#so many cases of characters who are just given a different haircut and changed their legwear and ppl go 'oh look theyre the other gender!'

[twipsai]

oh i figured out the reason why i dont care for a lot of the "transfem-ifying characters" thing

[twst-drabbles]

i have no idea what valenio actually looked like, but i game him vitiligo and a small orca fin on his hand

he's also wearing ear plugs since i remember you saying he's from the deep sea, so i thought he'd be kinda sensitive to sound

but valenio my beloved

Mmmmmmmmm! Yeah it's a bad habit of mine to not describe the appearance of my characters cause I'm so used to doing it with the Reader character, however I really so do love to see how my OC's look like to other people based on the vibes I give them. It's nice to see how their little minds work. I do have a few picrew on his earlier versions before I made some changes such as his eye color and body mass. Valenio having vitiligo... I like it a lot actually.

Lemme just ramble about more lore I have about the deepsea folk!

I changed his eyes to a dark brown cause I don't have enough brown eyed oc's. And good on ya for the ear plugs! I always imagined he had something in his ears as well and is usually pretty easy to overstimulate. His hair is pretty straight but you'll notice that the ends of his hair are pretty frayed cause he hasn't had a haircut in a loooong while. He does try to cut it himself but it usually ends up being an uneven mess so he just let it grow.

Anyways, the potions used to make the merfolk human are potions that really only work for the people that live in the lighter side of the sea. Deepsea folk have tried it and it does work to a degree, but it leaves some fishy stuff behind like alternating skin textures(human skin to slick merperson skin), sometimes scales or useless gills on their body, and, as you so unintentionally got correct, fins on their body parts. So far, there hasn't been a breakthrough in regards to making a potion that works for the deepsea folk, and strangely enough, those that move from the lighter side to the darker depths also find that eventually potions that worked perfectly in making them human suddenly don't work entirely. Isn't that the strangest thing?

Anyways, in the deepsea, there is a process that many who want to be on land have to go through. Obviously, because they come from an environment that is so deprived of loud noises and light, the deepsea folk have to do exposure therapy to get themselves adjusted. First part of the process involves deepsea folk moving into a building close to the border of the lighter side of the sea, and from there they go into that sea to get used to the light and sound there. After a sufficient amount of time has passed, only then do the deepsea folk move into the actual light side of the sea. From there, the second part of the exposure therapy process begins where they breach the waters to get used to the stronger lights and sounds up there. If an amount of time has passed and the deepsea folk still have adverse effects from that intensity of light and sound, the deepsea folk are given special earplugs and glasses to help them out. They can request for them early in case they're in a hurry. But usually, it's highly recommended for them to go through the entire process so that they can adjust to land.

They take the potion and the final part of the adjustment process begins. See, there is a number of different potions available for the deepsea folk to take as, like I said, it doesn't work quite they way it does for the lighter sea folk. The goal, while it would be preferred to look entirely human, is to make sure the deepsea folk can breath on land. As such, you'll get a variety of deepsea folk that look vastly different from one another. Some of them can't even get the legs of a human so they have to be in a wheelchair custom made for their forms.

Anyways, thank you for the aaaaart.

[opinated-user]

it just occured to me that i never fully explained how deeply wrong this ask (https://lily-orchard.tumblr.com/post/692207852489703424/as-a-trans-man-i-really-dont-like-that-you-paint) actually is.

As a trans man, I really don't like that you paint hair cutting as something that's just a bad trope. I and a couple of my trans/nonbinary friends cut our hair during our gender exploration. I can't speak for them, obviously, but it was a huge moment of euphoria for me. Obviously there are bad reasons for a character to cut their hair, but cutting it for gender exploration makes sense.

LO answered: I get that, but the trope is so ubiquitous and so many characters start with unique and interesting designs only to be given the same two or three haircuts that it bothers me on a fundamental level.

It’s not that it’s a bad trope, it’s that so many people’s idea of character development starts and ends at “Okay but like… what if they buzzed their head?”

what LO actually did here was to tell a trans man that cutting hair ruins an interesting design for a female character. this is annoying already because, as we know, the only change rey's LO has in comparison with the original is that now she uses her hair loose but otherwise there's no actual design at all. all the credit still goes for whoever was in charge of the costumes in the movie. LO's lying on that front. but then she doesn't realize or cares to think about the implications of telling any of this to a trans man who was already uncomfortable with her handling the issue. i can't speak for that anon, but if trans women are punished by society for trying to approach feminity (like by negating them having long hair, like LO claims is her case) then trans men are punished for rejecting feminity (refusing to have long hair). of course that every trans man has their own style and long or short hair is not the end all when it comes to gender or presentation, but a common experience for that demographic is to be told things like "you were prettier when you were a girl" by people who refuse to accept their identity. transphobic groups and people might even go so far as to lament how trans men/non binary afab people have "ruined" their bodies by transitioning or how they must have "internalized misogyny" to do something like that. this is a different kind of transphobia that trans women are usually exposed to but it's very insidious and normalized. when LO says that a gender non conforming masculine rey (non binary or trans man) will never have short hair because that's misogynistic and it would be inherently worse for her looks, she's invoking the same rethoric and narrative from those groups. again, can't speak for that anon, but if any trans person felt uncomfortable with how LO goes about this issue this is the reason why. she's not just reaching for anything to try to make her point more valid, she's actively participating on a form of transphobic microagression the more she tries to justify her preferences. once again, just for clarity's sake: none of this would matter if LO just said it's her preference or that she's uncomfortable writing about cutting hair because of her own experience. nobody would judge her for that. but when she uses that specific kind of argument, that female characters should embrace longer hair or else their interesting designs are "ruined", all i hear are the kind of women who post on social media about how Elliot Page now is ugly, looks unhealthy and was a lot more attractive as a woman. the fact that she said that to a trans man speaks volumes of the kind of ignorance that LO carries with her about anyone that isn't what immediately concerns to herself.

[troquantary]

Cutting Hair as Punishment in the Twilight Saga

Okay, I’ve been trying to organize my thoughts around this into a sort-of-essay format for a while, because I find it disturbingly mean-spirited: Meyer has a pattern of using hair-cutting as a form of punishment for characters, especially female characters, who fail to embrace Bella and the Cullens with open arms. I’m talking particularly about Leah and Lauren, both of whom, while not outright antagonists like Victoria or James, are situated along with Rosalie as “against” Bella throughout the series. The Quileute pack, meanwhile, is situated largely “against” the Cullens, meaning Jacob and the rest of the pack get the Haircut of Shame, too.

(Also, I’ve been creeping through @panlight ‘s blog because I thought she had a recent post relating to this -- I was probably thinking of this submission and her addendum, which does discuss Meyer’s “punishment” of certain characters, but that post was about characters suffering for not waiting for True Love, or daring to do the Devil’s Tango before marriage. Still, it’s on-theme and very much worth reading, like all her stuff!)

So here’s the general outline: first I’m gonna talk about the shapeshifters and how their overall lack of choice frames cutting their hair as something forced on them and therefore punitive. Then I’m going to discuss Meyer’s FAQ response where she reveals that Lauren was tricked into cutting off most of her hair over the summer before New Moon, and how this adds an extra fun misogynistic element to the hair-cutting theme with respect to Lauren and Leah. I also use way too many words to do it, sorry.

Punishment | The Shapeshifters Are Given No Other Option

I don’t have the background or knowledge to discuss the significance of long hair to indigenous culture and identity in detail, and my understanding is that different tribes ascribe different meanings to it. What I’ve read it about it suggests that, generally, long hair represents strength of one’s individual spirit and of the community. It’s a source of pride, and is only cut off voluntarily in extraordinary circumstances, often as an expression of grief, or to mark a significant life change.

This sort of works in the context of the shapeshifters all cutting their hair -- phasing into a giant wolf, discovering the existence of the supernatural, and assuming the role of protectors is a major life event for these characters. But the negative associations make it a troubling choice on Meyer’s part, and that’s without even getting into the problem of her imposing her own worldbuilding onto the legends and culture of a real tribe. Because of the lack of choice involved in becoming a shapeshifter, the whole situation feels like a scenario in which the Quileute characters have their hair forcibly cut -- a degrading and traumatic act that (depending on their particular tribal belief) might symbolically sever them from their sense of cultural identity and connection with the rest of their tribe.

It all kind of begs the question: why does Meyer even have shapeshifting work this way? What narrative utility is there in having the length of their hair in human form determine the length of their fur as wolves, thereby compelling the shapeshifters to cut it so it isn’t a physical impediment? It’s another sign of the changes in Jacob, sure, but he’s already being uncharacteristically cold and distant, plus suddenly has the physique of a fit twenty-five-year-old; Bella already knows something’s very wrong. His short hair is just another jarring thing for Bella to notice and mourn, like the loss of Jacob’s “baby face” and general sunniness.

It does work as a symbolic thing, representing another sacrifice Jacob has to make and the change in how he now has to perceive himself -- but he’s already got a literal giant wolf form to represent that change in identity/self-perception. Forcing him to cut his hair too just feels like piling on. My argument here, which I hope will be supported when I discuss Lauren and Leah further in, is that it’s not just piling on, but actively punitive -- because much like Leah and Lauren are “against” Bella, the pack at large is “against” the Cullens pretty much through the end of the series.

The Quileute pack is definitely not a Cullen fanclub. The entire purpose of their existence is to destroy vampires, and the truce they have with the Cullens isn’t friendly. They still don’t particularly like or trust the Cullens even after allying with them in Eclipse, and in Breaking Dawn Sam is fully prepared to go to war against them to enforce the treaty. Bella expresses frustration with Jacob and the pack for not appreciating the Cullens more, yet is curiously less willing to scold Alice, Edward, or Rosalie when they call the Quileutes dogs and complain about their smell. (I think she might reprimand Edward for it at some point, but I don’t remember the exact passage.) Bella even starts throwing around “dog” and “mutt” as an insult herself -- I think we know whose side ol’ “Switzerland” is on, here, and whose side Meyer is on as well. The Quileutes aren’t exactly enemies, and in fact are crucial to the Cullens’ survival in both the newborn and Volutri conflicts, but they’re punished nonetheless because they aren’t wholeheartedly Team Cullen from the get-go.

So to explain why I’m so convinced that there’s a link between hair-cutting and punishment in particular, let’s talk about Lauren. There’s a definite gendered element to it this time, too -- by being tricked into cutting her hair, Lauren isn’t just diminished/shamed, but rendered (*thunderclap*) unfeminine.

Lauren Was Rude To Bella Like Twice, Let’s Humiliate Her

I think Meyer’s answer to the question “What happened to Lauren’s hair?” on her FAQ page speaks for itself:

Ha ha. I had fun imagining this one—I only wished that it had fit into the book somewhere. Lauren fell victim to the “model discovered in the mall” scam. An alleged modeling agent approached Lauren in a mall in Victoria, B.C., and told her she was a natural model. Lauren ate it up. The agent told her that if she did something edgy with her hair, and took some high quality head shots, her future was assured. Lauren followed the instructions—dropping fifteen grand on the pictures taken by the agent’s partner—and waited for her career to begin. She’s still waiting. Snort.

It’s pretty obvious that this was done spitefully. Here’s the list of Lauren’s crimes against humanity Bella at this point in the series: 1) she was jealous of the attention Bella was getting as the new girl; 2) she talked behind Bella’s back once, saying Bella might as well just sit with the Cullens now (and she isn’t wrong); 3) she eyed Bella “scornfully” the day of the La Push beach trip; and perhaps most damningly, 4) she’s blonde.

Post-haircut, she has the gall not to be thrilled that Bella’s deigning to speak to the lowly non-Cullens again, then sides with Jessica after Bella uses Jessica to make a point to her dad, is shitty company, and then risks getting them both raped and murdered in Port Angeles so she could get off on her hallucination of Edward’s voice.

I think it’s pretty common knowledge that long hair is tied to patriarchal notions of femininity and attractiveness. Women with short hair are still derided for being ugly, or assumed to be lesbians in a derogatory sense, or simply considered less feminine and therefore less desirable/worthy (because a woman’s worth depends on her desirability, after all). For many women and girls, losing their long hair -- whether because of illness, or gum getting stuck in it, or whatever -- is very upsetting and a hard blow to their self-esteem. Just look at Alice as an example of Traumatic Short Hair; her hair was shorn like that because she received electroshock “treatments” in an asylum. (Although in Alice’s case, I don’t think her having short hair is punishment, but a facet of the traumatic backstory all female characters in Twilight have to have for some reason. Plus, she started the series with short hair, which distinguishes her from the pack and Lauren, who were tricked or compelled into cutting their long hair during the series.)

But Lauren’s so bitchy, so she deserves it, right? Ha ha, she was mean to Bella and cared about her appearance too much, so now she’s ~ugly!

Leah Has It the Worst and It Makes Me Want To Burn Everything

The misogynistic aspect of hair-cutting as punishment is taken up to like, twelve with Leah. Not only does she suffer for being “against” the Cullens along with the rest of the pack (and Bella, too, so extra sinning), but she suffers uniquely for being the only female shapeshifter. A bunch of teenage boys regularly see her naked body against her will. Her previously devoted boyfriend imprints on her cousin/best friend, Sam dumps her and can’t even explain why, and the whole pack -- including her own brother -- resents her for being upset about it, even though she can’t help the lack of mental privacy. Because of that same lack of mental privacy, she has to hear every gripe the boys have about her, plus every enthralled thought Sam has about Emily while she’s still deeply wounded by their breakup.

She blames herself for her dad’s death, because she phased at the wrong time. We don’t get any indication that her fellow shapeshifters or the elders are trying to reassure her otherwise.

And of course, because she’s a shapeshifter, she has to cut her hair. In addition, because Leah’s a woman, this has the same misogynistic connotations as it did with Lauren. In Leah’s case, though, the de-feminization is compounded by her sudden infertility. It’s clear that Leah attaches her sense of womanhood to her fertility, rightly or wrongly -- she bitterly calls herself a “genetic dead end” in Breaking Dawn and thinks of herself as a freak. She feels like there must be something wrong with her, some un-womanly flaw, that made her one of the shapeshifters at all.

Then, just when Jacob starts to see her as a human being worthy of compassion, he imprints on Renesmee and doesn’t give a shit about anyone or anything else anymore. No more bonding with Leah, no blooming friendship to help her heal and come to terms with the new realities of her life. (This is one of those dropped threads that aggravate me to no end -- what was the point of having Leah opening up to Jacob, or starting Jacob on the path of realizing he was being a dick to her this whole time and that she’s a person with  value, if he was just going to spend the rest of the book as Renesmee’s love-zombie and never think about it again? Disgusting.)

Leah was a lot more forgiving of Jacob than he deserved at that point in the story, for all the good it did her -- I think she’s mentioned maybe once in Book 3 of Breaking Dawn. At least she got her god-tier moment of yelling at a deranged, pregnant Bella Swan.

Speaking of Bella...

I’m just going to note, for no particular reason, that in Breaking Dawn we get to hear explicitly that Bella’s got hair that falls “almost to her waist” and that she looks like “a freaking supermodel” because she’s so “beautiful and pale.” It just strikes me as a telling contrast at this point.

[cybernaght]

Guardian rewatch: Episode 9

This episode starts with Zhao Yunlan being a bloody good boss. I’ll talk about how the opinions of others must have affected this man’s perception of himself a little later on, but in this scene it is important to note that Zhao Yunlan is supportive, caring and loyal. Wang Zheng comes to him in tears, asking for permission to leave and see the home she had just remembered, and he not only supports her verbally, but drags his entire team on the trip with her the very next day. Sure, he has are ulterior motives, as he strongly suspects one of the Hallows must be around the same area, but I maintain that Zhao Yunlan would have insisted on going with Wang Zheng regardless.

There are complications to this trip; namely, Wang Zheng is a ghost energy being and can neither be in sunlight, nor leave the SID really. Thus, the plan to take her on the trip includes buying a doll. The implication is that Wang Zheng can be somehow placed inside it, and thus be able to move, but the details of how this is done are actually curiously hazy. I’m not sure if censorship is the reason for muddled writing, but there really is very little explanation for the ghost in a doll situation.

Guo Changcheng is tasked with securing a makeshift body for Wang Zheng, and the boy, eager to act fast, and without much to work with in terms of instructions, ends up buying this.

We can only thank the Universe for the role of Wang Zheng not being played by a blow-up doll for three episodes straight.

Zhao Yunlan instantly realises that being places inside this thing might be a little bit upsetting for his subordinate, and lashes out at Guo Changcheng with an excellent “Is the thing above your neck a urinal?” This snaps Zhu Hong out of her mirth, too; she rushes to her friend’s side to offer emotional support, and will remain there for the entire episode.

I love this blocking, in which Zhu Hong is the only one who feels comfortable approaching Wang Zheng in a situation where she is seemingly being mocked by her male colleagues, as Zhao Yunlan and Guo Changcheng look on, unable to offer a meaningful apology.

