she and some others mentioned here had to go through when being compared by Viv, wanting to do what's right and still being "called out" and bullied while getting hate sent to them, and having been told how her dreams would never ever be achieved and that she should practically give up, how she put friends against one another, etc. It showcases screenshots of these examples.

It all began with the accusation of art theft. The very thing she played the victim in with someone else. I'm sure some of you old-time fans of Viv know who this person was and are aware of the beef they had with one another. After reading Starvader's Doc, I want you to look at the post Vivziepop made to defame someone known as

D O L L C R E E P

This may be a throwback to you and you all may have thought this person was abusive. I won't say that they did absolutely nothing wrong since they themselves have said they did some wrong in the situation, but I will say that one was more of a problem starter than the other.

http://web.archive.org/web/20151008172207/http://enoughisenough-dollcreep.tumblr.com/post/125101370456/my-experience-with-dollcreep

Notice in this post that the very things she did to Starvader she said DollCreep did to her and how she tries and paint DollCreep as this SEVERELY abusive person. Hell even in Starvader's document you'll see that DollCreep told SV that he talked with Viv about the whole thing regarding SV and Viv and she apparently listened at the time. Not to mention that the screenshots Viv put in that post were either take(very possibly) taken out of context or not even bad to begin with (though his reply about the face thing was odd and shouldn't have been addressed b but due to circumstances, I think that's why he was so cautious). I don't know DC like that, but this kinda makes me feel as though he wasn't a bad person Viv makes him out to be and more her trying to destroy his image ENTIRELY for her benefit, cause till this very day she still calls him an abuser and someone she doesn't want to meet again.

if you continue on into the post she made, you'll see that she has made characters, EERILY SIMILAR to DC's, some WAY MORE than others. SV was willing to change some of the designs and even wanted to stop, Viv, however, seemed to take great offense over such an accusation and took to social media to make her frustrations known. SV kept this hidden from 2013 to 2018.

Oh btw, if you read the doc you'll see that SV wanted to commit suicide. DC actually attempted it. The cyberbullying ran that deep and it ANGERS me.

here’s what someone who saw the sitch had to say.

https://web.archive.org/web/20170619163024/http://dcs-personal-blog.tumblr.com/

can find everything here regarding what DC said about the sitch. You guys DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HURT THIS PERSON. It actually pisses me off that people even attacked DC and blindly believed Viv. It’s Johnny Depp’s situation all freaking over again

Here’s the picture of Viv saying that he was abusive, completely ignoring her behavior, and knowing hate would be sent to DC. Again won’t say that DC was completely innocent but damn man, was this necessary? DC even said that they talked it out and everything

https://vivziepop.tumblr.com/post/179705403534/im-only-going-to-say-this-once

Don’t even get me started on the whole character credit fiasco that Viv refused to properly fix.

https://krieg-was-taken.tumblr.com/post/101438542866/dollcreep-kibadoglover45-dollcreep-even

Look at this as well.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200104224648/https://tyacutie123.tumblr.com/post/125800399071/beware-of-abusive-artist

it mentions SV again, but it also brings into light a parody character meant to mock DC during all of this drama.

https://killapunk.tumblr.com/post/125896144245/dcs-personal-blog-enoughisenough-dollcreep/amp

DollCreep does the same thing back and is treated like the enemy. Hypocrisy at its finest.

now, most of you guys will be saying that this all happened in the past. It’s over, some will say, She’s changed (some of you may even say that these people deserve it. Yes people actually have said stuff like this to me or others) but here’s the problem, She still pulls crap like this to ruin people or to make others feel stupid. Just last year she was laughing with JaneGumball (who APPARENTLY made up with the victim) saying that she deserves it for being rude when the girl just said her opinion and was still a fan of Viv at the time, meaning she didn’t even mean to hurt Viv’s feelings and, hear me out, even if she did WHY FIND HER CYBERBULLYING FUNNY AND JUSTIFIED OVER AN OPINION? What sort of logic is that? That’s GREATLY immature and unnecessary, especially for someone her age (She’s 27 or 28 guys while the victim was 15, come on man!)

and I’m sure some of you know what happened with the person who made a meme regarding HH and other animated cartoons.

She’s VERY MUCH AWARE THAT THEY WERE ATTACKED....and this is how she responds....wow O K A Y.

So no, she didn’t actually change because she most likely didn’t think she had to. People kept supporting her thus making her believe that what she did was correct. Oh and Faust is practically Viv as well. (As seen by the SV doc and this tweet thread)

https://twitter.com/melonbea/status/1206994000563068930?s=19

Hell Viv seemed to ignore this too, as well as a lot of shipping drama if it involves a specific ship, but I won’t delve too deep into that subject since I am not very aware of the things that go down in that side of the fandom.

and there’s this

https://afraidofmonsters-headcanons.tumblr.com/post/188662798256/so-lets-talk-about-this-blog-the-fandom-and-viv

and this

https://historia-kq.tumblr.com/post/190882421127

I’d advise you guys to hear these things out.

Oh and Viv is the type to be a Hypocrite regularly,

https://twitter.com/VivziePop/status/613097846603026433?s=19

I could send you all the screenshots of her tweets but that should be another post on its own cause THERE IS A LOT. Like her Cancel Culture tweet, that tweet where she said, and I quote, “The hypocrisy is strong” back in 2014, November 29th. That time she had a thread of tweets saying, and I quote “never let someone dictate your value as an artist! Never seek the approval of someone else and conform to what they say you should do!” Despite doing this to StarVader.

If you guys want screenshots I can either personally DM or make a post showing her hypocrisy. Cause honestly this is rather, dare I say it, TOXIC. She’s manipulated people and has used them when they don’t abide by her rules or make a mistake that could have been resolved privately, she attacks and it’s saddening. I am TIRED of people getting hurt by her and I am tired of her abusing her power. If she wants to change I am COMPLETELY DOWN for that, but change starts when you want it. You can’t say sorry and expect people not to see past the lies or see that you obviously didn’t change. Sorry should mean what it means, feeling regret or penitence, but if you don’t at all exhibit these things then how are we supposed to believe that you are at all sorry for anything you’ve done currently AND in the past? I mean damn dude did you guys even know what happened to the cosplayer that Viv was mad about?

https://boricua-moonbakery.tumblr.com/post/616407364553310208

Now look, if you like Viv’s content, that’s your choice. I for one very much do like some fan content that i’ve stumbled onto and find some very creative and my cup of tea and while I’m not a huge fan of HH I still very much find the premise very creative. What I do if a creator of something is majorly sketch or strange I simply seperateb the content from the creator. I simply wanted to point out things many peeps don’t know about and any person who is a fan of Viv, I hope you’d at least understand WHY I am at all saying anything I am saying. I want there to be justice but I want things to be fair. I don’t want Viv to get hurt, but I want her to actually learn from her mistakes. I am not here to discourage you from anything, it’s your choice if you choose to stay and I will not judge you for it. I am a girl who SIMPLY wants people to be more aware of who exactly Vivienne Medrano is. She’s mistreated both fans of HH and ZP and it boggles me.

If you guys want more info, like her tweets that I mentioned, just message me.

END OF DISSECTION

#hazbin hotel #vivziepop #vivziemind #vivziepop drama #vivziemind drama #vivienne medrano #vivienne medrano drama #cyberbullying #hypocrisy #Trigger warning #tw #content warning #vivziepop critique

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inscapeblog · 4 years

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Design and Context: Subculture Valentino Vivian

Introduction

The design has been a significant part of human society and is now a part of our lives more than ever. This is made so because of the internet and the growing popularity of social media. Anyone with a smartphone and internet can connect with the world, be it carefully taken photos or well-edited videos. Design inspiration can be taken from anywhere, like a pattern on a leaf or the specific grains on tree bark. Culture is also a significant influence on design, although, in this essay, we will investigate the influence of subcultures in design. This essay will define what a subculture is and will examine various examples of how certain subcultures influence the design and prove that subcultures in context can help provide design solutions. This essay will discuss multiple subcultures that birthed new forms of design.

