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marciabrady · 2 years ago

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here are some sleeping beauty plot points/general details that i love and i would love to see more discussion around

the story team did such an incredible job with fleshing out aurora while still making her feel true to the mythos from which she was derived. in every novelization i've ever read that predates the disney film, she's only ever given one line of dialogue (something like: "what is that thing that spins so merrily?") before falling asleep. disney took that same princess and successfully expanded her into a living, breathing dynamic human who is filled with everything- ethos, pathos, everything, but is also authentic to her origins. they also did a genius job at creating a basis for why love is so revered in this tale. true love conquers all, we're told, and it's indeed what keeps aurora safe from maleficent for all these years, as it's the one thing the evil fairy can't understand. yet, the fact that the princess grew up surrounded by the love from the three fairies, which instills that care in her heart, along with the fact that she grows up in isolation, so connected to the universe around her and allowing her to be introspective enough to observe the animals about her and draw a connection to the human condition and that of the consistencies of nature is so...deep and profound and develops her and makes her an evergreen character that will always represent people, for as long as we're around, because aurora's struggle is one that speaks to everyone. she isn't just some "lovesick princess" but a character that's growing up and longs to be able to find her soul's mate and to express the love in her heart in a universe where she was socially excluded and deprived of others outside of her three guardians. as humans are tribal creatures, social inclusion is one of the main pillars of wellbeing. so to take aurora, who is already an innately romantic person, and to deprive her of that just gives all the more reason why the kiss of true love really would revive her. she isn't just some princess who grows to be fifteen or sixteen, pricks her finger, and then is awakened by a prince she never meets. she is someone who was raised in love, grows up and wants to become a woman and share that love and express it with someone else. when she finds it, it's suddenly stripped from her and she's induced into a magic slumber that's meant to symbolize her transformation from girl to woman. then, she's awakened by the same love she'd thought she lost and it's just...the structure of it is genius and incredible and they retain all of the qualities about her in the fairytale and storytelling devices but they develop it so much further and round her out so well but still maintain a reverence to her source material instead of condemning it or outright changing it and i just LOVE

i don't think enough people realized that, it wasn't until maleficent visited prince phillip in the dungeon and showed him the vision of aurora in slumber repose that he knew that aurora and briar rose were one in the same!!! like this is the moment it all clicked for him and it gave him the drive and determination to slay the dragon in her honor. he realized the woman he loved and the princess he had been betrothed to were both one and that's so important and it's just such a plot twist that, again, was so genius of the writers. it proves to us that he loves her enough to leave the kingdom for her and risk damning the princess he had been betrothed to to the curse she was under and he'd take her as she is, even if it were a peasant, but also that his love is so steadfast and true that he'd defeat a dragon for her. 10/10 and it sooo runs along the vein of the lyric "visions are seldom all they seem." this is a plot twist done RIGHT but with so much sophistication that it tends to fly under most everyone's radar because it isn't like loud

something i love about the original princess movies is how the female characters are forever in the forefront, and the fact that this film opens with the celebration of the birth of a female child is something that's so special! instead of having to think about how female children weren't celebrated in that time, or it was a disappointment she hadn't been a son, or something of the like, the fact that the spotlight is on their daughter and the opening of the film continues this matriarchy, where all in the land praise this female birth, before the fairies are introduced as their most "honored and exalted excellencies." we need to see more worlds like this instead of pixar films where there's like not a single main female character lol

THE FACT THAT PHILLIP WAS WILLING TO GIVE UP THE THRONE AND THE KINGDOM "for some nobody" and told his dad flat out to his face without hesitating makes me love him soooo much?? he loves aurora for who she is, not just because she was a princess to whom he had been betrothed to his entire life, and this proves how genuine his love is. it also paints how progressive and open-minded phillip was, seeming to be the first that would ever break the tradition of princes marrying princesses and opening up his country for a new type of culture and reign. love me a freak like that

one of the biggest facets to aurora's character, and something that further develops her relationship to phillip, is how differently she reacts to her guardians when told of the betrothal. where phillip already knows, and is aware of the king and queen and how his duty is to marry their princess daughter, aurora is just finding out that she has living parents for the first time and the future of a nation rests on her shoulders. she discovers she's to be married to a prince and must give up her true love forever. again, before i hear anything about "she just met this man for two minutes in the woods, why is she crying," this is a fairytale with magic that's meant to be archetypical. in the narrative of the film, and in the universe of this world, phillip is her true love- and this is confirmed when it is his kiss that awakens her from the curse. so to leave the one true love who was meant for you, when that's all you ever wanted in the isolation you were raised in, to accept your duty and responsibility over parents you didn't even know you had and to assume the obligations of a nation you aren't even prepared for...it's astounding. aurora does everything right, she even leaves love behind for the good of her people and puts everyone above her own personal desires, and yet people still criticize her and say she's dependent on a man and all she cares about is love. meanwhile, phillip never receives any hate, and he's literally willing to give up the throne and the kingdom and start a war between two countries for the girl "he just met in the woods for two minutes" but he's one of the most beloved princes...it really just makes me think about how misogynistic our society still is, without even realizing it. aurora literally couldn't have done anything better, by our modern standards, but people still condemn her just because? this is definitely a discussion piece i want to hear more about and, in general, i think it would behoof us all to understand why aurora has been so demeaned culturally as a character when her actions, in and of themselves, are exactly what we say we want and would appeal to modern sensibilities

this is a slight sidenote but i always was tickled by merryweather proclaiming, if she had it her way, maleficent would be turned into a "fat old hop-toad." i always felt like this was a nod to the original tale from which this movie was based on, where a magical frog tells the queen that her wish to be with child shall soon be granted and that it, just generally, was a very clever easter egg/allusion

in this film, they have enough action and movement to appease the more restless demographic/traditionally "masculine" crowd, but i love how the basis of maleficent's defeat lies still in the femininity of the three good fairies. it's these elderly women that save phillip from the dungeon and arm him, not just with weapons that will kill another being and are predicated upon violence, but with symbolic weapons that are laced with truth and virtue. i think it really reminds us all how transformative these values are and how, in arming ourselves with them, we'll alone be able to navigate the road to true love (whether that be familial, platonic, or romantic love) which will be "barred by many more dangers" and how it enables us to have a sense of autonomy where we'll be able to overcome anything that's thrown our way while still retaining the core of who we are

i wrote about this moment previously, but to piggyback off of what i wrote about phillip just above...i love how aurora is the most competent human in this world? much has been said about how the plot of sleeping beauty is essentially the fairy worlds dueling with one another and, in that, many of the mortals are somewhat...inept, to put it for lack of a better term. king stefan is unable to protect his daughter with the burning of the spinning wheels, even with all the power he harnesses within his kingdom, and the fairies are quick to see his folly. prince phillip would still be rotting in the prison had the fairies not interjected, and he would be burned to a crisp had they not sprung a final chant of magic upon his, already, enchanted sword. yet, maleficent has to hypnotize aurora for the princess to even succumb to her plan and, even then, aurora is temporarily able to snap out of the magic hypnosis she's put under. i don't think people realize how powerful that is? yes, i understand it's a minor moment, but the hesitation and the ability to counter magic while remaining totally unarmed is something that reminds me why aurora is our main character, despite what anyone else might say.

going along with what i said above, while many are quick to point out aurora's lack of screentime, the film begins with her birth, the plot is sprung forth with every character wondering what they could do to protect her, then when she pricks her finger upon the spinning wheel, she and the entire kingdom are put to sleep. it isn't until she wakes up, that the entire kingdom does, too. she holds the key to this entire universe in a persephone like way and i just love how important it is in the narrative of the film to wake her up. she isn't just this beautiful creature who's valuable because she's pretty, because if that was the case, her being a lovely figure posed to perfection in her slumbering mode would be enough...but the people of her universe value her so much more when she's alive and active and being her own person, that it ensues a fairy war, practically. she's also involved in every single plot, even if she isn't physically present. this is her movie and no one can take that away from her. but, just to restate, the fact that there's so much emphasis in aurora being alive and well is something that's so important

so, it's kind of a given at this point that every princess can sing, but i think the role that music plays in sleeping beauty is the most meaningful and well done? sleeping beauty makes much to do about its classical score and it skillfully combines realistic characters and storylines (like the fairies not knowing how to cook and clean, phillip being captured with no way out, the kings toasting to the impending nuptials of their offspring before getting into a quarrel centered around a misunderstanding) with the fantastical world of fantasy and opera. by giving aurora the gift of song, the narrative is creating a framework that explains her relationship to her singing voice in a way that's even more profound than that of ariel's connection with her singing. it explains why aurora sings more than she speaks and ties in perfectly with the thematic style of the operatic presence in sleeping beauty, which is that in the opera, instead of speaking about it, you sing.

