#but audience surrogates are often chosen ones

[destinygoldenstar]

In the early seasons, Lloyd was the hero of the story. The Chosen One. The one with the most relevance to the story. The one with the most important role in the narrative.

But he was NOT the surrogate for the audience.

KAI was the audience surrogate. Kai was the one we were following and seeing everything in the lens of. He started the show in his shoes, we followed him on his ninja origins, we discovered the world of Ninjago when he was. And Lloyd wasn't even introduced yet. Even after such, there are SEVERAL shots that indicate the audience seeing something from Kai's POV. The other ninja didn't often get that unless it was a focus season/episode for them.

In that sense, it's VERY interesting to me.

Usually a show would make the Chosen One the audience surrogate. Because they're the most relevant. And Lloyd definately is relevant.

But our supposed 'protagonist' is NOT that person. Instead they're basically an average firebending character watching this Chosen One narrative unfold while he served a different/more important role than one could imagine a Chosen One story needs.

To be the one to RAISE the hero. To be the one to PROTECT him. LOOK AFTER him. BE THERE for him.

And doing it all with just a sword and a familial spark.

Had Kai been open about his jealousy and refused to take on this role, Lloyd likely wouldn't have fulfilled HIS role as the Green Ninja, or even come out a healthy person. The other ninja are obviously a factor into that as well, I'm not denying their relevance, but all of them needed to contribute for that to happen.

THAT is Kai's role in the story. That's why people considered him 'the protagonist' in the earlier seasons. NOT because he was the Chosen One, but because we were in his shoes and struggling with him to fulfill a role that was just as important.

There are not a lot of shows out there that highlight that. In fact, often when shows do that, it's bad because then the protagonist is so irrelevant to the story that it feels like the side characters are more important. But I think THIS aspect is what made Ninjago's version of that work when it really shouldn't have. Saying aloud what Kai's purpose is supposed to be helps too, and makes you understand that there's a message here.

It's also WHY when people say "Kai being the Green Ninja would've been a more interesting story", I WHOLEHEARTEDLY DISAGEE with it.

It would've been cliche, and I think it's a better message to say, "Hey, sometimes you're NOT the special person. Sometimes you will NOT get what you want. BUT you are STILL important and you have a purpose more relevant than what the traditional 'special' role is."

In the LATER SEASONS though...

Yeah that role has just been ERASED. Which is disappointing.

I love Lloyd's POV and I love what they do with him (until Crystalized where it was just... UGH). But they did not need to fade away Kai's role in the story for that to happen. (This is not a 'Focusing on Kai would be taking away focus from Cole or Lloyd' situation. You can STILL have those two get their great development in the later seasons, and no characters have to suffer for it to happen.)

[lucentgallivanter]

[1] 'thing that is not understood.' The destruction of the monolith happens with no preamble; the poet's first line, pleading for clarity, would have established him as audience surrogate.

[3] 'fall' or 'drop;' coupled with the punctuation repeated from [2] to form a sort of ad-hoc stage direction - the actor would fling himself upon the ground, or drop to strike it in fury.

[4] i.e., slightly more than a fortnight after the winter solstice (January 7th by the Gregorian calendar). J-- E--- may have chosen this date in recognition of the lengthening of the days, which would have been noticeable by such time. It may thus be seen as a call to endure through winter to hear the full verse.

[5] lit. 'knowledge of ink' and 'knowledge of gold.'

[6] In conjunction with [5], often interpreted as pushback against Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, both in nominating a ninth category ('money smart') and in establishing a hierarchical structure.

[7] Much literature has been written about this couplet. This translation follows after Tremaine (2209), which reads this as a sort of auto-paean; he is as unshakeable as rock, despite the '[hellish] bands' that plague him.*

*Brei (2254), in an essay that still enjoys some notoriety, argues that this should be read as 'plentiful,' but this is unlikely to be true. J-- E---'s arm cannon is thought to have been purely ceremonial; there is no evidence that he had the allegiance of any troops, let alone numerous war-bands.

[11] lit. '[the] superlative man.' Popular scholarly consensus is that he lays claim to this rank and mentions his accompanying hound in the same breath as a sort of augury. Audiences of the time period would have been familiar with the story of Gilgamesh (one of the oldest 'mega [men]') and Enkidu; a shadow is therefore cast over the journey upon which his lover sends him.

[ultimateplaylistmaker]

Why is PreGame Shuichi always seen as a yanderé when he's just an antisocial DanganRonpa fan?

Excellent question!

This has roots back into the japanese fandom so its hard to fully research actually, however we know kagehara comes from the japanese fandom through a compound kage, and hara, aka shadow saihara, kagehara 影原. This is likely chosen due to persona's use of shadow selves if i had to take a guess, which might also be why kagehara tends to have a much harsher yellow eye color like the one seen below on Shadow Yosuke, before this became so main stream there was also inchara 陰キャ原 for in character + saihara but this has never seen any popularity in the english fandom to my knowledge. There's also these names for the rest of the characters but only bonkichi really saw any traction in the english fandom

So now they we know the basis of the name, where does the yandere come in?

The first fanfiction i can find on ao3 that seems to lean into this view of pregame Shuichi of him being a dangerous creepy guy is This Must Be What Fun Is from 2017, while it lacks some of the more common later tropes and even has shuichi marked as aromantic, the obsessive and bloody traits commonly associated with it is definitely all there.

The first fic in the tag "pregame-shuichi" is audition from february 2017, however they used the tag ORIGINAL saihara which got tag wrangled in, and the first REAL use of the tag is from Can't Help Falling from December 2017

After that the first use of Kagehara in a fanfic description is At Least It's Something from July 2018 which is a selfcest fic with some WILD plot points actually i might need to look at that one later just out of morbid curiosity

From this, we can know the trope has its roots from the very start of the games release. Where the character of pregame shuichi in the audition tapes easily slid into an otaku characterization due to his obsession with danganronpa.

Thus, its easy to see where his creepy pervert personality come from, otaku stereotypes. You'll see this stigma in a lot of anime where characters try to hide being an otaku and such. This is why Kagehara often is soon as very reclusive, spending all his time and money on one thing, danganronpa, and not caring for anything outside this thing. To the point of antisocial behavior or becoming a threat to others. Immature, obsessive, and sexual deviancy. Classic stereotypical otaku characterization.

One of the stereotypes is usually being a creep towards an object of affection, and thus as the most popular ship, kokichi easily slotted into that stereotypical role of the object of affection. He's small, easily made a bit more feminized, and thus able to be the soft kawaii to be harassed.

Which as this becomes popular, likely for the same reasons any "zomg the main character is EVIIIIL actually" kinda thing gets popular, led to more people playing in the space and pushing it further and further until we get to where we are today!

Though, just between you and me, i have my own personal theory. I can't back it up with anything but it makes sense to me.

The audience comments in v3 are unhinged at times, with comments like "I wanna see the color of Shuichi’s blood" and "I want to break Shuichi’s fingers <3" the audience although only here for a short time has a very strong characterization and interesting dialogue. However, how do you portray this in a story? You really can't without someone to act as the proxy.

With the most fanboyish audition video, and the popularity to back it up, Shuichi ended up being this proxy. Kagehara isn't actually a reflection or evil version of shuichi or anything, it's the proxy to hold the audience in a way thats easy to write, and without the risks of say, writing an oc.

All of the fucked up things we hear about the audience and outside world, all the bad things, the talk of how boring everything but danganronpa is, these elements need a surrogate to embody it or else it can be hard to write with them. That's what kagehara is, the audience and what tsumugi tells about the outside word in a convenient familiar character shaped proxy Kokichi just got nabbed along for the ride as the most popular ship

[ericamzdm]

Adora as Audience Surrogate

So, here’s the thing.

A lot of protagonists in kids TV (and elsewhere) aren’t characters; they’re Audience Surrogates^. The things that are presented as characterization - wants, feelings, fears - aren’t actually meant to be descriptive; they’re not trying to paint a picture of a specific fictional person.

Instead, they're a kind of cold read of the intended audience - OG Adora wants to protect the innocent because you, audience member, are kind and brave and would certainly stand up against injustice if you ever saw it. James Bond is cool and calculating because you are clever and level-headed. Bella Swan is clumsy because everyone trips and drops things.

Audience surrogates are a vague collection of positive traits, because the lack of specificity allows a broad swathe of humanity to see themselves in the glossy reflection.

They have foibles (which are harmless and relatable) but no meaningful faults, because very few people see themselves as truly flawed.

They are static, because to change a character who is “just like you” is to make them no longer quite so much like you.

They are unmotivated - either lacking in wants, or wanting an undefined “something more” - to allow the audience to read in their own desires.

They are a generic flattery, a pretty “just like you” hollow shell for the audience to ride around in for a while.^^

And SPoP’s Adora superficially fits that model! She’s the main character. She speaks and acts confidently. Her failure of focus and reflexes in the final moments of evaluation is treated trivially, a harmless foible. People act like she’s always been like this - this charming, heroic, destined figure. She is told that fulfilling that destiny is what she wants, but she clearly wants “something more”.

We, as viewers, have been primed to view her as our surrogate, a Good Person, someone who is just like us. Someone we can project all the positive traits we have or wish we had onto. Someone to inhabit as we live out our fantasies of heroism.

Which leads to a lot of dissonance when, eg, Adora aligns herself with an overtly malicious authority figure, acts intensely threatened by her ex’s success, and, you know, assaults and imprisons said ex for not playing the helpless damsel to her liking.

Because Adora is Super Not an audience surrogate - she is a deconstruction of one.

Adora projects a vague “heroic” persona, not because she’s heroic by authorial fiat, but because she is terrified that failing to do so will result in instant rejection; that without that candy coated shell, she has no value.

Adora is static (over the course of the show she experiences staggeringly little character growth), not because she’s already perfect, but because her refusal/inability to meaningfully examine and process her feelings and beliefs leaves her trapped, endlessly repeating the same harmful, self-destructive behaviours because she thinks the problem was just that she wasn’t doing them hard enough.

Adora presents herself as faultless and blameless, as not having a choice. She insists that she should only be defined by her heroism and righteousness, not her selfishness or hurtfulness. But that is Adora, the character, not the text or the narrative voice. Adora defends herself, excuses herself, grants herself absolution - but the story never does.^^^

Adora is unable to articulate independent wants - but she still has them. They bleed through all of her actions, and are outright stated (As “needs”, “likes” or “fears”) in bits and pieces during her moments of self-insight.

Adora is “hollow”, not because her internality has been excluded from the text to aid audience self-identification, but because within the text she suffers from severe self-alienation. (And she is not just like that; she used to be different - she used to acknowledge the abuse, she tried to fight it - but ultimately, she succumbed to the lie that there could be safety in compliance, in being only what was demanded of her.)

Adora, as a character, is what happens when all the neediness, superficiality, and self-flattery of the audience surrogate is dragged out of the metatext and into the text - and in doing so challenges the audience and the audience’s desire for a simple, self-aggrandizing narrative.

Is this really what we want?

*

^Used in the sense of “A character who the audience (or the children in the audience) doesn't just sympathize with, but are supposed to actively see themselves as.”

^^For the record, this isn’t bad. There’s nothing wrong with audience surrogates as a device, and they can be deeply soothing and enjoyable to read about/watch. But understanding that there’s not a lot of there there, and that the lack is intentional and tactical helps with the media analysis.

^^^Mind, the story also whiffs on closing the loop and explicitly denying her that absolution. It's definitely there in the subtext, driving Adora’s uncertainty and self-loathing right up until the end, but dealing with it - actually processing her feelings - ultimately gets glossed over by the very Have Your Cake and Eat It Too energy of the finale.

[everlarkficexchange]

Like The Stars Hold The Moon

Written By : @katnissmellarkkkk

Prompt 59 :  "Katniss dad is a victor, he won his hunger games and is a mentor. Peeta is reaped for the games and Katniss begs her dad to help him win the games. [submitted by anonymous]“

Hi! It feels like there’s so much I need to say here and I can’t remember any of it now! This is obviously–if you read the summary, which I assume you did and that’s why you’re here hahaha–an EFE prompt. It was submitted by an anonymous person, so I don’t know specifically if this is what you wanted but I really hope this is good enough that you’ll be fulfilled?

I don’t think there is much more to say? I hope everyone who reads this has a good day! I wrote plenty of this on Easter so I’d like to thank Jesus for rising again. And I feel like the prompt alone is a sufficient summary but just so you know, this heavily features Katniss, Peeta (obvi), Haymitch and Katniss’ father, Hunter (I named him, that’s not canon, I know).

This fic I likely going to be a three-shot with an opportunity for a sequel three-shot. Oh and also, thank you to the anon who sent the prompt!

Oh and this got really long, so I’m just going to submit the first part on here and then I’ll add a link at the bottom to continue reading on AO3. I’ve never done this before so I don’t know if I’m doing it right?

Okay, if you read all my talking, bye now!

Rated T for the canon violence. 

At the reaping for the Forty-Seventh Hunger Games, Matty Knick drew out the names of a ”very special boy“ and ”a very special girl“ from the reaping bowls. She read them off in a bright voice and matched the sentiment with an out of place perky smile. The girl’s name was Heather Branch.

And the boy’s was Hunter Everdeen.

Of course, everyone knows the story of Hunter Everdeen.

/

Year of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games.

"So Hunter,” Caesar Flickerman leans toward the victor, absolutely electrified, and says, “tell us, tell us. How excited are you for the games this year?”

The camera focuses in on gray eyes, the color of a storm cloud or a cleanly polished knife. Dangerous and hard and cunning.

Or protective and frightful and angry.

Or warm and loving and kind.

“I’m about as excited as I always am, Caesar,” he shoots back, not a trace of even so much as a smirk on his face. Not even so much as a lift from the corner of his mouth.

And still, the crowd of Capitol idiots burst out in laughter, as if they just heard the funniest joke in the world, as if this was Hunter’s desired response to the words.

As if the conversation wasn’t about teenagers—and some as young as twelve—killing other teenagers.

“And what about you, Haymitch?” Caesar asks next, segueing from one aggravated man to another.