Defining Subcultures

In this section, we will discuss the definition of subculture and its characteristics. The more commonly known definition of subcultures is “the concept of a subculture implies a minority culture that is of subordinated and secondary nature in relation to a dominant majority culture” (Zackariasson et al., 2014). Based on this definition, a subculture is based on a long-standing culture like music, fashion and architecture and adopting certain practises or beliefs of that culture that do not necessarily match with the original culture. Subculture in this regard is similar to a group of friends going to the cinema to watch a movie, but one group does not like the choice of the movie by the group, so then they would decide to watch a different movie.

Making reference to the definition of culture is “the ideas, customs, and social behaviour of a particular people or society.” (Oxford Language). From this definition, Nathan Bolton state that these subcultures are in opposition to accepting the customs and ideas social behaviour of the culture in question (Boltan, 2012). He uses a study that focused on gang crime in working-class American teens, the culture in which they derive from gang culture in America, although they were mostly anti-utilitarian. These troubled teenagers would be able to relate to one another by sharing their short time crime stories/experiences “ The gang inverted the values of the majority culture, deliberately pursuing the mirror image of the American dream.” (Boltan, 2012)

A book that is focussed on the subject of consumer behaviour defines subculture as “people who share a set of secondary values” (Niosi, n.d.) The definition states that one can be part of one or many different subcultures, but the individual is part of a larger community within a smaller community. What places people in subcultures are based on Material culture, social institution, beliefs, aesthetics and language as this makeup much larger, broader cultures like music, Christianity and the French-speaking population. Subcultures are also formed based on a trait that is very different from society; for example, Vegans are a subcultural group that believes that its wrong to consume animal products and, in doing so, has an effect on climate change. Vegans are different or have a trait that others do not.

When defining subcultures, there are some definitions that are positive and others that have negatives connotations. When referring to the negative connotations, it is usually stated that the smaller group within a larger culture do not agree with their belief or ideals of that culture. As an act of rebellion, they form their own group, which then becomes its own culture within another culture. When referring to the positive connotations, this is more so in the commercial field. This is where success is attained by a brand where there are a large variety of people from around the world of different beliefs, languages and aesthetics, just to name a few (Zackariasson et al., 2014). An example of this positive connotation can be seen with the Sony Playstation community; Sony’s Playstation 4 is one of the highest selling consoles of the past four years. They were able to do this within the gaming community. There is a subculture in gamer who prefer the PlayStation 4 over other consoles, thus creating more subcultural in terms of games.

The significance of Subculture in identifying and solving a design problem

s in mainstream society.”(LumenLearning, n.d.) The first argument is that pop culture caters to the mainstream but forgets about those not in mainstream society; this would then create a void of diversity in the design field. If all designers were to design with a pop culture mentality, a large majority of the designs the world would be exposed to would all be the same or have taken a similar approach. If we look at the economic point of view, if companies used one method of solving design solutions, it will show in their designs, not only that, but it would be difficult to interest investors as one would see that there is no difference in the design approach.

Subcultures allow designers to view the design problem through a different lens as they would typically do. Subcultures are various ways that people consider a topic or culture; this then breeds room for diversity in design. By using or designing with subcultures in mind, then broadens the skillset for designers, allowing them to venture into new ways of designing. As an example, if a designer were to start using elements of the Hip hop subculture in their design, they see how bold fonts would work with specific colours. Another way in which subcultures are essential to design is that they inform the designer on the connotations of certain elements, colours objects. An example could be that in mainstream culture, Monster energy drink can be viewed as the second-best energy drink, whereas in the skater culture, Monster is the best, and nothing compares.

Music is one of the most diverse phenomena; the sharing, critiquing, and enjoyment of music is one of the primary activators for subculture groups. Discussions are had, and opinions are formed, dividing people into these subcultures. Due to these many subcultures being created, there is an untapped market for designers. “ designers translate this idea of a music and internet subcultural “scene” into a product design worthy of those individuals amerced within theses subcultural groups.” (Allen, 2009) The creation of these products allows more people to be made aware of these other subcultures that one could identify with, thus increase and growing that specific subculture.

It is essential for designers to know about subcultures and what subcultures bare good prospects. Having knowledge of subcultures is essential in terms of inclusivity. It is well documented that member of the LGBTQ community have been scrutinised over the years, and this community also serves as a subculture. In 1905 the arrow man was created by J.C Leyendecker, which revolutionise design and advertising. The illustration was placed on many magazine covers; the man is said to be the J.C Leyendecker partner, which means that the arrow man is the first homosexual male to make it onto magazine covers. As a result of this design, making it on the magazine cover made the public at the time know that there is a subculture or community where homosexual males are welcomed, and that pop culture is evolving to include them. Design helps inform and influence the public, steer change. (Martin, 2019)Examples of successful application of in spatial design

Skatehalle, Berlin, Germany

Skatehalle is a wooden skate park located in Berlin, German. Skatehalle is a space purposefully designed for the enjoyment of the skater community. The park is made up of ramps, rails and bowls all used to perform tricks. In the skater culture, they value creativity, risk and freedom, which are very prominent in the park's designs. Their bright, colourful murals express the core values of skaters pushing risk. Skatehalle is effective in the sense that because of the ever-growing skate culture, some or most cities did not approve as it was seen as a delinquent activity. As a result, many skateparks were built and are still popular to this day

Spodek Arena

The Spodek Arena is a multipurpose arena located in Katowice Poland. This arena annually hosts the IEM Katowice Esports tournament. The arena is designed to cater to the need of the Esport gaming community. In these tournaments teams play games like Dota and League of legends for Trophies, these are highly sponsored event. Elements that make this space for the subculture of Esports gamer is that they have multiple large screens and seating from the floors to the rafters for maximum amount of spectator. This type of design ia effective because many gamer set ups use neon light set ups and most the time the gamers are in their rooms doing extraordinary things with no audience, so the arena is designed in such a way that these factor are non existent.

Conclusion

The study and knowledge of subcultures are significant as this knowledge will help any, and all designers reach different audiences. Having knowledge about different subcultures can also help designers find new ways to approach design problems using elements from different subcultures to create new and impactful designs. When designing, it is also important to know what certain elements of a specific culture or subculture mean in order not to offend or give off the wrong messages. Subcultures are a significant part of the design.

Reference List

Allen, B. (2009). CULTURALISTIC DESIGN: DESIGN APPROACH TO CREATE PRODUCTS FOR SPECIFIC CULTURAL AND SUBCULTURAL GROUPS [Ebook]. Retrieved 10 March 2021, from http://etd.auburn.edu.

Boltan, N. (2012). Essay on graphic design through the effects of subcultures. [Ebook] (p. 1). Retrieved 10 March 2021, from https://issuu.com/nathanbolton/docs/how_subcultures_have_effected_graphic_design1.

D'Angelo, W. (2020). Switch vs PS4 vs Xbox One Global Lifetime Sales – January 2020. VGChartz. Retrieved 10 March 2021, from https://www.vgchartz.com/article/442352/switch-vs-ps4-vs-xbox-one-global-lifetime-salesjanuary-2020/#:~:text=The%20PS4%20has%20sold%20106.99,Xbox%20One%2046.36%20million%20units.&text=The%20PlayStation%204%20outsold%20the,and%20Xbox%20One%20are%20down.

DiBlasi, A., & Willis, V. (Eds.). (2014). Geek rock : An exploration of music and subculture. ProQuest Ebook Central <a onclick=window.open('https://ebookcentral.proquest.com','_blank') href='https://ebookcentral.proquest.com' target='_blank' style='cursor: pointer;’>https://ebookcentral.proquest.com</a>

LumenLearning. Pop Culture, Subculture, and Cultural Change | Introduction to Sociology. Courses.lumenlearning.com. Retrieved 10 March 2021, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sociology/chapter/pop-culture-subculture-and-cultural-change/.

Martin, M. (2019). The Leading LGBTQ+ Milestones in the World of Design. Architectural Digest. Retrieved 10 March 2021, from https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/lgbtq-design-milestones.

Niosi, A. Subcultures. Kpu.pressbooks.pub. Retrieved 10 March 2021, from https://kpu.pressbooks.pub/introconsumerbehaviour/chapter/subcultures/.

Zackariasson, P., Wilson, T., & Dymek, M. (2014). The video game industry. Routledge.

