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maagicmushies · 11 months ago

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How Fates Classes Communicate Culture

It is kind of strange to say because horrible worldbuilding is one of the things that Fates has become known for, but I'm really struggling to think of a Fire Emblem game that manages to say more about its world through its classes. Nearly every single class in Nohr and especially Hoshido has a lot to say about the respective cultures of the two nations, either through their names or weaponry or design.

Religion

So, religious aesthetics have been a thing in Fire Emblem since forever. If you want to get healed in Archanea you don't go to a doctor, you go to a cleric. Jugdral with its myriad of references to Norse myth had Troubadours which sort of seem random for a northern european setting, but Troubadours went around reciting poetry and a lot of Norse myth was chronicled through poetry like the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda. The main religious house of Grannvale being House Edda also makes allusion to this. Even seemingly secular classes such as cavaliers and paladins can be seen adorned with crosses in most games. In Fates something interesting happens. Nohr has most of the "traditional" Fire Emblem classes, but loses all of these religious references. Troubadour stayed, but only in the English Localization with the class being called "Rod Knight" in the original Japanese. Troubadour's promotions in Awakening, Valkyrie and War Cleric, were pretty explicitly religious, but no more in Fates. Valkyries have been turned into Strategists, with designs that sort of resemble depictions of Viziers. In the place of War Cleric, we have the Maids, which I'm pretty sure are a reference to old mystery books and the cliche of rich statesmen being killed by their bitter servants. That's why they used hidden weapons. Another Nohrian class which is just a secularized version of an older class would be the Dark Mage and Sorcerer. Nothing within their names or designs have been changed, but they have gone from being followers of Grima in Awakening to a sort of analog to alchemists. I am a little torn on this because trying to draw the line between "religion", "philosophy" and "pseudoscience" with alchemy is EXTREMELY hard, but just like the maids this class has a reference to another icon of European literature - Frankenstein. The faceless that they create and can summon bare a striking origin and visual similarity to many depictions of Frankenstein's monster. That book is coated in a lot of religious subtext, but Frankenstein himself is staunchly a scientist and working within his world's realm of science. While Fates did remove these classes from their religious context, another take was to move classes with religious context over to Hoshido.

The way the religious Hoshido classes are handled is pretty funny because a lot of these classes have been in Fire Emblem before, but were references to western religion, typically Catholicism. Now they're mainly references to eastern religions. The most obvious case of this are priests and clerics who were turned into monks and shrine maiden respectively. This is one of the rare cases of Fates gender-locking and the only case of it having an actual effect on game play. Women in this class line are based on "Miko", Shinto shamans tasked with shrine upkeep and various other rituals. Shrine Maidens can promote into the very vague "Priestess", but the Japanese version once again clears things up by just calling them "Isuka Miko" or "Battle Miko". They're the standard shrine maidens, but with a slight bit more armor and armed with a bow, something that Miko actually would use both for ceremonial purposes and self defense in some cases. The male counterpart is the Monk. Before I go on, I have to clarify that I don't think that the localization made the wrong move by leaving out a lot of the cultural context, but I'm going to have to keep going back to the original Japanese to fully clarify what Intelligent Systems meant with some of these classes. While we got "Monk" they got "Shugenja", which is a lot more specific to what Fates' monks are. They are followers of Shugendo, ascetic mountain-dwelling priests. The lances that Great Masters use were likely a reference to walking poles that such a lifestyle would demand. I don't really like genderlock and it annoys me that Fates completely ignores it except for this one instance, but I sort of get why. Miko are one of the most recognizable symbols of pre-meiji Japan, so if IS wants to make a fictional country based on that era, it'd be such a miss to not include them. However, "Miko" is a strictly feminine title, so Fates used this limitation to just give us another cool cultural reference.

If all that wasn't enough, a lot of FE classes that had nothing to do with religion now do. Standard "mages" were turned into "diviners". One could argue that this was the localization actually adding in religious context where there originally was none, because the original word used for this class just translates to "spell user". I'm inclined to disagree with that because Orochi's entire thing is divination and the main Hoshidan scrolls revolve around the Chinese zodiac. Another hit against that view would be how Diviners, Shrine Maidens and Monks all can promote into the Onmyoji. For some reason, this is one of the few japanese terms that Treehouse refused to swap out. Sage would have worked just fine. Remember how I said Alchemy blurred the lines between "philosophy", "religion" and "pseudoscience"? The same could honestly be said about Onmyodo, from what I know. Going off of how Izana, the poster child for the class, comes from the Kingdom of the Gods and can straight up speak with the Gods, I'd say that Fates' interpretation of the belief is as a faith. By the way, Onmyodo means "The Way of Yin and Yang", a pretty clear reference to how Sages can use tomes and staves, black magic and white magic. Some other Hoshidan classes also got some minor religious flair to them, with Sniper, Swordmaster and Spear Master all having different japanese names in fates than they do in the japanese versions of other Fire Emblem games. In Fates they can be translated as "Holy Bow", "Holy Sword" and "Holy Spear" or “[Insert Weapon] Saint”. I will touch on this more in a bit.

So, that begs the question. What is Fates trying to imply with this? Well.... I don't really know? Like, sure, Nohr has scrubbed away almost all of its religious institutions while Hoshido holds tightly to them and even associates great skill with holiness, but why? As cool as all of this is, it doesn't really seem to mean much besides creating yet another cultural rift between Hoshido and Nohr. I could come up with something about how the Fire Emblem being in Hoshido means that they were favored by the Gods and decided to worship them while the Nohrians felt neglected and forged their own path but that feels like I'm veering off into the realm of fanfiction, it's pure conjecture. It is also possible that Hoshido's faith came from them hunting Nohrian monsters. Gaiden and Sacred Stones both had characters who mostly fought monsters and they came from religious institutions in both cases, with Bishops in the Sacred Stones being especially good at it. So perhaps that is why so much of Hoshido is themed as religious, but once again it feels like I'm trying to guide thread through a needle that just isn't there. There is one thing that Hoshido’s focus on religion says about their culture for a deeper level and I’ll get into that for the next section.

Warfare

If you’re a nerd about Fates’ gameplay, there may be something that you noticed about the “Holy” classes mentioned. They are all capable of attaining an “S” rank in their respective weapons. This could indicate that Hoshido views mastery in the martial arts as either a gift from the gods or something to be used in service of the Gods. In Hoshido, the “Art” aspects of “Martial Art” seems to be something they prioritize on honing. It isn’t just enough to pick up a sword and learn how to swing it, you should strive to master it. The S rank options in Nohr paint a bit of a different picture. First you have the Sorcerers and Maids, being the S rank options for tomes and staves. This is an extension of Nohr’s respect for academia. As Nohrian magic is a bit closer to Alchemy, this magic can be mastered and honed simply through learning enough about it. Nohr loves its Tomes, by the way. Dark Mages are the only base class to start with tomes, but Troubadours, Wyvern Knights and even Corrin’s Nohr Prince(ss) class can use them upon promotions. Leo and Camilla also start in tome wielding classes with it being pretty trivial for Xander and Elise to join them as well. If you want to be respected in Nohr, you seemingly have to be well read, even the nobility follow this rule.

While I think Nohr having the S rank option for staves fits their culture, giving this to Maids feels like a gameplay concession. Strategists have tomes, a horse and two really good skills, so perhaps IS thought this was needed to balance the two classes out. It doesn’t really work, I think Jacob might be the only one who likes that class. The last S rank class that Nohr has is the Berserker, which I think paints an interesting dichotomy with Hoshido. Here the mastery of the weapon is not revered, but instead feared. This could just be because axes are much more unwieldy than lances, sword or bows or maybe because axes in general are associated with lower class in Fire Emblem, so someone who is so proficient with them instead of switching to a more respected weapon should be seen as a mad man. While we’re on the topic of axes, this might be a good time to talk about how many Nohrian classes use those versus how few Hoshidan classes use their counterpart, the club. 4 classes on Hoshido vs 8 in Nohr. This could relate to two things mainly. The first is the status thing I mentioned earlier. On average, Nohr is poorer than Hoshido, so more classes would use this poor “commoner” weapon. The second is that Nohr is heavily forested and so axes would probably just be very common there. Just like how Bord, Cord and Barst went from lumberjacking to axe fighting, it wouldn’t be incredibly surprising to find out that most of Nohr’s army did the same.

Meanwhile in Hoshido, it seems to be normal for most soldiers, not to be equipped with a certain weapon, but to be equipped with some sort of non-scroll magic. And by magic, I mean the seal skills. We are never really told how they work, but because they fail to go off if the sealer dies mid battle, I am convinced it is some kind of curse. The poisoned hidden weapons do not work this way and will apply their effects whether you kill the user or not. Of the 5 stat sealing skills, 4 belong to Hoshidan classes that do not use scrolls. The odd one out, Seal Magic, belongs to the Nohrian Dark Knight, pretty much cementing this as a magical skill. The Hoshidan Kinshi Knight’s also have the magical “Amaterasu” skill, once again linking back to the Hoshidan religiosity. I suppose now that I’ve brought up Kinshi Knights, it is time to talk about another thing that shapes the warfare of these two countries and that is the wildlife. Whereas Hoshido has their Pegasi and Kinshi, Nohr has Wyverns. The most notable distinction here is that Wyverns are just bigger and suitable to carry more, so while Nohrians can afford to be heavily armed and armored while flying, Falcon Knights have to settle with one naginata and specialization into staff use, once again hammering in that link between Hoshido and Religion. Wyverns also bring up some more of that dubious Nohrian science because they have an entire class of “Malig Knights”, people who fight on crudely resurrected Wyverns. The thing I find interesting about this class is that its two skills, Savage Blow and Trample are implied to be the Wyvern fighting independent of its rider. Shooting flames in the vicinity of the rider’s attacks and also landing on people its rider chooses to fight. To my knowledge, this is the only instance of this in Fire Emblem. This could indicate that the resurrected Wyverns are hard to train and instead of seeing this as a weakness, Nohrians chose to experiment with how they could take advantage of this “downside”. The last wildlife boon that Nohr has is that they actually have horses! You might not notice it, but Hoshido has no ground cavalry. This gives Nohr a huge mobility advantage and they capitalize on that. Out of all of Nohr’s starting classes, the only two who don't start on a horse or have the option to get on a horse are the mounted Wyvern Riders and the Fighter class, which has historically had associations with poverty. This insistence to just hop on a horse might go back to how much Nohr seems to value versatility in combat. A sword fighting mercenary getting on horseback isn’t exactly the most natural progression, but it gives that mercenary a wealth of new options in how to fight. They don’t care about specialization and mastery, just getting their job done. Nohrian classes in general lack that flair Hoshidan classes have and while I could say that's because a lot of these classes were codified back in the NES days, I think it’s just an extension of Nohr wanting to be efficient. You don’t NEED to be ornate or masterful or graceful as long as you win.

