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taekooktimeline · 4 years ago

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May 31, 2020 (filmed)

In the Soop, start of ep. 6, is filmed on this date.

Please remember the below is our THEORY. You are free to interpret as you wish.

The episode opens with Tae fidgeting and being visibly anxious.

Jimin is entrusted with the mission to get Jk to Tae and tells Jk there is a leak that requires him to collect his luggage as a ruse to get him to go outside.

As they get closer Tae sits up abruptly. Jk is confused about what is going on. We’ll discuss further below, but for now this indicates while the talk appears to be planned and scripted to an extent, Jk didn’t expect the talk to happen at the time it did, as is evidenced by the boxing wraps he just finished wrapping on his hands. Tae created an elaborate setup for this moment and Jk was authentically surprised.

Jimin and Tae playfully banter as if they’re at a classy restaurant - Jimin being the waiter - which adds certain romance to the scene.

Jin comes by and asks if Taekook are on a date. This increases their shyness which makes Tae say “jungkookshi!” on repeat. We can’t tell if he’s panicking and calling out for him as if saying “Jk, help! this is so awkward” or if he’s teasing Jk, but it actually looks like a mix. It’s awkward because they are being filmed while playing out such a scene.

Jk asks about the occasion and Tae replies that it’s nothing special, though shortly what follows is a conversation reminiscing about their trainee days, as well as Tae’s recent struggles.

Tae starts by saying that Jk’s recent attempt to hang out with him is what prompted him to prepare this intimate talk.

Following the above phrase is when Jk fully realizes what’s going on, letting out a big “ahhhhhh” of understandment. Despite this Tae asks once again “Remember?” to which Jk confirms by repeating “ah, ah, ah”. If there is an acting cue this would be it.

Tae adds a couple short sentences to finish the introduction.

Jk then excitedly says “I see!” using a similar voice to that funny one from the drama “Itaewon Class” as if getting ready to start an interpretation (the one that has the “it’s fun!” line).

Out of nowhere, Jk brings up the topic of them being scolded together even during trainee days, parroting exactly what Tae said in his YT livestream back in late April (which is rare because they barely mentioned each other as of recent times so there aren’t many chances to coincide). You can tell there wasn’t a cut between Tae’s intro and Jk’s topic if you pay attention to Jk getting rid of his wrappings. It seems like Jk isn’t the best at easing into a pre-planned topic and just dropped it abruptly which caused them both to laugh. They start to talk about the past and highlight how they were always close, scolded together and partners in crime. It’s interesting that the conversation unnaturally segwayed from having drinks to trainee days.

Jungkook says that they’ve been busy lately which implies that they no longer have the special bond that was just mentioned. This seems to be the whole objective of this theatrical interpretation: to make the public believe that they drifted apart & are now reconnecting. While it’s true that BTS explained on a recent vlive that they worked for 18 hours a day - which doesn’t leave much time to decompress and have time to yourself, let alone with loved ones - we believe they are trying to sound credible by creating lies out of truths (we are busy = truth; lost the special bond = lie).

Jk tells the camera in a narration that Tae used to be so playful and the easiest to talk to out of all the hyungs, but has become more reserved and not as open as he was in prior years, even to the point of developing certain awkwardness in their relationship. Again, lies based on truths. Tae has grown up and matured but he is still playful in a more calm way. Additionally, since three months prior to filming, Tae was noticeably sad and withdrawn. BTS were even concerned and had written on his festa rolling paper to be happy and reach out to any one of them to discuss when he was ready. Tae finding Jk in the soop to have an on camera discussion was very pivotal for their on camera presentation of their relationship going forward to viewers - making it a safe excuse for the sudden openness & increase of on camera interactions being now viewed as reunited friends - but they surely must have had private talks & we don’t believe there was any type of emotional distancing involved.

Reviewing prior footage shows they’ve always shown indicators of closeness and acted in a questionable manner, as well as what could be considered special attention to each other. We’ve caught onto moments they were instructed to separate - such as the vlive in which staff clearly rang the bell & told Tae to leave the hotel room as if he wasn’t sharing it with Jk on May of 2019 - so this talk is the culmination of the narrative BH tried to fabricate these recent years.

Weverse didn’t pick up the entire translation but Jk actually said “these days” he hadn’t really had a serious talk with Tae. This implies Tae was distant recently, which aligns with the sham but also correlates with Tae’s behavior in the spring. Tae mentioned in KBS and this Soop episode that the pandemic was something he struggled with. We doubt that Jk & Tae didn’t have any deep talks during these difficult times and then chose to broadcast their first ice-breaker so we once again deem it a false statement. We will elaborate more in our final thoughts.

Jk credits Tae for bringing him out of his shell in trainee days. Jk has mentioned this in prior interviews, so it seems to be a really important thing for Jk to continue to acknowledge. Tae appears genuinely surprised about Jk bringing this up - blushing for a second - so it’s apparent that they didn’t have a strict script for the sake of making it feel natural. They would just have planned to make sure to touch some key points to convey the narrative of reconnecting. As a positive side, it looks like it falls inside their plans to highlight how much they click and how much of an impact they’ve had on each other. During Festa, when Tae appeared to be at a low point, Jk referred to Tae as his commonality (which K ARMY proceeded to trend for its general meaning). Keep in mind Festa content was released in June, which would have been just after “In the Soop” was filmed, but it was surely written beforehand along with the rest of Festa’s content (~March). The fact that Jk said he has a lot in common with Tae correlates to what he said in this episode about having many similarities. This whole setup would be a bridge for them to be able to, at least, publicly act like close friends once again - which is a milestone - while giving a platonic explanation as to why there was a lack of on camera interactions. We guess it works if they don’t plan to come out as of now and it makes BH look good.

Tae never wanted Jk to use honorifics, but to treat him as a same age friend. Keep in mind honorifics are very important in a country like Korea. It does seem, based on Tae’s personality, that he’s not as hung up on such specifics. Regardless, the fact that, from the start, Tae insisted on treating Jk as an equal is a big deal when factoring in the culture / customs of their country.

Portion of Interview for the Magazine “Catch The BTS” Vol.1, 2013/11:

It seems like Jk was polite with Tae at the very beginning of their friendship, but after some time they started interacting as same age friends - as they explicitly said - and talked casually. In the below pics they contradict the old evidence by saying that their age difference and use of formal speech put up a wall between them. Jk even says “that’s what I chose back then”, meaning it later changed. It’s an easier way to lie.

They also might have used Festa to push the narrative of age difference being partially responsible for their supposed distancing. It was written that Tae viewed Jk as his “maknae-like dongsaeng” which uses not only one, but two terms to reinforce how young Jk is (“maknae” means youngest of the group, while “dongsaeng” is the complementary word to “hyung”. Jk is the dongsaeng of all his hyungs. It does NOT mean biological brother).

Tae mentions how he draws strength from ARMY and has felt empty lately, yearning to perform again. He didn’t feel as loved since they were not on stage hearing the cheers. This appears to be the main reason Tae struggled. And again, this correlates to Tae struggling in recent times, as the pandemic forced BTS (and the world) to change plans, and there was a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. The fact that this affected him so much suggests he still has self-worth issues and relies on external validation to a considerable degree. In our eyes, this is interlaced with his identity & fear of rejection - at least to an extent - being this a period of changes in TK’s presentation that stirred up various emotions. This theory is also supported by him reading the speech about happiness from the LGBTQ film CMBYN a little over a week after filming this. It seems like this was also a crucial topic to tackle & broadcast in order to continue working on the public’s empathy and dive little by little into the sources of their struggles.

Jungkook shows himself to be a source of strength to Tae, giving him advice and reassuring him he’s handling things well. He tells him that he should take this as an opportunity to work on stuff so that the people he loves can see how much he improved.

They decide to make a toast to those who love them. They do not toast to ARMY, which is the typical choice of words. Could this be specifically to people who support them? Because we know not all ARMY would accept them if they found out.

The scene ends with them smiling brightly at each other before walking away from the tent.

(final photo courtesy of TK_Rainbow insta)

Taekook’s “talk” clip: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kx0ahPr8dVRQzGNBXEbH9nhkRLkLaVLh/view?usp=drivesdk

Our theory - Personally, we believe this moment was staged to an extent. The execution may have been authentic in that Tae planned a romantic setting, since Jk seemed genuinely surprised and had prepared to work out prior to them meeting. However, it should be taken into consideration that taekook were relatively hidden in on camera, official moments for years. This possibly could be a presentation, agreed upon between TK and BH, to explain their current loudness to viewers who may only be watching official content and looking at things at the surface level. To see TK not as interactive in ON official camera moments, to suddenly see them in the manner we are, required an explanation that wouldn’t out them for the moment while allowing them to showcase their special bond and familiarize people with it. Taekook have always made it clear, in Jk’s words, that their relationship is not for the cameras. To have a 1-1 raw, intimate conversation in official content with cameras around, for a televised show, goes against their prior nature and indicates some sort of pre-planning.

Jk mentioned in “recent days” Taekook had not had a serious talk. Then, on camera, what the viewer is able to view is not very heavy besides their talks about Tae seeking love & support from ARMY. JK’s statement of the lack of recent heart-to-heart talks doesn’t match with what they proceeded to talk about. Although it wouldn’t be the goal if it were to be genuine, the viewer did not learn anything pivotal in the talk, meaning it was just a retake on topics deemed safe for public consumption. On the contrary, they flipped the original - pure - story of them being just like same age friends that were close in debut times, to them being close but never overcoming the weight of the age difference. There are a plethora of deep topics Taekook could have discussed. They weren’t able to fully dive into how Tae has exhibited some sort of playfulness throughout the years, but visibly bottled up and became more reserved only in recent months, just barely scratching the surface. The pandemic clearly is part of why Tae struggled, but not all. They do not discuss the obvious separation or lack of on camera moments during these last few years. These are certainly not topics they can easily and freely touch upon given their current situation, which means the idea of suddenly having a “serious talk” to clear the air between them, on camera, for television, has even less credibility. Keep in mind, in between debut to current times, we have always gotten subtle signs of genuine closeness & even slip-ups that they tried to hide. This confirms that what was aired (not necessarily all they talked about but what the viewer was able to see) didn’t really touch on anything intimate.

Since we believe Taekook are in a romantic relationship and are closeted, this means they cannot be fully transparent in why the recent years have involved cuts and on camera separations. The positive takeaway, though, is it appears that taekook will no longer be heavily hidden, nor separated on camera or official content as a result of prior negotiations, which probably took place back in 2018 as they signed - in advance - their second contract. The plan going forward, to us, is for taekook to be less restricted and to normalize their interactions - now holding increased control & benefits over key points in their career. Whether TK have the legal ability to come out at some point - if ready - within this contract or if this new direction would be the rooftop, that we don’t know. Either way, BH had to explain this long-needed change in on camera moments and appears to have chosen this method. Keep in mind the contract renewal took effect shortly after the Soop was filmed. Soon after Soop, Tae read CMBYN and wrote on Weverse he wants to be happy. It’s interesting how all of this happened in quick succession from one another.

Again, as stated at the start of this section, please remember this is our THEORY. We have done our best to clearly explain why we are thinking in the manner we are. Please remember this topic is controversial, and the reader is entitled to their opinion just as much as we are to ours.

Interestingly, these were the lyrics of the song that played in the background as they talked:

TK trended once the ep was released on Sept. 23rd -

June 1, 2020 - First day of Pride Month. Continuation of Episode 6. Tae wore a Bert and Ernie shirt the next day. This may be a coincidence or it may be him trying to send a message after having a 1-1 with Jk on camera. Please decide as you like.

We don’t want to theorize too much on the ending scene but it’s possible there are clues in it. No other member has ended an episode of “In The Soop” as an individual moment. And the ending shot of Tae has a lot of metaphors as he stands to embrace the sun, and then let’s the canoe take him to its brightness. The implication may be that Tae has found healing in this setting, and this, among other things, has helped him come to peace with his struggles.

#taekook #taekooktimeline #may 2020 #2020 #200531 #separation #sadness #closeness #hints #lgbtq

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gogoseijoh · 4 years ago

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losing: pt. 2 - kageyama x reader x tsukishima

summary: tsukki is taken with you, and your best friend is not a fan of that fact

genre: fluff, with a dash of angst at the end

warning(s): tsukishima’s self doubt, kageyama tryna fight

a/n: tsukki’s pov this time :))) i do be loving both of these men. also thank you for all the support i’m sorry it took me so long to get this out! this isn’t very long, but the next chapter will be :))

word count: 1.9k

part 1, part 3

Tsukishima counted himself incredibly lucky. He hadn’t thought that he would find someone like you in high school, so he didn’t even think to look, but here you were, stumbling into his life with open arms and sweet words that turned his ears the most vibrant red he’d ever seen. You left kisses on his cheeks that burned into his skin, and he would lay in bed after he walked you home, fingers brushing over the spots in belated shock that you wanted to touch him. And then there was the sweaters. You liked to wear them, the sleeves swallowing you, because his arms were ridiculously long. They made you feel safe, but you always gave them back to him at the end of the day, and when you did, he was always consumed by the scent of your skin. Tsukishima hadn’t expected himself to be so taken with a girl, but now here he was, looking forward to seeing you every day at school. Even on the weekends he saw you, when for years the only person he hung out with both in and out of school had been the intensely loyal Yamaguchi. Now, though, he shared his time with you as well, and it was lovely. He didn’t think he would ever forget the first time you hung out in your living room, a documentary on the television and his arm draped over your shoulders, wanting to pull you closer, but not wanting to push your boundaries. You were both so nervous to speak, instead feigning interest in the screen in front of you. You had never been alone like this together, typically meeting in parks or cafes, where the ambient noise of others chatting spurred on your own conversations. Here though, it was all up to you two, so you both resigned to the comfortable silence. When the documentary ended, you had turned to look at him, “I feel so safe with you, Tsukki.” At that moment, he decided that you two didn’t need words all the time.

Your first kiss was on your front porch. Tsukki had decided to take you on your first real date, and the two of you had spent hours talking at the coffee shop he brought you to. He walked you home, hands tangled together in between you as you made your way down the street. Tsukishima, not usually one for physical affection, found himself so taken with you that he couldn’t help himself. He never understood the appeal of kissing, and then he saw your lips, covered in peppermint chapstick and always looking so soft. His hand didn’t leave yours when you reached your house, and when you turned to him, the look in his eyes was one you hadn’t seen before. He looked nervous but happy, and before you could ask him if he was okay, his voice broke through your thoughts, “Can I kiss you?” He was overjoyed when you nodded, and suddenly, one hand was cradling the back of your neck and the other held the curve of your waist as he leant down to meet you. He saw your eyes flutter closed and felt your hands snake up to your biceps, and he let his eyes fall closed, too. It was a gentle kiss, only lasting a few seconds, shy lips pressed to each other. Tsukishima basked in the blush of your cheeks when he pulled away and thanked you for a nice day. You just beamed back at him, pulling him in for one last hug before slipping into your house. Tsukki walked back home feeling as if he as walking on air, a feeling only you could give him.

That was a Saturday. Tsukishima was back to being his typically distant and sarcastic self by Monday, preserving the most gentle parts of himself for when you two were alone. In the mornings, he walked to school with Yamaguchi, while you were always accompanied by Kageyama. Tsukishima had been loathe to admit to the feelings he had for you because of your choice in best friend, but he saw that you had the same effect on the setter as you did on him. Kageyama wasn’t exactly subtle about his feelings, and the change in his personality when he was around you was enough to make Tsukishima wary of him. Spending time with you allowed him to hear about the friendship shared between you two, and it helped him understand. Kageyama was your best friend, the only person in the world outside of your family that you knew would be there for you for the rest of your life. Your tie to him was impossible to sever, and you swore up and down that you knew him better than he knew himself. It was still scary, knowing that someone who despised him was so close to you, having so much influence in your life. Tsukishima despised the brunette too, but Kageyama had been in your life longer. Would Kageyama’s opinion of him be the end of your relationship? Tsukishima tried to soothe himself into believing that Kageyama cared enough for you that he wouldn’t do that, but there was still a fear in him.

Tsukishima was always shocked by the way you looked at him. No matter where you were or what was going on, your eyes always held the softest admiration in them when you saw him. No one had ever looked at him like that. You looked at him as if he had put the stars in the sky, and he felt triumph when he noted that those eyes were reserved for him, not even Kageyama gaining your attention like he did. There was a sense of pride in him when you kissed his cheek in front of the gym before practice, and he watched with a smirk as Kageyama scowled and stalked by you two, not that you had noticed. Tsukishima knew that when it came to volleyball, he wasn’t as talented as Kageyama, but here, with you smiling up at him, he felt like he had finally won against the King. In his mind, he knew it was juvenile to think that. He knew you were no prize to be won, nothing to be paraded around like a trophy in front of someone who Tsukki considered to be a foe, but he couldn’t help the satisfaction that seeped into his bones when Kageyama was close by. There was a conflict in his brain, a battle between the part that wanted to make Kageyama’s life harder and the part that understood how it would feel if the roles were reversed. He grimaced at the thought of having to bare witness to you and Kageyama doing the same things he did with you, but he just couldn’t help himself. You hadn’t noticed the added tension to their relationship, or lack thereof, but the rest of the volleyball club had. For the most part, they were their usual selves, but both of their voices now held an extra edge when they jeered at each other. Tsukishima could feel Kageyama’s steely gaze cutting through him whenever he turned his back, and he returned it when the brunette sought you out after practice and you handed him a snack with a brilliant smile. Still, Tsukishima knew that at the end of the day, you’d be walking home holding his hand, no one else’s. It was the most comforting thing he had ever known.

After five dates with you, Tsukishima figured out how to kill two birds with one stone. He was going to ask you to officially be his girlfriend. It was perfect, because not only would it show you how much he cared for you and that you were paramountly important to him, but it would also settle some of his fears about not being good enough for you if you said yes. Tsukishima’s feelings of uncertainty in himself had carried over from volleyball to his relationship with you, which he wasn’t thrilled about, but his faith in you relieved a lot of that pressure from his mind. He knew you liked him just as much as he liked you, so why should there be doubt in his head about you saying no?

That doubt festered when Kageyama approached him in the club room one afternoon before practice, scowl drawing deep lines on his face and making Tsukishima stand up from the ground when he had tied his shoes. “Need something, your Majesty?” Tsukishima sneered, one hand coming up to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

“When are you gonna cut the act?” Kageyama snarled, eyes narrowing even further at the middle blocker.

Tsukki scoffed, “What on Earth are you talking about?”

“I know you’re just dating (y/n) to mess with me,” Kageyama accused, taking a step forward, “Just leave her alone.”

“Wow, are you that conceded?” Tsukishima chuckled, shaking his head at the thought, “This may come as a shock, but everything isn’t about you, King. She has a life outside of you. I’m dating her because I like her, and, not that it’s any of your business, I’m going to ask her to be my girlfriend.” He didn’t miss how Kageyama’s face dropped at that, but he kept going, “Nothing I’m doing has anything to do with you. I seem to have underestimated your selfishness. I will never understand why she chooses to stick with you.” He began to make for the door but not before he turned and in his cool voice, he said, “And for the record, it’s not my fault she doesn’t want to date you.”

Before Tsukishima had a moment to step out the door, Kageyama surged forward, hand locking around the front of Tsukishima’s shirt, “I could say the same for you. She deserves so much more than you, and if you hurt her, I swear-”

“You’ll what?” a timid voice spoke from the door, and there you were standing, eyes widened to the size of dinner plates at the scene in front of you. Ukai had sent you to check on what was taking the two of them so long, and here you found them, at each other’s throats because of you.

Kageyama let go of the taller boy, who turned around to face you. Both of them began to speak, sputtering nonsense that you couldn’t understand until you held your hand out, to which they both shut their mouths. “We will talk about this later. Go to practice,” your voice was barely a whisper and you wouldn’t meet either of their gazes, which Tsukishima knew to be your tells when you were extremely nervous, like before the grammar exam you had taken a week earlier, but you seemed less nervous and more so in a state of deep thought. You weren’t a stern person by nature, and this was the most serious he had seen you since the two of you had met. He tried to reach out to you, but you turned on your heel and were already heading for the gym. In a moment of unity, the boys shared a grimace before following you to what was sure to be a tense practice. They were in trouble.