OK but this scene of hubert's/his general plotline and character motivation that results from this is genuinely perhaps the best comedy disney's ever done? hubert is coming off of declaring war upon his best friend stefan, because he misunderstood stefan's caring for his own daughter as a snub against hubert's son. after challenging aurora's father to a duel, they quickly make up, before hubert hears phillip has arrived and rushes off to greet his son. there, the news is broken that phillip is actually in love with a peasant and that he plans to renounce the throne- which will actually cause a war- so that he can be with his beloved. hubert is convinced phillip is joking, especially as he happens to meet this mystery maiden on the date that aurora is set to come home- the most anticipated date for these past sixteen years in the kingdom- and his son is set to be a central figure in the celebration for the princess's homecoming! before he can reason with phillip, his son escapes, leaving hubert to be the one to break the news to stefan. heavy-hearted, as hubert tries to tell stefan, he keeps being interrupted by trumpets and the musical notes that are meant to accompany the princess in her debut to her country. then the fairies literally put hubert to sleep when he finally gets a chance to explain it to stefan and, when they're awoken from this fog like slumber, the first vision that greets hubert is that of his son and the princess??? the same son who said he had no interest in aurora, but was set to marry the peasant maiden. the whole thing concludes in a very charming "all's well that ends well" but i still think the whole "how am i ever going to tell stefan" dilemma, while continually being interrupted, and this king who declared war in 2 seconds flat and minced no words in being so short-tempered was suddenly at a loss for words and so hesitant and fumbling and nervous about this news his son sprung on him lol

one of the most haunting sequences in film is the one above. the three good fairies have endeared themselves to their mortal charge, even giving up their magic for her for sixteen years. their bond is so much deeper and meaningful than it would've been otherwise, as they probably would've blessed her at the christening and then only appeared in her life intermittently, at a distance. they clearly aren't close enough to humans to know too much about their customs, and their magic always gives them away as outsiders, which indicates they were always content to live in their own fairy-world. but then they give it all up for this baby, this child, and they change their entire world for her. she is their world, to the point where their sole purpose is protecting her, until that's all they can think about for close to two decades. they would do anything they could to make her happy, to give her a fighting chance at life. they're so protective over her- and the fact that they got this close to the finish line...only to leave her alone because they want to be respectful of giving her privacy as she's still reeling and processing from all the news they sprung about her at once. they were even discussing going to king stefan and attempting to convince him to let aurora out of the arranged marriage so that she could be with the boy in the woods. and this all leads to maleficent enchanting aurora to her demise. as the fairies place her in a bed for the last time, looking upon her in her princess form, all of the time they've spent with her runs through their mind. how this isn't their little briar rose anymore, but a princess who inhabits, not the woodcutter's cottage, but king stefan's castle. someone who will never be with them the way she once was ever again and who, presently, is dead for all they know. as they look upon their lost daughter, the faint chimes and musical notes of the celebration of her homecoming is heard in the distance. i could talk about this forever but it's just such a heartbreaking and sad but also eerie mood

in 2023, it's time king stefan gets his flowers. while, in the time period in which this film is set, it'd be totally realistic for a father to set his daughter up in an arranged marriage to further the prospects of his land, stefan displays an understanding that seems more contemporary than his counterpart, hubert. hubert doesn't think about prince phillip's feelings for a beat and concedes that the "children" are bound to fall in love with one another. meanwhile, stefan seems to display a much more well-rounded paternal instinct, even exemplifying a degree of care and concern for both aurora's emotional wellbeing and her consent. he urges hubert to calm down and remember that this might come as "quite a shock" to aurora and to not push all of these political arrangements upon his daughter before she's had a chance to react to them and digest them.

the duality of briar rose and princess aurora is so fascinating, but also the moments in which they overlap is more enchanting still. this is a fairytale that is meant to be archetypical, and aurora's enchanted slumber is meant to be symbolic for her transition from girlhood to womanhood. briar rose, the girl, is anxious about her future, the prospect of meeting her love and settling down and getting to the next stage of her life. she loves her guardians, but is frustrated at their inability to see and treat her as anything other than a child. she goes to sleep a scared, shy, unsure teenager and wakes up as a self-assured, mature, gracious woman- the princess aurora. she's a vision, descending the staircase on the arm of her beloved, and she paints quite the picture as she gracefully curtsies to her parents, the king and queen. yet, true to the girl from the cottage, briar rose takes over. unable to contain the love she feels, she bolts forward and rushes to embraced her lost parents. i love this because, for as calm as a character as aurora is, i've always been so mesmerized by the breathless excitement with which she speaks when she returns to the cottage. this is a girl that has more love inside her than she can contain and it renders her a beacon of light. her running into the arms of her parents, instead of resenting them for giving her up, putting her in an arranged marriage, or even pausing to question whether or not she should be so warm with these figureheads of state, is such a tender moment that i don't think i've ever heard anyone speak of.

i will never get tired of singing the praises of the three good fairies. this film placed three older, conventionally unattractive women at the forefront- without pushing forced hetero ships on any of them- and allowed them to be bad ass (ie saving phillip from the dungeon, providing him with the tools and guidance with which to defeat maleficent, coming up with all the plots and actions that propelled the plot forward), while reminding us that love and kindness is truly the most powerful force on earth and placing an emphasis on the strength and power of femininity. the entire transition, from them being business women in the kingdom essentially (this is more in modern jargon; them being the fairies who are invited to political organizations for their contributions and not knowing anything about things like cooking or cleaning or rearing a child) to learning how to raise a baby and the film ending with them beaming over the shining achievement of their assigned charge finally being safe and happy is...it's everything. how beautifully the film focuses on them and the relationship with their adopted daughter and how that's the driving goal in all of this is something that's been unable to ever be surpassed

#mine #marciabrady #sleeping beauty #disney #sleeping beauty 1959

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inventors-fair · 2 months ago

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Lyrical Miracles

What's the word? Several words. Maybe I've been a little down on outside sources in MTG as of late, but there are opportunities to use one's love for source material as inspiration. Inspiration leads to creativity, and with however many songs are out in the world, I hope there's a lot to be inspired by this week. I'm keeping the preamble short because honestly—I've never designed a card in the way I'm about to challenge y'all with. Whatever you come up with is going to be uniquely yours. That also means you're going to have to find a strong basis for your presentation! So—

Design a card that uses a song lyric of your choice in either its name or flavor text.

When submitting, please tell me what song it is! Part of this is curiosity, and part is just verification that we're quoting correctly. It'll be tempting to change the lyrics to fit grammar or context, but I want you to adhere to the exact words.

It doesn't matter where you get the lyric from as long as it's from a song that someone would be able to look up and listen to. If you yourself are a songwriter, that's a wonderful vocation; I'm also gonna ask that you use a song that you yourself did not write this week as an additional challenge. Honestly this is a really niche requirement unless Bob Dylan has a secret Magic-themed Tumblr or whatever.

Obviously, you don't have to use a whole line if it goes too far beyond the name bar or stretches the FT box. As long as it's long enough to be recognizable.

If it helps the world of the card, you can attribute the quote in flavor text to a Magic character and/or the subject in the card, etc.

Sometimes song titles are also in the lyrics, that's understandable. If you're going to choose a quote that includes the song title, I wanna stress: I don't want to see card names that are just song titles, 'cause that's a whole different contest that I think we've also done before and defeats the purpose of this being its own thing. Yknow?

Branch out! This one's not a requirement, but these cards don't have to be music-themed at all. I use the Prismari campus just 'cause that one happens to hit the inspirational theme. Let the lyrics guide you towards feeling, and put that feeling towards a card!

Most importantly: have fun <3 I think we've done this one before but it's been a long time and I don't...think it was me running it? Eh, either way, I'm a poet, so let's go nuts.

A winning card will be an impactful and/or transformative work that uses the flavor text in ways that elevate the emotions, situation and context of the work at hand.

I'm looking to see cards that either lean heavily into the heart of a song lyric or skillfully subvert the lyric to emphasize a card's presentation.

@abelzumi

Submitters, keep on >> SUBMITTING The Discord, keep on >> DISCORDING

P.S. If you're on Mobile and have trouble submitting, use the askbox instead! It should work just as well.

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair #announcement #song lyric contest

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grimxark · 17 days ago

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my main criticism about a lot of takes on prowl is that a lot of these people have NOT read the entirety of IDW and it shows. And it especially shows when people get into Prowl as a character through shipping with JazzProwl because Jazzprowl fics and media are very choosy when it comes to taking from their IDW characterizations. I cannot stress ENOUGH how wildly different they are in the IDW source material from fan content, and how the Jazzprowl dynamic originated from G1- not because they had an interesting storyline or cool interactions, but because people liked the laid-back officer x uptight cop trope. People don't take from G1 as often as they do now, but there's a million AUs about this exact dynamic. I won't get too into the extremely racist undertones in a lot of Jazzprowl fan media but it is *unbelievably* present especially when people like to start Jazz off as an 'untrustworthy' character that Prowl arrests/gets into a fight with/has to 'chase down'. Transformers in general is. really bad on the racism front lmao. I've found that though a lot of people genuinely do understand Prowl’s themes(!), their actual takeaways are very superficial. In content where Prowl is of some central focus people like to paint him with more sympathetic qualities, which can work well! To a point! But at some point- especially when Prowl starts getting written as an antihero, misunderstood and hated for shallow reasons- the responsibility he has to take for his actions gets very very diluted. And Prowl's themes are huge on responsibility.

They're also huge on his near-authoritarian use of power, tendency to endanger innocent people, what have you. People reeeally need to understand that Prowl isn't originally written to be likeable, he's written as a plain bureaucratic asshole in a highly political story. He's also a cop car. It isn't a coincidence one of the biggest Autobot symbols for corruption in IDW is a cop car. By shifting the motive of his actions to be overly sympathetic by saying he's just doing what he thinks is right and he's saving others by abandoning his moral code not only are you failing to write a good criticism on political power (and what it can do to an individual!) in general, but you miss a fundamental part of Prowl and what is, most likely, what made him appealing to you in the first place. sorry. this got out of hand. I think I was going to write a bit criticism about how people take ships and sacrifice what made a character's themes good for angst content that just reads as an original story that could be made with any other character from the media. I lost the thread. you know what sure just make jazzprowl forever. you don't have to engage with these characters in any meaningful way and create a brand new Villainous Initially-Untrustworthy Jazz and ignore the very obvious criticism of police that is prowl. who gaf

#copying pasting for a friend. they speak for both of us tbh #ramblings of a mistful storm #prowl #idw prowl #transformers #who gaf.#jazzprowl

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peijizerojournal · 3 months ago

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re: 'khaos reigns'

i have SO much to say about it lol but i'm still gathering my thoughts. all i know for sure is : even though the bar (in regards to quality of story and characterization) was on the floor, i am still, yet again, extremely disappointed !

