#i have it separated into 4 stages and actually i wrote the first a while ago but i don't like it anymore LMFAO

[gammaraydeath]

fudging canon a little bit for ro and garrus's relationship progression and stuck between a rock and a hard place because a misunderstanding is a natural outcome of the situation i have set up and yet. i hate misunderstandings.

[waitmyturtles]

HYPERBOLIC SPOILERS FOR THE PHENOMENAL SECOND EPISODE OF OS2 x BBS x ATOTS

Can I feel so much in just one sitting?! Besides the UTTER giddiness of yesterday’s episode, at least for today, I think I have some actual, sensible, legible analysis to offer. I’m really moved, almost to tears.

I mean, as I blogged just a few minutes ago, part 4/4 of this second episode WILL go down in history in my heart as OBVIOUSLY some of the BEST, most STUNNING content in the HISTORY of anatomical and muscular analysis filmmaking. Yes. 

I’m seeing on Twitter some grumpiness for the comedy of this all (the girlies want more woop woop?! I mean?!), but I seriously think this whole crossover set up and the way it’s been written is brilliant. And I don’t think this is just for fun. 

But first, regarding the comedy and some other one-off points -- I mean, I knew that all four of these guys would be great, but their comedic TIMING, with the writing, is spectacular. They clearly had a FANTASTIC time filming this, and you can see it -- while they didn’t have much time to actually film it, it’s so well done.

I really want to call it, I really want to see it, I wanna see more subverting of the ships, and I wanna see these guys do more with each other separately -- I’m excited to see the implications of OhmEarth and NanonMix next week, and I think that Aof might be making a huge point by separating these guys, pairing them up together with others, and mixing shit up, because that’s what he does (especially while I have He’s Coming to Me on the mind soon on my OGMMTVC watchlist). 

Another one-off point: like I wrote yesterday, we’re getting a double-dose of nostalgia, and I also wrote that I haven’t had to wait NEARLY as long as most of y’all for the return of BBS and ATOTS. But that being said, even though I only watched ATOTS last fall, I actually literally nearly cried when I saw the ATOTS flashbacks and heard the music. Because the way that show was designed in 2021 (I got so much OGMMTVC on my mind) -- those motifs WERE designed to imprint themselves in our memories as remarkable for a kind of cinematic, bildungsroman BL that we weren’t used to seeing back then. That show was nostalgic not JUST for the damn ship, but for Pha Pun Dao, for Chiang Mai, for the Thailand that Aof celebrates vis à vis EarthMix in ATOTS and Moonlight Chicken. 

It’s gorgeous, and he knows what he’s doing by putting PatPran in that mix -- another couple at a different stage of their relationship, with a background and shared struggles that are different than TianPhupha’s, but that still offer both freshness AND nostalgia to the backbone story of ATOTS.

What’s moving me about these first two episodes reflects on what I just wrote -- this is no longer a story about Bad Buddy or ATOTS. This is a story about two couples going through their shit. Pat and Pran have ALWAYS been about going through their shit. We went through a A LOT of SHIT with them, including forward flashes after they graduated and seeing how they were faring in their long-distance relationship. 

Remember: we haven’t spent ANY time with Tian and Phupha in their relationship yet, ABSOLUTELY NONE. They smooched once on the hill, we saw them cuddle, and Oishii sent us off. So we’re JUST finding out, NOW, how they’re faring, and we get thrown in a fight.

A fight that’s similar to the kinds of struggles that Pat and Pran have already shown us and are showing us now. Tian wants Phupha to see a slice of HIS life in Bangkok. Tian wants Phupha to yield a little, to stop being so stubborn. 

Pat wants Pran to open up more. Pat KNOWS why Pran keeps everything so close to the chest. Pat is SO USED to being the balancing effect of their relationship, to push forward, to pull back, but to ALWAYS HOLD PRAN DOWN AND REMAIN AS PRAN’S ROCK, because Pran has not had the same kind of large family structure as Pat could rely on in his childhood and doesn’t know how to take emotional risks. Pat knows this and works hard on balancing it out.

But Pat can go overboard, right, and that’s partly why Pran drove away to Pha Pun Dao -- to prove to himself that he could complete this project on his own, but also, flirtingly, knowing that Pat would ultimately be by his side, and to play the competitive games that these guys always play with each other, because they’re still college dudes with bones to pick. 

What we’re seeing is BOTH COUPLES FINDING THEMSELVES IN THEIR MATURING GROWTH STAGES OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS. 

Hello, mic check, there’s something happening here in Our Skyy 2. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ECLIPSE EPISODES?

Same damn thing, the same damn thing that pissed the girlies off before. WE’RE SEEING AWLLLLLL THESE GUYS IN THE GROWTH STAGES OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS. Akk was frustrated by all the expressions of care that Ayan is overabundant with. Ayan WANTS Akk to RECEIVE the care, because the RECEPTION OF CARE IS the signal, the trigger, the MEANING of the relationship for Ayan -- it tells Ayan, when I care for you, Akk, I AM SHOWING YOU MY LOVE FOR YOU, and that’s how *I* DEMONSTRATE IT.

Tian: Phupha, come with me to Bangkok.

Pran: Pat, let me do this by myself.

Akk: Ayan, I don’t need as much care as you’re giving me, it’s too much.

Phupha: You’re making only about me being madly in love with you.

Pat: I want to help you, my boyfriend.

Ayan: This is how I show my love for you, Akk. 

Y’all. Aof, Golf, these filmmakers. QUEER RELATIONSHIPS ARE RELATIONSHIPS THAT DESERVE THE INVESTMENT AND RESPECT OF EMOTION AND GROWTH IN ART. Not all queer art/BLs need to be about the thrills and frills of the first kiss, of the first sex, of the first whatever. We’re expecting these guys to live together forever in fiction, right? Aof and Golf and the other homies are saying -- kk, girlies, we’ll give you the fan service, alright, but we’re going to show you HOW WE, AS THE QUEER COMMUNITY, DURING PRIDE, GET THERE IN OUR OWN RELATIONSHIPS, TOO, messy details and all. Shit.

Here’s something from reality. I’m the youngest girl of my Indian family -- I was not equal to my older siblings at all, expected to fail, treated as if I didn’t know how to function in society. Y’all can predict what happened. Your gal got a great career, a great family, a husband, the whole thing.

So when I first met my husband, I’m riding my life on my own -- paying my own rent, my own bills, everything. I had already proved I didn’t need my birth family for anything.

But what I didn’t consider during those first years of the relationship was the following: my future husband’s love language was dependence. He was certainly IMPRESSED by dating a woman who had her shit together. BUT. He WANTED me to DEPEND on him, AT LEAST emotionally, if not for other things. I wasn’t going to like, quit my job for a relationship, but -- I was ALSO having REAL trouble DEPENDING on him emotionally.

Like Pran, maybe. I didn’t trust trusting anyone emotionally, because that was a paradigm already created by my family in my upbringing. I had TRAINED myself to NOT need emotional feedback from ANYONE romantically, because I learned to survive in other ways.

Of course, with great communication AND TIME (TIME), I came around and learned to lean on him and trust him.

Aof and Golf are giving their couples the benefits of growth and time to make the relationships better, and stronger, and working, and functioning, and I can’t emphasize enough how REAL THIS IS. 

That’s what these episodes are giving me. I WANT TO SEE MORE BLs with established relationships (@bengiyo, @lurkingshan, @wen-kexing-apologist: WHAT DID YOU EAT YESTERDAY FTW). I want to see contextual heartache. I want to see fights. I want to see tears. I want to see snottiness and shittiness and passive aggression, because all of that is worth examining in human emotional art. 

That’s real, that’s worth reflecting in art, and I see Aof and Golf doing this on purpose to give RESPECT to the emotional structures that they’ve created in their work. 

I’m having so much fucking fun with these episodes, but I should have expected this, I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN, that Aof would already render me an emotional mess as well. It always happens. That it’s happening to our BELOVED COUPLES, AT THE START OF PRIDE, I’m just like. We’re just so blessed to have this art to enjoy.

[friends-to-lovers-tournament]

Friends to Lovers Tournament: Round 3, Side A, Match 4

propaganda under the cut!

Junnana:

Oh they are so very silly and I adore them. They basically spent the anime being the most married couple there, the game amplifying that and the movie burning that all to the ground (or Nana did that) before vowing to start a new later. They're just a girl reaching for her dreams without a ton of natural talent and a girl who enjoys helping her friends shine instead of herself despite being super skilled but even though they have slightly different goals on the stage they both respect each other so very much to the point where things only go wrong in the movie because Nana lost a bit of the respect for Junna that was always so fundamental in their dynamic. The Overture manga gives a bit of insight into what their early interactions were like especially in their respective focus chapters (3 and 9), with 3 showing that Nana was planning on becoming their class president rather than Junna but stepped down just because she had so much trust in her abilities while still making it clear that Junna could rely on her while in 9 the mutual reliance came back in the form of Junna being the one to make Nana realize she wasn't alone. Carrying onwards to the anime, some time before the whole thing, Nana decided "hey time loops are pretty cool" because she was afraid of her and her friends growing up and separating. This was not a fact known by anybody but her and that one giraffe and did not affect the early plot, where for the most part Junna was more focused on due to her struggles being highlighted from the moment revues were introduced and Nana was just constantly around her. Then Junna ended up being the first person Nana actually told about them directly (and not in a very vague way in a revue because otherwise Hikari would be the first) because it was looking like said loops were about to end because the childhood friends to lovers dynamic as a whole decided to say nuh uh to her. Then she did in fact lose her next revue which made the idea of continuing her repetitions a little impossible but Junna ended up recovering from that whole shock pretty quickly, and went to comfort Nana and help her learn to start anew. 

Then there's the game which. yeah there's so much stuff in there that I can't even explain it all. In the main story we get the arc of Nana starting her overprotective bs once again, getting stopped and then being given more courage to move forward by Junna since she was realizing that she kind of messed up (since she decided to object to the concept of plays just having lead actors in general. as you do), but there's so much stuff outside of the main story. Highlights include: Junnana literally making up their own ship name, Nana deciding the best way to practice for a role centered around an observant character was to observe Junna specifically, Nana writing a self-indulgent Phantom of the Opera adaptation with herself as the Phantom and Junna as Christine in an event where it turned out she relates to the Phantom (red flag #1 as far as I'm concerned) and wrote Christine based on Junna (Junna was very okay with this but I find it hilarious that she made her adaption of a famous play basically self insert fanfiction), the actual Junnana kiss (stage kiss?? real kiss?? we'll never know), the Valentine's Day event where Junna kept saying things like "oh I'd go to any lengths for Nana" while talking about making chocolate of all things, the time Junna talked about how she wouldn't let anybody take her place of staying right by Nana's side if she had to because she loves being there completely out of the blue to Nana's ex of all people (not a canon ex but a lot of people who know about her whole deal with Nana at least agree that they had something going on. and let me tell you Junna telling the person who constantly regrets not having the strength to remain by Nana's side how much she loved being with Nana was not a smart choice, even though Hisame, the girl in question, took it very well), the Steins;Gate collab where a good chunk of the plot is just Junna being worried about Nana, a play where it turned out that the whole time Junna and Nana had both taken inspiration from each other for their roles, the time they had to actively stop themselves during separate interviews from just rambling about each other, etc. There's so much. Also I forgot to mention it during the main story part but there's also an alternate universe briefly discussed where one of their friends just does not exist so Nana is one of the two best actors in the class and gets the lead role in the play they perform every year, and there's a scene after their performance where Junna talks about how, in the play which is a tragedy involving two lesbians in love, Nana's performance made her think that, if she had stood as her co-star, she would have simply been built different and prevented the tragedy from happening. The plot ends with one character falling form a tower and another being imprisoned within it, and Junna is like "if I was this tragedy and I was with you I would have simply taken your character's hand and never let her go". They're just so married in the game and I can't believe them for it

And then there's the movie. We don't talk about the movie but I kind of have to. Okay so you remember those two friends I was talking about who act very married and ultimately have a lot of their relationship based around their mutual respect for each other? What if Nana stopped respecting Junna entirely one day? That's their movie arc. This movie covers the girls "dying" as stage girls (ie. losing what made them true stage girls/actors in the first place) and then being "reborn" as them, and unfortunately Nana is of the opinion that Junna could just simply have her symbolism death and not the other part. During their revue, Nana talks a lot about how beautiful and dazzling (using those exact words. she even called Junna heartbreakingly beautiful in the dub) Junna was when she was foolishly reaching for a role she wasn't likely to get, but put it all in past tense, and encouraged Junna to let herself die as a stage girl in a brilliant manor rather than trying and failing to grasp her brilliance and dying out like that. also she called her an ugly fruit which sure is something. Then Junna was like "???? no I won't do that actually???" and took one of Nana's swords from her to engage in a sword fight since Nana had destroyed her usual weapon. Which was not a great matchup briefly because Junna never used a sword in her life but after Nana realized that the Junna she was fighting was different from the Junna she knew, and didn't match the role she had assigned for her, Junna ended up telling Nana that her own role was something she'd define for herself and not something Nana could assign for her, and ended up winning against her. After the revue was over, Junna still wanted Nana in her life, and promised her that, one day, they'd reunite on a stage which belonged to both of them, even though they had to find their own stages before that could happen. Before they departed, Nana lamented that Junna was dazzling, contradicting her previous belief that she was only dazzling in the past, all while beginning to cry, and Junna nearly turned around to comfort her, but ultimately decided to continue onto her next stage as Nana carried onwards to her own, knowing that they would both need to grow before their reunion. I also want to mention that, during this scene, a picture of the two of them, one which Nana had stabbed through the middle as she was telling Junna how dazzling she thought she once was, had since been moved to a little pond in the background of the scene (and of the background of the start of the whole revue, so it was there the whole time) that was nearly identical to the one where Junna and Nana had had their moment of comfort at the end of episode 9 of the anime. With the middle of the picture being soaked in water, it ended up sinking just enough for the new cut in the middle of the picture to appear almost mended, showing that, while the damage Nana had done and the rift between them was still there, it was already starting to mend as they once again regarded each other as equals. This scene lives in my head constantly and haunts me daily. Congratulations to Junnana for having a divorce arc as high schoolers

Soriku:

Ultimate friends to lovers. They've been best friends since childhood but as they start to grow up, those feelings change into a more romantic nature but neither handles this well. Riku in particular has a whole villain arc about it bc his insecurities about the situation get the better of him, meanwhile Sora isn't self aware enough to recognize his feelings are romantic in nature but he spends all of his time desperately trying to get Riku back so they can be together again. Ultimately even after they come together, their love continues to be a main driving force of the narrative and it's so palpable

[howdaretrashships]

AO3 Wrapped 2024 (writer's edition)

Tagged by @bbcphile and @la-muerta. Thanks for the tag! This is a little late, but I was waiting for the last minute anyway.

1. How many words have you written this year?

Of the published works: ~19.2k. Of the current WIPs: no idea, but probably somewhere around the same number.

2. How many works did you publish this year?

5, technically, although one of the works could be counted as four separate fics.

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

My Past has Tasted Bitter for Years Now

4. What work of yours has the most hits?

The 5+1 Yingzhu Armor fic has 840.

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

The Unhinged Tournament Propaganda. It was literally only written for the tournament, but it got feedback on both AO3 and here on tumblr.

6. Favorite title you used

pack up the moon - pour away the oceans

It's a reference to W.H. Auden's Funeral Blues and perfectly fits the fic and Feihua's vibes in general. I've loved the poem since high school and was very proud of myself for remembering it when it came time to name the fic.

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

I'm using I'll Be Good by Jaymes Young for most of the Prince/Bodyguard AU.

8. Pairing you wrote the most for this year?

Feihua/Dihua was the only pairing I wrote for.

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year?

Feihua/Dihua

10. What work was the quickest to write?

The Unhinged Tournament Propaganda was literally written over an hour or two.

11. What work took you the longest to write?

5+1 Yingzhu Armor fic. I worked on the newlywed room scene for weeks.

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

So many. So so many.

13. What’s your longest work of the year?

The 5+1 Yingzhu Armor fic at 11663 words.

