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estellamiraiauthor · 6 months ago

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All right, this was not really an official ask, but in response to the lovely @alinacapellabooks and for anyone else who’s interested, I would like to explain exactly how I “got the idea for a Phantom of The Opera retelling set in early 2000s Japan, in the tail end of the visual kei scene”.

I’ve posted some of this before somewhere but it might have been on my now-deleted Twitter?

No spoilers, but it might be a little long, so more under the cut!

I had wanted to write a Phantom retelling for a long time… I was first introduced to the story through the Lloyd Webber musical, but I read the Leroux novel shortly thereafter, and started seeking out the different movie adaptations, so I never really thought of the musical as the “definitive” version. I loved how the same core elements could be respun as romance or mystery or horror, in different settings, with characters that were usually the same archetypes but also a little different each time.

It was Phantom of the Paradise that REALLY convinced me that I wanted to do my own take on the Phantom story someday… that film is just SOOO wildly different from any other version but also unbelievably good, both as a retelling of several different stories and also just as a story in its own right. So as early as high school I had started to play around with the idea… I know I still have about ten handwritten pages of a “Phantom of the Space Station” which was supposed to be kind of The Fifth Element meets The Ship Who Sang… but the characters never really gelled as their own people, and eventually I moved on to other things.

Then in 2005, after the release of the ALW movie, I started reading a lot of fanfiction… and again, I tended to like the ones that took the basic components of the story and retold it in a different place or time. I started writing again, first with a fairly cliched “university theatre professor and student” idea, and then a Star Wars crossover where the Phantom used a Jedi mind trick to hide his face, tutored “Christine” in the Force, and she’d eventually get strong enough to “unmask” him.

The Star Wars one was starting to feel a LITTLE more like a story that maybe only I could write, but the characters weren’t really coming together and there wasn’t necessarily a lot of overlap between those two fandoms, so I was still kind of searching for an idea for “my” retelling.

Around the same time, I was sort of struggling with being a visible minority myself. Although I love Japan, I was struggling both with sticking out physically and with having something that had always been a personal strength (language) suddenly become a weakness, so I was starting to build this image of a Phantom character who was struggling not only with a seemingly hopeless love but with kind of a loss of identity.

I was also looking at gender-bent retellings, as that’s something else I’ve always enjoyed, not necessarily for Phantom specifically, but it always interested me to see how gender could change the character dynamics of a familiar story. I’d read some gender-bent fanfic, but female Phantoms were kind of a hard sell. I mean, the Phantom has almost zero self-esteem but he also has the confidence of a mediocre white man? Believing that the universe owes him a wife? I hadn’t really found any fanfics, at least, that managed to create a female Phantom who really made psychological sense as a character. (Many years later, I can recommend The Monsters of Music by Rebecca F. McKinney as a VERY different take on a straight female Phantom that I did enjoy immensely.)

But the male “Christines”? Those I LOVED… a shy, less than confident male protagonist with a heart of gold? *chef’s kiss* So I started thinking, why couldn’t they both be male? And having a female “Raoul” could help that character be the “socially acceptable” option, since nobility isn’t much of a factor in modern-day fics.

The final piece—setting it in Japan in the visual kei scene—clicked into place when I was listening to X Japan’s Blue Blood Album in the car one day. I was listening to “Unfinished” (the song Teru ends up singing to himself in the first scene), and lyrics like “Go away from me now. Just leave, and forget me. No need to be hurt anymore.” just had SUCH Phantom vibes… he loved Christine so he let her go, right??? So… visual kei Phantom. It was perfect. I’d been active in that subculture myself around that time. I hadn’t been in a band, but I’d dated a few guys who were, and had been backstage and in the studio enough times that I knew how things worked from the other side. And it was a modern-day setting where it wouldn’t seem TOO out of nowhere for someone to choose to wear a mask instead of just, facial prosthetics or something? And it’s also a subculture that places a LOT of emphasis on physical appearance, which worked with the whole idea of becoming disfigured as sort of losing a part of his identity.

Everything just came together and felt RIGHT in a way that none of the other ideas I’d had really did… and I guess the rest is history?

#writeblr #writing #the stars may rise and fall #writing process #phantom retellings #phantom retelling #visual kei #phantom of the opera

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00queasy00 · 9 months ago

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queasy's recent fic recs

multiship + mulitfandom. i apologize for my silly thoughts, i am not well-worded in explaining my thoughts and feelings. i tried.

how i placed the names in the shipname order is not relevant. fandoms mentioned: Harry Potter, Code Geass, Hazbin Hotel, and Boku no Heros

please read and understand the tags and warnings on each story before reading :3

Second Best by onbeinganangel

Regulus/Harry - Harry Potter - Rated Explicit

Summarry: Can you make me like you wanted him? Because I do. - Thoughts: A very very tasty read >:) The mix of lust, grief, curiosity, and yearning for something more was a

Chains of Fantasia by Persephone1 and LawliPop

Suzaku/Lelouch/Zero - Code Geass - Rated Mature

Summarry: It is the nineteenth century. Suzaku works as a stage hand in the Avalon Opera House when a mysterious figure sweeps him away in a swirl of wonder and music. Will Suzaku succumb to The Phantom of the Opera?/ZeroXSuzakuXLelouch - Thoughts: A BEAUTIFUL mix of The Phandom of the Opera 2004 movie and Code Geass! It is not exactly a retelling with code geass characters, BUT a inspired story that follows the movie's plot points on-and-off throughout the story.

Wolf Like Me by purpjools

Angel Dust/Alastor - Hazbin Hotel - Rated Explicit

Summary: Forging an alliance through marriage is an old tradition among the more criminally inclined families of New York. It's a dated one, in Anthony's opinion. Out of touch and definitely not in vogue. Unfortunately Fortunately, the antiquarian suddenly engaged to his sister his sister's fiancé has other plans. - Thoughts: A delicious read of Anthony's attraction and desire towards his sister's husband-to-be. I love how queer Alastor is presented here and the struggle of gender and self identity Anthony goes throughout the story.

deadbolt by pwplicity (duplicity)

Tom Riddle/Harry Potter - Harry Potter - Rated Explicit

Summary: Tom is stunning at sixteen. He has always been an exception in a sea of mediocrity, a chameleon of sorts, conducting himself with the arrogance of genius astride the pity of orphanhood. Each facet of Tom Riddle is a domino on the path of Voldemort; it is up to you to divert them. Or: Harry goes back in time again, and again, and again. - Thoughts: A very interesting take and presentation of Harry traveling back in time again and again! I love the absolute terror Tom is in his own way each and every time. Also Harry's spiral is fun too.

That's Money, Honey by Divida, pwplicity (duplicity)

Tom Riddle/Harry Potter - Harry Potter - Rated Explicit

Summarry: Tom is a dear friend to many beautiful older women who love to treat him like their beloved son by spoiling him with presents. It is the perfect gateway to the perfect lifestyle—one full of frequent spa days, free holidays abroad, and all of the latest fashions. When Auror Harry Potter claims to be investigating Tom's 'inappropriate' relationships, Tom decides the best course of action is to instigate some 'inappropriate' behaviour of his own. - Thoughts: Spoiled greedy Tom, a babygirl that needs and deserves the best, even if the best is that disaster of an Auror Harry Potter >:)

It Grows on You by lordmarvoloriddle

Tom Riddle/Harry Potter - Harry Potter - Rated Explicit

Summary: Every single day, with dead precision, at Tom’s orders, Borgin would lead the poorly dressed unlucky persons who wandered into Borgin & Burkes into the back of the shop and acquire precious body parts. And then the boy. - Thoughts: This one had me feeling haunted for days after reading it. A truly dark story that was wrapped so nicely in beautiful writing and presentation.

Tomorrow brings them true by asterismal (asterisms)

Tom Riddle / Harry Potter - Harry Potter - Rated Mature

Summary: The boy from District 1 is staring again. - Thoughts: The soulseeker boys in a Hunger Games Au >:) So so SOOO good. I am eating up Harry's pure distrust and anger at Tom being a menace for personal gain.

malediction by eleven_eaves for merrivale

Tom Riddle / Harry Potter - Harry Potter - Rated Explicit

Summary: After Harry gets thrown into Kings’ Cross station at limbo during the Final Battle, he faces a choice—to return to the present or go to another time. Unfortunately, not everything goes as planned when he shows up in 1943 and finds himself only able to speak Parseltongue. As the only other student who can speak Parseltongue, Tom is assigned to be Harry’s guide throughout the remainder of the school year. - Thoughts: I love love the pure chaos and power moves played in this story!!! The absolute sass and snarks between the two was so fun to read.

Worth The Wait by midoriyasour

Midoriya / Shinsou - Boku no Hero Academia - Rated Explicit

Summary: Izuku didn’t mind being a virgin. He didn’t. He was just a little jealous, but nobody had to know that. - Thoughts: The build up and Hitoshi's absolute respect and care towards Midoriya's feelings was so very sweet : )

Twisted Mirror by Lomonaaeren

Harry / Harry - Harry Potter - Rated Explicit

Part 1 of a 2 fic series

Summary: Devastated in the aftermath of Sirius’s death, Harry goes to the Room of Requirement and asks for someone who will understand him. Why he then gets delivered a copy of his alternate dimension, much scarier self will remain a mystery - Thoughts: This series was so good!!! The equal footing, despite Hadrian being older and from another dimension, was something I did not expect but was very very happy to read about. I love the way the two are similar yet different yet know the other so well -- consider they are the same person from different dimensions. A banger of a series >:3

#fic recs #fics #rambles

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dentwy · 11 months ago

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number 6: persona 5 tactica

i got this game a week before it came out because atlus in their infinite wisdom just so happened to release it a week before it was supposed to be out. genius! finished the game yesterday, so that's like, a month and 12 days for 30 hours of videogame. probably not too horrible considering i've been a bit busy, the thing is that it also felt like i've been playing this game for years. i did not feel like writing anything for this game originally, but since it ended up taking so long and kinda wanted to post one more thing before the year is over, guess this is it.

persona 5 tactica feels mostly feels like a nothing game. i wasn't expecting a lot before the game came out, i went in fully expecting it to be mediocre at best and i suppose my expectations were met. the unfortunate part is that a side of me feels disappointed this is what we're getting after scramble already set a good standard. if you're making a spin off it should at least add something to the original material (in my opinion). we already got a full-blown sequel with a different gameplay style that did all it had to do, and pulled it off right. tactica on the other hand is a game i honestly couldn't play for more than an hour straight at a time.

i love persona 5 so i can't complain too much about getting more out of it, but it obviously does increasingly feel like they're milking it as much as it can. joke's on me i guess since i'm still buying whatever they release and joke's on me when i play the phantom x if it ever does get translated. such is life.

tactica starts right after the events of royal, meaning the metaverse is supposed to be gone, joker is going back home in a couple of months and everyone's shit has already been dealt with. from the very start there is essentially, nothing to add to what we already know or to the characters we've already spent countless of hours with. i don't want to make this a constant comparison with scramble, but considering that game happened a bit further into the future, we got to see what was going on with their lives, how they're doing after a while of not seeing each other, how things have been treating them and how it feels to reconnect with those you care about (even if it's not like they've lost contact or anything). meeting with friends you haven't seen in a while is already nice as it is. what tactica has to offer is 2 new characters and like, xcom gameplay.

erina (or "elle" i guess but the localization team just picked a better name) is really fun. i like her design, she's a rebel, she's always been fighting for her freedom and you can tell. fiery spirit and forever confident attitude. even if she can get a bit too rash at times, she never means wrong and tries her hardest to help others, even at the cost of her own safety. toshiro while an entertaining character, he doesn't really leave a big impression on me. more often than not he feels like he's a plot device rather than an actual character. damn! it seems like he lost his memories, just like morgana. his rich fiancée is an asshole? haru can surely relate. his father is corrupt and strict; yeah, futaba and yusuke get that. ryuji too while we're at it. this is something i've noticed tactica loves to do. initially it seemed logical to have the phantom thieves share their past grievances with the characters going through the same as they once did. they understand what it's like and they are able to help them out, but as it keeps going it just underestimates what those moments actually mean to them and it mostly starts to seem forced.

however, if we're gonna talk characters, seeing futaba at the peak of her character arc might be one of the stand out points of the game. she gets along with toshiro really well and it's kinda just nice to see. also, lavenza, because since she only shows up nearing the end of p5 always getting to see more of her is cool.

the gameplay itself is fine? i think overall it's not that interesting. the enemies aren't challenging, you have way more options to do things to them than they do to you which always ends up balancing it towards your favor i believe. having 8 characters at your disposal from the start of the game while only being able to select 3 at a time is not something i'm fond of. in the end, i ended up using the same 3 guys throughout the entire game. joker is kinda the dude i'm used to always having so i like having him, erina seems appropriate to have on since she's the new one and most relevant to the plot, and then i just like yusuke so he stays on. the game does reward swapping out characters with extra hp and sp bonuses for the characters you haven't used, but it was never something that would make me feel i should change anyone. maybe if hp and sp were more limited level after level i'd have more of a reason to swap them out? but with the skills you have it's a bit hard to get low on either, and it just resets anyway after the level is over. i'm also not particularly into this kind of games so there's that too, take it as you will.

every character has a gun you can buy or create, every character has a persona you can assign to them and should probably fuse (even though fusion in this game is way less interesting as they can only have 2 skills at a time), every character has their own skill tree to upgrade and unlock stuff. added to the fact the ui feels cluttered and unintuitive, it doesn't really make the experience that much fun. you have a "prep" menu that has an option to select party members, another to change weapons, another to upgrade skills and another to change personas. it also has "quests" which is to view quests, not start them. the "hideout" menu you can replay missions, view a report of your stats or whatever, buy weapons, and, of course, a second quest button for actually starting quests. there also a "v. room" button because velvet room wouldn't fit. inside the v. room you can disassemble weapons and make new ones which you can't do in the same place and you also have to press the button at the top instead of the one at the bottom to disassemble because otherwise you're just gonna equip the weapon. obviously selling the weapons from the shop button wasn't logical, so instead you need to go into the v. room and do it from here every time you buy a weapon.

to add salt to the wound the quests aren't even good. there are really only 3 types of quests which imply killing everyone in one turn, getting to the end of the stage in one turn, or moving an object to the end of the stage. the one turn missions are specially bad because it's a bunch of trial and error until you figure out what the hell they were expecting you to do. some of them are fine to be fair, they need a bit of thinking but it usually takes so long for you to do and you only have one chance anyway that you simply have to think 12 steps ahead. first ever quest was specially bad because i just so happened to buy a skill that made my eiha stronger, thus, more expensive, which meant i simply didn't have enough sp to keep going. i had to leave the quest, go to the skills menu and remove it to then go back into the quest. delightful.

another thing that completely irks me off is the "memo" which you can open at any time just in case you forgot who the characters are. it is blatantly obvious that this is exclusively for the people that have never played persona 5 already so they wouldn't know who these people even are or what they're talking about. i am fully on board with accessibility, but, to me, it feels like they're spitting on my face. more often than not it gives you the sense that they're targeting first timers, rather than people that actually want to experience the story and want something extra from the game they already enjoyed. i'm not that naive i know they rather get more people to buy the game than limit it only to already established fans, but still.

something i must mention is that i do really enjoy the style of the game. the art and character designs are cute and work well in their own right. they don't particularly stand against the full body sprites and models of the regular game, but they manage with what they have. the places, backgrounds and cutscenes look good. the special event art that you get is really nice and i wasn't even expecting to see the animated segments so that's awesome. to my surprise, there's seemingly more blood in this game than in regular p5! i will always love seeing these little guys talk to each other, even if maybe not for long in the case of this game. the scene where joker has to imagine who he would marry is a bliss, and the same goes for later on when they have to disguise themselves as samurai and geisha. if there is something atlus will prove themselves to do well, is to fill these games with a unique style that stands in its own right.

