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h0neylevi · 4 days ago

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After a major shift, your life has become a series of monotonous routines. Eat, sleep, go to work, repeat. But when you find a man bleeding on the subway with no idea how he got there, things become anything but ordinary.

General content warnings: isekai/parallel universe, modern AU, mentions of blood and canon-typical violence, some light angst, eventual smut.

chapter warnings: mentions of blood/cleaning of wounds

word count: 3.2k

It’s just after midnight when you make it to the metro platform.

The descent underground is quiet. Below the bustling city streets, you go through the process of boarding a train back home in a bit of a mindless daze, having done this cycle of late night shifts at the hospital countless times before.

The carriage is empty when you walk on board, silent except for the pneumatic hiss of the doors that slide closed behind you. You fall into the nearest seat with a heavy sigh.

It’s the first time in thirteen hours you’ve really been able to get off your feet.

Working four 12 hour days in a row can be tiring, but it’s worth it most of the time for the following four days off that you’re able to get. Four days off of freedom—which usually means catching up on errands. Laundry, getting groceries, and cleaning.

It’s just you now, so things tend to pile up much more quickly.

As you feel the rumble of movement beneath you, the momentum causing you to sway a little in your seat, you stare unblinking at the opposite window. Flashes of advertisements and thick concrete tunnel walls speed by in a blur, and you allow your mind to wander.

Maybe you could go to that new cafe in the morning that opened up on College Street. It’s been a while since you’ve taken a moment just for yourself. Or maybe you could take a book to the park after cleaning your apartment. The weather was supposed to be nice, and that used to be your favorite thing to do before…

The train slows to a stop before you continue down that line of thinking. With a droning chime, the doors open to signal would-be passengers to either depart or climb aboard.

A pleasant female voice erupts from the intercom system. “This is Freedom Park Station. Please stand clear of the doors.”

It’s not unheard of for others to be out so late, particularly on a Friday night, so to see a man walk aboard doesn’t immediately surprise you.

What does cause you to do a double take is the state of him.

The first thing you see is the insignia of the wings of freedom, a symbol you immediately recognize on the back of the green cloak covering his upper half from one of your favorite shows, Attack on Titan.

The second thing you notice is that he’s soaked.

That’s odd. You don’t remember it raining earlier in the day, but it could have been a brief downpour in another part of the city. And he’s clearly coming from an anime convention. Those were usually held at the convention center on the other side of the city.

The man heavily slumps forward against the railing. His back is turned toward you, but you watch him thoughtfully, admiring the impressive handiwork of his costume. From under the cloak, you see the intricately wrapped belts of the omni-directional gear, as well as the boxes along his thighs that are used in the show to store blades. When you see a reflection of an advertisement briefly glimmer off of the surface, you realize that they’re actually metal.

Those must be heavy. Did he make them himself?

The train begins to move again and your thoughts are stopped short when the man stumbles, nearly falling. That’s when he turns and you notice the blood.

His face is covered in it.

You’re on your feet before you even realize it. “Excuse me.”

He turns at the sound of your voice and you see the source: a rough cut just above his right eyebrow.

The man sways unsteadily on his feet against the movement of the train. The look he gives you is immediately distrusting, but he doesn’t back away.

You stop a few feet from him. “Sir, are you okay?” When his eyes narrow, you point to the badge pinned to your work scrubs. “I’m a nurse, see?”

You wait as his eyes study your hospital badge for a moment.

“Where the hell am I?”

Okay, that’s potentially a cause for concern. “Uh.” You try to remember what stop he got on from. “Freedom Park.” The look on his face doesn’t resemble recognition. “You’re not from around here?”

For a moment, he seems to think. “No.”

There’s a sharp jolt from the train car and you both sway a little, him more than you.

You gesture to the empty seat next to him. “Here. You should probably sit down.”

He doesn’t argue as he takes a seat.

