#it's weird how almost inherent to the genre is “And here is a type of woman you can do anything you want to”

[health-goth-inc]

The isekai genre is ..... revealing about a lot of what is wrong with incels.

[bengiyo]

So I’ve got some thoughts wracking around my brain and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Apologies ahead of time because this is long.

Some background: I’ve been watching BL for about 2 years, consuming content from BL fandom on Tumblr for about a year, and listened to you & Nini’s pod since it came out. So I know a big trend and exciting push is workplace BL and more adult BL characters and relationships. I think it’s really interesting that so many in the fandom favor this trend because I struggle with the presence of the typical BL tropes in stories with queer adults because I see many of the tropes as inherently childish I guess? I mean I think as we all watch BL we have to hold a suspension of disbelief watching two adolescent or fully grown men live out these silly tropes (e.g white towel bath, tripping and falling, etc. (we all know’em by now)). I think that’s why I typically lean toward high school and even college settings because it’s easier to imagine characters in that age range engaging with these types of tropes.

I think the same goes for certain genres too. For example: I had a hard time enjoying KinnPorsche because tonally it was hard to reconcile one scene of rampant violence/death and the next scene Kinn & Porsche walking in the park engaging in all the silly tropes. The romance orientation of BL (to me) does not mix well with Mafia or horror genres because the presence of these tropes create such a weird tonal shift throughout the narrative.

I think I primarily have this trouble with Thai BLs (maybe also Taiwan they just don’t produce nearly as many shows so less to compare) because 1) the specific campy thai style of acting and 2) the fact that Thai BLs pack so many of the same tropes in their shows.

Now all that being said: I’m loving Law of Attraction and I’ve been thinking a lot about why it works for me. So far I don’t think there have been nearly as many tropes as some shows but I also think the melodrama of it all helps too. I mean both Charn and Tinn are very archetypal and Charn is almost a caricature of the archetype. It’s ridiculous and highly entertaining and still works as a BL for me.

Ok all that being said (I’m sorry this is so long) specifically with workplace/adult Thai BL: I see it going one of two main ways to continue to work (for me at least) while they also try to explore different settings, genres, and stories. Either 1) LoA route where it’s very dramatic and the characters are more caricatures and it’s not to be taken too seriously (but it’s still fun and entertaining and has some good themes) or 2) they phase out a lot of the tropes and depict more realistic queer characters in adult relationships. If they go route #2 wouldn’t that just lead to inherently more queer shows? From what I understand many define BL by the inclusion of these tropes and centering the romance in the narrative but I just can’t see how these aspects can continue to exist in more adult oriented stories? Do you think new tropes will emerge in these “office BLs” that will make it continue to “feel” BL without it feeling queer? Don’t get me wrong I’m queer and I love that it seems to be going in that direction but I’m also interested in the history/origins of the Thai BL industry and how they will likely try to continue to please their original base (cis het women) with more mature stories and settings without losing the essence of BL and moving more toward queer shows. Would love to hear any and all your thoughts. I’m thinking so much more about these topics hearing you and Nini on the pod so thank you for fostering these conversations!!

There's a lot going on here, so I'm going to try to pull out some specific things to interrogate.

I know a big trend and exciting push is workplace BL and more adult BL characters and relationships. I think it’s really interesting that so many in the fandom favor this trend because I struggle with the presence of the typical BL tropes in stories with queer adults because I see many of the tropes as inherently childish I guess? I mean I think as we all watch BL we have to hold a suspension of disbelief watching two adolescent or fully grown men live out these silly tropes (e.g white towel bath, tripping and falling, etc. (we all know’em by now)). I think that’s why I typically lean toward high school and even college settings because it’s easier to imagine characters in that age range engaging with these types of tropes.

I'm entering my mid-30s. I'm a bit burnt out on the high school and college stuff. I also work in an office tower as part of a large bureacracy. You'd be surprised how much petty office drama looks like the same shit you dealt with in schools. I also like the notion that even adults can enjoy some of the silly first moments. I dont' like the idea that either we settle down with the first boy we met in high school or college or we just don't exist.

Also, there are lots of tropes entering BL from the genre-blending that I think some viewers just don't recognize. Part of why Korean BL is so important is because quite a few viewers are versed in the narrative structures and story beats of a typical kdrama, and their commentary has been interesting as we get more Korean offerings. I often find that people miss out on the cues in Japanese shows because they didn't grow up on Japanese media like I did.

For example, I was commenting to NiNi last night when we were recording for Tokyo in April is... that one of the things I like so much about second chance romance in BL is the different built-in presumptions compared to straight people. When straight people have a second chance, it's usually because one of them broke up with the other. The relationship ended because of their internal problems. In gay second chance, the relationship was often taken from them by homophobia. In Our Dating Sim, internalized homophobia made Wan run away. Same in Individual Circumstances or The Promise. In Tokyo in April is... the boys are separated by their parents. Their relationship ended against their own wills, so the reunion and second chance is different because of their queer context.

Re: KinnPorsche: The romance orientation of BL (to me) does not mix well with Mafia or horror genres because the presence of these tropes create such a weird tonal shift throughout the narrative.

I don't know. History3: Trapped exists. Tropes are storytelling tools built upon familiar beats that audiences recognize. The pinky touch doesn't belong to BL. It grew out of queer media as a way for boys to privately have a moment of intimacy. Tropes are not inherently good or bad. What matters is how they're used. Do they support the narrative and themes, or do they get in the way?

A lot of folks do not like the Blushing Maiden trope. I am variable. It matters how it's used. I think it makes sense for Pharm in Until We Meet Again. I think it makes some sense for Minato in Minato's Laundromat. I don't really like it in Heartstopper 2. Elle gets a Heel Pop in Heartstopper 2, and it's what she deserves!

As for a mafia story, putting a romance story in a crime drama often is used to ramp up the sense of tragedy because the romance can't succeed inside the rules of the crime world.

specifically with workplace/adult Thai BL: I see it going one of two main ways to continue to work (for me at least) while they also try to explore different settings, genres, and stories. Either 1) LoA route where it’s very dramatic and the characters are more caricatures and it’s not to be taken too seriously (but it’s still fun and entertaining and has some good themes) or 2) they phase out a lot of the tropes and depict more realistic queer characters in adult relationships.

I don't like binaries like this. If you had asked me at 15 when I started watching Degrassi and then sneaking around to watch other gay shit if we'd have what we call BL now, I would not have believed you.

As for Laws of Attraction, I don't know that calling the characters caricatures is accurate either. They're behaving under the surreal rules of a lakorn, a telenovela, or a soap opera. There are exaggerations in the characters, but they all make sense and are obeying the rules of their world.

As for the question about BL getting more gay, @absolutebl has covered this already. Audiences do not care about gay people. Some of the conventions of surreal BL or the bubble are why they signed up. People did not watch POSE, they do not watch stuff like For the Boys, I haven't seen anyone on Tumblr talk about Sort Of, we didn't get an explosion of new gay shit after Moonlight or Call Me By Your Name. All I wanna say is that they don't really care about us.

I think there is room for BL to genre blend and play with broader romance or dramatic themes, à la La Pluie or Moonlight Chicken. However, I'll remind you that folks don't always like that (see I Promised You The Moon).

I think the biggest thing to recognize is that, while BL does have some of its own tropes from origin yaoi or modern Thai BL, BL shares a lot of DNA with romance as a whole. Don't get lost in the sauce of the classification war. Watching BL to check off boxes about what's recognized or not as the primary goal feels like a distraction.

Besides, if you're enjoying Laws of Attraction, that show has done nothing new. It's literally just using familiar lakorn and romance beats. Humans have been telling stories for at least 20,000 years. It doesn't have to be new to be good. It just needs to be done well.

[nezumiva]

I assume this will somewhat be addressed in the podcast for Watanagashi, but I've been reading it with a friend(reread in my case), and the first 2 chapters have just been... really bad and pervy? I love the rest of this series, but god this has been a lot, and I know this is not the end of it. How do you deal with it, and address it to new readers?

Yeah...

It is a bit of an ever-present dilemma in Higurashi, unfortunately (and while it improves over time in When They Cry as a whole, it's unfortunately a bit of an issue in a lot of Ryukishi's work). I do think the chapters in and of themselves are very good, to be clear, but those types of jokes do tend to drag it down massively whenever they (however briefly) rear their ugly head. As it pertains to generally recommending the work, I'll get to that in a moment, but first and foremost I think it's just good to know the limits of your friends, if that's the sort of reading situation you're in. For me, and the people I know - we all definitely hate the unnecessary sexual humor, but we all also grew up on a lot of anime and manga, back in the late 90's and early 2000's, which had far less restraint about these things than it should have. Obviously it wasn't good, but while we dislike it, we tend to roll our eyes and muscle past if at all possible. Thankfully, in Higurashi's case, while it is often extremely obnoxious, it is easily ignored in the context of the story at large. That's us, though, and everybody's comfort level for ignoring that sort of thing is different. When it comes to general recommendations, there's just no escaping the huge asterisks you're going to have to attach to the work at large. Like many things I love with less than stellar aspects (problematic stereotypes in One Piece, similarly gross humor in Danganronpa, etc.) there's not often a way to soften the blow of these things for people who wouldn't have been able to power through regardless, and that's completely understandable. (And even if it's less problematic, obviously, Higurashi still has a lot of elements that are difficult to casually stomach regardless, so it does sort of inherently narrow the pool of people you can get into it, lol.) This doesn't really make up for it, obviously, but this is almost doubtlessly a product of the game's release timeline and where it was released, as well. This was a self-published game in the very, very early aughts being marketed to primarily otaku at Comiket. Galge was still very prominent, and while it has thankfully managed to grow beyond the need of being strictly pornographic (and thank god Higurashi never went that far), the kind of sketchy, ecchi variety of shit did unfortunately sell and draw more eyes to a game back then. Given how small 07th Expansion was (they only sold 2 copies of Onikakushi at the time, I believe), I wouldn't doubt they felt the need to shove things like this in to push units. (In a sense, I do think some of the tropes are there to be intentionally subverted. While most people know Higurashi has horror now, they didn't then, so in some respects Ryukishi was ripping the rug out from under people who just thought they were here for a dating sim, but attributing that to every instance of weird shit in Higurashi would obviously be oversimplifying the issue.) TL;DR: Higurashi is definitely a product of its time in many respects, and while I think it is a fantastic story that surpasses its occasional failings with gross sexual humor, that is an unfortunate mark of the time and circles it was made in. It may have been a play to help it sell, or to throw off galge genre readers, or both, but either way it still kinda sucks a lot. That is always unavoidably going to be a huge asterisk when recommending it to anyone in the current day.

[bersergner-blog]

Escape from Tombstone - Modern Beat 'em ups

Now that we've explored the classic Arcade games we move to the other side of the year 2000 and explore the genre's evolution as well as the modern wave of nostalgia inspired throwbacks.

Mayhem Brawler Looks pretty great, lots of move variety special bars for special moves are a great idea. Lots of combo potential. But hits lack impact (no hit-stun, flashing or individual sprite-rumble just screen-shake). Hits lack "Juice". Choosing paths after levels is a cool idea. Comic book theming feels a bit weird but isn't really inherently wrong. Full voice acting is great. Character and enemy designs are decent but every character looks weirdly proportioned. Levels are short but that's a benefit. Stops things from getting samey. Status effect symbols feel a bit weird and immersion breaking. Lighting is great and represented on characters like in SOR 4. Block and counter attack options.

Cobra Kai - The Legend of the Karate Kid continues Lots of really cool and diverse systems but the whole thing is very messy in every aspect. Janky gameplay awkward design such as counter only working about 10% of the time you press it. Weird hit detection for object interactions as well as attacks. High damaging enemies with way too small dodge windows and way too much hyper armour. Systems of the game not working as intended. Picking up special abilities but their descriptions only coming up very occasionally. Lots to unlock and lots of enemies and story and general care. But it's just all very unpolished. Super reliant on special moves to tank all the hyper armoured damage being thrown at you. Chaotic. Buggy. Unwinnable scenarios at times. Encouraged to pick up gis and headbands but their explanations take ages to pop up and you're encouraged to keep your combo going. Which runs out pretty quickly (should have a DMC style decaying effect). So you keep wanting to push on. And the power ups effects are too specific to not be forced to know what they are. Locked into upgrade pathways far too early (mixing and matching like in X-Com is what would be way more engaging and fun). Using the stick on the menu is awkward and doesn't work properly. Always overshooting or not being able to select the right direction at all.

Cobra Kai 2 - Dojos Rising This one was tough. There’s a lot of cool ideas here. It tries to take the gameplay from the first game and translate it into 3D rather than the 2.5D of the original and pretty much all the game’s systems are worse for it. Once it starts getting you to do platforming puzzles I was out. The game doesn’t have the level of precision and control that it demands of you.

Final Vendetta Down attack is cool. Bit too inspired by Streets of Rage. Some cool enemy designs. Levels are short and keep the momentum up. Enemies don't really suit the later stages especially the last visually, also for being set in the UK it doesn't look British at all phone booths, tower bridge and train markings aside. Block has a windup which sucks. Game expects a lot from you in it's difficulty and score. Juggles are fun, some of the death Traps are not. Grapple variety and move variety is quite cool. Dash attacks, back attacks, special moves, some grapple variety. But how to pull off certain combo enders, etc. Seems obtuse.

Skinny and Franko - Fists of Violence Has a lot of similar ideas to Escape from Tombstone but the game isn't balanced to make a lot of use of the extended abilities. Some being so situational that you'll rarely if ever see them. Combo system doesn't add up to much variety. Almost all combos start with the same flurries. Annoyingly edgy to a cringe worthy degree. Gets boring and repetitive very quickly. Some funny names and engrish. Too much repetition and simultaneously too many advanced enemy types in the first level. Two enemies that counter kicks? Bit weird. Lots of attention to detail such as hoods being knocked off enemies heads and enemies becoming more injured as you fight them. But the constant spit flying out of enemies as you hit them and the general feeling of grossness and lack of understanding of visual art principles makes for an uncomfortable play. Overly long levels, juvenile "badass" feel. Awkward combat. Running kick that never connects. Enemy taunts are kind of fun. Side area with nothing there but a dumb joke and annoying boss. This feels like it was made by an edgy unpleasant child who draws the cool S on his school bench. Enemies become exceedingly tanky and take ages to get up meanwhile ground follow ups like to work and not work when they feel like. Skinny and Franko is impressive but not fun or engaging. It may be the creator finally realising on the vision he promised with the originals' design but It's a world where you don't want to spend time, full of unlikeable characters being unappealing. Combo system is cool but holding attacks is too long enemies who can counter kicks appear with strange regularity early on. 3 types by mid level 2. Counter works best when it is mashed which feels weird. Some damage is unavoidable. Dragging enemies around by the head and some of the low health stuff you can do and environmental interaction is fun but every enemy has so much health and some of the abilities are so obtuse and are hard to gauge, such as the leg or arm break ground moves.

One Finger Death Punch 2 Lots of cool and unique animations and stage interactions (smashing heads into objects, using a variety of. Martial art styles) Weapons. Special moves. High intensity. Simplicity. Horrible UI. Lots of screen shake and visual clutter that is unnecessary but also because of the game's structure, excusable.

River City Girls Great art style and animation. Enemies too tanky. Hitboxes lead to hurting yourself with thrown objects and getting stuck on objects in the environment. Battles end up feeling incredibly samey and it's hard to capitalise on knocking enemies down so best to just wait. Easy to take damage and die. All around fairly un-enjoyable. Enemies scale with you so leveling up is only really for unlocking new moves. None of which particularly increase enjoyability.

River City Girls 2 A big improvement on the first. Enemies are less tanky, there are more characters and the dialogue feels more sharp and amusing, it’s easier to damage grounded enemies and the combo system is expanded. The art style is pretty great the whole way through and it extends from the characters and portraits to the HUD elements. Voice acting is great too. However bosses feel kind of dull (even though they’re really trying, things feel to rigid and repetitive). And the story, while more entertaining than the first didn’t manage to hold my interest all the way through.

Stay Cool Kobayashi San Cool animation and art. Pursuit attacks and special moves are fun to use. But game structure feels disjointed and unfinished. Dialogue heavy and text boxes and UI don't fit the style. No follow ups on the ground and enemies have getup attacks. No defensive options again.

River City Melee Mach Many fun special moves and grapple option from picking up enemies. Many weapons. Simplistic graphics and somewhat repetitive gameplay. Decent story for each team making for good replayability.

Monkey King: Hero is back Needs more integration of cool things like jumping up. Ladders, etc. Feels too much like it takes the camera away from you to do cutscenes. Combat feels dynamic and poppy, sneaking and having one hit kill weapons as well as the purge and one on one ideas are fun and make for cinematic moments. In general, giving you different ways to strategise against enemy attacks. Different strengths and weak points and corresponding tactics that keep the combat engaging. Narratively having an annoying character around is fine. But every now and then your character has to respond for the cathartic release for the player. Surprisingly dynamic and interesting although pushing it a bit further would have made it amazing. Only gameplay way to get health is to kill enemies (outside of items) so even if you're low on health you can strategise and with good gameplay and strategy, come back from critical situations.

Redeemer Redeemer takes the formula and turns it on it’s head. If only visually. It is another 3D Beat ‘em up but this time the camera is pulled way out. This combines with the excessive violence of the game and creates some moments of abstract beauty. It all looks very high quality and has a flair for the cinematic with some cool zoom-ins and slow-motion. However some cheap late-game enemies and some awkwardly edgy writing do take the wind out of the sails a little.

Fight ‘N’ Rage Bit too much of a stylistic mashup (SD characters, overly mature writing, weird VCR effects, a “TV screen” vignette, etc.) stops this one from coming together. Story feels like it was written by an edgy, 13-year old closeted furry and female characters feel unnecessarily sexualised. However the actual gameplay feels great, hits are crunchy and combos easy, you have access to a variety of special moves that can lead to further follow up moves and overkilling enemies causes them to explode into viscera. Additionally there’s tons of characters, costumes, game modes and modifiers to unlock and the story is affected by the paths you take, adding some replayability.

Shank & Shank 2 Not the most modern of additions, but I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge this game for it’s merits and the ways in which it shares similarities with Escape from Tombstone. It is also hand-drawn, includes a grappling system and takes inspiration from grindhouse cinema (in particular Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror). It’s a great time, featuring multiple weapons (and even characters in the sequel) even though the writing feels a little too inspired by the mean-spiritedness of Grindhouse. Something I’m looking to avoid.

Streets of Rage 4 I’ll keep it short as I’ve already covered SoR 4 in previous posts. But it really took presentation to the next level. Streets of Rage games have always looked nice but this one has really strong silhouettes, smooth animations, a very consistent style, lighting effects (even ON THE CHARACTERS which is insane for a 2D game). It just looks and feels polished to an absolute shine and is, as far as I’m concerned, the gold standard for modern presentation of the 'classic' spirit of the genre.

Sifu Sifu evolved the genre through the 3rd dimension. Obvious not the first to do so, it is the first release in a while that so perfectly embodies the spirit of the Beat ‘em up. It adds elements of the Soulsborne genre, expanding the moveset and adds a novel aging mechanic. However it is also very much about crowd control against a cast of diverse enemies and focuses on hand to hand combat with some weapons and environmental interaction. It plays tight and the encounters are meticulously designed. It is a modern masterpiece.

The Warriors Not the newest game on the list, this is another example of a third person/3D Beat em up. It features small, contained open-world segments with increased interaction, squad commands, a rudimentary stealth-system, a ‘Rage’ mode and an incredibly expansive movelist featuring throws, Takedowns, reversals, team-attacks, clearouts, combos, environmental interactions and weapons. And the whole thing is playable in co-op. It is a shining example of the genre and nothing else feels like this game. It has a sense of grit and more than a touch of the cinematic. Being based on 1979 cult-hit ‘The Warriors’, it also features almost the entire voice cast of the film returning and even fills in some back-story outside of the events of the film (even though it does contradict the film’s events at one point). It was also made by Rockstar before they did nothing but Red Dead Redemption and Grand theft Auto.

Mortal Kombat - Shaolin Monks Another co-op, 3D Beat ‘em up on the PS2. This one being a spin-off of the Mortal Kombat games. Features a cinematic storyline, a super-arcadey and satisfying gameplay system that features juggles, special moves, fatalities, throws, air-throws, stage-fatalities, secrets and even a unique idle animation for each character depending on if you last used a light attack, heavy attack or throw (a completely unnecessary but super charming touch).

