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thewatsonbeekeepers · 4 years ago

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Chapter 6 – So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish [TST 1/2]

The chapter title comes from the wonderful Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series – drop this meta and read them immediately.

No, no he [Moriarty] would never be that disappointing. He’s planned something, something long-term. Something that would take effect if he never made it off that rooftop alive. Posthumous revenge – no, better than that. Posthumous game.

This is what Sherlock says about Moriarty in the very first scene of TST, and on rewatch the application to Mofftiss is startling. Trust the writers – a short-term disappointment for a long-term excitement, if you will. The reference to the rooftop is a way of pointing out just how far back this has been planned – in other words, the seeming randomness of the series is not in fact random. But let’s see how that plays out in TST.

This episode opens, as so many have pointed out, with doctored footage, as though deliberately showing us how stories can be rewritten. However, we only get glimpses of the footage at the start of the episode – the extensive old footage is not security camera footage, but recap footage from s3, and specifically the end of HLV. The idea that there is something classified, hidden, that we don’t have the full story, is meant to be associated with the actual show Sherlock, not just the camera footage – it would have been very easy to give us most of the same footage in security camera style, but they deliberately reused shots from the show to make us doubt their own authenticity. So far, so good.

The first thing that I (and most of my friends) noticed about this scene, however, is that it’s not good. The writing is questionable, to say the least. The serious resolution to the problem of Magnussen’s murder is interrupted by Sherlock tweeting, brotherly bickering, hyperactive and possibly high Sherlock being played for comedy (complete with mock opera). And then, perhaps the worst lines of the show so far:

SHERLOCK: I always know when the game is on. Do you know why?

SMALLWOOD: Why?

SHERLOCK: Because I love it.

Like a lot of this show, think about those lines for more than a nanosecond and they really don’t make sense. You’ve got to think about them for a lot longer before they start to again. This, I think, is where BBC Sherlock’s self-parody really starts. TAB focuses on parodying, critiquing and rewriting historical adaptations, but it’s easy to see the merging of all of the undeniably Sherlock elements into one parodically awful scene. The quick quips that are supposed to be clever and that are so common in Moffat’s dialogue are seen in that moment of dialogue – but the quip isn’t clever anymore, it’s empty. The same catchphrase of ‘the game is on’ comes back, and the quintessential use of technology is referenced in Sherlock’s Twitter account, where again his #OhWhatABeautifulMorning is unfathomably glib. Our Sherlock is also better known than previous adaptations for his drug abuse, and this also gets referenced, but here it gets played for comedy, which is incongruous with the rest of the show – in fact, THoB, HLV and TAB all take it pretty seriously, so to see it played off as a joke is tonally questionable. In other words, here we have Sherlock caricatured as a programme, in one scene – and it’s horrible.

(We should also notice that the use of Twitter is important – it underlies a lot of the glib comedy in this episode, with Sherlock later Tweeting #221BringIt (which is so unbelievably queer?). In Sherlock, Moffat use Twitter rather than Tumblr to comment on fan reaction to Sherlock, probably because their older audience will have no idea what Tumblr is, but also because Twitter is much more mainstream in its appreciation. Twitter takes centre stage in TEH, with #SherlockLives and the scene with the support group. The joke there is about the sheer level of how-did-he-do-it mania that gripped the public – so when we see Twitter again, we should be thinking about an extratextual as well as a textual response to Sherlock, and how Sherlock’s behaviour on Twitter in this episode might caricature the way that he is seen from the outside.)

I don’t truly buy that (in this scene, at least) Mofftiss are critiquing their own show in a straightforward sense, because they have dealt with technology better than this (words on screen, technology as useful within mysteries), drugs better than this (John’s, Mycroft’s and Molly’s reactions to Sherlock’s behaviour as well as Sherlock’s own difficulties) and clever quips far better (pick any episode). But in deconstructing this show to its instantly recognisable elements, and making them worse to hyperbolise the point, that scene strips the show of its heart. Interestingly, it’s also stripped of John, who will be the metaphorical heart of Sherlock through the EMP, but is also the part of the show that is missing when it is caricatured as the Benedict-Cumberbatch-being-clever show. This is also a critique of most people’s perception of Sherlock Holmes as a character through history in the sense of the reductive cleverness – Mofftiss are showing us that this is completely empty.

What does this mean for Sherlock himself, bearing in mind that this is taking place in his Mind Palace? The answer is pretty grim – remember that Sherlock is metatextually grappling with his own identity at this point; he needs to discover the man he is, rather than is portrayed as, in order to get out of this alive. In a psychological sense, then, the opening of TST sees Sherlock deconstruct himself as seen from the outside, and as his psyche has traditionally perceived himself, and realise that that version of himself is hollow. This scene, then, is a rejection of the Sherlock of the public eye, as well as Sherlock’s own eyes.

There is a non-explanation for how the Secret Service doctored the footage of Sherlock shooting Magnussen, the response simply being that they have the tech. If the answer is going to be that vague, there is little reason to bring up the question – except to raise it in the viewers’ minds. Making the audience question their belief in the s4 universe is something that happens very frequently, and this is the start of it. A later chapter goes into the parallels that Sherlock and Doctor Who have, but there’s an important bit from Last Christmas (DW Christmas Special 2014) that is relevant here – the main characters, all dreaming, whenever they are asked any questions that can’t be explained in the dream universe, simply reply ‘it’s a long story’. This is a ‘long story’ moment – where no explanation is given, so questions about reality are raised and unanswered.

Another similar moment comes when Sherlock says he knows exactly what Moriarty is going to do next – how? And, more to the point, it becomes hugely obvious that he doesn’t. Yet, for the first time in history, he feels happy to sit back and wait on Moriarty, because he knows that what will come will come. This insistence that the future will take its course as it needs to might draw our minds ahead to the frankly ridiculous reliance on predictions that we see in TLD – however, it should also draw our minds across to Doctor Who, and to Amy’s Choice, a series five episode I’m going to delve deeper into later, but where because it’s a dream, the Doctor is able to predict every word the monsters say.

Notice that ‘glad to be alive’ is followed by Vivian saying her name – we’ll come back to this later.

Cue opening credits!

Before going anywhere else with TST, required reading is this meta by LSiT (X). I can’t make these points better than she has, nor can I take credit for them. I’m particularly invested in her description of the aquarium and the Samarra story, as well as the client cases that appear and aren’t updated on John’s blog. Our reading will diverge later on – I think this series is a lot more metaphorical than it is hypothesis-testing, although the latter is a notable feature of ACD canon (see the original THotB) that definitely does happen here as well. I’m going to leave the Samarra story, the aquarium and the cases for LSiT to explain, however, and move on.

When we move into 221B, the fuckiness is instantly apparent from the mirror. You can go here (X) to navigate the whole inside of 221B, and I suggest you do; it’s a fantastic resource. The mirror showing the green wall is simply wrong – the angle that this is shot from suggests that we should see the black and white wallpaper, complete with skull etc. Instead, we see the green wall – and the door. We can tell this is wrong because in the ‘wrong thumb’ case about thirty seconds later, the right wallpaper is reflected in the mirror. Another note of fuckiness that we should spot is that Sherlock seems to be taking his cases from letters, in the mail he has knifed into the mantelpiece – this show has been really keen on emphasising that he uses email for the last three series, so the implication that people are sending him letters is even odder than it would be in a modern show anyway.

(Everybody in the world has commented on the ‘it’s never twins’ line – but to reiterate its importance. Firstly, it’s almost identical to the line in TAB, just with ‘it’s’ instead of ‘it is’. TAB repeats lots of things though, because it’s a dream – well yes, but dreams can’t tell the future. So material from TAB being recycled doesn’t point to TAB being a dream, it points to TST being a continuation of the dream in TAB. The fact that they saw fit to reiterate this line in a series about secret siblings also puts paid to the theory that s4 was plotted in a rush and not in line with previous series – there is a theme here, and they’re pushing it.)

And so we move to Sherlock relentlessly texting through the birth, through the christening – horrible, ooc behaviour for him if we think back to how emotional he was at the wedding. Importantly, this behaviour is all tied up with his obsessive Tweeting, which in turn links in to how the outside world (i.e. us) perceive Sherlock – is this the Sherlock that people want to see on screen? Doesn’t he feel wrong? Sure, there’s an element of self-critique in there from Mofftiss, but the incorporation of the phone obsession leaves the blame squarely with the audience. In case we couldn’t already feel that Sherlock’s character is way off, we have his Siri loudly say that she can’t understand him.

We remember from TAB that Sherlock sees himself as cleverer through John’s eyes, and the reasonably sympathetic portrayal we get in TAB we can probably put down to this attempt at understanding himself from the outside. The water in TST is showing us that we’re going in, and the sad thing is that this is almost definitely how Sherlock has come to perceive himself, but just like Siri he doesn’t truly recognise it. It’s also worth noting here the emphasis placed on God in godfather and later the deliberate mentions of Christianity at the Christening – there is also a tuning out of a culture he can’t really align himself with here, which is more important when we think about the fact that this character has been around since the 19th century.

Water tells us we’re sinking deep into Sherlock’s mind, as discussed in a previous chapter. Water imagery is going to be hugely prevalent in TST, but I want to talk quickly about the subtle hints at water even when we’re not in a giant fuck-off aquarium. Take a look at the rattle scene (which always sparks joy). When we get a side angle that shows both Sherlock and Rosie, there’s a black chest of some description behind Rosie – the top is glowing slightly blue, for reasons I can’t fathom. Then we’re going to cut to a shot of Rosie – despite seeing only a second before that there is nothing on her head, there is a glow of blue on it that looks almost like a skullcap. Cut back to Sherlock getting a rattle in the face, and the mirror is glowing the same blue colour behind him. This is all fucky, and it’s a fuckiness which is aesthetically tied to the waters of Sherlock’s mind perfectly. It suggests that Rosie isn’t real, but more important is the mirror. Earlier on I pointed out how the mirror was showing the wrong reflection; here, the mirror is glowing blue, linking it thematically to Sherlock’s subconsciousness. Visually, we’re being hinted at the process of self-reflection that’s going on in Sherlock’s brain – and the opening of TST is showing him getting it terribly wrong. Note that when the mirror jolted right earlier, Sherlock was proclaiming that it had been the wrong thumb – god knows what thumbs have to do with this, but there’s a question of shifting perception on his person, like he’s trying to locate himself.

The glowing blue light sticks around, and seems particularly associated with Rosie, like she’s the focus of much of Sherlock’s thought at the moment. LSiT’s meta linked above has already picked up on the many dangers in Rosie’s cradle decoration, from the Moriarty linked images to the killer whale mobile. Due purely to a lucky pause, I caught the killer whale’s eyes glowing blue, just like the blue from the rattle scene. He’s thinking about her in terms of the key villains of the show as well as the villains in his mind.

I’m not going to comment on the bus scene because I have a chapter dedicated to Eurus moments before TFP – jumping straight ahead.

We then find our first Thatcher case – others have been pretty quick to point out the significance of the blue power ranger in gay tv history (X), and infer that Charlie is queer coded – much like David Yost, who played the blue power ranger, he is not able to come out without being treated badly. This is undoubtedly important, as is the fact that this is the second time in 12 minutes of this show that they’ve shown us how easily film footage can be faked, and someone can be lied to – you don’t need to have Mycroft Holmes levels of clearance, just a Zoom background. This is important too. But the other thing I want to focus on is that he says he’s in Tibet.

Sherlock comes pretty high on my list of top TV shows, but currently Twin Peaks holds the top spot – it’s an unashamedly cryptic show all about solving mysteries through dreams, so no wonder I like it. It’s made by David Lynch, and in the TAB chapter I talk about how TAB takes a lot of structural inspiration from his most famous film, Mulholland Drive, which has similar themes. I don’t think this is anything particularly interesting beyond an attempt to reference the defining work in the field of it-was-all-a-dream film and tv – David Lynch and Mofftiss and Victor Fleming are the only people I can think of who can actually make that plot look good. But this Tibet moment, particularly as we’re going to be hit by another reference to Tibet later, underlining its importance, I think is a reference to this scene (X) where the protagonist, Cooper, outlines a dream in which the Dalai Lama spoke to him and gave him the power to use magic to solve mysteries. Fans of Twin Peaks will know that the magic doesn’t last long – it’s pretty much an introductory way in, and most of the rest of his important deductions will all be made in dreams. This is one of the most famous scenes in the whole programme, because it introduced the world to the weirdness of what had been set up as a straightforward cop show, and despite Cooper rarely (possibly never?) mentioning Tibet again, it’s still highly quoted and recognisable. As a watershed moment in bringing dream worlds into normal detective dramas (something highly frowned upon according to any theory of storytelling!) this is a gamechanging moment, and I don’t think it’s a stretch to point to Sherlock’s several references to Tibet as a link back to this moment.

We then cut back to Sherlock thinking whilst Lestrade tells him more about the case – what is bizarre here, is that John and Lestrade are clearly visible through what can only be described as a rearview mirror attached to the side of Sherlock’s head. If anyone can tell me what that is, I would love to know. I’m going to assume it’s a fucky mirror, because it’s in keeping with the other fucky mirrors so far. The visibility of John and Lestrade in the mirror is even more odd because it doesn’t match the colour palette of 221B at all. Sherlock is lit largely in warm, brown colours, as is Charlie’s father in the previous scene we’re transitioning from – Lestrade and John are lit in dark blue, to the point where they’re barely visible. This looks like a rearview mirror, but not like the one on the power ranger car – it’s a much older car, out of a different time, like so much in this dream world. The only colour palette they seem to match is the one from the s4 promotion photos – you know, when Baker Street is completely underwater.

