#actor’s mask loses her crystals!

[actorsmask]

When I saw Argenti x Velite, I thought it was a crack ship.

So uh

I was proven wrong

That quest was GAY.

[auburniivenus]

@puckish-rogue ˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ Requested a starter.

YOUR   EYES   ARE   SHINING.   This   was   a   space   where   time   lost   its   boundaries,   culminating   in   a   harmonious   synthesis   of   past   and   present,   where   the   east   and   west,   as   well   as   the   lawful   and   lawless,   intersected   in   a   delicate   state   of   equilibrium.   Within   this   realm,   the   night   took   on   the   persona   of   an   eternal   mistress,   while   the   beacons   remained   her   steadfast   companions,   never   losing   their   brilliance.

TENKAICHI’S   STREET   crimson   gate   served   as   a   bizarre   portal,   a   threshold   to   an   alternate   universe,   a   realm   of   decadence   and   debauchery.   It   exuded   an   ethereal   glow,   analogous   to   a   shimmering   ruby   kissed   by   the   sun,   compelling   pilgrims   with   the   allure   of   a   siren’s   song,   seducing   them   with   the   promise   of   forbidden   love.   This   was   the   grand   stage   where   life’s   actors   donned   their   masks,   hiding   their   true   selves   behind   a   facade,   where   tales   of   exuberance   and   sorrow,   triumph   and   defeat   unfolded.   Certain   individuals   were   attracted   to   this   spectacle   purely   for   the   adrenaline   it   offered,   while   others   were   in   search   of   solace   from   the   monotony   of   their   everyday   lives.   Meanwhile,   there   were   those   who   were   simply   attempting   to   survive   the   nuances   of   existence. 

Pink   Street,   on   the   other   hand,   was   the   pulsating   heart   of   this   urban   beast,   a   DIABOLICAL   spectacle   that   both   intrigued   and   satisfied.   It   was   the   reservoir   of   desire,   the   object   of   unspoken   lust.   This   was   the   marketplace   where   merchants   peddled   their   wares,   buyers   bartered   their   fortunes,   and   transactions   of   all   kinds   took   place.   Several   human   beings   were   drawn   to   this   location   by   the   promise   of   HEDONISTIC   INDULGENCE,   while   others   were   driven   by   their   curiosity   and   their   eagerness   to   venture   into   uncharted   territory.   Positioned   gracefully,   Lotus   Elysium   emerged   as   a   coveted   gem   within   the   city,   enticing   all   who   beheld   it.   Upon   crossing   the   threshold,   a   captivating   fusion   of   scents   greeted   guests   ────   the   appealing   fragrance   of   exotic   flowers,   the   sumptuous   aroma   of   barrel-aged   whiskey,   and   the   subtle   trace   of   premium   cigars.   Crystal   chandeliers,   suspended   like   orbiting   bodies,   cast   a   soft,   elegant   glow   that   arced   upon   polished   mahogany   tables   and   glinted   off   the   rims   of   crystal   glasses   filled   with   amber   liquid.

The   hostesses,   resplendent   in   their   finery,   moved   with   grace.   Their   laughter   was   the   chorus   that   set   the   night's   rhythm,   their   smiles   were   an   OMEN   of   an   escape   from   reality.   In   the   corners,   whispered   dialogues   transpired   akin   to   intricate   origami,   concealed   truths   traded   amidst   the   subdued   illumination.   Orihime   was   a   star   that   shone   the   brightest,   a   siren   whose   song   was   irresistible.   Her   reputation   as   one   of   the   most   sought-after   hostesses   in   the   area   was   a   testament   to   her   charm.   However,   on   this   evening,   her   company   had   been   taken   by   a   mysterious   stranger,   a   foreign   visitor   who   had   journeyed   across   oceans   to   experience   the   city's   nighttime   pleasures.

Under   the   guidance   of   the   establishment's   manager,   she   proceeded   to   the   reception   area.   Her   steps   were   as   graceful   as   a   swan   gliding   across   a   tranquil   lake.   “I   gather   you   are   the   one   who   has   summoned   me.”   Her   voice,   as   melodious   as   a   nightingale’s   serenade,   broke   the   silence.   “A   pleasure   to   make   your   acquaintance.   I’m   Inoue   Orihime.”   With   a   courteous   bow   that   was   as   elegant   as   a   lily   bending   to   the   morning   breeze,   she   introduced   herself.   She   spoke   with   a   deliberate   slowness,   ensuring   that   he   could   grasp   the   nuances   of   her   introduction.

[somethingqueerisgoingonhere]

Taken From My Billet

I crave to ache;

Fingers pressed into bruises,

Melancholy fog blurring the view.

The deep ache of a fever,

With cool hands pressed to feverish skin.

Stay with me by my billet become sickbed.

Take my hand, hold it like it will break,

While I will the fever to break.

_

Opal violin string;

Taut to the point of snapping.

The tension of the bow is perfect,

Chin pressed to black lacquer.

Piercingly crystal sound in flushed ears.

Chatoyancy ribbons spilling down your shoulder.

So brown, but threaded through with hints of stunning violet.

Is the sight entrancing or violent?

You make it look easy,

The purposeful way you move.

How your fingers hold the bow,

You guide to sing for your muse.

I’ve never quite heard it sing like that.

-

Shimmering moonlight all over my skin,

Bathe me a pool to swim in.

I like to take my time,

Swirl your ankle in lazy circles to pass the idle.

And I’ll take my sweet time.

So if you like,

Won’t you cast through the water tonight?

-

Your shoulders,

Do I make them hold too much?

It’s just that you bear this line of strength,

Running through them.

I see it in the way you endure and uphold,

So strong in the face of the bleeding of hearts.

It’s like the stars wove your shoulders with endless faith.

I feel the frailty,

Trembling in mine.

How they sink for the floor in begging devastation.

Oh, but when you’re near,

They ease with strength.

That yours has birthed.

So let it be time for mine,

To hold and raise your floor drawn eyes.

And carry your tired hands on the shoulders you helped stand again.

-

Butterflies and ballerinas.

I used to catch them in the field like dreams.

With the butterfly net my father made me.

Very small in her pale pink tights.

Slip on ballet shoes,

Flexible,

Don’t add height.

But Oh, how she loved the sparkles, the movement, the lights.

But curtains fall.

When those who hold tickets don’t show.

Red velvet devastation meet floor.

She knew it was so,

When she peeked out from behind.

I wish I could tell her,

There are more shows on the horizon.

Sold out like Eras’.

Fuck ticket master,

My man has my ticket.

There will be more shows darling,

Attended with intent.

Rests to be taken,

Carefully wrapped up in bed.

Now I don’t have to catch butterflies,

Now they land to rest on my lashes.

And I stitched my own tights,

Ones that fit my height.

Then I practiced all night,

Danced until I got it right.

Practically broke the bones gifted to my feet,

So I could shine properly.

And announced my debut show.

And when I was ready,

And the curtain rose,

You were sat there.

Smiling.

Front row.

-

Actors

Would I have known how to play a thousand faces?

Would I have survived if I hadn’t played the part?

If I hadn’t learned to cradled her like I was a sister?

If I hadn’t painted myself into the art,

And stumbled on the museum.

Or play the artist,

Scrubbing pain into the canvas?

Would I have known, 

If I hadn’t known,

How to stitch up my own skin?

Know how to recognize deer between creeper?

Or build shelter from stones.

Hide my own furs,

To dress frostbitten skin.

It is why, 

Isn’t it?

That I learned to mask the pain,

Was it what saved me from losing sight of you

During London bridge’s sabotaged felling?

So I could be My own Fair Lady?

Or how to be brave,

From the characters I played?

But I promise you one thing,

I’ll never act with you.

[lewyn-martell]

I’m just completely addicted to Rhea’s interviews (all the time) but especially after this episode. Like some media takes are just “oh she chose to be good” or “she’s Saul’s casualty” and she’s just like “nah Jimmy will mask up because the one person who told him he wasn’t worthless is gone and Kim will vanish herself because she doesn’t even think she deserves love at this point”

DUDE!! one of the first things to completely strike me about Rhea Seehorn is just how SMART she is. i've said this before: i wasn't planning on watching better call saul ever because i was never into breaking bad too much, but people i like posted about it and it intrigued me a bit to put it on the list (mostly because it was crystal clear the amoral clown of a lawyer from that show i watched a few seasons of some years back was someone's babygirl/malewife) BUT THEN i saw this post and idk why I started to read it while not even knowing the show, but it seriously made me LOSE. MY. SHIT. i fucked up my whole uni schedule to rewatch breaking bad as soon as i could so i could go on and watch better call saul because I NEEDED to see a show where an actor talks like that. It really stayed with me and I went completely insane just reading her talking about it.

this is what i want when i read an interview, this level of thought, of eloquence, of knowing exactly what you're talking about because you have thought about it so much. i don't think i'm exaggerating to say she is that smart because you can help yourself at any time at all of a large serving of bullshit opinions about this show/character just by doing a quick trip to reddit or twitter land. besides, you just have to listen to the audio commentaries where the bcs crew says multiple times that you might not think that at first because she's so unassuming, but she is actually crazy smart and she picks up the best lines of thought to dissect about a character. reading/listening to her saying anything at all about kim or this show is a pleasure every single time because she gives importance to the same stuff i do and she chooses her words so well and I never have to worry i might read something dumb djsjkjsdoijdsoij (back during succ season i had to)

even after this episode as you said, it's clear she knows exactly the pulse of it, I even had to read somewhere (in an article no less) stuff like "kim loves jimmy but she loves the law more" LIKE. NO!! you don't get it!!!! you get to talk to rhea seehorn and you still don't get it????? but of course what SHE says it's the best dissection anyone could ever give about it. you know that loneliness when you're very into something with no one to talk to or no one who gets it? i don't even have that case of blues that strongly this time because of her sdkjndskjndksjn i can trust EVERYTHING she says

honestly thank god we have rhea seehorn in people's radars now because this is the kind of actor creators dream every night about having on their show and PLEASE just give her the emmy

[felassan]

Highlights and insights from the MELE launch cast & crew reunion panel

[rewatch link] [highlights & insights from the N7 Day 2020 reunion]

In case a text format is better for anyone (in terms of accessibility for example). Cut for length.

Some paraphrasing.

If anyone’s interested in just the line-reading session, it starts at timestamp ~1:04:45.

In addition to the cast and crew from the N7 Day reunion, at this reunion also in attendance were: 

Mac Walters (Project Director for MELE, Lead Writer of the og MET)

Melanie Faulknor (Lead Producer for MELE)

Crystal McCord (Producer for MELE)

Fred Tatasciore (Saren)

Seth Green (Joker)

Kimberly Brooks (Ash)

Ash Sroka (Tali)

This was the biggest reunion / meetup of the cast so far, and some of the cast and crew were meeting for the first time here.

It’s been so long since the og MET that PW & KW are getting to watch their kids experience playing it for the first time

JHale doesn’t play but since MELE she’s been sneaking around Twitch jumping into peoples’ MELE livestreams to lurk, watch and comment a bit

What drew Seth to the character of Joker? The whole concept of the game. He likes games and MET’s mechanics (different trees of adventure, stacking reputation, choices carrying between games) at the time were the most sophisticated that he’d ever heard pitched. He thought this was new and exciting and wanted to be a part of it. For the character they cast him based on his personality traits (i.e. he sounds quite similar to Joker personality-wise)

Would Seth ever want to play Joker again if the opportunity presented itself? Sure, he loves the character, and if the writers ever had more things to explore/expand with Joker he’d be down for it. 

Seth said that it’s a different kind of fan that approach him about this project. The fans have spent many many hours in an intimate exchange with “him” that he hasn’t been a part of, but they experienced it nonetheless. “I’ve hugged a lot of strangers, you know what I’m saying? It’s great, you get an interaction with fans that you never get as a performer in any other experience”

Seth has been a space guy since he was little, it inspires him

With the state of the world the way it is now [covid, masks etc], does Ash think Tali’s story will be more impactful now than it was before? Ash hopes so, and that anything they do here will have a positive impact on a bigger level. Ultimately that’s why most of them do what they do, they want to reach people in deep ways. She hopes Tali is an inspiration in courage, bravery, standing up for what’s right and thinking about the greater good

The [MELE I think] dev team had a last team meeting with Greg Zeschuk, one of the founders of BioWare, who they had invited to it. He was regaling them with stories of the inception of Mass Effect. “You would imagine this sort of well-laid out, drawing boards everywhere... [but] it was basically just a napkin sketch in a Greek taverna with him and Casey going ‘We wanna do a space opera’, and then it took off”

The process of creating lore through development is very organic. A lot of it comes from character and story development. It builds up over the course of the game’s development. They did the codex entries at the end, the idea being that if they saved them for as late as they could, then they could pull from the story, characters and meaningful moments, and build them from there

PW wrote a bunch of the codex entries, elevator banter & lots of little bits of lore. They describe their time on the og MET as being a “baby writer”. They originally came in after Mac had back surgery and a junior writer was needed to fill in. “It was really fun, it was us sitting in a room together going ‘What do you think a hanar or a krogan thinks about this or that’?” For a first project for them this was an amazing experience - the world building itself creatively with all these awesome people

They tried to add multiplayer in every game but only got it to work in ME3

They had a lot of plots laid out in ME1 that they called “global plots”. These were outside the core critical path and would take players from planet to planet, and were sprawling stories. They pulled out a lot of really interesting concepts and ideas from these that did make it into the game, but all of the global plots ended up getting cut due to time. Mac still has old diagrams and spreadsheets which detailed how all of these would have come together

Q. If you all had to take a long-distance road-trip with two squadmates, who would you take and why? PW: “Jack and Mordin. Mordin because the drive would never lack for things to talk about at length quickly, Jack because you know you wouldn’t pay for the room. You wouldn’t know how you’d get the room, but you wouldn’t be paying for it.” Courtenay: “I’d take Mordin because there’d be singing, and FemShep just to have this thing - happen. In the room that I get for free.” JHale at this point fistpumped while saying “Yeess” [then I think what she said was “steaming hot”]

Seeing as asari are long-lived, how open is Ali to one day reprising her role as Liara? “She’s a character very close to my heart, it was such a great opportunity. In some games that we work on the character has already been created or voiced by someone else, but this was really a group effort. When I first went into the booth, the only thing I’d seen of her was a sort of like, rendering, and we slowly kind of came to her voice and presence. I would love to bring Liara back any time... hey, she can live a really long time guys. :D”

Caroline and people who do what she does (Creative Performance Director) are so critical to the quality of games. Caroline: “This group of people are extraordinary. We were lucky to have such an extraordinary cast. Every [recording] session was new and challenging. It was a labor of love. I’m tearing up right now thinking about it. I’m remembering my last session with Jen, she was the last session, just sobbing and sobbing”. When JHale was trying to say the lines of Shepard’s goodbye with Garrus, a line hit her like a tonne of bricks and she was in tears and was like “Shepard does not cry”. “It took me a second, I got it out and took another run at it, it was in there but stuffed down as it should have been, and I finished the line [and there was silence in the booth when usually Caroline would have been talking to give direction or instruction] Did we lose her? Did Skype crash?” and it transpired that what had happened was that Caroline was in floods of tears

ME was the first time Keythe had ever come across branching dialogue. “Normally when we work on a script and it’s from page 1 to 100. In this it was get to page 5, then go back to page 2 and play it a little differently. The skill and the fun and joy of it was to be able to go back and play a scene in a different way, with different writing, with different outcomes. This was not only a challenge but a real treat. So to all the writers who dreamed up how this build-your-own-adventure plays out, you have my undying respect. It was a real pleasure”

VEDA is a proprietary system that BW use to record the dialogue, which is the closest way of having it feel like having people in the booth together (it’s all digital and VAs get to hear the line someone else has done in that scene). Caroline really pushed for this because of the amount of time etc that was wasted due to lack of this sort of thing on ME1. William: “It was a god send for me, thank you, getting to hear a cue from Jen or Mark.” Ali: “Us being able to bounce off each other helps make it more real. This for me was the most real acting experience on a game I had ever had - the writing being so good, Caroline helping us through, being able to hear each other.” JHale was always early coming in to record relative to the others so only got to use VEDA a few times - a bit of Liara content and the scene with Anderson towards the end. “Those two times, oh my god it was amazing”. VEDA being a thing also helps from a scheduling standpoint

Seth and Tricia Helfer (EDI) only got to be in the booth actually together 1 time, to record/shoot a piece of promotional video. “We actually got to record a scene together and we were like ‘oh my god this is the best thing ever’. It was great, even though I had to stand on a stool. She’s the best”

Seth: “As an actor, the kind of opportunity to do this kind of material in games just didn’t exist.” Fred: “Oh, never! I had never had a villain part that was complicated like that. In a game? Never before, it was really interesting”

Raphael always goes back to the fact that ME brought more women into gaming than any other game before it. “The writing and the complexity of the relationships gave us so much ballast”. “This set this apart from running, shooting, gunning, looting”

JHale: “What I noticed in the times before when I got to be around fans, there was a huge hunger among women in the gaming world for something they could really jump into. They were starving for something which fed them what they deserved and needed”

Mac: “[praising Caroline] Caroline would often come to us as writers and challenge us and say, as an example, ‘Do we really need another male character to do this? Why are we writing another male character for this?’ She pushed that very early and to the betterment of everything we created”

PW: “Karin and Cookie and all of the editors across the trilogy, [were critical in] making sure that Shepard sounded consistent - [especially since] we had a large writing team, writers came and went, Mac is the only one with a significant writing contribution on each of the games”

PW: “[on game dev] It’s a process of getting hundreds of people pointed in the same direction, all believing that this is something worth doing”

Ash: “Having all the different possibilities and avenues, going back to play them all out in the different ways [really helped to round the character of Tali out and make her feel like a natural person]”.