Thoughts swirled in Tsukishima’s head as he made his way down the stairs to go to practice, thoughts he had been trying to put to rest. What did you see in him?

---

taglist: @kiritokunuwu

#tsukishima kei x reader #tsukki x reader #kageyama tobio x reader #kageyama x reader #haikyuu!!#yamaguchi tadashi

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hiirunakaarchive · 4 years ago

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– to act in haste (pt. 4)

↳ preview

Dr. Sakurai, between acknowledging her company and putting on a smile for the press, let her eyes flit away momentarily from whoever it was she was shaking hands with at that moment. Her lips were pursed in a tight smile in an attempt to keep herself collected amongst the overwhelming attention, and her eyes wandered outside of her immediate surroundings.

And he recognized it. The moment her face fell and her smile faded, he realized that Haruna’s eyes had already met his.

Her lips parted slightly and then back shut at the sight of him, as if to stop herself just before reacquainting with the feel of Dr. Ramsey’s name on her tongue.

“Ethan...?”

↳ (pt 1), (pt 2), (pt 3)

◇ pairing: ethan ramsey x mc (haruna sakurai)

◇ genre: angst, a lot of yearning, maybe a little break in between :/

◇ word count: 3.3k+

◇ tags: @aworldoffandoms, @perriewinklenerdie, @jooous, @senseofduties, @moteestro, @haesselnut, @princessfuzzy12,

◇ author’s note: to the very limited audience who actually enjoy this fic: thank u for ur patience!! this chapter was so mf hard to write and FOR WHAT. after a couple months of sitting on google docs at 4am trying to update this fic instead of doing my schoolwork like i was supposed to, it turns out this chapter is not the finale at all🤡 ive considered incorporating smut into this since those seem to get notes but that’s one of my literary shortcomings so im gonna refrain and save face✨ feedback appreciated, yall know the drill xoxoxo luv u guys

chapter four

Diamonds. Oh, how that woman loved diamonds.

Carbon atoms arranged in a tetrahedral structure. The hardest natural substance on Earth. Yet another natural phenomenon upon which mankind had imposed their shallow, materialistic beliefs.

But he bought one anyway; kept that damn two carat, marquise cut ring in the bottom drawer of his bedside table for five years. The velvet box sat in the dark that entire time, unworn and collecting dust, thus Dr. Ramsey couldn’t help but wonder if it was still suitable for the hospital heiress it was intended for.

“Dr. Sakurai will be present as the keynote speaker.”

Harper regarded Ethan carefully when she said it, far too aware of his and the younger doctor’s history. Ethan met her pensiveness with a simple nod of his head.

“I see. She’s made quite a name for herself.”

“You’re taking this surprisingly well.” Dr. Emery observed, raising a brow, “I was expecting a bit of protest in attending, but you seem fine.”

But Dr. Ethan Ramsey was not, in fact, fine.

“Have you seen her?” Harper continued,

“Aurora ran into her in Manila, doing some philanthropy it seems. She looks different, might be the afterglow of success. Might be that boyfriend she brought along too.”

That what?

It didn’t necessarily come as a surprise, but he still stopped listening. He’d tuned Harper out, something about the boy being on Haruna’s research team in Japan, a prodigy that interned at the WHO when he was only fourteen; Harper said they were a good match, but Dr. Ramsey, as a final form of consolation, hoped he’d heard her wrong.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, because Dr. Ethan Ramsey was far too old and far too calculated to rely on something as subjective as a “marriage pact”. Blurted on a whim, didn’t keep in touch, hell, he wasn’t even sure if he still remembered her face. That shallow promise they made five years ago came with too many uncertainties, and far be it from him to be bitter over her newfound happiness.

So his silence spoke for him, living a life of 52 seconds before Harper noticed he’d gone quiet. He earned a glance from his colleague, Dr. Emery trailing off and sparing him a thoughtful look. Her gaze softened in realization, and she bit her lip regretfully.

“Oh, Ethan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize you still-”

“I don’t.” He snapped.

Bullshit.

He released a long, drawn out breath and pinched the bridge of his nose, collecting himself. But the damage had been done, and nothing he could say would wipe the suspicion off Harper’s face. The rueful shake of her head and the sympathetic pat of his arm told him all he needed to know.

“I mean it.” Ethan said, the excessive sternness of his tone taking away the credibility of his statement.

“Dr. Sakurai is…”

A pause.

“She’s nothing to me.”

–––––

And he was so damn wrong.

Ethan and June boarded a flight to Kyoto two days later, and for the entire duration until the conference, Dr. Ramsey was concerned at his own indifference.

Concerned, but desperate to believe it.

He wasn’t sure what to expect out of seeing her again, but some sick part of him wanted to have fallen out of love with her. Then that meant he wouldn’t have to care at the blatant reminder that she was with someone else. He wouldn’t have to admit that she was probably better off with someone that wasn’t him. Most of all, he wouldn’t have to pretend that the idea of them never getting a second chance didn’t absolutely shatter him.

But it wasn’t that easy. It was never that easy.

Because there he was, standing on the outer circle of a ring of reporters and conference guests that demanded the young doctor’s attention. Like the crowd, Ethan was completely and wholly entranced by her and it was in the moment that he realized–

Haruna Sakurai still meant everything to him.

Her hair had been cut short, its length reaching her chin and dyed a shade alike to walnuts. She wore glasses now and on the bridge of her nose rested thin circular frames that accentuated her ovular face, Haruna’s features fixed in a permanent smize as she charmed the crowd with a polite smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. The woman trickled in ivory and quartz from head to toe, and Ethan’s breath caught in his throat at the memory of how much he loved her.

How much he still loves her.

And he recognized it. The moment her face fell and her smile faded, he realized that Haruna’s eyes had already met his.

Her lips parted slightly and then back shut at the sight of him, as if to stop herself just before reacquainting with the feel of Dr. Ramsey’s name on her tongue.

“Ethan...?”

She looked at him like he was some figment of her imagination, breathing his name like saying it was an anchor to keep the man from disappearing. Dr. Ramsey could almost feel himself unravel if not for the deadwood that entered the scene.

Satoshi Date.

The boyfriend.

God, her fucking boyfriend.

He was stuck to her like glue, a hand protectively encased around her shoulder as Haruna caught herself and resumed in indulging the crowd. She smiled proudly and crossed her arms, everything but her wrists and beautifully manicured hands hiding underneath the cape of her white pantsuit. Her male company, just as charismatic and smartly dressed, entertained the representatives of Big Pharma.

From what Ethan could see, Date was young. Bright. Approachable with an award-winning smile that was almost too friendly for his liking. Together, the doctor and scientist looked invincible and Ethan found himself for admitting that they actually complimented each other.

“What a tool.” He couldn’t help but scoff. “...Spit it out, Hirata.”

Beside him, June’s shoulders were shaking with silent laughter. She brought a hand up to her mouth and turned away, responding between giggles she tried to suppress. Ethan rolled his eyes.

“I apologize, it’s nothing. It’s nothing. Don’t let it bother you, you and Sakurai were always the better- pft.”

Dr. Hirata failed to contain herself and released a snort, shaking her head as she walked away to scout for their seats in the lecture hall. Ethan’s irritant gaze followed her retreating form and his chest bubbled with annoyance as he remained clueless towards the reason behind his colleague’s laughter.

He looked over his shoulder one more time to where Haruna and Satoshi stood, close as ever, and the jealousy weaved knots in Dr. Ramsey’s stomach to the point that he settled in looking for his assigned seat instead. Ethan glanced at his watch; fifteen minutes before the official start of the conference, and from his peripheral vision he could see Haruna beginning to make her way backstage to prepare for her speech.

Finding his spot beside Dr. Hirata, Ethan looked up to the stage, sat in the very front row and directly in front of the podium.

Fuck.

The lights finally began to dim at ten o’clock, and Dr. Sakurai, clad in white, appeared on stage.

The woman’s presence commanded the attention of the room as she made her way to the centre in a powerful stride. The anticipant stillness of the crowd broke and Haruna’s entrance was greeted with a light smattering of applause as she enveloped the audience in warm welcome and a dazzling smile. Ethan watched her with bated breath, wondering when she had become this beautiful.

“It warms my heart to see so many familiar faces.” She began.

Her kind eyes scanned the audience and Dr. Sakurai’s gaze fell momentarily on Dr. Ramsey, conflicted, before getting to the punchline of the joke.

“Forgive me when I say I wasn’t expecting so many of you to still have a full head of hair the next time we met.”

–––––

The next 45 minutes passed that way, with Haruna completely and wholly engaging the crowd as she shared knowledge and humour, establishing a pleasant tone for the remainder of the conference. Ethan could sense the nearing end of her speech as Haruna began to smoothly transition from the central theme to her concluding words.

“A very important person to me once said that as doctors, all we do is delay the inevitable-”

Ethan leaned back in his seat, arms crossed and with a valiant effort, careful not to let his emotions betray the nonchalance in his face. The reminder of that lesson he taught her so long ago revived something in the older doctor that he thought had died when Sakurai left for Japan.

Then he remembered her obsidian hair dipped in red. Her long delicate fingers that he held in his when they first met, steadying the tremor before saving a life. He remembered her downcast eyes when he reprimanded her over a patient, and the embarrassment in her voice when she admitted to crying in the storage room.

Now here she stood, six years later. Confident. Unshaken. A poetic opposite of the young intern he once knew.

“—to healthcare professionals,” The sound of Haruna’s voice interrupted his thoughts, “one word immediately comes to mind when discussing the inevitable.” She said the words with air quotes.

“Death. Mortality. Demise. I always found it ironic how we, doctors who so value life, were the very crowd who imposed such negative connotations on the word.”

“We follow the paved path of the Inevitable because it’s the only one we know. It provides a definitive answer. But inevitably, we grow tired of this tedious destination. We inevitably seek more, strive for more and thus deviate from that paved path and become drawn to the unexplored dirt road; you find that it leads to so much more. My research team has offered me invaluable guidance on this road to the unknown, which is why I’m proud to officially announce that the Sakurai Medical Centre has discovered a cure for multiple sclerosis.”

And a stunned silence instilled itself into the audience.

Ethan stared at her in silent disbelief. Hirata’s jaw hung open before she threw her head back in proud laughter and clapped. Suddenly, a frenzy ensued with the commotion of the crowd, the entire room suddenly engulfed in cameras and flashing lights and the vocal disbelief of the fellow doctors around them. Haruna held up a hand and the guests, still buzzing with excitement, toned down to audible murmurs.

“I will answer any questions anyone might have about this medical feat throughout the day, but as I conclude this speech I’d like you all to do one thing–”

“Question yourself. Question the world. Challenge the things thought to be set in stone, and when all is said and done, ask yourself-”

Haruna looked meaningfully at the hundreds of people seated in front of her, a sharp tension emanating in the room as her cat-like gaze scrutinized the crowd. Her eyes finally fell on Dr. Ramsey, and the hold of her stare made it clear that this was no accident. She directed her query at her former lover and in a voice dripping with purpose demanded an answer.

“Is the inevitable really as dreadful as we might think?”

And he could do nothing but applaud.

–––––

The continuous ticking of the clock in Ethan’s hotel room was the only sound that intercepted a dead silence. Alone yet with his thoughts, he packed his luggage in preparation for his flight the next morning, pondering his weekend in Japan.

They met at the evening reception. Purely coincidence. She stood alone at an accent table, her back to him with a flute of rosé, and he approached her in an honest mistake.

“June.” Ethan sighed exasperatedly. “It wouldn’t have killed you to wait two minutes instead of making me scout you out in this crowded room for your damn blue dress-“

“Hey, I happen to like this damn blue dress.”

Then he found himself met with pearls and a gown of charmeuse silk. She came to him in the shade of blue orchids, her gown pooling at the floor like a blossom at its prime and Dr. Ramsey remembered just how perfect she’d always been.

They spoke. Briefly. Awkwardly. Watching their words like untested waters though the two were the furthest thing from strangers.

“Hi.”

Was what she said.

“...Hi.”

Was how he responded.

Then he couldn’t look at her. She was within arms reach, too easy to pull towards him and trap against his chest. Too easy to blurt out something he’d regret with her just close enough to hear it. Too easy to meet her eyes and remember that she was with someone else.

So he brushed past her, putting as much distance between himself and Dr. Sakurai before he lost himself. Before the crushing weight on Ethan’s chest pressed on until the words piggy-backed the next breath he released.

I still love you.

And he should have let it, because he hasn’t seen her since.

Zipping up his luggage and setting it upright, the sudden sound of Ethan’s default ringtone reverberating through the room made him jolt. He snatched his phone off the bedside table, eyebrows furrowed in annoyance, only to relax as he saw Naveen’s name flash across the screen for a FaceTime call.

“You have work.” Ethan observed, unimpressed upon recognition of Naveen’s office from the background.

“Which starts in an hour, I’m simply early! Speaking of work, administration wants you to bring back souvenirs.”

“By administration, you mean yourself.”

“Humor me a little. Dr. Tanaka tells me they have exclusive KitKat flavours and I’m absolutely beside myself with curiosity. Pick up a pack or two, your retirement gift to me.”

Ethan sighed in surrender.

“...What flavour do you want.”

“Dr. Tanaka recommends Hokkaido melon with mascarpone cheese, but I also recall June mentioning sakura matcha latte. I’ll leave it up to you.”

“What? You can’t possibly expect me to find such arbritary— hello?”

So fate let him out onto the Kyoto streets, into a grocery store, towards the snack aisle and right in Haruna Sakurai’s line of fire. She was on her way to the cash, he was still searching for those fucking KitKats, and they lightly bumped shoulders before meeting each other’s eyes for a polite apology.

“Ah, I’m sorry-“

“My apologies-“

And they both froze.

At first, they refused to acknowledge the familiarity in each other’s voice. She spoke in Japanese, but he recognized her assertive tone. Firm but pleasant, like running your hands across a velvet seat. She had a unique accent given her history of travel, and Ethan remembered how much he used to love hearing her talk.

It was the English for her. They weren’t too far off from the hotel where the conference was held, so Haruna immediately deduced that the stranger was one of the guests. But she knew Dr. Ramsey’s voice. All too well. His words uttered in low timbre, deep and rich like fertile soil that only further nurtured her adoration for him. The articulate nature of his speech that would substantiate the validity of his advice. Intimidating delivery of his words that grabbed her attention in fistfuls. It wasn’t until Haruna had her own intern that she became aware of how much she had begun to sound like him, and it was then that she realized she loved hearing him talk too.

“Dr. Ramsey.” Haruna didn’t bother to mask the surprise in her voice. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

The collectedness in Dr. Sakurai’s voice almost irked him. She looked nothing short of amicable, pretending like Saturday evening never happened where he fled from her after a one-word exchange. And her nonchalance, amidst Ethan’s struggle to find words, rapid heartbeat and sandpaper-dry throat, was only further confirmation that she moved on from their past.

“We’re on the same boat, Dr. Sakurai. I wasn’t expecting to be here but you know how Naveen is.” He struggled to maintain the apathy in his voice.

“Let me guess, KitKats?”

“Right on the nail. He’s looking for–”

Ethan stopped himself as Haruna turned to the shelf on her right, dragging a finger across the plastic wraps before swiftly plucking several packages out from under each other and tossing them into his basket. He peered into his bin of potential expenses and looked up at Dr. Sakurai as she tossed one more his way.

“Rook- Dr. Sakurai, Naveen is going to end up with diabetes.”

She retracted her hand from another pack and glanced at him once, then to his near-full basket in something alike to realization. Then she laughed. Like, really laughed. Her disciplined features melted into a toothy grin, replaced with something youthful. Something real. Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose to hide his own smile beginning to form.

“Oh, I’m sorry-” Haruna gathered herself as she breathed out a chuckle. “You know how much of a sweet tooth he has.”

She tilted her gaze up to meet Ethan’s eyes, an almost distant look brewing on her face until she caught herself and her smile faded.

“But it wasn’t all for him.”

Ethan raised a brow, and the female doctor’s attention flickered to the pack she last threw into his basket. He looked down, and his forehead creased with inexplicable conflict.

“That one’s for you. Didn’t you really used to like those back then?”

Yuzu flavoured KitKats. She used to love those, and he wondered if she still did. They were saved for special occasions and only shared with special people, but those “care packages” Haruna’s doting parents sent every once in a while from Japan never lasted. The original five that shared the penthouse used to come with snack sized versions, and Dr. Ramsey had to hide his in the drawer of his desk.

She would loiter in his office sometimes during her break, sitting across from her mentor as they passed the time talking.

“Snacking in my office? I’ve grown too lenient with you, Rookie.”

She popped a piece into her mouth and grinned with full cheeks.

“So you have.”

“Yeah… your influence– don’t get ahead of yourself.” He rolled his eyes good-naturedly as Haruna pressed a hand to her chest in faux flattery. He failed to suppress a smile and she returned her own, the awkwardness and the tension slowly alleviating between the two of them.

They grew silent, but it was a comfortable silence. The two doctors shifted on their feet, waiting for someone make the first statement, and Ethan racked his brain for words to say. What could he say?

“I meant to congratulate you,” He settled.

“These past five years have been good to you, Haruna. You’ve accomplished something great.”

Her smile widened at her ex-mentors praise.

“Thank you, I had an amazing team behind me.”

And as if on cue, the shrill marimba ringtone sounded in the air and made them both jump. Dr. Sakurai’s recognized it as hers and patted around her sweatpants, fishing her phone out of her pocket. Looking at Dr. Ramsey apologetically, she accepted the call and pressed her phone to her ear.

“Toshi?”

And the bitter reality settled back in. She turned her back to him, mumbling in rapid Japanese and Ethan breathed in deeply. Starting towards the cash register, he snuck past Haruna quietly, squeezing her shoulder in goodbye. A subtle alarm weaved itself into her features, and her gaze followed his back, unable to leave the call. Ethan rushed through the payment and took long strides out of the grocery store, pulling on the collar of his sweater as his throat began to constrict.

Get back to your damn hotel and finish packing your things. You’re going to get on that plane tomorrow morning, start work the day after and start forgetting about Haruna Sakurai.

He exhaled in a long breath. He could do this.

“Dr. Ramsey…?”

He could do this.

“Didn’t you really used to like those back then?”

He could do this.

“Is the inevitable really as dreadful as we might think?”

He couldn’t fucking do this.

Ethan slowed to a stop, and he cursed at himself. For developing feelings towards the one person he shouldn’t have fallen for. For being the root of the cause in this mess they entangled themselves in. For loving this woman so damn much that his own medical expertise couldn’t suffice in explaining the tight feeling in his chest whenever he missed her. Whenever he saw her.

Dr. Ramsey looked up to the sky, met with a streetlight hovering above his head and despite himself, he laughed.

He just couldn’t forget about Haruna Sakurai.

“Christ, I’m too old for this.”

And back towards the direction he came from, he began to run.

#choices #playchoices #open heart fanfiction #open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey fanfiction #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x mc

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love-killed-the-superstar · 5 years ago

Text

i finally finished cass week!! its been lots of late nights but so much fun. thank you everyone whos been reading these. tonight i have some real good cassunzel/unknighted dream content for yall, so enjoy if that’s your thing

CASSANDRA APPRECIATION WEEK DAY 7 - FINALE

How is one supposed to feel, showing up at their girlfriend's wedding to somebody else?

Cassandra has been through the whole spectrum of emotions in the run up to it all. There's been joy, of course, and in abundance – these are her best friends, taking that next important step in their lives. While she... takes her own next step. Alone.

She has poured over detailed illustrations Rapunzel sent her in letters of the various wedding patterns she's considered. It's amazing how much input Cass has had in the whole thing, considering it isn't even her wedding, especially when also factoring in the distance between them. She's helped pick out the flavour of punch while hunched over a campfire on a cold night; she's backed up Rapunzel's desire to forego shoes, even in the royal cathedral, in her underthings while her clothes hung up to dry after she got caught in a flash flood.

Half the time it doesn't feel like her place, and she withholds her opinion. Or she'll write back something along the lines of 'you should ask your future husband, not me'. But then Rapunzel counters that with 'well, you're like my future wife, so your opinion is equally important'. And... well, that just leads to other emotions that are even harder for her to deal with.