Urban Reign The final of the notable 3D-Beat ‘em ups on the PS2. This one was made by Namco in-between releases of Tekken. It features a full multi-stage storyline and a very expansive versus mode with tons and tons of unlockable characters, weapons and stages. It plays like an absolute dream and really should get more love. It features, wall-splats, ground bounces, a limb-targeting system with individual damage calculation, reversals, grapples, co-op throws, double throws, running up walls and enemies, etc. The level of dynamic interaction in this combat system is astounding. Just as an example you could potentially: Reversal an enemy’s grapple, into a combo, launch them into the air, catching them with a grapple and then press the dash button to carry the enemy into a running throw (which will even play a unique animation should you impact with the wall during the run). The level of interactivity makes for some very dynamic decision-making and a feeling of freedom unlike anything else in the genre. Very thrilling.

Kiborg (Demo) This is probably the newest release on the list as it’s not even fully released yet. It takes a third person approach and combines Beat ‘em up tropes with a rogue-lite approach. This is interesting because both genres run on repetition and the rogue-lite parts add depth to the gameplay. You earn different mechanical augments as you move from round to round which change your abilities and the properties of some attacks. It also spices things up with ranged weapons and traps in the environment. Very well put together and very interesting, even though some of the animations feel a bit weightless and flaily.

Double Dragon Gaiden - Rise of the Dragons This game is the true return to form of Double Dragon. Featuring a crunchy, cute art-style with appealing character designs and animations. Satisfying combat, a rogue-lite system in which you level up between stages as you try to clear the bosses in any order you choose. It even features unlockable characters, a tag-system, a wave based arena mode and a developer-staple system where you have to knock out multiple enemies with a special move to receive healing. A ton of fun in a very appealing package.

[jukebox-arts]

These thoughts gotta stop, they're distracting

What's in my head this time?

Character parallels. God I love me some parallel themes and quirks, character foils are amazing and i devour them like crunchy ice, most specifically this time I've been thinking about incidental overlap and the core essence of a character.

Because I can't stop my brain sometimes, I end up throwing a bunch of things at a wall and wait for the inevitable mess to stick in terms of characterization exercises. AUs are amazing for this, as are spoofs and what-ifs, but once in a while one clicks. I make stream of consciousness notes so I just let scenes and notes form in my head without a plan and then stitch them together later (this is a new method, it's so much easier than what I was doing before, i.e. not this) and doing this lets a lot of weird things happen in terms of what the characters are doing and why.

This specific example comes from the "mafia!AU" trend catching my attention on Twitter and me wondering what the Jenn Squad would be like in that particular set up. The ease with which this plotline developed is second only to Free Runner itself, so much so that I'm pretty sure I stuck my head through a door into an alternate timeline of my own world and now I have to deal with the fact I can't close that door again. I took a bunch of notes on the ways the boys and Jenn would be different, wrote blurbs about their personalities and reactions and then I started absently comparing the two iterations to each other just for curiosity's sake.

The way certain trends, patterns and beats repeated themselves in very different ways for vastly different reasons when being allowed to flow organically without planning has astonished me. It made me genuinely appreciate both versions more by seeing what remains the same no matter what else changes.

Learning who these characters (I can hardly call them that anymore, it feels like) are at their cores is... an incredible experience, I won't lie. If you're ever stuck wondering who X is underneath it all, or hitting a wall with their development, I can't recommend enough just turning your brain off and recasting them in a completely new genre or story type and only intentionally changing their morality or background to induce a different take of the character. What IF that bad day happened? What IF they never got saved? Great great, but now change the setting too. Change how they came to be, how the world around them is so they're in turn shaped by it. Change where they started in that world and where they ended up in the present.

Turn your brain off and write them as they are, without trying to force the parallels and you might be surprised what sticks and what doesn't.

Truly, it lets you know not this specific version of the character, but their essence. What remains when everything else is stripped away and "they" are only a mass of thoughts and feelings. It lets you know what of them was made by their environment and circumstances and what's their nature inherently. Throw them at the wall, peel them off, and throw them again and again and see what sticks.

My examples for those curious:

The Free Runners are made in a world where the world is literally broken and doesn't work like a proper planet. They are manufactured and programmed with purposes to fulfil and are discarded if they can't, with some choosing exile over obsolescence in order to preserve their sense of self. All four boys have lived short lives adhering to these principals of pass-or-fail and have almost no real-world experience or ideas of self outside their programming. Jenn does know the world, its good and bad parts, and wants them to experience all of it so they become well-rounded individuals and eventually love the messed of planet she adores so much.

In contrast from nearly the opposite side of the multiverse are the Star Hearts. The boys here have lived a long time, working from the ground up to get where they are in a world that sees them as a second-class species at best and disposable at worst; here, the world never broke and the principles of human society continued into the modern era, making this Azil feel a lot like earth in many ways. None of the boys had support, didn't know the others existed until much later, and became the worst versions of themselves as a result. Jenn, in contrast, has had limited world experience due to falling into systemic problems that stole every path she could take away and left her with less than nothing save for her wits and unyielding will to live.

The beautiful parts of the two stories are the ways that despite everything being different from the world to their backstories and positions in life, some small things came out that are naturally consistent with how they think and behave even if how it manifests is different than in the other world. I feel like I've gotten to know them in a deeper way now and understand what makes them, them.

[centrally-unplanned]

I translated this entire god damn book - here is the table of contents for each chapter. Jesus was that a lot of work, I am probably not gonna do something like this again! This book was just in a very special niche at the right time.

It was an extremely fruitful and educational project, for sure - one of the reasons I set out to do it was for it to be a bit of a "crash course" in reading anime production documents and overcoming the language barrier. I upskilled a ton on specific anime vocabulary - did you know the Pokemon Seizure Episode thing was actually something of a specific animation technique, パカパカ/pakapaka? Cause I do now! - and internalizing the way animators talk about things. I feel much more confident reading primary source documents for research and such, and this was a very good, "deep end" way to learn that skill.

FLCL is also in this space where its very popular in the west, but not a big deal in Japan; it was part of the lineage of an extremely famous company, but at the end of its time; it was made while the internet was around, but before it was accessible. As such it was in that middle ground where a lot of rumor-type facts around it emerged to fill demand from western audiences, but the Japanese side of things wasn't making the mountains of documentation on it that shows like Evangelion got, that you could easily port over. I was kind of shocked at how little this book was discussed in the west - you can find endless threads on every Evangelion interview book on the right forums, but I don't think I found a single one when searching around. (At least before Hazel's video dropped).

And obviously FLCL is one of my favourite shows, and in a unique way that the book itself discusses at length. Its "the future of anime that never was", made to push ideas & aesthetics from manga & wider culture into anime that were being underrepresented in the genre. Which it succeeded at wildly as its own vision, but failed as product in a market and therefore inspired few imitators, and anime marched on. I find understanding these sort of failed attempts to open doors inherently fascinating, so documenting these sources has a lot of value.

FLCL is the failson of animes, and of course we must therefore love it.

But I now have the skills, from doing this project, I don't need to do it again. Other shows I love this much are well-documented, few fruit hang this low. And also I know what people want -virtually no one is gonna read this! I know that!! A ton of it is weird filler, for sure. I could have just skimmed this book myself, written a ~3 page highlight summary of the "good stuff", posted that, and for almost everyone that would be more payoff while I would have spent 1/20th the time. Hell Hazel did that with her video essay right in the middle of me scanning the damn thing, that obviously is gonna do better! It is almost certainly a better use of my time to aim better, be the synthesizer over the archivist. If I overcome my akrasia I might have some ideas in that department even.

And yet, I don't know man. So in the Epilogue, they discuss how none of the 'brands' that appear in FLCL are sponsorships or anything, because every object they choose has meaning:

Sadamoto: The cars that appear in the show aren't just 'cars', they're Alfa Romeos or Renaults. They're real things with brand identities. We wanted to get those objects right in "FLCL". Tsurumaki: Whether it gets across or not, I think there's a difference in character between someone who drives an Alfa Romeo and someone who drives a Corolla. Like, any given person would drive one but not the other, you know? Sadamoto: It couldn't just be any guitar, it had to be a Rickenbacker, and so on. Tsurumaki: It's like with "Lupin", where Miyazaki probably thought the thief had to drive a poor man's car. That's why Lupin drives a Fiat 500. If he drove a Mercedes, like in the source material, Miyazaki probably wouldn't have been able to love Lupin.

And sure, none of these are like core themes or character arcs or anything - but as Tsurumaki says, themes weren't the point:

Interviewer: Tsurumaki, how did you feel having rewatched the show? Tsurumaki: What I wanted to express the most was this atmosphere, you know. It's more about the ambiance, like "this is the kind of anime it is". So, when people start talking about specific themes or character arcs, I think the atmosphere tends to fall by the wayside. It is a core part of what we wanted to express.

This atmosphere comes from these little objects, all the tiny things that have intentionality behind why they are there. Even if its silly, even if its for a fucking dick joke, its still adding to the atmosphere. And you miss so many of them, not only because there are so many but because FLCL is such a product of its time & place, a foreign country & a foreign time.

There was a moment in I think Episode 4 where Tsurumaki is discussing Haruko on the baseball pitching mound, and how she looks. And he goes off on this gravure idol Kazue Fukiishi, who was the daughter of a baseball player that he had a total crush on and used as inspiration for Ninamori's design. And one time she did the ceremonial pitch for her dad's team at a game, and Tsurumaki just adored how good she looked in her modified uniform, and he pulled that for Haruko's look. And Kazue is cute in a very of-the-time way, the "spunky tomboy" aesthetic; the way all celebrities are, they both take from and define the aesthetics of eras. And Haruko, being a fucking gremlin, is like a funhouse mirror version of it - its almost like commentary.

And I actually found a picture, of that pitch, of how Kazue Fikiishi looked. Someone ~7 years ago tweeted out some captures of a broadcast from ~20 years of a nothing game featuring a forgotten softcore porn star which formed the basis for this weird little aesthetic obsession Tsurumaki wanted to play with in the outfit design for the opening scene in the fourth episode of a 6-episode OVA. And I totally see it! I see what he is going for now.

Never in a million years would I have found that picture if I was "scanning the book to write a 3 page summary". That is the level of detail that only comes from being way-too-obsessed with something, of doing something without purpose or efficiency, to have completely lost the plot on why you are even here. And FLCL is just this weird little thing where that...pays off? It actually has that level of detail put into it. Most things have something that like, but not at this density. That is something I "believed" before about FLCL, but it was by like, rep. I trusted it to be true. Now I know its true. Its knowledge I earned the only way you can; through irreplaceable time.

Which obviously I should have spent like idk advancing my career or something!! But even if the return is infinitesimal, it isn't zero - I got something for all the stupid time spent. Hopefully if you do read any of the book you will get a little bit of that too. If you love FLCL, maybe deepening your own dumb little obsession will now cost you a little less time than it did me.

ANYWAY, I may try at some point to assemble this all into a PDF, with a cleaner presentation. Might not, might be too much work; but making an ebook would be a good skill to have - certainly as good a test case for learning as any. Thanks for reading!

FLCLick Noise - Archival Scan

We should be a go!

[Internet Archive Link]

FLCLick Noise is a book published in 2010 that is a deep dive into the production of and creative influences that went into the 2000 anime FLCL by Studio GAINAX. Framed as a conversation between FLCL director and series lead Kazuya Tsurumaki, and FLCL character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, the two creatives watch the show together and record their thoughts episode-by-episode, alongside a prologue and a “bonus track”. It is in Japanese, with primarily text and screenshots from the show for use as conversational reference, though there is some art as well (almost all of which is available elsewhere).

FLCL is pretty infamous as a show for its free-wheeling compositional style and loose production process; everyone involved was able to throw in visual ideas, dialogue, plot concepts, and so on. Additionally, FLCL slots pretty clearly into GAINAX’s “Otaku commentary” oeuvre - it is very much anime, *extremely* anime, it would be ludicrous to suggest otherwise; but in addition to being anime it was also a vehicle for the creative team to put in ideas and influences that they believed the anime industry was not utilizing at the time, such as its rock-album concept soundtrack or its josei/seinen manga inspired-character designs.

It is this backdrop that makes a book like FLCLick Noise simultaneously more valuable for understanding FLCL than most other shows, and even possible to exist in the first place. Much of it is fun asides, many of the creative decisions are personal whims, but there is so much to those whims that it is worth reading a book about them. If you want to answer the question “why does FLCL exist the way that it does”, this book will answer that question in more detail than any other source will.

Alas this is a complex and large book - I will aim to translate it someday, but I cannot guarantee neither the timeline nor the quality of that translation as I am by no means a professional in that regard. If you want to get a sample of what the book contains, anime-youtuber-extraordinaire Hazel quasi-coincidentally just released a video essay on FLCL that has an entire section on this book and its contents (I learned of this book from her tweeting about it during research for the video, so the timeline is not pure kismet). If you want the highlights and so much more, it is an amazing video. Meanwhile, I do hope to post a “raw text” version of the different sections somewhat soon, to assist those who do want to read it themselves and would find that would help with the translation.

As always, I hope this is a valuable addition to the ‘akashic record’ of 90’s-era anime history, and gives something special to the FLCL-heads out there like me.

(I'll tag @flclarchives for the two-for-one this week, if they don't mind! And I apologize for the scan quality here - I wanted to do it non-destructively, as this is not a large print run book, which meant my typical flatbed was a no go and the new overhead setup I used was a comedy of errors. Fortunately this is a book about reading text, and despite the errors it's all perfectly readable.)

[obeiii-mee]

Hey! Sorry to bother you with a second ask but i thought this one would be cool. Fluffy headcanons of the demon brothers watching scary movies with MC??? Somewhere MC gets scared, and some where they don't? Thanks again!! :)

It’s no bother!! I love getting requests from you guys! The more, the merrier. I sort of hc that the brothers and MC do have movie night every week or so and with them being demons, they tend to levitate towards the horror genre. Thank you for sending this, this is really cute :)))

Without further ado—-

————————————

The Brothers watching Scary movies with MC:

Lucifer:

-Haha mf already knows how this is going to end

-He warned you, he really did

-The horror movies DevilDom has to offer are nothing, and I mean nothing, like the ones from the human world

-I’m not going to go into detail but imagine Two Girls One Cup, in a less kinky and more gorey way (then times that by 10)

-But you were adamant into giving it a go and he literally could not deny you in that moment

-Because you were giving him the puppy eyes

-That’s like, the finishing blow you use every time to get your way with him and as far as you know it’s the only one that works so-

-He expected your reaction to the last second

-You were traumatised for lack of a better word and you were basically watching the whole film through the cracks between your fingers

-Seeing you in that state was like a punch in the gut but he couldn’t stop himself from throwing in a subtle ‘I told you so’

-“I told you watching something like this before bed is a bad idea, MC.”

-He might be a bit condescending and judgemental at first, but he’s probably going to baby you a bit for the rest of the night

-Because he feels bad he allowed you to watch it in the first place

-HAHAHAHA SOFT LUCIFER HAS BEEN SUMMONED, USE HIM WISELY

-He will start muttering words of comfort to you later because he’s certain you’re going to have trouble sleeping

-Because of that one time, he’s very hesitant to let you watch another horror film anytime soon

-But he will relent eventually (especially if you want to watch a human horror film as those are technically less extreme)

-If it makes you happy, he will go through with it, even if he has to let you cling onto him for the rest of the day

-Besides, the way you cuddle into him while you’re watching a horror film is very cute and endearing to him

Mammon:

-Ah yes, the most effective method of waking up the entire House of Lamentation at 3:00 am

-Mammon screaming his own vocal cords out in his room as he tries to get through his human’s favourite horror movie without dying of a heart attack

-It was his idea because he’s definitely the type to go: “Yeah let’s do this, it will be fun. Don’t get too scared alright MC? The Great Mammon will be here to protect ya.”

-And then ten minutes in, he’s basically in your lap

-Half an hour in, he turned himself into a demon burrito with his blankets

-You were enjoying the movie, laughing at the stupid sound effects and poor quality while Mammon next to you has wrapped himself in like two dozen blankets and pillows

-“Mammon you’re going to overheat.”

-“Don’t be silly human, I’m a demon who lives in hell. I can take high temperatures the same way I can take this damn movie!”

-He doesn’t take either of them well

-Mammon and the horror genre don’t mix well together to begin with

-So even if you might enjoy horror, he doesn’t react well to it at all

-And he’ll be low-key relieved if you tell him you guys don’t have to watch any sort of horror film for your date night

-“Well I guess if you don’t want to, then we don’t have to. Can’t make my human do something they’re uncomfortable with eh?”

-But if you do watch a scary movie with him, be sure to show any sort of physical affection to him as often as possible

-You don’t have to say anything, just hold his hand or let him put his head in your lap or something

-It might stop him from screeching like a female sloth in heat

-The last time that happened, his brothers weren’t too pleased with him

-They about to recreate the horror film scenes onto him, bring the popcorn have fun

Levi:

-For some reason, I feel like he doesn’t get scared easily while watching stuff

-I mean, after decades of obsessively watching animes with brutal character deaths (like Attack on Titan style) and grotesque horror games that are pretty nasty even to demons, let alone humans;

-A horror film, from the human world or even DevilDom, doesn’t do much for him

-It will have to have very good psychological horror in it if you want the hairs on his arms to stand up in anticipation

-Tension is a big deal for him and he will immediately shut off the TV if there are any cheap jump scares

-But, if you manage to find just the right thing for him?

-You’ll both be hiding under the bed in no time under the bathtub more like

-Hell, if the film you’re watching is that good, he might even be holding onto you for dear life without realising it and getting flustered about it

-For weeks afterwards, any sound that is remotely similar to one from that movie will probably send both of you into panic

-You came to his room one night because you’ve had a nightmare about the stupid film and legitimately thought there was a fucking demon serial killer in your room

-So you wanted to stay in his

-“But what if there is a serial killer in your room and now you just led it to me MC????”

-It’s all jokes, there’s no question he would lock both of you in his room and then stay there with you wide awake until dawn

-You’re his best friend after all, he would have to be completely heartless to leave you on your own! (Besides Levi is terrifying when he wants to be)

-One time you were sleeping over and the sound of fumbling woke you tf up

-And Levi immediately turned into his demon form, like he was ready to throw hands with this fictional murderer that supposedly sneaked into his room

-“DON’T WORRY MC, I’LL PROTECT YOU!”

-“Ah never mind, it’s just Mammon breaking into your room again to steal your Ruri-Cham figurines and sell them on Akuzon.”

-“Oh OK.”

-“.....”

-“WAIT MAMMON WTF YOU FUCKING SCUMBAG, GET OUT OF MY ROOM-“

-I’m playing Minecraft

Satan:

-Believe it or not, Satan doesn’t care much about horror movies

-Don’t get me wrong, he loves watching his brothers shit their pants out of fear in the middle of one while he silently smirks to himself because watching other people suffer brings him euphoria

-Especially if someone actually manages to find a film that is excellent enough to spook Lucifer, because then he will be cackLING

-But, overall, he watches a lot of shows revolved around drama and crime

-That’s his thing

-However, he won’t turn you down if you’re up to watching a scary movie with him

-Any time spent with you is valuable time seeing as it won’t be long before his brothers start hogging you again like the cockblockers they are

-He is honestly surprised to find out you seem to be rather amused by those sort of movies

-So, even if it’s not inherently something he does on the regular, he would definitely watch a scary film with you if you enjoy them that much

-But in exchange, he makes you promise to read with him until bedtime rolls around (imagine Lucifer having a fucking curfew for his brothers and you lmao)

-So for the rest of night you guys just read together, ya know, like sappy romantics

-Tbh, this man will do almost anything with you as long as both of you are having fun

-He knows it’s not likely, but he insists on sleeping in the same room that night just in case you have nightmares and he needs to comfort you

- :)

-Satan is a gentleman. Idk how many people that don’t play OM expected to hear this

Asmo:

-Why would you want to watch a movie when you could be watching him???

-I mean, you would rather watch all that gory stuff on the TV than his beautiful face?

-He may get salty over a fucking movie tbh

-Horror films aren’t something he generally looks for while trying to pick a movie to watch

-He can definitely handle them better than Mammon but it’s not something he takes great pleasure in watching

-But the first time he ever sits down with you to watch one, he’s very intrigued to see your reactions

-You started feeling the sensation of absolute dread creep in at the very beginning and you were trying your best to act like you weren’t getting affected by what you saw on the screen

-But you were

-You went from “I’m grown ass adult, I can watch a fucking horror movie, no problem.”

-To “Welp, not enough of a grown ass adult for this-“

-And Asmo thought the way you tried to hide your nervousness was very mesmerising in a way

-He was planning on flirting with you during the movie anyway, but now that you were pressing himself against him?

-Oh boy, Oh boy

-“Darling if you wanted to touch me, you could’ve just said so. Making the excuse of watching a movie is unnecessary.”