VAs only get paid for the original recording sessions, not again (as in they don’t any royalties or anything from something like the remaster)

In MELE, they left all the original credits at the end of each game in

Fred: “It’s creating in five dimensions [because of all the outcomes and relationships etc]”. Seth: “The cool thing is that the audience feels that. They’re immediately struck by how dense, thought-out, prepared and planned the entire universe is”

How was it for the new MELE devs coming onto this? Crystal: “I knew it [the series and fans’ love for it] was big, but I didn’t know it was BIG! Working on MELE there was this infectious excitement. Being part of it was so exciting.” Melanie: “I came on at ME3, I had a 3 or 4 year honeymoon period with BioWare. Coming onto MELE, I’m getting really emotional. One of my first meetings originally was going into a cinematic review for an epic Tali scene in ME3”. Crystal: “On MELE, we had an hour or 2 every day where the team came together to play the game. In those reviews, a lot of the devs who worked on the original would tell all these stories. It was really fun to hear all the inside stories on ME’s creation and be a part of that”

DC: “Should this unit get vaccinated?” Ash: “Of course”

How do they think ME will be viewed in the next 10-20 years, what do they think its legacy will be? A piece of history, ground-breaking. It broke down some barriers and opened doors for people. It’s a powerful, powerful community. It’ll continue to age quite well and be enjoyed by a new generation, it’s original and evergreen and there’s a lot in it that people go back to. There’s a lot of universal things in it (personal experiences, like there will always be love, people fighting to belong, trying to make sense of their pasts etc)

JHale and Alix did the “I love you Shepard, now go save the world again” Shep-Sam exchange and both got teary. It was then Seth’s turn to line-read: “Jesus Christ, now that I’m good and choked up, fucking mess”. Ali was also actually crying from it

Seth: “It can’t be overstated, this community is so large and global, it is one of the most powerful fandoms that I’ve ever been greeted with. Thank you”. Ash: “It’s the most amazing group of fans ever. We’re all so grateful”

Some funny anecdotes/stories:

PW didn’t realize that Alix could do different accents. They remember a time when they were listening in the booth and an Alliance soldier was complaining about the gear had been given. They said “Wow that’s really good, who is that?” and the VO producer said “That’s Alix, Patrick”, “because she wasn’t doing her [normal British accent but was doing a Californian accent instead]. Alix roasted me later for not recognizing her voice and never let me heard the end of it”

Alix: “[on Sam’s toothbrush] Caroline’s like, ‘So then she pulls her toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘What? Sorry? A toothbrush?’ and obviously it’s funny now as everyone knows that Sam’s thing is her toothbrush. Caroline’s like ‘Yeah, you’ve gotta like, flirt, over the toothbrush’ and I’m like ‘Who wrote this - a frickin toothbrush, are you kidding me? Really guys?’ ANYWAY. I was wrong and it worked. :D”

Fred: “I remember a 12 year old kid coming up to me and being like [flat tone] ‘Oh yeah. I killed you’.”

Keythe: “The other assasin I play is Kellogg in Fallout 4. People come up to me like ‘Omg. I love you so much. And then I fucking KILLED you!’”

Courtenay once went out to dinner in NZ with a few prominent people from the Game of Thrones cast. “Everyone around was making a big deal out of it like ‘Omg, it’s so-and-so from GoT’. I was feeling a bit like ‘Hi, I’m here, just nobody’. And I looked around in the restaurant and there's one guy in the corner and he’s got an N7 shirt on and he’s just looking at me like [knowing look, does a peace sign]. And I’m like ‘I got one! I love you guys!’”

PW: “I have a question for the cast members, because I don’t know if JHale has done this to all of you or if she just does it to the devs. Show of hands if Jen has ever made you do push-ups.” JHale: “It’s just you guys”

Karin: “One of my favorite editing files that I ever had was a ME file. It was before Seth was coming in for a session. I opened it up and it was just 20, 25 lines with the word ‘Shit’, over and over again, and I was like, ‘This file is perfect, I don’t need to do anything to it, have fun!’”

Seth: “Didn’t we do a track that’s like 60 seconds of laughing? Escalating laughing? I don’t know about other actors but for me getting into a laughing fit is kind of like trying to get into a crying fit, it takes the same level of commitment, you start to follow a path until like you’re hysterically uncontrollably laughing. I remember looking through the glass, and I’m deep in it at this point, and I make eye contact, and I can see from the other side of the booth and they’re like [making ‘okay you can stop’ now gestures] - ‘Like that’s plenty, we got it’ and I was like ‘okay, okay [dying]’”

JHale: “The craziest thing Mark and I had to deal with was how many times we had to say ‘I should go’”. Mark: “We also, Caroline and I tended to use that as short hand when I needed to go to the bathroom”

The panel host: “The first time I interviewed Ali was a decade ago. She did the ‘I’ll flay you alive with my mind’ line halfway through, it was my first interview and I literally fell out of my seat [from being star-struck]”

Ash line-read Tali’s drunk omni-tattoo scene and in response DC said “I totally get why people wanna romanticize all these characters :D”. Karin: “We’ve had more than one person come up to us and show us actual tattoos that looked like that”

[source]

[elenamegan14]

Twisted Wonderland: Headcanons for Dorm Haunted Houses Pt.7 - Pomefiore

MASTERLIST

Part 6 

Warning! A slight spoiler from Twisted Wonderland Ch. 5.

THE ATTRACTION:

This dorm, out of all others, is the most AESTHETIC haunted house anyone had ever seen. 

And of course, they go for the vampire theme, because... DUH. 

It’s a masquerade vampire museum theme.

They all wore elegant haute couture costumes based on Parisian evening wear and masks made out of gold-encrusted embroidery and diamond crystals. EXPENSIVE AF. 

They were also the only dorm to have pre-show photo sessions with the staff and Vil before their haunted house event starts. Days before they opened their haunted house attraction, Vil marketed his team with an exclusive fan autograph and photo signing event to boost the popularity of their dorm’s haunted house. They have tickets for each type of signings, and the Deluxe Golden Ticket allows guests to take a signed picture with Vil and Rook. 

Beside the standard merchandise, Pomefiore created a special photobook centered on the main “vampires” of the dorm. Vil had to interfere when Pomefiore students got into a huge fight over who gets the most highlight in the photobook - the dorm leader already got dibs on the centrefold.  

Yes, it does sell like hotcakes. 

Vil made ten girls faint when he does a little fanservice for them. Like, licking his bloodied lips - exposing his fangs, or blowing a kiss at them during the pre-event signing.

EPEL JUST CRINGED.  

This is the reason why Epel refused to participate as an actor. He’d rather risk his life than to, as he put it: 

“I’m not whoring myself out and I refused to be dolled up like a prostitute.” Epel, PLEASE. 

He had to fight Vil for it, but after one compromise from Rook, Vil relents. He already got a vampire costume for Epel. 

Finding Pomefiore’s haunted house is not that hard (aside from the screaming and giggling fangirls). They just have to follow the search lights from the distance, when they came across a Greco-Roman museum having their premiere night out. 

Plastered on the front of the haunted house is Vil posing elegantly with his fangs out, drinking a drink that resembled blood. For fanservice reasons, Rook had rested his head onto Vil’s lap, the chisel that he showed is stained with clay and blood. The group immediately guessed correctly what their theme is. 

“Vampires, huh?” MC slowly raised a wooden stake and a hammer that they had prepared earlier just for this haunted house. 

Ace won’t lose. He brought out garlic. Jack immediately leaped ten feet away from him - dogs can’t eat garlic too, Ace. 

“GUYS, They’re not real.” Deuce slapped his forehead. 

“Who said that one of them MIGHT not be real?!” Grim fashioned a cross made of sticks, something that his brain cell had thought for the first time in forever. 

Epel just… grabbed a handful of herbs: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, “Meemaw said these little things can protect us from evil spirits!”

“Epel, this is a haunted house, not a cooking show. Get your act together.”

In the first act, guests went inside an elegant greco-roman museum where several handsome vampires greeted the guests - it’s the opening night for Rook’s sculpture exhibition. They came across a main gallery of elegant gold, red, purple, black and marbled interior aesthetic. On the side, guests could see that while some food is lavishly decorated, the wines are pungent with dripping red blood…

Sometimes they could see scare actors acting like vampires - either they bite guests sensually fun fact: this dorm had received numerous mail of willing female volunteers as scare actors willing to be bitten by or given a chance to bite these pretty boys or they can also witnessed screaming victims being mauled by a group of vampires behind the curtains. It’s not pretty. 

When guests entered the art section, the paintings changed from something beautiful to grotesque. Just like the changing paintings in Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Grimm is seriously creeped out when a painting of a beautiful woman turned into a monstrous medusa. 

Sometimes ‘vampire’ and ‘painting monster’ actors would jump out from the painting itself, so be careful with paintings that stayed still!

That goes the same with statues too. Scared the living daylights out of MC’s group. 

The last stage of the haunted dorm are the halls of mirrors that lead them to a giant ballroom where Vil sat on the throne made of gold. Preserved corpses of his “pretty” victims were left hanging up on the ceilings. A large decayed painting of Vil is looming behind the throne, constantly changing from young Vil to a decayed corpse. 

Don’t be fooled by the mirrors. If you approach one of the mirrors, a “monster” will come out bursting from it. 

Vil’s vampire costume is “OH NO, HE’S HOT!” personified. Elegant cape, flawless make and those luscious lips with fangs that seemed to invite everybody…

As Azul said, screams of awe (translation: squealing) is also counted. 

Vil beckoned his visitors to come closer. One girl immediately ripped off a piece of her clothing, exposing her shoulders and shouting “Take me! I’m YOURS!” at Vil. 

Oh, Vil does not just stop there. He will pick a “victim” out of these guests or participants, then “bite” them, earning more screams. One of his “victims” fainted from too much excitement and had to be carried out on a stretcher. 

THE MISSION:

According to the lore, this art gallery was once a mausoleum for all of the deceased nobilities. Strangely, the poor gravekeepers that survived their nights there mentioned that their corpses seem to stay ‘fresh’, as if they are alive. 

One day, a very beautiful man who is known as the Museum Director (“That would be our dear, Roi de Poison,” Rook explained proudly before someone dragged him away from spoiling further) had decided to renovate the mausoleum into an art gallery. Many artists and high-class society considered this place as the number one spot for gaining infamy, parties and connections. However, strange things kept happening - people kept disappearing, statues and paintings that seemed to resemble the missing people and some occasionally, young women and pretty men found with their blood drained in the same area as where the art gallery is. 

Their mission is to escape from the mansion and if possible, defeat the heck out of Vil and his minions, ESPECIALLY ROOK. 

For the first phase of the mission, they have to enter a special room in a gallery made for the participants to steal the charm inside a small chest box - the workshop of the sculptor himself. The key is left hanging on Rook’s neck. 

Someone had to distract Rook while others have to steal the key from Rook’s neck without him noticing - OR ELSE HE’LL CHASE YOU. 

This is a mission that requires a lot of teamwork and courage. Why? BECAUSE ROOK IS SCARY AF AND WILL HUNT ANYONE DOWN ONE BY ONE. 

Also, these guys will be hit by paralyzing magic for around fifteen minutes, becoming the statue victims to be placed on the gallery. 

One last survivor of a group of participants is left alone, crying like a baby as Rook prowls amongst the statues. Even Ace notes that’s very cruel, even for Rook. 

“We need someone fast enough to escape and pretty enough for Rook to take notice-” Everybody stared at Epel. That day, Epel swore vengeance on Grimm. 

It’s a good thing that Epel is carrying all those “vampire extermination” kits from the group. As Rook madly laughs and sings, ALL COVERED IN FAKE BLOOD, Epel’s heart rate just increased 100x.

Meanwhile, MC’s group had a lot of hard time getting the key from Rook’s neck- he’s just too fast, damn it!

Deuce finally decided on the oldest trick in the book: he tripped Rook. Then they dogpiled on him. MC managed to grab the key, ran all the way to the chest to unlock it, just as soon as Rook managed to escape from their grasp and ran after MC. 

“Okay! Now might be the good time for you to take that charm and get out of here… quickly, QUICKLY!” Grimm, your panic attack does not help MC one bit. 

MC finally got the charm, hallelujah. They ran out of the room immediately, Rook almost got Ace’s hair. His laugh still rings all across the wall. Epel finally got his vengeance by putting Grimm in a headlock for turning him into bait before MC finally broke them off. 

Once they escaped from the gallery, they entered a lab. This is where the REAL mission began. 

Now the guide told us that Vil had been sucking up youth from beautiful men and women in his castle. So they were told to prepare a ‘poison’. A ‘poison’ for Vil. A ‘poison’ specifically made to weaken Vil. Vil’s ‘poison’. 

Rumor has it that he has a personal painting where the painting of himself ages, and the only way to defeat him is to throw that said potion to that painting. 

To get the charm, they have to “recreate” the Queen’s famous “Peddler’s Disguise” potion by adding each ingredient into the cups that are already prepared. Then they have to present it to Vil. Each student must come in one by one just so the others won’t be spoiled. 

Getting the ingredients is easier than it’s done. In order to “prepare” it, they must unscrew the taps of each ingredient inside a liquid container. 

“I wonder what this one does-” MC unscrews tap - a loud, high-pitched scream blasted right on their face, leaving behind only a shocked MC with their hair standing up. “...well, now, that took ten years of my life.”

Ah, the host also forgot to mention that unscrewing the taps would trigger different scare effects like sudden gas air blown at you, squirted by black ink, high-pitched screams, and crone’s cackles in a sudden manner, so yeah, fuck you, Pomefiore. 

Also, the thunderbolts are real, so you get the tingling sensation on your hands aside from the loud thunderous noise and flash of light. MC felt that at least six students had a heart attack on this part. Deuce mentioned that his life flashes before his eyes. 

Plenty of students had scrambled out of this task. At least they got the potion ready. Now they just need to splash it at Vil’s painting. 

Well, good luck with that. Most girls (or guys) failed this task. Or at least deliberately failed just to get a “bite” from Vil. I mean, have you seen how alluring he is? 

It seems that Vil had also sprayed himself with a perfume that would knock all five senses off anyone. Along with a few aphrodisiac essences. 

It’s not just Vil they have to worry about. All of the participants have been shrieking to near death when the monsters came out bursting from the glass and took them inside. Jack apologized to one scare actor after he instinctively punched one. Well- so does Ace and Epel, but what do they care? 

When they finally reached the throne, they underestimated how incredibly beautiful Vil is. Like, he’s already pretty in everyday life, but now he’s ten thousand times more sexier than they all ever knew - alright, where do all these words come from? Why are they praising this crusty peacock more than they ever did?

Before they knew it, they were already starting to approach Vil unconsciously. He’s charming them with his sweet, sweet words.

Vil seems to be out for MC. First he gave a kiss on the back of their hand before sweeping off their feet in a mock dance. HIS FANS ARE JEALOUS AF. 

But then Deuce noticed that when guests and participants came to Vil like moths to a lightbulb, OH MY GREAT SEVEN, JACK IS CARRYING THE POTION VIAL. VIL IS COAXING HIM. HE’S ABOUT TO DROP THE ENTIRE POTION THAT THEY PAIN-STAKINGLY HAD CREATED-

“Do something!” Epel tried to slap some sense to Jack, shouting at both MC and Grimm.

Ok, think. MC needs an idea. Finally, they got one. You know, MC hates to do it, but it’s the only way to distract Vil. 

“NEIGE LEBLANCHE IS THE FAIREST OF ALL!” MC cupped their hands and shouted through it. 

Well, that did the trick, because Vil seemed to stop in his tracks (if the gasps from onlookers did not count), and did a 180 degree head turn directly at MC. 

“What… DID YOU SAY?” Gone is the suave, flirty vampire king Vil - in his stead is a raging, monstrous man with the fury of a thousand rabid peacocks. Welp, MC’s in trouble now. 

But it did buy Epel at least a few seconds to splash the “painting” with the “poison”, therefore clearing the last stage. 

Once Vil saw they finally did it, he gave out a rave performance of him being vanquished. He disappeared in the smoke. 

They don’t know if they should feel glad or not. His fans however… became murderous.

MC’s group had to run away from a horde of angry Vil fans. It took Rook (and Vil) himself a good five minutes to calm them down. By then, MC’s group had already run away.

Vil’s bites are nothing compared to his vicious piranha-like fans, Deuce noted. 

In the aftermath of Pomefiore’s haunted house, Epel swore vengeance upon Vil himself. If poison won’t kill him, then throwing him off the cliff during a thunderstorm sounded good as well. 

But their feet turned cold and felt all on their faces drained - they just finished Pomefiore. All of the other dorm houses there are just the preparation for an even bigger threat- there is one dorm whose haunted house reportedly to be so horrifying, that during preparation, there are rumors that the prefect had actually summoned REAL monsters to help the dorm to win. 

The dreaded haunted house of IGNIHYDE. 

[chiseler]

Stolen Faces

Cinema is an art of faces, almost a religion of faces: on screen they loom above us, vast as a mother’s face must appear to an infant. We can get lost in them. The deepest thrill the movies offer may be the opportunity to gaze at human faces longer and with more unabashed, lover-like intimacy than real life regularly allows. Most often, of course, we gaze at beautiful faces, though cinema has its share of beloved gargoyles, mugs with “character” rather than symmetry. But the uncanny power of faces onscreen also anchors films about disfigurement and facial transformations, about masks and scars and plastic surgery. These stories summon all the fears and taboos, desires and unresolved questions swirling around the human face. Do faces reveal or conceal a person’s true nature? Can changing someone’s face change their soul?

Deformity is a staple of horror films, of course, from classics such as Phantom of the Opera and The Raven (in which the hideously afflicted man played by Boris Karloff muses, “Maybe if a man looks ugly, he does ugly things”) to surgical shockers such as Eyes Without a Face. But plot twists involving faces that are damaged or corrected, masked or changed, turn up with surprising frequency in film noir as well, where they are related to themes of identity theft, amnesia, desperate attempts to shed the past or recover the past. One of the grim proverbs of noir is that you can’t escape yourself. There are no fresh starts, no second chances. But noir also demonstrates the instability of identity, the way character can be corrupted, and stories about facial transformations harbor a nebulous fear that there is in the end no fixed self. If noir is pessimistic about the possibility of change, it is at the same time haunted by fear of change—fear of looking in the mirror and seeing a stranger.

