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aboveallarescuer · 5 years ago

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GRRM interviews about (or mentioning) Dany - Part 1

I went to So Spake Martin and collected excerpts of GRRM's interviews that talked about Dany in some way. Some observations here:

I didn't have access to broken/unavailable links or newspapers that require subscription.

I didn't get video or podcast interviews, only ones that were written down.

I also added some excerpts about how he enjoys grey characters or how he wants to be "realistic" and other topics that may relate ... not necessarily to Dany's character, but to his writing in general. It may be useful for some metas, even if they should not be divorced from the actual text.

I didn't mind collecting interviews about the same topic.

Maybe I did a poor job collecting these interviews or the SSM is incomplete, but, in any case, there are still several key interviews missing; I couldn't find the ones about how GRRM relates to Dany's character or how he wishes the Targaryens were black, for instance.

Even with these limitations in mind, there is still quite a bit to dig into here.

November 1998

The Targaryens have heavily interbred, like the Ptolemys of Egypt. As any horse or dog breeder can tell you, interbreeding accentuates both flaws and virtues, and pushes a lineage toward the extremes. Also, there's sometimes a fine line between madness and greatness. Daeron I, the boy king who led a war of conquest, and even the saintly Baelor I could also be considered "mad," if seen in a different light. ((And I must confess, I love grey characters, and those who can be interperted in many different ways. Both as a reader and a writer, I want complexity and subtlety in my fiction))

December 1998

Was it a conscious decision to paint things in grey, killing off good guys, etc.

Definitely a conscious decision. Both as a reader and a writer, I prefer my plots to be unpredictable and my characters to be painted in shades of grey, rather than in blacks and whites.

July 1999

Just out of being curious how a writer goes about his work -- do you generally write a certain POVs chapters in batches? Or are Dany's chapters, given how generally unconnected they are to the rest of the books as she goes along her own plot thread, easier to do that way? I suppose the momentum can help with a tough character.

Yes, I generally get in a groove on a particular character and write several chapters or chunks of chapters at once, before hitting a wall. When I do hit a wall, I switch to another character. Some characters are easier to write and some harder, however. Dany and Bran have always been toughest, maybe because they are heaviest on the magical elements... also, Bran is the youngest of POV kids, and very restricted as well because of his legs. At the other end of the spectrum, the Tyrion chapters often seem to write themselves. The same was true for Ned.

Jon was not born "more than 1 year" before Dany... probably closer to eight or nine months or thereabouts.

November 1999

Also, just how much impact did the Rhoynar have on the modern customs of Dorne? Beyond the gender-blind inheritance laws, the couple of Rhoynish gods that smallfolk might have turned into saints or angelic-type beings, and perhaps the round shields, that is. In particular, given that Nymeria was a warrior-queen, is there a certain amazon tradition?

The Rhoynar did impact Dorne in a number of ways, some of which will be revealed in later books. Women definitely have more rights in Dorne, but I would not call it an "Amazon" tradition, necessarily. Nymeria had more in common with someone like Daenerys or Joan d'Arc than with Brienne or Xena the Warrior Princess.

September 2000

It has been my intention from the start to gradually bring up the amount of magic in each successive volume of A Song of Ice and Fire, and that will continue. I will not rule out the possibility of a certain amount of "behind the scenes" magic, either. But while sorcerous events may impact on my characters, as with Renly or Lord Beric or Dany, their choices must ultimately remain their own.

November 2000

This third Targaryen might very well be -not- a Targaryen, to quote his exact words... "Three heads of the dragon... yes... but the third will not nessesarily BE a Targaryen..."

He mentioned his frustration that Tranter books don't have maps since Tranter tends to describe journeys using ALL the available landmarks (I also stupidly complained about there not being a map of the landmass Dany's on in the books, and he VERY politely pointed out to me that there was one in SoS [O the shame!]).

December 2000

NG: A Song of Ice and Fire undergoes a very interesting progression over its first three volumes, from a relatively clear scenario of Good (the Starks) fighting Evil (the Lannisters) to a much more ambiguous one, in which the Lannisters are much better understood, and moral certainties are less easily attainable. Are you deliberately defying the conventions and assumptions of neo-Tolkienian Fantasy here?

GRRM: Guilty as charged.

The battle between good and evil is a legitimate theme for a Fantasy (or for any work of fiction, for that matter), but in real life that battle is fought chiefly in the individual human heart. Too many contemporary Fantasies take the easy way out by externalizing the struggle, so the heroic protagonists need only smite the evil minions of the dark power to win the day. And you can tell the evil minions, because they're inevitably ugly and they all wear black.

I wanted to stand much of that on its head.

In real life, the hardest aspect of the battle between good and evil is determining which is which.

NG: You've frequently expressed admiration for Jack Vance. How Vancean is A Song of Ice and Fire in conception and style? In particular, does the narrative thread featuring the exotic wanderings of Daenerys Targaryen function in part as a tribute to Vance, to his picaresque inventiveness?

GRRM: Jack Vance is the greatest living SF writer, in my opinion, and one of the few who is also a master of Fantasy. His The Dying Earth (1950) was one of the seminal books in the history of modern Fantasy, and I would rank him right up there with Tolkien, Dunsany, Leiber, and T.H. White as one of the fathers of the genre.

All that being said, I don't think A Song of Ice and Fire is particularly Vancean. Vance has his voice and I have mine. I couldn't write like Vance even if I tried... and I did try, once. The first Haviland Tuf story, "A Beast for Norn," was my attempt to capture some of Vance's effects, and Tuf is a very Vancean hero, a distant cousin to Magnus Ridolph, perhaps. But what that experiment taught me was that only Jack Vance can write like Jack Vance

NG: Three more volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire wait to be written. What shape do you expect them to take, and are their titles finalized as yet?

GRRM: Yes, three more volumes remain. The series could almost be considered as two linked trilogies, although I tend to think of it more as one long story. The next book, A Dance With Dragons, will focus on the return of Daenerys Targaryen to Westeros, and the conflicts that creates. After that comes The Winds of Winter. I have been calling the final volume A Time For Wolves, but I am not happy with that title and will probably change it if I can come up with one that I like better.

You tend to write protagonists with strongly negative personality quirks, people who certainly don't fit the standard mold of a hero. People like Tuf in the Tuf Voyaging series, and Stannis and Tyrion inSong of Ice and Fire. Do you deliberately inject your characters with unattractive elements to make readers consciously think about whether they like them and why?

Martin: [Laughs.] Well, I don't know that I'd choose the word "unappealing," but I look for ways to make my characters real and to make them human, characters who have good and bad, noble and selfish, well-mixed in their natures. Yes, I do certainly want people to think about the characters, and not just react with a knee-jerk. I read too much fiction myself in which you encounter characters who are very stereotyped. They're heroic-hero and dastardly-villain, and they're completely black or completely white. And that's boring, so far as I'm concerned. It's also unreal. If you look at real human history, even the darkest villains had some good things about them. Perhaps they were courageous, or perhaps they were occasionally compassionate to an enemy. Even our greatest heroes had weaknesses and flaws.

There seem to be two different styles competing throughout the series: historical fantasy in the Seven Kingdoms series, and a softer Roger Zelazny/Arabian Nights style for the scenes abroad. Is there a conscious split between the two for you, or is it just an aspect of the setting?

Martin: I try to vary the style to fit each of the characters. Each character should have his or her own internal voice, since we're inside their heads. But certainly the setting has great impact. Dany is moving through exotic realms that are perhaps stranger to us than Westeros, which is more based in the medieval history with which we're more familiar in the West, so perhaps those chapters seem more colorful and fanciful.

You do tend to be very brutal to your characters.

Martin: Well, yes. But you know, I think there's a requirement, even in fantasy--it comes from a realm of the imagination and is based on fanciful worlds, but there's still a necessity to tell the truth, to try to reflect some true things about the world we live in. There's an inherent dishonesty to the sort of fantasy that too many people have done, where there's a giant war that rips the world apart, but no one that we know is ever really seriously inconvenienced by this. You see the devastated villages where unnamed peasants have lived, and they're all dead, but the heroes just breeze through, killing people at every hand, surviving those dire situations. There's a falsehood to that that troubles me. A writer can choose not to write about war. You don't have to write about war if that's not a subject that interests you, or you find it too brutal. But if you are going to write about war, I think you need to tell the truth about it, and the truth is that people die, and people die in ugly ways, and even some of the good guys die, even people who are loved.

June 2001

I'm a bit concerned about Dany's skills as a commander. To succeed with the invasion of Westeros, I believe she will need a lot of sound military advice (both tactically and strategically). What's your thoughts on this issue?

She will need counsel, yes... she will also need to learn to tell the good counsel from the bad, which is perhaps the hardest task of all.

Was it difficult to you when you wrote Dany's scene with the slavers in SOS? Was that one of the moments where the character spoke to you and changer their direction? Cause for me that act of Dany's seemed out of character. I know she dislikes slavery, but she must have killed an awful lot of innocent people there, plus her motives to me seemed suspect. Yes she freed the slaves, but she also got a large army for nothing. And right after she left the slavery started up again.

Dany is still very young. She has lessons to learn. That was one of them. It is not as easy to do good as it might seem, no matter how noble your intentions.

February 2002

1. Was Mirri Maz Duur telling the truth when she told Daenerys Targaryen that the latter could never have children again?

I am sure Dany would like to know. Prophecy can be a tricky business.

3. Is Daenerys Targaryen or anyone in her entourage able to tell whether her dragons are male or female? (Is the question relevant to dragons?)

Not yet.

4. Daenerys Targaryen believed that her brother Rhaegar loved Lyanna Stark. Does she also believe that Lyanna Stark returned this love?

Dany is not sure what to believe.

5. Since all of their mothers died, who gave Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and Tyrion Lannister their names?

Mothers can name a child before birth, or during, or after, even while they are dying. Dany was most like named by her mother, Tyrion by his father, Jon by Ned.

March 2002

3) Is your world round. I mean if Dany traveled far enough east couldnt she come to the other side of westeros?

Yes, the world is round. Might be a little larger than ours, though. I was thinking more like Vance's Big Planet.... but don't hold me to that.

Oh, stupid fan question. I've been trying to get a visual of what the Quarth look like in my mind. In terms of what race they might be in our world. Tall and pale but I don't believe their hair color was mentioned. Would they be Western European looking? Slavic? Whenever their culture is mentioned I always think of either Persian or Indians.

I have tried to mix and match ethnic and cultural traits in creating my imaginary fantasy peoples, so there are no direct one-for-one correspodences. The Dothraki, for example, are based in part on the Mongols, the Alans, and the Huns, but their skin coloring is Amerindian. The Qartheen are an even more exotic hybrid, and offhand I don't recall where I got all the cuttings.

April 2002

[Shaun] How do you view Dany's place in the series. She seems an heroic character to me, but the writeups on the back covers always speak of her as a villain...

[+GeorgeRRMartin] to shaun ignore the blurbs on the back cover and make up your own mind who is the hero and who is the villain

[Erix] Dany will be betrayes 3 times. Did ser Jorah betray here once for money? so does this make it 2 betrayels so far?

[+GeorgeRRMartin] to erix no comment (twice!)

He said that in his original plan (when he wanted to write a trilogy) the Red Wedding would take place in book one, and Dany's landing in Westeros in book two. Now he says that Dany's arrival in Westeros will take place in book 5, A Dance with Dragons.

December 2003

Shaw: You created Jon as a bastard and an outcast from the get-go. Yet he's also one of the most attractive characters. Did you choose to make Jon a bastard to make him more attractive as an "underdog," or was his bastard birth central to the shaping of his character itself?

Martin: Almost all the characters have problems in some way. Very few of my major viewpoint characters have all the answers or have an easy path through life. They all have burdens to bear. Some of them are women in a society that doesn't necessarily value women or give them a lot of power or independence. Tyrion of course is a dwarf which has its own challenges. Dany is an exile, powerless, penniless, at the mercy of other people, and Jon is a bastard. These things shape their characters. Your experiences in life, your place in life inevitably is going to change who you are.

Shaw: As the novels unfold, Jon becomes increasingly identified with the northern cold and ice, just as Dany is closely tied to the southern heat and fire. Will these two ultimately embody the central image of the series, Ice and Fire?

Martin: That's certainly one way to interpret it. That's for my readers to argue out. That may be one possible meaning. There may be a secondary meaning, or a tertiary meaning as well.

Shaw: Are all the Targaryans immune to fire?

Martin: No, no Targaryans are immune to fire. The thing with Dany and the dragons, that was just a one-time magical event, very special and unique. The Targaryans can tolerate a bit more heat than most ordinary people, they like really hot baths and things like that, but that doesn't mean they're totally immune to fire, no. Dragons, on the other hand, are pretty much immune to fire.

February 2004

Jon and Dany will be the two focal characters of AFfC (in the sort of way in which Ned was the focal character of AGoT).

May 2005

He doesn't feel that it's fair to call his work gratuitous. He wants the reader to live vicariously though his books (a function of fantasy writing), feel the characters emotions. If a character is at a feast, he wants the reader to smell the food, experience Dany's discomfort at being served an unappetizing dish. The same with the sex scenes-he wants his readers to feel like they are there.

Another bit of information that I found interesting- we *WILL* hear about the POVs who will not have front stage as it were, but will have it in ADwD. The reports of those chars will be somewhat garbled and messy as can be expected from any news that has travelled that distance and is that important. ex) Varys' manipulation of the Dany information, or Theon's skinning of the miller's information (we didn't know it wasn't Bran and Rickon until later). *THOSE* are the kind of reports we will see in AFFC about the missing POVs. We will get information on them, but have no idea which parts, if any, are correct.

I have some more things to add about things I asked, but I will probably trickle out things as I sober up and recall them. :p

The following will show up in ADwD:

Arya, Bran, Jon, Dany, Tyrion, and Asha (she will be in both books, as she gets involved in affairs of the North)

[Note: Spoiler POV redacted] has the most number of chapters in AFFC, while Dany has the most in ADwD. Also, the number of Tyrion chapters is going up from 4 to 7 in ADwD (his storyline is basically beinbg expanded).

GRRM said Dany and the Wall is excluded. That removes Dany and probably Tyrion plus the Wall which presumably means Jon and Davos.

Dragons will deal with Daenerys and the North. He decided to split by character, rather than in the middle of the story, as he wanted a complete book, rather than FfC part I and II.

This is no hoax.

I swear it by ice and fire. I swear that I will never post again should this prove false. I swear I will never touch wine again, if it is not true.

George said it is done.

But he had to make a major change. It had grown too large.

Daenerys will not appear. There will be little if any action in the North. Those chapters will be moved into the next book, which should come out shortly thereafter.

AFFC will be the size of AGoT.

The next book will still be called aDwD. (Dany will be in it after all).

That being said, Dany will be presented with a map of the world from a fellow whose name I cannot remember because the pronunciation was very odd indeed.

There was some talk about the Targaryen bloodline and how it worked when there weren't enough siblings to marry. Uncle might marry niece or aunt, nephew. There were also cousins in that family at one time.

Dany has more chapters than anyone. He also said that Dany's love life is going to become "extremely complex"

Parris has proclaimed that Arya cannot die! (No, she wasn't there :( but he mentioned it when someone said that he's not allowed to kill Dany)

So yeah, in short, book not done but soon, lots of Dany, the Ironborn, and the Dornish, and Renly and Loras were INDEED knocking boots.

October 2005

The main point of discussion was the reason for the five-year wait since A Storm of Swords. I'm sure most of you know this already but, briefly, he wanted a 5-year gap between ASOS and ADWD to allow the kids to grow up. Some characters, mainly the children and Daenerys, really benefited from this, but most of the other characters suffered and the book was degenerating into a flashback-fest. After about a year he decided that wasn't working, ditched everything, and started again.

November 2005

His analogy is that the series is a symphony and each book is a movement, and explained that he likes each character arc to have some sort of finale in each book, whether it's on a cliffhanger, or a completion of some phase of the character's story arc (or death hehe). Ultimately, he decided to divide it geographically as you all know, since Dany's story is taking place in Martinland's China, and the rest is taking place in Martinland's England.

One man asked whether George ever learns of people naming their kids after his characters. He pointed the guy to his website, where he even has baby pictures of Sansas, Aryas, even a Daenarys, Nymeria, Eddard, Bran, Chataya, and several Cerseis. He won't take credit for the Jons, though (hehe). It was great; someone in the audience made a crack about Cersei, and someone else said "as long as they aren't twins"). He mentioned meeting a little girl whose parents had named her Daenarys and he made a joke about how she was really going to hate spelling that when she gets to first grade. He also once got a letter from a 23-year-old girl named Lya whose mother said she was named after a character in one of his stories (A Song for Lya) and wanted to know who the heck Lya was. George sent her a copy! Hehe. He said he finds it flattering overall, but thinks it's a bad idea when the story isn't done yet and some of the characters will come to a bad end, and then those parents will be pissed with him!

He was asked or mentioned most of the stuff that's already been covered, but one thing he talked about that I found particularly interesting was Romanticism. He said that he is a romantic, in the classical sense. He said the trouble with being a romantic is that from a very early age you keep having your face smashed into the harshness of reality. That things aren't always fair, bad things happen to good people, etc. He said it's a realists world, so romantics are burned quite often. This theme of romantic idealism conflicting with harsh reality is something he finds very dramatic and compelling, and he weaves it into his work. Specifically he mentioned that the Knight exemplifies this, as the chivalric code is one of the most idealistic out there, protection of the weak, paragon of all that is good, fighting for truth and justice. The reality was that they were people, and therefore could do horrible cruel things, rape, pillage, wanton killing, made all the more striking or horrifying because it was in complete opposition to what they were "supposed" to be. Really interesting stuff.

At the San Diego signing, I asked GRRM at the Q&A, "Besides Dany's dragons, have all the Targaryen dragons been descendants of Aegon the Conquerors three?" GRRM answered "yes".

And that one of the things he regrets losing from the POV split is that he was doing point and counterpoint with the Dany and Cersei scenes--showing how each was ruling in their turn.

Q: 5-year gap?

A: It worked for characters like Arya and Dany but not so much for the adults or those who had a lot of action coming. He was writing chapters where Jon thought, "Well, not a lot has happened these past five years, it's been kinda nice." And Cersei chapters where she thought, "Well, I've had to kill sooo many people the last five years." So he ended up dropping it. He said he would have done it sooner if he hadn't told so many fans about it. And there is no gap anymore. "If a twelve-year old has to conquer the world, then so be it."

(Petyr is just Peter, for example.)

Some he did say during the course of the evening:

Cersei = Sir-say

Jaime = Jamie (I think that was obvious but just in case)

Sansa = Sahn-sa

Tyrion = Tear-ion

Arya = Ar-Ya (Ex, Are ya?)

Daenerys = Dane-err-is

TARGARYEN KINGS

SUBMITTED BY: AMOKA

[Note: The following information was sent to Amok for his contribution to the Fantasy Flight Games artbook.]

These are all Targaryens, of course, so there should be a strong family resemblence from portrait to portrait. All of them (except as noted) will have the purple eyes and silver-gold hair for which House Targaryen is noted. All of them should be wearing crowns... the same crown in many of the pix, though it will change once or twice along the way, as noted.

The hard part will be making each of the kings an individual, despite the similarities, and evoking each one's character through facial features, pose, clothing, background, and other elements in the portrait.

Here's the lineup:

DAENERYS I. Daenerys Stormborn. No description necessary, I assume. Show her wearing the three-headed dragon crown she was given in Qarth, as described in A CLASH OF KING. Might be good to include the three dragons in the picture. Show them very young, as hatchings, one in her lap, one wrapped around her arm and shoulder, one flying just above her.

January 2006

He repeatedly emphasized that he prefers to write grey characters, because in real life people are complex; no one is pure evil or pure good. Fiction tends to divide people into heroes who do no wrong and villains who go home and kick their dogs and beat their wives, but that reality is much different. He cited a soldier who heroically saves his friends' lives, but then goes home and beats his wife. Which is he, hero or villain? Martin said both and that neither act cancels out the other.

February 2006

NAERYS TARGARYEN

SUBMITTED BY: AMOKA

[Note: The following continues GRRM's series of descriptions of notable Targaryens (and Targaryen bastards) for Amoka.]

The sister of King Aegon the Unworthy and Prince Aemon the Dragonknight was beautiful as well, but hers was a very fine and delicate beauty, almost unworldy. She was a wisp of a woman, smaller even than Dany (to whom she bears a certain resemblence), very slender, with big purple eyes and fine, pale, porcelain skin, near translucent. Naerys had none of Dany's strength, however.

July 2006

George regrets that Cersei and Dany will not be contrasted directly. I told him of how some dedicated boarders try to defeat him and piece together a timeline. George replied that he tries to keep it vague.

He likes the extra breathing room to flesh out the characters. Bran didn't have any chapters and Dany's ending was different. Now he likes the way she ended. I think he actually may be doing more with Dany.

SPOILER: Possible for ADWD

The second Dance of Dragons does not have to mean Dany's invasion.

Geroge stopped himself short and said he shouldn't say anymore. The response came because of my question of whether the dance would take place in ADWD because AFFC and ADWD parallel. So now my friends, speculate away.

February 2007

Some other bits of info from Q&A: In Song, he considers Bran the hardest viewpoint character to write, while Tyrion is the easiest. The Red Wedding was partly based on a historical event in Scotland called the Black Dinner. His biggest lament in splitting A Feast for Crows from A Dance with Dragons is the parallels he was drawing between Circe and Daenerys.

E. His dragons have no front limbs -- just rear legs and wings. He said that although the traditional depiction of dragons as six limbed creatures has become a staple of fantasy -- the fact that no animal in nature has ever evolved in such a way always bothered him. As a sci-fi writer originally, he insists on the depiction of the dragons with just four limbs. I never heard that before and though it was pretty neat.. In addition, he said that although AsoIaF dragons are intelligent, they cannot speak and will never evolve into the sort of dragons we see in Tolkien or Le Guin. Specifically he said’ Drogon is never going to share witty aphorisms with Dany. The Targaryens rule by Fire and Blood and that is what the dragons represent in the story". I guess the power icon is more Nedly for them than some of us thought when they were first rolled out back in AfoD.

F. Cersei and Daenerys are intended as parallel characters --each exploring a different approach to how a woman would rule in a male dominated, medieval-inspired fantasy world.

May 2007

GRRM: Well, the next book out is A Dance with Dragons, of course, and that's the fifth book of the series but in some ways it's really 4B, as those of you who follow the series knows that A Feast for Crows got so big I had to pull it in half. I split it not by chopping it right in the middle but I split it by characters. The one I'm working on now is going to have an awful lot of the characters that that aren't in A Feast for Crows, it's going to have a lot of Jon Snow, a lot of Daenerys, a fair amount of Davos, and it's going to have have a lot of "me" -- Tyrion, who is your favorite, and my favorite, so I'm enjoying writing a lot of those right now.

And you know I got phone calls from people at the studio afterwards saying, "There is a way to make this as a feature. There's a way to do it as a movie. You could just take Jon Snow and Daenerys and just concentrate on them and get rid of some of the minor characters." And it just, it was kind of appalling because, much as I love Jon Snow and Daenerys, I didn't want to lose the other characters. I mean this is an epic and the only way we could conceive of doing it properly was to tell it as a series. And you can't do it as a series where's it interrupted every twenty minutes by a commercial for toothpaste. And you can't do it where I'd have Tyrion saying the things he says and doing the things he says, all of which network TV would have had a huge problem with.

So we really felt from the beginning that the best way to do this was on HBO or possibly Showtime.

August 2007

Just because I still love Popinjay and the Turtle and my other Wild Cards characters does not mean I have stopped loving Arya and Tyrion and Dany.

April 2008

BERBERS AND DANY

[Did the unrest during the transition between Arab and Berber rule inspire Dany's storyline?]

No. Sounds fascinating, but I'm afraid I don't have enough experience with the Berbers or their history to draw on them for inspiration.

July 2008

GRRM was asked the typical question, of where the idea for ASOIAF had come from. He replied that in the summer of 1991, when he was working as a Hollywood screenwriter, in a gap between assignments he began work on a new novel, a sf novel called Avalon ( personal note, no I would not swap it for ASOIAF, but I would have loved to have read it), set in his future history universe. And somehow, he found himself writing the first chapter of AGOT, about the direwolf pups un the snow. And after that came a second chapter and pretty soon he spent the whole summer writing AGOT.

From there he started to plan a trilogy, since there were 3 main conflicts ( Starks/Lannisters; Dany; and the Others) it felt it would neatly fit into a trilogy (ah!), but like Tolkien said, the tale grew in the telling.

April 2010

GRRM said he regretted mentioning the eye color of any of his characters. He also noted that as a brown-eyed person, he finds it annoying that brown-eyed characters are always portrayed as ordinary, while the doers of great deeds always have blue or hazel eyes or something - he notes that he himself was somewhat guilty of this with the violet eyes of Dany or the red eyes of Melisandre.

(25) Any particular storyline he is enjoying right now?

He said that Dany's storyline is emerging in increasing importance. But he is struggling with the Meereenese Knot. So he can't say he is enjoying it. But he is really enjoying writing Arya's story. He could write an entire novel of it. He could write an entire YA novel about her...(at this point the audience starting clapping and calling out YES! DO IT!)...but her entire story isn't part of the greater novel. He has 12 novels worth of info for this book and its hard to fit it all in.

February 2011

Sam Thielman: So, why did "A Dance With Dragons" take longer to write than the other books in the series?

George R. R. Martin: Well, you know, that's a good question and I'm not sure I have an easy answer for that. #1, none of the books have been exactly fast, I mean, I'm a slow writer, I've always been a slow writer, and the books are huge. I mean, they're three, four, five times the size of most novels being published. And they have extremely complex interweaving storylines. I remember back when I did the first book, 'A Game of Thrones,' Asimov's Magazine wanted to publish an excerpt and I pulled out the Daenerys storyline from the first book, and they published that as an excerpt, and after I pulled out all the Daenerys chapters and put them together for Asimov's, I did a word count and discovered, technically, I had a novel, just about Daenerys. I'm never gonna be one of those writers who has a book a year, or two books a year like some of my colleagues do. I simply can't write that fast. I do a lot of polishing and revising, and it's a big task.

July 2011

Tad: Question: Do you purposely start a character as bad so you can later kill them?

GRRM: No. What is bad? Bad is a label. We are human beings with heroism and self-interest and avarice in us and any human is capable of great good or great wrong. In Poland a couple of weeks ago I was reading about the history of Auschwitz – there were startling interviews with the people there. The guards had done unthinkable atrocities, but these were ordinary people. What allowed them to do this kind of evil? Then you read accounts of acts of outrageous heroism, yet the people are criminals or swindlers, one crime or another, but when forced to make a choice they make a heroic choice. This is what fascinated me about the human animal. A lot of fantasy turns on good and evil – but my take on it is that it’s fought within the human heart every day, and that’s the more interesting take. I don’t think life is that simple.

Tad: All of us work with multiple viewpoints – I hear this next question a lot: with story-driven plots, how do you decide which character viewpoint to write from – do you write several characters, taste them, then decide?

GRRM: No, not several, at least not intentionally. I had more choice early in the series, I frequently had situations where 2 or 3 were present at the same time. But as it’s progressed they have dispersed, so I need to be in the viewpoint of whoever’s there. There are some cases when I have a choice and in that case, I weigh which one. Without talking exactly about "The Mereenese Knot" – I’m not going to talk exactly about it, but but [there was a time when] a number of viewpoints were coming together in Mereen for a number of events, and I was wrestling with order and viewpoint. The different points-of-view had different sources of knowledge and I never could quite solve it. I was rewriting the same chapter over and over again – this, that, viewpoint? – spinning my wheels. It was one of the more troublesome thickets I encountered. There’s a resolution not to introduce new viewpoint characters, but the way I finally dealt with things was with Barristan, I introduced him as a viewpoint character as though he’d been there all along. That enabled me to clear away some of the brush.

Tad: Question: do you choose characters because they will provide you with a viewpoint or something characterful?

GRRM: Actually, no. I try to give each viewpoint character an arc of his own, and ideally I would like to think that you could pull the material out – in the early books I was able to pull out the Daenerys chapters and publish them separately as a novella, and I won a Hugo Award for that. It'd be great if I could pull out each [character-arc] and it would resemble a story. In some cases a character died and that was a very short story. My prologue and epilogue characters always die but even then I try to give them a story.

Your books, especially recently, are full of women trying to exert power in a male dominated world who have to compromise themselves along the way. Are you trying to make a feminist statement?