here is where i start getting into spoilers for tactica (and some persona 5 royal later on!). if you haven't played either for whatever reason and happen to read this, no idea what you're doing here so whatever, i have to talk about the plot.

the "kingdoms" in this game happen to be inside of toshiro's head. i suppose everything in p5 always takes place inside someone's head, so not much surprise there. we get to learn that, wow, this guy's life sure sucks, but i don't particularly have a lot to say about the first two. his fiancée is bad, his dad is bad. it was nice getting the backstory with his mom, and again, seeing futaba connect with toshiro over it, getting him back on his feet and getting him out of the toxic mindset he's starting to develop, just how she once did.

the third kingdom is where things actually get going. mind you, this is 80% into the game already. so toshiro used to have a friend in high school, eri natsuhara. with her help, they tried to take down the shady vice principal of their school, way before the phantom thieves were even a thing. it ties well into the same scenario that presented itself into joker, ann and ryuji less than a year ago. however, it didn't turn out as well for them. they exposed his crimes, but then everyone's lives just turned for the worse. eri almost died and everyone blamed toshiro for it. now the thing that gets me about this is 1. she almost died because she got pushed into a moving train by the vice principal, toshiro didn't really have anything to do with it and 2. she didn't even die. i get that they insinuate that the students just latched the blame onto him for how the situation inside the school turned out as his actions did technically lead to it, but it wasn't even just him. he may have led the students to expose the guy, but never really forced anyone did he? in fact they came to them first to talk about it. besides, eri almost dying is surely traumatic, a life changing moment for her; yet she doesn't really regret their actions. all of this added up to him probably just blaming himself for everything more than everyone else did. you know, the mind plays tricks with us and he surely feels like it's his fault more than anything else. she still didn't even die though which like makes it less impactful? she proceeded to tell him he should not regret it and to stay strong. i suppose the fact his memories being hazy in this world means he doesn't recall her words until a bit later, but the fact they present it as such a turning point in his life to only show that she's fine and that nothing really happened after that puts a bitter taste in my mouth.

it would be fine if toshiro himself simply felt bad for it himself, and it meant so much that it changed him as a person. while some of this is true, the issue stems from this entire world being created by a god that really just felt like fucking with him. salmael, the god of stagnation, who was bored on a sunday afternoon and targeted toshiro of all people. i quote "he envisions a world of tranquility and peace for all mankind, but its utter disregard for agency threatens to amputate the possibilities of the human will." why toshiro? if it's supposed to be peace and tranquility for all mankind why is he doing it for this guy alone? even if persona always just needs to make the final boss a god, i like the idea of a god trying to break their will of rebellion, but he just made an entire world to fuck with his mind alone. why are the phantom thieves even here if that's the case? never explained.

as it turns out, erina is the memory that eri natsuhara left in his head all those years ago. which is nice. she also turns into toshiro's persona and now you have an extra party member for the remaining 12 levels of the game. which are really boring, and reuse the 3 bosses you've already fought. having a persona that is also a conscious being is a really neat idea, i dig it. it also does make it sad when she has to go once the battle is over, only leaving her will of rebellion behind. that is cool, i can't hate that.

i don't think there's much else i care about to talk in the main story, so i'm moving into the dlc. those motherfuckers at atlus knew that they could put the two most popular characters behind paid content and people would still buy it, and so i did. however, to be completely honest, the dlc was probably my favorite part of the game. besides the fact the royal trio will always be my favorite thing, it seemed a lot more put together at least.

to get stuff out of the way, i, again, do not enjoy the focus they put into making it as spoiler free as they can. i understand some people still haven't played p5r, but in the year 2023 i think persona fans can just get a game where kasumi is called sumire and akechi is his real self. akechi is a bit more complicated, i'll give them that, considering his ass is dead (duh). sumire i don't find much excuse. i suppose having to fit both them in the dlc asked for a moment in the story where they were both present and could actually fight alongside you, so before sae's palace it is. so pretty much, we have an akechi playing the role of the detective before he betrays you, and a kasumi without any memories of who she is, with her persona already awakened, while having turned down the invitation to join the phantom thieves. a bit of this creates huge plot holes in the story since neither of them knew the other one had a persona and was in the know of what the other one had to do with phantom thieves, but worry not, this is solved by amnesia, as once the dlc ends they simply forget everything. convenient!

another aspect of this that gets really weird is sumire talking about her sister while in this world, because as i mentioned, tactica loves to make the new characters relate to the ones we already know in one way or another. i believe you would know she used to have a sister by this point in the story? but not the details about it and having her reflect over it like that gets iffy within the timeline of the game, but i digress.

either way, the plot here isn't anything that exciting. you get transported into a different world; you need to help this girl fix her sister. what's fun about this is how there's actually some tactics involved into the stages (no way!). they apparently saw splatoon has been doing well and decided that's what should go for this mode as well, but it works surprisingly well. you shoot enemies and cover the zone in paint, if they're in your color you can hit them and get an extra turn, if they do it to you, they get an extra turn. there's no more covering here, just focus on where you stand and how you get the enemies in your paint. the fact you also can't even do anything while you're on enemy paint also adds an interesting factor to it. it's a lot more challenging and positioning actually matters here, so props to them for that. at the same time, you only have 3 characters to use which now makes complete sense, you don't need to buy to make any weapons as they simply give them to you, you only change personas you get from battles and you level up faster and can unlock skills much faster. the dlc is considerably shorter so it makes sense, but it at least makes everything way more straightforward and enjoyable.

the boss sucked though; it was not fun. as i was getting close to the end i thought to myself, "watch how they're gonna reveal this parrot is actually an evil god" and akechi says "don't tell me you're some kind of god?" and it was really funny. i also want to note that fairouz ai doing both sisters in the dlc is really fun, good for her.

let it be known #akechibouldering

in the end, persona 5 tactica is less than i expected it to be. not a cash grab, although it is $80 with the dlc you're simply gonna have to buy if you like these guys. i hope this marks the end of persona 5 spin offs, as much as i love the characters and i would play anything else they release (looking at you the phantom x), things have to stop at some point. even if this may not be the best ending, it may just be better than nothing. that, or just play persona 5 scramble for an actually fun experience.

#persona 5 #persona 5 royal #persona 5 tactica #review #media analysis #game review

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2tired2study · 4 years ago

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hi! i’ve recently finished the picture of dorian gray so let’s go over my favorite quotes (in order from the ones that appear in the book first to last)

if they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat

being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose i know

and as for believing things, i can believe anything, provided that it is quite incredible

when our eyes met, i felt that i was growing pale. a curious sensation of terror came over me. i knew that i had come face to face with someone whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if i allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself

he, too, felt that we were destined to know each other

laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one

a man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies

i like persons better than principles, and i like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world

every day. i couldn’t be happy if i didn’t see him every day. he is absolutely necessary to me

he is all my art to me now

it is only the intellectually lost who ever argue

and the mind of a thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing

there is no such thing as a good influence, mr gray. all influence is immoral; immoral from the scientific point of view

he becomes an echo of someone else’s music

but the bravest man among us is afraid of himself

nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul

some day, when you are old and wrinkled and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and passion branded your lips with its hideous fires,you will feel it, you will feel it terribly

man is many things, but he is not rational

examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. if a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him

behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic

there was something fascinating in this son of love and death

really! and where do bad americans go to when they die?... they go to america

well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth

all i want now is to look at life. you may come and look at it with me, if you care to

punctuality is the thief of time

it is only the sacred things that are worth touching

when one is in love, one always begins by deceiving ones self, and one always ends by deceiving others

there is always something infinitely mean about other peoples tragedies

how different he was now than the shy frightened boy he had met in basil hallwards studio! his nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of scarlet flame. out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and desire had come to meet it on the way

it is personalities, not principles, that move the age

people are very fond of giving away what they need most themselves

he lives the poetry that he cannot write. the others write the poetry that they dare not realize

human life—that appeared to him the one thing worth investigating

to note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life of the intellect—to observe where they had met, and where they separated, at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at discord—there was a delight in that! what matter was the cost? one could never pay too high a price for any sensation

with his beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. it was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. he was like one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir ones sense of beauty, and whose wounds are like red roses

the senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade

all that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same as our past, and that the sun we had done once, and with loathing, we would do many times, and with joy

it often happened that when we thought we were experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves

the joy of a caged bird was in her voice

she was free in her prison of passion

i love him because he is like what love himself should be.

he was like a common gardener walking with a rose

he had the dislike of being stared at, which comes on geniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace

to be in love is to surpass ones self

my wonderful lover, my god of graces

i wish i had, for as sure as there is a god in heaven, if he ever does you any wrong, i shall kill him

whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives

i don’t want to see dorian tied to some vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his intellect

we are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices

and unselfish people are colourless. they lack individuality

you are much better than you pretend to be

of course, it is sudden—all really delightful things are

he is not like other men. he would never bring misery upon any one. his nature is too fine for that

but i am afraid i cannot claim my theory as my own. it belongs to nature, not to me

no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever knows what a pleasure is

there was a gloom over him

he felt that dorian gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the past

any one you love must be marvellous

it is not good for ones morals to see bad acting

there are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating—people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing

you taught me what reality really is

you had made me understand what love really is

you are more to me than all art can ever be

there is always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has ceased to love

a faint echo of his love came back to him

we live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities

when we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us

i cant bear the idea of my soul being hideous

one can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing

nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner

it is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion

you were the most unspoiled creature in the whole world

of you wish me never to look at your picture again, i am content. i have always you to look at

from the moment i met you, your personality had the most extraordinary influence over me. i was dominated, soul, brain, and power, by you

i grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. i wanted to have you all to myself. i was only happy when i was with you

i only knew that i had seen perfection face to face

i grew more and more absorbed in you

you are made to be worshipped

in every pleasure, cruelty has its place

but it was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of life that is itself but a moment

out of the unreal shadows of the night comes back the real life that we had known. we have to resume it where we left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the necessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it nat be, that our eyelids might open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in the darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh shapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance of even joy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain

yet, as had been said of him before, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance compared with life itself

he saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not its counterpart

art, like nature, has her monsters

is insincerity such a terrible thing? i think not. it is merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities

and mind you don’t talk about anything serious. nothing is serious nowadays. at least nothing should be

i am tired of myself tonight. i should like to be someone else

sin is a thing that writes itself across a mans face

you forget that we are in the native land of the hypocrite

that is the reason why i want you to be fine. you have not been fine

you have a wonderful influence. let it be for good, not for evil

i wonder do i know you? before i could answer that, i should have to see your soul

my god! don’t tell me that you are bad, and corrupt, and shameful

so you think it is only god who sees the soul, basil? draw that curtain back, and you will see mine

each of us has heaven and hell in him, basil

you are the one man who is able to save me

don’t speak about those days, dorian—they are dead... the dead linger sometimes

lord henry, i am not at all surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked

life is a great disappointment

i like men who have a future and women who have a past

moderation is a fatal thing. enough is as bad as a meal. more than enough is as good as a feast

you always want to know what one has been doing. i always want to forget what i have been doing

his soul, certainly, was sick to death

he was prisoned in thought. memory, like a horrible malady, was eating his soul away

ones days were too brief to take the burden of another’s errors on ones shoulders

it is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things

to define is to limit

to be popular one must be a mediocrity

romance lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art

i am searching for peace

the appeal to antiquity is fatal to us who are romanticists

sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet indifferent to life itself

horror seemed once more to lay its hand upon his heart

how terrible it was to think that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms

he had a wild adoration for you and that you were the dominant motive of his art

when you and he ceased to be great friends, he ceased to be a great artist

if a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart

art has a soul, but that man had not

the soul is a terrible reality

to get back my youth i would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable

but a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play—i tell you, dorian, that it is on things like these that our lives depend

life has been your art

the books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world it’s own shame

the world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. the curves of your lips rewrite history

it was the living death of his own soul that troubled him

as it had killed the painter, so it would kill the painters work, and all that that meant. it would kill the past, and when that was dead, he would be free

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robincantfunction · 3 years ago

Note

Hi! Can I request an Alex from Julie and the phantoms x fem! reader, where Alex and y/n are best friends with the prompt number 20 “have you seen my- hoodie… and you’re wearing it” please?

ALEX AND THE READER ARE JUST FRIENDS IN THIS FANFIC. IM SORRY FOR ANY CONFUSION, AND IM VERY SORRY IF I MADE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE <3

wow posting a fic more than twice a week? who is she?

requested: yes/no (requests are open)

warnings: fem!reader, like one swear word, a suggestive comment (lemme know if i missed any)

summary: the band are writing a song in the garage (the song i used is the ramblings of a lunatic)

a/n: thank you for the request!! i have to admit writers block really got me good for this, but i love alex so much!! this is kinda just a band x reader with an implied luke x reader (i hope that's ok!) but i kept the alex x reader aspect for the hoodie part :) sorry it took so long!!

they were all sitting down in the 'studio' as luke calls it, luke and y/n writing random lyrics in their notebooks whilst reggie mindlessly strumming his bass, alex was balancing his drum sticks on his nose and bobby was late. as always. y/n wrote as she hummed to herself, trying to come up with a rhythm.

I'm setting pen to paper again Lost my sense of home from the words that I've said But the thoughts have begun to ferment in my head And content manifest don't feel good enough for them

"have either of you got anything?" she looked up at reggie "possibly, writing a brand new song for just a few days time is a lot of pressure i have to admit" luke nodded. the two had been nonstop writing for what felt like forever, trying to create their best song yet.

So I Try and transcend my ego But don't we know It will never work Maybe I'll just descend to dirt Flirt with becoming food for worms

"well you two never dissapoint, i'm sure we'll get there" alex looked at her, to make sure she was ok. y/n got stressed easily, and was hard on herself and the lyrics she'd create. she nodded at him and the silent communication was understood. "i think i have some decent lyrics, but it really will need a good tune to go along with it, reg - alex?" their song writing process was always different depending on the situation. most of the time luke and or y/n would have a song practically done, chords in mind aswell, and then the others would build off it and add to it. but in desperate situations like this, y/n and luke would be on lyrics and reg, alex and bobby (when he turned up) would try and create a killer beat.

Would anyone listen to this The ramblings of a lunatic My mind does play an awful trick The ramblings of a lunatic Would anyone listen to this I'm running from my emptiness My brain is tired, my stomach sick The ramblings of a lunatic

in the background she could faintly hear a bass playing, and subtle taps on the drums. but when she was in the zone, when she got an idea, it was like the whole world went fuzzy, and all she could hear was the lyrics forming themselves.

Why has constructing sentences become like pulling teeth Wiping dental records clean Is the carcass even me? Is This catharsis Therapeutic plunge to darkness Or elaborating upon my mediocrity

as the door to the garage opened she got taken out of her trance. "hey guys, sorry i'm late-" "-i was just making out with cassie" she muttered, thinking no one else heard, but clearly luke did as he tried to stifle a laugh, ending up just covering it up with a cough. "i was with cas and lost track of time" y/n rolled her eyes "oh yeah no totally, we get it you were busy. might wanna button your shirt up properly though" this time it was everyone except bobby struggled to maintain their laughter. his face fell in embarrassed, that was a look she wouldn't forget for a long time. "seriously bobby it's fine" she smiled, although under her breath she mumbled "not like we're trying to write a song for the orpheum or anything". it started getting cold in the studio, so she got up and walked to alex's bag, knowing he'd have a spare hoodie she could nab.