14. What’s your shortest work of the year?

Technically it's the Unhinged Tournament Propaganda. Total it's 1087 words (making it actually the second shortest) but each "chapter" is only a couple hundred words each.

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you?

Mainly the Prince/Bodyguard AU. There's still a lot of work to be done, since only 2 of (initially planned) 16 parts have actually been finished.

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag?

Post-Canon, Not Beta Read, POV Di Feisheng are the top three.

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

Di Feisheng. I just love him so much.

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year?

Fang Duobing. Mostly when it's his POV, because there's how I'd like him to act/react, and there's how the character would actually act/react. And often those two things are in direct opposition.

19. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

Zhan Yunfei/Li Lianhua. I was going to write their part earlier this year but got distracted by other WIPs first.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

Which Moment, which was actually written and posted last year, but most of the works this year have been short and angsty, and it was the fic that helped me regain confidence to keep writing. Because if I could write a 21k word fic out of nowhere, then maybe I could write those other ideas I had.

21. How many kudos in total did you get this year?

295

22. Which work has the most comments?

The 5+1 Yingzhu Armor fic has 16.

23. Did you do any collaborative works this year?

I started one, but it's still in the very beginning stages.

24. Did you write any gifts this year?

No

25. Did you receive any gifts this year?

No

26. What’s your most common category?

M/M

27. What do you listen to while writing?

Just my everyday playlist. If I want something different then I'll turn on YT Music.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

My Past has Tasted Bitter for Years Now

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

There's a few but I'll go with this one from the 5+1 Yingzhu Armor fic.

Hulijing snuffles at the silk looking for her promised snacks, and whines when she doesn’t find them. He reaches out to pat her head as a reassurance, then narrows his eyes at her. “Did you know about this?” he asks, pointing at the pup with an accusatory finger. “Did you know he had this?” Hulijing tilts her head first to one side then the other and licks at the end of his finger. Di Feisheng huffs a laugh and then sighs, “No, I suppose not."

I just like the little bit of playfulness from Di Feisheng, since it's not something we get to see much from him (if at all) in canon,

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year?

That I was actually able to stay engaged and excited for most of the year. Usually I'll write a couple things, get distracted by other things, and then disappear for a couple years. But I didn't just give up and I'm hoping I can continue that in the new year.

It was also a great help to have @bbcphile as an amazing cheerleader!!

If you'd like to do it, consider yourself tagged!

[raspberry-vinaigrette]

every day u give me the chance to yap and every day i am grateful oomf 🫶

all-american bitch: character from one of the most niche source materials ever. it's a play trilogy that got put on at two separate churches in my area (the first time was the og trilogy and then it got remade some years later !! i got to help with set production and stage management !!). long story but point is this song is the villain of that trilogy (the projectionist, aka "atticus crane") to me. SO much. guy who was literally made to be villainized but also does everything in his power to be perfect under the eye of his god. ughhh the architect trilogy is so much. one of these days ill explain the whole shebang

sweet tangerine: DAVETRAPSPORT SONG EVER. TO ME. i wrote a whole amv idea out for this song which is probably why its so high cuz i was looping the song while writing LMAO

notion: jack kennedy. oh this song is so jack kennedy to me. quite literally its all about the inevitability of death and how immortality is ultimately meaningless because it takes away the point in living. i should do a whole breakdown of the song

there was something behind you: DAVE MILLER ABOUT HENRY. IT'S A FANSONG FOR A DIFF GAME BUT IT IS SO VERY DAVE ABOUT HENRY UUUGH. AGAIN I NEED TO DO A BREAKDOWN OF IT DAVE MY BELOVED

sun in an empty room: this is actually the associated song with an scp i REALLY like. hes technically part of a collection of 4 scps, so if you want the full story you gotta read like 4 articles plus a couple supplemental tales for context, but! here's the link to the tale that then links off into the other tale + scp pages for the related characters! ThatGuy on the scp foundation website i fucking loooove these four characters. To death. all the other characters have associated songs but i got big into iovanius neer and sun in an empty room is his song. later on i ended up associating the song with jack too so it just stuck :)

if anyone's curious btw

[jesse-eisenberg-interview]

For ‘Fleishman Is in Trouble,’ Claire Danes and Jesse Eisenberg Say I Do

In “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” Claire Danes and Jesse Eisenberg play two halves of a splintered couple.Credit...Thea Traff for The New York Times

The actors share a doomed union in this new FX series. In a joint interview, they discuss their own marriages and how it felt to depict such a contentious one.

By Alexis Soloski

Nov. 4, 2022

Marriage, the actress Claire Danes insisted, means sacrificing certain freedoms.

“That’s one of the great gifts of it,” she said. “But sometimes that shoe feels a little snug. There are moments when you’re like, ‘Actually, I would go in a different direction here.’”

“For me, I’m just so happy to have a shoe on,” said Jesse Eisenberg, her work husband.

In “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” FX’s limited series adaptation of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s 2019 novel, Danes, 43, and Eisenberg, 39, star as Rachel and Toby Fleishman. Long married and recently separated, the Fleishmans — she’s a high-powered talent agent; he’s a hepatologist — inhabit the upper echelons of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The first two episodes arrive on Hulu on Nov. 17, with a new episode each Thursday for six more weeks. (Brodesser-Akner, who wrote seven of the eight episodes, is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine.)

On a recent afternoon, Danes (“Homeland,” “The Essex Serpent”) and Eisenberg (“The Social Network,” “When You Finish Saving the World”) met in an office at FX’s Manhattan headquarters with a “Fleishman”-like view of mid-rises and water towers. Danes is married to the actor Hugh Dancy, Eisenberg to the educator Anna Strout. But for about six months — despite having met only once more than a decade before, when Eisenberg was extremely high — they had to pretend to be married to each other in a show that shadows one union from early courtship to eventual implosion and beyond, tracing its breakdown with granular specificity and occasional double vision.

The novel argues that “beyond your point of view lies an abyss with a bubbling cauldron of fire, and that just beyond that abyss lies your spouse’s point of view.” And so the show stages some scenes from Rachel’s point of view and some from Toby’s. (The pilot was directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, executive producers who are themselves married.)

How was it playing a couple locked in a cycle of neglect, reproach and retaliation? “Very comfortable actually,” Danes said, kicking off her Jimmy Choos. Eisenberg, on the opposite end of the sofa, agreed: “She’s the greatest.”

They had a terrific work marriage, Danes confirmed, while “depicting a very bad, unhealthy, unnatural one.”

In an hour’s chat, as the autumn light outside the window turned the city golden, the two actors discussed marriage, divorce and dodgeball. These are excerpts from the conversation.

Did you know each other before this?

JESSE EISENBERG We did.

CLAIRE DANES I didn’t remember.

EISENBERG It’s a funny story.

DANES Tell the story.

EISENBERG My [future] wife took me to some benefit thing in Brooklyn, probably 15 years ago. I was the most stoned I’ve ever been. I was just talking to this woman, and I’m like, “I’ve met my soul mate.” I ran over to Anna. I was like, “That woman is amazing.” She was like, “That’s Claire Danes, good luck.”

So you met once. Then suddenly here you are, married. This show is such an intimate appraisal of a marriage. Can anyone on the outside ever understand what goes on inside a marriage?

DANES I think the people in it barely understand, and it changes over time. It is an astonishing invention. It’s imperfect. But I personally don’t have a better model. I am attracted to it and fascinated by it and find it a very worthwhile pursuit. It’s a way to continue exploring who you are and where you are.

EISENBERG It’s also an attractive prospect for me. The alternative is not interesting or desirable. My wife and I have had probably the same dynamic for the many, many years we’ve been together, the same arguments and the same joys. The TV show presents that. Except that this is a doomed marriage.

DANES In my actual relationship, when we were met with a certain level of stress that we were ill equipped to cope with, we had to develop techniques and strategies and skills to become a better functioning couple. Our characters were not able to do that. They got swallowed by points on their continuum that were just too hard. And they didn’t have the self-awareness or the self-possession or the guts to be honest with each other. They just retreated further and further.

When you were preparing for these roles, did you sit down and map out what this relationship had been, what their history was?

DANES Not really. We had a few dinners with Taffy and the cast, which were valuable. And we had rehearsals, abbreviated but dense, which were really effective because of these exercises that Jon and Val offered us. Writing exercises, primarily, which was very annoying, because Jesse is an actual writer and an excellent one. I was like, this isn’t fair.

EISENBERG I thought iambic pentameter was appropriate!

DANES But it did provide a lot of insight. Then we played dodgeball. I was wearing clogs, which I don’t recommend.

What do you think Rachel and Toby saw in each other in the first place?

DANES They do, actually, really like each other. They have easy, happy chemistry. They probably share a sense of humor. And they did have similar values once upon a time. He was her first true friend ever. I don’t think she would have left him had he not insisted on it.

EISENBERG The thing that attracts you to the person is what’s different about them. But that’s also what becomes their undoing, because the chasm between my character’s value system and hers is too wide.

DANES Are your parents still together?

EISENBERG My parents are married.

DANES My parents, too. They’ve been married for 55 years or something like that? They met at 18. At RISD [Rhode Island School of Design]. And they’re still very in love.

So how was it being married to each other for the camera?

DANES Very joyful. I love working with Jesse. He’s very gifted and very present and profoundly, almost pathologically generous — truly, really. And just an amazingly playful partner. It was so much fun tearing into each other.

EISENBERG That felt right, too. It felt good.

DANES What’s extraordinary about the novel, and now this interpretation of it: It’s very comic, but it’s also quite raw and wrenching. Threading that needle is fun, but a challenge. Rachel was tough for me, because she was so intensely polished in some ways and so profoundly fractured in others. Figuring out how to coordinate that was the trick of it. There are episodes where we hear his account, then we get hers. We shot those scenes, one after the other — that was very strange. It was like an acting exercise. It’s a matter of degrees.

EISENBERG Exactly. She would be 10 percent more hateful, more stubborn. Then my character would be more aloof and unaware of her pain.

So these were small changes.

DANES But consequential.

Do you think you could be married to each other in real life?

EISENBERG When I met Claire at that benefit, I immediately ran over to tell my wife that yes, I could be married to that person.

DANES And he was right, in a way. A little prescient there.

Parts of the show are very light, very funny; other parts are more intense. Did you take any of that home with you?

DANES It’s funny: With “Homeland,” the character was so very other, so alien, it was easy to compartmentalize. I got a little cocky about it. This one was a lot closer, a lot more reminiscent. Playing a married person with kids, I was at greater risk of taking it home than I have been with other projects, which surprised me. I had a couple of fights with Hugh, and I was like, “Whoa, this is not to do with us.” So that was humbling. And mildly distressing. But once I became aware of it, it was fine.

EISENBERG I had the exact same thing. I would have these arguments that end with, “You’ve always done this,” which is how Toby accuses Rachel. You spend 12 hours a day having a certain very specific resentment. You take that home and the circumstances overlap enough to the point where you might accuse your loving, sweet partner of the same thing.

DANES But the appreciation for Hugh was also so heightened, because I was living in this hell. It was so painful and so terrifying, deeply destabilizing. We really do need relationships. We can’t really cope in isolation. It’s just not how we function. There’s something very moving about that.

EISENBERG As actors, you sometimes get to run these social experiments, playing a character that might overlap with you enough to give you a sense of what you would be like in these circumstances. This was a great example, because I’m quite similar to Toby.

DANES It’s a real privilege to be able to explore those particularly daunting, intimidating, scary zones, but in the land of make-believe. So relatively safely.

So did you perform the thought experiment of what life would be like if you were suddenly single?

DANES Very, very rarely. I don’t know. Doesn’t seem good.

EISENBERG I was just thinking about it because in terms of the show, he’s dating again. And he’s completely untethered. It didn’t feel tantalizing in any way — it felt exhausting and unsatisfying. I didn’t experience singleness in the modern era, where you’d be using technology to meet people. It increases both the options and paranoia.

DANES I would find that particularly intimidating. And unnerving. I don’t think I would do that very well.

SOURCE

[stilldancewithyou]

Even though EJ recently graduate high school I still think there is potential to keep him on the show even though the show is about high school. I would love to see EJ discover what he is meant to do with his life in Season 4. I think this is something a lot people who recently graduate HS can relate to about not knowing what you are meant to do with your life after high school. It would be a great lesson to teach teens that not everyone has their life figure out after HS and that is okay.

Yes, I agree with everything you said here! This show has done such a good job of showing all these different povs and life experiences among all the characters and making them relatable to a wide, diverse audience. And I just think you're 100% right, it would be a really amazing thing to show and lesson to teach teens- because I think more people than you'd think struggle with figuring their life out after hs and even after college. Also, I know it's a kids' show, but it seems like they have also tried to market it to the people who loved HSM when it first came out and grew up with it, which is the 20-30 years old crowd- and these are the people who are trying to become adults and figure their lives out, so I think a season 4 storyline of EJ figuring his life out and not having a plan but finding happiness anyway would be relatable for a lot of people. It's also just kinda senseless to me to write out one of the main characters that you've spent so much time on and people have fallen in love with when there's literally no reason for it, especially since they just wrote Nini off. They have yet to give an actual reason why they can't keep him on without cutting back his screen time (unless there's going to be a valid explanation within the storyline).

I can't believe the people in charge of writing this show (he who shall not be named) are acting like EJ graduating from HS means his friends can no longer understand him and that he has to become disconnected from them...like he can become an adult while they're still experience childhood while also still being friends with them? Graduating doesn't erase your friendships and the love you have for your friends???? It's not like he's never going to see them again, he said he wants to stay in Salt Lake and take a gap year to work on himself and figure shit out, so he could adult while they're at school and hang out with them on the weekend. The writers have made it sound like he won't be in season 4 as much as in past seasons and I don't get it. You can tell the hs story and EJ's story without taking away from the hs story (Nini's story is a perfect example of this, bc after season 1 her story involved a lot of shifting between everyone else at East High and Nini having a separate story playing out).

There's so many things they could do with EJ's story, especially with the events of season 3:

The most simplistic option, which is what I thought they were moving towards for him, is for him to work as Miss Jenn's assistant and help her direct/run the musical, or somehow get Mr Mazzara's job, or be some type of assistant in that department since he showed an interest in that type of work. He'd be at EHS everyday, working with his friends and still being a part of the storyline but in a more adult type of role, and it would still be technically a high school story.

But, if he has to be absent for part of season 4, I hope his storyline is that he's been getting lots of acting offers/audition invitations/casting calls because of the documentary, and he's been trying that out because he does seem to really enjoy acting on stage, so he's trying to figure out if that's what he wants to do with his life, even though his dad hates it. They could even say he's not there because he's in LA or wherever filming Zombies 3 for Disney- which would be so funny bc Matt Cornett is actually in it so they could have the kids watch it in the show in support of him. And I know what's been said about the season 4 plot is that the kids "get to be extras" in HSM4, but I just think it would be fun if EJ isn't around but then shows up with Zac Efron and all the OG Wildcats and he's been casted to play an actual part in the movie, not just be an extra, like he's playing some actual character in the movie.

I also just had the thought that what if we've all been played and the actual HSM actors aren't in season 4, it's actually just really bad stunt doubles or something. that would actually be really funny.

yes, I have a very overactive imagination, and yes there are more ideas where these came from. in summary, they could definitely keep EJ on in a way that makes sense if they really wanted to.

[kanmom51]

JM JK timeline.- my observations how they grew over the years

Disclaimer: these are my own opinions and conclusions.  Feel free to disagree, but hate or aggression will be unacceptable.

2017 - Part 3

Ooh, we have reached a major event here.  Serendipity. 4 September 2017, or is it 1 September 2017 (??), as I will explain bellow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEMaH9Sm3lQ&t=16s .  

Or what I like to call:  JM’s love ode to JK.

Now tell me this: If Jimin’s song Serendipity was released 4th September 2017, and uploaded to BangtanTv on 5th September 2017, why is the date stamped on the MV 1 Sep 2017? 

 Does that date mean something? Let me think for a second….oh, it does, doesn’t it?  It’s someone’s birthday !!!

JM tells us himself: “All of this isn’t just a coincidence”.

Serendipity is a beautiful love song, and I honestly believe it is JM’s love ode to JK, a birthday present to his love.  

