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shihalyfie · 3 years

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Shounen anime character archetypes, and how the Adventure and 02 characters don’t entirely follow them

Adventure is a kids’ show, and so it’s only natural that its characters would have certain surface archetypes common to others in the genre, like “the impulsive leader” or “the cool-headed rival”...except it actually doesn’t, really! It was actually a deliberate decision to make the characters go against their archetypes, and even the ones that did toe closer to it still had a number of nuances that distinguished them greatly from what you would usually expect from these kinds of characters. A lot of this was a deliberate attempt to make the characters relatable, so that it would allow each and every one of them to have their own unique strengths that their usual archetypes wouldn’t generally allow them to.

To be clear: tropes are not a fundamentally bad thing, especially since fiction very much relies on them to communicate (Adventure and 02 sometimes being so contrary to media expectations that they often frustrated viewers for not apparently making sense), and moreover, there are tropes that still are very true to reality (for instance, although the archetype of the “crybaby child” wasn’t in this series, many people have stated that Tomoki in the significantly more conventional Frontier was no less a realistic representation of what a child his age might do in an unfamiliar world). It’s also quite foolhardy to claim that Adventure and 02 never indulged in tropes at all, of course. However, things that fall outside the conventional mold are much more difficult to find proper representations of, and there’s an unfortunate trend of many (especially those in the mainstream who don’t quite remember the series well, or mainstream press) often pigeonholing Adventure and 02′s characters back into those tropes because that’s what you’d normally expect of them, sometimes to the point of negatively comparing them to other things -- and that’s just something that really isn’t fair to the series!

Disclaimer: Note that the following post works first and foremost off of the original Japanese version, so if you’re coming purely from the American English dub, there may be some substantial differences in what’s described (most noticeably in regards to Mimi and Daisuke).

Taichi

While shounen media has been a lot more willing to change things up a lot since Adventure first aired in 1999, the general idea you get of a shounen protagonist is a hot-blooded one who charges recklessly into everything on impulse. Taichi definitely fits a handful of the traits on principle in that he’s a passionate sports boy, and one who takes an “action-first” philosophy and often acts on impulse, but there’s a lot more nuance to that than you might expect.

Firstly, it would be very off to pigeonhole Taichi as the belligerent type to like fighting and to charge into everything thoughtlessly, because while Taichi does get cocky in the midst of battle while riding the adrenaline, he’s not the kind of person who likes fighting enemies just for the sheer sake of fighting and defeating them (and, in fact, it would probably be incorrect to say this about any Adventure or 02 character). As is pointed out by Koushirou even when Taichi is at one of his most haphazard and reckless in Adventure episode 16, Taichi’s actions are still always out of consideration for others, and he’s the kind of selfless person who in fact only hits his most reckless points when he’s cracking so much under the pressure of needing to do things for everyone’s sake that he even throws himself into the fray out of self-sacrifice. Even during the late points of the series in Adventure episode 45, he felt that the method of “pushing forward despite everything” was the best way to repay the sacrifices their Digimon friends had made for them -- he has a tendency to advocate for actively doing things because he firmly believes that sitting around doing nothing won’t solve anything, or would result in more victims. He has had introspective moments of weakness (see Adventure episodes 17, 20, 21, etc.), and it’s specifically because he has to reconcile the facts that he knows nothing good will come out of being a sitting duck, but he also has to figure out a way to do it that won’t accidentally cause collateral damage.

Taichi is “impulsive” in that he tends to play things by ear, but that doesn’t always mean he advocates for the most aggressive solution -- in fact, there are times where he’s often too chill and is picking the simplest and least complicated thing to do for now while he tries to figure it out later. Plus, it’s not like he recklessly charges into battle against everyone’s wishes -- the few incidents he does are explicitly marked as his moments of weakness, and in fact the reason he gets into conflicts with Yamato so much during the early part of the series is technically because he’s taking the time to argue back at him and try to make his point instead of just going ahead and doing it anyway.

Taichi doesn’t have that much of an ego! Adventure episode 28 reveals that he’d never even thought of himself as the group’s “leader” to begin with, nor did he necessarily think he should have the position (by all means, despite how unreliable he was at the start of the series, responsibility belonged to Jou as the oldest in the group). But Taichi has a remarkable knack for seeing things on the bird’s-eye view, and that’s what makes him suitable as a leader -- not in the traditional shounen sense of just aggressively pushing everyone forward into battle, but looking at the full picture and making judgment calls, delegating jobs, and bringing people together. It’s a much more true-to-life description of what a “leader” needs to be beyond what media (or even real life resources, honestly!) would usually suggest, and Taichi being someone naturally suited to this position encompasses most of his personality -- it unfortunately makes him not very good at seeing the little things in front of him, but he’s capable of assertively and firmly making decisions for the sake of everyone’s welfare.

And even when Taichi does hit the general shounen lead trope of being on the argumentative or irritable side, a lot of it has to do with the fact he’s a bit of a playful troll who doesn’t take things seriously enough, not that he’s brash and wants to start a fight -- he sometimes makes insensitive remarks because he was under the impression others shouldn’t be taking it so seriously (”it was just a joke!”), or he gets defensive when someone (usually Yamato) calls out his plan for not being that great. But on the flip side, the fact he treats people equivocally and without distant weirdness allows him to have a sense of charisma to bring people together (it’s the very reason Koushirou was willing to approach him to begin with), and because he has a priority of pushing everyone forward productively with a sense of firmness, he’s able to conclusively make judgments and decisions during times others would hesitate. Even if they turn out to not be great decisions in the end, they’re still decisions that he consciously thought through to at least some degree, made for the sake of helping everyone and pushing them forward.

Yamato

Yamato’s archetype is one that goes down to appearance -- the cool-looking, bishounen rival who advocates for a more “rational and cold” approach in contrast to the lead protagonist’s hot-bloodedness, who looks down on him for being stupid and irrational, and refuses to get near anyone due to looking down on them (or the concept of having friends in general). This is to the point where his own voice actor saw his design and immediately expected him to be this archetype to the point of worrying that he might not be able to pull off this role, only for himself to find out that Yamato is the exact opposite.

Yamato is, in fact, one of the most openly emotional and compassionate people in the entire original Adventure group, and given that Taichi is actually someone who often is too chill and doesn’t take things seriously enough, Yamato is actually the one who actively instigates fights with him and escalates things to physical levels, because he perceives Taichi as being inconsiderate. His first focus episode (Adventure episode 3) has him completely go off his rocker for Takeru’s safety, but while Takeru definitely elicits the most extreme reactions from him, he really does escalate fights immediately the moment he feels sufficiently offended on others’ behalf. So in other words, “rational and cold” are just around the last words you should be ever using for Yamato.

Moreover, what seems to be detachment from the others ends up ultimately just being a byproduct of awkwardness -- even as early as Adventure episodes 6 and 18, he had no problems openly laughing and smiling with the others, and it was just his prior lack of friends beforehand that made him unsure of how to open up to others. Adventure episode 51 has him directly say in words what his actual reasoning for his awkward behavior and friendless background was: it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be near others, he was just so obsessed with being independent and self-reliant that he felt that he shouldn’t be dependent on others. He liked others’ company, and he didn’t look down on them at all -- he cared a lot about the others’ welfare, he was just averse to the idea of actually being emotionally dependent on others, until he was able to be snapped out of that mindset and able to understand that relying on others doesn’t indicate a personal failing.

These kinds of characters usually are fueled by some kind of pride or condescension, but in fact Yamato doesn’t have that at all (in fact, you could more accurately say that it’s insecurity more than anything). Even when he openly breaks down into a crying mess in front of everyone (he has the highest cry count in Adventure, at that!), he doesn’t seem to have any shame about having exposed some of the rawest parts of himself to the others -- think about how this archetype would usually get embarrassed about people finding out they’re “soft” -- and there’s no evidence that he has any sense of superiority whatsoever.

By the time of 02, since he’s portrayed as having become openly sociable and cheerful, for all intents and purposes, the only thing he has left in common with the archetype is just the fact he seems to be really into a sort of edgy aesthetic. Otherwise, he’s just as emotional as ever, makes even some of the funniest facial expressions in 02, is on fantastic terms with Taichi (it is very important that the single punch he lands on him is purely in a sense to snap him out of it and not made out of anger or condescension), and, really, if you want to say that he has a responsibility of reining Taichi in, considering Taichi’s penchant for being a little too assertive about his decisions, it’s just in the sense of lightly reminding him not to get too ahead of himself, which is not any worse than keeping an eye on a cat with a track record of getting into willful trouble. This is especially because, after all, Yamato is someone who has compassion for others’ welfare and feelings -- and that includes Taichi, too.

Sora

This kind of character is usually thought of as the “badass action girl”, especially since Sora is established as also being rather physically active much like Taichi, but one thing that often comes with this sort of character is that they often “have it together” all of the time and are seemingly implacable in personality. Adventure goes out of its way to indicate, even as early as episode 3, that while it is true that Sora has it together and is capable of pulling her own weight, she is also not a saint -- that is to say, she’s capable of having moments of pettiness, poor judgment, or irrationality like any other flawed human being. In fact, her first focus episode (Adventure episode 4) has her outright look down on Piyomon for being, in her mind, overly mushy and clingy and not really up for the job of protecting her, only to be proven very wrong at the end of the episode.

One thing Adventure and 02 don’t shy away from is the concept of “selflessness to the point of self-destruction” -- it’s good to be kind and considerate, but at what point are you doing so much for other people that you’re not properly taking care of yourself? In Sora’s case, the problem is defined as compulsive -- even when, in Adventure episode 26, she claims herself to be an inconsiderate person who doesn’t care about anyone and is incapable of love or affection, it’s revealed that, despite consciously thinking that, she’d still gone out of her way to help everyone behind the scenes in the last few episodes because she still couldn’t stop wanting to help people. Even her own flashbacks (and rather inaccurate testimony) about her past with her mother have a constant thread of her working for others’ sake more than she’s doing anything for herself.

In other words, being this image of a perfect, well-behaved, reliable person whom everyone can depend on no matter what is actually pretty unhealthy for her, because she’s capable of cracking under the pressure and not being allowed to be, well, a normal human being once in a while. Being that sort of person requires constantly catering to obligations (real or perceived) to others, which she’s unfortunately capable of falling so deeply in and not thinking of herself at all to the point she gets self-destructive. Because her problem with this is so bad, Jou and Yamato reaching out to her in Adventure episode 51 literally just involves reminding her about the sheer concept of personal will and volition, because without that, she’d basically considered herself a piece of the situation who does everything she does because that’s what she has to do.

And yes, indeed, a “lead” female character in this position would usually be played up heavily with the main lead male character, because media traditionally loves to hint that the sheer existence of a male and female lead with any kind of relationship whatsoever means that they have to be fated to be in love, but given the philosophy of not wanting to apply tropes unless there’s an in-universe rationale for it (of which “pairing the main male and female leads” is directly cited as one potential such trope), it is true that just because Sora knew Taichi from the soccer club and is usually the first-listed female character in Adventure doesn’t really necessarily indicate she should be obligated to fall head over heels in love with him (especially because they don’t interact nearly as much as you’d expect two characters with that kind of backstory to, and Koushirou, who’s also from the same club, hangs with him much more prominently) -- and in fact, when the issue of her love life does come up in 02, it’s treated as a very non-dramatic issue that becomes a background element of the narrative, which is not how you’d usually see the issue of romance or a love life usually treated in the kind of media that loves to bring that front and center most of the time. While the fanbase loves to treat it like it was some kind of love triangle, that kind of reading actually requires an extra dose of interpretation from a very ambiguously portrayed situation that ultimately isn’t given much fanfare by even the characters in-universe, because, really, two fourteen-year-olds dating is...rather commonplace and not actually that big of a deal, especially when compared to something like preventing monsters from blowing up the city.

Koushirou

Adventure actually has two plays on the traditional “nerd” character, separating the archetype into one who’s good with data and random trivial information (Koushirou) and one who’s good at rote memorization and doing practical calculations that are good for school environments (Jou). So already, there’s a bit of subtle nuance in the fact it makes this distinction at all, in that there are different ways to be “smart” -- Koushirou’s depth of knowledge is significantly less practically applicable than Jou’s in most ordinary situations and isn’t tailored well to institutional expectations like school and exams, but he has a much wider range of things he knows about and ends up more directly pertinent in regards to his knowledge about computers and data analysis.

In any case, a “smart” character would often have an angle of being condescending, i.e. lording over others that they know so much more than them and knowingly being showoffs as a result, or actively disliking people and considering machines to be superior. In the case of Koushirou, however, it’s established that while he does have a certain level of intimidation around other people and find himself more comfortable around his computer, and while he can get absorbed in gathering information or rambling off about things because he’s passionate about it, he doesn’t actively dislike nor look down on others (rather, he’s actively intimidated by them, according to Adventure episode 38), and he states outright in Adventure episode 10 that he doesn’t want to spurn Mimi nor does he care about his computer more than he cares about others, he just genuinely thinks that what he’s doing right now will benefit even Mimi in the long run, too.

Koushirou may not be experienced in dealing with other people and may be a bit uncomfortable in high-pressure social situations, but at his core he’s a very kind and compassionate person who cares about others! The fact he’s constantly polite to others isn’t just out of awkwardness, but also out of a genuine desire to keep courtesy and distance, and as the series goes on it turns out he really is as polite and humble as he sounds -- he’s doing it because he’s shy, not because he considers himself above the others, and by Adventure episodes 38 and 54 he says that he would like to be able to speak more casually and be closer to others, it’s just that it’s going to take some time for him to do so. And even if he does mess up a social situation, if he’s informed he’s messed up, he’s easily capable of taking this to heart and trying to do better (which makes up all of Adventure episode 10 when he eventually realizes he went too far with Mimi). Just because he may not be fantastic at handling the fallout doesn’t mean he doesn’t fundamentally care or want to minimize harm to others. Not only that, he’s also one of the youngest in this group, and for all it’s worth, he shows every indication of being properly respectful of his elders from his position.

Moreover, while Koushirou is so heavily associated with his computer, the series doesn’t take long to establish that the computer really is not the focal part of his character as much as it’s the concept of “gathering and analyzing information”. However much knowledge Koushirou had gained prior to the series, and whatever tech skills Koushirou may or may not have (if you look closely, his tech feats aren’t actually that impressive within the scope of Adventure and 02, and a lot of what he does in terms of tech feats is heavily outsourced), are considered relatively unimportant in comparison to his actual attitude about it, which is that he never stops wanting to learn more or dig deeper into things whenever something’s piqued his curiosity. The conflict in Adventure episode 24 that establishes the true, functional meaning of the Crest of Knowledge has very little to do with computers at all, but rather Koushirou insatiably pursuing more about the Digital World itself and Gennai, and, really, the topic could be anything as long as it’s new and interesting -- it’s just that computers (especially ones connected to the Internet) are a convenient place to gather and analyze different kinds of information, and the Digital World happens to be an absolute treasure trove of new things to discover.

In other words, Koushirou knows a lot of things not because it gives him some status of superiority over others for being “smart”, but rather because he’s genuinely passionate about exploring and learning about things, and you can also see it in the difference between the way he approaches “gathering” information versus “disclosing” information. During times he’s focused on gathering or analyzing information, he focuses on it and tends to shut others out because he wants to make sure he’s uninterrupted and can get every little detail out of it, and whenever he’s talking to himself, others might sometimes get lost in his rambling, but whenever he’s put in a situation where it’s of importance that he explain to others (examples being Adventure episodes 19, 28, and 42), he clarifies when people have questions, sometimes checks to make sure everyone’s still following, and, in general, has no sense of condescension about the fact he knows more than them, with the implication that wants the others to be able to understand and appreciate the information he’s passionate about.

Koushirou is also one of the most visible seniors in 02, because as someone whose defining trait was “curiosity and inquisitiveness”, it stands to reason that he’d be the one most curious about what his juniors are getting involved with, what’s going on with the Digital World, and anything else to do with it (hence why he occasionally asks his juniors to test things for him, such as in 02 episode 17, and hauls himself all the way down to Tamachi to pick Ken’s brain about anything he knows in 02 episode 33). Again, like in Adventure, his character portrayal actually has very little to do with computers, despite what the imagery and archetype would suggest -- it’s more about how he’s now become able to take a leadership role like that of the computer club and start coordinating and organizing people to be able to figure out even more things, while also being able to personally unravel more of the mysteries behind the Digital World and the story itself.

Mimi

Coming from a background of being a bit pampered and spoiled, Mimi aligns a bit to the “pretty girl” archetype that generally has a few things associated with it -- someone who might be a bit materialistic or fixated on appearances, and someone who’s a bit condescending or high-horse in compared to others. So it’s interesting that Mimi is actually portrayed as, for the most part, not that absorbed about appearances or materialism (it’s not to say she doesn’t care at all, but any references she makes to appearance are vanishingly rare in the series, and she’s even willing to warm up to the Numemon or Scumon/Chuumon and not hold grudges against them), and in fact all of her “complaints” that she makes in the early parts of the series are meant to be in line with what an average child would have in her situation. Complaints like “I don’t like this” in reaction to little things like having to get dirty or endure something tiring aren’t complaints she makes because she looks down on it as much as she’s just had a very sheltered upbringing that hadn’t involved a lot of hardship, so now that she has to grit her teeth and go through a lot of difficult things, she simply has low tolerance and high sensitivity and is having difficulty coping.

Beyond that, Mimi is consistently portrayed as likeable and devoid of malice or condescension towards anyone -- so much to the point that even at the beginning of the series, she saw no reason to look down on Koushirou or make fun of him when her classmates did, because she didn’t see why she should. Mimi is said to be someone who is so naturally likeable that she has no problems making friends with anyone, which is why she’s the one who’s able to gather together allies at the end of Adventure -- because she lacks condescension or malice, and is compassionate enough to never get on the wrong foot with anyone, everyone ends up able to get along with her with no problem. As one of the youngest in the group, she’s polite to her elders and uses proper honorifics on everyone, and moreover any lashing out she does is purely defensive and not aggressive towards others. She lashes out because she doesn’t like herself or her friends being hurt, but otherwise she doesn’t care to do anything cold or rude towards others, nor have a grudge; her first focus episode (Adventure episode 6) involved her having absolutely nothing but "they don't seem like they're having fun" towards everyone making fools of themselves in front of her, and she even goes as far as to outright call them her “friends” at a time in the series when everyone barely knew each other! This is also why 02 depicts her as having already made a ton of friends in America (such as Michael, or the attendees of the huge party in 02 episode 14) despite having been there for only a year; she’s that likeable to the point she can get along with people from even an entirely different country easily.

Mimi is “extremely empathetic”, which means that she won’t cause harm or pain to others because she herself feels their pain when they’re in trouble or hurt -- the closest she got to being on a power trip was her “princess” mental health crash in Adventure episode 25, which almost immediately led to her having nightmares about everyone feeling betrayed and potentially hating her and turning around in less than one night. Hence, she won’t do anything to hurt others’ feelings, because she herself feels hurt if she does. However, that means that once the Dark Masters arc kicks in and many of their friends are hurt and killed in the process, her feeling every bit of that makes her the first to take it the hardest and become unable to fight (and, by extension, is very tied to that “extra sensitivity” that made her so sensitive to pain or unpleasant experiences at the beginning of the series). Mimi is consistently portrayed as a pacifist, and while many other shounen battle series would portray this as a weakness, Adventure episode 50 establishes that while it of course isn’t good for her to sit around doing nothing, it would be inhumane to force Mimi to personally participate in something that causes her so much pain, and instead may be better channeling her abilities to bring people together by amassing allies and contributing to the struggle in other ways. While Mimi does eventually get herself together enough to participate in the direct fighting in Adventure and 02, she never gets portrayed as someone who enjoys it for the sake of it besides the end goal of protecting others, and in 02 her ability to bring people together and not hold grudges is a much more significant influence on her juniors (especially Miyako).

As a side point, this kind of “pretty girl” character is often also stereotyped as being rather lacking in common sense or airheaded, but while Mimi certainly isn’t the paragon of intellectuality compared to some of the others in the group, she’s never portrayed as particularly lacking in common sense, and in fact her sense of empathy and sensitivity makes her very able to “read the room” and say things or act in ways that are in fact extremely helpful to others. “Emotional intelligence” is a fairly prominent character trait for many characters in Adventure and 02 (particularly in regards to Digimon partners), and, especially in a narrative where the characters are dealing with a lot of stress and emotional issues, is no less important of a role in terms of figuring out what’s going on and figuring out the best possible solution for everyone going forward.

Jou

Jou’s got two archetypes going on here: one being the “studious nerd” type (touched on earlier in Koushirou’s section), and one as “the oldest and therefore most responsible” -- except we quickly find out that Jou is extremely stress-prone, often high-strung, and not particularly put-together (especially because, as it turns out, he’s actually the youngest of his own siblings, meaning he’s not particularly used to being in the role of the oldest). Nevertheless, he takes his role as the oldest very seriously, but the way it’s played is interesting: while he initially seems like the type to hold his position as “the oldest” over everyone and act as if they’re obligated to treat him with respect, Jou actually doesn’t have any indication of caring that much about status or esteem as much as he considers himself obligated to fulfill the role of the oldest and take care of everyone. Hence, why he’s willing to even throw himself recklessly on a Unimon in Adventure episode 7 -- he’s a very selfless person whose main drive is to protect others and help people more than he cares about his own status.

That extends to his role as a “studious” person too -- someone like him who comes from an “elite” family of doctors would often be portrayed as someone who themself cares about the prestige and honor of being a doctor, or at least is proud of being an honor student over everyone else, but there’s no indication in Adventure or 02 that Jou has any interest in the act of studying itself or the status that comes with it as much as he considers it part of a “comfortable routine” that’s integrated into his life, especially compared to the stress of being in an unknown world (Adventure episode 6 even has him preface his statement with “don’t laugh at me,” acknowledging how unusual it would normally be to miss something like studying). Adventure episode 35 has him be mostly rather unfazed about getting a bad grade, past an initial (understandable) bout of disappointment, hinting that this whole affair is actually him going through the motions moreso than he has any real attachment to this lifestyle. Jou doesn’t have a condescending bone in his body, and in fact a lot of his behavior has heavily to do with high stress and a feeling of obligation to help others.

Eventually, via his brother Shin, Adventure episode 38 clarifies the reason for Jou’s behavior of being the “studious type” yet also not really being into it all that much -- Jou’s doing this out of his obligation to his family more than he even personally cares about it, and the “elite” track of being a doctor was never something he personally wanted as much as something his father wanted of him. So in other words, Jou had no personal investment in status and thus can’t be motivated to do something with passion unless it’s something he personally has a reason for wanting to do. He certainly was very motivated to throw himself recklessly into situations where he could sacrifices himself for others in Adventure episodes 7, 23, and 36, because it was a no-brainer that he wanted to help people, but something like the status of becoming a respected member of society is comparatively nebulous and vague to him, especially since, as per Adventure episode 38, he has a phobia of blood that makes the profession outright uncomfortable to him.

Because Jou is the kind of person who wants to do his best for others’ sake and help others, it’s only when he rationalizes that with his father’s desire for him to be a doctor that he’s able to form a desire for it -- namely, the Dark Masters arc has him witness pain and death, and combined with him outright coming to terms with the fact that he's not that great at fighting to begin with (in Adventure episode 50), he decides that the Digital World is rather lacking in healers and that he needs to be there for them. Hence, why his goal to become a doctor is still “unexpected” in its own way, because he’s not doing it for the status of becoming an “elite” doctor the way his father wants him to, but rather one specialized in helping the denizens of the fantasy world that society isn’t all that aware of. It’s also why, in 02, he seems to be fairly unfazed by the prospect of having to temporarily ditch his studies in order to get Gomamon or his juniors out of a pinch -- because if he allowed there to be casualties on his road to becoming someone who can help people, that’d be pretty hypocritical.

Takeru

The “designated kid character” usually manifests in one of two ways: one who’s an immature brat who often causes a lot of trouble, or one who’s much weaker than the others and holds the others back from constantly being emotionally overwhelmed. While neither of these are really things you can blame a child for being at this kind of age for being (especially in such a stressful situation), Takeru is nevertheless neither. Mainstream media, and sometimes even people in the fanbase itself, will talk about him being a “crybaby”, but Takeru’s moments of breaking down into tears or having extreme emotional reactions in Adventure are actually quite uncommon (Yamato’s moments of such outstrip his by a landslide, and almost all of the situations Takeru ends up that way aren’t particularly more unusual than any of the other characters in this cast, especially Mimi).

In truth, Adventure episode 43 makes it clear that Takeru detests the idea of being a “ball and chain” holding everyone back, so, as a result, he’s going out of his way to be “put-together and well-behaved” -- hence, why he, as one of the youngest, keeps on his best behavior in front of his elders and has a constant sense of responsibility. Moreover, there are multiple indications that he’s covering up his own emotions to unhealthy extents as part of his attempt to be so “put-together” -- he has moments where it’s obvious he’s thinking about the impact of his parents’ divorce (a freeze-frame in Adventure episode 3, his reminiscence in Adventure episode 12, or his talk about dislike of “family” getting separated in Adventure episode 26), but constantly tries to veer away from the topic or even lie about it (see Adventure episode 12 where he basically pretends he doesn’t remember anything at all about his young childhood despite the fact that we as the audience are shown that he very much did).

The fact that 02′s incarnation of Takeru has him show a lot more viciously negative sides of himself may catch one off-guard, and it’s sometimes been said by observers that he seems to have taken a mysteriously nasty turn in his personality, but, in fact, Takeru’s habit of being dishonest about and hiding a lot of negative emotions had existed as early as Adventure -- observe him blowing a complete irrational fuse at the well-meaning Tokomon/Patamon in Adventure episodes 22 and 33, just because things had hit him a little too closely (the latter episode is especially notable because Patamon’s statement had been completely innocuous for the most part, only for Takeru to suddenly get angry at him). Such a thing isn’t something you would have expected from an eight-year-old child, given that the archetype is usually portrayed as “innocent”, but it had remained largely unaddressed by the end of Adventure, and it’s only natural it would have gotten worse over the three years in between Adventure and 02, especially as Takeru became older and more independent. When Iori points out the strange “duality” between the kind and cold sides of Takeru in 02 episode 34, he’s really just directly stating what had been going on since the very first episode of Adventure.

