#since his plotlines got butchered anyway | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

transsexualhamlet · 3 years

Text

predictions for yuumori s2 (as a manga reader)

No matter what happens, this is probably gonna end up aging badly, but i’m hyperfixating and I’ve decided to make it everyone else’s problem so I’m going to predict where they’re gonna go with s2 of moriarty the patriot (keep in mind i’m writing this as of episode 2) and what I think would be the ideal scenario, in the likely situation that this is the last season.

So we can tell a lot about what they’re going to cut/include from the opening and ending, and the first two episodes.

Observations/Conclusions:

-moneypenny and most likely von herder are gone, already evidenced by the first 2 episodes, which is :( but understandable bc there’s only so much space and they’re definitely cutting the arcs where they would be important

-so that means no moran backstory because duh, there’s a point in the backstory and i see value in it, moran slaps when he’s not being an ass lmao, but again, time constraints

-no matter what I can’t see them keeping in the like, child hunting thing 2 electric boogaloo, even tho it did further Fred’s and Louis’ characters, since they’ve previously cut out stuff considering them and. You know. That’s how it be.

-You can see they’re including jack the ripper arc (considering, jack is in the opening) and I have faith that they can downsize the arc without butchering it if they do it right. This is good that they’re keeping it in, considering it’s one of the... main arcs not involving milverton that advances the plot.

-Major thing we can tell is that, yeah, Milverton is nowhere to be seen. It seems like this would fuck things up bad since he’s like, the only kind of “main villain” we get here. But honestly? I agree with that. Fuck Milverton. He has no character or motivation and is like my one and only bone to pick with the manga. He’s just there to suck ass and create plot convenience?? I don’t like him and he never needed to be there if he wasn’t at least going to do something interesting. I support the anime cutting him.

-That DOES fuck over their ability to do the white knight arc, since, well, milverton is the cause of all of that. And this is the one thing I really don’t know what they’re going to do with that to connect jack the ripper directly to the final problem. I can’t predict that, but I do think there are ways it can be done that won’t be Awful.

-So considering that, Mary’s arc is definitely axed, which doesn’t bother me that much since by that point i so impatient for gay people and really didn’t care about watson’s fiance even tho she is a lovely lady. For anime effect, she does not need an arc, though I could see them having her show up a few times so watson doesn’t seem too gay either lmao.

-They’re definitely shooting to end with the final problem, considering without it there’s no big culminating event between moriarty and sherlock, which is obviously the big sell. And well. It’s. Um. The final problem.

The season says it’s slated to be 13 episodes, since s1 didn’t have enough time for 12. I honestly think they can manage it all, if they play their cards right.

Outlook:

This whole potential situation does sound familiar, I’ll point out that I just arrived here after the shit show of the promised neverland’s second season. But I don’t think it will get bad like tpn did. Because in Moriarty, they could afford to cut things because there are many stand alone and disposable arcs, whereas tpn really shouldn’t have, since they pretty much all contributed later to Major Main Character Plot Things. And the important points of the arcs that they’ll probably cut can actually be written into existing ones without looking like plot convenience, in my vision of it.

Honestly, I’m pretty optimistic for moriarty, it works better for this kind of adaption than in a lot of other manga that end up getting these most likely two season adaptions. I’d love to get those arcs for the servant’s and other character’s developments of course, but trying to stick that in when there’s really only time to focus on the main characters would suck up time better spent on really getting deep into the main storyline. Even if there are less characters, in a situation like this a streamlined and nuanced story will look elegant, whereas shoving as much content as possible into a few short episodes makes everyone cringe.

The situation does end up looking like the promised neverland, but it has a chance to be significantly less fucked considering,,, well,,, tpn is an insanely low bar, and they will hopefully not make the promised neverland’s same mistakes of Shove Seventeen Plotlines Into One Episode After Realizing Belatedly They Actually Needed Those Parts.

Obviously I don’t know what will happen, and this will be outdated by sunday lmao, but my projection looks something like this for 13 episodes to conclude the show.

Predictions:

(Episodes 1+2: A Scandal in the British Empire)

Episode 3: I’m very anxious for 3 considering this will probably make or break my opinion on the anime. Ideally, this episode would wrap up the scandal arc and go over the whole James Bond thing, it could be pretty baller and fit well into an episode. But though there’s plenty of Irene in the opening, there’s no sight of Bond, so considering anime as a whole is fucking transphobic, they might try to change it, twist around bond’s words or just, gloss over it altogether. If they cut it, they might have time to squeeze in another arc but I don’t think they honestly need to? With what they seem to be keeping in, they’ll have ample time to get to everything, and it would be shorter anyway considering the smaller amount of servants.

Here, we do definitely need to cover Sherlock’s “receiving the name of the lord of crime and deciding to burn it and find it out himself because he’s extra”, no matter the status of irene/bond’s gender. If they do that right and possibly change a few things so it’s more important, this could play into them moving forward his whole discovery of their secrets.

Episodes 4-7: These will most likely cover jack the ripper arc. There’s a lot to go over here, and I’m confident they can cut it down, because tbh Moriarty is pretty long winded for a manga and cutting things is good to an extent. This covers most of the major expansions on William’s ideas and plans, and definitely has the holes to stuff in more of the points made in the arcs that will be cut out. Though I have my reservations, they could plausibly take most points in white knight and integrate them into here.

Episodes 8-10: These are the ones that are going to take the most work and probably be the most changed. They should finish up the ripper arc in 7, give or take a few episodes, and then here, If Sherlock has a little more figured out from episode 3, he can look deeper. I think it’s honestly a good idea for the one to discover the Incriminating Records to be him, as it again gives them more connection. There needs to be some other reason Moriarty’s secrets are in danger of getting leaked to the paper, but I’m sure they can put something together with scotland yard or something, or even like, Mycroft. I see that. But if that happens, then we can spend an episode or so on the merchant of london, aka little liam commits girlboss, which can be woven into the idea of everything Coming Out.

Episodes 11-13: Final problem. I see this going mostly unchanged, up until 55. Truth is they’ll probably end up cutting something but hmm. I don’t know. They should keep the fred stuff in, since they’ll cut his other development. They should keep the squad asking sherlock for help, since they cut the other parts that highlight the crime squad’s care for him. But I think they could montage most of the William Goes French Revolution On You Hoes, even the part where the kids come in front of one of them, if you see what’s going on right. But everything can proceed as in the manga pretty smoothly, I think, it all makes sense if they put it together in 7-10. You know, you got somehow, the worst case happens, and boom, scandal, final problem enacted. Killing spree. William reveals he’s been emo this whole time but it’s too late now. Everyone scrambling to catch up with his damn plans. Gay boy knocking on 221B with a fucking love letter. Shit gets found out. And then... well, yuh.

Disclaimer I still don’t know everything about this, bc I cannot find a translation of 54, only the raw with no context, and I know there’s content after 55 but I can’t find that either. But I’m sure as hell an english major and can understand where things are probably going. I don’t know what’s involved at that point, and if there’s some plan detailed to save him or something. That’s the main thing I don’t know, and if there is one detailed of course that kind of changes everything, but for now I’m going on the assumption that 54 is “sherlock runs to the bridge and yells at liam to stop being a dramatic whore while london burns around them and the murder squad watches anxiously with mysterious intent, until it is chapter 55″. (IF Y’ALL HAVE THE ENGLISH PLEASE HMU) They better not TOUCH anything in 55 or so help me god.

But as to after 55, things are going to be different. Besties, I’m an optimist, but there’s no way they’ll make a season after this. It does appear that they’ve mostly wrapped up, and they’ve gotten through what Big Revals they plan on doing. The shit hinted from the beginning has happened, and there probably won’t be enough to create another, unless the author plans on fucking shit up again, which I don’t approve of. There are a few things still left unsaid, like, Liam’s real name and everything, but if it’s supposed to be important, things that small can 100 percent be written into this.

And as something that’s intending to finish up a story, depending on what manga canon really is (BESTIE I DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS) they might change it. There’s two options, a bittersweet/hopeful and a tragic one, but either one will end up open ended, because of my extensive knowledge of 2 season animes with significantly longer mangas. (done badly: tokyo ghoul and tpn, done well: owari no seraph and mob psycho) Either we have it like well, oh damn, everything was destined to be Sad but well you’re with him now you’re probably dead, but you know there’s something hinted at and you don’t know for sure so that’s the catch. So you get a vague and bittersweet but possibly hopeful ending. OR something that takes,,, whatever ends up happening in the manga or whatever the plan is and turning it into an epilogue infodump.

I can see either going well depending on how they handle the messages of the story. But yeah, as far as to my extent of the understanding of the show, that’s how it’ll probably go, and what my opinion of how it should is.

To What Extent Will The Gay:

You know, this is my ideal scenario within these time limits, but you know they could always go The Wrong Direction if the anime team took a look at some of the later chapters and went “holy shit this is a bit too gay” and try to axe some of the sherliam content, which I wouldn’t put past any corporation.

In the case that they do, I see lot of good shit going. They’re clearly trying to do the final problem, so they obviously can’t cut out 55, which is good :). But though 55 is clearly, uh, really fucking homosexual, the most romantic shit goes down in 53, as far as I can tell? (keeping in mind i still haven’t found 54′s english version, if anyone would like to direct me to a translation, that would be LOVELY.) I unfortunately can see them cutting Liam’s letter almost entirely, and that kind of scares me.

You know, even if i’d hate and slander them for it, cutting out james bond would be something i would understand. But messing with sherliam would fuck them over, not just cause that would be awful, but like, because it’s like... kind of the main point.

So I’m not really too worried about them messing with it, mostly because the content itself is holding them at gunpoint, sherliam holds the whole plot structure in place, especially if you’re shooting for final problem. And even in the manga they never, like, actually say they’re in love with each other even tho historically gay lovers would probably call each other “friends” lmao so it’s not like they have to greenlight gay sex or anything lmao it’s just Very Romantic (No Homo)

And apart from that, yuumori has actually been pretty decent to the gays so far?? Damn shawty, they certainly haven’t toned down the gay yet and it’s clearly their main source of fans, and what they’ve decided to emphasize in both openings and a significant portion of the s2 ending. We’re all here for it, and they’re catering to it, so I can at least give you that.

#moriarty the patriot #yukoku no moriarty #rowan's hyperfixation essays #sherliam #Holy Shitte this is long #watch me find 54 and immediately change my stance on all of this #or something idk #watch this whole thing be irrelevant in half a week #HHHHHHHH #if it doesn't go exactly like this i will lose my mind lmao

29 notes · View notes

kuro-ousama · 4 years

Note

What do you think of Season 0 Yami vs DM Yami? Do you like one more? Like them in different ways? Like one’s role in the story better?

Oops, I'm so sorry... I wasn't online for these past days due to irl stuffs. Boy, you're in for a ride.

To answer this, I would assumed you were talking about their anime version and not the manga, so to be honest, I like DM version better, because Toei's anime only focused on the slice of life/ supernatural thing rather than plot progression, so there was no death-T, Shadi's game toned down, Bakura's boardgame was, um, well... Anyway, because the episodelistic (was that the word?) nature of ss0, Yami was more like a wraith that only appeared when Yugi's friends was in danger, rather than a foreshadow that he's an imprisoned spirit.

I don’t get why people misinformed that “Yami Yugi was only an alter ego before Kazuki Takahashi decided to add Egyptian plot", and it annoyed me. The ancient plotline was already in planning, just probably in a different direction, but the intention of making Yami Yugi a ancient pharaoh was right there from the very start. This is a page from chapter 14, for example:

Here, what Shadi said was “まるで古代エジプ��の王「フアラオ」の墓のようだ。。。！！！”, basic translation is “As if this is an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh's tomb”

The English translation cut out a couple of words, but eh, the foreshadow intention is still the same:

While SS0 had a different maze design, and Shadi had a different impression:

I mean Toei had a habit of adding filler and changing scenes (not that Gallop wasn't guilty of the same) but these little changes really made an impact on the storytelling. Compare it to DM version:

I mean, DM had loads of issues but at least they didn't butcher this foreshadow, thank goodness for that.

Like, I'm sure the author wanted you, the reader to connect these little dots and odds together before the big revelation:

“If Yugi and Yami are the same person, why is there two soul rooms?”

“One soul only have one soul room"

“But there are two soul room of two Yugis, because they are two completely different souls”

“If Yami Yugi is Yugi, his room must've been a darker version of Yugi's game room(if different personality counted as a different soul) , or he supposed to lurked in the shadow of Yugi's room (only one soul room per soul, established rule), but instead, it's a tomb/maze hybrid, with ancient designs that is unnatural for a simple modern alter ego”

“So, Yami Yugi came from ancient Egypt, not a dark personality that Yugi created on the spot when solving the puzzle"

Gallop's DM was more guilty of changing stuffs and filler arcs to add more duel in it, but Toei's series was specially guilty in taking stuffs out to add more comedy/slice of life fillers, examples are most of their anime: dragonball, sailormoon, one piece, saint seiya, must have been an 80-90 trend...

So when people said they liked ss0 Yami more and he should be that way in DM, and all of their reasoning was the same old “because he's a psycho murderer that burns people alive”.

And?

AND?

What else do you like about him? So you only liked ss0 for Yami’s memetic murderous status (Not to mention how terribly misinformed that was because there's only two chapter that involved fire out of 53 chapters of the first seven volumes, chemical explosion doesn’t count.)? Did you know Yami was only acting out on Yugi's anger? Did you know he didn't even aware he's a separate person? That's why he didn't react when Yugi got beat up, only when Yugi got angry at what ever villain of the week that he came out, like the Hulk.

No, he also doesn't “protect" Yugi, he's Yugi's judgement stand-in, punish whomever hurt Yugi's friends, or himself, on Yugi's anger/ behave/ demand. Even in SS0, his attitude is soften over time, but it's not as apparent as the manga, due to them skipping or altering important arcs.

Death T is an example, Yami's first character development, and the basis for Kaiba’s too, for that matter. When Yami's at the losing end, he was scared, he was lonely, and start distrusting himself, but the voices of encouragement from grandpa and Yugi's friends help him to continue the duel, to have trust, have faith, to believe.

The penalty games were supposed to make the victims reform, “you shouldn't do this anymore" kinda way, but it didn't work well with Kaiba, who had embraced Gozaburo’s teaching to heart. That's why Kaiba's chosen punishment was Mind Crush, to mend his own heart, and remember what he had discarded.

Yami Duelist Kingdom was “I want to save Grandpa, whatever it takes" (willing to sacrifice Kaiba in the process, aka what I coined the “Kiritsugu's ideals", means kill to save)

Yugi was “I want to save Grandpa, but I don't want someone else to die" (Unwillingness to let others die to complete his goal)

Their conflict of interest was suppose to be one of Yami's character development, and help him see beyond his choices, not just do or die. If Death-T and Bakura's game was about trust, then Duelist Kingdom was about trust and choices. Yami always believed he had no other options, so he had to do what he must. Yami didn't know that Mai would show up to repay Yugi’s star chips, so losing to Kaiba will be the end, and his grandpa would stay soulless for good, Yami also didn't think about asking Yugi for his help against Pegasus, since the loser's soul would be imprisoned in a card, etc. If Yami was to look up, he'd had seen that he has options, not just one choice, but he didn't, that's why he had to learn it.

His fears kept him down, limited on what choice he can have, and in my headcanon, it's probably what made him sacrificed himself and seal himself in the puzzle, because he didn’t get to see any other options. DM anime did toned down a lot of Yami's character development, but well, at least it's better than what we got in SS0.

And so on so forth...

If you only have to compare the two anime, I like DM Yami better, ss0 is just a loose adaption that doesn't truly explore Yami's characterisation, or anyone else, really, for that matter. SS0 is entertaining to watch, if you need some slice of life/ supernatural/ monster of the week type of show, but characterisation wise, it's not good.

“Yeah but in SS0 Yami murdered people left and right, he's so evil I love it"

#yugioh #Yami Yugi #kuro's thoughts #yugioh dm #ss0

46 notes · View notes

love-geeky-fangirl · 4 years

Text

Ranking every Teen Drama I have ever watched

(Updated)

The Secret Life of the American Teenager

+ young Shailene Woodley and Molly Ringwald I guess

- everything else. Even Shailene Woodley's and Molly Ringwald's performances weren't that great because the writing is just oh so bad. The background music is bland and repetative and it sounds like out of some teenager's YouTube chanel. The plotlines are ridiculous and convoluted, which isn't neccessarily such a bad thing, because it is a teen drama show after all, the problem is the show seems to take itself too seriously. Other entries on this list also have ridiculously convoluted plotlines, but I'm ranking them highed because they don't take themselves too seriously and don't claim to be realistic like this show does. Seriously, from the title it suggests like this was going to be a real, uncensored look into high school but it's the furthest thing from it. Not to mention how problematic it is- God forbid someone suggests that a 14-year-old pregnant girl gets an abortion or gives the baby up for adoption without being seen as a terrible and despicable person.

Otp: Marc Molina x a job somewhere far, far away from these kids

Notps: every single pairing on this show

Best moment: literally none

Weirdest moment: "I'm such a whore!" "Well, you're my whore." What were the writers thinking??? Was this supposed to be romantic??

We Children From Zoo Station

+the aesthetic, the casting of Christiane, Detlef and Axel

-this was such a letdown. Honestly I was so hyped for it after seeing the trailer since I've read the book and didn't particularly like the movie- I feel like it's hard to fit all of Christiane's story into 90 minutes. That's why I was so excited about this show. Christiane's story covers so much, so it's easier to make it into a TV show when you don't want to ommit anything and butcher the story. But they somehow managed to do it anyway. They changed so much for no reason and completely erased Christiane's childhood trauma, which was important in the book. Now, I know you can say that it's just a loose adaptation, so it doesn't have to follow the book word for word. But I feel like if you already decided to tell her- a real person's story- you should at least do it authentically. Imo they shouldn't have tried to make the setting vague. It worked with Sex Education because the story of Sex Education is timeless. However, Christiane's story is not timeless. It's a true story set in the 1970s. If they were making a new show from scratch, I would have liked it. But this is an already existing story and they’re supposed to be just retelling it. My last issue is a nit pick but I wish the actresses playing Stella and Babsi were reversed. It just would've fit better.