“I’m looking forward to the free drinks,” Haymitch says while tipping back dark gold colored liquid into his mouth. Almost as an afterthought, he gestures wide and sloppy to the crowd, igniting cacophonous sounds from the population once more. “And of course, the social interaction with all you lovely people.”

No one in the audience recognizes the insult. No one understands the blatant sarcasm at their expense.

Here in District Twelve though, we do. As exemplified by Peeta’s laugh, vibrating against my back. “Shh,” I hush, laser focused on the enormous television screen before us.

“Daddy’s not speaking anymore,” Prim reminds me from the other room, where she’s currently flipping through a magazine our father sent.

“Well, be quiet before he does,” I snap, elbowing Peeta when he rolls his eyes now. “Stop it, I haven’t seen him in weeks,” I complain, fixing him with a fierce glare.

“I know,” he murmurs agreeably, gently kissing my temple. “But he’ll be home in a few days.”

As if they could hear our exchange from inside the television box, Caesar turns his attention back to my father. “Hunter, how excited are you to get home to District Twelve?”

At that, his eyes genuinely light up with ferocity. “I’m counting the minutes,” he replies, but still manages to keep his tone cool. He adamantly refuses to give away his true emotion to even a single soul in the Capitol. It’s his way of withholding power from their greedy, glitter covered hands.

But I see the change in him. Prim, from her position against the doorframe, sees it. I’m positive my mother, who’s watching with our brother from the comfort of our house sees it as well.

Our father’s eyes are now alive again, the permanent frown his mouth resides in on every televised appearance loosens a bit, his brows aren’t knit so closely together any longer.

Caesar Flickerman sees the change too evidently.

“Look at those silver coins!” He bellows, gesturing for the cameras to put my father in a close up now. “They just lit up like the stars when talking about home. Tell me, Hunter Everdeen, how’s the family back in District Twelve?”

At that, my father makes a considerable effort to transform his entire expression into a mask of indifference. “They’re good,” he states evenly, his tone clipped. Making it blatant to even the airheaded Capitol citizens that he refuses to speak publicly about his family.

“Because you’re not property of the Capitol, baby,” he told me once, while on a walk in the woods. “You’re not anyone’s property.”

“What about you and mommy?”

“You’re our responsibility, but not our property.” He’d knelt down to my height, which happened to be the shortest in my second grade class. “Property implies ownership, Katniss. And no one owns you. No one owns you or your sister. Remember that for me. And never let yourself forget it.”

“You’re daughters are both old enough for the reaping, am I right?” Caesar presses further, and my sister and I automatically sigh. Knowing the response that’s bound to come.

“What’s wrong?” Peeta asks, as he still remains completely clueless. I shake my head instead of offering an explanation though, leaning further into his chest.

Peeta won’t understand. He was raised in town by merchants—the owners of the bakery, to be specific. He’s never understood the fierce protectiveness, the instantaneous fury, the irrational tunnel vision, that appears when a victor’s child is mentioned entering the games.

Peeta’s never even met my father. I’m not impatient by any stretch of the imagination to put the two of them in the same room, to watch my father chew my boyfriend up and devour him alive, to abide by his rules and regulations that will surely come with dating.

He doesn’t know Peeta and I have even so much as shaken hands. I’ve never so much as left him even the slightest hint. Not even when I’ve accompanied him to the bakery for the occasional trade with Peeta’s father, the baker himself.

Like both Prim and I predicted, our father is now on edge, his breathing uneven and his nostrils flaring. “Yes. Both my girls are of age,” he says after a long beat, his tone hard and jagged.

Caesar though is either oblivious or is extraordinarily practiced at appearing obtuse. “Well, wouldn’t it be something if either of them were chosen for the games? Am I right?” He directs his questions to the audience. “Don’t we all love a family story?” His words elicit cheers and hollers and a murderous glint in my father’s silver eyes. The camera only catches it for a moment’s time before quickly flitting away, towards the much more enjoyable image of the Captiolites chattering like chipmunks at the very idea.

And suddenly I feel Peeta’s arm tighten around me, the vision of me—the only person in the world he’s certain that he loves—being taken away from our home here in Twelve and tossed into an arena with kids twice her size, too much for even his na��ve mind.

“Don’t we all believe in Mr. Everdeen,” the talk show host continues to push and I feel my typical annoyance with the odd man bleed into anger. “I mean, he brought home Mr. Abernathy here.” And with one single hand gesture from Caesar, the entire interview’s focus re-centers on Haymitch.

And unlike my father, he doesn’t even miss a beat before replying.

“Barely,” he mutters with a last swig of his drink, cleaning the glass. “And he was stingy with the gifts.”

Next to him, my father relaxes a bit. Haymitch always brings out a bit of levity in him, even on his worst days.

After all, in my father’s eyes, the paunchy drunk is a symbol of hope.

Haymitch is the only person my father’s ever brought him. He’s the only other living victor inside the confines of Twelve.

Not to mention his closest friend.

And my surrogate uncle, I note, a bit ironically. Haymitch and I have a far different relationship than he has with anyone else in my family but he’s always been there, has known me since the day I was born, often has dinner at our house, rain or shine, no matter how much he annoys my mother, and he’s an irreplaceable member of my family.

The audience is still riled up from Haymitch and howling with laughter—a bit too much, in my opinion—but my father can’t let the subject of his children go before adding one last sentiment.

“Don’t worry, Caesar. If either of my girls are reaped, trust me,” he states, louder and far more pronounced than anything else he’s said the entire interview. “They will be the victor. There’s not a tribute in the arena that would survive against my girl.”

/

For as long as I can remember, my father had taken me to the woods. He sometimes claims the first time he looked down at me in my mother’s arms, at a mere two days old, he saw a familiar hunger in my eyes.

Not a hunger for food. District Twelve is the smallest and the poorest in the country of Panem, but luckily, my family is one of the richest.

Unlike my schoolmates, I’ve never once had to worry about having enough to eat for lunch. My parents never worried that we’d starve to death or that Prim and I could be taken from their grasp by authorities. They never worried about supplying us with whatever we needed—they gave us more than we ever could have wanted—and they never had to fret that we’d be sent to the mines for work one day.

No, we were far too wealthy and far too famous for any of that.

But my parents had a far different batch of worries to keep them up at night. Not about food or finances or anything remotely common in Twelve.

No, they had to worry about cameras peaking into the privacy of our home and photos being taken without our knowledge and my face or Prim’s face being splashed across every magazine and newspaper in the country.

They worried about the almost insatiable thirst the Capitol seems to have for more family dynamics among the victors.

Especially after the recent back-to-back sibling victories led the hunger games to higher ratings and revenues in the Capitol.

When I was a child, my mother coached me to never go into town without my father by my side. Which sounds easy enough, until my father’s extensive vacations to the Capitol are taken into consideration. For as long as I can remember, my father would leave at random stretches of time, for weeks on end. To go play puppet for a population so dumb, so completely isolated from the rest of the country, that they took his anger for sarcasm. They took his bite as charm. They believed his glare was an act, was part of his appeal, when in reality my father had rebelled against performing for the last twenty-seven years.

When he was gone, our lives became strict. Bedtimes came earlier, curtains remained drawn day in and day out, our mother never wanted to sing or dance or even so much as smile with her husband gone.

But when he was home, sunshine peaked in our windows again. It danced on the floor and it swept us away with its gentle affection.

There was music and laughter and sweets and toys. He never returned from the Capitol empty-handed. He brought back expensive jewels for our mother, he built me and Prim a fancy treehouse in the backyard, put up a large, golden swing-set, went as far as purchasing as many cakes and breads as he could hold from the Mellark Bakery.

Peeta’s parents bakery.

Since I was two, further back than I can even retain, my father would take me out to the woods, would hold my hand and tell me old stories of District Twelve’s past, detail insane urban legends, teach me about plants and berries and trees and the direction of the wind.

And for as long as I can remember, I idolized him. He was so confident and so charismatic and so kind. For as long as I could remember, I wanted to be exactly like him when I grew up. It felt like an honor to me that I received far more his end of the gene line than my mother’s. She was regarded as a beauty in her youth, but he was one of the most magnificent people in the country. Having his coloring and the same silver eyes felt like a special gift, awarded every single time someone marveled at how similar we appear.

But my father was gone often and the unpredictable lengths of his stays in the large, foreign city was one of the only constants my family ever knew. So it really came as no surprise when my mother phoned the cabin only minutes after Caesar’s interview was over.

“I’ll get it,” Prim says flatly after a moment, throwing a sardonic glance at me and Peeta on the couch. Now in a much different entanglement than we had been while watching the talk-show.

“Thanks,” I murmur unintelligibly against Peeta’s mouth, before closing my eyes in pleasure.

“Don’t strain yourselves,” she can’t stop herself from tacking on the end.

“We’ll try not to while you’re still here,” Peeta murmurs cheekily, moving his lips downwards, towards my neck, right onto my pulse point. I let out a somewhat ridiculous squeak in response.

“Hello?” Prim says lightly into the receiver, already knowing it’s our mother. No one else calls this phone, inside this hidden cabin, located in the woods surrounding Twelve.

The woods in which officials fenced off years ago. The woods in which it’s illegal to enter. The woods in which my father has taken me to hunt for families less fortunate than ours since I was a small infant.

It’s not a typical cabin found in the outskirts of Twelve. No, ordinarily a cabin out here—a cabin anywhere in Panem, really—is nothing more than a broken down shack. There’s normally nothing other than an unsteady foundation, a freezing damp floor and an unlit fireplace.

But somewhere along the lines, in the years before I was born, my parents resurrected this place from the depths of despair and expanded it, rebuilt it, refurnished and redecorated and turned it into a vast, warm, safe second home for all of us to run away to when we felt the need.

Prim listens into the receiver for a long moment before she sighs deeply and beckons me. “Katniss, can you?”

Instantly, I break away from Peeta’s embrace, cupping his face and pulling him back from my collarbone.

“What’s wrong?” I ask as I scramble off the couch, my anxiety abruptly spiked. “Did something happen?” I search Prim’s eyes as I take the phone from her but, to my utter relief, all I find there is blatant, unmasked disappointment.

I already know what my mother is going to say before I put the phone to my ear. “Hi?”

“Hi, honey,” she murmurs, her voice both strained and higher than typical. Which indicates she’s trying to put up a front for us right now, when she’d rather be moping in bed. “Your father just called. Evidently Effie Trinket informed him he has more scheduled commitments to fulfill before he can come home.”

I deflate, already prepard, knowing this was coming. Isn’t it always coming inadvertently? My father has never been home when he was scheduled to be in my life. No matter the holiday, the birthday, the emergency or event, the Capitol demands that they comes first to him. Not even my birth could upstage his commitments. He wasn’t allowed to return home to Twelve, to meet his firstborn child, until his press events were done and over with.

It’s no wonder he refuses to put on show for those people.

“Okay,” I mumble after a moment, not even convinced my mother is even still there on the other end.

“It’ll be alright,” she says, as positively as she can. “He’ll be home as soon.”

“Yeah.” I try and fail miserably to match her tone. I inherited my father’s ability to act. Or inability, that is.

There’s the faint sound of crying in the background, and my heart aches a bit. “I’m sorry, honey, I have to go check on Archer,” she apologizes as a way of saying goodbye.

I make my way into the kitchen as soon as we hang up. Prim is standing by the counter, staring at the same magazine our father sent three weeks ago.

Peeta comes up behind me then, his hand rubbing my back in comforting circles. “Your father delayed again?”

I nod silently, as my eyes focused on my little sister now. She’s trying her best to hold back the upset that’s threatening to take over.

And without hesitation, my instincts to protect my family from anything and everything painful kick in. “Prim, it’s okay. It’s probably only going to be another week before he’s back,” I console, stepping closer to her small frame and touching her back.

It’s all the initiation she needs before spinning around into my arms and clinging onto me tight. “He’s never around,” she cries into my neck—I’m not much taller than her—as her shoulders shake with tears.

I feel Peeta’s eyes on me, measuring my reaction to Prim’s words. He’s heard me cry the same thing time and time again, he knows the familiarity of this scene better than anyone should.

“He tries his best, Prim,” I whisper thickly into her long, blonde hair. She’s fair and light, like our mother. Like a merchant or peacekeeper. Looking at my little sister, you’d never consider her to be the daughter of a man from the Seam.

But you’d easily believe that she was a girl raised in Victor’s Village and I suppose that’s what counts. Where we were raised and not where we could have been, if things had gone different.

“He’s never really going to be ours though,” she weeps and I don’t have words to comfort her now. Because she’s right.

Our father will always belong to the Capitol, first and foremost.

And not even his children can upstage that.

/

Prim leaves not long later, to head home to Victor’s Village and more than likely curl up with our mother for the night. They’ve both always been so alike, so much softer and more hopeful than me. I half expect every trip of our father’s to double in time, if not triple. After a lifetime of disappointments, I can’t help but prepare myself.

It’s not that they’re weak for believing. It’s that I have too much Hunter Everdeen in me. I have too much pessimism crawling inside my bones to ever fully trust that he’s really coming home until he’s already stepped off the train in Twelve.

Too many hours of my childhood were spent, wearing fancy stockings and warm, fur-lined coats, standing at the train station, only to welcome a load of cargo and no father in sight. Too many times were phone calls answered in tears. Too many night spent crying, clinging to my father’s hunting jacket, so disoriented by the hazardous schedule in which our lives were ran, waiting for my father to phone, waiting for him to walk through the front door, waiting for him to sneak up on us in the middle of the night or pull us from class on a school day.

That was the true constant in my life. Waiting for my father to finally come home, knowing every moment we shared was on borrowed time. Knowing that he’d never truly belong to us. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting to hear my mother’s bedroom door slam and lock, waiting to hear Prim cry or Archer wail, waiting to see that defeated glint in my father’s slate gaze.

I close the cabin door behind my sister now, knowing with confidence that she’ll make it home alright, even with the sun currently setting in the faded blue sky.

Our father never took Prim hunting like he did me, never brought her out to the woods and taught her to shoot a bow and arrow, never showed her how to trap and kill an animal. But even still, the path from the cabin to our home in Victor’s Village is imprinted in our brains, like a birthmark or tattoo. We’d be able to find our way to and from, even if we were sleepwalking.

