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arvensimp · 2 years ago

Note

Christmas is coming, the most beautiful time of the year to spend with arven who probably has never been able to celebrate it with his parents. So the reader did everything (all the traditions) with him. Such as exchanging Christmas gifts, kissing under the mistletoe, build a gingerbread house (arven’s did a amazing job on that), decorating Christmas trees, and you being his secret Santa)

Merry Christmas to all the arven simp, let’s give our boi all the love he deserve.

Merry Christmas to the writer, your writing is AWESOME and I hope you have a wonderful time.

Merry Chrysler!!!! I hope you like this one! I kinda went with some switching happy to somber to happy tones with this one? I've always been taught that Christmas can be just as sad a time as it can be a happy one.

You Can Plan On Me

Arven x reader (no gendered pronouns used) during the holidays. We got some comfort here folks, so grab your hot choccy and snuggle in 💖🦭

Christmas with Arven is...difficult.

It's not his fault, of course! The fact of the matter is that he never properly celebrated the holiday as a child, then as a teenager, he would cut himself off from everyone during the season of merriment, only coming out after New Years Day when the coast was good and clear.

Since you started dating, you've been respectful of his...distaste for the holiday. You get it. It's a difficult one if you've never had a family or close friends to celebrate it with, much less show you how! He also deals now with the fact that he's sort of grieving for a parent that...well, he isn't really sure deserves his grief? It's a whole can of worms, and to be completely honest, you really don't blame him for wanting to snuggle up with a blanket and Mabosstiff and just sit tight for a bit, alone.

This year, you once again try to coax him from his holiday shell, and he hesitantly accepts your offer to try and join in on some of the merriment.

To keep from overwhelming him, you sit down together and figure out what specific things he might like to get it on this year.

First on the list is the tree. To prevent him from getting a bit overwhelmed by...everything, you take the initiative and pick the tree yourself and get it all set up at your place. In preparation for his arrival, you set out all your decorations and get some soft instrumental holiday music playing.

When Arven arrives not long later, you show him your assortment of decor and give him the go ahead to start putting tinsel around the tree.

While he's distracted a bit with the art project of making sure ornaments are spaced well enough apart, you grab a little gift you'd had made for him.

"Hey," He calls for you without looking from his handiwork. "Is there, like, a limit on how many ornaments go on here?"

With the small wrapped present behind your back, you examine the tree. "Hm... I mean, I usually overload the thing with as many ornaments as it'll handle, but..." You show him the package. Arven's jaw drops.

"W-wait! I know we said we'd do gifts, but... That's not until actual Christmas, right? I didn't bring anything."

"Oh!" You laugh lightly. "Yeah that's fine. This is just a bonus present for your first Christmas tree! Open it!"

Arven hesitantly takes your gift. "Thanks..." Inside the packaging is a small, felted ornament of a little maschiff, making a funny face.

You wrap an arm around Arven's waist and kiss his cheek.

"I figured you should have a special ornament to commemorate this year, so I commissioned one of Hassel's buddies to make this."

For his part, Arven bites his lip and delicately strokes the little tuft of fur on the maschiff's head.

"Th-thank you..."

"Of course! You like it?"

He nods, covering his mouth with one of his hands.

"Aww, hey..." You hold him tight and lead him to sit down on the sofa as he gathers himself for a moment.

He doesn't talk, preferring to sit quietly as he swallows down the lump in his throat. You kiss his cheek gently when he stands back up a few minutes later.

"I think..." He starts, "This little guy should go....here."

He hangs him up next to a small fuecoco bauble you got several years ago, the first year you got your beloved partner pokemon.

"They can be buddies! I like it!" You tell him.

"I think that's...enough Christmas for today." He tells you.

You frown. "Too much? I'm sorry."

"N-no! It's just...a lot, I think. I'm ready to stop now."

You squeeze his hands. "I understand. Well you're welcome to snuggle up here or at your place."

Arven thinks for a moment. "I...may just go home."

"That's fine. Just text me when you get home safe, kay?"

Arven nods, and as he leaves he gives you a quick peck.

"Thanks for understanding."

True to form, Arven texts you when he's safe at home and then goes expectantly silent for a bit.

A few days later, you check back in on your Christmas plans.

/Still want to try some baking? No pressure ofc 💖

You're left waiting a bit before he replies.

/Yea sure. I got all the ingredients

Then another text

/Meet at your place?/

You both had already discussed the fact that he wasn't quite ready to bring the spirit of the holiday into his own home, so you're more than fine with him commandeering the kitchen for a bit.

/Sure!! Everything's all clean and sparkly for you here.

/♥️

Arven shows up not long later, his bag stuffed to the brim with his selection of ingredients.

"Okay. Gingerbread, hot chocolate, pecan snowball cookies, and chocolate cake. Are there any sweets I'm missing?"

He says it so matter-of-factly that your heart aches with overwhelming fondness.

"That's pretty much it, yeah. We can do as much or as little as we like. It's more about just...having fun together?"

Arven smiles as he sets down the bags on your counter top and rolls up his sleeves.

"Oh this'll definitely be fun." It's as confident as you've seen him in weeks, and it makes you glow with love and happiness for him.

"Great! I know this is your zone, so just let me know how I can help."

"Sure. Go ahead and get the oven pre-heating, then you can help me with mise en place."

You do as you're told, but before you head back to him, you grab two holiday themed aprons from your pantry.

"Okay! Feel free to say no, but..." You hold them both up to him with an eager grin. They're both hideously ruffly things decked out in red, green, and sparkles. Really, they're hosting aprons more than cooking aprons, and Arven knows you know that. He cringes a bit at the sight of them but smiles nonetheless.

"I'll take the one with the Stantler on it." He sighs.

You pass it to him to put on, which he does without complaint.

You similarly don the delibird apron, outfitted with an adorably appliqued pocket.

Arven sets himself quickly to organizing all the ingredients, separating them out into their places.

As he does, you set out the different bakeware you'll need. A few cookie sheets with parchment paper, the cake tins, and all the rest.

He gets to mixing the gingerbread dough while you set the kettle to boil with milk.

In next to no time, you have several gingerbread shapes cut out and baking in the oven, and steaming cups of thick hot chocolate set out in massive mugs.

You dollop each with homemade whipped cream (Arven had shown you how to make it several months back) and place one down next to your boyfriend.

For his part, Arven is now dutifully rolling out the little pecan dough cookies, a tiny tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips as he concentrates.

"Thanks for the hot chocolate," He says without looking away from the dough. "I'll get to it in a second."

"No problem. Take your time." You tell him. "Want me to get started on the cake batter?"

"Uh...sure. Go ahead and mix together the dry ingredients. Just remember su-"

"Sugar doesn't count as a dry ingredient, I know!" You tease him.

You know better than to try and mess with him when he's in the baking zone, as it were, so you decide to hold off on swiping his nose with whipped cream.

For now.

Not long later, you've swapped places, as Arven creams together ingredients for the cake batter, and you toss warm pecan cookies in their first powdered sugar bath.

"And that's why you always want to have your butter at room temperature," He tells you as he starts folding dry and wet ingredients together.

You love listening to him talk about anything cooking related. Even if you don't quite understand, you love how his eyes light up and how he starts gesticulating wildly as he speaks.

It's just nice to see him happy.

You follow his instructions as best you can, and within a few hours you've got a mountain of sweets.

Arven has taken it upon himself to do the architecture work behind building the gingerbread house, insisting upon using his own homemade icing as well rather than any "store bought junk."

You relax in the meantime, keeping the pokemon entertained and out from beneath Arven's feet.

You set your speakers up to start playing soft Christmas-y tunes as well and take the opportunity to lift Mabosstiff's paws up off the ground and dance with him to Jingle Bell Rock.

The scene gets an honest to goodness laugh out of your boyfriend, and you beam cheekily at him in reply.

He throws a gumdrop at your face, and it bounces off your nose where Skeledirge immediately scoops it up before Mabosstiff has time to get all four paws back on the floor.

Soon enough, Arven is done, and with a satisfied huff he undoes his ponytail and shakes his hair back out to normal.

"Okay! I think that's everything. What do we do now?"

"Um...." You've already got a gingerbread head in your mouth. "Eat?"

Arven sighs, picking up a pecan snowball and popping in his mouth. He moans happily as he chews. "I'll admit, we make beautiful pastries together."

You snort a laugh and grab a sip of your hot chocolate. "You did most of the work, be honest."

He shrugs, coyly not meeting your eye. "I think we shared."

"Uh-huh. Yeah, sure. Listen, I won't complain when the results taste this good."

You toss a gingerbread arm to Skeledirge and cheer as he catches it.

"You know, with all these sweets I wasn't quite sure what we'd do with the leftovers, but between the two of us and thirteen pokemon," He never forgets to include 'Raidon. "I think we might have just enough."

As it turns out, there was just enough to stuff you all.

You and Arven are collapsed on the sofa later that evening, groaning at being so stuffed full of sweets. You roll and throw an arm over your boyfriend.

"Stay for the night? C'mon. I know you don't want to move right now, and I doubt any of your pokemon do either."

"Mmmmgh...." He groans, shifting. "Sure."

The two of you end up falling asleep like that, stupid aprons still tied around your waists.

Your last Christmas activity for the year comes on Christmas day. Or, more accurately, late in the evening on Christmas Day.

You'd spent the better part of the holiday celebrating with friends and family as tradition calls for, only sending Arven texts to confirm that he still wanted to get together tonight and that you love him.

It stings not having him with you, but everyone understands the situation he's in and is sympathetic.

Well after dark, with lights on the tree still twinkling, you greet Arven at your door with two mugs of steaming hot chocolate.

He gratefully comes in and kisses you in greeting automatically. You don't need to point out the mistletoe that Nemona had placed there just for him earlier on.

Once he's removed his coat and grabbed his chocolate, you coax him over to the sofa.

He looks everywhere but at you, and if you look closely, his hands are shaking a bit.

You cup his cheek, still cold from the walk over, on your palm.

"Hey."

He finally meets your gaze and gives you a small smile.

"Hey."

"How ya feeling?"

He sighs and stays quiet for a long moment. "I... I don't know. It's a lot... And in some ways it feels wrong? But other ways it's nice, but then... Then I think about it too hard and it feels wrong again...so...yeah."

As he speaks, Arven leans up against you. You welcome him lovingly into your arms as he snuggles up.

"I hear you. We can just sit here quietly for the night if you like. We don't have to have anymore Christmas this year if you're more comfortable that way."

"N-no!" He says, jolting out of your grip. "I...I really want to give you your gift."

Your heart goes all soft and mushy for him in that moment.

"Okay then. Let me grab yours, too."

You lean over and swipe his gift from beneath the tree, a sentiment that is not missed on Arven from the way his eyes widen just a bit.

He'd never had a gift waiting for him beneath a tree before now.

He takes the delicately wrapped present from you and gives it a tentative squeeze. It's soft to the touch beneath the sparkling paper.

He opens it up methodically, pulling away tape from the seams of the wrapping to truly unwrap the gift, rather than just tear it open.

Inside is a hand crocheted scarf that you put an embarrassing number of hours into creating. At each end are tiny versions of each herba mystica recreated in yarn.

"I made it with 100% mareep wool, so it should keep you nice and warm! It should also repel water fairly well if you get caught in snow or rain." You helpfully provide when he doesn't immediately respond.

You can't see his eyes at your current angle, but you note that he takes each tiny herb between his thumb and forefinger and rubs it lovingly.

"Is...is it okay? It's okay if you don't like it. I can..." Well you can't return it. "I can make you something else?"

Arven's face pops up, his cheeks flush. "You made this?!" He asks incredulously.

You nod. "I'm still learning, so I know it's not perfect, but--"

Arven throws his arms around you. "It's the most perfect gift I've ever received. Ever." Mabosstiff then takes that opportunity to burst from his PokeBall to boof angrily at Arven.

He looks embarrassed at his pokemon. "Uh... I mean." He looks back to you. "Second favorite gift. Sorry..." He puts a hand on Mabosstiff's head and gives him a scratch behind the ear.

"I completely understand," You assure him with a laugh. "I'm just glad you like it!"

"I really do." He says, wrapping the scarf around his neck. "Here! Your turn?" He passes you his own package, beautifully wrapped and larger than you were expecting, to be honest. You wouldn't be surprised if he looked up some type of tutorial to make it look this nice.

"I, uh... I saw it online, and...well... I thought of you."

Inside is a shrink wrapped stuffed animal. "Is it...?" You pull it out slowly. "Oh my god!"

Trapped in an airtight container is a lifesize wooloo plush. You pierce the plastic immediately, giggling in delight as the creature slowly inflates.

"This has been sold out on the website for months!" You cry, hugging the sheep as it rises.

Arven laughs. "I saw an opportunity, and I took it."

"Oh, I love it I love it I love it!!" You tackle Arven to the sofa and kiss his sweet, adorable face all over.

Meanwhile, Mabosstiff paws at the still-growing sheep, boofing softly at it.

After you're done fawning over Arven and the wooloo, in that order, the two of you end up curled up in one another, listening to soft music, still nursing your hot chocolates.

Arven has agreed to spend the night.

It isn't much. Truth be told, you're filled with a terrible aching kind of longing to do more of this exact thing, to smother Arven, keep him wrapped up and cozy and warm and snug and loved and so many other things for the whole Christmas season. But for now, this is what he wants and needs from you.

He is enough as he is, and you won't force more from him.

As years pass you can get him involved more and more as he feels comfortable. There's no need to rush it when you have all the time in the world ahead of you.

#arven fanfic #arven x reader #trainer arven #arven #arven pokemon #rival arven

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rivalsforlife · 3 years ago

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Do you have anything you wished was different from Ace Attorney canon?

Hello I'm finally slowly starting to get around to answering some of these! Sorry for the wait.

Uh this ask got super long so a basic summary of it: narumitsu being canon in a well-written way would be nice even though I don't think it would ever happen, I stand by not bringing back Phoenix as a main protagonist in DD, and I'd also want to rewrite all of SOJ so that Apollo goes to Khura'in in place of Phoenix, to have more interesting character stuff going on.

So the longer answer is this:

Aside from some of the actually problematic stuff that I don't feel qualified to talk about, story-wise, I answered a sort of similar question about a year ago here. I have changed my opinions a little bit since then, particularly with regards to the canonicity of narumitsu... because while I do love narumitsu I feel like I don't trust Ace Attorney to actually do it properly. After all if this past November has taught us anything "making a ship canon" could actually be quite undesirable and I have no desire to see Phoenix and/or Edgeworth sent to superhell. (I literally know nothing else about supernatural sorry about that.)

If capcom were somehow able to make narumitsu canon but in an unobtrusive way and as a natural progression of the storyline, like oh hey, the court record profile for Miles Edgeworth's Obligatory Last-Case Appearance has Phoenix mention they're dating, and maybe there's a few lines suggesting they live with each other, but it's not like... taking the entire story to force them together and otherwise does not change the way they interact with each other and butcher one or both of their characterizations in the process? I'd definitely be happy about that. Not gonna lie even if they made narumitsu canon in the most terrible way possible I'd have a "holy shit I can't believe they did that it's the best day of my life" kind of moment before I could think about it critically. But I honestly see no chance of them ever actually making narumitsu canon, so that's quite unrealistic to hope for anyways.

Aside from that in that other ask I talked about basically the premise of an Apollo trilogy and not bringing back Phoenix as the main protagonist in DD, and I still stand by that, buuut in my other ask I did touch on making SOJ a different game where Apollo goes to Khura'in instead of Phoenix - and you know what I'm going to take some time to actually talk about my dream version of SOJ because there were a lot of little things about the one we got that I didn't like. And it's going to be very long. So it's under a cut.

SO yeah I talked about it a bit in the other ask. I think that Phoenix going to Khura'in is a rather weak idea both externally and in-universe. In one of the interviews, too lazy to find which one, Phoenix basically goes to Khura'in because the writers couldn't figure out how to challenge him anymore. ... And then they don't actually challenge him at all. Because oh well now we're going to this new country where they KILL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS WHO LOSE and then it's supposed to be *shocking* that Phoenix would risk his life for a kid or his best friend. you know the guy who ran across a burning bridge to save his best friend. you know the guy who got punched in the face, nearly killed by the mafia, and tazed trying to save his clients. This doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. His whole travel in Khura'in doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. Basically the only reason he's there is to see Maya - Maya who theoretically would be returning home in about two weeks. Maya who was still in her training for two more weeks when Phoenix visited so he wouldn't be able to see her anyways. ... And in the meantime Trucy had the biggest show of her life that was going to be on TV and Phoenix wasn't there for it. And of course Phoenix didn't return home after Trucy was accused of murder (yes he couldn't be there for the trial, but he definitely could have for the emotional support afterwards) and instead just sits for two weeks in Khura'in doing literally nothing after Ahlbi's trial.

(And yes I know about the anime prologue that has Phoenix think Maya's in danger... but that's not strictly canon since it's never mentioned in game, isn't technically a part of the game, and even still, why wouldn't he go home after knowing that Maya's safe and that Trucy had been ACCUSED OF MURDER. Honestly that's what makes me angriest about this whole thing is that it makes Phoenix out to be a terrible dad. We really don't need any more takes like that, especially not from canon.)

And what about Apollo, you may ask? Well, given case 5 of SOJ, Apollo actually has a personal link to Khura'in and ends up staying there afterwards... after being there for like a day or two. I should note here that it has been a while since I went through SOJ in its entirety so I am fuzzy on many of the details. But both through what I remember and some conversations with people who actually played the game recently, the motivation for Apollo to actually stay in Khura'in isn't that great. It mainly seemed like guilt about his dead dad who he hadn't been in contact with for years and had completely written off until a few days ago but oh he died and then went to go visit him so... better take up the law office!

If Apollo had gone to Khura'in in place of Phoenix and spent more time there, reconnecting with his childhood home and actually getting passionate seeing how corrupt the legal system is there (even though we have a corrupt legal system at home) and being driven to fix it, that would make for a stronger story, I think. The Khura'in plot is more personally focused around Apollo than it is Phoenix. Phoenix's connection to Khura'in is through Maya, but Maya doesn't really have much of a connection to it aside from "it's where spirit channeling is from and she trains there". But Apollo, I guess, grew up there. So it's so strange to me that they force all of Apollo's connection to Khura'in in the last case while Phoenix is running around doing who-knows-what for the rest of the game. Phoenix spends more time getting to know the state of Khura'in and the Defiant Dragons and case 3's whole thing but he isn't the one who in the end decides to sit down and fix it; that's all on Apollo. It almost feels like they forced one of the two plots in to everything. And it was probably conceived as a Phoenix story that they needed to fit Apollo into last minute because oops he's supposed to be a protagonist too.

Some other strengths to Apollo going to Khura'in include that it would shake up the character dynamics a bit. Instead of Phoenix defending Maya, it's Apollo defending Maya, and that's a particularly interesting thing to look at in the context of Khura'in's "we kill defense attorneys" system. Of course, Phoenix would risk his life to save Maya, 100%, every time. But what about Apollo, who hasn't met Maya, who only knows her as "Mr. Wright's former assistant" - would he risk his life for her? And I feel like Maya would argue more against him defending her because of that. "We're strangers, you don't know me, you don't have to risk your life defending me." (Sidenote that I was always upset that Maya didn't protest much when Phoenix offered to defend her, knowing his life was at risk - sure she knows him better and knows he's always been able to get her out of these situations, but at the same time, the fact that there was no "what about your daughter?" conversation sucks. I really wish SOJ wouldn't have like. completely forgotten about the phoenix-trucy father-daughterisms.)

Let's say Apollo goes to Khura'in. Phoenix stays at home. Phoenix gets a call from Apollo that's basically "uhh hi Mr. Wright you know your friend Maya, she's been arrested for murder, if I defend her and I lose we're both dead," then you can tie in to that moment in 6-2 where Phoenix (who can't make it in time for the trial!) believes in Apollo and his skills as an attorney, not just to save Maya's life, but also his own. It ties in a bit more to the overall challenge of defending someone at the risk of your own life. Again, Phoenix would have very few hesitations, if any, risking his life to defend Maya. Apollo may have more defending a stranger at the risk of his own life.

Then if you can actually have Apollo and Maya talk together that would be neat - Maya can tell him embarrassing stories about Phoenix's rookie days, for instance. Their dynamic would be quite a bit different from Phoenix and Maya's, and that would be an interesting thing to see, unlike what we have in SOJ where all of Maya's substantial interactions are with characters she already knows or brand new characters.

(It would also be pretty neat to know more spirit channeling politics and dive in more to Maya's perspective on Khura'in and also her role as upcoming Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique and where she plans to lead the village in the future and also reconcile with her family's bloody legacy, but I'm not quite sure how to fit that in right now.)