Maybe this is a result Of me finally accepting That I'll be alone forever That I deserve forgetting It's a pointless endeavour And maybe it's upsetting But I've never felt more comfortable In the concept of things ending

she kept writing, although now very aware of her surroundings. after some time she noticed alex looking in his bag puzzled "have any of you seen my-" he looked up at y/n chuckling a little "hoodie... and y/n is wearing it" she smiled cheekily "sorry, did you want it back?" he shook his head "na it's ok don't worry. i was looking for pen and noticed it wasn't in there, thought i lost it" everyone chuckled slightly at the two. luke leaned over to say something only y/n could hear "looks better on you anyway" she blushed slightly, luke and her always had a flirty friendship. "ewww they're gonna fuck in a second- look he's undressing her with his eyes." alex deadpanned, making the entire group laugh, they always joked about luke and alex, but nothing had come of it yet.

"y/n are you nearly finished with the lyrics? i think i might have something but i'll need to check to see if it goes with the style and stuff of the lyrics" she nodded, getting back to writing "yeah just gimme like 2 seconds"

Maybe this writer's block that I've been perceiving Is to stop me diving deeply into my internal being And falling into darkness below my surface tension Emotional suppression my coping mechanism 'Cause all my friends are dying, some faster than the others Lungs filling up with fluid, place face under the covers 'Cause all my friends are dying, some faster than the others I'm trying to distract myself from the fears that I've discovered

"honestly though can you guys believe it? we're actually gonna play at the orpheum! we're gonna be legends" luke was already hyping them all up "that's if this doesn't suck butt hole, and if i'm honest i'm not convinced" they all rolled their eyes "shut up y/n/n. you're thebest songwriter i know" luke smiled at her "yeah! just believe in yourself man! what's it about?" alex asked, already curious of the meaning behind the song without even hearing it "writer's block. and how i can ramble when i really need an idea. and other stuff i guess"

#julie and the phantoms #luke patterson #alex mercer #luke patterson x reader #jatp

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sodone-withlife · 3 years ago

Text

i know who i am

summary: really, he never saw himself ever willingly letting anyone in on his broken past, but here he was, sitting in across from Waipo in the tiny cramped office at the back of the shop and nervously sweating about what he was about to tell her

read it on ao3: chapter 1 is the original version with Mandarin, chapter 2 has everything translated into English

the movie really hit me hard as an ABC, and I really wanted to write something for it. even though she barely had any screentime, I loved Waipo—she reminds me of so many of my relatives—so I decided to make her be one of the most important people in Shangqi’s life, and it turned into this wonderful mess (i had to stop writing this for a bit because I literally made myself cry). there is mandarin in this, it's kind of intended to be a physical manifestation of how my bilingual brain works (i did put the English-only version first, the original version with Mandarin is under that one but the formatting for it one is better on ao3, so i suggest reading it from there). apologies for my shitty mandarin; I have mediocre language skills, but I'm still so excited to be able to incorporate it in my writing. in regards to the character's names: I only know for certain the Chinese characters used for Shangqi and Wenwu, but for Xialing, I'm going to go with what it apparently was in the hong kong release (夏灵, with 灵灵 as the nickname)

English Translation:

“Waipo, do you have a bit of time?” Shangqi stood in front of Katy’s grandma, fidgeting nervously as fluent Mandarin rolled off of his tongue with an ease he's never felt in any other part of his life. “I want to talk to you about something."

She pinned him with a knowing stare. “Does it have anything to do with the trip you and Katy went on this past week?" she asked, Not waiting for his answer, she got up from the shop register and beckoned him into the back office. Feeling oddly like the first time he came into the store years ago as a teen—when he first met Katy’s family who had since taken him under their wing—he followed her into the familiar, cramped space.

He wasn’t exactly sure what within him prompted this interaction. He had come to San Francisco for a normal life, to get as far away from his father’s reaches as he could and to outrun the blood that stained his footsteps.

Never did Shangqi imagine that he would end up claiming the ancient rings that now sat in a heavy-duty (thanks to Xialing, with whom he now keeps in regular contact because of the promise they made to each other before he left the compound because he already left her behind once, and he’s never doing it again damn, my baby sister is running the Ten Rings now, and she’s trying to turn it into something better) and a very well-disguised (thanks to the sorcerers in the New York Sanctum and holy shit he’s in contact with famous superheroes now) back in his mess of a studio apartment.

Never did he imagine letting anyone in on his broken past, and even though his hand had been forced when it came to telling Katy, here he was going to the second person who truly saw something in him when he first started his new life and planning to tell them everything.

(Okay, fine, Shangqi wasn’t actually planning on letting anyone else in on it after telling Waipo, not even the rest of Katy’s family, but he really didn’t want them to be so involved yet—he still had no idea what he himself was doing and he wants to preserve what normalcy he can.)

(Also, he’s been reliably informed that anyone close to a public figure is bound to be targeted for attacks—which he figured out when the mercenaries attacked on the bus because yes, Lingling, he does have brain cells thank you very much.)

“Little Dragon, what’s on your mind?”

Little Dragon.

He started at the nickname, the one originally given to him by his mother. Somehow, it had completely slipped his mind that Waipo also called him that, starting a few weeks after he first met the Chen family. He barely kept it together, the long-unused nickname dredging up memories he had thought left him forever.

You have the heart of a dragon, she had declared firmly when he asked her why she decided on that particular nickname.

(That was exactly what his mother had told him right before she died, and yet he stood by, hidden behind a door, and did nothing while the men beat and killed her, the heart of the family.)

(He would carry the guilt with him for a lifetime.)

It was a while before he could bring himself to visit the family again—there were a lot of awkward excuses before Katy reluctantly backed off—and it took even longer for him to get somewhat used to the name again, but he eventually started seeing it as a gift with each faint impression of happier days that he got every time Waipo called him that.

Old, weathered hands gently covered his own, which were shaking and clammy with nervousness. Shangqi wondered how Waipo would react to the darker side of the lost boy she had basically adopted all those years ago, wondered if the legends of Ta-Lo and the Great Protector were known outside of the rather insular communities that continued to tell the stories, wondered if she had heard about his father through the stories that were passed down for thousands of years, from generation to generation…

(It can’t be wrong to miss him, can it? Even with the years of hell Wenwu had put him through, he was still his father. Shangqi still faintly remembered the man his father had been when his mother was still alive, the happy times they shared as a normal family…)

(But those times were long gone, ripped from their grasp by the past Wenwu wanted so badly to leave behind. Grief had shattered the whole family, and it ultimately led to the children fighting the father who had been driven to near madness in his denial, in his quest to put his broken family back together again.)

Mom, I miss you so much.

(And now Wenwu is dead, just like his beloved wife.)

(But just as she died to protect her children, he did the same. Now, his children are reunited and in contact again, getting ever closer despite living as far apart as they did, and he was reunited with his love in the afterlife.)

Finally, he straightened his posture and took a deep breath, looking directly at Waipo, who he’d come to view as the grandmother he never had.

“Waipo, have you heard of the legend of the Ten Rings?”

And Shangqi told her everything.

He told her everything and more,

She listened.

She listened as he described the legends behind the Ten Rings, Ta-Lo, and the Great Protector; his father’s history; his own history, from witnessing his mother’s death to ripping open the throat of the man who killed her when he was barely a teen, from leaving Lingling behind to seeing her again in the fight club she built from the ground up, from returning to the compound after a decade away in San Francisco to the battle in Ta-Lo…

Finally, he fell silent and stared at his hands but it wasn’t long before Waipo moved, slowly standing up with one hand on her cane. He made to help stabilize her but was quickly waved off with a stern look. He sank back into the chair and felt her move behind him. The shaky weight of her hands on his shoulders as she gently pressed down and straightened his posture was familiar, even after years of not having his posture deliberately—so gently—fixed like that every time he saw Waipo.

“You are the legacy of all who came before you, but you are your own person.” she finally said gently, and the tension in his shoulders slowly loosened under her familiar touch. “You decide your own fate.”

~~~

That night, Shangqi knelt before the altar he had in his apartment, the only part that was carefully maintained in all the years he had lived there. But now, two smiling faces stared back at him, a joy reflected in their eyes that he knew would disappear in less than ten years after the photo was taken.

Am I still your pride and joy? Lingling grew up, but I didn’t even take care of her like I should have.

I swear to you, I will never abandon her again

Even as his life got even more unbelievable as the years went by, the altar and his copy of his parent’s wedding photo would remain a constant. He and Lingling dove deeper into their family history—of the Ten Rings, of Ta-Lo, of both the good and bad—and both worked to carry on their parents’ legacy.

(With all of the proper discretion agreements and threats when needed, of course.)

Lingling is dating my best friend now, and they’re so happy together. Mom, I know you would have loved Katy. Dad, I know you didn’t like her much, but she really is a wonderful person.

Life went on.

There were the good days, when he went out with others and could almost feel normal, and there were the bad days, when phantoms pains plagued him and he woke up from a restless sleep expecting to see bruises mottling his body like they did so often when he was younger.

(Also, he was considered a superhero now and holy shit that’s still insane, even years after he first got in contact with the Avengers and the sorcerers in New York. Now he was going all over the West Coast, to help the locals take care of whichever crazy supervillain decided to wreak havoc that day.)

Dad, I hope you find this story as funny as I did: I helped a group of American superheroes yesterday. They’ve never been to San Francisco before and were extremely unfamiliar with the roads, especially Lombard Street. They spent half an hour trying to drive down the street, but I ended up driving them down myself.

(San Francisco was still home, and he had found a life there with all his friends and Xialing whenever she visited. He had a job now, too, at the local youth center teaching martial arts and self-defense, teaching and guiding the youth in a way he wishes his father had with him.)

People came into his life; some stayed, some left, and some even got together.

Mom, Dad, Lingling and Katy are getting married today and everyone is so excited for them. I’m taking over the Ten Ring within a month so Lingling can take a break. She’s led the organization for so long, it’s my responsibility now. I hope I can live up to her standards, she’s done really well. She’ll be back in a few years, but even after, I’m going to be much more involved to lessen Lingling’s workload.

Shangqi walked the path knowing who came before him and who was still with him.

Most importantly, he walked the path knowing who he was—demons, flaws, strengths, and all.

Mom, Dad, don’t worry. I’ll take care of them.

I hope you’re happy together in the afterlife.

~~~

Don’t be afraid, Shang-Chi, for you have heart of a dragon and the power of the Ten Rings.

We will always be with you and Xialing.

Original Version w/Mandarin

“外婆，您有没有一点儿时间？” 尚气 stood in front of Katy’s grandma, fidgeting nervously. “我想告诉您一些事情。”

She pinned him with a knowing stare. “是不是跟你和瑞雯这前个星期去的旅行有关？” Not waiting for his answer, she got up from the shop register and beckoned him into the back office. Feeling oddly like the first time he came into the store years ago as a teen—when he first met Katy’s family who had since taken him under their wing—he followed her into the familiar, cramped space.

Never did 尚气 imagine that he would end up claiming the ancient rings that now sat in a heavy-duty (thanks to 夏灵, with whom he now keeps in regular contact because of the promise they made to each other before he left the compound because he already left her behind once, and he’s never doing it again and damn, my baby sister is running the Ten Rings now, and she’s trying to turn it into something better) and a very well-disguised (thanks to the sorcerers in the New York Sanctum and holy shit he’s in contact with famous superheroes now) back in his mess of a studio apartment.

(Okay, fine, 尚气 wasn’t actually planning on letting anyone else in on it after telling 外婆, not even the rest of Katy’s family, but he really didn’t want them to be so involved yet—he still had no idea what he himself was doing and he wants to preserve what normalcy he can.)

(Also, he’s been reliably informed that anyone close to a public figure is bound to be targeted for attacks—which he figured out when the mercenaries attacked on the bus because yes, 灵灵, he does have brain cells thank you very much.)

“小龙，你有什么心事儿？”

Little Dragon.

He started at the nickname, the one originally given to him by his mother. Somehow, it had completely slipped his mind that 外婆 also called him that, starting a few weeks after he first met the Chen family. He barely kept it together, the long-unused nickname dredging up memories he had thought left him forever.

你有神龙之心，she had declared firmly when he asked her why she decided on that particular nickname. You have the heart of a dragon.

(That was exactly what his mother had told him right before she died, and yet he stood by, hidden behind a door, and did nothing while the men beat and killed her, the heart of the family.)

(He would carry the guilt with him for a lifetime.)

Old, weathered hands gently covered his own, which were shaking and clammy with nervousness. 尚气 wondered how 外婆 would react to the darker side of the lost boy she had basically adopted all those years ago, wondered if the legends of Ta-Lo and the Great Protector were known outside of the rather insular communities that continued to tell the stories, wondered if she had heard about his father through the stories that were passed down for thousands of years, from generation to generation…

(It can’t be wrong to miss him, can it? Even with the years of hell 文武 had put him through, he was still his father. 尚气 still faintly remembered the man his father had been when his mother was still alive, the happy times they shared as a normal family…)

(But those times were long gone, ripped from their grasp by the past 文武 wanted so badly to leave behind. Grief had shattered whole family, and it ultimately led to the children fighting the father who had been driven to near madness in his denial, in his quest to put his broken family back together again.)

妈妈，我太想你了。

(And now 文武 is dead, just like his beloved wife.)

Finally, he straightened his posture and took a deep breath, looking directly at 外婆, who he’d come to view as the grandmother he never had.

“外婆，您听说过 ‘十环’ 的传说吗？”

And 尚气 told her everything.

He told her everything and more,

She listened.

She listened as he described the legends behind the Ten Rings, Ta-Lo, and the Great Protector; his father’s history; his own history, from witnessing his mother’s death to ripping open the throat of the man who killed her when he was barely a teen, from leaving 灵灵 behind to seeing her again in the fight club she built from the ground up, from returning to the compound after a decade away in San Francisco to the battle in Ta-Lo…

Finally, he fell silent and stared at his hands but it wasn’t long before 外婆 moved, slowly standing up with one hand on her cane. He made to help stabilize her but was quickly waved off with a stern look. He sank back into the chair and felt her move behind him. The shaky weight of her hands on his shoulders as she gently pressed down and straightened his posture was familiar, even after years of not having his posture deliberately—so gently—fixed like that every time he saw 外婆.