As would Peeta. Considering this is the place he spends the majority of his time.

Considering this cabin may as well be his permanent address.

And if it weren’t illegal, it very well might be, I think to myself wryly as I walk over to where he’s leaning against the doorframe now.

“Hello,” I greet again, hopping onto my tiptoes and kissing his lips lightly.

He grasps my hips, smiling against my mouth. “Don’t you have to get home too?” He hesitantly asks, his desire to keep me here bleeding through every caress of his fingers, as they trail underneath my loose shirt, sliding upwards and causing an electric current to ripple through the core of my body.

But I just shake my head at his inquiry, moving my mouth from his to kiss down the side of his face, underneath his jawline.

“Mmm,” he moans after a long moment, before suddenly putting a few more inches between us. “Are you sure your mother won’t miss you?”

Peeta’s always been considerate of my mother. Too considerate sometimes, if I do say so myself. Bordering on obsessive.

He is obsessed with keeping her approval, with never crossing any invisible line, with never even so much as mildly exasperating her.

I suppose it’s only natural though. She is the only parental figure he has in his life.

I’ve never been too enthusiastic to introduce him to my father and he’s never pushed the issue too far. Hunter Everdeen is a practical legend around Twelve—and beloved across the entirety of Panem—but he’s the reason, I’ve always privately felt, that I was isolated from all my classmates.

Sure, I’m already not the most friendly person to start with, in anyone’s book. As Haymitch never hesitates to tell me. But there was already very little chance of me making friends in school anyway. Being the victor of the Forty-Seventh Hunger Games’ child dropped the chances of play-dates or sleepovers drastically. My father trusts no one. Not with his children.

And I didn’t mind for the most part. I’m too like him to enjoy people much anyway. This whole notion was much harder on Prim, who adored her fellow classmates and easily endeared herself to them as well. But no matter how darling my little sister may be, nothing changed our father’s mind and when he was set on something, it was practically written in stone.

I can’t even imagine how Peeta must feel, having to live in fear for the entire last year of our little secret being exposed. I may be nervous about how my father will react, but Peeta has to be outright petrified.

“My mother will be fine,” I murmur, rolling my eyes as I lean back against the wall now. “She’s got Prim and Archie to keep her sane until my father’s home.”

Peeta chuckles at me, a mirthful smile in his eyes. “And you got me,” he teases, tapping my nose with his finger.

I giggle in a way I withheld until Prim left. I wasn’t about to give her ammunition to mock me later on. “All to myself,” I add, matching his expression now. “For unlimited hours of the day.”

“That’s my girl, looking on the bright side.”

I snort. “Yeah, that’s me.” I’m the exact opposite of an optimist. I prefer expecting the worse and setting expectations low. Maybe it’s a learned behavior but, at least that way, I’m not crushed like my mother when things don’t pan out the way I want.

Peeta mistakes the look on my face to be one of hidden disappointment. “You’re father will be home soon, sweetheart. They can’t keep him in the Capitol forever.”

“Can’t they?” I mumble, not expecting an answer. Before he can offer one—because Peeta is nothing if not a fixer—I quickly segue to a new topic. “Where do you think you’ll go when my father does come home?”

He just shrugs the question off though, completely unbothered. “Anywhere but home,” he says simply, his stunning blue eyes clear as the sky they remind me of.

“Anywhere but there,” I agree, my smile twisting into a grimace.

/

A year ago, when I was barely fifteen, President Snow—Panem’s true Gamemaker, my father always said—demanded every victor extend their stay in the Capitol, even after the games ended that year. He gave no outright reason and my father was cagey to speak on the subject, but in the end, the president’s word was law and there was no room for argument. President Snow can demand of us whatever he wishes.

It was a cold, dreary autumn that year, with early snowfall, which was the leading cause to the significant increase in accidents and injuries. My mother, the born healer, had more patients than she could handle, and even while training Prim as her assistant, she required my help. I was to head to town and purchase a list of herbs from the apothecary shop her parents still owned. The people who disowned her, who had little to no interest in her after she married a man from the Seam, victor or not. The people who never cared to meet their own grandchildren, to acknowledge our existence even as we passed right by their shop, in their plain sight.

I was dragging my feet the entire walk there, already with a sour taste in my mouth, when I heard the loudest wail my ears had every registered. When I heard sharp words being screamed out, when the sound of a boy sobbing filled the air.

And my instincts took over, my every sense focused on finding the hurt and helping them, altogether forgoing the trip for my mother’s herbs.

I followed the commotion to the bakery’s backdoor. Right through the open threshold, it was crystal clear, the baker’s wife—the witch, as many of the kids at school referred to her—had beaten her youngest son senselessly.

He’s in my year, I’d realized abruptly, staring with an agape mouth at his bloody face. His eye was swelling and his nose and lip were smeared scarlet and the only thing that crossed my mind at first, was I recognized him as the blonde boy with the colorful notebook, who could never meet my eyes and always wore long sleeves.

Of course, I snapped out of the daze after only a moment. The witch turned and caught sight of me, snapping that no Seam brat was going to get any free handouts from her and to scatter before she called the Peacekeepers.

Something about the unmasked prejudice against the Seam, a place where people in Twelve had next to nothing and were seen as lesser than the merchants, jolted me into action.

“Get your hand off him!” I’d demanded, using my entire body weight, just as my father taught me, to push the door open as she tried to close it in my face. “Let him go or I swear I’ll make you regret it.”

At that, I heard an ugly laugh and the door flew open again, my exerted force throwing it back into the wall.

“I’m serious, child,” she snaps, her blue eyes narrow and her mouth in a snide smirk. “I will call the Peacekeepers to remove you from my shop-”

I didn’t even let her finish. I wasn’t one to be messed with. Not when I just witnessed something awful firsthand, not when I had it in my power to do something.

I knew then I couldn’t bring my father home. He was owned by the president and the Capitol. To an extent, we all were. And I knew I couldn’t stop the games from happening or the possibility of my name being pulled from the reaping bowl. I couldn’t always make my mother come out of her room or even out of her bed, when her illness struck bad. And I couldn’t stop my siblings from crying for our father at night.

But I knew that day in the bakery, I had the power over Mrs. Mellark and I wasn’t going to let her get away with hurting her son anymore.

“Call them,” I dared, not an ounce of insecurity in my voice. “Cray is an old family friend.” He was actually indebted to my father, who’d kept the man’s secrets for too many years to count. But family friend rolled off the tongue more effectively.

“Head Peacekeeper is now making friends in the Seam?” She spat in disbelief. “No wonder this district is so rundown.”

She laughed humorlessly, but my focus was pulled towards the boy. He was covering the left side of his face, as if it hurt too badly to release. As if he was trying to stop his eye from swelling, stop his nose from gushing blood. As if he could hold his now split lip together with nothing more than the palm of his hand.

The sight hurt my heart to see. It burned a fire inside of me that only a true injustice could set alight.

“My father is Hunter Everdeen,” I snapped in the woman’s direction, not even basking in satisfaction when her face drained of all color. The idea that a scrappy little girl with olive skin and dark hair was the child of the most powerful man in all of Twelve struck a cord inside even the witch. “Still wanna make that call?”

The woman’s face was caught between anger and shock when I glanced at her again. And I hated her for it. I hated her and every single person in this district who hurt their kids, who took out their grievances on them, who made them cower and quiver in fear. Who raised them to be afraid of those they loved in a world already so awful.

I know I live a privileged life but, deep in my bones, I know even if things were different, my parents wouldn’t have laid a hand on us. Even if we were so poor I had to take tesserae, even if we were starving to the point of no return, even if we were practically homeless in the Seam, my parents would never hurt us.

“Leave,” the witch spoke then, but her voice was void of all emotion.

“Not without him,” I refused, my eyes planted on the wounded boy in front of me. The boy who was doing everything to avoid looking me in the eye, too busy covering his battered face.

I heard a sound caught between a groan and a shriek, before a cutting board was tossed across the room. “Just go!” She shouted at her son, causing him to flinch severely. “Just go with her!”

On her order, which sounded more distraught than angry, the boy had stormed out the back door and into the chilly evening air, still covering his face desperately, still looking utterly ashamed.

But he waited for me to catch up with him. He waited for me to guide him away from that awful woman he was forced to call his mother.

He didn’t flinch when I touched his arm nor when I took his hand. And when I led him away from the town and towards the village, he followed me without complaint.

Actually, he followed me without a single word.

I realized this just as my house came into view. “You never told me your name?” I whispered, looking up at him gently.

He had tears leaking from his eyes that he was doing his best to ignore, the bleeding on the left side of his face had barely even lightened up, his eye was swelling bigger and bigger, and yet, he chuckled a little at the question. “I’ve been in your class since kindergarten, Katniss.”

I felt my cheeks burn pink, even under the darkening sky. “I know.” But I still peered up at him, curiously waiting for him to tell me.

“It’s Peeta,” he finally answered, maybe a bit satirical.

“Peeta Mellark,” I suddenly recognized.

“Mhmm. Figured you’d pick up the last name.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s printed across the bakery in huge letters?”

“Oh.” He chuckled at my ignorance, causing my blush to deepen.

And I realized immediately how much I liked the sound of his laugh. How I liked being the reason for the sound.

My stomach did a complete flip at the notion and my ears abruptly felt hot, but I tried to push all this away, needing to get him to my mother.

“Wait,” he halted before I could even reached the front door. “Is your mother in there?”

I shot him a confused look. “Yeah, of course? Who else-”

I didn’t even get a chance to finish though. “I really don’t want anyone else to know about this,” he pleads, his eyes looking as frightened as they did with the witch.

“Peeta-” I start, opening my mouth argue, to convince him to go into the house and let my mother treat his injuries. To let me get him help.

But one look inside his desolated, defeated, terrified eyes and I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t put him through any more than he’d already gone through. Not when he’d eventually have to go face the witch again at home.

“Okay,” I whispered, and I felt him squeeze the hand I didn’t realize I was still clutching. “Let me take you somewhere else. And I’ll try to fix you up myself.”

I wasn’t a healer like my mother and Prim. I was a hunter, just like my father, just like his very name, through and through. But I had witnessed enough of what my mother did—my father had forced me to witness enough of what she did, in case I ever needed the knowledge—and I was confident I had the expertise to help him.

My decision was validated by the relief in Peeta’s eyes, by the visible exhale he expelled from inside. He was ashamed, I realized, of his abuse. He was embarrassed to let anyone know what was happening behind closed doors.

I guided him by the hand outside the village, through the Seam—a place in which he’d never been before—and to the fence line.

“Isn’t it electrified?” He asked, his grip on my palm tightening. I liked the sensation for some reason. I liked the way his big hand felt wrapped around my small one. I liked how he wanted to hold onto me in the darkness.

“Nope,” I say, and let out a proud giggle. Or maybe a nervous one. Whenever I think back to this night, I can never tell.

“How do you know?” His blonde eyebrows knit together, still afraid in a way I’d never had to be. My father had taught me everything there was to know about the woods from a young age.

“Listen,” I urge softly, leaning my ear towards the fence.

He cranes forward too, waiting for the buzz of electricity to fill his ears. Only, just as I knew, it never does. Because it never has. The fence’s electricity was shut off long before we were even born.

I watched as his face registered the silence, as he realized and trusted I was right. And I beamed at him, before showing him the way my father slips beyond the fence and guiding him through the trees, towards the cabin, buried deep inside the woods.

It took an hour to find, not because of the blackened sky, but because Peeta’s face hurt so badly that his gait was slowed. But I remained patient, even though that was never my strong suit either. I waited for him to pick up the pace, to be ready to move, to find our way through the tall green trees. I pulled all the branches I could see out of his path, used the moon as our flashlight and didn’t complain once when he stumbled along the way.

By the time we got to the cabin, it had to be past Archer’s bedtime. My mother would be worried sick for me, but I soothed myself that she had plenty on her plate. I’m her firstborn. The child she understands the least, the one who’s like her husband in body and soul. I knew I was probably near the bottom of her worry list.

The very first thing I did when we entered the cabin was order Peeta to sit down in the dining room. I gathered my mother’s first aid kit from the bathroom, wet a rag in cool water and I got to work cleaning the blood from his face.

“This has to be gross for you,” he murmurs after a long stretch of silence. His eyes betrayed how self-conscious he must have felt.

Trying to alleviate his anxiety, I pretended to shrug it off. “My mother cleans wounds all the time. At our kitchen table, no less.”

Peeta made a noise that indicated he didn’t buy my act of ease. “I heard at school that you run from the sick and injured.”

I raised my eyebrows at the comment. No one at school talked about me. No one knew me well enough to. People stopped trying to get close to any of Hunter Everdeen’s kids years ago.

The longer I stared at Peeta in disbelief, the more he seemed to lose confidence in his statement. “Maybe I didn't hear it,” he finally amended. I brought the damp cloth back up to his face again as a reward, tenderly wiping away the blood, before using the clean side to set against his swelling lid, hoping to offer some pain reduction there as well. “Maybe I saw it,” he added sheepishly.

I furrowed my brows, even more perplexed by the elaboration. “Saw it?”

“When Leaf Barker tripped and broke his knee in Physical Education last year? You were almost green when you bolted out of the gymnasium.”

His words conjured up a vague image. Still though, something about this felt odd to me.

“How do you remember that better than I do?”

At that, Peeta shrugged. “I guess, I notice you sometimes?”

“What do you mean, sometimes?” I pressed, none of his words suddenly making a bit of sense.

“Why did you stick up for me tonight?” He abruptly segued, his expression shifting into something of defense, like he’s trying to deflect.

But I’m not one to be deterred. “I wasn’t going to stand there and watch your mother hurt you,” I stated, my voice remaining firm. “Why?”

He continued to walk around my question. “Is tonight the first night you ever noticed me?”