Drowning in the Mind Palace. Here we are, back where we started. Sherlock might be thinking about the case of Charlie, but he’s actually reflecting on that world we saw in the promo photos, where he’s struggling to stay alive in his brain. Notice that this isn’t just a split shot, it’s specifically a mirror, so we’re meant to focus on this episode as an act of reflection. There are great parallels between Sherlock and the Charlie case which you can find here (X) – essentially, Charlie and Carl Powers from TGG are mirrors for one another both in their names and in the manner they die (a fit in a tight place, basically). Carl Powers is already a mirror for Sherlock – obsessively targeted by Jim for being the best at what he does. Charlie mirrors Sherlock through their shared trip to Tibet (dreamscape alert) and, we think, through the metatextual link of the blue power ranger. In case you hadn’t spotted it, Powers links back to that too – probably coincidence, but a nice one nevertheless. Carl Powers’s death is by drowning, which we shouldn’t ignore in an episode as loaded with ideas about drowning in the mind palace. The fact that the mirror reflects drowning Baker Street aesthetics should make us think that Charlie is asking us to reflect on Carl Powers’s death, but also on Sherlock’s own – already fatally injured (by a fit or by Mary), he is going to die smothered, unable to cry for help (in a swimming pool/carseat costume (?!)/mind palace). The idea that none of these people could cry for help is particularly poignant because so much of series 4 is about Sherlock being unable to voice his own identity, and as we’ll see once he’s able to do that, that may give him the impetus to escape his death. Think of ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’ back in HLV.

Now. Why is Sherlock so keen for Lestrade to take the credit? It’s another reason to bring up the fact that John’s blog is constantly updating – it’s dropped in a lot in this series as opposed to others – and to make us think about why nothing is happening in real life. But, given that this episode is about Sherlock trying to find who he is, is it a rejection of the persona that goes along with being Sherlock Holmes? Possibly, but he’s going to have to go to a lot more effort than that. John’s blog is the real problem here, making not just Sherlock but Lestrade out to be like they’re not. John’s blog is a stand in for the original stories, which were supposed to be written by John Watson, but TAB has already (drawing on TPLoSH) laid the groundwork for the idea that John’s blog/those stories really do not tell the whole story. So this is coming back with a vengeance here, even though for the first time Sherlock is properly moving against the persona in there, not just bitching about John’s writing style, which is a theme more common to Sherlock Holmes across the ages. John then says that it’s obvious, and when pressed just laughs and says that it’s normally what Sherlock says at this point – so again, when Sherlock stops filling the intense caricature of arrogance and bravado, John the storyteller steps in to put him back in line, even though that means pulling him back to being a much more unpleasant character.

A note here: most of the time in EMP theory, I think John represents Sherlock’s heart, and I try to refer to John as heart!John as much as possible when that’s the case. There are a few cases which are different, but most notable are when the blog comes up – then John becomes John the blogger, and our symbolism shifts over to the repressive features of the original stories and how that’s playing out in the modern world. Although a pain to analyse sometimes, I find it incredibly neat that the two of them are bound up in John as source of both love and pain, which fits our story beautifully.

John as blogger continues in the baby joke that he and Lestrade have going down the stairs – they continue with their caricature of Sherlock, but he doesn’t recognise himself in it. Or rather, there’s a moment when he seems to, but he can’t quite grasp onto it. This is typical of the way he recognises himself in the programme. It’s also worth noting that the image of John as a father is particularly tied into ACD, as the creator of Sherlock Holmes, so tying together blogger and father in this scene cements our theme.

Going into the Welsborough house, we get a slip of the tongue from Sherlock which is fantastic. He tells them that he is really sorry about their daughter, which at an earlier point in the show might just be a classic Sherlock slip-up. But mixing up genders is actually something which happens quite a lot in this show, and it’s something drawn attention to as significant in TAB.

Sherlock asks John “How did he survive?” of Emelia Ricoletti, when of course he’s thinking about Moriarty, and John corrects him quickly, much like here. A coincidental callback? Maybe not. What’s the first mistake that Sherlock ever makes? Thinking that Harry Watson is a man. What’s the big trick they pull at the end of S4? Sherlock has a secret sister – and Eurus points out that her gender is the surprise at the end of TLD. Eurus is also an opposite-sex mirror for John and for Sherlock at various points and this allows Sherlock to approach their relations from a heterosexual standpoint and thus interrogate them – more on that later. So gender-swapping is a theme that runs through the show a lot. But the similarity to TAB in particular is important here, because in TAB that was our first obvious declaration that this wasn’t just a mirror to be analysed by the tumblr crowd, this was a mirror on the superficial level that had to be broken through. This callback to TAB is a callback to the mirrored dreamscape. Don’t believe me? Look at what happens next. The second Sherlock sees Thatcher the whole room not only goes underwater, but actually starts to shake – another throwback to recognising that Emelia was Moriarty, when the whole room shakes and the elephant in the room smashes. So, again, we’re being told that this isn’t about this case – it’s about something else, and that something is the elephant in the room. Just like the shaking smashes the elephant in the room, the shaking is what tells us about the smashed bust of Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher, whose laws on “promoting homosexuality” were infamous. Smashing the elephant in the room and Thatcher simultaneously between 2015, the 1980s and 1895 is hitting the history of British homophobia for the last hundred years summed up as quickly as possible, and tearing it down through Sherlock’s self-exploration. This is a good fucking show.

You’ll also notice that Sherlock is alone in the room, just for a second, when he has his Thatcher revelation – everybody else vanishes. Again, we’re seeing that the rest of the case is an illusion, providing just enough storytime to keep the audience believing in the dream, and possibly Sherlock too.

[There’s a fantastic framing of Sherlock here between two portraits, a man and a woman, seemingly ancestral – I would love to know more about these, because if I know Arwel they’re significant, and the way they hang over Sherlock is really metaphorically suggestive. If anyone has any info on that, it looks like a really good avenue to explore.]

Blue. Blue is the colour of Sherlock’s mind palace, but this scene ties it firmly to the Conservative party. The dark blue of Sherlock’s scarf nearly matches Welsborough’s jumper, which is in fact a better match for the mind palace aesthetic generally. Thatcher unsurprisingly wears blue as well. If blue is the water that Sherlock is drowning in, how interesting that it’s being tied to the most homophobic prime minister of the last 50 years. There was absolutely no need to make this guy a cabinet minister, dress him in blue, even make Thatcher replace Napoleon – I would actually argue that Churchill is a figure who matches Napoleon’s distance and stature much better for our time. Thatcher is an odd choice, and therefore significant. To tie this to the mind palace further, we then get a shot of Sherlock reflected in the picture of Thatcher as he analyses it – a reflection of him reflecting. In case we forgot what this was actually about.

Sherlock not knowing who Thatcher is – perfectly feasible and actually quite important, although something that I’m not going to resolve until my meta on TFP, because that’s where it comes together for me. But Sherlock playing for time with his further jokes about being oblivious (‘female?’) – that, again, is Sherlock actively playing a caricature of himself. He’s not doing it for fun – he’s doing it to cover up his concern about the smashed elephant in the room Thatcher bust.

The weird thing about the reveal of how Charlie died is that we see what should have happened, if everything had gone right, before we see how he died. I can’t recall this happening in another episode of Sherlock, although I could be wrong. It’s marked by the really noticeable scene transition of crackling television static, as though the signal is cutting out. This is possibly a bit of a reach, but there’s one obvious place where we’ve seen a lot of static before.

Moriarty coming back isn’t what’s supposed to happen. It doesn’t happen in the books. We’re telling the wrong story here. (Bear in mind, from previous chapters, that Jim represents Sherlock’s fear that John’s life is in danger.) Just like Jim returning isn’t the right story, but it’s the one that happened, Charlie’s story isn’t the right story but it’s the one that happened – and indeed, Sherlock needing to save John from a dangerous marriage + suicide is not what is supposed to happen – John and Mary are supposed to be married for good (until she dies) in canon. A whole load of false endings – new stories superseding old ones. Mofftiss has an idea that there’s a new story that’s going to be told, and our strongest canon divergence is the end of s3, when we get into the EMP – and from thereon in to TAB it’s off the deep end, and the same is seen here. That TV static is talking about a new medium for a new age and their refusal to deal with established canon norms. Just in case we didn’t remember, outside in the porch we even get a visual reminder of the TV static with a second’s flashback to ‘Miss Me?’ Bad news is, that means Sherlock Holmes rejecting the norms he’s been given (feasibly represented by the hyperbolic nuclear family here) and instead… dying in his mind palace. Less fun. Carl Powers died too. Sherlock still hasn’t got there quite yet – let’s hope he doesn’t.

The next scene is, I think, very important. We come across Mycroft in a dark room with a tiny bit of light – this is really odd, as the obvious place to put Mycroft would be the Diogenes Club. Yet, although clearly more modern, this reminds me most of all of the room we meet Mycroft in in TAB.

The colour palette is the same as the top photo, and the similar chunks of light falling through suggest that we’re in the same place. I’ve brought in a photo from the aeroplane in TAB to show how the light is designed to mirror that of the Diogenes Club in TAB as well – there is a unity in all these Mycroft’s that we shouldn’t miss. Here I can’t imagine I’m the first one to notice that the light in Mycroft’s office is designed to look like a chessboard, which was an important motif in the promotional pictures for s4. Chess is associated with Sherlock’s brain through Mycroft, most notably in THE where it is contrasted with Operation which represents their emotional (in)capacities. So here we are – Mycroft is the brain, if we didn’t already know, and Sherlock has gone to speak to his brain alone much like he did in TAB. Mycroft has already been associated with the queen a lot; they meet in Buckingham Palace in ASiB, where there is a jibe about Mycroft being the queen of England – we can see here in Sherlock’s head that the brain’s power is vastly reduced by comparing these two episodes. The first time we see Mycroft in connection to the Queen we go to the most famous building in the UK. The second time, Sherlock says he’s going to the Mall, which is the street that Buckingham Palace is on, so we are led to expect a reprisal – and instead come here. There is still a picture of the queen on the wall, but apart from that we are in the darkest room of the show so far, whose grating makes it look under siege. Mycroft’s power in Sherlock’s head is vastly reduced, and indeed the brain’s influence (represented by the queen) over Sherlock’s character is waning as Sherlock struggles to come to terms with his emotional identity.

[Crack/tenuous theory: when Sherlock asks John if he is the king of England in s3, in the drunk knee grope scene, this shows that his brain’s control over his emotions have slipped; references to the queen in relation to Mycroft before have shown that Sherlock does know about the royal family, so this has to metaphorically refer to his own psyche and letting go of his brain’s anti-emotion side. Like I say, crack. But I believe it.]

Again, if we weren’t sure about Mycroft representing the brain without the heart, his rejection of the baby photos is sending out a clear message of juxtaposition with John, who represents the heart. We also shouldn’t fail to notice the water coming over Sherlock’s face again as he struggles to recognise what is important about this. This comes as he is trying to recognise what is important about the Thatchers case. I’m going to try to lay it out as best I can here.

We’ve been through what Thatcher represents to queer people of Sherlock’s age, so there’s already a strong metaphor for homophobia being smashed there. However, let’s look at the AGRA memory stick being uncovered. We know (X) that Sherlock deduced his feelings for John as he was marrying Mary, and so having the smashing of the Thatcher bust at the AGRA memory stick reveal is pretty devastating metaphorically. Why does Sherlock constantly think Moriarty is involved? Well, HLV tells us that the Jim in Sherlock’s mind is his darkest fear – and he’s originally tied up in Sherlock’s mind when he’s first shot, but he pretty quickly gets loose. That darkest fear is exactly what Jim says in that episode: ‘John Watson is definitely in danger’. The reason we bring Jim in to represent this is part of deconstructing the myth of Sherlock Holmes. The whole concept of an arch enemy is made fun of in the show, and rightly so; Moriarty himself tells the Sir Boastalot story which lines Sherlock up with that ridiculous heroic tradition that he’s set himself into, which isn’t what Sherlock Holmes is really about at all. Holmes has never really been particularly invested in individual criminals (although there are exceptions – Irene Adler, for example) – the time he gets most het up is The Three Garridebs, as we all know, when he thinks Watson is dying. It’s his greatest fear, and it’s also what Jim threatens, so Jim has become a proxy for that – and to understand that Sherlock Holmes is not the great Sherlock Holmes of the last hundred years, we have to get under and beyond Jim. Hence what we’re about to see. It’s not Jim, it’s Mary – and this is in very real terms, because Mary’s assassination attempt on Sherlock has left John in danger – but Sherlock won’t put the pieces together until the end of this episode, as we will see.

We should also pause over Mycroft asking Sherlock whether he’s having a premonition – Mycroft is laughing at the concept of Sherlock being able to envisage the future here, which we should remember when it comes to the frankly ludicrous plot of the next episode. Much like the much commented upon “it’s not like it is in the movies” which is there to undermine TST, this line is here to undermine TLD and point out the fact that it can’t possibly be real.

Sherlock describes predestination as like a spider’s web and like mathematics – both of these are to do with Moriarty. In the original stories, Moriarty is a mathematician, and one of the most famous lines from both the stories and the show describes Moriarty as a spider. This predestined future is one that Sherlock doesn’t like – Mycroft points out that predestination ends in death, which is what Sherlock is trying to avoid in this episode, and although Moriarty is never mentioned explicitly, his inflection here suggests that Sherlock is thinking about John subconsciously, without even understanding it. The Samarra discussion brings us back to the question of Sherlock’s death, and links it in with the deep waters of the mind he’s currently drowning in – the pirate imagery becomes really important here, because a pirate is someone who stays alive on the high seas and fights against them. The merchant of Samarra becoming a pirate is not merely a joke about a little boy, it’s a point about fighting for survival – and how will Sherlock later fight for survival? We’ll see him battle Eurus (his trauma, more on that later) head on, literally describing himself as a pirate. Fantastic stuff.

The scene transition where all of the glass breaks and then we cut to a background of what looks like blue water is a motif that runs through this entire episode – we’re smashing down walls in Sherlock’s mind, most particularly the Thatcher wall of 1980s homophobia, and indeed the first picture we see is that of the smashed bust.

