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magefeathers · 6 months ago

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In honor of TMBTE’s first birthday I’ve decided to finally unleash my dissertation on my unusual interpretation(s) of Sleep! I’ve only ever seen one person who had a similar outlook to me, and they said they received some Negative Feedback on their views, so uh, don’t shoot me?

My favorite thing about this band's fandom is exploration of the lore, how open to interpretation everything is, and how welcome we are to find our own stories within the source material. I love reading how other people interpret certain songs, or the overarching story, differently from each other based on their own outlooks and experiences. That's what I think the point is. So I want to be clear that I'm not trying to say I'm right, I'm not trying to say anyone else is wrong, I'm just expressing my own opinion.

Grab a drink, it's a long one. I won't give a TL;DR because I don't want people to reactively shoot down my theory without reading my reasoning, but I will say it deviates from the more standard interpretations in two ways:

I don't believe Sleep is meant to be an actual deity, I think it's meant to be more allegorical, a metaphor for something real.

I don't think the music, or the story being told, is about Sleep.

I'm sorry if I've already lost you with the first point. I'm sorry if I seem like a party pooper. I love the aesthetic and the worldbuilding and the symbolism, and I love the creativity of the fans who build out the story on the premise of Vessel actually communing with and having some manner of relationship with this great, unknowable, ancient deity. The issue for me is that I can only read that story if I already have that story in my mind, if that makes sense. Sure, I can make the songs fit that narrative, but I never would have arrived at that narrative on my own, without first reading that the band was made to worship this deity. And in my mind, if I couldn't arrive at that conclusion naturally, without being led there, then it probably wasn't the conclusion I was meant to arrive at.

For a while, I could vibe with the idea that Sleep was supposed to be a metaphor for a lover, either present or former, and a toxic relationship he was struggling or had struggled with. But as I delved deeper into their catalogue I very much lost the impression that all of these songs were about one singular person, or even that all of the songs were about romantic relationships in general. And as I got more into the fandom and found out that there was more official dialogue from the band than just the "One Single Interview" everyone talked about, I realized that trying to fit the songs to all be about one person or thing would never work, because the songs weren't about Sleep, there were merely gifts to Sleep.

Now, I could have sworn that when I first got into the band’s lore I read on their official website that their songs are offerings to Sleep - not about Sleep, the way everyone seems to interpret them. That no longer appears to be the case. I have this screenshot that I took of part of what I remember reading, but I distinctly recall there being another paragraph or two in addition to what I cropped, and unfortunately my PC doesn’t show me the link the screenshot was taken on, like my phone would. And in re-reading the text in the screenshot, it does seem to be speaking about Sleep Token as a separate entity so I may be entirely misremembering how official of a source it was ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Regardless, I’ve seen multiple articles that word it in this manner, that the songs are for Sleep rather than about Sleep, and nowhere in the official sources I’ve found is it said that the songs are about Sleep, so I’m going to assume I’m right and continue under the assumption I’ve worked under all along: that the songs are not, in fact, about Sleep.

They are, however, for Sleep. This has never been debated. The songs are tokens, or offerings, to Sleep.

So, let me share with you the official communications that developed my theory. In addition to what I've commonly seen referred to as their "only interview" before II's drumeo video, I've found (poor quality) scans of two magazine spreads, one from Kerrang! and another I'm unsure of the source of, both featuring Jaws. I read most of these after having watched videos of rituals and reading transcripts of the conversation between Vessel and, presumably, his mask, that took place on last year's tour, as well as the monologue from The Room Below. I started to notice a common theme between that more recent conversation and these much earlier interviews, that for some reason surprised me: Vessel had wanted the fans to project onto the music all along.

Noteworthy quotes from the linked sources, in roughly chronological order:

“Our verses are a token, crafted to magnify and embody the multitude of emotion that writhes in our subconscious. Sonically our voice is rooted in the resonation between the notes and your emotion.”

“As musicians we are inspired by the human condition [...]. As followers we are bound by a duty to combine our crafts to create music that conveys some of our most primal, and powerful emotions.”

“We are here to deliver a message; touch people in their hearts and subconscious minds.”

“There exists a considerable body of art that explores the deeper recesses of the human mind. Sleep Token serve as a means to explore this on an individual basis. The music is a representation of one individual’s deepest and most fundamental emotions and desires. This is what people connect to. They see themselves in this individual, and the music becomes about them.”

“The aim is to provide something people can engage with without being obstructed by the identity of its creator.”

“The ultimate goal is to engender a constructive emotional process within as many people as possible. Simply the basic concept of understanding oneself better, understanding others better as a result.”

“Sleep Token draw from the most profound experiences we have in life and, most crucially, where they intersect. [...] To see this within yourself, and then to see it reflected in others - this is the essence of worship.”

“We all desire to see the darkest, most profound aspects of ourselves reflected in the expressions of others. [...] We’re here to provide this expression, so it may serve as a device with which people might understand themselves better.”

"We are here to silently collect. To project ourselves onto one-another."

"Perhaps that is another reason why we are here. At the very least, we have all suffered."

"I think they just want to know that I am feeling something, feeling what they are feeling, perhaps."

"In order for all of this to work there has to be a certain boundary in place. They need to be able to project themselves onto this without anyone else's identity getting in the way. In turn, I need to be able to show my true self to them in a way that does not compromise their ability to connect."

"They, too, are pained. They, too, do not know who they truly are. They are each stood alone on a stage of their own. And yet, they are here. United by that sense of never truly belonging. They see something beyond their own bleak horizons, and they reach for it. Together. So let us join now, to reflect their joy and to serve as a conduit for their anguish. To swallow their fear."

And finally, from the Fall For Me music video: "So for now let me serve as a living drama of your pain. If we are to be submerged let us be submerged together."

When I place them right next to each other, it's probably easier to see the common theme that I caught onto. I cycled through a few ideas - including Vessel himself being Sleep, or Sleep representing music and the connection it can foster between people - but I kept coming back to the way Vessel has repeatedly talked about fans projecting onto the music, examining themselves through it, understanding themselves through it. Projecting ourselves onto him, seeing ourselves in him, trying to understand ourselves through our interpretations of his story.

He's a Vessel for us. The songs are tokens, offerings, to us. We, the fans, are Sleep. The songs are gifts for us to examine ourselves through, to help us delve into our own experiences and emotional responses and understand ourselves - and, in turn, understand each other. It isn't Vessel that we are worshipping, it's ourselves and each other that we see in Vessel. I could even get really sentimental and cheesy if I wanted and say that Vessel directly worships us as well, albeit wordlessly, with his deep bows and falling to his knees in appreciation of his audience.

And just to reiterate, I don't think the songs are about Sleep. Although I think an argument could possibly be made about the toxic relationship between Vessel and Sleep being a metaphor for the parasocial relationship between an entertainer and their audience, I... won't get into that. Today, at least. Although I think it's a really interesting take that deserves exploration, I don't genuinely think any of the songs are directed toward or written about the fans/audience. I just think he's sharing the story of his life with us and allowing us to project our own lives upon it, to remind us that none of us are alone in this world. None of us are alone in our feelings, or in our experiences, no matter how isolated we may feel in them.

[EDIT: After making this post I found yet another magazine interview, in which Vessel kind of.... confirms this whole theory?

"He is everyone. He is you. There is a power in music that binds us all, every note relates to another."

The power of music uniting people and allowing us to see ourselves in each other and connect through that was exactly what I had in mind when I formed this theory, so it's kind of validating that I'm interpreting things correctly to see it put so bluntly lol]

If you made it to the end of this, thank you for hearing me out! \owo/ I had been wanting to make a post about this for a while as it seemed a very clear-cut take to me that I didn't think would be controversial. Speaking with the person I mentioned at the beginning who had a similar theory kind of scared me off it, since they said they received some outright hate for it, but talking to them also really got me excited to dig into my theory and provide my sources and show everyone the breadcrumb trail of how I arrived at this conclusion. So I hope at least a couple people enjoyed it!

If this is received well maybe I'll be brave enough to actually post about some of my song interpretations ^^; As I said, I don't think they're all about any one thing. My favorite quote from the ones listed above is this one: "Sleep Token draw from the most profound experiences we have in life and, most crucially, where they intersect." The intersectionality of it all is what's most interesting to me, so that quote was a little bit vindicating to read, lol. It's not all about romantic relationships, to me. It's about how every experience we go through in life, how we feel about them, how we react to them - all of those experiences overlap and intersect and color each other. It's about how everything you've ever been through will affect everything else you ever go through. But now I am genuinely rambling ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Thank you again for reading, and feel free to slide into my DMs to talk about this god-given band whensoever you wish.

#sleep token #sleep token lore #sleep token theory #sleep token worship #rae.txt #happy birthday tmbte I wrote you a 5 page essay <3

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cosinelanguage · 8 months ago

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Some extended author's notes on heavy boots, since it took me so long to complete haha. Consider this an appendix of notes I used as background info in my fic (kind of. I have more unfortunately)

Fic Premise:

The entire premise was kind of like a big play on role swaps as a concept. I really, really adore role swaps, but it's kind of difficult to actually write a role swap for one piece given how inherently tied to character's motivations, backstories, and designs their roles are.

I basically couldn't imagine Robin without having some in-depth curiosity and desire to understand the world, and I'm incapable of taking Zeff out of Sanji's backstory (since that ends up changing a lot of what I like about Sanji). But I still wanted Blackleg Robin!!

so, I had my cake and ate it too: Sanji was still raised by Zeff, and so was Robin. The entire thing became a role-swap-but-not-actually. I'm an indulgent person.

Sanji Timeline:

I had to think through a huge amount of details on what Sanji's entire deal was, most of which did NOT make it into the fic, since his backstory changed the most and it's. sanji. he wouldn't offer this information willingly.

Roughly how this works: Germa is working on a delicate balance of World Domination plans that involves being closely aligned with both the World Government AND Big Mom (secretly). They're using Sanji as stepping stone for Big Mom initially, and when the marriage alliance falls through, they use him as the fall guy as necessary to their plans-- i.e. if they get called out for working with pirates, they say it’s Sanji acting alone.

So by consequence, even after his marriage falls through, he gets sent to Alabasta to work with Crocodile, and all that comes with it

17: despite aligning with WG, Germa takes Sanji back in order to form an alliance with Big Mom

17-20: Extended courtship with Pudding extended courtship-- she goes to North Blue instead of Sanji going to Whole Cake. Pudding after Germa/gov secrets the whole time.

20: Marriage at 20 (Sanji does find out marriage is a scam. Sorry Sanji.)

20: Ohara, Reiju in moment of guilt saves Robin

22: WG is Not pleased with germa’s secret alliance w Big Mom

22: Pudding unlocks the ability to read Poneglyphs

22: Sanji Gets Divorced, and Pudding steals his happier memories a bit selfishly. (convenient for me, the author, who has not thought the details through

22-24: I Don't Know

24-28: Sanji's used as a scapegoat/spy on Crocodile, since any further connection to pirates would be scrutinized

anyway. the reason sanji still gets married is I think him being divorced adds to his terrible vibe of this 28-year-old line cook kidnapped by teenagers. so I constructed an entire timeline for that.

Random Details:

A couple of random details I couldn't really fit into the fic itself:

Long-term I imagine Robin actually taking up more of the wings of the pirate king role. She fights now! It’s great! Let me have this. Sanji takes a much more clearly support role, emphasizing more his spy/sidequest stuff and adopting Robin’s protectiveness of her crew.

Mr. Ash Wednesday was definitely a stretch as a codename– one, with Crocodile’s ‘women are days and men are numbers’ naming scheme, and two with Vivi already being Wednesday. But Ash Wednesday fits as a direct motif (smoking) AND it fits because Ash Wednesday is a miserable little holiday about fasting and welcoming in the peak Catholic Guilt season of Lent. so! perfect for Sanji here, who is wallowing in a pool of his own misery.

A lot of Sanji's relationships with the rest of the crew change fairly dramatically, and it's the main reason I'd consider revisiting the role swap. Usopp in particular is kind of fascinating-- Sanji is pretty dead set on the fact that he's convinced he's going to die sooner rather than later, so he wants to teach this idiot crew as much as he can. But Usopp probably just looks and sees Sanji as a better sniper and a better fit for the crew. Brutal.

Marionette:

Marionette is the cornerstone to a lot of the relationships and character beats in the fic overall-- to the extend that multiple exact beats of dialog are repeated throughout (Robin's intro with Zeff has he repeating Sanji's last words, Sanji tells Robin some word for word advice on just surviving under Germa, etc). I have a lot of notes on just how much this like, 4k prequel is repeated and paralleled in the actual fic, but the sum of it is basically that everyone (Sanji, Zeff, Reiju) are held down by this one moment for their primary motivation, and Robin both accidentally and on purpose leverages that specific pain.

ORIGINAL premise:

this all started as a thought exercise on how a reverse-order Straw Hats recruitment order would work, and ended with one of the most confusing premises to write a fic summary for.