I pulled my hand and the damp cloth away from his wounded face, reaching in the kit to grab a white cream I’d seen my mother and Prim both use on swelling before. “Yes,” I finally replied, because I don’t know what else to say. That I saw him glance at me sometimes and then watched as his eyes flit away? That I noticed how he doodled in math class, because he found the subject boring? That I’d seen him lift a sack easily over his shoulder at the bakery and watched him beat almost every upperclassmen at wrestling, even while three years their junior?

None of that seems even remotely relevant to mention.

“When was the first time you noticed me?” I shot back, still being careful to apply the cream with only the lightest pressure to his battered eye.

“Kindergarten,” he instantly blurted out, his tone simple and bold.

I stared at him in disbelief for a long moment before chuckling, catching the joke. “Funny.”

“I’m serious,” he refuted, peaking his good eye open, the sky meeting a silver dollar as our gaze locked. And I see that he is serious somehow.

“What?”

“The first day of kindergarten,” he continued, after a long beat of me just staring him. His confidence had wavered once again and he was looking a bit regretful that he’d put this out in the open. “You were wearing a red velvet dress and brown stockings. Your hair was in two braids instead of one and your ribbons matched your dress. The teacher asked during music assembly who knew The Valley Song and your hand shot right up. She put you on a stool and you sang it, clear as day, for everyone to hear. Even the birds outside stopped to listen. And from that moment on… I was a goner.”

I just continued to look at him in disbelief, unable to put the pieces of what he’s said together. Finally, I whispered, “you’re telling the truth?”

“I’ve had a crush on you for forever,” he admitted, his singularly open eye giving away his nerves at the admission. “And I know you probably don’t feel the same way. I know you didn’t even know my name until tonight but I just wanted to say, in case we never have the chance to speak again-”

“Stop,” I cut him off, my mind already about to explode. “Stop, um…” I refused to look at him as I spoke, furiously staring down at my lap. “I need more time to… process this.”

He had a crush on me since the first day of kindergarten? He’d heard me sing and from that day forward he held a hidden candle for me?

And he never once worked up the courage to talk to me?

Dozens of moments suddenly race through my mind.

Cerulean blue eyes finding me in a crowd countless times and then pulling away as soon as I meet them. The time I wanted to play a stupid game at recess and a stocky blonde boy volunteered to be team captain, and then picked me first. The stunning drawing I found in my locker last year on Sweetheart’s Day, that I was convinced was put there by mistake, though it bore a striking resemblance to the doodles on Peeta’s notebook.

And before I could stop it, I felt myself begin to shake with nerves.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he apologized, seeing my frightened reaction. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just… I didn’t know if I’d ever get the opportunity to tell you again-”

“Shhh,” I hushed, picking up the damp cloth once more. “Let me take care of your face. And then…” I hesitated again, unsure what to say in this situation. I had exactly zero experiences to compare this to. “Tomorrow we can talk more.”

Peeta nodded amicably, staying silent for the reminder of my ministrations. I felt a terrible pang of guilt for not responding the way he’d probably hoped, but there was still a part of me too stunned to even fully register the confession.

I was an outcast. I’d never fit in with the kids at school, neither town or Seam. I don’t look like the merchants and I’m too rich for the Seam folk. I would have been alone all the time at school if it weren’t for Madge Undersee, the mayor’s daughter who sat with me at lunch and partnered with me in class.

How could anyone have even noticed me to be anything other than strange? I barely spoke, even in classes where I knew all the answers. And I hardly participated in games or gossip. I had a father who insisted most days on picking me up himself from school, not allowing me to walk home alone like the other kids.

But the look in Peeta’s eyes was earnest. He wasn’t playing some elaborate trick on me, he wasn’t trying to coerce me into confessing something as well so he could humiliate me. He was being genuine in every way I could tell. And I had my father’s senses.

The same senses that helped him win his hunger games.

A new thought struck me out of the blue. Peeta seemed too kind and too considerate to have a mother who beat him like this. He doesn’t fit the profile of the kids in the community home, brought there by even less abuse than I witnessed firsthand tonight.

The insane urge to get to know him more, to learn more about this complete stranger who I went out on an impulsive limb for suddenly surges through my brain.

It wouldn’t be a good idea, I told myself. He’s a merchant and I’m the daughter of a victor. Two titles that seem not far apart in theory but are miles away from the other in practice. And I’m not experienced with people the way he is. I don’t know how to make friends or how to maintain them. I don’t know what he expects from me but it’s surely more than I know how to give. I don’t know what to say in a situation like this. Haymitch always tells me I’m as romantic as dirt.

But is that what I want to be? I asked myself as I finished fixing Peeta up. Do I want to be romantic? Do I want to be that girl who holds her boyfriend’s hand in the town square and kisses him under the moonlight? Do I want to put an embroidered ribbon in my hair and wear an expensive dress from the Capitol to go to the Sweetheart’s Dance? Do I want to sneak in through my bedroom window at the crack of dawn so my father won’t know I’ve been out all night?

If I could learn to be romantic, would I want to be?

And naturally, the answer I’ve always known automatically seeps through my brain. No. I’m not like my mother and Prim. I’m practical by nature, rather than fanciful. I’ve never truly obsessed about falling in love or fawned over even the most incredible looking men on the television.

But something held me back now. Something inside me said that answer, the truth I’d always known, is suddenly not entirely accurate anymore.

Because I find that I did want those things I just described. I did want to have someone to hold, someone to laugh with, someone who conjured up that same flip in my stomach as Peeta did earlier when he laughed.

I wanted the same kind of love my parents had. The kind of love that brought them both to life, despite the horrible circumstances they’d both separately endured. I wanted the kind of love that they showed me was possible, even in a world as bleak and as inhumane as Panem felt at times.

I only realized how long I’d been silent, contemplating my inner desires, when Peeta offered a minuscule smile and stood up slowly to leave.

I opened my mouth to speak but when his eyes met mine, every thought in my head was magically wiped away. I had nothing to say, nothing that could be of any sort of consequence, that could mean anything in comparison to his confession.

“I should head back to town,” he murmured, trying to appear nonchalant. “Face my mother. Hope she’s in a better mood now-”

But I couldn’t stand the idea of him returning to the witch, the idea of going to school tomorrow and acting like his words weren’t still spinning around my brain, the idea of even sleeping soundly tonight.

“Peeta,” I called just as he was about to reach the front door. “Wait!”

He turned towards me, looking puzzled by my outburst. “What’s wrong?”

And I don’t know what came over me. I still can’t place what made me—a girl who had never been decisive a day in her life—fling myself across the room and smash my lips onto his.

He didn’t respond at first. I caught him too completely by surprise. His lips hung there, frozen, as mine pushed against his, with too much force and an overload of desperation.

But I felt an incredible stirring in my chest, an odd sensation that felt akin to a giggle amplified.

And when he finally recovered from the shock of it all, his hands both came to rest on either side of my hips, his mouth began to move against mine, his knees bent to reach my height with more success, and the stirring turned to a fiery spark. I know he felt it too, as the kiss was swiftly disturbed by his wide grin.

“Don’t go back home tonight,” I gasped out, looking up at him, wide-eyed and breathless.

His gaze melted as he took me in, he head bobbing in agreement without even needing to consider my request.

“Okay,” he’d whispered with a dazed smile, his blue eyes impossibly wild and sleepy at the same time.

His expression, his spirit somehow, was contagious, and I found myself somewhere stuck between a laugh and a blush when I replied.

“Okay.”

/

After that night, Peeta rarely went back home. I had called my mother and let her know I was staying at the cabin, but intentionally eluded telling her that the baker’s son was joining me. We’d spent the entire night talking in front of the fire, making each other laugh. The bashfulness I felt from my unexpected kiss stayed in my gut, causing me to bubble up with embarrassed laughter every so often.

But instead of that making things awkward, it cut the tension pretty smoothly. It was only months later did Peeta confess he’d felt just as nervous and just as shy about spending time with me. He was charismatic, I realize even that first night. Ironically funny. He was nice, in a way I rarely have found anyone to be. And, the more time went on, the more my desire grew to stay close to him. The more often I was around him, the more painfully I missed him when we were apart.

It was only a matter of time until my mother found out—not least of all, because my siblings accidentally caught us kissing in back of the school, a month to the day we first spoke.

I always imagined she’d be strict on me, the firstborn, when it came to dating. Especially in the world we lived in. Especially with my father’s position. I truly thought she’d forbid a relationship until I was of age. Maybe I was wrong about her. Or maybe she just saw how I looked at Peeta and understood that I wasn’t just being careless or rebellious. That whatever magnetic connection I felt towards Peeta wasn’t just an ordinary school-aged fling.

To my surprise as well, my mother seemed to take on a very similar stance to me when it came to Peeta and my father. Keeping the news of this entanglement from her husband’s ears was almost her idea.

“What are you thinking about?” Peeta asks me now, bringing me back to the present moment. His fingers tickle my neck as they brush my hair back behind my ear, touching one of the satin green ribbons weaved throughout my loose braids.

“You,” I reply coyly, shooting him a sly glance as I slip past him to head back towards the kitchen.

“Me?” He calls in mock disbelief. He trails up behind me, catching me by the waist and swinging me into his arms without warning.

“Peeta!” I exclaim, automatically wrapping myself around him as I try to steady my balance midair.

“What, baby?”

“Put me down, baby,” I mock, pressing my nose to his now, rubbing them together.

“I like holding you though,” he whispers, like he’s confessing some huge secret.

“Until your arms gets tired-”

“That was one time, Katniss.”

“I’m just reminding you,” I say with an air of superiority. “You don’t always appreciate holding me.”

At that, his demeanor falls a little. “I do when I realize I won’t be seeing you much in a few days.”

I feel my heart sink now too. As excited as I am at the prospect of my father coming home, after weeks apart, I always have to be a little more careful upon his first days back.

He always likes to spend time at the cabin and go for long walks in the woods upon his return. Spend more time in nature than the indoors, stay far away from people outside our family, sleep under the stars by the lake. The Capitol is apparently luxurious, but in my father’s own words, it is void of any true or natural beauty. Everything is artificial, man-made, concocted and orchestrated. There’s nothing that compares in his mind—or mine either—to a cool breeze on a sunny day spent in the meadow where the dandelions grow tall.

“But I’ll still see you in school?” I say, though my voice comes out as more of a plea. Peeta doesn’t always like to attend school these days, not when he knows his parents can easily track him down there.

His father, the baker himself, took the ambiguous loss of his youngest—his favorite—son particularly hard. It was only a matter of weeks after I intercepted his mother beating him that Peeta definitively decided to sever ties with majority of his family.

I’d like to say he made the choice all on his own but that’d be a lie. I watched as the physical bruises on his skin healed, as he began to peel back emotional layer upon layer to me, as he slowly told me what really had been going on in the Mellark’s family home. And I can’t say that I was impartial to his decision to cut the connection to a mother with a bruising fist and a father who closed his eyes and let it happen.

“Delly’s parents usually make me go to school so…” He shrugs it off, like it’s of no consequence, his arms hoisting me higher against his chest.

But I feel a sudden wave of gratitude towards the Cartwrights. They may be a little too jolly for my liking and their daughter, Delly, maybe can’t take a hint to save her life, but at least they always watch out for Peeta’s well-being. At least they cover for him when his mother come sniffing around and they feed him what they can afford and force him to attend class, where I’ll be able to see him.

“Good,” I murmur, at peace now. My father will be home soon and Peeta will be safely tucked away with his best friend.

I lean down and kiss his nose sweetly, reveling in the tender moment. His lips follow my lead and begin to plant themselves across my chin, underneath my jaw, causing me to squirm and squeal at the sensation.

“So,” he murmurs against my throat. “We have the entire place to ourselves, for the whole night, huh?”

His audacious smile elicits my own. “At least.” My father’s delays usually mean a minimum of two days.

Within a minute, Peeta has me on my back, against the softly quilted bed of my upstairs room. He takes his time helping me out of my clothes before I hurriedly shove his off, impatient and hungry.

He, of course, finds time to crack a joke. “Good thing Archie is too young to come here unchaperoned. Or else we’d never get the chance to do this.”

I roll my eyes and shove his mouth off my collarbone, utterly disgusted now. “Talking about my baby brother is one sure way to turn me off, Peeta.”

Archer, my three-old-brother, was an unexpected surprise, to put it lightly. My parents were done with two girls. My father joked him and my mother were both already set with one clone each, but alas, the year of the Seventieth Hunger Games was a year full of shocks.

A few months before the games that year, the coal mines—the industry Twelve is known for—exploded. Right in the middle of the afternoon, as everyone was obliviously going about their day.

It was a close call for many and one more reason my father is beloved around these parts. If he hadn’t been at the right place, at the right time, if he hadn’t volunteered to go with Prim and her class on a field trip down to the mines that day, there was a chance that no one would have noticed the gas leak.

It was too late to do anything by the time my father pointed it out, but his warning and the fact that people in Twelve take his word very seriously, managed to save the lives the inevitable explosion would have otherwise cost.

Through the outpouring of gratitude, and the overwhelming media coverage my whole family was abruptly bombarded with, my parents made the decision to pull me and Prim from school for a while, to hole up in the remodeled cabin, where no one could find us because of its illegal location.

I’ve never ask and I don't ever want to know when my parents conceived Archer. But about nine months after the vacation from the world, my mother gave birth to a little boy who looked identical to me and my father.

“Sorry,” Peeta whispers with a chuckle, collapsing beside me. “I’ll make it up to you.”

He moves to kiss my stomach, to trace circles on my hips like he always does. But I shake my head, a different request—or more like it, demand—on my mind.

“Tell me the story of how you first fell in love with me?”

Peeta rolls his eyes. Very dramatically. “You mean a year ago?”

“I mean in kindergarten,” I say with a smirk and then let out a shriek of surprise when he pounces on me, his lips attacking my neck.

“Aren’t you tired of that story yet?” He asks, his voice edging on exasperated.

“You never tire of a classic.” I give him a pout, knowing he never refuses me anything when I pull that trick.

I’m right, as per usual. “Fine,” he relents, but his eyes tell me that he enjoys telling this tale more than he leads on. “Come here.” He holds open his arms and waits for me to crawl into them, to settle against his chest.

I lay there for a long moment, my pointer finger running up and down the center of his bicep, as my ear rests against his heartbeat, patiently waiting for him to begin.