Looking him over, you consider your options. It isn’t too late to take him back to the hospital, but you don’t exactly want to after spending the entire day there already. From the looks of it, it doesn’t look like he’ll need stitches, but it doesn’t feel right to leave him alone in the state he’s in either.

“Can you tell me what happened?” you ask.

The man looks around for a moment. The look on his face turns apprehensive. “I don’t remember. There was a flash… and then I just woke up here.”

You raise your brows. Something about the way he says it feels like he isn’t being completely honest, but you suppose the bleeding itself is a more pressing concern right now anyway.

“Okay,” you say. “Well, that cut doesn’t look too deep, but you should get it cleaned.” You pause for a moment, debating. “My apartment is at the next stop.”

You had meant it as a suggestion, but the man doesn’t seem to follow.

“I can look at it for you,” you add. “Maybe help you find wherever you were supposed to stay.”

He seems to consider it for a long moment, looking from you to around the empty train car and then back to your badge.

“Alright,” he says as the train begins to slow. When it comes to a stop and the doors open with their loud hydraulic hiss, he follows you back out onto the platform.

It’s quiet for most of the walk back. You go through the motions of exiting the station—swiping your pass and leading the way up the winding corridors to street level while the man follows, watching your movements and your surroundings with a puzzled sort of awe.

It isn’t until you’re pulling out the keys to your place before you turn to him again.

“So, what’s your name?”

He gives you a subdued look. “Levi.”

You smile.

“No, really…” you press, looking over his clothes again. It’s obvious that’s what he’s going for now that you see him up close—the scout uniform and the way he’s styled his hair. Come to think of it, he has Levi’s frame as well. And his eyes.

It’s a damn good cosplay actually. If Levi Ackerman were to magically come out of the television screen as a flesh and blood person, he’d look exactly like this guy.

But judging by his expression and the complete lack of response, he isn’t interested in giving you any sort of real information.

You turn then, your smile dropping, and lead the way into the apartment building. “O-kay.”

It’s possible, you guess, that his name really is Levi. Just a very bizarre coincidence that he happens to look and act exactly like your favorite character from an anime and also likes the anime as well. There are billions of people in the world though. Stranger things happen all the time.

Reluctant to piss him off further, the rest of the walk up to the second floor is done in more silence. You unlock your front door and lead the way inside, smiling when you hear the telltale trill of your cat greeting you at the door.

“Hello, Luna,” you greet, bending down to run your hand between the shorthair’s ears. She pushes herself up into your hand a little further with a chirp.

Still at the door, the man—Levi—watches.

“Luna?” he asks in a flat tone.

You straighten back up, noting his hesitancy to walk forward. “You’re not allergic, are you?” That would be some cosmic bad luck on his part to deal with a head wound and an allergic reaction in one night.

But thankfully, he shakes his head.

“Don’t worry about her, she’s affectionate but she’s harmless,” you say, sidestepping around your cat to walk further into your living room. When Levi joins you, you gesture to the sofa. “Have a seat there. I’ll be right back with some supplies.”

You don’t wait around to see if he does what you say, instead dipping down the hall toward a small office. It’s mostly just a place for all of your trinkets—a desk filled with a few figures and a computer. Some bookshelves line the walls, collecting dust. It’s been months since you’ve picked up a good book or did much of anything in this room, really. But you know exactly where to look for the supply kits you’ve managed to stock up on from the hospital.

After you find the suture thread and some wound wash, you grab a towel from the bathroom next door and return to the living room.

Levi is there, sitting on the edge of the sofa as if he’s afraid to get comfortable. His gaze keeps jumping around the room, taking in the layout and decor, and his fists rest stiffly on his knees. Luna is next to him, tentatively sniffing at his knuckles with a curious stretch of her neck.

You shoo her away gently and take her place on the sofa. The angle of light allows you to see the source of the drying blood on his face a bit better.

Quietly, you look him over. “How are you feeling?”

He watches as you slip on a pair of gloves. “I’ve had worse.”