That said, it’s also not like Takeru’s trying to be dishonest or guilty of subterfuge -- it’s just that his coping mechanisms are very poorly developed and that he’s constantly trying to keep the peace and come off as pleasant while suppressing all of his negative emotions under a smile, only for things like anger and personal grudge to explode all at once at inopportune times (his punching of the Kaiser in 02 episode 19 being the most famous, but you can see traces of it emerging even beforehand in 02 episodes 11 and 13 whenever things get a bit too personal, to the point it almost jeopardizes his ability to help Hikari in the latter). Hence, why the positive development for Takeru by the end of 02 involves him becoming someone who’s better able to express his thoughts and feelings with the help of Iori, who, despite being younger than him, is also significantly more blunt and straightforward.

Hikari

Being tied to a Crest that’s linked to “life itself”, Hikari comes off as the sort of saintlike figure who has purity of heart all the way through and has nothing but peaceful thoughts about everything. However, a lot of her appearances in Adventure were heavily impacted by context -- other than the fact she was sometimes held back by illness, Hikari was otherwise portrayed as an ordinary playful and cheerful young girl, and there are multiple layers to her character added or enhanced in 02 that indicate that she’s not quite the saint that her archetype would suggest.

For one, like with Sora, we again see how “excessive selflessness” can actually lead to self-destruction if left unchecked: Taichi states outright in Adventure episode 48 that Hikari’s penchant for putting others before herself means that she won’t do anything for herself even if it results in self-harm. Hikari herself confirms this in 02 episode 31, stating outright that she compulsively cannot express her own feelings even if she wants to, to the point she’s outright jealous of Miyako for being able to do so. Because she’s so inclined to not burden others and to work for others’ sake instead, when something bad is about to happen to her and only her, such as the Dark Ocean-related incidents, she can’t bring herself to do anything and is forced to either rely on others’ help or simply resign herself to her fate.

That said, Hikari is also not characterized as someone who’s passive in general; because this passivity is tied to “excessive selflessness”, anytime the issue has to do with anyone else’s sake, she doesn’t hesitate and will even be firm in taking a stand. She’s so assertive that she even momentarily freaks Miyako out in 02 episode 18! In the end, it’s a textbook case of “it’s easier to do it when it’s for other people, but harder to do it when it’s for yourself, especially when doing it for yourself means bothering others,” and this is also something that had dated back as early as Adventure, when she’d made a lot of fairly independent decisions about things she felt strongly needed to be done, like giving herself up for everyone's sake in Adventure episode 36 (very much against her friends' will), or standing up for the Numemon in Adventure episode 49, or even being much quicker to accept the inevitable need to kill an enemy than the emotionally wrecked Miyako in 02 episode 44, because they’re all things she truly and strongly felt needed to be done for the sake of others.

Plus, it’s also not like Hikari’s such a pure-hearted, saintlike person who can do no wrong even at the base level -- 02 episode 6 indicates that she’s not above toying with Daisuke’s feelings for her in order to get what she wants, and in general, the fact she’s aware he likes her but isn’t doing anything about it has both the nuances that she probably doesn’t want to hurt his feelings but is also capable of exploiting an extra level of leverage over him as well. The fact that Hikari is seen as “charming” gives her a certain degree of power of persuasion to get her way, and it seems she’s quite well aware of it...

As the younger sister of Adventure’s lead protagonist, Hikari’s often also stigmatized as having some kind of unhealthy fixation on her brother, or a brother complex (also a rather common anime trope among “younger sister” characters), but this kind of reading requires a huge amount of exaggeration and extracting the relevant lines out of context; at no point in Adventure or 02 is Taichi and Hikari’s relationship portrayed as particularly unusual relative to a reasonable level of concern a pair of siblings that get along should have, especially since any behavior that is particularly notable or unusual or dependent is strongly contextualized as having to do with the above issues regarding Hikari being potentially self-destructive if left to her own devices, and how both Taichi and Hikari react to it (hence why the problem is ultimately addressed most effectively by Miyako, who has no real personal stake in the siblings’ relationship).

Daisuke

Daisuke has been stated outright by Adventure and 02′s director Kakudou to have “the most anime-like personality”, and it is true that even going beyond his base profile, a lot of his characteristics are much closer to that of an idealistic shounen anime protagonist than Taichi’s are, including (as the article in question points out) that he’s a lot more “hot-blooded” on principle but suddenly loses his head when around a girl he likes. Past that, however, there’s a lot of depth going on that reveals that Daisuke is in fact quite the deceptive character.

The first thing you might realize after watching Daisuke closely enough is that while he may initially seem aggressive, he’s actually not very assertive or aggressive at all, especially in the earlier parts of the series. It's very common for the others to shut him down or overturn his opinions in the earlier parts of the series, no matter how much he may ostensibly seem argumentative about it -- he very quickly backs down, at worst seeming a bit irritated, or even going into full-on disappointment with “Oh...okay...” Hence, why Kakudou refers to him as being “prevented from doing very much in the first half,” because for the most part a lot of the decisions made by the group in said first half are made by the entire group in agreement more than they’re made by him specifically, and becoming someone who can make more firm statements is a major point of his growth throughout the series. The first major moment he’s able to do such a thing is 02 episode 20, where, despite everyone’s opposition, he continues to assertively put his foot down that he doesn’t want to pull back when doing so could result in more victims -- and that ultimately becomes the start of him starting to be more confident about doing things even when others disagree with him. Even when he does become more assertive, at no point is Daisuke ever said, in-universe, to be the “leader” of the 02 group as much as he’s simply the one giving them the drive to move forward while they all work things out as a group.

Beyond that, another point that comes out of this is that Daisuke is actually a very deeply emotional person, which means that he has very strong emotions in every direction, including those of empathy and kindness. In fact, similarly to Mimi, Daisuke’s “abrasiveness” and “lashing out” are more defensive than him ever going on the attack, since he usually does this when he feels like he’s being put on the spot, or insulted, or is suspicious. There’s a reason I like to compare him to a puppy with a louder bark than its bite -- said puppy might bark at anything it doesn’t like or understand, or get pouty and offended at times, but also will immediately switch to open adoration or genuinely wanting to make you happy, and that’s also Daisuke in a nutshell. You may notice that he never, ever says anything condescending towards others nor does he dunk on them without reason, and 02 episode 7 indicates that if he realizes he’s stepped over the line, he won’t hesitate to apologize -- something that Taichi, who often veered into the insensitive, was rather bad at doing. Moreover, whenever something deeply hurts him, he also becomes genuinely, truly upset about it -- see him openly weeping over Wallace’s problems in Hurricane Touchdown despite having just met and bickered with him, and him being very audibly on the verge of tears during the situations in 02 episodes 20, 26, and 43 (Kiuchi Reiko’s acting especially brings this out). He’s a dramatic person with an extreme emotional reaction to everything, and that often means blowing small things out of proportion, but it also means that he really, truly does feel for others and care about things with large stakes.

In addition, someone who’s this sort of “hot-blooded” would usually also be portrayed as self-absorbed and arrogant, but Daisuke reveals as early as 02 episode 8 that he’s actually extremely humble -- he knows when he’s out of depth, acknowledges when others are better than him (such as knowing even from the very beginning that he was likely to lose against Ken and the Tamachi team), and actually just enjoys being around others on sheer principle. Read between the lines and you’ll realize that a lot of his behavior actually comes not from arrogance but rather insecurity -- he doesn’t expect anyone to adore or respect him, rather, he ends up running himself in circles trying to impress others (especially Hikari) because he wants the validation of them considering him cool. Hence why he never looks down on anyone nor insults anyone, because he’s much more confident in their awesomeness, and every time he’s around elders or respected seniors, he immediately takes a much more well-behaved and respectful tone in general. For all it’s worth, he’s a pretty deferential person, and has a genuine appreciation for even the little things in life, which is why he’s okay with running a ramen cart in the future -- sure, it’s not super-flashy as a career, but it makes him happy, and that’s all he wants.

So in other words, Daisuke likes people, and he likes his friends a lot; it’s just that his tendency to need validation from others, combined with his emotional tendencies to get really dramatic about everything, makes for a surface temperament where this isn’t immediately apparent. Even his original motivation for fighting comes not from liking fighting, but from his frustration that he wasn’t strong enough to protect others three years prior (also reiterated in the Adventure novels). In the end, pretty much everything he does comes from a desire to protect others and help them, which means that he of course resents those who hurt others, and it’s why he takes Ken exploiting his otherwise admirable abilities for harmful purposes so personally in 02 episode 8. Hence why Kakudou described him as having no evil in him, and that “the only thing bad about him is his head” (i.e. he’s not very smart) -- because once you get past the initial abrasiveness, he’s extremely friendly, all-loving, and loyal, and he isn’t malicious nor does he hold significant grudges.

Even Daisuke’s penchant for being “an idiot” is played a bit differently from the usual, because it’s consistently shown to be a byproduct of the fact that he’s “simple-minded” and doesn’t do well with complex thinking or overthinking, which, in many ways, is an asset as much as it’s a drawback. It means that he doesn’t do well with complex problems and isn’t very intellectual, and it also means that he gets overly suspicious at things that aren’t what they seem or aren’t being straightforward (which is why he initially gets so antsy around Takeru and Wallace, especially the latter, whom he was suspicious of before he started flirting). But it also means that he won’t easily get distracted by platitudes or overthinking, which, during situations where the simplest answer is the correct one, will sometimes conversely result in him being the smartest person in the room. Being so simple-minded gives him a certain degree of pragmatism; while everyone else is getting caught up in moralistic issues of forgiveness or non-forgiveness, Daisuke, who doesn’t get hung up on things like grudges, becomes the most open-minded towards Ken because he practically observes that Ken is not causing problems anymore and thus should be allowed to take responsibility for his mistakes, and also successfully dissuades Ken from recklessly throwing away his life in 02 episode 26 because, as “symbolic” as that kind of penance might be, it’s also very unproductive and will make things worse for everyone. It’s also why he’s one of the first to emotionally come to terms with the potential necessity for killing enemies in 02 episodes 25 and 43; it’s not like he enjoys it, but he’s the first to point out that if they hadn’t done it, even more victims would have been taken.

And as for Daisuke’s interest in Hikari: it’s basically there as a character note as to how Daisuke will completely lose his brain cells and bend over backwards when he’s trying to impress someone he has on a pedestal, and it becomes completely irrelevant to the plot and not even brought up after 02 episode 35, so while it’s not something that vanished completely (especially since it makes a return in post-02 material), it’s also treated as an example of one the many weird hangups that Daisuke will put aside when other things become more important, and an ultimately fairly shallow thing that he hasn’t thought through very clearly (he never directly asks Hikari out nor verbally expresses having a particular crush on her at any point in the series because he’s so wishy-washy about it, which is why she’s so easily able to dodge it), rather than a guiding part of the narrative or his character.

Interestingly, Daisuke’s unusual position as a shounen lead is hinted at even in franchise meta; you might notice he’s the only lead Digimon protagonist to be so heavily associated with blue instead of the warm colors of orange or red, and when you think about it, despite having Taichi’s goggles and supposedly having the “hot-blooded” personality, you could draw just as many parallels between him and Yamato, who’s also friendly behind all of the initial awkwardness and is also a passionately emotional person.

Ken

Really, the single most unusual thing about Ken’s character and his character arc is the fact that such a plotline even exists in the first place. How many series would take the main antagonist of the first half (not an underling, but the actual primary antagonist) and not only reform them but also turn them into the best friend of the protagonist for the second half? And not even in a “begrudging edgelord rival” sense, but legitimately the person who becomes a straightforward best friend with no standoffishness and full-on social-life supportiveness to the protagonist?

In any case, the entire concept of the Kaiser and his story is unusual even from the get-go -- we’re initially introduced to him as an “evil genius”, which is a common villain archetype because it’s very terrifying to have an enemy who’s one step ahead of you, but the Kaiser ends up being rather pathetic -- he’s constantly losing territory to a group of elementary school students, his “tactical abilities” have no real sense of scale beyond a soccer field sort of affair, he’s incredibly petty and will make irrational decisions just because his pride was wounded (see 02 episode 8), and seems to have no real long-term goal besides conquest for the sake of it. Eventually, 02 episode 20-21 reveals that he’d been doing this entire thing because he’d thought the entire thing was a game -- in short, he wasn’t taking this seriously at all, and the entire affair had been tantamount to an eleven-year-old throwing a tantrum.

The point being made here is that the facade of the so-called “evil genius” is significantly less brilliant than it’s made out to be, and, actually, when you think about it, Ken’s initial reformation is mostly kickstarted by himself and Wormmon moreso than it is the other Chosen Children, because while they’re there to drive the nail in, Ken had already been emotionally falling apart and realizing he wasn’t cut out for this for the entirety of the last handful of episodes, and it was ultimately his own realization and mental breakdown that did the honors -- the other kids were really mostly doing cleanup duty at the time, and Daisuke’s influence on him is more important to his process of healing than it was the initial calling it quits. Moreover, as we get to see Ken more in his proper element in the latter half of the series, it becomes apparent that the “true personality” of Ken is actually the more assertive, level-headed one, whereas the Kaiser was the childish and fragile facade; Ken is significantly more comfortable being in his normal element to begin with, and he’s not standoffish or edgy because he doesn’t even like being condescending. If anything, the Kaiser was a manifestation of him forcing himself into an uncomfortable mold in an attempt to emulate his brother, so of course he isn’t going to feel comfortable doing that once all is said and done.

While Ken in the second half does initially express some traits that can be misconstrued as standoffishness, because he’s significantly more level-headed and assertive in this state, it becomes clear that he’s not doing this because he looks down on the others or anything; it’s just that he has very strong opinions on what he thinks needs to be done, and he doesn’t hesitate to explain why he feels this way when he’s asked (he says outright in 02 episode 25 that he believes they shouldn’t be responsible for cleaning up his mess). 02 takes a stance of favoring the concept of “taking responsibility for one’s mistakes” over “penance and punishment”, so even though Ken himself does have moments of devaluing his own life due to his sins (such as in 02 episode 26), ultimately, he states that his primary goal is to fix the mess he started, and he’s not averse to working with the others for the sake of that goal. If he does initially push the others away, it’s simply because he thinks he’s burdening them too (and, likely, that he doesn’t feel he has the right to be around them), but even when he’s at his most irrational about this in 02 episode 30, he turns out to be fairly capable of being reasoned with in pretty short order. So he’s not standoffish or “edgy” just for the sheer sake of it nor for drama, and it’s why he ends up on a very conciliatory relationship with Daisuke and the others by the end of the series, with very little, if at all, in common with the usual “rival” archetype you’d expect in this kind of series.

Considering that Ken is characterized as “kind” and “soft”, it’s easy to not realize that he’s actually one of the most assertive people in the group, and more so than Daisuke (note that he never seems to be all that easily intimidated even when the universe seems out to get him, and in 02 episode 29 he even offers to do the “dirty work” of potentially having to kill an enemy in lieu of the other kids if push comes to shove because he knows they’re uncomfortable with it). Although the issue of the Dark Seed makes it ambiguous as to how much of his turn into the Kaiser was supernatural interference and how much of it was himself, either way, the series doesn’t try to absolve Ken of his sins just because there was something extra pushing him over the edge -- again, the series operates less on “fault” than it does “responsibility” -- and when you look at these kinds of traits, you realize that the Kaiser existed because Ken had always been capable of this kind of aggressiveness, he just doesn’t do it because he doesn’t want to unless it’s necessary, nor does he like it. It’s also why he banters so playfully with Daisuke in most post-02 material -- like many of the other characters in this narrative, being “soft and kind” doesn’t mean he’s necessarily a saint, he’s just someone who willfully chooses to be a good person for the most part.

Miyako

Miyako is a character who has a lot going on with her at once, having a ton of traits that you normally wouldn’t see combined into one character because they usually occupy separate archetypes (and, in a textbook case of reality being a lot less clear-cut than fiction, she’s the one character out of this group said explicitly to be based off a specific person). The fact she’s outwardly aggressive may make you think of the “badass action girl” type, but she’s also the kind who gushes over hot guys and fits the stereotypes of the “materialistic girly-girl”, and on top of that she’s a computer specialist working under Koushirou who begs the image of a “nerd girl”, and, unlike all of these archetypes, she’s a rather sloppy mess of a person who ends up loudly running her mouth, being prone to panic, and spitting out the first thing on her mind without restraint. On top of that, these traits tend to mix easily, so as much as she’s in-your-face about trying to physically fight things, she’s also the kind who’ll aggressively hug or dote on anyone she likes (which is a lot of people). Miyako is closer to the shounen brash hero archetype than even Taichi or Daisuke are, and yet is also closer to the “materialistic girly-girl” archetype than Mimi is at the same time.

Much like Koushirou, the part about being good with computers is much less of a prominent part of her character arc than you might initially think -- she herself doesn’t actually bring it up much during the course of the series, and, much like computers are an outlet for Koushirou to follow his thirst for knowledge and insatiable curiosity, Miyako’s connections with computers and tech have a lot to do with how she constantly goes out of her way to be helpful to others, such as being helpful to Koushirou as his junior, or helping out Iori’s mother with their computer (02 episode 1), or helping Yamato’s band (02 episode 29), or getting to do something helpful for the group in general (Diablomon Strikes Back). She’s not particularly show-offy or even all that fixated the actual subject as much as she’s proud of the fact she got to do something helpful and useful, and it ties deeply into her personal struggle with how to be capable of doing good for others when she’s actually not the striking image of a mature, put-together person who would usually be good at that kind of thing.

Miyako is consistently portrayed as having a complex about her “aggressive” tendencies -- she negatively compares herself to Mimi (02 episode 14) and Hikari (02 episode 31), on the grounds that she’s less put-together and more insensitive than them, and labels herself a “bad partner” for being such a sloppy person (02 episode 18). She does not want people to get hurt because of her actions, especially because whenever she loses grip on herself like this, that’s something that’s very liable to happen (which is exactly what happens with Hawkmon in 02 episode 18), and her tendency to be judgmental or to have no brain-to-mouth filter means she can be occasionally insensitive (see 02 episode 31). She even ends up fostering an idea that Hikari must be thinking of her badly, while she’s at it (02 episode 31)!

The end result of Miyako’s character arc is that, while she ends up needing to adjust the more negative aspects of her personality that involve causing trouble for others and being insensitive, that doesn’t necessarily mean that she has to completely change her personality to accommodate that. Hawkmon assures her in 02 episode 18 that he likes her the way she is, and, as it turns out, Hikari and Miyako both realize in 02 episode 31 that Miyako’s in-your-face, aggressive personality is very helpful when dealing with someone who’s so closed-in and repressive like Hikari, because it means Miyako has the right temperament to go out of her way and reach out to her despite how high of a hurdle that would normally be. On top of that, a consistent thread from the beginning of the series is that her over-the-top antics bring the group proper cheer, with the kids genuinely enjoying the vibrance she brings with her dramatic Digital Gate entrances, and multiple significant scenes indicating that her being dramatic and silly will make people laugh and be happy. So in other words, Miyako is capable of being emotionally supportive and helpful while also being her aggressive and messy self, and there’s no need for her to have to change herself drastically to resolve the supposed “contradiction” that one might initially think this poses.

Miyako’s also generally the first female character billed in 02 (mainly because Hikari’s returning from Adventure), but she isn’t particularly teased as having any romantic relationship with Daisuke; not that they don’t have a compelling rapport, but any idea of them having any real feelings for each other isn’t exactly stated to any significant degree over the course of the series. Miyako herself comments on multiple people being attractive over the course of the series, and it’s interesting in how this is played; the earlier parts of the series involve her completely losing her head and getting weirdly hung up and fixated on her targets of attraction to the point of getting derailed over more important matters (see 02 episodes 6, 8, 14), whereas she’s later able to express this in a lot more straightforward of a manner without being weird about it (02 episodes 38, 39), and so in the end, it’s not exactly a fundamental sin for Miyako to be open about the concept of attraction, especially as it ends up not really having a huge place in the overall narrative, which is consistent with Adventure and 02 not really treating romance or attraction as if it’s such a game-changer for these kids at this point in their lives.

Iori

Iori is the youngest in this entire group of twelve, and yet carries himself with a sense of maturity that goes far beyond his age, to the point he even comes off as one of the most mature in the 02 group despite being younger than all of them by a significant margin. Even taking into account the concept of the “precocious kid”, however, Iori’s not only polite but also very stoic and stern, meaning he often can come up with some really passive-aggressive or stern remarks (completely in polite Japanese). Of this entire group, the youngest one is the most likely to completely roast you with some well-timed statements.

However, one important fact to keep in mind is that Iori isn’t doing this because he’s “naturally” stoic or emotionless, but because he’s deliberately suppressing himself in an attempt to be well-behaved. (A really big clue in the Japanese version that Iori’s facade is “slipping” is that he ends up losing his composure and using casual Japanese instead of the polite form that he so constantly adheres to.) This is something that partially comes from his upbringing from his family, especially his grandfather, but even said grandfather is concerned that he’s a bit overkill in this regard (see 02 episode 6). By all means Iori should be allowed to express himself a bit more freely, but he keeps restraining himself and trying to be well-behaved in front of all of these elders that he develops a complex over the one time he allowed himself to act excited and cheerful in 02 episode 16, to the point the episode ends with Submarimon basically dragging him out on an undersea trip so he can enjoy something for once, dammit.

Iori is described as “clumsy at expressing himself as a child”, and 02 depicts the problem that comes out of the flip side of a young child being so mature that they have more comfortable company with older kids than kids their own age: Iori is outright isolated from his peers because of how different his mentality is from theirs (02 episode 3), and moreover, his stubborn insistence on doing things a certain way to the point even his grandfather thinks he’s overdoing it is, in fact, his own way of being “childish”. He’s basically trying to follow the honorable principles he wants to follow from his family, but taking them to their logical extreme because his view of the world is too simple-minded from his lack of life experience. Hence, why he develops such a black-and-white view of morality trying to categorize people into boxes of “good” and “evil”, and why he ends up trying to follow principles to pretty impractical extremes such as thinking that a single white lie is going to send him on a path to moral debauchery. In short, he’s a young child trying to deal with very abstract concepts much bigger than him, and dealing with it in a very simple-minded, overly reductive way befitting that of someone his age.

However, one thing Iori does acknowledge is that he’s probably not going about this the right way, and that he needs to understand more about others if he wants to do better. From the very beginning of the series, Koushirou (02 episode 2) identifies him as someone who has a “curious mind” like himself, but while he initially expects Iori to be like him in terms of being curious about the Digital World, Iori’s “curiosity” ends up manifesting more in terms of wanting to know about how humans work and what’s the right thing to do. This is how he ends up breaking through to the very convoluted and repressive Takeru, because he has the drive to poke through Takeru’s many layers and figure out what’s going on with him, and it’s how he eventually manages to become more open-minded about the issues surrounding Ken and Oikawa despite initially having been so hostile to them. All things considered, “understanding morality” is a pretty heavy burden for someone who’s supposed to be the designated kid character!

#digimon #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #shihameta

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in-class-daydreams · 3 years

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The Splash Zone - Tsukishima x Reader (Oneshot)

Jurassic World! AUPairing: Son of Park CEO!Tsukishima Kei x Mosasaur Trainer!Reader

- Word Count: ~9,000

- Genres: Fluff, angst

- CW: Mentions of death, objectification of main character, sexual harassment-

Mango’s Introduction: Tsukishima the younger is a bit… prickly. Don’t say that to his face, obviously, because he’s technically your boss, but for all his personality flaws, he’s definitely excellent at his job and he cares more about the people around him than he lets on. He’s snarky with that mosasaur trainer more than anyone else, but you can tell he’s sweet on her. I guess you could call it the adult equivalent of pulling a girl’s pigtails on the playground. Uh, don’t tell him I said that, he’s my boss too.

(A/N: For all of you who were interested in this series, y'all waited nearly a year for less than 10,000 words, and I apologize, haha. It's been sitting 95% finished all that time, but I moved onto some other projects because I wasn't confident in my writing abilities. After a year's worth of writing exercises via different projects, I'm now okay with putting this out for all of you. I hope my next few projects (AoT and KnY) knock your socks off, but for now, here's a little journey about following your own convictions, featuring our favorite salty blonde.)

Tsukishima had it all. Money, looks, brains, and sure, his personality could use a little work, but he wasn’t completely insufferable. Most of the time. But if you asked him, his sour attitude was hardly his fault. After all, he was the heir to a multi-trillion dollar theme park, so it’s not like there were any consequences for him talking to people the way he does. For all he cared, he could be as snarky as he liked, considering he didn’t work with many people that were willing to speak their mind to him.

“Bite me, Tsukki.”

Well, except for a certain mosasaur trainer that was really grating on his nerves. Said trainer sat across from him from her seat in his office, arms crossed and jaw tense. Tsukishima tapped his fingers on his desk.

“Are you done throwing a tantrum like a six-year-old?” he asked. (Y/N)’s hands balled in her lap. She kept her mouth shut, glowering at the desk in front of her to keep her temper under wraps.

The blonde rolled his eyes. About fifteen minutes ago, he watched her kick in the door to the employee lounge and make her way over to the mosasaur staff supervisor. All eyes were on her as she moved towards him with murderous intent rolling off of her in waves. While (Y/N) was the one with the most control over the aquatic dinosaur itself, the supervisor was the one who hired staff, had them trained, made their schedules, and completed the other overall administrative duties. Their position was a catch-all and they were meant to do the primary inspections that made the mosasaur shows run properly.