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The Crimson Rangers

Where would Robin Hood be without the aid of his Merry Men? Or how could Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid accomplish their heists without the aid of The Wild Bunch? Neither of them could have gotten as far as they did without the aid of their gangs and the same goes for Deadeye, legendary gunslinger or not. Deadeye's group, The Crimson Rangers are composed of rogues and mercenaries two hundred and fifty strong that bring their own sense of vigilante justice to the lands of Hell. Founded and led by the Ranger In Red, Deadeye, they are infamous for their skills in stealth, accuracy and deadly efficiency. Whether it is to steal from the rich to give to the poor, assassinate the malicious and monstrous or to simply lend their skills as the greatest gunslingers and sharpshooters in Hell, they are the guns for hire when quality is wanted more than quantity.

Wiley “Dust Devil” Jackson

Demon Form: Jackrabbit

Age: 26

Division: Gunslinger

Rank: Sheriff

One of the fastest gunslingers around in both his time and the modern day, Wiley has always been quick on the draw, quick on his feet, and quick to run his mouth. Born as an orphan on the back alley streets of Boston, Massachusetts in 1860, the young outlaw began his path to banditry after he grew tired of the upper classes complete disregard to his existence and stole food from them to feed himself. Overtime, his quick hands and quicker feet would gather more than just food as he stole money, bullets and a gun, which finally got him in trouble after he used said gun to shoot a state marshal dead. With a bounty on his head at the age of 18, he ran off to the west, where he would only continue his life of crime by robbing stagecoaches and shooting strangers with a smile. His time finally came to an end when he entered a quick draw contest and attempted to draw guns against Johnny Harlan, who he discovered too late was just a bit faster.

Even after his death, Wiley refused to slow down his wild ways and continued his life of crime, unaware of all the attention he was drawing. When he crossed guns against a overlord who wanted him dead, he thought he was as good as gone until another gunslinger, cloaked in signature red, saved his life. Between feeling indebted to The Ranger In Red and wanting to be on the stronger side, he joined up with Deadeye's growing gang and was even promoted to the rank of Sheriff after his service in the Black Army Wars. Now in charge of the Crimson Ranger Gunslingers, he always skipping with a smile, running as fast as he talks, and ready to draw on just about anything.

Fun Facts About "Dust Devil"

. He has a tendency to be rather boastful about himself and his skills as a gunslinger. But if he can shut his mouth for two minutes and focus on the task at hand, many demons find out the hard way that he can back up his claims.

. Out of all the Crimson Rangers, he knows the streets of Pentagram City best, having grown up in a similar background.

. He's a pretty big fan of baseball, having spent most of his childhood playing baseball with the other orphans before his turn to gunfighting. Because of his years of practice, he is also the best thrower of the Rangers.

Voice Claim: Jack Marston - Red Dead Redemption

Art Credit: gimmieasmile

Doc "Rip Van Winkle" Friday

Demon Form: Hound Dog

Age: 76

Division: Sharpshooter

Rank: Sheriff

A soldier since adulthood and a sharpshooter since his first rifle, Old Doc may seem lazy, lofty and so paranoid he will never use his real name, but give him a reason to stare down a scope and he'll happily demonstrate why he leads the Crimson Ranger Sharpshooters. Born in Monterrey, Mexico in 1787, Doc joined the army at a young age and fought in many wars over the century, such as the War of 1812, the Texas-Indian Wars and the Mexican-American War, before entering the Civil War for the Union as he believed Mexico would be next, should the Confederates win. Being assigned into the 1st United States Sharpshooters Regiment, he lent his skills with his rifle to the United States and took control of the forces after his former captain, Josiah McGrath, was believed to be killed.

Although he was renowned for his sharpshooting prowess and professionalism, the horrors of both wars past and present began to take a toll on his mind as he began targeting anyone and everyone who even supported the Confederates, soldiers and civilians alike. His last fight would be at The Battle Of The Crater, as he was caught up with trying to shoot down another confederate when he was caught in a blast of cannon fire.

In Hell, Doc slowly began to cool from his soldiering days and often explored the many forests that laid through Hell before stumbling upon The Red Woods and even finding the son of his former captain, Cyrus McGrath who was now known as Deadeye. Helping the McGrath get back on his feet in an attempt to pay back Josiah, Doc was the first of The Crimson Rangers and even led them in the Black Army Wars, leading to his promotion to Sheriff. Even hundreds of years old, Doc doesn't plan to retire any time soon.

Fun Facts About "Rip Van Winkle"

. He's quite skilled with an acoustic guitar and doesn't mind playing the occasional song on his time off.

. Due to his laid-back personality, his years of wisdom and the occasional complaint about his old bones, he is often referred to as Grandpa Doc or Old Man. He doesn't really mind the old man nicknames. He does mind being called McGruff, however.

. His bloodhound form has made him a far better tracker than he was when he was alive. With enhanced senses, including a much stronger sense of smell, he can follow the trail of practically anyone.

Voice Claim: Raul Tejada - Fallout: New Vegas

Art Credit: Juju

Tacitus “Taci” Macello Andronicus, III

Demon Form: Alligator

Age: 44

Division: Stalker

Rank: Sheriff

An quiet and silent enforcer to The Crimson Rangers, one may be surprised to learn that the giant in scales actually leads the Crimson Ranger Stalkers, something that they might find funny until they realized Taci is right behind them. Raised in New Orleans in 1846, Tacitus's human life is a subject he barely likes to touch upon. Aside from his past as a enforcer for a local gang and his death at the hands of a rival gang throwing him to the gators, not much else is touched upon in his tales of his past. But while his past may remain a mystery, his present in Hell is all well known.

After his death, Taci's was quick to rejoin his old gang, making a comfortable living off cracking open skulls and bashing in debtors who tried to swindle them. He grew so comfortable in his position, he would even believe himself unbeatable. But that attitude was all but lost when a new arrival in Hell, a maniacal fox who called herself Viy, sought to take claim over more than just the business. Even though Taci tried to end her reign of terror then and there, he underestimated the warlord's strength and was beaten to unconsciousness. When he next awoke, the hideout was burnt to ruins, the bodies of his allies laid scattered around him and he himself was taken as a prisoner. Enslaved and transferred to Camp Beznadiynyy, Taci was experimented on and tested on with many of the Black Army weapons in an attempt to get him to break to the warlord's will. But even after being a test subject for several years and the torturous process that left numerous unhealable scars all across his body and the lost of his left arm, he would refuse to break, clinging on to a hope that he can escape and crush that warmonger's throat.

While he would never get to deal with Viy personally, his hopes for escape were answered when The Ranger In Red attacked the camp and freed the prisoners inside, Taci included. After Deadeye got him to safety in his woods and even crafted a replacement arm with a hidden cannon from his father's blueprints, Taci felt indebted to the gunslinger and served with Deadeye in the Black Army Wars, even being promoted to Sheriff for his efforts. The gentle giant he may be, he will show no mercy to anyone he hunts.

Fun Facts About "Taci"

. There have been some rumors that Taci manages to keep his assassination targets hidden by eating them, bones and all. It's probably not true. Probably.

. His mechanical arm actually contains a few more nifty gadgets. His fingertips can shoot out .357 Magnum ammunition, his wrist can detach and shoot out with a chain, allowing him to grapple objects or pull targets to him from far away and by detaching his arm, he can fire a last resort cannon blast.

. Due to his crocodilian form and his own swimming skills, Taci does his best work in the water, being practically undetectable in the waves.

Voice Claim: Wrex - Mass Effect

Art Credit: FatForSurvival18

Jessie "Silver" McCoy

Demon Form: Wolf

Age: 19

Division: Gunslinger

Rank: Deputy

While tales of The Reaper in Red struck fear and terror into the hearts of most who hear them, Jessie only found them awe-inspiring and hopeful. Born to a middle class family in Kansas, Jessie had always sought to separate him from the boring deeds of his family. He didn’t want to be known as some random farmer. He wanted his name on wanted posters, to be the next outlaw of legend. Going so far as to begin dressing up like a gunslinger, this wish for fame got him into a bad spot when a greenhorn bounty hunter believed he was the infamous Reaper In Red and forced Jessie to a duel, where he discovered his knack for the quickdraw just in time to shoot the bounty hunter dead. With the bounty hunter's death, Jessie found pride in his actions and left town to continue his life as an outlaw, even though he had no bounty. Despite his lack of experience, his talent for gunslinging was not only keeping him alive, it also brought a good amount of fame to his name. He might have become a legend of the west if not for the bounty hunter's younger brother, who stabbed the "outlaw" to death while his back was turned.