You could certainly interpret it that way. I don't presume to say I'm making a statement of this type or that type. But it is certainly a patriarchal society, I am trying to explore some of the ramifications of that. I try to write women as people, just as I try to write any other characters. Strong and weak, and brave and cowardly, and noble and selfish. It has been very gratifying to me how many women read my work and how much they like at least some of my female characters.

The one thing I must confess to being frustrated by is the first Tyion chapter where you set up this expectation that he’s going to meet Dany, and I got excited. Then about 600 pages later I’m realizing, “OK, that’s not gonna happen, at least not in this book.”

Yeah, it’s the “kind of bring ’em together but don’t give them the confirmation.” In some ways it’s not so different than the sexual tension in TV shows — are Catherine and Vincent [on Beauty and the Beast] finally going to kiss? Same philosophy. This is the kind of stuff I wrestle with. I could have ended the next chapter: Tyrion gets off the boat and there’s Dany. But the journey itself has its own interest.

There’s a point in the series where you feel like you’re reading a bunch of separate stories. Toward the end of Dance, you feel the threads starting to come back together. Is that accurate?

That’s certainly the intent, and always was the intent. Tolkien was my great model for much of this. Although I differ from Tolkien in important ways, I’m second to no one in my respect for him. If you look at Lord of the Rings, it begins with a tight focus and all the characters are together. Then by end of the first book the Fellowship splits up and they have different adventures. I did the same thing. Everybody is at Winterfell in the beginning except for Dany, then they split up into groups, and ultimately those split up too. The intent was to fan out, then curve and come back together. Finding the point where that turn begins has been one of the issues I’ve wrestled with.

There was a fair amount of explicit sex in the series and some fans of the books were taken aback.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this with HBO is that I wanted to keep the sex. We had some real problems because Dany is only 13 in the books, and that’s based on medieval history. They didn’t have this concept of adolescence or the teenage years. You were a child or you were an adult. And the onset of sexual maturity meant you were an adult. So I reflected that in the books. But then when you go to film it you run into people going crazy about child pornography and there’s actual laws about how you can’t depict a 13 year old having sex even if you have an 18 year old acting the part — it’s illegal in the United Kingdom. So we ended up with a 22 year old portraying an 18 year old, instead of an 18 year old portraying a 13 year old. If we decided to lose the sex we could have kept the original ages. And once you change the age of one character you have to change the ages of all the characters, and change the date of the war [that dethroned the Mad King]. The fact we made all these changes indicates how important we thought sex was.

References the chapbook with the first three Dany chapters from 2005 and that it offers insight as to how much the book has changed since then.

There's been an interesting discussion on our forum concerning "orientalism" as it's expressed in your work, and one question it's led to among readers is whether you've ever considered a foreign point of view characters in Essos, to give a different window into events there.

No, this story is about Westeros. Those other lands are important only as they reflect on Westeros.

Part of the difficulty of this particular novel was what you called the "Meereenese Knot", trying to get everything to happen in just the right order, pulling various plot strands together in one place, and part of the solution was the addition of another point of view character. Was this something where you tried writing it from a number of different point of views before settling on a new one? Did you actively resist adding a new character?

The Meerenese Knot related to everyone reaching Dany. There's a series of events that have to occur in Meereen, things that are significant. She has various problems to deal with at the start: dealing with the slavers, threats of war, the Sons of the Harpy, and so on. At the same time, there's all of these characters trying to get to her. So the problem was to figure out who should reach her and in what order, and what events should happen by the time they've reached her. I kept coming up with different answers and I kept having to rewrite different versions and then not being satisfied with the dynamics until I found something that was satisfactory. I thought that solution worked well, but it was not my first choice.

There's a Dany scene in the book which is actually one of the oldest chapters in the book that goes back almost ten years now. When I was contemplating the five year gap [Martin laughs here, with some chagrin], that chapter was supposed to be the first Daenerys chapter in the book. Then it became the second chapter, and then the third chapter, and it kept getting pushed back as I inserted more things into it. I've rewritten that chapter so much that it ended in many different ways.

There's a certain time frame of the chronology where you can compare to A Feast for Crows and even A Storm of Swords and figure out when they would reach Meereen and the relative time frames of each departure and each arrival. But that doesn't necessarily lead to the most dramatic story. So you look at it and try and figure out how to do it. I also wanted to get across how difficult and dangerous it was to travel like this. There are many storms that will wreck your ship, there are dangerous lands in between where there are pirates and corsairs, and all that stuff. It's not like hopping on a 747, where you get on and then step off the plane a few hours later. So all of these considerations went into the Meereenese Knot.

Then there's showing things after [an important event], which proved to be very difficult. I tried it with one point of view character, but this was an outsider who could only guess at what was going on, and then I tried it with a different character and it was also difficult. The big solution was when I hit on adding a new point of view character who could give the perspective this part of the story needed.

March 2012

If you listen to the CBC interview which you'll see the link for under General ASOIAF, much of what he said was repeated tonight. He admitted Tyrion was his favourite, and if he was having dinner with 3 characters, they would be Tyrion, Maester Aemon and then he thought of Arya, but feared she would throw food at him, so he'd go with Dany, because she's hot!

June 2012

Near the end of the signing, a man presented Martin with two books and his daughter. “This is Daenerys,” he told Martin, “I sent you a letter about her five years ago.” Daenerys, a squirmy blonde in a pink jacket, looked about five years old. “Hello there,” Martin said, “do you like dragons?” She nodded, and they made room for the next fan.

Now that we know how the "Meereenese knot" played out, what was the problem with this? For example, was it the order in which Dany met various characters, or who, when, and how someone would try to take the dragons?

Now I can explain things. It was a confluence of many, many factors: lets start with the offer from Xaro to give Dany ships, the refusal of which then leads to Qarth's declaration of war. Then there's the marriage of Daenerys to pacify the city. Then there's the arrival of the Yunkish army at the gates of Meereen, there's the order of arrival of various people going her way (Tyrion, Quentyn, Victarion, Aegon, Marwyn, etc.), and then there's Daario, this dangerous sellsword and the question of whether Dany really wants him or not, there's hte plague, there's Drogon's return to Meereen...

All of these things were balls I had thrown up into the air, and they're all linked and chronologically entwined. The return of Drogon to the city was something I explored as happening at different times. For example, I wrote three different versions of Quentyn's arrival at Meereen: one where he arrived long before Dany's marriage, one where he arrived much later, and one where he arrived just the day before the marriage (which is how it ended up being in the novel). And I had to write all three versions to be able to compare and see how these different arrival points affected the stories of the other characters. Including the story of a character who actually hasn't arrived yet.

October 2012

What's exciting to me about this session is that in this conversation, Martin talks at length about craft. He's been in the business of telling stories for many decades -- as a television writer and as a writer of fiction -- and he has a great deal to say about what works and what doesn't in different mediums. How is information conveyed to the audience (or the reader)? How do you keep sophisticated audiences on their toes? How do you create worlds in which most characters have to choose between the best of many bad options? How do you examine power from the perspective of outsiders, rejects and those who are constrained by conventional wisdom? Martin shared the insights of someone who has been contemplating these questions -- practically and philosophically -- for a very long time.

About midway through the podcast, there's a interesting discussion of his use of "close third person" narration and why that's effective in the creation of memorable characters. It's also interesting to note that he doesn't write the chapters in the order in which they appear in the books, and that he may write four or five Tyrion chapters before stopping and switching to another character. (Another fun fact that emerged -- and I'm sure hardcore "ASoIaF" fans already knew this -- Martin originally signed a contract for a book trilogy. I'm betting his publishers aren't sad he's now working on the sixth book in that "trilogy.")

Eventually, Martin zeroes in on his least favorite thing in any story: Predictability. But he admits that it's "very hard" to shake up the audience, which has grown more sophisticated with every passing decade. When he was writing for the revived "Twilight Zone" in the '80s, for example, network executives wanted the producers to end episodes with a twist of some kind, as the original Rod Serling series had often done. But the audience "could see all these twist endings coming a mile away," Martin said.

He also spoke about his fascination with power and with hierarchies that appear stable but are actually anything but. He mentioned reading a history of Jerusalem in which a mad ruler began killing dozens of courtiers and ordering the hands chopped off the women of the court.

"Why doesn't the captain of the guard say to the sergeant, 'This guy is [expletive] nuts?'" Martin said. "'We have swords! Why don't we kill him instead?'"

But loyalties -- clan loyalties, family loyalties, strategic alliances -- are powerful influences in the lives of Martin's characters, and their personal desires and their traditional duties or roles are often in conflict. And those kinds of unresolvable dilemmas are at the heart of what makes his stories resonate with those of us who didn't begin fighting with swords as children.

Paraphrasing Faulkner, Martin said "the only thing worth writing about is the human heart in conflict with itself." And that's a scenario that is very familiar to anyone who's ever visited Westeros, either as a reader or a viewer of the HBO drama.

Is A Song of Ice and Fire a parallelism or a criticism to our society?

No. My work is not an allegory to our days. If I wanted to write about the financial crisis or the conflict in Syria, I would write about the financial crisis or the conflict in Syria, without any metaphor. However, it’s true that in my novels appear several elements which we can find in world history. Things such as power, sex, pain… I have grown up as a science fiction reader, and it was my first love, even before fantasy. But science fiction, then, presented an idealistic world: the space, a bright future, but unluckily that optimism disappeared very quickly and the future wasn’t as good as we had expected. Nowadays, science fiction is very pessimistic and talks about dystopias: about a polluted world, about a rotten world… Of course I would prefer to be part of another world; a better world, but I can’t. Perhaps winter is not coming only to Winterfell, but in the real world.

March 2013

The readers are unhappy with leaving out the five-year gap?

Well no, some of the storylines from Feast for Crows. I get complaints sometimes that nothing happens — but they're defining "nothing," I think, differently than I am. I don't think it all has to battles and sword fights and assassinations. Character development and [people] changing is good, and there are some tough things in there that I think a lot of writers skip over. I'm glad I didn't skip over these things.

[For example], things that Arya is learning. The things Bran is learning. Learning is not inherently an interesting thing to write about. It's not an easy thing to write about. In the movies, they always handle it with a montage. Rocky can't run very fast. He can't catch the chicken. But then you do a montage, and you cut a lot of images together, and now only a minute later in the film, Rocky is really strong and he is catching the chicken.

It’s a lot harder [in real life]. Sometimes in my own life, I wish I could play a montage of my life. I want to get in shape now. So let’s do a montage, and boom — I'll be fifty pounds lighter and in good shape, and it will only take me a minute with some montage of me lifting weights and running, shoving away the steak and having a salad. But of course in real life, you don't get to montage. You have to go through it day by day.

And that has been interesting, you know. Jon Snow as Lord Commander. Dany as Queen, struggling with rule. So many books don't do that. There is a sense when you're writing something in high fantasy, you're in a dialogue with all the other high fantasy writers that have written. And there is always this presumption that if you are a good man, you will be a good king. [Like] Tolkien — in Return of the King, Aragorn comes back and becomes king, and then [we read that] "he ruled wisely for three hundred years." Okay, fine. It is easy to write that sentence, “He ruled wisely”.

What does that mean, he ruled wisely? What were his tax policies? What did he do when two lords were making war on each other? Or barbarians were coming in from the North? What was his immigration policy? What about equal rights for Orcs? I mean did he just pursue a genocidal policy, "Let’s kill all these fucking Orcs who are still left over"? Or did he try to redeem them? You never actually see the nitty-gritty of ruling.

I guess there is an element of fantasy readers that don't want to see that. I find that fascinating. Seeing someone like Dany actually trying to deal with the vestments of being a queen and getting factions and guilds and [managing the] economy. They burnt all the fields [in Meereen]. They've got nothing to import any more. They're not getting any money. I find this stuff interesting. And fortunately, enough of my readers who love the books do as well.

And meanwhile, you've got Daenerys visiting more Eurasian and Middle Eastern cultures.

And that has generated its controversy too. I answer that one to in my blog. I know some of the people who are coming at this from a political or racial angle just seem to completely disregard the logistics of the thing here. I talk about what's in the books. The books are what I write. What I’m responsible for.

Slavery in the ancient world, and slavery in the medieval world, was not race-based. You could lose a war if you were a Spartan, and if you lost a war you could end up a slave in Athens, or vice versa. You could get in debt, and wind up a slave. And that’s what I tried to depict, in my books, that kind of slavery.

So the people that Dany frees in the slaver cities are of many different ethnicities, and that’s been fairly explicit in the books. But of course when David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] and his crew are filming that scene [of Daenerys being carried by freed slaves], they are filming it in Morocco, and they put out a call for 800 extras. That’s a lot of extras. They hired the people who turned up. Extras don't get paid very much. I did an extra gig once, and got like $40 a day.

It's probably actually less in Morocco since you don't have to pay quite the same rate. If you're giving 800 Moroccans 40 bucks each, you're not going to fly in 100 Irishman just to balance the racial background here. We had enough trouble meeting our budget anyway.

I know for some readers, they don’t care about this shit. But these things are about budget and realism, and things you can actually do. You are shooting the scene in a day. You don't have a lot of time to [worry] about that, and as someone who has worked in television this kind of stuff is very important to me. I don't know if that is answer or not. I made that answer, and some people weren't pleased with that answer, I know. They are very upset about that.

August 2013

Amid reports of a dramatic uptrend in babies named “Khaleesi” and tourism to Dubrovnik, Croatia (aka King's Landing), we're guessing George R. R. Martin doesn’t need much of an introduction.

AC: How do you decide what you're going to work on, whose voice you're going to work in today?

GM: Well, I don't write the chapters in the order in which you read them. I get into a character’s voice. It's always difficult to switch gears, actually. When I do make that transition from one character to another, I usually struggle for a few days trying to get back the voice of the character I'm just returning to after some hiatus. But once I get into it, I tend to write not just one chapter by that character, but three or four. So I'll be writing Jon Snow chapters, and I'll carry that Jon Snow sequence as far as I can. And then at some point, maybe I'll get stuck or not be sure what I should do next, or maybe I've just gotten way ahead of all of the other characters in the books, so I need to sort of rein myself in and make myself switch from Jon Snow to Sansa or Daenerys or somebody like that.

November 2013

We can't leave Martin without pressing him for his thoughts on which of his characters keeps the best table. Would it be the wealthy, sun-loving Martell family with their Mediterranean-leaning flatbreads, olives and spiced snake? The sensualist Tyrion Lannister? Or the moveable feast of the court of Daenerys Targaryen with its duck eggs and dog sausage?

"Oh, Illyrio Mopatis, the magister, no question. Just watch out for the mushrooms."

March 2014

Was it a big shift for you, when you were writing the scenes that take place at Winterfell and suddenly you have the Daenerys scene, with an entirely different location?

Pretty early on, in the summer of ‘91, I had the Daenerys stuff. I knew she was on another continent. I think I had already drawn a map by then – and she wasn’t on it. I’d just drawn the map of the one continent that would come to be called Westeros. But she was in exile, and I knew that, and that was sort of the one departure from the structure. It’s something I borrowed from Tolkien, in terms of the initial structure of the book. If you look at Lord of the Rings, everything begins in the Shire with Bilbo’s birthday party. You have a very small focus. You have a map of the Shire right in the beginning of the book – you think it’s the entire world. And then they get outside it. They cross the Shire, which seems epic in itself. And then the world keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And then they add more and more characters, and then those characters split up. I essentially looked at the master there and adopted the same structure. Everything in AGame of Thrones begins in Winterfell. Everybody is together there and then you meet more people and, ultimately, they’re split apart and they go in different directions. But the one departure from that, right from the first, was Daenerys, who was always separate. It’s almost as if Tolkien, in addition to having Bilbo, had thrown in an occasional Faramir chapter, right from the beginning of the book.

Although Daenerys is hooked into Winterfell, because we hear talk of her family, the Targaryen family, early on.

You see overlaps. Daenerys is getting married, and Robert gets the report that Daenerys has just gotten married and reacts to that and the threat that it poses.

Fortunately, the books were best sellers, I didn’t need the money, you know, so I could just say no. Other people wanted to take the approach of, there are so many characters, so many stories, we have to settle on one. Let’s make it all about Jon Snow. Or Dany. Or Tyrion. Or Bran. But that didn’t work, either, because the stories are all inter-related. They separate but they come together again. But it did get me thinking about it, and it got me thinking about how this could be done, and the answer I came up with is – it can be done for television. It can’t be done as a feature film or a series of feature films. So television. But not network television. I’d worked in television. The Twilight Zone. Beauty and the Beast. I knew what was in these books, the sex scenes, the violence, the beheadings, the massacres. They’re not going to put that on Friday night at eight o’clock, where they always stick fantasies. Both of the shows that I was on, Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast, Friday night at eight o’clock. They think, "Fantasy? Kids!" So I wasn’t going to do a network show. But I’d been watching HBO. The Sopranos. Rome. Deadwood. It seemed to me an HBO show, a series where each book was an entire season, was the way to do it. So when I sat down with David and Dan at that meeting at the Palm, which started out as a lunch meeting and turned into a dinner meeting, and they said the same thing, then I suddenly knew we’re on the same wavelength here.

June 2014

Q: What can you tell us about a warg dragon rider?

A: There is no history/precedent for someone warging a dragon. There is a rich history of the mythical bond between dragon and rider. There have been instances of dragons responding to their riders even from very far away (hmm) which shows it is a true and very strong bond. We will learn more about this. Keep reading (we hear “keep writing” from the back of the room).

Q: What is your favorite line in ASOIAF?

A: I can’t single out one line but my favorite passage is Septon Meribald’s speech about war in… what was it? (crowd yells out Feast for Crows).

November 2014

For people who are not familiar with your work, the series takes place in an imaginary world. There is a struggle for control of the kingdom. This dynastic war is essentially one of three main plot lines. There are the other plot lines involving these sort of superhuman characters, and then there’s the exiled Targaryen daughter who seeks the return of her ancient throne. Why those three main plot lines?

Well, of course, the two outlying ones — the things going on north of the Wall, and then there is Targaryen on the other continent with her dragons — are of course the ice and fire of the title, “A Song of Ice and Fire.” The central stuff — the stuff that’s happening in the middle, in King’s Landing, the capital of the seven kingdoms — is much more based on historical events, historical fiction.

Pop culture has grabbed “Game of Thrones.” It’s been featured in “The Simpsons” and “South Park.” What goes through your mind when you see these references?

Well, I think it’s tremendously cool, of course. It’s nice to be doing something that everybody is so aware of and that has entered the cultural zeitgeist in that manner. The only aspect of it that really astonishes me is not that the characters and the story is being parodied or referenced in these various places but the extent at which I personally am. I mean, when I see myself as a character on “South Park” or I see Bobby Moynihan imitating me with the suspenders and the hat on “Saturday Night Live,” when I see companies selling Halloween costumes, not Halloween costumes to be Jon Snow or Daenerys but Halloween costumes to be me, that’s pretty freaky. That’s something I could never have anticipated, and I just don’t know what to think of it.

May 2015

Still, it’s only natural that there’s a few characters Martin would have liked to have seen on the show that did not make it in.

“Strong Belwas, who was part of Dany’s entourage,” Martin said. “I understand why he was cut, but I kind of miss him.” In the books, the massive eunuch warrior is a former pit fighter who joins Dany in Qarth. Belwas’ story elements have essentially been combined with the character of Daario, who is arguably more essential to Dany’s journey.

June 2015

I explained that in my own head, Yandel is in King's Landing, clutching his book, showing up each day for an audience with the king... and each day being told perhaps the next day. Except on those occasions where, you know, they tell him the king's getting married today, and then whoops, Joffrey is dead, etc.

I also noted that of course, given how he wrote about the reign of Aerys and and the rebellion, that if Aegon or Daenerys take King's Landing he may indeed end up having his head chopped off... George seemed interested in the idea, I think. :P

May 2016

4. GRRM and Picacio both made the joke about "you need to pay the artist" and such regarding general fan fiction. And then GRRM said he has issued some sub-licenses to things like art and games, etc. GRRM also mentioned that HBO owns the rights to the exact likenesses of the tv version of the story, meaning, no art can be made where Dany looks like Emilia. He was very careful in avoiding a real link in feeling between him and HBO even though he was asked about it twice. Then GRRM mentioned, and Picacio joined in, how GRRM knew the show would overtake the books. Not too much new.

Reactions after the episode

c. Dany on Drogon seemed random and a repeat of previous seasons.

d. Others loved Dany on Drogon.

December 2016

And the most revealing: he said that for Winds, Winter is the darkest time 'where things die' and many characters will go dark places.

At last I was able to ask him the question I had sent for the tombola. I have always been fascinated by how ASOIAF embodies the theories put forward by Acemoglu and Robinson about countries with extractive institutions (which hamper development). So my question was: Why do you think the political institutions in the Seven Kingdoms are so weak? His answer: the Kingdom was unified with dragons, so the Targaryen's flaw was to create an absolute monarchy highly dependent on them, with the small council not designed to be a real check and balance. So, without dragons it took a sneeze, a wildly incompetent and megalomaniac king, a love struck prince, a brutal civil war, a dissolute king that didn't really know what to do with the throne and then chaos. Interesting answer.

July 2017

To a certain degree, also, it’s so intertwined, tragically and unfortunately, with the character histories. Daenerys doesn’t get to where she is unless she’s sold as a child bride, effectively a slave.

And I should point out, and you probably know this if you’ve read the books and watched the show, Daenerys’ wedding night is quite different than it was portrayed in the books. Again, indeed, we had an original pilot where the part of Daenerys was recast, and what we filmed the first time, when Tamzin Merchant was playing the role, it was much more true to the books. It was the scene as written in the books. So that got changed between the original pilot and the later pilot. You’d have to talk to David and Dan about that.

I had all these meetings saying, “There’s too many characters, it’s too big — Jon Snow is the central character. We’ll eliminate all the other characters and we’ll make it about Jon Snow.” Or “Daenerys is the central character. We’ll eliminate everyone else and make the movie about Daenerys.” And I turned down all those deals.

When you’re walking down the street in Santa Fe, do new character or historical details just pop into your head?

Sometimes it happens to me on long-distance drives. When I was younger I loved to take road trips, and get in the car and drive for two days to get to L.A. or Kansas City or St. Louis or Texas. And on the road, I would think a lot about that. In 1993, I think it was, I visited France for the first time. I had begunGame of Thrones two years before in ‘91 and I had to put it aside because television was happening. And for some reason, I had rented a car, I was driving all around Brittany and the roads of France to these little medieval villages and I was seeing castles, and somehow that just got me going again. I was thinking about Tyrion and Jon Snow and Daenerys and my head was full of Game of Thrones stuff.

You’re in unusual territory, with your characters very much still in your hands but also out in the world being interpreted for TV. Are you able to have walls in your mind such that your Daenerys, say, is your Daenerys, and Emilia Clarke’s Daenerys is hers and the show’s?

I’ve arrived at that point. The walls are up in my mind. I don’t know that I was necessarily there from the beginning. At some points, when David and Dan and I had discussions about what way we should go in, I would always favor sticking with the books, while they would favor making changes. I think one of the biggest ones would probably be when they made the decision not to bring Catelyn Stark back as Lady Stoneheart. That was probably the first major diversion of the show from the books and, you know, I argued against that, and David and Dan made that decision.

In my version of the story, Catelyn Stark is re-imbued with a kind of life and becomes this vengeful wight who galvanizes a group of people around her and is trying to exact her revenge on the riverlands. David and Dan made a decision not to go in that direction in their story, pursuing other threads. But both of them are equally valid, I think, because Catelyn Stark is a fictional character and she doesn’t exist. You can tell either story about her.

Is there anything we didn’t get to talk about?

I suppose there are issues we could have explored more with the whole question of sexual violence and women — it’s a complicated and fraught issue. To re-address that point a little, I do a lot of book signings, and I think I have probably more women readers than male readers right now. Only slightly, but it’s probably 55 percent, 45 percent, but I see women readers at things and they love my women characters. I’m very proud of the creation of Arya and Catelyn and Sansa and Brienne and Daenerys and Cersei and all of them. It’s one of the things that gives me the most satisfaction, that they’ve been so well-received as characters, especially by women readers who are often not served.

August 2017

- My question about Daenerys was chosen as the third question (I was lucky!) but he refused to answer it lol … I asked “How old was Daenerys when she left the house with the red door, and was it located close to the palace of the Sealord of Braavos?” (thanks Butterfly for suggesting it to me) I don’t know why he refused to answer about her age, but about the house with the red door he said there will be more revelations about it in future books.

- He was asked to comment about the differences between the book and show characters, particularly Daenerys. GRRM ignored all the other characters and talked only about Daenerys - he said that the show one is older because there are laws in USA that prevent minors from having sex scenes so the decision was made to age Daenerys. Otherwise, book Daenerys and show Daenerys “are very similar” and “Emilia Clarke did a fantastic job”. (I guess he can’t really say negative things about the show, can he?)

- “Will Jorah ever get out of the friendzone?” (side-eyeing the person who asked this). GRRM: “I would not bet on it.”

August 2018

Q: if you did have a child what would you name him or her?

A: “I don’t know... probably Not Daenerys”

November 2018

“I have tried to make it explicit in the novels that the dragons are destructive forces, and Dany (Daenerys Targaryen) has found that out as she tried to rule the city of Meereen and be queen there.

“She has the power to destroy, she can wipe out entire cities, and we certainly see that in Fire and Blood, we see the dragons wiping out entire armies, wiping out towns and cities, destroying them, but that doesn’t necessarily enable you to rule — it just enables you to destroy.”

[...] “If you read Fire and Blood, you’ll know there’s definitely a bond between the dragons and their riders and the dragons will not accept just any rider,” says Martin. “Some people try to take a dragon wind up being eaten or burned to death instead, so the dragons are terribly fussy about who rides them.”

[...] The prince defeated the threat in the North by driving his sword through his wife’s heart. Will Jon have to do the same to Daenerys? Or is she the prince, Azor Ahai, reborn? Martin suggests all may not be as it seems.

“The Targaryens have certain gifts and yes, taking the dragons and dragon riding and dragon breeding was one of them,” he says. “But the other gift was an occasional Targaryen had prophetic powers and could see glimpses of the future, which they didn’t always necessarily properly interpret because, you know, they were fragmentary and sometimes symbolic.

“But to what extent did they share those gifts, what did he see, what prompted him to do all this? These are things I find really interesting to ponder.

What was interesting from The Guardian interview you did, is this book — as daunting as it would seem for most authors to attempt, and as tough as Winds has been for you — this was curiously easy for you to write. Yes. Partly because it’s linear. Although it covers 150 years or so, it’s very straightforward — here’s what happened in the year 30, here’s what happened in 25. In Winds, I have like 10 different novels and I’m juggling the timeline — here’s what’s happening to Tyrion, here’s what’s happening to Dany, and how they intersect. That’s far more complicated.

August 2019

On the fame thing, does it ever feel surreal to stop and think about the reach that your work has had? I mean, couples meet through Game of Thrones, there are Thrones-themed wedding ceremonies, and babies are named after your characters. Is that something you ever dwell on and think to yourself 'God, my work has had this massive effect on people?'

It's very gratifying when you get letters, emails, and hear stories like that. They definitely do name children after my characters and send me pictures of their babies.

People also name their dogs, cats, iguanas, after my characters. Sometimes, it’s a little surreal. I often wonder about all the young Daenerys’ out there because kindergarten teachers will hate me because they have to spell it!

#daenerys targaryen #resources #grrm #valyrianscrolls

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vroenis · 5 years ago

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Lost Legacy Exemplifies Naughty Dog’s Cultural Crisis

There’s a discussion about Ocean’s 8 that positions its existence around whether or not it's necessary as a counterpoint to the Ocean’s reboot - the Ocean’s Cinematic Universe - if you will (what a world we live in) - that it was only made as a gender flip of the reboot that spawned two sequels, three films in total cast almost entirely with men.

My perspective is that as much as I generally enjoyed the Ocean’s reboots for what they were, Ocean’s Eleven should have been a cast entirely with women in the first place.

The heroes we both need and deserve.