Company policy encouraged open communication between colleagues, of course. Jurassic World Theme Park prided itself on proficient employee cooperation, as per the employee handbook and what the marketing team insists they say. Tsukishima just wished (Y/N) had opened her statement with something a smidge more polite than, “Are there any grooves in your fucking brain or is it all just smooth in there?”

After that hell of a conversation starter, she and the supervisor verbally ripped into each other. If Kei hadn’t grabbed (Y/N) by the windbreaker and dragged her into his office, he wouldn’t have been surprised if they ended up ripping into each other physically, too. To her credit, (Y/N) most definitely won, but that would have been a bigger pain in his ass.

“(Y/N), you can’t speak like that to people you work with. I heard what you said about him keeping an eye on his interns, and that’s his business, not yours,” he sighed. It was too early for this crap, especially since his assistant called in sick and hadn’t made him his morning coffee, and there were a million things to do in preparation for the board meeting today. He had better things to do than settle this stupid argument.

(Y/N) looked at him with disbelief, “You think I went in there to yell at him for fun? You have no idea what happened, Kei, how are you already taking his side?”

Tsukishima looked into her fiery gaze for a moment. He leaned back, brushing down the front of his navy blue button-down.

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s what you said,” she shot back.

He pursed his lips. “Alright, I’m sorry,” he muttered.

(Y/N)’s mouth dropped for a moment, then the corner quirked up ever-so-slightly, “What was that, Tsukki?”

“Just explain before I lose my patience,” he snapped. His ears felt hot.

She laughed, “Because you’re the picture of patience right now.”

“(Y/N).”

Although the anger in her posture returned, she was able to remain more composed than she had earlier.

“One of the interns came up to me about an hour ago to ask me about the coding for the hydraulic lift.” (Y/N) threw her hands up and leaned back in her chair, as if that was the answer to everything.

“I’ll need some more details than that.”

She groaned in frustration, “There’s the mosasaur tank and the stadium

surrounding it, yeah? And partway through the show, the hydraulic lift lowers the stadium to the underground viewing area, right? Well, for all that to happen, the codes on the control panel have to be specific,” her hands moved fervently as she got deeper into her explanation. “The codes never change, but every morning, the supervisor makes sure they’re correct and I double check before the show. If the codes are incorrect, the stadium might lift too fast, too slow, too much, or not at all.”

Kei nodded for her to continue, to which she gave a grateful nod before going back into rant mode.

“Interns don’t have clearance into that area. He gave her his fucking badge so she could go in and do the checks without him. She shouldn’t have been down there and she definitely shouldn’t have been checking the control panel. Look,” she ran a hand through her hair, “I don’t want to tell the guy how to do his job. If he wants to train the interns how to run the control panel, then fine, it’s not in my job description to police that. But that brand-new, inexperienced, fresh-out-of-college kid was all by herself down there doing that idiot’s job. She could have gotten hurt. She could have gotten other people hurt. It was her supervisor’s job to train her better and to take better care of his interns and if I don’t raise hell about this kind of stuff now, then who will? So fuck that guy, he deserved to get yelled at.”

(Y/N) heaved herself out of her chair, “And now that everyone thinks I’m a raving lunatic, I’m going back to my office to change. Try not to need me.”

As the son of the owner of Jurassic World Theme Park, Tsukishima Kei was raised to do two things: work with dinosaurs and obey his father. When he was younger, he thought he would get to work with the dinosaurs as a trainer, regulate their feeding schedules, train them, and educate the masses about the wonders of science. But he was wrong. The future his father had in store for him involved dinosaurs, yes, but more along the lines of determining the cost of developing a new dinosaur or what characteristics are interesting to the general public so that the park can turn a profit.

Several years ago, when his father originally had her brought to the island, Kei had been skeptical. Out of all the candidates for the mosasaur trainer, (Y/N) had been particularly young, but for some reason, his father was insistent that the new mosasaur trainer be her. (Y/N) later proved and continued to prove that she wasn’t just qualified, but born to work with the mosasaur, Dolly, she called her. She cared for her with a deep passion that transcended interspecies boundaries.

(Y/N) was amazing at her job, and it was unfair of Tsukishima not to hear her out initially. There was a fine line between teasing as a result of mutual pining and just being a dick, and it seemed like Kei had crossed that line.

(Y/N) knew he was coming. That was one of the things she really appreciated about Tsukishima. He was a snarky asshole who liked to rile her up, and in the beginning, he was garbage at apologies, but over time, they’d apologized to each other so often that he no longer dragged ass over it. Once he realized he was in the wrong, he would find her immediately.

Tsukishima let himself into (Y/N)’s office, where he found her and the raptor trainer in deep conversation.

“Kei! Seriously, I could’ve been changing!” she yelled. She’d told him a million times to knock before coming in, but he rarely listened.

“Don’t worry, even if you were, there’s nothing to see,” he said teasingly.

(Y/N) scowled, “You wouldn’t know.”

Tsukishima scoffed.

“Anyway, Hajime, what else did that guy say?” (Y/N) said.

Kei frowned at the two cups from Tiki Smoothie in front of them. He wondered if Iwaizumi had brought her one as a surprise or if she’d asked him to bring her one. Both possibilities put him in a bad mood. Supposedly, they were just close friends, but (Y/N) forced him to watch enough Hallmark movies for him to know the friends-to-lovers trope quite well. It ranked just below childhood friends-to-lovers and just above enemies-to-lovers. He must have been staring at those cups for some time, because by the time he zoned back in, Iwaizumi had already finished his explanation.

“--train the raptors for the battlefield,” Iwaizumi finished.

(Y/N) raised an irritated brow, “Like dogs?”

The raptor trainer shrugged, “Apparently.”

“Did you tell him that’s not how raptors work?” she asked.

“I didn’t bother. He-- Sorry,” Iwaizumi fished his ringing flip phone from his vest pocket. “I gotta go, (Y/N), I’ll tell you more at dinner later,” he said on his way out the door.

“Okay, but I wanna hear about your thing with that pretty P.O. Manager later!”

The taller man stopped and gripped the door frame in surprise.

“Wha-- There’s no ‘thing’!” Iwaizumi sputtered.

“Whatever keeps your blood pressure normal."

As (Y/N) waved her friend off, Tsukishima rested his weight on the back of the vacated chair.

“What was that all about?”

(Y/N) sighed, making her way over to the wardrobe next to the door.

“Some military guy had a talk with Hajime about using the raptors for war. He said they’re better than drones because they’re not hackable and blah blah blah.”

“Does he realize that-- what are you doing?!” Tsukishima choked when (Y/N) dropped her loose gym shorts. Underneath, she wore plain navy blue bikini bottoms.

“Relax, Kei, you’re the one who invited yourself into my office. Besides, it’s not like you haven’t seen a girl’s bare legs, right?” she teased as she stepped into her dive skin. The tall young man moved to sit behind the desk. Forcing down his blush, he took on a snarky tone once again.

“Obviously. I didn’t think you had time for that kind of thing, since you’ve been cooped up with Darby for the last few years.”

(Y/N) shook her wetsuit at him, “Her name is Dolly! It’s always been Dolly and you know it, you little shit!”

“Language, (Y/N),” he smirked. What would my father say if he knew you spoke to me like that?”

“Oh, trust me, Malfoy, your father knows exactly how I speak to you, and he couldn't care less,” she snarked, looking pleased with herself..

The teasing glint in Tsukishima’s eyes wavered at the comment, though he knew they shouldn’t have. ‘Don’t dish it if you can’t take it’ he always said. He knew his father loved him the way any man loves his son, but Kei’s rank in his father’s heart in relation to money had always been questionable.

“Sorry. Too much,” (Y/N) said quietly. She pulled up her dive skin and removed her windbreaker, revealing a matching bikini top.

“It’s not your fault,” the blonde mumbled back. (Y/N) made her way around the desk. Leaning her weight on the edge facing him, she said, “Really, I’m sorry. That was in bad taste.”

Tsukishima waved dismissively, “It’s fine, you didn’t mean it. Just caught me off guard… Actually, I came to apologize to you for earlier.”

She grimaced, “I’m sorry for freaking out so hard. I didn’t mean to make trouble for you the same day as a shareholders’ meeting.”

“You’d be okay with making trouble for me normally?”

“That a serious question?”

With a light chuckle he said, “Right, right. It’s fine... I’m sorry for not

hearing you out. For what it’s worth, that guy is as good as fired.”

“Fired!?” she yelped, making him jump. “Wait, you can’t fire him!”

“Actually, I can--”

“Fine. As his boss, you legally could fire him, but I’m saying don’t. One, we can easily get him to clean up his act. Two, his wife is preggers. Gregnant. Pregante.”

“I got it the first time.”

“Just making sure.”

Tsukishima huffed, holding back a smile, “Worrying about someone whose head you were about to bite off two hours ago. That’s just like you.”

There was a gentle knock at the door and Yamaguchi, a paleo-veterinary intern, poked his head through the doorway.

“(Y/N), are you ready for the show? We have 20 minutes until start time,” he informed her with a sweet smile.

“Yup!” She stuffed her arms through the tight neoprene sleeves, “Are you the specialist on standby this time, Yama?”

The shorter girl turned around and moved her hair to the side in a silent request. Standing to his full height, Tsukishima pinched the sides of her zipper with one hand and pulled the tab up with.

Yamaguchi couldn’t help but laugh. His two friends stopped, (Y/N) with her hands holding up her hair, Tsukishima with his hands tugging on her suit zipper.

“What’s so funny?” his childhood friend asked. Yamaguchi just shook his head and confirmed that, yes, he would be on medical standby for the upcoming show.

“Close the door when you leave, okay, Tsukki?” (Y/N) shot over her shoulder on the way out.

“Good luck with your show,” he said simply. She frowned in confusion. Before she could comment, Yamaguchi rushed her out the door.

“--near the surface of the water, where it preyed on anything it could sink its teeth into, including turtles, small fish, even smaller mosasaurs, but don’t worry, that’s not why Dolly here doesn’t have any siblings.”

The crowd chuckled. Tsukishima always enjoyed when (Y/N) did the demonstrations herself. The guides did the jobs they were contracted to do, and maybe it was that he already knew how much she loved Dolly, but whenever (Y/N) did it, it always felt less like a show and more like the introduction of a close friend of hers. That was the truth, after all.

“You see, when Dolly was born, I was the first thing she saw. This caused something called imprinting, and if I just made you think about that freaky Twilight baby, I’m so sorry.”

Another wave of laughter rippled through the crowd. “And what that means is, Dolly and I share a special bond. She feels a special connection to me that she doesn’t feel for any other creature on this planet. When she was growing up, we communicated with this,” she held up a silver whistle.

“You can’t hear these sounds, but Dolly can. She knows the sound of the whistle, and that makes her think, ‘Oh, that’s my handler! Yay, she’s gonna feed me!’ Which is something I thought whenever my mom called my name during my teenage years.”

“She’s entertaining, isn’t she?” one of his father’s associates commented. Rather than sitting in the wide open arena seats under the beating sun, Kei’s father, the elder Tsukishima, sat up in an air-conditioned glass box high above the regular seats. Today, a group of shareholders and potential investors were performing their monthly assessment of the park’s assets. After going to every single one of these meetings since he was twelve, Tsukishima was more or less used to these meetings, but he was getting irked by the way a particularly sweaty, sleazy-looking businessman two and a half times his age was staring not at the tank itself, but at the trainer on the platform above it. If it weren’t for his father, he would have nastily told all of them to never take even a single breath in her direction.

“The girl’s gotten real grown up since we first saw her,” the man said, rubbing his chin.

‘Don’t look at her like that,’ Kei growled internally.

“Good eye, Yamada-san. She just turned twenty-one,” his father replied.

‘But that doesn’t concern you,’ Kei thought.

“Really? She looks young, but she seems so mature for her age,” another dirty businessman observed.

“You always did like the young-looking ones, you creepy old man!” laughed Yamada. Tsukishima bit down on his tongue so hard he had to remind himself not to bite it off.

“Ah, yes, I took her age into account from the get-go,” Tsukishima-san said. “By nature, the mosasaurus would only accept one trainer, and I brought her to the island at such a young and impressionable age that she would only listen to me.”

“And then you have a safe way to control the dinosaur,” one of the shareholders concluded.

“Exactly. And you’re right, Yamada-san, she’s grown up to be quite attractive. Shame she ended up so strong-willed, else she might have made a quality match for my son. Perhaps if Kei here can reel her in, he’ll make a wife out of her yet, right, son?”

The younger Tsukishima’s skin crawled as every pair of eyes in the room landed on him. He could just imagine opening his mouth and ripping them all a new one. What would Yamada say if he called him out on his predatory behavior? Or he could say, ‘Ah, Mr. Kawasaki, how’s that custody battle with your wife going? I hear she’s winning because the kids would rather live with her. Oh, Chairman Yang, I didn’t see you there! Have you beaten that nasty gambling addiction of yours? Goodness, from the looks of those eye bags and how badly your ‘designer’ suit is frayed, my guess is no.”

But Kei can’t say any of those things. He has too much to lose, should he compromise his position as his father’s heir and future CEO. The blonde glanced briefly out the window at the smiling girl talking animatedly about her most treasured friend. He mentally sends her an apology for being unable to defend her yet again.

Kei grit his teeth and finally replies.

“Yes, father.”

If he were born as anyone else, he could romance her properly, instead of passing glances, not-so-subtle flirting, and raging sexual tension. They wouldn’t have had to play the whole ‘will we or won’t we?’ schtick. But he was still Tsukishima Kei. He was destined to take over his father’s company, and by design, his partner would have to attend board meetings and brunches and wine and cheese parties. Kei had no desire to drag (Y/N) into that kind of life, but what’s more, (Y/N) would never agree to it. At one time, he considered asking her about it. Ask her to consider making that sacrifice for him. But at the end of the day, he never did bring it up to her because he was scared of the answer he’d receive.

Her enthusiastic voice faded back into his consciousness, “Enough of me talking. Is everyone ready to meet Dolly?”

They all turned back to the window at the sound of (Y/N)’s voice.

The crowd cheered in affirmation.

“What was that? I can’t hear you?”

The cheers transitioned into a deafening roar.

“Alright, for those of you in the splash zone, expect to get soaked in about ten seconds and counting.”

(Y/N) pressed a button, and the feeder crane slowly moved to dangle a heavy shark over the mosasaurus tank. The trainer leaned against her platform’s railing. She put the whistle to her lips, but no one heard any sound.

“You hungry, girl?” she asked the tank. There was no prior indication of any movement before the leviathan reptilian dinosaur leapt out of the water and easily snatched up its prey with its rows of hundreds of teeth. Its great mass seemed to linger midair for what felt like forever before sliding back into the water with a giant splash that had the crowd squealing with delight.

“Hold on tight,” (Y/N) spoke up as the stands started lowering under the stadium, “We’re gonna get to take a little closer look at our girl, Dolly the Mosasaurus.”

“How was your meeting?” (Y/N) asked upon her arrival in Tsukishima’s own office, finally free of her restricting wetsuit and hair still wet from her shower. Not looking up from his paperwork, the blonde grunted, “Fine.”

(Y/N) smiled and sat on the edge of the desk beside him. Both hands came up to zip her windbreaker.

“That bad, huh?”

“You sit in a glass box for 45 minutes with a group of men over fifty, and tell me you had fun,” he grumbled. Giving him a sympathetic look, she slid off the desk to place her hands on his shoulders. She gently massaged the tension from them. Lately, Tsukishima Senior had been giving his son more responsibility to “prepare him to take over the company,” which would have been a more believable excuse if the older man wasn’t relaxing by the pool and golfing with his friends 4 days a week. Kei leaned into her touch.

‘You are nothing like your father, though, Kei,’ she internally mused. Dragging her hands down from his shoulders to clasp in front of him, she hugged him from behind. Soothed by her presence, he wondered if he even needed to tell her how he felt about her. It seemed like she already suspected. Though, if she already knew and wasn’t saying anything, what exactly were her feelings on the matter?

“Today was so tiring, Tsukki,” she rested her chin on top of his blonde head. “This family was asking me questions, but their two irritating ass kids kept climbing on the primary railings, and the mom got mad at me when I told them to knock it off! Like, do you want your kids to get chomped by a genetically engineered dinosaur, Brenda? Then, she asked for my manager, and I’m like, ‘Bitch, I will literally throw you in the damn tank! There, that’s my manager, you entitled piece of-- ughhh!!” (Y/N) buried her face in Tsukishima’s shoulder in frustration. “I hate customer service! Fuck her! Fuck them kids!”

“You said that to her?” he teased. Secretly, he was happy that she was tired today. A Tired (Y/N) meant a Sweet (Y/N), and after those creeps were leering at her in the box today, he was just glad she was somewhere he could keep an eye on her.

“Suck my dick, Kei, you know I wouldn’t actually say that. I still enjoy getting paychecks,” her words were muffled by his shoulder. ‘Sweet’ is a relative term for her.

“I’d pay good money to see you cuss someone out.”

“You would, wouldn’t you,” she replied.

Tsukishima desperately wanted to tell her how he felt. It was getting really irritating that they could do stuff like this, but he couldn’t tell those sweaty old men in the box today to keep their perverted stares off of her.

Tentatively, he turned his head towards her, lips ghosting along her jawline. His heart sped up as her fingers tightened into his dress shirt.

When his arm slid around her waist, she was like putty in his hands.

“You-- You’re kinda giving me mixed signals here, Kei,” she said breathlessly. The taller male placed his forehead against hers. His eyes stared down at her lips as he debated the long-term consequences of giving into his desires.

“I know,” he murmured. “I’m sorry.”

(Y/N) brought her hand up to cup his face. They both leaned in slowly, as if moving any faster would ruin the tension.

“Don’t be…” she whispered.

The office door slammed open with a bang.

“Sir?” (Y/N) jumped back from him like she’d been burned.

“What?” he snapped at the intruder.

“Your father wants you and Miss (L/N) in a meeting right away.”

“Tsukishima-san, I don’t see why--”

“Of course you don’t, (Y/N),” Kei’s father cut her off, “You have a personal connection with the animal. That was the one oversight I made when I brought you to the island as a trainer.”

They sat in a boardroom, surrounding a large table with Tsukishima senior at one end, (Y/N) at the other, and the board members on either side. The blazing sunlight of Isla Nublar that shone in through the large floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side of the room contrasted heavily with the dark tension permeating throughout the room. Kei tapped his fingers against the table from his spot on his father’s right side.

Of all the ‘strategic investments’ his father made, this was definitely not one Kei could have predicted.

The girl took a deep breath, “With all due respect, sir, it can’t be a good idea to reinvent a new species of mosasaur. I think--”

“See, that’s the problem, sweetheart,” the sweaty man from before chimed in. “You’re not here to think, you’re here to look pretty, and to tell the dinosaur what to do.”

“I don’t appreciate your tone, Yamada.”

“I don’t appreciate your attitude, little girl,” he shot back.

Tsukishima Senior cut in, “Try to understand, (Y/N). The Indominus Rex has been a huge hit. The numbers say that these new hybrid dinosaurs are the next big thing. We can’t pass up an astronomical amount of money just so you can keep your pet.”

“My pet?” (Y/N) spat.

“Now, (Y/N), there’s no need to get hysterical.”

“Hysterical? My reaction is perfectly reasonable considering you want to euthanize the creature I’ve raised since birth, which, may I remind you, is something you people wanted me to do.”

“Doctor Wu and the rest of the genetics team is already engineering the genetics for a new mosasaur. Bigger, more teeth--”

“But they couldn’t engineer any more brain cells for all of you?!” she interjected.

“That’s enough!” CEO Tsukishima slammed his hand on the meeting table. “You’re like a daughter to me, (Y/N), but I won’t take this level of disrespect from you.”

(Y/N) rested her hands atop the table and leaned in, meeting his glare head-on.

“If you want to do anything to Dolly, you’ll need my help, and I will not do anything that can compromise her.”

“What a mouthy little thing,” one of the shareholders muttered.

“Give her to me, I’ll shut her up,” another said loudly enough for everyone to hear.

Tsukishima took a deep, stabilizing breath from beside his father.

“I chose you because I saw something in you. I never expected you to be this selfish,” the elder snapped, “You’re being unreasonable. Kei is barely older than you, and he understands that there’s profit to be made by replacing the damn dinosaur. Tell her, Kei.”

The room went silent. (Y/N) stared deeply into her friend’s golden brown eyes.

‘Don’t do this, Kei. They want you to become your father, but you are not your father. You are so much more.’

The younger Tsukishima felt like he was being crushed by an incredible weight. Whatever he did now, it would be nearly impossible to take back. If he chose her, his father may never forgive him. The problem was: If he chose his place as his father’s heir, would he ruin his relationship with (Y/N) forever? Which one of them could he live without? He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them. His steady gaze met with (Y/N)’s intense stare. He hoped he sounded more sure than he felt.

“Yes, (Y/N). My father’s right.”

(Y/N) first looked surprised, then immensely disappointed. Realizing there was no one on her side, she sighed.

“I came to this island because I thought this company might be different. When you asked me to train the mosasaurus from birth, I was overjoyed at how much you cared for her development,” she made sure to stare into the soul of each and every dirty scoundrel in the room. “But I made a mistake, too. All of you are cowards. Selfish, soulless, money-grubbing cowards.” Blazing eyes finally landed on Kei’s wide golden brown ones. She aimed her final statement at him.

“Every last one of you.”

Kei’s heart squeezed so hard he thought his chest would collapse.

“Tsukishima-san!” a mousey-looking secretary burst into the boardroom. CEO Tsukishima clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“What is it now?” he snapped.

“It’s the Indominus! She’s escaped!”

Deafening alarms and flashing red lights resounded throughout the control room. Kei could barely hear his father barking orders to the security team. One of the technicians pulled up a giant map of the park on the main screen.

“She’s still on the outer edges of the park, but she’s moving fast, sir,” they said.

“Have the Asset Containment Unit get this thing under control. Make sure they use non-lethals.”

“Non-lethals!” (Y/N) yelled, outraged.

“We have 26 million dollars invested in that asset,” the elder Tsukishima growled.

Exasperated, (Y/N) threw her hands in the air. She avoided Kei’s eyes as she

turned and sprinted out of the control room.

Kei hesitated. Before he could chase after her, his father ordered him to stay put to help in the control room. Though it made him feel like he wanted to vomit, he obeyed.

Several hours passed and Tsukishima’s mind felt like it was at its breaking point. The monitors flashing red in the dimly lit control room strained his eyes to the point where he was convinced he’d need a stronger prescription after this. The beeping of the ACU team’s EKG monitors flatlining rang in his ears so loud he wished he would just go deaf. The Indominus was picking off their security team with ease, sometimes several members at a time. The young man rubbed at his temples.

“Tsukishima, we’re evacuating the rides on the outer edges at the park,” the lead Park Operations Assistant slid a map over to him. Taking a red marker, she circled a few attractions directly in the escaped dinosaur’s projected path.

“But I think these preparations insufficient,” she said, nervously twisting

the pen in her grip.

“We’d evacuate the whole park if it were up to me,” Tsukishima said under

his breath.

The assistant pursed her lips, “It’s a shame we’ll definitely be shut down

after this. You would have made a great CEO.”

“Are you flirting with me?” the blonde joked.

“Please, you’re so whipped for (Y/N) it hurts to look at you,” the assistant snorted in reply.

Before Tsukishima could make a snarky retort, both of their attentions were drawn to CEO Tsukishima, who had a large, middle aged man at his side.

“Kei, come over here!” the older man called.

Tsukishima handed the map back over to the assistant, “This is fine for now. If the situation escalates or if it doesn’t improve in an hour or so, close all the attractions on the west side of the park. I’ll be right back.”

The assistant grabbed his arm, “Tsukishima, that’s Vic Hoskins, the head of the private security force.”

“My father introduced us not long ago. What about him?”

“Commander Hoskins isn’t just a brute, he’s an ignorant one, and that makes him dangerous. If your father is listening to him, be careful.”

Tsukishima nodded gratefully.

“I will. I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t wait for the assistant’s reply before making his way to his father’s side, who pulled him off to the side. Hoskins had apparently taken his leave.

“The helicopter will be here in 10 minutes, make sure you’re at the helipad by then,” he told his son.

The younger Tsukishima’s eyes widened.

“What? Where are we going?” he asked.

His father turned to him, “Commander Hoskins has strongly advised us to get off the island. We can do our part in containing this crisis remotely.”

The younger man blanched, “We’re just going to leave? We still have people to evacuate, not to mention medical teams to coordinate, personnel to--”

CEO Tsukishima placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, “We can do all of these things remotely. Our first priority is maintaining our safety, and besides, the situation is in good hands with our employees here. It’s as good as contained.”

The CEO smiled and turned to leave. Kei didn’t move.

“Come on, Kei,” the older man urged.

Tsukishima took a deep breath.

“If the situation is ‘as good as contained,’ then why are we leaving the island?” he asked.

His father sighed, “I understand your concern, Kei, this is a safety issue--”

“So, you agree? You do think that evacuation is the correct safety measure?” Kei looked his father directly in his familiar amber eyes.

The elder shifted, “What are you implying, Kei?”

“I’m saying as long as we choose not to actively evacuate the island, we have a responsibility to our employees and to our guests to stay and control the situation the best we can.”

The flatlining EKG monitors were still ringing in his ears. If he left the island now, he’d never stop hearing the beeping of those monitors. They’d exist in his nightmares forever.

“Stay here, then, Kei,” his father’s voice broke him out of his thoughts.

He raised a brow, “Just me?”

“There’s no point to being in power if you refuse to reap the benefits of it. The helicopter is leaving soon. Join me, Kei. Don’t try to play hero when you’re not.”

(Y/N)’s face flashed in his mind. He couldn’t be sure where she ran off to after she left, but if he had to guess, it would have been to the main hall or to the infirmary to care for guests. Either way, she’d never dream of leaving the island with so much at stake. Neither could he, and the thought of leaving her behind made his answer clear.