Leisure and Arts

So, what do any of these people do when not trying to kill each other? Well, for Hoshido we have a wealth of answers. Hoshido is the nation that got the classic “villager” class, so we can pretty safely say that a lot of people in Hoshido just toil. They farm peaches and daikons and rice. The villagers can promote and I find one of these promotions to be very interesting. I’m talking about the Merchant. Merchants show up a lot as part of Hoshido’s army, but it is a bit strange that they would be deployed as merchants and not as any formally integrated part of the Hoshidan military. We could take this as meaning that Hoshido is not particularly suited for war, they need to arm common merchants to defend from Nohr and don’t exactly have time to properly train them into becoming Spear Masters or Sky Knights. Another possible take away from this could be that Hoshidan patriotism is such a thing that these people weren’t conscripted, they just decided to go out and fight for their country independent of their background. It wouldn’t be a first in Fire Emblem, as I mentioned earlier, most Axe Fighters from early on in the series were simply lumberjacks who wanted to contribute to the war.

On the topic of Hoshidan classes who don’t exactly fit the bill as soldiers, I finally get to talk about my favorite class from the game, the Basara. Basara is another japanese term that treehouse refused to translate, which basically means someone who lives unrealistically and with excess. Their skills further cement this with the flashy activation skill “Rend Heaven”, which can actually activate pretty often compared to other skills but it's pretty damn useless. And then there’s the second skill, Quixotic, which does not actually increase damage or anything useful like that, but instead increases the chances of these activation skills going off. If you like, you can see this as an extension of aspects of Hoshidan culture that I mentioned earlier. Basaras do not want to beat you, but instead want to flaunt their mastery. It’s just that while Swordmasters want to flaunt their mastery of hitting you hard with a sword, these guys want to flaunt their mastery of flashy skill combos. The skill name being “quixotic” is also a fun allusion to Don Quixote, but it only exists in the english localisation. Basaras sort of fill the role of wandering fighters which I find pretty interesting because that role has usually been held by Mercenaries and Heroes. The main difference is that Mercenaries and Heroes are going around and saving people to get paid while Basaras are doing it to prove that they can. It really shows the difference in priorities between these two cultures. It is also possible that most Basaras are nobles or former nobles, as the term “Basara” was coined to criticize the flamboyance of Japanese nobles during the 14th century. So perhaps they’re happy doing this for no pay because they don’t really need money. It is worth noting that Basaras promote from Spear Fighters and Diviners, two classes that I’ve already noted as having religious subtext to them. It was a common practice for noble families to have their second son adopt a religious life as the oldest would inherit their fortune. A family with a hand in both the secular political world and the religious world would have a lot of influence. These basaras could be sons who weren’t able to inherit their parents’ wealth, but also did not have the discipline to make it in religious life, so they simply absconded and lived as excessive wanderers. Not particularly exceptional, but very hard to ignore.

Does it feel like I’m dodging the topic of leisure in Nohr? That would be because I am. There are exactly two Nohrian classes which do not have a role in their military. There are Outlaws and their promotions, the Adventurer. That isn’t a joke, I’m not fucking with you. The only non-war hobby there is in Nohr is robbing people. If you’re kind, you could fit the maids into here, but it wouldn’t exactly be correct to say that they don’t have a role in Nohr’s military, they are the defining staff using class and seem to exclusively serve high ranking members within the Nohrian Court. You are either directly contributing to Garon’s war machine, subservient to someone who is directly contributing to Garon’s war machine or actively breaking the law. It paints a really dire picture of this country. Every aspect of it is literally just in service of this war. Let's pivot somewhat and look at art. Hoshido not only has a culture of poetry that is popular amongst its monks, but has the Mechanist class, tasked with making these very intricate puppets. When Hoshido wants to carry out missions without risking too many lives, they deploy these Puppeteers. When Nohr wants to do the same, they create monsters. The only form of artistic expression we ever get to see is literature, go figure. In general, Nohr just sucks. You would not want to live here under any circumstance. However, even if I am disappointed in how little flavor there is for Nohrian life outside of fighting, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A country so consumed with war that they forgot to develop a culture is in a certain sense a form of culture, look at how many so called “gross” british foods are just a product of wartime rationing. It’s bland and unpleasant, but it IS culture. The classes on display do such a good job of painting what life in these two nations are like and it’s sort of insane wondering what a slightly more tightly written game could have accomplished with this. One of the downsides of Fire Emblem embracing less and less restricting reclassing as the series goes on is that we will likely never receive anything that attempts to do this again, which is a shame to me.

#Fire Emblem #FE #Fates #Hoshido #Nohr #mucho texto #long post #god fates is so good when it isnt bejng bad

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floatingcatacombs · 1 year ago

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Patlabor is On Lock

12 Days of Aniblogging 2023, Day 3

While Gundam is the most recognizable mecha anime I got into this year, most of my time was really spent working my way through the Patlabor franchise, and it’s quickly become one of my favorites. I’ve always loved the quiet moments in mecha shows, which makes sense considering I started with Macross and live for the bridge bunny gossip and off-duty downtown hangouts. Patlabor is built with this downtime at its core, operating with more of a slice of life mentality than anything else.

A lovable cast is crucial for making this work. Thankfully, Noa Izumi is a wonderful and unique protagonist, a scrappy soft butch who’s in it for the eroticism of the machine. The first Patlabor opening is a love letter from Noa to her mecha, and I get it! The AV-98 Ingram is an iconic design, with its asymmetric bunny ear antennae and shoulder lights and comically oversized revolver that requires the right hand to pop out in order to draw, exposing the arm wiring in the process. This is a show clearly written by first-generation mecha otaku, and plenty of time is dedicated to showing how the Labors have to be transported and recharged, how the movement software depends on reinforcement learning, showing off corporate model revisions, and of course repairs in the hangar.

Going back to the human characters, Noa’s work partner Asuma is clearly the more passive one within their dynamic, and it’s sweet to see that played out sincerely. And then there’s Kanuka Clancy, the stern weirdo badass from New York who’s constantly swearing and dropping one-liners in English. She’s the obvious breakthrough character of the show, and also the perfect opposites-attract pairing for Noa if you’re the kind of person whose yuri meter went off the charts during their drinking contest episode. Most of Patlabor’s cast seem fairly one-note at first, and one of the great tricks of the show is giving them just a little bit more depth than you would expect. Pretty much everyone, even the most jokey characters, eventually get a standalone episode or two that further sketches them out and offers real interiority. Captain Goto is another fan-favorite, and it’s definitely his mixture of laziness and wicked perceptiveness that does it, plus his main character billing in the movies.

SV2 may be a law enforcement unit, but this really isn’t a police procedural at the end of the day. These guys are the bum department out in the sticks who everyone hates, and the upside of that is that SV2 gets stuck with the oddest of jobs instead of cop work. Sometimes that’s dealing with a runaway military prototype, other times it’s arguing with the insurance company. The best kind of episodes are the ones that take almost entirely on base as everyone tries to solve a problem of their own making, like an Ingram falling into the sea or the mechanics getting into a fight with the only restaurant that delivers to them.

A main plot does eventually emerge, with a shadowy company developing a mysterious jet-black Labor piloted by a child who is the girlish boy to Noa Izumi’s boyish girl. The Griffon is sleek and curvy and has superiority in the water and air – it’s a machine designed to defeat Ingrams, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Yoji Shinkawa looked here when designing Metal Gear RAY. Automation is a fundamental ideological enemy of mecha – faceless mass production and artificial intelligence mean an end to the era of personal combat. Even Patlabor, a warless series, dips its toes into this idea in the later episodes, with Noa and the mechanics alike worrying that the neural networks in their new Labor models will make them redundant.

Overall, this show is hilarious and sweet and clearly loved by an older generation of otaku. So why didn’t I hear about it earlier? Partly it’s on me for not hanging out with the right mecha fans online for a while. But if I had to guess, it’s also because Patlabor is one of those works that’s straightforwardly, unobjectionably good in a way where it already says everything there is to be said about it. You can have near-infinite arguments about Zeon ideology or mobile suit powerscaling online, but there’s only so many times you can say “yeah, Noa Izumi, love that girl” precisely because everyone agrees. It can also be hard to pitch things by their vibes in a genre known for adrenaline and intrigue. Patlabor’s vibes, for the record, are immaculate.

I'm probably gonna be chasing the high of cel-era sunsets forever

Mecha’s also a bit looked down upon from the outside. Anything that makes it into the larger conversation has to be understood as “elevated” or a “genre deconstruction”, even if the very first Mobile Suit Gundam is already about Amuro’s trauma and PTSD from being made into a child soldier. This elevation is actually happening to the second Patlabor movie as we speak - it’s becoming increasingly discussed as a major component of Mamoru Oshii’s filmography, divorced from its source series and instead compared to his subsequent Ghost in the Shell movie. Funnily enough, Oshii’s contributions to the Patlabor TV show are actually the more lighthearted gag episodes.