The Truth of Masks

Two films about men who literally lose their faces take the full measure of the resulting ostracism and crushing isolation—and what men will do to escape it. Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (Tanin no Kao, 1966) is based on a Kobo Abe novel about a scientist named Okuyama who has been literally defaced by a chemical accident. We never see what he used to look like; he spends half the film swaddled in bandages like Claude Rains in The Invisible Man, ferocious black eyes glinting through slits. Obsessed with people’s reactions to his appearance, he lashes out bitterly, insisting that all his social ties have been severed, including his conjugal ties with his wife. She tries to convince him that it’s all in his head and that her feelings haven’t changed, but her revulsion when he makes an abrupt sexual advance convinces him that she’s lying.

Okuyama believes that a life-like mask will restore his relationship with his wife and his connection to society. He has evidently not seen The Face Behind the Mask (1941), a terrific B noir in which Peter Lorre stars as Johnny Szabo, who is hideously scarred in a fire. This tragedy and the ensuing cruelty of strangers transform him from a sweet, Chaplin-esque immigrant to a bitter criminal mastermind, even after he dons a powder-white mask that gives him a sad, creepy ghost of his former face—more Lorre than Lorre.  The mask is merely a flimsy patch on the horrible visage that spiritually scars Johnny, and though it enables him to marry a sweet and loving (and perhaps near-sighted) woman, it can’t reverse the corrosion of his character.  

The doctor who makes a far more sophisticated mask for Okuyama does so because the project fascinates him as a psychological and philosophical experiment. He speculates about what the world would be like if everyone wore a mask: morality would not exist, he argues, since people would feel no responsibility for the actions of their alternate identities. (His theory seems to be borne out by the consequences of internet anonymity.) Unlike the one Johnny Szabo wears, here the mask bears no resemblance to Okuyama’s original looks, and the doctor believes the new face will change his patient’s personality, turning him into someone else.

When the mask is fitted, it turns out to be the face of Tatsuya Nakadai, one of the most striking and plastic pans in cinema history. With only a little help from a fake mole, dark glasses, and a bizarre fringe of beard, Nakadai succeeds in making his own features look eerily synthetic, as though they don’t belong to him. Sitting in a crowded beer hall on his first masked outing in public, he creates a palpable sense of unease, keeping his features unnaturally still as though unsure of their mobility, touching his skin gingerly to explore its alien surface. As he gradually grows more comfortable and revels in the freedom of his new face, the doctor tells him, “It’s not the beer that’s made you drunk, it’s the mask.”

Abe’s novel contains a scene in which the protagonist goes to an exhibit of Noh masks, highly stylized crystallizations of stock characters and emotions. In Noh, as in other traditional forms of theater that use masks, the actor is present on stage but vanishes into another physical being—men play women, young men play old men, gods, and ghosts. In cinema, actors impersonate other characters using their own faces—usually without even the heavy layer of makeup worn on western stages. Movie actors are pretending to be people they’re not, yet if we judge their performances good it means we believe what we see in their faces. When an actor’s real face plays the part of a mask, like Lorre’s or Nakadai’s, this strange inversion—the real impersonating the artificial—has a uniquely disconcerting effect.

At the heart of this disturbing film lurks a horror that changing the skin can indeed change the soul. Okuyama tries to hold onto his identity, insisting, “I am who I am, I can’t change,” but the doctor insists he is “a new man,” with “no records, no past.” In covering his scar tissue with a smooth, artificial skin he eradicates his own experience, and with it his humanity. The doctor turns out to be right when he predicts that the mask will have a mind of its own. Suddenly endowed with sleek good looks, Okuyama buys flashy suits and sets out to seduce his own wife. When he succeeds easily, he is outraged, only to have her reveal that she knew who he was all along. After she leaves him in disgust he descends into madness and random violence. He has become the opposite of the Invisible Man: a visible shell with nothing inside

Okuyama’s story is interwoven with a subplot about a radiation-scarred girl from Nagasaki, whose social isolation drives her to incest and suicide. Lovely from one side, repellent from the other, she looks very much like the protagonist of A Woman’s  Face. Ingrid Bergman starred in the Swedish original, but Joan Crawford is ideally cast in the 1941 Hollywood remake directed by George Cukor. Half beautiful and half grotesque, half hard-boiled and half vulnerable, Anna Holm spells out what was usually inchoate in Crawford’s paradoxical presence. A childhood fire has left her with a gnarled scar on one side of her face, like a black diseased root growing across her cheek and distorting her eye and mouth. Crawford makes us feel Anna’s agonizing humiliation when people look at her, which spurs her compulsive mannerisms of turning her head aside, lifting her hand to her cheek, or pulling her hair down.

Also perfectly cast is Conrad Veidt as the elegant, sinister Torsten Baring. Veidt went from German Expressionist horror—playing the goth heartthrob Cesar in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the grotesquely disfigured yet weirdly alluring hero of The Man Who Laughs—to an unexpected late-career run as a sexy leading man in cloak-and-dagger films such as The Spy in Black and Contraband. When Anna turns her head defiantly to reveal her scar, Torsten gazes at her with a gleam of excitement, even of perverse attraction. She is confused and touched by his kindness and gallantry, helplessly trying to hide her sensitivity beneath a tough façade. Her broken-up, uncertain expressions when he gives her flowers or kisses her hand count as some of the most delicate acting Crawford ever did. Anna assumes that Torsten, the penniless scion of a rich family, must want her to do some dirty work, and she turns out to be right, but he also genuinely appreciates the proud, bitter, lonely woman who faces down her miserable lot through sheer strength of will.

People are horrible to Anna, nastily mocking her wounded vanity and her attempts to look nice. “The world was against me,” she says, “All right, I’d be against it.” She has found the perfect outlet, blackmailing pretty women who commit adultery. In one of the film’s best scenes, the spoiled and kittenish wife she is threatening retaliates by shining a lamp in Anna’s face and laughing at her. Anna leaps at the woman and starts hitting her over and over, forehand and backhand, in an ecstasy of hatred. This savagely satisfying moment is derailed by the film’s first grossly contrived plot twist, as the encounter is interrupted by the woman’s husband, who happens to be a plastic surgeon specializing in correcting facial scars. He offers to operate on Anna, and once the bandages are removed, in a scene orchestrated for maximum suspense, an absurdly flawless face is revealed.

The doctor (Melvyn Douglas) calls her both his Galatea and his Frankenstein: he views her as his creation, but isn’t sure if she’s an ideal woman or an unholy monster, “a beautiful face with no heart.” Her dilemma is ultimately which man to please, whose approval to seek: the doctor who believes her character should be corrected now that her face is, or Torsten, who wants her to kill the young nephew who stands between him and the family estate. This overwrought turn is never plausible; it is always obvious that Anna is no child murderer. What is believable is her erotic thrall to Torsten, the first man who has ever shown an interest in her. Crawford is at her most unguarded in these moments of trembling desire; Cukor remarked on how “the nearer the camera, the more tender and yielding she became.” He speculated that the camera was her true lover.

Anna undergoes months of pain and uncertainty for the chance of being beautiful for Torsten, and there is a marvelous shot of her gazing at herself in a mirror as she prepares to surprise him with her new face, brimming with hard proud joy. But he winds up lamenting the surgery that has turned her into “a mere woman, soft and warm and full of love,” he sneers. “I thought you were something different—strong, exciting, not dull, mediocre, safe.” In this same speech, Torsten reveals himself as a cartoonish fascist megalomaniac, which fits in with the film’s slide into silly, flimsily scripted melodrama, but sadly obscures the radical spark of what he’s saying. Anna’s character is shaped by the way she looks, or rather by the way she is looked at by men; the disappointingly conventional ending sides with the man who equates flawless beauty with moral goodness, and against the one man who was able to see something fine—a “hard, shining brightness,” in a woman’s damaged and imperfect face.

A Stolen Face (1952) follows a similar premise, much less effectively, and reaches the opposite conclusion. Paul Henreid plays a plastic surgeon who operates on female criminals with disfiguring scars, convinced that once they look normal they will become contented law-abiding citizens. He gets carried away, however, sculpting one patient into a dead ringer for his lost love (Lizabeth Scott plays both the original and the copy) and marrying her. His attempt to play Pygmalion backfires, since the vulgar, mean-spirited and untrustworthy ex-con is unchanged by her new appearance: she is indeed “a beautiful face without a heart.” That is a succinct definition of the femme fatale, a type Lizabeth Scott often played and one that embodies a fascination with the deceptiveness of feminine beauty. In The Big Heat (1953), it is only when Debbie (Glora Grahame) has her pretty face rearranged by a pot of scalding coffee that she abandons her cynical self-interest to become an avenging angel, fearlessly punishing the corrupt who hide their greed behind a genteel façade. She has nothing left to lose; pulling a gun from her mink coat and plugging the woman she recognizes as her evil “sister,” the disfigured Debbie asserts her freedom: “I never felt better in my life.”

Blessings in Disguise

Sometimes, people are only too happy to lose their faces. Dr. Richard Talbot (Kent Smith), the protagonist of the superb, underappreciated drama Nora Prentiss (1947), sees the bright side when his face is horribly burned in a car crash. He has already faked his own death, sending another man’s corpse over a cliff in a burning car. In a neat bit of poetic irony, by crashing his own car he has completed the process of destroying his identity, and no longer needs to fear he’ll be recognized. Losing his face is a blessing in disguise—or rather, a blessing of disguise. But the disfigurement is also a visual representation of the corruption of his character: his face changes to reflect his downward metamorphosis with almost Dorian Gray-like precision.

Car crashes are a kind of refrain in the film. The doctor’s routine existence veers off course when a taxi knocks down a nightclub singer, Nora Prentiss (Anne Sheridan), across the street from his San Francisco office. Talk about a happy accident: the nice guy trapped in an ice-cold marriage to a rigid, nagging martinet suddenly has a gorgeous, good-humored young woman stretched out on his examining table. Nora may sing for a living, but her real vocation is dishing out wisecracks (her first words on coming to are, “There must be an easier way to get a taxi.”) When the doctor mentions a paper he’s writing on “ailments of the heart,” the canary, her eyelids dropping under the weight of knowingness, quips, “A paper? I could write a book.”

It’s hard to imagine a more sympathetic pair of adulterers, but the doctor is so daunted by the prospect of asking his wife for a divorce that it seems simpler to use the convenient death of a patient in his office to stage his own demise and flee to New York with Nora. It’s soon clear, though, that some part of him did die in San Francisco. Cooped up in a New York hotel room, terrified of going out lest someone spot him, the formerly gentle man becomes an irascible, rude, nervous wreck. When the faithful and incredibly patient Nora goes back to singing for Phil Dinardo (Robert Alda), the handsome nightclub owner who loves her, Talbot becomes hysterically jealous. Unshaven and hollow-eyed, he slaps Nora and almost kills Dinardo before fleeing the police and heading into that fiery crash. He becomes, as the film’s evocative French title has it, L’Amant sans Visage, “the lover without a face.”

When his bandages are removed, he is unrecognizable, wizened and scarred, his face a creased and calloused mask. His own wife doesn’t know him, and when Nora visits him in prison his damaged face, shot through a tight wire mesh, looks like something decaying, dissolving. He’s in prison because, in an even neater bit of irony, he has been charged with his own murder. He decides to take the rap, recognizing the justice of the mistake: he did kill Richard Talbot.

This same ironic plot twist appears in Strange Impersonation (1946), albeit less convincingly. This deliriously far-fetched tale, directed at a breakneck pace by Anthony Mann, stars Brenda Marshall as Nora Goodrich, a pretty scientist whose glasses signal that she is both brainy and emotionally myopic. She is harshly punished for caring more about work than marriage: her female lab assistant, who wants to steal Nora’s fiancé, tampers with an experiment so that it explodes, burning Nora’s face to a crisp. Embittered, she retreats from the world, and when another woman, who is trying to blackmail her over a car accident, falls from the window and is mistakenly identified as Nora, she seizes the opportunity to disappear, have plastic surgery that miraculously eliminates her scars, and return posing as the blackmailer, to seek revenge. She goes to work for her former fiancé, who strangely fails to recognize her voice or her striking resemblance to his lost love.

The plot plays out as, and turns out to be, a fever dream, but this last credibility stretcher is too common to dismiss as merely the flaw of one potboiler. Plots involving impersonation and identity theft rely not only on unrealistic visions of what plastic surgery can achieve, but on the assumption that people are deeply unobservant and tone-deaf in recognizing loved ones. A film that underlines this blindness with droll irony is The Scar (a.k.a. Hollow Triumph and The Man Who Murdered Himself, 1948), a convoluted but hugely entertaining little B noir in which Paul Henreid plays dual roles as a crook on the run and a psychologist who happens to look just like him. John Muller, pursued by hit men sent by a casino owner he robbed, stumbles across his doppelganger and decides to kill him and take his place. All he needs to do is give himself a facial scar to match the doctor’s. Only as he is dumping the body does he notice that he has put the scar on the wrong cheek—the consequence of an accidentally reversed photograph. But the irony quickly doubles back: Muller decides to brazen it out, and in fact no one notices that the doctor’s scar has apparently moved from one side of his face to the other—not even his lover. (Joan Bennett glides through this awkward part in a world-weary trance, giving a dry-martini reading to the script’s most famous lines: “It’s a bitter little world, full of sad surprises.”) The assumption that people pay little attention to the way others look or sound seems directly at odds with the power that faces and voices wield on film, and the intimate specificity with which we experience them. But noir stories often turn on how easily people are deceived, and how poorly they really know one another—or even themselves.

In The Long Wait (1954), perhaps the most extreme case of confused identity, a man with amnesia searches for a woman who has had plastic surgery. Not only does he not know what she looks like now, he can’t even remember what she used to look like. Since the movie is based on a Mickey Spillane story, he proceeds methodically by grabbing every woman he sees, in hopes that something will jog his memory. The film is fun in its pulpy, trashy way, provided you enjoy watching Anthony Quinn kiss women as though his aim were to throttle the life out of them. Quinn plays a man badly injured in a car wreck that erases both his memory and his fingerprints. This is lucky when he wanders into his old town and discovers he is wanted for a bank robbery—without fingerprints, they can’t arrest him. Figuring he must be innocent, he goes in search of the girlfriend who may or may not have grabbed the money and gone under the knife. It’s an intriguing premise, but the ultimate revelation of the right woman feels arbitrary, and the implications of all this confusion of identities are left resolutely unexamined. Nonetheless, there is something in the film’s searing, inarticulate desperation that glints like a shattered mirror.

Under the Knife

The promise of plastic surgery is a new and better self, the erasure of years and the traces of life. Taken to extremes, it is the opportunity to become a different person. Probably the best known plastic surgery noir is Dark Passage (1947), in which Humphrey Bogart plays Vincent Parry, who visits a back alley doctor after escaping from San Quentin. Parry was framed for killing his wife, so the face plastered across newspapers with the label of murderer has become a false face that betrays him. A friendly cabby who spots him recommends a surgeon who is he promises is “no quack.” Houseley Stevenson’s gleeful turn as the back-alley doctor is unforgettable, as he sharpens a straight razor while philosophizing about how all human life is rooted in fear of pain and death. He can’t resist scaring Parry, chortling over what he could do to a patient he didn’t like: make him look like a bulldog, or a monkey. But he reassures Parry that he’ll make him look good: “I’ll make you look as if you’ve lived.”

During the operation, Parry’s drugged consciousness becomes a kaleidoscope of faces, all the people who have threatened or helped him swirling around. His face is being re-shaped, as his life has already been shaped by others: the bad woman who framed him and the good woman who rescues and protects him, the small-time crook who menaces him and the kind cabby who helps him. Faceless for much of the movie, mute for part of it (he spends a long time in constraining bandages), Vincent Parry is among the most passive and cipher-like of noir protagonists. When the bandages finally come off after surgery, he looks like Humphrey Bogart, and the idea that this famously beat-up, lived-in face could be the creation of plastic surgery is perhaps the film’s biggest joke. But Vincent Parry remains an oddly blank, undefined character, and he seems unchanged by his new face and name. In a sense the doctor is right: he only looks as though he’s lived.

The fullest cinematic exploration of the problems inherent in trying to make a new life through plastic surgery is Seconds (1966), John Frankenheimer’s flesh-creeping sci-fi drama about a mysterious company that offers clients second lives. For a substantial fee, they will fake your death, make you over completely—including new fingerprints, teeth, and vocal cords—and create an entirely new identity for you. There is never a moment in the movie when this seems like a good idea. The Saul Bass credits, in which human features are stretched and distorted in extreme close-up, instills a horror of plasticity, and disorienting camera-work creates an immediate feeling of unease and dislocation, a physical discomfort at being in the wrong place.

Arthur, a businessman from Scarsdale, is the personification of disappointed middle age, afflicted by profound anomie that goes beyond a dull routine and a tired marriage. When the Company finishes its work—the process is shown in gruesome detail, to the extent that Frankenheimer’s cameraman fainted while shooting a real rhinoplasty—the formerly nondescript and greying Arthur looks like Rock Hudson, and has a new life as a playboy painter in Malibu. He’s told that he is free, “alone in the world, absolved of all responsibility.” He has “what every middle-aged man in America wants: freedom.”

At first, however, his life proves as empty and meaningless in this new setting as it was in the old; even when the Frankenstein scars have healed, he remains nervous and joyless as before. After he meets and falls for a beautiful blonde neighbor, who introduces him to a very 1960s California lifestyle, he begins to revel in youth and sensual freedom. Yet something is still not right; at a cocktail party he gets drunk and starts talking about his former existence—a taboo. He discovers that his lover, indeed almost everyone he knows, is an employee of the company or a fellow “reborn,” hired to create a fake life for him, and to keep him under surveillance. His “freedom” is a construct, tightly controlled.