“It was the very first day of school. You were wearing a red, velvet dress…”

/

Read the rest on AO3 

[kiingocreative]

The following is an excerpt from The Structure of Story, available now at kiingo.com/book.

Characters Who Don't Know About the Story World

A general rule of thumb when choosing a main character (i.e. the point of view character) for a story is that they should be the character that goes from knowing the least about the story world to knowing the most.

The reason for this is a practical one. The main character is often the audience's surrogate. By ensuring that the main character is exploring the story world for the first time alongside the audience, we get the added benefit of organic exposition and a natural discovery of the rules of the world.

Of course, this isn't a hard or fast rule. Breaking this pattern does come with additional story challenges, however. Specifically, how will exposition be delivered to the audience in an organic way? Obviously a knowledgeable main character wouldn't be curious about the story world since they'd already know the answers. Some writers become too reliant on side characters who exist solely to provide exposition.

Characters Who Don't Know About Themselves

Another option is to have a main character who is fully versed in the story world but perhaps not as much with themselves. The character goes from knowing the least about themselves to knowing the most about themselves. This is the case in Inception, for instance. Inception is, however, a bit heavy-handed with characters whose main purpose seems to be asking questions about the story world so that the audience can get the answer. This is a byproduct of a main character who's already well-versed in the rules of the world.

Narrators

The main exception to the principle that the main character should know the least about the story world is when a story has an explicit narrator or storyteller. This storyteller character often has the most knowledge about the story world but also implicitly acknowledges that an audience exists. The character understands that the audience knows the least about the story world and therefore takes them on the journey from knowing the least to knowing the most.

The storyteller character may know the least about themselves, of course, and may come to learn about themselves over the course of recounting the story. We see this in The Shawshank Redemption where Red is the main character and has extensive knowledge of Shawshank.

Should the Main Character be the Protagonist?

Recall that the protagonist is the character with the central desire. They move the story forward with dramatic tension and a goal. So should our main character also be the protagonist? They don't have to be. We can choose a passive main character for our story, but it'll severely reduce the narrative drive benefits we get from also making the main character

the protagonist.

If we go this route of the main character *not* being the protagonist, we may want to ensure that the passive main character has a strong fear or desire to avoid. This is the case in the movie Lars and the Real Girl where the main character's primary desire is to keep things the way they are and it's society that has a strong desire to force change.

We see this in Good Will Hunting as well where Will has a strong desire to avoid and wants to keep things the way they are. We can give the role of the protagonist to another character (such as Professor Lambeau in Good Will Hunting) or to the community (as in Lars and the Real Girl). We may additionally or alternatively allow the story to be driven forward almost entirely by the opponent or antagonist.

Perspective

When determining the main character, ask from whose perspective the world might be most interestingly explored. With the fact that the main character is the audience surrogate, consider also whether the chosen perspective aligns with that of the target audience for the story. Notice that Harry Potter isn't told from the perspective of the professors of Hogwarts but rather from the perspective of the students. Since the target audience is children, they can more closely identify with the perspective characters.

There are often many perspectives from which it's possible to explore a story world. Harry Potter could be retold from the perspective of the professors, from the perspective of the Aurors, or from the perspective of the Death Eaters, among others. Consider making a list of all of the possibilities. From whose perspective do we want to tell our story?

In most cases, the main character will be the one whose void the story is exploring. It's the one who'll face The Great Decision.

[blondelucretia]

I’m not so sure I agree with the assertion in both of the (otherwise excellent!) Chadara metas I just reblogged that the show itself treated her like a villain or frowned upon her transactional use of sex. Of course Mira did, for reasons that are pretty understandable, but I think Gannicus’ gentler rejection was also telling (I’d posit that after his reintroduction in “Libertus” he frequently acts as a moral compass & audience surrogate). I also think the context matters.

“Chosen Path,” the episode in which Chadara died, was preoccupied with the place of women in this specific society (though many of the themes are, sadly, still relevant today): Ilithyia being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term by her power-hungry politician husband; Lucretia, now without legal rights or property due to her widow status, being raped by her former slave the moment his position is elevated even slightly; Naevia realizing that the traumas she has endured are preventing her from being able to be intimate with Crixus & asking him to teach her self-defense; Mira, determined to prove her worth to herself (and to Spartacus, let’s be honest), taking up archery; and poor Chadara being cruelly rebuffed by Donar, failing to ingratiate herself with the rebels & choosing to take her chances on the Romans instead.

The episode is also interested in how women support each other, or don’t. Lucretia & Ilithyia, both powerless & at their lowest points in the series, begin to lean on each other and have something approaching a genuine friendship. Meanwhile, Seppia continues to be the fly in their ointment, her presence a constant reminder that even when you’re on top there is always someone younger, richer, and prettier waiting in the wings.

And then there’s Mira’s shaming and ultimate (unintended) killing of Chadara. The two came from similar circumstances, frequently used by their masters as sex objects. One of the million tragedies of the series is that Mira never felt or expressed solidarity with Chadara, but I take that as a reflection of a world which often pits women against each other rather than an endorsement of Mira’s attitude or a condoning of Chadara’s murder (which Mira clearly feels very guilty about in the following episode). Rather, the show invites empathy with Chadara by showing a range of responses to her (by Mira, Donar, Gannicus, and Nasir), and implicit in the episode's focus on the struggles of five very different women is the idea that there is no one right way to be a woman in an actively misogynist society.

[revchainsaw]

The Crow (1994)

Alright Cult of Cult. Do I really need to introduce this one? Let's get all 90s and gothy and maybe brace ourselves for a bit of cringe, but like in a fun way. It's the Holy Grail of Hot Topic, 1994's the Crow Starring Brandon Lee.

Sermon

Apparently before the auto industry totally crashed Detroit was already a total fucked to death pile of burning shit, or at least that's what the crow would have you believe. Sorry Bruce Campbell, and other people from Detroit, but mostly Bruce Campbell. According to the Crow the city of Detroit is the kind of place where gangs of warlock anarchist arsonists will bomb buildings, and murder and rape whoever they feel like and then walk around bragging about it the next day with absolutely zero consequences. Funny then that if Detroit was so bad they had to go to film this movie in Wilmington North Carolina which is definitely a fucked to death pile of burning shit. I can say that, I'm from there and I got the fuck out. My brother is going to kill me if he ever reads this. (It's okay, these are all jokes people). Did you know they also filmed the Super Mario Bros movie there ... also cuz they needed a really shitty looking distopia. Moving on ...

The ludicrous criminality of the Crow's Detroit is particularly on display on Halloween. In Detroit (apparently) Halloween is known as Devils Night and it's legitimately just a night of pure lawlessness and chaos and kids aren't even safe to get candy, except later when we do see trick or treaters. Eric Draven, hunky goth rocker who sort of looks like he could be Bruce Lee's Kid and his fiance are murdered by a gang of vicious criminals. One year hence, Eric is resurrected by a mystical crow (that is actually a Raven), to exact his revenge on the gang that murdered him.

He paints his face like sad Alice Cooper and refuses to listen to Joy Division, just covers. He murders Tin Tin (a knife guy) just for his long gothy duster, he murders Fun Boy and forcibly ejects heroine from her arms and tells her "Go be a good mom now" which actually works. (have I told you about our Lord and Savior Sting? He gave me the strength to get off drugs), he blows T Bird up dick first, and then comes for Skab? Scraap? Scooby? in a meeting of all of Detroits villains and just about kills them all.

He is supported by the most 90s little girl to have ever graced the screen, and I am here for it, and Officer Albrecht, who's played by Ernie Hudson but I like to call him Zeddemore: The Most Underrated Ghostbuster. The leader of the bad guys, who I cannot beleive wasn't played by Brad Dourif or Tom Waits, is pretty interested in the occult. He keeps his witchy girlfriend around and she makes him fun dishes like smoked eyeballs, and her main use is that she knows that the Crow is the Crows weakness. They set Tony Fucking Todd on the bird, and I guess you just have to hurt the bird and not kill it, and Eric loses his healing factor and other macabre undead powers.

The Crow, Jimmy the Raven, pecks out Dr. Girlfriends eyeballs, I honestly forget how Tony Todd gets offed, and Top Dollar gets Gargoyled (that is impaled on a gargoyle). Funnily enough that is more Gargoyle related impaling on screen then in the actual movie Gargoyle: Wings of Darkness where a Gargoyle is supposed to have impaled a guy.

The Benediction

Best Feature: Injustice League

In the Crow we have not only a set of super memorable villains but they are played by the bad guy all stars. John Polito as the most lowly of the bad guys as a kind of sleazy pawn shop owner who buys ill gotten gains. Tony Todd, who's size is really on display here, the freaking Candy Man is in this movie. T Bird is the head of Top Dollars goons and is played by David Patrick Kelly, you might know as the "Warriors Come Out and Play!!" bottle guy from the Warriors, or as Jimmy Horne from Twin Peaks, and of course Top Dollar himself is played by Michael Wincott. Wincott is not a particularly celebrated actor but has played villains effectively in Robin Hood, the Three Musketeers, and Dead Man.

Best Set Piece: Detroit Style Hot Dogs

The Set design of the Crow is perhaps one of it's most fantastic features. It's very moody and ethereal. It's just real enough to not take you out of the film, but fantastic enough to set mood and theme above realism. From Eric Draven's apartment, to the church where the final battle occurs they are all fantastic. I think that's why I really wanted to shine the spot light on a very minor set piece that would get nary a mention but just as effectively represents the qualities I was just talking about and that is the Maxi Doggs Hot Dog Stand, where a lot of the films exposition for audience surrogates takes place.

Worst Effect: Freeze Frame

At a few points in the movie the film makers made a strange decision to do these freeze frame transitions. I only noticed it twice in the movie where it was particularly stupid. I'm sure the film makers at the time thought it was a moody and atmospheric choice that highlighted the suffering that Eric Draven was going through, but it didn't age well. If you don't have the sensibilities of a goth girl from 1994 then it's very very hard not to laugh at just how self involved the movie is about it's super sadness.

Worst Feature: Tragic Accident

Solely based on the film itself, it is that very gothic and dated sensibility that hurts the Crow. The little sarcastic dance he does when he flees the police, quoting Edgar Allen Poe, and bowing to Albrecht. These affected behaviors that I'm sure seemed snarky and right on to the target audience only serve to make Eric Draven seem like an unbearable neck beard edgelord and not the troubled dark soul he's supposed to be. I'm sure at the time it seemed unique and gothy but that shit went out of style for good reason, people could see through it. It's a shame that the Crow himself was some of the cringiest parts of this movie now that I'm seeing it as an adult and not a 13 year old middle class boy with no real problems.

This however is not the low point of the movie. It's not news now and if you're reading some dudes review of The Crow on Tumblr then you probably already know the story. The worst thing about The Crow is that Brandon Lee was horrifically killed on set while filming this movie due to some negligible prop malfunctions. A series of unfortunate events that lead to the actor spending 6 hours in surgery fighting for his life before eventually passing. It was not a quick or painless death and it's really impossible to watch the movie without an appreciation for the fact that this kind of fun dark adventure was going to be a vehicle for Brandon Lee's career wound up taking his life. He was 28. I really wish I could have just bitched about the goofy goth stuff and moved on, but that's not the world we live in.

Best Effect: The Gargoyling

Maybe I should have called this best kill. But I'm not sure which it is. The slaying of Top Dollar at the Climax of the film was just super effective. The pointed wings impaling his chest and that horn coming out of his mouth, it was morbid and excellent and just fit the tone of the movie perfectly. I mean how many other movies can you say Cause of Death: Impaled on a Gargoyle.

Best Bird: The Raven

I tried very hard to look up the name of the bird that primarily performed in this movie and could not find anything. There was a Raven once upon a time called Jimmy the Raven, but that was in the 50s and I don't think birds live that long. There was a team of Ravens performing as the crow, they were chosen over crows for their larger size, and more imposing silhouettes. I just think it's so wonderful to see these often maligned birds get a chance to show off their talents. Corvids of all kinds are incredibly intelligent creatures. Im a sucker for animals, if you haven't already figured that out. I really liked seeing the ravens hit their marks, particularly the one whos job it was to drop the wedding ring into Sarah's hand at the end of the film. You can see that greedy little bastard do his trick and then look of camera at his trainer like "treat please!". It's very cute.

Best Actor: Top Dollar Performance

I'd love to take this opportunity to just put praise upon Brandon Lee, he truly gave everything for this role, but unfortunately with what was put to film we actually have very few character moments with Eric Draven. Stuff happens to him, and he does killings and fights. There's definitely some personality, but I felt like I walked away knowing almost nothing about who Eric Draven was. He was clearly a good dude but that and a few hobbies and a relationship and you don't really have a character yet. He's unfortunately not given a lot of acting to do, instead just relegated to stunts and action sequences. That were notably cool.

The bad guys in the Crow have a lot more character and among this who's who of character actors, Michael Wincott takes the cake. Hell he was standing next to Candyman himself, Tony Todd and still stealing the scenes.

Best Character: A Few Good Apples

Is the best character in The Crow really going to be the cop? The commissioner Gordon stand in? yeah, it is. Not to be political, but I don't like cops, but I guess in a world with magical birds and eyeball smoking I can suspend my disbelief and let Ernie Hudson be #1 cop dad. His character is really the heart of the film, since all Eric can do is brood and fight, we have to care about someone in this movie.

Best Sequence: Halloween Party

The best sequence of the movie is of course the scene where Eric Draven busts in on the Devil's Night party planning commission. I think Top Dollar brought Scrappy Doo there just so he could lure out the crow, knowing the baddest assholes in all of Detroit would be gathered it was likely that somebody was going to kill the beast, or if they couldn't at least Top Dollar could get a feel for his enemy. It's a bullet flying action sequence with a ton of weight. I can't put my finger on this all to common weightless third act problem that big budget super hero and action flicks have nowadays, but whatever that issue is, the Crow does not have that issue. From this point on the Climax feels earned and I am invested. For that reason, The Crow is honestly better in spite of its awkwardness, than many of the super hero movies out today.