(rant/review/spoilers below. will maybe add to this, but also maybe not. just purging some of my thoughts lol)

in a nutshell,

the way liu kang, kuai liang, cyrax, sektor and bi-han's characters were all deviously misrepresented was just appalling.

kuai liang is depicted as heartless, arrogant and temperamental. posturing as a 'grandmaster' even though he's done nothing but usurp authority by establishing a 'clan of his own' and pointing the finger at everybody but himself. lecturing cyrax about honour... pfft.

liu kang is strangely unforgiving and not very compassionate (he was literally more gracious in how he handled shang tsung/quan chi over bi-han?? like what??) not to mention his lack of urgency with dispatching of havik and rescuing geras. instead of extending some authentic benevolence to bi-han, he instead goads and chastises him after his transformation, and fails to elaborate further when they have their brief interaction regarding his hopes for a different future. the miscommunication between them -- in other words -- continues to be infuriating.

sektor doing nothing but being comically op and fawning over bi-han every three seconds is so all over the place, like they couldn't decide or couldn't find a nuanced balance in her persona (an issue with many characters, it seems...). while i thought she was the most accurately characterized out of all of these major players, her defining traits such as her obsession with the cyber initiative and boosting the lin kuei's position are not made so clear in the actual story? instead the writers chose to focus on her over-the-top, one-sided adulation toward bi-han. it makes her so hard to take seriously as a threat or as the next acting-grandmaster. another storytelling fail!

cyrax starts off the dlc defiantly, standing up for what she believes in and deciding to help the shirai ryu, yet during the rest of the story, she has no agency and just follows kuai around profusely apologizing for something she didn't even do (and kuai was relishing in that shift of power.... gross.)

and bi-han... i think that situation speaks for itself. missing chunks of the leak script and clever editing in the trailers left most of the fanbase baited and switched, and not to mention literally anything could happen next because of the lack of commitment to any of the lore and to even the timeline itself. many of the tower endings contradict much of the intro dialogue and the campaign itself. i guess by introducing alternate timelines and universes so early on, it gives the writers fair game to retcon anything and everything. which, effectively, pulvarizes any meaning for liu kang's 'new era' going forward.

i could keep ranting but, in short: 'khaos reigns' was rushed, boring, full of poor characterization and enough 'macguffins' and 'red herrings' fit for a superhero movie. so many plot holes and loose ends that weren't followed up on (like hello, what's with the hand on noob's hip? and where the hell did titan havik go at the end? was he banished? what about the kamidogu???). there were so many missed opportunities to flesh out preexisting conflicts too, and the pacing of everything from dialogue to the transitions between chapters was completely disjointed. all the characters actions were seemingly shortsighted and many of the decisions made led to nowhere and nothing really changed by the end. nobody went through any real character arc or growth, nobody knows what happened to our over-hyped 'villain of the week,' and the tower endings cancel out the dlc's true ending, essentially making all of it, and none of it, 'canonically accurate.'

it's clear whoever's writing this has no respect or insight for the source material, and is just doing whatever they want: whatever's popular, whatever sells, right? the one thing about a multiverse story is, you can keep that going forever. the possibilities are endless, and if they don't like something... it can be changed with a snap of the finger. kind of reminds me of one of supernatural's awful later seasons, or destiny 2's "shadowkeep" expansion. 'khaos reigns' comes across as a shoehorned seasonal narrative that exists solely to sell noob, cyrax and sektor and little else.

oh yeah, and the future dlc's that are sure to come.

#mk1 #mortal kombat 1 #khaos reigns #rant over #i think #it really is just another mid live service game now i guess lol...#it's just a shame #so many opportunities to do something great and they just drop the ball

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more-than-tender-curiosity · 5 months ago

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What Gatsby musical do you think is best?

The Great Gatsby : A New Musical

Gatsby : An American Myth

And depending on which you pick, why did you choose that one?

I have been outspoken in my criticism of The Great Gatsby: A New Musical to the point where it's kind of marked me as an asshole to fans of said musical, but I'm not backing down. Read my opinions boy

No, but seriously. Let me begin by saying that I came to this point already worn down by so many heartless, obnoxious, cash-grabby adaptations of prior works (Mean Girls, Beetlejuice, Heathers, etc) that bank almost entirely on nostalgia and spectacle and, in some cases, the unknowing of their YOUNG target audience, in order to blind said audience into just calling the music a bop and moving on.

And I'm tired of it. Yes, I'm aware musical theater has always run on adaptations—Chicago and Little Shop of Horrors are among some of my favorites! But I approach every single adaptation of ANYTHING with the same baseline question: is this adaptation justified?

You could take the very moderate opinion of "having more musicals to listen to is a good thing!" but I think that's naive, and falling right into the trap set by creators who are only here for Lin Manuel-level Tony's and that's it. There's no dedication to actually making something new with something already established. Nothing transformative. It's lazy.

That's what I mean by 'is this adaptation justified'. Does the adaptation in question engage with the source material in a way that refreshes it, dives deeper into it, and takes advantage of the new method of storytelling (in this case, from book to stage musical) to showcase how the new method of storytelling benefits the source material? Like in the case of Little Shop of Horrors, it uses satire to highlight deeper issues that are barely skated across in the source material while also pulling forth factors of the source material that were more relevant at the time when it was released.

I for one am exhausted by adaptations at this point. It's always been a backbone of musical theater but now, even outside of theater, we are awash in them. it's been said before that pretty much everything you see now is a remake or an adaptation or a sequel or a prequel or a cinematic universe or something derivative, and that tends to punch down on the smaller, more creative, original ideas that might've flourished if the market wasn't oversaturated with mass-produced corporatized shiny flashy garbage.

This is where the two Gatsby musicals come in.

If you're here, you know that I...dedicate a lot of time to this novel. I could have gone to college and got a degree with the time I have spent on this novel and its study. Unraveling every single sentence, every character motivation, every real life factor that plays in to Fitz's writing of the novel—every draft, every movie adaptation. The entire history of this novel and its creation is carved into the inside of my skull.

Now, one thing you should know about gatsby is that Fitz wrote it when he was just coming off the massive failure of his play The Vegetable. That's not the full title, but I'm not going to bother typing out the rest of it. Because it was bad. It was not good. No one liked it. So, naturally, Fitz wanted to improve on his playwriting skills. Up until then, he was good at short stories and he was good at long, descriptive novels, but he couldn't quite understand how to condense and reformat his novel-writing style into something more like a stageplay.

Gatsby was sort of his attempt. You'll note that Gatsby is only 47,043 or so words, which is less than half of most of his other novels. The action and dialogue are snappy. There is, shockingly enough, less purple prose than prior releases (in spite of Nick spending 23984798347928374 words, approximately, to describe his new neighbor's smile). Scott was trying desperately to pare down his writing and see if he could slowly shift his formatting toward something that could translate to the stage.

Many of you know that The Great Gatsby was a total major uber flop.

There went his dreams of making this a play. And there have been many attempts since, all with very limited success, because for the most part, there is a total lack of understanding concerning what makes this novel a novel instead of play material. All too many times, there has been a disconnect as to what would translate effectively onto the stage as it is written in the book, like the themes of being dazzled by a spectacle but not, as displayed in the novel, the downside of such a thing.

As I said. All too often, there is too little thought given to the advantages of adapting a written work to musical theater. This leads to much of the deeper shades of the story being left to the wayside in favor of shallow spectacle just to keep the masses entertained without actually translating the stunning symbolism and figurative work Fitz put on the page.

This is what happened to The Great Gatsby: A New Musical. They took the most barebones understanding that most viewers would have of the story (that it's a love story, just like Romeo and Juliet!—side-eye), and made everything as loud and as fast and as bright as they could to make up for any lack of exploration beyond what is very plainly written on the page.

This does not work with The Great Gatsby.

I've mourned the gooberfication of Nick Carraway before. I love the 2013 film, as I'm sure many do because it was many of our first experiences with any Gatsby adaptation, but you can see it with Tobey Maguire and you can see it here in The Great Gatsby: A New Musical. So many times I see people call him an unreliable narrator but it's very clear they don't understand exactly why he's unreliable.

This 'gooberfication' I speak of is Nick's attempt to convince us that he's the innocent one here, in every single situation, and everyone around him is a liar and he's always telling the truth so you can trust him. He's the only honest person he's ever known.

Red flag central.

So from that line alone, you have to understand that everything Nick says or does, leaves in or leaves out, is suspect. He's out of his element in New York but he is absolutely not some baby-cheeked little goober who is SO TOTALLY BLINDED by his infatuation with Gatsby that he's just willing to go along with everything and doesn't pass judgment. We joke "Nick says he doesn't judge anyone then proceeds to judge everyone in the novel!" Yeah, no shit. That's the thing. He is a hypocrite made only lesser by the way he plays up the evils of everyone around him, and that's how he gets by. That's how he sleeps at night.