“No, I’m not going. Have a safe flight.” He turned on his heel and marched back to the central console. To his horror, Asset Containment Unit Alpha had been almost entirely wiped out. Only 4 members of a 12-person team remained.

“They’re not gonna make it, Tsukishima, we need to tell them to pull back,” the P.O. Assistant insisted.

He nodded, “Do it.”

The woman quickly gave the order. “Has your father finally--”

“My father is vacating the island with the board members and other investors as we speak,” Tsukishima said.

“Why am I not--” the assistant’s phone went off. “Hello? ...You what?”

“What happened?”

She snapped her phone shut, “It’s--it’s Takeru, my nephew. He was visiting the park today, but my assistant says he got separated from her, and-- and--”

“Hey,” he grabbed her shoulders. “Don’t freak out. It’s not like you, and it won’t help.”

“You’re right,” she said shakily, brushing a lock of hair from her eyes. “I know I have work to do here, but I have to go find him, Tsukishima. I can’t--”

“I get it. Just go.”

The assistant nodded gratefully, sprinting out of the board room. As she

left, yet another assistant came for his attention and he was plunged back into the thick of things.

Meanwhile, (Y/N) stood at the doors of the underground lab. Her eyes were wild and her face flushed from exertion. The pristine, white lab was a stark contrast to the sweaty, panicked mob she passed by on her way here. It was as if the panic of the Indominus’s escape had no effect, save for the swarm of people in lab coats quickly packing up their equipment into thick armored suitcases. With the move in full swing, the lab doors were set wide open. In the chaos, she managed to slip into one of the adjoining storage rooms, where she found a large computer monitor. The bright blue screen was blinding in the dimly lit room. A profile displayed on the screen read “Indominus Rex.”

The young woman scrolled down the profile. She had to find out what the dinosaur was made of. The ACU would never survive without that information. They may not even survive with it. Finally, under the section titled “Genetic Makeup”, she found what she’s looking for. Before she could react to her findings, there was a sharp pain in the skill and she dropped to the ground unconscious.

Back in the control room, Kei gripped his cell phone tightly. Eighteen missed calls and (Y/N) still wouldn’t pick up. He couldn’t fight it anymore. He had a tech trace her cellphone and he hastily exited the room.

Once he left the building, Kei was greeted with what he expected hell looked like. There was a swarm of panicked park guests, sweaty and fearful. Several were injured from the sudden panic. Some had a haunted look in their eye that suggested they’d seen something that would haunt their nightmares for years to come. And where was his father? Safe on a helicopter, leaving all these people to fend for themselves simply because he could.

Kei was disgusted with himself. The Indominus had escaped hours ago. All this chaos could have been avoided by simply evacuating the park. But who cared about people’s lives when there was still profit to be made? Sure, he hadn’t actively supported his father’s selfishness, but he definitely didn’t object to it either. In all his indecision, ultimately, he was siding with his father. He was equally to blame for all this.

As Kei entered the underground tunnels, the screaming and cries of the panicked went silent. He realized he could hide away in the tunnels until the situation had blown over. Instead, Kei chose to press forward, knowing it wasn’t fair that he had that luxury.

The Mosasaur Stadium sat in the middle of the underground tunnels. From his view from the glass, Dolly, like her trainer, was nowhere to be found.

By the time Kei made it to the lab, it had been picked clean of equipment and personnel. All that remained were sterilized lab benches and pristine white walls. He found (Y/N) on the floor of an empty storage room. There was a nasty gash in the back of her head.

Kei kneeled and gently put two fingers to her pulse.

“Wake up!” he snapped at her. To his relief, her eyelids fluttered open. “Thank god. What the hell were you doing down here?”

“Ouch, my head,” she moaned. “I thought… the ACU… If they knew what the Indominus was made of…”

Kei nodded in understanding. He removed his tie to apply pressure to her wound.

“And? What is it?”

(Y/N) shook her head.

“I dunno. I think they hit me right as I saw.”

(Y/N) sat up, slowly regaining her strength.

“How much of the park has been evacuated?” she asked.

Kei checked his messages, “Almost everyone has been moved to secure locations or off the island completely.”

“What’s left?”

“The control room.”

She looked at him meaningfully and he nodded in agreement. Quickly dialing a number, he raised the phone to his ear.

“Evacuate the control room,” he said.

“Sir, are you sure?” the voice on the other end replied.

“Positive. I’ll take care of everything when I get there,” Kei reassured.

“...take care, sir,” the voice said reluctantly.

“You too.” Tsukishima ended the call and looked at (Y/N), who was already standing. She steadied herself against a wall, her balance wavered slightly, but her eyes were resolute.

“Let’s see what we can do.”

The underground tunnels were expansive. As the mosasaur trainer stalked down the hall ahead of him, Kei forced himself to speak up.

“I couldn’t, you know,” Tsukishima said.

“If you have to talk to me, say shit that makes sense,” (Y/N) snapped.

“My father. He wanted me to evacuate with him, but--”

“What? You could’ve gotten out of here! Do you have any idea how hard shit’s hit the fan?”

“I needed to know you were okay.”

(Y/N)’s expression softened for just a moment, then she ripped her gaze from his face. She retorted, “Why? You don’t seem to have a problem with hanging me out to dry.”

“(Y/N), I was--”

“Would you have left if not for me?” she demanded, stopping and facing him with her arms crossed.

It took Kei a minute to find an honest answer.

“No. I wouldn’t have. I’m rich, I’m an asshole, but I wouldn’t have left all these people. Not when I have the kind of clearance to help them, and especially not since all this is my fault.”

(Y/N) looked at him, bewildered.

“Your fault? How on Earth is this your fault?”

Kei shrugged, “I knew evacuation was the only safe bet, but I was too much of a coward to tell my father so. At least my father is blinded by money. Me, I don’t have an excuse.”

(Y/N) walked on silently for a while, opening her mouth a few times to speak, but shutting it each time. Eventually, she gave into the silence.

They came to the underground stadium, where the massive fiberglass panes housed the park’s biggest attraction.

(Y/N) placed her hand on the glass.

“Dolly… You okay, girl?”

Something enormous splashed into the water. When the bubbles cleared, there was Dolly, swimming around the bitten carcass of a pterosaur, as if she was celebrating her catch. The reptile’s handler smiled weakly.

“Good girl.”

“(Y/N).”

Tsukishima took her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. His tired eyes met hers. The blonde watched as the only person who really mattered to him glared back with a look of sadness, frustration, and betrayal.

“You would have supported them?” she asked sharply.”

“Look, I’ve been trained to follow orders my whole life--”

“And I’m sorry for that. But you can unlearn what you’ve been taught, Kei. You know how much I love Dolly! You knew, and-- and,” she gripped his shirt. The trainer hung her head in defeat.

“I thought you weren’t like your father.”

“I’m not, I promise. I’m sorry,” he whispered. This was it. He had to tell her. If he didn’t do it now, he never would.

“(Y/N), I lo--”

“No!”

Kei looked stunned, “No?”

“No! Dammit, Kei, I can’t do this with you right now. First, this is not the time. Second, you stabbed me in the back, like, two hours ago!

“I said I was sorry!”

“I get that, Kei, but for important shit like this, sorry just isn’t good enough, okay? Now, let’s get to the control room and get this dinosaur under wraps, then maybe we can have this conversation.”

Tsukishima pursed his lips, “Okay. Okay, I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

(Y/N) kept walking down the corridor, “Don’t be. Let’s just deal with the situation at hand.” The trainer produced a flip phone from her pocket. The person she was calling picked up on the third ring and she put the call on speaker.

“(Y/N)!” the familiar voice called in relief.

“Yama! You’re still doing okay?” she asked. The line went quiet for a while,

“Yams?” Another pause before the intern responded, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

She and Tsukishima looked at each other, “Yama, what happened? Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt, I just… Oh god, (Y/N), it’s Hinata,” Yamaguchi’s voice

cracked at the end.

(Y/N)’s breath caught in her throat, “What happened to Hinata?”

On the other end, she could hear Yamaguchi choking back a sob.

“He went to the aviary to check for survivors and I saw his vitals monitor. He’s flatlined, (Y/N), he’s dead.”

Tsukishima closed his eyes. The whole situation was snowballing so damn fast and there was so little anyone could do about it.

“No…” (Y/N) whispered, “Jesus, I’m sorry, Yama.”

“Me too,” he replied. Yamaguchi sniffled, then his voice stabilized, “Anyway, keep making your way to the control room. I’ll get into the database somehow and we’ll figure out how to stop this thing.”

“Got it. Please be-- ...careful,” she said softly.

“(Y/N)?”

She clutched her head, “It’s coming back to me now… Yamaguchi! The Indominus! I saw it on the database, could it be part raptor?”

On the other side, Yamagichi gasped, “They never let me see the file, but now that I think about it, it’s highly likely! I’ll contact Iwaizumi and see if there’s anything he can help with! Let me know if anything changes!”

“I will. Please be careful,” she begged.

“I will, and you, too, (Y/N). Tell Tsukki I love him.”

“I love you, too, Yamaguchi,” Kei replied. With that, the call clicked off.

(Y/N) inhaled deeply, “Hinata’s dead.”

“I heard.”

She shook her head, “Let’s just keep moving. I--”

Her eyes fixed on the tank where Dolly had just leapt out of the water for prey again. Bubbles flooded their view as the massive dinosaur crashed back down into her tank. (Y/N)’s mouth dropped open.

“Holy shit.”

“What is it?”

(Y/N) started sprinting down the corridor towards the control room, “I have an idea!”

‘You better know what you’re doing, (Y/N),’ Tsukishima thought. He paced the floor of the control room nervously as he waited for the signal.

Their plan was well underway, and it had gone surprisingly well, which was all the more reason for him to feel like something was going to go horribly wrong.

When (Y/N) originally told him what the plan was, his response was, “Fuck no,” but after Yamaguchi and Iwaizumi both agreed that it was their best bet, Kei relented, though not without voicing his displeasure extensively.

That girl was really lucky he L-worded her. Through the security monitors, he could see the T-Rex and the Raptors were tag-teaming the Indominus. They seemed to be making progress, but the whole group looked like they were losing steam.

The radio beside him crackled to life, making him jump.

“Kei? Can you hear me?” (Y/N)’s voice came through the machine.

“Loud and clear.”

“Okay, on my signal, cut the power to Security Fence 4.”

The button was red, marked with bold black letters, and had a plexiglass case over it. Kei pressed the “disable” button, making the screen read, ‘UNAUTHORIZED COMMAND: Please enter credentials.’ He typed, ‘Tsukishima Kei,’ placing his hand on the biometric scanner when prompted.

‘MANUAL OVERRIDE: Accepted

All the previously red buttons turned green.

“Okay. Ready when you are.”

“Good. Now, listen to me, Kei,” she said grimly, “You have to cut the power the moment I tell you to. The system has a backup generator that will kick in within 30 seconds. If it's electrified when we hit it, the jeep will explode and our whole plan is shot. That fence can NOT, I repeat, CAN NOT be electrified when I get there, do you understand?”

The male nodded weakly, then, realizing she couldn’t see him, said his affirmation aloud. The radio went quiet. On the screens, the Indominus dug it’s rows of razor sharp teeth into the T-Rex’s neck, throwing the creature as far as it would go. The T-Rex lay there and did not move.

The Indominus Rex roared in victory and went in for the kill. There was a bright flash of red further away as someone offscreen lit a flare. The light became brighter as the person neared (Y/N) and they tossed it into the jeep, catching the Indominus’s attention.

Turning away from it’s prize, the hybrid screeched in rage and took off towards the light. (Y/N) hopped out of the driver’s seat, placing something on the gas pedal and diving away from the vehicle.

‘It might be better if I stay in the jeep and drive it myself,’ he remembered her saying back in the control room.

‘Better for you dying. If the impact with the fence doesn’t kill you, you’ll either drown or Dolly will eat you,’ he’d snapped.

‘But what if--’

He cut her off, ‘But nothing. Put a brick on the gas and move out of the way. There’s no reason to put you in any further danger.’

Amazingly, Kei was the one who won that debate and that’s what brought them to the present moment, with (Y/N) scrambling up off the floor and sprinting out of the Indominus’s path.

The hybrid dinosaur sprinted after the jeep that was speeding towards the mosasaur tank. The distance between the two was closing at an alarming rate.

Just before the vehicle made contact with the security fence, the radio crackled to life, “Now, Kei!”

Tsukishima slammed the button.

‘SECURITY FENCE 4: Disabled’

Just before it made contact with the fence, the jeep’s metal frame crunched under the Indominus’s powerful jaws.

“Fuck!” Kei yelled at the sight. A few seconds later, the buttons turned back to red and the screen read, ‘SECURITY FENCE 4: Enabled.’

“Well, what now?” he yelled into the radio.

“Uh, I don’t--! Fuck-- I don’t know, I’m out of ideas!” she cried in response.

Having been given a break, one of the raptors jumped in, ready to finish the fight. The creature leapt into action to subdue the murderous hybrid, but with that size difference, she wouldn’t last long.

On the verge of panic, (Y/N) said, “If the jeep broke through the fence, Dolly would have noticed the prey, but the Indominus by itself hasn’t gotten her attention! She must be too deep!”

“Well, then, get her attention!” he shot back.

(Y/N) gasped, yanking her whistle out from inside her windbreaker, “Hold me up to the main PA.”

He reached over and jabbed the button.

(Y/N) looked up when she heard his voice over the speakers spread throughout the park, “Whenever you’re ready.”

As Kei keld the radio up to the PA, (Y/N) put her whistle to her lips and blew as hard as she could, the sound undetectable by human ears. They waited with baited breath as the Indominus flung the raptor aside, where the smaller reptile did not get up. The Indominus stopped and let out another bloodcurdling roar.

When nothing more happened, all Kei could think was, ‘We failed.’

Just then, quicker than Kei could comprehend, an incredible volume of water overtook his field of view. Water droplets obscured the CCTV cameras giving him a view of the action, and when they cleared, it took him a moment to register the massive aquatic dinosaur protruding halfway out of its paddock. It held the silver, spiny-backed hybrid in its ginormous maw of thousands of teeth. Crushed by a predator honed by millions of years of evolution, the Indominus writhed in pain and panic, but its struggle only opened more wounds in its flank. It screeched in pain or terror or frustration, Kei wasn’t sure. The only thing that mattered was the slick sound of Dolly sliding backwards into her enclosure, taking her prey with her. All that was left was dark purple blood, soaked pavement, a broken fence still sparking, and a crushed jeep.

“Holy shit,” Tsukishima whispered.

“Holy shit,” (Y/N) murmured in agreement before her knees gave out and she fell to the floor unconscious.

With the Indominus gone and the pterosaurs having been hunted down by the military, park guests were being reunited with their friends and family. Rescue teams were sent to canvas the park for survivors, though they were advised not to get too close to the mosasaur tank. Tsukishima shuddered, knowing that the mosasaurus was always fully capable of leaping halfway out of its tank, she simply chose not to, perhaps out of respect for (Y/N). If, by some miracle, the park survived, he’d have to enforce some serious regulations.

“Tsukishima-san?” one of the surviving guards came to collect him. Conveniently, Kei’s general demeanor kept him from flinching at being addressed the way he heard everyone address his father. The guard led him to a private section of the infirmary, where he saw (Y/N) sitting on a cot looking like she’d spent the last 10 hours in a ditch, though her injuries otherwise looked far from anything life threatening.

“Oh, relax, I’m fine,” she said when she saw the look on his face. “I just got myself all scratched up jumping out of the jeep. I’m not even that hurt.”

Kei scooped her up in his arms in relief.

“Okay, owie, owie, I’m not completely unharmed, stop, stop, stop,” she whined.

The tall male pulled back and stared down at her. The left side of her face has several cuts and she held an ice pack to her ribs on the same side. She had heavy bags under her eyes, but those same eyes shone with relief and delight now that the whole ordeal was over.

“I’d ask if you had brain damage, but you must’ve already had some to come up with such a reckless plan,” he scolded.

(Y/N) gaped at him, “Reckless? It worked! Don’t be mean, Kei, I did good today.”

“You would have done great today if you hadn’t come back to me injured.”

“Again, it worked, didn’t it?”

“I suppose,” he rolled his eyes. “But it would really do wonders for my blood pressure if the person I care about most didn’t have such self-destructive tendencies.”

She grinned at his choice of words, “What was that you called me just now?”

“Self-destructive.” Chuckling, he took her hand in his, pressing a gentle kiss to the back of it. “Are we gonna be okay?” he asked, not making eye contact with her.

Content, the girl smiled and nestled against her pillows. Her eyes slowly drifted shut.

“We’re gonna be just fine, Kei,” she replied. For a moment he thought she didn’t quite understand what he meant until she squeezed his hand gently. Tsukishima smiled in relief, squeezing her hand back.

“Kei?”

“Hmm?”

“I feel the same way.”

@delicious-peaches-blog

@unusproomnibusomnesprouno

@mac-the-oregonian

#tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you

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hanijunk · 4 years

Text

Alright boys, girls, and nonbinary folks of the world. It’s 5:36am (1/30 when I first started) as I decide to give up on my attempt to continue to focus on learning statistics, avoid studying for my two upcoming midterms, and put off my two actual essays for two different classes.

Instead we’re going into a dive about ✨ KazuFuuma ✨ . Is this me telling you you gotta ship it? No of course not, you’re entitled to your own ships! You don’t really gotta care about it as a ship. But I do want people to recognize it’s THERE canonically, and how disregarding it is extremely unfair to Kazuki as a character particularly. Also, I’m working on the assumption anyone clicking this at least knows the bare bones about what KazuFuuma (ex. You know they are a ship of Kazuki/Fuuma from Dolce, you know they are childhood friends, you know who Dolce is, you know about Honeyworks, etc.) I’ll be making references to specific things, but I won’t always go into heavy detail. Might just hope you know it or take my word for what it is, and go into analyzing it. Some I’ll put direct references to find, but some I’ll trust you can find it yourself. If you somehow read this MAMMOTH and want reference to a specific thing mentioned, hmu I can help you find it!!

Also I hate tumblr formatting sm if you legit wanna read this 7 page essay but hate tumblr format lmk I'll add it as a google doc link instead too. anYWHO

Before actually getting into the meat of things lemme preface some stuff.

Again it’s like almost 6am so this will be disorganized and very train of thought (and likely long due to the fact when I fly by the seat of my pants I’m known to get unnecessarily extensive). It’s definitely gonna be in large part why it’s important to recognize as a romantic relationship foundation and what about it shapes Kazuki’s character in particular. Maybe a bit of how it’s been built up and its general focus and implications. Dunno yet. We’ll see LMAOO

I say f*ck. Not a lot, just a handful of times. This ain’t something scholarly this is for my own enjoyment so if you don’t like that might not wanna read. And it’s not like spitefully I just curse a lot if you haven’t...read my tags before lol

Again this is through the lens of a Kazuki stan. Of COURSE I’m going to have some level of bias, but if anything that bias may help more than hurt because that means I become FIXATED and think a lot about Kazuki. Which plays into establishing just how important it is that Kazufuuma’s relationship is recognized, especially in a romantic light at this point. Lmfao.

I’ll have a few more prefaces about the actual content below but to keep this from getting too long if you wanna read come below the cut owo

I have extremely limited knowledge of Japanese just taking a few classes in highschool (so like 3 yrs ago) and live in America. This means a lot of my knowledge is gathered through the english translations of the super duper incredible and lovely people in the Honeyworks fandom who provide translations (delaix and takanenene esp have provided so much for me being able to understand Dolce) and my own limited Japanese paired with Google Translate for things that remain untranslated.

This only will be drawing on information I have come in contact with and have access to and making assumptions based on that, most (if not all) of which is in the public domain. So things like the Dolce Manga Volumes released via Animate, exclusive 4komas, and Light Novels are out of my area for the most part (apart from again snippets of translations thanks to this fandom’s godlike and generous translators).

I will not be drawing on anything from the first Dolce album with the exception of Nade Nade. From a meta standpoint, I consider those songs as songs made as performance media as opposed to character explorations. Nade Nade is the exception because (1) it was released a whole year before the album and (2) you can tell it’s explicitly an exploration of Fuuma and Kazuki’s interpersonal relationship even if it’s in a slightly more performance based context than the songs that came out with the Dolce LNs. Easiest parallel I can make to show this is if you held Non-Fantasy, Yume Fanfare, and Samishigariya up against each other, you could tell the difference in intended audience and intended purpose the same way the Dolce 1st album, Nade Nade, and the songs of the LNs do respectively. Even if there is some basis to ground Kazufuuma, for the purposes of this essay I’ll be acting under the assumption the 1st album falls under the Non-Fantasy equivalent category.

THAT WAS A LOT OF PREFACING CONSIDERING LIKE 2 PPL WILL PROBABLY READ IT I just have a tendency to anytime I do anything analytical lay down ground acknowledgements for myself to work on just...cuz it makes me feel less guilty for any accidental misinformation even if I’m writing towards my future self to read lolll IM SORRY WITHOUT FURTHER TO DO HERE’S THE BRAIN DUMP

First let’s go ahead and establish why it needs to be recognized as an important relationship. Again, I’m a Kazuki stan. He’s my favorite character not only of Dolce but also of the entire Honeyworks series, and as much as I love him for reasons outside the ship, whether you like it or not Kazufuuma is an essential aspect of his character and narrative. Of course there’s the fact that him and Fuuma are childhood friends, so that’s going to in part define their characters and interactions with each other and those around them. They’re both going to be relevant to one another and important to one another’s stories to an even greater extent than the rest of the members of Dolce. But on Kazuki’s side at least, it’s an EXTREME amount. A running plotpoint in Dolce Diary is the sheer amount of dedication Kazuki has to Fuuma and how much his thoughts and decisions are influenced by Fuuma, whether it be how he feels happiest spending time with Fuuma, how he decided to get his piercing to represent he wanted to protect Fuuma, how he doesn’t want to dislike food so he can eat what Fuuma dislikes, etc. Not to mention running jokes about his borderline overprotectiveness and downright possessiveness of Fuuma, how proud he is when Fuuma gets praised, or that one 4koma that literally explicitly states he can read Fuuma’s mind when he thinks motherfucking ‘dirty thoughts’ about his childhood friend (Fuuma). I still don’t know what the fuck to make of that last bit. Genuinely. Or the fact it’s a fucking running joke. As in it’s not a one off. It’s been brought up multiple times. Kazuki what the fuck.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t have character outside of Fuuma or he doesn’t interact with people other than Fuuma. He’s great friends with Sara, Girisha, and Kippei and is shown time and time again to have fun interactions with all of them, generally acting as the best support friend for every member of the group, not Fuuma alone. For instance how he helps Kippei with his self confidence issues or stays over at Sara’s to protect him from a cockroach (which he fails at lol). Nor is that to say all his interactions involving Fuuma focus solely on his devotion to Fuuma, especially in instances where the manga focuses on Dolce as a group dynamic (though even in that setting there are times where jokes about his devotion are thrown in). He’s kind, he’s stupid, he’s friendly, he’s an amazing character in his own right, and I love him for all those reasons. But that doesn’t change the fact a major part of his character and his character interactions are rooted in Fuuma, and arguably some of his most interesting, eccentric, and notable behaviors and traits revolve around Fuuma (again the mind reading for example).

Hell let’s take it one step further. If you look at the character bios of the Dolce members, you get everyone’s motives for being an idol and interests. Of them, Kazuki is the only one to have another character mentioned directly, not to mention that supporting Fuuma is explicitly stated to be his primary motive as to why he became an idol. Not even Fuuma’s sister is mentioned, though two arguments can be made for this. The first would be that Fuuma’s backstory about wanting to fulfill his dream for himself and his sister was decided later to explain Fuuma’s choice to crossdress though it can be argued it was intentionally done to leave it as a reveal at a later date, to which I would argue I don’t think this backstory was a choice in post. While Fuuma’s dedicated Dolce Diary extra exploring that backstory was released a little less than a year after Dolce was revealed, the preview to set up Fuuma’s backstory was actually the first thing released after the character bios on the Dolce Official Twitter page if you exclude a drawing of Dolce from Yamako. The second argument could be that information about his sister was intentionally withheld to set up the reveal when Fuuma’s extra released to explore it. However, going by that logic (which I do agree with), that would also mean that Fuuma’s inclusion and importance in Kazuki’s character bio also set up his dedicated extra, which I don’t think would be incorrect to assume considering what his actual extra turned out being.

Which brings me to the thing that makes it inexplicable to write off the romantic implications behind Kazufuuma: Kazuki’s dedicated Dolce Diary extra, Suki. I shipped Kazufuuma before even knowing of Suki, sure. But the fact that Suki even exists is a shock to me and drove into me the fact that Kazufuuma wasn’t just my own projection. Again, it’s not a surprise that Fuuma shapes Kazuki’s life. They’re childhood friends, of course they’re going to be important to each other. But this extra explicitly brought Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma under a direct spotlight. At first I was thinking oh, this extra was just to acknowledge the fact that Kazuki and Fuuma’s relationship can have romantic implications, but the end of it the conclusion that we got was that it didn’t matter what type of “like” he felt for Fuuma. Originally, I thought it wasn’t anything more than saying there are all types of like, and it doesn’t always need to be explicitly defined, but I appreciated the fact they were aware that they were writing Kazuki in a way that conveyed romantic implications.