-Nightmares? What nightmares? You won’t have time to have nightmares ;)

-haHAHA funny inappropriate joke

-It’s Asmo, it’s mandatory to have at least one of those added in here

Beel:

-Beel will show up if there’s food and that’s that

-He doesn’t care what type of movie is playing on the TV as long as he has a bucket of popcorn next to him at all times

-Horror films aren’t something he can’t handle, he’s a demon like the rest of his brothers and he is used to...violent deaths and such

-He doesn’t get scared but there are times where he gets attached to the characters

-Especially movies with actual good and not cringeworthy dialogue

-Therefore, when they die, he gets sad even if they’re just fictional and their death had no real impact

-He also thinks that the way you can watch these things without flinching is impressive

-I mean, he can watch it and so can his brothers because they are demons

-They’ve done worse things than the things you see in horror films

-But you’re a human! So it’s weird to see you watch a person get repeatedly slammed against a wall until their neck snaps without batting an eyelid

-Overall, he does not have an opinion on scary movies

-He gets a bit emotional when a character he really liked dies

-But other than that, he’s just focused on eating

-And occasionally patting your head affectionately

Belphie:

-He doesn’t really like horror films because there’s a lot of screaming and tense music and he’s just trying to nap in your lap (rhyme)

-He doesn’t really need sound effects like that in the background while he’s trying to sleep

-But one day he was like “Hey, what if I show my favourite human this particular scary film?”

-And he did

-And he’s internally dying and feeling guilty and yet so flustered because of you

-It’s like you suddenly turn into this very fidgety and anxious mess and he thinks you just look....cute

-At some point you were getting overwhelmed and sprung up on your feet to turn the lights on

-And he just grabbbed your wrists, pulled you down next to him and let you press your head against his chest

-As mentioned, he’s a little shit and will tease you for being such a scaredy cat

-“That was the most predictable jumpscare and you still flinched, wth is wrong with you lmao.”

-But at the same time....

-“Relax. It’s just a horror movie. You’ll be fine. Besides, I’m here. Like I would let something bad happen to you.”

-That’s sweet, even if the tone of voice may not imply it because he’s such a brat-

-He actually really likes holding you for once, because usually he’s the little spoon

-He’s still a bit of a sadist so I imagine him sitting there and watching this while giggling to himself

-Isn’t he the cutest, laughing at other people’s misery and their never ending suffering?🥺🥺🥺 UwU

-Ah well, at least he has the decency to spoil with affection afterwards and make sure you have no nightmares that night

-You know, as payback for the horrific shit he made you watch with no warning

————————————

OK, I think I made a decent job of this even though it took longer than it actually was meant to. Thank you for reading though. I’ve got so many requests to go through and I’ve been feeling motivated lately so yeah!

See you soon

Al~

[joneswuzhere]

hello join me in thinking about some books and authors that are, or might be, part of s5′s intertextuality

5.10 in particular offered specific shout outs, and also u know i’m always wondering what might be ahead so i have some ideas on that:

- first, as mentioned in a previous ask post, i know i wasn’t alone in keeping an eye out for 5.10 parallels to the lost weekend (1945) the film that gave episode 1.10 its name and several themes - or to the 1944 book by charles r jackson which the film is based on

- s5 has not been shy about revisiting earlier seasons, especially s1. altho i feel that 1.10′s parallels to the lost weekend centered characters other than jughead (mostly betty), a 1.10-5.10 connection involving jughead and themes from jackson’s story (addiction, writers block, self reflection) seemed v possible if not inevitable

- but like,, , for a hot minute after the ep, i was really stumped on understanding how anything from the book or film could apply, even tho the pieces were almost all there

- jackson’s protagonist don birnam goes thru and comes out the other side of a harrowing days-long drinking binge that could be compared to jughead’s one-night hallucinogenic writing retreat

- but jughead is struggling primarily with traumatic memories, not addiction and self control like birnam. and tho drinking activates birnam’s creativity, it paralyzes his writing as he gets lost in fantasies; he’s never published anything. jughead’s drug trip recreates circumstances that already helped him write one successful book. even the rat that startles him mid-high doesn’t line up with birnam’s withdrawal vision of a dying mouse, symbolic of his horror at his own self-destruction thru alcohol

- and maybe the most visible discordance: in the film there’s a romantic motif around a typewriter. first it’s an object of shame; birnam’s failure to write, tied up with his drinking, makes him flee his relationship. he tries to pawn the typewriter for booze money and finally a gun when shooting himself feels easier than getting sober. but with the help of relentless encouragement from girlfriend helen, he quits drinking, commits to her, and focuses on typing out the story he’s dreamt of writing. rd goes so far to avoid setting any comparable scenario that jughead has brought a wholeass printer into the bunker so there can still be a physical manuscript to cover in blood by the end, even without his own typewriter. the subtle detail of his laptop bg image is a little less noticeable than his avoidance of betty’s gift

- tabitha might be closer to a parallel than jughead is, but she’s still no helen. both refuse to take advantage of the inebriated men in their care, but birnam takes advantage of helen, financially and emotionally. jughead refused a loan from the tate family and now has resolved to deal with his shit before he considers a relationship with tabitha. instead of helen’s relentless and unwelcomed attempts to get birnam sober, tabitha reluctantly agrees to help jughead trip safely bondage escape notwithstanding. she even helps him get the drugs.

- whatever potentials exist for parallels to jackson’s story, they were not explored for this episode. ok so why tf am i even talking about this? what was there instead?

-  i have arrived at the point

- s5 has been revisiting s1, not directly but with a twist. and jughead’s agent samm pansky is back. u may recall, pansky is named for sam lansky

- jughead’s trip-thru-trauma is a story device tapped straight from lansky’s book ‘broken people’

- lansky is like if a millenial john rechy wrote extremely LA-flavored meta but just about himself no jk very like a modern successor to charles r jackson. both play with the boundary between memoir and fiction. lansky is gay; jackson wrote his lost weekend counterpart as closeted and remained closeted himself until only a few years before his death. both write with emotional clarity and self-scrutiny on the experiences of addiction, sobriety, and the surrounding issues of shame and self worth

- i feel like a fool bc after this ep i had been thinking about de quincey and his early writings on addiction (c.1800s), but i failed to carry the thought in the other direction, to contemporary writers in the genre, to make this connection sooner

- lansky’s second book, broken people, follows narrator ‘sam’, mid-20s, super depressed, hastled by his agent to write a decent follow-up to his first book, but too busy struggling with his self-worth and baggage from several past relationships. desperate, he takes up an offer to visit a new age shaman who promises to fix everything wrong with him in a matter of days. not to over simplify it but he literally spends a weekend doing psychedelics and hallucinating about his exes. jughead took note

- unless u want me to hurl myself into yet another dissertation about queer jughead, i think his parallel to sam - who, unlike jughead, has considerable financial privilege and whose anxieties center on body dysmorphia, hiv scares, and his own self-centeredness - pretty much ends there

- But,, the gist of the book could not be more harmonius with a major theme shared by the 2 films that inform the actual hallucination part of jughead’s bunker scene: mentally reframing past relationships to get closure + confronting trauma head-on in order to move forward

- so that’s neat. what other book and author stuff was in 5.10?

- stephen king and raymond carver get name dropped. i’m passingly familiar with them both but u bet i just skimmed their wiki bios in case anything relevant jumped out

- like jughead, carver was a student (later a lecturer) at the iowa writers workshop. also the son of an alcoholic and one himself

- i recall carver’s ‘what we talk about when we talk about love’ is what jughead was reading in 2.14 ‘the hills have eyes’ after he finds out about the first time betty kissed archie (at that time he does not respond as would any of carver’s characters)

- this collection of carver stories deals especially with infidelity, failings of communication, and the complexities and destructiveness of love. to unashamedly quote the resource that is course hero, ‘carver renders love as an experience that is inherently violent bc it produces psychic and emotional wounds.’ very fun to wonder about the significance of this collection within the s2 episode and in jughead’s thoughts. and maybe now in the context of the s5 state of relationships. or, at least, the state of jughead’s writing as seen by his agent

- anyway pansky doesn’t want carver, he wants stephen king

- i have too much to say about gerald’s game in 5.10, that’s getting its own post someday soon

- lol wait king’s wife is named tabitha uhhh king’s wiki reminded me of his childhood experience that possibly inspired his short story ‘the body’ (+1986 movie ‘stand by me’) when he ‘apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train tho he has no memory of the event’

- no mention of that in this rd episode but memories of a train could be interesting to consider with the imagery that intrudes on jughead’s hallucination. i still feel like it was a truck but the lights and sounds he experiences may be a train

- ok now we’re in the speculation part of today’s segment

- if jughead’s traumatic memory involves trains, then it’s possible this plot will take influence from la bête humaine <- this 1938 movie is based on the 1890 novel by french writer émile zola. this story deals with alcoholism and possessive jealousy in relationships, sometimes leading to murder. huh, kind of like carver. zola def comes down on the nature side of the nature-vs-nuture bad seed question (tho i should say he approaches this with great or maybe just v french compassion). also i can’t tell if this is me reaching but, something about la bête humaine reminds me of king’s ‘secret window’ which we’ve observed to be at least a style influence on jughead post time jump

- but wow a late-19th century french writer would be a random thing to drop into this season, right? then again zola also wrote about miners, which we’ve learned are an important part of this town’s history + whatever hiram is up to this time.  and most notably, zola wrote ‘j’accuse...!’ an open letter in defense of a soldier falsely accused and unlawfully jailed for treason: alfred dreyfus. archie’s recent army trouble comes to mind.

- since the introduction of old man dreyfuss (plausibly Just a nod to close encounters actor richard dreyfuss, but also when is anything in this show Just one thing) i’ve been wondering if these little things could add up to a season-long reference to zola’s writings. but i had doubts and didn’t want to speak on it too soon bc, u know, it’s weird but is it weird enough for riverdale??

- however,,,

- (come on, u knew where i was going with this)

- a24′s film zola just came out. absolutely no relation to the french writer, it’s not based on a book but an insane and explicit twitter thread by aziah ‘zola’ wells about stripping and? human trafficking?? this feels ripe for rd even outside the potentials here for the lonely highway/missing girls plot.

- that would add up to a combination of homage that feels natural to this show

- anyway pls understand i’m just having fun speculating, most of this is based on nothing more concrete than the torturous mental tendril ras has hooked into my skull pls let go ras pls let go

[microsuedemouse]

man it has been a MINUTE since I made my own post about anything fandom-related on this website but @suzirya is blogging about The Old Guard and I haven’t seen anyone else talking about it really and I’ve got. some thoughts

I had literally never heard of this movie at all until a few nights ago when we were eating dinner in the living room and my dad pulled it up and said ‘hey I want to watch this’ and played the trailer for my brother and me. We were pretty much like yeah, sure, we all enjoy a good action flick, and aside from my other brother (who was occupied with D&D) it ended up being the whole family watching it. and I enjoyed it WAY more than I’d anticipated, especially for something I’d never heard about.

if you don’t know what I’m talking about: drop what you’re doing and go watch The Old Guard on Netflix. (it’s a Netflix original so yes it will be there.) it’s a very fun and good action film based on a series of graphic novels about a small group of immortals trying to do what’s right. there are many selling points but one of them is that it will be very good for your little gay soul, bc Charlize Theron stars (in a character with no explicitly-stated romances but lots of relationships that will make you Feel Things) and two of the other main characters are two men who met during the Crusades and are just amazingly in love with each other. And not in a vague way that the straights can interpret as Powerful Friendship. They are explicitly in love with each other and so devoted and ugh.

ANYWAY. putting the rest of my chattering under a cut bc spoilers and also I’m a wordy piece of shit

1 - early in this movie I was thinking about how glad I am that Charlize Theron has stepped into this role of like... cool female action star, but also, her characters are never super sexed up. almost any female characters I can think of in action movies, if they’re part of the action rather than victims/bystanders, are always made sexy. even when they’re Strong sexy, they’re still... a lot sometimes? I was thinking especially of some Angelina Jolie stuff, Scarlett Johanssen, etc. there are probably lots of exceptions to this that I just don’t know but still - we’ve had Theron in several roles like this recently, and appearance-wise she’s treated with the same respect as her male counterparts, which is so fucking cool and also such a fucking relief. we all love beautiful ladies, obviously, but it’s so SO good to see our female heroes just doing their jobs, without us ever being made aware of their sexuality.

and as the movie went on this was hitting me more and more, and I was also thinking it about... everyone? like. the other female lead, played by KiKi Layne, was arguably more feminine than Theron but not any more sexualised. even once she’s out of her army fatigues she’s dressed with practicality in mind, and again, we never have her female-ness pointed out to us. and I was so about every bit of that. both objectively and as a person whose relationship to female-ness and femininity is kind of weird, it’s such a good thing to see leading women whose gender and appearances and bodies aren’t being focussed on that way.

and as a sidebar to that, while I wouldn’t describe any of the prominent male characters as unattractive by any means, none of them were like... Marvel-actor hot. and I just, idk, especially in action/superhero movies, that’s refreshing to me. a lot of them looked like Regular Dudes in a way that I find very appealing.

2 - can we TALK about Joe and Nicky. holy shit. my brother and I kept leaning over to each other to be like ‘if anything happens to either of them I’ll riot.’ I MEAN.

we got a genuine, explicit, on-screen established romance between these men. it was not implied, it was not just how the actors played it in the hopes that people would catch on - it was right there. they hold each other to sleep, they kiss each other with such love, they talk to other characters about how much they adore each other. they met during the Crusades. they’ve been in love for centuries! and they’re so sweet, so devoted, so adoring! and they never have any arguments or tension to further the plot (one of my personal most-hated plot devices in any story with an established relationship). they just spend this movie loving each other, protecting each other and their weird little family, doing anything they can for each other. they’re taken prisoner and spend their time awake joking and making each other smile. and the one singular bit of casual homophobia they encounter on-screen is met with a declaration of love so heartfelt and intense that the guy who made the shitty comment literally doesn’t know what to say - which is a brief but extremely good scene in the movie, imo.

oh, also worth noting: this romance is biracial and interfaith (inasmuch as either of them may be men of faith after being alive for centuries). just to add to how good this is to see on-screen. all of this on top of them being IMMORTAL AND UNKILLABLE. NO GAYS BURIED HERE

2.5 - can I talk for a second about how goddamn much I love seeing non-hetero romance in genre fiction!!! I know it’s getting easier to find, but still. genre fiction is very much my domain and I love seeing queer romance there, especially when it’s simply an accepted fact and the characters’ queerness isn’t central to the story. narratives about queerness are good and important and serve a function but most of them aren’t really my thing, personally. a story that’s about all kinds of other things but also has queer characters there, being themselves, being in love, is so 1000% my shit.

3 - also? Charlize Theron’s character, Andy?? fascinating from a queer perspective. she doesn’t have any explicitly-stated romance with anyone, but her relationships with other characters are so compelling and so interesting. The backstory about her and another immortal, Quynh, very very distinctly gives you the impression that they were women in love. everything about Andy’s guilt and bitterness over not having been able to find/save Quynh feels so much like there was a romance there. it could have been platonic or familial - they were together, without anyone else, for centuries at least, and therefore obviously developed a very deep love - but the way Andy talks about Quynh it feels so much like there was something left unsaid, or unresolved.

also, her scene with the clerk in the pharmacy. oh my god. this woman clearly recognises that whatever is going on with Andy, something is wrong, and she offers her help, no questions asked. she takes her into the back room and patches up her wound. this scene has such an inherent intimacy because of the close quarters and the privacy and the act taking place, but... there’s also this really interesting connection happening between them, where they recognise something in one another but don’t state it. (personally, I couldn’t help wondering if the clerk was a domestic abuse survivor, maybe? but there are so many ways you could interpret her character from her behaviour and dialogue in that scene, and I’d love to see other people’s takes.)

and then on the other hand you have her relationship with Booker, who’s been with her the longest out of any of the living immortals. they’re incredible. their relationship is so, so interesting and well-depicted! they have such chemistry, that you can easily read as romantic or platonic. they’ve been together for so many hundreds of years and they work together, trust each other, with such a deep understanding and love and respect. and it never quite tips over into the romance you kind of think it will, which imo only makes it that much more compelling - there are so many directions you could take that dynamic.

4 - and then on the topic of Booker: I am SO into the way his betrayal was handled.

he did, undeniably, betray the others. there’s no argument on that fact. his motivations were understandable (and heartbreaking), even to Andy, though certainly not an excuse. so yes, they were furious with him. reasonably so! but... that didn’t actually break their relationships with him. they didn’t leave him behind in the lab, even if in some ways they might have wanted to. and in the ensuing battle, they were still able to work together and trust each other as they always have. the damage done to their larger relationship was put aside to be dealt with after all of this, as it should be. and even when they did deal with it, what they agreed on was just a century of exile from their group. given the lives they’re all living, that seems like such a mild sentence.

but to me, it makes so much sense. again, these people have lived for centuries, and there are so few of them. they need each other. the bonds they’ve formed over all this time together - the trust, the love, the sense of family - would not only be vital to both their survival and their sanity, but also incredibly difficult to truly break. what he did would seem unforgivable from an outside perspective, and even after that century passed I’m certain he’d have to earn back their trust and respect, but it makes absolute sense that they’d be willing to take him back one day.

god. GOD. I’m sure there’s more I could talk about but this is what I can think of right now and I’ve been typing for like forty minutes probably so I’m done for now but.

god.

this movie and its characters GOT ME, guys. I’m really in it. ugh UGH

[dalamjisung]

addicted ❁ choi youngjae

word count: 3676

genre: fluff

pairing: reader x choi youngjae

description: you might be three years late, but good things come for those who wait.

You meet through Tinder because that’s how everyone meets nowadays. Or maybe you meet before that; get introduced before, talk before— at the coffee shop he works,— but officially meet through Tinder. Yeah, that’s how you know his name, anyways. Youngjae. At the coffee shop you don’t really talk, but you text and that’s even worse than Tinder; you want to hear his voice. He has a nice voice and it calms you down when he says that everything will be alright, his overwhelmingly fake confidence taking over your overwhelmingly misplaced anxiety. A match made in heaven, really. 

Too bad it took you almost three years to notice. But you know now; oh, boy, how you know. You know from the moment you wake up, when you get dressed and your hand linger on your AC/DC t-shirt, thinking about how he likes the band and how you only know that because you know he’s in charge of the playlist in the coffee shop. You think of him in the afternoon, walking down the hill to the small town, when’re you know that, crossing under the bridge, on the other side of the tracks, he will be, inside the coffee shop, cleaning the table next to the counter, because he always seems to be cleaning that table when you get to the shop– he will smile, make a joke or two, and pull out the chair for your heavy book bag. More than ever, though, you think of him at night, when you are about to leave the shop after a long day of homework and essays, and when he’s not even on shift, but rather just hanging out there, since all his friends work there intermittently, and before you go he hands you a cup– tea, hot chocolate, coffee… whatever he feels you might need for the walk home. You always try to pay, and he always laughs it off, which consequently makes you two start to bicker, annoying and amusing everyone around you at the same time. You haven’t payed for coffee in five months.

For months that’s how it is; the both of you talk, ignoring the whole Tinder thing. Until it happens again. It’s about four or five months later when your roommate, Mina, having one of her usual breakdowns, convince you to download Tinder with her. It happens from time to time– she realizes she feels alone, downloads a dating app, goes out with a guy, and, once it inherently goes bad, vows to never do it again. You on the other hand, never reaches the ‘going out’ stage. You chat with people and it’s all fun and games until they ask you out and you get fed up with this whole thing. It’s just what happens– until Youngjae. You notice his smile before anything else– it’s a picture of him in front of the Koffee Haus, mid-laugh in the sun. Only after you feel a familiar warmth spreading, you realize it’s him. Youngjae. Choi Youngjae. Barista Youngjae. Your Youngjae. 

Three days pass and you refuse to swipe. Not left, nor right; you stay put, in hopes that the app crashes or malfunctions and reloads automatically. As if you were that lucky. His face is the first thing you see when you open the app, time and time again, and you know you have to make a decision and stick by it. You know that if you swipe right, you can’t bail– you’ll have to follow through, for everyone’s sake, your’s included. It takes a two-hour conversation with your roommate and a full afternoon with him to settle it; you’ll swipe right as soon as you get home. 

Saying you ran all the way back to your dorm is downplaying it, but as soon as you get there, finding Mina in the kitchen, you swipe right. The relief is as instant as the ‘It’s a match!’ screen, and the fear comes as quick as Mina’s bodyslam. She is shouting out of excitement after knocking your air out of your lungs and leaving you in the ground as she runs around the small apartment, screaming incoherent things about love and unicorns. 

“You have to text him!” 

