#and then i latch onto one that Does Not Exist yet. classic!

[abnerkrill]

simon kassianides regularly talking about how much he loves boba fett and how formative it was to be playing with boba fett action figures as a kid and how cool it is that he's a mandalorian now too (LIKE BOBA FETT!!!) just makes me want to write axe/boba

[therecordconnection]

Ranting and Raving: "Video!" by Jeff Lynne

There is no such thing as the “Cult Classic” anymore. Today, if a movie fails or a television series flops, it’s just removed and completely forgotten without a second thought. With physical releases no longer having the same cultural weight as before, it makes media preservation even harder. I hear if you complain long enough about this and get caught, Netlfix or Hulu or Pooblo or Tuubah or whatever else comes to your house and hits you with the Neuralyzer from Men in Black so you’ll shut up.

In the eighties, this wasn’t the case. Movies could brick at the box office, but they might get lucky and find their audiences later on through cable or video rentals or just really good word of mouth. Xanadu still exists today and has love because HBO kept showing it during its infancy and LGBTQ audiences eventually latched onto it (though that’s probably more due to the everlasting power of Olivia Newton-John’s gay fanbase). Phantom of the Paradise owes its continued love and existence to Guillermo Del Toro, the Daft Punk robots, and all of Winnipeg, Canada really loving that movie. I’m with them in that boat (Phantom is one of my favorite movies). Electric Dreams, a 1984 science fiction-tinged romantic comedy, exists today purely through video rentals and good word of mouth.

Electric Dreams is a wonderfully weird cult classic in every sense of the word. It has a very lovably goofy eighties rom-com setup and delivery: Miles Harding (Lenny Von Dohlen), a loser tech nerd geologist who gets no bitches, falls in love with his new apartment neighbor Madeline Robistat (Virginia Madsen), a quirky and beautiful cellist. They're an unlikely pair in every conceivable way, but they fall for each other. The only problem is that Miles' fancy new supercomputer (who becomes sentient and later identifies himself as “Edgar”) would like to see Miles destroyed so that he can be with her instead. Edgar then does everything in his power to ruin Miles’ life and his chances to be with Madeline. Eventually, Edgar comes to accept the love between Miles and Madeline and they get their happily-ever-after. 

On paper, the whole thing probably sounded silly to a 1984 audience, which might be why nobody bothered to see it at the time, but Electric Dreams fucking rules. Von Dohlen and Madsen are great and have such an odd yet instantly lovable chemistry with each other that you can’t help but root for them (it helps that they were good friends instantly and remained that way until Van Dohlen passed away in 2022). Steve Barron, one of the great music video directors of the early MTV era (he’s responsible for Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” Toto’s “Africa” and “Rosanna,” and many more), brings that same music video storytelling style to this movie’s visuals. If this movie had done better upon release, it would’ve gotten everything Miami Vice’s directing style often gets credited for. The soundtrack is also really great! Giorgio Moroder did the movie’s theme with Human League frontman Phil Oakey as well as a killer score for it (only Moroder could find a way to expertly turn Bach’s “Minuet” into a duel between a cello and a computer. He couldn't get more eighties than that if he tried). There’s also a really neat Heaven 17 cut that sounds like a Crash Bandicoot level theme (“Chase Runner”), Culture Club right at the end of their relevance (“Love is Love” and “The Dream”), and Jeff Lynne from Electric Light Orchestra with arguably the two best songs in the movie. One of them, “Let It Run,” is awesome as hell, but “Video!” is the one we’re gonna talk about.

“Video!” appears at a pretty pivotal point in the movie. It soundtracks the montage of one of Miles and Madeline’s first proper dates, which involves sneaking away from a tour group to run around and play in Alcatraz (I’m serious). They’re also seen together at a carnival. Before this date, Miles tasks Edgar with finding a way to write music for Madeline. He intends to pass off whatever Edgar comes up with as his own work, hoping to impress her and make her fall in love with him. This is one of the main reasons Edgar wants Miles out of the picture. He knows he can make music with Madeline (he did it previously in “The Duel” scene, though Madeline thinks Miles is providing the music, not the computer) and fell in love with her by doing that. He is fully aware that Miles is trying to win her love with a lie. Once Edgar figures out how rhythm works, he figures out how melody is made by reviewing and absorbing the music playing in television commercials. “Video!” then starts playing proper once he’s got the basics down. For a computer with no previous songwriting experience, writing a Jeff Lynne composition is a pretty impressive feat!

Electric Dreams is not the first movie Lynne has contributed music to. There are two others. The first one was 1976’s All This and World War II, which is a movie which pairs all-star covers of Beatles songs and World War II footage. I’ve never seen it and I don’t think I need to. But you can hear Lynne, the most famous Beatles fanboy to ever live, do a fully symphonic version of “With a Little Help From My Friends” and “Nowhere Man.” It’s pretty cool. The other one was Xanadu, which is much more well known. Lynne provided five songs: “I’m Alive,” “The Fall,” “Don’t Walk Away,” “All Over the World,” and the title track with Olivia Newton-John. I think they’re all great. Xanadu totally works on its own as a great ELO EP if you want to forget there’s a movie attached.

This is all to say that Lynne was no stranger to giving songs to strange movies, even if he harbored regrets later on about doing that. He regretted Xanadu for a while, but made peace with it decades later (he re-recorded “Xanadu” in 2000 for the ELO compilation Flashback and he’s revived “All Over the World” for every ELO tour since 2017). I don’t know how he feels about Electric Dreams and at this point, he’s done so much in his career that I doubt he even remembers it. I think he should! I think “Video!” is a great song and I think he was a perfect fit for Electric Dreams. The entire soundtrack is dated as hell, but in a fun time-capsule kind of way. It represents the sound of what people in 1984 thought the future was going to sound like. Lynne had already spent time imagining the sounds of the future.

At the dawn of the eighties, Jeff Lynne had gotten tired of dealing with the big orchestras you hear on that great ELO run from 1976-1980. Orchestras started becoming a pain in the ass for him around the time when synthesizers and keyboards were getting some big technological boosts. New wave artists like Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, and the Human League were pushing synths and keyboard sounds into the mainstream and proving that the new technology could be used to make some wildly futuristic sounds. Lynne quickly learned that with a few fancy keyboards, you could start simulating strings and classical sounds, but in a new and exciting way. Suddenly, Lynne and ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy could keep the symphonic pop sounds the band had been making, but update the sound and take it into the future. Suddenly, the “Orchestra” part of the ELO name suddenly found itself obsolete and out of a job.

Dick Clark asked him about this choice on an American Bandstand appearance in 1986. Lynne responded, “Well, you know, I got fed up with using a big orchestra because they used to always be in a union and stuff like that and they used to put their equipment away while we were still recording. So I thought what we'll do is we'll use just ourselves and then we can work as long as we'd like and nobody would complain.”

So Lynne took advantage of all this new technology that was floating around and used it to craft the 1981 masterpiece, Time. That album is the best example of retrofuturism in music I can give. In Time, Lynne imagines a loose concept album about a guy who gets yoinked out of 1981 and flung into the year 2095. The entire album is full of songs where Lynne imagines a future that he would never live to see (I won’t either, unless I somehow make it to a full century of life). Hover cars, rides to the moon, robotic girlfriends (built by IBM) who can also serve as telephones, prison satellites, ivory towers, plastic flowers, and meteor showers as a common weather condition are all present in Lynne’s visions of the distant future. Most of his predictions feel like they’re coming out of science fiction magazines from when he was a child, but the album is more concerned with just letting his imagination run wild and wonder about how one would feel if they were flung far into the future where everyone they’ve ever loved is gone. The future presented in Time feels like daydreaming rather than any kind of cautionary tale or warning. I’ve never gotten the sense that Lynne thinks any of what’s in the album will actually come true. 

If Lynne got anything right, he somehow nailed the still-lingering nostalgic yearning to return to the eighties. Lynne’s narrator constantly laments that he’s stuck in 2095 and 1981 is name dropped in “Ticket to the Moon” and “The Way Life’s Meant to Be.” “Ticket to the Moon” even begins with what is now a variation of the only kind of Youtube comment you’ll find on any old song from the decade: “Remember the good old 1980s / When things were so uncomplicated / I wish I could go back there again / And everything could be the same.” He might as well have called himself “Nostradamus” when writing that one, because that line is going to keep feeling accurate to people until every child of the eighties and every vintage style eighties cosplayer on instagram is dead and in the ground. Lynne using the current year the album was made in had a real danger of seriously dating it, but Time has never sounded dated to me. It doesn’t sound like anything else from 1981 and it still doesn’t. Lynne blended all the old sounds and genres he loved and infused them with the new sounds of the day on that one and imagined a future that still sounds just as magical then as it does now. It took pop music a few years to catch up with what Lynne was doing on that one. Time is still a retro futuristic dream and he carried all the tech and sound effects that he was using on that album with him when he made “Video!” for Electric Dreams. ELO’s future was up in the air by 1984 (Lynne would dissolve the original band for good two years later) so he tackled “Video!” as a solo artist (literally, as no other ELO members are on this) and released it under his own name.  

I don’t know if Lynne’s predictions for 2095 will come true. The verdict is still out on that. But what I do know is that everything Lynne is describing in “Video!” is a reality that I’ve lived to see, though perhaps differently from anything Lynne could’ve imagined in 1984. We’ll get there.

In the context of Electric Dreams, “Video!”’s lyrics are all about the many things Edgar the computer can find out about the world in pre-internet cyberspace. He can watch it all, from rock n’ roll to old time movie scenes, and learn. He has no other choice: he can’t move from Miles’ desk and see it himself. Nothing in Lynne’s lyrics are dated except for one thing. He mentions that satellites “send their love from up above / Down to [his] VTR.” VTRs, which I believe is meant to be a reference to “Video Tape Recorder,” is an obsolete machine in 2024. It’s long been replaced by digital video, such as DVDs, Blu-Rays, and 4K. That’s the only specific reference he makes besides working in both the movie’s title and  the title of the Phil Oakey/Giorgio Moroder collab. “They beam across the sky / Together in Electric Dreams.” I imagine Lynne was probably told he had to work in the title somewhere. To his credit, it’s a pretty smooth title drop. Clumsier movie songs have done it much worse. 

Lynne sneaks in a few lyrics in the song that become ominous and foreshadowing if you’ve seen the movie more than once. The first two verses end ominously with the lines “The world is at my fingers / Under control” and “I’ll just stay here on my end / I’ll have it all.” Those lines foreshadow Edgar eventually using his supercomputer intellect to control other computer systems and mess with Miles’ life, from cutting off access to his credit cards and funds, to manipulating phone lines so Madeline can’t call Miles later in the movie for comfort when her cello has been broken in an accident (it gets caught in an elevator door and gets crushed). His whole motivation in the movie is that he “wants it all,” especially Madeline. Lynne later captures that ominousness with the absolute beast of a song “Let It Run,” but “Video!” is reserved for Lynne soundtracking the moment where Edgar stays inside and excitedly discovers the world at large and how to write pop music, while Miles simultaneously goes out and discovers the world at large with his lovely lady. 

Musically, “Video!” strikes a balance and finds a perfect blend of the mechanical and the human elements of music making. Lynne seemed to understand that more than some of the art-school new wavers that were ruling the US and the UK in the early eighties. The entire song is mechanical, but that makes sense given the in-universe explanation that a literal computer is making it. The rhythm is provided by a drum machine and everything else is synthesized and sequenced to hell and back. Even the fun sound effects throughout the song and during the middle instrumental bit are canned and not original to the song. There’s something that kinda sounds like a twangy guitar at the end of the verses and on the chorus, but that could just as easily be a keyboard making that sound. Lynne has made records where he’s played all instruments organically, but keyboards, sequencers, and machines not only suit the assignment, they’re necessary for the assignment.

The human elements are Jeff Lynne’s vocals and his always sharp sense of melody. Lynne’s never been the most mind blowing singer, but his vocals and melodies capture a magic and a warmth here that few of the survivors from his generation still making music in 1984 were capable of. He sings the song with that same sense of wonder that he has on Time. I love the melody of the verses and that chorus is so upbeat and happy and infectious. I love the way he slides into the chorus by holding out the word “on” before saying “video.” Oooooooon! It’s pop music at its most delightfully fun.

I’ve been surrounded by video my entire life, but Lynne makes it feel like it’s a brand new concept to me when I hear this song. I said that everything Lynne is describing in “Video!” is a reality that I’ve lived to see. That reality is Youtube. “The world is at my fingers” because I can more-or-less search for whatever I want (whether I actually find it is another story). The entire second verse can be used to describe someone discovering Youtube for the first time:

I see that rock and roll And all those old-time movies scenes They beam across the sky Together in electric dreams I'll just sit here on my end I'll have it all

Youtube, for all its numerous (numerous) flaws, allows me to be my own MTV VJ and watch scenes from my favorite movies with only a few mouse clicks. I can sit at my computer and watch videos in comfort (and while eating my dinner). Like Edgar, I have it all. Lynne sings that verse with completely sincere jubilance. The song is entirely mechanized, but the feelings presented in the song are not and they help provide a warmth and joy to the whole song that makes it sound like a dream. Lynne makes the concept of watching video sound like it’s the most exciting technical marvel you’ll ever see. He sells it like he’s Grover Cleveland lighting up the 1893 World Fair. It’s fantastic. Lynne isn’t even just fascinated by video, he’s fascinated by the entire process that helps bring it to life. That first verse takes the song from the hugeness of outer space and leads it to the small and insular space of a computer in an apartment without ever losing a step.

The satellites that search the night They twinkle like a star They send their love from up above Down to my VTR

Lynne sounds absolutely amazed by the technological wonders of 1984. He sings it with a child-like fascination that’s so lovably dorky. He sounds like Miles Harding does in the movie when he gets to talk to Madeline about architecture and his dream project during dinner. I was only ten years old when Youtube first arrived in December of 2005, so I essentially grew up with the rise of the internet and internet video creation. I imagine it must have been mind blowing to older people who were there to witness that boom. Maybe some of them were as excited as Lynne sounds on this song.

Nowadays, we take a lot of the modern technology around us for granted, but for Lynne in 1984, this was all exciting and new. That might be where the excitement and exuberance in the song stems from. Betamax and VHS had only existed for about a decade when Electric Dreams first came out, so people were only just getting started in terms of building up home video libraries and having video readily available to them. Camcorders were only starting to become a common commodity when Electric Dreams arrived, so I imagine people were going nuts and losing their minds that they could make home movies and shoot video of their own. Nowadays, technology has reached the point where the little bricks in our pockets (which are Edgar-level supercomputers of their own) can do almost anything, even film video anytime, anywhere. Now more than ever, the world really is at our fingers due to the way technology and social media keeps us interconnected.

“Video!” sees a continuation of Jeff Lynne’s interests in technology and the future that he was exploring on the Time album. Once again, his music is featured in a movie that’s weird, strange, and ridiculous, but also incredibly fun. “Video!” and Electric Dreams as a whole, is a beautiful little time capsule. It arrived during a time when the wonders of the future and technology was full of optimism and we were once again evaluating our relationship to tech as the world was continuing to undergo constant change. After Electric Dreams, Lynne would examine his own relationship with technology with the 1986 song “Calling America,” one of the last ELO singles before he went off to enjoy a second life as an in-demand producer for a while. He doesn’t sound as excited when he sings “Yeah, we’re living in a modern world” on that one. He doesn’t sound as excited about satellites on that one either, though that might have more to do with him being fully sick of ELO by that point and having to wrap up one last album before he can move on to other things.

Electric Dreams, both the movie and the soundtrack, aren’t as well remembered as Xanadu and I think that’s a shame. Electric Dreams is such a strange, beautiful, and moving love story. It’s the thinking man’s version of Spike Jonze’s Her (it’s also better than Her). The movie only played in theaters for a few short weeks before resigning to its fate as a strange movie you take a chance on when you’re wandering around the video store on a Friday night and you and your partner are looking for something interesting to watch. In hindsight, maybe a movie like Electric Dreams was just too strange to ever capture mainstream attention. 

But don’t feel bad for it! It’s lived and has found its share of people who love it, despite its initial failure. I’m one of them. Lenny Von Dohlen and Virginia Madsen are also in that boat. They loved working on it and had nothing but positive things to say about it. Madsen still considers it one of the best things she’s ever made and I agree with her. Cult classics like Electric Dreams find their audience. Sometimes it just takes a while.

I can tell you that Tumblr absolutely fucking LOVES this movie. If you do a search for “#electric dreams” you will find SO. MUCH. FANART for this movie in that tag. It’s not even funny. Tumblrinas L O V E making art of Edgar the computer. They love making art of him so much, you’d think he’s the protagonist of the movie, not Miles and Madeline. You’d also think Miles, Madeline, and Edgar are in a polycule with each other (hot take: polyamory would not have saved them). The fanart in that tag isn’t even that old either. People love this movie and they love him. (A shocking number of fanart posts depict Edgar hanging out with GLaDOs from Portal, HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and AM from the Harlan Ellison short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. I have come to the conclusion that Tumblr really loves antagonistic machines).

Electric Dreams celebrates its fortieth anniversary this year (it came out on July 20th, 1984, so this post missed its birthday by eleven days). An unloved film in its time, but a lovably strange and beautifully sincere science fiction romance that remains a beloved cult classic to those who know about it. If you want to see the film for yourself, it’s on Youtube for free. I highly recommend it.

Jeff Lynne is also celebrating this year. At the time of this writing, he’s preparing to take his modern day version of Electric Light Orchestra on the road one more time before retiring for good (he’s calling it the Over and Out Tour, which I think is just a fantastic name). He’s definitely not going to play “Video!” but he’ll be playing every ELO banger in existence, of which there are many. If you’ve never seen the maestro present his music live, I highly recommend you catch him before it’s too late. I plan on going to one of the Philadelphia nights. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. 

“Video!” and Electric Dreams are snapshots of a simpler time that dared to get a little silly and dream about a possible future. Some of its ideas about where technology was headed and our relationship to that technology were hauntingly accurate, some of it is hilariously outdated. Lynne’s visions of video and where video technology ended up being incredibly accurate in all the best ways. Video madness came upon us like a trance in the dark and because of that madness and the internet that houses all that madness, a movie that went completely unnoticed forty years ago can still exist and float out there today, waiting to be found. It wants to share with you what the world looked like during an interesting crossroads in time and it wants to show you what people thought the future might look like. Electric Dreams wants you to know that the future is strange, but it’s also bright and love can be found in the strangest of places if you know where to look. Don’t worry. It’s all under control and it’s all on video.

Electric Dreams sends its love to you. Send some of yours back to it.

[aboriforma]

Spinning 'Jade' around in my mind -

JS didn't hit me much, but the Jade's promise took a wack out of me that I so wish DE did more of - confrontation and friction that would exist within the fiction given the circumstances of the characters.

Tucks thoughts beneath a read more;

As far as main story beats go - The Sacrifice is the only one to hit on the mark of the friction that would exist in the terms of the world of the Orokin reign; the threat of retaliation by silencing any whiff of dissent, the straight-cut of anyone other than those in power as lesser, and the active -TRY- against the pain that comes from that kind of system. If they had managed to work Jade's promise into it at the same effort, I really feel like it would've attained that level. But it's constraints on Stalker/Sorren would've made that extremely difficult in a restrained POV.

The Sacrifice is the only main story quest that actually made me cry; Jade's promise got the same out of me even if it was just short sections.

While, usually, we get glimpses of the larger picture with Simaris' imprints, various tales in the levarian, the short time we had tales attached to primed warframes, or even with warframes like Dagath, like Jade. We don't get a lot of 'big hits' of empire acting as an empire does [wide gesture towards various capital driven countries, to ongoing war and genocide], but they're in small ways, which makes the world feel more alive than just set pieces being moved around.

The setting feeling more alive is the big thing I hope to see more as we go on into future updates; even while we still have areas that feel lifeless even though there's NPCs placed around [looking at relays]. Cetus and Fortuna still now feels vibrant - they feel like lived in places even if they're hubs. The Zariman is silent and cold yet still looked lived in how nooks and crannies have old shelters built into it still; all the tilesets have their own touches of being 'lived in' with their respective factions. And while it's taken some time, their story-telling is getting closer to matching that level of effort of being a place people either once live, or still live in.

Especially after War Within, while it touched upon the Zariman it was vague enough to fit a player's interruption of their own operator's potential experience, the Yuvan theater felt glossed over. Parading 'fresh bodies' for the old and dying to have their body used as a vessel for another's mind. There's a lot of weight there, but within War Within it's used as set dressing for the neat mirror trick of your operator and the Grineer queen.

For most of the time before it, and before The Sacrifice, the Orokin felt very, cartoony in the way of propping up the classic interruption of an empire is. Made with a lot of short-hands that can, unfortunately, lead a lot of people to conclusions of 'empire is good actually' if its not fleshed out enough to encompass what comes with total subjugation of their population which DE has put in constantly. Much in the same way fandom or canon has the unfortunate tendency to latch onto facist imagry because it 'looks cool' and brush off people's discomfort of that facist imagry.

I know it's more out of DE's story consistency that the operator does not remember much outside of mentorship under The Lotus or sections aboard the Zariman. But Jade's Promise did touch on it; not passively glossing over the fact of what being a child soldier entails. Something that I didn't feel like they did enough on before that I turned my Tenno OC (Diviyoni-Jacob Warren) into part character exploration, part catharsis, part trying to piece my own feelings regarding being an undiagnosed AuDHD child and needing a differentiate between mental self (T'viska, Loki) and emotional self (Warren, Tenno) to get through some less than understood issues.

I really like when DE doesn't try to pull their punches; I kinda get why people get disappointed in Jade Shadows not being able to match up with TSD, WW, Sacrifice, TNW - but those had a whole development cycle focused on them while Jade Shadows was more aligned with the older warframe quests, which everyone forgets about since DE doesn't have focus development to that stuff anymore for obvious reasons of resources.