You can cast that into whatever light you like, whether it's the hypocrisy of saying he's so poor when he's living in at LEAST a two bedroom cottage with a maid and modern appliances and his dad is paying for a full YEAR of his life after paying his way through an Ivy League school. Or you could say he does this to throw suspicion off himself and possibly his sexuality, which is a whole can of worms involving Fitzgerald's constant projection onto his characters that I cannot bear to crack open.

Point being, Nick isn't just the passive bystander in all of these situations. He makes it sound like he is, like he's just doing favors for people who are worse than him, and how he disapproves of even everything Gatsby does despite his evident fascination with the man, but at the end of the day, he's just passing the buck. Washing his hands clean. There are so many clues in the book to this sort of thing that should tip you off to the fact that Nick Carraway is not just some silly sweet guy who gets swept up into a life of chaos and crime just to come out cynical. He was already a judgemental, cynical individual who was forced to come all too close to the realization that he, too, is more 'one of them' than he can bear to admit—even in spite of how he attempts to obscure his own hypocrisy.

Nick is not innocent. No one in this book is (besides Pammy, though she's a ticking time bomb if we're meant to understand the wealth she will inherit). That's the whole point of the fucking book. There are a thousand hands each pushing a tiny bit to keep these impossible shades of class division moving, and condemning one person (like Nick does with Daisy or Tom) doesn't solve the problem. Jay still dies. The American dream is still a nightmare. Nick still has a father to fall back on.

Which is why it's so impossibly perplexing to me to display Nick as some sort of lapdog who just seems honored to spend time with these people. Why Jay is just some quirked up white boy who is, quite literally, just too quirky and obnoxious to bear. He and Daisy are so in love and they're so close to each other and isn't it just tooooo saddd to bearrrr?? So romantic????

There's nothing deeper to it. No asking why Fitz wrote any of these characters the way he did. No understanding of the deeper implications of what he was trying so desperately to convey, on both a social and personal level. Yes, it's a love story, but it's also a commentary on just how fucked everyone is by the cages of tradition.

And there is just no trace of that in the Broadway musical. Everything is simple and easily digestible. There is no deeper interaction with the source material, no drive to have produced it at all except, perhaps, to cash in on the new public domain. They got the biggest names they could with the biggest cult followings, knowing so many would just eat it right up and call each song a bop and it would trend on tiktok and they might get a tony and then they'd move on. No integrity. No passion. No justification.

Gatsby: An American Myth is much the opposite.

After hearing a Totally Legal version of the Broadway musical, I was terrified of what ART would do to this book. Now that I had seen just how fearfully easy it was to just slap some 'art deco' and glitter on the stage, write a painfully obvious love song, and move on, I was really concerned that this trend of bloodless, toothless adaptations would continue and I'd have to sigh and move on with my life.

Fortunately, everything I mentioned that bothered me about the Broadway musical is set right in Gatsby: An American Myth. I really should have expected nothing less from Florence Welch in terms of the music (which is, of course, one of the most show-stopping elements of the musical, as it should be) considering her prior works and how they relate to the Great Gatsby. This is someone who has been obsessed with the book longer than I have been and has woven it into so much of her body of work that I'm surprised this musical didn't drop the day it became public domain. I cannot think of a better contemporary musician to handle that facet of a Gatsby musical.

This adaptation itself does exactly what I would have hoped. I am, of course, someone who holds the book and all its drafts to a very high regard—if this is a religion, that's my bible. What's in there, goes, though it's open to interpretation. Typically I would be against adding things at all.

What they added, however, was brilliant. Nothing massive—just, again, ways to take advantage of the musical theater method of production, and ways to modernize and acknowledge more contemporary understandings of the source material. Where the Broadway musical carefully tiptoed around any indication that nick was anything other than straight and in love with Jordan Baker, Gatsby: An American Myth leaned right into the idea that he was made an outsider by his sexuality, and that was part of why he related to Jay so hard. Because otherwise, why would he? He's a middle-to-upper-middle class Midwesterner whose father is paying for a year of his life while he works a little for-fun job in the big city. What does he know about being an outsider?

Gatsby: An American Myth shows you that. Shows how everyone is an outsider to each other in this story, and how individualism destroys a community that would otherwise support you. You can take that on a society-wide level or personal: Jay being totally disconnected from even himself, or the wealthy pretending they don't live on the same planet as the poor.

Another miraculous addition was a sort of bridge between Myrtle and Wilson that just makes sense. I don't want to spoil it too much, but everything they added or rearranged or re-highlighted just goes to display the depth and breadth this story really reaches. They read between every line, proudly displayed the complexity of every single situation and character—how all of them are the victim and all of them are the perpetrator—while STILL making it sound fantastic in my opinion.

It's by no means a flawless work and I saw it early on its production. It's changed since then and obviously I haven't been able to hear it since I saw it live, but I have total faith in the creative team to have not completely thrown away their good intentions in favor of trending on tiktok.

To conclude I would just ask anyone reading to please inspect the media you consume. Inspect the motives of the person feeding it to you. There's not really any sort of Nobility to art, but at this point, with so many shallow attempts to cash in on our desperate search for community and contentment, quality and passion have been thrown out the window. Shoveling this hot shit at us day and night (remakes, sequels, prequels, adaptations) has become another tool of capitalism to keep us just satisfied to not ask for more.

Ask for more. Ask for better. You deserve it.

#the great gatsby

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katyahina · 11 months ago

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Burial Blade and Blade of Mercy are made out of meteorite, but WHY? Inspiration and context behind them (+ the source of snake infestation)

This one is a reply on ask from @bobbyzombiegg that I decided to put here because I really keep forgetting to use THIS blog for lore and not my personal/shitposts one...

I know, and this is such a good observation! I am glad that you've noticed what else connects Burial Blade and Blade of Mercy! Even better - whereas Burial Blade severs the ties of a person with the Dream, Blade of Mercy, in a way, helps to create it!

The interesting thing about these blades is that, of course, they must have been created before the conception of the Hunter's Dream! It makes it oddly coincidental that both weapons are useful for the cycle of Dream and Hunt, doesn't it? Blade of Mercy is at least believed to contribute to this as of now; the more we hunt the more messengers get added in the Hunter's Dream, so, perhaps, Blade of Mercy is not necessary! My personal interpretation of this is as Paleblood Hunter, our character has the privilege otherwise special for these weapons! Regardless of which weapon they use, they can send those they killed to be messengers (or add them in the cycle of the hunt, like how Henryk or Yamamura will become summonable after we kill them)!

Still, it starts to look like too much was planned ahead? Blade of Mercy said to be made in an old workshop would imply Old Hunters, likely created by Gehrman himself, from the same material as his own weapon! But I think the answer here is that Messengers, something akin to Hunter's Dream and similar weapons existed since Pthumerian times!

Starting with the weapons observation here! Pthumerian Descendant, interestingly, displays the similar style of transforming their blade into two same as how Blade of Mercy does it! Meanwhile, Gehrman's blade is fashioned similarly to Mergo's Wet Nurse's blades! In isolation, I would not think this means anything.. but crows, according to Hunters of Hunters lore, ARE connected with taking the souls and passing them into Dream realm, which is also Nightmare realm!

(Link to my other post explaining why Vilebloods descend from Pthumerians ( x ) in case someone who doesn't know already finds this post)

Wet Nurse herself is very bird-like (crow-like, specifically), and very coincidentally, Baneful Chanters pray to those who "have no blood" as those who'd have enough power to curse the hunters (which is to ensure they go in the Nightmare realm). Wet Nurse not only coincidentally fuels at least one section of Nightmare by nurturing Mergo, the center of it, but also, Nightmare realm has Winter Lanterns whose heads are made of Messengers!

So we have: Wet Nurse already being quite Pthumerian with her accessories and fighting style, Pthumerians and their descendants (down to Cainhurst!) honoring symbolism of crows, Yharnam (a city named after Queen Yharnam, after all) having depiction of BIRD-like Messenger in its oldest part, superstition about crows taking souls of the murdered in Hunter's Dream, people praying to "bloodless ones" to take the souls into Nightmare instead + evidence of it happening with Winter Lanterns.. In my opinion it is fair to assume that the weapons Gehrman created had a pre-existing inspiration and their similarity to pre-existing Pthumerian weapons is not coincidental!

Alright, first - I want a Bloodborne prequel where I could make a Pthumerian Paleblood Hunter. Second, as you can see, concept of the Messengers, the "Hunter" symbol/rune (depiction of the hanged man of course), and even the MOONLIGHT Sword were a thing since Pthumerian times! (It is safe to assume Ludwig found this sword somewhere in the Dungeons, as obtaining Radiant Sword Hunter badge is what lets you buy Tomb Prospector set!)

^ The note already mentioning Laurence associating with Moon Presence, THE Great One of the Hunt and the Dream, is found in Byrgenwerth already! Basically? Without maybe predicting that he would be trapped in the Hunter's Dream one day, Gehrman already knew what he was doing with the weapons.

Conclusion: there was the clear idea in mind! Blade of Mercy, intended to kill people from the start, immortalises the hunters as the HUNTERS and brings them in "Heaven" of Moon Presence, before they turned into beasts, whereas Burial Blade, initially intended for hunting everyone that was no longer human (for example, poor Fish People), ensures they, on the contrary, never go to "Heaven". What later serves to sever a Hunter from the Hunter's Dream initially intended to sever non-humans from it, in a way sentensing them to "Hell". :) Gehrman is a fun person.