I have some notes on how the other swaps would go, and only one of them I think I'd consider writing:

Robin & Sanji roleswap: look this is an entire fic!! kind of. The initial premise was a reverse order recruitment, and NOT an entire role swap. But, really, Robin and Sanji are pretty easy to swap, outside of them not having a cook until the Grand Line.

Zoro & Jinbe: this premise IMMEDIATELY fell apart on how difficult this would be to write. Jinbe requires a lot of re-world building to introduce early, and his dynamic on the crew is very much reliant on his experience. (which is fun! just... requires a lot of extrapolation). An age-swapped Zoro also complicates the premise, since there's something antithetical to One Piece about not handing off a dream like Zoro's to the next generation to complete. thanks, zoro.

Nami & Franky: I abandoned order immediately, ok. I just think Franky works well in an early role like Nami's, specifically because it can be much easier to write Franky's shipbuilding as something another pirate would try to blackmail him into their crew for (over Brook's singing, sorry Brook). He seems extremely fun and energetic to write as a younger version of himself, especially with any added sibling angst. Nami on the other hand as a more jaded older version of herself, running a Thief's Guild on Water 7 that ransacks the place every time there's a storm?????? really really good

Usopp & Brook: Early recruit musician is EXTREMELY cute to me, so Brook being in Usopp's role made a lot of sense. Like Jinbe, it requires a lot of extrapolation, more than I'm capable of, to imagine exactly how a younger Brook un-devil-fruited would behave. Usopp, on the other hand, is devastating to me: Usopp joins a pirate crew at the same age as canon, and sticks around a bit longer than he thinks he’s worth. In the end, he’s not part of the crew for long until all still die, listening and riffing off Usopp’s final story as they all go one by one, until he’s left with an empty boat and fake tall tales of a pirate crew he’d never really been a part of.

:) anyway the usopp one is great. sorry usopp.

Writing Thoughts:

haha, this whole thing has kind of been an exercise in figuring out 'hey maybe it's good to finish the full thing before posting.' Overall, I think this fic struggles a lot with pacing-- the earlier chapters are paced like how I'd do a 5+1 (scene-based sketches with only details necessary to paint the picture), but the later ones are paced like how I'd do a case fic (fight scenes, me paying attention to the plot rather than just the character thread of the scene)

imo it turns out a bit disjointed from that, and if I were a more patient person I could solve this in the edit

but I am not :) instead this will just be a nice lesson for future me whenever I decide to write a long fic again (Unlikely)

#not fic #now time to actually post the chapter lol

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corishadowfang · 4 months ago

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Fallen Stars Fic Notes

So, Fallen Stars has officially come to a close. It's been a pretty wild ride, haha; as per usual, it spiraled out of my control, length-wise (surpassing Dandelion Seeds...remember how I said I hoped I'd never write anything that long again? Yeah. That worked out.), but I'm happy (and pleasantly surprised) that so many people came on the journey with me.

So! As seems to be tradition now, I have some notes for the fic. Some behind-the-scenes stuff, some thoughts about post-canon--stuff like that! Putting it under a read more, because these tend to get long.

So as usual, we'll start with the playlist! This one I ended up doing a lot of playing around with, haha; there were several songs where it's like, "The vibes are right...but do they fit this moment/this character in the story? Does the order work? Should I use song x or song y?" I eventually ended up with something I'm relatively happy with, haha, even if not every song fits perfectly. There are actually a lot of honorable mentions for this one (since I, you know...played around with it so much) but probably the biggest are: Guilt by Nathan Wagner, Monster from Epic the Musical, Fight the Tide by Jonathan Young and Colm McGuinness, and Southern Star by Gregory Alan Isakov.

(Seriously, Fight the Tide was put on and taken off the playlist so many times--)

I know I've mentioned this places before, but: sometime circa summer 2021, I was thinking about doing a story following Brain through his time in Scala ad Caelum. Basically, it'd be a short (like--nine-ish chapters) series that explored Brain's grief and guilt and how he eventually adjusted to being in Scala. The story would've been called "May We Find Our Happiness," and was planned to be worked on once both On the Edge of Daybreak and Dandelion Seeds were finished. ...And then Missing Link was announced, and I went, "Oh! That's going to be explored in canon! I don't have to write it myself!" and the idea was shelved.

And THEN. Fast forward to winter 2023. It's...without going into too much detail, my mental state was Not Great. And I tend to process/cope with things by...well, writing. And...well, what better way to work out things than by using two of my favorite characters? The thought for this "proto-Fallen Stars" was that it would be a what-if AU for what would've happened if Skuld had ended up in Scala, and that it would follow Brain's and Skuld's entire lives through that time period. Despite the premise, this was also intended to be a relatively short series--roughly four to five chapters. It was intended to explore the idea that like--sometimes you don't heal fully from things, and your life doesn't turn out the way you wanted it to, but that doesn't mean you can't find happiness despite everything. ...And then I started writing the first chapter. And ran face first into Plot (i.e. the corrupt council). And very abruptly realized, "Oh, no. Oh, no, this is going to be LONG. And...probably not focus entirely on the time period I want it to." And so I shelved it. Again.

AND THEN. The Missing Link impatience was getting to me, haha. And there were a lot of ideas from both of the "proto" versions of the story that were genuinely very interesting to me from a writing perspective. And then I made this post (and a couple of follow-ups) with the hopes that it could satisfy the writing demons. ...It did not. So I went back, finished (and revamped) the original first chapter, and posted it. And, well--here we are!

The current iteration of Fallen Stars really does take a lot of inspiration from its predecessors. Darkling!Brain was actually the planned end for "May We Find Our Happiness" (though he wouldn't have died in that version; his new-found friends would've pulled him out of it, though he'd keep the gold eyes, like in Fallen Stars), the corrupt council's been a staple since the beginning, and obviously, the AU takes the same basic premise as proto-Fallen Stars.

I knew Fallen Stars was going to be longer than the initial ideas I had, but like...I still didn't expect it to be this long. Like--roughly 30 chapters, and about half the word count. Let it be known that I cannot accurately estimate a story (or chapter's) length, ever.

While there were certain Big Things that I had planned since the beginning (ex. Brain's death and resurrection), there were also things that ended up getting made up on the fly and/or cut because it seemed like it'd work better for the story. One of the big things is that, originally, Master's Defender was going to be used to help create the Land of Departure; essentially, during Darkness's attack, one of the abandoned islands would've split off from the world, and Brain would've used Master's Defender to chain it back together, so to speak, and give the Scalan refugees somewhere to go. That was cut because it felt like it would make Brain a little less desperate to make his sacrifice, and after that, it ended up feeling...kind of out of place? Plus, I felt like I hadn't done a good enough job foreshadowing that (though you can find some hints, if you're looking).

(The world they end up does still end up becoming the Land of Departure, though.)

Also, Luxu was originally going to be possessing Lodur. (Which is why time seems to slow down around him whenever things get intense! And also plays into the "narrator" thing--Lodur is a storykeeper, after all.) I'll leave it up to all of you guys to decide whether you want Lodur to be Sigurd's deceased brother, Sigurd to have been wrong about Luxu taking his brother's body, or for "Lodur is Luxu's vessel" to be non-canon.

While I finally decided to leave it out, I did think about doing an epilogue. I played around with a lot of different ideas for how that'd go, but it generally fell into three basic ideas: 1) Skuld, Brain, and the rest of the crew roughly a decade after the end of Fallen Stars, 2) Xehanort and Eraqus (as like...five-year-olds) interacting with the remaining crew, or 3) Ven and Lauriam finding stories about Skuld and Brain in the distant future. I do like all of these, but I ended up feeling like it kind of...glossed over how much time it'd take for them to repair Scala and heal, so I ended up going with the current ending instead--which is hopeful, but still leaves room for the struggles that may follow.

THAT SAID. There's a non-zero chance some of those epilogues may show up as one-shots. I like the idea of exploring some post-canon scenarios in the Fallen Stars-verse (in particular, the first year after everything, since there's...a lot that the main crew go through). That said, I'm also not going to promise anything on that front, since it'll largely depend on my time/energy levels/inspiration.

(Also, feel free to ask me about post-canon stuff, in case I never get around to writing things; a lot of stuff changes around, haha, but I do have Ideas.)

"Do you want to hear a story?" has been planned as the final lines for a long time, haha. One, because it acts as a nice book-end for the story. Two, because it's kind of like...symbolic. Skuld is the one who said it, and is the only character besides Luxu to (kind of) break the fourth wall, so this was like...representative of her taking control of her own story. (This is also, for the record, why the "Do you want to hear a story?" narrator parts don't show up again after chapter 40; Skuld is the narrator now.)

The title was actually going to be the name of the first chapter. I was struggling to find a title I liked (I didn't want to use "May We Find Our Happiness" since, uh...that ended up as a chapter title for On the Edge of Daybreak, when I still thought I wouldn't do a story in Scala), and ended up brainstorming ideas for the chapter title instead. I'd landed on "Fallen Stars" because like--Brain and Skuld were "fallen stars" in the sense that a lot of people who are displaced from fallen worlds in the KH series tend to, uh...fall out of the sky, but also in the sense that they were legends who were, very suddenly, being made human in the eyes of Scala. And then it hit me that, "Wait...that'd work great for a fic name." And then it was repurposed, haha.

And...I will probably cut off the notes there, haha. Fallen Stars has been fun to work on, and it's weird to think that it's finished (unless, of course, I end up doing those one-shots). Thank you for coming on this ride with me; I hope you've enjoyed it!

#kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts fanfic #fallen stars

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idkacatmonstermaybe · 2 months ago

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okay hello @headfulloffeathers jess this is for you and the approximately two other people who might care about this meta breakdown but these are some of the parallels i see between look homeward and supernatural

(thank you for providing a distraction boot smut is stumping me i only have like 700 words written 😭)

(also uh supernatural spoilers? i guess? in the year of our lord 2024?)

okay so idk how much you know about supernatural so extremely surface level summary when dean is four and sam is like a few months old a demon kills their mom and then they spend their entire childhood on the road with their dad hunting supernatural monsters and searching for the demon who killed their mom. that’s like………. the bare bones basic premise of the show before they started delving hard into the angels/demons/biblical lore which gets really interesting and convoluted and tbh i stopped watching at a certain point bc i got bored and confused. SO basic vibes their mom (mary) is killed and their entire childhood they’re dragged around the entire country learning how to kill things bc their dad (john) is on a revenge bender.

so big overarching parallels: dean is a literal toddler when he is given the responsibility of caring for his baby brother which is so similar to a1 being 12 and assuming responsibility for sickly little 9 year old a2

sam is also like…. “assigned wrong at birth” lmfao bc the demon that kills their mom feeds him his blood to give him special powers? very confusing BUT there are moments where he’s ostracized for his powers and being born different and the way that parallels gods specialest boy a2 actually hurts me

follow up to that is sam goes through a phase where he is discovering these new abilities and goes a little power hungry and he starts drinking demon blood (lol don’t worry about it) and this gives me pretty strong serial killer era a2 vibes? but this one is a little looser bc sam and dean are still hunting together while this is going on and i’m pretty sure serial killer a2 is during the 92-01 separation? but they both have “dark” eras lmfao

okay also re: 92-01 when sam graduates high school he goes away to stanford for college and there’s a big falling out with john a “if you walk out that door don’t bother coming back” type moment so the boys don’t see each other for several years and there’s kind of the energy of really not knowing if they’re ever going to see each other again which parallels the very little we know about 92-01.

ALSO there are several moments throughout supernatural where sam is pushing to try to have a “normal” life—like going away to college to try and get a piece of normalcy that they never got to experience as kids. there’s also an arch in a later ish season where sam goes to hell (again……. don’t worry about it) and his like dying wish is that dean gets a chance at a normal life so dean shacks up with this woman lisa and her son ben but then when sam comes back he obviously ditches them lmfao. so there’s even an eden parallel sneaking in there lololol.

one thing that stays consistent throughout the series is also the way sam and dean are willing to do absolutely anything for each other like…… literally bring about the apocalypse if it means keeping each other safe which is The Dynamic of all time and is part of what makes a1/a2 so compelling

oh also sam is the vessel for the archangel lucifer and dean for michael which is flipped based on a1 and a2 but it’s also a fun little tidbit

obviously none of this means literally anything BUT early season supernatural was a fixation of mine for a while (obviously lmfao) so i find it so fitting that there are so many themes and motifs from one of my og hyperfixations are present in my current one

#look homeward #look homeward meta #a1/a2 #angel 1 #angel 2

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isabelpsaroslunnen · 15 days ago

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My best friend and I have been watching Star Trek: The Original Series for months, mostly because we're both sometimes busy and can't coordinate, but he does adore Star Trek (it is hard to overstate how much, except with regard to Picard) and even though I'm a TNG kid, I am almost always having a great time with it.

Overall: I love the stage-y Pepto-Bismol meets bisexual flag aesthetic of so much of the show, the actual bisexual vibes of so many characters (unintentionally? allegedly? I guess?), the effects that have aged remarkably well almost as much as the ones that have aged terribly, but are part of its charm, and of course, many of the characters. And I definitely have enjoyed the mixture of cheesy silliness with deeply earnest aspirations towards transcending its own era, even though it falls short (I'm an early modernist; I have a high tolerance for works that are ultimately of their times, but visibly trying to cut through the miasma of their eras' norms).