“你是所有在你之前的人的遗产，但你是你自己的人，” she finally said，“你决定你自己的命运。”

You are the legacy of all who came before you, but you are your own person. You decide your own fate.

~~~

That night, 尚气 knelt before the altar he had in his apartment, the only part that was carefully maintained in all the years he had lived there. But now, two smiling faces stared back at him, a joy reflected in their eyes that he knew would disappear in less than ten years after the photo was taken.

我还是你的骄傲吗？灵灵长大了，但我也没好好照顾她。

我向你发誓，我再也不会抛弃她。

Even as his life got even more unbelievable as the years went by, the altar and his copy of his parent’s wedding photo would remain a constant. He and 灵灵 dove deeper into their family history—of the Ten Rings, of Ta-Lo, of both the good and bad—and both worked to carry on their family’s legacy.

(With all of the proper discretion agreements and threats when needed, of course.)

灵灵跟我朋友最近开始谈恋爱，他们俩可开心了。妈，如果你还在我们身边，我保证你会喜欢她。爸，我知道你一开始不太喜欢她，但她确实是一位精彩的人。

Life went on.

爸爸，我希望你跟我一样觉得这个故事很好笑：我昨天帮了一组美国超级英雄开车。那是他们第一次来旧京山，对道路非常陌生—尤其是 Lombard Street。他们开也开��好，花了半个小时慢慢的开下去。最终，我把他们的车开下去的。

(San Francisco was still home, and he had found a life there with all his friends and 夏灵 whenever she visited. He had a job now, too, at the local youth center teaching martial arts and self-defense, teaching and guiding the youth in a way he wishes his father had with him.)

People came into his life; some stayed, some left, and some even got together.

妈，爸，灵灵她今天会跟我最好的朋友结婚，我们都很兴奋。我一个月之内开始接管十环的业务，让灵灵休息休息。她干了多少年了，现在是我的责任。我希望我能辜负她，她管的非常棒，帮了许多人。她几年后会回来继续当领导，但我好像在领导方面发挥更大的作用。

He walked the path knowing who came before him and who was still with him.

Most importantly, he walked the path knowing who he was—demons, flaws, strengths, and all.

妈，爸，你们放心吧，我会照顾他们。

我希望你们俩来世都幸福。

~~~

尚气，你别怕，你有神龙之心，十环的力量。

我们永远会在你和灵灵的身边。

#i’m so sorry if the mandarin is shitty #the format is better on ao3 #but i’m so excited to be able to at least try it #shang chi spoilers #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings spoilers #shang chi fanfiction #shang chi #shang chi and the legend of the ten rings #marvel fanfiction #mcu #shang chi imagines

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kythed · 4 years ago

Text

synopsis: it’s a tragic case of boy meets girl, boy likes girl, girl has a boyfriend. [un]luckily for you, semi doesn’t play by the rules... and you don’t really want him to.

tagged: semi eita x reader, fluff, mediocre writing.

commitment level: 2,583 words.

table of contents | next chapter >>

They say young love is a rite of passage. They say it’s fresh and light, it’s wading in the shallows of a swiftly flowing river and letting the deliciously frigid water take you wherever it flows. They say young love comes easily.

But they don’t tell you youth is not a remedy for pain. They don’t tell you the cold of that water burns your skin, too — it leaves your fingertips numb and kisses your palms an angry red. They say “it’s just puppy love,” but they don’t tell you puppies grow into wolves.

You’re eighteen when you first meet Semi Eita, and he’s twenty-two. It’s not a highly significant age gap, but it’s noticeable enough.

“She’s a baby,” he says, eyes grey as the southern sea and just as unforgiving. Though he’s young, the weight of an iron giant rests on his slender shoulders.

“She’s talented, Semi,” says Akamine, tone wheedling. He fiddles with the lapels of his coat — it’s Italian, all cream silk and bronze buttons. “She’s capable.”

Twenty year old Akamine Keo is a trust-fund kid, born into the arms of an oil empire he’ll someday fall heir to. He’s charming, clever, and sweet, with distinctly expensive good looks, fine features and black hair like raven’s feathers. He also happens to be your boyfriend.

“That means nothing,” Semi says, peering into your face. An uncomfortable chill tickles the back of your neck as you fight the urge to look away. “There are toddlers who can shred Led Zeppelin, but they’re not musicians. They’re puppets controlled by overzealous tiger moms. They can’t take the heat of the real industry.”

“I can take the heat.” Your words bleed out heavy and sharp, a rough gash through the palpably thick tension. Fingernails leaving painful half-moons on your palms, you clench and unclench your fists down at your sides. “And I can sure as hell shred better than any toddler.”

For a split second, surprise flashes across Semi’s face, only to be quickly replaced by a wry smile. “Brave.”

You stare at him, lips sucked in and eyes narrowed as Akamine slings an arm over your shoulders and presses a kiss to your temples.

“See?” he says with a laugh. “She’s talented, capable, and brave.”

“Well,” says Semi, drawing the word out. He cocks his head, giving you one last hard once-over, before extending a hand for a firm shake. “We’ll see. I’ll give you two months. A trial.”

You accept this compromise, returning the shake. Semi’s still skeptical, you can tell, but you make a vow to yourself — you’re about to blow this sonuvabitch out of the water. As Akamine crows in delight, Semi’s eyes don’t leave yours.

Good luck, they seem to be saying. You’ll need it.

You smile, and he smiles back.

I won’t.

Semi’s a phenomenal bassist. When you’d first started dating Akamine and he’d just joined Semi’s band, he could scarcely shut up about it — “His name’s Semi Eita, and I swear he’s got magic in those fingers, babe.”

Well, Semi Eita’s about to be dethroned, because your fingers are magic, too.

For those two months, you’re the band’s lead guitarist, and you pass Semi’s test with flying colors. It takes a couple weeks to fall into step with the other guys — Semi on bass, Akamine on drums, and a quiet college kid called Yasuda on keys — but you’re a quick study, and soon you’re a cornerstone, expertly weaving searing arpeggios of dashed dreams and fiery hopes up and down the band’s underlying tunes.

(You should’ve seen it coming.)

You and Semi somehow become co-songwriters. He has a knack for melodies, and you have a knack for lyrics. Akamine doesn’t seem to mind the long hours you spend in Semi’s company, working in a whirlwind of messy notes and empty energy drink cans — he trusts you.

(Sometimes you feel like maybe he shouldn’t.)

“What do you think of this?” Semi says, idly twirling a pencil between his fingers. It’s 10pm on a Friday night, and you’re stretched out on his couch, inhaling chow mein from a greasy paper box. “For the second verse, I mean.”

“Lemme see,” you say around a mouthful of noodles, snatching the paper from his hand. You furrow your brow. “‘Tear me open like a scarlet letter, cruelly addressed ‘return to sender…’’ Jeez, Semi. Who hurt you?”

Semi scowls. “It’s a breakup song, isn’t it? It’s supposed to hurt.”

“You might consider being a little more… subtle,” you suggest, offering him a fortune cookie. He takes it and sets it aside.

“Heartbreak isn’t subtle,” he says, shooting you a look that speaks of throbbing phantom wounds. “It cuts deep. All the way down to the heart. Hence the name heartbreak.”

“Wow. I had no idea,” you say drily. You swing your legs over the couch and sit upright, snatching his pencil. “I just think we should tackle this with nuance, not just write another ‘eff you’ ballad.”

“This world can always use another ‘eff you’ ballad,” Semi says humorlessly, resting his chin in his hand.

You regard his suddenly silent demeanor as he stares, unseeing, out the window. It’s dark outside, and it’s a darkness that speaks less of peaceful sleep and more of emptiness.

You sigh, nudging him with your foot. “What was her name?”

“What?”

“Her name. This demon of a girl that hurt you so badly.”

For a moment, it seems he’s going to argue, to deny ever being afflicted with something so childish as lovesickness. Then he runs a defeated hand through his hair and shakes his head, laughing. “You’re too curious for your own good.”

You wait. There’s a brief, uncomfortable silence as Semi chews his lip.

“...Her name was Aiko,” he says finally, inspecting his nails with a faux nonchalance. “Smokin’ hot. Met her in music school three or so years ago, I think — she was a TA, a few years older than I was.”

“Older women, huh?” you tease. This is new territory — you’re dipping a toe into the forbidden arena of flirtation. A shadow of guilt creeps into the back of your mind as you think of Akamine, but the bright light of Semi’s crooked grin swiftly flushes it away.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning over to flick your leg. “I don’t date babies like you.”

“Maybe you should consider it,” you say, unthinking. Semi stares at you, eyebrow raised, and you flush, frantically backtracking. “Not me specifically. I’m just saying — well, I mean, ‘cause this Aiko chick was such a bad time and everything.”

“If you have a crush on me, just admit it,” Semi says. You’re sure it’s meant to come across jokingly, but the way he’s eyeing you twists your stomach into a pleasurable knot. Then he sighs, leaning back on his arms. “She was a great time, actually. It’s the ending that sucked ass.”

The question lingers at the tip of your tongue, hesitant like an ill-trained acrobat, but before it even attempts the leap, Semi answers.

“It burned.” He looks straight at you, and you can taste the bitterness in his words. “It burned, and not a day goes by that I can’t remember how awful it felt.”

That’s the first of the many secrets you trade with him.

Later that night, you tell Semi about your first kiss, about how the recipient smelled like Old Spice and tasted like chapstick, how he walked you to your front door and introduced himself to your mom. About how he took your virginity six months later, and how you soon realized there are some things in life you don’t get an exchange receipt for.

Semi tells you his favorite color is green, and that outer space scares him more than anything. (He doesn’t like thinking about life in other galaxies because he can hardly handle thinking about life right here.)

You tell him you like milk tea with 75% sweetness, and he promises he’ll take you to his favorite cafe sometime. (“Not a date,” he assures you, and you internally scold yourself for wishing it was one.)

He says he once accidentally kicked a stray cat while trying to find a volleyball he lost in the bushes near his house, and that’s why he considers himself a cat person now: as repentance. (He has a pet cat called Haru, and he shows you a picture — Haru is small and black with bright yellow eyes. You say he’s cute, but Semi corrects you: “Not cute. Fierce.”)

You say you used to wish life had a restart button, so you could turn back time and dance through each year without making a single mistake.

Semi says he still wishes that.

(Another thing they don’t tell you is how secrets are really currency. Secrets can’t help but pay for familiarity, and familiarity often leads to something more.)

It’s a couple weeks later when you have your first gig. It’s at a bar downtown, and Yasuda nabs fakes for you and Akamine, though you don’t plan on drinking. Not much, anyways.

(Speaking of Akamine, your relationship with him has grown strained over the past month. He’s stretched himself thin between the band and his business degree, and you — well, whenever your phone pings, you can’t stop hoping it’s from Semi.)

Five minutes before show time, Semi turns to you, eyes wide. “We don’t have a band name.”

“What?”

“We don’t have a band name.” He looks around, frantically trying to draw inspiration from something in the dimly lit bar. “Quick, think of something.”

So you think for a moment, chewing your inner cheek, before reaching out and tugging on Semi’s sleeve. “Paper.”

“Paper?”

“Paper.”

Paper is fragile, it’s thin, it’s easy to come by. But it’s also a world of potential on one sheet, a story waiting to be written.

When the bar owner walks onto the stage and introduces the band, you know you’ve made the right decision. And from the glittering smile Semi flashes you before nodding at Akamine to count you in, you know he thinks so too.

The show goes on without a hitch, and even though the bar is far from packed, you’re just as proud as you’d be playing in a stadium of screaming fans. The air smells of stale whiskey and fresh beginnings, and as your fingers dance up and down your Gibson’s fretboard, you hear colors — rich teal, smooth mahogany, creamy gold and silver brighter than the stars. Akamine keeps the rhythm like a war drum, and Semi, as always, is perfect. Yasuda, doubling as the main vocalist, sings until his voice gets wonderfully low and raspy, keyboard taking some of the heat as he grins back at you, mouthing how badly his throat hurts.

You’re sweaty when the set’s done, and Akamine buys you a drink, giving you a quick, half-hearted kiss and a tired smile.

Akamine’s always been kind to you.

“I gotta go,” he says, squeezing your hand. “Essay due tomorrow at ten.”

He looks so genuinely sorry to leave, you almost feel guilty.

You’re packing up your amps into the back of Semi’s van, alone in the parking lot save for the moon many miles above, hanging bright and full in a clear sky. The moon has seen all your most indulgent sins, and she’s going to see one more tonight.

“You did well.” Semi heaves the last of the equipment into his truck before turning to you, wiping his palms on his jeans. “Consider me impressed.”

“Why, thank you,” you say, giving him a mock bow. “So glad I’ve finally managed to impress the Semi Eita.”

He regards you for a moment, arms crossed. A small sigh escapes his lips. It’s both a sigh of resignation and one of anticipation.

Then, in one smooth motion, he steps close, reaches out, and pulls you close by the waist.

You stare up at him, all too aware of the heat radiating from his body. His skin is burning, and his cologne is different from Akamine’s — it’s not expensive, it’s not a multilayered, deep, woody scent. It’s cheap, the sort of cologne a struggling musician can afford, but it smells of home.

“Forgive me for what I’m about to do,” he whispers, sliding a hand up your jaw to cup your face. His hair glows silver and ghostly under the streetlamps.

“And what are you about to do?” Your voice is deadly quiet, and your chest feels a deathly cold despite Semi’s proximity, refusing to thaw as you await his answer.

“Kiss you absolutely senseless.”

Semi’s never been one to make empty promises, and right now is no exception. He presses his lips to yours and you immediately melt into his arms, suddenly craving him and only him. You’re not entirely sure how you’ve managed to avoid devouring him whole up until this point, because he kisses like Eros, full of pomegranate seeds and crimson blossoms, of days spent in clandestine bliss. He kisses like a man on death row, desperate and longing, hands squeezing your waist like your body is his only anchor to life itself.

Semi Eita wants to be a rockstar, but right now he’s just a boy kissing a girl he’s bound to fall deeply, inexplicably in love with.

When he finally breaks away, you’re breathless, staring up at him like you’ve just seen an angel. Your hands are still curled in the front of his shirt, you’re still standing on tiptoe, lips just inches from his.

“Semi…” You swallow hard. “Akamine’s a good guy… I can’t.”

Semi tenses his jaw, taking a finger to lift your chin. “Then why are you looking at me like that?”

Your voice is barely above a whisper. “Like what?”

“Like you’re hungry.”

He’s got you there.

You’re standing on a balance beam splitting two vastly different worlds. On one side there’s the known: Akamine and his bright, blue-eyed optimism, his willingness to shoulder burdens he shouldn’t have to. There’s his sweet touch and soft kisses, his firm words of reassurance and his sunny laughter shedding light on your hidden depths.

The known is comforting. It’s familiar.

But on the other side… there’s the unknown. There’s Semi Eita in all his scalded glory, his sharp tongue and headstrong determination. There’s his burning touch, his fingers leaving scorch marks on your cheek and his lips depositing glowing embers in your mouth, ready to ignite at a single inflammatory word. There’s his moonstone enigma, the shadow underlying his every sentence like smudged eyeliner.

The unknown is frightening, almost overwhelmingly so… but there’s something in you, something willful and terribly thirsty, that draws you to this unknown and the possibility of knowing it.

“Because I am.”

And you grab his face and pull it down to yours, impatient, frustrated by months of dancing around that painfully tangible attraction, that magnetism — finally, you allow yourself to fall, hurtling through a chasm of fallen stars and ancient suns, hanging on to nothing but Semi and his carefully guarded secrets.

You kiss him hard, pouring your soul into his mouth, all your youthful doubt and hope. You knot your fingers in his hair, and he pulls you into his chest, pressing your body so close it’s as if he wants to make it a part of himself.

And when you part for the second time, chest heaving, you know you’ve fallen completely, entirely, without a doubt.

#haikyuu #haikyuu!!#haikyuu headcanons #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu angst #haikyuu fic #haikyuu writing #semi eita #semi eita x reader #semi eita fluff #semi eita angst #semi eita fic #semi eita imagines #semi eita headcanons

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canonicallysoulmates · 4 years ago

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Supernatural 15.16

What can I say? No, seriously, what can I say this was such a disappointment I just wanna salt it, burn it and forget it.

This is not what I wanted nor what we were told we were gonna get, the promo’s and the way it was promoted made it seem like this was gonna be a heavy brothers centered episode and we were gonna get to see flashbacks of Sam and Dean hunting solo together, without their dad, for the first time. It wasn’t.

This episode is snake oil. It was advertised in all the right ways to make us buy into it but it has no real substance or value.

The plot is simple: Sam and Dean have to investigate the death of an old, sort of friend they made in one of the motel’s they stayed at back when they were little and haven’t spoken to in over 20 years. And let’s talk about this real quick because at the beginning Sam and Dean don’t know they’re going to investigate their friends’ death they think they’re going to the funeral cause the victim’s sister, who was also a sort of friend of theirs back in the day, invited them to the funeral to guarantee that they would go which is so stupid, people miss funerals all the time especially when they’re the funerals of people who they only knew for a week over 20 years ago and didn’t keep in contact. So, the stupid starts early in this episode.