I am aware that Jimin is not the one who wrote the lyrics for the song.  RM did though.  RM, that at this point was very much aware of the relationship and JM’s great love for JK. RM that had written JK’s Begin, a song that everyone agrees is a very personal song of JK’s.  

The “I am you, you are me” line actually originated from a song released by Zico in early 2016.  There are theories that Jikook used a reference from that songs MV (the band aids on their fingers) during a Puma fan sign on April 2nd 2016.  So, if this is true and the line had special meaning for them to start with, and it found it’s way into the song lyrics... feel free to make your conclusions...

And although we have no way of knowing just how involved JM was in the process of writing this song (did he ask for a love song? Did he give ideas to insert into the song, like destiny, not being a coincidence, the cat?), but at the end of the day, JM ‘owns’ the song, believes in what he is singing.  When he talks about the song you can feel the emotional personal connection he has with the song.  This is his song,  and he sings it for JK.  And JK knows this is Jimin’s gift to him.  

Serendipity related, check out the 18th September Dance with DNA Vlive -  https://www.vlive.tv/video/42069 .

JK’s reaction when JM says Serendipity is his favourite song.  So cute. The thing with this one is that you could easily overlook it or not read too much into it. Only Suga’s reaction here is the tell all.  

At the point that JK is acting all shy and smiley to himself, Suga moves closer to him, whispering “Jungkookah”, something that brings on a change to JK’s entire facial expression.  There’s even a slight head nod from Suga when JK wipes the smile off his face.  

Suga hinting to JK not to be so obvious, only made it more obvious.  I also noticed that just before JM starts singing Serendipity, just after he was asked what his favourite song from the album is, JK looks sideways to Suga, as if he knows he isn’t supposed to react too obviously – looks a bit like little JK might have been scolded or reigned in prior to the live broadcast.    Remember that this is really quite a short time after the song’s release, so JK’s excitement, happiness, is still really fresh.  The song is for him, and it’s JM’s favourite...

I am not going to analyse the MV, but there are many who have done so before me.  Was JM involved in the planning and did he have any input to the choices made?  Idk.  There is a similarity to the motif of the DNA MV. Is it a coincidence that the dominant colour used is JK’s favourite colour? Who knows. But doesn’t the song say “all of this is not a coincidence”?

Add to that JM starting to use the paw print emoji by JK’s name on Twitter?  A coincidence? Mmm… interesting.

From this point on it is clear that “you are me, I am you” is a JM and JK thing. 

21 September 2017 BTS comeback show.  JK was in charge of putting together each of the members DNA.  Very enjoyable.  But why did JM have to mention again that JK comes to their room to sleep?  Also, how does JK know that JM doesn’t wake up Hobi when he is playing games late at night?  JM telling us how he now learnt how to play games – then what games was JM good last year (re: Vlive 22 April 2017)?

22 September 2017 Love Yourself fan sign– JM singing Serendipity, JK joining in.  How happy JM looks when JK sings “just let me love you” with him all while making eye contact with each other at that point. The way JM looks at JK while singing the song.  Singing to him.  

Still think Serendipity is not JK and JM’s song?

They have a way of looking at one another that sometimes make me feel like I’m intruding on a very intimate moment.

24 September 2017 SBS Inkigayo Super concert – found it!!!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb-_jkdxgh4 start watching at 3.36min.

This is the one I remembered, where JM, saw the need to grab JK’s butt, run his hand up and down his back side, right through the crack, repeatedly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7fv0CaQT9M start watching 11:30min , JM walks to his place past JK, lightly brushing his hand against JK.  

When I mention the brushes or light touches – this is what I mean (see attached photos).   Obviously, there will be those who say it wasn’t intentional, that he was walking by him and didn’t mean to touch him.  I say bollox to that (excuse the language).  

First, there was plenty of room not to walk so close to JK.  Second, if you notice, he circles JK only to make it back to the same actual side he was on to begin with.  All he had to do was back up, just like JK did, and not circle JK to make it to his place on stage.  Third, to me it looks as if he was aiming to touch JK’s hand, only it was too high up.

26 September SBS MTV The Show.  Happy happy boys.  

30 September 2017  Love Yourself fan sign Sinchon –  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMIdoK9rfAI .  

Another one I was looking for.  I have seen this moment and wasn’t sure where or when it was from.  This is one of those clips Jikook’s use to show Jimin being jealous, and to be honest, first time I saw it it made me wonder too.  But watching it again and again, I have come to the conclusion that that wasn’t the issue.  

To me this is more JM being protective than JM being Jealous.  Setting the boundaries for V when it comes to JK, and it is something we see with JM more than once.  

JM wasn’t happy.  V wasn’t happy.  Boundaries were set.  

I actually wrote a separate post about this moment.  

1 October 2017 BTS live – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwU-NOMLvqQ 

Tipsy JK must be a Jikooker. His guard is down, inhibitions are gone and he becomes really chatty and tends to say and do things that he most likely regrets later on.  We didn’t see the members drink what seemed to be alcohol, but the vibe I got from JK’s talkativeness and behaviour during the live was that he was tipsy.  Not outright drunk, but tipsy.

To the fan’s request to show his abs, JK starts checking himself out, looking under his T-shirt, only to be scolded by JM to keep it to himself.  This is also the first time we hear him Jikooking, talking about eating with Jin and JM, referring to them as Jin-jikook, and then turning to JM, while the others try to call them by another name (I wonder why…).  Did I not say tipsy JK is a Jikooker???

3 October 2017 Run BTS episode 22.  https://www.vlive.tv/video/43438 start 7.00min.

JM turns to JK asking him to vote for him.  The softness in JM’s voice when he asks him acting all coquettish.  The way JM approached JK and the way he spoke to him, that’s not the way someone talks to his mate, or to his ‘brother’.

There was a softness in the approach to JK.  coquettish is the only way I can describe it.

 Love hearts were added by the show’s editors, not me !!!! 

12 October 2017 BTS countdown. Can be found on Dailymotion. 

All JM had to say was one word – Jungkookah and JK, surprisingly (not) chose him.  The look of joy on their faces at that point.  And again the editors with the heart emoji effects.  Uhm… 

JM and JK’s team was the team chosen by the fans, and guess what song they both choose to sing, as JM piggy backed JK? Their song obviously… Serendipity.  

And yet again, JM gets to tell us JK comes to his room to sleep.  We hear you JM.  We hear you.

Jimin birthday surprise (BangtanTV 1 November 2017) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aAhNAl53ZY.

JM gets flowers sent from his father.  J-Hope and Suga pretend JM’s dad has arrived to surprise JM, Suga pointing and saying he saw him.  JK slowly backs up, shocked and alarmed smile on his face, trying to move behind RM.  Then the boys start laughing.  

Now, why do I think this is a moment worthy of my timeline?  Well, when the boys start laughing, revealing it was a joke, the one Suga points at, laughingly, is JK.  

The whole thing feels like a joke on JK, not JM.  JK is the one being teased.   Why would JK be so stressed out from JM’s dad being there?  And why would the boys be teasing him like that? Hm…

The funny thing is that the camera is on JK and Suga, not on JM, who was supposedly just told his father was there. That feels slightly strange to me. Wouldn’t they want to catch JM’s reaction? Not JK’s?

28-30 October 2017 JK and JM Tokyo trip together.  This trip was long anticipated by JM.  He had been looking forward for his trip with JK for a long time.  It was a private trip planned and paid for by JK as a gift for JM.  What we know about the trip is mostly what they tell us in retrospect.  

Saying that, this was truly a memorable trip for them both, and they both can’t seem to shut up about it, talking about it at any possible moment.  JK telling us how JM stayed up (only JM?) until 5 am, so they both woke up at 12pm and missed out on plans they had for the morning, JM tells how they went shopping in Harajuku, how during their trip was the longest walk they took, referring to their trip during interviews.  As I mentioned – a memorable trip.  

31 October 2017 - When returning from the trip JM posts a selca/selfie.  I know I said I won’t be doing this, but rules are sometimes meant to be broken, and this specific selca is gorgeous, so…

BTS Wings tour Japan documentary - filmed October 2017, published 12 November 2017 - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7sz5rq .  

Both acting cute together. For some reason, they are the only ones that are paired for the one on one interviews, when Suga, Jin and Hobi were all interviewed by themselves. 

 Felt like JM and inhibitions were strangers during the group interview.  

Not really sure what JM was searching for in JK’s thigh during the group interview (when V was talking) – tupping, fingering and squeezing JK’s thigh.  And yet again RM and J-Hope’s reactions to die for.  Hobi eyes on the action throughout the whole episode, and RM when he notices, I would pay a lot of money to know what was going through his head at that point.  My educated guess is: “God, please get me out of here, why did I agree to be the leader????” LOL.

Then when asked what their impressions were when coming to the dome, JM tells how JK was crying, all while caressing JK’s ear.  JK tells how he was emotional, and they look at each other.  All the while, RM’s face when JM touches JK’s ear, only to continue to place his hands on their shoulders respectively.

JM continues to surprise, telling viewers to anticipate for JK’s sweat.  The minute he says that, RM turns to look towards Suga, the vibe I get is: “god, please help me here…”.  

Then JM goes on to tell us how in his opinion JK’s sweat is beautiful, Holy water.  What???? J-hope repeats JM’s Holy water, then glances for just a second towards RM and looks down nervously – great save Hobi.

The group interview was shot on JM’s birthday.  Maybe that had something to do with his good un-inhibited mood.

8 November 2017 – GCF in Tokyo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrTNLkqGrlc  .

While the Tokyo trip was JK’s birthday gift or JM.  GCF Tokyo is JK’s love ode to JM.  

One of JK’s grand gestures.  Up there with RB, as far as I am concerned.

This is not an analysis of GCFT, but I do have a few words to say on the matter. Explain why in my eyes this is a JK’s love ode to JM.  

This video was filmed and edited by JK, and JK alone.  It supposedly documents their trip together.  It was his choice and his alone to edit and publish this video and did so to JM’s surprise.  

In the video to start with, he lets us know that it’s the two of them, but from there on, other than seeing JK through the mirrors in the elevator while he is filming JM, the one we mostly see is JM.  JM smiling, JM goofing around, JM eating, JM enjoying himself on the Tea Cup ride at Disneyland, JM walking, JM dancing, and as a whole just JM having the time of his life. For a video that is documenting a trip to Tokyo, there is not too much of Tokyo we get to see.  

The end credits name JK as the photographer, director and editor, while naming JM as the actor.  

There is a strong romantic vibe to the video.  

JK’s editing choices, including his music choice for the video are well thought out.  His choice to edit to the beat of the song.  All cleverly thought out to accentuate both the footage and the lyrics of the song he chose:  ‘There for you’ by Troye Sivan and Martin Garrix.  

JM told us already: “this is not a coincidence”.  

The level of preparation from JK, acquiring the rights to use the song, the amount of time it took to go over the footage and edit the video, all while managing to do that will a full working schedule (working throughout the night). This was clearly something big for him.  His joy and pride when it was uploaded to Youtube, clearly showed, him smiley and dancing.

2 days prior to GCFT, on 6 November 2017, JM published his short clip of the trip.  JM too took the time to edit a cute footage of the trip, documenting both of them having fun. Putting them both side by side only emphasizes the difference and showcases just how much GCFT was all about JM, being JK’s love ode to JM.

To be continued...

[foxeatr]

How to convert ffxiv heads to high-poly for sculpt mods

this is a super quick tutorial on how i figured out how to convert heads to high poly for this sculpt available on ko-fi. it requires blender 2.8, and i am not super experienced with blender, so your mileage may vary. there is no re-weighting involved and the process is fairly simple and requires little (but some) manual adjustment. consider this a work in progress method that I thought I would share as it seems not many people have made headway in this area. If when you’re performing this trick you make any new discoveries, let me know!

this method can be done to any head, whether that be npc, a pre existing sculpt, or a completely unmodified head.

this tutorial assumes you have intermediate to advanced knowledge of 3d modding already. also keep in mind that I work in 3dsmax 90% of the time, so I’m coming from a place of learning a few blender tricks to make my process in max easier. 

if you follow this to the word it won’t produce perfectly high poly faces that can be used immediately. this only shows doing it on one part, and it would need to be done on all or most parts to function properly, and even then some vertices may need to be snapped together or welded afterwards.

with all that in mind, let’s dig in *and please read to the end before starting now that people have discovered solutions for problems I was unable to fix when I first wrote this guide!

Step 1: Choose your head and import it

for this i’ll be using a low poly face sculpt I made recently for myself. the base is Gaia, so it is higher poly than a lot of other faces, but the process will be the same

Step 2: Hide everything but one piece-- in this case, the face.

for the purposes of this tutorial i will only be showing how to subdivide the “base”. if you’re planning on making an entire head high poly, it will need to be applied to all or most of the pieces, but it can only be done one at a time anyway.

while in object mode, select everything that isn’t the face and hide it by pressing the H key

i have this face split up very conveniently already, with eye whites and teeth in different parts than the face itself. if your face isn’t like this (no vanilla faces are) thats ok. we can take care of this in the next step.

IMPORTANT: if the base of the head is in multiple parts, as in, there’s a chunk of the forehead separate from the rest of the face (for example), select them both by shift clicking and then hitting ctrl+J to join them.

Step 3: Edit Mode Part 1

click the base with your mouse and switch to edit mode in the top left.

at this stage, if you’re working with an unprocessed face or one that still has things other than the “face skin” showing, switch to face select. this will allow you to select individual polys. when you’ve selected the polys you want to hide (things like eye whites, teeth)

as previously mentioned, i don’t have those on this head, but this gif shows the process anyway.

once all pieces other than the base face skin are hidden, press a to select all. once all is selected, press ctrl+left click to disselect the polys at the base of the neck. (you can also hide those polys to make your life easier, but I didn’t think of this until after)

now switch back to vertex mode.

right click anywhere in the viewport and merge vertices by distance. IT HAS TO BE THE WHOLE FACE. i know there is another sculpting tutorial for blender that advises you hide vertices down the seam, but dont do this. from what I can tell there are no massive issues caused by welding down the center and it freed me from some headaches-- but do be aware that it is advised against by others.

Step 4: Edit Mode Part 2

now for the actual subdivision. right click anywhere and select subdivide. check “create n gons.” i’m not certain you have to do that, but in my testing it seemed to cause issues if it wasn’t checked.

the face will look a bit like crumpled tissue paper. that is ok.

reselect everything but the polys at the base of the neck again. go to the dropdowns at the left top of the viewport and select mesh > normals > average > face area. corner angle seems to work as well but is slightly different, personally face area produced better results for me.

add a triangulate modifier.

Step 5: Finishing

go back to object mode and hit alt+H to unhide everything.

export as normal and test in-game.

so for me, this mostly worked! the weights and such function perfectly. there is a seam at the neck only because it was there before (converting a female head to male will do this) and it is just overall smoother.

HOWEVER: there is some strange stuff happening down the middle of this face in certain lighting!

this has happened on both faces i’ve converted: some points just will not weld and it creates messy normals. both times i’ve had to take them into 3ds for manual welding. (there’s probably a way to do this in blender, but my knowledge lies much more heavily with max personally)

after welding, you’d want to re-unify/average the normals on only the vertices that were welded. that should more or less take care of the “splitting” issue.

You may be able to avoid this by not welding down the center and only averaging the normals of the vertices not in the center. for me, welding them all creates a smoother transition and is more time efficient, but you’re absolutely welcome to try! PS: if your face still appears sort of “bumpy” after averaging normals, my personal solution is to use a smoothing sculpt brush over the topology in sculpt mode and then reaveraging. make sure not to touch the neck. Good luck!!

EDIT: got some dms about fixing the middle seam after welding. it’s caused by broken UVWs as should probably be expected but i’m silly!