Then I thought about it because, again, I love Kazuki of course I’m going to think about his character extra, and realized...that’s not how these character extras have worked. There are only three character extras out as far as I know and have read: Fuuma, Kippei, and Kazuki. If we look at Fuuma and Kippei’s, each extra had a conclusion, sure, but they didn’t have a resolution. Rather, they were simply setting up explicitly what each character’s primary character arc and conflict were. Fuuma’s extra brought attention to the fact that he’s particularly a crossdressing idol by exploring the motives behind it. His choice to be a crossdressing idol is constantly under fire both by himself and the world around him. He’s not immune to those who consider his crossdressing strange, and a part of his story is both finding people who accept his decision to crossdress and to succeed for himself as a crossdressing idol. It’s an essential part of how we understand and define him as a character and it’s a central part of how he interacts with the world around him. For Kippei, it lays the severity of his insecurity under the spotlight and his journey and motives for improving himself. Again, this isn’t something isolated and resolved in the extra; his extreme insecurity and negativity is constantly affecting how he interacts with practically everyone from his fellow Dolce members to his fans despite the fact in all honesty? He’s fucking insanely talented in his own right, his own brother mentioning how smart he is and how he has amazing reflexes. For Kippei, his negativity is an essential part of how we understand and define him and central to how he interacts with the world as much as Fuuma’s decision to crossdress is to him.

Which brings us back to Kazuki, of course. In his dedicated extra, in the chapter that’s supposed to explore and establish and bring attention to an essential part of his character, the aspect of himself under investigation is how he feels about Fuuma. It’s not just how he behaves around Fuuma, it’s explicitly an exploration of his feelings, on top of the fact it’s explicitly an exploration about whether or not he likes Fuuma r o m a n t i c a l l y. Literally the conflict is spurred on by someone outright asking “Do you like him?” and having to clarify “I mean romantically.” What they decided to focus on for Kazuki’s character and emphasize and establish is that Kazuki’s like towards Fuuma toes the line between friendship and romance. His ambiguous feelings towards Fuuma (if we leave them inconclusive as Suki did) are just like Fuuma’s crossdressing and Kippei’s insecurity in the sense the weight of whatever those feelings may be are seen in how he interacts with the world around him and influences his behaviors. It would be another story if they introduced the potential and shut it down all within the extra, because then his central conflict would to me be less directly open to romantic potential and more simply about how his arc was meant to explore the dynamic of the behavior of an extremely dedicated best friend. The fact that he may be romantically attracted to Fuuma or may be only platonically dedicated to Fuuma is instead something that looms over Kazuki in the same way Fuuma’s decision to crossdress constantly looms over him. It’s what Dolce wanted to point to and say this is Kazuki’s central character conflict and central arc: exploring what type of feelings he has towards Fuuma.

Sure, it can be argued that there’s only three Dolce Diary character extras, there’s not enough to be sure about that being the purpose of the extras unless we get the other two’s extras. First, at this point I honestly don’t know if or when they’re going to release an extra revolving around Sara and Girisha just because not only has it been over a year and a half since the latest Dolce Diary Character Extra (Kazuki’s) was released despite the gap between the first and latest Dolce Diary Character Extra (Fuuma’s and Kazuki’s) were within a year of release but also because the Dolce 4komas and comics they’ve been posting to Twitter have decreased (last one being over half a year ago) potentially due to them deciding to focus on releasing Dolce manga content through the purchasable volumes instead. (This is not particularly related to the Kazufuuma argument, just wanted to put out there my two cents on what Sara and Girisha’s extra/focal arc would be. Based on a large part of the Dolce Diary in conjuncture with Can’t an Idol Fall in Love, I’d argue Sara’s would be his journey to regain his passion for performing, and if it’s not that I’d say it’d be coming out of his self-imposed isolation and opening up to people again. As for Girisha, I have less of a concrete idea but I’m assuming it’d be something pertaining to how people often misconceive him whether it be in tandem with his determination, his optimism and sociability, or his stupidity/ability to ignore those misconceptions and work past them. But Girisha is treated like the comedic relief 90% of the time so I’m not entirely sure, but his primary conflict is definitely rooted in misconceptions of him being his roadblock imo. #MoreGirishaContentPlz) That being said, I personally feel like the three are already enough evidence, especially considering it would be honestly even more cruel for Kazuki’s character-centric extra to be focusing on something that wasn’t essential to his character and character arc, anyway. And though it’s not explicitly stated that these chapters are extras exploring a central character, you can kind of tell based on how they are (to my knowledge) the only Dolce Diary updates with cover/title cards each which include their focal character front and center. So working off that fact, the Kazuki-centric chapter established that a pillar to his narrative was his feelings towards Fuuma and that those feelings are still open to romantic potential.

But if you follow me, this is why up until Can’t an Idol Fall in Love With Another Idol’s release, I was terrified of them writing that off. I would have been ok if it was just an arc that was given attention then continued to actively work in the background, as all the character arcs have been over all of Dolce’s content. The fact that they might be giving Fuuma a love interest and giving Fuuma a love arc while Kazuki’s feelings were still up in the air and were still the primary highlighted narrative for him would have been fucking scuffed. To me, it would be like… why would they make him so Fuuma-centric to the point that even his dedicated chapter was not just focused on Fuuma but focused on the ambiguity and potential of him having romantic feelings for Fuuma, yet reduce him to being Fuuma's designated right-hand man. Don’t get me wrong, friendships are just as important as romantic relationships. But again, rather than conclude Kazuki’s answer in Suki to be that his feelings were of friendship, they left it open ended and allow audience members to be actively aware that Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma still had potential to be romantically coded. It would just be so weird to quickly close off that narrative by giving Fuuma a love interest as opposed to letting Kazuki conclude it himself. It would be fucking beyond frustrating for me, at least Eventually, I kept trying to drive my hopes that they would explore Kazuki’s narrative at all down to the ground because it was a Fuuma-centric novel; maybe if anything they’d explore those feelings in his own novel after the fact. But then they kept having little drops here and there of Kazuki being even the slightest bit relevant and I’d go back to questioning “Are??? They??? Is this on purpose??? Do they know what they’re doing or are they just doing this because Kazuki’s just so important to Fuuma as his best friend that he’s there as his right-hand I genuinely can’t tell???” And um. Welp.

Safe to say Can’t An Idol Fall in Love sold me on the fact that they know what they’re doing LOL. And to anyone who thinks that Kazuki’s feelings can still be read as ambiguous in CAIFILWAI as opposed to explicitly romantic - whether it be due to a fear they may pull the “I like him as a friend” card or due to the disbelief that they have an explicit mlm main character in the Honeyworks series - I’d like to cover any bases that may make you think this way. If you think it’s just Kazuki acting like a protective friend, why do you think he calls Yui a rival? If you’ve only seen the MV and think it’s ambiguous or can be taken as the "likfe" for friend, then does that mean you think Yui’s feelings toward Fuuma are also ambiguous or as a friend? With the way Yui responds, she is trying to rival Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma. She and Kazuki recognize whatever feeling it is that they hold towards Fuuma, both of their feelings are the same type. I don’t think most people would argue that Yui’s confession about Fuuma was one of pure respect and friendship. Plus, if anything I’d argue of the three characters in the MV, Fuuma is the one whose feelings are left the most ambiguous despite him being the central character. It’s heavily implied that he may be forming feelings for Yui, but nowhere is it established either in the song or in the MV, especially if you compare it to Kazuki and Yui’s declarations or if you compare it to Sara’s feelings for Uru in Can’t An Idol Fall in Love. Fuuma’s romantic narrative here is trying to figure out how he feels for Yui, while for Kazuki and Yui they’ve established a rivalry because they both have mutually established they like Fuuma romantically.

If the MV isn’t enough for you and Suki isn’t enough for you for...some reason…??? You can check out the snippets of the light novel which the wonderful takanenene translated: one which revisits the conflict set up in Suki and one that covers the confession scene in the MV in more detail. If the fact that the conflict set up in Suki (aka the lurking feeling of not knowing if all he felt for Fuuma was only platonic or more than platonic) was specifically reestablished in the LN for anyone who didn’t keep up with Dolce Diary didn’t tip you off that it was something important, his behavior in the confession scene as depicted by the LN definitely should have. He’s possessive about his spot by Fuuma’s side. He doesn’t want that spot to be taken by anyone else. Even if he knows that they can help Fuuma, he wants it to be him. And this line: “Kazuki then trails off his words, quietly saying ‘That’s why…’ and then gave Yui a slightly painful smile, his cheeks turning red,” before he declares Yui a rival and states he likes Fuuma. If you can tell me you read that line and are still on the fence about Kazuki’s “like” towards Fuuma being romantic, please message me and I will see how I can get through to you. Like it wasn’t even just a romantically coded confession. It’s just a romantic confession. That “like” is romantic. And I’m so proud that he’s not only come to understand for himself how he feels, but that he’s confident enough to ask the person he sees as a romantic rival to speak in private and not only clarify her feelings for Fuuma but before she can even do that firmly establishes that he loves Fuuma with conviction. Kazuki my boy I’m so proud of you. *sniffs*

And that’s it for establishing Kazufuuma as at least canonically one-sidedly canon and why there’s not only no reason to deny it but also why denying it is a fucking disrespectful move towards Kazuki. He’s a character, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact you shouldn’t write off his struggle to come to be convicted enough to say it out loud. This has been something weighing on him at least a year, if not more (all I know is it started when both he and Fuuma were in some year in middle school). And as a character in a piece of media, I’ve been saying this the entire time, but brushing it off as non-romantic is literally chucking a fucking pillar of his character’s story into the gutter. And to those who may be saying Kazuki’s confession came out of nowhere and is pandering reread this entire fucking essay again I dare you to do it and tell me to my face it’s pandering. Again. Writing off the buildup as pandering is disrespectful to him, disrespectful to his character and narrative, and disrespectful to the wonderful people who have been creating Dolce so diligently and have crafted this narrative for us. Saying his “supposed feelings” and “ambiguous confession” is pandering is like saying Fuuma’s crossdressing is pandering which. If you say either of those I will find you and I will shank you in the fucking gut. Even if you’re not fully into Dolce, recognize these characters are actually very well developed and executed amazingly, as per every Honeyworks character that has come to exist. I don’t blame you if you weren’t aware of the weight of Kazufuuma, but now that you read this I hope you are. That’s mainly what I needed to get out there, but as follows will be me more exploring how Kazufuuma has been built up and generally waving my hand off at where it may be going. If you want you can dip, thanks for reading up to here because I know I repeated a lot because it’s just. So important to drill into your head and has been something I’ve been hung up about constantly. LOL

As for where exactly they’re taking it from this point on, I honestly don’t know. In all honesty, I didn’t even expect them to take it the direction they did. But honestly, I think the direction they went with it is really interesting and better than I could have imagined, in my opinion at least. Honeyworks never ceases to amaze me with their storytelling and narrative choices, and I don’t think there’s any that stand out to me as being severely questionable that they haven’t reapproached at some point down the line. And, again, I think they’re treating this with a lot of care and deserved respect. So I’m just gonna be gushing about how smart they set it up and how smart they’ve been executing it and maybe my own hopes on the direction it could go.

Whether they make Kazufuuma reciprocated I have no real clue or bearings, but to me my gut reaction is they will. Of course, I’m biased, but again if you trace things all the way back to 2018 and step through Dolce’s content and growth from there, I’d say even if they didn’t know if they could execute it like this and see it to fruition, I’d argue that Kazufuuma has been at least heavily implied since the beginning as a relationship they wanted to explore from both sides of the relationship. Obviously I brought up Kazuki’s character bio already, but if you look at the *goes to count* 5th Dolce Diary update already has a joke jabbing at the fact that Kazuki is technically Fuuma’s type (and the way Kippei and Kazuki excitedly react is so cute). The fifth update. And as stated before there are tons of Kazufuuma moments in Dolce Diary, whether it’s played for comedic effect or played straight (and this is post Suki but oh my god I’ve said it before I’ll say it again get yourself someone who looks at you the way Kazuki looks at Fuuma oh my jesus). But song-wise, I mentioned the one Dolce album song I would bring up is Nade Nade and this is where it comes!

Not only is Nade Nade specifically focused on Kazuki and Fuuma’s relationship as opposed to the whole of Dolce despite being the first song, it included the setup/preview of the Fuuma-centric extra prior to the full release of the Fuuma-centric extra itself and was released early as fuck. Literally between the 6th and 7th update to Dolce Diary. Sure, it could be to isolate them as a duo for marketing purposes (they’re very often the two promoted idols together if the whole of the group aren’t included), but the way it’s established as a perspective song as opposed to a general idol duet is what fascinates me. Anyone who didn’t know about Dolce prior and only followed Honeyworks for music would be first introduced to these characters through this song alone, and maybe this is where my Kazufuuma bias comes from but I was one of those people LOL. I thought it was just a cute one-off relationship that they had set up for the purpose of a song and that it was an implied friends-to-lovers story that would never get a conclusion. Also I mistakenly thought Fuuma was a girl oop-. In the full context of Dolce, this song in part helped establish Fuuma and Kazuki more solidly as a unique duo out of all of Dolce, but it also specifically explored through Fuuma’s eyes just how much Fuuma recognizes and appreciates the unwavering support Kazuki gives him to follow his dreams as he wishes. For Fuuma, he loves Kazuki too, though whether it holds any romantic potential in the same way Kazuki loves him has never been explored to nearly the same extent. But Fuuma appreciates how Kazuki’s remained by his side and does everything he can to support him, so Nade Nade explores how his way of expressing his love and thankfulness to Kazuki is by never saying that he needs Kazuki by his side. He’s glad Kazuki’s always been there for him, and his reciprocation takes on the form of being ready to unwaveringly support Kazuki and not ask for more than he already has, even if it meant Kazuki would be leaving his side, despite the fact that he really does wish they could remain together forever just as Kazuki does. The one point he lets himself say something vaguely close to always wanting to stay together, he gets a surprised expression out of Kazuki and says an ambiguous “suki dayo.” Of course, this it much less romantically coded than what we get from Kazuki in Suki and CAIFILWAI, but there is an interesting emphasis put on it nonetheless. Keep in mind, this is all established through the song, which released long before not only Fuuma’s character-centric extra released but also Kazuki’s character-centric extra released, so there is at least a substantial setup for Fuuma’s feelings towards Kazuki’s being strong as well and possibly grow to be reciprocated one day.

I think for me the most fascinating part about Nade Nade is how they tied it back around to Can’t An Idol Fall In Love with Another Idol. Again, without remembering Nade Nade, I still thought CAIFILWAI was brilliantly explored and executed, even if some people would have preferred no love triangle. But honestly, revisiting Nade Nade makes me trust even more the direction they’re taking with this. Whether or not they make Kazufuuma canon mutually (which. Even if they for some inexplicable reason didn’t I’m going down with this ship.), I’m sure they’re putting a lot of thought into the story, because the last bit of Nade Nade directly parallels the misunderstanding that arose from Fuuma mishearing the Kazuki and Yui. Fuuma is resolved to support Kazuki in any area he’s given the chance, and that explicitly includes if Kazuki had some girl he liked, which is what he assumes is going on. The fact that they tied this back around in the form of a misunderstanding was really really smart and Honeyworks is always so good at parallels and references back to their older songs, but for some reason I didn’t expect this. I don’t know how to say why, but the fact that the song that started it all, kicked off both Dolce and Kazufuuma, was directly referenced both visually in the MV with a cameo at the start and narratively despite the central dynamic being predominantly explored in this story in particular was that of Fuuma and another potential love interest and involves said potential love interest for some reason makes me think that (sorry Yui) this is all planned out for Kazufuuma in the grand scheme of things. That being said, I don’t know if me thinking it was planned all along is just me with shipper goggles, but the idea it’s come full circle nearly 3 years later is not shipper goggles and a very very well done parallel in my opinion, whether this trajectory was their plan for Kazufuuma from the beginning or not. Just wanted to gush about that some more.

There’s more I could go into especially if I went into specific details about interactions or specific implications established in Honeyworks' Dolce content about different characters that would be fascinating to explore in relation to and under the lens of Kazufuuma, but I think this is uh...plenty long enough. Plus, I doubt you'll stop seeing Kazufuuma posts from me so those ideas will probably just be miniposts or somethin.

Back to the overarching point of this segment, idk what they’ll do with this story in the end, but do I think Kazufuuma will canon? I’m used to looking at ships that aren’t explicitly apparent with a sliver of skepticism, but all things considered (as I stated before) yeah. I don’t see reason why they wouldn’t now that they’ve explicitly identified there is a romantic dimension to it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Like to me, the setup isn’t something that would be written off as unrequited? And this doesn’t have to play into why I don’t think it will canon, my personal opinion on the Fuuyui relationship (again albeit through the lens of a hard Kazufuuma shipper lmao) has it’s own merits and is really cute, I find it cute in the way I found Koyuhina cute. I personally never really shipped Koyuhina, and especially since they slipped Kotarou into Ima Suki Ni Naru I was more curious about who this kid was and how he played into things I didn’t really see Koyuhina as something that would come to fruition. Similarly, there’s more importance in the overall sense on Kazuki than there is Yui (considering he’s one of the 5 original and focal members of this generation of idols, this would be natural), as well as the fact there’s just way more foundation and exploration in Fuuma and Kazuki’s relationship than there is Fuuma and Yui. As for how much of a balance there is inside the LN itself, the fact that they seem to have spent a substantial amount relaying the foundation of Fuuma and Kazuki’s relationship and re-exploring it (at least in Kazuki’s perspective) at all on top of how much content there is covering their relationship prior to the LN ever since Dolce’s origin just feels like that relationship holds more weight. Pretty much Kazufuuma feels more established as a priority in general. The way I personally hope Fuuyui plays out is whether they wind up holding mutual feelings or not or whether Fuuma doesn’t feel that way towards Yui is they get a relationship akin to Kotarou and Arisa. Albeit, Kotarou and Arisa never viewed each other in a romantic light, but they had mutual respect and solidarity. That’s the type of friendship I hope comes out of Fuyui. And considering there hasn’t been a break-up in any Honeyworks’ canon relationships (nor do I expect there to be… they’re all perfect for each other LMAO) it would actually be interesting if Fuuyui get together but don’t endgame and Kazufuuma is established as the inseparable endgame after some realization or another, though I don’t expect them to go that route nor do I know if that’d be the best way to go about it anyway. Also final point, Honeyworks seems to have a thing for childhood friends trope anyway soooooo owo All in all, don’t know where they’re taking it, just excited to see where it goes.

TL;DR of this *counts* 7 page essay, stan Kazufuuma. Not gonna proof this. Maybe I’ll edit and repost but yall are getting a confusing clusterfuck of ramblings over 2-3 hr periods of me writing across 3 different days at around 5am each day. Uh. If you got this far like and subscribe and-- jk plz reply to this mammoth anywhere you see fit or tell me if you have stuffs to add or counter or whatnot I like hearing people talk about Kazufuuma ;w; I am Kazuki and Kazufuuma brainrot can you tell after reading this? No? Lemme just remind you I’m K--

#honeyworks #dolce #kazufuuma #kazuki haiga #fuuma shirayuki #long post #analysis #character analysis #kinda?#nobody cares trash #also keep in mind this is PURELY for self satisfaction LMFAO read it if u wanna dont if u dont idgaf either way #anyway kazufuuma canon fight me #or have intellectual conversation with me #if you want it on a google doc bc it's easier to read hmu #if you can't tell i think about kazufuuma too much #how much of this is repetitive? probably a lot...

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irrevocably-delicious · 6 years

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Hey what’s up, that HTTYD 3 poster got me fucked up

So this official poster has been released for How To Train Your Dragon 3 and it has left me with... opinions.

My first initial reaction was excitement! Oh hell yeah HTTYD 3 is coming out! I adored the first two! But then i saw...

SIIIIIGGGGGGGHHHHHHH I knew immediately that this was most likely a female night fury and fuck yeah shit fuck it is which is so disappointing. I could write a huge essay on how female characters are portrayed in media. I could write a massive blog about smurfette syndrome and how female characters are always just a pink, soft version of their male counterparts, or how female animal or anthro characters still have to fall into society’s beauty standards so we do crazy things like give ducks tits or large eyelashes.

I COULD talk about why these things occur, and how this is a worrying reflection of how society views human females, that males are the default and females are the other... but I’m not going to do that TODAY.

Hi my name is India and not only do I have an animation degree, but I also have a degree in animal and veterinary science.

This design doesn’t just insult me as an animator. This design insults me as a scientist.

Let’s begin.

So if you asked me to design a female night fury for the poster, this is what I would have come up with:

Because from a superficial perspective? I would not expect that there would be an obvious difference between males and females. Night fury’s obviously take a lot of design influence from axolotls, who you can only sex by examining their cloacas. Many species of lizards must also have their sexual organs examined for reliable sexing, because colour and size variation in many species are not a reliable way to tell the difference between males and females.

Someone paint this girl’s nails pink! Otherwise HOW WILL I KNOW?

But I digress that sexual dimorphism exists, and from an animation perspective, you need variation in the character design so people can tell your characters apart. Kids need to want BOTH toys goddamit.

Sexual dimorphism is most obvious and famous in many bird species. In birds of prey, particularly your fast birds of prey such as raptors, your females will be much larger than males. Colour variation in birds (and some reptiles) also occurs. But it is the MALE that is the most colourful and “beautiful” in order to attract their mate. Females are often shades of grey/brown and definitely not a colour that would make them an easy target in their environment.

The female peahen is a basic bitch.

So keeping these size variations and natural colour variations in mind, here’s another suggestion I might offer:

She’s larger! She’s a different colour! Toothless is the sleek, deep black almost blue colour, while she is more in that grey/brown area. I can totally tell the difference.

“But India!” I hear your protests. “Why can’t she be white?! You can have dramatically different coloured male and females in the natural world. Have you heard of eclectus parrots?”

And I would say “Yes! Yes I obviously fucking have! Of course I have heard of the eclectus parrots, who when they were first discovered, people thought they were two different species and kept wondering why they weren’t breeding when they put all the green parrots together and all the red ones together. I’ve course of fucking heard of eclectus parrots you wet petri dish!”

But here’s the thing about eclectus parrots. They live in the rainforest, so while they are different colours, there is still an element of camouflage to this colouring. The female blends into the green treetops and the male looks a lot like a delicious fruit.

A white night fury... just doesn’t make sense? Judging by when we first meet toothless, and my bullshit knowledge of fictional dragon behaviour, it’s fair to assume that night furys hunt at night. Toothless is so dark that he is almost impossible to see in the night sky. This is where the tension comes from when Hiccup first encounters the night fury. He just sees blue flame and not the dragon itself, because it is so difficult to make him out against the dark sky.

This female night fury would be shot down so quick. She would stick out terribly at night. She wouldn’t catch shit. All the sheep in the field would be like “Oh fuck, I can see Phyllis two miles away. We all better shuffle into the barn.” There’s a reason albino animals are so rare in the wild. They just stick out too much and often get eaten.

“But what if female’s hunt during the day? Wouldn’t being white help them blend in with clouds and the bright sky?”

THEN WHEN WOULD THEY FUCK? Would males and females just pass each other at sunset like fated star lovers? That’s stupid. That doesn’t make sense. This isn’t Ladyhawke.

But I’ll humour you. Yes, yes, we see white birds all the time. And you’re right! That white belly really helps them blend in with the clouds and bright sky.

But they’re not all white. Especially birds that have to hunt or eat on the wing. We see this kind of patterning a lot of sea birds. Their bellies are white, but the tops of their wings are dark grey/brown. This is so when they nest, or are maybe viewed by a LARGER bird from above, they will blend in with the land or ocean below. White against a deep blue ocean really stands out... But dark grey? Not so much.

“But Indiiiiiaaaa” some protests again like an absolute idiot who is about to be slapped out of their ignorance.

“Night Furys are so fast that nothing could possibly catch them! They don’t have to worry about camouflaging to avoid predators!”

Alright Dumbass McBitch! Do you know what the fastest bird in the world is?

It’s the peregrine falcon. GUESS WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE?

WHITE BELLY. DARK TOP.

The peregrine falcon is actually probably a decent comparison to the fictional night fury actually. Small in size, bird of prey, HORRIFICALLY FAST. But they have this sort of colouring for similar reasons. The dark colouring isn’t just camouflage during flight. It also helps them blend into their environment when they are nesting.

SO IF YOU SOMEHOW CONVINCED ME THAT NIGHT FURYS ARE ALSO ACTIVE DURING THE DAY I COULD CONCEDE A DESIGN LIKE THIS:

But it’s not just colour. It’s not just size. There are other things that worry me about the female night fury’s design. The first is that she seems to have fewer of those... antennae things? And the few she has are much shorter. We’ve seen Toothless use these and they seem to be similar to a cat’s whiskers in their sensory role. So why on earth would she have less? And they be much shorter? SHE NEEDS THOSE! Without them, she may have difficulty flying, orienting herself in the air or feeling the winds she will have to combat. The designers are trying to feminise her by making her seem sleeker and rounder... which functionally makes no sense... why not do the opposite? Giver her really long antennae! Have them constantly moving in the wind!

The other thing that I immediately noticed was how SMOOTH she looks. They took away almost all of her scales. And again... doesn’t she need those for protection? This is so odd to me because it feels like they’ve removed her scales in the same way that pin up artists never draw body hair. Body hair is seen as unsightly on women, so artists remove it, leaving their subjects smooth and shining.

Do... do the dreamworks designers think the scales are unsightly? Have they waxed this dragon? And replaced her scales with body glitter??? Guys.... guys...

Whyyyyyy

Also they made her nose a lot shorter? That’s stupid. Don’t do that.

Which one’s the girl?? Their noses are the same length so I can’t tell.

So I can actually greatly improve the original design by just remedying these things.

Oh yeah I made her claws bigger??? BECAUSE THEY FUCKING MADE HER CLAWS SMALLER.

But already I’m like... less pissed at it. Like “Aw yeah it’s still white, but at least they didn’t mess with much else.”

I think in a perfect world they would have given me something like this:

BUT! They did not.

And I’m not complaining just for the sake of complaining. I promise. This poster irritated me so much because HTTYD over the past 2 movies has had some stellar design. ESPECIALLY with it’s female characters. Astrid and Ruffnut are such courageous designs to me, because they’re not your classically beautiful disney knock off. Ruffnut is harsh looking. She has angles. She makes gross faces. These are all privileges that have traditionally been reserved for villains or men. Astrid is introduced in the first film like she’s some incredibly beautiful bombshell... but she really looks like a little girl. She’s kind of scrawny. She has only the smallest hint of a bust. She has a weak chin and her ears stick out, but it doesn’t matter because Hiccup thinks she is stunning.