You snort lightly and begin to prep the fresh towel with wound wash.

“Do you have stuff like this happen to you often?” you ask, now reaching to press the towel to his face.

At your question, he pulls his one uncovered eye from you, surveying the room again. “Nothing quite like this.”

“What happened?”

Levi is quiet for a moment before he says, “It was nothing. I fell.”

You pause your movements, frowning. “This doesn’t look like the kind of cut you’d get from a fall.”

“Why does it matter?”

Judging by his defensive tone, he knows more than he’s letting on, but you can’t figure out why he isn’t being honest.

But with him already in your apartment, you don’t want to do anything to unnecessarily antagonize him. Even in his current state, he looks strong and capable enough to hurt you.

Probably best to just change the subject.

“Did you have somewhere you were staying?” you ask, returning to your task.

You gently dab the towel down the curve of his jaw and feel the muscle tense beneath your touch.

“No,” he finally says.

“You came all the way here for a convention and didn’t book a hotel?”

“A convention?”

“Yeah,” you nod, gesturing to his clothes. “You’re a scout, right?”

At your words, his expression becomes a bit more relieved. He nods. “Yes. I got onto that... train thing because I hoped it might take me to headquarters.”

You blink as you listen to him. Did he hit his head hard enough for him to think that he is Levi Ackerman?

Maybe you should take him to the hospital anyway just to get him checked out. He seems perfectly lucid otherwise though, if a bit confused.

You reach forward and check his head wound again. Just like you thought, it’s too shallow to need stitches and isn’t bleeding anymore, so that’s a good sign. Maybe it could wait until morning.

“Do you feel sick?” you ask, searching his expression for any lack of focus or disorientation but find none. “Nauseated? Dizzy?”

“Other than the stabbing pain above my eye?” he deadpans, glaring at you. “No. I feel fine.”

You sigh. This is insane, considering letting a complete stranger stay in your apartment. But he doesn’t have anywhere else to go and he’s still soaking wet. You’d feel guilty if you just let him go and he got into trouble. At the very least, you could make sure he has somewhere to sleep.

You get to your feet and look over his clothes once more. “You can stay here tonight if you’d like. I think I might have some old clothes you can sleep in, and there’s a shower down the hall.”

He gives you a distrustful look. “You’re putting a lot of faith in a stranger.”

You raise a brow. “I guess we both are. But if you’d rather sleep out in the cold, then be my guest.”

That seems to give him pause, and he looks around the room once more.

“Where did you say the shower was?”

“Down the hall, second door on the left,” you tell him. “I can get you a towel and some clothes.”

You dispose quickly of the bloodied towel in your kitchen trash along with your gloves and turn back down the hall again. When you return, Levi is standing awkwardly next to your sofa. He seems to be pointedly ignoring Luna, who is still curiously sniffing him from the armrest.

“These should fit,” you tell him, patting the folded up sweatpants and an oversized shirt tucked beneath your arm. “Just leave your things in the bathroom and I’ll make sure your clothes are washed in the morning.”

He takes the items from you with another skeptical glance. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I have to do laundry anyway,” you wave him off. “It’s no trouble.” Quickly, you point at him. “Just don’t scrub at that cut. You’ll just make it bleed again.”

He doesn’t move immediately when you back away to let him pass by, but the promise of a hot shower seems to eventually override whatever keeps him fixed in place. Without another word, he retreats down the hall, right to the second door on the left like you told him.

What a strange man.

It takes fifteen minutes before you hear the shower turn on.

In that time, you busy yourself with finding a spare blanket and a pillow and leave them on the sofa. You tidy up a little next, grabbing leftover drinking glasses off the table and discarded socks that had been pushed under the coffee table. It isn’t much, but you’re left feeling slightly less anxious about the state of your place by the time you’re finished. You like to keep things tidy to begin with, but the place certainly looks lived in right now.

Curious, you sink into a chair and pull out your phone while you’re waiting and click on the search engine, quickly typing in a few keywords to check on any local anime conventions happening in the area.