SEAM FIX FOR 3DSMAX (ANON):

“i fixed it doing this turn to poly, vertex mode > edit vertices > weld to 0.001 unwrapped UV, broke it along the seam along the entire face edit normals modifier > select normals along neck seam, and ctrl + i to invert selection BREAK > tick unify/break to average > hit unify > hit specify tick "use threshhold" and average it to 0.001cm and hit selected drag normals under skin and collapse to theres only a slight seam down the center of the face but its barely visible in certain shadows“

SEAM FIX FOR 3DSMAX (@elineaven):

“ Heeeey just to let you know for your high poly sculpt tutorial, when it comes to the issue of the middle of the face havinng the seam etc. You can also go into edit mode, select only the very middle vertices, and then go to vertex > rip vertices. That splits them back and gets rid of the seam entirely! Might be a useful tip “

[hamliet]

Chemical Weddings in RWBY

So once upon a time Hamliet said she’d write a meta about ships in RWBY, and then arrived months later without Starbucks. 

The central tenet of alchemy is solve et coagula: dissolve, and then coagulate. The process (RWBY appears to be following Ripley’s 12 Gates) repeats, rinses, and repeats again and again throughout the steps, “each time at a more refined level.” The point of a chemical wedding is to reconcile opposites, which is something I touched on in my pseudo-quick meta here. Lyndy Abraham, the author of A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, describes the chemical wedding as: 

a crucial operation in the creation of the philosopher’s stone. The alchemists were ultimately concerned with the union of substances, the reconciliation of opposites.

Basically, it unites opposites (fire and water, air and earth, sun and moon, passive and active,  etc., etc., etc.) and then the opposites start to take on each other’s qualities, creating the “Rebis,” or a person both male and female. 

The first chemical wedding is usually somewhat violent, primitive even, whereas the second one signifies the creation of the stone. However, characters can have more than two weddings, and chemical weddings do not inherently have to be romantic--Sam and Frodo aren’t, for example--but most often are, because it’s the most obvious way to show a union between separate people (the old adage “two become one” in marriage, for example). 

If we look at George Ripley’s 12 Gates, chemical weddings tend to be focused on in the fourth stage of conjunction (which I wrote about here) and in the ninth, fermentation (which is probably going to be in volume 10--maybe a little in volume 9, but traveling between worlds seems to be a hallmark of sublimation in fiction so I’m guessing we’re stuck there for the time being). But in a lengthy series spanning eight years and counting, there is going to be overlap. 

So let’s talk about chemical wedding imagery historically. It tends to involve dissolution (via water or fire--keep in mind metal was associated with fire in olden days, so stabbing with metal was considered liquid fire, or so it was believed to be by alchemists) and then coagulation (healing/coming together). 

Four of the five ships--two of whom are definitely happening, one of which I think is happening and one of which I think has a good chance--reference historical alchemical artwork and symbolism in key moments. (RWBY does reference alchemical artwork; see here and here.) So let’s dive in and examine potential chemical wedding allusions in RWBY:

Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie (Renora)

Let’s start with the most obvious couple: Ren and Nora. Their first chemical wedding occurs when they are children. In alchemical art, birds are often used to show the volatility/primitiveness of a first chemical wedding:

The raven is replicated in the Nevermore which forms a similarly threatening pose over Ren and Nora when he unlocks his semblance to protect her, thus honoring his father and mother’s legacies. 

You can even see earth (trees), water (river), fire, and air (the bird flying) in the scene as it pans out. After this, Ren and Nora become “Ren and Nora,” as Nora herself says in Volume 8. They’re inseparable, because they’re on their way to becoming one. However, unification doesn’t mean that they’re literally the same person; in stories like these, it’s more like they become better versions of themselves through growing towards each other and adopting each other’s traits (like Nora’s courage for Ren, and Ren’s caution for Nora). 

Their second, elevated chemical wedding is in the same place as their first, when in Volume 4 they return to the village and defeat the monster they were too young to defeat last time. This time, Nora is the one who protects Ren by telling him he could not sacrifice his life by pulling Ren back, in a reversal of his running to her in their first moment years ago. 

Like the first, there’s water involved--Ren and Nora hide next to a river, watching as the Knuckelvee advances on them. I talked previously how I thought this looked like a possible allusion to this alchemical image (look at the moon symbol on the head of the aggressor): 

The moon symbol actually shows up quite a bit in this scene, first when Nora and Ren discover the Nuckelvee is still alive in the cave: 

And then in the moment when they defeat it: 

While I am certain this is a chemical wedding, I’m not certain why the moon symbol is so prominent in this, though I do think it is possibly in reference to this image and how Nora and Ren are united now: 

Yang Xiao Long/Blake Belladonna (Bumbleby)

Firstly, the alchemy image is somewhat of a creepy image, right? In this, Mercurius has united the two principles by beheading them (amputation is a Thing in alchemy), leaving them to putrefy and then coagulate.

Like the Nuckelvee for Nora and Ren, Blake and Yang have a somewhat antagonistic Mercurius who unites them: Adam Taurus. He doesn’t cut off their heads, but he does seriously injure Blake and cuts off Yang’s arm in a scene that is romantically charged (you have Blake’s possessive ex telling her he’ll target someone she loves and specifically chooses Yang). 

While I have my issues with how Bumbleby is written, it’s hard to interpret that as anything other than him seeing Yang as a rival for Blake’s affection.

Their second chemical wedding also involves Adam. There’s no one direct image that seems to have inspired it, but it does take place in a place full of waterfalls (fountains and flowing water in general, like the ones in Nora and Ren’s village, are common elements of chemical weddings’ settings) and by the ocean (the “mercurial sea” is where the elements dissolve to make the Philosopher’s Stone, so it’s also a common hallmark for chemical weddings).

(To briefly address this: this is where my complaints about the writing pile in, because you can also make a damn strong case that Blake and Sun fighting on the ship to Menagerie is a chemical wedding, which it is, but I think it’s clear at this point that Bumbleby is endgame. Either both were written for a reason, like if they weren’t sure if they could do Bumbleby, or a narrative reason, in which case Black Sun should have been dealt with rather than hand-waved away, or they were just teasing, but baiting fans is never, ever good writing; it’s cheap. All that to say that while I think there’s a compelling case they were interested in pursuing Bumbleby from the start, Black Sun shippers have a right to feel tricked and not all criticism thereof is based in homophobia or a lack of narrative understanding, or even in a dislike of the ship.)

At the beginning of this scene, Adam makes it clear that this is a redo of their previous chemical wedding by reminding them of it: 

Blake stabs Adam with a silver weapon; Yang with red. We have earth, air (clouds), water, and weapons as a stand-in for fire.

It’s still somewhat of a violent wedding, which makes me wonder if Bumbleby will have a third (and Renora as well). But it also parallels Renora in this: returning to a pivotal scene where they were traumatized, but this time being able to overcome it because they’ve become more like each other. Blake is in many ways Yang’s trauma stretching far beyond Beacon (Blake runs away, as does Raven, Yang’s mother who abandoned her), and likewise Yang for Blake (she’s hotheaded and holds grudges, like Adam). But Blake and Yang have been working on becoming better versions of themselves. 

At the end of this scene, they even exchange quasi-wedding vows (since Blake’s promise is to not abandon Yang): 

And the artists drive home the point by drawing Blake’s hair far bushier than normal (more like Yang’s), and Yang’s far tamer than normal (like Blake’s). 

Jaune Arc/Weiss Schnee (White Knight)

Weiss and Jaune have had one chemical wedding thus far (possibly two but not sure) and I didn’t ship them at all until I saw this scene. Like Bumbleby and Renora, they have an antagonistic Mercurius: Cinder.  

(This one I’ll be arguing a little bit about why I think it’s set up for romance as well.)

In this scene, Cinder directly compares Weiss to Pyrrha in regards to how Jaune feels about them (and we know Jaune and Pyrrha were romantic--you can also argue Cinder was an antagonistic Mercurius uniting Pyrrha and Jaune). 

When Weiss screams, Cinder gets an idea and slides her gaze from Weiss to Jaune. 

And then reenacts this: 

As I also mentioned previously, Jaune then plays the role of the Prince to Weiss’s Snow White (which is an alchemical fairy tale). Like when Ren unlocks his aura to protect Nora, Jaune unlocks his to save Weiss. Weiss looks as if she is in a glass coffin that gets more and more golden, symbolic of refinement. 

It’s also probably an allusion to this image of a chemical wedding presided over by Saturn (Mercury in this scene, since he’s there) and Death (Ruby and Qrow, who are also present in the scene with Jaune and Weiss). (For more on this image, see here.)

Weiss and Jaune also have some oppositional imagery and arcs: Weiss starts Beacon with a deep family legacy and an inherited semblance, she chooses to go to Beacon on her own and is the favored child (at first). Jaune too has a family legacy of warriors, but instead of feeling empowered because of this, he is insecure and  literally cheats his way into the school. He doesn’t have a semblance until season 5. After this incident, Weiss and Jaune spend some time recreationally together (seeing a movie in vol 7); Jaune becomes more confident as a leader, and Weiss continues her arc in becoming more sympathetic to those from less privileged backgrounds.

Arguably, what happened at the end of volume 8 could be seen as having some symbolism of a chemical wedding for Weiss and Jaune too, but I don’t think it actually is one since they weren’t focused on as characters enough (if this was intended to be the start of one, we’ll get something next season, I’d imagine). The only reason I’m mentioning it is because it does function as an inverse of the previous one, which is the case for Renora and Bumbleby’s first and second weddings too. Cinder again almost kills Weiss (she falls in the exact same position as in vol 5), but Jaune saves Weiss when he screams after killing Penny. Instead of saving Weiss by healing, he kills. There’s also some distinctive red and white imagery. 

And then Winter arrives with a six-pointed star and birds before telling them to run together:

But again, I wouldn’t really call this one; it just has some imagery of one and fits a pattern, so I’m including it as a potential lead-in to an actual one in the void or later. 

Ruby Rose/Oscar Pine (Rosegarden)

Like with Weiss/Jaune, I’ll be arguing a little bit about why I think this one is likely to end up romantic, too (for example, Cinder most recently in volume 8 used Oscar to taunt Ruby in a callback to using Pyrrha and Weiss to taunt Jaune).

Also: oh look, finally a wedding that isn’t violent. They just... meet. Which is also normal for a chemical wedding but less dramatic.

Behold, the bird uniting the solar king and lunar queen: 

(Fun fact: unless CRWBY came up with ship names which I highly, highly doubt, this is pure coincidence, but it’s a funny one: the art series this image is taken from is called Rosarium Philosophorum--which literally means “rose garden philosophy.”)

Let’s look at the scene where Ruby and Oscar meet for the first time. What makes this a chemical wedding is in part how obvious their markings are and the overall imagery is in the scene.

They are united by Qrow (who in addition to being named after a bird can literally transform into a bird):

Oscar asks about Ruby specifically (yes, I know because Qrow’s her uncle, but the writing is telling us to focus on his relationship with her): 

And immediately notes/is in awe that she has silver eyes (i.e. the moon): 

Qrow seems to realize he’s done something momentous in a way that almost doesn’t entirely work within the frame of the narrative (but he is drunk, so). 

The scenery of this room is also telling. The table is literally an Emerald Table, the legendary foundation of alchemy itself. 

Once they sit and talk, behind Oscar are the elements of earth and water, which he represents, and also the moon, which while traditionally associated with earth and water, he does not (at least not as strongly as he’s associated with the sun/gold):

Similarly, behind Ruby we have the elements of fire and air (like, if you zoom in, they actually drew air), which she is marked as, and the sun, which again, she’s not as strongly associated with as she is with the moon:

In Splendor Solis, which CRWBY has referenced before, the Solar King does eventually end up grounded in the moon, and likewise the Lunar Queen in the sun:

Oscar and Ruby also do have oppositional arcs and roles: Ruby starts the series in the very first episode by being invited to Beacon two years early because of her leaping into action to stop Torchwick. She’s scolded for her recklessness, but immediately picked out as special because of her silver eyes. In contrast, Oscar is reluctant to leave his farm once Ozpin inhabits him; he refuses at first, and then once he does leave, is nervous and timid.

Anyways I wouldn’t be surprised if Qrow arrives in Vacuo with RWBYJ in tow and this time reunites Ruby with Oscar in an inverse. We’ll see. 

I do want to say that I also see potential for Emerald Sustrai/Mercury Black, in that they often act as one and share a theme song, but I haven’t seen any actual visual references to a chemical wedding for them... yet. 

[nutty1005]

Multitudes of Art from Wenhui Daily

Original article: Print Media by Wenhui Daily (1) http://whb.cn/zhuzhan/xinwen/20210815/415430.html and (2) http://whb.cn/zhuzhan/xinwen/20210815/415432.html

Xiao Zhan Performs in “A Dream Like A Dream”, What Traffic has Injected into Theater

Original author: 帕帕拉佐

Preface

Whether the traffic celebrity is capable is a problem, it is also another problem when there is no traffic celebrity in the theater scene. This time, because of Xiao Zhan, another group of people who are unrelated to theater started going into it. Perhaps after the indescribable wonderful 8 hour experience, some of them would truly fall in love with theater, some may continue to fork out money for her idol’s next scheduled event. But is it really that important to separate the “I’m in the same room with him for 8 hours” crowd from the theater audiences?

1

Theater, which used to be a niche form of art, had been breaking through its circle these two years, and causing a lot of discussions. The most recent would be “Top Traffic Celebrity” Xiao Zhan’s participation in “A Dream Like A Dream”.

In between the midst of filming a period fantasy drama “The Longest Promise”, Xiao Zhan performed as Patient No. 5, a role which Hu Ge had once performed. After the performances in the 3 stops Wuhan, Qingdao and Chengdu, at every play’s curtain call, the theater would be filled with endless applause, there was even once even covered with rousing ovation. In the cheers of nearly a thousand people, the voices of young ladies were particularly distinct.

Actually, this is not the first time Xiao Zhan’s participation in “A Dream Like A Dream” created a revelry in his fans. Early this year in March, once the official announcement that Xiao Zhan would participate in the Tour of 9 Cities, it went onto hot search immediately, and until now, Xiao Zhan’s participation in “A Dream Like A Dream” has accumulated a staggering 4.2 billion views.

Over thousand tickets were sold out in seconds, an 80 RMB ticket was scalped to over a 1,000 RMB, the tickets of the “lotus pond seats” were scalped to more than 20,000 RMB. Although Chris Li and Hu Ge both performed in this play in 2013, but since it birth 9 years ago, this magnitude of furor only happened this year.

In the midst of anticipation and suspicion, Xiao Zhan finally walked on stage. The trials of theater revealed the sincerity in him and this sincerity is Xiao Zhan’s base color, or it could even be said to be the reason he is surrounded by so much love.

This innate sincerity is a scarcity in a stage created by glorious vocals and technical construction. Many experienced actors with strong foundations would be working hard for this, but they never had it.

No one could deny that Xiao Zhan created a unique Patient No. 5, who threaded the whole play as a core character. For the actor to be a good Patient No. 5, he would need precise acting, thorough understanding of the role, firm control of emotions, and of course the blending of both the actor’s self and the character.

That year, the tranquility that Hu Ge had after coming back from his tribulations became his key to unlocking Patient No. 5; whereas for Xiao Zhan, who had went through the growth from an “idol” to a “top traffic celebrity”, who had a “unique” experience in cyberspace, the things that happened to him these few years, became his natural advantage in portraying Patient No. 5.

Last year, Yanghua held “Cao Yu’s Special 110 Year Old Commemoration Event”. Then, Xiao Zhan was still in the eye of the storm, and he had a conversation with Cao Yu’s daughter, Wan Fang, and in this conversation, Xiao Zhan did a tremendous amount of homework, and wrote down a few dozen questions regarding Wan Fang’s script “Winter Journey” and “You and I”, his questions were simple but impressionable, it gave people the feeling that he seemed to have reached the edge of theater.

In this conversation, he dazzled Wang Keran, the producer of “A Dream Like A Dream”. He seemed to have found the common point between Xiao Zhan and Patient No. 5: the impermanence nature of fate.

And once again, it proves that instincts were very useful. The intersection between the actor and the role’s life would become the crux to whether the actor is able to infuse a soul to his character. The reason he was able to establish his character was not entirely from his ability to craft roles, but more of the source came from what happened to him. In addition, Xiao Zhan’s intelligence and hard work left a deep impression on Wang Keran during the initial stages of rehearsal – while many actors had not memorized his lines, Xiao Zhan had already memorized all of his lines, and this is especially difficult given that “A Dream Like A Dream” was an 8 hour long performance and there are about 3 to 4 times more lines than a standard play.