Silently hoping for Lotus Eaters and 1999 to open up possibilities of more time-line hoping to expand upon operator and drifter coming to terms with their circumstances. Instead of Operator just shutting those memories away and Drifter just spiraling until Lotus' hand smacked them upside the head.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

[cws: non-detailed discussion of both fictional and irl SA/CSA/abuse dynamics, apologia for the previous, homophobia, fetishization of wlw, and anti rhetoric.]

-

having a lot of thoughts about the wider fandom's treatment of the various abuse dynamics present in sdmi--supposedly in the name of being anti-abuse--and how instead it's propagated deeply anti-survivor/abuse apologist sentiment and behavior through where they choose to apply that rhetoric, and where they choose to look the other way.

(first off, if you're someone who does not and has not done this, thank you from the bottom of my heart. second, this is not at all exhaustive of my feelings on the subject and there will probably be more posts about these dynamics and people's behavior toward them in future. as you can imagine by the length of this post that is saying something lmao)

one of the reasons i feel as strongly as i do about the way both canon and fandom have historically been about pericles, pericky, and shitting on anyone who likes them because it Normalizes Abuse(tm), is that their fans are pretty open and emphatic about the fact that it's Fucked Up. it's why we find it compelling. it is vanishingly rare that we don't.

meanwhile, velma is the UwU Cute Sassy Lesbian Icon whose relationship with shaggy was Cringy and Immature (and mutually so 🙃) at worst, when it directly mirrored such visceral aspects of my experience with CSA that i almost threw up rewatching the second episode.

and that's not even getting into how normalized it is for women to abuse men in a relationship, in broad fucking daylight in front of other people, and how men are supposed to Always Want It and it's an insult if they don't, and how the vast majority of CSA--which it overtly is in shaggy's case, he is implied not to be an adult yet--is perpetrated by other kids.

and it's also not getting into the fact that the ~cute lesbian relationship~ is almost certainly going to end up with the other queer girl in the show also being abused, because abusers are not Magically Cured by True Queer Love's Kiss. how it is incredibly difficult for survivors of abuse in a wlw relationship to be acknowledged or get support because then they'd be a Traitor, or people would rather maintain the feel-good fuzzy feelings wlw exist to give them, or they're closeted and it's not safe to let people know they're in a relationship with a woman. how queer relationships, especially between women, are fetishized as cute pure healthy fairytale romances and not dynamics involving real people who might harm each other or be harmed and need help.

and that's not even getting into the fact that mlm are seen as inherently predatory to an extent that the majority of other queer identities are not. how older queer men grooming boys is a classic homophobic stereotype used to justify violence toward them, up to and including lynchings, and how that is the abuse dynamic everyone in the show and fandom latched onto to revile as the Disgusting Evil Predatory One while giving everything else a pass. how mlm have a long history of forced institutionalization and psychiatric torture and abuse, and the Predatory Gay Man is subjected to decades of--you guessed it!--forced institutionalization and psychiatric torture and abuse, which is framed as what he deserved and where he belonged. how he's supposed to be unattractive (and the majority of the people who do this shit lean hard on that), while people are way more likely to give Charming Attractive Aesthetically Pleasing abusers a pass.

this is just..... normal, to the fandom. it's treated as completely normal. and i think that's a whole lot more fucking harmful than finding emotional catharsis in exploring an abusive dynamic that would not fly in broad daylight irl in a million years.

[pumpkinpaix]

Pleeeeeeease get into the class one at some point because I very much want to understand the class dynamics happening in the story but I have yet to find a meta that dives into it

god anon you want me dead don’t you alsjdfljks

referring to this post

okay, so -- my specific salt about class interpretations in mdzs are very targeted. I can’t pretend to have a deep understanding of how class works in mdzs generally because uhhhhh yeah i don’t think i have that. i’m just not familiar enough with the genre and/or the particulars of chinese class systems. but! i can talk in general terms as to why I feel a certain way about the class dynamics that I do think I understand and how I think they relate to the themes of the novel! i’m gonna talk about wei wuxian, the daozhangs, xue yang, and 3zun with, I’m sure, a bunch of digressions along the way.

the usual disclaimers: i do not think you are a bad person if you hold opinions contrary to my own. i may disagree with you very strongly, but like. this isn’t a moral judgment, fandom is transformative and interpretive etc. etc. and i may change my mind. who knows what the future will bring!

OKAY so let’s begin!

here’s the thing about wei wuxian: he’s not poor. I think because characters use “son of a servant” kind of often when they’re trying to insult him, a lot of people latch onto that and think that it’s a much stronger indication of his societal status than it actually is. iirc, most of the insults that fall along the “son of a servant” line come after wei wuxian starts breaking severely from tradition. it’s a convenient thing to attack him for, but doesn’t actually indicate anything about his wealth. (exception: yu ziyuan, but that’s a personal familial issue) this is in direct contrast to jin guangyao who is constantly mocked for his family line, publicly and privately, no matter what he does.

so this, coupled with all the jokes about wwx never having any money (wei wuqian, sizhui’s “i’ve long since known you had no money” etc.), plus his like, rough years on the street as a child ends up producing this interpretation of wei wuxian, especially in modern aus, as someone who is very class conscious and “eat the rich”. but the fact of the matter is, wei wuxian IS rich. aside from the years in his childhood and the last two years of his life in yiling, like -- wei wuxian had money and status. he is gentry. he is respected as gentry. he is treated as a son by the sect leader of yunmeng jiang -- he does not have the jiang name, but it is so very clear that jiang fengmian favors him. wei wuxian is ranked fourth of all the eligible young masters in the cultivation world -- that is not a ranking he could have attained without being accepted into the upper class.

wei wuxian’s poverty does not affect him in the way that it affects jin guangyao or xue yang. he is of low-ish birth (still the son of jiang fengmian’s right hand man though! ok sure, “son of a servant” but like. >_> whatever anyways), but for most of his life he had money. he, jiang cheng, and their sect brothers go into town and steal lotus pods with the understanding that “jiang-shushu will pay for it”. this is a regular thing! that’s fucking rich kid behavior!!! wei wuxian is careless with money because he doesn’t have to worry about it. he still has almost all the benefits of being upper class: education, food security, respect, recognition etc. I think there may also be a misconception that wei wuxian was always on the verge of being kicked out by yu ziyuan, or that he was constantly walking on eggshells around her for fear of being disowned, but that is just textually untrue. i could provide receipts, but I admittedly don’t really feel like digging them up just now ;;

even in his last years in yiling, he was not the one who was dealing with the acute knowledge of poverty: wen qing is the one managing the money, and as far as we know, wei wuxian did little to no management of daily life during the burial mounds days -- mostly, he’s described as hiding in his cave for days on end, working on his inventions, running around like a force of chaos, frivolously making a mess of things -- it’s very very cute that he buries a’yuan in the dirt, but in classic wei wuxian fashion, he did Not think about the practical consequences of it -- that A’Yuan has no other clean clothes, and now he’s gotten this set dirty and has no intention of washing them. is this a personality thing? yeah, but I think it’s also indicative of his lack of concern over the logistics of everyday survival, re: wealth.

furthermore, i think it is important to remember that wei wuxian, when he is protecting the wen remnants, is not protecting common folk: he is still protecting gentry. fallen gentry, yes! but gentry nonetheless. wen qing was favored by wen ruohan, and wen ning himself says that he has a retinue of people under his command (the remnants, essentially). their branch of the family do not have the experience of living and growing in poverty -- they are impoverished and persecuted in their last years, but that’s a very different thing from being impoverished your whole life. (sidenote: I do not believe wei wuxian’s primary motivation for defending the wen remnants was justice -- i believe he did it because he felt he owed wen ning and wen qing a life debt, and once he was there, he wasn’t going to stand around and let the work camps go on. yes, he is concerned about justice and doing the right thing, but that’s not why he went in the first place. anyways, that’s another meta)

after wei wuxian returns, he then marries back into gentry, and very wealthy gentry at that. lwj provides him all the money he could ever want, he is never worried about going homeless, starving, being denied opportunities based on his class and accompanying disadvantages. who would dare? and neither wei wuxian nor lan wangji seem to have much interest in shaking up the order of things, except in little things like the way they teach the juniors. they live in gusu, under the auspices of the lan, and they live a happy, domestic life.

were his years on the street traumatizing? yes, of course they were, there’s so much delicious character exploration to be done re: wei wuxian’s relationship to food, his relationship to his own needs, and his relationship to the people he loves. it’s all important and good! but I feel very strongly that that experience, while it was formative for him, did not impart any true understanding of poverty and the common person’s everyday struggles, nor do I think he ever really gains that understanding. he is observant and canny and aware of class and blood, certainly, but not in a way that makes it his primary hill to die on (badum-tss).

this is in very stark contrast to characters like jin guangyao and xue yang, and to some extent, xiao xingchen and song lan. I’ll start with the daozhangs, because I think they’re the simplest (??).

I think both xiao xingchen and song lan have class consciousness, but in a very simplified, broad-strokes kind of way (at least, given the information we know about them). we know that the two of them share similar values and want to one day form their own sect that gives no weight to the nobility of your lineage and has no concern with your wealth. we also know that they both disdain intersect politics and are more concerned with ideals and principles rather than status. but, I think because of that, this actually somewhat limits their perception and understanding of how status is used to oppress. as far as we know, neither of them participated on any side in sunshot and they demonstrate much more interest in relating to the commoners. honestly, i hc that they were flitting around trying to help decimated towns, protecting defenseless villages etc. I ALSO think this has a lot of interesting potential in terms of xiao xingchen and wei wuxian’s relationship, if xiao xingchen is ever revived. regardless of whether you’re in CQL or novel verse, xiao xingchen really doesn’t know wei wuxian at all, other than knowing that he’s his shijie’s son. he knows that cangse-sanren met with a tragic end, like yanling-daoren before her, and that he wants to be different. but here is cangse-sanren’s son, laying waste to entire cities, desecrating the dead. I would very much like to get into xiao xingchen’s head during that period of time (and i think, if i do it right, i can write some of it into the songxiao fixit), but that’s neither here nor there, because i’ve wandered off from my point again.

i would posit that song lan is used to an ascetic lifestyle, and xiao xingchen probably is too -- but that’s different from poverty because there’s an element of choice to it. I also think that neither of them is particularly worldly, xiao xingchen especially. he lived on an isolated mountain until he was like, seventeen, and he came down full of ideals and naivete about how the world worked. I think that both of them see inequality, that they are angered by it, and that they want to do something about it -- but their solution is neither to topple the sects, nor is it to reform the system. rather, it seems to be more about withdrawing and creating their own removed world. I think that the daozhangs embody a kind of utopianism that isn’t present in the minds of any of the other characters, not even wangxian. honestly, baoshan-sanren’s mountain is a utopian ideal, but one that is not described. it exists outside of and beyond the world. i have a lot of jumbled, vague thoughts about utopianism generally, mostly informed by china miéville and ursula k. le guin, and I don’t think i have the ability to articulate them here, but i wanted to. hm. say something? there is something about the inherent dystopianism contained within every utopia, that utopias are necessary, but also reflections of the existence of terrible things in their conception. idk. there’s something in there, I know it!! but i suppose what I want to say is -- i do not think the daozhangs understand class and social hierarchy very deeply because they don’t see a need to examine it deeply. for their goals, the details aren’t the point. they’re not looking to reform within the system, they’re looking to build something outside of it. I think they spend a lot of time concerned with alleviating the symptoms of social oppression, and their values reflect the injustices they witness there.

regardless, even if their story ends in tragedy and there is a certain amount of critique re: the utopian approach, i think the text still emphasizes that xiao xingchen left a utopia and that he thought that people mattered enough for him to try, and that was an incredibly honorable, kind, and human thing to do.

YEAH SURE THE DAOZHANGS ARE THE SIMPLEST ok ok RETURNING to class and moving forward: xue yang.

i also don’t think xue yang has class consciousness lol, or not in any way that really matters, but I do think poverty impacted him in a much stronger way than it impacted wei wuxian. wei wuxian spent some years on the street as a child. xue yang grew up on the streets. chang ci’an’s horrific treatment of him was directly due to his class and social standing: chang ci’an is a nobleman and xue yang is not even worth the dirt beneath the wheels of his cart. what I think is the seminal point though, is that this does not make xue yang think particularly deeply about systemic injustice, because xue yang is so self-centered, self-driven, and individualistic. he is not even slightly concerned about how poverty and class might affect other people -- they’re other people. what he takes away from his experience is not an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a system, but an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a specific man.

xue yang is not particularly concerned with the politics of the aristocracy -- he has no obvious ambitions other than, “i want to eat sweets whenever i please”, “i want to hurt anyone who wrongs me”, and “i want to be so strong that no one can hurt me”. like, he just doesn’t care -- it’s not the kind of power he wants. he sneers at people for like, personal reasons, not class reasons -- “you think you’re better than me” re: xiao xingchen and song lan. to him, all people -- poor, wealthy, noble, common -- are essentially equal, and they are all beneath him. after all, what does he care what family someone comes from, how much money they have? everyone bleeds when you cut them. some of them might be harder to get to than others, but xue yang does not fear that sort of thing. it’s just another obstacle he needs to vault on his way to getting revenge and/or a pastry.

ANYWAYS onto jin guangyao (wow this is hm. getting rather long ahaha oh dear): I would argue that the two characters with the most acute understanding of class/societal politics and the injustice of them are jin guangyao and lan xichen. i’ll start with jin guangyao for obvious reasons.

where xue yang took the damaging effects of poverty as personal slights, I think jin guangyao is painfully aware that there is nothing personal about them, which is, in some ways, much worse. why are two sons, born on the same day to the same father, treated so differently? just because.

he watched his mother struggle and starve and work herself to the bone in a profession where she was constantly disrespected and abused for almost nothing in return, while his father could have lifted her out of poverty with the wave of a finger. why didn’t he? because he didn’t like her? no -- because he didn’t care, and the structures of the society they live in protect that kind of blase treatment of the lower class.

“so my mother couldn’t choose her own fate, is that her fault?” jin guangyao demands. he knows that he is unbelievably talented, that he has ambition, that he has potential, and that all of it is beyond his grasp just because his father didn’t want to bother with it. his mother’s life was destroyed, and his own opportunities were crippled with that negligence. it isn’t personal. that’s just the way things are. your individual identity is meaningless, your humanity does not exist. when he’s kicked down the steps of jinlin tai, it’s just more confirmation that no matter how talented or hardworking he is, no one will give him the time of day unless he finds a way to take it himself and become someone who “matters”.

jin guangyao’s cultivation is weak because he had a poor foundation, and he had a poor foundation because he was denied access to a good one. he copies others because that’s all he can do at this point, and he copies so well that he can hold his own against some of the strongest cultivators of his generation. he’s disparaged for copying and “stealing” techniques, but -- he never would have had to if only he had been born/accepted into the upper class. the fact is that i really do think jin guangyao was the most promising cultivator of his generation that we meet, including the twin jades and wei wuxian: he had natural talent, ambition, creativity, determination and cunning in spades. in some ways, I think that’s one of the overlooked tragedies of jin guangyao: the loss of not just the good man he could have been, but the powerful one too. imagine what he could have done.

jin guangyao spends his entire time in the world of the aristocracy feeling unsteady and terrified because he knows exactly how precarious his position is. he knows how easy it is to lose power, especially for someone like him. he’s working against so many disadvantages, and every scrap of honor he gets is a vicious battle. jin guangyao fears, and I think that’s something that’s lacking in xue yang, wei wuxian and the daozhangs’ experiences/understandings of poverty. i think it’s precisely that fear that emphasizes jin guangyao’s understanding of class and blood. jin guangyao exhibits an anxiety that neither wei wuxian nor xue yang do, and it’s because he truly knows how little he is worth in the eyes of society and how little there is he can do to change that. to me, it very much feels related to the anxiety of not knowing if tomorrow you’ll have something to eat, if tomorrow you’ll still have a home, if tomorrow someone will destroy you and never have to answer for it. it’s the anxiety of knowing helplessness intimately.

moreover, jin guangyao is the only person shown to use the wealth and power at his disposal to take concrete steps to actually help the common people typically ignored by the powerful -- the watchtowers. they’re described in chapter 42. it’s a system that is designed to cover remote areas that most cultivators are reluctant to go due to their inconvenience and the lack of means of the people who live there. the watchtowers assign cultivators to different posts, give aid to those previously forgotten, and if the people are too poor to pay what the cultivators demand, the lanling jin sect pays for it. jin guangyao worked on this for five years and burned a lot of bridges over it. people were strongly opposed to it, thinking that it was some kind of ploy for lanling jin’s personal benefit. but the thing is -- it worked. they were effective. people were helped.

i believe CQL frames the watchtowers as an allegory for a surveillance state/centralized control (i think?? it’s been a minute -- that’s the hazy impression i remember, something like a parallel to the wen supervisory offices?), but I personally don’t think that was the intent in the novel. the watchtowers are a public good. lanling jin doesn’t staff them with their own sect members -- they get nearby sects to staff them. it’s a warning network that they fund that’s supposed to benefit everyone, even those that everyone had considered expendable.

(did jin guangyao do terrible things to achieve this goal? yeah lol. it’s not confirmed, but his son sure did die... suspiciously...... at the hands of an outspoken critic of the watchtowers........ whom he then executed....... so like, maybe just a convenient coincidence for jin guangyao, two birds one stone, but. it seems. Unlikely.)

lan xichen is the only member of the gentry that ever shows serious compassion for and nuanced understanding of jin guangyao’s circumstances. lan xichen treats him as his equal regardless of jin guangyao’s current status -- even when he was meng yao, lan xichen treated him as a human being worthy of respect, as someone with great merits, as someone he would choose as a friend, but he did so knowing full well the delicate position meng yao occupied. this is in direct contrast to nie mingjue, who also believed that meng yao was worthy of respect as a human being, but was completely unable to comprehend the complexities of his circumstances and unwilling to grant him any grace. you know, the difference between “i acknowledge that your birth and status have had effects upon you, but I don’t think less of you for it” and “i don’t consider your birth and status at all when i interact with you because i think it is irrelevant” (“i don’t see color” anyone?)

to illustrate, from chapter 48:

大抵是觉得娼妓之子身上说不定也带着什么不干净的东西，这几名修士接过他双手奉上来的茶盏后，并不饮下，而是放到一边，还取出雪白的手巾，很难受似的，有意无意反复擦拭��才碰过茶盏的手指。聂明玦并非细致之人，未曾注意到这种细节，魏无羡却用眼角余光扫到了这些。孟瑶视若未见，笑容不坠半分，继续奉茶。蓝曦臣接过茶盏之时，抬眸看他一眼，微笑道：“多谢。”

旋即低头饮了一口，这才继续与聂明玦交谈。旁的修士见了，有些不自在起来。

rough tl:

Probably because they believed that the son of a prostitute might also carry some unclean things upon his person, after these few cultivators took the teacups offered from [Meng Yao’s] two hands, they did not drink, but instead put them to one side, and furthermore brought out snow white handkerchiefs. Quite uncomfortably, and whether they were aware of it or not, they repeatedly wiped the fingers they had just used to touch the teacups. Nie Mingjue was not a detail-oriented person and never took note of such particulars, but Wei Wuxian caught these in the corner of his eye. Meng Yao appeared as if he had not seen, his smile unwavering in the slightest, and continued to serve tea. When Lan Xichen took the teacup, he glanced up at him and, smiling, said, “Thank you.”

He immediately dipped his head to take a sip, and only then continued to converse with Nie Mingjue. Seeing this, the nearby cultivators began to feel somewhat uneasy.

all right, since we’re in full cyan-rampaging-through-the-weeds mode at this point, i’m going to talk about how this is one of my favorite 3zun moments in the entire novel for characterization purposes because it really highlights how they all relate to one another, and to what degree each of them is aware of their own position in relation to the others and society as a whole.

1. nie mingjue, who is a forthright and blunt person, sets meng yao to serving tea and is done with it. he notices nothing wrong or inappropriate about the reactions of the people in the room because it’s not the sort of thing he considers important.

2. meng yao, knowing that his only avenue is to take it lying down with a smile, masks perfectly.