+ Also some bonus observations regarding the topic of Yharnamites still continuing Pthumerian traditions, likely brought back because of Byrgenwerth, and then Healing Church, diving into dungeons:

(Context for those that didn't play Bloodborne because Sony hates you and you in particular: both this trap in the dungeons and this bath in Yahar'gul warp you in another area, connected by the circle of candles)

Forbidden Woods, surrounding Byrgenwerth, are full of formations that resemble the Tonsil Stone very much! However, when you examine the woods, you will see that sometimes there are body parts near these "heads"! This could be another case of petrification upon strong arcane impact, similarly to petrified body of Rom near Ebrietas, to petrified bodies of other Kin in Upper Cathedrals covered by fabric, bodies of victims in Yahar'gul, all that!

Were they people living in the woods that started to turn into Kin (like Garden of Eyes that are also found in Byrgenwerth) but didn't live until petrification, or were they baby Great Ones born only to instantly die? I am not sure. Both can work.

But, snakes are an interesting clue here. Besides Forbidden Woods, they are only also found in Hintertombs - a dumping ground for corpses of Pthumeru Ihyll that became venomous! Forgotten Madman, who is a former Choir member as he uses A Call Beyond, is found in these dungeons + getting Cosmic Watcher Badge is what lets you buy Poisonous Knife. Doesn't it look strange for Choir members to pick so much interest in this? Snake infestation might be a strange result of burying cosmic Kin in the ground, a corruption of what would normally be a process of multiple parasites/phantasms settling in a corpse of a cosmic being, OR someone affiliated with one! We do have precedents:

Cosmic creatures, "downgraded" and "filthied", becoming something eartly instead, such as snakes! One of them was able to raise human children (Madaras twins), so sure they are unusual!

So, what I am trying to say is, it is possible that Tonsil Stone is a result of burial of a dead (and rapidly petrifying) cosmic Kin, one that was yet not rotted like what we see in Forbidden Woods! Maybe even more directly so, it is a petrified skull of a cosmic Kin, most likely of Amygdala's kind, and a "meteorite" in the sense of them coming from space! So, creating weapons both of which are connected with burial ritual from the buried Kin is appropriate! This or similar technology maybe also was discovered by Pthumerians long ago, so examining Hintertombs was a great help with figuring what material to use for Burial Blade and Blade of Mercy!

^ These disturbing dead cosmic Kin fetuses are found in Byrgenwerth in two forms: one depicts a petrified corpse, something we already knows happens with Kin, such as Rom and eldrich creatures in Upper Cathedral. Another is dead, rotting, showing horns, and has multiple tiny skulls on its head! The latter one gets my point about corpses of Kin, or maybe anyone touched by Kin, sprouting smaller life forms from within. People infected by snake virus sprout several snakes from their heads, rather than turning into a snake or something!

It is entirely possible that Byrgenwerth used to bury creatures like this in the grounds around the college, and that those gigantic graves in Forbidden Woods were for much larger Great Ones: "Hunt the Great Ones. Hunt the Great Ones." note is found in Byrgenwerth as well! They might have been able to resist the full rotting that results into snakes due to their size and development, hence their graves still show sluggish phantasms. Burying other ones, on the other hand, was a big mistake. Or, should I say.... a GRAVE mista- *gets sniped*

_________________________________

These are my thoughts on the topic! You kinda got two theories at the price of one here, but snake infestation was somewhat relevant in the context of burial and my idea of what IS this "meteorite"! Thank you so much for prompting me to tie this theory together at last!!

#bloodborne #bloodborne theory #gehrman the first hunter #pthumerians #long post #not art #text post #bloodborne reference #screenshots #damn two years later I've found a proper answer on snake infestation situation...#too bad that an ex mutual will never see it now they sent me an ask about it and back then my answer was unsatisfying #why I figure this obvious shit so late..... sigh

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kiragecko · 9 months ago

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cherrystainedknuckles

I guess the only problem with being asked to take a “marie kondo approach” is that in order to find any fanfic that appears to be based in actual canon timeline and plot points and characterization (which does exist, and I’m not sure why fanon fans seem insistent that it doesn’t), I literally have to search for hours. I’m not joking, I consistently make fic rec lists, and I have to search for hours and hours for actual canonical basis. same thing with character tags on tumblr.

I’m not saying fanon fans have to stop enjoying fanon or making up their own content. I’m just saying that when the tags used for both fanon tim drake and canon tim drake are the same tag it just becomes incredibly annoying sometimes, and I understand why people who like to engage with canon (me, often) become frustrated

I have definitely had periods where I got incredibly frustrated with fanon! Around 2019, I was wondering if I needed to leave the Batfandom, because it had been so long since I read a new fic where the characters felt 'right'.

But, if you're willing to, I'd like you to consider what you mean when you divide 'fanon' from 'canon'. Because I struggle to find a hard line between the two, for several reasons:

1. Fandom is transformative. Every fanfic is going to have some interpretation of the source material. The line between what is too much interpretation and what is acceptable is different for every person. For me, I find it can even vary based on writing style or other odd things - lighthearted fic can have more noncanonical stuff in it than heavier fic, and still seem true to canon.

2. 'Canon' is subjective. I do not consider the movies or video games to be 'canon', and it annoys me when things from those creep into the fic I'm reading. (I'm okay with SOME Battinson.) Some aspects of the cartoons are okay. I consider precrisis Jason Todd to be an alternate reality version, but Donna's precrisis origins are more canonical than the dumb retcons. Wayne Family Adventures isn't my main version of the characters, but I'm not bothered if some elements show up in my stories. I'm ignoring most of the nu52, but I like Duke and I'm still watching this new Lian to see what happens. I doubt your divisions are identical to mine.

(Also, some things that I think of as 'fanon' have shown up in nu52 canon! I do not accept them as any more canon because of this.)

3. Most 'fanon' is based on canon. Canon Tim has weird sleep habits. 90s Dick is really lighthearted and joking around some characters in ways similar to fanon. Dick can canonically not be trusted to take care of himself if his mental health gets low enough. Jason likes classical literature. Etc.

These are exaggerated and/or twisted in a lot of fic, but where is the line where they stop being canon? I wouldn't bat an eye at a lot of this stuff, if it didn't show up SO OFTEN.

4. Most 'fanon fans' do know some canon. What line are you going to set where it will be 'enough'. And are they allowed to mention parts of the canon they haven't read yet? Is anyone allowed to talk about Dick's early Robin days, or only the tiny amount of people who have read the golden age stuff? A lot of the 'mistakes' I see are obviously made by people who have read ABOUT canon, but don't know quite how it fits together.

5. 'Canon' is FULL of contradictions. Yes, there are canon events. Yes, there is characterization that is consistent across 3/4s of comics. But. I'm still working on my sidekick timeline. I've devoted days to figuring out ages and passage of time. I've spent over a decade trying to figure out Jason Todd's motivations, and why Tim treats him the way he does. I've read all the 90s and early 2000s CANONICAL character assassination of Jason.

I spent years thinking that Donna's death was almost as foundational as Jason's, only to later discover that I had just happened to read the specific comics that focused on the fallout, and she only stayed dead for a short time. That happens to fans ALL THE TIME! We read a character summarizing an event we haven't directly read, and just accept it as what happened. But characters have biases, and not all writers care about accuracy.

I've read some Tim Drakes that I consider to be almost entirely 'fanon'. And quite a few that were so scarily 'canon' that I got chills. (Not all of which were similar to each other.) But the vast, vast majority have fallen somewhere in the middle.

I definitely do not want the responsibility of deciding which ones count as 'canon'! And I think I would strongly dislike anyone who tried to decide for me.

Being frustrated is logical, and I empathize. But the original post was about the impossible expectations some fans feel. The expectation to read thousands of comics, synthesize all the contradictions, and come to conclusions that match the 'true fans'. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to be complaining about.

If that's what some fans are experiencing, of course they're not going to want to engage with canon! There's no way for them to succeed, so why should they even try?

When you join THAT conversation to discuss your frustration about fanon, it strengthens that perception. When you call them 'fanon fans' it emphasizes their belief that you don't think they belong. And rather than trying to change, it's more likely that they'll double down. Canon is full of gatekeepers, so they'll avoid it.

#gatekeeping #fandom policing #fanon #canon vs fanon #usually don't do stuff like this anymore #I'm old and tired #but sometimes the words want to come out

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darklinaforever · 5 months ago

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I found this on a pro Rhaesaria / anti Daemyra post. Dying of laughter. Because so far I have only seen logical arguments for not liking this stupid Rhaesaria ship devoid of meaning, of coherence, essentially coming out of nowhere and which will go nowhere after the unscripted kiss.

HOTD is misogynistic in its writing of female (and also male) characters, reducing them to the same role of wise and anti-war figure in the face of men who are generally violent and eager for this same violence through war. Not to mention the addition of violent scenes against women that did not exist in the source material, when they already suffer quite horrible things in the latter.

Not to mention making already existing violent scenes worse by transforming them to make them worse than originally. All this for sensationalism and shock to the spectator.

But most people prefer to say that those who point out these facts are the real misogynists under the pretext of defending the character of Daemon Targaryen who undergoes horrible treatment in HOTD, in particular by highlighting the OCC strangling scene that these people always bring out to prove that he is the enemy to be defeated when this typically ties in with what I said above.

Daemon was never physically violent towards Rhaenyra in Fire and Blood. But it was in HOTD because the men are supposed to be violent figures in this version. This is despite the fact that nothing in Daemon's characterization in HOTD from 1x01 to 1x08 suggested that he was capable of such a thing towards the people he loved. But what is consistency for in HOTD after all ?