Otps: all those kids x sobriety

Notp: Christiane x Detlef

Best moment: Christiane's first time in Sound was pretty true to the book

Weirdest moment: when Detlef became a gigolo because he needed money for his dog. Who tf thought of that?

Pretty Little Liars

+ makeup, style, the theme song, the drama and mystery that always kept me guessing, the cliffhangers at the end of each episode that made it so addictive, Emily's coming out story, Hanna and Spencer had some good lines

- the mishandling of some serious issues (namely eating disorders), romantization of student-teacher relationship, the timeline not making much sense, these writers seem to put more thought into the characters' outfits than the storylines

Otps: Emily x Maya, Hanna x Caleb

Notp: Ezria

Best moment: Hanna and Caleb in the shower (the sexual tension was cuttable with a knife)

Weirdest moments: Aria asking Ezra out in the middle of a make-up test (it was supposed to be cute but it was just cringy), Spencer trying to block A's text messages on a laptop, in the middle of a park (what? Spencer, you were supposed to be the smart one!)

One Tree Hill

+ Brooke, the theme song, Chad Michael Murray

- the casual drinking and driving (I mean seriously these kids play a drinking game at a party and then casually hop into a car and drive home??), too much basketball and cheerleading (that's not a bad thing per se but I just don't really care about neither of these things), it just seems too stereotypical and kinda bland?? I couldn't really get into it

Otp: Naley

Notp: Peyton x Nathan

Best moment: Naley by the dock

Weirdest moment: "I guess I'm just a riddle, wrapped in a mystery inside a bitch." It's not really a bad moment but a cringy line. I guess the writers though they were being clever but it just sounded bad.

Dawson's Creek

+ the clothes, the 90s aesthetic, the 90s soundtrack, many movie references, Pacey is a sweetheart, Jen is a feminist icon, dealing with mental health issues through Andie (it's rare to see in shows as old as this)

- the slutshaming of Jen really hasn't aged well, the storyline of Pacey being statury raped by his much older teacher was mishandled (it was either treated as scandalous, cool or in Andie’s case somehow shameful), same goes for Jen’s backstory- it was mentioned she was raped at 12 by an older man and then never brought up again, Dawson is the most unlikable protagonist ever and his friendship/relationship with Joey is codependent and possessive, the dialogue is sometimes pretentious and unrealistic, the timeline doesn't really add up- I can never tell what time of the year it's supposed to be, because it looks like it's always fall for some reason. And how did they sophomore year have two homecomings?

Otps: Pacey x Andie, Pacey x Joey (yes, both at the same time)

Notp: Dawson x Joey

Best moments: Jen helping Joey when that jerk was spreading rumours about her and then Jen and Joey locking Abby in the closet together (I love it when they stick together instead of tearing each other down), Pacey and Joey bickering

Weirdest moments: when Joey was upset because Dawson didn’t want to tell her how often he “walks his dog”, when Jen was about to have a treesome at a party and Dawson walked into the room and carried her out despite her kicking and screaming

Glee

+ funny, Sue Sylvester's iconic, great covers and a way to find new songs, the performances are aesthetically pleasing, lgbtq+ representation, tackling of serious issues, coming out story, a father who’s accepting of his son’s sexuality right away despite not really understanding it (it’s so rare to see, that’s why it’s so refreshing), the plotlines are ridiculous but at least the show doesn't take itself too seriously

-as I already said the 1st season was great but after that it just seemed like the writers made up a checklist of hard issues they should tackle and tried to tackle every single one of them while covering every single song and it just fell flat. Prime example- Quinn ending up in a wheelchair getting into a car crash to warn us from drinking and driving, singing I’m Still Standing and then suddenly being able to walk normally after. a few episodes Rachel and Finn got almost all songs, while other characters were criminally underrated and underused (Tina, Quinn, Mercedes). The teachers are questionable to put it mildly. Cringy moments- Finn singing You're Having My Baby to Quinn in front of her parents when it wasn't even his baby! Also no one except of Kurt looks like they could be in high school. And why are these cheerleaders wearing their uniforms 24/7??

Otps: Brittana, Sam x Quinn, Tina x Artie (unpopular opinion, I know), Mr Schue x unemployment

Notp: Quinn x Finn

Best moments: Quinn giving birth to Bohemian Rhapsody

Weirdest moment: Rachel's gross and painfully awkward crush on Mr Schue, Mr Schue joining the Glee club on the stage for a performance of Toxic and girls in the audience cat calling him (Ewww)

Euphoria

+ Zendaya's and Jacob Elordi's performances, tackling of serious issues such as drug addiction and overdose, anxiety and depression, abusive relationships and abortion in a better manner than most (if not all) teen dramas, the aesthetics, makeup and wardrobe, the musical number in the finale, the special episodes giving us insight into the characters' psychology, toxic relationships not being romanticized (which is sadly rare), teenagers sounding like actual real life teens (no "I reject reality" crap)

- lack of comic relief (why so serious all the time), sexualization of teen characters (I know this is something many teen dramas are guilty of but it's the most evident here), too much nudity (I know some of you are going to come at me with: "But it's realistic!" So what? It is realitic that teenagers get naked when they go into shower but does it mean we have to see it?? It seems to me like this show is trying too hard to be "boundary pushing" at times and ends up being scandalous just for the sake of being scandalous), these characters just aren't believable as high school juniors to me (they sound like high schoolers but they certainly don’t act, look or dress that way). There's no reason this show couldn't have been set in college.

Otps: Rue x sobriety, Nate x prison

Notps: Nate x Maddy, Cassie x McKay

Best moments: "You did this to me!" and the musical number in the season 1 finale

Weirdest moment: the fact that Maddy lost her virginity at 14 to a 40-year-old man being mentioned so casually because apparently she was "totally in control". Excuse me what??

Skins

+ style and makeup- each character has a signature trademark (Sid and his beanie, Effy's eyeliner, Cassie's soft eyeshadow), their British accents, I'm pretty sure this is the only teen drama that follows multiple classes, teenage characters being played by actual teen actors, the characters looking like average people you meet in high school and not as if they just walked off the runway, dealing with serious issues such as drug abuse, eating disorder, parental abandonment etc (yes, some people claim the show romanticized it, but I disagree. It's not the show that romanticized it- it's the fans. The show tried to portray the dangers of drugs as well as possible. Think about it- every time characters used drugs it ended in a disaster. In the pilot they thought that Cassie overdosed and ended up crashing a car while rushing into the hospital. In later season Effy hit her friend in the head with a rock because she was having a bad trip. That's not romanticizing drugs.), Effy is iconic and honestly the first episode was enough to get me hooked

- every single teacher being a creep and having a thing for a student at some point, the show can get too dark and unncessarily dramatic at times. Did that many people have to die? Did Chris's death really have to be this graphic? Timeline doesn't really add up- are 8 episodes supposed to cover the whole year? It would've made more sense if there were more episodes in a season.

Otps: Chris x Jal, Emily x Naomi

Notps: Sid x Michelle

Best moment: ooh baby it's a wild world

Weirdest moment: Chris's graphic death

The OC

+ more grounded in reality than many others on this list, the theme song, the love stories, Seth and Summer are funny, the friendships are believable and the whole group has great chemistry

- too many unneccessary fights, Luke is the worst, everyone is way too casual about drunk driving, these parents are WAAAY too chill (I know this can be said about many teen dramas but it's the most obvious here. How did the Roberts and the Coopers let two 16-year-old girls go to Mexico alone?? With no supervision?? What?)

Otps: Seth x Summer, Ryan x Marissa

Notp: Luke x Marissa

Best moments: the “oh no, there’s only one bed” in the Mexico episode, Seth and Summer's first kiss and that kiss at the yacht, Ryan and Marissa's first date by the pool

Weirdest moment: these parents letting their teenage kids go to Mexico alone. It's irresponsible when they're 16 but apparently they let them go there and party every year. What?

Gossip Girl

+ every episode having a clever title, the style, the makeup, the 00s soundtrack, the glamour of it all (it feels like reading a very gossipy magazine!), all the scandals, this show never pretends to portray the realitic teenage experience so it can pretty much be as far-fetched as it wants to and you can’t question it, it gives you a chance to live the fantasy of being super rich, living with a penthouse, riding a limo to school and going to parties in New York City every night

- the final reveal doesn't make any sense, just like with PLL these writers seemed to have put more thought into the outfits and makeup than into the plotlines, romantization of a toxic relationship, having every two straight characters date or hook up at some point, which just felt forced, mishandling of serious issues (Blair's eating disorder, Eric's suicide attempt and Serena and Jenny's sexual assault from the pilot being brought up when it's convenient but not really dealt with and brushed off at other times), sexualization of teen characters

Otps: Dan x Blair, Serena x Nate

Notps: Chuck x Blair

Best moments: the Thanksgiving flashbacks, Blair and Serena running around New York and taking selfies in stolen dresses, Nate and Serena’s first time (although it was better in the books) and then their kiss at the white party, the sheer scandal of "I killed someone", Dan giving Blair a plastic tiara to make her feel like a princess

Weirdest moments: Chuck's father returning from the death and then dying again, by yeeting himself off the roof

Freaks and Geeks

+ probably the most realistic teen drama there is, the characters dress the way I can see actual teens dressing, funny, but also heatbreaking at times, probably the only teen show that included an intersex character, the characters being a little stereotypical but self-aware at least, young James Franco and Jason Segel

- the bullying being a bit too much at times and it's a bit unrealistic that the teachers would do literally nothing about it, too short- I will never understand why this got cancelled

Otps: Daniel x Kim, Lindsay x Nick, Amy x Ken

Notps: Sam x Cindy

Best moments: Sam breaking down at the end of Garage Door, Daniel and Kim getting back together in the rain

Weirdest moment: Cindy doing a 180 and becoming super mean when she started dating Sam.

Gilmore Girls

+ so many movie, literary and music references, the quotable lines (what a great way to learn about new movies, books and bands! It’s so unique for a TV show to make you smarter), the witty banter, the comfort of the first few seasons (it really feels like wrapping a warm blanket around yourself while holding a hot cup of coffee, I can’t explain why, but it’s such a comfort show), the quirky small town with many unique festivals, many entertaining and snappy fights where everyone has a point, characters dealing with real world problems (seriously, how often do you see a storyline about termites? Or a teenager with zit cream on a teen drama show?), this is also one of the few shows where teenagers are shown to have rules and restrictions and curfews (finally some kids growing up with strict parents representation) and doing homework and studying and not just partying and drinking and having sex all the time and that’s so refreshing

- but while it is refreshing to see teenagers waiting to have sex and not doing it behind every corner, the show is kind of sex negative. Every single time a (female) character loses her virginity it ends in a disaster. Even when she loses it after she’s married! It doesn’t make any sense, unless the writers just really hated women. Also slutshaming (”I got the good kid!”) ewww. The money and budget doesn’t make much sense on the show either and the girls seem immune to calories. I know some people might come at me for this with: “But it’s just a show!” but I think it’s harmful to show beautiful, thin women eat nothing but tons of junkfood all the time and never excersize and then fatshame people who do excersize but aren’t fortunate enough to be blessed with amazing Gilmore genes, and then throw around tactless references to eating disorders.

Otps: Lane x Dave, Jess x Rory

Notps: Lane x Zach, Rory x Dean, Lorelai x Christopher

Best moments: Then She Appeared, Rory’s valedictorian speech, Lorelai’s graduation

Weirdest moment: Lorelai and Christopher getting married in Paris at 4am. That’s not how it works in Europe. Do Americans think every single Europian country works like Las Vegas, where you can just get married whenever you decide??

#teen dramas #these are just my opinions #so don't take it personally #u might disagree #but idrc

8 notes · View notes

mwolf0epsilon · 4 years

Note

Hello! Writing prompt for you! in your after studio au what about the point of view of the toons finally free inside an unknown world? Do this only if you want or if you haven't already done it. Thank you very much ^w^

Summary: After the studio, there's a lot of new development with the toons.

Another case of getting two birds with one stone. I had a request on AO3 for some Sammy X Norman goodness for Post-Studio AU and I also wanted to play around with the toons, so here you go!

[[MORE]]

One of the hardest challenges was without a doubt healing and rehabilitating the twisted and imperfect toons that had come out of Joey's revolting experimentation. Creatures that had once been broken, feral and horrifying to look upon if just from how wrong their forms had turned out. Pipers, Fishers and Strikers that hadn't been good enough to be Charleys, Barleys and Edgar's, among a few other creatures that had evaded Henry during his journey through the damned cartoon studio.

Toons that were slowly stabilizing and becoming less what he associated with danger and more similar to what they were truly meant to be, if not a little unique in their own way.

Well, not counting the ones that had been absorbed by those who had "donated" pieces into their creation that is… Some toons just weren't meant to be and others were just the missing piece that a Searcher needed to ascend into higher thought as a Lost One.

Still, even after a series of purges, there remained a few sets of Butcher Gang clones as well as one singular Chester creature.

There was also something else that had been a little alarming at first. What Henry could only describe as pulsating "embryos" (not really but he didn't know what else to equate them to) that had been formed from excess ink that had sloughed off from the more stable studio employees.

A process that didn't start immediately after leaving the studio, rather, a few months after everyone started to settle.

Henry still couldn't forget the vivid image of Sammy being sick for an entire week, spitting up ink every so often, and then throwing up a massive blob of congealed ink that had slowly shaped itself into a Bendy clone with the most unsettling pair of eyes he'd ever seen. He doubted Sammy himself could forget the disturbing experience, and was also pretty sure he was a little traumatized by it.

Even so he seemed to almost have taken to toon in as if he were his own child. Not as worrisome as veneering the little fella, but still quite hard to grasp considering his… unorthodox birth…

"Any more Searcher incidents since I've been gone to check on the girls?" Henry had asked as he was let inside by Allison, catching a whiff of breakfast being cooked. Pancakes and coffee from the smell of things. Like a quaint little cafe or the Stein household in his youth. Comforting.

"Not since two weeks ago. All Searchers have actually become Lost Ones since you've been gone." She'd responded as she led the old cartoonist into the spacious kitchen.

The table was quite long, and the seats provided were no longer mostly composed of pillows and stacks of books to boost certain inhabitants of the house. The Projectionist was still forced to kneel to eat thanks to the added weight of the machinery that was a part of his body, but he didn't complain from where he was leaning into Sammy and his height more than compensated for it anyway. Henry could just about see Susie carefully braiding the many tangled wires and thick cables connected to the Projectionist's head and back.

"Uh, really? How many toons left then?" Glancing around he noted that not everyone had come down to eat yet. Tom and Buddy likely both being in the bathroom washing up from running outdoors. A favourite activity of his.

"Three sets of Butcher Gang clones. Two are incomplete." Allison explained. "We think we know who was the originator of the complete set, but their Charley has stated that the trio is fairly happy to remain as they currently are. They are nearly perfect if you ignore the heavy scarring and prosthetics."

"I take it that's Mr. Allwine's set?" Henry guessed. Humming in understanding when she nodded rather than verbalizing her confirmation.

"I recall Mel now that things are coming back to me. He really enjoyed voicing those three, so I'm not surprised he'd rather remain as the Butcher Gang." Susie added as she finished the messy braid of wiring. "I'll miss his jokes though…"

"I certainly won't. He was a jackass at best…" Sammy huffed, eyeing the unblinking toon currently hiding under his chair. "Don't repeat that around the Edgars… Charley and the Barleys will wallop you into fine impish ink."

"M'not stupid." The little imp retorted in Sammy's own voice, although it sounded much younger. Less weighted down by a bitter and heavy conscience.

"I'm not implying that you are, just giving you a fair warning. Socialized or not, those crooks are always eager to pick a fight." Like a parent passing on sage advice, Sammy offered the little wandering menace a pat before pressing a kiss to the Projectionist's neck.

The larger ink man rumbled happily and seemed content between his two favourite people, and even passed a piece of toast to the little devil hidden under the chair. They made for an odd family unit, but Henry was very sure they were happier than they'd been for a long time.

"Sometimes I forget you had to raise a kid before all this…" Henry chuckled, amused by the domesticity of it all, before turning back to Allison. "The incomplete sets?"

"Not a clue. Well, there's one that's just an Edgar, but we know he was part of Grant… Although he reformed without needing to assimilate that piece." She shrugged "The little guy is more mature than the other two Edgars. I'd say he's more of a teenager even."

"And the remaining incomplete set?"

"An Edgar and a Barley. They lost their Charley a while back, but they haven't clung to any particular employee that we can tell… Grant's Edgar has been around them a lot though, so they seem content." Allison flipped the pancakes over as she spoke. "They also orbit around Mel's Butcher Gang. I think his Charley makes them feel safe."

"Good to always have an emotional safety net I suppose…" Henry was at least glad that they hadn't reverted into feral creatures. Socializing them had been pretty difficult considering how messed up they'd been from their failed creation process. Like teaching feral cats to trust. "Anything else?"

"Norman's been leaking a little." Sammy offered. "Not enough to be alarming, but just about enough that we're sure we're uh… Well. Expecting extra company."

As if to prove Sammy's point, the Projectionist let out a choked wet cough, the tube connected to his esophagus uncoiling and shuddering before a blob splattered onto Sammy's lap.

Henry winced at the mess, and gave the curly haired musician a sympathetic look as his face went completely blank. Likely registering what had just happened.

"Ewwww…" the not quite perfect Bendy clone inched away from the drippy mess, while Susie shook her head and got up.

"I'll get the napkins…"

In the Projectionist's defense, he looked quite sheepish for a creature that couldn't properly emote. Hunched shoulders and claws tapping together as he looked down at his knees in shame.