3. lan xichen, noticing all this, uses his own reputation to achieve two things at once: pointedly shame the other cultivators in attendance, and show meng yao that regardless of others’ opinions, he considers him an equal and does not endorse such behavior--and he does it while taking care that no fallout will come down on meng yao’s head.

is this yet another installment of cyan’s endless lxc defense thesis? why yes it is! no one is surprised! but this is my whole point: both meng yao and lan xichen understand the respective hierarchy and power dynamics within the room, while nie mingjue very much does not. this is not because nie mingjue is a bad person or because nie mingjue is stupid--it’s a combination of personality and upbringing. nie mingjue is straightforward and has no patience for such games. but then again, he can afford not to play because he was born into such a high position: that’s a privilege.

to break it down: meng yao knows that he is the lowest-ranked person in the room, sees the way people are subtly disrespecting him in full view of his general who is doing nothing about it. in some ways, this is good -- nie mingjue’s style of dealing with conflict is very direct and not at all suited to delicate political maneuvering. after all, the way he promoted meng yao was actually quite dangerous to meng yao: he essentially guaranteed that his men would bear meng yao a grudge and that their disrespect for him would only be compounded by their bitterness at being punished on his behalf. (it’s like, why often getting parents or teachers to intervene ineffectively in bullying can just be an incitement to more bullying -- same concept) meng yao’s reaction during that scene shows that he’s pretty painfully aware of this and is trying to defuse the situation to no avail. nie mingjue gives him a bootstrap speech (rip nie mingjue i love u so much but. sir) and then promotes him, which is pretty much the only saving grace of that entire exchange, for meng yao at least.

lan xichen, on the other hand, understands both that meng yao is the lowest-ranked person in the room and that any direct attempt to chastise the other cultivators in the room will only serve to hurt meng yao in the long run. he knows that if this were brought to nie mingjue’s attention, he would be outraged and not shy about it -- also bad for meng yao. so he uses what he has: his immaculate reputation. by acting contrary to the other cultivators’ behavior, he demonstrates that he finds their actions unacceptable but with the plausible deniability that it wasn’t directed at them, that this is just zewu-jun being his usual generous self. this means that the other cultivators have no one to blame but themselves, nothing to do but question their own actions. there is nowhere to cast off their discomfort. meng yao didn’t do anything. lan xichen didn’t do anything -- he just thanked meng yao and drank his tea, isn’t that what it’s there for? he doesn’t disrupt the peace, he doesn’t attack anyone and put them on the defensive, but he does make his position very clear.

i know this is a really small thing and i’m probably beating it to death, but I really think this shows just how cognizant lan xichen is of politics and emotional cause and effect in such situations. certainly, out of context I think the scene reads kind of cliche, but within the greater narrative of the story and within the arc of these characters specifically, I think it was a really smart scene to include. it also showcases lan xichen’s style of action: that he moves around and with a problematic situation as opposed to moving straight through.

not to be salty on main again, but this is why it’s very frustrating to me when I see people call lan xichen passive when he is anything but. his actions just don’t look like traditional “actions”, especially to an american audience. it’s easy to understand lan wangji and wei wuxian’s style of problem-solving: taking a stand, moving through, staying strong. lan xichen is juggling an inconceivable number of factors in any given situation, weighing his responsibilities in one role against those in another, and then trying to find the path through the thicket that will cause the least harm, both to himself and the thicket. lan wangji and wei wuxian are not particularly good at considering the far-reaching consequences of their actions -- again, not because they are bad people, but because of a combination of personality and upbringing. they’d just hack through the thicket, not thinking about the creatures that live in it. that is not a terrible thing! it isn’t. it’s a different way of approaching a problem, and it has different priorities. that’s okay. there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and where you come down is going to depend on your personal values.

okay we’ve spiraled far and away from my original point, but let’s circle back: i was talking about class.

I think it’s undeniable that class, birthright, fate etc. are some of the driving forces of thematic conflict in mdzs, and the way each character interacts with those forces reveals a lot about themselves and also about the larger themes of fate, chance, and what it means to be righteous and good and how that is and isn’t rewarded. a lot of the tragedy of mdzs (the tragedy that isn’t caused by direct aggression on the part of one group or another) stems from the injustices and slights that people suffered due to their lot in life. it isn’t fair. none of it is fair! we sympathize with jin guangyao because we recognize that what he suffered was unconscionable, even if we don’t excuse him. i sympathize A Lot with xue yang as well for similar reasons, though I understand that’s a harder sell. this is a story focused on the mistakes of an entrenched, aging gentry and the effects that those mistakes had on their children, and a lot of it has to do with prejudice based in class and birth status. whether the prejudice was the true reason or whether it was just a convenient excuse, the fact remains that the systems in place rewarded and protected the people in power who used it to cling to that power. mdzs is also a story of how the circumstances of one’s life can offer you impossible choices that you cannot abstain from, and it asks us to be compassionate to the people who made terrible choices in terrible times. it’s about the inherent complexity in all things! that sometimes, there are no good choices, and i don’t know, i’d like to think that people would show me compassion if I had to make the choices some of these characters did. not just wei wuxian, mind you, every single one of them. except jin guangshan because I Do Hate Him sorry. and i guess wen ruohan. i think that’s it.

good. GOD this is clocking in at //checks notes -- just over 5k. 8′D *stuffs some weeds into my mouth like the clown i am*

(ko-fi? :’D *lies down*)

[mimithings97]

ABSTRACT ft BOB ROSS (M) - JJK

Summary: Paintbrush in one hand, joint in the other and you sitting on his dick is what Jeongguk wants. And what Jeongguk wants, Jeongguk gets.

Genre: smutPWP, timid crack, established relationship

Word Count: 6k

Warnings: jeongguks horny! getting high, body painting, fingering, oral (both receiving), edging, slight subJK, unprotected sex, cockwarming, masturbation (fem), dry humping

A/N: Jeongguk being on his Bob Ross thing to help us through quarantine had me inspired. Fr Bob Ross was a legend. This gets steamy btw

Also pls stay safe everyone and don’t be selfish. Enjoy x

*Masterlist Link*

*Bold italic is JK speaking Korean*

“Tap it off… and just beat the devil out of it.”

“JEONGGUK FOR THE LOVE OF JESUSSS!”

“Isn’t that fun.”

“...What? Just doing what he tells me to do.” 

And he persists, batting brush to easel with a rate of knots only a testament to how fast he jacks off. It sends diluted paint across the room so you’re left as a life size dot to dot, with splatters lining your lips down to the hem of your shirt and it’s cold and wet, and this isn’t what you signed up for when he said ‘couples bonding’. 

“I’m fucking soaked.” He scoffs, that man sized brain of his conjuring a classic. 

“That’s what she said.” 

You’re four hours deep, and four hours too many by your standards. Jeongguk was always an avid painter at heart, finding joy in the freedom of all things creativity, but he was also a perfectionist, a competitor. It led him from tutorial to tutorial, because, whilst he’s got portraiture down, his landscaping needed a little brushing up - mind the pun - and it was only an amount of time before you stumbled across a Bob Ross tutorial in all things serene and panoramic.

You shake yourself off in some attempt to help the splay of wet paint and to ease your job with the washing machine later, and lean back on your heels to gather your bearings. Yet, Bob still drones on despite your misery, and your boyfriend’s all too eager to comply with his every word.

“Jeongguk!” 

He’s laughing off to himself, easily pleased in the scheme of all things pensioner humour, but murmurs off a halfhearted ‘yeh’ in your direction to ease where he knows you’re about to nag.

“Look at me!” 

He does. And it throws you off a little because he eyes you once over, twice and a third time before settling his gaze on your breasts - easily pleased for many more things than just Bob Ross.

“You’re messy.”

“Yeh fuck I am! You listen to Bob more than you listen to me, cockless.”  

He quirks an eyebrow, and shuffles so the laptop settled between both your easels can be paused, leaving Bob frozen in time and you to deepen your scowl.

“Yeh, um, cockless, cool... Bob tells me how well I’m doing and lets me hit paint brushes on wooden sticks. You don’t even let me feed Sassy nugs of weed when you sure as hell fucking know she’s a stoner cat.” 

Jeongguk was deep into his second joint after he fucked the first two paintings up enough he put a lighter to the edge of each. He even questioned using them as a roach, and you became one step closer to pleading insanity to your landlord and bolting the fuck out of you joint tenancy. But then he got you high and you persevered.  

Four more questionable and highly abstract paintings later, he’s got the hots for Bob, and you're left staggering on your words to rope him into lucidity again. 

“Guk, he’s a virtual man with 4 million followers, don’t take it personally and-.”

“But-” You deadpan, and point your paintbrush with emphasis. 

“And you know full well Sassy gets baked anyways off of fumes. The smoke gets in her fur as well and it was me” he looks innocently at you, muted by your outburst, “who got clawed when she had to be bathed. So tuck your balls away from Bob, and sober up!” 

He’s quiet. As are you. And even Bob lies dormant off in your peripherals. 

The room grows small as you size each other up, paintings left aside with the sole purpose of being witness to argument, and you think he might just look hot with his nipples standing cold against the open air and abs rolling beneath the line of his sweats. 

He’s on the same wavelength: 

“I can see your tits through that shirt.” 

You take a quick peak yourself, eyeing from one to the other, ignorant of the double chin you’re exposing, but all in the name of making sure the ladies stand perky. He’s got a glint beneath the surface now when he eyes your chest, and the paintbrush in his hand falls a little limper. 

“Yeah?” 

“Mmm.” He tongues his lips. Hungry. 

Self control in such a situation as this seems important. The ability to stand your ground no matter where your argument lies on the scale of idiocy. If you curtail into being seduced, he might still make you wash the shirt yourself, figure Bob Ross is a turn on and have Sassy seeing smoke rings by the end of the night. No. You’re not a pushover.

He’s an inch closer when you break the silence, the tumbleweed rolled aside. 

“Turn it around. Let me see.”

“Ey?”

He’s horny and you’re not playing ball, something his brain can’t quite transfer to his dick yet.

“Turn yours around I wanna see how you did.” You give a nod in the direction of his painting. A spout of curiosity as to what monstrosity he’s conjured this time, but also a distraction, something for him to latch onto aside from your chest. 

“I thought we wait til the end. It’s unfinished.” And one thing Jeongguk hates being is unfinished. 

“Baby, Bob’s been overworked tonight and I wanna light the last spliff.” You air a finger and twizzle it, “give it a whirl.”

Being the competitor he is, Jeongguk plasters a smile and spins his easel, the pride practically radiating from him with the way he eyes the two trees and awkwardly sculpted sky. The clouds are askew and the lighting is directioned all wrong, in fact, it’s more a Picasso than a Mozart, blocks of colour screaming attention rather than the realism Bob was hoping for. 

“What’s it abstract for.”

Jeongguk frowns because your tone clearly isn’t close to praise and that’s what he’s learnt to expect. What Jeongguk wants, Jeongguk gets. Tonight's seen enough of your short fuse, however, that he’s not in the running for your good books. 

“Jagi-ya,” he pleads, “you know I speak in small English only when I’m stoned.”

You don’t even attempt to stifle the giggle. His eyes are round and his neck’s falling into his shoulders. A defence mechanism he’s well versed in because he knows it gets you in the feels. The jagi too.

“Yeh and this is how you paint when you’re stoned,” he eyes the work he’s made like your words have got him curious, like he’s never seen the capability of a weed induced state on canvas, “your lines get all boxy.”

He shifts, putting criticism to the test as he takes in his artwork from a new vantage point. In the meantime, the final joint lays naked and unused, almost sculpted like it was made for your fingertips. So you appease it’s calling and bringing tip to mouth, lighting the end until the embers begin to wisp away into smoke. Jeongguk breaths in like he wants it, but there’s an epiphany in sights instead.

“Mmm, it’s more like Picasso,” that’s my boy.

“Exactly!” 

“...Bob doesn’t accommodate for high people.” He takes the joint when you offer it. 

“Guk! That was a big word!” And he earns himself a kiss on the cheek, perhaps a hand to fiddle with his shoulders too, because those muscles aren’t gonna touch themselves. 

He drags long and hard. A third joint kind of high taking hold from where his eyes grow thinning and his posture caves into your touch. 

“Heard it on University Challenge,” you scoff at him. Since when was that on cable, “figure if I watch it enough I’ll be just as smart as them.”

“I’m not sure that’s how it works, bubs.”

Your hands grow fond of his skin, and it’s only when he leans away to trash the fumes away on a burnt out scrapped painting that you realise he finished all the weed. Guk’s a kid in a pram when it comes to sharing his green goods. He compensates with good sex though. 

And it’s where his mind lies - beneath the thin layer of your white painting top, a scrap piece of clothing donned for only the messiest of times. He seems to find inspiration in the idea. 

“Jagi.” 

“Mmm,” the air buzzes somewhere between stoned and excited with how he eyes you. 

“Let me paint you like one of my Korean girls.” It’s said in a tone laced with enough lust that you ignore the reference and are turned on by the novelty of being painted. And you know he doesn’t mean Jack and Rose kind of style.

You offer him a smirk. 

“How d’you want me.” 

Jeongguk nips at his bottom lip and lets his mind and dick go wild at the thought of free reign. The contemplating drags on, but when his eyes settle on how your pussy lies just south of the hem of your shirt, he’s struck a vision.

“Back, legs spread, and shirt off- wait, no, actually, shirt on.” 

He’s easy to comply with in the circumstances of things stoned and shirtless.

Your head is light, limbs soft when they stretch against the carpeted floor and you’re so prepared to be a canvas you’re wondering if maybe Bob had turned you on a little. And everything grows that bit more ambient, strewn into background noise. The paints you’d used now only exist with purpose of your skin, the Sam Cooke vinyl, now on its fifth round, is merely a melody to curl your toes to and the chiaroscuro lighting serves for the curve of your cheekbones only.  

He’d call you artwork if only it did you justice. 

“It’s cold.” He readies you.

His forth fingertip is crimson red. You think it’s a tester for temperature until he runs it down your thigh. A bold stroke for a starting place, but Jeongguk was never shy with paints.

“Mmm, yeh, cold.” 

“You like it?” He asks like he wants to be in tune with you.

“I can get to like it.” 

What you mean is you can get to like your boyfriend, in his half naked glory, playing temperature torture on your skin. 

He’s beautiful like this. A little lost in the high, but even deeper in the depths of you and your body and your lips and how you lay for him. A shy boy at first now with the pick of the litter. And he’ll take his pick wisely.

“So pretty.” You’ve got enough understanding to writhe in the praise, “Can I ruin your top?”

You are high, careless and ultimately curious. 

“Yeh,” and the shirt was fucked anyways. 

He pulls up the palette next to him, drawing a sketch with his eyes because paint doesn’t allow for takebacks and twiddles the brush in circles with practised ease. 

“Close your eyes for me?” 

“Ey?” You question. 

“Please, just, for now.”

And you’ll blind yourself for the sake of surprise, but now you’re sure you’ll just end up playing guess the drawing through touch alone, a mimic of what Jeongguk does on your naked spine in the mornings when you’re allowed a lie in. 

It’s cold, he’s right, that first stroke. And it dances close to where your breasts hang. 

“Can I touch you down there too?” 

OH fuck yes. Multitasking you can get on board with. 

“Please.”

He’s straight to it. A quirk on the line he was painting down you because suddenly he’s got you pleading and wet in unintentional places. 

“You plead so nicely for me, jagi. So good.” You gush to the tune of his native tongue.

It’s all at once. An overload of the senses. Sam Cooke a soulful prayer in time with your boyfriends hum. There’s a perfect juxtaposition of nimble fingers on your clit and a flat planed brush streaking unabashedly on the cotton against your nipples. It’s cold and hot and light and dark and everything in between. It’s sexy. 

You delve headfirst into the pleasure of it all, throwing an arm over your eyes and allowing the moans to spew and your body to convulse a little every time you’re hit with a newly loaded brush. Your body brews up a tempest and yo-

“DONE!”

Oh. 

You’re panting. Soaked to the bone beneath your silk panties, and when you open your eyes, everything is in disarray. 

The lust felt when in the thrones of your imagination is suddenly scattered, albeit, Jeongguk still looks like a feast. Because Sam Cooke doesn’t sound so harmonic and your skin doesn’t glow as bright when you assess the masterpiece you’d been distracted by. 

“YOU GAVE ME PICASSO TITS!”

Fucking Picasso tits! 

You’re horrified. And Jeongguk looks like he’s won the lottery. 

“Yeh. Jagi! Abstact!” 

“It’s abstract…” you whine.

Tugging and pulling at the hem of the cotton in some attempt to render the mess undone is your stress ball . Something to help it or just unsee it. Anything. But it’s useless, because the display is etched in primary colours only, a demand for attention that your Vanish Ultra won’t even touch the sides on.

Your eyes fume when they meet his crescents, “and you gave me square tits you freak! I have perfectly good tits, underneath, and this top was clean before you violated it!” 

There’s enough rage in you to stand and peel the wet shirt from your body, only to find a coloured imprint on your skin and bra that seeped through the thin fabric. Pick a younger man, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. Hildy can shove fun up her ass.

“Baby, it’s kind of funny.” 

“Its not- its-,” he’s laughing. You’re exasperated. Both high. And maybe Hildy had a point once you let go of the burdens of sensibility and just crave what he’s having. Go, fat, high, fun. 

“Gukkkkkkk.” So you end up whining. And, you don’t resist when he’s off his feet and drowning you in his chest, muscles vibrating to the tune of his giggles. 

“Like, now, whenever we Bob Ross paint, I get to be reminded of the time I squared off your boobs then sexed you real good.”

You scoff from under his armpit, but refuse to depart from the embrace. He’s got a sweaty smell you only like on him and there’s nothing like Jeontits in your face. 

“Never Bob Ross painting again and you’re not sexing anything, perv.” 

“No?” 

“Mm-hm,” he giggles over your dramatic head shaking, a true fan of you when he’s got you swaddled and in that high happy place. Jeongguk also, whilst he won’t admit it, likes owing you something. Likes poking and prodding at your sensitivity until he’s got something to make up for - he’s a people pleaser, what can he say. 

So it’s a kiss here and a peck there. A mouthed map from shoulder to jaw before you’re the one to shift until your mouths align. 

“I’mhard y’know.” Tongue deep into yours because he’s got nothing to hide.

“Mmm, and you’ll stay that way.” 

But he really is oh so hard. His sweats hold little surprise under the surface because Jeongguk forgoes underwear on his days off and there’s a perk to his chest from his lunchtime weights set. It’s a self control that the weed in your brain isn’t quite abiding to.

“Jagi, come on,” the way his stance has a gain on your height means he can find friction where your groin lays. The perfect snuggle for his length to cant up into. He’s teasing himself, and pining for the quirk in you that’ll have him squirming later. 

“Guk. You’ve stained my top. You’re not about to cum on my La Perla panties.” Yet he’s driving himself deeper into a painful withdrawal. And he can’t wait. 

“You wore them without anything on your legs. You should know the risk,” his lips dance from collarbones to shoulder as he indulges in your skin, “You get me so hard, Jagi. So hard it hurts,” he’s biting whilst he ruts, “yet you tease me. How can you do that?” 

Your resolve won’t crumble, but you may indulge a little. Press encouragement beneath his boxers and under the small of his back so he can carry himself away in the friction. He glows in it. 

“Urgh, god.” 

“Mmm, you still can’t cum you know that.” 

Frantic. He nods frantic, and rolls his eyes back harder. He’s got balls so tight from the weed induced delusion that he’s lost in, but he knows you’ll have them blue and him mewling soon.

“Want it.” Submissive Korean sounds almost too good on him. He bows into your shoulder and grunts words, understandable in content, but so much more in context. An unfiltered, raw need he can only express in his way. 

You almost give in. 

Almost.

“Jeongguk, stop- stop.” He stills, and is pliable enough that you can cup his jaw tightly and meet him at eye level where he’s hazy. There’s a smirk nestled deep too because you let him go this far.  And you got riled up in the process. 

You eye him. Hairs flicking out from the thin headband he donned for painting and painting only. There’s a shine on his skin you can’t ignore and he’s so damn beautiful when he glows with want. Your man. A ‘my eyes only’ specimen except you get to touch. 

So you do, hands to peck that draw up and down until you play peek a boo with his tip between the flap of his sweats. It’s the crimson that stains your thigh and the glossy look he’s edged himself to. You’re ravenous. 

“Jagi, don’t just look. I’m dying here.”

You take one final glance, watch it bob when your nails scrape his abs and then quirk a look his way. 

“Mmm, I’m still angry at you.” You’re not. Not really and never were. Just wanted something on him so you’d have him like you do now:

“Take it out on me” He doesn’t stutter. Doesn’t smile, smirk or indicate humour. Ready to risk it all. 

“Lie on the sofa how you want it then… and them,” you once over the material on his legs with your finger, “off.”

He’s so compliant when he’s hard and no one will ever find you complaining at the notion. 

There’s easles to dodge and paints that threaten to brim onto the wooden floors, but your apartment never had ‘perfect’ written on the lease, so you’ll let him settle his clothes haphazardly - teetering on messy. 

You follow the path he’s strewn, bra off to join his boxers, until you settle your knees against his, shadow elongated on his face by the direction of the sunlight and hair swept over to one shoulder. His eyes follow your curves. 

“Will you touch me now?” He’s craving and the concept has your mind whirling and eyes stuck on where he’s hard. You’ve only now come to notice the way he sits on his hands, wrists dug into the sofa from the pressure of his thighs. Filthy. It’s filthy that he edges himself for sport. 

With a twitch at the side of your mouth because there’s a million and one different ways to have him crying, you descend so skin is on skin and he’s captive to you. Drunk in the way he looks. Nervous in the way his dick twitches. 

“How d’you want me to touch you?” 

“Any way, fuck, any way.. Please.” The pleasantries aren’t necessary. He’s at your mercy physically but this boy’s got a hold on you like no other, enough that what Jeongguk wants, Jeongguk gets.

“Here?” His dick is expecting when he sees your hand move in his peripherals. It’s sure and ready for your touch. But then you moan. Eyes roll back just like when he touches your cl-, “Is here good, Guk?” 

“Oh fuck.” You’re two fingers deep and a palm to your clit. He’s taken note in the way you touch yourself before, mutual masturbation a 2 month-in kind of job, but this is different. Your pussy makes him salivate and the way you touch yourself makes him feel all too primitive. Like he’s never heard a girl moan before. “Jagi. Come on.”  

It’s so damn hot to you that his dick sits there untouched, hips still glued as though he’s unaffected. You’re tuned in, though, to those things that tell you otherwise. The strain on his neck from where his bottom jaw clenches. English sidelined because he can’t think straight. His dick bobbing every time you hit an upstroke into yourself and the squelch rings out. He’s so damn horny, but he’ll wait on you. Knows seeking the end untouched is like drinking water after parching in the desert. 

“So beautiful. You’re so beautiful. The way you touch yourself is beautiful too.” His eyes are fluttering and he can’t look away from you. It has you shamelessly moaning. “God I’m hard.”

You laugh, knuckle deep and feel the spasm of your walls. He’s really hard with precum immodest and when you meet his eyes again he’s vulnerable, too thirsty, maybe, for what he’s subjected himself to.

You’re left wanting, “I really wanna taste.”

“Jesus.” Jeongguk whispers under his breath, throws his head back for good measure because he’s got a visual before the main course has even happened. “You can’t be so shameless, it has me thinking things.” Vivid, things. 

And his imagination plays out in real time when you descend onto the wooded floor. He stutters, splutters on his tongue when you’ve got long nails all up in his groin.

“F-fu- wait, Jagi, wait wait wait, jagi.” You’re an inch off, breath catching his tip and so close you can smell him. God you want a taste. “I’m- You can’t just.”