The evening prior to this Shen Wei is musing over ancient map of the region. His costume is arranged deliberately so you can see the Pendant of Pining hanging around his neck.

I am really wondering when this was shot, because it looks very out of place. The costume differs from Shen Wei’s usual attire, including chinos and an uncharacteristically ill fitting shirt. His hair looks so wrong I am wondering if this is styling, or a different haircut entirely. And, since we’re on this train of thought, his eye colour is so off I genuinely spent quite a bit of time examining the shots in order to figure out whether he’s wearing contacts. I don’t think he is, by the way, but the colour grading makes his warm syrupy-brown irises look almost olive green.

During the scene it is revealed Shen Wei’s only worry in regards to leaving the city and rushing into what could be trouble is a possibility of Zhao Yunlan encountering danger in his absence. It is easy to see that Shen Wei here firmly associates his own worth with his work as Hei Pao Shi, and his own needs with Yunlan being safe and sound. You could trace this thought process back to the mountainside conversation ten thousand years ago, and to years of loneliness and isolation that followed. While, frankly, equating self-worth with comfort of other it’s not necessarily so unusual, and neither is equating it with one’s work, Shen Wei’s disregard for his own life is still horribly upsetting.

The morning after, Zhao Yunlan with his team and Shen Wei with his students move out of Dragon City. Destination - North-west. I have to ask though, why is Shen Wei taking his students with him? I get that it’s a cover but also: he can totally just teleport where he needs to and do his stuff as Envoy, can he not? It’s fast, efficient, and can all be done during the night without arousing any suspicious.

As it happens, Shen Wei goes by car, which breaks, and causes him to instantly cross paths with Zhao Yunlan. What I like about this meeting is that we see it from an outsider perspective, as we drive into the scene with Lin Jing, Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng.

“Is that Professor Shen? This must be their destiny. They keep meeting each other wherever they go.”

Zhao Yunlan confesses that he feels like Shen Wei bugged him and pops up everywhere he goes; Shen Wei counters by saying that in this case Zhao Yunlan who followed him. Zhao Yunlan can just laugh awkwardly. It’s kind of adorable how the two men just basically admit that they’re stalking each other, and are both kind of okay with that. Shen Wei then introduces the other man to his students as his good friend.

Zhao Yunlan, having already figured out that he is not likely to get any answers from Shem Wei, goes on a charm offensive with his students. I think this is the first time Shen Wei sees Zhao Yunlan using his jovial manipulation on others, and he is not particularly happy about what he is witnessing. Below are the series of facial expressions he wears every time it happens throughout the episode.

The way I read it, this could equally be jealousy, or the daunting - and incorrect - realisation that Zhao Yunlan is being like this with everything that moves. He could be even beating himself up for falling for this man’s charm now that he sees that Zhao Yunlan using the same wide smile as a tool to placate, gain trust and access information. In his mind, this is a further confirmation that he is not in any way special in Zhao Yunlan’s eyes. Again, Shen Wei’s supposition cannot be further from the truth. But you could imagine how he may have come to make to this conclusion.

In this particular case, Zhao Yunlan uses his charm to get some information out of Jiajia, and ends up hearing the direction of their expedition.

Shen Wei nervously adjusts glasses in the shot which is not even his close-up. It’s lovely, seeing how good of an actor Zhu Yilong is. Good actors don’t need to be directed to to most of the little things their characters would do, and don’t have to be told what their character quirks are.

Shen Wei very politely shuts Jiajia up when she starts talking about the earthquake, asking her to get out of the sun, despite this not being a hot day.

“Chief Zhao, you are really good at making people talk.”

As he is making this observation, he is offering Zhao Yunlan his water, because the man mentioned that he may be thirsty, and hydration is important. Should I once again be obsessing over how their fingers are touching here? Perhaps not. I am, once more, doing it anyway.

During the conversation that ensues here, Shen Wei reminds Zhao Yunlan that he was asked not to leave the city, and makes one more attempt at forcing them to part ways after the car fixing is done. Chief Zhao is having none of it. He reminds Shen Wei that no promises were given, and suggests they work together and protect each other instead. It’s interesting how their end goal is similar: they want to keep each other out of harm’s way. But for Zhao Yunlan, who works with a team, this implies sticking together. For Shen Wei, who has been alone for what could have been centuries (we are never given a timeline for when his magical coma ended), this implies being as far away from each other as possible. Many things about their relationship will change - but this one will never do.

Zhao Yunlan proceeds to charm his way into driving Shen Wei’s car. He is after all very good with people, and he’s not afraid to use this skill to keep himself near the Professor.

Next, we have intercut scenes depicting conversations in two separate cars.

Lin Jing is driving Zhu Hong, Guo Changcheng and Wang Zheng in the jeep. There, Guo Changcheng tries his darnedest to offer exceedingly moody Wang Zheng apologies and consolation, but his weak attempts to very little to lighten the young woman’s dark disposition. In the meanwhile, Zhu Hong is seething with resentment and jealousy. She notes discontentedly that Zhao Yunlan once again chose to go and spend time with Shen Wei, hypothesises on why Shen Wei is unmarried, and then goes into a long-winded rant about Zhao Yunlan being an uncaring person. Lin Jing reluctantly participates in this conversation, but he does not look very much like he cares for it.

I have mentioned in my previous recap that those around Zhao Yunlan comment on his crassness, and now I am wondering how much this creates a vicious circle for the man in question. He may have heard - from his father, from his previous romantic partners, from his colleagues - that he is a failure, a boorish, unloving and superficial man who only does things to chase clout and carnal pleasures. It is difficult to not internalise that, and Zhao Yunlan may have just grown to see this as an unshakeable truth about himself.

As for Zhu Hong’s part in this, it is easy to call someone not responding to your advances an uncaring jerk. It does not, however, necessarily make them one.

Curiously enough, the only person speaking up in defence of Zhao Yunlan here is Guo Changcheng. He notes that he considers Chief Zhao to be a nice person; despite only being with SID for a month, he is able to see good intensions behind the bristles. No doubt, this is another case of Xiao Guo being incredibly empathic.

In the other car, Zhao Yunlan is driving Shen Wei and his students. Here, we see the chief continue to crack jokes and use his bountiful charisma to find out more about their expedition. Presumably, this has been going for a while, and Shen Wei’s patience finally runs thin when Zhao Yunlan states that their research must be very important. “Thank you for the compliment”, states Shen Wei flatly, according to subtitles.

According to my dictionary however, what he actually says is, roughly, “Chef Zhao overpraised [us]” (“赵处长过奖了”), which even with my very basic comprehension of Mandarin, I can see as overly formal and clearly dismissive.

Zhao Yunlan seems to be taken aback, and a few seconds pass before he composes his features into one of the chuckles he uses as a mask: it is loud and wide, but does not quite reach his eyes, sliding off his face almost instantly. In the passenger seat, Shen Wei is slowly and deliberately readjusting his own mask.

We cut to Zhu Jiu trying to secure assistance of a whole bunch of Youchu he drags out of the cave. It goes even worse than his other plans do, with the beasts grumbling and effectively refusing to do any work whatsoever.

Zhu Jiu’s ineffectiveness is actually pretty sweet on rewatch, and I am starting to kind of appreciate Wan Naichao in this role. It’s not that I find his performance particularly good, but between the costume, the wig and the script, he does not have an awful lot to work with, and he nonetheless appears to have so much fun hamming it up to his heart’s content. He is not intimidating by any stretch of imagination, but he is surprisingly, albeit ironically, watchable. And, honestly, I would rather watch an actor being hammy and enjoying it than visibly longing for death on set.

After passing a checkpoint through a combination of Zhao Yunlan’s connections and ever-present charm, the now joint SID/DCU expedition shuffles around in cars once again. Despite their destination being allegedly twenty kilometres (or about 12.5 miles) out of town, it takes them a whole day to reach it. Who knows, maybe the Seastar’s measuring units are different.

This time, it is Lin Jing driving, with Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan having relocated to the back. We see that Zhao Yunlan has got a cold again - which could theoretically be from being so close to the hallows. He sneezes, and Shen Wei microexpressively overreacts.

Then, Zhao Yunlan unceremoniously arranges a pillow on Shen Wei’s shoulder and settles in for a nap. Does he remember napping on Shen Wei’s shoulder a few nights prior to that? Because he might do, considering how comfortable he feels with this casual close contact.

After a momentary panic, and a comment about flu meds, Shen Wei not only lets Zhao Yunlan do it, but also rearranges his pillow several times to make it more comfortable for the other man. I have no hot takes on this apart from just... those two. I love those two. How are they so adorable.

The car enters CGI fog, and promptly get stuck. To make matters worse, Lin Jing says he does not have a phone signal and asks Shen Wei to check his phone. “He does not have a mobile phone”, deadpans Zhao Yunlan before Shen Wei even opens his mouth.

Finally, Zhao Yunlan’s head vacates Shen Wei’s shoulder, and the professor leaves the car to scout the area. Jiajia tries to follow, but Zhao Yunlan dissuades her and goes after Shen Wei himself, catching up just as the other man is starting to scry the surroundings with his powers.

Zhao Yunlan enters the scene quoting poetry to highlight the beauty of their current location.

Shen Wei instantly tries to send him back: partly to continue using his dark energy, and partly, perhaps, out of genuine worry. In response Zhao Yunlan notes that Shen Wei is the only one who can order him around. This is not all done in cheek: it’s actually kind of true. Even before finding out that Shen Wei is powerful and ancient, and imposing, Zhao Yunlan is readily listening to him, and following his lead.

As a precursor to returning to the car, Zhao Yunlan takes his jacket off and drapes it over Shen Wei’s shoulders, despite the other man’s loud protestations. Again, Yunlan has got a cold, and he is visibly filling the chill air later in the scene. He has no way of knowing that this jacket will become a catalyst for his suspicions about Shen Wei’s alter ego, so there can’t be any other reason for him forcing his jacket onto the other man apart from a desire to make sure he is warm and comfortable.

Shen Wei stares at Zhao Yunlan in absolute wonder.

It is easy to believe that the idea of someone wanting to look after him is foreign no Shen Wei: we know from the text of the show that before Kunlun no one has shown him any consideration, and seeing Shen Wei now, it is not difficult to imagine, heartbreaking as it is, that no one has done it since.

Jiajia’s scream cuts through the air, interrupting the scene. As the two men take off in the direction of the sound, Shen Wei grabs Zhao Yunlan by the elbow as they run out of the shot.

When they rejoin Jiajia and Lin Jing, she girl stammers a few words about ghostly presence that she witnessed, and Lin Jing confirms her words, sharing his knowledge about ghosts seen in this area. Zhao Yunlan reprimands him for speeding feudalistic and superstitious concepts. Just remember that their HR manager literally is a semi-corporeal dead woman. This line is such a blatant and somewhat tongue-in-cheek appeasal of the censorship, that it sounds delightfully silly.

The group finally reach the remote village they were heading to. As everyone files out of the cars, they notice a strange looking crow nearby - clearly Ya Qing is checking in on them. Lin Jing proceeds to tease Xiao Guo, saying the young man in unlucky. Chu Shuzhi is looking disapprovingly at this comment, but it’s actually Zhu Hong who shuts it down. She does use this excuse to make an impolite jab at Shen Wei, noting that the misfortunes are someone else’s fault, while looking at her romantic rival from the corner of her eye.

Shen Wei graces the screen with another one of his “why does the snake woman hate me?” faces. 

It’s quite amusing that as the group starts walking towards the guesthouse, Zhao Yunlan sends his people off while he himself deliberately lingers in place, so he can walk with Shen Wei, sneaking a hand across the professor’s back. 

Just as the company enters the premises of the guesthouse, they find a human skull. Of course they do. But the reason I am including this here is to point out that Shen Wei’s reaction is to cover Jiajia’s eyes. Zhu Yilong does not do it in all of the takes used in the scene, which indicates to me that this is an in the moment acting choice.��

Shen Wei then leads his students away to give the SID a chance to investigate. While Lin Jing and Zhao Yunlan do just that, Wang Zheng sinks to her knees and starts praying to comfort spirits of her ancestors. Hilariously, this goes unnoticed for a while.

After completing some preliminary checks on the skull, Zhao Yunlan suggests they park the investigation for the night, citing that he does not want students and their teacher to get ill as the reason for doing so. Da Qing notes that this is more considerations than he shows his subordinates. I don’t think he means it, but it’s a lovely little jab at Zhao Yunlan’s unmistakable crush.

Inside the house, everyone settles in to hear Wang Zheng’s tale of the Hanga tribe. What follows is an massive exposition dump. She sets up as “some things she heard from rumours”, but considering how forlorn she is throughout this tale - and that she was praying earlier - it is pretty obvious that she is of the Hanga tribe herself.

Again, I love the blocking here. Zhu Hong is keeping her shoulder in front of Wang Zheng, protecting her from the strangers (and Shen Wei) that they are sharing the table with. Zhao Yunlan and Da Qing are watching from afar, and Chu Shizhu is perching above them on the stairs. The composition is easy on the eye, and implies that the SID men are ready to protect those at the table from all directions.

Soon, they are interrupted by a villager pretending to be a ghost, and a reluctant village head explains that the outsides may not be welcomed because there has been a murder here in the recent days. Zhao Yunlan and Zhu Hong leave to investigate the crime scene. As they do so, Zhao Yunlan catches the woman gazing upon him in adoration, and freezes uncomfortably, for a second before laughing it off.

He should really force himself to have an uncomfortable conversation with her, but he won’t do it until pushed.

In the meanwhile, Zhu Jiu is having more luck riling the actual ghosts up than he did with the Youchu. After some hesitation - and some baseless threats from our unfortunate villain - the Hanga tribesmen launch an attack against the guesthouse.

Just to note: their masks don’t look anything like the masks Wang Zheng drew. Considering that the guesthouse parts of the episode was likely to have been shot together, I don’t see any explanation for this as it pertains to production.

Chu Shuzhi and Xiao Guo leap into action to fight the ghosts - and the young man actually successfully fends one of them off. They are soon joined by Lin Jing, who leaves Shen Wei in charge of looking after the students and Wang Zheng inside the house. The ghost woman energy being asks to be let outside because she guesses correctly that the ghostly warriors are here for her, but Shen Wei refuses to let her go. The reason he states for denying her is that “Zhao Yunlan would never agree to it.” He knows that the other man would never put his crew in danger - and adopts the same attitude.

Shortly after, Zhu Hong and Zhao Yunlan arrive on the scene.

Here we see for the first time Zhao Yunlan’s painful flashback to his mother’s death, followed by him freezing with the gun in his hand. Zhu Hong does save the way by snatching the weapon away from him and firing it, but she also goes on full offensive afterwards, berating the man. Hers is not a kind response at all, and this type of a reaction is likely to be the reason Zhao Yunlan has not felt comfortable talking about his tragic past, perhaps even seeing it as something to be ashamed of.

After the ghosts disappear, Zhao Yunlan stays outside with his team, and uses the Dial in attempt to locate the other ancient item which he knows is somewhere close.

Shen Wei, on the other hand, tells Wang Zheng about the totem hidden in a cave, and asks her for any information on the matter.

His interrogation does not get him anywhere, but he does get suspicious enough to refrain him from drinking the drugged water she offers everyone present in the very next scene.

It is clear from this shot that after toasting with warm water, everyone goes to down their cups - apart from Wang Zheng and Shen Wei, who lock eyes over their cups for the second.

Having escaped her protectors in the night, Wang Zheng heard towards the cave in which Sang Zan’s spirit is kept, Zhu Jiu hot on her heals, and we witness the first of many flashbacks to her life and death.

Next up, Episode 10: Death By a Thousand Flashbacks.

—

Notes.

The next post here will actually be some thoughts on the Lost Tomb Reboot which I have spent this Easter Weekend binging. And if this post is more Zhu Yilong-centric than usual, this would also be why.

[atths--twice]

Prompt 5 from the list pretty please!! We know Scully is just as obsessed with Mulder’s hair as we all are😍 would love to see how you’d write it!x

Well Anon, it took me a bit longer than I had hoped as this is just too fluffy to not write, but I hope you enjoy this story. I tweaked it just a bit, but I think it’s better this way. 😉

Kaleidoscope 

Scully, although she may be hesitant to admit it, has a quite a predilection for Mulder's hair.

Missy was the one who taught her how to check out and assess a man’s ass, long before she actually knew what she truly was looking at or why. Intrigued and feeling grown up as they used the word ass, a swear they had been forbidden to say, Scully simply nodded in agreement at Missy’s explanation.

“See, Dana. Look how his ass fits so perfect in those jeans. That’s a nice ass. Unlike that guy over there…” Missy said in her all knowing tone, as she pointed and Scully looked to her left.