And how about Phoenix, back home in Japanifornia? Evidently he'd end up being in charge of defending Trucy. Now, I did love the siblingsisms in canon 6-2, but I feel like there is still potential for Phoenix defending Trucy. All of Apollo Justice has a bunch of good moments between Apollo and Trucy, and she's co-counsel on all his trials, but we've never had any substantial Phoenix and Trucy investigation or co-counsel moments. I feel like AU 6-2 would be a great opportunity to dive more into Phoenix and Trucy's relationship and how it may have changed after Phoenix got his badge back. Plus, Phoenix being "the only one who knows how she really feels on the inside", he'd have unique insider knowledge into some of the Gramarye stuff that comes up in the case and Trucy's personal connection to the Gramaryes, which Apollo knows a bit of, but Phoenix knows more of. ... Or at least, should know more of, given that he raised Trucy for nine years at this point and they're very close, and Phoenix knows her better than anyone else does, even if capcom has forgotten this.

... Of course having Athena defend the case would also be great because more Athena spotlight is never a bad thing, but it's hard to come up with a reason why Phoenix wouldn't be there to defend her. And doing more switcheroos in terms of role in the plot is a bit beyond the scope of what I have in mind right now. Sorry Athena.

Aside from that, Athena still gets Storyteller, Apollo still heads Turnabout Revolution, and Phoenix still gets the DLC case. Apollo stays in Khura'in in the end with a bit more to his motivations. Rather than it just being about carrying on Dhurke's legacy, it's also something Apollo is passionate about after all he witnessed here. While we're at it I'd still rework a lot of Turnabout Revolution to make it so that Phoenix genuinely believes in Atishon because that makes for sooo much more interesting of a plot and actual character development on Phoenix's part than "Maya was kidnapped again and Phoenix is only wrong when he has no other choice", but that'd require some more detail and this post is long enough already.

And in terms of other details that need to be sorted out, there's the question of why Apollo would need to go to Khura'in in the first place. I'd probably say something to do with Dhurke. Maybe he comes back a bit earlier - actually alive, maybe, though crossing borders would be a bit of a challenge, or he reaches out to Apollo remotely somehow and Apollo goes to yell in his face about abandoning him (or at least that's what he thinks he wants.) Then we could have some more Dhurke and Apollo bonding time, potentially? Idk, if you switch up Phoenix and Apollo you're pretty much writing a whole new game and obviously I have not worked out all the details, but I think if Capcom had tried to go with this route from the outset they'd have a stronger game. At least stronger character motivations.

So... yeah. Those are my opinions. If you read through this whole thing I'm very impressed because it got very long!

#asks #soj spoilers #aa6 spoilers

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wonda-cat · 4 years ago

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You mentioned rewriting that one analysis post on Tommy’s revival stream and I’d really look forward to it! I never got to read the full og post and that’s the only place I saw these takes. Especially the one about the afterlife being too depressing. It’s not even just about Tommy, the implication that even if every character is safe and happy by the end, this is their inevitable fate is messed up. It’s not “a neat subversion” it’s just depressing and doesn’t add anything.

Hey, anon!

I sorta decided to not rewrite it? I feel a bit differently about the essay in the end, although I still believe in most of my points. I’m also just not nearly as passionate about it as I was when I wrote it (I finished it in a single sitting, which was... interesting.) However, yes, the afterlife stuff still bothers me just the same, as well as the odd changes to Wilbur’s characterization... post mortem.

But—just for you, anon—here’s the entire meta-analysis essay anyway, with some minor edits to the stuff I don’t agree with anymore!

My Many Narrative Issues with Tommyinnit’s Revival Stream

I want to preface this by saying that I dearly love the Dream SMP and understand it isn’t exactly comparable to other mediums like TV and film. With this being the case, most criticism against it is generally in bad faith or strange in foundation. Complaining about streamers for bad acting is the best example that comes to mind.

These aren’t professional actors. Most have never acted in this sort of setting, or even at all. Quite a few have admitted to never roleplaying before. Which is why it’s warranted to praise Tommy, Dream, Wilbur, Ranboo, and others when they deliver stellar performances. The same applies to criticism of music choice, dialogue delivery, focus, tone, etc.

However, one such category I cannot overlook is in regards to its writing. The writing of a story is its entire foundation. It encompasses many things—conflict choice, character development, themes, and morals. The author creates the blueprints for the architect, who then expresses the story with light, sound, color, pacing, and music. It is in its execution that we see if this connection is made or broken.

The reason I find poor writing mostly inexcusable is because it is one of the most available skills to practice and perfect. I don’t mean to say that it’s easy, I mean to say it is something anyone can attempt to cultivate. Whether they do it well or not depends on their methods and experience. If anyone can self-publish a novel and be criticized online for its quality—and even compared to the works of Mark Twain—then I find critiquing the writing of the Dream SMP to be perfectly reasonable.

However, since the Dream SMP script is a set of loose bullet points, tearing apart dialogue and scene continuity—which is nearly all improv—is rather useless. It doesn’t exactly have a clear focus as the plot plays out. The characters talk in circles until they hit the story beat required, and then they move onto the next. Thus, when criticizing it, one should generally critique grand events and narrative-specific shifts, more so than small-scale character interactions.

Which brings me to my main point: The broad narrative choices taken in Tommyinnit’s most recent livestream, ‘Am I dead?’ may lead to disastrous writing pitfalls in the future.

I’ll be outlining each of my issues below, in hopes of creating a better understanding as to why I feel this way.

This might become quite lengthy, so please bear with me for a bit.

Tommy’s relationship to Wilbur has flipped. This change is jarring and seems out of character.

Tommy and Wilbur’s friendship is rather complicated. While Wilbur does care for Tommy immensely, especially during the L’Manburg Revolution and the Election Arc, his mental spiral during exile put a massive strain on their relationship as a whole. Wilbur brushed off Tommy’s feelings and wants, while clinging to him and pushing everyone else away. He was simultaneously distant and suffocating.

Tommy, on the other hand, has an unclear view of his mentor. Since the beginning, and even long after Wilbur’s death, Tommy held him in especially high regard. He saw him as a brother-figure and a wise leader. He followed what he said and did everything he could to impress him. Yet, Wilbur still hurt him while the two were together in exile.

When speaking of him, Tommy tends to flip infrequently between remembering Wilbur the way he was before his mental decline and thinking of him as a monster. Both of these images conflict with each other, but they weren’t nearly as extreme as what Tommy described Wilbur as when he was revived from death. The fear Tommy displays to Wilbur is beyond intense—it feels as if the audience may have missed a month’s worth of character development.

This can make sense, especially since it was stated that he’d spent what felt like two months in the void. However, this shift is still deeply at odds with Tommy’s previous impressions of Wilbur, which is both disheartening and confusing. The fact that Tommy would agree to stay with Dream—his abuser and murderer—over his past mentor is simply head-reeling. It paints a very different picture of Wilbur’s character, somewhat conforming to the fandom’s ableist impression of him—the idea that Wilbur is insane and irredeemable, and always will be.

It also ignores Dream being the driving factor in Wilbur’s downfall, as well as the double-bind deal with Dream which required him to push the button, no matter the outcome. Others have pointed out that Tommy may be lying to get Dream to bring Wilbur back, and there’s compelling evidence for that. For one, Tommy and Wilbur’s conversation seemed uncomfortable, but it was certainly nothing like Tommy implied. (Unless this fear comes from something Wilbur said off-screen.)

Tommy also begged Dream to not bring him back multiple times over, which he should know would make Dream even more tempted to, simply because he likes seeing Tommy in pain. Tommy is also a known unreliable narrator. He may be making Wilbur out to be worse than he is by accident (even still, I’d argue this is a bit of a stretch.)

However, there are some issues with this theory. Tommy offered himself as payment to Dream if he chose to let Wilbur rest. This is a deal Tommy knows Dream is extremely unlikely to refuse. Tommy is what Dream has coveted all this time. If Tommy genuinely wanted Wilbur back, he would not offer this. This sort of compromise is Tommy’s greatest nightmare—something he would only do in response to his friends being threatened or his home being destroyed.

To add, Tommy is not great at lying. Unless he was taught by Wilbur for those two months* in the afterlife, there’s no chance Tommy would be this good at it. Thirdly, Tommy is terrible under pressure. He uses humor to cope. When he can’t, he cries and shouts and spills his heart out. While cornered, Tommy will tell the truth about anything, especially if Dream casually debates killing him again, just for fun.

For now, it’s too early to tell how the relationship shift will play out. In the grand scheme of things, this issue is rather minor.

Season three’s writing is needlessly bleak. The portrayal of the afterlife is a nightmare. There is no rest, not even in death.

I adore the Dream SMP storyline in its entirety. I believe the first season is fantastic, and while the second season has some narrative clarity issues, I enjoyed it just as much. Although, I would argue season one had a more concrete understanding of its Hope-Conflict balance.

To briefly explain, the Hope in stories are its ‘highs’ and good moments. These appear when a character the audience is rooting for is narratively rewarded. They happen during character building in the text—it’s the downtime and peace that allows for connection and relatability. It’s a moment for the viewer to breathe easy.

The other half is Conflict, an obstacle in the story that gets in the way of the main characters’ goals, beliefs, and motives. These are the ‘lows.’ They give the narrative focus and weight. They make the highs feel even higher. They establish consequences and force the characters in the story to change in order to adapt and overcome them.

I bring up the Hope-Conflict balance because a traditional hero’s journey would have an appropriate amount of both. Their highs and lows are generally equalized, as the name suggests. However, this balance has been awkwardly skewed in the latter half of season two and in the current plot of season three. To clarify, it is perfectly reasonable, and even common, for some stories to tip the scale more to one side.

But a common mistake for amateur writers is to create their stories as either hopelessly dark to cause the audience continuous distress for the sake of distress, or to keep everything entirely conflict-free for most of the plot. What do these both have in common? They each make the story boring and predictable.

Season three has taken this concept and thrown a monstrously heavy weight onto the Conflict side and flipped the scale so hard it has crashed through the ceiling. The viewers are hardly given time to find any joy in Tommy’s character, as he’s thrown into yet another abusive situation, just barely after his first narrative reward. The world is painted as relentlessly violent and traumatic.

Every person Tommy meets is morally grey, unhinged, or out to hurt him. Everything most of the characters love is taken from them by those in positions of power. Ranboo cannot even grieve properly because it scars his face. Puffy, Sam, Ranboo, and Tubbo all blame themselves for what happened to Tommy.

The audience watches lore stream after lore stream with the same depressing tone (with the exception of Tubbo’s, but I assume that’s unintentional.) Tommy is revived after being brutally beaten to death by his abuser, surrounded by all of his greatest fears. The afterlife is revealed to be akin to inescapable torture. It’s a colorless void that wraps the individual like fabric.

Time moves thirty times slower within. There’s nothing—nothing but the voices of others who’ve passed on before him. Dying in a world already devoid of happiness takes the characters to a place worse than hell. When a narrative delivers unfair suffering to the entire cast without a moment of joy to speak of, the story will feel simultaneously overwhelming and pointless.

Why watch characters suffer when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel? What happiness could they strive for when we know they’ll never get to keep it? How can I be satisfied with a good ending, if I know that an afterlife too terrible to name is what awaits them, truly, at the end of their story? Death isn’t even a white void that offers rest—it is eternal torment.

Obviously, it isn’t a good message to send by making the afterlife seem like a quiet, perfect place or an escape from pain. But making it an unspeakable anguish which awaits, assumedly, every character who will die in the future? I deeply hope Tommy was only being an extremely unreliable narrator.

More likely, I hope the place Tommy was taken to was a Limbo of sorts, not an end-all-be-all destination for everyone.

The degree of Tommy’s narrative punishment continues to escalate, to an almost absurd degree.

Tommy is one of the most tragic characters to exist in the storyline. He was sent into war at a young age and experienced two traumatic events during it. He was exiled by the newly elected leader and witnessed his mentor Wilbur spiral and break down with paranoia. Tubbo is executed publicly in front of him. When expressing rightful anger at the person who murdered him, he’s beaten nearly to death and never receives an apology.

Schlatt dies right in front of Tommy, after his initial refusal to hurt the ex-president. His brother-figure and mentor is killed in assisted suicide on the same day his nation is blown up. His best friend exiles him from his home for the second time. He routinely self-sacrifices to protect his country and those who live there. His most treasured possessions were taken from him and he was called selfish for trying to retrieve them (although his methods were self-destructive and volatile.)

He was pushed to the brink of suicide after being relentlessly abused and isolated in his exile. He was horrified when he thought he was responsible for drowning Fundy. After making an objectively good decision to stand by his old friends and change for the better, his country was obliterated by the man he once idolized, his father-figure, and his abuser.

He was left scattered and without purpose for many days. Then he fights against Dream and loses, while also reliving his trauma. He watches Tubbo almost die at the hands of someone he once thought was his friend. He doesn’t tell a single person about what happened to him in exile. The day he tries to sever his connection to Dream and heal, he’s trapped with him for a week, surrounded by everything that terrifies him.

He threatens to kill himself, speaking about his own life as if it were an object—something to hold over Dream’s head. He blames himself for everything bad that’s ever happened to L’Manburg and his friends—internalizing a mentality as a scapegoat for everyone around him. He is forced into the role of ‘hero’ despite the title being unfair and distressing to him.

As if that weren’t enough, he’s then beaten to death by his abuser and spends what feels like two months in an afterlife that is worse than hell. When he returns, his senses are excessively heightened. Dream can cause him excruciating pain, just by pinching him. He can send Tommy into an instant panic attack, just by raising his voice.

The punishment Tommy’s character receives is a thousand times worse than everyone he has ever met, or ever will meet. And it shows no signs of stopping, as Dream now has control over Tommy’s very mortality. Tommy now fears the slightest damage and feels as if he’s losing his best friend all over again. He is also forced into a position where he has to kill Dream out of necessity, to protect everyone he cares about.

Characters need fitting punishments in relation to their actions. Not always, but in order to be satisfying? Yes, they do. It is preferred that a main character deal with unfair situations and difficult conflicts, but this is borderline torture p*rn. Putting Tommy in these distressing and abusive situations on repeat and punishing him for doing objectively moral or healthy things is exhausting to watch.

To quickly add, I find the general insinuation of Tommy going to hell distasteful, especially considering the contents of his storyline. I know this may be hard to believe, but Tommy is one of the most moral characters in the plot, besides Puffy and Ghostbur. He’s also the only character, followed by Ranboo, to recognize that they can be wrong and make mistakes. He changed himself in order to heal and be a better person. He was in the process of paying people back for the things he’d stolen.

He’s learned to be hard-working and less violent through the guidance of Sam. He has apologized to everyone he’s ever hurt (with the exception of Jack Manifold, because that man is allergic to communication.) He puts himself in harm's way to protect others. He doesn’t set out to purposely hurt anyone. He goes out of his way to make connections with people and maintain them, even if others don’t reciprocate.

He’s hopelessly optimistic, despite his outwardly bitter façade. He loved so much and put meaning into the smallest things. The thought that a person like him—a suicide and abuse survivor—would go to hell after being beaten to death by the man who took everything from him; it makes me sick to my stomach.

The only thing more morbid than Tommy’s afterlife being different than everyone else’s, is the concept that everyone will end up in this same eternal torture, no matter what they do. Take your pick: Tommy is sentenced to anguish until the end of time for no reason, or everyone will receive the same disturbing ending, regardless of their actions.

The narrative weight of Ranboo’s character is potentially out the window.

For the past few months, I’ve watched all of Ranboo’s lore streams faithfully, curious to see what role he would play in the future. His ‘hallucinations’ of Dream seemed to be sowing the seeds for a plot that has Ranboo taking the fall for every single insidious thing Dream has done. It would also be a tragic parallel to Tommy’s trial.

Ranboo being convinced he was the one who blew up the community house, when Dream himself admitted to doing it, was one of the bigger indicators for me. This is just one of many other unexplained occurrences. Dream seemed to be making an effort to trigger and control Ranboo, especially after Sapnap’s prison visit. It appeared, from the way he went about this, that Dream had some grand use for Ranboo as part of his plan to be freed from Pandora’s Vault.

However, after Tommy’s stream, the way Dream explains himself makes it seem like there was no plan besides seeing if the book worked on people. And if he didn’t after all, then what was Ranboo for? Was Ranboo unimportant? Was Ranboo just some weirdo who happened to phase out when seeing smiley faces and imagined conversations that may or may not have happened?

I bring this up more as a worry, and much less so as an active problem in the narrative. They haven’t actually thrown Ranboo to the way-side or written themselves into a corner yet. In future streams, this could very easily be explained away or developed as more information is revealed.

Only time will tell.

The potential for Wilbur’s future development and importance to the plot is unfeasible.

I feel as if I am the only person on earth who doesn’t want Wilbur Soot or Schlatt revived. There are many reasons for this, but one of them is not a dislike for these characters. I especially adore Wilbur, as he’s one of my all-time favorites. I don’t want either of them resurrected because their stories have already been told. They each had a fitting conclusion that ended their involvement perfectly.

Bringing Wilbur back would especially cheapen the impact of the War of the 16th. It’s the end of a man who was brought to the absolute edge and out of desperation, shame, and self-hatred, he destroyed himself alongside his creation. Bringing him back would leave the climax of the previous story hollow. My biggest issue, however, is that a lack of story importance would likely follow his return.

The only real impact I’d like to see is through a healing arc with Tommy, an apology to Fundy, or a confrontation with Phil/Niki. But that’s really all the potential I can realistically see. While I don’t doubt Wilbur as an agent of chaos, able to create plot out of thin air; what is he going to do now? His country is gone, his friends and family are scattered about, and his mission from the 16th is already accomplished.

What is a well-educated, charismatic politician supposed to do in a world already broken and without nations? Read poetry to himself and cry evilly? However, this is working off the assumption that Wilbur would be returning as his old self.

If Wilbur is resurrected as a ‘villain’ of sorts, then what? He’s not good at fighting in the slightest. He would have no materials. There are no real allies he can make, other than the arctic group. On top of that, there are already more than enough villains to last a lifetime.

We don’t need any more, I promise. Quackity seems to already be shaping up as another antagonist, alongside Sam’s slip into darker and darker shades of moral ambiguity. We also have Philza and Techno, which are already overkill. But then we have Dream who, despite being in a prison, has the ability of selective revival. This is mercilessly overpowered, especially if he makes many allies. The dude could just bring his dead friends back so they can keep fighting forever.

Then there’s Jack Manifold and the Crimson followers; Antfrost, Bad, and Punz. That’s not even including characters who are refusing to get involved. How are Tommy, Tubbo, and Puffy expected to do literally anything to fight back?

Dream’s experiment on Tommy implies he had no backup plan to begin with. This makes his character seem both short-sighted and foolish.

When Tommy woke up after being brought back to life, Dream sounded surprised that the revival worked at all. This instantly shatters the perception that Dream was highly intelligent and thought ahead. With just a few lines of dialogue, it’s implied that Dream killed Tommy, unsure of if the resurrection would even be possible on humans.

Which, to risk something that important, seems unbelievably stupid. Dream needs Tommy, from his perspective. Tommy is his ‘toy,’ the one who makes everything fun. If he lost him and couldn’t get him back, what then? Oh well, everything Dream was doing was all for nothing, I guess.

Why not attempt this experiment on literally anyone else first? Like Sapnap or Bad or, hell, even Ranboo. I suppose it could be that, as soon as Dream got the book, he experimented with it after the 16th. This appears to be insinuated with Friend and Hendry’s revival, although this is uncertain. But even then, he was still unsure of the book’s effect on a human being.

Also, this means, hypothetically, Dream’s entire plan of escape hinged on the experiment working, to begin with, and also on bringing back Wilbur if it somehow did. I find this even more ridiculous. Why Wilbur? That man couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag, let alone get through the traps in Pandora’s Vault. Even if he is intelligent after years* in the afterlife, that’s also a strange assumption.

How do people learn things in the void? Where do they even get this knowledge? I’d honestly argue Techno is a far more competent choice than Wilbur. And even if Dream did bring him back and tell him he owed him his life, what’s to stop Wilbur from just killing him permanently? Or killing himself, continuously?

No way would Wilbur want to be controlled by anyone, ever. The dude would sooner fuck off into the mountains and become a nomad than help a neon green bodysuit cosplay as Light Yagami.

Dream’s discussion about Sam implies that he wasn't playing any part in Dream’s plan, making Sam appear entirely incompetent and neglectful of Tommy.

Dream talked about Sam in a way that seems detached and unaffiliated. He also mentioned him being broken up about Tommy’s fate and not being aware he’s still alive. Dream not being partnered with, or not using Sam in his plan leaves many plot holes. I’ll go through each one. The initial incident was an explosion, coming from the roof of Pandora’s Vault. This did not affect the Redstone mechanism for the doors or dispensers.

Meaning, Sam could’ve had Tommy leave the way that was expected for visitors after he investigated and found no issues. This likely couldn’t have been done in less than a day, but it would be better than an entire week. If Tommy was required to stay for longer, due to protocol, he could’ve gotten Tommy out and then placed him in one of the minor cells for the remainder of the time.