Without forgetting that this obviously contributes to worsening violence against women, including here Rhaenyra, by making her suffer violence that she never suffered in the original canon of Fire and Blood, even though she is suffering from it. enough in the book. No need to add this type of violence.

Especially since once again, this type of scene is not there to tell anything, but simply to shock the viewer. Nothing more.

And a little free dig, I doubt that the members of the TB stans make more misogynistic remarks than the TG stans. Let's stop messing around.

These people also talk about biphobic and sapphobic for not liking Rhaesaria ? A ship that once again makes no sense either from Fire and Blood or from HOTD itself ? But ironically, you don't see them complaining about GRRM's non-inclusion of real queer characters in the show ?

Until now, it is those who criticize and do not like Rhaesaria or even Rhaenicent who have highlighted this point.

A bit as if it wasn't really the real, well-made representation that interests these people.

Simply to have their dose to spit on Daemyra. Or simply the fact that they will settle for anything and everything in terms of representation, even if in the end it will represent nothing at all.

Do you really want this kind of crappy ship to represent our community ? (Because yes, I'm Bi for information)

As for racism, I have no doubt that the Mysaria actress suffers from it. There are idiots everywhere. On the other hand, once again, in the anti-Rhaesaria shots I did not see anything relating to the Mysaria ethnicity.

Again, generally the conversations revolve once again around the mediocrity of Rhaesaria in terms of writing and consistency with what HOTD has so far told and in relation to the source material which Ryan Condal still does not understand if he thinks for a single second that Mysaria is sincere with Rhaenyra...

The fact is that yes, I don't doubt that this kind of bullshit exists to be anti Rhaesaria, but clearly, that is not the majority of the reason for the hatred of this stupid ship from what I have observed.

I also think that all these accusations are the super easy and free card to throw against someone who doesn't like a queer ship, whether it is poorly written like in the case of Rhaesaria, or not with others or simply the feeling and energy of shipping does not work. People need to calm down.

#anti rhaesaria #daemyra #daenyra #pro daemyra #daemon x rhaenyra #daemon and rhaenyra #team blacks #anti hotd #fire and blood #anti house of the dragon #team black #pro team blacks #pro team black #f&b #f&b spoilers #mysaria #anti hotd writers #anti ryan condal

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ruinationz · 28 days ago

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i'm on life support after wgriting htis good god that was horrendous. 5,500+ words. finding frankie fic. we're not normal. inspired by the mountain goats song of the same name, thank you @yoursminehourss for being an inspo i love you my friend. read all of his shit NOW. ok fic under the cut. vomits

"But stars don't just leave after a season, do they...?"

They stood dead center in the middle of a darkened room, the only source of light coming from the television across. The air was thick with a sour, nauseating scent; Most likely due to the amount of dead contestants littering the floor.

Their eyes followed the tips of the red and green lines, snaking up the right edge of the television as profits and viewership skyrocketed like never before.

Green light flooded their vision as bolded letters materialize on the screen, confetti raining down from the top: "Renewed for another season".

They looked over their shoulder, rotten flesh covered in fabric crushed underfoot.

A pair of beady eyes, glistening in the shadows, met theirs.

It's only up from here.

turn the volume up real high,

all of that money, look at it fly,

and you smoking like a chimney

Henry could tell he truly was brought to life again from the dull, throbbing sensation of a headache creeping back into his head once he came to.

Oh, wasn't he just the luckiest guy in the world?

Maybe he owed some sick, twisted form of gratitude to that "lucky contestant"; They had brought the Palace back into the light, after all, getting the game show approved for a brand-new season to boot.

Alongside that, what they had in store for him in particular was downright merciful. If it were up to the higher-ups, Henry would probably have been punished beyond belief for the kind of things he'd mouthed off to a participant about. Maybe he'd be replaced entirely as a mascot! (And if they really wanted to make him suffer, they'd switch him out with those wretched red things that only scream and explode, not too different from what they did to-)

But that contestant? Well, they did the exact opposite of that.

...

...To be fair, the contestant didn't really do anything to Henry, positively or negatively. He only saw them once he regained consciousness in the storage room (presumably they were working to assist in his repairation), and otherwise they spent most of their time doing god-knows-what somewhere far, far away from all the other mascots.

What was it that made them avoid everyone, exactly? Was it fear? (He had chased them down at least twice, after all; Though he thought they might have liked him a bit better when he returned Deputy, albeit mangled, to them...) Or...

Was it a sense of superiority?

The thought made Henry's (fake) blood boil a bit. Were they truly self-centered enough to be that easy to persuade? He'd taken the less-fortunate contestants to be nothing but idiotic before, but the winner? Anyone with half a brain would've taken the money and ran far from the Parkour Palace, not be gullible enough to agree to being the big "star of the show", thinking they're hot shit and letting themselves get used by-

BRRRRRRRINGGGGG!

Henry hissed at the shrill sound stabbing through his nonexistent ears, gripping the sides of his head immediately as the rattling of the incoming call reverberated through his neck.

If that blind fool was going to bring him back for another season, they could've at least made this idiotic fully-functionable telephone a little less physically unbearable to have for a cranium. He wrapped his fingers around the headset, seizing it from the switch-hook and pressing it closer to his face.

"...Hello?" He rasped out, making an attempt to mask the strain in his voice as much as possible.

"Yes, hello? Is this a Mr. 'Henry Hotline' speaking?"

His heart sank at the all-too familiar voice coming from the receiver. "Speak of the devil and he shall appear," I suppose, he thought to himself, muttering a curse under his breath.

The Other laughed on his end. "It's been a hot minute, my call-up companion! I do hope I'm not interrupting anything you're doing, hmm?"

What Henry wanted to say was "Yes, I'm busy trying to have a moment of peace for once in my life after the higher-ups decided to blow my brains up, so why don't you go and buzz off you buck-toothed bastard," but he was forced to hold back; If he hadn't received a punishment now, that would certainly be the final straw to grant him one.

"I'll assume that's a 'no' on your part," Perhaps the phone paused to find a more appropriate response a bit too long, prompting the Other's voice to buzz through the speaker once more.

"...I...Is there anything you need, sir?" He twisted the cord around his fingers, a nervous subconscious motion, as he spoke.

"Oh, anything I 'need', you say?" A pause.

"Well, I may or may not need you in my offices at the moment. If, of course, it's not much trouble!"

Henry would have expressed his disdain at those words if he wasn't aware of the constant surveillance cameras lurking in every corner. He knew the Other's little empty gestures far too well: He'd give you an option to do something, when in reality you never had a choice to begin with.

It was better to go along with the game he wanted to play.

The phone balled up his free hand, pulling on the cord and adding a further strain to the cable attaching his dangling head to his body. "Y-Yes, sir, I'll... I'll be right there."

"FANTASTIC!" Henry flinched as the Other's voice reached a completely-innappropriate-for-inside level. "Let me fetch you an elevator to the utilidors, and you'll be there in a jiffy. See you soon!"

"But- But wait, what exactly do you-"

The line went dead with a quiet beep beep beep before Henry could finish speaking. Sluggishly, he hung up the receiver as he made his way into the elevator that had opened up somewhere in his peripheral vision.

Whatever that rabbit wanted with him now, it better have been worthwhile.

So much for being there in a "jiffy".

Thank goodness that he hadn't ended up across the railings, but Henry wished that the elevators at least landed on the same level as the Intercom; A few sets of stairs would have been easy for anyone else to ascend without a head that felt like it weighed 2 tons on their shoulders.

Knees still crying out in pain from all of the effort, he trudged down the corridor and turned the corner, swinging his head into the doorway of the room where the Other resided.

The rabbit was sitting in one of the many plastic chairs they had lying around somewhere in the storages, knees raised high and body hunched over in an attempt to sit at the level of the piece of furniture; A laughable sight, but granted, these chairs were meant to be used by a small child and not a massive mechanical lagomorph.

His attention was focused on a CRT television before him, removed from its initial location on the wall of security footage and placed in the center of the desk instead. Shifting colors illuminated the rabbit's face in the dimmed room, the pearly-white sheen of plastic teeth reflected in the light.

The Other must have eventually noticed Henry in the doorway, neck of metal coils swiveling with a creak to meet his gaze. An equally springy arm raised, the remote in its grip pausing the TV with a click.

A minute of deafening silence, perhaps two or three, passed between them.

It was an odd quirk the Other had, staring someone down like that; Was it because of how small his eyes were, or was it simply for the dramatics? Henry assumed the latter, though the former didn't seem so unlikely.

...

"HENRY HOTLINE!" The rabbit finally exclaimed, voice booming through the small room as he clapped his gloved hands together in what Henry took to be joy. "What an absolute delight it is to see you! I've been-"

"Could you get to the point, please?"

A pause. The Other's everlasting grin seemed to falter a bit, and Henry mentally berated himself for even speaking out at all. But the former didn't seem to pay much mind, perking up as he broke through the silence once more.

"Ah, yes!" He chirped, turning his attention to the television in front of him.

"Well, I thought it'd be pleasant for the both of us if we had a bit of...'downtime', if you could call it that! After all, I'm sure you and Frankie are just tuckered out from all the preparation for our brand-new season!"

The Other reached a coiled arm back, taking a hold of a plastic chair similar to that of the one he was sitting upon and slowly dragged it to his side, placing it upright and clasping his hands around the remote on his lap.

...Seriously?