There are no ongoing events, and the next one isn’t happening until six months from now.

Well, that eliminates your theory. So then what the hell was he doing cosplaying on the street on a random Friday? If he was with someone, he wouldn’t have been wandering around alone and he said he wasn’t staying anywhere in the area.

The thought occurs to you that maybe this is some sort of trap to lure unsuspecting women into vulnerable positions, preying on a person’s compassion. But then, that was very real blood on his face and a very real wound, and he has had ample opportunities to attack and rob you if that was truly what he was after. He might look intimidating, but there’s nothing about him that screams that you’re in any sort of immediate danger either.

Maybe you can get some real answers out of him in the morning when he’s less grumpy.

You’re feeding Luna in the kitchen when Levi reappears.

With silent relief, you note that his wound seems to still be fine. He looks healthier in general after cleaning off, but he also looks… well, even more like Levi Ackerman. It’s kind of uncanny.

“What?”

You jump when you hear his voice. He’s watching you from the living room, looking about as confused as you feel.

Shit, have you been staring? “Nothing.” You sigh and rub at your eyes. It’s been too long of a day to start questioning your sanity. “Are you hungry or anything? I have some leftovers I can heat up really quick.”

“I’m fine.” He shakes his head and turns his attention to the blanket and pillow on the sofa.

Carefully, he arranges it how he likes and sits down. He glances at the television on the other side of the room before looking around again, lingering at times on things like the lamps in the corners and over to the open kitchen.

His hands fidget in his lap.

“I’ll be out of here first thing in the morning.”

The sound of his voice surprises you.

“Where are you going to go?”

He shrugs. “I’ll figure it out.”

You chew on the inside of your cheek thoughtfully. He’s a grown man, so it shouldn’t concern you what he does. But his comments about not being from here, and the whole thing about him trying to find ‘headquarters’? You’d feel better knowing there isn’t anything you’ve missed.

“At least let me take you to the hospital to get that cut checked out,” you suggest. “We can go first thing while your clothes are drying.”

He scoffs but the sound is entirely devoid of humor. “I told you I’m fine.”

“So it’ll be a quick visit and you can be on your way in no time,” you reply. “One of the doctors I work with can look you over before we open. He won’t mind.”

“Or I could just leave in the middle of the night.”

“I guess.” You shrug. “I wouldn’t be able to stop you, but that’s your choice. My conscience can be clear as long as I’ve offered to help you. I can’t make you take it, but I think it’s a good idea.”

He glares at you from the sofa, but doesn’t reply.

You get the sense that he doesn’t want to be bothered anymore. With the night he’s had, he probably just wants some rest, and you’re more than willing to get some sleep yourself.

Now that the shock of the night has worn off a bit, your body feels heavy as you get to your feet.

Levi stays quiet as you move around the room, shutting off lights and locking your front door. He moves to lay down once he gathers what you’re doing.

“I’ll get you up in the morning,” you tell him from the hallway. “Get some sleep.”

That earns you little more than a grunt of acknowledgement.

When you get into your room, you make sure to lock the door and find a baseball bat from the depths of your closet to sit by your bed. You’ve always been a light sleeper, so you hope that you’ll be able to hear if he decides to try anything.

You go through your nightly routine and climb into bed, then send off a text before closing your eyes—a message to one of your friends and fellow co-workers at the hospital.

Hey, could you do me a huge favor tomorrow morning? It’ll be quick.

Hopefully, when you wake up, Levi will still be there.

#levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #levi ackerman x fem!reader #levi ackerman x you #aot fic #levi ackerman

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lunellum · 8 months ago

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Some random observations/thoughts/opinions while I'm vacationing in Japan. In no particular order, with no particular value

There's more green on regular streets than I was expecting. It's nice.