A lot of recent Patlabor retrospectives have drawn attention to the artist’s collective Headgear, established and owned by the series creators so they would be able to retain the rights for the franchise. This structure is fairly unique for the anime industry and probably only makes sense for established creatives, but it does seem to have worked out great for them, providing financial stability and strong creative control over the franchise. This allowed Patlabor to thrive in the relative wasteland of late 80s TV anime, a time when even Gundam had fled to the OVA market.

That being said, it does take Patlabor switching back to OVAs to truly spread its wings. The New Files are a conclusion and continuation of the TV series that are willing to move at their own pace, resulting in some dramatic and surprisingly thoughtful stories. It’s genuinely touching to watch Goto and Nagumo try and fail to communicate their feelings for one another in a very restrained episode as thick with long-stewing emotions as it is empty space. Of course, the very next episode has half the cast get stuck in the sewer labyrinth underneath their base and there’s a bunch of Wizardry references. Oh, Oshii.

The Patlabor movies fully lean into this melancholy and uncertainty, and it’s a welcome evolution for the series. The first movie still ends with an all-out action set piece in a half-built mecha factory that stands in for the Tower of Babel, but the second one stays serious the whole time through, going as far as pivoting to a more realistic artsyle. It’s a challenging film. The politics are all-encompassing but fairly straightforward, as Oshii effectively infodumps a presentation on the postwar history of the JSDF throughout. Instead, what the makes the movie so difficult is its willingness to face the end of an era – the Cold War is over, the bubble economy has popped, and the former members of SV2 have all gone their separate ways. The conditions that have created Patlabor, both internal and external to the show, have dissipated. And the movie makes it clear by having the military stage a raid on SV2’s headquarters, tearing their Labors to shreds with gunfire in a beautifully animated act of desecration.

After watching her be a lovable mecha dweeb for 50 episodes, it hurts a bit to hear Noa Izumi say that she doesn’t want to be that girl obsessed with robots for the rest of her life! These characters are growing in such a way that will remove them from the focus of the narrative, and it’s a movie about letting go just as much as it is about looking towards an uncertain personal and national future. I love Miyazaki’s Porco Rosso, but the fact that Oshii put this out just one year later paints a delicious contrast between the two directors with regards to escapism versus reality with regards to militarism. There's some great interviews from the era where they're just taking potshots at each other about all this.

#12 days of anime #patlabor

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izloveshorses · 1 year ago

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Tell me about the red dress campaign!

I got into Anastasia in 2021 :( there's barely any fandom left and even those who write fanfiction for it don't even talk about it anymore!

Tell me everything!!!

okay so. to talk about the year two marketing campaign, we need to talk about year one first.

the year one campaign focused more on the ~journey~ aspect of the show. anya wears her iconic maroon traveling coat, facing away from the audience and generally faceless, very mysterious. who is she? where is she going? what is she looking for? it inspired questions actually relevant to the themes of the show. and, as good marketing does, it gives us just enough info to capture our attention while also leaving us wanting more.

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this coat is what she wears on the posters, playbill covers, everywhere on the marquee. it's the same structure that carried onto every other production's marketing strategy. and it makes sense! because she's traveling! of course she wears a traveling coat. for her Journey.

was it a perfect strategy? no. do i get chills every time i read "rumor, legend mystery" on the marquee over our beautiful broadhurst?? absolutely.

now. year two. derek leaves in april 2018, and in may they film a new ad with the current cast.

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but the whole marketing strategy completely changes as well. it now consists of basically just the Red Dress™ and digitally airbrushed christy smirking at the camera and otherwise provides very little information about what the show is actually about.

this is an aside, but i feel like i should mention that when they shot and filmed this campaign, they styled christy's actual hair. she's not wearing a wig! slay!!!!! she went live that day and zadkins did a takeover on the anastasiabway account, i remember she looked absolutely stunning and was excited as she always is.

but still. the success of your marketing strategy (or the whole show for that matter 💀) should not rest on this woman's shoulders, as lovely as she is.

so here's my beef with the Red Dress campaign: it's such a shallow interpretation of the show. even though the red dress is iconic and linda cho deserves the praise for it, i don't think it represents who anya is or what she's looking for at all. the stage version of anastasia isn't a rags to riches story, nor a princess story, not really. it's about a girl looking for who she was. home love family etc etc etc. the red dress represents a life she ultimately chose to abandon in the end! so by limiting the imagery to just this dress she wears only in the last few minutes of the show, casual audience members may interpret this show as Just Another Princess Story competing with frozen that had just opened literally across the street, and choose to not see it. which is exactly what happened.

@asecretshekept has written a lot about this and understands marketing more than i do, so feel free to browse her blog too for more detailed posts.

not to mention like,,,, the silly financial decisions behind this?? they spent so much money to replace the marquee and stage door with the faces of people who left the show like six months later?? and then they replaced the stage door AGAIN when cody arrived january 2019. so silly. they could've stuck with the generally faceless campaign of year one to avoid this issue, but. i'm not in charge.

but yeah. going from this

to this?????

downgrade of the decade fr. booooo 1/5 stars (one star for christy) 👎

#asks #Anonymous #anastasia broadway #thank u for asking!!#this is another rant i have locked and loaded at all times ashldjkfgd #but yeah out of all the things u could do with this show?? u chose this??#i will blame the downfall of my favorite musical on whoever was in charge of this marketing team #and zadkins aslhjdkf #also that new commercial is a bitch to gif and color

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lordsovorn · 7 months ago

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A dream I had recently:

A vision of a desolate landscape with massive egg-shaped objects covered in square tiles - registration centers

A world perpetually under a bright starry sky or a very cloudy sunset, with artificial lighting, evenly dispersed flat buildings and structures. There are other planets, it seems, but even this one is quite packed with meaningless, evenly spaced concrete, plastic, glass and steel.

This world is scarcely populated by functionally immortal beings. First there are "Others", which are like super-powered versions of a regular human with an alien color palette and an altered personality (a lot more open and confident - not entirely positive or that faithful to the original, more like a confident alter-ego override). These are created through a mysterious process that involves at least one killing, and as a result a new and powerful Other is born "over the human" + sentient eyes on their fingers that act like an additional intelligence for control and emotional regulation of such an advanced being. The "main character" of the story is a woman whose Other looks like a mix of Amethyst and Huntress Wizard, and who, according to trace analysis performed by her fingers, has seemingly been created without murder.

There's also a faceless human in a jade suit - faceless might be an exaggeration, he has a distinct eyebrow ridge and a nose on his cream-colored smooth head. "Human" might also not be quite appropriate, as we'll see later.

At some point later these three meet another Other, who looks as if the aroace flag has adapted to life after an apocalypse. And there *is* something to adapt to - lots of hostile robots and drones that infest the buildings, alien bandits (for example, yeti humanoid owls), etc. Structures and dangers are dispersed very evenly throughout this world - you step out of one cluster and into another, out of a facility with armored drones into sewer canals with bandits.

There is a time when the faceless man is captured by "bandits" and they interrogate him on how to use the remote. The remote, well, looks like a glazed gingerbread button phone, and is a powerful instrument worthy of fear. The faceless man eventually half-shows, half-suggests that it is safe, and the "bandit" leader types a word on it. The remote is a transportation device - any number or word you enter teleports you to a certain coordinate in this world. It is hard to track, but relatively safe because of the uniformity of the world. And so the faceless man disappears into ether (imagine like a video game inventory screen of esoteric text and icons over an abstract blue pattern), where there is a snapshot of him (like a character portrait) looking very disturbing, with cloth-like tears and holes in his face, and he chuckles that his likeness was captured in such a bad state (so he updates himself and the picture updates to). He then falls out of the ether along with the "bandit" leader. (I say "bandit" in brackets because they are not in it for the money, it is a kind of unreal hostile relationship between immortals and semi-mortals that is hard to explain)

Later on, it turns out the immortals of this world are locked in a perpetual battle with a cosmic empire of crystal-looking bugs (which were responsible for the drones and the many hostile machines). They are incapable of killing immortals, so it's a war to break them psychologically - there are colossal crawling "PTSD tanks" that forcefully project visions and sounds of the most traumatizing memories, there are giant diamond-shaped spinning furnaces that create such memories in the first place (a conveyer belt leisurely pulls you onto a horribly fast rotating disk and into a storm of fire where you are burned to ashes - but, of course, you don't die, because you are an immortal. Must be quite a memorable experience - and, for the purposes of the bugs, the characteristic images and sounds of the swirling hellfire are easy to reproduce). They have a mix of medieval feudal and hive-like hierarchy, and the most important one present (politely called on to observe a battle) was a cream-colored grub with smooth geometric sides and two diamond heads - the right one is poorly defined, the left one produces an entire new figure from its mouth (this two-headed asymmetrical grub seems to be the main form of the crystal bugs, with everyone else being a caste, a cyborg and / or robot)

The dream ended when our main characters have come with a plan to counteract all this hellish machinery (that includes the main girl even discarding her immortal form for a moment and acting like an ordinary human).

P. S. Something that is hard to describe or explain with *what* happens, but you simply know through *how* it happens:

1) The bugs are very, very far from truly souring the experience of immortals. It is like a giant game to them, and at most they are avoiding a particular failure state in that game. Some are more serious, like Others, some are more light-hearted and are having fun through all the adventures, like the faceless man. It is also like a game in the sense that immortals have a degree of knowledge and control of their experience of reality unimaginable to mere humans or bugs - in fact, it is suggested that a Matrix kind of situation is going on, and the immortals have either descended into this reality to really, actually just play, or ascended from it into contact with the underlying "back-end software" or another kind of transcendental universality.

#dream

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dartxo · 1 year ago

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"The Black Riders"

2021

As Frodo watched he saw something dark pass across the lighter space between two trees, and then halt.

-"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring", by J.R.R. Tolkien

Back when Fellowship of the Ring was about to come out, and the trailers were running on TV and my mom brought me that promo magazine I mentioned in an earlier post... the thing that appealed to me the most but at the same time made me the most scared to watch it, were the images of the towering, black robed, faceless Black Riders. I thought they were very cool looking and mysterious, but also some of the most terrifying characters I had ever seen, like right out from a horror movie.