What was he even doing? If that freak wanted to watch television together, he could've just said so, instead of building it up like it was some kind of suspenseful, mysterious thing.

...

The Other patted the seat next to him with an oversized hand, a hint of insistence in the motion.

...Well, it's not like Henry had anything else to do.

Or that he could say "no", for that matter.

The robotic rabbit's ears raised a bit as Henry made his way toward the chair, the childish piece of furniture creaking under his weight as he slowly sat himself down. A cover to something in the corner of his eye caught the phone's attention-

...Ah, it was one of those.

The company behind them all, of course, did other things besides running a gore-y abomination of a game show; Toys, movies, cartoons and god knows what else were promoted nearly everywhere around the Parkour Palace. They gloated often, signage everywhere always claiming how successful they were as the "World's Largest" in practically everything.

If that truly was the case, why were they struggling with bankruptcy to the point of livestreamed murder?

Another click of the remote brought Henry back to the present. He rested his hands on his head and peered closer at the TV, making an attempt in adjusting his vision—long-used to the dark of his areas—to the program before him.

Eye-straining technicolor hues lit up the room around the two: Frankie's cartoon show, one season out of the many that they'd produced when a Mr. "Stan Ellie" still had a hold of the brand—Or so he heard, from hushed conversations behind closed doors.

From what the phone could gather within the episode displayed before them, the cartoon counterparts of him and Frankie had an argument over who was the superior entertainer out of the two, and the rest of the episode's plot mainly consisted of the duo attempting to out-do each other in every way possible; A shallow and silly conflict, created to be entertaining yet simple enough for a child's mind to comprehend.

A minute dribbled away, maybe more, as the cartoonish antics played out before him...

"This is one of my favorite parts that's coming up."

Henry realized he'd been nodding off for most of the episode's duration when the Other leaned in close to his head to whisper to him, forcing his attention back to the television.

"Oh Frankie, what a fool I've been!"

Now both of the animated mascots were together on a stage, in complete shambles thanks to what Henry assumed to be one comical competition too many.

"I'm terribly sorry, Frankie. I spent all my time trying to upstage you, and now BOTH of our shows are ruined! Could you ever forgive me for this?"

The cartoon phone looked downright ashamed, but Frankie didn't appear to pay much mind.

"Aw, Henry, of COURSE I'd forgive you! In fact, I should probably be the one asking you the same."

"...Really?"

"Well, of course! I shouldn't have been hot-headed enough to bet on eachother in the first place. Our friendship is way more important than some silly competition!"

No one as stubborn as these characters had been prior would ever admit they were at fault in real-life, but the conflict needed to be forgotten by the next episode to keep the show interesting.

But somehow, in some way, Henry found himself more drawn to the television than ever as the animated rabbit continued.

"So, what d'ya say, Henry? Let bygones be bygones and still be friends?"

The animated rabbit looked at the phone expectantly with open arms. Silence, until the latter broke into a grin.

"...Well, I don't see why I'd say otherwise."

The two characters hugged each-other, a simple resolution made to warm the heart and make way for another episode, where it would be completely forgotten in favor for another set of antics.

Henry leaned closer to the television. His eyes locked in, onto the rabbit nuzzling himself into his cartoon counterpart's chest with a smile. Onto that sickeningly sweet display, before it blinked to darkness and back to the credits sequence.

The thump-thump-thumping cadence against his chest synched with that of the throbbing in his head.

He shot up out of his seat, despite the protesting of his legs, already sore from earlier.

"I-I—" Henry's words caught in his throat as he attempted to suppress his shaking, only worsened by how the Other slowly turned to look him in the eye.

"—I need to excuse myself for a moment, please."

Perhaps the Other was saying something to the phone when he stumbled through the doorway, but it was drowned out by his footsteps echoing through the hallway as he took himself far, far, far away from the Utilidors.

"Ah! Henry, you'll miss..."

The Other found himself trailing off, hearing Henry's stomping grow fainter and fainter down the halls.

Silence.

He sighed, pausing the television and drawing his attention to the security footage before him, then to the microphone of the intercom.

Seemed like it was time to trade out shifts for the night.

Eventually, his body couldn't take the strain of travel any longer. Henry found himself falling to a carpeted floor, chest heaving with uneven breath.

As he dragged himself toward a wall, scrubbed clean of the mural he'd scrawled on in oxidized blood before, he looked up at the cartoon visage of himself printed across every inch of the room.

He was surrounded by a reflection of something- No, someone he was meant to be before all of this. The ideal of someone who was happier than him. Someone who still had everything he wanted and deserved in life.

Someone who still had his best friend.

Tucking his knees to his chest, Henry put his head in his hands.

And for the first time, in what seemed like ages, he cried.

Alone.

shadows crawled across the living room's length,

i held on to you with a desperate strength,

with everything, with everything in me

It wasn't supposed to go this way.

When the licks of the incinerator's flames dissolved into an eerie ice-cold numbness, when the power began to surge through every circuit in his body again, when his senses returned, vision locking itself onto the visage of the fleshy face of a contestant, that was the first thing that Frankie had concluded to himself.

And he hated it.

Ever since the show started broadcasting, a simple set of rules was enforced, always playing out at Frankie's advantage: If the contestants ever got cocky and decided to try and cheat, he would come in and make sure they were put in their place. It was just routine.

And Frankie? He loved routine.

That was the only thing he could genuinely like in the Parkour Palace.

Doing what he did, of course, would always result in a death or two—But who really cared? He'd show up, make a scene, cause some scares and shed some blood. Maybe get a snack out of it, too. That's what he was made for. That's how it was supposed to go.

Frankie was the villain. The poster-boy. The big bad.

The star of the show.

...

And then, after 57 long (short was a better word for them) seasons, someone won for once.

And his little routine was torn to shreds right in front of his eyes.

Suddenly, he wasn't allowed to catch and kill that "Lucky Contestant", when it was perfectly fine to hunt them down before they won. Suddenly, they were with the big-bosses at the forefront of hush-hush conversations about "funding" and "budget" and how they would be working in the next season.

Suddenly, that cheater was the star now.

It wasn't fair.

Not at all.

It was called Frankie's Parkour Palace. It was Frankie's cereal, Frankie's this, Frankie's that, Frankie's EVERYTHING! Everything in that place was all his! He was in charge, not them!

But here he was, slouching on the seat of some stupid couch while the Lucky Contestant sat across from him.

Frankie forgot why he was even here, or what room this was supposed to be in the first place. It was probably some crappy fancy-schmancy lounge, for the higher-ups to hang out in and supervise everything. The only thing he did know was that it reeked of cigar smoke, emanating from that of one in the Contestant's hand.

Little Lucky Contestant, their shining star, their golden goose, all dressed up in the same suit as before. Though of course they had to be as decorated as possible, wearing some kind of magician's outfit instead of the regular garb. Probably the big-bosses' idea.

He watched them tuck the cigar under their mask, taking it away as a smoke ring crept from underneath with a light exhale before it dissipated mid-air.

"...So, did you catch all that?"

Oh right, they were actually saying something before.

"Alright, I guess not? Wouldn't hurt to repeat it, I suppose."

Smartass.

Frankie grumbled and sank further into his seat, the Contestant pulling up some kind of display on a newly-repaired Deputy Duck. Red and green lines, a bunch of numbers he didn't know or care about. They went on about some kind of 'game plan' for this year's season, stupid limitations he already knew about, technical terms he didn't want to bother with.

"—Now, I've been watching you guys for a while, and I know this is a lot different than what the show usually does. But, hear me out on this. Me and Frankie—"

Frankie's head shot up at his name. He savored the Contestant's discomfort—Apparent, despite their face still being concealed by a mask, just lifted out enough at the bottom for them to speak and smoke.

"...Oh, right. I meant the, um...the other Frankie."

A pause. Their head shifted from side to side. "...The real Frankie."

The sneer on the rabbit's face faded immediately. All joy that he felt from the situation had dissolved, leaving a new sensation in its wake.

Anger.

The real Frankie? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Of COURSE he was real! Was that little cheater trying to imply he was some fake?

Bullshit. If anyone around here was fake, it was that freak wearing his own face.

The Other.

The Other was supposed to be just that: Lesser than, an "other", a byproduct. The creep wasn't even supposed to do or mean anything; All he existed for was to just be some announcer for the show, a narrator for the contestants' ultimate demises. Last-minute they slapped a nasty old suit on him, shoved him in the Utilidors and said he was 'another' of him just to get more attention and drag their show out of bankruptcy.

But out of the blue, that smiling bastard—someone who was supposed to be cut out entirely after the last season, at least from what he'd heard—had the audacity to think he was superior? The audacity to talk like he was one of the higher-ups? To talk to the player, drag them into this show and ruin everything Frankie had?

The audacity, to make himself out like he was the "real" one?

That wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. This wasn't how the rules were supposed to go, not at all, he hated them all and how they came in and changed everything and ruined everything he had and they messed up his game show messed everything up and he was just so FUCKING ANGRY-

And everything boiled over.

In one swift motion, Frankie struck the Contestant in mid-smoke with his hand, the cigar and Deputy clattering onto the floor. He flipped the table over, the contents of the ashtray scattering everywhere like acrid-smelling snow. Then he kicked the objects to the wall. Stomped them a bit for good measure, but the stupid duck barely got scratched. Great, they poured money into upgrades for that thing too.

Now the rabbit's head swiveled around and he was cursing at them, screaming over the sound of their coughs. He didn't care if his words were coherent or not, voice broken and not used to speaking, as long as it got the point across to that cheater. He wanted to spite them, get them mad, spill his guts and show them how badly they screwed his life over.