"Lovely…" Sammy pinched the bridge of his nose and just let the blob fall to the ground. It twitched slightly but remained as it was. "You'd think the miracle of childbirth would be nicer to bare witness to..."

"Even if it were the more conventional and biologically sound method, I can assure you it's not as beautiful as most would have you believe." Henry offered with a tight smile as he tried not to think about the tiny inky organism that was slowly reshaping itself into the vague figure of a comic strip character. "And I was there to see it happen twice."

"I take it there was a lot of screaming involved?" Sammy smiled at Susie as she returned with the napkins. He started patting the stains carefully, letting the ink soak into the napkin.

"On my part? Plenty." Henry winced "No one ever told me there's more after the baby comes out… And it didn't get easier the second time around. Linda nearly crushed my hands…"

It didn't take long for breakfast to be done and every single household member to rush down to eat once called upon.

Only now the Projectionist was holding a toon of his own, while he vacuumed up cut up pieces of pancake and orange juice.

All things considered, having a new playmate for the other toons wasn't a bad thing.

If only the little blighter wasn't a troublemaking super villain… His first action was to shoot the pancake pieces out of Tom's fork and the large toon wolf was none too pleased when the little jerk started giggling about it.

Binky was surprisingly the easiest of the toons to get along with, right after Buddy. Outside of the studio, the Ink Demon was no longer a sinister figure that haunted the imagination of those who'd suffered in Joey Drew's nightmare.

Instead he was something closer to the cartoon character he was meant to be. Except he was much less troublesome than the mischievous and often misguided devil darling himself. In fact, the lanky imp was rather shy.

Sure he still looked far too human in proportions, and he was still learning how to speak, but honestly nothing about him was as off-putting as Henry initially thought. He felt bad judging him on appearances alone. Just like Joey had…

And, knowing what he did now, Henry didn't blame Binky for any of what he did in the studio.

The tiresome plotline, the living Ink's conflicting will, and the isolation had been the source of the Ink Demon's violent actions.

A scared and confused toddler following the bad examples of others.

But not anymore.

Not for as long as Henry was here to protect these people and help them grow.

Binky's less rumbustious disposition also meant he had a tendency to opt for calmer and more relaxing things to do. Like sleep under the shade of a tree when the weather was nice, watching the fish swim by in the stream, or pick flowers of all shapes, sizes and colors. Often doing so while watching the other toons run around and frolik like wild children.

Most often the poor guy was the unsuspecting victim of the Wanderer's shenanigans (despite Sammy's constant reminders to play nice).

With the addition of Cameraman, things were more hectic.

Others had lost their own excess ink in the span of the few days of Henry's visit, so the roster of toons consistently grew the better some people recuperated.

Jack had actually come down to visit as well, looking positively happy to find so many were experiencing something similar to himself.

In the first week of living with his husband and roommates, he'd apparently shed some more of his own ink and later found a small cartoon sheep staring up at him from under his bathroom sink. That had been an interesting night for the Fains.

Said sheep was eager to meet two others who'd been formed off of two other members of the Music Department. Johnny Brokeheart, the organist that had once been imprisoned inside his beloved instrument, and Julian Whitaker, the cellist that had sometimes visited the Prophet's domain for protection as a Lost One with a prominent limp.

The Woolly Triplets were happy to be together for a few hours before Jack returned home with his third of the trio. The little guy was reluctant to leave Jack's side, and both he and Theo had grown attached to him anyway.

It'd feel strange to part ways so suddenly.

Henry had marveled at the interesting cast of characters that were still coming together.

There were now three wolves, three angel, a demoness, a living camera, two imps, a leprechaun, two pirates, a living pirate chess, and three spiders.

He could only imagine what else might pop up the next time he came around to check on everyone.

It was truly a full house.

One full of silly shenanigans and exasperated parents that didn't want to admit their kids were adorable but little hellions. Such an odd thought, being a parent to a cartoon character that had at one point been their means to earn money… Odder still how easily they connected with them.

Perhaps because they'd come from them? Like an actual offspring?

That seemed to be the case with Sammy at least. If anyone had reasons to resent a certain grinning devil, it had to be the false prophet who'd grown disillusioned.

He loved the little Wanderer though.

Unsettling eyes and grin be damned, he was a proud da and did what he could to raise him.

Same with Norman who actually had proper experience as a father, and then even Susie who'd been a little miffed that she didn't have a little Alice to tend to, but still took on the responsibility of teaching Miss Twisted to not be too much of a nuisance (she loved her really, like mother like daughter they ended up becoming in less than an hour).

Even those who Henry hadn't pegged as the sort to want to be parents were doing grand with their own toons.

Grant was an exemplary father despite his neurotic personality, and even Bertrum and Lacie seemed fond of acting as an uncle and aunt to the toons. Teaching them things and letting them get away with things their parents wouldn't.

It was… honestly very nice.

Nothing the toons didn't deserve after such a rough start.

#eps writes:#bendy and the ink machine #batim #Post-Studio AU

11 notes · View notes

popwasabi · 4 years

Text

“Westworld III” takes several steps forward...and several steps back (REVIEW)

Created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy

Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Jeffrey Wright, Aaron Paul, Ed Harris, Vincent Cassel, Tessa Thompson, Thandie Newton

(SPOILERS AHEAD)

Season three of HBO’s “Westworld” cleans up many of the issues season two had but ultimately falls short of season one’s loftier thematic ideas.

It’s cinematically sharper, it’s about as well paced and fun as the show has ever been and that on it’s own makes it worth watching and certainly worth continuing the series going forward but for fans hoping it might have something new to say in the vein of its hyper meta-textual and thematic commentary of the first season it may leave you disappointed.

Season three may have raised the stakes of the series with its pending (and frankly, all too timely) apocalyptic vibes going on in the story but it lowers the bar on its cerebral nature opting more for fast paced thrills over anything more profound or hadn’t said already.

That said, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it anyways for better…and worse.

“Westworld” season three picks up not too long after the events of season two as Dolores has infiltrated human society and begun working on her master plan to bring it all down. She has spared Bernard, who now spends his life as butcher outside the major cities but he often wonders where she is and when this apocalypse will begin. Meanwhile a veteran named Caleb spends his life doing the same mundane tasks and mercenary work everyday to make ends meet pondering his existence as he deals with his PTSD. He decides to break the cycle however when one day he finds Dolores shot in an alleyway and joins her on her quest to start a revolution.

“Westworld” is one of the few series that hooked me immediately with its first episode.

Where some series take their time to gain momentum before going into overdrive in their season finale, season one’s “The Original” grabbed my attention from the start with a combination of mystery, action, stellar acting, and the kind of cerebral humanist story-telling I expect and want from the cyberpunk genre.

As someone with a father who talked extensively about myth, theme, and got me to listen to old Joseph Campbell essays on CD growing up, a series that explored story-telling on a meta level with a high octane LARP concept setting was everything someone like me could ask for in a science fiction series.

youtube

(Seriously, there was some compelling analytical story-telling dialogue in this series.)

So invested I was in this tale of synthetics gaining agency and humans exploring their own personal myth-making and what it said about themselves made me a huge fan early on, proudly proclaiming it to be the best show on HBO several years ago.

I was so certain this series was creatively the best thing on television at the time that I strongly considered getting a maze tattoo like that in the show to proclaim my brand-new fandom.

But knowing there was still more seasons on the horizon, I held off thinking I should probably see this through before doing anything that brash.

Well, a few years later I feel pretty good about that decision…

(Imagine how fans who named their newborns Daenerys or Khalessi feel right now...)

I remember thinking at the end of season one “Where can they possibly go from here still? Other LARP destinations in this cyberpunk world? A robot vs human war? How can the world expand?”

The problem is these thoughts did not really ask the most important question following that first season; “What more does it actually have to say?”

The first season is, in my opinion, a perfect season of television. It’s a brilliant take on the stories we tell ourselves, the choices we make that define us in our personal myths, and the exploration of our nature and how that relates to choice all while playing out this synthetic mystery plot. The entire first season pulls all these arcs and ideas together through characters like Bernard/Arnold, William/The Man in Black, and of course Dolores. They all, more or less, complete their arcs in that first season and there’s not really much needed to be said beyond that when you really think about it. If the series ended on Dolores murdering Ford and the Delos guests in the season finale that honestly would have been a perfect ambiguous ending to send the story off on.

(Kind of itss own meta commentary on the journey of a fan and an ever-increasingly cynical series...)

But because this is HBO, and “Game of Thrones” is no longer the driving force of premium TV, Westworld MUST continue because it’s the new cash cow for the channel. Whether or not writer/producers Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan really knew what they wanted to do following that first season is anybody’s guess but it’s hard not to see that they have struggled a bit since that point.

Season two is a mixed bag, where the characters literally feel like they’re going in circles. Plotlines get muddled, characters become hyper versions of themselves, and while certain ideas and episodes reached similar levels of brilliance that the first season had it still lacked the narrative sharpness of the first season and that has a lot to do with the characters having mostly no other driving force besides survival and simply getting to the next physical plot point.

It just didn’t have much more to say and frankly in a story about stories that’s pretty damn important.

youtube

(This episode from season 2 is still one of its best.)

To their credit, Joy and Nolan appear to rectify quite a few issues season two had with season three. Again, it’s faster, better paced, there’s a clearer destination at the end for its characters and not to mention a pretty compelling villain for this season’s plot in Serac played by the brilliant Vincent Cassell.

But it suffers ultimately the same problem; it has nothing truly new to say.

This is not to say the season is without any meaningful messages or metaphors. It’s quite critical of our hyper surveillance and information gathering state, might even be the best depiction to date on the broader implications and consequences of a world where we all have our personal information readily online to mined and plundered by big businesses and government. Caleb, played by the always great Aaron Paul, is a good avatar for the everyman who has grown jaded and disenfranchised by this system. Though he spends most of the season looking overly shocked and gape-jawed at just about everything, it’s hard not to feel empathy and a connection to this character as we are quite literally living in a bit of a cyberpunk hell as it is these days and treated just as much as expendable commodities right now.

(You fucking jackasses are arguing for the wrong things! You’re all being swindled and cheated for nothing! *photo “unrelated”*)

The season is generally best when the focus is on him, as the first episode delivers a strong start in the same way season one did.

Where the season begins to fall apart though is when quite literally the world “Westworld” inhabits begins to do so itself. Serac’s Rehobaum, which reminded me just a little too much of “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’s” Deep Thought, releasing all its data to the world and everyone discovering they’re basically all dangerous assholes is almost hilarious to me.

Though the idea of hyper data controlling our every move is a good cyberpunk metaphor to jump off of, the way this bit is executed is a little over exaggerated and clumsy.

youtube

(Though it does deliver a pretty powerful scene regardless.)

This isn’t actually a tremendous problem with season three, but it doesn’t do much to add to what we already understand about the story; which is how narrative controls us and how important choices and free will is to that. All this is already told and expanded on in the first season through Dolores, all season three does it bring it to a macro level and put that onus on the humans instead of the hosts. The hosts were already a metaphor for humanity anyways so again the story in some ways hasn’t changed much since season one.

It's interesting to have the narrative of the hosts turned on the humans but thematically it feels redundant.

I’ll add that this isn’t the worst idea they could’ve gone with, it works in moving the physical aspect of the story forward for sure, and I wouldn’t even classify it as a bad one, but again the problem is the story has largely run out of new things to tell us.

We like stories because we want to learn some truth about ourselves, whether we want it to or not, and Anthony Hopkins’ Ford makes a great point of this in season one. This has been the purpose of myths and legends since the dawn of time and it’ll be no different even when the 37th Fast & Furious comes out in 40 years. You could argue that the message of Westworld deserves repeating or that it’s not important to the entertainment value it still provides, and you might be right. But for a series like this, that is so invested in what stories mean I don’t think it’s wrong to think there should be more to it than this.

(Maybe, I should’ve...)

Of course, there’s still plenty more to see out of “Westworld” for the foreseeable future as HBO won’t be canceling it anytime soon and certainly it’ll have its chance to still tackle more ideas and themes in the future but, at this point at least, it’s been less meaningful that its first season.

There are other problems too, namely Dolores constantly changing and unclear revolution plans and arcs resolved offscreen, certain side plots with other characters ultimately going nowhere, and a fairly predictable twist with Caleb, but this is the crux of the problem with the series as it stands now and the one worth mentioning the most.

(And Maeve, *sigh* oh Maeve...)

That said, season three really is a lot of fun despite my issues with the narrative. The pacing, as mentioned, is great from start to finish. I was never bored or disinterested during this season, despite its flaws, and the action bits are frankly better than they’ve ever been as the series goes full cyberpunk in parts with great robot on human and robot on robot action.

The cinematography is sharp and striking too as Jonathan Nolan shows he’s definitely Christopher’s brother with some beautiful, haunting shots of the future Los Angeles city Gotham-esque skyline set to Ramin Djawadi’s excellent cyberpunk score that gives the new season a more noire-ish feel that would make Vangelis and Hans Zimmer proud.

(In the future Los Angeles will be Singapore!)

The acting is still stellar of course. Though Jeffrey Wright’s Bernard is largely wasted in this season and his plot goes nowhere, his scene with Gina Torres in the finale is touching. Luke Hemsworth is dry as hell in a good way as Chief of Security turned personal buddy bodyguard to Bernard as Ashley Stubbs. Ed Harris is wicked and dastardly as always as William and of course Evan Rachel Wood is solid as the driving force of the series as Dolores.

(Out of context season 3 spoiler.)

The finale doesn’t leave much to say beyond a pending machine vs human war though which has been building up since the first season anyways. While I can see some possibilities for an interesting direction here, I can’t say I’m as intrigued as even the finale to season two left me.

In some ways, season one left me not too much unlike William going into season’s two and three; looking for additional meaning in something that wasn’t looking to tell me anything deeper, at least right now. Perhaps the maze just isn’t for me anymore but moving forward I’ll be lowering my expectations.

(Oh my God! Meta commentary on meta commentary! It’s meta-ception! I’m beginning to question the nature of my reality!!!)

“Westworld” remains a fun cyberpunk action series that can hold your attention span for an hour, and I think it’ll maintain that energy consistently going forward, but it might’ve been best left where it was when Dolores put a bullet in Ford’s brain.

I do hope it can regain some of its original spark at some point but until then…it doesn’t look like anything (deep) to me.

VERDICT:

3.5 out of 5

You said it, Marshawn...

20 notes · View notes

intrepid-fictioneer-7 · 5 years

Text

On Whether the Books of A Song of Ice and Fire Will Have the Same Ending As the TV Show Game of Thrones

No.

Or rather, maybe, maybe not.

Seriously, we have no actual way to tell. For years, even before Season 8, many loved to proclaim, especially smugly if said to book readers that came to dislike GoT, that the show will obviously have the real ending out before the books ever finish, because GRRM told the showrunners the details of everything and how it will end in case the show overtook the books. And so you, the one critical of the show, will have to resign yourself that you will only get to see the canonical ending through the show.

And then the post-Season 3 changes piled up way too much for the showverse looking much like the books, reassuring the readers that the show had clearly become its own thing. And then Season 7 and Season 8 rolled around, and book readers felt vindicated, while show viewers were disappointed, saddened, or angry at how yet another the most popular show on television ended so badly.

Nowadays, not many still hold the old belief, most hoping that GRRM do something different. But many others still believe the endings will be the same, if only not with joy but with resignation this time.

After all, say some, didn't Isaac Hempstead Wright just confirm King Bran was a future plot development that GRRM told D&D? Making it one of the 3 twists GRRM told D&D (“three holy sh— moments” to quote them) that will definitely make it into the books, the other being Shireen's burning and Hodor's origin? Meaning many if not most things from the show's final season and ending will end up in the books?

I personally don't think so. Of course, the exact same ending has always been an unbelievable hyperbole, but even thinking most major plot points will be the same has me in doubts. As said earlier, a lot of storylines have been completely changed to the point that they are unrecognizable. Sansa's for example is vastly different from her show counterpart's due to taking another character's role and removing the central elements of her Vale storyline (notably Harry the Heir). The plotline of Aegon and the Golden Company has been completely cut when it would necessarily affect many major and minor characters. Arianne was cut and the Dorne storylines were butchered beyond recognition. The show created the character of the Night King.

So much has changed between the two, stating that the endings will share similar beats would be the same as saying the MCU's Infinity War/Endgame duology/pseudo-finale is the same ending as the ending to the Marvel comics' Infinity Gauntlet storyline simply because in both the Snap is undone. Which is ridiculous: both worlds have changed far too much for one to simply be a copy-paste of the other anymore.

The show and the books have become two completely separate universes, a "Westeros 1" and a "Westeros 2", as Bryan Cogman put it.

But what also makes me doubt are the dubious statements on the ending. So I have compiled many quotes on the ending of the series, from GRRM and D&D, to show just how not so clear-cut it is.

It should be noted that, as far as I can see, only Benioff really implied the ending would be the same:

Luckily, we’ve been talking about this with George for a long time, ever since we saw this could happen, and we know where things are heading. And so we’ll eventually, basically, meet up at pretty much the same place where George is going; there might be a few deviations along the route, but we’re heading towards the same destination. I kind of wish that there were some things we didn’t have to spoil, but we’re kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. The show must go on […] and that’s what we’re going to do. I think the thing that's kind of fun for George is the idea that he can still have surprises for people even once they've watched the show through to the conclusion. There are certain things that are going to happen in the books that are different in the show, and I think people who love the show and want more—want to know more about the characters, want to know more about the different characters who might not have made the cut for the show—will be able to turn to the books. So that's where we stand.

—David Benioff (x)

And even then there are caveats about there being differences.