At first an aimless drifter in the afterlife, his actions as a gunfighter soon landed himself an audience with his childhood idol. But instead of greeting the Reaper In Red with the standard hostility, he left Deadeye confused as he went completely starstruck, going on a million miles a minute about Deadeye's past. While Deadeye was confused at the sudden attention, he found Jessie to be a reliable asset to the rangers, not to mention rather enduring that there were some people who actually liked him. So when the ranger offered a spot in his growing gang to the kid, Jessie joined on the spot with a grin on his face. Even after all these years, Jessie may still be as reckless as ever, but his persistence and talent have never once failed The Crimson Rangers.

Fun Facts About "Silver"

. Silver, by his very namesake, is one of the most charming and charismatic members of The Crimson Rangers. Because of his wordsmithing talents, he is often sent as the messenger and communicator to many deals with other demons or those who claim they wish to aid the rangers. And should his wording fail, he's got one hell of a gun hand to back himself up.

. Despite the form of a wolf, Silver is one of the kindest members of The Crimson Rangers, always facing every problem with optimism. However, during the rare times he actually loses his temper, he has a tendency to growl and bear his fangs.

. Having spent most of his childhood pouring through adventure novels and the like, he seems to be a bit genre savvy and tends to anticipates tropes that their targets would use in order to catch them.

Voice Claim: Shinji Ikari - Neon Genesis Evangelion

Art Credit: ✘❝ • 𝕱𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖊 𝕰𝖝𝖙𝖊𝖗𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖆𝖙𝖔𝖗 • ❞✘

Todd "Ranger" Clarkson

Demon Form: Elk

Age: 20

Division: Sharpshooter

Rank: Deputy

Character Owned By: Ranger Todd

Out of the thieves and rouges in the Crimson Rangers, practically no one would expect to encounter a park ranger from the 80's. But don't be so quick as to laugh him off as the eye down the iron sights of his Winchester may be the last thing you never see.

What started as a simple summer job in Beaver Brook National Park quickly spiraled into a mysterious death trap for any poacher who dared to step into those woods. Park Ranger Todd Clarkson, who loved nature and wished to preserve it, often used his rifle to hunt poachers and those who disrespected the forest. While missing posters began to fly up on billboards and milk cartons, his fellow rangers never thought much on it until another park ranger discovered his hideaway shack, filled with evidence of the missing poachers. In his attempt to talk with Todd about the bodies, words were mixed up and a fight broke out. Although Todd managed to win, a fire had broken out in their brawl and gave Todd no time to react as he passed out from both his wounds and the smoke.

Todd would continue to stay near the trees and forests he grew attached to and was even bold enough to camp in the Red Woods, drawing the attention of the Crimson Rangers. While wary of Todd at first, the Crimson Rangers soon found his skills impressive after he aided in securing their home from corporate hands and offered him a place among them. With some refinement from Deadeye and Rip Van Winkle, Todd grew into a valued sharpshooter who now lends his rifle to the cause of The Crimson Rangers.

Fun Facts About "Ranger"

. His hat was given to him by the love of his life just before he died, and it's his most sentimental possession.

. Ranger dosen't keep pistols. He's confident in his ability to nail his target with a repeater at long range or short. And on the rare occasion he misses a point blank shot, he has even more confidence in his hunting knife.

. While a rarity, there’s a chance every now and then where he will cough up smoke. He’s not really sure why.

Voice Claim: MacCready - Fallout 4

Kozō "Kage" Jirokichi

Demon Form: Rat

Age: 41

Division: Stalker

Rank: Deputy

Originally a street rat from the streets of Kyoto, Japan, Kozō had grown to hate the taxes and laws that oppressed his people and sought to fight against the might of the local lords. His attempts to protest against the lords resulted in his branding and banishment, further dragging his name into the dirt. However, he was undeterred in his fight and instead snuck into the palace and ran off with their entire supply of gold. Working on his own, Kozō adopted a Robin Hood like persona, robbing the rich and sharing his wealth to the poor. He grew infamous for his exploits and managed to sneak and steal for fifteen years until he was finally caught and executed. Even though his intentions were for the greater good, thievery is still a sin and so he was dammed to Hell.

Upon arrival, Kozō attempted to fade into obscurity, but his actions had caught the attention of the overlords. They were worried they too would be robbed by the infamous thief and attempted to have him killed once again. But before one attempt almost claimed his afterlife, he was rescued by The Crimson Rangers, who he felt rather grateful towards as they were some of the first few people who showed him kindness since he landed down in Hell. Lending his skills as a thief, he was taken into their fold and has resumed his old life of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Just with the aid of more than himself.

Fun Facts About "Kage"

. The blade at his hip is the infamous Juuchi Yosamu, or 10,000 Cold Nights, that he stole from legendary swordsmith, Sengo Muramasa. The blade is so perfectly sharp that it is able to slice through anything as if it was passing through water, be it solid steel to even the air around him. While it is a incredible weapon, he finds it is also an incredible thieving tool since he can practically make his own entrances and exits.

. He is rarely ever far from a bottle of sake. While he usually keeps himself off the bottle until his task is complete, there are times where he will sneak a quick sip if things get too stressful.

. While he primarily speaks in Japanese, he can understand English fairly well and has been teaching some of the rangers Japanese in return. It's a slow process, but a process nonetheless.

Voice Claim: Kazuma Kiryu - Yakuza

Art Credit: Shakers

Rosa "Bullet-Weaver" de la Costa

Demon Form: Fox

Age: 28

Division: Gunslinger

Rank: Deputy

For Rosa de la Costa, life is as wild as you wish to make it. And if you must be the one to make it wild, you better leave a performance that will be remembered. A dashing pistolera from Mexico, Rosa life started out with a dream to see the world and indulge in every pleasure she could achieve through dance and song. But in a time before such things would become popular and where those who reached fame had to twirl guns or be feared, life was often poor for Rosa who had to expand her talents to keep a stable income. Through a combination of dancing, singing and sleeping with anyone who paid every now and then, she had begun to earn a name for herself, short as it was yet enough to live a life of comfort and carefreeness. Of course, this life wouldn’t last forever, much to her dismay. But a richer, more exciting one would be drawing near as one night, she was accosted by three thugs, a gaggle of foul-mouthed morons who were interested in a free performance and were not looking to hear a no. But when they fired upon her after a rather violent refusal, the dancer was miraculously unscathed from the flurry of bullets, leaving her bewildered and amazed. Even more so as she stole a pistol from them and fired three rounds in their heads, despite never even holding a gun before. For Rosa, this was a sign that her life was meant for more, a sign to be something greater. And with three men dead and her being the only witness, she was eager to leave her old life behind anyway. Over the next few years, tales of the Bullet-Weaver were spread far and wide, a queen among gunslingers who no bullet could touch. She was feared for her pistol work, beloved for her beauty and skills, and was proud of the reputation she had earned. But she had attracted more than just looks as she found out too late one night when a handsome stranger she had taken to bed revealed himself to be a bounty hunter. And while no bullet could ever touch her, the hangman's noose certainly could.

She may have known exactly where she was going in the afterlife, but she had no idea it was going to be so alive and vibrant, especially in Pentagram City. Putting her pistols aside for the moment, Rosa spent her early years lavishing in her original dream, finding fame and fortune as a lounge singer. But even though she had found a life of comfort, she found it rather boring and uneventful. Every day was a song she knew and every want was taken care of in tandem. The life of a wandering pistolera had left quite the impression upon her and she ached to return to the life of adventure once more. But with the end of gunslingers approaching and more advanced guns being forged, she felt as if it was a dream she couldn't reach. She felt she was now stuck in her afterlife until one of her fans, a certain jackrabbit who knew about the pistolera, was more interested in her skills with a gun instead and invited her to join The Crimson Rangers. Finding comfort, safety and familiarity in the Crimson Rangers, Rosa has since become a valued member of the gang, even teaching them her ways of evasion. At least to anyone who can keep up.

Fun Facts About "Bullet-Weaver"

. She may no longer practice prostitution, but the attitude for it never left her. She’s not above using her charms to seduce her targets, loves a good dirty joke and tends to flirt with just about anyone and everyone.