You don’t, you want to scream back out of pure stubbornness, but you know she is right. You have to commit to it, that’s the only way you’ll ever be able to do this. Dating has been an issue for you ever since you can remember. The whole things about intimacy and vulnerability just wasn’t your forte… 

“Okay,” You take a deep breath, hand grabbing your phone firmly. “You’re right, I have to text him– I mean, I swiped right! It would only make sense!”

“Exactly,” Mina agrees, breathing harsh like yours. She is nervous for you and that is one of the reasons why you’ve been roommates for almost four years. Your friendship being much more than a simple word and title; she’s been family ever since you’ve known her. “And it’s not weird! You don’t have to worry about that– cause I know you are– because he also swiped on you! It’s like a mutual confession of attraction or something.”

“You’re right,” You repeat. “There is nothing to be embarrassed. And who says the woman can’t make the first move? We’re on the goddamn 21st century, you know? If he wants to make it weird because I texted first–“

“Just do it!”

You scream as you do it– putting your password, looking for the app, and finally opening the chat. 

Hello again. 

Well, you were not expecting that. 

“He texted you,” Mina shouts in your ear. “Oh my god, Y/N, he texted you!”

The night goes like that, filled with screams and giggles and excitement, and you only wished it would last forever. When you see him at the coffee shop the next day, you wave, blushing when he winks back. He is not on shift, and you know. He excitedly chats with his friends about life and you know he’s looking at you– you can feel his gaze heavy on the top of your head. He circles around you like a shy kid, sitting on three different places in thirty minutes. First the stools in front of you, then the ones behind you, and finally the table across the small room from yours. You end up ditching homework and talking to him for hours, once you gather enough courage to invite him to sit with you. 

A joke here, a joke there, and Youngjae is suddenly more and more present in your daily life; talking to you almost everyday for a week. At the coffee shop, in person, and then back at your dorm, through Tinder. It got constant enough that people started to notice– the other baristas, his friends, your friends. Everyone watching, keeping tabs, asking. It got to the point that it freaked you out enough to ask for his phone number, so that everyone wouldn’t always be staring at your phone, waiting for his name to pop up on an app notification. You think you’ve got it all down once he gives it to you, but the despair comes back when his first text comes through. 

Okay, so what are your expectations out of this?

The conversation ends with you crying on your carpet at 1AM, anxiously waiting for a text back. A confirmation, a rejection, anything but silence. 

I like you too. 

“Y/N,” Mina gasps, reading the message out loud, enough to be heard over your crying. “I am so happy for you, babes.”

She joins you on the floor, hugging you as you cry even more, relieved that you haven’t ruined everything.

“What was there to ruin, love?” She asks, holding your hand. 

“I live at the Koffee Haus, Mina,” You sigh, sniffling every now and then. “The people in there are like family to me. Jackson, Bambam, Yugyeom, Jaebeom, Jinyoung, Mark. If I had ruined all of this just because of a boy I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself…” “But he’s not just a boy,” She points out.

“How do you know?” You ask, eyes closing. “I’m the one that likes him, and even I’m not sure.”

“Because I know you,” She shrugs. “Years of living together will do that to you, babes. You are the most calculating person I know– always careful to not hurt or bother anyone, measuring your words to not offend anyone, doing your best to pass unnoticed and not interrupt anyone. You decided to do this, Y/N– you consciously decided to do this. He is not just a boy. He can’t be.”

“I’m scared,” You whisper, squeezing her hand. 

“Of what?”

“Of messing up.”

You wake up on the carpet and late for your morning class. Deciding to skip (for once in your life,) you take a shower and calmly go back to your bed, where your back cracks and relaxes as you fall asleep again. Mina is the one to wake you up once she’s back.

“Y/N,” She giggles. “Babes, it’s already three in the afternoon. Wake up.”

You mumble something and tiredly open your eyes, smiling lightly. 

“I needed this sleep,” You yawn, sitting up.

“I know,” Mina drops her bag in the ground and climbs on your bed with you, sitting with her back against the wall, and you do the same, your shoulders touching. “You are probably tired from studying at the Koffee Haus for hours– sometimes you just need a break.”

“What are you talking about?” You laugh. “I haven’t been at the coffee shop since yesterday. I slept the whole day… Should I email my professor?”

“Does that mean you have been ignoring Youngjae since yesterday?!” Mina shrieks, making your eyes go wide as both of you lunge towards your cellphone. 

“Oh my god, no,” You groan, rapidly clicking on your phone so that the screen lights up. “I put it on silent.”

“Goddamn it,” Mina scrolls through the various notifications. “You and this phone… I think it’s been on silent since day one.”

“There!” You shout, and unlock the screen.

We missed you today… everything okay?

“Okay, it’s not that bad,” You shrug, typing out a response. “How does ‘lol just took a very needed nap’ sounds?”

“Sounds good,” Mina approves and the two of you giggle. “This feels like we are back to being fourteen.”

“I know, right?” You smile. “Feels good…”

“Well, get ready, girl,” Mina winks. “It’s about to get much better.”

Everything that comes next goes by in what feels like a second; you keep going to the Koffee Haus, of course, and Youngjae keeps giving you free coffee, although you insist to pay every time. Homework gets done– even though it takes longer with your distracted stares and his not-so-subtle winks– and drinks are made, and within a week, you have a date, a time, and a place. Friday night, 9PM, at the Tavern. Things are going fast– too fast,– but you like it, because then it doesn’t give you enough time to back down. It is just the pace for you. 

Friday comes in a blink and you are nervous, pacing the room in your underwear as Mina pulls black jeans after black jeans in an effort to put something together. 

“If you want to put some makeup,” She says moving on to your tops drawer. “The time is now; you’re already late.”

“I’m nervous,” You say as you covered some pimples with concealer. “Like, really nervous.”

“It shows,” Mina laughs and her head pops behind you in the mirror. “It’s cute.”

Things are simple, from the way you are dressed to the place Youngjae chose, and you hope things stay like that as you walk down the hill to meet him. You see him through the window a little before he sees you, too distracted chatting with Jackson and Jinyoung and you can’t help but feel more and more nervous. What are they doing there? Are they there do observe the shit show this will eventually be once you mess up? Oh God, what if–

“Hey! Come in,” Youngjae chuckles from the door. “We have a date, remember?”

“How could I forget?” You joke and your voice cracks a little, suddenly feeling light headed and out of air. His smile doesn’t falter, but you see it in his eyes– he noticed. 

Guiding you to a table a little away from the other, you sit down before ordering a drink. Youngjae chuckles and small talk starts– how-are-you-where-are-you-from kind of small talk and you hate it. You absolutely hate it because you knew it all; you knew his hometown, his age, his birthdate. You’ve been through this already when you first met, three years ago. You think he notices, squinting his eyes at you as you finish your drink in three gulps and muttering something. 

“What?” You ask, allowing your uncomfortableness to come out as a low chuckle. 

“Nothing,” He shakes his head.

“No, come on,” You whine. “What were you laughing about?”

“Honestly?” He asks, leaning forward. You nod. “You just look really beautiful and I got distracted.”

What follows is probably something you will never forget, because that is the moment you felt so embarrassed that you allow your head to bang the table. Getting up, you see him laughing and you smile, finally seeing in person that photo of him in the sun. He looks ethereal, even under the purple lights of the dimly lit bar. After that, however, conversation is fluid; it is almost as if by head butting the table, you embarrassed yourself enough to not feel embarrassed by anything else. Anxiety came and went, still, but Youngjae allowed no space for it, simply grabbing your hands and gesturing in between you and him.

“It’s just us,” He’d whisper, getting closer and closer to you. “Don’t worry, everything is alright, yeah? Just you and me, Y/N.”

“Okay,” You’d smile nervously. “Just you and I.”

Turned out it wasn’t just you and him, and that Chaemin, an ex-something of yours– ex-fling, ex-friend, ex-everything,– seemed to quite enjoy going to the Tavern too, arriving in the most loud and obnoxious way possible. He walks in as if he owns the place, and you feel nausea taking over. 

“Oh shit,” Youngjae says when he spots Chaemin. Sighing, he offer a polite smile to the boy that kept staring at you two. “Fucking douchebag. He comes to the Koffee Haus almost everyday…”

“I know,” You gulp. “I see him, too.”

“Hey, your hands are cold as shit,” He frowns. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah!” You exclaim, maybe a little too loud for him to believe you. “It’s just; just– that’s–“

“Hey, what did I say before?” Now his hands is fully on yours, fingers laces, palms together. “You and me, Y/N. I’m having a great time and I won’t let fucking Vanilla Latte there ruin it.”

You smile, chuckling a little.

“Vanilla latte?” You ask, leaning forward enough to meet me him halfway over the table. The tension is so palpable anyone can feel it, and you think you might just kiss, with everyone looking and you don’t even care. But he backs away. You see something flashing in his eyes, but it’s gone in a second and the conversation goes back to its natural flow. His hands never leave yours, though, and you especially loved when he’d squeeze them together, assuring you once again. 

Four hours pass as if they were a few minutes and soon enough you are getting calls and texts about your whereabouts. 

“Sorry,” You smile. “Just have to assure my roommate I’m alive.”

“Nah, it’s alright,” He winks and gets up. “Tell her I only kill after the third date.”

Youngjae goes to bathroom and you take your time in your phone, promising every single friend that texted that you are alive and well. One of the baristas brings another drink and you look at her surprised.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I–“

“It’s on the house, love,” She says and offers you a smile. “I’m Vanessa.”

“Oh, thank you then!” You exclaim happily. “I’m Y/N, nice to meet you.”

“Pleasure’s mine,” Vanessa says. “It’s nice to see Youngjae laughing.”

Before you can say anything, you feel a hand on your lower back. 

“Gossiping about me, girls?” Youngjae laughs.

“Of course,” Vanessa winks at you. “I had to meet the girl that made it here.”

“Alright, alright,” He whines and jokingly pushes her away. “You can have a date with her another day.”

You laugh and you finally realize how relaxed you have been for the past hour or so. Youngjae had that effect on you– he made you feel like being yourself was the only and best option. And that’s when you realize you actually like him– enough to want to ask him out, enough to want to kiss him, enough to want to have him, and give yourself in return. 

“It’s already one in the morning,” You laugh checking your phone. “Guess we’ve been here for a while…”

“Do you have anything important tomorrow?” Youngjae asks, squeezing your hand and caressing it with his thumb. “I can walk you home now, if you want…”

“I guess,” You mumble, suddenly remembering everything you had to do the next day. “But you don’t have to walk me home if that’s not the way you’re going anyways.”

“I’m coming back here after I drop you off,” He shrugs. “I just don’t like the idea of you walking alone at night.”

“You’re coming back?” You say, getting up and gathering your things. “Then you definitely don’t need to walk me all the way back– I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Nope,” Youngjae smiles. “Let me just pay the bill and we’ll go.”

He’s gone in a second, and you take the chance to slip a ten dollar bill in his discarded jacket’s pocket. Once he’s back, he puts the jacket on and you smile, following him outside. He extends his hand to you and you grab it excitingly, only then realizing you feel for a trap– you pull away laughing, with your ten dollar bill in hand. The walk is filled with whispers and laughter and the back and forth of the ten dollar bill– it’s only when Youngjae manages to put it on your jacket’s pocket that he pulls you close by the waist, nose touching each other, and asks.

“Can I kiss you?”

You can help but giggle as you nod, and he is quick to claim your lips, claiming the rest of you in consequence. He is surprisingly firm for someone that is so gentle otherwise; lips more giving than demanding, and hands possessive and careful. You almost forget that you are in the middle of a sidewalk, if it wasn’t for Chaemin’s laughter coming from a distance. 

“Youngjae,” You mutter, slowing down the kiss. “Let’s go, there are people coming.”

“No,” He groans, hiding his face in your neck. “Fuck them. I want more kisses.”

“Let’s go, you child,” You laugh, and pull him by the hand in a hurry, but it’s too late. Chaemin and his friends see you, and from his face, you know he won’t leave it alone.

“Well, hello there,” Chaemin shouts. “You two look quite… friendly.”

Youngjae looks at you, confused as you take a step back, partially hiding behind him. 

“You were never that friendly with me, Y/N,” He says. “Good to see you’re changing for the better…”

“Is she, though?” One of his friends ask, and you recognize her from the Theater department. “Or is it the free coffee? She is there everyday, after all.”

“Oh, maybe you’re right,” Chaemin teases. “She is addicted, isn’t she?”

“No–“ You try to protest but Youngjae moves and you can’t see anything but the back of his hoodie.

“I don’t think she’s changed,” He says with a smile, very Youngjae like, never showing his irritation. “I just think the company got better. And sure, she is addicted to coffee, unhealthily so, what’s wrong with that?” “Easy now, coffee boy,” Chaemin takes a step forward and you freeze, knowing that either you step in, or things could easily go south. “We’re just making small talk.”

“I’m not your friend, so there’s no need for that, buddy,” Youngjae says and takes your hand, pulling you to his side. “We’ll get going now.”

“Have fun,” Chaemin calls from behind you. “If she lets you.”

“Oh, we will,” Youngjae waves and continues to guide you to your dorm.

The walk is now quiet, and you can feel Youngjae’s irritation, but you also know there’s nothing you can do about it. You are almost at the door when he stops you, pulling you back by the hand and kissing you again– fast, harsh, raw. You break apart panting, eyes searching for his, and you know; you know why he gave you free coffee, why he took you out, why helped you out. He likes you as much as you like him and although he doesn’t say anything in that moment, you feel it. I hope I’m not wrong, you think before kissing him again. You knew he liked you because he said it, but there’s a difference in between saying it, and showing it. He’s finally shown it. 

“Are you going back?” You ask, pecking his lips. 

“Yeah,” He smiles. “I always end up helping Vanessa on her closing shifts.”

You nod. “Can you text me once you’re back?”

“Sure thing,” He kisses you. “Goodnight, Y/N.”

“Goodnight, Youngjae.”

He texts you once you are already tucked in your bed, Mina laying next to you as you tell her all the details.

This was fun! We should do this again!

“God, I hope I’m not wrong,” You mutter, hiding your face in your pillow.

“Nah,” Mina says chuckling. “You’re addicted.”

“What about him?”

“Him too,” She laughs. “Him too, babes.”

--------------------

hello again!!!! it’s been so long and I apologize for that :( online classes are a mess, as I’m sure many of you know. So this is a story I’ve been trying to write for days and although I’ll admit it’s not my best work, it is very dear to me. I hope you all enjoy it! Let me know what you think on the comments, it means a lot when I get your feedback... also, this might have a second part, so it’d be good to know how to make it better ❤️ thank you, love you! stay safe babes!

[caesarclowningaround]

I was tagged by @flightsofwonder! Thanks dearie!! This was interesting and fun!

Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories (if you have less than 20, just list them all!). See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Then tag 10 of your favorite authors!

Felt With the Heart (MCU, 1123 words) Jane fiddled with the skirt of her dress for the thirtieth time. 

The Pure and Simple Truth (MCU/Mr. Robot, 2500 words) Gods and monsters. It’s all real. Who knew? For some reason, Elliot wasn’t at all surprised as he stared across the room at the ‘god’ before him. 

Next Stop (Good Omens, 620 words) It wasn’t that Crowley meant to smack his shoulder into the other man’s as he walked through the subway car… but he meant to. 

voulez-vous coucher avec moi? (2019!Aladdin/2017!Beauty and the Beast, 1163 words) Adam could have anyone he wanted. This wasn’t just hubris, it was a fact. 

Shadows (Trouble in the Heights, 561 words) The room is a swirling mass of color and fabrics. 

my happy ending is right next to me (IT movie franchise, 246 words) Richie couldn’t wait to dive into the champagne at the reception. 

Baking Without Flour (Good Omens, 961 words) Aziraphale wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he entered Crowley’s apartment, but he at least expected that he’d be unpacked by now.  

Violet Skies (2019!Aladdin/2017!Beauty and the Beast, 42622 words (and counting)) Another day, another suitor. This one was from the far west with flowered silks and bright pastels. Prince Adam from France. 

Horizon (Star Wars, 1397 words) It was so different than anything Armitage could have imagined. And oh, he had imagined.

the booze and the bell chimes (2019!Aladdin/2017!Beauty and the Beast/2015!Cinderella, 6272 words) 11:00 AM - 6 HOURS BEFORE THE WEDDING “BOOTY BOOTY BOOTY BOOTY ROCKIN’ EVERYWHERE” Jafar nearly jumped out of bed, his heart pounding in time with the pounding in his head. 

The Dream (MCU/Loki: Where Mischief Lies, 602 words) There is pain as he feels the grip tighten around his throat. He struggles for air, knowing it to be futile at this point. Then, a sharp crack of agony… and he’s gone.

Submerge (Star Wars, 8750 words) His father had warned him many times as a boy to stay away from the Dark Shoals. When Kylo took to the sea as an adult, still his father warned him that morning.

Good at Waiting (2019!Aladdin/2017!Beauty and the Beast, 618 words) Adam wasn’t sure where he was at first. But as the world came into focus around him, he remembered. He remembered dinner the night before, celebrating their six-month anniversary. 

Boom, Clap! (Crash Pad/MCU, 12175 words (and counting)) I need to lay off the weed. It certainly wasn’t the first time Stensland had thought this (or even attempted to put the thought into action soon after), much less the first time he had thought it the moment he had woken up from some batshit crazy trippy dream.

The Ocean Under the Moon (2019!Aladdin/They Call Me Jeeg, 1525 words (and counting)) Fabio had a weird, mostly unknown love for thrift stores. 

a lil something (2019!Aladdin/2017!Beauty and the Beast, 728 words) Jafar’s phone vibrates in his pocket for the second time in the past ten minutes. 

Love is a Battlefield (The Old Guard, 1328 words) There was an excitement in the air as they all stood in formation. Syrus pawed at the ground, his hoof kicking up grass and dust that hung around his legs. 

when push comes to shove (2019!Aladdin/Trust, 1371 words) It had started with Jafar grabbing fistfuls of Primo’s ass and a mocking comment about how thin his pants were, which somehow had led to Jafar assuming Primo wasn’t wearing anything under the blue trousers. He assumed correctly.

play us an encore (2019!Aladdin/2017!Beauty and the Beast, 2400 words) “Open your robe.” Jafar didn’t move from where he was standing in the bathroom doorway. Dressed in only his silk red robe, he stared back at Adam, who was smiling in a way that Jafar couldn’t read.

break the bubble (2019!Aladdin/2017!Beauty and the Beast/2015!Cinderella, 1092 words) “Love is like a bomb, baby, c’mon get it on…” The lights flashed as three gorgeous men walked onto the stage, lip synching with the loud lyrics of Def Leppard's "Pour Some Sugar on Me" playing over the speakers. 

Analysis:

First of all, the fact that 11/20 of these are crossovers is pretty telling of what my favorite thing to write is. Most are either Aladdin crossovers or Marvel crossovers (and involve either Jafar or Loki, respectively) so there’s that.

This list goes back about two years, which is interesting because in the past two years I’ve been working on bigger projects most of the time. Notice how most of these fics are under 2k? Most of these started as small fic prompts or 2am spur-of-the-moment ideas and the longer ones are the more self-indulgent fics.

5 of these fics start with a line that’s mostly used to catch a reader’s attention before a tag, which is then followed by a bit of exposition or action. Twice I use song lyrics as a way of grabbing attention because the POV of the character is also having their attention grabbed.

Several times I just jump right into a character’s POV and begin with them thinking about something or essentially telling the reader “what is happening is normal” or “what is happening is not normal” depending on the situation. It’s also sometimes a quick recap or the statement of a fact about our POV character.

Most of the time, I just jump right into the action to get the story moving. I’ve noticed I prefer to do this over giving a description of where we are. If I do give a description, it almost always comes after the opening line. With the exception of Shadows, none of these opening lines are a setting description.

I really do have a thing for crossovers, especially the weird ones LOL I just love the idea of two different worlds connecting in some way and having the characters themselves connect on another level. D*sney’s been crossing over their stuff since well before I was even born, so while it’s not surprising to see a disney crossover fic, I do think there’s something to writing that odd lil ship I’ve written about 7 fics for (dang!)

I tend to deal with themes of forbidden love in various ways and how the characters make those connections despite the fact they shouldn’t be together. Whether it’s as simple as unrequited romance, or they’re enemies, or they’re not necessarily enemies but they really shouldn’t be together... and yet they always find a way. IDK maybe I’m just a romantic at heart who loves seeing love stories about love conquering all. But that being said, the obstacles these characters face aren’t typical ones?? Like, from this list at least, love triangles aren’t something I’m interested in, but if there is a third party (like in Violet Skies) the third party is never really considered to be a “threat” to the main couple. 

That’s probably another reason why I dig crossover ships, because they inherently shouldn’t be together. they’re from vastly different worlds with maybe one or two things in common (like genre or setting or a character detail or just a vibe).