There is even more circumspection about the two endings in other interviews:

You’re now at a point where you’ve caught up with the books. What does that mean for the future? Benioff: [...] We’ve had a lot of conversations with George, and he makes a lot of stuff up as he’s writing it. Even while we talk to him about the ending, it doesn’t mean that that ending that he has currently conceived is going to be the ending when he eventually writes it. Weiss: It’s like looking at a landscape and saying, “OK, there’s a mountain over there, and I know that I’m getting to that mountain.” There’s an event that’s going to happen, and I know that I’m moving in the general direction of that event, but what’s between where I’m standing now and that thing off on the horizon, I’m not totally sure. I’ll know when I get there, and then I’ll see what the terrain looks like around me and I’ll choose my path once I get closer to it. He figures a lot of this stuff as he goes. He always says he’s a gardener, not an architect.

(x)

Benioff and Weiss always knew this would happen. So they met with the novelist in 2013, between Seasons 2 and 3, to sketch out what Martin calls “the ultimate developments” after the books and show diverge. The upshot, they say, is that the two can coexist. “Certain things that we learned from George way back then are going to happen on the show, but certain things won’t,” says Benioff. “And there’s certain things where George didn’t know what was going to happen, so we’re going to find them out for the first time too.”

(x)

From George himself, I have only ever seen more nuanced and ambiguous statements about the books' ending vs. the show's:

Let me reiterate what I have said before. How many children did Scarlett O'Hara have? Three, in the novel. One, in the movie. None, in real life: she was a fictional character, she never existed. The show is the show, the books are the books; two different tellings of the same story. There have been differences between the novels and the television show since the first episode of season one. And for just as long, I have been talking about the butterfly effect. Small changes lead to larger changes lead to huge changes. HBO is more than forty hours into the impossible and demanding task of adapting my lengthy (extremely) and complex (exceedingly) novels, with their layers of plots and subplots, their twists and contradictions and unreliable narrators, viewpoint shifts and ambiguities, and a cast of characters in the hundreds. There has seldom been any TV series as faithful to its source material, by and large (if you doubt that, talk to the Harry Dresden fans, or readers of the Sookie Stackhouse novels, or the fans of the original WALKING DEAD comic books)... but the longer the show goes on, the bigger the butterflies become. And now we have reached the point where the beat of butterfly wings is stirring up storms, like the one presently engulfing my email. Prose and television have different strengths, different weaknesses, different requirements. David and Dan and Bryan and HBO are trying to make the best television series that they can. And over here I am trying to write the best novels that I can. And yes, more and more, they differ. Two roads diverging in the dark of the woods, I suppose... but all of us are still intending that at the end we will arrive at the same place. In the meantime, we hope that the readers and viewers both enjoy the journey. Or journeys, as the case may be. Sometimes butterflies grow into dragons.

—GRRM (x)

So when you ask me, "will the show spoil the books," all I can do is say, "yes and no," and mumble once again about the butterfly effect. Those pretty little butterflies have grown into mighty dragons. Some of the 'spoilers' you may encounter in season six may not be spoilers at all... because the show and the books have diverged, and will continue to do so. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN ALL FIVE SEASONS AND READ ALL FIVE BOOKS, STOP HERE! Just consider. Mago, Irri, Rakharo, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, Pyat Pree, Pyp, Grenn, Ser Barristan Selmy, Queen Selyse, Princess Shireen, Princess Myrcella, Mance Rayder, and King Stannis are all dead in the show, alive in the books. Some of them will die in the books as well, yes... but not all of them, and some may die at different times in different ways. Balon Greyjoy, on the flip side, is dead in the books, alive on the show. His brothers Euron Crow's Eye and Victarion have not yet been introduced (will they appear? I ain't saying). Meanwhile Jhiqui, Aggo, Jhogo, Jeyne Poole, Dalla (and her child) and her sister Val, Princess Arianne Martell, Prince Quentyn Martell, Willas Tyrell, Ser Garlan the Gallant, Lord Wyman Manderly, the Shavepate, the Green Grace, Brown Ben Plumm, the Tattered Prince, Pretty Meris, Bloodbeard, Griff and Young Griff, and many more have never been part of the show, yet remain characters in the books. Several are viewpoint characters, and even those who are not may have significant roles in the story to come in THE WINDS OF WINTER and A DREAM OF SPRING.

GAME OF THRONES is the most popular television series in the world right now. The most pirated as well. It just won a record number of Emmy Awards, including the ultimate prize, for the best drama on television. It's an incredible production with an incredible cast and crew.

WINDS OF WINTER should be pretty good too, when it comes out. As good as I can make it, anyway. Which is a long way of saying, "How may children did Scarlett O'Hara have?" Enjoy the show. Enjoy the books.

—GRRM (x)

WINDS will be different in some ways, but will parallel the show in others. At this point, there are probably a dozen characters who are dead on the show but alive in the books, so it would be impossible for the two to remain the same. (Also, of course, there are characters in the books who have never even existed on the show, like Victarion Greyjoy, Jon Connington, Penny, Arianne Martell... )

—GRRM (x)

The showrunners note that they’re not entirely sure of Martin’s future storylines anyway (“George discovers a lot of stuff while he’s writing,” Benioff says). But more surprising is that Martin is likewise somewhat in the dark on the show’s ending. “I haven’t read the [final-season] scripts and haven’t been able to visit the set because I’ve been working on Winds,” Martin reveals. “I know some of the things. But there’s a lot of minor-character [arcs] they’ll be coming up with on their own. And, of course, they passed me several years ago. There may be important discrepancies.”

(x)

Benioff and Weiss had to carve their own course for the past couple of seasons, after outpacing Martin’s writing. “I’ve been so slow with these books,” Martin says, with palpable pain. “The major points of the ending will be things I told them five or six years ago. But there may also be changes, and there’ll be a lot added.”

(x)

Anderson Cooper: When it clear they were catching up, you told them over-- a kind of an overarching future of where you saw the-- the last two books going in terms of plot? George R.R. Martin: Yes. And, you know, the major beats. I mean, obviously, we're talking here about a-- several days of story conferences taking place in my home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. But there's no way to get in all the detail, all the minor characters, all the secondary characters. The series has-- has-- been extremely faithful, compared to 97 percent of all television and movie adaptations of literary properties. But it's not completely faithful. And-- and it can't be. Otherwise, it would have to run another five seasons. Anderson Cooper: And in essence, what's-- by the time the series is finished and your other two books are finished, y-- essentially it's gonna be two se-- different-- George R.R. Martin: Yeah. Anderson Cooper: Two different versions. George R.R. Martin: But, you know, I think that's true of every adaptation. We got all these Spidermen. Is it Stan Lee's Spiderman from the comic books? They're-- they're similar, but they're also different. Things happen to one that never happen to the other. Things are resolved differently. The girlfriends are shuffled and reshuffled. The-- the primary beats are there, the character is there, but it's a question of-- what are the choices you make to tell the story, which are partially dictated by your-- your medium. Anderson Cooper: I mean, do you worry that some fans will have Dan and David's ending in-- in their mind's eye? Would that-- would that-- you know, would that be a disappointment to you? George R.R. Martin: I don't think Dan and Dave's ending is gonna be that different from my ending because of the conversations we-- we did have. But they may be on certain secondary characters, there may be big differences. And, yeah, some of the people will have that. There will be a debate, I'm sure. I think a lot of people, who-- say, "Oh, Dan and Dave's ending is better than the one George gave us. It's a good thing they changed it." And there will be a lot of people who say, "No. Dan and Dave got it wrong. George's ending is better." And they will all fight on the internet. And there will be debate. And-- that's fine. I mean, it-- you know, the worst thing for any work of art, be it a movie or a book is to be ignored. (LAUGH)

(x)

How will it all end? I hear people asking. The same ending as the show? Different? Well… yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. And no. And yes. I am working in a very different medium than David and Dan, never forget. They had six hours for this final season. I expect these last two books of mine will fill 3000 manuscript pages between them before I’m done… and if more pages and chapters and scenes are needed, I’ll add them. And of course the butterfly effect will be at work as well; those of you who follow this Not A Blog will know that I’ve been talking about that since season one. There are characters who never made it onto the screen at all, and others who died in the show but still live in the books… so if nothing else, the readers will learn what happened to Jeyne Poole, Lady Stoneheart, Penny and her pig, Skahaz Shavepate, Arianne Martell, Darkstar, Victarion Greyjoy, Ser Garlan the Gallant, Aegon VI, and a myriad of other characters both great and small that viewers of the show never had the chance to meet. And yes, there will be unicorns… of a sort… Book or show, which will be the “real” ending? It’s a silly question. How many children did Scarlett O’Hara have? How about this? I’ll write it. You read it. Then everyone can make up their own mind, and argue about it on the internet.

—GRRM (x)

There is a general sense that things may be subject to change and that the ending, besides certain points, is not set in stone. Definitely not the certain "same ending" some say it will be.

We will also recall that, as mentioned in some of the quotes above, in an interview with The Guardian in 2011, GRRM described himself as a "gardener" type of writer who works out the story as he goes, as opposed to an "architect," who plots out all the details ahead of time, a characteristic which may also play out in changes in the ending notes he gave D&D ("George discovers a lot of stuff while he’s writing"). We can see this in how, for example, he came up recently with a big twist about a non-show character while writing Winds.

So I hope, in having written all this, that I have given some hope to the most pessimistic about the series' end, because I have seen many, especially in light of how the show wrote Daenerys, decide to repudiate the book series and accuse GRRM of what D&D did. While I want to make clear that I don't think GRRM is flawless, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt based on his strong writing throughout the books series, so that at the very least he be judged on his own merits and own faults whenever Winds (tentatively 2020?) and Dream come out. I urge people to not conflate GRRM and D&D.

And most importantly:

Q: "Early on, one critic described the TV series as bleak and embodying a nihilistic worldview, another bemoaned its “lack of moral signposts.” Have you ever worried that there’s some validity to that criticism?"

GRRM: "No. That particular criticism is completely invalid. Actually, I think it’s moronic. My worldview is anything but nihilistic."

(x)

The number one question people ask me about the series is whether I think everyone will lose—whether it will end in some horrible apocalypse. I know you can’t speak to that specifically, but as a revisionist of epic fantasy—  GRRM: I haven’t written the ending yet, so I don’t know, but no. That’s certainly not my intent. I’ve said before that the tone of the ending that I’m going for is bittersweet. I mean, it’s no secret that Tolkien has been a huge influence on me, and I love the way he ended Lord of the Rings. It ends with victory, but it’s a bittersweet victory. Frodo is never whole again, and he goes away to the Undying Lands, and the other people live their lives. And the scouring of the Shire—brilliant piece of work, which I didn’t understand when I was 13 years old: “Why is this here? The story’s over?” But every time I read it I understand the brilliance of that segment more and more. All I can say is that’s the kind of tone I will be aiming for. Whether I achieve it or not, that will be up to people like you and my readers to judge.

[...]

I think you need to have some hope…we all yearn for happy endings in a sense. Myself, I’m attracted to the bittersweet ending. People ask me how Game of Thrones is gonna end, and I’m not gonna tell them … but I always say to expect something bittersweet in the end,” he said. “You can’t just fulfill a quest and then pretend life is perfect.

(x)

I urge my readers to have some hope. I know I will.

144 notes · View notes

comradeocean · 5 years

Text

I haven't read Arya x Gendry in like ... 6 years. I caught up a bit this week. Here are some I really like!

[30 some fic recs after the jump]

post 8x01 Arya keeps looking for reasons to visit Gendry in the forge. - mmh post episode askbox fic

Somewhere to Begin, MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon) The Stark sisters share a moment in the wake of some impactful reunions. - lmao my most frequently used GoT tag was "westeROS" (remember Ros???) followed by "Stark famly dynamics." So Stark sisters hashing things out... my kryptonite

Beautiful & Deadly Sharp, vlaurie17 Learning to fight with a sword were some of Arya's best memories. Sansa, however, was hesitant. “What do I do with it?” “Stick ‘em with the pointy end,” Arya smirked. Sansa just rolled her eyes, “Obviously." - also Stark sisters revisiting being Vengeance-made-girls together and practising to knife someone

I'll sing for you, Ravenclawpride06 Set post 8x1. Gendry wants it bad. Arya wants it worse. Was going to more explicit but I left it vague, felt it fit better in the end. All the pining! - I’m soft for the pining

This is my wish, crazychipmink "As he studied the drawing she had given him, he slowly began to let himself believe that she was real and alive and well. He had thought about Arya so many times that the memory of her was worn in his mind. Fragile and faded, like a piece of parchment that had been read too many times. To tell the truth, sometimes, he couldn’t even remember what she looked like, only that she was the only thing he ever wanted, ever wished for.” - season 8 episode companion fic series - ao3 tag: weapons design processes are long and require many iterations - “Davos assumed he was waiting to play his part in the great war to come, but in reality, Gendry was waiting for the next remarkable thing to happen to him. Perhaps if enough remarkable things happened to him, he would finally let himself believe that the most remarkable thing that had ever happened to him had happened.” wow ok

Who are you waiting for? crazychipmink [incomplete] "She had Arya’s face and Arya’s voice and even Arya’s smile. But despite all that, he felt like he had just spoken to a ghost. An unnatural ghost of Arya, pretending to be the girl he was in love with. Gendry had traveled to the end of the world to find her, but now that he finally had, she was gone." - the angst universe evil twin version of the fic above - we will take it bc we love to suffer - and also bc the author promises "fluff" and "eventual romance" ok sounds real but ok

the thing with feathers, yanak324 If anyone is capable of bringing the old Arya back, it’s this man in front of her, which is precisely why she must walk away. - a more (immediately) optimistic read of how Arya's in episode enactments of being No One might have gone

and in the end, jeeno2 [incomplete] Five times Gendry Waters is an idiot and the one time he figures things out. - Gendry being dumb is kind of a thing and I'm not always the biggest fan of how it plays out in fanon but this is sweet!

The She-Wolves of Winterfell, vixleonard The pack survived. So has the Stark habit of keeping secrets. - 2nd generation Stark girls. Arya's daughter matter-of-factly saying "Stark women don't get married" - a whole ass mood.

Mid-Battle, Mary_West Sandor has something important to say to Gendry - if only Gendry can live long enough to hear it.

season 8 AU My Lady sanctuary_for_all Gendry and Arya find each other again. (AKA the plotline Gendry deserved in 7X07) - fic convention I am 100% here for: Arya scrabbling around Gendry's face looking for the seam. fic convention I am 100000% here for: Arya throwing off her glove in order to do so and then holding her hands against his cheek

Nights are for You (or Five Times Arya Visits Gendry in the Forge and One Time Gendry Visits Arya in the Castle) ASwornStark She hasn’t visited the forge since Jon returned home with the dragon bitch (the Stark sisters’ favored name for her) and him in tow. - reunion fic

season 7 Before We Jump, MissAtomicBomb (mrs_nerimon) Arya Stark's bastard boys bond on their way to the Wall. - anything for some good rowing references and bastard subjectivity

earlier laughing 'till our ribs get tough (that will never be enough), belasteals "Gendry took one look and laughed so hard that wine came out of his nose, until Harwin gave him a thwack alongside his ear." - A Storm of Swords, Arya IV (or, Gendry's POV on Acorn Hall) - real ones can't get enough of book canon and Acorn Hall.

Butcher, elephant_eyelash Gendry and Arya by the fire, discussing jacket potatoes and thinking murderous things. - perfect meditation on food and hunger and care

Dissimulo, Somnio, jeeno2 She is no one, now. But still the boy with the black hair haunts her dreams. - honestly the showrunners are cowards for not going there. let No One be Vagina Dentata Personified 2kwhenevertheBraavosiseasonsaired

post canon/canon divergent Charcoal, elephant_eyelash All about winter and feeling the cold. - weird how I'm obsessed with self-loathing and wintry alienation and the weight of history and ancestry but also devotion also love. super weird totally unexpected

Five Things Gendry Only Says in the Dark, jeeno2 Where no one else can hear him. - loneliness, shame, self-loathing. the important emotions. oh and spoiler alert some joy.

Like Wenda, Furious_Winter "...she could ride with Gendry and be an outlaw, like Wenda the White Fawn in the songs." - my favourite canon AUs are Arya and Gendry with the Brotherhood and my absolute favourites of those are when they are apart (who's ever heard of a marauding smith??) but have some of miserable bittersweet understanding and they glower at each other and make each other jealous and everything is unspoken but this is it this singular love they have for each other that doesn't quite work out. I've just realized that most of these recs are highkey angsty oops. anyway, this fic is like the most complete and perfect distillation of everything I want. - also this is so richly detailed and complete in itself. immensely satisfying. - yeah ok Furious_Winter is actually the master of post canon together but not Arya/Gendry love is not always enough fics. I'm just going to recommend all of them: - The Wolf's Head Helm [The Starks are back in Winterfell and Sansa is Queen in the North. One day, Arya receives a gift from an old friend... - Arya is in Sansas's queensguard.] - A Means To An End (incomplete) [Arya Stark has returned from Essos and has been staying at the Inn at the Crossroads. Things are not nearly as simple as she sees them. - fuck this one hurts so good] - A Bastard At Heart [Arya and Gendry marry other people for the good of the kingdom 'cause they're self sacrificing like that. the last line took me outtt]

the truth is, baby you're all that I need, belasteals “You were jealous,” he laughed, almost shocked. “Arya Stark of Winterfell, jealous of a whore.” - sirens This One Is Not Angsty sirens

A Girl Meets a Boy, Hotpie A girl takes a face; a girl takes a lover. - possibly my favourite Crossroads Inn fic. love the Faceless Man stuff. love the detail of Needle having a smallest spot of rust, from Braavosi Steel Pox and Arya feeling a ways about it. love picking up the Melisandre thread.