Worst Sequence: My Guitar Gently Weeps

Speaking of brooding or fighting. The best sequence was fighting, the worst is brooding. I get that Eric was in a band or something, but didn't he have shit to do. It seemed like it was a cool idea for a shot, but for like a whole seen, watching somebody play an 80s guitar solo, that stood out so brazenly from the choices of music in the rest of the movie was extra corny. It felt like someone's( dad trying to relate to their kid. Oh you like Music. The Dresden Dolls eh? Oh man, then you're going to love Slash's Snake Pit!

Summary

The Crow is dated. It is iconic but I wonder how many of the people that hang that poster on the wall have watched that movie since they were kids. It's interesting how what i've liked and disliked about this film have changed so much sense I was a kid. It's a cheeseball fiesta. If you have matured at all beyond thinking that being sad is the same as being deep then you're going to like it a little less than you did when you were younger, but it is still solid. There's not much to hate on. I'd watch it over and over again. I was really afraid it would not hold up at all, but returning to The Crow was a completely positive experience.

Overall Grade: B

[arsnovacadenza]

Yep, I'm back at your service. What do you think of ikevamp MC? 💜

Ah, this is something I’ve been mulling over for a while. I did remember wanting to rank Ikevam MC based on different routes because.....honestly her characterization isn’t very consistent.

So far, I’ve finished three routes: Napo, Mozart, and Isaac’s. I’m only in chapter 24 in Leo’s route but I feel like I can get the gist of her characterization in that one. So, here we go. My impression of MC based on the route from most favorite to least favorite.

(Spoilers, obviously. And these are just my personal opinions. Feel free to disagree).

Mozart

To be very VERY honest, this route didn’t make me go super doki doki, but it’s definitely the most comfortable route so far. It takes two to tango, and I love how the route shows them overcoming their communication problems. 

In fact, out of the four routes I’ve done, Mozart so far seems to be the only one where both Mozart and MC are treated as equal: yeah, they both had their moments, but they’re willing to learn and grow from their mistakes. 

It’s like seeing two young people falling in love and changing not because of the other person, but because they realize their shortcomings get in the way of them living happily with each other. There’s a difference between the two. 

It’s not the most dramatic, but definitely one of the most memorable due to the two leads’ sheer character development alone. 

In conclusion, this MC is pretty good. She and Mozart balance each other pretty well. 

Isaac

I remember a moot saying she’s falling for MC and I can understand why. She’s so understanding and patience with Isaac to the point where I just want to push Ai-Kun aside and tell him “LET ME TAKE CARE OF HER INSTEAD.”

Saying that Isaac doesn’t deserve MC is too harsh, but.... I really dislike Isaac as a romantic lead in this route. Look, I love watching his grow from an] insecure, defensive person to someone who’s willing to put himself out there and face the world. I totally relate to that. And I get that romantic attraction to someone who can be a support system helps.

Butttt it’s emphasized that MC willingly threw her old life away for Isaac’s sake. In other words, she sacrificed more just to make sure he’s functioning. The “I can’t live with you” mentality hits too hard and it doesn’t sit well with me

If you read the 1st Anniversary Event where they show their life after being together in one year, you’ll see that both Isaac and MC still struggle with communication problems. Even Napoleon has given up acting as their marriage counselor.

But PROS! Let me talk about PROS! The route, at the very least, does emphasize her skills and her confidence in said skills. The part where she prides herself as a linguist? GOOD. BIG GOOD. I wish we see more of this in other routes.

In conclusion, this MC has the best personality but it also feels like MC is overcompensating for Isaac. Maybe that was the intention? Build a stronger MC so Isaac can lean on her? I hope not. I love her as a character in this one.

Leonardo

Look, I love how feisty MC is in this one. I enjoyed her chemistry with Leonardo from start to the earlier middle part of the route. After that, it’s a cocktail of Leonardo’s self-imposed suffering and patronizing. I often think that the MC isn’t given a lot of agency in deciding how her relationship with Leonardo will go. 

It’s a touching route and my heart goes out to Leonardo, but their romance revolves around MC wanting to become Leonardo’s emotional crutch and it’s distressing.

I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but I agree with Comte’s suggestion to Leo that he shouldn’t give in to his impulses and leave MC’s alone because him agonizing over her death wouldn’t be worth it. Yeah, he’s right. And the route shows her suffering for Leonardo’s sake. 

The writers probably intended it to be romantic, but it just comes off as tragic. Shakespeare didn’t really need to do anything in this one. Leonardo’s troubles are already tragic on his own.

Y’know, the route could’ve gone in a better direction. Focusing on Leo’s disconnection with his family  who abandoned him and the society of Greater Vampires as a whole would be a start. The route keeps teasing us in that direction but nothing comes out of it. 

In conclusion, the route keeps heaping Leo’s problems onto MC and seems to push her as this manic pixie dream girl who can magically change his life towards the better. That hurt.

Napoleon

I’ve rambled about Napoleon’s MC several times, one of which you can read here. It’s a route problem that’s mostly similar to Leo’s, except that Napoleon is a much stronger character in this route and that just undermines MC’s character further. 

But let’s talk about PROS. First, lemme get this out of the way: she and Napoleon were good from the beginning until up to the middle (the biting scene). Second: The route did drag after the scene in the shed and I couldn’t remember a single thing before Napoleon goes up to challenge Wells aside from them banging. Still, I nearly cried when Napoleon fell off the cliff. It had its touching moments, despite the route’s weak points.

As for why I disliked MC in this route....hmmm....I’m just gonna say it couldn’t balance the conflict between Welly and MC’s romance with Napoleon very well. MC’s character and involvement too, took a back seat once Napo’s man pain surfaces  past comes back to haunt him. 

What’s more vexing is that she doesn’t attempt to find out more about Wellington other than from Napoleon and Sebastian, who of course are going to be biased. I mean, MC, sis, you could dig up more information about the Iron Duke through references in the library. Then you can devise a plan with Sebastian, Comte, or hell, Jean to help protect him from someone who’s dead set on killing him instead of angsting helplessly and crying when Napo actually marches out to his death.

Napo’s mentality, too, is flawed. Which is actually pretty in-character since he’s the type who’d rather get his own hands dirty when dealing with personal matters instead of asking for help. But, you could’ve changed his mind on that, MC. Make him think of you as an equal that’s worth fighting for because he, too, feels like you’re fighting for him. 

Leo and Napo’s route feel similar because they both involve making her into their living emotional or moral crutch, except that there’s not much emotional tension to go around. 

Napo is made way too perfect and self-reliant in terms of their relationship that it made me even wonder why Napoleon thinks of her as worthy companion instead of his unintentional harem of pretty bois.  In an ironic twist, his route is a total opposite of Isaac’s in that he’s the one overcompensating.

In conclusion, the perfect lover/knight in shining armor trope they’re going for in Napoleon’s route only hurts MC’s character and undermines her agency. 

So, my take on all of this?

Everything depends on what route she’s in. Her greatest flaw as a character, I think, is her inconsistency. I wish she were as assertive as she is in Isaac or Mozart’s route in every other route. I believe she was made that way because Cybird wants her to be more of an audience surrogate than Ikesen’s Mai/MC (who I feel has a more defined personality), but it just ends up making her cater more to the Suitors instead of the other way around.

As a side note, I’ve played other Otome before (Hatoful Boyfriend, Princess Arthur, and Locked Heart), and I did get into routes where I genuinely wanted the MC and her chosen Suitor to be happy together as two people loving and growing with each other. But sometimes, I happen to get unlucky and end up with routes like Napoleon’s and Leonardo’s instead.

Thanks for asking and I’m sorry it got so long! This was really fun to answer! 

 ヽ(>∀<☆)ノ

[voidblogg]

Dispatchers from Elsewhere-Opinion

 The Jejune Institute was an ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that was played in the San Francisco area that started in 2008 and lasted until around 2011. It was the first of it’s kind, starting with flyers advertising fantastical things like human force fields and a dream projector. Players would call the number on the flyers and then given a location they needed to go to. From there, the game would send them on clues and missions all over the bay area, turning their city into an adult playground.

In 2013, the documentary “The Institute” came out detailing the events of the game, interviewing players and even interviewing the creator and creative team responsible for the game.

This year, 2020, then came the limited series “Dispatchers from Elsewhere” by AMC (and viewable on Amazon Prime, or other places if you’re brave enough), staring and created by Jason Segel (yes, that Jason Segel, the Muppet one and the How I Met your Mother one). Dispatchers from Elsewhere details the experience of four players of the Jejune game, Peter, Simone, Fredwynn and Janice.

And now, my thoughts on this limited series. Beware of spoilers below.

The series is 10 episodes long, and while some aspects of the show are pretty accurate to the actual events of the Jejune game, there are some notable differences. For starters, this one doesn’t take place in San Francisco, but rather in Pennsylvania. There are a lot of other notable differences, but they aren’t super relevant and don’t take away from the story told. The real story (aside for the obvious ARG that the characters are playing) are in the characters.

Peter (played by Jason Segel, which will become important later) is a boring man, does the same thing every day. Goes to work, comes home, goes to work. That’s it. There’s this incredible scene in the first episode where he is getting inducted into the game, where he starts crying as the supposed founder of the Jejune institute, Octavio Coleman, proclaims Peter to be special. This hits really hard. I think it’s human nature to want to be special, and with how boring Peter is (and how boring we often feel out lives are). I know I instantly related to Peter. I think my life is boring sometimes. I want to be special.

Next is Simone. She’s a transwoman, afraid of intimacy, terrified that no one will accept her, and has a hard time believing people care about her. Much like Peter’s scene, there is an equally powerful one where Simone is walking home from the dinner, and almost gets attacked by some guys. There is also a very sweet romance between Peter and Simone that I really enjoyed. And there's even a part in one of the later episodes where Simone proclaims Peter to be too innocent and explains that he needs to understand how her being a transwoman is going to make their lives and relationship hard. I’m not a trans feminine person, I’m a trans masculine one. But the anxieties about being accepted is something I relate to a lot. The reality of what my romantic relationships are going to look like where very beautifully displayed in this show.

Fredwynn has and incredible mind, he’s a genius of sorts. He’s obsessed about his health, his mental prowess. He spends the entire time taking the game very seriously. He’s always worried about missing something, and above all just wants the truth about what’s going on. He’s relatable, in the sense that I also don’t like to be wrong. I like to feel like I’m smart, superior. Like I’ve solved something difficult, or seen something no one else has. granted, Fredwynn is an exaggerated version of that, but he’s relatable nonetheless. 

Janice lives with her husband, who had a stroke and is in a vegetative state. For me, an 18 year old child, she was less relatable. Throughout playing the Jejune game, she learns to take back her sense of self after her husband’s stroke. She learns to no longer define herself as “wife” and goes back to defining herself as simply “Janice”. To me, she was less relatable, but to others I’m sure her story resonated.

The thing with “Dispatchers for Elsewhere” is that it’s about the ARG, but it’s not. It’s about human connection, about people. About learning to forgive, to love, to live. The ARG is simply the medium chosen to tell this story.

Now...that being said...this show is incredible...up until the last episode. Through the entire show, we see this boy hidden in frames. This little boy, this child, with clown makeup in the background. I was originally excited, the entire time the show plays with it’s audience, is the Jejune game real or not? And I thought that this was going to be another aspect of that. It wasn’t.

“Dispatchers form Elsewhere” is meta in the sense that all good media is now. It talks to the audience, calls them out. Proclaims each character to be the audience’s surrogate upfront. But the last episode is meta in the bad way. We’re suddenly confronted with Jason Segel, the actor, and his personal struggle with alcoholism and lack of creativity. And it turn out, the child in clown makeup is supposed to be a visual representation of Segel’s inner child. Gone are Peter and Simone and Fredwynn and Janice. Gone is the story of strangers turned friends. All at once, what made “Dispatchers from Elsewhere” incredible is gone. And I understand that Segel is technically the creator of this show, and he can do with it what he wants. But I didn’t spend over 6 hrs sympathizing about these characters and caring about this story just to be slapped in the face with a creative breakdown. I wanted to know how their story ended. And I didn’t get that.

Overall, “Dispatchers from Elsewhere” is an incredible story about love, loss, friendship, and growth. I would just skip the last episode if I were you.

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

The Twilight Zone: The Characters

Meet a Twilight Zone protagonist:

Odds are, they’re an ordinary person.  Maybe not exactly like you, but they’re normal, with hopes and dreams and aspirations.  They’re living life relatively normally, until everything goes wrong.

Or, they’re a total scumbucket, a rogue who goes through life without regard for others.  Everything is going great, until the world gets turned on its head, and they have to deal with an unexpected hand of comeuppance.

Either way, someone’s day is getting ruined.

The protagonist character types of The Twilight Zone tend to go in one of two directions: innocents who are being unjustly tormented, or the unjust being fairly punished.  Depending on what kind of story it is, you can kind of see it coming.

The trouble with writing for an anthology series is that there’s never a ‘cast’ to come back to.  There’s no starship crew, no band of adventurers, not even one detective to return as the main draw to the show.  When it came to writing the characters for The Twilight Zone, they had to be different characters every time.  While they couldn’t go back to one singular character, what the writers could do was go back to a character template, or type, for their episodes.  Typically, that’s what they did.

The question is, why?  Why did these writers fall back so often on these two styles of characters?

That’s the question we’re going to be talking about today.  Let’s take a look.  (Spoilers below!)

Frankly, this isn’t a terribly hard question to answer.  The fact is, when you only have 25 to 50 minutes to introduce an interesting character to torment, you’ve only got a handful of options that will work.  Especially when you’ve got a show like The Twilight Zone, where the enjoyment is in the new twists and scenarios, not necessarily the characters.

These two types of characters: the good and the bad, serve as ways for the audience to relate to the events unfolding before them.  Is it a ‘good’ character?  You’re probably meant to feel sympathy for all of the horrible things that are happening.  Is it a ‘bad’ character?  You’re probably supposed to get the satisfaction of justice by the end as the character gets what he deserves.  