Anyway, some thoughts on each episode I've seen thus far!

[It's every episode up to "Metamorphosis", so there are a lot.]

1— "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - a pretty solid way to start the experience for me, and I see the religious skepticism has been baked in from very early, even though it's obviously still finding its footing at this point. I actually enjoyed seeing the wobbly character dynamics and world-building as it's figuring itself out.

2— "The Man Trap" - I really enjoyed this one! Despite some fundamental silliness, there's an interesting mix of horror and pathos (I support the salt vampire!).

3— "Charlie X" - a mixture of "oh God, poor Janice" (an impression that will repeat often) and an interesting take on the interaction of power and youthful masculinity. Charlie's outrage at his desires being stymied by literally anything or anyone at any time feels unfortunately timely, as does his petty vindictiveness against ... um, every woman ever, and Kirk's entirely correct lecture about it. I also found something particularly intriguing in the contrast between Charlie's admiration of Kirk's form of masculinity and how viscerally threatened he is by Spock.

4— "The Naked Time" - I adored this episode with zero irony. I particularly loved the revelation that Spock is ashamed of his feelings for Kirk (......) and the guilt he feels over his emotional distance from his mother combined with his understanding of how isolated she must feel in Vulcan culture. But I also laughed through the entire rest of the episode. Just a great time.

5— "The Enemy Within" - oh, hella yikes take on, uh, the inherent need for a good leader to have an anxious, violent, rapist side to his personality kept under control by a fearless, but vacillating and cerebral other side. (The premise seems even more egregious after "The Galileo Seven" makes a whole episode out of the idea that Spock's intellectual discipline and reserve undermine his leadership capabilities unless he behaves in a way that can be seen as fitting into human emotional norms.) I did cackle over the space dog fluffy alien creature and its evil twin, but poor Janice x100 :(

6— "Mudd's Women" - easily the worst episode to date, good God. Quite apart from "I guess sometimes you just have to be complicit in sex trafficking carried out by a lovable scamp who definitely hasn't gotten the post-capitalism newsletter" and the godawful ending, I am baffled by everyone on the Enterprise acting like they've never seen a beautiful woman. None of Mudd's women can hold a candle to Uhura (who I think isn't even in this episode?) and women getting obsessed by eternal beauty and devoting themselves to unappealing men is a tiresome aspect of ST that I wish had stopped here. Or never shown up at all.

7— "What Are Little Girls Made Of" - ah, the iconic phallic stalagmite! Nice to have context. I appreciate how smart and resourceful Kirk ends up being here. I liked Shatner's performance as the Kirk clone (he's actually been good in all the various Evil Kirk performances I've seen thus far), too. But I also really liked Spock's entirely justified annoyance at Kirk using racial slurs to communicate IT'S NOT ME.

8— "Miri" - this one is unfortunately dragged down by Kirk using his femme fatale allure with a girl framed as barely pubescent even if the actress was technically an adult. He's clearly not remotely attracted to her and working to save his crew, but it's still really unpleasant to watch, especially with a very young-looking actress. That said, the disease is creepy as hell, and it's a great McCoy episode. I was pretty fascinated as well by the concept of a drastically protracted childhood where the horror is not being trapped in the body of a child, but of actually remaining a child for enormous lengths of time.

9— "Dagger of the Mind" - this one would have been pretty mediocre, in all honesty, if not for the existence of Helen Noel. Helen is staggeringly beautiful, yes, but she is also better than everyone else in this episode, even my usual fave Spock. I like Kirk a lot and I still don't know what she sees in him.

10— "The Corbomite Maneuver" - it's a fun episode with some very good lines, but a bit like cotton candy.

11— "The Menagerie" - I had heard about this one, but didn't know all the details! The show-within-the-show only slightly strains credulity, and the plot is certainly more compelling than SNW (sorry to SNW fans; I watched a few episodes and it was fine, but too polished and heterosexual to feel like a true prequel to the boundary-pushing Candyland of TOS).

12— "The Conscience of the King" - this one was a bit over-theatrical in the most literal way, but I still really enjoyed it. The episode provides a genuinely fascinating backstory for Kirk, revealing that in his youth, he was a survivor of a terrible atrocity (and from what else we've heard, it seems he was moved elsewhere and became a bullied nerd for awhile before finding his true calling in space). The "real" villain of the episode doesn't really work for me, but doesn't need to, because her villainy is vastly and rightly overshadowed by the atrocity.

13— "Balance of Terror" - I can't describe this episode any other way: it fucking rules. This is maybe my favorite Star Trek episode that I can remember ever seeing. The revelation of the Vulcan-Romulan kinship is super compelling, and the intensity to this episode's take on the frequent Spock vs the Microaggressions subplot feels entirely organic and believable.

14— "Shore Leave" - fine, but rather a letdown after the glory of the previous one. The back rub early in the episode is as hilariously unsubtle as reported, and Spock's emphatic indifference to the sexbot ladies is, hmm, interesting. Otherwise, it is silly, entertaining-enough ST ephemera for me. I like these episodes existing as part of ST as a whole, but also don't feel especially invested in most individual cases of it. And God, Kirk's youthful nemesis Finnegan is so incredibly obnoxious and his little jig motif is so awful that (given "The Naked Time") I'm starting to wonder what gripe Star Trek has with Irish people.

15— "The Galileo Seven" - you know how I said that Spock vs the Microaggressions is a frequent subplot in these episodes? This one is "what if that was just the whole episode?" It's not terrible, but it's not terribly interesting, either, and the implications are pretty gross if you think about them.

16— "The Squire of Gothos" - I guessed the reveal a bit early in this one, but not in a way that made me feel like it was super obvious. The hints were there if you were paying attention, so it was rewarding to figure it out, but not obvious. Spock's speech about intellectual discipline and power really speaks to me right now, by the way.

17— "Arena" - the Gorn finally appear! Or a Gorn, anyway, and it's kind of wild that the 1967 episode's twist is that the real villain is colonialism, not the Gorn at all. Yet in 2020s Star Trek ... well, anyway, it's a good episode despite the incredibly dated monster effects.

18— "Tomorrow is Yesterday" - time travelllllll hell yeah, and it's quite a decent plot.

19— "Court Martial" - this one was tense and interesting, though I don't have much to say about it apart from really liking the lawyers.

20— "The Return of the Archons" - this was actually very effective, quiet terror for me (maybe extra for me as a queer person raised Mormon, lol). I think it also has one of the better instances of Kirk Fries A Machine With Logic.

21— "Space Seed" - an absolutely fascinating villain alongside absolutely dire gender politics. I did like seeing Khan for the first time.

22— "A Taste of Armageddon" - this had a very interesting war game concept, but I don't remember much about the episode beyond the concept tbh. It was fine.

23— "This Side of Paradise" - this one was interesting, especially given the allure of the "paradise" for Spock specifically (also for everyone else, but there's something especially bitter about whatshername's total indifference to his consent, and yet how complicated his feelings end up being about the whole thing). Kirk's fixation on his authority!!!!! in this episode feels unappealing and rather strange, but I didn't think it was really all about authority and The Human Need For Struggle(TM) that ST will keep returning to (don't like that aspect, though!).

24— "The Devil in the Dark" - an excellent episode IMO, including the incredibly dated rock alien special effects. Wouldn't have it any other way! I honestly appreciate how often the reveal in TOS has been that a scary "monster" is just some innocent person from another species getting screwed over by human ignorance and colonizing.

25— "Errand of Mercy" - Kirk is a patronizing asshole in this episode, can't lie, but given that he's being very obviously paralleled with the Klingon officer, it serves a function that's at least interesting. I'd like if that aspect of his personality went somewhere a bit more cohesively, but I'd rather have the episodic yet forwards propulsion of TOS as a whole, so it's okay.

26— "The Alternative Factor" - this has an interesting concept, but I remember thinking that it was forcing a bunch of usually competent people to make some very stupid decisions (though, tangentially, the fact that this is a change from the norm is at least something: I really enjoy that TOS in general avoids my beloathèd "our protagonists are the protagonists of the entire setting and every other character is an NPC who lacks moral vision and competence independent of the protagonists' influence"). I will say that the repetition of the alternate-universe effect is honestly pretty bad even when I'm grading on a 60s curve.

27— "The City on the Edge of Forever" - this is a very compelling, tightly-written episode that does good character work for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, even if its underlying premise is a bit challenging to buy at points. I always enjoy getting to see McCoy's medical ethos at play, as we do here. Spock's jealousy is also amusingly transparent against all the high drama.

28— "Operation -- Annihilate!" - this is a hilarious title for a pretty good episode, actually. I enjoyed it and especially enjoyed Leonard Nimoy's performance as Spock here. It's not like I ever don't, but it did some substantial heavy lifting.

29— "Amok Time" - so it turns out, the Spock/Kirk fans have not been exaggerating all these years. I didn't think it was likely they had, just given what I've seen this far, but damn. This is a fantastic episode, it's got interesting world-building for Vulcan, it's incredibly homoerotic even by TOS standards, and despite my fondness for Spock and Kirk, goodforher.jpeg with respect to T'Pring. If Vulcan men don't want their childhood brides plotting their deaths, maybe they should legalize divorce! Just a thought.

30— "Who Mourns for Adonais" - so this episode relies on "actually, every broadly appropriated cultural detail from an exotic distant land was just given to its people by ancient aliens," only this time, it's targeting Greeks! It does get details about ancient Greek culture and religion very wrong, if anyone was wondering. In any case, I guess Star Trek's weird issues with "ethnic whites" is not only with the Irish, though given that my father's background is specifically Greco-Irish, it feels like a weird personal attack. That aside, while "ancient aliens did it all!!!" was not as much of a thing at the time as now, Greek people were definitely more racialized in the USA then, so the use of the trope here was not as trivial as I think it can "read" to modern audiences, esp in the USA.

Apollo's actor does a good job with some hard dialogue, I will say, but I really wish Carolyn had just been playing along and biding her time rather than obviously being a silly female swayed by flattery of her beauty and delusions of vicarious power. Kirk's speech to her is good, but really dragged down by how bad the writing for her is. I did like Kirk's "actually, I'm a strict monotheist" retort to Apollo, though. I know Kirk's characterization eventually goes down a different route, but given the heavy involvement of Jewish people including Shatner in Star Trek (despite Roddenberry's antisemitism), and the historical use of the Greek and Roman pantheons in the oppression of Jewish communities, Kirk's indignation at the idea of worshipping any other god feels apropos.

31— "The Changeling" - Jim Kirk DESTROYS another implacable machine foe with LOGIC!!!! I can just imagine the YouTube series now. Seriously, though, it's fine and a drastic improvement from the previous episode, and I always enjoy a solid ST:TOS episode while I'm watching it. But it was not exceptional IMO.

32— "Mirror, Mirror" - YESSSSS I TOO GET TO EXPERIENCE THE MIRROR UNIVERSE. I loved this episode, honestly. The Mirror Universe is terrible, but super fun both in concept and execution. I love the competence of the prime universe team in the brief cut to them immediately clocking Mirror Kirk's group as imposters (though I did want more from Mirror Uhura who is just kind of there, though...). I love Mirror Spock being this warped but recognizable version of the character. I love the concept of Mirror Kirk being the perpetrator of war crimes exactly like Kirk's formative trauma back in "The Conscience of the King." I love the evil cutthroat BDSM space Byzantines vibes of the Terran Empire (is there an unimaginably decadent and deadly Byzantine Empire in the history of the Mirror Universe? I hope so. We deserve it after "Who Mourns for Adonais" tbh).

33— "The Apple" - this is a pretty fun one. The protagonists as the sort of serpent of this "Edenic" garden, coupled with the awful god creature is super entertaining, and it works well enough despite the show's erratic approach to religion.

34— "The Doomsday Machine" - damn, the commander in this episode is such an asshole. He's clearly meant to be, though, and his Ahab campaign turning out to not be entirely in vain at least makes it seem like there's a point to spending so much time on him being the worst.

35— "The Catspaw" - by coincidence, my best friend and I ended up watching this not far into November, just a few days after Halloween. About five minutes in, I said to him, "Is it just me, or is that castle clearly just Spirit Halloween?" He delightedly said, "This planet is Spirit Halloween!"

There's a bit of racial essentialism about ALL HUMANS that would be uncomfortable if it were not so patently ridiculous. The idea is that human beings have a basic racial fear of cats that the tiny aliens exploit—yes, "cats" in this episode refers mainly to the human fear of the house cat, aka the most successful and beloved domestic species on Earth, not lions or even cougars. The alien terrorizes the cast by taking the shape of a fluffy black house cat of varying sizes, but never any other kind of cat. This concept is hilarious, just to be clear. I enjoyed every moment. Even a super-large house cat is just even more friend-shaped floof to your basic human, let's be real, so the deadly threat is impossible to take seriously even before the giant house cat is revealed to be an incredibly horny alien lady with illusion powers (this persona is also an illusion, but the horniness is real). But are not all cats at some level horny alien ladies with illusion powers? I feel pretty sure that Star Trek thinks so.