Needless to say that, if you know anything about me, you'd know that the Nazgûl became (and remain) one of my absolute favorite things in Lord of the Rings. I just love them. Can't get enough of them. A significant part of my identity, my outward appearance, how I present online, etc, is fashioned to some extent around them. I love their aesthetic, the hellish, otherwordly music that plays when they enter the scene, I love their presence, their role in the narrative, I love what they represent thematically in the story.

The Nazgûl are fear, terror and despair personified. They grow from being a disquieting menace in the Shire to complete overwhelming terror of war and death in the battlefields of Gondor, with their Captain growing so powerful so as to match the might of Gandalf the White. The Dark Lord never actually comes forth himself, so it is through his Nine Servants that he chiefly enforces his will and his malice. We come to know Sauron through the Nazgûl.

Now, I could have drawn the iconic 'Shortcut to Mushrooms' scene, which is when the hobbits first encounter one of the Nine. But 1) I didn't want to draw a whole ton of characters, and 2) this scene, where they spot one in the moonlight as they head to Bucklebury Ferry, is one of my absolute favorite shots in the movie.

#nazgul #ringwraiths #black rider #lord of the rings #fellowship of the ring #lotr #lotr fanart #lotr art #screencap redraw #realism #photoshop #art #artists on tumblr #mexican artist #autistic artist #dartxo #fandom

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ventismacchiato · 2 years ago

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˗ˏˋ balladeer & friends ´ˎ˗

scaramouche x g!n reader

scaramouche — film major, childe got him into streaming and everyone thirsted over his hands when his camera accidentally pointed towards them, gained popularity from being in childe’s videos first, uses the name kunikuzushi irl so nobody figures out his online persona, goes by scara online, horror game fanatic, loves story games and gets rlly invested in them, ppl love his voice and snarky attitude.

childe — business major, kinda like mr beast and throws a lot of money away in streams for entertainment. just lookin for a good time and has scara in the back of his videos but always slaps a giant eggplant emoji on his face to not expose him. already had a following because of the insanity of his videos as time went on and gave scara a jumpstart, closest friend of scara #chiscara4lyfe

heizou — criminology major, started streaming as a side project for class and then never stopped, known for his conspiracy videos like those game theory ones and loves mystery games but always figures out the ending, also does those buzzfeed unsolved/watcher kinda videos, SUPER flirty to his chat omfg so many edits of him saying the most outlandish shit, joins kazuha’s streams and attempts to flirt via donations

tighnari — botanic science major, has a bunch of compilations like “tighnari roasting his friends for 10 mins straight” very blunt with his chat and will judge them. does those judging my viewers confessions videos a lot, will play story based games solely to judge the writing, does garden tours during streams and his fans like to send him rose petals through his p.o. box, has a long geoguesser streak

albedo — art major, art streams and youtuber, does a lot of drawing tutorials and known for his unique art style and talent. lots of edits since he’s rlly attractive and has a sexy voice, has a segment where he lets his fans send in their hw and he does it for them when he’s bored, he and tighnari get shipped a lot for their compatible personalities, his sister klee streams with him when she visits and he lets her win in all the games and tells his chat to keep quiet about it

behind the lens !

masterlist — prev | next

teyvat university, junior year of college, age 20-21

everyone lives off campus together

scara doesn’t have a face icon for now cus he’s a faceless streamer he’s so sexy and mysterious

both groups tend to collab but usually stick to their own, kinda like content houses but less douchey lmfao

tighnari is so sexy but pretend he isn’t a furry in this modern setting ☠️

synopsis - , better known as STARDUST, and BALLADEER have always been in competition for the top streamer spot on twitch, which is especially impressive since the two of you have never shown your faces. you’ve never been on good terms, constantly one-upping each other in matches and getting into petty arguments on twitter, causing your fans to also dislike each other. that’s until BALLADEER does a face reveal that breaks the internet with his good looks…which makes you realize it’s the same guy you went on a date with last night. the type of date that made you crave to see him again. the only problem was he didn’t know you were STARDUST and he was way different behind the lens than he portrayed himself online to you. should you keep your identity a secret to salvage the relationship or just let him go?

author’s notes - planned out the au for the most part will start it when i feel like it 🤗

taglist is closed — @captainzep @elysiumarchieve @plinkuro @sakkakuu-squared @eliqusgenma @vuvulia @kunikuzushiit @heehooyeslol @stxrgxzxr @lilneps @uma-umie @lynnforever @mitsukifilms @caesars-bubbles @wheneverthesunrise @its-like-twilight @kazuhalvrr @camiluvsreading @cloudxemoji @thenightsflower @p1utto @caesars-bubbles @lxry-chxn @orbitscara @court-jester-stuff @lauragalliart @veyu002 @kaeyas-eyepatch-69 @leathernourishingshoepolish @satowaluverr @lexlapis @drunkwithfever @remiikoe @exhaustedcommunist @vincanzu @just-here-reading @amoguz @ainlaw @ovaliz @depressedwhore @kitsuvil @whatamidoing89 @bunny-x-sakura @scarasaver @kazioli @xiaosoneandonly @vinskypuff @cridtiins @cherrybeomgyu @asukahiriko [1/3]

name in bold means i can’t tag you

#genshin impact #genshin fluff #genshin imagines #genshin smau #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact headcanons #scaramouche x gender neutral reader #scaramouche x reader smau #scaramouche smau #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche x you #scaramouche x y/n #scaramouche x oc #kunikuzushi smau #kunikuzushi x you #kunikuzushi x reader #behind the lens smau

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coldflasher · 3 years ago

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is the sound and the fury the best episode of s1? well, it’s certainly a contender

that bitch has EVERYTHING. plot at its strongest, with all the eowells mystery and the dramatic irony of the audience knowing who he is while barry’s trust in him only grows stronger, versus the tension of knowing it’s all going to come crashing down. hartley’s very PRESENCE. he’s SUCH a good character WHY DIDN’T WE GET MORE OF HIMMMM, WHY DO THEY PERSIST IN INTRODUCING CHARACTERS WHO ABSOLUTELY FUCK AND THEN JUST. NOT USING THEM. PLS. society if we’d had hartley on the team instead of ralph, and i didn’t even DISLIKE ralph but come on, if it’s a toss-up between hartley rathaway or hartley sawyer, one of them is a gay icon and one of them said a bunch of fucked up shit on twitter. who would we really rather have. i mean now we have neither of them so it’s a lose-lose but you know, andy mientus could save this show. we could easily squeeze out another 2–3 seasons with him on the team, you know i’m right

he’s just so GOOD. top-tier flash villain, genuinely. maybe in my top 10? should i make a top ten? and his dynamic with eowells? SO dark and fucked up and sinister. wells really goes full mask off and shows how ruthless he is.

we have hartmonnnn and like. hartmon? more like hartMOAN, am i right? like sorry hartley’s not the only one breaking sound barriers cos every time they’re on screen together i am screeching just cos they’re so perfect. they hate each other so much. they’re 0.3 seconds away from hatefucking at all times. it’s beautiful.

also we get 0.5 seconds of the royal flush gang and the show really totally forgot that they already played that card, if you’ll excuse the pun, except i can’t be mad about it bc s1 royal flush gang was a few faceless ppl on motorbikes and s8 royal flush gang are cool and sexy so like. fair. but someone pls make a series bible for continuity i am B E G G I N G. season 1 has so many of these moments. caitlin mentioning her parentS, plural. barry defeating throwaway metas who get reused seasons later and we all just forgot they were already in the show before. i know they didn’t KNOW they were gonna do a lot of this stuff but pls. continuity. i beg.

we have iris BEING A BOSS BABE. the way she said stick it to mason bridge was SO hot. i looove when iris graduates from having her blog to being a journalist and she’s SO good at it and you get to see that fire in her... the only way to go is up!! she continues to excel and i cannot wait to watch her show all these irritating men just how much better she is than all of them

and then we round off an absolute BANGER of an ep with the cuuuutest scenes with joe and barry where they really just. hang out. barry’s like HEY LET ME SHOW YOU MY WEIRD SCIENCE SHIT AND BLOW STUFF UP and joe’s like i have no idea what’s happening but we’re having a great time, i love my weird nerd son. and then barry comes right out like ‘btw i know you’ve been jealously eyefucking every father figure in my life but you’ll always be my favourite" 😌 and joe’s like aw that’s so cute, anyway i can’t talk now cos i just had eddie break into wells’ house to prove he’s not good enough to be your third dad

#helen's flash rewatch #actual god tier stuff #i feel like this is where the season reallyyyy gets going #like i've enjoyed all of it so far (except for plastique *spits*) but like #at this point the players are all on the board #we know what's going on #barry's getting settled into his speed. he's started to do some slight emotional healing #his feelings for iris are out in the open which is nice #cos as funny as it is watching him pout behind her back. idk. i always liked westallen better AFTER he stopped pining #idk what it was but it was boooordering on uncomfortable to watch #like im torn between being amused by his resentment vs getting slightly bad vibes from it #now they know where they stand and they're able to like. PROPERLY be best friends again #and now things are gonna start getting SUPER FUCKED UP. LET'S GOOOO

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troutfishinginmusic · 4 years ago

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Guide: Lesser-known nu metal albums that hold up

Nu metal is a genre that’s easily derided. It was caricatured as over-the-top angst, baggy jeans and casual misogyny. It was one of the biggest genres when I was first discovering music.

There was plenty of bad music, but to say it was all bad would be inaccurate. It was extremely diverse compared to other metal scenes. It also put issues like child abuse to the forefront, showing survivors they were not alone. Nu metal took a genre that was showing signs of wear and reinvented it. While it soon became saturated by faceless bands (as every popularized genre eventually does), it was important.