Also, no one else lost a canon life for leaving via the splash potion of harming and returning outside the maximum-security cell; why would Tommy? To add, Sam being uninvolved means that the explosion could have only been caused by Ranboo or Foolish. That, or it was placed long before and timed for the moment Tommy entered the main cell. (I’m going to ignore how ludicrous it is that someone would know the exact time Tommy would’ve entered the room with Dream.)

If Ranboo was the person behind the detonation, this implies he was necessary for Dream to kill Tommy to test the book. But that makes it even stranger. If this was Dream’s goal all along, why not kill Tommy the instant he was trapped with him? It makes no sense for him to wait so long.

Sam is also directly at fault for not letting Tommy out, even after the week was up. There was no reason not to. He already knew there were no issues with the prison at that point. Although, to be fair to Sam, his character may have been paranoid and checking everything more than necessary, just in case. But this still isn’t a good excuse for him ignoring protocol in this one instance, and yet, not in any of the others.

All of these plot holes or inconsistencies would be removed if it was revealed that Dream was blackmailing Sam in some way, or Sam had been working with him since the get-go. That Sam was the person who set off the explosion in the first place to trap Tommy inside. It would also explain Sam’s refusal to let Tommy out and by keeping him in there for longer than necessary.

This can also coexist with Sam’s attachment and care for Tommy. He probably wasn’t told about Dream’s plan to test the book and genuinely believed Dream wouldn’t hurt him. On top of that, Dream is known to be a pathological liar, so his statements about Ranboo and Sam could be entire fabrications.

Who knows?

The Book of Revival invalidates death entirely. The narrative now lacks both tension and consequence.

Another way the Dream SMP differs from other storytelling media is in the way it goes about its character deaths. In a TV show, for example, there will be characters who die just because, or when it’s important to the plot. However, it seems as if the Dream SMP is hesitant to commit to killing its characters. And there are many reasons for that.

The most important one being, killing someone’s character excludes them from the story and some of their livelihoods depend on them regularly streaming on the server. There is also the issue of the cast becoming extremely sparse if characters keep dying. Typically, in stories, when you kill a character, you should introduce another.

This keeps the cast from dwindling as the storyline goes on. This means the writers would have to find new streamers to join, who will develop their own characters and relationships with the plot’s continued momentum. This can be stressful and daunting to those who may be newly added in the future.

Keeping this in mind, the Book of Revival is annoying from a writer’s perspective. When death is no longer an issue for a story hinged on its characters’ mortality, then what do you have as a consequence anymore? We’ve explored every kind under the sun; from abuse, to betrayal, to loss, to destruction.

In stories, traditionally, death is a finality. It’s a conclusion. Whether it’s good or not depends on the character’s actions, its build-up, and the event’s execution. Without this lingering sense of danger, tension evaporates from the story.

Why should I care if Tommy loses in a fight to someone, if he’ll just come back a day later? Why should I care about what happened to Wilbur, if he just returns as if nothing happened? The answer is simple: I won’t. I will no longer care if Tubbo or Ranboo or Sam die in the story, because the idea of revival even being a possible outcome leaves me unenthused and uncaring.

The Dream SMP likes to flirt with death. It teases the demise of its main characters many, many times. More so Tommy’s than anyone else’s. Wilbur’s failed resurrection, which had unforeseen and unfortunate outcomes, is now strange in comparison to Tommy’s, which happened without a hitch.

To be fair, we actually don’t see how many attempts it took. But here’s the problem; Dream could do it without the book being physically present. He’s trapped in a prison with nothing on him, meaning he doesn’t need any materials either. It’s also implied he could do this as many times as he feels, for anyone he wants. This would be exceedingly overpowered, if not for one thing—Dream himself is mortal (at least, I fucking hope he’s mortal.)

If someone kills him one last time, that knowledge is gone forever. And I’m glad they’ve established at least some way for Tommy to win. Because at this point, I was losing faith.

There is also the bare minimum establishment that Dream can refuse to bring back those he doesn’t care for. He can also use it as a shield, holding this power over other people. If Dream is gone, death is permanent. But isn’t that how death is supposed to be, anyway?

What a bleak premise—the afterlife is pure eternal torture while life is cheapened by a lack of consequences.

Conclusion

All this to say, I am cautiously optimistic for the future. I hope dearly that every single one of these can be disproven or developed in the coming livestreams. Obviously, there’s not enough information to really determine what the end result will be, or how everything will fall into place.

Every time I have theorized about the story, it has done something completely different and pleasantly surprised me. I want this trend to continue.

Surprise me again—I’ll be here to see where it goes.

#answered asks #long post #tommyinnit #dream smp meta #dream smp #dsmp #dsmp analysis #this is slightly outdated still but whatever #hope this was helpful anon #tw abuse #tw suicide

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taeyongdoyoung · 4 years ago

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summary: the forest is your only escape from the everyday troubles with your family until you find danger lurking behind the trees. or rather, danger finds you. your fateful encounter with the vampire ravn leaves you wishing for a different life. you strike an unexpected deal with the stranger that will soon turn into something more…

pairing: vampire!ravn x reader

genre: vampire!au, humour, fluff

warnings: unresolved sexual tension, a lot of shakespeare lmao

word count: 2.2k

part one 🌙 part two 🌙 part three 🌙 part five 🌙 part six 🌙 part seven 🌙 part eight 🌙 part nine 🌙 part ten🌙 part eleven 🌙part twelve 🌙 epilogue

A month after you started living in Ravn’s castle and you were getting anxious to go out. Not that you weren’t doing fine inside. The vampire was treating you great and you were happy to read books together, feed each other (literally) and have interesting conversations. However, you missed the fresh air outside, you missed just walking around aimlessly and wandering to new places. You didn’t want to risk your parents spotting you so the village was out of the question. The forest, though…

You wondered how to bring it up. Ravn had initially said that he doesn’t expect you to stay trapped in his castle forever, but he never mentioned it after. Maybe, he enjoyed just chilling at home. You did, too. But your adventurous spirit was eager to try something new.

As you were lost in thoughts, Ravn touched your shoulder and you jumped at the sudden contact.

“Sorry, did I frighten you?” he asked gently and sat down next to you on the couch.

“N-no, it’s fine, I was just thinking.”

“You do seem a bit antsy. Anything bothering you?”

“Why? Everything is peachy,” you quickly responded, because you still hadn’t figured out how to ask Ravn if it was okay to go out without upsetting him. You didn’t want him to think that you were ungrateful for everything he had done for you.

“Don’t lie to me, Y/N,” Ravn said in a serious tone, which made shivers run down your spine, reminding you of the first time you met him. “I can’t take that.”

“I’m s-sorry,” you whispered. “I was…hoping we could go out sometime? But I didn’t want to seem unappreciative of your efforts to make me feel at ease. Which is why I had no idea how to ask for it. I’m so sorry.”

Ravn smiled softly.

“Is that it? You didn’t have to lie. I told you that I won’t keep you prisoner, didn’t I?”

You nodded slowly.

“I know you did, but still, I’m so used to being a burden that I don’t know how to act around…around someone like you.”

“A vampire?” Ravn laughed ironically.

“No. Around someone who doesn’t judge everything I do or say.”

“Oh,” Ravn was surprised at how you viewed him. He was supposed to be the monster in the story. So, why did you treat him like a saviour of some sort?

“I mean it,” you insisted once you noticed how unsure he was.

He shook his head. This emotion thing was too new and too scary for him and he didn’t know how to deal with it.

“Where do you want to go?”

“Maybe the forest?” you asked quietly.

Ravn was shocked at your choice.

“Haven’t you been there a lot? Don’t you want to try something new?” he suggested casually.

“As long as it’s not anywhere near my parents, I’m game,” you chuckled.

“Do you want me to surprise you or would you rather know where I’m taking you?” Ravn teased, a wonderful idea already forming in his mind.

“Surprise me, then,” you lifted your chin and looked at him boldly.

“You trust me?” he repeated the question you had so far responded to negatively.

“I do, actually,” you decided to be honest for once, because he had warned you not to lie to him ever again. He was obviously taken aback by your answer.

“You stupid lamb,” Ravn chuckled and placed your hands around his neck. Then, wrapped his arms around you and lifted you up. “Hold on tight.”

And he began running at a speed that shouldn’t have been humanly possible. But yet again, he was no human. At one point the accelerated motion made you so sick that you closed your eyes and hid your head in his chest. You had no idea where you were going but the realization that it didn’t matter amazed you. He didn’t scare you. But this terrifying journey did. You probably should have warned him you had never travelled with anything faster than a bike. You had spent your entire life in your small village and the forest nearby. You were pretty sure you would pass out soon, but before that happened, Ravn stopped running.

“You may open your eyes.”

You did as he said and looked around. The first thing you noticed was how big everything around you was. The buildings, the towers, the cars, the bridges, the river. How…magnificent. And not in the way his castle was. Ravn’s home felt familiar in a way you couldn’t quite put into words. This place, wherever it was, felt so strange. But in a good way.

“Where are we?” you murmured nervously.

“Can’t you tell?”

You shook your head in embarrassment.

“Welcome to London,” Ravn informed you of your current whereabouts.

“You’re kidding!”

“Nope,” he laughed. “I thought you were into Shakespeare. How can you not recognize where we are?”

“I only managed to borrow and read some of his plays in my village. I’ve never seen…”

“Pictures of London?” Ravn helped you out when he saw you were struggling to find the right words.

You nodded, suddenly feeling intimidated by the vampire’s vast knowledge of the word.

“I’ll be your guide, then,” Ravn offered you his hand like a gentleman. “Do you want to visit the Globe Theatre first? It’s a reconstruction of-“

“I know what it is,” you responded. “Again, I haven’t seen pictures, but I read about it in one of the introductions to the book of plays.”

Ravn smiled proudly.

“That’s my girl,” he smirked.

First, he’d called you his human and now this? You could swear Ravn was going to kill you. Not with his fangs but his words.

The two of you spent the morning visiting many interesting places. Starting from the Globe Theatre, where Ravn showed you around like an expert, pointing out curious facts about Shakespeare that got you staring like a wide-eyed puppy. He also led you to a couple of lovely vintage bookshops and insisted on buying you some of Shakespeare’s plays you hadn’t read.

“But you have these already in your library!” you reasonably argued.

“Yeah, but I want you to have them. Besides, they’re different editions.”

“Ravn…you really don’t have to,” you were ashamed that he was spoiling you so openly.

“Y/N…please, let me,” Ravn whispered in your ear. It was like he was asking you to get him something and not the other way round.

You finally conceded and once the two of you left the bookshop, you found yourself clutching a paper bag with Shakespeare plays. You weren’t sure how to thank him properly for doing this for you and you couldn’t exactly offer him to drink from you in such a public place, so you did the one thing that came to mind. You lifted yourself on your toes and gave him a quick but heartfelt kiss on his cheek. Ravn seemed flustered and you could swear you saw his usually pale skin turn red for the briefest of seconds.

“Thank you,” you told him, your smile full of gratitude and affection.

“It’s nothing,” Ravn coughed and suddenly found the ground beneath you very amusing. You smiled when you reached the conclusion that he could get so easily embarrassed.

“It means everything to me,” you confessed. “No one has ever given me such a precious gift.”

“Come on, we still have many places to see,” Ravn grabbed your free hand and pulled you along.

You were lucky enough to see a couple of museums associated with famous British writers. The afternoon was dedicated to the more “basic tourist destinations” as Ravn called them such as the Big Ben, Tower Bridge and the River Thames. Everything was so grand that you couldn’t help staring at it like a lost puppy. Finally, as the sun was setting, Ravn suggesting going to the London Eye, which was most magnificent at night. Its lights shining through the dark, you were completely awestruck. Suddenly, you remembered a story you must have heard around the village.

“Wait, how did you survive throughout the day?”

Ravn laughed.

“Funny, it took you so long to notice. And if you’re referencing the foolish myth that the sun harms vampires, fear not, my lady, I am perfectly immune to daylight.”

You were relieved to hear that but a large portion of your mind was choosing to focus on the part where Ravn called you my lady, which was honestly making things to your heart that you couldn’t quite control or comprehend.

“I’m sorry for being such a dim-witted person,” you looked down in shame.

“You’re the brightest person I’ve ever talked to,” Ravn reassured you.

You faced him in the dark; the London Eye lights were giving his features a mystical, supernatural glow. He was so beautiful. You wanted to trace your fingertips down his porcelain skin and tell him how much you ached to touch him. It was insane, you knew. He was supposed to embody everything little kids were taught to fear, every dark fairytale, every warning whispered before midnight, to force the kids to finally go to bed or the scary vampire would take them away. But he was nothing like the stories. In the brief time of your acquaintance you’d seen nothing but tenderness. Who were you supposed to believe? These foolish myths or your own eyes, your mind and your heart?

“Shall we?” Ravn urged you to approach the London Eye, thus, breaking the spell he held over you. You followed him in a rush.

“Oh no,” you mumbled, pointing to a sign. “It says here it’s closed.”

Ravn smiled devilishly.

“When has that ever stopped me before?”

“Ravn…what are you planning?” you asked cautiously, but it was already too late.

His hands were already on you and the next second you had somehow ended up on top of the London Eye, with a view to the whole city, its lights making it look even more beautiful at night.

“This is…insane,” you gasped, holding tightly onto his shirt for support.

“Yeah.”

“Bite me,” you requested out of nowhere, looking into his dark eyes.

“W-what?” Ravn choked.

“Bite me, so I know I’m not dreaming.”

He laughed, amused by your reaction.

“If I bite you, we’ll both fall from here.”

You scoffed lightly.

“Thus with a bite I die,” you joked, slightly paraphrasing Romeo’s last words.

“Rawr,” Ravn teased.

You looked around the city street lights. Everything seemed so tiny from up here. And there you were, a human and a vampire on top of the world. It felt surreal.

“It’s so beautiful,” you said, completely stunned by the view.

“It really is,” Ravn confirmed, only you had no idea it wasn’t the city he was staring at…

🌙🌙🌙

Once you were back in Ravn’s castle, you walked to your room in a daze, still finding it hard to believe how you’d spent the day. But the paper bag with Shakespeare plays in your hand was the material proof that it had, in fact, been real. Ravn followed you silently and the minute your back hit the bed, he tucked you in gently.

“Good night, Y/N.”

“Aren’t you hungry?” you asked sleepily.

You were so exhausted from the journey and you still found enough energy to care for his needs. Ravn couldn’t believe he’d met such a selfless, precious human.

“I can manage a couple more hours,” he chuckled.

“You’ve given me so much more than I deserve,” you murmured weakly.

“That’s not true,” Ravn said. “You deserve all the stars and the moon.”

“O, swear not by the moon, th’inconstant moon,” you were still able to recite Shakespeare despite being so tired and it was only fitting, considering today’s adventures.

“What shall I swear by?” Ravn played along and you could feel yourself falling, not only asleep.

“Swear by thy gracious self and I’ll believe thee.”

🌙🌙🌙

You woke up to the smell of something delicious. Eggs? Bacon? What was this enticing odour? You hurriedly put on a robe and ran down the stairs and towards the kitchen. You were struck to find Ravn cooking human food!

“What are you up to?” you asked, sneaking up behind him. To your further astonishment, he hadn’t heard you, maybe because he’d been so focused on the task at hand.

“Nooo, you should go back to bed!” Ravn scolded you. “You ruined the surprise.”

“This all for me?” you inquired curiously and wrapped your hands around his waist, which made Ravn jump in shock.

“Duh,” he replied. “I can’t eat that.”

“So, you’re just fattening me up so that you can eat me later?” you admonished him playfully.

“Oh, no, you’ve uncovered my evil plans!” Ravn groaned dramatically.

“What shall we do, then? Do you think I’ll be so easily tempted?” you continued to joke around and ran your fingers down his back, making him slightly tense under your timid touch.

“I think,” he started. “That after you try my eggs, you’ll be begging me for more.”

“Yeah?” you giggled at the double entendre. “We’ll have to see about that.”

You were still trying to distract him from cooking when Ravn turned around swiftly, grabbing your hands.

“Don’t play with me,” he hissed, aiming to sound threatening but you were having too much fun to feel any fear.

“Why not?” you pouted adorably.

“Because you’re making it really hard for me to resist you.”

“You can have me whenever you wish,” you pointed out. That was your arrangement, after all.

“Not like that, I can’t,” Ravn whispered, almost too quiet to hear. Key word: almost. “The eggs are ready. Eat up.”

You didn’t question it, because you were too hungry to care what exactly he meant by that.

To be continued…

#oneus #ravn #ravn x reader #twilight #oneus fanfic #kim youngjo #fluff #vampire au #ravn fanfic #vampires #kim youngjo x reader #writing

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agl03 · 4 years ago

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Hello! I’m a new aos watcher, so I apologise if this is a repeated rant, I just wanted to vent a little and found your blog :) I just finished through season 3 and 4 and those were really… rough on fitzsimmons, more so than the first 2, and I think it’s because the writers were so inconsistent? 3A was just a mess to jemma. she was so hot and cold, but not in the way you’d expect from being on a planet. it was like watching a different character almost every other episode [1/6]

[2/6] she has ptsd, then she doesn’t, she’s professing love for fitz, then professing it for will. I was getting whiplash! It felt like the writers put her through hell and then didn’t know how to come back from it, but gathered their bearings in 3B (although if I’m honest, that felt a little cheap, because it was a redo for her relationship with fitz but she still never got to react to being on a freaking alien planet!)

[3/6] and then season 4 was so hard to watch how they tore fitz down. I just find it so hard to believe that, without jemma, fitz would be such a monster, because he had to be a good person too, right? otherwise its like he had 0 personality before jemma and she carved him into who he was, but that doesn’t make sense. I guess I’m still shocked that he never woke up from it, even though everyone else did. it felt like the writers pushed him far (too far) and didn’t know what to do with him.

[4/6] I haven’t seen season 5 so I hope they mention it a little bit, but it was a real struggle to see how extreme they went with him, and Im honestly struggling with whether or not i should go on because the writers seem to love to push them to extremes and then backpedal and not in any way that resolves anything, it really makes me cringe sometimes!

[5/6] I also thought it was strange that fitz got a chance to say, very clearly, that he would always choose jemma over anyone, but that jemma never said anything about that for will? I get that jemma is more reserved than fitz, but I’m still a little sore about that, it doesn’t help with fitz looking like besotted second choice, is all I’m saying. I guess I’ll have to see in the later seasons…

[6/6] anyway, i'm sorry for this, i had about 4 seasons of angst built up in me and i didn't know who to turn to! i really like the show, but i am starting to try and watch with less and less expectations because i keep getting my hopes up for a real resolution and it hasn't happened after almost 100 episodes... thank you for listening and for being so friendly from what i see! i hope i haven't poked old wounds or anything !

Hi Anon!

Welcome to the Fandom, and you have no idea how much these kinds of asks are right up my ally over the years. I’d say go digging through my blog for more of the metas but that is spoiler central in there so I hope this will suffice until you are done.

First and foremost I don’t want to spoil anything for you but I’ll say to you what I said to the fandom at the end of Season 4....just hang in there we have to trust that the writers have a plan. I”m REALLY gonna stress this one cause I have a feeling you’ll be back.

Season 3 does indeed hold many old wounds and a pile of story lines that started and then went no where or flat out didn’t make sense. The whole Space Rando thing was upsetting to say the least but I will tell you the writers said in the Season 3 Declassified that he was nothing more than a roadblock in getting Fitzsimmons together, 12 episodes, but that is what is was. Were there other ways they could have worked with a more father figure Space Rando and Jemma’s PTSD for that delay, yes, but to be very honest they did not have the real estate to do that kind of story the justice it needed with everything else going on. It is also worth noting they had to fire the actor that played Will and in that had to change a few things, IE Hive was Ward. Real estate wise the cast had gotten pretty large at that point and there just wasn’t enough time to properly deal with all that was going on.

Season 4 they did much better, had things mapped out better, but that still didn’t change the fact that I suspect there were a few lane changes story wise . Again thanks to the declassified books. And over the years I’ve done A LOT of metas on the Framework and I think something that gets lost a lot is what Radcliffe said he wanted and what AIDA actually did when it came to fixing a regret.

Radcliffe told AIDA, in order to keep the team quiet and not trying to bust out like May did, was to take away a regret. And for May that was Bahrain. That change was what set up the hell scape we came into with Hydra in charge. Radcliffe was blissfully off on his happy Island with no clue what she was really up too until it was too late.

After 4.14 when AIDA got her hands on the rest of the team she didn’t do like she did with May, Change her biggest regret, rather she changed A regret and for everyone but Fitz stuck them somewhere where they wouldn’t get in her way. Mack got his daughter back and was ready to die in there with her. Mace got to be the Hero Inhuman Leader he always wanted to be. Coulson was a teacher. May was where her regret left her. Daisy (had she been replaced) would have just been another foot soldier in Ophelia’s army. And Jemma was where she could never ever have a chance of getting to Fitz because she feared their love and that Jemma would take him from her. And I have proof those were not the regrets that they would have had fixed and I’ll circle back to that in a second.