Massive spoilers for the original 1960 Lewis Milestone version and the Steven Soderbergh one in 2001 of Ocean’s Eleven - Soderbergh’s flip is of-course that they get to keep the money at the end so that they have to potentially give it back in the sequel he knew he’d be able to make, whereas I doubt Milestone knew he’d ever get a sequel back in the early 60′s so the rub for film-making back then is to burn the money at the end. Nevertheless even for the early 2000′s, the boldest of moves would have been to cast it with women, not to be progressive but also to be progressive, tho that’s still an absurd thought that to cast women is progressive - but to be smart. Ocean’s 8 is a fantastic film, deftly written, paced, acted, shot and edited. Would the world have responded to it in like-kind? I know how *I* would have responded to it, I think you can answer for yourself how societal cultures may have responded at any point from 2001 thru to now. In any case, I have Ocean’s 8 on blu-ray. I love it.

A reader asked me whether I’d played Uncharted: The Lost Legacy after kindly reading through my bludgeoning of Uncharted 4, and seeing as they were patient enough to endure that blood-letting, I felt I owed them and probably Naughty Dog the time of day to give Uncharted-And-A-Half a chance, and I’m really glad I did. Fair warning, there’s a lot I didn’t like about Lost Legacy, and there’s going to be some more pain - a lot of pain. I don’t think any of my tumblr audience is quite on the rest of my socials, but anyone who’s connected to me anywhere else on the Wire was subject to my frustrations as I played thru the game on Saturday, including the blurred image of my Google Keep notes I took while playing the game in preparation for this journal. I keep notes now.

Nevertheless, I can say that on the assumption that the Uncharted series is wrapped, or at least in the narrative arc with these characters as we know them, that Lost Legacy is easily without question my favourite Uncharted game by far.

On that assumption that Uncharted is more or less done, now’s as good a time as any to take a top-down look at the franchise as a whole. I know I already did a fair bit of that in the last piece, but some broader thoughts on what the series does and says have solidified while playing Lost Legacy, and I’ll discuss them as a lead-in to my thoughts on the game.

Again - this is going to be riddled with spoilers for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and most likely the entire Uncharted series, so if you’ve not played them and are interested in doing so, or don’t want to see them heavily critiqued, please stop here.

The first game was released in 2007 and was apparently in development for roughly three years. What was happening up to and around 2004 to 2007? September 11 had happened in 2001, the world was at war in the Middle East in Afghanistan and second invasion of Iraq had begun in 2003, Hurricane Katrina happened in 2005 - the same year the IRA ended armed conflict in Northern Ireland, 2005 saw the outbreak of H5N1 Avian Flu - topical right now. There are so many more, I can’t list them all here - lots of momentous events that in some way or another highlight community awareness in some way - that’s probably a bit of an obtuse statement but hopefully it’ll string together in a sec. What struck me and a bunch of my friends odd about the first, then the second and then somehow every Uncharted game since, is that Naughty Dog seem to choose an ethnicity for their antagonists and scratch the surface of “what if this element of their cultural violence is bad”, but then leave it so shallow that it remains a caricature and comes off as casually and carelessly racist. The first game frames the theme around Nazis, but the actual enemies are anything but. Yes, they’re intended to be mercenaries, but they’re hardly nondescript, they’re absolutely of very specific ethnicity.

From the second game onward, Naughty Dog seem to want to make use of real world settings and do some nuanced research on actual sociopolitical conflict and I always feel uneasy about how its presented. Lost Legacy begins much the same way and I worried about the tone going in. An active war-zone in India as gravitas to your setting that is then almost completely abandoned until the very end? This is my problem with how the writers treat setting in Uncharted. They use very real conflicts that have real-world consequences for people in which actual lives are lost to inject gravity into their narrative and then quickly discard it for the sake of shenanigans once the wise-cracking starts when the tone shifts gear and the characters themselves take centre-stage in the foreground.

Here’s the thing.

The character’s are enough. I *love* these characters. Their story is fantastic. Nadine’s and Chloe’s story was the best and most cohesive of the entire series. Also it only took me roughly six hours to play thru and I only feel like half of that was wasted! That’s still probably being too generous but I’m grasping for positives, here. Still - I don’t know why the senior production team has never had confidence in the core of their product which is the charm of their characters and the play dynamic - Uncharted is primarily about *seeing* and *doing* - for the most part, unfortunately, separately.

The dialogue between Chloe and Nadine is extremely interesting, it is absolutely the best thing in the game, yet it keeps getting interrupted by stupid gameplay beats due to poor timing of rolling up on level locations. Uncharted 4 was supposed to have locations hidden around levels where you could engage in dialogue between characters but I barely found them - why hide such interesting content in your game?? It’s completely absurd. Then the only few I did find were between Elena and Nathan altho I really don’t think those were meant to be hidden, and they were so poorly written and I hated them so much, I didn’t care to discover any more. Again - no disrespect at all to Nolan North and Troy Baker whom I absolutely adore and respect, but I didn’t find anything engaging or interesting *at all* about the brother narrative. I didn’t care one bit what that nonsense was about. What about Sully? Where’s Sully’s story?? I’m just so - so glad we got a story for Chloe, and that at least Nadine got some great screen time too as a part of it and that it all presented so well.

Before I continue to praise what went well, there are a few things I can’t let pass. While the driving has thankfully improved and controls quite well now, the exclusion of a minimap or GPS HUD element is interesting. I’m fairly certain it’s intentional as to not detract from the game’s clean, cinematic look, to not break immersion, but this just generates a horrific breakdown in actual player experience for me. Without any navigational assists, I constantly got lost and stopped every 20 meters to check the map, frequently driving into dead-ends, off cliffs and past where I wanted or needed to go. The game isn’t a 30 hour open-world experience with distinct and varied landmarks the player will familiarise themselves with and learn to navigate by, for the most part the level is fairly homogeneous in object geometry.

Some of the puzzles take far too long to mechanically execute, in particular the smashy-slashy statue block jumpy stupid whatever it’s called one and the sliding shadow motif. It doesn’t matter that neither actually takes too long once you know the solution, it’s that they feel long and then are actually over-long and also not interesting to mechanically execute. This is due mostly to clunky character animation and animation smoothing, and part of Naughty Dog’s overall obsession with being cinematic which is something I’ll return to towards the end of this piece, something which has been a strength but will ultimately be to their detriment. While cinematic visuals might be a benefit for traversal, it’s something that absolutely does not suit puzzle-solving. In the example of the statue-block puzzle, the hard reset each time the player is hit means laboriously jogging all the way back to the beginning and starting again - it’s just poor puzzle design having to begin again from a full reset. There’s no satisfaction in having to remember the whole thing and while I didn’t look up the solution online, I’m willing to bet many people will have just dialled up a clip on YouTube and copied it without figuring it out themselves. This is a failure of connecting what’s satisfying about moving in your game and what’s satisfying about solving puzzles, something Crystal Dynamics understood far better in the Tomb Raider reboots, in particular the second outing (Rise of) with their much more environment-centric puzzling.

The sliding shadow puzzle just simply takes way too long to jog around the space, then clip onto the hot-zone for each lever, wait for the animation to lift it, wait for the animation for the pieces to slide, rinse, repeat. Once you know what you have to do, it’s overly frustrating actually having to do it.

It brings me to a weird quirk of design where the puzzle designers perhaps don’t understand something that the environmental designers do. Maybe they didn’t get the same little notes in the Slack channel, or Trello board or Teams pin or whatever. Uncharted level-design has almost no back-tracking, less in each successive game, and it’s almost entirely absent from Lost Legacy - you’d have to look closely to realise you’re navigating the same area you came in thru and almost always moving over it in a different way that’s been modified - now it’s flooded, now there’s a bridge, now you’re swinging or leaping or climbing where you weren’t etc. I feel like this is the Hidetaka Miyazaki Souls/Borne effect of level design in which environments are designed to be both realistic and practical.

Great! Good for the level designers. Did the puzzle designers not get that note? Maybe they did. I need to stop thinking that every poor optimisation is a symptom of ignorance - that’s bad form on my part. What’s more likely is it’s a symptom of either bad leadership, poor tool implementation, lack of time or too narrow or strict an observation of representative vision - by which I mean - they can’t change the way the characters move or animate just for puzzles, because it has to be consistent with the cinematic representation of the game as a whole - and that sucks lemons. It means the overall play experience suffers for the sake of the overall cinematic experience except executing a puzzle isn’t cinematic unless it’s expansive...

Like the positive example I’ll give of the light reflector room. Shoplifted from Uncharted 2′s giant knife that has Nathan climb all over a giant knife, Lost Legacy’s light reflector room has slightly less climbing but is a much larger space, more impressive and a much better example of good puzzling in Uncharted. It’s not difficult to solve but again (I think again?) I’ll argue that you don’t come to Uncharted for difficult puzzles - you don’t come to Tomb Raider for difficult puzzles, either.

The puzzles in these games should be mostly environmental because they feel good solving them, and solving them should be more about the doing - the playing - and the playing should be moving - running, jumping, climbing etc.

Both the giant knife and the reflector room are a joy to execute because they’re fantastically realised - large cavernous environments that aren’t annoying to navigate, that give you time to appreciate both the scale of the spaces and the details the designers and artists have put into them. Lost Legacy’s is more impressive because you do a lot more puzzling and spend much more time in its vastly larger space, culminating in combat that usually I would be ho-hum about, but I guess exhibits more animation and destruction tech which while scripted, is still impressive nonetheless given how extremely difficult it is to have interactivity still occurring.

I have a few things I want to mention before I begin to wrap up, given it’s going to be a very long wrap - I’d say I’m taking cues from Joseph Anderson but I’ve always been this verbose.

The medallion puzzles were excellent, in part perhaps because they felt like the closest thing to the Tomb Raider reboots’ challenge tombs. Some of them were silly and lazily implemented, the worst offender being you just had to shoot mans and get the medallion from the lock-box that the mans had put it in (pfft), but the best ones were integrated into the environment such that you may well have walked past or thru areas that were puzzles before you knew what they were. This brings up one of the most interesting things I’ve been turning over for quite some time now. Ben Croshaw aka Yahtzee aka Zero Punctuation may have first mentioned “chest high walls” in his first Gears of War video, but it may well have been an Uncharted game. I don’t remember but he will have thrown in mentions of all the generic cover-shooters as a catch-all for how the environments immediately telegraph that Combat™ will happen. It’s a particularly astute remark and speaks volumes of video game design - developers always seem to have very specific design language to separate traversal, combat and puzzling. While I clearly don’t care for combat most days, and yes - I do acknowledge there are some practical concerns for combat that can’t be avoided, I always envisaged design that blurred the lines between puzzle and environment so that you never quite knew what was and wasn’t a puzzle. Everything should be the puzzle. In some senses, Cyan’s old Myst games were a bit like this but in a very rudimentary and crude way - sure, they’re quite old now, but even those had very clear not puzzle areas. It’s a complex and subtle subject, but something of a study of games like Fireproof Games’ The Room would be in order. Understandably smaller scale, but the thinking behind it is definitely adjacent.

Final notes - the young Indian girl in the prologue has amazing animations that you’ll miss entirely unless you swing the camera yourself. A whole team of people or a single animator has spent hours on those animations - that a director or team leader hasn’t forced the player to see and appreciate them is a disservice.

Every section where you have to do something under pressure like run from mans shooting at you or dash through a lengthy section of crumbling cave network etc. is a horrible play experience of not knowing where to go. They’re trying to inject excitement by applying pressure but there’s no clear guidance and no dependence on player skill, so you end in bizarre fail-states due to going in completely the wrong direction that glitches cameras or scene time-outs resulting in check-points and the whole thing just doesn’t scan as a cinematic experience. I hate hate hate them - you’re subject to the same musical swell that’s supposed to be like a movie only to fail again and it comes off as b-grade and pathetic. Every game has had this problem and it is just straight bad design.

Three? Four? Games in a row, Naughty Dog have recycled;

being pursued on foot by an armoured vehicle crashing through level geometry while you have to run and occasionally shoot/fight mans,

driving down a shanty-town on a hill pursued by an armoured vehicle - perhaps the same one as previous scene

a big chase scene of lots of vehicles jumping from vehicle to vehicle shooting and/or punching mans that may or may not include...

a train combat sequence where you start at the back of the train and work your way to the front of it shooting mans as you go

This lacks creativity at this point. I think duplicating these once each - so you do them twice total across the franchise is fine, but they hit the same beats in the same way - exactly - every time they appear. It just strikes me as Naughty Dog just not knowing what else to do. At one point, I think it was in Uncharted 4, when driving down the shanty-town on the hill, I literally had a brain-fart not knowing which game I was playing because I swear we did it in 2 and 3. Did we do it in 3?? Look, I don’t know. But it’s getting old. At least we didn’t do it in Lost Legacy, but we did the train and I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of doing the same things in the same way. It could have been a train but it should have been in a way that just wasn’t just another Uncharted train. It hasn’t worn thin, it’s worn out.

Overall, the games look great... but playing them feels like they’re stuck in PS2 and early PS3 era philosophies, like Naughty Dog haven’t evolved and don’t realise that people’s brains function much quicker and can process more, or that the media we consume, the games we play function at a higher level and we can digest more, we’re capable of processing higher functions. I’ve been playing Ubisoft’s The Division 2 and enjoying it more the more I play, much to my surprise. I understand the intent behind the gameplay is extremely different to the single-player experience of Uncharted, however there are some parallels in what it achieves animation wise;

The Division is also a cover shooter but of-course as a multiplayer, open-world live-service game, its intent is to telegraph to the player that the entire environment is a permanent play-space in which to always be playing. It utilises an information-rich GUI that is an always-on system with button icons telling the player what button to press over what surfaces to snap to, vault over, climb up, run to (and snap to cover), open and loot, interact with etc. I don’t know if these can be turned off but I like them on. It’s a pretty amazing feat that almost every environmental object has been mapped as a snap-to-cover and/or climbable object. For this reason, the character movement in Division is pretty quick and snappy, however it still manages to have a decent degree of natural human kinetics in the character rigging which is amazing. This means if you move-off from standing still, there’s a slight delay as your “weight” shifts, same if you change direction. When I say “snap” to cover, it’s not actually instantaneous, your character makes a movement and takes time to do so, yet it’s still not sluggish. Somehow the developers have worked at fine-tuning a balance between not-instant, but not too slow.

This is something that even in Lost Legacy, I feel Naughty Dog simply can’t do. The animations are decent during play - they’re outstanding during cutscenes (we’re getting there), but character models have a really awkward relationship with the environment. They clip awkwardly with ladders and buttons and wheels - with puzzles and levers - getting the grappling hook to prompt is again better than Uncharted 4 but still not ideal. I had far fewer glitch-outs than 4 too, which was a significant improvement, but I still had to animate back and forth a few times to get into hot-zones appropriately and with character kinetics not quite right, it wasn’t exactly easy.

And again to be fair, this stuff is suuuuuper difficult. I don’t mean to talk about this stuff like it’s cooking instant ramen. It’s so freaking tough. Rigging and mapping interactive character models has to be one of the most stupendously difficult things a developer has to do - making it work with all that scripting, getting it to play nice with all those assets and lines and lines of coding for the full experience. I have so much respect for game developers and what an astronomical task it is. So when I say I prefer one development team’s product over another’s, I don’t mean to say that the other team is absolute garbage - there are so many things that might contribute to that final product and we have no idea what’s been going on at Naughty Dog. If the team leaders and producers say they’re happy or even if they don’t, and the decision is made to ship, there’s nothing more they can say or do.

If there was one thing I absolutely loved about this game, it was the two main characters and the story that was told about them. I can excuse the main text as the catalyst that brought them together - even to the point that it’s a story about Chloe ultimately deciding what’s important to her. My issue with this comes full circle with the setting being in a real world conflict. There’s a bit of white savour complex in there in that Asav might be the narrative’s antagonist, but he at least is local. It’s not clear exactly what Chloe’s ethnicity is and I’m not here to judge what her stakes are in it because clearly her character has a sense of home and place in India, but she certainly also has a complex sense of being an outsider. So the point is not to judge, but the game also is unclear on its positioning other than she’s the heroic vehicle of deliverance. See what I mean about theme? This is what I mean by you could have just as easily written almost an identical story about Nadine and Chloe, with very similar interactions, tension, redemption and resolve - even with an antagonist, conflict and a happy ending, but either treated real sociopolitical issues with better care or not set your game in them at all. I’m all for setting games in the real world, but if you’re going to do it, do it right. I’m not the person to ask.

I need to be careful not to direct that criticism at the base-level developers nor at Claudia Black who is the manifestation of Chloe’s voice because she does an amazing job of bringing her to life. The casting of Laura Bailey voicing a black South African Nadine was much more awkward given Nadine’s ethnicity wasn’t decided when she was cast - again that’s on Naughty Dog’s leadership, but I won’t knock Laura Bailey for it. It’s easy to say she should have resigned, perhaps she should have, that’s an economical question only Laura can answer and I’m sure it’s not an easy one. Suffice to say, VO work isn’t lucrative.

What a side-track.

I don’t think I ever cared about Nathan. I think I always cared about Elena, and not because WAIFU and also not because WHITE KNIGHT or whatever other bullshit reasons stupid alphagamerz will spit from their frontheads. Elena’s just more interesting, probably because Nathan is written like a design document and Elena’s written like a human being. Naughty Dog want to create a game about adventuring with lush expansive environments, shooty mcshooting and light puzzling. They want it to be cinematic and unrivalled in its quality and they have the smarts to build the tech around it, with Sony’s help. Backed by Sony money, they take VO seriously and do a great job at creating that cinematic experience, coupled with some above-par for video games narrative writing. The problem this introduces for me is Nathan’s raison d'être has to justify everything - action, tension, stupidity...

Nathan Drake really is the design document.

I feel like he’s just the unfortunate side-effect of being central to the game, and it’s typical of my character to just not dig the focus of things and get into subtexts a whole lot more. Often I get into things in the periphery, things adjacent - I don’t love or hate Shakespeare or for that matter Baz Luhrmann but Romeo + Juliet ‘96 is an amazing film and not at all because of the eponymous Romeo and Juliet and again, not for Leonardo di Caprio (spit!) or for Claire Danes (she can stay) but the absolutely divine cast of supporting characters (John Leguizamo will live in my heart forever oh baby).

That Nathan makes stupid decisions is already something that turns me off. That he makes poor decisions because... he’s an orphan? Because... he was bullied? Because... his brother left him? This is why he’s not transparent with his wife? Actually, he’s quite realistic. Except the people like him I’ve known in my life aren’t heroes - they’re pathetic or unreliable or abusive or dangerous. Elena is an adult. She’s not perfect either and that’s also great because neither am I. As a side character she has the conceit of being more nuanced, but as the contra to Nathan, she’s also mature versus his childishness. OOOOAAAAH EVERYONE LOVES A LOVEABLE MANBABY OOAAAH COMEON LIVE A LITTLE EVERYONE’S GOT A LITTLE CHILD STILL IN THEM SOMEWHERE yea fine, I get it, like I’ve said before, yes - he embodies the recklessness and playfulness in us, but that’s a confusing position for a game that frequently tries to ground itself in real world conflict to be taking. You’re reducing him to that but injecting complex and nuanced characters like Elena and now eventually both Chloe and Nadine? I’m telling you now - any male that doesn’t know when it’s appropriate to grow-up, when the time to set aside the playfulness and be TRUTHFUL AND TRANSPARENT WITH HIS PARTNER is a dangerous person and FUCK THAT NOISE. Nathan, as much as I do absolutely - make no mistake - adore Nolan North’s voicing - ends up being another Homer Simpson - as long as you laugh at his stupidity, you’ll excuse it, and you’ll excuse the hurt that’s done by it, and that shit doesn’t fly with me. His redemption was not earned. I say again - Elena should throw him into the sea.

Nadine ends up being a fantastic character, even if she’s given less narrative time, she’s a great example of her behaviour telling more story in contrast to Chloe getting to reveal her past and it’s nice to see them play off one another. I feel Nadine and Chloe as characters hit great story beats in ways Nathan didn’t get to with pretty much any of the other characters in four games - not Sully, not Elena, not his brother, not even Chloe - all told, we never actually get any back-story on Nathan and Chloe and I think we’re better off for it because I don’t care.

Having a quick squiz around tumblr reveals the obvious and rampant shipping of Nadine and Chloe and I couldn’t be happier. I think Naughty Dog knew what they were doing. There were so many moments. Those moments were for us. I think they were subtle enough that the fragile manbabies would have missed them but there’s no fooling us. Some of the babyboiz would have been seething thru their mouthbreething hairmouths and I’m sure probably took to the internet but that’s OK, they can remain unfucked incels for the rest of their lives or worse, serviced by whatever unwashed creatures want to dare fondle them in the dark. The elephant ride and that whole conversation was almost enough for me to forgive the absolute disaster that was Uncharted 4. It was given enough time to breathe, it was absolutely beautiful, and just when you thought they were going to terminate it and apologise for making things too awks, it concludes just perfectly and you get a phone picture that doesn’t have Nadine in frame, yet her presence in that picture is definite, pervasive and emotional. Again, some people may have completely missed it and maybe it chalks up to life experience, but as completely contrived as an artefact of complete fiction as that whole sequence might be, it was one of the most wonderfully tender moments ever created in a video game and I wonder if it makes the whole affair worth it.

In the Uncharted 4 piece, I threw in a few barbs about the most meaningful interactions, and in Lost Legacy, what I really loved was Chloe taking photos of things she thinks are beautiful and interesting on her phone, and feeding the elephant - these were the most meaningful interactions in the game. I love that the photos on the phone didn’t serve any gameplay utility at all, they were there because her character wanted to document her travels, because she thought what she was seeing was cool, and any time in the game, you could pull out your phone and look at what you’d seen. It was such a good and important decision to have the very first picture to be the Indian girl in the market, as that rather than the local conflict, does more to ground you and Chloe as a character in the setting. The game never forces you to look at it as a reminder, but you know it’s there.

I did steal these from the internet, sorry - so if they’re yours, let me know and I’ll be happy to take them down - this one in particular, seeing as it’s a photomode capture. I should have taken my own but I don’t do photomode caps on my first play-thru and there’s no-way I’m replaying this ever again.

It took five games for Naughty Dog to finally get some decent character writing, but a part of me still feels they couldn’t have existed without all the dross of the other games. There’s this immense amount of back-story and labour both the developers and the players had to slog thru to get to this point, and I feel as tho we get here and there’s just too little to show for it. I still really enjoyed the story that was told, the sense of character I felt, but a lot of that was contingent on the Uncharted universe in situ. Lost Legacy feels like a combining of all of Naughty Dog’s narrative motifs - the earnest redemption, the moment of tenderness and connection centred around peaceful animals - it’s a greatest hits of Naughty Dog in the best way possible because each narrative beat hits perfectly. I’m glad I played it with two characters who endeared themselves so much to me, that I truly cared about.

I’ve spend a lot of time praising the strengths of writing for at least Lost Legacy, but for each thing I’ve enjoyed about at least these two characters, there have been so many things I’ve been critical of. I feel like in order to get to the tiniest bit of enjoyment, I had to suffer thru so much. Honestly I don’t know if it really was worth it. It’s hard to know given that who I am now and where my tastes are and have developed as a consequence of my experiences, and I definitely would not replay any of those games again - so where does that leave me? I can’t go back and play The Last Of Us and I absolutely won’t play the second game, I just can’t do Naughty Dog games now, I don’t have it in me.

Naughty Dog have spent the better part of two decades developing tech for visual fidelity specifically for the Playstation hardware platforms (PS3 and 4). They’ve also been doing it by overworking their staff, many of which have left out of frustration or necessity. The problem they face is that as industry tools in general improve, there will no gap between games developed by Naughty Dog and any other contemporary studio from a visual perspective. Make no mistake - the Uncharted games are absolutely chock-full of objects, geometry and animation - somehow miraculously so on the Playstation platform in comparison to other games with the exception of other first-party and exclusive games receiving similar support from Sony such as Guerilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn and Sucker Punch’s forthcoming Ghost of Tsushima. There are probably other similar examples for the previous generation on PS3.

Yes, there’s a certain style of game Naughty Dog create as far as narrative goes but because it’s becoming more cinematic, that style is judged more and more by cinematic standards and at best it’s barely semi-professional aside from the outstanding voice work. There are few striking visual motifs that set Naughty Dog games apart from a design perspective, and the gameplay and mechanical constructions that once distinguished them at least a little from others are ever diminishing at increasing rates - more-so as their work practices make the level of quality they set out to achieve ever more unsustainable.

Lost Legacy encapsulates a lot of what I feel about video games as a whole at the moment - as an industry and as a culture. It’s a snapshot of a culture that’s achieving wonderful, beautiful things that are in ways huge - immense, yet somehow can feel so small in comparison to some of the challenges it faces. It’s an industry and culture experiencing a period of great upheaval, where after years upon years of malpractice, terrible things somehow still endure. It’s a space where sometimes it feels like a battle to find the tiniest shred of beauty buried in the dirt and ash, and there doesn’t seem to be an end to the frustration that working thru it brings about while grass-roots labourers continue to be burned.

Like many things in life, both at my age and at the level I guess a person gets to at the exposure rate of a thing, I’ve cut back a great deal on my engagement time with video games, so I’m a lot less patient with the functions and mechanisms of a game. There’s a labour element of video games that I feel developers might think is somehow necessary and there’s a component of that which is true, just not quite in the way they think it is, and it takes a unique frame of thinking to break out of traditional design to understand it. Again I’m not saying there’s anything special about how I understand games - there’s nothing at all original in my thoughts - I’ve shoplifted them wholesale from a hundred other people back from when I used to read Gamasutra and even now when I read designers and the people I follow and talk to on Twitter etc. There’s also absolutely nothing wrong with traditions and the people that enjoy them - just because they’re not my thing any more doesn’t mean they’re bad. It just means I’ve moved to something else and I shouldn’t engage with them.

That, I think, is what I’m waiting for. Kentucky Route Zero, Howling Dogs, Dear Esther, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture, a whole bunch of others - these are the games I feel are pushing past the boundaries of tradition. Then the moments Uncharted takes itself out of its traditions - Nadine and Chloe’s elephant ride, Chloe’s phone pictures, Elena and Nathan’s house tours especially as Cassie - that’s when I think now you’re running! Run with it! Look, I’m still playing The Division - I’m still moving and shooting and enjoying it.

But we can do so much more. Many developers are doing more. We as an audience need to play more All of us together need to do and play more.

(The epilogue is me figuring I talk a lot of shit about AAA games and nary a word about KRZ, Howling Dogs, Dear Esther and the rest and I get it, but oooooo howdy is it really difficult for me to talk pragmatically about games I actually love)

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sugaxjpg · 6 years ago

Text

04 | blank check; m

⤷ “Let me get this right, okay? You threw my name in as your fake girlfriend because you needed to prove yourself to your empty-headed friends, and now you need to fix it. Still,” you paused, raising your eyebrows, “your way of fixing is not to disclose it as a lie, but to cover it up with an even bigger and riskier one. Is that correct?”

⤷ PART 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | Co-written with @pantaemonium

✓ Couple: Jungkook x Reader | Fuckboy!AU & FakeDating!AU

✓ Filed under: smut, tragic comebacks

✓ Words: 6,892

Author’s Note: And here it is... whatever this is. Laura and I are sorry. Also, Part 5 will be a bit longer than the ones we have put out so far, so pls be patient!! It’ll come :,)

Your debate class had its intense, hair-pulling moments in the past — from the dichotomy of the current political climate to philosophical dialogues about Descartes’ universal doubt — but, every once in a while, even your professor would get stressed at the constant bickering of his top 10 students and, instead, would chose a dumb theme that the class could find some sort of humor in. After some time, even that showed itself to be an obstacle, since most of your classmates had their head so far up their own ass that they forgot what the sun looked like, even less what it was to have a chill, borderline comical, conversation with another human being.

And that was where you and Namjoon came in.

If you were to be completely honest, you could say without a shadow of a doubt that the two had a constant veil of bitterness floating between you. What could you do? Both of you were a bit more competitive than you should be, and the prospect of academic validation was far too tempting for you two to just let it slide. But, damn. If Dante Alighieri had the misfortune of meeting Kim Namjoon throughout his life, you were absolutely sure he would have added the man somewhere amongst his circles of inferno — because, Jesus Christ, was he a pain in the ass when he took things to his personal side.

“In synthesis, professor, I must conclude,” Namjoon started, leaning against the tall surface of his table. The copy of the discussed book was placed before him, and you could see that he had highlighted — and color-coded — at least half of it. “Bella Swan should have picked Jacob instead of Edward. The amount of danger she faced was ridiculous, and perfectly avoidable if she had chosen the one that was always there for her and, quite frankly, much more attractive.”

Subtle. Always so subtle.