As the genre regains popularity, there have been plenty of retrospective lists about bands like Slipknot, Deftones and Korn. There have even been lists detailing some of the lesser known bands. The podcast Roach Koach has done a great job reassessing the genre (It was the catalyst for me making this list). In no order, here are seven nu metal albums you might be less familiar with but are worth your time. These all roughly come from the genre’s original era of popularity. I’ve also put together a ranking of more established nu metal records at the end.

I love the first couple of Static-X albums, but Cannibal is truly a high-water mark. It’s catchy, concise and extremely heavy. While it has some more straight-ahead metal flourishes (guitar solos!?!), no one could mistake this for another band. And, if nothing else, Static-X is a definitive nu metal band. Cannibal seems to find Static-X revitalized after kicking out a problematic member. Vocalist Wayne Static (who died in 2014) knows exactly what he wants these songs to do. His barking delivery finds spaces in each of these spartan industrial rippers. It represents all the things I like about the genre.

Oracle represents somewhat of a break from the more straight-ahead nu metal sound of Spit, so it might not exactly fit on this list. But ultimately Kittie is forever tied to the genre (much like Deftones), even if they’ve branched out in other directions. Oracle doubles down on heaviness by incorporating death metal influences. Morgan Lander’s vocals kneecap a lot of her more melodically inclined nu peers. It also shows the band progressing, despite losing guitarist Fallon Bowman. When people dismiss the nu metal as an outlet for white male whining, though sometimes deserved, they overlook great albums like Oracle.

Apex Theory’s only album, Topsy-Turvy, is brimming with creativity. Much like System of a Down, which originally featured lead vocalist Ontronik Khachaturianon on drums, the band channels its Armenian heritage. Yet Apex Theory leans into something more melodic, mathy and possibly emo (in more of the At the Drive-In sense). Every aspect of this album feels so precise and thought out. Khachaturianon’s vocals can leap out like a barrage of stream of consciousness yet can just as easily smooth out. It might’ve been a bit too weird for radio but, in a world where SOAD broke, it certainly could’ve happened.

Apartment 26’s final album might be one of the strangest on this list. It’s apparent that it was made to be more “marketable.” Yet those touches make it even weirder. The production here is very polished, but this is still an album that incorporates swing jazz into metal through programmed horns. It’s that oddness, intentional or not, that benefits Music for the Massive. An added bonus is the great cover of “In Heaven” from David Lynch’s Eraserhead (the band’s name is a reference to the film). Apartment 26 easily surpasses its legacy as Geezer Butler’s son’s band on this album.

Taproot’s debut struck on something deeply vulnerable that the band has carried through on subsequent albums. What is often missing on those other albums, though, is the heaviness found on Gift. The band’s raw talent is on display here, recalling System of a Down’s debut. Like that album, influences peek through but the band sound fully formed and unique. Stephen Richards’ distinct vocals, while not for everyone, bend around every twist and turn of these knotty songs. The band moved away from the genre, but created some of its best work within it. Oh, and bonus points for instigating this.

Orgy’s goth-y, processed guitar crunch was often imitated (Deadsy, etc.) but has never exactly been replicated. Candyass in some ways seems like the obvious choice, but there are some awkward growing pains. And really Vapor Transmission is just as good and possibly better. The hooks are bigger, the band commits to the futuristic themes and vocalist Jay Gordon is at the top of his gender-bending industrial crooning game. Orgy remains notable in this era for poking holes in the genre’s inflated macho exterior at every turn. There’s something so transgressive about the way the band operated in nu metal.

New Killer America’s cover always caught my eye when I was a kid. Album art was and still is a big deal to me. I love how subtly gross this is. At the time it was more affecting than the over-the-top gore common on metal albums. It fits the music. Skrape wallows in heavy post-grunge sludge. As Ulrich Wild did on the Static-X albums, there’s a good balance struck between heaviness and accessibility. Skrape had a mysterious vibe that was missing from similar acts that had a tendency to over-share. Despite some awkward vocals/lyrics that come up, NKA is noteworthy.

Honorable Mention: Coal Chamber-Chamber Music, Powerman 5000-Tonight the Stars Revolt, Nothingface-Violence, Mushroomhead-XX, Sevendust-Animosity

Established Classics Ranking

1. Korn-Korn: This was the album that started the genre. Every element that other bands would copy is here. It also features some of the rawist emotion ever recorded (”Daddy”) and some great singles (”Blind,” “Clown”). Some of the lyrics are definitely dated, but there are few metal albums that are as influence and heavy (well, in terms of subject matter) as this.

2. Deftones-White Pony: This album defied every stereotype the genre had. It seamlessly incorporated trip-hop and post-rock influences without sacrificing any of the heaviness. This is the highpoint for a band that rarely has a misstep.

3. System of a Down-System of a Down: SOAD’s debut is heavy, political and completely left-field. It still sounds like nothing else. All of the band’s records are good to great, yet I love how the death metal influences poke out more on this one. That’s a personal preference I guess, I really could’ve picked any SOAD album.

4. Sepultura-Roots: This album is so unbelievably heavy. It’s such a bummer that Sepultura didn’t make a record with this lineup past this point. It’s political in a way a lot of nu metal wasn’t. It seamlessly incorporates the band’s Brazilin heritage. It up-ends any perception about the genre being light-weight.

5. Slipknot-Iowa: This is really the only album from this era that rivals Roots in terms of heaviness. The band draws from a different well than Sepultura, packing Iowa with horror movie imagery. Much of this was to no doubt channel vocalist Corey Taylor’s troubled childhood. There’s something so frantic and desperate captured on this album, which probably has to do with Ross Robinson producing it (he produced Korn’s debut, as well as a lot of other iconic records).

6. Incubus- S.C.I.E.N.C.E.: Few nu metal records are this legitimately fun. Every part of Incubus is bursting with stoned creativity here. It also channels its influences much better than its peers. Somehow metal riffs and bongos go together here. S.C.I.E.N.C.E. showed a more easygoing side of the genre that still retained all the heaviness.

7. Linkin Park- Meteora: Though Hybrid Theory has a lot of singles, I always preferred this one. I think the band forged a bit more of its identity here. It gets a bit heavier, yet retains all the pop smarts. Definitely worth revisiting if you’ve just re-listened to Hybrid Theory to celebrate its recent anniversary.

NOTE: Yeah, Limp Bizkit is not on this list. The band has some cool songs, but ultimately its albums are pretty scattered. Fred Durst is a lot for me to take. The rest of the band is amazingly talented, especially Wes Borland. If its exclusion is annoying to you, please make your own list.

youtube

#numetal #staticx #korn #kittie #sepultura #taproot #linkinpark #deftones #systemofadown #apartment26

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fruti2flutie · 4 years ago

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furuba s2e23

the 2nd year cultural festival easily was my favorite part in the manga, so of course i was excited to see how it would turn out once it was animated. when the credits played over the beginning scene & the op didn't play, ohhhh boyyyyy did i KNOW it was gonna be GOOD.

kisa, hiro, haru & momiji introducing the play with their dialogue was a fun interaction between minor characters we haven't seen or heard together since The Beach Arc!! haru just scooping up kisa like she's his little sister 🥺🐯🐄💞 i also appreciate casual outfits that are often a good indicator of the season bc i often forgot when i read the manga 😅

and megumi? showing his ominous presence through the camcorder? genius! i love my mysterious son!

now 2-D: CINDERELLA-ISH...... seeing the packed audience, the lights on the stage, the colors of the costumes, the transitions of the set pieces...... s/o to the stagehands & narrator bc oh my god, it almost felt like an actual play??? the background music, too!?? it was so ALIVE & even though i knew how it was going to end, i just??? was on edge?? uotani's faceless pleas to no one, the shot of the writer backstage as hanajima & kyo go off-script... and then TOHRU's outburst in front of EVERYONE i was SCREAMING

and machi calling yuki an airhead. absolutely iconic!! legendary!!!!! we love to see it!!

seriously, all the additional details that got added in the anime made this episode even more enjoyable. i loved seeing the school decorated with posters & the miscellaneous people in the background just..... existing bc it's just a normal high school cultural festival!!! (the mogeta mascot was also adorable 😆)

and THAT ENDING SCENE. kyo noticing tohru & immediately calling out to her. tohru responding just as quickly. the containers of food in her hands. kyo just taking half of it as they walk & talk. the overlapping inner monologue & the cracked imagery & the YEARNING.

i'm fine.

#fruits basket #my rambles #i rewatched the ending scene just to make sure i got my description right &#kyo's lil 'tohru?' i am on the FLOOR #I LOVE THIS EPISODE GOODBYE

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theparanormalperiodical · 5 years ago

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The Real Story Behind The Slender Man: EVERYTHING You Need To Know

It started in May 2014.

Three teenage girls were enjoying a Wisconsin summer evening when they decided to go for a walk in their local forest.

Only two of them would return.

The third would be stabbed 19 times by her friends.

She survived, pulling herself out of the forest and to safety. Her classmates were promptly arrested, and confessed their crime, later going on to plead insanity.

Yet despite the shocking nature of this crime, a stabbing doesn’t necessarily make worldwide news. But it wasn’t the circumstance of the attack that hit the headlines. It was the motive.

They claimed they did it to appease the Slender Man.

And they were not the only ones that committed such a crime in his name.

To a majority of the population, these claims can be written off as the ‘insanity’ stamped on the official court documents. But the thing is, these atrocities aren’t the only times Slender Man has been sighted outside of his pixelated world.

In fact, Slender Man made his name many years before we began our search for the 8 pages.

Does he really only exist within the World Wide Web?

What Is The Slender Man?

Our story starts 5 years before Wisconsin hit the headlines.

In 2009, comedy website Something Awful launched a paranormal images competition. Users of the website were to mock up supernatural-inspired or horror-themed pictures, and leave them to be judged by the internet.

Eric Knudsen’s entry forged together the mystery of an urban legend and the dark reality of pedophilia.