Back to the plot, the thing that Sam and Dean are hunting is something they had hunted and thought killed years ago back when they were the wee!chesters, and by “they” I mean….Dean and the girlie. I’m sorry you thought, we were gonna see young!Sam and Dean actually hunt together? No.

The four of them sort of work together to figure out where the thing might be hiding and Dean’s all ‘I’m handling this on my own’ and Sam’s like ‘I’m going with you’ and Dean’s like ‘no’ and the girls like ‘then i’m going with you’ and Dean’s all ‘no’ and so he goes off on his own but the girl follows him so it’s the girl and him hunting this thing down while Sam is stuck back in the motel on babysitting duty of the girls little brother which I’m sure the writer is patting herself on the back for because at the beginning in the first flashback Dean was all ‘I used to babysit you when I was your age’ so now Sam is stuck babysitting...get it? Get it? I think it’s supposed to be clever…...excuse me a minute

*clears throat* where was I? Oh yes, so anyways after some investigating and Dean finding a bunch of children’s corpses they arrive at the hotel in time to see the thing they’re hunting attacking Sam and the other kid and Dean’s all ‘Sam get out of the way’ and stabs the thing which makes it turn to dust so they think it’s dead which we all know it ain’t but let’s talk for a minute about the fact that Dean just walked to see a monster attacking his baby brother AND HE DOESN’T EVEN RUSH TO CHECK ON HIM WHEN THE THING IS DEAD!!!! Also, this thing was hunting kids that were around Sam’s age but Dean doesn’t seem to give a fuck.

So what was the thing Sam and Dean were hunting oh so many years ago when they did shit re-search even though we know that they knew how important research was but this writer doesn’t know how to write this characters in present time why would she be able to write young! them? Baba Yaga! But they still don’t know that they’ll find that out later in the episode, in like a 5min scene that really does not do this figure justice but neither does the rest of this episode as this writer doesn’t really care and treats Baby Yaga more like a traditional vengeful spirit.

For real though, it is a shame that this writer doesn’t care enough because Baba Yaga is a folklore figure with so much history they could have really done something interesting and scary; such a famous folklore figure and she was treated like a footnote.

But that’s what young!Sam and Dean were up to what about our Sam and Dean? Well, after they find out the truth that they’re there to investigate and not attend a funeral that happened a week before they go check what’s up at the motel since that’s where everything happened years ago and the dude died, Dean is feeling guilty af for so many reasons including that he had yet to tell Sam Jack was gonna die, at first Dean doesn’t believe it’s the same thing they had hunted but then he’s like ‘okay maybe it’s not as dead as I thought’ and leaves Sam and the girlie to do research while he has a scene with Billie where she tells him the end is coming and while that’s happening Sam finds out it’s the Baba Yaga and the girl gets attacked and then Dean returns and he and Sam go their separate ways to find her because of course the do and Dean gets attacked but Sam arrives and then they properly kill the monster.

Anyways, it all ends with their “friend” telling Dean for like the 20th time that he has changed and then they have a hug which gives us our final flashback where after him and the young girlie say goodbye to each other him and Sam are waiting for John to pick them up and Dean’s all ‘I don’t know about this college thing but we make a good team’ which would be great if we had actually seen them work as a team.

With the thing dead Sam and Dean make their way back home and Dean tells Sam the truth about Jack dying. We’ll come back to this scene.

And that’s the episode in a nutshell. It’s bad. It’s unforgivably bad. This is the mediocre, poor man’s version of Something Wicked.

It’s got no soul, with the exception of one scene it’s got no emotion. It stays at the surface level, we don’t truly get to see young!Sam and Dean work together, we don’t really get to see their dynamic with each other, we don’t learn anything new about them, Dean clearly didn’t like Sam thinking about college but it wasn’t really explored he was just an ass to Sam about it and then was all ‘we make a good team’ but like I said we didn’t truly get to see them be a team so it just falls flat, there weren’t really any proper scenes between the young brothers, Baba Yaga is not explored she’s more a footnote, we also don’t get to see adult Sam and Dean hunt together.

You compare it to other flashback episodes like Something Wicked, A Very Supernatural Christmas, Just My imagination to name a few, and you can’t. You can’t really compare it cause those episodes were well written and actually explored Sam and Dean’s emotions and their relationship. This episode is the worst flashback episode we have ever gotten and I wish it didn’t exist.

I wanna talk about the young!Sam and Dean actors real quick cause no shade to them but I didn’t like them one bit not just because of the way they were written but also because they don’t really embody Sam and Dean’s personalities in the way that their predecessors have, I look at them I don’t see Sam and Dean. Also, their acting? Not the best.

So, all around this is a failure as far as young!Sam and Dean.

There was one scene in this whole entire episode that had any sort of emotion: the final scene with Sam and Dean in the car where Dean tells Sam everything and about Jack dying and Sam is pissed off and they get into a fight. That’s the only scene where Sam and Dean got closest to acting and sounding like themselves and the only one that was worth something and I give full credit to Jared and Jensen for that because their acting in that moment was standing ovation worthy, they honestly almost made me cry. I think if this epi had been better written and emotions actually explored it would have managed to make me cry.

I don’t like that the epi finished with the boys fighting, even less that the one proper scene we got between them was a fight but it was the best scene of the episode and it should be watched if for no other reason than to see Jared and Jensen put on an amazing performance,

But that scene alone is not enough to save this episode.

The writer of this epi once recommended that you could put the first 2 seasons of this show on as background noise and maybe if she hadn’t done that and actually paid attention to the foundation of the show that paid her bills she wouldn’t have given us the mediocre version of Something Wicked or would have learned how to artfully weave the main plot of a season into a stand alone episode like Phantom Traveler did instead of sticking in a scene right in the middle for some exposition. As it is, you can use her episode as background noise.

Here’s the thing, you can make the argument that it’s not as bad as it could have been or as what we have gotten, or that we should expect the episodes to be bad because it’s all we’ve gotten, or that we should just be happy with what we get and listen you feel how you wanna feel about this episode and/or tell yourself what you need to make yourself feel better but that don’t work with me. I’m not going to thank the writers for taking a smaller shit on this show than they did last time, and expecting the episodes to suck doesn’t mean we don’t deserve better and that we shouldn’t be upset.

And I am upset. I am angry. I am sad. I am bitter. I am disappointed.

You know what stings most about this episode? What makes it cut differently than all the other shitty, insulting, disappointing episodes that have come before it? That this is the last time we’re going to see young!Sam and Dean. This was the last ever flashback episode. A badly written episode with barely any proper interaction between the young brothers, is the last time we’ll see young! Sam and Dean.

I so badly wish I could recommend this episode but the truth is that I can't. What I can recommend, and I highly do, is looking up the final scene and enjoying that beautifully acted, painful, brother moment. And then if you still want to watch young!Sam and Dean, just re-watch Something Wicked.

In conclusion,

#spn negative #this epi makes me so angry #fuck you dabb for greenlighting this epi #anti meghan fitzmartin #mine #opinion on supernatural #spn spoilers #spn 15.16 #anti spn writers

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sineala · 4 years ago

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On Being Fannish

An answer to a question I got on Patreon last month.

A question I recently received:

I saw your Tumblr post about The Eagle and I went back to your AO3 page to see the other fandoms you’d written in. I’m curious as to whether there’s a fandom you’ve written in that you didn’t particularly follow or like the canon? And why (can be more than 1 answer) For me I think about Due South. I tried to get into to show but it wasn’t happening. But I was engrossed in the works (and fanzines).

And my answer:

Thank you for asking this! I think there's a few different ways I could answer this question, and I'm going to try all of them.

The larger, more general big-picture question, for me, is: what qualities about a fandom make me feel fannish about it? This is something I have actually thought about enough over the years to have a decent answer for. One big plus is if the fandom has a lot of canon -- I mean, I'm in Marvel Comics fandom now, and my first fandom was Star Trek, so when I say I like fandoms with a lot of canon, I mean a lot of canon. I like to have lots of facts and little details to be able to play around with; that's the kind of thing that gets my writing brain going. Single TV shows without extended universes are probably just enough canon, but I would be happier with more. Single books are not usually enough canon to make my fannish brain light up, but book series can. Single movies are not usually enough.

Similarly, I also really like when a fandom has multiple versions in different media -- like, if it's a book series and a TV show and a movie and a comic, or whatever. I like being able to compare and contrast different versions of plots and characters, and, yes, I do find the Marvel multiverse absolutely delightful. But, say, I probably wouldn't have been into The Eagle as long as I was if there hadn't been so much other ancillary canon -- not only was there the movie, there was also the book The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, and the 1970s BBC miniseries that also adapted the book, and there were the rest of Sutcliff's novels, many of which were set in the same universe (The Dolphin Ring Cycle), and then that even ties into, well, being a giant classical history and language nerd and getting to be fannish, more or less, about Ancient Rome. (I learned Latin so I could write a Roman AU. No, really.) If The Eagle had just been a movie and nothing else, with no other related things, I probably wouldn't have been very interested.

There's also another important quality that I like to see in fandoms I really get fannish about, creatively fannish, and this is going to sound deeply weird when I say it, but this is the best way I can think of to phrase it: they have to be mediocre. They can't be bad, exactly, because if they are bad then I'm not going to like them at all, but they can't be too good, because if they're too good, I can't really do anything with them. Take Babylon 5 as an example. I happen to love Babylon 5. I watched it when I was originally airing, I've watched it multiple times in reruns, I own copies of the scripts and a bunch of the tie-in novels and all the DVDs. You get the idea. I used to be glued to the Lurker's Guide and rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated. And as a fan, I love it, but I can't really create anything about it. It's too good. It's a sprawling, epic, five-year arc, from before arc-based TV was cool, with what I consider to be amazing characters and a gripping plot. But there's no room. What kind of story could I possibly tell? Sure, maybe I could write a couple of vignettes. I'm pretty sure I have. But I can't tell a B5 story that's equal to the glory of B5. B5 already did that. And it wrapped up the arc on the way out. There's not really much left to do.

And I know we say that no one hates comics like comics fans do, but when I say comics are mediocre I mean that with affection. Sure, there are so many amazing stories that I love with my entire heart. But there are also things I wish they had done differently, and gaps that canon never explored -- and that, that's the kind of thing that gets my fannish brain going, if I can look at canon and think, okay, this but more. And then I can do that. There's room to play around! If I want to rewrite Civil War but add more UST between Steve and Tony, I can do that! Everyone can do that!

And then there's the more specific version of the question: what fandoms do I like the fandom for but not the canon? I have been in a lot of fandoms over the years, and I'm willing to read in fandoms I don't know as long as the fic is good, so that often means I've read a lot of fic in big slash fandoms without being into the canon all that much. I've read a bunch of Teen Wolf slash, I've never seen the show in my life, and I'm not likely to start. I only made it through Season 1 of Merlin but I still read the fic sometimes. I have zero interest in hockey but sometimes I read the Hockey RPF AUs. I've read a bunch of SGA fic but am kind of meh about the actual show. You get the idea. Sometimes I read a bunch of fic and get a new fandom. Sometimes I just get the fic.

And then there's your actual question: have I written in fandoms where I didn't like the canon? I'd have to say generally not. My fandom journey is a little weird because I spent about ten years lurking and not writing anything and not really able to finish anything -- this started back in the late 90s when the big Western slash fandoms were The Sentinel, Due South, Highlander, X-Files, and maybe Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and it felt like everyone in fandom was in some combination of the above. And in all those fandoms, I liked the canon (I think I would change my mind about TS if I rewatched it now, though) and I liked the fandom -- I just didn't write any fic because I couldn't figure out how to start and finish a story. So the fact that I have barely any dS stories doesn't mean I hated dS; it means I just wasn't writing anything back when I was really into dS. And then one day a switch flipped in my brain, or something, and I wrote a 90,000-word Professionals story and it just went on from there.

I do love Due South in particular, though; it was the fandom I met my wife in, because we both shipped Fraser/Kowalski and liked to hang out on AOL Instant Messenger and talk about fandom. And then fourteen years later we got married.

I hope that answers your question!

#posts i actually wrote

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perfectlywisedelusions · 4 years ago

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May The 4th Be With You

It’s Star Wars day! And aside from the bombshell someone at Disney is probably going to drop about the franchise, here’s a little something for all your Star-Warsy needs. First is a theory/analysis thingy on the new era of Star Wars (I wanted to call it A New Hope but I don’t know how much hope I actually have). Second are links to all of the (relevant) Star Wars theories/analyses/reviews I have ever made. Fourthly are links to some good Star Wars audio comics, in case you can’t access the hard copies, plus my favorite audio comic of all time. And lastly are pictures of Baby Yoda/Grogu/The Child/the lil green alien because he is very cute and also my child.

The New Era of Star Wars

Disney Star Wars, aside from whether or not you liked it, was kind of a hot mess. It’s kind of funny, actually. Disney’s two biggest franchises are Marvel and Star Wars. And under them, Marvel has taken off-mostly because all the movies are written to tie into the main story. Every movie feels relevant, and you’re more invested in a mediocre film if it ties to one big overarching story. But with Star Wars, they didn’t even write out a story for all three movies. They did the complete opposite of what worked with Marvel on Star Wars, and it flopped.

Still though, they had a plan. And this started mostly with The Clone Wars Season 7. I have a review of it you can access down below. Long story short, they only included the first four episodes to set up the Bad Batch. I think that Disney realized with the Mandalorian that TV worked for them. So they’ve done a 180 and now have like 12 shows coming out, and they’re probably all linked by one story. And, considering that Marvel is also doing TV shows, I think Disney realized that this was an option for them. The Mandalorian was good. Clone Wars Season 7 (aside from the sisters arc) was amazing. They can also work in two new trilogies directed by Rian Johnson and Taika Waititi that are supposedly coming out, having them be fun adventures somewhere in the Star Wars universe. So I have some small margin of hope for the shows. With the Bad Batch coming out in just a few days, we’ll know if I’m right or wrong-and if we truly get a new era of Disney Star Wars.

Links to every Star Wars post I have ever made

Things that should show up in upcoming Star Wars shows

An analysis of Disney Star Wars

A brief analysis of 90's voice editing software

The grievous mislabeling of the Mandalorian by Google

Disney's going to pull a Marvel on Star Wars

The Mandalorian Season 3 Theory: The Rise of Kryze

The Solo theory that could be solved by an easter egg

The Clone Wars Finale is amazing (spoilers)

Star Wars theory: Why Darth Maul died in The Phantom Menace

The Book of Boba Fett: Theories and Ideas

Darth Maul is an evil genius

The amazing scene exit of a random Gungan

A glitch in The Rise of Skywalker

Links to great audio comics

Star Wars Audio Comics-the YouTube channel with a lot of great content

Darth Maul 5-series full comic- my personal favorite

Pictures of Baby Yoda

#star wars #may the 4th #may the 4th be with you #the mandalorian #the clone wars #disney star wars #baby yoda #star wars theories #yes this is being uploaded at 3 am so it's 5/4 at 3 am in 2021. 54321 yay!#also the GALL of marvel to drop a collection of trailer sneakpeaks ONE DAY before star wars day i cant

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2bstudioblog · 4 years ago

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Konami’s wheels are turning... slowly

Lot’s of interesting news heading to our heads this Monday from what I heard from Yong Yea’s video about Konami wanting to outsource their IP’s to 3rd parties.

Obviously, Akira Yamaoka has kinda given away a strong hint that he’s working on a project with Bloober which in this case would be the long awaited SH remake or the direction they had with PT before it got cancelled. Akira Yamaoka also decided that (too late) he wanted to amend the article from his interview and release it later down the line. It’s very unusual that these news happen, but we all know Yamaoka is most famous for his music in Silent Hill.