It's really hard to find deodorant

I like the shape and depth of japanese bathtubs but it's a little hard to get out of

Wish I had so many options for tasty cheap snacks at home

On the other hand, so much single sue plastic

You really are being advertised to all the time. I can't read most of it so it's just blinking colourful lights to me but whoof.

Some billboards make sound? ???

Some metro lines have anime boy mascots

Stamps. Stamps for temples, stamps for train stations, stamps for government buildings. Gotta collect them all

More to be added maybe as I think of things...

#lunellum personal #post in progress

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cauli-flawa · 5 months ago

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I had a kind of weird, kind of interesting dream last night.

The dream took place in an orange and white metro train. In this train, the passengers could experience their favorite things and greatest desires through pre-selected options. Me and two other people refused to join in, because we believed that the joy of living in essentially a fake, pre-made world was a fake joy. We ended up getting forced into the train's system by a staff member, and had to break out.

The dream ended with a view of the subway station from outside (it was one of those stations that wasn't underground). Underneath a glass dome ceiling, two girls were walking and talking to one another as they approached the station. The sky was split between orange and blue. One girl stood in the orange sky, the other in the blue sky.

I remember what it was like riding that train. There was complete silence. There were a few people on the train, all looked happy, but no one spoke a word aside from an old woman's greeting. Every 5 seconds, the orange screens changed to a different advertisement related to the subway, all of them promoted the idea of going to your very own dream world.

#dream #unreality #(just in case)

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unearthlycat · 1 year ago

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so much potential for worldbuilding shenanigans with iterator cities though. the person that is also a place that was full of people and life and culture however weird and semi-artificial - maybe sterile and bland by intent of construction but inevitably influenced by the actual people who lived there

people living in blocks and tall skyscrapers staring out the windows and decorating their balconies. built up haphazard streets of early iterator cities where nobody was really meant to be living there at first; oddball planning choices because such-and-such a council had a decade-long fight with another over the placement of a specific type of building zone because of proximity to some piece of equipment or another, or because some rich influential type wanted to keep their nice view out the windows--

the design of the iterator puppet used like a local mascot - the colors used on the livery of official city business. marketable plushies because of course there were; cute little symbols and drawings to represent the cities themselves - in advertisements; in political cartoons; in official signs and on stamps--

the structure of luna and metropolis like the difference between a half-finished attic and a penthouse, overstuffed historical districts and dying over-capacity public utilities; half-empty miles of late-era bloc housing and shiny new construction projects. mass transit, metro maps and train stations and traffic predictions; streets of temples and meeting-houses; run-down malls and bustling shopping squares; shitty apartments a view of nothing but more buildings until the edge looks out into the sky.

i don't even know. but people lived there, enough to need to build a city like a city, and that had to have meant something.

#im just rambling words together here at like 1am but i just #i dont know just something about the mundanity of it all gets to me #this was a Place Where People Lived #you are the rat on the ruins of the alien new york subway platforms because there was at some point an alien new york to have a subway #this post brought to you by my dump doc growing a new branch of worldbuilding caused by two oneoff ocs in a fic having offhand conversation #about shitty five pebbles-looks to the moon bridge traffic lmao #rw #fj.txt #iterators

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octomae · 7 months ago

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Hachi and Nana w/ “Just sit down and let me help you. I’m here for you. You’re not alone anymore.” Preferably platonic ok thanks pookie :3

oh i love them i will absolutely take any excuse i can get to write these two they are the best friends of ALL TIME. i... did modify the sentence more than i usually do. i hope this is still alright <3

a slight explanation on how i headcanon kamabo worked: after the inkantation went off and octolings started abandoning the domes, it advertised itself to octolings as a "protected escape route", and promised "training" to help "prepare those who wanted to reach the surface". it boasted that its "training" had a 100% success rate, which nobody was around to refute because all octolings who took the tests were never seen again.

this one takes place in one of my ocverses, but nothing changes with these two <3 the ocverse stuff is just background info

Nana's hands were shaking when she woke up. The walls were white, the sheets were white, even her ink was white, and she could barely breathe. At least the bed was comfortable.