Ohhhh. 

“You’ll cum?”

He’s not ashamed, embarrassed or anything in between. Just the longing for more, eating away at him, and knowing he’s a gonner in less than a minute if you’re to lick him. 

“Just, fuck, Y/N. Just kiss me.”

You do. The head of his dick too appealing not to offer a peck to. 

“Fuck.” He hisses it between his teeth and seeks refuge under an arm as to not concern himself with the way your tits look under him. “Not ther-” but not all cravings can be fixed, and you’ve got a mouthful. 

His hand jerks out from where it situates beneath him. The dilemma as to whether his dick can handle the back of your throat, seemingly easier to combat if he can claw at his thighs. But you’ve fallen into a rhythm despite the discomfort of hard floorboards and empty walls, and he’s keening for it, low moans and harsh breaths when your throat constricts. 

“Jagi, I real- oh shit, I really might cum.” You want him to. But the look that glazes over him when he’s edged is too good to wait for. Hit hits your throat deep, “fuck fuck fuck fuck,” hands thrown into your hair because he thinks maybe he wants you to stop.

But there’s the edge, and for a second he thinks he’s too far past it, balls tightened and his chest caves at the promise of lodging a load in your throat. 

“Fuck!” You’re off him and shuffled back before he can cry wolf. Jeongguk helplessly grasps at his base, and screws his eyes tight to curb the feeling of blood rushing everywhere. 

You’ve got a vantage point like no other. A vista genuinely for the ‘my eyes only’. 

His chest violently rises and falls and his thighs shake at the same rate. It’s hard to reserve yourself from kissing up his legs, so you don’t, soft nips where the seam of his trousers would run and even though he was driven to maximum sensitivity, he wants you as close as you are.

You litter the expanse of his body until he can vent the lost orgasm into your mouth. A rage of tongues and spit that has your centre warm again. But he mellows out into you and plays seduction. 

“Jagi.”

“Mmm,” you speak amongst the twine of lips. 

“Let me kiss you.. Down there.” His eyes plague with sincerity. A wholehearted desire to taste you and taste you again, and you’re one to oblige. 

The sofa, whilst a two generation hand-me-down, offers more comfort than the floor and you bask in being pampered when Jeongguk lowers your front to it, situating a littered pillow below you to accentuate the curve of your back. Your behind sits bare with panties discarded and you look beautiful enough he’ll tell you. 

“Look at your body Jagi. How can you be mine?”

It’s unnerving being like this. Subject to alien words and a stare you can’t dilute. But it’s a package deal and Jeongguk doesn’t take long to offer the incentive. 

“Smell nice too.”

He traces the curve of your back with his palm the same way he strokes you between your legs. Fluid and warm and...

“Goddd, that’s good.”

Jeongguk basks in all things praise. An inflation to his own high. So he hums approval into you as you begin to writhe. 

You bite back the urge to push into him and seek a salacious end, frantic in the heat of lust, but Jeongguk keeps a controlled hold on you and eases the pressure away from the good spots, just so it’s better when he comes back for more. 

“Mmmm, good, good there.” Where he’s spreading you and planting muscle deep. He doesn’t resist the temptation to go north either and explore tighter areas, and he hums a smile when he garners an entirely different noise from you because, fuck, that’s sensitive.

“Jeongguk, oh- I might cum.”

“Yeh?” He’s in you and around you and kneading at your cheeks like he’s rallying himself up. He is. Running his body in time with your movement so there’s a subtle rut to edge himself to.

“Yeh.”

“I want that. Bad.”

You’re loud and knocking on the door of something breathtaking, now that he’s left romance for dead. He wants you to cum, and hard 

Fumbling an arm behind you until you can grapple onto the hairs of his head does little to prevent the sensation, the quaking and the tightening. He’s sinking a thumb against your rim and a tongue in your pussy and you indulge in it all.

“Shitshit oh my fucking god.” 

He moans when you strike gold and pulse from every point of your being. Entrapped in that disembodied feeling where everything’s too good and all at once. It lags and Jeongguk’s hands purchase hard when you clench on his tongue. 

“Shit.”

He lets you down easy though, mindful of all of the places that could be a cause for over-sensitivity - save that for another day - and nuzzles into your thigh. 

The need to move lingers whilst you carry yourself away into the thrones of exhaustion, mind fizzing as you boyfriend sucks the meat of your ass with tempt. He’s wanting and you’ve got a craving to see him cum, but everything's numb. 

“Jagi.”

“Mmm.” 

You feel him before see him crawling up you, his front flush to you just as a means of exaggerating where he lays hard and in wait. He let you edge him and made you cum, a cause for a gold star among other things, so you flip over, careful not to knock him where it hurts, and pull at the straggling hairs the band can’t accommodate for. 

“I want you. I want you really bad.” He feels selfish for feeling like it’s his right to claim an end. But there’s a genuine cause for concern that he’s been hard for so long, and will be as long as you lay bare and beautiful, and the biology of the situation isn’t just coincidental with his want. 

But he kisses you soft and the sense of obligation dissipates into the desire to see him undone. 

“You gonna fuck me?” He’s desperate to, and you laying pliant beneath him has his lust escalating quickly. 

“Yes, yesyesyes jagi.” But as to not cum to quick he settles into stroking his length between where you’re wet. The sensitivity has lessened, but the rush of blood still is a cause for a grimace. Jeongguk kisses it out of you, settling into a rhythm of tongue then teeth then tongue then teeth. You’re lost enough, he’s sinking into your walls unhinged. 

“Fuck.”

“God, how can you feel like this every time.” He’s driven to the edge of insanity with every feel of your walls, like a first time every time, uncharted territory he wants to explore as soon as he’s explored. 

You grapple from the sweaty hairs that line his neck to where his muscles contract and sink now that he’s easing you into compliance. Not that it wasn’t easy to. But your walls, spent previously, make the glide a little harder in the promise that it’ll make him cum quick. 

“You good? This good?” He caters for you in a strained plea. 

“Amazing. God. A little faster.”

He’s sure to combust, purchasing his mouth on your neck and choking grunts into the skins there when his hips begin to snap and balls begin to ring an echo onto the four walls.

“Fuck jagi. Thank you. God, thank you.” He prays to your pussy as his abs clench in the knowledge that he’s teetering on the edge. Every run against you has him keening. 

“Hold me.” He nestles his cheek to your hair until your breaths are synced, “don’t cum yet. Please, god-hm,” you choke, “don’t cum.”

“Oh god, oh god,” he’ll get you there, but he’s sweating out the urge to spill into you. He wants to see you done, hear you moan, have you every kind of euphoric. So he licks his thumb quick and has it in between you and on your clit quicker. A pressure and nothing more because he knows what hurts you. 

He’s hissing at the strain, but you’re left in hopeless moans. 

“Cumming, baby, cu- fuck.” There’s nothing stopping the assault of your walls on him as everything tightens and then releases. You quiver into him. 

“Oh, you got so tight. Fuckfuck, oh god.” Jeongguk gives into it, too, when his body shudders and he pulls you tight, “ah,” spilling everything and it’s so hot but he’s heady enough that none of it matters. 

You bask in that feeling for however long, lulling his shakes with a trail of nails through his hair down to his back, and nuzzle where your cheeks meet. 

His back rises and falls and rises and falls and it’s all things soothing. 

So you whisper lowly, “Guk.”

He shifts fractionally and huffs at the exertion of it all, body pliable and soft in and around you.

“Baby, we can’t fall asleep here.”

You know he’ll ask for a few more minutes, the true post orgasm baby that he is. 

“Just a few more minutes.” 

You laugh in the way of your predictable boy and snuggle him further now that he’s cocooned, the tingles in your toes eases and he might lay heavy on you but it’s comforting that his body moves to the puff of your chest. It’s like watching the clouds in the sky morph from one figure to another. Like the soft ticking of a metronome. Like counting sheep. And it’s easy to let ‘just a few more minutes’ trickle on and on. 

What Jeongguk wants, Jeongguk gets. 

[zuzuslastbraincell]

I’ve spent all morning thinking about how the gaang would play tabletop roleplaying games (because of course I have, this is the most on-brand thing I’ve ever done) and here’s my thoughts:

sokka GMs. let’s be honest, he’s the only person who could without it turning into an utter disaster, but also, it’s his idea, he suggests it, he’s super excited about it, they probably start off with some ATLA equivalent of D&D, because almost everyone does, but he probably branches out as he explores more and he gets super into the indie tabletop scene and ends up mixing systems & house-ruling it to create their own extremely weirdly specific homebrew game. he takes being GM very seriously, of course. his preparation folder is intimidatingly huge. he has notes on everything and nobody understands how he keeps up.

suki isn’t a nerd, does not Get it, really (at first), but she joins in because her boyfriend is really excited. she plays a very strong warrior lady :). over time, as she gets better with her character and gets her head around the concept of roleplaying, she gets super into it, and becomes one of the most valued players at the table. she’s a great player but always considerate of people around the table and understands, intuitively, that TTRPGs are a team effort, a collaborative practice, even when there’s a GM.

zuko has no idea what roleplaying games is because he grew up exclusively reading classic literature, but he immediately latches onto the roleplaying aspect of the game, gets super invested into his character, is that player who has written a novel in the ‘background’ section of the character sheet. i can see him play a support character, like a healer/cleric or such, or potentially even a sage/druid who lives in the woods. unfortunately, he has literally no idea how to craft a character that will be effective in play, and constantly fails his rolls because he dumped all his skill points into animal handling (zuko will defend this to his dying breath though). despite this, he’s the most invested in the game after sokka, and I think the seriousness with which he takes it inspires others to take it seriously as well. he gets people to emotionally connect with their story and embrace their characters’ flaws and it makes sokka reassess how he plays as a GM (I imagine Sokka tends towards really crunchy and mechanical games, but playing with Zuko makes him rethink that)

mai joins because zuko suggests it to sokka. sokka is skeptical, but actually, mai takes to it immediately, is a really valuable player, and gets it - mechanically, and also in terms of roleplaying. she’s not put off by the nerdishness of it all, doesn’t find it hard to immerse herself into a fantasy world, ends up looking at the players handbook in depth and crafts a really interesting character who mixes elements of two different classes in a believable way (i’m personally thinking some kind of rogue or an artificer). as a late joiner, mai is happy to adapt to the existing party, and just vibes with the group immediately.

sokka, suki, mai, and zuko make the core group most of the time and everyone else is an occasional player.

katara refuses to join at first because she’s not doing something her dorky brother suggests. as the first campaign goes on, and she realises suki (who is cool, even if she’s dating her brother) and zuko (her other best friend after aang) are both still invested in it, she gives it a shot. her brother helps set up most of her character sheet, which is a cool ice sorcerer-type character that he thinks she’ll like, and she appreciates the effort, and gives it her best shot, but honestly? i don’t think katara really ever gets it. she can waterbend! why would she want to pretend to be a character who can waterbend? she also keeps forgetting turn order is a thing by accident, and doesn’t understand why she can’t just charge into action.

aang is interested because many of his friends are interested. like zuko, he had no idea what this was before sokka got into it, but the monks used to play board games all the time. sokka helps him build a character sheet, and is surprised by the research he’s done into it already (aang cares about what his friends care about imo), and i think he probably ends up playing a few sessions - and they vibe really well, even if aang is a little new to all this. i think aang is most likely playing some kind of unconventional charisma based character, but it’s a fun fit, and takes the story in interesting direction. i think after a few sessions aang drops out - largely because he takes issue with how combat is the primary method of conflict resolution in the game they’re playing, and he tells sokka he’s done enough of that in his life already, and would rather roleplay something other than war or fighting. sokka respects this completely. in fact, i think aang is the other person who really affects how sokka looks at tabletop, and he ends up researching independent two-player games which aren’t focussed on combat, and plays one-shots now and again with aang (and zuko, occasionally too). whenever people want to take a break from the main campaign and play another system for a couple of sessions, aang is always invited.

toph is almost the opposite problem. She's super excited to play because tabletop is mostly oral storytelling & very accesible for her, she’s attentive to the mechanics and builds her own very powerful character who fight her through everything, but is very combat focussed. She isn’t interested in roleplaying much, and finds that aspect of it a little baffling and outside of her comfort zone, quite frankly, and it requires a bit of vulnerability she isn't really there for yet. she clashes with zuko a few times over that. I think she also struggles - as in canon - a little with being a team player at first too i think she swings between katara’s camp of ‘this is dumb’, and becomes an on-and-off player but after a few weeks off, joins in again, before giving it another shot. sokka definitely helps her out here and tries to talk through some of her issues and mediate and find a common ground between what she wants to play vs. what the rest of the table want. she gets super into it eventually, after a few arguments and teething problems, and is a much loved player. she and zuko's characters definitely have a rivals to best friends arc lol.

ty lee never plays herself but often watches because mai’s there. she claims she ‘doesn’t get it’ but somehow has zuko’s spell list memorised, and usually knows exactly what’s happening in the story at any given time.

azula is banned from playing because she likes to antagonise player characters. she minmaxes everything, has calculated how to make the most effective character (which sokka begrudgingly respects), but killed off zuko’s first character the first time they ever played (she claims it’s his fault for having such an ineffective build). after some years, when azula has chilled out a bit more, sokka ends up playing a brutal game of pathfinder when they’re both at university with a different group of friends. it’s only then that sokka realises azula’s about as much a theatre kid as zuko, just through how theatrical her roleplaying is.

[isoisolated]

I have ADHD and it's not fun

29/12 edit: coming back to this post, I just wanted to add that at the time of writing, my adhd was unmedicated. Thought this might be good thing to note. 

My friend Ondrej kept sending me articles and texts posts written by other adhd people (mostly adult males) that it finally pushed me to write my own, because even though I could relate to some minor and major parts, something always felt a bit of and also because ADHD is a condition that's been heavily ignored by medical professionals not only in adults, but especially in adult women, which is a group I sort of represent myself. 

I could talk about this for ages, my therapist frequently tells me that I have this gift of intense self-analysis and immense passion to get it all sorted out once for all. I guess it's another way of saying I'm so hyperaware of my own existence and my brain simply latches onto it and constantly tries to solve its own problems. 

If you do not care about my own personal history, just skip to second headline.

I was clueless for the first 20 years of my existence

Now, ADHD isn't the only thing that's been making me feel almost alien, I dare to say that my puberty years were mostly about developing and internalising bit of trauma and processes that do no good in later life. 

I love music. And I mean I truly endlessly unconditionally love music. Being a daughter of music composer, I was 6 when I first asked my dad to show me where to press record in Logic Pro and told him to leave me alone while I recorded my first song. It was called Autumn is here and it sounded like something made by 6 years old. 

I remember we were attending castings for TV shows or commercials and later I was told that it was me who initiated such trips and that I always wanted to be a part of such things. I don't remember initiating such things but I remember for sure that I was very shy and uncomfortable when I was supposed to show off. 

I remember I was supposed to take piano lessons. And I was so baffled that I had to follow the book and play what's in the book, instead of playing thing I wanted. I think I told my parents after few lessons that I do not like it and was dropped outta it. This became a pattern, if I recall correctly. 

But that's nothing out of ordinary, kids are harder to get focused and entertained. I remember two moments from elementary school where I was told by my classmates that I'm acting like I have ADHD and it got me real mad every time, because in my head ADHD looked like not paying attention in class, being body hyper and overall just annoying. 

I could find a proof that I made myself first to-do list when I was 14. Since 14 I felt like I need more self control and self regulation, that I need to fit myself more into ambitions I had and have and in order to do that, I started making to-do lists with ambiguous tasks such as “work more on music” and “work-out”. It was also in during my great isolation era, I had no real life friends but one that I was seeing occasionally, I wasn't going out, I came from school on Friday afternoon and left my room on Monday morning. I was making friends online since I was 11 and lived mostly online. 

At that time I also started figuring out what was wrong with me. Since ever I always felt a bit “off” compared to my peers, I always felt weird (and was told that thousand of times in my life), I always felt like I was thinking about things a bit differently and my humour was different and my hobbies were seen obscure by my classmates (even though they weren't obscure at all). I felt alone for most of my growing up and feelings of complete loneliness and detachment haunt me to this day, making me spiral. 

I thought I might suffer from bipolar disorder, because I had high energy episodes and my emotions were so intense. I was crying almost everyday for both external and internal reasons, my head sometimes felt like too much and I found temporary peace in self-help books and esotericism. 

I was around 17-18 when I realised all of this is bullshit and that no book can make me do things that I wanna do. I'd spent hours, days and months thinking about doing things, being crippled by this weird force that hold my body down, unable to do anything, no matter how much I wanted it. I'd beat myself up for it, thinking I was just so damn lazy and stupid and pretentious. I wanna be a popstar, a successful musician, I have to do all these things and if not, I'm gonna fail so much and my life will lose its meaning. 

When I was 17, I released my first EP and for some reason, it found some attention and success, if we might call it that. Suddenly I felt on the right path, I was seen as a musician and also very young one. Even though I still was sad almost every day or had intense sadness episodes that could last for a week, it felt right and I couldn't wait to finish high school and become a full time musician. 

I'd produce music in unplanned episodes of total focus, where I would sit and do things for hours straight, without eating. My most favorite songs were made during 6-8 hour sessions and it felt amazing. I couldn't bring myself to produce music if I hadn't the right vibe or idea for it. 

It was around that time this woman texted me, saying she wants to be my manager and that she really likes my music. It felt so unreal but here I am, with my own professional manager, on my way to be the most amazing music person.

I'd crush on people (and mostly boys and men) constantly, it was also very episodic, could last for days to month where I'd had nothing on my mind but them, drowned in daydreaming and just imagining things and also letting them know all of that. It was magical but it was fleeting. It still is. But it is the greatest inspiration, where I feel so much emotions it makes me see things and then I can transform them into music. 

But there was still something wrong with me, I was very emotional, still struggling with making my routines work, I'd come up with new plans and schedules every week just to fail them the day after. It was exhausting and I saw nothing alike in my world too, I was alone and my experience was just not enough will power. 

I could get mad so easily, I'd clench my fists and was so close to punching someone and when I hated someone I hated them with immense passion and spent hours just imagining myself confronting them. I was so mad all the time on background too and even slightest thing would put me in classic rage mode.

I have problems remembering dates and names, I'm bad at remembering people's faces, I'm bad at learning things by myself even though I have interest in them. I'm bad at making routine for myself and actually following it.

I finished high school and planned to go study abroad but it turned out it isn't what I want so I came back and started looking for a job. Around that time I met my now best friend and thanks to him I actually started thinking even harder what might be wrong with me, so I looked up ADHD. And didn't believe that at all. I wasn't like this, was I? 

Then, the summer came and I met my friend (and also a fan) while being out for a beer. We chatted, had a great time and then told me I kinda am like a person with ADD. I was confused because I didn't recall what that does mean, later I remembered it's another (and outdated) term for ADHD, but it's the “quiet type”, where the hype happens mostly inside and doesn't manifest outside that much. So I started researching once again, because I trusted him and it was that one push I needed.

It's been year since that moment and it took me months to accept that I might suffer from ADHD and to this day I still have feelings of impostor syndrome, making it all harder for myself just like that, to be more interesting for myself. I still yet have to accept this. 

I was transitioning into adulthood and yet had actual emotional breakdowns, I was crying and my heart was aching and I couldn't bring myself to do things I want, to learn more about music production, to learn how to sing better, to learn my favorite k-pop choreos, to work-out, to embody my own vision of who I want to be. With music, I am my own boss and it's the worst.

Covid-19 hit our country and here came the first lockdown. It pushed me over the edge and I felt like I was losing all of my friends, I felt those feelings of loneliness and weirdness again, I felt like nobody knows what's wrong because I don't have it as bad as others, I was hurting so much my body was shaking and twisting. I decided to try medication, even though I told my psychiatrist I don't want to, I just felt like I cannot be like this anymore, it's too much pain and no matter how much I try, I can't make it better, I can't make it work. 

I started taking Strattera and after month or two, I saw it working. A bit, I could focus better and bring myself to do things more and more frequently, and if I had these weird emotional meltdowns, they weren't as intense as before. This serves me as ultimate proof that I am not making this up, because if I were, the medication wouldn't work and make me feel better, right? 

So, what am I doing now? 

I'm still a huge mess and I cannot see myself in a better light. Even though I have job that I perform at at stable rate, even though I have just a little problem cooking for myself, even though I have no troubles falling asleep, even though I can enjoy things greatly when those high energy waves hit me. 

I'm tired of myself, I'm tired of myself not being able to do anything again. I ignore my manager because I already know I have nothing else to say than “I cannot bring myself to do things and you know that, I'm sorry for being a constant failure.” When people compliment me, I thank them but deep inside I don't accept it. 

I have unreleased and WIP songs I can see never being released, ever. When I listen to music from my favorite artists, I can also feel the pain from the fact that I'm not like them and that I probably won't ever be, because my brain sabotages me every damn time. 

From the very moment I wake up to the very moment I fall asleep, there's music playing in my head. I don't choose what's playing, sometimes it's song I don't even like and yet it's stuck on loop. I talk with my therapist in my head, I'm having weird flashbacks in my head to my memories, I'm having “you should do X right now” and “why aren't you doing Y” stuck on loop too. This all is happening at once, every moment I'm awake, even when I'm talking with people. It's exhausting. 

I'm bored most of the time, I have interesting books in my bookshelf and still cannot read them because I have to reread paragraphs in order to actually understand them. And even then, I find my mind wandering again. I have problems with long texts and long tutorials.

I get frustrated easily, my head is overflowing with ideas I can't act on. I'm living in weird worlds I made up for myself, and then reality hits me. 

I had my first depressive episode few months ago. I felt like nothing matters, that I don't matter, I felt nothing and emptiness, I crawled up in bed and was mindlessly watching youtube videos. I didn't want to eat or drink, I wanted to not exist at all. That episode passed but it was my first encounter with actual depressive state and I know I can slip into it more easily now, it simply developed along the way, after 21 years without acknowledging that I have problems and I struggle. 