Whether the traffic celebrity is capable is a problem, it is also another problem when there is no traffic celebrity in the theater scene. As the theater market becomes more mature operationally, more traffic celebrities would cross over to this foreign scene. At the same time, there would be controversy as well. Can the boundaries between theater and general public be broken through by “traffic celebrities”? When will theater become a “reality TV theater”? Would the audiences be looking at celebrities instead of the play? These kinds of debates had always existed. At this, Lai Shengchuan did not care too much about it. He spoke of an incident in the past, when “A Dream Like A Dream” invited Chris Li to perform, her fans did not simply watch a show, but they watched 10. During the intermission, Lai Shengchuan spoke with her fans, and he realized that hey had been watching for 5 days straight, saying “the play was awesome”.

To him, despite the difference between how traffic celebrities shine on stage and how theater is like, or perhaps foreign to then, he just has to look at how they work to know that it took a lot of talent and hard work to come this far! “Hence, don’t be too particular about whether traffic celebrities are suitable for theater.”

No matter how loud the controversy is, it is fact that theater trains people – a performance of a few hours, there is no pause, no post production, there is only one take with no chance of a retake. Hence, there has always been a hierarchy in the artistic circle, theater actors would be above movie actors, movie actors would be above TV drama actors. No matter what the actual reasons for celebrities to join theater are, Lai Shengchuan’s story proved a point, when a top traffic celebrity joins theater, an art form with high entry requirements, it would inject more vibrancy and attention to this art.

This time, because of Xiao Zhan, another group of people who are unrelated to theater started going into it. Perhaps after the indescribable wonderful 8 hour experience, some of them would truly fall in love with theater, some may continue to fork out money for her idol’s next scheduled event. But is it really that important to separate the “I’m in the same room with him for 8 hours” crowd from the theater audiences?

Let us not think too much about it, and watch the show first!

Xiao Zhan, This “Newcomer” to Theater

Original author: 贾行家

Preface

I do not see the problem with Xiao Zhan’s decision to perform, just like I do not see how anyone would be damaged by this incident. If it had a specific “influence” (I do not see how that is, it is just the decision by a theater group), then to me, the influence is – it allowed more audiences to walk into theaters, and let more platforms notice theater.

2

9 years ago, Yanghua Theater placed a huge bet on “A Dream Like A Dream”, it came from Wang Keran’s observations based on the changing times – China’s industrialization and urbanization created its first “middle-class” life, and for the first time the first generation who had completed education but yet who are also stuck in the “modern conundrum” – who am I, where did I come from, where do I go from here? The old answers were no longer effective. This generation’s problem was – how to face the coming of death, and how to face the loneliness that came with the inevitable death? In the hands of Yanghua, this question became – how do you use a touching story, outside of religion or philosophy, to give its audience the love of life and a sense of comfort?

As such, there exists such a different theater group, with a producer with very “un-modern” methods: front stage and backstage, regardless of matters, as long as it could not be clearly defined to a job, it belongs to Wang Keran only. He called himself an “artist + businessman”, the nature of a businessman was to be in-charge of investments, ensure profitability, so he had to consider from the business angle – whether this play could fulfill the extreme and common spiritual requirements of the current generation, while at the same time be able to continue running for a long time; he also had to consider from the artistic angle, taking risks while ensuring profitability, and create the play from his heart. The purity of drama is as such, those who are passionate about it would stake their lives for it.

The author of “A Dream Like A Dream”, playwright Lai Shengchuan had a performance principle technique called “guide the cause, not the effect”, which meant that when the director explains the scene, he does not explain the effect he wants, but instead he would explain the reasons behind this scene clearly, that is, the character’s experience and emotional state, so as to allow the actor to create a natural performance after understanding. This was very different from the rush that is in TV dramas, which would often film out of sequence, the actors might not be clear about what he is acting as, and they could only use exaggerated actions to cover their loss of direction. Worst still, there are also actors who could only count 1, 2, 3, 4 to the camera in place of lines.

However, there are also good directors who do not like to film according to logic, and film as they wanted, while the actors did not know what they were portraying, but yet they could still create a masterpiece, Xu Haofeng’s movie review on Li An’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” spoke about this – Li An felt that Chow Yun-fat’s eyes were too sharp and alert, so he kept shouting “CUT” repeatedly, until Chow Yun-fat lost confidence and his gaze became scattered, so as to get the scene he wanted. Why did he not explain the “cause” at this point? Perhaps it was hard to explain, it was like a fisherman, he had to fish for the right gaze, to wait for the right sequence.

What we said above was to explain two simple things.

The first thing: Art can be, or even must be, done in an autocratic manner, it has to set its goal based on its audience, but how the play will be like, only one person will know, and in that creative space, there is only his method.

The other thing: The status created by an actor for the role is actually very brittle, they usually only know the outcome but they rarely know the cause. The difficult part in rehearsing “A Dream Like A Dream” came from these 31 actors who had to take on more than 100 characters, besides autocracy, there was a need to protect them from interruption and confusion. Xiao Zhan, who joined in this new version, he only had Patient No. 5 on the door of his dressing room, the other roles and burden were removed.

When we were discussing Xiao Zhan, we actually saw many versions of Xiao Zhan. Going back to basics, he is a young actor and singer. I found similarities between him and Patient No. 5: They both had the same unsettling impermanence in their fate, there were things that were not caused by them, they were merely caught in between – when you take a step back, impermanence is neither good nor bad. The problem is, which Xiao Zhan is the one standing on the stage of “A Dream Like A Dream”? If we took him as actor Xiao Zhan, then there is nothing wrong with it.

As an audience, my judging criteria is very simple: How did this new theater actor Xiao Zhan do? Based on his age and experience, Patient No. 5 is an extremely complex and hard to control character, and after 3 stops of Yanghua’s tour, the audience would probably have felt: Xiao Zhan created a brand new, intricate Patient No. 5, this character was well established onstage, this meant that his understanding and analysis was also well established.

I also prepared an observer angle, that was to see if he could blend into the strict system of theater, would be he outshone by actors who had a lot more energy, foundation and experience. The result exceeded my expectations, he not only did it, he displayed clear precision in his pace and control, and realized a complete theater experience.

I do not see the problem with Xiao Zhan’s decision to perform, just like I do not see how anyone would be damaged by this incident. If it had a specific “influence” (I do not see how that is, it is just the decision by a theater group), then to me, the influence is – it allowed more audiences to walk into theaters, and let more platforms notice theater. Chinese theater really needed more exploration in terms of content and operation. As for what influence this would have on the theater scene, audiences are very simple, as long as it was a good show onstage, they would buy tickets to watch it. As an outsider, I would also want to exclaim another statement: there were those who always said they wanted to revive the theater, but when someone really worked hard at doing it, these people would always come with their senseless controversies.

From my point of view, after I met Xiao Zhan’s “A Dream Like A Dream”, I felt that my soul had been cleansed by the waters in the lotus pond, been carefully cleaned by the fluttering spotlights and shadows akin to a bright moon, I seemed to have understood many things, there were less confusion, more courage, and a lot of gratitude to lives of those from front stage and backstage of the theater.

According to Sigmund Freud’s theory, play is a child’s unique way of gaining experience in handling matters, the function of play is to vent, venting is the purification of emotions, this is slightly different from those who take themselves as the audiences’ guide to purification. Theater has created a space to help the audience to vent what is in their hearts. After becoming an adult, it seemed like besides dreaming, there are not many methods to self-purify; besides dreaming, we could also watch “A Dream Like A Dream”.

[themoonlitjunkyard]

So I wrote a bit of an essay on how I would handle writing a Cats movie, because it would not leave me alone, the ideas came pouring. x3

TL:DR?  How the Cats movie would be written by a competent fan. x3  It’s not a terribly long read anyway, about 4 and 1/2 pages worth.  Do eet. :3

How I Would Make a Cats Movie

I've suddenly been thinking about this a great deal, so I decided to write down my ideas for what the movie of this play could be.  This'll probably be a long post, and I'm sure there are other essays about how other people would remake the movie, but hear me out if you'd like anyway, because this won't leave me alone. x3

Note: Although I have my own headcanon for Cats, (the shared universe of my comic and writings) it pertains to the characters of the '98 stage film version.  When approaching a movie, I'd re-imagine the plot, using the important cues from the play that's common among most or all productions.

With that, let's get into what I wouldn't change from the movie itself:

-- Instead of sticking to the junkyard, I would indeed have the characters move around a big chunk of London; the sets they created were amazing.  If this were to be animated instead of live-action, that's fine too, as the backgrounds to the concept art were breathtaking, and I would have them stay that way.

-- Lots of nods to the original play and poems. In that vein, I actually liked that Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer's number was the original melody from the first performances; it gives their characters in a movie setting a more mischievous quality. Also, for the sake of time, I probably wouldn't include Growltiger's number or Pekes and Pollicles, but I would give references to them.

-- Keep the core cast. Pretty much everybody was perfect for the principle roles (With perhaps the exception of Corden's Bustopher Jones and Wilson's Jennyanydots, but they would have done much better, I believe, with a much more competent director, making them into what their characters were meant to be and not walking slapstick fat jokes). Perhaps switch up some of the background roles and give them to actual performers from the theater version.

-- Go ahead and mob me, but...I would still not have separated Victoria's and Jemima's characters. ^.^;;  It was AWL's first intent to have a character who could both sing with Jemima's youth and innocence and dance with Victoria's grace and beauty, and it wasn't possible at the time, where in a movie it is.  But, I would be open to negotiation on that one, because I still love Jemima.

-- Old Deut can even still be female.  It was nice seeing Dame Judy Dench given a chance to be in Cats again considering her history.

-- This is probably obvious, but still keep the premise that the Jellicle Ball is also a contest for those who are prospectively looking to be reborn into a new life, since that's the common interpretation of the play (maybe give some valid reasons for each who want to).  It wouldn't be Macavity's ultimate goal, however.

Now, I'm sure that most changes I'd make are obvious: polish the appearances of the cats in a live-version setting.  Keep the CGI tails, expressive ears, and fur, THAT was well done.  But make the face more feline.  Give them the stage make-up and facial fur.

Vary the cats' designs.

Better overall camera work.

INTRODUCE EVERYBODY, at least during the Naming of Cats portion, or provide pictures in the credits next to the names and actors.

DO NOT make the orchestra follow the singers; the singers must follow the orchestra (ups the overall quality of the music; more information can be found in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3aK-EK5V2k ).

More background character interaction.  The play is interesting because the actors are allowed to be in character while chilling on stage, and every performance is a little different with the way they can interact when not having to do numbers.  In a movie, you can make the audience able to notice something new each time they watch when things go on in the background.  A movie screen is a limited  stage, of course, but one can do wonders even with witty dialogue or gestures.

Yes, the cat puns can stay too. x3

Finally, stay true to the core messages, visual storytelling, and emotional context of the play. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'd even try to make a movie for theaters, to have to be subject to executive meddling and editing, for the sake of trying to make it compete with other movies coming out at the same time.  Such a decision might nix the possibility of the all-star cast, but...so be it.

Now then, how would I approach the story?  I can see why they went with Victoria as the main character in the movie; even being an ensemble character, she was an eye-catching part of the play, the "belle of the ball" so to speak, and had the important role of being the first to touch Grizabella, accepting her back into the tribe.  She was a good character to be the audience's eyes and ears, for the Jellicles to introduce us to their world.

In my version, she'd still be a focus character...the core of innocence and a bastion of empathy and hope, the one who accepts Grizabella first.

But...I'd make the main character Demeter instead.

Not just because she's my favorite, but because she seems to be the character with a LOT of background in the play itself.  She's the first cat we see on stage, she sounds the warning for Macavity's arrival time and time again (and has an obvious traumatic past), and has an emotional connection to Grizabella (if not a lot of empathy). In Jacob Brent (1998 Mistofelees)'s interpretation of the performance, Demeter is the one joining the Jellicles for the first time, or returning to them, to escape from Macavity...so she could easily be the audience's stand-in for the introduction to the tribe. Simply put, if the movie is to borrow more from the play instead of trying to be its own thing, Demeter would be a prime choice for main character, as she has much more plot potential to offer.

Plus, she had a character concept art sheet for the animated version that never got off the ground, and I imagine she probably would have been a focus character if not the main one.  In an animated version, I wouldn't even be adverse to using her young and elegant-seeming original design, if she were still a strong character aiming to face her own demons eventually; hidden bravery in a frame of helplessness, but she'd slowly be gaining some courage by making friends with the Jellicles.

Of course, all the important plot characters would also have their focuses and stories.  Victoria is a starry-eyed youngster who also just joined the tribe (she can keep the plot that she was abandoned there, but she's full of hope and enthusiasm, and only lets it show once that it bothers her...that can be where HER song to Grizabella comes in, IF that can fit somewhere). She makes easy friends with Demeter and they bond quickly, Demeter admiring (and perhaps even envying) her optimistic view of the world; maybe they even have similar stories of trying to find a place to fit in, her having found it already and Demeter having just left a worse place, eventually learning from this sweet youngster, that might even become like a niece or little sister.

The important point is that Victoria can be a side focus character and still be the emotional center of the story, an inspiration for everyone else. There is always room for good characterization, that's my belief.

The flip side to Victoria's coin in terms of friends for Demeter would be Bombalurina.

The way I see it, she's not necessarily evil and working against the tribe in this version; she'd take her role back from 2019 Cassandra as the voluptuous and influential tough girl with a heart of gold and protective nature, but she'd be a bit more enigmatic and mysterious as well.  She was also with Macavity (and at the start, still working with him, there having followed Demeter to keep an eye on her for him), but she's also a member of the Jellicles and joins in on all the shenanigans (this is pretty much what I imagined what she'd be doing in the movie until I heard Swift's description of her, really...perhaps she even speaks to and plots with Macavity in an aside or two).  As the plot progresses, she goes from trying to sway Demeter's attitude towards the Jellicles, to eventually having a Heel-Face-Turn and helping stand up to Macavity and protect her when he's revealed, the tribe having won her over.  They both still duet his number like in the play, to explain who Macavity is to the youngsters.  And there's no catnip involved. :B

Munkustrap is still, as always, the guide to the Jellicles' world, the sort-of narrator of the play, and de-facto leader...and in my movie he also still retains his protector role: the first to take on any threat, helping in leading the way to find and discipline the cat burglars, and most importantly by taking Macavity on in their fight, to protect Demeter and the rest of the tribe.  Of course, Demestrap is still my pairing...he sticks by Demeter as much as he does Old Deut and the youngsters, leading her through everything that the Ball entails, and they develop a caring bond throughout.  They share a nice intimate dance at the Jellicle Ball, much like Misto and Victoria in the movie, where Demeter can let go of her worries and have fun with this new tribe of friends.

On the shipping front for the others, I would mostly leave it up to interpretation, same as in the play, except for the obvious pairings. x3 Shipping isn't actually the first thing on my mind when I envision a story, really, but I'll make an aside about an obvious one.

Now, Tuggoffelees isn't my cup of tea, at least not in the '98 video, because there's an age difference...and also Tugger and Misto's dynamic seems more brotherly to me, or like older dude and younger mentor friends, as it's Tugger's job to help an uncertain child prodigy Misto to find his confidence, and to use his magic to bring Old Deut back from wherever Macavity took him (or her). This dynamic would still be there in my movie...but because the Tuggoffelees shippers seem to make up a big portion of the fandom, I'd still toss them a bone by aging Misto up a little (or Tugger down to rough teenager, perhaps) and having them interact more than they did in 2019, but I can also see Misto having a little crush on Victoria still. Maybe there's also a little Plato/Victoria/Mistofelees triangle lurking in the background too if you look hard enough. Cats do tend towards polyamory. :B

Possibilities are there, anyway, but in all seriousness, shipping shouldn't be the focus of a bigger story in the long run. Misto would be another focus character, perhaps only slightly less so than in 2019, but he's still a practicing magician with confidence issues and lots of talent that would blossom during his number.