Which brings me to a funny story about my own involvement of a Silent Hill game. I mentioned this on a podcast that I was part of 2 Konami-owned IP’s that went into another direction and killing off their franchises which have been like dead bodies in a morgue for the last 7 years.

I got the request to write industrial-metal music for a Silent Hill (of course at this time I only knew the IP and their most famous version of the game has been Silent Hill 2.) game. First I was of course very excited to be part of the series, but I jumped to early until I found out it was a Pachinko-machine (A japanese style pinball-game mixed with a touch-screen and a one-armed bandit and a slot-machine in one.), and my heart sank a little. I think I produced 4-5 cues for the machine, but I’m glad that nobody will be able to hear my “mediocre” masterpieces because all you would hear are metal-balls falling into a tray. But the thing about this machine, it had taken cut-scenes from Silent Hill 2, upscaled or even re-mastered/remade the graphics which would have looked great if it was its own game. But it was the same thing they’ve done with all their other IPs when those transfer over to this kind of entertainment. All what was left of it, Jim Sterling turned the game into a Meme and all I can hear is the -”HIT THE LEVER!” and the effects overpowering the music behind it. But I’m glad it didn’t go further then that. Technically here, Silent Hill(s) died with the arrival of the pachinko-slot machine and the series have tried to re-establish itself ever since.

Another game I was a part of was a Castlevania (Dracula in Japan) themed Pachinko-slot machine, with the revolutionary phrase “Erotic Violence” in it’s PR material and video-commercial. I mean, they took the music production part of this machine very seriously because I wasn’t aware of the “EV” part. I just thought it would be a machine praising the history of Castlevania. I was assigned to re-write and re-orchestrate a few songs from Neo-classical Metal music into more Progressive Metal style, and I was super-proud of this one because they had the sheet-music already available for me. All I had to do was re-arrange some parts for a string-quartet (1 cello, 2 violins and 1 viola) and I believe it was engineered and recorded by famed engineer Kenji Nakai who was under and working with famed engineer Mr Bruce Swedien (Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones).

From that moment me and Mr. Nakai stroke a friendship because he has a passion for Progressive Metal and he asked me if I could send more songs his way. From this we both have been incredibly busy on both of our ends, but I hope we can be able to work on something in the future. I have a feeling that might be soon.

So a long story short, Konami spent a lot of money for recording, they approved everything and we were done. But when it turned out to be a pachinko-machine and not a world-wide videogame release, I just had to facepalm myself, asking the question why they keep doing so many poor decisions. Why leaving all those fans out in the cold and really start making Castlevania mean something. This void of “lots of fancy things, but no substance” started right here...

Konami are turning their wheels a little bit too late and too slow until now. After they got rid of Hideo Kojima (Who I believe was thinking of the international-market rather than the domestic one), Konami had only one thing on their minds: Making money quick and domestically. No more wasted time on translations, straight for the gambling crowd. No need to write interesting stories. No need to introduce kids to this adult material. They wanted to earn it back as fast as possible. But we all see their decisions put them on the map as a “black-company”, who mistreat their staff, shaming them out in the office for overstaying their lunch-breaks. Moving staff from one business to another, from a programmer to a Konami-fitness Center-staff, or as a toilet-cleaner at a Konami-owned pachinko-slot gambling hall. The management of the company has been horrendous for the full-time employee. I’m glad I was not part of these later projects and only wrote stuff for them for Pro Evolution Soccer series from 2009-2012. (My work on 2010-2012 was unfortunately un-credited work. :(

Metal Gear Solid V - The Phantom Pain In My Ass

When the playable teaser called Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes, came out on the PS3 and later on the PS4, it was an introduction for the new graphics engine designed by Hideo Kojima’s team, simply called The FOX-Engine. Basically this “game” was more of a demo rather than a full-product. But it looked great and with a fantastic score by Akihiro Honda, Ludvig Forssell and Harry Gregson-Williams, it had everything going for it to become something really awesome. It became a standard approach from Hideo Kojima now to produce “Playable Teasers” to show a great concept while offering a 3-4 hour short campaign, showing off the engine’s graphical capabilities.

Still, the story was under progress and I knew early on that Hideo Kojima really didn’t want to do it after he always felt that Metal Gear Solid 4 was final. But here is the curse of the die-hard fans, and I’m sorry to say it. No matter how many Iron Man movies Marvel crams out, at the 3rd movie, I started to feel “This does not feel like Iron Man anymore”. But that’s what the fans wanted and is a standard in the movie industry. Always produce a trilogy. Indiana Jones has always been the 3 movies from 1981-1989. The 4th one doesn’t really need to be called Indiana Jones at all. It was there I felt, just like with Metal Gear Solid V, they were beating a DEAD RACE HORSE.

I can’t deny the talents on display for Metal Gear Solid - Ground Zeroes. It laid down some really cool foundations for the gameplay, but I still believe the better game-series for stealth was beaten by the likes of Splinter Cell and most recently Thief. Stealth in MGS has always felt a little bit childish and I only really enjoyed MGS 1, MGS 2, tried to play MGS 3 (still have it one my Vita!) and will try to finish it. MGS 3 has felt like the TRUE Zeroes experience, with the inception of the story and lore behind the cloning of Big Boss. MGS 4 finally brought it all to a great finale and I felt, there is NOTHING more to tell. MGS 1, 2 and 4 is the Trilogy, MGS 3 serves as the Prequel and I see nothing wrong with that.

Mission - Erase Kojima’s Legacy

The making of MGS V - The Phantom Pain is kinda true to it’s title. Can you feel the nostalgia? Or are we just imagining the sensation of a Metal Gear Solid game past it’s prime? The missing link? The missing limb? And with the worlds biggest cop-out of everything that had to do with story was completely missing.

Each mission is playing out every time the same, with an intro to a TV-show, giving away massive spoilers to who would appear in the mission, you do your thing (not so much of story, just a “go-here, do that approach, sneak back out, head to pick-up) rinse and repeat. I wonder how much of this was Kojima’s fault? I don’t think he was up to it. I’m sure he fought for more story but the big heads didn’t want to listen to what makes a MGS game a MGS game. The new management had now already played the hand to disown the man who put Konami on the map for games since the mid 80s.

The game is no longer marketed like before. The tagline “A Hideo Kojima Game” no longer exists and will never be part of Konami’s mission of erasing the person who gave them their fame and the recognition that a game carrying the name Konami was a brand of quality for any gamer out there. Me myself, personally only played PES because of the stellar animations, but its recently since 2012, I stopped playing the series. FIFA had already cheapened itself, PES likewise. Updating the graphics, but the same old animations have been recycled back to the PES3 days. Maybe there’s been an update in the collision engine, but otherwise everything stayed the same, with the huge amount of data collected from previous years of motion-capture, why do it all over when its all about the brand recognition? Saving money on processes wherever possible. Simple Math. And here it is. MGS V is not a MGS game.

We already knew it was going to be a massive budget behind the game of MGS V. But what can Konami do to save money on MGS V? They already have the Fox Engine running from Ground Zeroes. The assets for “Snake” (I’ll let you know why I put quotation-marks around it) and standard models will extend somewhat. Oh, yes, let’s save money on a character that doesn’t speak (Quiet), over-sexualize the character to start a fan-base of people who just dig character design, animated a sexy “shower” routine for the character for boys to go nuts over. What about voice? Let’s not really try to sync the voices to the mouths. Let’s have the guy from “24″ record his performances onto tape-logs. Kiefer Sutherland would have been a good “Snake”, but I understand now that you are not “SNAKE”. The game explains pretty soon at the end that you are just a Medic and all the tapes you’ve been listening to is the original Big Boss. You never where the character of Snake. Even though this all could have been handled better, Konami wanted to save money wherever possible. We also knew David Hayter was not asked or put forward to return as “The Voice of Snake”. But in this case I start to wonder myself, David Hayter might have dodged the biggest bullet in the most expensive, commercial and very controversial game of all time once Konami decided to kill everything that built up their reputation.

Even during production Kojima managed to start working on PT. The game Konami “silenced” after it was released on the PS-store. Guillermo Del Toro and his friendship with Hideo Kojima’s dream-game was put on ice. All because Kojima was about to get frozen out of the company that was according to Konami “Wasting too much bloody money”. I might get blacklisted for saying this, but once the new management started to mess with the other IPs for just domestic/gambling market, that’s where everything went sideways. Konami wasn’t treating their heritage with respect.

It took them 7 years to realize their mistake! And now, for those who wants to be part of 3rd party developers who would get a crack at a new Castlevania, a new Metal Gear Solid (remake I hope), Konami has realized that the only way they will survive (Yeah, Metal Gear Solid Survive killed them HARD) is to let other’s take over. Maybe my dream of scoring a Metal Gear Solid game would be somewhat more possible now rather than working in the confined space of limitations posed by the higher ups at Konami. Let 3rd party developers breathe life into the IPs because I know there are smarter ways to tell a story and I would gladly like to see the return of David Hayter in the seat, without having to deal with the blank-face approach that he was faced with every time he had to audition for Snake in MGS 2, 3 and 4! David Hayter is a fantastic writer, actor and voice-actor. He has the chops and I think we are all ready for either a re-make or a better follow up to MGS 2 and the time between that one and MGS 4.

#Metal Gear Solid V #the phantom pain #Konami #Hideo Kojima #Akira Yamaoka #Yong Yea #Castlevania #Pachinko #Silent Hill #PT #Ground Zeroes #harry gregson williams #ludvig forssell #3rd Party #Bloober team #remake #Metal Gear Solid Remake

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wonderfulworldofmichaelford · 6 years ago

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Michael in the Mainstream - JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders

It’s been a long while since I’ve talked about Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure; the last time I talked about it was when I reviewed Phantom Blood, which makes this review even weirder. How on earth could I skip over Battle Tedency?! Well, the thing with Battle Tendency is that that part is almost universally loved, especially in the West, and at the moment I feel like I can’t say much more about it than “Yeah this was a good part of the show.” But Stardust Crusaders? There’s a lot to unpack with this chapter of the Joestar’s saga.

Stardust Crusaders has had a divisive reputation in America as opposed to its status as generally beloved that it has in Japan. Some people really enjoy this part, and others really don’t like it much at all. I think a lot of the ire this part draws comes down to character focus and the overall story and how it flows, though I do think overexposure may have at least some part in it, as this was one of the few parts widely known in the West back when the franchise was a cult classic. To be frank, I find the divisiveness a bit unwarranted, though at the same time I do think that this part of the series does have some issues with it that I do think need to be addressed.

Probably the biggest point of contention is how the story progresses. The story is a very simple one: Jotaro and a ragtag team of misfit Stand users travel to Egypt to kill Dio once and for all, and they have to fight through an army of Stand users to get to him, with all of their foes in the first half of the series have Stands named after tarot cards and then all the Stand users in Egypt having Stands named after Egyptian gods. It’s your standard “monster of the week” anime, for better and for worse. While I do like how fun and creative most of the Stand battles are, the issue is that a lot of the enemy Stand users are entirely forgettable, especially the tarot Stand users, who tended to be rather boring, with Arabia Fats being the worst on the merit that he’s only ever seen after being knocked unconscious.

Most of the others don’t really rise above being mediocre, with a few exceptions. The best of all the tarot Stands is, without a doubt, Hol Horse, the gunslinging cowboy Stand user whose Emperor allows him to control the trajectory of the bullets from his Stand gun… and yet, he never once is able to hit anyone other than himself. He’s the sort of bumbling idiot villain I love to see, and the fact that he also frequently mentions how he respects women and also has no qualms about kidnapping oracular children makes him even funnier. He’s definitely a standout of the first half of the series, and Stardust Crusaders as a whole. Aside from him, the Geils tend to be the better Stand users of the first half, as well as Forever and Mannish Boy if only for the weird factor.

Egypt, however, is where the show picks up the pace, with every single Egyptian Stand user being an absolute blast. Mariah, Alessi, N’Doul, Anubis, the D’Arby brothers… all of the Stand users encountered in the latter half of the show are wildly entertaining and have some truly creative fight scenes. Perhaps the most memorable of all of them was the sadistic hawk, Pet Shop, who gave Iggy an excellent battle right before the steps towards the finale. But special mention also needs to go to the utterly hilarious Oingo Boingo brothers, perhaps the greatest moron team in all of anime, or even cartoons in general. They’re so amusing they even get their own special end credits (and Hol Horse gets to join in when he teams up with Boingo.

Now, while I do love all of the Stand users in Egypt, I have to admit that the old 90s OVA did have a pretty good idea in trimming the fat and only keeping the most plot relevant Stand users while cutting out the more unneeded ones. Forever, Hol Horse, J. Geil, and Enya are the only tarot Stand users fought, and only Daniel J. D’Arby, N. Doul, and Vanilla Ice are the only Stand users in Egypt fought. While I am generally a bit iffy about cutting out a lot of the more fun stuff – the lack of Pet Shop and Oingo Boingo bros is really depressing – the general idea of trimming some of the fat to get to where they need to be sooner probably would have helped this a lot. It really feels like a slog to get through this, even though there’s plenty of fun to be had, mostly because things start to get exhausting right around the time they actually get to Egypt. By then, you’re so fatigued by watching all of the enemy Stand fights that you really just want to see them pulverize Dio.

So frankly I do think the OVA had the right idea, I just think it cut too much of the fun stuff. A lot of the reason Egypt was such a good part of the arc is because the Stand users danced the line of being fun and being serious, with all the pervert and blowjob jokes in the Mariah episode and the juvenile and child endangerment jokes of Alessi’s episode; if there could have been a way to get to that sooner or at least change up the first half to make it more fun would have really helped. We really don’t need to see Captain Tenille or Devo or Rubber Soul or whoever, as they are mostly plot irrelevant and serve only as the obstacle of the day.

Of course, the OVA also cut a lot of the fun and lighthearted battles, leaving mainly the most intense ones, and part of what makes Stardust Crusaders good is that it swerves into darkness after comedy. The way the OVA is set up makes the whole thing dark and bleak, which is just not the case. I do think there’s a balance between the two, but it’s definitely not achieved in the anime and it’s easy to see how anyone could become fatigued by some random Stand user of the week showing up and then never being referenced again, only serving as an obstacle to hinder a hasty arrival to Dio’s lair. I think cutting out a good chunk of the tarot Stand users would have really helped the flow of the arc.

Now, onto the characters; one of the most contentious parts is the Jojo of this journey, Jotaro Kujo. Jotaro is a stoic stone-cold badass, one who uses his Stand Star Platinum in numerous ridiculous ways to achieve victory over his opponents. Some see him as a boring, invincible hero, but I don’t find this to be the case. He’s really no more invincible than any other shonen anime protagonist, and he gets beaten down even if he always comes ahead in the end. And yes, while I will admit that Star Platinum does have a tendency of pulling new powers out of nowhere, I don’t see it as much different than, say, Yugi drawing exactly the card he needs to win the duel in Yu-Gi-Oh. It’s just part of being a shonen series, I suppose. That sort of writing off of Jotaro also ignores that most of his victories are won through his decisive wit and quick thinking rather than just Star Platinum punches; that’s usually the finisher after Jotaro pulls off a flawless plan. One of his best victories, in the poker game against D’Arby, doesn’t even feature any ORAORA-ing at all.

As for the stoicism and his unflappable demeanor, as well as his rude and arrogant attitude towards the start of the series, the whole of the show shows Jotaro growing out of this and developing real bonds with his companions, to the point that his rage at the harming of his friends drives him to fight with every ounce of his power against Dio. Jotaro is a very cool and worthy protagonist when it comes right down to it, and Matt Mercer’s voice definitely helps Jotaro ooze eve more cool than he does on his own. While even I’ll admit he has some less impressive moments, the fact of the matter is that he does develop quite a bit as a character, certainly more than the bland hero figure of someone like Jonathan.