Fitz was her target all along. She knew from the Darkhold she needed him for what she wanted. Looking Glass and Love. However, she didn’t realize that his heart always was Jemma’s and when he wasn’t brainwashed and controlled within an inch of his life that he’d leave her in a second. She mistook his previous acts of caring and empathy as love and had no understanding of the depths of human emotions. IE you can love people different ways. Sure he cared about AIDA but he loves Jemma with his heart and soul and vise versa.

As Fitz was her target she fixed things so that she could insert herself in his life in Jemma’s place and that he would have grown up with his awful father who taught him that cruelty and power was the way to go. This also kept out any positive and caring influences like his Mother, Jemma, and the team.

I said I had proof that some of those regrets weren’t necessarily what the team would have picked. That came via Self Control from Robo Coulson and Robo Fitz bearing in mind these LMD’s all had scans of who’d they replaced. Their memories and their desires.

Robo Coulson told Robo May to let this whole hostile takeover happen because in the Framework they were happy and together. That was decidedly not the case there though their connection ended up proving crucial to getting everyone out.

Robo Fitz told Jemma he was doing this for her so they could get married, grow old together. Had he known he would be sending Jemma literally into the grave Robo Fitz would not have gone along with the plan. He thought he was getting Jemma and they were going to go live their own Happily Ever After in there. Yeah, not the case either.

With the not waking up, no one but Coulson woke up and that was only thanks to Tahiti. And yes, it was brutal. Every week my poor ask box got more and more upset and as a fandom we were more than ready to get the hell out of there. I mistakingly died on the hill that Jemma would snap him out of it (though I did accurately predict the second Fitznapping....yay). She didn’t because this isn’t Once Upon a Time, True Love’s kiss doesn’t break the curse of having your mind completely wiped by an evil LMD and the Magic Demon Book. Now looking back it does make the fact that the second he had free will again, despite that other manipulated life where he was dedicated to Ophelia, it was still Jemma.

Oh and Jemma did choose Fitz over Will, when the sandstorm hit. She continued to go to Fitz and left Will....she would have never left Fitz in a sandstorm with the evil monster lurking about.

That all being said sometimes crap just has to happen to move the story ahead and there is always a price to pay for the good. I do think the Framework went too far but at the same time the writers were making a bit of a political statement there and they saw how good Iain was with evil bad guy.

Shippping Fitzsimmons is a lot like a Marathon and you are about to the “What on earth have I done to myself,” point of the race. But I promise the feeling of crossing that finish line at the end can’t be beat.

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firebirdsdaughter · 4 years ago

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Aaaaauuuughhh…

… The Izu - Horobi conversation is incredibly frustrating bc if the context/everything around it had been different, it could have been good. Horobi prompting an Izu, who has up to then done nothing but exist completely by Aruto’s will, to consider what she thinks is the right thing to do rather than just believing what Aruto says. It would be better for the conversation to open w/ him asking about her rather than anything about Aruto, and not specifically implying she should go to Aruto, just prompting her to make her own choice, for real, using information she actually has. It also would be better w/out all this insistence that there’s anything different about Izu, bc there isn’t, I absolutely believe that even if she’d had her memories at that time, she’d been doing exactly as Aruto ordered, bc Izu has no personality beyond Aruto’s wishes. That is her entire person. Her memories didn’t change her bc she was merely groomed to keep worshipping Aruto w/ no other input or experiences. They may have added a few more hearts to her eyes, but it was nothing that couldn’t be included in a five-minute catch up. I see absolutely no difference between the ‘new’ and the ‘old’ Izu and having characters repeatedly insist that there is one gets tiring fast.

And this is part of what’s frustrating, bc that’s actually parallel she and Horobi had/have. Both of them spent the majority of their lives (in Izu’s case, it’s been all of her life) completely for the benefit of another’s will, for him, the Ark, for her, Aruto (I absolutely give that for Aruto, I don’t think it was intentional, I think he actually believed he was doing what was right, and realising that was wrong was character development I really wanted for him). Horobi, however, had Jin as a variable. Izu had no one, and from all sides was repeatedly told, and by Aruto himself, how Great and Right he was. Once again, I don’t think he was actively trying to groom her, I think he thought he was being properly supportive, but the fact is that it happened. I don’t object to them caring about each other, or working together, or her wanting to support him, it’s the fact that ‘supporting him’ is her entire goal in life, and that she has no other relationships or supports herself, and makes no decisions or conclusions on her own. She merely follows what he says and believes him completely. This is not cute when it’s the Ark and Horobi, it’s not cute when it’s Aruto and Izu. Horobi was deliberately put ‘on hold’ by the writers bc they are cowards, but Izu is repeatedly lauded as this pinnacle of HumaGear development and I just don’t see it. She’s Aruto’s devoted cheerleader and that’s it. Their ‘bond’ feels like a delusion on his part. She was made to revolve around him, and any blank slate, be it child, animal, ai, if treated w/ apparent decency, is easily made to believe that they actually love the person treating them like that. It’s. Like. The definition of grooming.

Esp w/ a class as powerless as HumaGear, it’s very, very easy for those w/ power over them to impose their will on the HumaGear and convince them [HumaGear] that it’s their own; and that’s what I see w/ Aruto and Izu. She was made to cater to his interests, and him apparently treating her nicely reenforced to her that she existed to serve him, and then he in turn (I do think w/out ‘meaning’ to) imposed his own will and interests on her. Izu has no convictions or beliefs of her own. Everything is parroted from Aruto, the same way Horobi was reset and built by the Ark. Once again, I don’t, like, want Aruto and Izu to never have anything to do w/ each other, bc I do buy that he means well, but I do think they need time apart, he needs to examine his behaviour, and she needs some prompting to figure out her own feelings, not what he’s conditioned her to ‘feel.’ The amount of power he has over her is just too much for it to be ‘cute’ or ‘romantic.’ I think there should absolutely be a case for HumaGear choosing to work w/ humans, but I think said HumaGear should also be making that decision themselves, not being groomed to think that’s their only meaning in life. As in, Izu considering the situation and deciding to go back up/smack/give Aruto a pep talk/help out based on her own conclusions and w/ support from Horobi would be one thing, but implying that that’s absolutely what she should do bc she’s his precious ‘support person’ who exists only to make him happy… Is another.

Also, again, the whole memories thing feels superfluous bc they had no effect on her behaviour. I’d’ve been much more interested in her musing on what happened last time she ran into danger (or… last three times she did) and stuff Horobi and other AI had said and trying to decide if she’s perpetuating human control over HumaGear or whatever by going to help Aruto, if that’s actually what she wants or if it’s just the ‘grooming’ talking… And then eventually deciding that no, this is what she thinks is the best thing to do. That’d interest me. This just felt like her repressed memories popping in to be like ‘remember you exist to make Aruto happy!’ or something? Like… It felt like Izu once again being nothing but a cute little waifu for Aruto’s man drama. There’s this moment in a book by Diana Wynne Jones where a character used to be magicked to be over protective and supportive of this other character, and after being freed from it, she sees the character that magicked her in trouble and her first instinct is to help, but then she hesitates bc she remembers that he had essentially mind controlled her into doing that for years, so is it what she really wants to do or is it magic? But then she decides that as a rule it’s good to help people in trouble no matter what. I would have loved something like that rather than acting like Izu’s memories were at all important or changed anything. As it was, it, again, felt superfluous, and the whole ‘there’s no time’ thing had me rolling my eyes. It was just more of ‘Izu’s only purpose in life is to benefit Aruto.’

Sunagawa and Noa have some really good chemistry, and this should have been more about Horobi, who spent a lot of time in the same situation—just w/ a master who was doing it intentionally and who was under no delusions of kindness—seeing Izu struggling in a way similar to how he did and trying to support her. Is she clinging to the things Aruto ‘taught’ her, that he knows Best, bc that eases her confusion and distress? Is this what she genuinely thinks is right? Esp if she said something like she was scared to go bc she didn’t want to screw it up again like she did w/ him, and Horobi pointing out that Esu isn’t him, Esu is human and much more in control of his faculties, and the situation is different. Horobi and Azu have some great intensity, and even when just standing there… Horobi and Izu give off this truly lovely ‘big brother and little sister’ vibe (or father and daughter). This is absolutely something all of these actors could pull off. Despite having been in a similar situation w/ the Ark… Well, the Ark had more worldly knowledge than Aruto. Both Horobi and Izu are naive in this regard, but Horobi’s… Well, to reference a really good comparison for their situations, Horobi’s been out of Plato’s cave for a bit longer. He was put through the wringer while trying to figure out what his own convictions were, and received no support. Horobi has always been the one person to actually think of HumaGear first—not how they benefit humans, but actually think of the HumaGear, however it ended up manifesting. Him wanting to prompt Izu to be able to make her own choices like he couldn’t would be really powerful.

Instead… I got an abuse victim essentially perpetuating grooming. So… Thanks?

#Kamen Rider Zero-One #Kamen Rider Zero One #Izu Negativity #Aruto Negativity #not… Exactly?#I dunno like I said at the start I liked Aruto #I was really excited to see him grow and develop #but he never did and instead gets lauded as a saint???#what I liked about him was that he was clearly flawed from the start #he had this perception of HumaGear as these totally selfless angelic Happy Helpers of humanity #who's only need in life is to make humans happy and are never angry or upset #I was looking forward to for ex seeing how he'd learn from Fuwa #bc Fuwa treats HumaGear more like people than Aruto #Aruto helps Fuwa realise they aren't all killing machines #but I was hoping to see Fuwa make Aruto realise that they aren't all perfect selfless angels #that they can be and have every right to be angry and upset w/ humans sometimes #and what humans need to do is see that and adjust and help them channel it #humans need to see the situation and respond by changing and respecting those feelings #not classifying them as a threat #and ai will keep changing #they all talked about Aruto 'changing the future' but he didn't change anything #except for maybe improved sales a bit #I'm going on a tangent but anyway #I don't object to coexistence I just object to the narrative that HumaGear 'need' humans to 'be happy'#bc they clearly don't #meanwhile w/ Aruto and Izu 'You Don't Know What Love Is' by Plain White Tees play through my head on repeat #Binary Retro Rider

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thebookwyrmsnook · 4 years ago

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Fate: A Winx Saga

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting for this one. It’s a fine enough story with the Winx name slapped onto it. It’s somehow exactly what you expect, when you finally look past what you originally thought it would be.

More below~

If you grew up watching the fairy fable like I did, you know that Winx was a product of its time. Like many early 2000s shows aimed towards girls, it was all glitz/glamour, boy crazes, magic and overall girl power. It was by no means groundbreaking, but it stole a special place in my childhood’s heart.

So, when I heard through the grapevine that they were going to do a live action show, I was interested to see what they might do! Sure, it would no doubt lose some of it’s glittery charm, but the show had plenty of good characters and themes to latch onto, right?

Well, not quite. When the trailer dropped, the smile I had from the cool logo slid completely off of my face. What I saw was exactly what every other reboot/live action remake seems to do. It was darker, edgier, a very “not your parent’s show” type of thing. Immediately, I knew that Winx had somehow gotten the Archie/Riverdale treatment.

So how was the actual show? In truth, not bad. Once you looked past the fact that they shamelessly slapped familiar names (both in it’s title and a few of it characters), the story is fine. It’s a fish-out-of-water-protagonist-who-finds-out-they’re-the-powerful-chosen-one story. It’s Harry Potter, it’s Star Wars, it’s Eragon and all those stories we have seen before. I honestly think that that is the show’s biggest strength, and it’s detrimental flaw.

We’ve seen this all before. We have the fish out of water chosen one, we have the snooty popular girl, we have the hot guy that the two previously named girls fight over, we have the cool hipster type that uses music as a personality, we have the sweet and innocent one who finally stands up for herself, and we have the “everyone has secrets” theme. This show is just a million common tropes for young adult media smushed together, but this one is fairy themed~

So what’s the storyline? Well, like the cartoon, Bloom is a fairy who was placed on earth and discovered by someone (in the cartoon it was Stella, establishing their friendship quickly) but in the live show, I don’t think they said who found her. She goes to Alfea to learn magic, and the adventure begins.

Alfea is a magic school set in the “Other World” which are now countries, instead of planets like they were in the cartoon. Also in the cartoon, fairies’ magic attacks were based on specific attributes (fire, sun, nature, technology, music etc); however, all of the girls seemed to be able to do basic other spells/hexes. In Fate, however, it seemed like there were the three elements (water, fire and earth) with a few exceptions (one electricity fairy, a few mind (mind readers basically), Stella, and whatever the headmistress was). And that’s all they could do. Disappointingly, the show about magic, didn’t properly explain or explore the rules of magic.

But Alfea also houses the Specialists, a group of non-magical fighters who team with the fairies to fight the monsters and evils of the world. In the cartoon, that was a separate school for boys only, and where the main love interests for the main girls lived. In the live action show, however, the Specialists are open to both genders. Which makes sense, since the show writers had to condense their stories down (including cutting the witches out) into 8 hour long episodes. So if they weren’t world building, what were they doing?

They were delving into the social ecosystem of our main characters. All five of our leading ladies got their own arc, no matter how rushed that made everything feel. Aisha went from Bloom’s protector to a roadblock in her way. Terra (Flora’s little sister?) was the sweet girl who finally stood up for herself. Which I can appreciate, since it’s nice and an easy story to have going on in the background. Plus Terra easily had some of the best dialogue in the show. Musa (now a Mind fairy) had it the worst. She kept pushing people away, and we find out pretty quick that she’s an Empath that doesn’t know how to to tune out her magic, except when she’s listening to music. Which makes sense, and I was ready for that to be her entire thing, especially since that worked really well. But then, in the last episode they threw something else in completely, and ruined it all for me, personally. Stella’s had really good potential. Her mother, the apparent ultimate Queen, had high expectations, and taught Stella in a results-driven way; giving way to anxiety and lack of proper control for Stella. Which is a great story, but this show isn’t really her story, it’s Bloom’s. So, it got pushed to the side.

Bloom’s was the best timed, given that hers took the entirety of the episodes. Like Bloom in the original show, she was trying to solve where she came from, who she is, and just what her powers were. In Fate, Bloom is just a powerful fire fairy, which kind of killed a lot of the original Bloom’s story (given that there’s a reason she’s that powerful in the cartoon). Not to mention that the teachers kept trying to drill “magic comes from your emotions and positive feelings are better” into both our and Bloom’s mind. Which is immediately squashed by the fact that Bloom’s earth parents were kind of... abusive? Anyways, she wants to know where she comes from, but everyone is keeping it a secret. By the end, when she kind of figures it out, I was elated right there with her... that is until it was thrown in our face that the story she was just told was a lie (we know that, but she doesn’t).

That had to be the second biggest flaw to this show. The writers seemed to be hellbent on trying to pull the rug out from under the audience as many times as they could. We learn to trust nobody, not the headmistress, not the teachers, not her friends (except to change their minds every five minutes but we’ll get to that), there was no one we could trust. Meaning, that we never truly figure out the truth about anything, making the resolution feel hollow and unearned. They leave it open to say “I’m happy where I am but I’m going to keep looking for the truth” when we were hardly two steps away from where we had started.

The story could have progressed if her friends didn’t flip and flop so much. While the audience and Bloom are getting yanked around with promises of answers, her friends only see parts of the truth (cause Bloom keeps forgetting to invite her friends to the party) and so they are constantly flip flopping on whose “side” they are on. I honestly got emotional whiplash for that. I’m all about the “good intentions but misguided friends” trope, but that was not a good execution of that.

Overall, Fate is a fine story. It’s cliched and everything you have seen before in a young adult show/movie. It doesn’t world build fully, and it honestly feels like scenes are missing. It honestly left me feeling a little let down. But, some of the dialogue is snappy (namely from Terra), and some of the characters are great (namely Terra). But the original cartoon, despite it’s cheesy-ness, is the clear winner in my mind.

#fate #winx #winx club #netflix #netflix show #fate: a winx saga #bloom #stella #musa #terra #aisha #fairies #alfea

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thegreymoon · 5 years ago

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giuliano de medici?

Obligatory disclaimer here, anon, I’m really not a fan of this show and Giuliano de Medici. I think it’s a terribly written show and he’s a terribly written character, and even though it’s no secret I find Bradley James to be one of the most beautiful people alive, I’m going to go with

Mind you, when I say ‘pretty’, I mean so goddamn beautiful I was willing to wade through THREE seasons of utterly infuriating bullshit just for him! (OK, two, because I still haven’t summoned the willpower to sit through season 3 even though I absolutely still plan on doing it 😭😭) I mean, just look at this man’s eyes:

He’s so gorgeous, I could weep 😭

Also, I’m not going to pretend even for a second that the fact that the costumes gave off such strong Arthur vibes didn’t have anything to do with me sitting through this nonsense and almost enjoying it. When he said ‘I don’t have time for this,’ in this very scene, I got hit over the head with so much deja vu, because it is Arhur’s line, and it was totally Arthur’s delivery! His battle scenes gave me life, but why were they so short? Why was there not more? Why does everything about this shitty show have to be so goddamn unsatisfying? Did the Medici producers not see Merlin season 5? Did they not see what this man can do? Such a wasted opportunity, oh my fucking God!

Anyway, rant incoming:

Mind you, I don’t blame Bradley for the unsatisfactory mess Giuliano turned out to be, he did the best he could with the nothing he was given. Only Lorenzo got some semi-decent writing (and even this was not consistent), but Giuliano got such nonsense story arcs, I was sitting there not believing my eyes and ears! I’ve seen gutter trash soap operas with more believable cliche romance! Hell, I’ve seen twelve-year-old girls write better self-insert fanfiction! Even cartoons have better villains than that caricature of a husband, I was laughing out loud at what they were trying to get us to swallow! I mean that line, “It’s not the mask that attracts me, it’s what lies beneath it,” OMG, YOU’VE SEEN HER TWICE IN YOUR LIFE AND SPOKEN THREE WORDS TO HER, JUST SHUT UP!! 😣😫😭

It never gets better, unfortunately, and they wasted the character on this laughable romance instead of doing just about anything else with Giuliano! More of his relationship with Lorenzo, with Bianca, with Lucrezia, or even with Francesco! Hell, I would have even taken Sandro (even though the guy playing him can’t act to save his life and the character is beyond annoying)! Or, I don’t know, and this is just a radical idea here, they could have made Simonetta less two-dimensional and given us an actually believable romantic sub-plot with properly developed characters!

Oh, Gwen, how I missed you! I was forced to eat my words on each and every criticism I ever made about how poorly Arwen was written on Merlin, because it was perfect, perfect writing in comparison! So good, it could be taught in a literature master class! Oh my God, just how do you take two such beautiful people like Bradley and Matilda, put them together and end up with something so infuriatingly nonsensical, forgettable and bland? Colin Morgan has spoiled me and I confess that there was a moment in all my frustration where I had an ugly thought that Bradley James just has no chemistry with women on screen at all, but that’s not really true, because even at it’s worst, Arwen was never this bad and there was never a time when he and Angel actually made me roll my eyes at some of the worst pieces of dialogue I’ve ever heard. Then, of course, there was his performance with Barbara Hershey in Damien, which was on a whole another level of intense, so I have to conclude that the reason Giuliano and Simonetta and that whole ridiculous subplot were so terrible is because the writers could not write for shit.

Also, as much as I love Bradley, I feel like he was tragically miscast in this role. I just didn’t buy him as Daniel’s younger brother at all. Not only is Bradley older IRL, he has the older brother vibes as well. It’s in his voice, his posture. Better writing for Giuliano notwithstanding, I feel like this show could have been vastly improved if Bradley and Daniel had switched roles. Again, did none of these people see Merlin? Did they not see how iconic Arthur was and what Bradley can do? Because, damn, that man has presence when you give him the proper material to work with, and they took advantage of none of it! I like Daniel, I really do, but even though he was given the best material on this show, he just didn’t fully deliver and I have yet to see him in anything where I am impressed by his performance and not just sitting there for his pretty face.

And since this has devolved into a looooooooong post that no longer has anything to do with the hotness of Giuliano de Medici, let me just mention him:

Who is this guy and how do I get more of him, because, OMG! 😍🔥🔥🔥😍

He has the most fascinating face I’ve seen in a while, and the way he moves and carries himself is mesmerising! He deserved better-written villainy than what he was given! This show truly did not deserve its cast! Francesco Pazzi was so terribly written, it’s laughable, and yet, here was this guy, stealing the show left and right, in spite of the shit material he was given to work with! Somebody please cast him in something more worthy (preferably in English, or at the very least with English subtitles so that I can watch)! 😭😭

The thing that infuriates me about this series is that they had some fantastic actors here that totally deserved better, such a fascinating period to work with and some of the most interesting figures in history and they spent all their time and money on making them as cliche, two-dimensional, cartoonish and bland as possible.