People don't understand the struggle, when talking to them about my problems, it's like talking to an automated assistant, coming up with phrases like “Did you try yoga?” “everyone struggles sometime” “you cannot accomplish everything”. They say they wanna listen and help until they don't. 

I have a mental graveyard for ideas I won't ever finish, no matter how good they are, because my brain won't let me. Proper medication would help, therapy also helps but I can't talk myself out of actual executive dysfunction. 

ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder, our brains are literally underdeveloped in some areas and wired differently. Our emotions lack regulation normal people have and our motivation is fragile. This can't be changed with yoga, this cannot be solved by trying more. Not to even mention, capitalist society is especially damaging to neurodivergent people (and not only them, of course). 

While on this journey, I am still meeting more and more people having same struggles like me, finding people who understand you is the best thing to battle impostor syndrome. Sometimes I can't help them and sometimes they can't help me, but it's okay, because we know we understand each other and if I wanna complain and vent, we can do so without having to explain this condition over and over. 

And I hope that someone finds this relatable too, because as a woman I know my group isn't represented enough. We are not children, nor adult males, we need more attention and more support, from both healthcare system and each other. 

While doing this, I hope to get myself proper medication and continue doing what I love the most - music. I don't love anything else more than that. I hope to get rid of “all or nothing” mindset, I hope to be more consistent, I hope my music will reach its listeners and fans. I still have enough time, I think, even though my sense of time is neurologically altered. 

[my-miraculous-headcanons]

Kim Possible AU

In which Marinette is in gymnastics, is childhood friends with Adrien, and somehow became an agent-for-hire when someone accidentally dialed her number to call for help instead of actual, professionally trained agents. That’s right, they called a preteen for help, didn’t have the time to call anyone else, and rolled with it.

Also Adrien is a total goofball with a hairless cat. He still has both his parents, who start out overprotective but gradually loosen the reigns when it becomes clear that his friend will keep him safe.

(The reason I put gymnastics and not cheerleading is because I’m pretty sure that’s an exclusively American thing? Besides, gymnastics kind of makes more sense, skillset-wise.)

Origins

     • Marinette took gymnastics since she was seven, mainly because her clumsiness had been turning into a bit of a problem. (Parents start to get worried when their child’s having genuine physical difficulty in not hurting themselves. They thought gymnastics would help her learn balance, and also allow her to burn off some of her natural childlike energy.) By the age of eleven, Marinette is the best in her class, and is thinking about entering competitions.

     • Adrien is Marinette’s childhood best friend. Along with gymnastics, Marinette also started taking ballet, which is where the two met. Adrien was taking ballet because both his parents had taken it, and also because he thought it would be fun. Since he’d been taking it longer than Marinette, he helped her out in class, and the two have been inseparable ever since.

     • Adrien helped Marinette build a website to help get her name out there when they were eleven. They took videos of her doing a couple moves, and added a contact number. Unfortunately, (or, rather fortunately, actually,) Marinette’s number is very similar to a number for a group of agents who do pretty dangerous, life-saving jobs. 

     • Marinette’s first call is from a man requesting for help at a rather big bank in Paris, not far from her house. Being eleven, she doesn’t really understand that this is probably something she should inform the police, rather than handle herself. So, she and Adrien (who she sneaks out of his house) rush over, and save the day themselves.

     • Adrien had videotaped the impressive gymnastics Marinette had pulled off in order to safely get through the security lasers and shut them off. After that video was posted, she started getting calls on a much more regular basis, all from people in need of help. It wasn’t the sort of attention she was looking for when making the website, but she can’t deny she doesn’t love her new job.

The Present

     • By the ages of 16, Marinette and Adrien have travelled all over the world, gaining favors from a bunch of grateful individuals, and are pretty dang famous. They aren’t necessarily given special privileges at school, but if things are urgent, then they’re allowed to leave and makeup missing work online. 

     • Adrien is still a model, still plays piano, still takes Chinese, and still does a lot of different sports. On his own, he’s actually pretty famous. However, in this world, it’s pretty much impossible for him to display the ‘perfect, gentlemanly son’ persona when most of the world has seen videos of him screaming at the top of his lungs, running around in his underwear because somehow his pants got pulled off again. Yeah, he’s a straight A student with the classic, rich people training, but he’s still an utter dork and everyone knows it.

     • Marinette, while still taking gymnastics, has lost interest in making it a life career when she already sort of does it already. She’s picked up other interests, one of them being fashion design when Adrien had introduced her to what goes on behind the scenes in his workplace. She’s good at designing stylish, yet very practical outfits, and made uniforms for herself and Adrien for their ‘side jobs’ as agents-for-hire. 

     • While Adrien isn’t necessarily incompetent, he’s more of the ‘do first, think later’ type of guy when it comes to their dynamic, which often leaves Marinette to do the planning and problem-solving. At this point, it’s kind of abundantly obvious that, while Adrien is academically more profound, Marinette is vastly more analytical, and probably has a ridiculously high IQ if they ever bothered to check. 

     • There isn’t a main villain. Papillion doesn’t exist because Gabriel is completely aware of what his son is doing, still has his darling wife, and has literally no reason to waste his money on illegal activities. He’s a big name in the fashion world, it’s not like he’s looking for world domination or something stupid like that.

     • (I’m sure you’re wondering why the fuck Gabriel Agreste would let his only son go off on dangerous adventures like that on a daily. Well, he didn’t at first, but over time Marinette proved to be a more effective bodyguard than Adrien’s actual bodyguard, so he became more chill. Also, Adrien’s the face of his company, and with all the brave and daring things he’s done alongside Marinette, his popularity ratings are through the roof. Son has fun, is well-taken care of, still performs exceptionally in all his extracurriculars, and does well by the family business? It’s a win-win on all sides.)

     • I would make Lila Shego, except Shego is an actually likeable villain who’s genuinely smart, badass, and fun to watch. So, idk who Shego is, definitely not any of the catty girl rivals Marinette has to put up with, but you can’t have a Kim Possible AU without Shego, so she’s definitely in there. 

     • Max is probably Wade. Honestly makes the most sense, but here’s a suggestion: Max and Kim are the ones who contact Marinette when she has a mission. Max is great with numbers, technology, etc, but Kim’s expertise in completely random shit like sports, terrain, and necessary gear needed for specific situations makes him a valuable asset to the team.

     • We all know who Chloé is going to be, I don’t even need to say it but I will anyways. Say hello to our Bonnie, everyone. She was probably in that ballet class with Marinette and Adrien too, years ago. 

     • While Tom Dupain is still a baker, in this AU Sabine Cheng went on to pursue her dream as a literal rocket scientist, and succeeded. So, Sabine is basically Dr. James Timothy Possible. 

     • Adrien has a hairless cat named Plagg. His father is allergic to fur, and Adrien’s allergic to feathers, so he was sort of limited to pets like fish or lizards, neither of which he really wanted. He found Plagg outside gorging himself on camembert by a dumpster. Having been previously a street cat, Plagg’s growth was stunted, so he stayed pretty small.

     • Luka is obviously Josh Mankey. Marinette and Luka date for a while, but eventually break up on mutual terms due to him not being able to handle some of the dangerous things that pop up in her life often. While he doesn’t panic when things go south, he’s not really physically equipped to protect himself... He’s a musician, not a fighter.

     • Listen, y’all can fight me, Marinette’s longest relationship before finally getting together with Adrien is going to be with Kagami. Kagami handles the dangerous things that go on in Marinette’s life perfectly well, and they date for several months. Eventually, they do break up, but still remain good friends. (This is the period in which Adrien realises he’s jealous of Kagami, and has feelings for Marinette.)

Get Together

     • For those of you who haven’t watched Kim Possible, (and honestly what the hell are you even doing with your life if you haven’t,) Kim and Ron get together at a school dance (prom, but I don’t think prom exists in France,) and share a slow dance with each other. Uhhh so basically think Despair Bear, except Adrien and Marinette are wearing fancy clothes, just got together, and share a kiss in the end.

     • Marinette had recently broken up with Kagami before the dance, and is a little upset over not having a date when she already made herself a dress. Adrien is dealing with his realisation that he likes Marinette romantically, but keeps quiet about it and gives her a shoulder to cry on because she’s hurt, and he’s not going to take advantage of that. He suggests they go to the dance together as friends.

     • Kagami is there, and Adrien confronts her as to why she had broken up with the most amazing girl in Paris. She tells him that she came to the conclusion that, though she loved Marinette with all her heart, Marinette clearly had someone else as her #1. Kagami was sick of having to compete for that position when the other person didn’t even need to try. Adrien is left baffled by this.

     • Marinette overhears this as she’s walking over to ask Adrien for a dance. Kagami looked past Adrien’s shoulder, directly into Marinette’s eyes, and smiled knowingly. Then she walked away, sipping at her drink. 

     • Adrien turns around, pretty green eyes latching onto hers, and Marinette immediately understands what Kagami had meant. A slow song comes on, and she asks him to dance. Things fall in place from there.

     • (Of course, after they’ve kissed and become a couple, some dumb villain is going to inevitably crash the party and try to kill Marinette, as usual, but they deal with it like they always do.)

Alright that’s the end! This was an almost completed draft of mine I had, and since I’ve been lacking on content recently, I thought I’d quickly polish this up a bit and post it. I also have some other completed things I could polish up on, but eh, don’t feel like it right now. Enjoy!

(And maybe tell me how you’d imagine your favourite KP episode would go with Marinette and Adrien as the protagonists instead!)

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: The Greatest Kingdom

Hello, glorious RWBY fandom! It’s that time of the year again. No, not the holidays. Rather, it’s the roughly twelve weeks where my Saturdays are lost to the void of churning out 4,000+ words of typo-laden analysis for our favorite web-series. Does that sound like a good time? If so, stick around and keep reading.

Now, those of you who joined us last year will recall that I took issue with numerous aspects of Volume Six. Many of you are capable of summarizing these aspects in great detail considering that the conversation never stopped on my blog between January 26th and, well, today. But for those of you who don’t otherwise suffer my metas or who might be joining us for the first time, here’s a very short guide to the stuff we’ve been chatting about the last few months:

Holy shit they really went all in on dragging Ozpin, huh?

Is the group part of a collective consciousness now? What happened to diverse thinking?

Should un-licensed teenagers steal military property and start grimm-drawing battles with national allies? No or double no?

We hate adults? Is that really a thing?

When will Oscar’s on-screen development come back from the war?

There are numerous, numerous other connected topics, from Rooster Teeth’s handling of physical assault all the way to theories regarding the relic’s potential influence and Jinn’s motives, but that’s the basic gist. Oh, and we now have a subset of the fandom who got big mad over fans headcanoning trans!Nora based on her new color scheme. ... So that’s where we’re starting this volume off.

Just so we’re all on the same page:

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Anyhoo, with that bare-bones context out of the way, let’s dive in.

We begin, as usual, with a shot of the shattered moon. Except this is the first volume where we know precisely what happened to it and all it may mean for humanity. It lends a certain amount of gravitas to our start. Now, rather than the more generic, “Ah. Right. That motif. Still a mystery, huh?” shots of the moon function as a quick reminder of the group’s new stakes. 99% of the time the focus is on Salem and our heroes’ attempts to keep this genocidal dictator from destroying and/or enslaving the entire world, but “The Lost Fable” set up that the true, end-game antagonists have always been the gods. Even if Salem is destroyed, they still exist as a continued threat to humanity. If they wish to use the gods to help them in their quest against Salem, they likewise risk their judgment. Having introduced them, that’s a tricky problem the show is going to have to solve before its end.

For now though we pan down to the Atlas military, numerous ships and lots of chatter over the radio setting up precisely how massive, organized, and deadly this army is. I would like to remind everyone that this is what the group deliberately decided to piss off by not merely stealing an airship, but unnecessarily attacking the head special operative of the Argus base. The fact that the military has grown more “aggressive” in Weiss’ absence has no bearing on her original knowledge that stealing/attacking this group would be a horrendous idea. She knew it. Qrow knew it. Everyone ignored that in favor of Jaune’s idiotic plan. I bring this up not to rub more salt in a long open wound, but to re-establish how the group is, thus far, unable to think ahead and accurately weigh the consequences of their actions. More on that later.

Their ship, Manta 5-1, is welcomed home and instructed to land so that a security team can debrief them. Whoops. Jaune, again in his infinite wisdom, reminds everyone that they achieved their goal of getting to Atlas. So now they just need to find some answers, yeah? Not quite. Weiss immediately points out that landing with a stolen ship means that security won’t let them anywhere near Ironwood… which, again, is something that holds true regardless of whether the military got more aggressive and their leader more dictator-y. This is not new information. Oddly enough, a group of teenagers with only one licensed huntsmen among them (considering that Maria is presumably still keeping a low profile) flying a stolen airship doesn’t exactly breed the sort of confidence that lets anyone---paranoid or not---approach a leader. These were all issues from the start that the group didn’t bother to consider in their haste to finish this mission.

“They might even take me back to my father,” Weiss says. Another concern that they’re only realizing now, yet one that the fandom latched onto immediately. Though mostly in the wrong way. It’s because Jacques is a threat that they should have found a more covert way into Atlas, or waited to hear from Ironwood, or just send Weiss herself with Cordovin’s blessing… Yes, much of the fandom got quite defensive at that suggestion, claiming that sending Weiss “alone” (she never would have been alone. Bird uncle. Fits into a suitcase grandma) was tantamount to handing her to Jacques wrapped up in a bow. Except, as is made perfectly clear here, it’s their illegal activity that endangers them. Which is more likely to get you sent off to daddy? Acting like a child by stealing military property and then getting caught? Or entering Atlas as a huntress with a special operative’s blessing, carrying instructions that you are to meet with Ironwood as soon as possible? To say the team dropped the ball on this one is an understatement.

Those, however, are all past options now far out of reach. Weiss decides then that she’ll simply call Winter and I absolutely adore Kara’s voice acting here. She managed to imbue so much into a single name, conveying Weiss’ realization, hope, and love for her sister in just two quick syllables. I feel like I got more insight into Weiss through that moment alone then the entirety of Volume Six. Only problem? Blake notices another feed where a recording of Winter emphasizes that anyone found breaking Atlas law will face punishment---something our group will be quite familiar with by the end of the episode---and Qrow decides that they probably shouldn’t go charging into Winter and Ironwood’s hands until they know more about the situation.

Which is the smartest decision we’ve seen in a while, considering that Ironwood’s own feed leaves little to the imagination. He continues to sport that beard, giving him more of a disheveled appearance compared to Volumes 1-3. His voice is as authoritative as ever and he literally towers high above all the people he’s supposedly protecting, keeping his distance from both the city and the airships that ‘govern’ it. A few moments earlier we got to see the startling contrast between the military life and the civilians’. Warm reds and browns give (in this case a literal) down-to-Earth feel and the neon signs are easy markers of a low-class neighborhood. You know the stereotyped kind: cheap food and cheaper entertainment. Compared to the whites and blues of the Atlas clouds, paralleling their elite (and thereby expensive) technology, the city below feels like a slum in comparison, reinforced by the dirty, drunk, and at times violent background characters that populate it. 

As Maria says later, “A home in the clouds is as bright as it gets,” to which Nora responds, “Unless you’re the one having to look up at it,” something she’d be very familiar with as a child stealing bread in the otherwise plentiful looking Kuroyuri. There are contrasts in coloring, dialogue, as well as framing here. Compare Ironwood’s sky-high observation to Pietro’s existence as a black man, in a wheelchair, doing volunteer work in what’s established as a dump. He’s as “low” as he can possibly be and acknowledges that he prefers to actually be among the people, not standing literally or figuratively above them. Just in case the audience misses these cues, we get some rather ominous music on top of all that and fearful looks between Ruby and Yang.

Ironwood’s recording says that some people may view these as “uncertain times,” likewise contrasting Glynda’s recording in the very first episode, announcing that they live in an “extraordinary time of peace.” Whether there’s uncertainty or not, Ironwood promises that Atlas will remain “safe and strong,” even if the other Kingdoms have begun to falter. The speech has a very ‘Us vs. Them’ quality about it.

“He looks tired,” Ruby comments and I just need to chuck another fandom into the mix real quick because:

Under these circumstances, “tired” doesn’t just require the John Mulaney advice of, “Get some rest, tall child!” It’s a clear dig at the leader’s capabilities and even their mental faculties. “James… what have you been doing?” Qrow asks, thereby re-framing “tired” as the nice euphemism for “gone off the deep end.” It remains to be seen though precisely how much of Ironwood’s paranoia is literal paranoia in the sense that it’s illogical and undeserved, and how much of these changes are highly undesirable, but potentially justifiable decisions. After all, we as the audience know precisely how dangerous Salem and her crew are. We know why Beacon fell. We’re privy to the stakes in a way that the average, angry Atlas citizen is not. All Ironwood can do in the face of such odds is try to prepare for every eventuality… it just looks like he’s reached a point where those preparations have started infringing on basic human rights. It’s a very sad setup. A classic case of the wrong things done for the right reasons.

There’s a check-in from the radio tower, whoever’s in charge wondering why Manta 1-5 hasn’t gone towards their landing pad yet. Maria comments that the lady should take a hint and starts finding a different place to land. Which in hindsight is kind of funny because they obviously did take a hint… and then sent out a special team to deal with the implications of that hint.

As the group starts exploring we get a lovely shot demonstrating how much they stand out in this new environment.

Though there’s some color in the neon signs, the otherwise overwhelming brown/beige/black/red makes elements like Nora’s pink skirt and Weiss’ white hair stick out like sore thumbs. As we’ll see in a minute, there are obviously in-world difficulties with them passing as average citizens, but it’s also a signal to the audience that, for now at least, they’re really out of their depth. This is the “greatest kingdom” referenced in our title. 

Maria is leading them to a friend of hers when a bot takes an interest in these obvious outsiders. It approaches Yang at the back of the group, takes an unexpected picture, and she responds by kicking it into the street where it sparks with damage before getting hit by a truck.

(Flashback to Ruby and Penny, anyone?)

Now, I’m honestly on the fence about this moment. You could make the case that they’re all traumatized fighters and responding to that flash was a logical, instinctual response. You can even argue that, just hours after taking her first faunus life, Yang is more than a little on edge—even though the premier doesn’t reference this incredibly significant event at all, outside of Blake’s quick realization that her blade is still broken. Both are valid and easily supported readings. However, I’m still hyper aware that this is Yang. The character who, for two volumes now, has been characterized very strongly by her, “attack first, ask questions later” attitude. Out of all the characters we could have seen instinctively attacking something that hadn’t actually done her any harm, choosing Yang holds the most weight. The story also lightly acknowledges that this was an extreme response, what with the group staring at her and Yang’s sheepish expression.

Whether it’s specifically in the context of trauma over the fight with Adam, or more broadly acknowledging Yang’s tendency to both assume and act on the worst in people, I hope this volume helps her manage these instincts. One talk with Tai about not punching through problems isn’t going to cut it. Especially when her forceful attitude has caused much of the internal conflict recently. 

It’s after this that the group is accosted by a drunk man, functioning largely as exposition to explain what’s been going on in Atlas and why the people are so scared and angry about it. Pissed enough to get literally pissed, of the inebriated variety. Here then, we return to the “this group of teenagers is really bad at thinking ahead” issue that I mentioned earlier. Ruby is all ready to start a fight---referencing her newfound willingness to escalate situations that don’t necessitate escalation---and it’s Blake who holds her back, reminding Ruby that they can’t afford to cause a scene. Which is fantastic. Except they end up causing a scene anyway when the drunk calls Blake a “stupid faunus” and Weiss uses a glyph to chuck him into the trash.

Is seeing a racist asshole get his just desserts extremely satisfying? Absolutely and from a representation perspective I’m thrilled to see Rooster Teeth taking a hard stance in their story. From an in-world perspective though, that was an incredibly bad decision. We’ve been establishing since minute one of this premier that the group needs to be cautious. Blake herself, the victim here, just told Ruby not to endanger the whole group by defending her honor… and then Weiss swoops in to do it anyway. There are two priorities here, to your friends and to your mission, and the issue is that Team RWBY has a tendency to consistently prioritize the former, something that wouldn’t be an issue if this was still a low-key story about a group of students and not would-be, formal huntresses trying to save the world. The choice to attack rather than walking away---paralleling last volume’s final battle---speaks to their inability to think ahead and weigh their priorities. “It was worth it,” Weiss says, but is it? Now that you’ve caused the scene that you couldn’t afford? Now that this guy recognized your glyphs and you’ve blown your cover? I realize I’ll probably get heat for this, but there’s a difference between calling out micro-aggressions in everyday life and calling them out when you’re fugitives trying to keep an invaluable relic safe. It would have said more about the group’s maturity if Blake had succeeded in avoiding a scene and they expressed anger/sympathy among themselves that she had to put up with that shit. Throwing guys into dumpsters is satisfying as hell, but it’s not the action of a level-headed adult conducting a job.

Provided that the story actually acknowledges how young they are and that it’s expected they make such mistakes, we’re golden. As it is though, these issues are usually brushed aside. Later Maria says that Pietro “likes to keep a low profile. Something I’m coming to realize you know nothing about,” but it’s said in a joking, fond manner. This isn’t treated as an actual flaw and is therefore not set up as something for the team to work on. And that, right there, is the heart of the conflict between RWBYJNR and Ozpin. He’s a fine scalpel. They’re a sledgehammer. RWBY continually introduces threats that require a delicate touch---whether it’s the possibility of spies in your midst that force you to carefully monitor who has what information, or needing to move through a city without drawing attention to yourself---these battles require a certain level of strategy and without fail our heroes are characterized as people who can only solve their problems through direct, immediate violence. You don’t walk away from a fight. Ever. Be it Cordovin or a racist drunk. The more I see of their behavior, no matter the good intentions behind it, the more it makes sense to me that Ozpin lied and kept his secrets. Our heroes simply don’t have the patient, level-headed, forward-thinking personalities required to fight this kind of delicate war. Their talent lies in the hack-’em slash-’em situations. 