Moving on – before we go back to Baker Street, there’s a shot of the outside – that features a mirror, reflecting back on 221B in a distorted, twisted way. Another mirror that is wrong – we’re reflecting in an alternate reality. These images keep popping up. It’s echoed in Sherlock’s deduction a few seconds later – by the side of his chair is what looks like either a car mirror or a magnifying glass, possibly the one from the Charlie scene, distorting his arm. It’s placed to look like a magnifying glass, whether it is or not, which ties in with the classic image of Holmes – but that image is distorted, remember.

Others have pointed out that when Sherlock falsely deduces that the client’s wife is a spy working for Moriarty, he should really be talking to John – and, in fact, this is another proof that this isn’t really, because otherwise this is pretty touchy stuff to be making light of in front of John. Instead, let’s remember this is Sherlock’s Mind Palace – John isn’t John here. What Sherlock does a lot in s4 – and nowhere more than the finale of TST – is displace a lot of his real world problems onto other people because he cannot handle the emotional impact of them, and that’s what he’s doing here. He’s trying to come to terms with the danger that Mary poses, but he can’t do it with John – hence why this scene has a John substitute, because that’s what the client is.

Note that the red balloon is over the Union Jack cushion, reminding us that this scene is about John in danger (see this post X). However, what’s important here is that Sherlock has got it wrong. He’s currently trying to work out why what has just happened with Mary poses so much danger, and he’s imagining Mary as the worst threat he possibly could – in a word, this Mary is a supervillain. But Mary is not a supervillain; he’s got this all wrong, and even as he says it, it’s completely ridiculous. This is not the danger Mary poses – and so out the door the client goes, and we’re back to square one, trying to work out exactly why John is in so much danger.

I’m not going to pause over the next moment of importance for too long because many have covered it – let’s just notice that Sherlock’s face is overlaid with a smashed Thatcher bust, and remind ourselves that these are the walls of homophobia in Sherlock’s brain. Also note that this matches the half-face overlay of the water in the previous scene, linking the two (although the scene with Ajay later will cement that anyway).

Next up: Craig and his dog. Nothing can be said about dogs that hasn’t be said in these wonderful metas by @sagestreet (X). Nevertheless, let’s note that this dog is coloured the same as Redbeard, and Mary (a Sherlock mirror in this episode, and in this scene – their clothing matches, and their joining of skillsets to exclude John is the link that has always united them as mirrors) compares John to the dog. We know from the metas linked above that dogs are linked to queerness in the show, but let’s remember that John here is not John – John represents Sherlock’s own heart. It’s going to take longer than this for Sherlock to acknowledge John’s queerness. I don’t think Toby the dog is that important – instead, this is foreshadowing for the more significant dog to come in TFP. The dog also allows for another bit of self-parody in the show – the close-up on the dog running through chemical symbols and the map link directly back to the chase scene in ASiP, but this time everything is different. We have no clue really what Toby is chasing or what the crime that has been committed is – they’re not even running, they’re walking! All we have are cool, if ridiculous, graphics – and, brought down to style without substance, it’s nothing but comic parody. This is important because the opening of TST is so parodic – we’re back to questioning whether the things that people associate with Sherlock and think they like about Sherlock are the right things. The fact that Toby reaches a dead end here is important – he’s a weird loose end to have hanging through the episode. When things in Sherlock normally tie together so nicely, this is a section which has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the plot other than to look a bit silly. But fundamentally, we’re talking about the superfluity of style and image here; we’ve been talking about it for a long time in relation to previous adaptations, but TST brings it in in relation to Sherlock itself.

Skipping past more bust breakages, the next scene is John and Mary in bed together – and the first thing we see is them, once again, in a mirror. There’s nothing wrong with this mirror (as far as I can tell) – everything seems to be in order! But it doesn’t break the theme of mirrors misreflecting, because this is the scene that introduces unreliable narration on a big level – this is the scene which deliberately excludes John’s texts to E. John and Eurus are gone into in another chapter so we’ll move on again.

Craig’s quote about people being weird for missing the olden days is, of course, crucial to this reading of Sherlock. It’s pretty on the nose for a show whose protagonist is idealised in the Victorian age – and sums up Mofftiss’s feelings towards the Vincent Starrett 221B poem that I elaborated on in the TAB chapter of this meta: essentially, that it always being 1895 is a very bad thing! Craig’s mockery of this nostalgia puts it into more comprehensible modern terms for us, but it also links Thatcher and 1895 again as pasts to be broken with. It’s also important that Craig says that Thatcher is like Napoleon now – although the titles of most episodes are taken from ACD stories, it’s rare that an explicit reference is made to the link between the titles (nobody mentions scarlet vs. pink in ASiP, for example). This is the first time that I can find that Sherlock shows self-awareness from within the narrative that there are extranarrative stories being played out. I’ve said before that I don’t think Thatcher and Napoleon are a good comparison; whether it is or not, Craig’s reference is actively pulling a metatextual part of Sherlock’s history into his story and forcing him to reckon with it. This is important, because he develops expectations of how this story is going to play out (black pearl of the Borgias) which are wrong – because they’re based on what he has learned to expect of himself as fictional character. We could only have such a reference within the Mind Palace.

For the sake of splitting this meta up to make it readable, I’m going to call time on this half of TST, and we’ll pick it up tomorrow at Jack Sandiford’s house. (Also I don’t know how much text tumblr allows and this is a long document.) Until then!

#emp #tst #tjlc #meta #bbc sherlock #my meta #mine #thewatsonbeekeepers #chapter six: so long and thanks for all the fish #tjlc is real #emp theory #the six thatchers #johnlock

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pokecommunitycenter · 5 years ago

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Hi Dash !! It’s Time to Meet a Member of the RPC !!

Ditto would like to introduce... Dun Duuuuuun !!

It’s Jason ♡ !! Though some of you may know them as @haematophiliac !!

Established in Spooky October of 2018, they’ve been around the RPC for a good long while as a Team Rocket Scientist OC, but here’s a looksee at some things you may have not known !! Ditto hopes you enjoy getting to know the writer just as much as Ditto did !!

♡ Interview... START !!

Ditto would like you to introduce yourself a little bit. The url you go by, maybe how you picked it. Was it a joke at first that you just stuck with, does it have significant meaning?

The username is what people would call a lover of blood. I started Jax in … 2018? Octoberish and he had the common username including Rocket in it and I decided to pick a theme more fitting to him. Eventually I settled with the current one as it fits him as a blood obsessor to put it bluntly. I mean he likes blood, works around a lot of it and all that so it just… Well, stuck!

Was there something about Team Rocket in general that drew you in? Over other ‘evil’ organizations, Rocket is considered the OG & probably largest. But, over Plasma/Galactic, what made you choose Rocket?

I’ve always been a Rocket fan. I started in the Pokemon fandom (can you call it a fandom back then) in 1998 when I was only eight by watching the anime. You could say that Rocket started my love for bad guys actually! I used to adore Jessie and James so much. They were just so fun, funny and adorable. Maybe I had a crush on one… Ahem! But yes, as a kid I fell for the trio (I didn’t forget loveable Meowth there!) and ever since then I’ve been a fan. I love all the bad guys mind you but Rocket holds a special place in my heart. Just always been like that.

A bonus question !! Did any characters from the original Anime / Franchise… help you develop Jax at all?

A good question but Jax actually was inspired by a character I role played in a completely different fandom. I mean you cannot compare them - Jax is a human with so many faults and the other character is�� Well, a plain old monster. But when I first made Jax I put little bits of the old character into him, such as formal speaking and love for blood. He started pretty much as a clean slate. I evolved him over the first few weeks.

Do you think that, because you play a character that is not a ‘good guy’ or as you put it, a monster, that people that may not know you well find you hard to approach?

Indeed so. Though I only speak of experience in the past here! When I played my full out monster in another fandom, people would tell others they were actually scared of me on an OOC level. Needless to say I’ve spoken to many people who were scared and helped them realise that it is just a muse I play. When it comes to Tumblr I find the fandom much more open and less afraid? Though I don’t know for certain because people could be afraid for all I know and I just don’t know. I hope I’m approachable enough anyway!

So then !! To help the part community that may not know you well, or might be a little hesitant because you play a blood loving bad guy, what are some things that you may have in common with everyone? Do you have a favorite pokemon? Or a region that just was WACK & you loved it so much? What’s on that most repeated playlist you got? Or maybe a few movies that you really love?

I read every blog’s rules and I’ve noticed that a lot of people are socially anxious. Which to be fair… I am too! I get nervous around people I don’t know and aahhhh, well, I’m in the exact same boat. We all start as strangers and all it takes is one foot forward to break that ice but, like others, I do find that first step very intimidating. I’m just your average nerd to be fair haha. As for my favourite Pokemon? Sneasel! I fell in love with that little critter after watching the Celebi movie when it came out. Favourite region would be Hoenn. I just have fond memories of it I guess as a Ruby fan. It was the first game my battery ran out of energy on. My music is too horrific for anybody’s ears if that’s what you mean hah. And movies? … … Digimon the movie (1+2+3 in Japan and just the first (all three combined) in UK and presumably other places too).

As someone who feels that weird wiggle when trying to step out of your comfort zone to make friends. Do you have any advice for people that want to get to know you better? Or, reaching out to people in general?

When reaching out to me - or anybody else - I find the best approach can be a simple hello. It instantly shatters that ice between two people. Like… Many of us are afraid to simply say hello. But if you manage to break that first bit it’s amazing! If you don’t there is always another day. Conversation can escalate from a mere hello. Or even reply to an open post if serious or funny! That first step is the hardest indeed but things get easier after that first hurdle. The worst someone can do is walk away and then perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be. Everybody has friends in the end and making more is great.

That said. We all know how the Poke RPC has its ups, & its downs. Sometimes both happen in one day. LOL. There is always room for growth though, & Ditto believes that everyone can work together to make that happen. Is there anything you would like to see change in the community?

Everything in life will come with ups and downs, it’s just how things go. We can all work through things however. If something bad happens there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. As a community it is great we can all work on whatever needs addressing. I understand some people rather turn a blind eye depending upon the situation. We all should work on what makes us comfortable. Nonetheless, if I could change one thing I’d change anon hate. Argh. That’s one thing that gets under my skin. We, as a community, should be open to criticism and praise alike and nobody should need to harass another person anonymously. If someone has a disagreement then they should tell the person. Only that way can they work on the issue. But then again there is needless anon hate without true purpose behind it and that makes me sad. But nobody is perfect and sometimes people will rear their ugly side. Yet when anon hate has popped up it has been utterly overwhelming to see everybody support each other with kindness!

Ditto wonders, do you think anon hate may… slow down, or go away, if it was ignored instead of responded to when received? Most times, the people that feel the need to do hurtful things to others is for response. The attention received whether it is good or bad.

I think it’s highly dependent upon the situation. As someone who has received hate in the past (not on Tumblr mind you) I found that even ignoring people doesn’t work. Yet every case is different. Some do it for response, some do it to just get under someone’s skin. We can’t tell which however. If, say, it is needless hate then to ignore it would be the best option, even reporting it to Tumblr’s staff. But if in the situation something needs defending like a misconception then it could be a good idea to clear the air. Keyword could though. I’ve learned that people will get ideas into their mind and battle for it rather than accepting what is truth. In those cases a good air clearing is good and then to ignore any further.... Jabbing could be best. But if people feel the need to respond they should have the freedom to, as well as the freedom to ignore it.

Is there anything you’d like to pass on to those in the RPC that receive anon hate? Maybe a word of advice, or just something supportive to remember if it ever happens?

Well, as long as someone isn’t breaking any rules, doing something bad OOC or whatever- Actually I was going to say they should keep going and doing their thing. And yet I feel the need to mention that all people make mistakes in their lives. Anon hate is a bad way to go. The person on the receiving end of a message is a person too. They have feelings and thoughts and a life also. If you ever receive anon hate then just remember that there’s someone sending it and perhaps they don’t realize their mistake. That isn’t to say it’s justified. Just that people do indeed forget there are real people involved. … I think I word things bad! I mean… Anon hate is wrong, end of. But it is so easy to forget that real people are sat to read it. If you ever get anon hate then it is best to ignore it. That spark could evolve into a full blown fire and make you worse off. Hm, I forgot my train of thought but in the end we all need less hate and to just enjoy ourselves. People tend to send hate from bad experiences with the person or disagreements if right or wrong on either side but words are just words on a screen. They can say all they want to you but you are you. You are a person who deserves a life and love and no mere text on a monitor - Or phone screen! - can ever truly harm you.

Ditto thinks you did a fine job. We all take time to find words in our own ways, & no one has the perfect ones all the time. So please do not worry about wording things. It takes some practice sometimes, when you’re put on the spot !!

Ditto would like to wrap up with something uplifting & super positive. After your time here in the Poke RPC, what are some of your favorite memories? Things that make you stick around, or just enjoy seeing go on? Give Ditto a little insight ( & the RPC too ) on what makes you happy to be here.

I have a vast array of good memories. Mainly ones of that first move of saying hello to someone or just that first interaction. Then again you’re asking someone with a bad memory! I truly just enjoy seeing people having a good time, enjoying their time here. When people are comfortable enough to do crack threads, that’s something that makes me smile. For instance the RPC could have been super strict and look down upon anything not considered serious and yet there everybody is just having fun! I enjoy watching people get along all in all. When new relations are formed, plots explored, the crack-like threads that ensue. Dash commentary is always a favourite. It shows someone isn’t afraid to get involved. I like it when people aren’t afraid. As I said, we’re all humans with lives and just watching people have fun makes me smile, even if I’m not involved. And of course, being involved in things makes me happy too, to just be included :D

A big Thank You !! to Jason for allowing Ditto to take some of their time for this interview.