Catch this chin in a disney movie. It will never happen.

We’ve even seen excellent female dragon designs! But we weren’t even aware that they were females because it’s not plot relevant, but they were not obviously coded. They just looked like sweet dragons!

Stormfly is a girl. You can tell by how much glitter in on her body and her short, rounded spikes.

I just wish the HTTYD designers took more risk with the female nightfury design. The design they came up with is lazy, predictable, functionally incorrect and... kinda sexist honestly. I will still see this movie. I will still marvel at all the other wonderful designs, but this has left a bad taste in my mouth.

From now on I hope to see more female characters that look like Sadie from Mouseguard

And less like ... this fucking shit

Not even Bambi is free from my wrath.

#httyd #httyd 3 #how to train your dragon #character design #critique #i rant #female representation

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meta-squash · 4 years

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[Old Manics meta repost, originally written in 2015 or 2016. I was definitely in a....place....when I wrote this.]

Cue yet another long convoluted rambling strange post about Richey Edwards and Theodor Adorno. For some reason this has been rolling around in my head as half-formed thoughts for a while. They’re definitely still half-formed, but I wanted to get them out of my head and into something slightly more sentence-like.

[Uhh, TW for weird logic, ED-style thinking, and convoluted ill-formed ideas.]

In one of Richey’s manifestos to a zine in December 1992, he writes “THE GODS THOUGHT THERE IS NO MORE DREADFUL PUNISHMENT THAN FUTILE AND HOPELESS LABOUR. GROW UP, GET FUCKED, WITHER. NO ONE IN THIS COUNTRY KNOW HUNGER, TRUE HUNGER LIKE SOMALIA. EVERYONE HAS CLOTHES, FOOD, A DRINK. EVERYONE IS LAST, PATHETIC WRETCHED. THE ONLY FREEDOM LEFT IS THE FREEDOM TO STARVE. FILL YOUR HOME WITH ANYTHING YOU LIKE BUT YOU CAN’T INVENT ANOTHER COLOUR…” The “freedom to starve” quote keeps being attributed to him on the internet, or to Tom Morello, lead singer of Rage Against The Machine, who has a different but similar quote about capitalism and labor exploitation that includes the phrase. (It also appears in the comic V For Vendetta, apparently.) But the phrase didn’t originate with them. I keep seeing repeated uses of it when reading essays by Theodor Adorno from the 60s, and I’m sure the phrase is probably older than that. Morello’s quote containing the phrase is essentially summarizing one of Adorno’s ideas.

So far I’ve come across the phrase in two of Theodor Adorno’s essays. One is in “Freedom In Unfreedom”. In essence, it discusses the paradox of the idea of freedom in our current society. He essentially says that people no longer have a specific concept in mind when they invoke the word “freedom,” and that the nature of present society means that whatever concept of freedom we come up with is not possible because it contradicts current circumstances. He gives the example of early Nazi Germany, when an social-democratic organization took up “Freedom” as its slogan, but the concept and the term had lost its power entirely because employment was incredibly low, and people were struggling, so upholding freedom as a conceptual principle which implies self-determination looked foolish because in practice no one is free and everyone is unemployed and starving and unable to access food/wellbeing and therefore unable to practice self-determination. He says “In other words, freedom was exposed as the freedom to starve; people had direct experience of their dependence on society, a dependence that made a mockery of a freedom that was defined in purely formal terms.”

The other Adorno essay that uses the phrase is “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception”. Basically, in the section that uses the phrase he discusses the way that the culture industry (or mass culture) exploits and uses artists by homogenizing them. He says “anyone who resists can only survive by fitting in.” Freedom is supposedly given to each individual (in society, in art, in expression, in culture, in the workplace) but if a person doesn’t inherit the ability or resources to succeed in life, then this freedom becomes the “freedom of the stupid to starve”. People who aren’t able to adapt to society’s expectations/who question or refuse to conform are neglected and made to starve, literally or metaphorically. The blame is placed on them for their inability/unwillingness to adapt or conform, because they were “given” the opportunity to succeed (despite that opportunity requiring conformity, or changing their nature, or giving up morals, etc). So a person who is unable or refuses to conform to society and culture and the working class, who goes hungry or cold (literally or metaphorically), is an labelled outsider. They retain their integrity, or their morals, or their original artistic vision, but they suffer through loss of wealth, or faith, or by being rejected and called an outsider and being mocked or no longer listened to. They are free, but at a price.

Applying this to Richey, I thought it was interesting that he seemed to be taking freedom to starve both literally and figuratively. “Freedom to starve” becomes a refusal to consume in certain ways, ascetism, essentially. It becomes a literal or physical manifestation of the neglect that occurs when a person refuses to conform to society’s expectations. It becomes Richey refusing to conform to society’s expectations of food consumption while also refusing to conform to musical and artistic standards by creating The Holy Bible and specifically pointing out the wrongs of society. The band having complete control over the album, hiding in their studio and working together without any outside influence pushes against the expectation of producers/managers/sound engineers/labels/etc having partial influence or control over the sound of a band’s music. Richey’s inability to adapt mentally to fame, to touring, to the stress of schedule, etc etc also is a sort of manifestation of that “freedom of the stupid to starve”, in that he was unable to properly adapt to what was expected of him in terms of fame and touring, and he was blamed for it and seen as strange for disliking aspects of fame.

This is where I get into some interesting, if problematic, ideas. Richey seemed to kind of take the idea to another level through his eating disorder. Freedom to starve/freedom of restriction essentially becomes true freedom because it takes back control of body mind and spirit. Richey sort of talked about this in an interview with Simon Price in 94 in France. He mentioned that people can’t hold you down and force you to eat/watch you all the time, and that your body is your own and you should have a right to do with it what you want. Essentially, self mutilation/self harm/restriction becomes a mode of self-control, a reclamation of the body from expectations of society. Society expects excess and encourages/wants consumption. In creating consumption, the culture industry takes control of the mind and the body by telling consumers what they want even if they didn’t originally desire it, saying it over and over and continually producing under consumers are convinced that they do want whatever they are being given. Self-mutilation, restriction and ascetism removes that and reclaims the body as owned by itself and its mind. It puts control back into the awareness of the self and the body and the mind, which forces the self to be aware of the influence of culture industry. This awareness allows the self to refuse that influence, the refusal of which includes those actions or decisions that go against the expectations or desires or encouragements of society. It also confronts the fact that society sees certain types of expressions of emotion/mental state as “wrong” or maladaptive and those who express themselves a certain way are marked as outsiders. Repression and restriction and stoicism becomes revenge for society marking you as outsider for expressing rage at unfreedom/expressing emotions that are seen as maladaptive. Self-harm or starvation becomes a reclamation of the mind and the emotions, and increasing of that maladaptive expression in order to basically reject society’s expectations altogether. Richey essentially says that when talking about his time in hospital; self-harm or self-restriction takes back control of body and mind from expectations of doctors and society – they can’t hold you down and force food down your throat, someone can’t be with you 24 hours a day, it’s my body I do what I want with it.

The height of this could be disappearance/death: refusal to participate “correctly” in society, refusal to “be” in society in the expected way. A rejection of literally all things. James Bradfield notes that a major theme in Journal For Plague Lovers is a rejection of experience, a rejection of expected lyrical formats, and a rejection of some sort of answer or truth. A realization that nothing seems to be working. A refusal to continue to consume or participate correctly or to express consumption or participation correctly, especially in that the meanings or messages of most of the songs are completely obscured through unconnected phrases or disparate references that take research to decipher. The idea is sort of expressed in individual songs from the album as well. All Is Vanity asks questions of vanity extremes vs personal neglect – which one is refusal to participate correctly? Are they both refusal? Are they the same? Inability to adapt correctly compared to what is expected/right vs what you are doing and how your actions are called into question as incorrect. Discipline is respected, but certain types of discipline are seen as different/maladapted compared to the expectations of society or the culture industry, which allows for the question of which type of discipline is “wrong” or “right” and does it depend on perspective? Excesses are lauded in the culture industry, consumption is encouraged, as is vanity and obsession with the self, and ascetism or restriction and neglect of the self is seen as wrong. But extreme excess of consumption is also frowned upon or mocked. Society encourages a certain amount of excess and consumption in order to control and delude. In encourages and creates consumption so that the consumer doesn’t stop and thinking about how they are being made to overwork and overconsume in ways they probably didn’t originally want to be doing but have been convinced into by society. Refusal of consumption/vocal awareness of participation in consumption becomes maladaptive because it’s not what society wants, which is exactly the kinds of words and things the band was expressing.

And the idea of disappearance or death takes all of this to the highest level, in that disappearance rejects society’s expectations entirely, refusing to participate in society in a “correct” way. It is also expressing whatever sort of emotions or thoughts a person might have in a way that creates an absence (metaphorical and literally) rather than yet another thing to be consumed. Disappearance when a person is still living is a complete reclamation of the body and self because the person essentially is able to drop out of society as themselves, and even if they assume a different identity, they are still inherently refusing to participate in an expected way, still creating an absence of a person and an absence of an identity, and in using a false identity that refusal becomes even more complex. Death, too, and specifically suicide, is a refusal to participate in society, but in a much more final way. Suicide is yet another reclamation of the body, since it is by one’s own hand and willpower that one’s life is taken, not through illness or another person or old age. It creates a different kind of absence, since often a suicide, since there is a body and often a note, gives answers or at least there is a physical proof of refusal and a physical proof of that person’s death. A suicide creates a narrative with finality, with refusal as the finality and therefore certain aspects of absence are filled in with the assumptions that come with suicide and death in general. A disappearance has a narrative with an ellipses rather than a full stop, and because it is left open, the absence and refusal are left with unanswered questions, reasons, and unspoken ideas, specifically because it is a kind of refusal to participate that is completely unexpected and cannot be explained with a body or a note.

I don’t really have a conclusion to these thoughts or any sort of cumulative idea or whatever. I just was thinking about the phrase “the only freedom left is the freedom to starve” and what it meant in relation to Richey when Adorno is applied.

#manic street preachers #manic street preachers meta #old meta repost #from 2016

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ringo-ichigo · 5 years

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Okay, kiddos, strap in. This is going to be a doozy to explain. I warned you @sinsontheskin that this was not simple and was too lengthy for a reply. So public humiliation/lesson it is. And it’s going to be long because this is multi-faceted and because you got me to talk about one of my favorite things: the English language.

Let’s start by saying that English is a bugger to translate. It is one of those languages where words have multiple meanings and the correct meaning is contextually based and even grammatically based. So you can’t just go “Oh this word appears in this other language. So this is the meaning.” Because no, that meaning is not always the same. And in this case, it isn’t. They’re close but not the exact same and that niggling difference is enough to cause two different translations. In this case, yes, IN GREEK, “Hellenic” does mean Greek people. But it doesn’t mean that in English. In English, it can mean: 1) originating in Greece, 2) culturally Greek, 3) of or pertaining to Greece, 4) a specific time period of Ancient Greek history, 5) Greek people. If you’re going “Wait, that’s way more than what it means in Greek”, yeah, you’re right. And this right here is why you cannot do a one to one translation of this term back and forth. You have to look at the context to see which definition is applicable in English and then translate that instead in order to get a proper translation. For similar instances in English, see the word “mutton.” Originating in French, there it means “sheep.” However, since being adopted into English, the meaning has shifted until now “mutton” in English means “the meat of an adult sheep.” Yes, it still has to do with sheep. But that subtle shift makes it so you can’t just plop “sheep” or “mutton” in every time you switch from French to English. Languages evolve over time and words can gain new meanings.

So what then does “Hellenic polytheism” mean in English as an idea? Well, to determine which one is the correct ENGLISH definition here, we have to delve into English grammar. So, here, the word “Hellenic” is functioning as an adjective as it is telling us more about the word “polytheism.” Knowing that, we have to eliminate “Greek people” as a definition as when “Hellenic” is used in English with that definition, it is a noun—not an adjective. Therefore, it is not correct in the context. So, we’re left with the other options. We can also rule out the time period, as this is usually used only in a historical or art context. Therefore, this is not applicable in this case again. So now, we must ask: what is “Hellenic” trying to tell us about polytheism? How is it describing it? Is it adding: color, shape, size, specificity, or something else? Well, simple, it’s narrowing down polytheism to a specific branch or type. So knowing that, we can say that the most appropriate definitions would be “originating in Greece” or “of or pertaining to Greece.” So when this phrase “Hellenic polytheism” is being said in English, the idea it conveys is “the sect of polytheism originating in Greece” or “the sect of polytheism pertaining to Greece.” Note that in English, this definition has nothing to do with the people themselves. It is narrowing down the type.

Still confused? Great because English has other examples of this idea. See: Freudian psychology, Calvinist theology, and Russian/Eastern Orthodoxy to name a few. The most apples to apples one would likely be Freudian psychology. If you translated this literally by the roots of the words, you could come away thinking it’s a psychology practiced only by the descendants of Sigmund Freud or Freud himself. However, this is an incorrect translation because again, the idea behind it is “the branch of psychology that follows the teachings of Sigmund Freud.” Same thing with Calvinist theology. It is again a case of subscribing to a certain set of beliefs and teachings, NOT being of a certain lineage. And the Russian/Eastern Orthodoxy is an even better example of why taking “Hellenic” in English as being a “Greek people” is not the right answer all the time. Because “Russian orthodox” could be translated one to one, literally, as “a Russian who is orthodox.” It’s not correct, but you could do it that way. But instead, it is specifying which orthodox church. Which one? The Russian based one. The one that originated in Russia. It isn’t meant to describe the person. If you wanted to specify that the person is also Russian, in English, you would say “the Russian Russian orthodox.” Which, yes, is stupid and ridiculous, but again, English is a hot mess sometimes.

So, coming to your definition in Greek: a Greek person who practices polytheism. So how would we say this in English? Well, if we wanted to specify they worshipped the Greek gods, we’d likely say “Greek Hellenic polytheist” or something equally repetitive if translated literally to most other languages. So, yeah, sorry, but YOU ARE TRANSLATING THIS WRONG. Full stop. That’s not what this phrase means in English, the idea is nuanced and needs to be translated as an idea, NOT literally.

But don’t feel bad. This isn’t taught in most foreign language classes. Most classes don’t get into this sort of minutia because it’s so difficult to explain. But if it makes you feel better, English isn’t the only language in the world like this. Almost every language has some weird phrase or two that can’t be done one to one translation. You want examples? Oh, boy howdy, I’ve got them! French: “dindon” literally means turkey. But colloquially, in reference to a person, it can mean “idiot.” “Comme ci, comme ça” literally means “Like this, like that” in French. But in response to “How are you?”, it means “so-so” or “eh.” And if you’re going “those are all French”, don’t worry, I got more! “ドキドキ　してる“ literally is “heart beat becoming.” Well, that’s nonsense. So what does this mean? “I am becoming excited.” “I am excited” Depending on context again. And frankly, I don’t care to dig up more because I am tired, but Japanese is full of them.

Have I made my point clear enough yet? Do you see why playing Google Translate every time you translate is a bad idea? It misses out on context and secondary meanings. This is why we laugh over Google Translate’s attempts usually: it doesn’t get these things. So don’t translate like Google. Stay alert for nuance and context.

So, can we put this dumb argument to bed already? “Hellenic polytheism” is the one of the best ways to concisely state the religion in the English language. If a Greek person takes objection because they think outsiders are claiming to be a Greek person practicing polytheism, it is time to explain to them that this does not have the same meaning in English. It is not what the English person is trying to convey with these words. All you have to say is “That’s not what they’re saying. It doesn’t translate well in one to one translation. Here’s what they’re trying to convey with that.” And then proceed to explain the ideas I’ve explained above.

Translating between languages is not simple, especially with complex languages like English. So please learn to ask for explanation if you think something seems off when you translate it or seems to have a different meaning elsewhere. Because with English, it likely does.

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wexregolden · 5 years

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Read it on AO3 here :)

Chapter 3/19

THE BOY WHO LOVED Chapter 3

- The Sorting Hat´s New Song Decision -

---

-The Sorting Hat´s New Song Decision-

martislibrary: I KNEW IT

martislibrary: HA!

A triumphant grin settled on his face as he looked at the screen, waiting for Nico´s answer. And gladly it didn´t took Nico long. After a few seconds already “writing...” appeared at Nico´s side of their chat, announcing that he was typing an answer.

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: Marti! My favorite, Gryffindor boy, how are you?

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: and WHAT DID YOU KNOW??

martislibrary: I told you I´m badass!!

martislibrary: and fuck off and forget about your “Gryffindor boy”

Marti couldn´t help and blushed a little at the “my favorite”. Not that he would ever admit it. It´s nothing special or serious. He quickly gathered his thoughts again and he came back to the original aim of his messages. The grin came back to his face and he took a photo of the result of his Pottermore test. Not that he would care about the whole thing. About his Hogwarts house. Hary Potter in general. But proving something to Nico. Well, that´s another story.

He uploaded the photo into their chat and sent it to Nico.

martislibrary: HA

martislibrary: I TOLD YOU

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: Marti Marit Marti

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: You actually did the sorting test, huh?

martislibrary: I DiD

martislibrary: I told you I´m badass, I´m a fucking Slytherin, Nico. HA!

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: Look at you and what a way you´ve come! So are we a proud HP fan and Slytherin now? Are you planning on buying your house edition of one of the books soon?

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: And well, the Sorting Hat could still be wrong or you´ve answered some of the questions incorrect

martislibrary: so now it´s my fault huh? Just get over it, Nico, this weird talking hat said what it said

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: WEIRD TALKING HAT?! Don´t you dare to talk like that about anything harry Potter related. Thin ice, Marti, very thin ice!

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: but still

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: you seem pretty invested in this whole thing huh?

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: if I didn´t know better I´d say you´re actually a Harry Potter fan, Marti. But I do know better.

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: Don´t I? Or did I miss something? Maybe you´ve got some common sense over night? After talking to me? Honestly, not liking Harry Potter is IMPOSSIBLE

martislibrary: oh fuck off, Nico!

martislibrary: It´s possible. I don´t like it. I´m here. I´m an actual human. Claim disproved.

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: Well, maybe I need to check if you´re actually a proper human being.

martislibrary: good luck, this could be difficult.

He couldn´t help it. He really couldn´t. Even if he didn´t want to. Even if he doesn´t know what got into him. But still, now he sat there on his bed, thinking about Nico touching him for a very (very of course!) short moment. Pinching him. Being close to him. Not seperated by a screen.

“Ouch!,” Marti cried out as he actually pinched himself. This needed to stop. He doesn´t know Nico. Not really. For about a day only. This must not develop into one of his stupid, hopeless crushes. Not Nico. They´re friends. Well, Internet friends at most.

He sighted briefly before he turned back to the screen of his phone.

martislibrary: To come back to your point: no, I´m not actually invested in this whole thing. And I´m NO Harry Potter fan. Never. I just wanted to prove you a point and the weird hat spoke and he said Slytherin, so I was right Nico

nicoissurrroundedbymuggles: STOP TALKING LIKE THAT ABOUT THE SORTING HAT MARTI I`M WARNING YOU

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: well, you´re actually too cute to be a Slytherin.

Too cute. Cute cute cute cute cute.

A pink flush crept up on Marti´s face as he starred at his phone, reading over the message he just received again. And again and again.

A minute has passed, maybe two. He waited for Nico to write something more. Another teasing message. To expose his latest message as a joke. Nothing serious. But nothing came.

So it was Marti who continued the chat.

martislibrary: Oh come on, stop teasing me. I´m not cute

And then he waited again. A few minutes passed, the green dot next to Nico´s name was still there. But no message came in.

Marti wrote another one.

martislibrary: I´m a Syltherin, cope with it. And stop teasing, bro.

Bro. Honestly, Marti. Actually, how stupid are you?! There´s a guy you like and--

Marti stopped his thoughts before they could go on. He´s nice. Yeah, really. Good looking. Well, according to his pictures on his Bookstagram account. Yeah, handsome. Funny. Marti loves this teasing atmosphere between them. Yeah, definitely funny.

As many good qualities he could name now, he still should stop. Has to stop. He doesn´t want Nico to turn into one of his stupid crushes. Not him. He was too nice to be one of those.

Martino was about to delete his last message. Take it back. Make the “bro” disappear. But as he was about to do so, the “seen” notification appeared under the message. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

And then Nico began to type.

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: Oh Marti, stop denying it.

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: You´re cute. You are.

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: and by the way, sorry that I´m answering only now. Insta fucked up again (wow tell me something new) and broke down all the time and wouldn´t let me send messages to you. So yeah, sorry again

Before Marti could even properly think about Nico´s last message, he was starring at his display again. Kind of second nature for him by now. But Niccolò really just admitted that he found him cute. Him. Martino Rametta. He felt his heart beat a little faster, trying to proceed this realizing. A smile creeping up his lips.

martislibrary: c´mon, let´s forget about that

martislibrary: And don´t worry. I know this struggle pretty well by now

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: the stuggle is real, isn´t it.

martislibrary: It definitely is

martislibrary: Insta not allowing you to like or comment posts, posts not uploading or especially insta direct message fucking up completely – who doesn´t know it?

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: It´s a mood, same here same here

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: but hey, you wanna end our suffering?

martislibrary: huh?

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: what about exchanging numbers and transferring our conversation to Whatsapp?

martislibrary: Ops. Sorry, now I get it, haha

martislibrary: Yeah, why not

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: don´t be!!

martislibrary: 0039 06 6890 2326

martislibrary: Well then, that´s my number

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: MARTI WAIT!!?!

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: You´RE FROM ITALY?!?

martislibrary: YES I AM FROM ROME: WHY?

martislibrary: AND WHY ARE WE SCREAMING?

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: Me too

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: I´M FROM ITALY TOO!!

nicoissurroundedbymuggles: Well, from Rome too to be more excact

Marti was sure that his heart skipped a beat. Or two maybe. Nico was here. Well, he´s living in the same country as he does. Not only the same country. He´s living in Rome, in the same city as him. This never has happened to him before. It´s not that he hasn´t made friends or got the know people through his Bookstagram account. Definitely not, he got to know some of the best people ever. But the thing is that all of them kind of live at the other end of the world. (Okay, not really at the other end of the world but it feels like it. Sadly.) He doesn´t know why. This doesn´t mean anything. Doesn´t mean they're actually going to see each other once. In real-life. But still, Marti was surprisingly happy.

His thoughts got distracted by his ringing phone. An unknown number calling. Well, to be honest he was sure the person wasn´t that unknown. So he picked up.

“Ciao Marti,” Niccolò said and Marti was basically able to hear his grin through the phone.

Martino knew the best and normal reaction would have been to answer. Greet him too. But he went silent for a few minutes. He´s really talking to Nico. And gosh, his voice! It was deep, not too deep, and very pleasing to the ear. The way it wrapped around his name, said it out loud. He wasn´t prepared. It was beautiful. Like him, he thought, and tried to discard this thought as fast as possible. Come on Marti, don´t be stupid now!

“Ciao Nico,” he finally answered, a smile forming on his lips.

“Ciao again. I know, this is probably the worst way ever to start a conversation but I really mean it: How are you?”

“I´m fine and you? I know, this is probably the worst way to answer to the worst start of a conversation but I really mean it,” Marti answered, a little cheeky and a silent laugh escaped his laugh.

“As funny as in your messages. I like, Marti, I like. And I´m fine too by the way.,” Nico said, joining Marti with his laughing.

And damn, his laugh. Marti could listen to it for hours. No, this is no exaggeration. Really.

“Well, I´m the master of being funny. Get used to it”

“I guess I need to, Marti. Especially as I wanted to ask you what you´re doing the coming weekend.”

“Why are you asking? I don´t think I´ve planned anything.,” Marti answered, furrowing his brow.

“Well then: What about meeting up? Going to a coffee shop? Maybe taking some pics together. For Instagram, you know. What do you say?,” Nico asked.

At first Martino didn´t say anything. Nico really wants to meet him. He didn´t expect anything special to happen today. And well, now this happened.

“Ahm, sounds great. I´d really love that.,” he said, full of enthusiasm.

"Yeah? I´d really love that too, Marti. Really. What about Saturday?”

“Saturday sounds great!”

“Perfect. It´s a date then. Well, a meet up, you know what I mean.”

“When and where would you like to meet?”

“Hm, what about--,” Nico wasn´t able to finish the sentence as Marti suddenly heard a woman´s voice in the background.

“Nico? Please come to the kitchen, I really need your help with dinner. You can continue talking later, okay?,” she said, Marti assumed it was his mother. Nico reassured her that he would be there in a minute before Marti heard a door close, silence at the other end of the phone.

“I´m sorry Marti, you probably heard it but I need to help my mom. What about texting about the time and place of our meet up later? There´s still some time till Saturday.”

“Sounds good. And I guess it´s time to say goodbye then. At least for now.”

“It is. But Marti?”

“Hm?”

“Before that: Don´t think that I´m already over the fact that you´re apparently a Slytherin. I´m really meeting up with a Slytherin.,” Nico said and Marti could hear him laugh a little. A smile appearing on his face again. Well, it kind of has been there since the moment he heard Nico´s voice for the first time.

“Oh, come on! Not apparently! The stupid hat spoke, I´m a Slytherin, get over it!”

“And again: Stop insulting the Sorting Hat, Marti! This isn´t funny!”

“We´ll see, Nico. I can talk about this hat the way I want to. Freedom of expression, you know?,” he had to laugh again.

“And now I think you should probably really go and help your mother in the kitchen.,” Marti said.

“Yeah, I probably sould.”

“Well then: Goodbye Nico.”

“Goodbye Marti. See you.”

---

And then the call ended.

And only then Marti really realised what just happened.

And then it hit him.

He´s going to meet Nico this week.