The flip side of the coin is the disappointment she feels, knowing that Rapunzel can only marry one person and Eugene is the clear winner, in both the royal family's favour and the court of public opinion. After all, who would come to a wedding where the princess marries the very person that nearly destroyed the kingdom? Cassandra can't fault Rapunzel for making the choice to marry Eugene; he was in Rapunzel's life first, he's begrudgingly grown on the people of Corona despite his shady past, and during the mess that she caused he stepped up and took responsibility. He loves her. He'll do anything for her.

She's happy for them, really. But the whole situation still feeds back into this complex she's worked so hard to overcome these last couple years. Marriage just a... a ceremony, a piece of paper, a legal contract. A wedding is a big, over-dramatic party that she would never in a million years want to take part in anyway. And hasn't she always told herself, since she was an angry little kid rolling her eyes at the Day of Hearts' puppet show, that romance, matrimony, all that bullshit, is something she's never wanted for herself?

It's petty, plain and simple, to have such a sting of jealousy at the idea of Rapunzel and Eugene marrying. They deserve their happy ending! More than anybody! Cass will just... have to figure out a way to be okay with that. Chasing destiny on the open road is her happy ending anyway, and that's no life for a... what would she even be? Princess consort? Duchess?

...Fine. She doesn't need a title or status to be happy. So much of her identity has been clinging to words other people might use to describe her and it can only end if she wishes it so.

All the same – it would be nice, just for a day, if she could be Rapunzel's bride.

…

Cass doesn't mean to show up late to the ceremony, although she's sure that Lance will slide up and make some comment at the reception anyway. Maybe she just didn't want to get up that morning. Maybe it's because she stayed up late last night, camping out at the lagoon, thinking about the vows they took all those years ago. After all, wasn't that modelled after a private wedding, between the two rulers who bound their kingdoms together? A marriage that is recognised in Corona's history books? By extension, aren't her and Rapunzel already married, in their own way?

That should be enough.

By the time Fidella and Owl rouse her, their casual annoyance morphing into urgency as the sun rises higher in the sky, she already knows she won't make it on time. She won't even have time to change, after Rapunzel spent weeks pestering her for her clothing measurements to have an appropriate outfit tailored. Thankfully, Raps knows her well enough not to commission a dress.

Cass rides like she's never ridden before, determined to get there before the vows. What will Rapunzel and Eugene think of her if they look out to the pews and see she isn't there, after all she's done to convince them she's fine with it all? She promised herself, the moment she held the pale lilac wedding invitation in her hands six months prior, that she wouldn't ruin their big day for them. Even if she shows up with windswept hair and yesterday's travelling clothes on, she has to be there, cheering them on.

With her and Fidella's combined determination they make the journey from the lagoon to the castle walls in record time. Standing at the gate, she purses her lips in annoyance as Stan and Pete, in a frustrating display of competence, ask for proof of ID and her invitation.

“Stan, Pete, this is ridiculous. You know me. You've known me since I was a kid.”

“Sorry, Cassandra,” Stan says sagely, as she begrudgingly hands over her Corona citizen identification card. “Rules are rules, and this is a big day for the princess.”

“Besides, we need to be on the lookout for shapeshifters,” Pete adds on, holding her invitation to the light to search for the subtly printed Corona emblem on the paper. “It's a recent thing we've been told to watch out for. A couple years ago there was an incident at the goodwill festival, see.”

“Pete, that was also me,” Cass says flatly.

“Never can be too careful,” he sighs, shaking his head. “Captain's orders and all. We good here, Stan?”

“Yup, everything looks legitimate. Welcome back to Corona, Cassandra!” Stan says, reverting back to his cheerful disposition.

“I am going to kill Eugene for this. Figuratively, of course.”

Stan motions for the gates to open, and as they do, a narrow stream of what looks to be wine rushes past Fidella's hooves. She moves aside slightly, snorting a little in confusion.

“Eww,” mutters Pete, exchanging a confused look with Stan before clearing his throat. “Well, you'd better hurry to the wedding if you don't want to miss the vows!”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Cass wrinkles her nose a little at the trail of wine leading across the bridge, eyes widening as it becomes apparent that there is much more where that came from. As the gates swing shut once again, Cass wonders to herself what the fuck they have just walked into.

The whole kingdom looks to be a mess. There are lanterns flying everywhere, and between them there are doves. Passing through the lower town, it looks like there's been some sort of roof collapse at the old tar works, and the stream of wine gradually becomes a shallow river. Fidella does her best to step around the mess, but it's nearly impossible; even the houses lining the street have been doused. At this rate, the reception will be an extremely sober affair.

Cass picks her way through the winding streets leading up to the palace, passing by a few torn up carts selling imitation merchandise of Rapunzel's wedding attire. She can't help but scoff at the broken shoe cart. As if Raps would wear shoes, even to her own wedding.

The crowd, all dressed in their Sunday bests, look shaken to their cores when she finally reaches the courtyard. The tables that were laid out for the reception are overturned, there is soup everywhere, and no one knows quite what to do with themselves.

She approaches a guard, looking flustered as he tries to set a nearby table upright, and asks, “Uh, what happened here?”

“Some – some horse burst through in a frenzy,” he explains, shaking like a leaf. “It, uh, from a distance it kinda looked like Maximus.”

Cassandra's brow furrows. “Is everything okay?”

“There are no reports of a disturbance in the throne room,” the guard continues. “But as you can see, the decorations have all been tarnished.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Look, I won't keep you, I just need access to the throne room. I have an invitation here, signed by the princess...”

After an excruciating second ID check (she was seriously going to maim Eugene for introducing this ridiculous 'shapeshifter' check) Cass is granted access to the venue, and figuring it's probably best not to draw attention to her tardiness, she slips in through one of the side entrances, with its door propped open to let in some cool air on such a hot day.

Cass hops down from Fidella's back, scratching the side of her head affectionately as Owl swoops down to take her place. He hoots at her curiously.

“Yeah, I don't know what the fuck just went down either,” Cass whispers. “I'm sure we'll find out later. For now, let's just not make a scene?”

Fate has other plans, however. She makes it barely two steps past the doorway before almost being bowled over by a runaway eight-tier wedding cake.

“Woah!” she gasps, stepping out of the way just in time to avoid getting a face full of cake. She reaches around, gripping the sides of the trolley to try and keep it from rolling all the way outside. Fidella steps in to help, blocking the exit with her body, and Cass heaves a sigh of relief as the trolley grinds to a halt, the cake wobbling precariously for several painful seconds before stabilising. Owl hoots in victory and Cass exhales loudly.

“Oh thank god. That could have been a disaster.”

“...Hey, where's the cake?” a voice, unmistakably Eugene's, calls from beyond the edge of the corridor. Cass cringes. So much for quietly watching from the sidelines.

Steeling herself, she slips around the back of the trolley and with some effort, pushes it around the corner and into the throne room. There's an audible ripple of uncertainty through the pews, as the confused guests mutter to one another about why some windswept vagrant is wheeling out a cake that was already in position at the beginning of the ceremony. There's a hoot of laughter (definitely Lance) at Cassandra's dishevelled appearance, a sharp “is that Cassandra?” from three rows away (her dad's voice, for sure), and a few giggles she's guessing are coming from Kiera and Catalina's direction. She can't even bear to look at the king and queen.

Instead, she sees two figures in white. Eugene, looking proud as can be in his very expensive wedding garb that he bragged about to her in several letters... and Rapunzel, face framed by the soft lace veil behind her, looking so beautiful Cass could cry. Her surprise melts into pure glee, and if it weren't for the colossal cake in between, Cass knows Raps would be launching herself at her right then and there, present company be damned.

She passes Max and Pascal and almost chokes. That would explain the sorry state of the tar works' roof, at least. From somewhere behind, she hears Fidella stifle a snort of laughter.

“Well well well,” Eugene says, with a click of the tongue and a lopsided grin. “If it isn't our favourite little gatecrasher.”

It's his teasing, strangely enough, that helps her to find her voice in front of all these people. “Well geez, somebody had to stop this cake from rolling down the hill.”

…

The wedding reception ends up being less of a party and more of a clean-up operation after Max and Pascal's prior mischief, but when the venue has been tidied up and the main courses have been served, Cass slips away right as the king stands up to give a tearful toast. If she times it right she can change into the outfit Rapunzel has had tailored for her and return before the speech is concluded, no problem.

At this point, her room is basically an empty shell with a bed and a wardrobe, so it takes no time to lay out her new outfit ready. Glancing around the empty husk of a room while she starts to undress, Cass wonders when exactly Corona stopped feeling like her home. Maybe about the time she realised it was the people, not the place, that she gravitated back to time and time again?

The new suit doesn't look all too different to Eugene's, minus his father's sash. It's white, with similar detailing, and even some of the same gold accents on the collar. Cass blanches a little the longer she stares at it. God, she's going to look like she's trying to steal his thunder. On his fucking wedding day.

“Why did I let you do this, Raps?” she groans. She can't deny once wearing it, however, that it makes her look really good.

She stares at her reflection in the mirror on her closet door, trying for a smile. This whole situation feels bizarre, and she still can't stop thinking about how stunning Rapunzel looks in her wedding dress.

I wish she was marrying me instead.

The admission, even inside her head, is enough to make her growl in frustration, slap her forehead.

“Enough,” she grits out. “You are going to go out there and be supportive and happy for them because this is their day and you love them so much. Enough throwing yourself a pity party, Cass.”

With nothing else to say to herself, she ties back her hair, shaggier from her foregoing a haircut in quite some time, neatly plaiting it and securing it with a short piece of string from her satchel. Pulling a pair of white gloves on to tie the whole outfit together, she glares at her reflection for a few seconds to compose herself before heading back towards the venue.

“Looking dapper, Cass,” Lance mutters in greeting as she slides up beside him, trying to pretend that she hadn't slipped out in the middle of the king's big speech. He glances over at Eugene, sat beside Rapunzel at the front table reserved for the royals, and then back to her again. “Tell me, which one of you is the groom again?”

“Don't you dare draw anyone's attention to this, Lance. Raps has no idea how petty this makes me look to onlookers.”

He bursts out laughing, which quickly dissolves into a fake cough to deter the few people who turn to stare at him disapprovingly. “Haha, hmm. Uh, you know that was definitely intentional on her part, right? She wants you to feel included.”

“Included? I just feel like I'm third-wheeling a wedding.”

“Isn't that exactly what's happening?”

She groans quietly, before bursting into polite applause as the king embraces Rapunzel tightly and then raises his glass, before taking his seat. Edmund rises, and she can already see Eugene looking nervous at the weird shit he's about to start spouting to the unsuspecting audience.

“I came back here to support them, not to upstage Eugene at the after party.” She chews her lip. “Maybe I should change. D'you think I should change?”

“Look, Cass, Eugene knew about the matching suits ahead of time. If he had a problem with it he would have said something, believe me.” Lance grins and shakes his head. “I was just messing with you before about the third wheel stuff. You're their equal, don't you get that? This might as well be your day too.”

Cass pinches the bridge of her nose. “Don't say this stuff to me, Lance, or I'll seriously start feeling depressed. I need a drink. Is there any booze left, or is it all out on the street?”

“Unless they're planning on breaking out the communion wine, I think we're out of luck.”

“Damn it. Maybe I should just hide in the bathroom for the next six hours.”

As the toasts conclude, Rapunzel and Eugene are called to the dance floor for the first wedding dance. The orchestra rise as Arianna removes the train from Rapunzel's hair, and she and Eugene make their way to the centre of the venue with their hands clasped. Rapunzel's eyes search in the crowd as she walks, finally locking in on Cass as the conductor motions for the band to play.

“I love you,” Rapunzel mouths, and Cass weakly nods before losing Rapunzel's attention to the sweep of the music and the arms of her new husband.

…

“Cass!”

Rapunzel finds her on the steps, having put some distance between her and the rest of the party about an hour ago. After a couple hours of shit-talking bad dancers with Lance from the sidelines, catching up briefly with her father, and downing about a third of the punch bowl in an attempt to avoid conversations with people, Cassandra is all partied out.

Rapunzel's hair is mussed from hours of relentless dancing as she patters down the steps and flops down beside her, uncaring if the dust from foot traffic leaves a mark on the fabric.

“Hey, newlywed. You having a good time?”

“Of course! Oh, Cass, aren't the orchestra just wonderful? They play the classics, for my parents, but the upbeat stuff was a great surprise! When I'm queen, we'll dance like this at every function, mark my words!” The gleam in her eyes only brightens as she adds, “Besides... I keep stopping mid-step and thinking, I'm married now. I get to spend the rest of my life with Eugene. Isn't that just – just wonderful?”

“It is.” Cass offers her the warmest smile she can muster. “I'm so happy for you, Raps, really. You and Fitzherbert are going to have a great life.”

“All three of us are.” Rapunzel scoots closer and rests her head against Cassandra's shoulder. If only time could stop right now, Cass wishes silently, she wouldn't ask for anything ever again. “Cass, you are both my future. It's been so hard to find time to be with you today, and it's driving me crazy! You deserved to be up there with us today, you know?”

“But Corona law doesn't allow it,” Cass says softly, as if saying the words delicately will shelter her heart from fully feeling the weight of them. Rapunzel swallows and nods.

“Mhm. Yeah, it... it doesn't.”

She reaches for Cassandra's hands and squeezes them in her own. Cass can feel Rapunzel's wedding band dig slightly into her index finger, and tears spring to her eyes.

“Well,” she forces herself to say, “it's okay. If you had to marry either one of us, it should be Eugene. He's the more stable presence in your life, after all. He can help you keep this place afloat, while I – while I'm off travelling.”

“Let's not talk about this,” Rapunzel whispers, a pleading tone creeping in. “This... this should be a happy day for us, Cass! The start of something new!”

“You're right. Raps, this is a happy day. And – and I mean it, Rapunzel, I am so happy for you both. My best friends get to be happy together forever. Why wouldn't I be?”

She stands up quickly and holds her hand out, pulling Rapunzel to her feet. Rapunzel stares at her for a heartbeat, face clouded with some emotion too tumultuous to unpack in this moment, before reaching over and wiping a tear away as it spills over from Cass's eyes.

“I know you are.” Her face softens into a smile. “Hey, dance with me? Please?”

“I don't know, Raps...”

“Just one dance?” she asks, biting her lip. “I'm about ready to turn in, but... it wouldn't feel right if I didn't share at least one dance with the woman I love the most.”

“That's sweet of you. How will the man you love the most feel if I take the last dance?” Cass asks, quirking an eyebrow as Rapunzel begins tugging her up the steps by her wrist. “And your father, for that matter?”

“Oh, Eugene won't mind, silly,” Rapunzel laughs airily, marching them both towards the centre of the dance floor as other party-goers begin to stare. “And my father isn't dancing with you, I am.”

There are some whispers as they begin to dance slowly, stepping in time to a waltz; it's more of an open secret than anything, the way Rapunzel and Cassandra are with each other, but it still feels pretty brazen all the same. Cass is a bit rusty on her feet, having gone years since she last danced ballroom-style, but as she stares lovingly at Rapunzel's face, counting the smattering of freckles on her nose and seeing her own flustered face in Rapunzel's eyes, she realises it doesn't really matter. The steps are bullshit; everything is, except the hand clasped in hers and the other curled around the back of her neck.

Out of the corner of her eye Cass spies Lance, grin a mile wide, offering his hand out to Eugene. They start their own dance, a little clumsier, a little more comical than their own. Rapunzel giggles as they waltz past, Lance almost knocking into them as they spin.

“See? Eugene and Lance can make their own fun.”

Cass smiles back, exhaling slowly. There are still a few people watching with rapt interest: Queen Arianna, looking misty-eyed; Cassandra's father, fidgeting a little, his anxieties no doubt feeding off of the nervousness in Cass's own body language; a little girl she doesn't even know, clad in a waistcoat and pants, looking like she's seeing someone who mirrors herself for the first time. But as interest in their dance begins to wane, so do her fears.

“Dancing still isn't really my thing,” she confesses, as they begin to slow down. “It feels... awkward.”

“Oh.” Rapunzel pouts. “But, you know, gotta try everything once?”

“Of course. I can stand it if I'm with you.” She leans in to press a kiss to Rapunzel's forehead, but thinks better of it, leaning back again. “I, uh... yeah, it might be time for me to turn in, Raps.”

Rapunzel's smile fades a little in disappointment, but she nods. “Yeah. It's about time for us to leave too, so...”

“You're leaving tonight?”

“Yeah. No time like the present, right?” Rapunzel winds her arm around Cassandra's, clinging on as she calls over the din of the music. “Eugene! Are you ready?”

“Sunshine, I'll be right with you,” he calls back, in the midst of being dipped by Lance. Once he's back on his feet and says his goodbyes in a bone-crushing hug, he joins the two of them as they make their way to the edge of the dance floor.

“Is... is it okay for us to just leave like this?” Cass asks suspiciously. “You two don't need to make some kind of big announcement, or anything?”

“...Nah,” Eugene says after a long pause, exchanging a look with Rapunzel. “We can let the king and queen deal with that, right? Besides, the ship won't wait forever.”

Before Cass can protest further, Eugene slides up to the other side of her and links his arm in hers, and the two effectively march her down the steps and towards the docks.

“This is lovely and all, but I can't help the feeling that you two are kidnapping me,” she points out, as the three of them march on in silence.

“What! No! We – we just think you should see the boat! It's really gorgeous, and there's apparently an ice sculpture on board,” Rapunzel gabbles, starting to wax poetic in her ear as Eugene stands on the other side of her, equally enthusiastic.

“And get this – they didn't screw up my nose this time!! That's a huge deal, you absolutely cannot miss it-”

This weird pimping of the boat continues as they follow the path down to the harbour, greeting a few puzzled guards on the way as they tag along for protection. Cass can't shake the feeling that something extremely weird is going on. Eugene and Rapunzel have been shooting her odd looks all day, and she thought it was because her complicated feelings were obvious to everyone around her, but as they get closer and the ship comes into view, it definitely feels like there's a bigger story than that.

The boat is beautiful – the wood is dyed a deep cherry red, and the sails are the same rich purple as the Coronan flag, complete with the golden sun crest. On board, true to their words, is an ice sculpture, but as she strains her eyes, the sculpture depicting the happy couple looks suspiciously like a happy throuple, instead.

“Raps... Eugene... what exactly is going on here?”

“Oh, you'll see,” Eugene says under his breath, while Rapunzel giggles gleefully and gives no further answer.

Trunks of their belongings are already being loaded onto the ship when they arrive, and Cass notices a familiar satchel and carry on pack nestled beside one of Rapunzel's cases.

“Are – are those my things? Guys, what is going on?”

Finally, the two of them release her arms and she takes a step back, eyes darting all over as she tries to comprehend what the fuck is happening right now.

“Cassandra,” Rapunzel begins, clasping her hands together joyfully, “we're boarding the ship for our honeymoon, and... we were hoping you would like to come with us.”

She stares. “...But why?”

“Why?” Eugene scoffs. “Why indeed, Cass, let me think. You're our best friend, you're in a relationship with my wife – something as intimate as a honeymoon doesn't just happen with two out of three when it comes to us, you understand?”

“But – but this wedding isn't for us, it's for you,” splutters Cass, still wondering if she knocked her head at some point and woke up in a parallel universe, where things like a honeymoon for three were commonplace. He rolls his eyes, hard.

“Cass, look at us. We're wearing the same freaking suit. You do the math.”

“And we had our own wedding dance,” Rapunzel chimes in. “Even if you didn't really like it.”

“All right, just... stop, okay? Give me a minute to think.” Cass is starting to feel dizzy. “I – I know you both love me – in different ways,” she adds sharply, as Eugene opens his mouth. “But this is... pretty crazy. Even for us. I mean, people will talk about this, guys.”

Rapunzel and Eugene exchange amused glances. “Cass, everyone who knows us knows, and everyone who doesn't have a pretty good guess about what goes on between us three,” Rapunzel says slowly. “You don't have to worry about that anymore, do you understand?”

“It's different now!” Cassandra protests, shaking her head in pure, unfiltered amazement. “You two are married now and it's – adulterous. Probably. Maybe even treasonous? God, my head hurts.”

“So it's not a cut and dry situation, that's fine!” Eugene throws up his hands in exasperation. “But damn it, Cass, you're acting like this is the end of days. If you stuck around more than a few days at a time, you'd realise that the people of Corona really don't care as much as you think they do.”