Anyway, I’m getting off topic. The group runs from the guards that show up after the drunk guy incident and they manage to make it to Pietro’s place. After some fun dialogue about whether he remembers Maria and the state of his shop, we get a potential explanation for Maria’s strange behavior on the train. Everyone remember this?

Obviously the camera focusing on Maria helps us, the audience, realize that she’s a character who will eventually become important to the story, but it’s also a bit coincidental that she’s hanging out near Team RWBY’s room. Especially when she inexplicably ends up on the back half of the train when everyone else was evacuated. It was clear at the time that she’d deliberately stayed back, but to what purpose no one was sure. Here, Maria gives a general answer about how she thought this group might have needed her guidance while fighting all those manticores… which is still an odd explanation to my mind. Because up until her confession leaving the farmhouse, Maria wants to keep that low-profile. She’s done with being the Grimm Reaper, so why get involved now? Especially when, with hired huntsmen to protect the train and a large group of teens with their own weapons, she probably would have assumed they were all in good hands? Even if it was just a fighter’s natural instinct to help, what would that guidance have looked like? Pretending to be a normal, formal huntress lending a hand where she can? Admitting she’s the Grimm Reaper? Is she still able to fight? There’s still the highly coincidental nature that Maria, the greatest huntress of a generation, just happened to be traveling the same route as and randomly became interested in the group involved with Salem, gods, and the relics.

To be clear, I’m not really arguing that there’s some big conspiracy surrounding Maria. Coincidences are common in all fiction because if things happened based on real-life probability, it would all be pretty boring. Rather, I’m simply pointing out that between losing her eyes as a young adult and coincidentally getting involved with Team RWBY now, we pretty much have no idea what Maria has been up to for most of her life. If the story wanted to establish some sort of betrayal/trickery/what-have-you, there’s room for it.

That would make me super sad though. I quite like Maria.

We learn more about Ironwood’s increasing paranoia, a hint that not everyone on the council is happy with his changes---that mysterious woman we keep seeing on the posters, perhaps?---and the acknowledgement that whoever helped bring down Atlas’ tech at Beacon has to be “Either a genius, or one of our own.” Probably both. Enter Watts, seen typing at a computer in our opening.

With all this info bearing down on them, a few characters like Jaune and Oscar start asking whether they can just leave and yes, please tackle that, because it’s a very important question. Right now the show has stalled the, “Will the group continue the fight against Salem and what’s their reasoning for doing so when they all think it’s pointless?” question by throwing up another roadblock with the relic. They got it to Atlas, but they’re not sure they can hand it off to Ironwood yet, which just leaves them twiddling their thumbs. That portion of the quest isn’t technically complete yet, putting off an answer as to whether and why they’ll go onto the next portion. We need to tackle the group’s new motivations though. Soon. I sincerely hope that when Ironwood announces he has a way of defeating Salem, we finally get the group challenging their own assertions that such attempts are fundamentally useless. We had a whole volume of, “Oh no. Oh god. Salem is immortal and all our work is for naught.” We need at least a little attention paid to the development of a new perspective to counteract that.

Before things can get too bleak though, Pietro recognizes Weiss as a Schnee. Yang, in a lovely moment of support, desperately tries to re-direct the conversation back to the council. Pietro then recognizes her arm, puts it all together to get Team RWBY, and drops the loaded comment, “My daughter has told me so much about you.”

Many fans saw it coming. Even more hoped for it. Honestly? I think that’s great. Too many shows nowadays rely on “twists” that don’t actually make sense, or even undermine the original setup. Those are frustrating beyond belief and feel like the authors are selling out good story for cheap, undesired shock value. The fandom saw Penny’s resurrection coming a mile away? Great! That just means Rooster Teeth did a good job of setting up that possibility and then following through on it.

I’ll talk more about Penny’s introduction in a moment, but first I just want to throw out that I legitimately enjoyed the fight scene. Good action and creative teamwork at times. I particularly liked Weiss and Ren working together to take down four grimm in as many seconds. Oscar likewise takes a grimm out with a very impressive strike… more impressive than I was expecting from him, honestly. Right now I suppose I’m just inclined to shrug that off with, “He and Ozpin are slowly merging, so he picks up stuff way faster than everyone else,” most notably Jaune. Also, I’ll be blunt. I wouldn’t touch canon-based rosegarden with a ten-foot pole. You know, because of all the issues like a massive age difference, two minor characters involved, questions of consent, the fact that Ruby was Ozpin’s student---pesky ethical concerns like that. AUs though? I think the ship is adorable. Provided that Oscar is fully his own person and there’s consent on both sides appropriate for whatever ages they currently are in your fic or fanart? Very nice. So, it’s for those fans that I point out an entirely coincidental parallel: Ruby saves Oscar from a grimm with a bullet in nearly the exact same manner that Blake saves Yang from a grimm with a bullet. Make of that what you will.

Back to Penny though. Overall, am I thrilled that she’s back? Absolutely. I actually spoke about this recently while answering an ask, expressing how much I’d enjoy this very scenario: having her consciousness saved and thus allowing for her resurrection. Do I think her new look is adorable? Yes, yes I do. “And yet,” you say, “It sounds like there’s a ‘but’ somewhere in there, Clyde.” Yeah. Sadly there is. Because although I’m happy to have Penny, I wasn’t particularly taken with how they re-introduced her.

Simply put, there was far too much humor for what should have been a touching, emotional scene. With the exception of one moment where Ruby tries to voice the word “killed,” everyone treats Penny’s resurrection as a surprising, but not terribly notable event. Yang, Weiss, and Blake express a sort of long-suffering fondness as they comment on how wholesome this is. Pietro laughs at any shock over her “death” and shrugs about how yeah, it technically was. Whatever. Qrow takes the time to nonchalantly say that things are going better than he expected. Ruby is holding it all together with barely a blink. Penny herself is nothing but exuberance and funny dialogue. Maria cracks a joke about how she has no idea who this child is. Jaune goes, “Well, that was unexpected” as if Penny had showed up in Atlas when they all thought she was in Vacuo. That sort of surprise. The whole thing is treated flippantly with, “Never a dull moment.” Summarized, all this really isn’t the appropriate reaction to realizing a friend is no longer dead.

Yes, Ruby was the closest to Penny by far---we can’t expect everyone to get misty-eyed---but does everyone remember what her death was like? It was the turning point of the entire series, not just for the audience, but the characters as well. Penny was the first casualty of the Fall of Beacon and her death was appropriately gut wrenching. It was then shown across every TV turned to the Vytal Festival, the moment where the whole world watched their golden girl, Pyrrha, unintentionally murder a newcomer who turned out to be a robot. Moments later grimm start attacking and the safest place on Remnant is destroyed. Penny’s death heralded all that. The one time we see Ruby tackling the trauma of it all is when she speaks with Oscar and, notably, crumbles a bit when she instinctively uses Penny’s catch phrase.

What I had hoped for was the group grappling with the sudden, completely unexpected shock of getting one of two losses back; working through the knowledge that their lives have been defined by two friends’ death and now one of those has been retroactively erased. Perhaps we’ll see that in future episodes, but right now it feels like a disservice to the impact Penny’s death had on the characters and the story to treat this as such a comic, light-hearted moment. Let Penny tackle-hug Ruby and then let Ruby give her a much more sincere embrace. Let her cry. Have Yang put a hand on Ruby’s shoulder, giving her a look that expresses how she understands what this means to her. Have Jaune looking away, devastated that Ruby miraculously got her friend back, but such an event is impossible for Pyrrha. Let him or Oscar or Ren or anyone seriously acknowledge that, holy shit, this is a joyous occasion we never expected to experience. We’ve spent months dealing with trauma and pessimism, now here’s Penny, reminding us that there’s still so much good in the world. Have someone acknowledge that sometimes the impossible happens (cough-defeatingSalem-cough). You can allow the moment to function as the momentous occasion it is and then lighten the mood by having Maria announce that she has no idea what’s going on.

This isn’t the first time Rooster Teeth has implemented comedy when they were better off sticking with drama. See: the choice to animate punching Ozpin last volume in an absurd, cartoon style. So yeah. Happy to have Penny back, but that first moment felt underwhelming, to say the least.

We then have an admittedly very cool shot—

— (semblance? Just awesome drama?) right before the group is taken out in seconds by Atlas’ elite. They’re… I don’t know how to spell their name yet. Is it something like Ace-Ops for elite special operations? Or Aesop like Aesop’s fables? Potentially both? Idk. The fandom will figure that out in the next day or so, if they haven’t already. What’s important though is that this group charges our team with stealing an airship, illegally entering the city with it, and starting an unauthorized fight in the streets. If I could just take one second to…

Ahem. I’m good. Seriously though, if I’m at all optimistic for Volume Seven it’s because the story is finally acknowledging that the group made some pretty massive mistakes last volume. Not that it looks like there will be much punishment attached to that. Between them meeting with Ironwood in the trailer and the Blah-Blah-Ops’ clear status as heroes this volume (they’re in the opening a bunch and seem to be working with RWBYJNR), I’m not yet convinced that this arrest will lead to anything other than getting precisely what they want: seeing Ironwood. To be clear, it’s not like I want the group languishing in jail for twelve episodes. That would be one hell of a boring volume. But rather, I’m interested in whether the story will continue to imply that Atlas is in the right for arresting them, or whether Episode Two will quickly turn that on its head and forcefully announce, as they did in Volume Six, that these actions are an egregious insult because we’re the protagonists. How dare you not let us do whatever we want?

Because the group was in the wrong here. It can be easy to miss considering that the rules they’re refusing to obey are tied up in a dictator-like society---aren’t we the heroes for ignoring and circumventing evil Ironwood’s laws?---but what they actually choose to do has far more of an impact on innocent civilians than it does on The Man. Like endangering all of Argus with your needless battle. Or, to a much smaller extent here, jumping into a fight when you’re not authorized to do that. Now, I actually don’t blame RWBYJNR for that one. They are huntsmen and it’s their job to protect the people. Going out to defeat grimm is 100% their thing. Rather, I’m talking about stuff like their commentary on Atlas’ defenses. When the fight starts we get, “I guess the city’s defenses aren’t doing much” and “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” It’s more of that, “Us huntsmen are the only true defenders of the world. Your attempts with robots would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous” attitude. It’s a certain level of arrogance. As we see just a minute later though, Ironwood’s setup works. Because the civilians all know to get indoors. Because he has Penny. The robots hold off the grimm until she arrives, defeating the rest with a speed and an ease that frankly doesn’t compare to what we saw the group accomplishing. She does from above what it took nine of them to manage, often (as we saw with Oscar and Yang) with great danger to them in the process. When they’re bound and accused of unauthorized fighting, it’s clear that they were, in fact, shouldering their way into a situation where they weren’t needed---and potentially causing trouble in the process. Rules exist for a reason. Are they always perfect? Far from it, but in the characterization folding over from Volume Six, the group has forgotten that most of the time rules are there for others’ safety. They have been thought out. This particular situation is easily defendable (of course they’re going to go fight grimm) and there were no consequences to the group jumping in when they weren’t allowed (like property damage or injured civilians), but this moment does function as a good representation of the overall problem. Just because there weren’t consequences for saying, “Screw your laws” this time doesn’t mean there won’t be in the future. Or that there hasn’t been in the past.

It likewise stands out to me that Qrow consistently tires to use his “I’m a licensed huntsmen” as a justification. He flashes it at the two goons on the train to get them to back off. He tires to use it to get past Cordovin. He now tells his captors that he has every right to fight and protect the people because of this card he carries. Qrow is well aware of how important the status of a huntsmen is in this world… yet he’s running around with eight fighters who don’t have that legal backing. I don’t think the show would ever go for my suggestion of another school arc so they could finish their training, but at the very least we should provide some sort of loop-hole for these characters. Have Ironwood provide special licenses based on their heroics at the Fall of Beacon and their work since. Because right now we have a world that’s continually emphasizing being a huntsmen as a job, something you earn the right to call yourself, yet 95% of our group doesn’t have that right in the eyes of their society. We know they’ve done great, secret work to protect the people. But the people only know that these are a bunch of teens with one year of formal training. So you really can’t blame any officials for going, “Sorry. We’re not in the habit of letting random people with weapons cross our borders. Or fight in our streets.” It’s like if a bunch of 14-18yos arrived at a crime scene with guns and demanded that they be let in on a case. No, we never graduated from an academy, but you should adhere to our demands anyway. The good intentions are there, but you need to iron out the formalities first. 

Really, RWBY should just fix the whole license thing with a throw-away plot point if they’re not going to tackle it seriously, just so this isn’t an ethical issue anymore. I’d rather smooth it over soon since the story doesn’t seem interested in tackling whether a group with one year of formal training should be allowed that status. So just give it to them and let’s move on. They might still run into issues with Atlas, but at least the rest of the world won’t be expected to trust them purely on faith. Not everyone belongs to a small town terrorized by a geist, with four random teens as your only option for safety.

Which finally, as the doors close on our group with heavy heads, brings us to the opening. Some things to pay attention to:

1. We get a glimpse of that mysterious woman shown in numerous posters across the city. 

(I’m likewise interested in the very long shot we got on this “show your teeth” graffiti.) 

2. Watts and Tyrian are presented as primary antagonists. Interesting that Neo and Cinder aren’t there (not that I caught anyway), especially since we know they were heading to Atlas last volume as well. It makes me think that they’ll be the true threat at the end of the volume. Keeping things quiet, even in the intro, so we have no chance of guessing their plan.

3. The main conflict seems to be between Weiss and Winter, as opposed to Weiss and Jacques as many originally assumed. Those expressions don’t bode well.

4. We still see an image of Ironwood briefly flickering to Jacques though as an angry citizen throws a rock at it. Implying Jacques is secretly pulling the strings? James has simply become too much like him? We’ll have to see.

5. We get a shot of Oscar and Ironwood… training? Fighting? I’m inclined to say fighting based on his and Ozpin’s past difficulties, but that’s also up in the air.

6. The image of our staff…

…and 7. an absolutely massive cast this volume. As I’ve mentioned in the past, I’m concerned with RWBY’s insistence on continually introducing so many new characters, particularly characters who are important enough to warrant decent development. There simply isn’t time for them all.

(Although, is Maria in that shot? Wonder if she’ll leave the group now that she’s done her duty of helping Ruby out with her eyes.) 

Which brings us to the end of the premier! Finally, I’d like to end with a personal note. As is quite obvious, I’m still watching and recapping RWBY, but I feel like I should be upfront about my overall lack of investment in the series right now. Chock it up to getting burned last volume, fading interest in a long-running show, just growing up and changing… I don’t claim to know precisely why I’m no longer jazzed about a new volume like I once was. But, if I perhaps appear overly critical of what I generally thought was a good—and honestly better than expected—premier? That’s probably why. The details just don’t cut it for me anymore. All caps, screaming excitement over Penny’s return or Qrow’s new outfit just doesn’t resonate much, which leaves me with a more critical perspective on the show overall. So if that’s something you’re interested in, stick around because, baring unforeseen circumstances, there will be more metas over the next three or so months. More invested in a flailing celebration of RWBY as a whole? You’re better off hitting up another blog.  

Basically, you know that shot in Pietro’s?

Note the “Days since our last nonsense” sign combined with the defeated expressions. That’s what RWBY feels like to me these days. A lot of nonsense and limited enjoyment. Ah well. Maybe Volume Seven will prove me wrong and I’ll be re-invigorated by the end of the season!

Until then, ❤️️

Minor Things of Note

Maria refers to the group as “kids” in the airship and Penny as a “child.” Acknowledging last year’s debate, I stand by the argument that just because many (but not all) of the group have reached the age of maturity in our world doesn’t mean they’re on par with the adults they were so recently rejecting. There’s a reason why the very old Maria naturally uses “kid” and “child” and it doesn’t come off as weird.

I really like the design of Pietro’s chair. Giving him something that walks on four legs is both different and a nice nod to nature among all the tech. Also, kudos to the Pinocchio reference on his bookshelf in the form of a whale.

Nora remains as adorable as ever. I particularly liked her energy in Pietro’s and her high-key annoyance at Ren getting a jump on the fight. I’m interested in what we’ll be learning about her this volume. 

Not sure I’m a fan of Rooster Teeth using these squeaky toy noises whenever the group is comically surprised by something. Comedy is great, we need it in this story, but sound effects like that are remnants (ha) of a tone we haven’t really seen since Volume 1. I think the show can still get away with exaggerated facial expressions---Nora in her excitement, Ruby laughing at Jaune’s Pumpkin Pete’s sweatshirt---but this feels a bit out of place now.

“Maybe Atlas isn’t as safe as we thought” and yet, astoundingly, no one is inclined to ask Ozpin to weigh in on this. Even now that they know he’s listening. I think I’ll start a tally. See how many episodes it takes to actually acknowledge, let alone act on, the primary conflict of Volume 6.

Image Credit

Personal screenshots from RWBY 

Transflag: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Transgender_Pride_flag.svg

Doctor Who GIF: https://tenor.com/view/doctor-who-tired-harriet-jones-gif-5627138

How I Met Your Mother GIF: https://giphy.com/gifs/celebrate-2o5Ypf4fP6ahq

[ambidexterous-lesbian]

A different approach to gender

Hi, here is the low-down on who I am and why I’m posting this: I’m a 22 year old trans woman from North Carolina. I grew up in a backwards ass town, and I got into philosophy when I was about 15. When I was 20, I had several things happen (life events, surfacing memories) that lead me to the conclusion that I was transgender. I’ve been in transition since then, and the whole time I have searched for some sort of philosophical justification about why I am this way. Why it is that I can have this identity, and it be respected. I’ve been through all the iterations of transpolitics, talked to other trans people, talked to GC feminist, and turned ideas over again and again in my head. Ultimately I don’t aim to invalidate anyone, in fact the opposite is true. We, the trans community, aim to welcome and validate all identities, and yet, the current state of discourse is appalling. We’re arguing left and right, and the thing that we all want to believe, that we are all valid, often gets fucked and twisted by the people who stand against us. It is truly my belief that this is because the most progressive policy (that people simply *are* what they identify as) has no philosophical backbone. So, this post is going to try to take you through my own reasonings on the matter, and how I did in fact arrive at the conclusion that people are what they say they are.

### Part One: The Female Brain/Soul or some other shit

When I first came out, I latched onto the classic narrative of being “trapped in the wrong body” it was simple, it was to the point, and it provided a since of validity by staking some claim that gender exist in the soul. Now there are other variations of this stance, some of which argue the same from a biological stand point. Regardless, most of these views break down into some kind of essentialist thinking. In my case, I believed I was a woman, on some plane of existence was my soul, and that was the soul of a woman, but what does that even mean? What are the essential qualities of womanhood? Was it the fact that I liked doing dishes? That I saw myself as weak? Or was it that I liked to be held? I do not see how any answer to that question doesn’t harken back to the olden days where white men wrote books about “the fragility of womanhood”.

Now, there are other issues here. For example, let us say that sometime in the next few years I reexamine my life and come to the conclusion that all this trans shit was hogwash and detransition. I wouldn’t be the first, and I wouldn’t be the last. Hypothetically, every trans person could come to the conclusion that they were wrong about their identity, and change it. They apply some other label to themselves then what they currently use, and hell every cis perosn could do the same and become trans. Here is what I know, I spent twenty years shamelessly living as a man. For a lot of that time I was happy, and I was secure in my identity. Now, because I identify as a woman *now*, some trans activist will argue that I was ALWAYS a woman, and therefore invalidate my identity as a man. Alternatively I could start identifying as non-binary, by doing that do I retroactively invalidate myself as a woman? Is the conclusion to be drawn that I was just trying to figure things out? Now, all of these are possibilities, so how is it that we can make the assertion that the “X is a Y” in any immutable sense? We simply can’t.

There are also some arguments in this vain that propose that there is some inherent biological thing that makes one trans. Conveniently, this mystical structure has yet to be identified. Even if it was I find it hard to believe that the trans community will accept it, because inevitably someone, lacking in the component, will identify as trans, and then we’d make up some other reason as to why they’re valid. So, here’s the skinny: arguing that transness, or gender, is anything more than something socially constructed has some pretty terrible implications. Either it breaks down into something sexist, or some kind of unenforceable gate keepery that we have fought so hard against.

### Part Two: Whateverism and Performativity

Performativity is a school of thought that was originally presented by Judith Butler in 1991, the basic premise being this: Gender exist as a set of socially constructed roles and expectations, and ones gender is determined by how they fit into and fill those roles. When co-opted by trans people though, this creates a bit of an issue. A trans woman is only valid assuming she fills the societal ideal of womanhood, thus reinforcing the sexist ideas found in that ideal. Meaning that when asking a trans woman why she is a woman, she parrots back all these sexist ideas about fragility, and daintiness, it is because, according to this paradigm, that is what being a woman is.

There are a lot of trans people that recognise the sexism here, and the fact that it invalidates many trans people who fail to live up to a societal ideal, as well as non-binary individuals. Because of this, there is a new school of thought that I've dubbed whateverism. This is the one that makes little sense to most people. The idea that it's whatever, that it doesn't matter what people wear or look like, but simply that they say they are a thing and are therefore a thing. This is the one I take the most issue with, because as of right now it exist as a liberal attempt to be all inclusive, and in doing so renders language almost entirely meaningless. This is the school of thought that 52 genders exist in, not as 52 cumulative categories and sub-categories, but as a multitude of distinct separate entities. This is the biggest divide among trans individuals right now, and for that reason it is what I'd like to argue for.