The Nico he likes. Only as a friend. Of course.

The Nico that shouldn´t turn into one of his hopeless crushes. One of many.

Damn. Fuck.

---

It took me quite a while to get this chapter done, don´t ask me why. And I´m kinda insecure about it butt I still hope you like it! Would love to hear what you think in the comments or leave an ask <3

And yes, one of my best friendships ever developed because we were ranting about insta direct message and exchanged numbers afterwards - this actually happens, haha :D

#skam italia #skamit #skam italia fanfic #the boy who loved fanfic sharetheskamlove

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afjakwritesarchive · 6 years

Text

Title: All Bets Are Off Pairing: USUK Words: 5,958 Rating: T (mentions of sexual contact) AU: Human Genre: Romance/Drama Summary: Arthur Kirkland hates the popular crowd; especially World Academy’s all-American golden boy, Alfred Jones. However, after being roped into betting that he can make Alfred like him, Arthur may find himself having a change of heart. A/N: Yes, this is extremely cliche. And yes, I had a fantastic time writing it. Special thanks to my beta reader, for helping me improve this fic!!

“I don’t understand what your problem with them is, Arthur,” says Francis, taking a grape off of his plastic tray and tossing it in the direction of Arthur’s face.

The Brit in question slaps the offending fruit away, rolls his eyes, and replies, “They’re ridiculous, shallow, self-centered, and obnoxious. Why wouldn’t I have a problem with them?”

Gilbert laughs and pops another fry into his mouth. “You’re right about some of ‘em, but some are pretty cool. ‘Sides, Ludwig hangs out with that crowd and he’s cool, isn’t he? They’re just people that are more popular than others. It’s not like they’re aliens or something.”

“Ludwig is an exception,” says Arthur with a bitter frown set upon his face, choosing to ignore the rest of Gilbert’s words in favor of glaring disdainfully in the direction of World Academy's resident “popular” crowd.

Currently, the large bunch was gathered around two or three round tables, eating and talking loudly. In his mind, Arthur conjured up all sorts of idiotic subjects that they could be talking about; the next football game, cheerleading tryouts, who was seeing who that week. Whatever it was, Arthur was certain that it wasn’t anything intelligent or meaningful. It had been clear since Arthur had started school at the World Academy that all of the particularly popular students at World Academy were absolute airheads. Although the academy, based in England, was well-known for their international scouting for students with “potential”, Arthur found it hard to believe that many of the more popular international students were truly representative of the intelligence the academy sought, and rather had rich parents who had bought their children’s way into the academy.

“Well, one thing’s for sure: they’re all exceptionally good-looking,” chimes Elizaveta from her place at Gilbert’s side, his arm lazily slung across her shoulders.

“Yeah, especially Lovino Vargas,” says Antonio, gazing dreamily in the direction of the aforementioned Italian boy, who appeared to be scolding his twin brother, Feliciano, about something while stabbing a plastic fork into his tupperware containing pasta.

Arthur scoffed and folded his arms across his chest. “Hah! I can’t see a single attractive person over there,” he said, turning his eyes away from the table when Kiku Honda turned a bit and met his gaze by accident.

“That’s because Alfred hasn’t arrived yet,” said Francis with a sultry smile.

Arthur groans aloud at the mere mention of Alfred. “God, he’s the worst out of them all. I’ve never met someone so stupid in my entire life.”

“Speak of the devil,” said Antonio, gazing past Arthur and toward the lunchroom entrance.

Arthur turned just enough to look over his shoulder as none other than World Academy’s golden boy, Alfred Jones, stepped into the lunchroom. His shiny, perfectly white teeth had formed a brilliant smile upon his handsome face as he waved happily to his friends. Arthur huffed and turned away, shaking his head.

“He thinks he’s the most important person here simply because he plays football. And he doesn’t even play the right football,” Arthur lamented.

“I find your distaste for him disappointing, Arthur. I’ve always thought you two would make a fantastic couple.” Replied Francis nonchalantly, although there was a bit of seriousness in his eyes.

Elizaveta perked up, clearly having been bored with the conversation until Francis’ addition. “Oh, you two would be so cute together! The height difference, the contrast in your personalities—it would be amazing!” She added excitedly.

Arthur shot a glare at both Elizaveta and Francis. “God, I can’t believe you’d even say that. As if I’d ever date someone that stupid.”

“Aw, I don’t see why you don’t give it a shot. Francis is never wrong about this stuff.” Antonio reasoned, nudging the French boy with his elbow. “What do you think of Lovino and I?”

Francis nodded sagely, as if thinking seriously. “The chances of him agreeing to a date are slim, but you two would make a good couple. As far as you’re concerned, Arthur, you should follow my advice. Antonio is right about me always being right.” The man said with a laugh.

Arthur rolled his eyes once again. “I think not. I have no interest in that moron.”

“Or maybe you’re just too scared to ask him out ‘cause you think he’ll reject you.” Replied Elizaveta with a knowing smirk.

“Excuse me? I’ll have you know that I’m not afraid of anything, least of all an obnoxious twit like Alfred Jones.”

“Oh? Then I bet you ten dollars that you won’t go ask him out.” Antonio said, his unnaturally red eyes sparkling with mischief and his lips parted in a smug smile.

Arthur’s eyes widened, large brows shooting up. “Fuck off,Carriedo.”

“Someone’s scared,” Antonio chimed, laughing loudly. The rest of the table joined in, laughing at Arthur’s supposed cowardice.

The Brit felt his pale cheeks heating up with anger and embarrassment and pushed himself out of his seat. “Fine,” he said, “I’ll take you up on your idiotic bet only to prove that I don’t give a damn what Alfred thinks of me. But your matchmaking scheme won’t go any further—he’s far too shallow to go out with someone like me,” the Brit huffed before turning on his heel and marching purposefully in the direction of the popular crowd.

Once he reached Alfred’s table, Arthur stopped behind Alfred and folded his arms across his chest. “Jones,” he said, making the American turn with a start.

“Yeah?” Alfred asked, blue eyes meeting green.

For a moment, Arthur was stunned into silence by the beauty Alfred possessed—he’d always known the American was handsome (even if he wouldn’t admit it), but up close he was even more handsome than Arthur had originally thought. Then, regaining his composure, Arthur willed the heat off of his cheeks and cleared his throat.

“I want to take you to dinner at eight this Saturday. What do you say?”

The rest of Alfred’s table had fallen silent and was now watching, most with wide eyes and open mouths. Arthur shot the rest of the table a smirk and looked to Alfred, expecting a similar reaction from Alfred. Instead, he was surprised to find the American looking up at him with his tan cheeks slightly flushed.

“Like, a date?” Alfred asked, surprised.

Arthur resisted the urge to roll his eyes, finding Alfred’s question a perfect example of the American’s stupidity. However, he forced a charming smile onto his face and nodded. “Exactly.”

Alfred’s mouth twisted in a sheepish smile. “Sure,” he replied, seeming genuinely flustered. “Uh—do you want my number?” Arthur floundered, completely astounded. He hadn’t prepared for the possibility that Alfred would say yes, completely sure that Alfred was too shallow and judgemental to date someone that wasn’t popular. Arthur felt his pale cheeks going red and he nodded dumbly. When Alfred reached for his hand, his brain short-circuited and he allowed the American to scribble his phone number down in sharpie across the top of his hand. When Alfred was finished, Arthur turned on his heel and walked away without a word, dropping down into his seat at his table with his eyes still widened.

Immediately, his entire table collapsed into loud laughter. Antonio even applauded Arthur before slapping a ten dollar bill down in front of him.

“Looks like Arthur’s got a date!” Gilbert laughed.

Still flushed, Arthur glared harshly at all of his friends. “Sh-Shut up, all of you! Why the hell did he say yes?!”

“Maybe he’s not as shallow as you think.” Francis suggested.

“Yeah, Arthur. Everyone I know thinks he’s a really good guy,” Antonio said, patting his friend on the shoulder.

“Oh, God,” Arthur groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “Now I have to go out with him. God, what am I going to do?”

“Find something in your closet without spikes or holes, for starters,” Francis said teasingly, gaining the laughter of the rest of the group.

“Shut up, frog.”

“Bet you won’t ask him out again after the first date,” Gilbert chimed with a laugh.

“God, no. I’m not making another bet with you, Gilbert. I’ll hardly be able to endure one date with him, let alone two.”

“Oh? Someone’s definitely scared. We all saw how much you were blushing, Arthur—you obviously like him. I’ll bet you won’t ask him for another date ‘cause you’re scared you’ll want another after that.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Arthur huffed, lifting his head from its place in his palms to glare hashly at his friends. “I don’t like him at all! You four made me ask him!”

“I’ll bet you twenty bucks you won’t ask him for a second date because you’re scared you’ll like him.” Elizaveta said, ignoring Arthur’s protests completely.

“I’ll bet you forty you won’t ask for a third.” Chimed Francis with a smug smile stuck upon his handsome face.

“I’m not fucking scared of Alfred, damn it! I know for a fact that I won’t like him, and I’ll prove it! You idiots may be charmed by him, but a stupid grin and a nice body aren’t enough to charm me. I’ll take you both up on your offers. Easiest sixty dollars I’ll ever make.” Said Arthur bitterly, his cheeks red.

“Wanna make eighty?” Gilbert asked. “I’ll bet you another twenty you can’t get him to admit that he likes you at some point within those dates.”

“Oh, you’re on,” Arthur said. “He’s an idiot—I’ll just spout some cheesy romantic words at him and he’ll probably fall into my arms.”

Francis merely rolled his eyes and then looked to Elizaveta, winking.

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After enduring two days worth of grammatically incorrect, emoji-ridden texts from Alfred, it was Saturday night and Arthur was waiting outside Alfred’s door, tapping his foot on the concrete patio with his arms folded across his chest and a cigarette hanging from his lips. He’d rung the doorbell once already and was about to ring it again when the door swung open and Alfred appeared.

“Hi, Arthur,” he said, smiling sweetly. “Woah, you smoke?”

“Yes,” Arthur replied simply. “Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah, I just have to grab my jacket. You wanna come in for a second while I get it?”

Arthur took the cigarette from his lips and let it drop to the ground, smashing it beneath the heel of his black boot. Then, he stepped into Alfred’s immaculate home and glanced around, actively resisting the urge to roll his eyes as he often did. As he expected, the walls were littered with cheesy school pictures of Alfred, as well as several photos of Alfred with two women, one of whom looked incredibly similar to Alfred, along with a much younger boy who also bore a striking resemblance to Alfred.

“I’ll be right back,” Alfred said before stepping out of the room, leaving Arthur alone in his expansive living room.

Despite himself, Arthur found that he was somewhat curious about Alfred’s home—if only for the sake of proving that Alfred was spoiled, he assured himself—and he stepped further into the room. Pictures littered every available wall, and Arthur slowly made his way around the room, gazing at smiling face upon smiling face with mounting interest. There were many pictures to be certain, and most looked to be professional quality, but Arthur hadn’t seen a single photo of Alfred under the age of what Arthur guessed to be around thirteen or foruteen years old. It seemed odd that a family who was clearly so fond of pictures wouldn’t have any of their eldest son as a young child.

“My moms are both photographers,” came Alfred’s voice from behind Arthur, startling the Brit.

Arthur turned around and offered a sheepish smile. “Sorry, I was just—”

“No, I don’t mind,” Alfred quickly interrupted with a shake of his head and a sincere, sweet smile.

“Is that your little brother?” Arthur questioned.

“Yep! That’s Matthew. He’s seven.”

Arthur nodded. “He’s cute.”

“Yeah, I think so too.”

“Where are you?” Said Arthur then, unable to help himself.

Alfred blinked. “What do you mean?”

“There’s no pictures of you as a child. You look like you’re at least thirteen in all of these.”

To Arthur’s surprise, Alfred’s face seemed to fall somewhat and then he brought a hand to the back of his neck and laughed awkwardly. “We, uh, we don’t have any pictures of me as a kid.”

“Why?” Asked Arthur again, far too curious to restrain himself.

“My birth parents never took any, I guess.” Alfred replied with a shrug. “They weren’t, uh, super fond of me.”

It was these words that finally caused Arthur to close his mouth, staring at Alfred in wide-eyed shock. Then, regaining his composure and feeling terribly embarrassed about his rude behavior, he took a step closer. “I’m sorry, Alfred, I… I had no idea.”

“That’s alright,” Alfred said, shaking his head. His usual happy smile returned to his face and he nodded toward the front door. “Should we go?”

Eager to get out of Alfred’s house and forget about his insensitive prying, Arthur agreed. He’d parked his car in Alfred’s driveway to take them to the restaurant, but Alfred asked if he wanted to walk instead seeing as it was such a beautiful night. Knowing that the walk would only make their date even longer, Arthur had half a mind to insist on his car, but there was something about the glint in Alfred’s bright eyes when he looked up at the sky that made Arthur agree against his better judgement.

Thus, they started the walk to the restaurant. Alfred was quick to engage Arthur in conversation, asking question after question about the Brit’s family, his hobbies, what he liked and disliked. At first, Arthur was annoyed by the seemingly incessant questions, but as he offered more information to the American, he found himself genuinely enjoying being able to speak to someone as cheerful as Alfred. No matter how negative his words were, Alfred bounced back with a happy spin on Arthur’s words. Before Arthur knew it, they’d arrived at the restaurant and he was being led to a booth toward the back, which was somewhat secluded and separated from the rest of the other patrons.

“Can I ask you something?” Alfred asked after they’d gotten their drinks and the waitress had left to give them time to look over the menu.

Arthur raised one thick eyebrow and lowered his menu to meet Alfred’s eyes. “Go ahead.”

“Why’d you ask me out? I mean, not that I’m not glad you did, it’s just—we don’t really talk much or anything, so…”

Arthur paused, thinking nervously back to the bet. “Er…” He trailed off momentarily, racking his brain for any response that wouldn’t give himself away. “W-Well, you’re just… You’re different than most of the people I know, and I find you interesting.”

Alfred’s cheeks turned a bit pink, and Arthur was surprised to find that rather than finding the American’s gullibility completely stupid, he thought the sweet flush was actually somewhat endearing. “Oh, well, thanks. You’re much more interesting than me, though.”

“What’s interesting about me?” Arthur asked, surprised. It seemed Alfred wasn’t quite as egotistical as he’d originally thought.

“I dunno, you’re just… I mean, you obviously don’t care what anybody else thinks as long as you’re happy. It’s really cool that you’re brave enough to do what you want and not be worried about other people’s opinions. And you’re, like, the top of our class in English and Literature even though you skip class all the time. You’re obviously super smart, but you also know how to have fun.”

Arthur blinked incredulously. He could hardly believe Alfred was capable of such perceptivity, let alone kind enough to say such things so freely. It made him feel a bit guilty about saying such rude things about Alfred earlier in the week, but he quickly shook such thoughts from his head. They’d only been talking for about thirty minutes—the night was still young, and filled with opportunities for Alfred to prove himself to be as shallow and idiotic as Arthur expected.

But, as the night wore on, Alfred only proved himself to be the opposite. Despite repeatedly reminding himself not to fall for superficial charm, Arthur found himself entirely involved in Alfred by the end of the night, smiling and laughing all the way home. He found that he was actually interested not only in sharing information about himself, but hearing what Alfred had to say as well. As they walked home, he asked Alfred about his hobbies, his interests, his family, and found himself sincerely interested in the answers.

By the time they reached Alfred’s house at the end of the night, it had been three hours, but Arthur could hardly believe it had been twenty minutes. Time had passed so easily with the cheerful boy beside him, he couldn’t help but to be sad to go.

“I had a lot of fun tonight, Arthur,” Alfred said, standing beside Arthur’s car.

“Me too,” Arthur said in return, finding to his shock that he sincerely meant it. Then, remembering the rest of the bet, he quickly added, “perhaps we can do it again next weekend.”

Alfred’s face lit up like a Christmas tree and he nodded eagerly. “Yeah, that’d be great. The carnival starts next Friday, if you wanna…?”

“That sounds perfect.”

“Cool. This time I’ll pick you up, okay? Six?”

“Alright,” Arthur agreed, smiling up into Alfred’s face.

“Sweet. I’ll see you then, Arthur.” Alfred said, turning away.

“Alfred, wait!” Arthur exclaimed, reaching out to take the sleeve of Alfred’s jacket in his hand.

Alfred blinked, clearly surprised by the outburst. He’d opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but Arthur stopped him by pulling him down a bit to press their lips together. Alfred hesitated only a second before his eyes closed and he wrapped his arms around Arthur, tugging the shorter boy closer to him. Arthur slipped his arms around Alfred’s neck and lost himself, his knees going weak at the feeling of Alfred’s strong arms around his waist, their chests pressed against each other, Alfred’s mouth against his, kissing him expertly.

When they finally pulled apart to breathe, Arthur was red in the face and had to resist the urge to tug Alfred back into him immediately.

Alfred grinned. “See you next Friday,” he said cheekily, turning on his heel and sauntering inside.

Once Alfred was gone, Arthur got into his car and slumped against the steering wheel, groaning aloud to himself. Christ, what had he gotten himself into?

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The following Monday, Arthur’s friends bombarded him with questions about his date all day. Arthur adamantly refused to give up much information and feigned complete disinterest in Alfred, stating that his company was hardly tolerable and that he spent the majority of the night talking about himself and his football career. He claimed to have absolutely no attraction to Alfred at all and whined at length about how torturous their second date was going to be.

Internally, he scolded himself, willing himself to believe that what he was saying was true. The memory Alfred’s sweet smiles, his gorgeous blue eyes so sincerely filled with interest, the feeling of his soft lips against Arthur’s, had plagued him. He wanted more than anything to go back to how he’d been before, blindly hating Alfred, and vowed to put up a front of indifference when he saw Alfred on Friday.

However, Arthur hadn’t counted on the possibility that Alfred would have no problem speaking to him at school. That day at lunch, and for every day after, Alfred stopped by Arthur’s table to say ‘hi’ and catch up for a moment before he headed to his own table. Not only was the younger boy cheerful and friendly toward Arthur, but with everyone at Arthur’s table. He laughed and joked with the whole group, and even managed to get Lovino to agree to giving Antonio his phone number. Arthur was appalled at how quickly his friends took to Alfred, all of them singing his praises whenever he left. Internally, Arthur agreed, but he insisted to his friends that they shouldn’t get too attached to the young American as he was already eagerly awaiting the end of their third date and never having to see him again.

By the time Friday rolled around, Arthur had promised himself that he wouldn’t get any more attached to Alfred than he already was. Alfred picked him up at six on the dot and they rode to the carnival in relative silence, aside from the music playing quietly from Alfred’s radio and the American singing along quietly. Arthur couldn’t help but to find Alfred’s sweet singing entirely too endearing, and forced himself to tune the American out the whole ride.

“Arthur?”

“Hm?” Arthur blinked and looked up from his position peering out the car window, noting that Alfred was gazing expectantly at him.

“I asked whether you wanted me to get you a wristband or individual tickets. Are you okay?” Alfred asked.

The sincere concern in his eyes making Arthur feel a bit guilty about being standoffish. Even so, Arthur knew he couldn’t risk growing any closer to Alfred and so he made a face and shook his head.

“Truthfully, Alfred, I don’t think I’m feeling all that well.” Arthur lied.

“Oh. No worries, Artie, I’ll take you home. We can do this when you’re feeling better. You know you didn’t have to pretend to be okay, right? I wouldn’t be mad.” Alfred said with an easy smile.

“I know, I just wanted to see if I would feel better by the time we got here. I-I was looking forward to it,” Arthur admitted, convincing himself he’d only said it to flatter Alfred.

“I was too, but it’s no big deal. The fair will be open next weekend too, and I don’t want to drag you around and make you feel worse. Let’s get you home,” said Alfred kindly.

“Thank you,” replied Arthur quietly, sincerely guilty. He hated himself for lying to someone who so obviously cared for him, but he couldn’t let it continue. Arthur knew that he was already too attached to Alfred as it was. If things went any further, he didn’t know if he’d be able to end things with Alfred after their third date, and then he’d have to admit that he’d been utterly, blatantly wrong about Alfred and perhaps all of Alfred’s friends as well.

“If you’re feeling better, do you wanna go next weekend?” Alfred asked as he began the drive back to Arthur’s house.

“Yes, that sounds perfect. Friday at six,” he offered with a smile.

“Cool,” Alfred laughed. “So, your friends seem pretty cool. They’re funny.”

“I suppose, although most of their humor comes at the expense of someone else in the group.” Arthur said, thinking sourly upon the bet that had gotten him into this predicament to begin with.

“Yeah, but it’s obvious they don’t mean it. You guys seem like you all really care about each other. And I’m glad they like me, too.”

“They like you more than they like me,” Arthur joked, making Alfred laugh.

Once again, conversation flowed easily and Arthur was disappointed when they finally reached his home. Alfred parked the car and turned toward Arthur, smiling gently.

“I know we didn’t get to do what we planned, but I’m still glad I got to see you. I hope you feel better soon.” Said Alfred sweetly.

“Me too,” Arthur sighed, regretting his decision to cut their date short. “A-Actually—I know it’s not quite as exciting as the carnival, but I think I’m well enough to sit on the couch and watch a movie, if you’re interested…?” He asked, immediately cursing his complete lack of self-restraint.

Alfred brightened and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like fun! You sure, though? I don’t wanna keep you up when you should be getting rest.”

“I’m sure.”

Thus, Arthur spent another wonderful night with Alfred. This time, Alfred kept him close for the majority of the night, keeping an arm hooked around his waist as they watched the movie. Arthur was hesitant at first, but found himself giving into his desires quickly, resting his head against Alfred’s chest and cuddling up against him. Halfway through, the movie was paused and they began to talk, their conversation seeming endless. When Alfred finally realized the time and bid Arthur goodbye, Arthur sent him off with another passionate kiss that left him both hating himself and longing for more.

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Once again, Arthur endured the taunts and jeers of his friends (and feigned pride when Elizaveta forked over twenty dollars despite the insurmountable guilt pooling in the pit of his stomach) when he returned to school on Monday. Alfred visited him every day during lunch that week and was even joined by Lovino Vargas, to Antonio’s pleasure, and Kiku Honda. Though Alfred never stayed with Arthur for the whole lunch period, it was obvious the two groups were slowly beginning to blend together thanks to Alfred’s efforts.

When Friday finally rolled around, Arthur was both eager and terrified for his date with Alfred. However, all of his fear vanished the second he hopped into the passenger seat of Alfred’s car, replaced by a careless happiness that couldn’t be restrained. For the rest of the night, Arthur thought nothing of his pride nor of the bet he had with his friends, instead directing all of his attention to the sunny blond at his side.

By the time eleven rolled around, Arthur was pressed between the side of Alfred’s car and the American’s body, kissing him hungrily.

“Hey, Arthur?” Alfred asked, his voice coming out in breathy pants as he spoke.

“Mhm?” Arthur asked, running his hands down Alfred’s arms and grinning up at him, their foreheads pressed together.

“I really like you,” Alfred murmured.

Arthur paused momentarily, suddenly recalling the bet. Guilt immediately pooled in his gut and he was about to feign illness again, but then Alfred was taking his hand and kissing the corner of his mouth.

“And my moms and Mattie are spending the night at my aunt’s place tonight, so…”

Arthur’s breath hitched in his throat. He was no stranger to sex, that much was certain—but he’d never slept with someone as amazing as he already knew Alfred was. Once again forgetting all of his guilt, Arthur nodded and tugged Alfred closer, kissing him passionately. “Then let’s go back to your place,” he purred.

Alfred grinned and stepped back, allowing Arthur to walk around the car and to the passenger’s side. The ride back home was quick, and then Alfred was leading Arthur upstairs to his bedroom. They fell upon his bed in a tangle of limbs, kissing each other hotly. Before long, Arthur was bare underneath Alfred, moaning against his skin, whimpering and nodding when Alfred hesitantly asked, “is this okay?” His hands found Alfred’s back and gripped him tightly, pain dissolving into euphoric pleasure.

After they’d thoroughly exhausted themselves, Alfred fell down beside Arthur and tugged him closer. “Arthur…” He trailed off momentarily. “I don’t want you to think I’m one of those people who sleeps with someone and then never talks to them again.”

Arthur shook his head. “I know you aren’t,” he panted. “I have been in the past, but it’s not like that now. I… I like you too, Alfred.”

Alfred smiled and kissed Arthur gently on the lips. “Can you stay the night?”

“Mhm.” Arthur replied happily, cuddling closer to Alfred and closing his eyes.

When Arthur woke up in the morning, it was to Alfred shifting beside him. Arthur opened his eyes, green meeting gorgeous blue, and Alfred smiled softly.

“Want me to make some breakfast?” Alfred asked softly.

“God, is food all you think about?” Arthur teased with a wry smile.

Alfred laughed and slipped out of bed, taking a pair of boxer shorts from a drawer. Arthur admired the view of Alfred’s fantastic arse and toned, muscular body as the American dressed himself in a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a t-shirt. When Alfred turned around and raised a teasing brow, Arthur could only laugh and roll his eyes.

“I’ll be downstairs,” Alfred said, “you get dressed. Shower’s through that door if you need it.”

“Thanks,” Arthur answered, slipping out of bed and walking through the aforementioned door.

After breakfast, Alfred convinced Arthur to watch another movie with him. After that, Arthur treated them both to lunch at a cafe in town, and then Alfred reluctantly dropped Arthur off at home.

“See you tomorrow,” Alfred said happily.

“Mhm, see you then,” Arthur answered back, leaving with a small peck to Alfred’s lips.

As Alfred pulled out of his driveway, Arthur’s heart sank. The bet was over—tomorrow, he’d get his money and be expected to break things off with Alfred. He walked back into his house and flopped down upon his couch, vowing to suck it up and admit that he liked Alfred.

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When Arthur finally found Gilbert, the man was in the science lab working on a project.

“Hey,” Arthur greeted simply, his pale hands shoved into the pockets of his ripped jeans.