The type of character chosen for a particular episode of The Twilight Zone aren’t random.  It’s not a roulette to figure out whether or not you’re supposed to feel sympathy about today’s events.  In fact, the choice for the character type has a lot to do with each individual story.

Let me explain what I mean.

Each story of The Twilight Zone had a point to make.  Sometimes the lesson was obvious, sometimes less so, but it was always there.  Typically the lesson would only work with one of the two characters.

For a story to start out with a sympathetic, ‘good guy’ character, the story is typically going to be crueler, but there’s also a higher chance for a happy ending.  Exceptions like Time Enough At Last, Where Is Everybody?, The Midnight Sun or To Serve Man are meant to hit even harder, for the unhappy twist to be that much more shocking.  You feel for these characters, and the ending feels that much more unjust, unfair, and makes you think more about it, about how you’d feel in these situations.  These characters are audience surrogates, and their reactions to the endings mirror our own.

This is especially clear in the cases of some of these ‘good guy’ protagonist’s seemingly ‘bad’ endings not really being so awful after all.  The Hitch-Hiker’s twist of the protagonist being dead this whole time isn’t treated as a tragedy.  Neither is the twist of The Hunt, or Nothing in the Dark.  (Ironically, all three revolve around death.)  In these cases, the protagonists move on to meet their fates with dignity, again, making the audience think about how they perceive the endings.  And sometimes, there’s no ‘bad ending’ at all, in cases like Walking Distance, The Night of the Meek, or A Game of Pool.  

On the other hand, you have the unsympathetic protagonists.

These are the characters from The Little People, The Masks, and A Nice Place to Visit.  These are the ‘bad guys’.  They are unlikeable, unsympathetic.  They deserve what they get.  They earn their ‘unhappy’ twist, and the lesson is not in a twist, it is in who it happened to.  It is not an exact mirror held to humanity, it is a prediction of what the worst of us could be.  These characters exist to remind us that we, the viewer, surely aren’t that bad, but we might be.  It is a funhouse mirror, a warning of what we could become if we aren’t careful.

Rather sobering, isn’t it?

The point of the characters of The Twilight Zone is to drive the point home, to emphasize the severity of the events.  They don’t exist as fully developed people because they are windows for the audience to see what’s going on, to experience through them the awfulness of the episode’s situation.  They are audience surrogates, blank sheets upon which to project ourselves so we can experience the show.

And with that in mind, it really, really works, in an eerie, odd, Twilight Zone kind of way.

Thank you guys so much for reading!  Don’t forget that our ask box is always open for discussion, conversation, questions, or suggestions.  I hope to see you in the next article.

[tabloidtoc]

OK, July 6

You can buy a copy of this issue for your very own at my eBay store: https://www.ebay.com/str/bradentonbooks

Cover: Bindi Irwin moving to America and taking over $250M family empire -- her dad Steve Irwin’s dream come true 

Page 1: Contents 

Page 2: Contents 

Page 4: Kelly Clarkson’s side of the story -- after abruptly calling time on her almost seven-year marriage Kelly gears up for a fight and a new chapter 

Page 6: Inside Steve Carell’s private world 

Page 7: Reese Witherspoon and Cameron Diaz were once thick as thieves but the two women are no longer in close contact because Cameron changed after she met Benji Madden and got married and Reese is super busy, Sarah Silverman hasn’t been on a date in years but it’s not for lack of suitors -- she’s often asked out by handsome successful highly eligible guys but for one reason or another they don’t make the cut because she’s so picky, Yolanda Hadid was the first to gush over how excited she is to become a grandmother in September but her eager-beaver attitude is rubbing pregnant daughter Gigi Hadid the wrong way and baby daddy Zayn Malik thinks Yolanda needs to give them a little more space 

Page 8: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are a bundle of nerves as their five youngest children Pax and Zahara and Shiloh and Vivienne and Knox will begin attending a traditional school this fall after years of homeschooling, Kristen Wiig and fiance Avi Rothman quietly welcomed twins earlier this year via surrogate, Kristen Stewart has been chosen to play Princess Diana in the upcoming drama Spencer -- an honor the actress is both nervous and excited and she’s turning a deaf ear to naysayers

Page 12: Who Wore It Better? Olivia Wilde vs. Christy Turlington, Cara Delevingne vs. Poppy Delevingne, Martha Hunt vs. Kyle Richards 

Page 14: News in Photos -- Prince William swung by King’s Lynn ambulance station to chat with the brave employees (full page)

Page 16: Demi Lovato and boyfriend Max Ehrich share PDA in Joshua Tree, Gabrielle Union with daughter Kaavia, Kylie Jenner and daughter Stormi in Wyoming, Shia LaBeouf got in some cardio 

Page 18: Harry Styles debuted some new facial hair while jogging in London, Kevin Hart showing off his old-school ride, Emily Ratajkowski with a bouquet of flowers 

Page 20: Free At Last -- stars are out and about now that lockdown has been lifted -- Rob Lowe, Patrick Schwarzenegger on a bike ride, Kelly Bensimon in a bikini in Deerfield Beach, Florida

Page 21: Brooke Burke filmed some moves for her app, Colton Underwood on a jog, Alessandra Ambrosio headed out for a day of shopping 

Page 22: Heather Graham rocked a floppy hat en route to the beach, Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez with kids Max and Emme and a new puppy and Alex’s dog Lady, John Legend and Chrissy Teigen and kids Luna and Miles 

Page 24: Inside My Home -- Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis are selling their first marital home 

Page 26: After living in L.A. for a mere 60 days Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are packing their bags and heading to the East Coast because as much as they love L.A. they’re starting to see its limitations from the time difference to a host of other inconveniences -- they’re leaning towards getting a luxury place in upstate New York or even in NYC where there are plenty of options that would guarantee them safety plus accessibility 

Page 28: When it comes to Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber’s 22-year marriage it’s Cindy who wears the pants and some may say he’s whipped but it’s more peaceful this way than if he put a fight, even though Emma Stone and Dave McCary had to push back their spring wedding due to the pandemic she is still as eager as ever to have a baby, Love Bites -- Stassi Schroeder and Beau Clark are expecting, Chase Stokes and Madelyn Cline of Outer Banks are dating, Harry Jowsey and Francesca Farago of Too Hot to Handle split 

Page 29: Julia Roberts has wanted to make the move to San Francisco ever since she splashed out over $8 million for a home in the area but husband Danny Moder is refusing to leave their L.A. nest, Hoda Kotb and Joel Schiffman have decided to delay their nuptials due to the pandemic 

Page 30: Cover Story -- Bindi Irwin’s emotional journey -- nearly 14 years after she lost her dad Steve Irwin she’s getting ready to open up like never before 

Page 34: Here Comes the Brides -- Khloe Kardashian and Kourtney Kardashian and Kylie Jenner are planning to say I Do in an over-the-top triple wedding -- Khloe is ready to risk it all with Tristan Thompson 

Page 35: Kourtney’s happy ending with Scott Disick, Kylie marriage and a baby with Travis Scott 

Page 38: Summer Soiree Hacks from Reese Witherspoon, Martha Stewart, Padma Lakshmi, Whitney Port 

Page 42: Stronger Together -- find out how these couples keep each other motivated in the gym -- Elsa Pataky and Chris Hemsworth, Carrie Underwood and Mike Fisher 

Page 43: Gisele Bunchen and Tampa Bay Buccaneer Tom Brady, Rachel Lindsay and Bryan Abasolo, Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade, Jessica Biel and Justin Timberlake 

Page 47: Style Week -- Kathryn Newton is the new brand ambassador for Polo Golf and RLX 

Page 50: Swimsuits in shades of peach, lemon and lime -- Barbara Palvin 

Page 54: Entertainment 

Page 55: Q&A -- Bryan Dattilo of Days of Our Lives 

Page 58: Buzz -- Courteney Cox shared a slow-motion video on Instagram the captured her running and jumping head-first into a pool almost nailing the perfect plunge 

Page 60: Sound Bites -- Pete Davidson on his future, Jennifer Garner on walking her cat in a stroller, Rebel Wilson on using celeb dating app Raya 

Page 61: Hollywood Heat Meter -- Jimmy Kimmel has been named host for this year’s Emmys, Gwen Stefani will return as a coach on The Voice, Matt James has been named The Bachelor, Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey and more of their 30 Rock costars are reprising their roles for an all-audience upfront event, fans can bid to win a video chat with Keanu Reeves with proceeds going to charity 

Page 62: Horoscope -- Cancer Nicole Scherzinger 

Page 64: By the Numbers -- Paul “DJ Pauly D” Delvecchio 

[rin-the-shadow]

Today’s prompt is “favorite human character.” I was able to narrow it down to two.

Given I’ve drawn Alexis in like 12 different artstyles at one point, this was kind of an obvious choice. Also, her being the first POV character I used in a Transformers fanfiction probably says something for where she is on my list.

Alexis has often been one of the easier Transformers humans for me to relate to. Her reactions to things often mirrored what I felt mine would have been at her age, had I been more comfortable expressing myself. 

It definitely felt like she was set up as a bit of an audience surrogate, but on top of that, the majority of her emphasis being that she’s the brainy one rather than the empathetic one (which was largely Rad for the Mini-Cons) was interesting to me. Interestingly enough, she does seem to develop more empathy through her friendship with Starscream.

The other one I’ve chosen is Lori from Transformers: Cybertron. She doesn’t really get the chance to start shining until the Jungle Planet episodes, but she definitely makes an impact once she does. She’s got a great dynamic with Override, but there’s also something to be said for someone who sticks up for what she believes in even against Scourge, as well as out-planning Thunderblast, who was no slouch herself.

As a child, I think Lori was more what I would have liked to have been, rather than what I actually was.

[ganymedesclock]

What, in your opinion, would be the most canonical form of Langst there can be?

I mean the thing about ‘Langst’ is that the objective is usually emotional trauma and in that sense you’ve just plain picked a bad target.

Here’s my contention with langst- and this may be totally unfair, who knows?

I feel like Lance is the primary target because he’s the sweet, sensitive one (I mean this team’s a buncha bleeding hearts but Lance is the comparatively more sensitive one) who misses home and loves his mom, he is what people often will describe as a softie.

And people look at him, this nice guy who loves people and is motivated mostly by curiosity, and the kind of guy who gets all dreamy talking about his crush, and go, “he’s the weak link here. If any of these people are gonna break, it’s him.”

And, that’s bullshit. If that’s what you’re looking for you just picked a bad series to begin with because if your sample size is “people who passed the personality test of a benevolent eldritch hive mind, and agreed to fight a war with very few personal hesitations on behalf of their people despite not being soldiers and barely being adults if that” you are not gonna find weak people. 

If I try and get into any of these people to find a “better target” for tragedy, it doesn’t work no matter who I pick.

Pidge is the youngest and has the most unstable, vulnerable sense of identity, yes- but she’s also adored by the team and all of them really powerfully want to stay with her, and, on her own, she’s shown to be strong-spirited, clever, inventive, and able to pull herself back from that precipice of grief and despair to re-engage with the situation.

Shiro is flat out dealing with the physical and mental scars from an entire year of medical torture on top of what I suspect are lifelong problems of insecurity and a perceived need to prove he’s worth recovering, and also his explicit paladin virtues are his force of will, determination and endurance. We haven’t met forces yet that will break him, and while they’re wearing him down... the team would never abandon him long enough to let that happen.

Keith has early life trauma that makes it very difficult for him to connect to other people, he’s terrified of rejection and while I don’t believe he’s actively suicidal, he puts an alarming lack of value on his own life, and a very stubborn refusal to accept when other people are in no uncertain terms telling him he’s important and valuable. But that’s not a new problem, it’s an old one- showcased obviously back in s1e11 and some of his dialogue with Shiro, to me, implies that it goes back even further than that. And as difficult as it is for him to shoulder past it, he is growing past it. S4e6 is the first time we’ve seen him hesitate.

Hunk? Yeah, guy has almost definitely anxiety, if not an anxiety disorder (I’d have to know more about GAD to call it for sure) but he also has the most practice dealing with it, he’s consistently able to discuss his own emotional state, compose himself and keep it together when need be, and understand when he just really needs something to get him out of his head. Along with Lance, he’s a leg pilot- not just a stable person but one who has enough stability that they can bequeath it to others.

And Lance himself, as I’ve been saying... Lance is the heart of the team. He’s the chosen paladin of the compassionate, nurturing Blue Lion, and was embraced by Red because Red will do anything to keep Keith safe and the best possible thing Red could think of doing to take care of Keith when he went to the Black Lion was to sic Lance on him.

Lance is a font of emotional self-care, and this is because he has a damn good system in place. The reason why we know Lance is upset is because Lance basically will reflexively talk therapy himself. The whole thing with Laika in Beta Traz tells us Lance doesn’t really need real audiences as much as just surrogates.

So Lance says a lot of worrying stuff. The thing is, that’s a good thing. Because the thing about self-talk, especially with insecurity- and I’m speaking from personal experience here: saying it out loud is infinitely better than the alternative. Lance actually flat-out saying “am I not meant to be a paladin?” pulls it out into the real world, where it’s forced to face real facts, like the fact that it’s not true. 

Why would the Blue Lion waste most of a year trying to butter Lance up? Has he, or has he not formed Voltron a buncha dang times? Blue grabbed him first, when nobody else was taken.

Let’s compare this to Keith.

When the whole issue of Keith’s knife and its marmora symbol comes up, in s2e3, Keith says nothing about it. We see him staring at the knife in private, repeatedly- telling us that he’s thinking about it quite a lot. This also majorly affects his thinking in several episodes- s2e4, him desperately trying to feel still connected to the team by rationalizing that the team is connected, even to the galra. And s2e6, when his desperate fears (if he’s galra, what is the empire going to do to him? can Zarkon just hunt him down this easily?) lead to him making a terrible decision that endangers both him and the rest of the team.

It’s not until s2e8, even with Shiro actively, explicitly asking Keith what’s wrong, and pointing out how stressed he’s been, that it comes up, and that’s just because Kolivan and the rest of the Blade force it out of him.

When Lance is unhappy, Lance says his unhappiness and usually is able to at least get a short-term resolution right then and there in that episode.