. Though her skill with guns is as good as any ranger, she’s also quite skilled in the capoeira marital art, often getting through every fight with flare and grace.

. The red bandana she wears was a gift from the first man she ever grew to love. While his name has now been lost to her, the bandana remains as a treasured possession.

Voice Claim: Isabela - Dragon Age: Inquisition

Art Credit: Sugartooth

Holly "Iron Maiden" Mayberry

Demon Form: Horse

Age: 35

Division: Sharpshooter

Rank: Deputy

While she is now known for her tough-as-nails personality and unwillingness to take anything lying down, There was a time in Holly’s life where her only wants were raising a family and living a life of home and comfort. But that dream has long since died.

Formerly a loving wife to Eric Mason, a local cowboy in Marble Falls, Texas, her former life was taken from her after the recently appointed sheriff took an interest in her. Even though she was married and completely uninterested in such a vain and callous man, he cared not of her concerns and wanted to make her his, no matter how. And when one of his attempts earned him a black eye from Eric, the sheriff twisted his sentence from assault to attempted murder and sentenced him to hang. Seeing her husband hanging from the gallows brought something cold and vengeful in her soul as she used the sheriff’s feelings against him, brought him out to Eric's grave and murdered him with her bare hands before giving one last goodbye to her husband and running out of Marble Falls as fast as she could. Bringing Eric's killer to justice brought a sense of belonging that left an impression on the widow as she decided to pick up a line of work she knew would both be bringing in money and the feeling of vengeance being dealt: bounty hunting. Over the next years, her true talents began to shine through the veil she had once believed she had to be. With either rifle or revolver, her skills as a shootist made her into a force of nature and a fearful sight to any bounty she chose to pursue, even managing to match the best bounty hunters in the west. However, her final target, the infamous Johnny Harlan was never claimed as she was shot and killed by rival bounty hunter and inside man of The Outlaws, Graham McKendrick.

At first, she was a bit distressful where she had ended up. But she knew there was no undoing what was done now and continued her bounty hunting ways. Incidentally, one of her bounties, more specifically the bounty on Doc, led to her recruitment into the Crimson Rangers after finding their ideals appealing to her need to dismantle the corrupt people in power. Finding no reason to doubt her or her excellent sharpshooting skills, she quickly became a welcomed addition. And while she mostly keeps her outlook of stoicism and bluntness, there's been the occasional smile on Holly's face since joining the rangers.

Fun Facts About "Iron Maiden"

. Her eyes are a bit sensitive to light and, as a result, are why she often wears a pair of sunglasses. While she's went through many over the years, her favorite are a pair of aviator shades.

. Her hat and lever-action Winchester rifle, Ol' Hickory, were the last gifts from her husband before they parted long ago. She refuses to let another soul lay so much as a finger on either.

. Holly has a weakness for similarly tough women and tends to get a bit flustered around them.

Voice Claim: Femgineer - DustyOldRoses

Art Credit: 𝕾𝖘𝖘𝖎𝖗 𝕻𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖚𝖘𝖘𝕾

Roblyn "Huntress" Valencia

Demon Form: Chicken

Age: 27

Division: Stalker

Rank: Deputy

While many have the choice to become a criminal or not, this wasn’t the case for Robyn Valencia, daughter & heir to the Valencia mafia family. Born between the union of mob boss and leader, Alessio Valencia, and a former mistress of his, Robyn had spent her whole life learning the skills of a criminal and was personally taught by both her father and the members of his growing gang. Despite their infamous reputation, she never saw them as villains as they treated all with the upmost respect, especially her and her father. She grew to carry a great respect for her father and his trade, finding their work powerful and practical, even growing proud how one day it would all be hers. That day came sooner than she would have liked when her father was killed by a shot in the back after he attempted to duel a swindling gambler in white. She wished to avenge her father by tracking his killer, who had fled to the United States, and began a promising start to her family by expanding their work to the San Francisco area. When she learned that her father’s murderer had been killed by a so called “Reaper In Red”, her fury grew restless and disastrously as she attempted to take on The Reaper In Red. But her attempts to kill him ultimately resulted in her end after a risky chase across the city rooftops caused her to miss a step and fall to her death, leaving her gang without a leader.

For the first few years, her afterlife was spent in waiting, doing hit jobs here and there to improve her skills. And when The Reaper in Red finally died, she attempted to try again on Cyrus's life, who had long since calmed from his more murderous days as The Reaper in Red. Even though he had retired from his murderous persona, he managed to win once more but wanted to put away his past and chose to spare her. This left Robyn in a state of disbelief and revaluation of both her afterlife and what had led here. When tales of The Crimson Rangers began to surface around Hell, it was surprising for Deadeye to see her again, especially hearing that she wanted to join them. Her reasonings remain a mystery but she joined the gang and slowly began to move on from her past. Finding a home with the Crimson Rangers, she decided to stay and has stuck with them ever since.

Fun Facts About “Huntress”

. Huntress was one of the first benefactors of The Crimson Rangers as her ties to the Valencia family remain strong and loyal. In exchange for turning a blind eye to her family, she has supplied the rangers with plenty of soldiers, hundreds of weapons and a whole lot of money for whatever else is desired.

. Huntress is prehaps the coldest member of the group, but there is hints that the Crimson Rangers examples of selflessness are starting to rub off on her. Barely, but it's there.

. Do NOT make fun of her sinner form. Taking cracks at her appearance tends to never go well for whoever started it.

Voice Claim: Rose Of Sharon Cassidy - Fallout New Vegas

Art Credit: I just exists

#hazbin hotel oc #hhoc #The Crimson Rangers #Deadeye #Wiley “Dust Devil” Jackson #Doc Rip Van Winkle Friday #Tacitus “Taci” Macello Andronicus III #Jessie Quickdraw McCoy #Todd Ranger Clarkson #Kozō Kage Jirokichi #Rosa Bullet-Weaver de la Costa #Holly Iron Maiden Mayberry #Roblyn Huntress Valencia #hazbin hotel

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docfuture · 4 years

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Princess, part 12

[This story is a prequel, set in an alternate 2012, several years before The Fall of Doc Future, when Flicker is 16. Links to some of my other work are here. Updates are theoretically biweekly. Next chapter is partly done so I’m going to try to get it out early in September.]