36— "I, Mudd" - and the award for Most Improved Character has got to go to Harry Mudd. My bff and I actually had a great time with this episode, in part because the entire cast seem to be having a great time with it. I especially loved the twist with Uhura seeming to fall to the womanly weakness of desiring eternal beauty and the easy life only for it to be a trick. Mudd is still a sleaze, but a much funner one to watch this time, and we've just started quoting Spock's "He didn't pay the royalties" at random moments. The stereotypical nagging wife is what it is, but I'm grading Mudd episodes on an extra curve.

37— "Metamorphosis" - and at least, we've reached the most recent episode I've seen, so my impressions of this one are much more fresh. Somehow, I had no idea we first met Zefram Cochrane in TOS and not in First Contact. Also, wow, the actors for him and for the Commissioner are really attractive—not quirky 60s attractive, either. Cochrane reminds me vaguely of Henry Cavill and the Commissioner is simply gorgeous despite the blinding color scheme of her costume.

The gender essentialism sure is something at this point, I've got to say, when the characters are blandly agreeing that of course a sentient electric cloud must have a fundamental gender that you can kind of tell by the color scheme. Uh huh, but it is genuinely interesting that Cochrane clearly cares about the cloud and tries to protect her from our heroes until he realizes she loves him, but is so affronted at the idea of the cloud being in love with him and his (very obviously sexualized) communion and companionship with her being part of that.

He projects his revulsion primarily onto Spock (Spock vs the Microaggressions strikes again!), but literally everyone finds his attitude narrow-minded and weird. The feeling is kind of like if you met an idolized long-dead relative only for them to use a homophobic slur you've never even heard of.

The resolution of this little drama comes from the cloud bodysnatching the dying Commissioner, a young woman who longs to be loved by anyone at all after a life of being a loveless career woman. She is, to be clear, a career woman whose job is all about preventing warfare and who is deeply stressed about it, which seems a kind of love to me. But she is mostly framed just as this super abrasive, loveless career woman because it's TOS (and they eventually conclude that any woman could do her job and they'll just find a different one to stop the war).

Anyway, all this results in the somehow-female cloud fusing with what remains of the Commissioner's consciousness, curing her body of some fatal disease. Now that the cloud is fused with an actual (hot) human woman, Cochrane is totally chill with her love for him, and decides he can have a very strange threesome love her after all, and they'll live out these bodies' natural lives together until they both die (since she lost her electric cloud powers of healing and immortality when she bodysnatched the Commissioner, I gather). It feels weird and low-grade shitty on his part, although I like his actor's performance, because it makes it so clear that his aversion was only about appearances.

I think the cloud should have moved onto someone who would appreciate her devotion and restorative powers, like, say, the dying Commissioner lady who actually has this whole speech about how badly she longs to be loved and how she doesn't get why Cochrane is being such a baby about the adoration of a cloud. Look, I'm just saying the cloud could be bi and deserves someone who would appreciate her.

I know this was never going to happen on a nationally syndicated show in 1967, but I think it would make more narrative sense and be much more satisfying! Cochrane would love space adventures 150 years in the future—he was thrilled and excited about the idea of seeing the reality of the Federation and alliances with other species! And the Commissioner would appreciate a cloud girlfriend and immortality so much more than him. Hire me, Paramount.

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dollidotcom · 5 months ago

Text

(I typed all this on my phone and I don’t have the time to check over it for spelling mistakes please bare with me 😔)

Ride the Cyclone + Regretevator AU!!

Who would be who?

For the tldr;

Lampert as Ocean

Poob as Noel

Pest as Mischa

Unpleasant as Jane Doe

Pilby as Constance

(if you care about Karnak, Folly I guess 😓)

(Need more convincing? Look down here!!!! This is really long 🙀)

Ocean - Lampert [ I believe it fits Lampert due to the fact that most of his dialogue throughout the game seems to be a little passive aggressive unintentionally. For example his dialogue with DrRetro, where he asked her how she bathes herself so he could gauge how far he should stand away from her. This also bodes well with Pilby’s place in the AU since he’s nicer to them. In my mind Lampert is a little bit more snobby than in the game because I wanted Lampert to have some of the traits from Wallter and Mark! ]

Noel - Poob [ This one is a little tricky to explain since I’m not entirely sure how to word it! So, Poob mentioned how they never want their parties to end (or rather lied about them never ending) in game right? The line from Noel‘s Lament ‚My life’s one never ending carnival, a world of boozy floozy flashing light‘ stuck out to me! Since Poob’s parties end like all parties do, they dream of their parties never ending and ruining themself with „party favors“ (drugs and alcohol ☠️) instead of facing the realistic nature of parties coming to an end ]

Mischa - Pest [ To be completely honest, I wasn’t sure who the hell to assign Mischa as, mainly due to Tailia. But I settled on Pest after pondering ‚huh, who’s bilingual 🤔‘ and only Gnarpy and Pest popped up mentally. I would’ve picked Gnarpy if I didn’t think about why the hell xe‘d he at a fall fair, and why the hell xey would get on the cyclone. If anything, Xe‘d probably be the reason it broke down in the first place (Not to mention how Gnarpy is aro if I’m remembering correctly). Regarding Pest with the same questions, Poob would’ve forced him for both questions. Pest as Mischa could also work if you consider how Pest was never exactly nice to anyone in anyway similarly to how Mischa was a tad bit snappy in the musical ]

Ricky - Infected / Kasper [ I choose Kasper because the general retro vibe from Ricky gives the same energy as Kasper! Also I wasn’t sure how to incorporate the disability aspect to Ricky, so I settled on Kasper due to how sickly he is. In Ricky‘s introduction, Karnak mentions how he had cats so I figured that could work too! Lastly I do believe Kasper would have an insane song like Ricky did just due to his personality. ]

Jane doe / Penny - Unpleasant [ Look I know it might seem a bit biased and it MAY be, but hear meowt 😓 Penny‘s body was unclaimed due to not having a head (I have yet to do any research on Legoland bcuz I’m layze) which wouldn’t exactly make sense for any character due to every character having extremely distinct body types, colors, and over all besides characters either already listed or characters it wouldn’t make sense for them to be in the fair at all. Not only that, most of the characters have atleast someone to claim their body. That leaves Fleshcousin and Unpleasant, so why not Fleshcousin? Now, even if Fleshcousin would be at the fall fair, Fleshcousin speaks in a distinct way and I don’t think it’d really be affected by the incident at all considering how Fleshcousin struggles to keep its head on in general, usually having to stop it from flopping haphazardly. Not only that, the entire premise of Jane Doe is that she HAD a life, a family, friends, and memories she didn’t possess due to losing her head and not being identifiable even by Karnak because he never read her fortune. Fleshcousin just takes the form of the closest soul and tries to replicate that soul, so that would defeat the entire purpose. But Dolli, that’s two characters you used process of elimination to pick, you said you had reasoning!!! well I DO ACTUALLY. The body went unclaimed, and as I mentioned before every character had atleast SOMEONE to claim them. Who would claim Unpleasant? Nobody likes them! The only person who could possibly identify it would be Kasper but he’s DEAD TOO!! Nobody would notice their Absence either. Now regarding how nobody remembered them in the spot the rest of the victims were just by seeing their body, the answer is coverage! Gloves, long socks, and long sleeves!! Of course nobody would recognize their face because their head was replaced by the Doll‘s (heh…. Me if u even care..,.,) head. Nobody would recognize their voice because the never spoke! I rest my case 😁 ]

Constance - Pilby [ Pilby as Constance stuck out to me in particular because Constance was labeled the Nicest Girl in town despite barely anyone knowing her in-depth besides her family and she wasn’t happy with that fact, but she only realized how great everything was after the incident. Pilby is one of the nicer npcs, but is often in a somber mood and cries often which causes certain npcs like Pest to be impatient and unkind if you will. Despite how good everything was for them, Pilby always stayed hung up on the more unfortunate things for them. Pilby would probably be able to open their eyes up to the more positive side of their life once it ended like Constance did. Also Pilby‘s color pallet reminds me of the mental imagery of Sugar Cloud! Lastly Lampert and Pilby got along somewhat in the game, but at the end of the day Lampert is still Lampert. ]

#regretevator #regretevator unpleasant #unpleasant gradient #regretevator poob #poob #regretevator kasper #regretevator infected #regretevator pest #regretevator pilby #pilby #lampert #regretevator lampert #ride the cyclone

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simplykorra · 9 months ago

Note

In the spirit of learning from the people you admire, would you be willing to share some tidbits about your writing process? Along the lines of 'do you draft chapters at first then polish them up/are there any resources or programs you use/do you outline your stories or just wing them/how do you approach research/do you try to write every day or simply when the muse strikes/what does it take for you to turn an idea into story?' etc., that kind of thing. If you're not comfortable sharing, that is absolutely okay. I hope you have a wonderful day. <3

oooh okay let's break some of these down

do i draft chapters/then polish them up? i don't write drafts, i just write out the chapter and then read through it once or twice and tweak what needs to be tweaked before i post it. i think you can get way too into your own head when you do drafts or spend too much time editing. the last chapter of angels like you took me a while to finish because i got in my head about it and kept changing things. you just have to trust your instincts and put it out to the world

do i outline my stories or just wing it? i do very very simple outlines, and not all the time. I'll know where a fic is going and have a general idea of the plot, but i like to leave most of it open so there's room to explore and expand and honestly stories change a lot as you're writing them, at least they do for me. i'll have a destination and a handful of scenes in my head, but the path to get there is wide open

how do i approach research? i do a lot of research for my fics. i'm not knowledgeable in many of the things that i have ava and/or bea doing in any au so i take my time to research it. in an old fandom i wrote a pregnancy fic and literally created a pregnancy calendar on a website to track the progress throughout the fic so i could write about milestones and things that come up during pregnancy, etc. i do my best to make sure things are accurate and if i can't make it work, i'll just go vague and hope no one notices lol

do i try to write every day or simply when the muse strikes? i try to write every day but if i don't manage to do it that day that's okay too - if you're writing and not into it then you're probably not going to be happy with it. a skill i've learned is to write slow, and i'm talking physically slow - where your fingers are not rushing on the keys as you start. I think it's a good way to let your brain catch up to what you're doing and get into the vibe of whatever it is you're working on. also sometimes you just have to write with your brain turned off entirely and clean up whatever comes out

what does it take for you to turn an idea into story? i need to see it, i need to be able to visualize a scene or multiple scenes and have them create a map to the plot i want to get to. mom!ava started because i thought the idea of ava and lilith raising a kid together was fun, and then i slotted where beatrice would fit into that and it was like 'oh, this is complicated!' then it turned into 'wouldn't it be funny if everyone wanted ava and lilith to be together but they both hated the idea' and then that shifted to 'okay but what if lilith DIDN'T hate the idea' and so on and so on. for me, an idea turns into a story where i can take the original premise and string it along the path to an actual story

sorry this got so long! i hope this helps or was at least interesting lkfsjalfaj, take care!

#thanks for asking <3

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thegeminisage · 8 months ago

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star trek update time. last night* we watched tng's "attached" and ds9's "necessary evil." *i am typing this at fuck o clock it will go up when im at work

attached (tng):

ok, the premise of this is basically every spirk fic ever, right...? "ooh, we accidentally have a telepathic connection and our feelings are revealed"

to get this out of the way, i like how much worf e riker e deanna was in the b-plot of this, even just circumstantially (i missed data though). i also think riker finally getting fed up with the aliens and giving them shit was really funny. riker is never mean to ANYBODY. i'm also glad he was relatively chill about picard being missing for once lol. like, in NO way were these assholes ready to enter the federation. not to agree with picard, but PART of a world can't enter. if you haven't mastered world peace you can't sit with us etc etc. not that i'm fully buying the propaganda of the federation as the ultimate good or that earth does somehow have world peace but whatever. even i know these guys weren't ready. what a fucking joke

frankly stunned this didn't lead to discussion about the affair baby wesley crusher. yes i know picard said he would never act on it. i don't care about that. i KNOW these people have had an affair baby. they're the type. he would knock her up and leave her high and dry. it's the kind of man he is. don't tell me there's no affair baby. i know what i know. there IS an affair baby!! i will die on this hill

actually, even though i dislike picard, i think sir patrick stewart is a v talented actor and i DO like him. i also really like beverly, so they managed to be charming a couple of times in this episode, mostly when they had a thought we couldn't hear and then started snickering about it

that said, i have no respect at all for jean-luc. the campfire conversation sucked. beverly was DEEPLY flattered and also in a little bit of a vulnerable position and he WAS LYING when he said he didn't feel that way anymore bc he tried to hit her up at the end of the episode. a man would have HELD HER, jean-luc. i would have held her. beverly crusher i would treat you so much better

this is insane bc i don't even have a crush on beverly. like genuinely. i only talk like this about sophie devereaux and brit marling characters. i just think it's outrageous her man doesn't treat her better. i almost had a fit when it came out he didn't like the breakfasts until beverly responded in kind also lol her saying croissant w the french accent

them getting sick when they split up was really funny. jean-luc, time to ruthlessly experience morning sickness. this is how it was after you left her high and dry post affair baby conception

the bait and switch at the end fucking killed me i love beverly making him ask and then turning him down GOOD FOR HER but i have no idea what motivated the entire thing. like, was the goal to get them together before the series ended? ok, why keep them apart? why show her pushing him through to safety at the expense of her own if she was gonna turn him down? why was she giving dtf vibes there at the end? like i was YELLING at him to go to her and then he did and she was like "actually nah." which was FUNNY and again good for her but what the fuck? i thought she wanted him. i just want her to be happy.