Arthur rebels, making a forbidden trip to visit his wife, who of course does not recognize him. Talking to her about her supposedly deceased husband, for the first time he begins to understand himself: the depth of his alienation and confusion, the fact that he never really knew what he wanted, and so wanted the things he had been told he should want. Seconds is a scathing attack on the American ideal of a successful life, a portrait of how corporations sell fantasies of youth, beauty, happiness, love; buying into these commercial dreams, no one is really free to know what they want, or even who they are. Will Geer, as the folksy, sinister founder of the Company, talks wistfully about how he simply wanted to make people happy.

There is a deep sadness in the scenes where Arthur revisits his old home and confronts the failure of his attempt at rebirth—beautifully embodied by Rock Hudson in a performance suffused with the melancholy of a man who has spent his life hiding his real identity behind a mask. Yet Arthur still imagines that if he can have another new start, a third face and identity, he will get it right. Instead, he learns the macabre secret of how the Company goes about swapping out people’s identities. Seconds contrasts the surgical precision with which faces, bodies, and the trappings of life can be remade, and the impossibility of determining or predicting how or if the inner self will be changed. For that there are no charts or diagrams, and no knife that can cut deep enough.

by Imogen Sara Smith

[introvertllux]

Copia’s World: Chapter 1

Story Description: Lena is gifted with extraordinary powers, that much is true but what happens when she discovers that her powers are more of a curse than a blessing. Will Lena be able to fight the dark path she seems fated for or will she be able to confront her ever-growing powers in order to forge her own path? Secrets and lies discovered as Lena navigate through family, love, and self-discovery.

Genre: Romance, Drama, Comedy, Drama

Warnings: 18+, depictions of bullying, Christianity discrimination, mental health, mental disorders, racism, suicide, discrimination. (Please do not read, if you may be triggered).

*Any depictions referred to in the warnings are based on MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES. Please do not think I’m making fun or or mocking anyone, again these experiences are based on what I have seen and, or been through myself. Also, I am not intending to romanticize mental health or disorders in anyway. Lastly, If you do decided to read this story I am very thankful and I hope you enjoy it. : )

Notes to add:

I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS

THE ORIGINAL STORY IDEA IS MY OWN

THE CREATION OF THE CHARACTER PROFILES ARE MY OWN DOING (I DO NOT OWN THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE ART WORKS OF EACH CHARACTER. HOWEVER, I DID EDIT THE PICTURES OF MY OC (BRI HALL) TO MATCH MY OC DESCRIPTION.

THIS STORY WILL TAKE SOME EVENTS FROM THE COMICS, ANIMATED SERIES, AND THE LIVE ACTION MOVIES.

IN THIS STORY ALEX IS YOUNGER THAN SCOTT AND THE AGES VARY BASED ON THE ACTOR THAT PLAYS THE CHARACTER AND FOR THE SAKE OF THE PLOT

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Third Person’s P.O.V.

Friday, July 27, 2019

Lena inhaled the crisp cool summer air as she gazed outside of the large crystal-clear window of the deep corridor. A breathtaking blend of coral and peach sunlight filled the sky as birds soared high and low while chirping a captivating melody. She exhaled, as she gently opened her yellow-amber eyes and watched the pattern the birds flew in. Lena, then gripped the frame of widow seal, careful not to crush it underneath her superhuman strength. Oh, how badly did she want to leap out of the wind and fly, to soar, and join the feathered-winged creatures.

(You look like you want to join them) she heard a voice say inside of her head.

(More than anything…) I responded back.

(I think that freedom is what you seek more than anything, Lena) the voice said.

Lena looked at the person next to her from the lower corner of her left eye.

(Grandpa, freedom is the one thing I desire the most out of this world. It’s funny you know… how easy it seems to be able to have. To get too. It’s literally right outside my door. But for me, it seems unreachable. It’s bittersweet to know that my only desire is so close yet so far. But as a mutant as… me, I know that I would rather give up my dreams to protect my family and those who can’t protect themselves.)

she said as she turned her full body towards the founder of the Xavier Institute.

(As usual, that’s very brave, kind, and noble of you Lena. But as I told you many times in the past you can be all those things and more without giving up on the things you want. Balance is key to anything you do in life, Lena. Once, you've mastered that you’ll be impossible to stop) Professor Xavier said.

Lena let out a sigh, (Grandpa you and I both know the circumstances that prevent me from being free. I-I just want to be like them) I communicated to him as I pointed my arm out of the window at the birds in front of me.  (How long do I have to be a caged bird? How long until I can use my powers to help instead of hurting. How long until my powers stop feeling like a curse. How long until nobody fears me and they except me! How long until I can be free!?)

She yelled telepathically causing the man next her to groan in pain as he gripped the sides of his head.

Lena’s P.O.V

“Uh! Grandpa, I’m so, so, sorry!” I yelled as I kneeled next to his wheelchair. I tried to gently console him, trying to be extra careful of my strength and the volume of my voice.

“It’s alright, Lena.” He said softly.

I looked at him with glistening eyes, “I’m sorry. I’m so stupid.” I said quieter.

“Far from it my dear, very far. You just have trouble controlling your powers is all. We’ve all been there. I have your mother, your father, and the rest of the students that live here. Your case is just a special one… and like the rest we will find a way for you to control them.” He said optimistically.

I stared at him for a split second as I read his facial expression. Although he always made sure to remain level-headed and positive at all times, I know that deep inside he’s afraid. He’s terrified. He more than anyone that we know, knows how much of a ticking time bomb I am. He knows that I’m capable of the world ending power, yet he masks it all in hopes that “we” find a solution in an unpredictable time.

“Now, Lena if my time is correct and I’m sure that it is you have about 5 minutes before Colossus will be looking to join the others in the Danger Room. You know how organized he is.” He said smiling softly.

I mentally rolled my eyes as he mentioned Colossus.

“Have fun, and make sure you pay specific attention until how each student is managing their powers. I think it might help you find your source of control.” He said.

“Will do, grandpa. Have a nice rest of your day.” I said as I ran down the long hallway and down to my room.

As I entered my room, I quickly opened my side table drawer and pulled out black gloves that covered every inch of my hands. I quickly pulled them on my hair, careful not to tear them. I looked down at the gloves as I started to feel anxiety.

Looking at these gloves was a constant reminder of how defective I was. Usually, when I felt my powers start to lose control in the slightest way, I would put these gloves on. Today… when I broke the telepathic link with my grandfather was a sign of lack of control, although not a big one it was still something.

One of my first abilities I was able to master at a young age was telepathy but seeing as of late I’m losing my grip over it I think the gloves will stabilize me. God forbid I go to training and I bump into someone and I absorb their abilities or hurt them in any other way.

With about two minutes left before training, I left my room (which wasn’t too far from the danger room only about 10 feet). I walked with a neutral expression on my face as I entered the control room. I took “my” seat next to a standing Colossus whose body shined in pride at his team below.

“Nice of you to join us today, Lena.” He said without looking at me. I nodded my head back at his as I looked down at the white dull sneakers on my feet that seemed to pique my interest at the moment.

“I didn’t see you for breakfast, AGAIN. How can you expect to be a good hero if you aren’t eating a well-balanced meal?” He said in a lecturing tone.

No, how can I expect to be a good one, if I’m not allowed to use my powers?

I heard the sound of his body turning towards me, I hastily moved my hands behind my back so he wouldn’t see that I had my gloves on.

He cleared his throat and said, “I want you to watch closely. Today the team will be working on teamwork protocols. As a member of this team, I need you to see and understand how each team member's abilities work as well as how they complement one another.” He said as he turned back, getting ready to speak into the intercoms.

This is why I hated “training”. First and foremost, I’m not really a part of the team. I’m what you call the “final choice”. I’m the SWAT team to the police force. The Hulk to the Avengers. I’m the big guns. If our chances of winning are extremely low, they are banking on me to bring the bacon home. From an outsider’s perspective, it sounds like an honor… but in reality, it’s quite the opposite. I’m the caged animal that they only let free on the special circumstance. They don’t want to see me, talk to me, or USE me until they need me.

As for their powers, I know them left to right. I know every single one of my teammate’s power sources, origins, and weaknesses. How could I not? I live my life watching them all have fun with their powers and showing them off while I stay dormant, in complete comatose. Get this… isn’t it hilarious, how my parents always told me that mutants were special, that I was special but one mistake… and now I’m too special to use my gifts?

Don’t get me wrong at all. I love every and any kind of mutant good or evil no matter what their gifts are, they are all special and unique to me. But that all goes out the window when: 1.) I don’t use my powers so I’m basically a regular person and 2.) When I have the ability to absorb, replicate, and keep any power I’m exposed to. Having that ability, that curse, makes everyone around you feel ordinary and that’s something I hate about myself. I never want anyone to feel less than. I rather it is me so that they never know how it really feels.

Okay, team, I’m commencing the portal now. Get ready.” I heard Colossus say. A few seconds later I saw the lights deem as the computer speak:

Commencing Protocol 24389: Team Civilian Rescue

I sat up in my chair slightly making sure to keep my hands in a place where I knew Colossus wouldn’t be able to see. Within a few seconds, I analyzed the protocol. It seemed as though each section and customized by each person’s powers. Each person had their weakness placed in each section but would require help from a member to move through. Their ultimate end goal was to rescue an elder-women and her cat (Ha, how cute Colossus).

I continued to watch for a few moments, already seeing that they were not working as a team. I glanced up at Colossus from the side of my eye and noticed his stone-cold expression. 

Which I knew was translated to mean anger, disappointment, and shame. It seems like the only person that was trying his best was Alex, better known as Havok. He tried to guide the team and even give some advice but he was stopped but Mr. Hothead himself Pyro, or John who’s ego was so big he wouldn’t take direction from anyone because he was the leader and what he said went even if he was wrong.

Then there was Jubilation Lee or Jubilee who was a poor long-term focuser so when it came to making plans and strategies, she wasn’t all the way there. And last but certainly not least the Lovesick King, Sam aka Cannonball, he was so in love with Jubilee all he heard, saw, and thought about was her. If it didn’t involve her, he wanted no parts and that’s exactly what was happening.

 A few more minutes went by and I heard the screams of agony ring throughout the control panel. I flinch and quickly stood up hoping that nobody was hurt. The lights slowly turned on as I realized that the scream I heard was from the elderly women hologram. I let out a small sigh… glad that everyone was okay (well almost everyone). 

Protocol 24389: Team Civilian Rescue. Failed. 

I heard the computer say as the light was on completely. I heard Colossus' large steps start to exit the control room. I knew better than to try to leave and retreat back to my room. I hated conflict and I knew this would be another confrontation and I knew deep down inside It would be my fault because that’s just my role on this team.

“This! This is teamwork!?” Colossus yelled as he waved his hands in front of the other students.“Well, If John helped out more- “Sam started to say before he was cut off by everyone auguring back and forth all at once. 

“Enough!” Colossus yelled once more. 

“This is not what good teams do! Arguing and fight one another. That’s for the villain, not the heroes.” He said

.He let out a sigh, “You, “He said as he pointed at John, “You are the leader. You are supposed to lead them with humility and a good plan. You did neither of those. If you do that on the real battlefield do you expect to lead your team to victory or their deaths.”

 He said sternly. “Jubilee, you need to focus on the battlefield you can get yourself and others hurt or worse. Samuel, you need to focus on your team and the civilians, keep your head on the battlefield, not on your heart.” He said as he exchanged looks between the both of them.

Colossus looked up and down at Alex swiftly, “Alex, great work for what little you had to work with. Keep it up. It’s clear that you all need more training so… I will see you bright and early at 6:00 AM tomorrow.” He said as he began to turn around and walk off.“But… tomorrow is Saturday!” I heard Jubilee yell. Colossus just waved as he exited the room. I turned, trying to leave the room unnoticed.

“Where do you think you’re going.” I heard John say. I stopped for a moment, deciding not to let him get to me today.

I heard him snort, “Got the gloves on, huh? Bad day?” He said with a chuckle.

I quickly grabbed my hands and folded them up to my chest tightly as I kept walking.

“You know it’s your fault we failed that protocol.” He said with venom in his voice. I stopped in my tracks, my back still facing him.

“You just sit up there in the control room acting all high and mighty while we do all the work. What’s the point of doing all the work, when you can do it? You have the ability to have any and every power known to man yet- because you’re so defective we have to do the work. It’s pretty pathetic, to be honest.” He let out a sarcastic sigh, “I guess… I’ll always have that over you, huh? being flawless, being more than enough.” He said in a taunting manner.

“John, back off.” I heard Alex say.

“Shh… your leader is talking. And as the leader, I say my “team member” needs some constructive criticism.” He said wickedly.

“You know… now that I think about it I kind of own you. Everything I say goes. I mean look your powers are banned. You don’t train with us, you can’t leave this house, and… a big part of that is thanks to me. One of my greatest accomplishments to date I think.” He said as he started to laugh widely.

I began to shake in my spot, tears threatening to spill. I didn’t want to look up at John. All I wanted to do was run and retreat back to my room, the place I knew I would always be the safest. But instead, I decided that I had to look up, into the eyes of the man that made my life living hell every day for years. Not one part of me wanted to think he was evil or malicious when he tormented me on a daily. I wanted to see the good in him, as a fellow mutant, as a teammate, as a person. But all I could see what a selfish and wicked cold-hearted man.

I speed to my room devastated and broken. This was nothing new under the sun. Every day, John would take his shots at me tearing me down in front of our peers and they would just let it happen. John hated him with all his heart and soul and the rest didn’t understand me. They didn’t bother too. That just knows about the accident that leads to my powers awakening and from then on, they’ve avoided me like the plague. It just me to see that even in my own home that I will never kind anyone who truly gets me or a place where I belong.

I laid on my bed fast down as I cried myself to sleep. What felt like a minute later, was actually hours as I heard tapping on my window.  I walked to my window and opened it wide as something swiftly flew in. I looked at the figured and smiled.

“Cuzzo! It’s been a while!” I heard my cousin Peter yell.

I quickly jumped on him as we landed on the bed with my hand covering his mouth. “Shh,” I whispered.

Of course, I was very happy to see my cousin Peter. It’s been too long but like a true prisoner, I am not allowed to have any visitors and the same goes for Peter even though he’s family.

Peter’s eyes roamed down to my gloved hand and he mumbled something against. I moved my hands down and looked down at my lap, knowing how concerned he would be to see my gloves on. I didn’t want to ruin our reunion, but I felt as though I already did.

He grabbed both of my gloved hands and squeezed tightly, “Lena…” He expresses in a worried voice.

“Peter, I’m fine. I promise. Let’s talk about something else. Let’s talk about you I haven’t seen you in so long, aren’t you taking Online Summer courses at MIT?” I asked genuinely interested.

Peter’s looked lingered for a few seconds before he gave in, “Yeah I am actually. They’re killer. Dad wanted me to try and stay on campus and do the whole college thing a try, but I wanted to be able to patrol at home and- “He said before I interrupted “And your crush” I said in a teasing voice.

“Lin.” He said in a whining voice as he pursed his lips and I continued to laugh a bit.

“Well, I think uncle Tony just wants you to give you a fair shot at the whole being a “normal” kid type of thing. But you’re too far gone, Spider-Man. We’ve lost you to the dark side.” I said as I continued to joke.

“Tell me about it, right now I’m on the dark side of college homework.” He said as he began to pull out his homework from his bag.

“I also brought some ice cream. They’re rock solid, so by the time I get done with this they should be defrosted.” He said.

We talked back and forth as Peter did his homework. I helped quite a bit with the equations he was having problems solving.

“Lena, I always knew you were smart… but you’re better at solving these problems than I am. Maybe you should be at MIT, instead.” He laughed.

“No, way Peter. You’re a genius. I just like a challenge that all. Plus, engineering isn’t my passion.” I said with a shrug.

“To be honest you’ve never really talked about your passions before.” He said sounding intrigued.

“Um, my first one would be getting out of here. I might get spontaneous and travel to every state.” I said laughing while being serious.

“You know… being here all my life and not being allowed to leave unless supervised never gave me the chance to really find myself. I went to school here and never had the chance to go to college. The one constant thing that I find myself doing that I like is helping. I also like kids too, even if I’m not around them often. But when I was around Franklin and Valeria I was in awe. I wanted nothing but to see them happy you know. I don’t know maybe… maybe I’ll become a teacher.” I said quietly.

“Well, I think you’re an amazing teacher. You’re creative, smart, kind, and you always put other's needs before your own.” Peter said as he smiled softly at me as he placed his hand on my shoulder.

I flinched back, as he stared at me with his arms in surrender at me. “ah… um, I’m sorry.” I said frantically. “I just… my powers and the gloves um...” I said starting to panic.

“No, no. I’m sorry Lin I should’ve known better.” He said. “Um, ice cream?�� He said after a few moments of silence.

I nodded my head as he handed me, a mocha chip flavored ice cream. I smiled and thanked him. He always remembered by favorite. As we ate my ice cream, he talked to me about his dad and what the rest of the Avengers were up too.

“Wait so Thor is fat now?” I repeated. “Yeah, but he’s got more a dad bod thing going in verses the devastated drunk bod. He’s getting there. Aunt Nat and Uncle Clint are taking care of the psychical and dad are doing his version of emotional support and the rest of us are doing real actual support.” He said as eat another spoonful of ice cream.

I smiled, “I miss them. I wish I was there to see their faces.” I said feeling low again. “I know they all miss you, I missed you. I promise even though I have these dumb classes I’m coming to visit you more often even if Uncle Logan tries to kill me and hang me over the fireplace.” He said in a joking yet serious manner.