Previous: Part 11

Recovery--and a start at change and learning. Flicker thought about the wrap up of her first session, and Stella's comments on paying a bit more attention to the ways other people were already helping. "... and I just suppressed thinking about it at all because the frustration got real bad when I didn't," Flicker had said. "Understandable," said Stella. "Did you consider talking to Armadillo?" "I talked to her about some general stuff, but she's... old." Stella nodded slowly. "I can see how the Database might have given you the impression that sex was invented sometime in the 60s. And Armadillo was already middle-aged by then." "That's not fair. It just that the primary sources were so indirect and coded about it. And left so much out. The Database doesn't..." Flicker frowned, then sped up to check a few things. After a while she slowed back down. "Well, crap," she said. "I learned most of my 20th century history when I was randomly bouncing around the Database reading whatever caught my interest when I was 11 or 12. So I missed stuff. And I didn't go back, and made some implicit assumptions." "You might find a discussion with Armadillo illuminating," said Stella. "Have you considered that Doc might not be the person contributing the most to the collective judgement of your social maturity level that the Database uses to set your default access levels? He seems willing to delegate to people he trusts, and of those, Armadillo clearly has had experience with children." "Oof. No, I hadn't thought of that." Flicker sighed. "Sometimes I wonder about the amount of time I spend mentally running circles around things without looking at what's at the center." "Don't be too harsh on yourself. You blame most of your social difficulties on mental differences, poor references, and lack of practice. But the form of your education mattered, too. You never went to school before your graduate work, and you did most of that remotely. You learned from Doc, the Database, and direct observation--primarily of static scenes because of your speed. And the bulk of educational material in the Database was written by and for typical humans, with all the embedded assumptions that entails." "I really like the Database. And the summaries help." Stella shook her head. "Not always. Not if you don't know what's missing. The Database AI made judgements when you were younger about what was appropriate at the time. This shaped your knowledge map, which was already going to be very different from most humans. So do your Database access restrictions. Information revealed selectively or out of order can harm. And if the Database can't reveal A to you--for, say, privacy reasons--and revealing B without A would cause harm, it will restrict B as well. I'm sure Doc must have warned you about that." "Yeah, but a lot of his restrictions seem arbitrary." "Many will, if done right. Database restrictions can and do cause bias problems, but overriding them is inherently risky. The Database AI has to balance that, and there are no optimal choices, because the whole idea of the Database as an 'objective' knowledge map is a illusion. The Database is biased by what gets recorded. Your access to it is further biased, and what you actually do access is even more biased. But the idea that you are necessarily getting closer to impartial truth when you override a warning is dangerous." "So I can mess myself up with overrides." "You already have. Repeatedly. Information shaping is one of my more powerful tools. Cruder forms of it are in widespread use and getting more effective every day. But perceptions come pre-shaped." Stella had sipped from her cup of coffee before continuing. "For example, you are highly proficient in many math-heavy technical subjects not usually mastered until graduate school, and awkward in areas typically covered by early childhood education or peer group socialization. So when you made your implicit assumptions? Of course you missed things. However." Stella was good at an 'I have a secret to share--eventually' style of speaking that was both mildly annoying and very effective at focusing attention. "Yes?" said Flicker. "Anyone would. You just missed different things. Others might have helped with some of them. But no one could predict them all. Not Doc, not the Database, not me. So do what you can, but don't be too hard on yourself when mistakes happen." "Ah. I'll try to remember that." ***** Flicker tried to follow Stella's initial guidelines, which focused on short term recovery, stabilization, and 'stop making this worse'. Avoiding patrols was the most important and hardest to follow advice. Physical therapy and exercise were tedious, but not difficult. The dietary changes... were trickier. Flicker had lost weight from the accident and the isotope exchanger sessions which she really couldn't afford. And her kind of pseudo-shapeshifter healing depended on adequate body mass. Stella forwarded some funny essays on cuisine and recovery for shapeshifters supposedly written by a French werewolf, and had the Database reset her food and drink related warnings, with an eye to both mental and physical health. She'd also pointed out to Flicker that it only took a few early incidents of plasma in the GI tract while pushing the limits of her entropy dumping to cause lasting aversion to eating much while on call. So when she later started to feel like she was on duty almost all the time, she stopped eating proper meals except with friends. Staying off patrol for now made it possible to change that, but not easy. Theoretically, she could eat like an Olympic athlete in training while exercising appropriately, and recover quite quickly, but that wasn't realistic. She was stubborn, but so were her habits. She couldn't patrol, but she could keep busy by surveying--updating Database geographical and obstacle data--and doing interior construction and finishing work on her house. Back-ordered materials had piled up. Flicker used power tools mainly for precision and delicacy; she had custom hand tools for speed and power, and boxes of regular hammers and screwdrivers to replace the ones she wore out or broke. Superspeed and robotic help let her make rapid progress in the half days she was putting in to it. Common areas and guest rooms were finished, and recreation areas, a wider variety of workshops, and Database node expansion rooms were all taking shape. Making time to talk and eat with friends wasn't sophisticated advice, but it was obviously helpful. She'd had dinner with Jetgirl and her husband yesterday. Good food, carefully non-specific sympathy, then after dinner, 'girl talk' with Jetgirl. Which meant tech geekery--they spent a few hours discussing the instrumentation and results from Speedtest, and Jetgirl's suggestions for some issues Flicker had encountered expanding her robotics workshop. Reliable comfort. The aftereffects from the cybernetic interface withdrawal were finally mostly gone, and Flicker's metabolism and appetite seemed to be responding to her exercises. She was definitely putting on muscle faster than a human could. And she'd mentioned her problem to Stavros, the owner of her favorite Greek restaurant, he'd gotten a look on his face like he'd been personally called upon to save the world, and now she had enough takeout in her fridge to feed a starving pseudo-mythological extradimensional being for a week. Today, a visit with Armadillo. She had promised something interesting. Flicker had once asked Armadillo why she hadn't picked the name Glyptodon instead, because that seemed closer in size and fearsomeness to her appearance. Armadillo had laughed and said she'd never heard of them at the time--the late 40s. The two of them were at Armadillo's house, sitting at a table with an impressive feast. It was not unusual for Armadillo; with super strength, near invulnerability, and half a ton of mass, she ate a lot, and saw no reason not to enjoy it. Armadillo was cheerful and a good friend, as well as effectively family. And at an age of 98, she knew a lot of history, especially the kinds that didn't usually get recorded very well. The main reason Flicker didn't visit more often was an embarrassing one: When she'd been younger she'd had episodes of severe insomnia. But Armadilo knew how to spin a story to help. So when the biological part of Flicker's brain was working, it associated Armadillo's stories strongly with drowsiness. Which didn't mean they were boring. Armadillo was sharing some anecdotes from the late Pre-Net era--the 50s through the 70s--when Luce Cannon, Belle Tinker, and One-eyed Jack had been prominent superheroes. They had set precedents that ended up shaping the way the Database had been assembled. The norms Luce had established as a practical way of preserving relationship privacy and security without centralized infrastructure required narrative indirection and implication in order to discuss certain subjects at all. Armadillo was very good at the style needed. Unfortunately, that and the lack of unrestricted Database references hindered the usual ways Flicker updated her memories, so she was having trouble with details. But there were definitely differences from the way she'd thought about the origins of the Database. "Huh," she said. "I always assumed that Doc decided everything important when he first built the Database, and the rest was just legacy format and historical records." "Not entirely," said Armadillo. "Luce knew all about records and careful access--she built her own intelligence operation, after all--and Belle was already starting to convert some of them to electronic form and building early bots in the fifties. But reliability for anyone but Belle was always a problem, and she didn't have the level of conscientiousness about documentation that Doc did." "Um. Doc isn't always that great about documentation. He gets--" "The Database AI or someone else to do a lot of it. I know. But someone does. Heck, I've done my share. Belle was way ahead of her time, but we never found anything but cryptic notebook scribbles for some of her weirder stuff. Left a bit of a mess after she was gone. Doc brought in organization, documentation, robustness, and speed, and then extended it to everything. But the first Database grew out of what he built for Luce not long before she died. And Luce set some access conditions, which Doc won't change without a good reason. So don't blame Doc for all of them." "So the age restrictions are from Luce?" "Some of them, yeah--but they aren't hardcoded, they're more flexible; we knew they'd have to accommodate aliens and extradimensional beings and whatnot. It's really a maturity threshold." Armadillo smiled. "But I have a treat for you." "Oh?" "There are a few things I have personal discretion about. And you've hit a block involving one of them twice now. It's a good example of how we handled a few things back in the day, and might help you understand some of the ambiguity. I can show it to you, but you'll have to put your visor on locked standby or take it off--no unrestricted electronic images of this are allowed." Flicker frowned, but arranged a protocol with the Database and pulled back her hood. Armadillo pushed back a plate, picked up a small case, opened it, and pulled out a large