“Principal Monroe?!” she asked in horror and Missy burst out laughing. “Melissa Scully! I cannot believe you made me even look at that general area!” Missy laughed again as Scully shivered, and Principal Monroe turned their way and smiled. Scully pulled at Missy’s arm, leading her away as she snorted and giggled, Scully’s face aflame with embarrassment.

From that moment on, however, Scully’s eyes would flick down to a man’s ass as he walked away, grinning on the inside even as she shook her head, remembering Missy’s prank on her. Not to say that a cute ass was the only thing she noticed or cared about, but it did not hurt if a guy had one. Relationships big and small, she had regarded men based on their character, personality, and… yes, the cuteness of their ass.

In Oregon, on the first case with Mulder, she would have to admit to being a liar if she said she had not checked him out. He was brilliant and driven, yes, but he was also cute, just as she had later told Ellen.

What she did not tell Ellen however, was how she had noticed his ass, even as she knew she should not be doing so. He was her partner, her new partner, and she knew she should not be staring at him in that way. But then, she could imagine the look Missy would have given her as she stared at his ass, nodding with approval as he walked past, while Scully made eyes at her to stop and Missy laughed quietly.  

All of her life, she had believed she held the cuteness of someone’s ass on a rather high scale. That was her belief, until the very first time she ran her fingers through Mulder’s hair.

Sick on a flight home, very early in their partnership, she had touched his forehead, sure he had a fever. He had been complaining of aches and his usual exuberance had diminished.

As she had moved her hand, trying to get a better idea if it was truly a fever, he had moaned and she had been unable to stop herself. Running her fingers into his hair, his eyes had closed as he leaned into her touch, and it felt as though a kaleidoscope of butterflies had suddenly been released in her stomach.

Pulling her hand away quickly, her heart racing as her fingertips remembered the softness of his hair and the warmth of his skin, he had opened his eyes.

“Is it a fever?” he had asked tiredly, his eyes closing again.

“No. Not a fever. I think you’re coming down with something though. Try and get some sleep. That will help.” She had swallowed, hoping her cheeks had not looked as flushed as they felt. He had nodded, leaning his head back with a sigh and another moan.

He was asleep within minutes and she stared at him as his mouth dropped open. Her fingers had itched to touch him, but she kept her hands to herself, as hard as it truly was. Watching him sleep, she had licked her lips and let out a sigh.

Don’t you dare, Dana, she had thought to herself. Not again. Not like Jack. Or…

But then Mulder had groaned, different than the other moans, and shifted in his sleep. Her hand seemed to have a mind of its own and she had raised it to his head and ran her fingers through his hair, not caring that she should not be doing it.

His hair was so soft and fluffy. She had smiled as she scratched softly at his scalp and he moaned quietly, leaning toward her, his head against the seat. He was a bit warm, but then so was she, the plane feeling overheated.

Or maybe it was the man beside her, whose hair seemed to pull at her like a magnet.

“Would you like something to drink?” A flight attendant had asked and Scully pulled her hand away from Mulder’s head, her cheeks once again burning.

“Uh… no. I’m okay,” she had said hurriedly, placing her hands in her lap, and the flight attendant walked away with a smile.

“Scully,” Mulder had sighed in his sleep with a soft moan, and she had smiled as she looked at him, resisting the urge to touch him again.

She had closed the window shade and closed her eyes, hoping both of them could get some much needed sleep.

_____________

After that first contact, she had used her medical degree as an excuse to touch him more than another partner may have. But… god knows he had landed himself into enough scrapes to justify her fingers on his flesh and especially in his hair, checking for an injury; real or imagined.

Even in those moments when the warmth of his skin was under her fingers, and was then later something she thought of alone at night, it did not compare to how they felt running through his hair.

She loved his hair.

The scent, the softness, styled or especially sticking up in the mornings as he yawned over coffee in some motel room, in some tiny town, in the middle of nowhere, as they reviewed their case. Those mornings, it was hard to resist reaching over and trailing her fingers through his bed head. The desire to smooth down his wayward hair as his eyes raised to hers, stirring the always present butterflies inside of her.

God…

Over the years, the touch became less professional and more personal. She felt it and she knew he did too. His eyes held hers when she would touch his face, her fingers inevitably pushing into his hair, lingering too long, but knowing it was safe and did not exactly cross the line they had created between them.

And then… one night, that simple touch was no longer enough.

Sitting on Mulder’s leather couch, a bit sleepy from the tea they had drunk and the stress associated with the shock of seeing the man she had thought she would spend the rest of her life with, she had leaned toward him as he sat on his coffee table in front of her.

“Mulder,” she had whispered, reaching up to stroke his face with both hands, her thumbs running softly across his lips. He had inhaled and then exhaled her name, almost like a warning.

Or a question.

And she had answered it.

The Navajo blanket bunched between them as she had kissed him, pressing her lips softly to his, her fingers becoming lost in his hair. His arms went around her waist and he had pulled her to him and into his lap, their lips never breaking contact.

She thought she had loved his hair before, but nothing compared to the feel of it between her fingers as his kiss intoxicated her, his touch aroused, and his body brought her to the height of pleasure.

More than once.

The butterflies did not rest that night, but flew around wildly inside of her until she had felt as though she herself could take flight, her body lighter than air.

____________________

The rain fell lazily against the motel room window, as though still unsure it wanted to be falling at all. Thunder rumbled, but it was sporadic and far off; no doubt the storm would blow away before it even truly began.

Cool air filled the small room, the rattle of the air conditioner a comforting and most welcome sound. The dark gray of the late afternoon was deceiving, for although it was gloomy and appeared cool, it had been hot and extremely muggy.

The preset agreed upon temperature was reached, and the rattling of the air conditioner stopped, allowing the weak sound of the rain to become a bit louder.

Scully smiled with a sigh as she slid her legs against the familiar scratchy motel sheets, some things never changing. How many beds had they slept in with cheap sheets, the scent of bleach and detergent surrounding them?

Mulder was asleep, his head at her naked breast, his chest rising and falling against her as he breathed in steadily. She ran her fingers lightly up his back, not wanting to wake him, but needing to touch him, despite the closeness of their bodies.

Her fingers moved up into his hair which had grown longer in the past few months. They kept to themselves as much as possible, and haircuts were luxuries they avoided, opting to do it themselves if need be.

She had given him only one, where he had given her a couple. He had not complained about the cut, although she knew he should have, as it was not her best work, and yet he had not asked her for another. It was now longer than she had ever seen in all of the years she had known him and she actually really liked it longer. It made him seem different, almost younger and happier, despite the worrisome life they were currently living.

Taking a deep breath, her nose at the crown of his head, she breathed in his scent, the one that lay beneath the smell of the citrusy motel shampoo they had used in their shared shower a couple of hours ago.

Closing her eyes, she sighed and rubbed his head, pulling lightly at his hair, the strands slipping like silk through her fingers. Smiling again, she exhaled and he stirred, moaning as he pulled her closer and breathed her name. Opening her eyes, she ran her fingers through his hair, and down his back.

“Hmm… what time is it?” he groaned, his breath warm on her flesh, goosebumps rising and her nipples hardening. He kissed the top of her breast and she moaned, her nails pressing into his skin.

“Does it really matter?” she whispered and he chuckled.

“I suppose not. But we should probably think about getting some food at some point.” He breathed softly and he kissed her breast again.

“I’m not hungry,” she said, her fingers back in his hair, as the rain began to fall slightly harder. “Besides, it’s raining out.”

“While you do taste sweet, Scully, I’m pretty sure you’re not made out of sugar. A little rain won’t cause you to melt. It never has before.”

“Hmm,” she hummed, letting him know she was not so sure about his statement and he chuckled again. Smiling, she played with his hair as the air conditioner rattled back on, cool air once more filling the room.

“Then a pizza it is I suppose,” he said over the hum of the motor. “But, you’ll need to put some clothes on before he gets here.”

“Nonsense. It might just get us a discount.”

“A discount?” he asked incredulously, raising up to look at her. She smiled as he scoffed, looking down at her breasts, and shaking his head. “We’d get the pizza for free. Forget some measly discount.” She laughed and he shook his head again. “A discount, Scully… come on.”

She ran her fingers through his hair, holding onto the ends of it as she stared into his eyes. “Have I mentioned how much I like your hair longer?”

“Hmm… not vocally, but I’ve noticed the extra touches and the way you run your fingers through it more. Why do you think I don’t want you to cut it?”

“Because I did such a horrible job last time?”

“Not at all. You did a great job.” She rolled her eyes and he smiled. “I’m serious. I liked it. Would have liked it even if I had ended up bald.” He shrugged and she shook her head.

“I would never go that far, but…” She smiled and sighed happily. “I really like it like this.” As she pushed his hair back, he closed his eyes and sighed contentedly. “We could order that pizza in a little while, right?” He opened his eyes and raised his eyebrows at her, a smile playing at his lips.

“Why? Did you have something you were thinking of doing in the meantime?”

She smiled, running her fingers through his hair, one eyebrow lifting up as his smile slowly grew wider.

“Oh.. I had something in mind all right. Something that requires nudity,” she said.

“Can’t possibly require more nudity than I can see right now.” He laughed quietly as she placed a hand on the back of his neck.

“Well...” she said with a smile, stroking his face gently. “I suggest you take full advantage of said nudity before I’m forced to cover up in order to pay for our dinner.”

He grinned with a nod as he moved over her and her arms looped around his neck, her fingers threading into his hair. His lips pressed gently to her own, the rain continuing to fall lazily, as the quiet but constant kaleidoscope of butterflies began to flutter to life.

[penninstitute]

Case #0200915

Statement of Chance V. Césaire, regarding his identity. Original statement given September 15th, 2020.

I don’t know who I am.

Well, that is a partial lie- my name is Chance. Chance V. Césaire, that is the one I go by now. It sounds nice, it rolls off the tongue smoothly and nicely. But I used to go by others- William Mercier was the first one I took up, and he was nice. Charming, even. Then he had to go away, I had to change to evade a chase, and then I became Édouard Lioncourt. He was kinder than William, even if the deeds he did were just as bad. Then there was… Francois Boucher. He was far angrier. 

Francois did something that I, Chance, still cannot shake. And it’s been… mm, maybe a year at this point in time. I did not intend for him to become the focus of this statement, but, I suppose I cannot do much about it now. I’m sure you’re curious, yes? Far more interesting than my current identity crisis, hah.

I would like to make it clear that I steal things for a living. I hate to just confess to it, right here, right now, but it makes sense when it comes to my story. I would hope you don’t turn me in- then I’d have to shed yet another life, and I really do not wish to do so. I don’t consider myself evil, even though the authorities may find disagreement in that statement.

When I first became what I am- a thief, I mean, I swore never to steal a life. Those are not mine to take, I only take things from those who do not deserve their material possessions, but not something abstract like a soul. I- Chance is not a murderer. William was not a murderer, Édouard was not a murderer and Ars-

… Francois was different. 

Francois came about when I nearly died. And Édouard actually did, shot in the shoulder. Bled quite a bit. The scar still aches, to this day, especially when it gets cold outside. But ah, I was mad when Édouard died and Francois came around. I think anyone would be mad if they got shot, don’t you think so? I suppose that fury became an influence on the persona, the act I put on for these- characters, I guess? I do not know what else to call them, because I was never them but they were always me. They were always me but those names never sat too right.

Whenever I take up a new name, though, no one recognizes me, despite the fact this handsome face never changes. Maybe I get a new suit or haircut, just to be sure, but each new name is a new person, every single time. It doesn’t help when you have to rebuild connections in a business such as mine, every time. 

My excuse is that whoever the new one is, is a successor to the previous one- in a, well, have you seen the show, “Doctor Who”? Similar to that, how each new Doctor is, uh, a new person but generally the same person at the same time, just successors. I think Interpol believes that there’s some interconnected “thief ring” or something, when it is all just me. But that is, besides the point. I’m getting distracted, aren’t I? Je suis désolé… I should just get on with it.

Someone recognized Francois.

When I was at that party- one for the rich, at a mansion owned by some billionaire- and I heard a voice from behind call out, “...William? William Mercier?” my blood ran colder than it ever had before. I think I stopped breathing for a second.

I turned around and there was a man- a man I knew, one that I... but I wasn’t expecting the look of recognition in his own eyes. I hoped he would say that he thought I was someone else and move on, like everyone else, but he didn’t. Those ocean blue eyes widened as they met my own gaze and I felt like Édouard again- dying.

He ran to me, catching the attention of a few other partygoers as he did, nearly knocking me over from the embrace he pulled me into. He whispered that he missed me. That I scared him, and that I should never, ever disappear again. Of course, many eyes were on us by now, and I laughed. I said that was a preposterous idea.

“Why don’t we take this somewhere else?” I added in a forceful whisper, waving at the other patrons that there’s nothing to see here. He nodded, brushing a strand of brown hair out of his face. His… perfect face. I forgot how handsome he was, until then. 

Dread crept its way into my stomach and up my spine and throughout my body as we walked, my hand clasped around his wrist. He continued to bombard me with questions, and I couldn’t answer. Not at the moment, anyway. I found an empty bedroom in the mansion, and closed the door behind us. 

 “William-” his voice cracked. “W- where have you been? It- it’s been three years, you- you disappeared, I don’t- I couldn’t find you- you promised me you’d never leave.”

“I know- I know, I’m- I’m sorry, Eagan-” is what I managed before being pulled into another hug. It felt… wrong, this time around. It felt weird in front of all those people, sure, but even stranger in private. Something within me- within, Francois began to bubble.

“I forgive you,” Eagan had sobbed into my shoulder, ruining a perfectly good suit, but I didn’t care about that. Not at that minute anyway, I cared about the fact that this had never happened before. I was terrified.

He pulled away and I looked into his eyes, and he looked into mine- and I suppose he didn’t see excitement as he’d hoped. Eagan brought a hand to the side of my face, cupping my cheek, but I leaned away from his touch. Confusion crossed his features. 

“Wh… what’s wrong?” He asked.

“You shouldn’t recognize me.”

“William, what do you mean- of course I recognize you! I lo-”

“My name isn’t William,” I snapped back, my tone much harder than intended.  “And you shouldn’t recognize me. I’m not who you once knew, Eagan, that man is dead. You sh- shouldn’t know me, not anymore.” I found my hands gripping his shoulders with a tightness I don’t think I’d ever have the strength for. 

“Is… Is something going on? Y-you’re scaring me,” a shaky statement escapes his lips. “You vanished, William, I was so scared, I thought you died o-or worse, where have you been?”

A moment of silence passed between the two of us as panic continued to rise in me, making the air feel so much heavier. It felt like a pressure, and it was telling me- telling Francois to do something about this. My whole career revolves around my ability of hiding in plain sight, and if someone was able to spot me, then- then my life is on the line, fear clawed at my chest and then-

Then, I-  

Then, Francois-

...

Hah, did not think this part would be as difficult as it is to, talk about.

My- his- my hands clasped around the soft flesh of Eagan’s throat, and I squeezed, thumbs pressing into his windpipe. He struggled, for a minute, before going limp in my grip. I did not know there was that much strength inside my flimsy arms, but out of the sheer terror I felt, I just- I don’t know, I don’t know. I felt the life drain from him beneath my hands, the heat drained from his form, and I saw the light leave his eyes. 

I sat there for what seemed like… ages. Just, calming down from the rage that filled me, waiting, desperately for Eagan to wake up. I couldn’t have killed him, could I? Why? Because I got upset that someone knew who I am? I’ve gone so long without people remembering me, thinking whoever I was just died or vanished, never to be seen again, and it scared me. That someone I cared for just as equally did the impossible and then.

I just killed them.

Francois ceased that night, when I left that room, when I abandoned that corpse I so foolishly stole the spark from to feed my own fire. 

I, er…

I don’t know who I am anymore. I claimed to be a good man, once. I did everything I do in the name of my own definition of good, I stole from the rich and gave to the poor. I used to be Ar- I. Used to be Ars..

I don’t even remember his name, hah. I’m sure it’ll come back, fleeting as always. All I know is I used to be four other people and then they all died and got replaced by this current persona. Chance. Chance V. Césaire, that’s who I am, for now. Chance is me but I’m not Chance. I don’t think I have a name anymore. I don’t think I deserve one. 

I don’t think I’m human either, not anymore. After… everything. I don’t know what I am, just this thing that wears names like clothes, this thing that tricks and deceives and ruins the lives of anyone that dares to get close to it. It owns this face but it doesn’t belong to it, not really. It’s like a mask, a mask I never put on and it burns. 

I want to take it off.

FOLLOW-UP NOTES

This isn’t the first we’ve seen of individuals or creatures changing identities to a supernatural degree, and I’m sure it won’t be the last time we see it, either. This one is... interesting, I guess? It’s not like Natasha, where the creature literally... changes its appearance and identity.