With his feet over a nearby desk, your professor hummed, and used his cup of coffee to hide the smirk that creeped up on his lips. From your peripheral vision, you could see the other students exchanging animated glances, waiting for your turn to defend Team Edward. “Alright. Very good, Kim,” he praised, then turned to you. His mop-like moustache was stained by the brown coffee, and it looked more disgusting than it should. “What do you have for us, defense?”

You pushed your shoulders back and, without a missed beat, spoke your truth. “I disagree with Namjoon’s conclusion, professor. Edward Cullen cared about Bella Swan much more than Jacob ever did. He was only angry because he was thrown into the friendzone, and did not get his desires fulfilled by his best friend.” Your eyes darted towards Namjoon as you verbalized those words, wishing you were just as subtle as he had been — that is, not at all. “Edward protected Bella since the start, was patient, and didn’t force anything on her. With all due respect, professor.” You turned back to the class. “Jacob had no free-pass to Bella’s black lacy underwear just because he had been there for longer.”

“That’s irrelevant to this debate, come on!” Namjoon defended himself, blushing from the tip of his ears to — not that you had been looking before — the place where his tan skin disappeared under his shirt. The buttons opened, that would’ve gotten him a warning in high school—but in college it was the average cool dude uniform. “Jacob was not as simple-minded as he’s thought to be. He may be a werewolf but he’s not stupid—”

“Well, I have to disagree. As you may have read — and I’m sure my opponent highlighted this part too—, in the fourth book of the saga Jacob imprinted Edward and Bella’s new-born baby, under the justification that, and I quote, everything he was—snip, snip, snip—floated up into space when he met the baby’s eyes, which are coincidentally very similar to Bella’s who happened to be at the moment, dead.”

“It is explained within the Twilight universe that werewolves often link themselves to their partners for life.” Namjoon barked back, although there was no confidence left within him when he opened the book, and started looking through his notes, wondering how he could’ve left the imprinting-the-baby topic out. What a mess.

Poor Namjoon had surely been very busy dreaming of your black underwear to finish preparing the debate and that, good for you, meant you had won — for once.

“My shaking jerked to a stop; heat flooded through me, stronger than before, but it was a new kind of heat — not a burning,” you read, trying to occult behind the pages the wicked smile invading your features. At the back of the classroom, your classmates started laughing enough for Mr. Moustache to turn around and shush them. Namjoon was paralysed. His projection into the Jacob’s character was not as funny anymore. “Around five minutes before he falls in love with the half-vampire parasite, he’s hugging Bella’s flailing body, forbidding her from dying. He’s not what I call… consistent with his feelings.”

Namjoon opened his mouth to talk, but all of the present souls knew that his chances of coming back from that annihilation were practically zero. With a smile and a resonating laugh, Professor Pornstache turned around to the class. “Alright, children of the corn, you all know how it goes,” he started. You had no idea how he hadn’t noticed the soaked mess that his upper lip had turned into, but that’s what botox injections can do to your overall sensibility, after all. “Write on a piece of paper who you think won, and then let’s do this as democratically as we can — even if we all know that the final word is mine.”

You rolled your eyes at your professor’s attempt at being Cool With the Kids. Mussolini over there — Mustachelini? Nah — constantly tried to sneak in references of popular movies into his every sentence, which explained his constant obsession with reviewing young adult novels. Next one up, according to him, would be something from Cassandra Clare, and you really didn’t think you’d be able to endure another painfully awkward love triangle discussion, even less the hidden incest.

With a few chuckles and guilty gazes crossing, the classroom was quick to pass the papers off to the front row, where the teacher’s personal pet — Jisoo? Achoo? Bless you — could organize and count the votes. You were lucky she was great at her job, for it took her less than five dragged-out, silence-filled minutes to have an answer.

With a grin that seemed to come out straight from a Monopoly live-action movie, your professor looked down at the winner’s name. “Oh, look at that,” he said. “Seems like we have a new name to pay attention to. Namjoon…” he dragged out his speech in a way that you swore the air had been sucked out of your lungs. Next to you, the boy leaned forwards, chest filled up with pride. “Better luck next time, kid. Y/N got the trophy. That’s ten points to gryffindor, and a nine for Team Edwards.”

With the weight of defeat dragging his shoulders down, Namjoon retreated to the back of the classroom, where the bad boys — you almost cringed thinking of him as one of those — sat and gnawed gum loudly trying to make the world believe their attitude would get there somewhere in life except, perhaps, jail. He plopped onto his chair, and let out a defeated sigh. If he couldn’t win a Twilight debate that meant his career was over, his reputation on the floor. It was a tragic defeat, one he had never expected.

Part of him, you thought, should be happy that it had been you the one to conquer the first place. It could have been someone else, like the guy from second row who carried an anime figurine around and ate his boogers when he thought no one was watching; or maybe, the resident weed-lover, who would probably rant for five minutes about the necessity to legalize marijuana, and avoid altogether the mundane problems of two-hundred year old bloodsucker hottie number 1; and very white, very anodyne Bella Swan.

“So, tell me, what kept you so busy that you couldn’t finish the assigned reading?” You questioned, rubbing — as they would say — salt over his overabundance of pride wounds. It was petty, but it was the funniest part of defeating the smarty-pants in the room. “Anything on your mind? Do you need a pep-talk? My therapist’s number, perhaps?”

Namjoon crossed his arms over his desk and laid his head over them, hoping the earth could just open up and swallow him alive. It crossed his mind that Jungkook probably didn’t even know which elements that are inside the Earth’s core — nickel and iron, for the ones wondering — even less which layer was liquid: internal or external. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe you wanted someone that was more than brains, or maybe you could be searching for someone so dumb that would make you feel more confident at your own IQ — yeah, that was probably it. You wouldn’t pick anyone but Namjoon if that wasn’t the case.

But he needed to control the flux of his thoughts before it got the best of him, and he made the mistake of being a little bit more honest than he should. What could he do? His pride was completely shattered — over a Twilight debate, for fuck’s sake — and he was struggling to seat down after the catastrophe that had been that pizza. Never underestimate the enemy. Never underestimate cheese left out to rot for too long.

And, most importantly, never underestimate Jeon Jungkook.

“So, Y/N,” he started, raising his head from the desk. Two other students had already moved to the front of the class to start their debate on the powers of some of the secondary vampire characters, but he didn’t care about it — that one, he could win it in his sleep —, for his eyes were completely glued to your own. “You ran away from us that night at the party. Care to say what happened between you and your misunderstood knight?”

And god bless your winner high for not making your face crack under the sudden question. Even if the image of Jungkook rubbing his cherry splitter came back in a hormonal rush throughout your body and mind, the smirk in your lips lingered, and your inner despair did not drip through your words. “Nothing happened, we are perfectly fine,” you lied. “In fact, he invited me to go to Jimin’s pool party next weekend. Hope you don’t mind my company.”

It was ephemeral, but you saw the way Namjoon’s eyes widened for an instant — he was a mortal man, with simple mortal needs. Seeing glimpses of your black underwear? That was nice. Seeing you in full bikini? That was a miracle, and Kim Namjoon wasn’t someone to disregard a message from the Lord.

He cleared his throat, and looked towards the front of the class, where the debate was starting to heat up. One of the students claimed that vampires having weather-controlling abilities made no sense, for it was Twilight, and not X-men. He had to agree with that one. “That’s… something to consider,” he spoke. It was getting hot there? It was either you or the intestinal cramps from that forsaken pizza — how many days would it take for it to leave his system? God. “Never thought of you as someone who enjoyed… the outdoors.”

“I’m not the sun’s biggest fan, that’s true,” you acknowledged, “but that’s what relationships are about, you know? Making sacrifices, spending time with your boyfriend’s friends. All that.”

Namjoon, once again, lost his space to speak. As his eyebrows twitched together in a sign of his disbelief — and a bit of jealousy, let’s be honest — and his plump lips parted in a silent exclamation, the screen of your phone lit up, a loud ding! ruptured the attention of the class. From the front row, Pornstache asked for you to turn the device off.

“Won’t you look at that,” Namjoon complained, watching your fingers as you quickly placed your phone on silent mode. “Edward Cullen is here to save the day.”

There was a tinge of agony in his voice, that you interpreted as a silent hope that he could someday become the one to disrupt the class to send you, perhaps, a corny I miss you, let’s meet at the library after class, or a more saucy — and god knows you hate that expression — I’d love to be in bed right now, doing you-know-what. Namjoon didn’t strike you to be one to send a I’ll fuck you raw against the wall only because he would understand the physical limitations that would come with such statement.

“Edward Cullen is just trying to know if I’ll be going to your match next week, I think,” you lied. The phone vibrated against the table, insistent. It was like having Jungkook behind your back, saying whatever nonsense he had come up with that same morning. “Don’t you have something useful to do? I don’t know, start reading Cassandra Clare’s failed incest fanfic attempts or something?”

“Nah, you know what? I’m going to the bathroom. That pizza is still kicking my intestines, and not in a good way.” He smiled, and it was dashing. “See you later.”

“When you finish pooping.”

“Yeah.”

With raised eyebrows and the ghost of a smile lingering on your lips, you watched as Namjoon made his walk of shame towards the front of a class, then quickened up his pace suddenly. If you could go back to the night of the party and tell him about the consequences of his ridiculously high cheese consumption, you wouldn’t. It was too funny to just let it pass.

Your entertainment, however, was short-lived. As soon as you turned your gaze back to the device on your hands and actually read through the previews of Jungkook’s messages, you could tell that something was wrong.

Jungkook’s only neuron: [incoming video]

Jungkook’s only neuron: SHRIIRSHIT

Jungkook’s only neuron: NO DONT OPEN THAT PLEASE DONT

Jungkook’s only neuron: THAT ISN’T FOR YOU BABY NO

Jungkook’s only neuron: IM SO SORRY OMHFGF NPONONOONO

Jungkook’s only neuron: i want to die please dont download the video please i will do anything i will buy you milkshakes for the entire week plea...

But it was too late: you knew Jungkook was terrible at finding compelling arguments, but that was just too much. He knew you were curious, and his overwhelmed texts only increased your sadism to prolong his suffering. Of course you were going to see whatever the hell he had sent you, and of course you would make sure to tease him for it until the end of time. It was what he deserved after dragging you for yet another acting gig.

So, you unlocked your phone, and went straight to his conversation. Nothing could have prepared you for what you were met with — but one thing was for certain: you were so happy that you had brought your earphones that day.

Curiosity started to carve a hole within your chest. It started as a mere tingle, just below your breastbone, when you plugged in your earphones and starting downloading the video. Had Jungkook been a bit smarter that day — or just more technology-conscious — he would have remembered there was an option to delete his video. It would erase it from the face of earth, and with it the shame it would bring along. It was useless now, because by the time he understood the power he had allowed to slip away you would have already saved the thing in your phone. For blackmail purposes only, of course.

With absolutely no expectations, you pressed play. The condemnatory piece of evidence Jungkook had sent by mistake started playing on your screen, a vastness of black pixels and an eventual flash of light. It must be something huge, for him to panic — while sober — on the chat-room. And huge it was, although at first the image was without form and void. Darkness invaded the screen, like there was a towel or a shirt placed in front of the camera, and the only remnants of light that managed to filter in were through holes in the cotton.

Maybe Jungkook had finally lost his mind, and he had recorded one of those confession videos with huge cards. You are perfect to me, could have been read in one of those, scribbled with a Sharpie in his terrible handwriting. But Jungkook was not the romantic type so that would not be the case, he had a reputation to hold — surprisingly, he had not destroyed it yet.

And so the dumbass said “let there be light”, and there was light — and the most horrendous pink tiles covering the bathroom floor. He appeared into focus, clad in grey sweatpants and a tee shirt that you recognized immediately as part of the training gear for the volleyball team.

“Oh, god,” you muttered to yourself, watching him seat cross-legged before the camera. You had watched enough porn in your life to, at least, sense where this was going, but you were not prepared. Not at all.

When the boy — Jungkook, it was fucking Jungkook and you knew it — moved backwards on the shot, the entire scene came into focus, presenting you with the image of what you presumed was his bathroom. You would recognize that pink abomination anywhere, even if, the last time you witnessed it, you had not payed attention to the disgusting fact that the tiles were also a pallid tinge of roseate; the same color of the heat that painted the boy’s cheeks, all the way to the tip of his ears.

The image was slightly blurred still, but you could tell that he was sitting on the floor, back pressed against a bathtub. Jungkook had moved down on the shot enough so you could see up to his nose, but his eyes were still out of frame. It didn’t matter: you knew it was him, and you could not stop looking at the way his swollen lips were parted, glistening with the thin layer of his saliva. From in between them, came the weak, shy sound of a moan, and his body shivered in expectation.

Before you could even take hold of your actions, your gaze was already shooting downwards, past the droplets of sweat on his tan neck, and the obnoxious colors of his team shirt — for fuck’s sake, he was clearly not the brightest of minds, but, if he wanted it to be a bit harder to figure it out who it was, he shouldn’t have worn that. Dumbass. The hottest fucking dumbass you’ve ever laid eyes upon. Not the point.

Then, you saw it, and your mind went blank. Jungkook had one of his veiny hands placed over his hard member, its outline vaguely visible through the thick fabric of his pants. And, shit, that wasn’t the only thick thing in sight. But anyways. He was caressing it slowly, up and down, then rolling his palm against it slowly, dragging out the whines that broke upon his lips. Through your earphones, you could hear the fragile inflections of his voice against your ear, and you swore you could feel his raggedy breath hitting your skin at every new exhale.

On the upper part of your screen, another message popped up: I can tell you’re online!!!! it practically yelled, reeking of desperation and pheromones. You ignored it. There were more interesting things happening. Bigger things.

Jungkook pressed his palm down on his cock one, twice, but soon grew impatient at the lack of sensibility it provided. You tapped on the video and saw that it was three minutes long, which told you just how much he was eager to get straight to the point; and, much to your inner satisfaction, your hypothesis was quickly proved.

Almost timidly — who would’ve thought Jeon Jungkook could be any shade of timid, for fuck’s sake — the tip of his cock was released from the constriction of the elastic. He had been dripping enough to wet the fabric, and it elicited a thousand questions amongst which the idea of Jungkook cumming in his pants, unable to stop himself was primordial and very much overwhelming.

With more tenderness you had ever imagined he would be capable of, he pressed his thumb against his crown, smearing his slick all around. It ripped a long-drawled groan out of his throat, as he threw his head back and against the bathtub. Sweat started to pool in hollow of his clavicle when he dared move again, hand encircling his length.

That was the moment you understood the situation was serious in more than one way because a) Mr Pornstache was still doing whatever he believed was teaching, b) Namjoon had just crossed the classroom threshold and was about to return to his place by your side; and c) your panties were wetter that the goddamn Nile and it was Jungkook’s doing.

Way to start the week.

Then again, miracles can present themselves every once in a while and, for you, it was the fast-thinking that suddenly overtook your senses. Even if every fiber of your being begged for you to do otherwise, your fingers were quick to pause the video, block your phone, and shove your earplugs inside your jacket’s pocket before Namjoon’s gaze even casted itself in your general direction. Usain Bolt who?

You cleared your throat — was it hot in there? “There you are,” you whispered as he sat down next to you. Namjoon looked one shade whiter and many years older. “Had fun?”

He rolled his eyes. “What kind of question is that?” You did not know. You weren’t thinking straight. You could barely recall your name amongst the echoes of Jungkook’s moans inside your mind, and it was driving you insane. “Anyways,” he started, “did I miss something important? Any big arguments to take into consideration?”

“The biggest argument I’ve ever see— I mean no, nothing,” you were quick to correct yourself. Your heart was beating so fast inside your chest that you recalled every medical drama you’ve ever watched, the movement of the defibrillators and the anxious screams of the doctors — charge it to 200; to 500… There’s nothing else we can do, we lost her. Jungkook strikes again. “You know what? This reminds me, I should go to the bathroom as well— To do… to… take care of lady stuff.”

Taken aback by surprise, Namjoon leaned back against his chair and raised his eyebrows in expectation, trying to predict where that was heading towards. He was clearly doubtful of your actions, and Mr Mustachelini was far too enrolled in the superpower debate to care about the way you roughly moved to your feet, almost knocking the desk over as you did so. Thank the heavens above that you didn’t wear a skirt that day, because the situation in between your legs was reaching critical levels.

“Lady… stuff?” he repeated slowly. There it was: the man you learned to fear in debates and in the court, with those piercing pupils and the expression that told you that there was no use in lying, for he already knew the secrets that you hid underneath your tongue. “Did something happen?”

You laughed nervously. “Absolutely nothing happened,” you lied. He could tell. Somehow, he just could. “I just have to leave, it’s gonna be really quick just… okay, bye.”

Namjoon moves around very slowly. The commotion of your sudden leave had probably pressed a slow-mo button he could not turn off. It was like all his energy was being redirected towards his brain, aimed at the gears you could almost hear rumble. It was just a bathroom escapade, it wasn’t that deep. But Namjizz was keen on discovering the secrets you were not skilful enough to conceal — at least not with the image of Jungkook’s swollen dick in his pretty hands still engraved in your brain.

“Bye,” you repeated, waving him farewell. Still perplexed he muttered something along the lines of: are you sure everything is alright? That you never responded to. All you could picture was the girls’ bathroom at the end of the corridor, the cubicle at the far left — the one less transited.

You had some dignity left inside, so you didn’t run. Instead, you walked as fast as your legs allowed. In hindsight, it was a ridiculous image, but you could only feel the weight of your phone growing heavier in your pocket, the wires tangling like serpents as some sort of cosmic punishment for your unspeakable crimes. As if it wasn’t enough that you had fallen for the local cliché; that you had been tempted by the one character in the comic you had promised you would only treat with disdain and, perhaps, some well-founded superiory.

Jungkook was an overused trope, that was clear enough — thanks brain for the painful reminder! — but fuck, did he make you wet with only a few seconds of his blurry, leaked sextape.

Despite the late hour, the bathroom was deserted. You had been hoping to find someone there, someone disagreeable and nasty who would kill your libido with just a look. Coco would’ve fit the role. But there was no one around, and the cleaning lady had just polished the tiles till they shone like diamonds.

Weren’t you the luckiest girl in the entire university, huh?

Giving it no more thought, you locked yourself inside the cubicle. Your phone vibrated again, this time in your hand.

Jungkook’s only neuron: please Y/N i didn’t mean to send that to you. it was a mistake. come back and call me a pig BUT DO SOMETHING. THIS IS LIKE POKING A STONE WITH A STICK

Jungkook’s only neuron: if you didn’t see it as I BEGGED YOU TO PLEASE FORGET I EVEN SAID THAT

He continued to rant into the group chat, monologuing about the many reasons behind your silence. It was — truth be told — abnormal of you to skip a chance to roast him, but there were more important matters to attend to. With a quick swish of your finger you silenced him, and with it the guilt that could come.

In movements far too quick to be your own, you plugged in the earphones in your ear, checked that they were well connected to your device — the last thing you needed was to interrupt the chastic beauty of that recently-cleaned bathroom with Jungkook’s devilish moans — and moved back to the video. The recording started over, but you were quick to move back to the time stamp you had stopped in — 1:38, precisely and, yes, you had memorized.

Now, that was when your morning started to go downhill, because it was when you decided to, as you had mentioned before, defenestrate the rest of your pride, and do the dirty work. Kind of: you were a bit out of your senses, but not enough to finger the baby maker in the middle of a public bathroom, no matter how clean it was.

So, you settled for the second best.

As the video resumed, you noticed the wetness that had spread between your thighs, only increasing as those lust-filled images flashed before your gaze. There was something alluring about the idea of the Great Jeon Jungkook playing with himself, allowing for his hips to roll against his hand as temptation overtook his senses; his legs so weak that he could barely move in that gruesomely pink bathroom floor. He was edging himself, that you could tell from the continuous biting of his lower lip, and the quivering pants that left his mouth, and he was adoring every second of his self-inflicted torture.

Moans and curses poured from his chest like ambrosia, and your other hand was quick to undo the buttons of your pants. You could see him, eyebrows furrowed and eyes closed, as his parted lips groaned for release, his muscles clenching again and again; cock throbbing in his hands. Perhaps, in an instant of patience, he would rub himself through his underwear until he was hard enough, or maybe he would grind against his bed until he could no long take the pleasure that monopolized his carnal desires.

Not that you were far away from that fate.

Hastily, you placed your hand in the space between your jeans and your underwear, finding your clit instantly. Your fingers traced circles over your sensitive spot, but the numbed feeling was awfully frustrating to endure. Just like the fucking video before your eyes was; the rise and fall of Jungkook’s abdomen as he reached for his own orgasm; the teasing of his thumb against the top of his member; the weak, whimper-like moans that infested your mind like a damn egyptian plague. Everything about that situation was frustrating, and it was tearing you from the inside out.

As he so tenderly caressed his length, you wondered at the rubor that had conquered his neck, the toned expanse of his chest. Jeon Jungkook had lost the intimidating arrogance that seemed to envelope his entire being. There was no arrogance in the curve of his mouth when opened his mouth in a whimper that broke before it could be captured by the microphone of his phone. There was no pride in the way he tilted his head back, fingers tight around his cock as he fucked himself relentlessly.

Despite the lack of friction, the sole image of his muscles tensing as he approached his release was enough to have you trembling. The memento of his hands roaming your waist was clear in your mind when you pressed your clit just a bit harder, wishing it was him the one to tease you with the same cruelly he was teasing himself. The wonders his fingers could do, his tongue. As his moans became louder, your movements turned erratic, almost desperate. It threatened to break you, but you could not find reason within yourself to stop.

Still, Jungkook wouldn’t be Jungkook if he didn't find a way to ruin your fucking day.

The vibration of your phone in your hands made your heart jump inside your chest and, for an instant, you swore you had seen the light at the end of the tunnel, and the angels calling you to join them above. But no — it was the human-shaped devil named Jungkook and he was, quite literally, calling you.

With a stressed-out groan, you barely thought about your actions before sliding to answer his call, his previous moans being immediately replaced by static. “What the fuck do you want, Jungkook?”

From the other sound of the line, you heard a shuffle. “Oh great, you picked up,” he spoke. You couldn’t tell if his voice was permeated by annoyance or by relief and, quite honestly, you didn’t give a flying fuck — you had your hands pressed against the soaked mess that had become your panties in a public bathroom, and the last thing you needed was to psychologically characterize his timbre based upon the inflections of his tone. “We have to talk.”

Honestly? Fuck it. The guy had already ruined one rub-out session for you, and he wouldn’t do the same thing again; not when the only detail you could think about had been the ridiculously hot video he had sent you. “No we don’t,” you threw back, breathing growing sharp as you continued your motions — slower this time. “This is not the time, and you have nothing—” You paused, biting back a moan, then masking it as a cough. Okay, you certainly didn’t think that through. “You have nothing to justify.”

“You know I do.” He hesitated. “It’s about the video.”

“Of course it’s about the fucking video,” you interrupted, throwing your head back against the wall. You were starting to get close, and you knew it. “Are you narcissistic enough to jerk off to a video of you... jerking off? This is the weirdest case of inception I’ve ever seen.”

Jungkook paused on the other end. “Inception? But that has nothing to do with my family.”

Good god, have mercy on your soul. “Inception, Jungkook.” You groaned. “Not incest.”

“Not the point, smart ass,” he was quick to reply and — fuck Jungkook and his honey voice — you could have sworn he had almost stuttered. There was no way you could have known for sure, for your own mind was wandering elsewhere and you were barely containing the tremors of your own voice. “I really need to see you and explain, so tell me where to go and I’ll be there.”

“Jungkook,” you called, and your brain thought it was a great moment to bring the images you had been trying to avoid, of Jungkook in-between your legs licking your wetness away as you whimpered his name. At the end of the line there was only static to match your error, so you rapidly added. “There’s no need to explain. I really have no interest in seeing you beat your meat to whatever Arctic Monkeys song you chose as your sex jam, so I don’t really care about your reasons—”

“It’s very normal to do something like this, okay? Some guys do it all the time. I do it all the time to, you know, see how I perform and everything.” You had long lost track of his explanation. The murmur of his voice was just an echo at the back of your head, for you had never stopped pressing your fingers against your clit, trying to subdue the sweet pain threatening to take over. Your brain was overworked — and overwhelmed — and Jungkook blabbing his way out of shame was not annoying enough to stop you. “It’s like monitoring yourself, and It makes me a better lover. A better partner, if you want. Y-you should be glad I’m doing this—”

As Jungkook ranted on, you couldn’t bring yourself to interrupt him, for you knew the moment you tried to speak only a moan would emerge from your throat.

Jungkook, however, took your silence as a punishment. “So you really watched it, huh?” He chuckled, humorless. “Guess I fucked up again—”

For fuck’s sake not now. The way he hesitated — just for a second — before he spoke and his voice refused to come out untainted but in a rough whisper, was the last thing you needed to complete your descent into Dante’s nine circles of hell.

Before you could notice, the faintest whimper dripped from your lips, a broken chord that sounded like his name.

Well, if you wanted to stop Jungkook from blabbering, that was the way to go.

Maybe if you had been a little more in your senses, the realization that you had just moaned out the fragmented syllables of his name would have seemed like an apocalyptic forewarning for the chaos that would ensue. But no: you were far too gone to care, and it had fulfilled your initial purpose of silencing the annoying insect buzzing in your earphones.

But of course, Jungkook wouldn’t let it go so easily.

On the other end of the line, he cleared his throat. “What… are you doing?” He paused, seeming to take in all the details he had ever so naively overlooked aforetime — the vague panting that departed from in-between your lips, the eagerness in which you rushed to finish your sentences. Something odd was taking place, and even his one living neuron could perceive it. “You sound like you just ran a marathon. ”

“It’s a debate class, genius, things got… heated,” and that had been the perfect word to use. “I’m not doing anything.”

There was a second of hesitation before he spoke up again. “Isn’t Namjoon in that class with you?”

“Yes. Congrats on the goldfish memory.” You breathed out — okay, you could maybe hold yourself back. You were getting close, for your legs were already shaking, and you could barely keep your eyes open for longer than a couple seconds and, if you had holden tight for that long, you could do it again. Just no more moaning. Not in front of him. Later, maybe.

“That’s weird,” Jungkook spoke. Fuck his voice, fuck the way his whimpers and cries for release still echoed inside your head; fuck the delicious sight of his head thrown back, and his adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed hard. Fuck him. Fuck you. Hopefully. “I just texted him and he said that you left to go to the bathroom. For lady pro—”

“—It’s a different Namjoon.” What kind of answer was that? You were barely thinking. “Listen, Jungkook, I’m not in the mood to talk, so maybe you could just… call later?”

“There’s only one Namjoon, and we both know his lame lactose-intolerant ass.” Jungkook could be sharp if he thought very hard. Maybe the ruptured thoughts crossing your mind, the weakness spreading all over your body, was what he had needed to fight on equal ground — and somehow you knew he would be very proud of this victory. “You received the video, and then went to the bathroom?” He was trying to organize the timeline of your befall, and for once his solitary neuron was cooperating, while yours were just running around, screaming like hippies high on acid. “Did you go to the bathroom… to watch it?”

“Jungkook, just drop it.” You whined, the sound needier than you had ever intended. “Let’s talk later, okay? I need to go back to class now. Call me later if you want and we’ll talk about the stupid party or your rampant narcissism, whatever you want.”

“I’ll wait for you after class—” He didn’t sound convinced. The raggedness of your voice was a good reason to be puzzled, but the guy was apparently too idle to hang up and do something useful. “We can go somewhere to discuss the party details if you’re up. You know, like a business meeting but in like a café or something.”

“I have a test tomorrow.” Holding to the last threads of rationality, you understood it was time to end the conversation. “Nice talking to you, Jungkook. Bye.”

Jungkook would have questions, of course, but you could only think of him, his hands, his soft lips against your own. Your hand returned to torture your clit, this time unrestricted by his presence on the phone. It was ridiculously easy to find the right pace, to bring back the memory of his weights pressing against your own, his tongue discovering your mouth. Jungkook could mess your existence even in your imagination and that was something you had to confess you had never expected.

Call ended, you allowed yourself to suspire in relief, dwelling in the absence of his frequent interrogations, and the pleasure that was overtaking your senses. The silence, however, was short-lived: you forgot you still had the video playing in the background.

Now, some things in life are beautifully synchronized: the fly of birds as the sun sets; your favorite sad song playing while you’re driving in the rain… Jungkook’s dragged-out moans echoing inside your head the same instant you found your high. You know, the simple stuff. The kind of stuff that makes you lay awake at night in horror.