Or I’m just here to have fun and I’m dragging these characters into the fun zone whether they like it or not :P

But really, all of these are love stories in some way or another. Not that I’ve never written gen fic and I love reading gen fic! But I guess my fave fics to write are the shippy stuff. I just enjoy exploring these types of relationships, despite whether or not they “should” be together. Heck, a couple of these do not have happy endings nor should they. It’s really interesting seeing exactly how drawn to that stuff I am.

FAVE OPENING LINE This is kind of a weird thing to say, but I really don’t care a lot of my opening lines most of the time. I think they are what they need to be, but they don’t hit me the way they should? Some of these I kinda wish I could go back and change, though that’s mostly cuz out of all the lines in each of these fics the first lines I’ve read and reread the most. So it’s mostly me being my own worst critic, but I think my best writing comes more in the middle and ends of my fics, not the beginnings. 

That said, I gotta go with Violet Skies: Another day, another suitor. This one was from the far west with flowered silks and bright pastels. Prince Adam from France.

This is one of those opening lines I’d never change. The fic starts off from Jafar’s POV and he is bored of these princes coming and going and starting this big fic off with him being like “here we go again” with this basic description of Adam is exactly where the fic needed to start, so by the time the reader gets to the end of the first chapter, we know this is definitely not “here we go again” with Prince Adam~

TAGGING: @pigsinablanketfort, @heroofshield, @thenightisfullofangels, @raptorwhisperer, @theresatvjoe, aaaaaaand anybody else who wants to do it!!!!

[francisp0rter]

The Grammy Awards are Decadent and Depraved

By Blunted

Before writing anything about the Grammy Awards, it should be duly noted that nobody really gives a shit. Everyone knows that the nominated artists are nowhere near the best the industry has to offer, but at the end of the day (8PM EST, to be specific) we all tune in to watch the big train wreck in the hopes that at least a couple of shining moments will come through. 

The whole thing was off to a bleak start when, in an astoundingly bone-headed move, the Grammys decided to relegate the Rap Album of the Year awards to the pre-show, forcing one of the greatest emcees who ever lived to accept his first Grammy nomination in complete silence. The argument in the Grammys favour is that none of the nominees are popular enough to warrant a spot on the main show, but that doesn’t seem to matter so much to the Grammys when they drag out H.E.R, who elicits a collective “who the fuck is that?” anytime she appears on screen. 

And even if it’s a case of the nominees not being popular enough, why nominate them in the first place? Freddie Gibbs and Royce Da 5’9 don’t need the Grammys, we already know that they’re two of the best poets this great genre has to offer. And Nas CERTAINLY doesn’t need the Grammys, as he’s gone his whole illustrious career without even receiving one. How are you gonna make him accept his first ever Grammy award off-air like he’s winning Best Classical Compendium or some shit? 

For the Grammys to nominate these incredible talents and then stick them in the pre-show is not only an insult but just downright fucking dumb. Letting Nas on the Grammy stage to accept his first ever award would have done a hell of a lot more to remedy the Weeknd boycott situation than having Harvey Mason Jr. come on screen and beg everyone not to be mad at him.

With that being said, the 63rd Grammy Awards were pretty god-damn weird. You could probably chalk the strange vibes up to the lack of a real audience and the battle-of-the-bands style layout the Grammys opted for, but that’s not entirely it. Something else was off, something nearly intangible. After about an hour of this uncanny-valley feeling, I realized where it was coming from: Trevor Noah. 

Possibly the least funny person on the entire planet Earth, Trevor Noah bumbled his way through over three hours of jokes that would have bombed even if they were performed at an open mic night in Tacoma, Washington. The only funny thing that left his mouth was, 

“Gobble me, swallow me, drip down the side of me. We’re back at the 63rd Grammy Awards,” and it was only funny because it didn’t make any fucking sense. 

Worst host of all time aside, the show ranged from pretty good to downright cringe-inducing, with some moments of greatness sprinkled in. Billie Eilish kicked the show off with a sleepy performance of her Record of the Year nominated track “Everything I Wanted,” in which she sang on top of a luxury car submerged in a cloud of smoke. Eilish, as always, left little to be desired and delivered her performance with the precision of a well-trained theatre kid. There’s an inherent starry-eyed quality to Eilish’s music, but her talents make it easy to look past. 

Haim’s blistering performance of “The Steps” was stellar. The group’s musicality was on full display as Danielle Haim led the track on drums and vocals, before quietly switching out with her sister Alana to take centre stage, proving once again that the best way to make a splash at the Grammys is simply by playing music and playing it well. 

Bruno Mars and Anderson Paak also gave two incredible performances as Silk Sonic. The first was a Soul Train-inspired rendition of their brand new track “Leave the Door Open” that looked like it was equally as fun to perform as it was to watch. Later, the duo took the stage and set the place on fire with a tribute to Little Richard. Anderson’s drumming was the highlight of the performance, and whoever was running the sound seemed to know this too, centring the rhythm section in the most prominent part of the mix. 

There were plenty of moments that were good, but not overly special that I’m gonna run through really quick here. Harry Styles came through and did his cool gender-bending thing. I really like “Watermelon Sugar,” I think it’s a perfect pop song, and I think Harry Styles is way too good to have ever been in One Direction. I’m excited for his next album and that’s all I really have to say about him.

Taylor Swift’s performance was excellent, and it was great to see her bring out Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff and give them the credit they deserve for helping her expand her sound on her stellar 2020 offerings “Folklore” and “Evermore.” 

Meg Thee Stallion, Cardi B, and Dua Lipa banged out some hyper-sexual performances that didn’t really seem to have a point other than being shocking. But the songs are nice and at least Meg can rap.

Oh, and Beyonce broke the record for most Grammys ever. Does anyone really give a shit about that? I thought it would be a bigger deal. 

The rap performances left something to be desired, which is an absolute fucking shame considering the emcees they had nominated in the Rap Album of the Year category. DaBaby came out and did his one flow, and then Roddy Ricch joined him, which was nice. Roddy’s solo performance was actually really great. He’s one of the first rappers I’ve seen play an instrument while rapping. Scarface is the only other one to my memory. Maybe Mac Miller, too. 

Lil Baby’s performance was, at first, captivating and powerful, but upon further inspection feels kind of weak, especially considering the weird diatribe from neoliberal grifter Tamika Mallory that he placed halfway through the performance. Re-enacting a police killing with paid actors was also a little tasteless in retrospect. Baby rapped his ass off though, and hopefully his performance will show clueless rap fans that trap music isn’t just a genre meant to soundtrack frat parties.

The worst performance of the night belonged to Post Malone, as it so often does. The Texas troglodyte appeared on stage in the worst Blade costume I’ve ever seen to deliver a dead-in-the-water rendition of his abysmally bad single “Hollywood’s Bleeding.” I remember there was a time when Post Malone’s whole thing was being this pop-crossover Bob Dylan type with rap aesthetics. I didn’t like it, but it was infinitely better than whatever weird gothic thing he’s doing now. 

All things considered, the Grammys were the Grammys. You can’t really expect too much from them. While the highs were really high, the lows were so unbelievably low that it was almost embarrassing. Before I sign off, I just wanna give another quick “fuck you” to Harvey Mason Jr. You’re the worst, man. 

[uninterestiing]

i liked your post on matteo taking his time to process things, so i'd love to know what your thoughts are on david being outed?

hhhhhhhhh well from what i’ve seen in the tag, i disagree with like 90% of youse and was gonna hold my thoughts till later… but since you asked… yeah i reckon its good writing actually.

(beware under the cut, this is long)

so disclaimers before people get big mad: i’ve actually been in the situation depicted. i’m a gay trans guy who came out in year 12 & to me, it’s extremely realistic. teachers in my last year of high school pulled me aside to say all kinds of nasty shit and the rumour of my transness spread around pretty fuckin quickly. it was a fucked time in my life but i didn’t have any issues watching the last clip, i enjoyed it and found it pretty relatable honestly, especially the teacher bit because its a really common thing trans kids go through to be harassed more by staff than students, but i’ve never actually seen it be depicted before… but i’ll also say, im really not easy to upset and almost impossible to offend when it comes to trans stuff. i work as an openly trans person in the media and my skin is very thick, 17 year old me who was experiencing it real-time would have probably been shaken up a bit.

that said, like i discussed in my other post about this, realism doesn’t automatically equal good storytelling! so what is good storytelling?

big subject obviously, but rn i’m gonna define it as a consistency of theme, tone, and character. (its also how well you tie all those things up at the end but i wont comment on that because… druck ain’t finished yet and we need to remember that!) plus, of course, it’s just… whether you like it? which is completely subjective, and something i can only comment on for myself!

so i think the main issue here is that people expect things from druck it never promised them, and from the very beginning was never going to be.

take the perspective issue for example, which effects tone & character immensely. i’ve seen numerous complaints that the show isn’t depicting the trans issues from an internal perspective. which is interesting, since from the very start, we’ve known that was the case. we knew it was matteo’s season, and we knew how very, very closely skam shows follow their protagonists. everything is from their perspective. so i knew it was never gonna be about trans issues from a trans perspective because david was not the main character, he’s the love interest. that was evident from day one ya’ll it’s how the show is structured. and that is Not Inherently A Bad Thing, it’s just not what some of you wanted.

however… druck has stretched the limits of perspective more than any other version. the texts, for instance, are not just the main’s, and do a lot for fleshing out the background characters. also (and this is thematically important) it showed the way outing / spreading of rumours actually happens irl. re-watching the last clip i noticed that they leave matteo’s POV for a second, and “switch” to david as he’s coming down the stairs, realising what’s happening. not so much as to break the consistency of the show’s structure, but enough to make the audience really understand the gravity of what’s happening. it’s done really fluidly and i thought it was a genius way to both keep it matteo’s story, but also, give that moment a much needed trans perspective, because i really don’t think all that ringing distortion sound was matteo’s panic. 

and really, i just don’t think a trans person needs to be the main character of the show for it to be good representation. i think they have done an exceptional job of not tokenizing david by making sure to establish his whole character & his relationship with matteo before his trans identity was confirmed on the show, in the exact same way they do with the other evens and their mental illnesses in every other version. and honestly, when it comes to trans men, there’s very little media stereotypes or negative tropes that they could have conformed to because there’s not enough representation yet for those to have actually formed. like, we know druck won’t kill david off, and i don’t really know any other tropes that exists for trans men in storytelling at the moment. a lot of the show is covering new ground subject wise, they don’t have a script to follow, so some minor blunders are to be expected.

over all, the fandom jumps the gun every damn time. the show decides to have conflict or deal with a social problem and everyone looses it, as if that’s not been the entire ethos of skam since the OG. skam / druck is a teen show that deals with identity issues. every season picks topics to educate on through the story, and they do it with a lot of care and research.that’s the whole deal, it’s why the show exists, fucking of course they aren’t going to brush over trans issues, it amazes me that people thought they would, and that there would be no conflict and it’d play out like fanfiction fluff. here’s another really good post about it.

so obviously, this season is about about being gay and being trans, but specifically about outing, and has stressed this theme all the way through, way more than any other version. so friday’s clip is what i’d call a natural culmination of theme and narrative. in terms of the queer experience, and the trans experience, i think it was a very good idea to take on coming out / outing as a central thematic and narrative through-line, because it’s one of the central things gay and trans people have in common. and then analyzing them both in comparison and contrast throughout the story, really works and makes for good fucking writing, pacing and - yup, you guessed it - consistency.

i find the choice to situate a trans man as the love interest, and therefore, an object of desire, incredibly subversive. and though yes, stories with trans protagonists are lacking, literally any form of story where trans people exist is lacking, and the creators of druck wanting to tell a story about what it means to love & be in a relationship with a trans person is just as important a story to tell as any other, and complaining about what “type” of trans story is more important to tell first, or which aspect of trans existence to highlight more, is ridiculous. at the end of the day, one story cannot cover everything, and the writers had to make choices as to where their focus would lie. and there’s literally nothing wrong with their specific choices in subject matter (being trans in the context of relationship & outing, mainly), other than personal preference.

so like i said in my previous post: wanting a comfort show where trans characters exist, but the trans experience is not plot-relevant, is fine & cool. i really want that too, but not here. getting angry or upset that druck did… exactly what skam shows do… is stupid. and then turning around and blaming your dislike, which is born out of judging a show by the wrong genre standards, on “bad writing”, is just plain wrong. this show is amazingly produced. just… c’mon guys. chill.

(also @ every weird cis person in the tag giving fuckin condolences & saying their askbox is open if someone needs to talk…… stop. literally nobody asked. its so weird. we didn’t put a call out for you to be upset on our behalf. its just a tv show. like its super important rep for us… but its also just a tv show that people can just not watch if its not your cup of tea.)

tl;dr the friday clip was fucking good and made sense because druck is well written, acted, researched and produced, is really not transphobic (in fact i’d say it’s pretty subversive), and it’s also not the creators fault when you’re disappointed by the direction taken in a show that was crystal clear what direction it was headed into!

[sellyripley]

Alpha’s Exceptional Cargo

Fan Fiction: 

Fandom: Crossover between the Robot Trains universe and the Tayo & Titipo universe. 

Genre: Dystopian/Apocalyptic 

Pairings: None

Set around 30 years in the future of the Tayo & Titipo universe, intended as an origin story for the Robot Trains world. A bit dark, a bit weird. Here goes nothing…

                                                            ///

                                     Alpha’s Exceptional Cargo

Hana gazed out the window of the rail office that doubled as her living space while Titipo, Gani and Alpha dawdled along through the rail yard in the distance. Titipo and Alpha stayed confined to the tracks while Gani kept on the road parallel to the tracks, staying as close to his companions as possible.

Alpha could actually leave the tracks, if he had really wanted to.

Alpha reminded Hana of Tayo, back when he and Gani had been young buses. He had young Tayo’s chipper and curious manner. 

Hana had utilized the salvageable components of Tayo’s old memory chips in Alpha’s construction. Alpha didn’t retain Tayo’s memories, but at least, he did seem to retain some of his mannerisms and personality traits.

Now Gani’s red paint was faded and weathered, his voice no longer child-like but tired and wise. He was a patient guardian to Alpha, the rail-yard’s newest addition.

Alpha’s upbeat attitude was a welcome contrast to the perpetual night that had befallen the Earth. The sun was now blotted out by a thick black smog – the consequence of humanity’s wasteful and selfish choices. But it didn’t bother Alpha because he’d never known any different.

It had been years since Hana had left her post at the bus garage along with the remaining buses and relocated to the Choo Choo Town rail station. Teo, the train inspector, had left the rail-yard saying he needed to spend humanity’s final years with his family.

But to Hana, the Trains and Buses were her family.

“Alpha!” Hana called, her own voice sounding aged and tired. “Can you please come here for a bit?” the mechanic stood outside of her quarters on a platform by the tracks.

Alpha pulled up next to her, remaining in his train form. “Please transform into your robot form, Alpha.” Requested Hana.

“Aww, do I have to?” The young train whined. Alpha, the first of his kind as his named denoted, did not like taking on his robot form. It made him stand out.

He’d preferred to imagine that he was just a normal vehicle, like his mentors, Titipo, Gani and the others. It was bad enough being the youngest train without also feeling like an oddity.

Reluctantly, Alpha took on his robot form and stood awkwardly next to the tracks.

“What is it, Hana?” He chimed. “I need to give you one last check-up. And then I need to give you something.”

“Last check up?” Alpha asked as Hana went over him with a scanner. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Said Hana “I need to give you something…something special. And then very soon after that, I’ll need to go away.”

“How long will you be gone?” asked Alpha “And what do you need to give me?”

“It’s…a type of fuel. I designed you so that…with this type of fuel, you’ll have energy that will last for a very long time. You’ll have plenty of energy without ever needing to refuel. And someday, you’ll be able to help other trains do the same. But, I’m going to have to leave here after I give it to you and you won’t see me again. But don’t worry. Gani, Titipo and the others will look after you from now on.”

Hana knew the right moment had come to impart this final gift to Alpha. From Hana’s scans of the area, there wasn’t another human for hundreds of miles. Under current environmental conditions, it wouldn’t be possible for a human being to leave shelter long enough to commute that distance so Alpha now stood no chance of accidentally crossing paths with one.

There were only a handful of humans left on the Earth, and they too would inevitably be gone soon.  

Hana wasn’t as sad about that as most would be. She’d always felt closer to machines than humans anyway. The machines were inherently giving and selfless.

But now there were no passengers left and soon there would be no mechanics or engineers either. If any semblance of society was going to carry on into the future, machines were going to have to be able to use their giving and selfless nature to take care of one another from now on. And Hana was determined to ensure that that was possible.

Alpha’s eyes shined with dismayed sadness “But Hana! I don’t want you to leave!”

She distinctly heard a hint of Tayo’s voice in the young train’s plea.

“Alpha, this world isn’t for humans any more. Humans have not taken good care of it and now we can’t live here any longer. Almost all the humans are gone and now it’s time for me to go to. You vehicles will have to try to do a better job than we did. And in the future, there will need to be more trains like you to help take care of everyone.”

“But no one wants to be a robot train.” Pouted Alpha, somewhat resentful of his creator’s seemly bizarre design choices.

Hana could understand. She imagined, even if humans had developed the technology to modify themselves into some more efficient configuration, they would probably still be much attached to the human form to which they were accustomed. Most would not prefer a phenotype too strange or alien for themselves or their offspring, even if it did afford some new advantages.

Maybe the robot-train design would eventually come to be more accepted. As with human society, advancement would likely be gradual.

But, even a just few robot vehicles among the more conventional models would be sufficient – to look after and repair the others. To be the protectors of society.

As the first, a lot of responsibility would fall on this kid’s shoulders. But, Hana trusted Gani and Titipo to guide him through it. She’d left all of her schematics, all of her research and all of her designs with them. Alpha would eventually grow to be their guardian and caretaker.

Hana finished her exam and tucked her scanner away. She removed her red mechanic’s hat and wiped her brow.

“Everything looks good, Alpha. You can turn back into train form now. I’m going to go get the fuel, but it will take me a minute.”

Hana disappeared down a corridor between shipping containers and returned dressed head to tow in a thick coverall garment along with heavy boots, gloves, and a face shield. She wheeled a large, heavy container on an electric dolly. The trefoil symbol on the container did not mean anything in particular to Alpha.

“Why are you dressed like that Hana?” asked Alpha.

“Your new fuel isn’t safe for humans to get too close to for very long without protective gear. So, you wouldn’t want to get close to any humans, but there isn’t really a risk of that anymore.”

Hana opened the container to reveal within its thick metal walls a series of beautiful luminescent rods.

Hana took her time installing the new fuel source along with the equipment needed for Alpha’s engine to process it.

She then stood up slowly and said weakly “Go on now and tell Titipo that I’ve given you the fuel and that I’m leaving now.”

Even under the heavy protective gear she wore, Alpha perceived that Hana did not seem well.

Alpha hesitated a moment. He wanted to stay and try to help somehow…but then thought better of it and sped off.

He had never felt so full of life and energy.

                                                        ///

                                              Ten Years Prior

“Hana, please. You shouldn’t be alone at a time like this. There isn’t much time left, and people need to stick together. You can come spend these last few years with my family.” Teo pleaded.

Hana turned from her work on the computer to face the train inspector.

“Alone!?” Replied Hana “Of course I won’t be alone! Someone’s got to take care of the trains and buses!”

“Hana, please…” begged Teo. “The trains and buses… are just machines. They don’t really think and feel like you and me. They’re just…an imitation. They were made for people, by people. It’s people who are important.”

Hana stood up from the computer and crossed her arms in consternation.

“Well I don’t think of them like that! And if you’re not going to stick around, then I have a lot of repairs to take care of. So if you’ll excuse me…”

Hana stormed out of the office passed Teo.

Teo stared at Hana’s computer apprehensively.

He knew all about her big plan. To help enable machines to carry on without humanity. The idea unsettled Teo deeply. Machines were made to serve humans. Without humans, what was their purpose?

The thought of machines mindlessly carrying out their pointless tasks for thousands of years in the absence of humans sent a chill down Teo’s spine. As though…his own soul couldn’t be at rest as long as this hollow echo of humanity persisted.

He sat down at the computer and sifted through Hana’s plans.

He knew a thing or two about programming machines himself.

He read through the designs for Hana’s new new train. This affront to humanity’s legacy would not take place on Teo’s watch. He would insert some code of his own. Teo might not be able to save humanity from their own self destruction, but with a little luck, he could prevent this eternal mockery.

A virus.

It had to be well hidden or Hana would detect it, which meant it would have to lie dormant even after the train’s construction. Like a time bomb. But someday, at the right moment it would be released and hopefully put an end to Hana’s machine society. And then humanity would finally be at peace.