“Hey, Artie. How was date number three?” Gilbert asked, grinning as he lifted a test tube full of red liquid up and stared intently at it for a moment before setting back on a rack with other test tubes.

“It was… Er, it was fine,” said Arthur awkwardly, grimacing. “Actually, I wanted to—”

“Damn, man, I didn’t think you’d actually go through with it!” Gilbert interrupted, shaking his head in a jokingly disapproving manner, a grin stuck upon his pale face. “Francis owes you money, I guess. What about my part, though? Did you get him to say that he liked you?”

“I-I did, yes, but—”

“Damn, maybe you have more game than I thought. I’ll get your twenty to you at lunch. When are you planning on breaking it off with him?”

Arthur’s eye twitched, annoyed at the continuous interruptions by the other boy. “I’m trying to tell you that—”

“Breaking it off?” Came a sudden, familiar voice from the doorway.

Arthur whipped around, mouth falling open in shock at the sight of Alfred in the doorway. The American was staring at him with his blue eyes widened and hurt obvious in them, his mouth turned downward in a frown that was so very unlike him. He looked so positively upset, so far from his usual sunny self, that Arthur felt as if he’d just taken a knife to the gut. To know that it was he who had caused the pain currently blanketing Alfred’s face only twisted the blade deeper into him, and his mouth worked uselessly for a moment.

“A-Alfred, I-I…” Arthur floundered, entirely unsure of what to say. He looked back to Gilbert, but his friend was frozen in place looking equally as shocked as he was.

“What the hell is this, Arthur? Were you—did you bet money on us getting together?!” Cried Alfred, brows furrowing with anger.

“I—I can explain, really. It was stupid, and I was coming here to explain that I wanted to call off the bet!”

“Really? Because it sounded like you were trying to collect your payment,” Alfred spat sarcastically. “How much money did you make off of me, huh? Did you bet on each individual date, or just getting to the third one?” Alfred questioned angrily. When Arthur looked down guiltily, he scoffed. “God, of course you fucking did. So you’ve already made money off of me twice!”

“Alfred, please, it isn’t like that anymore,” Arthur said.

“What made you change your mind, then? Obviously it wasn’t the first or the second—oh, right, so it must’ve been when you were getting into my fucking pants!” Alfred laughed humorlessly.

“Ho-ly shit, you two slept together?” Gilbert asked, wide-eyed as he looked between the pair.

“How much money are you gonna make for that, huh? Did you bet on how fucking big I was, too?” Demanded Alfred bitterly, and Arthur noticed the glassy, wet look of his eyes.

“Alfred, I swear I didn’t intend for it to end up like this. When all this first started I had no idea that I would end up being so fond of you! I thought you were—”

“Let me guess,” Alfred interrupted. “You thought I was some stupid, arrogant jerk who you could toy with for your own personal amusement, without even bothering to get to know me at all. Thanks, but I really don’t need an explanation.” With that, Alfred turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.

Arthur jerked into action, dashing out of the room. Alfred was walking quickly down the hallway toward the gym, and Arthur had to run to keep up with him.

“Alfred, wait!” Arthur cried, catching the American by his wrist.

Alfred pulled himself from Arthur’s grasp and continued, increasing his pace. “Fuck off.”

“Alfred, please, just let me explain!” Hollered Arthur, breaking into a full-on run until he was finally in front of Alfred, effectively cutting off his path.

Alfred stalled in the hallway and fixed his angry blue eyes upon Arthur, the beginnings of tears in the corners of them. He folded his arms across his chest and frowned harshly. “You have thirty seconds.”

Arthur gulped, floundering under the American’s harsh gaze. His current angry demeanor was so unlike his usual happy-go-lucky self, and the Brit almost couldn’t take the guilt he felt at having hurt Alfred so much.

“Alright,” Arthur began, taking a deep breath in. “I did make a bet that I could get you to go out with me, and I admit that was wrong! And yes, I bet that I get you to go on three dates with me and admit that you liked me, and that was even more wrong! But I never, never bet that I could get you to sleep with me, nor would I have ever. And yes, I admit that I had some misconceptions about you, and spoke unkindly about you, but I regret it! I regret it so much, Alfred, and if I could go back and change it I would. If I had any idea the kind of smart, amazing person you were, I would have never been so harsh.”

Alfred scowled. He wasn’t saying anything, but the crease of his brows had softened a bit and his arms fell limp at his sides.

Arthur continued, “You opened my eyes, Alfred. It was so, so wrong of me to judge you without knowing you—or anyone for that matter. And because of you, I was able to look at myself critically and realize that the way I thought about other people—and treated them as a result—was hurtful. I-I understand that what I did was wrong, but I meant what I said. I… I really like you, Alfred. And I don’t want you to leave when we’re just getting to know each other.”

Alfred’s face softened even further and he wiped the tears from his eyes. “...How much money did you make off of me?”

Arthur’s face fell, knowing then that Alfred couldn’t let it go. Deciding it was best to be honest, he looked guiltily to the floor. “...Eight dollars total.”

“Then you’re buying dinner next weekend.” Alfred said.

Arthur looked up, surprised to find that Alfred was smiling down at him. “R-Really?” The Brit asked, eyes quickly filling with tears of relief at the sight of the happy smile he’d come to adore so much.

“Mhm. Wherever I want.”

“Oh, God. Don’t you dare say McDonalds,” Arthur groaned, heart fluttering when Alfred slipped an arm across his shoulders and turned them around, steering them in the direction of the lunch room.

Alfred laughed loudly. “Wherever I want,” he repeated, and Arthur could only laugh cheerfully in response.

“Alright, alright, wherever you want. But just this once.”

#mine #text #aph #usuk #hetalia #hetalia fic #usuk fic #my writing #aph america #aph england #aph fic #aph america fic #aph england fic #alfred f jones #arthur kirkland

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singingwordwright · 6 years

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Trying to break the cancellation issue down: Week 2

Okay, so tonight I posted an entirely-too-long tweet thread on this issue, in which I recapped a lot of what I laid out in my post last week, as well some things I mentioned in response to an ask yesterday, and also new questions, information, and supposition. I thought I would try to lay it out here in a slightly more coherent issue.

First, however, I’m going to put it behind a cut. Because then if I have to edit any of this information, all the reblogs will link to the edited version instead of reblogging the incorrect/out-of-date version. Then I won’t have to make any future new posts on this subject.

Please keep in mind that this is all educated guessing. None of us know what’s really going on.

To recap what I laid out last week:

@freeform doesn’t own Shadowhunters. Freeform merely “leases” the domestic distribution rights from Constantin Film, who holds the adaptation rights.

(ETA 6/16/18) Freeform, however, has exclusive rights to this show indefinitely and it goes no where unless Freeform chooses to give them up. (this is a correction as I was mistaken before in believing the distribution rights would revert to Constantin after Freeform turned down Season 4)

@netflix doesn’t own Shadowhunters either. Netflix “leases” the international distribution rights from Freeform.

The money Netflix and Freeform pay Constantin for those rights funds production of the show.

Itunes, Amazon Video and Hulu all have domestic streaming of the show as well as Freeform.

Hulu likely acquires its streaming arrangement from Freeform, as the show carries the Freeform logo on Hulu. This makes sense; Disney owns part Hulu and all of Freeform.

I don’t know if Amazon and Itunes carry SH internationally, and I don’t know if they have their domestic streaming agreement from Freeform or from Constantin. I DO know they have a different streaming format than Freeform; you buy the episodes individually or the season entirely, rather than paying for a subscription service (I don’t think the show is on Amazon Prime as part of their subscription package, but I could be wrong.)

Something to keep in mind going forward:

Freeform is a business, and it’s going to be more helpful to us to regard this stance on the issue in terms of cost/benefit analysis, rather than assuming pettiness or malice or vindictiveness. I know having a villain in this scenario fires us up and keeps us raring for the fight, and we need that energy, but ultimately it’s not helpful in drilling down to the core issues and finding solutions.

Stupidity and tone-deafness are definitely sins we could probably fairly lay at their door, however. They have clearly underestimate both the passion of their audience and the importance of this show on a societal level, and those are tragic, foolish mistakes.

Shadowhunters and Freeform: A History:

As anyone who has ever looked at leasing versus buying a car or apartment will tell you, there are certain benefits to both arrangements, but usually in the long run it costs less to own something rather than to lease it. Which means that Freeform isn’t making as much money off SH as it is off the shows that are actually Freeform originals.

Why did Freeform acquire the distribution rights, then?

Well, ABC Family was intending to rebrand as Freeform and go after the millennial crowd, and it needed some new, edgier, more adult, more diverse, less family-oriented shows than The Fosters or whatever.

They also wanted to break into the streaming market instead of going with a live-airing-only model.

A show like Shadowhunters, based off a series of books their target audience enjoyed growing up, was obviously a good bet. Especially since that audience is largely comprised of binge-watching cord-cutters.

The goal, then, was to use Shadowhunters to draw the new audience in and to have it “shepherd” less established, Freeform-original franchises by hoping the SH viewers would stick around to watch whatever was in the 9pm time slot. And that worked well for them.

But once Freeform had a number of other, original shows doing somewhat well, the “benefit” side of the cost/benefit ratio began to decrease. It’s an expensive show to produce that isn’t performing well in live ratings and whatever money they’re making off it, they have to give a hefty portion of that to Constantin Film.

The cost (at least in terms of lost potential revenue) was further compounded by the fact that Shadowhunters was occupying a very coveted time-slot, 8PM, for 20 weeks of the year. That is a massive piece of prime-time real estate to give to a show that is no longer really needed to perform the functions they once required from it.

Malec_Immortal over on Twitter posted a pretty astute (if somewhat vitriolic) series of tweets about how you can identify the timeframe when Freeform made the decision to stop investing so heavily in Shadowhunters. YouTuber Trini did a side-by-side comparison of the effort the Freeform Twitter put into promoting s2 and the effort they put into promoting s3 and it couldn’t really be more blatant.) Now, maybe they might have continued with the show had season 3 performed better in the live ratings, but it’s obvious they were all about reducing their cost while trying to glean what dwindling benefit they could from it.

I think it’s clear that Freeform was still promoting the show up through August, at least, because the cast’s appearance at SDCC was an obvious investment that doesn’t appear to have been used to promote any other Freeform properties (though perhaps a few Disney ones) but by NYCC in October, it’s obvious that they had slotted SH into the role of mentor/veteran show whose primary purpose was to pull in viewers for Freeform’s other, wholly owned properties.

Perhaps if SH had performed well enough in live-airing views to justify a continued investment, Freeform wouldn’t have wanted to reduce their episode order for season 4, but that didn’t happen. At that point, the cost of continuing with a full 20-episode season outweighed the benefit. They tried to negotiate for a reduced season order, Netflix wasn’t happy with that, and now here we are.

Where does that leave us?

Freeform got the drop on everyone in terms of setting the narrative for this whole thing. They blamed it on Netflix for yanking out of their distribution deal and leaving Freeform holding the bag. In truth, however, it appears the only reason Netflix pulled out is because Freeform violated an agreement by demanding a shorter season for s4.

Which makes sense. Of course Netflix would want more and Freeform would want less; this show has always performed better on streaming and internationally than it has on live television.

I think it’s clear that somewhere along the way, Freeform (while not abandoning its streaming emphasis) has reverted to considering live-viewing ratings in its considerations. An obvious example is Beyond. Beyond performed well enough in its first season (shepherded, as it were, by Shadowhunters) to get a second season, but a large part of its success was the fact that it was dropped all at once for streaming-on-demand. For whatever reason, Freeform decided that wasn’t profitable and went to a different model for season 2, and Beyond performed abysmally and got the axe.

Unfortunately for us, they’ve been applying the Beyond-season2 model all along, which means Shadowhunters hasn’t been performing as well either by their calculations (though a great deal of that is down to reduced marketing and just using the show as a vehicle to promote other, Freeform-original properties.

For all that they claimed it wasn’t about the ratings and was “purely economical” you can’t divorce the economics of a show from the ratings if you’re using a live-air-viewing model. They needed that coveted 8pm timeslot for something that would be more profitable. They could have moved SH to a less valuable time slot, but then it wouldn’t make them enough money to earn back what they were spending on the distribution license (which funds production.)

Yeah yeah yeah, but what does this mean for the show getting picked up?

To put it frankly, our biggest obstacle here on multiple fronts is season 3b. Specifically, it’s the fact that Freeform has pushed 3b back to Spring of 2019. That is screwing our efforts over, big time.

These are episodes that are already in the can. The final cut of 3x20 has been produced, according to Todd Slavkin. And these are episodes that Freeform owns and still hasn’t aired.

No one is going to want to acquire this show until 3b has aired. (Assuming Freeform is willing to let anyone acquire it.) Which means no one is going to want to acquire it until Summer of 2019. And we probably wouldn’t get season 4 until spring of 2020 at the earliest.

I can’t think of a single other show that has been canceled with half the season still month away from being aired like this. And if it has happened, it probably wasn’t picked up by anyone else (if at all) until after the season was done.

Look at it this way. It’s obvious from their CEO’s tweets that Constantin would love to see the distribution rights pass to someone else (probably Netflix.) Netflix may even be willing to pick them up (if Freeform is willing to sell,) considering that who Constantin’s CEO tagged in his tweets.

But what happens to those 10 episodes that are in the can? Whoever picks the show up has to wait until Freeform is done airing those eps before they can begin marketing, and probably even filming.

Maybe someone would be willing to pay Freeform for those eps, but that’s highly unlikely. What new network wants to start a show mid-season like that? And would they even be willing to pay enough for Freeform to recoup their losses on production AND potential losses on advertising? A new network will want the story to be in a place where new viewers who have never seen it before will be able to tune in and quickly pick up on what is going on, and considering the cliffhanger S3a left off on, that’s...not something anyone EXCEPT Netflix (or maybe Hulu or Amazon, who already have the previous episodes in their libraries) would want to pick up. That pretty much rules out...every other network.

Furthermore, again, the show has always done best streaming. Odds are good that ONLY a streaming service is going to want the show.

Some questions we need to ask:

Will whoever acquires the show be paying Freeform to “adopt” their distribution license, or will Freeform’s distribution license lapse and a new license need to be negotiated with Constantin? (ETA 6/16/18: we appear to have an answer on that.)

Also, CAN Freeform even get out of the plan to film/air the 2-hour finale at this point? The contract has probably already been negotiated. Unless they somehow have an option to back out of it, they’re committed.

So, it may be that they HAVE to make that episode. Which probably won’t begin filming until season 4 would have begun filming, probably around August. Which probably means the earliest they could air the season/episode is in January and we would HAVE to wait until spring/summer of 2019 before anyone else can pick up this show. IF they’re willing to pick up this show. If potential buyers see interest has waned because of the long wait and general frustration and disgust, they’re not going to want the show.

Will potential buyers even be interested if the show has run out of book-based material? The 2-hour finale is supposed to wrap up the final book of the series, and while our main concern is that 2 hours won’t be enough to do all that material justice (especially with any non-book-based plotlines also needing to be resolved.) Any future seasons would, in essence, be a spin-off using the same characters. Can Constantin even do that with the adaptation rights?

So what do we do?

I’m not saying we should stop fighting, not at all, but I’m saying we need to conserve our energy because this is going to be a very long haul. It’s a situation that is messy and complicated beyond any other show that I’ve ever heard of being cancelled and picked up by another network. We very likely won’t see any fruit from our labors until after 3b and the finale air, whenever that may happen. I think with the negative publicity we’re generating, Freeform may find it useful to get us out of their hair sooner rather than later, but the time required to produce the finale ep is an issue there.

We really need more answers to know how to most effectively apply pressure to get the show renewed. Our best bet for getting those answers is the same place we’ve gotten the information we have so far; interviews and articles. Some media outlets are already latching onto this story (and largely supporting us, or reporting that we’re not going away) but we need to keep making this A STORY in order to get them to report on it (and hopefully use their access to get more answers than we have.)

HOWEVER I could be wrong about any or all of this. OUR BEST BET IS TO CONTINUE BEING LOUD. DO NOT STOP TRYING TO GET THE SHOW PICKED UP.

#shadowhunters #SaveShadowhunters

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judaphotography · 4 years

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An exploration of who has the right to judge art

Art is a vast topic that can span across different mediums, context, and expression. It is equally a form of expression as it is execution, which makes it seemingly subjective. However, art does have guidelines and patterns, which create what people class as good or bad art. This creates an apparent correct way art should be viewed and how it should be judged. This essay will be exploring who has the right to make those judgments.

When judging art and it's worth and quality there is a consensus of what to evaluate. When looking at judgement criteria from art competitions like LightSpaceTime’s we can see that the standard for art being judged is “Interpretation and the clarity of the theme to the viewer. Creativity and originality of the depicted theme. Quality of artistic composition and overall design based on the theme. Overall impression of the art.” With looking at other competitions, criteria art critiques use and educated views of what makes good art, for instance examples from the art of education university and interviews with artists, we can see an emerging pattern that context, technique, concept, and originality are the qualities in which we base art. Li Hongbo has said “My artistic creation has lots of themes… I want to change the image, change how people see things so they think in another way, and more deeply.” In response to what makes good art, supporting the idea that good art needs to be original and have meaning.

However, John Baldessari’s photographic series “Wrong” challenges the idea of what art needed to be to be good. He took the traditional “rules” within the art world and decided to create pieces that challenged them. The series is a collection of images paired with text, the most famous being entitled wrong, which is an unfocussed poorly composed image of a man with text that says wrong underneath. Baldessari created these pieces because he wanted to convey that we do not have to conform to traditional qualities in art for it to be good; art doesn’t have to be judged, and when talking about work he has said “You don't want anyone to say 'You can't do that!' But you do get a lot of that in New York. One of the healthiest things about California is - 'Why not”.Baldessari made his art for himself and because he wanted to, but through that has become a renowned conceptual artist. From the series we can see there are exceptions to what people class as good art and although Baldessari’s series is not technically good it still meets the criteria of being original and being rich in context.

The museum of bad art is a place showcasing “bad art” “since 1994,The museum of bad art has been dedicated to bad art… our mission; to bring the worst of art to the widest of audiences” Obviously the art which they showcase is bad; like the painting Eyes see you by F.W Covington which is paired with the interpretation “The artist has effectively portrayed life-sized pairs of disembodied eyes on a flame-red background; some staring straight ahead while others glance left or right. They are realistic and iconic in their simplicity.” by Holly Maxson. By this description alone we can estimate the technique is not good with use of effectively as a descriptor conveys a standard skill level. Also the meaning wouldn’t appear complex or profound, as they are just eyes. Perhaps art that lacks these two characteristics are what we as a collective deem bad art.

The difference between these two works purely lies on the intent behind them. Both are technically bad, however Baldessari’s piece was created for the intent to challenge why? So as people judging art it is not all about the physicality of it but equally the context. Without context both would be seen as bad art, but this idea of contextual knowledge revises its worth, causing the idea of elitism within art as you need to have context to fully enjoy it.

Antonio Houmen, former art director of the Sonnabend Gallery has said “The definition of art will change and who it can be judged by will change also.Video art was popularised in the 1970’s but made people question if it was art. Every time art takes a form people don't recognize, they ask ''Is that art?”. Houmen expostulates the idea that art is one thing, the idea that art is stagnant is incorrect and the idea that the merits of what art is and who judges it needs to be inconstant. The idea that art is really integrated into current culture and is ever changing is not a new premise, and how art can also influence and change society around us.

The recent social isolation is proof of how integrated art is into mundane things, as many people have been turning to comforts like television and video games, subtly depending on the artists which have created them. “ That is just the reason why art is so valuable! While art may not be vital to fulfill our basic needs, it does make life joyful. When you look at a painting or poster you’ve chosen to hang on your living room wall, you feel happy. ...These varieties of art forms that we are surrounded by all come together to create the atmosphere that we want to live in, which is personable to us.” Due to art having a natural comfort, it becomes every day.

In Neil Gaiman's book “Art matters” he talks about how art is created to challenge the current system and possibly change it, ““I believe you have the absolute right To think things that I find offensive, stupid, preposterous or dangerous, and they have the right to speak and write or distribute these things ”.If art is so integrated into society it should be those who have the right to judge it.

Some believe that it is only the right of an artist to judge their work. Many artists themselves believe that only they have the right to judge their own work, such as Jenny Holzer, an neo-conceptual artist. “The artist is someone who can judge the art as they are the only one that truly knows the art.” “I think you can rely on the artist's representation; he or she would have no reason to lie.” showing us that the intent is what artwork is truly about not the finished content, and by this only the person that created the work can know the true meaning. Carrying on from this Robert Hughs, an art critic said “As far as I am concerned, something is a work of art if it is made with the declared intention to be a work of art and placed in a context where it is seen as a work of art. That does not determine whether it is esthetically rich or stupidly banal.” Anyone can have an opinion on a piece and see it how they wish, however, the process of art relies on the artist having intent and judgment, and therefore can be the only opinion that matters.

The case of Beau Stanton’s Eva Gardner mural, shows the two sides of an artist being responsible for the art. Many people found the artwork offensive and wanted it removed from Koreatown L.A, as the background offended korean activists as the sunray pattern is similar to the japanese imperial flag. Stanton has said he created the mural as “ a homage to the Cocoanut Grove’s Hollywood history” artists like Shepard Fairey have said “ It’s not the same color scheme. It’s not the same focal element. It’s stupid to me.” and he finds it a form of censorship and threatened to remove his mural of Richard F Kenedy. Eventually the mural was removed showing that people see the judgment of others and how they see work, is more important to the public than the intent of the artist.

Many people within art academia believe that to truly judge art you need to be educated within it, for example Robert Rosenblum, former Professor of art history, New York University; curator at the Guggenheim Museum said “But there has to be consensus about good art among informed people -- artists, dealers, curators, collectors. Somebody has to be the first to say something is good”, and William Rubin former Director emeritus of painting and sculpture, Museum of Modern Art said “There's a consensus as to what is art in most periods, but it's not made by the man on the street. It is formed by those deeply concerned with the substance of art.” “There is no single definition of art that's universally tenable. Cultures without even a word for art nevertheless produced great art”. Implying art is more than an aesthetic but also a history and something deeply contextual, so for a person to truly be able to judge art and see what it is you must be educated and know these histories. Regardless, some people and artists see this as a classist belief that to be an artist means you need to be educated and pay for that right through education.

“ Art has landed in many more households and in the awareness of many more people than ever before. You could argue that because art is so ubiquitous it is even harder to make judgments.”Philippe De Montebello former Director, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Undeniably art is a part of everyone's lives, especially with growing use of social media, and as everyone has access to art they have the right to judge it, and every opinion is correct, as art is an experience that can only be felt by oneself. When forming an opinion on art we look at our past experiences with the outside world, as well as other art we have viewed,due to the omnipresence of art through televisions, phones and even mundane objects like tea towels there is such a diversity of experience, which no two people would share. Combined with the independent experience of living no two people would see art as truly the same. Therefor claiming one to be more important holds judgements of others, and arguably holds ideas of classism.

I created a survey of my peers, many of which are artists from different backgrounds, which use different mediums. As in theory any question can be asked but that doesn’t take into account the reality of theoretical questions, and that there are artists who will all have a say and view on art judgment. When asked “Do you feel your art practice and art knowledge has grown with more experience creating or with education?” 50% of people said it was a mixture of both creation and education. “My art knowledge has grown through education, but my art practice has definitely just grown through creating” artists can see that there are two sides to art: a creative and educated side, which both can grow over time and make people better artists. Assumably there is the belief that some art knowledge is inherit, as 100% of the artists believed that they can judge art and 50% unprompted said that it is possible for everyone to judge art. While others say they have bias’ to certain art but can still judge it, however, it is just as possible for the bias’ to come from education therefore making the judgment more correct, which is highlighted by one of the responses when asked if they can judge art; “ Everyone can. Its a visual platform and everyone is going to have a response. But there is a moral line where some people either have no knowledge or too much and their opinions can be a bit out of place” implying that everyone can judge art but some people have more of a right to judge.

When asked if they believe if art has a set meaning, all of those questioned said no. Clearly showing that art is meant for other people to view and not just the artist “I don't think so, even if the artist makes it with an intended meaning, whenever it is viewed the meaning is shaped by the viewer's life experience and perspective. It can also vary with context”, “There's an intended meaning but unlimited meanings beyond that”. Many artists are open to the idea that their art can have multiple meanings, as the context of the viewer is what really creates the meaning of an image; supporting the theory that everyone can bring judgement and meaning to art.

Seemingly artists tend to view art as something anyone can find meaning and context in and rightfully so if the piece brings emotions. Yet see judgment as something different but still crucial to the process. Overall “It is in the sense that every time someone views art that are making some kind of judgement or critique automatically, but I don't think it always has to be formalised, or that certain judgements should be considered more important than others just because of someone's status.” summarises the view on art judgment from practitioners. Judgment is a part of art, or judgment is a part of humans, either way it will naturally occur when looking at a piece of work. The judgment is not what we should be questioning but, who and why and what are people judging and being able to see people's views without the elitist ideology of certain people having a more correct opinion, but rather an equality of views.

When looking at “Who can judge art” we do not take into account the process of art and the fact that judgment is a part of it. When deciphering “what is art?” in his book “How art can be thought: a handbook for change” Desouza argues that art can be whatever the artist makes. He proposes that art is created by two things, prior to the art being made. There is a proposal then an action and then an object.Then after the art is created it has to create a conversation, not for it to be art but for it to be profitable art. “But more importantly art is a conversation.” If we look at art as a non verbal form of communication, then the judgment and perceptions are a part of it as a language, the nature of art is to talk about it. Which can be related to the idea that educated and experienced artists could be held to higher regard in their opinion as they can “speak art” better as they have a richer context and understanding. However, the idea that art should or can only be judged by a certain type of person rather than everyone, is absurd as judgment is clearly a part of art,as much as it is a part of humans.

#200

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