Your legs trembled when you reached your orgasm, waves of heat running up and down your thighs as you fought to suppress a prolonged whimper. On your hands, the device called for your attention, and your parted eyes barely got the glimpse of a smaller, digitally edited Jungkook covering his abs with the white strands of his own relief; hips rolling against his palm as his mouth, open, cried out in sheer alleviation. You loved that sight, and it pushed you even further down your decay into inferno.

But, of course, the video didn’t stop there. It didn’t fade into black, as you had expected, because you deserved a plot twist to end the day. You had depleted your luck reserves long ago — probably during a math exam — so it was highly unlikely that the guy would just finish the deed and turn off the camera.

No, instead Jungkook continued teasing his cock until his thighs trembled with the excess of his own caresses; limbs flinching under the tides of his exaggerated stimulation. He could not bite back he suspires of despair as he rode a second orgasm and muttered an unintelligible prayer.

Wait, scratch that. You rewinded the video, to listen for a second time. In this occasion you closed your eyes, because his fucked-out face was far too distracting for your brain to keep up with so many stimuli.

It was, actually, very intelligible.

Jeon Jungkook was not praying, but moaning your name.

That, nevertheless, was a secret that would die with you. Or so you hoped.

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askiisoft · 5 years ago

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FAN ART FRIDAY: ALL THE WARRIORS, Part 3

Welcome back to Part 3 of “All the Warriors”, a month-long celebration of the Katana ZERO community’s fan characters that populate the war-torn cityscape and seedy underworld of New Mecca.

For those just joining us, be sure to read Part 1 and Part 2 first.

Remember, Friday, August 16th is the last day to submit your OC for next week’s feature!

This week is full of tragedy, loss, and pyromania, so have a handkerchief (and maybe a fire extinguisher) on hand as we dive into this feel-bad parade of forgotten soldiers. Let’s have a look!

[WARNING: The work herein is based on fan creations, and should not be considered canon.]

Alpha 3, by @nizioroMOMO

There was once a cheerful young girl who loved nothing more than all that glittered and shined, from the brightest jewels to the starry skies. Unfortunately, on the battlefield most things that glitter also explode, which robbed poor Alpha 3 of her sight and thus her most beloved pursuit in life.

It’s terrible to be wounded in combat, but losing your passion is something much worse. Imagine if Zero went deaf, forced to massacre mafioso without synthwave blasting from his headphones. Would life still be worth living?

Her character design clearly communicates the eager naïveté of the young Three compared to her stately, serene self now. Whatever happened, it seems she’s made peace with her past, which is more than can be said for most NULL.

By @nizioroMOMO

—

Subject X2 by @teknopathetico

“Chronos wasn’t the only drug the government developed for the war.”

We may never know what chemical cocktail the Psychiatrist injected to transform into a writhing mountain of flesh, but whatever it was, Subject X2 has had years to perfect its use. Rather than an amalgam of body horror, X2 seems able to tap into each enemy’s individual phobias to instill doubt and gain the upper hand.

“I know what you’re afraid of.” By @teknopathetico

Since the drug’s effects were stated to be purely psychological, fear-inducing pheromones are the only feasible explanation for X2′s feats of transformation that defy all physical laws and vary wildly between witness testimonies.

By @teknopathetico

—

Beta 7, “Bullet” by @stanio_kz

As far as dying wishes go, simply “live” is no tall order. But that one word carries a lifetime of survivor’s guilt for Bullet. Was it his fault the Cromags managed to get past their lines that day? Should they have made a retreat, despite their orders? Could he have done something for Shadow in the last few moments together in those muddy jungle trenches?

Some days, simply slogging through a guard detail and enjoying a hot meal is enough to convince Bullet he’s living up to his friend’s memory. But each time he visits the grave, he wonders if Shadow wouldn’t wanted something more—revenge on his killer, perhaps, or for Bullet to lay down his old knife and stop fighting for good.

“I don’t know what’s right anymore. Shadow..what do I do?” By @stanio_kz

—

Beta 9, “Shadow” by @stanio_kz

—

Gamma 68, “Cheshire” by @lesbianakechi

There is, however, a darker side to losing a dearest comrade—namely, the urge to inflict that same loss on others. To be hunted by a Gamma NULL is truly terrifying; to the hapless police investigators, there is no modus operandi linking the “Chesire” murders, beyond targeting assorted outcasts and junkies. But to those who knew Sasha as a model commander and caring mentor, seeing how far he’s fallen is as disturbing as his sickly rictus grin.

There are whispers that the New Meccan government has stymied several investigations against him—one by one, he is cleaning up vestiges of their war crimes more effectively than their own agents ever could.

—

Beta 70, “Cherry” by @zenixdd

For all his rage against his former masters, Gamma Fifteen was positively blessed compared to the miserable fates of his comrades like Cherry, who lacked any hope of leading a normal life.

Maimed and orphaned before she even joined the NULL project, Cherry received prototype prosthetics that elevated her far above a line trooper. However, she was treated as a weapon by her commanders, and her joy at her newfound mobility turned to horror and, eventually, resignation.

Once the nigh-invincible Gamma subjects were introduced, her prosthetics program was deemed redundant, and she was reduced to becoming a guinea pig for their horrific experiments.

By @zenixdd

With the shuttering of the NULL program, Cherry’s fate was left a mystery. Most assumed her death as a matter of course, executed and ‘disposed’ of like so many other expendable test subjects. But there were a few rumors of her miraculous escape—either as a sole survivor, freed at last, or a fearsome revenant, bent on exacting revenge on the Gamma NULL she blames for condemning her to suffer in the labs...

“I’ll kill them all...especially those f*cking NULLs!” By @zenixdd

—

Gamma 17, “Robin Hood” by @RollingRubic

To erase the the NULL program from history, the head researchers resorted to extreme measures. All across the country, records were burned, training centers demolished, and subjects ‘disposed of’—all except one. Cleanup crews reported a ransacked facility, its research staff dead and riddled with arrows, its holding cells empty, and its Chronos stockpile gone.

In a time when it’s every NULL for themselves among an ever-dwindling supply of Chronos, it’s heartening to see at least one person showing charity and concern for the helpless. But in his heart, Robin knows his ‘family’ can’t subsist on stolen Chronos forever—as long as they live, they will be hunted.

His ultimate goal has become procuring the formula for Chronos to start synthesizing a fresh supply, something the New Meccan authorities fear above all else. In his eyes, the lives of dozens of orphaned children far outweighs the risks, even if it forces him to work with some less than savory characters...

"We’re family.” By @RollingRubic

—

Alpha 20, “Twenty” by @erinwenke

For a time, the deployment of NULL was considered a state secret, the disappearance of entire villages attributed to natural disasters or sudden epidemics. This was all thanks to ‘cleaners’ like Alpha 20, who were tasked with razing any ‘assets’ the Cromags could use, including the local population.

In the wake of how often NULL were deployed against civilian targets, the then-cumbersome weight of his fuel tank was nothing compared to the crushing burden of guilt he carries now.

—

Gamma 216, “Candy” by @Mochisticker274

During pangs of Chronos withdrawal, it was common for NULL to develop lesser addictions to cope with their major one. For some, it was cigarettes, caffeine, or alcohol. Candy instead found relief in vast quantities of sugar, though any colorful and bite-sized would suffice. Following multiple reprimands for rifling through pockets of fallen Cromags in search of treats, her superiors quickly relented after witnessing her fierce temper from being denied “snacky-time” one time too many.

Considering the loss of her left eye, hair, and part of her sanity, Candy’s attitude is admirable: rather than sulk over her former girlish charms, she took the opportunity to further indulge her sweet tooth. At least that’s an addiction that’s easily satisfied.

—

Gamma 95 by @Tomacocandy

I’m surprised it took this long to encounter an OC with heterochromia (differently-colored eyes).

On account of her nascent amblyopia, Gamma 95′s miserable marksmanship earned her ridicule at the shooting range and scoldings from her drill sergeant. When she disappeared on the eve of inspections, some speculated that she had deserted in shame or been ‘retired’ to become the labs’ latest test subject.

But when 95 emerged from the jungle depths days later, clothes torn and smelling of ash, she had found her calling. Soon, she realized she didn’t need perfect eyesight to sweep a ten-foot-long gout of liquid flame across a battlefield...and thus, a legend was born.

Most pyrotechnicians were relegated to ‘cleanup’ duty away from the frontlines; only Mondsa possessed the Gamma reflexes necessary to employ a flamethrower in live combat, a tradition that Subject Zero would proudly continue.

—

Gamma 18 by @ruko_ruho

Short of getting banned from every casino in Chinatown, fortune-telling is a decent way to make a living off of one’s precognitive ability, so long as you’re only curious about events sixty seconds into the future.

For Gamma 18, risking his life as a test subject and frontline trooper was preferable to scrounging for scraps in the streets of New Mecca. However, his street-smarts proved just as valuable in the field as his drug-induced powers, using improvised traps, terrain, and trickery to his advantage almost as well as the Cromags he hunted. When that failed, his skills with knives more than compensated.

Once locals noticed the absence of his folding card table along the main Chinatown plaza, rumors abounded of government bogeymen abducting him in the dead of night. But those who fought alongside Eighteen know that he’s far too clever to let anyone get the best of him.

By @ruko_ruho

—

Beta 8 by @2M_i_W_5

Hopelessly addicted to gambling despite your rotten luck? Still single at the depressing and decrepit age of 25? What’s the point in going on, Beta 8 asks?

Suicide is a very serious topic, let’s be clear. But like how the captive Prometheus cursed his godhood as eagles ate his liver in Greek mythology, the age-old irony of an immortal being powerless to end their own life has always been a rich vein for drama...and it seems drama is what this woman hungers for.

By @wqwrppwu

Unlike so many veterans who fit the trope for ‘wounded warriors', Neith radiates the energy of ‘recently divorced working mother’: she may be pounding back martinis and sobbing like the world’s ended right now, but after a heart-to-heart with her old comrade Beta 11 and a cuddle session with her newly-adopted cat, perhaps she’ll conclude there’s still some things worth living for.

By @2M_i_W_5

—

Gamma 6, “Firecracker” by @whycantIrungood

Just like a wildfire, Suzy the “Firecracker” was both notoriously destructive and difficult to control. She scoffed at the slow, surgical tactics of executioner-class NULL in favor of the loudest and most direct path to her objective, be it through enemy lines or solid structures; neither withstood the roar of her twin rotary guns for long.

Since the end of the war, Suzy’s learned that she is both immensely talented at arson and intensely bored by it. What’s the point of torching a crime scene when the killing’s already done? Despite the suspicious deaths of so many other ex-NULL who remained in the government’s service, Suzy knows her skills are far too valuable and dangerous for the higher-ups to make an enemy of her.

—

Beta 18, “Cerberus” by @zhraekk

The ghettoes of Chinatown have become a welcome refuge for NULL seeking protection from government spooks and bounty hunters. But for Cerberus, joining the underworld was never his choice to make.

Whether due to Chronos dependency, blackmail, or his ‘Aunt Meta’ simply needing a new enforcer, it seems his post-war life involves feigning respect for his doting boss while pining for his NULL days. Violent though they were, they’re also his last precious memories of his missing brother.

As the ranks of New Mecca’s crime syndicates swell with former NULL acting as guards and assassins, he’s come to understand the city’s underworld politics are every bit as fraught as the trap-laden Cromag jungles.

By @zhraekk

—

Beta 5, “Boots” by @sekaaliart

With their finger on a trigger, a child is as dangerous as any adult. Beta 5 earned her nickname “Boots” after her child feet barely filled even the smallest combat boots the barracks could find, a light-hearted anecdote that belies just how early she was indoctrinated into a life of conflict. As her kill count skyrocketed, the ‘shorty’ and ‘kid’ jokes among her squad quickly ceased.

For Boots, the end of the war was simply a move from jungle to urban warfare, a sniper’s paradise. She gives no warning, and leaves no calling card. With NULL powers now fully developed, not even her former comrades are safe from her crosshairs.

—

Beta 13 by @818CoffeeCat

When public expectations for a speedy invasion were dashed against the realities of waging war in thick Cromag jungles, the top New Mecca brass commissioned a solution for rapid defoliation. Through testing countless chemical weapons, their top prospect was (somehow) Project “Flame Force”, a platoon of prototype terror troopers trained to raze entire forests in minutes.

The project was not a success.

Now armed with a high-tech chemical flamethrower, his fireproof avian partner Ernesto, and a crazed look in his eye, the sole survivor of that ill-fated project marches on the oh-so-flammable city. Beware.

—

I made quite a few errors with last week’s post, so if you notice any glaring mistakes, please let me know via Twitter. Remember to send any last-minute OC submissions by Friday, August 16th.

Otherwise, click here to read Part 4, the jumbo-sized final entry of “All the Warriors”, and stay safe out there.

Thanks to @818CoffeeCat for letting me use that “Beware” sticker all over the place!

By @55_yamisan

#katana zero #katanazero #askiisoft #devolver digital #fan art #fan art friday #original character #do #not #steal

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x0401x · 5 years ago

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Reports and Highlights: Yuukei Roadshow in Tokyo

Compilation of info found on Twitter, Togetter and Privatter. Many thanks to ayara-resara for indicating them all.

<< Previous Show || Index >>

Before reading any further, I highly recommend those who haven’t seen the first show’s reports to read them, since one is related to the other. I advice those who have already read the previous reports to take a look at the bottom of the post again too, because I’ve managed to find and translate more info on it.

@kon_noooo

Q.: Is Kano left-handed? A.: Ah~, I kinda feel like I’ve heard something about this from Sidu-san~! But there’s also the possibility that we’re being deceived... There’s a chance that he’s actually a vigorously right-handed right-hand shot! He seems to think of himself as cute. Like, “It’s so cute that I’m left-handed~”. Please wait for an official announcement on that...

I asked about this when I was getting his autograph... I’d wanted to confirm it no matter what...

(T/N: The “right-hand shot�� part is a gatcha reference. Scoring a big hit from the right side is called “right-hand shooting”.)

@enehai_hiyori1

LISTEN UP!!!!!!!!! JIN SAID THAT ASAHINA-SAN IS A CUTE GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, y’see, I asked about what she likes.

I’m getting lots of reactions here so lemme tell you about when I got his autograph...

Q.: Does Asahina-san have anything that she likes other than cats? A.: She’s a cute girl who likes normal stuff. (The nuaces are difficult here so I can’t convey the whole idea, sorry.)

This is something that had been decided since the very beginning: she likes pancakes.

Jin-san: She probably wouldn’t make them herself, though. Me: She’d be like, “You do it”? Jin-san: She’d be like, “You do it”.

Jin-san: I wonder what state her bedroom is in... Me: Indeed...

Me: I tried to think of Asahina-san’s way of thinking (preferences), but I couldn’t come up with anything at all... Jin-san: Eh? She’s a girl who surprisingly likes normal stuff, isn’t she? Staff member: She is. I don’t remember the details so well but how much does that staff member know...?? They said something about “24 hours a day 365 days a year”. They did say that.

@takephotos12

Jin-san said, “Actually, just how much of what Kisaragi Shintarou says to his comrades is the truth?” and that’s too much for me; I’m in pain. I remember him saying before and after this that he was “going to kill a Kisaragi Shintarou cluster”, but my memory is kinda flying off the nest, so I hope I wrote this in my memo.

@nagihararion

Me: I like Haruka-senpai, so I dressed up like him today... Jin-san: Uwah~! Amazing! That blue plaid is really Haruka-like! Speaking of Haruka, I wanna make a spin-off with him as protagonist or something... Me: !?!?!?!! My memory is fuzzy from the point he said “spin-off” onward so I don’t remember it very well, but I feel that he talked about how he “wants to write it” and said that he’d “probably publish it”... I recall him telling me to “look forward to it”... probably...

By the way, I was dressed mostly like this back then:

@Tanapi_May

Me: When will Takane-chan’s birthday be revealed? Jin: Hu~m, I have no plans for it right now... but it’s a very important day. Some big incident or something of the sort will happen. Ah, but it might be in the future edition... Me: “Future edition”!? Jin: Yep, Takane-chan maybe being a Mama... Me: “Mama”!? I asked about this when I got his autograph.

@knkd3131

I only took a memo of the colors of the limelights during each song and my impressions on them, in case anyone wants to use it as reference... 🙇‍♀️

1. Imaginary Reload Lights: blue, green. The background guitar was cool. 2. Shissou Word Lights: purple, blue, green. It stopped at the second “watashi wa” (lol). 3. Additional Memory Lights: red. The interlude was long (nice). The last hook was emo. 4. Lost Day Hour Lights: white and peach with a mirror ball. Lights during the last hook: orange, peach, yellow, white and purple flashed on and off. Jin kept raising his right leg and his smile was cute. 5. Yume no Hana I don’t remember this one. It was a request from the last person to ask a question in the Q&A corner. “A song from THE BACK HORN that Jin-san likes.” 6. Remind Blue Lights: purple and blue with a mirror ball. 7. Solitude From the MV. Jin’s first independent album will be released. He wants the album to be like a picture book of short stories that will make us think he wants to create a new self separated from Kagerou. 8. Mermaid Lights: blue, green. A song from the album. It depicts a honeymoon. A song about boarding a plane alone. Jin: It’s a sad song, isn’t it? 9. FREAKS Lights: white, red. Lights during the last hook: peach, white, green, orange and red flashed on and off. Once upon a time, there was a clumsy monster. The song is about him, who entretains the crowd in a circus group today as well. Jin-san was lifting his right leg in this one. It was the one I liked the most, super emo. Parts of the song that I was able to catch: “I cried out of emptiness” (from the hook) “They laughed at me, who couldn’t become anything” (from the first part)

@shiunteen

I was overwhelmed by “FREAKS” and how its lyrics tear your body apart when you catch on Jin’s full-throttle melody and some other bits; the tears poured out of my eyes with pitter-pattering. Even though I don’t know anything about Jin, it left me in tatters, like, “Aah, he has it so hard; he’s suffered so much; must’ve been so painful”, and I saw in it the earnestness of an artist’s story depiction. I wanna listen to it again soon.

@yuzu_cosp

PV of MekaRelo

A funny story (about Jin’s chronically bad health) 🎵 Imaginary Reload

Q&A 🎵 Shissou Word

Q&A 2 🎵 Additional Memory

Break 🎵 Lost Day Hour

Lottery 🎵 [Requested song] Yume no Hana (THE BACK HORN)

Remind Blue Encore

Solitude

Jin’s first solo album will be released! 🎵 Mermaid 🎵 FREAKS

The editor of Mekakucity Talkers, Kuroda-san, was the host this time too.

Jin-san entered the stage with a mask on. “‘Why is that?’ Is what you’re thinking, right?”

He’d fallen into a bad condition at the end of the year. Caught a persistent cold that wouldn’t get better at all, and just when he thought he had finally cured himself from it, it turned into influenza. It got better a week prior to the concert, and when he thought he’d be able to do the live just fine, his molar swelled up two days before. Since his tooth was swollen, he got an edema in his face, and so he put on a mask.

There were cavities doing bad things to the root of his molar. He was told that he had no choice but have the tooth pulled out, but he explained that he had a live concert to do, so he received symptomatic treatment. He got three injections on the spot, in a place that had him going, “You’re gonna inject it there!?” and went home. Next morning (the morning of the day before the concert), he had an incision in addition to the injections, so he was in a lot of pain.

“Loxonin is amazing; it’s the only thing I can rely on.”

“Master, I’ll have the same as always,” he said as if to make his order → Jin-san and Kuroda-san’s drinks were soon delivered to the stage. One of the songs was the theme of the drinks...

🎵 Imaginary Reload

(On the tooth) “Thanks to the Loxonin, I’m not feeling pain, but it’s hard to move my mouth. Like, ‘it won’t go any farther than this point’.”

(Regarding Kuroda-san’s question of, “How’s the Imaginary Reload drink?”) “It’s carbonated, and I can’t be having carbonated drinks. Also, I had an incision yesterday, so all the more...”

Q&A Corner ①

Q.: Where do Hiyori and Hibiya live? A.: This would become a matter of “where is the setting of KagePro?”. There are models for it. I was indecisive as to whether I should reveal the actual place or not. In the series, it gets messed up (by terrorists and the like), so we’d decided not to announce it for the time being. As for the model of where the two live, it’s based on a village from somewhere in Hiroo Town, in the Tokachi District of Hokkaidou (where Jin-san himself used to live in the past). If you go there, you’ll figure that it’s a place where perverts are born (because it’s too full of nothing).

Q.: What’s Tsukihiko’s eye color? A.: Ah, I’m also curious about that (lol). The eye colors are important, so they’re all decided, but I told Sidu-san that “Tsukihiko is a normal human being”. Sidu-san also thinks lots of things out, like, “Won’t it be passed down to his daughter and granddaughter?”. In the Kisaragi family, too, there’s the setting that the father has orange hair and Shintarou takes after him, and the mother has black hair and Momo takes after her.

The comics would be over soon. They were going to end, but will continue.

This time, they’re following the track order of the album...

🎵 Shissou Word Right before the second hook, Jin-san ate the lyrics by the middle. He started singing again as if nothing had happened.

Q&A Corner ②

Q.: What kind of “story that -- the eyes” are Daze, Days and RED? A.: Daze and Days were made to be the theme songs of the anime from the very beginning, so I haven’t decided on that. If I were to give a subtitle to RED, it would be “the story that changes one’s eye color”. It’s a song about how two friends, one who likes to play around and one who is the studious type (memory is faint here), become self-conscious of the fact that the other has grown up. That “their eyes have been dyed into a color that they had never seen before”.

Q.: Please tell us about what you hesitated to say regarding Shintarou in the previous Q&A... A.: Ah, it’s the topic that will come up in this month’s Gene. Shintarou is the protagonist, but I didn’t get to delve into him, and there are more depictions of other people’s viewpoints than of his. Shintarou will be in the continuation of the series and will be a school teacher. Since marriages between characters and things like that are esteemed, I’ll write the continuation story, but this will be in a parallel what-if world. The next protagonist and abilities have been decided too. There are also new characters, characters that remained the way they are and characters that have grown up. It might not happen just in Japan. I wanna hurry and write.

Q.: How did you come up with Benisake-chan? (T/N: For those who don’t remember, that’s the name of the salmon mascot that Momo likes.) A.: I’ve always liked trout salmon ever since my days in Hokkaidou. I couldn’t eat it after coming to the Kantou Region because it’s expensive here, so I had it delivered from my family’s home and when I ate it for the first in a long while, I noticed that it makes you stinky even if you only touch it a little bit, so I was like, “This is it!!” and made her up. Sanrio’s Kirimi-chan was invented immediately after that, and it made me go, “Hey, hey...”. She was cuter and had me like, “This is how a mascot character is supposed to be”, ww.

Q.: What do you create first, tune, lyrics or melody? A.: I started using VOCALOIDs after the band I was in broke up, and when I thought of “doing what I wanted to do”, I considered creating a story through albums and started KagePro. I’d decided from the beginning that the story would include phrases that go “a story that ○○ the eyes”. KagePro was the first thing I made in which I created songs from world-building. Sometimes, songs come out of phrases like “Oh, my dirty!”. And the phrases come from requested themes.

🎵 Additional Memory

(10-minute break)

The song that Jin-san was happy to write out of the ones from this album... 🎵 Lost Day Hour

Lottery (prizes below)

A picture with Jin

A Jin can badge set

A special (signed) ticket holder and two bookmarks of the study books series

Mekakucity Talkers (signed)

A poster of MekaRelo (signed)

A secret present (which would be mailed at a later date, since Jin-san couldn’t look for it in his house due to his poor health condition)

The right to request a song

The request → a song from THE BACK HORN that Jin-san likes.

🎵 Yume no Hana (THE BACK HORN)

“This is the last one...” he said, and a video played after he was done, but then he was like, “I’ll come up and play one more song w” (swinging his body forward).

🎵 Remind Blue

Jin-san leaves the stage. The PV of Solidute plays. At the end of the PV, the confirmation that Jin-san’s first solo album will hit the shelves is announced.

Jin-san reappears on stage. “I’ll release a full album,” he says. He composed Solitude about four years ago and sang it at CDJ before.

“They’re songs I made because I wanted. I’m looking forward to this the most.”

🎵 Mermaid (a song about someone boarding a plane all alone on their honeymoon)

When he only played the songs he was asked to play, it was like, “Lie low.”

🎵 FREAKS

“I’ll do other concerts so please come again!” With this one sentence, it was over.

@BlueD01

On the topic of Jin-san’s tooth: “My mother always told me to brush my teeth so I always brushed it... How did it turn out like this...? It’s like it comes from the side of the tooth...” *proceeds to explain the proggression of the cavities*

Q.: Jin-san, when you’re create a song, do you give them to a character after making the song? Or do you come up with a character and make a song for them? A.: I formed a band in high school in the past and we used to be active, but though I’d wanted to continue on the band, the others wound up turning into “adults”. From there, I was recommended to use VOCALOIDs, but I could only make incomplete songs, like, the type of song that you play a little bit and just two people in the audience go, “wa~h” at it. Back then, the common usage of “eyes” caught my attention, like, “people become idols when they draw in the eyes of others”. So I started making KagePro. Also, I’d wanted to make idol-like songs. And that is connected to the following topic. I wanted to write a story of growth. Just like Hoshi wo Tsunagete from Kemono Friends, you can make stuff that goes, “this character is like that~”. It varies with each song.

So, Jin-san wanted to create idol-like songs. Also, Kisaragi Attention (he didn’t state this but most it likely) is a song with the theme “it doesn’t matter if one’s own nature (their sense?) doesn’t match them, as long as a third party accepts it”, and it seems it turned into an idol song from this.

Jin-san: *sees the lottery poster* I want that poster... The host: Do you not have it? Jin-san: I don’t. I might’ve given it to my mother.

(After the lottery) Jin-san: I’d wanted to bring it over from my house, but lots of things happened... I’ll mail the big deal on a later date. After the concert ends, please... talk to the staff member over there. We won’t do anything bad with your personal information. *laughs*

@bonus_time34

During the introduction of the colaboration drinks: “We did this in Oosaka last time, and we prepared the same stuff for Tokyo.” He called the drink a “soup”. “This soup has a nice color, huh~. Master, I’ll have the usual (lol).” A red “soup” came straight from the back. “It’s almost as if it was already prepared, lol.” The host joked as it was brought to him, “You’re getting VIP treatment, huh (lol).”

First half of the question and answers corner. “Think of a question with my songs as the BGM (lol).”

“Jin-san is in a period where he uses ‘I really like you’ in his songs a lot (lol)!”

“Now comes the song by your beloved uncle for your other beloved uncle: Additional Memory.”

Jin-san waving his hand as he retreated into the waiting room looked so happy and cute that everyone waved back. I wound up lost as to whether I should applaud or wave.

“How was the album?” “It was the be~st!” some people raised their voices. “I listen to it a lot too. But I don’t cry. I did cry when taking the injections, though (lol).”

“I’m glad I was able to compose this one: Lost Day Hour.” The prolongation of his voice during the hook was wonderful. The high-pitch parts were beautiful. “This song is about the character called Kokonose Haruka.” (My memory of this talk is faint.)

To explain the rules of the lottery: anyone who made an additional order would get a lottery ticket. “(The special present) Could be a signed truck tire (lol) or a signed light-motor vehicle with an expired license (lol). Something that would be a pain in the ass (lol, lol).”

Here, he talked about brushing his molars. “‘How do you brush your molars?’ The dentist’s face looked like a lightning had fallen in front of him.”

The request of the lottery winner was for Jin’s favorite song by THE BACK HORN. “I’m indecisive about this one (lol)! Seriously?! Okay, then!” He played Yume no Hana. He was excited and seemed to be having fun. To the person who made the request, thank you... “I didn’t think I’d get to play THE BACK HORN. It was the best.”

Then, we had the last song... or so he said. “Though I say this is the last one, we will play a video, and I’ll come back after the applause, so I might play something once more (lol),” he stated. “Let’s see each other again somewhere else. This has been Jin. Thank you. Here’s Remind Blue.” The arrange of the second part was amazing. The hook of that part... was great...

The animation of Solitude was cool but the lyrics were good too... Below are a sketch I made of the girl from the video while watching it, as well as a drawing I made of her relying on my memory.