From what I can see here, the appearance never actually changed. It was just the name--I had Felix do a bit more research, and all of the names listed were, in fact, real people, but finding any real trace of them is difficult.

If Mr. Césaire is still around, I imagine it’ll be very difficult to find him for a follow-up interview.

[hazelnmae]

Lies Travel Faster: Chapter Six

Summary: Sophia Murphy’s life seems to be on the upswing when she takes a job with Birmingham’s notorious Shelby Company Ltd. But when she falls for her boss, CEO and ruthless gangster, Tommy Shelby, she finds herself wrapped up in a tangled web of danger and deceit. After all, lies travel faster than the truth.

Tags: Tommy Shelby x Original Female Character; Tommy/Assistant Trope (it’s a hill I’ll die on)

Warnings: angst; smut (in future chapters); violence; language; rape/non-con; death

CHAPTER 6 (read Chapter 5 or start at the beginning with Chapter 1)

Tommy entered the Watery Lane house to find it quiet and assumed everyone to be in bed. He removed his heavy coat and sat at the table in the parlor, pouring himself another glass of whiskey--the effects of his previous ones well worn off by now.

The sickness in the pit of his stomach, the way his heart felt heavy in his chest, his mind racing with too many thoughts he couldn’t control, the sweat on his palms--all of it he’d felt before, but it’d been so long he’d almost forgotten what it was.

Fear.

He ran a hand over his face. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“She’s alright,” Polly said, entering the parlor.

She sat across from him at the round table and lit herself a cigarette. Following suit, Tommy removed one from the case in his jacket pocket but he neglected to light it immediately. He sat expressionless, holding a box of matches with one hand and tapping his fingers on the table with the other until Polly  broke the silence.

“She’s strong, that one.”

“I know,” he replied, still not lighting the cigarette. Polly noticed that he hadn’t and held a lit match out in front of him.

That wasn’t the problem. He knew Sophie was strong. He’d spent enough time with her to know what she’d been through.  She was a bit cracked and Tommy didn’t want to see her fully break.

No, that wasn’t the problem. But he wasn’t quite sure what was.

Polly took one last drag of her cigarette before moving to head upstairs.

“I put her in your old room. She’s probably sound asleep by now,” she said. “You should get some rest, too. Go home. We can sort it all out in the morning”

Polly placed a hand on his shoulder before she left the room.

___________________

“Thomas! It’s nearly two o’clock in the morning, to what do I owe this right fuckin’ pleasure, mate?!” Alfie asked, feigning surprise but more alert than Tommy had expected when he called.

“There's been a change in plan,” was all he said in response.

“And what might have prompted this?”

Tommy sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Was it that assistant of yours?” Alfie asked.

Half in shock and half annoyed that Alfie seemed to already know, Tommy said nothing. He’d already let his guard down too much and needed to be careful about his next move.

“You called me, mate. If you’ve got something to say, then, now’s the time to say it,” Alfie added.

“What have you heard?” Tommy finally asked. If Alfie knew something he wouldn’t offer it voluntarily. Tommy would need to pry it out of him.

“Oh, you know, just that she arrived the same day as that lovely card you received. Interesting coincidence, if you ask me. Not that you did. You really do hold it all right next to the vest, huh?”

Alfie was rambling now and Tommy took the opportunity to sort through this. Sophie had arrived the same day as the black hand. He knew that, of course, but didn’t want to think they may be connected. He’d considered it in those early days, but he’d put it out of his mind--letting his fascination with her cloud his better judgement.

But in the time he’d known her she’d given him no reason to mistrust her.

Why should I think these are related and not isolated coincidences?

But isolated coincidences didn’t exist in his world.

Alfie fell quiet now, recognizing that Tommy’s mind was spinning on the other end of the phone. Tommy didn’t have to say a word--Alfie knew him well enough to know he'd taken the bait.

“Well, meet tomorrow to discuss the details,” Tommy said, hanging up the phone before Alfie had the chance to respond.

___________________

She heard Tommy knock as she was fastening the last buttons on his old shirt. Having nothing else to wear, she had rummaged through his old dresser and found several of his old things. She picked out a light blue button up, thinking of how it must complement his eyes. She eased it on over her slip, immediately appreciating the warmth it gave her.  

“Come in,” she said.

Tommy slowly peeked his head in the door, wanting to ensure she was dressed before he entered.

Sophie sat on the side of the bed and rubbed her hands together. Unsure of how she should be feeling with Luca’s instructions replaying in her mind.

“I hope you don’t mind,” she held her arms out, nodding down toward the shirt. “It’s really all I could find.”

Tommy sat down beside her, trying to ignore how lovely she looked in his shirt.

“I think it'd be best if you come to Arrow House,” he said. “Just until all of this settles down. I know it’s not idea--.”

“That's fine,” Sophie interrupted. He'd clearly been expecting a fight, but she wasn't up for it.

She searched his face for any insight as to what he was thinking, but his piercing blue eyes just stared back at her--through her, almost. She’d found Tommy attractive since the day she met him, but she'd never stared at him as openly as she now did. She noted the stubble now evident on his chin, his sharp cheekbones casting shadows on his jawline, a small patch of grey peaking through the buzzed sides of his haircut. Earlier tonight she’d considered her feelings for him--trying to determine whether it was friendly admiration or something more. Now, she considered whether or not she could betray him.

He swallowed and she watched his Adam's apple bounce in his throat.

“Don’t forget who you work for.” Luca’s voice echoed in her mind.

“You can get some of your things tomorrow,” he added.

Seeming uneasy with her gaze, Tommy placed his hands on his knees and lifted himself off the bed. As he made his move toward the door, he looked back over his shoulder and quietly said, “Good night, Sophie. Try to get some sleep.”

____________________

As happy as she was to have Tommy sleeping right next door, she’d never felt so far away from him. In their brief interaction since returning to the house, she had felt him pushing away from her. Maybe whatever Ada thought to be happening between them never was. Or maybe he was suspicious of her.

Sid didn’t want to wonder about it anymore. She rose from the bed, wrapped the quilt around her shoulders, and padded quietly the short distance to the room where he slept.

Letting her knuckles barely tap the wood, she knocked as lightly as she could.

“Yeah,” he said from the other side of the door after clearing his throat--his voice almost meek.

Sophie turned the knob and let herself in.

Tommy sat on the edge of his bed, elbows propped on his knees, head resting in his hands. He’d only raised his eyes to look in her direction, but when he saw it was Sophie, he stood.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, the concern heavy in his voice.

Sophie’s words caught in her throat as she was suddenly aware of how inappropriate her visit must seem.

“Nothing,” she said. “Everything’s fine. That’s not why I’m here.” She managed a weak smile.

Tommy’s frame visibly relaxed a bit, but he remained guarded still unaware of what Sophie wanted.

“It’s just--” she stammered. “It’s just that, I’m not going to be able to sleep.” He stared at her, not breaking his intimidating gaze while extenguising his cigarette. But he said nothing.

“The room is cold and I--” she realized she was on the verge of crying and forced the tears back down.

Tommy interrupted, “I’d be happy to switch rooms with you.”

It was an earnest offer. He genuinely thought what she wanted, what she needed, was a different cold and lonely bed.

“Can I sleep with you?” she asked after a brief hesitation.

With an almost imperceptible flinch, Tommy swallowed. She’d taken him off guard, something she’d never seen before.

“I, um--” He rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair.

She just stared into the clear blue eyes, resolved not to waiver. He must have sensed her disappointment because Tommy turned his body and motioned toward the bed.

And with that, her heart raced so quickly, she almost dropped to the floor. Sophie removed the quilt from her shoulders and laid it across the foot of the bed. She caught him looking at her as she moved, but climbed into the bed anyway, taking the side closest to the wall. She thought she’d feel safer with the wall on one side and Tommy on the other. She lay on her side and pulled the covers up to her chest as she watched Tommy remove his button up, which she now realized had been stained with her blood. She admired his strong frame through the thin cotton of his undershirt, but he turned off the lamp and climbed in beside her before she could properly take him in.

Sophie smiled thinking he was so concerned with chastity that he refused to sleep comfortably in her presence. When her eyes had adjusted to the dark, she turned to admire him laying flat on his back with one hand behind his head. His eyes were wide open and fixed on something on the ceiling--their bright blue almost glowing in the dark. Her heart still beat hard in her chest, but she couldn’t deny how lying here beside him was instantly comforting.

“Sophie, I'm so sor--” he started, in a whisper.

“Don't,” Sophie said, before he could finish. “I don't want pity. Especially not from you.” The most painful part of this whole ordeal was the thought that he might see her as weak.

He seemed to understand.

“I just want to sleep,” she told him.

Sophie closed her eyes and they lay in silence for several minutes. She was surprised by his touch when he reached his solid arm around her back and pulled her toward him. Slowly, she buried her face in his neck. She breathed in the smell of him, leather and cigarettes, and smiled.

Tommy said nothing else and just held her as she fell into a deep sleep.

____________________

Tommy woke, as usual, before the sun had fully risen. The soft light, just making its way into the room, fell gracefully on Sophie’s face. At some point in the night they’d shifted and she now lay with her head on his chest, his arm wrapped beneath her. He could feel her breath, warm and sweet, on his skin, the gentle rise of her breathing, her breasts pressed softly into his ribs. Her leg had intertwined with his, wrapped around his knee and calf. She shifted and let out a soft moan as she moved her hand along his chest and down to his waist.

If things were different, he’d stay in bed with her all day--just to watch her breath, hear her delicate sighs as she dreamed, feel her warm skin pressed to his in ways he’d only dreamed of.

But he couldn’t stay.

Tommy cleared his throat softly.

She sat up and quickly pulled the covers to her chin, suddenly realizing how indecent the situation seemed. She was only wearing her thin slip, sometime in the night having removed his shirt when the bed grew too warm. Tommy too, had shed his shirt, both of them opting to remove clothing instead of giving up the warmth of their embrace. She’d been unabashedly curled around him.

“Jesus, Tommy, I’m sorry,” she said, covering her face with one hand hand holding the blankets to her chest with the other.

“That’s alright,” he responded as he swung his legs around her and placed his feet to the floor. He rose and began to gather his things and redress.

“You need your shirt,” she said, reaching for the shirt she’d gone to bed in. Sophie stepped toward him holding it out to help him dress. “You can’t wear that one,” she added, pointing to the shirt soiled with her blood. He turned and let her button it for him. She was right. The shirt only intensified the steel blue of his eyes.

When she finished, he tucked in the shirt and removed his vest, coat, and holster from the back of the chair. They didn’t speak as he finished dressing for the day and left for his meeting with Alfie.

As he walked down the hall, Tommy realized his shirt now smelled like her--that same sweet, floral scent that he still couldn’t place.

Tommy took a deep breath to savor it, hoping to keep a piece of her with him all day.

___________________

Chapter 7

Thanks for following along! I appreciate all the love!

Feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated!!

[khdiscussions]

Sleeping Realms Theory Rebuttal

Somebody was kind enough to leave some SparkNotes, so let’s get started on discussing the Sleeping Realms theory since I still don’t really have the time to read it. Might as well.

Since this is based on SparkNotes, I might be missing several key pieces of evidence, feel free to discuss my agreements and disagreements, maybe prove me wrong, now that I have some idea I’m at least more open to discussion.

Edit: Read the Liveblog here now that I have read it.

The guardians died in the real timeline, which we all saw

No comment. Definitely happened in KH3. Nothing to say.

Xehanort succeeded using princesses (and thus Kairi) so Kairi survived and used her power to keep Sora together in the afterlife (which we saw) 

So far you got me on this. Didn’t know this needed clarifying but the Final World stuff was a bit ??? confusing.

Sora, from the afterlife, got everyone together and brought them not to life, but to The Sleeping Worlds, cause death and sleep touch. 

Okay so now you’ve lost me for a few reasons. While yes it is the case that sleep and death touch (Re: Chirithy) I don’t necessarily think that’s what happened. In order to be in the Realm of Sleep, a world must have fallen to Darkness, not just one, but every single world that Sora and co. visited after being revived. Since Xehanort would’ve needed to find and gather the seven new princesses and then challenged them (a task I’m sure Yen Sid would’ve made as difficult as possible by summoning and moving around the princesses) this could not be an immediate process, meaning that he would not have been able to send the worlds into the Realm of Sleep in the brief amount of time Sora spent in the Final World gathering himself up and rescuing the others from the Lich (Which would have had to have been brief because otherwise their souls would have fully passed on). 

Furthermore, the Keyblade Graveyard isn’t in the Realm of Darkness yet, I know it looks pretty dark but like...it can be accessed by the Gummi Ship. As Goofy said, the Gummi Ship is only required for access to the Realm of Darkness.

The final point of question is Aqua herself. Rescuing Aqua is a huge deal in the game itself and you do it in the Realm of Darkness. The Realm of Darkness cannot be accessed in the Realm of Sleep because the location cannot fall into the Realm of Sleep It doesn’t make sense for them to be able to go there to rescue Aqua if she’s in the Realm of Sleep. Which I guess wouldn’t be necessary if they only come back in the Keyblade Graveyard, but we’ll address that point later when the timing of the drop comes up.

Because Kairi is still in the real world, the Kairi we see is a dream version - it's why her hoodie has Chirithy ears.

First of all, I do not like this idea. It means we haven’t had a game that actually had Kairi in it in four games. And that’s offensive on so many levels because it means she literally doesn’t matter and no.

But even from a non shitty standpoint like that, there’s still evidence against this, in KH3, we see Kairi in her KH2 attire.

When she’s talking to Lea. Furthermore, we know her outfit was designed and given to her by the Fairies and Yen Sid. Yen Sid even tells Riku to bring the outfits they designed to Lea and Kairi in the cutscenes prior to this.

And we’ll talk about why the drop doesn’t happen in the Keyblade Graveyard later. Because yes, in technicality, the drop could have occurred in there, hell it’s hard to notice her cat ears in the outfit in the scene where her outfit is first revealed (at least in the trailer), but that’s not quite what claims the theory is making.

Riku "drops" early on, which is why his hair changes to his Dream Eater hairstyle. 

And here’s the first conflict of interest. I’ll compare the renders in a minute, but if we assume Riku drops before the scene he interacts with Sora (which he does, he has the haircut very early on) then that means he should already be in the Realm of Sleep when Kairi has not yet received her new outfit. In fact, we should never see KH2 Kairi design in the same timeframe as KH3 Riku if this were the case, but we do. Furthermore, the drop occurs in the Realm of Darkness, is again physically impossible based on how the Realm of Darkness and Realm of Sleep respectively work. Worlds in the Realm of Sleep are not in the Realm of Darkness, therefore those in the Realm of Sleep cannot visit the Realm of Darkness and can certainly not visit the Realm of Darkness. As for the renders:

The hairstyles are similar, but not identical. There are minor differences but they’re close enough I’d call it the point. However:

Riku’s hair in KH3D looks almost identical to his nonsleeping self’s version, showing it’s more likely it’s just the transference of the short hair onto the KH1 era RIku model.

Anyways model references aside, there’s one other huge flaw with Riku dropping at this moment and that’s how? We watch Riku die in what would likely be “Alpha Timeline” or an exact replica of Alpha Timeline, so if that’s the case, how do we have Riku dropping in the Realm of Sleep for the Beta timeline. It shouldn’t at all be possible, given that Riku is one of the people Sora rescued, or alternatively, the Alpha Timeline Riku never showed up in the Keyblade Graveyard, so who’s the seven lights. Given that they must be Keyblade Wielders, they’d only have six of seven (Sora, Kairi, Lea, Mickey, Aqua, and Ven) and so they wouldn’t have approached the Keyblade Graveyard in the first place.

We also see Riku in his KH3 hairstyle in the ending, which implies we’re still in the Realm of Sleep. So if that’s the case, does it even matter if we aren’t in the Alpha Timeline if the happy ending’s only in the Beta Timeline. Which for the record this would also imply that Xehanort is still out there in the Alpha Timeline (aka the real timeline) and make the claim that this is the end of the Xehanort Saga directly false. Which also means we’d never see the real Kairi ever again which again, is incredibly shitty way to treat the female member of the Destiny Trio. A lot of really bad implications for how the series would continue, even if it doesn’t bring up the problems in general with a “It took place in a  dream” theory. Don’t like.

Everything after Kingdom Hearts II.9 is when the drop occurs, and when real selves land in the dream world. 

This is my biggest (well one of my biggest) issue in the theory. The timing of the drop. If the theory were presenting the drop happened in the Keyblade Graveyard, I would one hundred percent agree with it. Because there’s a lot of weird elements, but we have several things to run against this in earlier evidence. Which on that note.

This scene here is when the game shows the KH3 logo, meaning KH2.9 is over and KH3 has officially begun. (Please ignore commentary finding resources is not easy for this.) This scene happens before we see Kairi in her KH2 outfit, meaning that scene takes place in Kingdom Hearts III, not Kingdom Hearts II.9. If it’s in Kingdom Hearts III, then that means the scene takes place after the drop, meaning we should only be seeing Kairi with Chirithy ears on her hoodie after the scene. But we see the KH2 design.