Ditto hopes everyone has a good Monday !!

See you next week for the next Community Interview. ♡

#haematophiliac #◓ Community Interview !!#Community Interview

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xxj0kerxx · 4 years ago

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annnnd my rules have been updated! some new changes and removals that were probably needed because the rule was redundant

FIRST OF ALL

🤡 this is a multiverse, multiship, multimuse, indie rp blog (indie krp in some circumstances, depending how you view it because it can be quite subjective). as i have realized, i do not rp “normally” oro at least the standard rpc norms. i follow and prefer to put an emphasis on narrative driven stories with a strong theme. that will be put over the ship. when i look at a “ship” or a thread, i think of a cohesive story. writing the story is priority over smut or fluff filler.

🤡 i do have a discord for ooc and plotting (that will be issued out if asked or requested).

DISCLAIMER!

🤡 all muns and muses are all of age (18+), there will be exceptions where minors will be used in rp as npcs. all gifs used that can be seen in replies are made, by yours truly, me. this theme was not made by me, it was made by the lovely, anacommissions.

ABOUT THE MUN!

🤡 my name is john, him/he, 25, gmt-7 (pacific standard timezone). my activity will be very spotty but rest assure that i am most likely active or around either on tumblr or discord because frankly, i got no life. i am typically more active and responsive on discord because i get notifications and i have a clear preference over using discord over tumblr’s instant message. i can be seen as very controlling and very.. overly-enthusiastic. this is a heavily selective blog, i am very specific and meticulous when it comes to roleplaying. i understand that it should be fun and it will, i just tend to want things to be the best it could possibly be for us or me. i will not sugar-coat it and i will be fully transparent about it. anyways, if you have any questions about it just ask.

🤡 i am really an introvert and can barely hold conversations for the life of me so please bare with me! some will get along better with me, some will not. that’s just life but typically people who are more upfront and say what they have on their mind without fear of prejudice will have my respect and i will open up far much more. i am very easy-going, but i am very hard at getting to know. that is as best as i can word how i am. i may seem intimidating and i could be intimidating, i see myself as intimidating but understand that i am very easy-going and relaxed. all it takes is talking and having a discussion and everything can be resolved rather than keeping things complicated.

RULES | INFORMATION!

🤡 MUNS: all muns have to be 18+ to interact with me. no exceptions.

🤡 FOLLOWING: i do not follow the “follow for a follow back” rule. do not follow me unless you are interested or plan to role play with me. if i follow you, that most likely means i am interested and want to interact with you. if you do follow me, do understand that i notice but i won’t approach you until you do.

🤡 GOD MOD: don’t god mod, it simple as that.

🤡 SMUT/NSFW: if you’re looking for smut on this blog, most likely you won’t find it on this blog. but chances are, smut might occur on this blog and i will tag it accordingly. i will also put them under spoilers for the consideration of others. plenty of nsfw themes will be present on this blog, but you should be aware of that by now if you follow me. when smut does come and you’re not comfortable writing it out fully, i’d be more than happy to fade to black! just let me know, communication is important. i will try to make both of our experiences as comfortable as possible!

🤡 SELECTIVE: as stated before, i am a very heavily selective blog, but don’t let that deter you from coming up or talking to me for a potential thread! i will be very selective with who i pair together, but most things will be discussed between muns.

🤡 POSSIBLE TRIGGERS ON THIS BLOG: full discretion, many taboo topics will be displayed on this blog. i cannot list the entirety of the list of triggers but ask if you are concerned. expect the worst, from mental illness to death will occur.

🤡 FORMATTING: a high preference for small text. i do not like overly formatted replies that are hard to follow and read.

🤡 GIFS: a high preference for 90x90px gifs, but i will not subject others to this. i understand that rpc has a tendency to compact and shrink things, but i will not accept anything below 70x70px. 100x100px and 80x80px are okay! i will be frank, i do not like gifs in replies that are large (300px or over) where it covers the whole post.

🤡 FACE CLAIMS/MUSES: i will not rp with face claims that do not have acting resources, its my personal preference. i just like the gifs to contextually make sense. on occasions, i will make some exceptions. i also would prefer to keep kpop idols separate from kdrama face claims. exceptions will be made for idols who have acting roles. same will apply to kdrama face claims with western face claims, i would prefer to keep them separate from one and another.

majority of my muses will be male, i am comfortable playing males compared to females. western and korean actors will be prominent on this blog.

🤡 SHIPPING: most likely shipping will be discussed between muns. i usually write with the intentions to what feels organic for the story. also depending, i will ship on chemistry if it works. typically, i usually have something in mind beforehand when it comes to a certain muse when it comes to shipping, but ask. i won’t ship western muses with korean/kdrama muses.

🤡 REPLIES: i will make a constant effort to reply to everyone on a weekly basis. most if not all replies will be sent all at once thursday night or friday. do not rush yourself to reply quickly and take your time. i will not sugar coat this, but favoritism is probably prevalent on this blog. there are certain muses that i have higher muses for than others so those replies will most likely be done quicker and sent out if i feel like it. BUT if you would like to do back and forth, please do ask!! i’ll try to accommodate! the longest i will wait for a reply is a month, i will drop the thread after the 31 day period if it is not replies unless you are on hiatus or mention it to me beforehand. my replies will only take place on dash, i have no interest in rping on discord or instant message.

🤡 EFFORT / PLOTTING: i require mutuals or anyone who roleplays with me to put effort within our thread(s) and plotting. i seek dedicated rp partners who are genuinely interested and care for the material and content. most if not all things will be discussed and talked about when it comes to plotting. i also do not wish to be the only one that does all the work. discussions and feedback are more than appreciated. we can share ideas together and headcanons, i’d really love that! i am the type of person who’d have an idea at 3 am in the morning! but i will drop the interaction if i see no effort or care. do not expect to match replies because replies will vary, but i typically write relatively “long”.

🤡 BAN LIST: problematic people (but that is so subjective), kpop idols, people who were accused of rape or abuse, that one kpop scandal, underaged fcs, deceased people, lee min-ho, amber heard, animated/cartoon characters.

🤡 OTHER INFO / EXTRA NOTES:

depending how you see it, i am somewhat okay or moderately okay with photoshop. if you ask, i can assist and help you out if you want to gif. though my method can be a bit different from others but nonetheless, i’d be more than happy to teach and help you out. if it is the case that you are interacting with me and need resources and you’re willing to put up the time to gif resources for the character, i am beyond grateful and i will surely try to help you as much as i can!! that is, if you’re willing to learn.

also a thing to note that i didn’t explicitly tell in my rules, even though that i have myself as multiverse/multiship. i have that because i like to be limitless and unbounded, but in theory most of my muses are single-ship. once i have the interaction that i specifically wanted, i am usually very content. it is typically hard for me to come up with another “compelling” narrative for the same muse.

please feel free to send asks, i’d love to answer them!! ( i typically don’t use memes as a way to start/make starters because it is light hearted fun to me compared to plotting.)

i can come off as too passionate or overly enthusiastic over muses and plot, which most cases leads me to ramble A LOT. if it is annoying or burdensome, just let me know.

#j → (me)

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alternislatronemhq · 5 years ago

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Congrats, Karli, you have been accepted to AL for the role of Sirius Black (FC: Rob Raco). Wow, Karli, well done! As I was reading your app, I found myself totally taken in by your characterization of Sirius. You really understand him the way that I had envisioned him for this plot — the slightly immature, bitter, grudge holding mischief maker who has had to grow up and be a parent because of the loss of his brother and best friend. You really had a grasp of the plot and I found myself getting so excited to play Lily alongside you. Just, really great job, I’m so excited to have you here! Please send in your blog (no sideblogs for first characters, please) in the next 24 hours and be sure to take a look at our new player checklist.Welcome home, we’re so excited to have you join the family!

OOC

name — Karli age — 29 pronouns — she/her timezone — CST activity level — Probably an 7-8 right now. I’m off work for summer break with a few things to do here and there, but I’m typically on every day and doing replies every couple of days. It might lessen in the fall months but right now, I’m VERY free!

IC Overview

name — Sirius Orion Black age — 26 | 3 November 1959 gender — Cis-male sexuality — If asked, Sirius would say he doesn’t like labels. He’s fluid - people know that. He sleeps around with many genders, but doesn’t really make an announcement about it. He also doesn’t work for it. If someone wants to have sex with him, he’s likely pretty open to it. But he also isn’t going to put in much effort to make it happen. He’s not a relationship-type of bloke and, even though there are people out there who think they can “change him,” no one has been able to yet. In more modern terms, he’s likely pansexual, aromantic (on the spectrum of little romantic attraction over no romantic attraction). But he wouldn’t know that, nor does he really care to know it. Sex is sex. That’s all.

patronus — Sirius has always struggled with producing a corporeal patronus. Perhaps it was the necessity of focusing on one good thing that made the spell work - or maybe it’s just that Sirius isn’t as good with the abstract stuff as he likes to think. During the moments where it did work during the war, it was a large black dog, unsurprising to anyone who knew of his animagus form. He liked to smirk at James - or perhaps Remus or Peter, if they were around - whenever it popped from his wand. After the war, however, there wasn’t much use for the spell. The last time he performed it had been during his extracurricular project with Dumbledore… and he was surprised at what he saw. No longer the dog moving swiftly, brightly from his wand… but, instead, a brilliant form of a stag, large hooves and antlers that once matched James’ patronus. However, when the stag turned towards him, showing the familiar markings around its eyes, Sirius realized… it wasn’t just James’ old patronus, but rather Prongs himself. It had taken his breath away for a moment, causing a near-fatal distraction that needed Dumbledore’s help to escape.

boggart — Sirius’ boggart is a silver mask, but not for the reasons one might expect. He is less afraid of being a follower of Voldemort than he is about what that would mean about him. It would mean he conformed to what his family wanted - and conformity is Sirius’ biggest fear… or, at least, that’s what he’d tell someone. In reality, especially with another looming war, he is likely more afraid of Harry ending up like his father - or dead. But, in the moment, conformity would be Sirius’ biggest fear.

IC In Depth

personality traits —

[+] Loyal - There’s a reason Sirius’ animagus form is a dog - he is loyal to those he cares about. In the past, this was in relationship to the Marauders, particularly James more than anyone, but has changed as the years have gone by and things shifted. He is now mostly loyal to Harry - and, by extension, Lily. The problem with Sirius’ loyalty is that it can be very dark. Peter is out - and that’s forever. There is no coming back with Sirius once he views something as a betrayal and that includes someone he used to love.

[+] Intelligent - It’s not something easily identifiable by just looking at him, but Sirius is smart. In the books, he was one of the only people ever to escape Azkaban. In school, he hardly had to study and managed to keep up good grades and make his way through Hogwarts without trying. He’s careless in this intelligence sometimes, assuming he just knows without really thinking much about it. His “smarts” do well in both books and streets - he knows how to navigate life at the bar where he works and that different sort of nightlife. He’s a good dueller, able to use intuition to anticipate the moves of his opponent. The intelligence he does have helped to design the Marauders Map, become an animagus, and find and destroy the Horcruxes with Dumbledore.

[+] Open-Minded - Not the best word for this with Sirius, who can be incredibly stubborn and unwilling to change, but there is a reason he didn’t chuck out a werewolf as a friend, despite the teachings by his family. While Sirius himself is rather indifferent to these sorts of things, he does listen - and maybe, in part, this was due to James - and try to be better. Once, as a child, he thought muggleborns were scum… then he grew up, met more open-minded people, and followed their lead. He tries and that’s more than some others.

[+/-] Highly Emotional - Sirius is impulsive and uses emotions to make decisions before he thinks it through. This is what led him to trying to kill Peter the night James almost died - this is what leads him into at least half the arguments he has. He didn’t think through the “Prank” with Remus and Snape… just did it… because he thought it would be funny. That being said - this isn’t always a bad thing. He feels big and that means happiness, too. He can make Harry laugh more than anyone because he loves to joke around and play with him. He’s protective and those emotions come into play whenever someone is trying to mess with his family. It can just sometimes be hard for someone to truly know what they might be getting with him, as he can often flip from one emotion to the next rather quickly.

[-] Jealous/Distrustful - Sirius doesn’t accept change very easily when it comes to his outside world, particularly friendships. He wasn’t very keen on Lily in the beginning of her relationship with James because of his fear that she would “take his best friend away.” It made him mean - even aggressive - towards her, until James put a stop to it. When he finally realized that Lily could be in love with his best friend and he could still have his friendship, he cooled down and was more willing to bring her into his life. It wasn’t until the war that she truly became part of his family and that’s stuck with him since then, especially more so since James didn’t wake up. He’s now more likely to side-eye others she brings around, suspicious of them and their intentions, particularly if it is a man he’s worried about trying to hit on her. He doesn’t trust easily but, once a person has earned it, it’s much easier for him to open up.

[-] Resentful/Vindictive - Sirius Black knows how to hold a grudge. Once someone is dead to him, they are dead to him. He has made it a point that he will kill Peter Pettigrew one day and that has not gone away. Even though there’s part of him glad that he never got the chance five years ago (despite his best effort), he hasn’t given up hope. It’s not just good enough for Peter to die… he wants to be the one to do it. There’s also the grudge with Remus. While this one is to much a lesser extent, he’s angry that Remus hasn’t forgiven him, but has forgiven everyone else. He’s wary of Remus being around Harry because he thinks anyone around his godson should have to be okay with him. This is an argument that often peaks with him and Lily. He’s apologized to Remus - he hates himself for what happened to James - it’s about time Remus just got over it and realized that.