Polnareff tends to draw a bit of ire as well, mainly due to people wondering if he deserves all of the screentime and development he gets. The short answer, from my perspective anyway, is yes. The long answer is yes, but at the same time there is a lot with him that could have been done better. He’s easily one of my favorite Jojo companions out of any of the first three parts, but I feel like after his original motivation – finding the killer of his sister – is concluded only a few episodes after he’s introduced, he almost feels superfluous and he really gets shafted by being reduced to the butt of a lot of jokes, though all that being said it’s clear that Polnareff is a man driven by honor as well as vengeance even from the start, so the fact he’d stay on to help in the fight against Dio is completely unsurprising. And while I love Polnareff, I do wish that any of the other characters got as much screentime as he did.

One of the big issues is that a lot of the other characters get pushed to the side, with the story heavily leaning towards developing Polnareff and Jotaro at the expense of every other character. This isn’t much of a problem for Joseph, as by this point any viewer is likely to know that character quite well from the previous season, but Iggy, Avdol, and Kakyoin especially get hit pretty hard with irrelevancy, especially later on. Avdol is one of the more interesting cases, as he “dies” halfway through the tarot Stand user arc, only to be revealed as having survived a few episodes before the gang reaches Egypt, where he then proceeds to do very little until he is killed for real. This is interesting because Avdol has far more of an excuse than the other two, as Araki originally was going to have his first death in the manga be permanent; it’s clear Araki had no idea what to do with the poor guy after he came back, but regardless, it’s still sad he feels all wasted.

Iggy only ever gets one major solo fight before he’s killed, though it’s one of the best in the season and it gives us some insight into who Iggy is. Still, Iggy just ends up feeling like a sacrifice to tug at your heartstrings, one that works of course but one that feels at least a little cheap and needlessly cruel, especially after all the other cruel dog deaths in the season. Kakyoin is perhaps the most depressing, as he ends up getting sidelined for almost the entirety of the Egypt arc before returning in time to go fight Dio and then getting brutally killed by the vampire. It’s even worse because he’s portrayed by Kyle Hebert, who you may know as Ryu of Street Fighter fame; his performance in Kakyoin’s final moments is so genuine, powerful, and heartfelt that you really wish Hebert got more time to shine and Kakyoin got more to do.

These issues aside, though… I really do love this arc. This is mostly because this here is the part where you can see things come together to form the series we all know and love. Up until this point, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has been fantastical but not too out there; sure there were cyborg Nazis, ancient Aztec vampires, and a man name Robert E. O. Speedwagon, but all of that seems a bit grounded, even when it got more fantastical. Even with the introduction of Stands, it’s not really anything too out there, they’re physical manifestations of the wielder’s fighting spirit.

And then you come to the porn addicted orangutan who has sapience and whose Stand takes the form of an ocean liner, and all bets are off.

Forever really marks the point where these adventures truly became bizarre, and set the precedent for all arcs to come, eve Egypt to some extent. Notice how most of the tarot Stands have rather simple abilities, even ones like Star Platinum and Hierophant Green which., while versatile in what they can do, have obvious areas they excel at. Strength, Forever’s Stand, is really a standout with how out there it is, a feat that wouldn’t be matched until the Egypt Stand users came on the scene with their wackier powersets. Nothing reaches the insanity levels of something like, say, Heavy Weather, Bohemian Rhapsody, or Dirty Deeds quite yet, but this was the transitional period between the more narrow-usaged Hamon and Stands, so it makes sense that the waters would be tested with simpler yet still creative abilities at first. Stardust Crusaders really does a good job of easing people in to a series that eventually has hand-collecting serial killers who get boners from the Mona Lisa and a United States president who wants to collect the pieces of Jesus Christ’s corpse to make America invincible, and let’s not even get into the whole situation with Gappy’s testicles. All I’m saying is that if you want to get people to accept a turtle with an interdimensional hotel room inside it… you gotta start with an orangutan.

This is also where all the musical references kick into high gear. Obviously they were there before; Dio, Wag Chung, Speedwagon, Whammu, Kars, and Eisidisi did not escape my notice, after all. But here they became far more pronounced, with characters like Oingo & Boingo, Enya, J. Geils, Captain Tenille, Pet Shop, and perhaps most ridiculous of all, Vanilla Ice and his Stand, Cream. Vanilla Ice actually, ahem, stands out as being the first example of what would become the standard naming convention for all Stands to follow, that is to say, named after a song or band. Ironically, this makes him stand out in the very arc he appears in.

While in general the Stands were a bit less wacky than later Stands would be, there was a lot of creativity in the battles for what limited powersets they had. J. Geils and Hanged Man, Forever and Strength, Mannish Boy and Death 13, and Midler and High Priestess stand out among the tarot Stand users, while just about every single one of the Stand users with Stands named after Egyptian gods stand out as creative and exciting battles. Daniel D’Arby’s battle in particular is one of the best in the entire arc, as there is not a punch thrown and instead the entire thing boils down to an intense poker match. And, of course, I’d be remiss to not mention the multi-episode final duel against Dio and his Stand, The World, which is so utterly epic and filled with badass moments (as well as Matt Mercer getting to say “It’s high noon”) that it’s impossible not to love it.

Stardust Crusaders is definitely an arc with some serious flaws. It’s incredibly long, its format is a bit unrefined, it has a lot of filler characters, it doesn’t evenly distribute screentime, and a lot of it reeks of growing pains and early installment lack of direction. Considering the point in the series the anime is based on, it was kind of destined to be this way. And yet, despite the flaws, it’s still an incredibly fun, exciting, and funny adventure. Even if underutilized or overexposed, all of the main cast is enjoyable and likable; even if there are far too many to the point of exhaustion, most of the enemy Stand users are fun; and even if the arc drags on to the point where it gets frustrating and tedious, things always eventually swoop around and the show becomes as absorbing as it ever was.

While Stardust Crusaders is definitely not the best arc of the franchise, it’s a hell of a lot of fun and it’s easy to see why this part in particular is so popular and influential. A 2010s anime based on an 80s manga series has no right to feel so fresh and exciting, and yet here we are. It likely manages to work so well despite its shortcomings because, frankly, most other series like this have kind of vanished in this day and age, which helps the show stand out more despite the manga it’s based on helping define its genre back in the day. It’s basically a case of it being the right thing at the right time. Sure it’s not perfect, but it doesn’t need to be, so long as it can suck in and inspire new generations of fans the way the original manga did. It’s a great watch, though honestly, there are quite a few episodes you could skip over if you want to have a faster, cleaner viewing experience, namely most of the tarot Stands.

Whatever the case may be, I think all of us can agree on one thing:

This arc is WAY better than Phantom Blood.

#Michael in the Mainstream #JoJo's Bizarre Adventure #Stardust Crusaders #anime #review #tv show review #anime review

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aion-rsa · 5 years ago

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Watchmen: From Comics to Movies to HBO TV Show

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A guide to the long journey Watchmen has taken from DC Comics to HBO TV.

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No doubt inspired by the Latin phrase "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?," generally translated into English as "Who watches the Watchmen?," Alan Moore's 1986-87 comic book series landed in the DC world like an atomic bomb, shattering preconceived notions of what comic books could be and what they had always been. Mature themes in comics had been explored as early as Will Eisner's The Spirit, but Moore was on the cusp of what comics could look like if targeted to a more thoughtful, mature audience. But how did an '80s cult comic book series spawn a growing media empire, with multiple comic series, graphic novels, video games, a movie, and a television series? Perhaps just as crucially, how did a single comic book maxi-series stay trapped in development hell from its first printing until the early days of the 21st Century?

To understand where Watchmen came from, an attempt will be made to understand the mind of the series' key creator, Alan Moore. Moore is a notorious mad genius with the air of a dishevelled Rasputin who worships a Roman snake deity that he himself believes to be a hoax. He's burned every bridge possible in the comic book world, fought with multiple major movie studios, lives in his hometown of Northampton to avoid public attention, and has devoted the bulk of his career to bringing old or neglected properties back from the dead, as it affords him a great deal of freedom to do whatever he wants to said properties.

Enter Miracleman

Before Watchmen, Alan Moore and artist Gary Leach (later Alan Davis) revived a 1950s UK knock-off of DC's Captain Marvel (known as Shazam these days). In 1953, Fawcett Comics, when faced by a lawsuit from DC over the name Captain Marvel, discontinued the publication of the comic series in the United States. That led to a serious problem for Len Miller, whose publishing company L. Miller and Sons had been republishing black and white Fawcett comics in the UK. Fawcett's Captain Marvel transformed into Marvelman, Fawcett's logos were knocked off by Miller's company to ensure a sense of continuity, and Marvelman continued publishing until 1963, at which time Miller filed for bankruptcy and the Marvelman family of comics ground to a halt.

Moore took the bones of Marvelman, gave him a dark and gritty reboot, and kicked off a new anthology starring the character that was so successful in Britain, it ended up being published in America by Pacific Comic and Eclipse Comics as Miracleman, to avoid further any potential interest from Marvel Comics. For those keeping score at home, a British author gained fame in America thanks to American reprints of a British comic featuring a British comic book character ripped off from a character originally created by an American company created after the American company who created the character went out of business. Moore, during this process, began to have disagreements with his Miracleman publisher Dez Skinn. Arguments over money have proven to be as much a theme in Alan Moore's professional life as his reliance on wiping out existing comic book continuity and using familiar characters in unfamiliar ways.

read more: Everything You Need to Know About the Watchmen HBO Series

Between his work with Warrior on Miracleman and his success on various 2000AD and Marvel UK titles, Moore eventually caught the attention of DC Comics editor Len Wein, who gave Moore the opportunity to work his revisionist snake magic on one of DC's lesser-known titles, a mediocre-selling monster book called Saga of the Swamp Thing. Given free rein with that character, Alan Moore started doing Alan Moore things, digging deeply into modern issues like environmentalism, telling experimental stories, connecting the character to the culture of Louisiana, and connecting Swamp Thing to a wider DC supernatural/magical universe through characters like the Spectre, the Demon, Phantom Stranger, and Deadman. Moore would create John Constantine at this time, kick off a British Invasion era of comic books, and leading to the foundation of the recently shuttered Vertigo imprint.

Enter the Mighty Crusaders and Charlton Comics

During the Silver Age of comics, Archie Comics looked at the success of Marvel and DC superheroes and decided, “Hey, we can do that!” Archie revived the Mighty Crusaders, a superhero team of characters originally created in the 1940's. That experiment, unfortunately for Archie, was unsuccessful, and the Mighty Crusaders reboot lasted only from 1965-1966. However, the characters were revitalised during the comics Bronze Age, when Archie Comics looked at the success of Marvel and DC and decided, “Hey, we can do that!” Rather than launching a new Mighty Crusaders comic, Archie entered discussions with DC about DC publishing the new line with Archie taking a cut.

This put an idea into the mind of Alan Moore. There were no Superman-level heroes in the Mighty Crusaders; they were mostly normal people with extraordinary abilities or gadgets in a more grounded universe than the standard DC level. When negotiations between Archie and DC failed (Archie would relaunch the Mighty Crusaders themselves in a 13-issue series between 1983 and 1985), Moore took his original idea for the Mighty Crusaders - The Shield is pulled dead out of a river under mysterious circumstances - and pitched it to DC after DC bought up the Charlton Comics line of characters, which included Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, the Question, and others. DC, despite approving of Moore's work on Swamp Thing, said no to using Charlton's characters for this dark and gritty reboot, but told Moore to flesh his idea out using all new heroes.

Enter Zack Snyder

For those unfamiliar with Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' comic series, it would be an easy thing to catch up on in a short amount of time. The original Watchmen series was only 12 issues, and due to contract language between DC and Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons, should the comic ever go out of print the rights to the characters would revert to the original creators. Unsurprisingly, Watchmen is now in its 25th printing. While the graphic novel might feel daunting at 416 pages, it's one of the most propulsive books I've read, with Moore's mystery plot snagging immediate interest and Gibbons and John Higgins' artwork enriching the story with background details that reward multiple readings. This is a graphic novel whose art is as interesting as its story, if not more so, and it maintains a unique look that makes it immediately identifiable upon first glance, by design.

To say that Watchmen was successful from the first issue would be putting it mildly; the book's first issues sold so well that DC actually overtook Marvel in the direct sales comic book charts. Watchmen is routinely hailed as one of the finest comic book creations in the history of the medium, and is one of the books for which the phrase "graphic novel" was created. On the Time magazine list of 100 best books of all time, the only graphic novel that shows up is Watchmen, in the #18 slot ahead of works by luminaries like Virginia Woolf, Salman Rushdie, Toni Morrison, Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. That the book influenced generations of comic writers and artists is without question, and it continues to be one of DC's biggest cash cow properties (it's in its 25th printing for reasons other than DC keeping the rights from Alan Moore).

The comics series proved so popular that the rights were optioned by 20th Century Fox in 1986, when Lawrence Gordon and Joel Silver first took an interest in the tale. Moore was offered the chance to write the script for the film by Fox, but refused, and the first draft went to Batman '89 screenwriter Sam Hamm. In 1991, Fox gave up and the rights were picked up by Warner Brothers. Silver and Gordon brought on board Terry Gilliam and writer Charles McKeown to take the film adaptation back closer to the comic book source material, but that effort soured, too. Silver could only raise $25 million for the film, a quarter of what he felt was needed, and Gilliam dubbed the project as unfilmable.

Lawrence Gordon would not be denied. In 2001, he turned to Universal Studios with producer Lloyd Levin and brought David Hayter on board before having a difference of opinion with Universal and taking his project to Revolution Studios. Revolution couldn't pull it off. Paramount announced they'd bring Watchmen to the big screen in 2004 with Darren Aronofsky as director. When Aronofsky dropped out, Paul Greengrass stepped in. Paramount, like so many before, gave up. Then Gordon and Levin turned to Warner Brothers, who ironically is a corporate sibling of DC Comics. Tim Burton refused the project, and it ended up in the hands of Zack Snyder and Alex Tse, who finally succeeded in bringing Watchmen to the big screen with mixed reviews.

Anything that spent so long in development hell must be based on a pretty great property, because a lot of people spent a lot of money trying to turn the graphic novel into a movie, and the resulting movie made $185 million dollars despite not getting the rave reviews of the graphic novel. Whether or not the critical opinion that Snyder stayed too close to the comic books (except for that controversial ending) holds water, there's something about Watchmen that continues to draw attention, hence the forthcoming series from HBO.

Enter The Minutemen

So, Watchmen is a huge critical darling, and people have worked incredibly hard to bring the property to life. What is it about Watchmen that people like so much? Part of it, no doubt, is due to the unique vision of Alan Moore himself. He took a central concept - what Marvel calls street-level heroes minus one supremely powerful being - and crafted an entire universe around them that's wildly divergent from our own.

read more: The Superman Stories of Alan Moore

For Moore, the world of Watchmen diverges from our timeline in 1938. A masked vigilante named Hooded Justice stops a grocery store robbery. Coverage of that event inspires Hollis Mason to take up his own mask and superhero identity, dubbing himself Nite Owl and using his knowledge of gadgets to create a collection of gimmicks to help him in his desire to join Hooded Justice in the vigilante hero game. Their visible successes kick off a fad of costumed heroes, in which people, inspired by Hooded Justice and DC's Action Comics, become vigilantes. Buffeted by a wave of immigrants fleeing Europe prior to World War II, an enterprising Polish immigrant named Laurence Schexnayder uses his beautiful longtime friend and future wife, Sally Juspeczyk, as the first manufactured superhero, Silk Spectre. Spectre's successes at stopping crime - which are really hired actors being beaten up by his wife with police paid off to support the stunts - Schexnayder puts an ad in the paper to assemble a super-team dubbed the Minutemen.