“When I told dad, I was going to sneak into your house, he said, “Why go all Bond on them, we can walk right up and make it a party.” He said laughing.

I shook my head, “I think at that point it’s more about our dad’s deep intense hatred for one another.” I said.

“They have a lot in common that’s why. They both think they know everything or can do anything better than another person.” Peter said.

“Ugh, tell me about it. Back to the party thing, it’s almost your birthday in two weeks what are you going to do. I know Uncle Tony will want to throw you a big bash.” I said.

“Yeah, now you tell me about it. I told dad something quite with the family but of course, it went in one ear and out the other. At this point, I don’t care what he wants to do. If you can’t come then, I don’t want anything.” He said.

“Aww. Peter, no don’t throw away your party for me. It’s not worth it.” I said. “What? Lena, are you hearing yourself? You’re my cousin. I’m not going to have a party that’s supposed to have family and friends there and you not be there. I don’t care if I have to invite every single member of this household in order for you to be able to come, I will do it.” He said.

I was a bit stun that he said he would invite everyone just for me. I know Peter wasn’t super close to the rest of the team members closer to our ages but Peter was the extroverted one out of the both of us so if it came down to it he would have no problem socializing with them, even if it were for a minute.

A few more minutes pass and Peter and I exchange goodbyes as he exited out of the window. About 10 minutes later another knock could be heard from the window.

What’s with my window tonight.

I raised the window and looked outside of it. “Hey, Angel.” I heard my Uncle Angel say to me with a wave. I waved back. He drew in closer to the window. “Hard day?” He asked as he nodded towards my gloves. I shrugged but didn’t say a word.

“How about some Angel Time.” He said as he referred to the nickname, I called our flying time together when I was a child. I knew the repercussions that would follow if we left the house without telling anyone, we both did, but I need this. For me flying was like a rocking a baby back to sleep, it was soothing to me, it was liberating.

I took a step back from my window and leaped out. Smiling widely as I levitated in the air. I began to fly up higher with my arms stretched wide. This is the feeling I’ve been missing for so long. I continued to smile as I fly all around my uncle. We flew together for a while until he landed on a cliff and patted his hand down on the grass near him. I flew down and landed gently.

“You know, when you’re up there flying around, you look just like your mother.” I smiled softly at his observation.

“Before you were born your mother and I used to fly all the time. It’s one of the only times I’ve really seen your mother look so happy, that or when you or your dad are around.” He said.

“Is that why you fly. Because it’s your freedom too.” I asked. He looked over and smiled at me. “You know before I discovered my wings I was from a very wealthy family. From the outside, everyone thought I was so happy and perfect because of it but I was so miserable. When I discovered my wings, I got on my knees and praised God because nothing could stop me from escaping the hell in which I lived. I had the power to leave and discover my own path and that’s what lead me to the school. Flying doesn’t solve all my problems, no. But it helps me to get on the right track.” He said with passion.

I hummed in satisfaction at his answer. It was so detailed and liberating. I related to it in many ways. Uncle Angel and I continued to laugh and talk about things from my childhood and things of his past, until sunrise. As the sun rose so did my anxiety and panic because I knew when I got home, I was in trouble. I knew I probably missed training so that was a dead give away that I wasn’t home like I was supposed to be.

We flew back home, with Uncle Angel telling me he would help explain the situation to my parents. However, that didn’t make me feel better considering the fact that there was no reasoning with parents as overprotective as my own.

We landed swiftly and opened the door to the mansion and made our way to the kitchen, figuring they would be there having their morning coffee and tea.

“Lena Oni Howlett! Where have you been? You just don’t leave the house without telling us or someone going with you!” I heard my mother yell.

“I know. “I mumbled quietly that only my father could probably hear with his advanced hearing.

“Wait Ororo, please don’t yell at her it was my fault,”  Angel said as he stood in front of me.

“She was having a bad day and-and I know flying helps to calm her down, so I took her.” He said trying to explain the situation.

“Do you have any idea what could’ve to happen with her flying up there. “I heard my father say with a growl.

“Nothing, I was with her-“ Angel tried to finish before he was interrupted “Then you’re dumber than I thought birdbrain. Her powers are unpredictable right now. We don’t know what triggers then and what doesn’t. You could’ve gotten yourselves both killed.” He said with anger in his voice.

I flinched when he called my powers unpredictable and when he said I was capable of killing both of us. It was true and I didn’t want it to happen. I never want to hurt anyone ever again but the way my own father was describing me it was like I was some kind of monster.

“Logan…” My mother warned.

“Can you believe this bullshit!” He yelled as he slammed his hand onto the marble countertop causing a crack to form.

“Watch your language!” My mother yelled at him.

“As soon as we do a better job at keeping track of our own, damn daughter. Oh, or do you not remember the stakes that are at hand!” He roared.

“Of course, I do! That’s why we’re taking the percussions we are now!” He yelled back. At this point, they were arguing with one another about me in front of me completely ignoring how I feel at this point. I felt awful knowing that my parents were arguing because of me. They rarely argued. Mostly playful banter. But I was the cause of this me. I hate conflict but I had to make it right.

“Stop!” I screamed at the top as my lungs as my eyes glow dark pink and my hair floated up in the air slightly. “Have you ever thought for a second how this all makes me feel? I’m the one with uncontrolled powers. I’m the one that ends up hurting people. I’m the common denominator! Keeping locked up like-like some monster won’t solve any of it.” I said looking at them with my eyes still glowing.

“This-” I said as pink aura started admitting from my body, “You say it’s special, but I have to hide it. You treat how society treats mutants. I don’t know whose side you guys are on or if you see me as some dangerous mutant…. or as your daughter.” I said in a shaky breath.

“I’m warning you both now. That if you don’t give me some space… or just an inch of freedom I will explode and nothing- and I mean nothing in this world will be able to contain it not even me.” I said sadly as I turned my back on them and left the kitchen quietly.

I went to my bedroom and looked into the mirror on the way to the far right and stared at it. My eyes were still glowing, and my pink aura was still surrounding my body. I sat down gently and started to close my eyes and take deep breaths until I felt my power level constrain back into my body. I take a few more moments before I hop into bed.

I take off my gloves and lay them on the side of my bed. I stare at my hands. The hands of murder. The hands of filled with extraordinary power. The hands of a murderer.

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

Link to:

Masterpost

Chapter 2 

I wanted to thank everyone who has liked or reblogged anything that has to do with this story. I want to give a HUGE SHOUTOUT to the following people for showing me some support (I apologize if i’m missing any names)!!

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[actorsmask]

"All the world's a stage, and I'm just an actor. Why cry when we can laugh instead?"

Also run by:

MHA OC: @manami-m1zun0

Tags || OC Info

Important: I am NOT going to answer any asks regarding current political situations and ongoing fights happening. Though my heart aches for the victims, I am NOT the right person to go to for these topics. I am a minor, in school, practicing for big events, and have very limited knowledge on the current issues happening. A HSR OC Roleplay blog is not the right place to go. So I’m sorry if it seems selfish, I’m just not informed enough nor do I think my blog is the right place for this information. Please go to other, more qualified blogs to submit asks like these.

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Mod has a life guys!!!! School has just started again and I’m not as quick to reblog or answer asks like I was before. So please do not spam or I will delete your ask.

You may have your own opinion, but if I see a hate comment or just something disrespectful, it will be deleted and you will be blocked.

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That's everything, happy role-playing!

[thelakesuite]

more musical rambles. not entirely concepts but whatev.

definite songs (not necessarily the titles): the house, finding love, the staircase/the elixir, the fortune teller, the search, the family band/voodoo, the war hero/the trenches, the well pt. 1, the treasure/the stars/the graveyard (the timepieces basically), the last dance (reprise of the family band), roots

definite scenes: the uncle, child's play, fertility, the clock, masks, the swing, the wedding photo, the painting, the lying game, the brood, communication

could be either: the well pt. 2 (reprising part 1), checkmate (it'd be a lil short tho)

major changes: childbirth (we don't see her giving birth but ya do see the babies. still unsure about this one, might decide to just cut it),     the wake (doesnt really happen, james just gets his tongue cut out and we move to child's play),     masks (happens after clock, emma tries to support al saying he doesn't need to cover his face etc., sam introduces al to ida. pretty much completely different),     the brood (no frank. leonard interrupts and finds out his uncle is more a wacko than he thought. detailed this before. straight transition into war hero),     communication (the main level stuff happens yes, but leonard comes in afterwards n bonds with rose a bit. asks about his parents, or maybe just their mother, maybe you can talk to them too, etc. tender stuff man),     the bathroom (0 idea here man but i do not want frank nakey in the tub. or nakey at all really. he’ll get some pants on in the well i promise. i'd love to cut it, but that's where the hair gets collected so i can't really. might even move it to just after the well. i do want a scene of al meets frank and is like "if it isn't the consequences of my actions" but you can't really incorporate the shaving into that.)

added scenes: i’d love to have one of albert recovering in bed after the beehive like kanman did but that requires a bed. odds are anyway i’ll have mary come out during child’s play to bandage up albert and scold sam and emma a bit anyway (so much for putting that in the major changes) // between the lying game and the family band, albert makes his voodoo dolls and monologues, onlooked by mr. crow. mary might also come out to try to calm al down after what happened in the lying game (the timeline’s lowkey fucked anyway might as well) and make sure he doesnt hurt anybody (not successfully ofc). unfortunately a crystal-ball-smashing scene can't be sustained to my knowledge. those bitches kinda expensive. // rose explains to frank and leonard what the reincarnation plan is to her best knowledge. still don’t have too much for this one but i’ll burn that bridge when i get to it

- for each level a sacrifice is collected (except for emma's tears and rose's blood), a corrupted stagehand comes down through the house and places a jar front center just before the scene/song starts. capture that feeling of dread yaknow. for emma and rose the vials are brought onstage as props by william.

- no samuel is not changing costume every scene like in the game. we can't do costume changes between family band and voodoo (ok maybe it's possible but it really isn't worth it). same goes for ida

- detailing the war hero/the trenches: starts with leonard solo workin on the motorbike, singin bout finally leaving albert behind (tho he'll miss rose), maybe finding purpose on the warfront, etc. he rides off, the mechanics of which i'm not sure yet. it’d be funny to have william just push him along but being funny ain’t the goal here.         the basement background is dropped, the lights dim (like a lot) (also if we can get a fog machine or two for here, fortune teller and maybe roots that'd be dooope), leonard comes out again lookin all soldierly and a bit dazed (frontish center). sam and ida in their wedding garb (and eyepatches lol) slowly walk on in the background n cross the stage, maybe holding a lantern?, sing to him about missing home (he responds a bit to all of these), then albert in his deer skull comes on the same way (from the opposite side), same singing bit but about Pain and Suffering or whatever al's on about, Thing will Only Get Worse Out Here etc.. then mr crow comes out (again opposite side) hands behind his back like "we need you, you do have purpose, you'll find out soon enough". then fucking. throws the grenade at him! leonard investigates like a dumbass, lights go off completely as the explosion cuts the music.          i have settled on him losing a hand instead, mostly so it's actually visible he's Disabled bc a pegleg isnt feasible. just put one of those morphsuit types over his hand patterned like a prosthesis n leave the rest to the actor ig? discretion of the costumer. fourish beats after the music's over, a spotlight comes on center stage to show william putting leonard's hand into one of the jars, then cuts. set transitions to outside the house as the lights come back on and leonard comes home hooray.        part of me wants to have different actors for pre- and post-war leonard but there’s not much point to that. maybe it’s the facial hair that’s pricking me but we gotta pull that off for samuel too and he didn’t stir me so idk what it is. age probably? since that actor’d be introduced as leonard in the family band and he’s meant to be a teen there. high school tv shows pull that shit all the time tho i’m sure it’ll be fine (and once again the timeline is fucked up)

- oh btw i’m thinking the deer skull won’t be a full thing but instead treated like those face shields welders wear? like al just lifts the thing up to the top of his head when he needs to instead of taking it off. might be more trouble than it’s worth esp since i’m not actually sure how those face shields work (if it needs a bar across the forehead i ain’t doin it)

[lunelantern]

~Sasusaku analysis ~

                                             ~Sasusaku analysis ~                                ~~ Sasuke and Sakura - - pair analysis ~~                                            ~THE BRIDGE SCENE~                            (Team 7 Reunion - - after the Five Kage Summit)

                                                  ---PART 1---

Only in the name of love, would people be capable of greatest sacrifice; to  abandon ration, logic and even morals and principles to completely surrender to the blazing flame of love.

The hallucinating pain of not being able to surrender to love is similar to having one's  soul split in half. I can only depict what must have churned into Sakura's heart when she came face to face to the one she helplessly love with abandonment, with the intent to banish her feelings into silence and act upon her shinobi duty.

[How could I withstand the tempest in his smoldering eyes with the confidence of as shinobi, without him to read what's in my heart? How could I use my words as deceiving temptation when my feelings shine unbridled with love for only him? How could I level his gaze when he's seeing through my eyes like gazing into crystal waters? How could I pierce his heart with a weapon of death and destruction, when my heart wants to touch his gently with love? How could I force my lips to murmur words of deceit when they want nothing more but to touch yours with the graceful caress of a whispered spring zephyr? How could I kill you when I love you so helplessly? How could I kill the one I want to kiss with abandonment? How could I temper his hatred into love? And more importantly, how can I kill him without losing myself? ...for he always had my heart and I was always his. Now and forever we will be...]

Whether is the unprecedented conjunction between the full-fledged clashing shinobi and their rebelling romantic feelings, the implicit suppression of inmost emotions, the implacable destiny of a cruelly realistic anti-hero, the Weltschmerz of love and romance which devours and hurts before it heals and soothes, the heart-tucking incremental angst and melodrama, the tragic vista of an unrequited romantic love shattering like a broken piece of glass, the internal turmoil kindling like a nonpareil hymn of a Shakespearean tragedy, there are peculiar characteristics and symbols introduced in this heated encounter between Sasuke and Sakura that are simply monumental.

Every single panel and transition that supports the dialogue perfectly crayons the theatrical art of a tragic romance.

The cohesive construction, the smooth transitions, the constant leap between the subjective and objective levels of execution, contour a visually tragic love story with the master stroke paintbrush of a genius painter.

Sasuke and Sakura's gestures and kinesics are meaningful, illustrative and revealing for anticipating the sublime angst and pain that come as a hefty price to pay for love.

Only in the name of love, would people be capable of greatest sacrifice; to  abandon ration, logic and even morals and principles to completely surrender to the blazing flame of love.

Some of the greatest romances in classical literature often depict love as all-consuming, spirit-draining unconquerable and scorching. It's exactly the tantalizing idea of a feeling that scorches, cremates and consumes the body and mind until it burns to ashes and yet lovers keep on wanting more and more, endlessly.

Sasuke and Sakura embody the same implacable fate as the classic literature's most illustrative couples as the pioneers of angst and drama, in such an iconic manner of construction, that one cannot but feel the tempestuous flow of their feelings transcend the inanimate pages of the manga and reaching to the bottom of the audience's hearts.

The heated glances, the suppressed feelings, the pent up angst and remorse, the churning guilt coupled with the immeasurable pain of seeing your heart drifting away from your heart are iconic.

The dialogue is animated and dynamic, strong and their implied romantic affiliation is  brutally uncensored. Everything about this scene between Sasuke and Sakura draws the curtain of the stage of a perfectly theatrical love tragedy, with the pair as leading cast of unrequited love.

People are social creatures anointed with the most amazing of gifts that Heavens have imparted with us, the only holy prowess that ensures the liaison between our mortal human condition and our Creator. Metaphorically and what literary analysis depicts as sacred and profane, what elevated the spirit of a mortal sentient being from its implacable ephemeral condition is love.

We are made to seek love, to chase love, to desire to love and be corresponded.

Naturally, trying to suppress a feeling that's sine qua non to soul-completion is capable to produce a terrifying pain and it's exactly the excruciating constant attempt to suppress love and act against the very nature of things that Sasuke and Sakura experience in their fulminant clash in the bridge scene.

Let's analyze the scenery prior to get to character introspection.

Just as the setting is the lifeblood of any theatrical play, is noteworthy to highlight the importance of the backdrop as the extraneous elements of the surrounding background - - the objective level of construction - - perfectly supports the internal feelings - - the subjective level - - of the characters.

The surroundings emphasize and reflect what the characters are feeling.

Very symbolic elements presented in literatures as tools to introduce the readers in the heat of the characters emotions are also illustrated in this scene.

We have the half-destroyed bridge as the grand stage where the two actors play their theatrical love drama. In literature, the bridge symbolically represents the connecting pathway between two opposing worlds. It's a metaphor for connection, for union and conjunction; depending on what it connects, usually ascribed to a positive connotation; implicitly the bridge could mean prosperity, hope, fulfillment of a dream, relief.

Usually, the bride is overarching to a flowing water but it can also span over two ravines or crevices. In which, the pathway to connect two separated pieces of land; symbolically it marks the communion between two separates worlds that otherwise are meant to never meet, never come together.

A bridge could represent the inner conflict of a character in his decision-making inner turmoil. Someone who must decide what road to take in life, to make a life-changing decision. Naruto manga is a Bildungsroman - - a complex construction following a character's development from childhood to adulthood and is abounding with key situations that would change the dynamics and seal the destiny of a character.

When at crossroads or battling with uncertainty, characters are often presented as leaning against a bridge and looking over the underside ripple of the flowing water; a metaphor for mixed feelings, indecision, confusion, inner conflict in front of the impending flow of water - - the symbol of the merciless pass of time and nature's immortal condition in antithesis to a sentient being's perennial condition.

In mythology and folklore, what literati refer to as the "Greatest Journey", we have the crossing of a bridge as a pathway to enter the Afterlife. A bridge becomes the connecting and the final step of a soul's sojourn to the After Life - - his journey to eternity - - conjoining Life and Death.