[-] Ruthless - Sirius is willing to do anything to get something done. If it had come to it during war, he wouldn’t have been above torture of a captured Death Eater and definitely killed without blinking an eye. His world is often very black and white - therefore, the good guys were good and the bad guys were bad. He’s willing to do what it takes to make sure he gets revenge for James. He’ll do anything to get the Horcruxes and take down Voldemort. He’ll do whatever he has to in order to protect Harry.

character biography —

Born to the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black, Sirius Black was the son his parents wanted - or so they originally thought. Cousins, Walburga and Orion married one another only to produce an heir. There was no love within their relationship, just duty - when the first son came, they were almost thrilled. But perhaps Sirius’ mother was just as suspicious as him because she forced her husband into bed again and again for a second child… just in case.

As if turned out, they would need it. Regulus was a docile baby, while Sirius had been finicky. They played well together as they aged and, despite being one another’s deepest confidants, there was clear favoritism from his parents to the younger son. This was rarely violent, but Walburga, particularly, made it clear that she preferred the way Sirius’ brother learned the proper pureblood ways so much more quickly than he did. Orion was rather indifferent to his family in general, preferring the young girls at the underground clubs - sometimes a bit too young for society’s tastes.

Despite many not realizing this, Sirius did try to be the son his parents wanted… at first. He believed what they believed - he did what he was told. But he screwed up often. Questioned things without thinking them through - talked out of turn. Whenever Regulus messed something up, Sirius would try his best to take the fall, ensuring any wrath of his mother stayed on him over his younger brother. As he grew, he began to see more of the world. But it wasn’t until he met James Potter on the train to Hogwarts that he began to change his beliefs. When he talked about the dangers of mudbloods, James set him straight - made sure to keep that word out of Sirius’ mouth. When he questioned the sanity of Muggles, James shrugged and said he thought they weren’t all that bad. It opened his eyes to something new. They were joined by Remus and Peter that year - and, while Sirius loved them, too, he truthfully could care less about expanding the group in the beginning.

The closer he got to his new friends, the farther away he got from the Black family name. He stopped writing home - stopped paying much attention to Regulus. In his young mind, he didn’t realize how detrimental this might be to his brother, but he was wrapped up in this new life. Gryffindor - change - rebellion. It was intoxicating. James became the most important person in Sirius’ life and he clung to his friend with all he had. They pulled pranks as a group, learned about Remus, found a way to help him. The Marauders were born and a map was made and life was good. It didn’t matter that the shadow of his brother donned in Slytherin robes hung over Hogwarts sometimes because Sirius ruled the school. Grimmauld was Regulus’ - Hogwarts was his.

When he decided to tell Severus Snape about the Willow, he hadn’t been thinking. But, really, nothing happened! Remus was being rather dramatic, in Sirius’ opinion! It was just a prank! Why couldn’t anyone else see that? They were mad at him for a while - probably some of the darkest times in Sirius’ life at school, the inability to be with friends - but they came around and it was restored. Things were good - things were right.

Then the war came and it was like the Marauders were thrust into adulthood with Sirius clinging to the life they had. The Order made sense for all of them - they were built for a revolution. But it wasn’t as much of an adventure as they assumed it would be. People died every day - battles were brutal. But Sirius still took it less seriously than he should’ve. He revelled in the fight, laughing alongside his best mate as they shot curses at those fucking cult-followers. He cracked jokes about Voldemort’s dick being so small he had to make an army to try and make up for it. He smiled with blood running down his face into his lips, tasting the iron. He was fearless - and reckless. War wasn’t a game, but Sirius treated it as one.

And it made some people angry. Perhaps that was why Remus suspected him for the spy - or maybe it was lingering distrust over the Willow. Sirius couldn’t help his old prejudices coming up as war grew into their veins, swimming through their blood. A werewolf. Remus had always been able to hold secrets… perhaps this was one of them.

When James was targeted - well, young Harry, but James - Sirius didn’t hesitate to name Remus the spy. James may not have been able to see it… but Peter, Sirius said. We’ll use Peter! No one will suspect! And perhaps that judgement was his worst mistake of all. For Peter was the spy. Peter would come to betray them. And when Voldemort died, there wasn’t much time for celebration because less than a week later, James was found on the ground of Godric’s Hollow, unable to wake up.

Sirius knew who was at fault -it was him! He did this! His own idea! - and that person would pay. It was so much easier to react with vengeance than feel his own guilt. So much easier to want to kill his old friend than cry over his own mistakes. James was as good as dead - and Peter would die, too. Sirius knew the officials would arrest him for the murder - that he would spend his life in Azkaban - but he didn’t care. He searched for Peter the night of James’ torture with the attempt to kill him. But Peter was a rat - and there were thousands of them in London. Whether Peter was using his animagus form or not, Sirius had been unable to track him down before getting apprehended by Aurors. He stayed two days in a holding cell, grieving the near-loss of his true brother - until Lily was able to prove that the secret keeper had never been Sirius, after all.

Since that day, he vowed to do what James would’ve wanted him to do - he looked after Harry and Lily. He became the godfather he was supposed to have been. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t stop thinking about the murder he tried committing that night. If Peter were to ever resurface, Sirius would be ready. It was a good thing that he had the locket - that he had Dumbledore and the Horcruxes. It was something to keep his mind occupied. If he couldn’t kill Peter, then he could at least work on killing Voldemort, who started this entire war in the first place.

Those months after James, he spent his days with Harry and Lily and his nights searching for the Horcruxes. He would wind up back at Lily’s place in the middle of the night and crash on her couch. Eventually, he officially moved in, getting a job at a pub located right between Diagon Alley and Knockturn - causing many different types to enter into the place. These days, he still splits his time - almost like he has two lives; one where he helps raise Harry, the other in an underground nightlife world of darker wix and Horcruxes. He hasn’t forgotten his friend - James is at the forefront of everything Sirius does - or his promise to avenge him. But stopping a potential war and making sure Harry has everything he needs is just as important. Sirius has grown more responsible in the past five years, but he still holds on to much of the person he once was. There’s a chance he’ll end up doing something reckless again - something he can’t take back.

plot ideas —

ONE. I think exploring the interpersonal relationships will be the most interesting thing in this rp. This isn’t a huge action rp (as of yet) and so the quieter moments within relationships is what I’m eager to do. What will it be like trying to co-parent with Lily, when Sirius isn’t even really the parent? I think they likely butt heads and argue from time to time, while also relying heavily on one another. It’s probably in the realm of unhealthy at times, given Sirius lives with them and has devoted his new life to them. Sirius is still very much about James. So, if Lily were to try and move on with someone new, this would be very likely to anger him, even though she deserves a life with love. Then there’s Remus to think about - Remus blames Sirius, but Sirius also blames himself. He just doesn’t think Remus should hold that grudge, while forgiving others in his life. They both thought one another was the spy, after all. I also think it’ll be fun to see how Sirius and Fabian play out together as friends, particularly since they both lost a brother. I’m also looking forward to exploring relationships not within the connections and learning about these characters within this world.

TWO. James wakes up. I see you included “James Potter” as a potential plot drop release – I’m assuming this might mean he wakes up. If that’s the case, I don’t think it’ll be as easy as it would seem for Sirius. He would be glad his friend is back, of course. But it’s also complicated. Harry is only six years old - and lived a whole life without his dad. James would be this “mystery guy he’s heard about” and likely not about to jump into his dad’s arms. I don’t think Sirius would make him, either, which might be frustrating for both Sirius and James. It would complicate their relationship a lot - Harry is his kid now, after all.

THREE. Horcruxes. I think it’ll be important to bring other characters into this, especially since it’s doubtful there will ever be a Dumbledore. I’d like Sirius to be given tasks to ask others for help - and do these missions without Dumbledore present. He’s had to learn more responsibility in the past 5 years, but Sirius was never the leader (that was James), so it would be interesting for him to have to take on a leadership role.

FOUR. Fuckbuddies! I’m not really here for shipping, especially with a character like Sirius, but I think he probably has a few people he’s slept with a couple times. I’m honestly up for anyone for this, but I don’t think just anyone could end up in a romantic relationship with him. First off, he’s aromatic and it’s really hard for him to have a romantic connection. It would take time and a lot of chemistry to ever break Sirius past just sex with someone. But give me fuckbuddies all the way.

FIVE. Sirius may be more responsible than 5 years ago, but that doesn’t mean everything about him has changed. While he’s a good parent to Harry and around very often - his schedule is extremely flexible - that doesn’t always mean he knows what he’s doing. He’s likely to give in rather quickly if Harry were whining and is easily frustrated. While he has good influences around like Molly or Lily, he doesn’t always listen to what they have to say (look at him in OOTP!) and just does what he wants. I’d like to explore how his more passive parenting style might affect Harry and the people around him.

#al:accepted #sirius black

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singularname · 5 years ago

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ooc: cats 2019 was hot garbage that doesn’t belong in the jellicle junkyard. Below are my thoughts and my review. I get pretty technical at points. So here you go. PERSONAL BLOGS DO NOT REBLOG! Liking and commenting and sending me asks about stuff is fine. But please do not reblog. I’m sure more thoughts will come out as I discuss things and such, but these are my first impressions.

positives ( will be above the cut ):

You could tell who the broadway singers were and they stood out.

Munk was good, but I have some thoughts but overall he was good. He was probably the only one that even remotely understood his character, but he still had a few off beats.

Jennifer killed it, no i wont take critiques. Memory was pretty good.

Mungo and Rumple made the debut version of their song likeable (cause I do not like the debut version of their song) yet i have thoughts.

Bustopher Jones (the song) was decent, out of all the reworked numbers it fit the best and didn’t seem to far from the reworked plot or the original, so it was a good middle ground. James did well, he’s no operatic singer, but he did well, best of the non-trained leads at least.

Gus was good but his song was a bit boring he needed someone more to play off of as that is what acting is partially

Skimble may just have been the best part of the whole damn thing. The inclusion of tap into his number was pretty smart. I do wish more of his accent shined through though.

The rundown theater worked it would have worked better if they kept it all there.

negatives ( below the cut ):

Dance was sacrificed for cinamtography which was a damn shame. this musical is one of the premier dance musicals

Munk’s voice at the beginning was far too high, and did not exude power. It got better.

Victoria being the stand in for the audience was stupid and pointless. Especially with the fact that Addressing of Cats was kept in and broke the fourth wall.

Victoria’s acceptance of Grizabella was pointless because the jellicles hadn’t accepted her, she wasn’t even considered a jellicle yet. Her agency in that number meant nothing. If she had been a jellicle it would have been better. A better audience stand in would be the fucking kittens cause its their first ball.

The lack of touching made the touching that was their awkward. It was like they were all afraid to touch and interact with each other. And the CGI didn’t help, like when Munk lifted Victoria off the car at the beginning which looked like he wasn’t grabbing her at all which we know isn’t true.

Tugger had no point in the musical because he sang his number and disappeared, and not by fucking Macavity. Jason could have done more with the character, he had the right voice, but its like he wasn’t trying.

Jenny-Any-Dots was ruined. She wasn’t a respectable cat, and the mice were stupid. Sorry, I mean the idea was cute in theory, I liked that, but the execution was stupid. And the zipping of her skin NO. It just works better with the cats acting it out like they act out skimble’s number or bustopher’s number. It didn’t add anythign to the cats sing the songs about themselves because that idea was dropped when Skimble and Bustopher even sang their songs. Like its a poor idea and poorly executed, especially since the original is like gossip the cats gossiping about who could be chosen.

Who will it be echoed only once? UGH. The chorus was fucking weak in the few moments they were given to stand out.

Speaking of clothing, the clothing choices made no sense, along with proportion of human clothing. If I put a watch around a cat’s neck it would fucking choke. Yet a ring can fit around a cat’s arm? Some of the clothing was too human like all of Misto’s costume (which why was he wearing it the full time? he looked better without it).

The replacement of coricopat and tantomile for the hip hop twins was utterly stupid and useless.

Some of the framing of songs and such especially at the beginning was bad. But that could also be because it takes you about 4 songs to get your eyeballs used to the damn CGI.

Mungo and Rumple were good, but Rumple would have been better if she kept the accent up like Mungo did. I loved seeing them do a burglary, but I prefer the musical version where the scare the cats away under the guise of macavity then have fun in the junkyard.

Growltiger had promise as a song but they only gave us a line followed by a joke so that was stupid. The whole barge shit was stupid. Their were no stakes and we never see the other cats get off the damn barge. Also griddlebone poor poor griddlebone.

The opening number was missing so many things like decent choreography. None of the choreography made them look feline, they looked like humans doing a mix of jazz and ballet. Just turning their hands over instead of open hands would have been a tremendous change. But like I said earlier what choreography there was was sacrificed for cinematography so you could see what you were supposed to see instead of letting the audience watch and see it on their own with some lighting suggestions to draw the eye away from the main dancing.

I think the concept of Skimble’s number was great, but I thought taking them out of the ballroom was stupid. But it was the strongest number and the one besides memory which had the most relation back to the original.

Why were their so many songs and verses cut? Naming of cats named only plain names, not the fun names which is where we get names of our characters from! Like half the cast is named in that number. It made the chorus seem distant and impersonal, along with the lack of touch.

Robbie should have gotten the same treatment as the girl playing victoria he had almost a bigger role than her, aside from her little grizabella moments which all of those important grizabella moments were done in seclusion. Half the reason they have agency in the stage show is because other cats can see her.

The lack of touch! enough said.

Tugger not singing Mistoffelees song upset me. Robbie did good, but he is not Tugger. Mistoffelees song was ruined by all the pausing and bullshit. There was not a climax to the song at all because it was always stopped and restarted. it felt like a dinky kids roller coaster that had no real payoff because Misto has no confidence so when Deuts appears it may not have been because of Misto at all just saying.

Old Deuts was... bad. Judi was pitchy at best (sing talking the lines just don’t work), and just not very convincing. Her presence wasn’t commanding or authoritative no matter how much Robbie tried.

Bomby was fucked three ways to hell. Taylor was okay, but the song Macavity was ruined with the catnip and all the bullshit with that. Macavity is a cautionary tale, and doesn’t fit in with the actual purpose the musical wanted it to be. Her song wasn’t as a good as normal, and it missed aspects that having it as a duet brought.