The most popular fan-canons (or even confirmed canons) would probably make it into the movie, like Munk and Tugger being brothers, and them being Old Deut's sons (I have a vision of a cute interaction with Munk and Deme during Tugger's number where Munk snidely introduces him as his brother on whom everyone must have a crush, Demeter remarks that cats like him aren't her type, and he glances at her briefly like, "then I might have a chance...!" before the song abruptly continues...this could even replace Jenny’s aside with Munk from 2019). Otherwise, again, let the interactions with each of the cats towards each other drive the thoughts of various relationships.  There's never any one true canon of Cats, really, that's a part of what makes it fun.

Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer's number would be different than the movie as well; instead of bringing Victoria along for some mischief and getting her in trouble, they'd have just been responsible for the first "Macavity" scare, only to go along the street breaking things (and into things) and generally causing mayhem while they sing.  The rest of the tribe realizes they've been tricked, and Demeter is like, "I know these two...c'mon, I know how we can catch them," and she leads the others around in a chase while the song goes on until they are surrounded, with Munkustrap left rather impressed at how clever and headstrong the young queen could be.  The trouble twins are brought along when everyone gathers for Old Deut's arrival, though Bomba is briefly left behind to let Macavity know they've caught his "best" two bandits, and him retreating for another way to get at them.  Munk even still has Alonzo and Plato as his two best protectors (or in-training ones), as either one are usually beside him in the productions to catch out Jerrie and Teazer after their number.

The only conundrum I'm having at the moment is how to play out the "Moments of Happiness" scene that starts the play's second act, after Grizabella's first rendition of "Memory".  In the movie, that's followed by Victoria's song, and then by Old Deut lamenting quietly to herself with a song about how easily the true meaning of happiness can be forgotten...whereas in the play, Old Deut sings that both to lament thoughtfully and to scold the others on not forgetting it themselves. They don't quite get it, and Jemima chimes in with a line of "Memory" (used by Grizabella later) to help convince them.

I'd honestly love to keep "Beautiful Ghosts", it's a very lovely, emotional number...but honestly it's hard to place it.  The scene might fit if Demeter watches the song, empathizing with it, and then is the one to gently pull Victoria (who is still desperate to help Grizabella) away from trying to touch the retreating old queen, again feeling pity for her but knowing that nobody wants her back in the tribe.  There'd be a bit of dialogue, perhaps some comforting for the kitten, and then Demeter overhears Old Deut sing his/her bit, there's some dialogue there, and then the rest of the plot continues.  It's a part that could be worked on, but essentially when you think about it, "Beautiful Ghosts" replaces Jemima's rendition of "Memory", which is a sweet moment in itself, and it would be almost impossible to keep both.

As for Macavity...in 2019 he's the one who wants to be granted another life, but no reason is given other than that.  He's a successful criminal in his current life, a powerful magician at that, and derails the Ball...for what, to die and be reborn, leave what he built?  Not sure if there was to be any behind-the-scenes explanation, other than he just wants a chance to do more and be bigger.  His reasoning is a bit weak, TBH.

In my movie, he keeps his motivations from the play, firstly to retrieve Demeter, and then hatches a plan to kidnap old Deut and derail the Jellicle Ball for good measure, as he knows the tribe are the only ones who could stop him (perhaps there's hidden, mysterious backstory there too that can be touched on, some hatred for the tribe).  Bombalurina learns of this, and having by the second act grown to love the Jellicles as well, has her doubts to go through with it.  After the number about him, Macavity still returns in Old Deut's disguise to trick the Jellicles, but Demeter still sees right through it...and it's her high time to shine and face her fears, attacking and revealing him, and further proving herself to the tribe.  When he comes after her, Bomba is the one to step up first to defend her, basically saying "I quit" to his face...then when she's slapped aside, Munkustrap charges in for the real fight.  Once the protector is defeated, the rest of the cats rise above their fears of Macavity and force him to retreat.

All the rest of the movie, the songs and numbers and such, mostly plays out like the stage version, with lovely moments of dialogue and interaction in-between.  With both Pekes and Pollicles and Growltiger cut, even with lines from the songs and the length of the Jellicle Ball Dance as cut for time as they were in 2019, I'd say my movie could still run a good two and a half hours at the VERY least, maybe even three (with Pekes and Pollicles, probably), because this would be a labor of love and not a labor of a rush to the box office numbers.  Time can be taken.

I might just write out my movie's sequence of events specifically later if there's interest. x3 But yes!  That's how I'd approach the movie.  What do you guys think? What would you do?  I'd probably also still try to go live-action, but an animated one would be neat too; for the dancing, which is an integral part of the performance, dancers can be rotoscoped.

I just know that if I were making enough money, I'd totally get some talented actors or animators and voice actors together and make a Cats movie at least close to what it was supposed to be.  Perhaps even better, owing to the time passed since it was proposed.

It deserves a better treatment than what it got, definitely. x3

[soyouthinkucanwrite]

Chapter 2 - Show Time

2.8k words

Synopsys: The name of the series is super random, don't mind me. Reader is a postgraduate student at NYU, made a docuseries on her research, and the show got picked up by Netflix. She goes on a press tour and meets Tom on a ‘chat show’. They get together and she decides to stay for a few days in London with him. This could be an amazing few days or more? It’s been interesting writing how they’ll deal with distance and tight schedules once ‘honeymoon’ is over...

Heads up: my first language is Portuguese, so that might explain some things here - of course, I wrote thinking about myself hahaha

Warnings for the series: mention of illicit drugs, angst caused by distance, smut (next chapters, very explicit), anxiety caused by paparazzi, and rude random people taking photos.

Other than that, this is just my guilty pleasure writing so lots of caring sweet Tom and fluffiness.

Chapter 1 - A new city

Chapter 2 - Show time

Chapter 3 - Unexpected texts

Chapter 4 - A new day

No extra warnings. A lot of it was adapted from the real interview, so you might wanna watch it again before reading this, for refreshing. The docu-series doesn't have a name, so you can imagine your own favorite subject.

HEY THERE EVERYBODY! MY NAME IS TOM HANKS AND IT IS MY GREAT PLEASURE TO SAY WELCOME TO THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW!

You walked down the corridor led by the stage assistant, but you could already hear the cheering and claps close by. “Don’t worry. There’s a monologue and then he’ll introduce you guys.” She smiled at you. You smiled back. Nervous smile.

“I think I need to poo.” You said.

“What?” She stopped and looked at you.

“No. I don’t really need to poo. I’m just really nervous.” You said. She definitely thought you were in way over your head.

“Okay, just wait there and you’ll go on stage when he calls your name. Frank is there to signal, don’t worry. Good luck!” She said and turned back running.

“Ok. Thank you!” You shouted after her but she was already gone.

“Shhh!” The other guy with a headpiece, Frank you assumed, shushed you.

“Sorry.” You whispered. You looked to the side and Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Holland were talking. Jake was taller than you imagined. Tom was shorter.

“Oh don’t worry. You’re the star here, you can do whatever you want to.” An older voice said to you. He was obviously joking. You looked to see Tom Hanks. You smiled and nodded. God, please don’t let me freeze from starstruck now. Please.

“Ehh…” You’re pathetic.

“Hi!” Said Gwyneth Paltrow to everyone in the dark zone, having just arrived after you. Everyone responded excitedly.

“You guys are on. On my mark.” Said Frank pointing to Tom and Jake. They looked at you and said hello but you could barely answer before hearing Graham Norton’s voice going:

HES THE OSCAR NOMINATED STAR OF BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, NIGHTCRAWLER, AND DONNIE DARKO. PLEASE WELCOME JAKE GYLLENHAAL!

And Jake went up the small flight of stairs. The curtains opened for a while and the sound got really loud and everything went bright. You took a look at Tom Holland and boy was he hot. He was looking at you too. You smiled and he smiled back.

HE’S YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN. IT'S MISTER TOM HOLLAND!

“See you out there.” He said and walked out. You barely had time to process anything when Frank pointed at you and said: “You’re next”. You were still trying to remember how to walk when you heard:

SHE’S THE PRODUCER AND STAR OF A BRAND NEW NETFLIX DOCU-SERIES. STRAIGHT FROM NEW YORK: MISS (Y/N)!

Up you go. You walked out and Graham Norton went to greet you. He went for a kiss on the cheek and you went for a hug. Great. Off to a good start. He laughed it off and showed you the couch where Tom and Jake were standing in front and clapping. You went for a kiss on the cheek this time with both of them when you greeted them.

“Hi!” You said casually. Graham was speaking and soon Gwyneth was standing by your side. She greeted you and the actors by your side and then there was only Tom Hanks left. His introduction was longer and the cheering was way louder. But you weren’t surprised by that. This place was massive. There are so many people here. Way more than you’d think by watching from home.

“We met backstage.” Tom Hanks said pointing to the other guests on the couch.

“You all chatted backstage. I went backstage, I didn’t see the two of you. Nor you (y/n). Where were you guys?” Graham asked.

“We were there” Jake said.

“We waived” Tom said.

“Yeah, I- I was late.” You said laughing a little.

“Very suspicious. I bet you were having your own private party with your entourage.” Graham said making everyone laugh.

“Welcome all! Welcome all!” Graham went on to start the round of interviews and apparently, Tom Hanks was the first topic. You just smiled and laughed along, copying the way Gwyneth Paltrow was sitting and concentrating to keep your posture straight. Once in a while you would laugh and moment by moment you were getting more relaxed, even touching thighs with Tom accidentally when you laughed.

…

“I started recording Woody in 1991.” Tom Hanks said.

“Guess who wasn’t born then?” Graham said and both you and Tom raised our arms laughing.

“I was having sex I think, by 1991.” Gwyneth said.

“And so were our parents.” Said Tom gesturing between you and him. Everybody laughed.

“He probably meant his mom and his dad and my mom and my dad. Separately.” And everyone laughed even harder.

“Ok. We painted a picture now.” Graham said.

“You never know, it was a crazy time back then in 91” Jake added making everyone bust out laughing.

…

“Now, our newest guest tonight is the beautiful (y/n). This is your first time in the show!” Graham said looking at you. Oh boy. This is it.

“Yeah! This is crazy. Thank you for having me! And my first time in London!” You answered, blushing a little by the claps and cheering from the audience.

“Now, of course, (y/n) you’re the star and the producer of a documentary. The new Netflix series everybody is talking about. Have you guys seen it?” He asked the other guests.

“Absolutely! It's so good! I loved it!” Tom Hanks said. You stared at him like he just said the most absurd thing, and then Gwyneth said:

“We loved it! It's so different from everything we’ve seen out there.” She complimented you. You put your hands together and bowed your head in gratitude.

“I started watching it today when I knew you were coming here, but everybody is talking about it! It's so good! I wanted to binge-watch everything but then we had to come here.” Jake said.

“Own! Thank you, that’s very sweet.” You said.

“What about you Tom Holland? Have you seen it? Or have you guys met before? Because you have the same age, isn’t that right?” Graham asked him, pointing between the two of you.

“I was the one who told Jake to watch it! I must have seen it twice already!” He said laughing.

“What? Twice?” You laughed.

“Yeah because every time someone’s watching it if I’m passing by, I’ll just sit down and watch along. And all my friends decided to watch it now, it’s like some fever, I don’t know, it’s just really fun and you actually feel smarter binging it!” He said making everybody laugh along.

“But did you guys knew each other already? Because you sure sound like a fan!” Graham teased him. Tom shook his head no and you answered first.

“No…well, I know you. I definitely know all of you. But we’ve never met.” You said vaguely, trying to change the focus from you and Tom. But Graham was on a mission.

“Are you sure? Because the two of you weren’t seen early on backstage so I’m just wondering…” He said cheekily.

“I was late today! It was quite not British of me, I know, but we were very late so I didn’t get the chance to say hello before. Sorry, everyone” You said apologizing to everybody on the couch who waived and laughed politely.

“That’s quite alright. Thankfully you’re not British so we won’t punish you. Well, maybe we’ll leave that to Tom later if you’re into that sort of thing” Graham said making you and Tom very much embarrassed.

“These 90’s kids are crazy man” Jake added making everybody laugh.

“Anyway, we have a clip for you guys.” Graham announced.

[CLIP FROM THE SERIES]

“That’s so great! By the way, I introduced you saying ‘from new york’, because the show was taped there, but you’re not really from NY are you? You’re actually…uh… from (your city/country)! Is that right?” Graham asked you and the rest of the cast looked at you interested.

“Yes! That’s right. But I’ve been living in New York for a good while now so, that’s ok.” You answered.

“You’re getting your PhD, isn’t it?” Tom Hanks asked you.

“Yes, the show was part of my research, actually. I’m surprised you know that.” You said.

“Dude, I told you to pick up a book once in a while. Jake said teasingly to Tom, who just laughed and shook his head looking down.

“You guys are making this so much easier to me. Thanks!” He said sarcastically. Now it was your turn to get embarrassed.

“He’s right though, you might wanna step up your game here cause she’s both smart and beautiful. Do you speak…how many is it? 5 languages?” Graham stepped in.

“Well, I mean…sort of, yeah. I guess.” You answered kind of embarrassed for being in the spotlight, but glad it was about your brains and not looks.

“And the show is so good! I’ve seen a critic saying that is (your reference) meet Humans of NY. In a good way! Where the idea came from? Did you always wanted to film a tv show?” Graham asked you.

“Well, first of all. Thank you for the compliments and I’m truly honored by the comparison to (your reference) and Humans of NY, because I truly watch and admire those projects, so they’ve definitely inspired us. But uh…about filming a TV show, I guess not. I’m researching (your subject of preference). But I’ve always loved to, you know, get in there and get ‘my hands dirty’, I wouldn’t want to write about something I haven’t experienced. So I got to know so many incredible stories and amazing people. I followed their routines and there were so many great plots…I just couldn’t let that go. And I’m really glad I didn’t. It’s like we’re highlighting the extraordinary in the ordinary. I’m really glad people liked it as much as I did because it would have been really heartbreaking if nobody cared, I guess.” You laughed. Everyone was staring at you in awe. You got really excited when you were talking about this project. Maybe a little too excited.

“How did you do that by the way?” Gwyneth asked you.

“Did what?” you said.

“Get them to care about it. To give it a shot.” She explained.

“I’m not sure. I think there’s so much noise out there. And everyone is just competing for our attention, but they don’t always have anything to say. And these people have so much to say. To teach us. I just tried to show that.” You answered honestly.

“Well, thank you for that. And not jinx anything, but I have a feeling we’ll be hearing a lot more about you too. Any new projects coming soon?” He asked you.

“Uh…not really. I’m just living in this high for now, I guess. But it really has already opened so many doors, I’m very grateful for that.” You answered honestly.

“And your boyfriend must be really proud too" Graham asked teasingly.

“No, no boyfriend.” You answered suspiciously.

“Ah! Of course.” He winked nothing discreetly in Tom’s direction.

“So there’s a chance Tom! You might want to pay attention to this next one. Gwyneth Paltrow! What is this I hear about vagina steaming?” Graham continued making everyone bust out laughing.

…

The show went on and soon, the topic was Tom again. “I was making a film with Doug Liman, in Montreal. And I was playing a real tough kid and he asked me to grow as much facial hair as I could.” Tom told everybody. You just looked very closely at him, because his face was very much hairless.

“I think we got a picture.” Graham said. And then everybody was laughing out loud.

“(y/n)? Is your heart won yet?” Graham teased. You just laughed.

“Oh come on! The kid’s got better moments! You got to give him a chance!” He teased some more.

“Oh man! What is going on with this show? I swear I did not put him up to this!” Tom said looking at you and you just laughed awkwardly.

“It’s true! I did!” Jake said laughing and then got up to high five Graham.

“You know, if this wasn’t going so badly I’d ask if my mom put you up to this. Cause she’s the only other person I know who’s so focused on getting me matched.” You teased.

“You think its going badly?” Tom asked and the crowd “aww” loudly. Silence and some laughs.

“Right, moving on.” Graham joked and everybody laughed. You were feeling a little awkward, especially because you did not want him to think you weren’t interested, just not while in a tv show. But you can’t get things mixed up. This stuff is new to you, but you’re not some schoolgirl. Focus on the job. Stormzy was singing now, so the show must be almost over.