The only splash of color in the room was the red of Hachi's tentacles, and the black of his outfit contrasted against the white of the hospital room. He was seated at the foot of the bed, his head resting on his arms and his eyes closed. It was enough for her to anchor herself to. It was enough to calm her panic.

Though, as she became more and more aware, more and more questions bubbled to the surface of her thoughts. She hadn't seen Hachi in... a long time. The last thing she remembered was being face to face with the Telephone, miserably explaining that she had run out of CQ points and couldn't continue the tests. It had all gone dark after that. So how was she here?

Her hands were shaking, and she couldn't quite breathe right. Each question with no answer only brought with it more anxiety, piling up on itself more and more until she couldn't catch a single breath at all.

"Nana?" Hachi's voice and the familiar warble of octarian snapped her back to herself, and she stared across the sheets to meet his eyes. He pushed himself up off the bed to sit properly in the chair, staring at her like he couldn't believe she was there.

She wasn't sure she believed it herself.

"Oh my cod, Nana." Hachi's voice broke, and tears sprang to his eyes, and he stood up so abruptly that the chair he'd been sitting in almost fell backwards. She only had time to hear the skid of its wooden legs against the tile floor before he was hugging her.

He was warm. She could feel him breathing against her, the shuddering breaths born of tears trembling against her. She lifted her trembling hands and hugged him back.

"Hachi?" she asked. Her voice was raspy from disuse, but she cleared it out and continued to speak. "What's-? Is this still Kamabo? Did you start your tests yet?"

"No," Hachi sobbed, "no, Nana, this is- we're on the surface, Nana. We made it."

Nana felt herself go still. The surface? But... she'd failed the tests. The Telephone had been very clear that failure was the end, that failures didn't get to go to the promised land. She'd spent so long on that train all alone, trying and trying to no avail. She hadn't been good enough.

"But I didn't pass the tests," she said faintly, dazed with her head full of clouds. "The... The Telephone said I wouldn't get to go if I didn't pass the tests."

She could remember being on the train all alone, saying apologies to Hachi that he would never hear for taking so long with the tests. They had signed up at Kamabo together, but that last 'good luck' he'd given her before she entered the deep-sea metro had been months ago and she hadn't seen him since. She'd been 10,007. He was supposed to be 10,008.

"The Telephone was trying to kill you," Hachi said, pulling back from the hug to wipe at his eyes. "It was trying to kill us all. I knew something wasn't right when I didn't hear from you, so I never took the tests. I broke in instead, just to find you."

"This... This is really the surface?" Nana asked, feeling a prickly, wet pressure begin to build behind her eyes. "Then... this is a surface hospital?"

Hachi nodded, cupping her face and wiping her tears away now. The bed dipped where he sat, the sheets rustling as he got comfortable.

"You just have to stay here for a while and get better," he said. "And I promise I'll be here every single moment I can, because I don't want you to be alone anymore."

"Okay," she gasped out through tears, closing her eyes and letting Hachi wipe gently at her cheeks. Slowly, she could feel her default color seep into her tentacles, flushing out the white with her octarian peach pink.

"There," Hachi said, and she could feel him press a soft kiss to the top of her head. "We made it, Nana. Just rest now, and I'll tell you everything later."

With her best friend by her side and a relieved peace she hadn't felt in years, Nana let herself rest.

#hachi coroika #nana coroika #coroika #splatoon manga #mae writing

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timesooh · 4 months ago

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aakruthimedia · 1 year ago

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#Metro Train Branding #Metro Train Advertising #Metro Internal Branding

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gayasspoetry · 1 month ago

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yellow

I know yellow's your favorite color

so I tend to look for it everywhere

in the capital, roaming streets,

subway stops and metro stations

and I find you everywhere.

painting on the pavement,

yellow checkered taxis

and people with yellow backpacks

just like the one you had

back in school.

graffiti and yellow tram trains

all around the city

and I find yellow on street signs,

streetlights and pick-up trucks

and advertisements, too

the sun is golden yellow

and it paints the cityscape

of skyscrapers and hotels

in yellow and orange too

just like both our favorite colors.

the frame of the Polaroid

I took of you back then

and the one I still keep

in my wallet with me

it's yellow, too.

so I know yellow's your favorite color

and it surrounds us both

because you are everywhere

and anywhere you are

you'll always be in my heart.