So Easy To Love, Val_Creative She misses Gendry's complaining, too enthralled with staring. "You smell like Dennett's underarms," Arya murmurs, leaning in, going for blunt honesty. Gendry opens his mouth, beginning to laugh, turning uproarious and smiling. She's never seen anything more beautiful than this. More kissable than Gendry's mouth. - the summary makes it seem like it's all kissing when there is actually a big chunk of plot - in service of eventual kissing, yes, - but! spoiler alert! they don't even get to it in this fic! not exactly - maybe why I love it a lot??

With Bells in Her Hair, semicolonlife [incomplete] The further south they travel the more Gendry starts to wonder if he truly knows this woman who wears Arya Stark's face. As he begins to doubt himself more and more, Gendry becomes obsessed with the strange bells she wears in her hair. - ruthless slightly wonky Arya is my favourite Arya.

Wayfaring, Rainfallen An accidental series centered on the same basic headcanon of how Gendry found himself in the North and how Arya found her way back to it. - wolf girl Wolf Girl WOLF GIRL

Seen, sanctuary_for_all Being important matters less than who you're important to. - He wasn't sure what that verdict was, however, until she returned the unfinished sword to rest position with a deeply satisfied expression. "I am going to kill so many people with that sword." It was probably a bad sign for his long-term sanity that Gendry felt deeply complimented by that. "Happy to help." my useless heart: pikachu face - see! I like fluffy HEAs too

Hearts, sanctuary_for_all Arya comes home to her family. (Future flash) - look, I just think it's really important that even married and with children, Arya continues murdering people uwu

other AUs/misc I'll Run (Run To You), belasteals “You would rather marry a lowborn knight than a high lord, then?” She grinned, all bared teeth and sharp eyes. “I’d rather marry no one at all, else I'd not play at this mummer’s farce.” “What about the man who outruns you?” “Nobody outruns me.” (Greek mythology fusion: Arya as Atalanta, Gendry as Hippomenes. Arya vows only to marry the man who can outrun her in a footrace) - Atalanta, Mononoke, Arya. same energy.

#game of thrones #arya x gendry #gendrya #fic rec #asoiaf #no featherbed

245 notes · View notes

gb-fics · 5 years

Text

Valentine’s Day (1)

AU Fanfiction:

Kiryuuin Shou x Kyan Yutaka (Golden Bomber)

... also Shoko x Yutako.

Note: This is another high school fic, set in the same universe from Golden Bomber’s Glamorous Butterfly Campaign with Jex, that I already used for the fic about GB Academy. You don’t need to know that fic, though, it’s a stand-alone. I just thought it was a shame I didn’t make the couples gay there, because somehow I thought the world could need some lesbian Golden Bomber fanfiction for whatever reason XD If that’s not your thing however, there are two plotlines, one between Shou and Yutaka and one between Shoko and Yutako. They keep switching, so technically you can skip through and only follow one couple, too. Also, I’ll post this in two part. Happy Valentine’s Day! (^-^)

“Just a little bit more!”, Yutako demanded, holding up the bowl of sugar. In her hands it looked like a weapon. In Yutako’s hands almost everything did.

“No!”, Shoko protested and jumped to the side to shield the pot on the stove with her body.

Usually, she wasn’t one to pick fights with Yutako. She was usually one to give in to Yutako and to clean up the disaster afterwards that she herself had seen coming all along.

But today, Shoko had something worth fighting for. Some things were too important to let even Yutako butcher them.

“It will make the chocolate sweeter”, Yutako said.

“No, it will ruin it by making it crunchy. You will be able to taste nothing but sugar”, Shoko lectured calmly and stirred the liquid chocolate with the whisk in her right hand.

“No arguing with our perfect housewife I guess.” Yutako gave in and put the sugar bowl down with a loud clonk. She spilled some of the sugar.

Shoko tried not to feel offended by the fact that Yutako had called her a perfect housewife. That was what Yutako probably saw in her. She expected Shoko to get married to a nice, boring guy and stay home to cook for him and clean the apartment. It was what everyone seemed to expect of her. Because she was calm and neat and so very much not like Yutako. No one looked at Yutako and thought she would devote her life to a man. People looked at her and thought she would be the first woman on the moon or the first female Prime Minister of Japan. It didn’t matter if she was qualified or not. Yutako had the air of a woman, who would surely be the first in something. She wasn’t meant to settle down. She was born to conquer.

Deep inside, Shoko felt adventurous, too. She just wasn’t so good at showing it.

“I’m just worried about the chocolate”, Shoko said, sounding a little huffy. “You know I’m an expert on the field.”

“I know you love chocolate”, Yutaka confirmed and pushed herself off the kitchen counter. Like all of her motions, she did it with force. “They should rather call you Choco.”

Shoko rolled her eyes visibly, before she turned towards the pot again. The right consistency was important.

Yutako stepped up behind her, leaning in to inhale deeply. She wasn’t quite hugging her, but Shoko could feel the heat of her body against her back anyway. As always, Yutako wore a thick sweater as if she was freezing. It was very warm inside the kitchen.

“Smells delicious”, Yutako observed.

Shoko bend her head a little, too. Just moments ago, she had been able to smell the faint hint of cacao in the air, but now it was concealed by the sweet chemistry of Yutako’s hairspray. Yutako smelled like the human version of bubble-gum.

“Did you get out the baking forms?”, Shoko asked.

She had been distracted for a moment, and the chocolate started to get sticky already. They had to hurry, otherwise it would burn. Shoko had wanted to use a double boiler, but Yutako had protested with her usual no-risk-no-fun mentality. Now, they were risking their chocolate.

“I was supposed to do that?!”, Yutako shouted and took a step back.

She was still standing so close that Shoko nearly went deaf.

“I swear, I saw them around here somewhere earlier. Somewhere, somewhere”, Yutako muttered and Shoko heard some worrisome clattering behind herself.

She turned off the heat and took the pot off the stove. It was quite heavy, but her arms were stronger than her appearance suggested.

“Put them on the counter”, she ordered, hoping that Yutako would for once listen to her.

She carried the pot over to the counter and Yutako slammed down two backing forms onto its surface. She exclaimed a loud “Ha!” of victory. With her, making chocolates was like going to war.

Shoko lifted the pot, carefully pouring the liquid chocolate into the small, heart-shaped forms. She spilled some of it, but once the chocolate dried, they would be able to scratch off the ugly bits and be left with about 30 small hearts of delicious chocolate.

The chocolate didn’t pour out of the pot quite that easily anymore as Shoko reached the last row. She tilted the pot more. Her arms were starting to feel heavy. She tried to shift the weight in her hands, her lower arm brushing against the bottom of the pot that was still hot.

Shoko winced and put down the pot onto the counter.

“Did you burn yourself?”, Yutako asked.

Shoko held up her bare lower arm to check for the red mark forming there.

“It’s not so bad”, she said, making a face. “It had already cooled down somewhat.”

“Idiot”, Yutako said and grabbed Shoko’s wrist, pulling her over to the sink.

Her grip was very firm, but that just seemed part of her personality. She turned on the cold water, dragging Shoko’s arm under the tap forcefully. She kept holding on to her wrist as if she wanted to make sure Shoko did not pull back.

Shoko wondered if Yutako could feel her pulse. It had quickened rapidly. Probably due to the pain, Shoko assumed. A physical reaction. Adrenaline. Fear of dying. Something like that.

The water was so cold, it slowly started to numb her arm. The pain was nearly gone, but Shoko didn’t feel much else, either. Yutako’s hand, though, she could still sense. It felt warm.

“It’s enough now”, Shoko protested and jerked her wrist free.

“Always so clumsy”, Yutako said and switched off the water. She looked at Shoko affectionately.

Shoko hurried to turn her face. She grabbed a kitchen towel and used it to dry her arm. Yutako wiped her hand off at her skirt.

Shoko felt weird when Yutako looked at her like that. She also felt weird when she grabbed her wrist like that without warning or when she walked up from behind so close. She felt like there was nowhere left to hide.

“We’re missing two hearts”, she observed to change the topic.

“The boys can do without those. I’m was planning to eat one half myself anyway.”

Shoko huffed.

“Have you decided whom to give your chocolates to this year?”, she asked innocently.

Not that she cared a lot whom Yutako gave her chocolates to. It was her decision. On Valentine’s Day, the girls gave chocolates to the guy they liked. That was just how it was done. Shoko didn’t really like anyone, but she liked making chocolates with Yutako. They did so every year since middle school.

“I’m just going to do the unexpected, you know”, Yutako said and shrugged. “I don’t want to impress anyone, so I will just see who doesn’t get any chocolate this year and give him mine. My guess is on Shou. He is weird. But I’d feel sorry for him, if he didn’t get chocolates from anyone.”

Shoko watched Yutako from the side for a moment.

She tried to imagine what it must feel like for a shy, awkward guy like Shou to get chocolates from such a pretty, popular girl like Yutako. Surely, he would be overjoyed. Shoko in his place would be overjoyed.

“And it’s not like any man is worthy of my love anyway, so I might as well give it to charity”, Yutako added.

She was speaking flippant, but Shoko knew her better than that. Although she acted like she just didn’t care who got her chocolate, she was seriously worried for the people who would not get chocolates at all. Underneath her brash attitude, Yutako was quite soft. She didn’t like people noticing, though.

“You gave chocolates to that guy from third year last Valentines”, Shoko reminded her. “He wasn’t needing charity, though.”

Yutako gave a heavy sigh.

It was true that her crush had been so popular, that he had received chocolates from a lot of girls. It was Yutako he had asked out on a Valentine’s date, however. Shoko hadn’t doubted for a moment, that he would pick Yutako. She wasn’t the prettiest girl, who had given chocolates to him, nor the smartest or the kindest. She just had that personality that drew you in so much, you forgot there were other people around to compare her to. Yutako became her own measure by sheer force of will.

“I was young and stupid. I liked him, but where did it lead? Turned out he was boring like the rest of them. I don’t need a disappointment like that again.”

Shoko was all too aware that Yutako had liked the guy. It had bothered her back then. Thinking of it, her stomach still felt weird as if she had just received bad news. They had been dating for only three weeks, though, before Yutako changed her mind again. Shoko had been relieved when she did.

“What about you?”, Yutako asked. “Still giving yours to that beau Yutaka?”

Shoko tried not to pay attention to the judgement in Yutako’s voice. She shrugged.

“I guess”, she said. “He’s cute.”

Truthfully, she did not have any strong feelings towards Yutaka. She didn’t understand why girls giggled in his presence or blushed when he talked to them. But objectively speaking, he was probably handsome and he had an easy-going air about him that Shoko had always found likeable.

The reason she had chosen Yutaka as her Valentines was that he was a safe bet. A lot of girls liked him. That meant Shoko wouldn’t embarrass herself by giving chocolates to him. There was nothing weird about liking Yutaka. People just liked Yutaka. No one would question that Shoko did, too. And since he was so popular with the girls, the chances that he would react to Shoko’s gift and she’d end up on a date with him were close to zero.

Occasionally Shoko wondered if the other girls just pretended to like boys. At least, like them to that extend. Shoko didn’t dislike Yutaka. He seemed good looking and fun. But she did not get excited by his charms like the other girls seemed to get excited by them. Shoko had always assumed they just acted excited, because they enjoyed the drama and the giggling with their friends. Just like Shoko pretended she cared for giving Yutaka chocolates, when really, she only cared about making them with Yutako.

But then Yutako had seemed invested when she had given the chocolates to her crush last year. She had cared about his reaction. Shoko did not care about Yutaka’s reaction. If anything, the thought that he might actually ask her out was horrifying.

She wasn’t sure if that meant something was wrong with her, or if the rest of the world just hadn’t let her in on the play they were staging.

“We should put the chocolates into the fridge, so they turn solid faster”, Yutako suggested and took a step towards the counter.

“No!”, Shoko exclaimed and held Yutako back by the arm. “They need to cool down first. It will affect the taste otherwise.”

Yutako shook her head.

“You are so serious about this”, she said somewhat teasing.

“We have been doing this for years already. Shouldn’t you remember how it’s done by now?”, Shoko scolded her.

Yutako made a funny looking gesture with her arms, as if she wanted to push Shoko’s words aside physically.

“I have grown no more patient over the years”, she said.

“Well, I’m also looking forward to wrapping them up”, Shoko admitted as a compromise.

She had cute wrapping paper upstairs in her room and several pretty cards that she could choose from. She had no idea what to write to Yutaka, though. There was nothing she wanted to tell him. She liked how cute the cards looked, though.

“Are you kidding me?!”, Yutako shouted and threw back her head, laughing loudly.

Her laughter was another reason Shoko didn’t understand why girls liked boys. Boys never looked pretty when they laughed. Yutako, though, Yutako looked dazzling. She understood perfectly well why boys liked girls. But the other way around, it remained a mystery to her.

“I can’t wait to eat them!”, Yutako said.

* * *

Yutaka put down the controller. They were hanging out in Jun’s basement currently, playing video games. Jun had the biggest space and owned the most games, too. He was a little spoiled. Sometimes, Yutaka envied him for that.

“Kenji, your turn”, he offered and held the controller out to his friend.

He had grown bored with playing anyway. Currently, Yutaka grew bored with everything. It wasn’t the fault of his friends. Just lately, their conversations felt somehow shallow to him. It was all about sports and girls and although Yutaka liked sports and he liked girls, there was really only so much to say about these two topics and he had spent 16 years already, saying it all.

“Why so gloomy lately?”, Kenji asked, but took the controller from him. “Cheer up, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.”

Yutaka groaned. He had planned it out weeks ago already. He had booked a place at a cute café that would surely be packed tomorrow and he had made absolutely sure that his parents had other plans for the day and wouldn’t be home until the late evening. Shortly, he had done what he had done every year so far since he found out about boobies.

“Yes, I’m sure you will get tons of chocolate again”, Jun agreed. “You are always the most popular, although Kenji is much taller.”

“Maybe the girls hope he will grow, if they feed him enough”, Kenji joked.

Yutaka snorted. He wasn’t even in the mood to argue.

“It’s just so damn boring”, he whined. “I will check which girls gave me chocolates and then ask the prettiest one out. And since it will be Valentine’s Day and the mood is romantic and I know she likes me anyway and since she is desperate to show off to their friends who didn’t get a date, it will be so easy to make her fall for me. It’s boring.”

“Good for you, if you think a cute girl falling for you is boring. Others have to work hard for that, you know?”, Jun scolded him.

Yutaka knew that Jun worried about not receiving any chocolates every year, because he deemed himself less popular and less attractive than his friends. He was proven wrong every year, though. Yutaka mused that Jun had something of a reliable if awkward vibe to him that girls liked. If Yutaka had to choose between the three of them, he would have given his chocolates to Jun, too. He wasn’t one to toy with your feelings.

“Yes!”, Kenji confirmed. “I’m already all nervous.”

Yutaka knew that Kenji had no reason to be nervous, but that he still was. Beneath his good looks and his silliness, he was actually quite shy.

“I just want something different. I’m doing the same thing over and over again, getting in and out of short-time relationships. But it’s not fulfilling at all. So, why do I keep doing it?”

Yutaka had been thinking about this for a while already. Lately, he felt like he had stepped out onto the side-lines and once he saw the game from the outside, he just wondered what the fuck everyone else was doing. Valentine’s Day was just the peak of a very ridiculous iceberg.

“Maybe you should do something different then”, Kenji suggested. “Don’t take the cutest girl out on a date. Take the one you expected chocolates from the least. Like, the shy girl you would usually overlook. The girl with the weird glasses you would never ask out on a date normally. Maybe they’ll surprise you.”

Yutaka hummed and stared at the tv screen. He hadn’t been aware that Jun had paused the game.

“So, you think I should go out with the most unexpected person, who gives me chocolates?”, he assured.

The idea didn’t sound so bad. He did tend to be slightly superficial about his relationships, maybe that was why it had never worked out. Maybe the girls he usually overlooked were more interesting indeed. And even if the date still sucked, maybe it would make a plain girl happy that a popular guy like himself paid attention to her. He’d be doing a good deed. Charity, so to say.

“You know, I actually like the idea”, he concluded. “But how to decide who is the most unexpected?”

“We will look through the cards together!”, Kenji blurted out and it dawned on Yutaka that he had suggested the whole thing for Yutaka’s amusement as much as his own.

“Yes, we’ll take a vote. And you have to follow through with it”, Jun said.

“Yep, no chickening out, because there is this really cute girl all of a sudden”, Kenji demanded.

“Alright, alright.” Yutaka nodded. “I promise, I’ll obey to your decision.”

* * *

Shoko shuffled on her seat, looking over to the classroom door. Yutako was late. That wasn’t unusual, but today was Valentine’s Day. The first chocolates were given out before class even started and none of the girls liked to miss out on spying who had given chocolate to whom. Valentine’s Day wasn’t about love. It was a social event.

Shoko’s own set of chocolates still sat on her desk. She had meant to drop them off at Yutaka’s locker before first hour started, but there had been a line. A line. Shoko wasn’t sure if she found that unsettling – because so many girls seemed to like a teenage boy who was so, well, so very much like a teenage boy – or relieving, because it meant Yutaka had so many confessions to choose from, that he would surely overlook Shoko’s.

She looked at her bag of chocolate. It was wrapped in pink paper and ribbons in different shades of red. It contained ten small chocolates shaped as hearts. They had had 28 hearts to begin with. Shoko had eaten one of them to check if the taste had turned out sufficient. (It had.) Yutako had eaten seven. It left ten for each of them to give away.

Shoko looked over to Shou’s empty seat. He was late, too. Unless Yutako he wasn’t one to run late usually. Shoko wondered if Yutako had bumped into him and given him the chocolates. She should probably have waited to see if he wouldn’t receive some from someone else, but then that wasn’t very likely. Shou wasn’t unattractive – at least in Shoko’s eyes, but she felt for his outer appearance as strongly as she felt for Yutaka’s; which wasn’t very strongly at all. But he was a loner, someone who always stuck to himself. Shoko assumed that girls didn’t give him any chocolates, because there was something intimidating about him. He didn’t seem to want to get close to people. But maybe that was just an act. Shoko was sure that if Yutako gave him her chocolates, he would drop his misanthropy immediately and hope for a date. Yutako had that effect on people. Even if you hated the entire human race, under no circumstances could Shoko image someone hating Yutako. Of course, it wasn’t very likely that Yutako would go out with Shou. It was just charity chocolates, as she called it. But then it was Yutako. You could never be sure what would be going on in her mind next. Shoko didn’t understand why she worried about it so much.