Beautiful ghosts was absolutely pointless, and quite petty of a song. Perhaps if we knew more about Victoria or she was a jellicle it would have made sense, but it just seemed very disconnected.

I am mourning the cut of Peeks and Pollicles. Because it explain its a dog, so when Bomby says it in Macavity you have a connection to the word. Here it just seemed like a nonsense word. Plus no rumpus cat. Cutting it means that Munk’s normal song was changed to skimble, and i guess misto. Also cutting it means you take a whole number away from the chorus, and thus you loose more personality of the chorus cats.

The chorus seemed absolutely pointless because you never could watch them and focus on them. They were just their not interacting with one another, not doing anything really. All of what makes the jellicles a tribe was taken away because these cats seem like strangers to one another. Not to mention taking away their solos at the beginning is a crime and again takes away from the personality of each individual chorus cat.

Jason should have sang misto’s song cause it would have given him a purpose besides a star to get butts in seats. he was their and i half wanted him to sing the end where victoria did because then he would have had a purpose but nope.

The cutting of so many verses from songs was just a shame. The musical inspires people to take up ballet, and jazz, and tap but all of it was cut for cinematography purposes and to make you look at the main actors in a different shot so their is no inspiration for the dance.

Skimble’s number had an awkward shot on the train bridge that was so far away you couldn’t even see the silhouettes any more.

I mentioned proportion earlier but like the train tracks were way off, i mean we’ve all seen Aristocats right?

Victoria not having her moment after naming of cats was sad. And whatever moment their was ruined by the assassination of misto’s character. Cause it was bad. He never questions himself as being good in the stage show just where his powers come from. But here he has no steadiness in if he is good or not, and he’s just badly characterized.

The kittens had no excitement for Tugger in his song. None of them did they seemed more happy about the milk rather than this hunk in front of them.

Macavity was shit. Seeing him throughout took away from him being mysterious and threatening. Seeing him fall at the end with Griz floating away was absolutely stupid and cartoonish and TS Eliot is rolling in his grave at that alone. Why he is not a zombie yet coming to kill Tom Hooper for fucking his poems up is beyond me. Also Macavity is a ginger cat... but he had no hint of red hair on him at all.

The jellicle ball dance sequence was bad. It wasn’t just that they weren’t cat like it was that what’s his face was trying to do a Sugar Plum Fairy and have them all dance to the quieter notes in the musical which made it seem disjointed. Sugar Plum Fairy works like that because its a light number she is supposed to make you listen for what she’s dancing too not just what you are hearing. This did not work.

The plot was stupid. The competition and stealing of cats was stupid. It was not needed. The had the element of putting on a show and talking about cats getting chosen they didn’t need macavity for more than that, or to make him want to be chosen. Him being a threat alone is good enough.

Munk did not get his fight. That was given to the damn cats on the barge. I am not happy with that.

I wish the named cats were more present in the bigger group. They blended into the background before their own songs, and then they disappeared because of the shitty capturing the cats plot device that was shitty and not needed. It took away from your familiarity with the cats who were present because we know nothing about those cats at all.

A moment of silence for all the chorus cats we don’t see or know, or were written off, and had no interpersonal relationships with each other. Literally the lack of touching between them makes it seem like all these cats are strangers to each other. Robbie tried.

Another moment of silence for Gillian Lynne’s choreography. The nuance she gave to it, that was all lost and gone.

Finally the CGI the hands were inconsistent, as was the face stuff. They had whiskers but they were hard to see, and because they had no nose or mouth (cat versions) defined it didn’t feel right, and we know it was possible to do both since the actors wore makeup.

#ooc: out of cats

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ikagrp · 6 years ago

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Welcome, Bonnie! You’ve been accepted as your first choice of Jung Eunbi as Jiwoo Shin. Please send in your account within the next 24 hours.

Also, please follow these tags: ikag starter, Ikag social, ikaghh, ikag important, ikag task, ikagfollow, ikagunfollow and ikag event

[ OOC INFORMATION ]

NAME / PRONOUNS | AGE | TIMEZONE

hi, my name’s bonnibel but i go by any short hand of that (typically bonni or b ). typically go with she and her. ‘twenty-three" by iu plays loudly bc i’m twenty-three and its a bop. i’m in the weird part of indiana that’s in the central time zone.

YOUR ACTIVITY:

i work, a lot. but i usually always have free time to be active and do stuff. it’s been a while since i was last in a group (ended badly )but i’m willing to try anything.

ROLEPLAYING EXPERIENCE

i started on facebook back in the great ol age of 2010 and moved to tumblr in 2014 and have been here ever since. i’ve had way too many blogs to count.

IC INFORMATION

WHO ARE YOU BRINGING TO THE SHOW?

Please keep this layout for us. So that it is easier for us to update everything.

FACECLAIM: jung eunbi/eunha Secondary choice: amber liu

NAME: eunha: jiwoo shin / amber: kenna shin

AGE: twenty-three

BIRTHDAY: december 4th, 1995

OCCUPATION: eunha: social media influencer/model / amber: tattoo artist.

HOMETOWN: eunha: beomil-dong, dong-gu, busan, south korea / amber: long beach, california

PETS: none.

BIOGRAPHY:

Triggers: homophobia

describing jiwoo as she grew up was like describing the sun. always with a bright smile on her face and a laugh at the tip of her tongue. trying her hardest to make everyone around her smile as brightly as she could. an optimistic child that nobody thought would go very far. the world wasn’t all sunshines and rainbows. though nobody wanted to break the poor child’s heart just yet.

growing up, jiwoo had always felt different. at least that’s what she believed. never fancying the same boys that the other girls had gossiped over at school, but instead, she had always noticed the little things about those gossiping girls. in the country, the topics were never talked about. mostly frowned upon. jiwoo had no idea why this was and nobody could explain it to her. so, the small girl bit her tongue and kept herself silent. family dinners never talked about those relationships, an aunt or two asking when she was ever going to get a boyfriend. the thought never crossed her mind.

through her life, photography was always there. from the beautiful pictures she saw on tv to the pictures in the magazines. from the sights to the models. everything seemed to capture the girl’s attention. through the years, jiwoo had gone through probably a thousand disposable cameras until one day her parents gave the girl her first digital camera. it was one of the best gifts that she had ever received. promised to take good care of it. she treated the camera like a fragile little creature that if you shook to hard, would break.

through the years, the shin family took trips around the world. the trips filled the young child with so much glee. the beautiful sights and wonderful opportunities to capture beautiful moments on film forever. soon enough, jiwoo had a place to post her pictures. her social media sights grew from the amazing sights that she got to share. eventually, this popularity created more opportunities. with those opportunities came more chances for jiwoo to take photos. soon enough, she started to post pictures that included her face. some companies found out about her following, often asking her for promotional posts and ads.

but even with all the popularity she had been getting, jiwoo was slowly spiraling into depression. the country she lived in was not a tolerant place. though there was no way possible to be prosecuted for the actions, it was still not a legal act. jiwoo was slightly ashamed and rather annoyed by the lack of understanding and acceptance she would be greeted with. so she kept it a secret. telling no soul what she felt.

after a while, she finally able to leave behind the world she was used to. a world that kept her voice silent but accepted her gift. moving from her home in south korea, jiwoo set up shop in a city on another continent. though they were against the action, her parents had no right to refuse their daughter. with the excuse of schooling, which like most typical families in korea, was extremely important. they allowed to pack up her life and move away from them.

the new sights were amazing even though jiwoo had seen them before. she enjoyed the warm weather and beautiful people. after a while, the photography on her media seemed to be blooming even better than before and so many people were fascinated by her that even her modeling took off. it paid her well and she was happy. there was no judgment in this new place and she was finally able to be herself.

after years of living on her own, jiwoo went back to korea to see her family. though it was only a visit, she was happy to finally be able to be open to them and show them her real self. the bright sunshine girl was back and honestly, her parents couldn’t be happier. she told them jiwoo had be given an offer that she was going to accept. they promised to be supporting her as they tried their hardest to catch it all from their home.

with bags packed, the korean girl found herself on the first flight to london.

RELATIONSHIPS:

none.

FOR RETURNING CHARACTERS ONLY:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ANYTHING ELSE:

lowkey sorry that my biography is total shit but it was really difficult. bios are not my strong area and it’s now three am rip. all secondary information is listed for amber. also, this is a really cute idea for a group tbh

#ikagaccepted #submission

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theharellan · 7 years ago

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❅ : Advice to non-role play blogs that want to get started?

i wrote advice literally years ago that i can’t be bothered to find now, so i guess now is as good a time as ever to re-write it.

i’ll put the first bullet above the cut b/c i feel like some stuff is important for everyone to know, and some stuff is just relevant to rp blogs.

brush up on the lingo! the tumblr rp community has developed a language of its own. you’ll learn a lot through context or just asking questions (and if you don’t know what something means, don’t be afraid to ask!). i honestly think this language divide is a reason some ppl have problems with personal blogs reblogging their posts. i’m not sure everyone outside the rpc realises what personal blogs are. here are a couple of important terms:- personal blog: a non-rp blog, it doesn’t matter if you use your blog for posts about your personal life or it’s a fandom blog for graphics, it’s still a personal blog by most ppl’s standards.- muse / mun: i tend to prefer the word “mod” / “writer” to “mun” excepting the munday pun, but mun just means the person who runs the blog. muse is the character (or characters) written on a blog.- mutuals / non-mutuals: if you follow someone and they follow you back, you’re mutuals with them. otherwise, you’re a non-mutual.- private / selective / semi-selective: people who are picky about who they rp with, whether that means mutuals only, or only muses from a certain rp. these terms can be somewhat flexible, i consider myself semi-selective b/c i will rp with non-mutuals, but will turn down rps if i’m overwhelmed with replies or feel we’re incompatible as rpers.- meme: a term used to describe prompts that can take many forms, from symbols like this meme to memes where you have to add some input of your own, like a “five times __’d” meme you’d have to add whatever word you like in the blank.- banter / para / multipara / novella: again, these terms can kinda vary person to person. banter is typically about 100 words, para can be anywhere from 100 words to maybe 200. multipara i put at about 300-400. novella is just… go wild. i’ve written 2000 word replies on occasion.- tw/cw: trigger warning and content warning. these are used by tumblr a lot in general, but given rp (for an adult game series like dragon age especially) will inevitably deal with triggering or sensitive topics, i think it’s important to define.these are just a few examples, and if you’re ever confused, please ask someone. it’s better than not and annoying someone by sending an ask for a meme listed mutuals only.

make sure you get a rules / about / verses page before you start. if you’re established in a community people may rp with you without one, but if you’re new it’s important to establish yourself. here are some things i think are important to have in particular. it’s a little dragon age-rp/bioware-rp specific, but this is a dragon age blog. other things that i didn’t mention b/c it wasn’t necessarily relevant to interacting: have a name/nickname, age, and pronouns on your rules AND your character’s about page. even if it’s just “18+” or “minor” if you’re not comfortable giving your exact age.some people will refuse to write with minors for their own comfort, and having this information will limit miscommunication and misgendering.

lots of people use icons, and they’re a lot of fun to use! but you also don’t have to use them. some people may not rp with you for it, but that’s their loss. i will say it’s becoming more accepted since when i first made solas. it wasn’t so much of a thing when i first started tumblr rp, then it became a thing, then it backed off again. i personally use them when i can b/c i find they add a little extra something, but don’t have icons for every verse.

make sure your page is legible. aesthetic is nice, but people here have vision problems and super tiny font or dark font on dark backgrounds can strain people’s eyes. remember rping is mostly about writing, so if you have a page that doesn’t show off your writing, you’re doing yourself a disservice!

i’d recommend making a separate blog rather than making a sideblog, or if you do make a sideblog, then having a hub blog/main rp blog you follow from. often i don’t look at personal blogs that follow me at all (i have a hard time keep track of new followers in general), so if ppl have a personal they follow from and an rp sideblog i may miss this entirely.

make sure you turn on your asks and anonymous questions if you’re comfortable with them. i forget this sometimes still lmao.

know that it’s ok to make mistakes! i’ve had ppl tell me they’d love to get into darp but don’t know dragon age lore all that well. there’s nothing wrong with that. i have learned so much about the lore since making solas, and there’s still stuff i don’t know! if you feel unsure still, i’d suggest figuring out what your character would/wouldn’t know about and familiarising yourself with that via the dragon age wiki for example if you’re making a dwarven oc (please, i need so many more in my life) who is from orzammar but is now a surface dwarf, i’d recommend reading the pages about orzammar and surface dwarves, and from there you can find related pages. your character will never know everything about the universe, so it’s ok if you don’t, either. i play one of the more knowledgeable characters in the series, and even he doesn’t know everything.

don’t godmod / metagame / forceship etc. this probably could’ve been up with the definitions, but i felt was important enough to warrant its own section.- godmodding is when you force the other writer’s character to do something. like, in a fight, you say one character kicked another character in the face. you’re not the one who decides that, they are, all you can say is your character tried to kick them in the fact. conversely, making your character dodge every move would also be a jerk move. i’d recommend fight scenes be discussed ooc tbh. mild godmodding is sometimes accepted. say our characters are drinking and yours hands mine a drink, most people will accept you writing that my character takes the drink. there would be a line, however. like if you then stated my character loves the drink and has never had anything like it, that’d be godmodding. mild godmodding often helps move threads along, though if you’re unsure about something, feel free to ask! most people will appreciate it.- metagaming is when your character has knowledge they couldn’t or shouldn’t. i have in my rules that you can’t know solas’s true identity w/o asking me first and establishing it ooc before you do so ic. in canon solas is careful with what he reveals about himself, and the only person who really suspects him for any length of time is vivienne.- forceshipping is when you force a relationship onto another character. typically this refers to romantic shipping, but i think it can apply to any relationship. for example, if an inquisitor lavellan were to call my solas “vhenan” it would be forceshipping, as i am singleship. but also, if someone were to project a friendly or even negative relationship onto my a character, it’s also a form of forceshipping imo. remember you can only control how your character feels about someone, and not the other way around. in your head blackwall may be the dad your character has never had, and your character can treat him so, but don’t expect a blackwall rper to fill that role if they don’t want to!

there’s a lot more, but in the interest of doing other things with my day i’ll end it here. if people have questions i’m happy to answer them, either through Tumblr IM or asks.