#artists on tumblr #original poem #poem #poems and poetry #poems on tumblr #poetry #sad poem #sad poetry #small artist #art #love poetry #love poem #love #queer artist #queer writers #queer love #queer longing #posting from the psych ward

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lotusmediaservices · 3 months ago

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#Chennai Metro Train Advertising

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alpaca-clouds · 9 months ago

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Musing about Dreamworks

I have recently rewatched a lot of old Dreamworks stuff and I realized something: The way a lot of Dreamworks stuff breaks with the hero'e's journey is actually a really good thing.

If you watch Dreamworks movies and compare it with Disney or even Pixar, there is the quite obvious difference that for the most part Dreamworks heroes and heroines are underdogs, while Disney heroes most of the times are not. It is also the reason I think that a lot of queer folks found themselves in a lot of the Dreamworks stuff early on. I for sure can say I did. It is super easy to read a queer subtext into quite a few Dreamworks movies.

Compared to Disney there is also the fact that Dreamworks seemingly never felt the need to use their protagonist's marginalizations, when there, as a way to advertise. It was simply something that was there...

But there is this other big thing.

Disney movies for the most part very clearly follow the Hero's Journey, but in a way that they are so very married to the Status Quo. You know, often in the Hero's the Hero returns home - which Disney usually takes as "the hero returns to the Status Quo". The hero changes, but the world around them doesn't. Because Disney usually says: "The world as it is, is alright."

I could probably go into the depth of the MCU here, but to stay with animation, let's talk about Disney's one real underdog story: Aladdin. The central conflict arises in the first place because Aladdin is of a much lower status and hence cannot court Jasmin. This is basically what leads to the inciting incident and everything. So, the solution in the end is? Well, Aladdin gets a free pass. But in general there is nothing much changed about the class structure of the world.

Meanwhile almost all Dreamworks movies involve the world around the heroes changing. In Shrek the world has to learn to accept ogers. In Kung Fu Panda more than anything it is Shifu who needs to learn the lesson. In Megamind the way that the populus of Metro City treated Megamind was the issue. And most notably probably How to Train Your Dragon, where the vikings needed to learn to work with the dragons.

One can almost make the argument that Dreamworks movies in general reject the status quo. In fact, heroes that want to re-establish the status quo will need to learn that it actually was not a good thing. Be it the animals in Madagascar returning to the zoo and finding it was not at all what they remembered, or be it Puss in The Last Wish learning that his status quo (him having the many lives) was not good for him.

I can very much say that starting in my teens, when I became more interested in animation, I always liked Dreamworks Animation better than the other animation studios in the west. And yes, I quite early learned about the queer readings of Shrek for example. And I was able to well realize that Dreamworks was better in a lot of their messages than Disney was (and clearer).

But I actually never pinned down, why Dreamworks felt so much more progressive until I started to think about this recently. That Dreamworks actually allows for the world around the heroes to change and in some cases address systematic oppression.

And don't get me wrong. Like from a production side and behind the scenes, there is still a lot wrong with Dreamworks as well. They absolutely tried their best together with Disney to keep down the pay for animators and stuff. There was definitely also some cases of discrimination and bad conduct. But just from the side of what the movies themselves say? Yeah, no, I see myself a lot more in the Dreamworks stuff than anything Disney ever made.

#dreamworks #dreamworks animation #kung fu panda #puss in boots #madagascar #shrek #how to train your dragon #hero's journey #status quo #progressivism #media analysis

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