[maandags]

Eidolon (Angel!Keith x Demon! reader) {part iii}

something resembling peace n  quiet (ish) b4 the real shitstorm yeet

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Summary: Keith is an angel, and he’s completed mission after mission for the Upper Hand, the organisation controlling all of the Above. He’s only failed a mission once: when he was assigned to kill you, a surprisingly charismatic demon. He roamed Earth–Middle Ground–for years before he was caught by the Upper Hand again, and things quickly go south.

Word count: 6.3K

Genre: Angst 

Notes: ft witch!Coran bc he doesnt get enough love -- masterlist -- {previous} -- {next} --

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small-town boy in a big arcade

i got addicted to a losing game

 ~ Arcade, Duncan Laurence

---

His fever isn't going down.

It's been five days and his fever just won't go down.

He's passed out on your couch, waking up occasionally so you can feed him and give him water to drink. Sometimes you have to shake him for minutes at a time just so he wakes up. You tried everything you knew, but the medicine you give him has no effect and the medicine you probably need is nowhere at your disposal.

It's safe to say you have no clue how to proceed and also are frustrated: you're risking everything here. You're risking being found by everything you have been outrunning for years and years. The combined auras of an angel and a demon are the closest thing to a signal flare you know.

And he just might die, and it will all have been for nothing, and you might still be located by Management and you would have to move. Quite bittersweet, you think wryly.

So Keith dying isn't an option. That much is clear. But as you sit in your armchair and glare at him, arms wrapped around the knees you pulled up to your chest, you have no idea as to how you're going to stop it from happening.

You clumsily wrapped him in a blanket when he collapsed on your couch. He's kicked it off since, and it lies in a bundle at his feet. His skin is ashy and pale and sweaty and his hair sticks to his forehead.

And his fucking fever isn't going down.

Usually you'd go straight to a doctor if any of your human friends were to contract a fever this stubborn–but you suspected bringing a dying angel to the average doctor won't do much good except frighten the poor sod to death. He looks like Death, you remark. What with his black wings and overall dark aesthetic, which is quite rare for an angel to have. You think, at least. It's not like you've met lots of them.

You sigh, filling a glass of water and holding it to his lips. He reacts almost subconsciously–he's not quite all there, but he's gulping the water down with gusto and you can only pray to the Dark Below that he'll hold it down, though that did seem to get better the last day or so.

The first two days were a nightmare. Keith tossed and turned and held nothing down, his stomach too upset. You had him spend his second night in your bathtub because he puked all over your couch. When he was asleep (which was most of the time) he had nightmares and whimpered constantly, and when he was awake he had hallucinations, his eyes clouded over. He even tried to attack you at one point ('tried' being the keyword here–he took a most pathetic swing at your face and cried when you dodged it easily).

If you had any common sense, you would have kicked him out long ago–hell, if you had any common sense, you never even would have considered taking him in.

Yet he is here. And you are here. And you don't exactly know how to feel about that.

Half the time you wish he'd just die already so you could be done at least with all of this. The next moment you feel horribly guilty and internally yell at yourself for thinking that way–because you made this choice. You decided to help him, and you should go through with it, even if it meant to be woken up at three in the morning because Keith was wailing again.

You brush your fingers across his forehead, hoping against better knowledge his fever had gone down, but he's still burning up. He's not tossing and turning anymore, he's not throwing up everywhere anymore. The last time he had a nightmare you actually noticed was more than a day ago. His breaths are shallow and irregular, and while you're no doctor, you know that's never a good sign.

You'd almost gotten used to having him in your apartment, and now you barely even notice he's here.

You've been on some extensive phone calls with Allura since Keith flopped into your life (which mostly consist of you yelling and Allura listening, occasionally muttering "go off, sis" into the horn) and you were itching for one now. You pull out your phone. Allura picks up on the third ring.

"Y/N, love, I have time for like, maybe a ten minute rant, because I'm at work and even though it's my break time my co-workers are giving me huge side-eyes and I still have four hours to go–"

"That's okay," you say quickly. "I'm fine, actually. No rants."

Allura pauses. "Sure about that?"

"Positive. I just had a question." You decide to throw in your favourite excuse whenever you have a weird question. As a nurse and your friend, Allura is often your first choice if you need to fact-check anything health-related."I'm writing this story..."

"Ah," Allura says. "Of course. Shoot."

You feel kind of bad for lying to her. But then again, telling the truth isn't really an option here, is it? "What does one do to break a fever that's been going strong for, say, five days, and literally no kind of aspirin is working and you can't take them to a doctor?"

"Huh. Well. All you can really do without, like, medical intervention, is wait, really. Yes, Jane, I'll be done in a minute. Have them sweat it out. Keep hydrated, remove excess layers of clothing, all that jazz. How high of a fever are we talking?"

"Um..." You glance at the thermometer on the coffee table. You'd taken his temperature just before calling Allura, to see if there was any change. Spoiler alert, there wasn't. "41.2 degrees Celcius."

Allura whistles. "For an adult? 'Cause if this is a kid, they have a problem."

"No, no, it's an adult."

"Okay. Well. You know, fevers aren't inherently bad for you. It's actually a way for the body to, like, kill heat-sensitive bacteria and viruses. So it's actually a good thing. Honestly I'm gonna just advise your character to stay in bed and drink water and sit in front of a fan. They should be fine."

You pucker your lips, poking Keith's arm with your toe. He doesn't move. "All right."

"You sound kind of unsure," says Allura, a tinge of concern to her voice. A pause. "Certain this is a fictional character?"

You bite back a curse. "Well. You know. I was–I was just curious."

Allura sighs. You imagine her rubbing the back of her neck as she shakes out her legs. "You know... as a medical professional–" the sarcasm drips from her voice– "I'm not really supposed to, like, recommend these types of methods to people because generally everyone thinks they're bullshit, but..." She hesitates. "My uncle Coran has this shop. He sells lots of weird, like, plants and crystals and crap like that. God, I can't believe I'm saying this. He might be able to help. Here's the address."

You lurch over to your desk and snatch a pencil and a post-it block, scribbling down the address she dictates. "Thanks, Allura."

"You are very welcome, dearest, but I really need to get back to work now. Bye."

"Bye."

You stare at the note for a while after Allura hung up. You don't exactly know the place, but a quick Google search helps you pinpoint it. It's not even that far, maybe a 20 minute walk. But something makes you feel uncomfortable about it.

He sells lots of weird, like, plants and crystals and crap like that.

It definitely sounds like something you should be a bit suspicious of. Plants and crystals. Hm.

But then again, you think as you cast another look at Keith who hasn't moved in over an hour, chest rising and falling with uneven breaths, it's not like you have many other options.

Allura said to wait it out. But maybe fevers aren't as harmless on angels as they are on humans. Maybe waiting it out will kill him, and you will have to live with it knowing that you did nothing to stop it.

Grumbling through gritted teeth, you yank your jacket from its hanger, write out a quick note for Keith in case he wakes up (he probably won't, but just in case) and dash out the door.

It takes you surprisingly long to find the place.

What was a 20 minute walk turned to a 30 minute walk, then to an hour long walk. You zoom in on your phone's map, narrowing your eyes and combing through every little alley you passed, gnashing your teeth. No matter how hard you look, the shop simply doesn't seem to exist anywhere but on the map. Is this Allura's idea of a prank?

But that's not like her, you remind yourself. And somehow, the fact that you can't seem to reach the place only makes you want to find it more. So you grit your teeth and clench the note with the address (that you just can't seem to memorize, no matter how hard you try) in your fist and march on.

You round a corner and slam into a tall and lanky body.

You yelp, arms flying out to regain your balance. The person in front of you gives a surprised hum–they don't seem to be fazed at all. You look up, prepared to give them a scolding about how they've got to watch where they're fucking going and blink, all words dying in your throat.

"You okay, kiddo?" says the most eccentric-looking man you've ever seen.

"Uh..." you give your head a shake, trying not to stare at the man's bright orange hair and moustache, or the fact that he's dressed like one of those fortune tellers out of fantasy stories, complete with the huge ornate earrings and everything. "Yeah. Fine. Thanks."

The man's light eyes narrow ever so slightly, and you make a mental note to not let his appearance deceive you: you have the feeling he's much smarter than he looks. "Were you looking for something?"

You clamp your mouth shut, running a hand through your hair. "Hm. Actually. Yes." You frown, wondering if this is a good idea, but if anyone would know where Coran's shop is–the shop selling weird crystals and plants and crap like that–this dude would be it. You hold up the crumpled note. "Do you know where this place is?"

The man takes one look at the writing and smiles, a wide and slightly unhinged grin that has you almost instantly regretting your choice. "Well, I sure would hope I know where my own shop is!"

You try and resist the urge to flinch. "Oh, really?" you squeak, shrinking back. It's not a very demon-like thing to do, you think at the very back of your mind, but this guy looks like he could give even the scariest entities of the Below a run for their money. "Neat."

The man–who you assume is Coran–grins even wider and whips an arm around your shoulders. "Well, then! Let's not beat around the bush any longer!" He has an accent you can't place. It fits him, strangely. Everything about the guy is strange.

He whirls around, dragging you with him, and walks exactly three steps before slamming open the door to the shop on the corner. You frown, ducking out from under his arm and giving him a suspicious glare. "What is this? I've passed this shop at least five times." You glance up at the sign and do a double take. Where had previously hung a sad wooden board announcing a tailor's shop hangs now a weirdly pretty sign that seems to be made out of plants. Vines twisting to and fro and entwining and overlapping, fluorescent yellow-and-blue flowers you have never seen before dropping from it in clumps. It sways slightly in the air. There is no wind.

All the hairs stand up at the back of your neck and your fists clench at your sides.

"Maybe you weren't looking hard enough," comes Coran's amused voice from behind you. You spin on your heels, narrowing your eyes at him. You're not unfamiliar with these kinds of experiences–the supernatural, the unsettling, the technically-impossible–yet Coran manages to throw you off in a way nothing really has before.

The atmosphere around you has dimmed, the sole source of light the doorway and the glowing flowers dangling from the sign. You're not in the alley you were in not one minute ago anymore. Coran raises an eyebrow and cocks his head, and you notice how different he looks in this new environment. He fits here perfectly. The slight curl of his lips says, Well? What are you waiting for?

You think of Keith. How he would react if he were in this situation. If the roles were reversed and you were the one dying on his sofa. You push the door open and march into the shop.

You almost slam directly into a tree.

"Careful, careful," says Coran quickly as he grabs your elbow. He slips past you and leads you into his shop that looks like no other shop you've ever seen.

Shelves are stacked with pots and vials and little baggies, all propped one on top of the other. It looks extremely unstable. You resist the urge to pluck out one jar from the bottom and see if everything tumbles down.

Every price tag is hand-written, and when you take a closer look a chill runs down your spine. One never-before shared secret. Three childhood memories. none of the prices ask for actual money, which now seems pretty useless and weighs down the wallet in your pocket. One particular tag says Your deepest fear. How dramatic.

Every plant seems to glow, for some reason. You notice more of those fluorescent yellow-and-blue flowers like the ones hanging from the sign outside, and flowers that look similar but in different colours. There are plants that remind you of grapevines, snaking around trees and shelves and tangling themselves around every support they can find. Clusters of small transparent bells float from the branches, even smaller flicks of light trapped inside them. You squint at one of them, grabbing it out of the air and studying it closely. Something is fluttering inside of the little sphere. A firefly, maybe. Maybe. When you release it, it zips back to its original spot among the other glowing bubbles.

Coran plucks a few dead leaves from a tree stump partially hidden from view by a huge black-and-white striped candle. He grinds the leaves to dust in the palm of his hand and drops them in the candle's flame. It glows bright green for a moment, then a comforting scent begins to spread through the air. You inhale deeply out of reflex. It smells like nothing you've ever smelled before, vaguely familiar scents all mushed into one; your favourite hot chocolate (with a hint of caramel), Allura's fruity conditioner, the animal shampoo you use on the dogs at the shelter. The air when it's just stopped raining. Towels, fresh out of the dryer.

You blink yourself back to reality with a sharp jerk of your head. Coran is already moving on to the very back of the shop and you hurry to catch up with him, ducking to avoid the arms of a rather sad-looking ragdoll as they reach for you. "Hey, hey–who are you?"

He raises an eyebrow. "Coran."

"Yes, I know that, but like–" you gesture vaguely to the general space around you– "who are you?"

Coran thinks about that for a moment, one finger pressed to the side of his nose. "A hobbyist," he decides.

"Right." You take a step back, eyeing the dark and slimy substance shlorping across the floor towards your feet suspiciously. It shrinks back beneath your glare. "What are those hobbies, exactly?"

"You know," says Coran, waving his arms around, "plants. Medicine. The occasional cursed artifact. Just regular stuff like that."

"Regular stuff like that," you echo. Caws sound from above you. When you look up, you spot a bird slightly hidden in the shadows of the tree in which it is perked (was that tree this big before?), glowing red eyes fixated on yours. You raise an eyebrow at it, cocking your head. It mirrors you, feathers ruffling and swooping from one side of its head to the other. It screams again, then spreads its wings and climbs up the tree with a speed you didn't expect. Literally climbs: there are claws on the joints of its wings that it uses to hack into the tree's bark. You brush a bit of dust off your shoulder and continue walking.

Stepping over the puddle of dark slime, you follow Coran even further into the shop. "You said you do medicine," you shout after him. "I need medicine to save my–" The words hitch in your throat. What is Keith to you? An acquaintance? An enemy? A guest? "My friend," you settle on.

Coran throws you a look over his shoulder, throwing off his ornate blue coat and suspending it in the air where it floats obediently beside him. He plants a hand on a bony hip. "Your friend," he repeats, a glint in his eyes you don't trust at all.

"Yeah." He's not getting more out of you, you assure yourself. That's it.

Coran watches you for a moment. "Hm." He turns around and starts rummaging through the shelves packed with jars and boxes and bottles, pulling out a number that all look the same to you, but evidently Coran knows exactly what he's doing. Occasionally he asks you questions.

"Reasonably high fever, is that right?"

"Yes."

He fumbles for a mortar and dumps a clump of brown-reddish leaves in it.

"Hallucinations? Nightmares? Inexplicable bouts of extreme hunger?"

"Yes, yes, and... no? Not that I know of?"

Humming, he adds a few drops of a clear liquid and a pinch of powder from a leather pouch. The mixture starts to sizzle and you eye it cautiously. Its colour shifts from a muddy purple to a darker blue. Coran whistles through his teeth, narrowing his eyes at the many pots around him as he searches for the next ingredient. His eyes focus on something behind you and he gestures with his pestle. "Grab that round orange pot for me, will you."

You turn. The pot in question is small and kind of hard to spot, and you have to twist your arm in strange shapes to reach it from where it's blocked by other plants and rocks. It's dusty and surprisingly heavy, and when you turn it over there's a crudely painted picture of a skull on the lid. Your head snaps up and your fingers tighten around the pot.

Coran rolls his eyes. "I didn't have any other pot to put it in. I'm not gonna murder your friend."

You hand the pot over to him reluctantly, keeping a close eye on whatever it is he's doing. Inside is a reddish-brown paste, and Coran scoops two heavy spoonfuls out and mixes it into the blue mixture. It becomes a pleasant shade of violet. He grabs a round marble-like thing from a vase filled with similar spheres and chucks it into a fire pit at your feet. Flames burst to life, searing hot and sending you stumbling back from the wave of pure heat that comes rolling over you. Coran puts a lid on the mortar and drops it into the fire.

"So, that's gotta bake for a minute," he says cheerily, spinning around and clapping his hands. He snaps his fingers, and immediately vines begin writhing and entwining until a stool has formed. He plops down, facing you. "You have questions. Ask them. Go on."

"Will you answer them?"

he flashes that wicked grin of his. "Maybe."

You grit your teeth, staring into the flames roaring in their pit. The longer you look at them, the wilder they grow. Agitated.

"Oh, dear, don't look at them. They don't like being watched."

Your gaze snaps back to him. "How did you know what's wrong with my friend?"

"I didn't. I guessed," he adds with an eyeroll when you narrow your eyes at him. "It's easier to guess than you might think. When customers are especially preoccupied with something I can usually read it right off of them. You were no different."

"Right." You pause, not sure which of the hundred and forty questions swirling through your mind to ask next. "What if the medicine doesn't work? Can I come back?"

"It'll work."

"But if it doesn't–"

"Are you doubting my abilities?"

"What? No, but–"

"It'll work."

His tone makes it clear there's no room for discussion. At the sight of his dangerously glinting eyes (or maybe they're just reflecting the flickering flames) you decide to veer onto a safer topic. "Can everyone get into your shop? Why couldn't I find it until you showed me?"

Coran slouches a bit in his throne of vines (it's got a back and armrests now, too, and it's growing those little glowing grapes) and considers the question. "Everyone can technically get into the shop," he says slowly, as if carefully choosing his words, "but not everyone will. It's not hidden, exactly–not to the people who aren't looking."

That confuses you. "So you're saying one won't be able to find the shop if they're actively looking for it?"

"Sort of."

"Does that mean that the people who do find it aren't looking for it in the first place?"

"I guess so? Man, kid, you're asking difficult questions."

"I'm curious." You fold your arms, tucking your chin down to your chest. "And that makes no sense anyway because I found it and I was looking for it. So."

"Yeah, but you didn't find it until you actually ran into me and I showed you." Coran leaps up and stretches out his lanky limbs. "So, we still have a bit of time left before that's ready. Do you want to arrange payment now?"

Caution crept into your veins as you remember the strange price tags you saw upon entering the store. But you're not getting this medicine for free, you remind yourself. Keith won't get better by himself. The price was the price and you're willing to pay it. So you nod.

Coran grabs a box. He opens it, and inside are the last things you expected: stacks of paper, each one scribbled upon with minute precision, every sheet adorned with different handwriting. He hands you a blank sheet: it's about the size of a business card, yellowish-white and kind of grainy to the touch. It reminds you of parchment.

He also hands you a pen. It looks like a regular ballpoint pen, and when you shoot him a questioning look–you had expected at least, like, a quill with purple ink or something–he shrugs. "They're cheap. And easy to charm."

Right. You roll your eyes. "So what's the price?"

His eyes are just a little bit too shiny. "What do you want most?"

You sigh, long and drawn out. Your grip on the pen tightens ever so slightly. "Really? The way too overused one?"

Coran shrugs again, gesturing to the blank card in front of you. "It's overused for a reason, kid. It just happens to work really well."

You clench your jaw, tapping the pen against the wooden surface of the table, forcing yourself to think about the question in a serious manner.

What do you want most?

You rack your brain for an answer, puckering your lips. There are a lot of things you want. You want Allura to be safe and happy. She's got a demon for a friend, for fuck's sake. You want to not have to worry every day about Management finally tracking you down and locking you up in the Below. To feel safe.

You bring the point of the pen down to the paper and start writing, frowning when the ink doesn't appear. You go over the lines a few times, even scribble a bunch of lines in a corner to get the pen to work, but to no avail. The ink stubbornly refuses to stain your piece of parchment.

"Your pen doesn't work," you say, irritated.

Coran casts you a knowing smile. "It works just fine. Try again."

You try again. No results. You throw down the pen, letting your head drop and taking a deep breath as you lean against the desk, because you know exactly where this is going. You have experience with these kinds of enchanted objects. You chew on the inside of your cheek, glaring at the pen as if it personally murdered your firstborn.

It wants the truth.

And you refuse. You refuse to give it what it wants because it's ridiculous. Absolutely and utterly ridiculous.

But this is the price. This is the price you told yourself you would pay no matter what.

A deep breath. One more.

You snatch up the pen, gripping it so tightly your knuckles go white, and press it down onto the paper. Immediately the ink flows out, letting you write your re-evaluated answer. It almost seems to sneer at you and when you throw the pen down, handing the card to a way too smug-looking Coran, you refuse to look him in the eye.

The medicine is ready.

Coran pulls it out of the fire using tongs (because it might be magical fire, but it's still fire, and it's generally not a good idea to stick your hand in fire) and drops it in a tub of water you're sure wasn't there before. A moment later he pulls it out and removes the lid.

The paste has transformed itself into a rock-hard ball about the size of a large pill, perfectly round and kind of rough and sandy at the surface, and when Coran hands it to you it's almost freezing to the touch. It startles you so much that you almost drop it.

"Smash it to bits and put the shards in this here baggie–" he hands you what looks like a tea filter– "and let it hang in a glass of cold water for a while. When the thingie's drained of its colour and goes clear and the water has turned bright blue you make sure he drinks the whole thing before it goes warm, yeah? That's very important. He's gotta drink it right away, and he's gotta drink the whole thing. It might not work as well if he doesn't drink the whole thing."