Knudsen used pictures of children playing in playgrounds, or hanging out in friendship groups, or any other innocent gathering of youngsters, and photo-shopped a figure among them. This figure was an 8 foot tall, thin man, with a faceless, pale profile draped in a formal suit.

Emerging from his back was a set of dark, twisting tentacles.

He called him the Slender Man.

It was only when 4chan users picked up on these pictures that his urban legend infamy was set in stone.

Both the forum site and Creepypasta.com moulded his backstory, infusing the simple tales of kidnapped children with the concept of proxies - that is, children which were used to do his bidding. And it’s this premise that would alter the landscape of teenage crime - and suicides - in America.

From here the urban legend extended its tentacles, haunting the darker corners of the internet. But it was his debut in video games that drew him out into the mainstream.

In 2012, the first video game first entered our downloads folder.

The free game followed a simple principle: you wander through dark woods in the dead of the night armed with a torch and surrounded by pixelation only an early Buffy demon could muster up, and you look for 8 ‘pages’.

These pages are poorly pencilled drawings that have been left by children taken by the Slender Man - but the terror only starts here. Throughout your search you are followed by the entity titling the game.

Slender Man: The Arrival hit the shelves only two years later and followed the same concept as the original. But this time we are joined by some sense of a plot, and a few other characters, too.

Nevertheless, the undying premise remains: he follows kids, and then he takes ‘em for himself.

Why?

This remains unknown.

But it’s this premise which fuelled the urban legend haunting the teenagers, fitting the real life cases that have scarred America.

This was confirmed in his film debut in 2018: Slender Man preyed upon the wave of crime inspired by the creepy pasta, merging the reality of the recent stabbings with the video games that put him on the map.

But this premise has scored a stab wound on our society before, fitting historic folklore far too accurately.

Crime In The Name Of The Slender Man

Wisconsin was not the only American state to witness a shocking crime inspired by this indie horror icon. In fact, a variety of other attacks pinned on the Slender Man followed a similar pattern:

One 14 year old burnt their house down, a tragedy linked to their history of reading creepypastas exploring the legend, whilst another young teen stabbed her own mother in order to please the Slender Man.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Alongside the spike in violent crime was a sharp rise in teenage suicides at the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation.

The suicide rate among the Native American population in America is already far more prevalent than any other ethnic group, but the sudden spike of 9 suicides of those aged between 12 to 24 sparked concern. And when the motives were drawn back to the Slender Man, these concerns only grew further.

The authorities even made mention to this urban legend in their official investigation, determining that the Slender Man was considered by the teenagers in the community to be a suicide spirit, a dark entity within Native American folklore. But to them, the Slender Man went by a slightly different name.

They called him the Tall Man spirit.

“He’s appearing to these kids and telling them to kill themselves.” - a local minister who supported youths in the community

Suicide spirits follow a similar line of thought to Catholic views of demons or evil spirits: they are negative spirits that feed off our energy. This entity in particular, however, spends its free time targeting and possessing individuals that are undergoing a spiritual crisis.

Alcoholics, addicts, the depressed - they are all worthy contenders for being the personal buffets of suicide spirits.

With a cluster of Facebook videos alluding to local folklore combined with viscous cyber-bullying encouraging the victims take their own lives, the notion of the Tall Man gathered strength, tying together the folklore of the suicide spirit and the urban legend of the Slender Man.

But this wasn’t the only time the Tall Man has been sighted in Native American communities.

In 1890, the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred.

20,000 Latoka Native Americans were left for dead by US troops. To this day it is considered one of the most atrocious acts committed against the Native American population.

And it was here that the Big Man was first seen.

Many claimed an entity taking the form of a tall man sporting a top hat would wander the reservation after the massacre, and made the younger generation take their own lives.

Whilst negative spirits donning the top hat are common outside of Native American folklore, the similarities between the Big Man and the Tall Man create an uncomfortable link between the tragedies scarring the past and present Native American population.

But this community’s folklore isn’t the only place the Slender Man has been referenced outside of the video game.

Nearly every other culture has their very own Tall Man.

Could the Slender Man have existed before the original video game even entered beta testing?

The Slender Man In Historic Folklore

When I began researching the entity’s existence - aside from being overwhelmed by the array of tragic stories - I encountered many dead ends.

One of these dead ends sticks out.

Out of all of the rumours circulating following the Wisconsin stabbings was that Slender Man originated from Romanian folklore, and was based on some similar entity possibly bearing his size, demeanour, and pastime of abducting and/or traumatising children.

This was proven to be untrue.

But upon realising the Slender Man didn’t first make his name in Romania, I discovered he had made his name in a lot of other countries.

Like a lot.

Like way too many.

From motive to dress sense, the Slender Man’s first sighting starts a couple millennia before his internet debut.

Fear Dubh from Irish folklore is the most popular contender for being the OG Slender Man, his name literally translating to ‘Black Man’. It is claimed that this entity would scare children snooping round the woods, and his title confirms his attire matches his more modern formal suit.

Germany’s Eriking too bears a resemblance to the Slender Man’s irish counterpart - with a focus on both his height and dark clothing, this internet icon might have travelled further than we think. This mythical beast prides himself on dwelling in the woods and kidnapping children, confirming he has potential for the official historic Slender Man.

However: the plot thickens when we consider another German entity known only as the Tall Man.

With the same name as the Native American suicide spirit, and the guiding principle of kidnapping kids who wander the woods, the potential for an international entity once again emerges from the darkness.

Historic legends from the American South also contain a similarity that should have you sleeping with the light on: a treelike man who kidnaps children was often spotted throughout history.

Regardless, it’s easy to decode these vague mythical creatures as warnings to their children of the dangers of wandering near uncharted territory alone and at night.

But it’s the details of the Slender Man that click together when we trace the folklore back to the oldest recorded sighting of the urban legend.

And this takes us to 9000 BC.

Both Eypgtian hieroglyphics and Aztec paintings often portray the same distinct tall, thin, menacing figure, but it’s Brazilian cave paintings that house the oldest attributes.

In these paintings you can clearly see a tall man lead a child by the hand, his unnaturally large limbs dominating the scene.

Yet aside from the Slender Man’s basic features - that of his height and incessant stalking of children - his facelessness (#new-word) is a feature we have yet to discuss. Fortunately, many cultures have already discussed it. And the greatest conversation takes place in Japan.

Japanese faceless ghosts have haunted the small island for centuries. The Noppera-bo prides itself on frightening humans, often taking the face of someone the victim knows before their features dissipate into nothingness.

All you can see is a blank, smooth, flat layer of skin, a sight only witnessed when the Slender Man finally catches up with you in his video game debut.

Whether you believe in the Slender Man or not, there is no doubt that the concept harnessed by Eric Knudsen did not begin in 2009.

We might not know when the Slender Man began hunting children, and we might not know why he does, but there is one thing for certain:

He has not finished just yet.

If you liked this post, chances are you’ll like my other posts, too! You will have to come out from beyond your quilt, though.

Make sure you hit follow if you want to see more stuff like this - and, you know, less traumatising posts about the paranormal every week.

Don’t forget to join my ghost hunt, too, where I post a new real ghost story everyday!

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rebelsofshield · 4 years ago

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Star Wars Squadrons-Review

A tight and well priced dogfighting simulation makes for a targeted but all together fun Star Wars experience.

(Review contains minor spoilers for the Squadrons campaign)

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The Empire is in ruins. After the Battle of Yavin undercut the Imperial leadership and left its forces scattered, the Rebellion formed the New Republic and the Galactic Civil War entered a new stage. Now on close to equal footing, both sides of the war find themselves constantly gunning for each other’s resources and searching for the upper hand. As the New Republic takes on a new secret project, two ace pilots from opposing sides of the war are reassigned to the front lines and must come to terms with a betrayal from years before that now threatens lives regardless of faction.

Star Wars Rogue Squadron was the first Star Wars game I ever played. Before that one of my favorite childhood activities was flying around my little Micromachines Y-Wings for miniaturized galactic bombing runs and dogfights. I’ve loved the pilots of Star Wars and their iconic starfighters for years. It’s one of the best and most enjoyable aspects of the franchise and it’s a joy to finally get to step back into a Star Wars cockpit. And with tight controls and a complex combat system, Squadrons may just be one of the best of its space going type.

At first pass, Star Was Squadrons is overwhelming and intimidating. In addition to the standard flying, dodging, and firing that one would expect, EA Motive introduces a variety of other mechanics such as customizable loadouts, unique ship classes, and an impressively complex system of power diverting. There’s a lot to take in and stepping into online dogfights can lead to hours of vaporizing before one gets the hang of this game’s particular eccentricities and strategies. While it’s definitely not for those unwilling to commit time and energy to getting the hang of its control scheme, when you finally do star to feel confident in piloting a starfighter and start taking the fight to the enemy the result can be fist pumping good time.

Squadron’s mutliplayer is split between two modes: Dogfight and Fleet Battles. Of the two, Dogfight is the more difficult and less inspired. It feels very much like a standard team deathmatch style battle royale with two sides competing against one another kills. It’s unfortunate that Squadrons drops you into this mode first because it’s easy to get disheartened by how easily your brand new X-Wing gets rolled over by more experienced players in TIEs. There’s still fun to be had, but it’s the most barebones of EA Motive’s presentation for Squadrons.

Fleet Battles is the headlining mode for the game though and it’s worth it. Taking place as a consistent tug of war between both the Empire and the New Republic, Fleet Battles rewards cooperation and diverse play styles for players to accomplish goals and push their side of an unfolding space battle to victory. While classes like Support and Bomber may feel largely useless in the Fighter and Interceptor heavy Dogfight, Fleet Battles encourages a balanced team with players taking on different roles at any time. Two bombers could be leading an attack on an enemy flag ship while two interceptors scare away enemy fighters and a support craft provides health and ammunition to squadmates in need. It’s a fun and dynamic large scale combat mode that is addictive and rewarding in equal measure.