Also, I can’t end this post without mentioning how much I loved Sarah Parish as Lucrezia! The woman is perfect, OMG! 😍 The wives, in general, were too good for their husbands in both the seasons I watched so far. The mistresses can go choke, though, and I hated how much they tried to white-wash adultery all over the place. In addition to the poor writing, this show sent out some really gross messages and did nothing to call out all the misogynistic tripe.

I must exclude Simonetta from my mistress-hate because she died a horrible death, and frankly, other than that, there was not much there for me to perceive her as a real character anyway. I wanted to like her so much because I saw the gifs on Tumblr before actually watching the show, but the writers gave me absolutely nothing to work with and in the end, all I was left with was that she died all alone and with no help or comfort, sick, cold and thirsty, which is one of my big personal fears. The fact that the writers did this to her for no logical reason but to play up Sandro’s and Giuliano’s selfish man-pain - after I really did not buy either of them actually loving her - was just an additional disgusting layer on this poorly written story arc. She deserved better.

In conclusion, if it wasn’t for Bradley James being pretty, I would have quit this rubbish halfway through season 1 (if anyone is interested in reading just how much I hated it, you can find all my bile here). Season 2 was just as bad, but Bradley, Daniel and Matteo made intolerable characters bearable, which was something Richard Madden was unable to pull off. Of course, all my pure love goes to Contessina, Lucrezia and Clarice, because they were the only characters that I genuinely enjoyed in this mess and didn’t just put up with because I liked the people playing them.

#how hot is that character #medici #giuliano de medici #bradley james #medici review #my nonsense #i hate this entire show so very much #the cast deserved do much better #anonymous

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rkwxnb · 6 years ago

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shout out to rookies!

This is going to be short. At least now that I’m typing this I hope it would be since I’m a few seconds from knocking out. On top of that, I know I’m going to forget really important people for the same reason of why I hope this would be short... also because as always, I am doing this last minute. ( peace!! )

Rookies as the great Miss Grande once said. “One taught me love. One taught me patience. And One taught me pain.” I hope you all feel me when I say that’s all on you, RK! --- “Thank you, -- my stay tune for my next muse.”

Now that cringe moment is over with. I wanna do a roll-call at my special people! For those who stuck with me during the times, I was in rookies and while I was out doing god-knows-what.

RKCAP: This asswhole muse of mine who got into scandals and ruined one friendship after another, found his family ( by bond and friendship ) though this rp. Even until now I have to say he is the strongest muse in my whole rp-history. Having played him over at least two-years, before dropping his booty from wanting to become an idol, and evidently out of rookies. Outcast by his own family, with the help of the bro/anti-squad ( @aronrk - strawberry bruh! @rkkangjoon - lover joon! @rkgray - co-parenting daddy bruh + @rkxminhee - little minx min @rkwendy calm and collected sis @borark my get out of jail free card ) Not to mention, his little shit brother @rkohsehun NODDLEBOY! you’re all fam and I don’t have to tell you how many times I wish I can bring this boy back because of you lot!

Special shout-out to his ladies Jieun- ( @yujurk ) and Elly ( @hyunark ) them girls are his solid. Soulmates and Lovers. They are the core reason that he is still sane. One can say, they are his everything.

Yo seriously, Maddy you are by far one of the coolest people I’ve met. You’re insanely solid, my utmost respect to you. Shinobi-- the one-third of IwaBoKuro, see we’re even an ot3 in real life! You’re extremely dedicated to your muses, much like how you are with your friendships, never change bruhski! Saaaammmiiiieee!!! You are by far one of the kindest people I have ever come across, thank you for being you! Clara... gurl wait till Toshi’s turn uwu Em, you’ve made me such a happy puppy by coming back to rookies! I wish you and baby girl the best in life!

To my first child, Stef, sana okay ka na babybear! I’ve known you since why before rookies and in fact, I remember suggesting you play Sehun when Minsoo’s fc was still Chanyeol’s so we can have exo bruhs! Pero despite all that, I’m seriously proud of how much you’ve grown, you are one of my precious people. Though we don’t speak that much any more, alam I’m always here for you!

To my child, Nana, fix yourself before you wreck yourself! I miss you lots crazy and I hope we get to talk soon. I really wanna hear what's happening with life and how you’re surviving uni. What’s more is we both know that Hyo-Min is actually the IT soulmates, and the whole of Rookies know it. ( if you’re a new mun and you’re reading this... It’s true, believe me uwu ) I hope we have muses with that much of a strong connection again! Love you my mad child!

To my co-parenting mom, Jen, girl what you doing with your life?! We’ve had our ups and down, despite all that bullshit we’re at it again. To a degree, it’ll never be the same but I do wish if anything, our friendship will grow stronger instead. Your muses played as my muses lover, twin and admirer, but in real life, you once told me that you believe people have seven soulmates, though you’re a little shit that believes Yoongi is one of them. You did mention I maybe have taken a spot to, so no take-backs asshole. You’re stuck with me now. Peace!

RKTOSHI: This boy was Minho- then Dean... Then Yuto, heck back to Minho, then finally his sorry ass became Jisoo. He is one of the most complex and interesting muses I have ever played. The shit show he was a part of had been insane, from being a part of the Yakuza to being shot and finally a part of Nova ( like this hoe-man actually got signed! ) Aside from Soyeon ( sit your ass down Jen I already called you out ) he was a part of the Mensa-Squad with his @rkxkjd daddy-D ( KATIE LEE SIGN MY D ) and his @rkjohnny forever-hubby ( that now has his very own princess ). To the only women that kept him on a leash @rkyooa the one that got away and @dahyexrkarchive proxy grandma. Thanks to him joining the mgas he met his adoptive ma @rkjei!

Yurim!! DADDY-DAE! You’re one of the most amazing people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, especially in real life. I utterly respect you from moving away from home and following your dreams. You’re an a-class writer; I wish you the all the best for your endeavors!

Claraaaa ‘te~ The leader of rkpinoy squad-- seriously, even Johnny boy if from the Philippines. You’ve kept me sane and has been the voice of reason to many, including myself and my shit show muse. We once had an almost ship with Toshi and Wendy, but somehow I’m glad it didn’t work out because DANG LOOK AT YOU AND HUGO! Sana happy ka sa work and I’m always looking forward to your sports commentary be it figure staking, basketball, volleyball and cheerleading, Lab you sis!

Bun, the 2nd-third of IwaBoKuro--!! Man, I love the fact that we embody our muses even outside the roleplay. Still completely in touch irrespective of the fact that you’re no longer in this rp. You still the best! Much like Dahye kicks Toshi’s ass ( literally and figuratively ) you do the same with me, except more in the game-mode xP Whenever you wanna come back, I’ll be sure to have another mess of a muse to latch on to yours like a leech.

Nic, you angel. Even though we’ve only just gotten closer this year, I swear to God I am truly blessed for having you in my life. You’re one of my persons. You’re exceptionally strong and amazingly kind and considerate. I am sorry for all the bullshit you had to go through here and I’m hella proud you didn’t let those get you down and give up on your muses!

Roe, my true soulmate. Holy shit. I reckon its more than five years since we’ve known each other. You’re muse almost married mine. Heck, we have plans to platonically get married ( because we gonna cheat the system ). I absolutely cannot imagine my life without you. You are my ultimate person. As you rightly said in your post, my ride and die. The strongest and fiercest of people, both in the real world and rp. You take no shit from anybody and would fight for what you believe is right, especially stand up to those who are getting bullied. Without being anymore sappy, I do love you with all of me and I am always gonna be here for you. Just because you are amazing and worth it all.

RKNAEUN + RKAVERY: My two latest muses ( actually the ones currently in rookies ) I never imagine there would be a time where I would have only female muses in rookies. Considering my strongest muses here were the boys. But keeping you both and actually maintaining your arc ( plus organizing your points properly ) is something I’m actually proud of myself of. Since Avery is still relatively new ( her strongest bonds have yet to fully form, but one of them is definitely Hoby! ) I’mma focus on Naeun’s friendships! From the chaebol-childhood friends to fam @rkchaeyoung her idol unnie to @rksunwoo best oppa sunwoo. her dancing queen leader @rkhyojeong and her best friend 4eva @rkleeflix . I want to thank all of you for being her inspiration!

Special shoutout to Amy we too old for optimism but I shit you know if I know anyone who’s going to make it through all this, it’ll be you! You are the most real person that I know. Oddly enough we got closer when I came back in rookies then my first time around here. You’ve been there for me in the toughest times, even though I know you were going through you’re own worries. I’m eternally grateful for that. With everything said and done, I hope I can return even slightest bit of happiness and comfort you’ve given me, because I know I can’t match all the times you’ve had to deal with me.Thank you loads for everything, me hearts you!

Thank you rkmods/admins. Without you, I would not have met all these precious people. Thank you for tirelessly listening to all of us whine about how unfair everything is and still remain here. Thank you for giving us your time and efforts to keep our escape from the real world alive. Most importantly, thank you for being the backbone of all this glorious foundation. You all is amazing. Happy RKFIFTH and I hope many more to come!

Yours, ( Lyn | @rkavery + @rkxsnn )

P.S. I lied this wasn’t short at all. [ sorry for the grammatic/spelling errors... lets be real if this post didn’t have those, then you can all speculate that I didn’t actually write it.

#rkfifth #[ yooooo holy shit i actually did it! ]#[ you're all amazing! ]#[ remember we ohana rookies! ]#[ probably forgot to mention a shit tons but know you're all important and i love you loads! ]

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dent-de-leon · 7 years ago

Note

If you were to take the information we have now, and write the entire rest of vld, how would you write it? Not as someone who ships things a bunch or has any bias or anything, but purely doing what's absolutely the best thing moving forward in the show. What would you do & what would be your primary focuses? (Again, not your ideal dream now- ideal for the show and to do justice to it's plot & characters.)

I mean, it’s kind of hard to say what would be “best” for the narrative from my perspective since it isn’t my story and I might be misreading things and not really see what it is the creators really want to convey. Since “what would you do with everything” is a huge question, this will basically be centered on characters and there development. But anyway, just from my own point of view, I guess here’s a few things–would move forward with the idea that Kuron is a clone.

I’d give him an arc where he struggles with identity issues and feeling bond to the empire. Throw in some mind control because that explains the headaches and things, but I’d have him fight it. Ultimately, when he realizes he’s a clone, he runs away to find out more information about Operation Kuron for himself (while ensuring he’s far enough away that he can’t be used to spy on or unknowingly hurt Team Voltron). Have him eventually sever his mind from the galra and be welcomed into the team as one of their own, becoming the Ryou of VLD.

On the other end of the spectrum, I wouldn’t give Lotor a redemption arc. I might be too influenced by older series but like, I just don’t feel like he could pull it off. I also don’t think he wants to. I imagine he’ll occasionally work with Voltron or even the BOM, but I don’t think their goals will ever properly align. He has his own agenda. Redemption arc also implies you admit you’re wrong, and I don’t think Lotor is at any place right now to feel that way. Even when the series ends, I don’t think he’ll feel like “one of the good guys,” more like someone who did what they believed was necessary and still remains a very guarded person.

Hunk needs another character focused arc, since the Balmera was quite some time ago. I’d like some followup on the potential of him being a diplomat that the writers had mentioned–and he was recording alien lines in one of Bex’s posts I think, so it seems that’s very possibly in relation to that? Hunk is interesting because he’s very amicable but also doesn’t trust others easily, he has good intuition like that. But the Balmera arc has also cemented his motivation as a character. He wants to help free others from Zarkon’s control. I’d like to see some more followup on that angle too, either freeing prisoners or leading revolts. Because that’s clearly something he really cares about. Hunk’s kinda faded into the background lately because he wasn’t involved in the lion switch, he doesn’t have a clear link to the galra empire like Keith, Pidge, Shiro, or Allura, so. It’d just be nice to bring him back to the forefront a little.

The fact that Allura says she doesn’t really understand her magic on Naxzela, in fact what she says specifically–“I haven’t been trained.” Okay so, let her train. Let her go on her own personal quest to find a mentor. Maybe one of the Alteans survived–hell, maybe Pollux exists in this universe and Romelle has similar enough powers that she can teach her. Or maybe one of the druids goes rogue and tries to teach Allura what they understand about magic and can theorize about other Alteans’ use of it. But let her have a proper teacher, let her learn, let her discover more about her people and her history. She was a princess, so why wasn’t she trained in the first place? Were there some aspects of her magic Alfor didn’t want her knowing about, and if so, why? At any rate, I think Allura deserves to know what it is she’s dealing with and have a fair chance at mastering it. Figuring everything out yourself can not only be extremely difficult, but also very isolating. Let her have some support there. Keith got to train with the BOM, I say let Allura train with another Sacred Altean (I believe that’s what Coran called them?)

I know everything worked out very well with Pidge finding Matt, and I’m happy for her. But I can’t help but feel like things will not turn out quite so well with her dad–and if the garrison is in on the galra empire’s dealings to some extent, she might discover some things about her dad she’s not proud of, and quite frankly, I’m Scared of it. That aside, I think Pidge will do more copiloting with Matt, and I’d also like to see her work alongside her brother with the rebels a fair bit. As for Pidge’s own journey, I think she’s done a lot of self discovery already. I like the path she’s on right now. If anything, I’d maybe like to see her grow more in tune with the rest of the universe like the olkari taught her, maybe expand a bit more on that philosophy and what it means to her. Interestingly enough, at the end of the day, if anyone is still a paladin (or something like it, depending on whether or not the Lions still exist) I think it’d be Lance and Pidge. I’d like to see the two of them continue to explore the universe and defend it together.

So on the note, let’s talk a bit about Lance. I’ve mentioned lots before how much I love his parallels with Alfor, and I think that’s very much where we’re headed. To me, that’s who Lance needs to be. Not the Black Paladin, not the leader of anyone. But someone who can carry on the legacy that Allura entrusted him with. His strength as a character was in learning to put others above himself and do what’s best for the team. That moment was really integral to him, and I think as time goes on he will continue to head down that sort of path. He needs to learn to see the bigger picture, to embrace his role as someone who’s strong enough to steady others rather than just focusing on himself.

Allura didn’t tell anyone else about her very personal connection to the Red Lion, Allura never said Keith was like Alfor, Allura never told anyone else the significance of her armor. She’s the one who helps Lance embrace his new role, and Lance in turn is the one who welcomes her to the team. So to get into that other part of the question about not putting bias on ships into it, it’s kind of hard not to, since the two things I really ship are also the ones that I see as most prevalent in the narrative and puts these characters’ best interests at heart. Lance is still so clearly in love with Allura. And when she smiles at him softly, or he tells her she’s the heart of the team and believes in her enough for her to awaken her own inner power, like–I think they’re meant to be.

They each help each other balance out their own insecurities and have grown incredibly supportive and protective of one another. I also think Allura feels like she’s able to be more open with Lance than the other paladins right now, seeing as she told him so much personal information about herself and her own beliefs. That sort of comfort doesn’t come easy, and they are growing very comfortable together. When Lance rushes to her side on Naxzela and helps her stand, lets his hand linger on his back a moment, she doesn’t pull away or feel offended by it (and we know from episode 1 she’d have no problem saying so). Instead, these types of things are comforting gestures. I think they’d be very good for each other. (Also on the topic of ships, just put me on record saying Hunk and Shay should be a thing. I think that’s a given.)

Also, would like more backstory about Coran personally, and maybe some flasbacks of him and Alfor. Let him and Allura mourn more and let them have those moments to just stop and breathe. I’d also like some sort of parallel to the original storyline where Coran believes his wife and son died but then his son sort of returns and that’s a whole thing. I think a more serious character focus episode like that would be good for him.

So now, let’s get to Keith and Shiro. Because the thing is, their stories are inexorably intertwined. If Keith’s been trying so hard to save Shiro, only to find out he’s still missing Shiro, well–I can’t imagine that would play out well. And I’ll just say right now, he’d be the one to either find or save Shiro. He has to, because that’s how the narrative sets it all up. Keith is the one who will never abandon Shiro, who puts his absolute faith in Shiro, who would go to the ends of the universe and back again just to stand beside him. And it would be remiss to mention them without noting that a great deal of the overarching story revolves around the theme that Keith will always be there to save Shiro, no matter what. This is it for him. No going back. “As many times as it takes.”

This would also serve to mirror two different storylines. Firstly, there’s the original Golion, where Akira (Keith) tried to save Ryou Shirogane at the very end. And in fact, when forced to choose between him or Voltron, he chooses Shirogane. Ultimately, Ryou disagrees with that choice and ends up getting himself killed, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. You know, kind of like how it seems Keith would always choose Shiro over everything else. This singleminded dedication also mirrors Zarkon choosing Honerva over the rest of the universe. Both Keith and Zarkon are galra Black paladins who have sworn to do everything for the person they love. And whether you read Keith and Shiro’s dynamic as romantic or not, there’s certainly enough very intentional parallels with zaggar to indicate the former.

Also, going back to the question of what’s best for the story, and if we consider the possibility of lgbt representation–noting that Lauren said anything they intended for it was already there in that first season, then I think the thing that makes the most sense is sheith. Lines like “Your friend desperately wants to see you,” “Nothing was worth Shiro’s pain,” “How many times are you gonna save me before this is over?” “As many times as it takes,” “It’s good to have you back,” “It’s good to be back,” “This one’s for you, Shiro,” “Shiro was the one person who never gave up on me, I won’t give up on him”–they’re all very powerful. And incredibly intimate. To me, everything about their dynamic, including deep buildup and parallels, really lends itself to a more romantic relationship. To me, that suits the story more than it doesn’t. (And from a bi guy’s perspective who also struggles with the pushing intense emotions and relationships away like Keith, his side of things in particular really resonates with me.)

It’s also worth noting that this isn’t just a one way thing, and Shiro very much saves Keith as well in his own respect. He was Keith’s anchor, he was there when no one else was. He can trust himself to be vulnerable with Keith without fear, he can take solace in that comfort that still comes so easily. He can let his walls down around him. He can show signs of “weakness” and Keith will never think any less of him, Keith will still insist he’s the leader they need and it’s Keith who gives him more of that spark to keep fighting. They’re always validating each other, can seamlessly work together. And the fact that they alone formed Blazing Sword, Voltron’s greatest weapon, is a testament to their bond.

So anyway, if I can just return to this idea of Keith needing to save Shiro, or vice versa–thematically, I think it’s very important that’s the note Voltron ends on. Because Keith is someone who’s always suppressed his emotions, who’s been led to believe it’s easier to be alone than be hurt by loving others. And then you have Shiro, who now fears he’s a weapon, a monster, someone fundamentally unfit to lead or even unworthy of being a paladin. Someone who seems more afraid of letting others in, who keeps his walls up. And then you have Zarkon’s fate–this cautionary tale about how you have to make harsh sacrifices, about how loving someone too fiercely can be dangerous and even your ultimate downfall. That you have to think about this abstract “greater good” over personal loyalties.

But here’s the thing. Keith and Shiro can’t fall into the same trap as Zarkon. As the new generation, they have to be able to surpass their predecessors. And ultimately, Keith and Shiro should be able to save each other without the rest of the universe coming to some great cost, without losing fundamental pieces of themselves. Rather than being doomed by love, for Keith and Shiro, I think that will be their salvation. For them, I think that’s the lesson that they need to learn. That Keith doesn’t always have to suppress his emotions, that it’s okay to love. It’s okay for Shiro to let himself be vulnerable again, it’s okay for him to lean on others when he needs it–the way Keith always did with him. Neither of them have ever seen the other as a monster–even with Keith’s galra blood and all the galra have done to Shiro, even when Shiro and Keith were both so afraid of themselves. It’s a way to escape this vicious cycle set by both the old Voltron series and VLD Zarkon’s legacy alike, and I think it’s the kind of message that’s best to relay.

#sheith #voltron #allurance #keith #lance

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lesmotsincompris · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on GoT S07E01

I’m a little late for this discussion, but since I decided to watch the show again I figured it would be nice to have my own notes here.

For those who don’t know, I quit the show during season 5 (guess when). After that I’ve seen a couple of episodes here and there, a few loose scenes, but never actually watched the show regularly as I used to.

Until now.

For some reason I decided to watch it again. Maybe because it seems like one can’t escape the show these days, so I might as well watch it and form my own opinion about it.

Others have already expressed most of my feelings for this episode, but I’ll try my best not to be repetitive:

I confess I was a little nervous, like when you know you’re gonna see your ex in a party. In the end it was easier than expected, mostly because I barely felt anything. I wasn’t as angry as I expected to be, my eyes didn’t roll as hard as I expected them roll, but the big moments didn’t do much for me either. I always compliment the show’s direction, acting and setting, and indeed all of that was correct. But that’s it.

Arya

I’m not sure what to make of her? Several people poked holes on Arya’s contrived plan, so I won’t go there. I wanna question D&D’s goal with her in terms of themes/characterization (I know, I know).