So in that sense, you can definitely serve Lance up a hot plate of whatever kind of trauma you like, but, being true to Lance’s canon character... it stands that any story about Lance and trauma is going to be a story about healing. Lance isn’t even going to wait until he’s out of the bad situation, here- he’s going to set into that immediately.

The way that I’d imagine this working is... it comes very similarly to Pidge’s industriousness when faced with a very technological problem. If Lance is in a situation- really an awful situation, he’s going to sit there, he’s going to feel bad, and because he feels bad, he’ll do what he always does. He’ll start talking about it, rolling it over in his mind.

But while it’s possible to leave Pidge without technology- possible, but very hard- emotions are a major thing and Lance is a very good read on people. If anything, a really bad situation, he’s going to start turning the tables on people.

I’ve mentioned before that Lance and Ezor are counterparts and I think Ezor is sort of... someone very like Lance, who grew up in a much more troubled environment. She’s an antihero version of Lance, roughly.

Ezor still cares about her friends. It’s a complete deal-breaker for her once Lotor kills Narti, and her rationale towards the other two generals, her reaction the entire time- is to network, talk about it, engage emotionally.

However? Ezor doesn’t like a lot of other people, and she expresses this by still engaging emotionally. She plays head games with people. She uses very efficient strikes to actually incapacitate the Puigian leader but a lot of the other stuff she does- invading his space, pulling his mouth- none of this is actually about practical control, or even physical pain.

The point is powerlessness. Psychologically, she’s messing with him in a way that emphasizes how much control she has on this situation. Ezor, like Lance, is an incredibly emotionally savvy person. The thing is, Ezor uses that emotional savvy to mess with other people. Her specific flavor of giggly patronizing people she doesn’t like is just one flavor of that.

Now- Lance has a different foundation from Ezor, so I don’t think just Lance in a bad place is enough to make him start playing head games, but... the thing about Lance is not only is he a good study interpersonally, but he’s also incredibly adaptable.

Lance is very rapidly able to take in new information and change tactics accordingly. On top of this, he’s a very nimble, dexterous guy, and not one who gives up easily.

So... if I was gonna put Lance in a bad situation, one that would really flesh out his characters and tell an interesting story?

I’d put Lance in some kind of dream world. One where things are idealized- a kind of psychic attack that plays on positive emotions and desire.

Not because that’d work- it wouldn’t- but because it’d call on Lance to really flex his essential skills, here.

Something like the Trial of Marmora, only- the point isn’t to make the “right decision” and exit, the point is to add things up and go “But you know things that the person you’re supposed to be doesn’t know. That’s not something he’d really say. Something here’s wrong, and, if I keep poking this, sooner or later I’m gonna find the wizard behind the curtain.”

If your objective is to put Lance in a situation where he’s genuinely powerless and must be rescued, that’s... I mean I guess you could freeze him solid like they did in s1e9. That’s about all that’s leaping to mind for me- because again, Lance is the adaptability and improv guy. Put him in a cell? Even if he can’t escape you know he’s gonna befriend everybody there with him. Solitary confinement? He sure has a lot of time to try different stuff and keep poking his surroundings until it coughs up something and at bare minimum whoever comes to check on him/feed him, he’s gonna be poking at them.

[doomonfilm]

Review : The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

From a very young age, the Vietnam war, and all of the events generated from its fallout, has been a major point of interest.  So much of the modern-day American cultural landscape was shaped from the friction caused between the 1950′s old-fashioned mindset and the vast array of counter-cultural voices looking for a chance at equal footing within the American diaspora.  A key flash point in these turbulent times was the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968, where the figureheads of Richard Nixon for the Right and Hubert Humphrey from the Left presented such a bleak outlook for America at large that many groups of disenfranchised voices felt on the ground protesting and direct action was needed.  The ensuing trial read like America versus a who’s who of the aforementioned counter-cultural voices, dubbed the Chicago 7 despite an initial attempt to try 8 individuals, and with 2020 being quite the politically turbulent time in its own right, it felt an appropriate atmosphere for Aaron Sorkin to create and release The Trial of the Chicago 7. 

With the Vietnam war ramping up, an increase in the drafting of American soldiers, and a looming Presidential election that seemingly did not serve the interest of the American public at large, a key group of individuals leading and representing several different factions of the counter-culture made plans to attend the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention with the intent to make their voices heard by America in particular, and the world at large.  A year removed from the protests and ensuing riots in Chicago, Judge Julius Hoffman (Frank Langella) prepares to hear State Attorneys Richard Schulz (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Tom Foran (J.C. MacKenzie) try their case against Bobby Seale (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and the group of defendants who would later come to be known as the Chicago 7 : Abbie Hoffman (Sacha Baron Cohen) and Jerry Rubin (Jeremy Strong) of the Yippie movement, Tom Hayden (Eddie Edmayne) of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), David Dellenger (John Carroll Lynch) and Rennie Davis (Alex Sharp) of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), and SDS members Lee Weiner (Noah Robbins) and Daniel Flaherty (John Friones).  The group, who are defended by Attorneys William Kunstler (Mark Rylance) and Leonard Weinglass (Ben Shenkman), find themselves facing travesty after travesty of justice, not to mention numerous outside influence, in their quest to expose the hypocrisy of the political trial they are facing.

While the storytelling found in The Trial of the Chicago 7 is vibrant and efficient in its balance of education and entertainment, it is best ingested outside the context of other Aaron Sorkin work.  This, however, is not a negative or a meant to be a slight on the film… in my opinion, the gravity of the story he is telling, and the fact that it is not only completely true, but relatively recent history, inherently yields Sorkin from applying the trademark snark that provides the snap found in his mastery of dialogue.  That being said, this film (and the spirit in which it was created) would serve as an outstanding entry point for anyone interested in 1960s counter-culture, political unrest and protests against the Vietnam war in general, and the Yippie Party, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Black Panther Party specifically.  The foundation on which revolution is based helps ground the film, but not at the expense of weighing down entertainment.

At the risk of sounding contradictory, for all of the importance of the Chicago Democratic Convention that makes it a bit more serious than something I’d like Aaron Sorkin to handle, the trial portion of the film is actually perfectly suited for him to handle.  The dialogue may not necessarily be in the complete spirit of his trademark banter, but his panache for balance shines through in his direction of the actors with the material.  Lots of ideas are moving in concert at any given time, and each gets a moment in the spotlight without causing detriment to the others, which is very similar to the nature of the seven different real life defendants.  The behavior exhibited in the courtroom is quite often shocking, with the lion’s share of the shock originating from the judicial side of things.  In many ways, a generation was being put on trial at the time, and Sorkin clearly knows this, but he is also smart enough to know that the generation supposedly ‘on trial’ was not one harmonious voice.  Even a viewer like me, who is coming to the table with an affinity for the Black Panthers and the Yippies specifically, can respect the portrayal and stance of Tom Hayden simply because he, like everyone else in the film, is given an equal voice and a chance to humanize their side of the struggle.

Eddie Redmayne serves as the audience surrogate, with his nervous tension and sense of danger demanding attention, regardless of whom he shares the frame with… his performance is one of the more powerful I’ve seen that did not rely on dialogue, which is rare for an Aaron Sorkin affair.  Sacha Baron Cohen is allowed to do a refined and precise version of his very intelligent comedy, all while paying ode to a man that likely inspired him in turn.  His energy plays off of the aggressive awareness of Jeremy Strong, whose assured weight behind his words matches the sense of pride in the side his character has chosen.  Alex Sharp encapsulates the quiet revolutionary, with a measured release of clearly heightened awareness that is shielded by his resolve.  John Carroll Lynch takes the observational approach, choosing his words wisely and making sure that their impact is felt.  Noah Robbins and Daniel Flaherty bring supporting presence to the original seven, often espousing dressed up exposition like a tour guide for the viewer.  Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is a lightning rod of emotionally charged intelligence wielded in the hopes of freedom, with every bit of the sense of urgency that entails popping off the screen.

Mark Rylance uses a sly and cunning propped up with the confidence that experience brings, as well as the frustration that comes when one is forced to confront the absence of logic.  Ben Shenkman brings a youthful sharpness and exuberance that matches the energy of the so-called radicals that he is defending.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes the most of placing a good-hearted character between a rock and a hard place, sounding logical counterpoints while presenting an acceptance of fact.  Frank Langella is fabulously frustrating, wearing the trope of the outdated old-timer trope in the parallel fashion of both a badge of honor and a war trophy.  Kelvin Harrison Jr. amplifies the frustration that Abdul-Mateen II brings to the table while continuing the positively powerful portrayal of the Black Panthers.  Caitlin FitzGerald, Michael Keaton, John Doman, Wayne Duvall, Damian Young and others fill out a powerful ensemble cast.

Much like Malcolm X, a movie like The Trial of the Chicago 7 is a film whose educational aspects do not get in the way of educating people on a piece of history that is often swept under the rug.  I’ve never had aspirations of being a teacher, but if I ever end up in that role and happen to teach history, I will certainly try my best to put this film in the curriculum.  Otherwise, it can serve as a good bar-setter for whether or not someone can take in the work of Aaron Sorkin, which would make a follow-up like Molly’s Game or The Social Network easier to digest if the entry point is well-received.  

[ashasdramadrawer]

Why Lance is so popular, and why I had it wrong: a short ramble

I have a confession. I found myself following Lance as the focal character/ main protagonist when I first started watching Voltron.

And I did it for a fairly simple reason. After Shiro was introduced and promptly kidnapped, my first thought (because I didn’t know the the original GoLion names) was that we would never see him again. So when we’re introduced to the Garrison Trio, and focus was shifted almost entirely to Lance, I thought that hew as meant to be the focal point character. The character we were meant to identify most with, who is, often, the protagonist. In shonen manga and anime, usually the character we see first is the person who will be the most important. And after all, the first third (which was supposed to be the first episode) was, very much, all from Lance’s POV. Lance trying to make the team bond (despite it being an excuse to meet girls) and Lance thinking of a way to rescue Shiro, his hero. It was about Lance being chosen by the Blue Lion. It was about Lance piloting Blue to get away from the Galra cruiser.

These are all tropes that usually signal to the audience who the protagonist is going to be. FMA has us focus on Edward first, with Alphonse as a close second. Harry Potter sticks to Harry immediately. Almost all games invite us into the head of the protagonist to show is their lives first thing. Most shonen tropes will introduce the young protagonist, who has to grow into the leadership role over the course of the story, with a cool senpai character who leads the way but steps aside (or dies) later on, which could easily be Shiro.

When Keith comes in later to rescue Shiro and Lance set him up as some sort of rival, I immediately fell on Lance’s side in this, because it was easy to relate to. Keith felt like he was being set up as the asshole rival character that was usually see. I kind of liked that- I had no real attachment to Keith at that point, even though I had watched or had knowledge of most previous iterations of Voltron- because it felt like a fresh take on these characters. They hadn’t been rivals before, but the idea of seeing how their friendship grew appealed to me. So I didn’t question it.

So when the focus shifted off of Lance, I was... a bit adrift. It had taken barely twenty minutes for me to shove Lance into the role of protagonist, and the reason I became attached to Shiro later was because I appreciate his kindness and patience over a damaged spirit. Lance himself was what broke the rest of that attachment later on by being a wanker.

A friend pointed out that Lance was meant to be an unreliable narrator. And I felt kinda dumb because I hadn’t really been thinking on those lines, even if I knew his POV was unreliable. I just hadn’t thought to see such from a kids’ show.

And here’s the thing: I don’t think most of his stans were expecting it, either.

That first impression we get of Lance is nuanced, but how many times do we see a flawed protagonist that’s almost just like him? The every-boy who is meant to be the audience surrogate-turned-hero? A great example is Daniel from the 2011 Voltron Force (and someone I fucking hated, but that’s another story) who is cool and fun and grabs the idiot ball and NEVER LETS GO.

Voltron: Legendary Defender, as a whole, delights in subverting expectations. Shiro/Sven was supposed to die early on. Guess what? He’s the leader, has survived hell, and is generally an overall great guy. Pidge was often mistaken for a woman, but had been a 12 year old boy. Guess what? She’s pulling a Mulan the whole time. Allura was often the Load (especially in DotU s2) but she is literally the strongest character of the main cast. Hunk went from a rough-and-tumble brawler to being a cynical foodie. Coran went from serious and constantly questioning Allura to being her greatest support and the comic relief. Zarkon is nuanced, as is Haggar, far more than from DotU.

Thing is, it isn’t always easy to see an unreliable narrator. Lolita is considered the ur example, and how many people still see it as romantic? Lance was meant to be the relateable one, but that didn’t mean he was the hero. He was always the self-absorbed, sometimes mean guy we know. He was always lacking in empathy. But because we were pulled in initially, it is incredibly easy to keep projecting on to him as the story progresses and miss-attribute who the actual focal characters ARE.

The everyman who is kinda horrible as a person is pretty common. I mean, look at Xander from Buffy. He’s a gross Nice Guy who is never called out. Lance desperately wants to be attractive to women, wants adoration, fame, glory. He’s finally growing up some, but that narrative trick at the beginning still has a lot of people fooled, I think. And because people were fooled, they created this massive body of fanon that has warped the idea of Lance completely out of shape.

It took me until season 3 to really start liking Keith. And I think it was because we rarely followed him until the second season. I think, had we started the story following him, the Lance Stans wouldn’t be as vocal. I like who Keith has proven himself to be. His relationship with Shiro, over time, has been one of the best, most supportive relationships in the show. It was nice to see the hints dropped without tons of exposition. But, if, say, for example, we had followed Keith’s POV on the Shiro-rescue? I really don’t think fandom would be quite the same.

VLD fans, especially Lance stans, are really poor at distinguishing fiction and reality. They’re often young and have little experience. So the most common tropes- following Lance at first, and the slap-slap-kiss trope- are what have shaped their initial impressions of Lance, Keith and Shiro. (Slap-slap-kiss is horrible, btw. It is excusing poor behavior and communication, usually so girls will accept boys being assholes to them because ‘they have a crush on them! Assigning it to Lance and Keith is a disservice.)

Subverting expectations often makes for a really good story. But I think here was not a good place for it.