The fact that Coran refers to the pill as "the thingie" makes you more than a bit uncomfortable, but you decide to take his word for it, because what other choice do you have?

"Right." You turn to leave, when one more thing pops into your mind. "Actually," you face him again, "I have one more question."

Coran sighs. "You have a lot of questions."

You ignore him. "How do you know Allura? Or, rather, how does Allura know you? She's the one that gave me your address in the first place," you explain. "She's my friend."

To your surprise, Coran smiles–a genuine smile this time, where his eyes crinkle in the corners, not the manic grin he's shown up till now. "I knew her father very well. I've watched her grow up. She knows she can always knock on my door."

It doesn't make much sense–what business would Allura's dad, world-famous scientist, have with this man? You decided to give it the benefit of the doubt. "How much does she know? About all this?"

"I think she knows, deep down. I don't know how much she believes. What she tells herself is real, and what isn't."

You hesitate. "Does she know about me? What I am, I mean?"

Coran heaves an exasperated sigh. "Yeesh, kid. How am I supposed to know that? I didn't even know who you were up till now!" But you get the feeling he's lying. "Now get going. Go on." He starts shooing you towards the door, gently pushing you through the shop.

You blink in surprise, too stunned to do anything but follow suit. "Wait," you stammer. "Wait, I have more questions! Will I be able to come back?"

But Coran waves you off, giving you nothing but a smile and a "Bye-bye!"

You stumble over the threshold, the pill and its baggie in your clenched fist. Cold renders your fingers almost numb, and you open them, exposing the pill to the night air. White smoke curls up from it, and you turn it over to your other hand, wincing as you rub your fingers to get a bit of warmth in them again. It's like you're holding a hailstone.

When you look up, you're disoriented by the bright lights from street lamps around you, and the fact that you're not in the same alley you were in before you entered Coran's shop. It's not even the same block. You make a full turn, dazed, before you recognise the little grocery store on the corner of the street: it's the store where you do most of your shopping. It's right across from your apartment building. Coran deposited you as close as he could to your home.

You push open the door to your apartment with your shoulder, icy pill in one hand and two bottles of chocolate milk and scotch whisky in the other, letting exhaustion creeping into your muscles as soon as you enter the familiar environment. One look to your sofa confirms Keith has barely moved over the hours you were gone. The note and the glass of water you left for him sit untouched on the coffee table.

You make your way to the kitchen and set down the bottles, grabbing a small tray on which you drop the pill. Smash it to bits, said Coran. The back end of a kitchen knife does the job just fine. To your surprise, the pill shatters immediately, shards flying everywhere. You curse, sweeping them all up and dropping them into the tea filter and filling a glass with cold water. As soon as you hang the bag in the glass, blue drips out of it in wisps, slowly tinting the water a cool blue colour. You drop onto a kitchen chair and watch with your chin in your hands, the droplets of blue seeping from the bag mesmerising.

When the water doesn't seem to get any bluer, you peek into the bag. The shards are completely colourless, now resembling bits of clear glass more than anything else. You carefully pick up the glass, hissing through your teeth at the coldness of it.

Keith is still fast asleep, shivering. He's thin, you notice. You can see his ribs through his shirt. Setting the glass down on the coffee table, you try gently nudging him awake. He doesn't respond.

"Come on," you grumble, grabbing his face and tapping his cheek. "Wake up!" Your stomach twists at the thought that he might not wake up in time. The medicine will have warmed up. You should have woken him before preparing it! "Please," you whisper, swallowing back the lump in your throat. "Don't let this have been for nothing. Come on. Wake up, dammit!"

He groans under your touch. You breathe out a shaky sigh of relief as you coerce him into sitting up. "Don't you fucking dare fall asleep again." He looks at you groggily.

You raise the glass to his chapped lips. "Drink up."

He takes a sip and flinches, bursting into coughs. "Cold," he manages. You almost wince at how weak his voice sounds–barely a whisper. He'll get better, you remind yourself. He just has to drink this and he'll get better.

"I know," you mutter, nudging the glass to his lips again. "Drink it. It'll make you feel better."

He eyes you suspiciously but obliges, squeezing his eyes shut as he gulps down the contents of the glass. He shivers, smacking his lips when it's empty and you put it on the floor. "Ah. Gross." But as he shifts, you can already see the colour return to his cheeks.

"Rest," you say, brushing strands of hair away from his forehead. "You'll feel better in the morning." Your voice is shaky and your hands tremble as you bring the glass back to the kitchen and thoroughly wash it, using about a quarter of the bottle of dish soap, running it under the hot water until the stubborn cold is completely gone.

You're tired. You don't even have the energy to shower, so you brush your teeth and crumple into bed, only taking off your boots and trousers. You keep your socks on and pull the comforter tighter around you. You're cold.

As you turn to face the wall, you think back to Coran's stupid enchanted pen. Wondering if you've made a mistake. The words you ended up writing down looping through your mind, over and over again, lighting up in front of you whenever you close your eyes. What do you want most?

I want to be safe from Management, was your first answer. The answer the pen hadn't let you write down. And it was what you wanted most–or at least what you wanted most until Keith had shown up on your doorstep just over a week ago.

What do you want most?

You drift off to sleep, the question nagging at the back of your mind.

You jolt awake at the crash, bolting up from your bed and racing for the kitchen, where the sound had come from. In your hand is the knife you keep in your nightstand. Your knuckles are white around the hilt. You slam a hand on the light switch, and the person bent over and hidden behind your fridge hits their head and yells in pain, and you brandish your knife and scream at them to Stay back!

"It's just me! Y/N!" Keith says, holding up his hands above his head.

You huff out a breath, letting the knife drop to your side. "Keith?"

He nods, blinking and squinting against the bright light. You're only barely over the shock of seeing him up and about, yet you can't help but notice how thin he looks and how weary and sunken his eyes are. His eyes keep flicking back to the knife still in your hand, and you quickly snap it shut, slipping it in the pocket of your sweatpants.

"So I take it you're feeling better?"

He nods again. "I'm hungry," he says. His voice isn't quite back to normal–it's still quite hoarse from not having used it in over five days–but you suspect it won't take very long. "Sorry for startling you. I'll go back to sleep."

You grab his arm before he can walk past you. "Nonsense. You've slept for five days straight. I'm hungry too, anyway. I can order takeout?"

He gives you a tentative smile. "That'd be great."

And that's how you end up sitting in your brightly lit kitchen at four in the morning, eating out of cardboard Chinese takeout boxes, with an angel whose life you saved. His wings are completely concealed now and don't bother him when he sits in a chair or lies down. While neither of you talks much, you both sneak glances when you think the other isn't looking.

What do you want most?

He looks nervous, and even though he insists he's not tired you can tell he's fighting against the weight of his eyelids, his movements droopy and slow, as if he's moving through layers of syrup. When he almost drops his fork (at four A.M. you're allowed to eat Chinese with a fork) out of exhaustion, you nudge his leg with your foot under the table.

"Go back to sleep."

"I'm fine. I'm still hungry."

"You can eat tomorrow. You're barely able to hold yourself upright, idiot."

He sighs but pushes his chair back and stands up. His knees immediately buckle beneath him, and you shoot out of your chair and only just manage to catch him before he drops to the ground. "All right, okay. There we go. I got you."

"Not feeling as good as I thought," Keith mutters into your shoulder as you practically drag him to the sofa.

"Evidently."

You tuck him in (it seems like such a childish gesture–but curled up like that, looking thin and fragile, Keith reminds you of a small kid and it just feels like the right thing to do) and resist the weird urge to plant a kiss on his forehead. You settle for a somewhat awkward pat on the shoulder.

You stick the leftover food in the fridge and make your way back to your own room. You're still kind of cold, so you keep the sweatpants and sweatshirt on, bringing the knife out of your pocket and setting it back on your nightstand before climbing into bed.

The buzzing of the city outside of your window keeps you up for hours as you toss and turn. Feelings you don't know what to make of churn through you. Relief at the fact that the medicine seems to be working. Fear, because you don't really know how to proceed now. A demon saving an angel's life–that one's pretty much unheard of, you think bitterly.

Oh, if Management were to find out... not only would your fate be settled, you would have signed Keith's death warrant along with it. The comforter bunches in your clenched fists and you twist around, shutting your eyes resolutely.

What do you want most?

[lechevaliermalfet]

In the Name of the Moon – A Look at Lunar Legend Tsukihime

There’s a popular joke in the Type-Moon fandom that there is no Tsukihime anime, but boy it sure would be great if there was one.

I had only ever been dimly aware of this attitude toward the Tsukihime anime myself.  Watching it fansubbed for the first time in the early 00s, I wasn’t really plugged into the fandom, and the joke seemed like a minor thing to me.  I had all but forgotten it by the time I was with my wife at Otakon in 2012, and we went to a panel about Type-Moon for fandom newcomers.  

The panel was pretty salty about the Tsukihime anime, taking the joke about there being no such thing so far as to refuse to acknowledge it or discuss it.  If I recall, they insisted on this refusal even when directly asked about it by someone in the audience.  I also don’t recall them being all that complimentary about the Fate/Stay Night anime (the original 2006 series) for that matter.  We had a long drive home after the convention – fourteen hours, give or take – and our discussion about the convention kept circling back to that panel.

She’d gone mostly to accompany me, I think, and because she didn’t have anything she wanted to do that conflicted with it.  She had some minor interest herself, as she’d seen this supposedly nonexistent Tsukihime anime, and like me, she enjoyed it.  So it was pretty irritating for her to go to this panel ostensibly for newcomers and then have them trash the one thing she’d experienced in the fandom.  It was all the more irritating when you stopped to consider that at that point that it was, in all probability, one of the handful of things real newcomers might have experience with.

In its way, though, the panelists’ hostile and disdainful attitude toward the most accessible works in the general Type-Moon oeuvre did make for a suitable introduction.  If not to Type-Moon and their work, then to the fandom, and the high levels of toxicity most of its assholes could and would display given the opportunity.

But I’m not here to talk about the Type-Moon fandom, except as it amuses me, or is relevant to the subject at hand.

The subject being this supposedly non-existent anime: Lunar Legend Tsukihime.

My own relation to the Western Type-Moon fan community is tangential at best.  A couple of guys I know (one a good friend, the other an acquaintance), back in the early to mid-aughts, were moderators for the Beast’s Lair forum, basically the center of the English-language fandom community at the time.  Of course, at the time, the fandom was almost brand-new.  Tsukihime was all the rage then, because Tsukihime was almost all there was. Fate/Stay Night was new enough that there hadn’t really been time for the discourse around it to even form, let alone evolve much.  And in those days, Beast’s Lair was basically the forum owner and a few of his online friends, and I feel like half the reason it existed was because at that point, it was more convenient to just have a forum than it was to get a bunch of guys together on an AIM group chat with that level of frequency.  This was before Mirror Moon created a translation patch for any of these games.  These were guys who bought the game direct from Japan, paid the outrageous import fees, referred constantly to a GameFAQs walkthrough, and died like men.  It was that, or learn Japanese.  Most of them opted for the walkthrough. Thank Whoever you believe in that the game runs windowed, I guess.

Fate, which has been the bread and butter of Type-Moon’s success for well over a decade now, was a commercial game.  But it was one built with on the base of the huge support Tsukihime had garnered following its launch.  Tsukihime itself was a doujin game, made when the guys at Type-Moon were a bunch of nobodies and had no real money to speak of.

Because they were nobodies, and because they needed the game to sell big if they were going to make the kind of money they needed to make, they did what a lot of Japanese doujin developers have done and continue to do, and will probably do until the end of time, and put porn in the game.

This is not unknown in Western development circles either, just for the record. But Japanese culture is in some ways more permissive when it comes to depictions of sex or sex-adjacent topics and material in their mainstream entertainment.  Porn can net you a decent career, or at least a halfway-decent living, and it’s generally easier over there for porn artists in any field of endeavor to “go legit” and make the jump to the non-porn version of their field.

That doesn’t happen in the West, or at any rate not in America.  Or very rarely. We have (for better or worse; there’s a whole separate debate there) a much sharper division between the porn and non-porn sides of the entertainment industry, and that barrier’s much less porous. But porn fans will support you.  If the success ceiling is far lower than in the legitimate side of the industry, it’s also true that the floor is likewise lower.

So here we have Tsukihime.  Not “porn with plot”, or even “plot with porn”, but “plot (…with porn)”.  It’s there because they were worried the game wouldn’t sell without it, and so there’s not much of it in the first place.  What I’m saying is that if you’re wanting to get your rocks off, you’re going to be a while.

Which is not to say that Tsukihime as a game is inherently like… progressive, or woke, or anything like that.  Oh no. Nonononono.  It’s horror (-ish, depending on your route), for starters – a genre that thrives on objectification and exploitation.  And then it’s Japanese, which gives it an extra few layers of seeming weird to American sensibilities.  So this is less like going down the rabbit hole and potentially more like falling into a snake pit.

I say all this to lend some context.  When we think of Type-Moon today, we tend to think of this highly successful production house with a star franchise that’s rapidly hitting the market saturation point.  If it hasn’t already (and I have a friend who maintains that it has). And that is absolutely not Tsukihime.  Not the game, and certainly not the anime.  No ufotable animating, no Yuki Kajiura composing, no Gen Urobuchi directing the critically acclaimed and popularly loved (and irritatingly overpriced) prequel.

This is Tsukihime.  This isn’t the property that launched Type-Moon to stardom.  That would, again, be Fate.  This is the property that let them make Fate the way they did.  Tsukihime is the visual novel world’s equivalent of some garage band you never heard of releasing their demo tape as their debut album, and the demo tape is actually pretty good, even as it suffers from having basically rock-bottom production values.  It’s one of those things where the whole is more than the sum of its parts.  You have to look at what it tries to be and tries to do, and like it for that. In that much at least, even as they differ in many other ways, that much is true of both the anime and the visual novel.

It’s worth it, though.

Phantasmal Fantasy

If we’re being honest (and why wouldn’t we be honest?), Tsukihime, at least going through the main route, is a little bit less straight horror and a little more what I think of as horror-fantasy.  It isn’t horror because it’s rarely if ever actually frightening.  But it uses horror aesthetics in a fantasy setting (urban fantasy, in this case), which may lend things a generally eerie and unsettling sense of ambiance and a particular feeling of threat to the main characters without ever quite getting your pulse up.  It’s a hybrid genre I happen to have a huge soft spot for (I’ve been reliably informed that this is sort of My Thing).  The entire Legacy of Kain series falls under that banner for me, as do most of the Castlevania games.  The Dark Souls games all have it to some extent, and Bloodborne leans into it hard enough that it actually is kind of legitimately scary at various points.  And then there are movies like Vampire Hunter D.

Lunar Legend Tsukihime, the anime based on the visual novel Tsukihime, was released in the early to mid 2000s.  On a technical level, it’s very middle-of-the-road, with a bit of a generic visual style and workmanlike animation.  But we’re talking about an anime based on a doujin hentai game.  More mainstream visual novels’ adaptations tend to get better treatment.  Tsukihime is well-regarded, but probably not really “popular” in the same sense as something like, say, Da Capo or Little Busters or Air, or...  Look, Type-Moon’s getting the star treatment was pretty much going to be impossible at that stage.  It took Tsukihime and the first Fate adaptation before we got to that point.  That the Tsukihime anime happened at all is honestly kind of remarkable, and a testament to how much of an impact the game made.

Tsukihime takes place in the modern day (well, modern for the date of its release, which for the game was 2000, and for the anime would be 2003 or so).  It’s a vampire story, of sorts, though the only creatures we’d recognize as traditional vampires are a minor threat at best.

Our main character, or at any rate, our viewpoint character, is Shiki Tohno.  He’s part of a large, wealthy, and presumably powerful family, though he lives with an aunt and uncle whose ways and means are much more middle-class than his father, the head of the family.  He was banished from the main estate eight years ago, shipped off to live with his aunt and uncle after an accident when he was about eight.

He doesn’t remember much about the accident.  He (and therefore we) are initially told it was a car accident, and that it damaged his heart. He has fainting spells occasionally if he over-exerts himself, and otherwise generally anemic symptoms.  Something to do with damage to his heart after the accident; it’s not really clear.  The weakness makes him an unfit heir to be head of the family, hence his being put aside.

The real change in him is far stranger, and far harder to understand.

While recovering in the hospital, he begins to see odd lines running through everything, making the world look fractured.  He discovers that if he cuts along those lines with a blade or other edged implement, the object will simply fall apart along those lines.  It takes little to no force to do this.  He could cut down a tree simply by dragging the edge of a knife along a particular line on its trunk, a line invisible to anyone but him.  His attempts to convince others that these lines exist fall on deaf ears, and only cause concern for his mental state.

One day during his recovery, while wandering around outside, he runs across a woman named Aoko Aozaki who not only believes him, but understands what’s happening.  She explains to him that he has a rare ability – perhaps the only one in the world with it – known as the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.  What he is seeing is the inevitable destruction and dissolution, the “death”, of every person and object around him.  The lines are the only way his brain can make sense of it, as this is something the human mind doesn’t readily grasp.  She gives him a pair of glasses which make the lines go away while he wears them, and which therefore allow him to go on with his life as normal.  She tells him that he mustn’t use this power of his unless absolutely necessary.

Shiki lives his life normally from that point forward, until one day while he’s in high school, he receives notice that his father has passed away, and Shiki is to move back into the main estate.  Said estate is in the same town, so much of his day-to-day should remain the same – same friends, same school, same daily routine.

But a strange thing happens on his way to the manor after school.  While resting in the park, he sees a young woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a white sweater.  From out of nowhere, he is overcome with a furious, murderous impulse.  His body seems to move on its own, with no input or control from him.  Off come the glasses, out comes the knife he carries with him, and he’s off chasing her.  Bad things happen.

He wakes up in the Tohno mansion, having blacked out and been retrieved by Hisui, one of the two maids of the home.  She dresses as a Western maid, while her twin sister, Kohaku, also a maid, prefers a kimono.  

But his arrival at the manor comes with significant culture shock.  In the wake of his father’s passing, possession of the manor and the position of head of family have both fallen to his younger sister, Akiha, whom he hasn’t seen since his accident some eight years ago.  His memory of her is a little hazy, but he seems taken aback by the polite but stern young lady she’s grown into.  Altogether, the four of them – Akiha, Shiki, Kohaku, and Hisui – are the only inhabitants of the house.  

Shiki finds its size and sense of isolation intimidating, all the more because his daily life in and around the house is in for a massive shake-up.  For starters, there’s a strict curfew, and also no television.  When Shiki objects, Akiha puts her foot down, and seems determined that he will live according to the family’s ways and rules, or…  Well, there is no “or else”.  He just will, end of story.

So he sneaks out to go buy some snacks and magazines.  On his way, he is accosted by one of his classmates, Ciel.  But here, she’s dressed in an odd outfit, carrying a set of deadly-sharp swords, and seems intent on killing him until she satisfies herself that he poses no threat.

The next day, further weirdness ensues.  He encounters the blonde lady, the one he thought he killed, very much alive and well.  His initial relief that he didn’t actually kill her is quickly undone by her assertion that actually, he did, and with rare skill and gusto.  She then goes on to describe the exact cuts he used to slice her into seventeen separate pieces.  

Then it gets stranger.

She is, she tells him, a vampire, albeit not all that much like what you’d think of when the word comes to mind.  And no, she doesn’t sparkle.  Her name is Arcueid Brunestud, and she’s hunting an enemy of hers who’s in the area, and is responsible for a string of murders and mysterious deaths that have been occurring lately.  She was doing well enough until Shiki came along murdered her.  While she was able to recover from this inconvenience, their encounter has left her in a weakened state.  Now she needs help, and who better than the one who put her in this position in the first place?

Twists, Turns, and Dead Ends

I’m a little conflicted about the problem with the Tsukihime anime.  I can’t decide whether its creators overestimated what they could do in twelve episodes, or underestimated the material and the time it needed.  I supposed it really doesn’t make much difference.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Bad news first.

There are some technical issues with the show, which are probably the least of its problems.  The art style is kind of lackluster and workmanlike, and the animation is overall pretty by-the-numbers.  There are numerous moments where you can see drawing or animation shortcuts were taken, and there are lots of long shots where the camera lingers on one place or on one person well beyond what’s necessary for drama.  On the other hand, the more important action scenes do see a slight jump in quality, so maybe the producers were keeping something up their sleeve for when it counted.  

The English voice work is serviceable.  The actors’ voices are by and large a good fit for the roles, but the acting is occasionally a little wooden. The writing is somewhat off as well.  Shiki disappears from his normal life for a while in the third and fourth episodes, and his friends’ and family’s discussions of it once he resurfaces don’t seem to agree on the times he was gone – at one point, even within the same conversation.  This may be a translation or dub writing error, though.  There are other weird gaffes (this time in the original script), such as that Shiki doesn’t notice that Kohaku and Hisui are identical twins. This despite the fact that their only notable differences are eye color and wardrobe.