Let's think about the other notable bridges in Naruto. The first that comes to mind - - and is intimately intertwined to the dynamics of the Sasusaku pair - - is the GREAT NARUTO BRIDGE from the Land of Waves which brought prosperity and good fortune to the enslaved insulated land.

Often, characters like Sakura, Kakashi, Naruto, Shikamaru or Sasuke have their moments of introspection on the bridges when confusion and uncertainty takes over (we have the illustrative and arguably amusing moment in Boruto Manga between Sasuke and Kakashi as Sasuke quests for advices about how to properly connect to his daughter Sarada).

The bridge represents internal turmoil as the mind and souls are torn between two conflicting choices: to take the left side or the right side? To proceed onwards to face the unknown or to take the familiar way back? To choose between A or B?

Crossing a bridge implies a level of risk as no one can certainly assert that he knows and is prepared to successfully face what unexpected occurrences might happen on the other side.

The other side of the bridge, just like in life, is sprinkled with unexpected occurrences that no one can anticipate, no matter how meticulous, cautious or prepared.

This pair specifically possesses an unparalleled zest for unbridled passion; Sasuke and Sakura are the hallmark of people who give their 120% in everything that they do, be it battle, career or romance. And that's exactly what turns their love story into an adage for scorching passion, intimacy, soul-consuming romance, enameled with tantalizingly elegant echoes of erotica.

It also sets the stage to a final battle between two opposing parties.

Sakura, the tragic heroine of this sizzling love story, foiled in the ineffable picture of a conflicted Madonna, is artfully portrayed  in all the splendor of her inner conflict, as her duty as a Leaf Shinobi clashes vigorously with her hear that only flutters for the unpredictable Uchiha.

As per Zabuza's concluding words, shinobi share the same impending inner conflict that's the ylem to immense pain and turmoil: they have to find a perfect equilibrium between the soulless mask of their shinobi role (the Yin/the spiritual/the immortal/the sacrosanct/the darkness) and their human nature (the yang/the light/the mortal condition).

And the manga suggests that the human natured emotions surmount the shinobi as feelings (love, friendship, affection, kindness, honor, companionship, amour) manage to "fill this hole".

Sasuke and Sakura's encounter is glass-transparent epitome of a Naruto Shinobi's ominous condition, because they always have to find a winning solution for this antagonist dichotomy. To choose between love and duty/ to balance between the shinobi and the lover. To rebel against their hearts or their duty.

Duty and obligations come en route with their shinobi roles in the manga; the unyielding avenger in his thirst-quenching seek for knowledge (he must unravel the very condition of the shinobi as unraveling the quintessence and the enigmas of the Universe - - in this case, unraveling the purpose of a shinobi and his existence) and the renewed genius medic and Leaf Shinobi Haruno Sakura, who, ironically and tragically enough is also the pupil of the Kage (the heiress of the current system's - - Hashirama's and Ashura's - - political ideology; which is the same ideology that Sasuke wants to surmount and "revolutionize").

The very construction of Naruto Manga  is contrived on antithesis (Yin and Yang antithesis).

And feelings are no exception.

. . . Sakura is mocking his feelings and Sasuke doesn't like to ridicule or laugh about feelings. He might consider it a trifle to the moment when he was sincere with her a candid moment between the two. She's using a past memory that he cherishes and was honest against him like she's invalidating his words. He might get confused. Was she lying then too to buy time for her friends to come? Is it a diversion tactic and she using the same scheme? She uses his words against him. She uses supposed love against him and Uchiha treasure feelings. Hatred is corollary to love and is one wrong step from love to hatred especially when it burns so strong. And so Sasuke then pays her with the same coin and retort with the same weapons. If she's clowning and ridiculing and stepping and tarnishing their moment as a mockery he's responding by suggesting that if she wants to mock him then she'll do the same. If she proffers a love that's deceiving and she's not feeling then he too can use her and ridicule her. Taking back his earnest thank you in response to acknowledging her love, he tells her that she'll be just a replacement a toll to be used and disposed of when she's getting rusty; shell be a disposable object that he'll throw away when useless to him with no remorse and emphasizes this by pointing to Karin "you'll take her place" - - meaning they you'll share her fate, I'll use you and when I don't need you anymore you'll be in her shoes as lying limpid alone and basking in the pungent waft of death and betrayal by my own hand. Is this what you want to be for me? Is this what your love means? Does you love mean so little to you? Sasuke doesn't accept her to mock love. That's why he becomes angry. He doesn't have any reason to get angry in a fight unless its personal feelings involved. He for angry at Danzo because he was directly involved in the murder of his family and he mentioned Itachi - - the memory of his brother is sacrosanct and a dinner like Danzo is unworthy to refer to it.

He gets offended and furious when Sakura tries to use past memories that were precious against him just like Danzo; it's a low blow from Sakura. She tries to deceive to fool him to she tries to lure and use him using a weakness just like every ordinary villain - - Obito and Orochimaru did exactly the same to lure him by their side.

His tone is very personal, is full of 1st and 2nd subject pronouns. The first part, the one that represents the real feelings the allusion to couples and lovers the first hypostasis.

Karin doesn't matter - - she represents the readers. She's speaking what's on our minds. She is a silent observer.

. . He's not the same Sasuke. He's a different person. 3 times for empathize is mentioned as the pair dynamic. Karin and Sakura might be under a false representation. They might love Sasuke for overlapping the ideal Sasuke from their past an idealized version that they worshipped and they hope to find the same Sasuke in the current Sasuke who grew up. Trying to tie dorm the bonds of a failed past. In love with must accept the person for what he became and what it was without trying to mistakenly look at him and see someone else. They fell for Sasuke the perfect: aristocratic lineage, wealth, top grades, unmatched ninja skills, caring personality. They seek for his best version and try to find their ideal man into someone who is no more that was the pure Uchiha child oblivious un corrupted and not this one who has life experience. Of course they never knew what demons and darkness lured into his mind they had the wrong impression that Sasuke is perfect and this one is closer to how he really is: passionate, uncensored and unrestrained and ready to fight anyone and sacrifice anything that might hurt the people he loves the most. This Sasuke erases the image of perfection they had about him.

Sakura wanted to join him back then too and Sasuke clears the confusion for her she didn't know that he was far from the perfect boy that her mind conjured up fantasy of a young dreamy girl. That's why she wanted to join him. And now he tells her this is me this is the one that you were willing to follow. Do you still feel the same seeing how I really am? . Sasuke-kun! Is again the sound of her voice that stops him and there are few selected people who could stop Sasuke from striking. Sakura can do this by just calling out his name. Sasuke wouldn't have stopped just because someone asks him to - - Karin asks him to stop attacking Sakura and he paid her no heed. Kakashi asks him too and he couldn't care less. When Sakura calls his name or asks him to stop... He falters. He does. He can't hide how much her voice affects him, the voice that speaks her owner's name one that's so precious to him.

For him to waver by a single call of his name, Sakura must be someone extraordinary precious to Sasuke, someone who's capable to conjure the feelings that he most tries to subdue. Love. Romantic love isn't like any other forms of love because this one evokes the most extreme of sensations and it’s an all body experience. It's the only type of bond that encompasses the senses, the mind, the heat, the soul and the body. It practically leaves one powerless, weak and helpless and no counterattack stands tall in front of it.

When love strikes, you can't but fall on your knees and surrender. And Sasuke feels exactly this. He is an Uchiha. They treasure and feel love like an out body experience. It's spiritual almost sacrosanct. Uchiha live every moment on extreme. They won't stop until the unravel the full potential of it, they live their lives at maximum. There's no status quo for Uchiha. They want to experience everything and they do it passionately.

They love with passion.

. . . We have another symbolic and powerful antithesis here. Sakura the iconic representation metaphorical of regeneration, fertility, innocence and eternal love - - the image of the flower which is symbolic for spring season - - regeneration hope rebirth - - hope and light and the tree that grown from Hashirama's cell, another illustrative symbol of rebirth regeneration hope. If Sakura is the figure of spring season then the tree is the key symbol of spring the regeneration the rebirth life exuberance. And yet... Karin is lying half death with life seeping rapidly from her body at the root of that tree. Meaning that the atmosphere between lovers is so tormented and broken and soulless and kit less and heartbreaking and hallucinating and painful that even a tree the symbol of life can't sustain life.

There is the reign of death, remorse, rancor, madness, pain, it's so en wrapping that life can't be sustained there (that tree is root less grown in stone as the bridge lies suspended ; trees have roots in the ground deep they don't hang floated in air which shows broken roots broken bonds kinless people who lost their roots). The scenery is ominous, depressing, the feeling of being hopeful, useless. Even Sakurara the embodiment of life and vitality lost her flow.

Spring... Can't melt Sasuke's icicle darkness (his pain and torment).

She can't reach to him yet, and heal and revive with "such a weak resolve" (as per her own words when she realized her mistake).

Sasuke himself tells her (he was always honest, this is one of his most memorable trait - Sasuke never lies, he's always forward and frank) that she can't be herself with the current him and points to Karin for emphasize; he tells her that he'll crush the wings of springs in its joie de vivre. He tells her that he's capable to break her so badly that he'll turn the spring - - the symbol of life force and rebirth - - into death "you'll take Karina's place - - you’ll be like her bleeding and half death /you'll die like her by my hand".

He assumes the role of the negativism /pessimist and Antinatalism a person who doesn't find the beauty in spring hope and regeneration. Someone who can't sustain life who can't give her what she wants she can't be her splendid form with him. Sasuke in his supposed craze moment of "sinking so low" still proves how much he cares for her. He tells Sakura that she can't be herself with someone like him. He can't let her be what she wants to be if she joins him. And he'll consume all her life force. A darkness so ominous and cold that's capable to absorb every wisp of light from her.

Why would she want to be with someone like him whose only surrounded by death, broken memories and darkness? "she has no reason to love me" - - why would she, the spring the vitality the exuberance the happiness the love would want to love a broken man that's full of demons and darkness?

When he says her name the following manga panel shows the immense distance between them, the antithesis the different worlds: while Sakura is in the untouched side of the bridge, everything around Sasuke falls apart - the bridge is broken crumbling under his feet, Karin is half death and bleeding at his feet, the tree is unable to sustain life everything around Sasuke is death and hollowness.

The shock it produces when she realizes that the Sasuke she fantasies about doesn't exist and the imagery of his Part 1 perfection is nothing but an illusion. "he's like a different person. Is this really Sasuke?" just like Karin, Sakura is also shocked to discover that the boy she fell in love with when she was 13 is a far cry from the man that she has in front of her eyes. She's so shocked that she already finds her resolve and her underlying plan crumble. For a shinobi, this moment of internal introspection and shock led to her downfall. You can't face a class shinobi with such a weak heart and a conflicted mind; she lost any chance to win against him from this very moment.

From her everything is just purely feelings and confusion doing the talking. The drama unfolds from here - - Sakura the shinobi lost with this panel.

Sasuke is always terse and brusque and forward. He doesn't censor e himself, he doesn't beat around the bush, he doesn't try to delicately introduce a topic by ramble uselessly, no. He cuts directly to the point in his peculiar manner. And the usage of 1st subject pronouns and his tone is absolutely intimate and very personal when he asks her: "what do you want with me?" this particular line is almost bittersweet hilarious and very ironic given the contest because it's exactly how a lover would ask.

The way Sasuke and Sakura talk, the dialogue and the interactions are very personal and intimate. The tone, the glances, the kinesics, the dynamic of the dialogue, the flow of conversation, the syntax of the phrases and the usage of 1 and 2nd subject pronouns are illustrative for two people who have something going on between them.

"Who is she?" is what Karin, the voice of the reader in this scene, asks rhetorically and we want to know as well. Who's this woman who stands before Sasuke? A shinobi or a woman in love?

Karin and implicitly the authors answer comes right after. "she must love him too." Karin who is a sensor natured type of shinobi the one who depicts the most intimate wavers in chakra and emotions emphasizes that she's Sakura the lover.

"Sasuke-kun, I'll follow you, I'll leave Konoha!" she doesn't cry anymore, her eyes aren't limpid like buffeted emerald diamonds shining in the moonlight with honest and love, no. This time her tone isn't affectionate or desperate or unhinged with sincerity, her voice isn't broken and melodious like a sad violin string lilting it's last farewell, her stance isn't supplicating, her hands aren't crossed upon her heart as she cried her most intimate feelings in his face - the crossed hands are religiously symbolic for a sacrosanct or holy. No, this time her tone is hoarse, almost like she is commanding someone or bossing someone around, rough, confident, almost reproachful and her emerald eyes are hard and seemingly emotionless. That's where Sasuke starts to lose it. She mentions their memorable past encounter which is iconic, sacrosanct and innocent and sincere, with unpardonably brazen confidence while using that image of her part self (implying that Sasuke's thank you words and that memory is a WEAKNESS for him Achilles heel) to try and DECEIVE him or lure him into a trap.

Of course he'd take it as a grave insult that can't go unpunished.

She takes a giant leap to each to him as the bridge between them is symbolically broken; there's no liaison to them except for feelings. The physical distance is hyperbolic. They are so far apart that she has to take a giant leap to reach to him in vain, because that leap and the hollow that stretches steeply under her feet represents all the unsolved problems between them - the demons, the broken bonds, words they should have not told, pain and negative emotions - and so the leap she takes to reach him now proves to be TOO much for her bucket to carry. This leap is her downfall because no relationship can survive on shaky grounds and unsolved problems.

[aspiestvmusings]

TMS S3: GROUP A

THE MASKED SINGER SEASON 3  GROUP A/ GROUP 1: (contestants 1 - 6)

EP 3x01: CLUES & MORE: RECAP for remaining 5: 

SPOILERS BELOW!!!

KANGAROO

CLUES: 

Location: Outdoors: “Australia” 

Location: Next to a /in a yard of a “peach coloured” building with arch/vault-style architecture 

VISUAL CLUES:

Sign: OUTBACK (with the U being in the shape of horseshoe)

Sign: Yellow “road sign” with an arrow pointing down (”spiraling down”) 

MIB as papparazzi/press following her - taking pics, media attention (for “the wrong reasons”) 

Gramophone on a tree branch 

Boxing bag -  the kangaroo boxing/hitting the boxing bag 

Jump rope - the kangaroo jumping over a jump rope (made of a vine...held by MIB)

AUDIO CLUES/VOICE OVER:

”Like most of you watching, I’m a survivor.” 

“I recently lost a person, who held my familys heart together. Then, by my own admission, I found myself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.” 

“But I’m here to do what kangaroos do best - bounce back.”

“I have to fight for my family. And show them that bullies never win.”

“I am beyond terrified - I’ve never done anything like this before. But I’m not about to lose the chance to realize the dream I’ve always had.” 

“To all the survivors out there -- This one’s for you.” 

 ON STAGE CLUES:

Song choice: “Dancing on My Own” by Robyn 

Look/Costume: The kangaroo has a pouch (indicates female), but also has a red/silver boxing outfit & gloves (indicates male). Outfit colours: red & silver. Important: there is a crown on the back of her robe. 

Stage: hexagon-shaped mirrors (5 of  them) surrounding her/behind her [if my other guess is correct, then that stage design is a “clue”] 

Height: Tall-ish...almost the same height as host Nick. A bit shorter, around 175cm, probably.

Mic hand: Right 

Talking:  “One of my greatest fears is being vulnerable. And this year I’ve had no other option than to be vulnerable. But...with this kangaroo costume I feel like I can get my superpowers back.” +  [breathes in/sighs heavily before the song starts]

GUESSES: 

I HAVE NO NAMES OF MY OWN. -- I thought she was this certain female artist, because the voice kinda seemed familair (sounded like hers to me), but none of the clues and other things seemed to fit. And after checking the clues it seems to confirm it cannot be her, cause nothing matches. Also... to me she doesn’t sound like any of the singers I thoughts she could be based on the clues, so... I havent actually figured her out...

I think people online are correct, and it’s a certain “reality star” (gramophone = reference to her dad being a sound engineer on a well-known past TV show) Though I am considering a few more options - mostly other reality stars/youtubers/family members of celebs... particularily one name. If my guess here is correct, then just like Llama, she would have a connection to a previous TMS contestant...but since I am not that familiar with her singing voice, I cannot be sure. But she has lost family members in the past few years, she has been in a media scandal, and you can even explain the australia thing kinda... so...until I hear more of her, I’ve got one name mainly in mind. But I wont name it until I’ve heard her sing at least once more.

POSSIBLE MEANING OF CLUES.

Survivor = the title of a “Destiny’s Child” hit song

Lost a family member recently = either her family member (parent, grandparent?) died or they parted ways (were cut ouf of each others lives)

Gramophone = possibly a reference to a Grammy nomination/win. Or just music/sound/audio

Outback = possible connection to Australia

“spiraling down” road sign + papparazzi following her = she’s been in a media scandal “recently”

Crown = King/Queen 

LLAMA

CLUES: 

Location: Radio station/Mixing studio - mixing console (close up) 

Location: Pottery making “class” 

VISUAL CLUES:

Mixing console - close up of a studio/radio station mixing console 

23.3 The Wool (name of the radio station/show) 

Red lightbulb in the studio 

Photo of a bull (the animal)

Playing cards: Ace of Spaces & Jack of Spades). Two black suit cards showing (Jack Black)

Sounds of Seattle - title of a vinyl album 

Romancing a llama: pottery 

AUDIO CLUES/VOICE OVER:

"Mi-Mi-Mi-Mi-Mix it up!”

“Good morning, Nerd herd! You’re listening to The Wool. Where we’re all cool. No Bull.” 

“I’m here for one reason only - to have a laugh. And what’s funnier than a Llama? (laughs at his own joke)”

“You may call me a joker. But I’d like to get serious for a minute. The song I’m singing tonight is my favourite track for celebrating love with that... special someone. There’s nothing like being swept up by it’s deep, profound lyrics. It’s a tune that really gets me in the mood for romance. I can’t wait to sing it for you tonight.”

“Llama out!” 