necessary evil (ds9):

OHHHHHHH MYYYYYY GODDDDDDD

i knew going in that this was an odo episode but AN ODO AND KIRA EPISODE??? swoon. oh my god she was the first person to give him his little constable nickname. HURL. KILL MEEEEE

actually, odo/kira and odo/quark people were BOTH getting fed during this ep. odo like yeah idc about quark but im gonna solve this murder case w extreme prejudice. i like both so i had a great time

every single mention of odo's dehumanization in the past makes me HOMICIDAL please treat him really niceys. i would kind of like to know what the cardassian neck trick is though. just not from odo

"i dont drink" fuckin hilarious. i think odo should shapeshift himself a digestive system so he can try food. um one that can digest stuff in 16 hours i guess or it would all just fall out when he gooped again. we tossed around the idea of chewing gum, since you just spit that back out eventually. but does he even have tastebuds, or just the approximation of them? his other senses seem to work ok........

the window in this acted SO sketchy like she was fake crying at her third dead husbands funeral after she just inherited a zillion dollars but she literally was innocent. she pointed at kira and was like girl she did it and we're like NO kira's innocent! and then kira is literally not innocent but shady sketchy widow is. incredible

kira with long hair my beloved. i would hate it if she had long hair in present day but it's perfect for past kira

ds9 looks SO BAD in the past. to have children running around and playing in it now is insane. you can really feel the difference between the cardassian occupation and Now so well in this episode, it's as striking to us as it would be to kira and odo

ohhh my god kira and odo. "will you ever trust me again" he's not even mad she killed that guy just mad that she lied about it. AUGHGHGHG

but when kira did something shady it was for a good cause. when odo was being shady he was indirectly working for the fucking cardassians. "choose a side" so true but he eventually chose kira's <3

i love deeply that he didn't try to fuck her. like it genuinely didn't even occur to him. ace king.

40s mystery style of this was so fun. odo narration is so funny bc like he doesnt wanna do it and his log is just one sentence bc he thinks its fucking stupid and then by the end of the ep hes like man am i supposed to be usign this thing as a diary?? girl dont worry about it james t kirk did the same fucking thing

final note: rom in this episode was amazing. i've never really given him more than a passing thought before this but him secretly being a fucking amazing thief was truly fantastic. sisko and odo good cop bad copping him was really funny too especially when you remember his son and sisko's son are besties. i would still rank the ferengi as my least favorite ds9 characters but i was pleasantly surprised with how often i laughed

TONIGHT: tng's "forces of nature" which sounds like. its gonna make me mad lol

#no second eop bc its bad batch night lol #personal #star trek blogging #tng lb #ds9 lb

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firespirited · 1 year ago

Note

I think it's a slightly amusing coincidence that the guy with a Nazi fetish was collaborating with a man named Herr Gott.

At this point I'm not ruling out Herrgott being a pseudonym or him writing all the 'vibes-based' junk since James was the one doing 'research' (to his credit he was somewhat good at collecting smart people's work).

But I'm hijacking your ask to clear up two misconceptions that have been bothering me:

(big mess of sources and further reading under the readmore)

1- The nazis and fitness essay (one I actually watched and disagreed with) cites multiple sources and is an attempt to retrofit current "masc for masc" grindr culture onto AIDS era fitness "healthy" gay culture (see Gaston as a stereotype) onto multiple a-historical "gay nazis" revisionisms including The Pink Swastika book and a columnist

I think they got the nazi and fitness nonsense from a scholarly sounding source who's just an oxbridge columnist who's into reclaiming nazis. They're famously good at making nonsense sound like a thesis - see Boris Johnson's upcoming book about Shakespeare and his time as a columnist, see the entire Telegraph and various Terf Observer columns: fully trash but written in academic lingo, even queer academic lingo!

and... here's the source: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150324-hitlers-idea-of-the-perfect-body it's the BBC oh look, what's this "Alastair Sooke is art critic of The Daily Telegraph". 🤔🤔🤔

There's a case that the "no fat no fems no chocolate no rice" gay dating culture could possibly be tied to the healthy vs unhealthy infighting during the beginning of the AIDS era but that's a nuanced take that gets smashed to smithereens by lumping it in with gay nazi myths. It also needs to be examined with the attitude to dating apps in general and dating by physical preferences instead of letting chemistry happen by finding people whose goals and outlook match your own.

Terrible essay, terrible premise, some pull quotes from interesting places. Here's an essay about desirability in men, googling "masc 4 masc culture" will get you plenty of articles, you definitely want to look for asian and black writers here because woof they face a lot of racist nastiness under the guise of 'just preferences'.

youtube

and here's

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_of_Finland (he's a very important gay artist, he also did some gay erotica with nazi uniforms whether you think that's an act of defiance, reclamation, tasteless or evil is up to you. art is not always as straightforward as it might look, we'd have to ask him what his intent was.)

-----------------------------

2- The second is "the exciting gays died of aids" concept, good vs naughty gays concept. Again, we're dealing with a mishmash of both modern rewritings, quotes by survivors taken out of context, and gay infighting at the time, which included some spicy takes about dangerous sex by gay men fighting to save gay men.

The lack of research and public education led to chaos, the grief led to anger. Beautiful people said some vicious things. There are several older gay men alive right now who don't have sex not because they're asexual but because there's trauma. It's worth unpacking quote by quote because expanding on it without original context was terrible reading comprehension and reckless rewriting of history, and to be honest, a little defamatory. I can't find a bibliography of the video(s) yet so not sure what to debunk).

There are plenty of tumblr posts railing against out of context quotes which is taking James + Nick's bad reading at face value instead of seeking out the source. Outrage at a thing James and Nick made up which was never a real take.

to paraphrase "My well-known exciting boundary-breaking gay friends are dead and the art world hasn't bothered to seek out more undiscovered talent to replace them, choosing the safe classic establishment folks who may also be gay given the field. I'm pissed you didn't care about saving them, I'm pissed you didn't care about finding a new crop of people who push the envelope." that was the sentiment behind this sort of quote even if folks became more conservative (or got into legal messes later)

I'm going to track down the various quotes and give you the full context because this matters. Again: beautiful minds saying horrible things, fighting between gay activists on how to survive or how to live under the gun. This is something that cannot be flattened to "boring gays survived" and it's an insult to the people who said things in grief and fear. I have not watched this essay (or maybe it's two that use this boring vs danger gays concept) but I have a good idea of what out of context quotes might have led to it, this is my wheelhouse. but TL;DR would be my faves are problematic because activists are passionate messy people. They outed people, they said outrageous things for the press, they screamed murderer and got restraining orders against them, they made taboo art, they mingled with nasty people.

OKAY, incoming link dump:

here's a 6 minute short on act up

youtube

here's a full doc: United in Anger:

youtube

Larry Kramer, Shulman, Fran Leibowitz and many others deserve to have their views examined with full context, not turned into crappy tweet sized quotes.

basic sources from wikipedia:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/nyregion/larry-kramer-and-the-birth-of-aids-activism.html

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/05/13/public-nuisance

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/fran-lebowitz

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/13/arts/the-impact-of-aids-on-the-artistic-community.html

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Wojnarowicz?useskin=vector

youtube

https://archive.org/details/losswithinlossar0000unse

https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781849352857

http://didierlestrade.blogspot.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Tatchell

https://archive.org/details/womenaidsactivis00banz

------------------------------

Thankyou to

DHLawrence_sGhost's thread https://www.reddit.com/r/hbomberguy/comments/18biiof/comment/kc9qa6p/

and TerraJRiley's transcript archive https://github.com/TerraJRiley/James_Somerton_Transcripts

--------------------------------------------

I'm going to allow reblogs on this again with the disclaimer that I don't have the full works stolen for these particular essays but the perfect body in gay culture and the good vs bad gays concepts have precedent that got flattened in those video essays and deserve quite a bit more exploration and that includes controversial sources. You will have to do some dialectical reading (agreeing and disagreeing with an author and figuring out how to weigh up the pros and cons of their individual arguments even though they get some things horribly wrong, deciding what was 'of a time' or reading the work of people who became reactionaries later in life).

#james somerton #Nt herrgott #Exciting gays vs boring gays #Saf

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missingmywing · 1 year ago

Text

Minato did not sign up for theatre shenanigans, what a shame Ryoji is dragging him into it anyway, and he's having fun with it anyway.

Day 5: Royalty/Vampire (Ao3 Link)

Ryoji and Minato are roped into trying out for the drama club’s winter play, in part because of their chemistry, in part because the drama club is short on people for background subplots. So Minato is pushed into the role of beleaguered princess, while Ryoji is the vampire infatuated with her. Minato is long-suffering and Ryoji is having the time of his life.

This chapter gave me so much trouble, you have no idea.

Also fun fact, a lot of inspiration for this chapter came from my friend convincing me to start playing the dating sim JACKJEANNE. It’s a really good game, and the vibes are immaculate.

Song I was listening to (from the first play in the game): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB6KTTTZeSo

I also watched some Vanitas no Carte amvs so uhhhhh there's a bit of those vibes in a couple of parts.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

By December Minato had resigned himself to the fact that his third year was going to be comprised entirely of being dragged into various antics against his will.

While he’d been vaguely aware that the drama club existed he’d never expected their paths to cross in any meaningful way. He had no interest in acting. He definitely wasn’t volunteering to be in a play. He wasn’t interested.

As with most other things this year, he was recruited despite his own opinion on the matter. The club members were two people short of major characters because… something to do with how the characters were portrayed meant the remaining club members couldn’t or didn’t want to do it.

He wasn’t exactly sure of the reason because he’d been tuning out the club president’s begging of his help because he was not interested.

Naturally Ryoji was, and Minato found himself dragged to a rehearsal for the winter play after school to try out for a part he didn’t even particularly want. Ryoji was very lucky that Minato liked him so much.

And of course he was going to be put in a dress again if they liked him.

Minato sighed and read over the script. There was a general overview of the plot of the play - a samurai bumbling his way through a western style kingdom dispelling spirits and killing monsters to rescue the emperor’s kidnapped daughter in order to prove his worth and marry her - and Minato was supposed to be trying out for a princess supposedly suffering from a ghost haunting.

The twist was that the “ghost” was actually a cursed vampire in love with her and drinking her blood at night, thus leading to her waning health. It was a subplot that took up an entire third of the play and ended with the vampire breaking his curse out of love for the princess (and purifying royal blood apparently) and marrying her.

He supposed it fit the fairy tale feel of the play, but the whole premise was just ridiculous.

Ryoji was grinning in pure delight as he read through the script, though, so Minato pushed his exasperation to the side and read through his own audition parts. It was… about what he’d expected of it, really. Cliche and cheesy, the princess was demure and distant and quiet and generally as skeptical of the main character’s skill as everyone else in the play.

And then her interactions with the vampire were…

Alright he hadn’t been warned that they were secret lovers, that changed the whole arc’s plot.

“Seriously?” he asked Ryoji, waving the script in his direction. “Did you know about this?”

Ryoji beamed at him. “Why do you think I agreed to try out?”

“Because you’re a being of chaos who lives to torment me?”

“See, keep up those dramatics and you’ll do just fine!”

Ugh.

That said, he wasn’t enough of an asshole anymore to blow it off and not put in any effort so he memorized the lines. One of the senior members of the club was acting as a stand-in for the hero for their first meeting and he nodded encouragingly as Minato stepped onto the mock-stage in their chosen classroom. A couple of the other club members were around - acting as judges most likely - but any other club members or auditioners had been kept out.

He almost wished Ryoji - or Aigis, who had apparently also gotten roped into helping with this arc - were here so he wouldn’t feel as ridiculous as he did. He’d spent plenty of time learning to function socially last year so he was charming and courageous enough to at least pass this off as a non-issue but it was still… not his idea of fun.

The club members seemed to heavily disagree and were very impressed by his performance.

And thus he successfully auditioned for the play and got the part. Apparently so did both Ryoji and Aigis which meant he wouldn’t be getting any peace until the performance was complete.

“How does this keep happening to me?” he wondered aloud with a sigh as he sat on the couch in the dorms, Mitsuru, Yukari, and Shinji around.

Yukari sent him a dry look. “You keep letting Ryoji do what he wants.”

There was that. “It’s usually not worth the effort of fighting it.”

“There’s your problem,” Shinji snorted.

Mitsuru’s expression was amused as she flipped a page from her stack. “It’s not such a bad thing, is it? It gives you a broader range of experience.”