photographic print. "This is a copy of the last known good photograph of Belle Tinker. The original is in my family photo album in one of Doc's vaults." Flicker moved her chair closer to get a better look. It was a group photo, centered on a younger Armadillo. "What's that blacked out area?" "Non-superheroes with living relatives. The photo is from my 60th birthday party in 1974." Given the date, Flicker wasn't surprised that Armadillo was a bit narrower--she'd still been slowly adding mass. But... "Head spikes?" Armadillo laughed. "Yeah, that was my last try at regrowing them. I'd been on a trip to Tokyo the previous year, and there was a translator around during a Kaiju attack. I ended up stopping it by talking to the big fellow about the relative effectiveness of head spikes for challenge bellowing. We had a nice talk, and everyone went home happy. No property damage, even. So I decided to give them another try. But mine were only a little stronger than steel, so they kept breaking off--same kind of problem you have with your hair. I finally gave up in 75? Or maybe 76? But really, I'm the least interesting person in that photo. I'm curious what you think about the others." "Okay," said Flicker. "But that goblet you're drinking out of... Is that a demon skull?" "Yep. The goblet was a birthday present. It would have been rude not to try it out." Armadillo nodded towards a nearby cabinet. "I still have it, but I hardly ever use it anymore. Little call for it, and it's tricky to clean." "Um, okay." Flicker studied the image of the woman with red hair, a lab coat, safety glasses, and an expression of indulgent patience. "Belle has the same kind of 'I could be in my lab working on something cool' face I've seen Doc make. Most of the contemporary sources I found in the Database were really bad at describing her. She'd have been, what, in her late forties? She looks younger than that, fit, and tough, I don't understand what was going on." Armadillo smiled. "There were a few that treated her reasonably--but they tended not to emphasize appearance. Belle did not fit any 'feminine' stereotype back then, there were a number of media bigwigs who really didn't like her, and she didn't humor patronizing reporters. So it was common for them to distort or belittle her intelligence and accomplishments, insult her appearance, attack her character, or just use bad pictures. If they had to write about her at all. That's one reason why the quality of much of what you found about her is poor." Another woman with short dark hair was leaning against the table with a relaxed smile, but a very clear presence. "Did Luce Cannon always look like she was in charge?" asked Flicker. "I mean, it was your party, but..." "She could hide it, but she was keeping an eye on someone who could get overenthusiastic." A girl wearing a black outfit was smiling intently at the camera with a predatory look. She appeared to be around eleven; it was hard for Flicker to judge ages. "Is that a toy sword?" asked Flicker. "It looks awfully realistic." "Nope. That was Katya's first magic sword. She outgrew it; it's in the vaults now." "Magic sword? Wait... Katya? That's Jumping Spider?" "Oh, goodness no; she wouldn't use that name for years. That's Katya the... Hunter, I think? She switched from the Devastator sometime around then. This was only a year after Luce started teaching her." "Did... What... Why is she waving a sword around at your birthday party?" "It was a compromise; she wanted to make a little pyramid out of the other skulls for the picture, but Luce vetoed that as unsanitary. Just as well; Belle said they smelled pretty manky." "Other skulls?" Every time Flicker got a question answered, she immediately had several more--and she couldn't speed up and check the Database because her visor was off. "Besides the one Jack and Belle turned into the goblet for my birthday present. It was Katya's idea, so she got to hunt the demons, and she went a little overboard getting spare skulls. Jack took her to the dimension where they lived--nasty place, but they were immune to poison, which was handy." "...it's a magic goblet." "Oh, yeah, it detoxifies anything in it," said Armadillo. "If I ever want to be absolutely sure I can't be poisoned or I'm worried about contamination, I use it. But it's usually overkill, it makes most non-alcoholic beverages taste kind of funny, and properly cleaning the precipitate chamber is a pain." "Doc never let me hunt demons when I was ten," muttered Flicker as she studied the figure standing next to Belle in the photo. "Mores change, and your adoption process wasn't complete yet. It would have been awkward to explain." "Did One-eyed Jack ever show any sign of aging? It doesn't look like his appearance changed at all in pictures." "Nope," said Armadillo. "At least not from when I first met him in '50 or so until he disappeared in the nineties. White hair, neatly trimmed beard, and the eyepatch. He almost always wore that hooded robe and carried that staff with the magical doodad on the end. Occasionally he'd switch to a really old style suit and a dress cane--he could do an impressive Offended Aristocrat act. But his apparent age never changed. I suspect he was some kind of shapeshifter, and I know he could create illusions, though, so I'm not sure anyone really knows for sure." "Wait. Disappeared? The Database lists him as 'presumed dead' with supporting evidence; someone found his eyepatch and a scrap of robe near a small crater in the Topaz Realm and Doc verified they were genuine." "Yep. Doesn't mean he died. He might have just decided it was time to stop being Jack. Hard to believe someone as careful as him would botch a portal like that, and it seemed awfully pat that it happened somewhere with enough ravenous scavengers to ensure the lack of remains wasn't suspicious. If he was a shapeshifter, there could be someone with his memories who looks quite different running around somewhere. And he had a saying: 'Sometimes you see something coming and all you can do is get out of the way.' I think that's what he did." Armadillo grinned. "But then, I've been accused of being sentimental from time to time." "Okay," said Flicker. "If you're suspicious about Jack, what about Belle? She was declared dead, but all the Database says is that something catastrophic happened to her portal generator late at night and she was gone afterwards. Jack is recorded as testifying that as far as he could tell, she hadn't been murdered or kidnapped, definitely wasn't alive on Earth, and he wasn't able to tell quite what happened with the portal. But Doc said that if she really wanted to burn her bridges, she could have set the portal generator to self destruct, then gone through to somewhere before it blew. He still has the remains of it in the vaults." Armadillo looked out the window. "All true. She seemed kind of withdrawn for a while before that. Well, withdrawn for her--she was always full of more ideas than she had time to try. She'd had a disagreement with Luce and the Volunteer for a couple of years over... I guess you could call it public policy. She made some predictions that turned out to be pretty accurate, and the first part of one of them had just happened--that was '80. It's conceivable she might have just been tired of Earth. But then she was kind of close to Jack, and he was pretty down afterwards--and if she went somewhere else, I don't know why he wouldn't be able to visit. I tried talking to him about it once, and he just shook his head. So I really can't say." "Were they a couple?" asked Flicker. "Database is ambiguous--they at least pretended a few times, but it wasn't clear what was going on. I assume it's okay to ask about that now that they're both gone?" "Heh. It's not forbidden to ask, and they worked well together in the lab when Belle wasn't out causing trouble with Luce. I'll say this; Belle never showed interest in most men--she'd roll her eyes at most of my jokes--and Jack never showed any interest in anyone but Belle. But it could just have been cover; a convenience for both of them." "Oh." Flicker frowned at the last figure--a middle-aged man in nondescript clothing, leaning back in the chair beside Armadillo. His glasses were perched precariously on the end of his nose, his fingers were laced over his chest, and his eyes were closed. "Who is the guy beside you, and why is he asleep?" Armadillo smiled. "Oh, he'd had a long day, then a nice meal, so he just was catching a little nap. He sometimes answered to the name of Chandler Devon." Okay, now I know I'm being tested. Flicker sped up. The name was vaguely familiar--why? She glanced at Luce again, then remembered. Chandler Devon was connected to Luce Cannon in some way, perhaps one of her agents, or possibly romantically linked--but that had been a shaky source. Documentation about him had been really spotty, with large gaps. He'd been a skilled enough amateur geologist to get a few articles published, later in life. But his fondness for volcanoes had apparently done him in--he'd disappeared during the Mount Pinatubo eruption a few years after Luce's death. That made the third nominally dead person in the picture with a missing body. The only person who was definitely dead and buried was Luce--she'd died of cancer in the late 80s. There were several odd things that required explanation about 'Chandler Devon'. Why was he even at Armadillo's party? Had Luce brought him? Why hadn't anyone woken him up for the picture? It was a memorable occasion. Was it a prank? Wait. Armadillo had said she was the least interesting person in the photo. What could possible make him more interesting than her? If he-- Oh. So that's what he looks like when he's asleep. But how did he manage... Luce. Of course. She was the original super spy. Jumping Spider's teacher. If anyone could cover everything he'd need, it would have been her. That explained so much. He'd gone more than fifty years without anyone-- Idiot. Everyone in that picture probably knew. He'd always had a family. A family of choice. They just never, ever gave it away. Even when they disagreed with each other. But still, a few years after Luce died, he decided it was time to stop being Chandler Devon. Could he still maintain cover? Probably; Jumping Spider was 27 by then, and Doc was 17, with the Database up and running. But the Lost Years were about to start, and Doc had seen that coming. No longer worth the trouble, maybe? How much had Luce meant to Chandler Devon? A lot to think about, most of it not even about Belle. But there was etiquette to be observed. And as far as Flicker could tell, it was to indicate obliquely that she'd guessed, but not say anything unambiguous. She could come up with something. She slowed back down--and found herself blinking back tears. "He looks like... someone who works very hard," she managed. "And doesn't get a chance to relax very often. I'm glad no one woke him up." Armadillo nodded slowly. "So was I." She started to put the picture back in the box. "Wait," said Flicker. "Who took the picture? I thought I knew, but now I think I was wrong." Armadillo paused. "Another time, maybe. You probably have enough to cogitate about today already." "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Next: Part 13