They paralleled Arya’s massacre with the Red Wedding itself, so are we supposed to assume it was a bad action? Mind you, in the books is Lady Stoneheart who is killing Frey by Frey and might be responsible for an upcoming Red Wedding 2.0, but LSH is hardly a character we’re supposed to root for. Arya also compares herself to a wolf and the Frey to sheep, but sheep are nice and fluffy, so more points to Arya Did a Bad Thing. Yet they ended the scene with triumphant music and an Empowered Smirk™, so what? Am I supposed to root for her? Am I supposed to think she did something awful?

The ‘Ed Sheeran and the Nice Lannisters’ scene makes this all the more confusing. It wasn’t a bad scene, though the Lannister soldiers were perhaps too nice (oh, the ever-changing patriarchy of show!Westeros, where the setting is oppressive or friendly to women depending on the needs of the plot), and that music was very much out-of-context. I’m surprised Arya didn’t say she was going “wherever whores go”.

Before I forget: is 'killing the men, sparing the women' D&D’s version of feminism? But why would Arya do that, really? Do we have any indication that no woman took part in the Red Wedding? That no woman could seek revenge against her just as she did with the Freys? This is the kind of stuff that earns D&D the title of faux-feminists, especially when even Arya’s way of preventing the child bride from drinking wine was quite misogynist.

Bran vs Evil Dead

How did Bran acquire his powers? He now has visions without weirwoods or ravens or anything, he simply ~knows~ stuff about Edd... But when/how did he learned all that stuff? He got a power upgrade simply because Bloodraven died? He says he’s the Three-eyed Raven now, but what does that mean, exactly?

My issue are not the powers themselves, because I do believe book!Bran will boldly go where no greenseer has gone before, but how those powers are suddenly more impressive than what we got last season. I didn’t watch the season properly so maybe this was explained.

Is it too much to hope that Edd (or anyone, really) is gonna send a raven to Winterfell saying that Ned’s legitimate son is alive?

The other Starks

I gotta say this is my least favorite plot, maybe because book!Jon and book!Sansa are among my favorite characters of anything ever, but here we have two stupid, jerk people who fail at basic communication because the writers don’t know how else to write conflict.

Sansa raises valid points, but the place to raise them was pre meeting and not during the meeting. And I can see no reason why she and Jon couldn’t have sit down to discuss their common strategy before this gathering, but this isn’t the first time the writers use lack of previous communication as a source of conflict for the Stark siblings.

Much like the Kingsmoot or smallfolk everywhere, crowds in the show are there just to fill a room, but they have no opinion and no influence. They just cheer for whoever is talking.

I’m already done with Lyanna Mormont, but she’s one of D&D’s pet characters. Faux-feminism strikes again in her speech: teaching girls how to fight too is actually super important in this moment, but this point could be delivered without diminishing the importance of knitting. It’s winter, knitting is more useful than ever. But hey, knitting is usually associated with ~girly things~ and D&D like to show how Empowered™ their female characters are by having them dismiss typically female activities, so there you have it. It’s not the first time something like this happens, so I have no reason to believe it will be the last.

I love Alys Karstark in the books, yet here I felt nothing. Who is Alys Karstark in the show? Why is that moment supposed to be meaningful? The Northern theatre was so confusing over the last two seasons that I can barely keep track of who was an ally and who wasn’t, and mostly I wasn’t invited to care.

Much like Alys, Jon’s struggles with leadership also belong in his tenure as Lord Commander. We see Sansa complimenting his skills, but we don’t see any actual demonstration that Jon is a capable leader. You know what, book!Jon was ten times the leader show!Jon is, but book!Jon paid for his blind spots and struggled with the job because the job is hard. Show!Jon is incompetent at best, but keeps being rewarded because we’re told he is a good character, so he must obviously be a good leader. Remember GRRM’s remark about Tolkien and good kings? D&D are writing the exact kind of fantasy story that GRRM criticizes in his books. Oh the irony, it hurts.

“When I was Lord Commander I executed men who betrayed me”. Well, technically you had already died and resurrected, so you were no longer Lord Commander and only a common murderer. But if you were still LC, then it means death didn’t release you from your vows, so you’re now LC or a deserter and have no business being King in the North. You can’t have both, but D&D want both so let’s have it. Nobody questions this because of reasons.

Speaking of D&D trying to have it both ways, I’m always a fan of Sansa burning Littlefinger, but the effect is undermined when in the very next scene she says how much she depends on him. They need the Vale men, very well, but I can’t see why they wouldn’t at least try to use Lysa’s murder or the Bolton Marriage Plan against LF. And, you know, preventing the icepocalypse is in the Vale men’s best interests too, so it’s not like they’ll just go home.

Repeat after me, children: Ned and Robb weren’t stupid. They made mistakes, yes, but everybody in this series makes mistakes. Those mistakes didn’t cause their deaths, no more than being backstabbed means you threw your back against someone else’s knife. Honor isn’t a mistake, kindness isn’t a mistake. Compare Ned’s legacy vs Tywin’s legacy and you’ll know that. Book legacy, that is.

Jon is a bit of a jerk during this episode and I can’t see why he would think Sansa admires Cersei… and then Sansa is silent and admits Cersei taught her a lot. I give up. No, wait, I remembered that famous Sansa book quote, if I’m ever queen I’m gonna bomb all my enemies.

The Lannisters… and Euron?

Speaking of Lannisters, I fail to see how Cersei is still queen. She has no claim, she has no army to force her presence in the Throne for much longer, and she just bombed the Vatican with everybody’s favorite pope plus Princess Diana inside. Knock, knock. Who’s there? Not an angry mob because that would require D&D to remember that smallfolk are a thing and exists.

How does Cersei knows everything she does, from Tyrion being promoted Hand to Jaime releasing his brother? Does she read the scripts too?

‘A dynasty for us’ is my new pick up line. Hey baby, I want to build a dynasty just for us.

‘Do you think I listened to father for 40 years and learned nothing?’ Well, D&D listened to GRRM for five books plus several meetings and learned nothing, so it’s not impossible.

Everybody already made all the good jokes about Euron’s rockstar look, I knew I should have watched the episode the night it aired!

The Brotherhood without Stoneheart

Probably the moment that worked best? Kind of undermined by Sandor’s lust for violence last season, but hey, I’ll take what I get. To be honest I didn’t remember anything about the father/daughter, so this undermined the scene a little bit too. It’s amazing that D&D expect us to remember those two, but Tysha? Naaaah who’s Tysha man nobody is gonna remember that better pretend she didn’t exist.

Two more nitpicks that are not actually that nitpicky. One: that fire vision came super easy and super straightforward for Sandor. Why? Can anyone do that? It makes Melisandre look an idiot.

Two: death doesn’t affect Beric that much, as it didn’t affect Jon. I mean, what’s a little dying, right?

Sam Potter

Fun fact: I had to interrupt this episode because my dinner was ready… and I interrupted right before the Oldtown montage, so I had the benefit of watching all that shit and food and shit being associated with food with a belly full of actual food. Yay! Having Sam perform humble tasks while in Oldtown is a good concept, but this was deliberately meant to be gross. Why? We just don’t know. Happy shitting!

How many episodes Sam wasted in learning what Stannis had already told him ages ago?

Hey, refresh my memory: what was Gilly’s arc over the last four seasons?

Creepy Jorah is still creepy and still being framed as romantic. Great.

Daenerys

I honestly expected this would be my favorite moment this episode. The show is always good with visually impressive moments, and the scenery and sountrack do help. It was indeed a nice scene, but that was it.

‘Home’ is a very dear concept to book!Dany - whether this ‘home’ means Westeros, the house with a red door, etc is another issue, but this has been a major motivation for her during her journey. Show!Dany’s journey was more erratic, so the moment lost a bit of its emotional significance.

Who is show!Dany? What was her arc? What has she learned? How is she any more prepared to rule Westeros than ADWD!Dany? What does she want? To rule Westeros, but why? How? What do her supporters want? Missandei and Grey Worm just want to follow their white savior, but what’s in it for Tyrion or Dorne or Olenna? They’re just supporting her because they hate the other candidate more?

(wait, I take that back, that actually happens a lot)

It’s still a pretty scene, but eh. I legit thought I would be more excited to see this. And I agree with everyone that pointed this would be better as the ending of a season than the ending of a first episode.

Also let’s trash Stannis, because why not, right?

Extra comments

Gee, look at all that foreshadowing about the Wall falling, I wonder if something bad is gonna happen soon.

Now that they got rid of the direwolves, can’t they use the extra budget to pay for better wigs? Sophie Turner’s was especially bad, but Emilia Clarke’s wasn’t that great either.

Lol what’s with the black battle dresses and shoulder pads. That looks so silly and anachronistic. I usually like the show’s costume choices (ignoring all their reasoning for it in-universe, that is), but those outfits are just ugly.

I really, really don’t like the design for the Night’s King. Too artificial, too Power Rangers villain. And ah, it’s so D&D to center the threat of the Others in one single dude.

---

See you next week, y’all!

#antigot #anti got #got negativity #got criticism #personal: watching things

19 notes · View notes

abakersquest · 8 years ago

Text

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO – IN THE GARDEN OF ARGUS

Polly stared at the strange green tiled ceiling above her head. She scrunched her face in an effort to clear her vision before a noise to her left caught her notice. It was a very tall thin smudge that gasped and rushed toward her, slowly coming into focus.

“H-… Hi Wisty…” Polly’s voice crackled out of her long dry throat.

Wistea smiled, any annoyance at the nickname was gone in a rush of happiness. “Hello yourself.”

Polly tried to scan the room again her eyesight slowly returning to normal. She attempted to sit up but Wistea’s hand and a considerable number of sore muscles told her, quite firmly, to do exactly the opposite.

“Wait here, everyone is going to want to see you.” Wistea tenderly patted her shoulder and rushed out, her excited voice making it through a wall and the large piles of books.

Soon after she left, there were the thundering footsteps that toppled a book tower or two. Their bulky owner, Blackeye, skidded to a halt before her. ‘Relief’ could hardly describe his feelings as he carefully approached, taking a knee at her bedside.

“G-… Grandpa…”

“Shh, here, drink.” Blackeye pulled the small vial of Runner’s Grass Solution from his vest pocket and popped the small cork out. He held her head up gently and helped her drink it down.

As it cascaded down her throat it tingled strangely. All of her muscles suddenly felt tight then absolutely relaxed. She sat up on her own and looked down at her arms curiously. “Wow!”

The captain chortled. “Lucky us, huh? We got ourselves a fine doctor!”

Just over his shoulder Polly could see everyone gathered behind him, she quietly sighed, relieved to see they were all still alive and unharmed. She shifted to bring her feet to the floor and stand, gently waving off Blackeye’s offers of aid. She wobbled slightly, but quickly shook it off. With her now trademark smile Polly looked toward everyone and mirthfully asked, “What’d I miss?”

She of course grew dour as she heard the fate of the Fortune, taking her grandfather’s hand and holding it tightly. She’d spent years aboard that ship, keeping it clean, intact, and sailing it under her grandfather’s tutelage. Their hideaway in the Cape of Galaga was where she’d spent her earliest years, but it soon became a place to visit rather than live. The Fortune was the only place she ever truly called home.

Polly fought back tears at the thought of the Fortune alone and scuttled on a featureless expanse of sun baked salt; she looked to her grandfather and saw in his eyes an unquestionable resolve. He’d sailed the God’s Fortune for decades before he’d even met her parents. It was, absolutely, a part of him, now left to dust. And yet, despite it all, he smiled down at her with warmth and sympathy. ‘If he could be so strong,’ she thought. ‘If he could leave behind a part of himself just like that, so could I.’

Her newfound resolve staggered slightly on the idea of the crew dividing. It was obvious to everyone she didn’t like the idea, but Hector lowered himself to her eye level and smiled. With a wink he said, “Don’t forget dear, I’m the one who taught Wally everything he knows. I’ll keep everyone with me safe and we’ll be back together in no time.”

“Oh, everything?” Wally playfully chided. “That’s funny; I’ve never even seen you lift a whisk.”

There weren’t words to define the satisfaction of lifting the young girl’s spirit, but they knew it was something they shared as soon as Polly laughed.

---

The bulk of the group, gathered and ready for their long walk, headed away from the settlement. Before he followed, Argus knelt down before his wife and asked, “How do I look?”

She giggled politely. “Like the same scruffy, scruffy, scruffy bookworm I met in the imperial hall of records, arguing about the cataloging system.” She reached up and straightened his clothes for him. “I wouldn’t have you face the world any, any, any other way.”

His primary hands came to rest gently on her shoulders. “It might be some time before I return… If at all…”

Her expression faltered for but an instant, yet she smiled once more. “You’d live, live, live longer if you stayed, certainly. But you’d spend all that extra time complaining that you didn’t go.”

He laughed once, leaning forward to meet antenna with her. “You truly know me best.”

She closed her eyes to keep some tears in place; this wasn’t the time for them. “Someone has to. Now go, go, go before I find it harder to let you.”

He stood slowly, nodded to her once, and rushed to meet up with the others.

According to Ori, there was no doubt Baron Hado would return to Chidulas to regroup after his loss. So she, Wally, Rozzi, Blackeye, and Polly would go through the tunnels and hopefully ambush him there. Meanwhile Hector, Wistea and Hyla would go down a different tunnel all the way to Insicai’s capital with Argus. They’d head to his home laboratory first then move on the enemy battleship.

With not much else to do on the way, Wally’s eyes wandered and came across something that shocked him. He’d had some sense of remembrance earlier and what he saw locked it in place, for in the distance rested a gigantic anvil.

“Argus,” he asked, entirely transfixed on the sight before him. “What exactly is this place?”

“The Star of Insicai’s workshop,” he answered. “Written off as legend and fairy tales for aspiring engineers and scholars. It’s here that the Stellar Flare was forged into the blade you carry now! You see, this whole region of Insicai was once beneath the sea, that how much water it took to properly quench the blade after the forging. It’s said that the resulting steam formed the floating island of Orni’Hu. It was on that anvil that the Flare was hammered into being, pieces of the original ore racing off to the furthest parts of Mondia as brightstones with each strike.”

He turned as he walked to face Blackeye. “That’s where you come in captain! Rollo Poda went with you to gather up all the pieces he could.”

“Are they dangerous?” Wistea asked.

“On their own? Not in the slightest. But! In the hands of those capable, they could perform terrible feats. Brightstone, when struck, produces an explosive force greater than the initial strike.” He pointed upward. “That’s what the tumbler is for. It gently rolls the brightstone about to increase its output of heat and light. But a sharper strike could level a structure with an explosion relative to its size.”

“Right so,” Rozzi spoke slowly to puzzle it out. “Bigger piece, bigger boom?”

“Precisely… Which is why the tools here are so enormous, they had to withstand forces impossible to measure. Also why they’re here, buried far from any populated area.”

Wally remembered a time in his youth, helping to tend a fire as his father hammered steel. A single errant spark splintered off, flew over his head and landed onto his tail. The pain of the molten metal against his skin was something he never forgot every time he worked a pan, pot, or otherwise. He tried very hard not to wince at the memory.

“So’d you figure all that out from those books then?” Rozzi asked.

“Mm? Ah, yes. Those are Poda’s journals after all. He was a prodigious writer. Didn’t understand half of them. Old Insikik had a very different writing scheme it seems… Order of some of the words seemed so off I thought it was coded. Wasted months on just that.”

“Does it have anything to do with the way Insicai talk?” said Hector.

Argus groaned and Ori shot him an angry glare. “You mean the repeating. No, that’s just a relic of an old empress… She had a stutter so everyone modified the way they spoke to make her feel better about it. Three generations later it became the supposedly proper way to speak to anyone.”

“It lends true emphasis to every statement and better, better, better establishes the importance of one’s words!” Ori angrily proclaimed.

“It makes us all sound so insipid! Even worse when you remember that our species, nation, and capital all bear the same name!” Argus retorted.

“Wait so...” Wally worked it out in his head before he continued. “You’re Insicai, from Insicai, which is in-”

“Insicai!” Argus almost shouted. “It’s absurd! So not only do we sound like idiots, we’re pompous idiots! Since I was a child I refused to adopt that ridiculous manner of speech.”

“How you’re wife tolerates your rude, rude, rude behavior, I’ll never know!” spat Ori.

It was clear to Wally that the great scholar was about to deliver the oratory equivalent of a savage beating, so he interrupted quickly. “One more question!”

Argus huffed, and his antenna wiped each other off. “Yes, my boy?” he replied through teeth forced into a polite grin.

“Of all the places I’ve been… The way people write is different but the meaning of the letters and the spoken language are all the same. Do you have any idea why?”

The grasshopper rubbed his chin thoughtfully, anger all but erased in seconds. He muttered something once or twice, and it looked as if his antenna were shuffling papers across a tiny invisible desk. “There are theories, but none of them can be proven empirically. It seems to be a sign of some intelligent design that faltered… Where all the same words came into our minds, but due to our location or anatomy we wrote them all down differently.”

The wallaby hummed thoughtfully, now less confused by the strange disconnect.

“Now, if you don’t mind indulging me, I have a question of my own.”

Wally looked up at him curiously. “Yes?”

“You’re carrying a pack. Doesn’t your genus have a natural pocket to store whatever they need?”

Wally came to a sudden rigid halt. His fist clenched in anger as he fought back a veritable tidal wave of swear words before he finally shouted, “THAT’S NOT WHAT THEY’RE FOR!”

Now, no one there knew that when it came to the subject of pouches, no jokes or snide comments were ever tolerated by wallabies. Everyone stared at Wally, shocked by his sudden and angry outburst. Eventually he started walking again, grumbling to himself before everyone else finally followed.

With the shine of the brightstone well behind them, Wally and Polly helped light the rest of the way until they came to a large cog shaped machine. Argus operated a lever nearby and the weighty thing rolled away with the loud sound of unseen clockwork, revealing a tunnel behind it.

“This is the tunnel to the capital,” Argus said. “Your passage is further down.”

Everyone exchanged well wishes and meaningful gestures before they moved on, Wally and Hector lingering behind for a moment.

“You know,” Hector started. “This’ll be our first time apart since all this started. I know it’s only been a little over a month or so… But it certainly feels longer, doesn’t it?”

Wally nodded. “Longest month or so of my life, that’s for sure.”

Hector held out a hand.

Wally reached up and shook it firmly. “Don’t go dying when I’m not around, you hear?”

Hector smiled, “Same to you, Sir Wally.”

With a genial nod to one another they parted ways. After a few steps, the large cog wheel slid back into place with a loud clang of metal to signal its locking.

Argus shook something in the darkness that Hector was sure sounded like dirt tumbling inside a glass jar. Suddenly the space was filled with warm yellow light from a glass bulb in the scholar’s hand. He set it down and removed his backpack pulling from it several slightly dingy yet still ornate cloaks.

“Take these; you’ll need to wear them once we’re outside. It’ll make you less conspicuous.” Argus slipped his own robe on and started walking. “We’ll be keeping to side streets and narrow paths, don’t linger anywhere too long or the guard patrols will spot us. It may become necessary for us to split up. If that’s the case, my laboratory is the only building in the capital with a large mirrored dish atop it. It rotates to follow the course of the sun so you can’t miss it.”

“On its own?” Wistea asked. “How?”

“How much do you all know about electricity?”

Hector sparked a short bolt between his fingers.

“… Yes… Like that but without magic. We have means of making it, directing it, and using it to power and operate machines.”

“Is that what’s in that jar of dirt? A machine?” Hector asked.

“Oh no, those are jolt worms. They use Storm magic, same as you. I change out their soil every now and then to keep them fed and happy, and they produce hours of power for my light bulbs. Much more versatile than what’s used to power the capital.”

Hyla made a short pensive noise. “You know, given everything you’ve said so far, you’ve got quite a rebellious streak, haven’t you?”

“And what self respecting engineer wouldn’t! Honestly, that ridiculous reliance on the brightstone trove to power our entire country geothermally has limited their innovation! There all so content with it, no one tries anything new! Meanwhile, I spent the latter half of my life discovering how deep and varied the nature of the world is,” he held up the jar for emphasis. “There are wonders that if properly harnessed could benefit all of Mondia. Not just some proud minority of stuck up, hard shelled, idiots!”

“I’m sensing a particular sore spot…” Hector said calmly.

Argus sighed. “They all… Just rolled over, so many of my colleagues willingly obeyed the empress decision to aide Kota’s cause. How they could all be so complacent and docile in the face of Mondia’s greatest threat is the only thing I hope to never understand.”

They all quietly agreed and continued on up through the tunnel.

It grew warmer and warmer the further they went, and the sound of loud thrumming could be heard in the distance along with the occasional rattle of metal. Finally they came to a brick wall that, on first glance, appeared quite sturdy. Argus turned a small inconspicuous stone and the solid stone edifice slid into a hidden recess.

They stepped cautiously out of the tunnel only to find themselves in a much larger one. Huge copper colored pipes snaked along every surface. Some shook in their fittings as whatever they moved from one place to the other flowed by. The smell of heated metal was thick in the air within what Argus called, ‘the industrial depths of Insicai.’ He explained that pneumatic pipes took hot air from the brightstone trove inside Mount Anago to turn great wheels that produced power for the whole of the nation. They walked amidst the pipes until they reached a ladder leading to the street.