With the success of the Minutemen at home, and the success of Minuteman Edward “The Comedian” Blake during World War II, costumed heroes become all the rage, saving America from a terrorist plot and successfully stopping or jailing most of the super villains that rose up to fight them. America's victory in WWII helps the hero fad continue, while the heroes in comic books are slowly supplanted by pirate books - who needs fake heroes when you've got real ones in your universe?

The exploits of the masked heroes aren't without problems. A bank-sponsored superhero named Dollar Bill dies after being shot during a robbery when his cape tangles in a revolving door. When outed by the press as a lesbian in 1945, original Minuteman member the Silhouette was kicked out of the group and brutally murdered due to the publicity. The original hero, Hooded Justice, disappeared after the masked heroes were called before Senator Joseph McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee. The Comedian enters the service of the US Government, becoming something of a problem-solver for several administrations. Meanwhile, in 1959, a physicist named Jon Osterman is disintegrated during an experiment that seems to kill him. Then, his body begins to slowly reassemble itself in Gila Flats, ushering in the age of the first true superhero, Dr. Manhattan.

These costumed heroes, led by Comedian and Dr. Manhattan, begin to alter the world in drastic ways. The Vietnam War, which in our universe cost thousands of lives and took decades, is wrapped up in six months once President Richard Nixon gets Osterman to intervene in Vietnam. Nixon easily wins reelection, and due to his overwhelming popularity, the 22nd Amendment is repealed, which allows Nixon to set himself up as the President for as long as he continues to win elections. With the efforts of the Comedian, and the mysterious murders of Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Nixon easily wins a second election and further tightens his political control over the US. Tensions with the Soviet Union simmer continually thanks to Dr. Manhattan, who tips the balance of the Cold War strongly in favor of the United States and forces the Soviet Union to take a back-seat to America's global hegemony for fear of Manhattan-based retribution.

Tensions also simmer at home, as unrest and crime continue to spark throughout the 60s and 70s, despite an accelerated rate of technological achievement with electric-powered cars, video walls, and other high-tech gadgets fueled in no small part by the combined efforts of the meta-human Dr. Manhattan and the genius businessman Ozymandias, the world's smartest man. A new generation of vigilantes, led by Rorschach, become more violent and eventually, a wave of police protests and riots leads to the passing of the Keene Act, which outlaws all masked vigilantism not sanctioned by the federal government. A federal government which plays increasingly fast and loose with international laws, acting unilaterally throughout the globe (bombing Beirut, sending The Comedian in to stop the Iran hostage crisis, and so on) and increasing tension with the second-tier Soviets, who begin developing nuclear weapons.

The Cold War, it seems, was inevitable in the Watchmen universe, no matter how many alternate fuel cars and floating magnificent airships dot the landscape.

Enter Damon Lindelof

HBO's series based on Watchmen, also called Watchmen, might be based as much on Zack Snyder's film as it is Alan Moore's series of comic books. What it is not based on, as far as I can tell, is the Watchmen sequel called Doomsday Clock, which is actively being published by DC Comics as we speak, with a new edition coming out every few months. This comic takes place after the events of Watchmen, but considering the TV series started shooting after issue four of the comic, and issue 11 has not come out, I believe there is no need to read the sequel, even if two characters from the sequel, Mime (who has invisible weapons) and Marionette (who uses razor wire as a weapon) may have been ported into the series from the comics. (NB: Marionette and Mime are not yet confirmed, but rumored, to be part of the series.) Doomsday Clock involves conspiracies, hostile takeovers, Superman, Black Adam, the Joker, and a host of other DC Universe elements that definitely won't be involved in the series.

Before Watchmen, a prequel series launched to middling to positive reviews, might be more important. When Watchmen first launched, Moore and Gibbons had an idea to go back into the past of the Watchmen world and fill in the gaps between the Minutemen of the 1940s and the Crimebusters attempt of the '60s. Potential series pitches made were Rorshach's Journals and Comedian's Vietnam War Diary, as well as a proper Minutemen series. I would also doubt that these prequels would carry much weight in HBO's series, but if you feel like being a completest, there is a compendium which puts all 37 Before Watchmen books into one 1064 page volume that will probably not be necessary.

Enter your local bookstore

From what is known of HBO's Watchmen series, it's more concerned with the time period after Ozymandias's plot from the original series happens to the 21st Century. Aside from Dr. Manhattan, no characters currently known in the Watchmen universe have something like meta-human powers. Ozymandias is simply a very smart man who has made a fortune in the business world, who like his inspiration Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt, is the peak of human physical conditioning. Nite Owl and Nite Owl II are guys with a knack for creating gadgets and using them to fight crime, as was their inspiration Blue Beetle (Ted Kord version). The Comedian was dedicated to keeping peace through violence, as was his Charlton counterpart Peacemaker. Rorschach is simply Moore's attempt to create the perfect Steve Ditko character, right down to his strong K-last name and unusual mask and look, which are also inspired by Charlton's The Question. Mime and Marionette, should they actually appear in Watchmen, are based on Charlton's Punch and Jewelee, two very skilled thieves with access to high-tech weapons and gadgets and the amorality needed to use them to kill countless innocent bystanders.

read more - Doomsday Clock: The Impossible Watchmen Sequel

These costumed adventurer types aren't so much gifted or special, but simply dedicated and determined. They have tools, and they use them to fight crime, and make themselves figures of legend in the process, like any sports star or media figure. And like all figures with strong personalities, these exiled heroes are capable of gathering followers, or inspiring others in their wake. While the only active character from Watchmen that will appear is Ozymandias, this is a world shaped by the characters, ideas, and events from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' groundbreaking comic book series.

Certainly, like any TV show, there won't be an extremely high barrier of entry for those unfamiliar with the comic or the movie, but given just how much inspiration the heroes of the 80s will have on the characters of 2019, it's a worthwhile investment to read, reread, or re-watch Watchmen. Most have a lower opinion of the film adaptation than the comic, and that's understandable, but it's easier to digest a 163-minute film, a 186-minute director's cut or a 215-minute ultimate cut than a 400-page novel. The graphic novel is preferred, especially if it can be read several times, but if there is a time crunch or a long trip planned, the 186-minute director's cut is the superior version of the Watchmen film and more true to the original material.

Reading the source material probably won't be required to enjoy Damon Lindelof's take on Watchmen in the 21st century, but it will definitely help. I didn't read any of A Song of Ice and Fire, but I had a lot of help from friends and devoted fans to tell me a little more about George R.R. Martin's world. Catching up on Watchmen would be much, much easier, and just as rewarding. If nothing else, your time will have been spent reading an incredible graphic novel.

Watchmen comes to HBO later this year.

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Ron Hogan

Jul 3, 2019

Watchmen

HBO

DC Entertainment

from Books https://ift.tt/2NElCnw

#aion-rsa #Books

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thecorpulentbeagle · 6 years ago

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P5 Shipping Round Robin: Day 13

The title for the story is a reference to Project Runway, when models would walk up and down the runway to convince designers to choose/stay with them. I realize it might be a little confusing since it’s also a baseball term, but hopefully, the plot would clear this up anyway!

Here is the fanfiction.net link.

Please enjoy this next part of the P5 Shipping Round Robin Challenge!

P5 Shipping Round Robin Challenge:

Walk Off:

Ann x Goro

-Ann-

“You know, I must say that I don’t quite understand the fascination of runway walks.”

Ann tilted her head to her right, looking up at the person who had spoken.

Goro had been standing off to one side, deep in thought about something or other. Ann had turned on the television to watch the latest episode in her favorite model show. She’d been looking forward to it for the past week, and everyone in the Phantom Thieves knew not to make light of her obsession.

They also knew not to interrupt her when she was watching it. So, even though she was currently in Akira’s room watching his television, the rest of the Phantom Thieves decided that they would hang out in Leblanc until the hour-long episode was over.

That is, except for the newest member.

Goro clearly had not understood the cues that everyone else had been giving off. Or he was simply curious as to what Ann would be doing. Either way, he was here now, and while he had watched the majority of the show in silence, he must not have been able to hold in his comments any longer.

“It’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it?” Ann answered quickly, moving her head to face the television again so that she wouldn’t miss a moment.

“I assume you mean that the concept of runway walking is straightforward, which is not what I meant.” Ann felt a shift in the couch beside her and realized that Goro had sat down next to her. “I meant why are you so fascinated in the subject?”

Ann sighed. She wanted to give their newest member some slack, but she really didn’t feel like having an in-depth conversation with him right now. “The others did tell you that I model part time, right?” She huffed, somewhat impatient with the boy.

“They did.”

“So then I’m studying my craft. Don’t you do the same with your detective work?” Ann asked, still watching the television screen.

“I do.”

“So then, what’s the confusion?”

“When I study a detective mystery, I don’t know instantly who the perpetrator is. I take clues from character backgrounds, actions, and so forth, and then deduce the guilty party at the end.”

Ann wasn’t completely paying attention, but even if she had been, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t understand his train of thought. “Okay?”

“My point is, I know exactly who will win this competition, and it has nothing to do with this walk off.”

At this, Ann started. She turned her gaze back to the detective, observing his smirk with incredulity. “H-how the hell would you know that? You’ve seen like, 40 minutes of a single episode. There’s no way you know!”

Goro chuckled. “Well then. Let’s test that theory. Who do you think will win at this point, Ann?”

Ann glanced back at the screen and saw that the show had gone to commercial. She could afford to talk with him a little longer. “Well… probably Naomi. Her walk was definitely the best. She was basically flawless.” She went on for a minute about the different aspects of her walk, knowing that she tried to emulate some of those herself.

Goro nodded as he listened. Once she finished, he took his turn. “You clearly know a fair amount about the subject. However, you are forgetting one key aspect.”

Ann blinked. “And that is?”

“The fact that it is a television show. It is a competition. And how do the producers make sure that their audience continues to watch? Drama.” Ann said nothing, so he continued. “You are correct that Naomi has the best walk by far out of all the models. But her personality is somewhat… bland. She’s likeable, but that’s about it. Whereas another girl… Seiko I believe… she is much more flamboyant and eccentric. She does not walk as well, true… but why else would she still be here? Based on the small number of models, this is late in the season, yet, she is still here despite her mediocre walking.”

Ann thought. “Huh. So you’re saying it’s more of a personality contest than actual skill?”

Goro nodded. “Essentially. I’m not sure if the show was always like this. Your obsession suggests that it has been on for multiple years. At first, maybe it was truly based on skill. But as the years went on and more people began watching, they wanted to ensure that this fanbase would grow. Most people don’t appreciate the true skill that these models display like you do. They want to see drama, to be able to laugh at others’ petty problems and forget about their own for a while.”

“Well I – ” Ann was about to retort when she realized that the show was back on. “Huh. Let’s see how right you are!”

The two turned their attention towards the screen. The judges would critique each model, and then would send them backstage one by one. Eventually, the two girls that Goro and Ann had mentioned were the only two left on the runway, and they awaited the results with baited breath.

Then, Seiko was declared the winner of the challenge.

Ann gasped. There was no way! That girl had no skill. “I can’t believe it! Naomi can walk circles around that girl and she loses to her?”

Goro laughed. “It appears that I was correct after all.”

Irritated but still impressed, Ann picked up the remote and turned the television off.

The detective seemed surprised by her action. “Ann? There’s still a few minutes left –”

“That’s it, Akechi! We’re having a walk-off, right here, right now!”

The boy’s face paled. “W-what? But Ann, I have no practice in model walking.”

Ann smirked. “Too bad. We’re gonna have a model walk whether you like it or not. It’s only fair since you ruined one of my favorite shows by stripping it down to a cynical formula.”

The model stood up and grabbed Goro by his arm, pulling him up as well. He attempted to pull away, but Ann wouldn’t let him. She dragged him over to the back of the room.

“Alright, Smarty-Pants. Let’s see how well you can walk since you know everything there is to know about it.” She crossed her arms, giggling at the incredulous look he gave her.

“Ann! I already said that I understand the producers’ crass reasoning on how to appeal to as many casual viewers as possible. I don’t know the first thing about the actual performance!”

“Ah ah ah. Less talking, more walking. Go on.” She gestured towards the far wall. “Start over there and then do your best model walk. I’m sure you’d like constructive criticism, since you dish it so easily.” When Goro said nothing, Ann leaned in and whispered in his ear, “Plus, it’ll help with your television appearances if you can walk in a way that drives the girls and boys wild.”

She smiled at the blush that appeared on the boy’s face. Still silent, Goro nodded and walked over to the opposing wall. Ann was tickled by the fact she could tease him all she wanted, but still be able to help him along the way.

Goro stood facing the other wall, most likely preparing himself for his walk. Ann could see him reaching up to his neck, and she was assuming he was straightening his tie.

A moment later, the detective turned around and began to sashay towards the other girl, and it was all she could do to keep from laughing. He really didn’t understand any of the basics of model walking. True, he was good at copying what he saw on the show, but there was one distinct problem with that.

He reached the other side and stopped, his blush from before growing on his face. “W-well? Was that… satisfactory?”

Ann couldn’t help it. She giggled. “Pfft. Not quite, Akechi. You know that female models and male models have different ways of walking, right?”

Goro looked genuinely surprised. “Do they?”

Ann nodded. “Of course! It has to do with the body types. See, girls have that hourglass shape, so they look better swaying a bit as they walk. They can move their hips more, and their balance is typically better, so they can step more eloquently.” She gestured towards the detective. “Boys on the other hand, tend to be stockier and have more of a powerful walk, so they focus more on walking straight and letting their shoulders do most of the moving.”

Goro nodded. “I see. So my walk was too… feminine?”

Ann nodded. “I mean, did it feel comfortable to you?”

The boy shook his head. “Not at all. But I figured that I was just uncomfortable with the whole process.”

The two stood there for a few moments, neither one saying anything. Before too long, Goro cleared his throat. “So… are you going to be walking now?”

“Nope!”

Goro blinked in surprise. “No? But, Ann, I thought we were having a walk off?”

Ann shook her head. “Nah. I just wanted to pay you back for how smug you were being before. And I knew the only way to get you to do something that out of your comfort zone would be too make it a competition.”

He shook his head. “I see. Just as I learned model walking from you, you learned how to manipulate others’ thoughts and feelings to motivate their behaviors from my discussion.”

“Yep!” The model walked up to Goro so that she was right next to him. Then, she leaned up and placed a kiss on his cheek, which caused him to gasp in surprise. “Plus, you’re really cute when you’re flustered.” She winked at him.

“I-I –”

“Anyway! Time to let the others know that we’re done up here.” Ann pat his cheek gently and walked away, heading down the stairs. Before she went too far, she turned to see Goro gently touching the spot where her lips had been. His face resembled the color of her Panther outfit, and she was amused to see how easily he was affected by subtle flirtations. “Now do you see why people love models and their walk offs?” She laughed when he nodded his head.

Here we go! This was interesting to write, since I was able to voice some of my frustrations with competitions like these. The first few seasons are all about the actual talent, but then once they become popular, it’s all about which personality people would like to watch. Sometimes I’m proven wrong, though!

For anyone who was curious, the names for the models are references to a horror game called Corpse Party, which I enjoy. If you dislike the character deaths in Persona, then you will never want to play this game (in fact, one of these characters dies, but I won’t say which one)! See you tomorrow!

#p5 #persona 5 #p5roundrobin #ann takamaki #goro akechi #ann x goro #goro x ann #ann x akechi #akechi x ann

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