I went into Star Wars Squadrons’ campaign expecting the bare minimum. I remember being burned by the hyped up Inferno Squad narrative from Star Wars Battlefront II and knew that any kind of story for this game was going to be a second priority to the online action. Thankfully, I was surprised. While the campaign for Star Wars Squadrons still has its storytelling pit falls, what’s presented is refreshingly personal and enjoyable military space opera.

Following the destruction of Endor, Imperial Pilot Lindon Javes (Phil Morris) abandoned his squad including his protege Terisa Kerrill (Peta Sergeant) to join the Rebel Alliance. Now a high ranking member of the New Republic, Javes is instructed by Hera Syndulla to assist in the development of a mysterious new Repbulic warship, the Starhawk. Meanwhile, the scattered remnants of the Empire aim to stop this project in its tracks and Kerrilll is given the opportunity to exact her revenge on her former ally.

The rivalry and pain brought between these two former friends and allies makes up much of the emotional center of Squadrons’s story. Both Morris and Sergeant inject their characters with the right amount of flawed drive, lingering pain, and regret and many of the narrative’s best beats comes from when one of these two leaders lets their guard down.

Javes and Kerrill aren’t the only standout characters though. One of the unexpected surprises of Squadrons is that you are allowed some breathers between each minute to chat up your crewmates. Not all are as developed as others, but it adds a personal flavor to the battles and conflict. There are some diamonds in the rough though. On the side of the Republic, former Trandoshan conman Frisk, voiced by James Arnold Taylor of The Clone Wars fame, is a joy, bringing a much needed sense of humor and world weary snark to the high stakes action. On the Empire, it’s the beaten down Shen, an Imperial pilot that’s been shot down so many times that most of him is held together by cybernetic parts, who steals the show.

As a player character you take on the role of either a Rebel pilot that assisted Javes in his defection or another squadmate of his that was betrayed along Kerrill. It’s a fun framing device to bring your faceless and mostly silent character into the narrative and adds a personal streak to both sides of the campaign. This flip flopping of allegiances makes for some of the script’s best moments. There’s a certain guilty joy in creating problems that you know that the other half of your story is going to have to fix and vice versa. Both the New Republic and the Empire have their moments of glory and success but also their failures and you get to be right at the front of it all.

If the Squadrons story fails in any way it’s in creating a lack of consequence. The set up of the campaign invites a scenario where both your Republic squadron and Imperial team come face to face and inflict hurton the other, but this surprisingly never occurs. Similarly, both sides more or less make off with what they wanted in the terms of the narrative. Despite being a story about mixed empathy and personal limits in wartime, neither side really reaches a breaking a point and the ending cinematic for both teams is equally triumphant. It’s a disappointingly simplistic move for a smart set up for the story and it undercuts some of the strong work that came before.

Luckily the gameplay itself is strong, mixing together various different battle scenarios and set pieces to keep the 6 hour run time chugging along smoothly without growing stale.

Out of the cockpit, EA Motive offers a decent amount of customization for pilots and ships. It’s nothing too intensive, but it’s a fun bit of personalization to a game that you are likely to sink hours into its multiplayer.

For $39.99, Star Wars Squadrons is exactly what you pay for. A well polished core gameplay mechanic employed in smart ways through dogfights, cooperative play, and an above average campaign. Combat flight sim gamers are sure to love this trip to the Galaxy Far, Far Away and fans of the franchise might find the experience just as rewarding.

Score: B

#Star Wars #Star Wars Squadrons #review #reviews #Star Wars video games #Star Wars games #Squadrons

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mochisubak · 6 years ago

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The time we shared (II)

Pairing: (Baekhyun x reader) + Jongin

Genre: angst/romance

Summary: The new exhibition called “The time we shared” left a huge impression on you. Mysterious author by the initials BBH seems to have some kind of connection with your fiancé - Jongin, who doesn’t appear to be happy with the knowledge of you trying to get to know the painter. With the grand opening of your own art gallery called Prive you’ve managed to ask Jongin to invite the author. Through the foggy memories and names ringing a bell in your head you try to remember the life before the accident.

@nshitae @ayanechin-blog @khelmatic @dreizehnn @mochibaekhyunx @baekyeolbeom @baekfanapleintemps

Part I, Part II

The mud was cold and sticky, its oozing form was sweeping through your empty hands as you desperately searched for a piece of jewellery. It was probably worth more than you could imagine; you inwardly winced thinking about it so materialistically. Your knees sunk even deeper and the tips of your hair became wet from the ugly liquid. You were angry, angry at that unknown man who was oddly silent as he watched your nervous havoc but also you were angry at yourself. Your palm splashed a rather big amount of mud that went to your eyes. It burned as hell. Yelping you fell backwards and sighed. It wasn't your day. As usual. What was supposed to be a cheerful experience became a dark comedy. Even if your body screamed with adrenaline which you hadn't felt for so long, your troubled situation only worsened when you heard hooves stopping by. Turning your head to the sound you were met with the sight of the no named intruder on his horse, ready for the departure. Gathering your strength and irritation you shot up and took a snaffle of his mount in a gentle grip.

"Are you actually kidding me?" your brows furrowed as he pinched his nose. Both of you were trembling with anger. His horse nuzzled on your hand and with affection your returned that emotional gesture. "You are going back, leaving me behind?" His nostrils flared and he actually gave you a rather murderous stare. You shivered due to the fact that it was the first time he looked at you so differently.

"You are uninjured, your horse is perfectly fine. It was your engagement ring, not mine," he explained while putting emphasis on the engagement part of the sentence. Your irises found his and with a huff you stormed off in the opposite direction. What a jerk. He still hadn't moved, so you took a chance and broke a nearby branch and with a snap you threw it at him. The wooden stick hit his neck.

"Has anyone told you that you're an uptight bastard?" your scream was unnecessary, however strange feelings overcame your chest. It was as if you were burning up. Or maybe as if you were floating. You saw him observing your dirty person with a funny look on his perfect face. What? Perfect? Your thoughts were fazed due to the situation you were in.

"Many times," he softly exhaled while his gaze changed into a mellow one. "See you around, then" you watched as he galloped down the forest road. Massaging your face with hands full of mud, you shrieked into them in frustration. The fact that you've lost your ring wasn't bothering you as the thought of complete stranger ruining your fun. Adding to that an unanswered question about his identity only deepened your bitter mood. You probably looked like a crazy person, alone and covered in mud in the centre of road leading towards the stables. Shaking your head with resignation you went towards Moonlight who was peacefully nabbing at grass. After you jumped on his back you suddenly realized that you weren't even trying to find that damned ring. You didn't even like it so much. Yet, it was given to you by your fiancé. You should have been able to take care of such a precious gift. But it was gone.

Rushing your four legged friend to a steady run, your thoughts were focused on the previous meeting. Why were you so mad about? Why did you feel such a pull towards that person? Too many why's and not so many answers. After everything, it was a nice ride. You felt alive. That's what mattered.

When Jongin saw you he went into a shock. You could swear he became almost as white as the wall behind him. His pupils were shaking and his arms circled around your middle with too much affection that you had to pat his backs few times before he let you go. Well, he cared. That was obvious. Maybe you were too tired to fight him or even oppose to his commands but when he ordered you to take a long bath, you went for it. Taking off the dirty clothes you stopped by the mirror to make sure that the ugly creature staring back was in fact you. Your hair were covered in a mud, your cheeks were dirty and in few places you could spot small gashes from the branches. Your eyes shone like two focal points while you explored your creation. A bubbly sound of your giggle erupted in an empty bathroom, surprising even you. That happy moment felt so good, it almost tasted like cotton candy. You finally felt so light and young. Your fingers touched your parted lips and for a moment you could feel another pair of them kissing yours in a needy yet sweet way. Closing your eyes you tried to search for that memory, a hazy labyrinth with shadows dancing in your peripheral vision. There was that distinct scent which you associated with those lips from your daydream. A strong tinge of black sandal wood and vanilla.

When you opened your eyelids you saw your silly movements and with a sigh you moved closer to the bathtub. The water was lukewarm and pink from the mineral salt and bath bomb you bought in a vegan shop. When you were already sitting inside, your muscles relaxed. The memories. Were they real? Were they fake? Leaning against the marble rim you stared at the hanging lamp. Sometimes you had those dreams; dreams of things, words, smells that felt so real. They made you feel so calm and peaceful. You missed that feeling. They were like faint whispers of wind inside your skull.

Today you felt freedom. You were free. Riding through the forest, bathing in mud and arguing with a completely unknown person. It was probably the most exciting thing that has happened to you in a long time. Your eyes returned to your body and an empty ring finger. You didn't feel anything. You were like marble in which you were bathing. Closing your eyes you went underwater leaving reality in a crystal halo of liquid surrounding you.

For the past few days you were busy with the opening of Prive. You were the one who was in the charge of everything. DJ, checked. Food, checked. Guests, checked. Artists, checked. Your pen circled around last letter for a while. In the neat writing were written initials BBH. Jongin called you yesterday saying he had to leave to Hong Kong for a new client - before that he had promised to contact the painter. He wasn't happy. You argued about BBH almost every day. The name triggered your fiancé so much that it became almost a mystery to you. Massaging your temples you looked through the window. Autumn was in a full swing. Biting your lips you scrolled through your social media. Jongin has already landed in the other country and you felt as if he had lied to you about the artist. Gripping your mobile phone you decided to take the situation in your own hands. It was your art gallery after all. Looking at your contacts you stopped at the name which made you think of possibilities. You met Chanyeol through Jongin, before the accident and after hospitalization. He was a musician who worked on various projects. His connections were amazing because he was a social butterfly. Clicking green icon you've awaited for his answer. He picked up after two dials.

"Chanyeol? Hello, I hope I'm not disturbing," your tongue clicked when he grumbled his sleepy answer. "I'm sorry for waking you up. I have a request," he became all ears and you circled the table. "Do you happen to know the painter with initials BBH? I know you are kind of artistic yourself," you supplied with a mirth in your voice.