### Part Three: Pragmatism

There is a school of epistemological thought known as pragmatism. It preaches that a thing is true if it is beneficial to consider that thing true. The best example of it being used is in the field of psychology. A person is not schizophrenic because of some inherent brain issue, or because they simply present the symptoms of schizophrenia, rather they are schizophrenic because they do have a set of experiences, and it is *beneficial* to consider them schizophrenic. Put another way: We label someone as schizophrenic because it allows us to contextualise their experience a certain way, an prescribe treatment based on that experience.

In the same way, gender exist as a framework through which we contexualise our experience, it is a tool that provides us with a way of understanding ourselves. Most of us have had that framework handed to us at birth, and conditioned to think and behave in a way that conforms to the behaviours and experiences in societies framework of that gender. Now, I'm not arguing that this isn't bad, or that society wouldn't be better off without it, instead I am simply saying that everyone, trans and cis alike, uses the framework of gender to think about themselves. Some people are able to overcome the worse aspects of whichever set of ideas they've been handed, and some people are not. For some people the act of labeling themselves non-binary, allows them to think of themself outside of the shitty framework they've been handed. This is the source of all the female non-binaries, of all the people who choose this label and profess themselves to be enby, without changing much about their presentation or physiology.

So, it's obvious that I agree that gender is bullshit, that it's a made up thing that is oppressive, and yet I still identify as a woman, and see my identity as valid. The reason being is that for some reason, the framework of masculinity is not something I can overcome. Maybe it's because I like to wear dresses, maybe it's because I like dick and harbour some internalised homophobia, but ultimately it doesn't matter because it is healthier for me to identify as a woman, that identity conflicts less with the person I find myself to be, and all the hormones and the dress-up serve to validate that view of myself, and put me in a better state for fighting the oppression that all of us face under gender.

[iam93percentstardust]

A snippet from a Sharon and Tony friendship fic I’m working on (because if the MCU can claim that Howard and Peggy knew each other then I insist that Tony and Sharon did too)

Sharon meets Tony for the first time when she’s still a baby. Of course, she doesn’t remember that. Instead, she remembers hearing about him for the first several years of her life. 

The Carter family is a tight knit one so she grows up spending just as much time at her Aunt Peggy’s home as she does at her own. Tony seems to exist on the peripherals of the Carter life. Sharon’s dad and Aunt Peggy—who’s really Great-Aunt Peggy but both Sharon and her father had been born early in their parents’ lives so she’s not old enough to be Great-Aunt Peggy—talk about him a lot but he doesn’t get to visit a whole lot apparently. By the time she turns four, Sharon already knows that Tony is a genius, that his daddy is a big meanie, and that Aunt Peggy and her dad love him very much. She just doesn’t know what he looks like.

When Sharon is four, her mother is killed in a car crash. Sharon and her father move into Aunt Peggy’s home, ostensibly just while they’re getting back on their feet but she can already tell they’re not going to leave. Sharon is good at reading people; everyone says so but especially Aunt Peggy. She likes that Aunt Peggy says that. She wants to be her when she grows up.

They’ve been at Aunt Peggy’s house for two months when Sharon comes home from school the Friday before Thanksgiving to find a boy asleep on the couch in the front room. Her dad takes one look at him and walks straight to Aunt Peggy, who’s standing in the doorway to the kitchen with a worried look on her face.

“He got here this morning,” Aunt Peggy says quietly. “His roommate dropped him off.”

“Is he okay?” Dad asks. He keeps stealing glances at the boy.

There’s a movie playing on the TV. It’s not a cartoon and it’s in black and white but Sharon doesn’t have homework over the break so she sits down on the rug beside the couch anyway. Usually, she sits on the couch itself but it’s occupied and her dad says she has to share so she’ll share the couch with this boy. After a moment, she realizes that she can’t see both the TV and the boy so she turns slightly to see both.

Aunt Peggy notices and gives her an approving smile even as she continues saying, “—not enough sleep according to his roommate. He was supposed to go back to Howard’s but there was a phone call last night. Rhodes—the roommate—said Tony cried.”

That makes Sharon pause. She knows the Tony name, has grown up hearing it. She looks at the boy with more curiosity this time. He’s got fluffy brown hair and smooth cheeks. She wonders how they feel. Her dad doesn’t have smooth cheeks. His are scratchy. She knows ‘cause she can feel them when he gives her kisses. She takes another look at the boy—and he is a boy even though he’s bigger than her (everyone’s bigger than her) because he’s clearly not grown yet.

She wants to meet him, she decides, and so she climbs back to her feet and toddles toward him on chubby legs. “Sharon, no!” Dad exclaims. But it’s too late. She’s already poked his cheek.

Without opening his eyes, Tony takes a deep breath like Sharon sometimes does when she doesn’t want to wake up. She pokes his cheek again (it’s not as smooth as hers but it’s smoother than her dad’s and Aunt Peggy’s). Slowly, he blinks his eyes open. They still look a little unfocused but Sharon can’t help but notice that he has very pretty eyes.

“You have puppy dog eyes,” she informs him, the highest level of compliment she can think of.

Tony frowns just a little but it’s not an unhappy frown (Sharon would know; her dad has a lot of unhappy frowns these days). Then his face clears and he smiles. “Hey, Share Bear,” he murmurs.

Sharon wrinkles her nose. “My name is Sharon,” she reminds him.

His grin grows. “Nah. You’re my Share Bear.” She wants to argue but he reaches down to haul her up onto the couch and then curls around her. Tony is warm and the outside was cold.

Tony fumbles for the remote and turns up the volume on the TV. “I don’t want to watch this,” she complains.

“Too bad,” Tony says sleepily. “Bringing Up Baby’s a classic. It’s got a tiger.”

“Leopard,” Aunt Peggy says immediately but Sharon’s already latched on to the tiger.

“Like Tigger?”

Tony giggles. “Sure, like Tigger.”

Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. She supposes they can watch it—for a little bit.

[phoenix-downer]

The Keyblade Graveyard Part 1: Japanese and English Comparison

This is the fifth in a series of translation and analysis posts I’ve done about KH3. I’ll be talking about KH3 in the context of Westerns, briefly touch on a possible connection to jidaigeki, go into detail on camera angles and camera shots, and, of course, discuss translation and the social aspects of language.

I’ve broken up this analysis into multiple parts because it was getting so long. This part will cover Aqua and Ven’s interactions with Terranort, the next will cover when he attacks Lea and Kairi, and so on and so forth up through when the Demon Tide sweeps Sora away. 

Here’s a general key for the kind of analysis I like to do:

JP: Official Japanese Dialogue

EN: Official English Dialogue

TR: My Translation (usually more literal and thus more stilted than the official English version. I’m not using natural-sounding English in order to stick as close to the Japanese versions of the lines as possible for the purpose of analysis)

Notes: things I found interesting, grammatical points, extra thoughts, etc.

One last note: media doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Every work of art must be viewed through the cultural lens of the people who made it. Kingdom Hearts, for all its ties to Disney, is still very much a Japanese game, so it should be analyzed in light of that.

With that in mind, let’s continue.

Terra’s introduction is like a cowboy in a Western with the dramatic smoke:

The cinematography of this whole scene strikes me as inspired by Westerns and/or Samurai cinema (chanbara, a subcategory of jidaigeki, or period films). The two genres of film have had a large influence on each other (Akira Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai was remade as The Magnificent Seven in the US, for example, and Akira Kurosawa was a fan of the American director John Ford), so this speculation might not be that far off.

This screenshot from the trailer for Seven Samurai, for example, shows a similar “dramatic smoke/dust” moment, which makes me think that this may be a trope in Samurai cinema as well:

The setting of the Keyblade Graveyard itself calls to mind the setting of a lot of Westerns, with its smoke and dust and craggy hills and desert. The conflict even takes place in a graveyard, much like the final standoff in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, one of the most famous Westerns of all time (technically a Spaghetti Western, or a Western made in Italy - in this case directed by Italian director Sergio Leone):

Anyway, continuing on. Terra is here, but he’s looking at the ground and not making eye contact with anyone:

Ven is the first to notice him, and he calls his name...

JP テラ！

EN Terra!

TR Terra!

...before taking off after to him, which stresses Aqua out (and rightfully so - can you blame her for being on edge about everyone’s safety here, especially Ven’s?):

JP ヴェン！

EN Ven!

TR Ven!

We get this wide shot of Ven running to Terra while he just sort of stands there:

There are a number of shots like this in the scene that really emphasize the scale of the conflict by showing how small the human players are compared to the setting.

This ties in well to the theme that the characters cannot change their fate - they’re just playthings of it. The Keyblade Graveyard will still be there long after they’re dead, much like how it is still here after all the people who fought in the Keyblade War died. And while Sora does later change fate, he has to face the consequences. Death claims its prize in the end.

Ven latches onto Terra’s wrist, and the camera focuses on their hands:

And then we get this over the shoulder shot that is also at a bit of a high angle to emphasize Ven’s vulnerability:

JP テラやっと会えた！

EN Terra! We found you!

TR Terra! We could meet at last!

Notes: The Japanese phrasing is a little different than the English version, but the same general meaning gets across. Ven is excited to see Terra again. His use of yatto implies it’s been a while, and he uses the potential form for meet, hence why I translated this as “could meet” despite how awkward it sounds in English.

We get this reverse over the shoulder shot from a lower angle to emphasize Terra’s greater size and strength compared to Ven:

Now, Aqua has Seen Things™ in the Realm of Darkness, and she is quick to ask if this is really the Terra they know and love. No doubt she has in mind the time they met in the Realm of Darkness and Xehanort took control of him:

JP テラ　本当にテラなの？

EN Terra, please say you’re in there.

TR Terra, is that really you? (Literally: Is [that] really Terra?)

Notes: Japanese tends to use names more than English does, whereas English favors the use of pronouns, hence why Aqua repeats Terra’s name twice in her question in the Japanese version.

She uses the ~nano construction to check for confirmation - she wants to believe this is Terra, but she has her doubts.

We get this extreme close up shot of Terra’s eyes to emphasize that while yes, they are blue, they seem a little empty and soulless:

Something I noticed about Kingdom Hearts 3 is that there are a lot of extreme close up shots like this, especially of the characters’ eyes.

Well, as I was doing some research for this analysis, it turns out this type of shot is also sometimes called an Italian shot, named for... you guessed it, Sergio Leone, who popularized it in his Spaghetti Western films.

Here’s an example of this type of shot from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:

The emphasis of this type of shot is on the character’s emotions, and it serves to heighten the dramatic tension of the scene. Multiple times throughout the Keyblade Graveyard, we’ll get extreme close up shots like this that have just such an effect.

On a side note, I never noticed this many extreme close up shots in a Kingdom Hearts game before. I wonder if they hired new cutscene director(s) to work on the game who left their unique mark on it, or if the graphics capabilities of UE4 allowed them to experiment around with the cinematography more than they could in the past.

Continuing on, we see Aqua’s reaction to Terra’s soulless gaze:

She immediately moves to put herself between Ven and Terra, selfless to the end:

Ven sounds downright annoyed in the Japanese version and confused/questioning in the English version, but Aqua doesn’t care, she’s keeping him safe. Note how tense Sora is in the background:

JP 何だよアクア！

EN What gives, Aqua?

TR What(’s going on), Aqua?

Notes: Ven uses the emphatic particle yo in the Japanese version to show his annoyance with Aqua here - they’re finally all together again and yet she’s pushing him away from Terra? What gives?

The camera changes to this wide shot, once again emphasizing the epic scale of this very human conflict:

JP あなたの中にテラはいない

EN I know that you’re not him.

TR Terra isn’t inside of you.

Notes: Aqua knows the problem. Terra, or perhaps more specifically, Terra’s heart, is not inside of the body before them now. Aqua sounds angry and frustrated in her delivery in the Japanese version. She’s sick of this happening, sick of Terra still being lost to them.

Ven gasps in this next shot to indicate his surprise:

And Aqua sounds very angry/upset in the Japanese version as she commands Xehanort to release Terra. The camera angle is low again to show how Terra is towering over them, to hint at the power imbalance that we will soon see play out:

JP テラの体を返しなさい！

EN Now, let our friend go!

TR Return Terra’s body (to him)!

Notes: When Aqua was addressing Terra earlier, she used casual/intimate grammar forms. Japanese has an entire system of conjugation based on social dynamics - there are polite and casual forms of verbs, there are honorifics, humble expressions, rude expressions... all to express the relationship between the speaker and the addressee.

Aqua switches to a more polite form here. This could be because she wants to indicate social distance from Xehanort. It certainly isn’t used to be polite. This isn’t her friend; this is the man who ruined her friends’ lives as well as her own. She commands him to return Terra’s body using the honorific form nasai in a way that sounds like she’s scolding him. It’s possible she also chooses to use this particular command form as a mark of feminine speech, instead of using one of the coarser/more direct command forms at her disposal.

The camera tilts up, still at that low angle to emphasize Terra’s relative size and height advantage, and he (well, more like the heart inside of him) smirks:

We see his hair change color in a close up shot:

And then Ven’s horrified reaction. After all, he never knew what happened to Terra (as far as I can remember). The shot here really emphasizes his emotions by centering him in the frame head-on:

Fate of the Unknown has begun to play, very fitting for this scene, as Terra’s fate smacks Ven in the face (and the audience as well, for that matter). Note how everyone is ready for a fight, even if their Keyblades aren’t out yet. Knees bent, arms outstretched, or, in Goofy’s case, balled into fists:

Then we get this close up shot of Terranort’s face. His hair is fully silver and his eyes are yellow, and Mickey proclaims what has become of Terra:

JP これで１３人目ー

EN He is their thirteenth.

TR Here is (the) thirteenthー

Notes: Basically saying the same thing in both languages, just worded sligthly differently to sound more natural in English.

Dark smoke wafts off of Terranort as he finally speaks, and it’s not with Terra’s voice:

JP おまえたちはここで敗北する

EN Today is the day you all lose.

TR Here you all (will) lose.

Notes: Terranort uses the derogatory second person plural pronoun omaetachi to refer to them here. He also uses a casual form of the verb suru, indicating familiarity or, in this case, contempt. The word for “lose,” haiboku, can also mean “be defeated.”

Aqua sounds downright angry here in the Japanese version as she responds, and Ven just looks sad. The camera angle is a little off-kilter here (note how Aqua and Ven seem the same height even though they are not, and the characters in the background form a diagonal line): to indicate how “off” this whole situation is (I think this would be an example of a Dutch angle, but in case it’s not, I’ll call this kind of angle a tilted angle throughout this analysis):

JP 何を！

EN What?!

TR What!

Notes: I noticed the dialogue uses a lot of exclamation marks throughout this scene, both in the English version and the Japanese version. Emotions are running high, and all those exclamation marks really serve to show that.

Here we get a shot of Ven’s feet and Aqua’s legs...

...which is reminiscent of images and posters of famous show-downs in movies, like this one for the 1952 Western High Noon:

We even see this same sort of shot earlier in this scene, this time with Sora’s legs and Xehanort as the approaching opponent:

Once again, the framing of the shots calls to mind Westerns.

Moving on to the dialogue:

JP １３の闇にたどりつくこともなく　この場で心は肉体を離れ我が身を散らす

EN Before you even face the thirteen, every last one of you will be torn heart from body.

TR Without even reaching the thirteen darknesses, at this place (your) hearts will be separated from (your) bodies (and) I (will) scatter them (literally the bodies).

Notes: Terranort uses a different pronoun than Terra does. He uses ware, which Xehanort sometimes uses (and also sounds kind of old-fashioned), instead of the masculine pronoun ore, which is Terra’s pronoun of choice.

In the Japanese version, two different words are used for “body” here as well, nikutai in the first instance and mi in the second instance, perhaps for poetic effect and/or to avoid redundancy.

Next, he summons his weapon, which is accompanied by more darkness, and delivers this line:

JP だが安心しろ

EN But fear not.

TR But be at peace.

Notes: “Fear not” sounds a little archaic in English, as in modern English we would say “don’t be scared” or “don’t be afraid.” Over time main verbs lost the ability to move in front of negatives in English, and we insert “do” instead, which attaches to “not” to form “don’t,” while leaving the main verb in its spot.  

Terranort’s use of an older construction in English like this is very effective at making him sound pompous. In modern English saying “fear not” brings up religious connotations, as a lot of well-known quotes from the Bible are based on older translations (hello, King James version) and thus older forms of the language. Terranort sounds like he’s playing at God, here, in other words. It also makes him sound older, which is fitting for an old man who stole the body of a young one.

In the Japanese version, he uses the command form of the verb suru, shiro, to command them to be at peace. This is a very direct way to command someone to do something, kind of coarse and not at all polite.

The camera cuts to this close up shot of his face:

JP χブレードはここで完成する

EN The χ-blade will still be forged.

TR The χ-blade will be completed here.

Notes: Basically saying the same thing in both languages. I like how the English version went with “forged,” though. Fitting for the whole “creating a weapon” thing.

We see, not Aqua and Ven’s reaction to Terranort’s proclamation, but everyone else’s, Sora’s in particular. He is centered in the frame here:

And then we get a closer shot of him to better showcase his reaction. His voice sounds lower here to indicate his determination:

JP おまえたちに負けることはない

EN We’re not gonna lose to you.

TR We’ll never lose to you.

Notes: Sora uses the derogatory second person plural pronoun here, omaetachi. He’s referring to their enemies as a whole as a whole, not just Terranort. Unfortunately this nuance is somewhat lost in English because we use “you” for both singular and plural second person, though regional varieties have popped up, such as y’all, you lot, you guys, youse guys, yinz, etc. to refer to plural “you.”

(For anyone wondering, yes, English did used to make this distinction in the past, much like many modern European languages still do. It was a sad day the English language lost its second person plural pronoun for various reasons that I won’t get into here, but those regional varieties I mentioned have popped up for a reason - it is really useful to be able to make that distinction between singular and plural!)

Sora uses the ~kotowanai construction here to indicate that they’ll never lose to Xehanort and his cronies. He’s absolutely sure of it. And the English version captures his casual style of speech with “gonna.”

The shot ends with him glaring at Terranort:

And the camera cuts to Terranort, making what I will call “the Xehanort look” from here on out:

We can see the Xehanort look exemplified by Xehanort himself here:

An eyebrow raised, head tilting forward, eyes looking up - a Kubrick stare to indicate he’s a little deranged.

An example of the Kubrick Stare for reference, from the film A Clockwork Orange. The Kubrick Stare was popularized by the director Stanley Kubrick for it showing up in a lot of his films:

That is a dramatic contrast from the types of faces Terra makes:

Using Xehanort’s expressions with Terra’s body makes it very clear Terra is not the one in control here, as to my knowledge Terra never makes the Xehanort look. It’s also very unsettling to see Terra acting like Xehanort. It just feels wrong, and that really comes through in how Terranort moves and reacts.

One moment, he’s there...

...and the next, he’s gone, indicated by a whooshing noise:

He can move lightning-fast, a fact the slow motion here in the next part obscures a little for dramatic effect. This has also lead to the impression that Aqua and Ven just stood there and did nothing. That’s not entirely true. It’s more like they didn’t have time to do much of anything.

Aqua does, in fact, react to his disappearance; you can hear her make a surprised noise here:

And then he suddenly reappears between her and Ven, indicated by another whooshing noise. Note Terranort’s posture, how he is bending his knee to gather as much momentum to hit Ven with as possible. The scene also goes into slow motion for dramatic effect:

And the camera cuts to him swinging his blade and speeds up a little:

Again, Aqua barely has time to register that Terranort has moved because he’s moving so quickly. Ven is in shock because he would never imagine Terra hurting him. They didn’t have much time to launch any sort of a defense, and while I think Aqua expected Terranort to attack her, perhaps, neither she nor Ven expected Terranort to attack Ven.

Because Ven is like their younger brother, or even their son. In the Japanese version of BBS he downright said he was supposed to bring his parents to Disney Town when he gave Terra and Aqua the passes, not just grownups like the English version went with. And while Aqua and Terranort have fought before, Terra has never laid a hand on Ven. Not as Terra, not as Terranort. Ven trusts him to keep him safe, to protect him. So for Terranort to attack him, well...

It’s kind of like watching a father attack his own son as his wife watches on in horror at what’s unfolding.

The scene goes back into slow-mo as Terranort’s Keyblade connects with Ven, and Ven is folded over from the impact, Terranort hit him so hard. He makes a choked sound of pain, too, like he’s had the wind knocked out of him and can hardly breathe. Note how Aqua isn’t looking in their direction yet because she hasn’t had time to look yet:

We cut to a closer shot of Ven that puts the focus on him as he reacts, and you can see the pain written all over his face:

The scene is still in slow motion as he hurtles backwards:

And then the camera cuts to Aqua to show her reaction. She slowly turns her head (still in slow-mo, remember?), and the look of shock and horror on her face is heartbreaking to see:

The camera speeds up to normal speeds as it shows Ven being flung backwards, as if this is from Terranort’s POV:

Note how Ven’s eyes are still open, he still seems to be conscious:

And then the camera cuts to a different perspective behind the characters, as if the camera is on the ground. Note how once again the ground is at an angle instead of forming a straight line in this shot to indicate how wrong this whole situation is. We can also see Ven landing on his back with his legs in the air...

...which provides enough momentum for him to tumble backwards:

His body settles on the ground in a cloud of dust, and he no longer seems to be conscious. Note his limp head:

My guess is that landing on his back like that/hitting his head is what made him lose consciousness, as he was conscious before when he was still in the air. Terranort wasn’t necessarily trying to kill him (though I’d argue hitting your head like that would probably be enough to kill you in real life if not in video games), he was just trying to incapacitate him so it would make it easier to take his heart out of his body later on.

Riku provides credence to this theory later on when he tells Sora that the hearts of their friends are still in their bodies. If Ven had died here, that probably wouldn’t be the case.