Cass opens and closes her mouth a few times, unsure of where to even start with protesting everything they've been saying to her. She loses the train of thought anyway once she lays eyes on Rapunzel, with a desperate look in her eyes as she watches Cass, fidgeting with her hands.

“Cass,” she says quietly, taking a tentative step forward, “we can't force you to come with us, but we would really like you to. So we can right this – this rigid law that stops us all from being happy.”

“...Okay, now you've definitely lost me.”

Rapunzel makes a frustrated noise in her throat, running her fingers back through her hair and resting both hands on the back of her neck, like she so often does when she's trying to think.

“Cassandra – once we are outside of Coronan waters, the laws don't apply anymore.”

“...And?”

Eugene half-laughs, half-coughs, and Rapunzel shoots him a pointed look before continuing more gently, “And, when we're out at sea, certain... marriage laws... don't apply either.”

She bites her lip, hoping this will be enough to get the gears turning in Cassandra's head, but she stares on blankly.

“Oh, for christ's sake!” Eugene slaps his forehead and pulls Cass along to stand beside Rapunzel, staring them both down with folded arms. “Cass, I don't know how many times we have to spell it out for you, but this has always been your wedding day too. If you want it to be, anyway.”

The words finally seem to hit home, and she stares between them with eyes as wide as a deer being stalked.

“What?” she squeaks.

“Cassandra, I have wanted to marry the both of you for as long as this has even been a conversation,” Rapunzel explains, and her voice shakes a little with her next words. “Of course this is crazy, everything we do together is crazy! And, Cass? If you don't want to get on the boat and do this... I'll accept that. But – but I hope, after all that we've been through together, that you want to be my wife as much as I want to be yours.”

Time moves slowly as the weight of these words sink in, and Cass glances between Eugene, who is beginning to look emotional just in the presence of this proposal, and Rapunzel, laying her heart on the line just to show Cass how much she matters.

“You'd really do that? For me?”

“With you,” Rapunzel corrects, mouth splitting into a grin as her eyes gloss over with tears. “Cass, I would sail to the ends of the Earth if it meant I could marry you when we get there.”

“Oh god,” Eugene says in a hushed voice. He turns away, hand over his eyes. “You're both killing me here.”

“Can it, Fitzherbert,” Cass says on instinct, before a laugh bubbles up from her throat. “Raps, I – what do I even say to that?!”

“Say yes already, oh my god!”

“Eugene!” Rapunzel shakes her head, giggling helplessly. “Sorry, proposals get to him.”

Cass gives a watery laugh. “I'll bet. What's he going to do when we actually get married, huh?”

Rapunzel blinks a few times, then gasps in delight. “So it's a yes?!”

All Cass can do is nod before Rapunzel throws herself at her, hugging her tight enough to choke. Even with all the oxygen being squeezed from her lungs, Cass feels like she can breathe for the first time all day.

There's the sound of a throat being cleared behind them, and they turn to see a guard looking a little awkward to interrupt.

“Excuse me. Um... the smaller bags, should we load them on the ship, or...?”

“Yes, you should,” Cass says, barely able to contain her cheer. “Wherever these two go, I'm going with them.”

The guard shrugs, quickly turning back to the remaining luggage, and Cass cups Rapunzel's jaw, pressing a quick kiss to her lips before hiding her face in the top of Rapunzel's hair.

“Aww, don't be shy! I loved that!” Rapunzel giggles, pulling her in closer. “I loved that so much. Wherever we go, you're coming too. Yep... that's going in my journal for sure.”

“No,” groans Cass, still giggling despite herself. “Please, no record of anything sappy I say ever again.”

“Too late. See, you should know by now, Cass. Everything mushy we ever say will be immortalised in our wife's notebooks for the rest of our lives,” Eugene sighs, slinging an arm around her. Cass nods, keeping close as they steer her towards the boarding plank.

Our wife. It feels too fucking good to be real.

“This isn't a dream, right?” she asks suddenly, as they're halfway up the plank. “This is really happening?”

“Of course it's real, art can't imitate life!” scoffs Eugene, looking a little offended. “This face can't simply be replicated in dreams, Cassandra.”

“No one is saying anything about your face, Eugene,” Rapunzel sighs, shaking her head fondly.

“You know what, Fitzherbert? You've got a point. If this were a dream your nose would be a totally different shape, for a start.”

“I don't get it! How hard can it be to draw somebody's nose in accurate proportion to their face?!”

As they take their first steps onto the boat and the plank is removed, they turn to see a few familiar faces have gathered. The parents have come to wave their children off, in a quiet moment of finality before the next chapter begins. Arianna waves to them, her aura simply overflowing with joy, Frederic watches on with a stiffer wave, clearly still coming to grips with what's about to happen once the boat leaves Corona. Edmund, stood off to the side, is loudly asking Hamuel why their good friend is tagging along for the journey.

A little further back, Cassandra's father watches on. Upon first glance, she freezes; Rapunzel's arm is still holding her in close, and she nods towards him, trying for a smile. He nods back, slowly at first, before raising his arms to wave.

He is called over by Arianna and sheepishly joins her, his eyes never fully leaving Cass as he does so. Overwhelmed, she glances down at Rapunzel, who is leaning with her head against her shoulder, still beaming and waving at her parents.

“My father knew about this, then?” she asks quietly. Rapunzel shrugs, a shy smile on her face.

“I know we don't need it, but I wanted his blessing. I wanted him to know that you're loved, and you're gonna live a long life and be okay.”

The regal trill of trumpets fill the air, as the small cluster of guards on the dock stand to attention. A few words are read from a prepared scroll, carried away by the ocean breeze before Cass can hear, and then suddenly they're moving. The faces of their parents are growing smaller, the stretch of ocean growing larger, and Cass exhales shakily before turning to Rapunzel and Eugene.

“I think I'm going to puke,” she confesses.

“What?!” squeaks Rapunzel, alarmed.

“Well, now would be a terrible time to tell us you get seasick,” Eugene jokes, clapping her on the back. “Seriously though. You okay?”

“I'm fine. I just... realised how much of what was said happened in front of all those strangers. And then our parents. God, I'm gonna jump.”

“Yeah, no jumping,” Eugene says firmly, tugging her away from the boat's edge by her shoulders. “How long until we're out of Coronan waters.”

“Less than an hour.” The tremors are back in Rapunzel's voice again.

“And there are... aha! Three hours until the clock strikes midnight. You're in luck, ladies. If we play our cards right, this day will go down in history as both our anniversaries. How's that sound, huh?”

“Sounds like everything I've dreamed of,” Rapunzel sighs, melting against Cass. “Doesn't it feel good just to be here and not having to hide it?”

“I mean, we're embarking with a very small crew for a private ceremony outside of Coronan waters,” Cass points out. “Feels pretty hidden to me.”

Rapunzel pouts. “Ah, you're right.”

“You know... I think it's better this way. I wouldn't want it to be some public affair anyway,” Cass says quickly. “But yeah, this still feels like I'm in some sort of fever dream.”

“Want me to pinch you to be sure?”

“If you pinch me I will kill you. And hey, what was all this about a shapeshifter check at the gates, huh, Fitzherbert? I missed your wedding vows just so you could mess with me?!”

“Oh, that. I thought it would be funny!”

The ship sails off, disappearing into the evening sky, and even as she's bickering with Eugene and being held back by an exasperated Rapunzel, Cass can't help believing that this might be the start of her own happily ever after, after all.

#cassandra appreciation week #cassandra week #tangled the series #tts #cassunzel #unknighted dream #tts cassandra #rapunzel #eugene fitzherbert

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flipflap-flipflap · 4 years ago

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Did you think I was done talking about Ookami Shounen? Did you think you were safe? Well you were wrong because I am a fountain of benign insight and the world is my diary. I am legit excited about this post though. I wasn't expecting to have this much to say! But this is one of my favorite types of symbolism to talk about, so I guess I really do have a lot to say about the subject.

Transitory spaces are a fun thing to play with the symbolism of. Just ask Kunihiko Ikuhara. Busses, trains, crosswalks, commutes, these kinds of things. They are neither the origin point nor the destination. By definition, transitory spaces are indicative of motion and change, carrying people from one point to the next. But they're not one way only. Just as growth is not a linear process, you often find yourself returning to where you started. Thus they can represent stagnation, addiction, and recession just the same as they can represent new opportunities, cycles, and growth. They are a place of passing acquaintance, a packed train full of anonymous faces. But every now and then, you might just have a chance encounter...

This is a post about the usage of such spaces in my new favorite manga, Ookami Shounen.

Spoilers ahoy below the cut.

Ookami Shounen is a crossdressing manga. And what is crossdressing if not a transitory act? Like a magical girl transformation sequence, it is neither your starting point nor your destination, but a bridge between two points. You cross into the next gender, and then you cross back when it comes time to remove the wig and makeup. So of course I find it significant that three of the most major locations in this manga are transitional spaces.

Let's start with the bridge. We see it three times, and is even frequently noted by multiple characters as an important place. It's where Itsuki and Tokujira (and Miyama) first met. It's where Itsuki goes to have a meltdown, and where Miyama pulls him out of it. And it's also the very special spot Tokujira picked for them to meet up when she finally decided to confront the truth.

Zooming out, what do bridges in general symbolize? They're rigid connectors. You start on one side and, via the bridge, cross over to the other. You may cross back and forth, but by definition it's not a place you're meant to stay. It's just a tool for crossing an obstacle.

Remember the context of why Itsuki first had to cross this bridge. It stands between the salon and his house, a physical divide between his dual lives.

And that's what crossdressing is to Itsuki: a crossing point. The act of crossdressing is the bridge between Itsuki's dual lives. On one end of the bridge is Itsuki ♂, where his honesty and freedom lie, but also his unhappiness and solitude. On the other side is Itsuki ♀, an existence filled with joy and laughter, where his two dearest friends reside, but it is a place built on a crippling guilt. They are worlds apart, divided across a chasm. And all that connects them is this flimsy bridge of lies.

And so it's interesting to look at the scenes that happen on this bridge. A bridge does not just denote separation: it also connects. And Itsuki's not the only one who can cross this bridge. Miyama and Tokujira both reside on Itsuki ♀'s side of the bridge, a place that Itsuki ♂ does not exist. And so they have to cross to the other side to meet Itsuki ♂. They both even try crossdressing as a means to better understanding (though, only one takes to it).

The salon is the next one on the list, but...the symbolism here is really right on the package. It's a place people go to become someone new. Literally. Ibuki even says it.

So I really don't feel compelled to linger on this one. You can connect all the dots yourself. Crossdressing, crossing, yada yada.

The last location is a biggie: the torii gate. Torii gates mark the transition between a shrine and the outside world, the boundary marking sacred ground. So let's think about the two scenes that happen here: it's where Tokujira first asks Itsuki to help her overcome her fear, and it's where Itsuki drops his lie.

What is happening in these scenes? Itsuki is, in the first, committing to his lie. And in the second, tearing it down. In the context of these scenes, and the entire manga, what is the sacred ground? And is he crossing into it or leaving from it in these scenes? This is just my rambling speculation past this point.

Along with marking boundaries, torii gates also serve a spiritual purpose: as cleansing those who pass beneath them. And that I think is an important piece of this puzzle. I think the sacred ground symbolizes honesty, conviction, and the knowledge that what you are doing is good. The outside world symbolizes insincerity, doubt, and fear. Along with plenty more in those veins.

In that first scene, Itsuki has conviction. His mind is clear, and he is determined to help Tokujira. But from that point on, his guilt and doubt piles higher and higher. He started on the sacred ground, and has crossed into a world full of uncertainty.

And then, when it all becomes too much, he purges the fear and doubt in this same place.

It's more of a purification by fire than you'd expect passing through a torii gate, but that's what it is. He has crossed into the land of sincerity, and can now confront what he has done with honesty and the knowledge that everything he does from here will be working down the better path. There is of course still a lot to work through, guilt to overcome and emotions to sort, but his doubt about his actions going forth are gone.

I certainly am not implying that crossdressing is the sin that is made here. The sin is the lie, the duplicity. Crossdressing itself was only the tool used, the bridge that was crossed to reach the destination.

That makes three. But there is one more very special location I want to talk about in the context of this post: the library. I think the library is fascinating. In the midst of all these transitory places, what does it symbolize? Going back to the first paragraph of this post, transitory spaces are a two-way street. They always lead backwards just as much as they do forward. And that place we keep regressing back to is the library.

It is the trap that Tokujira has fallen into and cannot escape from. It's symbolic of solitude, and a cruel complacency with one's own negative thoughts. A place where you will not be challenged: like her bedroom, it is her castle wrapped in thorns.

This is really wrapped up with a beautiful bow in the last page of the final chapter. It ends where it began, with the library.

They're not there any more. We've shed the lies and the thorns, and so too we have become free of the library that facilitated our solitude for so long. Yes, I am crying typing this.

Transitory spaces, like anything inherently rooted in symbolism, are one of my favorite things to explore in analysis. It's rare to see it so blatantly in-your-face as an Ikuhara work, and although they're prominent in Ookami Shounen it's certainly not on that level of obvious. But it's still a fun thing you'll spot if you know to look.

#ookami shounen wa kyou mo uso o kasaneru #analysis

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handsofdarkness · 5 years ago

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Within Temptation’s Sharon Den Adel: “Sometimes I Lose It, Emotionally”

Within Temptation vocalist Sharon Den Adel looks back at her life in music, reflections on motherhood and feeling “naked” onstage…

You’ve come a long way since you first picked up a microphone. What would your teenage self think of how things turned out? “It would be mind-blowing for her. I was 14 when I first started singing with a band while at school. That seems so far away now. Growing up in the Netherlands we didn’t have too many examples to follow. There were bands like Shocking Blue and Golden Earring, but they never seemed to reach too far outside the country. Being a full-time singer certainly wasn’t considered to be a future job.”

How did your parents react when you told them that’s what you wanted to do? “They said I could go to music school but they really wanted me to learn flute, piano, and how to read music. That didn’t sound very cool to me and I didn’t want to do it. I told them I wanted to skip all of that and just start singing, because I believed I was good at that. They wanted to support me, but in their own way. I never did learn to play the flute. They soon realised I was a good singer, but they didn’t think you could earn a living from music without being able to read notes. I still can’t!”

Each Within Temptation album has sounded notably different to its predecessor. Was it a struggle to find an identity? “It is something we were actively and consciously doing, or searching for. We have always wanted to push the borders of what we felt were limiting us within the scene. It’s a good challenge and it keeps things interesting. We like to reinvent ourselves on every album. If we had to stay the same as we were when we started, I doubt we’d have kept the band together so long.”

In 2011 Robert quit being part of the touring band. How difficult was that for you both? “We didn’t like it, but it was the best thing for both of us. We had actually come through a break-up before that. We broke up as a couple for a little while in 2008. When we got back together we decided the band didn’t work too well when we’re both touring together. We’re hard-headed people and sometimes it’s too much to be working together all the time. Now it works best with us writing in separate rooms. We send emails to each other rather than talk. It can be a fragile thing, but if you’ve worked with your partner you know it can be horrible. We can get into a fight within five minutes. Within the world of Within Temptation we collaborate with different people, and that works well.”

You don’t ever write music together? “No, never. I send ideas to him, and he either works on those, or he sends something to me and I work on that. We don’t sit together in one room. We tried it that way for a long time and it wasn’t working. On our first two albums he would write the music and I’d come in and work on the vocals. Since then I’ve got way more involved in the actual music. We can’t write together, but we’ve learned from our mistakes and have found a way that works.”

As a mum of three, how do you balance career and family life? “I found it hard at first. I had to change the balance of my personal life and the band. In the past I would go on tour for six weeks or more at a time, and I’d be away from home a lot. Now we manage it so that we tour for two weeks and then have a break, and then we go out again. It’s generally two weeks on the road and then two weeks at home. It’s more expensive that way, but it keeps the band alive. Everyone has family commitments.”

Within Temptation songs are always invested with considerable emotion. Which songs are most meaningful to you? “The last album was hugely important for me, coming after the loss of my father. I was still in an emotional state when I was writing Resist with the guys. Holy Ground is particularly meaningful to me, as is Supernova. The Cross [from 2007’s The Heart Of Everything] is another significant one, but there are so many. It’s not just because they deal with subjects personal to me, but sometimes songs relate to people around me. I may be a bystander, but you get sucked into people’s lives and their challenges because you care about them. I take parts of my own emotions along with things that have affected other people, and then integrate those into a song. Because of that we get through a range of subjects on our albums.”

Are there any you find tough to perform for personal reasons? “Say My Name [from the U.S. edition of 2004’s The Silent Force] and Forgiven [The Heart Of Everything] are hard songs for me to sing. You’re so naked on stage with those. Sometimes, and without meaning to, singing those songs brings back so much that you find yourself in an emotional state. It’s beautiful really, because I am not ashamed to show that side of me. That feeling – you can’t get closer to the origins of a song than that. You want to connect with the feeling, but not to the point where you lose it, emotionally. But sometimes I do.”

Did the success of 2011’s The Unforgiving and 2014’s Hydra change you as a band? “Not really. You only see it when you look back. At the time you’re carried away by the flow of everything and you don’t always see things changing. Afterwards, I look back almost with surprise and understand that it was all pretty successful. Of course you note where you are in the charts and that’s always a sign that something’s happening, but it’s only later that you realise how important it was, or how people really understood and connected with a certain song or album.”

Did you feel under pressure to maintain that level of success? “Success is not something you can control. Even after [second album] Mother Earth in 2000, people were wondering whether we could keep it up. Every album has brought a different kind of success; it might be musically or it might be because more fans have discovered you. The only pressure we feel is about whether we still matter to the music scene. We want to make music that feels important to people. Music is essential to life, so being relevant to people is the only aim we have. It’s like a circle: you give, and you get back.”

What do you think caused the writer’s block you experienced in the build-up to last album Resist? “At a certain age, things start happening for the second time in your life. When I was younger my grandparents died, and then as you get older more people leave you. It’s inevitable. It’s that circle of life. It causes you to stop and reflect on what’s important. The problems began when my father started getting ill. There was too much emotion and I couldn’t deal with it. For me, when there’s too much emotion I can’t write. I feel overwhelmed by it all. I need to be able to put it in a place, to know where it’s coming from and how to deal with it. Only then can I make music. I can’t do it when I’m right in the middle of it.”

Did the band come close to breaking up? “In the beginning of that period, I didn’t know if we could come back. Eventually, it was that uncertainty about the future that enabled me to explore the emotions I was having. I was talking to everyone and realised it wasn’t just me going through it. Everyone was having trouble coming up with new music. Of course, we wanted to continue. Music and this band is my passion, but I realised that we had to change the balance. It also helped to realise that there were a lot of new things happening in music, and not just within our scene, so we took inspiration from those sources, too. My heart and roots are in metal and rock, but I like all kinds of music. The challenge was to interpret something that might be happening in pop into our own genre.��

How important was your 2018 solo project My Indigo in getting things moving again? “It forced me to get out of my comfort zone. It made me look at music in different ways and get creative again. A lot of what I learned helped when it came to Resist. The song Firelight was originally written for My Indigo, for example, but we roughened it up a bit and it ended up on Resist, so it was a sort of bridge between the two. Writing rock music again came naturally afterwards, and that was a huge relief. When you’ve done a lot of intimate stuff, the heavier material then seems to come more easily.”

Resist brought new sounds and themes to the table. Is it a one-off or the start of a new era? “We felt like we developed a lot on this album, but overall it’s still only a small step and we hope to take things even further, along similar lines, in future. The album was inspired by the way we live today, with everything done on the internet and the way that takes away our privacy. Often we are not aware of the impact social media has on us, or that certain companies know so much about what we’re doing. There are not enough laws to protect our privacy. Back in the Second World War people would burn archives, for example, to not give away the places that Jewish people were living. But now all that information would be available digitally. We don’t see the whole picture. We turn away from the ways in which data about us and our lives is being stored and used.”

Does it worry you that your children were born into a time where this seems normal? “The scary thing is that the younger generation, such as my children, don’t remember a time when this wasn’t the case. I know it makes me sound really old, but it’s dangerous that young people are so addicted to communicating online, and not in person or even on the phone. They’re in love with it; they don’t want to give it up. When I was young I had to go outside and talk to people and make friends that way. The worst thing for young people now is that they’re trying to do this through a phone screen, and actually they’re alone.”