But these are mostly technical troubles, and they’re things I can overlook pretty easily.  The writing errors are never so serious that I get confused about what’s going on, and the artwork issues aren’t too out of line, either.  Certainly I’ve seen other shows from the time that did worse and more often.

The real issues \with Tsukihime, and the problem most of the original game’s fans have, stem from the way it’s adapted from the game.

Like a lot of visual novels, Tsukihime has multiple routes, and many if not all of them are mutually exclusive.  In fact, some don’t even involve Arcueid, who you’ll remember is one of the main characters. This presents some difficulties when making a TV series.  On the one hand, there is a canon route, and you could probably make a decent twelve-episode TV series out of just that.  On the other hand, there are lots of fans who prefer the alternate routes, who would be pissed if their favorite characters showcased in those routes weren’t given some screen time, and so you want to give them something.  And, too, one of the intriguing things about a game like Tsukihime is all the lore and world-building that makes these divergent plotlines possible and interesting.  Even when not pursued, elements of those routes may come up one way or another, and lend a certain richness and depth to the story.  It would be a shame to leave that on the cutting room floor.

Another possibility the show’s creators could take is to craft their own continuity, essentially creating a story hybridized from multiple routes from the game while not adhering strictly to any one of them, and create a single story that way.  This hypothetical hybrid story would then be better able to explore more of the background and lore, and incorporate that richness into its own new canon.  But that would take probably more than twelve episodes, and twelve was all Tsukihime got.  For anyone who’s curious about what this approach might look like, there’s a manga adaptation that incorporates elements of the other routes into the main story.  It’s out of print now, sadly.  Originally published by ComicsOne, it was taken over by DrMaster after ComicsOne went out of business.  Then DrMaster themselves went out...

Anyway, the compromise measure that the show’s creators eventually decided on was to largely tell one story (the Near Side routes, particularly the Arcueid route), while throwing in bits and pieces from other routes… and then never following up on them.  There wind up being a few non sequiturs and narrative dead ends or red herrings, almost as a kind of wink and nod to say that the show’s makers at least know those possibilities exist.  But this results in the show being unfocused.  For instance, a couple of episodes build up the Problem With the Tohno Bloodline, but this ultimately doesn’t figure into the story.  This material comes from what the game refers to as the Far Side routes, and those developments largely go unnoticed during the Near Side routes which the anime’s plot focuses on.  The problem is, again, that these are mutually exclusive as the presented in the original game.  Weaving them together in the “new continuity” approach would be fine – maybe ideal for the anime, even – but it would take an amount of alteration to the continuity that the anime never makes.  It winds up being less of a problem than it sounds like, but it does manage to be frustrating.

The main story, meanwhile, hints at interesting elements from the broader cosmological background that the game establishes (and which later Type-Moon games borrow and build upon), but many of those elements never quite leave the background.  This leaves a frustrating sense of massive, powerful forces and entities moving in the background, that there is something far larger happening that we are not even quite glimpsing, but only being given hints of.  

But if it sometimes seems that Tsukihime only scratches the surface of the greater and deeper lore of its setting, that lore and setting are still compelling.  There’s an almost Lovecraftian sense of cosmic scale to the supernatural as it’s presented in Tsukihime.  Arcueid, Nvrnqsr Chaos (no, that’s not a typo; it’s the real name of an adversary in the game, though the anime presents it as Nero Chaos instead), and her ultimate enemy, Roa – all of them are connected to higher forces and entities.  The murders occurring in Shiki’s city are the most minor of problems in the grand scheme of things.  This is what makes the anime both fascinating and frustrating.  It shows us this conflict, but refuses to give the full context for it.  So much seems to be held back; the full natures of these characters goes unexplored.

I like a little mystery.  I like it when some things are unexplained, or when the answers are there to be found rather than to be given.  It’s one of the things I love about Dark Souls and Bloodborne.  But the story of Tsukihime fails to explore these mysteries in a way I find really satisfying.

I feel like this is the root of why a certain overly vocal segment of the fandom chooses not to acknowledge the anime.  Coming to it from the game, I can see where it might seem a little disappointing.  Many of these hooks can seem like teases to those who understand their significance enough to be upset that they ultimately don’t deliver.

But that’s not the experience that either I or my wife had watching the anime.  We both came to it before we ever knew anything of the game.  For us, those odd hooks were just moments where we went, “Huh.  Weird,” and carried on watching the show.  Sure, there was clear and unaddressed significance, but it wasn’t a problem.  If anything, it made me more curious about the game.

The show may seem meandering to some, but to me, I just tend to think of its pace as sedate.  It doesn’t really dig into the characters’ backstories, but it does help to develop them and give them room to breathe.  

In particular, the anime spends a lot of time developing Arcueid.  We see that despite her power, and her potential for wrath and violence, she’s surprisingly cute and innocent-seeming at times, and actually innocent when it comes to some things.  You can see her interest in Shiki grow, but she seems unable to express it.  Her attempts at being normal can come across as almost mocking, when they are instead sincere and well-meant, but hopelessly clueless.

What we learn of her story is somewhat sparse, but we know that she spends most of her time asleep, awakening only to deal with threats like Roa.  The reasons for this are complicated, at least enough so as to be beyond the scope of this writing.  Suffice it to say that there’s a wiki if you’re after more information.  Just be warned: The writing there is pretty iffy.  Anyway, Arcueid is capable of getting by just fine on her own (when some inconsiderate dick doesn’t just up and murder her, anyway), but it’s also clear that, thanks to spending most of her time asleep, she doesn’t really understand a lot of what’s going on around her.  There’s a kind of obliviousness to her that might be frustrating in another character in a different show, but is somehow just endearing here.  Like my wife said at one point: You just want to hug her.  Which is not, you know, the normal reaction you have with vampires.  “Aloof”, “compelling”, “seductive”…  These are the words we tend to think of when it comes to vampiric “affection” in fiction.  “Huggable” doesn’t really show up on the list.  And yet, here we are.

There’s a certain cat-like quality to her.  Elegant, graceful, mysterious, sometimes selfish, frequently endearing, and occasionally ridiculous.  There’s comedy in her situation.  Shiki, despite his powers, is otherwise kind of a dork who could not be more clearly in over his head, at least at the start.  He spends most of the series bewildered, confused, scared, and very occasionally snapping and completely losing his shit against some eldritch horror.  And yet he’s the one who has to keep Arcueid grounded (to the extent that this is really even possible) and basically explain to her how the world works.  In some ways, it’s really Arcueid’s story.

The pace of the series helps it build a sense of brooding mystery as it explores the twin dilemmas of finding a way to stop Roa and figuring out Shiki’s uncertain place in and relation to the rest of the Tohno family.  And as you might suspect, these two problems aren’t as separate as they first seem.

If nothing else, the opening theme is just about perfect.  Subdued, mysterious, haunting; it sets the mood of the show almost perfectly, in a way that comes close to over-promising on what the anime actually delivers.  It definitely sets a mood.

That mood is one I tend to get into around this time of year.  I’m normally a night person in the first place.  No amount of working mostly first-shift jobs over the last two decades has changed the fact that there’s some part of me that wakes up when the sun goes down, and wants to stay up until the sunrise.  I like to be out and about in the dark.  I can remember back when I was in college, I would be out with friends trying to find any reason at all to stay out as late as possible.  Later in life, I’d duck out long after everyone else was asleep and go for roaming walks at night (at least, back when I lived in a reasonable neighborhood).  With fall here, the urge just gets stronger.  

There’s something of that feeling I get from Tsukihime, large portions of which involve that same nocturnal roaming, and take place in the nighttime times of life.  And I enjoy stories about monsters and the supernatural – I went through something of a vampire fascination phase when I was younger, and still maintain a certain amount of interest – and so those things alone might have gotten my attention.

Fuck the haters; the Tsukihime anime exists, and it’s good.  Not great, and not as good as it might have been, but it’s fine.  If it’s not exactly gripping, edge-of-your-seat suspense, it’s still an entertaining way to spend the better part of five or six hours.  Certainly worth a watch if you can track it down.  

Tsukihime tells an odd, interesting story – moody, dark, weird, mysterious, fantastical – all things I like.  A story of supernatural threats, monsters, mystery, and marauders in the night.  It’s hard to think of anything more appropriate for fall – for October – for Halloween.

Availability

The DVD release for Lunar Legend Tsukihime was originally handled by Geneon in both Japan and the U.S., since they were part of the original production committee.  After they folded, it was picked up by Sentai Filmworks, one of the several splinter companies that rose from the ashes of ADV’s implosion in the late aughts.  

Geneon’s release was evidently a multi-volume affair.  Which seems ludicrous today, when you typically buy an entire season of twelve episodes or so all at once these days, in a single set.  But Geneon (which had previously been Pioneer) had been around since the VHS days, and a lot of those companies in some sense inherited the mindset that had governed the VHS release schedule, which was to release a volume every couple of months or so, with three or four episodes on each one, and that was that.

Sentai Filmworks’ version is a two-disc, single-volume set, so that would probably be the way to go.  Especially if shelf space is a concern.  

There is no Blu-ray release, and honestly, it’s hard to imagine what Blu-ray would really do for the show.  At any rate, it seems to be out of print currently.  Geneon, of course, folded about a decade or so ago. And although Sentai Filmworks lists it in their catalog, there’s no option to buy.  And it doesn’t appear to be available for legal streaming anywhere.  Like a lot of older (and I hate to think of this as “older” – I remember being an adult when it was new) – maybe I should say somewhat older anime – Amazon and eBay are your best bet if you’re interested.  

Postscript the First – The Anime versus the Game

Tsukihime, as a visual novel with multiple routes, contains far more material than the TV series.  HOWEVER, please consider this paragraph your giant, flashing, neon-lit trigger warning for content potentially involving sex, assault, sexual assault (of various kinds), incest, violation of consent, and more violence than the anime producers could show even with the series airing at otaku o’clock.

Just to be up-front for a moment, I haven’t played much of the game.  Much of my information comes secondhand, or else is the result of reading the Type-Moon wiki and talking with friends who’ve played through it. I’ve yet to finish a single route.  I’d like to, and I occasionally chip away at it here and there, but the problems are twofold.

The first problem – probably the main problem – is the low level of engagement.  I get curious about visual novels from time to time, but they’re always a little too easy to put down, and a little too hard to pick up.  And that may seem strange, since there’s so little to do in one.  The amount of effort involved is nil.  But that’s just the thing.  I often wrestle with whether or not I even consider them to be games at all.  And, look: It’s not like I think visual novels are unworthy of anyone’s time.  They’re fine.  Largely not my cup of tea, but fine.  But what you do in a visual novel could hardly be called playing, any more than you “play” a Choose Your Own Adventure book.  There are no mechanics, no maneuvering through the world, no use of skills.  Just decisions to make, and those not very often.  The thing about an actual game is that I’m mentally engaged, fully occupied and firing on all (or most) cylinders.  When I want to play a game, that’s what I’m after.  And visual novels just don’t offer that.

Of course, I do love to read, and so it would seem like they should be right up my alley for that reason at least.  But no.  The writing is actually my second problem.

So far as I’ve observed, which admittedly isn’t much, most Japanese visual novels translated into English are pretty awkward, and this is probably a combination of factors.  One is that what constitutes good writing (in terms of how the language is deployed) in Japanese differs considerably from what constitutes good writing in English.  It’s not just visual novels, mind you.  The couple Haruki Murakami books I’ve read have both also seemed off to some degree as well.  I think it’s just something in the translation, some difference between English and Japanese in the matters of word choice, rhythm, and flow, and the sense for how these things work in each.  I sincerely think that making a Japanese work really sing in English would involve a level of change that most translators (and visual novel fans in particular, given their greater likelihood of being total Japanophiles) are deeply uncomfortable with.

But beyond the general problem of Japanese-to-English writing, there’s the problem of Kinoko Nasu in particular, who is Type-Moon’s writer.

Nasu is, I think, something of a Lovecraft disciple, with his cosmic-scale sense for horror.  But he’s also like Lovecraft in another very important and distinct way, which is that despite having really interesting ideas that set my imagination on fire, he actually can not fucking write.

I’m sorry, Lovecraft fans, I really am, but it’s true.  Deep down, you all know it.  Lovecraft, for his part, was a man who at some point earlier in his life swallowed a thesaurus, and was then hell-bent on vomiting it out over every page he wrote ever afterward.  He never used one word if he could find a way to use five or six to say the same thing, never used a simple, elegant, and concise word when he knew a more complex one, and his style has so little flow you’d need an electron microscope to find it.  You could make a workout of running back and forth to the dictionary while reading his work.  Or you could make it a drinking game.  And then die, of alcohol poisoning.

He had some great ideas, once you got past the writing, and the multiple onion-like layers of intense racism.  And he was intensely racist; let’s not forget that.  Not just “racist because it’s the 1920s or ‘30s and basically everyone white is racist right now,” I mean racist even for those times.  People back then were a little weirded out by how much he hated the Jews, and black people, and anyone else who wasn’t the right shade of paper-white.  But even just focusing on his writing, the feeling remains that he was not the best vehicle for his stories, and that’s just how it is.  The most aching, taxing, fucking grueling reading I have ever done on stories I still actually liked is mostly found between the covers of the various Lovecraft compendia I have lying around the house.  I like his stories; I just don’t like reading them much.

Nasu may well be his reincarnation (and oh, would it ever have horrified Lovecraft to be reincarnated as a Japanese person).  A common complaint I’ve heard about Nasu’s writing (from people who’ve read it in Japanese) is that he has good ideas, but just isn’t a skilled writer.  Now, I’m not qualified to really dissect how he comes across in his own culture, but when translated into English, he’s a painful read.  Maybe it’s the fault of the group responsible for the translation (Mirror Moon), but at the very least, I can confidently state that he should stay out of porn.  His sex scenes have some of the least sexy and most unintentionally hilarious writing I’ve seen in my life.  It’s why I think that even Fate didn’t really take off to become the absolute phenomenon it is until after we started to get anime adaptations of it.  Those adaptations would all have been written by other people, or at least had some amount of editing or collaboration to dilute the worst of his influence, letting the good ideas shine through without Nasu’s own writing griming everything up.

I don’t have a lot of basis for comparison, but I feel like on a technical level, Tsukihime is pretty basic.  The character artwork is nice enough, with a distinct style.  The backgrounds, though, are in most cases very clearly photographs that have been filtered or otherwise manipulated so as not to clash too badly with the character art.  This was probably a shortcut to save time or money, or both.  

On the balance, I’d say it’s worth looking into, with the major caveat that there’s a lot of stuff in it that didn’t (and couldn’t) make it into the anime, that makes the story overall much darker and more sinister than the anime could manage.  Unfortunately, it’s going to be hard to find.  There’s only the original version released in 2000.  There’s talk of a sequel and a remake, but the amount of time that’s passed for no more attention or work than the project has received, to the extent that these things have become running gags in the fandom.  They probably are things that the higher-ups at Type-Moon really do mean to create at some point, but which aren’t a huge priority for them, and so are very, very back-burner projects.

As I mentioned above, the anime and the game are both similar in that their quality persists despite somewhat lacking production values.  But the anime’s middle-of-the-road budget and somewhat generic style was never the problem.  The game, meanwhile, was pretty clearly made on a close-to-shoestring budget, but this actually doesn’t matter nearly as much.  Visuals novels live and die on their writing, ideas, and artwork, I think.  Rarely if ever do they rely on really cutting-edge graphics for their impact.  And in truth, Tsukihime the game was always going to be marred far more by Nasu’s writing than anything technical.  

A nice upside is that, since we’re privy to Shiki’s internal monologue, he comes across as a more interesting character.  He seems to sometimes just float through the story in the anime, with bouts of intensity here and there when things go wrong or he’s totally lost it.  But the game gives us his thoughts, and we get a better handle on why he does the things he does.

For English-speaking fans, there are walkthroughs, of course.  But if that understandably sounds like too much of a pain in the ass, there’s also a fan translation (unauthorized) by Mirror Moon.  In addition to rendering the game into English, I believe it also introduces an option for removing the sex scenes.  So for those who are uncomfortable with those, this will answer that concern, at least.  

Postscript the Second – Alternate Takes: Kara no Kyoukai

Frequently referred to in English-speaking circles by its subtitle, The Garden of Sinners, Kara no Kyoukai (which Wikipedia tells us means something like ��Boundary of Emptiness”) is an interesting story from Kinoko Nasu’s early days.  It began publication (independently) in August of 1998, and is set in that timeframe.  Originally a series of novels, it’s primarily known in the U.S. as a boxed set of seven movies (plus a stand-alone eighth) priced exorbitantly by Aniplex USA (the Blu-ray boxed set for the first seven will set you back a cool $400).  These movies tell the story of a different Shiki, this time a young woman who wears a kimono, boots, and red leather jacket, named Shiki Ryogi.  

There are pretty clear linkages between it and Tsukihime, though these are thematic rather than narrative, and the result of ideas being reused.  Nasu began writing Kara no Kyoukai first, and seems to have cannibalized some of its concepts for Tsukihime. The two stories take place in alternate universes.  As with Tsukihime, this version of Shiki also has the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception, although Kara no Kyoukai’s Shiki does actually come by them after an automobile accident.  There’s also a redheaded sorceress with the last name Aozaki (Touko instead of Aoko), and I want to say that I’ve read somewhere that they’re sisters, and that Touko traveled to this alternate reality from the “main” one where Tsukihime and Fate take place. She was initially envisioned with sort of pixie-cut blue hair, but was converted for the movies into a redhead like her sister Aoko, and Nasu decided he liked the change so much that it became canon.

But although it features a Shiki with the Mystic Eyes, she shares the spotlight with Mikiya Kokuto, who’s a dead ringer for the Shiki of Tsukihime. His personality’s different – he lacks Shiki Tohno’s deeply buried killer instinct, for a start.  Mikiya has no special abilities beyond a knack for information-gathering and a better-than-average capacity for deductive reasoning.  Moreover, even without any special powers of his own, he seems to move with relative comfort in a world full of sorcerers and mystical murderers, in part by keeping an open mind, taking nothing for granted, keeping his assumptions in check, and taking everything as it comes.  He works as an investigator for Touko’s paranormal detective agency, Garan-no-Dou. Shiki is mostly the muscle.

Mikiya has a younger sister, Azaka, who in her turn looks an awful lot like Shiki Tohno’s sister Akiha.  Except for in flashbacks, where she looks like a young Rin Tohsaka from Fate instead.  As with Tsukihime, she is attracted to her brother.  Unlike Tsukihime, the two of them are actually blood siblings, so... At least with Kara no Kyoukai, this profound failure of the Westermarck Effect is entirely one-sided; Mikiya has eyes only for Shiki.  TV Tropes would undoubtedly describe it as Single-Target Sexuality.  

There are any number of other parallels between the two, but these are the most obvious.  Much of the background lore seems to be similar between the two series, although Kara no Kyoukai doesn’t use the same parts of it, and doesn’t dig into the parts it does use quite as much.  It’s much less concerned with cosmic entities like Arcueid or Roa or Nvrnqsr Chaos, and more concerned with its characters as individuals, and how they relate to each other.  That isn’t to say that it doesn’t dive into the sort of metaphysical strangeness on display in Tsukihime and Fate – Kara no Kyoukai is aggressively weird – but its metaphysical struggles are more self-contained, connected more directly to the characters and less tied to the cosmological backdrop.

The movies were released in Japan beginning in 2007, almost a decade after the novels began publication, and well after the successes of Tsukihime and the first Fate series. They’re animated by ufotable, and feature Yuki Kajiura as the composer.  I’d encourage anyone interested to track them down, though I know the price tag can be offputting.  Aside from high-quality video and sound, the set is pretty bare-bones.  There’s no English audio track; in fact, the impression I get is that this is basically just the Japanese Blu-ray release, re-encoded for Region 1. This includes the movies’ proper titles not being displayed in English anywhere on the discs or cases, so you have to do a little sleuthing to figure out which movies are which.  This is doubly aggravating considering that the intended viewing order isn’t chronological, so it’s not immediately apparent if you’ve started with the wrong movie.  If you feel totally lost and like you’ve just come into the middle of things, then it’s highly likely you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.  Thankfully, the menus are in English, and the subtitles are serviceable.

There’s a DVD version of the boxed set that costs less – I want to say the whole boxed set went for something like $200 – which is still a decent chunk of change, but more reasonable for a set of seven movies. Unfortunately, a quick browse of Amazon makes it seem even harder to find than the Blu-ray set.  And, sadly, there are no legal streaming options for this series.