#( ooc )#( munday meme )#incorruptibleseeker #( asks )#( mod notes )#[ aso if ppl have advice of their own feel free to add in replies? ]#[ or reblogs idc if u reblog this ]

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jazzy-art-time · 7 years ago

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Sorry if this is a bother but I’m really trying to get into the ask blog community but I don’t really know how to start off or do anything? You have a lot of blogs and seem popular so I was wondering if you could give a newbie some advice if it’s not too much trouble? o^o”

Oh it’s no trouble at all reallyalthough I would HARDLY consider myself as “””popular””” hhhhiknowlike8peopleI did something like this once before on one of my ask blogs but I’m just gonna trim it up and rewrite it.+*~ Below The Cut For Shitty Jazzy Advice ~*+Be warned it is long and wordy.This is my own personal blog process/blog beliefs.Don’t take all of these to heart fully because there are many ways to do/interpret things. I am simply sharing how i personally do things.If anyone feels the need to add more onto this, feel free to.

First lets get The Blog Theme down.Believe it or not this is actually important and can affect you and your blog a lot more than you think.-> THIS ACCOUNT IS WHERE I GET ALL OF MY THEMES -Please note there are other blogs like this one, I just use that one specifically.You can also use the default theme that tumblr gives you, there are ways to edit it but I do not know how to edit it you would have to ask someone else.Simple Theme Color rules that I use:- Do not add bright neon colors with black. I love black n neon as much as the next guy but it makes your theme eye burning.- Blog colors can determine a blogs theme as well. A bright colored theme suggests a happy upbeat blog. But this only applies if you care for that sort of thing.- Make the text easy to read. Please even your links in the sidebar make them a color that is different enough from the other colors on your blog so you can actually read them. Use a easy to read font as well.What I always make sure to add in a theme:- Ask Box. Obvious thing to add, never feel ashamed or hesitant to close your ask box if needed. Whether it be due to plot reasons or you have asks piling up. Feel free to close it for the time you need and open it up again when desired.- Submissions Box. Not REALLY needed, I just always add it for ease of access. You can get to someone’s submit box just by adding /submit to the end of their url but I prefer to have a tab for it.- Character page or reference tag. Seriously add a reference page or a reference tag that is easy to find. It’s kind of a turnoff if you don’t have a easy to access reference. Don’t be upset if you feel your reference isn’t good enough. As long as you have a color palette to it you will be golden. Never shade a reference without a normal color palette we are all begging you. If you draw art traditionally, you can always add a color palette in with MSpaint nobody will judge you for that.- Rules Page. Now this isn’t 100% needed. I just add them to avoid getting spammed with questions or like… nsfw questions or something. If you don’t care about that then don’t worry ‘bout it.These are the main things I add to a blog. I also add these things because I’m extra:- Lore/Plot page. This usually contains links n tags to follow all of my plot posts or specific lore posts.- Ask Hints page. This is a HUGE help to people who are shy like me!! I usually can’t think of good asks to send so Ask Hint pages are such a help. I always try to add them whenever I can! Also they can help people ask more plot relevant questions when needed.Other Important things to add to a theme of a blog:- Add warnings. If your blog isn’t going to be happy go lucky, please consider adding a warning somewhere. Whether it be in the blogs description or your rules page. You don’t HAVE to add a warning, but its best if you do. - Add a tagging system if needed. No again, don’t have to do this. Some don’t tag things at all which is fine! I prefer to have tags and tag everything so I don’t accidentally trigger someone or just have peeps upset at me in general. I always have trigger tags, sensitive content tags and OOC tags. I go overboard with my tagging, I am aware of this, but I would rather be safe than sorry.Lets talk about Blog Playlists:- It is perfectly fine to have a blog playlist. Most complain about blog playlists but that is generally only if AutoPlay is on. I’m neutral on blog playlists just as long as the autoplay is off I am good lol. AutoPlay tends to give me a spook. It’s a highly debated thing in the community, but from what i’ve seen people just don’t like AutoPlay lol-> IF YOU ARE GOING TO USE A STOCK PHOTO FOR YOUR BACKGROUND, TRY USING THIS METHOD FOR FAIR USE I know most don’t honestly care about fair use of stock photos like this, but try to be fair +*~ Onto the character’s themselves ~*+What do you choose as your main pokecharacter?Literally whatever you want. I know some try to challenge themselves by choosing a pokemon they dislike/is hard to draw as their main character, but please note there is a difference between challenging yourself and doing something that you dislike to impress others.Choose whatever you want. Whether it be a popular pokemon or not, as long as you enjoy it, go for it.Need Help designing the character themselves or their personality?Enjoy some links that I’ve used in the past when i was in a bind.- Master Post of Character Design/Story- Character Flaw List- Color Scheme website - A big thing containing stuff for character design - Here is a Palette Blog that I follow that I use for color palettes when I come up blank!- Need help portraying better speech bubbles for characters? here is some examples of some fun things you can do with them!- Are you a mainly text based blog or just want to word some of your things better? Enjoy this.I could link you so many more things, I also have a bunch of Art Tutorials saved/tagged!But I’m going to move on to avoid spamming~In the end. Have fun with your character design. If you aren’t enjoying what you are designing/drawing then maybe you should try something different! Again, there is a difference between challenging yourself and just forcing yourself to do something you dislike.+*~ ONTO BLOG THEMES ~*+What kind of plot should your blog have? Should it have a plot? What is better?Literally whatever you want!! Do what you want!! You want a big plot blog?? DO IT!! You want a silly nonsense blog?? DO IT!! Want a mix of both?? DO IT!!Now. Lets discuss blogs that contain sensitive subjects:- Do research on sensitive subjects. I know you are doing blogs for fun! Why would you want to research something that sounds boring right? Yeah it can be boring. But DON’T TRY TO PORTRAY SOMETHING YOU LITERALLY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT. Because then that’s just being ignorant or offensive. If you want a blog starring a depressed character? Please at least just do some research on depression so you aren’t just doing one big stereotype splattered everywhere.- I know doing research sounds boring but there is a line that you have to do research on before portraying it unless you just straight up want to be offensive or ignorant. In which case if you would want to be offensive… why? just why? idk shoo bEGONE.- Doing research on the subjects you are portraying can actually teach you things and help you better your characters and plot. Believe it or not… studying something you don’t know that much about will…. help you LEARN??? wow shocking I know. I know I sound sarcastic and rather salty with this, but it happens more than you think.- Portraying a subject you know nothing about just requires some research. It’s honestly not that hard. You don’t always have to portray sensitive subjects 100% by the book. You can add your own twists or portray them differently if you wish! But there is a line between adding a twist and just being ignorant and offensive.+*~ Ask Time ~*+Alright, you got your blog all set up! You are ready to go! Now you need to get out there, get known! Get ASKS.How to go about it?- Get your blog signal boosted. The PokeAsk community loves signal boosting one another! A signal boost can go a long way to someone who is just starting out. If you don’t have a friend already in the community that can signal boost you, try asking a mod for a signal boost! Most mod’s love to signal boost others, go to one of them and ask for one POLITELY.- Make a Ask Call. One of the big ways to get asks is to simply make a ask call. Just make a post saying “Hey I need asks” or something.- Go onto other’s ask calls asking for one. Lots of Mod’s do Ask Calls in which they SEND OUT asks to others, go onto one of those! Ask for a ask! There is absolutely no shame in doing that.- Interact with others in the community. You can’t expect to get asks if literally no one knows who you are. Send asks to others! Get yourself out there! Make yourself known! If you are like me and have social anxiety or have issues sending asks, look for people’s ask hint pages! Send them a ask from the ask hint page!- Make a Ask Hints page of your own. Sometimes people just don’t know what to send you or are too shy to come up with something themselves. A Ask Hint page can help others send you asks.- There is no shame in asking a friend for a ask. There is literally no shame in asking your friends for asks if you really need them. Even if your friends just send them on anon. There is no shame in it.- Make sure your blog is clean. If your blog is filled with randomness that has nothing to do with your blog or is just random content from you, it will be hard for others to figure out what to ask about. If your askblog looks more like a personal blog, you probably wont get that many asks, its a harsh truth. Also again, having a easy to navigate blog can do wonders.- Make your content appealing. This sounds horribly harsh I know but you can’t expect to have others be instantly filling your inbox if you don’t have some sort of appeal. You can’t have around 4 posts of your character doing nothing interesting and expect others to go “oh I wonder this characters backstory is” or something. Spice it up! Make things interesting! You have to have a hook, make others want to question about your characters or your plot. Make them want to know more! Feel like you don’t know how to make things more appealing? Literally just ask others for advice. Even if the advice is criticism, USE THAT to become better. There is no shame in asking others for advice.- Don’t rely. On. Asks. Only. I understand it is a PokeASK community, but don’t rely on asks fully. Not getting any asks? Time to draw some character shenanigans! Do some plot to lure people in! Make us see your characters outside of asks! It can do wonders for character development and will also help lure others into wanting to learn more about the blog!You do not need a constant stream of asks to run a ask blog.If you just sit and do nothing because you have no asks, then guess what? You still aren’t gonna get asks. Sitting around doing nothing will get you nothing.Getting asks can be hard. For literally all of us it can be hard sometimes.Even that blog you think “omg they are so popular they must get so many asks” struggles because I bet you their inbox is full of nonsense that they can’t actually use.Don’t beat yourself up if you aren’t getting any asks, just keep moving forward with your blog and make the community get hooked on your stuff.+*~ Tips on things you should NOT do~*+- Do not force ships onto others. Most of us in the community love shipping characters, but don’t force it. If the other Mod expresses discomfort with the ship or doesn’t want to ship with you, don’t force it.- Don’t god mod others. Don’t waltz into someone elses inbox going “my character totally PUNCHES YOURS IN THE FACE AHAHA YOUR CHARACTER IS WEAK COMPARED TO MINE.”. Unless you and the mod planned that out beforehand, it is mostly unwanted. Don’t try to randomly attack or take over someone else’s plot. Discuss things like that with the mod, if they don’t want to do that sort of thing? Don’t send it. It’s extremely annoying. Also if you aren’t involved in someone’s plot or ask?? Don’t try to reply or force yourself in it. I’ve had people respond to my plot posts that had literally nothing to do with them. Its annoying and disrespectful. Always discuss things of that nature with the mod beforehand-.If you don’t like someone in the community, block them or ignore them. Do not make a huge deal out of it. It takes zero effort to block someone you dislike and move on. I know some go “Oh I don’t block others UwU” but then they go and constantly start crap with others? Just… If you dislike someone move the hell on with your life and leave them be.- Don’t do call out posts unless there is a clear threat to the community. Oh honey I’m so sorry you dislike someone in the community, but please spare me the time of scrolling past your huge call out post for a person who hurt your feelings a bit. Don’t cause the community unnecessary drama with call out posts for things that aren’t really community issues, this includes vague-ing about others publicly on your blog. Call out posts should only be for community threats or something. Is the person you are going to make a call out post on a pedophile/art scammer/submits porn or body horror to blogs/blatenly sends out hate to others openly/sends fetish asks or something of that nature? Then yes that is a community issue that needs to be addressed. Is the person you are going to make a call out post on someone who just hurt your feelings/you had a fight with about something that is only directed at the two of you or your friend group? Then don’t.A community issue is a issue that addresses the entire community, not just you and your issues with someone else. Move on don’t throw a temper tantrum like a child because someone blocked you or something. Nobody cares if you and someone else don’t get along, its private business so let it remain private.CALL OUT POSTS NEED TO REMAIN RARE AND WITHIN GOOD REASON.- Don’t reply to anon hate. Seriously don’t. Even if you have a witty comeback do you think everyone really needs to see anon hate spamming their dash? no. Ignore anon hate and move on. I know sometimes anon hate can hurt you, it can cut you to the core. But please try to ignore it and move on. Always remember that you can turn off anon or block anons. Granted sometimes anon hate can just be a misunderstanding in which case feel free to reply. I’ve had some “anon hate” which was actually just a misunderstanding. There is a difference between clearing up a misunderstanding and fueling anon hate.- Mind your business. If a drama is happening and it has literally nothing to do with you? Mind your business. Too many people try to get involved in drama that doesn’t even involve them and all that does is fuel more crap. Mind. ya. Business. It can save ya from unnecessary drama trust me. You can support others who are victims of drama or something, but don’t just try to insert yourself and make things worse. There is a difference between a supportive friend and a white knight. A white knight attacks without reason, they don’t know the full story nor care to know. Just…. seriously mind ya business.- Did I mention that if you dislike someone you should just block and or ignore them? Seriously. - Criticism is not automatically hate. Too many people take any negative criticism as hate. You can’t honestly expect everyone to only ever have GOOD things to say about your stuff? You aren’t perfect, nobody is perfect. If someone gives you criticism on your art or your writing or character development, listen. Listen to it. Take it in! Become a better artist/writer/blogger. I know sometimes criticism can be hard to take, especially if its something you worked hard on or something you care about deeply. But please know that criticism isn’t always hate. You never even have to accept criticism, granted its better if you try to learn from criticism, but you don’t have to accept all of it. It’s really up to you on whether or not you accept and listen to the criticism or ignore it. Just don’t automatically take any sort of criticism as “hate”. There is a clear difference.Criticism is to help you improve, hate is just to hurt.- Your mistakes do not define you,how you choose to act after the mistakes is what defines you. Have you done any of these things above? Are you worried about accidentally doing these things? I’m sure all of us in the community have accidentally or even purposefully done one of these things once or twice before. But the difference is, we realized what we were doing was wrong. We changed for the better. If you make a mistake, change for the better! Changing for the better can be hard sometimes, especially if you didn’t realize you were doing something wrong. But what it is important that you can get better, you can redeem your mistakes. A apology wont just fix a mistake, the best apology is changed behavior. You can’t just apologize for sending someone hate and then continue to send hate. That is not how it works.Granted yes, sometimes mod will hold grudges, some mods wont want to forgive you for your mistakes. But don’t let that stop you from getting better.If you make a mistake, choose to become better and redeem the mistake. Do not become your mistake. It can be hard, but you can become a better person, a better mod, even a better storyteller.+*~ The Moral of the Story ~*+Have fun with your blog. Choose a pokemon you enjoy. Design a design that you enjoy. Choose a theme that you enjoy. Have fun and don’t be a dick.Most of us in the community are generally kind and welcoming, we would be happy to have a new person join the ranks of PokeBlogging.Have fun, don’t be afraid to ask for help if needed.This was really rather long, but I hope maybe it helped you.I’m not that great at giving advice or explaining my though process clearly.But I hope maybe you got something from this other than “Damn Jazzy talks too much” lol

#long post #text post #not art #anon #answer #swearing #cursing #cussing #Jazzy Advice #literally just made that tag so I can find this post and link it if ever needed lol

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askprinceakechi · 7 years ago

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OOC Anthy/Akechi comparison

Wooooooo boi, I’m sorry this took so long. I actually rewatched the entire Black Rose arc and end of series before I wrote this so I could have it fresh in my mind. If only I had an easier time seeing all the Akechi scenes too.