“I played this at COUNTDOWN JAPAN. Is there anyone who listened to it?” About ten people raised their hands. “So there is~. I had thought something along the lines of, ‘let’s do this (solo album)’ after releasing the second album. I was asked things like, ‘Won’t you make that into a CD?’ by the people who listened to Solitude. I’m the one looking forward to it (the release of the solo album) the most.”

He introduced a new song from that album, Mermaid. “Weren’t your titles always supposed to be written in kanji and katakana!? What happened (lol)!?” “Nothing happened (lol).”

“Until I started using VOCALOIDs, my songs felt like holding a concert for only two people while going, ‘It’s destruction~! I’ll tear up your eardrums~!’ (lol)” “It’s been about eight years since last time I made something just because I wanted to compose and listen to it. I wanna make stuff that I feel like conveying.” It seems he composed it based on that. Unlike KagePro, this album will be like a “collection of short stories”.

Mermaid was a song about a honeymoon. The high-pitched hook was melancholic. Jin-san also said this, but it was like a fairy tale.

When he was making songs on request or KagePro songs: “It was like, ‘Even if you have a scenario in your head, lie low’.” He managed to put the things that crossed his mind into songs. He did it...

(A little before another song.) “Can I do it? It’s okay, isn’t it (lol)?” “I’m happy to release (the song) in this occasion (talk live concert).”

The thrilling melody of FREAKS is damn great. It’s a song that gives you courage.

This one was really the last song, so Jin concluded it with his farewells. “I’m thinking of playing many other new songs.” So he’ll do concerts again...? Ambiguous...

After this, there was an announcement, and an autograph session of sold goods and sets.

From the time I got Jin-san’s autograph: when I said, “I like Kisaragi Momo-chan! Thank you very much for always!” he replied, “She sure is popular, huh~”, so I think there were probably about two more people before me who showed the appeal of a Momo fan.

It was a really fun talk-and-play show and I wasn’t able to cool down my excitement. I wanna go again...

@mine1_Hedgehog

Yuukei Roadshow in Tokyo Memo

(About his tooth.) His face was swollen, so he came wearing a mask, but even after his cavities healed a little, instead of going “wah~”, he ended up feeling dejected. “It was like, ‘Did I put on weight?’”

This time, the host ordered a drink that was named after one of the album’s songs! “That’s right; if you pay for it, you get a drink.” He thought it had a good color and was happy to receive it. “Then, Jin-san, you order yours too,” he was prompted. “Master, give me the usual soup.” → “Oka~y.” And so, a red drink came to him as if it had been waiting for a cue. It was an Imaginary Reload one.

The first track was Imaginary Reload. The lights were green. I got emo when listening to that yapping electrict guitar song being played with an acoustic guitar... He’s good with the guitar...

Once it was over, the host was like, “It was a cool song with a dashing sense to it, huh?” and Jin-san interjected, “That’s right.”

When he was asked why he wasn’t having his drink, he said, “I can’t drink anything carbonated right now (because of his molar).” “Don’t cry~” Why did he choose that, then? “Carbonated drinks seriously sting. They make me feel awake.” “It’s literally an ‘imaginary reload’.” “It smelled of blood.” Seriously, why did he choose that?

Here we had the first questions and answers corner. *Looks at the letters displayed on-screen* “This is like a detective drama!” “You can ask about anything, even if it’s not KagePro-related! It can be about secrets regarding Jin’s birth and things like that too!” [roar of laughter] “It’ll finally be revealed...!”

Shintarou’s mother is set to be originally from Hokkaidou. Speaking of which, Momo-chan had mentioned this.

HibiHiyo’s village is based off the village where Jin-san used to live in the past. It’s linked to a town, but the place is actually a weird gathering of villages that you could hardly call a town. There’s seriously nothing there at all. “You’d understand if you saw it, but it’s a place where perverts are born. You have nothing to do there except be delusional.”

(On the topic of Tsukihiko’s eye color.) Sidu-san is in a zone unknown to Jin-san regarding this. In volume 4, his eyes “don’t open because he’s laughing”, but in the manga, he indeed has them closed at all times, www. Jin-san said he had normal eye color, but Sidu-san’s “normal eyes” are wicked, so we can’t know for sure.

There was a lottery after this. The rule was that people would win based solely on the amount of food they got. “You don’t have to spend too much money. That’s not the kind of game it is.”

*drinking his beverage* “Is there anyone here who was also in Oosaka? [lots of hands go up] “I love you...” [roaring laughter]

Second track was Shissou Word. He trailed off at the first verse of the second half like, “wata(shi wa)...” and then resumed after three seconds as if nothing had happened. I forgot why, but he said “I love you~” again afterward.

I think Shintarou is a smart, lovable and good person, but Jin-san sees him as mysterious. He doesn’t know very well how much of what Shintarou says is the truth.

Jin-san was shocked that Vegeta and Bulma from DB got married. “That yankee and Bulma...” It seems he thought he was gonna die.

Everyone thinks that so and so are in a romantic relationship and will definitely get married! Jin just hasn’t written that yet! Even though this kind of thing goes on (in fandom), he can’t bear to see these sprouts of hope get plucked. That’s why the future story that he’ll write next will be like a parallel/what-if thing, and won’t become the future of the normal route. There’s no definite answer to the things Jin writes.

The next protagonist is already decided. The new characters too. It might also happen in places other than Japan. For Mekakushi-dan, there’ll be those who will appear just like they were before and those who will appear grown-up. I think it’ll be a good story.

@natunyudo

Jin-san: How was the live? Me: It was great! I also went to the one in Oosaka, but it was so good that I also came to this one in Tokyo... Jin-san: Thank you very much. How were the new songs? Me: They were good! Jin-san: Which one did you like most? Me: Ah... Mermaid! I was touched...! Jin-san: I’ll do my best in the other new songs! I’ll also make even better albums than this one (MekaRelo)! Me: I’m looking forward to them! I’ll buy them for sure! Ah, also, this... *hands over a letter* Jin-san: Wah~, thank you so much! *stares at the letter fixately* There’s a musical note written here~🎵 *sees my name written at the back* Thank you very much, [my name]-san. Me: ......!!? (He called my name...!!???) Jin-san: I’ll also do my best to fix my cavities! Me: Ah... please do your best! I’ll be cheering for you!

@nozunozu0815

Me: Thanks for having me win the lottery! Jin-san: Ah, it was you?! We also met in Oosaka, didn’t we?! This time, unlike back in Oosaka, we obsessed with the CD order for the songs so it was different, right? Did you have fun? Me: There was Imaginary Reload and it was really the best! Speaking of which, that person who’s been an Asahiner for seven years came today too, but there was no My Funny Weekend. 😇 Jin-san: Ah, that’s true. You noticed it. You see, I can’t open my mouth to sing My Funny Weekend. 😇 That one has really high notes~, honestly~. Me: Indeed. Since your mouth is swollen, it might be difficult. 😇 But getting to listen to new songs was also the best! (He finishes writing the autograph)... If it’s okay with you, can we shake hands? Jin-san: That’s fine! Thank you for coming today! I intend to do this again somewhere else, so please do come listen~! Me: Thank you very much too! I’ll definitely go! And I’ll definitely not wash these hands anymore! Jin-san: Please stop that, ww. Please wash them, ww. Seriously... you’ll get influenza, ww.

We had a conversation like that. 😇

#kagerou project #kagepro #mekakucity actors #mekakucity reload #kagerou daze #jin #shizen no teki p #yuukei roadshow #yuukei roadshow in tokyo #my translation #event

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philosophicalparadox · 6 years ago

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Demon Splicing and Why the Clones Failed.

This is more like a research paper than a fan theory, but hey, I had fun. I’ll try to improv some citations at the bottom, but I don’t guarantee that Tumblr will let me keep them there.

Now, this is a HUGE, MASSIVE, LONG-ASS POST, and once more it is ultra-sciencey; so if you have any confusions, questions, or want to just look the other way and just go “eh, magic” then that is totally okay. I don’t, and won’t, claim to be any kind of authority on these things; I just needed an excuse to open my computer again and I guess do some intense research into etymology (that would be the study of anything with an exoskeleton, basically. I promise it is very much relevant to this theory.).

Summary/TLDR: Demons need specific qualities in their hosts in order to suit themselves, ergo they modify their host’s bodies by using Mutually symbiotic viruses, akin to those of the Polydnaviridae ingroup which coexists within several genera of parasitoid wasps, to alter the human genome. What we explore here is how they do so. Also, because it is intrinsically connected, we will also be dipping our toes into why, exactly, the clones weren’t “suitable” in all instances, as well as how demons may or may not select their hosts. This circles back to my previous post discussing the Twin’s and Paternity, and specifically the topic of genetic expression, though you do not need to have seen or read that post to understand what I’m talking about here. Also discussed is the matter of genes that humans lack, but which would seem to find their way in during possession; the production of feathers, the formation of additional limbs, proteins, and such which are simply not within the power of any existing virus we know of to alter .

One thing must lead to another however, so before we get into the biological science, we need to get into the hypothetical, cosmological stuff that is quantum physics. Didn’t see that one coming, did ya?

Demons and DNA:

We know from that one elusive panel of chapter 44 ( I think...) that demons have genetics - they have genes, which implies that they have, at the very least, DNA. The question then is how, but more so where - where did those genes come from?. Demons don’t have physical bodies, right...? Why would they need DNA?

Because maybe some of them do possess actual, physical “bodies”, or at least cells, that preside in Gehenna.

The Demon Kings are quite likely to be an exception rather than a rule, considering they were the first demons to have come into existence, or at the very least the first demons to have ever attained bodies -- which is precisely how demonkind may have obtained DNA in the first place, via a phenomena called horizontal transference.

Now, I’m going to contradict, in a sense, my other post here, and tell you to forget what you were taught about viruses in high school. Virology is a complicated school of biology, and viruses are extremely simple, and yet extremely complex organisms. Now, viruses typically contain RNA which allows the virus to reproduce once it is injected into the cells of its host by combining viral RNA with eukaryotic (for the sake of simplicity) DNA.

However, there are strains of viruses that contain DNA, not RNA. No one is completely sure how these viruses evolved, but one theory would suggest that these dnaviruses “stole” part of their genetic material from the hosts they evolved with, incorporating pieces of lipids and proteins to turn their RNA into functional DNA; this process of one organism “stealing” DNA from another is called horizontal transference, and it is how bacteria and other asexually reproducing organisms maintain genetic diversity and “evolve”.

But, you ask, how the bloody hell does a Virus have DNA? How does it replicate?

When most people think of viruses, they think of mobile ones, pathogenic ones - but dnaviruses are not usually pathogenic, instead highjacking the excretory or reproductive systems of their hosts and using their reproductive cells to spread genealogically from parent to offspring. One well-studied example of this is the polydnavirus found in Ichneumon wasps, which are themselves parasitoid. They reproduce by injecting their eggs into the bodies of paralyzed caterpillars, who then feed the hatching larvae with it’s living tissues. However, one problem the wasp faces with this method of reproduction is the caterpillar’s immune system, which could kill the eggs - were it not for the polydnavirus, which produces chemical signals that prevent the caterpillar’s immune system from destroying the precious egg that is it’s host cell. As the larvae develops, the polydnavirus is replicated into the cells of the larvae, and once it hatches it is literally born with the virus in it’s body. (I’ll let you go wild with the half-demon thing there, I’m here to talk about possession right at the moment.)

Ok, ok, but what does this have to do with demons? after all, demon possession is, in a way, “contagious” since demons can go from host to host.

Welcome then, to the world of multi-viral mutual symbiosis - fancy way of saying viruses can work together to meet the ends of one another in a host if it benefits both viruses. Demons may possess some form of this event, being somehow sentient (by means perhaps of primitive, conductive cells not unlike what you would find in a jellyfish) but ultimately composed of or utilizing not only one, but several strains of viruses to fulfil their parasitic ends, one which allows them to infect the host and modify existing DNA, and one which can incorporate it’s own DNA into that of the host to bring about desirable conditions. To that, I must add as a courtesy that those primitive conductive cells which could, in a way, offer sentience, may in fact be what comprises the physical manifestations of demon’s hearts. None of this is, of course, to explain demon magic, which is a subject I do intend to breach one of these days - but not today. Today, we do science.

This goes away to explain why Todou sprouted feathers, a phenomena that would not have otherwise been biologically possible given the constraints of human protein structure. That isn’t to say that it would be impossible for a virus to modify via RNA transcription keratinoid proteins to form hollow attachments, which is exactly what you find in polar bears and porcupines, but the structure of feathers is, I’m afraid, just too far off the mammalian path for it to be but a 0.03% likelihood via RNA transcription alone, meaning that it would have to have been the result of DNA that isn’t human.

Speaking of statistical probabilities:

Cloning and the Failure Thereof

Humanity has a hollywood-induced idea that cloning organisms is a fail-less system, when that could not be further from the truth. In point of fact, only about 3% of all attempted cloning experiments with everything from fish to sheep produce viable, healthy clones. This is because cloning is done, kind of ironically, in much the same way as a virus operates; by using the DNA and RNA of the existing mother’s cell’s to complete the chromosomal pairing up that normally happens in the zygote during fertilization. Because of this, the RNA transcribes, ideally, the same exact DNA code that the “mother” has; but here again we get into genetic expression, because though a clone is genetically the same as it’s parent, it is exactly BECAUSE it is genetically identical that recessive (and often in the case of some experimental animals, fatal) traits and gene combinations can occur, depending on exactly how the original, zygotic DNA is copied. Even when using the RNA of the same organism, transcription errors naturally occur -- and they occur so frequently, in fact, that very few cloning attempts are ever successful; that is, they either produce genetically weak, fatal-combination, infertile, or underdeveloped offspring that ultimately can’t be re-cloned or which can not reproduce, and therefore negate the incentive to clone an organism for it’s “healthy genes”.

Connecting the dots:

When a demon is cloned, it’s human DNA is cloned; but so are the genetic modifications of the dnavirus, which is why clones seem to have human superpowers. They are no loner 100% genetically human, and that opens the door to all kinds of genetic complications and probably meant that thousands, not hundreds, of clones were “discarded”, and hundreds died before they even lived. Simply put, it’s an absolute bloody miracle that the cloning thing worked at all, much less that Lucifer was able to remotely perfect the technique.

How he did so is not so much a mystery though; unlike what you would assume, with mammals at least, the more often you re-clone a clone, the “cleaner” it’s genetic code seems to become by phenomena of natural selection and artificial selection; clones with good genes are re-cloned, clones exhibiting bad genes are culled or die on their own, and so on and so on until you get a good sized population of identical clones. With the added fuel of the elixir to make growth happen phenomenally fast, it’s not too surprising that he has a private stock of cloned bodies to inhabit whenever he likes. (Which gave me big Orochimaru vibes, just sayin’).

As for the RNA virus body, I suspect that is retained with the demon at all times, which makes sense because once and RNA virus stops replicating it’s RNA into the host, the host cells re-fix the “broken” codes and eventually replaces the alien DNA created by the virus with it’s own; however, a dnavirus’ DNA gets worked semi-permanently into the system of it’s host, since it has it’s own completed code which is then, reversedly, transcribed over and over by the host’s RNA transcription, which is why dnaviruses went undetected by science until about 20 years ago, and why, God forbid, if there was ever a pathogenic dnavirus, we would all be royally screwed because even the best immune system on earth can’t detect a dnavirus because our immune systems rely on identification markers dependent on RNA viruses; oddly, however, so does every other organism, meaning there literally is not a single living thing, including caterpillars and spiders who are victims directly of “pathogenic” polydnaviruses, has an immune system that could find the damn things. They utilize the host’s own RNA to transcribe their DNA, and therefore go almost completely undetected by whatever they infect.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about:

Immunity and Prions

If Demons rely on RNA viruses to primarily infect their host, then it would make sense why some people would be more resistant than others; however, there is a compelling aspect of demon possession which makes me think that it is the other way around - everyone is resistant, until they are not.

Demons typically possess bodies which have weak-minded and psychologically stressed individuals behind them. Stress weakens the immune system, but it does so in specific ways; and certain viruses in real life are programmed to take advantage of these specific measures more than others.

Right now in the US, there is a nasty epidemic of CWD, Chronic Wasting Disease, spreading through native deer populations on the east coast. This “zombie disease” is a virus that infects the nervous system of the deer (along with cattle and sheep) and forms prions - folded proteins that are then replicated, and replicated, and replicated; and like cancer of the brain, they just keep on replicating and replicating, eating up the animal’s energy reserves and drastically impacting their behavior and bodily functions, starting by supressing and outright destroying their immune system. Mad Cow Disease is a more famous example of a prion disease in the same family as CWD, except that those prions migrate; they move into the soft tissues of the animal and make every single part of it impossible to eat without also contracting the prion, which contains the virus; and MCD is not remotely picky about it’s host, since it affects a very basic protein structure. Any and everything from birds to reptiles to humans can be infected by MCD and it is completely fatal.

My point is, that CWD and MCD both primarily infect animals exhibiting high levels of stress hormones, which is why outbreaks happen primarily during the breeding seasons for these animals. Not only that, but the virus then directly attacks the animal’s immune systems and opens them up to every kind of secondary infection you can imagine.

However, prion diseases and even just plain old viruses can do the exact opposite as well. HIV is a common virus that kills you by making your immune system hyperresponsive, not by shutting it down; it becomes so responsive, in fact, that it attacks healthy tissues. Prion diseases which affect insects also do this, creating folded proteins in the nervous system of the bug that trigger it’s immune system to continuously flood the body with antibodies until it is just too exhausted to do so, and the insect’s body decays as a result of secondary infection.

It could be that this is the case of demons as well. Prions would be valuable in affecting the behavior of the host, though not necessary; they would, however, make the ingestion of a possessed person almost guaranteed to infect you, since most viruses just don’t have the defenses on their own to tackle stomach acid, but a prion virus does.

To recap:

Demons use DNA and RNA viruses to infect and modify their host to their liking, perhaps using the assistance of prions to aid in endurance and transmissibility. Because of this, cloning is a gamble of “what DNA will I pull out of the box today” since the DNA virus’ DNA, and possibly even any prions, is left behind even after the parasitic demon leaves; however, the RNA virus is inert once it leaves a host body, and therefore is retained by the demon within whatever primitive cells they may carry in their demon hearts, which may be taken from some immutable “form” or body that they possess on the other side of the divide (in Gehenna); these alien forms may be the byproduct of their first ever possession, using, perhaps, horizontal transference to absorb some of the DNA from their first (and possibly even subsequent) host and then re-incorporate it into subsequent hosts, which is how Amaimon would be reptilian in spite of having a mammal body; because he perhaps, first possessed or found genetic favor of a reptile of some kind and “borrowed” the DNA from them via horizontal transference, since it worked for him. This can then be applied in turn to all other demons, or at least demon kings.

DISCLAIMER:

I spent literally a week researching this stuff, but I am welcome to criticism of my shoddy work. Also, I am in no way saying this is technically right; it’s just a theory after all, and you’re more than welcome to disagree. :)

If anyone wants to add on, feel free. :) I think I’m done for the week.

#blue exorcist #Ao no Exorcist #fan theory #sorry for the long post #I don't claim to be an expert #hopefully tumblr lets me have those citations #if they don't show up I'm sorry #I tried

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linkeai · 6 years ago

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that’s kinda hot → wang linkai / xiao gui ( nine percent ) → summary: summer school is fun, and at first, neither is the obnoxious boy who gets seated next to you who takes a weird liking to you. → warning(s): swearing, mentions of illness, canadian school terms? idfk → genre: fluff, the teensiest bit of angst → word count: 3,751 → notes: hi i love this and it may or may not be inspired by the boy i temporarily fell in love when i went to summer school :)

so... you suck at math

you knew you sucked at math pretty much your entire life, and you knew you were still going to suck this year when you started your grade 11 math class

but you didn’t think you sucked so bad that you would fail the class entirely

but, alas, thinking was not your strong suit

because your final mark in math 2201 was 32 :)

and you were NOT repeating a year, and you were not taking the god-awful supplementary exam,

so summer school was pretty much the only option you had left

and your parents may as well have put a gun to your head with the way they said you had BETTER pass this time

bc summer school isn’t exactly cheap!!

so you went off with equal parts terror and determination in your heart

summer school was only a month long, and you’d already sort of done the course already

so you were feeling pretty good about your chances

until you arrived on the first day :)

the place was a janky looking middle school filled with people that divided into two groups;

group a) the ones like you who were already over it and just wanted to get your credits and get the hell out

and group b)… came in shouting at each other and being generally obnoxious and we’re treating it like they’d just arrived at the party

one boy in particular stood out to you.. not because he was probably the most obnoxious one in the bunch, but because he was kind cute even when he was screaming some nonsense

and as if it was your luck.. when you got sorted into your classes and took your seats, he plopped down right beside you

who in the name of god thought it was a good idea to have two seats pushed together in the rows in an actual summer school, you didn’t know

you just knew that when the teacher told you that these were your seats for the remainder of the month, he turned and gave you a grin that made you realize that there was, in fact, a fate better than summer school

and it was death

summer school is extremely fast paced so class started pretty much five minutes after you were seated

so you took out your notebook and your little pencil case and got ready to inject yourself with some mathematical knowledge

when this dude taps on your shoulder

you don’t even say anything you just like at him like don't you fucking dare ask for paper

and so he asks for some paper

and you’re like yeah man for sure! and tear out a few sheets and give it to him

he gives you the BIGGEST, the DUMBEST smile you have ever seen

and you would never in a hundred years admit that it made your heart do several things.

and the paper… the paper was your first mistake.

the teacher started explaining some of the topics of the first unit when he taps his pencil (thank god he at least had a pencil) on your desk

and you just.. fill with dread bc PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE I NEED TO LISTEN OR MY PARENTS WILL LITERALLY RUIN MY LIFE

and you’re like yeah… what….

and he asks what your name is

and you’re like???? it’s y/n

and he does the smile again and … oof

he tells you his name is linkai and you just awkwardly bob your head and turn toward the front again

and linkai has the GALL to tap on your desk again and maybe you’re being a liiittle hot-tempered but in your head, its like W H AT THE FUCK DO YO U WANT DUDE

and this boy has the audacity to look you in the eyes and say “you’re kinda cute.”

your brain short-circuits at the same time your heart goes into overdrive

and you can’t really do much else but stare at him for a long minute and just as you’re about to answer him, you hear a loud yell from the front of the classroom.

“you two! is this gonna be a problem? seriously?”

“no ma’am!” the two of you say in perfect unison

and class carries on

the classes last about four-ish hours every day

and for the ENTIRE first day

linkai is doing sometHING to test your sanity

when he’s not humming, he’s drumming a beat on the desk,

when he’s not trying to make conversation with you, he’s whispering little side comments about the lesson

and you’re too afraid to tell him to stfu because he’s still really hot and you’re a little intimidated

and this goes on for the next three days of the first week until you snap

he turns to you and he’s like, “y/n, your hair looks really good today.”

and you slowly turn, look him dead in the face and say very slowly; “if you don’t shut the fuck up, i’m going to beat you to death with this calculator”

the next few seconds pass like several eternities, where you revel in the thinly veiled shock and terror in his eyes

until a cheeky grin slowly spreads across his face, and he says, shamelessly;

“that’s kinda hot.”

and at that moment, you turn back to the board and take a long, agonizing moment to grieve over both your two precious math credits as well as your life which your parents will inevitably soon take from you

things get so much weirder after that

you think he goes from talking to you to entertain himself to actually liking you after your feisty little outburst

and you quickly learn that when linkai likes someone he’s … extremely odd

but?? kind of adorable?

the weirdest thing he does is he starts bringing you ‘gifts’

and it's so creepy but so ridiculously endearing when he pulls a bouquet of crumpled dandelions out of his bag and hands them to you

theres a few ants crawling on them and they’re ruined from being in his backpack

he hasn't even put anything on them to hold them together

and you’re not really sure if you want to thank him or not but you do anyway because like.. c’mon man

and he’s looking at you with those puppy dog eyes

so you say “thanks, linkai. these are uh.. nice.”

theyre really not but when his eyes kinda light up a little and he turns away with red ears and hides his smile in his hoodie you’re like.. these are the most beautiful flowers i have ever seen in my entire life

and that, my friend, was your second mistake

he brings you a new gift every day

one time it was half of a cookie from the gas station mcdonalds down the road

once it was an actual fucking newt like a little lizard that he found somewhere and you literally begged him to keep it for himself

another time it was an eraser shaped like a cupcake that was very clearly used

but you kept every single present he gave you

except for the lizard because what the genuine fuck dude

he also comes up with new nicknames for you every day

and they’re even cringer than they were the day before every time without fail

he strolls into the room, plops down beside you and hands you your daily present with a “good morning, ___”

the blanks thus far include, honey, darling, sweetiepie, cupcake, pumpkin, gumdrop, cutie patootie, my cinnamon apple, munchkin

and you don't know why you look forward to seeing what he comes up with next

and even the very worst of the presents and the nicknames make your heart flutter

and you realize you are slowly becoming whipped for this weird kid

and that this is very bad because you’re literally desperate to pass this class and its hard when you spend all your time waiting for his next comment or thinking about him being next to you

but like a dummy, you don't ask to be moved and you don’t even ask him to shut up

well you do, you regularly tell him to shut up but this man takes insults like compliments and it seems to feed into this idea that you like him

which you do but that's none of his damn business

and about halfway through that short month of school, you realize you’re not going to be ready for the exam

you start losing sleep over it because this is really not good

and you also realize that this isn’t linkai’s fault, really, you can’t push the blame onto him because you didnt want to ask to be moved away from the cute boy

and that makes you feel even worse

so you come into school one day looking about as miserable as you feel

you actually get there after linkai for the first time because you were in the bathroom trying to make yourself look more alive

but it doesn't work because the second you walk in and linkai (who was previously looking a bit like a lost puppy) says “hi sugarpl- damn, you look rough.”

you give him a half-assed glare and slump into the seat beside him, not even having the energy to be sarcastic.

“wait, y/n, are you okay?”

the concern in his voice makes your stomach turn a little but you just kinda look at him and you’re like.