She felt physically unwell, thinking that Shou and Yutako were running late, because they were setting up a date right now. Shoko didn’t have any plans yet. She had assumed she would hang out with Yutako in the afternoon. But if Yutako changed her plans now, it would leave Shoko behind alone, wondering what Yutako was doing on her date in the meantime. It wasn’t a very fun perspective for Valentine’s Day.

The door opened and Yutako rushed into the room. She always moved as if driven forward by an unstoppable energy.

The first thing Shoko noticed was that her hair was slightly out of shape, as if she hadn’t brushed it properly before leaving the house. The second thing she noticed was the box of chocolates in her hand. Relief washed over Shoko, because it meant she hadn’t given the chocolates to anyone yet. The relief was instantly followed by panic.

The box of chocolate wasn’t the one they had wrapped up together yesterday. The wrapping looked professional. It looked like the box had been bought at a store.

That left two things to worry about. What had happened to the chocolates they had made together? Had Yutako indeed given them to someone already? Did she have a date? And where had she gotten the other chocolates from? Had someone given them to her? A guy who liked her so much, that he was trying to bribe her into going out with him on Valentine’s Day? Had the bribe worked? But then, guys didn’t bring chocolates on Valentine’s Day. He could have waited until White Day, if he wanted to confess. On Valentine’s Day, the girls confessed. Did those chocolates mean, that a girl had confessed to Yutako? Like, a female girl? Shoko knew that that was in fact possible. If girls liked girls, they would surely like Yutako. Not just because she was pretty and funny and so adorably crazy, but also because she radiated the feeling that she wouldn’t mind. She was so unlike all the other girls at their school, that Shoko had wondered, too. But she knew Yutako liked guys. She knew that for sure. But maybe the girl who had brought the chocolates hadn’t known? And if Yutako had accepted the chocolates, did that mean she had accepted the confession, too? By a girl? Or had she just wanted to be polite?

Shoko felt a piercing pain in her chest, that somehow made it hard to breathe. Or maybe it had been hard to breathe before the pain already, she wasn’t sure. Her head felt dizzy. Possibly from oxygen shortage. When was the last time she had taken in a breath?

“Hey”, Yutako greeted cheerfully, putting the box of chocolates onto her table next to Shoko’s and dropping her school bag to the floor.

Shoko stared at the box of chocolates. She tried to focus on her breathing. The wrapping paper around it was white. The print on the side was golden. There was a golden sticker on it, too. It reflected the lights overhead. On one side, the paper was slightly crumpled, as if Yutako had clenched it too tightly there. Her breathing evened out.

“Where is that box of chocolate coming from?”, Shoko asked.

“Ah, I bought it this morning”, Yutako said and sat down. She sat with her legs spread widely, although her skirt was very short. Shoko could see more of her bare thighs than was appropriate. She looked away.

“It was insane in that store. I had to physically fight off three other women to get it. I almost ran late.”

She brushed over her hair with the back of her hand as if trying to flatten it that way. It looked funny, because most people would have tried to run their fingers through it to untangle it. Yutako didn’t use her hands like a hair brush, though. She used them like a flattening iron. Somehow, Shoko found that adorable.

“And you know what? It wasn’t even worth it.” Yutako slammed down her palm onto the table plate. For a moment, Shoko honestly believed the table would just fall apart under the impact.

“I was thinking of that sad little fucker Shou and how he would feel, if he didn’t get any chocolates and just when I got here, I caught him next to the entrance, sliding a box of chocolates into his school bag. A cute yellow one. I feel betrayed. Men. You can’t trust any of them.”

Shoko chuckled. She liked it when Yutako talked about men like that. Like she didn’t really like them at all.

“What happened to the ones we made, though?”, she asked.

Yutako shrugged nonchalantly and pulled her hands up into the sleeves of her sweater. Only her fingertips were showing.

“I ate them”, she said.

For a moment, Shoko just stared at her, before she snorted with laughter.

“You are absolutely the worst”, she concluded.

“Good I did!”, Yutako exclaimed. “He didn’t deserve them anyway!”

Still grinning Shoko shook her head. She was kind of glad Yutako had eaten them by herself, though. She was right, Shou did not deserve them.

Yutako pulled one of her legs onto the chair. Her skirt slid up even further. Thankfully, the legwarmers were covering a great deal of her skin.

“I’m just sad they’re all gone already”, Yutako pouted.

“You shouldn’t have eaten them all at once”, Shoko said calmly.

“We should have made more.”

Shoko looked onto the chocolates still sitting on her desk.

“You know, you can have mine”, she offered. “Since you like them so much.”

She reached out to push the box across the table. She could hear the blood rushing in her ears as if her heartbeat had decided to step it up to highspeed.

Shoko had no idea why she felt like that. She was just being nice to a friend. If Yutako liked the chocolates so much, she ought to have them. For Shoko, it had been more about the making anyway.

Yutako hesitated.

“What about Yutaka?”, she asked.

Shoko brushed it off with a small gesture.

“You know”, she said. “I don’t think he deserves them either.”

Yutako leaned forward and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. She was unable to really whisper, since her voice always remained loud, but Shoko got the idea.

“He cleaned out his locker today and left it open, just so the girls could leave their chocolates freely. The arrogance.”

Shoko had to admit that it was a pretty arrogant attitude. Yutaka wasn’t hoping for chocolates, he was just assuming he’d get them. He certainly did get a lot of chocolates, though.

“See”, Shoko said. “One box more or less. He won’t even notice. So, take them.”

Yutako looked at the neatly wrapped up chocolates Shoko had pushed towards her. She bit her lower lip. Yutako usually wore lip-gloss that made her lips look shiny. Shoko always wondered if it made her lips taste artificial or just sweet.

Suddenly, Yutako’s expression lit up.

“Hey, you know what”, she said. “You can just take mine. Give them to Yutaka instead. I won’t feel so guilty for eating yours then.”

She took up the white box with the golden print and put it down in front of Shoko.

Shoko stared down onto the box. She knew that it was just a simple exchange. It was basically a business agreement. They hadn’t exchanged Valentine’s chocolate just now. Not in a girls dating girls way at least.

Shoko felt her cheeks heating up anyway.

She reached out and touched the box. She wasn’t sure why she was doing it, though. Somehow, she just wanted to make sure that it was real. That she had really gotten those chocolates from Yutako and that they physically existed. Let alone the thought of giving them to Yutaka seemed like blasphemy to her. Yutako had bought those chocolates. She had fought three other women for them. She had almost been late. Admittedly, she hadn’t done so specifically for Shoko, but the sacrifice seemed too big for Yutaka anyway. He would have deserved Shoko’s chocolates. But Yutako was too good for him.

“I think I’d rather eat them myself”, Shoko said and made a face that gained her a grin from Yutako. “I don’t feel like standing in line.”

“A wise decision, if I may say so”, Yutako agreed, but then a frown appeared on her forehead. “But damn, no. You will have to eat the lame-ass bought ones, while I ate almost all the good ones, we made ourselves.”

“They weren’t that good”, Shoko pointed out.

She was pretty sure that the bought ones were created with far more skill.

“No way!”, Yutako shouted. She had a way of raising her voice in the middle of the conversation that made it impossible to tell if she was angry or excited or just temporarily hard of hearing. “You are so good at making them. They are the best chocolates in the world! We ought to split.”

Shoko gave a small shrug. A part of her expected Yutako to just rip open both boxes right then and there to split up the chocolates.

“Fine”, she gave in, just because she knew that protesting wouldn’t help her with Yutako. She had a way of getting her will.

“Great”, Yutako said and pulled Shoko’s chocolates towards her a little closer as if making sure no one would try to steal them from her. “I’ll drop by at your place in the afternoon. We can share then.”

And although Shoko knew for sure that it wasn’t a Valentine’s date, she thought that the fact that they had just exchanged chocolates, made it feel a little like a Valentine’s date nonetheless.

* * *

“I think everyone should be gone by now”, Kenji observed.

“I don’t understand why we had to wait so long”, Jun whined. “Everyone else went home thirty minutes ago.”

“We had to give some time to the shy girls, to drop off their chocolates”, Yutaka explained. “Maybe some of them waited until school finished, so no one would see them.”

“And it would be a shame to miss a box by leaving too early, wouldn’t it?”, Kenji chimed happily.

“There is something seriously wrong with the two of you”, Jun muttered as they rounded the corner that led to their lockers.

Kenji’s and Jun’s were farther down the hallway, but Yutaka’s locker was already in clear sight.

Someone was still standing in front of it.

Yutaka stopped short and squinted his eyes, although he could make out the person perfectly well. He wouldn’t have needed to check for the fact that they weren’t wearing a skirt to realize it wasn’t a girl. Not a lot of people had such a large head and a hunched over body posture. Their classmate had an almost comical physical appearance.

“Wait, guys, wait”, he hissed. “What is that dude doing at my locker?”

Kenji and Jun stopped as well.

“That’s Shou, isn’t it?”, Kenji asked.

“Ah, poor guy, he is so awkward, I don’t think anyone gave him chocolates”, Jun said. As someone constantly in fear of ending up exactly in that position, he obviously took pity in him.

Shou opened the locker.

“Is he stealing my chocolates?”, Yutaka whispered at full volume.

Kenji laughed, but tried to supress his voice. Shou was not looking in their direction.

“If that fucker is stealing any of my chocolates …”, Yutaka muttered, not sure what he would do then. He just knew that he wouldn’t be pleased.

What did Shou think he was doing? Yutaka had worked hard for those chocolates. Being as charming as he was, wasn’t easy. He deserved those chocolates.

“It’s your own fault for leaving your locker open.”

Shou knelt down and opened his schoolbag.

“I can’t believe this”, Yutaka said and shook his head. That bastard wouldn’t just grab one or two boxes. He would fill his entire schoolbag with it. It was just impudent.

Shou got out a box wrapped in cute yellow paper from his bag and placed it in Yutaka’s locker.

Yutaka stared.

Shou closed the locker.

Yutaka stared.

Shou buckled his schoolbag again.

Yutaka turned his head to check for the reaction of his friends. He wanted to know if they were staring as well.

“Did he just …?”, Yutaka asked.

Shou got up.

Kenji turned towards him and his grin was very wide.

“Now”, he said. “That was unexpected.”

Yutaka stared at him for another moment. Something about that word rung familiar. Unexpected.

He turned his head to look at Jun.

“You mean …?”, he asked.

“Absolutely”, Jun confirmed, grinning just as widely.

“Fuck”, Yutaka said softly. That had come unexpected. And although he was not a man of honour by any means, he was a man who stood by his word.

“Shou!”, he called out.

Now Shou did look into their direction.

Yutaka had expected him to be embarrassed. He had expected him to blush and maybe stutter an awkward explanation. He had expected him to be delighted, though, once Yutaka offered to go on a date with him.

What he had not expected, however, was Shou to shoulder his schoolbag, turn on his heels and make a run for it.

Yutaka stared after him.

“What the fuck”, he said.

Kenji burst out laughing. This time, he did not lower his voice.

“Run, Yutaka, run!”, he shouted.

“What are you waiting for?!”, Jun shouted and only then did it dawn on Yutaka, that he was actually supposed to do something.

“Fuck”, he said again. Then he started running.

“Shou!”, he shouted. “Shou, wait up!”

Shou showed not the slightest inclination of slowing down. He was aiming for the exit.

Yutaka dropped his bag to the floor while running, hoping that Kenji or Jun would pick it up. The bag no longer bouncing against his thigh as he ran, increased his speed rapidly. Shou was an awkward runner. Pretty much everything about him was awkward. Yutaka caught up to him.

Shou did not stop, though. He kept heading for the exit. Yutaka mobilized his last reserves, dashing past Shou to reach the exit before him. There, he swirled around, stretching out his arms to block the doorway.

“Stop!”, he shouted.

Shou stopped short right before colliding with Yutaka.

Both of them were breathing heavily.

“Why did you run?”, Yutaka gasped.

“Why did you follow me? What do you want from me?”, Shou shot back just as breathlessly.

He was glaring at Yutaka so angrily from behind his glasses, that for a moment, Yutaka really thought it was his fault. But then he remembered why he had chased Shou in the first place.

“I want you”, Yutaka said and straightened himself. “I want you to be my Valentine’s date.”

Shou flinched and then looked around hectically. He looked like a small animal caught in a trap. Suddenly, Yutaka felt almost sorry for cutting his flight like that.

“Don’t say something like that in public”, Shou asked quietly.

Yutaka looked around as well. In the distance behind Shou, he could see Jun and Kenji, but except for them, the building was empty.

“There is no one here”, he soothed Shou.

Not scolding him for being so scared was Yutaka’s idea of a peace offering.

“So, will you?”, he added. “Go out with me today, I mean?”

Shou stared past him. It made Yutaka want to look over his shoulder to check what he was looking at. He forced himself to concentrate on Shou. He had already assumed he would be embarrassed after all.

“No”, Shou said. He did not sound shy. He sounded very determined.

“What?”, Yutaka asked, for a moment doubting he had heard him correctly.

“No”, Shou repeated. “I won’t.”

Yutaka stared at him blankly.

The whole situation was so, well, so unexpected that he had no idea how to react at all. It was all just about improvising. Shou’s whole behaviour was very irritating to say the least.

“But you gave me chocolates right now!”, Yutaka exclaimed.

Shou rolled his eyes.

“You maybe want to broadcast it over the radio station, too?”, he asked.

Yutaka felt guilty for speaking so loudly immediately. Then he felt irritated why he was feeling guilty. Shou had no reason to be so snappy. He was trying to change the topic, too.

“So, you confessed to me, but you don’t want to go out with me?”, Yutaka assured.

Shou nodded grimly. Yutaka thought that he was kind of scary.

“Why not?”, he inquired.

“Why do you want to go out with me?”, Shou asked.

Yutaka stared at him, for a moment struck speechless.

“I, uhm”, he started.

“It’s a joke, isn’t it?”, Shou asked. “I saw you with your friends. You are making fun of me. It’s easy to make fun of people, when you are popular.”

Yutaka raised his open palms, trying to express that he was coming in peace. He wasn’t blocking the door entirely anymore that way. Shou remained standing where he was.

“I’m not making fun of you”, Yutaka said. “I really, seriously want to go on a date with you. It’s not a prank.”

He could see the hesitation on Shou’s face. He had a funny face. Yutaka had never paid attention to just how expressive it was.

“Then why?”, Shou asked.

“Well, me and my friends had this agreement where I have to go out with the most unexpected person, who …”

“Ah”, Shou interrupted him harshly. “So, the joke isn’t on me. It’s on you.”

“What? No!”, Yutaka protested. “It’s not about making me go on an awful date. It’s like, giving a fair chance to the underdogs. You are the underdog this year.”

He reached out to box against Shou’s shoulder lightly.

Shou stared at Yutaka’s fist so irritated that Yutaka regretted it immediately. Shou had something about himself, that made Yutaka feel stupid.

“Giving a fair chance to the underdogs?”, Shou repeated incredulously. “What do you think people are doing? Competing for you? You are so vain.”

“But … but …”, Yutaka stuttered. “People are giving me chocolates! That means they all want to go out with me! I get to choose. It is like a competition.”

“Well, if you are the price, I don’t care for winning”, Shou said and pushed past Yutaka to get outside.

His shoulder brushed against Yutaka, but he did not stop to apologize.

Yutaka turned to look after him.

He still felt very irritated. He had met girls before who liked to play hard to get. Shou wasn’t playing, though. His walls were built up so high, Yutaka hadn’t been able to even peek over them. But luckily, Yutaka wasn’t one to give up easily. He knew what to do about walls. All you needed to do, was bring a ladder.

“At the train station!”, he called after Shou. “West exit. At 4 pm. Say you’ll be there!”

Without turning around, Shou flipped him the finger.

Yutaka was absolutely willing to accept that as a yes.

#Golden Bomber #Kiryuuin Shou #Kyan Yutaka #kirikyan #fanfiction #fanfic

6 notes · View notes

thatboomerkid · 6 years

Text

A User’s Guide to the Abhorrent Heavens

A User’s Guide to the Abhorrent Heavens -- An Essay for Bloodlines & Black Magic

“The key difference between any one of the Abhorrent Heavens and the very foulest churning pit of the deep Infernal is subtle but distinct: within an Abhorrent Heaven, one person is having a wonderful time. These grotesque realms, home to souls perfectly selected by their mistress for obsession and malice, are obscene in the extreme. On the surface, some of these blood-splattered abattoirs may appear as 1950s suburbs or modern-era cities, but all merely hide the hunger of a psychotic spree-killer finally unleashed from all consideration of consequences.”

-- Bloodlines & Black Magic, pg. 204

Your players don’t stand a chance against the Grand Archons.

Not directly, anyway.

After all, the Invisible Masters of Heaven & Earth have been putting down titans, would-be messiahs, world-shaking Goetic monstrosities, rebellious Bloodlines, sorcerous god-kings, charismatic serpent-cults & upstart wizards since before time had a name ... or so they say.

In most cases, of course, the Grand Archons don’t even have to respond to a threat directly: the exact moment when someone dumb starts making enough noise that rumors of the Invisible World begin reaching mundane ears, Yasazziel the Grand Archon of Glittering Things & Earthly Delights simply opens a gateway from our reality into one of her many Abhorrent Heavens & lets-loose one of her grateful, loyal servants to play dirty for a little while.

What happens next is, simply put, utterly unspeakable.

Brought to you absolutely free to play, to test & to share, as always, by the fine folks of my Patreon.