ON STAGE CLUES:

Song choice: “She Bangs” by Ricky Martin 

Look/Costume: Dressed as a tourist - “hawaiian” style shirt,, photo camera around his neck. Llamas tongue out of his mounth, on the side. 

Height: he is around 180cm - about the same height as host Nick (their shoulders are on about the same height)

Mic hand: Left 

Talking: “umm.. This whole costume just spoke to me... My vibe... I wear digs like this in real life.” (answering the question about his costume & it’s looks) 

GUESSES:

Drew Carey (TV host/comedian/actor...)

POSSIBLE MEANING OF CLUES.

23.3 Wool = His show (The Drew Carey Show) had, during it’s 9-season long run, a total of 233 episodes. 

Photo canera prop = His hobby is photography. Actually, it’s more than just a hobby - he has been accredited press photographer during many (sports) events.  

Radio = He was a radio operator during the time he served in the Marine Corps. Also..he’s hosted a radio show (radio DJ) during his later career 

Red light in the room = photography reference. In the DarkRoom red light is used when developing photo film/photographs.

Buddha figurine (Dalai Lama/Llama joke) = He is a buddhist. 

Joker = he is a joker aka comedian 

Seattle = He is the co-owner of a Seattle Football Club. 

Playing cards = He took part in the celebrity poker game in 2003, where he did better than Jack Black did (played against Jack Black)

Nerd herd = He did take part in Zack levis (Chuck) “Nerd herd” lightsaber race one time at a Comic-Con convention. 

Nerd herd = his show (DCS) & character were/was about nerds/was a nerd

Llama’s side tongue = early in his stand-up comedy days he had a joke with a side-tie (it looked visually very similar to what the llama’s tongue looks like - he just added some wires & tape to do “the trick” of swinging the tie to the side)

BONUS: He knows last years winner, “The Fox Mask” - they did “Whose Line is it Anyway” together, so... connection... 

SPOILER ALERT: Llama is the mask who will be voted off next - in ep 2 (on Wed, Feb 5th). But while his voice might not be as trained as some other contestants, I loved his stage energy, and the comedy/fun he brought! One more song coming from him! And no, I am not sharing some secret info - they “accidentally” revealed the first two contestants, who get unmasked, so it’s been revealed by the network...for those, who notice small details...

MISS MONSTER 

CLUES:

Location: Lady’s restroom/bathroom. The moster getting ready (coming hair, applying hairspray...) 

Location: school hallway - lockers 

VISUAL CLUES:

Sign:  (image) ladies restroom 

Itmes on the counter in bathroom/dressing room: Furspray (hairsray) can,  pink bottle of some beauty product, three crystals (stones), a piece of sequin fabric 

Key/Keychain: a single (old style) key with a keychain that says “FUN” #FUN #KEY = FUNKY = “QUEEN OF FUNK” 

Purple furry diary/good luck charm/cosmetics bag/pencil box (with a face + kitty ears & unicorn horn) + a glittery pen 

Lockers: Lockers numbered 10 (the ones she opens) & 11 (the one next to it)...with no other lockers having numbers on them 

Miss Monster Locker: filled with images of S1 Monster, scrapbook flowers..etc...

Piece of paper on the locker door: Monster Hits.

Photograph of a cityscape (skyline with many skyscrapers) on the locker door [if I could only see the image better to know which city it is on it, that’d be one more clue]

AUDIO CLUES/VOICE OVER:

“When you become famous, people  want you to look or act in a certain way. They forget that you started off as just a shy little monster.” 

“It didn’t take long for me to be misunderstood. So I’m here to set the record straight. Just like my favourite creature in Season 1 did. The Monster. He made me feel. He re-wrote his story. It was fire!" 

“And now this performer in pink wants to follow in his furry footsteps, But darlings... I’m nervous. Will you still love me without knowing my name?”

ON STAGE CLUES: 

Song choice: “Something to Talk about” by Bonnie Raitt

Look/Costume: pink & purple/violet furry costume with a bowtie

Height: she is short-ish (shorter than host Nick). She looks very short (barely 5 feet - more Dolly P. height 152cm than Chaka K height 162cm)

Mic hand: Right 

Talking: NO ON-STAGE TALKING!

GUESSES: 

Chaka Khan 

Dolly Parton (since the total number of Grammy noms that the 18 contestants have in combined in 69 & Robot as the first revealed one has had 24-25 of them, that leaves only 44-45 for everyone else, that rules out this person, because she alone has had 46 nominations...compared to C. Khan’s 22 noms)

POSSIBLE MEANING OF CLUES. 

Number 10 = She has 10 Grammy Awards/wins. (interestinly: both D. Parton & C. Khan have 10 Grammy wins!)

Monster Hits = she has had (many) hit songs during her career 

He made me feel = She has a song by the title “I Feel You” (1984 hit)  

It was fire = She has a song by the title “Through the Fire” (1985)

Will you love me - that is (word for word) the title of of her her hit songs, “Will You Love Me?” (2007)

It was fire = She wrote the hit song “Fule to the Flame” (1967 hit) for Skeeter Davis. 

Will you still love me? = She has/wrote a song titled “I will always love you” 

Furspray/Hairsray = he was/is known for her big hair/haircut (managing that probably takes lots of hairspray)

FUN = FUN(K) #FUN KEY [FUN:KI] - she’s kinda the “queen of funk” (one of her albums is titled “FUNk This” (btw: Pun intended by her!) 

TURTLE 

CLUES

Location: school’s track & field event (Balzano Track Field) - contestants getting ready to run. The slow turtle surrounded by fast bunnies, all preparing for the event. [Slow & steady (turtle) wins the race]

Location: Schools track & field event - BANG! The race begings. The three other contestants (MIB as bunnies - wearing pink bunny ears - starting the race with a head start, all jumping on their blue bouncy balls)

VISUAL CLUES:

Turtle vs bunnies 

BANG! in comic style - to mark the start of the race 

The others (three bunnies) bouncing on blue balls whe n the race begins 

Surf board - the turtle poliching/cleaning his poink & blue surf board 

Pins on the track...popping the blue jumpy balls 

Grilling burgers on an (outside) grill...on the track field. 

Turtle crossing the finish line first (bunnies just going in circles, being stopped by pins on the way, or other reasons), as he has time to do other things & take it slowly, and then still get there first...with a burger in hand & winning the golden medal.

AUDIO CLUES/VOICE OVER:

"At the starting-line of my career I was surrounded by other hungry new-comers. It felt like everyone around me was fighting tooth-and-nail for the dream. And I watched as many of those stars burned too brightly, too quickly, and then fizzled down”

“I’m a turtle, because I’m always taking it step-by-step.”

“Slow and steady wins the race. But now I feel like I’m ready to break out of my shell. After years of preparation I would love to make a big splash. So I don’t want anyone to cross that finish line before me.” 

ON STAGE CLUES:

Song choice: “Kiss from a Rose” by Seal 

Look/Costume: Punk/Rock-style, dressed in leather (pants, jacket), has a spike (hair)

Height: Short-ish (shorter than host Nick) - seems around 175cm. Small in size.

Mic hand: Right 

Talking: “It’s hot. It’s really hot. And it’s heavy!” (when answering how doesn it feel to be in that costume and perform in it)

GUESSES

Jesse McCartney 

Joey McIntyre  PS. I tried connecting the voice to any boy-bands (of 1990s & 2000s), but I coukdnt. Even after some “research” - listening to each possible candidate...and IMO it’s none of them. The voices dont match, the heights doesn’t match---But it did sound like someone, who for me was a one-hit-wonder. Yeah, I only know that one song (and one more) from him... but voice seemed familiar.

POSSIBLE MEANING OF CLUES: 

Surf board = that he is a surfer;  that he is from Cali/Australia/somewhere which is known as being popular among surfers; that he has won Teen Choice Award(s) (this award in in the shape of a surfboard)

being surrounded by other new-comers at the start of his career = either he got his start through a (singing) competition and was one of many contestants fighting for the win AND/OR he got his start in a “boy-band” and was one of the youngsters looking for fame...

Surf board = Teen Choice Awards - winning several TCAs for his first/biggest hit song/album in 2005, and more. And he’s played a surfer character on a TV show

BSB references/connection  - he was the opening act in 2005 for BSB during the European part of the tour. 

Dream = he started in a boy-band with the name “Dream Street”

on stage presence/body language (movements) = very similar to J.M. 

WHITE TIGER 

CLUES: 

Location: Football field. Tiger striking a power/winners pose. 

Location: School hallway, lockers. Tiger walking in, shoving everyone out of his way. 

Locatrion: School library (sitting behind a table, with his legs on the table) 

Location: School hallway, lockers. MIB trying to get him to audition for TMS. MIB (fans) taking selfies with him. 

VISUAL CLUES: 

Golden plate/sign with text: Ultimate champion for clam shucking: 51 clams” (next to a golden clam shell) 

Sign/ad on the wall: “Masked Singer tryouts 5/3.” + images of three past masks included: Eagle, Lion & Raven. Plus the text: “Hurry. Not for long" also written on it. 

Sign on the all with images of past US presidents, including Abe Lincolns & the text/quote “Four Score and Seven Years Ago...” 

The TMS golden mask throphee shown next to the lockers (as Tiger says “let’s party!”)

AUDIO CLUES/VOICEOVER: 

“Ready to meet your next champion? My entire life I’ve sought out perfection, so choosing a mask with unlimited power like the White Tiger was a no-brainer.”

“I’ve had a giant career full of accomplishments. But when I imagine being on stage (and) singing, I’m a big old scared cat.*

“It’s been a while since I did something that scared me, so I’m here to concour yet anither challenge.”  

“What’s my motivation? My fans! I don’t wanna let them down." 

“So now I’m ready to get in that ring and smash the competition.” 

“Let’s party!” 

ON STAGE CLUES: 

Song choice “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice 

Look/Costume: Dressed in “Egyptian style"

Height: very tall & big (much taller than host Nick) - over 190cm, looks about 2m tall

Mic hand: R & L (alternates)

Talking: “It’s the most powerful I’ve ever felt. Like I can concour anything. I never wanna take it off” (when answering what did it feel like when he first put on the costume/mask)

POSSIBLE MEANING OF CLUES: 

He played during the 51st  (51 clams) & 53rd  (5/3) Super Bowl games. 

The three past TMS masks shown are all animals that are parts of  names of existing football teams: Ravens, Eagles, Lions. Meaning he is an athlete & specifically plays american football (NFL) 

The Lincoln quote translates to “87 years ago...”, so number 87 is the clue here. This could be a reference to player No. 87. 

He has had a very succesful career in his own field (sports). Singing is not his main job.

IF the voice-overs were done later, not during initial filming, then it’s possible that “smash” relates to the person smashing a lego-statue of a TV host during 2019/2020 New Years. Which in itself was supposed to be about his famous “Gronk Spike” during football games. 

A tiger (albeit “regular”, not white) was one of the characters & costumes + name of the sports team in the Katy Perry video “Swish Swich”, where this athlete also appeared. 

The Golden (Golden Mask) trophe - most likely a reference to his many wins (the trophees he/his team has won)

GUESSES: 

Rob Gronkowski (Gronk, athlete, 198cm) = 99% certain it’s him 

Because of the height alone (seems to be around/almost 2m = 6 feet 5) there are not that many possibilities at all. Even if we don’t listen to that voice or consider the clues. Based on height alone it can basiclaly be only one of these names: Dave Bautista (198cm); The Rock (196cm); Hulk Hogan (201cm); Tyler Perry (196cm); Brad Garrett (204cm); Joe Manganiello (196cm); Jeff Goldblum (194cm); Jason Mamoa (193cm); Tom Brady (193cm)..or the likes...

Even other possible names, like the ones listed by the panel, are not valid guesses, because of their height: John Cena for example is actually only 185cm tall. Also... several of these tall men are bigger/more muscular, so that makes it even easier to determine the name based on only the physical appeance...without even listening to the clues. 

ROBOT 

First mask to be voted out in ep 1

Havent listed his clues, cause there’s no use for them anymore, as he was voted off. 

With his 86 tattoos he makes up for about half of all the 160 tattoos the 18 contestants have combined. With his 24-25 Grammy nominations he makes up about 1/3 of all the 69 noms the 18 contestants have combined. And quite many of the 88 gold records the 18 contestants have combined,  belong to him (I don’t know the exact number, but most/all of his 10+ albums have gone gold, I think) - exact number depends on how they count it for this list.

<<<<< THIS IS WHAT GOES ON IN MY HEAD AFTER EVERY TMS SHOW/EPISODE. THIS IS HOW I CATEGORIZE THE INFO I HAVE INTO FOLDERS IN MY MIND. THIS IS HOW SPECIFIC I AM, AND HOW INTO DETAILS I GO. THIS IS HOW MUCH I PAY ATTENTION (while, most likely, missing a ton of more hints that I’ll only notice during re-watch) I JUST DECIDED TO WRITE IT DOWN...FOR ONCE. 

BUT... unless I decide to cut some sleep time to do this again, I am probabky not gonna do this after every episode. Possibly for the first episode of every Group (so beside ep 1, also ep 4 & ep 7)

[reikiajakoiranruohoja]

The brilliance of White Diamond and the misuse of a character

After CYM aired, we got a very good look into what sort of person White Diamond, a character hinted of but never truly discussed until Diamond Days, is. What we witnessed was a well written and voiced character, who gave context to many other characters.

Pity the way she was used could have been better.

Before I go on, I must note that I do not think the Crewniverse are bad writers nor do I claim superior writing skills over them. Rather, I am going to discuss in this essay the need for better pacing and usage of an important character.

Let me start with White's good parts. She is a prime example of an abusive mother figure, using a sweet tone to mask her abuse and harsh rules. What we see during the Diamond Days event is that White has conditioned Yellow and Blue to the extent that they do not dare to speak against her nor taken any action against her rules. We can easily assume, from the way Pink Pearl ended up as White's puppet, that Pink was under similar conditioning as well.

The way White was introduced is effective, we see a crowd cheering at the arrival of their long-lost monarch, but the moment they see a white bubble float down the crowd goes silent. White Pearl, her expression, voice and pose all showcase that something is -wrong- here. The pearl has extensive scarring over her left eye (later revealed to not be caused by White, but serving as another off-putting factor in the discussed scene), a stiff pose and unlike any other pearl in the setting, she does not share a voice actor with the others. All of this is a good signal for the viewer that White is truly eerie.

When we meet the diamond herself the first time, White is gigantic, glowing so bright she barely has any outlines and she shares a stiff pose with her pearl. White does not let Steven a chance to discuss things, instead of giving him a welcome and then sending him to Pink's room.

Through Familiar, Together Alone and Escapism, we see hints of just how strong of a control White has on the other diamonds. They might seek her attention, but it is under the assumption that White will decide if they are accepted or not. The Era 3 ball, a momentous occasion for everyone else, only merits White Pearl's presence from White. Good analysis of the meaning of the ball can be found here. But suffice to say, White's shadow looms over the whole thing while she makes it clear she does -not- care. Unless there is illegal fusing, which we can assume the other diamonds reacted negatively to mostly due to fear of being punished themselves.

In Escapism, White is symbolized not by any melon person (as Yellow and Blue are) but as a gigantic melon shark that injured Melon! Steven significantly. Hinting that meeting White will be like meeting a large predator that will not show any mercy. Steven pacifies the shark with a kiss, but not without a cost.

In Change Your Mind, even before we meet White again, we are told in a flashback that White took Pink's pearl. Thus confirming what was hinted in another flashback in Together Alone, that White Pearl is a brainwashed Pink Pearl. After that, we are given further threats from White through White Pearl and later her in the diamond mecha.

But I wish to put the most focus on the moment Steven and crew arrive into the lion's den, as Bismuth put well in Legs from Here to Homeworld. Not only is this entire area white and grey, but the other diamonds are standing in place, controlled by White with the same ease as Pink Pearl. What follows is White systematically breaking Steven down by first telling him she doesn't need his help, then taking control of and puppeting the main Crystal Gems and finally calling into question who Steven truly is.

What is fascinating in the scene, is how clearly White holds all the cards. Unlike Yellow and Blue, White seems to have extensive knowledge of Earth culture and how humans work. She isn't at all surprised by Connie or Steven's nature. To the point where White might as well have watched the show with us for how accurate she was. She isn't uncertain, she isn't ruled by grief or rage. She has Steven exactly where she wants him to be. It is not just that White doesn't want to listen, she feels she doesn't -need- to for all the control she has in the situation.

White's control ends the moment we and she get a shocking revelation, Steven's gem is not a dormant Rose or even Pink. It is him. At this moment, White loses her cool and her methods to deal with Steven entirely. She ends up throwing a tantrum when her well thought out plan failed entirely. Losing her control is the kiss to the shark's nose, allowing Steven to finally reach her.

So if I think White and her scenes in Diamond Days were well done, why do I think she was a bit misused? It has to do with when she was named and presented in the timeline and how quick her redemption was.

White was hinted from the moment we saw the diamond logo. Further hinted by her mural in the moonbase. Her ship had a cameo in the Trial and we saw her hand and her silhouette in Your Mother and Mine. The problem arises when you realise White wasn't even -named- until Legs from Here to Homeworld, the same episode she appeared in.

In comparison, Yellow, Blue and Pink have namedropped episodes before their official arrival. Namedropping in SU serves as a way to start learning about the character proper. It isn't helped by the lack of any reason why White couldn't have been mentioned before her debut.

This lack of namedropping leads into an awkward timing for her introduction, which I am sure was not intended by the writers. Like a villain in Dragonball Z, once the current main villains were defeated, another popped up the next episode. Even though we had hints of White before, she still seemed to come out of nowhere as a threat in terms of writing.

White not being mentioned or even hinted at proper until Legs from here to Homeworld resulted in a lot of fan theories ranging from her being a fusion to her holding up Homeworld and thus being unable to move. Both which were debunked in CYM. With no reason for this silence, it leads to a confusion why wasn't she mentioned before her debut? The only two reasons I could see would be finding a voice actor and creating a contract with them or her design not being finished.