“I know,” he murmured, skimming the script. “And that’s his point - living to to fullest and experiencing as much as we can while we have time to do so. That doesn’t make me any more excited to be dragged into this.”

Pain flickered across her and Yukari’s faces as Shinji grimaced and Koromaru let out a soft whine and padded over to hop onto the couch and lean against him. He patted the dog and shrugged at the others. It was what it was, even if they didn’t like the reminder.

He looked up as the door swung open to admit Ryoji and Aigis with Junpei and Chidori trailing after them and let out a heavy sigh as he saw both Ryoji and Aigis holding their scripts. Ryoji’s grin upon catching sight of Minato was meant that he was about to be dragged into practicing.

They at least took mercy on him and pulled him up to his and Ryoji’s room so he wouldn’t be subject to SEES’ constant attention as well. Which was… something, he guessed.

“The princess, the vampire, and the hunter,” Ryoji mused as Minato flopped back onto the bed, leaning against the dresser. “Somehow this feels almost nostalgic.”

“Please don’t start fighting for real in the middle of the play,” Minato muttered. “The last thing we need is for you two to destroy the stage.”

“Of course not; it is merely a play after all.” Aigis tilted her head as she read through her script, a hand on her chin. “And the fight scenes seem relatively short as well.”

“We’ll also be using prop weapons, no guns or two meter swords.” Ryoji added with a laugh.

“No real guns,” Minato amended pointedly. “They have models that Aigis will be using to try to shoot you.”

“I won’t miss,” she vowed gravely.

Ryoji leaned away with a joking wince. “I mean, you could miss a little.”

“Pretty sure she’s supposed to hit you at the end of the arc, and that’s when the princess intervenes and asks the hero to help her convince everyone that the vampire isn’t horrible.”

“Somehow you were both the princess and the hero.”

“Pretty sure I was just the princess, and I only had to win the hunter over given we all agreed not to tell SEES while they were still coming to terms with everything else at Yakushima.”

“I do not believe I was too difficult to win over,” Aigis murmured, almost to herself.

“Only because you didn’t want to risk hurting Minato,” Ryoji pointed out with a small smile. “It took you a while to warm up to me, even with Minato’s word. You really didn’t trust me.”

“You were a Shadow, after all. An enemy, even former, is not so easily trusted.”

True, she’d been wary for a while. But she’d put her faith in Minato - something he still didn’t fully understand - and come around to viewing Thanatos as an ally in keeping Minato and the world safe, and Ryoji as a friend.

She wouldn’t have pled with them both so earnestly to survive if she hadn’t.

Ryoji shrugged it off. “Well you did come around, and we can use the experience to help us with the play!”

“So who’s subbing in for the hero and king in my introduction scene?” Minato deadpanned as he waved the script at them. “I’d rather not mime at empty air.”

“Aigis would probably be a better hero, and I can play the king. We might have a problem when all five characters are in the same scene, though…"

“That will not be until the end of the arc. We can deal with that problem when we get to it, yes?”

“True enough! So the scene starts…”

~ ᙙᙖ ~

The rehearsals weren’t bad - were actually pretty fun, once he got used to it. They were exhausting, but at least he had a relatively small part overall and the lines were easy enough to memorize. Aigis and the guy playing the hero were easy to bounce off of too, which was nice.

Ryoji and Aigis also worked well together - though the level of intensity between the two of them was… good for the play, but it just made him pinch his brow in exasperation. At least they seemed to be having fun with it.

He was not looking forward to his first scene with Ryoji.

They hadn’t even begun practicing for it yet, but he could already feel the mortification anytime he skimmed through the script. They were already probably the worst-kept open secret in the school by this point and showcasing their relationship on stage in front of anyone who came to the play was not something he’d ever intended. The plausible deniability of it was dwindling by the month…

Not that it would really matter, in the grand scheme of things, but rumors were annoying enough without actively fueling them.

The things he did for his boyfriend…

“So,” Ryoji said cheerfully a couple of weeks later, dropping back onto the bed with a small bounce and a grin, “we’ll be having our first scene together soon, so we should practice.”

Minato sighed, dropping his bag heavily on the desk as he slumped against it. “Really…?”

“Come on, it’ll be fun!”

If it hadn’t been in front of dozens of people, maybe.

Minato sent him a dubious look and flipped the script open to the scene. “The hero stumbles across the princess and vampire having a ‘tender moment’, thus realizing that they are secretly involved. They have a conversation in which the princess asks the vampire to ‘whisk her away’ and he promises to do so soon, which leads to the final scene where he tries to kidnap her, fights the hunter nearly to the death, and then the princess intervenes and asks them to leave him alone.” The look Minato sent Ryoji made him snicker. “And we have to do this in front of dozens of people.”

“So what?”

“You know what,” Minato muttered with another sigh. “Life was easier when I didn’t care about anything. Now people annoy me.”

Ryoji’s expression softened. He pushed himself up off the bed and walked over to lean against Minato and slip his arms around him, pressing his cheek to Minato’s hair. “Are you that worried about it?”

Well, no. It was exasperating and he wasn’t exactly thrilled to be put on stage in front of so many people, and the ribbing and increased whispered rumors would be irritating, but it was the inconvenience rather than anything serious that bothered him.

“It’s fine,” he said, nudging Ryoji back. “I’ll tune it out.”

A soft hum was his response and Ryoji pressed their foreheads together. “I’ll be here,” he promised.

He knew. Ryoji always was. Always had been - no matter what Minato needed, Death, Thanatos, and Ryoji had always been there.

Rather than responding Minato reached up to rest a hand on Ryoji’s shoulder and closed his eyes with a soft murmur of, “Ever at my side - but how far are we to go? If we are to stay here we are surely to be torn apart. But if we are to leave we shall be ever hunted by those who wish for my return. Is there no true freedom to be found?”

A squeeze of his waist was his response as Ryoji continued the script. “We shall go as far as necessary to be together. To the very ends of the earth if we must. I will stay by your side and protect you no matter the challenges - if I must fight off mercenaries, armies, or the world itself I will hold and cherish you forevermore.”

“Pretty words do not a promise make, my beloved.”

“You think my words empty?”

Minato opened his eyes and pulled back to glare at him. “I think your life and strength more limited than you may believe,” he retorted. “Would you leave me alone in your battles against the world? Abandoned with naught but ash and stakes to hold? You may fight mercenaries and armies and the world itself, but can you swear you would triumph?”

Ryoji hesitated, casting his eyes down. “I would fight to the last.”

“The last is no good if you do not return to me. I do not want you to die for me, I wish for you to live with me.”

He caught Minato’s hand and brought it up to his lips - which wasn’t in the script but it was a very Ryoji thing to do - and sighed. “Right though you may be, it brings me naught but pain to be parted thus from you. Hiding in the shadows, sneaking through your window, stealing you away for but a few moments in the silence of night… ‘tis an agony we must bear. My unbeating heart has been yours since first we met and yet I cannot even give it to you properly.”

“And mine yours. Would that I could be spirited away from this pain without dooming us both.”

“I will find a way - this I swear to you!” Minato’s breath hitched in surprise as Ryoji suddenly pulled him close and ducked down to press his lips against his throat.

He was supposed to have a line here but his mind had blanked out at the unexpected motion and all he could say was, “If you do that on stage we’re going to get kicked off.”

Ryoji paused and pulled back, blinking at him. “Is that too much? I thought it symbolic, given he’s supposed to be a vampire.”

“It’s still a school play, you can’t start being too scandalous on stage.”

“Is that scandalous…?”

“Most people consider it to be, yes,” Minato deadpanned. “That’s too intimate unless it’s dramatized right.”

“I could bite you instead.”

“If you bite me on-stage I’m kicking you off myself.”

Ryoji laughed and bumped their foreheads together. “Alright, alright, I’ll tone it down. For the sake of our director if nothing else.”

“We’ll find out how they want us to perform it later this week either way, but given how they have us doing the rest of the play I doubt they want it to have a too serious a tone…” The drama club leaned hard into the “drama” part of their name so they were more likely to want a loud, melodramatic rendition of the scene than a quiet intimate one.

Which was easier for Ryoji than Minato, whose attitude on melodrama was to avoid it as much as possible.

“True enough. So we have to the end of the week to memorize that part of the script!”

Which meant practice. For both them and Aigis, who showed up at the end of the scene to accuse the vampire of trying to attack the princess and instigating a fight scene. The hero was supposed to be on a balcony above them ruminating on his own journey and accidentally eavesdropping on them, but he fortunately didn’t have any lines until after the hunter and vampire began their fight so the three of them could practice alone.

Minato was very relieved that they didn’t have to involve the rest of SEES in their practice sessions.

The rehearsals continued relatively smoothly - though not without their own stumbles or minor disasters of forgotten lines or arguments about characterization or the occasional near fistfight between the director and one actor or another - and Minato watched the final dates creep ever closer with trepidation.

The role came easily enough by now, and he, Ryoji, and Aigis had settled into their characters and the relationship between them well enough that scenes between the three of them rarely had to be reworked or altered, but…

Well, the other actors weren’t quite so easy for he and Aigis to work with. Aigis in particular made others stumble after one of her line deliveries was a bit more monotone or disjointed than they expected. The director liked it because he said it made the hunter feel cooler and more mysterious, but it tripped everyone else up a lot at first. They adjusted, slowly, and Aigis adjusted to meet them, but it was a learning curve for everyone.

And he and Ryoji kept getting a lot of raised eyebrows, rolled eyes, and ribbing after their “private scenes” where the princess and the vampire were sneaking aside for a quick conversation here and there.

And then there were the costumes.

Once they reached the point where the performance was close enough to begin rehearsing in costume, suddenly Minato was being shoved back into a dress - a big, heavy dress - twice a week on the stage in the auditorium. He at least wasn’t the only one - the king’s robes were just as heavy and ridiculous - but he was envious of Aigis and Ryoji’s minimal layers.

Granted they still had to mock-fight in theirs while he mostly stood around so maybe they weren’t really any less hot than him in the end.

Ultimately the couple of months leading up to the final performances went fairly smoothly aside from the usual mishaps. He only tripped on the dress and nearly face-planted once - and Ryoji and Aigis were both suddenly there to catch him causing raised eyebrows from the rest of the group - only a couple of prop swords were broken, Aigis only knocked Ryoji off the stage twice, the hero somehow manage to fall off the balcony once a week but was never injured, the king kept finding increasingly ridiculous ways to throw himself onto his throne with shock and despair when the princess and vampire revealed their relationship and overall Minato found himself having quite a bit of fun despite his disquiet.

Ryoji did jokingly offer to bite him for real in the reveal scene the first time they rehearsed it and Minato was not at all joking when he threatened to throw him off the stage if he did. Aigis volunteered to help.

Ryoji didn’t bite him.

The rest of SEES were vocal about their excitement to see the play - well, Shinji didn’t care and Ken was trying to play it off as usual, but the rest of them kept bringing it up - and Minato generally ignored them. He had no doubt they’d be there for the first performance, but he’d deal with that when they got there. Until then he wasn’t thinking about it.

(Wasn’t thinking about how much they would recognize in what Minato, Ryoji, and Aigis were putting into their characters.)

Several of his Social Links had also declared that they would be showing up to watch the play and Minato just groaned and told them that they really didn’t have to Not that they listened, but he tried.

But no matter his wishes the days still crept past and suddenly it was the week of the performance.

It was… stressful. Last minute panic and nerves and stage fright all around, forgotten lines and prop mishaps, costume adjustments, line adjustments, and endless arguments as tensions ran high as the first performance loomed. Minato, Ryoji, and Aigis seemed to be the only ones unaffected by the tension - though their previous experience with Nyx at the top of Tartarus likely had something to do with that.

It was hard to be frightened by anything after that.

And so the day of the first performance arrived, they ran through the play in one final rehearsal in the morning, and then it was creeping into evening and the auditorium opened for people to begin filing in. The rest of the crew kept running around and glancing out of the gaps between the curtains and generally making themselves more anxious while Minato leaned against the wall doing the assigned reading for history and refusing to acknowledge the crowd outside. If he pretended it wasn’t there he wouldn’t have to think about SEES undoubtedly in whatever ridiculous seats Mitsuru had reserved for them and wouldn’t have to overthink their potential reactions to the events of the play.

“Ready?” Ryoji asked directly in his ear, and he reflexively elbowed him in the stomach.

The boy doubled over wheezing while Minato sent him an unimpressed look. “Why did you decide to do that?”

“Just getting into character!”

Right.

“You'll have plenty of time to skulk menacingly and grab me from behind in your introduction scene,” he said blandly, returning to his book. “I'll try not to elbow you this time.”

“I would appreciate that…”

“Please do not injure our vampire half an hour before the curtains rising!” The director called as he hurried past.

Minato rolled his eyes. “It’ll take more than an elbow to injure him, he’ll be fine.”

Ryoji pouted at him as he plastered himself to Minato’s back, dropping his chin on his shoulder and wrapping his arms around his waist. “I’m hurt - I thought you were supposed to be on my side!”

“The princess might be but we’re not on stage yet.”