Thank you both for your intrest! Also I havn’t seen Evangelion in so long but please, Anon!!! I would love to hear their comparisons as well, please send them to me!!!! @reversalsun

I’m gonna preface this by saying this is not a “Akechi has done nothing wrong” post. Akechi has done many things wrong. Akechi has done some truly terrible shit. I do believe Akechi to be a tragic figure however and more so a product of a lot of shitty things. Despite this being, like, way too long this is only the bare bones of my analysis of both Akechi. Hahahaaaa, if you want more on Akechi and how I in particular view him and his bs lemme know. Though some will be coming out with asks on the blog depending what people ask. I’m so sorry I’m incredibly long winded, this is like, 5+ pages omg. Good luck reading all of this losers.

ALSO THIS IS LIKE ALL SPOILERS. YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN’T READ IT UNLESS YOU’VE COMPLETED AT LEAST SHIDO’S PALACE. BETTER YET THE TRUE ENDING TO THE GAME.

The major similarity between Anthy and Akechi however is their position of power. Or rather, their lack of power. Both have crumpled under a much more powerful thumb. Anthy, who accepts her role and who even fears life outside of it; while Akechi has turned a blind eye to it. He’s not dumb, Akechi knows he is being used but he seems to view himself from an underdog position. He thinks it’s all just a matter of time until he can flip the script and turn it around on Shido. Akechi only accepts this power being held over him as a temporary thing, hell even something as part of his plan. No matter how untrue it is. Anthy knows she is being used as well, but rather than take it as a temporary thing she has accepted this as her role in life. It is all she knows.

They both work through so many layers of masks. Neither Anthy or Akechi seem fond of revealing their true face. The only time Utena ever sees Anthy’s bare face are few and far between, most notably the time Anthy attempts to commit suicide and at the very end of the series after Utena tears open her coffin. Otherwise her true self is concealed behind a pleasant and demure face, only hints of herself showing through when she chooses or cracks a bit. Akechi is very much the same (hell he gets referred to as the “pleasant boy”). His mask is almost as unshakeable as Anthy’s, only she has had forever to perfect it while Akechi is only human. Akechi seems to have quite a few different faces. One of the public, one for ‘acquaintances’ and one for “””” friends””””, under that his true self very much like a matryoshka doll. They don’t like to say what they mean; their words are picked deliberately and often have double meanings that need to be dissected. Or, all they say is fluff. Soft pleasantries that are used for very little other than to pacify or distract from their true selves. Anthy and Akechi are both very manipulative especially when it comes to defending their true selves from any more hurt.

They’re both used to pain to their masks. This is pain they know well, it’s expected, familiar, a demon they know as well as a lover. It still hurts but something they know how to handle it, and so they guard their true selves viciously. The only way they could truly feel the pain again would be from an injury to their true self. Thus, no one gets to know who they are. To know their true self would be to open up their only weakness. To know their true self would be an ultimate show of trust. Anthy gets hers, Akechi, starts but ultimately does not.

Their tragedies also both started at a young age. Anthy starting even before she sacrificed herself to the crowd to protect her brother. Akechi’s started from birth and came to a head when he lost his mother. Both were only children when their path of misfortune was laid out for them, and both took the terrible path with stride.

Anthy gave up her freedom, took on the mantel of rose bride and succumbs to the swords of human hatred in an ouroboros cycle as many times as Akio demands it of her. She is a puppet of Akio, a puppet of end of the world, a puppet of adolescence and a puppet of her own fear. She lets all of this own her.

Akechi gave up everything in hopes of revenge, respect, and a will to actually be wanted. Akechi has to be, what? 17 in the game? Assuming it was the first, and assuming the whole thing with Wakaba happened roughly two years ago Akechi’s final turn down his path of ruin truly started at 14-15. Still deep in his adolescence, still a child in just about every respect. Akechi hands over all authority he had as a person to a monster like Shido before he ever had the chance to really understand what that meant. He put the puppet strings on himself and gave them to Shido thinking it was all part of his own plan for revenge. He was a child betting in an adult’s game and rather than the adults protecting him they ensured his ruin. Once he had established what he was capable of and the world of the Metaverse to Shido he had sealed his fate. There is no way a man like Shido would ever willingly give up that sort of power. Akechi was trapped to doing his bidding or to die, and he knew that. However, his own pride his want to be acknowledged kept him from just killing Shido himself. It would be a hallow victory if Shido died without ever knowing his crimes and without ever knowing who it was who bested him.

Just as Anthy had ensured her own imprisonment to Akio. After all she was the only perceived way for him to regain the power he had as Dios. She was the only one willing and capable of being skewered by the swords of human hatred and letting Akio get off completely undamaged. She was the only way to get Dios back after she had sealed him away for his own protection. Akio wouldn’t willingly let her go. Not that it was something he ever had to worry about before the end of the series. Anthy wouldn’t leave him without her own revolution.

Both were keys to the power of those who were using them and both were unable or unwilling to leave their abusive situation.

A part in which he differs from Anthy but I still find it important to mention.

Akechi truly has been a puppet all along, of Shido and more importantly of Yaldabaoth. He, who, just like Akira had been had picked by a god to lead these lives is given the absolute worst draw. Because, unlike Akira, Akechi suffered all through it alone. Akira has the Phantom Thieves, he has his confidants and most importantly he has Morgana. Akira got a guide though the world of the Metaverse and someone to teach him the ins and outs of how the heart worked. What would possibly kill someone.

As far as we know Akechi got none of this. Akechi traversed the Metaverse alone and a bit of a head canon from myself it was a form of escapism for him. Suddenly Akechi was special. He had a power no one else ever could have, he had a world that he alone could enter and that he could control. After being such a lonely child, after losing everything and everyone and being an unwanted being from the beginning he could be special. Not to mention he get a persona with that, either Robin Hood or Loki or even both at once. Yes, they are a part of him, a reflection of who he is but in the same breath it was a voice that wasn’t his, and a mind that wasn’t truly his. He was no longer alone.

We are not told exactly what happened with Wakaba. We don’t know if Akechi knew that killing her shadow would kill her in real life as well. We don’t know if he was just trying to enact a change of heart just like the Phantom Thieves would later do. We just don’t know. As a personal head canon, I don’t think he knew. I think he was trying to prove he could affect her as a way of showing his power to Shido and he ended up killing her. Without searching out whoever the person whose shadow he killed he wouldn’t have a way of knowing beforehand that it actually killed them in the real world. Or, perhaps he never fought those types of shadows in the first place. Another thing left up to speculation.

“If it cannot break out of its shell, the chick will die without ever being born.” “We are the chick” “The world is our egg” “If we don’t crack the world’s shell, we will die without ever truly being born”

A line that refers to actually, everyone. Every person is a chick stuck in their shell and until they are ready to pass from adolescence to adult they are unable to break their shell. Seriously one of the only straight forward lines that exist in the series.

Anthy is stuck in her shell. She is doomed to die again and again because she refuses to break out. In the end, the world is an allusion to their passage from adolescence to adult. She refuses to grow up and rather is willing to stay in the school with Akio, and continue to be the rose bride for all eternity out of fear and love. She is scared of the outside world, and yet, no one can break the shell but her.

The same goes for Akechi. His own fear, his own wants, desires and hurt keep him from growing as a person. They keep him from breaking out of his own shell and rather he rots, he festers in his egg and is doomed to die. He’s stuck in his own adolescence and the mistakes he made as a child because he won’t crack his shell to breathe. He’s also scared of the world outside of his plans, out of what he knows. Another head canon of mine is that Akechi has no clue what he would do with his life if his plans succeeded. If he killed Shido, if he made him acknowledge Akechi as the one who bested him and as his son. He has very little will and drive outside of that, he’s lost another reason he has put off his plans for so long.

Anthy near the end of the series thanks Utena for letting someone like her. Someone hallow and empty with no heart have a taste of true friendship. Although, at this point she follows Akio still she is regretful about how this all has turned out, and is upset how she has hurt and betrayed Utena.

Akechi gets a small taste of this as well. Although the Phantom Thieves never trusted him fully he was still on the team. Akechi still got to feel what it was like to be on a team with his peers and even laments that “If he had only met (Akira) a few years earlier…”. He got a taste for friendship and comradery and what his life could have been had he just had friends.

Another point I bring up is Anthy stabbing Utena at the end of the series and Akechi shooting Akira.

The reason Anthy stabs Utena is up to speculation. If it was because this is what Akio told her to do, if she really is evil (She isn’t), but the theory I like best is Anthy does it out of fear. Hope is a scary thing to someone who has been in a position like Anthy’s. She sees Utena fighting Akio and finds hope in her. She sees a chance of Utena actually beating Akio and is frightened of her hope. If she does win then, what does that mean for Anthy? Would she get to leave? Would the Rose Bride no longer be needed? Would Akio die? Would Dios really come back? What about the swords of human hatred? Would they attack Utena instead of her? She has no way of knowing. No one has ever come as far, ever actually cared for her, or was her friend like Utena was. She stabs Utena out of fear of the unknown and misplaced kindness. Better one sword from a friend and some harsh words than taking on all the world’s hatred.

Akechi has wildly different reasons for shooting Akira. First being he was told to. This was part of the plan that Shido and himself had worked out. The second being that Akira was in his way. The Phantom Thieves were poised to be able to take out Shido before he ever could enact his full plan. He couldn’t let that happen because (head canon) everything he had done up until then, every murder, all the blood on his hands, would be for nothing if Shido didn’t know it was Akechi who killed him. Third (Also head canon) his own fear of the unknown, of the future has him wanting to protect Shido in an odd way. Shido is terrible and he hates him, he wants him dead. He however is also the only one blocking Akechi from the future.

I swear I’m almost to the end of this.

The adolescence of Utena, and Revolutionary girl Utena the titles are both huge points to the story itself. In the end Utena is a story about growing up. It’s a story about breaking the cycles of abuse. It’s a story about the how no one can save you but yourself but how someone else can spark that revolution inside of you. It’s a story about how revolution doesn’t have to be this huge world ending thing, but rather the revolution inside a single person. In the end Anthy realizes all of this. Utena doesn’t become the Prince because the Prince is dead. It’s an outdated and childish concept that is seeped deeply in toxic ideals of staying the way things have always been. The Prince is about staying in your adolescence and playing pretend that a magic castle would grant you power, would grant your ‘revolution’. Utena realizes this too.

Utena isn’t the one who pulls Anthy out of her coffin because just like the egg no one can pull you out of it but yourself. However, Utena showed Anthy the way out and she showed Anthy that the cover can be removed. Utena sparked the revolution in Anthy’s heart and in the end Anthy climbs out of her coffin by herself. Anthy breaks the shell of her own egg. She herself is the revolution so desperately coveted. She leaves the school, she leaves Akio, she leaves behind her chains of The Rose Bride and becomes her own person. She has grown up.

Just like Anthy, Akechi has a revolution sparked in his own heart as well. In the end, when the Phantom Thieves showed him kindness despite seeing who he truly is. Despite knowing all his crimes, they still show him mercy. They don’t abandon him and they don’t try to kill him when he has been defeated. He begins to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Had it not been for the Cognitive! Akechi showing up I truly believed Akechi would have had a revolution as well. In the end, Akechi had a chance to go back to his old ways. He could have just shot Akira like Shido and Cognitive! Akechi wanted him to. He could have given himself that second chance to keep going so that /he/ could be the one to kill Shido. Like he had always planned.

He doesn’t.

Rather he sacrifices himself to save the Phantom Thieves. This is his revolution no matter how small. This is his start at redemption even if it is cut short by death. Akechi climbed out of that coffin, he broke out of that shell, and though he was met with death he threw off his shackles with the help of the Phantom Thieves. Akechi finally had a taste of freedom.

*FINGER GUNS AWAY* I’m tired now

#OOC #Character study #mun talks #Goro Akechi #Utena parody #i mean kinda #dude holy shit please be gentle on me #I'm on so many painkillers #I just got out of surgery eariler today #I hope this actually makes sense #and isn't just a jumble of words cause i'm out of it #spoilers #p5 spoilers #persona 5 spoilers #utena spoilers

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