“i’m gonna fail. again.”

and he's surprised you actually answered him so he kinda stalls for a second

and then he's like “i can help you? if you want?”

and you almost want to laugh bc you have not seen the kid take a single note since you got here

but he's like “lets go sit at one of those tables outside after this and i’ll help you with what you don’t know.”

and you’re like yeah sure i guess bc i mean.. he's cute what are you gonna do? say no?

and then he gets his bag and pulls out a pack of colorful scrunchies and hands them to you

and you instinctively tear up bc they look super new so he definitely like.. went to a store.. saw these.. thought he should get them for you..took them off the shelf.. bought them with his own money.. and now they’re here

and by the will of god you don’t start weeping in front of him

and you feel weird walking with him outside as he greets all his loud friends and is like nah i cant go with you guys today i gotta do something

you two sit down outside and you whip out your book and he’s like so what is it? what are you having trouble with?

and, in shame, you admit that you really don’t know shit all

and he just kinda laughs and he’s like aight let's do this

and let me JUST SAY

YOU. ARE. FLOORED.

he starts explaining the first concept to you and everything he says is making? perfect sense?

he explains things very clearly and intelligently and you immediately understand what you have to do

he has his own way of solving problems that is faster and more efficient and literally whips through every equation.

when he finishes explaining, you just stop and stare at him in awe for a second and he's like “sorry, did that make sense?”

and in your head you’re like nothing has ever made sense more than what you just did right now

but outwardly you’re like yeah thanks so much

and he continues to explain things to you and by the time a few hours have passed and its getting late and kinda chilly, you already understand half the things you were lost on

you tell him you should get home now and he’s like, oh, yeah, sure, okay.

and you really have to ask him how he ended up in summer school? because he’s obviously extremely intelligent with how easily he understands all the concepts

and he gets a little shy

and he tells you that during the year, he had to work a lot during the school days because his mom is sick and off work so they’re not making a lot of money

and that she had a doctors appointment on the day of the final and there was no one else to take her and it was all really last minute so he missed it

and so he ended up failing math and had to go to summer school

he waits with you until your bus comes and sends you off

and you’re just like.. sitting there.. thinking

and you start to feel like the biggest piece of shit for multiple reasons

first, because you had made so many wrong assumptions about linkai

he wasn’t just some obnoxious imbecile. he was hard-working and obviously had a really big heart

he was loud, yeah but that was just his personality

and you had gone and assumed he was dumb when he was pretty much a genius

but worst of all, you realized that he actually genuinely liked you

all the little pet names, the gifts, the constant talking to you in class was because he just… liked you. it was his own little eccentric way of showing it

and you had treated him like he was some big joke. a nuisance, even.

you didn’t sleep very well that night, either.

the next day he brought you a donut and called you donut.

and you almost cried again

he was also wearing a different red sweater he’d never worn before and his hair was kind of different and he looked so good

and so you smiled at him and said, “morning, handsome.”

and there was nothing sweeter than the way his face turned as red as his hoodie.

he helped you that day after class too,

and the next, and the next

and you exchanged numbers so you could ‘ask him questions while you were home’

but you two would start texting and having all kinds of conversations

from the most crackheadassery shit to some really deep stuff

you never knew that you could fall so hard for someones voice, the way he talks on the phone when he’s calm and tired, his voice husky and quiet

but shit, you were whipped like whip cream

there was this one time he texted you at 6 am

and it said something like “i just got home from work and i saw a cat in my mailbox blah blah”

and you were like.. pause. just got home from work?

and from there you realized that because summer school was mandatory he was going to work at night to make up for the day shifts he had to miss

and probably getting 2-3 hours of sleep if he was getting any and all

and that was kind of the deal breaker

and you realized that, in such a short span of time,

you had completely fallen in love with wang linkai

and you were determined to do something, anything you could to just.. make things better for him?

you just wanted to be his person

the two of you continued staying after school and studying for an hour or two and then texting throughout the rest of the day, right up until the final exam

the two of you had studied vigorously together, both in person and over facetime.

and the night before the exam comes and you get a text

and all it says is “y/n, something bad happened.”

your heart immediately sinks to the floor and you abandon the petty ‘wait two-three minutes before answering’ rule and just call him

he picks up and doesn’t even say hello and you’re so frightened to see such a bright creature so… burned out

he explains to you that his mom finally got an appointment with this really important specialist after months of waiting

and that it was supposed to be next week, but it got moved to tomorrow

and it’s on the other side of the city

and he’ll miss his exam

it really hurts to hear the shake in his voice, and how hopeless he sounds

and you ask him everything like are you sure theres no one else that can drive her but you? are you sure you cant have the appointment moved back?

and its all a pretty resounding no.

and so you think and think and you’re like; you know what? i have an idea.

and you run into your moms room and explain the situation to her and BEG her to do this for you and take linkai’s mom to her appointment for him

and she asks to speak to linkai for a second and you’re just twiddling your thumbs

and he kinda makes her smile and laugh a little and your heart could just BURST

and she agrees to drive her after getting his address and his moms name and the place of the appointment etc

and when she hands the phone back to you, you go back to your room and when you put the phone to your ear, you hear linkai sniffling on the other end

and you’re like “kai?? are you crying?”

and he’s like “no… fuck maybe a little bit.”

and you’re like ?? why, what else is wrong?

and he’s like “nothing.. nothing is wrong, it’s just.” and he takes a big breath. “thank you so much.”

and you kinda tear up a little bit too and you’re like.. “of course.. you don’t have to thank me.”

and he just takes a biig breath and calms down and then he starts talking in a really soft voice.

“y/n.. you know i like, really like you, right? i know you think im just bored or playing some game, but im not. i knew you were special, and im..” he kind of laughs at himself. “fuck, im really falling for you.”

and now you are crying too

and you tell him you’re so sorry and that you wish you would have just. been better from the beginning

and you tell him that you feel the same way and the both of you are just giggling and he tells you thank you a million times and that he cant wait to see you tomorrow

so the exam comes

the two of you take it and you’re kind of lost on what to do with yourselves other than studying lol

but you both feel really good about the outcome

and there's something really special about the two of you sitting outside waiting for both of your moms to come and get you

and when they do, you get in the car and your moms are like best fuckin friends already

and you’re all laughing as the four of you go to eat lunch together and linkai’s mom tells him that the specialist set up a plan for her and it looks like things are going to get better really soon.

and theres a happy kind of pain in your chest when you look over at him and see that he’s getting teary eyed

and you know exactly what he’s feeling - its that feeling like fuck, things are so good right now, everything is perfect, please don’t take it away

and so you’re a little scared but more excited when you reach over and hold his hand.

and he looks at you and you smile at him. you don’t have to say a word for him to know exactly what you’re thinking

‘i’m here. things will be okay. things will get better. let me carry this weight with you.’

and he squeezes your hand so tight it hurts

but you dont mind

a few days later, the two of you return to get your final examination results

and you’re both shaking and bickering bc you’re like “why are you nervous when you know you passed”

and the two of you take the envelopes and go stand outside by the same table you sat at everyday.

you open your cards at the same time and look at the results and you scream while linkai lets out a big huff of relief

yours reads ’84’ and his says says ’93’

your card flutters to the ground as you jump forward into his arms

and he’s laughing and holding you so so tight, swinging you around and he’s still kind of shaking but in a good way.

and you pull away from the hug and just look at him, and he’s got that look in his eyes again

the look that says he’s so happy and he’s afraid he’s going to lose it

and before you can think twice, you grab his face and kiss the thought right out of his head

and he smiles into the kiss, grabbing you the second you pull away and bringing you back for more

you two pull away and just look at each other like.. who knew?

and he kisses you again on the lips, then kisses all over your entire face

and the horn honks a few feet away from where your mother is waiting for you with a small smile on her face.

and you kiss him one last time before you walk back to the car with your hands tightly intertwined

and you are so fucking glad you suck at math

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darquedeath4444 · 6 years ago

Text

Those in Between

Chapter ONE

Jiraiya enters the hospital room accompanied by Tsunade and Shizune, Tsunade's own apprentice. Apart from the younger woman, who technically falls under 'medic', everyone else is Tokubetsu-Jounin or higher in rank. He can sense at least half a dozen ANBU hiding around the room and as he nods to acknowledge the shinobi who had led him there, he thinks this is overkill.

This feeling only grows when he moves the curtains surrounding the bed and his gaze lands on the doll-like girl lying on the bed, not even twitching. Jiraiya frowns at the chakra suppression restraints around her wrists and ankles and the tracker collar around her neck.

She isn't straining or struggling. All in all, she looks dead.

"She's uh...alive, right?" He asks sheepishly.

Tsunade rolls her eyes exasperatedly. "Of course," she says. "You're starting to make me regret agreeing to leave her to you."

Jiraiya's eyes flicker to her eyes and has to strain to see the rise and fall of her chest. "Uh...right," ge glances around. "Can I have Minato-kun's notes?" He takes the notepad offered out to him and inspects the seal the blond had incorporated into her bandages. "He made it an absorbing type?" He notes to himself.

"If Tsunade-sama can make some sort of breach with the antidote, he said he could adjust it to make the poison vanish upon leaving her skin," Shizune explains. "But at this point, this is all he can do."

Jiraiya nods to himself. "That's kinda true...I'll add a reaction seal, so we'll know when the bandages are at their limit...maybe a self-destruction seal after she takes them off so no one has to touch them?"

Tsunade whacks him over the head in what he thinks she thinks in a light tap but is actually a punch. "Not entirely useless, I see," she says.

"I will be if you keep punching me." This time, he receives a stronger punch. "Okay okay, sorry."

Tsunade huffs.

Jiraiya sighs and rubs at the bump on his head. "Are you planning to leave after this?"

Tsunade pauses in her act of reaching for the girl's file and nods firmly. "This was an emergency," she says curtly. "I'll be leaving when you set off."

Jiraiya sighs but does not press the topic they have gone through a countless number of times. "Okay."

Tsunade turns, deeming the conversation over. "Do you want her file?" She asks.

Jiraiya shakes his head. "I probably won't get a thing written there," he says, then remembers something. "Actually-" He leaned over to look at the file again. "So it wasn't me..."

"What?" Tsunade asks.

"We kept calling her," Jiraiya gestures as the restrained girl on the bed "'her'. Does she have a name?"

Tsunade shakes her head. "Not at this point," she says. "We haven't gotten that out of her yet, though I doubt she'll have an actual name."

Jiraiya winces. "So like, can I name her?"

Tsunade's eyes flash dangerously. "If you name her after one of your porn characters, I will shove that book of yours-"

"I won't! Really!" Jiraiya frantically waves his hands as Tsunade advances. "I won't! I-I-uh-yeah! I'll name her now and you can see, okay? Um, I-Kimi-WAIT-I didn't mean that-Uh-Ha-no-uh-Sa-right-Sakura! She's Sakura. Sakura's safe, right?"

Tsunade pauses but after one last threatening fist clench, she draws back. "I guess that's acceptable."

"It fits her," Shizune chirps helpfully.

Tsunade snorts and replaces Sakura's folder in its holder above the headboard. "Well, I guess we'll leave you here for a while," she says.

"Uh, right." Jiraiya waves over his shoulder, then takes a seat on the chair beside the girl's bed. He looks up when Tsunade and Shizune leave alongside their Tokubetsu-Jounin escort. "Hey, can you hear me?" He asks.

The girl blinks once before her eyes move mechanically to look at him.

"I'm Jiraiya," he says, grinning. "Jiraiya the great toad Sannin." He realizes that she probably has no idea what that is and he rushes on. "I'll be taking care of you from now on. I think," he adds because he is beginning to sound out of character. "Do you have a name?"

There is no reply but he decides to take that as a no; he is beginning to like the sound of 'Sakura'. "Then I'll call you Sakura, okay?"

The girl blinks but apart from that, she doesn't acknowledge him.

Jiraiya resists the urge to sigh. "Well, I'll give you think to think over it." The silence continues and wanting to give himself something to focus on, he quickly flips through his seal notes. "We can take this slowly," he says quietly, half to the girl and half to himself.

The girl does not twitch even a limb.

Jiraiya remains there for the rest of the day. While there are visitor hours, he has permission to stay for as long as he wishes. This is a special case, after all.

A nurse brings in a tray of food Jiraiya knows to be easy on the stomach. "She doesn't eat." She tells him. "We've been injecting her with the minimum nutrients required for the healing process but it might be bad if she doesn't start injecting physical food soon."

Once she is gone, Jiraiya puts down his seal-planning pad and grabbing the plate, he leans in towards the girl away. "You heard the nurse, Sakura-chan. You gotta eat soon, or you won't be able to adventure with the awesome me."

Her eyes flash in his direction for a split second and encouraged, Jiraiya presses on. "You'll get better sooner and we can get those restraints off of you, yeah?"

The pinkette stares at him with those haunting eyes of hers. The bandages around her mouth shift just a little and Jiraiya leans in encouragingly. There have been a couple of times where a similar thing had happened, like the girl had wanted to speak, before she had changed her mind.

He holds out the plate a little closer and from the way she twitches just a little, knows she wants it.

Finally, after a few more minutes of silence, the girl looks down. "What...do I have to do?" She whispers. Her voice is husky and a little cracked, as though she hadn't used it in ages.

Jiraiya frowns, confused. "Huh?"

"The food. What do I have to...do for it?"

It takes Jiraiya a second to register this in his brain and his anger once again surges. The implications are obvious and while Jiraiya has no idea what the living conditions for this girl has been up to this point, he really wants to gut the person who did this to her. He holds back for the girl's sake, though. The pinkette eyes are hooded, as though to protect herself from meeting his gaze. She is glancing swiftly between his hand and the plate, shoulders drawn up in an instinctive way to protect her throat.

It is then Jiraiya notices how underfed she must be to not show hunger after days of not eating and suddenly feels guilty for baiting her like this.

"Nothing," he says, voice uncharacteristically gentle. "It's yours." He places it within arm's length of her so that he does not have to get too close. He then leans back into his chair.

Green eyes glance at him warily and her hand flashes out, drawing the plate towards herself. "I don't have any money," she says weakly. "Money is the main method of payment, right?"

Jiraiya firmly shakes his head. "I don't want anything in return," he tells her. "It's yours. Eat as much as you want. If it isn't enough, I can get you more."

The girl quickly shakes her head. "This is more than sufficient,” she says.

They sit in silence while the girl picks the food apart with her fingers and nibbles on the minuscule pieces.

"You don't have to force yourself," he tells her. "Tell me when you're done, Sakura-chan."

The girl curls in on herself a little and tilts her head up a little. "Sakura...?" She asks.

Jiraiya sheepishly grins. "Well, we didn't know your name and...yeah. Unless you have one?"

"My name..." The girl's voice is quite like she is testing out the words. "My name is...Sakura."

Jiraiya plasters on a smile but on the inside, it is as though someone is squeezing his chest. He will give the girl a chance to restart, though, and he will give her what has obviously been deprived of her. "Well, Sakura-chan." He grins. "Eat up."

Chapter TWO>

<Prologue

#Those in Between #naruto fanfiction #sakura #jiraiya #so sakura is a sad girl here #not much sasuke and itachi yet #soon

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hunter934 · 7 years ago

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BRODY February 2018 - Ikeda Kazuma x Shinguu Ryouhei "A Dialogue of Keyakizaka46’s Music Videos"

“First Dialogue of 2 Directors who are Accomplices of Keyaki’s Revolution” The initial impact of Keyakizaka46, as well as their shocking debut, was no doubt, thanks to their “Silent Majority” music video. Since then, each time they’ve released a music video, it becomes a hot topic in every single direction. The two directors, who directed their music videos, talked to us about the truths of the music videos, as well as the true quality of Keyakizaka46. Unusual approach to draw out their full potential - This time, through the dialogue between the two directors who directed Keyakizaka46’s music videos, we figured there would be many things that could be revealed, thus we gathered the both of you here. First of all, let’s start with Director Ikeda’s “Silent Majority”. Shinguu: I didn’t watch it right after it’s release. After a while, I heard information that it’s an amazing music video, I decided to watch it after that. - What did you think? Shinguu: The location left such a strong first impression. Normally people wouldn’t be shooting at a place like that (construction site near Shibuya Station). I thought “Ah, it turned out to be something awesome”. - So, its strong point is the timing of when the location was used Shinguu: That’s also correct, especially since idol music videos nowadays have become too boring. Though there still are styles like Director Takahashi Eiki’s works for AKB48. However, this music video turned out to be something really powerful. In all likelihood, we can’t shoot at that place for the second time. Shibuya is always reborn to be something new, so shooting at a place that existed in such a short time was the most amazing thing. Ikeda: Thank you very much (laugh). Shinguu: You’re being unfair, by using that place (laugh). Now the people from Tokyu Dentetsu already knew about Keyakizaka46, right? Ikeda: There was a building in development at that place, while on the other hand, there was a group that was going to make their debut, I compiled those things properly into a concept, I was given the chance to make something special. Shinguu: Did you choose Shibuya as a theme from the start? Ikeda: At first, when I discussed with Keyakizaka46’s staffs, they told me to create a group of girls with a strong will and little bit rebellious as their image. Something like “If they were a town, then they are Shibuya”. Because of that conversation, I thought maybe I could use Shibuya as the stage for them. So, it was decided before I even planned the concept for the music video. Shinguu: The CD jackets were also taken in Shibuya, right? I thought “Are they some sort of Shibuya idols?”, that question came to mind once, but this music video turned out to be really amazing. They’re very young, aren’t they? Also, Shibuya was in the middle of a dramatic transformation. It was really like showing people, those girls had been there once, at the town which reformed in a short amount of time. I felt quite emotional from that kind of view. Because it can’t be seen anymore, right? Ikeda: It was a totally different place a year after that. Shinguu: The dirt remaining on their knees when they knelt down were also quite emotional. Ikeda: It feels like a documentary, right? I didn’t put too much perspective into it. It’s their first music video after all. Shinguu: Director Ikeda, you once said that you purposely didn’t cut out the scene where they displayed poor dancing. Ikeda: Yep. Shinguu: “Ah, they were still poor at dancing at that time”, you wanted people to acknowledge such a thing when they look back at the past. Ikeda: I was thinking so hard how to organize things since it was their debut single. At first, I wanted to make the story deeper. But on the contrary, if I shoot their debut moment as it is, I thought it would have a more exceptional feeling. After all, it’s a moment which only happens once. Shinguu: If we look at it now, it was really worth the effort. Ikeda: I didn’t even cut everyone’s tense faces. - As a fellow director, did Director Shinguu ever think “Crap, he beat me!”? Shinguu: I did. Music video is all about concept. Thus, if we want to do a shoot in Tokyo, location selection is an important thing. There is nothing left in Tokyo after all, it’s too boring. Also, we have to match our camerawork to the choreography. Did you draw the storyboard? Ikeda: I didn’t draw anything. Shinguu: You matched to their choreography, didn’t you? Ikeda: Of course. If I’m not wrong, the choreography only got completed two days before the shoot. Thus, we decided to use about 50~60% of the choreography. - What was your most favorite scene? Shinguu: I like the opening scene. - The scene where their faces appeared one by one? Ikeda: It’s an introduction. It’s their first music video after all. Shinguu: The pictures just came one after another. Ikeda: Pretty orthodox, right? (laugh) Shinguu: What came to my mind was that you particularly shot Hirate-san in such a thorough way. There were a ton of camerawork that shot Hirate-san only. Ikeda: Because Hirate-san is the heroine. If I had given every member equal screentime, it would have ruined the balance. - Normally it would make the video more balance, but that’s not the case for this one. Ikeda: Like I said before, I decided who the heroine was, and she became the core of this story, I organized everything based on this person, I thought that it would make Keyakizaka be seen as a whole even more. Hirate-san’s amazing performance was one of the considerations though. However, that kind of camerawork was pretty different from Director Shinguu’s way of thinking. Shinguu: It’s totally different. If Kazuma-san stresses the whole picture of Keyakizaka46, then I want to show every single one of them at any cost. In this kind of group, there must be only a few members who can appear on the 4-minute-long-only music video. But, I didn’t want to do it that way (laugh). Everyone has their own charm, so I always took a shot of everyone. Even though in the end not every shot was used after editing process, it’s a relief to do it that way. - Since there’s a lot of people that were attracted by their charm on “Silent Majority”, this kind of presentation was indeed good. Ikeda: In the end, this music video is all about their performance. It feels like they’re going to make a breakthrough from now on, for me it’s really like a documentary. I’m glad that I didn’t make it weird by creating a drama-like music video. - Since it’s a good documentary, there’s no need to add a dramatic element into it. Shinguu: Kazuma-san is a documentary maker after all. Ikeda: Even though there are some bad parts, as long as their expression are good enough, I will use it. On the contrary, Shinguu-san is a perfectionist. Shinguu: I’m the type of person that shows anything above its original value. For example, if there is a member that doing a late turn, I will show it in slow motion. Ikeda: Or to make a messy jump looks better. Shinguu: I’m a visual person. It’s like I just aim for the good parts only. Ikeda: You also do a form of music-related editing. Shinguu: If it’s Kazuma-san, he will definitely strengthen the part he wants to show rather than taking care of the rhythm. Ikeda: That’s right. Shinguu: If there is situation where the contents are less than it’s supposed to be, and they’re going to do nothing about it, I will tell them “This should be this way, this too, this too”. - So, you show them how to deal with it, like “make this in slow motion”. I have an impression that “Director Shinguu = slow motion”. Shinguu: That’s right. On the contrary, Kazuma-san is type of creator that doesn’t like to use slow motion. Ikeda: If you say it that way, I won’t be able to use it from now on (laugh). Shinguu: Kazuma-san used slow motion in “Eccentric” though. When he used it, I became afraid of him (laugh). Running Keyaki, laughing Keyaki, some of the best works - Next, we will discuss about “Sekai ni wa Ai shikanai”. This is also Director Ikeda’s works. Shinguu: I watched “Sekai ni wa Ai shikanai” so many times. I love the chorus. It’s really unique. The first chorus didn’t start with a dance, they were just running. I thought “He did it~!”. He didn’t put a dramatic element into “Silent Majority”, but this time he injected some sort of girls’ youth attributes into it. Moreover, with Showa style (laugh). I highly appreciate his idea of putting a Showa vibe into it, something like a baseball match cut scene. Ikeda: Hahahaha! Shinguu: Also that shoe locker cut scene. It’s a music video that clearly made me understand Ikeda-san’s preference. Ikeda: Yes, I injected my own preferences (laugh). It’s little embarrassing, it feels like I’m an inexperienced director. Shinguu: Why did you use such a dim lighting in the classroom? Ikeda: By making the class darker, indoors and outdoors really started to contrast each other. Since I wasn’t told to create something bright and idol-ish, I decided to make it dark. Shinguu: Kazuma-san, do you like to change the drama aspect by utilizing the weather? It always changes depending on the weather, right? Ikeda: You’re right. Though I cleverly matched it to its lyric. Shinguu: I watched it thinking “It’s showing various kinds of weather”. - On the previous interview, Director Ikeda once commented “I gave it a sort of anime vibe”. Ikeda: That’s right. Shinguu: What do you mean by anime vibe? Ikeda: Different from “Silent Majority”, I aimed to create a painting-like thing for this music video. It feels like visualizing a vague feeling inside the memories. Shinguu: Ahh, I see. Kazuma-san, to what extent do you entrust your cameraman? Do you give a lot of direction? Like “Use telephoto lens on this!”. Ikeda: I only give the general concept when it comes to drawing storyboard. However, the cameraman who has worked for me on this second project is the kind of person that would take such interesting shots if I gave him freedom. For example, I only told him “I want to take a scene as if the camera followed the wind”. Then, he took a scene where members can be seen along with the windmills. - It’s a very wide landscape, right? Ikeda: Yes, it’s really wide. They couldn’t even see the ones next to them. Every member at the corner was 100 m apart. - This location also gave such a strong impression, why did you choose this location? Ikeda: We looked for a place with windmills, then we found it on Hokkaido. Shinguu: Did you plan to use windmills from the start? Ikeda: Yes. Since, the first project took place in Shibuya, so there was a thought to create something with a middle-of-town image for the next work as well. Shinguu: Hey, it’s totally different (laugh). Ikeda: There were white-and-man-constructed windmills standing in nature, I wanted members to do the performance there, in order to create a connection between them. That grassland scene in the chorus was an imaginary realm, so I wanted to create something that really contrasted the scene of daily school life. - On the previous interview, you said you wanted to show the connection to the “Silent Majority”, by using something big and man-constructed, similar to the construction site on the previous work. Ikeda: In the end, the center of this music video were the members themselves. I thought their image wouldn’t be ruined by whatever location we used, as long as we don’t ruin the presentation. Then, in contrast to the real school life realm, if the location for the imaginary realm in the first chorus had taken place in the middle of a town, there wouldn’t be much difference between them. I wanted to give a clear separation. Shinguu: I see. That’s why I had a feeling that I was entrusted with the next work “Futari Sezon”, in order for me to do a shoot in the middle of town. Ikeda: Hahaha. I think “Futari Sezon” is their best song. With such a nostalgic melody, this is the song that made them laugh. Shinguu: Since it’s a sparkling and elegant song with such a nice rhythm, I could come up with this concept for the music video. I matched their steps, their walk, I matched every single thing to the rhythm, I wanted to show the harmony of their wavelength, their beat. That’s why the number of members kept increasing one by one from the first verse. Ikeda: So, you wanted to shoot them in the most beautiful way. Shinguu: This was about the cameraman’s peculiar preference. If we do a shoot outdoors, the sunlight would steadily change, so the cameraman said that he wanted to shoot at a specific time (laugh). “We will be here ‘till 2 PM, I want to shoot with this amount of light”, he had that kind of preference. By the way, it took place in Chiba’s Makuhari. - How did you feel when you were entrusted with Keyakizaka46’s main track for the first time? Shinguu: Since Kazuma-san had directed their first two singles, honestly it felt like carrying a heavy load on my back. Ikeda: The vibe was different from “Katarunara mirai wo...”. Probably because this song was completely different from before, he shot such a fresh expression of them. I thought “Ah, he made them laugh!” Shinguu: Yes, I did! I thought they were girls who barely smiled, but they came to the location with such a smile. Ikeda: They are actually cheerful. Shinguu: I perceived them as girls with the “Silent Majority” image, so I was surprised, “Huh? They’re laughing naturally”. At that time, I decided the direction I would shoot them. - So that’s it. Shinguu: Although the only thing I had decided on was the last scene where they joined their hands with a feeling of “let’s be together”. Ikeda: Between those stylish dance scenes, you used a portrait-style cut into it, right? The stylishness and clumsiness that contrasted to each other left such an impression on me. What does it mean? Shinguu: Honestly, the thing I liked most was to shoot their cool dance, however, I thought that I had to remain the vibe of idol music video. Ikeda: That balance is superb. The “cool” vibe didn’t swung completely. It probably became an unique single, by putting those idol-ish elements into it. Shinguu: To some extent, this is a work that I created with a kind of safety measure. However, I didn’t use any close-up shots in this music video, I only used bust shots. Ikeda: Ah~, I see. Shinguu: I used a lot medium shots and full shots. Ikeda: There is a cut scene where Moriya-san made such a nice expression. Shinguu: While I was looking for the balance, the one thing that caught my eye was Moriya-san’s expression, despite there being a lot of funny ones among the many shots I took. I used it not because I particularly like her. In such a timing, it’s natural to have that sort of expression we like and we don’t, right? And the one I like was Moriya-san’s expression. Ikeda: It was the “Keyaki Tree” in the last scene, wasn’t it? The part where they joined hands. Did you plan to shoot that from the start? Shinguu: Yes, I did. Ikeda: You were using 2 different types of camera, right? The steadicam and one with a crane. Shinguu: That’s right. The opening didn’t start with the choreography, but their individual scenes. It’s a cut scene which I shot with precision after I had a discussion with TAKAHIRO-san. - Hirate-san’s expression in the last scene was magnificent as well. Shinguu: I wanted to make something scary in the last part. When they joined hands, I wanted to end it with a scene where Hirate realized something. She smiled in the original version, however, I also took a shot where she cried a bit. But, I figured it was too boring, so I didn’t use it. Someday her youth will end, and she realizes that, something along those lines. Then, after the moment she realizes it, I would end it with a scene where she was alone on the bridge. We are happy right now, yet people will be alone at some point, someday we will end up being alone, something like that. Also, it’s because Kazuma-san always ended his work with Hirate-san. You ended “Silent Majority” with a close-up shot. Ikeda: That’s right. Shinguu: That’s why I selfishly created such a weird “End-it-with-Hirate” rule (laugh). Ikeda: Seems like you had a struggle (laugh). Shinguu: It’s a struggle of “how to end it with her” (laugh). That’s why it took about 10 minutes to shoot her face when she was on the bridge. As a result, I decided to use that face. However, which face I decided to use depended on my mood during editing process. Ikeda: That’s right. It’s really huge. It’s not about lyric interpretation. Dynamic line that helps the directors - Next, let’s talk about “Fukyouwaon”. Ikeda: What came to my mind is you used too many seagulls (laugh). Shinguu: Ahahaha! Okay, jokes aside, did it bother you, Kazuma-san? Ikeda: Nah, I think it’s just cool. You really placed emphasis on their performance. A music video that showed Keyakizaka’s performance at its core is probably the most amazing thing. You also didn’t put any unnecessary element. Shinguu: This song was compared to “Silent Majority”, so I thought “Crap, this is difficult~” (laugh). This is about my equipment, I used 7 axes gyro stabilizing head called Maximus 7 for the first time. This equipment is probably not useful in an idol music video. However, I zoomed everything and took such close shots in the beginning of first chorus. Since I used crane shots, it became pretty fast. Ikeda: The movement was really fast. Shinguu: Korean music videos are really good at using the zoom shots. They used up to 4K resolution. After I watched it, I also wanted to implement it in Japan. Then, I used it for the first time to take close-up shots of members’ lipsync scene, maybe about the half of them. At first, I planned to only shoot the front row members, but I shot even more members in the end. Also, I shot their lipsync scene in a thorough way. Ikeda: It’s pretty simple compared to the previous works, so you carefully placed emphasis in the camerawork and editing. You used it only once, but I like the scene where you used high-angle shot. The camera was moving while shooting from the gaps in the fence. Shinguu: It’s the second chorus, right? The cameraman said he wanted to shoot from above. Also, when it comes to this 4th single, the accuracy of their dance was completely different. Ikeda: Yep. It’s cool. - Okay, let’s talk about “Kaze ni Fukaretemo”, Director Shinguu’s third consecutive work. Ikeda: It completely felt like the second chapter of Keyaki. Shinguu: That’s right. I talked about it with Kazuma-san when we went to see their Makuhari Live. When I saw them, I thought that Keyaki already arrived at the end of their first chapter. That’s why we wanted to shoot them with a style that wasn’t related to their styles so far. Ikeda: The first chapter closed with the “Getsuyoubi no Asa, Skirt wo Kirareta” music video in the most beautiful way. Shinguu: That’s right. “Getsuyoubi no Asa, Skirt wo Kirareta” beautifully brought them back to “Silent Majority”. Ikeda: That’s why the first song that is able to use any kind of formula was “Kaze ni Fukaretemo”. Shinguu: The whole team were thinking to bring something different to Keyakizaka that we knew so far. However, it’s a difficult task to retain the Keyaki-style somewhere (laugh). - Where did you retain it? Shinguu: The truth is I had a little bit of difficulty with this song at first. However, I turned it into a music video that showed the dance of the chorus. - So that’s it. Shinguu: That’s why I took shots in various places, from school, middle of town, till the conference room, however, I wanted to be apart from those things. There are so many places prepared for us in this life. And it happened in the exact moment when “La La Land” became popular. Ikeda: It’s more musical actually. Shinguu: That’s right. Actually, it should have been something like “musical drama of life”. But, I ended up only using the scene where Hirate-san was lifted with wires (laugh). Ikeda: It was a funeral, right? Shinguu: That’s right. It was a funeral actually. Ikeda: It’s an ascension. Shinguu: “What a good life it was”, it conveyed something like that. It’s something like “A dog of Flanders”. However, everyone was much better compared to “Silent Majority”. Their performance was really cool. Habu-san even came to me and asked for something. Ikeda: Ah. She is really good. Shinguu: I decided not to use her scene, but she came to me and asked, “Isn’t there another chance for me?”. - She must be really serious, if she came to ask directly. Shinguu: I said “I will consider it!” (laugh). She even created a kind of pose by herself, I think she has a high level of professionalism. Ikeda: In “Getsuyoubi no Asa, Skirt wo Kirareta”, there was moment that made me touched. One of my cameramen, he didn’t really know about Keyaki, so he selfishly shot members with good performance skills, in that case, he shot Ishimori-san and Habu-san. Shinguu: Ishimori-san and Habu-san! When we were working on editing, we always wanted to use their scene at any cost! I called those two “Dynamic Line”. Then, there is “Power Dynamic Line”, consisted of Saito-san, Habu-san, and Ishimori-san! - Is it a power-up version? (laugh) Shinguu: They have such supple movements after all. Ikeda: Saito-san is always included in the difficult dance parts. She is super cool. Shinguu: Their performances really help us in the editing process. If we also shoot Suzumoto-san, the rest would be much easier. She is awesome after all. I will shoot any member who dance perfectly and guarantee their places in the editing process. Expression that completely surpassed their expectation and gave them goosebumps - Now, I will ask about your impressions toward them. I want to hear about how you felt after doing your shoots with Keyakizaka46. Ikeda: I probably shot them without thinking they were idols. Shinguu: I see. You thought that from the start. Ikeda: I think members and staffs who were involved in the music video production were working together as a crew. Normally, when I direct a music video, I will discuss it with the artist before I draw the storyboard, I think it will be better if there is a good discussion, like I will say “I want to shoot this way”, and they will say “I want to make this kind of expression”. If I have the chance, I want to try it. Shinguu: I also see them as artists, but I probably see them more as idols than Kazuma-san. Like I said in the beginning, the world of idol music video is already complete, so I want to do some sort of experiment on how to escape from that thing. Ikeda: You’re looking for a method. Shinguu: Yeah. In that sense, I was given the chance to shoot the shape of this group. - Ah, I see, I see. Ikeda: I want to show people how I imagined the way of life and the concept of this group as a whole. It’s not about showing the real Keyakizaka46, I wanted to convey to the audience that the role they played in my work is the reality. When those things were established, I think it will be something completely original. - If you can depict their way of life, it won’t be an imitation. How do you think about Hirate-san? Ikeda: She is interesting, she has a consistency. In “Silent Majority”, I was thinking of creating something based on her. Shinguu: Basically, I entrusted everything to her. I explained to her what I aimed for, and what I needed is to see how she was going to answer it. It was up to her. Ikeda: She always does something unexpected. I always ended up grinning the moment she did that. Shinguu: Aahhh~! Me too!! Ikeda: On the second part of “Getsuyoubi no Asa, Skirt wo Kirareta”, she made an expression that completely surpassed my expectation (started at minutes 02:56). It gave me such goosebumps. Discovering these kind of moments is really fun. Shinguu: I really understand that feeling. It’s only a blink of an eye, but it left such an impression. Ikeda: About this scene, we didn’t have much time, so we only shot it 3 times, but suddenly an amazing thing came out of those 3 only chances. Shinguu: It’s like a gift from above. It’s close to contemporary dancing. She was throwing herself, and dancing like someone else. She also gave me goosebumps in “Fukyouwaon”, when she laughed with such a scary face. (They’re watching the music video, stopping at minutes 03:54) Look! It surprised me. Ikeda: It’s beyond logic. I couldn’t think of that. Shinguu: That’s why after we finished shooting, there was a moment where she just staring into space. It’s interesting to see what kind of style she’ll show us with the setting we prepared. Ikeda: She must be still nervous in “Silent Majority”. Shinguu: But, it feels like she begun showing herself little by little since “Sekai ni wa Ai shika nai”. I think it’s not something dark, but something more pure. Ikeda: Yeah. Not many idol can give off such goosebumps. - We’re looking forward to your next work for Keyakizaka46! Thank you very much for today! _____________________________________________________________ Ikeda Kazuma is director of Silent Majority, Sekai ni wa Ai shikanai, Otona wa Shinjite kurenai, W-KEYAKIZAKA no Uta, Eccentric, and Getsuyoubi no Asa, Skirt wo Kirareta. Shinguu Ryouhei is director of Katarunara Mirai wo..., Futari Sezon, Fukyouwaon, Kaze ni Fukaretemo, and Glass wo Ware!. _____________________________________________________________ *special thanks to: toomuchidea (Raw & QC) & Seri (QC)