How do you keep your voice in good nick on long tours? Nightwish’s Floor Jansen says it’s all down to her consumption of red wine, but she might have been joking… “(Laughs) If I’m honest, I also drink a lot of red wine, but I’m not so certain it’s that good for your voice exactly! In fact, being on tour itself helps you to maintain your vocal chords. It’s like a muscle, so it needs training. The more you do it, the smoother it gets. You just need to remember your warming up time. I drink a lot of ginger tea, too, which helps me out, but really, practice is everything.”

Word has it you’re already working on new music. What can you tell us? “I’m leaving for Sweden in order to isolate myself and focus on writing. Robert has been working hard on new music, too. That has been going really well. It’s a continuation from where we were on the last album, but in a more progressive way. We’re in a good flow right now. We want to take the sound we had on Resist and refine it even more. It’s heavy stuff that we’ve been coming up with; both heavy and up-tempo. That’s making me happy!”

#Sharon den Adel #within temptation #2020 interviews

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firelord-frowny · 4 years ago

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I saw a Post about like ~symbolism~ in literature and how a lot of folks kinda instinctively balk at the idea of it in a “cigar is just a cigar” kind of way and it got me thinking some thinkey thoughts that i’ve thought for a long time and like

For the most part I think people who dismiss that kind of stuff so quickly are just, plain and simple, people who don’t care much about writing as an art form anyway. Sometimes literature just isn’t someone’s favorite way to experience art, and so they don’t feel invested in devoting any amount of brain power to interpreting things beyond what they see on the page. And that’s fine! That’s how I am with most visual art. I just say “ooh, pretty” and leave it at that. I don’t really know or care much about the meaning or intent or what certain colors represent or why the subject has a certain expression on their face. I’m sure an actual artist or someone who’s just passionate about art would be all over that shit! Analyzing and appreciating and theorizing. But for me, it really isn’t that deep. Either I like it or I don’t like it, and I carry on with my day. And if someone insisted that it’s imperative that I learn how to ~interpret~ art, I’d probably be hella frickin annoyed. I mean, would it be a good skill to have? Sure! Any skill, no matter how obscure, has the potential to come in handy in life. But like. We don’t all have the time, energy, or ability to become adept in Every Skill Ever. We pick and choose what matters to us most, and we don’t worry so much about the other stuff. So, that’s how I think a lot of folks feel about literature, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that that’s the case. Some people just! Aren’t interested!

And for me, as a writer, I can honestly attest with 1000% certainty that I never once have intentionally included symbolism of any kind at all whatsoever.... and yet it’s still there. It happens ALL. THE. TIME. where I read over something I wrote years ago and discover large and small ways that I, without even realizing it, used various kinds of symbolism in lots of places. Some examples:

As a character’s mental/emotional state deteriorates over the course of the story, their living space gets more and more cluttered

As a character becomes more detached from their friends and family, their living space becomes more and more barren

A fire (candle, fireplace, campfire, etc) gradually burns itself out as a heated conflict is resolved between two or more characters

A character’s profession as a photographer highlights his feeling of detachment from the world - the world “happens” around him, but he can’t engage with it. He’s the cameraman - not the subject.

Golden Gate Bridge representing two opposite things - gates of heaven, and bridge/road to hell

A character gets abducted by aliens - the character is named after a biblical figure who ~went to heaven while alive~ (I’m honestly BAFFLED at how I managed to coincidentally give the character the name that I did, because I legitimately know jack shit about the bible lmfao. It’s never been important to me to research names before I name a character, because actual parents don’t name their children with foreknowledge of what their future will entail. So I just name them Whatever.)

A character hates thunderstorms. Thunderstorms = unresolved fears and traumas. Thunder/lightning/wind/heavy rain are emphasized in moments where the character must confront their traumas.

A wise, calm character frequently drinks tea. Other characters, when experiencing moments of clarity, are drinking tea, too

Threadbare bedsheets symbolizing how time wears things down

Two characters on opposite sides of a doorway - one side, outdoors, is dark and cold and dreary. The other side, indoors, is light and warm and homey. Symbolizes each character’s current place in life.

An untrustworthy character always approaches people from behind

A character happens to be standing near a window every time they mention wanting to be free or every time they feel cornered and want to escape

A character who’s turning their back on their friends and family throws away their welcome mat

A character whose friends and family are never there for them has a welcome mat that still looks brand new after years of no one coming to visit

Character A allows character B to wear her deceased husband’s coat - character B can still smell the husband’s sweat in the coat. The husband’s presence still lingers in character A’s life.

The steps of the Lincoln Memorial represent neutral ground. I don’t even know why, but all my scenes that take place at the Lincoln Memorial deal with characters meeting there to bury a hatchet between them.

A character, Steven, symbolizes reality. Madison is an untrustworthy narrator bc he’s just fuckin insane, and Nixon is untrustworthy because he’s biased by his feelings for Madison, but Steven’s perspective is always fact-based, and he has very few personal opinions. Steven sets the record straight.

Nixon = inner peace and unconditional love

Franky = confidence and authenticity

Andromeda galaxy = hope for a better future

Noise = Madison’s current state of mind. Scenes in which he’s overwhelmed and stressed include vivid descriptions of all the sounds around him. Scenes where he’s calm and collected have little to no emphasis on sound.

Madison’s friend gives him a tattoo of a solar eclipse - Madison wonders if he’s meant to be the sun, or the moon in front of it.

Tactile sensation = scenes where Madison feels safe and comfortable emphasize physical sensations like softness and warmth and smoothness.

Light = Moments of clarity tend to take place in sunlight, especially surrounded by shadow

Dark = Moments of fear or uncertainty take place in darkened areas

Characters that bring negative energy tend to stand in a location that blocks light and casts significant shadow

Characters that bring positive energy bring light into a room, perhaps by opening a door, pulling back the curtains, or literally just turning the lights on

There’s just??? A lot. And none if it is something I do ~on purpose~ in the sense that I didn’t just sit there and go “Ah, yes, this character feels like an outsider who can’t interact with the world, so I’ll make him a photographer.” It just... happens that way. It’s not something I ever consciously practiced or studied or strove for. It’s just what comes out of my brain when I sit and let a scene play out in my head. I emphasize noise when Madison is overwhelmed because that’s just what I experience when I watch the scene in my head. The welcome mat is unused just because when I watch my character coming home and the “camera” pans downward, an unused welcome mat is what I see there. When character B put on character A’s dead husband’s coat and he smelled the sweat, that’s just... what happened! That’s just how it played out in my head!

It’s not intentional, but it’s there, and it’s there just because it felt like it should be there. And I’m acutely aware that some people aren’t going to catch those things, or they’ll interpret it differently, or they’ll hone in on completely different details that I would have never noticed, but are in fact right there on the page.

And I think that’s the fun thing about writing and about storytelling and about art in general. We can convey our vision as vividly as possible, we can go so far out of our way to take the reader/observer exactly where we want them to go, but we don’t really have any control over what they ultimately see or think or feel. It could be meaningless to them, or they can draw conclusions you never meant for them to draw. They can uncover your biases and weaknesses and insecurities, your prejudices, your fears. They can completely miss the point, or they can discover things you tried to keep hidden. It’s all fair game. And that’s! What I love about it! What I intend my work to be is obviously important to me, but someone else is only really going to care about what my work meant to them, and it’s almost definitely not going to be exactly what had in mind. I think that’s fuckin great. I think that’s the only way I know how to connect with other humans.

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whateverisbeautiful · 5 years ago

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Reveling in Richonne

#145: The “Still Here” (9x06)

I continued watching this whole season but I know for some, 9x05 was understandably the last episode watched in full or at all. So if anyone wants to just know the details of the Richonne/Grimes Family connections that happened in this new TWD era, I got you. 👌🏽

9x06 had a lot hanging on it, being that it would be the first episode since Rick’s departure. Plus, it would have the show’s largest time jump when it jumped ahead six years. And a six year time jump means we’d essentially be reintroduced to these characters, after they’ve gone through over half a decade’s worth of stuff. That’s about as much time as we’ve watched them in these nine seasons.

I, for one, was quite curious to see how this following episode would go down to see how people have been since losing Rick. First and foremost Michonne and Judith. And I actually enjoyed this episode for a couple of reasons. But the biggest reason is that this episode still had Richonne content and a spectacular Richonne development.

The dictionary quite literally describes Richonne as the gift that keeps on giving. So even though Rick was gone in these following episodes, through Michonne and their family he was very much still here.

But first, Rick’s final episode was called “What Comes After” and it ends with a bit of an answer to that.

Because within a moment of Rick flying away in the helicopter, we move six years into the future to see a pre-teen Judith. And y’all, the actress who plays Judith is precious and very talented. 😊

I love seeing that this older Judith had a mini katana. She’s clearly a product of everyone in the Grimes family. Rick, Michonne, and Carl too. 👌🏽

Pre-teen Judith Grimes was our first introduction to this new TWD era. And just from her few seconds on screen, I knew this girl had been raised to be a strong woman just like her mother. And 9x06 delves into that a bit more.

Again, what I appreciate about 9x06 is that there was actually a ton of Richonne and Grimes family moments because like it’s been said before; Richonne doesn’t die. So naturally, there were heartfelt connections to be made about these two in the following episodes. Starting with this opening moment.

The episode begins with a monologue from the queen and she’s talking to Rick, which is simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking. She starts by saying, “Hey. I know you’re here. I’m still here too.”

It means a lot that Michonne knows Rick is still with her. Like no matter where he is and no matter how much time has passed, she’s confident that he’s here with her and she wants him to know she’s here too and still standing, which is moving.

I appreciate this as the opening line of the time jump. And it’s poignant to start this new TWD era with Michonne and to hear this line from her. Cuz loss can make people completely lose themselves and, while Michonne did feel lost when she lost Rick, she’s clearly found a way to still be here. And while life situations did affect her, she’s still Michonne. She’s not entirely a shell of a person like she became after her losses in the past.

And y’all, I especially love this cuz it’s yet another “I’m still with you.” moment.

She says, “Maybe you already knew that.” And this line hurts cuz she does’t know Rick’s fate. She doesn’t know if he’s looking down from above or what, so it’s heartrending to know that for years that’s had to be this unanswered question for her.

But the sweet aspect of this line is how R&M are so interconnected, so part of her can genuinely feel like he knows and sees her even now.

Michonne says, “But it hasn’t gotten any easier. Sun keeps rising. Days keep passing. World keeps spinning. Time...it just keeps moving forward. Weeks, months, even years go by, while you try to make sense of it all. Try to find where you belong. Try to look ahead to a better future.”

And y’all, why they gotta make me emotional just seconds into this show. It’s really tough to hear how as much as Michonne has fought to still be here, these years still haven’t been easy because doing life without Rick was something she never wanted.

Michonne wanted it to be the two of them taking on life together, so it makes sense why it’s been so difficult to have to carry on without him. She’s resilient so she has carried on, but that doesn’t make it any easier, even years later.

To hear her say that it’s been difficult to find belonging is also so heartbreaking to hear because when she and Rick were together that’s when they most felt a sense of belonging. Cuz they belonged together.

When they had each other they were with who they were meant for and who they were magnetically connected to and who understood them so deeply. So without him, she’d had to go on without fully feeling that deep sense of belonging she felt with him.

So next, she looks regal as she rides her horse alone in the woods (which is sad to see because you know if Rick were alive he’d be right there on this road riding a horse next to her. There’s almost this space left open in the shot for where he would have been beside her 😔)

And we hear her gentle voice over say, “But the truth is…the path ahead has only grown darker. It’s harder to see. You can feel so lost. So alone. So desperate for something, anything that might show you the way.” Y’all, fr it’s devastating just writing this out. 🥺 Like truly...

Cuz Michonne was the way for Rick, she was the one who knew the two of them could always find a way together, and she showed him the way constantly. But the thing is, Rick was the way for her too.

He was a guiding light for her just like she was to him. And without him, now she has to search for a way cuz she doesn’t have him to help find the way alongside her.

She ends up searching through a van and she finds a clover and more importantly a little sheriff figurine that resembles Rick in his season one/two days.

Y’all, Rick and Michonne were each others lucky charms and it’s like the clover and figurine allude to that. 💯

We also see that she’s wearing a wedding ring on her necklace which makes me wish even more that Rick and Michonne would have exchanged rings on camera before he left (especially since clearly TWD’s twitter knows she was Rick’s wife), because then it could just be crystal clear that the ring she’s wearing was between them and no one else. But Imma just tell myself they exchanged rings off camera and this is the one she gave him lol. 👌🏽

As she finds the figurine, she takes a moment to somberly look at it and goes on to say, “But even now, after all this time surrounded by darkness, there are still flashes of light. Tiny beacons that shine out, calling to us.” Y’all, he’s still her light.

I love that her speech turns to the positive when she finds something that reminds her of Rick. He’s still a huge part of what gets her through cuz their love is everlasting. 🙌🏽

And it’s deep that whereas she seemed to stuff down her losses a bit more in season three, here she’s grown to the point where she can find hope and closeness to Rick in anything that reminds her of him, be it a ring, figurine, or even the very bridge Rick last stood on. She’s not running from the connection and love and memory of him, if anything she’s turning to it to give her strength.

She says, “It’s not enough to light the way ahead but it’s enough to keep going. Keep trying. Keep fighting.”

It’s not enough because nothing will compare to the real thing of having Rick with her. The real light for her was Rick so of course these little moments that make her feel Rick’s presence offer a light, but only being back with Rick would light the way ahead the most. Thank goodness that day will come if these movies come along.

And I also found this part of the scene interesting cuz during this line there’s a moment of Daryl watching as a colorful bird takes a worm from a walker and feeds it to her baby birds. And, intentional or not, that totally connects to what has kept Michonne going and fighting all these years; her kids. 👌🏽

She continues, “Keep dreaming. So that’s what I do. Every second of every day. For you. For us. I haven’t given up. And I never will.”

For You. 😭 That part has me all the way messed up and emotional. She keeps going for him. Keeps dreaming, trying, and fighting for him. That’s a love supreme if I’ve ever seen one.

And plus it reminds me of Rick preciously thanking her “for you” in 9x03 so I’m extra here for it.

And then to also say for us, as in the two of them and the family they created. 😭 It’s the cherry on top of this emotions sundae. Six years later and Rick and Michonne are still absolutely an “us”. It’s still the two of them in this together. Always and forever.

Y’all, I haven’t stopped feeling emotional about this. It’s so deep to hear Michonne want to reassure Rick that she hasn’t given up and she never will. I stan a regal and resilient fighter.

In 7x12 Michonne thought she lost Rick and she had this moment of defeat and uncertainty if she herself would want to go on without him. And later in 7x12, Rick helped her see how important it would be for her to go on and lead and stay standing even if she lost him cuz the people would need her. And so this moment in 9x06 feels like her letting Rick know, she’s honoring Rick’s wish.

Since losing Rick, Michonne has had to keep going not just for her but for their two kids. And I respect that even with all the immense adversity and hardship this woman has had to face, she doesn’t give up. It’s what she loved and admired about Rick and it’s what she’s more than capable of as well.

And she wants to reassure Rick’s presence that she still tries and still fights and that’s never gonna change no matter what life throws at her. Cuz boy has life thrown some insane stuff at her. But she’s still here and still standing cuz that’s what queens do.

It feels like this moment not only honors Rick but Carl too, cuz on Carl’s last day he told Michonne she’d have to be strong for their family and all these years later sis is still doing exactly that. I’ve always adored the character of Michonne but this just made me love and respect her even more.

We see her pocket the Rick-esque figurine, which is precious that she sees the meaningfulness of it and wants to bring it with her. Just this whole sequence and dialogue from her is beautiful.

And then before the title sequence plays we see Michonne leave on her horse and they pan over to reveal that she was saying all this right at the spot of the bridge where Rick blew it up.

It’s striking and deep for her to be here all these years later cuz, as much as it brings up painful memories of one of the worst days ever for her, it’s also where she last saw Rick. So it’s where she wants to be just to even feel close to him.

And the smile. Just even having this moment to connect with him can put a smile on her face and my eternal internal tears have been cued.

She started this with saying “I know you’re here” because he’s always with her. I love that she knows that and it’s almost like you could feel that in this moment.

And I know this is the kind of speech that had she spoken it to Rick in person, it would have gave him his entire life and motivated him to take on the world. 😌

One of the many things, Rick and Michonne have in common is how resilient they are and it’s cool that the first bit of info Angela wants to give us in this six year time jump is about Michonne and how she has been pulling through despite losing her true love. The power of Richonne. 🙌🏽

Y’all, the episode after Rick leaves still started with a Richonne moment. I feel blessed. 😋 #GiftThatKeepsOnGiving!!

I always call them the Get-Things-Done Grimes cuz of the way R&M always go out and take care of business. But I’m adding another tittle to their long list, cuz Rick and Michonne continue to prove they are the Never-Give-Up Grimes.

For Michonne to say out the gate that she keeps going everyday for Rick and for them is just next level wonderful. No amount of time can tear apart Richonne.

And again, it means a lot because when she lost her family back in season three, she did “give up on being a person” but her love with Rick is so strong and alive that rather than make her stop living life it’s kept her going and given her a will to live and try to create the world they dreamed of. A world where their children can thrive. 👏🏽👏🏽👸🏽😭

gifs source: @michonnegrimes

#richonne #s9 #9.06 #The Never Give Up Grimes

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raeynbowboi · 6 years ago

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The Other Ships in My Fleet

So, I’ve already made a post talking about how I feel about certain ships in My Hero Academia, and another post about some of my other fandoms. Both posts got a lot of likes and reblogs, so I figured I’d talk about my ships from other fandoms. If this post also gets a lot of positive feedback, I’ll consider starting a second page to post my fan content for all of my fandoms, while still maintaining this one almost exclusively for My Hero Academia and Kiribaku specifically.

Klance (Keith x Lance) Voltron: Legendary Defender

I’m fully aware that this ship is probably not going to happen, but it’s really the only ship in the series that speaks to me. I will not lie, I am a big fan of dark and moody dating happy-go-lucky, and the rivals to friends to lovers element is just icing on the cake. It’s only further helped by Lance being Keith’s second-in-command. They help each other grow, and the trust that forms between them is cute and endearing. They also shared a major element to their characters. Both of them feel out of place, Keith because of his Galra heritage, and Lance because he doesn’t have a niche role.

Rabies/Rae x BB (Raven x Beast Boy) Teen Titans (2003)

While there wasn’t a lot of shipping fodder for these two in the 2003 iteration, the two are a canon couple in most versions of the teen titans, having been married in the comics (more than once, I think) so this is sort of a unique ship in that I ship it across every version of the two characters. Sporting a snarky moody goth and a lovable goofball, their dynamic was like that of an old married couple, or a moody teenager and her annoying little brother. Still, the two were good friends, and even though their personalities were polar opposites of each other, they had a lot of quiet, emotional moments together in the series. Whether you want to read them as friends or potential lovers, I think it’s hard to deny that there was a genuinely nice bond between the pair.

Garnet/Rupphire (Ruby x Sapphire) Steven Universe

As the show’s literal physical manifestation of love and a perfect relationship, it’s hard not to like the relationship between these two adorable lesbians. With the show sometimes being edited to remove the queer elements, it’s absolutely hysterical that they had the two get married in an episode very important to the plot, and put Ruby in the dress so that absolutely nobody could misinterpret her as a male. Editing it would only confuse viewers as to why everybody is in wedding attire, thus taking a very satisfying stance against censors and bigotry. Garnet also marks a first in children’s programming as the first same-sex wedding in a children’s animated show, at least as far as I’m aware.

Pearl x Mystery Girl Steven Unieverse

Although only featured in a single episode and having no dialogue, Mystery Girl (possibly named Sabina) is a very important element to Pearl’s character, being her first step toward moving on from Rose Quartz. There were fans that hoped that Mystery Girl would come back, but even if she doesn’t, she’s still important to Pearl’s character development.

Amedot (Amethyst x Peridot) Steven Universe

I know a lot of people prefer Lapidot, but frankly I find Lapis too selfish and cold-hearted to be ready for a relationship as she currently stands. I find Amethyst to be a better fit for Peridot, since they both share issues with their height. That, and the way the show frames them has romantic comedy tropes interwoven into their scenes. But even if they’re just friends, Amethyst’s approval means so much to Peridot.