I am going to offer how I would have done it. Once more, I do not claim to be a professional writer nor smarter than the Crewniverse. I just see a method through which White could have been better established.

The method I would have used is to have White Pearl appear both in flashbacks and in passing or through mentions. Maybe she is seen as Steven and Lars escape during the trial, or maybe she takes part as a recorder like her fellow pearls. Having White Pearl scare others by her presence and constantly loom over the diamonds and their pearls would have given us a taste of how the ranking among the diamonds functions. By having that feeling of greater power, even if unmentioned, White's appearance would not have felt too sudden.

All in all, I love White as a character. I simply feel she could have been used much earlier in the setting than she was.

[actorsmask]

Would you consider joining the Gepo-Sampard fanclub? We already have a few off-planet Aha followers among our ranks. We could really use your expertise. (The other masked fools seem to think it’s hilarious that a bunch of law-abiding citizens got so sick of Gepard and Sampo’s pining that they decided to matchmake a guard captain with a fellow masked fool.)

- Fan Club Anon

(Hi! I’m the Fan Club Anon from the Gepard role play blog. Though, I did post one ask to Sampo as well, haha. Also, sorry about the grammar. I don’t have the patience to spell check right now.)

Oh! I’ve already seen your posts on the Captain’s blog. I must thank you for giving me some excellent material to help me tease(bully) the both of them.

Consider me interested! Hope you won’t mind my intrusion!

(FANCLUB ANON SHAHSKAKAKJCJDJEJW HELLO AND ITS OKAY🫶🏻)

[ohifonlyx33]

I DON'T THINK YOU UNDERSTAND.

I AM OVER HERE LIKE THIS:

FINDING DECENT ACTORS THAT AREN'T TOO YOUNG OR OLD

THAT HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO FIT THE ROLE

WHO AREN'T TOO FAMOUS FOR A ROLE ON A TEEN DRAMA

DEVELOPING BACKSTORIES ft.

THOM AND SABINE WERE HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEARTS WHO GOT MARRIED RIGHT OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL TO RAISE A BABY

DUPAIN-CHENGS MIGHT LOSE THE BAKERY???

AGRESTES MOVED TO TOWN TO HIDE??

NOT THE RICH ELITES HIDING A DARK CONSPIRACY????

CHLOE'S DAD IS COVERING UP A SCANDAL?

EMILIE WAS MUCH YOUNGER THAN GABE WHEN THEY MET... SHE WAS A MODEL AND ASPIRING DESIGNER

GABE WAS A KEENLY INERTESTED INVESTOR

SHE MARRIED FOR MONEY, WITH A FALSE SENSE OF LOVE AND GREW TO REGRET IT.

EXPANDING ON CHARACTERS LIKE:

MARINETTE IS LESS OF A STALKER, BUT STILL A VERY DETAIL-ORIENTED PERFECTIONIST AND MORE FASHION-DRIVEN, BUT SHE'S VERY NON-AGGRESSIVE AND HATES CONFRONTATION. SHE FINDS IT REALLY HARD TO BE LADYBUG AND HAVE TO LEAD.

ADRIEN IS UNATTAINABLE QUIET MYSTERIOUS SAD BOY, CRAVES LOVE AND AUTHENTICITY, MASKING DEPRESSION, HATES HIS DAD. HE DOESN'T CHOOSE TO GO TO SCHOOL UNTIL LATER... MAYBE AFTER HE MEETS MARINETTE. HE'S ALSO MORE WILD AND REBELLIOUS AS CHAT NOIR, LESS LIKELY TO FOLLOW HER ORDERS.

MARINETTE THINKS SHE CAN FIX HIM.

ALYA GETS INTO TROUBLE INVESTIGATING THINGS IN THE SHADOWS, INCLUDING GABRIEL, THE ELITES, AND LADYBUG. THE SECRETS WEIGH ON HER.

NINO IS STRUGGLINNG TO START A DJ CAREER AND STAY TRUE TO HIMSELF IN THAT WORLD.

CHLOE IS A PARTY GIRL WHO HATES HERSELF TO THE POINT OF MELTING DOWN. PROBABLY HAS AN EATING DISORDER OR SOMETHING SIMILAR.

SABRINA IS HER YOUNGER SISTER WHO CRAVES HER APPROVAL INSTEAD OF ZOE. SHE HAS TO LEARN HER OWN SELF-WORTH AND MAKE NEW FRIENDS

KAGAMI IS AN ADVANCED TRANSFER STUDENT BY 2+ GRADES, AND FEELS OUT OF PLACE BUT MAKES FRIENDS WITH SOME PEERS INCLUDING MAX AND NATHANIEL

ROSE IS STILL ALL ABOUT THE CUTE, QUIRKY AESTHETIC, BUT DECEPTIVELY MORBID AND HAS A DARK SENSE OF HUMOUR. SHE'S IN REMISSION WITH CANCER.

JULEKA LOOKS GOTH BUT IS ACTUALLY THE SWEETEST AND HATES HORROR STUFF AND DEALS WITH ANXIETY. SHE'S ALSO A HUGE CHAT NOIR FAN.

LUKA IS EDGIER AND NOT AS INNOCENT. PETTY CRIMES BAD BOY WITH A MOTORCYCLE.

ALSO KIM IS A PLAYER.

ALEX AND IVAN ARE SIBLINGS NOW IDK WHY

IVAN IS OLDER BUT HE'S MILDLY AUTISTIC/SLOW LEARNER

I ALSO JUST DECIDED MAX AND MYLENE ARE SIBLINGS.

MYLENE IS ONE OF THE WARMEST CHARACTERS... ONCE YOU GET TO KNOW HER. SHE'S ALSO INTO THE ZODIAC AND CRYSTALS STUFF BUT JUST FOR FUN

PLOTTING RELATIONSHIP DRAMA LIKE...

MARINETTE MEETS ADRIEN BY INTERNING FOR AGRESTE

MARINETTE JUDGES ADRIEN FOR BEING RICH AND PRETENTIOUS AND FRIENDS WITH CHLOE

BUT SHE NOTICES HIM DOING NICE THINGS WHEN NO ONE IS LOOKING AND SHE STARTS STUDYING HIM

LATER SHE OVERHEARS HIM FIGHTING WITH CHLOE IN THE HALL ABOUT HOW SHE TREATS SABRINA

THEN MARINETTE RESPECTS HIM BUT SHE STILL DENIES THAT SHE'S FALLING HOPELESSLY IN LOVE WITH HIM EVEN WHEN HE'S BECOMING HER MUSE.

ALYA AND NINO MEET AT AN EVENT WHERE HE'S DJing AND SHE'S SNOOPING AND THEY GET INTO SHENANIGANS TOGETHER

CHLOE WANTS TO DATE ADRIEN BUT DATES KIM INSTEAD WHICH IS NOT A HEALTHY LOVING RELATIONSHIP

LUKA/CHLOE ENIMIES TO LOVERS PLOT TWIST

BUT AT SOME POINT ALYA KEEPS MIRACULOUS SECRETS FROM NINO AND IT PUTS A STRESS ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP

ESPECIALLY BECAUSE HE'S PURSUING HIS OWN DREAMS AND THEY FEEL LIKE THEY'RE TORN IN TWO DIRECTIONS

MYLENE AND IVAN LEARN TO APPRECIATE AND TRUST EACH OTHER... HAND HOLDING IS AN ACHIEVEMENT FOR THEM.

WHATEVER WEIRD FRIENDSHIP ROSE AND MAX HAVE. IT'S QUIRKY AND NERDY AND UNEXPECCTED AND DELIGHTFUL.

JULEKA REJECTS NATHANIEL BECAUSE SHE'S NOT INTERESTED IN DATING ANYONE.

WILL KIM EVER GROW UP AND FALL IN LOVE AND DEVELOP DEPTH? WHAT ABOUT HIS BESTIE ALEX? WILL SHE BRING OUT THE LAYERS TO HIM? OR WILL HE LOSE HER?

WILL NATHANIEL AND ALEX BOND OVER BEING REJECTED BY THEIR FRIENDS? IS IT A PLATONIC BOND???

KAGAMI GETS OVER HER CRUSH ON ADRIEN... BUT WHO WILL SHE CRUSH ON NEXT?

NATHALIE IS CREEPILY OBSESSED WITH GABE WHO IS CREEPILY OBSESSED WITH HIS DEAD WIFE SO NOTHING HAS CHANGED THERE.

DEVELOPING BETTER(?) LORE

THERE ARE ONLY TWO KNOWN MIRACULOUS

THE LADYBUG IS A MYSTERIOUS FAMILY HEIRLOOM THAT MARINETTE'S GRANDPA GIVES HER

WHY ADRIEN GETS THE CAT MIRACUOUS AND WHO GAVE IT TO HIM IS A MYSTERY EVEN TO HIM...

HAWK MOTH DOESN'T USE A MIRACULOUS, HIS MAGIC COMES FROM SOMETHING ELSE......

FIXING(?) THE POWERS SYSTEM

LADYBUG AND CHAT NOIR HAVE TO COMBINE POWERS TO FIX EVERYTHING AND IT'S VERY DRAINING.

MARINETTE CAN MAKE TEMPORARY MIRACULOUS, BUT HAS TO RECHARGE AND THEY DISAPPEAR AFTER THE MIRACULOUS IS CALLED.

NEW CHARACTER DESIGNS

MARINETTE BRINGS THE FASHION BECAUSE GIRLS CAN STILL LOOK CUTE KICKING BUTT.

SHE THINKS HER FIRST ONE IS TOO IMMODEST SO WHEN SHE FINDS OUT SHE CAN DESIGN A NEW ONE, SHE DESIGNS SOMETHING MORE SAFE. BUT AFTER CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SOMETIMES SHE CHANGES IT. BUT IT'S NOT JUST AT WHIM.

ADRIEN'S OUTFIT IS MORE COMFORT-BASED WITH A HOOD MAKING HIM LOOK LIKE A STRAY-CAT.

TRENDY SOUNDTRACK ft.

PEPPY OPENING SONGS TO START THE DAY

ANTHEMIC HERO SONGS FOR WHEN IT'S GO-TIME

SONGS TO PINE OVER LOVESQUARE

DARK POP SONGS FOR DARK MOMENTS

SO MANY ANGSTY ENDING MONTAGE SONGS

THE CONCEPTS THIS SHOW HINTS A BUT NEVER GETS TO EXPLORE IS TOO POWERFUL

Why yes I am taking the weekend to fancast and conceptualize a CW-style teen drama for miraculous ladybug. and yes i am putting entirely too much time and thought into it. I have a playlist and 95% of the cast (still stuck between two choices each for LB and CN)... Also, I genuinely have no clue why I'm bothering with any of this. The CW isn't even profitable.

[cupofsorrows]

HOWARD LOVECRAFT 4: CRAFT HARD WITH A VENGEANCE

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Time to continue this cursed journey, blighted not by eldritch forces but by sub-quality filmmaking. As you’ll recall (or not), LL Cool Craft and those other two dudes were on their way to beat themselves up a necromancer. Let’s see how well they’re doing:

PRETTY GOOD, IT DOESN’T SEEM.

Except wait, they actually do pretty well, because as we’ve already established knocking a shoggoth out through blunt force is both possible and fairly easy to do, and also because Dr. Armitage has the athleticism of a young Super Mario.

seen here bestowing an orb of discord on the enemy. yes i went back to the zenyatta joke.

Of course, they eventually get captured, and now it’s time for King Abby to reveal his evil plan...

“nah dude I already saw that movie, I know Thanos loses in the end.”

Suffice it to say that basically Abdul wants to “open the Gate of Dreams” because daily life has become soul-crushingly dull.

Like, I get it dude, I’ve worked retail too, but you don’t see me trying to destroy the universe. Anyways, the final journal is hidden behind a magic gateway that apparently only Howard can pass through:

All I can say is it’s a good thing this is an alternate re-imagining of Lovecraft’s life, and not the real version where he was heinously racist basically all the time.

Yes, Howard’s Dad, the animation’s terrible, but it’s looked like that all movie - I don’t understand why you’re just now reacting.

By now it’s time for the tables to turn yet again, through a series of actions I didn’t care enough to cap, and it looks like everyone’s about to escape...

BUT WAIT!

Nooooo Dr. Armitage! You were.......a character in this movie!

All four of them (they got Spot’s astral form in the crystal ball) escape through the portal, but Armitage is wounded in that special animation way where there’s no blood or even clothing damage but you have to hold your side and wince and you can’t walk for some reason. Is he going to make it?

Sorry, kid, but it looks like it’s his time to...return to the university? Um, OK. Oh, but first he can restore Spot to his bargain-bin aladdin-genie form.

Farewell, Doctor. This whole scene was very nearly pointless.

It’s all good, though, because the Three Amigos have a new destination!

This gives Paw Lovecraft plenty of time to ramble about how he came to write the journals (notice throughout how they can’t be arsed to give half of the things in this movie proper shadows but they do make sure to take the extra effort with the beads of sweat on his forehead):

Cool story bro, but I’m still a little unclear about NO NO WAIT I DIDN’T SAY FLASHBACK Aaah dammit, there he goes.

...

You could have given a thousand Lovecraft scholars an entire year to try to guess what might be in this movie and I don’t think a single one would have come up with “awkward Death Note homage”. My hat is off to you, movie. Bra-vo.

(i guess there’s a possibility it’s coincidental, but that’s even funnier because then that means two different people independently had the idea to animate somebody writing in a notebook but make it look as intense as possible, and they both came up with the exact same solution)

Now we’re finally introduced to Doctor West (voiced by Christopher Plummer), the mysterious colleague of Lovecraft Senior whom we’ve AAUUGH

my man I am so, so sorry.

...er, anyway, seems the two of them were working together when they made their big breakthrough. Here we see them as Lovecraft the Elder prepares to journey to either an alien planet or a particularly wild orgy.

...Adding “Stargate” to the list of things I wasn’t expecting this movie to rip off...

And now, at last, we learn why “Undersea Kingdom” was in this movie’s title.

I dunno, dude, it’s a kingdom and it’s undersea. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Just then, however, Flashback Howard’s Dad is treated to a terrifying sight!

bigchungus.png

“Nice notebook, nerd! Yyyyyyoink!”

...And that’s the state of things now. That’s why DadCraft went nuts and that’s where the last journal is. He timed his flashback well, for they’ve just arrived at their destination:

Yeah, they probably shunned it because some crazy, Edgar Allan Poe-looking fucker was always up there running around and babbling in a nonsense language! I’d shun that place, too!

Underneath the hill is a secret base where Dad suits up to return to the Undersea Kingdom™ - Howard doesn’t need one, on account of the ‘turning into a fish’ thing.

see?

OK credit where credit is due, the actor playing this guy is really making an effort, and I actually sort of chuckled at this bit. His delivery is usually pretty goofy, but I think that’s the way to go here, and even if most of his lines are clunkers because, well, most of the script is clunky, there’s still an undeniable sort of heart behind it. Imdb says the actor’s name is Tyler Nicol, who doesn’t seem to have been in much, and probably can’t stand on the level of the big-name talents in this movie (though I def wouldn’t say they’re all at their best here), but I think he deserves some recognition for trying.

Tangent over, here comes the big fish dude again.

I think we can all guess what his name is...

...Munkus Q. Charliebears! ...Oh, yeah, or Dagon. That would’ve been my second guess.

But it’s OK, he’s on our side! In his minute or so of screen time Dagon manages to deliver probably the most useful exposition in the whole damn film, explaining that he took the journal to keep it safe and that he put up the magic gate that only plucky boy heroes can pass through, as well as laying out some background for Nyarlathotep and his motivation for being involved in this. It turns out that Nyarrblbarbagarbl wants to activate Cthulhu in accordance to the wishes of their mutual father, Azathoth. Now everybody’s hanging out in Dagon’s crib to get at the journal, so our pal Hovercraft had better get moving to get it before the bad guys do. This falls on him, because it was his dad who fucked everything up in the first place and now he’s too cuckoo to fix it himself.

You sure it’s that and not...you know. The racism?

Alright, so everybody up to speed? Everyone understand everything? No? Well too damn bad.

Disappointingly, “Y’ha” is not pronounced “Yeeha”.

(PRONUNCIATION GUIDE THUS FAR:

Tekeli-li - Tekah-leelee

Cthulhu - Kuh-too-loo (probably the way you’ve heard it elsewhere)

Shoggoth - Shuh-GOTH

Nyarlahotep - Nee-ar-LA-ho-tep

Innsmouth - The ‘mouth’ is pronounced that way (i.e. the orifice you eat with) instead of ‘muth’ which I had always assumed

R’lyeh - Ruh-LAY (this is the one I’m most calling bullshit on)

Howard - JEFF-ree

As the goodguys approach, the badguys sense their arrival:

“ ‘WhAt sHaLl i dO, blehhhhh I’m a Dumbass’ That’s what you sound like.”

LMAO YASSS DRAG HIS ASS

Then Howard et al show up on the scene, and it’s time for the Big Bad to make his debut.

OK I like this, I think it’s actually sort of eerie, but it’s too little too late at this point. Also, isn’t Azathoth supposed to be sort of mindless? Or have I gotten him confused with some other ineffable outer being?

I feel like I should say something about the sudden art shift, but I’m approaching the end of my patience and I just want this all to be over already.

Surprise, Mom is still a hostage! Her skin has definitely looked better, too.

LOOK OUT, WALLACE N. GROMIT IS OFF THE SHITS

You know what else he looks like to me? A cartoon mailman. Remove the mask and the hood, add the little mailman hat...do you see it?

Did I mention the trials? No? OK: there are trials.

The fate of the world before him, his family behind him, his meat enormous, Hocus Pocus Lovecraft can do nothing but move forward.

2 B CONTINUED

RIGHT NOW