#keyakizaka46 #ikeda kazuma #shinguu ryouhei

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ajoraverse · 7 years ago

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Another thing that, well, I’ll probably have to either retool or ditch. Beta AU side-story draft, taking place pretty much immediately after the last published one.

The Rose Quartz Project

The threat of red supergiant expansion and the ensuing shockwaves had chased gems off the first colony nearly eight hundred thousand years ago, for not even the sturdiest gem or their technology could survive it. The threat triggered the search for what would eventually become Homeworld, and only Homeworld's rejects returned to the first colony when it was safe to do so. They returned to a broken, burnt-out world and did their best to rebuild. Save for a few determined souls, no gem of means or worth to Homeworld would bother with it.

The temple in which representatives from the unsung pillars of gem civilization gathered was one of the few rebuilt and still well-maintained on the first colony, though much of its masonry retained scorch marks and low levels of background radiation from the sun's red giant phase. Nullification shields protected the interior from radiation flare-ups from the white dwarf remnant of the sun, making it more or less safe for occupancy.

On the way to the temple, each ancient visitor stopped at the mausoleum that housed the remains of the Great Maker and the entombed shards of the first few gems to pay their respects. The foundation stones, footings, and all wall stones cracked or shattered by the tidal forces generated by the sun's expansion had been replaced with similar masonry long ago by some unknown bismuth, and the only evidence that anything had happened was an inscription on a nearby plaque. Supposedly the interior was entirely reconstructed with materials from the new colonies, but Peridot felt too undeserving to enter the mausoleum and see for herself.

It had been tens of thousands of years since Kindergarteners last gathered like this. Peridot Facet-1F2 Cut-2AA had only been to a meeting once before, and that had been when she was newly minted as a Kindergartener and her mentor introduced her as her successor. Supervisors pretended not to notice when they traveled en masse to the first colony, and no one questioned what happened at the gatherings. Half of that was out of respect for arcane professions, half of it was out of a habit with origins long forgotten by most gems.

Peridot had gone alone and politely declined or redirected any questions regarding her new pearl's whereabouts. After all, the pearl would have been a novelty and distracted from the research issues at hand. They were here for business, not gossip.

Four peridots gathered around the small table set in the center of one of the four rooms of the temple. Four groups of gems for the four pillars of Homeworld society: peridots produced gems and maintained mechanical systems, bismuths built structures, anorthites provided physical labor for jobs no other gems would take willingly, idocrases wrote the programming that kept their technology functioning. Sixteen gems in all. There had always been sixteen, for the number was tradition. It represented the double magic number of oxygen-16. Eight neutrons and eight protons in the nucleus. Exceptionally stable. Oxygen-16 was a primary product of stellar evolution, formed by stars exclusively from hydrogen. Peridot thought the reasoning was a bit esoteric, maybe a bit pretentious, but she was hardly going to make an issue of it. She was the youngest and least respected of the sixteen gems, well aware that she had her position only because her mentor liked her and saw some potential in her that she never understood, and she certainly had no business questioning anything.

The eldest peridot--not the first, for the first had been shattered by White Diamond eons ago for too many instances of challenging her--spoke in the slow, sonorous tones of epochs as she discussed the new injector models, their improvements and problems compared to older models, recommended practices, and so on. As if she was reading strata and had hit a unconformity, she switched topics abruptly to orders from the Diamonds: larimars would be discontinued until further notice. They were finally deemed obsolete and production on them halted until a better use could be found for them.

Peridot said nothing, though she did do her best to ignore the regret starting to swell within her. She had enjoyed the process of making larimars. They were tricky, requiring cooled lava beds or igneous intrusions into limestone injected into just so and at a slower rate than typical, but lovely all the same. She had taken pride in the fact that all the larimars she made were perfect.

Still, it was not her place to speak up.

The eldest peridot opened the floor for discussion over some little detail of pressure requirements for beryls. Peridot remained silent, because ultimately the scales over which they were arguing were inconsequential in light of the fact that they could not control the native matrix to the extent their thought experiment required. There was only so much a Kindergartener could do with the geology of a given site.

Finally, after what seemed like entirely too long spent dithering over the tiniest of details, the discussion turned to the fact that Pink Diamond was expressing interest in starting a colony. Again. Peridot almost disregarded this, but Yellow Diamond's peridot seemed more certain that something was going to happen this time around. Yellow Diamond was hardly one for futile gestures, and certainly not one to order an exoplanet survey in another galaxy entirely without first having a plan for the results. The younger of the two White Diamond peridots mentioned that Pink Diamond would probably want a properly themed court, and euhedral pink quartzes were such a pain to produce well while still maintaining a degree of quartz sturdiness. Their colors were too prone to fading in sunlight, they did not handle extreme heat well, and an amethyst was more useful. And wasn't it a shame that the fibrous rose quartzes had been discontinued hundreds of thousands of years ago?

That brought Peridot up short. The issue with fibrous rose quartzes was that the dumortierite-like borosilicate fibers that gave rose quartzes their color also had the unintended side-effect of instilling a degree of independent thought and capriciousness that was unwelcome in quartzes. It was for similar reasons that blue quartzes had also been discontinued before Peridot's time: their coloration was caused by the same ilmenite inclusions that made Peridot off-color, but at concentrations so high that they could barely function in their assigned roles. But if they could tame those fibers...

"Why can't we file a proposal to reinstate rose quartz production for Pink Diamond?" Peridot asked at last, once she managed to find an opening.

"My Diamond discontinued rose quartzes because they started getting ideas," the younger White Diamond peridot, Peridot Facet-3C Cut-416, said in that superior air of hers. Peridot 416 certainly didn't like her and took every opportunity to needle her. "Those inclusions only ruin what might be a perfectly fine gem."

Peridot recognized the jab, for her own inclusions were no secret to them, and spoke before she could fully process it. "All the studies suggest that the problem with the inclusions was that the Mark was never programmed to take them into account. If we can establish pre-defined parameters for the Mark to build along those inclusions, we give them a purpose beyond simply getting in the way of Mark pathways developed in the crystal lattices. We can use those inclusions to program additional skillsets, or--"

"It doesn't matter." Peridot 416 sneered, making her wish she'd never spoken up. "They'll still be off-color."

The eldest peridot lifted a hand to stifle the argument. Peridot 416, who looked as if she wanted to continue, bit back whatever was on the tip of her tongue and settled back onto her stool. Peridot 2AA tried not to wring her hands under the table. Speaking up had been a mistake.

"There is no mineral that is completely free of impurities. It is the same with gems." The eldest peridot turned her attention to Peridot 2AA, who felt as if she was being examined. "We used to be more accepting of off-colors than we are now. For this reason, I agreed to allow Peridot 4DF's apprentice to take her place among us. Now then. You were talking about skillsets?"

Peridot started with a stammer that was so bad that she bit the side of her tongue. She took a breath and tried again. "I--I tested a hypothesis with the help of Idocrase Facet-9Z Cut-3GN: that the Maker's Mark can be reprogrammed to repair minor fractures in gems with the assistance of a mineral-rich liquid medium. The documentation is on the research network under the Gem Development Studies heading. The first few attempts on dud gems worked well, so I repaired my pearl with it. My pearl reports no lingering pain from the fractures, so I am confident in concluding that the experiment was a success. I thought, perhaps we can program the Mark to build repair nanobot factories within those inclusions. It's a simple adjustment in the programming--"

"Why go through all that effort when it's just easier to inject a new gem?" Peridot 416 asked, her expression almost bored and dismissive. "We already have suitable injection formulas and materials, we don't need to play around with the software just because we can."

Yellow Diamond's peridot leaned over the table towards Peridot 2AA. "Fascinating. Does the alteration of the gem's chemical makeup with new mineral latticework change the pearl's behavior any?"

"I... I really wouldn't know. The fractures were small enough not to be immediately noticeable." Peridot hadn't really thought on what side-effects might occur from replacing missing minerals. "I doubt it would be much different than having a few small inclusions."

[annnd this was supposed to go on to the elder WD peridot taking the idea to WD because Peridot 2AA has little real standing, having the project eventually passed to PD and approved despite WD's disagreement, and eventually result in the entire cut of rose quartzes having some ability to heal.

Buuuut, lol, PD = RQ so oh well]

#SU: Beta AU

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julystorms · 7 years ago

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Hello! How do you think the Survey Corps handle unplanned pregnancies within their ranks? Especially, let’s say, if they are people with positions— like squad leaders. I really wanna know your thoughts on this :D

Sorry, I promise I wasn’t ignoring your first ask! I just wantedto find the time to respond properly. For the longest time I had a drafted metapost about this topic (“Pregnancy & Disability in the Survey Corps”) that Ioccasionally added to when I had a thought. I think I deleted it when I purgedmy drafts, though. Oops!

I definitely have a lot of thoughts on the topic. This is a really long post; there are a lot of things to consider with a question like this!

Let me start by saying this: I feel that strong worldbuilding isprimarily a result of consistency. I know SnK’s worldbuilding is, overall,rather weak, but there’s no reason we as creators can’t force consistency intoour own narrative explorations of that world! A consistent set of rules for thecharacters to operate under make for a better experience overall, not just inthe canon, but also for readers/viewers of fanworks. You can always switch thingsup for fun, but I personally like to have one particular set of rules that I useby default. It makes it easier for me as a writer to sink down into the storyand portray it without having to think too hard about every little detail as Igo.

One of the most interestingthings about SnK is that it portrays a sexist world but still allows women intothe ranks of its military branches—all three of them. However, we generallydon’t see women in positions of power: there are no female government members,no powerful merchants, no notable members of the aristocracy, and no confirmedtop female officers*.

*Rico is the closest we get,but she doesn’t seem any higher-ranked than Ian or Mitabi were, and is clearly outrankedby Kitz, so she doesn’t count. Hange is the only POSSIBLE high-ranked femaleofficer in the entire series, but “possible” =/= “actual” so again, no-go.

Boris accuses Hitch of(essentially) using her femininity in an underhanded way to get into the MP; asI’ve said before, we don’t know if he’s right or if he’s just trying to be anasshole because he doesn’t like Hitch, but I think it’s fair to say that thiskind of misogyny is something that women in SnK’s military face on the regular,especially if they perform on par with male classmates. Hell, this is somethingwomen who work in male dominated fields face daily in our world. It doesn’t surprise me. Isayama’s not portraying autopia with this series, after all. But it’s clear he didn’t put a lot ofthought into the little things: like sexism/misogyny in the military and how itwould clearly impact the lives of the girls and young women who enlist.

I don’t think it makessense to say: SnK’s world is 100% reliable and the narration we receive is 100%credible. We don’t see what happens to our female characters behind-the-scenes.We don’t see if they’re treated differently by their instructors, teachers,trainers—in front of peers or alone. We don’t see if any of them werepropositioned for sex or other favors. We don’t know that team leaders in theSurvey Corps, Military Police, and Garrison don’t abuse their positions of relativepower over new recruits. We have to assume that in an imperfect and clearly sexistworld, these kinds of things do happen, and some people aren’t left with a lotof choice as to how to deal with it. What would Hitch be able to do if hercommanding officer (Eibringer IIRC) propositioned her or touched her or [insertother possibilities here]? Who is she going to tell? Will they believe her? Andwhat are the chances that saying something would tank her career in the MP? Shedid all that work to get into the MP; would she risk doing something now that might get it taken away again? Yeah, saying nothing means putting up with abuse, but if she doesn’t disturb thewater, so to speak, she’ll have a long career that pays well ahead of her—somethingmost people on Paradis don’t get to have. These are the little details thatweren’t considered but do mean agreat deal when you’re writing about the daily ins and outs of the world thesecharacters live in.

Which brings me topregnancy, sex, and all related topics. I’ve seen writers use various kinds oftea as “birth control.” I’ve seen authors use oral sex or the pull-out methodto try and avoid the possibility of pregnancy. Some characters track theircycle (assuming for them it’s reliable enough to be tracked) as a form of birthcontrol. And look, all of these are perfectly valid and all are very likelyused in the world of SnK. Not all of them work. There may not be many herbalremedies that are effective; there may not be many that are readily or cheaplyavailable. These are the things to think about. Just because someone claims itworks doesn’t mean it does. The characters have to contend with that!

And because no methodexcept abstinence is 100% effective, some characters are going to get pregnant—andnot just in the Survey Corps.

This world is sexist. Youhave to consider whether or not the Garrison or MP would allow for pregnantsoldiers to stay enlisted and you have to think about what would happen after ababy was born. Think carefully. Yes, it seems feasible to work and raise achild, especially on the Military Police’s paygrade. But would it be allowed? Again, we don’t see hardly any femalecharacters in a position of power, and the ones we do see aren’t shown to bemarried or have children.

Think, too, about thepopulation, and about the world’s belief that humanity is going extinct insidethe walls. All of these things affect the mindset of the general population:how they feel about women, what they feel a woman’s job/place in the world is,and so on. Notice that in background shots, you see women carrying babies,groceries, with their children, and always wearing skirts. Chances are, womenare wives, daughters, housekeepers, and babymakers first and foremost, andworking women (women who don’t have a choice and/or are yet unmarried) do “lowerwork” and probably not for much money (laundry for better-off folks, shellingnuts, simple factory tasks, sewing/darning, waitressing, prostitution).

All right, so…with these considerationsin mind, let’s talk about pregnancy.

There’s a lot to thinkabout when it comes to someone in the military of SnK’s world getting pregnant.Is it considered shameful to get pregnant out of wedlock? Seems kind of thatway, re: Historia’s awful mother and cheating father. Nobody blinks an eye atmen having affairs but women are another story. What are their optionsregarding birth? Are midwives easy to find? Doctors who can make a differentsure seem rare (re: Grisha showing up and magically being able to help people;Ragako Village letting some quack come in and inject them all without oncequestioning it)! Midwives who are trained and experienced? Expensive andprobably not easy to come by. You’re probably going to be stuck with anotherwoman who has given birth before helping you out, and if something out of the ordinaryhappens, you or your baby could die. Because of this, abortion may be anoption, but what kinds of choices do these people have? The old coat-hangerroutine (that can easily end with death when the bleeding doesn’t stop and isextremely painful)? Herbal remedies that might have side-effects that you can’thide/that may spell the end for your career?

If we assume that pregnancyand childbirth are a free pass out of the military, it will be abused. Therehave to be measures in place that would make a person want to avoid pregnancy.Is it a dishonorable discharge? Do you have to pay a fee? Do you have to givethe baby up for adoption? These sorts of things would discourage a lot ofpeople who might otherwise benefit from having a baby. The Survey Corps alsohas a built-in discouragement: your lover dying and leaving you alone with ababy to raise. But then, what’s to stop them from crippling themselves to getout? It wouldn’t be that hard to drive a sword through your own foot and makeit look like an accident. (No doubt doing this on purpose is treasonous andpunishable by death, just like running away/disobeying orders if doing soyields bad results.) The only way to keep that in check is to assume that itwould be hard for them to find work if they were too disabled. Maybe for somepeople it would be worth it, but others…not so much.

Being realistic, losingyour post in the Military Police would be discouragement enough; characterslike Hitch who are young and wanted very much to get in and stay in are likelyto avoid pregnancy like hell; any man who got her pregnant could deny it andwhat recourse would she have if he refused to acknowledge her and help her? Theydon’t have paternal testing in this world. And she’s not a high-rankedrespected member of the military: she’d be out of a job with two mouths to feedand no experience in anything but military training! That’s terrifying. In manyways, that serves as its own form of birth control. (But we can’t pretend thatmen don’t abuse their positions of power in the military and push themselves onwomen anyway. We can’t pretend that characters like Hitch can always say no and have that norespected. She’s going to be thought of as disposable to many people.)

The Garrison is a littlebit more interesting. They’re not hurting for soldiers, so if a few women hereand there decide to get pregnant and leave the military, there will be plentyof replacements to take their places. It’s possible that the Garrison forcesyou to quit but it’s not looked on so poorly. It’s also possible that if you’rerespected or liked enough, or you know the right people, you might be allowedto keep working doing administrative work. Hey, being a paper-pusher might notpay as well as scouting on top of the walls or cleaning artillery, but at leastit’s work if you need it. And if you’re single: you will. Plus, since yourstation is permanent, you could have your parents move in with you to help withthe kid and maintain a full-time job without too many issues. Hell, because it’snot so terrible a crime, or even a crime at all, you can probably speedily getmarried and avoid too much gossip. (That’s not to say that people aren’t kickedright out of the Garrison for getting pregnant, but there’s probably more roomfor the well-liked and hard-working individuals to stay on after giving birth.The MP are elites and may view pregnancy out of wedlock (possibly also workingwives) as imperfect and therefore not okay. Garrison soldiers are not elitesand don’t have those kinds of delusions or grand appearances to keep up.

That brings me to theSurvey Corps. How many people join only to regret it a few months later? A babyseems a small price to pay compared to being eaten by a titan, trampled, orworse, mangled so badly you’re permanently disabled & discharged from themilitary—left with no way to care for yourself (except to maybe rely onrelatives if you have any to take care of you). Like I said earlier, if havinga baby was a free ticket out of the Survey Corps, people would be trying for iton purpose. There must be rules in place: dishonorable discharge,fraternization rules with stiff penalties, a steep fee you have to pay toleave, you’re forced to stay in the military and give up the baby for adoption.One or several of these would work well.

That said, giving up a babyfor adoption seems fine, but this is a world where the population is both “toosmall” and “way too big” (ugh…). It makes sense in its own way, but there areprobably tons of homeless children out there like Eren, Mikasa, and Armin, who didn’t join the military. There areprobably lots of young women in poverty with babies they can’t take care of,dropping them off at churches and on the porches of slightly better off people—maybeeven at military HQ buildings. That makes that option feel…a lot less likelyIMO.

I want to look at anexample. Let’s say Nanaba and Mike are in a relationship and she finds out thatshe’s pregnant. Now, Mike’s a decent person, right? He won’t deny his role inNanaba’s pregnancy. In that way, she’s luckier than some women would be, butshe still has to tell him, still has to deal with his reaction. It’s her bodybut her options kind of all suck, so it might be nice for her to discuss itwith him and get his opinion, too. How far along does she think she is, howsafe are abortion methods, would she be comfortable aborting, what are theside-effects of trying something like that—arethe risks worth it? If they are, she has to try one of them, and theoutcome could be: hey, she can return to work in a few days (everyone probablyknows why she wasn’t around, tbh). It could also just as easily be: she triesto return to work and can’t due to side-effects of an herbal remedy or becauseher body is too weak, or she hemorrhages and dies within 24 hours, or she doesreturn to work but the side-effects linger and cause her death on an expedition—orworse, they cause someone else’s death.

So maybe she decides tokeep the baby. Mike cares about her, he won’t abandon her to raise a baby alonewith no help, but where is she going to live? With her parent(s)? His? Alone?What if neither of them have living parents? Or, as portrayed in the anime,what if her parent(s) are abusive? Is she going to take her baby back to aplace like that? Does she have much of a choice?

Maybe she does. Maybe Mike’sparents will be happy to have her live with them. Mike can send them money. Heonly gets furlough at most 4x a year so they get to see each other a few timesa year for a few days/a week. This could depend on how far away they live, somaybe Mike uses some savings to move them closer so that visiting can happen onweekends or afternoons off. Cool. Great.

If Mike is 40, his parentsare likely to be 60+ years old and maybe not in the greatest health. This worlddoesn’t exactly allow for easy aging, you know. Are they working? Is Mikepaying all the bills himself? Well, what’ll happen when Mike eventually dies oris hurt so badly he can’t fight anymore and is sent home to die or lay arounduselessly?

Nanaba has to sit at homeand think about that kind of stuff. What if Mike dies? She can’t help him, can’tbe there for him; she’s just at home waiting for the news. It’s possible he’lldie before their kid is very old and won’t remember him at all. How are thebills going to be paid? Are his parents capable of watching the kid if Nanabahas to try and go to work herself?

It’s scary no matter howyou slice it.

And that’s not includingthe potential dishonorable discharge, payment of a high fee for leaving, andpossibly even a paycut for the remaining spouse if they fess up to their rolein it (all of which make raising a baby even more difficult).

You would think thispotential future (or worse, depending on circumstance) would promote abstinence(or at least methods of sex that have no chance for pregnancy)—and it probablydoes…but not in everyone. A lot of people enjoy sex, and mistakes happen; somepeople may just get carried away but others may have too much to drink or lackthe foresight to consider what may happen to them if they do get pregnant.

The problem here is that it’swomen who primarily suffer the consequences of a pregnancy. It’s women who losetheir position in the military. It’s women who can be pushed around or abusedby male peers or superior officers and women who won’t be trusted or believedif they complain. And it sucks, but in the world we’re presented with in the canon…itfits. And it leaves us to wonder how many women this happens to. How many arepassed over for promotion because they’re women (and considered likely toleave/want to leave/or less-than their male counterparts)?

It really makes you think!

I know I didn’t give you adefinitive answer to your question, anon, but I hope that there was enoughspeculation here to help you come up with your own headcanons (while alsogiving you a good idea of what mine might be). ;)

The usual disclaimer: IMO, YMMV, et cetera and so on.

To add, I didn’t really talk a whole lot about pregnancies as a product of rape or of a loving relationship where the man denies his part in it, but a lot of the same things apply.

Lastly, I don’t want readers to think that men can get away with anything in the SnK world; I don’t actually think that’s the case. But like in our own world, a patriarchal society makes it hard for women to feel safe speaking up, with the result being that very few women do. The problem with SnK is that there aren’t many ways to prove that what you’re saying is true; if you say you’re pregnant, you can’t prove who the father is unless by some miracle that baby comes out looking like them (and that would truly be a mixed blessing anyway). If you’re not a respected officer who will believe you? If you’re accusing a respected officer, or worse, accusing someone who is married with children already, do you think anybody will be on your side? I do think some men are caught in the act, or there is proof of some kind (love letters clearly written by them); sometimes they’re even brought to court and prosecuted for crimes and fired or sent to jail or fined (and forced to pay some compensation to the mother-to-be in the case of a child). But how often do these things end in favor of the women involved? Probably not often. With rape it’s: “Boys will be boys.” “What were you wearing?” “Well you can’t blame him... you’re a healthy, attractive young woman.” How many women say something and are faced with these kinds of things? In court, even? Women still hear some of these things today. In a modern society. And with men who would choose to run from their responsibilities instead of facing them like an adult, the women involved still have to deal with the emotional betrayal and all of the other fallout.

It’d be kind of silly to imagine that a fantasy world that clearly functions as a patriarchal society wouldn’t be almost exactly the same in this regard.

#snk #snk hour with july #snk meta #tw: abuse #tw: rape #tw: pregnancy #for the record i think the results in the SC are the same #no matter what your position is #i doubt the rules there bend for more important people #cute anons

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