Furthermore, Sora and co. visit the Realm of Darkness several times, which should 200% be impossible if they’re travelling sleeping worlds, as it’s a world that cannot enter into the Realm of Sleep and be a sleeping world.

Finally, why is Xehanort sending his Org Members? It’s one thing in KH3D, that’s a part of the plan in 3D, but by this point in the theory, there’s no reason for it. Xehanort can just use his backup plan and win, what Sora and co. are doing in the sleeping worlds literally does not matter, but in the sleeping worlds, characters who are there as echoes of the world and not actually residents of them don’t talk, as seen with the odd Riku who never talks or does anything. Just silently fills the roll and leaves.

(In hindsight, it’s also possible this could be a time travelling Rikunort. This Riku’s purpose is still unclear) 

Regardless of the above note, the Organization XIII members are actually there, and there would be absolutely no reasoning for it if Xehanort had already won.

It's not so much "everything is a dream" as it is "KH3 is just KHUX." Because everyone forgot the destruction of the real world and is living in a copy 

This is my other big area of issue because it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of KHUx. KHUx does not take place in the Realm of Sleep, while there can be an argument for it, we have seen through the creation of the first Chirithy in KH Backcover (Which is not a dream) that Dreameaters do not only spawn in the Realm of Sleep. 

Meanwhile, there is much more evidence that KHUx takes place within the Datascape or something similar. “Darkness”, in his conversation with Maleficent, mentions that the worlds are made of data. Brain, in his traitor reveal, calls himself the “Virus that will rewrite destiny” which is an allegory more fitting towards data. Finally, in the most recent KHUx update, we see glitches in the system, manifesting in phantom Strelitzia (In the Brain traitor video), a staticy conversation between Ava and the MoM, and the appearance of Bug Blox, which are synonymous with errors and darkness in data.

But in order to be in a Datascape, somebody has to open up a path first. And even then, it destroys huge elements of this theory.

Young Xehanort knows, and that's why he's all, "You're doing it again" with Sora during the Lich fight

No, that’s not it. Young Xehanort is specifically referencing KH3D, when Sora’s willingness and desire to help his friends led him to drive his heart deeper and deeper into the darkness to the point of him nearly being norted.

With different final results, that’s exactly what Sora is doing now.

It wouldn't invalidate the events as much as recontextualize them - there's more behind the scenes, but just because we're seeing dream versions of events doesn't mean they didn't happen 

This shows a fundamental lack of understanding in how the Realm of Sleep works, but the long and the short is yes, it still does.

The Realm of Sleep holds records of events as they happened, yes that is true, but that only holds true to the worlds leading up to the Keyblade Graveyard.

In order for this theory to be true, while the events of the Alpha Timeline may have played out similarly to the events of the Beta Timeline, they would need to still be in the Realm of Sleep after Sora saved them from the Lich, otherwise the Beta Timeline literally does not matter since the events of the Keyblade Graveyard occurred in the Alpha Timeline too. So while some scenes are largely unaffected, any scene after the Lich rescue did not actually happen in reality because again, Xehanort would be an idiot to enter into the Realm of Sleep after Sora when he won since Sora does not matter to the grand scheme of his plan since the new seven Princesses work just as well. This means the Sea Salt Trio and Wayfinder Trio never reunited and makes not only the scenes we did get absolutely useless, it takes away the emotional weight of these scenes in the future because we’ve already seen them and feels like a waste of time. It would remove all investment in their future arcs (or leave them dead and that’s even worse tbqh) and if I’m not invested in these characters, why should I keep going when they make up a majority of the important cast? It would drive away fans (myself included) by the boatload and is a terrible idea.

It explains a lot of things like Kairi's murder not releasing a heart, why Kingdom Hearts is the wrong color, why Roxas can still wield two keyblades with only one hearts, etc.

Kairi’s murder not releasing a heart is not the first in the series to do that. Sora’s in KH1′s does not when he stabs himself to save Kairi, and neither does Eraqus’s death. If we are to believe she wasn’t actually killed, it would be a much more simple explanation to assume she was a replica than to assume she’s a Chirithy.

As for Kingdom Hearts, it’s not the wrong color. Of the games we see it in, KH1 (box art), KH2, Days, and KH3 all show Kingdom Hearts as orange/yellow. Only BBS shows it as blue as far as I am aware (I can’t remember if it shows up in KHX. I don’t think it does but?) so therefore you can’t really make that argument.

Roxas being in the Realm of Sleep would have absolutely no effect on Roxas’s ability to dual wield without two hearts in him.

So at the end of the day, the theory as a whole explains very little and what it does can be explained more simply, unless these portions are explained separately from the “It’s all a dream” concept it wants to sell.

So the conclusion in all this? The Sleeping Realms theory is a theory that seems to cherry pick evidence to reach a conclusion and while it proposes some ideas that others might find interesting, it throws out an idea without fully taking into account how some of the ideas thrown out might outright disprove later parts. It’s fairly contradictory to itself while ignoring the idea of Occam’s Razor and character motivations as well as how the two timelines interact properly. That being said, it could very well have had some truth if, instead of trying to apply to the whole game, it focused only on the last portion of the game (Keyblade Graveyard and beyond), though if it were to become canon I still think it would drive me from the series.

Why are people declaring this as what actually happened again?

[seenashwrite]

The Last Job

Word Count: 3.5K   Category: One-shot; Behind-the-scenes canon-compliant; Family; Life choices Rating: Teen & Up Character(s): References to familiar people/places Pairing(s): N/A Warnings: Mild coarse language Author’s Note(s):  *This is a re-post minus tags and links, in an effort to get it to show up in searches*; While this little vignette can be read as a stand-a-lone, highly recommend you check out “Hello, I’m Gone” (linked in Master Post) if you haven’t already, but if you *have* and found something to like about it, then I suspect you’ll find something to enjoy in this one, too. Overall Summary: A long-time client gives a contractor his final assignment.

The sky was different in Texas. He couldn’t speak to Arizona or Colorado or Nevada, or even Mexico, but he knew what he knew. It was something about the way the sun cut through, something about the tint of the blue.  

He traveled, albeit limited distances and for limited amounts of time. Texas was a big state, though not so big as to be gone long enough for his wife to fret. His work was no-nonsense and he was extra appreciated amongst his current clientele for his frugality, his efficiency.  

They’d initially claimed to have no care for messy versus clean, but he knew better. They’d rather keep unknown, to where few a souls on earth as possible would even suspect they existed. Everything worked better for them this way; seemed they had no desire to be summoned all over the globe.  

He could see that - he’d lived in the lone star state all his life, and had no pull to elsewhere. The constant position of the dials on public radios and televisions to the news channels that catered to the aptitudes of the lowest common denominator was vexing. He imagined the future would be the same way. Nothing ever seemed to change in Texas. Blessing or curse, depending on your perspective.

Less vexing, but still annoying, was how the vast number of gun-carrying, bravado-swinging, cowboy hat-and-boot wearers had no practical, economical, life reasons for doing so. Dropped into a middle-of-nowhere scenario, they’d perish quickly. But all that posturing comforted them, and the conclusion he’d arrived at many moons ago was that for him, this was fortunate, to be surrounded by so many who were content. Unaware. Placid. Stereotypical.

And in a similar vein, he’d already been informed his last job was exactly that - basic. In and out. He’d actually hoped for more, hoped for a challenge, hoped for perhaps the comfort of a one-last-hoorah scenario where maybe, just maybe, it’d get a little messy for once and he’d get taken out in the process.

He wasn’t having suicidal ideations; he was being pragmatic. Anonymous body in another town, filed in a line of cold cases, and his family would move on, eventually. They wouldn’t have to suffer through it, watching him fade away.

Weeks ago, on a chilly morning in a park near, but not too near, his home, the designated attaché had appeared seemingly from nowhere. This was, as they say, par for the course. He was used to it, the air of strangeness accompanying his best customer. Rather, customers - seemed to be an alignment of at least two parties, far as he could tell. 

He found it easier to just think of the one at hand as the client versus dwelling too long on how many of them were really behind the curtain. It was supposed to go that the same one would never come twice, though he was pretty sure it’d happened a couple times and they were just outfitted differently. Maybe their ranks were thinning.

It wasn’t often his sort of folk actually got contracted for jobs. Come to think, he’d never even heard of such a proposition, not in his entire life. Somebody would’ve ran their mouth about it, to be sure. He chewed on the thought that perhaps he was a bit of a pioneer in that respect, if such arrangements would keep on long after he was gone.

Rewards and acknowledgment in his line of work were few and far between, some of his ilk never seeing either at all in their lifetimes. And so in that respect, these employers of his were the best, foremost because they paid. But to be fair, he supposed it was more than that.

He was always given clear, precise locations and times, so on-the-nose he had no idea how they were doing it. And no paper trail, just how he liked it. Instruction came verbally, read from a small, rectangular device they all kept in their pockets that lit up at the touch of a finger.

He’d never gotten a good look at it, would simply commit to memory what they said. He’d never asked to look at it, and they’d never offered. Besides, it was too Star Trek. His eldest loved that old show, got his little brother into watching the reruns. He couldn’t hardly stand the thought of things like that, not for going on eight months now.  

The well-dressed man - sporting what his wife would’ve kindly described as an “interesting” haircut - had walked towards the bench, removing a pair of reflective-lens aviators, letting out a low whistle, eyeing him up and down.  

“Jesus. You’re eaten up with it.”

He’d shrugged, said that last part was true, but then informed his very last client there was no savior to be found here.

The client had laughed a little too hard. “Yeah, yeah, no God in the streets, no church in the wild, I got it.”

He’d assumed those statements referred to something but had no clue what, so he’d offered a tight-lipped trace of a smile in acknowledgment.  

A reply in the form of a sigh floated over as his visitor took a seat at the other end of the bench. “Always aaaall business with you,” the client commented, beginning to remove what he knew would be a fat envelope from the inside pocket of the pinstripe suit jacket. Then there was a pause - the arm extended in his direction, a finger raised. “You need a tune up first? ��I can -–”

He’d interrupted, refused.  

The client’s eyes had grown dark and icy. “I’m not offering for your comfort. I have bosses to report to. I need to know the job’s gonna get done and you’re not gonna get all shaky, or go blind, or collapse. Get it?”

He could always tell from which faction of his clientele the dispatcher hailed, these messengers sent like clockwork every other Wednesday of every month to meet with him for around fifteen years now. The one down the bench was amongst those who dressed to the nines, walked with swagger, were more conversational and witty. The others tended to dress in a random array of seemingly whatever they could manage, had stiff gaits, impersonal to the point of being flat and rude.

So the shot across the bow was a little unexpected. Either way, he hadn’t ever been intimidated by any of them. This continued to be the case, especially now.

Call someone else then, he’d replied calmly.  And he’d held up his dominant hand. Steady as a rock.

The client nodded, handed over the envelope. It didn’t take long to relate the details. And then he watched as the client stood, re-buttoned the pristinely tailored jacket, adjusted a skinny tie, returned the shiny sunglasses to what always seemed to be a smirking face.  

Fidgety bastard, he’d thought as he watched the preening. Then he’d spoken one last time before his client zipped away. He wanted to know why the one standing before him - or another of the unique members making up the collective - weren’t handling it themselves. It seemed a little too simple. Too easy.

“It just may be. But they’d see me coming. Any of my kind. Or our partners. You? They won’t even notice.”

He supposed so, and shrugged his reply, because it was true - no one ever had.

A sly grin, a curt nod. “That’s why we like you, Buck. Might even miss you.”  

Now that was off-putting. The use of his nickname. No one outside of his wife - and his dearly departeds - should’ve known. None of his work associates, past nor present, ever knew this nickname.

His real name was something of an eye-roller, “old-timey” as his wife might’ve said. He thought it was cringe-worthy, never felt right on him. All the first-born boys in the family, back as far as they knew, had carried it. He - and everyone else up the line, at least back to his triple-great-granddaddy - had all had taken on nicknames. His own eldest was just called “Junior”.

He had been known in the family as simply “Buck” since he was born, and his father had become “Big Buck” following that day. Even after the man’s death that’s what everybody still called him, and he’d heard the story more than once. How, even as a kid, there was no tradition, no “that’s how we’ve always done things”, that Big Buck didn’t like to question. 

Bucking the system - that was the both of them, boiled down to a nutshell. His father had liked carrying that mantle, and so did he. Shame it wouldn’t be on his tombstone. 

And while he was pondering, just like that, the client was gone. Not that he’d have expected the truth, should he have made the inquiry. Not that it mattered anymore.

He made sure to switch over to his other self during the short walk to the truck and the drive back out to the house. Jovial and kind, kidding and chuckling with the bag boy at the supermarket. He was supposed to bring home a few things to complete supper later.

Most hunters didn’t bother with a ruse, but most hunters didn’t have families to consider like his always had. Like the legacy of the name, his line had all kept families. Defying the system as it were, long before the big and little Bucks came on the scene, marrying within their own community of like-minded folks and keeping up the family business. 

Which is how every last one of them had been wiped out.

He wasn’t going to make the same mistake. Married a sweet gal he’d met at a sock-hop and never looked back. Kept her and the boys in the dark for their own good.

She’d made too much for just the two of them, as usual. He’d still eat every bite served. He’d tried for awhile to reduce his girth, but his face got skinny and he thought his baseball caps didn’t sit the same way. His knees had felt better, and he’d briefly missed that barely-owned muscle car. 

All that was of no import now. Besides, his wife had been tickled pink that he’d gone back to second helpings of her comfort food. He wondered if he’d be able to recall her smile and her hugs and her kisses once he was gone. 

Junior was at a girlfriend’s house for dinner that evening, first time meeting the parents and such. He’d loaned the kid his church tie, even, so he knew his son must’ve really liked this one. The “kid” was out of his teens, and more than anxious to be out of the nest, though his mother was fighting it tooth and nail. Their youngest wouldn’t be home for awhile yet still; basketball practice always seemed to run long these days.

He looked through the mail while sitting at the table and smelling the fried chicken cooking. He’d have to feign some good-natured annoyance at the bills. He briefly thought on her reaction, if she’d be angry at the sizable chunk of money she’d have after he was gone. 

It’d be when she went to put the safety deposit boxes in just her name, likely dig through them while she was there. He’d made it seem like they had to survive on paltry Social Security and his equally dismal railroad pension. And of course, the bit of money from what she thought were under-the-table long-hauls he’d occasionally take on for the extra cash.  

Amongst the usual items, there was the annual Christmas card they’d consistently received, from that little girl they’d sold the Impala to several years back. She’d moved on from Kansas to Montana, with her new husband. The first card they’d gotten was just after the move - barely mentioned it, though, since it was filled up with apologies for selling the car. Neither he nor his wife cared. She was safe, and she was happy, and they were happy for her.

She’d gotten up to three kids now, according to the picture inside, looked to be that she’d had them back-to-back-to-back. Two boys and a girl. It actually gave him a genuine smile, before it hit him again: he’d never have grandbabies. Figured he’d give a go at pretending she was his daughter and those pretty, chubby-cheeked cherubs were his never-to-bes, maybe coax a dream when he tried to sleep.

That creepy sumbitch she’d been married to had actually come out from Dallas, tracked her all the way to Lubbock somehow. He’d already looked into who the dirtbag was, on a job that had taken him to that area. Later on, after good old-fashioned laziness caused an end to the jerk’s pursuit, he’d found the louse in a dive bar, just as he’d been promised.

It was the only favor he’d ever asked of his clients, asked it of one of the more drab contacts. The snotty ones would’ve wanted to make a deal of some sort for the information. They had, before, when his wife had gotten in a bad way. It’d been almost a decade prior. All the docs had given her six months. But he’d already let one of the messengers know, two jobs back, that his own ticket would likely be punched before his bill came due. They’d shrugged.

That business with the rescued girl was the only time he’d made an exception, taking care of something personal, something on the side. Something purely human. Not exactly his usual lot.

He’d taken care of it after the job, of course. Somehow wouldn’t have seemed appropriate not to. It never made the news, he’d checked. That pathetic excuse for a man only’d had one person to bother with him for awhile now, and she was in another life, long gone.

Marrying his wife, being a father, and looking out for that girl often seemed like the only noble things he’d done. Didn’t matter that perhaps these new sort of hunts were saving innocents on the back end. To him it was killing, and it had always been killing. 

It gave him a measure of peace, selling her the car for cheap. He’d slept like a baby for the rest of that summer. Til the next job came around, of course.

His assigned targets weren’t yet bumps in the night. His client had proven their eerily predictive skills to him. They’d given him several folks to watch over the course of a month, all those years ago, when he’d first been approached.