…

“Oh this is wicked! I was really happy when I saw you’d be here!” Stormzy said when he sat on the couch.

“Me? Wow! Really?” you asked him, surprised.

“Oh-oh looks like you got competition Tom Holland” Graham joked and Tom just laughed and shook his head.

“Well cause your show is just really cool” He said to me.

“Wow! Thank you for saying that!” You couldn’t believe this, someone from all across the world liked something you did. You’re going to get emotional.

“You know that we live really close to each other?” Tom asked him.

“Is it? Where do you live?” Stormzy answered and the conversation went on.

AND THAT’S IT FOR THE SERIES! IF YOU’D JOIN ME NEXT WEEK FOR A LOOK BACK AT SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PAST 12 WEEKS. WE’LL BE BACK IN THE AUTUMN, TILL THEN HAVE A GREAT SUMMER! GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY BYE BYE!

This was becoming routine now, but there’s no other way to describe it other than to say that you loved and hated every minute of it. Well, at least it’s done now. The lights went out and when everybody stopped clapping and cheering the producer approached you guys and said you were taking a picture. Graham went for the back of the couch and everyone snuggled a little closer. Tom put his hand on your thigh and you instinctively looked at it. “Sorry.” He mumbled and took it off. You just smiled and shook your head lightly. After some pictures, you made sure to thank everybody and say how much of a fan of them you are. When it was your turn to talk to Tom he said laughing: “Sorry about that whole thing” You could tell he was uncomfortable.

“No, common! He was playing with us. Well, you more.” You dismissed.

“Yeah! It was fun though. Had a great time, it was great to meet you!” He said politely.

“You too. Love your movies! Can’t wait to see the new one.” You offered and heard someone calling your name.

“Right this way Miss.” The stage assistant called.

“Ok, so…bye! Good luck on growing your facial hair!” What. You. Idiot. He just laughed it off. And touched his chin.

“Right. I’ll try my best. Thank you! Good luck with (your research subject)” He said back.

“Alright, thanks” You had to go, the stage assistant was getting impatient. “Bye Tom.” You offered your hand and he hesitated a bit before taking it and shake.

“Bye (y/n).” He said.

David was already waiting for you down the small flight of stairs. “That was really great! Congratulations!” He hugged you.

“That…wasn’t bad, right?” You said. “I actually had fun.” You completed while you two made your way to the little room where you did your makeup and hair earlier.

[sapphire374]

Soy Sol: Chapter 10 (Hopeful Curiosity)

Wattpad Link

Ch.1 / Ch.2 / Ch.3 / Ch.4 / Ch.5 / Ch.6 / Ch.7 / Ch.8 / Ch.9 / Ch.11 / Ch.12 / Ch.13 / Ch.14 / Ch.15 / Ch.16 / Ch.17

The gang is huddled around each other at the Jam and Roller rink. Ámbar proceeds to glance over her clipboard that carries the original sign-up sheet. “So, Ámbar, do we have enough members to make up a team for the competition.” Ámbar quickly looks Luna in the eyes and decides to call out the list of names. “The official Jam and Roller team members are Luna, Simon, Matteo, Gaston, Ramiro, Jim, Delfi, Pedro and Jazmin.” Everyone starts counting with their fingers but before anyone gets the chance to start counting, Gaston and Nina both yell out “that’s nine members, we’re missing one.” Luna rollers towards Ámbar. “Ámbar you’re not on the list. Are you going to join us? Please, pretty please join us. Whether you would like to admit it or not, you’re one of the best roller skaters out there and we need you.”

Ámbar takes a big gulp of air, processing everything that’s going on. Luna’s pout with her watery eyes has made Ámbar reconsider her decision. Before she always wanted the worst for Luna, but the past few years has made them become inseparable. She now views Luna as her younger sister plus being the manager of the gang’s favorite place has made her feel as everyone’s bigger sister, being the mature one. Ambar gives in. “Fine, I’ll do it. Especially since you guys need me so much. You guys aren’t wrong though, I am the best,” Ámbar jokes. The whole gang cheers, everyone jumps up and down and excitement enters the room.

Everyone is huddled as they all set their hands out and chant, “ready! One, two, three Jam and Roller!” Juliana enters through the chaos of excitement. “Opa opa! Seems like the group has never separated and feels closer than ever.” The gang all turn around facing her, their faces show signs of shock. No one was expecting this except one certain person in the room. “Juliana! You’re back! Wait how did you know we got the team back together for a competition?” Simón asks. “A little birdy called me and said that a certain team needed my help so I came as quick as I can.” The whole gang starts whispering, wondering who was it that reached out to her. Luna gives Ámbar and Simón a little smirk.

“So have you guys chosen which song you all are going to skate to?” Juliana questions. “Nope,” Ámbar answers. That’s when the idea hits Simón. “I have an idea! Maybe not only the team gets back together for this competition, but also the band? What do you guys say, Nico, Pedro?” Simón suggests. Nico and Pedro look at each other in disbelief and with a loss of words. “Uhh yes of course! You have no idea how long I’ve missed playing on the drums,” Pedro states. “And you guys have no idea how long I’ve missed collaborating the three of us together again,” Nico chimes in. “I guess that settles it. The band is back!!” Simón announces. The room is filled with so many emotions as everyone is so excited about what’s to come next. True nostalgia and memories really do start coming back to them since working together and competing to save their beloved place truly brings them back to old times. Just like how Matteo and Luna wouldn’t stop stealing glances at each other through the midst of it all.

This competition will be fierce including what’s called two stages. The first stage is the basic entry in which they record a video of their performance, the second stage is where they have the official competition. They first though have to make it through the first stage. For the next few days, Juliana tries to prepare them with some exercises since it has been years some of them roller skated. Then they gradually learned again how to do some simple routines as pairs then as groups. Before the gang knew it, in a week they have mastered all the skills and are ready to practice the actual choreography for the performance. Luna and Matteo still haven’t talked much though, yet they’re constant staring proves to show that they still miss and love each other.

Monday Evening at the Jam and Roller (after about a week and a half)

Juliana tells the gang that they can rest, and training has just finished. The group has finally mastered the double turns alignment but are struggling with air spins. Matteo heads over to Luna like old times, while she’s drinking water near the rails. “What’s the matter Chica Delivery? Has all the training finally tired you out?” Matteo flirtatiously says. Luna tries to hide her blushed cheeks and smirks at his comment. “Chico fresa you know that can never happen. My internal adrenaline is endless.” Luna and Matteo begin to laugh. Luna stops once she remembers why she was trying to avoid him for the longest. “Matteo don’t think I forgot everything that has happened.” She begins to stare at the floor, holding back a tear. “I’ve already apologized, what more do you want?” Matteo begs.

“You know that’s not the issue. I just feel like I can’t trust you anymore. You promised me you wouldn’t lie to me anymore and that’s exactly what you did. I don’t want our relationship to be built out of lies. I’d rather stay single instead of having someone stab me in the back unaware.” Matteo widely opens his eyes, it feels like someone has sucker punched him in the gut. For a long time, Matteo has tried to prove to Luna he has changed and does truly care about her, how can one little lie bring all the pain back. “Luna, you know I would never want to break your heart or ‘stab you in the back.’ I just lied about this because I knew you would get jealous of me hanging out with Viviana.” Luna gasps in astonishment. “Jealous! Now that’s a joke right there. For me to be jealous of her, that would mean I would want to be like her or want something she has but that’s not the case at all. I’m happy with the life I live and don’t want to change it. I just don’t like how close she’s been with you. You know I’m okay with you having female friends, but not when one tries to kiss you when I’m not around and constantly wrapping her arms around you. Even the news outlets think you broke up with me and dating her because of how much ‘quality time’ you guys spend together.”

Matteo responds with, “You know how much I miss it when you call me Chico Fresa and miss these fun bantering moments. I would never fall for her because you’re my one true love. You may not be jealous of her but you’re jealous of her getting to spend time with me. Is that it? You want to hang out more with me? How do I make it up to you?” Luna shakes her head and says, “You just don’t get it and it’s okay. I don’t feel like arguing today.” Luna rollers away and Matteo covers his face as he lays his elbows on the silver polished rails. Gastón heads to him and pats his shoulder. “She still hasn’t forgiven you?” Matteo shakes his head in response. His phone begins to ring in the pocket of his jeans. He lifts himself up and pulls it out. “Hello…. yes……. Already in a week? ..... ah I see, okay that seems appropriate I guess…...tomorrow okay, I’ll see you then.” Matteo hangs up and places his phone in his pocket again. “Who was that?” Gastón questions. “It’s my manager. They’re planning to release my music video with Viviana at the end of this week. Usually, we don’t release music videos this early but apparently she demanded for it since it would look good and perfect for this summer. Well to prepare for the release, they want me to perform with her in a live concert.” Matteo’s expression shows his stress and frustration. “But what about the Jam and Roller training?” Gastón asks him. “I’ll try to practice for the concert before the Jam and Roller training starts every day and the concert is on Saturday so that day I guess I’ll just miss training for that one day. I have no other choice.”

Gastón keeps thinking and doesn’t say a word till an amazing idea slips in his head. “I just got it! I just thought of the perfect plan that’ll get Luna to forgive you and get back together with her.” Matteo starts smiling as Gastón whispers the plan into his left ear. “Hermano, you’re a genius.”

The Benson Mansion

Ámbar doesn’t stop glaring at the letter in front of her. It was the original copy that was locked up in Sharon’s vault. This was what her biological mom wrote to her before she gave her away, it includes her phone number. She wants to call that number, desperately wants to but what if this number doesn’t work anymore? Or what if it does? She feels so confused. The closer the wedding gets, the scarier it feels for her. She wants to invite her biological mom and maybe even Sharon, she’s just undecided. It’s more than just complicated for her.

She sucks up every bit of courage left in her, grabs her phone and types in the numbers smeared at the bottom of the letter. It’s…. ringing. The longer she has to wait, the faster her heart beats. The phone stops ringing. “Hello,” the person on the other end answers. Ámbar’s voice begins to crack, “Uh… yes is this Sylvana Ariel?” Ámbar takes a big gulp of air. The person on the other end responds, “yes this is she. Who do I have the pleasure speaking to?” When Ambar hears that it’s her, she decides to move forward with the plan of meeting her. Maybe it was destiny for her to still have this phone number for so many years? “Yes, this is Ámbar, Ámbar Smith. We need to talk. Are you available today?” Ámbar takes control of the situation showing no signs of hesitation, even though her heart says otherwise. “Oh Ámbar? Yes, I’m available today.” Ámbar takes one good look at the letter and answers back, “Good. Meet me at Pachani’s restaurant today at 7 p.m.” The lady answers with an okay before Ámbar hangs up the phone.

She didn’t know this day would come so soon. Getting to meet her birth mother. What should she say? What should she do? Maybe this would help her understand her whole story and discover more who she really is before she gets married. Simón walks into the living room. “There you are. I thought you would be at the Jam and Roller; you never miss an afternoon of work?” Ámbar quickly folds the letter and slips it into her purse. “Oh yeah I just came home to… find another bridal magazine. I thought I left one of my favorite ones here in the living room.” Simón scrunches up his face, “here? In the living room of the Benson Mansion? But you always look at them at our apartment?” Ámbar clasps her purse and places the strap around her arm. “Oh well I sometimes look at them here whenever I visit the Valentes and have a cup of coffee, by mistake one of these days I left my bridal magazine.” Simón nods showing how he understands. “So how are bridal things going?”

“Pretty smooth. Luna and Nina agreed to go order the sets of flowers and decorations at the boutique right across town,” Ámbar states. “Oh, that’s nice. Luna and Nina were so kind to offer their help. What would we do without them?”

“Yes, I agree. We’re very lucky to have them indeed. Um there is one thing I forgot to tell you. At around 7 p.m I won’t be at home yet, I have a meeting with some other law school students for this project we have going on, so I won’t be home.”

Simón’s smile fades away. “Aww I’ll miss you, but I do wish you good luck on the project. I know you’ll do great on it.” Ámbar smiles from thinking how lucky she is to have a caring, understanding partner by her side. They hug each other and head out of the mansion.

*Gif not made by me. Owner of gif's name is at the bottom right hand corner :) *

Lacey’s Boutique

Luna and Nina wait at the front desk holding a slip of paper that carries a list of things they need to purchase for Ámbar’s wedding. “He said that?” Nina whispers. “Yep, I can’t believe he called me jealous when he was the one who lied and created this whole mess in the first place. When we got back together, we agreed on no secrets and to always communicate. That’s the only way a relationship can go well, just look at Ámbar and Simón?”

“I absolutely agree. I felt awful when Gaston spied on me that day, so I understand what you mean. Luckily everything is fixed now,” Nina cheers. “I’m happy for you Nina, sadly in between Matteo and I is a person who doesn’t stop flirting and hanging out with him. Plus, it’s so obvious too, even Simón thought he was dating Viviana and broke up with me. I can’t believe Matteo doesn’t believe me and instead calls me jealous. After everything we’ve been through.” The cashier heads to the counter and Luna and Nina’s conversation ends. “So, is this the list for everything?” Luna nods in approval. “Okay great, everything will be prepared in time and the delivery will be sent to the place on the date of the card.” Luna picks up the card and puts it away in her tiny backpack.

“Thank you,” she begins to head out before the cashier stops her. “Wait, I have something to give you.” He pulls out another card from his pocket. “Here’s my phone number, maybe we can have a cup of coffee together someday if you’d like?” Luna is speechless and turns to Nina for a choice of words. Nina shrugs and seems to be just as confused as her. “Um... well the thing is I’m in a relationship… well right at this moment I’m not sure…. Honestly I don’t know it’s complicated me and my boyfriend well after what he did, I don’t think he’s still my boyfriend but I don’t know…” Luna stops talking when the cashier extremely perplexed expression shows vividly. “Um… well once you get all that resorted and decide not to be with this… complicated person feel free to give me a call.” He leaves and heads to the back of the store. “Luna, I’m shocked he’s still into you after everything you blurted out. I think you even fried his brain.” Nina and Luna giggle their way out.

Jim and Yam’s Apartment

Ramiro adjusts the collar of his nicely firm long sleeve button up shirt. He’s holding a bouquet of sunflowers and is trying to collect the right words to say to Yam. He knocks on the door and waits for a response. “I’m coming,” she says. For Ramiro, hearing Yam’s voice is like a breath of fresh air.

She opens the door and is surprised to see Ramiro’s well put together fit. “Before you say anything I want to do this right. Yam, I know our relationship has been like an ongoing rollercoaster, we’ve been through the ups and the downs but the one thing that has always stayed constant is my love for you. After everything that has happened, I always knew I love you and my path ends up meeting yours. Yam would you like to go on a date with me?” Yam covers her mouth in amusement. She’s appalled from the beautiful surprise he’s presented her, and with a speech too. Usually, Ramiro is too cool for all of this but seeing what he has done has proven enough to Yam that he’s committed. “Ramiro of course, I would love to. In fact, I was always thinking what took you so long?” Yam begins to chuckle. “I guess fear from this not working out, but you can’t always live in fear for the rest of your life.”

Yam jumps into Ramiro’s arms and kisses him on the cheek.

[uncloseted]

there's a part of me that still thinksa bortion is murder. i act like i support it to fit in but deep down i dont. please just listen. i think forcing someone to go through a pregnagncy they don't want is inhuman but it also feels inhuman to kill a baby and i dont like thsi idea that if youre 4 weeks pregnant and you want it its a baby but if youre 4 week pregnant and dont want it then its just a clump of cells thats just not how scence works. so theres this woman who was forced to get an .

Anonymous asked:

abortion and she was 6 months pregnant and apparently th baby waws born alive but it died shortly after from ashpyxia and i just dont know what to think. i know forcing smeone to get an abortion is just as bad as forcing them to give birth and that theres no such thing as a six month abortion and at least wher e i live abortions are only available until week 14 but like wwhat if someone is 15 or 16 weeks or 7 months, do they not have a choice anymore? please dont think im a bigot im not im so

Anonymous asked:

sorry i just dont want to be brainwashed by ANYONE, pro life or pro choice and im just so easily influenceable i just want to support whats right you know

No worries at all! I don't think you're a bigot and I'm glad that you want to engage with this issue critically. I'm happy to give you the facts as they stand and offer you my perspective on the issue. Apologies in advance that this is a bit long, but please try to stick with me until the end! All of this is important in understanding the different sides of this discussion.