“No, but we will be soon,” Aigis said as she joined them, adjusting the model gun on her waist. “It is strange to require a physical gun, even if it is merely for show. I never required an evoker.”

Minato hummed, hand drifting to his own empty waist where his costume did not have any weapons. Seeing the other cast with their weapons made him miss his own, but his role didn’t have one. “You get used to it.”

She frowned but before she could speak the director called everyone’s attention for one last pep talk - mixed with some overview warnings about common mistakes - and then directed everyone to their starting positions to be ready for the curtain to rise.

Their arc was the second in the play after the opening and travel by the hero to the lands to the west, so they had a while to hang back and watch from backstage. They could see bits of the crowd from where they were, and against his will Minato found a tension settling in his chest. This was nothing even remotely as difficult or dangerous as even a standard Tartarus run, but it was also wildly out of his comfort zone and area of expertise.

Ryoji and Aigis, naturally, were immune to such mundane human concepts such as stage fright. Minato was too to a degree but still.

Why had he let Ryoji talk him into this?

He watched the opening act and mentally traced through the story in his head to make mental note of his cues.

The story began in Japan - or a variant of it - in feudal times. The hero was a wandering samurai without any particular accolades to his name who nonetheless fell in love with the one of the emperor’s daughters and courted her in secret while they tried to find a way for him to win the emperor’s favor. The story took a sudden twist when she was whisked away from the palace by a sorcerer from the west, and the samurai was the first to volunteer to hunt her down and return her safely home. In return, he would be promised her hand. The emperor agreed, and away the samurai went after bartering the journey from a trading ship.

The first arc took place partially on the ship and partially in the port city, where the sailors and merchants were plagued by sirens luring their men to their deaths. In order to get information about the sorcerer, the hero agreed to help the city get rid of the sirens.

There were a series of mishaps and failed attempts and one near-fatal scrape from the hero of trying to get maidens in the town to outsing them, attempts to harpoon them, and an attempt to bargain with them before the hero remembered the kami-blessed flute he’d inherited from his grandmother from her time as a shrine maiden for the goddess of music. His grandmother had told him that there wasn’t a more beautiful sound in all the world, and so he took the next ship out and began playing the flute as soon as the sirens began singing.

(The boy playing the hero had spent many afternoons frantically begging the band to teach him how to play a traditional wooden flute in order to make this scene work, and Minato had been impressed by his dedication. The band had too, apparently, and at least one argument had broken out between them and the drama club president over trying to recruit him.)

It enchanted the sirens so much that they stopped singing entirely, and in the silence he demanded that they leave and never attack humans again. They agreed on one condition - that he taught them to play the flute. He agreed in turn, and the bargain was struck. He taught them to play and told them how to make the instruments and in return they left the city.

The hero returned to the city triumphant and was told of the sorcerer’s cursed kingdom to the far north. The fastest way to get there was to head east towards the forested kingdoms, where they could offer more direct transportation there. The hero thanked them and moved on, which was the cue for the intermission before the second arc and Minato took a breath as the curtains fell closed to the audience applause.

The crew quickly scattered across the stage to change the props while the boy playing the hero collapsed into a chair and accepted a bottle of water from the director.

“So far so good, just keep it up,” the director encouraged them. “It’s gone smoothly so far, now we just have to hope that no one falls off of any balconies or breaks any swords.” He sent a pointed look at both the hero and Aigis - the two most common offenders. “If we can get through the fight scenes between those two without anything breaking we should be in the clear in terms of props. For lines, remember to enunciate and project. Mics can only do so much with the way they’re balanced.” That got looks sent at both Minato and the emperor’s daughter, because neither of them were good at loud and they both got monologues thanks to the roles they played in the story.

Monologues and a scene where they were begging for their lovers’ lives to be spared, which meant they had to make it sound heartfelt and they’d both been told multiple times to be louder and more passionate. They’d mostly gotten it - thanks to practicing together a few times and in Minato’s case one uncomfortable practice session between he, Ryoji, and Aigis that had sent all three of them into unpleasant memories of Yakushima - but it wasn’t something that came naturally to either of them.

Minato was going to have to lean on those memories of that uncomfortable and upsetting confrontation in the Dark Hour of Yakushima’s beach, wasn’t he? Granted Aigis and Ryoji probably would be too…

He let out a sigh and shifted to brush his arm against Ryoji’s at the director turned his attention to directing the prop team. Ryoji slipped their hands together and squeezed it reassuringly.

“It’ll be fun,” he murmured.

Minato snorted. “Fun isn’t quite the word I’d use. Especially the final fight scene.”

“Just project!”

The look Minato sent him was withering. “I’m going to be projecting Yakushima.”

Ryoji winced at the reminder while Aigis sighed softly. “As much as it pains me, that was also the event I was thinking of.”

“Well, yeah. It’s…” Ryoji trailed off, expression going distant as his mouth twisted down. “Yeah. It’s similar. We knew that.”

Minato squeezed his hand one more time before pulling away. “We did. It’ll be fine. Come on, we have positions to take up.”

“You have a position to take up,” Aigis corrected. “I do not come on until two scenes from now, and Ryoji has three.”

Minato waved them away and walked over to lean against the throne next to the king.

“Do not break that,” he warned, casting a quick glance towards the director. “Our dear director would have a fit.”

“I’m aware.” Minato pulled away from the throne and clasped his hands in front of him, channeling as much of Fuuka’s shy demeanor as he could. “Ugh. I never want to wear one of these again.”

“It looks good on you!”

“So I’ve been told. That doesn’t make it any more comfortable.” His voice dropped to a mutter. “Why are there so many layers?”

The king snickered. “Welcome to theater. If it’s any consolation I’m also dying, and so are our emperor and sorcerer.”

“At least it’s not just me.” And at least he didn’t have to fight in it. The sorcerer did, and she’d been miserable in all the costumed rehearsals.

“Alright, everyone in position - intermission is over in one minute!”

Minato took one final deep breath and tried to relax as he curled his shoulders inward and ducked his head. The princess was supposed to look timid and sickly in her first appearance - most of her appearances, really - so he had to at least try to match the body language.

The curtains rose and he was nearly blinded by the spotlights - closing his eyes and ducking his head while he waited for them to adjust. The crowd was nearly blocked out by it.

A minor relief.

The narrator began outlining the overview of the arc as the hero came on stage and bowed before the king to make his plea for transportation to the north.

The king stroked at his false beard - hopefully didn’t misjudge and yank it off like he had once or twice in rehearsal - and considered the hero. “The north you say? Why, that is quite the long and dangerous journey. I do have a carriage that can traverse the paths, aye, but you will have to prove yourself worth it. Tell me: what have you to bargain with?”

The hero straightened and raised his chin. “I have my sword, my pride, and a variety of skills felling beast and spirit alike. If there’s aught causing trouble in your kingdom or castle I can remove it.”

“Oho? Spirits you say? Why in that case I have just the task for you, swordsman. My daughter here is plagued by an evil spirit,” he gestured to the side and Minato dipped into a silent curtsy - he spent the first half of the arc with almost no lines to push the princess’ characterization before the sudden flip of realization in the second half - as the king continued, “-and we cannot discover what it is no matter what priests or exorcists we bring in. Perhaps you will have better luck with your experience of many travels.”

The hero bowed with a hand on his sword, and Minato made the mistake of glancing past him and catching sight of SEES sitting in the reserved seating. Of course they were. “I will do all in my power to banish this spirit and bring your daughter peace from this curse. Do you have an infirmary I may first visit? I would like to speak with them of the symptoms this spirit is causing.” He was glad he didn’t have any lines to remember in this scene.

“Why naturally! In fact, I will bring the infirmary to you! Guard, bring the matron would you? I would like to get to the bottom of this as quickly as possible!”

Minato began zoning out and watched from the corner of his eye as the guard bowed and walked off stage - hitting a quick high five with his girlfriend where she was preparing the props for the second half of the arc - and mock bowing to the matron who rolled her eyes at him as she stepped up to the edge of the curtain. They waited for the filler conversation between the king and hero to reach its cue and then returned to the stage.

He was almost a prop himself for most of this part - the king and matron had a conversation with the hero about the princess’ symptoms of weakness, pale skin, exhaustion, and all the other usual effects of blood loss. The hero would ask about the living situation in the castle, the religious practices, the diet, and a variety of other questions that were ultimately meaningless other than a hint here and there.

(The princess apparently wasn’t fond of the heavily spiced food of the south - garlic and thyme in particular was offensive to her palate apparently - and silver jewelry made her skin itch. Minato thought including those in this conversation was a bit too on the nose but it didn’t really matter.)

His gaze drifted across the crowd, curiously scanning for familiar faces.

SEES was SEES naturally, although why Mitsuru’s father was here was a question he was not going to ask. The man had been more hands-on with the school since Thanatos killed Ikutsuki, but the drama clubs’ play? Really? Whatever, he didn’t care.

Most of the student council were also here, as were half the kendo team, and all of his Social Links who were - or had been, in Keisuke’s case - students. Thankfully the only non-student Social Links here were the Kitamuras, who Minato had invited himself because this seemed like the type of thing they’d like. A part of him wished that Akinari, Bebe, and Mamoru were still around because Akinari and Bebe would have loved this, and Mamoru probably would have had fun ribbing him about it.

At least he could still send Bebe and Mamoru letters telling them about it, but it still sent a pang through him to know that he couldn’t do the same to Akinari. The boy’s mother was here though - he caught sight of her smiling at an aisle seat. Minato talked to her occasionally still, often on that same park bench, and he’d invited her here hoping she’d enjoy it. Nothing could replace or bring back Akinari, but sometimes doing things that you knew they’d loved could make you feel closer to them. She’d liked the idea, and he just hoped she’d like the play.

Minato was drawn from his musings by the king leaping to his feet - he somehow managed to make the action more dramatic each time he did it, they all swore by it - and shouting that they would get to the bottom of this no matter what and save his daughter.

Cue scene change, where the hero, guard, and matron began inspecting the castle for any signs of spirits and putting up “wards” against them. Minato was only in half the scene before he got to step off stage while they finished the “inspection”, jumped to the next morning, and Aigis made her introduction calling them idiots and claiming it to be a vampire - which they didn’t take seriously at first. So she declared that she would prove it and set a trap for the vampire that he would fall into that night.

The lights went out and Minato had to dart across the stage - without tripping over the dress again - to lie on the fake bed while Aigis and the hero “hid” around the corner. The lights came back on with a blue tinge, and Minato could hear Ryoji sneak through the fake window and creep towards the bed.

(He’d never gotten a satisfactory answer to why the princess didn’t warn the vampire of the trap other than a shrug and “plot”, and he’d long stopped thinking about it.)

Just as he reached the bed the hunter and hero leapt out and attacked him, driving him back, and he recoiled from the hunter’s silver dagger with a loud cry before fleeing. The hunter declared it proof enough, and this time the hero and king agreed.

Minato finally had his first lines - the princess protesting when the king and hunter suggest more secure quarters for her such as the high tower or the rooms near the dungeons. They begin weakly enough - complaints about the loss of comfort of her quarters, of the chill of underground or drafts of the tower, of the seclusion from the rest of the castle and dangers therein - and culminate in Minato’s first discomfort of the play.

He had to turn from the king and address the crowd directly, beseeching them as the princess was beseeching her father, and it was more nerve-wracking than anything else had been because there had never been a crowd in the rehearsals.

His gaze flicked frantically across them for something to latch on to to anchor him and found himself accidentally locking eyes with Mitsuru. Which was unfortunate given the lines and context could send a message he really didn’t want to send, but it was too late now.

“Am I to be a prisoner in my own home?!” The princess demanded to nothing. “Locked away at your whim because of the actions of a creature I have no control over? Am I to pay for the sins of others simply for existing in a way that they covet?” He really wished it hadn’t been Mitsuru because he saw her slight wince and felt a twinge of guilt. He’d apologize and clarify later.

The king quickly jumped in to pacify the princess and the hero offered an alternative solution of more traps and protective wards around the princess’ room to prevent the vampire entry. The hunter was clearly and vocally displeased with the whole affair, but the princess wouldn’t budge and thus neither would the king. Thus, the princess stayed and the hero and hunter laid traps to protect her.

And Minato’s scenes as a prop disappeared as he took an active role in the plot. Not too much - the main speaking characters of this arc were the hero, king, matron, and guard - but enough that he didn’t have time to zone out anymore as he had to keep track of lines and cues.

The smaller conversational scenes passed in a blur of information exchange and gossip about rumors and the woes of a king protecting both his kingdom and his daughter, until suddenly the lights were dimming and turning blue and it was time for the scene he’d been both anticipating and dreading. They’d practiced this scene so many times that he didn’t even have to think to recall the lines, but the very large audience watching was an uncomfortable awareness in the back of his mind as he leaned out around the corner of a prop wall and glanced back and forth across the stage before stepping out.

The princess snuck out of the castle to meet with the vampire, careful not to be seen, while the vampire snuck out of the shadows to surprise her. Given it was the revelation to the audience that she and the vampire were lovers rather than enemies it was supposed to put them on-edge and surprise them.