Down to the minute, they’d been right about when bites would occur, when the vengeance of unfinished business would begin. Reminded him how he’d been out of the game too long and was too old and out of shape to take on beasts. To prevent the transformations themselves. 

But perhaps he could still prevent the suffering of countless others by beating monsters to the punch with one long-distance shot. They’d shown him with those first few examples that his marks would be the most vicious. These were the sort who would wreak the most havoc upon their unholy conversions. 

He’d witnessed it. The first year, his employers had insisted he simply surveil, and these freshman nightcrawlers had indeed left miles of misery in their wake. Other hunters could take care of what got them that way, it was explained; the risk of these particular folks getting turned, whether today or tomorrow, was just too big a gamble any way you sliced it. 

It had somehow made for a twisted sort of logic at the time.

This last job was to happen in five days. A married couple. He’d taken care of women before, didn’t violate what sliver of a moral code he still possessed. The emotionless fellow who’d brought that first one to him had actually shown a touch of surprise when he didn’t even blink.  

He woke his wife and the boys just after dawn, kissing them all goodbye. He’d just be popping up to Kansas, he reminded them, be back in a few days. They understood - he’d made sure to do some extra complaining about the mortgage over the days prior, so it’d seem like sense, his making an exception to the no-out-of-state hauls rule. He’d pull extra cash from the box on his way back home to make the story stick.

“Bye, Pops,” the boys had mumbled with yawns and stretches.

“Love you, Buck, you be good,” his wife had sleepily said.

The tall, pretty blonde was out on the front porch putting up Christmas lights, then moving on to hanging a sparse wreath on the door. It looked homemade. The tail of one of the strings of lights fell and he could see her sigh as she pulled the little step stool back over and climbed up again. She moved slowly and carefully, that huge belly clearly impacting her balance.

His commissioners had neglected to mention this particular detail.

He kept watching as a shiny black Impala not unlike his old one pulled up right at sunset. The woman and God and everybody for a square mile had to have known about the arrival, that deep growl of an engine heralding the approach. She met her husband on the porch, gave as big a hug as her belly would allow, and she received an equally loving embrace right back, unwashed greased-stained hands be damned. She didn’t seem to care when some of it smudged off onto her cream-colored sweater when her belly got a rub.

He followed the strapping, jet-haired husband the next morning, sitting far enough away to go unnoticed but still close enough to watch through the garage’s open doors, drinking coffee from his beat up thermos, the one that, a lifetime ago, only held distilled water and a crucifix.  His targets were not far short of children in his eyes, this half just a boy - a kid not unlike Junior, he thought. But a hard worker, no doubt; whipped through four cars and had started on the fifth by the time lunch rolled around. Smiled and chatted with the other mechanics all along the way.

Then the engine whisperer sat on a nearby curb, eating a sack lunch the wife must’ve packed. Good time to leave, check on what she was up to. Wanted to give her enough time to ease into her day. He recalled the slow starts that came with being so close to giving birth. And he knew from experience how close she was; the baby would arrive before February rolled around, he’d bet money.

She left the house after lunch, looked like a friend had come to pick her up. Her eyebrows knit and her nose crinkled as she passed by her handiwork from the evening prior. That same ornery tail of tiny sparkles had come loose again, apparently not agreeing with the nail he’d watched her hammer into the front of the porch’s overhang.

The roof didn’t look all that good. He was curious as to whether she or her husband realized their desperate need for new shingles. Paint was chipping all over the exterior. He’d have a look around inside later, once he was sure she was occupied, but he suspected he’d find more of the same - they were young, they had a baby to plan for, and they hardly had anything but each other.

He remembered those days clear as a bell. His mind hadn’t gone yet. Curse or blessing, depending on your perspective.

She and the friend had gone to a little consignment shop. They browsed, he browsed. Looked like she purchased some bedding for the crib he imagined was ready to go inside their house, given her husband’s work ethic. Then they stopped by a garage sale. She bought an angel figurine. He found it both sweet and futile, all at the same time. All dicks, far as he’d been able to tell.

But resolved, both the unfeathered and the shark-eyed bastards alike. They’d send others to the modest house on Robintree; could be they already had. Maybe they’d be successful next time they tried. For now, they could go to hell.

Which is what he said aloud while he was driving back home. Just passed through Oklahoma City when the same messenger who’d delivered the assignment popped into the truck’s cab without warning. Looked more than simply irritated - seemed pretty beat down. Perhaps their little jaunts to come see him wore them out more than they’d let on.

Seeing as how he hadn’t gotten his last hurrah, the warning he expected was issued. About a month left on the clock. The payment was returned - minus the chunk that now resided in the Impala’s glove box, wrapped in a brief note that implied they should just accept they had their own secret Santa. There was a roll of darkened eyes, followed by as abrupt an exit as the arrival.

He made sure he was out of state again, staying in a dingy motel in a bad part of the random city he’d selected. And he thought hard on the couple he’d chosen to spare as he laid quietly atop the stained bedspread, eyes closed and smiling. Even when he heard the dogs begin to howl.

Want more stories? My Master Post is linked in my profile, and it tells you about getting on the Tag List, too! If for whatever reason it gives you trouble, don’t hesitate to send an Ask and I’ll link you.

Re-blogs and feedback are fuel for a writer’s soul - please do let me know if you enjoyed. 😘

[amysgiantbees]

Avengers: Endgame Spoilers

Much like Avengers Infinity War, my feelings on this film can most succinctly be put that overall I found it average to infuriating but there were some truly wonderful parts in between that I’ll always enjoy. I’ll come to this later but here are some notes on my feelings on Avengers Endgame...

THE GOOD

Wanda and Captain Marvel (but I still needed more of them)

Wanda and Captain Marvel fighting Thanos

Steve wielding Mjölnir

Valkyrie on a pegasus

King Valkyrie

Carol’s haircut

Rhodney and Nebula bonding!

Nebula and Tony playing paper football!

Pepper fighting in an iron suit

Sam is Captain America! (He better be Cap in the films, not just this new show, I know the MCU has a history of keeping the TV shows and films separate but please not in this case!)

THE BAD

Bruce dabs. I just can’t.

Clint’s hair and tattoos

Thanos’ ecofascism being justified by the narrative in certain ways like with Cap’s look on the bright side about the environment line.

The time travel plotholes. I do not understand time travel at all in this, feel free to explain if you do. Also, Thanos not having knowledge of anyone due to time travel really took a lot of impact out of the climax for me. My biggest issue with the time travel logic in this though is how can Nebula kill her past self? 

The limited time given to emotional character arcs is a real issue for me. For a movie that goes on for so long, I felt like more attention would be given to this and less to action. Like having characters that had rivalries with members of Thano’s Children never confronting against them again.

Thor never mentions Loki. He never grieves him. He was meant to actually legitimately be dead in this one so it would have been nice if not only there was more emotion and time spent on the scene with his mother but if he said goodbye to Loki during it too. Or told Freya to check in on Loki for him, make sure to tell him he loves him form him. I know she is destined to die but if they’d come earlier in the day and let there be time to do all of this it would have been more emotionally satisfying I think at least.

I HATE fatsuits. The fat jokes and the jokes at the expense of Thor’s panic attacks and mental health are REVOLTING. It’s just sad and frustrating that they decided to throw out all of Thor’s character development from Ragnorok for a few cheap laughs. His fat suit doesn’t even look real. It doesn’t match his neck and face and he doesn’t move right. Shockingly enough you move easier when it’s your own skin. This article and the author sum up my thoughts on all of this really well: https://medium.com/@kivabay/the-centr-of-controversy-cba6f23c692e. Also, Bay has a really great quote unrelated to Thor but also sums up another issue I have with the film and I just want to highlight it here, “ I also couldn’t help but view the movie with the knowledge we pick up on the internet about who is leaving the MCU, making the character deaths feel melodramatically goofy and like executive-level calculations.“

Also, somewhat silly critique but doesn’t Thor need special Asgardian beer to get drunk not “mortal” beer in a can. Damn, Thor was just poorly thought through. And I could almost find him fighting against Thanos with zero weight loss aspiring if the whole idea of Chris Hemsworth portraying him and every other way he was handled wasn’t disgustingly terrible. Fat Thor as an idea is amazing. I’d love to see him portrayed as such in the comics as long as he’s treated with respect. 

They can’t just have the film be cathartically separate and contained they have to hint at more film’s with the “Where’s Gamora” mystery ready to go and Thor joining the Guardians. They have been advertising Homecoming for months and have the next few years of movies already planned, people aren’t under any illusions that there won’t be sequels. Just let it be self-contained. Especially since it’s already so long. 

Just personal taste thing here but the “Avengers Assemble” bit was too cheesy and the ruin of the Avengers mansion was a boring background for the battle.

Dr. Strange was wasted stopping that tsunami. Did they need that? It was such a boring use for him in the battle. This battle had so many heroes but it felt like it really used their powers significantly less creatively together than any other battle previously. 

Why weren't Fury, Carol and Maria all standing together at Tony’s funeral with their arms around each other like everyone else? It was really strange and took some of the emotion out of the scene, they’re close to each other. It could have been such a beautiful moment and tied the whole Captain Marvel “Where’s Fury?” scene together if they had them beside each other with her smiling sadly at him or leaning against him. They’re friends and it would be nice to see Fury further fleshed out and more three dimensional. 

I don’t mind that Loki is dead but it does make me retroactively annoyed that “You... will never be... a god” was seriously his last line. He had nothing nice to say to his brother before he dies? So he really did die trying to use a knife on someone who can take on the Hulk. I hope that at least in his show that’s coming soon he’s genderqueer and given the opportunity to properly show off his magic. I feel like his magic has never been displayed properly or used in particularly interesting ways so far.

I would have rewritten the scene where Banner and Rocket look for Thor. Banner, Thor and Valkyrie’s interactions are stale and strange. It would have been better (so as not to erase all of his character development) if he was still dealing with his PTSD or the loss of his people poorly but was at least trying to help the Asgardians. But then show Valkyrie having to help him and being the clearly stronger leader due to being able to deal with this grief better after having experience working through grief from losing her Valkyries. She could also be helping him with his alcoholism instead of judging him since she has been there! It would have shown her mentor abilities and kingly traits. You could still have him join the Guardians in the end but now he’s just less negligent. Then he isn’t passing a burden for convenience but because he recognizes Valkyrie was there for his people when he couldn’t be and is the better, more loved leader. Instead of what should be a great moment for Valkyrie that she’s shown as earnt and is deserving of it just seems like Thor was like “Well it turns out ruling was too hard for me I’m going to f*ck off to space now look after them for me.” Still, love that she gets to be king. 

Did I mishear her name or is Clint’s daughter not called Kate? Why aren’t we getting Kate Bishop? I know she isn’t Clint’s daughter in the comics but they’ve changed people’s backstories before and after seeing Clint training with a young girl in the trailer I was just really excited for her. I love her character in the comics, but maybe she has a name change here? 

Also, why does Clint go overseas to fight people? I’m sure there are more than enough bad people in America for him to fight for YEARS. There are Neo-Nazis for F*CKS SAKE. It just seems racist to imply he’d have to look in places predominantly occupied by POC to find bad people. Also, that Sword scene was strange. It felt really unnatural and fake like it belonged in a completely different movie. 

Also, little nitpick but I just found it to be a weird moment when that kid Ant-Man talks to didn’t say “What do you mean?” or “How do you not know?” I get not wanting to talk about the snap but how could he not be mildly curious or confused as to how someone seems to be ignorant to the biggest tragedy in world history.

Also, I really would have loved if the final battle had more consequences. More deaths and injuries. I think it would have been more realistic and added more to it. I especially really would have loved it if they had shown Clint getting injured in such a way that his hearing was permanently damaged. It would be nice to finally have him have that important comic book trait. 

Also, that scene where Joe Russo, a straight man, plays a gay man is bullshit. Let us have gay superheroes. That is such a pathetic attempt at representation. Make Loki Genderfluid, make Carol a wLw, Give Okoye and Valkyrie a girlfriend or acknowledge they’re wLw. 

Furthermore, I understand that the shot of all the women at the final battle was probably foreshadowing A-Team but I don’t think the creators realised that, One: it makes it look like they’re trying to hide that they killed the only original female member of the Avengers while giving all the men satisfying endings. Two: that there are A LOT fewer women than men but also that there’s enough of them that more of them really should have been featured before then and had more time spent on them. Just so many women yet so few films focussed on them. Furthermore, for those people who don’t know about A-Team it also just feels like a moment of pandering.  

Look, Black Widow has never been one of my favorite characters but she deserved better. As soon as she was proclaimed infertile in Age of Ultron it was a death sentence because what use is a woman who can’t reproduce. She didn’t even get a funeral. Clint should have died. The snap forced Natasha to fully commit to her found family and lead the Avengers for years. The snap sent Clint into a debatably racist murder rampage. Natasha did something good after the snap it gave her more purpose. Clint’s purpose was to bring his family back and he could still do that by sacrificing himself. It’s honestly far more satisfying to see Natasha get her happy ending than Clint because Clint’s ending is just far too similar to his story in Age of Ultron. It is just hilariously underwhelming when everyone else has an emotional ending just to have Clint’s be a regurgitated version of him retiring with his family in Ultron. Also, Natasha dying for guilt over some vague bad that’s she’s done in her past that we know nothing about is so unsatisfying. This video I feel also sums up a lot of my feelings on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A81p1N2gnNY&t=649s. Also from a monetary standpoint, not that Disney needs more money, but there’s way more demand for Black Widow films than Hawkeye. Just why Hawkeye, no one gives a sh*t.

More so I’m not against Tony using the gauntlet but I think it got in the way of Nebula having a fully satisfying conclusion to her arc. At least one woman should have had a satisfying, fully realised arc. It would have been great if Nebula got to finally kill Thanos but honestly, I wouldn’t be as mad at it if she hadn’t got wrongfully blamed for doing it by Thanos or had her arc conclude in an otherwise satisfying way. She gets abused further by Thanos for something she never did and never gets an opportunity to even just face him and confront him about ANYTHING. 

Also, Vision is barely mentioned in the film. Which wouldn’t be so frustrating if he wasn’t the reason why an ENTIRE ARMY of predominantly black people was sacrificed in Infinity War. They had to save him because they all apparently cared so much about him but can’t remember to mention him more than once afterward. 

I really hate that they were so scared of spoilers that they didn’t let all of the actors read their scripts ahead of time and cut out massive chunks of their scripts and didn’t tell them who they were playing against. I would rather spoilers than poor acting that ruins the timelessness of a film. This is meant to be epic! 

[aceadmiral]

Tell Me What You See

One thing I really like about the way @asexualjournal is run is that even though the whole volume comes out at one time, the editor spotlights a different article with a different pull-out quote every week so that it stays top of mind and can be easier to digest.

The other week I saw a quote that ignited my curiosity, that the “right person” is the right person for a reason. Yes, I thought, this is an idea I’d like to read about. This is something that could really be fleshed out, could be a pithy way of pushing back on one of the most frequent responses we get.

The article was a first-person account of an awkward situation where the narrator is trapped in a car with a driver who bulldozes over the author without any thought given to the idea that her idea of a good relationship and the author’s might just be different.

I want to be clear: it wasn’t a bad article. As I was reading it, though, the penny finally dropped for me why it is I don’t actually read much of The Asexual, why I am more and more frequently disappointed with Carnival of Aces entries, why Twitter makes me so frustrated.

I read and I read and I get to the end and think, “what’s the point?” I know the answer, though. They are recounting this experience to have others say, “yes, that happened to me too.” To make an environment where others can say, “I recognize this feeling.”

The point is for the author to be seen.

--Wait, let me back up.

Last spring I watched all of my man Gerald on Shortland Street. No, I don’t mean I re-watched for the umpteenth time the bits that have been up thanks to Ace Hero SootmouthNZ for 8+ years. I mean I watched every second he was on the screen.

It started as an offhand comment to my girlfriend--who of course had no idea it even existed--but as I was going through collecting the links, I noticed how all of the episodes of Shortland Street are on YouTube now. But like often happens to me, a whim turns into an obsession.

I was watching late into the night for weeks, going to work every day exhausted and not quite sure what I was doing. It was interesting to see the bits both before and after the “Asexuality Storyline” vids, especially because I was vaguely aware at how mad people were at the time over the “gay representation” being pulled out from under them, but also because after asexuality-as-a-plot ended, he was still around. Being a person.

It was right here that I realized why I felt the need to go back to this show for the umpteenth time right at this point in my life: I was trying to be in a relationship as an asexual person for the first time, and I needed to see it could be done. Even though I’d been over it again and again in my own fiction, someone else’s fiction made it more tangible. Someone else’s character standing in a kitchen ripping into a homophobe--I could take courage from that.

I know what it’s like to need to see, and I know what it’s like to be seen, but. But.