The camera cuts to Terranort, and he has a downright smug expression on his face over what he just did. The Xehanort look is back in full force:

And it makes for quite the contrast with Aqua’s look of shock and disbelief as she gasps:

We get a shot from her POV, showing Ven crumpled on the ground:

And then a close up shot of her reaction to what has happened to Ven that showcases her emotions, her feelings. This moment is framed in terms of her pain and loss and shock, showing that we as the audience are supposed to empathize with her:

We get a closer shot of Ven that fills the frame, and Ven isn’t conscious:

And Aqua has processed everything enough to finally be able to speak:

She calls Ven’s name in a downright panicked manner and leans forward as she does:

JP ヴェン！

EN Ven!

TR Ven!

To be continued...

[artificialqueens]

rhythm of a wild heart (branjie) - holtzmanns

A/N: Based on Brooke’s comments from the Roscoe’s viewing party - “He was like my safe space, so like when I would get stressed out and stuff, I could go and he would give me a hug and a kiss.”

Brooke overthinks things.

It’s in his nature, and it’s what’s gotten him this far. He’s used to striving for perfection in fields where perfect doesn’t exist, where there’s always room for improvement. It’s given him a work ethic rivalling that of an Olympic medallist, but also a mind that doesn’t let him rest. One that concocts scenarios that outline all of the areas where he’s going wrong, where he can do better, how he’s not enough-

But it works.

He has ridden his tendency towards perfectionism to principal roles in ballet, winning fucking Miss Continental, and now to national television with the world watching his every move.

It’s exhausting sometimes, all of the overthinking. He’s tried to find an off switch for it before, taking vacations from his work to calm the voices in his head that are always on the run. Doing so only makes them spiral more, latching onto possible areas for missteps like vine tendrils (there’s so much to do and not enough time, you can’t rest, go back to work).

So, Brooke works. He makes it onto the show where he stresses over each challenge like it’s going to be his last. The voices in his head are still there and draining, telling him that he can’t rest until he’s prepared enough to be able to do each challenge in his sleep. He learns the lip-sync song each episode just in case he hasn’t done enough, not accepting that he’s made it to another week until he’s standing safe at the back of the stage. And then the entire cycle begins again the next morning.  

The swirling thoughts are draining but they have gotten him this far, so who is he to complain? He accepted long ago that things are always going to be this way. He’s always going to have this feeling of not doing enough, not being enough. He just wishes that it exhausted him less.

His brain tires him out again the evening before the magic challenge. He’s gone in circles with Nina and Shuga all day, trying to find a way to combine their talents into a script that’s actually entertaining. They’ve second-guessed all of their decisions, rewriting over and over again until the words in the pages start to blur together.

They’re all still on set, waiting for the van to take them back to the hotel for another night of fitful sleep and dreams that detail all the ways the challenge the next day could go wrong. His mind has tuned out Nina and Shuga beside him as they fret over one of the magic tricks. He’s trying to use his dance background to come up with some choreography, any presentation skills to pull their performance together. He’ll make them practice tomorrow morning until their show looks nothing short of professional. It has to.

“Hey.”

There’s a hand on his shoulder, and he looks up to see Vanessa’s inquisitive face studying his own. She looks as exhausted as he feels, after the long day of filming followed by hours of practice off camera.

Brooke wordlessly pulls her into a hug, her head fitting perfectly under his chin as she buries her face into his chest. It hits him, as it always does, how they fit together like puzzle pieces. How kissing the top of her head and comforting her helps calm down the heart beating out of his chest, too.

Vanessa lifts her face to look up at him, raising a hand to smooth the crease that’s formed in between his eyebrows. He feels the tension he didn’t even realize he was holding drop under her touch.

“How’s your team faring?” Brooke barely finishes asking the question before Vanessa’s face wrinkles, indicative of a frustrating day.

“It’s just tough, y’know?” she sighs. “Trying to please them all is harder than winning the fucking lottery or some shit. Silky and A’keria want to wing it, Miss Yvie is over here hemming and hawing and writing out a full script without consulting anyone first. I’m feeling like a mother hen trying to control all her wayward chicks.”

He snorts at the mental image, remembering loud, argumentative noises coming from her group’s side of the room more than once during the day. “Too much personality, huh?”

She groans. “Picking the loudest bitches aside from myself was not the smartest shit to do, let me tell you.”

He tilts her chin up, placing a soft kiss on her lips.

“You’ll kill it. You’re funny, you’re magnetic. I’ve seen you practicing your trick a million times today already.” He wants to convince her with more than just empty words; he wants her to believe them too.

She smiles at his attempts at reassurance. “How’s your group?”

Brooke is rambling before he even realizes it, telling her about their uncertainties and complete lack of decision-making ability, and how all of them want to fall back and have someone else lead the group. He walks her through their tricks, all the dropped props and the stumbling and the magic abilities that have not quite come together yet.

“Tucking panties? Y’all are nasty.” Vanessa’s face wrinkles at his description of Shuga’s tentatively planned trick, and he laughs despite himself at her reaction.

“Hopefully both nasty and funny.”

He’s not sure if he’s trying to convince Vanessa or himself. What happens if they’re not? What happens if he falters and he messes up the bubble trick? What if he brings his team down and they’re judged in groups and suddenly he’s in the bottom, potentially sending one of them home for his mistakes or going home himself-

“Hey. I see your head spinning already. Don’t go there, baby.” Vanessa’s voice is uncharacteristically soft. She tugs on his hand, stepping even closer into his space. “You can’t plan for things that haven’t happened yet. Don’t be making up those scenarios with the bad juju.”

“I’m not,” he says weakly. She only raises her eyebrows at him in response until he sighs. “Okay, maybe a little.”

It surprises her every time when she catches the moments that his anxious thoughts start to take over him. He’s used to keeping everything inside, his metaphorical brick wall giving off a façade of calm and fearlessness and keeping his emotions safely inside. He’s used to being an ice queen, to everyone else believing that everything he does is effortless and confident.

Vanessa is the only one who can catch the wavering in his eyes every time that his mind starts to crumble, sending him glances across the workroom throughout the long filming days. It’s no different now, with her standing in front of him.

Brooke sees the gears turning in her mind, trying to come up with something to distract him. It doesn’t take her long. “Silky said to me and A’keria that she got the PA on her hotel room floor to bring her Taco Bell last night. And she didn’t even order a Crunchwrap Supreme!”

A corner of his mouth turns up at that. “I don’t know, you always strike me more as a Dorito taco fan.”

“Ooh bitch, don’t even go there.” She makes a face. “Dorito taco shells are fucking nasty. I need me a good classic Crunchwrap. I don’t know how Silky did it, though. I tried asking the PA on my floor for Gatorade last night and she brought chocolate milk instead! I mean I’m not pressed about it, I fuckin’ love chocolate milk, but what part of that screams Gatorade? Do you think she has a bias against Gatorade? What did the Gatorade family ever do to her?”

She rambles on at him for ten more minutes, making him crack up every so often despite his mood, until the van arrives and all of the queens pile in.

The two of them end up in the back row on their own. The van has become less crowded as every episode passes and more and more queens continue to go home. It’s nice, the extra room, but also unnerving when he compares it to the first few days of filming when fifteen of them were squished together like sardines in a can.

Vanessa leans into his side easily once they sit down, pulling one of his arms around her shoulder and grabbing his hand with both of hers. They’re quiet, watching the cars on the highway pass outside their window. The fingers of his free hand trace patterns on her shoulder.

He feels safe. She’s his safe space, his place to let go and just be.

Brooke doesn’t know how Vanessa does it every time, how she can take the anxious ramblings that have an iron grip on his brain and distract him with her laugh and soft kisses.

The swirling waves in his mind are quieter now. He’s not thinking about the challenge anymore, but rather about how her breathing has synced to his and how he never wants this van ride to end, the way it does too soon every day when they have to part at the hotel and head for their individual rooms.

Vanessa slides out of his arms reluctantly once they get to the hotel, not wanting to separate from him either. Brooke wishes that he could just pull her with him into his own room, bringing her close and not having to let her go at all.

They walk slowly behind the other queens, as if it’ll make their time together last longer. They ignore the PA calling both of their names (“the elevator doors are going to close, hurry up”) as they eventually shuffle in.

Vanessa squeezes his hand in the elevator. “We’ve made it through all of the episodes so far. We’ll make it through this one too, and we won’t stop till I’m lip syncing you for the crown and I win, bitch.”

She winks at him when the elevator dings at her floor, sauntering out but not before blowing him a kiss. Brooke smiles despite himself, ignoring the knowing look that Nina is shooting his way beside him.

He doesn’t know what will happen tomorrow, if his group will be able to pull themselves together in time and put on a magic show that won’t end in disaster. He does know that he has her, and that somehow - despite his anxious mind - she makes him feel sometimes like that it’s all that matters.

[vivithefolle]

Can you rec some Ronarry fics? (Preferably long ones?) Sorry if I'm annoying you.

You’re not annoying me at all, Anon! :D Thought I’m super frustrated because I’ve read one very long fic that has Ron searching for Harry, who has amnesia and ran away to America (and is gay but nobody knew that) and Ron realizes he’s in love with Harry and the fic has about 30 chapters and it’s on FFN but I can’t find it!! x_x

Sooo… I didn’t find that many long fics but I can give you a long list of them if you want?

Beautiful FriendIt took six years for Harry to learn something in History of Magic.This one. Oh my lord this one… it’s short, but it’s amazing. It’s full of lovely lively details and Harry’s description of Ron is… aaaww.

Life DrawingDean watches, and sees something unexpected.Again, the descriptions! My lord the descriptions, and also you will relate very much to Dean if you’ve ever worked with pencils.

Something They Can Barely SeeHarry has no idea how to tell his best friend he wants more that friendship. He’s pretty sure this would be hell of a lot easier if he knew for sure how Ron felt about him.This one is plenty cute. Ron is adorable and Harry… Harry’s trying his best. :’D

Our Inner BeastsLater, Madam Pomfrey would tell them that both Bill and Ron were going to survive. But she had no idea what the effects of a werewolf bite, when the werewolf was still in human form, could do to their behavior.Okay, who’s up for writing more Creature!Ron fics? Seriously. Someone do some more of those. Here we have Ron as a werewolf, aggressive, feral, self-loathing… doesn’t matter, Harry loves him.

Running with the Wolf, Loving the Mansnapshots of Harry Potter’s life with a werewolf boyfriendFollow-up of Our Inner Beasts. Someone heard our prayers and gave us more Werewolf!Ron, and it’s as wonderful as it sounds.

What HappenedThat’s just the thing, though. He doesn’t know what happened. He can’t pinpoint a single event where everything suddenly made sense. There was no epiphany or choir of angels or aligning of stars, or any of the other rubbish Parvarti goes on about in the Great Hall. There’s no one moment when he realized, “Oh.”Ron and Harry’s friendship, only it’s not just friendship. The last line will make you want to put on some epic music.

Follow The Butterflies“Why did it have to be spiders?” Ron moaned. “Why couldn’t we follow the butterflies?” Harry privately agreed with his best friend, but if there was anything Hogwarts had taught him, then that if he didn’t do something, no one would. “I promise the next time we have to follow anything, it will be butterflies.”Harry and Ron’s friendship again, with more butterflies thrown in the mix. It’s just as perfect as it sounds. If you don’t ship Harry/Ron, this fanfic might just change your mind.

Sonnets of Magical InterferenceHarry receives some strange notes about his love life, or lack thereof.By the end of that fic, you might just cheer for a very controversial character.

HeavenHarry’s heaven includes Ron.Features Ron being emotional over a movie, Chinese takeout, and Harry being a sap. What more could you ask for?

Harry Potter And The World That Went Bloody Insane“I know something you don’t know” is, apparently, the essence of Harry Potter’s love life. Harry’s certain that the world has been reading one too many romance novels, but then, Harry’s always been a bit oblivious.Featuring Protective!Attentive!Caring!Ron and Oblivious!Harry in their stinky flat and everyone shipping Harry/Ron. It’s awesome.

Check MateHarry questions his dreams, Ron has a scary one of his own, Hermione and Cho plot, and Seamus and Dean obsess.Harry’s subconscious has lots of funny ideas. Ron is ridiculously cute. Might be a bit difficult to read because of FFN’s shitty formating for line breaks.

On The OutsideHarry doesn’t think there’s much point to his being gay. He can’t have regular sex, he can’t have children, and he can’t tell his best friend he’s in love with him.Ron is utterly adorable, do I really have to say it? Why, yes, yes I do.

Newton’s LawFor every action, there is an equal and opposite reactionCheck out this author’s other Harry/Ron fics. I especially like Brass Ring; in the meantime, have a rather in-character reaction of Hermione and Ginny finding out about their ex-boyfriends dating. Hey, not my fault if JKR doesn’t know how to write strong female characters without making them abusive.

Sleeping BeautyThe most gen ever retelling of Sleeping Beauty.Who cares if it’s gen, it’s amazing. Harry sleeps, Ron is wonderful, and ants get colorful.

The Complexities Of Muggle MachineryHarry bought a refrigerator. Then it was a microwave. Then a blender. Thursday was the coffee brewer. Ron really liked that last one.Ron is absolutely, heart-stoppingly, adorably cute and pretty much just like I imagine him to be around Muggle things. Harry’s lucky.

After the cupcakesThey never really talked about it but they are each other’s world. And perhaps a lazy Sunday morning is as good a time as any to finally say something.Utterly sappy and fluffy and you know me, I was mostly there for Harry’s description of Ron. It didn’t disappoint.

Sing Your LoveThroughout the years they’ve lived together, Harry has always enjoyed Ron’s singing but lately he’s been picking up hidden messages in his flatmate’s song choices.Do you like Ron singing? Do you like Ron dancing? Do you like Ron crying his heart out over an emotionally oblivious Harry? Well in that case you’ve found the perfect fic!

Snakes & LaddersAfter the final battle with Voldemort, Harry intends to get on with his life. There’s just one problem; he was supposed to have died when he confronted Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest and now the Other Side is trying to collect him. But in the space between his ‘death’ and the victory celebrations, Harry’s fallen in love… and he’s not going to give up his second chance without a fight.A complicated premise, a complicated tale, a very worried Ron, a very determined Harry, an entirely unwelcome Severus Snape coming from beyond the Veil, all leading up to an epic confrontation in the Other Side. Who knew the afterlife had a court?

Now, it’s time for… TEH SMUT! D:Every story below this text will have MATURE CONTENT. Shoo, children, shoo!

Partners (last chapter gets NSFW)What if the girls hadn’t come in just then?  What course of action would Harry, in his desperate frame of mind, have latched onto instead?This fanfic made one of my most desperate wishes come true. For those who don’t know me, I’ll just tell you that Cinderella isn’t a matter of gender.

Scars (warning: mentions of self-harm)Ron is embarrassed of his scars, and Harry might be able to help.Ron is his terribly self-loathing self, but at least Harry is there to remind him of what we Ron-lovers know: that he’s loved and beautiful.

The Matchmaker (contains sexual mention)Sir Nicholas has never had a couple like these two…Nearly-Headless Nick ships Harry and Ron. So does the entire Gryffindor House. All in all, just what we need.

Exploring The Spectrum (NSFW at the end)Ron wakes up to find he can only see in a single colour.Very interesting mystery and clever use of a forgotten plot point. The resolution is basically “sex solves everything” but otherwise it’s a great story.

Hug! Hug! Kiss! (second-to-last drabble is NSFW)Ron loses Harry in a foreign land. In other words, Harry accidentally joins a Japanese boy band.This story is ridiculous, confusing, crazy, and absolutely hilarious. No existing celebrities were harmed.

Just Another Teenage Epoch - Ron Weasley, 1999 (NSFW at the end)Ron wants to be an Auror, and he wants to not grow up, and he really wants other people to stop kissing Harry.The classic mistletoe tale! Ron is not amused at all. It’s okay, we’re rooting for him (and Harry is, too).

Trapped in Winter (NSFW at the end)Harry and Ron have an argument. When Ron goes to storm out of the room, he’s frozen in time, and when Harry touches him to see what’s the matter, they’re both transported to a snowy winter wonderland.A surprising premise that leads to a confused, hurt Ron and a tight-lipped Harry, and of course, to Harry/Ron. Pretty nice!

That We Might Be Exactly Like We Were (warning: graphic self-harm, realistic depression, themes of suicide)'Everything just takes me back, to when you were there…’This author pretty much nails what depression is like. She also has several other Harry/Ron fanfics that are written just as expertly as this one, but be forewarned, they tend to deal with very upsetting topics as well. Sadly, I could see her version of Ron existing in the canon we know.

Slow Slide (get out) to a Better Place (warning: abuse and r*pe)Harry told himself that everything was fine in his relationship with Ginny, at least until he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. And by then, he thought it might be too late.  Fortunately, he has two very good friends who will always be there for him, one of whom might eventually be something more.Downside: Ginny fans should NOT read this story. Upside: contains Vivi’s most beloved ship, Romione + Ronarry.

Prelude and Fugue (NSFW in the middle)It took over an hour, from the time Harry arrived at work, for him to realise just how different today actually was.The “Groundhog Day” loop is wonderfully done, you can actually feel the weariness building as Harry wakes up and notices it’s still Monday, bloody Monday.And Ron is absolutely adorable - yes, I’ll say it every time!

Princes of Maine (NSFW at the end)Harry wakes one morning to find an abandoned baby on his doorstep. Little does he know that this is only the beginning of his most challenging adventure yet: parenthood.You want Harry as a single parent and not knowing anything about babies? You have it. You want Ron as a competent Healer who’s sick of Harry’s shit and determined to get answers as to why his best mate is a wreck? You have it. You want Harry/Ron? What are you waiting for, dive in!

Still looking for more? Take a look at this post!

[myfriendpokey]

Innocence Reserve

I don't know when I noticed that the culture had been filled with veterans - not necessarily of the military kind, although the word always carries something of that connotation. News stories might mention veteran bankers, veteran lobbyists, there are veteran reporters and veteran bloggers, you can go listen to talks by a veteran game designer. The word "veteran" in this context seems to imply not just experience, or longevity, but a certain kind of experience, a world-weariness. The veteran tag carries the suggestion of having dealt with the uglier parts of an industry, the backroom politicking and desperate fixes that might not ever be officially acknowledged. It made me think of the line used by the film critic Vern as shorthand for all those melodramatic revelations in recent action films, that mutants are real, or vampires are real, or transformers are real and they secretly fight the vampires at night - "your world is just a sugar-coated topping...."

The funny thing about these movies is that the protagonists nearly always end up fighting to leave the topping intact: to make sure the general public remains blissfully ignorant of the real world beneath the surface of the everyday. The protagonist encounters the secret knowledge and then fights to prevent the burden of this knowledge being passed on to others. If the classical action narrative is that of public violence in the service of maintaining private innocence, the postmodern action narrative is that of private violence in the service of maintaining public innocence. As a recent american political candidate (and, yes, veteran) has remarked, he personally carried an assault rifle "over there" so he would not have to carry one "over here".

The anti-veteran is not the rookie, but the civilian - the person who isn't even aware of the continuum of knowledge of which the veteran stands at the top. If the veteran is defined by knowledge and expertise, the civilian must be correspondingly defined by ignorance and ineptitude. They are figures of contempt, pity. But as the veteran is now also defined as an ambivalent attitude to that knowledge and expertise, the civilian becomes an object of yearning, a state of innocence. Old man action movies and dadified videogames tend to involve reluctant but extremely capable professionals who put their skills to use for the purpose of keeping some innocent other out of the cycle of violence that they themselves are trapped in. The value of non-expertise can be accepted and celebrated, but only after the value of expertise can be demonstrated yet again. The civilian here has nothing to do but offer their respect and benediction towards the sacrifice of the veteran: the essential passivity of this role is reflected by the fact it tends to be played by a child.

I think of this, watching gamedev documentaries, reading postmortems, where the emotional payoff comes frequently in the "cut to child" - where all the tribulations of the developer, the second mortgage, the 80 hour weeks, the ergot poisoning from eating nothing but pot noodles for the past four years, are redeemed when we finally see the finished work played by a smiling and appreciative moppet. And, yes, it is heartwarming - but as filmed, or photographed, there's no room for ambivalence in a child's response. We don’t watch for it – the child is not an individual creature, here, but the stand-in for a general condition of childhood, defined socially in part as “an ability to take pleasure in videogames”. When I last wrote about dad action games I felt they reflected a lack of this ability, a deep exhaustion with the format coupled with an inability to break away from it. The characters are tired of doing this shit, the players are tired of doing this shit, the developers are most certainly tired of doing this shit - but here we go again, with the vague hope that this indefinite, looping deferral of meaning or consequence will basically run itself out. And if not, the unblemished victims of one game can be converted into the haunted, compromised veterans of the inevitable sequel.

What does it mean to reframe public life as a kind of innocence reserve? No longer a place of discussion, argument, violence, history, but a frozen Main Street USA, a vision of the right life accessible to the lucky in brief trips before they go back to the private grind that constitutes their ticket of admission – something that both absolves and basically justifies the horrible conditions around it, and is defended all the more zealously for that reason. Our existing moppet reserves may not be adequate. One of the more jarring political features of recent years is seeing real kids – school shooting survivors, those growing up under climate change – taking up explicitly political positions, as their own experiences diverge ever more wildly from the state of undifferentiated innocence our bold private-industry veterans have supposedly been fighting to protect.  What is the game developer without the player, what is the designer without the end user, what is the policeman without the innocent, what is the soldier without the folks at home?

Well, perhaps automation holds the answer. The task of performing a loveable naivete is increasingly outsourced to artificial intelligence systems anyway, either real or mimed (as with the briefly popular “neural network composes seinfeld script” type comedy format). Robots say the darnedest things, they compose funny pictures, they latch onto words taken out of context and reuse them in humourous ways etcetera. What if a robot learned about Star Wars? What if a robot played Mario 1-1? The possibilities are endless and delightful. The ceremony of innocence can be preserved for another generation – and another generation of “veterans“ will get the satisfaction of simultaneously pitying, celebrating and absolving themselves for the empty work they define themselves around by churning out a public culture of sacrificial kitsch.

(image sources: Breath Of Fire, Captain Commando, Crime City)