Stevonnie (Steven Universe x Connie Maheswaren) Steven Universe

I’m not usually a fan of lead boy dates lead girl ships, as they tend to be very poorly done, and many feel forced, or are just boring and predictable. However, the bond between these two feels very genuine. They don’t feel like a lead boy and lead girl forced into a relationship at all. They come together very naturally, and the show takes its time to build their friendship up slowly. The show remembers that they’re kids first, friends second, jam buds third, and love interests last.

Tomstar (Tom Lucitor x Star Butterfly) Star Vs the Forces of Evil

Considering the show’s themes of monsters, racism, and not judging evil at face value, this ship serves as the most thematically poignant to the narrative that the show is setting up. It also makes Star a stronger parallel to her “evil” great great something grandmother, Eclipsa. Both are monster sympathizers with monster boyfriends. While the blood moon bonds complicate things, I see this ship as the most relevant to the themes and messages the show seems to want to send.

Tomco (Tom Lucitor x Marco Diaz) Star Vs the Forces of Evil

More of a joke/crack ship, I know it’s unlikely, but the entire episode of Friendenemies had romantic comedy written all over it. Between the literal in-universe break-up song to the show’s promotional art being inspired by dime store pulp romance novels fuel the fire that keeps this ship afloat.

Bumblebee/Bumbleby (Blake Belladonna x Yang Xiao Long) RWBY

Partners, teammates, and close friends, the ship really took off starting in season 2 during the episode “Burning the Candle”, as Blake spiraled into self-destructive habits due to obsessing over her problems. Nobody is able to get through to her until Yang comes in to talk to her. She doesn’t lecture her or beg her to stop. She instead forms a bridge of trust by first opening up about a similar situation she’s been in, and how she knows first hand that this sort of spiraling can only have negative impacts. They are shown to be parallels, as both girls are negatively effected by a loved one no longer in their life, and the trust issues that spring from that loved one’s actions. Yang was abandoned by her mother, a problem which she mentions Blake repeated. For Blake, it was the uncertainty of trusting someone’s character, and being afraid of someone slowly turning into someone else. She explicitly states in season 3 that her ex started off a nice guy, like Yang. The first time he hurt someone, there was a reason. There was always an excuse. Until eventually, she became the pardoner. The one excusing his actions. And, she expresses the fear that Yang could be following a similar path. Both girls have been hurt by someone in the past, and both girls are afraid of being hurt the same way again, and inadvertently hurt each other the same way as someone else has. It’s also known that RWBY characters tend to represent or be based on fairy tale characters. Yang is Goldilocks, and Blake is Beauty from Beauty and the Beast. However, based on the lyrics from Red Like Roses “Black the Beast descends from shadows, Yellow Beauty burns gold”, there seems to be an implication that Yang is the Beauty to Blake’s Beast. This is interestingly supported by Blake’s name. Blake is a Celtic name meaning both Black and White, and Belladonna literally means Beautiful Woman in Italian, but is also the name of a very poisonous plant often mistaken for the harmless blueberry. The duality of her name could be pointing to how she plays the dual role of both Beauty and Beast.

Seamonkeys (Sun Wukong x Neptune Vasilias) RWBY

A bit more of a crack ship, these two lovable idiots are far less likely to be canon, but since Sun is Yang’s main competition for Blake’s heart, I have no problem shipping him off elsewhere with his goofy best friend. Although they act more like usual best friends in the canon show, their relationship does have a much gayer tone in the less canon comedy show RWBY Chibi, where Neptune almost seems to act like a jealous clingy girlfriend a lot of the times. I doubt the ship would ever sail, but I mostly ship it because they’re cute together. Although, with season 6 just starting, I got the vibe that Sun was stepping aside to let Bumblebee sail uninhibited. Sun doesn’t really have a third popular ship, it’s just Black Sun and Seamonkeys, so this ship may be gaining validity in the future.

Gumlee (Marshall Lee x Prince Gumball) Adventure Time with Fiona and Cake

The male counterpart to Bubbline (Princess Bubblegum x Marceline), there’s no real difference between the two pairs other than their genders, and Gumball preferring baking while Bubblegum prefers science. Because they are effectively just gender-swapped clones of the canon ship, anything canonical between the girls is also technically canon with these two. It’s not that I don’t like Bubbline, but when given the choice between gay or lesbian versions of a couple, I’m going to be naturally inclined to lean toward the gay version.

Sasunaru/Narusasu (Sasuke Uchiha x Naruto Uzumaki) Naruto

Maybe there’s a cultural aspect I’m unaware of, but it’s a bit of a running gag in the Naruto fanbase at this point that Naruto is obsessed with Sasuke. So much so that he seems to care about him way beyond normal friendship. With how much these two obsess over one another, it’s no surprise why this became such a popular pairing. Their dynamic even dwarfed Hinata’s heartfelt confession of her love during the Pain Invasion Arc, because as soon as that ended, did Naruto go talk to Hinata? No, he immediately started thinking about Sasuke. Hinata definitely got the shaft in part II, which is a shame because I really loved her character.

Bob and Linda Belcher Bob’s Burgers

More of an honorable mention than a full on ship, I wanted to highlight them as one of adult animation’s only married couples that actually still like each other. In the wake of the popularity of the Simpsons, and the cementing of the genre with Family Guy, the stock dynamic of idiot husband and enraged but supportive wife became a recurring trope. Before long, every single animated sitcom-esque family fell into this very annoying cliche. So, finding a couple in adult animation that are not only married but still manage to show they love each other is amazing. Their marriage isn’t on the rocks, they find time to at least try and be romantic, and even when they have bets or are on opposing sides of something, the show never forgets that these two love each other at the end of the day.

Captain Swan (Killian “Hook” Jones x Emma Swan) Once Upon A Time

This relationship between Captain Hook and the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming might sound odd on paper, but this couple is by far one of the healthiest relationships in the series. Both Hook and Emma come from broken lives, and together build themselves up to something stronger. In a melodrama surrounding fairy tales, both characters are surprisingly grounded, realistic, and skeptical cynics, a very stark contrast from the usual wide-eyed lovey-dovey couples Disney is known for. Emma’s tendency to put up walls and Killian’s tendency to always put himself first are both slowly broken down over time as Killian tries to tear down Emma’s walls and get to know her while she works on building a foundation of trust between them. The pairing feels very organic, and they definitely feel like the most realistic couple in the series as they both take turns stumbling and working toward being good for each other.

Rumbelle (Rumplestiltskin x Belle) Once Upon A Time

In the early seasons, this couple was beautiful to watch. I truly loved their chemistry and dynamic, as both of them were given such strong characteristics without simplifying either of them. However, as the show went on, it started to lose that power. The couple started to feel toxic as Belle kept waiting for Rumple to change, and he kept on lying and lying. It even reached a stopping point. A perfect one. Rumple was redeemed. He was a good man again. He could be the man Belle deserved. But instead, he slipped right back into his old ways. It was then that I fell off the band wagon for this ship. I loved it once, until I got sick of watching him hurt her over and over.

Daenerys Targaryen x Khal Drogo Game of Thrones

Although together only for a short while, this power couple won audiences over very quickly, as Drogo’s gruff but passionate affection mixed with Danny’s growing confidence and rise to power made these two iconic.

Renly Baratheon x Ser Loras Tyrell Game of Thrones

Another short-lived relationship, the remarkable thing is that Renly was literally the only character vying for the throne with fully good intentions for the realm. He was concerned with the needs of the people, and was the only morally good candidate in the War of Five Kings. Sadly, the ydidn’t get much screen time, but they were still a strong couple.

Peraltiago (Jake Peralta x Amy Santiago) Brooklyn 99

A rare exception to the don’t force the leads to date rule, the show let them form a bond over time that went from a friendly childish rivalry to a friendly dating rivalry. While each character experiences change and growth, it is not at the expense of their personalities, and the progression feels like it was meant to happen.

#ships #shipping #fandom #steven universe #star vs the forces of evil #game of thrones #brooklyn 99 #once upon a time #ouat #star vs #rwby #naruto #voltron legendary defender #voltron #teen titans #bobs burgers #adventure time

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digimarketingexpert · 3 years ago

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How to Start Your Career In Full-Stack Development

A report by India Today deems full stack development as a milestone in the technology sector. The scope for full-stack development has increased considerably over the last few years, making it one of the most promising career options for youths. Owing to the importance of the full stack development function, most entrepreneurs are now ready to pay premium salaries to these professionals.

So if you are intrigued by technology and love to remain glued to your PC screen, full-stack development could be an excellent career opportunity for you. In order to start your career in full stack development, there are certain things you must know. This article lists all the important information you will need to kick start your career in full stack development.

Understand What is Full Stack Development?

It is the process of developing the front-end and back-end portions of web applications. The professionals who undertake this job are called full-stack developers. They are web developers or engineers who design web applications and websites by working on the front-end, back-end, and databases.

Front-end is the visible part of the web application or website that the users interact with. It is also called the client-side or customer side of the website. The job of the front-end developers is to optimize the visible parts of the website, making it responsive for various mediums such as PCs, smartphones, tablets etc. On the other hand, the back-end refers to the behind-the-scenes tech responsible for computing business logic, fulfilling user requests, and securely storing important data. The back-end developers construct and refine the software that operates the company’s database servers and proprietary software.

Full-stack development combines the job of both front-end and back-end developers. A full-stack developer acts as a bridge between the two and develops client and server software. They work on all facets of development, and hence the skills required for full stack developers are more complex than front-end and back-end developers. Let us look at those skills in detail.

Identify the Skills Required by Full Stack Developers

Owing to the complexity of the role, you need to have extensive knowledge of a variety of skills. Diversity is the key to becoming a competent full stack developer. Some important skills required to become a full stack developer are front-end technology, development languages such as Java, design skills, database web storage, version control system, HTML/CSS, NPM, security, soft skills, and web architecture. A good full-stack web development course will help you hone these skills effectively.

Determine Your Timeline and Return on Investment

Another important factor is the time frame within which you want to be job-ready for the full stack development industry. The timeline is very subjective and depends upon an individual’s experience and academic background. If you are fresh out of school, you should ideally opt for a full-time full-stack web development course that includes a degree. On the other hand, if you are looking for a job shift or have prior experience in the finance sector, you can go with a short-term full-stack web development certification course. In India, Hero Vired offers the best certificate program in full stack development with cloud for mobile and web. While choosing a full-stack web development course, it is very important to check it for the cost so that your investment is justified against the returns.

So, What is Next?

Now that you know what the full-stack development career demands of you, get started today! You can choose from the plethora of full-stack web development courses available online. We suggest an online course because it helps you save a lot of time and resources. Moreover, with the looming danger of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a lot of uncertainty. Hence, an online medium of education works best.

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kylydian · 7 years ago

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Impressionism in Breath of the Wild

2017 was a year FULL of incredible soundtracks. The amount of experimentation that occurred in game music this year was off the charts. Believe me, we’re going to be touching on all of these games eventually as there’s simply too much good information to pass up. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is probably my soundtrack of last year, and truthfully, it’s why I decided to start this musical journey. Breath of the Wild does an insane amount of good for the video game world, but how does it do it? And what inspiration does it draw from to do this? Let’s talk about Impressionism to find out.

Let’s get a timeframe of this concept first. Impressionism falls at a unique place in music history, and can be viewed from a few different perspectives on the timeline. Many subscribe to the idea that it falls as an extension of the Romantic Era (Beethoven, Chopin, Mahler, Wagner etc) and took harmonic extremities of the time to a new level by doing (somewhat) away with common music theory practice in western music. Others view it as a kind of bridging the gap between modernism and classical music innovation of the 1900s. But it could also be viewed as the start of modernist movement, as the Impressionists were trying to break away from the shackles of the common man’s music. I like to think of it in this last way, even though the true answer is that it’s probably a combination. Regardless, there’s only two Impressionists in music history that we talk about: Ravel and Debussy. Going even further, I’d even say that Ravel blurred the line between Romantic and Impressionist.

Again, I want to state that Impressionists were trying to break the shackles of music history.

So, what is impressionism? The quickest explanation is that it’s painting pictures with music. Say that you want to paint a picture of a morning sunrise, what would it look like? Well, it would look like a morning sunrise. You’d be able to see it physically and say “Man, that’s a nice morning.”

This is what impressionists did with music. They would write music that would describe locations, people, or ideas through music alone. Using melody, harmony, rhythm and motifs they wrote music that was meant to describe something. By saying this, it makes it sound like all video game music is impressionistic, but it’s important to note that’s not accurate. Impressionism is more concerned with how the piece feels evocatively, rather than focusing on traditional music techniques. There’s a very particular feel that impressionism seeks at all times. It’s better to think of impressionist music asking ’Musically how does this feel?” rather than asking “How does this sound?”

So again, you’re probably a bit confused. Video game music exists to accompany gameplay, so of course you’re going to write music to the feeling of scenes, characters, locations etc. I would think of the separation in this context as impressionism describing experiences, while traditional video game music heightens experiences. Music in video games is meant primarily to heighten the experience for the player.

So. Zelda.

Zelda has a huge musical history of heightening player emotions through music. My god they have a practically non-stop touring orchestra that only plays Zelda music. The only other series I know that has this is Final Fantasy. Zelda music has been written to accompany every aspect of gameplay and story, and people will fight tooth and nail on what their favorite track, OST, or musical cue is from the game. From the huge sweeping orchestral scores, the beautiful melodies, and the implications behind them, it’s hard to argue against Zelda having some of the best video game music. I can talk about any Zelda soundtrack and tell you why it works from a traditional music standpoint, but in the end the answer just boils down to a few things.

· Memorable themes.

· Emotional connection to gameplay

· It’s simply good music.

So, what does Breath of the Wild do? It gets rid of a lot of themes, has silence for a lot of the soundtrack, and is considered by many to not be good music.

Damn.

So. Impressionism in Zelda.

Breath of the Wild reworked EVERYTHING about the Zelda series. You’re given all of your tools in the beginning, you’re told to go kill Ganon instantly if you’d like, or you’re told to go in a direction. But you don’t have to follow this. You have an enormous landscape to explore that sprawls forever. Gone is the world music, gone is the character music, gone is the Ocarina or other instruments. It’s just you and the wild. Visually, no longer do you see a mountain off in the distance and ignore it as background information. Instead you might think “Oh. I can go there if I want.” So, you go there in silence. You start climbing the mountain, encounter snow that quickly turns into a winter veil. And suddenly you realize that music has been playing for who knows how long. The music is far in the background, almost as far back as the mountain was when you first noticed it. There’s no singable melody, but it wouldn’t be called pure ambient music either. This music isn’t accompanying what you’re doing, where you are or who you’re with. It doesn’t do any of that. Rather, if the mountain had naturally occurring music, what would that music be?

It would be the music of a mountain.

This is Impressionism in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It’s music that you can’t sing, music that you might not notice, but music that describes your experience.

Impressionism describes, themes heighten.

This is the exact experience I had when the soundtrack really clicked for me. It’s music that entirely describes the Breath of the Wild experience. On a mountain, what would you hear in nature? Probably wind, snowstorms, footsteps, and animals among other things. As I mentioned in a previous post, sound can have musical qualities, but isn’t in and of itself music. Music can be written through sound design, but these occurring sounds wouldn’t be music. How would these sounds be translated into traditional music? I think the answer is through Impressionism. The music at this point in the game was answering the question “What would the naturally occurring music on this mountain be?” And much of the soundtrack is structured around these ideas! There are more traditional tracks in the game, but most of the environmental music is this way.

However, environmental music isn’t the only type of music that employs these techniques. A couple of the battle themes use similar ideas too. Take for instance the Guardian music. It starts off with a very skittish piano solo, and then brings in some more instruments at seemingly random intervals. It occasionally has a full sound, and features many syncopated rhythms. This is definitely battle music, but it doesn’t really feel like it accompanies battle. I’ve heard many people describe this music as frightening, and I think that’s very accurate! Guardians are something that you don’t really know a lot about, and even late in the game they can kill you extremely easily. Every time you encounter one of the large, quick ones, this frantic piano leads us into battle. And the piano sounds scared, mirroring what you’re probably feeling and doing as you try to distance yourself from the guardian to form a plan of attack. And throughout the track, it maintains a sense of fear, but the repeating piano starts to seem a bit braver as well and have staying power. The music appears to get more comfortable as you make it longer in a fight. Which is really neat, because the longer you make it against a guardian, the better you know how to fight them and the higher your chance of victory, meaning that even though the fear of death is still there, you know you’re capable at that point. The music reflects on this feeling. There’s some other stuff that happens in this music, but we’ll talk about that at a later date.

The music is battle music, but in no way is it traditional.

The harmonies and melodies used by impressionists were very unique too, and in listening to the music, the compositions reflect this. There’s long pauses between notes, harmonies move in parallel fifths or fourths at times, or there might only be a few notes. Scales used are often non-traditional and often have no resolution.

The Impressionism in Breath of the Wild has a strong impact on the overall game score. There are definitely other examples of impressionism in game music, but I think this is one of the best. I truly believe that a score like in the Zeldas of old simply wouldn’t work in this case. Location specific music wouldn’t make sense in most places, and an abundance of character themes would clutter the score. Even themes that represent feelings or emotions such as The Song of Healing, The Song of Time and The Song of Storms are absent. A few of these unique mainstay themes are used at different moments in the score, but overall they’re replaced with short ideas or musical cues to represent the same feeling.

I believe that Impressionism has a huge, and mostly unexplored place in the video game music world. Impressionist ideas shouldn’t be placed into every soundtrack, because the ideas won’t always fit. But in making games that feature exploration, or games that have a lot of ambiguity, I think Impressionism is an excellent technique to provide a bit more wonder and uncertainty to the world.

This might have been a lot of confusing information, especially for non-musicians, so here’s a short breakdown.

For Developers

· Game music often heightens the experience for the player, Impressionist game music describes player experience.

· Impressionism is a powerful form of music used to evoke emotions, ideas or pictures through sound.

· Impressionist music can be used for both specific and non-specific location music, but I find it to be most effective for non-specific locations.

· Impressionism is best served alongside a world that allows the music to accompany the world, and the world to accompany the music.

For Composers

· As with any genre of music, the best way to understand is to listen.

· Look for locations in the game and score that can describe rather than accompany.

· Impressionistic cues can be especially powerful, and often shouldn’t sound out of place next to a more standard soundtrack.

· Experiment with scales and harmonies outside of the common practice period.

It’s important for both developers and composers to remember that if the music sounds right, it probably is right. It’s hard to break molds of what we’ve already established, and that’s why we’re encountering a lot of backlash from much of the Zelda fanbase. What these people don’t understand is that if we had a score similar to Twilight Princess, Breath of the Wild wouldn’t make sense. The gameplay, story, graphics and world design of Breath of the Wild are all very Impressionistic as well, so it only makes sense to have a soundtrack that partially follows in the steps of Debussy.

This isn’t to say that Impressionism is the only style used in Breath of the Wild. We’ll be revisiting this game very frequently to explore other musical styles, and we might even do some analysis of the music at some point to find out specifics of what makes the music great.

#Nintendo #The Legend of Zelda #The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild #Breath of the Wild #Video Games #Video Game Music #Indie Music #Impressionism #Indie Game #Game Developer #Video Game Composer #Composer #Kylydian

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bubblesthemonsterartist · 7 years ago

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Ballet AU: Haki and Izana show Obi and Shirayuki the new choreography for the campfire scene

It’s a surprise when they enter the studio that night and find not Izana and Haki, but Mitsuhide sitting behind the sole table pressed close to the mirrored wall.

He sighs when he sees them. Or rather, he sighs when he sees Obi.

“Where are your glasses?”

Obi pulls back, frowning at the stacks of paper laid out on the table. “In my locker.”

“We got them for you for a reason,” Mitsuhide grumbles, sliding his off and holding them towards him. His face looks naked, his eyes smaller, but there’s a warmth and affection visible in his expression that they normally hide; a fond sort of irritation meant only for the other man. Shirayuki can’t decide if he looks more handsome with or without them.

“I use them all the time,” Obi defends, slipping them on a blinking a couple of times. Shirayuki’s throat goes dry. “I thought I was coming in here to dance, not read legalese.”

She can’t decide if Obi looks better with them on or off, either.

Although she can imagine the way he might look, bare except those thin wired bifocals.