Additional content contributed by Blaine Bass of ScrapFinder and by Sam Berry; hugest of thanks to the Broken Token for editing assistance

photography by Boomer; digital editing by Tim Jenkins of Battle! Studio

SO ...

Maybe you’re starting a brand new Bloodlines & Black Magic campaign from scratch, and you’re looking for a unique way to kick things off with a real bang.

Maybe you’ve just ended a long, complex story-arc a little bit early, without all of the mysteries completely solved; maybe you can’t quite jump into the next chapter of your narrative until the PCs achieve a certain slightly higher level or meet a specific NPC or learn a particular secret; maybe only half of your players showed up to this session and you need a quick “filler” episode.

Maybe your PCs befriended & adopted the Godzilla, shunted the Terminator to the Deepest Astral, had the Voldemort removed from public office in perp-walked, handcuffed & humiliating disgrace or otherwise drove your campaign’s entire plot-arc so far off the frigging rails that you suddenly find yourself needing a few extra weeks to re-orient your entire game from first principles.

Whatever the reason, you require a brand new plot hook on the fly, and – simply due to the setting-assumptions of the Bloodlines & Black Magic universe! – a classic sword-&-sorcery fantasy plotline like “goblins attack the village” or “the princess is secretly a werewolf” or “foolish local knights go questing for the Vast Horror” simply won’t cut it.

No sweat, friend. We’ve got you covered.

In such an instance, the creaking & blood-spattered gates of the Abhorrent Heavens swinging wide into our own realm should provide more than ample fuel for your dark, strange fire.

original image from here

Plot Hooks (Pick from the list below, or Roll 1d10):

The PCs show up to a meeting with an important contact (or group of contacts) only to discover that everyone is dead or missing. Should any word of this discovery be made public, of course, the PCs are the most obvious suspects for mundane law-enforcement agencies to pursue. As their quick & panicked investigation unfolds, it becomes clear to the PCs that this was an extermination ordered by the Seven of Secret Names ... and that whatever was unleashed from an Abhorrent Heaven is now on their trail, looking to complete its mysterious mission and to have itself some slick red fun while doing so.

An old mentor of a PC is requesting help & offering sky-high payment: something is after him, and it’s rapidly chewing through every emergency defense he’s built-up over the last few decades. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear to the PCs that what’s after this particular occultist isn’t just a pissed-off Goetic spirit or some random undead manifestation: it’s a creature of the Abhorrent Heavens, released directly by the Archons to mete out justice in their name. Do the PCs continue to intervene, and risk angering the Grand Sisters directly?

The PCs are contacted obliquely by Jackie Ipanema (see below) or by another favored servant of the Archons who spends a lot of time outside of his Abhorrent Heaven on “real world clean-up”; this contact is polite & non-threatening in the extreme. This potent soldier of the Grand Archons needs a small favor: he maintains multiple false identities in the real world, and several of these identities have been invited (for mysterious reasons) to attend the same fancy dinner party at a secluded woodland mansion at the same time; of course, this is probably a trap. Can the PCs take on these roles & solve the mystery?

A bit of casual, routine investigation into an old “haunted house” in a remote farming community with a vaguely sinister reputation reveals the existence of a poorly-locked and seemingly unguarded portal sitting in the attic, marked only with some eerie chalk-lines. This hole in space-time leads directly into a previously unknown Abhorrent Heaven, full of thousands of fearful damned who are preyed-upon by a mysterious figure of terrifying power ... one who has (apparently) been used very quietly by the Seven of Secret Names on rare occasions to take out major targets. Do the PCs dare to explore this realm? Seal it & guard it? Profit from it?

The estate-sale of a wealthy & enigmatic amateur-dabbler in the dark arts turns up a “Dantean Codex”: a log-book detailing various entrances into an assortment of Abhorrent Heavens scattered across the US & Europe. 90% of the book is useless gibberish, of course ... but the parts that are real are literally invaluable: the sort of things that powerful Lineages kill & die for, or that make legends out of dilettantes. Problem is, the text ALSO represents the most deeply forbidden kind of occult knowledge; mere knowledge of its existence is punishable by death at the hands of the Archons & their servants. Where do you even hide such information?

An enterprising & clever young crew of magicians are playing with hell-fire itself: aping the legendary power inherent to the Invisible City of the Tianlong Dynasty -- Bloodlines & Black Magic, pg. 53 -- they’ve cracked their way into an Abhorrent Heaven with multiple exits back into the real world, and are using this otherworldly realm as a “secret level” to allow for quick, untraceable transportation between cities & across the globe. Every trip risks attracting the attention of the realm’s dark master ... and when these boys get caught, things are going to get very ugly very fast. Can the PCs shut down this mad plan?

The death of a famous & well-loved occultist reveals, hidden amongst the notes in his possession, that he was a MAJOR contact for the Archons: selling out other magicians for personal gain, setting up his friends & his enemies alike to be taken out by their purges, and often profiting directly from executions performed in the name of the Archons, all in the hopes that he would -- in death -- finally be granted the playground of his own Abhorrent Heaven in recompense. Worse, he names a close & trusted ally of the PCs as his longtime accomplice (or even mentor) in these double-deals. Who can the PCs trust?

The PCs are contacted by a powerful, underground circle of mages who think they have a real shot at taking-out one particularly nasty servant of the Archons, potentially crippling it -- like the famed Revered was pulled-down a peg -- or even killing it outright. If the PCs can bait the thing into a particular emotionally-significant, magically-potent location at a particular numerologically-consequential time -- and with all of the attendant esoteric magical formulae properly in-place to secure a full-on Occult Connection with the ritual casters -- then the PCs will have a front-row seat to watch something nearly unknown to modern arcanists, along with an exclusive invite to join the crème de la crème of international occult society. Of course, they’ll have to survive the fight ... and it might all be a trap laid by Nannareal, the Grand Archon of Secrets and Whispers.

An urgent call from an old friend of one of the PCs sends them down a dark alley with their associate in a strangely familiar location. Their sense of eerie déjà vu grows as they round a corner ... only to watch as a horrid creature lashes-out of the darkness and butchers their friend before their eyes, then vanishes into the night. Familiarity shattered, the PCs find themselves in an ever-shifting Abhorrent Heaven drawn from their own memories, locked into a game of cat-and-mouse that has gone on for centuries. When the PCs finally track down the monster and avenge their buddy, their sense of foreboding grows: this creature was not the master of any Abhorrent Heaven, merely a trapped plaything like themselves; soon after, another supernaturally-gifted foe is lured into the concrete jungle to start the hunt again. There’s a way out, of course ... but the voyeuristic occupant of this Abhorrent Heaven, a stalker obsessed with the vicarious thrill of predators & prey making war, isn’t talking.

Rumors start popping up -- with increasing & frightening regularity, and an uncanny level of detail -- about an ancient artifact resurfacing: a lost blade of Goetic Titan-craft that serves as a bane weapon against any creature tied to an Abhorrent Heaven. While the Archons & their servants scramble to kill-off anyone with anything resembling proof of this blade’s existence, the PCs are contacted by an old associate who claims to have located the thing ... as he requests extraction from a war-zone.

Uncountable Abhorrent Heavens ... and their Occupants

No one knows exactly how many Abhorrent Heavens there really are.

Or, more accurately, Yasazziel the Grand Archon of Glittering Things & Earthly Delights knows ... but she’s not talking.

Or, more accurately still, Yasazziel is talking all the damn time. It’s just that nobody can quite tell what she actually means by whatever she says.

In any instance, there are innumerable Abhorrent Heavens -- glittering like dark jewels, smoking with thin coils of screams & ghost-iron -- tucked away into obscure corners of the Celestial Realm, forever waiting to be opened-up whenever it amuses Yasazziel to unwrap & caress them.

Each one is sort of halfway between a prized Pokemon & a reverse Darklord of Ravenloft: each occupant is an utterly unique dick-in-a-box, sure ... but they love every minute of it, "bound" to their realm only so much as is required to keep them equal-parts amused & dangerous, all so that they can be taken out to straight-up murder people whenever their mistress desires.

Below are two of them.

Jackie: a Signature Soul of an Abhorrent Heaven

So ... you need a unique & scary monster, the sort of creature that Yasazziel the Grand Archon of Glittering Things & Earthly Delights would happily uncage & send after a troublemaker? Jackie Ipanema can, with only slight alteration, be used to fill exactly that role ... in much the same way that Canio de Pogo, Happy Muurvaerid and Khakissandra Ayla, the Foul Wish Granted can -- in a pinch! -- serve as interesting quick-&-dirty Goetic monsters.

image from here

Within the Bloodlines & Black Magic setting, Jackie’s ties to Zon-Kuthon are placed with service to Yasazziel the Grand Archon of Glittering Things & Earthly Delights.

ODDITIES:

If a character’s Threshold increases to an odd number from direct exposure to the presence (or the power) of Jackie Ipanema, she may gain one of the following Oddities (roll 1d10):

You can never again “spark” an object: you can’t turn on a stove or start a microwave, lighters that you try to use fail to ignite, cars you try to start won’t turn over, flicking a light-switch produces no effect, you can’t get a cellphone to turn on by pressing the button, and bullets or cartridges don’t go off when you squeeze the trigger on a firearm. You add quench as a 1st-level spell known to any one spell-list you possess; use of this special spell also extinguishes light bulbs, flashlights, chemical light-sticks and other simple, cheap devices that heat up, produce illumination and that can “burn out”. Use of this spell does not affect cars, cellphones, computers or other more complex electrical objects (such as firearms) used by opponents.

Your appearance becomes subtly creepy, and you remind everyone you meet of a dead person (either a specific dead person they have seen or a generic corpse, as appropriate). This affects your look, your voice, your scent and even the non-verbal sounds and movements you make; you suffer a penalty equal to twice your hit dice on all Charisma-based skill checks & ability checks except Intimidate. Once per day, you may choose, as a free action, to activate the Unnerving Gaze ability of an evangelist kyton, Will save negates (DC 10 + 1/2 your hit dice + your Charisma modifier); this ability last for 10 minutes or until you voluntarily end the effect as another free action.

You add bullet shield as a 1st-level spell known to any one spell-list you possess. This special spell may only be cast while you are in an area of dim or lower lighting, and a spell effect created by you in this way is suppressed -- as if in the area of an antimagic field -- while you or the target of the spell are in any area of normal or brighter light.

While in an area of dim or lower lighting, you are always considered to have a running start when jumping; you also add your character level (max +7) as a bonus on all Acrobatics checks to jump. You are fatigued while in an area of bright light and exhausted while in direct sunlight.

You gain light blindness. In addition, once per day as a free action you may choose to see through mist and fog (including fog cloud and similar magic) as if they did not exist. In areas of moderate or stronger wind, while this ability is in effect, you can also see as if you were standing at both your own position and a position a number of feet in the wind’s direction equal to the wind’s speed in miles per hour, potentially allowing you to see around corners and other obstacles. This ability lasts for 10 minutes or until you voluntarily end the effect as another free action.

As long as you are humming the song Girl From Ipanema to yourself (which applies a -10 penalty to all Stealth checks based on sound), you are immune to fear and to non-lethal damage.

You can never again “spark” an object, as per the first result above. While in an area of dim or lower lighting, you gain full use of Exotic Weapon Proficiency: spiked chain and Weapon Finesse. If you normally possess either of these abilities, you instead gain one of the following for each feat that you already possess: Improved Initiative, Lunge, Power Attack. You gain these abilities even if you do not otherwise meet the prerequisites.

While in an area of dim or lower lighting, you gain damage reduction 5/silver or good and immunity to cold. You gain vulnerability to fire while in an area of bright light and are nauseated while in direct sunlight.

You gain an overwhelming scent of rust and old metal; all opponents within 30 feet may freely detect you purely by sense of smell. If you are upwind, the range increases to 60 feet; if downwind, it drops to 15 feet. Your exact location is not revealed, only your presence within range and the general direction toward you. When you are within 5 feet of any creature with a sense of smell, that creature automatically pinpoints your location even if otherwise blinded to you. You may also be tracked by your smell: any creature may attempt to follow from where you have been by making a Wisdom (or Survival) check to trace your movements and current whereabouts, even if you possess the trackless step ability. The typical DC for smelling you out is 10; this DC increases by 2 for each hour since you departed the area. This otherwise follows the rules for the Survival skill. At will as a standard action, while you are in an area of dim or lower lighting and are not wearing any other armor, you may cause wickedly-hooked, barbed & razor-edged chains to sprout from your body, providing a +4 armor bonus. These otherworldly chains are not treated as armor for the purpose of spell failure, armor check penalties, maximum Dexterity, weight, or proficiency. These chains persist for ten minutes or until you voluntarily end the effect as a free action. If you already possess a strong scent, such as because you possess the third Oddity result from the Reverend of Razored Witch-Pyres, re-roll.

Roll 1d8+1 twice, keeping both results. If you gain the same result for both rolls, re-roll one of the dice.

Mr. Liu, the Cryptic Policeman, Secret Saint of Hong Kong (CR 13)

Those who speak with Mr. Liu on the telephone -- or correspond with the “man” via text or email -- universally find him charming, disarming and erudite in the extreme, with a remarkable wit; he has a refined British accent, exceptional knowledge of Chinese history, and he is obviously a highly-educated & well-traveled man: most likely from a fantastically-wealthy family of lawyers, college professors, international investors and physicians.

He often goes by Peter, Peyton or Penley; he comes off as a librarian, scholar or antiquarian ... although those who correspond with him quite frequently often begin to suspect that Mr. Liu might actually work for some type of clandestine, highly-discreet governmental organization.

That suspicion is partially correct.

Amongst those in-the-know, the Cryptic Policeman is a terrifying urban legend: the sort of ghostly creature who makes high-ranking members of the Tianlong Dynasty whisper a quick prayer & glance nervously over their shoulder.

Mr. Liu, the Cryptic Policeman, Secret Saint of Hong Kong, The No-Shadow Dragon, has never been seen. He is, in fact, invisible … save for a wide, toothy grin and the occasional flash of a bladed finger slipping through shrieking flesh. Despite this, Mr. Liu desires notoriety more than anything: he lusts for the perfection of his brutal art, wanting to be sought and never found, craving -- above all else! -- a eternal, profane and inverted game of cat and mouse: his Abhorrent Heaven is a bloody & endless game of hide-and-seek in the deep city, where he slays his pursuers and taunts the yet-unslain with riddles, poetry, bizarre word-puzzles and coded messages.

His identity is well known: he is considered one of the earliest recorded serial killers. In the 2nd century BC, there was a dragon-blooded Han prince, Liu Pengli, who ruled a small region in what would eventually become China. He was bloodthirsty and cruel, and led hunting parties made up of slaves and fugitives. At first they would kill indiscriminately, robbing and slaughtering the innocent and defenseless. After a time, though, Liu used these expeditions as opportunities to isolate and murder the strongest and most clever among his own men: he used misdirection & trickery to blame the deaths on the innocent and further the bloodshed. Eventually, he gained a taste for those with occult power in their blood, and targeted them specifically ... no longer killing the innocent, but instead hunting criminals, cultists, demon-summoners and rival murders, bringing a dark order to his province with his own hands.

While he wanted to get away with his crimes, Liu Pengli also wanted someone -- anyone, everyone -- to know how clever he was: how perfect a predator he had become. He had over 100 known victims, and far more unknown; soon, Liu Pengli began to announce the deaths of criminals & witches with messengers in every town, making known their deaths and his art ... even if he couldn't receive full credit for his lethal ingenuity. Eventually, this hunter of humans & magicians alike was brought before the Emperor, and he voluntarily stood for justice.

The Emperor, being his uncle, could not bring himself to execute the prince; thus, he reduced Liu Pengli in status, making him equal with those whom he had hunted & slain: Liu Pengli was stripped of his rank & title, made into a commoner, a no-one. The emperor exiled his nephew after making him anonymous, and sent him out of the kingdom to become a stranger in strange lands.

Liu Pengli couldn't help but smile.

It isn't known precisely when Liu Pengli actually died, nor how many he killed after being banished, but what is known is that before the 3rd century, he had been granted an Abhorrent Heaven of his own. Ever since, the occasional brutal murder of some poor bloke with a Bloodline is attributed to him, especially if a coded message is left behind.

Only two instances of prolonged activity are confirmed:

In London in the late 1800s, a powerful coven which owed fealty to the Goetic spirit of lust, Asmodeus, was all-but-openly active: conducting the dark rites of their cult under the thin guise of prostitution. The exact goals of their rituals are uncertain, but most likely these practitioners sought to magnify the influence of their patron-spirit in the material world, or to somehow otherwise threaten the power of the Archons ... because in 1888, the Cryptic Policeman was released from his Abhorrent Heaven to stalk & slay the Infernal-blooded priestesses. For three years the Policeman shadowed the five priestesses of Asmodeus's inner pentacle, with brief skirmishes slowed only by wards and fetishes which made it clear that the priestesses knew what hunted them. They attempted to replace lost members and complete the ritual, but failed ... as, one by one, they were hunted down, killed and mutilated in brutal fashion: sending a clear message from the Archons to those in the Secret World; lust is not to be flaunted. Mundane law enforcement never discovered evidence of the true killer, though the Cryptic taunted them through letters, using coded phrases and metaphor designed to communicate with the Invisible through the press, hinting that he was 'from hell'. The police never decoded the cipher, though those steeped in the occult could see it plain as day. He wanted to be unseen in his art, but credited for his achievement. Once his task was accomplished, the Archons spirited him back to his boundless cage.