"BBH? Yes, he's a good guy. My friend actually," he rasped with a smile in his baritone. "Do you want his pieces at your opening?" his question hit the fan quicker than you expected.

"Yes. I would be delighted. However, please let me invite him to the opening as well. I shall thank him in person," you bit your lower lip with anticipation.

"Yeah, no problem. Does Jongin know?" the mention of your fiancé startled you.

"Kind of. He went overseas," you winced at your fake sadness. "Thank you, Chanyeol. You can drop any time you want, remember." He was the first to hang up with you. Sitting on the couch you glanced at the open planner staring back at you. It was perfect. Everything was going as you've wanted it to be. Tomorrow. Tomorrow you will start working on something that gave you the taste of independence. Prive.

Such a short word, holding so much emotions and questions.

The interior of your gallery was minimalistic and modern. White walls with silver decorations. The pieces of BBH collection were already hanged so when you saw them your heart almost burst in flames. They were beautiful. Perfect. Yes, they were like perfection. You didn't want to overdress so you decided on a dark burgundy dress with heart shaped neckline. It was hugging your breasts and waist but from there it was loose and ended before your knees. Playing with a necklace from your parents you roamed around the empty rooms to make sure everything was ready. Your up-do was classy yet you felt bare at the back of your neck. You didn't like to expose your nape and shoulders due to the scars adoring your skin. Sometimes you pretended to imagine them to be a lighting bolt because they were coming in every direction. Your hand stopped scratching onto them when you spotted a canvas full of yellow paint splashed onto line art of a couple. They were faceless and their palms were entwined. The yellow colour dripped through their hold and covered their features. Your eyes snapped to its name. "Craving you". Smile erupted on your lips. It made sense. It made so much sense. Absolutely genius. You heard people coming inside and with an exhale you were ready to welcome them all in your own bubble of happiness.

Tiredness. Bitterness. You weren't stranger to those feelings. Yet, when you looked at people staggering around your gallery with no purpose and fake adoration, you've had enough. Glancing at the watch on your wrist you were startled to find out that only three hours have passed. Jongin hasn’t been in touch with you at all. Since you've written to him about the missing ring he became more distant. Gulping on an almost empty goblet of red wine you winced at its taste. It was better than vodka or whiskey, however it didn't mean it tasted good. Your parents dropped to say congrats on the opening and left in a hurry due to their own projects. The blank faces surrounding you were like a tiny soldiers that children like to play. Circling red liquid inside the glass your focus landed on another painting. You felt so... Alone. Your ex friends were afraid to talk to you even after three years of recovering. It was as if another person had possessed you and they no longer knew who you were. Sometimes you felt like that too. Who were you after all? Touching rough tissue of your scars you winced remembering the pain of waking up to the blinding lights of hospital room.

"Have you liked my paintings so much that you've wished to have them at the opening?" you jumped at the voice coming from behind your back and with a quick reflex your head snapped towards the male. If you were more drunk you would have probably burst into a laughter seeing the man in front of you. Wearing a navy suit and sporting comma hair stood the person who rode into you last week. His lips curled at your realization and before you had a chance to overcome your shock, his extraordinary fingers appeared in front of you. "I'm Byun Baekhyun, the painter you've searched for," your eyes snapped to his hand and with a slow movement you shook his palm. There was a flicker of electric pulse coming down from the place you both touched. His skin was soft and warm. Blinking through various of emotions you regained your composure.

"I didn't imagine we would have met like that. And no, I'm not talking about today," your voice was breathy and covered in a genuine happiness. His irises widened and he almost took more steps towards you. "I was an awful brat back then. I'm terribly sorry for hitting you with the branch," he abruptly stopped and frowned at your words. The clogs in his mind were working as he took in your messy apology. His Adam's apple jumped few times before he sheepishly nodded at your awkward stance.

"It's nothing. I'm glad we didn't injury ourselves, it was dangerous thing to experience," his voice trembled but regained its strength at the end. You hummed at his explanation and invited him to come closer while leaning on the balustrade. Feeling his body next to you, your cheek found a solace on your empty palm. His eyes were cloudy and dark when he looked straight into yours. He had sharp jawline and beautiful lips. Especially when they closed around the rim of the glass. You blinked rapidly with a heat creeping onto your spine. He smirked as he spotted you lurking at his features.

"To be honest I'm really overwhelmed by this party," the truth slipped through your mounds without any problem. He arched his perfect brow at your lethargic behaviour. "These people," you murmured gesturing at the strangers below. "Do you think they care about paintings or techniques of putting an oil paint onto the canvas?" His terse giggle made you oddly calm. "Well, that's why I'm so done with it. Nevertheless, I'm truthfully thankful for your artwork. I love those pieces so much," your gaze wandered towards one of your many favourites.

"Have you seen them at the previous exhibition? At the museum of modern art?" he asked and stretched his shoulders. His black tresses softly adorned his forehead when he turned towards you.

"Yes. Your mind. I really like the way you're thinking," your goblet moved forward as he read your action and bumped his with yours.

"Then you're really perceptive," his smirk vanished in the burgundy liquid of his drink. "Do you often go riding?" he focused his hooded stare on strangers.

"Rarely," absent mindedly your hand touched scars on your back. "I had an accident three years ago," you eloped seeing his pained expression. He was hurting and you didn't know why. His almond irises shook when he glanced at the violated area of your soft tissue. "Chanyeol has already told you? I've lost my memory due to the impact of crashing into the tree," shrugging your stare dropped to his chest. He was looking at you with such a raw emotion that you almost felt trapped.

"Yeah, I've known," his whisper was soft, like a gust of the summer wind on a hot day. "It must have been hard to lose huge part of your life," his fingers slightly shook when he put the glass down.

"It was. Just a gaping hole," you've remembered waking up to people with faces you couldn't pin point. It was as if they were wearing masks preventing you from recalling their names. The agony of realizing that they were once close to you, that they were your parents and friends was almost unbearable. "It hurt much more than broken bones," you shot him nervous smile and turned left. "I wasn't even speeding so much. That night I mean. It was raining, there was a fog. I was crying, somebody was calling. Then... Nothing. Just a horrendous sound of metal scraping on the asphalt ground," those were your actual memories from before the tragedy. You knew that you were driving to someone; Jongin said you were driving home, your parents contradicted his words and told you that you were going to airport. Everyone had their own story to ease your mind. Now, you've wondered what was so important to you that you've lost all of common senses and rode in such an ugly weather, with a speed a little over the limit. Baekhyun took in your embarrassed posture with something akin to pity, however it was quickly replaced with mixture of agony and helplessness.

“How have you been?” his question did startle you because it sounded as if he was drowning and it was the last thing he could say before his inevitable death. The rawness and nakedness of his vowels and consonants made you tremble just so slightly. His irises were big and kind while looking at you with an utmost care. The rapid thoughts crossed your mind as you’ve searched for a proper answer. Truth was strange. Not because you were conflicted with your memories but due to the fact that you were unhappy. Just that.

“Frankly speaking, I’ve been living these past three years the way my family pictured my life to be,” ugliness of the reality hit you in the face. Almond eyes of the male in front of you searched through your mask to see any cracks. “I’m mostly tired. That’s all,” you eloped with difficulties yet with slow smile creeping through your parted lips.

“Life is like a movie,” his voice said as he gently tipped the goblet onto the metal balustrade. “My paintings are like picture frames that I fill in with my own stories or sentiments. I think it’s a beautiful thing. To have memories solid, to have a proof of everything. Every person you’ve ever met or food you’ve eaten,” then he laughed and it was so... nostalgic that you’ve almost tripped over your own legs. The way he talked and carried himself was sort of familiar; as if you had seen all of this before. Nevertheless, the things he envisioned were so precious and extraordinary. He opened his mouth to say something more before a sudden arrival of Chanyeol.

“Hey, I see you both chickened out of the actual party,” his deep baritone boomed above you. You giggled at his confused expression as he saw how eager Baekhyun was to finish his monologue. “Let’s not get your panties in twist, Socrates. We have to go, Junmyeon called,” your frown deepened when a soft curse filled the air. A pat on your shoulder was a goodbye from the tall guest but the strange despair overcame your heart as you glanced at hunched form of the artist. His head was lowered as he stared at the floor for a few seconds before standing up.

“Are you going to leave?” you sounded so desperate that he had caught your odd inquiry with a subtle curve of his full lips. He voicelessly nodded and both of your gazes met in a mute understanding. A goodbye. A waterfall of emotions ran through your body as he silently walked beside you, got down the stairs and exited the gallery. It was just like a damned movie; when a main character is left behind and the hole inside her chest opens a little to much. Your wobbly knees shook as a very well known scent occupied your nostrils. Black sandal wood and vanilla. Your rationality finally came to an abrupt decision. Running down while exclaiming “Excuse me,” made your breathless as you pushed heavy door. The crisp air slapped your cheeks as your shaking pupils roamed around the parking lot. There was nervousness inside you, eating you alive because you were scared. You were terrified. That damned scent, the taste of the day dream kiss and a man associated with it. Your eyes spotted a bright orange car and not caring about your high heels you’ve jumped off the curb and sprinted towards it. Two males were getting in when you were able to stop.

“Baekhyun!” your scream tore the motionless night but also made him freeze. His brown orbs found yours in an unbelievable connection. You strode to his spot with puffs of your own breath turning into a tiny fog.

“What?” the halo of the nearby street light made his skin almost golden like. He bathed in that colour as he examined your face. Your heart was almost coming through your wind pipe.

“Have we met before?” there went nothing. The scent and that honey skin. And all too familiar feeling of saying goodbye.

#baekhyun scenario #baekhyun imagine #baekhyun angst #baekhyun fanfic #exo angst #exo scenario #kpop scenario #baekhyun scenarios #baekhyun #baekhyun txt #jongin angst #baekhyun multi chapter #baekhyun x reader #jongin x reader

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alternativeartifactspodcast-blog · 5 years ago

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2 - The Peacock Room & Filthy Lucre