Her face goes hot and she looks down at the table for distraction, but that is no better, his long tapered fingers skimming the edge of a stack of papers. She feels the ghost of them against her neck.

“The contract is always first, Obi,” she manages. Her voice sounds strange to her own ears as she seats herself at the table. “You should know that.”

Obi pauses and she can feel both men staring at her while she fusses with her own contract. The chair beside her slides against the floor and he takes his seat beside her.

“Of course I knew that.”

~ ~ ~

It’s a long period of silence, punctuated by intermittent questions, and Shirayuki presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose. Reading, especially this level of reading, is far different from speaking and the words make pain bloom behind her eyes. She squeezes them shut and then back open, frowning, before taking in a deep breath and then another.

Obi’s still reading. She suspects he would be “reading” all night.

Fine. She’ll go first.

Swallowing, she reaches out and uncaps her pen. Her hands do not shake as she leans forward to presses her name in ink to paper.

Obi touches her arm lightly.

“Is this necessary?” Obi asks, squinting at the form in front of him. “La Bayadère isn’t exactly avant-garde. Why do we need a non-disclosure clause?”

“We’re going to try out something a little different.” Haki’s voice echoes from across the room, catching off the cavernous walls as the door clicks shut behind her and Izana. Her grin is, for a moment, eerily similar to her partners.

“It’s a classic,” Shirayuki frowns, looking over at them. “Why do something unconventional that could affect the box office numbers?”

“You’re both unconventional,” Izana counters. “Are you saying we shouldn't take risks?”

She flushes, looking back down at her contract. Pulling her lips between her teeth, she looks at Obi and sees him considering their words with the same uncertainty.

It would be easy to make demands at this stage, but-

When would either of them have this sort of chance again?

“Ah,” Obi sighs, picking up his own pen. “It’s been on the stage, oh, a hundred years or so? I suppose it’s time things were freshened up a bit.”

~ ~ ~

“Take off your shirts.”

Shirayuki’s back goes ramrod straight. “Excuse me?”

Izana’s expression could best be described as mildly amused. “Both of you should take off your shirts,” he repeats.

Obi’s already stripping and Shirayuki casts a furtive glance at Haki. “I-” her cheeks grow hot. “I, um-”

“Shirayuki,” Haki’s grin widens. “Are you not wearing anything underneath?”

“I didn’t think I needed to!” she sputters.

There’s a quiet guffaw and she draws in on herself. For just a second, she thinks she sees the shadow of a laugh in Izana’s eyes. “Visit the seamstresses tomorrow to be fit for something appropriate.”

“Me too, Maestro?” Obi is battling his eyelashes, hands clasped over his not so exposed nipples. “Would they be able to find something more appropriate for me?”

Shirayuki stares at him, her lips trembling involuntarily.

“No,” Haki replies softly, looking at his scarred torso with consideration. Obi’s smile falters.

Izana nods in agreement. “The scars fit the role for the fue scene.”

Obi looks alarmed. “It’s hardly the right look for a Prince,” he laughs. It's tense.

“One that hunts tigers?” Izana asks, eyebrows raised.

Obi apparently has nothing to say to that.

~ ~ ~

She should have never trusted Haki’s angelic countenance. She may have the face of a Botticelli, but rumor had warned her that the world beneath it was like a Bosch: deep, complex, and not at all what it appeared at first glance.

She had not listened.

They stand apart now, her throat tight around her controlled breathes. Obi’s hand is warm around her wrist and her knees feel weaker than they should when he squeezes it. It’s too similar to her dreams – too much what she wants.

She has a hunch Haki knows that, too.

“Next, you should pull her to you,” she comments, circling them.

Obi nods, looking back at her, and with a tug, she gracefully closes the distance. His free hand rests on her back, hot and gentle and Shirayuki looks shyly at the floor.

Izana hums, circling from the other direction and Shirayuki takes a step back, her wrist still Obi's. “Try again,” he comments, glancing at Obi, “but this time do it like you actually want to take her to bed.”

“Oh,” is all that Obi says before she is pulled forward sharply, her hand coming up reflexively to brace herself and landing flat against his chest. Heat flares bright and sharp at every point they touch, her body flush against his from thigh on up. Swallowing, Shirayuki tilts her head back and he is looking down at her, golden eyes as molten as her bones as his free hand reaches up to cradle the back of her neck.

“Better,” Haki breathes.

~ ~ ~

The praise does not last long.

Obi’s hand fans out across her waist in a slow drag that churns thick sweetness low in her belly. She turns away from him, eyes lowered and extends her leg behind her for him to catch.

“Shirayuki,” Izana says quietly, but there is steel in the way his voice clamps around her name. “This is not the role of a blushing virgin on her wedding night. You’ve been waiting for this meeting eagerly.”

She can’t help but flinch as Obi releases her ankle, and she straightens, schooling her face towards obedience. She knows. She knows that her motions are awkward, technically correct but wooden, but-

It’s too much. Far too much.

“Is it really necessary for Nikiya to be so aggressive?” she tries.

“Hmm,” Haki closes the distance between them, gathering her up and turning her away from the two men to speak more privately. “Shirayuki. This is supposed to be a fun scene. Two lovers finally consummating their desires for one another.”

“But the choreography is so intimate,” Shirayuki whispers, mortified. “How can I do something so shameless in front of an audience of hundreds?”

“You can’t think it that way,” Haki replies, her voice low and close to her ear. “You can only think about how much you want your Solor to belong to you and you alone. You’re showing the audience that he’s yours.”

Shirayuki inhales sharply, glancing up, and in Haki’s eyes she sees that she has already given everything away.

“Seduce him,” Haki whispers. “The stage belongs to you.”

~ ~ ~

“So,” Yuzuri begins, glancing over her dinner.

“So,” Shirayuki responds.

Yuzuri huffs, taking another bite. “So Miss Prima… You missed the fun at the bar.”

Shirayuki hums.

“Obi’s friend is a lot of fun. They apparently danced together back in Russia.”

The food goes stale in her mouth.

“He looked really happy about her being here.”

“How good for him,” Shirayuki replies, setting down her utensils carefully and picking up her plate.

“Hey!” Yuzuri calls, watching her. “Are you going to finish that?”

She shakes her head, crossing their tiny kitchen. “I’m not hungry.”

“They’re not together.”

Shirayuki pauses, looking over her shoulder. Yuzuri’s face is… compassionate. “Pardon?”

“Obi and his lady friend. They’re not together.”

She squashes down the little bit of aggressive hope in her and empties her plate into the garbage. “I don’t care who he is with,” she mutters. “And I don’t see how you could know anyways.”

“The look on his face when he talks to her,” Yuzuri laughs. “Trust me. The way a man looks at a lover is very different from the way they look at a friend.”

Shirayuki’s stomach clenches tight. "Is that so?"

Yuzuri sighs dramatically. “You could always ask him yourself.”

She looks up in horror. “I could not.”

“You should,” Yuzuri insists. “He’s your primo.”

The words bring her up short. Her primo. It sounds… unreal.

“Anyway,” she continues cheerfully. “It’s important for you to know if there is a chance that a jealous woman is waiting in the wings. She looks like the type that would happily take out someone’s kneecaps.”

Shirayuki worries her lower lip. “…Yuzuri.”

“Hmm?”

“How do you seduce a man?”

Yuzuri freezes, mid-bite, and stares at her.

“Not because- not because of what you’re saying!” Shirayuki clarifies, bowing her head. Heat prickles the tips of her ears. “Haki- Today she told me- she told me to seduce him and-”

“Oh!” her voice booms. “You mean on stage. I mean it can’t be too different from–”

Shirayuki winches.

“No!” Yuzuri breathes. “You’ve never--?”

“I never had to! Both of the men I’ve—” her voice breaks off and she makes a vague hand gesture.

“Fucked?” Yuzuri supplies.

Shirayuki chokes on air.

“Slept with,” she amends.

“…Yes,” Shirayuki admits. “Both of them… pursued me. I never had to do anything.”

Yuzuri leans back, staring at her skeptically. “You’ve never seduced a man? Not once?”

Shirayuki looks across their living room, staring at nothing, and thinks back; No. Not once. But-

But she remembers a body crowding her in close in studio B, closer still when she had let him in; the smolder of gold flickering to confusion when she had invited him to stand by her side on stage; and then today when she swallowed her fear and closed the distance between them only to find another woman standing in the spot that she would try to occupy.

“Not successfully.”

~ ~ ~

Haki cannot press her front to Izana for she has grown too round, but she sinks back against him, face twisted pleasantly as he hides his face in her neck, one hand cupping her swelling breast and the other clenched around her thigh.

She pulls away, her loose hair flowing behind her like liquid gold. Her fingers hook under his chin and she draws him forward before releasing him and flitting away. Izana catches her but a moment later, his leg and arms wrapping around her and she falls back once more. He grinds forward, arching, and then catches her with one arm, lowering her down and down and down…

Shirayuki’s face feels aflame, watching them like this.

Izana braces above her, feet and hands to either side of her body, careful of her stomach and Haki stares back, the love and longing still embarrassingly carnal for a moment longer and then it drops from her face, melting into a grin. She turns her head to peak at Shirayuki from under the shadow of her partner. “You see?” Haki asks, panting. “It’s not that hard.”

Izana’s intense gaze hasn’t left Haki, and he hovers, perfectly still above her. Shirayuki is beginning to have suspicions about the circumstances surrounding their child’s conception.

“Mm,” Shirayuki nods.

“Go try in the studio once more,” Haki encourages, stroking the line of Izana’s forearm. “We’ll see what you look like on stage tomorrow.”

~ ~ ~

Obi grabs her arm, tight below the wrist and she leaps, curling into herself, her feet catching atop his thighs and her head tucking underneath his chin. His free hand slides down her back and she unwraps her legs, circling them around his hips and unfurling her torso until she is bent back over his arm. Hot breath fans through the lycra between her breasts and his hips roll once against hers.

She snaps up; he retreats – she catches her fingers in his hair, brings their foreheads to touch.

Their noses slide together.

They break apart.

~ ~ ~

The music stops, Shirayuki pressed flush against and staring up at her partner. Her breath is fast, but she can blame that on the dance. What she’s can’t do is blame the look in his eyes on anything but herself.

“Mademoiselle,” he husks, his voice rough like his hands where they cradle her arms. “That was not part of the choreography.”

She licks her lips and wishes that just once she could speak plainly. “I was improvising,” she breathes.

His hands flex, sliding up her arms, towards the curve of her shoulders. Her breath hitches. “May I ask what suddenly inspired you?”

“I- I-”

There is a rustle. Something falls over and they pause, turning towards the sound.

“Sssh! They will hear us!”

Obi’s eyes roll skyward, taking one step back and leaving her cold and exposed. “Mademoiselle Ashlen!” he calls, singsong. “I don’t believe your class is being held in the broom closet.”

~ ~ ~

“Why can’t you do that in front of the others?” Obi asks later, sprawled out across the floor and toweling sweat off of his face.

She rolls her head along the line of her shoulders. He’s still panting – they both are. “It just seems rather… private?”

He laughs, staring at the ceiling. “You have to move past this.”

Her voice falters, trapped behind her shame. “I’m trying.”

His face is serious when he looks back at her. “I know you are,” he replies softly. “You always try your hardest. We just have to find a way to get you to push through.”

Shirayuki smiles, the tension in her heart unwinding. “We might have to bring the stick out of retirement,” she teases.

His grin returns, but his eyes smolder. “Oh Mademoiselle,” he rumbles. “I think you’ve graduated beyond such punishments. We’d need to get more creative.”

Her throat becomes too tight for words. She turns sharply, staring up at the ceiling instead. “I’m sorry to make you stay so late,” she chokes when she manages to find her voice.

Obi groans, pushing himself up and she has a vivid thought of him rolling over, spreading out across her and-

-and doing slightly more than the choreography would allow.

“It’s not like I have anything better to do,” he says, coming up to sitting.

That feeling in back in the pit of her stomach. She said she didn’t care, but- “I thought you’d want to spend more time with your friend?”

His face turns down in a perfect frown. “Friend?”

“Yea,” she licks her lips. “The woman. At the bar.”

His lips twitch. “Torou?” he asks, letting out a bewildered laugh. She memorizes the name even though she doesn’t want to; the way his mouth takes her name makes her wish it would take hers as well. “She can wait. I’ve had a lifetime worth of dealing with her.”

Shirayuki tilts her head and- well, she doesn’t mean to pry, but Obi so rarely alludes to anything from before.

“Oh?”

He nods. “She knows where these tiger stripes came from,” he grins wickedly, holding out his scarred arms in exhibit. “I’m lucky these are the only ones you can see.”

Shirayuki’s smile falls. She doesn’t laugh with him.

~ ~ ~

The auditorium is dark and empty, the lights on the stage unfiltered and bright, but Kiki and Obi move in unison across the stage.

They were made for it.

Shirayuki swallows a sigh.

“It is curious,” Izana murmurs over her shoulder.

Shirayuki starts, wide eyes turning up to the man looking down at her as if she was a particularly irksome puzzle.

“What is?”

“It’s curious how you don’t seem to have any trouble emoting Morte de Nikiya,” he comments, glancing towards Gamzatti’s bubbling and bold steps in line with her Solor. “But you do with the Nikiya and Solor’s fue.”

“It seems so inconsequential,” she says quietly as Obi catches Kiki mid-leap, her voice nearly swallowed up by the brass. “To seduce someone who is only to belong to another.”

“That is part of the beauty and the tragedy,” he counters. “The way they burn eternally for one another.”

“Why expose her like that? He only burns for her when no one else can see them,” she says, glancing up. Izana’s eyes bore into hers. “Nikiya is only going to be humiliated and then thrown away.”

Izana stares down at her a moment longer than what is comfortable. She doesn’t look away.

~ ~ ~

“How are you coming along in rehearsals?” Zen asks quietly, walking alongside her towards the auditorium.

“Oh. You know,” Shirayuki shrugs. “It’s coming.”

“Shirayuki,” Zen sounds serious. When she looks at him, he’s staring ahead. “I know my brother can be… difficult. And unsettling at times. But take it from an old pro: he gets worse the more he likes you.”

Shirayuki blinks and Zen turns towards her, his face crinkling into a smile. Her lips twitch. “Thank you,” she whispers.

“For what?” he winks, opening the door for her and waving her in.

She laughs softly, walking ahead. The auditorium swallows the voices of the company's dancers, their voices loud and rambunctious so early in the morning, and she breathes a little easier. If Izana is pushing her that must mean that he isn’t having second thoughts; he still stands by his original decision.

Her happy mood plummets to new depths when she spots him.

There, next to Izana, is Torou, hip cocked out to the side and talking animatedly. Her figure is wrapped in lycra, foot out to the side as she stretches out her ankle. The former primo’s face looks intent, nodding periodically as Torou gestures wide and emphatic.

“Brother,” Zen’s voice bellows. “What is this?”

Izana blinks, looking up at the both of them. “I’ve arranged for Miss Torou to perform an exhibition for us this morning,” he says, using that tone that puts her teeth on edge. He inclines his head, eyes locked behind them. “And yes. Very good. Her partner has arrived.”

Shirayuki glances behind her and at the threshold of the door is Obi, stone faced and staring straight passed her.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Izana continues pleasantly. “But I thought it would be a wonderful treat for the company if you both would perform that dance of yours.”

Obi’s expression hasn’t changed. “It’s been awhile.”

“I’m sure you remember.”

He’s perfectly still.

“Come now, Obi,” Torou offers, her accent so much thicker than his. “Once more for old times sake?”

Obi smiles. It doesn’t reach his eyes.

~ ~ ~

“This is bullshit,” Yuzuri hisses behind her.

Shirayuki feels stretched tight as she watches Obi strip off his shirt. The motion leaves him looking more exposed than confident and the lighting- the lighting brings out his scars perfectly. “Yea..”

At her side, Kiki sounds confused. “Who showcases a new primo with another female lead?”

Yuzuri snorts. “Izana Wisteria, apparently.”

Zen lowers himself to the empty seat beside her. “Do you know what this is about?”

Shirayuki shakes her head, numb.

The first chords of the music carries across the stage and Shirayuki’s eyes widen, shooting across the stage and cataloging to the barest of props: a bed, a table, a smattering of chairs, and a batten lowered to far enough to exposed the stage lights. The chatter of the audience fades away.

Obi paces, discordant to the music, arms flexing, tension popping the veins of his neck and hands. He glances down at his watch before jerking, spasmodic, towards the table. Even with the music playing, she can hear his nails drag across its wooden surface, can see his face twist in half shadows. He glances at his watch again.

The scene is sporadic and uncomfortable, more contemporary than classic, more raw than polished, and it misses his normal grace but showcases his strength, contained as it is in short, sharp movements until- until it doesn’t. Until he is smooth rolls of shoulders and hips; until he is joints that seemingly no longer exist; until he is leaps which suspend him for an eternity in the air.

And then he falls, listless, a terre, staring blankly towards the audience.

The door swings open and Torou’s frame, wrapped in a pretty yellow dress, fills the entry, her lips curled, head held high and hips spread wide. The look in her eyes are wild, her head twitching, but Obi doesn’t see her like this. No, she’s careful: her movements smooth as she glides across the stage, legs reaching high in grand développé. With each step towards him, her extensions reduce, first to passé, and then to a simple classical walk before she jumps the last couple of feet towards him and lands hard next to his head.

Obi starts, pulling himself up to a crouch and the naked fear in his face twists into wanting, hands tentatively reaching up towards her. The wildness in Torou’s expression softens, her hands circling his face graciously as she sinks to her knees, and then her gloved hands rest upon the scar on his chest, pushing him back, back, back-

Shirayuki’s heart clenches with fury at the way he sinks so easily onto the floor, the angle showing too much of his face and-

How dare he? How dare Izana do this now?

Since she was a small child, she has never hated a dance; not one. But as she watches them, the vulgar elegance of their arched backs and tangled limbs, the way his hands grasp at the floor and the way her thighs holds his head there, she feels bile rise up in her throat, a trapped scream branding her lungs, she remembers that there is a first time for everything.

Zen jerks in the seat next to her, sharply pulling himself half up and then freezes. Shirayuki looks towards him, hopeful, and finds him perfectly caught in his brother’s steady gaze. Slowly, Zen lowers himself back into his seat, landing a comforting hand on her forearm.

On the stage, Torou has… finished. She tucks into a forward roll, swinging off of him and hips held obscenely wide and chest arched. Behind her, Obi scrambles from the floor, following, one arm wrapping around her and face dragging his mouth across her neck. Her crazed grin shifts into a scowl, just for the audience, and she rips his hand from her, crossing the room and appearing a cigarette in hand.

Shirayuki’s eyes water. She doesn’t want to watch this anymore.

At her other side, Kiki’s hand alights upon hers. Gentle. Soothing. She doesn’t want to take it but she does.

The cigarette has been lit, Obi sliding behind Torou and his hips grinding into her when she leans back, her weight dragging the both of them back to the floor. She turns in his arms, breasts pressing against his chest, and his head dips, nose tracing up along the arch of her neck. When he comes to her mouth, smoke billows in his face.

Obi pulls away, sharp, head turning from her and she bounds away with a playful grin. The sway of her hips is compelling, her lips spread wide and he crawls and then clambers and then chases as she flits about the room. She flirts with her dance, coquettish and sensual, teasing one moment and – chairs fly across the stage – vicious the next.

Shirayuki flinches back, knuckles white against her armrest when one chair is thrown with enough force to shatter against the wall above the bed. A broken mirror teeters and then crashes to the floor.

Obi is the picture of wanting, splayed out across the ground and he pulls himself up, his body arcing in a perfect half circle towards her. He is desperate, reaching for her. And she- and she kicks him.

Kiki’s hand squeezes hers, anchoring her, reminding her that this isn’t real, but-

But she touches his face so gently and does it again, his body twisting, rolling into a shoulder stand, looking all the world like a kicked dog, and Zen’s fingers twitch against her arm.

This isn’t real, she whispers to herself. This isn’t real.

She knows it’s coming. She knows it. But when Torou leaves him broken, sagging against the back of a chair to skip to the batten, a girlish kick to her step, enraged tears overflow, blurring it so she doesn’t have to see how she hooks the wires together in a shape of a noose. She blinks and her vision clears, and Torou is redirecting Obi towards her gift, mouth close to his ear when he balks in horror, pushing, then shoving him towards it.