The problem was that Ryoji also liked to try and surprise Minato which put him on-edge.

So he was fully expecting the boy to try to sneak up on him for real - only to realize with amusement that while Minato might not see him the audience could, and their reactions of sitting up and leaning forward gave away where he’d be. So when Ryoji grabbed him from behind his startled reaction was fake and he didn’t punch him in the face like he nearly had several times in rehearsals.

The princess pulled away and whipped around with a gasp as the vampire laughed in her ear, smacking his arm lightly and scolding, “Stop startling me like that!”

“But you make it so easy,” he teased back, reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear. “And your reactions are so sweet!”

She huffed at him, catching his hand in hers. “You may find them less sweet as time passes if you do not desist.”

Another laugh and he suddenly pulled her close, making her gasp as he dipped her back. “Nonsense, for you are the sweetest of ambrosia and naught could change that my dearest lily.”

“You may come to regret those words in time,” she retorted, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck. “If I am a sweet lily then you are a rose of the sharpest thorns - but though thorns can be cut away lilies can be no less poisonous.”

“What sweet, gentle poison it shall be that takes me then.”

This would normally be the point where Minato would shove him off and accuse him of being too cheesy but he didn’t get a say in that here. So instead he just sighed in quiet exasperation and continued the script. “I would rather you remain at my side than flee my presence so readily, my love.” He was never going to live this down. Never. “Already, others seek to tear you from my side.”

The vampire’s face twisted into something pained and he lifted the princess back to her feet and pulled her close. “They merely care for you. They see the toll I take from you-”

“-Of my own free will-”

“-and wish to spare you further pain. I can hardly fault them for that. They wish to protect you.”

“Their protection is merely a cage - a manner in which to bind me down and control my life! I do this of my own decision, to spare you the hurt of a far greater curse, and with full awareness of the consequences.”

“That does not negate the hurt it inflicts upon you.”

“A temporary hurt,” she retorted. “Once the curse is lifted you’ll no longer need rely on me and I will return to my former self.”

He sighed, leaning down to press his head to hers. “The temporary nature of it does not negate the hurt. Would that I could avoid it altogether…”

Ah, there it was. That flicker of a distant look in blue eyes, Ryoji’s own memories of Death’s toll on Minato surfacing.

He reached up to cup his face and murmured, “‘Tis my own burden to take on, regardless of toll.” Ryoji’s eyes softened and he tilted his face into the touch. It warmed him for a moment, then Minato pulled himself back to the role, the princess’ wishes. “Would that we could away from this place, live free of burden and expectation and endless oversight. You and I, and the freedom to break the curse and live without risk of separation.”

“I could steal you away in an instant, yet we both know that would only compound the problem,” the vampire said with a sigh. “They would hunt to the ends of the earth to find you, as they should.”

“So sweet your words, yet it is your thorns I covet. I’m no fragile flower to wilt upon being plucked, despite your words. I wish to stay with you and no curse shall dissuade me. If it dissuades you, then we are merely to lift it and I offer my royal blood to purify the corruption.” She leaned close to the vampire, pulling him down. “Remain at my side, free of the taint you abhor so, with my lifeblood your sustenance so long as we both live.”

The vampire shuddered, tightening his grip on her. “You offer much - promises so tempting I fear I may not the strength to resist.”

“Then don’t.”

“Perhaps I won’t…”

His head dipped down beneath Minato’s chin, and Minato tilted his head back to give the illusion of the bite - if Ryoji bit him for real then they were going to have a talk - as Ryoji skimmed his lips down and pressed them to Minato’s pulse.

They were never going to live this down.

Fortunately that was the cue for Aigis the enter the scene as the hunter leapt on stage accusingly and the hero scambled down from the balcony. It was the first of the two fight scenes between the hunter and the vampire while the hero hurried to assist the collapsed princess. The princess swore him to silence of what he’d seen, while the hunter and vampire had a sword fight on the opposite side of the stage.

Minato wasn’t sure how much of their past experience Aigis and Ryoji were pulling into the fight scene but… given his own approach to the play he doubted it was any small amount. So long as they didn’t go overboard it would be fine.

The fight ended with the vampire retreating and a transition to the throne room, where the king was in hysterics about the vampire nearly “kidnapping” the princess, the matron was fussing over her, the guard was pacing and ranting about needing to up the guard rotations, and the hunter was attempting to force them all to be quiet and listen. The hero and princess stood in silence and watched the hysteria - something Minato was relieved about because there was no way he would have been able to remember his lines with everyone shouting over each other like that.

He mostly tuned out the scene until the end, where he had his next lines once again protesting being locked away. This time the princess was overruled, so away she went to the final part of the arc where the vampire broke in to break her out.

There were a couple of scenes in between of the hunter talking with the king determined to catch the vampire and the hero monologing wondering what he should do about the situation - whether he could interfere and help the princess and vampire as a parallel to himself and his own love, even though his own chances of gaining transport to the sorcerer depending upon his defeat of the vampire, what was the right thing to do - and Minato appreciated the break because the last part was going to be the most difficult.

Ugh, projecting.

But the scene arrived regardless, and Minato returned to the dark stage to the room set. The lights came on, and it was time for the princess’ monologue of being trapped in a cage and how she wished to be swept away to freedom - just in time for the vampire to break through the door in order to do exactly that.

Minato had to focus on not tripping, Ryoji’s hand tight in his, as he was pulled up and down the set stairs with the spotlight on them. Realistically, he understood why they had the pointless run around the levels of the set to build tension and portray time passing before going to the opposite side of the stage for the final confrontation in the throne room set.

Practically he really wished they could just run directly across the stage rather than dealing with the stupid stairs.

But he didn’t trip and they made it to the other side of the stage only for the hunter to leap out and confront them, accusing the vampire of stealing away the princess for his wicked ends. It drew the other characters to the throne room as well, each (aside from the hero) with their own accusation for the vampire. The princess tried to protest, but none of them listened and the vampire pushed her back behind him as the hunter attacked him.

Which gave Minato a distinct sense of deja vu, as it had every other time they’d practiced this scene before.

It was different, everything about it was different, and being in their ridiculous costumes should have broken any similarity apart, but…

His words being completely ignored, the flash of white and gold and red of Aigis attacking the black and blue of Ryoji, her dark, narrow glare as he leapt back and his cloak flared out behind him, the flash of her hand sending a bullet flying and Ryoji doubling over and curling inward in pain -

It was as much Minato as it was the princess that lunged forward and leapt between them with outstretched arms and a cry of “Stop!” because memories overlapped reality and they’d been here before-

Aigis stopped short with widened eyes, prop sword resting almost against his chest just as her fingers had over a year before, Ryoji crouched behind him. And it was different - wood rather than sand beneath their feet, a silent audience rather than crashing waves to their left, bright yellow spotlights shining down rather than a green-tinged moon, and it was Ryoji crouching down behind him with a prop sword rather than Thanatos looming over him with a real one but even still- even still-

Minato’s heart pounded in his ears as he told her to listen to him and Ryoji reached out towards him in concern and Aigis wavered a step back with confusion and pain in her expression-

It was an act, they all knew that and were cognizant of that but the unpleasant memories it brought forth were all too real.

The hero stepping in to stop the hunter and explain to the characters in the scene - and the audience a bit - about the situation that had led to this and why the vampire didn’t wish to harm the princess was what broke the immersion of it for them and Minato sank into a kneel beside Ryoji. Originally the script had had the princess standing silently, but Minato had gone through the scene once and come up with a justification for her kneeling beside the vampire as though examining his injury because no matter how many times they did this scene Minato’s knees became no less weak and shaky and he’d rather sit down to regain his composure for a minute after it while the hero’s part of the scene played out.

Ryoji sent him a wan smile as Minato touched his shoulder, hand reaching up to touch his, and Minato would have been worried about them breaking character if the rest of the cast hadn’t told them before that their reactions were perfect for the scene.

(SEES knew them well enough to ask questions though, he already knew it, and he supposed a year and a half was enough time to have passed to finally come clean about what exactly had happened at Yakushima.)

So the hero took main stage for a decent time while everyone else stood in shock before the king collapsed - somehow more dramatically each time, Minato really was somewhat impressed - back onto his throne with a wail that his gentle, beautiful daughter had been hiding such a terrible secret from him.

The princess finally stood once more and declared that she would not stand idly by while a curse took someone who didn’t deserve it, especially when that person was someone she’d come to love so dearly.

(Another difference that still echoed with him - his flat, unmoving declaration to Ryoji in December that they would fight Nyx and he would pull Ryoji from her himself because he refused to do anything less.)

Her words moved the other characters so much that offered to help break the curse rather than attacking the vampire - even the hunter reluctantly helped with her own experience with curses - and there was a short time skip to the king declaring that the princess and the newly-cured former vampire were to be married. The hero was invited but politely declined with the explanation that his own love needed rescuing from the evil sorcerer.

He was ushered away with the utmost speed with the promise that if he rescued his love before they wedding then they both were invited, and given transportation.

Minato was just glad to finally be done and gratefully collapsed onto a bench next to Ryoji and accepted a water bottle.

“Nice job, that was as excellent a scene as usual!”

Minato waved half-heartedly. “Now only two more times through the rest of the weekend and then I can let it go forever.” At least SEES wouldn’t be there for those. Minato yawned, leaning against Ryoji for a quick nap through the final arc of the hero infiltrating the sorcerer’s kingdom, winning the help of several of his unhappy minions, and sneaking his way past the many guards and to the final confrontation to rescue the emperor’s daughter.

It was mostly miscellaneous tasks to earn the help of people in the kingdom, broken up by the occasional dramatic fight, so Minato wasn’t too bothered about missing it. It was standard fairy tale stuff anyway.

The hero finally defeated the evil sorcerer and saved his love to return home and receive the emperor’s approval and permission to marry his daughter. The lights faded out as they shared a kiss, and the audience exploded into applause.

They had one last appearance for the curtain call to bow to the audience, and then Minato was finally free to change out of his costume and back into his regular clothes with great relief. Why were costume dresses so hot?

Granted it was very, very cold outside and the sweat froze to his skin and made him shudder uncomfortably as soon as he stepped out of the building. Ryoji plastered himself to his side in an offer of warmth but that didn’t really help when Ryoji naturally ran cold. Aigis was equally unhelpful, being made of metal. At least he wasn’t hot anymore, he supposed… he’d spent most of his life chilled thanks to Death, so at least he was used to it.

SEES was waiting for them in the courtyard and greeted them excitedly, declaring that they were going out to eat as celebration for the successful play. Junpei slung his arms over Minato and Ryoji’s shoulders cheerfully, teasing them as much as praising them, while Yukari had nothing but praise. Chidori and Ken were talking about the themes of the play while Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Shinji were giving them surveying looks that meant they would absolutely be asking questions once they got back to the dorms. Koromaru was darting circles around them excitedly, clearly having enjoyed the show as well (though how they’d gotten him in was another question Minato wasn’t going to ask. He’d snuck him into the movie theater after all).

It warmed him more than anything else could have, even as he rolled his eyes at Junpei’s teasing.

He never would have volunteered for himself, but… he’d had fun with it despite everything. Which was and always would be Ryoji’s point, he knew. Making memories and having experiences, good and bad, because the end was always closer than one thought and every moment was one that counted.

So as SEES pulled them toward the train and Ryoji’s hand intertwined with his and Aigis brushed against his shoulder Minato didn’t regret anything.

~ ᙙᙖ ~

So this was a lot of fun to write. Plays are fun to script out, even if I had to cut out a lot of the details for times sake. Minato having fun despite himself, and despite the bad memories it brought up. More details about what went down at Yakushima! I’ll probably come back to this and write out the actual event eventually, but until then here’s the gist. It was… a time. But everything turned out for the best in the end, so there’s that.

Bebe and Akinari would have loved this, and I stand by that. If I’d had more time I would have written out a conversation with Akinari’s mom at the end too, but I’ll come back at a later date for clean-up and expansion (like I did for Velveteen Shadows) once I have time.

Guess who ran out of time and pre-written chapters because final projects caught up with me? So tomorrow’s chapter will either be shorter or late, but it will be done and it’ll be a bit of a time skip into Shadow Ops era and exploring how the Persona thing works between them now after spending so long with their souls merged, even if Ryoji is an individual person now.

The final day will be a separate thing, because you can’t give me an afterlife prompt for these two and expect me not to take it. Despite these fluff chapters I’m still an angst writer first and I like writing stuff for my version of The Seal (as long-time readers or anyone familiar with the Velveteen Shadows prompt series knows) so that’s going to be fun too. It just. might be a few days late. because Masters degrees and final presentations.

#ryominaweek2023 #ryomina #persona 3 #ryoji mochizuki #minato arisato #makoto yuki #plays are fun to write #i wish i'd had more time to write it out entirely #i had a whole plot but classwork caught up to me #eventually i'll write out all of the yakushima confrontation #but until then take this #i really do love the relationship between these two and aigis and want to write more of it #this challenge is focused on them though so she'll be a lot more in the extra chapters (when I eventually have time to write them)

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