#FallofDocFuture #FallMisc

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greyias · 4 years

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FIC: Smoke and Mirrors - Chapter 17

Title: Smoke and Mirrors Fandom: SWTOR Pairing: Theron Shan/f!Jedi Knight Rating: T Genre: Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn Synopsis: Something’s rotten on Carrick Station, and Theron won’t rest until he finds out what. But picking at the frayed threads of suspicion quickly unravels a conspiracy much larger than even the Republic’s top spy can handle on his own. (A mostly canon-compliant retelling of the Forged Alliances storyline, as seen through the eyes of Theron Shan.) Author’s Notes and Spoilers: See Chapter 1.

Chapter Index: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Crossposted to AO3

As soon as he was inside the door of his apartment, Theron had the chip out of his pocket and inserted it into his datapad. The first file on it wasn’t any official SIS document at all but apparently a note, written especially for him:

So here I am, minding my own business, when this intel request comes across my desk from none other than your old buddy, Rian Darok. I pulled it, but then I asked myself, what does a SpecOps officer need with this information? From what I can tell, cracking down on cargo smuggling isn’t the highest of priorities for him and his team. I pulled a copy for you too, since you’re so interested in “oddities” right now. I don’t know what you think is going on, but you know this guy has clout right? And not just in SpecOps. Watch yourself. — JB

Theron tried not to roll his eyes as he paged to the next file on the chip. Jonas was a good man to have along on a mission, but sometimes he could get hung up on something. Apparently in this case it was the havoc that Rian Darok could cause for an unsuspecting SIS Agent. Which wouldn’t be a problem, because Theron was suspecting everything right now. Which was probably good for his survival chances in the short term, but would probably give him hypertension if he ever lived long enough to see old age.

He scanned over the pulled file, but as Jonas said it was… just odd.

"Known Smugglers: Inner Rim" was just what it said. A giant list of cargo smugglers that operated in the Inner Rim. And by giant, he meant several thousands names. It would take far too long for him to cross-reference every name by hand. He was going to need to get creative on this.

He sat down at the terminal in his apartment, and began to start typing. The programming required to cross-reference the names against what he knew about the Korriban and Tython ops was complex, and he had to be very careful to hide his trail in case it dinged anything classified. The SIS didn’t keep it’s data on the HoloNet, but it definitely had its own hooks into the system. If he needed to do a deeper search on any of the names of the list, he could do that manually, but he needed to narrow this down to something manageable, otherwise he could be chasing a dead lead for months.

The chronometer had already ticked well past midnight, and he was nearing the end of his coding efforts when his implants alerted him to a new message in his inbox. He finished his train of thought, then pulled away from the data terminal, feeling his muscles protest at the motion after being hunched into one position for so long. Scooping up his forgotten datapad, he opened up his inbox to see who had written.

To: Theron Shan From: Greyias Highwind Subject: Late Reply

I must apologize for the delayed reply. Our latest mission hit a slight snag, and I only now have had time to catch up on my correspondence. Barnaba is a very lovely travel spot, as long as you don’t mind the occasional internal spat between royal houses. Kira wants to buy a timeshare here. She says that it would be a fun vacation spot. I tried to remind her we don’t collect a salary (as you accurately pointed out), but Doc nixed the idea before I could, saying this visit gave him too much work already and doesn’t want any more gray hairs. He can be a bit vain at times but is probably right in this case.

It sounds like you have been keeping yourself busy as well, even if it was perhaps less exciting work. Did you ever find what you were looking for in all of that data? I don’t know if it helps, but in a letter about the ongoing reconstruction efforts at the temple, the Grand Master mentioned a missing Rakata artifact. I unfortunately didn’t have much time to spend in the archives during our initial reconstruction efforts, but I didn’t see any artifacts tucked under anyone’s arm while they were leaving. Perhaps it was extracted during the original raid? I must confess, if the Council was hiding a piece of Rakata technology, then they did not want it falling into the wrong hands. In my own experience it is rarely used for benevolent purposes.

If the artifact was included in the SIS’s reports, I wonder if it is mentioned there the exact nature of the device. I could enquire further with Master Satele regarding it, but I am afraid I am not very good at concealing the truth from her in matters such as these. It is probably best if I don’t attempt it unless you think it’s necessary.

I think I hear my self-appointed keeper returning. I must wrap this up before he confiscates this datapad as well. I will continue to wait to see if you discover anything considered “noteworthy”.

I have a feeling you will know exactly where to find me.

As he finished the letter, Theron couldn’t help the frown. A missing piece of Rakata tech definitely could have been among the missing items. He’d have to check into the official report, but it would take a few extra steps to keep his name from showing up on the logs since they’d closed out the investigation. Surely the Empire wouldn’t have conducted an entire raid in the heart of the Republic for just one artifact. Surely their resources would have been better directed elsewhere. The more he tried to fit the pieces of all of this together, the less this made sense. There was something else going on here, he just wasn’t connecting the right dots.

He glanced back at the data terminal, his back screaming in protest at the thought of returning to the hunched over position so soon. He began to perform a series of exercises to try and stretch out the kinks, carefully balancing the datapad so he could re-read the contents of the letter again as if it might magically answer any of the questions it raised. As he focused on the details to see if he missed anything regarding the artifact, the reason for the delay in reply started to prickle at him. The letter had definitely been written with far more reserve than the previous ones.

As he finally worked free the knot in his lower back, he pulled up the HoloNet and ran a search on news articles for the Tapani sector. He didn’t need to look far to find the buzz about a daring rescue of an entire orphanage from the nefarious plot of a rogue minor house trying to curry favor with the losing house in the Barnabas succession. They apparently took the building as a hideout concealing a hidden stash of weapons and had planted dentonite around the perimeter. All orphans had safely been pulled from the exploding building and while the article didn’t say there was going to be a statue erected in a certain Jedi’s honor, Theron half expected it to. He was already scrubbing a hand across his face by the time he got to the end. Beyond being possibly the most disgustingly cliched do-gooder he’d ever met, the woman was a giant flashing neon sign that attracted attention wherever she went. What the hell had he been thinking bringing her in on this? There was no way they were going to remain under the radar if she stopped what she was doing every five seconds to rescue kath pups and nexu kittens.

He opened up a new message, and stared at it for a few moments before he began writing out his reply:

To: Greyias Highwind From: Theron Shan Subject: Interesting

I’m sure the life of a Jedi Knight is very busy, especially one that seems to wind up on the top of the HoloNet News feed as often as you do. It’s understandable that you can’t always reply to every piece of mail you get right away. Although I do admit I was thinking I’d hear back sooner than a week.

But your reply, even delayed, is appreciated. I hadn’t gotten far sifting through the data, but I’m going to double-check the report when I get in tomorrow to see if I can find the piece of tech you mentioned in the log. If the Council had it locked up, I doubt they were willing to share with the SIS the exact nature of the device. But hey, maybe we’ll get lucky and everyone will have been in a sharing mood. Hope springs eternal right?

Speaking of the Council, I think you’re right in that we should probably not share anything with the Grand Master right now. All I have right now are threads and suspicions, but nothing concrete. We need to figure out what’s going on before anyone’s going to take us seriously. I’m getting there, but it’s slow going. I’ve gotten some leads on Darok, but they’re just… odd. He’s started requesting intel, like on the weaponization of the Iso-5 on Tython. That makes sense. My other lead is just confusing, and I’ve got no idea what it means. I was actually working on it when your message came. If anything comes from it, I’ll let you know.

Theron stared at the blinking cursor, trying decide if he should end it there, but something was still nagging at him. Rescued orphans aside, there was nothing in the report that indicated why it took her an entire week to check her inbox, seeing as that incident had occurred almost five days ago. It was none of his damn business and he didn’t care. He really didn’t. Not beyond keeping an eye on a potentially valuable asset for his operation. Still, it felt as if he didn’t quite have control over his fingers typing out the last portion of his reply.

Now, it’s not my business or anything, but in my line of work I’m used to reading between the lines. I couldn’t help but notice you mentioning everything but exactly what delayed your reply. If I do find something, are you going to be up to joining my investigation? Or do I need to write your medic for permission first? Hopefully you managed to hide that datapad from him successfully enough so you don’t have to smuggle another one just to check your mail.

I’ve got to finish running down this other lead before I call it a night. If I find anything new, I’ll be in touch. Try not to blow yourself up rescuing another orphanage in the meantime.

#swtor fanfiction #theron shan x jedi knight #Theron Shan #Female Jedi Knight/Hero of Tython #oc: greyias highwind #otp: adorkable #smoke and mirrors #SoR Fic O Doom #swtor #fanfic #greyfic

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