When I was in 3rd grade, I lived just down the street from my school; Google Maps tells me it was 10 houses away. Because it was a side entrance, there were rarely any people or cars around, especially when I was walking home. But if I heard a car coming, I would run and hide behind one of the big oleander bushes, braving the bees over a stranger’s eyes.

Now that I’m an adult, that’s still very much the case. I’ll fumble my key into the lock in panic if I hear a neighbor’s footsteps or hide behind a column until a respectable distance is between me and a coworker leaving the office at the same time. I’ve even attempted (without complete success) to banish my family from the kitchen if I’m cooking because even having them in the same room is too distracting.

I don’t want to be seen.

I come from an internet age where you never put up your real name or picture, and then an age after that where revealing yourself made you open to attack. Yet, I still do write incredibly personal things on the internet.

And I’ve moved more and more towards the “personal narrative” to do it.

I’ve done it because it’s safer in a way to tell one’s own story on one’s own terms. Instead of being told, for example, that if only I knew any ace women who dated women, I would totally agree that my ideas were wrong. Instead of watching people tell stories of how they personally were attacked with bear repellent and therefore you should trust them when they say asexuality is homophobic. Instead of couching thoughts of one’s own masculinity in removed language and then having male voices completely miss that crucial detail when responding.

It tears at me to do so, but I rend myself in order to sew the pieces together in a new way, that gives form--makes meaning. That means someone coming after me might be able to put them on and be protected or empowered.

My history in the asexual community is almost turning into a barrier for me. With my girlfriend, I had so many things I needed to discuss, so many options and ideas. We sat down one night with @queenieofaces​’s Five Factor Model open on my laptop, but how do you have a relationship discussion with someone when you’ve got 10 years’ head start on the nuances of things like what infidelity is, or what a non-romantic couple looks like--especially when those things are so subjective and also who says you’re right?

But, you know, she hadn’t been involved because she hadn’t seen the point. “Same hat!!” is nice, and sometimes important, even life-changing, but it only gets you so far.

And yet, while I struggle with this, I see people on twitter say things like “people keep telling us to go make our own community. Maybe we will!” and I think, where have you been thus far?

I think, what was the point of letting myself be seen?

Being in this community is not going to stop hurting me, but I’ve got enough maturity and experience and perspective to know where my limits are. This community is important to me, even if it means I have to take my own actual face to a pride parade or send my own actual name to LinkedIn connections and government agencies and Japanese city councilors. It’s worth it. It’s worth it but--in the rush of “visibility visibility” maybe keep in mind what it costs.

The other day @grison-in-space​ reblogged a post about metafandom, and it made me feel some... complicated feelings. On the one hand, I do miss metafandom (and not because people there cared about what I had to say about asexuality for some reason), but on the other, I wonder, how would it work? That phase of the internet is over, and you can’t go back; it’s folly to try and go back.

Today is today, not yesterday or 2011 or 2007. And what I notice is the desperate need to be seen: face and haircut and name and story. And that visibility is leverage now--a Boomer got mad at me in May for refusing to put up a selfie for a political cause. You win hearts and minds by standing in front of someone and saying, “Here I am. I am a person. Will you scorn me now that you’ve seen my face?” It’s powerful, and I recognize the power. I’m trying to do better, fight better, be more open with those who already know my face and name. That wears at me too.

But you know, even as I crave that meaning, I can see that just being seen is enough for some people. And I have eyes. I’ll watch.

I see you.

I see all of you.

It’s the least I can do... isn’t it?

[kulvefaggoth]

HI THIS IS YOUR LOCAL GARBAGE GAY BOY AND HE WANTS TO VENT ABOUT KINGDOM HEARTS

A couple of days ago i had an enligtening talk about my favorite hot garbage series with a mutual and i kind of ended up realizing i had a lot of pent up stuff about it that i never really let out

While i did vent a little already i feel like i need to put this really out of my head because it’s been consuming me in a way. And since this site is designed for just screaming random stuff into the void i wanna take advantage of that for once

Now first and foremost this is meant as a very personal thing. This is not an elaborate critique or a well thought work. This is a vent and i want this to be read as a vent by a gay with a lot of feelings about video games. ESPECIALLY about Kingdom Hearts and some stuff about KH3. 

Now let’s get to the meat of this course of mind screaming

I’ve been into Kingdom Hearts for a very long time. The first game i played was Kingdom Hearts II (the original KH was kinda hard to find here for some reason) circa 2005/2006. Bear in mind i had no idead what KH was. Game advertisement wasn’t (and still kind of isn’t) a big thing here in Brasil specially if you were a poor kid like me. Hell consoles were pretty inacessible to most of the people i was close with and me and other 2 kids must’ve had a PS2 in the same time frame. The main way you would know about new or cool games was through word of mouth or recognizing brands like Castlevania and Mega Man. 

But i was always kind of a freaky little avant-garde child which meant i ended up having a very different taste from most of the people around me. I had like 1 other friend who had actually played a Final Fantasy around let alone something like Shin Megami Tensei for an exemple which i also didn’t even knew was a thing. And i’ve always tried to find something new. Something that gave me some new experience. I’ve ended up playing a lot of more niche games like Drakengard and the Atelier Iris games (god i still love 2 and 3 a lot) and it was this mindset that eventually led me into the game that had a bunch of random anime kids and disney characters in it’s cover.

To say that i was confused by KH2 is an understatement. I knew absolutelly nothing about the previous games. Who is this “Sora”? Who was the red haired man? Why the fuck am i fighting with a giant key? Again what the hell is up with the Disney characters? Also bear in mind i must’ve been 9/10 yo brazillian kid whose entire english vocabulary came from video games and a couple of songs. Some stuff wasn’t even the plot getting dense it was just me not getting the actual language. 

And yet it’s also an understatement to say the i fell very deeply in love with that weird little game. The combat was great. The plot had SO MUCH DRAMA and i knew only about 1/3 of what was happening at any given time. Keyblades where fun and ridiculous. Demyx was a bitch.

As soon as i’ve finished KH2 for the first time i used what little internet i had back then to learn more. I found out there was a game for the easy emulated GBA. It kind of sucked but it was more Kingdom Hearts. Being unable to locate a copy of KH1 for a while i did the only thing i could actually do: i’ve played and replayed KH2 to exaustion. I did most of the stuff except a couple of the minigames and gummy routes because they where boring. The feeling of learning how to fight against Sephiroth, mastering his moves and eventually being able to beat him with a Kingdom Key in proud was a big moment for me. Beating all the Hades cups felt great.

About a year later i was able to get a copy of KH1 and by this time Re:CoM was out so i got that too. Played both of them throughly even thought KH1 clumsy mechanics kick my ass to this day probably.

Then another year passes i hear two new games where coming out... to consoles i didn’t own and honestly i couldn’t justify the cost of to my parents. I was pretty bummed but still i kept getting invested. Hell i was already balls deep into this series and only dreamed of how it would take off in the future. I even remember kind of writing a “script” for a sequel that i tried to make with two other randoms in RPG Maker. Never went anywhere and i know in my heart it sucked but still. That was how into this i was. The prerelease hype for Days was killing me even. Member XIV? How?

Also side note: to my edgy ass 12/13 year old self the idea of playing as Organizattion XIII was literally a dream. 

Days came out and if you where like me in the good old days of youtube videos that had like 5 minutes at max then you know that video game let’s play were almost impossible to do. I had to get a LOT of info from second hand about what actually happened in Days. Then i ended up getting a “decent” pc and was able to emulate it with absolute WORST frame rate. Still it worked and i was able to know what was happening.

But BBS was a completly separate beast. PSP emulation was basically non-existant when it came out so it actually took me a couple of years to actually play it. I had a friend that had a PSP (and that to this day i feel only got a PSP because i kept raving about it having both a KH game and a Final Fantasy fighting game on it because he was 100% that little shit but that is completly besides any point) and of course he couldn’t lend me because it was pretty expensive around here and that’s a very useless tangent.

Anyway time passes as it must and just as Sora fell deeper and deeper into the realms of sleep i too fell into as much Kingdom Hearts stuff as i could. The complex theories, the AMVs (GOD the AMVs), the plot summaries for games i didn’t play, all that good shit. So for years i’ve built within myself this... tension i shall call. The grand plot momentum that mr Nomura seemed to be building. The misterious indentities the hinted at hidden plots. The nature of stuff that seemed very vague and opaque. And as the new games where released it seemed more and more that they where building blocks into the grand prize: Kingdom Hearts 3.

Now here’s the thing. I don’t 100% agree of the narrative that we waited “13 years” for KH3. I think if you where actually a fan of the series back then then each game in it’s own way seemed to be it’s own event. With that i want to say the while we ALL waited for KH3 for me at least it seemed it needed time to build up. 

Now here’s the thing. Between BBS and DDD being both in consoles i didn’t own and me getting an Xbox 360 (PS3 prices where absolutelly INSANE here) i seemed to drift a bit away from KH. While before i waited for new game releases with baited breath i now found myself very blasé about DDD. I was getting used to it i guess. Also high school came and a lot of stuff started changing. KH felt like a bit too connected to my childhood too i guess. I was still a fan and still loved it to death but KH ended fading away a little for me even if it lighted a fire in me when people talked about it. This must’ve been around 2010.

I think it wasn’t until KH3 was formally announced that it all came back to me. The drive to find and consume and engage with as much of KH lore and theories as possible. Also i didn’t really get into “proper social networks” as a whole until 2012/2013. Weirdo i know. By then consuming these thing was a lot easier. Internet was a lot more acessible. I could just open up a tab of a KH wiki in my phone and read away from there.

And there was this rush y’know. This thing of finally seeing a finish line. Not that actually expected or even wish for KH to end but it was KH3! The big one! And remember the tension i’ve mentioned earlier? It was always kind of present and it ended up skyrocketing during this period. I was already knowledgeable about KH but during this time i was almost a goddamn lore master. I knew the whole gig inside and out. Even the weird shit from DDD. The stuff they added to the collections just kept it going too. As did X/UX (which in my grand KH tradition i too didn’t play but i think most people feel me here).

All a big ball of complex yarn and plot and madness that would SURELLY burst with KH3. After all this time all this tension it would come. Release. Answers.

But to me that was the aspect in which KH3 failed.

Now don’t get me wrong i actually like KH3. Quite a lot. And Nomura did apparently tied up a lot of arcs. The lost are found and saved. Piss Grandpa Xehanort is dead.

But it didn’t release my tension. It didn’t burst it into the magic fireworks and ecstasy. The tension is still here. Hell the tension seems even stronger now.

And a lot of it has to with how KH3 seems to still be hiding so many fucking cards from us. Literally in one case. It was a vague feeling of unceartainty before but when i came through the Sleeping Worlds theory it just RUSHED onto me. The story doesn’t feel complete.

Now this is not the same as FFXV. I have a couple of... harsh opinions about it and it’s plot and story are front and center on the list. That story was absolutelly unfinished but not in the same way. To me it feels like Nomura just HID parts of the story. We are not getting the full picture. A lot of shit is really really REALLY weird. I’m still not over Riku’s sudden haircut.

But here’s the real gag to me. Nier: Automata gave me the same feeling the first time i played it. But then i came upon route B. And then Route C. and that’s when the TRUE game showed itself. Nier kept a lot hidden but it was hidden within itself. If you just keep playing you actually can access those hidden parts and eventually you reach your true goal. The actual ending. An ending so final that you might even like giving up your save data to help somebody else achieve it too is the only true option.

Yet KH3 has no such crowning grace. At least not for now. And that’s half the reason i made this. 

KH3 feels incomplete but in a way i could really love if the game eventually completed itself. Reading the Sleeping Worlds theory i was like “omg this makes VERY much sense. but if it makes so much sense why isn’t it in the game?”. And then it clicked. DLC. It’s 100% possible the actual plot may come as DLC. 

But an even darker thought crossed my mind and it’s filing me with actual rage: This is meant to be another game. This is the Powers That Be (Nomura, Disney, Square-Enix, take your pick...) unaturally extending this “Saga” beyond it’s ending point. If it does turn out that KH3 had some dream hijinks going on then it was 100% possible and BETTER to include that in the actual game. But since KH is known for having so many side games what is the harm in doing another right?

Well you harm the integrity of your plot. I know we say the plot is hot garbage but come the fuck on that is what is holding us here. Or at least it’s what is holding me for so long. Setting up another saga is absolutelly fine but breaking away for you ending like this is even worse. How? Why? The why is probably money but still.

Or maybe KH3 is just meant as that. There is no twist not weirdness. Maybe all that is by design y’know. 

This is long enough already. I’m tired. I started writing this at 2:30 am. It’s about 4am now. I slept very little last night.

This is a big colletion of nothing i guess. Not even sure it helped me. Oh well.

[as-many-times-as-it-takes]

Alright, since you’re so eager for questions: 1) do you think the “I love you” will be discussed in future season? 2) Is Shiro still technically 25? Will he ever age naturally since he’s now in Kuron’s body? Or was Kuron’s body actually human too?

Mwahahahaha yessss, bring on the questions!!!!!! (thank you~)Also oh man, these are some good questions with some unclear answers. I will do my best to share what I think!

1)  Do you think the “I love you” will be discussed in future season?

Honest answer? I don’t know. There is always the chance that it won’t be. HOWEVER! I /do/ believe very strongly that it will be.Let’s look at some of the past with this freaking amazing studio. These are many of the same people that brought us Korrasami, which I’m sure many have seen the parallels to again and again. Korrasami was another amazing relationship that we got to watch develop over the course of time, watching both characters live and grow side by side as they learned to support each other and eventually fell in love. Now, I don’t recall all the specifics super well, but I know that the studio did express some frustration with what they were and weren’t allowed to show on a public television channel. And so they had to confirm after the fact that Korrasami was, indeed, canon.

However, we don’t have that same problem with Netflix (on of the reasons I so massively support all these amazing shows cropping up on Netflix now!) Yes there is still collaboration with the station and the studio does not have unlimited freedom to do whatever they want, but I don’t think that is something that will necessarily hold this back.

We’ve already been shown so much between Keith and Shiro since day one. If you want to see a huge breakdown of all of this, feel free to check out my article on The Boy who Never Gave Up (FYI it’s a long one). But in short: we’ve seen shoulder touches, we’ve seen tender moments, we’ve seen the support and commitment, and heard the touching VAs add their talent. We’ve had fanart from the creators, we’ve had the creators even give out the term “Sheith” for the ship name and been given countless gifts all the way up to and now including, I Love You.

So yes, there is the possibility that nothing will come of this. But, it’s been shown already how committed and passionate Team Voltron is (both inside and outside of the show!) I would honestly be SHOCKED if they withheld any sort of reciprocation from Shiro. You don’t just throw that out there and go ‘and this will NEVER COME UP AGAIN!’

Regardless, I am so freaking excited for S7. Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would see as much as we have. And my heart was absolutely shredded with the last season. I’m still reeling honestly and I don’t think that will pass any time soon. No matter what, what we’ve received thus far is a fuck amazing gift and I will carry that victory with me for the rest of my life.

2) Is Shiro still technically 25? Will he ever age naturally since he’s now in Kuron’s body? Or was Kuron’s body actually human too?

So the short answer to this would be: No, Most Likely (depends on the third question) and Most Likely.And to break that down more specifically:Q: Is Shiro still technically 25? 

No. But that’s because time has passed. How old he is exactly? I’m not entirely sure. With the exception of the Kerberos Mission to Shiro’s landing and Keith’s comment on the space whale, we haven’t been given many super specific time frames. I know other people have been able to break down some pretty reasonable sounding ideas and puzzled out months at the very least. So, let’s just assume that everything has taken place within a year (just for simplicity’s sake) and that nobody has aged over single year yet. In this case, they are all

Now, I’m assume this question is actually more along the lines of : Shiro’s physical body died and his Spirit was in the Spirit Realm.

(FUCK ME TOO MAN. THIS LINE RUINED ME)Ahem, so while this was obviously very, very important. I don’t think this changes anything to do with Shiro’s age which I think will be answered with the next two parts:

Q: Will he (Shiro) ever age naturally since he’s now in Kuron’s body? Or was Kuron’s body actually human too?

Kuron was a clone of Shiro’s human body. While we don’t know a ton about the project and unfortunately may not ever learn more about it, Kuron was very likely a perfect copy without any sort of special biological tune-up. He still had Shiro’s arm, if not an advanced copy of it, but I don’t think that was any indication of Shiro inheriting a different sort of lifespan or any sort of different genes.The clones all existed the moment they were created and have aged alongside Shiro. There is a chance the clones were cryo stored and that /physically/ they did not age at the same rate as time progressed, but in that case, Kuron would have been only younger by the amount of time between when Shiro was originally cloned and when Zarkon was defeated. While this is not insignificant, I simultaneously do not think this was so great a difference as to make any massive change. (i.e. Kuron was not suddenly Shiro 10 years younger or anything)

(Though he did get that new haircut, hmmmmmmm...........)