Hector pushed against the heavy metal hatch that blocked the exit and looked at the surrounding area. Sure enough they’d come up in a narrow side street, with only trash cans and other refuse as witness. He helped the others up before taking a better look around. The buildings continued the theme of the shanty town they’d left behind. Here in the city, the hexagonal constructs were almost clustered together on top of one another, creating a great interconnected mass of buildings separated only by streets; alleyways did not exist in Insicai. Each structure Hector could see had little in the way of anything even vaguely resembling wood, and where there weren’t bricks, metal had been applied. Though there were signs of life with the civilians walking up and down the streets, there was a profound sense of sterility to it all that he found unsettling. Everything was polished, far too tidy, and bereft of any color or charm.

He thought at first it was simply bias, but then he saw the displeasure on Argus face as he looked around himself. “Did it always look like this, Argus?” He finally asked.

“Yes unfortunately… And is it too much for you all to call me Scholar Argus? I worked very hard to attain that title.”

Wistea patted his shoulder sympathetically. “You get used to it after a while.”

Everyone aside from Argus flinched as a long low tone rang out several times. Soon after, the streets filled with the sound of opening doors and footsteps. Hector watched around a corner as they all lined up along an avenue a ways down from where they stood.

“Ah, good!” Argus walked out into the open and signaled to the others. “That would be the weekly Brass Parade. It’s how the empress keeps the masses calm and content, a bright showy parade of musical machines that fill the day with sound and color. Everyone believes we’re prosperous and never mind the people who’ve gone missing.” Argus rolled his eyes. “If I were a lesser bug, I’d vomit. Come along, we’ll only have a thin guard presence to worry about now!”

At some point later, Hector, Wistea, and Hyla would have to thank whoever commanded fate for giving them Argus. As they navigated through the city and past guard towers, they realized the only true splashes of color were the many pipes running up through the street and from building to building carrying hot gas and water. The bland sameness of almost every uniform building would’ve made the trip a navigational nightmare without a savvy guide.

A brisk rush through the city center soon brought them to the only building thus far to exhibit any uniqueness, clearly separated from every other building around it by a small fence and a thin garden path. To Hyla, it looked as if someone had made a mold of a ceramic jug and filled it with molten iron. The walls of it looked poured into place rather than built or bolted. Atop it, as described, was a large shimmering bowl, pointed up at the sun. As they approached it, they quickly realized the reason the building seemed so smooth was that it truly was. There were no windows, no door, not a single sign or seam to show where one could be. Everyone followed behind Argus as he walked along the outside and came to a seemingly innocuous part of the garden path. He pressed his foot down on it several times in different spots and a perfectly square section popped up like the unlatched top of a mason jar, making almost the same sound. Beneath this hidden door was a path that clearly lead inside.

Down one stairway then up another, they entered a finely appointed foyer that better suited a mansion than any place called a laboratory. Their curious eyes found various artifacts and old portraits of Insicai resembling Argus and his wife Siani, as well as a portrait of the two of them together between the dual stairways leading upstairs.

Argus cleared his throat for everyone’s attention. “Kitchen’s to your right, although I haven’t been to the market in quite some time so I’m certain almost all of the produce and such has gone off. But there should still be plenty of drinkable water if you’re thirsty. Washroom is upstairs, third door on the right if needed.” Argus pulled on a nearby light fixture and the portrait of himself and his wife slid up revealing another hidden passage and short stepladder. “I’ll be but a moment as I gather my invention.”

Unable to resist her more studious urges, Wistea followed him in. She gasped at the sight that greeted her. Somehow, someway, sunlight had filtered in through the seemingly impenetrable metal shell outside. It shone down on a scene that reminded her far too much of home, the trappings of society, embedded with nature. A desk surrounded by soft green grass. Rows of jars and glassware tucked onto shelves framed by fruit trees. Flowers she’d never seen before dotted the entire space, their brilliant colors only adding to the beauty of it all.

“I… I thought you said you were an engineer…”

“I am. I also know to study from those who’re masters of it. You more than anyone should know how amazing the structure of a tree truly is. Besides, everyone needs a hobby; Botany’s mine. What you see in this greenhouse is the culmination of years of research, study, and experimentation.” He pointed to something past her right shoulder. “Look there, that blue flower?”

Wistea turned and observed an orchid of some kind, with deep blue angular petals that faded to a lighter blue along their edges.

“Maiden’s Tear,” Argus stated with a quiet reverence.

Shock and incredulity rocked her being as he quickly turned to face him. “What?!”

He chuckled. “Ah, you’re thinking, ‘that’s impossible, it only exist in old fairy tales.’”

She watched as he approached it, stooped down and tapped one of the petals gently. The petals folded on themselves and from them poured small streams of water. Awestruck, she couldn’t look away when Argus spoke again.

“Everything you see here is part of my research into life and magic. We Insicai are as alive as anything else… Yet we cannot shape magic in any way. Some see it as weakness or disability. I see it as opportunity. We are forced to learn and adapt what comes naturally to other, and that is what I’ve built here!”

He strode toward his desk and slid open a hidden compartment. In it sat a long and ornate device that Wistea couldn’t begin to identify.

The metal was a brass color like the pipes outside, formed into a thin straight tube that flared out much like a musical horn would. It was attached to a hinge and backed by a small rotating drum, with a small switch underneath that assembly. Each of these components mounted on a smooth, somewhat conical wooden frame that ended on a broad curve. Along the top of the piping was an attached spyglass that bore several switches and toggles.

“The firing principles of a cannon in handheld form, and with infinitely more precision.” He opened it on the hinge with a loud click, taking from the desk’s compartment several glass ampoules. As he inserted them into the metal barrel, he explained, “These fluid suspensions, derived from my study of various mystically charged plants and fungi allow anyone who is incapable of using magic to do just that!” He latched it shut again. “Well, in a reduced capacity that is. Unlike natural magic use, it doesn’t grow stronger and more complex over time. But! It’s a step forward!”

She tried very hard not to look incredulous as he took a bag off the desk and strapped it to his waist, she could hear it was filled with more of the small ampoules. He clearly believed everything he just said, so she had to take the patently ridiculous idea of a machine for magic as seriously as he did, for now.

---

In the foyer, Hector and Hyla split a roll of Wally��s Panprima. True to his word it was still as moist and fresh as the day it’d been prepared.

“Hector,” Hyla said solemnly. “I want to apologize to you.”

He shook his head. “Hardly owe me one, you had an opinion and voiced it… That we disagreed is nothing dire.”

She stared down at the bread in her hands. “Still…”

He looked over to her and saw she was struggling. It can’t have been easy to have an argument with one of her first friends. “It’s alright,” he said calmly. “You were doing the right thing. It’s not always easy to ignore that and solve a bigger problem. For some, impossible.”

She nodded slowly and took a bite. As the taste of it washed over her tongue, something else came through. It was distant and quiet but far too distinct and direct to ignore. She looked toward the ornate but doorless wall ahead and focused.

“HECTOR GET DOWN!” She shouted as she dove to the floor.

Hector didn’t question, he didn’t hesitate, he simply dove to shield her from whatever was coming, and readied himself for anything.

Part of the foyer wall evaporated. That isn’t to say explosive force blew it to particles that scattered about. Rather that a column of incredible heat vaporized a part of it. Through the still molten edges of the forcefully made doorway came heavily armored Insicai. Their large halberds levied against their grounded targets.

Hector and Hyla quickly sprang to their feet, both barely dodging a thrust and a strike. Their backs to the rear wall, they’d been effectively boxed in. Hector drew his sword and a shimmer of prismatic light pulsed in Hyla’s palms.

That’s when the portrait door slid open once again.

Argus and Wistea were arguing something as they came up the passage and into the awaiting melee. Wistea immediately entered a defensive stance and was ready to strike when Argus interrupted and stepped in front of her. “AH! THE IMPERIAL GUARD! WONDERFUL! You lads will make perfect presentation subjects, I have been DYING to try this out on moving targets.”

One of the guards, no doubt the leader, spoke harshly. “Argus Ortho Cael! Under the authority of the imperial senate and Empress Anani, you are-”

Argus made an ugly scoffing noise. “Really? You’re really going to give me the whole speech? I guess ‘execute on sight’ doesn’t spare one from procedure, eh?” The guard was about to say something else as Argus continued. “Allow me to take the time you’d planned on wasting to introduce you to, what I’m affectionately naming, the Thunderhead. Like its namesake it promises terrifying sound and fury…”

He held the back of it against his shoulder, thumbing a lever behind the barrel. “You see, Scholar Faboi; the trick is that the magic is already there, it just needs to be activated before will can affect it. So the hammer in the firing mechanism strikes a small piece of brightstone, which activates the fluid, and then the rest is willpower.”

Argus pulled the trigger. The hammer struck the brightstone.

It’s possible the guard saw it coming; it’s also possible that he even made sense out of it. Neither question would ever be answered as the large ball of crackling electricity struck him full on the chest and set his body into painful convulsions before he finally dropped to the ground, charred and unconscious.

Caught entirely unawares, the other guards hesitated long enough for Argus to pump the trigger guard, which rotated the barrel, and allowed him to fire off a focused burst of compressed air that launched two of them into the wall. On impact, a large portrait of an old grasshopper fell from its place of honor and crashed against their heads.

“Nice shot, great uncle Gants!” Argus chortled.

The final guard charged, halberd held high, his strike falling flush against the barrel of the Thunderhead. With considerable grace, Argus allowed the strike to play out under his terms, letting the blade slip down the side of his weapon, granting him enough of an opening to boot the guard in his chest. His breastplate dented on impact, shunting all the air from his lungs.

The guard wheezed something, the dent in his armor pressing down on his lungs keeping him from breathing.

“Hmm? Why yes, that was a very good kick. Runs in the family don’t you know. Here, have another!” Argus swung the point of his foot right into the guards chin, rocking his head back and sending him tumbling backward onto the floor.

Argus exhaled loudly, undeniable excitement in his voice as he turned to the others. “Well! I’d say that was a successful field test, wouldn’t you?”

<[Chapter 21]–[Index]–[Chapter 23]>

#A Baker's Quest #Writing

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spynotebook · 7 years ago

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All Images: Warner Bros.

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner came out 35 years ago to mixed reviews, but these days most people consider it a scifi masterpiece. However, it’s also a film that occasionally happens to be a blind spot for some nerdy film fans. When we at io9 discovered we were employing not one, but two people who had never seen the film, we had to take steps to rectify the situation immediately.

The guilty parties are io9 staff writers Beth Elderkin and Charles Pulliam-Moore, who we forced to watch Blade Runner last week. Then we asked them what they thought about Ridley Scott’s 1982 film after experiencing it for the first time in 2017. It’s wide-ranging conversation that touches upon the burden of three-plus decades of hype, unicorn dreams, Android phones, artificial intelligence, the Deckard/Replicant debate, and, of course, how they feel about the upcoming sequel now that they’ve finally seen the original.

Germain Lussier: Before we talk about what you both thought about Blade Runner, what were your expectations about the movie going into it?

Beth Elderkin: I figured I was going to love or hate the original Blade Runner. There’s a real polarization surrounding the film that seems to have only increased over time. It’s either genius or terribly overrated.

Charles Pulliam-Moore: To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think that I’d really care for Blade Runner all that much because it’s one of those movies that, as a person coming to it so late, I’d heard so much about from diehard fans. Blade Runner’s one of those pop culture “must-watches” that I always ended up putting off because people love to bring it up and insist on telling you how seminal it is.

Beth: Yeah, Charles, I think the diehard fandom around the film turned me off more than anything else. It was like the bar of reaction had been set so high I had to play catch-up in order for my opinion about the film to be taken seriously.

Charles: Same! I’ve sat through my fair share of debates about which cut of the film is superior and I totally get how, for fans, that kind of back and forth is fun. But as an outsider it sort of cast the movie in a somewhat negative light. “Negative” is too harsh a word, but in my head, I always assumed that watching Blade Runner properly would mean going back, watching each version, and then coming up with some grand thesis about which Blade Runner is THE Blade Runner.

Beth: What cut did you watch?

Charles: The Final Cut.

Beth: Me too! I realized we didn’t actually talk about the different cuts ahead of time, but it’s interesting we chose the same one. People are so passionate about that part. Everyone I talked to about the movie had an opinion about what version to watch. In the end, I went with the Final Cut because no one talked to me about that one. I figured that made it more of a middle ground.

Charles: It was just the first one I saw in the store, haha. As a last point to your follow-up, Beth. I love the concept of Blade Runner being a living, breathing piece of art that’s grown and evolved over the past 35 years. But, again, when you bring it back to the fandom, it all just seems like w-o-r-k.

Germain: The Final Cut is kind of the culmination of all the different cuts, so it’s probably best you both watched that one. So, now that you’ve seen it what did you think? Did you like it? Was it overhyped? Lay it on me.

Beth: I enjoyed Blade Runner just fine, but more as a representation of works that followed rather than the movie itself. Perhaps that’s a little unfair to the film but, to be honest, it didn’t really grab me the way fans told me it would. I really loved the moments when I could look at the film and see exactly how it influenced later products—it was ahead of its time, and it shows. But as far as the film by itself, I was kind of bored.

Charles: It’s fine! Another one of the consequences of having waited to sit down and watch it properly is seeing just how much of an influence the movie’s had over subsequent scifi film and television, and having to remind myself that Blade Runner isn’t the iterative work.

Beth: There were elements I really admired about the film. I actually loved how small the stakes were. Hear me out: The conflict wasn’t a giant Westworld-style robot takeover, with piles of bodies strewn everywhere, but rather just a couple of Replicants wanting to live a few more years. In many other films or shows, this would be a side plot. But here, it’s given the time, attention, and space it deserves to explore their growth and internal conflicts.

Charles: There’s a dead, haziness to the movie’s aesthetic that might have been novel at the time, but it’s since become our visual shorthand for dystopia. I instinctively liked it because it was familiar, but that familiarity also annoyed me because, like I said, that’s the visual language we use to craft futuristic end times.

Beth: Charles, I cracked up when, during the only scene in the daytime in Tyrell’s tower, the first thing Deckard says is, “It’s too bright, draw the shades.” All night time all the time. Daytime doesn’t exist in dystopia.

Charles: No, no it does not.

Beth: The lighting really created a sense of tension, indicating that someone was always watching. And, combined with the pressing crowds that were always present in the action sequences, there’s this overwhelming uncomfortableness that makes you feel like you’re never alone. Then, by the time it’s just Deckard and Roy, it’s just the two of them. You end up feeling the weight of Roy’s words more because everything else has died away.

It’s a small thing, but I also loved the reflection in the eyes.

Charles: In Rachel’s?

Beth: And the owl’s. And, for a moment, Deckard’s. I saw Deckard have that reflection for just a moment, which I’m sure lent credence to the “Oh, he’s a Replicant too!” argument, which... maybe?

Was there anything else that caught your eye, Charles?

Charles: Hmm. Technically speaking it wasn’t really my eye, but I got a bit of a chuckle out of the Replicants being Nexus-6 models. (Said the recovering Android nerd.) I remember seeing this headline years ago and my eyes glazing over when I saw Blade Runner:

But that’s another example of the film casting this ridiculously long shadow.

Germain: Charles, Beth talked a bit about the story, but what did you think of the story? It seems like you both enjoyed the film aesthetically.

Charles: So one of the things that actually surprised me was how little time the movie spent having its human characters consider the Replicants’ humanity (or at least the idea of it), which is where a lot of fiction about androids and such tends to veer these days.

There’s a distinct inhumanity and stiffness to all of the Replicants that codes them as being non-human. It feels heavy-handed at first, but as the movie went on, I came around to the idea that Ridley Scott was intentionally trying to “other” them, you know? As if he was trying to force us to consider the innate humanness of the movie’s central plot about Deckard hunting them while they’re trying to extend their lifespans.

Beth: I did not care for the “Voight-Kampff” test, as I don’t feel like it’d be an accurate way to detect humanity.

Charles: SAME. The idea that people couldn’t pick Replicants out just by looking at them seemed like bullshit.

Beth: Couldn’t they just have a blood test or something? I mean they put barcodes on the scales of snakes, surely they can add one to skin flakes or blood cells.

Charles: Again, though, this is one of those things that subsequent things inspired by Blade Runner have taught us to consider.

Beth: I was curious what would happen if someone with sociopathy would take the exam. I mean, they’re not going to care about some damn turtle.

Charles: Speaking of sociopaths. Can we also talk about the performances? I’m of the strong opinion that they’re... not great.

Beth: Are we talking about Deckard? I’ve got thoughts about Deckard.

Deckard isn’t a very interesting protagonist. I feel like the “Deckard is a Replicant” argument kind of serves as a buffer to justify the fact that his character doesn’t really engage the audience, which is weird because Harrison Ford is a really charismatic actor. The only time he really emotes is when he sexually assaults Rachael, which… oh boy, let’s just not.

Charles: I meant more the cast as a whole.

Beth: I thought Roy and Rachel were great; everyone else was okay I guess. I don’t know what they did with Rachel’s voice, but she always sounded unearthly and disconnected from the scene, but in a way that made sense for the narrative.

But as far as what I really didn’t care for, it comes down to pacing. The movie moves very strangely. It’s slow and yet not slow. I can’t quite put my finger on it. You can tell the movie’s been through multiple edits because the pace is very uneven, and there are obvious mistakes as a result.

Charles: There’s a distinct lack of charisma from most of the movie’s cast that I’m assuming is intentional, but it left me rolling my eyes because it gave the film a very distinct “thought experiment” vibe. That, as opposed to trying to feel like a world grounded in any sort of reality.

Beth: That’s a very film noir vibe.

Charles: But it’s things like that which make Blade Runner feel a little too self-serious for my tastes. You can hear the film and philosophy students off in the distance muttering to one another: “What does it MEAN to be human?” Spare me.

Beth: What were your thoughts on the toymaker? That whole scene with the toys was so jarring. Like, what was the purpose of him being surrounded by weird toys? To represent that he saw Replicants as toys? We didn’t really get an indication that’s how he felt in what he actually said and did. It felt like the set dressing was trying to create something that wasn’t supported by his words or actions.

Charles: I’m gonna assume Ridley Scott’s a fan of the toymaker and was trying to construct a scene that was as creepy as it was pseudo-deep about the relationship between sentient beings and their creators.

Beth: I liked the character just fine, and was sad that he died. I didn’t like the way his character was framed by his environment.

To be honest, the only scene that truly matters to me is the final one between Deckard and Roy, just the two of them talking at the end of a man’s life. Everything else was a mixture of okay to pretty good to “Oh god get it away from me.”

Germain: We’ll get back to that but before we lose it, Beth, you mentioned the “Deckard is a Replicant” thing which, of course, is a huge pop culture debate. I’m wondering what you both thought of the debate itself beforehand, and where you come down on the debate now that you’ve seen the film.

Beth: If he’s a Replicant, how come he’s still alive in the sequel?

Charles: God, this makes me tired.

Beth: I didn’t really have an opinion about it beforehand because I wanted to let the narrative inform me and, in the end, I still don’t know. I mean, I’m leaning “Yes” mainly because I later read that Ridley Scott says he’s pro-Replicant, but I think the argument can be made either way. I do think Harrison Ford’s acting wasn’t that engaging and that fueled the fervor.

Charles: Before having seen the film, the question didn’t really interest me all that much and it does less so now. Part of that’s because I never developed much of an attachment to Deckard, but it’s also because I don’t really think that it matters all that much to the story? Like, my experience of Blade Runner isn’t really changed either way.

Germain: Just so you know: The original cut of the film didn’t have the unicorn dream. He has the dream in the Final Cut (and Director’s Cut), and then Gaff leaves him an origami unicorn, suggesting Deckard’s memories are artificial, because Gaff seems to know about them.

Charles: A question. Why couldn’t he just dream about unicorns?

Beth: Exactly! Unicorns are awesome.

Charles: Why does it have to be related to the origami unicorn?

Germain: Because it would be pretty coincidental that his colleague would guess that he has dreams about unicorns, right? This is why there’s no answer to the question... or is there? IN THEATERS FRIDAY.

Charles: And herein lies my beef with Blade Runner as a whole. Figuring out whether Deckard is actually a Replicant was the only reason I finally sat down and watched this movie and when everything had actually been laid out, the “raging debate” about it all made me roll my eyes. Because it all really boils down to whether or not two people happened to have unicorns on the brain. Which is cute and all, but come on.

Germain: That’s actually a nice transition back to the film itself. Beth said she enjoyed the Roy/Deckard stuff at the end. What did you guys get out of that? Or the film as a whole outside of its visuals, influence or mysteries?

Beth: When I was in college, I took a course about artificial intelligence and the definition of humanity. (Yeah, I grew up in California, how could you tell?) It’s one of my passions—which, in hindsight, makes my not having seen Blade Runner pretty inexcusable.