Did that fraud really think they were all high and mighty just because they won? Yeah, right. When the higher-ups had another star in their clutches they'd throw them right back to the side, just like they did to him. They were just as fucked as everyone else was.

Frankie hated the Contestant, and he sure as hell hoped they hated him back as he turned his back to them, slamming the door open and stomping away.

The higher-ups are probably going to get after me for breaking their rules.

So, what? Who cared what the higher-ups thought? If they were gonna get so mad at Frankie for playing by the "brute" role, maybe they shouldn't have given it to him in the first place.

They always had something to complain about with him. It was always something, like "Oooooh, Frankie, don't dooooo that, that's not in the scriiiiiiptttt," or some other excuse to limit what he did. That, or they thought he was too dumb to listen to anything.

Well, if the bosses thought Frankie was dumb, he was gonna think they were dumb right back. He didn't need them anyway. All a bunch of morons, never taking him seriously and never letting him—

The rabbit's thoughts were cut short as he slammed face-first into the grate of a vent, unceremoniously tumbling out and falling onto a carpeted floor.

...

As Frankie sat himself up and slowly began to untangle the metal coils making up his limbs, the fire coursing through his core started to fizzle out, a chilling sensation arriving in its wake.

He knew what that meant all too well, and he despised it. The rage in his gut was going to be replaced with a cold hard lump, all the strength would fade from his body and leave him feeling crushed, and he'd start having second thoughts and second glances, and—

—No, he wasn't about to let that happen. He needed to hold onto what he had now. He needed to think something, do something to keep the fire going. Light it up. Pour some gas on. Let the flames spread farther and farther, so by the time it's all over he won't feel anything at all. Not like he wasn't used to it after-

And ears perking up, a sound caught his attention.

Looks like he wasn't alone.

The rabbit tugged himself up from the ground. Maybe it was one of those "Noob Noobs". He sure could use one of those as a chew-toy, he needed something to sink his teeth into. They were pretty much an infestation at this point, so what would one less in the Parkour Palace hurt?

And the farther and farther that he stomped away from the vents to the source of all the noise...

...

...The more and more it began to sound like static in his head, a familiar tone of voice.

Huh, so that's what it was.

Frankie rarely saw anyone crying in the Parkour Palace. Maybe he did, at least a few times during the season's run; Typically it was one of the contestants, hopeless and afraid, hunched over in some corner somewhere completely vulnerable and ripe for the picking. But aside from that, he'd never really seen anyone doing it after-hours.

Let alone when it was one of the other mascots.

Frankie didn't exactly know what Henry's role was supposed to be in the game show. He did know he was popular—definitely not as popular as the rabbit was, but enough for him to be an audience favorite and keep himself on for another season.

Maybe it was his mascot counterpart that made him so well-liked; All the artwork around the Palace showed him as a charming, charismatic character, constantly smirking or smiling for the chat to lose its mind.

But Henry wasn't smiling now.

The humanoid phone was leaned on the wall across from Frankie, legs tucked to his chest and head in his hands as his shoulders shook with each sob.

The rabbit felt his body step forward on its own accord. Despite their ability to add blood to the mascots, the higher-ups hadn't installed any fake tears for them; That explained how dry Henry's face was, when he looked up at the sound of Frankie's foot coming in contact with the carpet.

"F-FRANKIE!" He exclaimed, stumbling up from the ground and backing further into the wall.

"I-I'm...I really am sorry! I was just... um..."

...

Frankie blinked, observing the phone as he shrank beneath his presence, his stammering devolving into nonsense before trailing off.

The silence was deafening.

Henry must have concluded that Frankie wasn't doing anything to him—not like he could in the first place, it felt like he was standing in quicksand—as he slumped forward, re-assuming his position on the wall as he curled into himself again.

Slowly, one foot in front of the other, Frankie crept towards Henry's side, sitting down on the carpet to meet his level. He silently observed him, ears twitching as he heard the phone's whimpers resume.

The one thing that Frankie genuinely liked was routine.

But there was something else that he liked, too—and it was a confusing thing, rattled his body down to its very core with an unfamiliar warmth. It was something that twisted in his chest, flashing an idea in the back of his mind.

...No, he couldn't do that.

Why did he feel so conflicted about this? Why was he so drawn towards the situation? That wasn't in-character for him. That wasn't how it was supposed to go. But then again: he was the one who was mad at the higher-ups, so why did he have to stop himself to comply with their rules?

Frankie flexed his claws, mind racing with his mental debate with himself, until he finally let out a low, heavy sigh.

He'd made up his mind.

It took Henry a moment to register it all.

Somehow, Frankie had made the decision to rest his head on top of his, coiled arms wrapping themselves around his center. The metal was ice-cold to the touch, but in an... almost grounding sense.

...But why?

Why would Frankie do this at all? He could have chosen to do anything else with Henry, maybe drag him back to the Other for what he'd done. He could have left him.

So why would he decide to stay with him instead?

Henry just didn't know how to react. All he could do was cry harder, gripping onto the springs draped around his body with all he could as the rabbit pressed further into him.

Whatever reason that Frankie had to stay, he just hoped it would let him do it for just a moment longer.

and i handed you a drink of the lovely little thing

on which our survival depends

people say friends don't destroy one another;

what do they know about friends?

Lounging around on a couch was certainly different when it wasn't in the Contestant's old dingy apartment.

Everything was a lot more different, really, at least to them; Like smoking, but now they were doing it with some fancy cigars hailing from Cuba instead of cheap, crappy packs of cigarettes from the gas station that they'd burn through.

Said cigar was currently on the floor along with the table, as well as Deputy, who was currently kicking his legs and squawking as he struggled to get himself right-side up.

The Contestant sighed, grabbing Deputy from the floor and brushing the residue from the ashtray off of his screen. He gave a small qua-quack in what they took as gratitude. They didn't speak duck, after all.

Maybe I struck some kind of chord with that other Frankie, they thought, putting a hand to their throat that still stung with the bitter aftertaste of tobacco.

Before the Contestant could contemplate further the intercoms above buzzed to life, sending a jolt of shock through their body as a voice cut through the fizzling static.

"LUCKY CONTESTANT!"

Oh. It was just Frankie. They relaxed their shoulders, tilting their focus to the speakers above as the voice continued on.

It was a routine they were well-adjusted to by this point. To try and even up the workload of preparing for the new season, them and Frankie would split up their workload through shifts. He'd do surveillance around the Parkour Palace, the Contestant would do some of the financial stuff around it, and vice-versa when the time came to trade things out.

In this case, it was the latter's turn to watch over the cameras for the night. Deputy Duck tilted his head to look up at them as they made their way to the elevators that had already opened up nearby, the door closing behind the two.

"There you are, my Lucky Contestant!"

Frankie had reached a gloved hand out to pat the Contestant on the head in greeting. They readjusted their mask once he'd finally let go, straightening their posture as they stood before him.

"Good to see you too, Frank."

The rest continued like it always did. Frankie slipped through the doorway with a "Good luck, and good night!", leaving the Contestant to their own devices in the Intercom Room. They scooted a plastic chair (was there always two of them in there?) towards the CCTV footage, placing Deputy on the desk beside them as they watched through the cameras.

"Back to the old night shift. Right, Deputy?" They mumbled, petting the duck on his plastic head.

Quack.

"Yeah, me too."

The only thing they had to worry about was eyestrain, given they did this whole gig for hours on end. Then again, it wasn't too hard to pass the time; they were pretty used to keeping themselves awake for a long while. Sucked that things were uneventful for the most part, though, but at least it was an easy job.

...

...And then, they saw something out of the corner of their eye. They leaned closer into one of the screens, trying to track whatever movement they picked up on...

Huh, you don't see that every day.

One of the only interactions that the Contestant had seen between Henry and 'Frankie' had given the idea that the two weren't on the best of terms. So naturally, the last thing they expected to be seeing on the security cameras were the two holding onto one another, leaned on one of the walls in Connections.

They broke away from each other, Henry's head bobbing slightly as he supposedly spoke to the robotic rabbit. Was he laughing a bit? Given the lack of audio from the televisions, it was impossible to tell anything that was going on.

The Contestant watched Henry get up and walk away from the wall, Frankie dragging himself behind him and out of the camera's view.

They leaned back in their seat, tilting their head up to look at the ceiling above them.

The sound of white noise emanating from the televisions felt a bit louder in their head than it did before.

thunder clouds forming, cream white moon

everything's gonna be okay soon

maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day

And the Other made his way through the Utilidors, the memory of every prior event replaced by a plan for the next day's preparation for the season somewhere in his mind,

carried you up the stairs that night

all this could be yours if the price is right

i heard cars headed down to oblivion up on the expressway

And Frankie and Henry both went their separate ways for the night, silently wondering if the other would remember what had happened by the time morning came,

your drunken kiss is as light as the air

maybe everything that falls down eventually rises

And Deputy tilted his head to the side as he watched the Contestant with confusion, wishing he had the voice to ask what exactly they had seen,

our house sinking into disrepair

And, deep down, it began to dawn on the Contestant that maybe they hadn't earned anything at all—

ah, but look at this showroom, filled with fabulous prizes

#finding frankie #frankie the magician rabbit #henry hotline #deputy duck #noob noob #the other frankie #the contestant #lucky contestant #frankline #bunnybank #BOTH UP TO INTERP BTW. PLATONIC OR ROMANTIC IDC #flippy.txt

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