Now if you want to get into a huge transhumanism discussion about whether or not Kuron, as a clone, is still considered human. Or hell, whether Shiro was even still fully human with an augmented arm made from alien technology, I’m all for that. But I think the simpler answer that I firmly believe is: Yes Shiro was human and as Kuron was a clone of Shiro, Kuron = human as well.

Unlike Keith, who experienced the amazing phenomena of time dilation. (YES this is a very real thing! Check out this video on Youtube for a great explanation on it, or this video here in which Stephen Hawking explains how massive objects like black holes can bend the space time fabric to cause time dilation and allow one-way time travel to the future!), Shiro and Kuron have likely aged fairly normally. Shiro up until the point he died and Kuron very likely was extremely close to this age when he took Shiro’s place. As for Shiro’s soul, I see no reason why he ceased to age alongside everyone else. Perhaps there may be some argument that time passes differently in the Spirit Realm / how does a Spirit even age, etc. But if that’s the case, then there’s a good chance that this would have evened out the time between when Kuron was woken up to take Shiro’s place and when Shiro finally merged with Kuron to form the same entity.

So, ultimately, I think that No, Shiro is no longer 25, but that’s only because everyone has been aging as time has progressed. So he’s not some radically different age, either. And I think that he is still human, sans some big reveal of genetic tampering. And in that case, his body will continue to age just like a human’s as it did when Kuron was awoken and now as Kuron and Shiro have merged into the same entity.

[its-just-like-the-movies]

Rampart (11, B+)

Why this film?: Natural Born Killers and The Edge of Seventeen were tempting choices, but everything I’d heard about Rampart’s politically rich storyline and ambitious execution made this an easy choice right off the bat. Plus, a character actor like Woody Harrelson in a lead role feels like the kind of treat more films should offer, especially when they’re as chameleonic as him.

The Film: What’s the right way to describe the impactful but imperfectly stitched way that Rampart holds itself together? “Raggedy” seems like a good option, given how the film bounces from character to character and plot strand to plot strand with little to suggest which direction it’s going to take from one scene to the next. “Rabid” might be a better descriptor of how comes across, its risky stylization and mangy narrative informed by an odious protagonist doing his damndest to hold onto a way of life he’s taken advantage of for his entire life and keeps relentlessly sabotaging, and one it frequently seems would be happy to get rid of him. The seams always appear to be showing, and not always in productive ways, though its unpredictable trajectory, ferocious acting and direction, and fascinating decisions about its lensing, editing, and sound mixing are so bracing and frequently impressive that it’s impossible not to notice them. A-list actors orbit Woody Harrelson’s central role as a deranged cop playing the kinds of bit roles that would be just as well served by far less recognizable names, the fact of their celebrity compared to the size of their roles and their whack-a-mole reappearances in the story as disorienting as the in-monologue editing and whiplash narrative turns. Rampart’s ability to disorient its audience is nicely synchronized with the downfall of a character who refusal to accept his defeat is frequently upending, his paranoid inability to grasp the consequences of his violent and prejudiced behavior too ensconced in decades of social acceptability for him to even compute the speed at which he’s being thrown in the trash.

As much as Rampart’s experimental design and pronounced assets are on display at all times, the film is even more confrontational with its politics. In this case, those politics are the tearing open of Dave Brown’s psychology of entitlement and bigotry, and the process by which a man of an era that seemed so alive a second ago is suddenly forced to reckon with his latest crimes, which somehow aren’t the worst things he’s ever done, and must reckon even more so with how changing tides have made what was once durigur behavior now completely unacceptable. His virulent bigotry and the safety he feels wielding it as a members of the LAPD’s Rampart division - even in the middle of a scandal that implicated over seventy officers in everything from bribery to murder - is realized in his very first dialogue scene, as regales tales of former glories with another cop while menacing a female trainee into finishing all of her fries at a lunch stop, asking her invasive questions as he and writer/director Oren Moverman boldly assert that this is the man who emblematizes what the police looked like in late-90’s LA. This is only further emphasized as he joy-rides his police cruiser through a group of Mexican mechanics in the parking lot of their cop and beats a suspect through the cheap, plastic windows of a drug store office to get information out of him, not just certain that he will suffer no consequences for this but even telling this trainee so as if it was an unspoken regulation. The grounded performances, observant shaky-cam and spry editing keep these sequences from becoming cartoonishly over-the-top, depicting Brown’s violent behavior as wholly mundane and completely corrosive at the same time. His teaching that his behavior is the norm of the LAPD to this woman points to a Training Day setup but wholly avoids it by refusing the idea that Brown is in any way a “bad apple” corrupting an otherwise decent system the way that Alonzo Harris was depicted as in his film. Everyone is like this, and there’s no indication a different cop would’ve shown her the ropes any differently.

This sense of entitlement bleeds into his home life, a precarious situation where Dave seems to co-habitat with his two ex-wives - who’re sisters - and the daughter apiece he had with each of them. The women don’t live in the same house, and Dave seems to find out whether he’ll spend the night with either of them or go bar-hopping to find some woman to share a hotel room with when he asks them if they want to have sex. Again, it’s a tribute to the actors for putting over such an unconventional scenario that could’ve died on arrival, but Cynthia Nixon and Anne Heche make the scenario completely credible as the make warm conversation and perry around his advances. Oldest daughter Helen, her hair messy dyed with blue streaks while wearing a 90’s art punk getup, is the only person in Dave’s life who’s openly antagonistic towards him, and the youngest is intuitive and happy to see her dad even if she’s clearly not too keyed in to the tensions around her family.

These establishing scenes of domestic and workplace tension, ones that will evolve and mutate as the story progresses, are just as impactful to watch as the moments where Brown enacts physical violence against an undeserving party or use his power as a cop to threaten some unfortunate employee into giving him a hotel room or pills. Jay Rabinowitz’s editing is so lean yet so spiky that we’re able to feel every shift of mood in Dave’s conversations or confrontations, sometimes cutting scenes as though leaving out bits of a conversation or monologue but more often than not finding unexpected angles to spy on sequences that appear to be playing out in real time. These choices dislodge a scene from any predictable beats as much as the performances do, and the vantage points that show us these sequences alternate between intimately close to the characters or at such a distance that it feeds into the overall mood of paranoia. Even if Dave’s eventual theory that he’s being used as a putz by such an unfathomable web of players from the LAPD higher-ups to family members, hookups, and ostensible allies, feels like nothing more than a right-wing conspiracy theory, the editing expertly plays into these delusions without santifying them. The plot-starting scene of him beating a Hispanic motorist to the brink of death for T-boning his police cruiser and trying to flee the scene is executed with brutal economy, by Dave and the storytellers, and it’s perfectly in tandem with their presentation of non-violent scenes and control of mood throughout the film.

From here Rampart bunny-hops between different plotlines and characters seemingly at random. It’s hard to pinpoint a coherent logic to how these scenes connect to one another - either they do or they don’t, and this disorganization might be Rampart’s most significant hurdle to overcome for viewers to get into the film. Individual plotlines are picked up in bursts and dropped for extended periods of time, creating evocative moods that leave the actors to fill in the gaps between individual characters while the plot moves ever onwards. Even as the methodology behind how these stories scrape against each other is never quite clear on a scene-by-scene level, the cumulative portrait of a man going off the deep end in order to keep his dying way of life intact still hits. The film is merciless in picking apart how Dave is propped up by the status given to him as a white male police officer, his bigotry and paranoia so acidic that the background context of the Rampart scandal almost doesn’t matter in informing who this man is. He’s an endemic source of misogyny and racism, propagating his ideologies with the assurance of systemic cooperation that calling them delusions of grandeur gives them too little credit. His biggest calling card as a police officer, the one that earned him the moniker “Date-Rape” Dave, comes from the fact that he’s all but admitted to having executed an accused serial date-rapist rather than taking the man into custody, fabricating a story that he feared for his life trying to arrest him. An older white cop suggests that Dave facing any consequences is so out of the norm that the whole thing must’ve been a set-up, from the driver he beat to the person who filmed the incident to the government officials seeking to see him punished for his actions. Feeding in to Dave’s already-existing paranoia and neuroses about women and people of color, of any non-cop in any job who disrespects his authority, this conspiracy web soon encompasses his ex-wives, his current fuck buddy, the old man himself, as Dave turns to blackmail and criminal actions to keep himself afloat. Rampart balances a tricky line between objectivity and subjectivity, many of its choices seemingly influenced by the paranoia of its protagonist even as the film is able to stand apart from his rancor and hold it up to a microscope, dissecting his bullshit for all it’s worth.

It helps tremendously that these characters are written and directed so sharply, and that their interpreters make so many specific and charismatic decisions in bringing them to life while avoiding cliche or cartooning. Woody Harrelson, sporting a skinhead-lite haircut and a wiry, muscular physicality, emanates the size and danger of his character’s bigotry while keeping him scaled to uncomfortably human size. Brie Larson’s righteously pissed-off daughter and Robin Wright’s sad, carnal, and increasingly suspect friend with benefits may very well be the most startling performances after Harrelson’s, though Nixon, Heche, Sigourney Weaver, Ned Beatty, Ben Foster, Ice Cube, Steve Buscemi, and Audra McDonald are just as inspiring for evoking such sharp personalities with minimal screen time and unexpected entrances and exits. Everyone is able to keep a firm grip on their characters while connecting threads over gaps in appearance and in information, their relationships to Dave changing dramatically over the course of the film without ever seeming forced. Whatever can be said about Moverman and James Ellroy’s script in terms of its scene-by-scene structure, the trajectory of their story is so powerful and unpredictable that its secrets are worth keeping.

If the preceding paragraphs have repeatedly illustrated how essential Moverman’s direction is in making the script’s shifts of attention in to something potent and coherent and how commendable his negotiation of ensemble is, his dissection of Dave Brown and everything he represents is still feels like the film’s crowning glory. Rampart is not a message film that reduces its characters and scenarios to pandering stereotype or secretly condones the horrific behavior and bigoted mindset it’s supposed to be critiquing. Moverman and Harrelson make Dave Brown a fascinating and rancid character to be attached to for almost two hours, and Rampart proves itself to be a riveting character study that’s able to rip apart everything its lead man represents without dismissing him out of hand. It’s an invaluable study of white male toxicity as enabled by a police uniform, one that surely would have gotten more traction if it had a bigger distribution in 2011, but perhaps even more so if it had come out a few years later. It’s crucial to mention that the beating of the driver is not, ultimately, the crime that brings down Dave Brown, nor is the crime he confesses near the film’s climax to the FBI in the hopes of going out on his own terms what does him in. Rampart’s study of the cops who would almost kill a motorist and bully a fellow officer into eating something she didn’t want to doesn’t say that these are the actions that will cause their betters to kick them out, instead positing that these men will implode from so much internal and external pressure to keep from sinking. The actual ending plays like a leading up to a horror film, as Brown and Helen lock eyes before he slinks off into the unknown with the knowledge he could be arrested at any moment. It’s open-ended to the point of becoming an ellipses, unresolved while suggesting a whole film of possibilities lies on the other side of this scene. So, Rampart ends as it began, messy and unclean and dangerous, its ideologies unimpeachable, its execution so ambitious that what leaves something to be desired can even be construed into a productive part. Technically, Dave Brown ends the film still out in the world. But his clock is ticking faster.

[mydigisalon]

How to Attract Clients Before Reopening Your Salon

Most of the states have given green light to salons. If you fall under this category then congrats! Get ready to welcome clients back to your shop. To initiate communication with your clients about the proper sanitization and guidelines, you need to make sure that you strategize it before you randomly start promoting your salon.

How You Can Make Your Clients Feel Safe?

You need to make sure that you show your clients the new normal. Before they enter your salon you need to walk them through the guidelines and give them an idea about the things they should expect. To best prepare your clients for what the new normal will look like when they return, they will need you to walk them through expectations.

1. You need to brace yourselves by preparing your staff and reassure the clients of your new cleaning regimens

2. Tell your clients about the services they should expect to be available

3. The procedure for clients to book their appointment

What and How to Communicate with your Clients Before Reopening Your Salon?Prepare for the Unexpected

It has been months that life has taken a back step and we have been stuck in our homes. People are in desperate and dire need of salons. Be it hair color, haircuts, spas, waxing, or shaving. However, be prepared. There will be people who will come to your salon but most of us are still scared to even think about going out of the house for essentials. You might not even see your loyal customers. We can’t predict client behavior but we can prepare beforehand.

This pandemic has changed the way most of us look at beauty. Things that were common before lockdown, might not be that important now.

Anticipate every possibility and then try to come up with solutions to combat these situations.

Covid-19 has deeply impacted all business. So it might be time to increase the cost of some services keeping the extra sanitization and guidelines. However, make sure you have a salon marketing strategies in mind to combat 30% lower sales.

Work on Your Email and SMS Communications Strategy

Direct communication, face to face meetings, and even handshaking is almost a thing of the past now. COVID 19 has forced us to reconsider everything. So, how do we maintain the client relationships for a business that is dependent on interactions in-between work to uplift and upsell services? You need to go digital for your beauty salon marketing. If you have lost base with a few people, do not worry. The Covid-19 virus has many people reconsidering every interaction and as businesses begin to re-open across the US, keeping your clients informed is the key to maintaining your relationships and retaining client loyalty. We have listed some tips to help you effectively communicate with your customers for a profitable reopening:

E-mail Communications

Emails are a huge part of campaign planning for any business. And digital marketing for salons is no different. You need to think about what you want to say before you spend on an email campaign.

Catchy Subject Line — The first thing that the users will notice is the subject line. Only 15 to 25% of users open and read emails. At any given point people have more than 1000+ emails in their inboxes. How do you make them notice you? How can you stand out? The first step for that is a catchy subject line that will intrigue your users. You can make it more personalized by adding their names in the subject name or an emoji to make you seem more approachable.

The Right Time — you will get tons of ideas online stating the correct time to send emails is that or that. But our advice is that you should analyze the data that you have and then decide. Check your past email blasts or communication timings and see what fits best.it will definitely help you boost your open rate.

The Right Tone — after setting the timings and the perfect catchy line you need to make sure that your content and tone match your salon vibe. Empathy, patience, kindness, and reassurance is what people need these days. There is enough negativity anyways. Be considerate of how often you communicate with your users, do not in any circumstance bombard your clients with emails. Make sure they are informative, crisp, and tailored according to your client base. You can use local languages as a part of reaching out to more customers.

Be Clear & Transparent — Although everyone is sitting at home, we are busy. Work from home, house chores, and family time balance are a bit difficult to manage together because the lines are almost blurred. To maximize the impact of your email, keep a clear goal in mind, and make sure that your users get the gist in a glance. Be it bookings, upselling products or services or confirming appointments, you need to add a call to action button for a link for your salon scheduling app in all of them. Keep your emails crisp, short, and informative.

SMS Communication

Emails are great. You have a lot of space and creative freedom to communicate the message but texting is more popular. It gives off a sense of urgency and 80 to 90% of people open their SMS within the first 5 minutes. You can use this to your advantage by sending out a clear and concise SMS with a call to action. You get 160 characters so there isn’t any room for extra mush. Just make sure that you segment your users according to their demographic and psychographic attributes and send out SMS at the correct time. We would like to repeat that please do not overdo it and Get permission! Your clients should opt-in to receive promotional communication and they should have an easy way to opt-out in case they do not want future communication.

A Must-Read For All Salon Owners: A Guide to Use Promotional SMS for Salon Owners

Optimize your Website and Salon App for New Business Opportunities

In this day and age, if you do not have your own website and app, people might reconsider before coming to your salon. Websites, reviews, and salon booking apps help in acquiring new customers. You need to make sure that your website can handle traffic if the situation arises. Make sure to add “ We’re open” on the header so that customers know that they can book appointments. You can even partner with local merchants and run campaigns on your webpages to create more awareness.

Customers should be able to book online appointments for the salon from your website and applications. Keep it simple, user friendly and use proper white spaces. Add clear information about services, timings, and charges on your webpage and application. It will help users decide and evaluate whether you offer something that they want.

Use Social Media

Social media presence is the fastest way to build awareness and reach out to potential customers. You need to market the fact well that you are open for business and there’s no better space than social media for it. Build momentum, share favorite styles, create a buzz by starting a countdown prior to the opening. Make sure you share behind the scene security and safety guidelines that you have prepared. Use your Instagram stories to share your enthusiasm.

Conclusion:

We can actually predict the result but we can help you prepare. Before opening your business the above guidelines will help you craft a complete communication plan. If you are looking for a complete salon management app then My Digi salon can help you with applications, websites, social media presence, and much more.

We just have one suggestion, do not forget empathy or shy away from your showing the human side. People are more likely to visit and prefer your salon if they feel connected, secure, and important.

Originally Published Here: https://www.mydigisalon.com/blog/attract-clients-before-reopening-your-salon/