I feel like Roy was the most interesting character in the film, and I actually enjoyed how they portrayed his journey. He was doing awful things, but for what he perceived to be the right reasons, and the movie doesn’t place a value judgment on his actions.

Was he human? No, the movie is clear in that he isn’t—at least not based on its (and our) interpretation. But the movie also seems to argue that humanity isn’t something we should limit to a single definition.

Charles: Hm. It’s funny. People put so much weight into that speech even though Rutger Hauer’s been very open about it not actually having all that much to do with the film or its messages. Which, in its way is kind of the perfect encapsulation of Blade Runner.

Beth: That’s interesting, and true.

Charles: It’s a bunch of high falutin’ concepts and ideas delivered beautifully, but they don’t mean anything until people project their own feelings onto it.

Beth: I actually like how the movie doesn’t push us to see the Replicants as good or evil, but something that’s simply “other.” As you mentioned before, Charles, there’s a tendency in Hollywood nowadays to make robots sympathetic, the good guys in a world that’s stacked against them. Before, they were evil Terminator robots. Blade Runner gives us a a creation inside a morally grey area and says “Make your own call.”

Charles: Personally, I think in that moment, Roy felt as if Deckard finally understood what it meant for the Replicants to be living in a constant state of fear that their lives were about to end. Because he himself was about to die, Roy took the opportunity to prove to Deckard that he was better at humanity than a supposed biological human was.

And that’s it? I dunno. I really struggled to gas this movie up.

Beth: Watching Blade Runner decades after it came out is like looking at a canvas at a modern art museum that’s been painted entirely black. There’s something there, and it’s clearly well crafted, but is the value in the creation itself, how we interpret it, or the fact that we’re told to see it as something more than what it actually is?

After seeing it, I think it’s a combination of all three. But I’m sure plenty of people are going to tell me I’m wrong!

Germain: You’ve seen Blade Runner. Now—what do you think about the sequel?

Beth: I can tell you that I have no interest in seeing the sequel. Two hours of Blade Runner was one thing, I can get through that okay. But two hours and 40 minutes feels like a chore.

And for a movie that I felt was okay, but appreciated more for what it inspired than what it did? That doesn’t encourage me to see the story continue. Plus Ryan Gosling annoys me.

Charles: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. No. Won’t be seeing. I hope the sequel makes fans happy, though. That being said, I myself am not one of them.

Beth: Agreed, Charles. Just because I don’t want to see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve to exist. It absolutely does, and fans deserve to see the story continue.

Charles: Totally. It’s just that I can think of so many other things I’d rather do. Which I don’t say out of contempt or anything, but that as best as I can tell about the sequel, it’s just Blade Runner redux with an older Deckard and a new Blade Runner who is not Deckard but is exactly like Deckard.

Which is to say: fans, you’re probably going to like this! Or passionately hate it.

Beth: The thing that would excite me is a shorter runtime. Okay, I’ll actually go a little further: I’d like if I knew whether the movie actually expanded into the outer worlds, so we saw how the Replicants live on a daily basis. I’d like to see something like the Institute synths from Fallout 4, where you see how they’re used and treated and can make a value judgment on whether or not you think it’s okay.

But I don’t have an indication of how involved Replicants are in the plot as background characters and environment building, at least not from the trailers that I saw.

I have a question for you, Charles. How accessible do you feel Blade Runner is?

Charles: In terms of?

Beth: General audiences. There have been so many rave reviews for the sequel, and I’m curious if that’s because film criticism as a whole has an overall favoritism for the movie that may not be shared by the general public.

Charles: That’s a very good question.

Just to bring this all full circle—we live in a world whose pop cultural landscape was profoundly shaped by Blade Runner. Even if you’ve never seen it, you have seen and experienced elements of it through other pieces of art. With that in mind, I think plenty of audiences will be able to understand Blade Runner 2: Electric Boogaloo, but it’ll be interesting to see if people like it.

Beth: Blade Runner is one of the most fascinating film experiences I’ve had in awhile—because it feels like nostalgia, but it’s really not. There’s an appreciation for what the movie was in the context of its time, as well as how its influence has carried over into other works. As a movie in itself, I didn’t fall in love. But I’m very glad that I saw it, and would recommend anyone else do the same.

Charles: Y’all, I really didn’t care for this movie.

Beth: Are you glad you saw it, Charles? Or would you have been fine not?

Charles: Neutral. The world wouldn’t have stopped spinning had I not.

Beth: Spoken like a true Replicant.

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wait-what-no-way · 8 years ago

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Interview with LADY ECHO

“Born in South Miami during the mid-1980’s, Emerald (also known as Echo or Lady Echo) grew up as the youngest and only daughter in a family of three boys. As a young girl, her favorite activity was riding on the back pegs of her oldest brother’s bike while being taught how to read the signatures of Graffiti artists from around their neighborhood. By 1994, Emerald had a “tag” and was learning how to use spray paint. In 1999, she began pursuing Graffiti and Art as a passion. She attended a pre-college program at Pratt Institute in New York City (just before 9/11) during the summer of 2001, receiving only a month of formal training in painting, drawing and art history. She has continued painting ever since. Many of Emerald’s works can be found interacting in public spaces throughout the United States and Europe, or rolling along freight lines from the United States to Mexico and Canada.” (Emeraldartstudio.com)

So since your last interview in 2008, how has life been?

Life has been real! Lots of ups and downs in the past eight years. My best friend OiL died the year following that interview... I went into a bad depression. Poke BS, the only person in NYC who looked out for me at that time, died 8 months later. My older brother died a year and half after that.

In a span of 2 years, my protectors, the men who (although would give me so much shit in between us) wouldn’t let anyone fuck with me, were taken before I could realize how valuable they were. I spent the next several years in a bad place. It took a lot to figure out how to be happy again. I’m still kinda traumatized, I panic that the people I care about are going to die all the time. I panic that I’m going to die all the time – which is why I am constantly producing as much as I can. I don’t really party anymore, I don’t drink anymore, I don’t socialize very often, I stay in and I work on my legacy. I feel immense pressure to create while I still can. I feel immense pressure to leave things on good terms with people I care about as much as I can. I know how fragile life is, I’ve learned that even the strongest bonds are temporary, and I no longer take it for granted.

Also, since my last interview, Nekst - arguably one of the strongest American bombers in our current generation of Graffiti, passed away. Iz the Wiz passed away. Sace passed away. Countless other Graffiti writers have also died. Does this mean we, as Graffiti writers, are a culture of troubled people who will die young in higher percentages? I’m not sure but I’m well aware of the possibility.

Aside from that - technology has changed at a super rapid rate in the past 8 years. Smart phones became a thing, pay phones went extinct, social media emerged, instagram replaced Flickr (for me), information is being shared and spread at rates faster than ever before in our civilization, food (and nearly anything) can now be ordered through an app on your phone. It’s an interesting time to be alive!

When did you start writing?

I learned about Graffiti as an 8 year-old in the early 90’s - and even had a tag, E.C.K., but didn’t actually start seriously writing until 1999.

How many trains do you think you’ve painted since you started?

I honestly have no idea how many.. It’s gotta be in the hundreds, maybe even a thousand or more? It takes a lot of cars before you actually make a dent. I hope one day my panels get a catalogue raisonne like fancy artists do with their art works.

What was your first train painting experience like?

Clumsy and inexperienced! Growing up in Miami, I spent most of my life in sandals. My dumb ass walked into the freight yard with flip-flops and busted my big toe on a pile of rocks within 45 seconds of being in there.. My foot bled the entire time I painted, but I finished my piece - on a Chessie System coal car. I still have a scar from that day.

Some writers love painting trains more than walls. What about you?

I prefer trains. I love smooth metal on clean trains but also love working on the rough, rusted surfaces of freights. Trains come more naturally to me than a clean wall. A panel that will end up moving with a train is more forgiving and less intimidating for me than a flat wall that will blatantly showcase any mistakes I make.

As an artist, what’s your favorite medium to use other than spray paint?

Stainless steel. I love welding and if you weld it properly, stainless steel will produce a rainbow of colors from the oxidation of the metal.

I also like epoxy resin, it allows me to make sculptures out of objects like used spray cans.

What was the most thrilling experience you’ve ever had while you were out painting?

Hmmm. Graffiti is always kind of a thrill for me, regardless of how big, little or insignificant what I’m doing is.. There are different kinds of thrills for me with painting - some are fun, but some are hectic. Seeing my work running years later is a thrill for me. Discovering new mediums and new instruments is a thrill. Recently doing fire extinguisher tags thrilled the shit out of me - like, had me smiling all night and doing a little back-it-up dance kinda thrill.

Guess the most direct answer: I haven’t had a most thrilling experience yet, cuz I never know what to expect, the thrills just keep coming :)

What type of music do you enjoy listening to while you’re painting a canvas or any type of work outside of the streets?

I listen to music literally all day (if I’m not listening to the news), it helps me work and it just feels necessary. I’m probably more into music than I am into art - even though I’ve never made music or ever had an interest in trying.

I listen to all kinds of music: Rap, Hiphop, Soul, R&B, Folk, Metal, Alternative, Jazz, Pop, Electronic, etc, etc, etc. Obscure stuff as well as super mainstream. Just depends on my mood or the feeling I need or want at the time. Music gives me a physical reaction, so certain songs feel better than others and sometimes I overdo songs that make me feel really good - to the point they no longer feel good and I can’t stand to hear them ever again.

My favorite song, since 1992, is “Minds is Playing Tricks on Me” by Gheto Boys - The melody really spoke to me as a kid and it can still give me chills if the mood is right. Since then, my other favorite is “In a Sentimental Mood” by John Coltrane.

My favorite albums of all time are “Live and Dangerous” by Thin Lizzy, “Ready to Die” by Notorious BIG, “Table Scraps” by MHZ (Megahertz), “Give Up” by The Postal Service.

I was going to start listing artists that I like but it would take forever. Instead, if people are interested in my music taste, they can check out the playlists on my youtube channel: youtube.com/c/emeraldartstudio. So far I’ve made 3 lists: Dance party station, Rap station and Soul station. I listen to these playlists all the time and I add to them whenever I have a free moment.

What’s your favorite aspect of Graffiti? Is it piecing, hand-styles, throw-ups, or everything?

My favorite aspect of Graffiti is that one can never run out of surfaces on which to get up or instruments to do it with. I love tagging, I love throwups and I enjoy piecing too. It’s all fun to me, but some endeavors require more work than others. Tags and throwups are quick but require more strategy than a piece sometimes, even though a piece can be grueling effort-wise.

I prefer to paint super readable spots that will be seen in motion, whether the surface is moving (train, truck etc.) or the viewers are moving (trainline spot, highway spot, etc).

What’s you biggest motivator/ inspiration that drives you everyday to be creative? That skirt you made the line of drips on was rad as hell.

My biggest motivator is death. Like I mentioned before, since so many people close to me have died unexpectedly, I have a panic inside of me that I’m gonna die very soon. I’m extremely concerned with my legacy and I think the work I leave behind is what matters.

As for inspiration - I’m just a creative person. My mind searches for that “new new” all the time. I like to experiment and try stuff that I’ve never seen, I like to put new spins on traditional things. Monotony exasperates me, I can’t even walk down my own street the same way more than a few times. I’m constantly exploring. I like to go where I’ve never been. I like to have fun and be silly, even if I’m alone, there’s never a boring day.

Glad you like the skirt with ink drips! It was a spin on an idea I had for photoshoot with black drips on skin, combined with my obsession for edding ink + the recurring theme of edding ink in my artwork. I wanted something funky to wear out that night and nothing in my closet was cool enough so somehow I had the idea of dripping black ink on my white skirt and took the risk. The dried ink was smudging at first so I sprayed it with rusto clear coat to seal it. The ink stained the vegan leather of the skirt, but the sexy surface black ended up cracking off by the end of the night. It was a one-time item, but very fun to rock!

What’s the coolest place you’ve ever had the opportunity to paint in? (State, country, abandon spots wise.)

Hmmm… I think one of the coolest places to paint that I’ve come across is an abandoned factory in New Jersey - I have bad memory for some details so I can’t remember who took me to find it (maybe Tacoe). The factory had several floors, lots of walls, and old locker rooms for the workers, with a lot of stuff still in the lockers (including old porn magazines which I know I have photos of somewhere). For a while after we found it, I was the only person painting there along with whoever I selected from NYC to join me. I think I had like 5-6 pieces in there in the course of a few months. It was super cool to have an entire building painted with Graffiti that I basically got to curate.

Aside from that, I’ve had the opportunity to paint a freight spot that’s near the ocean. I’m a big fan of ocean, and a big fan of freights, so getting to combine the two is almost surreal. Imagine finishing an end to end, high as hell on paint fumes, looking up at the bright moon and stars, hearing ocean waves crashing as the moonlight melts onto your piece. It’s like a dream.

What’s the creepiest thing you’ve ever experienced in an abandoned spot?

Never really had too many creepy things happen while painting, but the creepiest thing that’s ever happened in my life was on a “work” road trip with detour to the Grand Canyon. I was travelling with a friend, we were staying close to the monument the night before and had planned to visit in the morning. We requested a room with two beds, but when we got to the room there was only one bed.. We soon discovered there was a door in the room which led to another room which had its own bed and bathroom. We assumed they either gave us the suite on purpose without saying so or that it was an accident, but we decided to use the second room either way.

I locked the manual door latch (which prevents the door from being opened even if someone has a key) and proceeded to wash my face and get ready for bed. B was in the room next to me and spoke to me thru the connecting door, told me he had to grab his shorts from the car so he could shower and would be right back. I was in the bathroom and heard a door slam closed.

When I finished I walked out, I heard B’s shower going next door but noticed the door latch on my door (in the second kinda sketch room) was open - which I thought was weird cuz B could have walked out of his own room - especially since we didn’t even know if we should be in the second room and he saw me make a point to latch the door when we first walked in.

I relatched the door and waited in B’s room watching tv. When B got out of the shower, I asked him if we could use his door only to go in and out of the room so that the door of the second room I was in would stay locked. I explained that when I got out of the bathroom my door latch was open and I was concerned someone could just walk in if they had the key.

“Emerald, but I didn’t go out of the door of that room. I went out of this door. Yours should have stayed locked, I didn’t unlock it.”

I looked at him in shock. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

“No, I swear.”

We both walked back into the second room and the door latch (which I had JUST reclosed) was open again. This time there was no possible way that B had opened it. We closed it again and watched to see if it was faulty and might open on its own. It didn’t. I got chills up my arms and tears started streaming down my face. B was in shock too, he didn’t know how to handle me crying but I could tell he believed I wasn’t fucking with the door latch either.

I ended up grabbing all my shit out of the second room and slept in the same bed as my homie that night. We both agreed it was probably a ghost and that the motel we were staying at had probably been built on some ancient Native American burial ground or something. I still get tears when I think of it. Creepiest shit ever.

This is probably a difficult question to ask, but what’s the most monumental piece you’ve ever done?

Hmmmm… I hope I haven’t done it yet! I hope I still outdo everything I’ve ever done. I don’t want to be stagnant. I don’t want my highest achievement to be in the past, I want it to happen as often as possible.

Most people probably wouldn’t know you have a dog unless they follow you on Instagram or actually know you. (Who, by the way is very cute.) What made you decide to get a dog and how has she changed your life

I’ve wanted a dog for a while and circumstances finally aligned for it to happen.

Also, after so many super disappointing experiences with disloyal people, I figured adopting a dog would be a safer bet than trying to connect with another person who betrays me. I rescued a pitbull mix and she’s changed my life in a lot of ways - it’s like having a kid, I take care of her before I take care of myself. She’s so smart and makes me laugh all the time with the things she does. She’s really strong and fast, but is the sweetest little thing ever + possibly a winner for the world’s best snuggler award.

I can’t imagine living without her but have already prepared myself for the fact that dogs have 13-15 yr lifespans. I get mixed emotions sometimes when I watch her sleep - relief and shock that they almost killed her at a shelter and then kinda sad knowing I’m probably gonna outlive her and that there will be no other creature just like her. Aside from that and all the work involved, having a dog is the coolest thing ever!

What do your parents know about your Graffiti lifestyle?

My dad died when I was a kid, so I was raised by my mom and brothers. Yes, they know about it - in general, not necessarily all the details of what the lifestyle involves but they know I’m a writer.

When I was a kid, in the early 90s, my oldest brother wrote Graffiti and my mom was cool with it. She was cool with all his Graffiti friends hanging at our house, she even had her own tag, “Mom1” and would ask them to put her up + she would get excited when she saw them up on the highways or tags on toll booths etc.

When was 15 and started writing, and my mom found flicks, I got in so much trouble! It was OK for her son, but not for her daughter. I had to change my tag so my mom didn’t know what I wrote and I didn’t take photos of my Graffiti for the rest of the time I lived at home. During that time she found out (through one of my oldest brother’s friends) that I changed my tag to Echo but since she never caught me with photos, she could never prove any of the stuff she saw was done by me.

I moved out of her house before I graduated high school and after that she couldn’t tell me what to do so eventually I decided to be super open with her about what I was doing. In her attempts to finally have a close relationship with me, she was all of a sudden cool with it.

I remember when I lived in New Jersey at one point, she said she wanted to visit and do what I do - so I asked her if she was down to do backjumps on some subway trains and she said yes! I refused to take her but she insisted she wanted to spray. She’s never actually painted with me or really even made efforts to follow my work, but I have sent her flicks before and she has told me that she looks for “Echo” or “OiL” whenever she sees a train passing. She met OiL a few times and tells me that she remembers him fondly.

My oldest brother, who put me onto Graffiti to begin with, has reprimanded me a few times for writing on shit. Even so, I think he digs that I’ve gone so far with it and I think he respects my choices. I know he’s proud of me even if he doesn’t really think Graffiti is smart for me to do.

My older brother who passed way (I have three older brothers btw), never really liked it. He didn’t like that I would be out late at night with guys, didn’t like that I was going into train yards (with guys) and didn’t trust any of my guys friends - he was convinced my friends were going to sexually assault me or had already been trying to rape me in my sleep when I was on Graffiti roadtrips, etc.. On the other hand, he was also so amazed that I could get away with so much - like, statistically, he couldn’t believe how many times I had painted illegally and not gotten in trouble. I remember one night after telling him about a super-close call while painting in NYC, he was super stoned, got some sort of epiphany from my story, and explained to me, “The key to getting away with anything... is a girl.... All you need is a girl and you can get away with anything.”

What spots have you hit that you may have risked your life painting?

Ugh - recently did some seriously sketchy shit about 23 feet high on a ladder. The person I was painting with, who had just caught a fire extinguisher tag on the rooftop of a building - with security guard not far from us on the ground level - insisted that he could not bring the extinguisher down with him and that I needed to climb up and get it.

The logic of why he wouldn’t be able to climb down with the extinguisher and why I was able to do it made no sense to me - but I needed him to shut up and get down, so I climbed up to get it.

The extension ladder was lifted to the max and still had a grip of space before the roof so he had to hand the extinguisher down to me from several feet above, and there was no chance of placing it into my hand - he was gonna have to drop it down (even tho there’s no logical or realistic way I could have grabbed it from the bottom). (As I’m typing this, I still don’t know how I agreed to do this). With one hand holding the ladder, I reached up above my head to have him drop a huge (way bigger than normal size) fire extinguisher into my small lady hand. I obviously couldn’t hold it and somehow (without falling off the ladder) repositioned the fire extinguisher mid-air, slid the bottom between my chest and the ladder and hugged it with my free arm and began to climb down. The entire time I was climbing down he kept going on: “Holy shit, you’re such a fucking gangster… You’re a fucking G.” I was shaking and my heart was racing from the adrenaline but I made it down safely and we didn’t get caught by the security guard. Definitely never doing that ever again.

New rule: You climb up with it, you climb down with it. Fuck that.

My final question… Are you a pizza or pasta gal?

Is both an option? I eat pizza and pasta more than once a week. If it’s a nice Italian restaurant I’m getting some form of pasta, but if it’s not boushie spot then I’ll go for the greasy pizza. Favorites: Joe’s Pizza on Carmine in Manhattan, Garage Pizza on Sunset in LA (yes, there’s decent pizza in LA!) and La Pizza on la Croisette in Cannes.

Thank you for all of your time Echo!

Thanks for the interview! Super cool to follow-up with the same website 8 years later. I don’t do many interviews so these will be valuable one day :)

For those interested:

ECHO’s website: Emeraldartstudio.com

Instagram: @Emeraldartstudio

Facebook.com/Emeraldartstudio

OiL’s instagram: @crudeoilforever - All original flicks, no tributes!

Echo’s interview with Bombing Science in November 2008: http://www.bombingscience.com/echo-interview/

#ECHO #ECHOiL #Graffiti #LAGraffiti #LosAngelesGraffiti #California #CaliforniaGraffiti #LadyLiberty #Interviews #WritersInk

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