Torou flees, slamming the door behind her, and it’s only Kiki’s grip tight at her forearm and Yuzuri’s on her shoulder that restrains her. Zen hand lifts from her arm, tightening into a fist on his lap.

It’s over quick. But she knows she won’t be able to forget the moment she witnessed him sliding those wires around his throat; she’ll never be able to not know the way his body twitched in its death keel, feet searching for the ground that lied several feet below his reach; she will always be able to recall the moment that he went still, face swinging away from them all, only a sweat covered and scarred back to remind them all of the man that lived.

The lights fade and the applause is hesitant, unsure of its welcome.

Shirayuki flies from her seat, Zen only a breath behind her.

What Zen lacks in reaction time, he makes up for in speed. He slips in front of Obi, back to Torou and extends his hand. “Wonderful performance,” he says grimly, taking his hand in a firm handshake.

At his back, Torou looks amused. Shirayuki screws up her courage, and takes the other woman head on.

“You both danced… very well. I was moved,” she says slowly before laughing, dabbing at the tears at the corner of her eyes. “Obviously.”

Torou's face goes slack in surprise. “Spasiba,” she mutters.

Shirayuki nods once, turning towards Obi. He looks… concerned. But not as much as she feels. Reaching up, she touches the raw pink mark against his throat.

“You didn’t have to make it look so real,” she scolds.

His face relaxes into a smile. “It’ll fade in less than an hour. I’m fine.”

“Are you?” she pushes, stepping closer.

He looks taken aback. “I’m always fine,” he replies softly, reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear.

She reaches up, catching that palm against her face and leans in, feeling the thrum of life inside him and guarding it jealously.

“Mademoiselle,” he breathes.

“It was nice dancing with you again, Obi,” Torou’s voice is loud, but the way she says it is… kind. Respectful of the space. “Maybe we could do it again sometime.”

She opens her eyes just barely and begs him with her eyes. Obi's face twists again in worry before glancing back at Torou. “I would prefer to not.”

“That would be a pity,” Izana says, coming up behind them. Shirayuki breaks away, stepping back but not releasing her hold on him. “Thank you for coming Miss Torou.”

“It was no problem,” the woman says, tearing her gaze away from the two of them to look Izana full in the face. “Always happy to help.”

“When did you say you saw them dance this, brother?” Zen asks, stepping in to block her view.

Obi angles them away from the conversation. “Mademoiselle?” he asks, leaning in low. “Really. I am okay. You see? As good as ever.”

“Shh,” she whispers, hand tightening around his wrist. “Just give me a moment.”

He’s still for a breath, and then she is being ushered forward, pressed to his chest and his free hand circling her back. Beneath her ear is heat and the steady rhythm of his blood. She counts the beats of his heart under her fingers.

With time, her distress subsides. But not wholly.

“We will try the fue scene again,” Izana says, quiet and intruding and unbearably loud. She doesn’t turn towards him. “Tomorrow.”

She nods.

#bubbleswrites #obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #pas de deux #ballet au #this is...#so so much dancing #so much #*falls over*

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warholiana · 5 years ago

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Nice Toronto review of my Warhol bio in the Globe and Mail — where I cut my teeth as a critic and journalist. So happy to see my name in those pages again, after almost two decades away! (Incidentally ... it seems that some Canadians who preordered have already received their books -- BEFORE the April 28 pub date here in the U.S.!)

Here’s the paywalled link: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/reviews/article-blake-gopniks-warhol-locates-the-man-behind-the-art-and-artifice/

And the complete text:

Blake Gopnik’s Warhol Locates the Man Behind the Art and Artifice

Review by Kate Taylor

If you had taken coffee with Andy Warhol before 1965, you might have been treated to a complex conversation about life and art in an ordinary voice. The whispering anti-art zombie who appeared in the mid-60s was as calculated a product as any can of soup. Indeed, so successful was this packaging that the public persona – plus Marilyn, Mao and the inevitable Campbell’s – is all anyone remembers. Who knew that the gnomic Andy was also a sensitive and gregarious man who had a mother, boyfriends, a flourishing career as a commercial illustrator before he became an art star and a lot of personal heartbreak after?

Blake Gopnik did. The critic has spent years researching his new biography Warhol at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the city where the artist grew up in a struggling family of Eastern European immigrants. (His parents were Carpatho-Rusyn, an ethnic minority in what are now Ukraine and Slovakia.) Warhol was a hoarder and diarist who also recorded many conversations; as well as diving into the mass of archival material, Gopnik interviewed dozens of the artist’s old friends and professional contacts.

The result is an exhaustive 900-page account that follows Warhol from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute of Technology to New York where he was drawing shoes and designing store windows when he began his experiments with Pop Art in 1965. From there, the book charts the rise of the notorious Factory of sex, drugs and supposedly filmmaking, managing to distinguish all the hangers-on and freaks without losing the reader, before covering the disco scene of the 1970s and the complete commercialization of Warhol’s art in the 1980s.

Gopnik had served as art critic for The Globe and Mail, the Washington Post and Newsweek before tackling this project, and as he tracks Warhol’s celebrity, his greatest strength is explaining in accessible terms what Warhol’s art achieved and why it matters. He analyzes its connections with consumerism, celebrity and, more subtly, queer culture, and how it built a bridge between conceptual art and post-modernism.

Warhol’s Pop blew open the dead end Abstract Expressionism had reached with an art that simultaneously celebrated popular culture and critiqued it, exposing commercialization even as it profited from it. “Warhol’s art always balanced on the edge between satire and reverence, whether its subjects were soup cans or celebrities,” Gopnik writes. Instability and uncertainty, he argues, are sparkling facets of Warhol. (When the Art Gallery of Ontario unveils a new Warhol retrospective in 2021, it will be interesting to see how these ambiguities play in an era where art has become increasingly politically committed.)

At times, Gopnik expresses a rather modernist triumphalism, pronouncing Warhol a “genius” who has overleapt Picasso as the most important artist of the 20th century, but mainly his argument is eloquent, subtle and sharp. Warhol was very aware that an avant-gardist always needed to find the next new thing, and Pop art turned out to be short-lived, rapidly subsumed into a pop culture that aped it. Gopnik acknowledges the unwatchability of the films that followed, even as he establishes the impact of Warhol’s first experiments in static action, such as the five-hour-long Sleep. He makes grand and more-or-less convincing justifications for Warhol’s celebrity portraits – they might eventually have been shown as a group, as though recording high society itself – and suggests Warhol’s “Business Art” of the 1970s was a legitimate conceptual project. Still, he concedes that late work, from pet portraits to celebrity endorsements, did not live up to the artist’s standards.

As for the biography, riddled with drugs, sycophancy and shopping sprees, Gopnik is deft at telling without judging. He makes fine distinctions between Warhol’s routine use of amphetamines and the addictions of the nasty “A men” who came out at night in the Factory after the hard-working Warhol had gone home to have dinner with his mother. He describes the extremes of the celebrity-studded, popper-popping Studio 54, where Warhol partied nightly from 1977 to 1979, without needing to point out their idiocy.

Still, the critic can be too reticent. When Gopnik relates without explanation the actress Viva’s claim that sexual assaults were happening after hours on the set of Lonesome Cowboys, you are left wondering if you aren’t supposed to take her shocking accusations at face value. (Similarly, Gopnik makes no comment on Warhol’s own behaviour at Studio 54, where his groping of younger patrons and staffers exhibited the sort of celebrity entitlement reminiscent of the accusations that 40 years later cost Kevin Spacey his career.)

In its openness to youthful rebels and full-blown eccentricity, the Factory attracted many who were mere teenagers or suffering from mental illness; I lost count of the suicides. While Warhol is sometimes described as empathetic toward young people, anyone who called themselves a friend of Edie Sedgwick should have been staging an intervention, not filming. With the exceptions of the musicians Lou Reed and Nico, few legitimate careers emerged from collaboration with Warhol. Gopnik argues his principal sin was non-intervention, but to those who called him Drella behind his back, his voyeurism was vampiric. His 1968 shooting by Valerie Solanas could be read as true tragedy – a hero brought down by his own flaws – but the paranoid Solanas had little legitimate grievance. In truth, it wasn’t possible, as Warhol was realizing, for a mega-celebrity to allow a floating world of staffers and hangers-on uncontrolled access to his work space.

Warhol never fully recovered from what those bullets did to his insides and, aside from the decadent Studio 54, the 70s and 80s were difficult decades. He declined to visit his ailing mother after her return to Pittsburgh, telling his brothers to scrimp on a funeral he did not attend. Yet with the exception of this puzzling froideur, the later Warhol emerges as both sympathetic and sad. He was broken-hearted by the collapse of his decade-long relationship with the much younger Jed Johnson, pained by the gall stones that would kill him at 58, aware when his art failed and yet still capable of convincing avant-garde gestures.

Warhol once talked about the celebrity as a half-person, a partial media portrait that misled real people into envy. Gopnik not only establishes the importance of Warhol’s art but also uncovers the whole man.

#art #andy warhol

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onestowatch · 7 years ago

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Make Music Thought-Provoking Again: An Interview with Declan McKenna

Hook-ups. Love. Break-ups. Regret. Empowerment. Uncertainty. Listen to any pop song today, specifically those from younger artists, and the lyrics will more than likely embody one of the themes listed above. More often than not, they’re written to appeal to the masses, to relate to a scenario all of us may be going through or feeling--while foregoing their personal touch along the way. In the world of pop lyricism, it seems there is no place for complexity. Enter Declan McKenna. The 18-year-old songwriter has proven that complexity can be popular, and in a sea of generic lyricism, McKenna digs deeper. His first single, “Brazil,” which speaks on the corruption during the 2014 FIFA World Cup, amassed over 20 million streams on Spotify, and took the number one spot on Sirius XM’s Alt Nation’s Countdown for three weeks back in 2016.

We see even more of this intricate and thought-provoking songwriting on his debut album What Do You Think About The Car?, which dropped July 21. Rather than use his experiences from relationships like many other artists, McKenna’s lyrics were written through reactions and impulses to issues happening around the world over the past four to five years. Each catchy song is initially deceiving to the ears. While the music feels light and poppy, the lyrics are telling a different and often darker story. Whether it’s tackling religious hypocrisy on “Bethlehem” or speaking out against transgender conversion therapy, and more specifically highlighting the death of transgender teen Leelah Alcorn on “Paracetamol,” McKenna isn’t afraid to tackle taboo topics, and it’s because of this that many have compared him to Bob Dylan.

McKenna is already hard at work on his second album, juggling the demands of touring with writing. I spoke with him the day before his album released about his glittery upcoming US tour, admiration for Run The Jewels & St. Vincent, and the negative stigma aligned with millennials.

OTW: When did you first start writing and develop interest in making music?

DM: I started to have an interest in music from a pretty young age. There’s a little clip at the start of the album from when I was four years old, and I was very much into music then if only because of my older siblings’ influence on me but as long as I can remember, I’ve been interested in music. I first started writing probably only a few years after that, really. I was still in the single figures age-wise when I started writing songs. I was in band with my sister and my cousins but yeah, a pretty early start I think.

OTW: Because your lyricism and the ideas you write about are more complex, did you start out just writing in general, or writing lyrics?

DM: I think I’ve always tried to have some kind of depth to the lyrics I’ve written. Sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully especially first starting out, but I think what you write about is something you learn. You develop your own sort of skills, almost like imitating and taking from a lot of the artists you know already, and I think what I’ve written about is not only a reflection of that, but a reflection of how I’ve grown up, the world I’ve grown up in, friends I’ve got, family I’ve got. They’ve all sort of pushed me to write in a certain way.

OTW: For me personally, you’re breaking the mold of what people expect artists, especially younger artists, to write about. You’ve proven that complexity can be popular. What made you want to write about taboo topics like American politics, police brutality, being transgender, and the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, even though they may not directly affect you?

A lot of it is just kind of hearing about something and being like, “Oh, that’s wrong.” Like, that’s the kind of official thing, that’s just been like, “Oh that’s shitty” or you know whatever it is you write about, and just wanting to write a song about it--having that sort of impulse. I think in the grand scheme of things of what I do, there’s just a lot of stereotypes around young people and pop musicians, as well as together seen as ignorant or unintelligent or not insightful or anything, and not to say that I am like the most intelligent thing since whatever, [laughs], but I think I try and make a point to at least try to say something, to say something that I actually care about because I think there are a good range of artists out there doing it. I think it’s important to do that, and in the world of pop it can be shallow and I think you have to understand that, but appreciate that but also it can be great, and it can be whatever you want it to be. I think that’s why I like doing and making it what I want it to be. Whether its very meaningful or just for fun, I want it to be all those things whenever I think it’s appropriate.

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OTW: Does your track “I Am Everyone Else” go along with this theme of writing from other people’s perspective?

Potentially. It’s kind of a weird one because the writing was really staggered so that song for me was about kind of a bunch of different things at once, but it all revolves around that theme that you can say whatever, you can do whatever, but no one understands everyone. And you can’t pretend to do that. I think that is sort of vaguely what that song revolves around, even with the lots of different things that happened at that time in my life.

OTW: Are there any artists that have inspired you or influenced you to write about bigger topics?

DM: Yeah, I think so. One for me at the minute that I really love is Run The Jewels. I’m a big fan of them. There is such a wide range of hip-hop, and a wide range of things that people write about but people do slate it for being shallow, even though I very strongly disagree. They are just a really great example of very powerful music, and they also just come across as really nice guys which I think makes a difference when they put across their opinions and views, and you can kind of relate to them or just have a nice impression of them. It really helps with that, and I think that’s what is really nice about Run The Jewels.

OTW: How do you make these heavy topics feel light, specifically “Brazil” because it’s a really catchy song but the root of it is corruption.

DM: I think it comes from listening to a lot of The Beatles, honestly. I know everyone kind of references The Beatles quite a lot, but I feel like you can say a lot with sound. Like entrusting sound with lyrics, or having something that’s kind of bittersweet, something they do quite a lot, can actually maybe say more about how you feel, and you can also have lyrical content that expresses your feelings about it. For example, how the World Cup in Brazil might have been seen, compared to what was happening behind the scenes, you know, it could be two different things between the music and the lyrics, which is kind of fun to mess around with even if it’s very vague. People might not pick up on it because it’s not an obvious thing but it can just be fun in your head to work out these things, and it can mean different things to you and nothing to someone else, or even if it means something completely different to someone else, which is kind of the beauty of music.

OTW: I love that! How did you get yourself in the headspace to write about these situations?

DM: I don’t know, it often just happens. I try as often as possible to focus on writing but it can be really hard to just make yourself do it. A lot of it is just an impulse thing. I think a lot of it just comes down to what you see, what you hear, and kind of keeping notes in your head, and making sure it will all come together at one point, or something can happen that just inspires you. I tend to try to go on impulse as often as I can, although the more and more I’ve been touring, the less easy that is because being like busy all the time and tired catching up on sleep; it’s not as easy. Your writing becomes very different because you actually have to focus and learn to put time aside for it, and I think that has changed my style of wiring now, especially going into the second album. Not so much with the first because obviously a lot of those songs came before I was heavily touring.

OTW: I want to touch on a few of your tracks that were released prior to album. “Paracetamol” is a really beautiful track. Can you talk a little bit about how it came to be? I know a little bit about the background, but the title specifically?

DM: Paracetamol. It wasn’t originally the title of the song. I never originally had a bridge or anything when I first went into the studio with it. It’s kind of a weird little story of how it came about. We actually found a little Agogo bell in Neil’s studio, the producer I was working with, and it was about in tune with the song. It kind of worked, we were doing this samba rhythm with it, and I was like “Maybe we can have something like that in the song,” and we just started this whole other section because I felt like it needed something else, and I didn’t have any lyrics. On my walk home, I was just thinking about what would fit here? What would go with like what I wanted to say in the song? And I pretty much wrote the lyrics on the walk from the studio to the train station.

A lot of the song is based around people thinking that their opinions can be right in regards to how other people identify, and that certain people can be changed, or to tell someone it’s a choice, and that it can be changed, and fixed with something like therapy, and I wanted to compare that to like an everyday drug. Like, “Oh, you can cure yourself with Paracetamol” because it would be just as messed up an idea to consider that someone can be changed through medicine. It was a very simple little metaphor, but it felt right at the time to kind of make sense of the theme of the song, and give it a slightly different section to break it up a bit.

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OTW: Let’s talk about the video for “The Kids Don’t Wanna Come Home.” In the beginning of the video we see a young girl say, “I think the way we view ourselves is very different to the way other people views us.” For you personally, why do you think our generation is negatively viewed/has the stigma that it does?

DM: I don’t know, I think it’s easy to because I think the mistakes that young people make now, as compared to a while ago, are documented. If someone says something silly at a young age or does something silly, it gets filmed, it gets documented, it gets posted online. The Internet is a thing which has been popularized, and people often blame that but it just means that you can see more of peoples’ lives, and it means that people are insecure and a bunch of things, but I don’t think it means that people are unintelligent. I don’t think it means that people are naive, or anymore naive than a young person would have been awhile ago. I just always find it quite hypocritical that the generation that gave us all of these phones, the Internet, everything, and marketed them to us and made us want them are now kind of saying, “You’re always on those things that we made you want to have.” [Laughs]. Yeah, I just struggle to understand how anyone could actually have that opinion of the younger generation.

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OTW: Let’s talk about the new album. If there are three feelings that you want your listeners to experience while listening to the album, what would they be?

DM: That’s really hard because I don’t want people to feel sad, but also, it does kind of have that. [Laughs]. I don’t know, I think I want people to feel excited listening to it. Just every feeling that is the opposite of bored, basically. Happy, excited, but like with a slight tinge of melancholy just for good measure. That’s what I want because I think, like we were talking about earlier with the happy sound and slightly darker lyrics, I don’t want the music to make people feel down about bad things. I think music in itself should be enjoyable, and I think even when songs have a hard topic, I want people to be happy and excited and enjoy them.

OTW: What is your favorite song off the new album, and why?

DM: Properly, I have to say “Humongous.” I love playing it live, and I really love all of the production and everything we did with it. It’s not one I listen to and have anything I would change. I feel like since it’s the most recent one I wrote for the record, I just still relate to it as much as I could a song I wrote yesterday because I’ve changed a lot, definitely as I wrote a lot of songs on the album so I think it being not that old to me even is quite a special thing and quite nice because I’ve often spent a year or two after writing a song waiting for it to come out, and with that one, it was out within a month.

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OTW: With the new album, what can fans expect at your live show during your US tour?

DM: Confetti and balloons hopefully, if we can find them in America. Glitter. Dancing.

OTW: I think you just need to go to a Party City when you get here. They’ll have everything you need.

DM: Yeah I’ll find a college town or something, I think we try more and more to keep the shows really upbeat and party-esque. We try to put as much into it as possible so we’ll probably come up with fresh ideas but lots of just bright, shiny things. [Laughs].

Photo: Birger Hagevold Johansen

OTW: Sounds good! I’m so bummed that California isn’t a stop on your US tour. When can we expect you on the West Coast?

DM: Yeah, I was expecting to come in April but we had to cancel that whole tour. It was a bit crap. Hopefully before the end of the year but I don’t know. I’m really hoping to come back because I love being in the warm places. [Laughs]. Yeah, I’m up for that.

OTW: If you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?

DM: I say this all the time, but St. Vincent. I just, I don’t know. I try and make my live show and make everything, somewhat...It’s all kind of somewhat inspired by her live show. As a performer, as a songwriter, I really look up to her so I would love to be able to create something with her.

OTW: Who are three artists on your OTW list?

Feet - They’re a really cool new band from Coventry in the UK. A lot of different sounds. It’s like psych, punky, indie rock, and it’s really really well written music, and there’s a cool video out for a song called “Petty Thieving.” Yeah, they’re really good.

Jealous of the Birds - It’s a product of Namoi Hamilton. She supported us out in Ireland, Dublin, and Belfast. She’s from Northern Ireland, and has some of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in a long time. Yeah, I really really love her.

The Rhythm Method - They’re sort of coming up in a minute from London, and they’re very cool. It’s somewhere been the streets and PC music, and it’s really interesting. I’m looking forward to them releasing more music. They only have a few tracks out.

#declan mckenna #what do you think about the car #indie #rock #bob dylan #brazil #paracetamol #bethlehem #matt lambert #st vincent #run the jewels

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