There are a few main categories I want to talk about in this answer: legal, science, politics, and culture. For now, I'm going to avoid delving into any religious or metaphysical questions about what is and isn't considered "a person", since while those conversations are interesting, I don't think they're particularly useful in the context of discussions about abortion. As Harry Blackmun wrote in the court opinion for Roe v. Wade, "we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate."

Legality

Starting with legal issues, there are a few points I think it's important to make in order to get a sense of how we relate to abortion. Abortions are legal in 98% of countries. 34% of countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand most European countries, and China, allow abortions on the basis of a the pregnant person's request, without needing to prove that there is risk to life, risk to health, risk to the fetus, economic or social reasons that abortion is a necessity, or extenuating circumstances (such as the pregnancy being a product of rape or incest). The vast majority (93%) of countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, such as outlawing abortion except in cases where the pregnant person is endangered, are in developing regions. There are five countries that completely outlaw abortion. These are: Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Malta, Nicaragua, and the Vatican City, all countries where the Catholic church has significant influence.

Of the countries that do allow abortion, there is always a limit on how far into a pregnancy a person can be when they choose to terminate. Beyond that limit, the person doesn't have a choice anymore, and must carry the pregnancy to term (except in extenuating circumstances). The most common limit is 12 weeks (3 months), although some countries allow abortion up to the point of "viability", where the fetus can live outside the mother's womb with artificial aid. Typically, the point of viability is around 24 weeks (6 months). In the US, 87% of abortions are performed before 12 weeks, and 92.2% were performed at 13 weeks or fewer. For reference, pregnancies are typically around 40 weeks long.

Forced abortion is illegal in almost every country, including the US and the UK, and it is considered an act of violence against women. It is just as bad as forcing someone to give birth, which is why all countries do their best to prevent it from happening. While forced abortions can and do happen, particularly to victims of sex trafficking, I think the solution to this issue is to put policies into place that protect vulnerable women, instead of trying to ban abortion entirely.

Science

So, most countries allow abortions up to 12 weeks. What does that actually look like in terms of the fetus? Here's a timeline of fetal stages of growth:

Weeks 1-4: at this stage, the "baby" is actually an embryo. It starts out as just a fertilized egg. The amniotic sac forms around it, and the placenta develops. The eyes, mouth, lower jaw, and throat are in very early development. Blood cells are taking shape. By the end of week 4, the embryo is smaller than a grain of rice. It is very literally "just a clump of cells" at this point.

Weeks 5-9: the "baby" is still an embryo. Its facial features begin to develop, folds of skin that will eventually become ears grow, tiny buds that will eventually grow into arms and legs form, the neural tube, digestive tract, and sensory organs all begin to develop. Bone starts to replace cartilage. At about 6 weeks, a heart beat can be detected. After week 8, the baby is considered a fetus instead of an embryo, at which point the fetus is about one inch long.

Weeks 9-12: the fetus' arms, hands, fingers, feet, and toes are fully formed. It may be able to open and close its fists and mouth. Ears are formed, and its reproductive organs begin to develop. By the end of week 12, the fetus has all of their organs and limbs, and their circulatory and urinary systems are working, but everything needs to continue to develop in order to become functional. At the end of week 12, the fetus is about 4 inches long.

It is important to know that the miscarriage rate is highest in the first trimester (before week 12). Among women who know they're pregnant (typically further along than 6 or 7 weeks), 10-20% will miscarry. 30%-50% of all fertilized eggs miscarry.

Other important developmental markers include:

During month 4 (weeks 16-20), you can see the sex of the fetus.

During month 5 (weeks 20-24), the fetus starts moving around.

Between week 22 and week 24, brain waves appear in the cerebral cortex.

At week 24, the fetus may be able to survive if it is born prematurely, provided it has intensive care.

Somewhere between week 26 and week 30, the fetus may be able to feel pain, although we don't know that for sure.

A fetus is not capable of thinking, communicating, reasoning, self-motivation, feeling emotions, or consciousness. They don't have a concept of the self, and they don't know that they exist. They are essentially sedated for the entirety of the pregnancy. Since we use "brain death" as the primary criteria for death, it makes sense to me that we might consider "brain life" (the point where a fetus exhibits brain activity) as the point at which a fetus becomes a person.

While some people will refer to an embryo as a "baby" from the time they discover they're pregnant, scientifically, it is a clump of cells, whether that clump is allowed to continue to grow or not. It's not something we would recognize as a baby, or be able to interact with as if it were a baby. An embryo is a precursor to a baby, kind of like how a seed is a precursor to a plant.

Some other arguments

I want to quickly touch on some other arguments for abortion rights that people make. I'm not going to delve deeply into them, but it didn't feel right to leave them out entirely. These are arguments that don't depend on whether or not a fetus can be considered a person.

Bodily Rights

There are many situations in which we prioritize individual bodily rights over the right of someone else to live. For example, we don't force people to donate organs to people who are dying, even though a donated organ would save their life. Advocates for abortion rights argue that those same bodily rights should be extended to a pregnant person.

Deprivation

This argument usually looks something like, "but what if that fetus was going to cure cancer when it grew up!" Basically, it's saying that abortion is morally wrong because it deprives the fetus (and the world) of a valuable future. To me, this completely ignores the deprivation that already exists by forcing a person to carry and birth a baby they don't want, and potentially the deprivation that comes with raising that child. People who make this argument never seem to ask, "what if the pregnant person was going to cure cancer?"

Slippery Slope

Some people argue that normalizing and legalizing abortion may lead to people also accepting euthanasia. I am unconvinced by this for two reasons. 1. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy and 2. I absolutely do think we should legalize euthanasia for certain situations.

Religion

I don't want to dig too far into this one, but what I will say is that the US is a country that (at least nominally) has a separation of church and state, and the religious beliefs that other people hold should not infringe on a person's rights to make choices about their own life.

History and Politics

The practice of abortion itself is incredibly old. The Sanskrit epic Ramayana, which dates to the 7th century BCE, describes abortion being practiced by surgeons and barbers. In the Assyrian Code of Assura, circa 1075 BCE, a woman is allowed to procure an abortion except when it's against her husband's wishes. The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE. Japanese documents show records of induced abortion from as early as the 12th century, and it became more prevalent during the Edo period. It is considered to be unlikely that abortion was punished in Ancient Greece or ancient Rome. All major Jewish religious movements allow abortion in order to save the life or health of a pregnant woman, and often support abortion for other reasons as well. Christianity has a more complicated relationship to abortion, for reasons that I'll go into in a bit, but for now let's just note that there very much were ancient Christians who believed abortion was morally permissible at least some of the time. Before the 19th century CE, first-trimester abortion was widely practiced and was legal under common law throughout the English speaking world, including the US and UK.

The reason I bring all of this up is because the political debate over abortion isn't really that old, and the debate tends not to actually be about the morality of abortion as an act so much as it is a proxy for other issues. The first backlash against abortion in the English Speaking world was in the 19th century, and was a direct reaction to the women's rights movement, which was starting during that time. In the US, anti-abortion laws began to appear as early as the 1820s, but picked up in earnest by the late 1860s. These laws were introduced for many reasons, including the fact that abortions were being provided by untrained people who were not members of medical societies and concerns about the safety of abortifacients. By 1900, abortion was a felony in every US state, but they continued to become increasingly available. By the 1930s, licensed physicians performed an estimated 800,000 abortions a year.

Jumping forward a little bit, let's talk about the history of abortion in the US just before Roe v. Wade. It's estimated that in the 50s and 60s, between 200,000 to 1.2 million abortions were being performed per year, even though they were illegal. Throughout that same time, the second wave feminist movement was growing, and was increasingly advocating for birth control and liberalized abortion laws. As a reaction to second wave feminism, a number of anti-abortion organizations, primarily led by Catholic institutions, cropped up to mobilize against the legalization of abortion. It should be noted that, at the time, abortion was not an issue for evangelical Christian groups. In the 1960s, 17 states legalized abortion for a variety of different circumstances. Then in 1973, Roe v. Wade happens, ruling that a pregnant woman has the right to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. The ruling was 7-2 in favor of legalizing abortion. Even after Roe v. Wade, Christian Evangelicals were neutral to positive on the ruling. It's only after 1980 that Evangelical Christians started to organize around abortion as a political issue and joined the Catholics to form what we now think of as the Christian Right. There's a lot to say about that and why that switch happened, but for the sake of brevity, just know that the evangelical backlash against legalized abortion in the US started not as a moral crusade, but as a way of convincing people to vote for Ronald Regan instead of Jimmy Carter (who wanted to de-segregate schools). No political debate happens in a vacuum, and it's important to understand what other factors might have been at play when looking at where these debates come from and how the sides formed.

Culture

Lastly, let's talk a little bit about the cultural impacts of banning or legalizing abortion. The right to have or not have a child is necessary in order for women to achieve equality with men. Countries with high gender equality, such as Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden, also have easily accessible abortion options. Criminalization of abortion disproportionately impacts poor women and women of color, and does nothing to address the systemic issues that may cause them to require abortions in the first place.

Researchers from the WHO and University of Massachusetts found that banning abortion is an inefficient way to reduce abortion rates; in countries where abortions were restricted, the number of unintended pregnancies actually increased, and the proportion of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion also increased. When abortion is banned, women aren't not having abortions; they're having illegal abortions that are done unsafely.

There is also some evidence to suggest that legalized abortion actually decreases crime rates. 20 years after the legalization of abortion in the US, there was an unprecedented nationwide decline of the crime rate (including murders, incidentally). The drop in crime is thought by some to be a result of the fact that individuals who had a higher statistical probability of committing crimes (people who grew up as unwanted children in poverty) were not being born.

Which brings me to my next point- the majority of people who are "pro-life" (at least in the US) aren't really pro-life. They're pro-birth. If they were truly pro-life, they would be interested in making sure that all of those babies had their needs met after they're born. They would be interested in making sure those babies can lead long, healthy, safe, and productive lives. They would be for universal healthcare, expanded social safety nets, parental leave from jobs, universal basic income, raising the minimum wage, mandated vacation time, increasing funding for public schools, decriminalizing drugs, abolishing prisons or at least reforming the police. They would be against the death penalty (ironically, some of them are actually for the death penalty for women who have had abortions), and for increased access to birth control, comprehensive sex-ed in schools, increased gun legislation, against war and nuclear weapons, for enforced mask wearing to prevent people from needlessly dying from a global pandemic... but those issues don't factor into their "pro-life" stance. They're for "the baby gets born and then has to pull itself up by its bootstraps like the rest of us."

Closing Thoughts

Look. I'm not super jazzed about abortions. I understand how they can feel like an ethical issue. I think we should do what we can to reduce the number of abortions that are performed- teaching comprehensive sex-ed in schools, making birth control and emergency contraceptive options widely accessible, letting men know that reversible vasectomies are an option. I think we should make abortion easier to access, so those who do need it can make the decision early in the pregnancy. But I also think that it's a very personal decision, one that's irreversibly life altering, and the person who's going to experience the life altering event should be the one who decides what happens. 65 year old conservative, Christian white men who will never be pregnant (and frequently don't really know how the female body works) shouldn't get to make that decision for them. As someone for whom pregnancy would be life threatening, I want to know that I have options should that situation present itself someday.

[lowestechelonabomination]

for "What are we, if not clouds?":

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

thanks for the ask! haven't looked at that one in a while, so hm

for 3, I found I liked writing Ranpo's pov, though my ideas of his characterization (as well as the characterizations of literally every character) have changed a lot since I started the fic. in particular, I like this scene from my unfinished and unedited chapter 5, which I wrote shortly after having the epiphany that maybe Ranpo kept his eyes closed because of sensory issues (which I have an entire separate fic planned for). chapter 5 is when I actually took the writing seriously, so there's a massive gap in quality between the first four chapters and this one. anyway enough rambling:

He drummed his fingers against the arm of the chair he was leaned back in. He could faintly hear the seconds ticking away in the corner of the room. Time was a strange concept, he thought. It was slow, and yet slipped by so quickly, and there was never quite enough of it.

Red-orange imprints of light flashed across his eyelids. Each tick of the clock felt like a gunshot.

"So," Ranpo said monotonously, face turned up to the ceiling.

He was answered with near-silence. He could hear them breathing, of course. But existence wasn't a response, was it?

He sighed and opened his eyes, taking in the room around him. "We don't have enough chairs, do we?"

Beside him, Yosano shrugged with one shoulder, light reflecting off her blouse in a way that stabbed at his eyes. He closed them.

"They'll be here in a few minutes," he said, and returned to reclining, draping an arm across his face.

Most of the time he was fine, really. He could go around and do things and not have to worry about how much of everything there was. And then there were times like this one, where everything became too much to even keep up the guise of the funny detective. Lights were too bright, colors too vivid, sounds too loud. One wrong move and he'd be stuck with a migraine for the next few hours, at least. Sensory hell, he called it. His very own hellscape, designed just for him! The universe knew him well, knew just what he liked and just what he didn't. There was a cruel sense of balance in that.

Amid the quiet cacophony, he could just barely pick apart the sound of shuffling feet. "We need more chairs."

for 4, I have two:

out of my posted chapters, I find this conversation pretty funny to this day, though there is a brief allusion to Mori being Mori:

Two men faced off in an empty mansion somewhere in the outskirts of Yokohama.

"You absolute fool," said the first, holding a katana gently like one would hold the hand of a child.

"You massive idiot," said the second, holding a child like a sword.

There was a long pause as the first man went through all 5 stages of grief in the span of a second, a confusing flurry of emotions flickering across his face before he spoke up. "...I am quite sure that is not how children are supposed to be treated."

The second man shrugged, slinging the child over his shoulder like a bat. "Wouldn't be the worst I've done to them," he admitted nonchalantly.

He was promptly stabbed.

and then, from my unfinished chapter 5, I think this one's my favorite. warning for some Kenji-typical mentions of slightly disordered eating, because of his ability and stuff:

The door quietly opened and closed. He recognized that faint, ghostlike presence and whirled around. "Kyouka-chan!"

Her hands were holding two crêpes, one in each hand. A growl started up in his stomach again. One of the crêpes had honey and lemon inside it, with a bit of powdered sugar on top of it all. To say his mouth wasn't watering would be a lie, and he hated lying.

Kyouka briskly approached him, knife glinting at her waist. "Eat," she said, and handed him the honey and lemon one. His favorite.

"I can't," he said, waving his hands in front of him. "I need to be strong for this. It's my job."

Kyouka shook her head. "No. You need to eat," she implored him. She had the blank face she usually had when thinking and the Port Mafia, and his stomach sunk as he realized how serious she was. Not that she wasn't usually serious, but now he knew that he wouldn't be getting out of it.

"But..." he began, "the job..."

"Kenji. I haven't seen you eat even once in the past few days. I know how unpleasant that is." His stomach sunk further. He couldn't just abandon the job, it would be dishonest and disloyal. "Kenji," she repeated, and stretched the crêpe out to him. "You need to eat." She paused and looked at a point near his eyes. After a long moment, she continued. "And sleep."

"I'm fine, though."

Her face took on a colder aspect. "I think you'd find you'd rather eat this crêpe than find out the other methods I know of putting people to sleep." That was her attempt at a joke, he could tell, but he could also tell how painful it was for her to make it.

Kenji sighed and took the crêpe from her. Kyouka-chan was more than capable of covering for his absence. He'd have to apologize profusely to Kunikida-san later.

"You need to sleep too," he found himself saying as he took a seat.

"I'll be fine." She took a bite of her crêpe, and he did the same. She seemed to contemplate something. "You won't be, though. You might be strong, but you're still human." Something dark and bleak shone in her eyes as she said that, something wholly unfamiliar to the boy he was before coming to Yokohama but now something he'd been seeing more and more often.

He turned her words over in his mind, barely noticing how his leg started bouncing again as he savored the sour-sweet taste of the crêpe.

Kenji supposed he had just learned a new lesson.

Kenji and Kyouka are neurodivergent best friends I think