Later, the Cryptic Policeman would be deployed again, loosed for nearly ten years at the very edge of the New World. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, on the American West Coast, for unknown reasons the Fey bloodline began passing through love: granting power both to those born with the blood, and to those beloved by the blood. This allowed the power & influence of several new-born Lineages to grow rapidly, and threatened to destabilize the balance of power within the region. While most of these Fey-Blooded had no knowledge of their own power, or the significance of their acts, the Archons do not judge slights by intent. The Cryptic Policeman was released, and again stalked his prey methodically -- often for months -- waiting until he was certain that they had the potential to pass their power, and then brutally murdering both once the power was passed. Ever the artist, the Cryptic again taunted law enforcement with letters, this time encoded in a clear cypher. Once the code was cracked, he had the captive audience he sought: most watching the papers in horror, some in awe as he practiced his visceral art. Once the Fey outbreak was contained, his performance was cut short: with an unseen & shadow-less bow, Liu Pengli was again dragged back into his brutal paradise.

image from here

The Cryptic Policeman is a lawful evil invisible stalker (CR 7) with the Half Dragon template (+2 CR), the Gunsmoke-Blessed Creature template (+1 CR) [see Bloodline & Black Magic, pg. 161], the War Machine template (+3 CR) and the Lifespark Construct template (+1 CR).

Because the Cryptic Policeman possesses the Lifespark Construct template, his Intelligence is not reduced by the application of the War Machine template.

Whenever the Cryptic Policeman deals damage to a living creature with any of his natural melee attacks, his wide & toothy smile very briefly becomes visible. This does not negate his bonuses to Stealth from invisibility, as his eerie smile is disconnected from his body: often appearing two to three feet away from the Cryptic Policeman’s actual face, as per a combination of blink & displacement.

The Cryptic Policeman may choose to suppress his natural invisibility & is in possession of a greater hat of disguise; he may choose to appear as a normal human whenever he desires.

Using the Cryptic Policeman:

If a character's threshold increases to an odd number from direct exposure to the presence (or power) of the Cryptic Policeman, she may gain one of the following oddities (roll 1d8)

You begin compulsively smiling whenever you deal damage that sheds blood. You may choose to a cause a living opponent to bleed whenever you deal melee slashing damage; your attack may cause an opponent to suffer 1 additional point of damage each round for each level you possess (for example, if you are a 5th level character, you may cause you opponent to suffer up to 5 points of bleed each round). This bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or the application of any effect that heals hit point damage. Bleeding damage from this ability does not stack with itself; bleeding damage bypasses any damage reduction the target might possess. Each time this bleeding damage is inflicted, you suffer one half that amount of damage (non-lethal damage, rounded up) as your uncontrollable grin begins to ache, twitch & burn.

You can see through your own eyelids, and have a difficult time sleeping. You may make sight-based Perception checks with your eyes closed, but are always fatigued for the first four hours after waking or until you have had at least two cups of coffee.

Whenever you write anything, you involuntarily pepper the page with strange runes and sigils which you don't recall writing ... or know the meaning of.

You gain full knowledge either Draconic or ancient Chinese (your choice).

Whenever you speak face-to-face with an unfamiliar, non-related individual for more than a few minutes, small scratch-marks and cuts as if from from fingernails form on your arms and face. This is actually a great way to tell if you’re actually talking to someone you already know (who might be in disguise).

Whenever you hold anything that could be used as a slashing weapon, your hand grips it until your knuckles whiten. You are incapable of holding such an object loosely, though you may put it down without difficulty. You gain a +2 bonus on all Disarm attempts made against you.

You may make Linguistics checks untrained. Whenever you encounter a language or writing which you do not understand, you feel distracted and are considered shaken while within 10 ft. of such script.

Roll 1d6+1 twice, keeping both results. If you gain the same result for both rolls, re-roll one of the dice.

PLOT HOOKS (pick from the list or roll 1d8)

A new string of killings has begun in a local metropolis, and they seem to be imitating the ciphered letters of the Zodiac Killer. Although the new cipher has yet to be decoded, it uses the characters of a hidden & secret language. The Cryptic Policeman has, perhaps, inspired a copycat ... or an acolyte. Or a rival, calling him out to face vengeance.

A potent young Dragon-Blooded sorcerer with a warm, charming smile has discovered that amongst his ancestors sits Liu Pengli; the brash magician is now attempting to become a host for the Cryptic Policeman’s ancient power for the express purpose of taking revenge on a rival ... but he risks unknowingly allowing the Cryptic Policemen to walk the earth again, unfettered by the Archon's cage.

Multiple high-profile businessmen in the finance industry have been found eviscerated in their offices, the walls splayed with bloody & undecipherable sigils. Mundane authorities are confounded not by what is on the security tapes, but what isn't: the murderer is invisible. Already, secret organizations have begun covering-up the crimes. Has the Cryptic Policeman been sent on a clandestine errand ... or is another player at work here, hiding behind the Cryptic’s reputation?

An invaluable 13th-century German grimoire detailing rituals used for summoning & binding the Cryptic Policeman has gone to auction. While the seller -- and most of the buyers! -- have no idea what’s on the block, at least one buyer is willing kill to obtain the prize.

An ancient and priceless knife which supposedly belonged to Liu Pengli has been stolen from a local museum by a Dragon-Blooded cult who believe it may hold a portion of his power ... or the ability to command & control the great ‘Machine Colorless Wyrm’.

An eccentric hobbyist, fascinated with 'ripper-ology' and researching for a book, has deciphered an unnoticed code in the letters from the Whitechapel murders. He is drifting dangerously close to an open secret of the Hidden World: the identity of the Cryptic Policeman.

The newly-awakened descendant of a victim from the Cryptic's 1970s-era West Coast murders has manifested the power of Fey blood ... and, moreover, she has demonstrated the ability to pass that power on to others through love while retaining the full Bloodline potency herself. This young woman must be carefully introduced to the Secret World, and gently told the truth about her heritage, all without arousing the interest of the Archons or their murderous pet.

A panicked coven is seeking any & all of the help they can acquire -- begging, borrowing & blackmailing, as they are able -- from anyone powerful and in-the-know enough to assist: they attempted to summon the Cryptic Policeman from his Abhorrent Heaven & to bind him ... and while their summoning certainly worked, and seemingly escaped the notice of the Archons, they were unable to chain him. Now, the Cryptic Policeman is gleefully stalking the members of their coven, picking them off one by one in a slow-moving orgy of violence.

So ... what color of dragon is the Cryptic Policeman, precisely?

Within the context of your own Bloodlines & Black Magic game, this is left entirely to your own discretion. Whatever energy-type of breath weapon you want him to unleash in combat (or need him to be immune to!), that’s the one ... although there are certainly dozens of theories, dating back centuries across any number of cultures, claiming to authoritatively state that the invisible scales of his armor & unseen cogs of his bones are one precise shade or another.

#pathfinder #bloodlines and black magic #urban fantasy #modern #horror #campaign #essay #cr 9

20 notes · View notes

astarkey · 4 years

Note

IN DEPTH FANDOM QUESTIONS: Charmed and FDTD! 💖💖💖

It’s kinda long, so I’m gonna have it under the cut lol.

Charmed

Top 5 favorite characters: Piper Halliwell, Prue Halliwell, Phoebe Halliwell, Paige Matthews, Andy Trudeau Other characters you like: Darryl Morris, Leo Wyatt, Cole Turner, Barbas Least favorite characters: Billie Jenkins, (Adult) Chris Halliwell Otps: Prue/Andy, Piper/Leo, Phoebe/Cole, Prue/Bane Notps: Prue/Jack, Phoebe/Coop Favorite friendships: The Halliwells and Darryl Favorite family: The Halliwell sisters (Paige included) Favorite episodes: “Murphy’s Luck,” “Ex Libris,” “A Witch’s Tail,” “The Day the Magic Died,” and “Oh My Goddess.” Favorite season/book/movie: Season 2 Favorite quotes: “I know it’s not very P.C. but I want romance. Long, slow kisses, late night talks, candlelight. I love love.,” “It’s the 21st century. It’s the woman’s job to save the day.,” “I don’t obsess. I think, intensely.,” “I think from now on I’m gonna stop trying to control every little moment. The best ones kinda sneak up on you, anyway.” Best musical moment: All the musical guest at the club, P3. Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: I think when I saw Bane make a re-appearence when he kidnapped Prue 😂 I don’t think I fangirl'd too hard, I was calm and surprised about it haha. When it really disappointed you: When they added Billie. I don’t know, I didn’t really like much of season 8 ‘cause I felt like they were making the focus on her and didn’t know what to do with the rest of the main characters. I hardly watched that season anyway, it just felt dragged out and confusing. Saddest moment: When Phoebe vanquished Cole Most well done character death: I don’t know, I guess Andy’s. Favorite guest star: John Cho Favorite cast member: Holly Marie Combs Character you wish was still alive: Prue Halliwell AND Andy Trudeau. One thing you hope really happens: I don’t know. It would’ve been nice to see the next generation of Halliwells kicking demon ass lol. Most shocking twist: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ When did you start watching/reading?: Probably around the time that s4 aired. I always saw glimpses of episodes on TNT when my mom used to do my hair before taking me to school, and I just decided to sit and watch it with her when they were showing new episodes on WB (CW). Best animal/creature: I think the Grimlocks. They kinda scared me when I was a kid lol. Favorite location: The Halliwell house Trope you wish they would stop using: I don’t know... I don’t know if it’s necessarily a trope, but I kinda noticed how they would make the big sisters seem a little bossy. Like Prue was the big sister and she was bossy, and then when she died and Piper ended up being the big sister, she became bossy later on, too. It’s like they have to have one of the sisters being the boss in the trio and it’s like why??? lol. One thing this show/book/film does better than others: It’s three sisters that are witches and kicking demon ass. How cool is that lol Funniest moments: Piper on the ground kicking and screaming in that episode “Is There a Woogy in the House,” and Piper calling some dude skid mark lol. Couple you would like to see: I don’t know. Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: I’m not sure. Favorite outfit: Phoebe’s outfit here [Link] It’s always been my favorite. Favorite item: The Book of Shadows Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: No What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: I don’t know. Most boring plotline: I don’t know, I kinda stopped investing in the show when they did the whole Wyatt going to magic school like going to Hogwarts, and the warlock running the school wanted to steal Wyatt and make him evil so he could be evil!Wyatt in the future. It was like around that season and when Oded Fehr played that demon (I forgot his name, but I know it starts with a “Z”) and when Billie showed up, it just got boring later on. Most laughably bad moment: Piper’s Halloween costume as Gilda the witch from The Wizard of Oz. Best flashback/flashfoward if any: Idk, I can’t remember. There were so many 😂 Most layered character: Piper Halliwell Most one dimensional character: Uh... I don’t know. I wanna say (Adult) Chris Halliwell lmao. Scariest moment: I think a reporter was in the sewers trying to report on the Charmed Ones, but then a Grimlock popped up in front of the camera and attacked the reporter. Grossest moment: I don’t remember. Best looking male: Bane Jessup (let’s be honest here, people, lol) Best looking female: All of the sisters are good looking, lol. But I’ll say Phoebe Halliwell. Who you’re crushing on (if any): Nobody lol. Favorite cast moment: I don’t know. Favorite transportation: Orbing Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): The dream sequences in the “Dream Sorcerer” episode. Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you: I know the reason (the Shannen and Alyssa beef while filming), but it’s weird that Prue’s spirit never shows up whenever the family’s spirits are called upon, like Grams’ and Penny’s spirit. Even in the last episode of the show, Prue never showed up, and even the characters questioned that! 😂 Best promo: I have no idea. At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: I don’t know, it kinda grew on me lol. I liked the idea of witches fighting evil, and the show gave off this warm nostalgic feeling (kinda like Practical Magic), and I think that’s what drew me to the show, as well.

From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series

Top 5 favorite characters: Seth Gecko, Kate Fuller, Richie Gecko, Kisa, and Eddie Cruickshank. Other characters you like: Freddie Gonzalez, Scott Fuller, Ximena Vasconcelos, Jacob Fuller, Burt, Kalinda, Dakota Block, Rafa Infante, Vanessa Styles, Celestino Oculto 😎, and Kalinda Least favorite characters: Aiden Tanner, Carlos Madrigal, Sonja Lam Otps: Seth/Kate, Richie/Kate Notps: Scott/Kate, Seth/Richie, Kate/Carlos, and shipping anybody with Aiden lol. Favorite friendships: Seth and Kisa, Seth and Kalinda (even though it was extremely short, their interaction was just so nice to see), Kate and Rafa, and Richie and Kisa (I wanna say they’re otp, but I also like the mutual relationship they have) Favorite family: The Fuller family including the Gecko brothers... and Uncle Eddie 😂 Favorite episodes: “Let’s Get Ramblin’,”Santa Sangre,” “Shady Glen,” and “Dark Side of the Sun.” Favorite season/book/movie: Season 2 Favorite quotes: “And every spidey since I got is tingling in every nook and cranny from eyeballs to balls-balls.,” “’Got your balls on?’ ‘Screwed on tight.,’” “’Are you here for redemption? In whose eyes? Your God’s?’ No. In the eyes of the people I love.,’“ “My family might survive if we stick together because we’re better together. When we’re alone, we’re lost.,” “Now like it or not, we are a family. A broken, messed up, sad excuse for a family. But goddamn it, we got love for each other, don’t we? Love and forgiveness. That’s how you get through the day, right?,” “Next one that pipes up gets a stake through the heart. Reptile, regular jackass, I don’t really give a shit. Got it? Fantastic.,” “You, be cool.” Best musical moment: Uh... Every musical moment was pretty mediocre, so I guess Fanglorious on stage was pretty great (those are the only 2 musical moments I know). Moment that made you fangirl/boy the hardest: Los Tres Geckos robbing a bank at the end of s3 lol. When it really disappointed you: How the creators just decided to change Sex Machine’s character from the movie into this total perv/predator in the show, like wtf. Movie version Sex Machine was my fav. AND THEY KEPT BRINGING HIM BACK EACH SEASON WHEN NO ONE WANTED HIM BACK, LIKE MAJORITY OF US COLLECTIVELY WANTED HIM TO STAY DEAD! Saddest moment: In the “Straightjacket” episode when Seth was tied up and trying to talk to Richie to get his normal self to come back while his shadow-self took over. They really got me with that one. Most well done character death: Carlos getting butchered by the main characters, leaving Scott to finish him off by decapitating his head. That was some pretty poetic shit right there lol. Favorite guest star: Tom Savini Favorite cast member: D.J. Cotrona Character you wish was still alive: Pretty much majority of the ones that have died 😂 I’ll just say everyone except Malvado, Carlos, and Aiden Tanner. One thing you hope really happens: Dude, I just wanna see Seth and Kate kiss, that’s all man 😆 Most shocking twist: I mean I wasn’t expecting Kate to show up with the brothers robbing a bank, so that was a shock lol. When did you start watching/reading?: Pfff, pretty much five years ago, now, in March! Lol. Best animal/creature: Culebras Favorite location: I’d say the run-down motel in the beginning of s2 😂 Also Uncle Eddie’s shop. Trope you wish they would stop using: Idk... Idk if it’s a trope, but it kinda sucks seeing innocent girls getting treated like shit and killed, and then they come back from the dead and like some part of them is stripped away like they’re not as they used to be, and they’re out for blood. I don’t know... One thing this show/book/film does better than others: As cheesy as this show is, it has Robert Rodriguez all over it, which kept me hooked. It also incorporates Mesoamerican mythology and folklore, which I’m a huge sucker for, AND VAMPIRES!!!!! Funniest moments: Richie sliding out when Seth told him to shut up at the liquor store, Carlos pretending to hand something to Malvado when he’s handing him nothing and saying he’s all out of fucks to give, Seth shooting a gun in the garage with a straight face, and Seth protecting his crotch before he attempts to shoot a gas tank. Couple you would like to see: Idk, I guess Seth/Kate??? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Actor/Actress you want to join the cast: Salma Hayek (I still wanna know why she wasn’t on the show. She would’ve been amazing as one of the nine lords) Favorite outfit: [Here], [here], and [HERE] Favorite item: Kate’s cross? Idk. Do you own anything related to this show/book/film?: Yep! A shirt of a fanart of the Gecko bros., a sethkate cup, and a fanart sethkate iTouch case. What house/team/group/friendship group/family/race etc would you be in?: I don’t know. Probably a culebra lol. Most boring plotline: None of them were really boring. Most laughably bad moment: Richie just staring off into space as he’s drawing circles in his book like right after Seth said that Richie wasn’t crazy lol. Best flashback/flashfoward if any: Kisa’s flashbacks. Most layered character: Idk, there’s a lot of characters that are equally layered. Most one dimensional character: I don’t think there’s any 😂 Scariest moment: The Head Games monster taking the skull out of his victims was pretty crazy. Grossest moment: When that dude peed on Freddie while he was tied up. I’d say that was disgusting. Best looking male: That’s a tie between Seth and Richie. Best looking female: Kisa Who you’re crushing on (if any): SETH GECKO Favorite cast moment: When they all went on a group chat, and reminisced on the show and shared pics when they were on set filming. Favorite transportation: The rv, even though that rv needs to be cleansed thoroughly. Most beautiful scene (scenery/shot wise): Kate swimming and floating in the pool (before the water turns red lol) Unanswered question/continuity issue/plot error that bugs you: Like... there’s no way anyone could come out cold turkey that friggin’ quick within a couple hours. It usually would last within three days. Best promo: Season 3, I think. At what point did you fall in love with this show/book: I think it was the scene when Kate had the conversation with Richie by the pool. I loved how the creators made the interaction less creepy compared to the movie, and I found it pleasing with all these changes they made from the movie for the show. There were a lot of things they changed that I found it appealing, AND THEY CHANGED SETH’S ANSWER AND WANTED KATE TO ACCOMPANY HIM, LIKE THAT’S WHAT I WANTED TO HAPPEN FOR 20 YEARS, AND IT HAPPENED! 😩🙌🏽 It’s like they gave me everything I wanted, but wasn’t expecting to happen lmao.

Geez, sorry this took so long lol! Thank you so much for asking me these!!!! 😁💗

#yossariandawn #questions and mentions

0 notes